Wikisurfing is fun [1]

If you have a job that requires you to sit in front of a computer that is connected to the internet, chances are you have experienced WikiSurfing (when a better name strikes me, as it often happens when I am over the can (which is an euphemism for shitting), I am going to replace WikiSurfing with that word and erase this long and pointless sentence where I give TMI (too much information) and use too many brackets…(ok?)). WikiSurfing, as the net-addicted amongst you might have already guessed is when you start off reading one article on wikipedia, jump to another article midway through the first one via a link and keep doing this for 2 hours until you end up with tons of guilt and half assed knowledge about a variety of vaguely related and often pointless topics.

This happens to me all the time but today I think I have a crowning achievement in terms of maximum randomness. Trying to get some work done I tried to find an article explaining “spherical modes”. Exactly 1 hour later I was reading about “Megan Fox”. I have no idea how I managed that but I was glad my natural instincts led me well. Yet the whole process amused me to no end. I have no recollection of my journey but my destination taught me that Megan Fox is engaged to some random dude and believes in pansexuality (which isn’t something as kinky as I had imagined).

Megan Fox could keep me entertained only for so long (cuz it wasn’t she in person!). I quickly moved on and kept surfing when I came across an article where one of the sentences was ...he was however hit by a car which led to... and the words hit by a car were linked to an article about Motor Vehicle Accident. This means that there was a person who decided that the phrase 'hit by a car' might not convey enough information and took the effort to edit the page in order to link to the other one.
Nice! My faith in the bottomless pit of amusement that is the internet was reinforced today.

POST SCRIPT: After typing out the above, I put aside my laptop to visit the restroom (which is again a euphemism for shitting. Who actually rests in a restroom?). As it often happens (and I have a vague recollection that I already mentioned this) I had many thoughts while “resting in the restroom” and one of them was to google wikisurfing before posting this. Turns out, it is a word which is already in use, has an entry on urban dictionary and a bunch of people have already blogged about this. My instincts had led me well once again. Normally I would have scrapped the entire post due to the obvious redundancy but I decided against it (as is obvious) only because I wanted to share with the world that I have awesome thoughts while going dookie ( ;) ) and sadly these are no better than most of the world's!

References
[1]: Personal experience of the author. Not a reliable source.

Brief Review of Death Magnetic

Here is a short review of DEATH MAGNETIC…the latest album released last Friday (12th Sept) by METALLICA.
Music wise it is only decent, there are parts where you really feel pumped up but more often than not its nothing more than just mediocre riffs. Maybe I have to let the songs grow on me. From an arrangement point of view it is a total back to roots album for metallica what with all the songs being long with changing riffs and solos. This might be great news to the I-hate-Metallica-after-Justice fans but I am not one of them. I think as awesome as their first four albums were, the radically different direction they took after Justice added an entirely new dimension to their music which paid off very well. I believe they tried to pull off a similar stunt with St.Anger which of course failed. However I personally give them the credit (that they deserve and normally don’t get) for having the balls to experiment rather than stick to just one proven formula.
Coming back to Death Magnetic, all the songs follow the template established by Kill Em All. The lyrics though suck balls. Hetfield was lyrically at his best during their softer years. Almost all songs from black album/load/reload have better lyrics than first 4 albums with a few exceptions of course. Most of the songs on death magnetic have to do with...(wait...can u guess?...) death...all seems very pretentious to me!
And one thing that has been a source of misery for me is Unforgiven 3, one of the songs on Death Magnetic. It is so crappy it makes me want to cry. Unforgiven 1 and 2 are masterpieces in every right of their own. Unforgiven 3 sounds like the result of a bad jam session from a third rate band or a song that I would come up at 2 am in the morning after coming back from the bar on a friday night completely drunk (the important difference being that I always have the good sense to realize it sucks...but not before a period of about 15minutes during which I am convinced that I have created a masterpiece!!)

Overall, I would rank the album maybe above reload and st.anger but still worse than rest of their stuff. I have listened to the album only a couple of times and will definitely be doing more listening in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I will grow to like it even more (cuz all fancy critiques and opinions notwithstanding, wouldn’t you rather enjoy something than hate it?)

Another good thing is because of death magnetic I listened to most of MetallicA’s repertoire again and was reminded why they are one of the best bands to have made music!

In conclusion...obey your master...MASTER!