Shall shine again…–as Dr. Sadanandan.

I haven’t written in a long time. This is not going to be a long post either.

This post is just to let my readers know that there was some reason for not writing (for being busy).

The reason is that, I am now Dr. Sandeep Sadanandan and the transition from Mr. to Dr. took quite a bit of work. (Plus some personal reasons)

Now, I am back to normal speed of life. (Even though so many things happened in the past 2 months or so)

Expect me to be regular again.

Signing off, Sands.

A bunch of things–half baked.

Listening to “Yesterday, all  my troubles seemed so far away”. How lovely a song it is!

“I don’t know” is a good answer when you really don’t know what is being asked/discussed. Don’t you think so? At least I do.

But many prefer to give half-baked ill-informed answers/opinions when they are asked something. And guess what? that drives me mad. I don’t claim that I know everything about anything I know.

I know only very little. But unless I am quite sure, I won’t be commenting about anything. Oh yes, there are human errors everywhere – I am not above/beyond them either. So, I do cut some slack for everyone. (who do I think I am?)

But when I hear half baked ideas and see half assed effort to be informed, I react badly. Especially when the hard-earned facts and irrefutable logic are ignored. Perhaps I should mellow down a bit.

This blog doesn’t really follow a theme. But lately, I am writing a little too much about atheism and “free-thinking”. Before we  go there, I’ll give you some updates.

After my “Bookshelf Dilemma” post, I decided to get an e-book reader and have it in my hand already. Yes, an amazon Kindle. So far, I have liked it a lot. All the same, I should say that I haven’t read even one complete book in that. But since my vacation is to start next week, I am keeping my reading postponed till then.

A few days before Kindle, I had bought an iPhone too. I am quite satisfied with that gadget as well. I am quite pleased with it.

 

NOW, coming back to ignoring facts and going with ill-informed opinions. This is perhaps why, I cannot understand “creationists”, the reason I don’t understand superstitions, or blindly religious people. Well, apparently, people simply refuse to think…., which is so sad.

Anyway, today I am not going to talk/write about beliefs. I shall just share some lovely videos I came across.

Deconversion

Thanks to Pramode sir, for bringing this (Deconversion) to my notice.

For a good laughter

 

Then, there was this debate I saw online – whether church is necessary or not. It is a playlist of 5 videos – worth watching.

 

 

Now, to an entirely different topic: Vegetarianism. I became a vegetarian, more than a year ago, and stayed so, faithfully. The choice was mainly philosophical and there was a small part of the question which I hadn’t answered. During my vacation@home, I think I will be revisiting the whole issue – all over again.

Signing off, Sands.

PS: Sometimes you don’t know – “whether you like the person because of his ideas or you like his ideas because you like him” (my example is Stephen Fry). Something similar is – “Do I like those parents because I like their kids or do I like the kids because I like their parents?”. There is a malayali family in Munich which I simply adore – parents and two little girls.

PPS: It was Keralasamajam’s Onam celebration on Saturday and I (and MG) painted something for the stage.  Here they are:

The Bookshelf Dilemma

My bookshelves are sort 0f overflowing and I am buying more and more books as time goes by. I don’t know how I would manage to move all of them while relocating to another city or even a country.  (The picture shows a part of my collection two years ago … lazy to click a present one)

That is where an ebook reader (eReader) comes into picture. Shall I go for one? or not?

• Don’t I love the “physical feeling” of a book? The smell of it?
• Don’t I love the sight of the books in the shelf?
• Don’t I love to tell my guests to “pick that ‘green’ book from the third row from top of the shelf on right side” and then tell them to read something from it. (You know? -- just to spice up conversations and such!)
• Am I not simply proud of my collection?

An eReader would kill all this fun. So shall I not get one? But then I’ll be missing the technology train. (Which I never missed with netbooks, smart-phones, iPod, iPhone, etc.)

All the bullets above add up to less than 10 percentage of what I love about books. What I want really is the content. So, wouldn’t it be great if I can carry around my collection in a little handheld device? (claiming to give the perfect-reading-feel)

I don’t know. I was (am) quite confused about it. What if I don’t like it after the investment? Wouldn’t it be a waste? What if I do like? Won’t I move away from the good-old-smelly-books?

I spoke with a fellow-reader (RG) and she recommends to take the plunge. I have nothing to lose. And if I don’t like the device, I can give it to someone. Yes, sounds reasonable enough. Still… but… Hmm…

So, take the plunge? or not?

Signing off, Sands.

PS: The title of this post is shamelessly taken from this post @ Within/Without, which provoked my eReader thoughts.

Sweet and bitter somethings

This month had been so far a book-month. I finished the whole twilight series in the beginning, then I finished “Superfreakonomics” – which is a nice, slightly thought provoking book.

And yesterday, I went to the bookshop (well, not that I don’t have enough unread books in my collection). I went to buy “The last lecture” for a friend (N^th copy of that book I was buying). And I bought a book for me as well (you know Tyler Cowen of MarginalRevolution? – his Infovore book)

While in the train back home, I sat opposite to a lady who was reading. I took the new book, opened it and inhaled directly from the pages… it felt so good - the pleasant smell of the new book. I looked up to see that she was looking at me and smiling. I smiled back, and knew that we had the ‘reader-to-reader’ rapport between us.

If only she were in my age-league, I could have had a bit of flirting flow! :P (I soooo wanted to know which book she was reading – try “Judging a girl by her cover”,  slate magazine)

Today, in the morning, I was standing near the letter-boxes. The post woman was delivering letters/cards, and I thought I’d like to have that card she had in her hand. And guess what? She put it in my letter box!  

The moment she moved,  I took it and was just very happy!  And as the sender asked me to, I did feel very much bear-hugged!

Now, the bitter things: Why do people put their close ones through guilt trips to make them do things against their own wishes? It is being used by so many people, and comes in different flavours – that disgusts me.

Why don’t people follow the minimum manners of removing the hear/ear-phones while speaking to someone? Why can’t you simply remove your tainted-glasses while talking to someone. Don’t you think, looking into the eyes is an important part of any conversation?

Why do people simply go ahead and use someone else’s computer, without asking? Don’t they know it is called “personal computer” and the meaning of “personal”? (Applicable to books and other things too)

And finally, why am I being so touchy? ;)

Signing off, Sands.