Much of my own time revolves around overcoming the most-recent-at-the-time catastrophy involving my motorcycle, which is a 1984 Rajdoot-Yamaha RD350, a variant of the 70′s giant-killer Yamaha RD350b. The most recent, at this time, is a complete engine breakdown, which will require me to haemorrhage a month’s pay to fix. And so, she lies in peace at St. Anthony’s Backlot of Perpetual Limbo. If you dig hegemony and stereotypes, I’m sorry to burst your bubble: my wife backs me absolutely in my silly pursuit for a quick two-wheeled toy. She is an immensely talented and funny writer, very cute, and — seeing that she gives me bum — a monumentally bad judge of character. Ha ha! I make a joke. She also has one commercially-viable kidney.

I know what you’re thinking: “How can I help this debonair gentleman with the opulent proboscis?”. I know I was right. I’m a student of the human condition. Sometimes I go on long treks to ponder our existence, take photographs of village children and sunsets, and try very hard to make up distant and vague analogies for taking a shit. No, actually those are other blogs I read sometimes to reaffirm my belief that most folk need to be bludgeoned with a cluestick.

Here’s what I want (or good deals relating):

• Yamaha RD350b conrod kit (bearings too)
• Yamaha RD350b piston kit (two pistons, with bearings, rings and pins)
• Yamaha RD350b oil seal kit (all of them inside the engine)

Other plans for the old lady include an improved ignition kit, Uni air filters, and possibly better carbs. But that’s all after she’s running.

If you too are lovingly nursing a white elephant on wheels, get in touch. I know a few support groups.

As promised, here is the complete story of how Educated Tatya got fired. I, or for that matter she, can’t even begin to describe how truly low her former boss stooped. This episode has taught us very well that if it looks like shit and smells like it, chances are you don’t need to taste it to confirm the fact.

It would be all too easy to start a slanging match — God knows that there’s plenty of ammo for that — but I always believe in sticking to the issues. The issue here is that she was fired for a less-than-sufficient reason. The action reeks of double standards, power play and plain jealousy. It takes a unique kind of malevolence to cut you slack for your wedding, then use it against you. To ask you for a 6-month media plan the morning preceding your termination. To call your husband for tech support minutes before firing you.

What ET has not articulated in her account of the incident is the abject betrayal it represents for her. She sleeps fitfully and has weird dreams. I know her well enough to know that this will take her some time to recover from. While I have remained skeptical of the organisation and the people that work for it, ET has steadfastly stood by PETA, its principles and methods. We have both discovered, much to our dismay, that the ethical treatment of animals comes at the cost of the utterly miserable treatment of employees.

Still, if you’re an animal lover, by all means be vegetarian, avoid using leather and be compassionate toward all living creatures. Just don’t hold people up to very high standards.

This thing about the IIPM blog wars is crazy! Based on the facts that I’ve picked up — initially from blogs and later from the news media — I fully support the stance of Rashmi Bansal and Gaurav Sabnis. Desipundit has even devoted a sticky post to the issue, and seems to be the place to go for updates.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental right, but unfortunately there are as many ways to stifle expression as there are to promote it. Being fired for blogging is not news. It’s has happened before, and being the contentious issue that it is, I’m not sure we’ve seen the last of the practice. Injustice doesn’t need any legal standing.

This hit very close to home yesterday, when Educated Tatya was fired unceremoniously, and with great prejudice, from her job at a leading animal rights organisation. While I may be biased — I am married to her after all — the facts of the case are infuriating. We will be putting up a detailed account of the termination soon.

Meanwhile, Booboo is enjoying the 50 percent increase in daily attention.

• Clean up your website navigation
• Use pastel colours only!
• Put in pixel-art icons to indicate folders, commenting facilities etc.
• Create clean mastheads and use contemporary typefaces wherever possible
• Include chronological ‘news’ items
• Use Google ads
• Provide RSS/Atom feeds for your content
• When quoting or citing text, put a graphical double-quote motif next to it
• Embellish blocks with rounded corners or asymmetrical wedge shapes

Put all these together and you have a ‘blog’ that, at first glance, seems like an ‘independent’ opinion. Bonus points for creating a weblog ‘network’ covering other topics and selling it to a giant corporation. I actually came across a blog yesterday, which was a part of one such ‘network’. The blog, and the ‘network’ of other blogs were all hosted on Blogger.

I see overexposure, people.

Disclaimer: I read several sites in the Weblogs Inc. network, and find them very useful. I also admit to being a sucker for websites that use the above-mentioned design elements.

Edit: More shit here