'Vacations' or Trips of Peril [Since You're Now Over 25]

Assuming I have things in place -- documents, tax returns filed on time, and the small matter of a passport -- I should be boarding a flight to India this Saturday.

Vacation. A vacation it is, but that term applies a bit loosely here. I am assuming the most comfortable part of the trip will be the 20 odd hours spent few miles above ground. After that it's most likely going to be lost in a blur of visa interviews, meeting and greeting relatives, and staying at each city for a couple of days at most. Mental preparation has begun in earnest. I've decided to sleep by standing up straight. The problem is I've got the standing up part right, but not the sleep. Maybe I should try it at night.

But I think I can master even that over the next three days. Even if it's a tad idealistic, let us assume for argument's sake. What worries me is the teeming mass that is bound to greet me. You see, I am going to be attending a cousin's wedding, and I am approaching the wrong side of twenty.

This all started about three years ago when, during a Skype conversation, my parents first mentioned marriage in a sentence addressed to me. It was a little unusual; awkward even. But I was in the middle of a sentence, rattling on about how amazing this high-speed internet connection was in the US. I paused for a second, thought I heard the word kalyanam, but was determined to finish explaining how I didn't have to wait to let YouTube buffer before playing the video in whole. As it turned out, my father all of a sudden exclaimed, thanks to a spike in a stock he'd purchased the previous week, and my mother had to attend to a phone call. [Two months ago was when my mother actually discovered YouTube because it had 'good recipe shows'] So much for my hyperventilation over high-speed internet. But I digress.

Last year was when they got a little earnest about this 'get-married' thing. But it was by way of showing understanding, in keeping with the 'modern outlook of this current generation.'

"Son, it's alright. We understand. You need to get settled career-wise. Then only we can talk about marriage and all."

"Yes, ma. Fair enough."

A few months later, after having shared an apartment for a major part of my relatively short life in the States, I moved to an apartment to live all by myself last August. That was when this gentle strategy of understanding segued smoothly into a quest for concrete answers.

"So, now that you are settled, and on your own, when do you want to get married?"

"You see, ma, it's only now that I've finally moved to live on my own. I want to get to spend some, erm, alone-time. I think it's been quite peaceful till now. Why the hurry?"

"Fair enough. But give us a time frame."

This was a little hard. On the one hand you look forward to a period of living alone, in peace. On the other you're given a stern reminder (expressed in very kind terms, nonetheless) that this can't last. A time frame! What is this? Afghanistan?

"Erm, maybe a year and a half should be okay. I'm not prepared for a married life right now."

"But what if we start looking now so that you will be all set in a year or so?"

"Hmm, that sounds nice in theory, but what if you find someone in a couple of months -- by some freaky coincidence? I'll be forced to marry."

"Yes that's a possibility. But we shouldn't wait. You know you're also losing hair--"

I nodded. I was indeed losing hair.

"So when should we get the horoscopes and talk to the astrologer?" They quickly added.

"Erm, end of next year I blurted."

It was agreed that on one auspicious day, towards the end of 2010, my parents will go, life full of hope, to an astrologer and place it in front of him for his verdict.

But they went anyway... in January.

Astrologer told them -- and this is perhaps the rare occasion when I've raised my glass of orange juice to an astrologer -- that they can start 'looking' only after September 2010.

Of course, this didn't stop them from occasionally debating the institution of marriage and such-like.

"Why don't you get married?" They'd ask, possibly by force of habit now.

"Sigh. Okay, but I don't want to have any kids."

"*gasp* Wait, what? Why? What's the point then?"

"Exactly."

Or the other occasion when they used subtler methods, like the time when my grandmother was handed the phone.

"Hello, grandson, how are you doing?"

"Hello grandma, namaskarams How are--"

"When are you going to get married?"

"Uh, I don't think I will for another year at least."

"No no. How can you say that? I don't even know if I'll be alive then. It's my wish that you should get married now that your cousin A is getting married. You're next in line. Can't you grant me this one wish? No?" She inhales deeply.

"Er, good point you make. Er-- what's that? Wha--? I can't hear you in this line. I'll call you in five minutes." I exhale, with all my might.

*

Part of this post is fact, and part fiction. Just like in the works of legendary author, Dan Brown, it's cleverly juxtaposed so you couldn't tell.

Wish me luck as I wade my way and hope to come back in one piece and unhitched.

Guest Post: Shah Rukh Khan

After reading our exclusive on Aamir Khan, we at, er, OCAD towers were contacted by Mr. Shah Rukh Khan who offered to tell his side of the story to counter the bad publicity his arch-nemesis was giving him. (Also, we think it's due to the impending release of his new movie, but let's leave aside our personal prejudices eh?)

Anyway, SRK has offered to do one guest post here, and as the guardians of free speech, we have decided to offer the stage to him to explain himself. So without much ado, we present:

Hey guys, sorry it's hard for me 2 reply 2 evryone. This mdium is too hard, u knw too mny flloowers--

[At this point we had to interject and remind him that he didn't have character limits in this blog and that he could be a bit more free in expressing himself, using appropriate phrasing where necessary; a euphemism for avoiding sms lingo. He assumes we'd edit out the above lines, but we made it clear that his message would be sent out unedited in the interest of our readers.]

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 10:00 am
Hey guys, I am Shah Rukh Khan, or SRK (hence, @iamsrk). I woke up today morning. A purple haze was all over the room. Ah, purple! Which is similar to violet. I love violets. I've seen violets several times while shooting for many songs in my films. Violets give me happiness. Happiness is a nice feeling. So think of purple hazes when you wake up every morning.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 11:10 am
People think I'm stupid, but I must tell you I am very well read. It's a misconception that Bollywood actors are dumb. Not true. I've read every Dan Brown book there is. I have the hardcore version, the bare paperback version as well as the softcore version which is on my Kindle. BTW, the iPad totally rocks. Maybe I'll get one when I visit the US. I haven't seen the demo videos yet. My Kindle also rocks by the way. I love douglas adam.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 1:25 pm
Speaking of Dan Brown I feel very inspired by his writings. Like the other day I was wondering why my son told me to wake up by noon. I kept thinking and suddenly I remembered that the release date of my movie was 12 Feb. Noon = 12pm. That's why. You see, everything in this world is connected. Later on my son told me that I had to pick him up from school at 1pm because Gauri was out shopping that day, but still, if I hadn't used my skills to draw this connection between numbers, I wouldn't have slept that night. I see a bit of Dan Brown in everything in life. But I really love douglas adam. Sometimes I really wish I could Hitch-hike around the Universe. Maybe I can visit a black hole or two.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 7:30 pm
I saw the sunset a couple of hours ago. Poem time!!! This is a haiku. I hope you'll like it:

The circular sun
was shining very brightly
Moon crater is mine.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - 11:30 pm
Alright folks, I have to sleep now. It's dark. There is blackness everywhere outside my window. Maybe black holes look like this. Black reminds me of my darkness. But it can be positive. Like Rani Mukherji in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's movie. I can look at happiness too. So good night.

Remember my happy thoughts, and think about it.

[Well so there you have it. He has had his share of views. We'll let you be the judge.]

PS: If you're confused at the end of this, just have a look at his twitter profile: @iamsrk

PPS: For those who didn't get it, the above was a fake.

A move back

Those of you who have still stuck around -- through my blog's feed, in some dusty corner of your feed readers, I'd assume -- would doubtless see this post creep upon you like a friendly priest with a packet of candy. But, I assure you, my intentions are neither that malicious nor illegal.

To the two, or three, of you still subscribed to the feed -- and hence, faced with the pleasure of reading this -- I thank you; more importantly, I commend you on your patience. It's possible you folk have more patience and faith in my return than the blokes in this play. And that, my friend(s), is illustrious company.

But I've returned here to inform you of a minor change. Those of you reading this through the feed reader won't notice a thing. [I hope you won't notice a thing, because, I believe, I've ensured the machinery in the back-end has gone through the necessary finger pointing drills I've put it through to make this a smooth transition.] Anyway, my point is I've moved back from my domain pikeyspeak.com (which used Wordpress as the back-end blog CMS) to -- wait for it -- Blogger. Yes, that blogspot thing.

I've moved from wordpress to blogger!

I'll give you time to reflect upon this piece of news. Go on...

Right. The reason? First: I didn't think paying monthly for hosting justified my lack of posts. Second: I wanted to give blogger a shot. Just for old times' sake. I don't think themes are a problem. I know it's a pain to muck about in the back-end, but I've settled on the theme and I am unlikely to change it. You know me... erm, content is king and, erm, all that...

Bonus reason: I was also an idiot for not renewing my domain name. One word of advice: don't ever use Yahoo! Domains to register your domain name. When I was naive -- that will be about 3-1/2 years ago, after which I became intelligent overnight, but more on that some other day -- I was taken in by their enticing $1.99 offer for the domain name, for the first year, and I could have sworn it was $9.99 from the second year on. As it turned out it was a lot more (about thrice that). I think I was a little lax on payments; my debit card had expired in the meantime, and I went, "Meh..." In time they deleted my account and have sucked the domain into some dark, remote vortex [presumably via some shady corporation they own] and recovering it would be desperately hard; it's a huge conspiracy, I tell you. As of now, it seems there's no way to snag it back until it becomes available in the secondary market; so they say.

Those of you who know me by my real name, you might ask, "Oh, so what of your other site?" [To those who don't know me, but are discerning enough, in the next few days, I might draw a very tenuous link between my real life and the handle I go by over here. So there's hope for you.] That site will remain, and I'll take better care of it in its maintenance. I will be sporadic in updating it; almost never. But it's always good to have that domain name in place -- just in case.

Anyway, too much about myself. This blog is supposed to be about, erm, myself... never mind.

If this post is coming through feeds (behave!), let me know by leaving a comment. This, so that I know for sure I got the finger pointing of the back-end machinery sorted. You wouldn't see me requesting you to comment here again.

Honest.

PS: This isn't a placeholder post where I apologise for not posting in ages only to disappear into the ether, only to return 8 months later with another apology. Well, it is, sort of, but I already have at least one post in draft form to publish soon-ish. So keep faith.

PPS: In case you've forgotten already, please comment.

Weight Troubles

There comes a point in life when, no matter what you eat or how much you work out, you will gain weight. There also used to be a time, in my life, when, no matter what I ate or how little I ever moved a muscle, my body mass--or, should we say, my girth--increased by a kitten's whisker.

But, as Oscar Wilde would say--or, rather, as the folks at Uncyclopedia would like to paraphrase the Irish playwright--"Things change."

Regular readers, the ones still left reading this pseudo-intellectual tripe, would recall that your humble narrator is in the US, at the moment. The discerning reader would even know that said humble narrator was in India for a brief period not so long ago; the December-January period, to be exact.

The story begins at this point, where the humble narrator changes the mode of narration to the first person, seeing as it helps the narrative process, while also exposing his limited command of the English language to narrate this tale otherwise.

It started in India when I went home suffering a year and a half making self-cooked food. Self-cooked food, as one who may have cooked food by self would recognize, is an intensely boring process. It's not so much in the act of cooking itself that might appear drab but more in the effort needed to get the proverbial arse off the couch/chair/bed and head to the kitchen that takes some doing. As Newton, in his famous Inertia of Rest law, would have it.

Sample this: Man comes home. Man feels hungry. Man goes to kitchen. Man sees there's no food. Man thinks he has to cook to eat food at home. Inertia of Rest kicks in. Man takes wallet and heads to nearest Subway.

It's one of the few occasions where I wish I was married. I hope I don't come across as sounding sexist here.

Moving on, I had fun in India. Ate to my hearts content. Slept. Watched the India-Australia test-series and Navjot Singh Sidhu, post-Sydney, with unbridled emotion--which, by the way, might have been the only time I may have expended my body energy. This is life, I thought. I cooked once, but that was more to show off my culinary skills to my folks back home--after all, I had to show what I learned during my stay in America.

I happened to weigh myself upon reaching India. 63 kilograms was what the weighing machine indicated. I checked my weight the day I was flying back to the US. 69 kilograms, barked my trusty machine this time.

For those who know me in person, you know this is nothing short of phenomenal. And, as a note to self, the increase in weight--6 kilos in about 4 weeks--is unprecedented. And it showed. A cursory glance at my bare torso in the mirror, on one of the days I got out from a bath, made me cringe. Surely, I couldn't have accumulated so much lard? The mention of lard, of course, is only metaphorical. I am vegetarian.

But then, I knew, like I always usually know--like anyone who has been only slightly better built than an HB pencil would know--that I would get back in shape without breaking much sweat. It was simple, really. I head back to the States, get into a routine of having irregular meals. In between skipping the odd lunch, and occasionally gorging on the 'healthy' subs at Subway, my weight would follow a steady downward curve. The fat around my waist would be gone and I could get back to living life as a skinny lowlife.

But I didn't return to College Station, a place in the heartland of Texas that helped me maintain my lean frame. I instead headed over to Austin, the capital of Texas--generally termed a Blue dot in the Red State. How is that related, you ask? Well, it isn't related; I was just letting you in on a bit of trivia.

Anyway, to my horror, I found millions of Indian restaurants in Austin; my apartment--a four bedroom one at that, albeit, shared with three other fellow desis--was outstanding in its comfort level and it was fully furnished with nice sofas and proper beds (plus mattress).

And, my room mates loved rice. Breakfast, lunch, dinner--everything involved rice in some form. And that fact that we always had something to have it with made regular meals possible throughout the day.

And so it goes now. My waist line hasn't shown signs of shrinking. My solitary attempt at skipping a meal for reducing weight resulted in a badly gassy stomach -- I think it is acidity because of the number of times I've been belching since morning.

So will it be uphill, as far as my weight goes, from here on? Or will I ever recover my lean frame? Bigger questions for me to answer than to watch Barack and Hillary debate on the subtle difference between their healthcare proposals. Because hey, who the hell wants healthy, well-fed people when it can only end in tears?

Back to my Starbucks, Java-flavoured ice-cream. You must try it sometime.

Austin

I am not particularly good at waxing lyrical about places and beauty but Austin is a beautiful city.

More on my life soon...

The Customary Post That Gives Hope

Much has changed around since the last blog post. In fact, three posts have been published since my last theme change, disregarding the two asides posts, and I sit here contemplating switching to more attractive themes. Common sense, and a little bit of inertia, would reign here and the blog stays as it were -- in appearance at least.

One would wonder, though, why someone wouldn't update his personal blog as often as he would, say, some other blogs. There is no clear reason, really. The personal blog would be updated when there is an inspiration -- a will to write something; anything actually. It would, however, seem preposterous to assume that nothing seemed even remotely inspirational enough to trigger some thought juices, all these months. So I will seek to answer these piercing questions from despondent readers with excuses such as 'being busy' and 'lack of anything worth writing about'.

Which begs the question, 'Why today, then?'

I am rather happy to announce that I am in India at the moment. In fact, I have been for the past 3 weeks here. Chennai represents the best place to be in India during the wintry months of December and January; the temperature hovers between 16 to 26C. Hardly something, one would describe as chilly.

The same however, could not be said of the traffic, dust and the general pollution. I've never really been a fan of Al Gore going on about his theories -- I do believe in global warming part, but never really got why Gore got so worked up about it -- but I do see now, why he's been a tad anxious. The dust and smoke left me with a bad cold (or was it flu? I can't decide) for the past week.

I don't know, maybe it's my immune system acting up; the gentle environment back in the States can compromise your body's security system.

* * *

It's interesting to see the amount of paranoia one can get enveloped in, after spending a little over a year in the States. I've been surprised with myself about this; I think twice now before drinking water at a perfectly decent restaurant -- which isn't like me at all. Vicki's Maggi in those good old Roorkee days taught me enough about drinking and eating just about anything that came one's way.

I am sure I would be my normal self soon. But by then I would be heading back to the US. Just a week to go, now.

* * *

I have been pleasantly surprised at the online-ness of things, as far as booking tickets goes. And I am talking about railway and inter-state bus tickets here. I know the railways had this online ticketing thing a while back. But then, it used to be a case of booking tickets online and getting them delivered to your place. Now it's a case of booking them online and printing out the pdf form of the ticket, and of course, carrying some form of ID while travelling. The same is true of inter-state bus transport. At least, it's true of Karnataka.

Old hat for my fellow resident Indian readers, but refreshing for our lot.

While on the subject of transport, it is also nice to see air-conditioned Volvo buses being introduced in Chennai (I hear Bangalore also has done that). I am talking about the bus service for intra-city commutes; not the long distance, inter-city/state ones. They aren't too expensive either, although a little improvement in the frequency would help.

I like the progress, but still wouldn't buy into the hype NDTV Profit would want me (and especially, my family members) believe; that India will reign supreme -- economically and otherwise -- within a decade.

* * *

I am yet to watch Billa which, I hear, is an extremely kewlly shot movie. And it is incidentally Ajith's biggest hit of his, rather undistinguished, career. That, somehow, doesn't sit too easily on my ears. A movie that picked Nayanthara, of all actresses, to sport a two-piece bikini couldn't be that big. But it is customary for me to go and watch a Tamil flick in the cinema hall during every one of my visits to Chennai. So there.

While still on the movie, and for the benefit of North Indian (or rather, non-Tamil) readers, Billa (circa 2007) is a remake of a 1980 film of the same name. The 1980 movie was a Rajnikanth starrer, which sort of explains the hype surrounding this one; stories about Rajni hugging Ajith after watching the premiere of the movie, thus expressing his satisfaction at the remake, were also good enough reasons for someone to want to watch the movie, apparently.

* * *

And I am not sure how many are actually reading this. So kindly drop by and say 'Aye'. Would make this exercise (of writing this post) well worth the while.

The Indian Summer in America: Part II

First time readers, kindly head over to Part I to fully understand and appreciate the essence of this two part series (which could even extend to a third part). Just to remind you, this could be a long, rambling post. Attempt to read only if you have completed every task on your daily chores list.


Last time round, when I posted my comprehensive analysis of American life for an immigrant desi, I made the mistake of not making it comprehensive. Some of the things I thought of adding got left out, and so I needed to put up another post just to complete my analysis. So here goes...

Ladies and Gentlemen...

...this is only a minor absence from my blog. I am as alive as the world would let me be. I should be back in a few days. There is really no need for panic.

So relax. A little more wait should do no harm. Read other blogs.

Thank you (and sorry for the wait),
- The Piker.

PS: Things that should keep you busy in the meantime.
1. Counting sheep in your sleep.
2. Reading all emails in your spam folder and replying to them.
3. Reading the wikipedia entry on: Himesh Reshammiya.

Tag Attack: Eight Random Facts

Patrix has tagged me and so like, a lot of these blog related formalities go, I should oblige. Moreover, this tag was pretty harmless without my need to reveal anything embarrassing, hence my decision to quickly get done with it. So before I go ahead with it, here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

So clearly scared out of my skins, after reading Rule #4, I decide to post my eight random facts. Here goes... *gulp*

Etherdust

Among the few regular commenters on this blog, Amit/Etherdust was a senior of mine in my undergrad days and a good friend. He has a blog that mostly talks about stuff related to music. Of course his posts are more known for their start-and-you-finish levels of brevity but that's not the point anyway. He claims that writing is not his thing, although I strongly disagree. I remember his noir-like short story series on his older blog which was very good. Anyway his blog, i.e., the Music/mp3 genre of blogs is a rare breed at least in the desi blogosphere so I thought I could bring this to the attention of the few that actually read this.

Actually Amit dabbles in music composition, and he's just posted a new song in his blog. I thought I might help him get more listeners. (This was voluntary on my part, mind you, and I bet he'd be in for a surprise with this post) Of course, just before you head off to listen, something you might want to know.

Most of his compositions are in the industrial/electronic rock sub-genre and his music is generally dark in mood and theme. This song is no different. So if you love experimental music and artists like Nine Inch Nails, Prodigy, Celldweller and so on, you might like his tunes. He is also involved in CCMixter which is basicallya movement for the creative commons remixing and sharing of music. It is like blogging (or rather open source coding) where you re-use existing tunes for non-commercial purposes. He also believes the Open Source philosophy in software should extend to music in a big way.

Anyway, that's it from me over to him.

Of Lakshmi Mittal and Football Clubs

I am expecting this piece of news to make it big in the Indian media. Lakshmi Mittal (yeah that steel guy) is apparently linked with a possible takeover of English Premier League football club Birmingham. I remember the frenzy when Baichung Bhutia moved to third division side Bury.

For those who don't follow football that much and have heard only names like Chelsea and Manchester United, Chelsea were a mediocre club before a Russian billionaire bought the club. Now they are a world power in football. He was worth around 9 billion pounds. Mittal is worth double at around 19.25 billion!

Although Mittal's decision to buy the club would be from a purely personal and a business standpoint, expect the media to start talking about how that is going to improve Indian football. Or better, "Does that mean football following is on the rise in India?" Or rather the usual, "Will we qualify for the next World Cup?"

What fun, no? I can't wait for it. (Please TOI, NDTV, Aaj Tak and co. Don't disappoint me!)

SEO Does Work at times

I saw a spike in my site stats today. Not that the spike was particularly steep. But the stat whore that I can be on occasions, I casually looked at my search engine terms for the day:

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www.tamil speak.com
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Much joy appeared at finally seeing people coming to the site with search terms that actually led to relevant content here. So will that mean more Search Engine Optimized post titles (which also translates to trite unimaginative titles)? I hope not.

Theme Hunting

I'm furiously hunting for Wordpress themes these days. You see, I tire quickly - kinda explains why I've been shifting from one blog service to another. So a theme change seems like the next thing to do.

I love the current K2 theme. Gives good freedom of customization and all. But as I said, I want a change and I am looking for a nice enough theme.

So readers, (the few of you) kindly help me out here. I am looking for a two column layout that is wide. Meaning, I want my content to occupy at least 90-95% of the width of this page as against the current one which at best occupies 75%. I also want support for inline asides. I know K2 can be customized and all, but I am looking for a much more pleasing looking theme.

So suggestions are welcome.

Update: And yes, I have looked up Smashing magazine's 83 beautiful Wordpress themes and many more such sites. The most impressive of them was this Fall Season theme

The Indian Summer in America

(This post comes with a reader warning in that it is really long and rambling. So beware! Other than that, on the title, see Indian Summer for the exact definition, although its context here is tweaked to suit a decent heading)


This post was long time coming. It is the obligatory post for a blogger who has spent a year in another place. Actually bloggers always look upon occasions or milestones as ideas for a new post. Idea droughts can happen to bloggers. Even the prolific ones who read 1000+ feeds a day. But this post is about me, just like many other posts in this blog, although I have been rather generous of late discussing real world issues. My purpose is to actually throw a little light on the experiences of a desi (grad student) in a foreign land - more specifically the US. These may be viewed by some other desi's looking to come stateside during the next few months, as tips or stuff to expect etc etc. However, what one shouldn't be expecting would be "tricks to get admission in You-Yes with 100% fully fundings (sic)" So there you go. Hope that's clear.

Jimmy Wales on Colbert

Jimmy Wales that guy who founded a certain Wikipedia comes on the Colbert Report and makes for interesting conversation. He talks about vandalism (more specifically the issue of Colbert and the Elephant article) among other things.

I apologize for link posts like this, hopefully regular service will resume soon.

Gaining Some Blogging Perspective

Keen observers might have noted some reticence here as far as blogging activity is concerned. Not to worry. I haven't really stopped blogging. Just that quite a few things have happened in my online world that this blog has become relatively idle.

For one, I have been blogging a LOT lately. So much that I haven't actually posted anything here. Now why, you may ask, that nothing is posted here? Well for that I will have to bring to your attention three things that have kept me away from this blog.

United Clinch Premiership Title, Spidey disappoints

At long last. After waiting three years it must be said, the result is satisfying to say the least. Chelsea needed to beat Arsenal to stay in the hunt for the league title, but they only managed a draw, after being down to ten men.

So now I will celebrate in the quiet confines of my apartment and get back to regular blogging later.

By the way, Spider-Man 3 is a major let down after the high standards set by its predecessors. The ending fight sequence was reduced to a circus act with public cheering and reporters covering it with inane remarks. Although, I suppose a dubbed Spider Man 3 will do well in the Hindi Heartland. Trust me, it's got plenty of Sunny Deol moments!

Continued Hiatus and Guest Blogging

My return with a useful post is taking longer than I would want, with my usually healthy posting frequency taking a beating in the process. With the craziness that accompanies semester endings fast coming to an end, the day is not far off before I get back to writing something meaningful. But I still managed to guest blog (or should I rather say, I am a part of their crew).

Semester Endings and Blogical Distractions

Just so that I stay clear of accusations of 'internalizing' content, the word 'Blogical' was spotted by me in the excellent Blogical Conclusion movie review blog by Baradwaj Rangan. You are welcome to hop over and run through his archives. Anyway, now that it's out of my system let me move on to the exciting things happening on the personal front.

Download Music from MySpace

Well, I don't know how long it will last but if you go here it will direct you to enter the MySpace URL of the particular band that you are interested in.

This is the easiest way to download songs from MySpace. All you need to do is copy and paste the bands homepage into the script below and click on the appearing download links to download the songs from that band's myspace homepage.

Just enter the band's MySpace (e.g. http://www.myspace.com/peterbjornandjohn) and download! Links expire after one minute, just press Decode again. The process to display the myspace songs can take a while, just be patient.[via]

I gave it a shot and it worked. Murdoch and his minions have some serious bug fixing or software overhaul at hand. But for us guys, good luck while it lasts!