Noys is from the Hidden Century

Another video

2011-01-29T16:41:00.000-05:00

Radiohead- You

Radiohead and PhD

2010-11-23T12:08:00.000-05:00

In July of 2010 I quit my job, got my friends Sidney and Zubin to fly to Hampton, VA, put all my stuff in some boxes and my car and drove around 1750 miles to Boulder, CO to start my PhD. In the process, we listened to a lot of music and amongst other things discussed Radiohead's virtuoso in considerable detail. Where I am right now and the next two videos are a consequence of that 1 week of activities.

Me playing 'My Iron Lung'

Sidney and I playing 'You and whose army'

Havana Affair

2010-06-24T21:30:00.003-04:00

This is a song called 'Havana Affair' by the punk rock band Ramones. Like most punk rock songs, it was originally composed at a very fast pace and if I may say, without much melody. John Frusciante liked the Ramones a lot and as a habit used to slow down their songs (and other punk rock songs) and sing them with more melody. The result of one such interpretation is the Chili's version of Havana Affair which is what I tried to cover here. I did not realize the magnitude of disconnect between how decent I thought my vocals were and how bad I found that they actually are! Bummer!

What good is half an eye?

2010-05-31T12:47:00.005-04:00

Here is a random thought. A very popular creationist argument against the theory of evolution is in the form of the question, “what good is half an eye”? The idea behind this question aims to strike a blow at the process of incremental improvements that come about by random mutations during the process of evolution. The question (no doubt rhetorically posed) assumes the eye is useful only in its current functioning state and that a lesser form cannot be of any use. As is the case with any creationist argument, the thread of logic comes to a dead end here and the next statement is “therefore, there must have been an intelligent creator”. Richard Dawkins (in ‘The God Delusion’) argues that this question really has a good answer. Half an eye is definitely useful and is much better than no eye at all. Considering the most primitive eye with just a few receptor cells, an early life form could have detected the faint traces of the presence of a predator giving it a serious advantage over other life forms without such cells.

I think a simpler and more hands on way of answering this question is to pose it in the form of “Are current human ears useful?” The answer is an absolute yes. Yet, the human ear is certainly not the most advanced hearing organ. As everyone knows, bats have an amazingly complex hearing mechanism and dogs can hear a lot better than us. To put it pithily, when you hear a bear growl in the distance you avoid going in its direction helping you survive. You might not be able to judge accurately how far away it is from you or know whether or not it is running towards you based on Doppler shifting, but what you can figure out is good enough to avoid it. Compared to the more advanced ‘ears’ of the bats and dogs, one could easily consider the human ear as being just ‘half an ear’. Yet, it is a perfectly useful organ and lends itself heavily to our survival.

Walking further down this path of logic, it is easy to see that except the brain, almost every other organ in human beings is just ‘half an organ’. We are neither the fastest swimmers, nor the fastest runners, nor the strongest and we do not have the best sense of smell, sight or sound. Yet with all these ‘half organs’ we managed to survive and get on top of the food chain. The idea that what we currently have is the pinnacle of perfection that only an intelligent designer would have created and that anything less cannot be of any use is absurd to say the least.

I will now go back to finishing ‘Battlestar Galactica’.

BattleStar Galactica / Ten Years Gone

2010-05-07T23:18:00.006-04:00

I have not had the motivation to post anything offlate thanks to being in the midst of a season1 to season4 (that's all the seasons) marathon viewing of BattleStar Galactica. It is an extremely intriguing and fascinating series and once I am done with all 4 seasons I plan to expound on the amazing mix of science fiction and philosophy that it deals with. This is my favourite kind of art, be it books, TV shows, movies. Anything that mixes science fiction and philosophy immediately attracts my attention and makes me have to adjust my pants!!

But for the time being, please enjoy me covering another Led Zeppelin masterpiece called 'Ten Years Gone'. I could not find a backing track so I took the guitarpro tabs for this song and muted out everything except the vocals, drums and bass. Everytime I find a Led Zepp gem I have to fight the urge to browbeat everyone I know into listening to it. 'Ten Years Gone' is no exception. Your life will be richer once you listen to this song!

Remember:

Dewy eyes now sparkle, senses grown keen

Taste your love along the way, see your feathers preen

Here's a nice trivia about the song:

"Ten Years Gone" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin from their 1975 album Physical Graffiti. Originally intended to be an instrumental piece, Jimmy Page used some 14 guitar tracks to overdub the harmony section. Robert Plant later added lyrics, which are dedicated to an old girlfriend who, ten years earlier, had made him choose either her or his music. Plant explained in an interview in 1975:

Let me tell you a little story behind the song '"Ten Years Gone" on our new album. I was working my ass off before joining Zeppelin. A lady I really dearly loved said, "Right. It's me or your fans." Not that I had fans, but I said, "I can't stop, I've got to keep going." She's quite content these days, I imagine. She's got a washing machine that works by itself and a little sports- car. We wouldn't have anything to say anymore. I could probably relate to her, but she couldn't relate to me. I'd be smiling too much. Ten years gone, I'm afraid. Anyway, there's a gamble for you.

Introducing in this video:

My new Fender Stratocaster

My new BOSS Metal Zone MT-2 distortion pedal (unseen)

Area man satisfied with half marathon time

2010-03-31T10:57:00.004-04:00

Hampton Roads, VA: Area man Rohit Sammeta said that he was quite satisfied with his half marathon time of 2 hours 8 minutes and 55 seconds during the Virginia Beach Half Marathon two weekends ago. Rohit said that he had given up on training atleast two months before the race owing to external responsibilities and a lack of motivation. Therefore, he was pleasantly surprised that he managed to stay within the 10min/mile barrier at the end of the race. This was Rohit's third half-M and his second best time coming in after 2:06:58 (Nov 2009) and before 2:17:xx (Feb 2004). Although a below average time for his age group, he says that he appreciates its mediocrity and will strive to break the 2 hour barrier with his newly acquired respect for pacing. "I don't think I would have survived this race if I had not paced myself. Normally with a course as flat as this one I would have gone all guns blazing for the first 6 or so miles and crash and burn in the second half. Fortunately I paced myself and although my lack of training caught up with me in the second half I managed to survive. Who knows! Maybe I will break the 4 hour marathon barrier someday. Maybe I will do an Ironman too someday". Rohit has a habit of dreaming big. We should let him.

Sam Etaro

Massive Onion Rip-Off Artist (But Not As Funny)

Overheard Conversation

2010-03-08T14:17:00.001-05:00

At my gym yesterday I came within ear-shot of the following conversation.

------------------
Guy1: "...yeah man. That is how swine flu started. Someone had sex with a pig and contracted the disease. It is the same for all animal flus. Bird Flu, horse flu. People have sex with animals and spread the disease."

Guy2: "Yeah!"

Guy1: "It is just like AIDS. Someone had sex with a monkey and the AIDS virus got transfered from the monkey to him."
------------------

!!!!

1 book, 1 movie, 1 solo and 1 masala dosa

2010-02-23T22:17:00.006-05:00

Here are four most awesome, amazing, spectacular and wonderful things. Sorry Jobs, none of them is an iPad.

1) Book: The Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett

I remember reading a story from this book as a kid many years ago and one of the feelings that stuck with me since then was awe at the pure courage of Jim Corbett. He was a hunter in British India who later turned into a photographer and a conservationist. He is renowned for shooting man-eating tigers and leopards that harassed the village-folk in Kumaon (in Uttarakhand) then and this book is a collection of ten such stories. Having recalled the story and the book recently (after watching ‘The Ghost and the Darkness), I decided I had to get my hands on it.

Open Amazon, search and find, order and checkout, wait impatiently for 2 days!

I cannot recommend this book enough. Corbett’s narrative as he describes how he tracked and killed the man-eaters is gripping and wildly entertaining. The little details he provides about observing the surrounding jungle in order to track the beasts are fascinating and one can easily see that he was a master at his trade. Once again I was awe-struck by his courage. Even with a little imagination it is easy to sense the amount of danger he frequently put himself in and quite frankly I would have had some trouble sleeping at night if I wasn’t surrounded by a concrete jungle for miles in every direction.

Pick this book up and experience the thrills!

2) Movie: The Man from Earth

This movie is the mother of all conversational movies. The entire 90 minutes of the movie is simply a conversation between a man who claims he is a Neanderthal whose body has managed to avoid death altogether, thus surviving until now and his academic colleagues who are skeptical of his claim and question him to determine its veracity. There really isn’t anything else about the movie that can be described succinctly to function as a hook. One has to enjoy the dialogues in their proper context and I for one found them extremely captivating. Do yourself a favor by watching this.

Incidentally, this was written by a writer for the original Star Trek.

3) Solo: Hotel California

Only one of the best solos ever written. Notes drenched in emotion!

4) Masala Dosa

What? You need convincing that masala dosas are awesome? Hasn't Quickgun Muruggan taught you anything?

On Religion

2010-01-31T00:24:00.021-05:00

Religion. One would be hard-pressed to find a more divisive topic of discussion. Everyone is convinced of the veracity of his or her opinion and considers those who disagree to be part of the unenlightened. Discussing the nuances of one’s thoughts can be very illuminating but only when there is agreement in broad sweeps. I have rarely found that simple conversations have changed anyone’s major opinions (as they shouldn’t in general). Opinions about religion are formed over a very long period of time and are heavily influenced by not only the obvious factor of childhood environment but also how much critical thought one gives to it as an adult. As a result opinions are continuously evolving, again as they should.

I have been critically thinking about religion for the better part of the last 10 years and I intend this post to be purely a snapshot of my thoughts and where I stand right now on the topic. I do want to stress that everything I write below is not a simple regurgitation. Granted there is probably very little original material anyway. However, the seed of each and every one of my opinions is my own and other’s writings and discussions have only helped me fine tune my thought process.

I was a strong believer.

Growing up in a home in Andhra Pradesh (South India) that practiced Hinduism I had my fair share of visiting temples, going to Tirupathi etc. Religion and faith certainly had its place in my family but it was never something that took top priority. I never gave it much thought until I had to prepare for the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination at Ramaiyya. This was a 2 year endeavor (1998-2000) that required me to put in an immense amount of hard work. I will freely admit that I could not have pulled it off without faith. At the age of 17, the idea that if I worked hard enough an omnipotent God would ensure me success was extremely comforting and kept me going through those grueling two years. It was during this time that I believe I had (what I later learnt was commonly called) a religious experience. I remember walking into a temple one day and being overwhelmed with a feeling of intense joy. No reason whatsoever. Just the mere presence of the idol in front of me invoked this reaction.

Nevertheless, the two years passed with success and I did not have a need for such faith again (incidentally my mother always hated this faith-when-needed concept) which resulted in an atrophy of my faith. I was also exposed to other faiths/ideas/philosophies in college and soon realized that religion is a man-made institution. The idea of a supreme being or many supreme beings up in the sky overlooking each and every one of our actions sounded preposterous to me then, as much as I believed and depended on it only 2 years earlier. To borrow from Laplace’s famous quote, I was convinced that there was no reason for such a hypothesis. Extrapolating from my own experience I assumed that the purpose of religion was to provide hope and comfort. As I expanded my knowledge of history (including the Hindu-Muslim tensions in India) I gradually appreciated the power religion held over large masses of people. It seemed as if apart from providing hope and comfort, the very purpose of religion was to be able to exert wide-spread control. If not the purpose, it was and still is being used as a means.

Is there a God?

I suspect most people agree with the artificial (and even damaging) nature of organized religion and dissociate themselves from it. I also suspect that these people are agnostic about the existence of a God and even if such a God exists, believe that his/her function ended at creating life and the universe as we know it and he/she doesn’t care about overseeing our daily actions, punishing people for their sins or rewarding them with a materialistic possession that they so diligently pray for. Coming to this conclusion has been fairly straightforward and I was at this stage for a very long time.

A little bit of introspection led me to realize that I was merely clinging to the notion of a superior being as a vestige of the faith that once gave me immense comfort (and still does to a little extent). With what I will admit is a blatant generalization I suspect that most people I have described above are attached to such similar comfort. It is this vestigial comfort that makes them remain agnostic instead of taking that one final step to atheism. It makes them ask questions along the lines of “We do not know whether a God exists or not. How can we be sure he does not?” I was always uncomfortable with this line of logic since there never has been any shred of evidence to support the existence of God and almost a mountain of evidence that is slowly tending towards an explanation of the ultimate question about the origin of life? So how can being agnostic be a balanced view? Just because we do not yet fully understand how life and the universe came about, that does not mean we invoke a God of the gaps (a God meant to explain the gaps in our knowledge) and give this God equal weightage out of thin air*. To borrow the idea of Russell’s teapot (Link), do we say that we do not know whether or not a teapot is circling the sun between Mars and Earth? Are we agnostic about it? No. We say that from what we know it is not possible for such a teapot to exist. If children were taught to worship the teapot from a young age and told that this will save and protect them, does that change the likelihood of its existence based on our current knowledge?

*(I borrowed the term God of the gaps from 'The God Delusion', a brilliant book by Richard Dawkins. In this book, Dawkins goes one step furthermore and hypothesizes that the origin of life is a random event that inspite of being statistically improbable was bound to happen due to the large number of planets in the known universe (a large sample space). I also strongly recommend Dawkins’ ‘The Blind Watchmaker’. It is an excellent explanation of evolution and his scientific brilliance and clarity of thought makes it a wonderful read. Despite his reputation as a polarizing figure Richard Dawkins is first and foremost a scientist and ‘The Blind Watchmaker’ thoroughly demonstrates this).

What about morality?

People often use an argument as flimsy as morality to account for the existence of God. I suppose this is not an issue with anyone other than theological literalists but I would like to address this anyway.

Firstly, those who claim that we need a God to tell us what is moral and what is immoral are implying that there is no action that they would consider immoral if it is not described so in their holy book. I have not read any holy book but it is also simply illogical to assume that any book covers all possible actions in a two neatly separated columns titled ‘Moral’ and ‘Immoral’. Furthermore, these people seem to imply that if there was no holy book they would be on the roads looting, killing and raping.

An oft quoted argument is how do the literalists pick what to accept and what to reject in their holy books? The two major religions of Christianity and Islam talk about killing non-believers. Even if this is not true literally, I am sure there are lines regarding this issue that are open to interpretation. Almost no sane person makes an interpretation that it is okay to kill a disbeliever. Yet these are the very same people who are okay with condemning a homosexual to a status as a second class citizen just because their holy book says so. Using what moral background are they able to make this discernment? I like making this point in any discussion about religion (by an admittedly low-blow) in the form of: “If your religious book tells you to kill all brown people, would you kill me? If not, why not?”

It is obvious that even the literalists invoke their morality from somewhere just like the rest of humanity. So what is this source? I was confounded about this for a very long time and I suspected that it was society’s general understanding of human nature that drives its morality. Of course this understanding starts off very poorly and improves one step at a time. Unfortunately a statement like this amounts to hand-waving and I suspect it makes people uncomfortable to the point of accusing atheists of being raving immoral lunatics. Nevertheless I feared that if this really was the case then untold immoral acts would be committed before mankind realizes what is moral and what is immoral. Was this really the way morality has been and still is being figured out?

At least the chapter on morality in ‘The God Delusion’ agrees with me. Dawkins gives it a very nice name too, ‘The Moral Zeitgeist’ or the moral spirit of the times. I will admit to having more confidence in this point of view as a result of this. It is the spirit of the times that seems to define what is moral and what is immoral. Surely slavery lasted a long time before civilizations realized that enslaving men was immoral. I strongly believe that just as the way racism is considered wrong and immoral now, homophobia will be looked down upon too in the future (despite what the religious books say).
The present moral zeitgeist does not consider eating meat to be immoral. The majority of the world population (me including) does so without even thinking twice. However I am convinced that the moral zeitgeist will change in the future to make eating meat immoral. Our descendents will wonder as to how one could so cruelly slaughter animals and eat them in just the way we look at the Romans and wonder how they could so immorally feed slaves to lions for their amusement.

So where am I right now?

I consider myself an ‘uncomfortable atheist’.

My discomfort does not stem from any doubts I have about the validity of atheism. It comes from having to do away with close to 20 years of comfort that blind faith in a superior being has given me. It is the comfort of the not having a peace of mind that if I do my part God will be there to take care of me and keep me and my family from harm. A loose analogy would be the way a tennis player who cannot find his lucky underwear feels before a game. In no way does it physically alter his game but the lack of mental comfort can prove to be a game-changing factor.

So yes, shaking away years of comfort that religion has given me is proving to be more difficult than I thought. But I intend to chip away at this crutch slowly and steadily and I am doing this only because I have consciously chosen to adopt a philosophy based on rationality. Doing anything else would be nothing short of intellectual dishonesty.

Isn’t a steadfast subscription to a rational way of life just as dogmatic as religion?

I am asked this question all the time. The answer is an obvious no. Surely it is one of the many philosophies of life but it is neither as dogmatic nor as extreme as most agnostics/theists make it to be. Rational thought by definition implies that we question everything and accept principles that are empirically validated. These principles undergo almost continuous scrutiny and iteration by a large population of the earth. I guess there is a certain amount of subjectivity in that too (Link) but all things compared there is no better philosophy of life than one based in rationality. Religion is a philosophy where any questioning was and still is not tolerated and in some cases punishable by death. I will not go into the depravity of organized religion here except to make the point that anyone who says religiousness and atheism give rise to comparable levels of fundamentalism is by far the most disingenuous person on the earth.

Having said all this, let’s say tomorrow morning we discover the existence of an intelligent designer who reveals to us that he/she worked out all the universal constants and made the universe and then put life on earth. This is a conscious watchmaker as opposed to Richard Dawkins' 'blind watchmaker'. I will obviously alter my beliefs accordingly. For that would be the rational thing to do.

Finally, are we better off without religion?

I am not talking about mass-eradication of religion. Trying to banish religion is a stupid idea at its very best. I look at this question from a personal point of view. When a young impressionable child asks me if there is a God, what do I tell him or her? At this moment I would say no. But I am certain I would add a lot of qualifiers to that.

I am also not sure if I would be doing the right thing for this child. I feel like a hypocrite. I have reaped the benefits of faith and spirituality during my child hood and now I want to deny someone else the same advantage? Of course this opens up a whole new can of worms. Why do I think a child will not be able to figure out the deeper aspects of faith by him/herself? Do I mean that faith is essential as a kid? Does it imply that atheist parents cannot rear productive children?

To me, some have obvious answer and some don’t.

I suspect this stems from the ‘uncomfortable’ part of my chosen nomenclature. Fortunately I am confident about one thing. When I do manage to get rid of that 'uncomfortable' part, everything will become a lot clearer and I will have more straightforward answers!

What do you call yourself?

2010-01-18T23:05:00.001-05:00

A father, a mother, a son and a daughter walk into a talent agency. The talent agent looks up from his desk when the father says “We want to try our luck in the entertainment industry and are here to show you our act”.

The talent agent looks at them, looks around and says, “Oh no! I know exactly what is going to happen. No way”!

But the father insists, “Do give us a shot and you won’t be disappointed”.

The agent apprehensively says, “Go ahead!”

So the father drags a table and chairs to the center of the room. The mother brings out a delicious smelling dinner and sets it up. All four of them sit down and say grace before beginning to eat. “How was your day honey?” asks the mother. The father proceeds to tell her that all five of the life-saving surgeries he performed pro-bono that day were a success and the illegal immigrant families had given him gift baskets to show their gratitude. He had accepted them as a sign of respect but later donated to a Salvation Army. The mother is pleased and informs the family that all her charity organizations managed to reach their fund raising goals for the year. As their director she would personally visit various third-world countries and provide aid and relief to the backward communities. Beaming with pride the attention now turns to the children. They both inform their parents that they have once again managed straight-A’s and excellence in sports and other extra-curricular activities comes easy to them. The parents though proud take this opportunity to instruct the kids about the virtues of humility and compassion. Amidst the conversation they see a homeless man outside the window. Immediately the son and the daughter empty half of their plates and go out to feed the tired and hungry man. They even give the man their dad’s coat to keep him warm. The derelict thanks the stranger’s kindness and goes on his way. The children come back into the house to find that their parents had bought them surprise gifts for their good performance in school. Although initially elated, their tender hearts bleed when they think of the homeless man they had fed and clothed not more than a few minutes ago and others less fortunate like him. They ask their parents to donate their gifts to a good charitable organization where they will be given to needier children. The family soon settles down for their game-night of ‘pictionary’. Through the adept use of allegory, the parents use the game to instruct the kids in human morality and basic goodness of man. They do not however forget that this is meant to be fun and the children seem to be enjoying themselves thoroughly. Just then the father finds out that one of his patients has unexpectedly taken a turn for the worse and is in urgent need of a kidney. Knowing that there isn’t time to put him on the transplant list, the father decides to donate his kidney to save the man. The family is grief struck as this means an end to family traditions like football sunday and fishing friday. But they understand. The man will die without a kidney leaving his children to grow up as orphans, if they grow up at all. They know that what their father is doing is the right and courageous thing. They are proud of him. Before leaving for the hospital they come together for a group hug. They weep silently but the intense love and affection they feel for each other fills the family with renewed strength and they loudly vow to “be there for each other until the end of time.”

With that the group breaks up with a "TADAAAA" and all look at the agent expectedly.

The talent agent stares at them for the longest time and says, “That is one hell of an act. What do you call yourself?”

MetallicA...MetallicA...MetallicA

2009-12-27T23:38:00.003-05:00

I realized that I had not put up any cover of the first band that I became a fanatic of...MetallicA.

Think whatever you want of MetallicA now but there is no denying the dizzying heights of music and showmanship they had reached in the first 2 decades of their career. Here is a cover of Bells (as Lars calls it often), a shining example that complicated chords/fast riffs/shredding solos are not a necessity for making an insanely heavy song (pretty much why I chose it ;)! FYI, the triplet part that Kirk plays is stolen from the ending of 'Fairies Wear Boots', a Sabbath song.

Oh MetallicA...how far you have fallen! It is said that MetallicA is a religion and James Hetfield is its God! It pains me immensely to say this but I am no longer a member of the church of Hetfield! Sad but True. But the Memory Remains!

Original Piece: Feart

2009-12-07T18:47:00.001-05:00

This is a tiny little piece of music called 'Feart' that I came up with. I tried to expand it into something fleshier but nothing around it sounded good to me. So I left it as it is.

"There comes a time when your own music matters much more than covers" - A paraphrased quote by John Frusciante.

Feart

The kingdom is safe

2009-11-17T00:30:00.002-05:00

The queen looked out of her castle window into the pouring rain. Her gaze penetrated the downpour and the dark clouds and seemed to extend beyond the black mountains on the horizon. It was a gloomy night and a dark shadow enveloped not just her but the castle and the entire city. A shadow that seemed perfectly appropriate, for her king had died only that morning. A mysterious illness that had plagued him for a year had taken his life after finally defeating him. The palace physicians said that he looked peaceful. But she could not bear to look at his dead body. She did not believe them. How could he have been peaceful leaving her behind all alone? How could he have been peaceful knowing that his vast kingdom was now without an heir? And that all his enemies had been awaiting his death to pillage and rape his beloved land. Feelings of guilt for blaming her dead king engulfed her momentarily when she heard the sound of footsteps behind her.

“Your majesty. The vazir is here”

“......Send him in”

“Yes my queen”

The vazir. He was a smart man. Loyal. He would do as she asked him to. She needed his loyalty to remain protected. She needed his loyalty to carry out what needed to be done. The oracle’s advice upon the king’s impending death seemed strange. Yet she knew better than to question the oracle. She hoped the Vazir knew better than to question her. But he would. It was his nature. She turned around in time to see him walk in.

“My condolences your highness.”

“The time for mourning will come Jafar. More pressing matters demand our attention now if we are to avoid a complete annihilation at the hands of our enemies. We need to find a new King.”

“Yes my queen.

Do you wish to name someone now?”

“No. But I do have someone in mind.”

“Who is this person may I inquire my lady?”

“He is man of many virtues and talents. I do not know his name or face or even whether he exists or not, but I am sure he is one who will protect and lead us.”

“My lady, forgive me but how do we find this man if we do not know anything about him?”

“There is a way Jafar. Send your men to all corners of the world. Tell them to seek the man who has run two half marathons till now. This man would have run his first 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 17 minutes. But the second one would take him a time of 2 hours 6 minutes and 58 seconds. And he would have achieved these numbers in the company of two of his comrades. Make sure your men remember these numbers for fate dictates that only he can save us.”

“......My lady, forgive me once again but this hero of yours happen to have at best a pace of 9:12 mins per mile and I doubt if he can be the savior that your highness makes him out...”

“FOOL OF A VAZIR! How dare you question me? Utter one more word of insolence and I will have you beheaded and buried next to my husband!”

“......my apologies your highness. I speak only with the best of intentions for our kingdom. I will send my men out immediately to find this man we need. I will keep you appraised my lady.”

“Make haste Jafar. We do not have much time.”

With the vazir bowing his head and backing away from the room the queen turned back towards the window to look at the rain. She felt as if fate was conspiring against everything that she held dear by subjecting her to such vicissitudes. She knew that she had to hold strong. Yet, she wondered if the oracle could be trusted every single time? She wondered whether or not such a man existed. If he did, where was he? She could only wistfully look at the black mountains for now.

--------------------------
The kingdom is safe for I am the savior!
My two comrades are Golu and Buffy.
Golu and I did the half and Buffy did the full.
Good fun it was.
Some pics here: Richmond Nov 14th

Elders finally decide on when to end calendar

2009-10-29T21:56:00.004-04:00

City of Maya, Maya Area: After a long and acerbic session of bickering the elders have finally agreed on when to end the official calendar. It has been decided that all official Mayan calendars will now end 2000 years from now instead of the previously agreed upon 4000 years. This decision was reached in order to make amends for the severe stone shortage that has been plaguing our land for over a year. Elder Tore-My-ACL says, “We are certain that our great civilization will prosper well after 4000 years. But it is foolish to waste so much stone in etching all the dates for all those years. I mean, when our great grandchildren reach 2012 A.D. they can easily get a fresh set of calendars etched and distributed. I don’t mean to sound like a pig’s testicle but why should we defray the costs of calendar etching for future generations especially during these tough times? Have you checked the price of grain lately? The tax-payers don’t need this right now! No disrespect to elder Can-Bench-200 but he acts as if ending the calendar so soon will make some pale skinned men magically appear from the east and conquer us.”

Elder Can-Bench-200 is of course the leader of the opposition who strongly advocated making the official calendar 4000 years into the future based on the arbitrary claim that the number “4000 was two times more awesome that some whimpy 2000”. At the end of the day common sense prevailed but as a compromise it was agreed that instructions (written on biodegradable papyrus) would be supplied with every calendar telling the slightly naïve citizens not to over interpret the calendar ending at 2012 A.D and how to calculate the dates beyond.

Sam Etaro

Massive(ly Anachronistic) Onion Rip-Off Artist (But Not As Funny)

Thought Collage: Set your phaser to level 8

2009-09-21T00:49:00.012-04:00

In case you do not get the reference (for which you should stand in front of a mirror and call yourself a PATAK), this collection is going to be entirely about Star Trek.

I used to watch a lot of Star Trek: TNG as a child, which as far as I can recall was my first exposure to situations involving ethical and moral dilemmas. (Incidentally, the other show that I found fascinating from a similar point of view was the ‘Practice’). Of course, as a child I could not fully comprehend all the subtleties of the issues being explored and whenever they veered off the pure scientific mystery (which was so much more interesting) I would get tempted to ‘change the channel’ but was invariably drawn in. However, revisiting the show has allowed me to appreciate the episodes in greater detail (in this case, I am primarily referring to 'The Next Generation’). It is a pity that being a Star Trek fan carries a nerd stigma in mainstream American culture as I am sure this discourages a lot of young kids from watching it in the first place. It would definitely be more wholesome than Keeping up with the Kardhasians (or should I have said, Cardassians. ;)..Ok…no groans allowed)

Spurred by the recent movie, I ploughed through the entire 7 seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, revisited 4 seasons of Star Trek: TNG and right now am going through Star Trek: TOS on youtube. The by-product of doing that has been some thoughts about the Star Trek universe which I shall promptly spit out.

1of4) Economy: One of the major aspects of the Star Trek universe is the lack of money. From what I have seen (and read on the net), the economy in place during the 23rd century has never been explored properly. The only bit of information that is thrown out in episodes/movies is whenever someone is talking to an anachronistic person and says the line “we don’t have money in our time” (or something similar). It seems like an idea that was incorporated because of its novelty and awe-factor but without being fully fleshed out. Make no mistake; I have no problem in suspending disbelief. I just feel that this would have been a very interesting area to explore. Personally (and unrelated to Star Trek) I am convinced that having money (or any form of currency) is an inevitable product of any economy. At the risk of oversimplification, I feel it is as simple as the fact that you need to exchange goods with others to live productively in a society (no one can be absolutely self sufficient). To exchange goods efficiently you would need an easy form of payment leading to an accepted form of currency. An economy that does not have currency is intriguing. I did do a little bit of searching and discovered something called ‘Participatory Economics’. It is nowhere mentioned in Star Trek canon that this is the model in place but I did find a website arguing that it is the closest. Talking about this economic model is digression but it makes for an interesting read here.

2of4) Cloaking: Humans in Star Trek have both allies (Vulcans) and enemies (Romulans). Although, the Starships of the humans are generally considered technologically superior, there are many episodes where a Klingon or Romulan warship uses ‘cloaking’ to out-battle the Starships. This ‘cloaking’ technology is something the Starships lack. I am willing to suspend my disbelief again but it is hard to keep forgetting that Starships which are very often touted as having the superior destructive and maneuvering capability (once the warbirds have de-cloaked i.e) do not possess this one technology. Wouldn’t an arms race (on which many uneasy truces depend on) lead to massive resources being invested in figuring out this vital piece of technology? There are only so many episodes where someone shouts “RED ALERT! Romulan warbird…de-cloaking portside” before it makes you wonder why at the end of the day the captains don’t go “Captain's log, supplemental: Was taking a relaxing bath. Got taken by surprise again. Must figure this cloaking thing out”. The interesting aspect to this is that according to at least one movie (and possibly other episodes), humans were able to capture a functioning Klingon warship. Someone surely lost their job for dropping the reverse-engineering ball!

3of4) The Borg: After the Vulcans, the Borg are my favourite species in the Trek universe. The Borg are cybernetic creatures which assimilate other species and outfit them with technology to make them part of their collective. They do this to incorporate the species’ biological and technological knowledge into their own know-how in order to become stronger. The Borg have wiped out many races in this manner and are not to be fucked with. If one considers brute force, only one other species (Species 8472) have managed to beat the Borg. Simply put, they are the bad-asses of the 23rd century. But how did they come about? To my knowledge the origins of the Borg have not been explored at all. I find it disappointing that no writing team could come up with a plausible storyline. How about making SKYNET the forerunner of the Borg? Surely it is lazy writing but at least it is something. Or maybe it is time for me to explore my fan-fiction skills!

4of4) Deanna Troi: Finally, my boyhood crush Deanna Troi!

Oh Counselor Troi

I was only a little boy

When I first laid my eyes on you

Your phaser was set to stun

I could neither hide nor run

For I loved you deeply and truly

But you liked William Riker

How I hated that motherf****

I knew it was in vain

Yet I yearned for you silently

I did move onto Agent Scully

I am a grown man now

And though my words might be sleazy

My love for you comes easy

So this I declare to you

You are welcome in my house

To lay down on my couch

For oh Counselor Troi

I am no more a little boy

The End!
Live Long and Prosper!

What are earthquakes to a girl's guitar?

2009-08-30T01:37:00.002-04:00

Answer: Just another guitar cover of the solo before Californication at Slane Castle

In commemoration of Apollo 11

2009-07-21T10:51:00.008-04:00

Open letter to Seth McFarlane (Part 2)

2009-07-11T01:28:00.004-04:00

Dear Seth,
I thought I was done venting and railing against you here. Apparently not.
I came across this recently.

A strange feeling of serenity engulfed me when I saw it. Unlike the last time, I have no intention of amateurly using MSPaint to launch a tepid attack against you. Three simple words will do the job. And so I say this with utmost sincerity Seth.
Please kill yourself.
Thank you.

Jaanu, Mein Tujhe Chod Raha Hoon

2009-06-29T13:24:00.000-04:00

The curious girl

2009-06-26T16:36:00.019-04:00

Gather around kids. It's anecdote time.

4 years ago during the fall of 2005, I was a bright eyed young lad bristling with FOB-ness amongst fellow FOBs (FOB=Fresh Off the Boat). I had come to the land of the free and home of the brave just a year ago and did not have a driver's license yet. As is the case with every small town in the USA one needs a car to get around and therefore one needs a driver's license to even begin thinking about borrowing a friend's car under the pretext of going out to buy some groceries but surreptitiously taking a girl out which may or may not have ended badly. Yes...yes...that is a story for another day.

So anyway, in order to obtain the aforementioned driving license, two of my buddies and I stayed up all night studying for the test (the written one for the learner's permit and not the driving one for the driver's permit) and went to the local DMV the next morning. As the three of us stood in line trying to remember whether the state highway speed limit in Mississippi was 55 or 65 and why would one try to recall it from memory and not just read it off a sign while driving, we noticed a young girl of about sixteen staring at us blatantly. Considering that we had been in Mississippi for almost a year by then, most of us had internalized strange stares from strangers. But this young one had her eyes filled with a curiosity so intense, you would think she was watching a live re-enactment of a season finale of Lost (I went through 3 bawdy comparisons before settling on this lame one). We tried to ignore her but not before FOB-ishly acknowledging her stares in Hindi amongst ourselves. The staring match (at which she was thrashing us mercilessly) went on for about 5 minutes and I can only imagine that she used this time to muster the courage to say the next words.

"Excuse me, what are you guys?"

The cutting frankness and naivete of her question prompted all of us to burst into laughter and the lady seated a few chairs next to her tried to cover her face in shame (or maybe to avoid being recognized as witness in what she perceived to be a potential lawsuit). The amusement quickly subsided and we answered "Indian". This of course stoked the young one's curiosity even further and she launched into a series of inquiries about us, India, its location, its culture and more, that all three of us answered enthusiastically. She was highly amused that none of us had a license in spite of being in our early twenties. "Just how did you get around during college?" was her concern. I wasn't sure if my lengthy answer detailing the ubiquity of public transport in India satisfied her. She still wore a look of incredulity. Nevertheless she decided to move on to the next lesson in the impromptu 'world cultures' class and asked us about the language we were conversing in before. Having done this many times before, my friend launched into some of the salient aspects of Hindi while pointing out the plethora of other languages in the country. She seemed awed that all three of us knew how to speak our mother tongues apart from the national language, Hindi. And then with a look of genuine confusion she asked,

"But how do you speak to the people in the US?"

After a second of stunned silence, my friend went into a fit of laughter that was intermingled with a loud "What the fuck"! The lady next to the young one promptly joined him. The absurdity of her question when viewed against the 15 minutes of conversation she had had with us took some time to sink into her and understandably she was very embarrassed. As one would expect, she stopped talking to us completely after the incident and avoided any form of eye contact. The rest of our time at the DMV was fairly tame and all us managed to obtain a learner's permit without too much trouble (if I remember right, I had managed to pass by just one question) . We were of course eager to get back and tell the story of the curious and confused girl to all who would listen.

In retrospect, I think it was great that this girl had the very healthy attitude of satisfying her curiosity in a straightforward manner. Hopefully, something as insignificant as being embarrassed before others (and I mean this with utmost sincerity) did not create an aversion to asking questions in her.

So remember kids. Always ask questions but also think a little before doing so. Doesn't hurt. Now go do your homework.

God to take on the Flying Spaghetti Monster in epic World Wrestling Federation championship match up

2009-06-17T21:59:00.005-04:00

In what is being touted as the mother of all fights, defending champion God is said to fight the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) who stands to challenge him for the title of creator and ruler of the universe at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas this Saturday. Hailing from the heavens above, God has held the title since time immemorial, successfully defending it from a slew of notable challengers like the Buddha (who defaulted citing reasons of non-violence), Mohammed, the 30 million tag team members of the Hindu Federation and even the Beatles (in a memorial match up that lasted for a decade).

Thanks to popular moves like the “Smiting Finger”, “Eternal Damnation” and the “Banishing Helbow” God’s fan base is much larger than that of the FSM’s which nevertheless has been growing steadily. Some supporters of God believe that FSM is nothing more than a paper-tiger opponent conjured by God-haters who need someone to act as their beacon in the demanding wrestling world. The monsters’ proponents however are dismissive of these skeptics and are confident that they will be able to steal a victory with the help of FSM’s popular moves like the “Punch of Sarcasm” and the “Carb-Overload”.

Like in every other behemoth of an event, the taunts have been pouring in from both sides. In what has been widely regarded as an absolutely atrocious pun, the FSM claimed that he was going to make God ‘omni-pain-tent’! God however did not do much better when he retorted with “that FSM motherfucker ain’t got nothing on me, except some marinara sauce”. Fans on both sides are eagerly waiting to see who wins this epic battle and which side will have to resort to cognitive dissonance.

Sam Etaro
Massive Onion Rip-Off Artist (But Not As Funny)

"Brother"

2009-05-31T23:31:00.004-04:00

Brother - An original (indie) composition by Zubin.

Performed by Zubin, Golu and me. None of us felt compelled enough to edit the video so do skip to 0:55 seconds when the song begins!

How I learnt to distrust the English language

2009-05-22T19:25:00.005-04:00

Recently, I was reminded of an incident from my yesteryears, a time when I was a young and naive 6th-classer running around the Hyderabad Public School in really short shorts and chasing girls in vain. (Sigh…some things never change. I still wear short shorts.) I had always felt that the English language was a little haphazard thanks to a number of its idiosyncrasies but mainly due to the frequent departures from phonetic spelling. As I was mildly amusing myself reminiscing about what had happened, I realized that this was one of the incidents (if not the first) that made me very wary of English.

One of the class participation exercises that my 6th class English teacher incorporated in her style was to get each kid to stand in front, facing the whole class and read aloud some paragraphs from the lesson being taught. I suppose the point was to hit many birds with one stone, the birds being public speaking confidence, fluency and pronunciation. On one of those days, it was my turn and I happily went ahead and started giving it my all (and by all I mean reading out really loud in my short shorts). I don’t remember what the story that I was reading from was but one of the lines had the word ‘food’ in it. Oblivious to the utter humiliation that was about to be heaped on me I read the sentence as “the man needed to eat some fudd before going to work” (the word fudd rhymes with stood, but with an emphasis on the d). My teacher’s sudden “what?” prompted me to stop reading amidst the background of some of my classmates giggling. I hesitantly re-read the line the same way. In what can be considered one of the cruelest acts in the history of mankind, my teacher burst of laughing right in front of everyone and after telling me the right way to pronounce the word ‘food’ asked me to go on. (If you are a gult like me, I am hoping you can empathize why I had mispronounced the word as such. When using the word in everyday gult (telugu) conversation one always seems to pronounce it as ‘fudd’, as in “fudd kottava?” which in essence means “did you have food?” and never with the elongated sound that the two ‘o’s make in ‘fooood’).
At this point, I simply wanted to stop, go back to my chair and hide my face in my bag. Unfortunately for me, my teacher did not share my feelings and simply kept looking at me as if to say “Go on Rohit. I do not see why making fun of your pronunciation in front of your entire class of human-piranhas should affect you in any way”. I had no choice but to go on clinging to the hope that it wouldn’t get worse. That ended up being one of the most inaccurate thoughts in the history of mankind. All was going well with my recitation for a few minutes until I came across the sentence “the man’s sweater was made of wool”. By the time, I started reading the sentence I had already seen the word ‘wool’ a little ahead and was trying to think as quickly as I could about the right pronunciation. Sadly, I could not be sure and I halted when I reached the word. My mind went “let’s see, both food and wool have two ‘o’s and food is supposed to be ‘foood’ and therefore wool has to be “woool”. A Vulcan would have been proud of me. Sadly, my teacher was an inferior human specimen and as soon as I said “woooooool” she snapped and corrected me. This happened a long time ago but I distinctly remember the giggling of the class at my devastating shame and all I wanted to do was run away and hide in one of the numerous hillocks that bounded the back side of our school (the ‘backfields’ we called them). Once again she gave me the ‘I-don’t-see-why-you-don’t-want-to-keep-reading’ look and I acquiesced to her instructions and my turn ended without any more blaze of glory crashes.

Needless to say my friends ripped on me for a few days (probably something along the lines of ‘Rohit is wearing his woooooooollen sweater today and is going to eat some fudd’) and then forgot about it as soon as they found something else to bother me with. Of course all was good ultimately and I learnt an important life-lesson about never to make assumptions about the mighty English language!

If you find some grammatical or spelling error in my post and say things like “Haha…looks like you weren’t wary enough of English” deduct 5 points for lack of originality! You are always welcome to rip on me for anything else!

Open letter to Seth McFarlane

2009-04-26T23:36:00.008-04:00

Because boring sunday evenings are perfect for throwing tantrums!

---------
Dear Seth,

You are a colossal asshole and you suck!
You and the rest of the talent less idiots who pass for Family Guy writers are the world’s most formidable morons!

Enough with the shit-pile that Family Guy has turned out to be!! I used to be a big fan of the show but now I’d rather stare at my shit stew in the toilet for 30 mins than sit through an entire episode of the abomination that has become Family Guy. You guys are not even trying anymore and it is unbelievable that the show is still airing.

You started of ok dude (albeit shamelessly). When you ran up to your friends to say, “guys…I have an idea for a show. It consists of a crazy family with a stupid dad and a level-headed mom and kids who…” why didn’t any of them stop you with “That sounds a whole lot like The Simpsons you unoriginal bum”? However I gave you a pass. Thanks to Led Zeppelin, plagiarizing something to make it better is a little okay in my book. Not that Family Guy was head and shoulders above the Simpsons but whatever. It was a comedy show and it got me laughing so I was not going to hate it on principle.
Your fascination with decades old American pop culture at first intrigued me, then amused me and very soon started irritating me to no end. If you are a comedy show, you have to say something funny. Simply breaking into your obscure childhood reference does not work. If you miss your childhood so much, get some friends who grew up with you, go to a bar and reminiscence. Don’t force everyone else to join your boring party!
The vague annoyance and animosity I was feeling for your show was perfectly captured by Southpark’s ‘Cartoon Wars’. Seth Mac Farlane, that is how an intelligent adult cartoon looks like and should look like. Southpark has managed to address every legitimate and crippling criticism of your show and yet you do not have the intellectual honesty to make any changes.
Your “this is just like the time...” jokes are the worst offenders. I am not even addressing the ‘they are unrelated to the plot’ criticism that SP has levied against you. Once again, your show is a comedy show and I do not care how you spin a story as long as you make it funny. But those jokes are not even funny and they drag on for way too long. And this bears repeating, they are NOT FUNNY. When you show a clip of Peter running home to fall down mid-route and hurt him self and go “aah” for a full 1 minute, I feel like stabbing you. When you repeat the same fucking thing with Lois instead of Peter in another episode, I feel like stabbing myself.

I could have simply stopped watching the show instead of throwing this tantrum. But somehow with Family Guy you have managed the biggest bait and switch in the history of TV shows. Every week I am inexplicably motivated to watch a new episode in the hopes that I will actually break into a smile (I gave up on laughing a year ago) and every week I am disappointed. Yet I keep going back for ‘old-times sake’. This has been happening for over a year now and only today did I fully appreciate how much of my life I have wasted in this comedic anticipation! I deserve a kick to the head!

Your other show ‘American Dad’ is just ok. How did you even successfully pitch it? God knows why your creativity cannot take off without the impetus being “let’s start with a crazy family”, but judging by the way Family Guy has turned out, I’m betting American Dad will start stinking very soon.

Here’s a very serious suggestion Seth. Stop Family Guy completely and salvage some respect. Redirect all your efforts to American Dad and hire better writers. That way, maybe in a few seasons it can come close to being a reasonably funny show. It is tough but at least you would have done the right thing!

In conclusion I will say this.
Carlos Mencia : Comedians :: Family Guy : Cartoon shows
If this doesn’t knock any sense into your head, I do not know what will!

Sincerely,
A well-meaning hater.

PS: Your Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy also sucks. Blue Harvest was good though.

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It is amusing that searching for 'clouds showing the finger' on google images has such a straightforward result!

On Objectivity/Subjectivity

2009-04-19T14:48:00.004-04:00

One of my beliefs is that objectivity is an illusion.

Objective: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers

Subjective: characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind

The definition of the word 'objective' invokes a notion that there are some hard 'facts' that can be perceived as being objective and the perception of such an 'objective' entity is immune to any sort of individual thought. This I feel is inaccurate. It is impossible to experience any phenomenon without individual interpretation. The general trend in determining what is objective seems to be nothing more than labeling the opinion of a 'subjective multitude' as being objective. If a majority of people perceive an object, phenomenon, or condition in the same way, it is deemed to be the objective interpretation. In any discussion that pertains to the determination of whether or not something is objective, what we consider are the opinions of others. That alone makes it highly subjective.

The most obvious manifestation of this view seems to be in the social construct of the human race. We have a number of so-called ‘self evident truths’ that are the objective pillars on which society is built. Truths like ‘murder is wrong’, ‘everyone has the right to pursue happiness’, ‘all men are equal’ and other such ideas all have an air of absoluteness that is supposed to be independent of individual interpretation. I do not agree. I strongly believe that every such idea has evolved from a collective mind of humans (from trial and error of course) and has been elevated to an objective status after societies have found them to be extremely important for the existence of a stable and steadily advancing civilization. Our day to day laws fall in the same category and are formed in exactly the same way except that most are not grandiose enough to be elevated to a higher stature. “Thou shalt wear thy seat-belt while driving” doesn’t exactly have an inspiring and divine all-encompassing ring to it.

The biggest threat to a view like this would be scientific facts (gravity, fields, forces, evolution). A common understanding seems to be that there exist cold scientific facts that are as objective as possible and the goal of any scientific endeavor is the attainment and understanding of this knowledge. At the risk of sounding like a colossal idiot I very apprehensively say that I do not agree with this view either. Throughout history, even after the age of reason, ‘scientific facts’ that were thought to have been backed by mountains of experimental evidence have been disproved (or at least revised, eg: Newton’s Laws of motion) time and again. It seems preposterous to think that at some point in time we will arrive at the final and absolute explanation of a phenomenon and such an explanation can be labeled as an objective fact.

The generally accepted notion is that the universe is deterministic, that it is governed by absolute objective laws and all of our theories and their revisions are just iterations before we end up at this “truth”. I very well understand that a majority of scientists are smart enough to realize that theories are meant to be critiqued and revised. What seems ironic to me is that a mode of thinking that does not encourage rigid dedication to any theory as being absolute has as its ultimate goal, the discovery of the absolute laws of nature. Historically, classical physics was thought to be one such absolute explanation with no improvements needed. Yet, quantum physics was discovered. Is it justified that when/if we discover the grand unification theory we will call it the ‘absolute truth’ and accept it unflinchingly? Of course, one could argue that it is just a matter of semantics, but the majority of the human population does believe in absolute truths (be it from a religious god or Einstein’s god i.e nature) which is what I am addressing.

My point is that at some level even the so-called absolute scientific facts are largely ‘mass subjective’ and not purely ‘objective’. I have a belief that there are no such absolute truths and everything we make of the world around us is the result of a collective understanding and acceptance (much like the ‘Borg’ from Star Trek :P). I will admit that I do not share the confidence of the applicability of such a non-objective view of the world in the scientific realm as I have in the case of the social realm. I have a vague uneasiness about this and I cannot figure out why. Must be some ‘purpose of life’ thing!

This fruit, it has lead poisoning!

2009-04-05T18:15:00.003-04:00

The last post has made me very disappointed in myself. All it had was just two lines. This is being dangerously close to twitter territory and that is unacceptable! I want to apologize sincerely for the transgression. I briefly became what I hate, a self absorbed asshole who thinks that his stream of consciousness is so interesting that it has to be shared with the world. In the future I will do everything possible to keep such inane and mind numbing thoughts to myself.

As some sort of redemption I want to share this cover of the simple yet beautiful Led Zepp song called “Tangerine” (or Orange for you desis :P). It is meant to be played on an acoustic but it has been more than a year since I last played on an acoustic and I need to retrain my fingers. I am at the end of a Led Zepp phase and having re-discovered a lot of their amazing songs I did not want to wait to learn and record this.

To say that Jimmy Page is a maestro is an exercise in redundancy.
Also, I will not be offended if you stop listening from the 2:47 mark!
Enjoy!

Dilemma of the Day

2009-04-01T13:40:00.004-04:00

The problem with people forwarding you April Fool articles is that you do not know if they get the joke and find it amusing enough to share OR they really have become the fool! How does one figure out which is the case so as to respond the right way??
One of life's many mysteries!

I have a brilliant and insightful...

2009-03-17T14:11:00.001-04:00

...post in my head. Unfortunately, the margin here is too small.

Leap of Logic

2009-03-04T14:28:00.003-05:00

I was sitting in the sauna at my gym when this old guy enters and sits down. Within a minute he starts talking.

Him: "Was pretty cold yesterday?" (It was atypically below freezing and had snowed all day)
Me: "Yeah..."
Him: "And now it's getting a little too warm in here" (he meant the sauna)
Me: "Yeah..."
Him: "Maaan...this is like being in hell"

I nod. It actually was getting a little too hot in there.

Him: "Except, here you can walk out to cool off and come back in, but in hell there is no escape"
Me: "....I guess...."
Him: "And that's why you need to accept Jesus as your lord and saviour and reject all the other fake religions. Only through Christianity can you reach heaven. The other religions are fake because all they do is borrow from Christianity and mislead people into thinking they can achieve salvation..."
Me (interrupting him): "Yeeaah...DEATH TO THE INFIDELS" (could have been in my imagination)

Slightly amused at his awesome leap in logic, I contemplated for a brief moment about getting into a debate about religion with him. But it really was getting too hot for any sort of talk. Plus I did not want to disappoint him by letting him know that I wasn't a muslim (or anything in fact). So I cut him short and left to stand under a cold shower and wash away my sins of the day! Later I went home hungry and had a slice of delicious pizza and a cold beer. That was heaven enough for me.

Brilliant Form of Criticism

2009-02-25T12:54:00.005-05:00

Although I personally think bashing the Bush administration has become extremely boring (and also largely irrelevant now), the clever use of the wikipedia page for FEMA to make a point is too smart to be just let go without a snapshot (Click on it).

Some Solitude

2009-02-08T09:19:00.003-05:00

Solitude is a slow mellow song by Black Sabbath from their ‘Master of Reality’ album. As I remember mentioning once, the beauty of the song comes from the awesome solos and the flute (which I obviously do not cover).

Ozzy Osbourne is a strange man. On one hand, his on stage “occult” persona is obviously fake (which self-respecting satan worshipper shouts “god bless you all” at the end of a song?) and on the other hand he did bite off a dead bat’s head! It amuses me that someone would think the best way to impress a bunch of record executives is to (once again) bite off a live dove’s head (different from the bat incident) and the same personality could also pen lyrics that go,

You just left when I begged you to stay
I’ve not stopped crying since you went away

I guess satan gets senti too!

BLACK SABBATH COVER: SOLITUDE

Omar Epps confident of being renewed contract to play Mike Tomlin

2009-01-31T15:46:00.003-05:00

Omar Epps, who plays the popular character of Mike Tomlin (the head coach of the football team Pittsburg Steelers) in real life, said on Saturday that he is confident about his contract being renewed for a new season. His comments, made on the eve of the 43rd Superbowl come as no surprise considering that the team he has been ‘coaching’ has made it to the grand finale of the American football season this year. “I am a method actor” he says, “when I am Dr. Foreman on House I try to read up as much as I can about medicine. I am sure I can perform a simple surgery or two now. I approach the character of Mike Tomlin in a similar way. I have been reading ESPN.com everyday, have been watching John (the Steelers’ Assistant Head Coach John Mitchell) lecture the boys about football and hey, I even throw the old pigskin around now and then.” When asked about the toughest part about playing Mike, he says “It’s the pep talks before the game. Most of my lines consist of football jargon that I have got memorized but when it comes to the pep talks it can get very hard. The players look at me for inspiration but there is only so much I can do if my lines are not very good. I really have to put my heart and soul in it. Sometimes I even get carried away and improvise. And some other times when I forget lines on the field, I just cover my mouth with the playbook. That always works!”.

When asked about how he balances his normal life and two big roles, Omar mentioned that it can get very disorienting at times and that there have been a couple of occasions when he has walked into a room full of football players and shouted “HOUSE…NO”.
He however added that he wasn’t very concerned about such future mix ups as he is a little pessimistic regarding his role of Dr. Foreman. His character, he added, off late has been very uninvolved with the plots and felt that the writers jumped the shark by having him kiss ‘13’ (another character played by Olivia Wilde). He said that the Steelers on the other hand have done very well and he is very happy that the nation has embraced Mike Tomlin so well. He let slip that he hoped for an Emmy nomination if the Steelers win the Superbowl. Omar Epps has done some other movies but no one has ever heard of them so we wish him all the best as this might be his only chance.

Sam Etaro
Massive Onion Rip-Off Artist (But Not As Funny)

Thought Collage: Part VII (Stand up and Be counted)

2009-01-20T00:49:00.006-05:00

In this one, I have a short collection of short nonsensical paragraphs.
The kind of stuff that would probably go on someone’s twitter.
But I don’t and will never twitter.
Twittering is for losers.

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As is the best way to start any day, let me begin by talking about shitting! I am a big fan of reading while on the toilet. The calm of the morning while you cleanse your body (so to speak) is highly conducive for a relaxing read. What the world (or at the very least me) needs is some sort of support structure that can easily be pulled up in front on which a book can be placed. Maybe it can be designed to even hold other stuff. I don’t have a fully formed idea in my mind yet but I cannot help feel that this is great idea. Maybe I will sketch something soon!

Here is one way for employers to increase productivity. Give your employees the option to change/swap the location of their work station every 6 months. It would be great if people could simply pack up and move to a new place as if you are starting a new job. I for one would like the novelty associated and the feeling of starting afresh that comes with it. Moreover if you hate the guy working next to your cubicle, you have to put up with him for only a short period of time instead of trying to start the next crusades!

There have been many occasions when I felt that the magnificent view that can be from an airplane window is hampered due to the miniature sized windows. An aerial view of earth is not something that can be obtained whenever one feels like it and the few chances that I get to do so, I am stuck with an iphone browser instead of an IMAX!
What do we want?
Bigger windows on planes!
When do we want it?
Whenever possible (cuz we are reasonable)

Who decided that all clocks need to be essentially 'multiplication clocks'? I am kinda tired of multiplying whenever I want to read the time. Maybe getting into dividing will help change the drudgery that is reading time off an analog watch. I want a clock like this. Who is with me? Who is?

I think my toes are useless. I think everyone’s toes are useless too. Can you think of one thing you cannot do if you had perfectly webbed feet? In fact webbed feet will help you swim faster. Most people spend 8 hrs of their day wearing shoes and in really cold places I am guessing the rest of the time is spent wearing socks. There really isn’t anything you use your toes for (fetishes notwithstanding). Plus think about all the times you stubbed them and prayed to god to take you away so that the pain ends. All in all, toes should be declared vestigial organs. I am declaring an evolutionary war on them. Women of the world, you know what to do (just consider me too even though I have normal healthy non-webbed sexy toes ;) !!
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But seriously, don’t twitter!
If you do, we can never be friends.
If you already are my friend and twitter, then ‘cutiff’!

An Open Letter

2008-12-29T16:37:00.006-05:00

Unlike most open letters that I have read on the web I am writing this one with a genuine desire to reach out to as many people as possible. The purpose is more to educate than just vent and I am hoping that people actually embrace the idea. Let me get straight to the point.

America, STOP STINKING UP MOVIE THEATERS WITH THE DISGUSTING AND OVERWHELMING SMELL OF POPCORN. A cinema is not a restaurant. Have a meal before or after the movie. Heck, have a meal before AND after. Can't you go just 2 hours without stuffing your face with food? It is bad enough that most of you pollute the air inside the theater with the nauseating smell of overpriced butter, but oh my god, the LOUD CHEWING AND THE SLURPING. Who does that? Did your mother teach you that it is not okay to make noises while eating or drinking except in a goddamn theater? Do you all need a special message at the beginning of the movie that asks you to switch off your cellphones and your animal instincts?

There are some who might say I am overreacting. If you agree, then you are one of those people who is pissing me off and YOU ARE A MORON. Do you always have to buy a tub of popcorn and a large diet coke everytime you see a movie? Stop behaving like a conditioned drone and know that just because it is dark and no one can see you doesn't mean you can check your manners at the door and behave like a 2 year old. Everyone doing it does not make it ok. You all disgust me and make me want to avoid going to movies altogether!

The Chinese take out place next to my house is better than the one next to yours

2008-12-24T00:04:00.004-05:00

I will tell you why.
A classy 2009 calendar filled with bikini clad Asians!
I mean, is there really a better way to show appreciation for being a regular customer?

This place is awesome.
First, I get large tasty portions of pepper beef with steamed rice for only $6.25. And now I can hang pictures of almost naked women all over my room and look at them whenever I need to know the date or feel like eating Chinese. Talk about one stop shop for all your hungers! Plus, who can put a price on all the knowledge I get from the fortune cookies? Confucius says “The answer is a deep fried NO my friend”!
Can you feel the holiday spirit sautéed in schezwan sauce and served with an egg roll of mild arousal?

The lady who gave me this first grinned widely almost winking as if to say, “I know what you are really going to use this for” and then immediately sheepishly asked me “Oh…you are not married right?” I think you got the order of those reactions wrong ma’m! Nevertheless, I am thinking of taping this right onto my ceiling so that it is the first thing that I look at when I open my eyes in the morning. Anything else would kill the Christmas spirit!

An imagined conversation

2008-12-21T21:13:00.004-05:00

Jim: Dan, I know that your book ‘Angels and Demons’ wasn’t as big a hit as you had hoped for but I think you should keep working on the idea.
Dan Brown: Are you crazy? I am going to try something different now. 'Angels and Demons' is a lost cause.
Jim: No No Dan. Hear me out. I think you should revisit the entire premise once again and give it another shot! Just change the mystery that drives the plot but keep the general plotline and the basic idea of the characters the same. I have a gut feeling about this!
Dan Brown: Are you fucking drunk Jim? That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Wouldn’t people find it weird that almost similar things happen to the protagonist twice in his life? Who is going to buy that?
Jim: That doesn’t matter Dan. If the new book becomes a huge hit nobody will care about such things. You have to trust me.
Dan Brown: Hmmm…let me think about it. If I do this, I have to make sure it contains more controversial elements than the first.
Jim: Yes of course. I think hitting up Christianity once again is a good idea.
Dan Brown: Jim…you are insane. I can’t write about Christianity once again.
Jim: Yes you can. Just make it even more controversial. Here’s the thing. Simply forget that you ever wrote 'Angels and Demons'. Try to write something that is a new and improved 'Angels and Demons' without worrying about repetition or things like that! The only thing is you have to make it more controversial. That way it will get a lot of attention and boom…jackpot!
Dan Brown: Hmmmm…seems like a crazy idea that just might work. Let me think about it more seriously! If it doesn’t work, you owe me a beer though!
Jim: You’ve got yourself a deal Dan!

Aside: I think one commendable thing about Dan Brown is that it is relatively easier to create your own world and plant clues in it to create a mystery. Dan Brown however works with real world artifacts and makes them part of a treasure hunt which at least on the face value of it seems like quite an impressive task.

EDIT (Dec 24th 2008): Since I am pseudo-intellectually bashing authors here, let me say this: MALCOLM GLADWELL...stop researching things that are explained by common sense and write something new. Your books are the equivalent of headlines that go "Scientists show people who drink too much make a lot of stupid mistakes". It is freaking obvious, everybody knows that and nobody wants to know why. Stop turning one page essays into books jackass!

Why don't we bomb the terrorist camps in Pakistan?

2008-12-07T22:36:00.006-05:00

Ajmal Amir Qasab, the solitary terrorist captured in the Mumbai terrorist attack has revealed the locations of where he was trained to carry out the attack (Source: NDTV website). It is not a stretch of imagination to assume that a lot of others are being trained there too. So why aren't we demanding Pakistan raid those places? Personally I think Pakistan is an out and out terrorist state and will not agree to such an operation under any circumstances. The fact that this is due to an ineffectual government doesn't change a thing. Pakistan claimed that the terrorists were stateless. This should give it complete moral authority to raid these terrorist training camps as it would not constitute as an attack on its own citizens. But it will not and this is because the terrorists are Pakistanis and the Pakistan government knows this. It would much rather play a game of cat and mouse with the Indian government while Indians die rather than take any affirmative step that attempts to eradicate the sources of these problems.

What options does this leave us with?

Negotiating and trying to acheive results diplomatically has never worked with Islamic terrorism. When people are brainwashed from a young age they do not see any reason in anything other than what they have been told is right. As far as I know, wars that have been fuelled by religious ferver have never been quelled diplomatically. India-Pakistan diplomacy has never been effective in quelling terrorism and once again we are resorting to this to solve our problems.

What about an out and out military action like invading Pakistan? I don't think this will do any good either due to many obvious factors. As a friend of mine (Duh) rightly pointed out, the disparity in military might between India and Pakistan is not enough for us to achieve a speedy result. Furthermore, the fact that both countries have nuclear weapons will make the rest of the world shit in its collective pants and we can expect a lot of effective pressure to prevent a war (sanctions etc?). Furthermore, this will make it extremely easy for the extremists to recruit more terrorists.

I think selective bombing of the terrorist camps is a middle ground that we absolutely have to resort to. There is a reason we are seen as a soft target. It is because we never resort to military action proactively. This is definitely good upto a certain extent. We have been turning the other cheek long enough now. I think it is time to show the world and Pakistan that we have the resolve to kill if need be. I agree that there will be civilian casualities which will once again make it easier for extremists to recruit terrorists. However, this is the collateral damage that we have to accept in order to send a message. One is a fool to think there can be military action without civilian casualities, especially if these terrorists turn out to be like the Palestian extremists who hide in civilian populated areas knowing that when Israel bombs them there will be an international humanitarian outcry against it. Our plane is hijacked and we do nothing, our parliament is attacked and we do nothing, our institue of higher learning is attacked and we do nothing, our economic centre is attacked and we do nothing. What lines do these people have to cross after which we think pre-emptive strikes are warranted? To those who think this is still too extreme, I want them to tell me the number of innocent Indians that have to die after which such an action is okay.

Everyone is blaming the Indian politicians. I agree that they are very much responsible for being an incompetent bunch letting the country go to the dogs just to satisfy their selfish needs. But shouldn't this anger come after the anger towards Pakistan? Shouldn't we be trying to come up with ways to get to the root of the problem? Do people really think setting up a new terrorism task force or getting some politicans to resign will change things at a fundamental level? Imagine you are walking on a street and some guy shoves you down so hard that your arm breaks. What we are doing is ignoring this lunatic completely and going back to our negligent mother and blaming her for not feeding us enough calcium as a child.

I think I know why we do this.
We are scared to offend our muslim brethren.
People say that "terrorism knows no religion". What is this supposed to mean? That we should ignore the religious aspect of the attacks? Sorry but if 15 guys come from a muslim majority country into a Hindu majority country that has had strained relations with it rooted in partition (that was once again on religious lines) and specifically target a jewish settlement amongst others, while letting a Turkish couple go free because they are muslim, it has every fucking thing to do with religion.

If I was a muslim I would be insulted by those who say that this has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with religion, especially the wrong and maligned way Islam is used to brain wash the extremists. I would want to know that people understand this. By not talking about this at all, it makes me suspect that you secretly think I am somehow responsible for the actions of these terrorists. I would be offended because you assume that I put my religion before my country and so you dont want to offend me by bringing up religion. Sure India has its own communal problems, but is this really the time to be politically correct? In fact, is there any good time to be politically correct? I am confident that when the Imams of India refused to bury the terrorists, there was atleast one person whose wrong convictions about how all muslims in India are against India were atleast shaken a bit. I feel like this is the most effective path. We need to walk down this path to get to the root of this problem.

Now comes the question of personal responsibilty. Would I be willing to put my money where my mouth is? Which is to say, if India does end up bombing strategic parts of Pakistan and these events lead to a war, would I be willing to give up my cozy life in the US and go back to India to enlist and fight for my country? I honestly dont know. Anyone reading this can blame me for being a hypocrite and I accept the label. What I will stick by though is that this action is what I think is best for my country in the long run. Me being a hypocrite doesn't change the validity of my argument. To those who are ready to dismiss this option just based on my hypocrisy, I ask them what would their response be if a high ranking general of our army had put forward this?

We are being attacked and innocents are dying so often that it literally has become just another day in our lives. I really hope atleast this changes things and we will adopt a more effective approach to solve this problem rather than resort to impotent diplomacy!

The last post that has to do with Under the Bridge

2008-12-02T16:24:00.005-05:00

This past thanksgiving weekend I hung out with Golu and played a little music.

We plugged in our guitars and switched on our amps with the intention of coming up with an awesome original composition. After a little playing we lowered our goal to just covering an awesome jam. A few more iterations of goal-lowering happened after that. Running out of time (as I had to leave soon) did not help. Plus there were no drugs involved as our regular dealer was spending the thanksgiving with his family. Ultimately (and unfortunately) we ended up with this.

I am putting this up anyway as a "BEFORE" video. The "AFTER" video will come soon. Stay tuned.

I also learnt the importance of good lighting.

EDIT (Feb 4th 2009): Lazy Golu finally uploaded a couple of videos that we had recorded on the same day as the above one (Nov 28th 2008). Both videos were taken with Golu's camera which kicks my camera's ass. The first video is a recording of a soundcheck that went really bad or really good depending on which one of us you ask ;) and the second is a recording of the first take of 'Under the Bridge' which we decided to not use. In retrospect, this version is slightly better than the one I had put up! Enjoy.

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SOUND CHECK

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ABANDONED TAKE THAT WE THREW AWAY DOWNTOWN

Quantum of Cars, Guns and Babes!

2008-11-16T11:59:00.008-05:00

Here’s the thing: I have never seen a James Bond movie that I haven’t liked.

I am left out of all discussions that people around me have when they rate the best Bonds and the best movies. My only opinion is an all encompassing “I thought it was great” for every movie and “I wish I was Bond instead of him” for every actor who plays Bond.

All James Bond movies are primarily made up three things: lots of (guns, gadgets, cars and explosions), extremely hot women, and James Bond looking cool. All James Bond movies pull these three off really well. That is enough for me to suspend my disbelief to an extent that I really don’t care about the plots, plausibility of Bond’s stunts, character developments etc. I see Bond driving a gorgeous Aston Martin with the likes of the ultra gorgeous Eva Green, spying around the bad guys to bring them down and my most basic instincts are tickled funny which always leaves me happy. That is why I am convinced that in spite of the tepid reviews that “Quantum of Solace” is getting, I am pretty sure I will like it.

To celebrate of all things Bond-related, check out the following

1) One of the coolest cars in the world

2) One of the most gorgeous women in the world

3) One of the most kickass themes in the world

Amazon Customer Review Review

2008-11-11T22:01:00.004-05:00

Almost all the books I buy are from Amazon. There are always a bunch of people selling ‘used’ copies of the books for really low prices and I remember purchasing some for as low as 1 cent (of course the shipping and handling at 3.99 is where they make the money). The approximate average amount that I have spent on a book cannot be more than 10$. My point being that this is a great place to buy books cheaply. The only downside to this is the 4-5 day wait for the book to arrive.

Also, I recently formed a very entertaining habit. Once I am done reading something (and most of it is very basic literature made famous by the world long ago that I am catching up with) I read a lot of the customer reviews that are posted on Amazon. The spectrum of reactions to any book is fascinating and I am always amazed by both the depth and shallowness displayed. 5 star reviews of the well-acclaimed books are generally informative and help me either look at the book from an angle that I had failed to see or realize the importance of details that I had missed. However, it is the 1 star reviews of these ‘good’ books that sometimes force me to put on an entirely different set of reading glasses. I had expected most of these bad reviews to be from ‘philistines’ who would crib along the lines of “this books sucks...I got so bored” or such intellectually equivalent arguments. This tends to be true in most cases. People seem to harp on a minor issue and reject the book as being bad after making a mountain out of the mole hill. Sometimes they even attack the motives of the author as being suspect and claim that their distrust and prejudice makes them hate the literary work. As frivolous as some opinions might be I found that there are always a few people who have a legitimate point or two. It is obviously a good idea to read even the minority view and form a more balanced opinion.

One of the most compelling revelations I had came to me when I was reading the reviews for George Orwell's 1984. When I finished this book recently (I know I am late to the party) I immediately thought of its present day relevance in terms of the wire-taps/illegal prisons/etc happening in the US being perpetuated by the far-right in the name of war. Only when I read the reviews did I realize that there was a sea of people who interpreted the book's modern day relevance in terms of the far-left agenda of making American society more and more socialist. Although 1984 talks about a totalitarian regime that incorporates the extreme nature of both the left and the right, it was interesting for me to see my own and other's prejudices (no matter how justified) heavily influencing what we took away from the book.

SoundStupid

2008-11-04T22:31:00.002-05:00

“Let me tell you why I think archaeology is important. Archaeology is important because history repeats itself and man makes the same mistakes all the time. Since we are fallible, the only way we can prevent mistakes is by learning from our past and the further we go back in time, the more of our baser instincts we see in play. That is why it is vital to understand how our ancestors behaved and try and not make the same mistakes.”

-Drunk me to a cute archaeologist at a halloween party before the conversation turned downhill and she finally left! I need some help finding my optimum intoxication level wherein I can be smooth but avoid vocalizing all the random crap that comes to my mind!

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Also, I have to acknowledge this:
Obama wins! NICE!

A little bit of American politics

2008-10-07T10:10:00.005-04:00

A lot (maybe too much) is being said about everything that is going on with the US presidential election right now. I don’t intend to rehash all the criticism being thrown towards both the democratic and republican presidential and vice-presidential nominees. I just want to get a few strikes on this dead horse.
I used to like John McCain a lot. So much so that at a dinner conversation with some friends a few weeks back, I said that I would vote for McCain if I could. (Let’s ignore the sad reality that I know more about US politics than Indian.) Despite McCain carrying the tag of being a republican (which tends to make me view a person in a slightly negative light) I quickly realized that he was a very sensible guy. In all his interviews (conducted before he had become the republican nominee) he came across as a level headed person who had well thought out arguments for his positions (as opposed to using scare tactics). This unfortunately didn’t last long and he soon started pandering to the republican base. So much so that Jon Stewart (of The Daily Show) openly asked him if he had sunken so low to appease the base and John McCain sheepishly replied in the affirmative. And the pandering has gotten so bad that it amazes me that there are still some non-base people (people who aren’t bible thumpers or think Obama is a secret muslim who will open a backdoor for terrorists into American) who are undecided or will vote for McCain because they want to stick to party lines in spite of the party’s policies spelling disasters for America.

McCain claims that he is going to put “country first”. Yet he chose Palin as his VP. It is more than obvious that Sarah Palin is a disaster and is completely unfit for the job. It couldn’t have been possible that she turned into an idiot overnight. This means that McCain knew she was unqualified but decided to continue pandering to his republican (and hopefully the female voter) base by choosing Palin as his running mate. I fail to see how this is putting “country first”, when you are willing to have an incompetent person in office just so you can get elected. Obama on the other hand chose Biden, someone the media calls “a Washington insider”. Biden has criticized Obama (in favor of McCain even) several times before Obama became the nominee. Yet I believe he was chosen for the much needed experience he can provide to run the country. Choosing someone who complements your skill set in spite of being subjected to personal attacks seems to me like a good example of putting country first. There is a small possibility that McCain really thought Palin would be a good choice as VP. If this is true, it is best for him to never admit it.

There are people who say they are going to vote for McCain-Palin because they can relate to Palin as a down to earth person who is just like them. Putting aside how ignorant she is about anything that happens on a global scale, she is a journalism major who doesn’t read any newspapers, went to five colleges to get a degree and thinks the earth was created 6000 years ago. If you can relate to her, that is only because she is stupid and so are you. Why would anyone want to risk giving her even a little control over the entire country? I relate to my friends a lot. That doesn’t mean I get them to perform an appendectomy on me when I need one.

Obama surely has his faults. In fact, I think the democrats are always erring on the wrong side of socialism. I am not naïve enough to think he is the perfect candidate who will bring unprecedented riches and glory to America. Yet, I believe the choice for the next US president couldn’t have been simpler. In my opinion you should weigh the pros and cons of every candidate’s positions on major issues and vote for the one with whom you agree the most. You shouldn’t vote for McCain just because he is a war-hero. You shouldn’t vote for Obama just because he is black. Sure, in both cases, it would be a plus point for the respective candidate (mostly) but what about the rest of their manifesto? It amazes me that people choose just one aspect of a candidate’s platform and just run with it racking up huge amounts of cognitive dissonance along the way.

Having lived here for 4 years now, I consider the US a second home. I have always been in awe of the wonderful technological innovations that have come from this country and defend it in whatever position I can and whenever possible. Yet, there are times when the stupidity and the stubbornness of the masses depresses me. If McCain wins (and I have a suspicion that he will mostly due to the Bradley Effect), I can only hope he goes back to his old self when he wasn’t afraid to go against the traditional republican views. Unfortunately I doubt that will happen.

EDIT (Nov 6th 2008): Obama wins! By a landslide. Awesome. I am glad I was so wrong.

Wikisurfing is fun [1]

2008-09-24T21:08:00.007-04:00

If you have a job that requires you to sit in front of a computer that is connected to the internet, chances are you have experienced WikiSurfing (when a better name strikes me, as it often happens when I am over the can (which is an euphemism for shitting), I am going to replace WikiSurfing with that word and erase this long and pointless sentence where I give TMI (too much information) and use too many brackets…(ok?)). WikiSurfing, as the net-addicted amongst you might have already guessed is when you start off reading one article on wikipedia, jump to another article midway through the first one via a link and keep doing this for 2 hours until you end up with tons of guilt and half assed knowledge about a variety of vaguely related and often pointless topics.

This happens to me all the time but today I think I have a crowning achievement in terms of maximum randomness. Trying to get some work done I tried to find an article explaining “spherical modes”. Exactly 1 hour later I was reading about “Megan Fox”. I have no idea how I managed that but I was glad my natural instincts led me well. Yet the whole process amused me to no end. I have no recollection of my journey but my destination taught me that Megan Fox is engaged to some random dude and believes in pansexuality (which isn’t something as kinky as I had imagined).

Megan Fox could keep me entertained only for so long (cuz it wasn’t she in person!). I quickly moved on and kept surfing when I came across an article where one of the sentences was ...he was however hit by a car which led to... and the words hit by a car were linked to an article about Motor Vehicle Accident. This means that there was a person who decided that the phrase 'hit by a car' might not convey enough information and took the effort to edit the page in order to link to the other one.
Nice! My faith in the bottomless pit of amusement that is the internet was reinforced today.

POST SCRIPT: After typing out the above, I put aside my laptop to visit the restroom (which is again a euphemism for shitting. Who actually rests in a restroom?). As it often happens (and I have a vague recollection that I already mentioned this) I had many thoughts while “resting in the restroom” and one of them was to google wikisurfing before posting this. Turns out, it is a word which is already in use, has an entry on urban dictionary and a bunch of people have already blogged about this. My instincts had led me well once again. Normally I would have scrapped the entire post due to the obvious redundancy but I decided against it (as is obvious) only because I wanted to share with the world that I have awesome thoughts while going dookie ( ;) ) and sadly these are no better than most of the world's!

References
[1]: Personal experience of the author. Not a reliable source.

Brief Review of Death Magnetic

2008-09-15T01:38:00.004-04:00

Here is a short review of DEATH MAGNETIC…the latest album released last Friday (12th Sept) by METALLICA.
Music wise it is only decent, there are parts where you really feel pumped up but more often than not its nothing more than just mediocre riffs. Maybe I have to let the songs grow on me. From an arrangement point of view it is a total back to roots album for metallica what with all the songs being long with changing riffs and solos. This might be great news to the I-hate-Metallica-after-Justice fans but I am not one of them. I think as awesome as their first four albums were, the radically different direction they took after Justice added an entirely new dimension to their music which paid off very well. I believe they tried to pull off a similar stunt with St.Anger which of course failed. However I personally give them the credit (that they deserve and normally don’t get) for having the balls to experiment rather than stick to just one proven formula.
Coming back to Death Magnetic, all the songs follow the template established by Kill Em All. The lyrics though suck balls. Hetfield was lyrically at his best during their softer years. Almost all songs from black album/load/reload have better lyrics than first 4 albums with a few exceptions of course. Most of the songs on death magnetic have to do with...(wait...can u guess?...) death...all seems very pretentious to me!
And one thing that has been a source of misery for me is Unforgiven 3, one of the songs on Death Magnetic. It is so crappy it makes me want to cry. Unforgiven 1 and 2 are masterpieces in every right of their own. Unforgiven 3 sounds like the result of a bad jam session from a third rate band or a song that I would come up at 2 am in the morning after coming back from the bar on a friday night completely drunk (the important difference being that I always have the good sense to realize it sucks...but not before a period of about 15minutes during which I am convinced that I have created a masterpiece!!)

Overall, I would rank the album maybe above reload and st.anger but still worse than rest of their stuff. I have listened to the album only a couple of times and will definitely be doing more listening in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I will grow to like it even more (cuz all fancy critiques and opinions notwithstanding, wouldn’t you rather enjoy something than hate it?)

Another good thing is because of death magnetic I listened to most of MetallicA’s repertoire again and was reminded why they are one of the best bands to have made music!

In conclusion...obey your master...MASTER!

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

2008-08-28T14:07:00.005-04:00

... then this video with 128 frames/sec and being 169 seconds long would be...aaaH..SCREW IT!

Just watch ok!
For it is the mighty Sabbath's Paranoid.

DARK KNIGHT

2008-07-23T23:14:00.007-04:00

Close Call

2008-06-30T14:43:00.002-04:00

Conversation I had two days ago (almost verbatim)

My phone rings while I am out buying groceries:

Person: Hi, This is Jenna from 1-800-contacts. Is this Ro-heat Sum-meat-ta?
Me: Yes this is Rohit.
Person: Hi Mr.Summeatta, we are calling to let you know that we got your online order for contact lenses. However, we could not verify the prescription with your doctor as the brand names do not match.
Me: Oh ok. Maybe I could just call my doctor and sort it out. Will that work?
Person: Yes sure. Just give us a call back when you fix this.
Me: Ok, since I have you on the phone, could you give me my doctor's phone number so that I can call him right away?
Person: Sure. It is xxx-xxx-xxxx.
Me: Ok thanks. I'll call him right away. Can you give me your...hmmm....I can just call 1-800 contacts once I get this fixed right?
Person: Yes you idiot. You almost defeated the whole point of us naming our company 1-800-contacts, you fricking moron!!!

She should have said that!
She just said yes!
But Im sure she thought it!

Rosetta Stone: Advert Criticism

2008-06-02T22:16:00.007-04:00

Today I was mindlessly surfing channels while eating my awesome fish curry...(It is a secret recipe which has been passed down through generations in my family. Seriously, every new born in my family is taught to make fish curry when he/she reaches the age of 10 and then is made to take an oath of death not to reveal it. I will tell you for $9.99 + shipping and handling costs)...I made when I chanced upon the ad for Rosetta Stone.

For those in the unknown, it is a software that helps you...(adults mostly, cuz you can teach a kid anything and the kid will learn it. I wonder if anyone has tried doing this before as a social experiment. You know, talk to a kid using gibberish to refer to basic words like food, chair, etc. and nonsense grammar to make sentences. Then send him off to school and videotape him asking for permission to use the bathroom!!! Ok...where was I?)...learn a new language. Now this might seem like a fairly common thing.

Except, something struck me as strange.

The entire ad is in English. Right from the letters on the screen, to the narration, and to the supposedly satisfied customers talking. Everyone speaks English.
Huh...Rosetta Stoners...what the hell???
If I am to be convinced that this is a powerful software that works then I want to see some conventional people speaking unconventional languages with thick accents. I am convinced easily and I expect at least this much.
The butt-clenchers amongst you might say, “But stupid Ro, that would seem so fake!”
To which I would reply, “Shut up butt-clenchers, I know in all probability the people talking would not be actual customers, but don’t you expect to see people drinking coffee in a coffee ad, people walking down shopping aisles after slimming down in a weight-loss ad and people actually talking on the phone in a 1-900 ad? Do you think those are all real customers? Do you really think hot girls are waiting for someone just like you to call? (They are not! I just know...lets leave it at that). Don’t you still expect a visual demonstration of the product?”

In the ad people go on about how well the software works and how easily they were able to learn a new language. But everyone talks in English. That is bad marketing. This is what I want to see...
1) A blue-eyed beach blonde chic talking in Swahili
2) A black guy speaking Hindi
3) An Asian lady speaking Arabic
Don’t tell me you won’t trust this software more if you see the above three on TV!
And since I am in a giving mood, here is another idea. If this doesn’t convince you to buy it, I don’t know what would!

Click on the figure or the rabbit gets it!

Minor observations from weekend in Miami

2008-05-28T16:00:00.002-04:00

1) Beaches in Miami are awesome
2) There ought to be a committee that decides who can or cannot dress skimpily in public
3) Cuban food is very unimpressive
4) You can never go fast enough on a jet-ski
5) Poolside + Pina colada + Lazy Afternoon Naps = Good Life

Anthony Keidis appeals to fans to stop singing at RHCP concerts

2008-05-17T23:09:00.004-04:00

In a shocking announcement that dealt a blow to music fans (much along the lines of Metallica complaining about Napster and Vanilla Ice deciding to make a comeback), Anthony Keidis, the lead vocalist of the popular rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers has appealed publicly to all RHCP concert goers “to just let him sing one f****** song by himself”.

The announcement comes on the heels of a recent concert at Albany, New York where over-enthusiastic fans sang to every RHCP song in the entire 90 min set list. The crowd even mimicked some of Anthony’s convulsions-filled dance moves and Flea’s supposedly impromptu speech about ‘itty bitty titties’. A visibly distraught Anthony commented about how this happens at every concert and how he longs for simpler days when they weren’t as well known and not many could keep up with his nonsensical raps. “There was a time when drug addiction and dying horribly were all we had to worry about. It is so much harder now. Some people might say that I am over reacting. But would you like it if I turn up with 20,000 others at your work place and forcibly do your job for you?”

When asked an opinion a fan responded (after much thought), “You know......I think Metallica fans should start singing all of its songs too. I mean ... dude ... have you listened to Hetfield lately?”

The rest of the Chilis declared that they were a 100% percent behind Anthony’s request. However they couldn’t help notice that the crowds made fewer lyrical errors and stayed in key more than Keidis. Chad the drummer added cautiously “who knows, maybe we will select a vocalist out of our fan base to replace Anthony. Hey...the Chilis selected a guitarist like that!” The other two had no further comment as Flea was busy walking on his hands and John was just happy to be with the spirits.

Sam Etaro

Massive Onion Rip-Off Artist (But Not As Funny)

2006 Acura RSX: A Review

2008-05-12T23:26:00.011-04:00

Yesterday, it rained.
I decided to go running.
So I did. Of course, it was indoors on a boring treadmill but still.
I returned home driving in the rain admiring the weather.
At home, tired and thirsty I decided to have a beer.
The fatigue and dehydration coupled with the alcohol made me light headed and I decided that I just had to write about my car.
Just one of the many ways I hit upon the stuff to write about here.

So what follows is the pseudo-official review of my first, current, and only car, a 2006 Acura RSX. Some minor specifications that I can rattle of without having to look them up are: 155 bhp, front wheel drive, 4 inline 2 litre cylinders, 2 door coupe with automatic transmission. This is where the specs end. I plan to talk about the pros and cons of the car that exist at a superficial level and can only be gleaned after a good amount of driving (or fantastic leaps of imagination on your test drive).

First the pros:
1) Driving Prowess: This is a somewhat misleading opinion as I don’t exactly have wide-spread experience with a whole bunch of cars to correctly judge where the RSX stands. But one thing I can assure you is that the RSX does not disappoint when it comes to speed and handling. I am no speed-demon and I don’t push the car to its limits. But maneuvering the RSX at highway speeds (75-80) is a pleasure. The pick-up speed is extremely impressive and is particularly useful when merging onto a highway (or when racing other cars at traffic lights).

2) The Sunroof: I really like this feature for the simple reason that it lets more light and air into the car. This is particularly useful while driving on highways and the weather is pleasant. I can feel the breeze while driving without being deafened by the noise that happens when the windows are down at such high speeds.

3) The Audio System: The audio system is fantastic. If it weren’t for my inherent uncoolness, I could have easily pulled off a gangster look slouching in the seat with one hand on the wheel and heavy bass blazing out of my ride.

4) The Steering Wheel: Let’s just say, there have been times when I clasped the steering wheel with both my hands and felt an impulse to change gears by pressing buttons with my thumbs. Yeah, it’s that cool!

5) The Trunk Space: The humongous trunk space is perfect for hiding and getting rid of dead hookers. Plus I can store lots of stuff here. So everybody wins (except for the hookers I guess!)

Ok, now for some features that I am not happy about.

1) The Audio System: As previously listed, this is mostly a pro-point. My only beef is that there is neither an mp3 player, nor a socket to plug in an ipod, nor a cassette player (which I could have used to connect my ipod). The system is built only to play radio and CD’s. I am not happy. I had to spend a good amount of money to get a decent FM transmitter to interface my ipod with the audio system and even that works just ok.

2) The Passenger Side Blind Spot: This is a peeve of mine that I think is serious in a serious way. The windows of the car get narrower as you go from front to the rear and this leads to a not so clear view of passenger side blind spot (at least when compared to most other cars). I am not worried about SUV’s or trucks getting hidden but if it turns out that there is a dude riding one of those funny little bonsai-motorbikes right along side me...WHAM! Disaster!

3) The Cramped-Up BackSeats: This is a natural offshoot of the extra large trunk space. As can be attested by many of my friends, it sucks to be the back seat rider in the RSX. Not just a hassle to get in and get out but also not enough leg room at all! I was complaining about this with some people at work using the phrase ‘the backseat of my car is very uncomfortable’ when someone promptly asked me with a grin as to “how many had told me so?” In a dazzling moment of stupidity, I replied “most of my friends” and continued talking only to realize the subtext involved well after a couple of sentences. Let me tell you, he who laughed last definitely thought the slowest in this case!

4) The Penta-Passenger-Preventer (PPP): I have no idea why a useless plastic piece was put in the middle of the back seat. To separate the boys and girls from sitting too close to each other? What is this? 1999 - Ratna Junior College?

5) The Badly Designed Front Cup Holder: This is a design disaster and I wonder how Acura missed such an obvious flaw. The curved portion towering over the cup holder (to house the audio system) is a natural obstruction to pulling out a coffee cup in a vertical manner while driving. It forces one to tilt the cup away from the curved part causing spillage when the contents are to the brim (as is always the case with gas-station coffee). This is just the beginning. If I am using the power socket then I cannot even use the left holder that is in front of it. And all this applies only to small size cups. Nothing bigger than a small-sized cup can be pulled out easily out of the holder. This is nonsense. I like my cars like I like my women. Able to hold large cups.
(This entire blog was a build up just for this joke. Thank you for reading! :P)

In conclusion, the RSX is a very well rounded car and I would highly recommend it. In the rare case that anyone else wants to know more information do let me know. Incidentally, Acura has stopped making RSXs after 2006. I bought my car in Dec 2006 and probably have one of the last models made! What are the odds that the RSX becomes an antique in the next 2-3 years? ;)

Thought Collage: Part 6 (of a 10 part series*)

2008-04-28T00:55:00.024-04:00

* The number of parts can be changed without any notice. It most likely will.

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1) By the end of march this year my daily TV viewing had almost gone down to zero. I was turning into one of them, a snob! Except, instead of spending all the time I wasn’t watching TV on reading, exercising, doing carpentry (???) I was wasting it on the internet. My youtube account summary tells me that I joined on April 4th 2006 and have watched 6815 videos so far. If you do the math, that amounts to around 9 videos per day. (Actually, once you do the math it doesn’t seem so bad!!!) Either way, my point is that I wasn’t ‘seeking’ out anything on TV except Southpark (which also is starting to become a hit and miss rather than being a consistently brilliant show). Days would go by before I would hear the canned laughter on the Daily Show and Jon Stewart’s tiresome old antics, before I would get a glimpse of 30 Rock, a show that serves as glaring proof that really smart comedy writers who can’t act to save their lives should not do so just because they are the ones scripting their show, before I could see news corporations report events with so much bias that it convinces you something has to be terribly wrong with either them or you without any middle ground. As you can see, TV was failing me. Then my sister introduced me to HOUSE. Freaking beautiful.
It takes watching just one typical HOUSE episode to get you hooked to it. And it is painfully obvious to see why this is so. The show is about a guy named House who is a doctor with razor sharp wit and the ability to ‘tell it like it is’ without fear of consequences. Who doesn’t want to have that?!! No wonder it has taken off so well. The show does have some obvious weak points. Most of the episodes follow an obvious template, the side characters are a little boring and I find one of them to be very annoying (Cameron) and in real life it is hard to imagine why even the few people who back Dr. House would do so. But who cares? You should listen to his witticisms!!!
TV, I can hope once again!

2) Speaking of doctors, my sis is officially one now. She still has maybe another 100 years of studying left before she can convince me to let go of my common sense and put my life in her hands. I am not being mean. We obviously grew up studying together and I know how easily she gets distracted. It is very likely I will be wincing in pain trying to tell her my symptoms while she is thinking about ‘dreamy Hrithik Roshan in Jodhaa Akbar’ (her words)!!!

I am only kidding!
I could not be prouder of my sis! I am sure she will be a great doctor and I already trust her more than some of the more experienced docs I happened to see!

3) Sweet Taste of India: I spent the entire month of March in India. Needless to say, it was bliss. But let me tell you about something else. At the Washington Dulles Airport, I observed an interesting phenomenon that has to do with a huge bunch of desis trying to form lines. Coupling this observation with my years of traveling experience in India, I have come to the conclusion that Indians have a peculiar mindset that I shall from now on call ‘The Arrowhead Mindset’. The principle that comes into play due to this mindset will be called ‘The Arrowhead Principle’. Allow me to explain. At the base of all this explanation is the axiom that desis don’t like standing in lines and will do anything they can to avoid them. However, this is possible only in India. If we try to pull such stunts in the US (prolly in Europe too) we will be assaulted with disapproving glances. A few of us develop the guts to ignore these ‘you can’t do that here, its frowned upon’ looks from the westerners and/or develop a resistance to them (thereby stripping the common American of all possible arsenal to deal with such situations) These are the people who effect the ‘Arrowhead Principle’. These and the bloody FOBs!
The Principle basically states that all (the daring and the meek) desis upon finding a line that is already quite long subdue their instincts to wriggle their way ahead by saying “boss, zaraa hathiye” and meekly join in at the back. They unintentionally preserve the linear nature of the line. This is illustrated by Figure 2 from the picture below. The blue dots form all the people forming the line and the reds are us. However a different situation arises (Figure 1) when the line is still temptingly short so as to defy being recognized as an official line by onlookers. It is at this time that the rebels amongst us, the ones who still have ‘red blood’ coursing through our veins, those who are true ‘dharti putrs’ and who have grown up on ‘maa ka dood’ shine (these and the bloody FOBs) and immediately join in on either side, instantly transforming the line into an arrowhead.

I watched this happen countless times as a kid in India at bus stops, train stations, chat bandhars…pretty much any place in India where a line could be formed (a good exception to this rule is the bus stops in Mumbai. People actually form and maintain lines there. They used to at least!). I never watched it happen in the US until last month. I was fascinated. It happened twice actually, at the Washington Airport and in Doha (my layover). I made a mental note to develop this into a formal theory before someone else recognizes something so obvious. So yeah, keep it real desis (doesn’t include you, you bloody FOBs). In case you are wondering, I am not a 'dharti-putr'.

4) There are a select group of people who use the pool at my gym who completely baffle my understanding of common sense and courtesy. There is a sign that clearly says “PLEASE SHOWER BEFORE ENTERING THE POOL”. Now I follow this religiously and you might call me a chump for doing so. Normally I try to justify everything I do with reason but in this case I probably am a chump. The pool is drenched in chlorine. People who swim do end up taking in and spitting out water from their mouths. Maybe someone even ends up peeing a bit in the pool (what with all the water around you!). So you would think the germs from an unwashed swimmer should only be a psychological block and nothing else! I fully agree with this line of logic. But I draw the line in making an effort to overcome this block when it comes to the case of sweaty assholes who have just finished a run and come straight to the pool and jump into the water in all their sweaty glory. These retards definitely read the sign but choose to ignore it altogether. What is the logic in this? They are too proud of their sweat, too tired and thus inconsiderate, too rebellious to follow rules?!! Sadly, I am still a chump. I am not anal enough to complain about this and will probably stop letting this bother me very soon. Still dudes, come on!

5) Finally, here is a cover of the song ‘I could have lied’. It is by RHCP from the album Blood Sugar Sex Magic. I had initially learnt the first solo and was content with that. After a long time, I learnt the verse and chorus followed by the final solo. Then decided to cover the whole song with vocals. Singing while playing this proved to be a little tough (as will be very obvious). I haven’t done even 10% justice to the awesomeness that is the first solo. Do check out the song if you haven’t already.

May I borrow your jumper cables?

2008-01-13T19:19:00.000-05:00

I have good reason to believe that the people working in the frontiers of technologies that have mediocre importance to mankind read my blog. Delusions of grandeur you say? I say nay! In a previous post that was written more than 2 years ago I made a case for the need to have some way of listening to music while swimming to combat the boredom . I of course completely forgot about it. Then a few months back I happened to flip through the pages of a skymall magazine during a flight when I stumbled upon the SWIMP3. As one can easily guess from its name, it is an MP3 player that can be used underwater while doing laps. Awesome!

I personally think it’s a neat device and the only thing that is stopping me from purchasing it is its cost of 180$. That seems a tad too much and most likely there are similar and cheaper devices. I’ll probably get one for myself anyway sometime soon! But for now, let me say GOOD JOB MANKIND. I’m proud of you. And since I now know that you take a cue from me, how about getting started on that teleportation? It’s been a while since the idea was first conceived and no results yet? Shame shame!

And on an unrelated note, happy new year to everyone. Don’t forget that 2008 is a leap year and this means we have an extra day this year to party!!! Here is my new year’s gift to one and all…a cover of a small part of Pink Floyd’s epic song, ‘Echoes’. Try and enjoy (inspite of the less than mediocre vocals)!

Random video

2007-10-08T21:31:00.000-04:00

Cover of the outro of the song 'Sir Psycho Sexy' (from BSSM, by RHCP).
For those who haven't heard it, I strongly recommend it. It is one of the finest pieces of music composed on the guitar.

The (real) comeback post

2007-06-03T23:53:00.000-04:00

It has been over six months since I last posted anything meaningful. The reason for this has been a major life style change for me. I was in my own peaceful little world at the University of Mississippi pursuing my Masters with what I can best describe as a vague notion rather than a concrete goal of finishing up by December of 2006. All that changed in the second week of September when I landed a job in Virginia out of the blue. And I was required to join by December. Now this meant that I had some serious wrapping up of my Masters to do in about 2 months. Looking back now, I have to say I sortoff managed it. There was some extra work that spilled over to the next semester but I did manage to get the majority of my work done and move to Virginia by the required date.

And that is where I am right now. My Masters finishing exercise when I was still in Mississippi and the demands that come with moving to a new place (finding a place to live, buying furniture, buying my first car and other such mundane things) did not leave much time for me to blog. Once things settled down, the inertia of rest (of not posting) that had set in was quite substantial and it took the likes of Rachel Specter to motivate me to write something again! :P

Nevertheless, I hope to soon write something more entertaining than a marginally boring update of my life (which sadly doesn’t even take that much space!). On a parting note, I am sure everyone would agree readily when I say that the advantages of having a job as compared to being a graduate student are enormous. But one of the best things that has happened is that this whole new lifestyle allowed me to go from this…

….to this…

As ultra clichéd as it is to do…I just had to post a pic of my car! :)

And finally, just because I can…

HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA!

The comeback post...sortoff!

2007-04-07T00:51:00.000-04:00

Quite a whole lot has happened since Ive last blogged and I had been meaning to start blogging again for a while now. My idea was to make my comback post a full fledged entry about where I was gone and what I had been doing and where I am right now and etc. etc. It would have been that way had I not seen the RGX body spray ad on TV. I was getting tired of seeing my own face on the front page of my blog and so I decided to put off my all out comeback post for a while and give you Rachel Specter, arguably the hottest woman on the planet right now! I mean, can anyone get any hotter??

Now...wait a minute!

2006-08-26T03:53:00.000-04:00

It’s been more than a month since my last post and I just realized that nothing worth blogging has happened to me during this entire time. Safe to say that my life sucks! So Im going to resort to the ancient, time tested trick of posting videos on your blog when you have nothing interesting to say! Believe me, the ancient Chinese have been using it forever!

When you click play you will be watching Part 4 of “When good songs happen to bad guitar players”. Like I always say...’Downsize your expectations to upsize your entertainment.”

One more thing: The flipping at the end was completely unintentional!

Try and enjoy people! It isn't as smooth as I would have liked it to be but feel free to diss or praise ;)

Thought Collage: Season 1, Episode 5

2006-07-11T01:30:00.000-04:00

(From SouthPark)
Mr. Garrison: Let's start the day with a few new math problems -- what is five times two? Yes...Clyde?
Clyde: Twelve.
Mr. Garrison: Okay. Now let's try and get an answer from somebody who is not a complete retard.
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So as of now I feel a little stupid as I am in waist-deep academic shit and am in the process of the trying hard to stay afloat. That being said, don’t be fooled into thinking that I am working day in and day out......unless of course you are my advisor (in which case...I AM working day in and day out professor!)

In order to do some damage control to my dwindling readership I managed to salvage some thoughts and a simple video in the hopes that this will bring some credibility to my site-meter statistics. Please feel free to come back and reread this post as many times as you want to :P
Lets see what have we got this time...

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The World Cup: Some paragraphs
1) First of all...I am very glad the WC is over. No more guilt-filled escapades from work in the mornings and afternoons to watch the games. This just means I can attain my peace of mind again and get back to doing all the work that I’ve been avoiding and procrastinating. (All lies...Professor…all lies...don’t believe any of them)

2) Then there’s the usual stuff that I file into the category of ‘highly-subjective-and-evanescent-topics’...stuff which everyone feels like talking about from his/her POV and feels is right but after a week or two nobody gives a damn...stuff like Did Italy deserve to win?...Was Zidane’s head-butt unwarranted?...Shud Materazzi have been fined too?...so on. I am no expert in football so I won’t even bother indulging in these things...except maybe say..."Oh...the places I would have gone If I looked like Ballack :P ”!!!!

3) Finally, I see the reports everywhere as 'Italy beats France on penalty shoot outs (5-3)' and I feel like yelling...”Duuuuuuuuuuuuudes, France didn’t even get to take its final penalty...so its inaccurate to say 5-3.” I know these things don’t go on record and moreover, France wouldn’t care if it lost 5-3 or 5-4 but still, there is a certain inaccuracy in such a report and it bothers me a little!

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The Bible preacher: And how I pissed him off
Now I live in Mississippi...which is in the so called ‘Bible-belt’ of the USA. And it is not at all uncommon to sometimes find yourself trapped in a conversation with people (who I won’t be surprised to find, target unsuspecting internationals) who talk about the virtues of following Jesus etc etc. I’ve had quite a few friends who’ve been in such situations. It’s not like I want to convert or anything but I’ve always wanted to talk to these preachers only to see what they have to say and piss them off with my religious arrogance. And for some reason such an experience always eluded me...until last Friday. I was sitting on a bench outside when this middle-aged guy walked up to me and said, “I am very happy today”. I kid you not, my first thought was, “WTF...Did he have an orgy last night or what?...Even so, why does he have to show off to random people...Oh wait, I would brag about such a thing too to random people :P” But the next thing he said was “That’s cuz I have Jesus in me”.
“Bingo!”...I thought!
He then proceeded to inquire about my religion and if I believed in heaven and hell and if I wanted to feel the love of God et cetera et cetera. I listened to him carefully and started pointing out with a pragmatic line of reasoning as to why I didn’t want to do whatever he wanted me to do. His every sentence had ‘lord’ and ‘God’ in it and my every response started with “But...” and had words like ‘common sense’ and ‘sanity’. I know this makes me sound conceited but I really believe in everything I said that day. Anyway, the result of the conversation was that I successfully pissed him off.
Strike one was when at one point he called me ignorant for not knowing the right ways of God. I retaliated by calling him an extremist who lets religion control his life too much. This ticked him off a lot.
Then later, he offered to pray for a blessing for my successful graduation and I politely declined it. (I really was polite :)). To make a point or save face or whatever he asked me how I would feel if he prayed for a curse for me. I told him it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to me and he could do as he pleased. That was strike two.
Strike three was when he offered to give me his phone number in case I was interested in getting together for one of his group meetings with other students. I again politely told him that I did not want his phone number because there wasn’t the slightest chance that I would be interested in such a thing at all. At this point he simply bid me goodbye and left.

In retrospect, I now have a slight amount of ‘winner’s guilt’. Maybe there wasn’t any need to engage him in conversation in the first place if I had made up my mind to be hostile. Whatever it is, I can never fathom the need to proselytize and in my opinion it is the one of the shadiest things people can do!

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Movie Reviews: You know you want it
I realized I really went a little overboard with my last post reviewing RHCP and all...so Ill try and compensate here with as little info as possible...

1) Superman Returns
Brandon Routh...surprisingly good.
Kevin Spacey...pretty good.
Kate Bosworth...both good and cute.
Movie...watchable once!

2) Pirates Part 2
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Movie...who cares? Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!

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Fractal Collage: Cuz only blog-ninjas can pull off such stunts
-->Did you know that Debra Messing (Grace from ‘Will and Grace’) named her son Roman. Cool eh? Ok...maybe not so much but at least it’s better than some other weird ass ones!! I mean its one thing to publicly acknowledge the fact that you are a superman fan but naming your son Kal-El is taking it too far Mr.Cage. Imagine how his friends will rip him apart when he grows older.
-->Starbucks wont make my hot chocolate any hotter that their set temperature. They fear being sued apparently. So I have to make do with lukewarm chocolate probably because of some fucker who was stupid enough to not know how to sip on a hot beverage and got his tongue burnt and then decided to sue Starbucks to make a quick buck!!
--> If you think you don’t have to stop completely at the stop signs only because you are riding a slow moving bicycle then you are wrong. If a cop catches you doing it he will definitely pull up right alongside you and give a stern warning making you feel like an idiot. I just know.

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The video: Straight from Roman Entertainment Inc. HQs
This is a video of me (on the left playing the rhythm on acoustic) along with my friend Avinash (on the right playing the leads on the electric) trying to capture the essence of the hindi song “Kya Maloom” by this awesome Indian band called ‘Indian Ocean’. We only play the first 3 or 4 minutes…the actual song speeds up immensely after that. I strongly recommend listening to the original song. I screwed up (as usual :() in a few places but hopefully that doesn’t ruin the song much.

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Right......I know this post does not and will not have the same magnetic effect on the blog’s readership that Mandira Bedi had on the Indian viewership when she wore ‘that’ outfit during the cricket world cup in ‘03. But hey...I don’t cross-dress and I have to try!
So until later...keep it complex! :P

Thoughts on the Red Hot Chili Peppers and ‘Stadium Arcadium’

2006-06-06T03:17:00.000-04:00

For those who have never even heard of or don’t know much about RHCP, as a decent fan of the Chili Peppers I feel it is my responsibility to briefly educate the masses about this great band. Since these are my thoughts on RHCP I will let this post comprise of precisely those and won’t bother with statistical data like year of formation of the band and their albums and their order of releases and things like that. I don’t think such information holds any true interest to most people and moreover it is easily available for those who care.

To begin with, RHCP stands for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Now before we go on please take a moment and note that the word ‘Chili’ is spelt with only one l and not two. So it’s ‘Chili’ and not ‘Chilli’...ok? Good. In case you do make that mistake anywhere please don’t tell anyone that you learnt about RHCP from my blog :P
The Chili peppers are (were?) essentially a funk-rock band. In more than one interview that I’ve seen of them I’ve heard ‘George Clinton’ being mentioned as one of their major influences. So if you’ve heard George Clinton’s music and not RHCP’s my educated guess is you’ll find them to be similar.
The current line up consists of...
-->Anthony Kiedis: He is the lead vocals of RHCP and has been with the band since its inception. I don’t really have anything to say about his singing except that I think it’s pretty good. :)
-->Michael Balzary, better known as Flea: In my opinion he is the best bassist in the world. The bass is most bands’ music is mostly drowned out and doesn’t really add to the feel of the song. On the other hand almost every Chili Peppers song has Flea’s unmistakable, distinctly noticeable trademark sound and many a time Flea does his own bass leads and standalone grooves during concerts. I also think he is the craziest of all the band members. He is always jumping around the most and he performed Woodstock’99 completely naked for the entire show!!!!
-->John Frusciante: The greatest guitarist in the world. Yes I really think he is the greatest guitarist in action today. (Again yes...I think he is better than Hetfield too...but then again they have different styles and this discussion as always will be open-ended). Frusciante is a genius of a musician who can play the most melodious of tunes with as little notes as possible and also the funkiest of riffs. However, I am convinced that his melody prowess is greater than his funk-maestro! RHCP originally had a guitarist called Hillel Slovak and during that time John Frusciante was a very very big fan of RHCP and followed them everywhere while learning all their songs. When Slovak died of a drug overdose, Frusciante was asked to fill his shoes and was more than delighted to do so.
-->Chad Smith: RHCP’s drummer and one of my favourites. He is one of the few drummers who I feel can make very good music with as simple a kit as possible. His drumming style has a distinctive sound and style to it and definitely adds to the RHCP sound.

One thing that I really like about the band is their concerts. They are always jumping around, having fun, improvising their music all the time and jamming around quite often. It’s always fun to watch an RHCP concert. I can only imagine how will I feel when I am in one!

So anyway that’s the band in brief for you.

After being successful for a while they had taken some time out and have now released a 2 disc album called ‘Stadium Arcadium’. It has a total of 28 songs. 14 on one CD called ‘Jupiter’ and 14 on another called ‘Mars’ (some astrology funda behind it). I bought it and listened to the whole album. I am still in the process of digesting all the songs but as of now I have a pretty solid first impression.

I have mixed feelings towards Stadium Arcadium.
I absolutely love most of the songs on the album. But at the same time I couldn’t avoid feeling a little disappointed. Let me try and explain why!

As I have mentioned in a couple of posts about RHCP before, the band has two distinct styles of music. One ‘Funky’ style with songs like ‘Give it away’, ‘Walkabout’, ‘If u have to ask’ etc. and one (for ease of reference, lets call this) ‘Ballad’ (a word I've seen someone else use) style with songs like ‘Under the bridge’, ‘My friends’, ‘Soul to squeeze’ etc. When you listen to these songs, it is almost unbelievable that the same band is making these different styles of music because everything from the vocals to the guitar playing is different.

The first few albums of RHCP were hard-core funk.
Then gradually the albums started incorporating the slow, nice melodious style of songs. It worked perfectly. A perfect balance of funky songs that you could get up and jump to when u felt like it OR relax, lay back and enjoy the other beautiful melodious sounds. I think ‘Californication’ was the best in this category.
Ballads were slowly becoming a big part of RHCP’s music.

And now we have Stadium Arcadium. A double disc album with some of the best songs Ive heard.
Except there's just not enough funk!
It turned out to be a ballad overdose!
That’s where I was disappointed.

I look at the back of the CD at the song listing and I can’t think one funky song which can hold water. Make no mistake...the songs that are there are very good. The music is perfect. The songs are perfect. But they are all...NICE. Turns out RHCP being just nice leaves me unhappy!
Flea’s funky bass sound is missing in most of the songs.
The few songs that start off with funky riffs and vocals immediately mellow down when they reach the bridge or the chorus!
Anthony’s funky voice is conspicuously missing!
Almost as if, they came up with the funky sound only cuz they were expected to and had to but at the slightest opportunity they jump right back into being mellow!

As I was listening to the album I progressively went from thinking...
“Wow...that was such nice melodious lead...that’s a good song.”
.......to......
"Another awesome song...RHCP rocks...but its been a while since something’s come up that makes me want to jump...maybe it'll come in the 2nd CD”
.......to.....
“Sonofagun...enough of this melody already...I want to shout something like GIVEITAWAY GIVEITAWAY GIVEITAWAY NOW...when will that happen?”

Ultimately, I ended up a little disappointed.

But of course this means nothing...like I said I do like the album anyway and will keep listening to it.
If I come up with anything more OR if I find that I missed something I will let you all know.
I don’t want to point out some of the good songs cuz then itll only raise your expectations and we all know what happens then! :)
All I am saying is do buy the album and listen. Who knows...if you don’t care about things like blood, sugar, sex and magik you might have no difficulty in loving this! :P

Until later...

(Music of ‘Suck my Kiss’ in the background fading away)

By Toutatis, these Romans are lazy!

2006-06-04T20:51:00.000-04:00

I’m back people.
Where was I?
I was abducted by aliens...that’s why I couldn’t blog.
What...you don’t believe me. You want the truth?

YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Because I have breakfast 300 yards for 4000 other graduate students who are trained to work harder than me and publish more than me so don’t for one second think that you can come down here, flash your graph and make me nervous!

Hehe...:D

Anyway so there’s this incredibly crappy newspaper that circulates on my campus. Well yes, it is a student publication and one might say how much can one expect from a student publication but that’s just a sad excuse. It’s almost as if all the shit in the sewers crawls out in the morning (right after it’s freshly put there, of course) and finds its way to the printing press and arranges itself on plain white sheets in the form of letters and words and a few ads here and there and by the time you flush and shower and get dressed and get to your workstation its right there waiting for you to start giving out its stink! Yes the newspaper stinks that much. I have absolutely no personal vendetta towards anyone associated with it. In fact I have to admit for the lack of wide variety of entertainment sources I read this every freaking day! NEVERTHELESS it sucks!

And I read an extremely disturbing article in it a couple of days ago.
It was so disturbing that it shook me right of my blogging stupor and prompted me to share it with everyone. It went something like this...

--------------
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Several self-avowed pedophiles founded a political party in the Netherlands and plan to endorse broadcasting pornographic material on daytime television and showing children as young as 12 to feature in porn films.
The Charity, Freedom and Diversity party said on Wednesday that its central campaign platform will be lowering the age of consent in the Netherlands from 16 to 12.
“Forbidding children from sex only make them more curious”, party president Martijn Uittenbogaard told The Associated Press. Uittenbogaard said his new party had supporters from ‘all corners of the country’ but acknowledged that the launch had been marked by poor attendance. Reports said that the launch in the city of Leiden was only attended by people from the media.
--------------

WHAT THE QUADRUPLE FUCK?

Its not the fact that such perverts and disgusting people exist that bothers me. I had come to terms with that long ago. What beats the shit out of my senses is that these people think its perfectly ok to
1) come out in the society and declare that they are pedophiles
2) form a freaking POLITICAL PARTY with an agenda to lower the age of consent for sex...which essentially boils down to the fact that they want to ‘molest’ younger and younger children and are quite unhappy that they can’t go about doing it because of some law!
3) try and disguise this whole thing with an excuse as unbelievable stupid as the remark made by its party president and claim that they have support from "all corners of the country"

I understand that the Netherlands is probably the most broad-minded (for the lack of a better word that I can think of) society in today’s world but this is really the limit! I guess what really bothers me about this whole thing is that how can they let such people get away with such audacity? Moreover, if nothing’s done, doesn’t it set a bad precedent! This sucks so much that our campus newspaper seems to be not so high on the sucks-big-time-scale.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The world as we know it has taken one step down the morality ladder! If this keeps up, we are f-ed for sure!

So it talks…but does it dance?

2006-04-21T19:09:00.000-04:00

Hello.
We, at Roman Entertainment Inc. welcome you once again.
As our loyal customers are very well aware, we have always provided you with various forms of entertainment. Be it anecdotes, guitar playing or funny/useless pictures, we have always strived to provide you, our consumer with the best of material. And now we have a new product. Normally other companies waste no time in sweet-talking their new product. We, on the other hand believe that you are the best judge. All we ask you to do is check out this new shit, bitches (and also watch out for the guy in the red tee.)
We sincerely hope you enjoy it. Remember,
We mix our business with your pleasure.

Under the Bridge...the greatest song in the world!

2006-04-10T20:30:00.000-04:00

Golu has a small post on RHCP’s forthcoming album Stadium Arcadium. There is a little discussion in the comments about their new song.

This triggered me. I wanted to write a post on the musical monster that is RHCP. Something about how, when broadly categorized their songs fall into 2 groups. One ‘Funky’ group with songs like ‘Give it away’, ‘Walkabout’, ‘If u have to ask’ etc. and one ‘Plain beautiful music’ group with songs like ‘Under the bridge’, ‘My friends’, ‘Soul to squeeze’ etc. And also delve into why I like their new song and how when ‘Stadium Arcadium’ releases Ill own a copy of it faster than you can say ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers’.

But then I lost enthu and time!
So I give you two things instead.

--> A long forgotten post about RHCP and the song Under the Bridge.

--> A Video of my guitar:
Like I’ve mentioned in the info to this video, this is the first in a forth-coming series that I shall be calling “When good songs happen to bad guitar players”. I'd hate to raise people's expectations and then have them come crashing down. So let me mention that Im not very good. And no...this is not a case of pretentious modesty where I say "Oh I play a little guitar...but Im not very good" and then pick up a guitar and belt out Hendrix licks like they were nothing. It's all for fun so it doesn't have to be great!

I missed some notes...I know. Think of it as my signature style.
That's right...missing notes and muting chords...that's me baby! YEAH! :P

Sam Etaro…the triathlete!

2006-04-02T16:20:00.000-04:00

This is my story.
A story that is inspiring in its stark brutality.
A story about courage and swimming.
A story about sacrifice and biking.
A story about suffering and running.
A story about survival...definitely not of the fittest.
A story about a man who catches up with his destiny.
A story about how I survived my first triathlon.
This is my story.

Getting started: During my college years I developed a love for long distance running. Considering that I wasn’t exactly super athletic in school I was never any good at it. Maybe that’s the reason why I have such a strong liking towards it. The sheer challenge of overcoming mental and physical fatigue was (and still is) no mean task for me and the ‘runner’s euphoria’ at the end justifies all the pain you go through. And naturally after meeting 'Ro Thorpe' my next fascination was with a triathlon. I see a triathlon as the ultimate test of mental and physical strength, in that particular order. So I was obviously very kicked when about a month ago I saw a poster calling for participants in a “Sprint Triathlon” to be held at Olemiss. I signed up the next day and even convinced two of my friends to do this with me.
I researched a bit about the triathlon and what I found I must admit was a little disappointing. You see, somehow I expected this to be quite a challenging triathlon, something substantial and reasonably well-respected. Turned out that they called this a “Sprint Triathlon” for a good reason. Here’s a simple chart to give you a good idea about the level of difficulty!
Ok...maybe calling this ‘rubber-man’ is a little presumptuous considering that this was my first time and I wasn’t even sure if I could finish this without dying en route. Still, I just wanted as big a jumpstart as possible!
Nevertheless we (me and my 2 friends) trained well and trained hard. I went off all fancy food stuffs and stuck to a healthy diet. During the training I figured running was not going to be too much of a problem. I was used to running (I like the way I sound as if I’m a champion runner :D, the actual fact couldn’t be further away from that) and biking is something that I had done a lot as a kid. So I simply borrowed my friend’s mountain bike for the race and I started biking a lot to get my legs used to the feeling. But swimming was going to be my slowest time and also the most tiring. Since triathlons always follow the order of swim, bike and run I didn’t want to tire myself out completely right after my swim. Hence I decided to just fine tune my (already quite slow) pace and not really put in a mammoth effort during the swim. One month passed by pretty quickly and the D-day arrived!

Race-Day: The three of us arrived early morning and started getting ready for the race. The swim was going to be in the indoor swimming pool and the transition area was right outside the building. After setting up the bike ready for transition we wished each other good luck and went and stood in line for the race to begin. Since this wasn’t open water all the participants couldn’t start at once and were staggered at intervals of 10 seconds based on your serial numbers. For your viewing pleasure and better understanding I made a diagram of the situation in the swimming pool (Click on an image to enlarge it).
I do admit it is a bit of exaggeration but it captures the essence of the moment there. I simply wasn’t fast enough. Somehow I finished the swimming part and ran outside to my bike. My transition was fairly quick as I had decided to bike and run with my wet shorts and only had to put on a tee and shoes. I took off towards the course and right after I began I saw the guy with serial number 2 coming back towards the transition to start his run! Now if this perplexes you allow me to explain this situation: Like I had mentioned...we were staggered by 10 seconds according to our serial numbers. I was number 106. So I started the race about 17.5 minutes after the number 2 guy. And I noticed he had taken about 5 minutes to finish his swim part. I, on the other hand (as I found out later) had taken more than 11 minutes. So in the time I waited for my turn to start the race and finish swimming this guy had finished the swim and bike parts!!! That’s how much I sucked! :(
So anyway, nothing extraordinary happened on the bike route. It was fairly straight with some ups and downs. Not too hard, not too easy. One of my friends was way ahead of me and the other friend was a little behind me. To say my biking sucked big time too isn’t an overstatement. People who started the swim after me were now passing me on their bikes. This kind off bummed me out a bit but I just kept pushing myself and going. About 50 minutes later I finished the to and fro part of the bike ride and went back to the same transition area to start my run. Here I saw a lot of guys standing around with a bored look on their faces, waiting for the race to end as they had already finished it. I swore to myself that someday I was going to be one of them...someday!
Running immediately after 10 miles of biking makes your legs feel a little wobbly. But I knew that if anything, the run was my strongest area and I had to make the best of it. In all fairness I did pretty good. I passed about 6 people on the run and finished all 3 miles of it in about 28 mins. I finished the race between my two friends but there was no denying the fact that I hadn’t done a great job. A lot of people had already finished and I didn’t expect my position to be very good! Still, I was pleased because there was a point during the training when I was sure I was going to end up last!
My other friend also finished race soon after me and the three of us just hung around waiting for the results...and they were as I had expected them!
PS: I always register under my pseudonym ‘Rohit Sammeta’! ;)

The Aftermath: It would be no exaggeration to say I am extremely proud of taking part in a triathlon and have awarded myself the bragging rights for this for the next 100 years :D Notwithstanding a little headache that troubled me over the greater part of yesterday (the race day) it feels great to know that my body can take this soft-bashing!

There’s only one place to go from here. I know it’s not going to be easy. And the way is paved with loads of difficulties. But I can see it from this distance. Call me ridiculous, call me insane but I hope someday Ill be able to do THE IRON MAN!

And then...that’s gonna be one heck of a story!
Until later folks!
Sam Etaro
(Fledgling Triathlete...Future Iron-Man (hopefully))

Thought Collage: Parte Cuatro

2006-03-23T16:37:00.000-05:00

-------------------
Year 2015
The absence of lights except for the solitary lamp cast ominous shadows everywhere in the room. Sitting in a dark corner with his knees drawn up to his chest the man waited for the nightly rounds to end. The sound of the baton hitting the steel doors far away entered the room faintly. It gradually increased in intensity and startled the man who was lost in his thoughts when the guard struck on his door. He held his breathe for a few seconds and let it go only when he heard the sound again. This time slightly less louder. And gradually it faded away into the dark silence. This was an everyday experience ever since he was institutionalized for his addiction. He was doing his best to cure himself but the battle was getting tougher and tougher. He couldn't take it anymore and caved in. He had used all his contacts and resources to obtain the contraband. And tonight he was going to treat himself to the joy that he was deprived of for the past 6 months. Listening intently to make sure all was quiet he slowly reached down below his bed and pulled out the Dell Inspiron laptop that wasn’t supposed to be there and switched it on. Once it was booted up he connected to the wireless LAN that was prevalent throughout the building and logged into the network with the stolen user id and password. A few anxious moments were rewarded with the site of Google homepage loading up and he let out a stifled chuckle of merriment. Wasting no time he went to the address bar and proceeded to type in www.rohitsammeta.blogsp..... and that was when the door was thrown open with a frightening thud and bright lights filled the room in an instant. His startled and angry eyes saw his doctor followed by 5 huge men run into the room and reaching for him and the laptop. Desperately clutching onto it he shouted in vain. The laptop was snatched away from him and he was easily overpowered. Amidst shouts of “Nooooooo…” the doctor gave him a large sedative shot that gradually quietened him and eventually put him to sleep. Shaking his head the doc looked at his chart. 6 months into treatment for a severe case of blog addiction and he still hadn’t shown any remarkable improvement. His wasn’t the first such case. They were doing everything they could in their power but without any results. A shadow of gloom set in as the room plunged into darkness once again. All they could do was hope.
------------

Because I don’t want any of you to become someone like the man in 2015 I have decided to cut short my work in the day and make this posting. Haha what a bunch of BS, you say? Ok then! The real reason being that the time had come for me to give out another installment of Thought Collage (and for the one to go to the temple of the king!) Did I just see you do a little dance of joy there? Huh?
So anyway...here's the outcome:

First place: Being the super magnanimous dude that I am I very magnanimously volunteered to be a judge for a magnanimous children’s science fair (ok...that last magnanimous wasn’t necessary, but it's one of my favourite words. But only second to ‘gobbledygook’. Unfortunately I never get to use gobbledygook. Until now!). The kids taking part in this science fair were from grades 3 to 9. Since I neither have scruffy hair nor currently hold a job at a patent office I thought it would be a cool contradictory thing to volunteer as a physics judge. I had a great time judging, watching the kids come up with some really smart things and me trying to explain a few physics fundamentals to them ;). Although I must concede that my efforts to explain the Maxwell’s equations to the 4th grades might not have been entirely successful. They surely must have thought “Man...that’s a whole lot of gobbledygook!” :D
Seriously though, my biggest problem was that I could not remember how much I knew in my 3rd grade. In other words, I didn’t know the benchmark of knowledge for each grade. And thus there was no way I knew if a kid was smarter than average or dumber. All I did was some relative grading and made sure whatever I tried to explain wasn’t...gobbledygook!

Second Place: Last Monday some of you might have partied, drank Bacardi and not given a fu*k. That works perfectly because it was a day commemorating a logistically significant event of my life...its beginning. And the coolest of all cool things that was given to me (in a large-scale effort to improve my personality) was this. A song by my good friend Zubin! The only reason this little bit of info is here is because I wanted everyone to appreciate the large quantities of talent in this guy and of course a little ‘Thanks Zubin’ from my side! :)

Here are the annotated lyrics:

He was a horny kid
But a journalist (Re: Sam Etaro)
He tried to get laid
A story we all know

He went up the hill
With a Bihari Jill (Re: A story that I'd rather not disclose :))
But he came back down
With a sad look in his face

But jokes apart
He’s a good man at heart
And that’s why I sing
On FFF's behalf

Happy bday Ro
Happy bday Ro
Memories of 265 (Re: My room no. in my hostel)
Will never go

Happy birthday Ro
Happy birthday Ro
Memories of 265
Will never go

The circle of friends (Re: My super stud theory about why I failed to...)
The extended btp (...finish my BTP on time!)
The edp
We never did do

Happy birthday Ro
Happy birthday Ro
Memories of 265
Will never go

Ok...enuff senti...PAIN, BLOOD, CARNAGE, KILL, SEEK and DESTROY!!!!
Haaa...I feel all manly now. :P

Third place : And finally, to wrap things up let me just say that after years and years of using other people’s guitars I finally went ahead and got myself one...a beautiful acoustic epiphone. I wish I was good enough to bless you all with the sweet sound of music that is my guitar playing. But we all wish for a lot of things and everything doesn’t come true! So for the time being this pic shud do the trick!

That’s all for now! I hope this fix should keep you going for a while!
Gobbledygook everybody!

Engineerspotting

2006-03-07T17:56:00.000-05:00

Choose life.
Choose a lucrative job.
Choose a proper career.
Choose a fucking big television
Choose a fancy sports car, bought directly from a showroom and not from a second hand dealer.
Choose good health, proper food, and dental insurance.
Choose to have a girlfriend.
Choose a party life on weekends.
Choose to have clothes other than the one pair of jeans and the free tees that fill your wardrobe.
Choose to be an all star.
Choose to be a rock star.
Choose to travel the world and not be stuck in one place for over a year.
Choose to face the real fucking world.
Choose your future.
Choose life.

But why would I want to do a thing like that?

Disclaimer: I stole the picture from Duh and the text from the worst toilet in Scotland. Cuz living like this...its a full time business!

Of ice and men!

2006-02-24T20:21:00.000-05:00

Everyone must have heard the phrase “curiosity killed the cat”. I have too. And I have wondered many times about the origins of the story. I mean, there has got to be a story behind it right? Cuz, why a cat? Why not some other animal? Why not a dinosaur? That would have fit quite nicely.
“There are no dinosaurs anymore man. I wonder what happened”
“They were too damn curious for their own good and that got them killed. Stupid things. It’s sad that curiosity killed the dinosaur.”
“Yo dude...that’s some deep shit man. Write that down. We have to pass such wisdom to our kids and stuff”

That’s a likely ancient conversation that would have made things easier…don’t you think? But no! It’s the cat that got in for no reason!
Why not even the hero of all proverbs Jack...who happened to be so popular at the time the oldies were making the proverbs/poems. He is almost everywhere. So why isn’t it “curiosity killed Jack”? Maybe he was losing his touch with the ladies of the proverb committee by then. Maybe Jill was getting all possessive!!!!

Ok...I digress.

But you have to admit that it is quite ironic I am not curious enough to find out about the origins of an expression about curiosity. Any way what I really wanted to talk about are the winter Olympics. That’s a nasty jump from one train of thought to another. Yes...doesn't get any better! :D

A couple of weeks back one out of every 3 articles in any newspaper (I’m talking about online editions!) was about 'Torino 2006'. Being the totally-cut-off-from-the-rest-of-the-world-I’m-happy-in-my-little-cubicle dude that I am I didn’t bother to find out what was all the hype about. But soon the ‘Torino’ fever was everywhere and I couldn’t ignore it. I was worried that it was a new strain of avian flu that would compromise my daily diet of chicken nuggets. I formed the resolve to educate myself about this possible danger. My curiosity was quipped. I shouted out loud and asked my friend if it sounded like a ‘meow’. His startled NO was good enough to confirm I was no cat and there was no risk of dying. And then by the power of Greyskull and Google I entered the world of winter Olympics...

...that happened to be quite fascinating...

...except, I was wondering if I am the only guy who thinks some of the games are downright hilarious, boring and/or quite silly! Grab your warm winter clothing and follow me into a not-so-detailed and completely biased and stupid look at some of the winter games that demand close attention.

1) First the Biathlon. I had heard of this before I actually looked it up and at that time somehow the first thing that came to my mind was a game involving long-distance skiing (u know...it’s a winter sport and it’s a something-thon) and maybe snow-boarding OR simply running in the snow (which is like a 1000 times harder than lot of other sports) OR something like that. I was half right...the first part is long-distance skiing but after that you shoot rifles! How arbitrary is that! Skiing and marksmanship...it feels so weird to have them both as one sport. The official winter Olympics site talks about this as an evolution of how people in olden days used to ski and hunt as a method of survival. At first that made a little sense to me but then I figured that more people used to run and hunt? Why isn’t that in the summer Olympics (or is it?). A little desperate for winter sports, aren’t we? ;)
I’m sure in the book of biathlon rules there is a little line somewhere that goes......you cannot win the event by shooting your competitors and eliminating them...

2) Here’s Bobsleigh: This sport seems reasonably exciting. Although I really see this as a more professional way of sliding down a water slide in a rubber tube. But that’s not all...take a look at the picture and imagine a nice big white ambassador car in the place of the sleigh and 4 Indian men in place of the sportsmen pushing it. Don’t u think if only we had snow in India we would totally kick ass in this competition. Our men would be quick and strong in getting it moving and would reach 0-topspeeds in a jiffy and also be very comfortable in the cramped up seating arrangement of the sleigh. We would have kicked so much ass it’s not even funny!

3) Pardon me if I am being uncouth and ignorant but Curling is by far the silliest of all Olympic sports. Not to mention boring. Although I must admit I’ve never seen a game myself ever. I am just speculating that it will be boring. Cuz how much excitement can you really expect in a sport where u throw a disc in a really funny/graceful way (almost as if to say...I know this sucks but at least u guys get to see how flexible and smooth I am on ice) and his team-mates run ahead of it sweeping the ice! When did man lose the imagination to come up with new sports that he had to incorporate 'skillful sweeping' as an essential ingredient? Sweeping for Gods sake!
What next? Another biathlon with rock-climbers having to scale buildings upto a certain floor and quickly wash all the windows there and come down! Silly stuff :D

Hmmm...actually that’s all!
If anyone knows about how the curious cat died please let me know.
Until then...keep it cool!
Yeah...that was abrupt. I know...I so suck at handling trains of thoughts!

A quick jog down memory lane...and what do I find?

2006-02-14T20:54:00.000-05:00

Last night I just couldn’t fall asleep. I was simply lying in bed with all kinds of thoughts in my head. And for some strange reason I started recalling things from my years gone by. Think about it and you’ll realize that everything we remember is in the form of a time window which is etched in our minds. We rarely remember entire events…just a few memorable moments. Moments making up some event that was in some way significant enough to alter our surroundings and our self. So much so, they’ve remained in our heads almost permanently. These memories, I feel come with the complete set. Sounds, colours, the people present and the environment...everything that you can associate with them.

And last night I had a stream of such memories continuously flowing through my head.

I remembered the time when I was an 8 year old in school and saw a girl being bitten by a dog. I can still recall the two deep teeth marks on her arm that were making her scream hysterically. A bunch of us had simply formed a semi-circle around her and were practically doing nothing but stare. I remember feeling nauseous thinking about it later and spitting out my éclairs that I was chewing on at that time.

I remembered the time of my first operation in my 4th standard to remove an infection from my leg. How the doctor managed to put me under anesthesia by asking me if I had ever blown balloons at a birthday party. My proud 'yes' was met with a smile and he promptly covered me with the anesthesia inducing mask and asked me to ‘blow a balloon’! The interesting thing is that this is the only thing that I can remember from my entire operation experience.

I remembered the time as a kid when I was coming back home from school in an auto and was riding in the front. I had fallen asleep only to fall off the moving auto, badly injuring myself in the process. I can still recall the vision of the moving road approaching me with alarming speed as I fell towards it and can distinctly remember the screeching sound of car wheels stopping behind me once I had completed my glorious fall. (Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night all sweaty and scared: P)

...and so on and so forth. You get the idea right?
So then I started wondering if I could figure out what was my oldest memory amongst all these. Which one of these was filled on the very first page?

And I think I have found an answer. I can be reasonably sure about this being my first memory because of the house that my family was living then. I have no other memory from that house and this was the house that I was brought into when I was born. I was a little startled to realize that my very first memory was that of the death of my paternal grandfather. I always had this array of thoughts in my head but never realized that this particular one was my first memory.
I was 2 years old and I can recall visions of my grandfather’s dead body lying in the living room and relatives pouring into our house to pay their last respects. He had died of a lung disease and his chest was swollen! I remember my grandmother crying on the bed and her sisters trying to console her. Again, I just can’t seem to recollect my parents being around!

The funny thing is that thinking about these memories consciously and writing about them seems to have scrambled everything up inside my head! They just dont seem all that coherent anymore!
Complex, the ways of human mind seem to be.
Unravel we must, this mystery.

I really don’t mean to freak anyone out.
I just felt like sharing.
Nothing deep.
Thats all!

I am Jack’s desire for the perfect lover.

2006-02-10T19:42:00.000-05:00

On a certain auspicious day when all the planets were arranged in a spectacular way I was tagged by Kate to list 8 qualities of my perfect lover. But before I put them out there for all to see I thought it befitting to say something about this. And I am willing to bet my left testicle that a lot of those who read this are going to think of me as a big A-hole.

I am not really a fan of memes. Or at least I’ve never come across one which was interesting to me (except the 55-word story one). I can hear the words ‘sour-grapes’ screaming in your head but you only have my words to believe when I say I couldn’t care less. As a blog-ninja ( :D...ok...sorry) I have traveled reasonably far and wide in the blog world and have come across many memes and formed an honorable opinion about them. So IMHO, while some memes happen to be plain boring which hold absolutely no interest to any reader whosoever (eg/: The google image search result, n-th line from some m-th post) many others happen to make an attempt to bring out the blogger’s personality traits (eg/: Fav books, Fav movies, Weird habits etc) which from my point of view are boring too.

This can possibly mean two things:
1) Almost everyone who posts memes fails to make them across my threshold of being interesting (possibly because I put my thresholds right opposite to where I keep my chances of having a threesome with Angelina Jolie and Sienna Miller) OR
2) I am a totally unsophisticated person who isn’t even half as intellectual as a majority of the rest of the world is in order to appreciate their interests.

I am perfectly willing to accept any of the above two as the hard-core undeniable fact.

So yeah, I don’t really enjoy reading memes.
But that doesn’t mean I am going to be an uppity arse about it (just a normal one is good enuff I guess!). I am perfectly willing to play along, all the more because I know there are many things I find to be mind-bogglingly fun to do but others might think they befit the behaviour of person with a room temperature IQ (measured in Celsius that too!!)
The universe tends towards a balance you see.

Thus...
If I were Romeo, my Juliet would be...
If I were Majnoo, my Laila would be...
If I were Anakin, my Padme would be...
If I were King Kong, my Naomi Watts would be...
If I were Golu, my Jenna Jameson would be...

...some one with the following qualities:

Qualities listed are neither permanent nor in any particular order. Depending on the vagaries of my mood, the position of Pluto (the dog) and the size of Ashlee Simpson’s breasts I can rearrange them or even discard/replace them (the qualities I mean :P).

1) She should be totally totally smokin hot. I know I am not Adonis personified or anything even remotely like that but I wouldn’t believe anyone who didn’t wish for a really hot lover irrespective of their own hotness rating. And as long as I am jotting down qualities of my perfect lover, what’s wrong in hoping for the best eh?

2) She should have a bunch of equally hot or hotter friends and she shouldn’t have any feelings of jealousy when I practice my moves on them.

3) She should worship Metallica. I am willing to bend this rule so that one could replace the word ‘worship’ with ‘love’ or (incase she over-qualifies regarding point 1) even ‘really like’. But nothing below that!

4) When I say, “Honey...guess what I brought home today! A leather strap and some handcuffs” she should have a naughty twinkle in her eye and must drag me towards our bedroom immediately. She must NOT look like Marlon Brando and say “The horror, the horror” and run away. In other words, she must be open to experimentation.

5) In particular she must also be willing to [The Google Blogspot Administrators team has decided to censor these particular lines in order to protect the innocence of the kids who might accidentally wander to this blog and read this post. Rohit Sammeta...you have a filthy and pathetic mind and we hope you rot in hell! And yes...we are watching...BITCH! ]

6) She should not be a crazed religious person. I don’t care which religion she practices...as long as she knows there is only one God...ME.

7) And just because I want to stress on this I shall reiterate...she has to be smokin hot! On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the corpse from ‘Corpse Bride’ and 10 being Sienna Miller, she has to be a 10! Cuz I’d really like to go out with you Sienna...that Jude dude is a total fucking jerk. Go out with me and Ill never cheat on you with our nanny...maybe others but not with our nanny...I swear!

8) And finally, in case we decide to get married she should be open-minded enough to pay me a large dowry.

Phew...I finally did it! It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I really hope there is someone out there who fits these qualities (with the liberty of not qualifying for either one of the points 1 and 7). If that someone is reading this, know that I am the perfect guy for you. Make haste and get in touch with me.
And I will give you those things, you thought unreal.
The sun, the moon, the stars all bear my seal.

See how hot Sienna is...someone find her for me!

What's up?

2006-02-02T19:57:00.000-05:00

I had written a post a couple of days ago. And it was something inspired from my own life that I had converted into a silly story. Why silly?...well because I am not exactly the emperor of creativedom. (Yes, I know I am a blog-ninja, but that doesn’t really help. Blog-ninjas only protect their honour, maybe fight spam and then take coffee breaks when they are bored...not produce works of Shakespeare...because you should know that blog-ninjas are not a million monkeys put in a room either). So yes...like I was saying...I’m the contemporary Casanova and I know a thing or two about using chocolate...no wait...that wasn’t what I was saying...but that’s true too. So yes...like I was saying before I cleverly inserted a stupid joke...the post turned out to be quite silly and under the influence of a powerful truth potion (the kind that Bill shoots ‘the bride’ with)* I would admit it was a little girly girly. Well…I should have expected that because it was about a gorgeous girl. And gorgeous girls make me weak in my knees**. And as much as I would like to weave a story where I am a devastatingly handsome man who sweeps her off her feet by optimizing her MATLAB code with the use of vectors instead of nested loops, with some awesome car chases and evil overlords dying at my hands added in for good measure...I’m sure you all would find that a little unbelievable. So I wrote a simpler story...and it turned to be a little sappy. And being a blog-ninja*** my blog-sense immediately picked up trials of its sappiness and I verified this fact from a friend of mine. It was put up for about 10 minutes on my blog after which I promptly (but silently...just like a deadly killer) struck with my sword and destroyed it. Of course it still is lying somewhere on my computer. And I just might post it at a later time...maybe even in its original form. But that’s for the future.

So yeah...I deprived you all a chance to make fun of me.

BUT for now, ninja-code**** dictates that I should say something that is apropos to the post title. So let me tell you about this undergrad in my department. He has this most peculiar habit that I am about to explain. But before we go there take a quick look at this conversation...

Person1: “Hey man...what’s up?”
Person2: “Nothing much...what’s up with you?”
Person1: “Nothing grr8...just catching up on some work.”
Person2: “Cool...me too...alright then. I’ll see you later.”
Person1: “Yeah cool...cya later dude.”

Does this conversation strike as being out of the ordinary, weird, inappropriate or lacking in honesty to anyone out there? I certainly don’t think so and in fact I have similar conversations with almost everyone I am acquainted with.

Except when it involves our protagonist.

This guy literally considers the meaning of the words “What’s up?” and eagerly launches into a nice lecture about what is on his mind right then and what he plans to do in the next few hours. And this has happened so many times and it continues to happen.

A few examples (NOTE: These conversations are not doctored):

Example 1:
Me (casually walking past him): “Hey man...What’s up?”
Him: “Oh...I was just here trying to learn this new software that I need to use for this project in that so and so course. But I’ve been having a few problems...I'll keep working on this for a while and hopefully will figure them out.”
Me: “...hmmm...ok...good luck”

Example 2:
Me: “Hey Pat*****, how’s it going?”
Him: “Pretty good...pretty good...thanks...I finally got my senior design project to work so that was cool. And now I have to make sure I do well in my tests so I can manage a good GPA this semester...lets see how that goes.”
Me: “ haah...good...alright then”

And I feel bad now because I have started exploiting the situation. When I am in a hurry I don’t say Hi to him cuz that would slow me down severely. In other times when I feel like having a little fun I go up to him and say “Hey Pat, Just what exactly is going on man...its been a while” and while he sincerely starts telling me the story of his life I sometimes bite my lip to avoid succumbing to the urge of smiling.
One of the many reasons why I am such a dork!
So yeah...that’s all.
It’s time to go now.

And in conclusion I would like to thank my parents, my friends and Pat for making life fun for me and also a certain blogger from whom I shamelessly stole the idea of the starred-references but am too chicken to admit openly.

* If you don’t know what I’m talking about…leave a comment and I will promptly point a finger at you and laugh and take great pride in the fact that I can recall lines from this particular movie better than you.

** It’s a disease called ‘beingaguyosis’

*** I’m kind of overdoing the whole blog ninja thing…right?

****I know, I know...but I can’t help it!

***** His name really isn’t Pat...but I bet you didn’t care. And I promise this will be the last starred reference.

Thought Collage/Part 3 (Homegoing edition...with special bonus feature)

2006-01-24T15:59:00.000-05:00

Now as most of you who are nice (and jobless) enough to read this blog regularly would remember I have had 2 parts of “Random Thoughts” before. It is my honourable intention to make this part 3. However before I move on, the honour code of blog-ninjas that I strictly live my life by has required me to change the title of these posts to “Thought Collage”. Cuz you see when I hit upon the idea of making a post comprising of many different ideas, none of which had enough juice in them to be squeezed into a decent post, amongst many things I was quite pleased with myself. And after many many brain things in my head I decided to name it “Random Thoughts”. The blog-ninja in me was quite pleased and took a honourable bow. But then something happened that was about to compromise my ninja honour. Being extremely nice and even more extremely jobless (not to mention the honour code) I myself wander around the net reading many many blogs. And during the course of my journey I found that there were many others who not only jotted down random thoughts like I did but also chose to call them by the same name as mine. Some even went as far as naming their blogs that. This disturbed me deeply. Why...one might ask. As an answer I quote one of the many honour codes that we blog ninjas live by...

It is imperative for a blog-ninja to protect his creativity at all times and in case he finds himself in a situation where his creativity is comprised due to...,...,external replication,...or all of the above the blog-ninja must immediately do his utmost to restore his lost honour.

Of course, I was deeply disturbed. Fortunately the training I’ve had has prepared me to face such situations with courage. And in order to restore my lost honour I renamed my “Random Thoughts” as “Thought Collage”. I know, it isn’t exactly super-ohmygodRo-you are a fucking genius-creative...but still my lost honour I hope to reinstate.

And so here we go...

1. There is absolutely nothing worse than traveling 36-40 hrs from one side of the earth to the other in cramped up seats in airplanes spending 3-4 hours in layovers wandering about like an idiot in other airports only to find your baggage delayed/missing at the end of it all. I hate long-distance plane journeys...in fact even short distance plane journeys suck! The seats suck! The fucking pretzels suck! Everything sucks!
This can even be made into some kind of torture. You need to extract some information from some hard-ass secret agent, put him on a plane in economy class going from the US to India with at least 4 layovers with neither a window nor an aisle seat on any leg of the journey. Very soon he’ll be begging you to put him out of his misery. I can’t wait for teleportation to become a common thing!

2. Sri Lankan airlines airhostesses are hot! This was the only mitigating factor during my torture sessions traveling to and from home. I have a rudimentary theory that all the hot women from Tamil Nadu must have thought “Aaah...fuck this...we are too hot for this place...lets swim across to Sri Lankan and join their airlines”. And before you even think about mentioning the fact that they are hot as a requirement for being an airhostess, trust me that is so not the case anywhere!
I must add that my good luck could purely have been the result of some good deed I must have done in some previous birth and there is a possibility that you might be disappointed if you go solely upon my words! That said and done, let me reiterate “Sri Lankan airlines airhostesses are hot!”

3. Golu is getting married next summer...i.e in 2007.

4. Driving in the US makes you a sissy! Everyone is organized and no one tries to throw themselves in the path of your vehicle and later pick a fight with you. My dad had come to pick me up from the airport and while driving back home it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I was freaking out like hell! There were many times when I just wanted to make him stop the car and lecture him about how to drive safer. Its going to be quite an interesting challenge to get used to traffic in India again!!!

5. I loved suffering from jetlag. You see...a normal person, when he suffers from jetlag ends up sleeping most of the day and lays awake at nights cuz his normal working times have been reversed. But I on the other hand am used to working late at nights and sleeping in the day anyway. So when I went home I was going to bed at 10pm and waking up at 6 am like a good boy. (On a somewhat related note, I never understood why would something like this make someone wealthy...I think it was just a cheap trick by the moral makers to lure young minds by tempting them with money.) Anyway now that I’m back it was the same story even here. Early to work at 8 am and go back home in the evenings...just like everyone other sane person. Unfortunately, just like ‘Buffy the vampire slayer’, my athletic build in my youth and the other good things in life even this wont last long and I can already feel my old habits slowly crawling back into my system.

6. Movie/Music update: If you still haven’t listened to “Right here right now” from ‘Bluffmaster’ you are working waaay too hard. This song has one of the catchiest beats I’ve listened to in quite sometime. Catch it!
“Munich” is ok. The movie serves the purpose of inspiring people to research everything about the 1972 massacre and the history behind it...but that’s about it. Maybe that was the only point of the movie. Plus it’s got some very weird sex scenes in it. And weird in a “mess-with-your-mind” way and not “look-at-this-baseball-bat-I-bet-you-cant-...” way.
Watch it to form an opinion.

7. In case you thought I am kidding about Golu getting married in the summer of 2007...Im not!

8. And now for the final bonus feature...here’s a pic that golu used to convince the half-gult/half-tam girl to be wedded to him.
These were his own words when the pic was taken, “Ro...check out this cool pic. Look at my cool cap and the cool goatee. And that incredibly sexy yet innocent look that I have. Top that with the fact that I am an IIT graduate doing his PhD in America and standing against the Manhattan skyline...I mean, who can resist me?”.
Well, it sure worked dear Dheeraj. I couldn’t be happier for you. :)
And I’m telling you guys...I’m not kidding! 2007 it is.

Woks...that’s it for now.
Blog-ninja code dictates I get back to work to protect my honour with my advisor. And so I am gone!

What would Forrest Gump do?

2005-12-23T20:17:00.000-05:00

At the end of it...

Your legs are too weak to even make their way into the warmth indoors
Your fingers hurt so bad that you worry they might fall off because of frostbite
Your shirt is soaked in sweat that has forced its way out of you despite the 5 degree Celsius temperature outside.
Your whole body trembles due to the exertion.
People never get tired of ridiculing you.

Yet...at the end of it, the “runners ecstasy” that comes with completely a 4km run non-stop makes everything worth it!!

I have lost count of the number of people who have asked me the question, “What’s the big deal about long distance running?”
I always reply saying that it is something that has to be experienced and once u get a whiff of it you are never going to ask yourself that question.
But occasionally I act snooty and say stuff like Runners, we are different. :)
On a different level, I think it has got to with the sole fact that unlike other sports there is nothing to distract you in long distance running (never mind the walkmans!). It is just a test of pure will power. And that’s what makes ‘everything else just a sport’!

And just cuz I’m feeling all good-old-times-where-are-they types, this is big hey to Subbu, Rabbi, Vidya and Paki. These were the guys with whom I trained for and ran the Mumbai half-marathon in Feb’04. (Actually there was one more guy who had flown in from B’lore the day before just to run. Talk abt enthusiasm . I don’t remember his name though!) And we kept ourselves inspired with a really cool paragraph that one of us found somewhere,

Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

It does not matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up you would better be running!

Some adrenalin rush it was!
Who is up for some more? :)

BTW...Happy New Year!

Play that funky music, brown boy!

2005-12-12T17:25:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago I was minding my business when a friend of mine came up to me and gave me a flash drive filled with songs of his liking and asked me to check them out. As I eagerly dug into them hoping to find some obscure Sabbath or Zeppelin masterpiece that I probably forgot about I realized that he was in fact a closeted pop-lover who never came out :P. His entire collection was filled with Avril Lavignes, Celine Dions, Kelly Clarksons, Elton Johns and the like.
Nevertheless I kept the collection and in the next few days discovered quite a few songs that I had once listened to passionately but until then had completely forgotten about. As I dug up more and more pop/techno/non-rock songs from everywhere I realized there are a few songs that have a very very high repeat value for me. These are the songs that I could listen to over and over again and probably never get bored. And then I thought to myself, “You know what...there are people out there who would love to read a list of your favourite non-rock songs”. Then reality hit me hard, just like the way the truck hits the kid’s bed in “Enter Sandman” video. I realized I was kidding myself. Still to re-quote one of my favourite quotes “To inflict such misfortune upon mankind isn’t my style”...so whether you like it or not and just because you are here and also because I like writing useless stuff about music, you are doomed to read...

“Ro’s amazing top 10 list of non-rock songs (with very high repeat value)”
in no particular order
except that the numbers are ascending :P

1) I want you - Savage Garden:
From what I know this was the song that put Savage Garden on the map. The melodious chorus is excellently complemented by the almost rappish way Darren Hayes sings the verses. Their next album was also quite good and I remember liking all the songs. But somehow “I want you” remains up there. The lyrics are fun to sing along to...but one thing that always puzzled me was as to why he sings “shaggy yeah” right in the middle for no reason! This song's got a cool video too.

2) Kiss from a rose - Seal:
I don’t know of any other song by Seal except this one. But I think I can safely say this is his best song. Seal’s melodious voice, excellent lyrics and captivating music gives this song a very ballad sort of feel. All in all one amazing song...and very well complemented by Nicole Kidman in the video! :)

3) Jam - Michael Jackson:
Michael Jackson was the first artist whose albums I collected, back in the pre-mp3 cassettes and cds days. I would love to listen to any MJ song any day but ‘Jam’ has to be my fav and one of his best. I could never understand what he sang without reading his lyrics and singing his songs phonetically was good fun (“...aint yet, too much, it aint too amuchforme to JAM”). Michael Jackson was called the king of pop...but I would say he (or whoever wrote his music) also pioneered a lot of unconventional (techo-ish) sounds too. And the video of Jam has Michael Jackson dancing and Michael Jordan dribbling in it. Was enough for me to get hooked onto it for life!

4) Come undone - Duran Duran:
What a song! This is only one of the couple of Duran Duran songs that I’ve heard of but nevertheless I’m convinced of their musical prowess. With absolutely awesome lyrics, I feel the song gets its charm mainly from the way it’s sung. The mix of the “Can I forgive u for falling apart” part and the “Who do you need, who do you love, when you come undone” makes this song a masterpiece. Heck I feel like listening to it while I am typing this!

5) That thing you do - Fountains of Wayne:
As I found out from the very friend I was talking about at the beginning, I learnt that this is actually a Fountains of Wayne (remember Stacy’s Mom) song and in fact launched their career. FoW had made this song for the movie for a contest and they sure did a good job. The most captivating thing about this song is the casual way it’s sung and its simple yet rhythmic drum pattern. I might even add, at one point of time I even knew all its lyrics!!!

6) The Mission Impossible theme – Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton:
This has to be the mother of all themes. I don’t know how to describe it. If you haven’t listened to it there’s something you are missing. I haven’t seen the original TV series so I have no opinion about it but the music perfectly captures everything the movie is about. Even Limp Bizkit’s rendition is quite addictive! :)

7) Breathe - Prodigy:
Scary guys with heavy makeup + alligators + some very cool techno music = awesome song with awesome video. Prodigy has made some very good techno music and ‘breathe’ is one of their best. I know many people who’ve been repulsed at the thought of listening to techno music when I suggest Prodigy. Agreed its not conventional music which can be played live on instruments but what the heck! Whatever prodigy does, it does good. They have quite a large range of sounds and they do a good job of putting everything together. So yeah...don’t shy away from techno. Just breathe with them.

8) Staying alive - Bee Gees:
“If you can tell by the way I use my walk
I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk”
Tell me how times you must have heard this song pop out of nowhere and immediately felt a need to sing along and groove with it. The typical Bee Gee’s falsetto in which it is sung makes it very appealing and the music taunts you to try and stop yourself from moving! Definitely one of the most popular songs in the world...and deservingly so.

9) How deep is your love - Take that:
They say first impressions last the longest. Applies very well in this case. I loved this song when I saw ‘Take that’ sing it on MTV but when I heard the Bee Gee’s original later it came nowhere close. I found the way ‘Take that’ sings the chorus much more appealing than the original. It has really nice lyrics and Take that’s video of this song (showing a girl torturing and ultimately drowning the four band members tied to chairs) is simply superb.
The above line makes me sound like a sadist! :D

10) She’s got the look – Roxette:
Again, maybe just one of the 2 or 3 songs of Roxette that I know. But I am pretty sure this is their best (and most popular) one. This probably is the first song that I’ve listened to amongst all the songs on this list and I remember liking it so much that I even wanted to sing to some girl I liked at that point of time. However I never could muster up the courage to do it (maybe it happened for my own good :)). Never mind the lyrics cuz they are sung very nicely. I remember having a discussion with Sidney about the different ways the line “Loving is the ocean, kissing is the wet sand” can be interpreted!(The things I used to do :() Nevertheless, a very catchy song that has stuck to be one of my all time favourites.

That’s the end of the list folks.
See how I managed to waste a precious 5 minutes of your life making you read about stuff that is not going to be useful in any conceivable way! Yeah...I have a knack for such things. So don’t be surprised if in the future you’ll be reading about “Ro’s amazing top 10 things to do while you are taking a dump”.
Until then...I suggest you put your time to good use.
Tata

I gotta hole...

2005-12-05T17:26:00.001-05:00

...not in my soul...but in my pocket!

I went to the City Hall today to find out about my speeding fine and pay it up!
Everything went without any hassles!
I am now poorer by 127 dollars!

All condolences will be accepted in the form of money orders, checks and cash.
Once the total reaches 127$ you may sympathize with only kind words.
Thank You very much!

FFF... 20 years down the line!

2005-11-30T19:26:00.000-05:00

U might want to read this before going any further!

Rolling Stone
December, 2025

The return of five funkmen!

Ever since their first concert Fuel For Fantasy (more popularly known as FFF) had come a long way. 14 albums and over 50 hit singles (including the largely popular ‘Epiphany’) the band had reached success they had never known before. From their first album “Our first rock album” to their last one “FFF: The unsung songs” these guys reached dizzying heights of success. In many ways they seemed to be the perfect formula for the success of any aspiring rock band. Consisting of friends who met each other in college, the band was put together largely due to the efforts of their bassist Golu. They more or less shared the same inspiration of music, played together locally for a couple of years covering many bands in the process and acquiring a style of their own along the way. Briefly separated after college for about 4 years to pursue their own academic interests, the band realized that they were destined to play music together during this time and quickly got back before turning pro. All the while bonded together with a friendship that seemed to surely last forever, in 2008 the rockers of the world stood up and noticed as FFF had arrived. The band enjoyed a string of successful albums and fans eagerly lapped up everything thrown their way from the FFF headquarters (even the abysmal solo effort by Golu proved to be a creative success). Yet…nothing lasts for ever and FFF was no exception. A cliché that surfaces time and again in rock bands, their rhythm guitarist G was rocked with a severe case of heroin addiction and went into rehab for a long time. The band had sworn not to play with anyone else thus stalling all future projects and waiting for G’s return. The wait didn’t turn out to be as simple as they had expected. It was during this time that their drummer Viral would reveal having an affair with Golu’s grad school sweetheart turned wife. This severely cut off Golu’s rapport with Viral and his further involvement in the band. Golu was undoubtedly one of the creative forces of FFF and his distance was a serious impediment. There were other problems too. Sidney (the lead guitarist) proved to be a “dominating bastard” (words used by Golu himself in the December 2010 issue of the “Rolling Stone”) There was a difference in opinion regarding an opening act for rock legends ‘Metallica’. Golu wanted to do it and Sidney did not. To make matters worse their front man Zubin was struggling with a few personal problems of his own. G, after his return to FFF echoed every fan’s feelings when he said, “I never thought I would be returning to a band that would end up doing much worse than when one their guitarists turns out to be a drug-addict”. Somehow they managed one last tour with a replacement drummer as no one in the band was on amicable terms with Viral. FFF for the first time had performed with a lineup different from what it was 20 years ago. The tour was a failure drawing only the hardcore fans. The FFF that people knew and loved seemed lost forever. Their fans prayed for a miracle.

And it came...in the form of G’s relapse to heroin addiction. Depressed by the current state of the band G took to drugs once again and this time found himself dangerously close to death. Convinced he was not going to make it, his last wishes were to play with FFF once again. For this the band put all its differences aside (which included a public apology by Viral) and started jamming again. That was all G needed. He hooked himself back to life with a new found vigour and FFF was back. Their comeback concert was aptly held in Mumbai, India to a crowd of over 50,000, the same place where they were first formed and first performed. Put together in only 2 weeks, the concert was a mess…..G smashed a few guitars, Zubin forgot his lyrics, Viral managed to punch a hole into his snare drum, Golu was rocked with bouts of nervousness and Sidney was just being Sidney. But the fans didn’t mind. They knew that FFF was back and here to stay for a long time!

Sam Etaro
Kick-ass Rock Journalist,
Big fan of FFF,
And part time drummer too. ;)

Disclaimer yada yada: In the above post the only thing that is real is FFF. Everything else is made up and I wrote it for fun. This shud defly not be seen as my view of the way things are going to turn out in the future! Although I wudnt be too shocked if Viral pulls off something like how it is described above :P

And just so things make sense to others too...FFF stands for Fuel For Fantasy...a college band comprising of:

Zubin Jacob(T.A.V): Vocals
Gurzada Pawankumar (G): Rhythm guitar
Sidney David Rosario (Sidney): Lead guitar
Dheeraj Singaraju (Golu, T.A.B):Bass guitar
Aviral Saini (Viral): Drums

who no longer play together as the band members are on different parts of the earth.

I wonder...

2005-11-28T21:49:00.000-05:00

I recently read about the murder of Manjunathan here
In brief, Manjunathan was an IIM-L graduate who worked for Indian Oil Corporation and was murdered on Nov20th in Uttar Pradesh when he refused to play mute spectator to the illegal adulteration of petrol.
Things like these (remember the murder of Satyendra Dubey) always make me question my largely hedonistic point of view in life. These are people who go against the system and stick to their beliefs and are killed for it.

I wondered if I would have the courage to give up a definite lucrative job in a probable MNC that comes after an IIM degree and instead work for a government organization like the IOC.
I wondered if I would just accept the corruption of the system as a byproduct of the society I live in and get on with my life.
I wondered if at some point of time my conscience would stab me into doing something but the fear of the pain that I would put my family through if something would happen to me would prevent me from doing anything drastic.

At this point of time I don’t know at all.
I am not making any claims right now.
All I can do is pray that I can give back something to my country…somehow!
And that at least some amount of good comes out of this so that this man’s death doesn’t go in vain.

But then...what about all those who probably were killed for being honest but don’t have an IIM or an IIT degree. The news of their deaths doesn’t even reach us! Who prays for them?

Speed Demon

2005-11-25T18:17:00.000-05:00

I would very much like to think I am one!
The Traffic Police Department of Mississippi however tends to disagree.

Yesterday morning I drove to Memphis (in a friend’s car) to attend a Thanksgiving dinner. I have been driving for a while but this was the first time I was going onto a highway and hence was just a little bit apprehensive. I completed the 80miles journey without any event and was quite pleased with myself for handling it so well.
Today morning was the drive back to Oxford and having pulled off yesterday quite fabulously I was sure nothing would happen. The journey was almost coming to an end and after taking the exit from the highway towards Oxford I mentally gave myself a pat on the back assuming that nothing could go possibly go wrong now.

I was so wrong.

Now the streets of Oxford were quite deserted what with it being the day after thanksgiving and I was cruising along when I saw a speed limit signboard that said 30mph. I immediately looked at my speedometer and realized I was doing 55mph! For those who are unaware, if the speed limit at any street is X mph then as long as it doesn’t say “strictly enforced” you can go at X+10 mph. So here I was going at 15mph over the limit. I immediately slowed down but it was too late. I heard the cop’s siren and noticed his car right behind me in the rearview and I pulled over. Now the law here requires people to stay put in the vehicle when you are pulled over. But somehow I decided that it was worth a try to get out and convince him that I didn’t really mean to speed. I don’t know what my body language suggested but he concluded that I was not going to be co-operative. He called out to me asking me to go back into the car. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand him clearly cuz he was speaking with a very thick southern accent. I took a step towards him to hear him better and that’s when he took out his tranquilizer gun and shot me in the thigh. I recovered around 2 hrs later to find myself in a hospital room and I cursed myself as to why I had to get myself into this shit in the first place!

:D Ok...All that really didn’t happen!
I pulled over and the cop came up to me, spoke to me very politely and gave me my speeding ticket (my first one...:)...not that I want more...I’m just kicked about this) and went away. There wasn’t any of the drama as above but I found out I might end up paying anywhere between 100 to 150 dollars as the fine...which of course isn’t a very nice thing!

First time that Ive broken the law and have been caught!
Will try and avoid it in the future! ;)

DRIVE SAFE EVERYONE!

Drink in from the Goblet!

2005-11-21T14:52:00.000-05:00

Let me say what I should probably be saying at the end of this post. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is an excellent movie and I would highly recommend it for both fans of the series and those who haven’t seen or read any of the movies/books.

Now lets get into my artsy-fartsy review of this movie :)
Warning: Might or might not contain spoilers. Mostly...might not!

The most striking thing about this movie is the fact that despite the omission of a zillion things from the book the essentials have been faithfully stuck to and the result is an enjoyable movie that is appealing to everyone.
The movie begins with the Quidditch World Cup and the special effects are a treat to the eye and made me realize how poorly I had imagined the whole thing when I was reading the book. Unfortunately, the world cup isn’t a pivotal part of the story and even before you finish explaining what is going on to the chic next to you (who doesn’t care much abt Harry and his friends) the wonderful imagery ends. Things unravel at a very good pace and the bulk of the story revolves around the ‘tri-wizard tournament’, a competition amongst three wizarding schools (I couldn’t help notice that Hogwarts was the only co-ed one...the other two happen to be a complete girls and a complete boys schools) in which four competitors (two from Hogwarts and one from the each of the other two) compete for the much coveted tri-wizard cup. The many subplots in the book have been omitted and during the course of the tournament events unfold culminating at the end with the return of Voldemort and another not-seen-before-in-the-previous-movies shocker which will surprise you only if you are someone who follows the series through the movies alone.

Someone worth mentioning is the very pretty Emma Watson (who plays Hermione Granger). I feel there is a little bit of a mismatch between the books and the movies that concerns her. The books have always described her as a plain-Jane who isn’t exactly known for her killer looks. In this story there is a part where she gets a complete makeover for a dance (the Yule Ball) and everyone is just floored by her new look. However when you see this particular scene you don’t really get the same feeling. She looks just as pretty as before. Instead of going from plain-jane to stunning-beauty she turns from pretty-girl to pretty-girl-in-a-nice-dress. Not that I’m complaining :)...its something that occurred to me.

The movie does have its little negatives here and there. Somehow I felt the goofy-humour content is shown a little more than necessary, to the extent that it takes away a little bit of the seriousness. Dumbledore and the others act goofier than before doing silly things and it kind of bugged me a little. But then again I guess I’m just being a purist!

And finally...Ralph Fiennes is GOD!
I was thrilled when I heard that he was playing Voldemort and my expectations of him as being a chilling, cold, evil overlord were fantastically met! The guy is awesome when it comes to these evil roles. He was excellent in the red dragon (as the ‘tooth fairy’) and of course the nazi officer in Schindlers list. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort is one of the many things to look forward to in the rest of the movies!

Like I said at the beginning...its worth your time and money! So watch it!
Tata

iPod...therefore I am!

2005-11-12T21:49:00.000-05:00

Yeah...I now own an iPod shuffle! :)
A friend of mine leaving the lab gifted me this!
I have to mention that this is an extremely neat toy to have. Really high clarity of music and very handy to use. The only downside probably being you cannot see the playlist and if you want to choose a song if you have skip your way rather than just jump to it. Then again ... the 'shuffle' option does compensate for this cuz its nice to have songs play in a random order. So yeah...its pretty cool. And now its time for me to ROCK ON with my new iPod! :P

PS: I didnt come up with the name of this post...I wish I did but I didnt! I saw this on a book and its a neat title for sure!

The one that got away!

2005-11-02T00:58:00.000-05:00

Sometime in mid October 2005

It was just another day in my life...nothing extraordinary had happened till then and I certainly did not expect that to change. After spending a good 6 hrs of the day trying to get some research done I decided to give my poor brain a break and work out my body instead. So off I went to the swimming pool to do my usual laps (After great thought I decided to refrain from mentioning the usual number of laps that I swim cuz I am not sure whether the said number would be impressive or insulting!) So there I was in the pool ‘doing my thing’ when I notice this chic 2 lanes away. Now it’s quite normal for me to check out all the chics at the pool...but I was checking this girl out also because
A) She was a kick-ass swimmer...you could look at her swimming and say stuff like “Is that a shark? Is that a speedboat? NO! Its super-swimmer-chic” or something like that...AND
B) She seemed to be checking me out!
Now before I proceed any further I want all of you out there who are smirking to wipe the stupid expression off your face. Yeah...some girls find me hot...or not (as you shall find out)! But at that point I was convinced she was checking me out. Every time she was doing the fro part of a to-and-fro lap using a float-board, I could see her looking at me. And this happened quite a lot. Why was this girl checking me out so much…the question plagued me for a full 1 minute and then I remembered something!

Now take a break from this story and imagine that you and I are in a room standing around a circular table with a large circular bowl filled with a clear silvery liquid. I am holding a wand and I touch my head with it. Out from my head clinging to the tip of the wand come out silvery threads of thoughts which I empty out into the bowl. Yes...you are right...we are looking at a 'pensieve' and I want you to bury your face into this bowl with me so that you can relive the flashback I had during that time at the pool. (In case you are not a Harry Potter fan, then all you need to know is that I remembered something else looking that girl at the pool and I am jumping into it right now)

Sometime in mid February 2005

I had just finished 'doing my thing' and was walking out of the recreation center when this random girl I don’t recognize walks right in front of me and says

Random Girl: Oh...you are done?
Me: Excuse me?
RG: You done swimming for the day?
Puzzled Me: Uhhh...yeah...just finished...Uhh...you going now?
RG: Yeah...I see you swimming all the time.
Still Puzzled Me Oh! (smiles stupidly not knowing what else to do)
RG: Alright...Ill cya arnd.
Now thinking ‘WTF’ Me: Yeah...cya!

And then she was gone. Now all this happened in a matter of a few seconds and since things like this don’t happen on a day to day basis I was quite unprepared. The worst part is that I don’t remember her face. Even now I don’t even have the slightest clue as to how she looks. We probably must have crossed paths numerous times later but never once did I manage to recognize her...MAAAYBE UNTIL NOW!

As I say this you see silvery threads circling all around your face and with a bright cool flash you are out of the 'pensieve' and back to the present situation poolside

The same sometime in mid October 2005

So here I was, thinking that maybe it’s the same girl and that’s the reason she seemed so interested in me. Although I had set out to rest my brain it refused to do so and did some logical analysis for me...
->Probability of cute chic checking you out with so much interest: 1%
->Probability that she is a possessive stalker: 50%
->Probability that this stops you in anyway whatsoever: 0.001%
->Logical conclusion: Go talk to her!

Whom am I to say no to my brain. So I waited for her to finish swimming. She got out of the pool and made way to her towel. I got out and followed her to pick up my towel (Im no pervert! Everyone keeps their towels in the same place here). As she was rinsing herself I approached her and said Hi.

And I smiled...
a not very confident “Hey...how have you been...its been a while” smile
but a subtle “Do I know you? If so smile back and start talking else take it as a polite southern hospitality thingie and continue rinsing”.

And she smiled back...
a not very open “Oh my gaawd...its you...the hot guy Ive been waiting forever to talk to but after that disastrous first meeting I was scared of being thought as a freak but now that you have said hi Im going to take you back to my place and make you do things to me that would condemn us both from heaven forever”
But a very subtle “Huh...why is this freak saying hi to me while I’m rinsing myself!Im sure he is an engineering graduate student...they often tend to be so desperate and socially stunted. I better smile back politely and get the hell out of here before he tries to hit on me”

And then she left!

And I still don’t know if this was the same girl from before!

Cruel world: 1
Ro: 0

Apocalypse Now!

2005-10-28T10:50:00.000-04:00

Has anyone else wondered about the large number of natural disasters...

The tsunami!
The hurricanes!
The earthquake!
The rains and flooding!

...all happening within such a short span of time!
I suggest that everyone start doing all those things you have on ur "Things to do in life" list cuz I am pretty darn sure that...

The end is near

Confessions of an Engineering Grad Student!

2005-10-21T11:53:00.000-04:00

I wrote this as an article for my university's Graduate Student Council's (GSC)newsletter. The editor told me that she is going to have to chop it up due to space constraints (or maybe she just doesnt like it that much!). Nevertheless, to inflict such a great loss upon mankind isnt my kind of thing. So I am posting the entire draft here. This was written for a demograph that is familiar with Olemiss and the town of Oxford...so if you dont fully comprehend certain parts please call upon the considerate person inside you and move on! ;)

-------------------------
Confessions of an Engineering Grad Student
-------------------------
Being a grad student is no easy task. Being an engineering grad is even tougher. If you all were in a large hall and I had said this out loudly you would definitely shout back “Oh Yeah!” and would be intently waiting for me to say something wise. Of course you would be disappointed! Not very different from what’s going to happen here! Nevertheless, as Pink Floyd says “the show must go on”.
When I set out to write an article for this newsletter I had no idea what would make an interesting read. Someone suggested that I should write about life as an international graduate student. So I did some thinking. And I realized that so many aspects of my life had changed when I moved on from being an undergrad to a grad that they merited a compilation somewhere. So much for trying to make this an ‘interesting read’. You can safely remove the ‘interesting’ from the above line and toss it straight out of the window next your workstation (God help you if you don’t have a window!). What I have put down is an arbitrary and utterly disconnected list of things that should help you get deep insights into life as an Engineering Graduate Student from a Whole Different Country (EGSWDC...f you will!)

Starting on a somewhat serious note, life as an undergrad is so much different compared to life as a grad in terms of the amount of studying one does. During my undergraduate years all I did was hang around with friends and goof about (didn’t we all? ;). But now I put in long hours of work to do grueling research that will ultimately lead to every man, woman and child in this world leading a much better and more fulfilling life (yeah...right!). Maybe it’s the feeling of responsibility that comes with getting paid for your work or the wisdom that comes as we get older :P but now it’s not uncommon for me to spend long nights in my department trying to get some work done. So much so that I have my own pillow in my office for a quick snooze, am good friends with the janitor of my building and have nice talks with her at 4 in the morning, nights and days have reversed for me and I love working on weekends because everything is so quiet and peaceful without any bothersome classes!

Secondly, one of my biggest cribs about this world is the obvious lack of plenty of women in engineering grad school. As you might have guessed by now, this leads to a social/party life that is just about as exciting as......a really old and dull object. Not that this bothers me too much. I am not a very clubbing person but I’ve seen and heard my many EGSWDC friends whine about it so I speak for them. Social life for me consists of an occasional get-together of friends, random sporting event, once a while movies, even the GSC social ;) and these leave me quite content. I see the Thursday/Friday/weekend night parties that happen on campus and I am reminded of the once care-free life that I used to lead. I realized how boring I had become where a lab mate and I were once made fun of by a pizza delivery guy for staying up late at night in school and ordering pizza on a football game weekend! Things were put into perspective for me when during the course of a recent conversation I had with a friend I realized I knew the exact operational timings of the swimming pool at the Turner Center but didn’t know anything about when the bars in Oxford open and close! I can’t believe I am wasting the last few years of my youth this way and don’t want to do anything about it! :P

Food...cause of both agony and bliss. The agony of not being able to find a convenient source when hunger pangs hit at really odd hours of the day (like 3 in the morning) and the bliss of finally managing to get your hands on a pizza or burrito at those same odd hours. If it had not been for places like Taco Bell or Papa Johns that operate late into the night or for the heaven on earth called Huddle House that not only is open 24hrs but also serves the tastiest omelettes I’ve ever eaten, I would have turned insane by now. And who can deny the comfort of not having to go anywhere/spend any of your cash that comes with the ‘free pizza’ that is given at almost every meeting that happens and you care to attend. All it takes is a little patience and some nodding in agreement (or disagreement) while the person talks about some stuff and within an hour you are rewarded with the wonderful smell of freshly made pizza. Haa...bliss!

Finally...the internet! An unavoidable consequence of spending a lot time doing research on a net-accessible computer is the huge amounts of time wasted away browsing the world wide web. An hour of research warrants a 15 minute browsing break where I end up doing a multitude of tasks like checking my email (for the 100th time that day...and its only 1pm), reading the news updates, checking the temperature outside (online...instead of just going out), checking the temperatures for the next 10days, looking for good deals on just about ANYTHING that might prop up out of nowhere, checking my own and various other blogs, typing in reviews about movies severely criticizing the tastes of those who dislike your choices, messaging/chatting with others, checking my email once more...the list could just go on and on if I cared. And once all this is done I invariably turn towards my lab mates and ask them if anyone wants to accompany me to check their P.O.Box and/or get some coffee! Of course this doesn’t happen all the time (being the responsible fellow that I am ;) and I must add that I did exaggerate things a bit...so don’t start judging me!

That’s about it folks...and as parting gift for continuing reading till here instead of turning the page I leave you with my very own “You know you are a...” list. Use it wisely and these should help you spot an engineering grad student almost instantly. But be nice to them...we aren’t that bad! In any case you know you belong to that much joked about, loved/hated, exploited, extremely lazy yet hardworking in their own special way, geeky clique of engineering grads if...

0) You start a list with 0 instead of 1.
1) You prefer a particular brand/type of pizza over others.
2) However that above doesn’t matter in case the pizza is free.
3) You secretly like being a geek but think twice before admitting it openly.
4) You know about the geek code and you not only consider it to be very cool but also have your own code and have used it somewhere.
5) You think PhD comics is very funny and heartwarmingly close to reality and wish you could sketch as well to start your own strip.
6) Someone gifting you a 1GB flash drive excites you way more than the other ‘mundane’ things.
7) You draw parallels in your field with everything. (For eg...here’s one from Electromagnetics...“Oh they weren’t meant for each other...there was too much of a phase mismatch!”).
8) You love geeky jokes and look down upon people who don’t understand them (like the above one).
9) Every time someone says “Wow...grad student eh? You must be smart”...you wave your hand dismissively but in your heart of hearts you think “I RULE”.
10) You are baffled as how can anyone find the quantitative section of the GRE hard but avoid saying this in a large group of people for the fear of being seen as arrogant.
11) You are jealous of the guy who has a better laptop than you...it doesn’t matter that you have a better car/apartment...what kills you is that his laptop is faster and slicker than yours!
12) You have at least one shirt from geeks.com (actually it’s a good website...I strongly recommend it!)
13) This is not the first ‘list of things that show you are a grad student’ that you have read.
14) You still like it and want to pass this to your colleague...(do it anyway man!)

And remember...there is a world out there that needs to be saved and made better and it is upon us, the graduate students to accomplish just that. So good luck and keep the faith! Adios!

If I stick pins in it...will Golu's advisor beat me up?

2005-10-21T11:37:00.000-04:00

Hendrix must be turning over in his grave...not to play the guitar behind his head but because of this...

Some people!

Random Thoughts: Part Deux

2005-10-13T01:46:00.000-04:00

One morning this guy got up with a fantastic idea for a brilliant story. However he was too lazy to put in the effort to make it a wholesome one. So he just left it hanging in his head. The second morning he woke up once again with another idea...which he again tucked away into a corner of his mind. This happened a few times. Until he realized he could compile all of these brilliant ideas into a collection of short stories, get them published and make it big. And that’s exactly what he did. We all know him now as Roald Dahl. He has been an inspiration to me ever since. He has taught me that there is a beauty in the works produced by lethargy. He has shown me the door…the door to blog about random unrelated events and trick others into reading something that neither enriches nor entertains. He is the One and I am his follower.

Ok..all that about Roald Dahl was obviously a bunch of BS but you get the idea...so here goes:

Okati) I went for an American football game last saturday…my first. It was reasonably entertaining but I have a few cribs.
Firstly, why in bluddy hell is it called ‘foot’ball. For most of the game the players run around with the ball in their hand..so call it handball goddamitt. Not football. Football was taken a long time ago and is a much more entertaining, not to mention simpler game. If the Americans wanted to be different (like always) they could have at least called it American rugby. Or, as suggested in a 'Friends' episode it could be called ‘sissy rugby’. All I am saying is that this game should not and does not deserve to be called football.
Second, according to the rules of the game there is the quarterback who throws the ball around and there are the guys who try to catch it and run. These guys are pretty much the only ones who get to touch the ball. And what do the others do? Push each other around! Quite silly if you ask me. And this is only the offensive side. I learnt that a whole different team comes on for the defense and then all they do is push each other. Yeah sure it takes strength but I wonder after how long does a linebacker(I think) begin to get bored and wants to do something other than just fight with the opposite team like overgrown kids.
Third...is a crib concerning only Olemiss. Apparently over the last few years the football games here have transmogrified into a dating scene. What would you wear to a game? Comfortable shorts/pants, tees shoes...anything but what you would see here. All the girls go extremely heavy on the make-up, wear elegant formal gowns, put on dazzling jewellery and high heels. All the guys are just as formal. And the best part is that everyone adds the final masterpiece to their attire for the complete Olemiss football fan look...a large beer cup in one hand !!!! Silly to the point of being absurd. Id like to imagine what Eden gardens would look like, filled to the brim with men in suits and women in sarees/salwars watching India Vs Pakistan and cheering wildly! Quite an image eh? :D

So much for my cribs, Im surely going to another game in one of the coming weekends!

Rendu) I was stereotyped last week!
Not once...but twice!
Over my choice of beverages!
I would be outraged...but Im not senti like that! :P
(And its quite funny as you shall see)

Offlate I have been addicted to coffee...for no particular reason I feel an urge to go to the on-campus coffee/bookstore and spend $1.61 over a cup of coffee while relaxing and reading about why Jen and Pitt spilt, how Angelina Jolie is having some trouble regarding Zahara’s adoption and crappy stuff like that…which is the best thing about goofing off. But,like people say,I digress. So neway the other day I went to order my coffee and the girl at the counter takes one look at me and says “Tazo Hot Tea...red dragon (or something)”. I was confused and must have done a splendid job of showing it on my face. Looking at my puzzled expression she goes “You don’t want tea?”
WTF? Just because most of the brown people order tea (as she told me later) she assumed that I would order tea and on top of that was surprised that I was not going to. For the record I have never had tea there until now, although I plan to try it sometime only but when this particular stereotypist isn’t working! :P

A few days passed, during which all I did order was only coffee without any incident. Then I turned up one hot afternoon to drink some ice-cold frappe! As luck would have it she decided to play her guessing game that day and this time she DID NOT EVEN ask me what I wanted. She took out a coffee cup and filled it with coffee and placed it in front of me and said $1.61. WTdoubleF? I thought she was filling it up for someone else. I mentioned the insignificant fact that I did not want coffee that day and that’s the reason I had not ordered it. To which she says, “But you always have tall coffee”. (Note the way she even mentioned ‘tall’, not ‘venti’, not ‘grande’...’tall’.) Thanks moron but sometimes I like to try other things. Yet I didn’t want to create a scene and quite frankly (like I mentioned before) I am addicted now. So I took my ‘tall coffee’ and left feeling rather weird.

I still go there almost every day and I still order ‘tall coffee’. But whenever I go I stare at her in a very strange way which says “If you try to guess my order once more before I make it...Im going to take your suggestion and order it, not to drink it but only to empty it on ur head...Biyatch”. Seems to be working, she has not played her guessing game ever since. B-)

Moodu) This is my mandatory music/movie blah-blah-blah that I have to put in!
First, the movies...Ive been going to these free international movie screenings. Movies from China, Russia, Spain etc. Too many thoughts about too many movies, so Im going to avoid putting them down. All I wish to say is that a lot of these movies have been very good ('House of Fools')...but at the same time a few have been very very disturbing ('Bad Education')! Overall a good experience.
Coming to music...I had mentioned Smashing Pumpkins before here. After that I went on to purchase ‘Rotten Apples’, their greatest hits compilation. I discovered the Pumpkins to be hardcore rockers (they aren’t around anymore). They even had two hot chics for a bassist (D’Arcy, followed by Auf De Maur (Hole)). Their drummer, Jimmy Chamberlin is another drumming gawd. Their lead guitarist, James Iha inspite of having very different sound/style of playing the guitar as compared to Billy Corgan’s manages to blend into the songs very nicely. Billy Corgan, the frontman absolutely rocks and one of my fav things abt SP is Billy’s use of two types of vocals. All in all an awesome band! Worth every single second/paisa spent on them. Rotten Apples is the best thing to pick up if u haven’t heard the Pumpkins yet.

Thus ends a long useless post!
The Concluding act of an entire day wasted away goofing!
Bringing with it a feeling of guilt too overwhelming for words!
Only escape being the act of going home and sleeping it over!
I shall do that now!
Adios!

BTW, Roald Dahl is an awesome author...the only book of his I’ve read is his collection of short stories and it kicks come serious chilling ass!

Paris Hilton (Updated)

2005-10-04T14:35:00.000-04:00

No! This is not about her infamous tape! But its kind of related to it. :)
I recently came across this mock interview of Paris Hilton done by Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live and its hilarious! The file is too big to put a link to but I thought its worth posting the transcript (or atleast what I remember of it!)

Update: Thanx to internet wizard Golu...here is the link to the interview on google videos. Link

Jimmy Fallon: Thanks for coming on. As we agreed, we won't be discussing the scandal that's been in the papers these past couple of weeks. We just want to find out about you, Paris Hilton.
Paris Hilton: Thanks Jimmy, I appreciate that.
JF: So, your family, the Hiltons, own hotels all over the world, right?
PH: Yes, they're in New York, London, Paris.
JF: Oh wait, so.... there actually is a Paris Hilton?
PH: Yes, there is.
(pause)
JF: Is it hard to get into the Paris Hilton?
PH: Actually, it's a very exclusive hotel, no matter what you've heard.
JF: I hear the Paris Hilton is very beautiful.
PH: I'm glad you've heard that.
JF: Do they allow double occupancy at the Paris Hilton?
PH: No.
JF: Is the Paris Hilton roomy?
PH: It might be for you, but most people find it very comfortable.
JF: But I'm a VIP. I may need to go in the back entrance.
PH: It doesn't matter who you are. It's not gonna happen.
JF: Ok...Ok. So I throw a lot of events...I was wondering if there is a ballroom at the Paris Hilton
PH: Yes there is.
JF: Great! I would love to have my balls held by the Paris Hilton.
PH: Not gonna happen Jimmy.
JF: Really...I mean atleast I can check in right...cuz I wont be able to stay long...maybe minute and a half at the max.
PH: Good Luck Jimmy!
JF: Thank You very much! Paris Hilton everybody!!!!

The Scientist

2005-09-22T16:33:00.000-04:00

The force with which the car landed on the ground flung Meg out through the windshield like a rag doll and she hit the ground with incredible force. The impact broke her neck and she was dead instantly. Adam’s seatbelt however kept him pinned to his seat as the car flipped over at least 10 times before coming to a rest in its upright position. The shock of the accident left Adam unconscious for a good one hour after which he came around only to find his beautiful wife lying dead at a distance.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The car was turning all over the road and was beyond Adam’s control. Over all the confusion he could hear Meg screaming hysterically. The world around him was literally spinning and there was nothing he could do. What seemed like eternity to him was in fact just 5 seconds before which the out-of-control spinning car hit the barrier at the edge of the road, tore through it and headed towards the grassy plains 10 feet below.
------------------------------------------------------------
It took only a fraction of a second for Meg to notice the truck on the wrong side of the road headed towards their car from the corner of her eye. She screamed out loud which quickly snapped Adam’s attention back to the road. He swerved reflexively but not before the truck clipped the back of their car sending it into a vicious spin.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Adam and Meg were cruising at 65mph on the highway in their brand new car. They were going to visit Meg’s parents and she could not contain her excitement. The drive was going quite well when Meg realized that she was very cold due to the chilling air-conditioning in the car. She wanted to reach for her sweater in the back seat and took off her seat belt to grab it and put it on, in the process momentarily distracting Adam.

Disclaimer:This is a completely plagiarized idea. It’s the video of Coldplay’s song “The Scientist” and is essentially shown as described. I wanted to see if I could capture the visual idea in words. It’s a decent song too.

Ro Thorpe…a legend in the making!

2005-09-08T13:54:00.000-04:00

Not many readers are familiar with Ro Thorpe. He is a quiet, unassuming person who hasn’t really climbed the Mount Everest of stardom…well maybe the ‘sameer’ of stardom but that’s pushing it too! Yet we bring to you something that he has accomplished only a few days back...something that’s not outstanding yet worth mentioning, something that won’t get him laid yet maybe win a few make-out sessions with the chics. Are you on your edge of your seat waiting to find out what did he do? No? Good. Cuz before we divulge that lets look into some historical facts about him.

Ro Thorpe was originally called Ro Cannot-swim-even-if-my-balls-depended-on-it. His swimming skills were limited to swimming underwater in 3ft depth and drowning and being rescued. After facing a lot of mental trauma due to his painfully long surname and his limited aquatic skill-set he decided to take matters into his own hands (Hyuk Hyuk :D ’matters into his own hands’ Get it? Hee hee) He joined a swimming camp a year ago and in the final end-of-camp swim session he finished a triumphant 3rd. Well it’s a insignificant thing that his coach had asked everyone in the water not to race. So in a competition in which no one else was competing, Ro came in 3rd. What can beat that? A lot of things I guess! So neway that was when he changed his misnomer surname to the then swimming rage ‘Thorpe’. Realizing that speed wasn’t his forte he shifted focus to jumping off diving boards. “Why?”, you might say. “Why not?”, he would reply and then climb atop the 15ft high diving board and gracefully take off and not-so-gracefully land in the water!
Very soon he realized that his skills weren’t receiving the proper attention he deserved in his home country of India. So he shifted base to the United States, where he got ‘F-ed in the A’ real bad (not literally...no no..just swimming wise). People were swimming 3 times as fast as him. Yet, the more severe competition and the really really hot lifeguard chics kept him going and a few days back he crossed a major milestone in his life aquatic (that movie sucks btw)!

“So what don’t you just tell us what he did!” you might impatiently say.
To which I would reply “I already told you. Re-read the previous line.”
............major milestone in.......

He swam a mile!
A whole freaking mile...1.6kms!
36 laps!

Without much ado lets grab a large bag of oatmeal and hear everything we need to know from the horse’s mouth.

SE: So Ro, How does it feel to be able to swim a mile?
Ro: It feels great man...except that my elbow hurts like hell now and I have a terrible cold to go with it and Ive been sick for the past week. Apart from these it feels great!

SE: So did you do it in under 4 minutes or something like that?
Ro: Huh! No way dude...all I managed was 36 laps in maybe about 75-80 minutes. I am not trying to be the Roger Bannister of the pool or something like that...and I don’t think I can even if I wanted to, so I’m quite happy with my slow pace! Swimming is tiring man and it requires a lot more will-power to keep going than long distance running does.

SE: Yeah I guess doing a mile at a stretch can be quite a task!
Ro: Hmmmm...actually...I didn’t do it in a stretch either. I took my breaks whenever I felt like I needed them. I was swimming with a friend and we kept chatting quite often in between and checking out the hot lifeguard chics!

SE: Then do you honestly believe doing 36 laps in your own sweet time, with all the breaks you need is a big deal...I mean a lot of people out there could have easily done that right?
Ro: Well yeah, but I think its good to make a big deal out of it...it keeps one inspired and helps inspire others! Besides, I think you should make a big deal out of everything just for the sake of fun! (grins)

SE: Ok...so are any of the hot lifeguard chics hitting on you now?
Ro: Unfortunately no! But I hope the situation improves in the later stages when after finishing a mile I walk away looking cool instead of looking like a 50-year old slowly making his way towards the lockers with a painful expression on his face!

SE: So u didn’t break any records, you didn’t get any girls…then what’s the point of all this?
Ro: (‘what a bastard this guy is’ kind of look) Well...I would say...fun!

SE: Fun?...hmmm...ok...whatever...finally, what’s in the future for you?
Ro: Well...swimming and hopefully some more swimming. Let’s see where I go this time. And to all my fans out there (Ed: Fans?) keep up the good work people. And if its not the good work, stop doing it!(stupid grin again) Until later.
Peace everyone!
Love -RT

That’s it folks. U’ve read everything there was to read about this. Remember, here is a legend in the making. But thats going to happen after a long long time...so for now go home and chill [in the pool ;)]

Sam Etaro
J.V.V.E
Journalist Very Very Extraordinaire

Infinite Sadness

2005-08-30T15:59:00.000-04:00

Slouching in my chair I looked around a little bored in the darkened room. The light reflecting off the projector wall illuminated the faces of my advisor, my department chair and 6 others who were sitting and listening intently. Stifling a yawn that was forcing its way out, thanks to only 2 hours of sleep the previous night I tried hard to concentrate on what the guy standing next to the screen and pointing at it was trying to say. Weekly research meetings and I have a love-hate relationship. This week was filled with hate. I was going to present my work (90% of which was done only the previous night) after everyone else. That normally meant a waiting time of about 21/2 to 3 hours. I looked at my watch...3:45pm. Damn! I still had a couple of hours to kill. I tried to put the numbers and the yawns behind me and listen to what this guy had to say. I tried to judge how much work he had actually done that week and how hard was he trying to show it off as a week’s worth! The things I do to keep myself amused!

Like every other week I sat facing the door to this big room. Bless this strategic positioning; I could see her walk by. She is a beautiful girl. She works in the same building and is a friend of mine. She drops by my workstation once or twice a week for a quick chat. She has a beautiful smile. But today she seemed sad. In the couple of seconds that I noticed her walk by that room I could see she was in deep contemplation. There were definite traces of sadness in her eyes. And yet she seemed more beautiful than ever. Her drooping eyes with those large lashes, the hair tucked behind her ears and her gaze on the floor as she went past me painted the picture of the most gorgeous thing that Ive laid my eyes upon. I’ve often heard about there being a certain beauty in melancholy. Today I have seen it myself. The irony of those two simple seconds isn’t lost on me. Just a glimpse of her sadness has filled me with bliss for a much longer time.

I wish I was better with my words so that the world can better understand what I felt.
I wish I was a painter so as to at least make an attempt at capturing this on sketch.
I wish I was a songwriter so that I could maybe write a song about this.
I wish that someday I could tell her how captivating she looked to me for just those 2 seconds.

But mostly......I wish I could see that sad yet divine face of hers once again.

Run, rabbit run!

2005-08-16T12:30:00.000-04:00

Vincent(Ethan Hawke): A year is a long time.
Irene(Uma Thurman): Not so long. Just once around the sun.

The best two lines from Gattaca that echo my feelings.

Its been exactly one year since I had landed in the US (on August 16th 2004) and I cant even remember how time just went by. The funny thing is that I still am so caught up with life’s pace that if it had not been for a very sweet mail from a very close friend of mine telling me how it has been a year since I left, I wouldn’t have stopped to take a moment and make this entry. No matter how insignificant this might seem, this entry is dedicated to her. So P, this ones for you. :)

Though its just one trip round the sun, a year truly is long enough to do a lot and learn a lot. A wise man once said “You never know what you think until you put it down in writing”. Just to prove this particular wise man right and also for some fun reminiscing I hit upon the idea of putting down all the significant things about the past year. Lets see now...

1) My exposure to research in the true sense of the word: This is without a doubt one of the most important things that Ive gone through in the past year. Me in undergrad and research were two diametrically opposite concepts. It was very important for me to do proper research for 2 main reasons,
A) I was getting paid for it and it was ethically wrong to slacken
B) I had to know if I was cut-out for a PhD.
In hindsight I think I could definitely have worked twice as hard and who knows maybe it would have yielded more fruitful results. I did go for a conference too, but again in all honesty that was just pure luck. Although I have now promised myself to work harder I am convinced that a career in research is something that doesn’t come naturally to me. But fate it seems is not without a sense of irony!

2) My December and July vacations: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! So what should Jack do? Take a vacation at the end of every semester :). These two trips have been filled with amazing fun. There’s nothing better than catching up with good old friends and hanging out. These trips are something that Ill cherish for a long time for many many reasons and if it had not been for them I would probably have been filled with self pity thinking I have been working too hard only to get stuck in a non-productive hole!!

3) My new friends: Everyone I met here from my seniors to my roommates to my other friends (desi and international) have been as great as anyone can be and I couldn’t have asked for better companionship! Still, old is gold! :)

4) My India Association Presidency: This has a lot more significance to me than I let people realize. Although I held a few organizational posts during my undergrad, nothing compares to the magnitude of responsibility and tasks that I had undertaken as the president of the India Association here at Olemiss. I learnt a great many things about how to deal with people, when to make a stand and stay firm in your beliefs, how to deal with extreme criticism, the importance of delegation, the qualities that make a good leader...what not. This was truly a very important learning experience and though it did harm me a little bit from an academic stand point I don’t have any regrets. In fact my tenure is going to finish in a month but I have bigger things lined up. I am going to be working for our Grad Student Council in quite a responsible position but this time I have promised myself that I’m going to be smarter than I was in prioritizing this with my acads.

5) Wakarusa: Very recently I read a James Hetfield quote, “Id rather regret doing something than not doing it”. Something like this being said by none other than the MetallicA frontman was nothing short of exhilarating for me. Life is about experiences and Wakarusa was a freaky one. One of the most significant for sure, in spite of being not very socially acceptable. ;)

6) My failed love-life: Although I don’t admit this often, this past year has been quite a failure in terms of wooing women! I failed TWICE! The first time was a simple crush and it ended pretty soon. I was blunt and she was blunt. In hindsight I don’t really regret this cuz it really was what I knew it was, an infatuation that surely would go away...and it was never meant to be. The second time was with someone I really thought was meant to work out. I never knew her well and I still don’t…but it was one of those gut feelings that make you think she’s perfect. This time I was more careful…no bluntness…I tried to be subtle. But the ‘negative’ force was strong in her! ;)
Maybe I need to take some wooing lessons!

7) A new country: Last but definitely not the least…this is more of an all encompassing experience. Life in a new place is by default exciting and the US is no different. The different lifestyles, viewpoints, stereotypes...everything is both frustrating and fun but nevertheless fresh . Unfortunately, words expressing my feelings about this fail me at this point so Ill just say that one thing that surely rocks about the US is the centralized air-conditioning in just about every building you walk into. Such bliss! :P
Something more meaningful maybe some other time.

Spent a good one hour typing all this…but re-reading makes it seem very silly! Still Ill let them be! Maybe a year later Ill make another entry...wondering what new stuff Ill put down then!
Until l8r

Mutton Curry by Golu Da Chef

2005-08-02T18:21:00.000-04:00

The following is a rare recipe for mutton curry that has been typed out by Golu Da Chef himself. Information like this is normally confined to only some esteemed mailing list and for the first time this bootleg is being thrown out to the public!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not sure if one marinates mutton like they do to
chicken. But if they do then first make a batter out of curd, chili
powder, salt, some chicken masala powder and spices that u feel will
make the thing taste better. Put the mutton in this batter for some
time...like an hr.

In the meanwhile, either dice onions to very small size ...or i wud
suggest just dump them into the mixie and get onion paste. Ek pan main
oil daal and heat the oil for like 10-20s. Then put the onion paste
and put the flame on low-medium. Remember never cook food on high
flame...else khaana doesnt cook well. Keep stirring the onion now and
then and u will get a brownish feel in like 5-10min...depending on how
much oil u had put. The more oil..the faster it cooks...but the fatter
it makes u :D. So after the onion gets brown...put tomato puree and
stir well....so that the overall mixture becomes thick (if u have
ginger garlic paste....put along with onion paste). THen add salt,
chilli, dhania powder as u wish and let this gravy cook on slow flame.
Keep stirring every 2 min...aur beech main check karte rahe if u think
the gravy is ok. Once it is done...put the mutton in the gravy and
acchi tarah mix kar so that the gravy fights to get into the mutton
and then continue on slow flame. Cover the pan for about 5 min. Go
hillalo, come back open the pan's lid and
....swaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadisht :D
...swaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadisht :D

waise u can substitute mutton by any thing (then no need to marinate
also)...stuff such as aloo, peas, eggs, cauliflower...anything can be
made in the same sauce.
----------------------------------------------------

Apologies to G for stealing his idea of posting e-mails :P

Lone Trivia Question

2005-07-27T02:12:00.000-04:00

So I was wasting my time browsing when I came across some interesting stuff which I quickly put into a trivia question. Just take a look at the 3 pics and guess the theme. Obly proper fundaes are needed. This is not some dayaa question and I feel is quite nice too. So good luck!

Will post answer/fundaes when people stop responding!
And try and avoid googling. In case u need a hint then google the first pic...this shud hopefully lead somewhere, and if it does then fundaes for 2 and 3 are mandatory!

And to ensure that ur answers dont spoil someone elses fun, use this translatorto translate ur answers to chinese and post them. Ill cut paste them and re translate them back to english and see if they are right or wrong!

ALERT: Thanx to shrini you dont have to indulge in the aforementioned absurdity. Use rot13.com

Pottermania (Updated)

2005-07-25T18:48:00.000-04:00

Update being:
This link to a video of a guy who goes to a bunch of people waiting outside a bookstore and shouts out the Harry Potter ending! The reaction of the last lady is hilarious!
Warning: If u choose to see this video obviously itll ruin the ending for you too!

I couldnt resist posting atleast something about Book 6: "The Half Blood Prince". I stole a pirated e-version of the book from someone else's comp (which I guess makes me twice removed from the act buying an authentic copy of the book) and finished it in just about 2 days. Just like most of the previous 5 books, this one too is unputdownable. Still, from an overall point of view I thought it was a little absurd at some places. Those of you who intend to read it...need not worry because Im not sadistic enough to reveal anything (unlike my sister)!
Since this is the penultimate book, I can be sure that they are a million people out there trying to guess how its going to end. Of course, I have my own theories. So if anyone is enthu enough to discuss this mail me!
Another thing abt the Harry Potter books is that they are being released with too much gap in between them (Book 5 had come out in 2003). Whether this is intentional or unavoidable I do not know but it makes it very difficult to fully appreciate the new books. I hardly remembered what 5 was about until I was well into book 6. And they say that the final one is going to come out in 2007. I can imagine how tough itll be if the final book includes subtle fundaes from all the previous ones.

On a different note, have u ever had that wonderful feeling of ecstacy when as a kid you would go through the pain of waking up early in the morning, getting ready and making your way to school only to joyfully find out school's been shut for the day. I got that feeling today when I found out that my weekly research meeting has been cancelled. So I used the time to do something Ive been wanting to for a long time, Upload some new pics onto my yahoo a/c. Enthu people go here and see the ALL NEW albums.
Adios dawgs!

Vacation 3…

2005-07-22T20:06:00.000-04:00

...lasted 15 days (from 3rd July 2005 to 18th July 2005). It was more a mixture of a conference and vacation. From the 3rd to the 8th I was in DC attending my first international conference. I had a great time there getting a nice perspective about the work in my field. I got to listen to some brilliant presentations and most interestingly got to see all the big names up close and personal. I also got a very disheartening truth-laid-bare perspective on the kind of work I had done.

Once I was done with the conference I went to Baltimore to meet up with golu and subbu (who had come down for the weekend from Texas) Me and subbu then went to NYC to meet up with prade and zubin and amongst the usual NYC sight seeing we managed to go to a Bryan Adams and Def Leppard concert with Kakkad and some friends. I had never listened to too much Def Leppard except for the usual popular songs but still have to admit they rocked harder than Bryan Adams. Nevertheless Bryan Adams is what he is and he was one of my favorite artists at one point of time. He put up an excellent show and it was gawd! Coming back to Leppard, in case you are unaware, DL’s drummer lost his left arm in an accident a few years back. He wanted to leave the band but the band didn’t let him encouraging him to keep playing with some additional help. The result is that he now uses a acoustic/electric drum kit. He has a standard bass pedal for the acoustic bass drum and the kit are three left pedals, one for the acoustic high-hat and two other for a bass and a snare sound both of which are electrically generated. All the cymbals were acoustic which he played with his right arm.
Why am I telling you all this? Cuz he drummed gawd! The man’s talent and the way he adapted himself are exceptional. Check this out for some pics of his kit.

So neway, concert was great. We went back to Baltimore and subbu left on Monday. I did nothing for a couple of days and took the bus back to NYC on Tuesday night to go hang with kakkad. Tuesday evening in NYC was fun ;).
Met rabbi and his gang from Cornell on wednesday. Had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant which was very good.
Met up with 2 school friends(Vivek and Karthik) I had not seen since 5 and 7 years respectively. It was good fun to catch up!
Princeton was next on the itinerary. Did nothing but relax at Zubin’s house on Thursday and Friday. Received Golu and Prade on Saturday and we all went kayaking which was freaking awesome to say the least. We also played some very nice music at Princeton which from my point of view rocked more than kayaking. 
Nothing significant elapsed after this and by the time I got back home via Baltimore, DC and Memphis!

BTW I opened up a restaurant in NYC. Its on 8th avenue between 53rd and 54th. Drop in if u r in the city and say you are a friend with this picture as proof. They’ll treat you nicely. In true IIT-spirit Ive decided to keep it open 24hrs!

PS: Panda made some very nice chicken curry for me when I was in Baltimore. This means that panda makes chicken not just for girls but for guys too. Hence panda is not CKD. ;)

Vacation 2...

2005-07-22T19:30:00.000-04:00

...is what this is about. I must have piqued everyone’s curiosity about my vacation 1. Most of you should be knowing. For those who dont click here and be enlightened or whatever.

Q: So where did I go for vacation 2?
Ans: Higher ground ;)

Actually it was to a music festival called ‘Wakarusa’ at Lawrence, Kansas. (BTW, did you know that Kansas city is actually in Missouri) It was a 4 day music and camping festival with about 80+ bands playing 18hrs of music each day at 5 simultaneous stages(June 15th 2005 to June 19th 2005). A guy I met here had told me about this and invited me to go along with him and his friends. The whole experience was quite awesome. It involved a 10 hour drive from Denver to Lawrence in an RV (a recreational vehicle) which was a first time for me. RV’s are a very nice concept. The downsides being that they are a tad expensive to even rent and they drink up gasoline like a ravenous monster. Still, having the RV’s helped us escape the heat of the day leaving us to stay awake most of the night enjoying the music.
One significant thing about this concert was that I got to realize something about the music scene in the United States. For a long time I was under the impression that the music which is quite popular in India (rock, pop, hip-hop etc) is the same stuff that people here listen to. I assumed I would know almost all the bands that might have a huge following here. I was wrong by a big margin.
There exists a second, very local tier of music in the States, a tier dominated by bands which (I am told) choose to not go international but maintain an extremely large and loyal fan-following in the United States itself. I’m not sure if this applies to all the genres of music but most of the bands that I listened to at this concert had a very funk-rockish sound to them. And they were good. To name a few bands which were the supposed crowd pullers, I can think of “String Cheese Incident”, “Wilco”, “Government Mule” and “North Mississippi All Stars”. All the music I was exposed to here was previously alien to me, except when “String Cheese Incident” did a cover of “All along the watchtower” which was quite an exhilarating experience. These bands release CD’s too which apparently are bought up very eagerly. They have hardcore fans that follow them everywhere in the US. And these people hardly give a damn about the more famous international bands. Another notion of mine that was shattered was my assumption that almost everyone in my age group here in the US listens to Hip-Hop and there is no other form of music alive. This experience told me that there is some non-hiphop type of music out there…it might not be pure rock and roll but its definitely something that doesn’t suck as much as rap/hip-hop (what’s the difference anyway?)!

Interestingly, the name ‘Wakarusa’ is derived from an old Indian word which means ‘Ass deep in the river”. I got a cool tee as a souvenir which says ‘Ass deep in music’!

I simply wanted to share the musical viewpoint of this trip. Please don’t mention about anything else as I wish to keep this entry only about the music. And as Ozzy once said “Thank You Goodnight we love you all”

Random Thoughts...

2005-06-30T23:39:00.000-04:00

...I love putting down random thoughts. No pressure to maintain coherence, no need to write enough to make it seem interesting and most importantly no need to put in that mammoth effort to bring yourself out of a state of lethargy and force yourself to make an entry. They just flow, so here we go...

1) What we really need in todays world are earplugs that let you listen to music while you are swimming. Its not fair that you can only distract yourself while running and not when you are underwater. I have done my fair share of swimming and it gets awfully boring after a while. And the music that plays at the pool can be heard only when you stop in between laps with your head outside the water! So, I came up with a weird way to keep myself distracted while doing laps. If I know the song that is being played then I note the moment of the song before I start my lap
(at which point Im cut off from the music) and keep playing it in my head and see how close I am to where the song actually is when I bring my head out after I finish the lap! Though its fun I still think man should invent water-proof ipods or something! Get to work you lazy ass mongrels!

2) Yahoo is a bitch! It is forcing me to buy LaunchCast-Plus. I think I just might cave in! Well, this is what is compelling me. If you are an avid listener of launch you should be knowing that they allow 600 songs per month after which they take away your skipping rights! Not that it bothered me much, I beat that by shifting stations to get to new songs. I never really cared about the commercials either, if they were too long and annoying I used to remove my earplugs and wait for them to finish. But now yahoo has gone ahead and done something absolutely horrific. If you now exceed 600 songs they dont let you listen to any station except your own customized one! That just breaks my balls. I love my station and all but Id much rather listen to songs on Classic Rock or RHCP Fan station or Love songs (just kidding ;) This is such a corporate bitch thing to do...mofos! I wonder what happens to those listeners who have broken the 600 barrier but dont have a customized station of their own. I think Ill just go ahead and pay "less than 3$ a month to get unlimited song-skipping and commercial free radio"...and also double-latte with whipped cream :)

3) I have always heard about Smashing Pumpkins being a great band. Now Ive listened to one of their songs and absolutely love it. Its called "Bullet with butterfly wings" and it rocks! Will be on the look-out for more Pumpkins!
Also hooked on to this Rolling Stones song called "Sympathy for the devil". Damn good vocals by Mick Jagger.
And lastly and also the leastly...Jessica Simpson has a new song called "These boots were made for walking"...a cover of a Nancy Sinatra original ( remember the song "Bang Bang" from KillBill...thats a Nancy Sinatra song) Its quite catchy.
You can check out all the above songs on yahoo videos

4)I somehow cant get over my OCD to keep spreading links to funny videos! Help me nuture my disorder
http://www.wimp.com/impressions/

5) Ill be off to DC this monday for my first international conference. Have to admit my work isnt of very high standard but still I guess I have to begin somewhere. Am equally excited about my vacation after my conference. But for now I am yet to finish my presentation that Ill be showing to all the big shots in my field. Thus common sense dictates I stop this randomness and I work on presentation. And before I go check this out...(Im on a family guy roll :)

Peter: Well, I'm gettin' something really special too. And by special I don't mean special like that Kleinaman boy down the street. More special like... like Special K, the cereal. Hey, what do they do with the regular K? And for that matter, what ever happend to K. Ballard? You know, if you said mallard and you had a cold, it would sound like ballard.
Brian: Do you listen to yourself when you talk?
Peter: I drift in and out.

Stewie's...

2005-06-26T02:04:00.000-04:00

..."Sexy Party"
http://music.yahoo.com/ar-20348981---Stewie
You have gotto check out the video! Its hilarious!

NBA Finals...

2005-06-24T18:42:00.000-04:00

...happened yesterday night and the Spurs took the title beating the Pistons. I was a little disappointed cuz I was rooting for Detriot. They are an excellent team in the true sense of the word and I loved the way they had trashed the Lakers last year. Yet, while reading about the game in todays news amidst seeing a few Spurs' team pics I couldnt help but admire Duncan and the Spurs. They have an innate nice-ness about them. Duncan seems to be such a humble person despite being a player of his stature. And the rest of the team seem to jell so nicely with each other. The Spurs seem like a team with immense talent and the temparament to go with it so that they dont create any unforced problems for themselves. To quote the article I was reading today..."the Spurs are built to last". I definitely agree!

On a different note...have you guys heard about the AND1 basketball guys who are going around the US cities inciting the local basketball studs, telling them that they can kick their local ass and making mix-tapes of them actually kicking some serious butt!
Google for AND1 mix tapes and explore.

50 till I die...

2005-06-22T11:31:00.000-04:00

Im sure the 3 words "What the fuck?" went through your head coupled with a broad smile on your face. I accidentally happened to find this long-forgotten scan of my caricature today morning and wanted to share it with the world!
The artist stuck to the true definition of the word caricature by making sure my nose looked as fat as it could possibly get, my glasses looked as geeky(sad?) as they actually are and my eyebrows were as thick as caterpillars, in effect making me look 50! Keen observers might have noted this was done during a time when my hair was at its longest as I was trying to grow it. If I remember right I got this caricature made in October 2004 and a few days later I went back to my crew-cut and got myself contacts!

Mondays...

2005-06-13T14:59:00.000-04:00

...how I hate them! They give me the blues and I dont even know why. I know what you are thinking and you only have my words to believe that it couldnt be further away from the truth. I dont get up early in the morning to go to a 8 to 5 job from Monday to Friday so that by the end of the week I am totally exhausted which in turn motivates me to have a blast of a time during the weekend...only to be really depressed when its time to face the demands of a new week.
I sleep 10hrs a day, dont exactly exhaust myself working, my advisor is very cool and he lets me work according to my schedule, I attend social gatherings at a fair regularity and also indulge in good amount of sports.
Yet...I feel so blase!
One of the primary reasons I feel is the lack of above mentioned strict time based work ethic...I have this feeling that it would be really nice if I had the attitude of working hard from 8 to 5 and then totally forgetting about work for the rest of the day. I could so enjoy whatever I am doing in the latter part of the day. Right now, theres always that feeling of unrest in me...a feeling that I could have done some more (or as on some days...a feeling that I should have done atleast some work) which I THINK is preventing me from being completely refreshed and yearning to get some work done!
One train of thought that Ive had is that I feel the root of all my problems is my clear lack of self-motivation to do research (work for me). I know people who have a burning passion for the work that they do...almost all my professors and a good number of my colleagues belong to this category. They get up in the morning with an enthusiasm to do research. Like people say, "Love your work and you wont have to work a single day of your life"...These guys dont work! Maybe I should clarify, I do enjoy what I am doing. EMW rocks and Id rather be in this than any other field. Whatever little research I do I really have fun doing it. My problem is to 'begin' to do it. I always keep putting off reading a paper but once I force myself into doing it I find I enjoy it a lot and finish it at a satisfactory pace. But then its time to start something new and it takes me about 2-3 days to start working properly again!
All this has made me conclude that Im not cut-out for a PhD for sure! I just hope circumstances dont force me into it.
I feel like I am at a point in my life where I need to travel the world and see places and meet people. Id like to think of it as a soul-searching expedition but maybe Im just trying to give the sloth in me a nice name. :)
Hmmm....So why do I hate mondays? I can think of no particular reason expect that I have my weekly presentations on this day and it sort puts me to work on a sunday evening and also takes up a good part of monday and not-to-mention the exhausting presentation of our entire group from 3 to 6pm. Incidentally I had interrupted this writing to attend to my presentation today!

Everything Ive said above holds for me on any given day during this phase of my life...but truth be told, today I have an additional more personal reason to feel blue!
Cant decide how to end ...so heres an old joke!

One Atom to another: Hey buddy...whats with the sad face?
Atom 2: I think I've lost an electron.
Atom 1: Are you sure?
Atom 2: Im positive!

"Brainwash"

2005-06-08T09:41:00.000-04:00

He was only 10 years old. And was one of the brightest chaps in his class. He loved English and his command on the language and his mature grasp surprised all of his teachers. He excelled in school at this subject. So much so that his proud parents rewarded him with a computer of his own. He was thrilled. His quick sponge like mind absorbed all there was to learn about the internet. He spent hours browsing the web. The net was so huge and eclectic and such a wonderful source of information and inspiration for the kid. He read books, learnt about great men and their great achievements and about all the literary geniuses. And with characteristic and prodigal depth of thought, he contemplated about everything he read. He was a truly inspired kid ready to take on the world if only given a chance. But there was just one problem.

She wasn’t the English kind. She loved math. And seemed to enjoy only the company of those who loved math. It bothered him to see her with that boy only because he could do all those useless multiplications faster than her. He was convinced that only his ‘lhau’ for her was true love. ‘lhau’…he had grown to like this word.. He was running out of ways to impress her. In his own little world, if knowing the complete meaning of the word ‘sarcastic’ when his classmates couldn’t even spell it properly wasn’t good enough for her then what more could he do? Wasn’t it enough that he could explain what ‘democracy’ meant? Wasn’t it enough that he was now even inspired into taking up poetry? Yet, She didn’t really care about him
The more he saw her and the boy together at school, laughing and narrating those stupid tables the sadder he grew. Something had to be done. It was all a matter of muttering up the courage. There was just the impetus lacking. Life seemed so pointless. He decided to make the empty yard in front of his house his own park. Every evening he would just sit there looking and waiting anxiously for the miracle to happen. His behavior and lonely yard sessions troubled his father but he refused to tell him anything. It took an evening spent in the bosom of his loving mother on the front yard for him to spill out his woes about the girl he ‘lhau’ed . His mother smiled at him understandingly. She told him that such things were worst when kept hidden and that he should go up to her and declare his love for her. “It is a question of now or never” she told him. His innocent eyes filled with joy when he heard those last words from his mother sitting in the yard. That’s all that mattered to him. The impetus had arrived. Everything made perfect sense to him. He knew what to do. It was clearly mentioned.

“Good Evening! This is Sam Etaro bringing you the news at 10 and with me is Tanya Burns. In further investigation of the unprecedented and gruesome murder of two 10 year old schools kids by their classmate, police investigators said that in a search of the accused’s computer they found several stored links to various weblogs (or blogs as they are more popularly known). Further investigation has revealed that the contents of one of the blogs seems to be some sort of inspiration for the accused’s methodology of using a hammer and a penknife. Police are trying to trace the location of all the bloggers linked to from the accused’s computer hoping to get some more insight……"

Slpeling...

2005-06-02T23:08:00.000-04:00

...I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The pweor of the hmuan mnid is phaonmneal. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tnhig is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sltil raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the hmaun mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas tghouht slpeling was ipmorantt.

I do check for spelling errors in my post duh...(re: comments for "Hey!Teacher") But this is an illustration of why I probably didnt notice that I had misspelt "Poems" as "Peoms". (Were there more errors???) I know this is a very common forward but it makes for a nice read for a small population of those who actually havent come across this!