Yes, I am back to running.

Running is primal.
Running is elemental.


Running is Tiring.
Running is Exhilarating.

Running is Painful.
Running is Ecstasy.

Running Makes you float.
Running is Part of your being.

Running is Pounding your body.
Running is Controlling your mind.

Running is Getting sweaty and filthy and covered in salt.
Running is Cleansing.

Running is A Solo effort.
Running is Dissolving yourself in the cheers of the crowd at the marathon.

Book Review: River of Gods

Another guest post at pustakam - http://pustakam.net/?p=1864. This is a book I had bought some years back and finally got around to reading.

I finally watched the new Star Trek movie last Saturday.

These were my expectations

• Less comic relief
  
• Less Hollywood 'science' and heroics
• Something along the standards of what Christopher Nolan did in The Dark Knight

I was expecting too much. The less said the better, but these were the things that jarred me (bulletpointing makes things clearer and more concise, so)

• A Turbo lift where buttons are pressed (whatever happened to the voice commands?)
• Tricorders that look like extra-slim cellphones. This is accentuated when the crew start speaking into the tricorder instead of doing the comm-badge-slap-and-speak thing.
• The new look comm badges. They do not look sleek. They look like misshapen blobs when seen from any distance greater than 30 cms.

This is what Carl Sagan had to say about Star Trek (in Broca's Brain) -

'In a future in which interstellar travel is common, the ships officers are embarrassingly Anglo-American.'

This is no longer the case with recent series and this movie, but the latter gets a thumbs down as far as female portrayal is concerned. The sole role of Lt. Uhura in this movie seems to be to fulfill the hot chick routine and kiss Spock from time to time.

Come to think of it, the only Star Trek series starring a female captain is ST:Voyager.

Overall, a distinctly odd Trekexperience.

My first guest post

My first guest post on another blog -

http://pustakam.net/?p=1021

It's a popular blog about books and bibliophiles - mostly written in Telugu, but sometimes in English also.

An untitled post.

I just realized that I buy very little science fiction these days, and read even less. Whatever I buy now are books I really want (rather than buy it because 'it's there' and going for a discount!). These are mostly authors like Gibson, Neal Asher, Robert Reed and the rising wave of Indian sf in English represented by works such as Priya Sarukkai Chabria's Generation 14 and Manjula Padmanabhan's Escape. The reason I read less sf is because I read other stuff more now, and there are only 24 hours in a day. I am rereading some of my favourite sf classics, and will probably write about them sometime.

Listened to an audiobook called 'Letting Go of God' by the delightful Julia Sweeney. It's also a TED lecture and available on Google video. She is simple, straightforward, sincere and a joy to listen to as she recounts her early religious upbringing and the events that led her to realize that there is no evidence for a creator, and no need for one.

On the running front, the ITBS is better. As I read that post now, I can't help but laugh at myself. 6 days to fix ITBS? :)). Got diagnosed with a stress fracture last week though, on my left leg, which will take atleast 2 months to heal. Of course - no running till then.