I am aware that all of these artists have been around for years. Its just that I happened to discover them this year.

1. Stars: They are a Canadian indie pop-rock band.
Found them through: the song “Calendar Girl” on last.fm.
I like: the fact that they are one of the few rock bands with many great duets thanks to the two lead singers, Amy Milan and Torquil Campbell. Love their music and wordplay as well as experiments with electronica.
Favorite work: Almost half the songs on the albums ‘Hearts’, ‘Set Yourself on Fire’ and their latest release, ‘In Our Bedroom after the War’. My favorite tracks are “The Night Starts Here”, “The Big Fight” and “Look Up”.
File next to: Rilo Kiley, Broken Social Science.

2. The Postal Service: They are an electronic rock band.
Found them through: the song “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” on last.fm.
I like: their sound. Its all about the sound! The lyrics, though mostly good, come second.
Favorite work: I love all the songs on their only album, ‘Give Up’ but “Clark Gable” and “Brand New Colony” are the ones I like the most.
File next to: The Shins, Frou Frou, Death Cab for Cutie.

3. Camera Obscura: They are a Glaswegian indie band.
Found them through: the song “Houseboat” on last.fm.
I like: their unique timeless, country sound and Tracyanne Campbell’s voice.
Favorite Songs: There are just too many! “Tears for Affairs”, “The Last Song”, “I Don’t Do Crowds”, “Happy New Year”, “Let’s Get Out Of This Country” and “Country Mile” top the list though.
File next to: Belle & Sebastian.

4. Nitin Sawhney: He is an English musician who is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian underground music in the UK.
Found him through: the video for “Koyal” on music channels though I knew about him even before that.
I like: his eclectic, soothing music, trippy music.
Favorite Work: Almost all of ‘Philtre‘ and the songs “Nadia”, “Breathing Light” and “Spark”.
File next to: Talvin Singh.

5. Talvin Singh: They are a Canadian indie pop-rock band.
Found him: because of the Nitin Sawhney connection though I had seen the video for his song “OK” years ago.
I like: his ambient, fusion music. Its almost magical.
Favorite Songs: “The One”, “Its Not Over”, “Butterfly” and “Abalonia”.
File next to: Nitin Sawhney, State of Bengal.

6. Agnee: They are an Indian rock band.
Found them through: their video for “Sadho Re” on music channels.
I like: their unique (for Indian bands) sound and strong vocals.
Favorite Songs: “Shaam Tanha” and “Kuch Ankahee”.
File next to: Strings, Junoon, Pentagram.

7. Interpol: They are an indie post-punk rock band.
Found them through: shared music on the office network.
I like: their hazy sound. It sends me into a vortex. (Okay, that made no sense!)
Favorite Songs: “Obstacle 1″, “Evil” and “PDA”.
File next to: The Arcade Fire, The Shins.

8. Jack Johnson: He is a Hawaiian singer/songwriter/musician/surfer.
Found him through: a friend.
I like: his relaxed style of music with clear guitary sound which is rare to find in most of today’s overproduced music.
Favorite work: The songs “Better Together”, “No Other way”, “Banana Pancakes” and “Sexy Plexi”.
File next to: John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Jason Mraz.

Feel free to share any new music that you might have discovered recently!

Last Wednesday, after being confined to my home on the bandh day, I swore to myself that I would not stay at home the whole day ever. And I spent the whole of Thursday and Friday very much at home because I was down with viral fever. Oh, the irony of life! But those two days and two long nights were horrible. I constantly ran a fever of 103.5 degrees and hence couldn’t sleep. To make things worse, this was the first time I fell ill since I started living alone and so I had no medicines other than few homeopathic ones from my dad.

On Wednesday night, when the illness started, I employed my mp3 player to help me sleep and it worked for sometime. I was starting to feel really sad about the whole situation cos I was sick and all alone but Frou Frou helped me get over it by singing “There’s beauty in the breakdown” in my ear. And so at 3:15 am, I called up my landlady and asked for medicines.

I am much better now. The motivation for getting better, of course, is that I’m going to Lucknow tomorrow for Diwali. And its been a year since I went home. I last went on last Diwali. The difference this time would be that my parents now have broadband at home so I will keep posting and keep reading other blogs. In fact, I may be able to post more than I do now.

And even though I don’t write too many posts these days, its good to know once in a while that my blog can keep people occupied for hour(s) and even make them come back as is evident in screenshot 1, screenshot 2 and screenshot 3. (The third visit was longer than the screenshot). I think that’s enough reason to feel good about. What do you think?

Update: In a major offence, I forgot to tell you all about my new pictures from my trip to Nagarahole in which I saw crocodiles, elephants, dears, birds, a fox and a will boar. The pictures can be found on flickr, as always.

Update 2 This is a small clip from one of the funniest episodes of Family Guy. Take a look. It’s just too funny!! Watch it, please!

• I wanted a change in my life and given the limited control I actually have on things, I decided to make my life a little more fun by buying a brand new TV, a new DVD player and to top it all, I got digital cable. Basically, few things I wanted for a long time now. The result is that I can now watch Family Guy whenever I want to and I don’t have to worry about bad cable reception.
• I strongly believe that it should be illegal to talk on the cellphone while in the toilet. Seriously, do these people who talk on the phone while on the toilet tell the caller about where they are? And how do they explain the flush sound to the caller? And believe me, the other people in the bathroom don’t need to hear someone in the toilet stalls talking on the phone either. And unless there’s a law against it, people will continue doing it. So it must be made illegal. Now!
• I was a little surprised to see John Mayer’s new album, Continuum, in the new releases section at Planet M last Sunday. I didn’t expect it to be released in India so soon. Needless to say, I bought it. I can completely relate to the opening song, “Waiting on the World to Change”. Take a look at the lyrics. I think most of us would agree with the viewpoint of the song. Its a nice song. And the rest of the album is good too.
• I’ve seen quite a few movies recently but I think I will save my short reviews for the next post. The post frequency has been dropping rather drastically as it is.
• Oh, and this post has been written using Windows Live Writer. Its a great tool. A must for all bloggers.

Few hundred thousand minutes ago, Sayesha wrote a post about her life’s formula and in my comment, I gave a small list of the rules I follow in my life. I still live by those rules. So I thought it would be a good idea to post those on my blog. So here are the rules:

• Do what you feel is right.
• If people are bad to you, be worse to them.
• If people are nice, be nice to them.
• If people are too nice, be rude to them until they r nice or rude to you.
• Once you realize you did something stupid, try apologizing. If it doesn’t work, forget about it.
• Create a new rule when needed.

And I like the way I live my life, so the rules must be working for me.

Moving on, have I ever mentioned how much I love Pandora? It’s simply fantastic. In case you haven’t tried it yet, do so now. It creates a radio station based on your favorite artists and the sound quality is excellent. Lately, I’ve had a chance to listen to lots of new music and my current favorite is “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. Even its video is superb. I’ve recently discovered Frou Frou too. I love their electronic sound. The tracks “Flicks” and “Breathe in” by them are truly addictive. It’s sad that they disbanded. Speaking of music, I woke up today with the song “SOS” by Rihanna stuck in my head. I have no idea why but it was. I tried hard to get it out of my head but failed. As a result, random people on the streets I passed by got a sample of the song cos I kept humming it and every time I hummed the line “Someone help me, Its not healthy”, I thought to myself that this isn’t healthy either.

I was talking to a close college friend on ym yesterday when I told her that it’s very easy for me to hate someone. And it’s true. I’m a man of strong feelings. The smallest of faults in others can make me dislike or even hate them. Then she asked me why it is so and I thought for a little while and said that that’s just who I am. But after thinking a little more, I’ve decided that it’s because finding faults and shortcomings (in mostly others n sometimes myself too) is the very basis of my existence. And that’s what I’m best at (besides my work, of course). And it’s not like that people don’t deserve my hatred. I mean some guy who’s a friend of my colleague used my system last weekend and left a blue pen mark on my monitor. Now, I don’t know the guy but I know that he a freak. I mean who uses a pen to point to a TFT monitor. Now all I can notice on my monitor is the blue dot. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t ask for a new monitor cos this one has a small blue dot on it, can I?

There have been few requests for posts about TV and I wanted to write something about music for quite some time so I’ll put it all together.

But not before some ranting. Recently, few colleagues when asked for their opinion on me said that I seemed to be little arrogant at first but once they got to know me, I turned out to be a pretty easygoing person. Now, this is something I refuse to accept. As far as I know myself, I am arrogant and an easygoing person as well. So the correct thing to say would be that I am just a little arrogant but an easygoing person. What do you all think?

Update: When I asked “What do you all think?”, I did not ask for your opinion about me, okay. I meant to ask, Can’t a person be both arrogant and easygoing? After being loyal readers of my blog, you really think I care about what people think of me? Well, I do but never show it so answer the correct question, please!

Moving on, Idol fever is on with both Indian Idol and American Idol being aired at the same time. Indian Idol is already in the Gala round where all the contestants seem to be well trained in crying and begging for votes. American Idol has just started so auditions are what we’ve got to see so far. Somehow AI auditions are more fun to watch. They have more weird characters than II does. The freaks in India want to act more than they want to sing, I think.

The songs I’m listening to these days are “Heard ‘Em Say” by Kanye West feat. Adam Levine, “Check On It” by Beyonce Knowles, “Khwaahishon Se” by Shreya Ghosal and Kunal Ganjawala from Holiday and a better quality version of “Naina Neer Bahaye” by Sadhna Sargam from Water. It truly is a great song.

I change the channel ASAP whenever the song “Aapka Suroor” by Himesh Reshammiya is on. Why must he always howl like a dog? And his other song, “Jhalak Dikhla Jaa” from Aksar, in all probability, is the most nasal song to be released ever. And both of these songs are hits, apparently. What’s wrong with everyone?