From a Combination of Words to an Identity

How do you come up with such fancy names?

Hello MysticDews, or whatever that handle of yours means.

Didn't quite get the tale behind your MysticDews identity.

This was a fraction of number of questions of that nature. A lot of people have been asking me about the MysticDews identity that I maintain throughout my social cloud. I wanted to do a post on this when I started writing here, but somehow it didn't seem appealing to me at that time.

So where did this MysticDews actually come from?

It happened one chilly morning, when I had to attend a lecture at my physics classes. As usual, I reached a little early and was wondering what to do. I walked on the grassy ground nearby and dew drops on the foliage caught my attention. I wanted to photograph it and asked one of my teachers if he could allow me to use his camera phone for a while. I clicked a few pictures and was so lost that I didn't notice that all my classmates had arrived and were watching me click those pictures. I heard someone whisper "He's a mysterious guy..."

The day continued, and ended with not even a distant particle of hint that it would be the making of something that I'll be identified as. Next day I couldn't attend the lecture and when I later met my friends, they asked me where did I disappear and that the teacher was asking about why the dew drop boy didn't attend. I replied, without much thought,

"The mysterious guy disappeared like the dews - Mystic Dews."

That's when I first used that name. Later in the night, while on the bed, looking at the stars from my window the sound of Mystic Dews kept ringing through my ears. I liked the fanciness of that name and the way it came into being - so much that I decided to use it as an identity for myself.

That is the story of MysticDews - from a combination of words, to an identity.

With a special thanks to all those who appreciated me for that handle, I end this post.. :)

Not my innocent keyboard, please!

Usually The Times of India happens to be my secondary (primary being feeds, obviously!) source for news but today an article in The Hindustan Times (HT) caught my attention. As usual, my eyes were unconsciously scanning for words like Computers, Apple and the likes and finally met "Keyboards". HT today carried an article about keyboards and personal hygiene.

Your computer keyboard could be filthier than a toilet seat.

Thats what the title of the article cautioned.

Computer keyboards are filthier and infested with more bacteria than toilet seats, according to a study by British microbiologist James Francis. He compared samples from 33 keyboards to swabs from a loo seat and a door handle of public toilet.

It further says that keyboards contain dangerous levels of killer bacteria such as the dreaded E coli, S Aureus and Coliform. The latter one is what lead to that article perhaps. These bacterias are known to cause diarrhoea, stomach cramps, fever, loss of apatite, and skin diseases.

Those names were scary enough to make me clean my keyboard before writing this. Its not that I didn't know about it, I have read quite sometimes about this, but today something appealed to me more than others. There was once a story about Keyboard Dandruff in the CHIP magazine. That was long long back, when I didn't have a computer of my own. But once I got it, I've been showing that Keyboard Dandruff to my sister whenever I remove it. That used to be an object of humor for us, but now I realize there were bacteria in those white flakes that came out from between the keys.

After knowing all this, I've decided to blot off my laziness towards cleaning things and from now on I expect myself to regularly clean my keyboard and its surroundings.

Take care of your health people. You never know hazards can crop up from anywhere.

No, not my innocent keyboard please! :(

From Garbage Collection to Nike

While deviating from my search on Garbage Collection and changing search terms to gauge how far from the subject can I go, I came across this interesting article that talks about Nike's plans regarding Manufacturing-Waste Management. This press release from Nikebiz.com indicates they have found an innovative way to create, what they describe as a performance product, with waste materials. The new Nike's Trash Talk seems to be the product of a partnership between Steve Nash and the shoe-maker. The website says that Trash Talk is the first performance basketball shoe made from manufacturing waste. The shoe is made of scrap pieces of leather and synthetic leather stitched using Zig-Zag stitching so as to put smallest possible scrap pieces to a good use. Read more here. The reason that this story made way into this blog was that I amused by the way a search for Garbage Collection eventually ended up with shoes and Nike. This also brought back memories of my childhood days when I often played with slippers made out of sticking together pieces of paper. Besides, amazing waste management strategy from Nike.

A strange experience..

It first happened to me when i was very young, but that time it was just for a very short while, perhaps for just a minute or two and it happened just once, but this time when it happened, and it was recurring, it left me shocked and a bit if not much, scared. Since the last three - four days, i have been getting a feeling that i am flying, and i have become weightless. Its not a constant feeling, but happens once in a while. It feels funny and strange too. And what was more scary for me, was the fact that during this part of time, i experienced light bleeding from my nose. Though the two luckily never coincided, but the very sight of blood makes me nauseatic. Its good that both these things never happened simultaneously. But my experience, friends and parents said this nose-bleeding is because of the current weather change. So, though i am not much scared because of this, it feels strange that both the things coincided. At first i felt it was because of hunger, but that flying feeling didn't go away with my hunger. Instead it kept coming back again. I don't know what's the reason for this.

Someone asked me about drugs - apart from the over-the-counter medicines, i have never even seen anything that falls into the category of drugs Someone asked me about energy drinks - again i am not interested in being artificially energetic.

Its the fourth day today, and it seems the feeling is now fading away, i have stopped flying as frequently i have in the last few days. Hope i come back to earth soon, feels really strange and scary like this. At a point i even felt that something is terminally wrong with me, and i should rather start counting days. Though it might be fun for others but it feels very weired and strange from the inside. Anyways, i am still happy, that i was at least able to make some people laugh this way. Hoping to return to earth soon ;)