26/11: To all those innocent people and brave men and women who lost their lives. May their souls rest in peace. (Photo source: http://www.markmallett.com).

Perfect Timing

I just love these watch ads on print. The Swiss ones especially. "XXXXXXXX, Geneve, Swiss Made". Fill the XXXXXXXX with the name of your favorite Swiss watch. Different variations but essentially the same theme. Makes one feel that watchmaking is a cottage industry in Geneva. Which might well be the case. Almost all the brands' ads feel similar. Some show timepieces in such an enticing way that it might easily drive a person into becoming an obsessive watch addict. Put in a male celebrity in a black jacket (or a female one in a cocktail gown as the case maybe) and put a watch on their wrist. Some other brands show golf and tennis celebrities having a ball of a time wearing an expensive timepiece from the watchmaker's collection. While the dial's big enough to stand out like a neon sign, they try to make it as subtle as possible by focusing on the successful celebrity. Very understated. Very hush hush. It feels as if they are advertising some feminine care product (which, I must have to say are not so discreet these days).

There's a new James Bond movie. Which means Omega is going to throw all discreet stuff out of the window to make sure you know James Bond's timepiece of choice (the Omega Seamaster, just in case you didn't know) no matter in whichever corner of earth you are hiding. I am sure you must be familiar with the ad by now. Mr. Bond is tactfully holding a gun in such a way that the jacket and shirt cuffs move up to reveal the face of an expensive watch adorning the wrist of one of the most famous leading men on earth (or movies) with the byline "007's watch of choice" or something like that. You get the feeling that if you were lucky to get into the MI6 or 5 or whatever, you'd get a nicely cut suit and a Swiss watch as standard issues, which unfortunately, is not the case. But for all that advertising, I am sure the watch sells. I know. I know because I gifted myself a Swiss watch with my first full-time job's first paycheck (every cent of it went into the watch and I survived on borrowed bread and water for the next two months). What I didn't know at that time was that these watches were not as strong and rugged as they were made out to be. So though I didn't do any double somersaults or jump off planes without a parachute or go sailing in Monaco, within six months, my new shiny steel watchband was all scratched up. But despite that, the watch was worth it. It felt nice wearing something that cool. I didn't mind going on a diet for the next 30 days. But now I knew why Commander bond always wears a full sleeved shirt when he has a Swiss watch on. Q might allow James to bang up a couple of Aston Martins (no, again they are not standard issues in MI6, or 5 or whatever) in every new assignment, but will not tolerate even a microscopic scratch on his Swiss watch. That would amount to gross misconduct in Q's rule book. So the next time you buy an expensive Swiss watch, make sure you wear it when you are wearing your Sunday best. On other days, better wear your $20.00 Timex which you bought in that Thanksgiving sale. That's what I do. OK, Let's leave it at that.

I recently came across another ad that takes the cake. This one is for Swatch and is also related to the new James Bond movie. Now, before you start thinking that James Bond has gone shopping for cheap stuff because of the economic downturn, let me explain. His watch continues to be Omega Seamaster (recession be damned!). The Swatch watch (I like the sound of that) I am talking about is worn by the villain. Now that's what I call a flash of genius. Since the leading man is already tied to another brand by contractual obligations, get the next most important man in the movie, the villain to endorse for your product. They even have a website listing the "007 Villain Collection" (http://www.swatch007villains.com). I never knew that the Bond Villains also had their own preference for watches. Or, maybe they chose Swatch simply because it kept more accurate time than all those handmade automatics (I meant watches, not guns) and costed a fractionth of the price. After all, for these supervillains, time was of essence and every second counted while their diabolical minds planned to take over the world. Whereas for Mr. Bond, he'd get into action only after downing a few martinis, checking out some local beauties and getting almost killed. Talk about lethargy. A few seconds here and there wouldn't matter. That heavy slab of metal called Omega tied to your wrist can really restrict your movements. I also see another reason for Swatch being the Villains' choice. The watches are quite funky and over the top, just like the villains' personalities. Cool. My next watch is going to be a Swatch.

Welcome to Wall Street, Las Vegas

With all this financial meltdown going on, saw a nice ad in the newspaper. Sometimes a picture says a thousand unsaid words.

The caption reads: "When did Wall Street and Las Vegas merge?". To be honest, to me, they always were the two faces of the same coin. You risked what you could and come out a winner (rarely), or get burnt (and learn your lesson) or lose your shirt. Of course the odds of losing might be different (in Vegas they say the house always wins) but then isn't it something you always knew? As the French say, C'est la vie.

Gordon Gekko's thumping statement "Greed is good" in the movie 'Wall Street' no longer feels like sweet music to my ears. And as the greedy guys like me get cautious, Mr. Warren Buffett goes shopping. Just like he said, “Be fearful when others are greedy. when others are fearful be greedy.” For me, its a lesson well learnt. Greed's definitely not good.

Trave(b)logue

Been traveling again. Three hotels in two weeks. And all in the same city. Sounds crazy. Feels crazier still in reality. I can't imagine how the backpack travelers go about their road trip. But there have been some positives. For example, I can wake up and go to work without having to worry about making the bed in the morning. I can just walk into any food joint and eat something and need not bother to wash the dishes for dessert. But the best is yet to come.

A nice calm beach. Setting Sun. Seagulls hovering around the pier. Kids building sand castles. Grown-ups having a good time. And you in the middle of it after having a difficult day at the office. It is difficult to imagine such a scene in the middle of a city. However, it is true. Tucked away in a corner of San Francisco's busy Fisherman's Wharf is one such little beach. No sign of frenetic activity and a picture of perfect serenity. When you are sitting by yourself in such a setting, its difficult not to relax. As the breeze blows I see this pretty lady in a miniskirt that is too short to keep the chill out but is of the right length to warm me up (without the need of a jacket). And then some more pretty girls (who need jogging just as much as a fish needs a mobike) jogging by in their designer jogging suits. Nice. Just cross the street from Ghirardelli Square and there you are right on this waterfront. I guess the city civic officials try hard to maintain such pockets of sanity intact. Full marks to them.

Discovering such spots that isolate you from the hustle and bustle of the city and providing a moment of peace is enough to make such long travels worthwhile. Thus said Confucius.

Dis-CERN-ing Universe

Finally, 20 years of hard work of Physicists and Nuclear Scientiests from all over the world will see the light of the day at the CERN (in English, it translates to European Organization for Nuclear Research). They have come up with this mother of all accelerators called the LHC or in their terms the Large Hadron Collider to conduct the mother of all experiments. Not that I am a theoretical Physicist or even vaguely connected to anything nuclear (or nukular as some like to call it) but then I put my finger into everything that’s not my business. What the heck! So long as nobody’s complaining, I wouldn’t worry too much.

So they end up building this large circular tube like gizmo called the accelerator which has a few kilometers radius and spans across two countries (France and Switzerland). And now on September 10, 2008 they are going to conduct the first of a series of experiments to discover what happened at the Big Bang (or the creation of the universe). By “they” I mean a bunch of bright Physicists from all over the world and mainly from Europe. Sorry, I tend to be vague sometimes. I am sure that this LHC is one heck of a boy’s toy. Nice. Let’s hope they come up with some great results too that would end up re-writing our Physics textbooks. Its darned boring to read the same stuff over and over again.

What also interests me is the data they are going to come up with and how they are going to sift through it. Seems one single experiment will end up generating a lot of data. And then some. By a lot, I don’t mean that it will fill a few pages of a Lab Book or a few Lab Books but enough to fill around 100,000 DVDs. So the Scientists are going to use “Grid Computing” or Distributed computing to analyse this data. I first heard of this at a conference last year where HP showcased their servers some of which are installed at CERN. Once the experiment is completed, the data will be distributed across different computers across the world and each one will analyze a fragment of this data and send it back to the central computer at CERN. I can’t imagine how they can come up with such kind of ideas. But it does sound real cool. CERN has been nice enough to put much of this stuff on their website (http://cern.ch). So for some days to come, I am going to keenly follow what’s gonna happen. So while I am still trying to figure out why the sky is blue, Scientists have gone ahead figuring out how the sky and earth were created or what elements created them. Needless to say, we live in interesting times.

Fighting the Su-do-ku Mafia

A group of my friends are good at Su-do-ku. I call them the Su-do-ku mafia. They solve the online su-do-ku at http://www.websudoku.com (category: hard) in under 4 minutes (the average time taken by users is under 5 minutes from the stats shown). The average time for me is around 20 minutes with a record of 13:54. So when I talk about my times with this mafia, I get a lot of faces that seem to say, “peasant!”. Well, all brains are not alike. And I am still trying to work on my times. Brain-training as per Nintendo DS is a long time-consuming process and takes time. Earlier on, when I started on sudoku, I used to have a heavily scratched sudoku sheet in the daily newspaper because one way or the other I used to skew up the grid by filling it up with completely wrong sequence of digits. I guess my logical brain is not as developed as Einstein’s but so long as I can add digits when I go to the supermarket, I’m fine with it. Speaking of which, I have noticed that I can add numbers faster in my head now than before. I surprised a grocer by adding more than 10 lines from item price-list (which included weird change amounts) in head faster than his calculator. Nice. Perhaps, Sudoku has helped in other ways. Hope I get to improve my times and surprise my friends too.

And its not over yet. After that, its the Rubik’s cube for me. And there’s a story behind why it will be Rubik’s cube next. I was once waiting for a flight in the airport when I saw this kid around 10-12 years old who was tossing around the Rubik’s cube as if it was some sort of a toy he had become long tired of. His Dad who was sitting beside me took the cube mixed it up for almost a minute and handed it back to the kid. The little whizkid took a look at it and solved the cube in 3 minutes flat! Cool! It should not be that difficult if a kid can solve it. I will too. Someday. But first let me beat the su-do-ku mafia.

Creativity or the lack of it.

As I keep going through some blogs on the net, I am amazed by the amount of creativity they contain. And they show how much creativity mine lacks. Its a revelation. I always try to post something that sounds interesting. Unfortunately, I never complete it because I run out of ideas the moment I type, "It was a dark and stormy night." I never go past that line. Must be something to do with the so called "writer's block". Or it could be that creativity is the domain of a select few and I don't belong to that club.

So I decided to abandon blogging and pick up writing (that way I can keep myself busy and be off blogging for a long time). I keep reading about so many people who quit their cushy jobs and then wrote a book which eventually became a NY Times bestseller (raking millions for the author in the process) that I am frequently tempted to follow the road taken by them. So far, better reason has prevailed and I am still sticking to my job which is the sole source of my bread and butter (and jam). But then I couldn't resist googling "How to write a book?". Result? You guessed it right. I come up with so many hits that I could easily write a book about it. But some people have already beaten me to it and come up in the search hits. There are books which teach you how to write. There are workshops that teach you how to write. There are tips given by other authors on how to write fiction, non-fiction, science-fiction, etc. And then there are podcasts. Whew! The information is overwhelming. I guess that there are so many souls out there who want to write or want to teach someone how to write that I can say for sure that there won't be a library in the world that could store all those books. Which is good. Books are always good. But now the challenge is to find a good site. I have been sifting through some and it will take some time before I can even go through at least 1% of them. I might as well write a book first. There's something even on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y99p13p6hvE).

I will go through these sites and see what works for me best. Lezzee. So for now, I am planning to do my homework about writing. And then I will write. Till that time, I blog. Ah! for the want of creativity. Ciao.

A Dip In Merc-curious Rising

Whenever celebrities are interviewed and are asked about their secret of success, there is almost always a stock answer. "Dream big" and "hard work". These terms are no longer secrets for someone's success. You can use "Dream big" and "hard work" to safely summarize an entire content of a famous person's 1000-page bio or autobiography without even reading a single page. Yet, both these terms are as elusive as they come and are still the privilege of a select few.

In my case, my idea of being big was to own a Merc (a CLS to be precise) by the time I knew how to drive a car. Yea, I am quite a material guy. Yet I am still searching for that elusive Merc (just as the Spanish conquistadors searched for the El Dorado) though its been some years since I learnt to drive. So I started looking back to analyze on what went wrong. A sort of a reality check on why I still can't afford a Merc. One thing sure did stand out. I could never accuse myself of not dreaming big. I was dreaming big while I was supposed to be studying. I was dreaming big when I was supposed to go out and play. Whenever I picked up a textbook, I would doze off like a granny counting on her rosary beads. I preferred to stay inside rather than play ball with other kids. Caught napping was a term that was associated with me like swimming is now associated with Michael Phelps. So in a way I was dreaming big uh.. big time rather. And I dreamt about Mercs too which is definitely a "dream big" thing. Goes without saying that "dream big" part did happen in my life.

So that brings up the question again. Why don't I still have a Merc? My investigations continue. The next thing in my list is "hard work". Now, if you ask me, hard work is a relative term. Some guys can just go on working for 15 hours straight and still look fresh as a daisy. Workaholics! For some, a 2-hour paper-pushing job exhausts them to an extent that you get the feeling that they have been working beyond all human endurance levels. I fall somewhere in-between. Around say, 8-9 hours? I haven't tested myself beyond that. For me that's productive hard work. So looking at where I am today, I think that in-between thing is what is keeping me in-between. Neither a spectacular success nor a spectacular failure. Just a normal average VJ. So I guess I'll still have to wait for that Merc. That wasn't hard. A normal average VJ. Honestly, it is a hard truth to digest. A normal average VJ :-( . Even after popping half-a-dozen antacid pills and downing an alka-seltzer bottle. Normal and average. It would sound real good if I were are celebrity and when interviewed, I'd say, "beneath this famous exterior personality lies just a normal average VJ. A guy-next-door VJ." Dream on. Sigh! For now the spartan Suzuki will do.

Going Green..

Olympics 2008 has started. And the Chinese authorities had been doing their best to make Beijing cleaner. Some of their moves to clean up the city have been really cool. But I don't know how the people of Beijing are taking it.

Looking at the way my city has grown in the past decade-and-a-half (its no Beijing but its surely been growing), and the problems its started to have, its amazing to even to think that its the same sleepy town it used to be when we had first set foot here. The wheels of development can surely move fast if people take the right initiatives and implement them. Anyways, since now I call it my home, I have decided to give something back to help my city in my own small way. So I have decided to go green to some extent. Its been some years since I had cut down on commuting by vehicle. I walk down (though the pedestrian walks are almost non-existent) to nearby stores. I wish the city civic authorities make the city more pedestrian friendly. No more plastic bags for me as far as possible. And of course, water. The city had a severe water shortage sometime back. Its taught me a valuable lesson in conserving water. I will never forget that lesson.

I had read somewhere that to save an email it takes around 20 tonnes of coal (no kidding!). So while I was backing up my system, I deleted a whole bunch of .pst files which contained some pleasant and unpleasant memories (I'm sure I wouldn't have read those emails again anyways). I have also cut down on my time in front of the computer and TV to save a few kilowatts of power. And from now on, will try to keep my posts small too. Slowly but surely, these are small but significant changes coming into my lifestyle. Its tough but I'm hanging in there. And if it can save a few trees and keep the air clean then I guess its the least I can do. I wish more people from the community start doing their bit too. Good for the city and good for the planet. Just like the Olympics.

Bullet lovers, kick this guy out of your clan

I guess the easiest way to go from uncool to cool is to go buy a motorbike and stride it. And if its a Royal Enfield Bullet then you rule the roads. So there are some morons who take this easy way out without learning the responsibility that comes with driving such a royal beast. Thus they end up giving a bad name to the clan.

I came across one such moron, who I guess thought that striding a Bullet would make him an unaccountable lord of the street. In my opinion he was an arrogant menace on the road (who is yet to know how to keep the machine running in bad traffic). Why do I think so? Well, I am waiting at this traffic light when this guy on a Bullet cuts across from left and stops right in front of me because I try to maintain a safe distance between the other vehicle in front. With shades (which I'm sure he must have bought at a flea market sale) and iPod earphones minus the helmet, he was looking every inch a guy the road could do without. And just as the signal turns green, his bike stalls (no fault of the Bullet). Instead of giving me the way by pulling to the left kerb, he tries to start his bike and fails while still standing between my way and the signal. After a full 30-second wait, with the vehicles behind me blaring their horns, when I try to alert him of the outside world by giving a friendly toot, he turns around to give me a glare that almost melts those flea market shades. Nutcase. Just before I think he's gonna get into a road-rage tirade, with almost perfect timing, heaven comes to my rescue and his machine starts and off he goes. Mr. Wiseguy now cuts across two entire right lanes to go straight leaving me stranded at the red-light for the next 180 or so seconds. Some traffic sense this.

I've got no axe to grind with the Bullet lovers. My good friend is a member of Bullet Riders club and I hope to belong to this exclusive club one day. But if you are a Bulleteer just make sure that you kick this guy out of your clan. You don't need such black sheep in your fold.

Easier said than done

It had to happen someday. My laptop crashed last week deleting my profile. So now I have learnt my lesson and have started to back up. I had never bothered to back up stuff earlier (not that I have much stuff worth backing up, but that's another story). To start with, I was supposed to pick up files from couple of folders and put them in the portable drive so that the sys admin could re-configure the system. Unfortunately, with the way I organize my files, its becoming an unmanageable task. And driving me nuts! Wish there was an easier way out. Backing up is a task easier said than done. Period.

How fast can you run?.. back to school

Some years back, a friend of mine challenged me, "how fast can you run?" What he meant was not how fast I can run on my two legs but how fast I can grow in my career. His principle was that the faster you run, the faster you can climb in an organization (flipside, you can fall harder as you climb higher and you happen to miss a step). Now looking back at what I have done so far, I see that I might have been "running" consistently but have reached nowhere (I get a feeling that I was running on a treadmill all this while). So, I went back to my friend and told him that his "how fast can you run?" strategy is zilch. He smiled at me and said that he now had tweaked his theory. His latest line is, "how fast can you switch tracks while running fast?" For him the new mantra is "change". If you cannot change, or if you cannot adapt (without missing a step) to the competition while you are running, rest assured you are a dodo (yea the extinct bird). Yea, he sounds a bit like that English bloke Sir Charles Darwin. I listen to my friend's advice because he's been quite successful himself. I guess by changing his own fundamental mantra, he's stayed ahead of the competition. Lesson learnt. The next time I get some words of wisdom from him, I will make sure its tweaked according to the prevailing conditions. Now I feel more assured and ready to switch tracks.

So, as a part of this exercise (of running and switching tracks), I recently enrolled myself into a part-time course in Financial Management. Don't ask my why. I wouldn't know the answer anyways (its hard to think and do stuff while you are running). I had a vague feeling that its a start (a worthwhile restart, to be precise) and I hope I can achieve something by the time I finish the course (at least get to understand such bizarre terms as "credit" and "debit" or hopefully know how to balance my checkbook). If I finish the course, that is. People joining part-time courses are notorious for dropping out after the initial drive is gone. They feel that this is one new dimension they cannot handle in their already busy schedule. I hope I don't succumb to this syndrome. Wish me luck.

Searching Seoul

Another eventful week and another interesting travel. This week I had to make a short hop to Seoul, South Korea. This is one country (out of a hundred odd other nations) which I know very little about. To be honest, if you asked me to point it out on a world map, I'd be stumped. Such is my ignorance.

In my 3-day stay in Seoul, I discovered that it is a lovely city with some very lovely people. The experience started at the hotel in which I stayed. The hotel has some of the most courteous staff I've ever encountered and a very distinguished ambience that easily beats some of the other good hotels I have stayed in other countries. Added to this was a night life that was almost 24*7. At around 2 am when I peered out of my hotel room (my biological clock was still set to my country's Std Time) which faced the downtown street, I could see people huddled under umbrellas (it was monsoon season and a typhoon seems to have hit the country) at the bus stops waiting for buses and taxis. And it seemed to be a safe city too considering that I could see some women also on the streets at that unearthly hour.

The way the city was organized was pretty amazing. It has some underground networks below the street that connect various buildings in the downtown and also has a mall of its own. Lovely! Beats the hassle of negotiating through traffic to cross streets.

Speaking of which, what amazed me the most was the lack of small cars (or compact sedans) on the streets. Most of the time (by which I mean 90%), I could only see a variety of Korean and imported luxo-barges and nothing less. I haven't seen so many S-Class Mercs and 7-series Bimmers (or is it Beemers) per square kilometer elsewhere. And mind you, I hardly saw anything smaller like the C-Class or the 5-series. I guess the people here go only for the real things. One of my hosts told me that Seoul has some of the most horrendous traffic jams and some of the most expensive real estates in the world. No surprises there.

The weather was muggy but bearable. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to explore the downtown or the city to my satisfaction (it was all work and not much play). But I vowed to myself that I would return someday. Which is why I'm collecting some more info from the net on Seoul and South Korea in general. So if you get to read this post and you've been to Korea or know about Korea, do drop me a note. Thanks in advance.

July '07 - July '08

Its just over a year that I started to blog. At that time I didn't know what blogging exactly was. I still don't know much about it. But it was fun going back in time and checking out all the stuff I had done in the past eventful year which otherwise I'd have conveniently forgotten. Never would know that documenting experiences could be so interesting. Nice.

All those darned definitions!!!

Do you remember this problem from high school. "A block of wood slides over a wooden inclined plane having an angle theta. Compute the distance the block will slide before friction stops it." (or something like that). Why would anyone even worry about a dumb block slide over a dumb inclined plane? Weren't the wheels invented to save you from all that trouble? The only time I would have worried about such a thing would be if I belong to the ancient Egyptian civilization and was building pyramids (great structure those! built before they could fully understand the wheel). So coming back to the problem, a totally unconvincing and impractical issue.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am reading that funny but interesting book "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman". So while reading this book I hit this interesting chapter about the education system in Brazil. At some point in his distinguished academic career, Dr. Feynman taught students in a University in Brazil. From his personal teaching experiences, Dr. Feynman mentions that the education in Brazil was quite pedantic, by which I mean bookish. Students were supposed to read a book cover to cover and then memorize them. Thus the students could easily rattle off a huge complicated definition or identify any complex scientific theory from a book. But if they had to explain it in terms of occurring in nature or understand the practicality of the phenomena, they would be lost. This was particularly true for students of Engineering and Physics. No wonder, Dr. Feynman found the Engineering and Physics students quite dumb when it came to applying their knowledge.

Having said that, looking back at what I studied and what I understood (in practical sense, that is) I don't find myself in a situation dissimilar to those students at the Brazilian Universities. Looking back I now realize that the things I felt quite complex and going over my head were actually so because I could never relate to the practical usage of those theories (my experimental observations were always extrapolated in the lab because we could never get the right readings). So was Math. Math always was and has been my nemesis. The only thing I could do well were the Partial Differential Equations and Trigonometry because they were quite elegant and I had a great Prof. who taught them well. But now I realize that if I found practical examples for those other problems I'd certainly be much more comfortable with Math. With regard to Physics, I never had a genius for imagining things in my mind (just like the problem I mentioned at the start). It was during this time that I came across these great eye-opening books "Maths can be fun" and "Physics can be fun" by a Russian author named Yakov Perelman that changed the way I looked at these subjects. Unfortunately, I could not sustain that interest for long (completely my fault and not those books). And all those darned definitions one had to memorize!! It was like taking a very cold shower on a very cold morning (couldn't think of a more apt comparison. When I do, will re-edit). Brrrr!! I still have nightmares about my grad school days.

But if you still are studying or have a passing interest in Physics or Maths, don't miss out on the books by Perelman. They will certainly change your views about these so called difficult sciences for the better. So have fun while you learn.

Several disappointments later...

On my return flight home last month, I happened to sit right next to an exec working for a top Silicon Valley company. Let's just call him Mr. X. The good thing about him was, he had enough anecdotes about his work and life to make sure that I never had a dull moment in the long flight. He was kind enough to tell me that he was traveling to start an offshore team that was to work on a project that would revolutionize the way we use mobiles in the near future. The concept itself was quite amazing. I don't want to go into the details as it would be a breach of confidence. But coming back to the point, wish I met such people more often when I take these long arduous trips. I recall one of the anecdotes he narrated about his company's CEO. It went this way. As any self-made millionaire who might have a taste for good things, this CEO is an avid car-collector (Seems he collects cars just as one would collect bottle caps). To make sure his execs also follow in his footsteps, he conjures up events and ideas that require them to be up-to-date with what's in their garages. One such event was to host a dinner. Now, if you ask me, a dinner where you are invited with a fancy invitation card is no big deal for men of his stature. But what was interesting was the dress code printed in the Invite. It was "911". No mention of any black jacket and tie, just the 3 digits 9-1-1. Mr. X laughed out loud seeing the bemused look on my face, and explained that the dress code meant the invitees were supposed to come to dinner driving a 911, that's right a Porsche 911. Otherwise, they had to make alternate plans. Wow! Some CEO, this!

In addition, Mr. X had other interesting stories that described how his friends turned their humdrum life into rags-to-riches story. He was also quite modest in describing how he used his technical skills to manufacture a machine for a fractionth of the cost of the original and thus saved a big expenditure for his elder brother's workshop. And so it went on for almost the entire duration of the flight. On any other day, I'd have said he was a bore. But he had my entire attention for the entire flight. After sometime I was not even aware that I was stuck in the middle seat for 18 long hours!

The learning I gained by sitting next to Mr. X was unique and I'm sure I might not have got if I was sitting beside someone from my own professional community. Anyways, this goes to show that life at the top or with people who think differently can be quite interesting.

Speaking of which, during the same trip, I also picked up this interesting book "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" by Nobel Laureate Richard P. Feynman. I'm not a big fan of non-fiction and scientific works but this book surely got me hooked. The book was about Dr. Feynman's views about the world, his life and his research and is a real page turner. Long back, my friend had suggested me to read this book, but at that time I detested anything that had too much Physics or too much Math. Well, better late than never. I suggest this book to anyone who would like to just have some fun while getting an insight into how Science and Engineering developed in institutes like MIT, CalTech and Princeton in mid 20th Century. And yes, this first person account is full of interesting and funny anecdotes, incidents and tidbits to hold onto your interest.

Sometimes, it is anecdotes like these that spurn you into the tedious activity of thinking hard. And it usually starts with, "What would I do if I were him?" or "Yes, this seems to be a great idea, but will it work?" And then you go through a funny and not-so-funny roller-coaster of thoughts. I have had my share of inspirational thoughts but everytime I put them to practice the ideas just fizzle out or the plan gets scuttled by my well-wishers who say that its never going to work. Very disappointing. Several disappointments and failures later, Mr. X and Dr. Feynman surely changed my perspective about smart and successful people. Some day, I would really like to do something that I always wanted to do (though I first need to figure out what I always wanted to do). I might not be smart and I might be a spectacular failure but I definitely would love to try once.

Someday, for sure. Surely, I am not joking, Mr. Feynman.

Tears in Heaven

A decade ago, if you had asked me what the national pastime of my country was, I would say movies and cricket without hesitation. Today, a decade later, if you ask me the same question then my decade old answer will no longer be applicable. My answer would be mobile yakking. Yes, jabbering away on mobile seems to be the latest fad. Nowadays, you cannot have a face to face conversation with anybody for more than a couple of minutes. After your two minutes are up, either their mobile rings or they tell you to call them up on their mobile to continue the conversation later. This is what I call the "conversation hang-up". Just the other day I saw 4 people in a car all glued to their cellphones. For all I could guess, they might have been talking to each other using the cellphones out of force of habit. Or they just hated each other with a passion!

I heard somewhere that DWT (Driving while texting) is a traffic offense in Boston. Makes sense. So is talking on mobile while driving illegal in many countries. This is illegal in my country too. But as the saying goes, laws are always made to be broken. There is no exception to this rule. What an irony! this is one rule (the rule to break rules) that never gets broken. How many times have you seen people yakking away to glory while driving, crossing the street, in movie theaters (despite the request to switch off before the show begins), in restrooms and God knows where else! For some, turning off their mobile is like switching off their life-support system. You can see the person fret, fume and in general behaving oddly.

Recently, I was driving in my own lane and in general minding my own business when I had a bitter experience of this mobile yakking phenomenon. As I was taking a very legal right U-turn (after carefully watching the oncoming traffic), out of nowhere, comes a youth on a motorbike (read moron) with a mobile glued to his ear and a missing helmet. The late Evil Canievel couldn't have managed it better. The path of this mobile youth (in every sense) intersected directly with my turning radius. Perfect. Evil Canievel, bless your heart, are you listening? Even you would have thought twice to do such a stunt. This is where my decade and a half long experience in driving took over and I narrowly averted turning this mobile youth into an immobile vegetable. Funny thing was, the guy felt that I had committed a crime by not going over him (on second thoughts, he was closer to the truth than he had imagined). He condemned me to eternal damnation 'cuz I had cut his call short and he had to outmaneuver me to avoid dropping the mobile. Some nerve! I just can't get to understand why it is so important to take a call while driving. For that matter, 99% of the people I know can't do two things at once and they keep telling me so. So why do people actually talk and drive at the same time??!! Does that mean that they're talking gibberish because they are only driving or are they just talking and not driving? Or does our brain switch between driving and talking in an instant as and when required? Either ways it simply does not make sense.

Well, to all those people who feel that today their mobile is more precious than their dear life or driving, try not to let your mothers have the callertune "Tears in Heaven" on their mobiles tomorrow.

How Not To Make A Complete Ass Of Oneself In A Funny Situation

Do you ever laugh or at least smile at a joke that's directed at you? Do you? I don't. I believe I have a good sense of humor as long as that humor is directed at someone else. But if the joke is on me, a good laugh is the last thing on my mind. I'm sure some of you are like that too. They say that the ability to laugh at oneself is one of the toughest qualities a person can have. IMHO, its a must-have. Funny! we can't see the lighter side of ourselves. When reading a newspaper or a magazine I sometimes wonder how do these politicians and celebrities tolerate all those funny caricatures and cartoons the mean cartoonists make of them. If someone did such a thing to me, I'd go through the roof. Which in my opinion, is a bad thing. In some funny situations or in some not-so-funny situations, you need to know how to grin and bear it. Or just know how to laugh at yourself. That's going to save you a lot of trouble. But getting a smile on your face at that moment seems to be the last thing in the world you'd think about. Strange! how some simple things which can stop you from tipping over don't happen. I guess its because we react first and then think later.

My friend has a simple solution to this. When you're about to explode, just take a deep breath and put yourself in the other guy's shoes. See how he feels about it or why he thought what you did was funny. Then you will realize that you're not the perfect guy (the way you look everytime you see yourself in the mirror) about town. You might even find that you are as geeky or as quirky as the guy who you always poked fun at. But let that not overly hurt you. Learn to live with it. Or try to make sure that the you won't give them a chance the next time (easy to say but hard to practice). Well, that's what friends are for, to give such free advices.

My boss has a similar belief. He says when he's with his long-time and childhood friends, and they goof up, its his undeniable duty(!!!) to give them a hard time (or in his words "crap"). Just because they're his best buddies. And they seem to take it in good humor too. Because he does it in a good-natured way. He's also nice enough to admit that when he slips up, he gets a lot of crap in return. But he sure does have a good sense of humor. He has the whole team in splits during meetings. He says that its his way of keeping himself from going mad. Cool.

And that's another thing we need to keep in mind. If we want to tick someone off, do it the right way. At the same time be ready to face it like a man when you are at the receiving end. We forget this paradigm and make a complete ass of ourselves. At least I keep forgeting this paradigm and end up making a complete ass of myself. But I am learning and I guess I will keep on learning. Its not an easy subject to master. Rocket Science should be a piece of cake. Don't get mad, get even!

Jet Lag and Boiling Oil

It has been one of those traveling weeks again. Hopefully, I’ll be getting my silver club membership soon with the airline I fly. That’s the least of my problems. Long flights can be tiresome. And jet lags can be horrendous. Hence, I am awake and writing this blog in the middle of the night. So, I’ve picked up this new hobby besides Origami. And that is Stocks. I have been religiously following the world of stock markets. And the reason I am following the Markets (as they are known in the world of finance) is because I have invested in stocks. My portfolio boasts of stocks which when sold today would fetch me enough for precisely one oil change for the car and leave me with enough spare change to buy jujubes. I am sure you’ve never come across another guy who’d invest so much of his time mulling over oil change and jujubes. Well, when I first decided to invest, I was under the opinion that a few years from now on, the same portfolio will let me buy a good car. So, I started to worry over how I would invest my hard-earned money. My friends say that I should stop worrying and might as well spend the money on oil change and buy jujubes and be done with. I’m giving this idea a serious thought with the way the Markets are playing around with my investments.

Another suggestion from my friends is that I should place my bets on oil. Seems crude oil is getting more expensive by the minute on the NYMEX. Speaking of which, I read this interesting article in the WSJ (yea, yea the very same Wall Street Journal. I read it. No kidding. Thanks to my investments). I read it in more detail than any Wall Street Investment Banker would do. And I’m not one of them. Speaking of which, nowadays, it seems to be uncool to associate yourself even remotely to investment banking. Such is life. Have I told you that I have invested in stocks? So, coming back to the article (in case you lost track, I wanted to mention about an article in WSJ). This article I am talking about was actually an interview with the Chevron boss David O’ Reilly. And from the interview you could gather that despite the good profits, the Oil Boss was a bit skeptical as to how the oil markets were changing. He was skeptical about foodgrains being used for bio-fuels; he was skeptical about how the oil policies are working or not working and so on. But the part that caught my attention was that this big man has switched from Cadillac Escalade to Cadillac STS!! Whoa! Oil baron who earned $45m downgrading his car is a little scary! Or maybe he is becoming environmentally responsible, which could be a good thing. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a sign of changing times. And I hope it will not be the “There will be blood” type. Maybe I should stick to my friends’ first advice and go for that oil change and buy those jujubes while I can still afford them.

Of Lazy Summer Afternoons, Yahoo! Answers and Origami

Summer this year has been going from bad to worse as far as the weather is concerned. It started on a warm note, then went cold with unseas onal rains and now its back to hot now. Its that time of the year when you need to take shelter under the cool air-conditioning vents and refuse to move out from there. Which is what I am exactly trying to avoid. I have made a resolution to stay away from AC (ACs seemed to have contributed to global warming by releasing harmful CFCs and affected the ozone layer) this year. So, this is my contribution to green living. Which means I’m sweaty, smelly, grimy and frightfully dehydrated. Perhaps I should chuck out green living and get back to healthy living before I fall sick.

To keep my mind off the heat (and the smell, grime and dehydration), I found a new pastime. Which is, contributing to Yahoo! Answers. In case you didn’t know what it was, it’s a site where people will ask questions and then some serious experts, not-so-experts and some people with enough time on their hands (like me, for example) post answers. Most of it is done in good faith. Till I started on Y! Answers, I didn’t realize that there were so many people willing to help for free in this world. I now get the feeling that the world’s not such a bad place as it is made out to be, after all. Good for us. And with the points system (which doesn’t earn you anything like those stupid sky miles), its painfully addictive. Everytime I try to reach a certain level, I feel egged on to go to the next. But I’ve made a promise to myself that I will be answering only those questions about which I know a bit or if I can find the correct info when I google. So far I’ve kept that promise. No point in giving stupid answers or on issues I know nothing about. Instead, I try to learn about them from others' answers.

Speaking of which, that is how I came across some interesting websites with equally interesting information. In a way, asking questions spurs your imagination or makes you think the way you never thunk (sorry, thought) before. For example, some of the things I learnt about are, how to keep cats from littering on your front porch? what’s the biggest state in the US? how to restore a Ford Model T? and so on. But the most positive outcome of Y! Answers was my learning Origami. Yea, that very same Japanese black art of twisting paper into various shapes such as a dove, swan, airplane, etc. If you’ve seen the TV series “Prison Break”, you’d know what I am talking about. Michael Scofield (the main character, portrayed with near perfection by Wentworth Miller) leaves telltale origami swans as his callsign, which play a big role in his escape from a high security prison. Its such good fun that now I put all those useless catalog mails to good use. I’m turning those ugly screaming ad-filled sheets into beautiful doves, swans, airplanes, etc. Now, I see a 3-D shape in every 2-D paper. I feel I'm doing the same thing as they do at the Ford Model Agency. Turn everyday common material into supermodels. Its so satisfying that it feels like zen. Maybe I’ve found my true calling. So until I find something better to do, its Origami for me. Ciao.

Of iPods, Tourism and Books

Do you listen to books? I mean not read them but listen to narratives? I'm sure you must have had someone read out from picture storybooks when you were young. As you grew up to decipher the alphabet, you were on your own, straining your eyes at different prints and scripts and absorbing the thoughts of the writer and making opinions of your own. If you are reading this blog I'm sure that you must have formed an opinion of me already. Well, that's what books and essays are for. And good for us too.

I use my iPod almost exclusively to listen to music. Once in a while when I'm bored with the music tracks I've been listening to again and again, I just put away my iPod and then forget about it. That is, till the next time I feel like to listening to music.

Anyways, I recently found two other great utilities for my iPod. One of them is, listening to audiobooks. Speaking of which, I was aware that audiobooks existed but was skeptical about them. I felt that they would take the fun out of reading. Then one fine day, when I was bored out of my wits and was browsing aimlessly, I came across this site called librivox (http://librivox.org). Out of plain curiosity, I downloaded one of the audiobook's chapters for a trial run. And I liked it. Since then I keep visiting this site for new updates. Most of the times, the readers do a good job. Some of them (not all) even modulate their voices and accents to suit the characters in the book. Sometimes, it feels nice to close your eyes and listen to someone reading out passages from your favorite books. You get to relax in a nice way and at the same time are giving your strained eyes a bit of rest.

Coming to the other use of iPod. This is what I call the "iGuide". While, preparing for my trip to Paris, I was researching for a good site that would guide me around the city while I was there. There was way too much information for a first time visitor when I googled and I was totally lost as to where to start. First, there were printable maps. Then there were Bus tour sites that would pick you up from your hotel and take you on a tour and so on.

And then I found two other cool things due to my persistent googling. One of them was a nice interactive map software (trial version) of the city for my Palm. If I keyed in my present location, I would be able to find my way around the city and also easily locate the famous tourist spots and hotels. Which also meant that I could do away with carrying those cumbersome street maps which always tend to get slapped onto my face by the wind just as I am trying to desperately locate the "You are here" spot.

The other most interesting find was this iGuide thing. There is a nice site called Zevisit (http://www.zevisit.com/) which had audiocasts of famous tourist spots. These audio files contained narratives about famous spots in the city of Paris. For a first time traveler with a limited budget and no tour guide, this is a real useful tool. All I needed was an mp3 player (which I had) and I could start to listen about the site as I roamed around it. This would save me the trouble of reading from a guidebook and walk around at the same time. Of course, I just plugged in the earphone into one ear so that I could listen to the city sounds with my other ear. The narratives in the podcasts were nice and well made. They made my experience of Paris all the more interesting. Wish they come up with such good stuff for other cities too.

Now, I truly feel that I'm making good use of my iPod. I'm not into music in a big way. So I used my iPod occasionally. With the audiobooks and the tour trips' podcasts, this little tool has made itself indispensible. Good for me.

How I made "Virtualization" a reality

Sometime last year I attended this session that was hosted by Hardware Tech Gurus. Lucky me, I get to do these things once in a while (Yawwwwn!). Everyone who was anyone came up with something or the other that they claimed would change the way we would work and it will be the next best thing after the invention of the wheel. A revolution of sorts. But the one thing that everyone agreed upon as a great useful concept was something called Virtualization. It Seems that virtualization is a great leap ahead in data storage. And there was a valid reason that the Hardware gurus to be excited about it. And that is the amount of data being added is growing by the second in terms of terra bits. Interesting!

Another interesting fact: It seems that 50,000 people log on to the internet for the first time, every day!

So considering the amount of traffic and the volume of data you have, its not surprising that the hardware is simply not able to scale up to the required level. A study indicated that 8-10% of the power generted in the US today is used by these servers. Massive! So the great computer engineers came up with this concept of virtualization. If you ask me what this means, I would be at a loss to tell you because I myself could not understand enough of it. What I understood though was, that it makes a single physical resource appear to function as multiple logical resources. Or make multiple logical resources appear as one. Yes. Duh! To me it sounded very much like Michael Keaton's movie Multiplicity where he duplicates himself to do different chores around the house. Simply put, this is in a way similar as what you would do if your home PC's disk got to near full capacity. You would have to either delete some files or add another disk to add more stuff. Since data in servers is sacrosanct and cannot be deleted just like that, hardware engineers add more disks (at different physical locations) and spread the data across multiple disks. But when you access this data you never would know that you are accessing info from multiple storage areas. Amazing, isn't it?

And I am proud that I've had a miniscule role to play to make this thing exist from being non-existent. How? You might ask. Go ahead, ask. Simple. By writing this blog. You see, just as tiny drops of water make an ocean, in the same way millions of people like me who store all this worthless information (which no one reads) on others' free servers. So one fine day the servers do not have enough space for storing important data like your friend's anniversary, pics of your ex, pics of your present, videos of us doing goofy things, your favorite music, the forwarded joke (which you would never read but will store for eternity thinking you'll read them someday), etc. This has led to a crisis of sorts in the computer world.

To resolve this very crisis, scientists had (didn't have a choice, did they) to come up with ideas of creating storage spaces out of thin air (now you see the connection? "virtual"ization as in "virtual"?). So now I revel in the fact that in reality (or in virtuality or virtual reality or virtual whatever) my data might be stored in different computers across the world but is still accessible at my finger tips. Just like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces fall into their respective places the moment you command them to. Some technology this! Want to read more about it (I mean virtualization)? Just google and you'll get enough information that'll fill up a couple of terrabit servers to their overheated gills. Happy Searching!

Fly like an eagle..

Have you ever noticed an eagle flying in the sky? It usually flies alone. And I suppose it enjoys its flight. To see where I am going, let me start where it all started. I've been getting a lot of "It's time you found someone" from my friends lately. Its their feeling that its about time. Well, I'd be happy if I found someone but I definitely am not going to lose my sleep over it.

I do come across some of my co-workers and colleagues who feel that they're missing good times by not being in a relationship. The peer pressure of people around them doesn't help either. They rue over the fact that they don't have much life on weekends which makes them dour and dull on normal workdays. These people are not alone. Based on my internet browsing experience, I've come across many such people who share a similar opinion. "Trapped in loneliness", that's what they call it. At the same time, I see people who are into a committed relationship sighing how little time they have now to spend for themselves because in whatever little time they have, they are busy doing this or doing that with their better halves or their kids. They long for that never available precious time for doing that special something which they always wanted to do but never did. One such committed guy admitted that he sometimes envied my simple life. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. Or maybe your neighbor always has the best lawn mower.

I do lead a simple life in fact. When I am not working, I spend most of my time at home (sweet home) playing computer games or doing stuff that keeps me busy. Since I don't venture out much, I can safely say that my social life is not something to write home about. Most of my friends keep in touch with me online and thus ensure that I need not hang out with them often (as I said somewhere in this blog before, I have the social skills of a neanderthal, so they prefer to keep in touch online rather than in person. Some of them also have the excuse of living in different countries.). So the only time I get to go out on a regular basis is when I go out to do some grocery shopping, etc. This averages to about a grand total of a couple of hours a week. Since I've laid down a rule for myself that I won't date someone from work (I admit that I did break this rule once [I'm prone to breaking rules], but not planning to do it again.) walking down the aisles of the supermarket is the only time when you can say I get a window to meet the other people of the world. Honestly, two hours per week does not seem to be enough. And the people who come out to do groceries are not exactly there to hang out or meet people. Admit it, its a boring chore that everyone wants to avoid and get quickly done over with and invariably you are not dressed in your Sunday best or as if you are going to date on a Friday night. This adds to the challenge. The other time I get out is when I am traveling. But since its mostly business travel, again, not much life after work. Its just do-your-business-and-then-travel-back-home.

So what about my weekend? Weekend for me means, playing Wii or Age of Empires, reading books (thrillers, mainly), or catching up on weekly Su-do-ku or Crossword for almost 5 hours (most of it indoors as you might have observed). Or I simply catch up on my sleep. Or got online and catch up with friends. Did I tell you they prefer catching up with me on the internet only? Summary of my life. Dull? But definitely not boring. I sure do get my (so-called) work-life balance.

So, I definitely don't lose my sleep on being single. IMHO I would rather in fact cherish the time I stayed single (which I'm doing) just as much as I would enjoy being in a relationship. No point in worrying about the things that would happen tomorrow today. And when I find that special girl who's going to change my schedule (my weekend schedule especially), I'll definitely go along with her. I'm pretty sure that one of these days I will return from my grocery shopping with something more than I can chew on. But till that time, I'd prefer flying like an eagle, and enjoy every bit of the flight.

So the next time someone tells me, "It's time you found someone," I'll say, let time decide that for me.

As Steve Miller sang:

Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin
Into the future

I want to fly like an eagle
To the sea
Fly like an eagle
Let my spirit carry me
I want to fly like an eagle
Till Im free

(pic: http://www.firstpeople.us)

Paris state of mind

Its been almost 2 weeks since I have been to Paris. But the city still seems to haunt me. My work in the recent past has taken me to quite a few places. But no place has had an impact on me like this city did. I guess its due to the fact that I had read so much about it even before I set foot in it. I like reading fiction especially the books that deal with espionage set at an international scale that take you on a journey around the world while you are still seated comfortably in your armchair. At one time I had this phase of cold-war spy thrillers which somehow or the other used to have Paris as a part of the main plot or at least a sub-plot. For instance, the hero catching a train at Gare du Nord or Gare du Lyon, Or a car chase through the Arondissements of the central city, or spies exchanging information while having cafe au lait (or espresso) at one of the famous roadside cafes, etc. One of the most vivid scenes I remember is the car chase shot from the movie "Ronin". And the other one is the houseboat on Seine which is the residence of Duncan MacLeod (portrayed by Adrian Paul) from the TV series "The Highlander". It was like having a myriad of thoughts about this city in Europe where so much action takes place even before I set foot in it. Perhaps, it could be simply due to the fact that I visited the city as a plain tourist rather than with business as the prime motive. And the city didn't disappoint me at all.

Right from the moment I entered it via the ghastly building that serves as its more famous airport Charles De Gaulle (Orly being the other one), it lived upto its reputation of being one of the most romantic places on earth (if you are a traveler, that is. I really cannot comment on the life in the city as a Parisienne considering the short time I got to stay there). Travel writers and novelists claim about cities and places having characters of their own. I could never quite figure out what this "character" meant. Until I saw this city, of course. For me a city is just a large colony of people living in some buildings out of which some buildings are monuments just due to the fact that they were constructed in the previous century. Paris changed my perspective. Now I understand what a city with character means. It means that a city (or for that matter a place) can have character. Not clear? Then I will leave it there. I will never be able to explain it.


A walk on the north and south banks of the Seine over the weekend was like reliving all those novels which I had read since the time I started reading books without pictures. For a moment all those places which were only names in the books just started to materialize as signposts of streetnames in front of me. Pont Alexandre III, Place Vendome, the Latin Quarter, Montmarte, Quai d'Orsay, Notre Dame.... I had to pinch myself to believe that this was for real. And of course the other proof was the imposing sight of the Eiffel Tower which stood tall enough to remind me that I was in the land of the Gauls. Amazing! Those French pronunciations, those bridges spanning the Seine, the roadside booksellers hawking paintings of the Mona Lisa and the Notre Dame, the famous Hotel De ville with its more famous skating rink in the front, the Louvre museum with the glass pyramid entrance, the street side cafes where you can just pop down for a cafe in case you're tired of all that walking. Paris is also known for its famous gourmet Restaurants such as George V on the avenue Champs Elysees. Whew! Its too much of a city to cover in a weekend.

And the Museums! I suppose Paris has more artwork and museums than the whole of Europe put together. I finally got to see "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh in Musee d'Orsay. Manets and Monets hung right next to each other. Standing so close to these masterpieces! By the look on the face of the museum guard who was sitting there with a bored expression while we tourists were happily clicking away at the painting with our digital cameras, I strongly suspected that these were clever fakes and the real paintings were safely lying in a vault someplace else.

Perhaps I shouldn't blame the guard. After all, this was Paris.Even the most exotic thing you could think of is at an arm's reach as an everyday object. I could see a Rolls parked unattended near Arc de Triomphe. Or a fleet of black S-Class Mercs (with chauffeurs whose black suits would have only come from an exotic boutique) parked like Fiat Cinquecentos on the Champs Elysees. An experience worth savouring like a good French wine.

Even as I boarded the return flight home, I was in a Paris state of mind.

Pictures worth a thousand words - II (Mercedes F700 and BMW Concept)

I could not resist putting pics of this exotic creature before I went to bed. So here goes:

From the front, it looks as if the C-Class's and S-Class's (2008 models) noses were stretched down to cover for the bumper. A bit too large for my liking. But nevertheless..

Suicide doors. And you can have a business class legspace inside (above). Notice closely (below). A transparent shield over the turbine shaped alloy wheels. Cool huh!

Even a Merc can look evil. The take no prisoners look from the front (below).

And equally mean rear (below)

And now for the BMW

Still the Bangle influence, I guess.

Pictures worth a thousand words and then some

Bugatti by accident... It was by sheer accident that I almost crashed into this concept car show in Les Invalides Hotel in Paris. Luckily my camera was handy. So here are some pics of Bugatti EB18/3 Chiron (The beast has 18 cylinders and generates 555 bhp! Mon Dieu! A worthy successor to Veyron?). Later I'm going to upload pics of F700 concept from Mercedes. Till then..

Nissan Mixim (below):

You had a bad day just sing a sad song....

Some days are just not yours. They squeeze you out like an orange and just suck out every ounce of energy from you. At the end of it, if you still keep your cool then you must start a monastery in the Himalayas or take sessions in Anger Management. You know what I mean. Yea, bad days. They can be so .. ummm.. bad! Just like the one Daniel Powter described in his song. Nice song but incredibly difficult to put into practice.

Research says that you have a bad day if you don't get adequate sleep. Either if you have woken up early or slept late (basically lack of sleep makes you nasty). In my case it started with both. I slept late AND woke up early. Not my doing but the weather just didn't like me being cuddled up in my bed for long. It all started with me going to bed with this unputdownable thriller. One of my vices is reading late into the night if I get a good book in my hands. I find this blissful as its quite quiet and it doesn't take much effort to concentrate with all the silence around. With the novel in my hand, I forget that there is this thing called time warp which does a number on your brain and you lose the sense of time. So by the time I looked at my watch the little hand had traveled twice around the dial after it had stuck 12. Time for me to sleep. I woke up after what I felt was only 5 minutes. It was 4:30 am. Time warp thing again. The rest is history I'd love to forget. The whole day was spent nursing a dull headache and listening (my ear plugs were nowhere to be found even after a frantic search) to an all day classical music lesson marathon which one of my unkindly neighbors had taken up for their pastime (I guess they are into research and experimentation on waging some kind of musical warfare on humans just like one of those chemical warfare things) just on the day when I decide to work from home. And then the daily Sudoku in the newspaper which I tried went awry. This was followed by interviews with a couple of guys who felt (or knew) that they knew more than I did. Downright rude! How I hate such kinda guys! They had picked up a wrong day to mess with me. I rejected them with the same amount of ruthlessness as Lex Luthor would use to kill Superman. Rather unkind of me but I am allowed to throw some meanness back at the big bad world that's been hurled at me by it. The only bright (or should I say a least painful) thing that happened was the spectacular crashing of the Stock Market (seems to be a record of sorts and people are calling it the Black Monday). Right after the day I had invested in some stock with my hard earned money! The stock is now at 75% of the price at which I bought. Sweet. I guess I should just kick my late night novel reading habit and wake up well after the Sun rises. Hope that brings some sanity back to my life. Let me try at least. Sweet dreams. Tomorrow's another day.

Non sequitur: I found this nice poster while browsing some site (courtesy: http://in.rediff.com/). Though I don't look like that guy even by a long shot the pic's a near accurate description of how I felt the whole day today. Shoot those darned demons lurking anywhere around.

...........
Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
...........
Excerpt from "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter

A Whiff of Class

Last night by sheer accident, while I was channel surfing on the TV, I came across a channel that was playing the movie "The Day of the Jackal". It felt nice watching an old classic. This is not the one that starred Bruce Willis, Sidney Poitier and Richard Gere. That one was horrible. This was the original that was shot in 1973. I had read the novel several times earlier on but never got a chance to see the movie. The book is one of my personal favorites and I always wondered how the movie would be like. Usually, as you all know, when you watch a movie thats based on a book, it won't be half as good. Case in point, "Da Vinci Code". I slept off by the time Tom Hanks got out of the Louvre with the pretty Ms. Tatou. Most of you who have read "Da Vinci Code" and also seen the movie will agree with me on this.

But surprise, surprise! I really liked "The Day of the Jackal". Though I wouldn't say that it was as great as the book, it certainly came close to it. The Director stuck to the details given in the book and never once took a diversion from the novel. The screenplay was excellent. What caught my eye was the editing. How one shot moved seamlessly into another so that sequence of events were being depicted from perspectives of both the protagonist as well as the assassin. Later when I checked the details of the movie in IMDB, I found out that the film had won the BAFTA award for Best Editing that year. Gave myself a pat on the back for my technical observation ;-) I won't go into the plot details as it is a thriller and if you want to see it, it would only ruin the fun. There was this whiff of class in each of the character. And the actors played the drama with understated panache. Uber cool. Those movies of the sixties and early seventies had their own charm and elegance. And before I forget, the cool Alfa Romeo the Jackal drives is nothing less than beautiful. I think the new Alfa 8C Competizione takes its design cues from this car. Pity they don't make cars like that anymore.

If you get a chance, do watch the film. That's my reco. A must watch, in my opinion.

Going Green - Nice link

A friend of mine sent a nice blog. If you are a Greenie like me then probably you will appreciate it:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Simple but effective way of telling things.

Fooled by a TV prank

It is certainly not funny when a prank you saw on TV happens to you or you assumed if it happened to you.

Sometime ago I had seen a TV prank which at that point I thought was outright funny. A guy is traveling in a car on a backroad in an Australian outback when he comes across a Traffic light right in the middle of nowhere and its on red. This is a straight road and there is no crossing. Added to this there is absolutely no traffic for miles. He waits patiently for a long time and when he loses his calm he tries to jump the signal. And the moment he crosses, a huge black patrol helicopter lands from nowhere and gives him a ticket. Before he can recover from the shock, a bunch of guys who were recording all this in a hidden camera come out and reveal that he's been tricked. They go on to explain that the traffic light, the helicopter, etc, were actually a set up. It felt quite funny too. Imagine a patrol chopper coming from nowhere to give you a ticket in the middle of nowhere because you could not wait forever for a red light to turn green in the middle of nowhere.

Speaking of which, almost a similar thing had happened to me and I nearly ran into trouble. While driving down on a side road from the famed Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, me and my friend came across a Stop Signal that never turned green for a long time. We waited and waited but the light would stubbornly stay red. Mind you this was not even a cross road or a crossing. It is a narrow single road with a Stop light right in the middle of nowhere. You see what I mean? Similar scenario to what I had described earlier. Just ahead of the traffic light the road turns a sharp right and it is a blind spot because the road runs right next to a mountain.

As we patiently waited for what we thought was forever, there was another car that came and sat with equal patience behind us for the light to turn green. I had narrated the traffic light prank to my friend only a few days earlier. Finally, we were almost certain that either this was the same joke now being played on us or that this light was broken. Why else would you need a traffic light on a road without a crossing? Thus thinking (like a bunch of smart alecs) that we were smart enough to put the prank back on the pranksters we started to roll forward. That's when the car behind us started to honk at us like mad. Usually, a car behind you honks if you don't move or they feel that you are getting in their way, right? But there are some rare (very rare) drivers who honk to warn you. We got the feeling that this guy was the latter. Otherwise, why would someone honk at us as soon as we were trying to get out of his way? So we stopped and backed up to start waiting again. Soon we realized, what the light was all about. This road which I mentioned took a right and went right through the mountain as a single-laned tunnel. At any given time traffic from only one direction can pass through this road. So once every 5 minutes, traffic is stopped on one side to let the traffic from other side flow. In our case there was no through traffic coming from the opposite direction when the light was red for us and hence our suspicion of this being a prank had become stronger. Since the road turned right immediately it was difficult to guess what was on the other side. Probably a chopper waiting for you to make a mistake. Thanks to the driver behind us, we avoided getting into trouble. We later had a good laugh about it but it still haunts me to think what'd have happened if we hadn't heeded to the guy who had alerted us.

Looking back, it felt funny the kind of things can get you into trouble. A silly TV prank playing on your mind! Nice.