The TagBoard may not be available for the next few days, until I find the appropriate plugin for the new version.

Kindly bear with it.

Also, if you find anything amiss, do let me know!

Cheers,
Shri!

Actually, my stupidity entirely. I deleted the entire Linux partition without transferring the GRUB off the MBR. And now Windows won’t boot.

And, THAT is exactly the reason why I haven’t been able to post the next part.

Sigh.

A few more days. Really.

Cheers!

I wanted to write about my experiences while Training at MICA. But I could not, because I was too busy.

I wanted to upload all the fotos of my MICA trip, and spend lots of time remembering all the MICA moments. But I could not because I was too busy.

I wanted to write about going on air with Mandy for a whole week. But I could not, because I was too busy.

I wanted to write what a fantastic and super-cool jock Mandy is, and how I positively adore her. But I could not, because I was too busy.

I wanted to write about how my first week of going solo on-air has been. But I could not, because I was too busy.

I wanted to write about how despicable I find the shooting at Virginia Tech. But I could not, because I was too busy.

I wanted to write about how I am glad that two of my friends studying in Virginia Tech are alive and safe today. But could not, because I was too busy.

I wanted to write a story because I haven’t written one in a long, long time. But I could not, because I am too busy.

I wanted to write about so many things. But I could not, because I was too busy.

Busy doing what, did you ask?

Making excuses.

Somehow, I seem to have forgotten that I own this blog. And that is a sad thing to happen. Heck, I feel ashamed of myself now. Am I that busy really?

Well, The answer is: No, I am not.

It took me just 20 minutes to bang out this post. So I am not as busy as I’d like to believe I am.

Sincere apologies for the infrequent nature of my appearances on this blog. I’d like to say I’ll be more regular in the future, but I have long stopped predicting futures. Especially, my own.

So here’s hoping that this post knocks some sense into my head.

And yes, the post about Categories and Tags is still pending.

MICA was a fabulous place. It had all the elements a quirkyalone like me would ever want. It was remote, there was ample solitude and there was a good place to crash…

I have over 300 pictures of my days at MICA with all the other RJs from all over the country. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to upload all of them.

The first batch of 25 selected photos is up.

Here’s where you can access it:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shrikant.j/TrainingMICA

More photos are on the way… You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this album if you want to be updated everytime I add something to this album.

There’s so much I want to write about MICA, and so little time…

Comments, especially will be turned off.

That’s because I am upgrading Wordpress to 2.1.1. Will be back by evening. Until then, please bear with me…

Cheers.

Update:
The blog is back online, though I expect frequent issues to crop up for two reasons primarily:

1. Wordpress 2.1.1 is not an official Wordpress release. It’s not even an RC. It is known to be quite buggy. But I hope it’ll stick together.
2. I am still not satisfied with the Template. There’s something still missing. Something that’s typically Shrikant. It’s not yet, how do I put it - boisterous?

Do let me know your thoughts. And if you can recommend a template for me, well, maybe you’ll get some free ice-cream…

It’s your duty to look out for them - or is it?”

- Written in a state of drunkenness, three beers and one large vodka down during the Mirchi Party. The writing is legible, although not one to win any awards anytime soon…

The Mirchi Party happened at Leather Lounge, M.G. Road on Wednesday the 7th. The Pune Office cleared all Sales targets, in fact overshot them. And so we celebrated. Mad music, madder dancing.

I can’t remember for the life of me, when or why I wrote the above. I found it in the morning in my pocket.

Oh, and by the way, this dude is now *officially* an RJ. Hmmm.

My Web Hosting providers suddenly got into their mind that Blogging was an activity they did not want to allow on their web servers. And for some reason they thought that my YouTube videos were hogging their bandwidth. So they suspended my account.

Just like that.

Without information, without notice, without anything. And this happens right in the middle of a post submission!! No prior intimation, no update, nothing! So I did what anybody would do. Got myself pissed and mailed them immediately. 11 emails and 3 days later, i.e. today they ‘relented’ to my questions and ‘unsuspended’ the site.

Just like that.

In the course of the email exchanges I learnt that my site was blocked because of streaming and blogging activity. Huh? Blogging is a perfectly acceptable activity for a website. In fact I choose to use my blog as a website, instead of the other way round. As for streaming, the only streaming came from the YouTube video, which streams directly from source!

What irritated me further was this line in their Terms of Service Agreement:

Denial of Service: We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason.

That line just absolves them of all liabilities, doesn’t it? So tomorrow, if their system admin turns out to be a BOFH, I stand to lose all my content?

Silly of me to give them ideas, isn’t it? But what irritates me is this fine print in the legalese. Why should one shirk from responsibilities? If it is an error, it IS an error. Accept it like a man, make amends and move on. Is that so difficult to understand?

Sigh, seems like a classic case of the Friday blues to me…

The fact is I have begun training as an RJ (That’s a Radio Jockey, folks,) at Radio Mirchi, Pune. And now, I have a new outlet for my silliness and idiocy! Poor Punekars, they don’t even know what hit them…

As a part of my training, I do a lot of things, with the details of which I shall not bore you right now. It might suffice to say that I do not yap as much as I would want to, but I have had a few lucky swipes at unlucky listeners.

I got to do the Cricket updates of the India v/s South Africa test match in Johannesburg, which was quite cool. A lot of Punekars, heard a stupid voice fumble, and fumble again until it got the score right. In my defense (which is pretty much non-existent) I can only say, the wickets were falling so fast…

But it was fun. The thrill of knowing that somewhere out there, there are people who are listening to you, somewhere out there, there’s someone who has switched off their TV set and is waiting eagerly for that sweet aural massage, that somewhere, someone eagerly awaits your voice… yeah, the mere thought of it is fun. And then you get out on the street and hear people saying things like:

“Who’s that idiot fuck who keeps fumbling silly things like a Cricket score?”

“Why the fuck are they announcing Cricket scores on a Radio Station?”

“Aren’t they supposed to, like, play music?”

“Cricket? Radio? Whoever does that these days?”

“Scores on the Radio? That’s so Ell-Ess…”

*Sigh* What can I say?

You should listen to some of the people that call a Radio station. Sometimes, they are plain weird. Other times they are *really* weird. I guess that’s just a part of being an On-Air jock.

This does not mean I’ll be turning into a jock anytime soon. But I think I’d like to do that someday. It’s a cool place and nobody tells me I talk too much, except the listeners of course… But, do I care? Naa-huh! Not me, no sirree!!

Oh well, I actually do…

This is your Jock-on-the-Rocks, Shrikant serving you delicious music on Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM, it’s hot!! Stay tuned!

How does that sound? Good, bad, ugly?

1. quirk (kwûrk) pronunciation (n.)

1. A peculiarity of behavior; an idiosyncrasy: “Every man had his own quirks and twists” (Harriet Beecher Stowe).
2. An unpredictable or unaccountable act or event; a vagary: a quirk of fate.
3. A sudden sharp turn or twist.
4. An equivocation; a quibble.
5. Architecture. A lengthwise groove on a molding between the convex upper part and the soffit.

2. 42: DNA, H2G2 fans, rejoice!!

There’s still a lot of work to be done. This is just a stop-gap setup. Over the coming days (or weeks, or months) I intend to set up my own particular design, once I learn the basics of this thing…

Almost all the posts have been imported from Blogger along with your comments.

Here’s a hint:

Navigating these pages is easy. Simply, use the categories on the right! Or if you are looking for something specific, try the search box on the top.

For those who came from my Conversations blog on Blogspot/Blogger, you can find all the stories, in the stories category. Here’s a handy link:
http://42quirks.com/index.php/category/stories/

Thanks to everyone, who prodded me enough to set this up…

A patent has been granted to a relatively unknown California Web-design firm for an invention its creator says covers the design and creation of most rich-media applications used over the Internet. The patent holder, Balthaser Online Inc., says it could license nearly any rich-media Internet application across a broad range of devices and networks.

In simple words, this page, and this page and this one and this one and this one - you get the drift - are in violation of the United States Patent Law (direct link to PDF).

Oh and by the way, no use yelling now. The patent’s already been issued - on Valentine’s day. Lovely, eh?

The Patent applicant (now owner) claims everything from creating users for media-rich applications to maintaining them on hosting services. Which essentially means that if you are using Flash, Flex, Java, AJAX and XAML on your site, you gotta pay these guys.

And they don’t even have their names on the first page of Google Search results, sheesh!!

If you are wondering why nobody ever knew about this coup d’état, I recommend you run a quick eye through the Patent. The references are so subtle it would take a keen-eye to spot them. But, the references are there. All references to rich media and the explanations thereof, point clearly to the various rich-media enablers described early on in this post.

The A-list bloggers might recall the name of Neil Balthaser. He was declared a DEMOgod in the 2001 DEMO conference for the Flash-based website builder Pro:Fx.

Flash-based? Erm, back in my days, this was called hypocrisy. But then, the world has changed now, After all this is the Web 2.0, right?

I, for one, am looking forward to this conversation in particular…

With my ear-drums well-protected, of course.