The sound of blogging - Connected Music Indiblogger meet with HP

"Music to me is like the air I breath."

                                                                                  - Billie Joe Armstrong 

  

Ah, Hewlett-Packard, every second or third person who reads this at some point might have owned a HP computer (or something else?) or have known someone as such. This time it was them who joined forces with Indiblogger, along with Universal Music India and Hungama, to conduct the first Indiblogger meet here in our Amchi Mumbai Bombay of 2013.

When I woke up few days back when the meet was first announced, I was surprised seeing some people already signed up when it was posted sometime like 5 in the morning. There went my being first streak. So began the wait for the d-day. Oh by the way, I don't know why the fuck most people use that military term either, but still it's cool.

Writing this after the meet, it seems days just snapped by in a flash. Skipping forward to the day of the meet, as I didn't do any interesting shit which otherwise I would have made note of, I not-so-much-really-as-always prepared to leave. I estimated to reach around 2 PM at the venue but it seems the universe was with me that day as I reached there around 1 itself, about hour and a half early! Well I'm usually the early bird but this time I had outdone myself (with no intention whatsoever). Luckily for me both of us, Amreen came in early too and we spent the day awesomely. I love you gal :*
And yeah I like a peculiar character from Pokemon Black/Black 2 too, and any further details or speaking out of the usual riddles can result in me being murdered so I'll leave it at that. (if you get what I mean) :P

Apart from meeting the Indi team, friends, familiar faces there was an abundant amount of new faces (and looking at feeds being first timers) at the meet, so it was great. It was lent season going so there was a downer in the no. of people rejoicing the wonders of meat and alcohol, but well what do I say? Time to tone down on weight in a way! I was bit sad though for BlogwatiGeeeee (the es are with extra love) didn't bring me any cake (or any of the others as a matter of fact) but well forgiven for this time. And yes, one of the most iconic bloggers in the Mumbai Bombay scene celebrates her first anniversary of her blog, so head by and congratulate her. And if you thinking of suicide, go call her aunty-g :P

The venue was Otto Infinito, a Mediterranean cuisine restaurant with a great ambiance. As I said I magically reached there from Borivali straight, without a problem or having to search at all, in around an hour while not being aware the existence of this place before the meet was announced. These guys surely get the best places! I can't comment on the food and service since we didn't actually quite hog eat anything say for some cool mock-(for the love of god why?)-tails and snacks followed by some amazing pasta (more on that later). However I heard from Amrita that their cheesecakes are good and they had some fine dam liquor! (which unfortunately wasn't being served due to the meet). The meet started with a warm welcome by the team as always, and this time the 30 seconds of fame and the ice breaker session were mashed up for something different. In short, get your ass up and round around meeting people and writing on each others scrolls. The people with the most amount of signatures scored some headphones by HP, and needless to say I have a winning streak in that too.

Again both sides though this time less filled. At least unlike last time, no one aimed for my nuts either :P

While this connecting mechanism might seem flawed as already pointed out by some, as people were just running around to say a hi and getting signed, and apart to some extent throughout the actual connection starts after the meet is over through facebook, twitter and other social media and of course one's blogs, until the next meeting IRL AFK. ;)

This formula does work fine, and since this was a relatively short and calmer meet (until the end that is) it worked well.

 After the mambo-jumbo running around and everyone were seated and folks like me who scored a headphone, it was time for the main presentation. The aforementioned trio force spoke about music, how music means to us and connects us (see what I did there?) and introduced a new DRM-free service bundled with a new line of HP laptops, with a subscription to a huge catalogue of music with high quality music for (the magic word) free. Well the laptop however was not free. :P

Who (especially we Indians) doesn't like free stuff? And considering vast of the population pirating borrowing stuff, this is indeed a good very good move. And for the minority(?) of folks like me who have no life nothing much to spend on actually buy stuff, one might know one of the biggest evil of earth - DRM and what a pain in the neck, head ass and whatever hurts ya, really is. People could try it out and they searched and played music from various artists for the entire audience. Ironically, when I went up and searched (for 5 times), not much luck for me. They ought to add (much) more in their catalogue. And one thing which kept bothering me - Why on earth were they using Internet Explorer for the presentation? Argh! I had to control myself from getting up and asking that you know.

Reasonable prices, easily available to many and DRM-free is the way to go. Then one might hope to say viva la piracy. (but who are we kidding?) Oh yeah, here I was the first one to score another headphone for naming a song first (it was Enter Sandman) After which, the manager and the chef-chief spoke about the restaurant and their special cuisine which was then followed by the (other) favourite part- hogging eating time! :D

The Indiblogeshwaris with a father figure among them. And I think BlogwatiG is tired giving gyaan. :P

Personally I love pastas. My soul gets touched when I have them. Or some shit like that.

 No words here. Can't say the best ones I had but still simply awesome. My mouth is watering just remembering it.

In the end, before coming to the prizes, there was a fun activity and like I said above, which ended the rather relatively calm meet (considering it was a meet on music) ended on a high note. Groups were formed by participants based on their favourite genre of music and were supposed to perform and the best one were in for goodies. Of course not so surprisingly I was in the group of rock and metal fans, and dam we were pathetic. Problem was not everyone knew whichever particular song we decided to end up mashing up some songs but well no instruments and none of us were vocalists either. I won't further make a fool of myself, those who were present know it. Besides that, it was great fun. The winners were the group in sheer majority called '13 13' (I don't even want to explain, just google padawan), the choir led by master Nelton.

 Coming to the prizes, my moment of small pride ended with 2 headphones. If you are wondering why I was (trying to) kill her Amreen above, she won the grand prize - a HP laptop! For her tweet on her favourite artist Queen. The thing is I told her jokingly out of a hunch that she'll win. I should start a sort of business based on my hunches now, still more profitable for me. There was another winner of the grand prize where the point was to tweet to something good/sweet about a fellow blogger/friend there. Well again here, silence for the fear of being killed. Besides having a garbage in the name of a cell phone and for some reason twitter not working, I spammed kept posting on facebook which automatically tweeted it. We are engineers señor/senoritas. :D

The day ended with the last bit of photo sessions and a group photo(s). To watch a cool compilation of the meet check out a video made by the amazing photographer god Magic Eye here. Kudos to the Indi team once again for the amazing meets and hard work we put through. Actually I was going around doing this:

Hugging every @indiblogger and saying I LOVE YOU #ConnectedMusic @hpindia#sober
— The Nameless One (@deoxy_adi) February 16, 2013

While I don't have much luck in grand winnings, more importantly everyone wins with great memories, met many awesome people, learning quite something or more, good food (mwahaha!) and looking forward to more such wonderful times. Apart from that I won a free ride back home thanks to Sumit Sumoni. And I got some good words too :D

#ConnectedMusic @indiblogger@deoxy_adi for #bff cuz he looks exactly as his dp. 1st n only person I seriously recognizedhere.
— Amrita Of Life (@AmritaRana) February 16, 2013

@deoxy_adi Yeda hai, but he's too cute! Met him for the 1st time today & he's the most awesomest person here @indiblogger :D #ConnectedMusic
— goonergurl20 (@goonergurl20) February 16, 2013

Until next time. Till then I'll sort my wardrobe of Indi t-shirts.

For more pics check out the facebook Indiblogger album.

The sound of blogging - Connected Music Indiblogger meet with HP