Tuesday, September 02, 2008

A biscuit the cop offered...

'Your insurance has expired. 500 bucks as fine', the cop told me. I looked at my watch. It was three in the morning. I looked around, there is an ATM right across the road. I looked back at the cop. I don't see him carrying his receipt book. I tried to recollect how much I had in my wallet. A ten and a hundred rupees (The Germans say numbers like that..weird). Damn. I gave that I-dont-have-money look to the cop.

A prologue:
It was almost three AM in the morning. I said to one of my best friends..."My place is close by. I would just ride on...". "why do u want to go back now. Its too late.", he said. I was two pegs down. But, that was almost 4 hours back. I was far from being tipsy. I had good time with him talking about all the things that I wanted to. Got on my bike. My place is just a kilometer away. I can be at home in less than five minutes, I thought. I was half way and I see that the road is barricaded in such a way that I have to slow down and pass thru it. I did not notice the cops. They were lurking in a dark corner. The moment I was trying to pass thru' the barricade, they almost pounced on me. I stopped my bike by the side of the road. 'Can I have a look at your bike papers?', he said it in kannada, the local language. I always thought that I could follow the local language. But this time I completely missed it. He understood I was not from the state. He repeated the same to me in my language after he confirmed that I was a telugu. The other cop came up to me and took the papers from me and handed it over to him and promptly ran behind his new prey, a lorry.

The Epilogue:
My quandary, now , is .. should I pay him the fine or should I just grease his palms? Any other time, I would have paid the fine. But he does not look like he is interested in me paying the fine. If I pull out five hundred rupees, they would straight go to his pocket. My does-not-have-money look did not work out. I pulled out my wallet from my jeans pocket. I told him that I have a hundred and ten rupees. He asked me to keep the tenner with me. Disappointed, I did away with my hundred rupee note. I gathered all the papers and getting ready to leave. I turned back to have a look at the cop. He pulled out a biscuit packet. He smiled at me and offered me one. Sheepishly, I took one and rode along........

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Lively

The time I am spending on the World Wide Web has increased considerably in the last two months.
Google's Web history says that I have performed 320 searches in the month of June. And I am not even half way in July and I have already performed 232 searches on Google.

GOOGLE is one of the best things that happened to humanity. You think its an overstatement. No. Its not. If you ask me to rate the inventions of humans that has made the greatest impact in the way the world worked, this would be the order I would take.
1. Fire
2. Wheel
3. Electricity
4. Internet
5. Google

May be I am missing some more. Pardon my ignorance. I still remember the day I used Google for the first time. Altavista used to be my favorite search engine. And then one day I read about Google in the newspaper. But I ignored it completely. I used it only after my friend insisted on trying it. No looking back after that. I never used Altavista or for that matter any other search engine after that. I have been an ardent fan of Google since then and Google never dissappointed me. And I liked the way they worked. No promotion of their products. They count only on word of mouth. I have used almost all of their products and they never cease to amaze me. Gmail, Gtalk, Picasa, Google Desktop, Google docs, Google Sketchup, Google Analytics and all other products that they got by acquiring other companies, they are simply amazing. And they believe in making all of these products available to you for free. Its like I wait for them to launch a product so that I can flaunt it to my friends as if its my own. Started liking to be called GMan by my friends ;-).
Now, the latest one that's added in their armour is www.lively.com . Google likes to call it 'Hangout and 3D chat'. Its one of their 20% percent projects, they say. I expected it to be very slow just like secondlife.com, atleast with Indian Internet Speed Standards. But it was other way around. Its a fun way of chatting with total strangers and your friends. Waiting for Google to somehow figure out a way to integrate this with Gmail or Chat. That would change the schematics of WWW again.

check out Google's Latest experiments at this link http://labs.google.com

Happy Googling.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Visible Body

I came across this wonderful website called www.visiblebody.com. They have great 3D animation of human body's anatomy. This is what the site says about itself
"The Visible Body consists of highly detailed, anatomically accurate, 3D models of all human body systems. The models were developed by a highly trained team with decades of experience in medical illustration and biomedical visualization. All anatomical content has been reviewed for accuracy by our panel of experts, including physicians and anatomists. The beta release includes content covered in an undergraduate-level Anatomy and Physiology course. Years of modeling and enhancement make it the most sophisticated and complete 3D model of the human body available."

I dunno about the accuracy level, but its a great utility to explore the human body part by part and system by system. And the best part is it is completely free for registered users.
The only setback is I see is it works only on Internet Explorer that kinda unfairly excludes people who are using other operating systems. And it takes a little time to load for you to completely explore.
Also check out this wonderful site which has lots of animation videos on human body and its functions - http://www.argosymedical.com

ciao.....

Monday, July 07, 2008

Nadal triumphs over Federer

I have been eagerly waiting for this Wimbledon final for the last one week. And its been worth the wait. If therez anyone who can stop Roger Federer, its Rafael Nadal. The best part about it is they both know it. Being a fan of both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, it has been particularly tough for me to take a side. But somewhere inside my mind, I think I wanted Roger Federer to win. His win would have broken Borg's record five straight wins at Wimbledon. But Nadal prevailed over Federer in the match.
If anything, check below the match summary.

Match Summary

Federer (SUI)Nadal (ESP)
1st Serve %128 of 195 = 66 %159 of 218 = 73 %
Aces256
Double Faults23
Unforced Errors5227
Winning % on 1st Serve93 of 128 = 73 %110 of 159 = 69 %
Winning % on 2nd Serve38 of 67 = 57 %35 of 59 = 59 %
Receiving Points Won73 of 215 = 34 %64 of 193 = 33 %
Break Point Conversions1 of 13 = 8 %4 of 13 = 31 %
Net Approaches42 of 75 = 56 %22 of 31 = 71 %
Total Points Won204209
Fastest Serve129 MPH126 MPH
Average 1st Serve Speed118 MPH113 MPH
Average 2nd Serve Speed98 MPH91 MPH


Losing first two sets to Nadal, Federer looked like he is going down in straight sets. But rain gods thought otherwise and gave him time to gather himself up, which he did too. Federer showed his prowess and resilience, and the next two sets went to tiebreakers. Federer drove the match to the fifth set. The Fifth set, with no tie breaker, looked like it will end up being a test of stamina and strength as both won 7 each. And then Nadal breaks Federer's Serve. Nadal finally could convert his Fourth Championship Point into a real point. Federer's streak of wins in Wimbledon has been stopped and Nadal won his First Wimbledon Championship. Nadal was jubiliant and Federer was calm just like the way when he was victorious. Later, in the interview, Nadal praised Federer as the greatest player. That's the best thing one can hear from one's Nemesis.
If I am right, Federer is just two Grand Slams away from equalling Pete Sampras's record of winning 14 grand slams.

Wishing you all the best Federer.....



Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Movie Mania Continues...

Yeah.. It continues. I must have watched some 30 movies in the last one month. The video parlour guy is one happy one. I get a royal treatment whenever I go there now. Its nice to catch up with all those movies that I always wanted to see. Let me list them out. I watched Seabiscuit (Nice one), The English Patient (really liked it), Grudge 2 (This one's gory), Jarhead , Good Fellas, 88 minutes, Schindler's List (Amazing one ), The Shining (watched it for Jack Nicholson, he is amazing as usual), Little Miss Sunshine (Lovely one), Sin City (a different one), Juno (Just loved it), The Pursuit of Happyness, Anwar (A Hindi movie for a change), Vantage Point, Notebook (Nice love story), Pulp Fiction (yeah, it is Pulp Fiction. btw I am a fan of Quentin Tarintino) and City of God (Great one ) and quite a few others but kinda cant recollect now. :)) And I still have a lot in my hit list. Will keep ya posted.


My Poem - a ridiculous one though

I happen to see my poem today that I wrote some years back. I dunno what made me try my hand at poetry at that time. When I read it again, I found it absolutely funny, ridiculous and outright childish. I had a laugh. You can have too.

I sat to write a letter to you.
Thought it was long due.

Couldnt write, earlier, to you.
Coz i suffered from flu.

Last week I went to a zoo.
I happen to see a kangaroo.

It was jumping fro and to.
thought I'd throw a biscuit or two.

down went the biscuit I threw.
which, sadly, it couldnt stoop to.

disappointed, from there, I withdrew.
only to run into a hebrew.
asking me if I was from jammu.
told him go to hell or to peru.

I could get rid of him..phew.
turned my hat askew.
And ran towards the point called sea-view.
wondered why the sea was sky-blue.

Thought it was time to say adieu.
picked up, on my way, a mountain-dew.

Ah..ah...ahcchooooo..
here I go again, down with flu.

I got some friends though few,
in such a time,I always turn to.

I gave a call to kaivu.
She came & cooked me a hot hot chicken stew.

Then came along my cousin chandu.
suggested me to go to Timbaktu.
to learn tae kwon do and kung fu.
I thought "Hmmm..I think I have to."

So, here it is...my small poem which came out of blue.
probably my first and left to you for review. :-))

:-)):-)):-)):-)):-)):-)):-)):-)):-)):-)):-))

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Movie Mania

When your TV stops working, you start seeing the world around you. Yeah, I realised that two weeks back, when my TV crashed. Suddenly, I was left with lot of time. And so started looking for other options of entertainment. I could not find anything Interesting to read. And so teleported myself to the nearest video parlour. Past two weeks had been good fun watching some real good movies. And just in case if you are wondering how I watched my movies when my TV crashed, I was using my computer ;-).
I started with a movie called 'Silk'. Well, it is a slow movie but definitely engaging. And then went on watching some good Thriller, murder mysteries. Watched Silence of the lambs (again), Hannibal (again), Red Dragon, No country for old men, Bone Collector (again), The Jumper, The fight club, Dial M for Murder, The Hostel, Se7en. Also watched 'The Scent of a Woman'. Wonder how I missed this amazing one for so long. I strongly recommend this one.
I would love to write my comments on each of these. Will do for sure when I have time from work and watching movies. Till then, so long.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Hallelujah

Lyrics from a song from Shrek...

"There was a time you'd let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me do you?
Remember when I moved in you?
The holy dark was moving too
And every breath we drew was hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah "

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The song I have been listening for the past three days...

Kinda possessed by the song. Heard it like a 100 times by now.

There's something mesmerizing abt the song for me.... What do I like abt the song?? Well, may be I am relating to the song a tad too much.

And FYI, this song is from the movie 'Super Star' starring Kunal Khemu.
I just cant stop humming the lyrics.

Check the lyrics out below. (Courtesy: http://www.gobollywood.com/)

Ajnabi Khwaab mein, Dekh tha jo ho tum wohiDil mujhe le chala, chal pada mein to wohin
Ajnabi (Ajnabi) Khwaab mein, Dekh tha jo ho tum wohi; Dil mujhe le chala, chal pada mein to wohin


Raat din mein jaagta hun, beetey pal ko sochta hun;Har kadam ko dekhta hun mein

Ajnabi (Ajnabi) Khwaab mein, Dekh tha jo ho tum wohi; Dil mujhe le chala, chal pada mein to wohin

Kuch to naya ehsaas hai, jo mera mann ud raha

Roke se bhi rukta nahin, kis or ye mud raha
Boondein ghiri khwahishon ki to mein;
Ek pal bhi na khud mein raha

Ajnabi (Ajnabi) Khwaab mein, Dekh tha jo ho tum wohi; Dil mujhe le chala, chal pada mein to wohin

Khusboo ghuli zazbaat mein, jaane paheli hai kyaa
Baithe huye socha karun, ye kyaa mujhe ho gaya
Zonkha koi ek anjaan sa, dhadkano ko meri choo raha

Ajnabi (Ajnabi) Khwaab mein, Dekh tha jo ho tum wohi; Dil mujhe le chala, chal pada mein to wohin

Raat din mein jaagta hun, beetey pal ko sochta hun;Har kadam ko dekhta hun mein
Wo.. oo

Ajnabi (Ajnabi) Khwaab mein, Dekh tha jo ho tum wohi; Dil mujhe le chala, chal pada mein to wohin


You can listen to this song on http://www.musicindiaonline.com/

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Rough day at office....

Posted by Picasa
I have had a very rough day when one of my servers crashed because of a power failure. As a last resort, I was begging the server to come up. Caught on camera by a colleague. :-)
Yeah, One good thing is I went thru' this stress without succumbing to the urge to smoke..... :-D

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Tiredness on Sixth Day.

My body has started to fight with me now. The urge to smoke is even greater now. The symptoms - Tiredness, poor concentration, mucus formation showed themselves up now.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Fifth day and my head aches

Yeah.. Its 5th day since I stopped smoking. And I had a very bad headache. A headache that lasted more than 5 hours. I never had a headache like this before. And I have a strong feeling that this has to do with my quitting. My friends disagree.
I hope that I will not have more of these headaches sessions in Future. :-)

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Third day since I stopped.....

......smoking.

I have always wanted to try all the things. I have tried Smoking too. Now, I am trying to quit Smoking. ;-) Its been just a little over an year since I started smoking. What started with a puff a day from a friend's has grown to almost 2 ten's pack a day. I have been thinking of quitting for almost a month now. Finally, I could start doing it....
The first day had been the toughest of the three. Just before quitting, I did a search on Google to find the after-effects of quitting. One site gives almost 10 Nicotine Withdrawal Symptoms ( NWS). Check my earlier entry in this blog. well, I should say that I am going thru' some of them right now.

Yeah! I have definitely become a bit irascible. Made my reportee cry :-)). I was edgy especially after my breakfast and lunch. coz that's when I need a smoke badly. No coughing, headaches, constipation, depression and tingling sensations yet. I definitely feel very tired and feel like sleeping at times. But I had to tire myself out to sleep in the night.

BTW, I did manage to vanquish my urge to smoke during our boozing session last night.

Hoping to continue my stand on no smoking......
Signing off ...


Thursday, January 17, 2008

Purpose

Agent Smith - "It is purpose that created us. Purpose that connects us. Purpose that pulls us, that guides us, that drive us. It is purpose that defines, purpose that binds us."

But what is the purpose? I have been hunting for it all my life. why r we born? what is that one needs to achieve? I have running around aimless searching one single thing... PURPOSE...

All I see is people scurrying around trying to make their wishes true. I dont even have a wish or may be I have too many of them that I dunno where to start.Do I have a problem? or Do people have a problem? When I was a kid, people haunted me by this question - "Son, What is your GOAL in life?".... All they heard from me was my silence. I run around asking people what is their goal in life. I almost always got an answer from everyone I asked. I have heard people saying...

"I want to earn lots of money and fame."
"I want to be a pilot."
"I want to serve people."

and many others.

I mean what do they do once they finish it. The purpose is lost. Isnt it? May be that's y I tend to keep lot of tasks pending. May be that's y I keep lot of emotions pent up. The sense of accomplishment is a great feeling. But the loss of purpose puts me down.
I have to admit that I have done nothing almost nothing in life waiting for that special something which I want to call PURPOSE. While I hunt for it, I want to do lot of other things which have occupied my brain sometime or the other and for sometime.

Adios amigos...

Wednesday, January 16, 2008