42 Quirks

“Psychics can make vague predictions and later claim credit for anything that was near the mark. The media tells the story of the fascinating successes and ignores the failures as being not newsworthy. The public gets the impression that psychics can locate dead bodies with regularity. In fact, such cases have been rare and probably a result of geniuslevel pattern recognition, or luck, or simple exaggeration.”

- God’s Debris by Scott Adams [PDF] pp. 81

PayPal sent me their latest missive telling me I can’t keep/spend any of MY own, hard-earned money in my OWN PayPal account. Apparently, RBI guidelines indicate that I have to transfer that money to my bank account in India FIRST before I can spend it anywhere else.

WTF?!
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Have you guys heard of NaNoWriMo?

It is an annual, month-long, writing frenzy where writers from all parts of the world come together in a month long race to write 50000 words in 30 days. Any and every writer who crosses the magic figure – 50000 – is declared a winner.

Why am I telling you this? Well, it’s because…

I WON! HELL YEAH! :D

This morning at 6:45 AM I crossed the 50000-word milestone when I finished writing the pre-climax of my novel. It’s titled “Dream 101” and, as far as I know, it is still a long way from finished. I am just happy that I have a zero-draft in my hands!

In fact, that is what NaNoWriMo is all about – getting your zero-draft.

I have come to believe that ideas are fickle creatures who flit from one person to another seeking to form a symbiotic relation with us. They thrive on our creative juices and must be treated with the kind of respect you would accord a charming woman. Neglect them and they will leave you to fend for yourselves, no offence meant.

The problem with ideas is that we may have plenty of them but we rarely put them on paper. Either we are lazy, busy, stressed, or unsure – it’s always something or the other. We procrastinate and procrastinate until we can’t anymore. Suddenly, before we know it, someone else comes up with an something that vaguely reminds us of our idea.

NaNoWriMo is all about putting those ideas on paper and staking your claim on them. It is about letting the world know that you are going to do something with that idea that has been buzzing inside your head.

I did and I am super kicked about it!

Eyes closed, arms spread wide,
I wait & watch the ocean’s tide.
I feel the air nudge my toes,
Miles beneath me, the water flows…
Silent & still, the ocean awaits;
My arrival at its watery gates.

Knees cocked, arms to the side,
I slowly lean towards the tide.
The vast expanse of ocean blue,
Presents itself, an enchanting view.
Will it be glory? Will it be a wraith?
I wonder & take the leap of faith…

——
I will be quitting my job at Radio Mirchi at the end of this month. In other words, yours truly will no longer be “RJ Shrikant” anymore.

:)

Yeah, I know – so I’ll skip directly to the good news.

42 Quirks will now be a magazine-style blog.

After the declaration, come the details.

42 Quirks has been my home on the web for a long time now. The blog has seen a lot of changes since it began – most of them mirroring my life… However, in these last few months, I realized something very unique: I would not feel like writing a post unless I had a story to tell.

That kinda limits my options.

But then, 42 Quirks wasn’t meant to be a story-blog per se, was it?

I decided to do a li’l make-over, move stuff here n there, add some stuff, take out some stuff – you know…

And after a while I settled for this look: the Isotherm theme for WordPress.

This look is not yet final – I am still in search of that ‘perfect’ look; something I know, but can’t translate into reality (or is it virtuality?) thanks to my appallingly meager knowledge of coding…

The spirit of the blog has been finalized.

42 Quirks will now serve the purpose it was built for: eccentric ramblings about my random sojourns of the life, the universe & the inter-webs. So there’s a high likelihood that you’ll find a few tech topics sharing post-space with film-reviews, jostling for attention-space with short-stories & excerpts from books I’m reading currently…

I hope you’ll stick around for the ride – like you’ve always done in the past. :)

I have been kinda busy.

Hmm. Not quite the way to start. But does keep the reader guessing. Sure, let’s keep it. No wait, let’s modify that a little.

I have been terribly busy.

Yeah, give yourself that importance. You self-centered pompous freak!

I have been tied up with certain things that take most of my time.

Right. And the whole world is out fishing. C’mon!! The truth can’t be so bad.

I have been quite lazy these last few weeks. So lazy, I have found it difficult to do the one thing I love the most – write.

A tad too much, eh? What the heck. Let’s just give it to them plain and simple.
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Well, the show started…

And that’s an unintended pun. :P

The phone calls started flowing in and I tried to answer as many calls as possible, but I did eventually lose out on a lot of them.

Then the sales team entered, with Vikram at the helm.

They brought me out into the conference room, where a cake had been set up, oops sorry, a huge chocolate cake, with lots of icing, cherries, the works…

I already had a hunch where some of it would end up.

I attempted a small thank-you speech, but failed miserable. I was too dazed to attempt anything. And so, I turned my attention towards the cake…

The knife sliced through, and with one wary hand to stop (or at least pause him from transferring the cake from its rightful position on the table to a new location, viz., my face) But his hand seemed to have a mind of its own…

After I had fed the cake to my Prog Head Kanchan, I turned to find the cake in my face.

Not all of it, just a huge chunk of it.

It tasted yum :)

And smelt yum, too! Heh heh.
(Some of it slid down my nostrils. Hence the statement)

Revenge!! I ran after my Prog Head and Producer, to ‘hug’ them. Diabolical of me, no? Heh heh.

The rest of the day was mostly a barrage of phone calls, well wishers, and so forth. A listener actually came to the studio with another cake. I was almost over-whelmed.

Rosh, Kanchan, Shubhra, Smita, all the jocks, my alter-ego Romesh (who is actually looking over my shoulder as I type this – yeah, I am doing it to placate him…) this has been the best budday I have had till date!! Thanks a ton!!

All the thanks in the world wouldn’t express how much I actually mean them…

A silver jubilee year, with such a golden start. What more could I have asked for!! :)

Oh and almost forgot. Here’s the link to those fotus…

HAPPY BUDDAY TO ME!!