Thanks to recently discovering that my latest Pointless Crush of Doom has acquired a gentleman, the last little voice in my head has reluctantly agreed to be quiet and let me get on with more constructive efforts. Particularly in light of my complete failure to talk to anyone I didn't know at Intrusion, I fear my attempts at self-improvement aren't going great. Anyone fancy going sarging any time soon?

While roving the vast Interwebs I came across The Modern Savage, and a couple of other blogs of that ilk -- while I can't quite rid myself of the feeling that the "pick-up artist" game is faintly sleazy, a lot of that blog's About page sounds familiar.

One of the concepts that keeps coming up there is "approach anxiety" -- a very familiar idea -- something that I've always felt in any social situation, no matter the gender or attractiveness of whoever I would like to approach. And particularly if I ever intend to go through with some of my hopes (e.g. running my own business some day) I'm going to have to be better at putting on a smile and going up to complete unknowns and talking to them.

(Yes, it would probably help with meeting women too, but I always wonder about that when I'm coming off a pointless crush of doom and it's not particularly relevant)

I think I've improved over time, but I'm still terrible at talking to strangers. Hence my question: do you find it easy to talk to randoms? Are there any strategies you use to make it less intimidating? Do you find it creepy to be talked to by complete strangers (and if so, how could I avoid that impression)?

There is an Oxford-based band called InLight, who are vaguely indie/alternative and really quite good, and they're putting on a show this weekend here in Oxford. This has been publicized in many places and it's entirely possible some of you had already planned to go. If you hadn't -- have another think about it, it could be a nice (brief) break from exam-panic or revision or just the stresses of daily life.

(Why, you might ask, am I advertising for this random band? The guitarist is a friend of mine and, as I probably can't go, I'm feeling a bit unsupportive -- so if I can send a couple of people in my place I'll feel much better ;-))

My trip contained many adventures, and many mishaps, but all's well that ends well and I'm back in Oxford in one piece! I have got random pretty / cultural / ethnic things for people who asked for them, and will have to sort out seeing people soon and giving gifts and hugs -- it feels like I've been away for ages, even though it's only been a couple of weeks...

I'm finally there! With all the delays and stuff I'm here for a day rather than two as had been originally planned -- spent all day today actually getting here to Pune, and tomorrow will be taken up by work-stuff, before I embark on the journey back to Dhaka (it involves a 3-and-a-half hour drive from Pune to Mumbai in the small hours, to catch an early flight from Mumbai to Kolkata, then a few hours' wait in the airport before my flight to Bangladesh).

After that, hopefully, everything in the Desh will go smoothly, and I'll be back in the UK (and not in too much pain) before long.

If you'd like a mix CD / small pile of MP3s [warning: likely to contain large amounts of symphonic metal], comment (with genre indications so I don't give you Rammstein when you only like Sinatra)...

Last night I helped bring a friend to the light, giving her a fresh Linux installation to play with on her (quite shiny) laptop -- she's now set up with the most recent operating system for which I have an installation disk (Kubuntu Gutsy), and everything works.

( geeky reasons for sigh )

*sigh*. We're not there yet (and we may never get there except with OEM support, though the Eee and friends are making that look less unlikely). But we're so close!

( guilt )

I turned 23 this past Wednesday, and because I was out of town at the time, the wonderful mrkgnao organized a pub-followed-by-meal type of get-together for today (Saturday the 5th) featuring the hilarious Eye of Argon game and one of my favorite places ever, The Big Bang. Most importantly, it featured a small horde of lovely people -- as mrkgnao pointed out to me, I do appear to have a stupid number of people who I care about, and gratifyingly quite a few seemed to care enough to turn up.

All in all it was one of the best times I've ever had. I'm unendingly grateful to mrkgnao for organizing the afternoon/evening, and an immense Thank You to everyone who came. I love you all (even if you didn't come ;-)) — you know who you are.

I told a few people about my recent astonishing discovery that my boss is related to (in fact, a cousin of) a good friend of mine from uni. What happened earlier today, however, is just as freaky in its exhibition of the Incredibly Small World Effect.

I'm in Stuttgart airport, and my colleague and I are hunting down chocolates to bring back for the other folks in our office (it's a company tradition. I like my company ;-)). A guy comes up to me -- he looks familiar, though I can't quite remember from where. "Excuse me," he says, "but were you in the service of the European Commission a few months ago?"

Well, duh! It turned out we knew a few people in common -- and with all the handshaking and greetings the first few days of the internship, it's entirely possible the two of us had met once. But it's still freaky to run into a former colleague(-ish) from Brussels in Stuttgart...

Thanks to neoanjou, I have found suitable Japanese to name my reincarnated work machine! So, without further ado: akimoto is dead; long live sairai!

Unfortunately, akimoto is still dead, but I have been allowed to extract his soul hard disk and put it in one of the spare machines at work. So, effectively, he's back. To keep up the naming tradition: can anyone help me translate "reincarnation" or "second chance" or something similar into Japanese, so I can christen the new one?

In other news, I had a really great Easter weekend -- managed, among other things, to feed a good few people without making anybody ill (so far); verify that my typing speed (on tigris, at least) is probably about 20 wpm higher than I'd previously thought; and caught a glimpse of a great road sign (simply a frog icon, with the legend "3/4 mile" -- genius!)

( small geek-whinge )

( small geek-joy )

Unrelatedly and non-geekishly, I'm going to an Inferno party soon, and am utterly devoid of costume ideas. At the moment I'm contemplating Hades, but am tempted by the ease of going as a barrator (they were so special to Dante they got a segment of the Eighth Circle all to themselves)...

Any ideas or suggestions, anyone?