Laptop alive, Paul gives a high five

Well, it seemed it was just my Li-ion battery that was blocking my whole system from starting up. I removed it by accident (was playing with the lock-mechanism), and decided to give me laptop another try. And there it went, past the initial screen, onto windows. Hooray!

I did not drink the special lassy by the way. Someone of our group tried it, but it had such a little effect on him that I decided to just skip it (it is no fun if it does not do anything fun). Pushkar in itself was a very nice and relaxing place, and certainly worth the visit. Even bought some more souvenirs. Slowly my collection is increasing, still need to buy a lot more though.

This weekend I am going to Bundi, if everything goes alright. It is a small city with a beautiful hillside palace. I`ll report about it when I come back.

Laptop fried, Paul cried

Well..my laptop not exactly fried, it just isn`t starting up anymore. This basically means that I lost hunderds of pictures and 3 weeks of hard work. Initially I crashed when thinking about it, but now...Pictures are only snapshots, while the memory in my brain will remain. I`l just have to tell the stories, without the pictures. The three weeks of work is a major setback, since I only have 4 weeks left here. This means that I`ll have to work my ass off to make something of this report. I`ll try my best, but damn, why did this have to happen to me, now.

reasons for computer breakdown:

1) Yesterday there was a power cut while the laptop was plugged in. Some surge might have fried the harddisk. Strangely enough, the first thing that should be fried, the battery (the thing between your laptop and electricity-source) is still working. In fact, the whole screen even goes one. After that however there is a deadly silence. There does not seem to be communication between the rest of the computer and the hardisk. Power-cuts also happen a lot and all the time the laptop went nicely back on again after it. Good news of this option is...well..there is no good news..if it is fried it is lost.

2) Boot-sector failure. After the 100th sudden shut-down the harddisk said "f*ck-you* and decided not to boot anymore. Good news of this option is that I can just plug it in on another computer as a slave-disk and hope that I can retrieve the data. Bad news is that it might be hard to find te stuff I need for doing that in India. It's pretty unusual stuff.

3) CMOS battery empty. Although this should not be happening in general (since batteries should last for years), this is also an option. If this battery is empty then the communication between all the components of my laptop simply stops, which might explain why my harddrive is not working anymore. The good news is that when the battery is replaced by laptop will be working again. The bad news is it will not be working again untill I`m back in the Netherlands, since opening a laptop is something I don`t want to do by myself.

Greetings,

Paul

Killer mutant monkeys invading from Darjeeling!

Aah! Today I`m going to Pushkar!
Hippie paradise since you cannot smoke drugs there but are allowed to drink them (and to expand your universe consequently). They call it bhang-lassy. I`m might try it, carefully of course. It is said to cause some hallucinations...wouldn`t be my first here in India since the burning sun and temperatures can make your brain boil easily.

Speaking about hallucinations, yesterday I again had to explain myself why I did not smoke soft-drugs while I`m at the festival-fields. Maybe that is because I just really hate smoking. Maybe I`m already with my head in the clouds enough without that stuff? Maybe I just don`t need it to have fun or to enjoy myself? Why do something when you don`t need or don`t have any desire for it? And why do you end up with the label "a bore" when you don`t smoke it? So cliche..just like the drug itself actually. A bit of a cheap thrill in my opinion….?

I don`t know..what I do know is that a good thrill is when you put up a song and can play every note perfectly together with it on your guitar, with perfect timing and no hick-ups. Or when you start improvising and actually end up with with quite a good little tune. You actually achieved something and feel great…sharp and fresh.

And now I hear you thinking: "but you are going to drink that Bhang-lassy, fool!". Well. It is actually strange to find such a completely legal drink at a place were drugs and alcohol are prohibited. It is unique to Pushkar, and I`ll only end up drinking it once. It does not kill my lungs should I get addicted to it. And not everybody has tasted it in the Netherlands, so it still has some originality-points to it. And so it basically it ends up to this: I take my own path and my own path is my own..and I don`t need to explain my unreasonable reasoning to you!