Excursions

It has been pouring down incessantly since yesterday. The sound of stillness such that cloudburst spreads is both soothing and annoying at the same time. The wall of water stirs the emotions, but also keeps them lingering within without an outlet. Nothing, other than words.

I realized FaceId does not recognize me while am yawning. I doubt it may not even be a bug - may be it’s a feature. “If you are yawning such that your face is distorted, may be you aren’t awake enough to be allowed to work the device?”

Cursive writing is fun. Cursive writing is difficult - not everybody’s cup of tea. I was to learn cursive writing.

These statements are mutually exclusive.

And the journey begins! 🤞🏽

Nope.

These articles keep getting churned out every few months — and the frequency might even be on the rise. I always wonder why don’t we ask this question - “have we hit peak blogging”? Why can’t podcasting be made more mainstream?

“It definitely won’t be taped at a library where janitors are walking around, yelling in the background of each episode.”

Absolutely bullshit. Weren’t we convincing more people to write what they want? Encouraging them to open their mind, blog more - not think about readers? What’s so different about podcasting?

What if there existed a social network designed for decency? The only intelligence it would have is sentiment analysis that would identify - and subsequently hide or delete - the posts with rants or vile responses. Wouldn’t it make the timeline bearable for many?

There was a time when I used to diligently write a short story every week. I wanted to attempt writing a fictional story of every genre. I was even considering completing a book in the genre I eventually enjoy the most. I always wished I could write humor better. I feel mystery comes naturally. But, detective? Ah. I came across this short story that I wrote more than a year back and boy I remember I struggled a lot writing this.

I want to start writing short stories again. I need to start going back to my writing prompts. I enjoyed that weekly habit of mine — it was a nice getaway from the grinds of daily routine. I miss that.

The consumption of days of content does not lend the satisfaction that an hour of creation can.

Clouds can spread gloom - but the rain that follows brings out all the colourful umbrellas. The time’s always cheerful.

Every now and then, I spend some time selecting that one good wallpaper for my lock and home screen. And it never is easy. Recently came across this wonderful app - Vellum which has some great selection of wallpapers. I know this is a personal preference, but a nice little app.

Do people use cases or covers for their smartphones? I am always split — keep the perfect weight and feel of the device or keep it safe (or at least convince oneself that it is). And then there is that decision of military grade or thin or ultra thin cases even if if want one. I can never make my mind what exactly what I want.

My old SE could bear the military grade protection. The larger devices just can’t — they become too bulky. Super ironic.

We had a nice little family dinner at a cozy, laid-back barbeque restaurant. It was evening full of delectable food, soothing music and lots of laughter & chatter. Plus some learning 😬

So I finally jumped the ship - upgraded to iPhone XR from SE. As much as I liked the smallwe form factor, it was always tempting to use and find comfort with the larger screens of all the available screens around. And just a couple of hours in, I see why these are preferred 🧐

The ICC World Cup deserved a better end than what played out on Sunday between England and New Zealand. All the debates and controversies around the match marred what was a very well fought match. It soured what England achieved and left New Zealand with lots of ifs-and-buts 🏏

So India lost to New Zealand in Semi-Final of the ICC world cup 2019. I have some thoughts.

1. It’s heartbreaking as hell. Almost at a level of 2003 Final defeat to Australia.
2. Fact that India lost doesn’t make it a bad team. They had a couple of shortcomings — all surfaced together at the most inopportune phase of the tournament.
3. India had a light middle order, fear was top order failure would be challenging for them to handle — exactly what happened.
4. You can’t call yourself the champions as long as you keep depending solely on your top 3 and bottom 3 players for majority of the matches. It was always risky going in. There are no bowlers who can bat or batsman who can ball. Something that 1983 and 2011 WC winning Indian cricket teams have in common.
5. Players like Sachin and Sehwag and Yuvraj and Raina who could always spring a surprise and give you a wicket - in addition to the runs they score - were dearly missed.
6. Specifically this match was a series of wrong choices - review lost unnecessarily on the first ball. Tweaking of the settled bowling unit, and also the team towards the later part of the tournament. Dhoni’s batting position, especially after early wickets - he had to have walked in at 5/3.

Anyway, all said and done, India remain a very good cricket team. They need to work on the middle order - identify those players who bring in a secondary skill. They haven’t lost any respect — it’s a sport afterall. For someone to win, someone’s to lose.

This ICC Cricket World Cup is of One Day International (ODI) cricket — one day. Deciding finalist via a two-day match just doesn’t make sense - plus it isn’t fair to either side. But then it is the price to pay for scheduling one in England 🙄🏏

Came across this essay on how it is never too late to be successful and, hence, happy. It made me wonder what exactly is the relation between success and happiness? What leads to what? I continue to believe success is subjective, happiness, the state of mind.

If you have watched or are watching the Chernobyl series, you just can’t miss the companion podcast where the creators talk about the show. It is absolutely fantastic - thanks @Bruce and @vasta for recommending it. Makes me wish every show out there had such a podcast.

I started watching Chernobyl this week — 3 episodes in and it has already made me realize how grave the effects of the disaster was. I went in without any idea what the show is about. So, I just wasn’t ready for the hard-hitting aftermath it started with. But am hooked.

A spot-on rant on twitter by @colmmacc on the bickering between Genius and Google Lyrics — especially this.

This whole spat is an argument over which parasite should have prime spot on the blood stream.

But the morse code way was.. uhmm.. genius.

Ah, the hype that was created all around the cricket match of ICC World Cup - India vs Pakistan - by the media has worked on me. I may stay hooked up to the live telecast now. And then there are invites to the group events. Just can’t avoid the craze 🏏

With my daughter and iPad as a platform growing up together, it is becoming difficult to have a single iPad in our household. It’s becoming my device of choice and it already is so for her.

After a long time, our whole family visited the movie theatre to watch The Secret Life of Pets 2. It was a nice fun outing - I have never seen my daughter chuckle so loudly in a theatre earlier. And that itself was an enjoyable experience for the rest. Plus we had popcorn🍿🎥

I finally watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - boy it’s such a fun movie. A fresh premise for a superhero flick with Marvel’s signature fun way of storytelling - meaningful character arcs and lots of humour. Plus the animation makes me curious about comics too now 🎥

It’s been around two months now that we’ve no television at home. And surprisingly I do not find it painful. Sure, I could use the larger 40+inch screen on my wall for shows and movies — but the cable is not something I or my family has been yearning for. It’s no longer a must.

A great overview from @viticci on iPadOS. Looks like this is the beginning of a bundle of iPad specific features - something the powerful Pro hardware was screaming for sometime now. It’s promising that Apple has shown that it is aware.