But this has been an incredible year for music. And not just the music I listen to, but all around, regardless of genre. Maybe even pop. But as I do every year, I will talk about the albums I enjoyed this past year, including some older ones that I listened to repeatedly this year. Since I don’t have the time or the talent to actually write elegant prose for each album in this post, I’m only going to present a long list, broken into sections. The individual sections are in no particular order, and I found it hard to pick a favorite.

The album names are listed below, with the artist name in parentheses.

New Albums

Albums that I loved

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (The Pains of Being Pure at Heart)
The Hazards of Love (The Decemberists)
Crack the Skye (Mastodon)
Journal for Plague Lovers (Manic Street Preachers)
The Incident (Porcupine Tree)
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Phoenix)
Art Brut Vs Satan (Art Brut)
Travels with Myself and Another (Future of the Left)
Wavering Radiant (Isis)
Seek Magic (Memory Tapes)
Tarot Sport (Fuck Buttons)

Albums that I enjoyed:

Farm (Dinosaur Jr.)
Bitte Orca (Dirty Projectors)
Manners (Passion Pit)
Hospice (The Antlers)
The Century of Self (…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead)
Why There Are Mountains (Cymbals Eat Guitars)
Ayrton Senna EP (Delorean)
Blood (O.S.I.)

Albums I tried but didn’t enjoy:

Backspacer (Pearl Jam)
Black Clouds & Silver Linings (Dream Theater)
21st Century Breakdown (Green Day)
Amor Vincit Omnia (Pure Reason Revolution)

Older albums I listened to a lot:

Daydream Nation (Sonic Youth)
Nevermind, Live at Reading (Nirvana)
Emergency & I, Change (The Dismemberment Plan)
Source Tags & Codes (…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead)
Boxer (The National)
Various Porcupine Tree, The Decemberists, and Manic Street Preachers records.

Managed an above average grade on my second Thermodynamics exam, which was a good sanity check after a below-average grade on the first one, but I’m not in the clear just yet. Need an above average score on the final to lock in that elusive B. Doing okay in my other class – just need to not screw up the final.

On the research side, things have been moving along at a canter. We created and characterized our first batch of samples and are currently trying to figure out the best fabrication approach to take in order to achieve better results with our second batch. I also did a literature survey recently and will be presenting to my subgroup on Dec 1. I’ve been through lots of training sessions and there’s more to come yet. On the whole though, I love being at MIT. Classes are brutal, but being constantly surrounded by smart people is great. I wish I could get to research directly without having to take classes, but it is what it is. Just need to survive. Getting used to being average took some time.

I won’t be going home this winter – first time in 5 years. I have to take a week-long microfabrication training course in January, so I decided to hang around for the entire break. However, I will be heading down to New York for the Christmas weekend and could possibly also make another trip to visit my cousin (and my nephew!) in West Virginia.

Since I got done with midterms recently, I’ve had time to indulge in video gaming. Picked up Left 4 Dead 2 after being persuaded by a friend and it is awesome. Really expands upon the original in several ways and makes the original look boring in comparison. Also picked up Batman: Arkham Asylum, Braid, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. courtesy of crazy Steam sales. Yes, the very Steam I’ve ranted about in the past. I have been converted. While I still like getting something tangible for my money (i.e., physical media), Steam is a great distribution platform and something that’s improving to the point of being as good as Xbox Live (although it still lacks several features compared to Live). Two games I’m eagerly anticipating are Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2, both releasing next year. Now that I know ME2 will run on my laptop, I’m going to get myself the Collector’s Edition. It will hit retail January 26, and I should have a week to blaze through it before the spring semester starts.

Well, that’s about it for now.

The pictures are from a signing by the band on the afternoon of the show. I don’t have photographic evidence of it, but believe me when I say it, I shook hands with Steven Wilson. I got a poster and my In Absentia CD booklet signed by the band who seemed quite cheery. An acoustic performance had to be canceled as SW was feeling a bit unwell.

The Incident sounded amazing, just as I’d predicted. The band took 3 short breaks during the first set, and it was only because SW had to change guitars. Apart from those, the first set was a pretty seamless experience. Occam’s Razor and The Blind House melded into one song and got the show off to fantastic start. Great Expectations, while still short, was wonderful and Kneel and Disconnect translated really well live. The vocal harmonies between SW and touring guitarist John Wesley gave me goosebumps. I’ve been converted on the quality of The Incident (the title track, not Disc 1 as a whole) as the song was quite hard-hitting when played live (accompanied by a creepy animation). Of course, Time Flies was outstanding. I liked how SW would take a seat whenever he was playing an acoustic guitar – made the show feel more intimate. Octane Twisted and Circle of Manias were real head-bangers and the crowd loved them both. I Drive The Hearse was a beautiful way to end the first set.

The band took a 10-minute break after the first set during which they had a cool digital clock on the projector screen counting down their imminent return. The band opened with The Start of Something Beautiful and it rocked! However, during the second set, Anesthetize pt 2 was by far the song that rocked the hardest. It had the crowd going wild and the band put everything into that song. I wasn’t sure if it would work on its own, but the band segued right into it after Russia on Ice, which featured SW using one of these new-fangled LCD guitars. The venue went dark and the visualizations on the guitar were quite amazing. It was also great to see one of my In Absentia favorites, Strip the Soul being played live. SW introduced the song as the one where “Mr. Colin Edwin plays the bass.” And boy did he play that bass well! Instead of playing the song all the way through, the band ended it with the second half or so of .3 and I thought that was well done, too.

I had seen the band’s sound people making changes to a printed setlist before PT took stage. While I saw the setlist, I couldn’t tell what they replaced Way Out of Here with. Turns out, we got an extra song as the band played both Normal and Mother and Child Divided to close out the second set. Normal in particular was a highlight for me as I had wanted to hear it live and the band played it to perfection.

While it was apparent that SW had a cold, he did not let it affect the band’s performance. Maybe a function of where I was standing (in front of the soundboard), but the sound at this show was one of the best at any show I’ve been to. Ever. I could hear all the instruments, and was especially pleased with the strong presence of Colin Edwin’s bass in the mix. The crowd was respectful and really into the show, which was great to see.

As is usually the case, Gavin Harrison was spot-on, except for a gaffe (intentional?) during The Sound of Muzak. His magic trick in the middle of Trains was entertaining and a train horn sound from Richard Barbieri was a nice touch as well. Quite incredibly, the band has found a way to freshen up the song, in spite of playing it at almost every show since In Absentia came out.

Porcupine Tree are now the band I have seen live most often – three times. Each show has been a wonderful experience and I can’t wait for them to come back next year and play songs not played on this tour. I really wish they’d play more material from Stupid Dream (Piano Lessons, for one) as it’s my second favorite PT record. I got talking to the person behind me as we waited on the line to get in and we became concert buddies for the show! We talked about PT, other bands, and concerts. ‘Twas cool.

Setlist:

The Incident [The Incident Disc 1]
————
The Start of Something Beautiful [Deadwing]
Russia on Ice [Lightbulb Sun]
The Pills I’m Taking (middle section of Anesthetize) [FoaBP]
Remember Me Lover [The Incident Disc 2]
Strip the Soul/.3 [In Absentia]
Normal [Nil Recurring]
Mother and Child Divided [Deadwing B-side]
————
The Sound of Muzak [In Absentia]
Trains [In Absentia]

Waiting for one of your favorite artists to release a new record is pretty high up on the list of the most painful things in the world. While it’s only been 2.5 years since the last Porcupine Tree record, the wait since I found out about the new album has been excruciating. Anticipation is not a strong enough word.

Going in, I had mixed feelings about this album. On the one hand, it’s Porcupine Tree we’re talking about, while on the other, the album sampler put out a few weeks ago left me skeptical. The pre-release buzz about disc one being a single song-cycle had me thinking it would contain a single track. It was a bit of a relief when I discovered that this wasn’t the case and disc one came with 14 tracks that flow (somewhat) into each other, a la The Decemberists’ The Hazards of Love earlier this year. So, before I hit play and Occam’s Razor opened The Incident, I took a deep breath. After my first listen, I was thoroughly unconvinced by this record. There were clear highs, but there seemed to be too many dull sections. It all sounded like Porcupine Tree, but seemed to lack the quality I’ve come to associate with their records.

My first gripe with this record is that some of the transitions between songs are not fluid. Second, there are a few fairly short tracks here and they come across as wasted opportunities. There are great ideas that are unfortunately cut short before they can shine. I would rather have had these ideas developed further and some of the interludes shortened.

I’m going to court (possible) controversy here by claiming that Great Expectations is the best song on the album and it’s quite disappointing that it lasts for less than one-and-a-half minutes. It’s the type of medium-tempo song that PT are so good at, and is a joy to listen to, if only briefly. It feels like it ends before its time – perhaps reflecting some of the lyrical themes explored in this album. However, the good news is that my second favorite on the album, Time Flies is almost 12-minutes long. While the acoustic guitar and song structure are most certainly a nod to Pink Floyd’s Dogs and even PT’s very own Drown With Me, but it is a solid track, with an extended instrumental section and a groovy bassline. It will sit nicely with other epics the band has written in the recent past (Anesthetize, Arriving Somewhere But Not Here). The Blind House is my third-favorite track – think Open Car mashed with Blackest Eyes – and it appeals to me both lyrically and musically. Kneel and Disconnect is a gentle, piano-driven follow-up to Great Expectations and as good as it is, it simply makes you yearn for its predecessor even more. Even though Drawing The Line is catchy, I believe it would’ve been a lot better if it weren’t for the chorus that makes them sound generic. The verses, however, are incredibly beautiful. The title track (so to speak), is a bit of a mixed bag as well with the second half being much stronger than the first. Your Unpleasant Family is also quite disappointing in its first half (I sense a pattern here…), rescued only by a lovely guitar solo in the second half. The Yellow Windows of the Evening Train also doesn’t do much for me and the band could’ve skipped this and Your Unpleasant Family to launch straight into Time Flies after the title track. Occam’s Razor and Degree of Zero Liberty are decent precursors to the songs that follow, but don’t stand on their own. It might have been better if they were shorter and merged into the tracks they precede. Octane Twisted, The Seance, and Circle of Manias repeat musical themes and have a great fluidity to them, almost as if they were a single song. Circle of Manias is a crunchy, almost Tool-like instrumental that sets up the album closer nicely. I Drive The Hearse brings down the curtains on a melancholy, but memorable note reminiscent of Buying New Soul.

A word or two about the second disc. I like all four songs – Flicker, Bonnie the Cat, Black Dahlia, and Remember Me Lover. I think it was a good idea on the band’s part to include these songs in the same package as they are in a lighter vein compared with everything on disc one. Plus, it shows that the band’s ability to write solid songs hasn’t gone anywhere, no matter what disc one might suggest. The sudden shift to heavy riffage on Bonnie the Cat is surprisingly effective and really adds a new dimension to the mostly mellow sound of disc two. While not as amazing as I Drive The Hearse, Remember Me Lover closes out disc two wonderfully.

There is a lot of acoustic guitar on this album, especially compared to Deadwing and FoaBP and certain arrangements hearken back to the Signify and Lightbulb Sun eras. Gavin Harrison’s drumming seems to be less of a focus this time, but Colin Edwin’s bass is all over this record. Looks like SW read my FoaBP review! Needless to say, production on the album is top-notch and I’m sure that the DVD-A version, whenever it comes out, will be awesome.

This is a Porcupine Tree record, make no mistake about it. Steven Wilson and company have a way of crafting records with vastly different song structures while still stamping them with the indelible Porcupine Tree mark. However, The Incident is not as instantly rewarding as something like In Absentia or Deadwing. It is most definitely a grower, and I’ve started liking it a lot more after listening to it a few times. Although they’ve done better in the past, this is a good PT album. I do think that the album will be quite the experience in a live setting, a hypothesis I’ll test when I see them on the 27th. In case you’re in India and living under a rock, PT will be playing IIT-Bombay’s Mood Indigo event on December 21.

Rating: 3.75/5
Explanation: I was really torn when it came to rating this album. There are some amazing sections on this album, and on the whole, it works. However, I do have some gripes and while I think 3.5 is low for a work of this caliber, 4 is a tad too high. Who knows, over time I might think of this album as a 4 (or higher).

So, after a largely comfortable (albeit hot) three months at home, I arrived in Boston/Cambridge on August 27 and immediately got to work taking care of administrative nonsense and settling in. I have a nice room with enough space to store all my belongings and still have room for a few people to sleep on the floor, shall the need ever arise. My dorm has a small gym, a games room, and a decent DVD library for residents to utilize. Our incoming class is pretty large (60 or so new students in the department) so I’ve been meeting a lot of people. I haven’t had much opportunity to explore Boston yet, but I have five years to rectify that.

My stored items showed up on Saturday and I’m oh so thankful that I have my speakers back. After spending a week using only my laptop speakers, I had forgotten what bass (not necessarily the instrument) sounded like. At the same time, it sounded too deep for my liking initially so I had to turn it down! Speaking of music, this will be a busy month for me. Porcupine Tree, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam are releasing new albums and I have a ticket to see PT live on the 27th. You can rest assured that a review of their new album is forthcoming, as is the concert review. I won’t be doing a review, but I saw District 9 recently and loved it. If you like sci-fi, do yourself a favor and watch this movie. It does get a bit nasty, so I wouldn’t recommend it for the squeamish.

I had my first class today. Now that I have an MIT ID, have registered for classes, and started attending them, I finally consider myself an MITian. I’m happy to be here and I keep reminding myself that I can’t slack off at all. People are nice, but most professors are notoriously difficult to get hold of, which explains why I haven’t picked a research group to join yet.

Some people have asked me to put up pictures of MIT and the surrounding area. I do have some pictures but I’ll take some more before uploading everything in one go, so please be patient. In other news, I dumped Firefox 3.5 for Opera 10. The other day, Fx was hoarding 1GB of RAM which convinced me to finally make the switch – Opera is speedy, stable, and sexy. I dislike how some websites won’t work with Opera, but the “Identify as/Mask as” option seems to work pretty reliably.

P.S.: That title really doesn’t make a lot of sense in the context of what’s in the blog post. Meh.

The N95 is the first smartphone and the 5th Nokia I’ve ever owned. Symbian and the S60 platform have their critics, but I think the only thing wrong is that the UI appears dated when put next to new OSes such as the iPhone OS, Android, modified Windows Mobile (TouchFLO, etc.), and even Nokia’s own Maemo 5. Beyond that, personally, I feel Symbian is still a capable mobile OS if you don’t want a touchscreen device. One thing I’ve come to realize over the past 18 months is that the N95 (and other S60 phones) really come to life when you give them a data connection to feed off of. You can get your email (even Exchange!), browse the web with support for Flash, use Assisted-GPS/Google Maps, chat with friends on multi-protocol IM clients and lots more. While Nokia’s Ovi Store is only just getting off the ground, apps for S60 have been available for ages through other channels. Thus far, I’ve found free apps for almost everything – web browsing, IM clients, controlling your PC over Bluetooth, Mail for Exchange, Gmail….the list goes on. Quality themes (free and paid) are pretty easy to find as well.

The phone is a nice, unified device for multimedia and web applications. I use it as a relatively good music player (with okayish stereo speakers) when I don’t need to carry my entire music library. It has a GPS unit which along with Nokia/Google Maps has come in handy several times. I use the camera every now and then to capture 5MP pictures and 640×480@30fps videos when I don’t have my trusty Canon with me. The battery life has been pretty good (2 days for my normal usage patterns) since I don’t make a lot of phone calls. But my favorite aspect is that this phone is not carrier-locked. It did not come with any carrier crapware, was not castrated in terms of its feature set, and will work with any GSM carrier anywhere in the world. Sure, I paid more up front, but at least I can do as I please with the phone, rather than doing what my carrier (or Apple if you own the iPhone) pleases.

The N95 has taken a few falls in its stride with the only casualties being a scratch or two and a creaky slider mechanism. The chrome plating on the front buttons is intact, the screen is safe courtesy a screen protector I put on it the day I received the phone, and the Nokia Nseries branding on the battery cover is still mostly there. I wish there was a camera lens cover – I’m still using the flimsy, protective plastic film that came with the phone. Also, the 3.5mm jack with TV-Out is nice and all, but it should’ve been at the top or bottom of the device. While the 2.6″ screen is fairly large, it looks positively tiny compared with the 3″ behemoths on new touchscreen phones. Last, but most definitely not the least, call quality and reception are excellent!

Nokia needs to sort out its software issues, however. Almost all their top-end phones have buggy firmware at release, leading to instability and overall sluggishness. On the desktop front, Ovi is a step in the right direction and an improvement over PC Suite. The newly leaked Maemo 5 screenshots promise plenty and I hope Nokia can deliver on that promise. It is my estimation that Nokia will move S60 to mid-end devices, replacing the aging S40 OS used currently, and put Maemo 5 on their high-end devices to compete with other smartphone operating systems on the market. I’m pleased that so many different smartphone OSes are now jostling for market share – it means greater choice for the consumer.

I hope to make the N95 last for at least another two years if it doesn’t break irrevocably before then. However, I’m already excited about what my options will be when I replace it. Without Exchange support on non-Enterprise plans, BlackBerry would be a no-no. The iPhone’s out unless Apple give up their control-freak nature. I think that leaves Maemo, Android (Sense is yummy), and customized WinMo. From the current batch, the HTC Hero is appealing despite the lack of a hardware keyboard. Upcoming phones like the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X3 and Nokia N900 should be interesting as well.

P.S.: This post might be updated over the next couple of days I remember something to add.

I don’t think that visiting relatives counts as a vacation, more so since this entire summer is one long vacation. However, I like the title and it stays.

The last time I went on such a trip was exactly two years ago. The next time I will be able to go on such a trip is unknown. So, it was important for me to meet the people I wouldn’t see for a long, long time. Not all relatives are fun to meet with but I think I had mostly pleasant experiences on my trip. Some assorted memories from the trip:

- Met my newest and youngest niece for the first time. She cries a lot.
- I tutored my younger cousins (father’s side of the family) for their exams. Yelled at them occasionally.
- Managed to get some reading done. I have a backlog of MRS Bulletins I need to clear.
- I got sick with gastritis thanks to the medication I took for my cold/sore throat issues from the week before. Saved me from a reportedly awful dish at dinner that night.
- Was constantly reminded that I looked weak.
- Ate lots of Ras Malai, including some from Jaipur’s famous Lakshmi Mishthan Bhandar (LMB).
- Ran into about two and a half dozen relatives on Rakshabandhan in Jaipur.
- Bought some nice shirts and a tie. Also bought a Manchester United tee (not the team jersey) and a replica Team India (cricket) tee as well. I look forward to wearing both at MIT on days either team is in action.
- We got invited for dinner by a relative who failed to follow-up and left us in limbo. Ended up going to Pizza Hut to satisfy my Mom’s pizza craving of the last 4 years.
- I had to explain my educational present and future a bunch of times.
- I like how most places in Rajasthan have scheduled power cuts. That way, you can plan your day around the cuts instead of cursing the electricity supply company each time there’s an unscheduled cut.
- It was cooler there than it is here, despite the lack of rain. Seriously, so much traveling and not a single drop of rain anywhere.
- I also found out that my 13-year-old niece is into Hannah Montana. Having not seen her for six years, I didn’t have the heart to break to her that Hannah Montana is manufactured, corporate crap specifically created by Disney to scam teenage girls into buying their shit.
- Mom got calls from someone interested in marrying their daughter to yours truly. B.A., M.A. in Hindi and a B.Ed.? I don’t think so, guy.

I might do a part 2 in case more vivid memories stir up between now and my next blog entry. By the way, what’s up with these near-weekly WordPress updates?

I’ll be away traveling and visiting relatives in Rajasthan for the next week or so. Hence, you shall find no new joy when you a visit to my humble blog from August 1-9. Since I don’t feel like coughing up premium SMS charges while roaming, no updates on twitter either. Sorry tweeps. Not like any of you fine readers will send out emails, but in case you do, I can’t promise a reply will get to you in a timely fashion. I am not setting a vacation auto-reply on my email accounts.

Once I get back, I’ll have a little over two weeks to start preparing for MIT. Time has flown by so quickly – it’s not even remotely funny.

Always the summers are slipping away.
- Steven Wilson

Some of it is really shitty but the good stuff is good. You just have to separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say.

For a while, I dithered about wondering if I should dump my hosting and move to tumblr or wordpress.com. However, I decided that the kind of control afforded by your own webspace is not available elsewhere and I didn’t want to undo all the work done in the past 4 years. Hence, I now present to you, v5.0 of Vivek’s Blog.

After a long time, I’ve found a theme I love out of the box and apart from minor color-related changes, this theme has not been modified from the original. Arclite, my current theme, also uses CSS3 webfonts (Firefox 3.1+, Safari 3.1+, and Opera 10+ only) which means I can place fonts in my theme folder and it will render them on the fly, regardless of whether or not you have them installed on your local machine.

Take some time to look around – the pages have been modified and updated from their older versions. While the dual-sidebar has some info, don’t forget the footer which also houses widgets for Meta, Recent Comments, and Pages for your convenience. A few more color modifications could be forthcoming, but as of right now, I think I’m happy with the look.

Also, I assure you that posts will keep flowing from now on. Not on a crazy daily basis like last year, but more than what it has been this year. Also, my Twitter account is updated far more often then my blog is, so feel free to follow me: http://www.twitter.com/ElectricTool.

**UPDATE: I’m afraid I prematurely shot my wad on what was supposed to be a dry run, if you will, so now I’m afraid I have something of a mess on my hands.**