Idle thoughts as I laze in a year end break


Been long gone .... have been way way busy with work and stuff the past quarter so much - and that too when there isnt much light at the end of this tunnel I seem to have fallen into.
There's something wrong with me - I always end up working for two bosses somehow wherever I start.
Also this year my evergreen time pass - my dear sister has finally moved to a far lil town so Im just all by myself and my work.
But nevertheless I took a break, a nice week off - no vacations nothing - just too many leaves going down the drain while Im horribly stressed with work did not feel good.
So here I am just sleeping way into noon and reading all over the place in my little room .
I picked up quite a few books, read up all my unread stuff in RSS on the net.
Watched some CD's.Essentially nothing to write much of but some thoughts jotted here.

I cant even write about the books I picked up (it was fun as I splurged on them) as I'm like multi tasking among some amazing variety

- The God Delusion by Dawkins
- Think About these things by Krishnamurthy
- A Thing Beyond Forever by Novoneel Chakroborthy
- Mr Sampath by RK Narayan
- Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

And then I have stuff I have yet to start

YajnaSeni -
Never let me go- kazuo ishiguro

But sometimes I hate the way my own reading degenerates into.I was reminded it a book fair , there were a bunch of girls picking books
Girl A was trying to pick Olivers Story - the sequel to the famous book Love Story by Erich Segal
Girl B said oh leave it yaar. Its boring -I will tell you the story. The guy meets another girl and then he still does not like her at the end leaves her too . Thats it and it was described in native language by her.

I guess thats a way of looking at it and age does have stuff to do with it I guess. When I read Olivers Story sometime ago I found it a bit brooding may be , but it was more emotional.It did not have the popular appealing eternal love of Love Story. It was about coming to terms with things, that some people just cannot get over things like others can.

As much as I am a fiction person with age I guess you like looking at other stuff .
I still love fiction but a pure dosage of that does not work well for me now , but I guess it never did fiction / non fiction.
That is why I pick up such bestsellers like A Thing Beyond Forever by Novoneel Chakroborthy. It reminds you of all sugary stuff you liked at times and now it isnt bad but has a tendency of getting to you .
But thankfully I am not yet that old to dislike them and start loving the self improvement books.
Gimme a story any day - soppy sugary or spicy.
If anything this year I started reading some science fiction. Started with Asimov's magic and though havent read much of other I absolutely loved his essays in it. Absolutely - the way he distinguishes Magic and Science fiction and all that.

As for now Richard Dawkins is working hard through his " The God Delusion " trying to convert me from agnostic to atheist.
Whether he succeeds or not I absolutely love the arguments - and may be I should read the Origin of the species. Usually I dont really care.
I mean well wherever we came from we are here and thats the thing isnt't it.
Why is it always such a big deal always about - " where we came from " and " where we are going to " I find it hard to get, but I try hmm.
I guess its because " where we are now" seems perenially boring so we let our imagination come into play and without any drugs the best place to imagine is always the past or the future.

I then had to clean up all my finance stuff. I mean when I got my first job I wanted to save and yet there was no google no information like we have today , but I wanted to invest and the simplest was Mutual Funds, and just like a stupid newbie I bought all over the place - itsy bitsy penny money in some 10 funds. It was exasperating to consolidate them now and strained me on my holiday.
One article I loved when reading up old stuff online was this
http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2009/03/why_do_people_m.html

I may have lost good amount of savings in the market and may never be a pro in that field and make money but tell you what
I like the markets .If only I had enough money to lose in there .Sigh !! I know it sounds more like hoping for money to gamble - but it is fun.
A part of it is explained in that article. It should be read even if you know nothing about the markets.
It will explain why CNBC flourishes with its perenially wrong forecasters - It not not just cute Udayan and Shirin.

The dirty secret is that stock market forecasts are fun.
It's odd that people ignore this basic insight. Markets are a lot of fun. Sure, every serious person is seriously concerned over market forecasts because they're not serious. Still, people do it anyway. Why? It's damn fun.
..................
Finance is and has always been a game. I've noticed that over the past few years the look of ESPN and CNBC has become steadily similar. That's not an accident. .......... Heck, the indexes are nothing but a scoreboard...................................

Of course it's addictive because it's fun. Trading or forecasts aren't harming people. Investing and risk-taking is good for a society. Obviously people should know what they're getting into

The worst part of taking a home holiday is you still get tempted to open you office email and see all the pending work and list coming your way come Monday and it spoils the whole damn peaceful aimless lounging around.