How toxic the a work project can be!

 I wanted to write about how toxic a work project can be. I have been encountering worse projects in India and my previous project was one. Sadly, for the last 5+ years in IT, all my projects which I work on office have been utter gutter rubbish. 

Though I get paid on time for the work I do, I have to admit, the work culture has been worse. The only thing kind to me has been the fact that - I have work, I am not jobless or on the streets. 

But on the contrary, the same work can cause you health hazards in ways where you end up in medical care instead of on the streets, such is the irony.

I wish I could cry my heart out here in this post of my work place project - I eventually got thrown out of it, despite putting in such a hard hard effort, where in I remember- I did not even get time to turn my neck whilst working. Imagine having such a stiff neck at the end of the day.

Some of the stupidity and absurdity of my previous project was - 

1. It has been running for more than 10 years now and there is not one version of the software in production. Imagine all the work for 10 years still no signs of it making money.

2. The project release got postponed by another 6 months. I have seen project releases getting delayed by a month max, but taking extension 6 months on a project which has been in development for 10 years- sounds reasonable enough.

3. The team comprised of 12 developers and 5 managers all of whom were non technical. Imagine me being technical being thrown out of the team while retaining a manager who doesn't know one line of code nor any functionality! Absurdity knows no limits.

4. Two tier architecture - The project was a huge one and the architecture leveraged was a 2 tier one - there was a client application and a database server. Much of the business logic was coded into the database as stored procedures and functions. All of the concept of threading and logging were totally abandoned for good - One needs to have brains to use technology, in-fact average Indian IT brain does not recognize threading, logging, scalability as a software design paradigm.

5. Poor requirements writing - The way the requirements were written were so so poor. Imagine having  1000 page word document horribly written and developer needs to go through the same to figure out behaviors. Do you know how much time it takes to scroll through a 1000 page word document.

6. Zero unit tests - Absolutely no unit tests for the project, it was total mayhem when things went wrong.

7. Process - The process followed was a comedy show in itself. Since the absence of unit tests, developer had to manually test the application- attach video evidence of his testing of all the scenarios which would take one day then another developer tests the functionality before handing it to an actual tester.

8. After work hours WORK - Often I ended up working over time- also it was mandated to work over weekends, management would end up calling or messaging on mobile asking to work on weekends. Imagine getting a message from the director asking you to work over weekend.

9. 230 open bugs in the application - Towards the end of the year, the amount of bugs in the project were reported to be 230. Often management was only interested in fixing the bugs, but nowhere interested in finding the root cause of the issue, which was poor architecture, no unit tests. And without any surprise the 230 open bugs increased to 500 in a short time. 

10. Multiple meetings in a day - Scrum meeting used to take 1+ hour call, plus having 5 managers in the team necessitated call with onsite guys too. Since the managers have no clue on what is happening in the project- they randomly add us into each and every call - thus wasting more time.

Cheers to a release which shall fix 500 bugs in one go.

I am glad I am out of the project, I wish to study, prepare and head out of this organization too. Very sad to let myself know that, I haven't yet found my footing in any organization even after so many years, this is the reality of IT industry.

If budget exists, project doesn't, if project exists, budget doesn't. If both exist, our incompetent IT engineers screw up royally the well deserved project.

Cheers, 

 PS - I got a bit of nerve to write this post - from the book which I am currently reading - "A man called Ove" by Fredrich Bachman.

2024 - Another year goes by.

 Another year comes to an end. Thanks to god for literally everything. There have been days when I have felt very uncomfortable and days when I have felt comfortable especially in the last 1-2 months since I moved out of my previous toxic project.

I do not write much these days due to the lack of time, also can I say that - I fail to absent myself from everyday activities - the absenteeism which can promote quiet and the writing much needed, is kind of unavailable or hard to find for me. 

 But I worked hard in 2024, so hard that, there were days when I could not move my neck around whilst working on my computer. It was that bad. It was all due to the toxic project or team which I worked on.

Since I have not revealed the organization or team where I work, I can now safely write in abstract about the team which I used to work in the past. It gave me a year and half salary but had completely missing what is known as personal time and professionalism.

I shall write about this in another post, but for now, I am thankful to god, he let me tour Tirupati Lord Venkateshwara Temple 2 times this year - in back to back months. This blessing was such immensely great that, I have to thank god for many many more years to come.

In the month of May, I did the Goa, Kolhapur, Saundatti trip, I will write about that one too once I find time, but then later months, work took too much of time and then I was thrown out of the project which I felt as a huge relief and here I am a little bit relaxed finding time to write and read and come to terms with growing older.

Cheers,

20 years back and now.

The year was 2002. I had started with my engineering. I believe this was a golden period of learning as well as living. I remember going to a gym and there was a song which I used to listen while exercising. Mind you this song was one amongst many. 

The song was by the boy band "Blue" and song being "One Love". The reason why I mention this song alone is because one of these days - whilst I am still exercising in the gym - I get to hear this song, yes the same song. 

It not only did bring me back loads of memories, the old times, but also brought about the events which happened things which have gone by - this being another gym. Such is life, a whole lot has changed in the last twenty years yet some things remain the same - just like the same set of songs which we used to exercise back then and now and also the same set of exercises which we do back then and now. (Chest, Biceps, triceps, shoulder, back and thighs exercise). 

Cheers,

Election results

 It was 4th June when the results of the election would be declared. I had an eventful trip to Tirupati with relatives and I was waiting for a majority for Narendra Modi and his team.

We were supposed to start to Bangalore around 9-30 am. In the meanwhile - early leads was being telecasted. Right from the word go - there was something upsetting.

BJP was not getting leads in many of the seats. And the trend continued through the day. The whole of 4th June I was very very upset. Even on 5th I was really upset. 

I was expecting a full majority for the BJP - but sadly it did not happen and it let a big sadness within me which persists even today. People like Modiji and Yogi Adityanath were left high and dry by people for whom they toiled. 

But never mind - God had other plans - BJP now turned towards a coalition government. 

Cheers, Hoping for a longer BJP tenure at the center and state.

Past few days - thanking God

The past few days or months have been thoroughly busy, both work life and personal life. By God's grace things have been smooth and pleasant. 

I thought of coming back to write a blog - thanking God for his blessings when I could accomplish a milestone.

My parents had a desire to invite our aunt and uncle to a trip to Tirupati. My parents had thought about making arrangements. So the trip went smooth by God's grace. I went along with my father and my cousin and his parents.

It was definitely a personal milestone. The day was memorable and went so so well, I can only bow my head thanking God - Lord Venkateshwara. 

So I thought why not make an entry here - thanking God.

Cheers,

2024 - hope to write more

 2023 year passed by pretty quick. As much as I would have liked to write - I got entangled with work and so many other things that I could not make time to write a blog. I thought of writing our trip experiences in the blog. But then- with God's grace I completed another such longer trip this time, with some travel into Goa as well. And again its been months since the last trip.

I am yet to write about the Ayudha Pooja at gym last year. I got pretty busy at work leaving with little time to write. Plus I did not wish to post from my office laptop, since a VPN will always be running, I kept on delaying the writing. 

Today I found sometime to setup my old laptop and write - this introductory post. Hopefully I can write more. All in all, life and God both have been kind. I am currently happy with the workplace with lots of relaxed atmosphere - but hectic workload. I suppose, I enjoy being in the thick of action, just that - it adds to stress - every now and then I stretch over to the weekends.

Starting from 12th January to 26th January- I worked non stop for days to complete some part of a work assignment owing to some escalation of sorts. 

But feels good to be back writing what I can!

Cheers,

20 temples trip - Part 0

 2023 has brought a few surprises, one being a change of job. So in between job changes, I found sufficient time to go for a trip. Yes, I did. And it was memorable. The places we covered were plenty and the distance we covered was plenty too. I wish to write all about them, provided time permits.

We started from Bangalore to SriRangapatna and then ended the trip at Ankola along the coast. How we moved from here all the way to coast is nothing short of pure fun.

More on that later. But then this trip was totally unplanned, in terms of places to stay, places to visit. There were couple of pieces of information which I had with which I went ahead.

Now when I recollect, I can say only one thing. All this happened because of God's grace. I feel God was and is the driving force. Second thing which I did after coming back was, I offered Prasadam of the temples to my gym trainer. 

This was more of a remembrance, reason being my fitness to drive over a period of 7 days, depended much on my gym workout and my teacher, without which none of it could have been accomplished.

Cheers, more on that to follow soon.

Enigma - Sadness.

 

 Back then when we were kids or rather teenagers' Enigma was still an enigma. This song would occupy the mainstay of many a audio systems of people, even precisely car audio.

Guess what, there was no internet those days, lesser awareness of western music. How would anyone know this song is by whom, which artist, which language etc. It took me quite a while to figure out the band and song. Now when I see in my playlist, it reminded me of the good old days.

There is a super incident associated with this song which I remember. We used to cycle as kids and even though we were 14-15 we still chose to cycle. But some of the rich kids amongst us had transitioned to motor vehicles (illegally of course). 

One such person, had transitioned not to two wheelers but a four wheeler. Its hard to believe how a 15-16 year old would get hold of a car. But it was true, true because he used to drive around playing this very song.

It was an Hindustan Ambassador which had an engine change from BMC 1.5 L Diesel to an ISUZU 2.0 Diesel or may be a Toyota 2.0 L Diesel. 

Can you imagine a 15-16 year old teenager boasting about a modified car with an upgraded engine back then when I was struggling to find out this specific enigma song.

Even after many years, the aspect of having an engine change for a car is much unheard of in India. It is attempted only by people who have sufficient resources and willing to take up the challenge.

But for a 15-16 year old to do it back then - and know what's under the hood to tell others, it is definitely worth a blog post.

These days kids, teenagers are addicted instagram, food, porn, tobacco other stuffs which sounds silly when you have a look at what our generation did to amuse themselves.

Cheers,

Hail Muse - Teaching old dog new tricks - Muse 3

 There have been quite a few interests which I delved into, in the last couple of years of working from home or hybrid mode or be it from office. This muse is not altogether a different one but a tributary of the main muse of reading.

Whilst the topic of reading, I had mentioned my own enthusiasm to read to entirety - The works of one particular author. I had read Ruskin Bond fairly and was in full gusto to read Kipling works, in the process read, Kim, his autobiography and a couple of poems. 

But along the way my interest in Kipling started wading out, the cause being Kipling writing being so difficult for me to maintain momento and traction or both at the same time. Thus I got badly subdued by the writing of this Imperial giant and had to humbly accept defeat and move on.

Then, one more author caught my attention, one whom I have been reading since a teenager, though bits and pieces. It was none other than the grand old man of Indian literature or rather letters, Khushwant Singh.

It's sad, when Khushwant was alive I never truly appreciated the scholar in him. Khushwant could quote Mir, Ghalib and many a such Urdu couplets, shayaris' as though it was his left hand game. He was an excellant in Urdu poetry, its translations.

Each time, I try to induce sarcasm, whilst conversing with others, much to my own disappointment, because I fail badly, I remember none other than Khushwant and feel jealous that, had I known Urdu, Hindi better, I could have responded to morons in a more literate way than just expressing frustration or disgust.

Recently, three months back had an experience with our organization HR who blatantly lied on my face and accepted the lie. Had I known any of the old Delhi poets' writing, I would have responded with Mir or Ghalib. How I wished, then I remembered Khushwant Singh for his literary prowess, Urdu prowess and felt good at the fact that, though I am bad at Hindi, Urdu, I could boast about the fact that, in the last year or two, I had read much Khushwant writing.

Yes, this is the original intent of the post. Though I failed at comprehending Kipling, I did read Khushwant books to entirety. Many are still pending, but now I am fairly comfortable with Khushwant trivia, much to my own pride.

Guess what, I own rather procured a hard copy of Khushwant Singh autobiography - Truth, malice and little lies. I kind of feel so good about owing it that, when I saw another copy online for Rs 200, I ordered the same. Now I get to boast of two HC autobiography of Khushwant and one paperback, much to others' envy. Its too little a price to spend for a jewel!

I do have plans to read other authors to entirety, Vikram Seth, Nirad C Chaudhari, Vikram Sampath are on my mind, its an uphill task. But one which gives me satisfaction to the core, having fed so much of knowledge to my brains, that I can come back and boast all about it on my blog, which hardly 1-2 people read. Much to my own needed privacy!

Cheers,

PS - Much to my own - phrase has taken a center place, much to my own dislike :)-

How work, induced stress!

 There are so many thoughts on past office(s) which I have on my mind, which I am yet to write. Apart from the stress of workplace, ongoing and return traffic there was a peculiar thing which comes to my mind, which made me sick or stressed or both, not really sure. 

It took a huge effort to figure out what it was and in reality it turns out, it is a bit more serious and I should not chance upon such stunts in the very near future.

 I started to work at 7 am in the morning and then started for home by 4PM. It took me around two hours to reach home or may be more many times and sometimes less may be by 20 mins. Then I used to go to gym for exercise and come back home by 9 15PM odd. 

Then food and sleep. Somewhere amidst this daily schedule, I forgot to drink sufficient water. I did need more water due to the exercise but I completely ignored the water need in the end falling sick, getting stressed, feeling stiff, cramped most of the times. 

I can feel the effect of having less water in your body, the feeling of being dehydrated. There were few reasons which I feel were the driving force behind me drinking less water.

1. Sitting in an air conditioned environment I was always conscious about how many times I go to pee. I felt rather uncomfortable or embarrassed at the thought of peeing three times between 8am - 12 noon. The reason was simple, the air conditioner was simply malfunctioning, temperature fluctuated between 21 degrees to 22 degrees centigrade.  
2. I drank tea or milk during the morning schedule of my office which made me drink lesser water, the fear of visits to loo to pee looming more.
3. Shuttle commute from work took two hours and there was no stop over to pee, or rather it was embarrassing to stop to pee.
4. Post dinner. - Post dinner once again, I was in a hurry to sleep reason being I had to wake up at 5 am, for next day's work. 

There was a time frame from the time I came back from office to the time I went to gym, I could have drunk water, but nope, I drank tea, a little water and rested. Also too much water would lead to bloating restricting me from running on treadmill.

All the while I have only exercises. The last 3-5 months have led to severe degradation of my lifestyle, induced loads of stress. Not drinking much water was just one dimension. On the work front I still have loads of cribbing which I plan to undo, piece by piece, studying in detail every aspect of my own self, thus in the process, which I sincerely hope, unloading years and years of accumulated stress, anger and guilt.

Cheers,

PS - I have to read and re-read my own writing to ensure edits which are necessary, which currently I do not have time to. My laptop is slow plus, I get distracted quite a bit.

Teaching old dog new tricks - Muse 1

 Back in 2020 it all started. During the lockdown, there was Mahabharata which was telecasted on television everyday. It did keep lots of spirits high amidst all the gloom. It also gave me a thought process. To read BhagavadGita and to purchase a particular version, a hard copy comprising of three volumes written by Swami Ranganathananda.

I did purchase it and started reading it alas, I just moved to a different book altogether rendering my reading incomplete, much to my own guilt and shame.

I till date have not completed reading even a single 'Adhyaya'. But I will definitely. 

Around that time, I got a bit more active on instagram and came to know about the book 'Remnants of Separation' and was very curious about it. It was about the partition and I thought, why not just read it as I found it very interesting. I was about to purchase it for the kindle, but then, something struck my mind.

My kindle reading pursuits have been very unfruitful, buying and leaving books unread and then ditching the reading process altogether. I needed a more stricter regime, plus, alongside I thought, a book like 'Remnants' could never be done justice via an online copy or via kindle. It had to be read in a physical form, let alone be read, I saw it more as a jewel in a bookshelf. This turned my attention to buying books.

I knew books are expensive when brought new, but then, with-holding myself all these years, I turned to buying used books. I realized Blossoms in Bangalore sells new as well as pre-loved ones'. That got me into buying books. Something which started as a hesitant hobby and now just took off beyond my own imagination.

Hesitant hobby because, buying books for me happens to be an activity very close to my heart, just like buying stationery. I simply cannot stop it once I start it. I feel I do have a life long obsession towards having books having a book shelf, much to my own embarrassment of claiming, not having read many of the owned ones.

All these years, I kept accumulating books on kindle. But never read with much force so as to complete more than 10 books a year. Now, since my buying increased I had to up the tempo on reading too. 

I realized if I could post a review on instagram and track status on goodreads, I could keep myself more disciplined on track to complete more books. And yes, it has worked out well, I do read more these days. I buy more than I can read, but then, do I have any complaints? None as such.

In the middle there was one phase where I just became greedy for free books, yes, free books. Books which are new are given away to instagram influencers in return for an honest review. And honest review doesn't necessarily translate to negative review. No publisher wants a negative review. 

But the catch was, you got to have more followers. My followers on instagram are and were less than 70, so my chance of winning free books went in smoke pretty quickly. The bubble of my greediness burst when an author declined to give me any books in giveaway. It took me multiple attempts to come out of the hangover of free books.

Until one day a kind man on instagram who identifies as God Father of books, introduced me to the noble book sellers of Bombay and Delhi and a special group for buying/selling books. What kicked off a frenzy buying hasn't stopped till date and I am overly indebted to him for the endless supplies of affordable books.

I have since known many sellers from Bombay namely Dhirajji, Pandeyji, Afzalji, Navinji and many more. Daryaganj, Mahila ki Haat and College Street have become easily accessbile and buying books has never been that affordable. I am no longer a regular at Blossoms but someday, I will be back at Blossoms.

Until then,

Cheers,

Teaching old dog new tricks - Muse 0

 Post 2020, I tried teaching myself new tricks. Well calling it tricks would be an overstatement. I would prefer to call it 'muse'. I owe my day to this muse, which helped me think about many a things apart from work.

There was a time when I was so so interested in work, software, good design, code, etc etc. But over the years having realized many a software does get scrapped with less usage plus, not every beautifully designed and written piece of code goes to production and not every production code is beautiful, I shifted interests in doing many a things, than just writing software.

 There shall be few posts where in I just write about my new muses'.

Cheers. 

Back from hiatus...2

I chose not to write - apart from the reasons mentioned in the previous posts, lacking motivation, outside happenings etc, there was another consistent companion which was accompanying me for the past  5years may be.

How much ever I give credit to it, for sustaining my day to day expenses, via an amount added at the end of each month to my bank account aka salary, in exchange for a statement of work which was assigned to me, I have to admit, the last 5 years have taken quite a toll on me.

I have been through three organizations and all these three have been like three dimensions, each one WORST in its own way. I generally preferred not to write so scathingly about my workplaces - owing to it - sustaining me, nurturing me, training me and helping me grow, but overtime my threshold barrier just got broken.

I am such a precarious position where, in hiding what I went through just quadruples my nightmares even more than reducing it as time passes. 

I do have lost touch with many a people, a couple who seem to be lost themselves and do not reply to my emails, I have changed my blog URL, I have been scammed of Rs 30k by a so called carpenter leaving me with nothing but a bucket loads of abuses and abusive messages towards him.

A person who's blog I read has published a book (which is good news, cheers to you if you are reading this post. ).  

Kannada translation - ನಾನು ಓದುತ್ತಿರುವ ಬ್ಲಾಗ್‌ನ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿಯೊಬ್ಬರು ಪುಸ್ತಕವನ್ನು ಪ್ರಕಟಿಸಿದ್ದಾರೆ (ಇದು ಒಳ್ಳೆಯ ಸುದ್ದಿ, ನೀವು ಈ ಪೋಸ್ಟ್ ಅನ್ನು ಓದುತ್ತಿದ್ದರೆ ನಿಮಗೆ ಚೀರ್ಸ್. ).

So I chose to write owing to lessen my mental burdens thanks to myriad of moronic characters and experiences I had to undergo or bear in the last 5 years, each one being equally detrimental to my mental and physical health.

More such posts shall follow.

Cheers,

Back from hiatus...

 As I look back, I see only two posts in the year 2022, back in the month of October. There was a time when I was writing like crazy, rambling, ranting and what not. I wrote whatever came to my mind.

But since 2020, it took a different turn altogether. Plus in 2021, I decided not to write, owing to the sensitivity of the 'then' current outside situation. 

I basically could not overlook or hide the gloominess within myself and probably the world and instead portray sunshine,

On the other side, I still have not come to terms with what just went by in the last two years or may be three to be soon. The irreversible after effects hit me each time, I meet people who tell me how they just went through a phase which nobody could even dream of. 

May God give strength to all.  

No sooner I recollect the days gone by, I feel, I should have written more and kept it in draft and not published. It would have been helpful. 

I get back now, trying to remember what all happened and then try to post it. Let me see, how much I succeed. Most of the things are in my mind. Its just that I have to put pen to paper, rather fingers to keyboard. 

Since I wrote less, I got sufficient time to do other things, and, along the way, I have picked up multiple things which keep me engaged on a bigger chunk. I shall post about them too. 

By the way, if I can remember correctly, I chose not to write, because I felt, the outside situation was very grim and sadness prevailed everywhere, and I thought, I might not protrude anything insensitive into the public domain via my writing, howmuchever immature they are.

But now, I am left with less option than not to write I shall explain in another post. But until then,

Cheers,

An ode to my place of worship - 2

 The year 2022 has been good by God's grace. The situation last year had made my stop writing. I had turned so much negative that writing ceased big time. 

I was unhappy with my job profile, which currently still holds. I was very much disliked what I did on a day to day basis. More on that I can write later.

But in the month of February, I realized, I was missing my exercise. The whole pandemic scenario had cast a break in my workout routine. I had put on weight, I had my own frustrations and I was clueless. Few days I did have a jogging routine every morning. 

But then, my office opened and it broke off. So in the month of February, my running routine too went off track. 

With not much option left, I had to get back to what I loved to do the most, that is go to the gym. 

And as I write this its been over 5 months I suppose, I have been regular, its been fun, I am seeing results too. 

Monday and Tuesday I go to office, which leaves me with 5 days to exercise, but I make most of it. 

I suppose most answers to life lies, either in the mountains or in the gym.

More on my habits during pandemic in the following posts!

Cheers,  

An ode to my place of worship - 1

 It is exactly a year since I last posted, too many events have happened over the last one year. I can write them in the coming days.

But to begin, or to say, to come out of retirement, what better way than to post few pics of my place of worship. With situation getting better outside and situation getting tenser inside, I was left with no option to go back to the place which never disappoints me, the place which always welcomes me with open arms, no matter what my disappointment be. 

Today there was pooja at that very place and what better way to re-start kind of blogging than posting pictures from over there.

Blogging retirement

 I haven't been posting much on my blog due to various reasons. I have written time and again about various reasons but then when I think about it, I feel, let me write it  again.

1. I have been writing more on paper and fountain pen. I can write anything I want without the worry of it being public. But over here, whatever I write might end up being visible to someone.

2. Current situation of being at home and working has made me write less, owing to outside world, I feel its better to procrastinate right now and wait than to write stuffs on the blog which might feel a bit uneasy for me.

3. I have been reading stuffs. There are books which I am reading owing to which I do not feel like writing.

4. Watching PC/monitor. I use monitor / PC during work and blogging again needs me to see towards computer which I find a bit boring, so have not written much.

5. Some other day!

6. There is not much fun these days in writing stuffs public. The outside world makes me feel glum the pain the suffering, it all makes me think not just twice but a 100 times before I write something here.

Hope people get all the necessary strength and help to survive the current sitation.

Cheers, until next time!

Air India goes to Tata Sons and I am super happy!

 Today is one such day, I decided to come out of my mini blogging retirement in order to post something.

I shall write about the reasons of my semi blogging retirement in the following post, but, let me quickly tell you why I chose to write today.

Air India shall finally go back to its founder owner! Yes, Yes Yes,

As someone who respects TATA Sons very much, I was upset the day I got to know Air India was initially Tata Flying company and it was made public by Panditji.

Finally today the privatization of Air India decision has been finalized and its none other than Tata Sons who get the ownership of the Maharaja.

I feel good, I really feel good! Saw Ratan Tata on the news channel walking slowly on the diaz. I can understand the feelings and emotions what he must be going through!

Ahh, very much indebted to Tata's. Congratulations to them on getting back their own Kohinoor!

Cheers,

Goodreads - reading challenge

 Since the last few years, I have not been able to complete writing 100 posts a year. I have no regrets, I do have the content somewhere in my mind, which I can catch into at some later point.

There is one more challenge which I had taken on good reads, it was to complete a certain number of books a year.

I have been taking good reads challenge every year for the last 4-5 years and I average about 8 books a year for the last 2 years which is rather ridiculous (owing to kindle and few other stuffs).

This year too, I set 5 books and I am proud as of today mid year its been 7 books. My highest has been 20 I suppose all on kindle. Now that I plan to go to physical copy of books, I wish I can up the number.

Cheers,

Ordering books

 After many years on Kindle, I thought of going back to buying books and reading printed books. Without much of a fuss, I made a list of books which I wanted to buy and then placed the order.

I got few of them used ones and I plan to few new ones. I realized, if I get used copy of the books, it amounts to the same as kindle books. In return, I get to hold physical copy of books.

Real reason of going back to buying physical books over kindle are as below.

1. Reading kindle feels slower - too many taps and touches later, I would not have completed even 10% of a book. Classics with 600+ pages end up taking too much time and if its not an interesting read, its even more slower.

2. Reading on a kindle after hours in front of a monitor feels a bit irritating. Though not completely, its the mindset which makes me think that I am staring at kindle which is another monitor.

3. Lack of inspiration - Though I have plenty of books on kindle, not seeing them on shelf causes me to abandon the reading pleasure. This results in lesser books read.

4. Home library - I always have and had a dream of a having a huge shelf dedicated to books comprising of multiple authors. So a step closer to that would be to start buying.

5. Business to local vendors - During lock-down many local book sellers might be having lots of stocks and offering discounts. Instead of buying online versions from bigger players it would be worthwhile buying from smaller sellers, doing my tiniest bit. (also I get to choose from used books versus new books). 

6. Holding books, the various designer covers, the thought of classics being placed around the shelf with or without it being read is a pleasure. Waking up to them is nothing next to pure bliss.

7. Reading with marking - I always thought books to be kept clean as possible, but not anymore. Now I am even thinking of using markers wherever needed just for my pleasure. I know it might destroy the aesthetics of the reading experience, but then my reading joy and pleasure comes first.

8. Boasting about the books owned - ahhh - a childhood joy missed out, owing to playing in mud. Never mind, happy to be alive time to catch up.

Cheers,

PS - Downside is my parents are aware of my buying habit and not reading them. They also know that I find less time to read - so its easy to gauge how much I can read and how much I cannot.

Drinking English tea, - The Edd China way

 I am very much influenced by few people from Television shows - One of them happens to be Edd China. I have been watching Edd from quite a few years may be 2013 - 2017 post which I stopped watching television. 

It happens Edd was a part of very famous show Wheeler Dealers which I used to watch. Post that show, I did not know what happened to the show nor what happened to Edd.

Now Edd's back on youtube with a new series of videos under the title Workshop Diaries - which I follow very ardently. The show is all about fixing cars, which Edd does best.

Though owning a workshop, workbench, professional tools, working on cars is a dream of mine, which I am not sure if I can ever fulfill, because of the investment and time required. 

One thing which I caught on from the show if not about mechanics - its about Edd China's way of drinking tea. 

I am used to drinking tea the Indian way - where we boil water and milk and tea leaves in a kettle for about 15 mins and then drink the same. 

But now I am trying to change and trying to incorporate the way Edd China drinks tea - its by boiling water in a kettle adding the boiling hot water to a mug having tea bag and then adding 2 spoons of milk!

Watch the show, I promise you will enjoy their tea break as much as the show!

I waited for two weeks before I got my pack of tea bags owing to lockdown, but boy o boy am I enjoying the new way of drinking tea? Yes I am.

Cheers!

PS - hope someday I get to work in a workshop with some tools too, fiddling with stuffs rather than just computer software!

Book by Dale Carnegie - How to win friends and influence people

I was reading this famous book by Dale written many moons ago. It was my second take at this particular book. First time, I was pretty much a beginner or you can call me an immature. But now after so many years in corporate, I felt, I am pretty much an experienced campaigner to take on this book.

I started and completed the book in 3 days, not boasting about my achievement. But the situation I encounter in corporate has no answers for, in this particular book.

The book says - with sympathy, appreciation people work better. Listening to people's stories or problems will make them feel important and they will oblige. Writing clearly letters or any documentation shall always be appreciated. 

But on a day to day basis, I hate to admit these are the things which I do not find places to apply. 

If a person is least interested in reading emails, how much ever I write clearly, he fails to read. If a person is not interested in working, how shall me listening to his problem make him perform better. What can I do if a person is always telling lies, making excuses and double talking. Well I really cannot do but just to feel bad for the investor who funds the corporate projects and quacks who handle projects.

Clearly, the book written by Dale has aged. People have found new ways to trick their bosses, colleagues solution to which has to come from people's inner conscience. Clearly role of teachers, parents, genes, environment, plays a crucial role. 

Back to back reading....

 One thing I missed during my childhood was reading all of Agatha Christie books, I hardly read 4-5 of them. I was hoping a day would come and I could get hang of many of Agatha Christie books and read them and over come my childhood guilt.

Last 2.5 weeks have been lucky for me, I gotta read 4 books in total and 3 of which are Agatha Christie.
I finished my goodreads reading challenge for the year which was 5 books in 2021, I now surpassed it with count being 6.

Out of the 6 books I have read, 3 happen to be Agatha Christie.

1. Mysterious affairs at styles.

2. Murder on the links.

3. Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

I shall be reading few more, especially the ones which have good rating on good reads.

But reading Christie has been pure fun and reliving childhood memories is just priceless. 

Cheers to Christie and simple life!

And now after back to back Christie, I switched over to short stories. After Tagore's short stories, I was looking for a good follow up one. But many of the time, I was left disappointed. I tried to read Shashi Deshpande, could not connect, I read Ruskin Bond, and it got over too soon. 

And then I now got Short stories by Satyajit Ray, translated by Gopa Majumdar. 

I felt what better way to celebrate centenary birth year of the legend Ray than reading some of his short stories. its a mammoth 500 pager waiting to be read by me.. 

One thing I lost by this back to back reading is not being able to play on my play station :(

Cleaning the Auri Katarina way

 Well, instagram has taught me quite a few tricks during the lockdown phase. The very recent thing which I gotta learn was from Auri Katarina and it is all about cleaning.

If you do not know who the Queen of cleaning is - you gotta check these videos and the immaculate cleaning techniques many of which I have applied, on oven, kitchen and couple of other places.

Cheers and loads of thanks going out to the queen of cleaning!.

Meanwhile - I recently had a discussion on how staying away from few sites/apps can save you lots of time. Well, yeah (I do agree). 

PS - Since TikTok is banned in India, I gotta use instagram to follow Auri.

David Gray and his music - Part 1

 I have been listening to David Gray since my teenage years, I am sad to say, I have been discovering or understanding his music even better only now.

I chanced upon few very nice songs in the last few days, I so much fell in love with the music  instrument play that I had to bring this blog public from hiatus, just to share those few songs which I adore.

Here it goes.

The song is Lately. Both the version are from Live Stage concerts. The Nurburgring one starts from 14:35.

I will write about how I fell in love with David Gray during the year 2002-2003, in my coming posts.

Cheers,

Of hidden interests

 I must confess, I do have a hidden interest, waiting to be pursued. Its about reading. I wish to take a particular author and read all of his writings/literature/ contribution.

I did this with Ruskin Bond, I have read so much of Ruskin Bond books and many of the stories multiple times, that I feel quite pleased with myself. This came from my love for Uttarakhand - home of Mr Bond.

Post this, I have never been able to circle around a particular author and read all of his/her works in succession. 

Few of the authors whom I have in me mind are Kipling, Nietsche, Jim Corbett, Agatha Christie, Virginia Woolf (felt too hard), Mark Twain, RK Narayan, Tagore, Bertrand Russel - couldn't handle philosophy.

I also have a dream to have a library at home. Going by the price of wood, per square feet, I am pretty sure, it ain't gonna happen soon. Also, books are quite costly.

But how cool it is, to have all of Gurudev, Ruskin Bond, Satyajit Ray, RK Narayan, Kipling, Mark Twain, alongside, Tintin, Agatha, the printed one's stacked up and you wake up to them, having a book nook. 

Reminds me of good old days, when life was simpler and the air was purer, grass was greener, and of course traffic was lesser and environment was cleaner and we had a library (membership) of course, where we could smell books, and a bakery next to it, where we could get something to eat too :) Simple joys of life.

Someday!

Cheers, 

Kishor Kumar

 I am very much a fan of Kishor Kumar, I love his singing, but more than that, I love his eccentricity. He was one in a century kind of person. I always thought about writing on songs and my favorite singers. Someday I will. But for today, I shall want to add a link to the interview of Kishor Kumar, most likely the year was 1985? Well, not too sure. 

I am very much in awe with whatever his thought process was. 

https://theprint.in/features/when-kishore-kumar-spoke-to-pritish-nandy-about-bombay-hitchcock-and-his-many-wives/93307/

Cheers,

Toto - Rosanna - Rosanna Shuffle or Porcaro Shuffle

It was during my teenage years I came to know about TOTO. The song which I liked of TOTO back then was a cover of the song written by The Beatles Legend - Sir George Harrison, called While my guitar gently weeps. 

I so much liked the song, back then I had never heard of the song by The Beatles or Sir George. The year being 2002/2003, I did not have much info back then on ToTo or youtube or Wikipedia or online music.

Somehow I realized Toto had couple of other hits - Rosanna and Africa - which I genuinely liked. Now with so much of online info available, I realized they have a lot of hits to their name.

But what impresses me the most was not the only the song Rosanna but Porcaro Shuffle.

- Imagine, you write, play and record a song and you end up creating a legendary drum shuffle which is so hard that even after 30 years of the drummer legend Jeff Porcaro passing away people to this day still struggle to play it neatly without mistakes. That is TOTO

- Imagine you are a bunch of guys, who are the first to be called for any artist as session musician, that is TOTO.

- Imagine you end up raking 12 Grammy awards over 2 albums, that is TOTO - TOTO IV  won 5 and these guys worked with Micheal Jackson as session musicians, and that album won 7. I may have figures wrong, but the thought of having that kind of achievement itself is remarkable, back when you had legends contending for Grammy's.

- Imagine, Porcaro Brothers (Jeff, Mike, Steve), Page, Hungate, Kimball, Lukather all together in one line up, the amount of creative juices flowing (well apart from the ego), thats TOTO.

- Rosanna is a very complicated song to record and sing, just count the number of instruments being used in the below song. All of these instruments could have created noise, but they create music, why, that's simply because its TOTO :)

And all of this I realized only after having known TOTO for more than 15 years as just a band!

Makes you realize so much of time spent drooling over unnecessary things and playing in mud while legends were out there entertaining the world live!

Cheers,

PS - It would be better to use a good set of headphones or speakers, because the song Rosanna is really enjoyable if you can decipher all of the instruments (drums, sax, bass, keyboard, piano, guitar, trumpets, congo)

PPS - I had to post this comment. Thats Rosanna shuffle or Porcaro shuffle!

Of Books and reading

 As I was caught up with work and work in the past month, I could not write, but that did not stop me from reading, it was three months into 2021 and my play station was keeping me busy.

But once Far Cry 5 got over, yeah I completed playing the full story, I was on the look out for more PS4 games. But most of them were and are expensive. Mafia definitive edition, Sniper Elite 4, Sniper Elite 3, Dirt rally 2.0.

So decided to read something with the available time, also, was tired of seeing monitor for long that, I did want to change that, though ironically, kindle too is a digital device. But no complaints.

Read - Jim Corbett, Edd China, autobiography, am reading Rudyard Kilpling autobiography - which happens to be cut short.

Have also purchased and downloaded multiple books,

1. Theft of India.

2. The Hindoo Holiday

3. Agatha Christie - Mysterious affair at Styles.

Best part of all the three books are they are based on-or before Victorian era. I am as always curious of life when technology was bare minimum. Reading Kipling's autobiography reminds me that alongside technology, medicine too was still premature, going by his description of pandemics, sad, but true.

I always regretted not having read much Agatha Christie, now is the time to reclaim I feel. There are many more titles on my kindle, but short of time.

Also today, got Hitman First Edition delivered for my Play station, so this will be my next game which I shall play. Hopefully I get to write as well.

Cheers,

Back to writing something and reading something.

 Got some time today to do some personal work on my personal computer, else weekdays its just work and shut off. When day becomes so mundane where in you get up, work and finish, starting up with personal blog post work seems to be a lazy thought. I have been a bit busy last month.

But I managed to sneak in sufficient time to read couple of books. Jim Corbett book on People of India was a decent one, and then managed to read autobiography of Edd China.

I was a bit disappointed with Edd China's book. I was a huge fan of Edd China in Wheeler Dealers. So much about cars, I learnt from Edd. But autobiography of Edd showed very less on his personal side and more on his prowess during his teenage and grad years. 

The book fails to provide the same kick that Wheeler Dealer show provided, where Edd not only explained the mechanical aspects of car, but also the physics involved and the engineering which was built around the concepts of physics. The book is all show and sadly no go.

But still looking forward to Edd's youtube channel - Grease Junkie, the last Friday episode was an interesting one. 

Mind you, I am still a fan of Edd China and his English, lots to learn apart from cars :) Impressive work ethics and loads of patience!

Below is the link - 

Pet shop boys - Always on my mind

Pet shop boys played a big part during my childhood be it MTV or tape, 

My father brought the tape of the Pet Shop Boys - Album Very and this album had songs which definitely help me make some good memories. I felt almost all songs were VERY good :) Mind you this was 1993-94!

I can never forget the song Liberation and Go West. I always wondered, what liberation meant. But I was more intrigued by the video which would consistently play on MTV early in the morning or breakfast time.  I loved the song Young Offender and Can you forgive her. Loads of meaning, loads of memories playing them again and again. And guess what these songs have never left me :)

Added song is one such special one which has loads of meaning, 

Elvis magic with words and voiced out by these gentleman from England! 

One of the youtube video comment said that, British song videos are as good as Short films. Its 34 years to this song and it kind of feels it never aged.

I love the characters in the video - the grumpy character played by Joss Ackland, Chris Lowe who seem to be expressionless while driving and only rolling eyes and Neil Tenant trying to stay calm during the drive whilst getting spooked by the old man's behavior. None the less a short story amongst itself. 

https://youtu.be/wDe60CbIagg

The humor of being a bilingual illiterate was indeed very well crafted, reminded me of Kipling though :)

Cheers

PS - I wish to learn, not to react at all from Chris Lowe - come what may - Not reacting saves so much of time, being quiet saves so much of time, and Chris Lowe does it to perfection, even though its scripted!

3 months into 2021

 Three months into 2021, I make a blog post. Well last three months have been a bit busy. Not about work, work was always there. I was actually catching up with an interest of mine, which I had long taken a backseat. 

As a kid, I used to enjoy playing video games, the 2d ones, though they were not that accessible to us. I used to see friends playing mario, super mario, duck hunting etc etc. I did get a PC but apparently, it never played all the games. 

Finally life became a little bit more serious around 1997 my computer got outdated shortly as PC's were making a huge leap. And then I was into engineering studies, I got a PC with a moderately okish video card, and played few games. 

But again, games took a backseat, due to the advanced progress of hardware consumption by the games then. Games like GTA3 and Mafia weren't playable on my computer and I just gave up.

In the year 2010, with much debate, I got a new PC built - with a graphics card which was almost latest to that day worth 9k, NVidia Geforce. But again, I had to relocate to Singapore and my gaming interests came to a halt.  

In Singapore, thought of a PSP - but again, monetary wise made me not put in 300 SD for a PSP and then again for mods. 

Finally in the year 2018, I got a PS4, 500 GB one. And then I started playing. Few days later purchased GTA5. I played for sometime, completed 20% then lost interest in not only GTA 5 but also PS4.

Reason being, GTA5 had become so violent and vulgar that I could not play it in front of the HD TV. I had to play with full privacy because of the foul language being used every now and then in GTA5 and some of the vulgar scenes which needed more than parental discretion.

I did not have a monitor which supported PS4 output, instead of buying one outright, I decided to buy contraptions to connect my VGA monitor to PS4. Again I lost months. Finally I was able to connect my old monitor to new PS4. Success at last but again short lived.

Since I was working from home as well, I needed a monitor to work, connecting-re-connecting monitor for PS4 was not a smooth act because, the VGA to HDMI converter needed to be powered as well.  So it was a huge chore wiring and unwiring. 

I had loads of excuses for not playing PS4. Now enter the lockdown had sufficient time to gather myself and focus on playing.

But the final push came in the form of a video by Misha on youtube where Robert Kubica was driving a BMW on the Nurburging. 

I realized if Robert Kubica can come through and thrash a car, on one of the longest and most difficult tracks that too single handedly,  my excuses were just silly. If I really wanted to play, all my excuses were just bullshit.

I shared the Misha video of Kubica, to couple of people. But none appreciated the video rather watched it. But for me it was the turning point. May be they do not know what Kubica went through before. 

After watching the video for a good 6-7 times, I could not resist ordering Dirt 4, Dirt Rally 2.0 was told to be difficult and unplayable. So got Dirt 4 which was a bit simpler.

Played career mode of dirt 4 like crazy and went on to complete career mode 94%. There are few rallies pending using classic cars and Group B cars on Dirt 4 which I am yet to complete.

I did not play classic cars because they are too slow and Group B cars are too fast. I cannot manage Group B cars from PS4 controller. I wish I had a steering wheel :). But again, wishful thinking.

While watching dirt videos on youtube, I came across a youtuber and a gamer TheRadBrad and after watching couple of his videos, I ended up on a video of Far Cry 5. 

I was so impressed with the game and what it could do rather what I could do within the game, that I ended up watching almost 20 videos in 3-4 days. Finally when I checked out the price of the game, it turned out to be 1.2k INR. 

It was a steal, such a huge massive game for 1.2k? OMG - I ordered it, I was skeptical that it would be difficult for me to play because of the PS4 controller. One of the reasons I left GTA5 mid way was because of my poor accuracy with aiming using controller. 

I am a guy who uses mouse and keeps my hand grounded. So there is no question of Z axis for me. With controller my hand is suspended in air and there is an added Z axis which makes my hand float freely in the air. Imagine the joystick ball movement with a suspended hand versus mouse movement with your hands grounded on the desk. Mouse wins downright!

In other words, there is no support or frame to hold or rest my elbow so that I can take an aim. This hurt me badly. My chances to play were almost reduced by a good 65%. I had to counter this. 

My friend even told me, this would always be a problem, and its something which you should have thought of before investing 30k in PS4. Well, at this moment, I was a bit confused on what to do.

But I had no option, after seeing THeRadBrad far cry 5 tempting videos, I had to play, even if it came at a cost of 100 hours of practice.

It did not need 100 hours of practice. But a good 10 hour practice made me comfortable with aiming and shooting using the controller. 

I remember, initially i got spooked when I got shot at killed or got attacked by wild animals in the game that too in the dark. Imagine it all being dark, you get attacked and the controller starts vibrating, it was kind of scary. But then disabled the vibration and continued.

Meanwhile, my company sponsored me a monitor, with a budget of 12k and I got a LG monitor which is ultrawide and 25 inch. So there you go, I got a monitor which accepts HDMI input and had a spare set of speakers. Now only thing I had to do was to plug and unplug PS4 each time and I joyfully did that.

Two different spaces within my room one for PS4 and other for work and finally I was able to achieve what I had thought of. So over the last 2 months, I played and played and played.

Today as I completely finished Far Cry 5, I look back a bit emotional about the time, I spent on it, practicing, enjoying doing every possible act in the game. 

That is the main reason, I could not read, nor write, I just used to work, play Far Cry 5, few days it was too over whelming, I got headache on couple of days because I played a bit too much. Rest of the days, I ended up getting dreams of the areas and actions of the game in my sleep. 

But all in all, after Feluda series by Satyajit Ray, Far Cry 5 was something which kept me hooked, and I am going to miss all of the characters in it. Rook/Tammy/Pratt/ and my co-ops Nick Rye, Grace, Hurk, Boomer, Peaches, Cheeseburger and others!

I have a new game which I am checking out to buy. Sniper Elite 4 but again, its expensive, will have to wait for its price to come down. Have got a game Gran Tourismo 4 at Rs 796 which is rather less expensive and started playing it today. But Sniper Elite 4 it will be next.

In the meanwhile, I also checked out few games which turned out to be super expensive buy.

Mafia Definitive Edition 1.9k, 

WRC8 - 1.8k, 

Dirt Rally 2.0 - 1.8k,

Hitman definitive edition - 1.9k

Sniper Elite 2.2k

Red dead redemption - 2.1k

Snow runner - Not available in India - in US probably 40USD I suppose not sure.

Would love to play Hitman but who would pay so much price for an old title? 

Until the price comes down, I shall play Gran Tourismo and probably read and write!

Cheers,   

When my office sponsored me a new monitor - WFH benefit

 My office announced a new WFH benefit a second one worth Rs 12k, but the clause was that, this shall be provided only upon purchase of an entity for the WFH aid. And if a person leaves an organization before 1 year, he has to pay it back.

I was initially hesitant to buy something, but then, I thought, what if I buy a new monitor, would serve 3 purposes altogther.

 - Monitor with HDMI output aids in PS4 gaming.

- Bigger monitor aids working environment.

- Can run - deskop + office laptop + PS4 all three simultaneously.

So got myself a 25 inch LG monitor worth Rs 12.5k. It definitely helps me in PS4 gaming!

Work wise, well, it helps me too :)

Cheers!

 Attaching the pic!

Getting back to PS4 - what inspired me!

 These days, apart from my routine office work, a bit of reading and few other things, I do also play on my PS4. The time spent on my PS4 was a bit less over the last year, owing to lots of things, one of them, being, 

- the need to sit in front of monitor already for work, PS4 needed extended hours of time in front of monitor, which I felt drove me away a bit.

- monitor - I had a difficult time connecting my monitor to PS4 as it never had a HDMI input, and my PS4 had only HDMI output, I needed to convert HDMI to a VGA input and that converter had a power adapter add on, this HDMI output from PS4 also carried sound so needed a Auxillary cable which went from (HDMI to VGA) converter into the speaker.

- playing racing games on a PS4 controller without steering, I felt uneasy and cumbersome.

With all these hindrances of plugging I could not play as much as I wanted to. But then, recently I purchased a new game Dirt 4, but never mentioned why I did purchase the game.

I generally watch quite a bit of videos on youtube, about food, PS4 games, few on racing etc etc.

Youtube, prompted me a video on my recommendations which was new and it was about a F1 driver, driving BMW M4 on Nuburgring in Germany.

The driver was none other than Robert Kubica. The video was special and very special indeed. It prompted me to go back. 

Robert Kubica had a horrible accident where there was a major impact to his right hand. 

He made a come back to F1 which can be considered as an epic one, not that he went on to win etc etc, but the spirit of fightback he brought into the game is just immense. 

If someone can come back and drive an F1 car with a hand injury, I felt, this man knows no excuse. 

[You can read about Robert Kubica's rally injury on the internet] 

I realized all of the above mentioned points of mine, were just a stupid excuse. I purchased a dirt 4 game the very next day of watching the video and I started playing, and in few hours, I got good hang of it.

Though I cannot drive cleanly in any of the stages, in the rally game, I usually end up winning with some damage on the car, but thats okay, I am back to playing!

Before ending the post, my heart felt respect to Sir Robert Kubica, Keep inspiring!

Cheers,

If you want to watch the video - its over here below.

Failed to open my laptop - Part 2

 The last post of mine was a month back where in I was attempting to open my laptop to disconnect the keyboard, so that, I can start to use it again. I was under the impression that the keyboard was faulty.

I had failed to open and as I had plenty of things on my mind, I left it as it is where it was and now almost a month later, I come back to it to see what best I can do with it.

Co-incidentally, I do have a desktop computer which has windows vista which is equally unused and now all the softwares over there are outdated and it needs a fresh OS installation to just make it usable.

 So, considering, I do not have a bootable USB having windows 10 OS, I thought of asking a professional to do the installation in exchange for some money which would save me time. The so called professional who I was in touch absconded at the last moment, may be, because this whole exercise was not so profitable for him. He might cater only to big business now.

So, I thought until, I find a new vendor or bring in a bootable OS myself, let me make try my luck with the partially opened laptop.

And voila, I had it partially opened, partially detached the keyboard with one screw still sticking, and when I boot it guess what happened, the beep sound vanished and it successfully booted.

Though the keyboard does not work, as I type this from the same laptop, I am using a USB keyboard, which works out like a charm.

So, I am back in business :) at least until the time this laptop boots up and is running... I got loads to write and a month pending in a year. Let me try to write as much as I can. 

Cheers!

Failed attempt to open my laptop

 Quite recently I figured out my laptop had a keyboard issue and thought to myself, if i could open my and unplug keyboard on my laptop, I would be able to use it using a USB keyboard instead of completely discarding the laptop usage.

So, I ordered a laptop repair kit online, and set out unscrewing. After removing three screws the main screw bolted to the mother board refused to budge and it left me totally frustrated. This was one of the reason for me not writing these many days.

A state of cluelessness had covered me, where in I just did not know what to do. I have precious data on my computer which I cannot format without taking backup. My backup hard disk has become unusable and I do not want to invest money on a backup disk, reason being, I do not need one.

I thought if I could fix my laptop and move its data around and format it, I would be good to go with blogging my mind out. But nope, no such luck, and I am back to square one. 

That is cribbing!

Cheers,

My new PS-4 title - Dirt 4

 I ordered a new game for PS4 and it arrived within a day, reason being, the seller was from Bangalore. It is Dirt4. It is a game which I wanted to buy few months ago. I remember the game was costing 4k an year back. Now the cost has come down, I got to buy it at a lesser price.

Price is not the only reason I was buying this. I wanted to play this game on PS4 because I was bored of all the games I have.

1. GTA5  - too lengthy missions and play time makes me play less. Plus joystick controls make me not achieve good results in mission instead just scrape to completion. 

2. Project Cars2 - I infact love this game. But after a while, I have advanced in career mode and driving with joystick and controller makes driving hard. The car just skids and is out of traction and control. I am unable to proceed to win races.

3. Call of Duty - Well - Stuck in a level which involves flying a ridiculous aeroplane. I can never clear this. Plus COD - missions appear to be less intuitive and fulfilling. 

4. Unchartered - have multiple discs which I haven't opened. COD has left me bored. Do not want another shooting game.

Planning to order cricket for PS4.

Recently I was speaking with someone on a steering wheel for PS4 to play driving games. But then, considering, how much I play and many things which I have in mind, apart from playing on PS4, makes me not to invest such a huge amount on a steering wheel.

Cheers,

For now, started playing Dirt4, for an hour today. got free time during office hours, while my other team members were busy with their own self induced production or release issue, caused by their own stupidity. Well, atleast they left me unbugged for a day with peace.

Deletion of quora account

 It might be my second or third time around, that I am deleting my quora account. I had re-logged into quora for some specific reason not sure around few months back and I had decided not to read much on quora. 

But during lockdown, I started reading on quora again, because lockdown gave me ample time to attend meetings and it was during meetings that I was spending time reading on quora.

At one point in time, I felt it was too much of content which was made freely available. Most of the content was of no use to me nor it aided me in any way plus, it wasn't written by anyone famous or by any best selling author.

I figured out, anyone and everyone who wanted to become a writer, improve his or her writing skills used to write crappy answers and I was being used as a guinea pig in the form of reader.

So, it was high time, I put an end to it, and hence chose to do so. 

No more quora time in future, yippy!

Cheers,

After some time

I have not been writing as much as I wanted to, owing to lack of equipment. I do not have a proper personal computer to make an entry and using a borrowed setup which itself has a weird feel to it, makes me write less. 

None the less, I have made up my mind to post multiple things tonight, let me do justice to it!

There are a multitude of things which have happened over the last 3 weeks. I have to make a list of all the posts in the beginning so that I do not forget about it. And those are the things which shall come out in different posts.

1. Deletion of quora account (yet again).

2. Dr SPB and his influence coupled with childhood memories.

3. Fleetwood Mac band - Rumours of FM, skateboard guy.

4. Office work.

5. Thinking of writing in a diary.

6. Recent ad on television on coding for kids - 6 year olds and marketing gimmicks.

7. My new PS4 title - Dirt 4.

8. Failed attempt to open up my laptop.

9. Failed attempt to read a self help book, rather failing to read anything after Feluda and Satyajit Ray.

He and she

 He 

He needs your love and not your silence,

He needs your company and not your violence,

He finds it hard to balance,

When he finds coming closer has an expense,

He, 

with feelings so vast and dense,

Waits for an acceptance,

She, 

who guards her feelings with a fence,

Each day strengthening the defence,

Hiding her real emotions in every sense,

missing his presence,

Not a hint of visible hurt essence,

And finally the day arrives to end the suspense,

And 

It's she who calls it ego, taunt, sarcasm of the past, causing an incense,

he, who all the while, was only wanting to hear words of romance, 

is more than willing to acknowledge the lesson of common sense,

He still waits for her words of confession, with all the effervescence,

and probably will wait for-ever with all his innocence :)

#1001 blogpost - Favorite Song - Sting - Fields of Gold

 

Another favorite song from Sting - I still remember listening to this song on the radio- back in 2002, when there was no youtube, this song was still a rage. Though its from 1992 a good decade earlier.

Guitar of Dominic Miller is nothing less than soothing!

Cheers,

PS - I have clocked 1000 posts - though few of them are in drafts, but over all, this happens to be 1001th post!. Pat on my back, doing what I love!

Sting - Seven Days - Favorite Song

 

Seven Days - this song by Sting - is one of my favorites. It started out with trying to get a hang of the beautiful lyrics. But then if you see the video, its the drumming which is beautiful. I know its a team performance. 

Believe me, the drumming is special and I only noticed it after reading the comments then listening to it over a good headset. Now as I write this post, I am listening to it with a good speaker and high bass setting. Mind you, Sting is playing bass guitar.

Drummer is Vinnie Colauita - The beauty of the drumming is - how he uses up almost all the cymbals he has over there - and the high hat and tom-tom as well! "No show instead all go".

Now I wonder - knowing how to drum is different - but - key to getting noticed is a pair of legendary artists like Sting and Dominic Miller, and the keyboard player, forgot name - its team work after all :)

Cheers,

Break from blogging - past three months - Part 6 - Exercise

 I think, exercise is something, which was very crucial to me for the last 6 years. I had to forego regular gym workouts during this lockdown. I do feel bad, not being able to workout. But gyms have opened recently, also working out at home needs a bit more seriousness which I currently do not or did not have.

I do have maintained a regular schedule of running and controlled eating over the past few months, which has made me realize that, I still fit into my older trousers, though I haven't tried all of them.

Our gym has opened. People have started coming, but the fear still looms and I have chosen to wait and then re-join gym. But in a way - I have got a break from the regular routine of exercise.

Let's hope things get better.

Cheers,

Break from blogging - past three months - Part 5 - Work

 Taking a break from blogging, would let me have lots of time for work. One the work front, I was working on a parallel project which failed to take off, instead got restricted to one business unit and I stopped working on the same.

The mainstream project ran into a bit of anarchy and work was not that enjoyable. It became a daily routine and it can be attributed to few people who have misled the management and other people. So now, the damage has been done and these people have jumped off the ship and moved to a different team.

So gate keeping code post release has come to me and one more guy in the team, who is a fresher. This has not only brought down my morale, also, after working in a high standard German project, looking at bad standards of coding and designing makes me feel frustrated, yet, I cannot vent it out anywhere nor bring about a change.

Reason? - reason being seniority, people misleading the effort are all established folks in the project and management looks to them for answers :) So, playing wait and watch game, and waiting for an opportunity to scrap bad pieces of code and re-write to my own satisfaction in coming days. If that ever happens, imagine - sleepless night and tight deadlines. Until then, its just routine work!

So, work wise there is work, just that, not so challenging!

Cheers! 

Favorite Song - Fleetwood Mac - Sara

 

This song is very special to me or rather its very special. I had shared the song with few people, and asked if they could figure out something attractive or different or unique about the song. 

Irony is nobody listened to the song, forget identifying something unique or attractive. I always I have wondered my tastes in music haven't met a match or a similar person in my known circle. 

Believe it or not, when my German colleague shared a Fleetwood Mac album as his favorite on Facebook - boom, I realized, I finally found one person who shares a common musical interest, be it Fleetwood Mac or be it Pink Floyd! (Though I am not a huge fan of Floyd - just a okie dokie fan).

I am a huge fan of Fleetwood Mac, and I consider it to be the World's #1 most under rated band ever.

Let me come to the song as is, before I forget the intention of the whole post. 

1. I initially felt the song to be unique because of the lyrics which was telling a story about personal lives of the band mates.

2. Then I saw the video and heard the singing of Stevie - I kind of liked the way - Stevie pronounced the phrase - "Sea of Love". So I felt, this could be the highlight of the song.

3. But then in the beginning of the song - in the video - I could see - Stevie trying to move her shoulders and dance trying to groove to the tune, which again I felt was very special and thought as the highlight of the song. She's fully covered and trying to move shoulder and hips looks very petite and pretty.  

4. Christine McVie's hands on the piano play was too good, so I thought this overshadows everything else.

5. Then I felt, Lindsay's guitar picking too felt too good which again over shadowed the above points.

6. But then again, I found something more concrete and more attractive. In the song, Stevie does backing vocals too, which sounds amazing and she's full of confidence. All the other versions of the same song, have other people doing backing vocals, but here, starting at 2:05, Stevie herself does backing vocals. Believe me doing singing and backing vocals during live program - you need to be at your best. So this fitted to be the highlight of the song and very well it was for sometime.

But then again, I listened to the remastered version of this song on my mobile using a good headset and boy what I observed was something totally different, then I felt, I had to write about it.

I have covered most instruments in the song, except two, John's bass guitar and Mick's drums. John's guitar gets overshadowed by Mick's drums.

So, finally I realized the highlight of the song was the drums and you need to carefully observe why the drums are the highlight over here. The sound of the drums are very distinct over here.

Listening to the sound and watching the video, you realize, the instruments used are ::

- bass drum - high hat - and a floor drum

If you see, how Mick is playing the drum set, it needs two feet and two hands all occupied. 

A leg for bass drum, a leg for high hat, 

two hands for floor drums.

Imagine all four playing throughout the song in sync with one another and in sync with singing and other instruments - o boy - there you get your answer.

Mick's drumming was the most difficult part, because, two hands and two legs have to co-ordinate amongst themselves, before they co-ordinate with others and instruments. 

Again no credits stolen from Stevie - who now happens to the only woman to be inducted into RocknRoll hall of fame 2 times! Its her song!

I have listened to the song multiple times and each time, the bass drum just impresses me more and more! Mind you, you need to have a good speaker, headphone or sound system to get impressed!

Imagine, how much practice is needed to get to this level of perfection, and yet you see the effortless drumming of Mick, Mick my respect to you! 

Cheers to Mick! 

Glad I got this post through, waiting in line for over 3 weeks.

Break from blogging - past three months - Part 4 - Reading

 The year 2020 has gone, pretty well, in terms of reading, up until the last couple of months. I do not know, its called the what syndrome, but something affected my reading. 

One reason again, could be too much interaction with people, which I definitely have to put it on top of my list. It does hamper when your work gets into your after work hours.

Also, there was one post on pinterest which said - there are times, you wish a book would never end. I think I recently went through such a phenomenon. 

Couple of months back, I finished reading adventures of Feluda by Satyajit Ray and believe me, Feluda and Topshe had become like family to me, knowing there would be no more of their adventures, meaning, I had read them all, turned out to be very disappointing and rather heartbreaking.

It has been difficult to move on to any story which has no presence of Feluda. Such was the charm of Satyajit Ray's writing that, I do not feel like reading anything else. The same had happened post my reading of Tintin, but back then, I was a kid and I had an option of playing in mud just to forget the unavailability of more Tintin stories. But now, this year especially, it was tough.. I shall write a post on the Adventures of Feluda later, but this was and is the primary reason for reading less.

Though I started reading autobiography of Goggins, I could not make much progress. I have recently started reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, let me see, if I can pickup some pace on it.

Many more books lined up, I do have set of short stories by Satyajit Ray himself, but knowing it won't be Feluda - feels kinda sad - 1500 pages of Felu babu, LalMohan and Topshe was indeed pure pleasure, if not anything else,

Cheers to Satyajit Ray!

Break from blogging - past three months - Part 3 - Play Station

 I tried playing post work - But again - there were couple of reasons which made this activity of mine take a backseat. 

1. I do not have a spare monitor to play. I can connect to a television to play but the aiming of a weapon on a 40+ inch TV is too difficult. So I thought I would stick to a 21 inch monitor. Considering, I use the same monitor for work, plug and play of play station each time is an effort in itself. So not having a permanent place for playstation makes me play less. 

I shall someday buy a new monitor and play without any fuss :), which by the way is again a luxury :)

2. Headaches - After a whole week in front of PC, spending hours in front of PS4 got me headache. Plus play station needs concentration and thought process to be running. It needs energy too. Most of the times, I do not have that bubbly self to engage in a game of GTA5- which would require me to drive a car through the city of Los Santos - and completing missions is kind of lengthy. Will do it some day soon! Until then procrastination :)

Cheers!

Break from blogging - past three months - Part 2 - Writing

 My writing has taken a hit during these three months owing to office work. Yes, if you think I am over working, no I am not. I am working on time. But there are multiple causes which make me spend less time on writing.

1. Meetings run into hours. Listening to meeting makes you sick in the stomach. Listening to people speak meaningless stuffs - definitely is not my cup of tea. We had so many meetings in the last 2-3 months that, each time the day gets over, I really do not have sufficient energy to go back and write more. So I have avoided writing.

By the way - today completed a 3 hour meeting today - from 10 30 to 1 30 - Imagine sitting and listening to people speaking for this much time. Luckily, for me, I was cleaning my room and shelves on the side, it was bearable. I cleaned up so much of stuff and re-organized stuff that made me so happy. and for the three hour meeting- yeah - I had to speak few lines in the middle - but do I care - if people keep on speaking and I just roam around my room doing my stuffs.

If anyone asks me a question, when I am not in my seat, its their headache :), I politely ask them to repeat, once I hear my name, few times, I just ignore and hesitate to un-mute - again, its their headache :)  

2. Seeing computer screen through out the day itself is an activity in itself. Well, yes, how much ever the monitor is good, it is a pain to see monitor for longer duration, so writing post work seeing monitor took a back seat. Today, I had to write, so forcing myself to come out of my shell :)

3. Microsoft Teams on the phone - I recently installed Teams application on the phone and I get freedom from my PC. If there is a meeting, I just lay on my bed with the phone and let people talk whatever they want :)

4. My writing set up is gone so bad that, I do not have a personal computer to write or blog. I am now writing on a borrowed laptop, whose keyboard layout my fingers are refusing to accept. The placement of keys and size of few keys are very crucial for longer typing. 

People like me using Lenovo laptops might find it difficult to adjust to HP laptops. It might take time, but I do not have the luxury of training myself on different keyboards available at home :).

I have a desktop which has Windows Vista operating system which unfortunately is outdated and I am unable to update my browser. Without an updated browser - I cannot browse websites - even blogger. So my hands are tied with my personal computer. 

With my laptop, well, it is making beep noises, indicating some fault, I have ordered a laptop repair kit, hopefully, I can open it up throw away the faulty keyboard - and try to re-use it to my satisfaction. It has served a good 10 years.

5. My writing has also taken a back seat - because - I have been taking time off to cook. There have been many dishes which I have cooked, may be sometime later I shall tell.

6. I have been interacting with people more (be it official or unofficial), that I have failed to interact with myself. So this definitely has hampered my writing, as you end up listening to people more instead of listening to yourself more.

One of my favorite shows on Fox Life - was "Tales from the Bush Larder" with Kiran Jethwa. On one such episodes, he introduced one of his fellow colleagues, I guess his name was Sam or Sammy. This scene was shot in his hotel at the end of a particular episode, where he gathers stuff from his place and cooks a variation in his restaurant. 

So what is special about this scene is that, Kiran the anchor speaks about food, flavors, spices etc while his colleague Sam stays silent and watches on. Kiran later asks Sam a question and Sam replies with minimal words for which Kiran says - "Sam is a man of few words". 

I think this was one of my favorite scenes of the whole series, because - I wish to emulate Sam. I feel, I am a man of few words, and I wish to remind myself of the same again and again. 

Over the past few months, I have ended up speaking so much more that, at one time, my throat just went dry and the other time, I ended up getting frustrated in a meeting, because of the stupidity of few people :) 

Wait a minute, recently, someone lectured me on not judging people :) - Let me get the facts right,

I have judged people stupid, the anchor Kiran calls his colleague man of few words right on television, isn't that judgement? I have even called out someone as dumb :)

The heart of the matter (which again was told and asserted to me again by someone else) is that, you cannot let someone else change the way you behave or make you think. 

At the max I can do is to reduce spending my time with people who try to overpower my thoughts, and continue to behave my own self :) and regarding getting lectured on not to judge people, well, that's for another day!

Meanwhile, I have to watch few stuffs on youtube, which I will write down in my next post.

Cheers,

Attaching a pic of my borrowed laptop - and my setup, which I am really proud of. Listening to Don Henley  - Boys of summer with a good bass thump! 

If you think the chair is new owing to the polythene cover - you are wrong - its almost 2 year old - and the setup desk itself is 2 year old. I had a good WFH setup prior itself, because, there was a point where in, I knew I could be better productive at home itself, if I had a good arsenal :)