So in the few days that have passed since my last appearance on this page, there have been some interesting happenings in the online world most of us seem to dwell in most of the time, so perhaps a summary is in order.
For one, we had Ms. Nandita (Nonda) Chatterjee make her grand entry into the (in her words) “geekish and highly technical” world of blogging. While I feared for the stability of my MovableType installation – given that Nonda is known to make even the simplest of applications go beserk with her careful application of the logic of what she thinks “the computer ought to be doing” – I have to say that my faith has been re-affirmed in the wonderful, powerful and stable thing that Linux is. It survived Nonda. Something the poor Windows desktop in her room can only put on a brave front of doing 
But to be fair, I have to say that I am enjoying her blog very much. And what’s more, it seems to attract a huge crowd, generate a ton of controversy and have people salivating for more. Now if there ever was a grander entry into the blogging world, I haven’t seen it !
And following close on Ms. Nonda’s heels is my very own, dear brother, Rahul. His blog just made its appearance on the web and judging from the first two entries, I think it is going to make for some really interesting reading. His busy schedule in IIT would doubtless make it difficult to be as regular as I might expect but the content (and verbosity) of his posts should more than make up for that.
Now that we are done with the introductions, it is time to dwell a bit on what I have been upto. This week was another tight one. All my time was spent mostly on writing C++ code but for Thursday evening when I was at the premiere of ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ – a most delightful little comedy about a girl whose incredible talent for football takes her to all the places she dreams of inspite of her conservative Indian parents and their thoughts on what she should be doing. The movie is set in London and provides some excellent entertainment for something close to 2 hours. I enjoyed the cool British accents everybody had in the movie – “Bollocks, Joe!” You better watch out for the after-effects of the movie on me
Becky made a small trip to Firestone this morning because I was a little concerned about some strange noises I could hear from the wheels ever since I had the air pressure checked and the tyres inflated. The chap called me back about an hour after I dropped her off with him reporting that he couldn’t find out what was wrong with her. I went down to show it to him myself and when I did show him what the matter was, it turned out to be because of the hub caps!
“So is there something I should do about it ?”
“Yeah, just turn up the radio and forget about it. Your car is just fine, man ”
QUOTE
His busy schedule in IIT would doubtless make it difficult to be as regular [...]
/QUOTE
Hahahaha! That /almost/ reads like, “yo kid bro, start wasting your time on blogging, and watch me kick your behind sore …”
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I’m sure Derek (if he enters the blogging world) would comment that this is the midwestern mentality on cars. I.E. “Let it go till something breaks and then fix it, or better still, get rid of it and buy a new one”. Its drives him up the wall that he can’t find a mechanic good enough to diagnose and fix what he thinks are problems. Unfortunately, the mechanics don’t think anything is a problem untill it breaks in this part of the country.
An interesting side note is that Derek belongs to an email list which is essentially a support group for Saabs. A group of motivated individuals who have passions for Saabs write about problems and solutions, fixes and dangers and share concerns and care for Saabs. Derek reads this with great fervour and finds it a huge source of knowledge and inspiration. His only problem is that he doesn’t have a garage where he could fix the problems himself or simply court his car.
Oh, and yes, being a mechanic, to him, would be an equally satisfying (for those of us who believe that satisfaction is the goal of life!
and fulfilling career, but he could never work in the midwest!
I thought the mentality of use and throw was more an American one, not necessarily mid-western but I could be wrong.
Anyway, in this particular case, I wouldn’t be hard on this chap. The problem is indeed a very minor one – the hub caps just need to be taken off and put back on correctly and it is something I intend doing myself
Now that you remind me about it – I must speak to Derek for some advice about car maintenance. Perhaps he can tell me how to fix this problem.