Making excuses

That is precisely what I am doing right now. I tend to have a single-track mind sometimes. I get obsessed with something and then I pursue it with all my being till one fine day I wake up being bored by it. That will be the end of that story. Currently, I am completely busy trying to find a permanent job (8 more weeks till this contract’s end), creating new designs for Rangoli Designs (I sold a few designs yesterday, so I am really excited! Thanks to those who bought and those who looked!), getting current work done - all while trying to take care of a rambunctious, soon-to-be-9-month-old . I am also reading some fiction on the side.

All the above combined with the NBA season and the Apprentice don’t leave much time for news or chaturbate blogging - nothing seems to be happening of interest - it is still the same old. I hope to break out of this soon and have something interesting ready. In the meantime, leave comments, links - anything of interest to you and maybe other readers :)

Relationship Advice

Trust me, there is a reason people say two’s company and three’s crowd. When it is just the two of you, if there is a fight or any disagreement, you are forced to makeup soon since you get bored without the other person’s company. When there are other people in the equation, it gets easy to ignore your spouse/significant other for lengthy peroids of time since you have other people to talk to and interact with. The more this happens, the more distance builds up between the two of you till you don’t recognize each other anymore and are simply used to existing without each other and in the company of others. It gets easier and easier as time passes till you end up not needing each other anymore - a recipe for disaster. Catch the pattern and nip it in the bud. Do yourself a favor!

(This was something I just needed to get off my chest after a few incidents I have seen recently - the above advice is meant to be general and not in relation to any of the people I know).

Indian Newspaper 1 - Bloggers 0

The normally laid-back Ravages works himself up pretty good in this post - Selective Amnesia: I’m not the sermonisng type - about TOI successfully shutting down Pradyuman Maheshwari’s Mediaah blog. Ashish weighs in on the matter in this post - Big Media crushes a blogger. I am appalled at what TOI is being allowed to get away with here. TOI accuses Mediaah of “defaming” them - what? Are they so thin-skinned that any criticism is considered defamation now? If they are really that interested in their image, maybe they should put out better fare for their readers’ consumption instead of being such wimps about it and trying to shut down debate instead of asking for constructive criticism.

When these journalists criticize the Government, politicians, live sex shows stars, pretty much everybody on the planet, they claim to do so in the name of journalistic freedom and freedom of expression - why cannot an ordinary person do that same as far as his limited resources will allow him, with a blog? I have had it with this idiocy. Here is the deal, y’all! Let us all bloggers in the US and outside the US take on TOI. Let us write about them everyday. Let’s see what they can or will do. Who’s with me on this?

Weekend Roundup!

The Terri Schiavo battle is still going on - I have been reading the news and opinion on the battle all over. I have a problem with the phrasing of the issue by most people - many have called it the case of “right-to-die”. I disagree with that. If Terri had left clear instructions, if not written atleast verbal ones to more than one person, I would consider this a case of right-to-die. Terri is not expressing her wishes here - the only person who claims to represent tham had remembered them miraculously after winning a million-dollar settlement on his wife’s behalf in court. He has specifically said in court when he won the money that he would spend the rest of his life taking care of his wife - all of a sudden he remembers she really didn’t want to live like that and would rather die?

I think this is clearly a case of she-said/he-said rather than exercising Terri’s right-to-die. We don’t know if Terri wanted to die. I know maybe I wouldn’t want to. That doesn’t mean she didn’t want to. this is what I find pretty appalling on the side of the right-to-die people. I read a column claiming that the pro-life people are trying to impose their values on everybody else by trying to keep Terri alive. I think it is also the case of the right-to-diers assuming that since they wouldn’t want to be alive like that, Terri wouldn’t want to be alive either. See? the imposing values thing works both ways.

Coming back to more mundane things, I don’t have any web access at work, so jasminelive streaming is restricted to weekends and nights (I know, it sucks). The is doing real good as are the dogs :)

Good stuff happening in Lebanon - crazy, all that crap about Michael Jackson (I wonder about the mental health of any parents who would allow their anywhere near that freak - their need to be repossessed by CPS or something). I think that the new bankruptcy bill will screw consumers’ happiness and the Republicans suck for pushing it.

Oh, I hate it that iTunes will not support anything other than iPods - I had free coupons from a couple of friends that I used to download songs from iTunes - I had to burn them to CD and then rip them to put them in my Creative Zen. I really don’t get the obsession of various people with such proprietary software. I wanted a player that wouldn’t restrict me and thank God, I got one. Hate Apple!

Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince

I finished reading this book quite a few hours ago, but needed the time to gather my thoughts a bit. I still haven’t completely been able to focus - the book has been quite a shocker. If you thought that “Harry Potter and the Order of Pheonix” was depressing, you might as well skip this book. World is a lot more brutal in the new era when there is a fierce battle raging between the good wizards/witches and the death eaters. a lot of people we have come to know and appreciate are offed with relative ease that is actually scary when you have the time to ponder.

I am not ashamed to say I ended up crying towards the end, though oddly this book’s ending is a lot more hopeful and full of courage and anticipation of braver things to come than the 5th book’s ending. I cannot wait to see what happens next. There is a lot of information provided in this book, almost as if J.K.Rowling was extremely anxious to fill us all in before something bad happens.

There are a lot of firsts in this book. Dumbledore finally trusts Harry enought to give out more information to him than he did before. Of course, Dumbledore also ends up trusting someone else deeply and ends up at their mercy when he shouldn’t have. The are pretty grown up and end up having love interests - most of which Harry Potter lovers might have predicted or hoped for since day one.

It is definitely a treat to watch Harry grow up right in front of our eyes as the book progresses and he is definitely different from the sullen, moody boy he was in the fifth book. A must read for fans, but left me wanting for more, which was probably the idea of it all.

Of course, like a lot of other online reviewers, I felt as if the Sixth book was nothing but a long prologue to the seventh one, for which I am waiting with bated breath. There is one line of the book that still brings me to tears - Harry is Dumbledore’s man through and through!

One last thing - given all the clues about the Half-blood Prince spread throughout the book, it was quite stupid of me to not guess who it turned out to be - it was a total no-brainer. I am just dying to read the seventh book now - I can just see how kick-ass it is going to be now, Harry Potter and the Horcruxes…