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Finally life became a little bit more serious around 1997 my computer got outdated shortly as PC's were making a huge leap.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 :)

Break from blogging - past three months - Part 1

Writing after three months. Well. Somewhere I had to start. I have been contemplating to write for almost 3 weeks now and days just fly by. Most of the times I end up writing nothing. So today finally made up my mind to write. Cleanse out some of the thoughts which have accumulated over months. I thought of writing 100 posts for the year 2020. But that's still a long way to go. 

There are plenty of reasons for me not to post during this time. There have been many things which I have not ended up doing in the last couple of months and now when I look back, I feel kinda disheartened because of the lost time. 

There is a saying which goes - "Life should be lived forwards and understood backwards".. I recently was conversing with someone who said - they did not want to go backwards in life to understand or whatever they felt. Its up to them. 

But for me, most of my learning has been based on backward contemplation. So before I get into the few newer posts, I thought of contemplating as to what happened to different pieces of my interests during this period of lock down.

I am thinking of spacing them across multiple posts.. I myself find it hard to read one lengthy posts. So will do a multiple post for my convenience.

Cheers, 

How do I blog during quarantine :)

I just wanted to lwrite about how I blog during quarantine :)

I have a weird setup at home, I have an office laptop where I work during office hours and I wish not to blog from the same laptop.

Instead I wish for my personal laptop, which happens to be refusing booting due to a faulty keyboard and keeps beeping. I do not have a laptop repair kit to remove the keyboard and make the sound disappear and can't get one due to lock down.

So I use a desktop which had multiple issues.
One of the cooling fan out of 3, was not working, and I removed it and figured out the winding had completely gone and fan was not spinning. My father had removed a fan from defunct SMPS. So I got him the old fan rewired to the new fan wire and fitted it within the CPU, luckily the frame looked oddly similar if not completely same.

Then there was issue with BIOS where in the operating system was not booting hence removed the battery and did a start to realize the battery is completely out and it wont recognize any stored dates. Now I have to set dates each time I boot the machine. Else youtube throws up a date error saying date out of sync from the browser.

How do I connect to the internet. Since the desktop is far from the router, I have no cable and only option to connect through USB tethering and I use my old spare Redmi 1S mobile to connect because I need to use my main mobile Redmi Note 5, while on bed and attend calls if any, so why to plug unplug multiple times :)

After all these attempts succeeded, I have been able to post last few posts.

But now the keyboard looks so hard and monitor looks so small that I am losing much gained back interest. Let me see how it goes, for now happy with this setup :)

All this to ensure not to blog from office laptop, reason being, I connect to VPN almost all the time, why to give chance to office guys to monitor!

Cheers,