Blogger's Block

One may call it another chic excuse for not having blogged in a long time as against the drab I-was-very-busy and I-was-getting-married-and-honeymooning-in-Switzerland and I-was-trying-to-strike-a-work-life-balance excuses. Or one may dismiss it with the arguement that just because there is a term like that, you'd like to term your inactivity Blogger's block. And that just because you read about a condition like that, you'd condition yourself to being afflicted by it.

The condition of Writer's block, in its originality, doesn't apply to blogging, at least to Rambling Mutterings, but then I need something to mutter and scribble to break this spell of inactivity, and what is a better way of overcoming the Blogger's block by blogging about the Blogger's block. A little off track, here is a good list of tips I found for beating it.

The last time I couldn't blog for a long time I had attributed it to quarter-life-crisis. Things are pretty different now. I am happily married, have enough workload to keep me busy at work, have lots to write and share, especially in the travelogue part of my blog (yes, Switzerland indeed!), experiences of my new life and all; there are a few draft posts sitting in my blogger account that I did not complete and post lest they should have shooed away prospective brides. I had taken resolve in my last post three months ago, that was one after a gap of two months, that I shall try to post at least once a week. Almost all my readers have asked me at least once about my next post. I had many things and lots of reasons and enough time and peace of mind.

I still couldn't write.

If I try to analyse and list down reasons for it (in order to justify it to myself):

• I actually had no time when I was taking nuptial vows and was touring the Alpine land.
• Nocturnal habits die hard. I realized I was more creative in the dark, and now the nights are not that free, not that I complain.
• I used to look forward to a large chunk of time to write a new blogpost: composing, Googling and Wikiing, editing, and then posting all in one go. Drafts remain drafts for ever. Don't get those large chunks now.
• I try to come up with a well-written, complete piece of essay-like post, half-baked, hurriedly written posts are something I don't want to do.
• Didn't watch any movies, thanks to the multiplex-owners' strike and an almost diminished torrent-downloading interest among colleagues, else would have come up with some interesting movie reviews.
• I have too many topics to write upon, so when I pick up the pen, I lose interest by the time I decide which one to begin with.
• Time and again, I have this urge to split up my blog into many, a travelogue, a movie review blog, a personal one, a photography one etc. This thought hinders me from writing under the general Rambling Mutterings umbrella.

and so on and so forth.

Let me wait and see if I am able to produce more posts soon. To start with, this one is an incomplete post ending with an incomplete senten

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Ashes' Rashez

When I analyze the above graph that depicts the number of posts on my blog per month, retrospect on my state of mind, and read my previous posts, it gives, to some extent, an indication of my stress level over the past 21 months. There have been many months when I posted quite frequently, and when I look back, I find that I was stressed, frustrated, or depressed. That I was real busy and not low was only for the months of Feb and April 08. Blogging came as a real help for most of the other times. Writing gives me the kicks and acts as an anti-depressant. Related viral activities like Googling or Wikiing when required also helped keep the devil away from an empty mind.

Q4, 2008 saw me getting inclined towards reviewing movies, which was useful in killing up a huge chunk of my free time in more ways than one. Watch movies, explore IMDB and wiki etc, write reviews, find out more related movies, download them, watch them and review them again, thereby creating a circle I was very happy with. People started liking my reviews and I started getting requests for more reviews, making new friends in the process. Rambling Mutterings was proving to be a friend in need, indeed.

The onset of 2009 saw me giving lesser time for this friend I visited every few hours, and then one fine day, I abruptly didn't feel the need. No time for getting stressed/depressed. Rambling Mutterings did not complain but its readers did. Despite getting multiple reminders from many of you in the forms of comments, emails, and IMs, I didn't keep the friend whose existence depends on me. I had so many plans (ideas to write about) for it but nothing materialized.

There is a beautiful reason called 'rashez' behind the neglect, and I am not at all sorry. It’s a month and a half that I met her for the first time. I still remember the way she turned, bouncing her hair back, when I called from within my car waiting for her at MG Road. She was a bit lost initially but then grew comfortable by the end of our first date and things have never been the same since then.

Not only are our names similar and our birthdays concur, but our behaviour, likes-dislikes, and tastes match to quite an extent. We even share the same fooding habits; we have exactly similar favorites, though I need to develop in her a taste for Italian food, and teach her using chopsticks. I enjoy spending time with her, teasing her, irritating her, and then going back appeasing her. We love and quarrel, and keep pulling each other’s leg, I over her अशुद्ध हिन्दी, and she over my lots of other things.

Our story is more like an express, things clicked and everything happened so fast, we have already become the closest of friends. We have shared so much, gotten so close, that we often feel we’ve known each other for ages. I know she is The One. The One I can spend the rest of my life happily. I only wish I had met her earlier.

Anyway, I am not going to forget this good friend and would be loyal to it. Shall visit regularly and though I cannot promise, I shall try to write one post a week. Or lets start with three a month.

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Conspiracy

Ok, like the last time I participated in Cuckoo's Le Titre in an eleventh-hour-rush, here is my entry for this month's topic: Conspiracy.

Four people conspiring under shadows

Sifting through my photographs, I had found two photos that I sent to someone to help me decide one from, and soon I saw this third one which both of us felt was more appropriate for conspiracy. The reason: four people conspiring in shadows.

This time's participation is better than the last one because I am writing this before the deadline and shall upload the photograph too before the contest closes, unlike last time when I had simply created a blank post and posted the url on the participation, and finished up later.

And this takes me back to the state of mind I was in sitting at that beach in Pondicherry, and though the sea was calm, I had tides within. I was wondering at the effect the sea had on my mind, and was thanking someone (To Whoever it may concern types) that I lived far from the sea.

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Le Titre - I won

Though I later rued (in the update to my previous post) about not choosing and submitting the best pic for the monthly photo competition at Cuckoo's blog, the judges seem to have liked it and awarded my entry as the best photograph of the month under the title Clouds. As the winner, I get this running trophy for a month, and a T-Shirt from Inkfruit.com. :)

I feel honored, to say the least. Thanks Cuckoo!

There were around 15 entries from amateur photographers. I chipped in just in the last minute and did not hope to win the first time I participated. But I think the trick worked :P. The next month's topic is "Life and Death". Let me start rummaging through my archived clicks.

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Clouds

Well, this post comes in like an unplanned baby among many other posts I had in drafts or on my TO-BLO [sic] list. The motivation comes from Cuckoo's request to participate in her monthly photography contest on her photo blog. You participate by creating a post on your blog containing a photo related to the topic for that month, and then posting a comment on the host blog with your blog's url. Here are the rules.

By sheer eleventh-hour-habit, I just drafted this post 3 minutes before the close of contest. And one hour and seventeen minutes later, here I am, having passed my 3000 odd photographs through 4 levels of sieves, but still left with seven photos where I think I did a not-bad job.



I would make the official entry to the contest with the above photograph. However, if Cuckoo wishes to, she is free to consider any one of the pictures below as well for the contest.


[On reader's choice, increased the above photo's size]







Okay, after enough free publicity of Cuckoo's blog, let me shut up and wait for the results. Other readers please let me know which of the above photos you like the most.

[Update(23 September): It seems I made a wrong choice of photos. Everyone who commented seemed to have liked the second one more than the one I chose; it actually makes sense because that shows clouds, the one I chose shows the sky in general, but I liked the colored clouds there.]

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Snakes on a Plane

I was so occupied with the most interesting news last week (the launch of Google Chrome) that I overlooked the second most interesting news: Crew on an Air India passenger jet discovered a snake coiled up under a seat and were unable to catch it as it slithered around the plane.

The snake was discovered on the plane during a routine check on the Air India A319 aircraft, which had landed at Delhi airport after a domestic flight from Srinagar. It evaded capture by slipping into an air vent and could not be found even when staff unscrewed panels inside the fuselage, opened all the doors and fumigated the plane.

The plane takes off for its next flight for Bombay, and scores of snakes appear from all directions creating panic among passengers. A CBI agent on the flight takes charge and devises a plan to expel all snakes from the aircraft.

Okay, the last part is made up and inspired from the Samuel Jackson starrer Snakes on a Plane. But not the part till Delhi airport. The snake was found and then lost on the plane. The airport authorities might not have noticed it unboarding the plane but they did notice it was not a cobra; I fail to see how does that matter.

While trying to read more about the odd incident and trying to find a photo for the post, I hit upon an even more interesting story: Brian Finkelstein becomes a huge fan of Snakes on the Plane as soon as it was announced; he says the name says it all. The common man wants to attend the glitzy Hollywood premiere of the movie, and launches a blog publishing his quest, and hoping someone who has connections to Hollywood might stumble upon his request and help him with a few "table scraps".

Brian's faith is rewarded and his quest accomplished when he receives an official invitation to attend the premiere from Gordon Paddison, a Senior Vice President for New Line Cinema, a major American Studio now acquired by Time Warner.

In due course of 215 days since he began his quest and it was fulfilled, Brian posted 446 stories on his blog, which had 915,000 visitors and 47 millions requests for files (images, comics, and icons), and he had transferred 1.29 terabytes of data. He was interviewed by 3 TV crews and linked by thousands of blogs and over 6,000 other webpages.

Brian became a celebrity from his hard work of 8 months, and his blog became the biggest fan site for the movie. He was invited to the red carpet by the producers of the movie, and a short movie was made on his blog, where he starred too.

The blog is still running even after two years of the release of the rather flop film, functioning as a digital store house of everything the movie is related to, and with snakes on everything now. Though Mr Finkelstein doesn't believe the film is a dud, and why should he about something that changed his life?

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Celeblogs

Gossipmongers are not the only ones blogging. The subjects of gossipers' gossips are also publishing their own gossip online. Writing a blog is in vogue among the nation's who's who these days.

Aamir Khan started blogging a year ago and started with throwing light on some of film making processes, apart from his views on some other things, including his caretaker's pet's royal nomenclature. A much lesser known blog was started by the non-smoker Anurag Kashyap almost a year before Aamir, expressing his passion for cinema, especially his own cinema taking eight years. Amitabh Bachchan joined some two months ago, and has been à la angry-young-man hitting back anyone who says and has said anything against him or his family, including defending L'Oreal's work on his daughter-in-law's Cannes dressing. Ok, ashes was impressed with his writing some time back and had expressed that on his own blog, but now yeh to too much ho gaya yaar.

Next came the aag-baboola Ram Gopal Verma who started up giving dimwitted, (I am sure he believes otherwise) reactions to reactions on anything even remotely related to his movies, and even persuaded the newest and the prettiest member of the Bachchan clan to do the same for him. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was already popular on the web owing to dating site LalooRabri.com, about which the minister had innocently quipped, "Dating maane to?", has now started real politician-style with his blogposts both in Hindi and English, and for the uninitiated, even with an audio podcast.

Shahrukh Khan wrote his first blogpost on his Knight Riders website. I am glad his was strictly business and not about his dog or someone else's dog for that matter. Karan Johar was late in the bandwagon since he couldn't come up with something and had to think for days of what to write in his first post. Thankfully he is not as prolific as the big B; hearing his voice repeatedly in the mind while reading his posts would have made many a young men desert their women.

Mandira Bedi has announced she'll start soon. Let's hope its not about cricket. We've transparently seen too much of it. There are a few more inconspicuous TV actors who've got bored of the Saas-Bahu saga and have found real-life soaps more interesting.

But what brings these celebrities to the keyboard? "Getting close to fans" is the standard reason quoted. Eliminating the middlemen who manipulate the truth is another. Venting out frustration on failures is one of my guesses. Making a fashion statement, fanmail being blocked by secretaries/wives/girlfriends can be other reasons. Joblessness can be an important trigger too, like it is for yours truly.

As with many other things, celebrity-bragging has been prevalent in the First World countries much before than it arrived in India. Bruce Willis, Donald Trump, Jackie Chan, Paris Hilton, Anna Kournikova, Victoria Beckham are a few well-knowns publishing out directly to fans. Here is a list of such celebrities and their blogs, but beware before you look out and click at the eighth item on the list, it is tempting but would lead to disappointment.

But using mute, poor animals against colleagues they call brethren? Ranting out loud? Chronicling one's daily schedule? Discussing sexual preferences? Reality sells you'd opine, but we already have an overdose of it all around us. Yeah, something on the lines of Truman Show would still be welcome, unless Truman Burbank is a tall old man with a white French beard sitting on an Italian commode with a Macbook precariously balanced on his knees typing a blog with single finger.

Bachchan's Big Blog

I am late by a month and you'd already have visited Big B's Big blog at bidadda.com. I came to know of it last week when I surfed upon an interview of Amitabh on CNN-IBN which mainly concentrated on the blog.

Amitabh Bachchan also seems to have reached the power of blogging to interact with his fans, after Aamir Khan, who started blogging a year ago. However, as opposed to Aamir, who generally has short posts, Amitabh writes at length after his first post, and goes on to publish his interviews and views on various things, shares his thoughts and experiences, talks about his family and work, gets pensive at times and ponders over life and its aspects, like a general blooger. And as a celebrity blogger, replies to articles on the press, rectifies and clarifies accusations, rants out against media allegations.


Reading his blogs make you feel so close to him. You feel like he is directly talking to you about normal life routines, and is discussing his problems with you like a friend. He reads comments and responds to them too. Obviously we cannot expect him to respond to each and every of the thousands of comments he gets daily, but he answers to people's queries, thanks them for their appreciations, and clarifies things.

The epitome of humility and downtoearthness that Amitabh is, his blog reflects that. For example, he writes in his 26th April post about Abhi-Ash wedding:

Every member of my entire staff with their families, people who have worked and remained with us for over 30 years, drivers, cleaners, kitchen staff, peons, minders, office bearers, security, helpers - formed the major portion of my (invitation) list. My family, Jaya, Abhishek, Shweta, my grand children and I all sat with them and looked after them, served them food with our own hands and nothing in the world could have given us more pleasure than doing that. For me they were my most important guests.

The blog is much talked about in all forms of media. People wonder why does he have to take the trouble of answering every little matter thrown up by the media and dignifying them. Some daily accused him of being super-sensitive, taking offence at the slightest provocation. He replies back here by saying that after years of accusing him of arrogance, non cooperation and aloofness, after years of pleading for response, reaction and information, now that he is providing it himself through his blog, the media suddenly starts cribbing the other way round. He does play tit-for-tat at times, which goes against his modest image, but I appreciate him all the more for that. However down to earth one may be, they should not let anybody talk anything about them. And if they do, they need to be corrected, in their own language.

There is lot to know about the actor on the blog. There is lot to learn and get inspired. I already look forward to his post everyday and his blog would definitely form one of the blogs I would like to keep in my reader for ever.

The only thing I wonder is, how does he manage so much in 24 hours? Working at odd and for long hours, keeping in touch with friends and family, giving speeches and interviews, reading the print and electronic media and keeping track of who said what so as to hit back on his blog, and blogging on top of it! These are the activities he talks about on the blog. There would be definitely many more. There sure is lot of hard work even for a living legend like Amitabh Bachchan. Is the procrastinator in me listening?

Blog away the Blues!

Given the deep blues I seem to be in this week, that was the very apt hyperlink I saw on yahoo.com I saw this morning while logging in to check my mail. I generally am unable to read news online, more due to a lack of interest than due to a lack of time. This article, however, caught my eye, and plunging into it showed me the results of an Australian study.

Quoting the ANI report based on two related studies conducted by Swinburne University Technology in Melbourne, Australia, blogging can boost people's social life, by making them feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with their friendships, both online and personally.

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal CyberPsychology and Behaviour, involved a survey on 134 users of MySpace, an international site that offers email, a forum, communities, videos and weblog space. The study involved some users who intended to blog and others who did not, and analyzed their behaviour and stress levels and 'social satisfaction' after a two-month period. Those that originally intended to blog reported feeling more satisfied socially as a result of being a part of a group of like-minded individuals.

"It was as if they were saying 'I'm going to do this blogging and it's going to help me' ", said Susan Moore, one of the researches. That was exactly my belief when I started writing this post, but I always had the intention and it never helped. Let me see if the act itself helps...

Should I watch Saanwariya?

I refuse to spell it the way Sanjay Leela Bhansali did, even though it is his product and he is free to spell it SSanvarriyaa, or S-A-W-R-Y-A, or maybe S-E-W-E-R-A-G-E. For a detailed reasoning, please visit one of my previous posts here, where I did an RoR on the movie.

Anyways, the question is, should I watch Saanwariya after all the criticism I got from the critics and media and blogs? As per my Review on Reviews, a few people enjoyed the movie, whereas a few others said it sucked! Someone said it is a one-time-watch.

I want to watch it because it is an SLB flick, and I have liked all his previous endeavours. The kind of effort he puts in his film-making, the grandeur, the intensity he shows, the way he makes non-actors like Aishwarya Rai act, everything is commendable. All his movies have had some wonderful music too. While some people (especially the lady bloggers I reviewed) liked the blue-black-green ambience throughout the movie, some others complained about SLB having shot the entire movie only at nighttime without lights. I think I'd love the gray (blue+green+black would anyways make gray). Sonam Kapoor's hairless back, unlike her father's, also tempts me to watch it, even though I'd like to skip Ranbeer's towel-sequence.

Now this colleague Vijay Krishna Mishra had a copy of Saanwariya, but he wouldn't share it with me. In fact, he deleted it because he did not like the movie and thinks he would be considered crazy if he tries to download it again. However, on my repeated and genuine requests, and some emotional blackmail 10 minutes ago, he is ready to download it for me, but with a condition: I write a post about it, asking people whether I should watch it or not, and if a single person answers in the affirmative, Vijay will download it for me. His addendum pops up on the IM as I write this post: I should play a fair game and not coerce anyone into saying a yes.

So all of my readers, especially she who wanted to watch it with me, please give me your honest opinion. All those whose answer is negative please consider if they watched a few memorable masterpieces of the last year like "Dhamaal", "Welcome", and "Khoya Khoya Chaand". If you have watched and liked any of these, you are not eligible to say a "No".

Please go ahead and participate in the poll by putting a comment. Please be frank and do not be afraid of Vijay. He is not Vijay Deenanath Chauhan, after all.

PS: The poll shall be open even after he is filled to his heart's content by one positive comment, and the post shall be open for other comments as well.

RoR

Now all of my geeky readers, please do not get salivating. RoR doesn’t mean Ruby on Rails here. AOE enthusiasts also hold on, this is no Rise of Rome either. This is a term I coined on the lines of FoF (Fund of Funds), an investment fund that uses the strategy of holding over other funds rather than investing directly in shares, bonds or other securities, and stands for Review of Reviews.

The motivation behind writing an RoR comes from three most prolific bloggers on my Google Reader coming up with their versions of reviews of a common object—what else could it be other than the most talked about movie these days—Saawariya. And interestingly enough, they published their reviews of the 9^th Nov-released-flick on the same date, the 15^th of Nov, when the Recent blogposts I read widget on my blog looked too replete with Saawariya and I had to increase the number of items it displays by 50%.

I generally prefer reviews of non-professional critics rather than the likes of Taran Adarsh and Nikhat Kazmi; you can relate to views of people you know than to those of people who are paid to review, even if you know them only by regularly reading their frequent blogposts. The professionals are always biased anyways.

The review I liked the most was Washington based Great Bong’s, a disgruntled movie fanatic on the prowl for mind bending experiences, who, in his usual wit and humor, and sentences as long as half a page, puts Saawariya as the worst of the Sanjay Leela Bhansali lot: “a big plastic bag of hot air where dreamy sets, hued lighting and forgettable music is used to divert attention from the fact that there is absolutely nothing in this venture”. He mocks SLB on his belief about his direction and his interviews and his “merger of raga-based melodies with a Brodway style play”, calls Ranbir a “little tinker-bell of a man”, innocent and poor, and describes Sonal as demure and virginal and giving us more than a few glimpses of her back, “devoid of abundant and luxuriant fur”, unlike her dad Anil Kapoor’s. Salman Khan looks confused—he took off his top, but Ranbir went one step ahead and took off his bottom. Great Bong doesn’t even spare Rani: “Rani Mukherjee’s golden-hearted ‘lady of commerce’ performance completes a hat-trick of prostitute acts (which film historians refer to as her ‘blue period’)”.

A Bangalorean blogger, LongBlackVeil, deeply interested in deeply interesting things, especially nonsense, did not regret watching the movie. She finds the aesthetics stunning, likes the black-blue-green ambience, and loves the music. Although she likes Ranbir’s hairless chest and Neetu Singh smile, she doesn’t like his and Sonam’s characters, and the lack of chemistry between the two. She does like Rani’s role, but expresses afsos over SLB’s weak screenplay, mediocre dialogue and absolutely minimal character development. But she likes the movie as a whole anyways and thinks “it’s just a victim of those horrible old beasts: Great Expectations, and What Could Have Been”.

Cuckoo from Bombay terms the movie as an outright flop. She did not see any trailers, didn’t read about it anywhere, and did not even let anybody talk about it in front of her. She wanted a surprise and she admits the movie “indeed surprised her by nose diving in the theatres”. I can see her state of shock—unlike her other posts, this one was quite laconic, filled with a lot of oversized, black ant-like emoticons.

Anadi, a regular reader and commenter on my blog from Tampa, Florida presents his review on a comment on my RoR. He finds the movie can be watched once despite the criticism, because of its freshness. He believes SLB tried to stretch a half-hour movie to over two hours with filler material that just does not fill up. Like LongBlackVeil, he also senses a lack of chemistry between the debuts, who are otherwise impressive. He says Bhansali's fairytale viewpoint cannot be considered an excuse to a lack of script and pathetic dialogues.

Nova, Bangalore-based crazy, eccentric, conceited, independent, emotionally detached and a near fanatic for things she believes in, is the only blogger I read who is all praises for Saawariya. She feels the movie was two hours of pure bliss, a visual delight and music to ears sore of cacophony people sell in the name of music. She believes the new kid has met all tremendous expectations he had set. Now, Ms Nova, he would definitely have met all expectations and made it a visual delight with his towel sequences. She finds Sonam to be ordinary, just like you would expect a debutante to be. So she also met expectations! All tremendous ones! But alas, the poor thing did not get a chance to have a sequence in a towel, let alone drop one. Anyways, Nova warns her readers not to watch it for mindless jokes and dumb action but to watch it if you want to watch a poetry in motion on celluloid! She goes on to quote a phew! comments from people on indiafm.com before ending.

So, will I go and watch the movie? Don’t know. If I get company I might. Am not too keen; might watch the grandeur on my beloved laptop. I shall, however, continue adding RoRs to this post as other feeds on my reader show up Saawariya. But one way SLB disappointed me was by naming it ‘Saawariya’, which is not a word. The correct word is ‘Saanwariya’ (साँवरिया)— one of Lord Krishna’s names, derived from ‘Saanwla’—and I thought SLB was quite meticulous and sort of perfectionist. Maybe kyunkii he is quite superstitious too and some numerologist advised him otherwise, who could anyways not spare him from the wrath of critics and reviewers, and of course ashes’ also for spelling it incorrectly in Hindi too!

Book Cover Tag

I have been tagged. The tagger is Cuckoo in her post here and in a comment to a previous post of mine.

Well, as most of you, I am not well-versed with tagging. Googling did not help much on this ‘tag’. Wikipedia gives me several uses of ‘Tag’, and the nearest is a game in which one child chases the others; the one who is caught becomes the next chaser. So, tagging is a children’s game. But another use Wikipedia gives is to engage in sexual intercourse, which is not exactly child stuff. So, I force myself to believe that tagging is no child’s play, and therefore accept this tag. And anyways, it is not everyday a sweet lady asks you to play with her. [Pun absolutely unintentional!]

From what I learnt from Cuckoo’s blog and the numerous tags she’s been doing, the blog version of ‘Tagging’ involves assigning a task to a few fellow bloggers, who, according to the ‘Tag Etiquette’, would do that task and pass it on to a few more in the blogger fraternity, thereby forming a tree of playful bloggers writing on a common topic. Then probably the best blogger gets a cotton candy or a lollipop. However, if you would seriously like to browse through tag etiquettes, Cuckoo has a ready reference here.

So, the tag given to me is: Go to the advanced book search on Amazon, type your first name into the Title field, and post the most interesting/amusing cover that shows up. This is a sort of egosurfing, the wikipedia link of which I had sent to Cuckoo on my first comment on her blog, and she was quite amused.

Anyways, coming down to business, I did the above exercise with “Ashutosh”, and was disappointed to find only one book: Sir Ashutosh Mookherjea, a character study, by one Mr. Bipin Chandra Pal. Now, Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee was an Indian educator and Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta from 1906 to 1924. He was also responsible for the foundation of the Bengal Technical Institute in 1906 and the Calcutta University College of Science in 1914.

That was all I could read about Sir Ashutosh when I started yawning and decided to move on to run an Amazon book search on “ashes”, a self-proclaimed anglicized version of the shortened form of my name, which returned 4,567 results—a prime number.

The first book cover that interests me is Ashes to Ashes (Blood Ties, Book 3) by Jennifer Armintrout. This is what the description of the book says:

Being a vampire is a life or death situation. When I was first turned, I had only my survival to worry about. Now I'm locked in a battle for the existence of the entire human race and the cards are definitely stacked against me.

The Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement headquarters are destroyed, and their pet horror, the Oracle, is on the loose. She'll stop at nothing to turn the world into a vampire's paradise, even if it means helping the Soul Eater become a god and harnessing his power for her own evil ends.

An ancient vampire, a blood sucking near deity and oh, yeah, my presently human former sire thrown into the mix. I say bring it on. May the best monster win.

Sounds interesting. However, I’ll have to read the Books One (The Turning) and Two (Possession) before picking up Ashes to Ashes. Book Two sounds all the more interesting:
With the Soul Eater and my possessed sire on the loose, I have a lot to fear. Including being killed. Again.

Another interesting book I saw on the same page of the search results was Robert F. Bruner’s Deals from Hell: M&A Lessons that Rise Above the Ashes, which, according to the Wall Street Journal on 26^th May, 2005: “engages in the kind of candid thinking that has long been missing from the high stack of books”.

According to the author, six key elements embedded in disasters are 'complexity, tight coupling, management choices, cognitive biases, business not as usual, and failure of the operational team.' In unison, these are lethal, he cautions. He uncovers the real reasons for mishaps by taking a closer look at twelve specific instances of M&A failure in his three-part book. Bruner dins in before parting: “The growth that matters is growth in economic value. The rest is smoke.”

A few other interesting titles on subsequent pages were “Quit Kissing my Ashes”, “Dropping Ashes on the Buddha”, “Amber and Ashes”, “Ashes to Gold”, “Rising from the Ashes”, “Hearts from the Ashes”, “Ashes of Victory”, “Ashes of Roses”—the list is so long I believe there is a book title on whatever can be converted to ashes, or whatever can be risen from ashes.

An interesting game, and an interesting tag, I must admit. However, I shall not be able to follow the ‘tag etiquettes’ and pass on the baton. But obviously, if anyone wants to pick it up themselves from here, please. Now Cuckoo, where is my lollipop?

Finally...

When I logged into my blogger account last weekend, I found Blogger has metamorphosed: the latest beta version (codenamed Invader) was released and then taken out of beta, there were a host of features never seen before, and Blogger had completely moved out from Pyra Labs’ servers to Google operated ones—I had to integrate my blogger account with my google account to start posting.

Well, I was bitten by the blog bug sometime in October 2005 when I created this blogger account. However, it was mainly to post non-anon comments at friends’ blogs, and with a faint hope that I would start blogging myself sometime. Finally the hope fulfils. :)

I was surprised at how fast things change. (Yes I know I should expect time to fly)—it has only been a year and a half, and I find everything around me has changed. I’ve had two job switches, my parents moved to Bangalore, I’ve grown shoulder-length hair and switched back to crew cuts at least thrice. My friends have been going places, hopping jobs and cities and continents, some coming up with startups, others getting married, some even attaining parenthood—and I couldn’t come up with a single post in this time. But yes, I was busy elsewhere—hunting jobs you might say.

Even the topics I had thought I would write upon are either irrelevant now or I’ve forgotten the details. However, an entire new set of ideas and thoughts have come up and I intend to regularly write on them and publish.

Let us hope I do not get busy in hunting again and present you with some posts soon.