Blog Day ++

Today seems to be a day for posting links. This is the third update I'm doing today.
Did you all know that Pluto is no more a planet?
I can hear many of you saying, "Hey Visitor, don't feed us old stuff, tell us something new!" OK, OK it is old news, but does it really matter whether Pluto is a planet or not - apparently it does!
Shankar Vedantam gives a social perspective of what it means. For those of you who are in science, this article by Nick Anthis (Scientific Activist) might be more appealing.

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Today being blogday I am proceeding according to their (blogday.org) instructions:

In one long moment In August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new Blogs, Preferably, Blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers.

1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting

I selected 5 blogs that I liked. I have mentioned them previously on my blog, but perhaps have not given them enough space.
Another criterion i used was to select blogs quite different from my own culture (but probably not different from me in POV and attitude)
My selection is

• Fade to numb
• L Tart - I would have loved to include Mr. Pregunto, but he seems to have gone into hibernation.
• Thinking Girl
• Wonky Times
• Mixing Memories

2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending on them on BlogDay 2005 2006

I will not do this! Finally I ended up doing it :( Couldn't control myself.

3. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs

Fade to numb - is a blog which talks about relationships between husband and wife, romancing etc. It gives a US male perspective to the subject and draws from the blogger's personal experiences. He is already on my blogroll.

The World of L Tart - I find it difficult to classify this blog, or give it a description that would fit. Maybe describing the blogger might help - The blogger goes by the name Lusty Tart (L Tart) and is probably in her fifties; she actively participates in many post-post discussions with gusto. Her name should be familiar to Frida, Thinking girl and Mr. Pregunto.

Thinking Girl - A feminist philosopher. She has an interesting feature Feminism Friday that discusses specific issues. I reproduce what she has to say about herself:

I’m Thinking Girl, a student and citizen of the world and a feminist philosopher, and this is my space, where I think out loud, share those thoughts, and invite debate. I write about a lot of things here, but primarily, this blog exists to promote dialogue and discussion of political and philosophical issues through a feminist framework. By writing here, I flex my arguing muscles while unloading mental clutter and gaining new persepctives, provided, of course, by you - my commentors. Don’t be shy - join the fun! The unexamined life is not worth living.

Wonky Times - For subversives and one-act-players - PeeJ, from UK, is the man behind Wonky Times. He is also my class-mate in Frida's classes classes for creative writing. He makes me jealous by submitting his homework even before the assignment is given, whereas I am always late by a week! He writes beautifully and you can get a glimpse of 'what creative writing is' from his blog.

Mixing Memories - This is a blog on Cognitive Psychology by Chris, a cognitive psychologist, hosted on Science Blogs. Dont ask me what is cognitive psychology ;). I stumbled on this blog when I was looking at blogs on patriotism and I liked the approach it had towards the issue. A word about Science Blogs - it is a site which hosts blogs of scientists from different areas of science; the scientists get to blog there by invitation only. There were other interesting blogs there, but I liked Mixing memories best. If I am not right then I presume that there are no scientists reading my blog. Could anyone make out what I was trying to say in the previous sentence? I couldn't figure out. Well whatever..

4. Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and
Done

5. Add the BlogDay tag using this link: http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2006 and a link to BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org
Will not do. I did this too! (Courtesy- Mosilager)

Disclaimer: I have not looked into who is behind the concept of blogday. I dont know if there are any ulterior motives behind it. I also dont know the repercussions (of this act) if everyone does the same thing.
Well one thing did happen - blogday.org is totally clogged!

.

Have a good day!
BlogDay2006

Today is Blogday

Ranjit aka Mosilager gave me the link to blogday.org. I reproduce what the site says about blogday:

What is BlogDay

BlogDay was initiated with the belief that bloggers should have one day which will be dedicated to know other bloggers, from other countries or areas of interests. In that day Bloggers will recommend about them to their Blog visitors.

Today August 31, 2006 is Blogday. If it interests you see what you need to do.

Thanks for the link Ranjit.

Flaming Wars

One of my original objectives of starting this blog was to promote discussions etc. But I seem to have expressly failed in that objective. However this does not mean such discussions do not happen on blogs. Ever since my initiation into the blogosphere, I have learnt some of the jargon related to blogging. One such jargon, relevant to online discussions, is Flaming, which refers to "the act of posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting, usually in the social context of a discussion board on the Internet". Another definition for flame.See the consequence of flaming here.

In my early days here, I came across a fairly decent post on People watching, but the no of comments on that post was a whopping 103. I can now see that part of the reason was a flame war happening on that post.

More recently, I was going through the blog of another well tracked blogger, Megha aka the wannabe indian punkster. She is incidently a Flippery Fish in the TTLB Ecosystem! That is very high on the evolutionary chart, where I reckon that I'd just be an Insignificant microbe! One of her posts, And this one is for the bleach, had a phenomenal 228 comments! Despite being relatively jobless I could just browse through a fifth of all the comments! Warning: If you want to completely read all the comments, choose a day when you dont have any pressing work. :P

Have a great day! Cheers!

Latest updates!

Want to Tattoo?

Tattoo? - those weird designs which even more weird people have on their person? Or did you mean 'taboo' - a thing which is not accepted by society? If to tattoo is taboo then take it whichever way you want :)

Well I did have the notion that only weird persons tattooed. Many of you might be acquainted with Madura, who according to me was a 'normal' person. Today I learned that Madura had tattooed herself! This means that either 'Madura is weird', or 'tattooing is done by normal persons also'. If you've had a secret desire to have yourself tattooed, then here's Madura's first hand account of the process. Enjoy!

Role-models are not forever?

Many of us have ambitions and goals in life and have different strategies to reach our goals. Having role-models is often a good strategy for deriving inspiration to achieve the goals. Raman has an interesting POV on choosing role models in his post - Who's your source of inspiration?

My Secret Desire: It has been my desire to be able to write creatively, and to that end I registered for Frida's Creative Writing Classes. After a lot of fits and starts I submitted my first homework yesterday. Our teacher was all praises *blush* *blush* for what I had turned out. So I thought that I might give you all a peep at what I submitted, but only if you promise not to make fun. *deep blush*

Water Conservation

You have to be a Chennaiite aka Madrasi to know the importance of water conservation. Irrespective of whether you are a chennai-ite or not these Water Conservation Tips given by ITW are certainly worth taking a look at.

Gounder Brownie

Another great day has begun! Gounder Brownie has come out with a gem of piece - Reading 'Reading Lolita in Teheran' in India. The Brownie does a critique of the book 'Reading Lolita in Teheran' by Nafisi, and in the process talks about literature, feminism, 'totalitarian' attitudes etc. with references to the book as well as to It's (The Brownie does not have any gender) own personal experiences. The style is that of a literary critique and some words (solipsize) go zoop right over one's head; looking up dictionary.com was but a small effort to enjoy the writing. The Brownie, as usual, has floored me. I am off to first buy a copy of Lolita. Cheers.

The Brownie has a humorous style of writing with an underlying sarcasm. The topics include anecdotes in life with special reference to Stella Maris, feminism and poetry. Sample posts:

Gounder Brownie Speaks
The Idiot's Guide to Feminism
Imrana
A Cinderella Story
Poetry - A view on literary criticism and poetry.

At the cross-roads

I've been blogging for the past month or so and I went through different phases:
-the craze for reading blogs, commenting on them
-tentatively creating my own blog
-discovering/defining my blog persona
-interacting with other bloggers

My moods during these phases was mostly euphoric, exhilarating and the like. I was pumped up with adrenaline. My expectations of what I wanted to do in the blog world grew (out of proportion of what I could really do). My work did suffer because of my excessive fondness for the new addiction.

However the past couple of days there has been a cooling off of the feelings and I am getting to be more realistic. I know that there is only so much time that I can set aside for this activity. I am now bothered/worried whether I will ever be able to do justice to my blog? Will I continue to post? I certainly want to.

Dear veteran bloggers out there - can you predict the course of this disease?

Talking of veteran bloggers, today I got a comment from the Hiphop Grandma, (it made my day). I visit her blog and get different insights into life. I've wanted to write about her on my blog and today seems the right time to do so. Her tag will be a nice place to enter her blog, to know the kind of person she is. Cheers.

What is Patriotism?

I have been reading a number of posts on patriotism related themes, which raised several questions:
When someone accuses another of "not being patriotic" what does the person mean by patriotism? How does each person view patriotism? Is patriotism even required? And so on...

Have a peep at the diverse opinions on patriotism and add your own perspective to the debate. I for one dont have any definite view on patriotism.
What is patriotism
Why proud to be an Indian
My first brush with patriotism
Measure of Patriotism
Types of patriotism
Progressive patriotism
The virtue of patriotism
My view of Independance Day
Independance Day
Reviving patriotism in India
Edible patriotism? LOL
Celebrating Independence Day
Thoughts on Patriotism With Beer and A Pretty Girl
What Patriotism Means To Me
Quotes on Patriotism:

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. Guy de Maupassant

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism the last refuge of scoundrels - Samuel Johnson

Note: This is just a random selection of the different views on patriotism, and is not an exhaustive survey of the same.

My Post of the day.

My Blog is getting messy

Rather than update the same post each day, a better idea would be to create new posts each day and post links. Also tweaked the font, to differentiate this from other blogs using the same template. Does it look NEAT?

Mister P has an interesting blog - What good are questions? Here he poses several questions ("mainly inspired by other people's posts" says he). "A wonderful way to know things, to introspect", says I. He also gives links to the posts which inspired his questions.
Want to see a sample question? Here goes: How much self-discipline do any of us actually have? And where do we get it if we don't have enough? This actually brings me to another interesting blogger L.Tart (she signs herself as L>T - did she forget to release the shift key while signing? *smiles*) whose post triggered the above questions.
Acknowledgements to Thinking Girl, for I reached this (Mister P's) site from the comments on her blog - chronicles of a feminist philosopher.

Latest Updates


This post primarily lists blogs that I've visited recently and found to be interesting. The entries on this post are updated frequently with the latest additions appearing at the top.

My earlier attempt to keep all the updates is making the post too long and the updates are also hid below other later posts. So I had to resort to creating new posts to keep the latest contents on top.

Reinforcement I haven't really visited any new blogs today. One blog which I thought had not been earlier stressed upon earlier was that of FTN - his Fade to Numb, looks at husband-wife relationships and the like taking as example his own experiences. I've enjoyed reading the content as well as his style of writing; I recommend a one time visit to atleast see what is there.

New blogs on my radar
"Two women and a man - a love triangle?" - "not necessarily", says Itching to write blogs - wow, what a name!
ABCD is a theme that has been written about in books and captured in 'crossover' movies. Here I had a glimpse of the emotions, thoughts, values and conflicts of an Indian girl growing up in the US - introspective posts.

Homosexuality - should be kept under the wraps? A rather controversial topic still. What do some bloggers have to say on this issue? A random collection of links from My blogworld:

Caveat - some of the content may not appeal to all, and might hurt your sensibility

• Madura gives her impressions on Awareness of Homosexuality.
  
• Prash discusses the concept of civil-unions (PACS) in France. Also read the comments following this post - has a debate on this issue.


Prash's post lead me on a trail to other blogs that discuss homosexuality as well as feminism.

• Thinking Girl's blog is the most comprehensive site on feminism that I have seen. She seems to have a wide variety of interests - feminism, human rights and philosophy, to name a few. She has also hosted her stuff on blogspot.
  
• A.S., has written about his coming to terms with his sexuality on his blog Unrestrained Verbosity. A.S. is a geneticist by profession and has posts on Genetically Modified Organisms and the Reservation System in India.
  

In search of your destiny? Lost your way somewhere in between? Mikee has a motivational post on Talents, achievements and destiny. The comments that follow are probably in Filipino.

Want to know how little kids (1st graders) complete well-known proverbs? A sample:
Don't change horses..... until they stop running. Want to see more?

Frida's Classes on Creative Writing start today!

Independance day away from home! The feeling of being Indian is felt on days like the Independance day, but this sense is very much heightened in persons who live away from home. On Independance Day, 30in2005 gives a nostalgic account of what it feels like to be an Indian in a foreign land.

Appreciation of Art, music or poetry. How does one judge art, music, poetry or any such domain where the subjectivity of opinion is high? How do you say whether a work of art or poetry is great or terrible? I dont know, but I read a post followed by a set of comments on appreciation of poetry that was illuminating. Maybe you too could also add to the discussion by adding to the comments.

To be anonymous or not Raman has raised the issue of Anonymity in the Blog world. Do you have an opinion - you could express it - anonymous or other wise. LOL. Raman too is fast becoming a prolific blogger with one good post every day.

Have you been tagged? Well I was! I played along and later I tagged others; Shikha was one among them - and today finally she has done it. Looking at her responses, I'd like to hide my tag where no one can see it. :) She has taken time to respond but her answers are well worth the wait - see Shikha' Tag.

Chanced upon this blog today - contains many sketches - Though I quite liked them I am not able to make anything out of it - can you?

New blog I visited today was Sridhar's - appears to be techie blog - but his writing is of a general nature. If you want to know or want to say what the future of technology/business is likely to be - have a look.

Raman has made a good case as to Why people should blog. If there are any of you who are just passive readers see if you are convinced.


The_outsider, the reluctant blogger ;), is turning out to be a revelation - he has posted 3 posts between August 7 and today, and each of his posts is no mean effort. His posts explore relationships in a changing society, that makes the reader to introspect, and, raises several issues for debate.


Dog/pet lovers about? Well you ought to dedicate a site for their cause; take a leaf out of Mosilager aka Ranjit's Blog - BooBoo, Ginga, and the World of Dogs and make a site for your pet. I, rather I should say that we too (our entire family) are dog lovers. It has been our longtime wish to write a bedtime stories and fairy tales book for dogs. LOL

Have any of you heard of the phrase "licking one's chops"? If you are curious, see someone licking his chops here.

Have you been troubled by a sleeping fellow passenger? Peej recounts an incident, Falling asleep on the bus, with his characteristic style.

Meanwhile Rohini's Division of Labour, has become a runaway hit, with the comments pouring in from both quarters. Dont miss the comments! LOL.

Real Quickies Tamilgirl has a prolific output and produces real quickies. However her blog does not support comments. :( In this context I'd like to mention another blackhole blog [of inquisitive akka]; comments go in, but nothing comes out! It upsets me, even though I know it is not my right to expect responses. :(

Experience Capsules - Have you heard of it? I googled for the term and couldn't get any information on it. Raman in his latest post introduces a concept - The Experience Capsule - for bringing a person upto scratch in any given domain. Interesting idea.

Flash news!
I had earlier visited Ammani's blogs, but did not read in detail. Her cooking blog already features on this blog. She is a prolific writer and produces what she calls as Quick tales. I made a discovery on her blog - she has a novel feature My Dear, where you could write to anyone, real or imaginary, which she posts on Letters for All. I would love to post her message here, but first I should get her permission for it. Please definitely have a look at Ammani's blog for more details.

No new blogs visited today (August 10, 2006); but I explored Madura's blog; there are quite a few things that one can learn about sexual intercourse. She dispels quite a few misconceptions and myths, held by a conservative society, in her series on sex education. A must read for members of both sex. Being an ignoramus myself, I can't vouch for the accuracy of her statements, however, my personal opinion is that the posts 'ring true'.

A link in the tag connection, Pauline, writes her Thoughts in Verses.

Out_sider has outdone himself in this post on the Family Puzzle. Thought provoking and humorous.

My latest acquaintance is PeeJ. He writes well. He aspires to be a writer, if not already one. Correct me if I am wrong, PeeJ. Here is a quote from his blog:
Life is a one act play, no rehearsals, no encores. An audience of millions, but only one player, one lead. No prompts, and one solid review at the end so make it a good one.

On Comments and responses


I spend my time on the net, browsing blogs, reading people's view, contributing my own views where I think I can. During these excursions, It gives me immense pleasure, if any of my comments is responded to. This post is to acknowledge those repliers. :)
Shikha requires special mention for her lengthy replies. Then would be Rohini- who acknowledges info given and also replies. Brownie, Marginalien and 30in2005 do reply w/o fail to all the comments. All the others are one time repliers who make a token reply to acknowledge my visit. Of course, then there is Madura, who gives a single reply for all the individual comments, but this shortcoming is made up for by the length of the comments.
The thrillers are the comments on my own page by totally unknown persons! Peej is one such person.
Thanks to all you repliers! :)

Tagged

I've been tagged! By outsider! I now feel that I really belong to the blog-world. Thanks outsider!!

To be totally truthful - I didn't get down to responding at once. Kept putting it off... now its more than a day since I got tagged.

I am thinking about…
How I am going to answer. Do I want it to be deep, philosophical, well thought out etc or should I just jump into answering?
Finally decided to trust my instincts.

I want to…
never have to work, ever. Actually I always seem to love a job(from outside), until I start working on it, after which I start hating it. Confusing? To put it positively, I want to find a dream job, where I'll be happy ever after.

I wish…
- I was more disciplined in life
- I was more organised
- I was more assertive
- I was more ...

I hear…
nothing. (That was a tough one, couldn't think of anything.)

I wonder…
what happened to the once-upon-a-time me. I dont recognize myself now.

I regret…
what I am now and what I could have been :( My life is one big regret. On a second reading of this I feel that life couldn't be better!!


I am…
argumentative. I take the opposite view-point just for the sake of arguing, even if I don't endorse that view - much to the annoyance of my near and dear.

I dance…
under threat of death.
sometimes when I am alone

I sing…
to the annoyance of all my family members. Official Cacophonix amongst my cousins

I cry…
very often, for all reasons, happiness, gratitude, sorrow and any number of other reasons.


I am not always…
what I seem to be.


I make with my hands…
my bed

I write…
- compulsively, in a reactive mode, seldom in a proactive manner.

I confuse…
others with my ideas

I need…
a BREAK. I wanna get away from everything for a while and get my perspective of life right.


And finally…
its done! That was tough answering. And I couldn't come up with famous last words.

Finding people to tag - I could tag only those who visit my blog; so here goes
Whenever any of you drop in here consider yourself tagged!

30in2005
Marginalien
Srini
Frida
Shikha
Mama says so

Whew! I am not for this game again. LOL