These Sleepless Nights

The idea of this post is simple - I've been having sleepless nights for five nights in a row now. No, I've not been using steroids, I'm not over-caffeinated, and I don't sleep my days out. Still I get to spend the better parts of my nights awake.

One of my friends suggested, "that's probably because there are a lot of unsettled thoughts in your mind" - it true, that my mind is always suscepted to a multitude of thoughts, a better share of them unsettled. But the kind of 'unsettledness' he talked here about, an 'emotional overload', as I put it, is neither my reason too. Emotional overloads are something that I seldom have these days, thanks to the faithful sinusoid my life follows. My mindset is usually left well in balance - no matter however high or low the crests or troughs that I get to ride are.

So it was, the cause of this insomnia that has recently been gripping me, was not easy to find. I soon became aware of the pointlessness of the search, and even, the pointlessness of knowing whatever the cause might be - I then turned to examine what these nights meant to me. Put in the simplest terms, I love these nights - love them so much that I don't exactly want to fall asleep again.

I love the sights - the pale, translucent darkeness, the calm image of the moon if present, or the placid moonlessness of the sky. And I love the myriad sounds - of the multiple fans whirring; a lonely howl of a loner wolf, the ever-present hum of the mosquitoes that haunt me in a squad that never falls below 6 in number, however hard I try; the occasional groan from the hostel-mate sleeping nearby; the music played by another mate, already fast asleep, who broke his headset and hence chooses to play it loud. I love the way it all feels.

And I love the many things I do during one of these nights. I maybe lying on my back reminiscing and reflecting. Or playing 'What Hurts the Most' for the umpteenth time - that is my favorite track recently. Or wading my way through random blogs - it was one of those nights that I found out a blog by a person that calls herself 'geek', and fell in love with it. Or doing one of great many things online or offline - no, porn and you-know-what is not exactly what I mean.

But perhaps, the most important factor that makes me want to stay awake is that, for these mighty nightly hours, I get to be ALONE.
Those who know me know, that solitude used to be, and still is, among the best of my friends - and for so long until only lately used to be the only. And lately, I had this trouble of missing my solitude a bit too much, making me feel lost even when I am supposed to have good times with my friends. That state of mind seems to have been cured now, once and for all - by staying awake at the nights, I get the time I need to spend with my best friend - and doesn't need to miss her or feel lost when I'm with my other friends who are more 'real'.

I'd say, everyone should spend a night or too sleepless - although, be careful not to get addicted to it like me. There is a lot of miracles that the Night has in store for anyone. Open your mind, and do what it directs you to do - anything from breathing deep and reminiscing, to dancing around the room naked. Be you, be the 'you' that even you didn't know.

That's all for the day. About the post on emotions, I'll come up with it probably the coming weekend. As a passing note, this post was supposed to be aired last night, at about 2:00 - unfortunately, my cellphone's browser turned me down - after typing the entire article, I was stunned to find that the 'Publish' and 'Save' buttons were not there where they were supposed to be - some kind of script-error, I guess. And hence I now get to type the entire thing all over again, now sitting in an internet-cafe cubicle.

So that's it, see you soon. Poof.

The iPad Thing: Should I Be A Fan?

Tada! So now we have the iPad. The next magical thing marketed by the wizard called Jobs, promising to create a niche of its own in the market, reign it, revolutionarize all of us. Wow!

And Tada! I think i need two of them, here is my 'much awaited' (why, it is - I've been eagerly looking forward to the day I post this) iPad review. 'So what?' Is that what you are raising your eyebrow for? How is this one different from a hundred others, written by nerds around the world? Well, it is different actually. I'll tell you how.

Primarily because: I haven't touched the iPad. Not even seen it for real. Infact I have no hope that I might actually get to see one in the next 2 years. That's precisely why I write this review - without delving into the specs or rambling about how smooth the interface is, I'll just tell you what I think about the product from what I hear. Simply put, this review is not about what the iPad is for a customer/user and should you buy it - its more about what it means to casual onlooker, like me - who's just interested with what's hot on the tech-sphere. Less a product review and more a 'buzz-review'. I think I need some credits for coining that cool term!

Till the day of launch, things seemed to be colourful enough to most people. Somehow, I remained skeptical. The idea of a 'blown-up iPhone' remained just that to me - a blown up phone. Ugh! And then, last saturday it happened. Like I anticipated, the sales figures didn't quite match the amazing figures that Apple gets normally with it product launches. A few points lost there.

Sunday afternoon, I checked out the top technology news sites again. And guess what I saw, hordes after hordes of complaints. Heating issues, battery life, battery charging issues, and more freqently, issues with WiFi. Oh, Apple, I think that's a lot of points you lose there.

Lets now look at a few things iPad promised to be and where it ended up.
'The bridging device between your netbook and your phone' - do people really need a bridge there? The netbook itself is a bridge device, in fact.
Gaming: Neither here do I see a point too. For motion-sensing kind of casual games, I think iPad is slightly too bulky and iPhone might do a better job. For the slightly more serious genre, the presence of hardware peripherals, and better powered insides of a regular laptop is indeed better.
Web and Applications: Web browsing, I admit, is one arena that the iPad will shine in. Touch interface will be a boon, especially with many sites launching special touch-optimized versions. About apps, I have mixed feelings. True, the App Store is a wonderful place that sells wonderful apps. Anyway, I don't really like the idea of running productivity apps on a platform that was primarily designed for phones.
And some other things - e-book - no, the sunlight readability is poor and display is less paperlike. Digital photo frame - yes, it makes a really cool one. Movies and entertainment - maybe, but I'll pass.

So what does this all come down to? Time for the verdict for 'should we really be fans'? I think the iPad is just an okay-okay kind of stuff, and doesn't deserve accolades that the iPhone got. Maybe it won't be as bad a product like the Macbook Air, but still doesn't manage to hit the 'great' spot. Sure, it's gonna get a lot more better in the coming days with upgrades, incremental updates and all that. But somehow, I'm left with the feeling that the iPad will remain just a non-essential device that neither isn't revolutionary enough.

Bottomline: I don't like the iPad.

COMING UP NEXT: Where do emotions come from? Are we the ones who choose how we feel?

The Blog Preamble

Friends, I'm back. This time with my Blog Preamble. My apologies about the 'iPad' thing - it will follow real soon. Probably tomorrow.

Like every big-and-boring things, I decided my blog should also have a preamble. Only, it would technically be not precisely a 'pre'amble - those who have done a data-structures major course would know what I mean, this should be better called an 'in'-amble.
This is going to be simple, I just need to state what this blog is going to be. Or rather, what I'm now planning now for it to be. So yes, here we go.

Firstly, atleast for quite some time, this will be an all-in-one blog. So you can see here many things -technology, music and movie reviews, anecdotes, and of course, more often, my own personal whimsies like the previous post. I decided that way since it's not really nice to play with a handful of blogs right from my debut - maybe one day I'll become a famous and well-read blogger, and then I'll keep different blogs to tend to different classes of my readers. Just joking. (And secretly hoping.)

Nextly, the update frequency of this blog will be roughly forthnightly. I'll normally come up with new posts once in two weeks - unless something really bad happens, like me being marooned with no means to access the internet, or me simply being not in the mood to blog. I think that is a safely spaced interval to post, without overwhelming my blog with too frequent posts. Of course, if sometimes I get stuck with an idea so special, and I can't resist the urge to tell you about it, I may break the forthnight rule and post it right away.

I'll try to footnote my blogs with a cue to what's coming up next. And I'll try my best to stick to my word.

And something important - I have no intention whatsoever to monetize my blog. If I can have a handful of people to read my blog, I'm happy with that. I'll never litter my blog with ads. I think they make a blog look ugly, and makes it lose quite much of its worth.

Lastly, it goes without saying, that, whatever you see in this blog represents the essential me. Even though some of the things are more 'me' than others, all these things are what make me up. Simply put, this blog is all about me, I'm (almost) all about this blog. This is the other reason why I opted for an all-in-one blog.

And finally, a word to you - your comments are always welcome. I desperately need feedback. Last night, a friend who had just read my blog told me that, "fine, does but your blog has a bit of arrogant tone to it?" Okay, I didn't know that - maybe it came from me trying to be a bit too frank and blunt - but now i can correct that.
So, my friends, keep 'feeding me back'. Comment, comment. Of course, those who know me can also tell me in person, or text me or whatever.

That's for today. I'll be back soon, and fulfil my word. Signing off. Poof.

[UP NEXT: What does the iPad mean to the casual gawker-geek? Of course, we're never gonna buy it, but should we really be fans?]

Undulations

I love undulations - for the way they take birth in things so trivial - like an empty metal bowl. I love them - for the way they emanate, expand and fill the space, knowing no bounds. I love the way they interact - with themselves and the world - interfering and diffracting.
I love these undulations - for they never die.

That's one of the two reason's why I named this blog undulations. Undulations are the next best thing to me since (no, sliced-bread is not what I'm about to say) Solitude. There's one more, and perhaps a bigger reason -
This is precisely the tragectory my life follows - a ceaseless undulation. A sinusoid. And I love it.

My life constantly riddled me with incomprehensible troughs and crests. It scared me, to the point of hating it - but not now, after I comprehended the rhythm. Now I know, for the deepest trough I fall in, there soon follows a mesmerizing climb back up. Followed by yet another fall. And the chain continues. I love it this way. I don't have to fear it would spiral wildly out of any control - or meander chaotically knowing no way. I can simply and blindly trust it to faithfully traverse the tagectory it so well knows.

I think all of us should look deep enough into our lives. Maybe we'll all have a hidden sinusoid there. Or any kind of pattern, a subtle regularity. Learning it, comprehending the way it works will render our lives far more easier to live. And the feeling, of knowing where your life is going - it's simply miraculous.

[Meanwhile, like I said before, not all my posts are gonna sound this way okay - so if this post kinda scares you, please don't go away. I might talk anything at all - right from poetry to mobile phones to popcorn to alien invasions.]
Coming up Next: I'm gonna review the iPad. Without even taking a look at it other than pictures.

The First Step

Welcome to 'Undulations' - my first, favorite, experimental, or whatever you can call, blog - and so far the only.

And here I am, with my first blog post - which is supposed, for the good of my blog, to be the best. Which I'm quite sure, will not be. Frankly speaking, I do not know how to speak up. Or win hearts.
Anyway, for that matter, I'd rather introduce what my blog will sound like. Quite frankly, I don't know. This first baby may look or sound like just about anything, in sync with what's on my mind when I compose a post. So expect just about anything.

That quite makes my first post. Bored, aren't you? Well then, go ahead and read the next post - it's even more boring. Only, it's got that 'wise-guy', philosophical tone to it.
Okay folks, see you there.