Deepanjan Nag's Magnum Opus

Sleepless night.

This is the bicentennial year of the birth of one of the greatest and most famous English writers of all time: Charles Dickens. I guess the first time I came across one of his works was when Dad bought me an illustrated and abridged edition of Oliver Twist . I was hooked. I went on to read some more of his works, including David Copperfield and Great Expectations . I never got around to completing Dombey and Son , though. His novels have been dramatized and made into movies countless times. We finally visited the Charles Dickens Museum yesterday. This is where he lived between 1837-1839 and wrote the whole of Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby . An unforgettable experience!

It must have read yesterday’s post. It’s working fine now.

Asha’s laptop’s replacement power cable was working fine for the past few months. And then today happened. My better half is reduced to using the original cable, which needs to be held at a certain angle with a certain degree of pressure to be coaxed to work. We’re delaying buying a laptop for her until Windows 8 appears. Microsoft, I have high hopes from you. Make the wait worthwhile.

Daylight Saving Time kicks in and I have a mystery post that was too large to be stuffed into my letterbox. I must visit the local post office tomorrow to get my post.

Cooked chicken for the first time in London. Not bad.

Analog TV transmissions are to stop next month in UK, yet another proof of how our lives are getting digitized. The old world had a charm I'll miss.

This has become so routine, I'm really getting annoyed. Andromeda's choked vents are causing overheating leading to sudden shutdown. I was watching the movie Hugo tonight and was almost 75% through when Andromeda shutdown yet again. I've considered opening the computer to unclog the vents and remove all the dust that must have settled by now, but the instructions manual charted a course so daunting, I thought it better to leave the poor thing to its own fate. Andromeda is nearing 5yrs and I'm hoping to install Windows 8 when it's released later this year. I'll be happy if I can squeeze in another 3yrs.

It was reported some time back that TV viewership fell for the first time ever in the USA. I'm surprised it took this long for the idiot box to start slipping out of favor. Thanks to the internet, the options we have at our disposal have grown exponentially. The TV, traditionally disconnected from the network cables, was caught unawares to the changing climes. Though it has recovered some lost ground, it'll probably never hog family time the way it used to. This probably stems from the fact that entertainment is less familial and more personal now. Our ever-expanding options have spoilt us for choice and we now prefer going separate ways to satiate our exacting personal preferences. It's kinda sad, the ties that bound us together seem to be weakening.

London has been unusually sunny over the last one week. What a welcome relief from the depressing cloud-shrouded skies we are so used to.

This is very strange. The Swype icon has vanished from the programs list.I don't know if this is normal. Titanic has returned to the big screen, this time in 3D. I'm not very keen on having another look but Asha insists it'll be worth it. Had my first lollypop in 25 years!

Dear Buddy, This is my first message to you.Though you're too young to read it, I hope one day you will. Today was rather special because we got you photographed! I was under the impression that we were still a few days off from getting you snapped, until your mom clarified. She was actually rather bummed this morning because I was slightly sluggish in getting out of bed. But once I left my lethargy behind, sprang out of bed, dashed to the bathroom, did my stuff and got ready to accompany her to the hospital, she forgave me. Being on the wrong side of her affection isn't a pleasant experience, let me assure you! This is the first of my many messages to you before you arrive to brave the world. We eagerly await you.

India successfully chased a target of 330 set by Pakistan in the Asia Cup. Kohli score a brilliant 183. This was India’s highest successful run-chase.

Sachin Tendulkar has finally scored his hundredth hundred in international cricket. What an amazing feat. I now await his fiftieth one-day international cricket century.

Mamata Banerjee is turning out to be a martinet.

Mom, I wish you would relent.

On the desktop, you can’t beat OneNote - it’s just perfect. On my Android, it’s a very different story. The product is so buggy, it’s almost unusable. Even a task as simple as signing in seems Herculean and I have lost count of the number of attempts I made before successfully getting through. My case was no exception. The Internet abuzz with similar rants. To make matters worse, the product is huge and refuses to be installed anywhere else but the internal memory. I think this is absolutely ridiculous. And here’s the final blow: even after you wade through all the challenges, OneNote for Android often fails to sync. WTF!!! I tried reestablishing some faith in Microsoft’s capabilities by installing the product once again on my phone after previously uninstalling it. It was the same old story- their servers were unavailable for syncing. After multiple attempts, I gave up and uninstalled. Maybe a future version will address these nagging issues. Evernote, on the other hand, works fl

My radio is almost always tuned to ClassicFM. I decided to switch to BBC Radio 3 tonight and was pleasantly surprised by what lied in store for me- a radio adaption of a play set in Calcutta of the late 1950’s. Though I was in the mood for music, I did follow the play for half its duration. The one aural flaw I managed to detect in the adaptation was the faintly and oft playing Flamenco Sketches . I remember the track vividly since it’s my all-time favorite jazz composition by Miles Davis. The album Kind of Blue was released in August, 1959. Now, if the drama is set in the late 1950’s, it’s highly unlikely that the track should be playing anywhere within the premises of the hotel where it is set. But I don’t need to be too critical to enjoy a good play. I enjoyed Chowringhee for 45mins and then ran out of patience before it could finish. Asha is preparing dosa and I feel famished.

Asha is altering her jeans.

Everything looks bright and lively. But London is notorious for its weather-swings. I hope not much changes by the time I go out in a few hours for shopping.

It's a sleepy Saturday afternoon. Andromeda keeps shutting down due to overheating and I keep wasting time waiting for the hottie to cool off. I'm concerned Andromeda is ageing too soon.

WordPress seems to have a far better Android client than Blogger. I hope Google wakes up to the challenge and produced a useful upgrade soon.

I’ve changed my blog template after a long time.

Astrid alerts me with a rattlesnake hiss, Asha gives me the occasional poke and I blog from bed.

With no hot water flowing through the taps, we are in for some troubled times ahead. Asha finds the prospect of going out tomorrow without a bath very amusing.

I just love my new keyboard! Wish I could write a song in praise of it. Strangely enough, I wasn't really convinced Swype could be useful when I first came across it...and dismissed the idea without much thought. But great ideas are hard to overlook. Swype resurfaced yet again recently and this time I wasn't as dismissive. What followed was history. Swype is probably the most important download on my Android.

This is a rather special post, not just because it comes from my Android but also because I'm using a very special kind of keyboard called Swype. If Swype works the way I want it to, it'll set a new precedence in blogging from the phone. Thus far, the experience has been a sheer joy. It may just be the little nudge I needed to restart blogging.