Here I stay!!

Bermudian Roofs

All the roofs in Bermuda are white pyramid shaped ones, This helps the Bermudians do some rain water harvesting, they use this water even for drinking at times!
When we landed, we were told, "if someone offers you water to drink, go out and look at their roof, if its white and clean, the water would be good to drink" :)

Oh, and that is indeed a rainbow that greeted me last morning when I walked out of the Hotel !

There is a huuuge cruise ship on my street and other observations in Bermuda...

Oh yes! I walked out of office and lo behold there was a massive "building" right in front of me that had not existed 4 hours ago!



This picture may convey some of the effect it had on us, but its just not enough!!

this ocean Liner is about 8 storeys tall and two city blocks long.

I have been slogging it out for the past 3 days I have been here, but have managed to get a few snaps. Definitely more about the place in the days to come, for now here are some pictures

Quest for the Rest - Awesone Awesome Awesome

The Polyphonic Spree have come up with some new songs, I never before have heard of the Polyphonic spree, however I happened to stumble upon their launch website, now this website is designed as a game where you need to find ways to re-unite 3 band members with the rest of the band.

Wonderful animation, a very nice game and some nice music, the overlying theme of the game being "overcoming obstacles"
You have to check this out!

Weekend of Work and Chak De! with Rats and a District Collector

I signed up for a weekend recruitment event in Vellore, at ThoughtWorks, we (Developers, BA's and QA's) help out the recruiters recruit people. This time volunteering meant going off on a weekend to Vellore (Tamilnadu) to hire students from VIT (Vellore Institute of Technology).

The group was fun and VIT has a huge, beautiful campus, with a wonderful guest-house. So the whole set-up was fun!
Especially because the profs at VIT were expecting a group of experienced looking professionals in jackets n ties and there we were the 6 of us in jeans and T-shirts looking like students ourselves! hehehe
After the first day of presentations, the initial logic tests (The super cool Flow Chart thingys that had me hooked 3 yrs ago!) and the code pairing sessions, we decided to go watch a movie!

The movie was supposed to begin at 9:45pm in a theatre 8 kms away from VIT , we just had time to grab quick dinner and leave!

We got there just in time (or so it seemed then), and while waiting for the ticket counter to open - spent our time betting on the price of the tickets and arguing with a local shopkeeper about whether a Chikki is called a Chikki or a Burfi :-|
At 10 a school bell rang, announcing the opening of the ticket counter (the price of the ticket was 25 rupees!!!)
There were a few rats in the theatre and the movie did not begin until the arrival of the vvip, in this case the District Collector, by the time the DC arrived with his family it was already 11pm and most people in the motley crowd gathered to watch the movie were grumbling. The rendition of The national Anthem before the movie began, however set the mood for the evening!
I must say it was not the best of theatre experiences, but a good movie and a good group made the entire weekend a fun-filled one!

oh and we hired a couple of ppl from VIT too :)

The Best movie in a long time

The best gift I have received in recent times, is a dvd of the Iranian movie "Children of Heaven"

I began watching it on a sunday afternoon and 15mins into the movie I decided, "I have to watch this with Mom and Dad!" which I did later that night.

Children of Heaven is a piece of cinematic brilliance, I would easily rate it alongside Shawshank Redemption, the only difference being, SR has a hollywoodish feel and a great storyline,

Whereas 'Children..." is a very simple movie and has the simplest of storylines, now that I think of it, hey! I would rate Children of Heaven higher than Shawshank redemption.

A simple story about a 10 year old boy, Ali, his little sister Zahra and a pair of (missing) shoes.

No matter who you are, how old you are or how you think... you cannot help but enjoy this movie!

beg, borrow or steal to watch this movie!

You know its not your day when...

• you cross the road and almost get run over by a speeding auto
• Someone calls u to say lets have lunch and when u reach there you get "hey I am busy" :-|
• you lose 3 times out of 4 at ping-pong
• you come back home to watch Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir struggling to score against a schoolboy bowling attack

Fantastic Karaoke

Check out this sing along song :D

Its Volare - Gypsy Kings

It lifted my mood to a completely new high
fantastic is an understatement...go get Rhythm!!

Kids, I say!

Recently a few of us went to a Happy Budday Party of a 7 year old, now none of us are the subject matter experts on how to behave at a little girl's party, but each of us knew that we had the ability to entertain the tots.

What we did not foresee was that a group of 7 year olds is a much tougher proposition than a single 7 year old. All my self professed ability of being good at handling kids vanished in ether when a little girl (a guest at the party) came up to us.

This is what followed:

Us: (*patting the lil girl on the head*) hellooooo whats your name??
lil girl: yo dudes! wassssup duuuude! (*in impeccable rapper accent*)
Us: errr, uh, well, how are you?
lil girl:( *making some complicated gestures with her fingers*) "duuuude SEE IT! REMEMBER IT and EAT IT MAN! EAT IT!"

-- I only hope that the girl was not displaying a centrally located finger to us --
:-|

I have decided to avoid Budday parties henceforth, and hey the term 'Bundle of joy' is a misnomer.

Movies

Trainspotting

Well this dopchi goes right into my list of weirdo movies to join movies such as 'I love Huckabees', 'Earth Girls are easy', 'The Cable guy', 'Jacob's Ladder' etc
Trainspotting seems to be a very well known movie, but it did not move me too much.


Glengary Glen Ross


A starstudded cast consisting of Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, make this adaptation of a play watchable with some very good acting :)
About 4 real estate salesmen, a sales contest (1st prize - a car, 2nd place - a set of steak knives, 3rd place - you are fired) and a robbery.
slow paced but interesting.

Holidays

Done with the project I was on, I decided to take a few days off. Normally when I get or take a few days off, I try and fit in quite a bit of travel during that period. but this time around I decided to do nothing.

Now I am good at sitting and doing nothing, you may laugh, but if are one who thinks doing nothing is a waste of time or how can one do nothing, then forget it, you just wouldn't understand :D

Well this is what nothing consists of

- Wake up late
- Read
- A bit of Scrabble and other word games
- Watch Cricket on tv

that is it!

Some clowns told me "So you are going on holidays and sitting at home!" well yeah that is my style really .

What is coming up? I do have a lot of travel that I would like to do, and that is something that I look forward to.

oh reading the second in the Bartimaeus Triolgy btw, and a friend promised me some super Terry Pratchett books that I haven't read before so quite a bit on the reading front :D

Irritating scrabble tips!

Lol, This is how I DON'T play scrabble, check out the tips this LINK provides, used on a regular basis by "Hardcore" Scrabble players.



Krymsson and I just enjoy playing the game to make and learn truly beautiful English words, and not high scoring words that mean nothing. heh.

Books are weapons... (of mass distraction ?)

Here I found a list of top 10 Banned Books of the 20th Century

Kangaroo Words

A fun concept for all ye Word Smiths -> Joey to the World

Fair Share of Hair

I am not one of those who go to a glitzy saloon, where the tresses are pampered and cut as if engaging in topiary.

I belong to the category of people, who find the place most close to home, that offers to chop off the hair, hence getting the hair cut with minimalistic effort.

“HARE CUTTING SALOON” shouts the lettering neatly stenciled on the door of the Saloon I visit on a not so regular basis, yes this is the same place that used to have the Himesh Reshamiya look alike (cap and all).

The girl thinks I look " ‘funny’ with my hair all around the place ",

well at the moment it does indeed look like it is defying the laws of gravity :(

siiiggghh it definitely is time to go get a haircut. Yaaaawn.

When do I get to go bald ?? *taps fingers impatiently*

Been Reading

American Gods

True to my word, I went back to Gaiman, was not disappointed, American Gods is supposedly Gaiman's best book. I would not go as far to categorise it as his best work, but definitely a good read if you are used to reading Gaiman, else it gets a little dark and confusing.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy - The Amulet of Samarkand

The first book of the Bartimaeus Series, was recommended to me as being very Pratchett like. I was promised I would enjoy it. I promptly bought it and began reading, and boy! is it wonderful?
I am about halfway through the book and am thoroughly enjoying it! A must read for all lovers of fantasy, the way fantasy must be.
Very funny, laden with sarcasm and oodles of magic.

Hilarious!!

I loved the 300 trailer, here is something I found on you tube that takes it all to a new level.

300 - Southpark Spoof

Movers and Doers

The Movers are the people who delegate, they see a need and then are able to talk some other people into fulfilling this need, they are a different breed , a necessary breed, without whom the push may not exist.
The Doers are the people who do the work, they may do this because they either enjoy doing the work or because the Movers hold some power over them (positive or negative)

Many a time the Movers and the Doers exchange roles, depending on the need.

I have been both a mover and a doer on different occasions, everything has worked fine.
However, the balance is gone, when there is unnecessary interference.

As a Mover, if you do not know what is being done or how it is being done, then it is better to shut up and trust the doer.

Buddha

Am reading Osamu Tesuka's brilliant 8 volume comic epic, Buddha. Thanks to Krishnan :D

It is a mixture of known facts and made-up fiction, all mixed with perfect quantities of humour and gore :)

Very very nice, I am in Volume 3 at present, a bigger and better review will replace this one once I am through with the series!

Rewhew

Dead Poet's Society



Slow, but simple and nice, Robin Williams carries this movie entirely on his shoulders and does a fantastic job!, what were Yash Raj films thinking when they made the indian version, with SRK, Ash and load of other crap...wouldnt know.


Crow Road



Iain Banks has written better, I personally would consider 'Inversions' and 'The Wasp Factory', to be better books, But 'Crow Road' is apparently the book people swear by. (Maybe because it has a limited 'acceptable' quantity of macabre and black humour compared to the afore mentioned books)
I believe the term for this style of a book is, bildungsroman
Mind you, this is well written, in that, Banks does a good job of smoothly moving between time lines, first and second person narration etc. However, that is the only positive I can think of,otherwise I found it to be trite, meaningless and predictable ( I was always under the impression that Banks was good because of his unpredictability)

siiigh, back to Colin Dexter and Neil Gaiman then, at least they haven't disappointed me (...yet)

Pet Peeves

1. People littering the road...grrr extremely irritating to see plastic of all shapes and sizes on the pavement, the road and everywhere the eye can rove.
2. People generally assuming they can affectionately call you with any term of endearment or abuse. 'oh you bastard!' , 'Thats awesome baby' .
   
3. Fake Laughter, its worse when the FL emanates from people at their own jokes, its the equivalent of running finger nails down a blackboard.

Super

Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

"Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine."

- Anthony J. D'Angelo


yeah its worked on most of my trips, indeed I R a lucky charm!!

Songs in the cranium

Na Jaane Kyon - Choti si Baat
Thandi Hawa yeh chandini suhani - Jhumroo
Mama I'm coming home - Ozzy Ozbourne

Skies...

Well the rains were scheduled to hit on the 1st of June, however I have never seen clearer skies in Bangalore till date :)

I personally prefer gloomy weather to bright skies, but the azure skies of B'lore the past couple of days have been a sight to behold.

A beautiful Blue unmarked by clouds in the day and just about sunset a wonderful set of clouds that reflect the light of the setting sun giving the a lovely hue to the sky :D

Fantabulous... missed clicking a few pics, if the skies last, then maybe tomorrow :)

Wayanad

I have been to Kerala on numerous occasions, and each time the place has had something new to offer.

This trip started off more like a means of relaxing, but turned out to be a full blooded trek :)

We trekked to Edekkal Caves and rock climbed up Mount Ambukuthy.
Explored the forest to find MeenMutty waterfalls; untouched by 'tourists', deep within the forest nestled in a valley, splashed about in the water and lost our way for a bit on the way back! (that added to the excitement, nothing as confusing as a dense jungle!)
The trip ended with a cresendo in form of a wonderful climb up the tallest peak in the district - Chembra peak, we did the 14 kilometre climb and descent in 5 hours with a30 min break at the top (after two rigourous days of trekking behind us, Me thinks, that was good time:) )

Here are a few glimpses

Photu of the week

yeah the photus are back!, this one listed out some rules...

The last 3 are the ones to look out for :P

On the Wall

Recently we went to this new coffee place near JNC, Koromangala called Brewhaha,

Apparently this coffee shop/Board Game zone was started off by a couple of IIM students. The food is decent, the drinks are quite good, the place also offers a wide variety of board games and most importantly the serving staff are nice polite people :)

What caught our attention though, was the big scrabble board mounted on the wall, they were nice enough to let us play and off started a decent game of scrabble !



I still prefer playing at a relatively quiet Barista on Brigade road, but Brewhaha is an interesting place in itself. Not for me though, I just enjoy a simple game of scrabble, sitting in a corner, without all the pretensions of uber-coolness.

In the summery summer

Tagged by Seemantini

Here is what I enjoy in the Summmery Summer!

• Rain in the evening
  
• Games of scrabble!
• Tender coconut water :D
• Mangoes!

Anyone who wants to take the tag, go ahead!

An ode to a non-vegetarian octogenarian

Last evening, Krymsson and I
were strolling by
and what do we see?
A poor old man, looking forlorn and hungry

So we did what everyone would
we decided to get him some food,
we got some from a nearby restaurant
but when we got back, he was gone

We looked for him in the vicinity,
finally found him in an alley.
We said Grandpa, here is some Ghee Rice
He looked at us with some degree of surprise

In broken english said he
Thanks, no Ghee Rice for me
what I would like is some mutton
you see I am a Non-vegetarian.

Billboards

This is an interesting read, a little attuned towards the application we are building. :D (cant tell you more cos it is "if I tell u I will have to kill you" kind of stuff)

Some cool ideas are mentioned in the article, which is more of an overview for digital billboards. I expected to but did not see a mention of the Coca Cola billboard at Piccadily Circus.
The future of advertising however is not as simple as this article would suggest me thinks.

Font-astic!

I Love fonts

I so love Fonts! they amuse and delight me!! Only most times they are extremely expensive.

Here is a super place to get some really cool fonts for Free!

Is this it???

I encountered at first hand something extremely terrible, something that made my stomach churn.
This planet is not a good place to live in, this would be the right time to pack and leave. 'Mostly harmless' is NOT what we are.
I tremble when I think of what we have become, all this evolution to get to a society that seems so warped. sigh.

However, not wanting to end this post on a pessimistic note, here is something I liked...

	Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. - Dylan Thomas

More...

Paradox

A group of people gathered around at lunch today to watch a documentary titled "Paradox of choice: Why more is less".

I did not find the time to go watch the video, but decided to read up on paradoxes :) and I have come up with a treasure trove of info!!

You can find most of the popular one's here and on the wiki.

However the one that I found most weird, was the one derived from a short story called
"All you zombies" by Robert Heinlein, I found a nice little excerpt of it here .

Hoarding Boarding

I have had a lot of fun designing posters, flyers and similar sort of marketing collateral, what I had never done before, was design a hoarding.
However, the upcoming ThoughtWorks Master Class Series in Bangalore and Pune needs hoardings and I am having a super time designing them.
I have 3 hoardings to work on and each have their own challenges :D
I am using Photoshop 5.5 and Macromedia(now adobe) Freehand and Loving every bit of it!!

Travel Tag

So this is tag made out of a question that fink asked me, which I thought would make a decent post (yes, my muse seems to have taken a summer vacation)

"So if you could go anywhere in the world where would u choose to go?"

here are my 5 places

Any Country near the North Pole, to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis)

Machu Pichu - Peru

Great Barrier Reef - Scuba Diving

Venice - On a Gondola

Ladakh



and I tag
Fink, KC, SRK, Seemantini, Pal, Apurva, Gitanjali

Joy @ Work!!

A Ruby on Rails project gone live!
The system (a "next generation deigital entertainment system"as our client puts it) we have built for our client has gone live in a bar in NY :D
Much more fun work in store for us...
The more I work at this place the more I realise that the fun I derive from working here is not in the money, not in the work itself, but simply the people I work with. A concentration of amazing intellect and sense of humour at one place :)

Song in my Cerebrum!!

I realise that the cartoon channels have gone to the dogs (read pokemons), I see a lot of annoying pokemonesque series. Once upon a time, there was He-man and the Masters of the Universe, Spiderman, GI-Joe...real super fun.

Then more recently there have been the equally good: Samurai Jack, Sheep in the Big City, Johnny Bravo, Timon and Pumbaa.

However, now whenever I surf cartoon country, I see weird japanese animations with their almondish eyes (most annoying part of anime for me), sad state of affairs as far as I am concerned.

But from channel disney comes my song in head, I simply love this video...

wats the song?

Black Eyed Peas/Jack Johnson - Gone Going Gone
Dick Dale - Miserlou (the very heady [sic] pulp fiction number)
Elvis Presley - Can't help fallin in love
Sinatra's - Something Stupid

Oye wats the zhoke?

Its been a fun Friday!!
or let me put it this way its been a fun Friday!! (:P)
Standing in a very crowded TGIF. Those glasses are heavy damn!
Gate crashing a 'party' that turned out to be 5 people sitting around a TV, discussing India's chances of restricting Lanka from scoring 200. Escaping.
Barging into B77, at some ungodly hour and this time enjoying it!
Watching Lanka bend it and send it to India.

Learning's...
Gals can get the bar tenders attention no matter what the crowd!
Never gatecrash a 'party' with krymson and Miaow no matter what "sad innocent puppy face" they put up!

oh and wats the zhoke?....ask the Pankaaz!

300

The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;

Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air,
And he that stands will die for nought, and home there's no returning.
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.'
- A.E. Housman 'The Oracles'

300 Did not dissapoint, on the contrary not only did it meet my expectations, it surpassed them.
300 is a great effort, to actually make a movie out of such an intense comic is difficult, Zack Snyder does a great job of it.
With some great fight sequences, a gripping soundtrack (a mix of Gothic Classical and Heavy Metal) Lot of blood! Lot of Gore! Lot of Pride! Lot of Glory! 300 is a movie worth watching.

Iteration Zero!!

Family Day at the Park Fields, remember last family day where we had practised days in advance, with the guitars, the keyboards, the Harmonica and the voices.

This time round, we made up the band on the way there and decided to play! 3 Guitars, Marco and I formed the band - 'Iteration Zero'

Dooba Dooba (obviously), Oh Sanam, Pal, Comfotably Numb were the numbers we err belted out!
and on popular request, we did Roo Ba Roo (which turned out to be fun, since, i did not know the lyrics and was attempting to sing them off a tissue paper written in a hurry by Tomahawk!)

I enjoyed singing by the pool! but what I enjoyed even more, was doing(learning) the Salsa by the pool as the sun set :)

Beautiful indeed.

Mahabalipuram

After a super game of scrabble, We decided to take a friend out for his Happy Budday treat :P

Sitting in 13th floor on feb 24th the trip was planned.
Tickets were booked, and off we went on the first of March, to Mahabalipuram.

Since we did not get place at the TTDC hotel, we had to turn to an Auto guy, who took us to 'Laxmi Lodge'
Initially sceptical abt the place, we were surprised to see a resort by the sea, with its own swimming pool and a nice big A/C room, wich gave way to a nice lil lecture that the manager of the resort gave us

"Husband wife, one room, ok
Brother Sister, one room, ok
Lovers, one room, ok (stifled lafs)
4 guys 1 girl, one room, Not ok!
police coming problem happenin"

ROFL, we did convince him though that all was well.

Mahabalipuram is a quaint little town (GOD! I have so wanted to use this phrase), with some brilliant 7th century architecture (in form of awe-inspiring monolithic temples) and a beautiful but surprisingly empty beach.
The best way to see the town is to hire cycles. The interesting thing is that the town is over run by firangs.

Here are a few glimpses

Oh btw we eventually did get along well with the manager, who asked me to "comin with girlfriend next time , get discount " lol

and we solved the mystery of the strange cloud covering the full moon when we realised it was a complete lunar eclipse.
Beautiful.

Reading

I am 50 pages in and this is already building up in true Terry Pratchett style. Have not seen Death recently, hope this novel features it somewhere (also looking out for CMOT Dibbler, Death of Rats tee hee hee)

Listening to

Haseeno ne bulaya galey se bhi lagaya
bahut samajhaya yehi na samjha
bahut bhola hai bechara
na jaane kis pe aayega

Hemant kumar is a singer one needs getting used to before one can start enjoying his songs, a little unconventional singing style but nevertheless an effective one :)

Watching

Pamela Anderson provides her errr vocal talents to the animated character of Erotica Jones, Stripper by night Crime Fighter by later night.
Pamela Andersons talents lie elsewhere. If one were to ignore her irritating voice, there are some positives, such as the funny criminals, her imbecile chief. But one feels Stan Lee could have done a better job.

IMDB rates this TV series at 9.5 out of 10, which is impressive. the first 30 mins of women screeching at the top of their voices, random ppl crying and some of the worst acting I have ever seen on screen was like running fingernails across the blackboard of my very soul.
I will give it another go, only because imdb rates it so high

Bah!

A sudden whim makes me want to play scrabble online, to go pit my wits against some unknown opponents, maybe. So I do what a sane person would do; which is to google for sites that allow me to play scrabble online.
I get a list, out of which I decide that Scrabulous is the one I am looking for.

First I am taken to a page that is an usablility nightmare. it declares in the faintest of print "Experience pure joy everytime" (err... right!)
I ignore this.
I register.
I am asked "May we have a photograph and a 70-80 word description please?"
I provide the photo and a one line description.
Next day I get a mail, why are you not playing? are you facing any problems?
(well I will play when I want to...) i ignore the mail

To my photo and description mail, I get a response
I quote this is how the mail begins
"umm can you try a little harder, with the description?"

Yeah dude I can try a little harder, but I want to play scrabble, not describe myself.
I would register onto a matrimonial website if i wanted to put in a photo and description!

I am waiting for a response on tht one.

grrrr this place easily tops my list of the shitty sites

Go Swarm!

This is an interesting place, I confess that it held my interest (an almost voyeuristic one) for no longer than 10 mins, but still interesting enough to blog about. so Swarm

Movies…

Some of the ok ones like…

- The Big White
- The Notorious Bettie Page

- Someone to watch over

- Road Trip
- Borat Movie (this one was good in parts)

Some of the super ones

- Euro Trip: good good good :D

- Southpark – Bigger, Longer and Uncut: Lol , nice one :D
“What wud Brian Boitano do if he was here today?
He wud make a plan and follow thru
thts wht brian boitano wud do!”

- Finding Neverland: Awesome with a capital A! Johnny Depp is of course GOD, and Kate Winslet has me impressed with “Eternal Sunshine…” but this movie is out of the world.

- Butch Cassidy and the sundance kid: from one of the most romantic scenes ever filmed (“raindrops..”) to a brilliant last shot, this movie is worth a watch especially if you like westerns

- Motorcycle Diaries: Loved it(Reminded me a lil bit of swades). This one is just my kind of movie! Watch it for the travel, for the people, for the wonderful writing. If you enjoy aimless travel, you will enjoy this movie.
“How can I feel nostalgia for a world I have never seen”

A 4 day weekend full of fighter jets, copters, paratroopers (thx to the aero show), Cricket, Scrabble, Taking up a mission to help buy the 'perfect' ladies belt (bah!). Shopping for Pashmina shawls for a friend who is getting married.

The wedding attended, a Bundh missed and an impromptu 12 kilometre walk taken :)

In all a very nice weekend.