Across

1 New name for Mr. Lee (5) - ELMER
6 Avoids the jumps (5) - SKIPS
9 In an Irish county, an artist has a mobile home (7) - CARAVAN
10 Slightly less clever, but easy to enjoy (5) - LIGHT
11 Someone to coddle (5) - MOLLY
12 You'll admit the town centre has everything (5) - ALLOW
13 Rather elderly for such speed (7) - SEVENTY
15 It's of great value in management (3) - GEM
17 Poke softly with a stick (4) - PROD
18 A paint surface (6) - PATINA
19 Look disdainfully both ways, always? (5) - SNEER
20 Possibility of a companion getting the cane, maybe? (6) - CHANCE
22 For this penetrating word, I trust to love! (4) - INTO
24 Fish in the Elbe (3) - EEL
25 One apt to swoon, being weaker? (7) - FAINTER
26 A little collection of alms - a bit of help (5) - SMALL
27 Teasingly long piece? (5) - STRIP
28 Girl to see in the part of a lady? (5) - CINDY
29 A refreshing place (7) - TEAROOM
30 Creature unable to multiply? (5) - ADDER
31 Find how to make finance work profitably (5) - LEARN

Down

2 Take your time with it in a new role! (6) - LOITER
3 Sounded unoriginal (6) - ECHOED
4 One doing the dirty out of wrath? (3) - RAT
5 Ray's holding the money again, we gather (5) - RALLY
6 It needn't contain Russian tea (7) - SAMOVAR (Thanks Tolstoy!)
7 As you realise, it sounds discouraging (4) - KNOW
8 Flower fertiliser (6) - POLLEN
12 A note shiftily to make up (5) - ATONE
13 An additive used in hospices (5) - SPICE
14 Like a number of singers (5) - VOCAL
15 Big Joe, a six-footer (5) - GIANT
16 Police district or man, maybe (5) - MANOR
18 Breaking a plate is a bit of a bloomer (5) - PETAL
19 Hurry to spread a stupid scare about a politician (7) - SCAMPER
21 He has a name for getting angry (6) - HEATED
22 Eventually be punctual (2,4) - IN TIME
23 Can be rented - by a nurse? (6) - TENDER
25 Generally she's not beastly! (5) - FLORA
26 Something to work on constructively (4) - SITE
28 Pass for an officer (3) - COL

First time ever that I've completed a cryptic crossword. Deccan Herald, easier than most other papers, but what the hell! I'm so proud of myself!

Yesterday was a weird day.

Woke up late.

Was late for driving class but drove like a pro. Went to fourth gear for the first time ever. Touched 70 kmph. Cool!

In college for my hall ticket - didn't have my ID (which I had misplaced) or a library card (which I had never had). Blew 50 bucks on a duplicate ID card, only to find the original today. After a spell of frantic running up and down two flights of stairs and some patient waiting in the company of a bunch of hopelessly impatient souls, managed to get a "no due certificate" from the library. Hall ticket had my second language printed wrongly as Hindi (it's Additional English). The usually jovial lady told me blandly to go and meet Mr. Uday in the JC Road branch. The usually stuck up dude seemed genuinely concerned. I wasn't worried at all, a fact that has been worrying me ever since. All I resented was the trip that I'd have to make to JC Road. Need a change of attitude.

Gaurav was most helpful. Went to JC Road on his bike. Uday wasn't there. No surprises there. The campus is pretty impressive. Swanky.

Had to wait for Uday to get back. Gaurav suggested that we watch Harry Potter. Next destination - Inox. The screens were flashing "Harry Potter - fast filling" in reddish orange by the time we got there. Got the worst seats in the hall. My fault, I'm ready to admit. I liked the movie. Ofcourse it didn't do justice to the book, but that's asking for too much. HPGoF is just too good a book.

The movie contributed generously towards a headache that had been building up gradually since the morning. Back to JC Road, Uday was back. He told me to go back to VV Puram in a dismissive manner that pissed me off greatly. Apparently I had to submit a letter to that asshole of a Principal for him to be able to do something about my hall ticket. Asshole.

Back in college, I had to walk around in search of a xerox shop. Can't ever find them when you need them. Found one finally, but exhaustion and indifference caused me to take the wrong road on my way back. And after all that, the asshole in the office asked for my admission receipt which I wasn't carrying. So my work wasn't done yesterday and I had to return to that place today.

The world contains quite a large number of assholes. Yours truly may be one of them. I don't know.

I returned home with a really bad headache. But I was feeling so happy :) . Why? I haven't the slightest idea. Slept for 12 long hours. 6 to 6. No tv, no studies, no dinner...

I've been living in a perpetual state of deja vu. I do some things today. I did the same things yesterday. I will do the same things tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow..
No. It's more like..
I do nothing today. I did nothing yesterday. I'll do nothing tomorrow..
I went through yesterday thinking it was Sunday. I've lost track of the days of the week.
I'm permanently idle. That sucks.
I need to snap out of my stagnant lifestyle. I need a job. I need a hobby. I need a kick on my backside.

I wrote my LL test finally yesterday. I passed! 12/15.. not bad. That's something I could have done more than 2 years ago. But that's how lazy I am.

Turning 18 hasn't really changed anything. Not that I expected it to, but I'm still a little surprised for some reason.

I'm on wikipedia. I love that site.

en.wikipedia.org
www.imdb.com
www.crimelibrary.com

I spend quite a lot of time on these three sites. Crime library is a great site. I see some raised eyebrows. I assure you I'm not some crazy psycho killer. But then again, you only have my word for it.

I like reading about the movies I watch, books that I read, music I listen to. Radiohead's fourth studio album is called Kid A. I find this kind of thing interesting...
"the title "Kid A" refers to the first child born after an apocalypse, who rediscovers and reconstructs the idea of music for himself from scratch."

I find the concept of death really fascinating. Actually, not so much death as the afterlife. Ghosts and spirits and stuff. Not from a philosophical or spiritual point of view but from a creative standpoint. What I mean is, nobody really knows anything about ghosts. And the unknown can be interpreted in any way. That throws open this great big door for creative exploitation. Same thing with space and aliens. And a lot of other things.

I understand that I still owe everybody a birthday treat. If only everyone can throw that monkey called college/exams off their backs for a day, I can plan something. All colleges should follow a common exam schedule. Sigh.

My fourth post in less than 24 hours. Should help in my quest to become the most prolific blogger in existence. That's a little hard to achieve. Maybe I should set my sights lower. Maybe the most prolific blogger with an intelligence quotient in excess of 180. Yeah, that's me.

I miss writing about Jain College.

-Jors Trulli

My third post for today. It's funny how I always update my blog when I'm don't feel like updating at all. Probably because I don't feel like updating when I have a lot of time on my hands. And I have a lot of time on my hands now. Nothing to do. Except study. And I'm not in the mood for that.

I'm trying to match my songs with my moods. Now, since I'm rambling, I'm listening to Ramble On - Led Zeppelin. It's inspired by the Lord of the Rings. Apparently Robert Plant is a huge fan of Tolkien's works. Who isn't? There's a line in the song that goes something like "in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair, but Gollum the evil one crept up and slipped away with her". And another one that goes "Sauron thought himself a fool when he was made Principal of Bishop Cotton Boys' School". And another "I tried to slip a knife through his head but found to my dismay it was made of lead."

I'm now a confirmed fan of Radiohead. Many of their songs are inspired by Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I shall read sometime. Paranoid Android - very nice song. So also Karma Police, Fake Plastic Trees and No Surprises.

I'm thinking of writing a song. Need a book for inspiration. Any suggestions?? Someone said Eton of the East. Hmm..

My proudest creation...

A LIFETIME OF YEEVIL

In Deutschland far,far away
There was a man who went astray
His crooked mind just couldn't resist
The Nazi call, so he did enlist.
As he killed more men and blew more tanks,
He quickly rose up the Nazi ranks.
It was but a matter of time then,
Before he became one of the Fuhrer's right hand men.
While more and more Jews died in the genocide,
No pity could penetrate his thick hide
But as the Allies descended on Normandy,
Our man decided it was time to flee.
As the windows shut on his world of crime,
He found a place where he could bide his time.
As the years passed by, he found a wife
Who brought 2 sons into his miserable life
The older inherited his evil streak
While the younger turned out mild and meek
His wicked ways had left him rich
So he bought a farm with a soccer pitch
And an indoor pool and a karting track,
So there was nothing really that he could lack
But Michael(a.k.a brother Cain)
Drove Ralf(Abel) away from the racing lane
And with him gone, Michael drove alone
His limited skills he tried to hone
But the truth be told, he had no skill
Though he found it hard to swallow the bitter pill.
His cunning mind came to his aid
His dad stepped in, some bribes he paid
So every race was a Michael win
While Ralf stayed honest through thick and thin
It wasn't very long before
Michael was knocking on F1's door
Here he found that he was quite lost
In the company of the legendary Senna and Prost
One of them he had to eliminate
To secure the coveted winner's plate
So the plot was hatched before race no.3
The location:Imola,the San Marino Grand Prix
Ayrton began in a familiar role,
At the head of the grid, on his 65th pole
As Senna pulled away from the chasing pack
Michael deftly pushed him off the racing track
It was a ghastly crash at the Tamburello chicane
The doctors' efforts were all in vain
After pulling off this diabolical scheme
Michael moved on to a richer team
And with the help of their illegal car
He spread his reputation wide and far
So it is hardly a secret then
The last world champion was Mika Hakkinen.

Must do something about the last line now that Alonso's come into the picture.

Happy Birthday to me.

To those who remembered and wished me a happy birthday, thanks and I love you all
To those who didn't remember but hope that I had a happy birthday, thanks anyway and I love you too
To those who remembered, period, grr!

On second thought, what the heck! I love everybody today.

Love actually is all around
-Love Actually

Back from a nice trip.
I'm thrust into the lap of nature and what do I do? I sleep. Beautiful surroundings and fresh air are very good sleep inducers. I did cut down a bit on tv time though, and my cousins even managed to drag my lethargic ass out for the odd game of badminton. And I'm now only 300 pages away from the end of Fountainhead. So yeah, a decent trip on the whole.

Watched three movies this past week. Sarkar, No Entry and Requiem for a Dream. The first was good, the second funny in parts, about the third I can't make up my mind. It certainly wasn't entertaining. It wasn't meant to be entertaining. It was disturbing, depressing, frightening, sad. So, so sad. It left me feeling so miserable.
Don't ever take drugs. Please.