For the heads up, I went for a Rock Show on 26th August and it was a hell lot of fucking fun as it was my first gig in Pune. The participating bands were 13th Hour, Brute Force, Depths of Suffering and Pin Drop Violence. All these bands are indian and play Metal (one of my favourite genre). I won’t call myself a metalhead as I am more into Classic, progressive and alternative rock but good metal headbanging once in a while is irresistable.  I had heard a lot about Brute Force, they had some fucking good guitar riffs and vocals. Depths of Suffering suffered most of the time with infinite technical problems but the little time they spent playing was rocking. 13th Hour I found average, nothing special about them. Couldn’t watch PDV much because I had to leave early as I got hurt in the mosh and my friends had to leave as well. That reminds me, this was one of the biggest and most violent mosh pits I have seen in person. Some douchebag hit me hard in the head though.

Thats it for now, I hope you guys won’t have to wait for long for another post. As if you really care.

10,000 Days is the title slated for Tool’s fourth full-length studio album, announced for release on 2nd May, 2006. The album was leaked on the Intenet via torrents network and I am here to write my review after almost 20 full listens to it.

In My Humble Opinion 10,000 days is my second favourite Tool album after Ænima. As per my view the first 5 songs of this album is the best first half that any Tool album has ever done. This is what I think of some of my favourite Tool songs in order of track listing:-

• Vicarious – A very catchy and deserves-to-be-leaked-first song. The guitar riffs are amazing, specially before the ‘Lie-Lie-Lie-Lie-Lie’ part. One of the best lyrics I have ever heard after stinkfist. I give it a 4/5

• Jambi – The best drumming in the entire album. I would agree with Andy King that it is Hendrix like here. A pretty addictive song and definitely deserves a 4.5/5.

• The Pot – Definitely the most bizarre and the best song in the entire album. Maynard’s voice should no longer be called monotone as he has experimented a lot in this song. The song is fun to hear and has been rightfully called ‘Hooker With a Penis’ of ‘Ænima’. The song is damn addictive and I have been listening it all night. Unobjectionably this one deserves a 5/5.

• 10,000 Days/Wings For Marie – A very different and the most personal/emotional song Maynard has ever written in my opinion. Amazing lyrics keeps you stuck to the song. 4.5/5 would be nice.

• Rosetta Stoned – A great song, stands out due to its outlandish lyrics. This one takes away the ‘Crazy Song Of the Album’ tagline. Maynard must be high while writing this one.

• Right In Two _ another great and mysterious song. The lyrics are very vague and thee song wants to remain hidden for reason. The only good song of the second half in my opinion.

So where does this album lack? It fucking doesn’t lack anywhere and is an awesome album overall. But, I will have to agree that the second half when compared to other albums like Ænima or Lateralus isn’t at par. The lyrics are comparatively weak and nothing ‘progressive’. It sounds very Toolish and has nothing new compared to the first half.

Overall, its by far Tool’s one of the greatest work and I’d recommend you to go ahead, buy it and support the band so that we keep getting the great piece of fucking music from the fucking great band. I spent a sleepless night yesterday listening to the album and have already got the album pre-ordered by a cousin in the UK.

My Ratings –
Official Site – Toolband
Fan Site – Toolshed

If you know me you’d be very well aware of how big a procrastinator am I. I keep delaying my work for no reason, may it be my studies, personal problems, etc. Infact without going into details I’d like to mention that I lost a very good friend due to the very reason. As I mentioned that minor or major this problem is present in every human being and as I was digging my way throught the Internet I came accross this article which actually helped me a lot. I’d like everyone to read this article and try to follow it :-

Characteristics
The procrastinator is often remarkably optimistic about his ability to complete a task on a tight deadline; this is usually accompanied by expressions of reassurance that everything is under control. (Therefore, there is no need to start.) For example, he may estimate that a paper will take only five days to write; he has fifteen days; there is plenty of time; no need to start. Lulled by a false sense of security, time passes. At some point, he crosses over an imaginary starting time and suddenly realizes, “Oh no! – I am not in control! There isn’t enough time!”

At this point, considerable effort is directed towards completing the task, and work progresses. This sudden spurt of energy is the source of the erroneous feeling that “I only work well under pressure.” Actually, at this point you are making progress only because you haven’t any choice. Your back is against the wall and there are no alternatives. Progress is being made, but you have lost your freedom.

Barely completed in time, the paper may actually earn a fairly good grade; whereupon the student experiences mixed feelings: pride of accomplishment (sort-of), scorn for the professor who cannot recognize substandard work, and guilt for getting an undeserved grade. But the net result is reinforcement: the procrastinator is rewarded positively for his poor behavior. (“Look what a decent grade I got after all!”) As a result, the counterproductive behavior is repeated over and over again.

Positive reinforcement for delay (a good grade) is a principal contributor to continued procrastination.

Other Characteristics
Low Self-Confidence – The procrastinator may struggle with feelings of low self-confidence and low self-esteem. He may insist upon a high level of performance even though he may feel inadequate or incapable of actually achieving that level.

I’m Too Busy – Procrastination may be used to call attention to how busy he is. “Obviously I cannot do such and such because my affairs are so complicated and so demanding. That is why I am late, etc.” The procrastinator may even spend considerable time justifying his reasons; time that could be spent doing the work.

Stubbornness – Procrastination may be used as an expression of stubbornness or pride: “Don’t think you can push me around. I will do it when I’m good and ready.”

Manipulation – Procrastination may be used to control or manipulate the behavior of others. “They cannot start if I am not there.” Let’s face it: deliberate delay drives others crazy.

Coping with Pressures – Procrastination is often truly difficult to eradicate since the delay behavior has become a method of coping with day-to-day pressures and experiences. Obviously if one is cured, others will put new demands and expectations upon you. It’s easier to have an excuse, to delay, to put off.

A Frustrated Victim – The procrastinator often feels like a victim: he cannot understand his behavior or why he cannot get work done like others. The whole thing is a frustrating mystery. The reasons for his behavior are hidden from him.

Benefits of Overcoming Procrastination
What are the overcoming procrastination benefits of? Peace of mind, a feeling of strength and purpose, and healthy feeling of being in charge of your life. While procrastination makes you feel weak, useless, and helpless, taking charge of your life will make you feel strong, competent, and capable. You will experience increased personal freedom!

Four Simple Reasons for Procrastination

Difficult – the task seems hard to do; we naturally tend to avoid difficult things in favor of those which seem easy to us.
Time-consuming – the task will take large blocks of time, and large blocks of time are unavailable until the weekend.
Lack of knowledge or skills - no one wants to make mistakes, so wait until you learn how before you start.
Fears – everyone will know how you screwed up.

The simple cure? Do everything opposite. Tell yourself: this isn’t so hard, it won’t take long, and I am sure that I know how to do it, or that I can learn while I’m doing it. And no one else really cares because they are all so busy with their own problems.

Four Complex Reasons for Procrastination

Perfectionism - unrealistically high expectations or standards. Everything must go completely right. It may either imposed or self-imposed. The perfectionist is long on criticism and short on praise.

• It creates a high degree of dissatisfaction and frustration because seldom is anything accomplished that is completely acceptable the very first time. The perfectionist nit-picks it to death.
• A perfectionist may delay in starting a project because he feels overwhelmed by the sheer amount of energy it will take to criticize and nit-pick something, and all the frustration it will generate in the process.
• The words should, ought, must, have to, occur frequently in the person’s conversation. (I should get straight A’s; I must do everything right the first time, etc.) “If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.”
• The desire to have everything absolutely perfect may mask problems of self-esteem and self-confidence.

How to resolve: (1) try self-reassurance that this effort or version will be good enough, (2) make an effort to praise what you have done, (3) it’s impossible to eradicate all mistakes, and (4) you have undoubtedly found all the fatal errors by now. Finally, remind yourself that great writers, poets, artists at one time or another completed their work; therefore, it will be okay to say that yours is done also.

Anger/Hostility – if we are unhappy with someone, we’ll often withhold our best efforts. For example, if you are upset with a professor, you are likely to delay in starting a demanding project as a way of “getting even.” But you are the one who loses; you are the one with the low grade.

How to resolve: Determine that you are the one who is feeling upset and see how your actions will actually harm you in the long run. You are not going to let how you feel about a particular class stand in the way of your personal future, are you?

Low Frustration Tolerance – circumstances overwhelm you easily; you find situations radically intolerable and terribly unfair. Frustration is characterized by whining and complaining, and such phrases as “it isn’t fair,” “this is too hard,” and “no one else has to,” etc. Feeling the way you do, it seems reasonable to “put it off” until you feel better about doing the work. The trouble is, you feel just as frustrated the next day.

How to resolve: the more you want something and can’t have it, the greater your level of frustration. (1) Get help from someone who can show you how to solve the problem; (2) learn how to temporarily postpone your desires. Most of the time, you will eventually get what you want.

Self-Downing – this happens when you continually minimize your own skills and abilities and express doubt about your ability to succeed. A person who habitually puts himself down tends to disbelieve himself even when he is successful: it was “just dumb luck.” In addition, he may also find it hard to accept praise and compliments for work performed – false modesty. (“Wow, you did so well on the exam!” “Oh, I just lucked out; I really didn’t know it all that well.”)

The trouble with self-downing is that, given a long enough time, the person will actually come to believe that he is incapable of certain levels of achievement.

Self-downing results in procrastination because the person who is uncomfortable with success will seek ways to become less successful and less visible. Turn in that important quarterly report late, and soon success will fade. (“Why did they fire you?” “I told them all along I couldn’t sustain the pace, and see! I was right. I can’t work at that level.”)

How to resolve: (1) practice accepting compliments about your work performance by simply saying “Thank you.” (2) Figure out why you feel uncomfortable with success. Did significant others in your life often make you feel that way? Were you taught to minimize your success? Why is success so scary? Will it make you stand out in the crowd? Do you feel as though others will not accept you if you are successful? (3) Remember to compliment and praise yourself for work accomplished.

The Inner Workings of Procrastination

A = Activating Event. The activating event is whatever you are putting off, such as studying, tests or unpleasant tasks.

B = Belief System. These are your “hidden” feelings about the task; your feelings govern your motivation. If you have negative feelings, you will tend to put off or delay. These feelings control your response.

C = Consequence. This is what we actually do. There are two approaches: rational and irrational. A rational response is “I don’t like writing papers at all, but I had better get going on it anyway.” An irrational approach is “I hate writing papers, and even though it’s due next week, I’ll start it later.”

The fact is, all tasks are really neutral. Examine your belief system, understand why you dislike the task, and then change your way of thinking.

Steps to the Cure

1. Realize you are delaying something unnecessarily.

2. Discover the real reasons for your delay. List them.

3. Dispute those real reasons and overcome them. Be vigorous.

4. Begin the task.

Practice What You’ve Learned

• Think of one thing you are currently procrastinating in, and write it on the line below. It might be personal, school or work-related.
• Now write all the reasons for your delay. This may take five or ten minutes because some of them are really hidden from you. These reasons are the controlling influences. Write down as many as possible.
• In the “Arguments Against Delay” column, argue against all the reasons for delay in a convincing manner. If you can argue against them successfully, you will be able to start the task.

I’m delaying on ____ because

Reasons for Delay Arguments Against Delay

1. ____________________ ______________________

2. ____________________ _____________________

3. ____________________ _____________________

4. _____________________ _____________________

Some Tools That Will Help

• Make the tasks look small and easy in your mind. (“I’ve written lots of excellent papers; this is just one more paper.”)
• Do only a small part of the task each time. (“I’ll just check out the books tonight. Later on, I’ll glance through them.”)
• Five-minute plan: Work on something for just five minutes. At the end of five minutes, switch to something else if you want. Chances are, you’ll get involved enough to keep going.
• Advertise your plans to accomplish something, and let peer pressure push you forward. (“I told everyone that I was going to finish this tonight.”)
• Use a good friend as a positive role model. If you have trouble concentrating, study in the presence of someone who doesn’t.
• Modify your environment – if you can’t study at home, find a place where you can study; or, change your study situation at home.
• Plan tomorrow and establish priorities – some students find that simply writing down reasonable starting and stopping times help them get going.
• Expect some backsliding. Don’t expect to be perfect even when you’re trying to get rid of perfectionism! So occasionally, your plans will not work. Accept setbacks and start again.

An Insight
Procrastination is reinforcing – every time you delay, it reinforces your negative attitude toward that task. Every time you put off something you dislike, you:

1. Strengthen the habit of not doing;
2. Practice avoidance instead of participation;
3. Avoid acquiring training and skills, and
4. Indoctrinate yourself with fears.

Active participation in anything tends to give you a positive attitude toward that activity; inactivity helps acquire an unfavorable attitude. In other words, the reason you dislike calculus is because it’s hanging over your head, worrying you. Since you haven’t acquires skills in it, you can’t do the assignments, so why try? Also, there’s a test coming up soon, and you MUST do well on it — except you know you can’t. Suddenly everything seems terribly unfair (class is too hard) and you become angry towards the teacher (he goes too fast, and he seems indifferent to my struggles.) The truth is, the sooner you get involved in your studies, the better you will feel.

Common Impediments to Overcoming Procrastination
Procrastination is relatively hard to overcome since you can delude yourself about it so easily. The following is a list of things we often tell ourselves:

1. Mañana – “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
2. Contingent mañana – “I’ll do it tomorrow, if …”
3. Grasshopperism – “I need to have some well-earned fun first.” (In sop’s fable, the grasshopper fiddled and played all summer while the ants stored up winter supplies. When winter came, the grasshopper suffered.)
4. Escapism – “I’ve got to get out for a while to clear my mind.”
5. Impulsiveness – “My problem will be solved if I change my major, or attend a different college, or “
6. Music and reading – “I’ll relax a while and then get started.”
7. Calvary to the Rescue – “The professor will get sick and cancel finals!”

Common Rationalizations
Each of these rationalizations needs to be argued against and defeated so that you can experience success. Write a rebuttal for each one.

• “I’m more productive when I work under pressure, so I’m postponing all my work until the pressure builds up and then I’ll get it done easily.”
• “I don’t know how to do this problem, so I’m waiting until I know how before I do it.”
• “This task isn’t getting done because I really don’t want to do it. And that’s the honest truth”
• “Relax. The world isn’t going to come to an end if this doesn’t get done.”
• “This job is easier to do when I’m in the mood, and I’m simply not in the mood right now.”
• “I waited until the last moment before and it worked out okay, so why not this time?”
• “If I wait until the last minute, I won’t spend so much time on it.”
• “If I do this work right now, I’ll miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime social event.”
• “Circumstances beyond my control prevented me from doing so.”
• “I’ve worked on this for so long that I have no interest or energy for it.”

Finally:
Now that you understand how procrastination works, and how you can greatly reduce its influence in your life, you’ll experience more freedom and greater personal self-satisfaction.

Keep working on it. You may still procrastinate, but now you’ll be able to resolve the situation much more quickly, which in turn will enhance your feelings of self-confidence. When you do succeed, take time to savor the moment so you will remember how good it feels. This will help the next time you need encouragement.

Treat the discovery process like a game, and have some fun with yourself.

Bibliography:
Burka, Jane B., and Yuen, Lenora M. Procrastination. Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1983.
Ellis, Albert, and Knaus, William J. Overcoming Procrastination. New York: Signet Books, 1977.

Source – Calpoly
Download Word Document – Click Here

This is one of the greatest artilcles I have ever discovered on the Internet and it has had a great effect on me. I give all the credits to the original writers and I am thankful to Cal Poly and the digg user who submitted this article on digg

“Losing My Religion” is a song recorded by the rock band R.E.M. from their 1991 album Out of Time. I have faint memories of listening to this song just for its musical pleasure when I was nine. The times when I couldn’t even understand the lyrics of an english song. Then, I think for many years, however, I’ve misunderstood the meaning of this song. Like many people, I took the title at face value and assumed the song was about someone who is coming to terms with losing his faith in his religion. This, obviously, is not the case. The phrase is actually old Southern slang for losing one’s temper or being at the end of one’s rope. The meaning of the song is best put by an anonymous internet user: As it (the old Southern slang) pertains to the song, it’s about an individual obsessed with another and whose feelings about how to approach that other person and how to deal with the whole awkward and rather uncomfortable situation leave the obsessed party to feel as though he is at the end of his rope.

R.E.M. was my favourite band back then (now its SOAD) because their songs have a vague meaning to which the listener can apply his or her own interpretation and this song is no exception. However, reading the lyrics in light of the above interpretation makes me tend to agree with that interpretation rather than any other, including my original one. Here is the lyrics :-

Life is bigger
It’s bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no I’ve said too much
I set it up

That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

Every whisper
Of every waking hour I’m
Choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt lost and blinded fool
Oh no I’ve said too much
I set it up

Consider this
The hint of the century
Consider this
The slip that brought me
To my knees failed
What if all these fantasies
Come flailing around
Now I’ve said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

But that was just a dream
That was just a dream

The lyrics makes this song very relevant to my own life and tha’s what makes it such a great song. The song speaks about frustation in relationship. God knows I, and others, have experienced enough of that in regards to relationships. Take from this what you will.

The another reason for ‘Thats Me In The Corner’ being my blog name is that I never wanted my blog to be highlighted. Sounds cliched but I never started this blog for ‘stats‘. Yeah, this is coming from someone who put Google ads in his previous blog and made a post about it . But as we know, better late than never.

I hope this post will clear the reason behind the name of my blog.