Grading: What Are The Funniest Things that you Have Observed on Answer Papers?

Read Quote of Ishtiaque Khan's answer to Grading: What are the funniest things that you have observed on answer papers? on Quora

My All Time Favorite ODI XI

I started watching cricket seriously since 1992, so I have mostly considered people from that time on-wards while selecting my team. 

Well, here's my pick:

1. Saeed Anwar
2. Adam Gilchrist (WK)
3. Brian Lara
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Sakib Al Hasan
6. Jacque Kallis
7. Michael Bevan
8. Wasim Akram (C)
9. Muttiah Muralidharan
10. Curtly Ambrose
11. Allan Donald

12th Man: Jonty Rhodes

Some logic behind the selections:

Saeed Anwar was the first batsman to go near the 200 run mark in ODIs. He is one of the most iconic left handed batsman to ever walk on the cricket grounds, and till today he serves as a big inspiration to all opening batsmen. Few batsmen could destroy the opponent's bowling like he did. 

Also, he will make a great pair with Adam Gilchrist. Just like Saeed, Gilchrist, too, has been one of the most demonic openers ever, and Australian ODI XI has never been the same since he retired. His wicket keeping skills gives me the luxury of picking an additional batsman, and thus I will go with him. 

Brian Lara, enough said! He is one of the most creative players ever, and he can turn the tides of a game anytime. 

I am not a very big fan of S.R.Tendulkar, but he is highest scorer in ODIs, so, yes, he gets the number 4 slot. He can dominate any bowling lineup anyday, so...

Sakib Al Hasan has proven himself to be a very versatile and effective all rounder, and he has been topping the best ODI allrounder's list on a frequent basis. He can be the 5th bowler and the 2nd spinning option for the team, as well as being an effective number 5 batsman. He is also a great fielder. 

Kallis is such a great player to have in the team! He can score loads of quick runs, and grab some tricky wickets with his much effective medium pace. 

Bevan is arguably the best finisher cricket has ever seen. He is also one of the most underrated players. I firmly believe that he deserved more opportunities and accolades. His left handed chinaman spinners can also come in handy in the ODI games. 

Wasim Akram can spearhead any pace attack and bring excellent results. There won't be any other bowler like him. He is also a great batsman who can hit sixes and fours during the penultimate overs of a game. 

While Warne was a great test bowler, Murali was great in all formats of cricket--he even left his mark in T20s. He is a match winning bowler, and he is the team's primary spinning option.

Ambrose was part of the West Indies team when they were in their decline stage, and yet he shone above his contemporaries in many ways. An effective bowler in the ODIs, he didn't shy away from hitting a few sixes also. 

Finally, Allan Donald will be the new ball partner of either Wasim or Curtly, and he is the kind of bowler who can set fire even on a very much flat or batsman friendly pitch. 

Arguably the best fielder ever, Jonty Rhodes comes in as the 12th man.

So my team has 3 specialist fast bowlers, 1 fast medium bowler (Kallis), 3 spinners (Murali, Sakib and Bevan). As for batting, there are 4 specialist batsmen and 4 all rounders. I think this is a much balanced game. 

Few names I considered, but had to leave out:

1. Steve Waugh (one of the game's most successful all rounders)
2. Chris Cairns (records will never do proper judgement to this great all rounder)
3. Sanath Jayasurya (This was a tough call; he could add a great spinning option in the team and can be considered as a great replacement for Saeed Anwar)
4. Imran Khan (The most charismatic captains of all; his captaincy and all round skills are difficult to be matched)
5. Glen Mcgrath
6. Andy Flower
7. Mark Boucher

The Worst Piece of Design Ever Done

Read Quote of Ishtiaque Khan's answer to Design: What is the worst piece of design ever? on Quora

The Most Challenging Question That I've Ever Been Asked in a Job Interview?

Haha, not mine, but an interesting image nonetheless!

The question that baffled me terribly wasn't really an unusual one, but it came as a complete surprise to me. Without any introductions or any other questions, the interviewer just told me that he is giving me 10 minutes to sell myself to the interview board.

It was a disaster. Instead of talking about myself, I ended up stating my opinions on the organization, bashing the company's strategy and predicting that the entrance of any competent global competitor would decrease their market share significantly. 

I didn't get the job, but my prediction came out to be true after almost 10 years

If I was ever asked the question again, this is how I would respond:

If you ask me now, I'd say that any business owner or top executive would want me to be in their team because of the following things:

I am cold blooded, and not in a negative way. I am almost always calm and cool; I never panic and I always take crisis situations with a pacifying mood. Sometimes people misunderstand me by thinking that I cannot fathom the gravity of the situation and thus I can remain calm, but they change their opinion when I am the first to devise and implement the right strategy to eliminate the crisis.

I am confident, but not arrogant. Yes, I know my limitations and I also know the extent of my abilities, which gives me a strong sense of ownership and control. If I don't know the solution to  a problem and lack expertise, I don't hesitate in admitting it. However, when someone else tries to do my job or tries to ridicule me, I handle the situation with utmost confidence and I prove my abilities to them.

I am a great team player. I know how to bring the best out of my team mates--I know the ways of combining my skills and expertise with the same of the other members of the team to get the best output. 

I am open minded, and I often think out of the box. Yes, proven and tested workflows and formulas can get the job done, but new ideas can do a better job, or replace the job in hand with something better that will yield bigger and better results! 

I look at the big picture and I also think ahead. I consider work and life as a grand game of chess; one needs to anticipate the next 3 or more moves from the opponent, and one also needs to keep on creating, evaluating and updating the game plan for each type of resources. Focusing only on the pawns or rooks won't win you the game; you have to keep your eyes open for everything.

Background:

Just like a number of my recent blog entries, this comes from Quora. My answer did not get many up-votes, but I consider it to be important (for me). 

The Most Dance Worthy Tracks

Someone in Quora asked 

What are the most danceable songs ever made?

And here's what I wrote:

I think Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley will always be on top of any such list. As soon as you hear the first guitar lick and the opening verse, your legs automatically starts twisting. It happens all the time. 

 

You Should be Dancing by Bee Gees. The title says it all. You should be dancing!

In Smooth Criminal , Michael Jackson does his famous moonwalk, and many other cool dance moves. 




Rockafeller Skank by Fatboy Slim. This song was included in the original American Pie movie, and it was also featured in the video game Fifa 99. Always makes me wanna dance. 

 

We Like To Party by Vengaboys. Yeah, it's a silly song, but the beat is much dance-worthy. 

Barbie Girl - Aqua. Another one of those stupid songs that does magic to your feet. 

Scatman's World - Scatman John. I am a big fan of Mr. John Paul Larkin. He was a genius, and he managed to convert his biggest weakness in to his biggest strength. Rest in peace man, God bless your soul. Whenever I hear his songs I pray for his departed soul. He was a great inspiration to everyone who has some kind of weakness in their lives. 

I Saw Her Standing There - The Beatles. Vintage beatles; many of their early works were heavily inspired by Little Richard and Chuck Berry, and this is a great, classic dance song.

Johnny B Goode - Chuck Berry. This song has one of the most famous guitar solos, and it has a similar effect as Jailhouse Rock.

Long Tall Sally - Little Richard. Another classic dance track.

Well, that's my mini list

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Initial Impressions

I've started playing computer games from around 1999. Well, actually that was the year when my dad bought me a top of the line Intel Pentium II 350 Mhz computer with an awesome 16 MB Creative Voodoo Banshee graphics card. I had the best gaming PC among my friends and I'd gladly show off the shiny new graphics on games like Fifa 99, Age of Empires, Need for Speed 2 and 3, etc.

From the very beginning, I had a thing with non playable characters and non-interactive elements within a game's universe. Although EA Sports had the tagline of "If it's in the game, it's in the game", many elements within a game seemed restrictive. As an example, when you are playing a first person shooter game, you would quite often hit invisible walls, i.e. inaccessible areas. Also, you see things lying around the terrain but you can't interact with them, i.e. a soda machine is there but you can't buy soda.

Things got a lot better with the arrival of Half Life, and other modern era shooters like No One Lives Forever, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Max Payne, etc. Back then I didn't care or bother about RPGs at all. I heard about games like Diablo, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Elder Scrolls, etc. but never ended up playing one.

It wasn't until 2009 that I seriously considered playing through an RPG. I think I tried playing Fallout 3 in 2008, but gave up soon after encountering a weird situation. My character started moving like an elephant and I was constantly getting a written prompt which said "you are heavily encumbered". I was such a novice RPG player back then that I didn't even know that heavily encumbered translated to "you don't have enough space in your inventory" and I could easily fix things by dropping some useless gadgets! Earlier, I also encountered a similar problem with Oblivion and quit playing that game, too. 

Inspired by some internet friends in a gaming community I belong to, I took up a personal challenge of completing a basic RPG. I started with a very old, classic role playing game; the original neverwinter nights. At first, I found the game to be a little too much retro for my liking. However, I soon figured out the patterns of the game and

There are many capitals, large cities, small towns, caves and other miscellaneous locations to explore in Skyrim. It really is marvelous in a sense that each location is unique, with different NPCs, landscapes and quests. Resolving all issues of one town can take hours, or even days. While taking care of all the quests in a town named Riften, I felt like completing Dragon Age 2. Yes, it's such a pity for EA that Bethesda's one town can feel like their one whole game.

The game is unique in many ways. The best thing is perhaps that you can approach it in multiple ways. While fighting is an integral part of the overall experience, you can do quite well without fighting at all. Sneaking around in stealth mode is as good as direct confrontations in many cases. Also, there are many dialogue based fetch quests which can take long hours to complete. A day ago I spent a whole evening in Skyrim without doing a single fight. I went to different people, talked information out of them and acted accordingly to complete quests.

When you open your journal where all active and inactive quests are listed, you can easily single out the quests where violence isn't involved--at least initially. Retrieving Olaf's verse for the Bard's college may sound like a mundane task, but it actually involves visiting a ghost infested pit and defeating a powerful undead king. However, apart from a few deceivingly titled quests, there are many where you don't need to apply brute force at all.

When my character was below level 10, I was struggling against the very basic brand of bandits. But, now with a level 18 warrior, I've learned to block attacks better and I invested level ups in health and perks in heavy armor, shields and one handed weapons. Instead of making a jack of all trades character, I have started emphasizing on his core competencies of sword swinging and shield blocking.

The only kind of enemies that gives me a tough time now are mages, who attack from a far with ice and fire based fearsome spells. When battling it out against them, one must drink a fire resistant potion or otherwise you will become a burning corpse in no time.

Looks like I am advancing in the game faster than this blog post is advancing--I am already a level 28 warrior, and I can now challenge the frost trolls (the things that I've mistaken for Yetis) and the mammoth herding mountain giants with ease. I've completed some missions from the main story line and now I now know a lot about the titular character I am playing with.

During the initial phase of playing Skyrim, I was constantly getting challenged by the absurd amount of loot I was collecting from fallen foes and random locations. "Loot", or collectibles are a standard feature of any RPG game, and to many (me too), collecting loot is a very enjoyable part of the gameplay experience. Loot can be almost anything; starting from weapons and armors, health and stamina boosting potions, ornaments, amulets, food items, trophies (head of deceased enemies), wine bottles and what not! Most of these items can be sold off to specific NPCs and these are a very good source of money. One can definitely earn gold by completing quests, but in order to go for major cost involving activities like buying a house, upgrading the house, buying training lessons, etc., selling off loot constantly is a must.

However, just like most other games, the protagonist in Skyrim has limited carrying capacity, and in no time that capacity gets full. You lose some very important skills when you have more items than you can carry. You lose the ability to fast travel and sprint, without which it is almost impossible to play. If you are wearing heavy armor and can't sprint, going from point A to point B (even if it's just a few yards away) feels extremely lagged and tiresome. The only time I was forced to do that was when I pressed the "free movement" button and saw my character turtling towards the Inn where I wanted him to go and sell off some heavy weighing items.

There is no stash in this game (at least not initially) where I can keep the items that I can't carry right now but don't want to part with. The carrying capacity can be increased by increasing stamina, but the option comes once after each level up and levelling up is not a very easy task. So I had to resort to a command line parameter which allowed me to set my character's carrying capacity to the maximum. I gave input of 99999, but the actual value came out as something around 12 thousand.

Now I can loot without bothering about inventory management, and I can concentrate more on the core game.


Updates:

I wrote the above preview when I was in the initial stages of playing Skyrim. My OS crashed at the very end of my journey and I gave up playing Skyrim before beating it. Now that a new DLC is out and I have finally managed to get Windows 7, I am planning to re-install the game and replay it using magical skills. I played with a sword and shield wielding warrior character (with a few magical abilities) in the last game.

A Short Review of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

I've written this short review as a challenge for the Decision Based Gaming Union in Gamespot. 

  

After wading through the near realistic graphics of Skyrim, the cartoonish graphics and heavy emphasis on fast paced battles in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning came to me as a pleasant surprise. Initially, the contrast was a bit shocking, but I quickly got hooked in to the beautifully refreshing fights and intriguing story.

The game started off with an interesting story, which I soon discovered to be a multi-faceted one with many side quests and a long main quest. Just like Skyrim, there are factions and completing their quests gives the player a lot of XP and some unique armor sets that cannot be obtained otherwise. 

I was having a great time jumping from one quest to another, but soon, the number of side quests became overwhelming. I started forgetting why I am doing these quests, and I started skipping all dialogues frantically. The battles also got stale after I unlocked some powerful moves.

It was possible to enlist the service of a "fateweaver" to redistribute skill points and abilities on the fly to alter between a warrior, a rogue and a mage. However, in reality, this is not too interesting as the rogue class is extra powerful, and you really don't need to yield anything other than the faeblade and daggers to win most of the battles. 

The game started with a lot of promise, but ended up being a somewhat bland game with repetitive quests and boring battles. It took me a lot of willpower and effort to go through the final hours of the game, and the ending was even worse. 

Happiness

Sean Lennon (L) and Julian Lennon (R)-Half Brothers

It really is difficult to live under the shadow of a legendary father. I am sure Julian and Sean Lennon feels this everyday. Despite of being the children of the great late John Lennon, both of them have shone in their own, particular way. For the last few days, I've been listening to two songs by Sean Lennon titled "Happiness" and "Spectacle". Both songs have a melancholy tone, and yet they are very, very beautiful.

Right now I am listening to the remixed version of "Time of My Life" from the movie Dirty Dancing. This incarnation was released by Black Eyed Peas, and the song title is The Time (The Dirty Bit). I am not a big fan of the genre BEP represents, but I love their songs. I love the voice of Will.I.Am. and Fergie, and yes, Will.I.Am is someone's name. 

If you've seen Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li or X-Men Origins: Wolverine, you already know Mr. Will.I.Am. He played the roles of John Wraith and Vega in those movies, subsequently. None of the characters were major, but he did a good acting job. But I must say he's a lot better singer than an actor. 

Dave Brubeck Quartret

After listening to Time of My Life for 2/3 times, now I've switched to semi-classical jazz. Right now I'm playing the first track from the album Time Out by Dave Brubeck Quartret. Right now they are playing "Blue Rondo A La Turk". 

I think it'll be a good choice to switch over to Scatman John now. What do you say?

I just started playing "Only You" from Scatman's World album, but my bossed called me to his workstation like a perfect killjoy. 

Yes, I used my ipod to listen to songs. It's an Ipod touch 8 GB model. 

Random June Blog

The 6th month of the year has just started, which means that half of the year has almost gone by. I did not really comprehend the full gravity of this fact until a facebook contact pointed it out to me yesterday. I am sure after not so long a period I will wake up from sleep and realize that another full year has gone by.

However, this year is different for me, and I have a special event (or a series of events, you can say) coming up at the end of the year. My calendar should be much occupied in September, October and November, and I finally might find some time to relax during December.

I won't get in to the details of these events, but I am very excited about the ones that will take place in November and September. 

Today I've been listening to "Nothing But The Beat" by David Guetta and "Loud" by Rihanna. These are pretty good albums, but a bit different from the stuff I usually listen to . 

Not a bad way to start the month of June, is it?

Mass Effect has Effected me Massively

I've been spending a lot of time playing Mass Effect in this month. Started from April, now I've done beating all three games which took me more than 90 hours, and what a memorable experience it has been! Some of the greatest RPG moments of my life since playing Dragon Age: Origins. The only low point was the ending in Mass Effect 3; the last 20 minutes of the game, to be precise. That portion was really, really lame and I wish the developers dedicated a little bit more time in thinking out the finale. 

I am glad I started playing RPG games in 2009. Previously, I did not really understand the concept well, which caused a lot of frustration on my part. I remember buying Mass Effect 1 back in 2008, when the game was first released. I tried to play it like a FPS, and I desperately hated all the stuff outside the fights, i.e. walking from point A to B to talk to people and recruit them. I would skip all the dialogues, and did not wait to buy items or level up my companions. Result--premature death of the companions and my inability to progress much farther in the game. I think I stopped playing after I was sent to a distant planet where I was supposed to navigate the terrain using a rover. I didn't even know how to get my squad out of that car, and I got stuck in an area from where I could progress no more. Deeply pissed off, I uninstalled the game and didn't bother to replay it in about four years time.

I also remember getting pissed off at Garrus for inviting himself in to my squad. I thought "What the hell, I already have Ashley and Kaidan, why do I need you?" and so on. I hated every walk down (without throwing bullets) and I hated every conversation. I also made a female Shepard, which decreased the immersion value to a great extent. While I enjoy using female characters in RPG games a lot, but I know believe that at least the first play through should be via a male character, with whom I can immerse myself and do the role playing in a better way.

So the Shepard in Mass Effect was actually me--I was taking all the decisions, and Shepard was just letting others know. I recruited all possible companions and waded through all the missions of the three games, trying not to skip many side missions. I did skip some of them in ME1 due to the tedious navigation system, but I didn't miss any in ME3 and only missed a few DLC missions involving a hovercraft like vehicle in ME2.

Apart from a few design choice flaws, the entire trilogy is an RPG gamer's dream come true, and if you have the remotest interest in planets ans space travelling, you will love to immerse yourself in Mass Effect's world.

The only grievance I have is about the ending. It couldn't have been worse. I won't give any spoilers here, but I surely hope they can fix the damage done with the epilogue video they are currently making. 

No Trespassing

You Know what will happen to violators :D

Animal Jokes!

Animal Jokes from 9GAG

1. I have the necessary qualifications
2. Your qualifications are completely irrelevant
3. Don't listen to him, he's lying
4. The arguing is becoming unbearable
5. Indeed it's making my voice hoarse
6. Please horse when do you ever say something smart? Don't worry, I will wait.
7. Ouch!! Awkward!! 
8. I'm out of here! You are all getting me crazy
9. I'll pack your things
10. Let me know when you get there!

Random April Blog

I am in misery

There ain't nobody 

who can comfort me

Why won't you answer me

Your solace is slowly killing me

You really got me babe (2x)

Misery - Maroon 5

I was once interviewed by a guy (only once)--he asked me what inspires my writings, and without a doubt, I said "music". This might sound a bit strange because I've never heard anyone saying that music has inspired their writings. Most writers will mention other writers, and poets at the best, but for me, songs work best. 

Most songs contain a story or two within them, and I often feel like expanding upon the stories and characters described within the songs. One of my earliest, favorite writings is based on a song by The Beatles. The story is titled "No Reply", which is also the title of a lesser know Beatles song from their "Beatles for Sale" album. 

The story can be found here. Actually, I've started writing a sequel to that story. It's in the draft state, just like almost a hundred other unfinished blog posts. But I am keen on ending the story, and I think I might be lucky enough to get it published, too. 

Let's see. 

Until that job is done, I just want to write away my thoughts. Segments of Random Thoughts, as Amadergaan forum would say. SORT was a very popular thread in the Chit Chat section of amadergaan forum. There was a time when everyday I'd spent a significant time in that forum, posting witty, pointless and meaningless tidbits throughout the day.

It's been ages since I last visited that forum. This shows that you can get rid of any old habit if you really want to.

This year can be termed as the resurrection year of my writing. I've been writing a lot. Random blogs, and serious stuff, too. I still cherish the hopes of becoming a writer someday. I might start writing in Bangla, too, but that is a bit out of question right now.

If it's out of question, why did I write about it, then? Well, I feel like writing in Bangla, but I don't have the logistics available. I need a software and a keyboard with the Bangla characters embedded on the keys. I have the software in my laptop (where there's no Bangla keys) and the keyboard at home (where there's no software). If I can bridge the gap mentioned here, I might start writing in Bangla anytime now.

Yesterday (7th April) was memorable because I managed to pull off a lot of activities within a single day. For quite some time, morbid thoughts are haunting me. Whenever I go out with my parents, I have a stupid feeling that I won't be able to repeat the same again. I need to get out of these thoughts. I fear for my life, I fear for my parents, and most of all, I fear for my wife.

I know, I am being silly, but I just can't help myself in this regard.

Now back to yesterday. I took my dad and my wife to visit the doctor. On our way back, we stopped in Gulshan 2 Dhanshiri restaurant to have lunch. We ate Hilsha fish, assorted bhortas, rice and lacchi. The bill cam out to be approximately 3,000 taka. Now it's quite a lot for having a Bangladeshi meal, thanks to the Hilsha fish. Each piece was priced at Tk 400. That's quite outrageous, if you ask me. We can buy a whole Hilsha fish at that price. But the food was tasty and I have no regrets at all. My family doesn't feel the same way, though.

The waiter dodged our request for providing a menu--they said many items in the menu are not available, so you can ask me and I can tell you whatever is available. The mistake we made was that we did not ask for the price. That'd have saved us a lot of money.

However, it was a lovely family lunch. We were terribly hungry. On our way to Gulshan 2, we had to spend more than an hour being stuck in the road from American Embassy to Gulshan 2, the reason being a sudden desire of the government to wreck the roads and install some drainage pipes. One side of the road was cordoned off, and thus all cars had to be diverted in one single lane.

Results? Disaster and misery.

After having lunch, we went to Bata shoes and bought a two pairs of shoes for my wife, and then we returned home.

During the journey, our chauffeur informed us that he needs to go to his hometown immediately because apparently his parents were fighting and other family members got involved in the fight. His father beat his mother, but his aunts blamed her for the row, etc. etc.

So he's gone now, and today I came to the office via rickshaw. He left in a very critical situation; we have experienced bouts of the kalboishakhi jhor over the last few days, and I won't be too surprised if I have to skip office at least a day or two this week due to heavy rainfall in the morning.

I don't mind coming to the office on a rainy day, but I really can't come if it's raining and I don't get a vehicle. I almost always carry my laptop with me, and thus coming to the office on a rainy day without getting a proper vehicle is out of question. Even a CNG can get out wet if the rainfall is that heavy.

Once I reached home, I immediately got down to work. Well, work is a very subjective term. One man's work might be another leisure, and vice versa. What I did was that I installed a new game which me and my friends are hoping to play together, and I downloaded a new album

Acoustic Alchemy

I've been on the hunt for Roseland, the latest album from Acoustic Alchemy ever since it came out in September, 2011. Within this time frame, I visited Dubai and Thailand, and looked for the album in both places, but my efforts went in to vain. I also asked two colleagues of mine to look for it in India and Dubai, too (he went there after I did), but none of them could find the CD.

So out of desperation, I typed "download Roseland Acoustic Alchemy" in google, and voila, I foud a link from a new and still obscure file sharing site. The sight look suspiciously similar to now defunct Megaupload, and though feeling guilty, I couldn't stop myself from clicking the link. After 5 minutes of the usual crap (if you don't want to wait, buy a premium account), captcha verification and a few ads, I started downloading the 129 MB file.

After 15 minutes, I got treated to a brilliant album. I've listened to two tracks previously--Marrakesh and Roseland, thanks to Youtube. I really loved Roseland. The video was about Acoustic Alchemy playing the song live in a cafe, and I don't remember how many times I've watched in the last few months.

When I am at work, sometimes I listen to the preview files posted in Amazon for this album.

Naturally, one can imagine how elated I am right now to be able to listen to the album whenever I want, wherever I want--because I've inserted them in to my Ipod rightaway.

I will definitely buy the CD when I find it, but until then, pirated Mp3s will have to do the job. And wow, the some of the tracks are so nice! I've been listening to Roseland and Stealing Hearts on and on. I am sure the other tracks will "grow on" to me, but these two are exceptional.

The sound and composition of this album is quite different from their last album, This Way. I wrote an elaborate review of that album which can be accessed here.

I will write a full fledged review after listening through the entire album.

"Draw Something", the latest Android and Itunes App Store phenomenon has grown on to me as well. Everyday I am guessing other people's drawings and doing my own bit of finger painting. It's a fun app and a must have if you have an Android or an Apple phone.

Well, I guess that all from the randomness department for the time being.

I love to write and I will write again.

New Writing: The Rude Awakening

Please take a look at my latest writing below:

The Rude Awakening

I wrote it for a Quora board challenge. The challenge was to write a 250 word prose on a certain theme. The theme is given below:


And that is how he came to awake in the alley behind the Taco Bell, 400 miles away from where he last remembered being, wearing a nun's habit and clutching a naked Barbie doll. 


Please read and provide comments. In case the submission doesn't get approved, this will be the only record of this writing. 


I wanted to write more. In fact, I might elaborate the article sometime later. I already published a draft which actually had around 500 words. 

The albums that I'd like to take with me If I Were Stranded On a Desert Island With a Six CD Changer

Via Quora

In no particular order, these are the albums that I'd like to take with me if I were stranded on a desert island with a six CD changer.

I tried not to pick more than one album per artist/band:





1. Rubber Soul - The Beatles
Although I'd love to take along the entire catalog of Beatles songs, but if it has to come down to one album, this is the one I'd love to take. The songs have enough variety and versatility to serve the purpose at hand.



2. Dire Straits - Dire Straits
It is often true that the signs of a great band is most prevalent in their first album, and Dire Straits proves this point the most. Though most of the songs int he album don't belong to a "best of" collection, I still love them.



3. Legend - Bob Marley 
Perhaps the most definitive collection of the best songs Bob Marley has ever sang. 

4. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
One of the most adventurous journey a music fan can take. 



5. L A Woman - The Doors
Jim Morrison was very, very talented, but he was also very, very crazy. His last album with doors still leaves a heavy impact. 




6. The Best of Sixpence None The Richer - Sixpence None The Richer
I can't imagine living a life without hearing the sweet voice of Leigh Nash and pacifying strums from Matt Slocum