Sunday, October 30, 2005

The Wait ...

On some days, someone has to wait.

They have no choice, but to wait.

But if one has willfully selected that option to wait,

And despite knowing that, if that someone cannot wait,

Then that someone should have chosen premium shipping option to avoid wait.

:-) Can't just wait till Friday.

signing off,

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

The Technology and My Imaginations

Imagine this. You have gone places, have taken a lots of beautiful photos with your flashy digital cameras and have come back home gleaming. Isn't it fun? :-)

That unfortunately, my friend, is where the fun ends. You'd agree to this, especially if you have tried to sort out all those photos in your 256 MB card. The digital camera is a useful tool for the ease of use and cost per photo stats. But when it comes to sorting out those humongous pile of photos, you are left really helpless.

You know what I'd like to want? I'd like to have a camera, to which, after taking this picture-

- , I tell, "The Wizard Island" and it will store that picture with that name. Similarly for following pictures.

Crater Lake:

Lake - from Lodge place

A mountain and it's reflection in the Diamond Lake

On the road

A peak from the boat in Diamond lake


The lemon rice, which I did not prepare.

And to avoid overwriting, it can append these names with a number, which keeps auto-incrementing. And to recognize my voice, it can have some sort of voice recognition software installed on the PC, the training data of which can be transferred to the camera through USB.

Now what is the phone number of Canon's R&D dept?

signing off,

Saturday, October 22, 2005

How Not to Make Aloo Paratha

I learned it the hard way today. Even though we did manage to finish 3 parathas each, and my roommate did say, "ok", I got to admit they were pathetic. Here are some pointers that all you bachelor boys can pick from me and avoid the obvious embarassment. You got to make sure that -

1. You drain out the boiled potatos completely before smashing them. Don't let the batter be wet. If it is loose, you could add rice flour/corn flour to it. I did not have any of these, so I added wheat flour. The result was not too bad, but it was not too good too. Ever heard of prevention being better than cure?

2. You don't put too much garlic or too much onion in the batter. If it is too much, then you'll have to add bit more potato. If you do that, you'll have to keep the batter for the next day to make aloo wada. :-)

3. While rolling, don't use excessive flour on the dough. If you do, please wipe the extra flour off it before putting the paratha on the pan. But use a bit more oil. That way it would become soft and not papad-like.

But here are few good things I did -

1. Grate your onion and garlic in a mixer, instead of chopping with a knife. That way it would become a smooth mixture and the sharp edges of cut onions will not cut through your paratha while rolling. And just the right quantity of onion does make parathas delicious, unlike my sister's thinking who screamed through the phone - "Who puts onion in aloo paratha?"

That's it? Just one good thing? Yeah I told you it was pathetic. I'll try to be good next time. That is if next time my roomie allows me to do it :-)

signing off,

Thursday, October 20, 2005

A Death Prediction

This is amusing.

So this man predicts his own death. And these leading news channels believe it. And they air him for straight 7 hrs.

Tch. Tch. Tch. I keep missing these comedy shows.

Btw, if you don't know, I have predicted my own death long ago. I am going to die in the first half of this century. Now should I contact ABC or CNN?

signing off,

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Tired

I am tired. That is mainly because of lack of proper sleep on weekends. Now if you don't know what proper sleep is, try to call me on weekends at 12 in noon. If I answer in first 3 rings, please conclude that I am not getting proper sleep. :-)

But last two weekends have been quite hectic. We drove to Crater Lake for the weekend of 9th. Then I went to LA to meet my friend on next weekend (of 16th). And if you want to crunch most of the things like I did in those two days, you'd be tired no doubt. Unless you happen to be sleeping in your cubicle in weekdays. I could have done that, but my manager sits very close to me and he might come investigating if he hears me snoring.

signing off,

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Revolution

To my naive mind, it seemed, a revolution was at hand. But suddenly something happened ...

[...]

I learnt something that day. What, I am still to decipher.

-Siddharth in Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. [don't recollect the entire/exact dialogue. Will be glad if someone has it]

That is how I am feeling right now after, well, 10/10. Are we really making our opinions quite prematurely too?

Talking of revolution, we did take a revolution last weekend around the Crater Lake in OR. That was a ultimate experience! Some writeup on that soon. Till then, have a look at this pic. And no, it is not a wallpaper downloaded from national geographic. It is the snap one of us has taken :-)

signing off,

Monday, October 10, 2005

Rok Sako to Rok Lo or What?

Some happenings close to home:
  1. There is a management institute called IIPM
  2. JAM magazine does a fact research about the IIPM's tall claims: jammag.com
  3. A blogger, Gaurav Sabnis, backs it: fraud-that-is-iipm.html
  4. Gaurav gets a legal notice from the IIPM: im-disconnecting-my-cable-connection.html
  5. JAM mag editor, Rashmi Bansal, defends: lies-damned-lies-and-fake-blogs.html and she is spammed with, rather uncivilized, comments from so called IIPM students and alumni.
  6. Because of some very bizarre threats to Gaurav's employer, IBM, from IIPM, he calls it quit by his own choice: update.html
  7. Desipundit and another bloggers condemn the act: lies-damned-lies-and-fake-blogs/

It might seem to some, that money can buy you everything. But it cannot ever buy you self esteem. Not definitely after what those guys have resorted to with the fake bloggers and ridiculous acts. Even if IIPM were at par with other institutes as they have claimed, in this situation it looks like they will have to try real hard to get back the credibility, if at all there was one.

And in case someone is reading this, these views are entirely my own and nothing to do with my employer, girl-friend, parents, goldfish, laptop or bicycle.

signing off,

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Time Machine

There are different theories on what a time machine is and what would it look like if incepted. If you ask me, the time machine just looks like a small, circular and translucent plastic disk which you can play on either a CD player or your computer. For there is nothing like a song that takes me back in memory lanes.

Just the other day something made me rethink on this. I was listening to Kannathil Muthamittal's title song performed by Chinmayee. For those who don't know, it is one of the brilliant albums by A R Rahman for a very sensitive movie by Mani sir. This song always takes me back to a seat no 7 of the II AC compartment of Bangalore-Chennai Madras mail. It has been almost 3½ years to that journey, now that I think about it, but still it is as vivid as if I had been sitting on that window seat restlessly at 1 AM listening to this song again and again and again just yesterday night. And I did not stop until my third set of batteries were drained out of charge.

And who can forget Dil Deewana from movie Maine Pyar Kiya? I guess I should have been fifth standard when that song was a rage. And when I used to return from school, almost without fail our murphy radio used to play this song. Just as 7:05 Marathi news was an indicator for us to start for the school (and 7:15 news would mean we are too late!), this Lata Mangeshkar classic turned out to be my personal benchmark for something breezy, not just because of it's warming lyrics, but more so because of it's association with the closure of those excruciating school hours.

Then there is Bin Tere Sanam by Udit Narayan and Kavita Krishnamoorthy. It takes me to my cubicle in Bangalore office where I spent days searching for that song online (trying different loopholes in the system which did not allow downloading songs) just because I needed it for someone. But those efforts were all worth it considering that lovely song. That did teach me a thing or two about bending the rules! :-)

Another song is a Marathi song. It goes like "Hiravya hiravya rangachee jhade ghanadaT, Sang _____ (not sure what this word is) disto kasa khandyaLyacho ghaat!" I dunno which movie is that one from, but whenever I think about it, even though that song, as far as I remember, is picturized in a train, a premier 118 NE rushing madly on winding downhill roads comes to my mind. Now I think, this transformation in transports might have been because when our tv's speakers were not working, we used to watch the movies while playing cassettes our new Sony 2 in 1 and this might have one of those unfortunate fusion moments.

Of course, another worth mentioning item (pun not intended) is, Thanda Thanda Panee by Baba Sehgal, which was my first stage appearance (as a part of chorus, mind you) in my school days. Yeah, yeah, I know, don't give me that look. Things do happen at that age!

signing off,