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,