Diary 2: Working on Weekend

Today I woke up at 8:15 am to attend the conference call with Gil and Ankit regarding the issues and doubts of previous day. It started at around 8:45am and was an effective call, filled with good discussions and ideas from all sides. The call ended at around 10:20 am, and then I ate my breakfast. After that, it was pretty much work and work. We divided the sections on which we will work and proceeded with that. In between, I also practiced for my performance, often multi tasking between work, practice and online TV series (CSI:Miami). I was very happy with the work today since it was going into the right direction, where I was able to understand everything and getting the complete picture of the project. At around 1 pm, I got a call from Krittika (HR, 2S Consulting), who scheduled the interview on Wednesday morning at Powai office and said that she will mail me the final details. I told her about the change in my profile recently, and also objected on the fact that the position was a Business Analyst position, which is lower than my current position. She agreed and said that the position can be managed based on the interview in addition to the salary. So, I agreed and told her to proceed with it. At around 2:15 pm, I ate lunch, and then again started working on the code. I completed my part of the work till around 5:30 pm, and mailed it to Ankit. I practiced my song again for some time.I was so tired after all the work that I took a power nap till 6:15 pm. Then I watched the ongoing IPL match between Kochi and Delhi, which Delhi won due to some good hitting by Sehwag (finally a win for Delhi). I then went for Bath and got ready to go to the function, with my electric guitar and amplifier too, in case they don't have good speaker facilities. On the way to the place, we found out that the venue has changed, and hence there was a tense moment, but was soon resolved with few phone calls.Well, the first slot was alloted to me, and I was told that I can perform 4-5 songs. There was hardly any crowd but it didn't disappoint me since this performance was important for me in a different perspective. Anyways, the show started at around 8:30 pm, I performed four songs in all - Mitwa, Soniyo, In Dino, Teri Deewani.I couldn't perform the last two songs very well because my throat dried up, and I was finding it difficult to pull my voice up. After an overall average performance, I came back home. Also, my sister had come from tuition around that time, and she went along with my father back to the function. At home, I started watching the ongoing IPL match between KKR and Punjab. Punjab were able to reach only 119 in their 20 overs, which KKR chased down very easily, taking KKR to the top position on the points table based on net run rate. Mom, Dad and sister came back at around 10:30 from the function, and then we had dinner at around 11:15 pm. Meanwhile, I loaded another episode of CSI:Miami, and checked my mail for any updates from Ankit or Gil. Also, I checked the news that south east coast of US has been hit by around 200 tornadoes over the last few weeks, causing great destruction all around. After having my dinner, I mailed a few other documents to Ankit, and then at around 12:00 am, took a short conference call to discuss the issues and problems. After that, I started writing this post. Now, I plan to watch that loaded episode of CSI:Miami, and then sleep at around 2:30 am. 

Crime Scene Investigation

I just started with CSI:Miami season 1, and I am quite impressed by it already. The methods, the strong observations, knowledge applications, value of experience and many other parameters come into the picture when a group of individuals come together and analyze a crime scene. It is not only CSI:Miami, every other crime related TV series (Bones, 24, Castle, etc) has focused on these aspects. I did some internet search on whether the life of agents in this genre of work is actually so intriguing and nerve crunching. I found one article by a former associate director of FBI, who mentioned that what we see on movies and TV series' is just a part of the whole picture. He added that at a single moment of time, there are agents working as under cover, solving federal criminal cases, building strategies to bring down drug mafias, burning it out to train other subordinate agents, breaking some cryptic code of terrorist group, etc. Script writers often approach bureaus and spend time with the agents, listen to their experiences and attend specific trainings to understand the picture- part of which is visible on our TV screens. I wonder sometimes what the writers of Indian shows such as CID do as research work.

Personally, I am an analysis freak. I like over-analyzing. It not only brings forth some hidden or unseen relations between things but also keeps my brain's grey matter up to speed. Lot of practical knowledge goes in such situations, and practical knowledge comes from practice and experience. TV series' follow this very tightly. They would certainly have someone in the team who has a ton of experience dealing with crimes of many sorts. He/She stands apart from the team in difficult situations and is hence the factor which manipulates the TRP of the show (unless the female agents are too hot). 

Next, I would like to jolt down some methods, tools or practices followed in solving a crime in general. I will try to categorize them but being an amateur don't expect much from me.

MURDER/HOMICIDE/SUICIDE:

Things to look for (not in any particular order):

- Motive : Serial killer, cold-blooded, mafia, revenge, infidelity etc

- Cause/Time of death : bullet , drowning, poisoning, natural etc

- Weapon (in case of murder) : Build, Available sources, Registration Number, Home made knife etc

- Wound : Strangling on neck/hands, Bullet puncture, Knife stab, Trajectory inside the body, Close range or long range, Injection marks, Struggle marks etc

- Vicinity : Isolated, public place, home, party etc

- Victim background : No police history, Gang member, Immigrant, Role in the family etc

- Blood spatter : Can tell us how the scene actually happened, height of the killer etc

KIDNAPPING:

Things to look for (not in any particular order):

- Victim profile : Rich, middle-class, businessman, etc

- Motive : Ransom money, assault, threat, gathering information by torture etc

- Time frame : Last seen when, how much time has been given etc

- Location : Public place, daily routine path (school, work) etc

- Suspect profile : Kidnappers know the routine, Close-relative in need of money, etc

- Similarities with previous cases : Following some pattern or not

This is not an extensive list, but we can easily form an image of a crime scene from the above listed elements. Imagine that the police finds a body floating on an isolated lake, what are the next steps? We retrieve the body and try to identify him/her. Then we would look for cause of death - whether it was drowning or someone killed the victim and threw the body in the lake (this can be determined by analyzing the contents of the victim's lungs - If there is lot of water in the lungs, that means the victim was breathing in water in the last moments and hence drowned to death). After identifying and figuring out the cause, we go for wounds on victim's body (if any) and victim's background to figure out the motive. If it was a suicide, then we may find financial instability, suicide note or social awkwardness coming up in the background check. If not, then we look for possible suspects and motive related to each suspect. Very often we see that someone close is somehow involved unless it is random kill for loot or money. Well, now it is up to the script writer to let the flow of story go either way but in real life, we may need to improvise often and pave a different path to solve the crime. 

Scribbling 2:Confessions of an Internet Addict

Yes, I am an internet addict. I spend more than 15 hours on net daily. Well, my job forces me for 9 hours or so but the rest is all me. I spend most of the time watching online TV series one after the other. I recently finished with Flash forward. It was an awesome series, but the ABC channel didn't renew it for the second season. It was hardly one day after I finished with two seasons of V ( an alien invasion based TV series ), which was fine but with an ending so abrupt and odd that it left me thirsty for more suspense thriller type series', I started with CSI:Miami today, although I wanted to start off with the original CSI, but couldn't find the online episodes for it, well at least for my region.

It is not that I didn't try anything else. I thought to myself - what else can I do? Nothing stood apart by the Cost-Benefit analysis, so I am stuck with the TV series option. The effect of internet has been such that I have been wanting to learn cryptography, martial arts, spying, swimming, and what not, all at the same time. Seeing the amazing lives of the FBI, CIA, NSA agents, I am just eager to feel the same. I even searched for Internet Addiction on Google and Wikipedia, and found out that the only remedies that exist are Self-Control and Psychiatric help. Being an inherent lazy person, I don't find any reason to move from my seat when clearly internet is able to provide me with almost every human emotion possible. 

I noted down few possible ways of curbing my internet use:

1. Internet timer - Keeping a clock right beside me to track the time of internet usage

2. Load the necessary pages all in one go and them switch off the router, disconnect the cable and sit somewhere else - far away from the source of the internet

3. Involve in learning something that doesn't require sitting in front of a computer (ex: guitar, keyboard, singing, martial arts, yoga, photography)

4. Go out very often to smell fresh breeze of air and feel that you are an alive human being

Though right now, I am not taking any drastic steps, but I believe this blog will help me more in curbing or at least directing my internet habits to productive directions.

Television Series' I have watched so far

Well, I have been actively watching and keeping up with American and British TV series since my college days. There were times when I watched them continuously for hours and hours. The result is a long list of shows and hence to mark the memory and to keep a tab on the shows, I am sharing a list of them (not in any particular order).

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

How I met your mother

The Big bang theory

House M.D.

Bones

Scrubs

Gossip Girl

Hustle

V

Flash forward

Chuck

24

Entourage

Dexter

Heroes

Kyle XY

Lost

Prison Break

Two and a Half Men

True Blood

Castle

30 Rock

Avatar: the last airbender

Californication

Seinfeld

Numb3rs