Keep Away From The Cyanide

Kapil Sabat is an Idiot

2011-12-06T16:31:00.000+05:30

I urge you to write KAPIL SIBAL IS AN IDIOT as your Facebook status message, use the hashtag #IdiotKapilSibal on Twitter, and write a blog post with the above title, because there may soon be a day when he may prevent you from doing so.

Read the full post here:
http://kafila.org/2011/12/06/kapil-sibal-is-an-idiot/

It's monday

2011-10-03T15:15:00.001+05:30

It's Monday. This is what monday does to me.

Invert scroll?

2011-07-22T00:02:00.001+05:30

So Mac OSX Lion has been released, and they (they did not just do that!!) reversed the mouse scroll.

So fine, we have spent well over 25 years learning to scroll one way. And all of a sudden, Stevie boy says that we have been doing it wrong all along.

Incidentally, I was thinking about scrolling a week ago. My parents always insist I am going “down” when they see the page going “up”. So I suppose all these years, we have been controlling the scroll bar on the page, not the page itself. Apple calls it “natural scrolling”

It might be a bit disorienting at first, but it does make a lot of sense now, and my dad has completely stopped wondering why the page is going in the opposite direction!

I see sense in it, and now, I shall try to live with inverted scroll for a week. How? The internet shall provide for me!!

Step 1: Download and install Auto Hotkey Basic from here.

Step 2: Download and run the mouse inversion script from http://www.howtogeek.com

Click here to download the script.

Step 3: Double click the script file to run it. you will have an icon in your system tray to remind you that from now on, Up is Down, and Down is Up! :D

Bomb Blasts in Bombay. aka Mumbai.

2011-07-13T19:24:00.001+05:30

Star news. 3 Bomb Blasts in Bombay just a while ago. Zaveri Bazaar, Oepra house, and a taxi in Dadar. Over 100 injured reported so far. Seen on Star News.

Stay safe!

EDIT: 4th at Roxy Theatre just reported.

EDIT 2: 7:48pm

Here’s a link to a live TV stream reporting the same

http://ibnlive.in.com/livetv/

Magic the Gathering 2012 OCTGN sets (unofficial low res)

2011-07-12T23:42:00.001+05:30

So do you like playing Magic The Gathering? Itching to try the new Magic 2012 deck? You can, if you have octgn. If you've been using it already, the stuff you want is at the end of this post.

Well, while the awesome devs are still making the hi res cards for the official release of the Magic 2012 cards, you can still try out the unofficial release. This is the Magic 2012 card set for octgn. If you play it, you know what it is.

Download Link: http://bit.ly/pJ6Gbn

It took me a while to track this down, so I thought I would post it on my blog to make finding it easier now.

Enjoy! ^_^

Edit: 31July2011: Replaced dead link with working link.

Migrate from Facebook to Google Plus. Here’s how.

2011-07-05T23:46:00.003+05:30

So Google's new Social networking website Google + is the hottest new thing in town. A lot of people are in. And a vast majority of them, like me are looking to move in permanently.

Tired of Facebook? Bored of all the 97% Spam? Don’t want to click the suspicious link of an underclothed girl that’s on your mom’s profile? Out of your mind deleting requests from farmer and mafia wannabes? Google Plus seems like a haven now, doesn’t it?

The biggest thing that Facebook has going for it right now are the photo albums. Posts, comments and other blurbs are but random things that won’t really hold as much nostalgic value for me, as do my photographs. And with over 3500 photographs uploaded to Facebook, it’s no easy task shifting them all to g+. But as it turns out, it was.
As it turns out, Facebook lets you download all your private data on their servers in a neat zip file. Mine was about 450 MB. That was all the photographs I have ever uploaded, my notes, my posts and all the comments on them, as well as the latest version of my profile page. Here’s how I downloaded all my photos and data off Facebook, without violating their terms and conditions (which discourage use of third party tools and scripts from downloading data en masse from their servers) The action happens at www.facebook.com/download, and picasa desktop http://picasa.google.com.

Here is a step by step guide with screenshots of how I did it.
Step 1:
Log into Facebook with your account.
-----------------------------

Step 2:
Go to the top right hand side of your Facebook page. Click on “Account Options.”

Click on image to enlarge
-----------------------------

Step 3:
Click on “Download Your Information”

Click on image to enlarge
-----------------------------

Step 4:
You will now be at www.facebook.com/download Click on the download button. You might get a popup like this.

Click on the Download Button once again. And wait. It takes a few hours, usually. But if you miss the email, and Facebook makes a new backup of your data, you’ll have to start this process over again.
-----------------------------

Step 5:
Once you get an email from Facebook announcing the readiness of your download, follow the link, and validate yourself. You will be asked to

a. Enter your password
b. recognise your facebook friends from tagged images of them. If you’re the sort who adds people without really knowing them, then you might have trouble here. You’re allowed two skips at this stage.

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

Step 6:
Once you validate yourself, the download will begin. Be advised that download managers will not work here. If the download times out, you will have to restart the download from your email or from www.facebook.com/download.
-----------------------------

Step7:
Celerbate! You how have a local copy of your Facebook data! Just unzip them photos to a place you will remember. I created a folder in My Pictures called “FB Photos”

Now that you have all your images, the best way to get them on your g+ profile is via Picasa. Picasa now offers unlimited storage for images below 2048x2048. It’s safe to say that all photos uploaded to Facebook have been subjected to compression that will make them fit this specification, so you do not have to worry about using up your storage space in Picasa web albums.
-----------------------------

Step 8:
Download Picasa desktop from: http://picasa.google.com/
Once the software is installed and set up, run it, and let it scan your computer for images. You tech savvy kids might want to use the folder manager to specify which folders to scan and which to ignore. Incase you missed the setup, you can find the folder manager in Tools > Folder Manager. Make sure not to exclude the place where you’ve saved your Facebook photos!

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

Step 9:
Once Picasa is done sniffing your Images, you will find a folder corresponding to every Facebook album you have uploaded. You can click on each folder to view it’s contents. Now begins the difficult part.

Click on image to enlarge.

The top right side of every folder has a toggle to “Sync with Webalbums”. Set this toggle to “On” for all the image folders you want to upload to your Picasa web albums account. I don’t quite remember what settings I’d but remember to set the image size to anything Less than 2048x2048 pixels.
-----------------------------

Step10:
Wait. If you have a lot of photos, Picasa will take a while to upload them all. Once your images are uploaded, you can check them out in your Google Plus Profile. You can set their privacy as you want, and share them with your friends!

Hope you enjoy shifting to Google Plus as much as I have!

New Musics

2011-04-29T09:21:00.000+05:30

ATB's out with a new Album!! :D

Distant Earth is ATB's 2011 Album.

I'm so happy to get ATB's new Album for 2011.

I'm getting Distant Earth by ATB today!!

I think I'm done posting about this now.

*back to mundane life*

An ode to her.

2011-04-10T13:18:00.001+05:30

Here's to you who fractures me
To you, the one who toyed with me
To you, always with your happy thoughts
To you, and the times I never forgot.

The one who's smiles enchant and thrill
The one who's promises are unbroken still
The one who never seemed to care
The one who never stopped to stare

You, with your seductive wink
You, who taught me how to think
The one who showed me how to love my life
Here’s to the girl who I could never survive

Take me there

2011-04-09T03:36:00.001+05:30

I need a new song in my head.

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Take me there

2011-04-09T03:32:00.001+05:30

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The cricket world cup

2011-04-02T21:00:00.000+05:30

Since the ICC cricket world cup 2011 is on, and today is the last day, and since I'm getting bored, I thought I would make a token blog post about it.

I'm not a cricket fan at all. I would just as easily have spent the day doing anything other than watch the match. But therein lies the problem. Almost everyone I know is watching the match. So I can either spend the day refreshing facebook and watch people post cricket updates, or I join the bandwagon and watch the match too.

So the match started. I got bored. I made cheese dip. We ordered a pizza. Ate it wit the cheese dip. Not a smart idea, in retrospect. :) Random chat overheard. Match fixing says Sachin will not get his 100, and India will win with 1 wicket and 3~4 runs in the last over.

Match fixing accusations aside, we're all wondering when that model chic will decide to not take her clothes off if the Indian cricket team won. Or have the moral brigade stoned her already?

Hmm.... back to the boredom now, I guess. :/

Facebook Group Chat on Mobile

2011-03-25T08:50:00.001+05:30

So I've been trying to figure out how to get group chat working on my HTC Desire Z / G2 Android phone. The only option I've found so far was using firefox fire android. But that's such a memory hog that even my phone starts running out of memory. So I'm tried of having to wait for a minute between application switching.

All other popular browsers don't support all the technology used to make facebook chat work. So what do I do now?

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Through the Fire and Flames we carry on....

2011-03-19T22:02:00.001+05:30

Purity.

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Harsha Bhogle on Sachin?

2011-03-16T11:39:00.000+05:30

http://twitter.com/bhogleharsha/status/47602900788183040

That link says it all. The article, as good as it is, has not been written by Harsha at all!

For those of you who missed it, here is the article:

Remember when you failed an examination. How many people recall that, your class, friends, relatives? You failed to make it to the IITs or IIMs. Who remembers. How many times have you had the feeling of being the best in your class, school , university, state….., you failed to get a visa stamped this quarter…, you missed a promotion this year…, how did it feel when you dad told you in your early twenties that you are good for nothing…..and now your boss tell you the same...

You keep introspecting and go into a shell when people most of whom don’t matter a dime in your life criticize you, back bite you, make fun of you. You are left sad and shattered and you cry when your own kin scoffs at you. You say I am feeling low today. It takes a lot from us to come out of these everyday situations and move on. A lot??? really?

Now here’s a man standing on the third man boundary in the last over of a world cup match. The bowler just has to bowl sensibly to win this game. What the man at the boundary sees is 4 rank bad bowls bowled without any sense of focus, planning or regret. India loses, yet again in those circumstances when he has done just about everything right.
He does not cry. Does not show any emotion. Just keeps his head down and leaves the field. He has seen these failures for 22 years now. And not just his class, relatives, friends but the whole world has seen these failures. We are too immature to even imagine what goes on in that mind and heart of his. That’s why I would never want to be Sachin.

True, he has single handedly lifted to moods of this entire nation umpteen number of times. He has been an inspiration to rise above our mediocrity. Nobody who has ever lifted the willow even comes close to this man’s genius. His dedication and metal strength is unparallel. This is specially for those people who would have made fun of him again last night when India lost. They are people who are mediocre in their own lives. Who just scoff at others to create cheap fun. Who have lived in a small hole throughout their lives and thought they have seen the oceans.

Think about the man himself. He is 37 years of age. He has been playing almost non stop for 22 years. The way he was running and diving around the field last night would have put 22 year olds to shame. The way he played the best opening quickies in the world was breathtaking. He just keeps getting better which is by the way humanly impossible. Its not for nothing that people call him GOD.
But still I don’t want to be in those shoes. We struggle in keeping our monotonous lives straight, lives which affect a limited number of people. Imagine what would be the magnitude of the inner struggle for him, pain both mental and physical, tears that have frozen with time, knees and ankles and every other joint in the body that is either bandaged or needs to be attended to every night, eyes that don’t sleep before a big game, bats that have scored 99 international tons and still see expectations from a billion people.

And he just converts those expectations into reality. We watch in awe, feel privileged.
Well I think its time that his team realizes that enough is enough. They have an obligation, not towards their country alone but towards sachin. They need to win this one for him. Stay assured that he himself will still deliver and leave no stone unturned to make sure India wins this cup.
This is not just a game, and he is not just a sportsman. Its much more than this. Words fail here.....

Bubble Toy - This One

2011-03-09T09:20:00.001+05:30

After a lot of hunting, I finally got the lyrics for the song. ^_^

*dances*

Here it is. Lyrics for Bubble Toy's This One, featured in Nicholas Cage's Bangkok Dangerous, in the 1st scene with the Coyote Dancers.

( Chorus)
One, is this one is yours
But, this one is mine
One, is good one is bad
But, this one is mine
Oh , this one is the best
And, this one is mine
Take a walk in the park
Cause, this one is mine

Bam , ba da da do bam bam (x8)

Once, you were mine, and I was delighted guy
Now , you are gone, and I am still asking why
You, went away, and left me without my toy
But, now I’ve found, a better one he’s my boy~~

(Chorus)

This, brand new toy, is better than any guy
So, you are gone, but I ’m not still askin’ why
It ’s, really fun, to play with this freaky boy
And, he is mine, he’s better than any toy ~~
( Chorus)

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Code Geass Bento

2011-03-01T12:49:00.001+05:30

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This is Bento. This is Lelouch. Guy from Code Geass. Rendered in all his edible glory. Epic food art, no?

Code Geass Bento

2011-03-01T12:48:00.000+05:30

Lelouch. In a box. But in a good way.

I've always kept forgetting about this, and when I wanted it, it wasn't there, so I'm finally putting it up on the blog. :)

I want a new gaming controller!

2011-02-28T10:50:00.002+05:30

I want a new controller for my games!!

In other news, this:

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SMS from desktop using your android phone?

2011-02-23T10:42:00.001+05:30

I love my Desire Z. It's probably the best qwerty phone on the market right now.

But one thing I've found missing, was a way to send SMSes from my desktop. Nokia PC suite and just about all other manufacturers had such features in their respective software. Android has no such software.

A bit of casual Google search made me narrow down on the most convenient solution.

Easy SMS.
Get it here > http://fireblade.org/EasySMS

It's got a decent web interface, and perfect for sending off random smses in the office when I can't be assed about actually reaching for my phone to do it. :)

Children of the Sky

2011-02-11T19:39:00.001+05:30

There's nothing quite as satisfying as unwinding at the end of the week with a good coffee. And it's awesome coffee, to boot. Someday, I shall set up an espresso bar of my own. And I'll try not to drink all my profits. :) But it shall be mine. With my own special recipes. And my trademark awesome sandwiches.
*sigh*
Now all I need is venture caapital. And cute girls. Never start a new busines venture without a cute girl. That's the best marketing strategy ever.

Weekend is drawing close. Plans shall be made and unmade. But what shall become of me? I have the nagging feeling I'm supposed to do something important this weekend, but for the life of me, can't quite remember what!

I think I'll stop rambling now. I've forgotten what this post was supposed to be about.

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The reason for hope

2011-01-23T22:12:00.001+05:30

May you find the song in your heart,
May you be strong from the very start,
In the black of the night to the brightest shining day,
Your love for life shall show you the way.

May your sleep bring no unpleasant dreams,
May your vision materialise the yet unseen,
May your actions reap the benefits you grew,
Your faith in good shall see your love through.

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Sweet Caffeine!

2011-01-07T00:33:00.002+05:30

Sweet Caffeine,
how you bend my mind so well!
Unearthly voices,
Strange sounds, like the death knell!
Dance dance dance
Hop away into oblivion!
Filler filler filler
Potato Cookies Beethoven Pizza oven!

P.S. Beans & Beyond at Borivali has THE absolute best Americano that I have ever had in my life!

Horny Lizard

2011-01-05T12:18:00.000+05:30

Horny Lizard. :/

iPod Bluetooth DUN tether

2010-12-08T00:07:00.000+05:30

You connect your Laptop to the internet using your phone. Ever wished you could do that with your iPod? Now you can.

Guide: http://hackstor.blogspot.com/2010/05/ibluever-107.html

warez: http://www.4shared.com/file/pA0Wq2kE/iBluever_118_Cracked.html

This made my life easier.

Now, I can use my phone as a bluetooth modem, and not worry about wasting my batter with wifi, which pretty much runs my phone battery down in 3 hours!!

I used the Update 4 entry. Works like a charm. If you get stuck, just reboot the device and continue with the next step, as simple as that!!

I am happy1!! :D

Paris, Eiffel Tower

2010-11-25T02:15:00.000+05:30

Today was a majorly king day. The last day of our tour. We saw the major landmarks around Paris. Then we saw them again on a boat sailing up and down the seine river.

Everything just looks so grand. It amazing how the ok'd architecture has been preserved and maintained. That's kind of the reason why most European countries have an otherworldly feel to them.

After the river cruise, in the wind on a semi cloudy day at 4 degrees temperature, I was glad to have the lunch arranged for us. Being an Indian tour, Indian food is on the menu, always. But the hot food felt good after the biting cold.

Oh and don't think I suffer as much as everyone else in this cold. I am only carrying a jacket that's lighter than your denim pants. That, and my hat. Which I seem to have forgotten on top of the Eiffel tower. :( I wanted to run up and get it but we were running late. :(

This evening was planned for the Paris gala night. It's optional, coz some people don't approve of topless women. If that was the case, it might explain why the old foggies in the bus frowned at me and my cousin when they saw we were goin for the show too. But that doesn't explain why they cane for the show in the first place. Even after the show was over, they were complaining like they always did about everything. Said they would rather have watched national circus in Mira road than spend 135 euro on a show that made them waste time and money and sleep. Stupid, ain't it?

As for my review of the show, we went to the Paradis Latin. It's one of the oldest cabarets in Paris. The show was alright. I'd seen a much better show on the superstar Virgo cruise I'd been on three years ago. This show was much more... Raw. It was more sexual then sensual. I'd expected a good peek a boo style choreographed performance. It was hardly anything more than some provocative dances, some romantic dances, some performance ballets, all with a few near naked people touching each other, and a lot of bare breasts and bums.

I suppose it's what this show is about. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but it could have been better.

The espresso I had before the show, the eroticism of the show itself, the champagne I had during the show, the half dreamy bus ride back to the hotel and the half bottle of wine I finished off right now has left me in a very happy restless mood.

After the show we stopped by the Eiffel tower at midnight to watch the lights. It sparkles at midnight everyday!! :D that's one image that's gonna be etched in my head for a long time now... :)

I'm off to sleep now. Tomorrow is a long day. Planning to spend about 3 hours in the Louvre, and I intend to make the most of it!!

Bruxelles

2010-11-24T02:18:00.000+05:30

I'm sitting here in the hotel room that's a good two hours away from Paris city centre. Sipping French wine. With Swiss cheese. Nibbling on Belgian chocolates.

The air is pleasantly chilly, and the music's not too bad. It's right now that I realize my trip is almost over.
In two more days, I'll be back to Bombay.
The last two days were rather boring. Most of it was spent in the bus. The visit to Koln was fun, but only because we had like two hours to ourselves. Enough time for lunch, and a bit of shopping too. ^_^ Koln Catherdal is another one of the most impressive buildings I saw on the trip. It’s a beautiful gothic structure over 15 stories tall!

The Christmas Market in front of the cathedral was fun. We had lots of yumm local food. Smoked salmon, meat loaf burger, hot spiced wine… Oh this wine was heavenly! I’d often read about hot spiced wines in my fantasy books, but never really thought about it till now. And I can see why the Heroes love it!

Today, we visited Brussels. And mini Europe. Brussels was fun, coz of the waffles and the nice walk near the mannekin pis statue. The waffles were yumm!! Mine was overflowing with whipped cream!
I'm tired after this trip. Tired of all the bus travel. Tired of the random food timings. Tired of not being online. But as tired as I am, I have a feeling I'll be going back to Europe sometime. On my own terms.
It's time to go to sleep now. We have a long day ahead. I shall finish my wine and sleep. ^_^

Black Forest, Cake.

2010-11-22T01:54:00.000+05:30

Mihir had the most awesomest cake today. It was a black forest cake. It was so awesome, Mihir decided to type this letter in third person. The cake was perfectly drenched in cherry liquor, not too soggy, not too dry, not too intense, not too watery… it was delicious and moist. And it had the most amazing cream layer that tasted of just a hint of cherry… and the real cherries in the cake were pickled in the cherry liquor, and oh my god it was heavenly heaven heaven heaven.
Mihir never had any respect for Black Forest cake before. Now he does. He knows better now. He knows there is no better cake than Black Forest Cake.

Today was the day they got out of Switzerland. The first stop was at Schauffhausen, near the German-Swiss border. It is a tiny town, that's built on the banks of the river rhine, around the rhinefalls.
Next, they visited a cuckoo clock factory, also near the border, but on the German side. Mihir has never felt as happy about being on the road as he was today, because he found out that on the Autobahn, there no speed limits for private cars. None what so ever. Cool, ne?
The clock factory was fun. Mihir never thought he would enjoy looking at clocks so much. Intact, he even bought a neat alarm clock for himself today, so that he can wake up at 3 am when he needs to. Smart, he hopes.
Next stop was Heidelburg. They saw the neat old buildings, and the old house now turned into a hotel where Hitler used to live.
The town is cute because it's largely student village and lots of cute kids my age were strolling around. Mihir thinks he must come back in summer.
Mihir found what can only be described as chocolate covered shortbread cookie balls. It was shortbread cookies rolled into a ball, baked, and then drenched in molten chocolate. It was yum. Mihir wonders why noone's thought of it yet.
Mihir fell asleep typing this post. :(
Mihir only has about 30 minutes of time left in the Internet, so he is going to cut this post short, and write more next time.

Jungfraujoch

2010-11-21T01:53:00.000+05:30

Today is the day I felt cold. Officially. It took a temperature of
negative 12 degrees Celsius, and a wind speed of 45 km/h during a snow
fall to make me feel it. It's not fun when my fingers are going numb.
I can't take photos then!!
The ride to jungfrau was long. Two hours to the village at the bottom
of the mountain. Then two train rides about 45 minutes each. But it
was soooooooo pretty. And as luck would have it, it snowed on the
top!! Did you pray for it to snow for me? If you did, it worked. ;)
The snow is white. The snow is fluffy. The snow is cold. It was
awesome. :) it was so cold I had to buy a cap to cover my ears. >_<
There's not much to write about being 11k feet above sea level. It's
more about being there to see it, feel the snow on your face, feel the
wind clawing through the two layers of clothing I was wearing. It was
bloody brilliant. :D
Everyone was commenting on how even I was feeling cold, along the
lines of, "how the mighty have fallen". I shut them up after a while.
My body started burning up enough for me to take my jacket off in the
train on the way down. :P
After jungfrau, we went to Interlaken. Literally translates as
"between lakes" it's a tiny city surrounded buy mountains and two
lakes. It's a shopping location. The most expensive brands I know all
have boutiques there. It was totally unexpected. But I enjoyed it. We
got like an hour and half to ourselves there. But sadly enough, the
city closes at about 5 pm. Winter timings and all that. We picked up
some chocolates, and I bought myself a Swiss knife. I'm super happy
about it. Got it engraved with "taurius1". :D
We're on the bus, on our way back to the hotel in Zurich. Feeling
sleepies. And a horrible movie is being played on the tv screen in the
bus. >_<
It's still not sunk in that I'm in Europe. I thought it would be more
exciting. But I guess it's because I'm in a guided tour bus. :P
It's not just a thing in my head. I know how awesome traveling alone
is. Until I save up enough to do it, I'll keep the thought buried at
the back of my head. :)

Zurich

2010-11-20T01:48:00.000+05:30

It's cold!! My fingers are going numb in the wind outside!! It a
wonderful feeling!!
Today was a long day. First, we went to Pisa from our hotel in
Florence. That was a short enough ride. Pisa has not one, but three
important buildings. The leaning tower just takes away the thunder
from all the other monuments. I took lots of photos, but I don't think
they will come out too well... I'll have to decide once I get back
home.
After Pisa, we started off for Zurich. It was a long, long, long bus ride.
the tour guide tried to make it sound fun by telling us about the
scenic route, the river, and the third longest tunnel in the world,
the Gotthard road tunnel. I fail to see how 16 kilometers of endless
tunnel is exciting. Someone in the tour group even tried to film the
journey. He got tired after about 10 minutes.
We had our lunch at Autogrill. I had a huge steak. Took me 5 whole
minutes to make sure the person behind the counter understood my
order. I don't think anyone except for me, my cousin, and the couple
from the USA actually enjoyed the food. Everyone else was caught
munching on snacks bought from the supermarket. I believe the Jain
contingent decided to starve themselves.
During the bus ride, someone told the tour guide to play a DVD. So we
watched Bachna ae Haseeno, With English subs. It instantly turned from
a fail movie to a comedy. :D
At least with my music on my iPod, coupled with my super awesome 90%
noise canceling head phones, I didn't have to suffer the hindi
dialogues, and the cranky kids in the back of the bus.
The hotel in Zurich is super awesome. It's called the Novotel Hotel.
Very classy place. Even I feel intimidated by all the business people
here.
But the place is good, so I'm not gonna complain.
A hot shower did me a lot of good. There's something therapeutic about
standing with a hot shower hammering your head, imagining the dirt and
grime and bad moments of the day just washing off you and leaving you
clean and shiny. This, followed by the awesome sinking feeling of
falling back into a soft warm bed... *sigh*
Our room has a queen sized bed, and a sofa cum bed. I think the tour
guide might has messed up our room allocation, but don't tell him
that. ;)
I'm gonna spend the rest of my waking hours listening to my music. It
should be entertaining. I wonder what I will think of today... :)

Roma.

2010-11-19T01:46:00.000+05:30

Europe is cold. I love the weather here. I can't stop stressing I enough. And the cold is reason enough to have a little drink every evening. And a little alcohol never hurts. Unless you have zero tolerance for it.

Today was the visit to Rome and the Vatican. It was nice, but way too hurried. I really hate this tour business. We spend more time traveling than actually visiting places.

Highlight a Rome was the Trevie Fountain. We tossed a coin. We made our wishes. Then we went to a pizzeria and hogged. :D We carefully avoided the restaurant that the tour guide recommended, because we were sure it would be flooded with too many Indians asking for random things on the menu… I found a nice hat shop at the plaza, but stuff there was *WAY* too expensive. Rome over and done with, we got back into the bus and headed for the Vatican City. We passed by the Colloseum, and managed to convince them to let us stop there for photos for like 20 minutes. Thank heavens. Would have been tragic if we were forced to just drive by the thing!!

The Vatican City was not as impressive as I thought it would be. Maybe the rain played spoil sport and made me lose my feeling of awe at being there. It was beautiful, no doubt. But I still think the cathedral I saw at Florence was more pretty.

I ODed of coffee today. Made the bus ride more interesting. Had fun listening to my music.

People in Europe, or rather the parts of Italy I've been to, don't really seem to friendly. There's very few people on the streets who return smiles. But the places here all look beautiful. I guess for them, they would be used to it, and India looks beautiful. :P

I'd love to get out at night, but the problem is that our hotels are usually in the outskirts of the cities we are in. And the fact that everything shuts down by the time we get back to the hotel adds to our woes

I'd love to come back to Florence, or Venice, with someone, and just live there for a while, taking in yeh culture, not the guided tours.

Spain isn't in our itinerary, by I'd love to go there some day. I've been bitten by the travel bug this year, and I cant help but want to keep gosling new places!!

I find myself writing a lot now. I usually stay awake until well past midnight here. Mostly coz I sleep in the bus between destinations. My sister is a typical can't get enough sleep kinda girl, so I'm left to my own devices at night. And italian tv doesn't have too many hot chicks on it all the time. I think it's coz the hotels don't keep more than a few channels. :)

I hate not being connected all the time! There are so many times when I've wanted to check with google and I couldn't!!

It’s still fun when it is. I’m glad.

(written on Nov 19)

Firenze. Carrefour

2010-11-18T02:02:00.001+05:30

Here we are. After a wonderful (boring) train ride, we arrived in Florence. An small inquiry at the tourist centre told us thy the place where we had to meet the rest of the tour group was about 20 minutes away.
We had lunch at a cafeteria at the station. Turkey with artichokes, ravioli and pizza. The pizza was yum. Simply no other way to describe it.
Lunch being done, we headed over to the place. Vie Della
Derosa. Found a very yum pastry. I forget what it's called now. It was essentially crispy puff bread with chocolate layers topped with a dark chocolate shell. :D

We spent some time at the park in the centre of the square. Watched a couple suck face. Random people sitting, sketching, smoking.
Until the tour group arrived. The tour guide yelled at me from across the street. Probably recognized my hat. :D

Florence is pretty. Lots of beautiful buildings, lots of culture. A two hour walk took us past most of the famous monuments. The one thing that made me go "wow" was the St Michael's basilica. It was huge !! And so beautiul. The carvings, the mosaic, the sheer grandeur of it! Totally took my breath away!

The day's almost at an end now. Going to our hotel in Florence. I really hope it's rooms are more spacious than those at the previous hotel. And free wifi. I really need my Internet!!
Not an hour goes by without me reaching for my phone to try and search for something on google!

Tech deprivation apart, one thing that's made up for it is the food. I've loved having the food here. An I suppose a trip is I only as good and the food you have there. And coz our hotel is next to carrefoure here.
Which reminds me. It's almost dinner time. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Florence

Firenze

2010-11-18T02:01:00.001+05:30

Wake up at 6 am. Breakfast at 7. Leave for Milan proper at 8 am. Run run run. So I suppose it's nice to move at my own pace now. As I'm writing this, I'm on a train to Florence, because the tour bus left without us.

The casual and leisurely walk around a few back alleys of Venice was unsatisfactory. I'd rather have spent an entire morning walking around, but the tour has fixed timings. Which we missed. Long story short, our shopping is done, and the Eurostar tickets from Venice to Florence has ensured we won't be doing any more. :P

Venice is a very cute city. Lots of tiny lanes, lots of friendly faces, lots of tourists, an lots of gorgeous architecture. St Marta's basilica was beautiful, and I wish I could have taken photos there. It felt nice praying there.
The visit to the glass factory was as nondescript as I thought it would be. But the stuff they had was pretty pretty. ^_^

So Venice is done. Next stop is Florence. We're reaching there earlier than the tour group, so I'll get to see the place properly. I definitely must come back here without a fixed itinerary once.

We are now arriving in Bologna Centrale. One more stop away from Florence.
I wonder if I'll get to have better coffee than I have so far. :D

For now, back to my music. :)

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The eagle has landed

2010-11-17T01:31:00.001+05:30

We landed in Milano. Met the tour guide, thankfully enough. We were getting worried we wont find anyone from the tour group. The tour group assembled there came from different flights. Usual generic Indian tour group profile. A few couples. A few new families. A fee old families. A few large families. And a few couples who could possibly be revisiting their honeymoon from decades ago. Noone seems too talkative. Don't know if anyone is. Time shall tell. Tour manager Amit needs to talk more. Ah but all that aside, before I knew what was happening, we were bundled and carted off into a bus headed for Venice.

We are on the highway that totally skipped going to Milan, much to my dismay. But stuff like this is bound to happen on a tour group. We are on highway number E 64. Easy to find on a map. Difficult to remember. Better than every town having an MG road, I suppose. :)

I hope for the best. Mostly coz the 12 hour journey has messed up my sleep cycle, my food cravings, and mostly coz I need internet access to post what I'm writing!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Milano

If I don't do it, somebody else will

2010-11-17T01:30:00.001+05:30

First leg of the trip. 9 hours of plane travel. 3 hours window-shopping in DDF. 7 minute sprint across DXB to get to Gate 121 before it closed. As always, great airline service. 600 channels and still nothing to watch.

Traveling is exciting, but people generally forget that the view out of the window is not always so hot. A few hours of endless clouds rolling by under you tires out even the most enthusiastic kids who spend most of the flight with their faces plastered against the pressure sealed double panes windows.

I'll publish this post one I find some free wifi when we land in Milan. Until then, I'm gonna get started on my 6th baileys on ice. ^_^

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Milan?

Do-Nut!!

2010-10-05T11:13:00.001+05:30

I get up every morning
And think out loud
Work's a big bore
I need to get out

Brew my cofee
Toast my bread
I think I should have
Something else instead.

Deciding to drive,
I grab my keys
To the nearest MOD
Double quick, please!

I walk in the store
Seduced by the smell
Once I have a donut,
All will be well.

I eye the hazle dazzle
It was love at first sight
MOD reminds me.
It was love at first bite!

The purchase is made
The donut is served
I relish the flavour
It's what I deserve!

When life seems hectic
And work feels like a storm
The secret to a happy day
Is a Donut, delicious and warm.

Porcelain Dolls

2010-10-02T19:19:00.001+05:30

Here's something I wrote when I was bored right now.

Little porcelain dolls.
It a house made of card.
Living porcelain lives
Some easy, some hard.

The Hand of Fate controlls.
Tells them what to do.
Living porcelain lives
like me, like you.

It takes a small tremor.
To make a porcelain doll crack.
Hold my porcelain hand.
Come, take me back.

Freedom

2010-10-02T00:29:00.001+05:30

The emptiness gets to you. You might deny it, but in the end, it always get to you. You realize that all you’ve done so far… it doesn’t matter anymore. No one cares. They never care. All you have with you is your sense of self worth and your toy trains running endlessly around a town as real as your perception of your importance in the larger scheme of things. You drink it away. You smoke it away. You shag it away.

But in the end, it always gets you.

Random whim

2010-09-17T00:28:00.001+05:30

I hear drums. There’s a constant thump-thump sounding from the sky. The sky is a brilliant shade of blue, with sparks flying from one end of the horizon to the other. The magic in the air is manifesting itself in the music and the beauty. As sparks fly upwards, a streak of yellow paints the sky with an ethereal paint brush, giving form to previously unknown creatures. These are creatures that all celebrate the glory of this world, and the one beyond. There are stars that swim in the ocean, and dolphins in the sky.

A figure rises from the water, floating skywards. Shimmering with silver star light, the figure is too brilliant to look at. And yet I know it’s not just the light that makes me too afraid to look at it. The figure is what I have been dreaming of. I can just make out a light silhouette. The slim form of the limbs, the curve of the hips, the swell of the breasts, the cascading hair, it was all perfection.

The figure reaches out to me. She treads lightly on the sand, leaving no foot prints. She leaves wet foot prints in her wake. I freeze in my place, unable to walk to her. She almost breaks my heart when she stops a few feet away from me. I feel warmth growing in my chest. My heart begins to beat faster. I summon all my strength of will and make my foot move forward, a little closer to the impossibly perfect figure in front of me. And then another step, and then another… It seemed forever until I was standing right in front of her, and I could feel her beauty radiating from her body, hitting me like a cool summer breeze on a hot day at work. It fills my senses and makes me want to forget myself…

I jump, and embrace her in a tight hug. She laughs a magical sing song laugh, and does something that I can only describe as evaporates. And now all I have left of her is a smile on my face, and a song In my heart.

Cupid Boy

2010-07-07T16:34:00.001+05:30

I tried to have an early start to my day. I had a quick decent breakfast with Rajiv and his friends there. I caught a bus, then a train, then another bus.
It was all rather redundant. But I did meet Rava chan. Must have been over 3 years since I last saw him. It was fun catching up.

Chennai city, as I'd said before, is serviced mostly by busses. The rickshaws are a law into themselves, and bargaining is difficult unless you speak the local language, or can communicate with them and their broken English. :D

I met loonan that evening. I finally have a face to put against his name in my head :D he was nice enough to bargain with the rickshaw for me. Brought the fare for the 11 km ride from 300 to 160. Beats taking two and half hours by bus.

The city was well, just barely that. I'm gonna be a Bombay snob here and say that I can't comprehend why anyone bothers calling chennai a metropolis. City, sure. But not a metropolis. Bombay is Bombay. Delhi and Bangalore seem servicable. Pune is nice too. But I don't think too many other cities exist in India that can compare. I'm talking about things to do with your money here.

Chennai has only two multiplexes screening English movies, no nightlife, a lisence raj for alcohol permits. And a deadline of about 10.30pm. The locals say they're used to it; but I wonder how long it will be before corporates start investing in entertainment over here. Given the large number of it companies that are springing up outside chennai, something must be done soon!

I boarded the evening bus going to Bangalore. The overnight trip left me sleepy and tired. The icing on the cake was that the bus arrived at Bangalore at about 4.30am, and I had no plans at all.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Chennai

Taking me there but I don't want to go.

2010-07-07T16:31:00.001+05:30

The next day was my last in Pondicherry. I still sorely miss the place.
The tiny lanes.. The coffee shop, everything being a few minutes away... The fun game of poker where the rules changed with every round. Most if all, everyone I met there. All of it. But I think I had reached a dead end there in terms of what else I could do there. And the getting back home problem seemed compounded by a sudden nation wide strike. I thought it best to leave early. A bit too early by my tastes, but such is life.

Purvi's smitten by the place enough to stay there as long as she can. I don't blame her. I would if I could too :)

After the goodbyes, I boarded the bus to chennai, starting the first leg of my trip back home. The bus ride was relatively short, and scenic. But I got to chennai rather late, and wasted a lot of time trying to figure out I'd I could go back home directly by train. In hindsight, I should have just gone and seen the beach. It's the world's second longest beach, only after Miami beach. It pretty mch makes up one entire side of the city.

Another interesting thing about chennai, is that their trains only circle the city. They don really provide connectivity like the trains in Bombay or Delhi do. Most people go by busses, which are plenty, and not at all crowded.

Now all I needed to do was figure out where every place was. :D

I spent that night at the guest house where Rajiv was staying. I shudder to think of the stuff engineering graduates have to go through for their jobs! I'm just glad he'll be out of there soon. :)

I got out of there soon enough.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Pondicherry

Haunted

2010-07-07T16:30:00.001+05:30

The next day... Hmmm nothing too interesting happened that day. I spent the morning going around town, trying to find souveniers forthe family and something to thank Rob for his awesomeness. :P

I couldn't find anything nice. I settled on writing letters for eveyone. I have to start thinking of better gifting strategies if I plan to be doing this too often. :D

That evening, my life changed.
I had no proper plans for the evening. Everyone else was goin out to watch the football matches that evening. In sheer depression, I went out to do what I always do when I need to sort my life out. I went out for a shot of espresso.

I heard of a minimal trance / techno thing happening at a lounge off the beach. Seemed interesting. Perfect place to lose my head and listen to some music I love. Almost perfect.

I go back home to change, to find everyone's left and left me locked out if the house. :/ Big bummer.

I resigned to my fate, and joined the guys for the match.

Here's the kicker. I enjoyed it.

I have officially started appreciating watching football with friends.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Pondicherry

Maddening Shroud

2010-07-07T16:29:00.001+05:30

Okay massive update coming up!! I've been so caught up with living the life here, that I've totally been ignoring my online life! Can't say that happens too often, does it? :D

The few days I spent in pondicherry were an amazing experience. It was intimidating at first, being amongst a group of well seasoned travellers. The stories they all had to share! My mind still reels at the sheer diversity of cultures everyone represented. Rob, our host, Australian surfer dude, living in Pondicherry for the last few years with his friend partner Das, a Tamil guy who always has a smile and some good advice for you. Ashley, the 20 year old Belgian who's been to more countries than I can count on my fingers. Brain, (or Brian, if you must!) the smart fun slightly geeky guy from Hong Kong. And of course, Raspal, another cool Australian we met there. A special mention goes to Danesh and Daisy, who run Coffee.com, for all the good coffee and the good conversation. :)

All in all, the heavily cosmopolitan group I met there has made me realize how much more there is to see out there! There's so much to learn from just interacting with people from different walks of life. I hope to travel more now. Some how, I will. :)

The third day in Pondicherry, everyone went surfing. Purvi had a ball trying to not fall off with every wave that passed by. Das and Rob showed off a bit later, just coz they could. Brain pretty much was a natural, standing on his board the third time he was surfing. Surfing is fun, yes.

That day wasn't too good for me. Bumped the bike I'd rented, locked the keys in the storage, and then some. Havin no plans for the evening, I thought of going out grocery shopping. The next day's breakfast was be made by me. And it turned out decently well enough.

^_^

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Pondicherry

And so it comes to pass.

2010-07-03T22:51:00.000+05:30

The house on the hill
Was torn down today
The cliche we love
Has been taken away

Old fairy tales
Will be written again
Epic sagas of
The lives of men

Life's amazing
More than you'll know
It's your chance
It's time to go

The inspiration for
Your madness
The thorn behind
Your sadness
The smile of
Your muse
The offer you
can't refuse

The last mile
You'll ever walk
The long conversation
The mindless talk
The happiness
you seek
In people
you meet

It's all subjective
It all goes to naught.

It all goes to naught...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Pondicherry

Accompaniment for melodious experiences

2010-07-01T16:26:00.000+05:30

I'm in Podicherry!! :D

It's been an incredibly fun ride. Right from the bookings to te
accomodation, nothing's been planned, and it's been awesome. I spent
the
first two night sleeping in busses, just getting to Bangalore! The
night spent in Bangalore in a proper bed was a much needed rest. It
was just a shame that none of our friends were available that night to
hang out with. :)

But all things said and done, it's been fun. We found this really cozy
cafe near our hotel that has the perfect combination for keeping me
hooked. Comfy seating. Good desert. Decent prices.

The only sight seeing we did in Bangalore was checking out the Lal
Bagh gardens and te museums in Cabbon Park. That was entertaining
enough for one day. We crashed at the hotel that night and got on a
bus to Pondicherry the next day.

The 8 hour bus ride was very nice. We travelled by state transport AC
Volvo. It was comfy and very scenic.

We arrived in Pondicherry and spent an hour or so walking around. It
was quite something to know you've travelled from one coast to
another!!

We're staying with Rob, who's been kind enough to have us. He's an
Australian who's set up his own surfing and scuba school here. He's
amazingly chilled and has a huge bunch of friends here who I'm getting
to know better.

The first day in Pondicherry was interesting. I've met people from
Italy, France, Morocco, UK, Belgium... It's just been amazing!

I'm having breakfast at this quaint cafe coffee.com. Good stuff. Awesome espresso I think I'm in love. :D
Today, I'm walking around trying to find transport and get the general feel of the place.

Pondicherry is tiny, smaller than the Colaba-Fort area in South Bombay. And it's got a fair share of good places to eat and drink. If you're ever here, turn on Buzz on our google maps And check out the buzzes I've left at places I've found. ^_^

Hope you guys are having fun doing whatever you are doing. :D

--
Cheers!
^_^

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Pondicherry

Woah now.

2010-06-30T09:24:00.001+05:30

Teddy was fun. We got out ofthe museums, picked up a sub and headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

That evening we had to buy our tickets to Pondicherry before they got sold out. We found this cool cafe along the way called Grand Cuapo. They had everything. Good food. Great desert. Reasonable rates. Spacious open air area, and a big screen to watch the match on. Pity places in Bangalore can't stay open post midnight. We'd have loved to watch the match there.

Purvi slept through the Spain Portugal match. I watched it. Irony. Spain won. Portugal looked like clowns.

After spending the last two nights sleeping in busses, the bed at the hotel was wonderful, lack of AC notwithstanding. So now we're up, on a KSRTC AC Volvo to Pondicherry.

The centre of Bangalore was pretty, organized, and easily navigable. Now that I'm heading out of the city, the outskirts don't seem too bad either. I like this city. It's been a better experience than Delhi was.

The 9 hour ride to Pondicherry should be uneventful. Time to catch up with my reading. ^_^

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Bangalore

Woah now.

2010-06-30T09:24:00.000+05:30

Location:Bangalore

Waka waka

2010-06-30T07:39:00.000+05:30

Yeh I've not posted for a while. I've been lazy. After we arrived in Bangalore, the first order of business was figuring outbifnwe wanted to stay there a night and then move on to Pondicherry, or catch a bus to Chennai immediately.

We discussed it over a scrumptious breakfast at Hotel Iris on Brigade road (Buffet Rs. 175+tax). We agreed it would have been a shame to come to Bangalore and not look around atleast.

We checked into Hotel Ganga Sagar in Koramangalam. It's got clean rooms for about Rs. 1000. A brief spell spent freshening up after the long bus ride was in order. We got out to do some very "touristy" things in the afternoon.

First order of business was the Lal Bagh gardens. It's a huge garden that's originally built by Hyder Ali. It started off with all red roses. Now the place has over 150 varieties of roses, as well has a humungous variety of plants. The store at the entrance is a good place to pick up some of the more exotic spices, oils and seeds you'd normally have a tough time getting elsewhere. They didn't have any vanilla sticks in stok when I was there, sadly enough. Those sell out quickly.

After the Garden got boring, we hopped into a riskshaw to go to Cubbon park. Oh yeh. Some of the rickshaw drivers might insist in tavellin with a predetermined fare, but it's always best goin by the meter, and crossing the street is often all you need to do to get a reasonable ride to anywhere.

The trip to the museum was rather uneventful. There wasn't much to see, and the most interesting thing was the science museum. With Teddy, the reanimated dinosaur. :D

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Location:Banalore

I just called (to say I love you)

2010-06-29T11:38:00.001+05:30

The day in Goa was wonderful. Jason Pramodhan and his mother, sweet souls had us for the day. We went out in the afternoon, had a look around Anjuna. Jason pointe out a nice decent place, Janet and Jonh's on anjuna beach where I definitely be going the next time I'm in Goa. After his business stuff was over, Jason took us to Curlie's. Yes, the infamous one.

A couple of pints of Goa's finest beer, King's Beer along with the cool breeze, and the crashing of the waves made for the perfect settin to sit around doing nothing.

Lunch happened at starlight, a rather non descript restaurent somewhere near where we were staying. Good king fish in rava fry, perfectly fried prawns that were so soft that I had trouble figuring out the difference in consistency in the meat an the masala. That was very much yumm, yes it was. :)

We went back home for an afternoon siesta. True giant style. Just not as long. We had a bus to catch for Bangalore, after all. :)

VRL busses have a classic selection of movies so the ride seems like it's goin to be bearable. Now all we have to do is figure out what we're gonna do once we're in Bangalore.

Back to my music now. ^_^

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Top it off

2010-06-29T11:36:00.001+05:30

At curlies. Kings beer is watery. Beach is fun. Enjoy it!!

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Location:Curlies

Wish right now.

2010-06-28T11:51:00.000+05:30

Arrived at Mapusa. Bike ride to Jason's place. Beautiful place. It's pretty much a vacation place for most people there. Noone else was there. Fun.

Had scrumptious breakfast if scrambled eggs. No pun there. ;) The resort I'm looking at right now advises me to not swim in the sea during the monsoon. Good advice. I just wonder what I'm supposed to do with my swimming shorts now. :/

Starlight at bags beach has good fish. Alex has good beef. Hmmm. Good to know. Thanks to Jason for the info.

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Location:Calangute

Imagine

2010-06-28T11:50:00.000+05:30

Elevations make my ears go pop.

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Location:A bit beyond Sawantwadi

Easier to lie.

2010-06-28T11:47:00.000+05:30

For as long as he could remember, the only thing Edward wanted, more than anything else, was to see a new colour. It didn't have to be anything too fancy. It didn't even have to sparkle. It just had to be something new.
And so he made it his life's work to find his new colour. He searched everywhere. He travelled to the rainbow lands in England, and saw the colours he already knew.

He went to the flower gardens of Princess Daffodil, and inspected every flower of every bush in the garden. And he saw all the colours he'd seen before.

He even went to the fabled looms of the flying carpets, but alas! All the threads wove a pattern all to familiar to him.

His success never came, and his efforts started bordering the insane. Why, he even went to inspect the patterns on the backs of the man eating snap jaw turtles! Their shells are rumored to be hand painted by the angels themselves, and no two are ever alike. The pretty pattters of swirls and patterns in myriad colours seem eerily unearthly, and something so beautiful on something so dangerous, it almost was a shame that this ever elusive new eights colour was not to be found on them either.

He went far and wide and soon exhausted every place he could go to. There was nowhere left to look. His life was all for naught.

Four years and sixty he spent devoting his life in the quest for his eight colour. He grew angry. He grew frustrated. The wine fueled his rage. He threw the tome on his desk at his notes, the size of which had grown to rival the greatest of libraries in the land. His adventures, his travels, all the wonders he had seen. All written down and marked for any reference he could possibly need it for. Seemingly all a big waste.

The. He saw it. His entire life. All around him. All his lifes work was all around him, towering, absolute, near endless pages of the most exciting and exotic things the World has to offer. And he had seen them all.

And at moment he saw it.

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Easier to lie.

2010-06-28T11:46:00.001+05:30

Fragile

2010-06-28T11:41:00.000+05:30

Day 1 23:02

Our first pit stop. Dinner time. It's pouring a bit here. Good respite from the Bombay heat. I've spent the last three or so hours in a very comfortable but cramped seat. It's only about 15 minutes ago that I thought I'd be smart and bump myself up from the regular seat to the semi sleeper. No one has objected yet, so I'm staying.

Between the crappy movie, forced laughs from the kid behind me, and the occasional bump that's too huge for even this bus' suspension system to smoothen out, it's a pretty decent ride. I'm glad I had a very heavy lunch. The food here doesn't look as appetizing as most dingy side-of-the-road places are. It might be good, but I'm in no mood to find out. Now if only I'd be able to sleep for the rest of the ride, it would be perfect. Until then, thank Bob for recorded sessions from psychill on di.fm. ^_^

Edit: it seems to be a long stop. Should have expected that. I've given into my urge to buy something and am currently munching on Hippo flavoured toasts. That, and thinking about why I can't feel comfortable without the airconditioning on. When I'm rich an famous, I'm gonna get someone to figure out why I burn up so much.

I have this itch to connect my wifi and post this. Or connect my wifi and talk to someone. Or connect my wifi and just stay connected. But I have to ration out my battery. Makes me wonder why manufacturers don't build a device that actually lasts me one full day of usage? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who uses my gadgets as much as I do in a day... So what gives?

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Location:Somewhere away from Bombay.

Maybe

2010-06-28T10:57:00.000+05:30

Day 1 20:52

I'm on the bus! Finally leaving for the first leg of the trip!
I'm travelling in one of Neeta's swanky new Mercedes double axle super comfy buses. I think someone's sitting in my window seat, but I'll figure it out after dinner. It'll make more sense for me to kick the the guy out after lunch, when I'm actually gonna be lookin out at the road. And when the guy's presumably going to sleep the rest of the way. I wonder if I should have taken the semi sleeper seat. But at the end of the day, an uncomfortable seat is still uncomfortable. :)

I'm goin to Panjim, coz it's the most central location in Goa. And plan the rest of the trip from there.

So I'm as ready as I think I can be. Clothes. Camera. iPod. Chargers. Multiple pin plug point for all the chargers. Meds. And my towel. Never step out of the house without a towel.

The music in the bus is, as expected, generic bollywood/radio stuff, so I'm gonna get back to my music now. :)
I'm going to use my trip as an excuse to post
more updates on my blog. I'd love to hear back from you if have an suggestions about my trip. ^_^

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The Storm is Coming

2010-06-28T10:53:00.000+05:30

The sun's almost blotted out. The clouds gather to witness the events of the day. None shall escape it's wrath. The war machines roll forward. Their progress hampered by no animal, by no rock, by no person. The soldiers march ahead, waiting to die when their turn comes. Noone survives. Noone smiles. There is no honor in victory any more. Cowards exchange blows from miles away, not daring to lay their sights on the mangled forms of their vanquised enemies.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Sunken Ships

2010-06-28T05:05:00.000+05:30

Day 2 5:02

Still on the road. After about 4 hours of on and off sleep, I'm fully awake now. Or maybe the fact that the girl in front of me is snoring is giving me nightmares.

Looking out the window isn't much fun. There's just trees, more trees and the occasional temple. Everything's dark and has an eerie glow cast upon it by the bus headlights. The right kind of music might actually make this fun.

Edit: Future sounds of London's Encuronments album kicks ass. :D

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Maybe

2010-06-27T21:13:00.001+05:30

Location:Bombay, India

New Rickshaw Tarrif in Mumbai Effective 24th June

2010-06-24T17:32:00.001+05:30

The flash strike in Bombay was rather troublesome. But life went on. And people are glad that the auto rickshaws are back on the streets, increased prices notwithstanding…

So now that rickshaws are about 20% more expensive, you have to wonder how much you’re supposed to pay on your meter reading, right?

Here’s the official rate chart I’ve dug up. The real question is, how do I pay fractional rupee amounts? Dig out my dad’s old 20p and 10p aluminum coin stash?

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Mumbai Rickshaw Tariff Card		Effective from 24th June 2010

Meter Reading	Actual Rate	Meter Reading	Actual Rate

1.00	Rs.11.00	5.60	Rs.70.80
1.10	Rs.12.30	5.70	Rs.72.10
1.20	Rs.13.60	5.80	Rs.73.40
1.30	Rs.14.90	5.90	Rs.74.70
1.50	Rs.17.50	6.00	Rs.76.00
1.60	Rs.18.80	6.10	Rs.77.30
1.70	Rs.20.10	6.20	Rs.78.60
1.80	Rs.21.40	6.30	Rs.79.90
1.90	Rs.22.70	6.40	Rs.81.20
2.00	Rs.24.00	6.50	Rs.82.50
2.10	Rs.25.30	6.60	Rs.83.80
2.20	Rs.26.60	6.70	Rs.85.10
2.30	Rs.27.90	6.80	Rs.86.40
2.40	Rs.29.20	6.90	Rs.87.70
2.50	Rs.30.50	7.00	Rs.89.00
2.60	Rs.31.80	7.10	Rs.90.30
2.70	Rs.33.10	7.20	Rs.91.60
2.80	Rs.34.40	7.30	Rs.92.90
2.90	Rs.35.70	7.40	Rs.94.20
3.00	Rs.37.00	7.50	Rs.95.50
3.10	Rs.38.30	7.60	Rs.96.80
3.20	Rs.39.60	7.70	Rs.98.10
3.30	Rs.40.90	7.80	Rs.99.40
3.40	Rs.42.20	7.90	Rs.100.70
3.50	Rs.43.50	8.00	Rs.102.00
3.60	Rs.44.80	8.10	Rs.103.30
3.70	Rs.46.10	8.20	Rs.104.60
3.80	Rs.47.40	8.30	Rs.105.90
3.90	Rs.48.70	8.40	Rs.107.20
4.00	Rs.50.00	8.50	Rs.108.50
4.10	Rs.51.30	8.60	Rs.109.80
4.20	Rs.52.60	8.70	Rs.111.10
4.30	Rs.53.90	8.80	Rs.112.40
4.40	Rs.55.20	8.90	Rs.113.70
4.50	Rs.56.50	9.00	Rs.115.00
4.60	Rs.57.80	9.10	Rs.116.30
4.70	Rs.59.10	9.20	Rs.117.60
4.80	Rs.60.40	9.30	Rs.118.90
4.90	Rs.61.70	9.40	Rs.120.20
5.00	Rs.63.00	9.50	Rs.121.50
5.10	Rs.64.30	9.60	Rs.122.80
5.20	Rs.65.60	9.70	Rs.124.10
5.30	Rs.66.90	9.80	Rs.125.40
5.40	Rs.68.20	9.90	Rs.126.70
5.50	Rs.69.50	10.00	Rs.128.00

iPhone 4

2010-06-08T01:06:00.001+05:30

So it's been done. The iPhone has revolutionised the Phone once again.

So Here's the new features:

1) Display: this is what I love most about the phone. The phone has a 336 ppi resolution. The human eye can detect about 300ppi. They call it retinal display. That means that this screen is the crispest, most smoothest rendering of any text, image, or video you can get anywhere. :D

IPS technology -- "Quite a bit better than OLED."
800:1 contrast ration, 4x better than the 3GS
960 x 640 3.5 inch display. @ 336 ppi

So yes. That's good.

2) The camera: Apple, as I expected was smart. Instead of just upping the mexapixel count on the ccd of the camera, they hav actually built a better camera. Something that has been lacking in phones ever since camera phones hit the 3 megapixel count. What's more the camera records in 720p, and I'm pretty sure it's gonna be way better than most other hd recording capable phones out there!

3) Antenna: The entire outside band of the phone is the antenna! I always wondered why noone's tried that before. These guys did. I'm happy.

4) Battery Life: Bigger battery! It might actually stand all the abuse most tech savy users will give it! 7 hours of talk time and 40 hours of music is good, yes. ^_^

5) Dual mics for noise cancellation. Better audio quality, who wants? :)

6) Gyroscope: Now it's not just an accelerometer. The phone can even detect the way you're spinning it, or just giving it a nudge, or whatever! That's a cool 6 axis motion sensing!

7) Movie editor: After recording your movies, youcan directly edit them! The iMovies app seems decent for on the fly basic editing to share videos with friends . :D

8) Multi tasking, folders. Finally

9) iBooks, netflix: Now you can buy / read books or rent and watch movies seamlessly across all iDevices. Start a movie at home on the iMac. Pause. Watch a bit on the subway on your iPod. Pause. Watch the rest in the office on the iPad. Fun. The iBooks app lets you access your entire library from any device, and it even supports pdf now! :D

10) Facetime. This is the second most sweet thing ever!! This is your video call, that works over wifi. No setup required. So you and another iOS4 user can start chatting face to face over your wifi. Damned good, considering the state of the 3G network in India. :D It's great! :D

11) iAd also launched. Just means that your apps will now be ad supported, with better quality, interactive ads. :P

There you go. I want it. Anyone willing to sponsor? :P

Of Boredom and Vanilla

2010-06-07T17:43:00.000+05:30

Hmm. So I've been studying. For a change. Actually studying. I've been writing the answers, looking up important questions. None of the casual skimming through the text book a day before the exams. It's been five years in engineering, but I'm finally studying.

As fun as it has been to actually give a paper and know why I'm getting the marks I am, it's still very tiring. Back hurts, bad digestion, strained eyesight. The fact that my PC has died doesn't help my case any way. My major source of distraction is gone.

But on the bright side, I'm getting more acquainted with my laptop. And the iPod touch. Hmm. And yet, life seems empty without the desktop PC that I've grown up loving. *sigh*

I'll petition the powers at large for a new graphics card again tomorrow.

*bored*

Oh yeh. I finally realized I can make vanilla frappé at home with vanilla extract. ^_^
2 points to delayed innovation. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Bombay, India

It's "International Correct Every Mistake You See On Facebook Week

2010-06-06T13:16:00.001+05:30

So it's international correct every... Okay I'm getting tired just typing all that out. But yes. It is. And ts entertaining. More so when someone goods up big time. Am I a grammar Nazi? Maybe. But it's sure fun!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Location:Facebook

Bitter Pill.

2010-06-05T16:41:00.001+05:30

I know of a house
A house on a hill.
They said they would
give me the pill.

Of colours and numbers
And letters and sounds
A pill to make
The world go round.

I asked my self, Do you
really need it so bad?
I replied, I can't think
of any more fun to be had.

The pill they’d give me
is green and white.
It dulls the senses
It brings new sight.

The endless madness
The silent screams
The beautiful music
The dark, dark dreams.

Throw all that away
and enjoy what I’ve got.
I’ll just sit back and relax
And sip on my espresso shot.

Good Things in Life

2010-05-24T10:09:00.000+05:30

So lots of things happened. Stayed up all night studying. Watching a movie. Discretely excusing myself from the room when the boyfriend woke up. :P
Ran out of the chick's house at 7am coz her mother decides to drop by from pune to pay her dear daughter a suprise visit. Missed getting onto a lot of busses. Developed a new hatred for BEST bus drivers. Had yum yogurt at java grind.
Most importantly, I had my first shot of lavazza espresso this year. :D
Life is good. Except for the mad exam tomorrow. Damn.

Slave to my future

2010-05-22T23:20:00.000+05:30

I'm a slave to my future.
I do what I do because I want it to make a difference to who I am inthe future.
In the future, I shall be different, and I shall be made of the sum of my experiences of the now.
The now that is passing me by, at the convenient rate of one second per second.
One second per second is all I earn and it's all I have with me to spend.

Am I investing wisely?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Instructions

2010-05-15T01:30:00.001+05:30

This is how you glomp. Do not forget it.

Test post

2010-04-24T22:32:00.001+05:30

The voice in the haunting

2010-04-21T00:37:00.000+05:30

I wasn't walking down the road. It wasn't a very remarkable road. Or perhaps I remember it because nothing about it really stood out.The usual random gnarled trees. Dead leaves littering the sides. The occasional candy wrapper on the dusty road. Nothing stood out. But then I heard the foot steps. I knew there was no one behind me. The Shadows were stalking me. I ignored them. The unremarkable road suddenly seemed to never end. Every step took me no closer to where I had to be. Anywhere away from the Shadows. One can never escape one's shadow, can he? The road was blurring. I had to get away from there. Anywhere away from the Shadows.

The hunger inside. I could feel it growing. I had to make it out. Anywhere away from the Shadows. They call out to me. I want to reply. I miss my friends. They will call out to you too. But you won't know. You can't have a conversation with a shadow, can you? But the Shadows, they talk to me. They seduce me with their talk of happiness and pain. They seduce me with their songs about brave heroes and their fallen Gods. They seduce me with their talk of princesses and their legions of slave concubines. They seduce me with their musings of idle poets in the Mad house of the Greek Kings long dead. I have to get out of their reach. Anywhere away from the Shadows.

The distortion is sweet. The songs are amazingly colourful now. The Browns in the Adiago! The Greens in every Tenor! The Purple Treble! The brilliant, brilliant Blue in the crescendo! I shudder when the music touches me. The Shadows know it too. They sing with the voices of the cursed sirens. I must steer clear of the Sirens, their enchanting song, their meadow starred with flowers. The Shadows only want to play for a while. It cannot hurt. Pain in nothing to them. I must flee. Anywhere away from the Shadows.

I always feel this way. The Shadows know me so well. I can see me as they see me. They see me the way I want to be seen. The darkness clouds much of what is true. And I hide in the darkness. the Shadows are waiting for me. At the edge of the darkness. I am alive. But only just. The Shadows give me life. I have to go. Anywhere away from the Shadows. The Shadows make my destiny. The Shadows guide my hand when I roll the die. The Shadows feed my soul. The Shadows sing the lullaby that puts me to sleep. I stay away from them. Anywhere away from the Shadows.

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. I am flying in the void of my existence. You don't have to say a word. I have enough voices in my head. A mad buzzing with the voices of scores of men. And women. All sweet. All sensual. All in love. With the Shadows. I can hear them clearly now. Their voices have the clarity of a philosopher high on his ganja. Only a mad man makes sense when the world is being consumed by nothing. Not nothing. By the Shadows. I have to break free. Anywhere away from the Shadows.

I am bound by shackles of lies. Lies we build to support our life. The lies that make the face we show the world. The lies that bind us in comfort. The lies that shame us. The lies we flaunt, because we all are shameless. The shackles are weak. But the freedom has a price. I know the price. The price is too high. And so the Shadow grows in the dark. The light has blinded those that walk in it's path. Only the Shadows remain. Only the Shadows. It makes me think of a nation. That is cold and grey. Anywhere away from the Shadows.

Belong

2010-04-20T21:12:00.002+05:30

Did you ever reach for the endless?  
Did you ever miss your mindlessness?  
Can your heart sing the oracle's lament? 
Will Time return the moments of togetherness you spent?  

The power you know you seek is false. 
Real power lies in the the the submissive waltz.  

There's a future that you want to see. 
Every time you think of me. 
It wants you now. You want to give in.
Test your resolve. Succumb to sin.

Update WOW on rtkgaming

2010-04-13T19:06:00.011+05:30

Since a whole lot of you are wondering how to do the update, here it is, step by step. {EDIT: Fixed the links to take you from 3.3.0 to 3.3.2

The servers have been updated, but are down for testing! Please be patient!

Please follow the Step by step for enGB version of patches!

First you download (copy paste into your browser)
http://uk1.files.alexsmith.im/enGB/WoW-3.2.2.10505-to-3.3.0.10958-enGB-patch.zip

Then u download (Copy/paste into ur browser) :
http://uk1.files.alexsmith.im/enUS/WoW-3.3.0.10958-to-3.3.0.11159-enUS-patch.exe

Then u download (Copy/paste into ur browser) :
http://uk1.files.alexsmith.im/enUS/WoW-3.3.0.11159-to-3.3.2.11403-enUS-patch.exe

Please follow the Step by step for enUS version of patches!

First you download (copy paste into your browser)
http://www.filefront.com/15094627/World-of-Warcraft-v.-3.3.0-Retail-Patch-English-US/
OR
http://mirror.ipgn.com.au/games/wow/WoW-3.2.2.10505-to-3.3.0.10958-enUS-patch.exe
OR
http://mirror.ipgn.com.au/games/wow/WoW-3.2.2.10505-to-3.3.0.10958-enUS-patch.app.zip

Then you download (cpopy paste into browser)
http://uk1.files.alexsmith.im/enUS/WoW-3.3.0.10958-to-3.3.0.11159-enUS-patch.exe

Then you download (Copy/paste into ur browser)
http://uk1.files.alexsmith.im/enUS/WoW-3.3.0.11159-to-3.3.2.11403-enUS-patch.exe

Install them, and you're done!

Gift me a cookie if this helped. ^_^

cant see0 t6 tye r6*er3y

2010-03-03T13:09:00.001+05:30

Yes s6 th5s 5s h6w 5 ty*e. s60eth5ng’s screwed 4* 0y 2eyb6ard. Can’t see0 t6 ty*e n6r0a33y.

<now, This I type with the function key pressed down on my keyboard. Something’s screwed it up. Can’t type without holding the damn thing in the “on” position, which ends up turning it “off”

Arrrghghghg!!!!!!

P.S. Three Mobile phones make a good weight to hold a key down on a keyboard. :/

Meow Mix!!

2010-03-03T13:04:00.001+05:30

Meow Meow Meow Meow, Meow Meow Meow Meow, Meow Meow Meow Meow, Meow Meow Meow Meow ….

Addictive song, I tell you!!!

*meow meow meow meow meow meow…..*

How do you know she’s a witch?

2010-03-01T23:05:00.001+05:30

Life lessons from Monty Python. :)

Carmensita

2010-03-01T22:56:00.001+05:30

OMG Natlie Portman!! And amazing song!! Go!! Sees!! Nao!! :D

Yeh. Like a friend said, bring on the weed!!

New installation of windows

2010-02-24T01:05:00.001+05:30

So my windows 7 beta period ran out. Time to get back to what I usually do. :)

So after I install the OS, and all the sundry programs and applications I need, and get back to my Facebook, I realise something’s seriously amiss. Whenever I try to type my favourite emoticon, I couldn’t really send all of it at once. A but if trial and error made me realise that I had to press a spacebar, or any other key after the ^ to make it appear. So going the way I usually type, my emoticons got sent as “ ^_ ” Problematic, right?

After a *lot* of looking around, I figure it out.

Go to Region and language >> Keyboard and Language
Select “US” as your only keyboard

Now, go into Advanced Key Settings.

There, disable the key sequence to switch between languages.

It should be done. Enjoy entering the character ^ without pressing space or any other key all the time.

Just seem a little wierd.

2010-02-16T10:07:00.001+05:30

So I found a blogging application for my iPod Touch. I'm slowly shifting from my phone to my iPod Touch as my primary mobile Internet device. I'm not surprised. Bigger screen, better interface, qwerty with auto correct... Yeh it's cool. I suppose I'll start blogging more regularly now. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

I like I like...

2010-02-14T15:49:00.001+05:30

Here’s a Post Secret Valentine Video… It’s beautiful. The song featured is Shh by Donora. Love it love it love it. :D

Click here if you can't view the video below

I like I like when we whisper soft to each other

I like I like when we're quiet with one another

I like I like when we're n-nice nice to each other

I like I like when we surely like one another

I like I like when we whisper soft to each other

I like I like when we're quiet with one another

I like I like when we're n-nice nice to each other

I like I like when we surely like one another

^_^

Happy valentine’s day, everyone. May you be happy with the love you have in your life. :)

Shut Up Woman Get On My Horse!!

2010-02-10T00:26:00.002+05:30

Found here http://shutupwomangetonmyhorse.com/
if that is down, go here http://lookatmyhorsemyhorseisamazing.com/

Look at my Horse, my horse is amazing
Give it a lick, *mmm* it tastes just like raisins
Have a stroke of it's mane, it turns into a plane
Then it turns like a game and you tug on it's winkie
Oooohh, that's dirty! No your things are!
Well I better not show you where the lemonade is made
Sweet Lemonade, *Mmm* Sweet lemonade
Sweet Lemonade, Yeah sweet lemonade
Get on my horse, I take you around the universe and all the other places too
I think you find that the universe pretty much gathers everything
Shut up woman, get on my horse!

v40 for Nokia 5800

2010-02-09T21:27:00.001+05:30

http://forum.dailymobile.se/index.php/topic,16468.0.html

Easy guide there. Followed it to get my phone elligible for firmware version v40. This lets me get free navigation, and a better home screen! :D

Story time!

2010-02-01T23:55:00.001+05:30

This is the story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom, grew believing that he’d never truly be happy till the day he met “the one”. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total misreading of the movie, The Graduate. The girl, Summer, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parents’ marriage, she only loved two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off without feeling a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8. He knows almost immediately she is who he’s been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girls. But you should know upfront. This is not a love story.

ipod touch. Finally.

2010-01-28T14:44:00.005+05:30

I'm writing this on the day that Steve Jobs announced / showcased Apple's latest device. The iPad. The iPad is pretty much an oversized ipod, and with the sudden demise of the Crunchpad, it seems the 1st resistive touch screen internet tablet seems to be Apple's. But enough about that. The original touch device, the iPod Touch is what I wanna talk about...

As much as an anti-ipod person I’ve been all my life, I couldn't help but notice the iPod Touch when I saw one of my friends using it.

The more I saw what it does, the more I used it myself, I realised what an brilliant device it is.

Long story short I now own an ipod touch. 8 Gb. 3rd Gen. And I use it for everything but an mp3 player. :D

Yeh, I love my ipod without the music. So, I suppose it makes you wonder, what DO I do with it?

Well, simply put… everything else.

Having a phone that turns into a wifi access point is convenient. It simply means I can access my the web on a bigger screen, in a better browser. (Yes, safari on the iTouch is better than Opera Mini!)

I’m always online on my messenger. It’s much easier chatting on the iTouch than it is on my phone.

The iTouch has THE best facebook interface I’ve used on any mobile device.

I have about half a dozen radio apps that let me listen to hundreds of internet radio stations, any music to suit the mood…
Stanza is a great ebook reader. I’m pretty much reading everything on my iTouch now. :D

Dozens of amazing games have left me clueless about how to have any spare time to do other stuff. There’s puzzle games, logic games, arcade games, games that require me to use the iTouch as a steering wheel, gravity based games, brilliantly designed beautiful hi-res games… It’s all beautiful!

I found a nifty app that turns my iTouch into a wifi flash drive. The fact that it’s faster than USB is just icing on the cake.
And I’m tired of making lists. This should explain it well:

Go ahead and buy one. And tell me about it. :)

Dear taurius1.cyanide, Check out the JD Trends in your city!

2010-01-16T17:03:00.001+05:30

Dear taurius1.cyanide,

Your support is what drives us.

Check out the latest trends of top Movies, Restaurants, Brands of Laptop, Cell Phone, TV, Car and a lot more, that Just Dial brings out from time to time, of major cities in India.

Now, Become a Fan of Just Dial and be a part of the ever growing Fan base.

Please click on the link below, log into your Facebook account and click on 'Become a Fan' button.

Please Click here to become a Fan of Just Dial on Facebook

Thanks,
Team Just Dial

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Nexus One The ultimate phone?

2010-01-08T12:11:00.001+05:30

The Google Nexus One is now supposedly the best phone on the market.

It just might be. Given how Google is, and how much I trust them with my life, I don’t think I would mind owning a Google phone. The Android OS is like THE best thing to have on a phone right now. The one thing that I love it for is that it’s got Google Maps with Voice Navigation. Free! :D

I’m excited about it. Lets see if I can get my hands on it once it hits Indian Shores…. :)

Public Service Message

2010-01-02T22:36:00.001+05:30

A very nice public service message poem, written by my friend Redeff

Do read it!

http://redeff.blogspot.com/2009/12/condom-random-condom.html

Jump!

2010-01-02T20:08:00.001+05:30

Song stuck in my head again!! And as much as I love Nelly Furtado, I hate black gagsta rap. So. I took the song, and chopped the offensive stuff out. ^_^

Anyone else want?

When I sat Jump
You say, “How High?”
I never seen nobody-ody
Get so high!!!

The original:

The cut:

I told you it was addictive…. ;)

Why don’t mosquitoes bite me?

2009-12-30T23:46:00.001+05:30

( aka why do mosquitoes bite some people and not others? )

I’ve never had too many problems with mosquitoes. The biggest complaint I’ve had about them is that they buzz around near my head at night. They never seem to bite me. At least that used to be the case.

Mosquitoes DID in fact, start biting me these last few weeks. Strangely enough, I’d also cut down on my caffeine intake to almost zero. I was wondering if it was related in any way.

A bit of research online, which I won’t bother linking over here, has led to a new revelation.
Caffeine consumption is good to ward off mosquitoes. That’s right. That early morning cup of java could help you avoid malaria and the likes.

How? Here’s how. Caffeine in the blood stream prevents breakdown of thiamine aka vitamin B1. Presence of thiamine in the blood acts as a repulsive agent towards mosquitoes. I have switched back to my high caffeine diet immediately.

Now the consequences of the non-breakdown-age of thiamine might has it’s own health problems, but I’ll leave that for you guys to find out. I’m just happy mosquitoes don’t bite me.

Here’s another question. Why does my dad have mosquito bite problems when he has two~three cups of coffee a day? I think the answer lies in the fact that my coffee is based on freshly brewed espressos, and his is instant coffee. That’s not even real coffee anyway. So I guess the potency of the coffee makes a difference. :)

Sleep tight! ^_^

Keep Away From The Cyanide… Entertaining the people everywhere…

2009-12-27T21:19:00.001+05:30

So I’m lookin at my logs today. I notice something. Something wierd.

This link led someone from Saudi Arabia to This Page on My Blog.

It’s nice to know my blog is providing some form of entertainment to the people in Saudi Arabia. After all,, where else would they get hot oral photos?? :D

5800 music library won’t refresh

2009-12-19T12:09:00.002+05:30

My 5800, like any old symbian phone, refuses to work properly. Point in case: music library refuses to refresh. Podcasting application refuses to start up. In both cases, a mid of a small procedure in windows does the trick.

Solution? I got this from nokia forums. Works like a charm.

1. Connect your 5800 to you PC in Mass Storage Mode OR connect the microSD to your PC via a Memory card reader'/adapter.

2. On your PC you will need to have allowed to "Show" hidden files, do this from Explorer/Tools/ Folder Options/ View and select "Show hidden files and Folder"

3. Open your SD memory card/Removable Disk in My Computer on PC

4. Right click anywhere in the contents of the SD card/Removable disk. Click on Properties. Find the Tools tab. There, under Error Checking, click on Check Now... Put check marks on both options. Start the disk check. Wait for it to finish. You might get a dialogue box saying "Some errors have been found and fixed....". This is of no consequence. Proceed to next step.

5. Go to E:\Private there you will see 3 folders 101f8857, 101ffca9 and 10281e17 .

6. Go to E:\Private\101f8857\Cache\E there you will see .dat files. Delete all the .dat file BUT NOT the E Folder.

7. Now go to E:\Private\101ffca9 there you will see another .dat file, Delete the dat file NOT the folder.
8. Finally go to E:\Private\10281e17 There you should see 4 files 2 are Mp3 files other are Podcast files. Delete mpxv2_2.db & mpxv2_2.db-journal for Mp3 files list and Delete pcv6_1.db & pcv6_1.db-journal for Podcast files list.

9. Close all windows and restart your Phone. Go to Music Library and it should automatically start a refresh.

Guess what?

2009-12-16T01:29:00.001+05:30

Yeah. Even my Ice Cream is blue.

ZOMG I'm pirating musics!

2009-12-13T19:13:00.002+05:30

Since all the torrent trackers are goin down one by one... here's a new neat way to share your music.

How ? This is how:

Click here for image

Easy. Save the image to your PC. Open it up in Photoshop. Save as a RAW file with 0 header and same dimensions. Rename the extension to *.m4a

Enjoy. ^_^

Oh look! Retards on the road!

2009-12-12T18:50:00.001+05:30

So one of my neighbors’ sons is getting married. Oh joy. Like all other delusional retards, he thinks it’s a good thing to capture the road outside the house by setting up a Mandap, calling the full brass band and dancing chickens to cluck cluck their way all the way from the chapel to their house. Yes. Did I mention they’re Christians? Yeh. Even I thought they had decent quiet functions and stuff and stuff. <_<

So today is the second day of the festivities. The groom brought the bride home today. I’m not even sure if it’s his house. The idiotic neighbour manages to bring every idiot from his village whenever they get married.

Idiotic neighbour: “O dun wory gais! I has a road outside mai house we can captures!”
Village idiots: “Hoorah! Hooray! Lets start the noise!”

Meuh. People need to learn to be more civil. Oh wait. One thing I should mention. Just so that noone thinks I’m being too critical of them, I would like to point out that I commend them for shutting off their brass band and noise at midnight yesterday. Only 2 hours after the deadline. Nice! The previous bunch of idiots who got married had their drunken revelry on until 2 am. <_<

Iced Tea

2009-12-10T18:36:00.001+05:30

I love my coffee. But every now and then, like when I can’t sleep two nights in a row, I prefer to switch to iced teas. So iced tea might sound like a fancy thing, but it’s really very simple. If you’ve never made iced tea on your home before, you should try it this evening. Quite possibly, you might feel stupid getting your fix of iced tea from your local cafe for about a hundred bucks.

What you need:

12~14 ice cubes
1 1/2 cups of water
1 tablespoon of tea powder
1 Lemon. Halved.
Powdered Sugar (If you think you need it)
Alternate to sugar suggested
Fruit juice concentrate like strawberry, blueberry, mango or any flavour you fancy.
Tall glass
Sprig of mint for garnish
Straw, if you like sipping it that way. :)

How to do it:

Pour 1 1/2 cups of water in a steel vessel.
Bring the water to boil on a high flame.
When the water is boiling, toss in all the tea powder, and lower the flame before the water boils over. It usually takes less than a second, so be careful.
Turn the flame off in about 30 seconds ~ 1 minutes. The longer you leave the heat on with the tea in , the stronger is the tea flavour.

Once you have your tea, pour it through a sieve into a tall metal glass full with icecubes. Stir until the ice dissolves. If you want to add sugar, or juice concentrate add it now. I usually add about 1/4th cup of fruit concentrate. So by now, you should now have a pretty chilled iced tea.

In a transparent glass, dump the rest of the ice cubes. Pour the iced tea into this glass, place a sprig of mint on the top and serve. ^_^

There you have it. Easy. Simple. Fast.

You are welcome.

Management of Information Systems

2009-12-09T05:41:00.001+05:30

Key to Success in any MIS paper. Make sure your answer has at least 7~8 of these words. You’re sure to get marks if you litter your answer with these words. P

planning
organising
staffing
direction
coordinating
controlling
manger's participation
strategies
policies
goals
objectives
production logistics
detailed design
information need
defining problem
alternatives
reviewing
Tasks and Activities
Scheduling
Information flow

Many thanks to Ishan for compiling this list. ^_^

Guess what?

2009-12-08T20:20:00.001+05:30

Order a schadenfreude movie on DVD now!

Apparently, it’s true! :P

FYI = For Your Information

2009-12-06T22:40:00.001+05:30

FYI, this is what Sunday night Sundae should be. This, or something more fun.

Brownie a la mode

Featuring:

La Pièce de Résistance: Freshly Baked Brownies
The Awesomesauce: Fresh Hot Chocolate Almond Fudge [Haha! See what I did there?]
Honorable Mention: Yummy Vanilla Ice Cream

*burrp*

Assured gifts?

2009-12-05T21:27:00.001+05:30

A few months ago, I said goodbye to most of my best friends as they left the country to find greener pastures outside India. It made me pause and rethink what I am doing right now. I still can't help but wonder what's to become of me a few years down the line...  I want a magic formula for success. I want life to work out just that way I think it should. I want to not worry about making wrong decisions. I want to stay happy. I want to not stay stuck in one place while the rest of the world moves on...   But I guess, at the end of the day, I just want. Lets see if I can change that to an "I got".

Google DNS

2009-12-05T09:42:00.001+05:30

Google DNS is the latest free thing that Google has to offer. But the question is, how many people are buying it?

To put it simply, DNS is the internet switchboard that converts your web address (eg: www.blogger.com ) into a server ip (eg: 10.10.1.100) And no, that is not blogger’s ip, So don’t try it. So anyway, it’s long been traditionally the ISP’s role of providing a good and fast DNS. And most ISPs manage to get cheap and inefficient DNS that is not the best one you need. So Google has a brilliant idea of providing their own DNS.

They’re not the first ones to do it. OpenDNS has been around for a few years now, and they offer many more services than what Google currently does. But over time, who knows what they’ll bring to the table?

I’m trying out Google DNS as we speak. I haven’t noticed too much of a difference in surfing speeds, but I haven’t conducted any proper comparison between my ISP’s DNS and Google Public DNS. Maybe I’ll get around to it soon. ^_^

EDIT: Just tried out different DNS servers. MTNL, OpenDNS and Google Public Server

There’s no noticeable difference between ping timings for most of the websites I visit. And from what it seems, websites hosted in India seem to respond about 2 or 3 ms faster with my ISP’s DSN than with Google’s DNS. But then again, that might be because they weren’t in Google’s cache and had to be fetched from another DNS server. All in all, I don’t see any reason to change my DNS server. If you’re paranoid about what Google does with your data, you might not want to change. If you get tired of the search result pages your ISP redirects you to incase of invalid URLs, you might want to change. But I don’t see the average user changing his DNS unless his ISP is blocking websites or the like. (MTNL DNS was incapable of resolving msn and msn related services for a few months.

For more information on Google Public DNS, and a tutorial to implement it on your own, Google Public DNS.

Viva Voce

2009-11-30T11:24:00.001+05:30

We had our vivas in college last week. I know these things get stupid and ridiculous sometimes, but somehow, this photo I took in class takes the cake. :)

I Command Thee

2009-11-28T22:05:00.001+05:30

Do not think about purple zebras doing the Can-Can.

Who am I? I’m a geek.

2009-11-28T13:24:00.001+05:30

Face it. It’s not easy being a geek. It might be fun, but it’s not easy. You grow up with a distorted view of the world, mostly shaped by being bullied and ostracized from almost every group around you. It’s not that you don’t want to be popular. You’d love to be popular. Everyone would. But at what cost? I pride myself for my intelligence. If I was given a choice to be amongst the popular kids, but at the cost of being only of average intelligence, I’ll gladly refuse.

I remember in school, everyone was set in their own groups. The cool kids sat the middle right, next to the windows. The nerds were in the middle left. The smart teachers pets were in the front row. The average students populated the centre of the class as a buffer for the disinterested jocks who went on with their random nonsense at the back of the class… It almost never changed. It’s true that there would be very few people who could comfortably move between groups, any such interactions were always kept to a sheer minimum. Everyone would talk to the smart front benchers for a while, until they got their homework done. The smart kids felt like they “belonged” for those precious few seconds and didn’t mind sharing the homework. The cute girls always stayed together, and only ever ventured into the realm of less pretty mortals when they needed a favour. During such occasions, the boys would gladly jump over each other to bend over backwards and do the favour asked for… The nerds pretty much kept to themselves. Except for when they needed to get something from the teachers. Then they’d trade their homework or something of the sort in exchange for having their point of view presented to the teachers by the more charismatic students. The geeks and nerds got a temporary boost in popularity if they’re seen with the popular kids. There would be a girl who liked the geeks, but wouldn’t be caught talking with one. Like popularity, even unpopularity is contagious. It is a ridiculous social dynamic that doesn’t go away, even in the real world.

It might seem like I’m exaggerating this scenario here, especial here coz my class was pretty decent compared to some others I’ve seen.. but at the heart of it all, the divisions were still there. The walls always existed. There were a few people I knew who had their head above the crowd and could identify these strange relationships. And they made use of them. If I could, I would have told my 14 year old self, “Stop being that way! It’s one be charade! Look!”

School and college are brutal for anyone who is different. Usually it’s a difference of intelligence. It’s not like the bullies envy the intelligence of the smarter nerds and geeks. It’s more of a bonding thing. Bonding with other bullies. Not bonding with their victims. Most bullies hunt in packs. A common enemy gives them their bond and strengthens their relationship. It’s like how men go fishing together. It’s not that they hate the fish. They just need something to do together. It’s like how politicians collectively criticize random entrepreneurs or social worker. They don’t hate them. they just need something to divert public attention from the main issues. I’ve never been the target of too much bullying in school, but I’d seen it happen to other kids, and sometimes it got brutal. And even though it was humiliating and debasing, the victims never wanted to make any official complaints or bring the parents into it. I suppose it was a thing of pride to solve one’s own problems, even if there was no conceivable way of doing so. All the bullying I went through only served to highlight how different I was from everyone else, and served as a constant reminder that I was smarter than them. They never got the answers right the first time around. They never managed to have innovative insights in class about problems. I accepted the alienation and bullying as a part of it.

This very alienation from most of my peers has been the fundamental defining factor of my personality. I have always strived to stand out from the crowd. I used my books as a crutch to justify my unwillingness to mingle with others, and after a point, insisted on not socialising to justify my books. I rather liked it. I always had an aura of “smart kid reading hi-funda books” around me. It felt nice to be identified with something. Even at the cost of a splintered and near non existent social life.

Being a geek had it’s uses. And the occasional angsty self feeding loop of I-have-no-friends-I-don’t-need-friends just made me appreciate the friends I have even more. And the people who’d dared to get to know me better always appreciated the friendship. I’d like to think so. All things said and done, I’ve had a great life. Despite the geek tag.

Keep Away From The Cyanide

Kapil Sabat is an Idiot

It's monday

Invert scroll?

Bomb Blasts in Bombay. aka Mumbai.

Magic the Gathering 2012 OCTGN sets (unofficial low res)

Migrate from Facebook to Google Plus. Here’s how.

New Musics

An ode to her.

Take me there

Take me there

The cricket world cup

Facebook Group Chat on Mobile

Through the Fire and Flames we carry on....

Harsha Bhogle on Sachin?

Bubble Toy - This One

Code Geass Bento

Code Geass Bento

I want a new gaming controller!

SMS from desktop using your android phone?

Children of the Sky

The reason for hope

Sweet Caffeine!

Horny Lizard

iPod Bluetooth DUN tether

Paris, Eiffel Tower

Bruxelles

Black Forest, Cake.

Jungfraujoch

Zurich

Roma.

Firenze. Carrefour

Firenze

The eagle has landed

If I don't do it, somebody else will

Do-Nut!!

Porcelain Dolls

Freedom

Random whim

Cupid Boy

Taking me there but I don't want to go.

Haunted

Maddening Shroud

And so it comes to pass.

Accompaniment for melodious experiences

Woah now.

Woah now.

Waka waka

I just called (to say I love you)

Top it off

Wish right now.

Imagine

Easier to lie.

Easier to lie.

Fragile

Maybe

The Storm is Coming

Sunken Ships

Maybe

New Rickshaw Tarrif in Mumbai Effective 24th June

iPhone 4

Of Boredom and Vanilla

It's "International Correct Every Mistake You See On Facebook Week

Bitter Pill.

Good Things in Life

Slave to my future

Instructions

Test post

The voice in the haunting

Belong

Update WOW on rtkgaming

cant see0 t6 ty*e *r6*er3y

Meow Mix!!

How do you know she’s a witch?

Carmensita

New installation of windows

Just seem a little wierd.

I like I like...

Shut Up Woman Get On My Horse!!

v40 for Nokia 5800

cant see0 t6 tye r6*er3y