Lucky generation

I am 23 years old but I realize that in modern age the generation gap is lesser. The kids of this generation are quite lucky. When we were in school, we had not heard of the internet, today’s kids can use (or misuse) the net to do projects and what not.

I remember I paid around 350 rupees in 1999 to purchase “Catch-22” from Premier bookstore on Church Street, last month while shopping in Jayanagar, I asked a roadside book vendor the price of “Catch-22” and he said 75 rupees (negotiable)!! Knowledge is virtually free today.

On Television all that we could watch was “Street Hawk”, “Giant Robot” etc etc today we have Discovery, Animal Planet, National Geographic, The History Channel!!
Talk about a lucky generation of kids.

So True…

“Well, time cures hearts of tenderness, and now, I can let her go…”
-Thomas Hardy, Wessex Heights

Song that is playing in my mind….

"Soona soona Mann ka aangan…"
from Parineeta, what a beautiful song, have been singing it for the entire week.

Nice foreword

Elizabeth Massie, introduces “The Hunchback of Notre Dam” with a nice foreword, that ends “ That his (Quasimodo’s) love will never be returned is not only his tragedy, but the tragedy of all mankind”

What I did on Saturday…

Its 8pm…and I

Designed a calendar for the New Year and got just 10 copies of it made, so this one is going to be a collector’s item.

Watched “Confidence” an average movie about a group of con-men

Watched India rout Sri-lanka in the Final ODI

Surfed the net for around 2 hrs.

Started reading “The Hunchback of Notre Dam”

Sang along with songs for about an Hour (I love doing this :) )

Who says there is nothing to do on a Saturday??

Weekends are boring??

A couple of colleagues of mine surprised me by saying that they find weekends boring!! Since they have nothing to do!! (They seem to miss the point that weekends are the days for doing nothing). When I told them I enjoy weekends, one of them tells me “but you have soooo many friends” (!) I have no response to this, I did not go explaining that usually on Saturdays, I prefer being alone, with my thoughts, I do not get bored being alone, I enjoy my company :)

Blog I came across

I came across a wonderful blog, that does spoof reviews. hilarious. visit Rewhews. and do not forget to check out the review of 'D'. ROTFL.

Word of the day

I have just added a "word of the day" in the side bar, this displays a word everyday, and I have noticed that the word usually is related to what is happening to me that day. For example today afternoon I have a very important meeting and surprise surprise the Word of the day is Caucus:A meeting. intresting isn't it??

Little Miss Muffet- Uncut version

This is Hilarious, I found this in a wonderful comic strip called 'Pearls Before Swine' by Stephan Pastis.

Little miss muffet
Sat on a tuffet;
eating her curds and whey
along came a spider
who sat down beside her
and frightened miss muffet away

Then Muffet went back
and checked her gun rack;
grabbing a .357 finding the spider
she sat down beside her
and blew that poor sucker away

Mysore trip

My cousin's are down from Bombay and we went to Mysore, during the weekend. It was a good trip, Some of the inner circle joined in too.... Here are some images.

Home they brought her warrior dead...

I first read this poem in school, and even at that time it had an effect on me, this is a good one

Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

More....

Memorable lines...

Footfalls echo in the memory,

down the passage

which we did not take,

towards the door

we never opened

- T. S. Eliot

Reading now…

I have three books lined up:

The Anderson Tapes - Lawrence Sanders: Some real crime narrated by means of taped conversations, interesting concept, but, not too great.

The Hunchback of Notre-dam – Victor Hugo: We all know what this one is about, looking forward to read this unabridged edition.

The Dead of Jericho - Colin Dexter: Another inspector Morse mystery I cannot wait to get my hands on :)

All in all will make for pretty interesting reading I suppose.

Magic of Movies

You have got to admit it. Movies are magical. Here are a few magical moments that I remember best from movies

- When I saw the first ‘Real’ dinosaurs in Jurassic Park

- The magic that Johnny Depp weaved in and as “Edward Scissorhands”

- When Rajesh Khanna sang “Kahin door jab din dhal jaye…” in “Anand”

- Nicole Kidman’s sheer brilliance in “The Others”

- Tim Robbins’ character in “The Shawshank Redemption”

- Tom Hanks’ performance in “Forrest Gump”

- The Scene from “City lights” where the girl realizes that Charlie Chaplin is the man who helped her regain eyesight

- Or Charlie Chaplin as Hitler, playing with an Earth like ball in “The Great Dictator”.

- On Watching “Animals are beautiful people” in the Theater at a time when Animal Planet and Discovery channel were unheard of.

- The scene from Swades where SRK buys water to drink from a small boy on the train
station.

Well, these were just a few of them and I am sure to have missed out on quite a few. How about your magical moments??

Festival Season

I feel it in my fingers; I feel it in my toes, that Diwali is all around me and that’s how the feeling goes!!
There is something about festivals. Especially the festival of lights, It’s a wonderful feeling, be it the delicious Diwali food that mom makes, the smell of crackers in the air, the festive spirit all around, the fun of get-togethers, the greeting cards that we send and receive…just about everything is special.
Three Cheers for Diwali and for all festivals in general.

Holidays...

I had around 9 days off!! Couple of days taken off and the rest a mixture of Optional and Public holidays :) and I was not complaining.Well the holiday started extremely badly, as I seemed to have symptoms of Gastro Enteritis, was violently ill for the first 16 odd hrs of my vacation. Fortunately it was a false alarm, being just mild food poisoning. Well anyway I enjoyed my holidays, and so all’s well that end’s well.

Check-Mate

Well I confess i am not good at Chess, but then I was beaten twice back to back by my 14 year old cousin !!

I was impressed by the moves and taken aback at how easy it really is to beat me. So people if you have a dream of winning at Chess then I would be the one to play against. (Word Games are a different ball game all together though)

A message board !!

I have added a message board onto my Blog, please feel free to start threads on any subject(Keeping sensitivity issues in mind). Its open to all, just put in your concerns, ideas, issues, thoughts, arguments and whatever else you can think of :)

Thanks to Camphor's Blog for the inspiration.

PlayBack Theatre at Ravindra Kalakshetra

Had been to watch a play called “Utsav” performed by “Yours Truly Theatre”. It is a very innovative concept, basically the play is impromptu, The audience is involved, and the actors on stage perform the stories narrated by the audience, thus you tell out an incident or a story in your life and the performance happens on stage based on your narration. Was wonderful to watch. Planning to attend a workshop on this style of spontaneous theatre.

A Mad Saturday

Well you can take me out of mad-ads but you cannot take mad-ads out of me :)
Rajiv Mathew and I were the judges at BioSken a biotech fest in RV College of Engineering. The crowd was good and the teams on stage were excellent. Brilliant quality of Mad-ads makes judging them a joy.Enjoyed myself thoroughly. Awesome.

“Brando, The King and I and The Catcher in the Rye”

Yeah, I read “The Catcher in the Rye”, I must say I liked it. At some parts, it had me laughing uncontrollably, it was good to read a book that genuinely makes one laugh, (unlike the crappy stuff that “Douglas Adams” writes), anyway, Salinger’s style of writing reminds me so much of Joseph Heller’s masterpiece “Catch-22”. Both these guys were one hit wonders. I mean, writing a book like “The Catcher in the Rye” or “Catch-22” is like digging a hole for yourself, people will begin to expect a lot from you and obviously you fail to deliver.

Other similarities are, both the titles have the word “Catch” in them; the leading characters Yossarian and Holden Caulfield are rebels, who contradict themselves a lot.

Anyone who has read both the books care to point out any more similarities??

What Classic Movie am I?

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Thanks to Amit for the Link

Name Like an Egyptian !!

My name using Egyptian Hieroglyphs!




Get yours !!

Sar utha ke piyo....The new Coke Ad

Well, we thought we had seen it all, people using humor, subtle use of brand colors, associating a brand with a feeling-like victory, Joy and what not- but coke has come up with a new ad that plays on the "pride" Factor. Associates the manner in which a person would drink coke (with their heads up), with pride. Its a wonderful and innovative ad, creativity to move away from cliches.

Book I "read"

Attempted to read "Franny and Zooey" by J.D Salinger, one would have expected an author of Salinger's capability to do better, I ended up, throwing the book away in disgust.

regarding the book I would only like to quote W.S Gilbert from The Mikado

"Merely corroborative detail, to add artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative"

My Favorite Fictional characters

Well the Colin dexter post got me thinking of who my fav. fictional characters were and I have come up with a top of the mind list.

-Sherlock Holmes
-Hercule Poirot
-Father Brown
-Characters from the DiscWorld series of novels eg. Death, Cut-me own throat Dibbler etc.
-Inspector Morse
-Roark, Fountain Head

I have limited myself to books, movies may follow later. Do let me know your favs.


Note: A friend pointed out that the word "fictional" does not exist and "fictitious" is the word I was looking for in the title, Dear friend I point out to you, that "fictional" is a word in the English Language, Please refer to FICTIONAL.
Also the word "fictitious" is used in the context of fabricating a name. Like in "he took up a ficticious name and conned the old lady"

Just Brilliant

________________________

Thoughts Of Phena

- Thomas Hardy

________________________

Not a line of her writing have I

Not a thread of her hair,

No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby

I may picture her there;

And in vain do I urge my unsight

To conceive my lost prize At her close,

whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light

More....

Books by Colin Dexter

Colin Dexter is the creator of 'Inspector Morse' and his sidekick 'Sarge Lewis', Morse is a beer guzzling middle aged detective, who loves solving crossword puzzles in the Times'.

The brilliance of Colin Dexter is, that reading his novel makes one feel like actually solving a crossword puzzle, I am a big fan of his style of writing and recently purchased a 'Inspector morse Omnibus', reading which i spent a wonderful weekend.

Nothing better than reading Colin Dexter and sipping unlimited cups of coffee :)

Do read if you get the opportunity.

Do you hate Ganguly??

Are you one among the millions who hate ganguly and are frustrated at not being able to find the right forum to vent your feelings :)

Join me and lots of others at I HATE GANGULY

Songs I recommend

Akon - Lonely (totally cool)

Enya- May it Be

Naam Ada Likhna - Yahaan (Listening to this one right now)

Chandan Sa Badan - Anupam Amod Remix

Punctuality

Well I seem to have become punctual, and now something I cannot tolerate is people coming in late. Especially if I have to meet someone on a weekend (and I consider weekend time really precious) I really get irritated when they turn up late, its been the case from the past few weekends.

So the resolution is I give 10 mins lee-way and then LEAVE.

Simple solution, no respect for people who do not respect my time.

Weekend Get-together

Finally got together with some MBA classmates, it was good fun, must do more of this. Went shopping with a couple of chicks and that was a BIIIIG mistake, I dont know how I got talked into that, whew!! managed to save the day by spending the evening with the Boyz. All in all got to meet lots of people, Which is good :)

Movies I watched

ROBOTS: Well a movie that was recommended by a lot of people, I watched it, but cannot say I loved it, It was Ok parts of it were really funny, like the climatic Robotic dance and all that. But though this one had more plot than say Madagascar, It is one Animation movie that is forgettable. 5/10

TREMORS: I watched this with the apprehension that I may be watchin one more creature feature that is rotten, like Godzilla V/S King Kong and all that crap. But I was plesantly surprised, this one about huge worm like burrowing creatures that grab people and are called "Graboids" was a good movie. unbelieveable? Believe it !!. 7/10

Sites of the week

Some good places to get latest news views and funny stuff:

1) BESTWEEKEVER

2) THE SALON

3) FARK

Writers Block??

Well lots of things that i would like to write, but somehow nothing coming to my mind right now, Why the lethargy?? I have no idea. Its ironic That one has to write about writers block !!

Its a boring thursday, I rarely get bored but this seems one of those weekdays. yawn yawn yawn

Do you wanna do a contract killing?

Just visit this partly hilarious, partly creepy site and give a contract to kill!! Talk to the HITMAN

Dont miss this one

Google Earth

This is a super cool application, visit Google Earth, download the application and you can see the latest sattelite pictures of your city !! I you can even zoom in to a particular street, I was able to identify my house, Try finding out yours. Reall Awesome. I am awe-struck

Play at the Ranga Shankara

On Saturday evening I had been to the Ranga Shankara with a couple of friends to watch a play called “The Dreams of Tipu” written by Girish Karnad and directed by Arundathi Raja, I enjoy going to Ranga Shankara simple because the stage is wonderful.The play was well made and I quite enjoyed it. Must make it a point to watch good plays.

Book I last read: THE ALCHEMIST

Ok, so I think it is a decent book, but not a book worthy to be called one of the best books and all that.
I really hate, what is called “The Emperor clothes” effect, I see it everywhere. One person says a book, play or movie is good and the entire dumb populace nods their head in unison and talk about what a masterpiece it is. CRAP!! I am not scared to say that the Emperor is waltzing around town naked. Why don’t people have their own likes and dislikes??

Is Bangalore Committing Suicide??

Well it sure looks like it. I have been in Bangalore for over 20 yrs now and can call myself a Bangalorean. Hence it gives me great pain in saying that the city seems to be committing suicide.
Lets accept it Bangalore has an infrastructure problem. The roads are in pathetic condition and traffic snarls are a norm.

Well to be fair, I feel that the growth that the city has experienced over the past 5 years has been too rapid and this means that the government has been caught unawares and the infrastructure growth has not been able to match up to the economic growth.
There is no question that this economic growth has been mainly due to IT. Today when the same IT companies are rightfully demanding better roads and infrastructure facilities, they are just voicing the demands of the citizens.

But what does the government do? Instead of accepting that there is a problem, they make plans to build metro rails and flyovers. Now given past experience, flyovers have done nothing to improve the traffic congestion.
The so-called Patriots are demanding that IT companies must give a quota of jobs to Kannadigas, I am sorry but this demand is sheer NONSENSE. Demand jobs on basis of merit not on basis of place of birth!! Instead of progressing we are Regressing.

The Solution: DO NOT LOOK A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH, today Bangalore is a prosperous city, tomorrow if the IT companies decide not invest in Bangalore anymore, the city will wither and die.
Accept there is a traffic problem, work on short term plans to improve the traffic issues, cutting trees is not acceptable.

We can just hope that this sorry state of affairs does not continue. I hope someone can stop this beautiful city from committing suicide.

All the old TV series

Well I was just thinking about all those TV series of the late 80's and early 90's that I used to so love watching.....I wonder if any of you watched these. Now that I look back at them, I find some classics and some average ones. Here is the list of my favorite ones(click on the links to refresh your memory)

Remington Steele: This one was about a reluctant detective played by none other than Pierce Brosnan. It was awesome

Street Hawk: Who does'nt remember "The man, The Machine".

The Wonder Years: Sheer brilliance

Doogie Howser MD: A genius teenager who is already a doctor. Nice one

The Fall Guy: About a movie stuntman, who takes up side jobs as a bounty hunter.

Byomkesh Bakshi: A Hindi version of Sherlock Holmes. Set in Calcutta, this one was a brilliant detective series.

Boy Meets World: About a kid growing up. Average to good.

Discovery of India(Bharat Ek Khoj): History of India based on a book by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Fauji: Sharukh Khan as a Wannabe soldier. Nice.

Turning Point: A series on science, anchored by Mahesh Bhat.

Surabhi: No intro needed for this brilliant program.

Ramayan: the Mythological series that made a breakthrough in the way Serials were made in India.

Whew !! this is some of what I used to watch on the idiot box, Do you remember some others that I may have missed out?? Do let me know.

Other Movies

Watched

Arahaan:The ultimate power - A Kung-fu movie,What a bad movie. It really sucked :( Plus it did not help that it was dubbed into English in a nIndian accent.

Red Eye: A pretty good movie I enjoyed this one. A well made thriller by Wes Craven

Salaam Namaste

Well this movie deserves a separate posting....and why?? because it is the most pathetic Hindi movie made in recent times. I had vowed never to watch this one, cos i had a bad feeling about it. But I was forced to go and watch it.

The only and the operative word is ONLY good thing about the movie was Javed Jaffery and his dialogues like "when in Rome, do Romans" delivered in a bihari turned crocodile dundee ishstyle.

Bad idea to watch this one.

Back from my trip

Well I am back after a week at my native place, it was fun going there for the festival :) the weather was awesome initially but later the rains came, however this did not dampen the spirit of the festival.Staying up at nights singing bhajans, and those inspiring aartis was real fun.

The one thing that really hit me though was lack of English reading material, not having a book by my side really makes me uncomfortable and here I was with Marathi newspapers (I can read marathi but reading a newspaper in Marathi is not the same like an English daily)

There was Tv but no mood to watch it. So have made a mental note to myself to take lots of reading material next time.Overall an good break from work and the city,i am back refreshed and raring to go.

Cricket team

Yippee I am in the company cricket team !! Looking forward to play cricket after a long time again. Am sure its going to be as much fun as before.

Sin City: Graphic Novels

Just got the Sin City Graphic novel collection. Its brilliant, a cult classic and the best part is that the movie is so loyal to the comic, none of the dialogues are changed and most of the scenes are straight out of the comic book. The comics are in balck and white and this makes it look really great.
This collection is a must have and a must read. Check it out.

WANNA SEE SOMETHING INTERESTING??

Obviously you do...... so go ahead and click on APOORV

WE DID'NT START THE FIRE

Recently in his Blog Jive, mentioned Billy Joel's "We did'nt start the fire"..........So we planned to make an Indian version of the song. I found this site that has the original song with pictures!!

Its awesome....check it out now. Click on BILLY JOEL to go.....

Off to my native place

Hurray!! I have taken a week off from work and am visiting my native place, for Ganesh Chathurthi. This is exciting to me because the last time I visited my native place for t he festival was way back in 4th grade. Though everyone is now settled in Bombay, its an occasion to visit our roots, and gather back at our nativeplace.

My native is a place called SawantWadi. Its a beautiful town in Maharastra, and very close to Goa (2hrs away).

Looking forward to this trip :)

MADAGASCAR

I watched this movie on saturday, and am plannin to watch it again today!! It is the first time that I am watching a movie twice in the theatres.Watched in PVR the first time and gonna watch it in INOX now!!



Its an awesome movie.....do not miss this one people. i wonder why the ratings are low, but the movie has done well and the soundtrack rocks.......its brilliant.
GO WATCH IT NOW!!

Movies I recently watched

100 Girls: I thought this movie was average.....Humor was forced into it in places where it should have come naturally. Dissapointing movie given the fact that it starts off in an interesting manner.

Girl next door: Again in the genre of American Pie movies......but this one i liked. It has a sucker punch twist. Definitely watchable.Above Average

The Untouchables: Brilliant!! given that this is inspired by a true incident, this movie rocks.It is one of the best Mob movies made.It has a solid cast that includes Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia and Robert De niro as the dreaded Al Capone.This is a story of 4 guys who want to end the mob menace and form a group that is untouchable, no fear, no bribery...just a mission. 4 ppl against a formidable Al Capone gang. Kevin Costner has all the good lines and he carries the movie on his shouler with Elan.

Songs in my Head....

Bhaware ki Gunjan Hai mera dil.....
Ajeeb Dastaan hai yeh....
Chandan sa badan....
Dooba Dooba (this one has forever been in my head, as my friends will tell you)

Some Kodak Moments

DA TRIP

On August 12th I was looking at a 3 day long weekend without any well defined plans as to how I was gonna spend it......

A few phone calls later, I was looking at a 2 day Mangalore trip :) Few More hurried phone calls to a couple of contacts got us Volvo Tickets for sat night(a miracle considering virtually everyone was heading out of town !!)

So there were five of us Dilip, Raj, Santosh Naveen and I out on a trip that was decided on at the last minute.

Boy was it fun.....We stayed at Taccode, hired a car to take us around, Went to a newly constructed Water Park called "Manasa" at PiliKula, Got to Mangalore, Moodbidri, The Krishna Temple at Udipi, watched the sunset at Malpe Beach, visited a nearby river and had long walks in the greenery;We were worried that the rains may play spoil sport, but it complemented the trip by ensuring a cool atmosphere and varied hues and shades of green all around us !!

The Journey back to Blore was exciting as well, as a tree fell on the highway and we were stranded for over an hour, chatting with co-passengers, shouting at vehicles that were compunding the Jam,Sipping hot cups of tea from a nearby tea stall (Lucky for us) and enjoying every moment of it !!

Photos of the trip to be posted soon....Watch this spot.

Connecting People

There are so many things that we take for granted.8-10 years ago, Phones were not the norm.....if friends had to meet up, say for a movie, it had to be decided long in advance, where they would meet etc etc.The phone came and exchanging notes and important questions on the eve of exams became easier. One could call a friend and speak to him/her or leave a message or get information: "Aunty has he left already...well we have been waiting since the past one hour and yet no sign of him".I got my first cell phone a couple of years ago, I had never felt the need for it until then. Today, there are no plans made in advance....."lets meet this weekend" is all that neds to be said, nobody amongst us bothers to ask where when how what ????Suffice to know that all of us are connected with mobile communication devices and can accomodate last minute changes. I wonder whether we will survive if all of a sudden one day these small things taken for granted by us, are taken away from us.

Currently reading....

1421: The year China Discovered the World. - Gavin Menzies

Its a history lesson of types. It gives evidence on how Chinese were the first to chart the oceans of the Earth and discover countries long before Christopher Colombus even set sail.Its an exhaustively researched book and has its own website as well. A really interesting read. visit the link to find out more.
I am enjoyin the book immensely.

Graduation Day

Well I am an MBA now :) Mixed feeling about my Grad day. The event in itself was good. Performed Mad-Ads and a crazy dance that was fun. The Bad part was that I freaking lost my Cell Phone in college :( that really sucks and is a bad end to 7 yrs of Christ college. So ppl hang on for a few days till I get a duplicate SIM and a handset. Till then using my old number.

Awesome Movies

This weekend I was lucky enough to have time to grab two movies that I have wanted to watch all along....
The Shawshank Redemption and Italian Job.
All I can say is that Shawshank Redemption is one of the most powerful movie I have ever watched. Its absolutely brilliant, no wonder IMDB rates it the 2nd best movie ever made !!
Italian Job is awesome too, but compared to Shawshank Redemption not much.
Both movies are must watch.

No Payne, No Gain.

Some of my Favorite Max Payne Dialogues are....

B.B.: You can't win this one, Max.
Max Payne: Maybe, but I can make damn sure none of you do either

Max Payne: You'd find lady luck was a hooker and you were all out of money.

Max Payne: [narrating] The cardinal rule in going after someone with an intention to kill was no to make it personal... Which it almost always ended up being anyway. It did with me.

Max Payne: When darkness fell, New York City became something else. Bad things happen in the night, on the streets of that other city. Noir York City.

Max Payne: They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark on everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger, and it was over.

The Best drink !!

H₂O Rocks

Somethin that made me go hmmmm.....

"Human beings have intrinsic value, not just instrumental value", so though symbiotic relationships go a long way, I figure that just calling a person your friend bcos he/she will help you in acheiving an end sucks big time.

unfortunately see many people around who seem to be in 'use and throw' relationships, Losers!!

And I wonder...

I wonder How,
I wonder Why,
Yesterday you told me 'bout the Blue blue Sky,
But all that I can see
Is just another Lemon Tree !!

Something new...

I am attempting to create my own Blog template.... started by changing(temporarily) the Black Background to Dark Grey....do give me feedback on whether the present Grey is good or the original black was better, I am in two minds.

THE ROAD TRIP !!

Well, the gang went on a crazy road trip on Sunday......It was tiring but there were moments of fun as well (as you can see from the snap). Ended the day with a game of cricket and some fun filled carrom, Now thats wat I call the perfect way to spend a sunday !!

To Sir, With Love

Oh.....I recommend this book, definite must read. The different emotions this book takes you through is amazin. I had a lesson of about 4 pages back in school about this book, however it was in a condensed form(obviously).

I have a copy of it, so you can borrow it from me.

Now that i have read the book, I so do wanna watch the Movie starring Sidney Poitier.

Shakespeare in Love

This is a real nice movie...the humor is simply amazing but the best part was this dialogue....something that Ihave been following as one of my life's philosophy's, I was surprised to see it in this movie and that too put in an amazing way....Here it is

Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?
Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Hugh Fennyman: How?
Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

Software Usability

Basically this means developing software that is user friendly. Now using this need not be limited to High end or huge Software projects. We can use them in our blog pages etc

Check out this wonderful link for stuff on making web pages userfriendly

I Recommend

This week I recommend

Watch movie = "Bad Santa"
Song = "Ruby Tuesday" by the Rolling Stones

Read 200 newspapers from over 55 countries

Yeah....visit this place and you can read lots of newspapers from 55 countries....its really awesome. For news and views click HERE

Blossoms

"Blossoms" is a wonderful bookshop on church street opposite "Amoeba". Its a great place to spend hours amongst books....all kinds of books. The best part is they are second hand, this means that one can buy more books for a given budget. Give it a try.

I just Finished reading
"Fevre Dream" by George Martin and
"Wheels" by Arthur Hailey

Presently reading
"Detective"By Arthur Hailey

To read next...
"To Sir, With Love" By E.R. Braithewaite

Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas

Every revolutionary idea -- in Science, Politics, Art or Whatever -- evokes three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the three phrases:
"It is completely impossible -- don't waste my time."
"It is possible, but it is not worth doing."
"I said it was a good idea all along."

I just found a place where all of Murphy's laws reside...Click on LAWS to go and Enjoy maadi

Golden Palms

A weekend spent at the Golden Palms has ironically left me exhausted for the remaining week.....were'nt weekends away supposed to rejuvenate one?? The place is wonderful....just breathtaking. The best part being the pool....easily the largest pool I have been in. And what is it that got me so exhausted.....3 hours on the dance floor, lots of snooker, a very tiring game of cricket(played after a long time), lots of table tennis and last but not the least the best part of all an awesome game of waterpolo that lasted 2 full hours....whew !!

The Rain God's smile

Sitting by the huge windows of my office on the 6th floor of Diamond District overlooking a busy Airport road has been a fond pastime of mine, the vehicles that line up at the signal actually look like the bricks falling into slots like in those hand held videogames that were the rage when I was back in the tenth standard.

Today is special as its been raining heavily!! With a steaming cup of coffee in my hand I spent 15-20mins just looking at the rain drenched city below, wonderful, the only thing missing was soft Kishore Kumar songs playing in the background.

Thoughroughly enjoyable...It does'nt rain here, it comes pouring down !!

QUOTE

TO DREAM ABOUT THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE IS WASTING OF THE PERSON YOU ARE !!

Talk the YODA way !!

There are two reasons why i am attracted to the StarWars series of movies.....

REASON ONE

The Light Saber: Awesome piece of weaponary...the sound it makes "Voom Voom",psychedellic

REASON TWO

YODA TALK: The manner in Which Master Yoda speaks is amazin, the use of predicate before the subject is my favorite. Been trying to speak like that, I am. Much to the irritation of my friends.

I believe that in a 2001 census in NewZealand.......5% of the population put down their religion as "Jedi"....Now that is what i call a cult.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!!

BELIEVE IT OR NOT: This happened to me, promise.

The occurence of this event yesterday, that is on thursday the 19th left me flabbergasted......never have I witnessed such an event before....nor did i think that i was blessed enuf to witness an event of this magnitude !!

There were 5 of us....3 Indians and 2 Firangs, We were waitin for a rick to take us to some Godforsaken place on the outskirts of Whitefield(which in itself is an outskirt).

Most of the Autos that we approached, demanded double fare, however One auto dude (Auto raja in local lingo) agreed to take us to the place, he said he would take all 5 of us for 1.5 times the fare!! so we stuffed ourselves in the confines of the auto and reached our destination after a very bumpy 30 minute ride.

The meter showed 45 rupees, however we guyz were feeling very generous and decided to pay the guy 90 rupees: double the fare.

And here comes the bombshell....the guy REFUSED!! he said that he would not take a rupee over the initially decided amount of 1.5 X 45 = 68 rupees!!

We tried our best to convince him to take 90 rupees and he just refused. finally anti-bargained and reached a amount of 70rupees which he accepted.

NOW HAVE YOU BEEN IN OR HEARD OF SUCH A SITUATION BEFORE??

Kannada Class

Guess what?........(your response: What?)

I am teaching Kannada at office and its fun !!........We are such a diverse group. We have Australians, Canadians, ppl from UK (english), Americans, Mumbaites, ppl from Pune (also called Punekars), ppl from Tamilnadu etc.

MISSION: To learn kannada.

I found some material and gladly took the opportunity to give whatever little gyan I have regarding the language to the gang!!

Its fun to teach such an enthusiastic and bright set of people. And no I am not taking this as an opportunity to teach them any slang ;)

BEST OF DILBERT

I DON'T HAVE AN ATTITUDE PROBLEM, YOU HAVE A PERCEPTION PROBLEM.

Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky, and I thought to
myself, "where the heck is the ceiling?"

On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.

I don't suffer from stress. I am a carrier.

A pat on the back is only a few inches from a kick in the butt.

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

When everything is coming your way......you're in the wrong lane.

And my favorite one is.......

Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.

STICK FIGHTER GAME !!

This one is a super awesome game!! just amazing fun. I spent hours playin this one.

Enjoy maadi

PLAY GAME

AWESOME ANIMATED GAME

THIS is awesome....take some time to look at the sketches as well. Click on GAME to play !!

A BALL GAME YOU ALL WILL ENJOY

If you are wondering where i get these sites that I have been recently uploading, Stop wondering and just enjoy this game!!

GO TO THE GAME

TRY TO GET OUT OF THIS ROOM !!

You are in a ROOM. Try and Find a way out. Its nice.
ENTER THE ROOM

Last book I read:"WIT'CH FIRE"- John Clemens

Genre: Fantasy

I liked this one....this book is the first book in the series of the "The Banned and the Banished". Like the tradition....the first book normally starts with a legion being formed. (Remember "Lord of the rings:Fellowship of the rings"? where a group/fellowship is formed to protect the ring).....so too in this novel. A legion/group is formed to protect "Elena" the little girl who wields "Magick". The Legion consists of "TolChuk" an Ogre. "Meric" an Elvin. "Neelahn" a Tree nymph. "Kral" an axe wielding mountain man. "Mogweed" and "Fardale" both Silura or ShapeShifters. "Erril" a mighty one armed warrior destined to protect "Elena" from the Dark Lord of GulGotha. And so the journey of magick begins in "Wit'chFire".

World of books

Its a beautiful place....no matter how tensed or sad I am. When I immerse myself in a book its like being transported to a whole new world. I momentarily forget the real world and just enjoy travelling through the story with the characters. I am sure my fellow travellers in the world of books experience the same. Its much better than watchin a movie !!Reading a book is the most beautiful addiction.

My favorite characters in movies

1. Rajesh Khanna in "Anand"(Joy)
2. Johnny Depp in "Edward Scissorhands"
3. Sean Penn in "I am Sam"
4. The Kid in "Bad Santa"
5. Maria Tomsei in "My cousin Vinny"
6. Tom Hanks "Forrest Gump"
7. Anant Nag in "Beladingala Baley" (Moonlight Maiden)
8. Nicole Kidman in "The Others"
9. Mel Gibson in "Payback"
10. Anthony Hopkins in "Silence of the Lambs"

These were my favorite......do post in your favorite characters.

I am Sam V/S Main Aisa Kyon Hoon

Pathetic actor Ajay Devgan is attempting Sean Penn's role as a mentally retarted father trying to win back the custody of his daughter after his wife deserts him in " Main Aisa Kyon Hoon" all I can say is "yeh hindi movies Aise kyon Hain?"....I dont understand why these Film makers have to get "inspired" by hollywood movies. Sean Penn's Character in "I am Sam" was easily one of the best performances by an actor. Ajay Devgan will make a fool of himself on the silver screen.

TITANIC in 30 Seconds

Now isnt this interesting?
The Bunnies look very funny

SOMETHING TO KEEP YOU AMUSED FOR AGES.

This is fun. Click on the stone man,The penguin drops. Click on the dude again to hit the penguin and watch it fly....hehehe

Click PENGUIN to go

http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf

Lateral Thinking

Saw this one in the now common Lateral thinking Mails


ababaaabbbbaaaabbbbababaabbaaabbbb....


It means:

long time no 'C' (see)

Me thinks this is nice.

The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe

I SAW SAW, DID YOU SEE SAW?

I watched a couple of movies a friend recommended...
* Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle
* SAW

The first one is a nice little comedy, quite enjoyable...however it was the second one I had been looking forward to watching, Having heard rave reviews about it...and here is my review.
If you like the Psycho thriller Genre, then this movie is definitely worth watching. However dont expect a classic like say "Silence of the Lambs"....but I can bet you will get more than you bargained for, this is a movie that will impress you, bcos it is "Different"...go rent a video and watch it.

Check the link for review

Latest novel read: Douglas Adams- "Dirk Gently's holistic Detective Agency"

BAD....Douglas Adams (HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy) is a highly overrated writer.... I cannot believe people actually find his books funny....This one did not even get a smirk out of me.....Terry Pratchett is the guy for me.....Learn from How to write funny, humorous stuff from Terry Pratchett, Mr. Douglas Adams.

DONT EVER WATCH THESE MOVIES !!

Well this is so that you people can learn from my mistakes !!I made the mistake of watching the following movies....do not repeat this mistake.

• Zoolander - Pathetic movie featuring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Actually all Ben Stiller movies are pathetic but this one really takes the cake.

• Crazy Joe aka. Dead Center - just dont think about it.

• Ghosts of Mars - the lesser said the better.

• The Thing - Dont ask me why i watched this movie....it was on cable, its about this statue that comes to life and starts killing people. Its an Old movie so obviously no Special FX and thus a dude takes up the role of "THING". Its as weird as it sounds.

• Out for a Kill - Steven Segal. This is by far the worst movie ever.There is no story and nothing, if you dont believe me go watch it.

LaZY sATuRdAy

Its been a very lazy saturday for me, did absolutely nothing.....other than watch a couple of movies on the TV and sleep.....But then thats what weekends are for RIGHT???

Destiny???

"I met destiny on the road I took in a way to avoid it".....this has been one of my all time fav. quotes.

I never thought it would be applicable to me atleast not in a manner that I would notice it.

2 years of MBA I used all the tricks in the book and all the permutatoins & combinations available to avoid Finance subjects like the plague, and I ws extremely successful....today as I sit in my office as a Business Analyst for a financial software.....I can only wryly think of the quote.

I ran from finance only to land up in a finace kind of job(not core finance). However I am enjoying it so far( and I am not saying this to reduce Cognitive Dissonance !!, I am really enjoying it).

Auto-Rickshaws

Man....the subject about experiences in autos of Bangalore(self proclaimed "kings" of the roads) is one that has been squeezed dry.
However I too have been scarred and scared by several auto experiences, the one that remains fresh in my mind is when this auto guy decided to go against the system and ripped at 50kmph against the one way traffic on an apology for a road, which did not have street lights!!
whew lucky to have escaped unscathed from that one.
There are other enthusiastic Auto drivers who seem more intent on interrogating me on the "Bombat"(colloquial lingo for superb) perfume I am wearing or on the cost of cellphones rather than concentrating on driving....however I prefer the latter to the former drivers with murderous intent who seem to be on a mission to "KillBill"
(In this case me donning the role of the unfortunate Bill)

Heavy Team Lunch !!

Had been to a team lunch to BOMBAY POST. The food is great....but the variety of dishes are never ending. Good place to go, but be sure you dont eat anything three days prior to going there, else you wont do justice to the food. Very heavy on the pockets as well...so beware before you enter. Its a lovely place though with old Hindi songs playing in the background.
check out the link for more details.
Right now am drowzy with so much food in me......gotta fight this....gotta get back to work !!

Of Hairpin Bends and Jalebi Turns

On a recent trip, We had to pass through a ghat section. and a friend of mine referred to the Hairpin curves there as "Jalebi" turns....An amusing way to describe the turns,since they so resemble the "Jalebi" (an Indian sweet)

INDIAN SIMPSONS?: SINGHSONS

I am a huge fan of the Simpsons....and here is something more close to home....Our very own version of the Simpsons......Presenting the SINGHSONS
Enjoy Maadi

THE TRIP TO SANGAM