...a glitch in the matrix!!!

My main blog has moved

2006-07-16T17:53:00.000+05:30

I have moved from this site and am putting up my posts at http://brijwhiz.wordpress.com. Please feel free to remove this site from your blogreaders.

My link site http://brijlink.blogspot.com is still alive and kicking.

Cheers.

The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test

2006-04-11T00:56:00.000+05:30

Modern, Cool Nerd
82 % Nerd, 69% Geek, 30% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Congratulations!

Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in any of the following:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Professional Wrestling

Love & Sexuality

America/Politics

Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 93% on nerdiness
You scored higher than 93% on geekosity
You scored higher than 49% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

HP iPAQ hx2100 Pocket PC series specifications - HP Small & Medium Business products

2006-04-08T18:11:00.000+05:30

HP iPAQ hx2100 Pocket PC series specifications - HP Small & Medium Business products
YUp I got me self an iPaq

Rude but funny:)

2006-02-21T04:08:00.000+05:30

Picked this from the debonair blog

Joke: Inzamam?s interview after Pakistan?s loss

Inzy?s interview - One man who entertains wen cricket matches r over.

Rameez: So Inzy, disappointed with your performance today?
Inzy: Bismilla-e-rehman-e-rahim. Thank you allah.ya the indian batsman is play very good today. we is try very hard but is not win the game.

Rameez: Any words for Dhoni?
Inzy: Ya dhoni is play very well. He is hit his shot very hard in our gaps. In start, we is protect our gaps very well. the grass is also thick.. but dhoni is split our gaps with his bat.

Rameez: Another ordinary bowling performance?
Inzy: Ya our balls is loose. the bowler is went for many run. Asif is bowled well. Also, after some shots the ball is out of shape. umpire is not give another ball.. it is tough to play with one ball.

Rameez: Dropped catches.. did that prove costly?
Inzy: ya the ball is not stick to our hands. we is practice a lot sticking our bat in our hands.. but now we is more practice sticking balls in our hands.

Rameez: Any plans for the next match?
Inzy: ya India is on top but we is try to bounce on our back. Insha allah we is play better.

Rameez: All the best Inzy
Inzy: Thank is you.

Which Rurouni Kenshin Character Are You?

2006-01-27T00:14:00.000+05:30

I am very happy today - tried 2 different quizzes and both came up with me being Kenshin - Hurrah!:)

Which Rurouni Kenshin Character Are You?

Test Created By oronoda

What Rurouni Kenshin Character Are You?

Hosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.

Hindi Movie Songs

2006-01-17T23:22:00.000+05:30

Hindi Movie Songs

The ITRANS Song Book (ISB) Web Release 3.2

2006-01-17T23:21:00.000+05:30

The ITRANS Song Book (ISB) Web Release 3.2

IndiaGlitz - Chowta ready with new concept of musical 'singles' - Bollywood Hindi Movie News

2006-01-17T23:17:00.000+05:30

IndiaGlitz - Chowta ready with new concept of musical 'singles' - Bollywood Hindi Movie News

Shri Hanuman Online

2006-01-15T22:26:00.000+05:30

Shri Hanuman Online. A kewl site for Hanuman aarti mp3s. Also some mp3s for Ram and Krishn aartis too.

The Sun Online - News: Kitchens awash with coke

2006-01-11T04:08:00.000+05:30

The Sun Online - News: Kitchens awash with coke

Ozzfest mania - an Ozzfest experience in Washington DC.

2005-07-25T20:34:00.000+05:30

My buddy Raoul has just sent a mail detailing his experiences at the Ozzfest in Washington DC. It was so well written that it screamed out to be blogged;) People who know Iron Maiden and/or Black Sabbath will find the following mail quite interesting. For the others, well - read at your own risk;)
Disclaimer: Raoul is known to be very heavily partial to Iron Maiden. Cannot really blame that guy - Maiden does ROCK!!!

So here goes:
------------------------------------

"... and so it dawned. The day I've been waiting for, fantasizing about for the last 10 years. The day I got to attend an Iron Maiden concert (and as a bonus, I got to see Black Sabbath live as well). The day that Ozzfest came to town. It started off as any other Sunday. England lost an Ashes test to Australia, Kimi Raikonnen's McLaren had an engine failure, I had cereal for breakfast. Nothing out of the ordinary. But through it all, there was an ominous feel to the morning (all right, mid-afternoon); a buzz in the air; a prescience of the fulfillment of a long herished dream. After making a meal of rather copious quantities of lamb kebabs and vegetable biryani, we (my friends Sundar and Karan and I) made our journey to the holy grounds at the Nissan pavilion in Bristow, just south of Washington. Not leaving anything to chance, we got there well in advance. In time in fact to catch one of the opening bands, Mudvayne perform. I wasn't familiar with much of their work, and after listening to their performance, was glad for it. To put it mildly, I was not impressed.
Still, I waited patiently for 8:00 pm. The hour of reckoning; when Maiden took centre stage. As the hour approached, Mudvayne retired to their quarters, and ut-outs of Eddie from the early Maiden albums started appearing on stage. The band had already declared on their website that they would be playing songs from their first four albums, as a promotion for the 'early days' DVD set. To whet our appetite, 'Doctor Doctor' a B-side from Fear of the Dark was played in the background while the crew set the stage.
Then the lights went out. And then it began...'The Ides of March' is a very short but immensely intricate piece, and has always been one of my favourite instrumentals. As the beats from the song echoed from a dark and seemingly empty stage, I literally jumped with joy and almost fell head first into the seats in front of me. Luckily, I
regained my balance just in time to catch a glimpse of Bruce running across the stage with a streak of lighting behind him, breaking into a power packed rendition of 'Wrathchild'. For the next hour or so, I was held spellbound as if in a trance. Completely oblivious to everything but the music, in this state of stupor, I could finally comprehend the blissful ecstasy that Keats wrote about when addressing the immortal bird. Of course through it all, I was jumping like a jellybean on prozac and shrieking at the top of my voice in a vain attempt to match Bruce. Wrathchild was followed by 'The Trooper', a song based on Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem 'The charge of the light brigade'. As expected, out came the Union jack, waved by Bruce (a la Eddie on the cover of the single). Trooper's always been a crowd favourite, but 'Revelations', the song that came next, is much more profound, with roots in Christian mythology and Hindu philosophy. I was a bit surprised to hear it being played live, but was I ever glad that they did. Dave Murray excelled with an extended solo. As the crowd took a breather, Bruce talked about when he first heard of Maiden. Apparently, there was one song in particular that had totally blown
him off, and made him want to audition for them. The song was 'The Phantom of the Opera'. I almost cried out with joy as Adrian Smith and Dave Murray played their medley halfway through the song. There are no words I have to describe this classic; it just has to be heard to be believed. I have read the book by Gaston Leroux (on which the song is based), seen the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical on Broadway, watched the 1925 classic movie featuring Lon Chaney, but this song is simply on another
level. Let it suffice to say that it is now my all time favourite song usurping greats like 'Child in Time' and Diamondhead's 'Am I Evil'. The Phantom was followed by eternal favourites 'Run to the Hills' and 'The Number of the Beast'. Always popular with the crowds, it was great to be part of the chanting hordes singing "Six, six, six, the number of the beast... Six, six, six, the one for you and me". It was even more satisfying to sing along to an almost perfect rendition of 'Hallowed be Thy
Name' that followed. Maiden's most popular song by far, it has the trademark Murray-Smith guitar medley and some of the best lyrics I've heard outside of Pink Floyd. They wrapped up with the song 'Iron Maiden' from their self titled debut album. One of their earliest numbers, it boasts of some rather frivolous lyrics, making it quite an atypical Maiden song. But it is unbelievably catchy, and for some reason one of my favourite songs from the album. Needless to say, I screamed aloud through all of it. As the band walked off stage, the audience refused to move. All of us just stood there clapping our already sore hands for the better part of five
minutes, with occasional chants of 'Iron Maiden' and the perennial requests for 'one more'. Lo and behold, the gods smiled upon us, and returned for not one but two more songs. The first of them, 'Running Free' is another crowd pleaser, and gave Bruce the opportunity to indulge the crowd in singing along with him. The second was an extended version of 'Sanctuary', a song about a man falsely accused of murder and on the run from the law, based on Edgar Allen Poe's famous story 'Murders in the Rue Morgue'. No extended guitar solos in this though, but it found Bruce on the top of his form again. As for me, sanctuary indeed had been found.As I sat there feeling every bit euphoric as a hajj pilgrim on the gates of Mecca, and trying to find my voice again, I felt sure that nothing could match that performance. I had not reckoned however, for the metal powerhouse that is Black Sabbath. And to be perfectly honest, they came as close as is humanly possible to match Maiden (some would say they were better on the day, but as far as I'm concerned, Maiden are still the best). When I say Black Sabbath, I really mean Tony Iommi. He single-handedly and quite nonchalantly stole the spotlight with a performance that could only be
described as phenomenal. While Ozzy lived up to his new found reputation of being a confused old stuttering goofball, messing up the lyrics, and sounding a decade older than his 56 years, Bill Ward looking like a long lost cousin of Syd Barret with his potbelly and receding hairline, and Geezer Butler a pale shadow of his old self, Iommi shouldered the responsibility of leading from the front and quite simply stole the show doing it. With his trademark luciferous leads and magical flying fingers he
proved yet again that he is in the same revered league of extraordinary gentlemen as Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. For anyone who has not seen this great artist perform, please do so as soon as possible, before Sabbath stop touring altogether.
The flip sides of the day:
1. Slipknot
2. Ozzy Osbourne mooning the crowd. *Not* a pretty sight, to be sure.
3. Iron Maiden being given just an hour for their performance. They deserved much more just to go through their first four albums (I know I could have done with a couple more hours of Maiden). Also, the equipment provided to Maiden and the other bands was clearly inferior to that used by Sabbath (including the light shows and sound amplifiers).
I think Bruce was a bit unhappy about this, and there have been a few grumblings on the Iron Maiden message board about it as well, but I don't think much will be made of the issue.
It is now well past midnight, and I have a busy day of work in the morning.
I shall therefore end this narrative here. Hope you enjoyed reading it half
as much as I did writing it. If not... oh well...
Cordially,
Raoul."

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

Harry Potter - 6 - The Review

2005-07-17T01:09:00.000+05:30

Ok folks, It is done - I have finished reading book 6.

When I started reading this morning I had visions of writing a kewl review for all of you. However now I realize that it would be impossible to do that without divulging stuff and this book really really needs to be read without any pre-knowledge of what's in it.(Thanks Ojas for giving me a first look - the experience was truly extraordinary)

So please forgive a lame attempt.

1. Size of the book.

I take back the complaint about the size of the book. It is a tad small for my taste - took around 8 hrs for me to finish it - but it is full of stuff. So it will surely keep you entertained - especially as it builds to the climax.

2. Characters.

Characters have matured and it shows. Harry gets frustrated but has stopped whining about it:) I personally have liked the character development.

3. Plot.

The plot has come back to the main track. Most of book 4 and 5 were used in giving lots of details of branches to the story, which was supposed to help us get a feel for why things are the way they are. However I felt that after reading the two tomes I had hardly moved ahead in the story. Well this book takes you ahead, real quickly.

4. Suitability for Children:

Parents be warned. Just like the last book this book is quite dark in patches. Add to that the fact that everyone is in their teens and hence when the atmospere is not dark everyone seems to be snogging(n : (British informal) cuddle and kiss) all around:)
My personal take is that the book is quite suitable for children provided the parents read it first and make the decision about themselves.
{I repeat that the climax is strong. It is taking all my effort to not be bawling.}

So all in all a must read. Please avoid all Harry Potter sites till you read it. Will not be half as fun if you come to learn the plot.

The only minus point:
Have to wait some time before the next Harry Potter book will be out.

Happy Reading:)

Got HP: The Half-Blood Prince!!!

2005-07-16T21:43:00.000+05:30

Yup!!! Got it first day first show!!!(in other words I was one of the first persons to pick up a copy at 8am)
First impressions:

1. Don't like the cover that much. Normally all of the HP(Harry Potter) books have two kinds of ocovers. A children version and a more adultish version with the children version being much more colorful and simpler than the adult version. The cover I got was the children version according to me.

~~Unluckily I have no idea whether there is any other version for this specific volume.~~I checked at Amazon - there is indeed a more sedate cover which I like better:)

In fact there is a third cover too which I like the BESTest.

2. The book is not that long. Close to 600 pages.

3. The story still has the same vintage. I am the half-point mark and like this one as much as my fav volume - The Prisoner Of Azbakan. Will try to put up a review by tomorrow.

4. The price sucks! INR 895/- is quite a lot. I think it is even more costly abroad!!! The problem is that with such a high price it will not take too long for people to prefer buying the pirated versions, which I am sure are under production as we speak.
{Luckily for me I had a deal with a friend of mine. I pick up her advance copy and I get first rights to read the story;)}

Anyways, apart from meeting Nitin Madan (great fun!!!), this was the only other major news for the day.

Have fun - try not to buy the pirated versions. Wait for the paperbacks instead.

"Batman Begins"

2005-06-21T19:36:00.000+05:30

All debates end!
Simply fantastic.
Stupendous!

No radioactive power.
No responsibility talk.
Only angst and action.
Gritty like the Dark Knight should be.

Watch it!

Star Wars - Revenge Of The Sith

2005-05-25T17:15:00.000+05:30

The short review:
Why, young Padawan, lack of patience you have! Still if know you must what to do then let me advise you. See the movie, you must. A great event, it is. Now go your way, you can. May the force be with you!

The "fan in me" version:
Go, go to your theatres immediately. Watch the movie make Lucas richer. The movie is great, in fact it is stupendous in its scope of the Star Wars Universe. Well worth the watch. Well worth buying the DVD. So what are you waiting for!!!

The long version:

Story:
Well no great surprises here! The story is exactly as we expect it to be. However there is one problem. At times it feels that the movie could easily have become two movies. Many parts of the movie seem to have been rushed through. Maybe some of it should have been put into Attack Of The Clones. Well! Whatever! The end result is that the story sticks to the canon, is not overtly complicated and is as expected. So it gets a 5/10. {After seeing all the parts I think storywise the best movie seems to be The Empire Strikes Back - especially with it's "I Am Your Father" twist in the tail.}
/////

Technical:
This is where the movie really shines. Were you amazed by Coruscant, the Kamiya system and the Gungans underwater city in the last version? You have not seen anything yet. This time around Coruscant really comes to life. The buildings, the vehicles, the space battles, the opera everything is at a completely different scale this time around. Not to mention the details in which other planets have been rendered. This one factor is the main reason you want to watch the DVD version. Believe me you will never catch all the details without having the ability to playback:) Well done Mr. Lucas, well done. I give this a score of 9/10
//////////

Sound/Music:
As expected the sound is Superlative. The background score is rich as ever. Add to that the climatic sounds and you have a winner. One of the best parts is when Anakin slowly moves to the dark side and you hear the heavy breathing of Vader in the background. Really really spooky. This gets an easy 8/10
////////

Action:
The space battle scenes are very well detailed and executed. Please watch out for the cannons firing on the battleships, reminds you of pirate movies. All the action sequences is a pleasure to watch. Many of the clone squads remind you of the SWAT or the Navy Seal movies. Actionwise I would give it an 8/10
////////

Lightsaber action:
Action scenes of lightsaber duels deserve a rating of its own in any SW movie. This movie has some of the best one-one action sequences. Some of the highlights are the Jedi fights with Count Dooku, Capt. Grievous and Palpatine.
Again one more reason to get the DVD when it comes out as the action is so intense that there is no chance of getting it all in on the first try. Easily takes the rating of 9/10
/////////

Script:
Not the greatest! There are some cool lines for Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi has some humorous stuff but on the whole not the best of scripts. I give it a tepid 5/10.
/////

Acting:

I cringe to write about this. Yoda is cool and Palapatine is great. But that about 90% of the acting right there. Surprising really considering that Lucas had Samuel L Jackson, Ewan McGregor and Jimmy Smits to work with. Granted Ewan has his moments, some of them really funny but he has largely been reduced to an action figure. {The ladies might say that he makes quite the sexy action figure but that is another story. Aside: All the ladies were rooting for Obi Wan Kenobi throughout the movie;)} Also granted that Jimmy Smits really did not have much screen time but what happened to Samuel L Jackson. The only time he seemed to have some life was when he went into his Shaft overdrive to whoop some Sith Ass. Mace Windu's character was a disappointment to me.
However all of the above were still acting. Which brings us to people who weren't? Spot Quiz: What is more boring then watching grass grow? Answer: Watching Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman "act"!!! They were appalling. And considering that the whole movie revolved around them it is a wonder that Lucas managed to captivate us inspite of this. Bad acting by Hayden and the hurried script did cause the move of Anakin to the dark side quite unbelievable to the new entrants to this universe. It took my full mastery of the Force to convince them of the logic behind it all .... I don't think they bought it all. Damn you Anakin and Amidala! Damn you! {Aside: Hayden was quite OK as an action hero and looked positively evil after embracing the dark side}
Of course all is not bad. R2-D2 and C3PO are excellent as always. I must say I have sorely missed a figure like Han Solo in the prequels.

Please check out point 2 in my review of Clone Wars to get a persepctive about the acting.
So for overall acting the movie gets 5/10 thanks largely to the animators of Yoda and to Ian McDermid as Palaptine..
/////

Conclusion:
Despite the bad acting and the hasty script the movie still rocks. As a Star Wars fan(atic) I really love this movie. The defects I point out above does not take away from what the movie is - if it were not there the movie would just have been that much better. If you like Star Wars, if you like Indiana Jones and if you hate George Bush(;)) you will love this movie.

For those of you who are not Star Wars fans, I will still recommend watching the movie. Just make sure you do see it in a good theatre and don't buy tickets in black. Approach it as an action movie and you will not be disappointed.

Now having taken a very measured look as a normal person I can now revert back to the fanatic that I am. How to convince my better half to see the movie once again? Any advices:)

P.S: Don't miss the Harry Potter shot at the end:)

Star Wars: Clone Wars

2005-05-25T16:16:00.000+05:30

I love Star Wars and I love the cartooning style of Genndy Tartakovsky(The creator of Samurai Jack). However an amalgamation of the two! I was not sure of that one. In fact, to be completely frank, I was quite apprehensive about it. Anyways rest assured true believers - the result is worthy!!!

The short review - The Clone Wars is a must watch. It is FANTABULOUS. Now go on surf away;)

The longer version.

Before I go into the review itself I thought I would first take on the people who have issues with watching their favourite stuff as cartoons. After all Clone Wars was shown on Cartoon Networks and the general attitude is that no, I repeat no, adult watches Cartoon Network unless it is to give company to a youngling. Furthermore even Cartoon Network India officials think the same due to which they kept this series at 6pm rather than a more accessible slot of 8 -10 pm. I strongly oppose this attitude. None of this ignoramuses seem to know about how much progress ahs happened in animation from the days of Hanna-Barbera and Early Disney work. Serious characterizations, gripping stories, emotional depth - all of this can be found in today's animation. You want proof - check out any episode of "Batman - the Animated Series" or "Samurai X". Check out one of the most fantastic and underrated material connected to the Matrix - "Animatrix" (Material so good that many Matrix fanatics believe that this is the only material, alongwith the first movie, which should have ever existed. I personally like all the Matrix movies but that is another story.)

Anyways the point is that the cartoon medium is as legitimate a medium as 70 mm cinema and the work done in this medium is of equal calibre. So please, please do not go around slagging it!!! It is best put by Kamal Hassan in an old interview. He said that he sees himself as a storyteller and in today's world a storyteller cannot be narrow and see only cinema as a medium. The storytellers medium is the whole Audio-Visual space and he has to play with it seeing what fits best.

Now let us come to the matter at hand - The Clone Wars!

This series has been given the treatment and styling of the Samurai Jack series. The treatment is an amalgamation of the manga style of the east and the more fluider cartooning of the west. The key point is that it works. It worked for Samurai Jack and boy, does it work for Clone wars. I saw it in one go and it was a gripping tale one, one with the same underlying theme, tone and treatment expected of any Star Wars story. It has managed to capture a war of galactic proportions beautifully. Yes, it is true - I was well and truly bowled over.

It is a must see. The reasons follow:

1. It is canonical. In layman terms it connects the movie "Attack of the Clones" to "Revenge of the Sith". We left AOTC with the beginning of the Clone wars and enter ROTS with the climax of the war coming up. What happened in the interim - the answer is in the Clone Wars. Hence to completely appreciate the cinematic saga that is Star Wars, one HAS to see Clone Wars.

2. It is a very well made piece of work in it's own right. Well written, well drawn and well acted. The characterizations are strong with lots of emotional depth. Especially noticeably (a plus point of using this style of cartooning) is the great emotions shown by simple gestures and facial expressions. I repeat - the expressions are so great that in many places dialogues are unimportant. In other words the acting by the cartoon characters is superlative. Why am I labouring this point? Come back after you read my next review to fully appreciate this point.

3. The lightsaber action is out of this world. Beautifully fluid and operatic. It is so accurate that we even come to know the different styles used. I am already salivating over the fact that once the DVD comes out I will be able to see it in slow motion.

4. The depiction of the squad-based movements of the Clone Troopers were out of this world. Reminds of cool SWAT games and Navy Seal movies. Too Cool!!!
So all - in- all I give Clone Wars 9/10 {My English teacher always used to say that one can never give an artistic piece 10/10 :)}

Old books bloom in Blossoms

2005-04-19T22:12:00.000+05:30

Had heard about Blossoms from two or three different places. For example in his blog Deepak has spoken about Blossoms while discussing second-hand books in Bangalore(I don't agree with him about the smell. i hate the new print smell and absolutely love the musky smell of old books.). My curiosity got further piqued when in the Amazon(India) Blog Rupa points out that old Indrajal comics were also available there.

Since I was in Bangalore this weekend I just could not resist going to Blossoms. It is on Church Street (which is parallel to M.G.Road and perpendicular to Brigade Road (in case you do not know Bangalore:))). A good map of Bangalore I found was here. It only worked with IE. For MG Road use the magnifying glass on E5 section.

I liked the shop immediately. Unluckily I was in a hurry and hence could not spend much time with the comics. Nonetheless I did end up buying close to 12 books in just under a hour:) Most of them were fiction but they had this one more floor that I came to know about later and could not really explore.

One of the books I got there was the BattleStar Galactica. Unluckily for me, Sujith claimed the right to read it first:) (Hurry up Sujith!!!) Another one I got was based on the video game Crimson Skies. All about piracy in the high skies:) Real fun stuff.

Anyways for all you lazy bones in Bangalore get your butts out to this shop at least once. It is right opposite Amoeba on Church Street.

For the rest of you who do not stay in Bangalore and have never been there, get there before the old Bangalore is lost forever!!!

njoy maadi;)

The suits want more buck moolah for a song!!!

2005-04-10T17:33:00.000+05:30

I was reading this monthâ€™s digit and there was this article titled â€œMusic Download Prices Set To Riseâ€�. Supposedly the market for downloaded music is strong enough to take a price rise, according to most major music labels in Europe and the US. Ya, sure!!! And the moon is made of cheese!!!! I hope this is an April Foolâ€™s joke. Here we are saying that there are too many middlemen, as a result of which the prices are too high as it is and instead of cutting the fat these jerks want to increase the price further. Time to download a P2P application, methinks!!!

Pope John Paul II, 1920-2005

2005-04-03T02:54:00.000+05:30

One of the most prolific and influential leader of this world is dead!

Pope John Paul II has had a long innings and he has played it out in exemplary style and substance. He was the only Pope I ever knew (or can remember knowing). In my early years I liked him because he just seemed a jolly old man doing God's work on earth.

Of course I am not a Christian; yet I have had all my formative years studying in catholic institutions so it was obvious that I held the Pope in awe and reverence. Over time, as I grew up, I have questioned a lot of decisions and policies of the Catholic Church, and of his decisions as its mortal head. Of course this has also been the period of my frustration of the whole organised religion issue, irrespective of religion. It was only when I started reading more and more books that I realised what a sea change he had brought to the perception of the church.

When we compare Pope John Paul II to the papal history of the church we realise what a benevolent and progressive man he was. Now the Catholic Church has a tough act to follow and as of now this election process neither interests me nor affect me(except mildly that the next Pope might not be European and may even be an Indian). However as long as I live the picture I will have in my heart on hearing â€˜Popeâ€™ or â€˜the Vaticanâ€™ will always be the smiling face of Pope John Paul II.

He has been recalled to God's heavenly Paradise, a just reward for a life well spent in the service of his flock. Nonetheless his loss will be strongly felt.

Like this specific article says:
"His death does not leave the world surprised, because it's been expected for a long time. But it does leave a moral void on the global stage that will take a strong man to fill. Because in this world, friends and foes agree, John Paul II was a superstar."

Yes he was a super-star. May his soul rest in peace!

Shakti Kapoor! Bad Man!!!

2005-03-18T01:24:00.000+05:30

What a hoolaboo!!! Lots more articles about how a pathetic old man tried to solicit sex for a role. Common enough story, don't you think? Lots of questions creep up in my head.

One, India TV actually felt it important enought to check out this story only for the good of the industry? I don't think so:) I think there are enough stories out there to catch if you are talking of investigative journalism. how about finding the people who Killed Dubey in Bihar? Too difficult for you to do. Here is another one, expose the politicians who pay money to create riots? Too risky. Well try exposes like Indian Express does. Do kids in cholls get their daily meals? Is there a cable operator mafia operating in Mumbai suburbs? Are kewl upper class kids realing selling dope? Do something useful for goodness case! I really am not interested in people who are ready to pimp themselves or solicit others to get into the glamour industry.

Two, What is the controversy anyways? The only decent way is for the person who was solicited to go to court and file for sexual harrasement. However she cannot do that as she was playing aling the whole time. The minus point - entrapment basically has resulted in a person who can never prove his innocence beacuse he will never get a chance. he will be lyched due to suspicion alone.

Three, How is this different from the Tehelka cases. Well defence secrets leaked, judges making arrest warrants against the President are surely in a different league. Even a sexual scandal is in a different league becuase there the favours ahnded over are whole constituencies not mere films.

Four, wy the f%$k should we have problems with two adults sleeping together? Why do we need to moralize at the drop of a hat?

Five, the biggest hypocrites are the Producer's Guild. it is almost like a Panchayat in the old movies. A suspicion is raised and they say "Bahar karo" The reason is even more laughable. They have not banned him for the deed, rather for speaking about Preety, Rani and Karan. Hey!!! dudes I don't care if the three of them have an orgy (though Karan does seem to have other inclinations) from time to time. They are only interesting to me in their work. If I like I watch, if not I don't. In fact thinking a little more it looks like all the producers have a guilty secret and that is the reason they have acted in such a haste:)

Well that's it! Got it out of my system. Now to clean the system completely by watching Black over the weekend.

Back ...

2005-03-09T23:31:00.000+05:30

...from the IT city. Lots of news and views to share. However it will take some time as it has been a hectic trip and I have yet to recover. Next week will be predominantly bangalore news, methinks. Anyway, this post was just to inform one and all that I am back. Will get back on the beat from tomorrow.

P.S: hey \n, sorry dude, missed calling you. I was gonna speak to you but then you were discussing something important with Suji and I kinda ran out of time (had to catch my train) Will try to catch you again some time.

Be Right Back...

2005-03-04T00:26:00.000+05:30

...in a week's time. Making a trip down south to Bangalore, the software capitol of India. Meeting up with a close friend. Should be fun. Maybe a visit to Shiok. So see ya all in a while!
njoy!!!

The Taxman plays a sweet and sour tune!

2005-03-01T23:38:00.000+05:30

Chidambaram (Mr. P. Chidambaram, the honorable Finance Minister Of India, not be confues with Chidambaram, the town) does it again. Unveils a budget which has created a lot of discussion. What is the interesting thing about his budgets? You cannot generally fight over them! You may like a few points and dislike some others but by and large the chunk of his budgets seems to be logical (and keeps the voters happy - which is quite a happy balance as far as the government is concerned.)

I havenâ€™t gone through the whole budget, and lets face it I wouldn't understand half of it:) Nonetheless even I could not escape one or two points glaring out of me.

1. Abolishing section 88. Bad news for me...I had just started investing in a pension scheme. However I am not very sad, as those investments are not bad in the long run. And I am not a very big proponent of saving only for saving tax.

2. Standard deduction is out too. However it is compensated in another manner. A consolidated savings of 1 lakh can be removed from your income before tax. This is really good according to me rather than the old 20% gig.

3. In conjunction with the exemption level of 1.25 lakhs it seems to me that what they are saying is that if I earn 4 lakhs and save 1 lakh then my taxable income is 4 - 1 - 1.25 = 1.75 lakhs. Of course I will not wager my reputation on my understanding of this calculation. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

4. The limit of 5 lakhs beyond which you could not get a tax break has been remove and there is no limit for tax-break based savings.

5. Surcharge still exists but only for an annual income of 10 lakhs and above. I guess this is fair.

6. A "fringe" tax of 0.1 % on withdrawal on "large" sums of money. Problem here is that the decided large sum is a paltry INR10,000. Supposedly it will help curb the black marketers. My take, simple harassment is sure to follow. People better than me have spoken about this at the MadMan's shack and Anon's adobe. It almost feels like one of the things that us sure to get repealed. In fact it seems that even Chidambaram is not very keen to support his stand

So all in all it seems a more sweet rather than a sour tune.

Well, that's my two annas worth of views. I will update the post once I know more. Please feel free to correct me if I any of the stuff I have written above seems wrong. Also feel free to post your thoughts on the budget here. One good site for Indian finance is www.indiainfoline.com. I am adding the specific links to various articles about the budget on my links site too.

Deviation: I was happy to see my salary this week. The sum of the fact that I was allowing my tax to be deducted at source throughout the year and the fact that I did manage to save a wee bit has helped me get a salary this month without a tax cut. I think this is the first time I have got a salary in February which was in 5 digits. Thanks to my darling for forcing me to save!!! Of course she ain't too happy I am spending it all again!!!

UPDATE: one more link, this time from MDI

UPDATE 2: Lots of updates on basis of useful comments to the blogs.
First Prateek informs me that the exemptable income is INR 1 lakhs and not 1.25 lakhs. My Bad!!!

Two, Madman clears my confusion over the calculation of the tax. I quote his comment
" If you earn Rs. 4 Lakhs and manage to put away Rs. 1 Lakh in instruments, your taxable income is Rs. 3 Lakhs.

Out of this, the first Rs. 1 Lakh is exempt from tax. One the balance, you pay tax as follows:

Rs. 1-1.5 L - 10% = 5000
Rs. 1.5-2.5 L - 20% = 20000
Balance Rs. 50000 - 30% = 15000

So your total tax = Rs. 40000"

So again I stand corrected.

Lastly Anon seems to be suggesting that even investment into MG and equities would be counted into savings. That I think is good news.

Changes in Blogger Comments(for the better)

2005-02-13T01:57:00.000+05:30

Folks, it seems like the Blogger guys have changed their comments strategy. Now anyone can comment with their own names/nicks without having to be a part of Blogger. So no more anaonymous nonsense. Hopefully it will not result in spam comments. I have a humble request to all of you. Please try this scheme by posting a comment or two as a test for this blog. I am specifically looking for non Blogger-member's comments.

While we are riding the comment trail it would be very gratifying if people who read me on news aggregators pop over once in a while to comment. just feels nice to actually know what goes through you mind when you read my posts (Note To Self : do unto other what you would want others to do unto you:))

My New 'Watering Hole'!!!

2005-02-11T01:40:00.000+05:30

Hey folks, as you can see my entries here have been intermittent. One reason is that I have not anticipated the way this blog has taken shape. I had expected to put any crap here. However I seem to find myself trying real hard to be informative/interesting. In a way this has become what Robert Scoble calls a commentary blog.

Though unanticipated I like this new form. This is a place where I try to put up essays. A place where I can polish what little skills I have in writing, English, rhetoric and imagination - not necessarily in that order.

Nonetheless I still want to blog every other day pointing out some cool site I have visited, a cool gadget I know of, some one-liner comments on people's blogs etc. I would not like to crowd this blog with such postings. So I have started a new blog called Brij's Watering Hole.

This will be where I put arbitrary stuff. Check it out and enjoy it!!!
I do need to stock it up with feeds, permanent links etc. Should be ready by 14th Feb.

Thank you for your time:)

Late Winter; Drifting fog, The Lake is clouded.

2005-01-20T02:11:00.000+05:30

I have been researching a lot into Zen in the last few days. I have always seen and felt the D.T.Suzuki side of Zen. You know - the part of Zen that immediately connects to you. The part of you which speaks of instant action, instant nirvana, of freedom of the senses and actions. Yup, the part that feels like hippism. Well a lot of it connects to me too. I romanticise about the discipline of Zen way of life; about the ideas that are so powerful that they cannot be spoken for speech destroys the very ideas it tries to explain.

Anyways, this last month I decided that it is time to take a critical look into the whole Zen religion and how it is spreading in the West. What I have ended with is a lot more confusion than I started with. I realised that I was too naive to think that just because the root idea of Zen might be desirable the whole religion itself would be sacrosanct and above reproach, for after all the disciples do make the religion. More importantly I was faced with a question on what is really so attractive about Zen to me?

This question is important because I do not feel attracted to Buddhism the same way I feel attracted to Zen. My normal answer to this question was that Zen is a religion rooted in everyday life. A religion where you practice it, not by some fancy mumbo-jumbo (or so I thought), but by living life everyday doing one's karma. However in time (and after reading a lot of essays - which is supposedly very not Zen) I feel that maybe it is my attraction to Japanese history that makes me like Zen.

I like the whole samurai honour thing - even though I have a lot of reservations about the caste system itself. Maybe it's the Indian history in me where honour and pride took highest place. Whatever it be I am always enamoured by all the different ceremonies and the different arts of Japan. The only issue is the question whether I am only attracted to the saccharine version (the romantic version in the books and the movies)?

How does all this tie in with Zen? The thread I follow with Japan is the same thread I follow with Zen. Without knowing the people practising it, without actually seeing the religion in action I am attracted to it. So what I am really attracted to? The image of Zen that I think is right? If so would it be a religion? Would it not be just a philosophy? How does a religion whose roots exist in Buddhism make sense of the samurai code? How does it support war and Anti-Semitism (as happened in WWII)?

Lots of questions with no answer. Even more so because for answers you need to look towards books or "gurus". How do we know they are right? How do know that the "Wise Man" is not just another car salesman telling you exactly what you want to hear? Paranoia?

I am still looking up the material so I might indeed have some answers soon...or not.

One more monologue, one that is basically scattered all over the place. Very Un-Zen-like. And I have more to say about mentors, gurus and babas. I guess it can wait.

2005-01-12T02:15:00.000+05:30

The water ripples; with a flash of Zen

The Many Faces Of Footballl

2004-11-06T02:23:00.000+05:30

Enjoyable day, Wednesday(IST), especially in the Champions League.

Started of with an okey-dokey match between Chelsea and CSKA Moscow (Chelsea playing away), which Chelsea won. Not one of the best games. Nonetheless the match did show that Chelsea is getting better by the day. Now that their star-studded side of last year has been whittled down they are forming themselves into a formidable team. Now that they are level with Arsenal in the Premiership I think their future is going to be even better. The main reason for this optimism is their defence. They have only allowed one goal in their Premiership campaign. That, my friends, is phenomenal.

Getting back to the Champions League, the second match I watched was the one between Arsenal and Panathinaikos. A letdown for Arsenal fans whichever way you look at it. The fact that the match was a draw (1-1) might look all right in the record books but the fact is that the gunners were found lacking ammunition inside their own fort. I was never an all-out fan of Arsenal (last year I was swaying between ManU and Chelsea, this year I am squarely behind Chelsea, and I am backing an underdog, Real Madrid:D)

Nonetheless I do think they have great players and are normally good value for money. I mean with Henry and Pires attacking and competent feeders of the ball like Reyes and Viera available they play the best open football west of the Channel. However their loss at Old Trafford seems to have broken their spirit. Both the games after that loss has been lacklustre and the truth is that have just about managed to scrape through both. Feels like they are sulking and it is getting just a wee bit too childish. Hey ManU are not the best and if you let them get under your skin it speaks a lot about you too!!! More about this rant in another article another time.

The last match I saw was the best - AC Milan v/s Barcelona. The game was played in Barcelona and the hosts were the winners, the score line being 2-1. The score line does not tell the whole story. This was a fantabulous game. It was to be expected when the best of Serie A was facing the best of the Spanish Liga. The game was so beautiful that even if the score line was to be 1-1 we could still say that football was the winner.

The first goal went AC Milan's way when Shevchenko(as usual) put one in 17 minutes into the game. It was a beautiful long ball from Pirlo that made this possible. It seemed to be going all Milan's way when suddenly the tide turned. It started with Barca keeping much of the possession. Then around the 35th minute Cafu got hurt on his jaw and was momentarily outside the field to have a lookup by the medicos. Play was still on and in this crucial time when they were one man less Barca came up with a beautiful play which resulted in a through ball to EtoÃ‚Â’o who did not make a mistake. The Score 1-1.

The score remained the same more the most part of the game. However the game was riveting with both teams playing beautiful football. For Barca it was a must win situation and it showed with them keeping possession for the most part. Then came the magic moment. Just when everyone had resigned themselves to a draw Ronaldinho takes a pass from Eto'o feints to the right, cuts the ball at speed to the left. In the next moment he moves from a packed field at the centre of the field just outside the penalty box to the left wing which was completely empty, picks the ball up again and shoots it to the back of the net. All within a matter of seconds in the 88th minute.
Sheer Magic!

No time for Milan to make a comeback and a beautiful game ends. After watching the ManU- Arsenal fixture last week I needed a game like this to make me believe in the beauty of football again. Thank you AC Milan and Barca. And THANK YOU Ronaldinho.

Rohan's tour de force.

2004-10-21T00:15:00.000+05:30

Hey check out Rohan's blogs : About Matrix
and About Injuns in the USofA

Really Really Good!!!

2004-10-10T03:16:00.000+05:30

An Urban Sunrise

Whatever,Wherever!

2004-10-10T01:41:00.001+05:30

"Let there be Light"

Funny how the cheesiest of phrases pop up into your head when you should be cringing instead!!!

In some ways the words are apt. Here I am, wherever here is!!! At least I think I AM!

I cannot see anything around me...anything of note that is. It is all stark white. 'Like the "Prayer for the Dying" video'. Inconsequential thought but apt again. It is indeed like that the depiction in Seal's video. I seem to be in a large, no make that a 'very' large, room; bright white in colour. Nothing in the room, bounded by the walls and the ceilings and the floor all reflecting light, or maybe creating light as I could not see any source.

Why am I here?

I am not ready to leap to conclusions so I decide to sit and think. No idea of how much time has passed. Does the fact that there is no change in my immediate surroundings mean that time is still, or worse, is it irrelevant. No! That cannot be true. I am thinking, which basically means that I must be progressing from one thought to another. This implies that I must be moving forward in time, on the assumption that each thought process does take some time, however infinitesimal it be. At least I think they do.

But that is not the problem here. I need to get out of the room and there does not seem any point of egress. Well! No point trying to think my way out of this problem. It is time to get up and check the room more closely. Since I have no sense of direction here I start to walk towards one of the walls. Seems like it is almost 10 feet away. In fact it seems like I was placed right at the centre of the room, as all the walls seem to be equidistant from me. Maybe it is some kind of optical illusion. Anyways, there's no time to be worrying about that.

Hey! I should have reached the wall by now but it still seems the same distance away. Even more worrisome it doesn't look like I have walked any further away from the wall behind me. Curious!!!

Maybe walking is not helping. Lets try running. I hate running but beggars cannot be choosers. To no avail: I end up with the same result. Now this is getting irritating. 1â€¦2â€¦3â€¦1â€¦2â€¦3...calm down...losing cool will not help...there! That's better.

Look around the room again. Could the floor be a massive treadmill? ('Thank god at least all the walls are not mirrors like in most flicks. That would have been really spooky') Stray thought again!!! Get back to the problem! What if the floor is a gigantic treadmill? If it is then it should have some inertia. Lets try it out!!! I start running to one wall, just as I reach my top speed I take an about turn and run back ('Do I look like T. Henry when I do that? Maybe mirrors would not have been such a bad idea!') I did not feel any inertia from the floor. Furthermore the result seems to be the same. Not the best time to feel like I am the centre of the universe.

Maybe I did not do this right! Maybe the floor is very sensitive! Lets try a lot of zigzags. But first lets leave my pen at my feet. If I do this right I may not move a lot but at least the pen should be some distance from me. So here goes nothing...

... That was fun. Never ran so far in a long time. Lets see how far that was. Damn! The pen is right at my feet!!!

Now this IS getting g real spooky. Do I dare keep running for the rest of the day? Where the hell am I? Hey maybe this ain't really happening. Yes, that's it. I must be dreaming. No other explanation fits. What do I do now? Wake myself up!!! I heard that waking oneself up was dangerous. Maybe if I refuse to accept the reality of this it will go away. Yes! That's it! I lie down and close my eyes. That is much better. Yup, much better. Sorry 'White Room' you cannot frighten me for I know you do not exist. HA, HA, HA...sheeks, that was unnecessary and corny! Whatever, isn't it a moot point?

I can feel the idea is working, feels like I am slipping back into my sleep. Note to self, must analyse this dream tomo...

Bright light dazes me. I must have dozed off. Feels like I have had a nightmare judging by the heaviness I feel. I have to use my hands to pry my eyes open.

" Let There Be Light"

Funny how the cheesiest of phrases pop into your head...

The rivers roar in Pune

2004-08-13T00:47:00.000+05:30

Mutha and Mula the twin rivers of Pune are raging. The two dams which stop these rivers normal flow has been filled to the brim by this years late, yet torrential, monsoon. The last time the sluice gates had to be opened the water level in the rivers were still less than they are now. The only time the water levels were more than this it was in the 70's and it was an all-out flood due to collapsing of a section of the Khadakwasla dam. So anyways, as I was saying the waters they are a raging.

This time around the Corporation has done a good job of warning the slum dwellers who were staying on the banks of the rivers; so there hasn't been any tragedy. In fact it has become the spectacle of the decade, with people thronging all the bridges to watch their gutters turn back into mighty rivers. I had a glimpse and it was frightening. The river looked ugly and beautiful at the same time. The only reason I could reflect of the beauty in the powers of the water is because I had my feet firmly rooted on terra firma, the river a mere side show in my everyday life.

What it would be to be in the centre of that turbulence? How one must feel when this giant just rolls over your land, your home, your loved ones? Chilled to the bone I was at such thoughts. Scared to death to even visualise myself in those waters! Gives one a clear perspective!!! Nature always manages to do that!

Now the rains will abate in a matter of weeks, the dams will close their gates and the river will become a gutter again. I will miss the river. I have laughed at its sorry state from the day I landed in Pune 6 years ago but today it humbled me. It explained to me that its sorry state was the sacrifice that was made by it for the betterment of the children of the land. Today it showed me what it had sacrificed. I will miss the river. It taught me a lot in while merely passing by. Nature does that!!!

Quality ... never assured!!!

2004-08-06T02:33:00.000+05:30

Check out my blog in an alternate lair. Also check out the site itself.

Another Hallmark event coming up

2004-08-01T05:52:00.000+05:30

Yup, one more chance for the card companies to rack in major moolah -- Happy Friendship Day. Since I will not be playing to their whims, and since I feel it is criminal to bog down servers with inconsequential "Happy Friendship Day" emails I will use this blog to wish all of you who need to be reminded that I think of you. So here goes,

... H A P P Y .... F R I E N D S H I P .... D A Y ...

Whew! Now that I have got that off my chest lets get back to what is actually going through my mind. Friendship, the concept, the relationship, the fragile thread that can be become the cord that helps you climb, or a rope with an anvil on the other side helping you fall...Friendship. Been thinking a lot about it lately...not very coherent thoughts as you can see but thoughts nonetheless. There is a quote which tries to explain why friendship is so dear to most people. It goes something like this, "Relatives have been decided by God, Thank God we get to decide our friends". I used to use this quote a lot through the years, but only now have I realised the lie that it was, at least for me, at least consciously. I met one of my best friends this week and felt very empty after the time we spent together. As I was thinking back on our friendship I realised that It was not like we were best friends from the day we met. Granted, this whole idea of a best friend is quite confusing, but we were close in a very on and off manner till we got to the same class and remained together for the next five years. And I did not choose to be his friend in any of the years I knew him (of course i did not resist it either). It just happened; just like that! Poof!!! This has been the way with a lot of close friends I have they were strangers one moment and friends the next, the process was instant in some cases and gradual in another, but the point is that I never really had a choice to decide that someone was my friend or not; they just were. And That Worries Me.

That worries me deeply. It worries me because there is no specific inter-dependencies or give-take relationship between my friends and myself. It worries me because I have based my whole life around the fact that I have a family of friends with me. In other words my existence, to romanticize the notion, depends on idea of friendship being the highly pure notion touted by everyone. And it has been...and if you know my friends you will know that it will always be. They will always be there. That is a trust that will never be broken. But I still worry. I worry whether I will be there for them...whether I have ever been there...in a real sense that is!!!

And what does being there mean? Should I e-mail all my friends? Should I call them every now and then? Should I have to keep reminding them and through them myself that I am their friend? Should I? Should I? Should I? You see me problem...I am not getting anywhere here, just a rodent in a wheel.

Anyway it ain't like it is some tragic comic stuff which is happening to me here. Just a normal healthy quarter-life crisis [smile] The last two years have been great in that I have managed to meet a lot of my friends again, though sadly only for fleeting moments. In a very roundabout manner, these meetings and discussions have been instrumental in pushing me away from the limbo I was in (and towards the confusion I am in right now [smile]).{Many Thanks to my friends for the push in my thought processes} And here I am again ending up thinking more deeply about friendship itself [hmmm...] Funny how it always comes back to that.

So here I am entering 1st of August with friends on the top of my mind. Don't expect any emotional emails or poems or tears from me(though you can depend on my laughter or my sarcasm any time of the year[deep rumbling laughter]). And do not wait for my call...I will call you when I need you [ha ha ha...that was fun]. But believe this; you all will be in my thoughts, today and everyday. Most of you may never know what you mean to me, but I am who am I am due to all of you. And for that I again Thank You. Best of Luck for everything you are involved in and GOD(/GAIA/SCIENCE/SPIRIT/THE HIGHER ONE/NEO/etc...) bless!!!

The One Name They All Fear !!!

2004-07-21T00:28:00.000+05:30

No! I am not alluding to myself, nor am I going to speak about Sauron or Darth Vader. No I speak of Van Helsing!!!

As is obvious this is one of the movies I watched during my break. It was tagged as a horror-flick so I decided to go alone as Megz hates horror stuff. To be frank I am not a big fan of the gooey slimy horror stuff myself and hence was pleased that the the tag was wrong. The IMDB site tags it more correctly as Action/Adventure/Horror/Fantasy/Thriller...and much more.

By now you must be feeling that this is some third rate B-grade bhelpuri of a movie. Well, you are partially right. To be perfectly honest the easiest way out for me here would be to slam the movie. I personally think that almost everyone I know will hate the movie. Yet I must confess; I absolutely loved the movie. Furthermore I was glad I watched it in the cinema hall and not on TV. Why you ask? Read on?(of course with the usual disclaimers)

The movie is NOT a horror flick; lets get that straight. What it does have are all the luminaries from the best horror literature around. And what is does with them is entertain, please note: Entertain not Terrify(though the characters are terrifying in themselves).

So here we have a movie starring Edward Hyde, Werewolves, Dr. Frankenstein?s Monster, Vampires and the father of them all; Count Dracula himself. Furthermore I read that Van Helsing too figures in Stoker?s book but I am not so sure.

They have pushed artistic liberty to its limits with they way they have played with these characters but the results are fun. We end up with a James Bond for the horror world, if you will, and the result is not all too bad. The acting department is not much to speak of, but then again it is an action flick, and hence acting was not something I expected. The fun part was the way they wove the creatures together, giving them a character that you would expect if you have read the respective pieces of literature. So you end up with totally animalistic werewolves to a monster that you care for to the granddaddy of cunning and guile, the Count himself. The story telling is fast, furious, fantastic and wonderfully unbelievable.

However all this would not have been enough. What really carries the movie are the sound and the cinematography. Beautiful is the only word I can us. The set design and attention to detail is also superlative. I did not completely agree with Hyde?s character as I felt it was more ?The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? rather than the original ?Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde? but the depiction was enjoyable. The other characters were very true to my picture of them. So were the locations and this was the best part of the movie. So we had a gloomy terrifying castle in Transylvania while we had the old urban locales of Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background(only half completed) Additionally there was always a touch of humour to proceedings as every horror and thriller cliché was lampooned, without losing the plot or slipping into a mere spoof.

All in all a wonderful experience of cinema! I enjoyed it immensely. Will you?

A Time for R&R.

2004-07-18T14:37:00.000+05:30

I took time out from my work during the first week of July. The month before (in fact the whole year before that) had completely sapped my energies and I desperately needed to rest. Since Megz had joined a new place of work there was no way she was going to get a leave. Hence there were no travel plans. Instead I spent the week in a different kind of paradise. All I did throughout the week was sleep, eat, play on the Playstation 2

Great week!!! I have lots to write about it, which I will try to put down here in the coming week. There are things I want to speak about Movies, about games, about computer science, about quarter life crisis etc. Let me see how much of this I actually put down on paper.

However there is one very important thing that I thought should be mentioned right here right now. All you people out there please do not underestimate the requirement of rest. Your body requires it, your mind requires it; hell!!! I am sure your soul requires it. Taking a break completely cut off from the world is very useful to clear your head. It gives you time to question your perspectives on life and change it if required. It gives you an opportunity to work out the priorities of your life, to work out the depth to which you are ready to get involved with things. One may not come out with a great revelation of life after such a break; but it does reboot your systems.

I deserved such a break and so do all of you.

Long Time No See!!!

2004-07-18T14:31:00.000+05:30

Hello friends,

Sorry folks, for being on such a long leave of absence from this site. My heartfelt thanks you to all of you who kept visiting the site. I apologize once again for not finding any new material here.

I am back and will endeavour to get back on track here.

Regards,

Brij.

//Anti_Trust>

2004-06-10T03:06:00.000+05:30

Just happened to watch a movie called "ANTITRUST". Had fun, especially with all the broad swipes at Microsoft. Basically it starts as a story about 2 geniuses and geeks, one who joins the big bad world of IT Giants and the other wants to stay with Open Source. Please do not expect the movie to be geeky, it is anything but! And it is not about Open Source versus licensed software either, at least it was not to me. Basically it is a masala movie through which the common man learns of all these terms like Open Source, free knowledge, Global connectivity requires adapters, etc. Nonetheless good timepass...put it on your video rental list. here is one more link

The Old Grey Whistle Test!

2004-06-04T00:41:00.000+05:30

Came home early and wanted to miss the Kusum crap. Put in a DVD and lost the
next 2 hours. Try it out. It is the DVD of a program which used to air in UK
in the 70's and the 80's. Phenomenal stuff!!! Like some one said...the show
put more emphasis on sound rather than visuals...and it shows! Great voices,
great guitar riffs, just wonderful. So if you see a BBC DVD called "The Grey
Whistler Test" check it out. This is the one I heard.Here's one link for
more history on the program.

Yuva!

2004-05-30T12:30:00.000+05:30

Saw Yuva the other day...interesting coincidence, what with having written a
blog of how the young should inherit this country some days ago.
The short reaction, worth a dekko.
The long one:
Seen movies of this variety before, in South films. Nonetheless there was a
lot which is saying quite a lot for these days. According me it had quite
realistic story(in a filmi andaaz of course). And it had great
action...really great fight scenes especially towards the end("Vikram"
Dharam is the fight director, I think). Disclaimer: the violence does get a
wee bit too realistic at times. My wife hated it, so if you are squeamish
thing again.
However I like this movie for a completely different reason. We have ACTORS
in this movie. I kid you not!. Ajay Devgan has proved himself in this genre
from some time, especially with his Company and GanagaJal acts. So you would
expect a great performance from him and he delivers. Ditto for Abhishek. He
delivers, and how!!! If you want only two reasons for watching this movie,
they are Ajay and Abhishek. And Rani, with another down to earth performance
is the third!!!
And the greatest star of the movie is Mani Rathnam, the way he has used
Vivek Oberoi, Kareena Kapoor and Esha Deol beyond their potential. At least
Vivek has some potential so not a big challenge there. However the same
cannot be said about the other two, and not their mistake really. Both
Kareena and Esha depend on a good director to guide them if they want to
make an impact beyond pretty face and pretty smile. In this movie Kareena
manages not to overact and Esha actually manages to act.
Again being a Mani Ratnam movie, all the other aspects were well done, like
music, locales and cinematography. Though I must point that the blair witchy
camera mode was a wee bit overused, especially in songs.

Any ways all in all a thumbs-up to the movie. Immensely watchable as I
caught the 11:00pm show and did not sleep through the show :)Pompously I
give it 3.5 stars ;).

Da Vinci revisited.

2004-05-26T00:11:00.000+05:30

For any one who might be influenced by my review of The Da Vinci Code please read Sujith's review of the same before you make a choice.

site: HAIKU for PEOPLE

2004-05-23T23:33:00.000+05:30

HAIKU for PEOPLE is a nice site to check out what Haiku and related terms mean. I specially try to incorporate the seasonal element in the few haiku's/hokku's I try to write.

Many people feel that one should not have to follow any rules as this is art. I say only two things,
one, to bend rules effectively you need to have had worked rigourously under those rules for some time, and two, if you do not follow this rule why call it a Hokku/Haiku. After all names are classification based on some rules.

With respect to mailing in the blogs!

2004-05-19T00:01:00.000+05:30

I tried mailing the last blog from my place of work. It worked quite alright but I realised that there are some issues.

1. I use the Word attachment to draft the email in my office. This resulted in a lot of template code which came into picture and messed up my page, with the whole right side column moving to the bottom. Lesson: Use text emails to post to Blogger.

2. I have enabled Blogger comments. However as you can see the blogs which have been posted by email do not have these comments. Got to check out if it is something that I have not set or a problem with blogger.

One pointer for people who do not like to read the Help:

When you are sending a mail and are pretty sure that your company is going to add a trailer to the mail, just add "#end" after your post.

njoy Blogging.

Thunderstorm!

2004-05-18T16:06:00.000+05:30

Summer storms,
Glistening droplets shoot up my windshield;
Pre-Monsoon Showers.

New Blogger comments trial.

2004-05-16T12:23:00.000+05:30

Trying out Blogger comments.

"I saw a movie" rap:)

2004-05-16T02:33:00.000+05:30

Am in a mood for words,
and some rythym & some bass;
Bfore y'all doze
let me pick the pace.

Saw 8 mile this week,
yup, I know I ain't quick
but better late than never
to watch a good flick.

Liked the lyrical battles,
the in-your face wars;
some real kewl rappin
Not some lame MTV farce.

This rappers are dope
great jugglers of words,
a great sense of beat
flows through their blood.

If that's true hip hop
I am sold to tha plan,
show me some more,
of this man and this clan.

Now the movie was great
Meusic even more
It had that skill
to touch one's core.

So if you ain't seen this movie
get off your butts and go
to the nearest rental
to rent the next show

And if you want to act smarts
and disregard what I say,
like Lotta says,""F$@K YOU!
but have a nice day!!!"

Blogs Mailed To Order!!!

2004-05-16T02:11:00.000+05:30

Hey BlogSpot Users,

If you haven't paid special attention to the new setup of Blogger,
especially its settings, you really are missing something.
This blog and the one before this one was emailed by me to Blogger and got
published automatically. Is that kewl or what!!! At long last the common
man's blogsite is moving to features given by more premium sites. Oh Yeah!!!

The Young Should Inherit This Country!!!

2004-05-13T00:14:00.000+05:30

Yup!!! Counting day is upon us and the past few weeks have been a roller
coaster ride for India with respect to the pre-poll meetings, voting, exit
polls and getting to know their "leaders again". I have had half an eye on
this election race and one thing that has attracted me is the presence of a
lot of young(relatively speaking) hopefuls in these elections. These guys
are really cool dudes. Take the case of Omar Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi.

Karan Thapar was asking various leaders(of smaller parties) today on who
they will support in the centre, the NDA or the Congress lead by Sonia
Gandhi. While most leaders were hedging their bets Omar said directly that
they would not be supporting wither NDA or Sonia. When asked for the reason
he cam out openly to say that they cannot support Congress in the centre
when Congress supports their rival party in the State. This was expected,
though not in such direct terms, but the real bombshell was with his reason
for not joining the NDA. Karan Thapar asked him whether he does not want to
help NDA now as revenge for them not helping his party two years ago. I was
waiting for the usual hee-hawing of most politicians and was stunned by his
answer "Yes Karan, that is precisely the reason". Kewl, a politician who
speaks his mind.

Now coming to Rahul Gandhi ... he has really starred in these elections.
Truly no one has campaigned with more impact than him. The other he was
quoted as saying that he does not care about these elections but would
rather look towards how his party can regain lost glory in UP in the coming
years. I said to myself "Hmmm, an astute politician". So imagine my surprise
when I heard him say the following today " We are politically against TDP
and Chandrababu Naidu. However that does not mean that one should forget
that Chandrababu Naidu has been in power in AP for 10 years and in these
years he has worked towards what he considered to be betterment for his
state. To take a person who has worked so hard for his state and ridicule
himn calling him elitist or computer babu as is being done by the media is
utter malice." Whoah!this guy has got guts.

Young dudes in politics, I Am Lovin It.:)

The Da Vinci Code...read it!!!

2004-05-11T00:45:00.000+05:30

My wife was a little concerned that she had not seen me reading for some time now. This was quite a valid concern and I realized that I had indeed not read any new stuff after my return from UK. As I was mulling on how to restart my reading I remembered Darth Pedro's blog and his review of The Da Vinci Code. As he had given a good review I decided to try it out.

So as often happens with me I went to buy this book and ended up buying one more ...Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. I could not find my old copy of the Zen and reading it is an annual pilgrimage for me. However more about the Zen on a different day.

The Da Vinci Code is a great book. It is quite well written and tightly paced. It does fall into using the usual backbone structure of most fictional thrillers (sudden thrust of mystery on unsuspecting man, beautiful girl to help out, arcane cults, police mishandling situation etc.). However the secret of this book (and its saving grace) is how it plays on historical fact and conspiracy theories. The first book that came to my mind as I read this one was The Name of the Rose (an interesting parallelism as the rose plays an important part in this book too.) as it has the same feel to the story. Another reason it struck a chord with me is that I was quite caught up in the history of the Knights Templar on my visit to UK. Religious and vindictive knights also reared it head in comics especially the Batman series. This background did make me appreciate this book better. However even without any historical knowledge this book should still be fun as it is quite self sufficient with respect to information.

The best thing about this book is it's pacing. The mystery unravels so fast that it is very difficult to put the book down. I started reading it at 21:30 hours and did not put the book down till 4:00 hours, by which time I had completed it. No way could I sleep till I had reached the end of the road.

All in all money well spent, thanks to Darth Pedro for good advice.

Brij Is Back!!!

2004-05-11T00:31:00.000+05:30

Hello folks, after a long break I am back. A special thanks to all you guys who were worried about me. All I can say is that there were some logistical problems last week and the weekend was spent lazing around and reading. Anyways thanks to those of you who have regularly visited my page. Please keep coming as I AM BACK!!!

Success is 1% genius 99% perception ;)

2004-04-30T00:01:00.000+05:30

I used to have an easy life,
a clear idea of right and wrong;
an understanding of what was truth,
and what was false.

Time has however matured me (or so they say),
and truth is no longer clear.
Even worse I do not know
if truth exists.

So now my life revolves,
around perceptions.
My own, and what I perceive others perceiving.
And I try to move ahead with the appreciation,
of all perceptions around me.
And I Move Not!!!

Dream Machines

2004-04-29T01:17:00.000+05:30

Wanna check out a dream machine? Try the following article Howstuffworks "How the Bugatti Veyron Works".

The BMan is on GMail

2004-04-24T23:57:00.000+05:30

Hey dudes, I am on Gmail...in fact I have been invited to be part of Gmail...ain't that kewl!!!

Well the reality is that since I am a user of Blogger (which is owed by Google) I was invited (as I expect every Blogger account holder to be) to be part of GMail as an user. Nontheless I am pretty excited as I really wanted to check this service. In fact I had spoken earlier about it in the blog About Gmail. Especially since it will use google search internally. One pluspoint of being early joinee is that I got my fav. brijwhiz handle :)

So all you Blogger users, check out you front page of www.blogger.com and get on to GMail.
For others, if you are still not on this service do not fret, I will try to get back with a review of the service.

Regards to all!!!

Aaya Re Aaya Elections Aaya!!!

2004-04-24T23:17:00.000+05:30

The Gandhi family is back…with a bang!!! Most of us had assumed that the Gandhi name would have no impact on politics after the time of Rajiv. How different things have turned out to be. Even the presence of Sonia and Maneka never looked all encompassing. However the entry of the youngsters Rahul and Varun is quite ominous to the people who hate family politics. Their entry is proof to the fact that the Gandhi lineage will keep rearing its head like the Kennedys.

This time the drama of the election campaigns have been most interesting. It was interesting to see Congress push Rahul into the fray…and even more interesting to see that he might actually win with quite a comfortable margin. Another interesting point is the dependence of BJP on Varun. It is very curious how a party filled with leaders who hated Indira Gandhi’s guts (many times validly) is depending on her grandson, who in his turn is using her name to maximum advantage.

Before any BJP lover or Congress lover sends me brickbats let me clarify that I can understand that parties need to be opportunistic. I know that no party has any ideals except for populist ones like Ram Mandir and Gandhi Parivar. I know that I should be sad…but I am not…in fact I am ecstatic…happy to se that at the end of the day…regardless of whom you vote…we will get the same kinda of government…only the name of the parties will change. It gives a kind of stability (good or bad!) to the country.

Mera Bharat Mahan!!!

Speak out !

2004-04-23T01:29:00.000+05:30

How many of you wnat to visit a certified "sizzling" blog of rediffblogs, Stand up and Speak out !(...or forever hold your peace).

Flame of the west

2004-04-20T23:48:00.000+05:30

Rohan manages to get out of the jerk list by his blog : Flame of the west

Alto :: Let's Go

2004-04-20T00:04:00.000+05:30

Many of you already know this; nonetheless as a matter of record I just wanted to point out that I have bought my first car. It is an Alto LXi version. The site is Alto :: Let's Go.

When I was buying the alto it came in 3 trims, LX, LXi and VXi. LX version had the same engine as the Maruti 800, a 796 MPFI engine. However it had A/C and a 5-speed gearbox. Maruti had discontinued the 5-speed 800 and Alto takes it's place. The next trim is LXi, which comes with an electronic power steering. The next trim is VXi, which was way too costly for me. This trim came with the Wagon R 1000cc engine with 67bhp. My trim only gives 45bhp(more than enough for the city...and the way Venky uses his 800 should be good enough for the state highways.)

The Alto comes with no extras so I managed to convince the dealer to put in some extras, viz. Rubber mats, steering wheel covers, side skirts, lighter and mud flaps. I also put in around 20 grand more to get myself a Pioneer music system, about which I have spoken in much detail earlier, a security system(NIPPON Maruti OEM) with central locking, tamper alarm, impact alarm and ignition lock and Goodyear tubeless tyres.

The future, well in the future the two things I am looking for is a tachometer and alloy wheels. However that will be some time in the future.

GUi Bloopers

2004-04-18T23:55:00.000+05:30

A blog abou Jeff Johnson's book GUI Bloopers. A must read blog: MPT: GUI Bloopers. Be sure to read all the links in the blog. Now how to make the designers of OpenROAD read this :D

DrinkBoy: Adventures in Cocktails

2004-04-18T23:29:00.000+05:30

A great site pointed out by DarthPedro :DrinkBoy: Adventures in Cocktails. Amust have link in everyone's favourites:D

Good Show!

2004-04-17T00:35:00.000+05:30

We win, nuff said!!!

Off the list

2004-04-17T00:34:00.000+05:30

Rover, Hemant, SVR and Annon get off my list for their quick recovery. Girijesh gets into my uber-jerk list for not even being a blogger (shame! shame! puppy shame!!!)
Other respectable jerks being Sujith and Rohan...wake up ye lazy bones!!!
A very respectable mention(in the positive) to Nitin for the good work he is doing in his blog...chaos. Well done dude.

Other Uber-jerk members- Venky, Shaibal and Magi

regards and power to the bloggers.

Black Blog Day!

2004-04-15T23:35:00.000+05:30

Just as a token protest from me against all jerks who are too busy to update their blogs. Yes! I mean you!!!

BBC - Lifestyle - Motoring

2004-04-15T23:17:00.000+05:30

Another site pointed out by our car expert Annon : BBC - Lifestyle - Motoring

BBC Top Gear!!!

2004-04-15T00:05:00.000+05:30

A top site of a top show, viz.BBC Top Gear. Thanksfor Annon for pointing it out to me. Thought I would get it on my site as he is not a linking blogger :D

About Gmail!!!

2004-04-14T23:56:00.000+05:30

A lot of you might have already have heard about GMail and a lot of you might not. It was first heard of on the first of April making lots of people to believe that it was an elaborate hoax. Hoax or not you decide for yourself. Learn more about Gmail

Pioneer it is!!!

2004-04-12T23:30:00.000+05:30

Got myself a Pioneer audio system for my car. It is the Pioneer sound.vision.soul - DEH-P5550MP. It is labelled as a multi-CD control High power CD/MP3/WMA player with FM/AM Tuner. Not much more to add except that I got it for 10000INR alonwith two 4" two-way speakers from blaupunkt. Good midrange sound...not enough speaker capacity for the deep bass or crystal shattering treble sounds.

285 kms 55 hrs!!!

2004-04-12T00:13:00.000+05:30

Papa was here to help me take my car from the showroom. We took it out around 4:30 pm on 9th. Today we parked it below at around 11:30 pm. The tripmeter reads 285kms. Good Na!!!
Of these 285kms around 120kms were driven by my Papa and the rest by yours truly under his tutelage. Damn great fun. Especially when around 100kms of my share was on the Pune - Lonavla -Pune Expressway.
I love my car!!!

Sublimal Thoughts

2004-04-10T14:43:00.000+05:30

Read this sublimal thought on Annon's site. As his setup is dynamic I decide to preserve the thought by copying it here. The thought was:

Conformity: When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

hmmm...

So many stations...so little attention span!

2004-04-09T02:01:00.000+05:30

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >
< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >
< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…elcome again to Radio 17’s “Souped-Up Machine show”. Before the break our man on the ground BK was just gonna speak about his choice for an audio system for his car…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…A-keep your eyes on the road your hands upon the wheeal…A-keep your eyes on…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…and here on The Commoner’s Show we move on to another unknown face from the crowd…”Sir, what is your handle? “ “Beoda”…”A very warm welcome to Beoda. So Sir what are your memories about music and driving…”…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…samaana bhi hai deewana; deewana kya kaheage…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…and I have always been a big fan of the Souped-Up Machine Show. When I look at a need for a system I want mid-ranges with a nice span to accommodate both the treble and the bass. What I am looking for is clarity…what I am not looking for is moving through Sindhi Society with my car vibrating on its suspension and going dinchaak dinchaak. Let me first explain the limitations…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…on the back of the roadhouse they got some bungalows…well at the back of the roadhouse they got some bungalows…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…and my favorite times being in a car listening to great tunes was with my friend Kapil in his dad’s Esteem. I do not remember what system he had but we listened to a lot of rock in that car. I distinctly remember listening to Led Zep and how the tape would skip at a specific spot due to bad recording…we would actually incorporate that skip as we sang along.
And we also heard the whole Sholay tapes…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…aaap Close-up kyon nahin karten hainnnn…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

… and so I had to meet the budget constraint of 10000INR for my system (without the rear speakers) This resulted in my choice limited to the following brands Sony, Kenwood, JVC and Pioneer. As I explained earlier I was not going in for a cassette player so it was an in-dash cd/mp3 player for me. Again as I have already explained I did not want a system tending to bass, so Sony did not look great to me. So I had to decide between the Pioneer and the Kenwood. Both of them had great features. However I was adamant on wanting to listen to the system. My dealer then set up three systems for me. At the end of the day I decided upon the…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…roll bay roll…you gotta roll….

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…Doors was another group I heard for the first time in a car. I was with a friend of mine…quite a junkie he was in his Fiat. I heard Roadhouse Blues and Highway Star for the first time in his car. He needed the Deep Purple cassette but was adamant that I take the Doors cassette to listen to it. Since he was offering me the cassette and Moraka I happily accepted the first and firmly rejected the latter. Left the cassette in Venky’s place and came back after a couple of days to find that Venky did not really like it. That was very surprising. On probing further he said some inane reasoning like it was too heavy or it was too druggie or some such shit. I forced him to keep hearing for one more day. The next day I cam for the cassette but he was not ready to return it. In fact he kept it for close to 6 months. Even now he is almost an established authority on Doors…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…aaj ki khel ki khabron main…Pakistan Lahore test Jeet gayen bade asa…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…And that was BK with his choice. What about you do you have any special choice … do write into the “Souped-Up Machine Show” at POBox no…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

…I wake up in the morning and I got myself a beer…the future’s uncertain and the end is always near…

< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >
< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >
< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >
< static > …hiss…crackle……tweeennn….shioouu…< end static >

More on tubeless tyres.

2004-04-07T01:04:00.000+05:30

Many people ask me on how puntures are fixed in tubeless tyres. I am linking one of the articles that I used to understand this: Indiacar.com

2004-04-07T01:03:00.000+05:30

One more article on tubeless tyres: The Tribune - Windows - Good Motoring

Goodyear Eagle F1

2004-04-07T01:02:00.000+05:30

Have been researching a lot on tubeless tyres this past few days(...one reason why I was getting lax in blogging). In this same period one of my friends Victor was asking me how F1 car manufacturers and parts providers benefit from the races. The following link should help explain how this helps: Goodyear Eagle F1

Changes again...

2004-04-05T01:35:00.000+05:30

...please to comment...much obliged!!!

An open request

2004-04-05T00:12:00.000+05:30

Would you want to recruit a person who knows the syntax of a programming language thoroughly, including every comma and syntax (or as the case might be, every control of a form or every trick of a tool; you get the idea) or would you rather recruit a person who can analyse and wants to solve problems?

For me the above question is a basic no-brainer. Any given day of the week I will go for the latter. Knowledge of syntax, tools etc. will surely help but are not essential. The keys traits that I require are curiosity, analytical skill, and above all a driving need to solve problems and take on challenges. For a long time I have interviewed people on these basis. To be entirely frank I have had to recruit freshers into the company after checking on only their basic theoretical skills but that was due to the fact that the company was on head-hunting spree and to meet the numbers we were trying in to get in every potential candidate. However for interviews to my own group I try to be much more stricter and really require people who are ready to solve, who know more about software engineering than just the tools of the trade, who have some inkling of what is going on around them. I strongly feel hat every person should aspire to be problem solvers rather than expert of an inanimate thing like a language or a protocol.

After reading the above paragraph you must be having a fair idea of where I stand on the matter of interviews and interviewing. (For an even better idea check out my favourite links about this subject : Joel on Software - The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing & "MadMan" on interviews) Imagine my surprise( or a rude shock depending on how you look at it) when I found from my friend that in all the interviews she has attended (as an interviewee) they always ask her syntactical questions( of the variety of how is a certain interface called and with which keyword or which function in which java library is required to do XYZ job). Come on!!! That’s what manuals are for. Why in the name of heaven would a person want to learn this information by rote?!?

I could rant on forever but that is not the goal of this blog.

The main concern I had, which made me write this blog, is to do with the advice that I regularly give people (yup, people actually come up to me for advice!!!)
Whenever a kid (broadly meaning younger to me either by age or experience in IT) has approached me with request for guidance for career growth I have always told them to be problems solvers. My normal advice is to not just be an expert in a certain language or tool. Instead I ask them to be an expert in the domain they are working in and gain enough expertise in tools to help them solve problems faster. Key phrase being ”to solve problems”. Now with this new knowledge of how interviews are being held I am worried whether I have been giving the wrong advice all the time.

So now to my request…can you my readers please give me an idea (from your practical knowledge) of what my advice should be? I would not want to mess up people’s chances making them conform to some idealistic professional Shangrila I have.

Many Thanks for the same.

2004-04-04T23:43:00.000+05:30

Faramir

If I were a character in The Lord of the Rings, I would be Faramir, Man of Gondor, the humble younger brother of Boromir.

In the movie, I am played by David Wenham.

Who would you be?
Zovakware Lord of the Rings Test with Perseus Web Survey Software

And thanks for all the fish...

2004-04-02T01:18:00.000+05:30

Thank you for all your comments about the look and feel of the page. I will work on it this weekend...lets see if the next version is better. Was busy this evening...so do not have much to write.

In the meantime why don't you pay a visit to ANON's page. The link is available on the right. He has added a lot of links and scripts which could be useful for your own sites.

NJoy the day and hope no one was made a fool of yesterday:)

More tinkering with the format.

2004-03-31T02:37:00.000+05:30

I just do not seem to find any peace with my format. I have changed the colours again. What do you think???

'I was taken by surprise' - Tendulkar

2004-03-30T01:55:00.000+05:30

The debate on whether the call for declaration (in the 1st Indo-Pak Test Mach at Multan) came at the right time will continue for some time. (I personally think that they should not have played after the tea session). However I found the comments made by Tendulkar quite unneccessary and immature. I love the guy but he needs to understand that every word he says is fanatically followed by fanatical fans. He should have better restraint than openly coming out with his disappointment. For a team to perform well it must be seen to be One...and Tendulkar's comments('I was taken by surprise' - Tendulkar) are not helpful in that context.

Thisis something that I find shocking in Sachin's communication with the world. On the cricket field you can see the amount he has matured as a player. However outside the field he sems to act childish...first with his ferrari car, now with this. He seriously needs an image advisor!!!

This was my take on the situation. Comments as usual are most welcome.
(Tum ek comment donge to main do doonga :))

RSS feed rectified.

2004-03-29T02:38:00.000+05:30

I just realized that my RSS feed had the wrong link. Rectified it with the link provided by DarthPedro. Now the RSS feed should be working fine.

While on the topic of realization I noted that I have not apologized for my absence from this space last week.

So a big apology to all my readers, and heartfelt gratitude for people who worried about my absence. I was just a little busy with some stuff and blogging kinda took a back seat. However I am back!!!

So keep blogging all of you!!!

I confess...

2004-03-29T02:13:00.000+05:30

...I oogled at two beauties tonight.

The beauties in question were exquisite, powerful, tempremental and the pride of their owners!!!
One was the 500CC std. Enfield of Ranjith. Great vehicle. Got the phots...will try to post it soon. His bike has a military feel to it. I like that look a lot!!! Ranjith, lets here mor about your relation with her on your blog!!!

The other beauty was the new Indica bought by Mandar. Now this is one beauty with a large heart and a large bosom. The color of this vehicle was a very fine color of mettalic blue. I think the actual shade is called Amethyst Blue. One really smooth vehicle. 1600CC, Diesel engine, power steering, central locking, sony system...great vehilce. Good buy Mandar!

Cn't wait for my vehicle to come!!!

Manchester United 1 - Arsenal 1 !!!!!

2004-03-29T02:05:00.000+05:30

Another draw between the Gunners and the Red Devil’s. Man! You need to have a pacemaker to see these two teams fight it out. You cannot rest till the very last minute. My friends Ranjith and Mandar were over to watch the match. Ranjith is an Arsenal fan and cam in Arsenal gear. Not to be outdone both Mandar and myself were wearing Man U t-shirts. So as one can imagine we had a great time watching the match.

However my honest opinion is that the match was Arsenal’s to win. They should have sealed Man U’s fate but let them go scot-free. I think Arsene tried to get defensive too early ion the second half. Arsenal was better when they were positive and attacking.

Anyways this result will not affect the leader board too much and Arsenal seem all set to win the Premiership this year However one is left wondering that the Gunners have still not managed to stamp their authority over the Devils.

Great Innings by Sehwag!!

2004-03-29T02:04:00.000+05:30

I do not have much to talk about today’s game as I found the wicket quite one-sided leading to a very stale first day(enjoyable only from India’s point of view). Nonetheless, I am very happy with Sehwag’s performance. Especially the fact that he stuck to the task of making runs throughout the day. I always feel that he is wasting his talent by just being a hitter. With a little more thought he can keep hitting and still make big scores. Today he proved that in the most convincing way. Great work dude!!! Go on to make 300+

A night at Gaurav, Parag and Surya's Kholi :)

2004-03-28T01:52:00.000+05:30

We spent Saturday evening at Gaurav's place. Had a whale of a time.

First Parag treated us to exquisitely fried fish. The taste was just out of this world...to add the good feeling was the aroma...hmmmm... nothing like fried fish to uplift one’s spirits. When you add the fact that we actually had some spirits (Chivas Regal to be specific) then you can understand that the environment (mahol) was getting to be quite enjoyable.

We started off by playing UNO. This is one hell of a game. Had great fun, especially when Surya had to keep picking up cards as he kept forgetting to say UNO at the penultimate cards. This was all the more hilarious as he felt that this was the most stupid rule and no one would forget such a simple rule, and here he was picking up card after card :D. However full marks to Surya for being a very good sport!!! I for one will be ready to play another game with him anytime.

And we must not forget Parag picking up a card and forfeiting his turn though he had both a number card to play as well as a colour card and could have played either. Thoda high ho gaya hoga J

On the food front we moved to the main course…roti, chawal, chole, raita and gobi. I cannot speak for the roti as I did not have any. I preferred the combination of rice and chole with raita. My all time fav…especially as the raita was boondi raita J And the chole was fabulous…do not take my word for it…check this out with the best chole maker this side of the Vindhya’s…my wife. Both of us absolutely loved the chole…so if any of you PYT’s want a husband who can cook a killer meal of chole then try out Gaurav J (for fried fish Parag is available J)

Anyways after the meal we moved on to light entertainment; playing all MP3s and dancing till midnight.

A fabulous evening with great people…a most auspicious way to enjoy the weekend.

Song of the evening … “Jahan Chaar Yaar Mil Jaye Wahin Raat Ho Gulzar” – Sharabi.

Friday Five

2004-03-27T13:59:00.000+05:30

If you

1. ...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?
- Continental

2. ...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?
- Books

3. ...wrote a book, what genre would it be?
- Detective (Noir)

4. ...ran a school, what would you teach?
- Programming

5. ...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?
- Hard Jazz

Learn more of friday five at the following site: the friday five.

Result of malaysian grand prix web poll

2004-03-23T01:09:00.000+05:30

As can be seen the readers of this site would make great poker players. Schumi won this poll comprehensively as can be checked here.

Dravid shines again; so does Schumi!!!

2004-03-22T01:51:00.000+05:30

Again the old dependables came to the fore and made my day on this great Super Sunday.

First Schumi and Ferrari gave a big morale buster to the rest of the field by Schumi winning the Malaysian Grand Prix and Barrichelo coming in fourth. By winning on a track which was supposedly not so great for his car he again hpwed his quality. Hats off to him.

On to the match. Over the last few matches I have been of the view that it is the responsibility of the openers to stick till at least the 10th over. If they do make fast runs it doesn't hurt but sticking around also helps the team by wasting the efforts of the opposing lead bowlers. For eg. Sehwag might score a blistering 25 in 15 balls but he needs to be around otherwise we will reach the situation we reached today. Thanks again to the WALL and to the two youngsters, Yuvraj and Kaif for not losing their heads and playing a very composed innings. This victory is only due to their efforts. And a special thanks to our fourth batsman...the Pakistani bowlers.

Just check these stats of the top four scores of the Indian innings.

R Dravid not out 76 runs in 141 balls
M Kaif not out 71 runs in 79 balls

Extras 37 runs in 0 balls
Yuvraj Singh c Yousuf Youhana b Mohammad Sami 36runs in 44 balls.

So again, a special thank you to the Pakistani bowlers!!!

And of course one more thank you to Dravid cause...

...DRAVID IS GAWD!!!

CSS Color Names

2004-03-21T00:51:00.000+05:30

For all you Bloggers out there with little knowledge of Web development and lots of imagination here's a site to add colors to our life and site: CSS Color Names.

Atoms, RSS feeds, Aggregators, Comments and Trackbacks and more!!!

2004-03-20T02:25:00.000+05:30

For a detailed article of one or all of the above visit DarthPedro: Random Thoughts. Good blog. (Also gives me a chance to be lazy and go to sleep earlier:) )

Friday Five.

2004-03-19T12:40:00.000+05:30

1. What was the last song you heard?
- Life is a Highway- Tom Cochrane.

2. What were the last two movies you saw?
- Ab Tak Chappan - one of the best movies of recent times in Hindi cinema.
- Lord Of The Rings - The Return Of The King.

3. What were the last three things you purchased?
- Maggi Instant Noodles
- Iced Mocha
- Pizza

4. What four things do you need to do this weekend?
- Study quotations for new car.
- Watch Malaysian Grand Prix. Hope ferrari do good here.
- Write a scope document related to my work.
- Watch 4th India-Pak one day match(Cricket). Very important for India to win this one.
5. Who are the last five people you talked to?
- Meghna - my wife
- Jenny - my friend
- Ravi - my friend and team-mate
- Niraj - my friend and team-mate
- Arvind - my friend and team-mate

Learn more of friday five at the following site: the friday five.

Neil Gaiman...the man behind Sandman!!!

2004-03-19T02:00:00.000+05:30

Again Thanks to DarthPedro for pointing out this great man's weblog. Why is he great? Well just hop over to Darth's site(DarthPedro: Random Thoughts) to check that out. However in addition to all that DarthPedro has pointed out I must add my bit.

For me Neil Gaiman is GAWD for one thing and one thing alone...He made "SANDMAN". I am not in any way capable of giving a precis on the Sandman series. Suffice it to know that if you see the Sandaman comic anywhere, then beg, borrow or steal it as each of this comic is a reaaaaal trip. I kid you not!!!

It is one of the best series ever and really really deep. (please do not confuse this sandman with the sandman from the golden age of Marvel Heroes). So kiddos go out and get it!!!

You can find his blog here: Neil Gaiman's Journal

One more friend in the blogsphere!!!

2004-03-19T01:32:00.000+05:30

I have been speaking of the usefulness of trackbacks to a lot of people and today I can show you a practical case. I had a trackback on the Dilbert feed and took the leap to the link mentioned. It was a page named DarthPedro: Random Thoughts. A well written and well maintained site.

Now before anyone jumps to a conclusion that I am writing this piece in a kind of I'll scratch your back you scratch mine attitude please allow me to continue.

Anyways I was going through his blogs in chronological order and ended up at the latest. Now please bear in mind that I was in his area due to the fact that the Dilbert feed connected with him and he wanted to help spread the word. Well the same feeling came to me reading his blog for the 17th as i was about Neil Gaiman. Don't know who I am speaking of? I will explain more in the next blog.

As I was saying trackback is good. Thanks DarthPedro for taking the trouble to use this service.

Manjrekar was the cause of our loss!!!

2004-03-18T01:29:00.000+05:30

Call me paranoid, superstitious or any thing you want but I think Manjrekar was the cause of our loss against Pakistan.
It is a proven scientific fact (generalizing wildly and using lot of imaginative leeway of course!) that whenever Manjrekar comments about how great the Little Master is, and how difficult it is for bowlers to get him out, his wicket falls. Even this time just when Manjrekar mentioned that it looks like Sachin will be difficult to dislodged he got out...that too to the very next ball. And this is not the first time!!! I have seen this happen for the last 3-4 years. Sachin did not perform too well in the world cup due to Manjrekar. In Australia with no Manjrekar around Sachin flourished. So the secret to winning this series...bring Manjrekar home!!! And if possible ask him to bring along Sami and Shoaib too :)

But I see you are still not convinced. You say what about the good performances of Balaji and Powar? Well you can thank my wife for that. She studiously kept her head buried in the daily paper and that is the reason they flourished!!! Guess I am going to buy all the daily papers for the next match. My wife's ken will beat Manjrekar's ken any-day!!! :D

Pakistan 1 India 1

2004-03-16T23:47:00.000+05:30

We lost this time to Pakistan. The match was fun nonetheless. Again there is scope for improvement. Sachin’s innings was top class but failed to help India win. And it is not often that you see the Wall crumble. Balaji and Powar showed the big boys how it is done :D. However my fav today were the Pakistani bowlers. Wish we could have combined coaching camps before the next world cup. Sami was the pick of the lot and I consider that his bowling was a very important factor for tying our batsmen down. At the end of the day Pakistan and cricket (as my team-mate was saying this morning) won.

However I was more interested with the Prasar Bharti fiasco. How can a company take a free feed from someone else and still have the shamelessness of showing their own ads. Many Indians are pissed of at Ten sports for supposedly playing spoilsport. I must disagree with this view. Ten runs a business and as such they are going to watch their bottom line. It is not for them but for the government and Prasar Bharti to worry about the Indian people. If Prasar Bharti had shown last matches telecast without trying to make money by showing their own ads then they would have got the higher moral ground and Ten Sports would also have been pacified. Instead Prasar Bharti just showed what top class idiots they are by not only taking apiece of the pie but also leaving the signal unencrypted thus affecting Ten’s profits all over the world!!!

The government could have solved this issue as soon as Ten had got the rights by getting into the act earlier and convincing them to let DD also show the feed for a minimal cost with unaltered signal. I am sure that sooner or later Ten would have seen the benefit of letting their signal ride on DD thereby getting a chance to reach all oparts of India.

We Indians need to come to a decision and need to make that decision soon, do we want to take the capitalism path. If we do then we need to understand, appreciate and respect the market. A monopoly is bad but so is stealing. I am not trying to take a holier than thou position here as I am myself guilty of these very acts. However in the whole picture we need to inculcate an attitude where we either pay for what we want or else make do with the alternative. That is how the open market works and we cannot step into it half-hearted. We cannot try to use Socialistic ideas whenever it inconvenient and capitalist ideas on other days. It has to be a full push towards one or the other goal. Looking at the state of socialism around the world, and considering how Indians are more materialistic then communal in today’s age, I guess the only real approach is capitalism for us. In this atmosphere stupid acts like ones by Prasar Bharti cannot and should not be tolerated.

What do you the esteemed reader think?

WTF!!!

2004-03-16T01:22:00.000+05:30

I have heard of close matches and easy ones. We have sat through desperate times when India has gone all out to lose matches. However, West Indies second innings in the 1st test match 1st Test: West Indies v England at Kingston, 11-15 Mar 2004 defies logic. 47 runs(5 runs were extra) all-out!!!. I do not even have any comment to make. Last time it was 54 all out now 47...are they trying for a dubious record of getting max number of low runs record!!!

Check out this pic of all ten England fielders round the bat, West Indies on the receiving end of a field setting that used to be their speciality.

Ides of March

2004-03-16T00:46:00.000+05:30

Beware the Ides of March Ides of March they said. He did not and fell prey to the scheming sycophants and the misguided friends close to him. This was thousand of years ago.

Yesterday was the Ides of March and I had my warnings. I almost went the way of Caesar but clear sense prevailed and I was saved. Maybe I am being melodramatic but the 15th of this month is quite a date for me as it is closure of all the year’s finances for my company. In other words means that it is the last day to put in your claims. People who know me will realize how this is one of the most difficult chores for me. Nonetheless this time I grit my teeth and managed to find every damn bill from the whole of last year and (surprise, surprise!!!) managed to file all of them in TIME!!!

It saved me a hell lot of money and pleasantly surprised all people close to me (especially my darling). I even managed to get a few comments on my growing sense of responsibility and maturity. Luckily for me she does not know that I watched WWE at night. : D

Getting back to the claims part, is it just me who hates taking care of all the bills and making claims to the finance departments? An open question to all of you. Please feel free to use the comments link to answer.

Dilbert RSS feed

2004-03-15T00:30:00.000+05:30

For people out there who have a RSS feed reader(more about RSS here: Scripting News Feed and here: About Blogs, Atoms and RSS feed!) here is a great feed...daily Dilbert to your desktop.

Next gen browsers - Firefox!!!

2004-03-15T00:23:00.000+05:30

Installed Mozilla Firefox today. It is the latest in the Mozilla chain. To be more specific Mozilla was an Open Source offshoot of Netscape, combining a whole suite of browser, mail and newsgroups readers, chat engine etc. Then the team cam up with a standalone browser called Firebird. The plus point was that as it was not a suite it was much lighter in its memory footprint. Now do to one reason or another (which can be found at their homepage) the name has changed to Firefox. His browser is a lean mean killing machine. Its footprint is really small and it has a whole slew of features attached. One very good feature is that we can use keyboard quote efficiently in this browser. Another plus-point is the concept of extensions, which are basically add-ons or bolt-ons, that can be attached to the browser for specific needs. One must try it out!!!

once more refactoring of the page.

2004-03-14T01:32:00.000+05:30

Many of my friends viewing this page in IE with lower resolution and medium text size were having to span width wise to read my blogs properly. I am not yet conversant with web designing, hence this stopgap arrangement. Once I clearly understand what my code is doing I might be able to make a more elegant look. Please comment if you are finding any problems with the layout of this page.
Please note that I have also changed the date format for the archives to make it less foreboding and added the poll as a link to the top of the page.

1 down 4 to go!

2004-03-13T23:43:00.000+05:30

India wins the first ODI. Made heavy weather of it but won it; and for now that is enough. The match was tense as usual (cannot remember the last time India had an ODI which was not nail-biting…ICC should give us special allowances since we make every match, even one’s with Kenya and Canada, a nail-biter).

Nonetheless for all the problems both teams had the match was great fun. It was to be expected that the ODI series is going to have batting friendly wickets but the totals amassed was way beyond expectations. It was a treat to watch Sehwag, Ganguly and Dravid play the innings they did. (At this point I just wanted to put forth a new idea…how about Sehwag gets only half his match fee if he does not last till at least the 25th over) However the innings of the day, and the one instrumental in a well deserving man of the match title, was the innings of Inzy. He has always been a person with immense potential but has rarely lived up to it in recent years. This innings was worthy of his legend and completely overshadowed all the other innings of the day, including a gusty from Youhana. Really shows how an Indo-Pak match can revitalize the players.

A special mention must be made of the crowd who made it a point to applaud good cricket irrespective of nationality. With such auspicious beginnings we could resurrect the greatest rivalry of all time. Here’s to a hope that all the other matches are played with equal enthusiasm (albeit with less mistakes and more accurate and tighter bowling) and healthy spirit of competition.

An aside, did anyone notice the look on Shoaib Akhtar’s face when he bowled out Dravid. He was happy for the wicket as signified by his upraised hands but I felt that his face betrayed a tinge of sadness for Dravid. This was the first time I have seen a muted celebration of a wicket by Shoaib. I guess it shows that the respect for a good cricketer knows no boundaries.

Footnote: Pak got back by winning the hockey game against India 4-2. Well you win some and you lose some.

We are going to Athens :-D

2004-03-10T03:09:00.000+05:30

India has qualified for the coming Olymics and so has Pakistan. Please read the story here: FOX SPORTS | Breaking News | Pakistan, India book Athens spots (March 10, 2004). Well done to our lads!!!