This was the year of the black man. USA got a blackish president and people were glad he wasn't as bad as Bush was. He was awarded an Oscar for the best PR campaign. Black metal capitalised and gave itself a major boost this year with a multitude of great releases. Aussies beat up the Indian Negros, much to Rajdeep Sardesai & Co's amusement. Somali pirates turned out to be more fun than Alestorm. Nuno Bettencourt couldn't resist - he decided to play for Rihanna. Slumdog Millionaire, which everyone knew was terrible, was given a few token Nobel prizes. Tiger Woods became poorer, but boy did he kick some ass doing so. R Kelly didn't piss on underaged girls this time, may be he'll have a better year in 2010.

Something or the other happened in Copenhagen. Many celebrities died. Many lost jobs, got Swine flu, watched Avatar, New Moon, 2012, watched silly sports, and spent a lot of their time tweeting, and most people just plain sucked as always.

Newspapers got worse, TV got worse, mobile phone operators are pissing the crap out of me with their shit ads more than ever before.

Telengana won't happen till they figure out how they're going to share Rambha.

But fuck all that, I had a mostly great and busy year except for losing my Cat in the first half of the year. New kid in the family, new job, new house - it's mostly good shit.

2009 was a kvlt year. Especially considering all the black metal. Is it just a coincidence that there were so many celeb deaths?

Heard a ton of music, read a ton of books/comics and hauled quite a few of both. Saw a shitload of movies too but I couldn't manage to squeeze in Avatar, New Moon or 2012.

Like last time around, had a great time with GK, Olo, Sam and Vishal at my college fest at Surathkal.This year, a new snooker parlour opened below the local bar at Surathkal - I wasted a good deal of 2009 over there. Good fun winning LPs.

Saw Opeth and Porcupine Tree this year! Who'd have thunk it. Both were very satisfying shows unlike the Amon Amarth gig.

Keeping with the black metal scheme of things this year, I got chosen to do research on Caves in Ahmedabad,. Had a blast over there for 2.5 months [longest stay outside South India for me] and managed a scientific publication too. Wrote my GRE and shit this year and the whole applying to grad school process has been fucking irritating and expensive.

Will close 2009 at Olo's place where I'm off to shortly.

I hope 2010 is as eventful.

I'll have a bash at this.

Life and Work:
The year began in utter misery and wretchedness. I was stuck in a job I wanted out of and found my options very limited owing to the recession. I spent the entire lead up to new year 2009 and the first few days of it working on an AV which finally was not aired at all. Spent days on end during which I didn't speak a single word to my boss (WTF was that about?! I must ask him sometime now since we are back to being relatively cordial) or indeed anyone else in the office, to the point where I'd find my throat had gone dry when I spoke to a ricker or a bus conductor on leaving work for the day. Through the rest of the early part of the year, I got sadder and sadder. I joined a gym, something which I wish I'd continued since it was a lot of fun. Finally I opted out of advertising without the safety net of another job and felt a lot better once the panic brought on by decades of middle class conditioning began to subside. Did some writing that I'm immensely happy with - the liner notes for a CD on psychedelic music in Bollywood that will hopefully be out sometime this year and a few fun articles for Jet Wings.

My dad was hospitalised and that was immensely upsetting. The result is I've become a lot more patient with him than I used to be and we don't yell at each other as often which is a great thing. Landed another job and was smart enough to realise there were things I'd rather be doing. 2010 shall hopefully be spent doing those things and maybe even managing to make a certain amount of cash doing them. Spent an assload of time hanging out with my friends. Prolonged exposure to normal people at my advertising job led me to realise just how interesting and spectacularly funny the quirky bastards I spend most of my weekends hanging out with are.

Music (Concerts and Albums):
All the music that I listen to has been on a fucking unstoppable roll ever since 2003. Each year produces at least five albums that find a place in my list of favourites. 2009 was no exception. Off the top of my head, my favourites for this year include 'What Lies Beneath' by Robin Trower, 'The Harvest Floor' by Cattle Decapitation, 'On this perfect day' - Guilt Machine, 'Octahedron' - The Mars Volta, 'The Fire Within' - Ronny Munroe, 'The Audacity of Hype' Jello Biafra. As of now, both the last Blut Aus Nord and the Nokturnal Mortum are in. Damn this needs its own article!
In terms of live gigs, this year was pathetic. I saw Intronaut who TOTALLY kicked ass and Porcupine Tree that you guys know my thoughts on. Either I didn't see any other interesting live music this year or I don't remember which probably means it wasn't all that interesting. I missed Mr Big :/

Books and Movies:
Read some great books this year - My Work is Not Yet Done by Thomas Ligotti (good in spite of being his weakest effort to date), The Death of Bunny Munroe by Nick Cave, Drood by Dan Simmons, The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Tahir Shah.. On movies, this year has been great - also probably because its the year I saw the most films I've ever seen. Standouts would be The Wrestler, Moon, Mary & Max, Up, Flesh for Frankenstein, Inglourious Basterds and Quick Gun Murugan.

Overall a year in which work wasn't too great for most part but everything else did its bit to compensate.

Nice post. I didn't get much into my work life because it's pretty boring for everyone except me.

First half was really horrible for me. The first three months passed by without having any work in my office. Finally they handed me the lay-off notice, which meant I spend another month in misery. Finally, after much deliberation I decided to go back to school for my PhD. This is not so bad. Honestly, school life is the only thing worth enjoying in USA. But I got another notice for failing the visa requirements. This meant another 2 months of wait and insecurity.
But things have settled down now and I am done with 1 semester. Hopefully, have a better year ahead.

As for books and movies, I barely had any collection in 2008. But 2009, LOT of buys...



So not a bad year after all...

2009 was crappy for most part.

Foot which was fractured and put together by plates and screws started giving trouble in 2009 and thus, one more operation to remove them happened.
Got a shit-tastic job that had entertaining colleagues and a monthly salary that corresponded to the random walk theory.
Attended Porcupine Tree concert only to fall down and sprain my non-fractured foot but it was an excellent concert, pain notwithstanding.

This year was a landmark for my academic "career" as i topped the university in my masters' after doing a rather fun thesis on cinema and anarchy.
I also quit the shitty job before the year was through, thereby salvaging a great deal of sanity and made it in time to celebrate new year's at olo's.
Bought a considerable chunk of the Radiohead discography over the year (it's what I could afford on a meagre student income and then, random salary), watched some good movies (dev d., naan kaduval, the beat that my heart skipped and quite a few wes andersons) and ass movies with fun company (ghajini, kurbaan). In the comics department, I finally got around to reading Love and Rockets after years of meaning to.

2009 was a pretty great year for me. Before the start of the year, I was broke all the time with the internet being the only luxury I had in my life. Student life can be hard sometimes.

But I started working at a diesel engine company right when they were laying off people. It was a pretty weird time. A lot of good people got let go. Anyway, I somehow survived. The work itself is pretty much exactly what I want to do, so I consider myself pretty lucky because of that. Pretty fucking hectic at times though.

This is also the first time in my life I've had money. Thus far, I've spent my money acquiring equipment for recording. I even bought legit software. Also bought some comics here and there. And of course, spent a lot of time watching TV. These were the best new American shows this year IMO:

1) Community
2) Modern Family
3) Michael & Michael Have Issues (will very likely be canceled)

Otherwise a fairly shitty year for TV. Lots of big budget turds like Kings and Flashpoint. Conan's sucking somewhat at the new time slot. Colbert and Stewart had a pretty strong year, though not as good as 2008. Stewart owning Jim Cramer on his show being a high point.

I trust 2010 will be more of the same.

On topic of movies, I may have watched the least number of movies in 2009 since college. There was a pretty good streak in the early part of the year when I'd just quit my last job, I watched an assload of obscure Spaghetti Westerns, Giallo, Blaxploitation, Russ Meyer, Shaw Brothers and rewatched all the Star Trek movies. Somehow I get a feeling it's not going to happen too often anymore. I will never be able to match the crazy number of movies we saw as kids running the cable tv from my house, when I had total control over the VCR. Or even a while later during the early Star Movies period. These days I only manage to sneak in a movie every two weeks or so. I also have turned on the TV exactly thrice since we got the cable a month or so ago. All the three times just because we paid for DTH.

Things started well. Mostly. The 1st of the year started according to plan. The years big shift was in finally getting out of jail. Finally saying fuck you, I don't need your job, a job or any job. Fucking awesome. I think I'd been building up to this for a while now with my serial jumping but I really enjoyed the final resignation. A bit more than when I quit Barclays.

This year was also great for trying new things and the opportunity. Thank you 2009. Nice of you.

I had an absolutely terrific holiday for 2 days in Suratkal. But it's Suratkal and an awesome holiday there is pretty much the default setting. That first morning was fucking epic. Thank you Kau. This was actually the only holiday I had. All other plans met with disaster and personal tragedy.

I lost my grandparents. It's not something I'm totally at peace about. Zen has not happened. It happened way too quickly. Like, what was the hurry? I'm a bit angry but mostly just sad. In other news I'm off to Mangalore next weekend for my third 13th day ceremony in the last 5 months. Terrible.

I heard a lot of music this year. More different shit than ever. I didn't read much though, Hardly. I did read Toll the Hounds and Dust of Dreams in the same year and that's the first ime it's happened I think that I managed to get my hands on two Steven Erikson books in the same year. I'll read it this year too when it finally gets here and I get my own copy. Don't remember reading anything else with that much excitement. Saw some really fantastic movies and just from this year, Inglorious Bastards, The Limits of Control, White Ribbon, Thirst and Bronson come to mind. Music needs a separate thread but heard loads of fantastic stuff.

I turned 30 this year. I had no epiphany, no morning after sickness or revelation. I was just another day older but my lack of worry and tension and mid life crisis upset quite a few people.

I had a mostly sober year. Sober as in calm and peaceful at least when it came to hanging out with the boys. Wednesday nights meant going to Tavern a lot and we started a mid week pit stop. Weekends were spent mostly getting hammered but with very little driving around and behaving badly. It was pretty good.

2009 overall was a strange year. It was filled with chance and coincidences and weird skullfuck moments that more often than not ended with more skullfucking. I had some absolutely terrific highs and also some totally horrendous lows. I put my plans in place very nicely and everything turned out pretty fucking well but then I realised it wasn't really enough. I wanted different things and freedom only means something if you know what to do with it. Some of it worked, some flopped but I'm going to try it all. Like I said at the start, awesome.

I hope I haven't forgotten some epochal moment. I also don't think I can give the past year any sort of rating. Too much happened. Good things and bad things that were not comparable to each other in any way. A year pretty much filled with some strange confusion. Like it wasn't sure which direction it wanted to go in.

If I had a chance to do it all over again I'd do the same shit all over again. I think that's a fair year.

Personally, it's been a very mixed year. Every single person I like finally moved out of the hellhole that is Madras and some other good chums left India as well. I hooked up and broke up with a girl I liked quite a bit which was bleddy depressing when it happened. Eventually realized that I'm probably better off without her. Refusal to get out of home to meet people reached new lows. Or highs, depending on perspective.

OTOH, made some terrific new friends too. Being stuck alone in Madras left me with nothing to do but listen to music, read and watch more TV shows. Rediscovered how much fun chess and crosswords are. I turned 25 and decided to usher my quarter life crisis in by buying a car after 6 months of debating, which in retrospect is a fucking awesome move!

Trips to Bombay and Gurgaon were immensely fun. Bombay yielded epic smoke-and-rant sessions and Gurgaon rekindled my love for getting stoned out of my wits. Also, trashy reality TV, whooo!

Work's been pretty much the same through the year. Disgust, resignation, rinse, repeat.

Musically, it's been an insane year. My top ten isn't final yet because there's been such a lot to choose from!
Black metal made a comeback in my playlist after a while with two brilliant albums by Immortal and Marduk. Funeral doommeisters Ahab's follow-up album is a stunner. Candlemass and Forsaken kept the trad doom flag flying high and Swallow the Sun got back to being crushing.

Death metal is still going strong, as evidenced by the excellent comeback releases from Caducity,Hellwitch, The Chasm and Autopsy. Loved the trifecta of Johannation - Revolting, Paganizer and Bone Gnawer. Hypocrisy returned to fine form, Denial, Excoriate and Goatwhore were fucking revelations and though it didn't release in 2009, finding a logical successor to Demilich in Cosmic Atrophy (and scoring the OCD damn cheap to boot!) was quite gratifying.

Some stupendous stoner releases as well. Serpent Throne's jamathon was impressive and the Baroness, Black Cobra, Priestess and Freedom Hawk releases were all tremendous efforts. Funnily enough, thrash/speed, which showed the strongest signs of resurgence a while back, fell by the wayside this year. No exceptional releases barring the Wolf, Destroyer 666 and Blunt Force Trauma. The old dogs did attempt to growl but Megadeth and Kreator's albums wore off quicker than Chris Broderick's solos. Evile's sophomore effort was very muted in comparison to their firebrand debut. Skeletonwitch did not manage to live up to the promise they showed on Beyond the Permafrost. Honorable mentions to Ever Circling Wolves and Converge, both of which are very likely to make it to my top 10. Converge, in particular, just blew me away with their raw intensity.

There were some let-downs too. Most notable among which were the Mustasch, Slayer (Even though I wasn't surprised, I was still disappointed. Funny how that works.), Goreaphobia, Mastodon and Obituary.

In direct contrast to what most people in here thought, I enjoyed both the Maiden and Amon Amarth gigs. Maiden for the fact that it was a set riddled with songs that I can't ever get tired of but have been omitted from live setlists for nearly 10 years like Wasted Years (thankfully Gers shut the fuck up and let Adrian do his thing this time around), Moonchild and Powerslave. Amon Amarth were just plain skullfuckingly crushing. Intense, imposing and tighter than a virgin's pussy.

I read a lot less this year, thanks to my readdiction to TV and TV shows. I finally finished Dan Simmons' Terror and as someone in here pointed out earlier, the book is just too damn long for its own good. Started off on James Joyce's Ulysses before it was whisked away (*glare* I know you lurk in here) by a friend. Re-read a lot of Wodehouse and Sherlock Holmes.

I watched the entire 7 seasons of Just Shoot Me in just under a month, followed it up with 2 seasons of Dexter in a week. The 8th season of Scrubs entertained briefly. I disagree with Adip about Conan in the Tonight Show. I am fucking digging the hell out of him in his new role. Adip is probably disliking it because the self-deprecatory humor that pretty much MADE Conan in the Late Night Show has taken a backseat in the Tonight Show but I am loving the new skits. The first few weeks after Conan's takeover had more lolcore material than Jay Leno's entire run. The man's still got it. I've been tripping on House MD for the past month or so. Watching the 5th season right now. It's complete BULLSHIT that Firefly got canned. Leaves me with no hope for humanity.

That was it. 2009 had majestic highs and ultimately manageable trenches. Not bad, I must say..

sodom hussain wrote:
I disagree with Adip about Conan in the Tonight Show. I am fucking digging the hell out of him in his new role. Adip is probably disliking it because the self-deprecatory humor that pretty much MADE Conan in the Late Night Show has taken a backseat in the Tonight Show but I am loving the new skits. The first few weeks after Conan's takeover had more lolcore material than Jay Leno's entire run. The man's still got it.

Although he doesn't do jokes about how he has 3 viewers and such anymore, his self-deprecation I think has remained mostly unchanged. My issue is mostly with how overtly "family friendly" the show has become. He doesn't do raunchy stuff anymore, and Conan gets visibly pissed off when his guests swear. The sword has dulled somewhat. He doesn't do stuff like the masturbating bear and the Lincoln moneyshot channel anymore. There's too much concern for how the geriatric crowd might take it. Can't say I blame him. The suits must be calling a lot of the shots. I love Conan, but he was definitely better at Late Night IMO. I still watch his show regularly, though.

Anyway, looks like Conan may be getting shafted by Jay Leno and other NBC goons. Can't believe that talentless hack, Leno is still on the air. If that's what the viewers like, no wonder Conan's ratings are sucking.

http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/07/jay-leno-n...obrien-tonight-show/

Oh, shit. Forgot. 2009 also saw the death of one of the greatest and most underrated heavy metal vocalists ever, Midnight. What an ultra talented fucker he was.

General Knowledge wrote:

I had an absolutely terrific holiday for 2 days in Suratkal. But it's Suratkal and an awesome holiday there is pretty much the default setting. That first morning was fucking epic. Thank you Kau. This was actually the only holiday I had.
Ah.. it was good fun indeed.