Liebster Blog Award X 2

I got a second nomination for the Leibster Blog Award. This is from Jamie at I Like Reading Books. Her blog can be found here: http://willowreadsbooks.blogspot.com/. It is the place to go to if you are a book lover. Thank you Jamie for nominating me :D

For the details regarding the Leibster Blog Award just take a peek at a previous post of mine located here: http://vintagesorrow.blogspot.com/2013/01/leibster-blog-award.html

Here I will be answering the questions that Jamie has left for me.

1.  If you could sum what your blog is about up in three words, what would they be?

Randomness, books, imagination

2. What are your favorite fandoms?

Harry Potter!

3.   Top three favorite foods?

Even though eating is not an activity that I enjoy, I still label myself a junk food lover. So I say pizza, pasta and candy.

4. Top three favorite movies?

Equilibrium, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Up

5. Top three favorite books?

Harry Potter (the entire series), The Confession by John Grisham, The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

6. What is your most-visited website?

www.hexrpg.com

7. What's one weird thing you can do?

I can sleep for 24 hours, LOL

8. Rant about one thing for as long as you can. What bothers you?

What bothers me is people who complain about school/college/university. They don’t realize that they are being given this amazing opportunity that is denied to millions and an opportunity many are fighting for. In my opinion, education is the best thing that a person can give another person. The best thing that a parent can give their kid. The best opportunity a human being can be provided with. Because education sets you up for life. End of rant.

9. What's your favorite season?

Summer. I don’t care how hot it is, it just should not be cold.

10. Do you like/dislike sports? If like, what do you do. If dislike, what do you like?

I would say that I am neutral towards sports, neither like nor dislike. Used to play some basketball and did some swimming in high school though. And occasionally I might pay attention to sports scores. But I remain neutral.

11.  What's your favourite colour?

Green.

Why I Don't Make New Year Resolutions

A bit late to make a blog entry on new year resolutions, eh? Well, I am sure most of you guys (my readers) must have made some new year resolution or the other, kept working on it till January 5 at the most, then either gave up on the resolution or laziness got in the way or you forgot that the resolution or you simply forgot that the resolution even existed in the first place. This is usually the common place story with all new year resolutions. Few of them are kept or followed through. And by the end of January it is as if they never even existed in the first place.

The whole concept of new year resolutions have always evaded me. If we want to make certain changes in our lives, like “I will control my emotions better” or “I will go on a diet and lose weight” or “I will brush my hair daily” (This one I need to do!) why do we have to wait for the new year to do it? Why can’t we ever say “I am going to do it from tomorrow” or “I am going to do it next week”. Or even better,  I will do it from today. Why even wait that long if you want to make some kind of change. Just like the age old saying goes, “Why put off to tomorrow what can be done today because tomorrow never comes”. Okay I mashed up two old age sayings there.

Yes I do realize the positive aspects of new year resolutions. They give you a goal, an aim, a purpose. Something to look forward to. We all do need something in life. Something we want to fulfil, something we want to achieve, something we want to see happen. If life involves just being day in and day out without any purpose, it becomes, not only dull and monotonous, but it can also be sad and cause depression for people. New year resolutions can combat those feelings as they give you a goal. Also, new year resolutions can be a source of motivation. It forces you to do things that you have been putting off since a long time.

Still, I will be a new year resolution hater. Why put myself up for failure? Nobody ever fulfils their resolutions anyways and why would I be any exception? No point putting yourself up for failure. Statistics do show that like eighty percent of new near resolutions turn out to be failures and are never kept through.

Science even tells about why new year resolutions are bad for us. They require so much excessive willpower that they just make your brain explode. Well, I was reading up on the details about the science behind at, and even though I find science to be very fascinating, it is usually beyond me and goes over my head. But apparently what happens is that the new year resolutions just happen to be so vague because they say stuff like “I will quit smoking” or “I won’t lose my temper in public” but never anything about how exactly to go about it. And it is the combination of that vagueness and the pressure of wanting to achieve the resolution that creates so much pressure that your brain wants to explode (not literally, of course). But why risk a literal brain explosion? Stranger things have happened. And what if I happen to be a medical miracle who becomes the first ever case who experiences a literal brain explosion? Why risk it! Hence no new year resolutions.

Apart from this, there is another reason why I have never been a fan of new year resolutions. They always focus on what is wrong in our lives and how we want to change them. That just sounds so freaking ungrateful. Yes I know, we all have our problems in life and each one of us is fighting our own unique battles; even I am fighting my battle. But don’t you think that new years is a time to be grateful and reflect on what we have? Like shouldn’t the concept of the Christmas Spirit spill over to new years also? Like just a few days ago we were saying thanks to God or the universe or whatever for what we have got and now we are saying that every single think is wrong with our lives and needs correcting?

And this is the reason why I never ever have made any new year resolutions in the past and will never make them in the future either. What is the point? None! So why bother and waste my time with something so useless as a lame old new year resolution.

Leibster Blog Award

Firstly I would like to thank Stella over at the Jellybean Arson for nominating me for the Leibster Blog Award. Check out her blog at http://jellybeanarson.blogspot.com/. It’s a new and upcoming blog.

Basically the Leibster Blog Award is given to those blogs who have fewer than 200 followers. The point is to provide those new and upcoming blogs with exposure. Whoever came up with this award, (Most likely a Mr Leibster or a Ms Leibster, LOL), they came up with a really good idea.

So this award has a total of four steps:

1. You thank the person who nominated you and you provide a link to their blog on your blog

2. Your nominator has put 11 questions for you to answer. Answer them. Then tell 11 facts about yourself.

3. Leave 11 questions on your blog for the 11 people that you nominated to answer.

4. Pass on this award to 11 other blogs whom you feel are deserving for this award. Leave a comment on their blog that you have nominated them.

So I begin with answering the 11 questions that Stella (http://jellybeanarson.blogspot.com/) left for me.

1. Why did you start blogging?

Well, honestly speaking, I picked up blogging for the sake of “time pass”, like they say in my country. I just took up blogging so that I can keep myself busy and pass the time away somehow. Writing has never been my thing, hehe.

2. If you could live in any book what could it be?

Harry Potter FTW. I wish I could study at Hogwarts *sigh*

3. What's your favorite genre?

Science fiction and Comedy. Can’t choose between the two.

4. What inspires you?

Books inspire me.

5. If you were a superhero what would your name be?

Regal Angel… Lame, I know. But it’s the first thing that came to my mind after reading the question.

6. Name one weird thing you do?

I sleep with all my lights on.

7. Coke or Pepsi?

Both

8. What do you love to do?

To read

9. A piece of advice you live by.

Always follow the Golden Rule.

10. If you were president what law would you pass?

Free compulsory education for everyone.

11. If you could how would you change the world? 

Make sure nobody is denied the basic right of education.

11 Facts about me:

1. I still sleep with a teddy bear (don’t judge).

2. Seeing too many numbers makes my brain shut down (Not literally, LOL)

3. Can dance Gangnam style

4. Cockroaches are my biggest fear

5. My favourite movie is Equilibrium

6. One place that I would love to visit someday is Egypt. I want to see the pyramids and the sphinx firsthand.

7. I am painfully shy and the world’s biggest introvert. I embrace solitude.

8. I am a huge Trekkie

9. I am easily amused

10. I have lived on two different continents

11. Green and blue are my two favourite colours

11 Questions for the people I have nominated:

1. Why did you start blogging?

2. How would you describe your blog?

3. What is your biggest fear?

4. If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

5. Apple or orange?

6. Which is your all time favourite book?

7. What is one change that you want to see in the world?

8. What place would you like to visit that you haven’t been to yet?

9. If you can go to lunch with four historical figures, who would they be?

10. Which magazine(s) do you enjoy reading?

11. What is your dream job?

The 11 blogs that I nominate:

1. http://theartistcreativeforum.blogspot.com/

2. http://athousand-lives.blogspot.com/

3. http://babykins-the-second.blogspot.com/

4. http://copypastelife.blogspot.com/

5. http://rebellioussubmission.blogspot.com/

6. http://atattooedmind.blogspot.com/

7. http://theruggeddiary.blogspot.com/

8. http://willowreadsbooks.blogspot.com/

9. http://randomthoughtsko.blogspot.com

10. http://harpyqueen.blogspot.com/

11. http://jellybeanarson.blogspot.com/

Play Dead by Harlan Coben (Spoiler Alert)

Lately I have had a bit of too much free time on my hands which resulted in me being able to finish a big thick book quite quickly, Play Dead by Harlan Coben. As usual, I am linking you to its Goodreads page without hyperlinking as I don’t have the slightest clue how to do that http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7809428-play-dead and as usual my review contains spoilers.

In the beginning of this book, Harlan Coben does give us a warning. That if you haven’t read any book of his in the past then you should put this down, read another book of his first, then come back to this one. Well, me, I just ignored the warning and just went on and reading the book. I have been over some of the reviews people have written on Goodreads and they do say that his other books are much better than this one, but like I said, this is my first Harlan Coben read, so I can’t testify that myself in any way.

This is a book full of conspiracy and full of cliché. One world class top model gets married to one of the best basketball players. Something you typically find in supermarket tabloids, right? Well, so the model, Laura and the basketball player, David, want to get married but Laura’s mom is so hell bent against it that they run away to Australia and get married and do their honeymoon there. In Australia, David vanishes and turns out he is dead by drowning. So far so good.

But after this, I felt like I was reading the script of some soap opera or cheap Indian drama. I usually like stuff with conspiracy as that increases suspense and makes stuff more interesting. But in this case, even though I did enjoy the conspiracy, it appeared so soap opera-ish.

Just take a look at the way the conspiracy unfolds. Laura’s mom Mary tells her to stay away from David. Laura don’t listen. So Mary follows them to Australia and tells David that he and Laura are brother and sister as Mary had an affair with David’s dad and Laura is a result of this affair. So David, instead of leaving Laura or ignoring it or doing something a rational human being would do, David went and got a face transplant and his voice changed. I mean, seriously? Face transplant? Reminds me of some Indian drama whose name I can’t remember where they claimed a character got injured in a car crash and they claimed she got a face transplant because of the injuries because the actress who played the role changed.

David with the face transplant and new identity goes back to playing basketball and even though everyone notices the new guy plays just like David, nobody raises a finger in suspicion. Anyways, the conspiracy builds up more and more and more and then the way the entire thing unfolds is actually quite interesting, especially when the truth behind David’s dad comes into being.

The way the whole conspiracy unfolds is quite interesting and quite shocking too. When things become much clear things begin to point either at Mary or at Mary’s sister Judy. I was, at one point, convinced that its all Judy’s handicraft. I was actually very shocked and taken aback when I realized who was behind it and how that individual carried out the conspiracy. Such a dramatic soap opera this turned out to be when all was revealed at the end.

And the part of David and Laura being brother and sister? Nothing can resemble a soap opera or a cheap Indian drama more than that!! Judy tells James, James gets pissed off, drugs Mary, aborts the baby and then makes Mary pregnant with his kid. And all this time Mary is under the impression that James knows nothing and that he has fallen for the web of lies that have been spun around all of the characters in this book. So they are not brother sister after all!

I know throughout I have been ranting about the soap opera element of this book and how it resembles a cheap Indian drama, but please don’t get me wrong here. Despite having its soap opera/Indian drama element to it, its actually a really awesome book. Yes, the author does take some time to actually build up the conspiracy. Building up the conspiracy is quite slow and I personally think the author should have done that quicker. But once you get tangled in the web of the conspiracy, it really grips you strongly, and then you just can’t put down the book. You want to keep on and on reading and see how the conspiracy unfolds because it takes like a million different twists and turns, many of them unexpected.

One thing in the underlying tone of the book is the bad side of beauty. Beauty of the human body, to be specific. And how it can actually destroy and harm other people. Whenever we think of beauty, we always think of the benefits it gives you. About how it can help you get ahead, how it can open doors for you, how it can get you favours. And for those who crave the attention of the opposite gender, beauty can give you that attention. But the downside of beauty? We ignore that. Harlan Coben has addressed that wonderfully. I honestly wonder if he intentionally intended to do this or if it is something that I just happened to pick up on. We learn about how one sister lost not one, but two, men to her sister because even though she herself was beautiful, her sister was beautiful-er. We learn, in one scene, how girls have used their beauty to get an unfair advantage. We learn about how someone took advantage of another person because the other person was beautiful. I like the way the author has addressed the bad side of beauty like this.

At the end of the day, despite the soap opera element to it (and my personal hatred such soap opera type clichéd stories) I would still definitely recommend it. Its a book to read to pass the time. And its quite interesting to see such a conspiracy being spinned and then unravelled. This requires a lot of talent. Even though from what I have heard, this is not one of Harlan Coben’s better works, his talent still shines through this for sure.