Be Positive

The other day, I was teaching science to my cousin, for her upcoming exam, where she got confused over a diagram explaining charging using induction. You can have a look at the diagram for those who don't remember a thing. So anyway her text-book had a similar diagram in it, with the following diagram with the side having an induced positive charge grounded. The diagram however showed that there was a negative charge flowing through the wire connecting the side with the positive charge to the earth, and this really got my cousin confused. Where did that negative charge come from? she asked me, pointing at the wire. That's when this really profound thought struck me. No I know I am not going to be able to do it justice by the words I put it in, but bear with me. You see, it isn't the excess of positive charge that makes something positively charged, it is the lack of negative charge (electrons) that makes it positive. Now think about it with respect to optimism and pessimism. Pessimism has never done anyone any good (at least that's what they say) and on the other hand, optimism overrated (to an extent). I know most people would find it hard to digest, but optimism is a self destructive concept. I mean, what if a sanguine person keeps failing in life? How long can he keep at it? That is where the concept of being positive (not to be confused with being optimistic) comes in. When I say be positive, I mean it with reference to the electrostatic theory, ie, to be positive, you don't really have to be positive, but merely stay clear of negativity. Thus being positive is a state that can be persisted, despite the numerous failures in life one may have to face, in other words, a win-win situation, I'd say. Also, I learnt quite recently, that my blood group is probably B+, my mum didn't seem that sure about it when I asked her, but till the time I don't get a test done, I think I'll accept B+ as my blood group, especially since it goes well with my be positive theory :)

I Hate

Here is a list of all the things I hate that I can think of right now. I hate...

• getting wet in the rain.
• eating too much and falling ill.
• eating too little and falling ill.
• getting up early just 'cause I left a crack in the curtains.
• getting a hair cut.
• catching a cold.
• people trying to race me when I ride the way I love to ride.
  
• not being able to sleep more than 8 hours a day.
• losing entire days sleeping.
• it when all the movies on TV are ones that I have seen.
• fungus that grows on your clothes during the rain.
• stepping into puddles right after polishing your shoes.
• cops who stop you and ask for a bribe.
• the noise that airplanes make.
• not being able to finish a book I started reading ages ago.
• feeling left out in a conversation because people speak in their own language.
• failing when I try too hard to succeed.
• the soot that comes off your face because of pollution.
• pebbles that find their way into your shoes.
• nails that grow back in less than a week.
• parts falling off my bike.
• water condensing on cold mugs and glasses leaving marks on the table.
• forgetting to drink water and falling ill.
• deodorants that spray so hard that it hurts.
• being forced to think.
• headaches that last all day.
• potholes on the roads.
• losing touch with people you were once close with.
• putting my cellphone for charging.
• getting up all tired in the morning.
• leading a monotonous life.
• the way my tummy wants to bloat up.
• dirty hair.
• LeT, LTTE, Maoists, JuD and loads of others from here.
  
• visiting petrol pumps so often.
• not speaking up when I want to.
• stuttering after I make a grammatical mistake.
  
• the stale smell that comes from clothes you don't wear for a while.
• News channels with their breaking news.
• pigeons.
• rains.
• cold winter mornings.
• being appreciated for small things as though they weren't expected from me.
• being broke.
• the effect I have on PCs (they don't last as long as they should with me around)
• not knowing what I'll be doing 5 yrs from now.
• knowing exactly what I'll be doing 5 days from now.
• people who reek of sweat, even early in the morning.
• it when I am unable to put my thoughts to words.
• not being able to click a pic the way I'd like to click it.
• pondering over not doing something, n in a moment of spontaneity, doing it without thinking.
• being addicted to anything.
• loud noise, unless it is coming from the back of my bike
• silence.
• darkness.
• days when the sky is overcast with dark clouds.
• scars.
• creepy crawly insects.
• bad memories which refuse to go away.
• the way time flies.
• it when time stands still.
• the feeling that you get that things may go wrong, n then when things actually going wrong.
• it when things break.
• typing blog posts over decades, n then taking even longer to post em.
• being incited into doing things, I don't really want to do.
• having a tune in my head, not knowing the name of the song, playing the entire song in my head till I reach the part where I get to know the name of the song.
• dining alone.
• promotional sms'es.

... I do hate a lot of other things... I think I'll update this list later.

The boring one

This is one of those boring posts, where I speak about myself. I started writing this one at the beginning of the year. Six months later, I remembered that I was still to complete it, and quickly wrapped things up. Then I sat on it for another month, wondering if I should go ahead with publishing it. There are a million other things I'd like to add here, but I am trying to keep it short. Anyway, here it goes:

Hmmm... five frigging years is what it's taken me to complete my engineering. I have been at it for almost a fourth of my life, actually more if you consider the effort I put in to get in. Let's start from the beginning. Back in school, I wasn't a particularly exceptional student, but may be because I never really tried to be one. I had always put in a bare minimum effort, and gotten surprising results. Born in the South, n then after spending a little time in the East, my only weakness, on migrating to the North, was Hindi. I could speak alright, but couldn't even read it, let alone write in Hindi. I was forced to attend extra classes for it n that was that. Another one of my weaknesses, or rather more of a fear, was mathematics. Class 10th, in one of the trivial tests, I assumed that a part of the syllabus would be excluded, but I realized that my assumptions were wrong as soon as I got the question paper which contained a majority of questions from that assumed excluded portion. For the first time in my life I had flunked an exam, and with this, in me was instilled the fear of mathematics. It was a Friday the 13th. Next came class 11th, when everybody started preparing for the entrance exams, everybody but me. So just to follow the herd, in class 12th, I too joined an institute which wasn't one of the popular ones, just so that I didn't have to waste 2 hours a day just traveling. Anyway, I didn't fill out half the colleges I should have, hoping that I'd get into one of the two local colleges, which unfortunately (or should I say fortunately?) I didn't. Getting away from home was one of the positive things that came along. I often wonder, how n where I would have been, had things not turned out the way they did. My first year, well what can I say about it. I had experiences that I probably wouldn't forget in a life time. There I was, a geeky looking fellow, the kind everybody picked on in school, the kind who'd get in a friendly fight every other day, all alone, and that was how it was going to stay for the next one year. My first day in college, I fell ill. It was truly a blessing in disguise. For nearly a month, I donned a sweater, popped pills, n lost every ounce of fat I had (not that I had much to begin with). It was the strangest time in my life, a time where I did whatever anyone would ask me to do. My illness helped me stay out of trouble, and my peers were all jealous of me. The entire first year, I barely ever got out of college. If I were to count the number of times I did venture out, I think I'd be able to do so on my fingertips. I think it was the pain of travelling by public transport, more than fear of the unknown place, that kept me in the hostel. And if I did venture out, it was mostly on a bike, as a pillion, because back then, I couldn't ride. One thing I did back in the first year, was get to know people, most of them seniors. Since once they knew you, they didn't trouble you. Remembering names wasn't tough either; all you had to do was call them all sir. But everybody knew W. In my first year, I was forced to do a lot of things that I didn't want to, one of them being taking part in the college inter branch festival. Of all the other events, I took part in Just-A-Minute. I thought how hard could speaking for a minute be, right? Wrong! For me, it turned out to be one of the hardest things I'd ever done. For one, I know when I make a mistake, n I have to correct myself, which is the worst possible thing to do. I was selected not because I was any good at it, but rather because there were too few people who had volunteered to take part in it (the rest of them preferred cheering for others, rather than taking part in events). So any way, it wasn't until D-day that I realized that I was going to be up on a stage, oooooh n then came stage fright. The only time I'd been on stage before was back in class 5th, to sing a song (in a choir of course), and this one time that I played an electronic keyboard (i think it was in class 8th), once again in a group that was large enough that a misplaced note couldn't be made out. So when I sat down, on the stage, with glaring lights in my face, my eyes started watering. In my mind, I cursed the lights, using one of the curse-words I had then recently learnt staying at the hostel, bad move. I tried to get the word out of my mind, lest it spilled out while I was jaming, n then my mind was filled with all the colourful words i knew. I tell you, those were the worst few minutes I spent on stage, and am still haunted by it, each time I have to give a presentation. Time passed, I became healthier, seasons changed, blah, blah, blah. If there was one thing that saddened me, it was my performance in the exams. It wasn't that I didn't study. Even after the exams, I was confident enough to score well. What I did not know then was that I was going to score the lowest marks (even relatively) I'd ever scored, and that it was going to be the highest I was going to score in long long time. Near the end of the first year, before I was to leave for home for the prep leave, I had, what was then the longest day in my life, or at least that was what I called it. It was such an eventful day, that I was inspired to write a diary entry of it. Little did I know, that even four years from then, I'd still be able to recollect the day, as if it was just yesterday. It started just like any other day, and no matter where I went, trouble followed me. At the end of that day, I had paid, around a total of 400 bucks in fine, to 3 different people, (none of them being the college authority in case you were wondering, they were all cops) apart from all the other bad things that happened to me that day. But now that I look back at that fateful day, I wouldn't mind reliving it, because that was the day I first rode a bike, and that was the day I made a friend for life. Before I knew it, I was in my second year. Winds of change began to blow. It was in my second year that I explored the no longer new city that I was in. Second year was a time when I went out for dinner, every week night. It was when I bought a computer; n didn't even know how to install an OS. The evening I bought my computer, I spent the entire night, trying to install an operating system on it. In fact, at least 10 other (knowledgeable) people I knew came to help too. But it was only after about 50 tries, that I could finally install my OS (Damn you! RAID drivers). I didn't realize back then how important this system was gonna be to me. Soon though, I started playing computer games, n even got pretty good at a few of them, if I may say so myself. The one thing that I didn't realize was that how much harm these games could do to me. It was in my second year, that I discovered music. I started off with hip-hop, because of the beat, just to get back at my room-mate who'd torture me with his classical Indian music, until one day that someone parked about 20GB of music on my hard-drive. That was when I reached out to other genres. During the first semester of my second year, my sister got married; n it was right before my exams. Needless to say, my already suffering studies went haywire. I still remember the day when the results came, it was the first time I had cried since I had come to college. I buried my head deep in my blanket, n under a pillow; n silently sobbed myself to sleep. During the next semester exams, there was a lot of pressure on me, because of the backlogs, and under that pressure, I crumpled. This one time I had three consecutive exams, and for three consecutive days, I didn't sleep. 58 hours; that was the longest I'd ever stayed up in a single stretch. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get myself out of the quicksand I had stepped into. It was in my second year that I perfected my riding skills, and at the end of the first semester, I convinced my dad to buy me a bike. My dad had even sent me the money to buy the bike of my choice (actually everybody's choice, because of TINA (there is (now was) no alternative)), but then I rode a bullet which was older than I was then, n that was when I changed my mind and decided against going in for any other bike. At the end of my second year, when my parents were moving to the town where my college is, I convinced my dad to buy me a bullet. And everyone knows where the story went from there. My bike in turn inspired two more people to but a bullet, n I am sure there are more who’d go in for one because of me. At the beginning of my third year, all I could think of was about riding my bike. I've always disliked getting wet in the rain, but when I got my bike, rain or hail, I had to ride. I remember this one time, when my bike broke down, the first time it ever broke down, n how clueless I was, as to what could have gone wrong. That day, I had to have my bike towed (by another Enfield), n that was the day I decided to get to know about everything there was, that could go wrong in my bike. To this day, people give me their bikes to test ride, so that I can help them troubleshoot. Then, one day, my b'day came, and I rode like a maniac that day, on my way to college. Then at this one point my bike ran out of fuel. This was something that I was not familiar with, n assumed that I'd probably broken my bike (still hadn't tried understanding what all could go wrong with a bike), n so I pushed my bike for half a kilometer before I ran out of breath. I decided to ditch the bike n walk to college to get help. As I was removing the key from the fuel lock, it struck me that I might have run out of fuel. So I twist the key, the other way around (the reserve fuel) kick it once, n no luck. Then I pulled on the choke (something I'd then, only recently learnt about) and kicked it, n finally it started. So I set off to college once again, n I barely went 10 meters, before I decided to check if I'd put the choke back in. Doing less than 20 Km/hr, I checked on the choke with my right hand, n when my bike went into a pothole, the jerk broke my left wrist, n I fell down. As my head was scraping on the road, right in front of my eyes, my rear view mirror shattered, and pieces of it cut my chin open (which required 3 stitches). I walked over to the college, called my dad en-route, telling him that I might require stitches. As I was getting my chin cleaned up at college, my HoD told me that I hadn't done so well in my exams. Battered and bruised, both physically and mentally, I tried going about life, as sequaciously as possible, for as long as possible, hoping for the best, secretly knowing that things couldn't possibly improve. For the next eight months, the only agenda was to get through with the day, n whiling away time turned out to be to be the hardest thing to do. But I managed to get through with it, even though I'd reached the brink of depression. Then came my third year (encore, as I like to call it). I moved back to the hostels, n things started improving. I started exploiting my new found freedom, and had to pay the price, as I was expelled from the hostel on the basis of a misdemeanor. It was strange you know, going back home, the place I'd dreaded for the past 6 months (6 months, because I'd shifted during my year at home) So the first thing I did was shift out of the depressing room that I was in earlier. The morale stayed a little low for a while, but soon I was doing better again, n was walking the line. Frankly, of all the time in college, this year (if I had to pick an year) was the most satisfying one. This was the year I started to give up upon studies. Although I did work hard (in comparison to other years), I'd really given up hope when it came to results. that's when I realized a universal principle, the lesser you care, the lesser it hurts. Someone once gave me a piece of advice, and I'd laughed at it initially, but I took the advice, n that's when I stopped fearing the exams. These were the exact words "Beta W ek cheez yaad rakhna, pen mat rukne dene exam mein. Pen rukka toh paper down." (Never stop writing during an examination. If you stop writing, you are gonna flunk). You know what, engineering is not about learning at all. It's all about beating the system. 'Cause everywhere I look, all people are trying to do is beat the system, and to be honest, they all managed to get over with the course before me. I have a friend who once only attempted one section (out of two) of an exam, and in that too all he wrote were the lyrics of a few of his favourite songs. Guess what, he scored 22 marks!!!. I mean if he had only written more songs in the next section, who knows, he might have even passed the exam. Anyway, the rest of the year went by uneventfully (aka, well, since events aren't usually the pleasant kind). An extra year in college doesn't really hit you, till you bid goodbye to your friends. That's when it hits you, when you are left all alone. I remember the farewell, my friends had. That was a day I was sad. Not sad that my friends were graduating before me, but sad because the realization dawned me as to how badly I had messed up. When I ride, I feel euphoric. Everything around me fades away, and nothing really matters then. I rode like crazy that day, hoping it would all fade away. My final year at college started off well, in fact way better that I had hoped for it to start. Remember the how-goes-life graph in my previous post? Well that graph says it all. A lot happened in that time, n worst of all, I crashed my bike, n was in bed for a month. Like I'd just said, riding helps me block out pain. And here I was, in my bed, forced to brood over everything that I'd messed up. Luckily, I moved out of that house soon after I got out of bed. Things started changing for the better. I somehow got through the semester n before the next one started, I decided to keep myself busy from then on. And I wouldn't like to speak about my recent past. May be I'll post something after some time has passed by. All I can say is that I am glad it is finally over. Strangely, by the end of it all, I have gotten rid of all my fears. I am not afraid of vivas, I am not afraid of interviews, I am not afraid of exams and I am not afraid of Maths or Hindi (because I would probably never have to take an exam for either of em :D ), not any more. And though public speaking still gets me a little nervous, I can manage to pull things off. Like I've probably said before, each time the words if only come to my mind, it makes me wonder, what all in life I would have missed out on, had my dreams come true. For this is the only life I know of. Or like this quote from the movie Ghost Town, that I can't remember at the moment, which goes like, you have just one life, so stop whining about the things you messed up and start living.

Oiling the hinges

The other day, I was riding in the hot sun, on a deserted road, and as I approached an S-bend, I couldn't help but resist, leaning in low at the turns, even though I had decided not to do so. That's when it hit me : "I can, but should I?". There are a million situations where this question comes to my mind, sometimes I give heed to it, while most times I don't. Is it even in my powers to stop myself, I wonder. That's where Dr. Dan Ariely come in. Recently I read this book called Predictably Irrational written by him. I don't read non-fiction books that often, but there was something about this book that that caught my eye. I didn't really have a lot of time on my hands, and the fact that I had loads to write (more like copying actually, nothing involving much mental activity), inspired me to try out an audio book instead of the regular book. Honestly, I had always despised those who read/heard audio books, and considered it as a mean by which the lazy, got through with books that were forced onto them. Anyway, for me, this was the means of getting through with the book I had forced onto myself. I started of with the book, not thinking much of it, especially since wikipedia stated the genre of the book as Behavioral economics. But as the night became cold, and the pile of sheets I had left to write, diminished, I became more n more engrossed in the book, and with each break that I took from writing, which was based on the chapters of the book, ending, I gave the it some thought, and I was able to relate to a million incidents, where I had behaved irrationally, or even when people I knew acted this way, and then all of a sudden, it all made sense. So coming back to why I leaned in low, and took the turn at double the speed I ought to have, the answer is herding. Okay, I did tell you that it was a deserted road, and since there was no one around, how could I have queued up behind someone else, when I went in to take the turn. The fact, according to Dr. Ariely is that I am queuing up behind my own self. When the first time I went in low, it was only out of curiosity. The next time I thought that the last time wasn't that bad, in fact it was fun, why not do it again. And then there was no looking back. So you see, even though my decision was an irrational one, it was, to some, quite a predictable one. And the fact that I am aware of the mechanism of herding, does little to improve my chances of not behaving more rationally, as the author of the book has himself conceded having fallen victim to certain illogical behaviour, despite having prior knowledge to this flaw in the human nature. It is only in retrospect that we can clearly see the fallacy influencing our actions. Sadly, though the book does go into the detailed analysis of the widdershin nature of human behaviour, it is only restricted to the aspects influencing behavioural economics. So this incident occurred, which in my opinion was a little unreasonable. As I have already mentioned before, I ride an Enfield, and you all must probably be aware that Enfields are a little greedy when it comes to oil consumptions, and most of them are clumsy eaters, spilling more than consuming. So any way, I always keep a container of oil at home, just to occasionally fill her up. And yesterday, I noticed that a couple of the doors at home were squeaking. Since I knew that no one was going to get their hands dirty with oil, I took it upon myself to rid all doors of their squeak. Okay, I may have been a tad too generous with the oil, but at the end of the day all doors were mute. Sadly, my efforts went not only unappreciated, my parents seemed rather displeased by my actions. Apparently the doors became so free that the slightest breeze sent the door flying shut or open whatever be the direction of the gust. Even though I didn't didn't expect any appreciation, it did feel bad that my parents were not happy about it. And what is worse, is that I realised that I too do this with other people all the time. They say there are pleasure centers that get activated when one's work is appreciated. Are there displeasure centers too in the brain? Speaking of pleasure centers the other day a random guy (who looked atleast 45) who was with his wife in a car next to me, at a red light, rolled down his window, and said "You have a beautiful bike". Doesn't it feel great when someone you don't know, n will probably never meet again, complements you (or your beloved belongings in this case). That guy made me smile for atleast the next 5 minutes, if not more. Any way, reading this book made me realise, how my decisions have already been taken for me. Which reminds me what my Hindi tutor taught me, there is this phrase from the Mahabharat, n technically should also be in the Gita, which roughly translates to the happenings have occurred before they happen. Probably it was too profound a thought for me to have understood then, but I did finally get what it meant a while ago. Its like the actions we are going to perform are to a great extent depended on the ones that preceded it. And now this book only reinforces the statement. I would like to probe the decision making process a bit further, and would certainly be reading more books of this kind from now on.

A mind of their own!

Okay, I am convinced that music players have a mind of their own. Isn't it freaky when a music player can read your mind, perceive your mood and responds with an appropriate song? Well strangely enough, this happens way too often with me. So, I have this habit of en queuing all my songs and listening to them randomly. This gives the music player a bit of freedom to play the song of it's choice. The other day, for the first time in about a year's time or so, I touched triple digit speeds on my bike, and I was reminded of how painful the wind was at a 100 km/hr, with clothes flapping around. Also, I was reminded of my last major accident, n it was at that moment did I realized that the song playing in my earplugs was one called Crash into me, by Dave Matthews Band, and down came the speed :) Another incident, this one's happened to me twice, I am riding down the road, not too fast, but not too slow either. All of a sudden something comes in the middle of the road out of no where, n decides that it'd be cool to take their time in doing whatever they were doing. So all you can do is brake real hard. I swear to God that it has happened at least twice to me, I fishtail all over the road, n when I finally come to a stop, I realize the song which has been playing is Alive by Pearl Jam. I am telling you it is really freaky to listen to this song, after a near miss. I even considered removing this song from my play-list, but I am an Eddie Vedder fan and decided against doing so. So now whenever this song plays when I am riding, I simply slow down and stay behind the slowest guy on the street. Oh and it's not just while riding do I experience such behaviour from my players. It is a universal thing with music players around me. Like just the other day I couldn't get this piece of code to run, because it was infested with bugs. So any way, when I finally got it to run, I was really happy, n then James Brown took over my speakers n started singing I got you AKA I feel good :D There are a dozen other such incidents that give me the feeling that my player is messing around with me. On my PC, there is a one in a twenty five thousand chance of listening to a particular song at a particular moment. Also, another trend that I have noticed is that when you have a large enough play-list, the genre of the song playing, rarely changes. I mean how can a player keep finding songs one after song from the same genre. And once again, I am not talking of one particular player. It happens on all players with me. Was it specific to just one player, I would have understood. Speaking of players, my favourite player on my PC is Winamp, which BTW is a really resource intensive player, once you en queue all your songs into it. I don't mind a player eating up RAM as long as it provides me decent features, but Winamp, it eats up an average of about 22-23% of my CPU cycles when it has to face my entire play-list. A couple of hundred songs and it requires less 0.5% of the CPU cycles. I wonder if Winamp keeps calculating which should be the appropriate song to play next. (5 minutes later...) Well I just observed the player's disk I/O, and it most certainly isn't analysing any audio file. In fact it doesn't access any file till the very last second. Then it accesses the File Table, and then the directories, followed by the file to be played next. Hmmm, now I really wonder what Winamp is doing with it's resources. And coming back to the original question, do media players have a mind of their own? Have others experienced anything similar? Or am I just paranoid?

What's so good about this morning?

So it's 6:30 AM n I am up early today. God I hate getting up early, it makes me all sulky throughout the day. N now that I think about it it, there is a lot to sulk about. Slept early yesterday night (12 AM implies early), because there was this power cut. Any way I get up at 4:30, n twist n turn around in my bed, till I knock the TV remote off the edge of the bed at around 6. That was when I realized I had this strange feeling in my stomach. It had been so long since I had felt hunger, that I had almost forgotten how it felt. What I also had forgotten was that it was almost as bad as not being hungry. I wondered what I should be doing after getting up this early. My first thoughts were to go for a run, or may be just a walk to start with, only to realize, I don't even know where my sport's shoes are kept, or even if I still have a pair or not. I switch on the TV, n scan through the only 12 channels I watch. Nothing interesting there. So I switch on my PC, n it refuses to start. Took me half an hour to get it to work. I wonder if I'll even be able to finish my post. Coming back to post, in case u are wondering what makes this morning so glum, it is the fact that I stayed in my bed trying hard not to have thoughts about anything while they just kept coming. So I start with the thoughts I went to sleep with. The other day I lost my headphone, no wait, I don't mean 'lost' lost. I mean 'broke' lost. It was then that I realised how music has a tendency to brighten up your life. The thing is that I don't spend much time at home anymore, n whenever I am out, I have my ear plugs slung around my neck. Even my PC isn't working that well. It has some hardware defect I am unable to figure out. I am guessing (or rather hoping) it is just the SMPS. It's been ages since I blew up one. My bike isn't running that well either. I was almost totally out of fuel, when I got her topped up to the brim from my regular pump, which I hadn't been able to go to for a while. Right after that, I noticed a change in the exhaust note. The sound became heavier as if there was unburnt fuel in the exhaust. The acceleration reduced and n ride isn't that smooth anymore. Now I know how parents might have felt after learning about the lead content in Chinese toys, or after that milk powder controversy again from China (but that, I guess, would be too extreme). I have got to burn the entire tankful, before I can refill again. Also, my bike has got a clatter coming from its engine, which is because the tappets get lose if u ride too hard. And although it isn't a bad thing to happen (according to my mechanic it is good to leave it a bit lose in such a weather), it is really irritating to listen to, while riding without my earplugs. Speaking of the weather, it has gotten really warm these last couple of days, n I have to ride around 40 kms a day, in this heat. Though I have to say, my room is strangely pleasant. Even right now, I am sitting without a fan with a jacket on, oh but I am not talking about the good stuff in this post. Coming back to sulking, I have been so busy of lately, that I haven't watched a movie since God knows when. N there, I have sulked about everything that I have stated as my interests in my blog profile. I really wonder why we can't be happy with what we have got. Why do we have to be so materialistic? Speaking of being materialistic, reminds me of my very first unpublished post, where I muse upon the need of being so. I was sitting in a hospital where I notice the pain n suffering that surround the doctors, n realize that being materialistic can actually be good for certain people. Anyway, I have stuff I need to do right now, so I guess it's time to sign out. Argh!!! Almost forgot forgot to sulk about the electricity. We have been having half an hour power cuts every hour and a half... I'd almost clicked on the submit button, when I had a power cut again. Oh wait, there is more. I have to crib about Windows 7 n IE 8, but i think I'll put up another post for it, when I have the time for it. I'm insanely busy at the moment.

Is this how it all ends?

As is evident from my posts, I love... or rather, loved to ride. But strangely, of lately, the exhilaration that accompanied the acceleration has disappeared. I no longer enjoy riding fast, I just ride fast out of habit, in fact, sometimes the speeds make me uncomfortable. Near misses had never unnerved me before, but now each time I have a near miss, my heart starts pounding. I had always known that someday, I'd grow out of it, but I had no idea it'd be this soon. So the other day, I was riding, and there was this turn which at one point in my life I used to take at 80km/hr, because that was the speed you had to be at to scrape your footpegs on the road. But because of this vow that I'd taken to not to abuse my footpegs, I had slowed down considerably at corners. So like I was saying the other day, at this very corner, I was going pretty slowly, and there was other vehicle which came to a stop in the middle of the turn, so I had to take a deeper turn. Now the line which I took had some liquid spilled all along the bend, and I was praying that it doesn't turn out to be oil. Turns out it was oil, and I drifted about two feet sideways, before I could fully control my bike again. It was only because of the thrill that I used to from sliding around did I have experience in controlling a bike which only wants to go sideways, and that probably saved my life, because there was this car on the other side of the road, and there was no way the driver of the car could have avoided me had I slipped. And had I slipped, the only place I would have gone would have been under the car, and that wouldn't have been pleasant. It is ironic that only when I ride slow do I have these near misses. But this little incident fazed me, and I rode for over a kilometer with my heart in my mouth. I had always wanted to own a 500cc bullet, and it even topped my objects of desire list, well not anymore. I look back at the list now and apart from the items that I have acquired (which includes all the computer components) I don't want any of the other items anymore. Also, I found this wonderful little butterfly picture, on the festival of colours, as a wallpaper to this theme on my phone, and I googled for it n finally found it. I made it a bit duller to set it as the background of my blog, replacing the on the road again image. Here's the original image if anybody would like to have it.It is probably photoshopped, but I like this image a lot n now it is the wallpaper on my phone, my desktop, and my blog. Oh n in case you haven't noticed, childish or not, Wolfestine is back, because the Weaver has to go.

Dreams, desires and failure

Dreams, Desires & Failure

I wish, I wish, for a million things.

But in my mind, this question springs.

For which of these wishes, do I yearn?

In my mind starts, this fray in turn.

I know they all cannot come true.

And that this shouldn't turn my world to blue.

But for some reason, it pushes me under.

And once again, I begin to wonder.

Which of these wishes do I earn?

I guess with time, the answer I'll learn.

Meanwhile, I won't let, my failures sting.

As the most out of life, I shall try and wring.

Book v/s movie

Every time a movie based on a book is released, I go in for the book first followed by movie, unless of course it has a fantasy story. Then in that case, the order is reversed. However, today I have a little fray going on in my head because of the movie Slumdog Millionaire based on the book Q & A by Arun Swarup. Slumdog Millionaire has made it to the headlines of today's newspaper, by getting 10 nominations at the Oscars, which supports the review I'd gotten from my friends. The thing which goes against the book is that it's by an Indian author, and frankly speaking, I have neither read not heard of an exceptional book written by an Indian author. I wonder what I should do first, read the book, or watch the movie. Speaking of movies based on books, the other day I watched this movie called Into the wild (I know, it's an old movie but I just watched it... big deal!), which was a strange movie. Strange I say, cause it wasn't that I liked the movie, but I didn't dislike it either, still if asked, I'd say it is a must-see kind of a movie. Though I wish I'd know the movie was based on a book, which was in fact inspired by a true story, then I'd have read the book first. I guess this true story bit was the one that makes it a must-watch. It's also got an awesome soundtrack (which I'm listening to right now) which is the debut solo album of Eddie Vedder, the Pearl Jam guy. Speaking of music, Mettalica's Death Magnetic is driving me crazy. I can neither get the songs out of my head, nor stop listening to them. I inevitably end up purging my playlist of all other songs. Woooha... I'm getting late... Gotta go.

Adieu from Wolfestine

I'd like to wish all those people who happen to stumble upon this blog a very happy 2009. As is evident, I haven't been posting that often, off lately. The reason for this is not that I have stopped writing, it's just that I don't publish what I write. I know it sounds a bit eccentric, but 2008 hasn't been kind to me, and all this was reflected in my writing. Some posts were a bit too profane, while others a bit too profound, but most of them were left incomplete. Even the funny little poems that I wrote exhibited similar trends. 2008 was an year which made me lose my appetite and my sleep. Just to elaborate what I mean, I have made a little graph that shows the measure of happiness and sorrow on a scale of one to ten. Oh and I made a little mistake, which would be too much of an effort to mend. The name of the month appears at where the month ends. Also this is my last post as Wolfestine, as it now sounds a bit too childish to me. I am for the time being using the alias of 'The Weaver', because of the way I habitually weave through traffic. I am thinking of more cooler name, so if you have any suggestions, please go ahead and post me a comment.