Dream On..

I have been seriously thinking about a lot of things.

Not many people know about it, but when I was a kid I wanted to become a musician. However, growing up in India really meant that I was to focus my energy on my studies. Also, my parents never really encouraged me to learn a musical instrument (they did want me to learn classical music when I was very little, but I refused). I think one of the reasons why they did not encourage me was because they could not have afforded the lessons, the instruments and the works. And again, like I mentioned earlier, they wanted me to focus on my education. 

Since the last few days I am thinking about making my dream come true (I know it sounds very dramatic, but I am seriously thinking about it). I want to be a musician. I am not planning to be in a band and cut an album and tour and all that. I just want to learn a certain instrument very well (guitar?), get some recording gizmo, and make an MP3. That's all I am planning to do. The day I make my mp3, I will smile. My heart would smile. But now the problem is this - I know how to play the guitar, but I don't know how to play the guitar. I mean, I can strum some chords, do a little bit of picking here and there etc., but when it comes to the technicalities of it - I fail. I fail because I do not know most of the stuff associated with good guitar playing. If you ask me to tune down my guitar half a step I wouldn't know how to do it. So my plan is:

Learn to "really" play the guitar: I had ordered a set of "Learn Rock Guitar" DVDs around 8 - 9 months ago. I did do a few lessons from it but lost interest later. It's time to relearn those lessons and learn new ones.

Record stuff: I don't know how to record. I looked up recorders and mixers and stuff on musiciansfriend.com and got totally lost and confused. None of the jargon used to explain the functionalities of those gizmos made any sense to me. So I ordered this. I would learn what the things do first, and then order stuff and learn to use them.

Create MP3 and distribute it for free.

Sounds simple, no?

Another dream of mine has always been to learn photography - like really learn stuff and click amazing pictures using the technalities involved in photography, and not just click pictures with my point and shoot randomly without knowing what is really going on in those pictures. For that I would require an SLR.

I looked up some cool SLRs online today, and instantly shat my pants. Those cameras are not cheap - even the ones for beginners are around 500 bucks. I checked Amazon, and BeachCamera. And then I checked Best Buy. I had almost given up hopes of buying an SLR when a certain offer grabbed my attention on Best Buy's website - "no interest on orders of 499 and up if paid in full in 18 months."

!

So I applied for their credit card...

And got it instantly!

At that very moment I ordered the Canon Rebel XS, and went to the store to pick it up, with a smile on my face of course! I picked it up, came back home,  and opened the box only to find out that they had actually given me the Rebel XSi, and not the XS, which is a lot more expensive and has better features! I looked at my clock and realized that the store was about to close in 10 minutes. I called them to let them know of the mistake they had made, but they did not answer. I tried again. Same thing. Then I emailed the store general manager explaining the entire situation. I wrote that I want what I paid for, and that I would return it tomorrow and get the XS. The XSi is now sitting in my room inside its box, doing nothing.

But atleast I am glad that I have started chasing dream # 2. I am hoping to learn a few tricks quickly and click some nice pictures.

Oh and ofcourse, dream # 1 should hopefully see the light of the day some time soon too :-).

And yes, as of now, my parents' dream of me getting married soon can go to hell :-).

I just wish I had spent some more time with a few people I did not spend so much time with.

I Ain't Got No Money, Honey..

Common sense finally prevailed.

I did not buy the Streamium or the iPod dock, and I don't plan to buy any of those in the near future. I bought a vacuum cleaner instead, and I am glad I did. I brought it home and used it for like 2 minutes, just to test it, and it did wonders! After turning it off I saw the amount of dust it had in its dust compartment or whatever it's called, and I was both amazed and ashamed at the same time. Amazed because of the power and efficiency it managed to display, and ashamed because in just two minutes I realized that I have been living with filth around me for a very long period of time. The last I had vacuumed with my older crappy vacuum cleaner was about four months ago (maybe more, I don't know).

And I bought a 16 piece dinner set, because my folks are coming over for around a month, and I really did not have any decent plates,bowls and spoons to serve food to them in.

And then..

..I bid on two tickets to U2's concert in Chicago [the bitch]. I had to bid on them because obviously the show is sold out, and I have been thinking that this might be my only chance to see them ever, since they are getting older and may not tour in the future. Of course, there are more reasons that defy common sense, but what the hell, you only live once. Just last night I found out that Snow Patrol is opening for them, so that kind of motivated me all the more to get those tickets, although secretly I am hoping to be outbid/ sniped by somebody else.

And I am going to Normal this weekend because a couple of my friends are graduating, and then to Champaign to meet a good old friend of mine, and I am pretty sure that I would end up spending quite a substantial amount of money when I am there. 

And I got my car serviced this month, so spent a little bit on that.

Oh of course, how can I forget my bills - I have not yet paid them, and I hate paying them. So I have to still make way for a few hundreds of dollars. I sometimes feel that access to electricity, Internet and car insurance should be our birth right and we should not really pay for these man made necessary evils, but then that's just me I guess.

I am pretty sure that I will go broke by the 10th of this month.

So here's my plan.

I recently used a few amazing coupons and got a 5 lbs bag of potatoes for 88c (which is usually around 4 - 5 bucks). I also bought a loaf of bread for 38c (original retail price - $1.18). Now, my plan is to survive on just potatoes and bread until my parents come here. No Chinese, no Indian, no Pizza, no nothing. I will be a caveman for the next 15 days or so and try my best to survive. I think I will buy more bread because I am pretty sure that the loaf I have right now would vanish in the next 2-3 days. 

Hopefully a potato a day would keep the doctor away.

Incidental Expenses Are So Heavy..

Just this morning I was telling my best friend about how I do not know what I spend my money on, and we both agreed that it is almost certainly impossible to save money, however hard(ly?) we try. He asked me if I bought something new, and I said no, which is true. I have not bought a single interesting gizmo in the last so many months.

After talking to him and a few cups of chai later, something made me go to Amazon's website. Since I was already there I decided to look for some cool electronics stuff. Since I now have an iPod, I decided to look for docking stations for it, convincing myself that I really need one just because they can so conveniently connect the iPod to my stereo, play music and charge it at the same time. I did like one, and almost decided to buy it when my eyes managed to spot one of those ultra cool Streamiums that I had always wanted but could not really get it because they are so expensive. Anyway, I forgot about the dock and started exploring the Streamiums. Philips launched a really cool Streamium last december called the NP2900/37, which I fell totally in love with. The biggest advantage of that player is that I can log in to my Rhapsody account through it and play songs  - without the computer. It only needs an Internet connection - wired or wireless. It can also wirelessly connect to the computer and play songs from the hard drive. And oh yeah, it has Internet radio, which means that I can possibly listen to a gazillion Internet radio stations from around the world. I almost decided to buy it, but something kept stopping me. Then I did a feasibility study. 

I already have a Philips micro system that connects to my computer and plays music that exists on my hard drive. If my computer is turned on then I can access any music website that exists on the Internet and play music, including Rhapsody, last.fm, and Pandora to name a few. If I want Internet radio, I can always use Winamp or go to any other random website that has Internet radio stations. The only disadvantage, if at all it is one, is that there is a USB cable dangling between my computer and the stereo, whereas with the new Streamium it would all be done wirelessly. So, after around 10 hours of thinking and debating, I decided not to spend $230 on something that would really not add value to my experience. Oh, and I decided not to spend $140 on the dock also. I will continue to use the RCA cable that I have to connect my iPod to the stereo, for which I paid $3 around a year ago.

But you know what I really want? A vacuum cleaner. Seriously, I want one really bad. The one I have is really crappy and just doesn't do anything. For me, vacuuming with that vacuum cleaner means literally (hand) picking stuff from the floor and breaking my back. 

But again, something always stops me. I feel that I just should not spend too much on a vacuum cleaner.

I know I am wrong.

And of course like I always say, I know how good my bad luck is. While Amazoning today my computer's power adaptor died, and my computer's got like 50 minutes of power left in it. Now I will really really have to buy a power adaptor. This is something I cannot avoid. The adaptor had died two years ago also, and I had paid 90 bucks back then to get a new one. 

Oh fudge.