The usual crib and some more

The post-a-day run seems to have run out (literally) and I am back to keeping irregular rendez-vous with the blog. However, it is not too irregular, either considering that I am still able to write about almost everything that has been happening out here in my life and around.

A one-off quiz that I took at one of those livejournal quiz sites put me down (or should it be up?) as a life blogger, essentially someone who writes about what has been happening in his/her life, whether or not that is interesting read for others. I don't know how far it reflects on my blog or on myself, but then again, questions at the seriousness (and the need for it) of blogging keep popping up every now and then. I keep wondering if I should start testing my PG Wodehouse memories and try to re-style some incident (real or fictional) a la Woodie just for the heck of fulfilling that long-hidden desire to write. On the contrary, should I continue to write about things that happen in my life, just as they are...or should I go back to writing about, in addition to the events themselves, my feelings regarding those events and associated people?

Probably, the last one is out of the question, what with the feelings of others involved and all that...but as between the first and the second choices, I am often confused. That is the reason why my blog is home to movie and book reviews (based on whatever little understanding that I have of them), too and not just my raves and rants...and yes, the occasional blurting out of what I have been thinking, even at the risk of sounding like a "serious blogger" and thus putting off some people, certainly adds to the diversity.

Updating the blog regularly or not, one thing that I have been doing regularly nowadays is to not let a second tick by without doing anything enjoyable. Continuing in the same mode, Dan Brown series seems to be over, with the last of my collection, "Deception Point", getting wolfed down last evening. Although science and its discoveries do make their entry into this novel, but the political overtones make it a tad different. I must say that such political thrillers should be best left to the the likes of Jeffery Archer and Co. and Dan Brown should have focused on what he does best, science, religion, symbolism, and of course, thrills.

The story is all about NASA, which is on the brink of being privatized and since it is election time, the NASA is not alone in getting the mud heaped on them. The President of the United States has to save his office from the allegations of overbudgeting and loss making that have been brought forward by his primary opponent in the presidential race. A big help comes to the NASA and the President when a discovery is made of a meteorite with fossilized remains of extra terrestrial life, proving beyond a doubt, the worth of all investments made in the NASA.

The President, in order to bring all doubts and cynicism to rest given the volatile time of impending elections, engages the help of four civilian scientists and the White House's liasion officer, who incidentally happens to be the daughter of the President's opponent, and an embittered daughter at that. The book's title leaves no room for doubt as to what happens next but the way it happens is Dan Brown's forte. He tries to keep the identity of the villain hidden and probably succeeds, too but only for the naive ;-). My logic behind outguessing a Dan Brown novel stands vindicated after yet another of his character-building-followed-by-partial-demolition exercises.

The Joe Satriani show is finally happening in Kolkata on Sunday (at the Ravindra Sarobar stadium) and tell you what, I have got the tickets. Widely touted as The GOD of Guitar, Joe Satriani is credited with tutoring guitar greats like Steve Vai and others including lead guitarists of bands like Metallica, amongst many more. This is probably the first time that I shall be attending a concert by an international artist and it will be interesting to observe the difference between them (or at least the sole representative of them, whom I will be watching this Sunday) and the exponents of Indian classical music, whose numerous shows have graced my graduate college (IT-BHU), situated right in the seat of the Indian classical music, Varanasi. More on that, however, in the next post on Monday.

Monday also promises to be an important day at work. The mid term review of our summer projects is scheduled for Monday afternoon and all the summer trainees in the TAS division are to present a half hour each presentation on what they have done so far and what they shall be doing in the remaining month that they are here in the company. The audience of the presentation is expected to be quite high profile with directors of the company, senior project managers and of course, the HR team planning to attend. I have just kicked off with preparing the presentation. Trying to make it look a little different from what others are going to present (I am sure that in the midst of all IIM students, it will be difficult to score much on the presentation style alone), I have decided to take some risk and go a little informal, making a statement through cartoons and some bold contours on neutrally colored and level plains of presentation slides.

In the meanwhile, the fingers of my left hand (especially the little finger) continue to play tricks with my brain's pain cells and the first few minutes of guitar practice every day get wasted in gingerly checking if I can still handle those strings without some permanent damage to my 'pinky' (this is the term my guitar instructor has for the little finger :-)). French classes are going to happen tomorrow and day after and I have not gone through anything that was taught the last weekend :-). Rohit is in town and I will be meeting him tomorrow and the first question that he is going to ask is about the alumni freshers' meet, which I haven't done anything about :-). 

Now that my cribbing is over, I can peacefully go back to preparing my presentation...Dilberts and Dogberts of the world, here I come... :-)