Quote in my weekly planner

In an argument, the best weapon to hold is your tongue.

Oh no, I'd prefer a double-barrel gun. Bloody, shoot that guy and there is no more argument, what do you say?

I have specifically said guy and not gal, hehehe, because
Never argue with a girl because if you win the point, you lose the girl but if you choose to lose, you win hmm.. you know what :D

I'm Not nerdy, but definitely not hip.

I'm Not nerdy, but definitely not hip. (I already knew this anyway)



Give it a try and lemme know how nerdy you are!
Found the link in this blog!

Clash of the titans

The advantage of taking off most of last week for going home was that i could catch the Aus open semi's action live.. and they were real good. I knew serena-sharapova , safin-federer match are (quasi-)finals and not semi-finals!

DOSA

What better way to spend one's freedom than eating dosas and watching cartoons! - Calvin (modified slightly to suit indian taste)

(above photo taken during our trip to pondicherry.
Most of my weekend meals was dosa, either at home or at hotels famous for the tasty dosas like Sri Krishana Cafe, koramangala and So sweet, indiranagara.)

Happy weekend!

The week seems to have just started and ahoy..the weekend is already here.
My weekend seems to be packed..Planning a drive to Bannerghatta. Meeting old friends and new hotels are on the list too. I've to catch up with my reading.."City of Joy" is very slow moving..planning to dump it and take a new one.

If you're reading this blog and dont have much to do other than browse during weeked, i recommend you some blogs..

East Coast Rally - i'm planning for some long bike trip inspired by his cycling across 2000kms
Domain Maximus - read his some of his old posts..very good ones..

till we meet again..adios.

PS:- i'm going to my home town madurai next week from wed - sun! very happy to go there..I'm kinda getting depressed here :-(
I ought to seriously re-examine my life!

click here if you cant see image properly..i'll fix it later.

I drive my bike to work. John Travolta does it in his 707B!

A lot of neighborhoods don't allow the owners to park Boeing 707s outside their homes, which is why actor John Travolta moved to Jumbolair, near Ocala.

OCALA -- It's not just another housing development, as you can tell by the 1.4-mile airstrip and the Boeing 707 parked next to one of the houses.Located in the Central Florida town of Anthony, just north of Ocala, it's called Jumbolair, and it's the new home of John Travolta -- '70s TV phenom,film superstar, Oscar-nominated actor, sex symbol, accomplished pilot,doting husband and father.

After several years of whispers about his building a house here, the
49-year-old actor has taken up residence in his nearly completed mansion.Travolta is flying daily from Ocala to Tampa to shoot "The Punisher," an action movie based on the comic book, set to be released next summer.A lifelong love of aviation holds the key to Travolta's decision to build at Jumbolair.

Travolta owns at least two jets, a Gulfstream and a huge Boeing 707B. Simply put, there aren't very many non-commercial airstrips here planes of that size can take off and land. Jumbolair, with its long landing strip and massive jet wash berms at either end, is one of them.

sigh!

Thirupachi - License to kill

I saw this pongal release movie in PVR on sat. And I ought to write about this movie. Its a tamil movie starring 'ilaya thalapthi' aka 'young commander' vijay and trisha

In short, first half is about brother - sister love and second half is about hero removing the entire rowdies(thugs) from chennai so that his sister can live there comfortably :-)
(now you'd want this guy i your city too!)

Thirupachi is name of a place in Tamilnadu famous for making swords. The story starts in a nearby village where there are no roads, no buses for commuting and many such no's. Still hero will be in jeans n nike shoes. He has this sister whom he takes care of like princess. lot of senti stuff. he wants to get her sister married in a town. and bang..a guy from metro-city chennai lands up in this village where no bus goes and prays to god there that god give him a good wife and upon opening his eyes, sees sister and falls in love.
and like instant coffee, an instant marraiage takes place.
they all come to chennai and enters heroine Trisha and its time for song. Hero's friend gets killed by rowdy gang for no reason and interval. (thank god for that interval!)

Second half is easy to describe..he keeps killing all the rowdies and when he gets time in between, dances with trisha. All rowdies dead in chennai, his sister comes back to live in peace. Amen.

Now what you dont get out of this movie
* some good songs and dance sequences which generally you can expect from vijay movie
* some skin show from trisha..she's beautiful but doesn't know to act. so, you've to play to ones strengths. we miss both from this lass in this movie.
* some logic in storyline

Now one thing that you get out of this movie
* A one-sided head-ache which will drive you crazy for the rest of the day

Enjoy!!

Loooooooooong Lazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzy Weekend

During the long weekend, i did what i liked the most.
Being on the road in my bike..in theatres..eating a lot in lot different places and finally sleep like hell.
Stayed away from computer,tv and books for full three days and lazed around doing particularly nothing.

As calvin said, "Weekends dont count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless" :-)

Jallikattu - 4 dead

4 people are dead in the sunday 'jallikattu' aka fight with the bulls, in alanganallur near my hometown madurai. Last year i think the count is 1.
I think its time they have more safety measures and urgent medical help in place before doing such events. Even today this is conducted in old-fashioned way without much organization.
Hindu link is here

Deccan Herald photo of the event:

Happy Pongal

Coming days are the days of festivals
Bogi Festival (Jan 13) - where u get rid of old things in life and enter into new life..(well I'm sitting in the office!)

Pongal (Jan 14) - the day of sweetness and the day of sun. Brings back all my memories of childhood. How my family celebrates Pongal in traditional style.
My mom will woke me up at 3am in the morning (yeah, u got it right..its 3'o clock in the morning..she gets up at 2 itself).
Then I will have to stand guard for my sisters who are putting up big colourful rangoli which easily takes hours. Then take bath in cold water. wear new dress.around 5'0 clock mom starts the pongal preparation. she does it outside the house, yeah... on the road. stone stove using woods & coconut shells as fuel. A process that takes more than hour to make the sweet pongal. Then Puja. God..i'm hungry and pongal looks yummy. when the puja gets over, we start the attack! mm.mm..god gets very little..Then the distribution starts..pongal goes to neighbours and nearby relatives. Tired. There is sugarcane waiting to be cut. Another attack. around 9'o clock. Doordarshan starts its Pongal day special programmes. Pattimandram (people taking sides over a topic and arguing and judge decides-what is it english?) followed by Special Olliym-Olliym(chitrahaar, movies songs)..Damn Tired..11'o clock go back to sleep.

Sigh..i wish to do it again but cant do it this year. Damn, I'll be in bangalore missing this a lot.my mom was pretty sad when i said i wont be coming there because i didn't get train ticket (now you know i was lazy to try other options).

MattuPongal (jan 15)- a day for cattles - i'll see a lot of cows & bulls been decorated and roaming around with owner on the streets. Most of them go to the nearby Alanganallur Jallikuttu, where men fight it out against bulls.

One of the very important dates for tamils, i see this festival is loosing shine, because of the modernisation. Not many probably knows how to make the sweet pongal dish..sigh..i need to learn it first.

Anyway..to all readers and non-readers a very happy and prosperous pongal and a great year ahead of you.

Sample Pongal Rangoli. My sisters use to create a much bigger ones!


A pongal greeting card..containing pongal pot,sugarcane, sun and prayer


mattupongal- a decorated bull


rangoli on the road - like my three sisters


making pongal outside the house


a kid standing by the sugarcane lots

Why I will never find a gf!

Previous one was arbitrary. I'm a scientific person and doesn't believe in fate. But i finally got the scientific proof..

sigh..I give up!

why i'm single still!

"Boys are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. The girls don't want to reach for the good ones because they're afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead they just get the rotten apples that are on the ground, that aren't as good, but easy. So the apples at the top think that there is something wrong with them, when in reality, they are amazing. That is why we just have to be a little patient and the right girl, the one who takes a chance to find the good, right apple, will come someday...So friend if u are alone...this means that u r on top....so be confident and wait for ur time."

yeah..good one..but if this is true, then I'm a good guy.
But I know me well and I know for sure I'm not.
But If I'm not good guy, I ought to have a gf which is again not true..

Lemme think whats wrong here..

I was fooled by Google!

I thought that page was true one and I kept for later reading.
But when I read through and finish, I find this

Note: This page was posted for April Fool's Day - 2002.

Holy Shit! I know their technology is called PageRank.
But They fooled me left,right & center with this PigeonRank! That too by page post almost 3 years back!

Now, for real How-It-Works

Googling on "how pagerank works" brings up april's fool page as the first entry!
Bloody! They hacked their own tool!

How Google works

For a person who makes a living sitting in front of a computer, google is nothing less than a god. Whenever I run into problems, I say 'Google Hain Na'.

I once planned to for a startup that uses this google ranking and earn us money. Ofcourse this was a part-time job. It never took off. I lost 60$ in buying a website and host server. If you are interested in knowing what site is that, here it is. Now dont even ask me how am I going to make money out of this site. Its a business secret that I know wont work for me.
Btw, I started this with my friend Ramachandran, now in US,who is one of the weirdest person you can find on this earth!If you have orkut, his profile is here.

Through Vc's google Zeitgeist link, I got into much more of google links which is much more interesting..
Google Doodle
Google Blog
Google labs..and lots more inside this
Google suggest

Google amazes me!
Hail Google!

Poor Calvin.Get what you want with Google!

The week that was

Well..I thought of updating the blog once a week with my writing skills..something beyond what I'm doing and what I want to do..
some kinda analysis or a different perspective of life..
I thought I'll do it leisurly during weekend..I've 2 full days to write something meaningful..But a typical engineer.finish at the last available moment..I'm doing at the start of the next week..similar to doing the assignments(that too copying from others:-))

I finished 2 books last week
(1)The Firm By typical grisham and lawyer style and I liked him much from Time to Kill to this..He always makes a interesting reading.
(2)Deception Point by Dan Brown..a OK book I'd say..the story really started almost after the midway..
(*)I've started reading "City Of Joy" by Dominique Lappire et all. The book starts on a pretty sad note..draught..crowded and inhumane city life of calcutta..Not sure what this novel is about..
But I've been his ardent fan after reading his book "O Jerusalem"..an excellent log of activities that happened during birth of Israel..Really one of the best books I've read..

OH! This week has started off with big difference..A new veera on earth!!I've shaved off my moustache and after being in life with it nearly 7 years. I laughed at me when I saw me in the mirror after that!! Not many people in the office yet, but I'm sure I'll be topic of jokes today :-)

PS:- Thanks nikita, for dropping a line and reminding me that my assignment is overdue!

I should focus on one thing at a time like calvin