Welcome Aboard The Black Pearl

2006: What it taught me

2007-01-02T22:09:00.000-05:00

There are tons of things that 2006 taught me. Some are from my perspective and some from the perspective of my daughter.

1. Sweater threads are the most delicious food items ever created.
2. Dad and Mom (me and my wife) are the two best singers in this world.
3. Any nonsense that comes out of dad's mouth (goobly-goobly-gaagaagaa) is extremely funny.
4. Crib-mobile and portable swings are the biggest inventions ever
5. Car seat and seat belts are on the other side of the spectrum.
6. Amazon.com is the best place to buy diapers, exceed the $25 min for free shipping and they are delivered to your doorstep.
7. Electronics is not the section where I spend most my time at while shopping alone anymore.
8. The only time I can watch South Park is if I am alone in the TV room AND using headphones (and I cannot link it from my blog :) )

There are many others and I will write those when I remember them.

Here are some not related to babies but as a result of watching some Indian channels.

1. Zee tv serials give me motion sickness with their zoom-on-face-from-6 angles in 3 second tactics.

2. Whenever Priyanka Chopra dances in a song there are three guys near the camera who are holding powerful portable fans to blow her hair.

3. The gap between nice Indian movies and crap-masala movies is widening every month. Movies like "Dor" prove that Indian cinema has a bright future, some movies like GolMaal (new) neutralize that thought.

4. Do this.
Open Paint. (Start->Run->MSPaint).
Click on that curve button.
Hold Shift and draw a vertical line.
Click on the left side of the line about 1/3 of its height from the top.
Click on the right side of the line about 1/3rd of its height from the bottom.

This is how Aishwarya Rai's dance movements are choreographed, especially the one where she is dancing near a waterfall and is shown on B4UMusic ($2.99/month) after every 12 min.

Enough nonsense for the day. I will be back with more.

Happy New Year 2007

2007-01-02T22:08:00.000-05:00

Wish you and family a Very Happy and Prosperous 2007!

(if at all anyone is reading this :) )

GOAL

2006-09-22T07:40:00.000-04:00

Watched Goallast night. The movie is not perfect but has its moments and definitely worth watching for any football fan. I did not watch it in the movie hall as I never knew it was released there. It made little more than $4 mil in USA and similar in Europe.

It seems GOAL 2 is in production where Santiago is transferred from NewCastle Utd to Real Madrid.

Considering the last soccer movie that I watched was "Hip Hip Hurray", I would definitely recommend this one on DVD.

YES!!

2006-09-20T22:52:00.000-04:00

Finally, I am sitting in front of the TV, with the laptop in my hand and blogging away.

Life has been pretty busy and two weekends were totally consumed by the US open did not help. I can safely say that I have not seen so many tennis matches ever in a 2 month period.

I could almost predict Federer's shots. :)

The DON is back

2006-09-20T22:47:00.000-04:00

Nah! I am not talking about myself. But I saw a song from the remake of "Don" for the first time today.

That has to be one of the most unnatural song sequences I have ever seen. I think after watching Shahrukh Khan only in interviews or still pictures, I had stopped thinking of him as an actor. So it looked totally weird watching him dance with Kareena Kapoor. Kareena Kapoor is like the big source of hope for me. If I am not sure about something, I think if Kareena can be a big movie actress and sign movies after movies, I can do anything. She is the sole reason I think Sania Mirza might win multiple slams in one year. Thanks Kareena.

I sincerely believe that Amitabh and Zeenat Aman of today could have done a better job in that Don remake.

Cincy Masters Pictures.

2006-08-24T22:46:00.000-04:00

Here is a link to some pictures that I have uploaded.

Cincinnati Mastes 2006

Watch this space for
o A report of the Cincy Masters 2006.
o Pictures of my autograph book.

Back From Cincy

2006-08-20T20:42:00.000-04:00

..And back to the blog as well. Here are some pics, there are a lot more and many interesting stories. So watch this space.

Tennis Time

2006-07-25T22:11:00.000-04:00

Note: All images uploaded at full resolution. Click to enlarge any image.

Long live Cincinnati's tennis tradition!

This week was the Women's tennis event. This is tier III event so not many big names turn up. On the flip side, good seats are cheap.

This was the first year we bought tickets for women's series. Last year we were all set to buy the semifinals ticket and Sania lost in the quarters. This year since Serena was playing too, we bought tickets well in advance for courtside seats. Sania lost the quarters agains on Friday but she was to play in the doubles semi on Saturday and Serena was playing the singles semi too. So we were excited to be there.

One thing about watching these matches... It is extremely hot out there. They keep announcing the symptoms of heat stroke and advise people to keep drinking water ($3 per bottle). I smuggle 2 small gatorade bottles in my shorts pockets and then buy ice cups for 25 cents each to get me through first two sets without spending much.

Anyway, first match on Saturday was Sania's doubles semi. This was the first time we saw Sania and our first reaction was she seems to have lost a lot of weight. She looks and is very young (will turn 20 sometime this year) and we were sorry to think that such a talented young girl has to face fanatic clerics and just cannot be herself. I hope people do not give her too much trouble else US would be happy to make her play under stars and stripes in 3-4 years.

Highlights:

* Her Polish partner Marta and she were having fun on the court.
* They were smiling after almost every point and both hit some pretty impressive shots, especially forehands.
* Sania's weakness seems to be her serve and her speed but she had her UE under control. I heard that she had many UE the previous night but she does play a high risk game. It looked like since her partner's fate also depended on her, she was restraining herself.
* They won 6-0 6-1

Second match was the first singles semi between last year's champion Patty Schnyder (World # 8, Swiss) and Katarina Srebotnik (World # 24, Slovenian). Katarina is 5'11" and seemed to have a more pleasant personality than grumpy Patty.

* Patty won the first set and Katarina fought to win the second.
* Third set saw lots of action with Patty visually upset with a couple of calls going against her (never mind the fact that a couple of close calls went against Katarina.)
* Then she was audibly upset and also hit a ball away that ended up going out through a gate that people come in from.
* Third set went into Tiebreak and Patty had a match point.
* Katarina saved the match point with a nicely executed serve and volley.
* Patty double faulted to give Katarina game, set and match.
* As is the tradition with US tournaments, winner hits autographed balls in the crowd. I caught one of the balls that Katarina hit. Years of Tennis ball cricket paid off.

During the Patty-Katarina match, they announced that Sania and Marta would be signing autographs in the "air-conditioned retail tent". All desis including us formed a line and got her autograph and photograph.

Third match of the day was Serena Williams and Vera Zvoraneva (current world # 50). Vera was ranked as high as #8 in the past. This is Serena's first tournament after six months of injury break but she had demolished her opponents with ease to reach the quarters.

* Serena looked all set to waltz to the finals. At least the crowd thought so. Most of them were there only to watch Serena's match.
* Vera had other ideas. Before anyone figured out what was happening, Vera was 5-0 up in the first set.
* Serena made tons of UEs and Vera made very very few. She has a very good balance while hitting shots on the run and some of her shots made me believe that this girl is going be in top 20 very soon.
* The crowd and Serena started getting increasingly frustrated and there were sounds of "Go Baby" "You can do it Baby" all around. One woman was overdoing the "baby" cheer so much that many people must have thought that she was Serena's real biological mother.
* Serena never recovered and Vera kept playing great tennis. Serena lost in straight sets.

Then we spent the night at our friends' place and were ready for the finals next day.
Next day was little relaxed as we had a fair idea what was going to happen in singles finals. Vera won in straight sets. Sania unfortunately lost. My camera battery went dead a few minutes in the singles final so I have very few pictures from Sunday. Luckily I could squeeze little juice to click 2-3 pictures at the end of the match.

Highlights:

* Katarina was very gracious in her speech and made a light remark that she was happy to get the most games from Vera in a set in this tournament.

* After Vera hit four balls in the crowd, they announced that she is
going to hit a couple more bonus balls. Vera autographed a ball, walked
over to a side and handed it to her fan with a big Russian flag.
Appalause all around, a Kodak moment (my Canon was out of juice at that
time).

* Vera played some excellent shots and hardly gave any breathing space to her opponents.

* Katarina played well too but Vera's form was too good for her today.

* Doubles was good but Mirza and Marta lost the plot in the third set.
Maria Camerin (their opponent) was pretty relaxed with mimicing a loud linesman call once in the third set that made everyone laugh and forget about the heat for a few seconds.

Hand-Eye Coordination

2006-07-19T09:54:00.000-04:00

So who do you think is the winner?

Piano Guy

DDR guy

PS: Might not be viewable from India unless it works from Inida now or you know how to access Google video from there.

Kahan Gaye Woh Log?

2006-07-12T00:11:00.000-04:00

Do you remember that serial? It was about freedom fighters and great leaders of India.

Today, after reading about the n-th attack on India and then reading about the statements I remembered that song.

If you saw Shivraj Patil reading his statement, you can find out what is wrong with the Indian government. It lacked anger and felt like he was trying to read just another statement. Are we so used to this violence that we have stopped caring? Can you imagine PM Manmohan Singh taking a tough stand against terrorists? We can forward his resume and his high school grades as much as we want, that is not going to change any policy. Where is POTA? Where is toughness? Will we just let people come into the country, plant explosives and leave by Samjhouta express? Is there any promising leader on the horizon who really cares about the state of the country? Or are our Lalloos and Jayalalithas going to sell the country for few extra pairs of sandals?

It is 12:15 am and I do not even feel like sleeping. I don't think I have been so frustrated ever about the state of affairs. How much can you tolerate? How long can you be patient?

POTC, Tennis and Soccer

2006-07-09T23:09:00.000-04:00

What a difference one week makes! This weekend was unlike the last one as far as the sporting events and movies are concerned.

POTC
--------

We started the weekend by watching POTC:Dead Man's Chest on the Friday night. That being the first evening of the movie, even finding a parking spot was difficult. I have never seen that lot so full. In spite of the movie being screened every half hour, the hall we were in was full (no surprises there). Last time we saw a movie with such a crowd was "Spiderman". Anyway, I would not be surprised if everyone was disappointed with the movie. Not that I had unreasonable expectations but the movie felt like a cheap attempt to cash in on the success of the first. The curse of the sequels! The bad guys are a bit gross, keira knightley cannot act, neither can Orlando Bloom and three way sword fights with POTC theme are not enough to make a great movie. But if you liked the first helping, you do not have a choice. You will watch this one no matter what I or anybody else says. But *if* you have a choice, if you go to the multiplex and are not able to decide between POTC and Superman, go for the Superhero. Save POTC for DVD. DVD will be out in 6 months and the next movie next summer by next summer if not this holiday season.

(Possible spoiler in next paragraph, nothing related to story though)
When I used to buy comics in primary/middle school (ok part of high school too) I used to take a quick look at the end frame to see that "The End". Anything that had "to be continued.." was not worth it. For movies, it is only worth it if the name of the movie is "Lord of the Rings" or "Kill Bill". You can wait for dessert if you have a nice fulfilling dinner. In fact, the wait is recommended, appreciated and necessary. You cannot serve some tomato soup to a hungry person and ask him to wait much longer for the dinner. That is cruel. Hopefully the dinner will make up for this disappointment.

Tennis and Soccer
--------------------

But then last week, tennis results were not so good. And this week could not be any better.

Mauresmo won her first Wimbledon. I did not care really before the match, but it was a good comeback and Amelie's " I don't want anyone to talk about my nerves anymore" made me realize more that it was a very well fought match. Justine was not at her best and if she keeps on making excuses for her defeat, it will be tough to support her in future. This time it was "I was feeling tired" (Then DON'T play the smaller tournaments.)

Then Germany-Portugal was good too. Scolari is another excuses expert. He needs to realize that at this level there are other great players playing too. German goals were great and so was Figo's pass. It was excellent football from an inconsequential match. Except for Ronaldo's pathetic attempt at diving, the match was one of the better ones that I have seen.

That brings us to Sunday morning's "Breakfast with Wimbledon". Nadal had breakfast with us also. I had an omlette, he had a bagel. Ok ok, I am being mean to him, the kid is learning fast and even smiled at the end of the match. I will have second thoughts in not supporting him in future (when he is not playing Roger that is.) Overall a great match. Just loved the quality of tennis. Will we get to watch Fed-Nadal at Cincy this year? I get too excited just thinking about it.

And then the World Cup Final. I wanted Italy to win and had picked them as the winner just before the QF started. Frankly, I liked the way France played today. They looked like the better team in the second half and in extra time. They had more energy than the Italians. In their semi, I liked Portugal's game over France but I guess Italy was destined to win today(mathematically :) ). After their PK losses in 1990, 94 and 98 and snatching a loss from the jaws of victory against France in Euro 2000, it was nice that they won. Their defense has been stellar.

Just one question will remain though, Why ZZ, WHY? No matter what he said, we wanted you to be there. We wanted to see you after the match. We wanted to say goodbye. Well, you have your memories of France 98 and Euro 2000 I guess. But a header in the dying moments today would have shot you up above all the sportspersons I respect. Still within the first 10 is not so bad :). Have a great time in whatever you choose to do. Join MLS maybe to have some fun ;)

Woke up on the wrong side...

2006-07-03T10:31:00.000-04:00

When I went to bed on Friday night, I was looking forward to Saturday. In fact, I did not indulge in any TV watching, xbox playing just to start the Saturday as soon as possible.

Then Saturday started.

1. ESPN could not show Agassi-Nadal live because of NBC contract. NBC showed it on tape delay overlapping with England-Portugal. I followed the match at wimbledon.com and Agassi lost. I knew he would lose but I was hoping that he wins at least one set. I did not want him to say goodbye with a straight set loss.

2. Then England lost to Portugal. I don't think I can discuss this anymore.

3. I had picked Brazil to win against France. Really I did not care who won but since I had picked Brazil in a friendly pool that we are having, France won.

4. So what no results went my way? At least, we had our new mattress delivery scheduled on Saturday. Turned out that the guy came, rang the bell, called us up and left after 15 minutes. I was busy watching England lose the whole time. Delivery now scheduled for next Saturday, hopefully I will not be as busy watching the consolation match.

So after all this, I was sure that "Superman Returns" was going to suck. After all we had booked good seats in advance for the IMAX experience on Saturday evening. We told ourselves to bring down our expectations given how the day was going. I was so sure that no matter when we start we would be late, that we did not bother to give a big buffer.

I think that is when the luck started to change a little bit. The movie started about 5 whole seconds after we settled down in our seats with popcorn and pepsi (not by choice, they don't sell coke there). It turned out to be a nice movie to watch. Frankly, I still say that "Batman Begins" is better but Superman has a different charm and nostalgia attached to it.

At least the day ended on a good note.

And on Sunday India finally won the last test and with that the series after about 35 years.

A soccer team loses, a cricket team wins, Fair trade!
(plagiarism source: Sin City)

Laughing at people's misery

2006-06-30T22:36:00.000-04:00

If you laugh at any point in this video, you will be guilty of that.

Misery

Where X meets Y

2006-06-27T09:52:00.000-04:00

1. Where Soccer meets FingerJuggling.

Video 1

2. Where Nintendo meets Opera Chorus.

Video 2

Of Kirtans and Tantriks

2006-06-21T07:57:00.000-04:00

Happened to catch this story on NPR yesterday.

Kirtan on NPR

(There is a link to the audio of the whole segment if you want to listen to it.)

I must say that Pop Kirtan sounded pretty interesting.

-----

A few days ago I read that Ganguly is being helped by a Tantrik.

Tantrik and Ganguly

I think the tantrik was approached during lunch of second ODI.

Here is the accomplishments section on the tantrik's CV.

1. Made a team lose ODI by 1 run (started after lunch, very difficult.)
2. Made the same team lose next 3 ODIs. Woke up at 4:00 am every match day to make things easier.

3. Moving on to test series: Fought with another tantrik helping the team but won the battle eventually. I was better in first innings and he tried to catch up in the second innings but never could. Team could not take the last wicket to win the match.

4. Was better prepared for the second test and was successful. Team could not win this match either. The other tantrik is powerful but I was the winner.

5. Trying a new proactive strategy for the third test.
Windies threaten to go on strike.

Third test may never happen. Thinking out of the box here to achieve the goal of the said team not winning a test series overseas. Might exceed expectations by making them lose the series.

Why America does not care about Soccer?

2006-06-16T23:35:00.000-04:00

You cannot help but think about it. Especially when the local food court decides to show Golf or baseball over world cup soccer thus denying me a chance to catch some action during lunch.

I have heard a lot of reasons about why Soccer is not popular here and I think I just realized a big reason today. I am sure someone has thought about it also.

Let's discuss some other reasons before.

1. Soccer is boring.

Bullshit! Just because media calls it boring and Jay Leno makes jokes about 0-0 matches does not mean it is boring. I was watchig the last few minutes of Holland Vs Ivory Coast match today and although nobody scored in that duration, Ivory Coast's attempts to level the score to avoid elimination were very exciting.

Anyway, the usual complaint is there is not much variety, it is pass, keep, pass, pass, shoot cycle. HELLLOOOOO... Basketball??

2. Lead is never swapped in one scoring play.

Trust me, this is one of the reasons I have read to justify soccer's unpopularity. This can happen in basketball, Baseball and Football but not in soccer, so it sucks.
Maybe soccer should give three points for a goal scored off a free kick, two for a header, one for a penalty kick etc. I guess that is why tennis is so unpopular also and ice-hockey and golf... wait a lot of americans are interested in these sports. hmmm...

3. Americans do not get to watch live soccer

Well that is because nobody is interested in soccer not the other way round.

Anyway, I can go on and on.

Now one point that I could not argue against.

Media controls things in US. If it hypes something up, people will watch it. If it hypes something up, people will buy it. It has reached a stage that many people watch Superbowl just for the ads. Imagine how happy the sponsors are then!

And there lies the problem.

Soccer is a continuous game, there is no timeout other than the odd quick stretchering out of an injured player. And therefore, there is NO slot to show ads other than half time. Since people are also glued to TV for 45minutes they use those precious 15 minutes of halftime break to do more important stuff like standing in line for the bathroom etc. Very low returns for a potential sponsor for a live match on TV.

So nobody hypes up the live telecast as not many companies are interested in sponsoring. No ads-no hype-no interest, no interest-no sponsorship. This cycle makes a lot of sense given how sports operate in US.

And then Leno gets more matter for his jokes and rest of the world makes jokes about America and soccer. Pump more money in the sport, make cool intro videos, get US players in commercials doing funny things, build more soccer stadiums and soccer will not only be popular in US but US will have consistent good performances in the world cups.

Nice!

2006-06-16T11:23:00.000-04:00

He lost the first set in tiebreaker.

Was down 4-6 in the tiebreaker of the second.

Saved four match points to win the second tiebreaker 11-9.

Was down a break in the third set.

Broke back at 2-4.

Won the third tiebreaker(7-5) to win against Rochus.

He had a tough match against Gasquest too. Something seems to be not right for Roger. And I doubt it is Tennis related.

Will these two victories make me forgive him for the FO trauma? I guess not, but at least I will watch him at Wimbledon.

I watch him for his 'I might be down but I am not out' spirit. I watch him for his incredible array of different shots (someone else is very monotonous ;) ). I watch him for his ability to shift gears at the right moment. It seems he has not lost it.

In other news, Hewitt forces the dirtBike to retire on grass. His request to use a dethatcher on the court was turned down by the officials [evil grin].

Adidas Ad for Germany'06

2006-06-13T10:15:00.000-04:00

Isn't it one of the coolest ads that you have seen so far? I think it
does the best job in catching the spirit of the World Cup.

More info on ad:
Adidas Ad Info

Better quality ad available on Google Video.

That Hurt

2006-06-12T20:14:00.000-04:00

That hurt pretty bad.

It brought back memories of March 23rd, 2003. Only this time I had hope till the last moment. He played like he had a fight with Mirka. I know Nadal played well but anyone who saw the match would be disgusted at Fed's unforced errors. It would be a bad one to recover from, not for Federer but for me.

In other news, I saw a new range of dirt bikes today. They are useless to drive anywhere except on dirt tracks. I call them Nadals.

Cars

2006-06-11T00:13:00.000-04:00

Initial thoughts:

Not jaw dropping kind of movie, but this time Pixar decided to go for a sweet movie with a clear message. Has lots of funny moments and succeeds in invoking emotions too at times. Many of the jokes are subtle and a keen eye for all animation is recommended. Falls short on the action side but that is an unfair comment as people no doubt would like to compare it to the incredible "The Incredibles".

I just felt that the background score could have been better. It is good at times and average at other. Sound by itself does not stir you at any time. It did in incredibles. Sorry for the comparison again but even the start of the movie where it picks up as soon as Helen says "I don't think so... I don't think so" asked you to sit back and relax as something very very special is gonna follow.

I will say Cars is definitely worth watching once in a movie hall. But then, given the kind of details and efforts Pixar puts in their movies, it should be illegal not to do that.

PS: Be prepared to hear kids around you at 90 minute mark. The movie does not have continuous visual jokes to keep them occupied for 2 hrs. That sounds like an impossible task anyway unless you play 2 hrs of Tom and Jerry or whatever is popular amongst kids today.

Closing Arguments

2006-06-08T21:36:00.000-04:00

1. Maui was definitely the nicer of the two islands with lots more stuff to do and lots more stuff to watch. Kauai has a very laid back lifestyle and with its population of less than 60000 is not crowded at all. It gets the most rains but luckily it rained only for a few minutes when we were on Kauai.

2. Kauai room was the highlight. It was an ocean-front suite (we upgraded since priceline gave us a not so well equipped hotel to offset the disappointment.)

We could see the ocean, hear the ocean, the breeze touched us and we could touch the ocean if we walked about 30-40 steps and maybe smell the air a bit too... something is missing right? What about the fifth sense?

I came across this amazing product at the Indian store, definitely the best thing since sliced naan. Masala Tea Pouches. Just boil some water and empty the contents of the pouch and stir. It has tea, sugar, masala and milk powder in it. A perfect railway station tea is ready. A book, that tea and a pool chair in front of the ocean. Paradise!

3. Our return flight was from Maui and we had to leave Kauai in the morning on the last day. Our flight from Kauai to Maui was via Honolulu(Oahu) and we found out that our flight from Maui to Chicago had a brief stopover at the Big Island. (We later realized that it was just to increase the sales of the airport gift shops). Anyway, that day we touched four major islands. We thought it was pretty cool.

4. I had spent quite some time recording some CDs for our trip and it was worth every minute. So if you don't have an iPod and car-attachment/FM transmitter, do spend some time with this.

That is it about Hawaii. As our flight attendant told us after we landed at Chicago
"Welcome back to Reality."

And now, let the games begin.

Taking good pictures of fireworks is one of the tougher challenges in photography for me. This is one of my better attempts.

And With this Single, He Reaches His 100

2006-06-07T21:02:00.000-04:00

My 100th post! Let's celebrate with some pictures from Kauai. All we did in Kauai was relax and then relax a bit more. That proved to be a very good decision as we did not feel like we need another vacation at the end of this vacation.

I will write some more about Kauai later.

Some Pictures from the Chopper ride of Kauai

My experiments with Automatic white balancing of my canon.

Some Flowers from Kauai

Fasten Your Seatbelts

2006-06-07T13:11:00.000-04:00

French open semis and finals, Germany'06, Wimbledon, Cricket test matches... so many things coming up in the next one month.

And yes, Cars will be out this weekend also. And then we can top it off with a pirate.

In next 4 days lets see how Shanghai and Paris are avenged.

Needless to say I will support Vamos Boy on Friday, probably the only time I do so. I know I know I am biased blah blah blah...

Maui Day 3

2006-06-05T22:55:00.000-04:00

Day 3 saw quite a few activities.

o Spending time at Scenic points

o Tour of Tropical Plantation

They have all the fruits and most flowers that grow in Hawaii at one place. People take pictures of mango trees. I did too.

All my life I have mercilessly broken a coconut in half and quickly collected the water whenever I sensed presence of drinkable quantity. Our guide had different ideas. Did you know that you can very easily push a (clean) screw-driver through (only) one of the three "eyes" and get water out without wasting a single drop? In India, those three "eyes" usually are not exposed but at least here I can use it. She also broke it in half in a very easy way without banging it on a concrete slab or reminding me of that public service 'use helmet' ad "marzi hain aapki, aakhir sir hain aapka"

Pake ped pe paka papita, paka ped ya paka papita, pake ped ko pakde pinkoo, pinkoo pakde paka papita
There!! What's the big deal? Sorry, I had to do it.

o Drive to the Haleakala summit.

People typically drive here at 2:30, *AM*. And then you have to fight cold temperatures and enthu-overflow-specimens who are riding bicycles. We drove there during the day time and had nobody in the front or back and still I had to be very careful. I have no regrets for not watching the sunrise from the top. I have seen one such sunrise from a flight. Otherwise, I will find one on google images or pbase or wherever.

Driving 10,000 feet up unnecessarily gives you a sense of achievement. The road ensures that you remember at it as an adventure. Somewhere at 60% elevation we drove through the clouds for some time. The temperature dropped from 75 degrees to 65 degrees within a minute. The coldest temp in the clouds was 63 but if you are in a convertible you can feel it after sometime and you look forward to getting out of the clouds. My ears were blocked while driving down and the thick clouds around you give you a claustrophobic feeling with visibility about not more than 50m at times.

This was definitely one time where I was extremely happy with Jeep wrangler. It just has a safer feel in such conditions.

Cloudy View from the Top

Tower Blaster Game

2006-06-04T23:47:00.000-04:00

This game can tell you what is meant by "Calculated Risk".

People have very interesting ideas when it comes to making such simple games.

Tower Blaster Game.

Maui Day 1 and Day 2

2006-06-04T01:55:00.000-04:00

Day 1:
------

* Submarine Dive:
Good Experience. It is just like watching fish in an aquarium (you have better chances of seeing colorful fish in an aquarium) but the whole submarine experience is worth doing once. If not for anything, the instruction over the speaker that your submarine gets "DIVE DIVE DIVE" sounds cool. Our guide had a lot of jokes up her sleeve and I mean lot, people stopped believing her even when she was serious kind of lot.

* Luau:
This is the Hula dance show with a dinner buffet. Nice way to spend an evening enjoying a cool breeze from the ocean. Again, this is not something you would do more than once, mainly because of the ticket cost, just like most other things in Maui. I wore an 'England' jersey that I have and coincidentally we sat next to a British couple. It was their 4th trip to Hawaii. We had a nice time discussing Rooney's injury and Flintoff's Ashes. Next day we met them at three different landmarks on our road to Hana.

Here is a pic from Luau.

We have lots of video of our stay in Maui and when I get time, I will upload short clips. Video editing is a very time consuming thing but the last clip I uploaded got a huge response (115,000+ hits) but then it was related to cricket :).

That was the end of our first full day in Hawaii.

Day 2
------

* Road to Hana

This was the only activity we did on this day. At Luau the British guy told us to first imagine how much time we would take to do this 57 mile one way drive and then he told us that we should then triple it and he was spot on. This drive is so beautiful that you cannot help but stop and spend time at various scenic spots. Google(images) for "Road to Hana" to get an idea what I mean. Imagine how nice it is and then triple it. You have to pack your lunch as there are no Burger Kings on the way. The only things that you are sure to find are hairpin bends and one lane bridges. And yes, you have ocean on one side, mountains on the other and these mountains have a bonus of rainforests, other than the waterfalls that you see on the way ofcourse.

Let me summarize this drive in bullet points as it is almost 2:15 am.
o We wanted to leave at 7:00am. We left at 8:00am.

o We took a turn to fill up the Jeep and as a pleasant surprise found a cafe, Cafe Des Amis, that had Indian veg wraps. There was no Indian in that restaurant, not even the chef. So why were they selling "authentic" Indian food? As we all know, Kohinoor is not the only thing British liked about India. The owner of this restaurant is British. The food(btw, I had some chicken crepe), I must add, was better than some of the Indian restaurants I have been to. This type worked out great as there was no danger of getting charged for spilled curry on the back seat.

o The next stop was at twin falls. The highlight was not the mango/guava/papaya trees or even the falls. The highlight was the sugarcane juice with lemon juice that put me right back in late 80s and early 90s, a period when I have enjoyed 90% of the total sugarcane juice I have had so far. *exact* *same* *taste*. And I stress this as we had it at another place where it was somewhat different. Anyway, I will give this juicewala bhaiyya at twin falls a 9/10. He loses that 1 mark to extra-cleanliness and using a machine to squeeze the lemon.

o Garden of Eden is where we relaxed, had our lunch, relaxed more, interacted with most colorful parrots I have ever seen in my life. $10 per person entry fee was totally worth it as we saw the part of the ocean and rainforest that featured in the opening sequence of Jurassic Park and they had clean restrooms.

You can check this out at Maui Garden Of Eden. And yes, don't forget to triple what you see.

o Then we drove, stopped, drove and drove back. Also the remotest gas-station that we saw had the cheapest gas for $4.29.

The first picture is just before we started the road to Hana, first scenic point. And the next two were somewhere on the way.

I doubt any drive can beat this one. We reached back to Kahului at 7 pm. Spending 11 hrs driving, walking, taking pictures, looking for restrooms etc and and not feeling tired at the end of the day is the best thing about Hawaii!!

Day 3 coming up

May 2006

2006-05-31T22:11:00.000-04:00

Definitely a very special month because of the awesome time we spent hearing and repeating aloha, mahalo, mahalo, aloaaaaaaaaha

I never finished my last travelogue. Hopefully this one will be better. Our flight out was at 6:00 am and I had a lot of errands to run the evening before. And that meant I ended up not sleeping that night at all. Before Vegas trip I had slept for an hour or two. Anyway, I made up for that in the flightS and by the time we reached Maui at 3:00 pm local time I was pretty much able to drive. After being very fussy about the color of the Jeep Wrangler at Alamo, we finally got the one that we wanted. The code name for that color is Xterra Yellow. Here it is standing next to a roadside Sugarcane Juice stand. Other colors are taken off to concentrate on this Jeep as it played a big role in making our Maui stay fun. I could pretty much drive that thing anywhere and nobody could overtake me. A couple tried and failed (much of that I owe to single lane roads but a little bit of dramatization helps.)

Click on the images to see a larger version of these pictures.

Priceline blessed us with a nice resort (tennis courts/swimming pool/one of the finest Luaus etc) and we had a garden view room. That typically means you can view some trees and maybe some ocean but it is not guaranteed. Here is the view from our room balcony. First the trees and then the ocean.

Sorry! Thanks to the red-eye, I am exhausted. Rest will have to wait. Enjoy the sense of humor from Maui.

V for Vacation

2006-05-22T12:45:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow we leave for our weeklong vacation and luckily I am not tied up at work. In fact I spent some time decoding Jason's morse code message from the Sunday strip.

Most of the weekend was spent in shopping and packing and yes the never ending work in the yard. The million dollar (actually 40 dollar) question is do I ask my neighbour to turn on the sprinklers(and more importantly turn them off) or do I buy a timed sprinkler? I am running out of time and I think I will end up buying the timer and ask my neighbour to step in, if the timer does not behave itself.

Saturday was a bit depressing because of the 1-run defeat. For the whole game I was hopeful that India would win and was constantly in touch with a not-so-optimistic friend. I did the stupidest thing. I called him to say "NAh-Nah-Nah-Nah NAA NAA" after Yuvi hit the first two boundaries and the only thing he said was "Still 2 runs in 3 balls with one wicket in hand is tough".

As a protest, I am not uploading any highlights for this match.

On a positive note, I am very glad to see a coach who wants to win so badly. It was all over Chappell's face and you could read his lips ("Come on!") after the first of the two fours (a mistimed shot past the WK actually). We are in for some fireworks in the next match. I will try to grab the scorecard somehow.

And since I was in a prankish mood, we watched a "Gags: Just for laughs" DVD yesterday. I loved it. Simple practical jokes that are very funny at times. No voiceovers, no laughtracks, just plain pranks with a simple background score. My favourite was when they hide a couple of speakers on a sidewalk. These speakers play the sound of an incoming car, applying sudden brakes and skidding just behind the victim. As soon as it is played, four people in front of the victim, walking in opposite direction, act totally horrified and run in different directions to avoid the "car". The reactions from the victims made me roll on the floor laughing, literally.

That is all from me for now, I will be back soon.

Nice Pranks

2006-05-19T18:06:00.000-04:00

Gas Station Prank

Pranks Compilation

Scarecrow Prank

I love these photo booth pranks too. The last one is the best.
Photo booth prank

There are more but I haven't had the time to check them all.

from www.uglyjackass.com

Notes to Self

2006-05-14T21:46:00.000-04:00

1. Advise people who indulge in sports betting to put money on Fed for French Open. People usually do not like to predict a result for fear of jinxing/woofing your guy, this time it is different. I am angry and upset but the more important thing is, I know, that he is angrier. Watch his game this month end.

2. Do not have dinner while watching CSI.

Some Musical Inspirations and some cricket

2006-05-11T21:34:00.000-04:00

Update: My bad! Anand has already blogged about this. I somehow missed that post. Now I must credit him for finding that site otherwise I might turn into one of those guys I am complaining about :)

After complaining about inspired movies, let me complain about inspired songs.

I found a great site that lists all the inspired songs and the originals. For most of the songs, it has some samples of originals and the bollywood versions.

I knew that many songs are copied, but some of them really surprised me. Do browse the list as you may get surprised too. Mehbooba-Mehbooba, Om Shanti Om ... I could have never guessed. From the newer ones, "Chanda Chamke" from Fanaa and that song from KKrish are also not originals.

The site is:
http://www.itwofs.com/

And I am watching a cool DVD of Ashes '05 highlights in a "Sunil Gavaskar presents" like format. Trumps the last 5 movies I saw at least!!

LA Calling

2006-05-08T10:09:00.000-04:00

How I wish to be [sniff]in LA for Nintendo's keynote tomorrow at E3? It should have a lot of interesting announcements.

Maybe I will upgrade my satellite [sniff]package so that I get to watch G4 [sniff]TV? (Since we rarely watch TV, we have a lowest tier package currently.)

Derby is over and thanks to this stupid cold, we even forgot to watch it on TV.

Aaaaa..chooooo!

"Inspired" Movies

2006-05-02T10:46:00.000-04:00

No wonder how good a movie is, if it is "inspired" by some other movie and the director refuses to acknowledges it, I just don't like the movie. This happens even if a few scenes are copied. I know that I should consider that it is a good way to bring quality foreign movies to Indian etc etc., but I guess "plagiarism is bad" is engraved so deeply that I cannot help it (Pity that Kaavya Viswanathan does not read my blog).

The last three Bollywood movies that I watched were all inspired by some foreign movies.

1. Bluffmaster
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325805/plotsummary

2. Taxi No 9211
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264472/plotsummary

3. Malamaal Weekly
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166396/plotsummary

Wiill Wii Rock?

2006-04-29T09:21:00.000-04:00

No typo there. Nintendo Revolution has been renamed as "Wii" (pronounced "we", to make it simple to remember for non-English speaking players and others too. Also it is supposed to create a sense of Nintendo fan-community, as in "we"). I have mentioned this at least a couple of times in the past and it still remains the only next generation console that I will wait in rains for 6+hrs.

I sincerely believe that this is going to be a big hit amongst the gamer community. EA announced that their Madden is not going to be a simple port for Wii but the gamer experience would be different considering the abilities of the new controller.

Check out this article:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6148455.html

"Players will hike the ball by mimicking a quarterback receiving the ball from the center, and then pass it to a receiver by making a throwing gesture with the free-hand controller. The faster the passing motion, the more of a bullet pass it becomes (in previous Madden editions, bullet passes were made by holding the passing button down longer)."

If you are wondering about the jokes on "Wii", they are all taken.

The best I read on slashdot was: "Apparently it doesn't have 802.11 since Wii is what you get if you have No F-in Wifi."

What Happened Here?

2006-04-26T22:49:00.000-04:00

As correctly guessed by my friends, I had kept two cans in the fridge so that I could drink chilled coke while watching a movie. I used one of them. After the movie I slept off and woke up at 4:00 am to watch India-SL ODI. Then I came down to make some tea (winter+cricket+hot tea) and get some waffles to go with them. This is what I saw (multiply this by 5 as I could not capture all angles.)

I spent the next 40 minutes cleaning the mess (36 actually, first 4 minutes I was trying to figure out wtf happened.) The best part was how everybody (mom, dad and wife) repeated the same statement as soon as I told them about this.

"Oh! We were just discussing last night how your BIL forgot to take the can out and it exploded." Apparently, I had run off to the basement when they were talking about this.

Only someone who has done this sort of thing will know what happened here. I will post the story and a follow-up picture tomorrow. You can click on the picture to see the details.

Another Before and After

2006-04-22T11:51:00.000-04:00

This time it is for our Tulips.

Backyard Before.

Backyard After

Mailbox Before

Mailbox After.

A Singleton.

Latest Movies

2006-04-17T21:24:00.000-04:00

Only thing is I am too bored to create link to these movies today.

1. Ice Age: The Meltdown

Funny at times. Usual complaint (first part was better). A piecewise continuous story. Worth a matinee ticket. Will buy DVD to complete the collection.

2. In America

Borrowed from the local library. Simple story but excellent performances by the two girls. Packs a powerful punch.

3. Cinderella

Watched it finally. The Disney 2-D animation. Had not watched it so far wondering how different it could be. A smooth movie that will give you a nice dose of laughter too.
Borrow from library if you can.

4. Iqbal

A sleek movie. Typical low budget. Relies heavily on good performances and direction and editing. A simple story well told.

5. Filmfare awards '06 and Zee Cine Awards '06

I know not a movie, but we watched these. I have seen like 3 bollywood award shows in last six years and two of them were in last two days. So some comments-

o Karan Johar is pretty good at compering a show.
o Madhuri Dixit still is the best dancer.
o Aishwarya Rai should stick to paper ads where she does not need to talk/laugh/act.
o They should stop showing Rekha's expressions at the slightest mention of Amitabh's name.
o Black won way too many awards. I do not feel like watching the movie now as I got an overdose of Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
o Preity Zinta has a horrible memory. She had to call one name, that of Mauritius' PM but looked at her palm twice while saying his name and it was not a full form of VVS Laxman.
o Whoever that kid in Black is, Ayesha something, single handedly stereotyped all NRI kids by thanking everybody by their first name including Amitabh Bachchan.

And if you can access google video,

Why I do not want to ride a motorcycle (at least till I forget this)

Main Rou Yaa Hasoon....

2006-04-10T20:59:00.000-04:00

Supposedly nation is in disarray over Salman getting sentenced for 5 years of RI.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1671691,001100030009.htm

A housewife: "So many people commit such heinous crimes in broad daylight, but go scot-free. Why only Salman has to go through the trauma?"

Great! Let's not punish anybody since it is practically impossible to punish every single criminal. The same housewife would have been very angry when Manu Sharma went scot-free a few weeks ago. She probably issued statement on the lines of "In our country rich can get away with murder. Only poor get punished." Now when rich are getting punished, we have problems with that also.

My favourite bit from the story is from a 14 year old girl: "If Nehru can write from jail, why can't Salman act from there?"

14 year old are not dumb, except this one. The reporter is dumb to interview her, editor is dumb to publish it and I probably am the biggest of all to read and write about it.

Random links of the day

2006-04-09T10:30:00.000-04:00

Some random links for inspiration, entertainment etc.

1. Salute the spirit of this boy!
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1513/look_mom_no_hands/

2. Why Sonia Gandhi feels at home in India? (This is a funny flash presentation on Italy.)
http://tcc.itc.it/people/rocchi/fun/europe.html

3. Stickcricket!

Another simple but cool flash game. Wait till you get the 4s and 6s right!!

http://www.stickcricket.com

Reservation Increased

2006-04-06T14:15:00.000-04:00

http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=122853

Center's solution for less general category students: Increase the seats!

Brilliant. Who cares about the quality of education anyway? They should open an IIT and an IIM in every city. More seats less problems, right?

I think the Indian government was getting bored as there was no violent protest for sometime now. And I do not understand why institutions that are unaided by the govt. have to implement all these reservation rules.

Would you have preferred a logically thinking dictator over such democratic politicians? Isn't it sad that such thoughts regularly cross your minds?

Flintoff

2006-04-03T20:34:00.000-04:00

I think he is one of the most exciting players today.

Here is one from Freddie.. Enjoy!

Freddie Flintoff Sledging

Try watching it in Internet Explorer if you are unable to watch it from Firefox.

India Gets Hi-Tech

2006-03-29T17:09:00.000-05:00

Who says that doctors are not using technology as much as they should?
Surely this report doesn't.

And I had the most persistent telemarketing agent call me. The Dish Network representative called me once at 3:00pm yesterday and I told him that I was at work. He then called me at 6:00pm (I took that as an insult, of course I could have been still at work). I did not pick up the phone. He then called me at 8:00 pm. I did not pick up the phone. He then called me again at 10:00 am this morning. I did not change my response.

I finally gave up and told him on his 5th attempt in 20 hrs at 11:00 am that I knew what he was trying to sell and I was not interested in it. The first guy in fact was so persistent that when I asked him to call later, he started off with "But since I have you on line now..."

Online Public Grievance Reporting by Govt of India

2006-03-21T17:34:00.000-05:00

Check this out.

http://darpg-grievance.nic.in/

And this is not all. Someone mentioned that it works as well.

Picture Blog Created

2006-03-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

Take your shots here from now on.

The link is also added to the frame on the right.

Picture Quiz to be moved

2006-03-15T10:41:00.000-05:00

I will be moving Picture Quiz section to a new blog starting from the next quiz. That blog should be easily accessible from this one. It will make it easy for me and others to keep a track of new and unsolved questions (looks like we might have our first unsolved question here.)

And I want to play cricket right here, right now.

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/ci/content/image/240665.html

Question Answered... Almost

2006-03-13T23:28:00.000-05:00

Probably a new record was set for the number of records broken in this SA-AUS match.

Read the following few lines carefully. If I say that Telemachus almost helped all the SA fans to answer a question, after about 14 years, what question am I talking about?
[Answer in the comments]

47.1 Telemachus to Ponting, (no ball) FOUR, full and wide Ponting
drives behind point, the carnage continues
47.1 Telemachus to Ponting, (no ball) 1 run, Full again, Ponting
drives to the deep cover area, another No Ball
47.1 Telemachus to Symonds, (no ball) FOUR, Three no-balls in a row,
dear me and Symonds drives it over the bowlers head
47.1 Telemachus to Symonds, (no ball) SIX, Another no ball,
disgraceful, lofted over his head to bring up the 400, mercy rule
please!!!!!!!
47.1 Telemachus to Symonds, 2 runs, line and length, Symonds drives
the ball straight an easy two

Picture Quiz 9

2006-03-13T00:03:00.000-05:00

So who is the apprentice?

Australian Cricket

2006-03-12T09:55:00.000-05:00

They were down 0-2 against SouthAfrica in a five match series.

In one of the matches they were shot down for 93.

The series currently stands at 2-2 and in the final game Aussies have posted a mammoth world record total of 434, that is right 434.

That is not all. SA are currently batting and are 300/4 in 32 overs. If there were any SouthAfricans who were still cross with Gibbs for the match fixing episode, I have a feeling that they will forgive him today. What an effort! Pity that he got out on 175 (in 111 balls).

I cannot wait to see how this turns out to be. Looks like another moment to use the cliche "..but the real winner was cricket!"

One of the greatest chases in Cricket

AND IT'S A MIRACLE! SA are home with 1 wicket to spare on the penultimate ball. No matter how "good" the pitch was, this is one of the finest chases in One Day International. I hope I can watch it somehow somewhere. Gibbes, Smith et al take a bow!! Ponting, although I do not like you much, you can too. :)

Do your job: Get suspended

2006-03-11T09:01:00.000-05:00

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1647757,0035.htm

What if he was not an MLA but someone with a gun with deadly intentions?
The cop definitely chose the right words to describe the politician's behaviour.

I found it very interesting to note that Congress and Opposition were together in condemning the police behaviour. What a thing to agree on? When Parliament was under attack, these policemen like Tripathy were fighting to save the lives of politicians like Panda. Nice way of showing your appreciation!! Bravo Panda!

"His only crime was to ask a Congress MLA, whom he didn't recognise, to produce identity card or entry pass at the Orissa Assembly.

Senior Congress legislator Padmalochan Panda was about to enter the assembly premises on Thursday when he was stopped by sub-inspector P.K. Tripathy. The MLA didn't have the entry pass issued by the Assembly Secretariat and they got into a verbal duel. Soon senior police officers intervened and the MLA was allowed to enter.

The MLA alleged that the cop used words like "nonsense" at him. The issue soon snowballed with MLAs of the Congress and opposition condemning the police behaviour.

CM Naveen Patnaik informed the House that the SI had been suspended on charges of misbehaviour. Meanwhile, two men in the Watch and Ward staff were suspended as they were reportedly absent at the time of the incident."

Picture quiz 8

2006-03-11T08:42:00.000-05:00

I thought I will get a break this weekend because of Nighthawks.

Anyway, here is one more:

(SOLVED!)

Picture Quiz 7

2006-03-09T20:54:00.000-05:00

(SOLVED!)
Simple.

Just identify the actor on the left and the movie. This is the poster of the movie. (Let's give IMDB its share of hits :) ). The actor's name followed by the name of the movie appears on the original poster and is replaced by the question mark.

Picture Quiz 6

2006-03-08T19:13:00.000-05:00

I know. I love cricket.

Before I put up the picture, there are two nominations for the prestigious bumper sticker of the year award.

"The driver of this vehicle does not carry any money. He is married."

"Politicians and diapers need to be changed frequently for the same reason."

(SOLVED!)

Picture Quiz 5

2006-03-07T21:18:00.000-05:00

(Solved!)
I have no idea how easy or difficult this one is. Only time (or DP) will tell.

Picture quiz (Late Weekender)

2006-03-06T18:45:00.000-05:00

No thanks to DP for solving these two with super speed, I am out of pictures for now. I need a few hours.

First of all, let me list the rules again.
1. The moment you find the original picture, you should list two things in the comment section.
a. The Google String used if you used google or the search string used and the search engine.
b. The URL of the original image.

2. Any explanation of why you chose that string is welcome.

Here you go (2 of them):
Something about these pictures.
#1: (SOLVED!) I tried to solve it how I would have if I was solving it for real and got it in my first google search. So uploading the other one too in case someone solves #1 quickly.

#2: (SOLVED!)This is also a bit workable from the picture.

Picture Quiz on demand

2006-03-06T14:03:00.000-05:00

SOLVED!

Until I get home to post the ones that I was going to do this weekend.

Hint: Cricket, the guy on the left has captained an ICC member team.

What are the odds?

2006-03-05T12:07:00.000-05:00

No this is not a weekender question but something that I exclaimed this weekend.

After reading Dixie's blog, I also started watching CSI. I got a couple of DVDs of CSI. After watching all but 2 episodes, I decided to save them for the weekend. Meanwhile one of the weeknights, SpikeTV had CSI reruns and I managed to watch 2 episodes.

And yes, they were the same two episodes that I had left to watch this weekend.

Nothing much otherwise, I thanked the guy who invented vacuum cleaner when I broke a drinking glass on our living room floor.

Some day I will write about the the current state of "Indian" cricket and what I think about the whole thing.

Oscars are about to begin.

Picture Quiz 2

2006-03-02T18:19:00.000-05:00

SOLVED!

I know I know that this is an easy one for the people familiar with this program. But we are only warming up for the weekend :)

If you successfully google the solution, do let me know the search strings used that showed you the picture.

Y hit the bulls eye with "Sachin Tendulkar Party" in the last one.

Picture Quiz

2006-03-01T18:33:00.000-05:00

SOLVED!

I will post similar quizzes from time to time, at least I hope to.

Can you figure out who the three headless bodies belong to?

Act while You are Angry

2006-02-24T12:40:00.000-05:00

While you still feel the anger from Jessica Lal case, here is something to read, think and act on.

http://gauravsabnis.blogspot.com/2006/02/manjunath-shanmugam-trust.html

As a matter of principle, I never ask people to forward any link/appeal etc. So I will not do it here either. You are free to do whatever you want.

Will it snowball in a positive movement on a much bigger scale? I don't know.
Will it help Manju get justice? I don't know.

But doing things like these, although not sufficient, are necessary to achieve the bigger result.

Even a small contribution goes a long way.

Getting Away With Murder

2006-02-22T21:30:00.000-05:00

If you have been keeping up with News, you know what I am talking about.

Rediff has a chat with Jessica Lal's sister, a "Tell us" page for the cliched "Do the rich get away with crime?" (with a few ads on the side probably).

I felt bad about this, very bad. But not half as angry as I would have felt five years ago. Am I surrendering to the system? I had somewhat "I don't even want to read about this as it frustrates me" reaction to the whole thing. Tomorrow I will wake up, check my gmail while having my breakfast, go to the office and come back in the evening and probably blog more about this. Shame on me! The only thing that I can borrow some mental peace from is my belief in Karma. The punishment wasn't given in past lives, will not be given in the next life, will not be given to your progeny but will be given to the real culprits in this life and they will know what they are suffering for. I believe that.

Happy Days Are Here Again!

2006-02-09T09:52:00.000-05:00

Or will be soon.

I am talking about Hollywood releases. After an abysmal year, a year so bad that I have not even gone through the Oscar nominee list, we have some promising releases ahead.

Here are the current must-watch on my list.

1. Eight Below
I knew I would not be able to pass this when I saw the trailer the first time. I watched an extended trailer on HD the other day and I am sure that we will watch this the first weekend.

2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
Yes, we WILL be the first in line.

3. Cars
No waiting in line but I will be refreshing ticketmaster every five minutes for this.

4. Ice Age 2
I missed the first one in theatres. We have the DVD though. I owe it to them.

5. Da Vinci Code
Some aspects of the book were predictable but the movie looks good.

6. Superman Returns
For old times' sake.

7. Monster house
Not much info available on this, but I liked the trailer. Decent graphics and a little action oriented. Looks promising and definitely worth considering for a "is there anything good in theatres?" afternoon.

8. Open Season
Watch out for this one. This one has very good animation and looked pretty funny. Fall 2006 release, if some other blockbuster does not manage to push it further.

Wait for DVD:
Click, Pulse, Snakes on a plane, Fast and the furious (just to get a kick from the HT).

I am sure there are quite a few more but will write about them some other day.

Thank You Stranger!

2006-02-07T11:01:00.000-05:00

I did not have a car in September 2000. It was my second month in the United States and I was walking back home as I had missed the last bus (one of the safest communities). I found a wallet on the sidewalk with its contents all over the place (credit cards, cash and bus stubs). I collected it and returned it to the Police station that was right across my apartment. I never knew what that guy felt after getting his wallet back... until this weekend.

Last week, I lost a check.

I had kept it in my bag and then I could not find it 2 days later. The check was completely filled but that meant my name, address, account number and signature were out in the wild.

On Saturday, I received an envelope that had the check in it. It did not have a return address, just a few words in the back "Found this near the UPS store."

The person who sent this, spent his own money on the stamps (he had that extra 2c stamp too since the price went up from 37c to 39c recently) and more importantly spent his time for me.

Acts like these make you feel so happy. Nothing better than a reinforcement of the belief that good people outnumber the bad ones by a huge margin, no matter where you go in the world.

Thinking more, surely I would have acted in a similar manner. But now I have this strange feeling of obligation. I am almost looking out to help someone, and trying more to be helpful. If (s)he wanted to pass it on, (s)he succeeded big time.

Tidbits

2006-02-01T20:27:00.000-05:00

First of all, I welcome myself back to my blog.

Now the tidbits:

1. Other than watching Irfan's Hattrick, there was no point in watching all the test matches. But money spent on watching cricket is never lost completely, right?

2. I have been spending some time with video editing. Hopefully would be able to share some interesting cricket/tennis clips soon.

3. At the moment, we are watching "Ramji Londonwaley". So far it looks like a well-made movie. Funny thing happened when I was in the Indian store today. Since I have learnt my lesson, I checked this DVD for scratches. There were a few fingerprints and I showed it to the owner. He took one look at the DVD and told me that I will have to clean it. I asked him to clean it as I have had a bad experience cleaning these pirated DVDs.

So he started cleaning it. He just started rubbing it over his shirt and I looked at him with a shocked expression. He realized that he should probably be using a different cloth to clean it.

And he did.

His undershirt!

Yawn

2006-01-16T23:47:00.000-05:00

We bought the cricket package and have been watching the match as much as I can .(11:45p to 7:00 am)and that made me a lot more tired during the day. And that is my excuse for this week for not updating the blog.

I recorded the matches and since I do not have a DVD recorder/TV Card I cannot transfer the video to my computer. So I actually shot the video on my video camera and then did some editing. It was fun.

Also, received this and found this interesting enough to share.

---------------------------
New Law!

With the high rate of attacks on women in secluded parking lots,
especially during evening hours, the Minneapolis City Council has
established a "Women Only" parking lot at the Mall of America. Even the
parking lot attendants are exclusively female so that a comfortable and
safe environment is created for patrons.

Click for the first picture available of this world-first women-only
parking lot in Minnesota.

------------------------

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD update

2006-01-05T08:31:00.000-05:00

(These are the competing formats that will let you watch movies in High Definition at home. Currently you are limited to high def broadcasts and cable.)

Apparently, we could not reach any agreement and the consumers are going to be losers with both format players coming to market in 2006.

Toshiba has announced two HD-DVD players priced at $499 and $799. Samsung has announced a Blu-Ray player for $999. All three players are expected to release in the first half of 2006. Only time will tell if any format shuts out the other one otherwise you can find yourself in situation where your favourite movie is not available in the Hi-Def format of your player. To make it worse, all of these players look like they were made in 1970. Of course, you do not want to buy the first pricey lot that can have some problems.
Toshiba HD-DVD player
Samsung Blu-Ray

Lets move on to the silver lining.

PS3 will support Blu-Ray so we will have at least one Blu-Ray player that looks good.

Xbox-360 will support an *external* HD-DVD drive. So people can buy one separately if they want to watch HD-DVD movies through your xbox360. More modular structure here that could be a price advantage critical given HDTVs have not penetrated so much in the market so far.

Now the best news about Blu-Ray :)

They have reshuffled the existing region system. The new system puts all countries in North and South America, Japan, Thailand, Malayasia, Korea, and India in region 1.

Americans will be able to import movies/players from Japan and More Blu-Ray players (and more importantly discs)will be exported to India from US and you will not have to worry about unlocking the region system before doing so.

We do not know about the HD-DVD region coding system yet, but don't be surprised if it is very similar to this, otherwise there will be no end to confusion.

You can read some more details at:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6141826.html

Srilanka, their Sanath and his Shoulder

2006-01-03T07:39:00.000-05:00

Update: After my original post, this is the latest.

This has to be one of the funniest reasons for an injury.

I had to search a bit to find an article with Jayasuriya's picture. Jayasuriya has been having problems with his shoulder and now this happens.

Freak Accident

Take a look at his picture. Does he really need a shampoo?
Shampoo aur Sanath.... kabhi nahi!

Yet Another Weekender that is a Weekstarter.

2006-01-02T17:29:00.000-05:00

If Weekender can have an antonym like Weekstarter, I can also have antonyms for movies. Can you guess the original movies from these antonyms? Keep in mind that the words are not perfect antonyms, they can be in some cases though. e.g. DevilMother is clue for Godfather but "Blue Nose" could be a clue for "Red Eye".

o Grandfather's Girl
o What stands above
o The Prince Groom
o Front Door
o The Silver Linger
o Straight
o The Pebble
o Fragile
o College Criminal
o Life Stinks(This is actually a Mel Gibson movie and the antonym has more words than this)

I know that this could be very easy but I promise to think of some tougher ones sometime in future.

And something that is a little too simple but getting it right the first time is what is expected.

If two days ago Laloo Prasad was 13 years old, how old will he be next year? (And I am not going to answer any follow-up questions on this one. )

And to end it: How long do you think is the solution to this question?
(Note: This one has multiple answers.)

[BTW, I found the other solution for the second puzzle on http://www.chriscoyne.com/puzzle/ I have added a comment to the "No Weekender Again??" post.]

Some Space for this year

2006-01-02T17:25:00.000-05:00

First of all, wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Not the "personal space" that people keep talking about but some space on my home desktop. I bought a Hitachi 160G HDD for $40(after rebate), that is a gig for 25 cents, we have come a loooong way! I remember how I used to try hard to save some space on my home computer that I thought had good amount of disk space. I had 1 Gig. I told this to a friend that I have almost used up my 1Gig and a friend told me that he had used *3Gig*, something that was unthinkable then.

I have 200Gig in my desktop now (in 7 partitions). I still do not have a DVD writer in my home computer though. So all that miniDV->DVD conversion will have to wait.

Played a lot of Fifa 2006 this weekend. It was quite enjoyable. The player that I created is called "Laloo Prasad" and the manager that I have created is "Pappu Pager". I currently manage Columbus Crew team and they topped the league this year. I will post a few pics shortly.

Anand's Blog Added to Links

2005-12-29T09:34:00.000-05:00

Please Welcome Anand Srinivasan and do not forget to check out the link in "Is this guy for real" on his blog. I will let you browse his blog and search that. I will add a link in the right frame also.

Anand and I go back a long way. Anand, Sourabh, Abhijeet and Nikhil used to have fun on the last desk of Somalwar Junior College in our 12th standard. We used to disturb the fifth guy, Nitin Garg, who used to listen patiently to all the lectures.

There are far too many anecdotes to list from those years in school. I will do it one at a time.

Here is one:

Sincere Nikhil is already in class. Anand, Abhijeet and Sourabh who usually come together to school are late. (I can guess right who was not ready in time :)) So it is 10 minutes into the first lecture and our Chemistry teacher has started the Class. He used to like to show authority whenever someone is late.

So all three come running in to enter the class. Abhijeet and Sourabh, seeing that the Class is already in progress have a brilliant idea. They turn back and run off. Idea is to spend few minutes outside and sneak in before the next lecturer enters. Brilliant!

Anand hesitates and is a little slow in turning back and is caught by the prof. The Prof does not see Abhijeet and Sourabh and calls out to Anand. "SHRIVASTAVA", he said (Anand Srinivasan was always Srivstava for him.)

Guess what Anand did. Anand called out to his comrades who were out of sight "Abhijeet, Sourabh, Sir bula rahe hain." (Abhijeet, Sourabh, Sir is calling *us*)

All three of them were writing an "apology letter" in the break as demanded by our Chemistry teacher. Lets say this was fair as I am pretty sure that it was not Anand who was the reason for their late start.

Photo Stitch

2005-12-26T10:11:00.001-05:00

Rarely do I double-blog, but it is ok when one of the posts is a weekender :) (Nowadays I don't blog as much anyway).

I love my camera but I do not have a wide angle lens. To offset that I use the photo-stitch utility (Canon has both, Firmware and Software support for it). I have ben pretty happy with the results so far. Here are a couple of "stitches". . I have not had the time to fine tune these but I just wanted to put them up. You can click on them to see how big they are and then you can view them in a size appropriate for your screen dimensions. I have 2-3 more, I will put them up later.

Plagiarism

2005-12-26T09:20:00.000-05:00

This late weekender is inspired by (actually copied)from Anand's comments in one of the posts. The puzzles are interesting and I will copy the rest from his comments.
------------------------
Anand said...

Check out the couple of interesting puzzles (not difficult) on this website. More interesting is how to get to the solution.

http://www.chriscoyne.com/puzzle/
------------------------
Anand said...

Btw, similar to that relpats website, IIM-Indore guys have created some puzzles. They are a lot simpler though, at least the initial ones. Check out.

http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris/irising/klueLESS/
-------------------------

And can you guess these movie anagrams. If you do not get the first one, stop right there :) (Question and exclamation marks are added just to make anagrams sound better.)

Got Pun?
The Hog Farted
Big Absent Man
Fine as the Barbaric Poet
Folding Shorter: The Foreign Trunk
Oh! Fetching Superman

Fill in the blanks:
Pumbaa is the first Disney character to .... on screen.

Man on Fire

2005-12-20T21:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I saw a preview of a new Amitabh movie. After watching it, it was clear that the movie is "inspired" by Man On Fire. I knew the story of this Denzel movie.I had not seen Man on Fire then.

Today they are showing it on cable and I am watching it as I write this post.

This has to be the most cold-blooded revenge movie I have ever seen and I have seen quite a few. I am sure the Big B version is not so violent.

No Weekender Again??

2005-12-20T10:43:00.000-05:00

If I continue like this pretty soon even the people who are interested in the weekenders will lose interest.

With Mom and Dad leaving this weekend, the weekend was quite busy. We did some shopping to keep ourselves occupied too. After working with Bluetooth for last 2 years, I finally have a Bluetooth phone. It's a motorola and I would have uploaded its picture but the only way for me to do that right now is to use the bathroom mirror and I will wait till I have some other camera handy.

I also played some "traditional" football this weekend. Axe and I bought this together but *never* played against each other. Although it is very difficult to score a goal in this release compared to other ones, that is what makes the game special. You have to earn every goal. The 10-2 scorelines are a thing of the past. And once you score a goal, you are sure to spend next 10 seconds pumping your fist. Well, at least I am sure about myself.

And to make up for the weekender here is a link to something weekender regulars would enjoy.
http://www.relpats-eht.com/
It gets pretty tough later on. I do not know anyone who has seen beyond the last page. So a good incentive and we can keep this going on in the background. This is NOT the next weekender.

Self Referential Weekender.

2005-12-11T08:28:00.000-05:00

I like this type of quizzes. This one I have copied from a site and the original author is Martin Henz. The solution is available on net but it is great fun to solve. The original url is polaris.lcc.uma.es/~afdez/srq/srq or something but is very slow. So I will reproduce the questions here.

A good exercise would be to design another quiz like this yourself that has a unique solution set. Have fun.

1. The first question whose answer is A is question
(A) 4 (B) 3 (C) 2 (D) 1 (E) none of the above

2. The only two consecutive questions with identical answers are questions
(A) 3 and 4 (B) 4 and 5 (C) 5 and 6 (D) 6 and 7 (E) 7 and 8

3. The next question with answer A is question
(A) 4 (B) 5 (C) 6 (D) 7 (E) 8

4. The first even numbered question with answer B is question
(A) 2 (B) 4 (C) 6 (D) 8 (E) 10

5. The only odd numbered question with answer C is question
(A) 1 (B) 3 (C) 5 (D) 7 (E) 9

6. A question with answer D
(A) comes before this one, and not after this one
(B) comes after this one, and not before this one
(C) comes before and after this one
(D) does not occur at all
(E) none of the above

7. The last question whose answer is E is question
(A) 5 (B) 6 (C) 7 (D) 8 (E) 9

8. The number of questions whose answers are consonants is
(A) 7 (B) 6 (C) 5 (D) 4 (E) 3

9. The number of questions whose answers are vowels is
(A) 0 (B) 1 (C) 2 (D) 3 (E) 4

10.The answer to this question is
(A) A (B) B (C) C (D) D (E) E

360 and The Revolution

2005-12-09T10:19:00.000-05:00

Xbox360 is out and I do not own it.

I never intended to do so at launch. There is something missing. It is not pulling me towards it with as much force as it should be. The original xbox could be one of the reasons as it still has a lot of life left. There are not enough new features on xbox360 for me. Agreed that TopSpin2 will be available only on xbox360 but I can wait easily till the second price drop. It will eventually be ported to other systems too as MS does not own PAM, the studio that makes TopSpin, anymore. But I am not crazy enough to wait for 24+hrs in a line just to be one of the first to buy a 360.

I am crazy enough to do that for Nintendo Revolution though.

This is the second reason why I have decided to postpone the verdict on xbox360. Xbox360 has the same old gametypes with better graphics (only if you own a HDTV) and an ability to turn that into a media player. BUT, I have always believed that a game console should concentrate only on one aspect: Games. I do not want a PC for my living room or basement. I want the interaction, I want lots of "That felt so cool" moments. I use cable TV and music system to experience the non-interactive "That looked/sounded so cool" moments. What does xbox360 give me regarding that over original xbox?

Nintendo seems to get it the best for next generation console. Add to it the ability to download and play the complete Nintendo library till date and I am sold. For those who do not know, the controller is the most interesting thing about Revolution.

People remotely interested in Game Consoles should browse:

IGN takes Revolution Controller for a Joyride

Nintendo Revolution Controller Teaser Video

IGN's Nintendo Revolution FAQ

Till then, I will continue to buy (now cheap) and play and enjoy games on my xbox.

Numero Uno

2005-12-08T13:25:00.000-05:00

Just had a heavy Mexican lunch at a "hole in a wall" authentic Mexican place. Cost a little more than $5 and should last till tomorrow morning.

A big snow-storm is headed this way and we can officially go home. I am car-pooling with my wife and as a result I am stuck until she is done. So I will have to postpone the plan of sitting in basement with masala chai on a snowy afternoon; sipping it while I am respawning.

Anyway, I am yet to write about rest of our trip and I will do that later. The point of this post was I was doing some egobrowsing and guess what I found.

My blog is the first google hit for "Welcome Aboard The Black Pearl". I am not sure how long it will last but I am sure enjoying it. Thanks to everybody who is directly or indirectly responsible for it.

And yes, it has started snowing finally!

The Return of Weekender

2005-12-03T11:05:00.000-05:00

These are some of the puzzles that we attempted from American Airlines Flight magazine.

Let's warm up:

1. Fill up the blanks with words synonymous to the meanings on left and right.

Form of Precipitation -------- Greeting
Part of a Wheel -------- Uttered
Uniion Term -------- Assault
Allow -------- A License

2. Another Lap.

K N I T
N - - -
I - - -
T - - -

Fill in this 4X4 Matrix with 3Es, 2As, 2Ds, 1M and 1O to have valid words Down and Across. 9 Blanks and 9 Letters.

3. "How much I love thee? Let me count the ways."
The answer to this is hidden in the following grid. Start with any letter and complete the sentence, the next letter would be adjacent to this letter in *any* direction. When you finish the sentence you would have travelled the whole grid.
(I could not change the font to equal-width one, so it might be better if you write these letters in a grid yourself on a piece of paper.)

A L C F Y R O
T U L O I R S
O A Y R G P S
R C M T O O O

Hint: Do you need one hint or O hints?

Travelogue: Day1

2005-12-01T09:11:00.000-05:00

In my last post I had mentioned 200+ pictures of the trip and hinted at 250+. How wrong I was! I had completely underestimated the trigger fingers and the fact that I had set the camera to click at second highest resolution and had purchased another memory card for this trip.

The total number of snaps is more than 500.

Lets talk about Day 1. Wednesday, the 23rd of November.

Ideally, we should have packed our bags on the weekend. We did that on Tuesday night (insert BITS flashbacks here). Ideally I should have finished recording songs for the trip latest by Monday. I took care of the last album on Tuesday night. What's the big deal? We were supposed to leave the next day, right? A small detail: Our flight was at 6:30 am on Wednesday from Lexington (1.25 hrs away from our place, don't blame me, blame priceline). We finished packing around 11:30 pm and then I started going through the camera manual and packed the camera and the chargers and the tripod that I would carry with me like a blackCat carries his semi-automatic. (Well Friends and Family ended up holding it for a big chunk of time too. Thanks everyone).

So by the time I could sleep it was midnight and we had to leave by 4:00 am, so I did the obvious thing.

I played xbox (halo2) for the next 1.5 hrs. Haven't been playing lately so it felt great.

We managed to leave by 4:00 am and reached Lexington around 5:20 or so. We parked in the long term parking lot and in that dazed state, I left the map-light of the car on. When we were waiting for the AAA guy to show up after our return to jumpstart the car, mom mentioned that she had told me about the light but in that sleep deprived state I had told her that it will switch off automatically in a minute or so. Our RAV4 lights do not work that way. I really needed some sleep.

Our flight was via Chicago and this means only one thing. Flight delays! ...and gate changes. We met my sister's brother-in-law, Mithilesh, and his wife at the airport. They also spent the thanksgiving weekend at Vegas. We were supposed to reach Vegas at 11:00 am local time but we reached at 12:40 or so. We ignored our request for a full sized car, took a convertible, tried to fit in our luggage and ourselves, returned it and took the full sized car.

We drove through the strip and we were off to San Diego. We hit a high traffic patch for about 20 miles near SanDiego but otherwise the drive was smooth... and fast. We checked in our hotel around 8:30 or so, postponed all plans of going to the heated pool and slept like a log.

The fun would begin tomorrow.

I don't have any pictures of day 1 right now, so here are a couple of misc ones.

This is where we stayed in San Diego. It is technically a "Resort" but they have stretched the definition. I am not complaining as we could not spend any time at the hotel anyway.

Beach ke beech mein shooting each other.

Back to Base

2005-11-29T20:28:00.000-05:00

We are back in Louisville after a six day trip to San Diego and Vegas.
(I replied in the comments section of last post BTW)

There were quite a few things that I want to write about, a few hiccups but overall it was GREAT!

I certainly felt bad to miss the last ODI at Mumbai but thankfully it was compensated as I had to miss the Kolkata fiasco. Anyway, all's well that ends well.

We have about 200+ pictures (no typo there, I think it might even be 250+) of the trip and about 90 min of video. I have to understand the whole downloading and editing of video so it will take some time. It would be difficult to load the video anyway. Pictures would be easy.

The top picture is the one I took from our hotel room. I had exposed it for 8 seconds if I remember correctly. The green building is the MGM casino and you can see the sign of Monte Carlo.

Here are a couple more snaps. The second one is with DP and Vijay at Hoover Dam.

Before And After

2005-11-20T18:29:00.000-05:00

My Zen Meditation Garden, Before and After.

Cool Links ... Again

2005-11-10T14:54:00.000-05:00

Wonder how quick you are? Try this. (Select a new game and Use arrow keys to move the circle into the square without touching the moving balls.)

Sue you!!

New Harry Potter would be here in 8 days and I am looking forward to it.

I play WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire on GSN.com while watching the show on GSN nowadays. It is fun and you get to know how long the person is going to take to answer the question.

We watched Crash(2004) and Interpreter(Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn) last weekend and liked both movies. Crash was the better one.

I M B O R E D

Weekender #3

2005-11-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

It's a simple one this week. Simple but fun. I am sure a few readers would appreciate the "user interface" ;)

The puzzle is at:
http://freeweb.siol.net/danej/riverIQGame.swf

Object:
Get everyone across the river.

How to Start:
Click on link above, and then click on the big blue circle.
Everybody has to cross the river.

How to play:
To move the people click on them.
To move the raft click on the pole on the opposite side of the river.

The following rules apply:

Only 2 persons on the raft at a time

The father can not stay with any of the daughters, without their mother's presence.

The mother can not stay with any of the sons, without their father's presence.

The thief (striped shirt) can not stay with any family member, if The Policeman is not there.

Only the Father, the Mother and the Policeman know how to operate the raft.

Before you think of some smart comments on the rules, remember that this seems to be a Japanese mind teaser. I did not make up the rules.

Let me know how many river crossings you needed for this.

For people looking for more challenge,

Can you arrange 1 2 3...9 with - and + (as many or as few) in between them to make 100.

This is an old one but do you know how many ways are there to achieve this?

valid ways

12 - 3 + 45 - 67..... etc

invalid ways

123-54+... (digits out of sequence).

Here's one more picture. This one is from our last year's trip to Niagara.

His Coloring Book

2005-11-03T04:33:00.000-05:00

It is 4:15 am and I just got up to check the score and now watching Dravid and Venu. It would be great to win this one too.

I shrunk a few pictures so that I can upload them quickly here, there are a quite a few more but these ones are from Louisville.

This year the colors are here a little late because of longer summer, less rain, a combination of these two or more factors. I don't care, I just love the fact that they are here. We were at the Smokies last weekend. The colors had not peaked over there but we could still see nice patches. I will upload pictures from our hike to Laurel Falls pretty soon.

A couple days ago I took a wrong turn and was forced to go through a mile or two long stretch with such beautiful trees.

I cannot take credit for these photos as I did not have my camera then. But Swapna could drive today through the same area with my parents and all these pictures are taken either by her or my dad.

The Official Reaction

2005-11-02T10:10:00.000-05:00

When India lost the match against Australia in the last world cup without giving a fight, people were Angry. They threw stones and black paint on players' homes. They burnt effigies.

When Ganguly was not selected for the ongoing ODIs against SL, people were Angry.They burnt effigies of selectors and of Chappell.

We lost 60+ innocents in another terrorist attack in Delhi and these effigy-burners seem to be on vacation.

Our official reaction, by the Prime Minister, is that we continue to be disturbed and dismayed.

I am impressed by this toughest possible reaction, I am sure we will be able to avoid further problems if we can provide a medical certificate that our PM was emotionally scarred and a couple of ministers had to use anti-depressents. Maybe Laloo wore a black armband while enjoying the cricket matches. Jayalalitha skipped the early morning dessert for a week. Shiv Sena called for a Mumbai bandh and yes, a bunch of people demanded the resignations of each other.

Meanwhile, there was another blast in Srinagar.

Happy Diwali

2005-11-01T11:02:00.000-05:00

Happy Diwali to you and family.

And yes, May India win 7-0 against SL!

Fox spin

2005-10-31T15:55:00.000-05:00

It's Diwali for the fortunate but not for those whose family members were killed while finishing their Diwali shopping in Delhi.

I never watch FoxNews as it might give me hypertension at this age. But on Saturday I happened to catch the coverage of the Delhi Blasts on Fox News.

For the uninitiated, Fox news calls itself "Fair and Balanced" but is disgustingly biased towards the republicans and policies of GWBush. And that means they cannot blame Pakistan openly.

Here is how they reported it:

1. This seems to be the work of a local terrorist group, LeT.

The uninformed people would think that LeT has headquarters on the outskirts of Delhi. The fact that this group (amongst others) is actively financed by pakistan was obviously not mentioned.

2. Road Reporter: "There seems to be more to it."
Anchor : " Gee..Do you think it might be Al Qaeda?"
RR (from a script probably): " No. It might be Iran. India recently messed with Iran by siding with US on the IAEA issue."

MASTERSTROKE!! Basically, divert the whole attention away from Pakistan. Blame Iran and use this in future to make a case of War Against Iran.

3. Get this. The only mention of Pakistan was in a positive light.
"Govt of Pakistan has expressed its deepest sympathies. India and Pakistan are moving ahead with the peace process. India has even agreed to open borders blah blah blah"'

Do people at Fox really think that they are making world a safer place by reporting news this way?

PS: Axe, do you seriously think that there is a chance that no Pakistani is involved in this?

Delhi Blasts

2005-10-29T10:14:00.000-04:00

I was about to send the weekender when I saw this news. I just don't feel like posting the weekender for this week. We will do it next week.

This is what we get after helping people trapped in bunkers. I cannot even begin to ..

The Mumbai Saint

2005-10-28T23:57:00.000-04:00

Sometime back I had mentioned that Dixie and I watched a movie called "Boondock Saints". The movie goes moves around a bit before settling in a pattern: The Two brothers, main guys, nicknamed Boondock Saints by the media, take a job to kill a bunch of bad guys. They arrive fully armed to do their job, we don't see them do anything, next thing we see is a crime scene full of dead bodies and this detective, played by William Dafoe, finds clues and recreates the crime. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The last time that he recreates the scene, he sings. By that time he is convinced that these guys are doing some good work and it is a nicely choreographed sequences where he sings and dances, almost praising them, and the Boondock Saints annihilate their enemies in the background as he narrates.

If you haven't seen Sachin bat in the last two ODIs against SL, you would not know why I remembered this. After watching his innings, it was difficult to put that experience in words. But then there is always Harsha and his art of writing.

I could not have put it better than this. Enjoy the Article! For added effect, imagine that straight defensive push racing to the boundary or that paddle shot off Vaas or the way he greeted Murali today with two consecutive boundaries, stepping out and hitting the first one over the bowler's head.

Hey I got some pictures:
The Sweet Sweep (notice, no Wk ..this was to Vaas)
Hello Mr. Muralitharan, remember me?

Dravid as a captain is just what the doctor ordered and he and the rest of the team are going to rock. I watched live cricket after a long time and I kid you not, it was better than winning a 50-49 Team Slayer Halo game.

Leak

2005-10-26T20:51:00.000-04:00

Nah.. I am not talking about the CIA leak from the white house.

Yesterday, we had a leak in our house. In the evening we heard the dreadful "dib...dib...dib" and then, get this, I saw water coming out of an electrical outlet. We switched off the power to the living room and the leak stopped when we switched off the main water supply.

Mario came in the morning promptly and found that the upstairs basin had a lose nut. The water was coming through the wall and falling on the box that enclosed the sockets. Mario mentioned that this could have happened because of vibrations.

Do you know what this means?

It means only one thing..yes you guessed it.. MY SUBWOOFER WORKS!!! :)

A couple of pictures from our Saturday drive.

It was the first time I found a cat "cute". She was roaming in a state park. A little camera shy though.

The colors are coming. One of the best natural phenomenon. Someone up there loves spray-painting.

Weekender #2

2005-10-22T01:39:00.000-04:00

ERRATA: JKK has been changed to CKK. Sorry for the typo.
I will try to continue these until there are two consecutive weekenders that nobody attempted.

As some of you might recall (all three of you I mean), I was planning on a word puzzle. I wrote it down on a piece of paper when we were waiting for food in an Ethiopian restaurant (we waited 50 min but the food was great.) Anyway, I lost that paper. I will try to find it tonight and maybe add to this, so watch this space for updates.

Two questions this week:

1. Find the word(s) that contain these sticky three-letter sequences.
The conditions:
a. These should not begin or end the word.
b. These must be together(sticky).
c. No plurals.

e.g. If the Sequence is T-R-E, You cannot answer TREe or CenTRE(rule a)
and sTRipEd is not a solution either (rule b). A good answer here would be sTREet.

Ofcourse, most sequences will have more than one solution, so have fun.

KET

ENC

OWA

RST

KEN

EGI

RGA

LCR

ERJ

CKK

2. This is a real world problem.. not a problem but something that we realized the other day when we were walking in downtown. The convention center next to our office has an elevator that moves between its two floors.

Along with the usual emergency buttons, it has buttons like "Floor 1", "Floor 1.5", "door close" and "door open". If we consider *just the current way* it is being used(no future expansion etc.), how can we make it more efficient? Should we rename the buttons? Can we get rid of any button/functionality and/or replace it with something else?

Fantastix

2005-10-21T09:55:00.000-04:00

Mom and Dad are with us and yes, that means we got a lot of goodies.

Axe's Asterix post brought back those memories : I would be reading these comics in a corner, laughing to myself and people around me would be unable to understand what those books could possibly have to trigger these reactions. The last time I read a bunch of Asterix was when I was at Dixie's place. So I asked Dad to get me some Asterix.

With the three books that he brought, I have started to collect them once again. BTW, the shop where he got it from had to dig deep to find them as they are not in demand nowadays (thanks to ZEE/Sony/Playstations I guess). That shop had only 3 of them and since my dad knows the owner, he got a discount. How much you ask.. well he paid INR225 for 3 of them.. that is right!! 3 Asterix for $5. WHEEEEE!!

My nephew (7 year old) wanted Tintin DVDs and I got copies for myself too. About Tintin books, I have all of those 3 in 1 sets of Tintin + lake of sharks and I am pretty content with my Tintin collection. The whole collection is still safe in India though, I don't even trust myself with it. Someday I will try for the ones that were never published in English and transfer or duplicate all the English books here too.

When I get home, I will upload the pictures of Asterix cover pages.

Speechless by CNN??

2005-10-18T14:38:00.000-04:00

Can't be speechless when I can blog, can I? :)

From a CNN article

"Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday urged India to allow the people of divided Kashmir to help each other deal with the disaster. India agreed with rare speed."

Is this backstabbing leader going to *urge* India to act in the best interest of human beings? Is the leader of a nation that has been exporting terrorists for more than a decade going to ask India to *allow* people to help each other?

I request CNN not to repot matters that are totally alien to them. Stick to your live telecast of Gulf Wars.

This is after India was one of the first nations to offer aid to Pakistan.

This is after Pakistan rejected India's initial offer of aid and literally begged for aid on TV to other nations. I saw this on TV, Musharraf and Shaukat were short of a katora. They even had to beg to their own contrymen. Pity!! Click here for a possible reason for this.

This is after Musharraf planned Kargil when Vajpayee and team were having tea on the friendship bus to Lahore.

The article is dated October 18th. Why isn't there any mention of this? Wasn't that how Pakistan reacted to "speedy aid" from India.

Kutte ki dum kabhi seedhi nahi hogi.

#1 Solved

2005-10-18T09:05:00.000-04:00

Anon has posted the correct Solution to weekender #1. I hope I don't manage any confusing wordings anymore. The solution is in comments of the weekender #1 post.

The next weekender will be some word puzzle.

And I am watching Season 5 of Sopranos, the only Soap that I watch and the coolest one there is.

In news,Australia won the SuperTest convincingly and now ICC is not sure if the SuperSeries will happen again or not.

Congratulations to Rahul Dravid who became a father and was chosen to lead Team India for the next two series. Excellent week for him.

And for some unknown reason I feel like mentioning that Anand is the first Amitabh movie that I watched.

Weekender #1

2005-10-13T10:40:00.000-04:00

Update Added at the bottom of the post.

We used to have weekender puzzles in BITS. Every weekend, there would be puzzles posted on mess notice board along with the names of the winners of the last week. Fun times!

We do it sporadically on our mailing list. I hope to be more regular as finding newer and cool puzzles is not that easy. I found one though:

You have a chess-board *grin*. You have a rectangle whose longest side is shorter than a side of this board. You place this rectangle randomly on this chess board with just one condition: Sides of the rectangle have to be parallel to the sides of the chess-board.

Now the question:
What is the condition that needs to be satisfied to ensure that the rectangle has equal amounts of both colors(black and white) inside it?

Update:

Maybe this was a little confusing puzzle for weekender #1. Here is a little clarification and what exactly I am looking for.

Ok. There are two types of rectangles that satisfy this.

Type A rectangle can be placed anywhere with sides parallel to chessboard grid and it will satisfy the condition.

Type B rectangle needs to be placed in a certain way on the board as randomly placing it cannot include equal amount of black and white in all cases.

What is a Type A rectangle?
What is a Type B rectangle and what is the extra condition for Type B?

I should not have used the word random in the original post as it is true only for half of the rectangles. I hope this clarifies it.

Tag board deleted

2005-10-10T09:50:00.000-04:00

I am going to delete the tag-board. It is triggering pop-ups from my blog. I use firefox that was blocking the pop-ups but I used to get that message that a pop-up has been blocked. But not everybody uses the pop-up block feature and the tag-board is not very useful to overshadow this annoyance.

Maybe I will write something on my own someday or *shudder* pay for the service.

Meanwhile, enjoy this Honda Ad is you haven't. Don't forget to read the description.

Or Appreciate the balance.

Or Read about this research on US Postal Service.

Aussies win the Super Series

2005-10-09T11:19:00.000-04:00

It can be argued that Aussies were playing for a place in the team/to retain their place etc. But the way Shane Watson ran Sehwag out reminded me of Inzy's runout by Jonty.

If India has to make a serious attempt to reach the top of the table, the team needs to reach this sort of commitment and the desire to win. Australians also do have regionalistic attitudes but end up selecting the best team and once they are in their baggy greens, they play as if their lives depend on it.

As a start, Indian team needs to concentrate on one thing: Cricket!

Darwin Awards Hopefuls

2005-10-08T10:48:00.000-04:00

Aaj Tak is showing home video clips in which people captured Earthquake tremors. There were three clips shown.

1. A boy 7-8 year old sitting on a sofa. His dad captured him and the swinging chandelier and the fan above this kid. The kid says something and then the man is heard asking his son to go out while he keeps videoshooting. This clip of 5 seconds ( I counted) was shown 9 times (for 45 seconds) consecutively.

Now if you are in a house experiencing earthquake tremors what would you do:

A. Take your kids and run out to safety.
B. Keep video-shooting the swinging chandeliers and fans.

2. Next video was of swinging chandelier for 3 seconds showing for 1 minute and the guy says " Look a (sic) earthquake.".. as is he is sight-seeing. " Look Eiffel Tower."

3. The third was more realistic. Three friends are sitting on sofa. There is a coffee table in front. Suddenly tremors start and and the guy who is in the middle suddenly stands up, jumps over the table and runs out. He actually used the guy on his right to propel himself forward (grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back to go forward). Maybe I should say "three people" and not "three friends".

All the channels are showing what you should do when Earthquake hits. My wife just made an excellent point that we should show these tips after news or some other time also. Its hardly of any use when the main thing has come and gone. People might forget all these tips by the time they are really needed.

( They just showed some politicians using this opportunity to kiss some a*. One minister actually said that he thought it was the effect of the Prime Minister's earth shaking speech. You are getting that portfolio that you always wanted.)

Earthquake October 8th

2005-10-08T10:24:00.000-04:00

A 7.4-7.6 Earthquake hit parts of India and Pakistan today. I never knew Kashmir was in Earthquake zone (it is a high risk zone BTW). But nowadays that does not matter. Natural disasters hit anywhere anytime, not only at places under the highest risks.

Precisely at the time when tremors were being felt in Kashmir, I was watching Bill Maher on HBO (more on him later). The panel included Salman Rushdie too. I do not remember his comment verbatim but he happened to say how God is unhappy with the kind of people who are loving him nowadays. He said that God must be in a very bad mood and if he was God, he would feel like destroying something. A scary thought!

I hope Indian Govt. leaves no stone unturned in helping the people of our Jammu and Kashmir. This is a tragic situation but we might not get another chance to prove to locals which Government cares more for them. They must go all out and exceed all expectations of people.

24 Hour News Channels

2005-10-07T10:03:00.000-04:00

A couple of days back DISH network added two more Indian channels to our package. "Aaj Tak" and "Headlines Today". So we have three round the clock Indian news channels now. The third being "Sahara Samay".

Most of us still remember the times when the daily 8:40p and 9:30p news in their monotonous format were enough for us. Domestic Politics first (Rajiv and Sonia waving while boarding a plane) then other domestic then International news and then Sports to end with (to be watched only if India won that day or someone took an excellent catch). The news channels are magnitudes better than what we had then since they are not all influenced by the ruling party unlike those in pre-cable era.

BTW, DD was/is so much under government control that I remember they were screening movie "Khoon Bhari Maang" once. Suddently in the second half the movie stopped making sense at times. It felt very disjoint as if they missed a reel. The explanation was in the next day's newspapers. They had cut all the scenes of one actor, Shatrughan Sinha, who plays the "good guy". Reason: he was contesting in the upcoming elections and that could influence the public opinion. Ofcourse he was (and still is not) from the ruling party. I guess it was a valid concern where people have elected Govinda based solely on his star appeal.

Anyway, back on topic: now since you have to report "news" for 24 hrs, you do two things:

1. You repeat the news till the viewers get sick of it. You repeat the news till the viewers get sick of it. You repeat the news till the viewers get sick of it. . well..you get the idea.

2. You create news.

I am quite familiar with #2 here in US. If it is a slow news week, suddenly there are Shark Attacks on the front page. Thanks to GW, we haven't had a slow news week for sometime now and as a result everyone is safe from Sharks.

Indian news channels (I am watching them regularly after a gap of 5 years so cut me some slack) are trying their hands at #2. *Every* news session has a story of some domestic violence in a remote village. If not that, then the other day there was a news when the reporters in a "sting" operation caught a corrupt *clerk* red handed.

In a country where Politicians literally get away with murder we are reporting corrupt clerks?? A guy who probably makes 5-6K a month accepts a bribe and it is national news?? Surely there are other big fish to be caught. There was a nationwide raid by ACB last week. How about giving us the names of the suspects and the list of the properties?

I am not doubting anybody's (news channels) intentions. A huge number of people are working towards making India and world a better place to live. Do we start at the bottom and work our way to the top or clean up the top and work our way to the bottom. We cannot ignore the latter.

BTW, Lalloo Prasad still makes me laugh even before he opens his mouth. Today I saw him holding a real wall-clock with a swinging pendulum and he was telling in his own style how RamVilas Paswan is like that pendulum. "Yeah Paswan bilkul iss Pendulum ki tarah hain.".. ( then he points his finger at the Pendulum and moves it with that).. "Na idhar hain na udhar hain".
[Paswan is like this Pendulum, he is neither here nor there]

I don't know who got that clock for him but it definitely gave me US-Election2004 flashbacks. Rove would have loved this analogy to describe Kerry.

Tag Board Added

2005-10-06T09:10:00.000-04:00

I have added a Message board at the bottom right. This is in case you want to leave messages that are not related to any blog posts. We can have an asynchronous chat session through this.

I used the one provided by http://www.tag-board.com/

I do not want to clutter the page but I believe you will have to scroll down to view it unless you have a gigantic monitor so it does not look bad at the first sight.