Has anyone read Edgar Allan Poe?

Well, i have. Atleast tried to. I dont think even a full fledged PhD in literature can ever say he perfectly made sense of all the stories. i just loved some of his stories. I suggest you try these:
1. The Tell Tale heart: not his most famous, but certainly (i think) the best.
2. Murders in the Rue Morgue-- did someone say detective novels?
3. Ms. found in a bottle-- beyond weird
4. The Black Cat-- this one's just too... shit! just read it!
5. The fall of the House of Usher
6. The Pit and the Pendulum-- this is makes you seriously contemplate the sanity of this guy.
It seems he almost starved his wife and mother in law to death once...
He married his thirteen year old cousin!!!
People admire him. Maybe for his outrageously absurd thinking, maybe for his profound understanding of the human psyche. All I can say is, I dont think there'll be another guy like him. Maybe he was a necrophile. His stories are so... what's the word... macabre. Morbid. Some are even grotesque, like [2]. i wont spoil the story by telling you what happens.
Oh, I almost forgot... The Raven- one poem i didnt really understand. Actually i read it in a hurry, and its not something you read in a hurry. I must get back to it.

Peace in the noisiest places...

i experienced something really interesting today. i went to marine drive with my friends. it was a beautiful evening, and the sun was going down. it wasn't that hot. in fact, it was getting rather cold. it's a great feeling to sit in the sun when the weather is cold. and we walked. all the way to nariman point and back. the place is beautiful in its own way. it wouldnt be the same without the crowd and the dirt. some people would say it's better without the crowd and the dirt, but you feel like a human island among so many people. your thoughts turn inward. and the dirt lets you concentrate on the sea instead. if you're a sea gazer, you'd not notice the dirt anyway. well, the sight of the sea brought a sense of peace to the mind. my friends, being a talkative lot, were worried about my silence. i dont think i'm silent anyway. the air india building and the hilton towers were like they were not there. imposing though they are, you can get lost in the vagueness of the sea. i discovered one thing about myself... i like being vague. especially on matters which demand explanation. probably explains why i like staring into the night sky and the sea so much.

I went to another lecture yesterday... this was by Dr. Manindra Agrawal, IIT Kanpur. he's a Clay Mathematics medal winner he's very famous for cracking a fast prime no. algorithm. the talk was about Fermat's last theorem and Elliptic curves. awesome talk. the ideas were just amazing. but it was a rather high level talk. I might have understood just 20 % of the talk. i loved the idea he introduced about the addition of points on the elliptic curve. but dont ask me anything as yet... i want to read some more on this stuff. i also want to get my hands on Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh.