SuperManeesh

Moving

2011-05-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

It seems like all good things indeed do come to an end. This blog was created prior to the social media era of facebook and myspace. Most of my personal posts, pictures and links now show up within the confines of my fb wall and twitter timeline. Without them, this blog has mostly dried up.

I do want to continue to pen my thoughts without the baggage of my erstwhile blog. I have decided to move to a new location- maneeshsahu.tumblr.com

Hope to see you there!

Mexico City is a Zoo!

2009-07-31T16:27:00.001-07:00

Blog post title got your attention, didn't it?

I was in Mexico City and passed by these beautiful life-sized, sculptures of wildlife from all over the world. This is a part of an Animal Celebration initiative to raise awareness about the destruction of native habitat and the need for their protection.

Each exhibit has a sign next to it that reads - "Sálvame" (Save Me). Animal Celebration is a great idea and I hope other cities follow suit. The sculptures will be available for display until November and will be visible on the central Paseo de la Reforma. They will eventually be auctioned off with the proceeds going towards the Wildlife Fund.

Rupa & the April Fishes

2009-06-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

I had the good fortune of seeing a local SF band, Rupa & the April Fishes, perform at the Stern Grove. They blend together trumpets, cellos, an accordian, guitar, drums, the tabla and some awesome lead, female vocals to produce harmony and energy.

The lead singer, song writer and guitarist is the amazing Rupa Marya. Beyond just her music, I was impressed at how she juggled her Doctor/Rockstar career (See video to understand why!).

It's also amazing how someone can enjoy not just one job, but two. I will revisit this video anytime I need a dose of inspiration.

Yoga for a Cause - Yoga Bear

2009-05-29T16:56:00.001-07:00

Some of my favorite yoga classes have been donation-based, where all the proceeds of a class go to benefit a particular cause. Like Mark Sierra's Ashtanga class @ YogaSource in Palo Alto. The thought that a teacher would spend his Monday evening, leading a class for an hour and a half, so that someone else would benefit, just added a sense of gratitude to vastly improve my practice.

Now, there is a Non-Profit organization called YogaBear that emulates this cause at a larger level. It partners with yoga studios to provide yoga classes free of charge for cancer survivors. I have practiced restorative yoga (Yin yoga) to recover from physical injury and can wholly appreciate how yoga can complement recovery, even for cancer survivors.

Zemanta and Weber Shandwick are offering $6,000 to a non-profit that is most blogged about. So I am doing my bit to help out this cause!

–> This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about. <–

The Problem with Stock Photos

2009-04-18T09:00:00.001-07:00

Stock photos don't convey the import of the news in many situations. Would you smile and hug if you reject a truce call?

Differentiate

2009-04-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere that if you are one in a million, there are still six thousand of you out there! Ok...I just had to do the math to figure that out.

So this is how I differentiate in the world of SuperMeneesh (thanks to Monty Python)

What's Your Wireless Footprint?

2009-03-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

A friend from Intel tells me that by 2010 the number of radio transmitters will exceed 1 trillion!!! Radio - being any modern wireless communication such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, RFID and so on. This number is scary considering that even today the link between cell phone usage and brain cancer remains. What if the waves of all those wireless devices resonated and then incapacitating some part of the brain or tissue?

I predict that sometime in the near future, we will have wireless footprint calculators a la the carbon ones and individuals/companies will have to offset them annually.

The wireless footprint calculator would take into account the number of radio transmitters and receivers. Some devices such as cell-phones with a longer range might require higher offsets.

I calculate my footprint as about 10-15 radios. What's yours?

Yoga in Portrait

2009-03-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

I attended a workshop called 'Your Yoga in Portrait', where you select your favorite yoga pose and get snapped up. I like the Bakasana (Crane pose) and Vrschikasana (Scorpion pose)...only I am not very good at them. With a lot of assistance and airbrushing I got into position for these poses.

I really hope to master Vrschikasana...maybe then I will be the Scorpion King ;)

Tweets in the Time of Crisis

2008-11-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

Its been over 30 hours now since the Mumbai terrorist strikes began. I first learned about the attack through twitter, via an update on TwitterFox. Since then I have been glued to my computer to get information about the Maximum City - or #mumbai as the topic is referred to in twitter-speak.

The real-time results on twitter provided valuable links from citizen journalists on the ground - articles, videos, flickr photosets, contact information, opinions, wishes, prayers. Pretty soon these pictures and soundbites were lapped up by the real media and the #mumbai topic turned into a lovefest of social media and twitter [sic] Love in the Time of Cholera.

The #mumbai topic also turned into a deluge of retweets, rumors and rants. An information/misinformation overload resulted. Elsewhere, Google News ended up with 6,146 news articles related to the terrorist attacks. Social bookmarking sites like Digg and reddit eventually showed the news (after a 3 hour delay on Digg), albeit rendering the breaking news to the backburner, overshadowing it by the rick rolling at Macy's Thanksgiving parade.

Traditional television outlets began their riveting 24 hour coverage. News sources like IBNLive and (gasp) FOXNews were kind enough to broadcast live feeds on the internet. Indian channels had multiple feeds on replay mode till I switched the television off and went back to twitter.

Twitter could really use some improvements to broadcast relevant information in times like this.

Here are some suggestions.

Aggregate statistics about links from tweets and retweets so people know the most popular links in a topic - #mumbai in this case.
Display the actual URL instead of the tinyurl so people can identify the news source
A Digg style voting so the wisdom of the crowds can be incorporated to identify the best tweets/links.
Differentiate tweets from official news sites like bbc, cnn, abc from those of regular tweeters
Identify local citizen journalists accurately using location detection methods such as IP-based lookups

Best!

Sign o' the Times

2008-11-20T22:37:00.000-08:00

People sure are wearing their yoga practice on their sleeves, their bumper stickers,...

So now an ad campaign by a major health care provider to cash in.

On Walden Pond

2008-11-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the
essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and
not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

Gremlins in the (Windows) Machine

2008-11-02T12:49:00.000-08:00

For the last several weeks, I encountered several networking issues on my windows laptop:

My machine wouldn't connect to the network when I switched wireless access points
The Apple Airport Utility on my machine wouldn't detect Airport devices and I couldn't print wirelessly using Bonjour
I couldn't ping my computer from a different machine
I couldn't see any flickr pictures

I was at a complete loss to figure out what was wrong. I tried resetting the winsock catalog, reinstalling airport utility, disabling the windows firewall, uninstalling spybot, unistalling windows sp3 and finally reinstalling windows sp2...all to no avail.

After exhausting all my search queries on the topic, I finally had the answer from an IT guy. I had enabled the option 'stateful firewall' on my Cisco VPN.

Disabling the option restored my machine and my peace of mind.

Hope this post helps someone else out there.

Tugging at my Hamstrings

2008-09-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

Autobiography of a Recovering Yogi

Its been nearly a year now since I started my yoga practice. I started with a free, introductory yoga session at my neighborhood yoga studio and then started attending weekly Vinyasa classes there. Since then I have been challenging myself to the more strenuous Ashtanga primary series classes. I feel really peaceful and meditative at the end of these classes. The next morning, however, my body aches.

I did't want to give up doing my yoga just because of these aches. A few friends recommended that I try Bikram because the heated environment allows for deeper stretches and for accomplishing challenging poses. My body definitely felt a lot more relaxed after the class but I didn't find the same post-class bliss that I found with Vinyasa and Ashtanga.

A few weeks back I attended a workshop at the Balance center where the instructor analyzed the way I sat, stood, walked and slept. One key observation was that I arched my back and leaned backward while standing which messed up my entire posture and resulted in the aches.

So now I am consciously leaning a little forward while standing. To improve my poses, I signed up for Iyengar yoga. In these classes, I hold my asanas for longer with the correct technique (with the help of the instructor). My teacher noticed that my asanas were crammed because I had tight hamstrings (because of my arched back). This has affected even my foundation asana such as the downward dog.

Her prescription is two months of daily Supta Padangusthasana or the Reclining Big Toe Pose (See video below)

Will document the results after two months...

Viral Marketing Technique - Schmap

2008-09-15T15:45:00.000-07:00

Imagine if you could get your web audience to contribute to your site and then act as your marketing agent...all for free. This is the ploy used by Schmap, maker of interactive city guides.

I upload most of my pictures on flickr with a liberal creative commons license, and I was pleasantly surprised when I received this mail from the managing editor at Schmap:

From: Emma Williams

Subject: Schmap Yosemite Photo Short-list
------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Maneesh,

I am writing to let you know that one of your photos has
been short-listed for inclusion in the fifth edition of our
Schmap Yosemite Guide, to be published late September 2008.

http://www.schmap.com/shortlist/p=7402676N02/c=SH20403014

Clicking this link will take you to a page where you can:
i) See which of your photos has been short-listed.
ii) Submit or withdraw your photo from our final selection
phase.
iii) Learn how we credit photos in our Schmap Guides.
iv) Browse online or download the fourth edition of our
Schmap Yosemite Guide.

While we offer no payment for publication, many
photographers are pleased to submit their photos, as Schmap
Guides give their work recognition and wide exposure, and
are free of charge to readers. Photos are published at a
maximum width of 150 pixels, are clearly attributed, and
link to high-resolution originals at Flickr.

Our submission deadline is Sunday, August 31. If you happen
to be reading this message after this date, please still
click on the link above (our Schmap Guides are updated
frequently - photos submitted after this deadline will be
considered for later releases).

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
------------------------------------------------------------

I was more than happy to submit the photograph for the final selection phase but more importantly I was pumped that it would show up in an official guide, albeit a guide that is a new kid on the block.

A few weeks later I got this mail:

From: Emma Williams

Subject: Schmap Yosemite Fifth Edition: Photo Inclusion
------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Maneesh,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo
has been selected for inclusion in the newly released fifth
edition of our Schmap Yosemite Guide:

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
http://www.schmap.com/yosemite/sights_parks/p=305193/i=305193_32.jpg

If you use an iPhone or iPod touch, then this same link
will take you directly to your photo in the iPhone version
of our guide. On a desktop computer, you can still see
exactly how your photo is displayed and credited in the
iPhone version of our guide at:

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=yosemite&sid=sights_parks&p=305193&i=305193_32

Finally, if you have a blog, you might also like to check
out the customizable widgetized version of our Schmap
Yosemite Guide, complete with your published photo:

http://www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=7402676N02/c=SH20401733

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please
enjoy the guide!

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides

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

So now I have a widget on my blog pushing readers on their site as well :P

Half Dome Revisited

2008-09-07T14:26:00.001-07:00

Several posts back, I had written about my return to Yosemite to erase the ghosts of my unsuccessful 2004 half dome scaling attempt. I was back again in Yosemite for the labor day weekend. The weather was hot as before (100 degrees during mid-day) and the national park in the usual tourist mode. I had made no preparations for the strenuous hike and climb either but all I had this time was a shoe with a better grip and a determination.

We started at 5am from the valley and progressed our way up to the base of the half dome by 10am. I found a few people still ruminating over when they wanted to do the last rope climbing stretch. I remembered my cabin-mate Ben reading the book 'Blink' and I decided to proceed up right then. No power bars, no early lunch...just donning an old pair of unmatched gloves lying on the floor and then hauling my way up...one half-dome rink at a time. In a half-hour, I was up and watching the yosemite valley from the top in all its glory.

Comic below for illustrations.

SuperManeesh's Back

2008-07-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I blogged...I have been doing a bit of 'micro-blogging' on facebook and twitter lately and that left no time for my blog. Micro-blogging has its benefits for sending updates but a pithy, perhaps witty sentence is no match for a well written blog entry. So I am back!

On the subject of backs, I have had a torrid time with my lower back. X-Rays had revealed that I had a slight curvature of my spine, medically referred to as scoliosis. My un-ergonomic, working-at-home situation only worsened the condition. So when I decided to run a 5K race for CRY, without any practice, I was afflicted mid-way by a mind numbing pain...in my back. For the rest of the race, I supported my back with my hands and reached the finish line in about 33 minutes. Not bad...for someone who did it without any practice, with a bad back and a funny bib number (See pic)!

It was time for me to focus my energies and nurse myself, so I decided to turn to the ancient wisdom of Yoga. I have now been doing yoga aasanas and attending revitalizing vinyasa sessions to get myself back to shape. I got BKS Iyengars 'Light on Yoga' to understand the science behind the poses. I have recently started doing head stands and Bakaasanas, neither of which I thought I could ever do!

I found the awesome Yogamazing podcast to improve my home practice.

This session has been particularly useful to me, so do check it out...only when you have safely learned how to do the aasanas.

YOGAmazing: Yoga Back Basics from Chaz Rough on Vimeo.

Oh...did I say I was back again!

Taking Stock of Stock Photos

2008-07-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

What's common to a money-transfer service company and a hotel chain? Western Union and Marriott to be more specific.

Ok...besides the fact that they are large, publicly-traded, international corporations...they use the same stock photo service to get images for their web sites!

Western Union

Marriott

For the little web-site I launched a while back, I bought royalty-free images for a good chunk of change. Wonder...what belt-tightening measures these corporations have incorporated that made them skimp on their images.

Next...they will be picking up free images from flickr.

It's the end of the Personal E-mail, as we know it

2007-10-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting observation, I have received far more wall-posts on facebook in the last couple of months that I've signed up than personal e-mails from friends in probably the whole of this year. The social networks phenomenon led by facebook/orkut/myspace/friendster is driving the last nails into the personal email coffin. Here's why:

Context is the catalyst for conversation. Ever notice that you can hardly go beyond "What have you been upto?" when you meet someone you haven't met in years, but chat at length with a friend you meet every weekend. Its all about context, the more information you have about the other person, the more conversation material there is. Pictures and status messages all add to that context. I've recently added friends I haven't met in almost a decade but am enticed to leave a message when they post a picture or a funny status message.

E-mails are impersonal. Unlike handwritten mails and phone calls, there is little human touch barring humor in the email body. In wall posts, there are at least pictures displayed alongside the message, that makes it far easier to connect (especially if you have profile pictures).

Personal status messages and wall posts are the latest in many-to-many communication. They are much easier and less intrusive to reach out to many people with just one update or post. Sure, you can send out mass-emails with one and flood your friends inboxes. With facebook, for example, you get updates in the form of personal news feeds that you can control whom you can get more information from or lesser of.

Spam mail- Its unlikely that you will ever receive spam posts (from unknown people) with the correct privacy settings. Email providers are still grappling with handling junk mail. Why you ask? Because social networks are closed systems. For people to communicate they must all be on facebook...a friend on facebook can not communicate with one on friendster or myspace. But your .mac account will receive email from a yahoo, gmail, hotmail or business email...and yes the spammers out there. I still remember the ruckus that was created when hotmail started censoring emails from yahoo.

So what happens to e-mail? Will they only be used for getting shipping notifications, bank statements and facebook updates :) ? Or will everyone converge onto facebook creating one big entity (read monopoly) that the DOJ force them to open up to the rest or worse...break them into many baby-books...only time will tell!

Lining up all the ducks in a row...

2007-10-06T19:59:00.001-07:00

I was walking by Lake Merritt, when I found this scene for the perfect shot...I had just lined up all the ducks in a row :)

Note: Time for me to get a new cellphone with camera features which doesnt produce such grainy pictures.

Trivia Chips

2007-09-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

For people who like hiking and trivia...this might become a familiar sight!

A wafer company is now packaging wafers with trivia questions and answers printed on the chips. This is the close-up of a wafer...I hope they haven't used any lead paints for the printing!

You can now have your quiz and eat it too :)

You know you are in Alabama when...

2007-09-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

Corporate America has made the US suburban landscape look so similar that if you were to suddenly find yourself in a new state you would still be surrounded by the same stores, fast-food chains, gas stations.

Work took me to Birmingham Alabama recently and besides the humidity and the southern drawls there were more clues for me that I wasn't in Kansas anymore :)

Scene 1: A no-smoking sign outside a company building. Ok...the signs not out of place...its just the response to it!

Scene 2: Ordering lunch at the cafeteria.
Me: Do you have any vegetarian food?
Person on the other side of the counter: Are you moslem?

Scene 3: A post-lunch meeting with sodas to quench the parched throats...the pictures not clear but someone just got the sodas from a non-pc place.

Scene 4: A road sign flashes a 'Stage 3 Drought Alert' warning. Two houses away, a proud house owner waters his lawn (actually Rupert Murdoch did this to his Santa Barbara lawns during the drought as well...

Scene 5: People wearing hot pants...only they happened to be old men. (actually this is a common sight in San Francisco as well). Very gross.

Scene 6: A Sushi restaurant...also serving chinese and thai food!

This Cake takes the Cake

2007-09-30T18:33:00.001-07:00

We all know San Franciscan's don't need an excuse to party...This is the cake made for a farewell party thrown for a couple heading to Thailand and inspired by Asia SF.

Note: The complete image is fairly graphic...should be seen only by adults in sterile environs.

Experience is overrated

2007-09-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

"Experience is the Comb that nature gives you...when you go bald"

The First Twenty20 Cricket world cup has been won by India...which fielded a team not comprising any of the heavyweights - Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Zaheer Khan, but with youngsters many of whom made their international debuts in the tournament. Its unfortunate that the seniors never won the prized silver in spite of the more than 400 games played together.

One can not, however, help but commiserate with the losing Pakistani side. Twice in a row they have come tantalizingly close to breaking the world cup jinx of not winning against India. The first was decided by the shoot-out and the second thanks to Misbah-ul-Haq's untimely scoop a la Mike Gatting's reverse paddle in the 1987 world cup, which sealed their fate when victory was well within reach. On both occasions, the veteran batsmen had been done in by rookie bowlers.

'The Fateful Scoop'

Its heartening to note that the young Indian team devoid of any superstars had taken on the strongest teams in the tournament...and won. Thats the power of youth - carrying no baggage of expectations and performing without fear. Experience is seriously overrated.

Introducing Barista Vinod

2007-08-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

I was packing up for my move and found an old sketch of mine which I had a drawn a while back. I decided to 'ink' it and put it out there (here) and see what future beholds 'Barista Vinod', 'Sheelah' and me!

"Being Your Own Boss"

(Click Image for full view)

p.s.: Here's the original sketch.

Evolution of a Song

2007-08-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

Trace the evolution of this song from folk to an industrial, bollywood re-mix. Some songs should just be left alone.

Demis Roussos - Say You Love Me (1970)	Sholay - Mehbooba - Helen Richardson Khan (1975)
Aap Ka Shurrur - Mehbooba - Mallika Sherawat (2007)	Ram Gopal Verma ki Aag - Mehbooba Mehbooba - Urmila Matondkar (2008)

'Appetite for Destruction' turns 20???

2007-08-12T23:14:00.001-07:00

I saw the cover of a recent issue of the Rolling Stone magazine and the title of the lead story stopped me in my tracks. Its been 20 (not 14) years since the release of the rock album that influenced me significantly during my angst-ridden teenage years.

I was at an asian Karaoke bar last weekend and was dispassionately hearing all the singers belt out their tracks until a young girl in the next table started singing 'Sweet Child O Mine'. In no time, we were roused from our beer stupor and we all joined her in the chorus.

GNR...thank you for the two decades of memories!

Simpsonize Me!

2007-07-31T18:01:00.001-07:00

Funny...I dont look like Apu Nahasapeemapetilon at all!

Image courtesy SimpsonsMovie's Avatar maker and Windows Paint.

Bone Marrow Registry

2007-07-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

I finally got off my lazy bottom and headed to the Santa Clara Convention center to enroll in the Bone Marrow Registry as a part of the HelpVinay drive. The procedure was very simple- 4 swabs gently rubbed against the inside of the cheeks for 10 seconds each and handed over to the volunteer. Filling in the paperwork took longer :)

After graciously handing in my swabs, I got my picture taken as proof that I registered...I also have a membership card with my registration number.

Btw...if you are registering at the same venue, you may run into Shekar Kapur at the Pan-IIT meet and have a tete-a-tete with him as I did and discuss his new Virgin Comic venture.

Sing Again of Michigan

2007-06-28T17:10:00.000-07:00

I was wrong about Michigan. I was disappointed during my last visit to this state by the crumbling city of Detroit, the ghost downtown of Pontiac, and a slew of road construction in preparation for the 2006 Superbowl. The dullness of winter further added to the glum.

This visit has changed my views about the state. My co-worker took me to Planet Rock in Pontiac and it was the biggest rock climbing gym I have ever been to (Not much...considering I have been to only two more - Planet Granite in the bay area and the rock climbing wall in Phoenix).

The suburbs of Troy, Rochester Hills and West Bloomfield were very picturesque. I cant imagine ever finding such houses in the bay area for the prices they were at. I wonder when the real estate market will rebound here again.

The Workout Hotel Room

2007-06-28T17:04:00.001-07:00

My Hotel is so cheap...that they put me in the exercise room (j/k!)

Actually, these are the new Workout Rooms from Westin, which will help you "work up a sweat without leaving the room".

Oh Yeah? Try that with a room with no vents in it...the smoke alarm in my room got triggered after a 30 minute treadmill session.

Shooting to Thrill

2007-06-14T17:51:00.001-07:00

We had our annual team building exercises at the Scottsdale Gun Club :)

I learned today that I should stay far away from my team mates when they took aim at the target...and never to shoot like in the movies.

For a man from the country of Gandhi, this was a nerve-racking experience. I was terrified about holding a gun and causing any damage.

I started anxiously with the humble revolver, trembling as I pulled the trigger. After a few nervous shots I was shooting with glee...working my way up to a glock, a semi-automatic and finally finishing with a long barreled Wes and Smithson, with a discharge so loud and a muzzle flash so bright that everyone there stopped their shooting and took notice.

Ramayan 3392 AD

2007-06-03T12:42:00.001-07:00

Virgin's latest comic book series - Ramayan 3392 A.D. appears to be doing very well. Late last year, they roped in Spiritual Guru Deepak Chopra, filmaker Shekar Kapur, illustrator Abhishek Singh and writer Shamik Dasgupta to create this futuristic science fiction based on the Indian epic. According to the TOI, the comics are flying off the shelves not only in India but also in the US.

The re-packaged classic is a nice offering alongside the classic Amar Chitra Katha comics, which I still relish. The art work is fabulous and the new story refreshing. You can download the comics in PDF and read them using Adobe Acrobat to find out for yourself!

If George Lucas could be inspired by the Mahabharata to create the lucrative Star Wars series, I dont see why the original epic can not find international fame on its own.

According to Virgin Comic's CEO Sharad Devarajan:

"Similar to the phenomenon we have seen with Japanese Anime and Manga, which has influenced virtually every aspect of popular media in the West today, our mission is to reinvent contemporary Indian popular art and permeate this new style and vision throughout the globe.

In the same way Indian children have embraced Batman, Spider-Man, Scooby-Doo and Britney Spears, today's Western world has an increasing global appetite for the most engaging content, regardless of its cultural affiliation. If you told parents ten years ago in America that their children would know characters named Yu Gi Oh! and Pokemon as well as they would Spider-Man, those parents would have thought you were crazy – yet in America today an estimated 30% of major children's animated programming is now Japanese animation."

Microsoft Surface - Turning the Tables

2007-05-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

Microsoft just unveiled a cool, gesture-based, multi-touch device called Surface that will surely upstage Apple's iPhone for the best tech invention of 2007. See the demo below:

I really would like to see this in restaurants and hotels soon. The surface dining table will be a nice way to share snaps and videos taken on cell phones and cameras instead of passing those mobile devices around the table. I also like the way you can split checks by placing the credit cards on the surface and dragging the items ordered on the respective cards.

No more splitting hairs about splitting checks anymore!

The Recipe

2007-05-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

At Patrick's Point near Eureka, CA.

Press Print to Play

2007-05-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I wrote about picking up my favorite Asterix statuettes at a novelty comic book store in a far away Quebec province. The store does offer international shipping and the same can certainly be found somewhere on eBay. Sometime in the near future though, we will only need to download 3D models from web sites and 'bake' them in our 3-D printers.

The NYTimes has the scoop in their technology section - Beam It Down From the Web, Scotty (Registration Required).

Asterix meets Tintin

2007-05-11T13:57:00.001-07:00

I am sure the die-hard fans of french comic books know this bit of trivia- In which comic books do Asterix and Tintin characters appear together?

Answer here.

I was in Montreal earlier in the week and found this novelty comic book store - Luniver & Cie on Rue St Denis where I found Asterix and Tintin appear together again.

I got some statuettes of Asterix, Oblix and Idefix (Dogmatix) but I really wanted this chess board of the Gauls against the Romans :)

PaniPuri

2007-05-09T13:34:00.000-07:00

I was checking out the winners of the World's Best Presentation Contest and came across one on PaniPuri that won the People's choice award.

This is especially useful for me as I can simply send friends this presentation when I need company to try out some PaniPuri (or GolGappas)!

Another presentation that I really like is Shift Happens...an interesting statistic quoted in one of their slides is that in India, even if you are one in a million...there are still a 1,100 of you!

Reno 911

2007-04-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Barely had the ink dried on the settlement in the civil case that I had to return to the courts. This time it was because I was wrongfully ticketed with an extremely harsh driving infraction in Nevada.

My buddies and I were returning from South Lake Tahoe to the bay area after a weekend of snowboarding when a huge snow storm hit the area to leave us grounded due to avalanche control. We returned to our hotel room and waited for the storm to subside. After nearly 12 hours, when the storm passed, we headed back by another route through Carson City/Reno. The roads had cleared out and we were making good distance on 395 when a cop turned his lights on. He was overwhelmed by the number of incidents during the storm and was in a very foul mood. He threw the book at me (I was the driver) for being slightly over the limit. We were shell-shocked when he gave me this ticket equivalent to a misdemeanor.

I had to clear my name. I decided to hire an Attorney to represent me as I didn't want to take any chances. Only I had to fly back in to Reno for the court hearing. My attorney made a pre-trial hearing with the prosecutor, the district attorney, and made strong points in my favor, citing my good driving record for starters. At the end of their conversation an agreement was reached. My case was dropped!

Great Success!!!

Unfortunately, as I was exiting the court...my rental car was rear-ended.

There's no justice cruel world :(

Driving Miss Desi

2007-04-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

Over several posts I have written about the mapping options available for Indian destinations. I was checking out the new Yahoo India Maps and was very pleasantly surprised. I found the data there to be far superior than the wisdom-of-the-masses information displayed on WikiMapia. You can actually search by locality and street on Yahoo instead of just by the city.

I also found that Yahoo Maps was driven by a company called CE Info Systems just like Navteq drives most of the maps here in the US. A brief search led me to their own site MapMyIndia . Their web site had more goodies to offer- Directions!!!

I was finally able to map out the trip I used to take on the bus from Bangalore to my college. I am sure I wont have the courage to drive on that highway though.

Autorickshaw owners beware...we will catch your longer routes with this utility.

Future Shock

2007-04-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

I visited a hi-tech campus today to meet a client. When I reached the lobby to get my visitor pass, I was greeted not by the smile and pleasantries from a receptionist but instead by a contraption consisting of a flat-screen television, cameras and a VOIP speakerphone...which had a big button next to it which read - 'Press here to speak to a Lobby Ambassador'.

A few seconds after pushing the afore mentioned button I was greeted by the Lobby Ambassador - Caeser on the television monitor...

I was in shock and awe, and for a while didnt know where to look at to make eye contact. When I recovered from the surprise I asked him for a badge. He said gladly and told me that it would be issued from the printer right in front of me. I waited for my badge to appear but there were no signs of any activity for over a minute. At which point he said, 'We are experiencing technical difficulties right now...Can you just write your name on a piece of paper instead'. I took out my pen and wrote it on a temporary, temp badge and walked into the building. So much so for technology.

As I walked past the hallway one particular display monitor caught my attention. It was displaying the news ticker and some stock information, when an application on the screen crashed right before my eyes.

I have seen the future...and it isn't pretty.

Somebody Gonna Get-a-Hurt Real Bad

2007-04-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

I know Carlos Mencia is under fire for reusing other comics stuff. I just found some more of his recycling. I was watching the 2nd season of 'The Mind of Mencia' when I came across two sketches which were so similar to Russell Peters material from several years back that I had to make the comparison.

Compare the videos below:

Russell Peters
Carlos Mencia

Russell Peters entire schtick was based on the whupping routine and I remember him complain that internet downloaders (there was no youtube then) had nearly ruined his act as everyone had seen his material and he couldnt create new stuff fast enough.

I had actually watched both Carlos and Russell perform at the same venue in 2005 at the Wild 94.9 Comedy Jam. Carlos was the featured act that night but he sure took some inspiration from the lesser known comic.

My Heavy Carbon Footprint

2007-04-01T21:38:00.000-07:00

I used the Carbon Footprint calculator on ClimateCare to determine whether my eco-conscious efforts like using public transportation, using extra-blankets instead of heating in winter and using totes instead of paper or plastic while shopping had borne any fruits. Unfortunately, the the results were not flattering at all. The carbon emission calculator deemed me a carbon criminal.

My Carbon profile follows:

A single overseas trip of mine to India resulted in carbon emissions that exceeded those from the nearly 10000 miles I traveled in car in the previous year! There were more startling statistics about the costs to offset my carbon emissions:

Personal:
Offset total: 10.92 tonnes of CO2
Cost to offset: $ 166.86*
Business:
Your Company Flights CO2 Emissions are 55 Tonnes
Distance flown: 55000 mile(s)
To offset this CO2 will cost: $ 840.41

An average British person has a carbon footprint of 11,000 kg each year (10.82 tonnes of CO2). I am over this amount by a really large margin. On a positive note - Not counting my air travel, I am well below the average.

The BBC is running an article on reducing the carbon footprint and another one -"Should I really give up flying?" that describes why an itinerant job profile like mine is injurious to the world's health. One of the biggest problems with CO2 emissions from planes is that the carbon is released higher up in the atmosphere, far out of the reach of photosynthesis.

I am hoping that the hydrogen fueled airplanes get deployed sooner so I can rid my guilt of my air travel. For the interim, I will do more tele-conferences and webex-es to limit my trips.

True Religion

2007-04-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

So we are witnessing a growing nexus between department stores and religion...Contemporary Jean brands that are the rage lately use religion in their names, case in point True Religion and Blue Cult :)

I was walking past Union Square in San Francisco last night and found a huge Ganesha statue adorning the entrance of the store. This reminded me of a store in Bangalore - Kemp Fort where a huge Shiva Temple was built behind the mall. Devotees made a beeline for the temple and then did their post-prayer shopping at the mall. It was a clever strategy by the owners and it worked very well for them. It seems like the American department stores are taking a leaf out of the Indian stores strategy book and following suit to cash-in on success.

Shiva Temple - Kemp Fort, Bangalore

Note 1: The Ganesha decorations are part of an 'Imagine India' show.
Note 2: Kemp Fort is styled after either the Excalibur in Las Vegas or Disneyland, so there is a cross pollination in design.

Holi-day Celebrations

2007-03-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

ASHA Stanford hosted Holi celebrations at the lush green venue of Sandhill Park in Stanford. Holi is the festival of colors and is celebrated to welcome spring. It turned out to be a colorful day!

Wearing Trashbags to Save the Seats

Here comes a big Splash

CSI : Jamaica

2007-03-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

The stakes at the World Cup Cricket played in the West Indies are sky high now. Notwithstanding the pressure of performance from the fans demanding victories in every game, players have to tend to their commercial interests and also contend with bookies now.

The World Cup has just snared its first victim- the coach of the Pakistan Team...the inimitable Bob Woolmer. He died shortly after his team's defeat to Ireland, and I was sure that there was some foul play involved. The BBC now reports that he was infact murdered. A post-mortem examination established that the former England player had died as a result of "manual strangulation".

This is a heinous act and the perpetrators of this crime should be apprehended at the earliest. The clues are pretty strong, and a CSI analysis would be based on these facts:

Bob Woolmer went back to his hotel room the day of the defeat after 8:30 pm, the maid found him unconscious at 10 am and he was declared DOA at 1215 pm.

He was found partially naked, draped in a towel, indicating that this was either before he went to bed or early in the morning. The post-mortem will have a more accurate estimate.

Since he was draped in a towel and found dead in his bathroom, it indicates he knew the attacker(s) and probably let them into the room and had an animated discussion before matters went out of hand. There was no sign of forced entry into Mr Woolmer’s hotel bedroom, nor had his possessions been disturbed

In the Police Commissioner's own words "Bob was a large man - it would have taken some significant force to subdue him". This indicates either a large man like himself or more than one person attacked and killed him

The people with the greatest motive are either bookies, disgruntled fans or a member of the team.

It is unlikely that a crazed-fan entered the hotel and room without escaping the watchful eyes of security. The same may apply to bookies too no matter how affluent.

That should narrow down the list of suspects considerably. Now, I hope that the CCTV footage will provide some damning evidence.The ICC doesn't want the investigation of the murder to interrupt the remaining games. The show must go on...just like the unending seasons of CSI.

The Cramer Effect

2007-03-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

A few words spoken by a few people can drastically effect the course of the US financial markets. Two of them hold official posts - Alan Greenspan, the former fed chairman, and Ben Bernanke, the current chairman. Sometimes even chosen silence at their ends can result in a market volatility. Fortunately, their pronouncements happen quarterly or over a cocktail at a big-wig meeting.

There's also this former hedge fund manager, Jim Cramer, who influences the markets on almost a daily basis. He is the host of the popular show - 'Mad Money' (Note: I also own a copy of his book Real Money), where viewers call him up for his advice on stocks. The next day at the start of trading, the stocks which he advised to sell are pummeled and the ones to buy appreciate in value faster than you can say 'Boo-Yah'. I have been left holding the bag of pummeled stocks on several occasions and sometimes very pleasantly surprised by the increased value of my stocks.

Thanks to the Cramer effect, I never buy any stock that he advices to buy anymore because they shoot so far up in value, wiping out any profits that I can potentially make on them. Stock fundamentals be damned.

It seems Cramer has let the cat out of the bag on his tactics and stirred a hornets nest in his latest interview where he says "A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund...meaning I needed (a stock) down, I would create a level of activity beforehand that could drive the futures," Cramer said. "It's a fun game and it's a lucrative game."

Cramer has retired from the Hedge market business and claims to run a fund for charity. His benevolence, though, can not justify the blood he has spilled of many an investor.

B'lore Headbangs to Iron Maiden

2007-03-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

CNN-IBN reports that nearly 30,000 fans showed up for the Iron Maiden concert in Bangalore last night.

Thank goodness Karaoke hasn't caught on big in India :)

It is a different experience attending a rock concert in Bangalore than in the US. Even classic rock acts attract a much younger audience...here in the US the age of the audience mirrors that of the band members.

JetBlues

2007-03-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

For a road-warrior like me, no-frills airlines like JetBlue and Southwest have brought a whiff of freshness in the stale airs of the big carriers like American Airlines, Delta, United and US Airways. What I like best about Jetblue are the personal television monitors, a la Singapore Airlines, to survive the long cross-country flights. They had friendly staff who made funny pre-boarding announcements until the FAA clamped down on their humor. There are constant servings of beverages and junk food (like my favourite Terra Blue potato chips) to satiate the thirst and hunger cravings.

They have gotten a lot of flak lately for the recent flight cancellations at JFK in New York where they left passengers stranded in the terminals. This happens to me every time I fly through O'Hare during winter on just about any airline.

My only complaint about Jetblue was and is their frequent flier policy. For each flight completed and each reservation made online you get a certain number of points (Max of 8 for a coast-coast) and once you reach 100 points or about 8-10 roundtrips before you get a free round-trip. (Southwest requires 16 roundtrips for a free ticket). The problem with the JetBlue policy is that these points expire in a year so if you are unable to make the 100 points in a year they will be gone. I have watched my 92 points vanish in the last month. This rule is draconian...I am still redeeming my American Airline miles that I earned in 2000.

I had stopped flying on American because their service went down the tube after 9/11. I used to have a choice of two hot meals on coach during my trips from Austin to San Jose in 2000. Now I dont even get peanuts that Southwest hands out with glee.

I restarted my trips on AA as my manager got me an Admirals Club membership as a spot award. This membership provides me access to their lounges so I can sink into their comfortable leather sofas, watch the telly or read the magazines, and get on to the internet before and after a flight. This lounge feature is a good strategy for airline companies as frequent fliers are bound to get hooked on it and stick with the carrier.

I have lesser incentive to fly on JetBlue now as I have to make all my travel arrangements with our official travel agent which means I dont get the reservation points anymore, thereby doubling the number of trips I need to make for the magic 100 points. I am only hoping JetBlue sees the error in their ways and win back their customers loyalty. They can start by reinstating my lost 92 points!

Cricket Watch

2007-03-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

What lengths would you go to watch a cricket match?

The World Cup Cricket has begun and has already featured an epic battle fought on the grounds of the Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica. I haven't watch a single ball being bowled in the tournament so far. It was not like my last trip to Jamaica in 2002, when I traveled nearly 5000 miles with the intention of enjoying two days of cricketing action between India and the West Indies only to be holed up in the Hotel room because of incessant rains (I have since decided not to risk such trips to watch a game live).

This time it is because I refuse to cough up the high fees for viewing the live telecasts. These feeds are only available on satellite television - DirectTV and Dishnetwork, each demanding $199 for the telecast of the 51 matches. Considering that I will be following only the games of my favorite team, i.e, watching only about 6 games, this works out to about $33 per game! This is exorbitant even for a captive audience. I could watch the Golden State Warriors play in the Oakland Arena from a prime location with this kind of money. Compare this with NBA TV charging $200 for over 200 games, with many of the games broadcast in high-definition unlike the grainy cricket telecast on dishnetwork.

Four years back I was faced with a similar pinch to watch the world cup cricket games but I was able to share the costs with my two house mates. This story about the pains of a cricket lover in America was picked up by the Outlook magazine. I even signed a petition so we could watch the games on cable or the high speed internet.

It seems like the bigwigs at echostar have listened to our petition, and decided to share the feed on-line on Willow TV. The only problem - its the same cost of $199 for even granier pictures with lots of lag and delay in the feeds. I discussed with my friend the possibility of using a slingbox device so we could stream it over the web from his dish connection. I was about to hit the bid button on an ebay auction for the SlingBox AV (about $70 excluding shipping) when I decided to use my google powers to find a better option. My search yielded a TVonPC online offering called EZ TV which I am not sure is legit even with their FAQs explicitly stating that it is. I signed up for it and checked it out for myself. The image size is rather small but the feed has no lags like willow tv, definitely watchable!

p.s.: I just googled with the same search query and couldnt locate their paid advertisement anymore. I am now keeping a close watch on my credit card statement.

Muscle Memory

2007-03-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

My association with Tennis dates a long time back when I was about 8 years old, when I showed up at the tennis courts with a Badminton racket in my hand. I have since then switched to using a tennis racket and improved my game by watching a lot of tennis on the telly and taking tips from other players. I have also 'abstracted' many of my life's lessons from my experiments with tennis.

For example, when my game was stuck in a rut for a period of time, I decided to get expert help in the form of a tennis instructor who could take my game to the next level. Since then I have applied that in my professional life as well and have sought advice from a mentor to help navigate through the doldrums of work and life.

I later switched tennis instructors from a scheming Matt M, who also moonlighted as a Chiropractor, and was more interested in ensuring that I spend my hard-owned post-tax dollars on his multiple income sources. This time I chose an expert - Brian Garrow, an illustrious son of the city of Sunnyvale, who won laurels by beating legendary players such as Ramesh Krishnan. Brian's loyalties were not split and I could get his undivided attention in sprucing up my game and I developed a killer forehand. Lesson in life for me - always chose the best of breed else you will end up in the dispensary.

I also learned another important life's lesson from tennis - If you spend all your tennis time just learning from the instructors, you are gonna go broke. Its valuable to rally against other players, just for the fun of it, also its light on the wallet (unless the loser buys beer at the Dutch Goose in Menlo Park and you happen to be him).

This week, after many months of playing with my inconsistent single-handed backhand, I switched to a double-handed backhand with some spectacular results. My decision was partly swayed by watching Serena Williams destroy Maria Sharapova at the Australian Open with her killer, open-chested, two-handed backhand. I went back to the wall and practiced my shots for a few hours. Every shot I hit (remembering Ms Williams as I swung my racket) boosted my morale and increased by enthusiasm by leaps and bounds. I can't believe I made this switch after two decades of playing mediocre tennis. I enjoyed even my solitary trysts with the practice wall and after many hours I finally got the muscle memory to use it effectively in a game.

The Namesake

2007-03-05T21:16:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday, I attended a special preview of 'The Namesake' organized by the American India Foundation. The movies director - Mira Nair makes such hard hitting movies to, in her own words, "take the embarrassment out of the Indian lifestyle". I could relate very well with with the movie and its characters, not because its protagonists are torn between two countries - India and the US. I felt that my life was embodied in Gogol's character, minus the part about my name based on a 19th century Russian author. Beyond the immigrant story, you will notice how Mira Nair has contrasted the relationship between Ashima and Ashoke, wonderfully played by Tabu and Irfan Khan, and the ones entrancing Gogol, wonderfully portrayed by Kal Penn.

The movie is not your typical song and dance movie that bollywood enthusiastics will probably be queuing outside Naz8 Cinemas for. At the end of the movie, there was no clapping or cheering, just the silence of a captivated audience with a big lump in their throats. The cheerful banter began when Mira Nair came on stage for a question and answer session.

I also happened to watch another relationship movie on PPV - The Last Kiss. It stars an actor who reminds me of Kal Penn - Zach Braff. It also features Jacinda Barrett who plays Maxine in 'The Namesake'. It is just another relationship movie, with a lot of similar situations that I have been through, but no advice to help us viewers out. Whatever happened to the movies with a moral at the end?

Now...I have an idea for the next spoof in the long line of 'Scary Movie', 'Date Movie' and 'Epic Movie'.

Law of the Land

2007-02-28T15:46:00.000-08:00

Nearly seven years ago we decided to build our house on a plot of land in Bangalore that we had purchased from the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Co-op. We began by constructing a perimeter wall around the plot. A week after it had been built it was knocked down overnight. We learned that someone had claimed a part of the land as his and objected to our construction. As we had all the legal papers so we decided to go to court. That turned out to be a bad decision. The defendant had the backing of a local politician and got a ruling in his favor without producing any proof of ownership.

My mom didn't lose hope and moved to the higher court. She attended the court proceedings religiously. I accompanied her on a few visits when I was there and was repulsed on each visit. Sometimes the defendant's lawyer wouldn't show up, dragging the case on so we would get frustrated and give up. Our lawyer was no angel himself as it was in his interests to keep prolonging the case too. As the case drew to a judgment, we were hit by another curve ball. The defendant had 'sold' our land to another developer and he was no longer liable in the legal proceedings!

I found another lawyer who had represented my high school buddy's folks in another commercial dispute. We decided to switch to him as he came highly recommended. His advice to us was to settle the case out of court as it could be dragged on for a much longer time. The compromise involved splitting the land between us and the new developer, and with the developer building the boundary wall around the new areas in lieu of the one torn down. Whoever coined - 'Good fences make good neighbors' surely had our situation in mind.

The settlement was reached on Sunday and a heavy weight has been lifted off our chests. We can breathe easy again.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

2007-02-13T19:21:00.000-08:00

This is a startling revelation :)

School of Rock

2007-02-11T10:41:00.000-08:00

It seems like Jack Black's efforts are finally paying dividends. Watch this video of a really young band - Gaucho-Salta based in Argentina, covering rock numbers from Iron Maiden to Sepultura. In the video you will also find a lil girl who has all the makings of the next Ashlee Simpson!

I was introduced to rock music when I heard an Indian Band called 'Rock Machine' (also Indus Creed) in middle school. I was awed by their first album 'Rock n Roll Renegade'. I have been searching for their CDs for a long time and I finally found their MP3s online here. Their music sounds great even after all these years.

Update 02/13/2006
Iron Maiden is planning their first gig in Bangalore. *sigh*

Wiki + Maps = WikiMapia

2007-02-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

In an earlier blog, I had written about the new satellite imagery capabilities in Google Earth that provided aerial views of territories previously unmapped, such as India. Wikimapia.org is a new online resource that allows people to collaboratively annotate and see such maps.

I was surprised to find my college completely annotated in the wiki-map, and like I told a lot of the non-believers, we indeed have a private beach about a mile from the campus (See map below for details).

Its nice to see highways and airports mapped out but the maps are also littered with unimportant entries such as "ZM Fazullulah Residence", which need to be weeded out. I am sure the folks at WikiMapia will put in measures in place to restrict such entries.

My next prediction: Directions in WikiMapia.

Author Laments Lonely Life of Bloggers

2007-01-31T14:59:00.000-08:00

The Globe and Mail is running an article about the lonely life of bloggers in this piece.

In my defense, I keep my blog so my friends and family can get the latest information on me, as they have given up on my e-mails. My blog inspires me to go out and do interesting stuff...so I have something to write about :)

Tag, You're It

2007-01-26T06:43:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged by theunknownindian, my dear college senior who I now get to learn about from his blogs. In deference to the rules of the chain-blogging, where I need to provide some information about me and tag 5 other bloggers I know, unless I wish my soul to burn for all of eternity, I am posting this blog entry.

here goes...first some lesser known facts about me:

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it. (Actuall this was from Austin Powers, the real details follow...)

My front door neighbour growing up was Lara Datta, the former Miss India/Universe. I played tennis-ball cricket with Rahul Dravid, the current Indian captain, at the Yellow House...I was frequently chastised for my butter fingers.

In high school, my friend - Deepanjan Chatterjee's dad, an expert astrologer and palmist, looked at my hand. A few minutes into the session he said he was really tired and didn't make any predictions. I remain very paranoid ever since :)

I hand-painted rock album art on my t-shirts in college. Some of my favourite pieces of work that I painted were the album art of - GNR - Appetite for Destruction, Ugly Kid Joe - Americas Least Wanted, Iron Maiden - No Prayer for the Dying, Megadeth - Rust in Peace, Sepultura - Arise, most which my brother sold for booze money!

I am working on a cartoon strip - 'Binary Boomer', a look into the colorful life experiences of the digital generation (includes me) which is bound to make a profound impact on the world, just as the Baby Boomers did.

I like cooking vegetarian, south-indian food. My Pièce de résistances are Bisi Bele Bath and Ravi Idli with Sagu

I am tagging these bloggers:

Andreas - Driving-Vacation and ManagingArchitect
Roopesh - FinEngineer
Ranjit - rmathew
Anand - Aniyer
Rags - Poweryogi
Rajesh Shetty - Life Beyond Code
Manish - Ultrabrown

Bollywood Feud on the Colbert Report

2007-01-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

I have always enjoyed Stephen Colbert's comedy style...watch how he settles this bollywood feud in a special section called "We the MEdiator".

Update Jan 19, 2006
The battle rages on with some new revelations...

PCLDLTR

2007-01-09T21:55:00.000-08:00

I snapped the license plate of this car in front of me. It reads PCLDLTR if the picture below is too grainy.

Think 'Office Space' if you need a hint to crack this one.

Attack of the YouTube Clones

2006-12-30T15:27:00.000-08:00

I have seen a surge of video sharing sites lately, each attempting to land another google-youtube type of deal.

Some of them have a different spin:

VideoJug: http://www.videojug.com
I like this site because it has nifty video tutorials like 'How to wear a Tie Windsor Style', 'How to Make Kadhai Paneer' and 'Disappearing Card Tricks'! This is certainly a step beyond the text based tutorials like learnto.com. The videos are shot by the VideoJug folks themselves and are very professional, there is a section on user uploaded videos too.

ApnaVideo: http://www.apnavideo.com
MeraVideo: http://www.meravideo.com
These are desi startups focusing on the Indian market. They could end up like baazee and bidorbuy did with eBay, get swallowed up by a global player...or get eliminated by a special Indian Videos section in YouTube

DailyMotion: http://www.dailymotion.com
I like this site because it has all the Dave Chappelle shows. I wonder how long before it is taken offline by ComedyCentral

MetaCafe: http://www.metacafe.com
MetaCafe has been showing up a lot in digg stories lately, may end up with Yahoo.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com
I havent seen anything starkly different here, infact I have seen a lot more YouTube videos on Myspace profiles.

Google Videos
Yahoo Videos
MSN Videos
Dont know/Dont Care.

A sign of the saturation in the market is the exit of Guba, another video sharing site. A new site eefoof.com has sprung up which promises to share advertising revenues with the videographer.

I am sure in time we will see innovative video search capabilities that span these sites just like search engines did with plain ol' web sites.

Quiz: Which Superhero Are You?

2006-12-30T13:42:00.000-08:00

No surprises here!

Results of the superhero personality test:

You are Superman

Superman		85%
Spider-Man		75%
Supergirl		70%
The Flash		70%
Robin		60%
Hulk		60%
Batman		60%
Iron Man		50%
Wonder Woman		40%
Green Lantern		40%
Catwoman		25%

You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Survival of the Fattest

2006-12-20T15:02:00.000-08:00

I bought a few goldfishes for our turtle tank to add some color and variety to the otherwise drab school of guppies. The turtles had been peacefully coexisting with the other fishes for over 5 years...no surprise with all the pro-vegetarian messages sent out by movies like Finding Nemo and Shark Tale.

No sooner did I introduce the new goldfishes that the turtles showed a sudden fascination for them and in an few minutes were snapping on the fishes and chasing them around. By the end of the week, not only did 3 of my 4 goldfishes get eaten up by the turtles but so did the entire school of guppies. Speaking with the petshop owner, I learnt that these goldfishes are considered breeder fishes in turtle tanks and seeing them the turtles took a renewed interest in fishes and turned pesco-vegetarian.

One particular goldfish however showed strong urge to survive...it voraciously consumed the turtle food and in time grew to 10 times its original size! It now became too large for the turtles to pursue and eat.

This is an amazing story about the survival of the ~~fittest~~ fattest!

Trimming the Waste

2006-08-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

There was a certain class in middle-school that stuck in my memory. It was a social studies class and my teacher, who had tasted life in the foreign (read first world) lands, remarked about a particular study undertaken by a dutch energy company. This energy company had apparently produced energy from garbage in Europe and the Indian government had asked them to research if they could replicate their success in India as well. After a few months of research, the company ruled that energy couldnt be produced from Indian wastes just because of the type of trash. I remember the smirk on my teachers face when she said "...even India's wastes arent good enough".

Almost two decades have passed since I heard her say that, now I am ready to prove her wrong...Indian wastes are indeed top notch :)

Exhibit A: A sell-out crowd watching a cricket test match in England is expected to generate 50 tonnes of waste over five days of sporting action!!! A majority of the waste includes drink containers, paper, cardboard...very combustible and useful resources for a energy generation plant. It required a former test cricketer, Alec Stewart, to go on air to exhort the public to recycle rather than waste.

In India, no former captains need to use up air time to urge the public to recycle. Its part of the system already. The incentive is money paid by recyclers (kabadiwallahs) for the plastics, milk containers, newspapers, etc. The public would rather take that money than put the items in the trash bin. Indian trash therefore mostly comprises food-based wastes, some of which is recycled in the kitchen garden itself.

Exhibit B: "Paper or plastic" is the commonly heard phrase at the checkout counter of a grocery store, supermarket. Only recently have groceries like Whole Foods and Trader Joes started asking shoppers if they want to carry back the purchases in their own tote. I havent seen *anyone* bring their own totes in. The city of San Franciscos efforts to charge for bags so shoppers brought their own bags also met with strong resistance.

Thinking about shopping back in India, if you didnt have your own tote to carry the stuff back in, you would just have to hold them in your hands, with absolutely no sympathy from the seller.

Exhibit C: A scene from a forgetful movie starring Brittany Murphy where shes playing a nanny and in the scene chastised by the rich brat shes looking after for drying the dishes with a cloth instead of a paper towel. I couldnt bring myself to watch any more of the movie...mostly because it was such a cheesy movie and not just for environmental reasons. To put things back in perspective...In India, a kitchen towel wouldnt have had anyone complaining unless they werent washed of course.

The net result, the amount of garbage produced, the type of garbage produced is more conducive for landfills in India. Recently, several cities have introduced schemes for door-to-door waste collection where each homeowner is charged for the type and amount of waste generated therefore providing the necessary stick to lower waste generation. Energy can certainly be produced from first world wastes, but the costs of such energy is prohibitive if you take into account the energy used to produce the containers, paper and cardboards in the first place.

Postscript: I now carry a green Whole Foods Tote (cost $3) when I go grocery shopping...mostly at Safeway because I cant afford Whole Foods.
I use neither cloth nor paper towels to dry my dishes...I just let the water drain.

Banking on the East Classic

2006-07-26T17:21:00.000-07:00

Last evening we went to watch Sania Mirza play at the Bank of the West Classic tournament in Stanford. The match was a disaster and she lost in straight sets disappointing all her fans.

I decided to hang out at the booths outside the stadium and check out some tennis gear. I was trying on this wrist-assist gear when I saw Sania walking by the store watching me try them on. It took me some time to realize who she was and by then she had disappeared.

The next day I went to Swetkas, a tennis store to pick up my demo racquet...and I found Patty Schnyder at the store. She would become the runner-up at Stanford tennis event. I wasted no opportunity this time to get a picture with her.

With Patty Schnyder at Swetkas

Lez Zeppelin

2006-06-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

I watched a Led Zeppelin cover-band at the Fillmore, called Lez Zeppelin. The musicians were very talented and a treat to watch.

The highlight of the show was them performing 'Dazed n Confused', watching the guitarist use the violin bow on her guitar to produce those psychedelic sounds, made me think about how amazing it would have been had I witnessed the performance by the original band.

Dazed n Confused

Go-Kart Racer

2006-06-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

My manager organized a go-karting event for us at the impressive racing courses at gokartracer. We have a lot of racing enthusiasts in the company, with my manager being a skillful drift racer himself. As I am always up for a challenge, I signed up for the event as well.

The grand prix race consists of a practice and a racing session of 30 minutes. In the trial round my helmet strap came off which resulted in a poor timing and I was consequently placed fourth out of the six participants for the racing round. It was looking difficult for me when the three ahead of me sped off in the early laps. Things continued to look bleak with every passing lap where they all extended their leads until a minor collision resulted in me squeaking through the gaps and into the front.

My manager was involved in that collision and he was doing all he could to recover his #1 position and I wasn't allowing him to get ahead, inspired by the saying 'for you to win, make the others lose'. Over the next 20 laps I remember my car getting bumped from behind while my manager tried to overtake me. I staved off the competition and the effects of the whiplash until I finally saw the checkered flag.

GoKartRacer - The Winner Takes it All

I was all smiles at the victory podium with my well fought victory :)

Taken to the (Dry) Cleaners

2006-05-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

I returned from two long back-to-back business trips and I was overwhelmed by the huge-ass load of laundry that I had with me. So I decided to take them to the dry cleaners. I knew the owners as they worked next door and they gave me a substantial discount for the large load.

On the way back to the store I was complimenting myself at having saved myself the trouble. Instead I had a surreal experience, the entire store along with the other ones in the strip mall had all been burnt to the ground. There were 'do not cross' boundaries set up around the entire area.

I was still in a shock staring at this sight when a policeman came along.

Policeman: So which of these stores do you own?
Me: I dont own any of these stores
Policeman: Okay...theres nothing to see here...keep moving
Me: ...b..b...b...but all my clothes were at the dry-cleaners
Policeman: A small smile appears on his face
Me: ....and I was supposed to pick them up today
Policeman: guess what young man...it seems like the owners of the dry cleaners didn't have any insurance either.

With those few words, he laughs out loud and heads off in the other direction endeavouring to bring sunshine into someone else's life (mostly his).

Super Burnt Fluff Cleaners

When realization set in on my loss I set about to make amends.

My first move- utilize the credit card protection facility to recoup the money I had spent on these clothes. I called up the card company and I explained the entire incident in detail. The lady on the other line sounded sympathetic and asked me when and where I had bought my clothes. Luckily, my online credit card statements were available so I carefully provided all the information to her while she made notes and repeated all the information to ensure that she had got it right.

At the end of this nearly 30 minute of information retrieval session, this happened...

The lady at the end of the line: Thank you Mr. Maneesh for continuing to be a valuable credit card customer. Unfortunately our credit card protection policy only covers items that were with the person at the time of the loss.
Me: Although I fail to understand why this special clause is in place, why did you make me dig out all the information if you knew that the fire at the dry cleaners was a clear case of an item not being with the person at the time of the incident?
The lady at the end of the line: Mr Maneesh, that is standard operating procedure for us to get all the information before we can provide the decision.

I am now sure that there are a lot of Sadists out there.

Blaine Memorial

2006-05-08T19:31:00.000-07:00

I was in New York and heard that Robert Blaine was there too...so I headed to the Lincoln Memorial to meet him. Only I was joined by 1000 other people who came to watch him break the record, along with television crews covering the event. There with numerous television cameras all around and the feeds were projected on a huge screen which helped me recognize Blaine.

The Crowds

The Watery Globe

The Tribulations

Robert Blaine was unable to break the record for the maximum time spent underwater holding his breath and he had to be fished out of the watery globe so he wouldn't sustain any damage. There were several members of the audience who were very disappointed, one of them shouted "Do it again"!

MyTube

2006-04-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in a cafe when I was interviewed by a channel 7 reporter. I was lucky enough to catch myself on the tube later in the night, record the segment using my digital camera and then create my first youtube posting...enjoy!

Indian Epics via Comics

2005-10-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

I found an online version of Amar Chitra Katha (literally translated to Eternal Stories through Pictures from Hindi) on Valmiki's Ramayana, a Sanskrit Epic. These comics were brain fodder for us when I was growing up. I hope the rest of the epics are digitized and enabled for online access as well.

Bangalore Maps

2005-10-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post I had predicted satellite maps integration into google tools. I was right about that one, but I had incorrectly surmised that India would be off the map. Its now accessible from Google Earth and to a finer level of detail than that of even maps.google.com. The Indian Government complains about publishing such sensitive data...Google rebuts that this information has been public all along...albiet for a small sum of money.

Anyway, whats missing from the aerial maps of Bangalore is...the traffic :) Also, it lacks any street names and landmarks. My friend Vicky, a fellow-Bangalorean and classmate, sent me his set of landmarks that can be imported to embellish the barren landscape. I added landmarks for the many pubs...its a bit out-of-date because I havent been there in two years. This is a work in progress...

Pubs in Bangalore

These landmarks besides the pubs are places around Bangalore that I lived/studied/hung-out...

Bangalore

If the landmarks file was text-based we could have made a wiki and have all the information added on...in every part of Bangalore using a collaborative approach.

Mackinac Island

2005-09-11T18:20:00.000-07:00

As a consequence of events described in my earlier post, I have started visiting exotic locations in the US notably Detroit MI. Places of tourism described by the locals in the mo-city have casino cities across the border and the scenic upper peninsula some 300 miles away from this metro at the top of the list.

I was stranded in Detroit this weekend and after consulting several friends I headed north to see the fall colors in the Upper Peninsula (thanks to Jeanney k.). Its still the beginning of autumn, but I was able to capture some of the splendour.

Fall Colors

I spent the weekend on an Island called Mackinac staying at a small bed & breakfast called the LaChance Inn. Lodging in this fine establishment includes a lavish 'continental breakfast' comprising 2 types of muffins and orange juice. I could alternatively have stayed at the Grand Hotel on the island but have paid an arm and a leg for a little more.

Highlights of the island were the lack of automobiles (and the use of horse-driven 'taxis'), the historic Fort Mackinac and commercial tourism at its finest.

The Arch Rock below was amongst the natural sites, there was also a beautiful cemetry but I guess most would consider more morbid than scenic, so pictures not included.

Arch Rock

Scaling Mt. Fear

2005-09-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

I camped at Yosemite this long weekend along with uber-hikers Ritesh and Giri. I will remember this trip for two reasons...camping isnt for the soft city types thats unless you can go without a hot water bath for 3 days and you fancy smoke from campfires billowing into your face and eyes...leaving you with a slight roasted-oak odour, a running nose and eyes half shut.

'Well Done' - Ritesh tending the fire...Me at a safe distance

I will remember this trip because of my last trip to Yosemite where I attempted to scale the Half Dome. It took me almost 4 hours to get to the base of the Half Dome and when I got there...I realized I had the fear of heights. It only made matters worse when I tried to climb the last phase on the ropes only to look down only to see the depths of the valley. I chickened out, threw in the towel and made my 4 hour trek back to the curry village.

I have been looking for opportunities to redeem myself ever since...I took numerous 'giant dipper' rides at the Santa Cruz boardwalk to acclimatize myself to rapidly hurling down large heights :)

I finally got redemption...This weekend we did a 15 mile hike near the Tanaya lake in Yosemite up to a point called the Cloudrest point. The last phase to the top was deja vu time...I sensed my fear on the narrow ridge to the peak with the depths of the valley visible on both sides. I trudged on remembering that defeat was a more horrible feeling than fear itself. I was very pale despite being sunburnt but I continued the ascent.

...And when I got up there I was beheld by an amazing sight...the Half Dome was visible right before us. The peak we climbed was at a higher elevation than the Half Dome too.

Half 'Done' - With Ritesh and Giri and the Half Dome in the background

I had finally conquered the Half Dome...well almost!

Eye of the Tiger

2005-08-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

Check out this street-art...

Palo Alto Arts & Wine Festival

I Moved My Cheese!

2005-07-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

As you might have noticed my blogs have dried up lately. I have been busy and agree thats left all of you thirsty/hungry for information from me. It also doesnt help that I am tardy with my mail, so even my Mom has to get information from me off my blog :)

First I moved from the south bay to Palo Alto. This move was induced by my apartment owner who decided to sell off to a condo-developer, leaving me with a 60-day eviction notice. Luckily, I found this really cool apartment in downtown P.A. so everything happens for a reason!
Moving in was easy for a change, we were able to get all the furniture in through the large french windows. I didnt have a camera to capture the moment, but theres always a re-enactment that I can perform for the blog and get a picture up...so watch this space.

Side note: I have a sneaky feeling that all female landladies call themselves Denise. This is the third Denise in a row whom I will be sending my monthly rent cheques to.

At work, I decided to switch departments to the field operations division. I think I get more energized in a customer situation so I really look forward to the new responsibilities...and travelling.

Theres plenty of cheese moving around :)

Covering Cover Bands

2005-05-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

I grew up watching cover bands, mostly because Bangalore was off-circuit for the popular rock bands except the occasional back-from-retirement Jethro Tull types who charged an arm and a leg for tickets.

Things didnt change much when I moved to the SF Bay Area...I still watch Cover/Tribute bands.

It started with an all-girl band - AC/DShe fronted by band members who go by the names Bonny Scott and Agnes Young. The band was any man's best dream come true- 5 lovely women belting out heavy Bon Scott-era AC/DC songs.

Things quietened down after my car was broken into during a Metallica concert at the Cow Palace and I stayed away from concerts for a bit. My concert-going was ironically revived by a Metallica tribute band...infact a tribute to two bands- Betallica. Inspired by Modest Mouse's Gray Album remixed with the Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album, this band parodied such songs like:

Hey Dude
Leper Madonna
The Thing That Should Not Let It Be
I Want to Choke Your Band
Blackened the USSR
A Garage Dayz Nite
Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band
And I'm Evil

Unfortunately, like the 'Gray Album' both 'Betallica' and 'A Garage Dayz Nite' were brought down by the record labels. Fortunately, If you bought any of Wierd Al Yankovich's albums you would realize that the shelf-life for such parodies is rather short.

Next at the Bay Area Unites Concert at the San Jose Pavilion, I saw Mostly Dylan. I could actually follow the singer's lyrics who sounded more Joe Cocker than Bob Dylan. I was volunteered to sell their CD's with proceeds going towards the Tsunami Relief fund and met the band in the process.

I then watched Blue Floyd at the 12 Galaxies...a Blues band comprising the drummer of the Allman Bros rendering Pink Floyd songs with a bluesy twist.

This week I saw members of the Tea leaf Green peform at the Independent playing mostly Robert Johnson's blues. The highlight however was the last song they performed- Whole Lotta Love, with the leading lady giving a jazzy rendition of the number.

Watching live bands perform is fun...even when the clones are on.

Bay to the Breakers

2005-05-16T21:46:00.000-07:00

I took part in the Bay to the Breakers, an annual marathon-walkathon-halloween race. The race results had these stats on me:

Bib #: 34055
Place: 29507
Time: 4:15:20
Length: 12 km or 7.46 miles

Although the results show that I was placed 29507 amongst almost 65000 runners. It doesnt tell you that I had to reckon with almost 100,000 unregistered participants who had packed the course- many of whom were quite a distraction with their fancy attire (and some without any attire at all).

At the finish line

The incentive to finish was a free photo at the finish-line, and entry into the golden gate park to watch Gavin DeGraw perform live at the event cleverly called 'Footstock'. The boy's performance was impressive and even after the gruelling run we found ourself shaking a foot.

So engrossed were we in the music that we disregarded the last call to the MUNI buses from the park. So after the concert, we had to retrace our steps to almost the middle of the course, making it a total of 16 kms we covered on foot in the day.

Ben-Lo

2005-04-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

Ben the Locksmith (like Ben Affleck- Jennifer Lopez...only better)

Yester-evening I got an S.O.S. from my friend Rachna, who had locked herself out of the apartment without a spare key. She was considering hurling a large stone at the living room window, carefulling removing the resultant sharpnels and crawling into the room to retrieve the keys. I had other thoughts. I knew just the right man for the job...my former office-mate Ben.

While the rest of us mortals use an analog clock...or a digital clock as in my case, Ben has one that tells the time in binary. Thats how smart he is! At MIT, along with the difficult computer courses, he had mastered the 'MIT Guide to Lock Picking'. He demonstrated his skills at the workplace once...I had securely tethered my laptop to my desk and had gone to get a glass of water. He had it open in 30 seconds...and he didnt cut the cable.

I gave him a call and explained the situation, sensing his glee as I mentioned unlocking locks. He was over at Rachna's apartment in as much time it takes to drive home from work, pick up his wife and the tools and get to the apt. With his instruments he had the lock open in 2 minutes (which incidentally was the same time it took me to read the time from his binary clock). His wife was disappointed...she has usually seen him crack locks in under a minute.

If I was ever at MIT, I wouldn’t even bother to lock my doors.

O Las Vegas!

2005-04-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

I got to visit Las Vegas for the Microsoft 2005 Summit...just because no one else from the company wanted to go. I spent the sunday at the Bellagio and watched 'O'- the cirque du soleil. You know a show is amazing, when the curtains are raised and you see that the stage is infact a big swimming pool. While watching the show, I wondered if they had hired divers, gymnasts, synchronized swimmers who took part in the sydney or athens olympics. Yes they had!

O

Tickets dont come cheap and buying them atleast a month in advance can help.

Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

2005-04-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

I made my maiden voyage on the seas in 'J/24'- a versatile 25-foot training boat. My crew included our skipper- Aude, second-in-command Osman and two able seahands - Shaheen and Artem. We started out from the Berkeley Marina at approximately 1030 hours heading northwest towards Tiburon. At 1330 hours we docked at Angel Island for lunch to ward off scurvy from our long journey. At 1515 hours we started for the golden gate bridge amidst lots of complaints for siesta time from the seahands.

Around 1530 hours we saw an incredible sight...one that made us wonder whether we had gone through a time warp instead of the Racoon straits while leaving the island...

Blasts from the Past

...either that or "Pirates of the carribbean" was being projected on a really large screen below the GG bridge. The ships were accompanied with mock-battles, replete with cannon fire and posturing. We were lucky to witness this 'historic' event...these shows are very rare and we had the best seats in the house!

Around 1645 hours we headed towards Alcatraz to discover the feeling of The Rock's isolation after sundown...along with the many passing cruise ships and their passengers. Swinging by the Treasure Island we were back in the Marina by 1800 hours. Then the perfect follow-up to any hard day of sailing- having to tie up the sails and wash the boat.

We signed off the day with dinner at an Indian (Coorgi) restaurant- Breads of India.

The Crew

Skipper - Aude with a Sea hand

Sea Hands - Shaheen and Artem (Osman in the background - Second-in-Command)

Me - At the Helm

I Want My MythTV

2005-03-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

I dont watch television often...but there are some shows that I like, but never on time to watch them live. This calls for a Personal Video Recorder or a PVR...TiVo and Windows Media Center are available off-the-shelf but I need a 'project'. What better than MythTV!

There are fellow bloggers who are working on the same project so I have good documentation. I also have my buddy Artem who has already rigged up his MythTV... this way I have a plan-B if my efforts fail.

My requirements are simple:

HDTV support so I can watch 'Lost' and 'Desperate Housewives' in high-definition :)
Universal Remote
Music collection (Huge Hard Drive)
BBC News and Rediff RSS Feeds
Cheap !!!

Getting Real on El Camino Real

2005-03-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

I took my car in for its scheduled 40k miles service...a trivial oil change I thought and probably a new air filter. The rep called me up later in the day with the estimate- the price knocked me off the seat...with additional news that I'd have to leave my car in the shop for a week.

Always one looking for the silver lining...I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to experience public transportation in the silicon valley. I have always prefered the metro systems to rental cars and cabs in the other cities I visit...and now I would get to try it out locally. Besides I could save on the rental car and gas...with all proceeds going towards my cars servicing needs.

My apartment and work place are both located very close to the local bus stop on El Camino Real but in these parts folks would rather drive their suvs and fancy cars to the store across the street than walk to it, I am one of them...minus the suv and fancy car part.

The public transportation was the Valley Transport Authority's round the clock bus. The VTA worked fine for me...It was regular and uninteresting at all times. The only problem was when I had to get to a place about 5 miles away from El Camino Real. In a very New York state of mind, I called up the taxi company and asked for a cab...All my savings in public transportation were undone. The cab driver acknowledged that it was expensive travelling around these parts in a cab...and that I should think about getting a car.

I got my car back 3 days later which came as a great relief. I however made a resolution to take the bus at least once a week to work and back. I am just doing my bit for the earth's sake.

The Little Terrorist

2005-02-27T19:36:00.000-08:00

Attended a screening of 'The Little Terrorist', nominated for an Oscar in the short film category. The movie was brilliant...my only complaint was that it was kinda short :)

I got to hang out with the director- Ashvin Kumar who dazzled the audience with his humility and tearing wit. Hopefully this movie will be the spark that lights up the indie movie industry.

Ashvin Kumar, May his tribe increase.

With Ashvin Kumar

The Wall

2005-02-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

After multiple snowboarding season's of sticking to the the bunny slopes and occasionally hitting the blues...I finally conquered 'The Wall'.

I wouldnt even have made it to any ski resort slope that day.

It was the morning after a blizzard, I was driving down to Kirkwood from Minden in May's 4Runner unaware that the road required a 4-wheel-drive in operation. The rest of the folks in the car- Chris, May and Susan...not the best morning folks, were still stirring. Approaching a curve at roughly 25 miles per hour I gently applied the brakes to negotiate the turn only to send the car into a tailspin. I attempted to rectify the situation by straightening the wheel only to have the car edge closer to the edge of the cliff. I was cool...if I was chewing gum...I would have blown a bubble. The bottom of the mountain started appearing, but I wouldnt bat an eyelid. The other folks now wide awake wouldnt speak either, contrary to the hysterical shrieking I am accustomed to watching of people in the movies. We slid closer with every passing second...and then there was a bump and the car stopped short of hurtling down the cliff. We had hit a mound of snow located just at the edge.

Next May was back at the wheels, I was relegated to the back seat cussed by everyone else and the car switched to four-wheel drive.

This life altering event was a message that I was saved for a reason. I accompanied my accomplished snowboarding buddies on every slope they ventured on...even without a helmet. First the solitude (blue), moving on to the cornice (black d) and finally to the Wall!

At the Wall with May

Tsunami Fundraiser Soccer Tournament

2005-01-23T18:12:00.000-08:00

Palo Alto Panthers

The Net-IP organized a co-ed soccer tournament as a part of their Tsunami fundraising drive. I was part of the Palo Alto Panthers which won the tournament. Some pieces of trivia and statistical highlights- None of the team members lived in Palo Alto, there were 3 Maneesh's in the team of 7... and the football in the picture was not a soccer ball.

I had broken my toe nail in a game the week before, and was under penicillin and analgesics for a root canal treatment. Funny why playing with such a condition is called 'fighting tooth and nail'.

Hot Sauce Tasting Club

2005-01-12T23:00:00.000-08:00

Hot Sauce Tasting Kit

The folks in Montreal indulge in a hot-sauce tasting event featuring some of the best hot sauces from around the world, guaranteed to incapacitate any taste bud that comes in its path. Connesieurs would distinguish the different ingredients- cayenne, chipotle, habañero, jalapeno, serrano, tobasco and mustard in between gulps of soda, heavy panting and wiping of sweat from the brow. The consensus was that Vasco's home made concoction was the tops. Off-the-shelf: Dave's Ultimate Insanity Sauce and the Ass Reaper topped.

'Hottest' Entrants

Visite de Montréal / Montreal Visit

2005-01-11T23:55:00.000-08:00

Note: Only a few phrases in this post could be rendered bilingual as the author is anglophone...francly speaking.

I made my first trip of the year to Montreal, a city referred to by the Insight Guide to Montreal as the most interesting city in north america ahead of even San Francisco. It surely had all the makings, only I made it during winter when the temperatures were as low as -15 degrees C. The temperatures did get to -2 degrees C at which point the natives commended me on my excellent timing in getting here...perfect to enjoy the warm weather.

Rue Saint-Denis / Saint-Denis Street

I made several forays into the downtown areas that are active in Winter- Crescent St, Saint-Catherine, Saint-Laurent, Saint-Denis, my biggest find was an Indian Restaurant on Laurent St- Atma run by a punjabi family. The food was great and the decor/ambience excellent. My eyes went misty as I sipped the tasty, warm Mulligatawny using my near frost-bitten hands.

Picture of the restaurant entrance included...there was no way I could tell its name from the front door sign.

Atma: Cusine Indienne

Photos taken with a Treo 600 cellphone. My digital camera of 5 years- a Nikon Coolpix 950 broke down...exactly a few months after the extended warranty on it expired :(

Carmel Electric

2004-12-29T01:48:00.000-08:00

Carmel's 17 Mile Drive

Entrance Fee: $8.50
Unleaded Gas Price: $2.19 per gallon
Gas price for trip: $16.50
Starbucks coffee: $4.20

Watching the sun set in Carmel...Priceless.

There are some things in life money cant buy, real estate in Carmel is one of them...you need gold bullions for them.

Christmas with Barney

2004-12-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

Barney

My friend Mark went on vacation to Cancún leaving me his frail beagle, Barney, to house-sit...A perfect location and occasion to host a happy holidays party :)

Barney was fairly low maintainence but he wasnt accustomed to having more than 30 south-asians doing the karaoke and dancing to bollywood numbers, keep him company. When the excitement reached a peak he convenienty soiled the carpet.

Exactly what I call a Party poop-er!

New York Calling - I

2004-12-16T23:58:00.000-08:00

Armed with the '2004 NYTimes Guide to New York', roundtrip redeye tickets from JetBlue and a hotel reservation at the Habitat (the cheapest hotel with the tiniest rooms), I headed to the Big Apple for my first vacation of the year. I now know why NY is called the big apple... its the largest advertisement for Apple iPods...everyone on the subway has them (atleast the white headphones). While on the topic of gear that New Yorkers wear, Ugg boots were in the rage...women that is (Men with these boots are...Ugh)

First, a walk thru Park place to the Central Park and then a visit to the American Museum of Natural History featuring the best exhibits on biodiversity and lots of stuffed animals.

Next order of business...head to Little India- a tiny strip in the lower east side, home to several 'Indian' restaurants with almost identical menus (Mitali is a wee better than the Calcutta restaurant). Little India doesnt exist on any manhattan map like Little Italy or China Town, its just a passing reference in the NYTimes book. The restaurants arent even owned by Indians but by Bangladeshis from Chittagong/Dhaka and Pakistanis. My search for the official India Town outside India continues...

I also paid tribute to the fallen site...Silicon Alley. Once touted as the east coast's answer to the bay area, it is now reverting to Shops and stores.

Subway at Silicon Alley

A word on 'Service with a Smile' in NY. New Yorker's choose to beam the smile at the most inappopriate time. It isnt appropriate for the Hotel Reservation Manager at the lobby who's informing you that the reservation made from the cheap hotel booking site hasnt gone through, to finish the sentence with a smile. If you are spoken to kindly in the city...you have only spoken to an out-of-towner.

29 and Feeling Fine

2004-12-15T23:57:00.000-08:00

Bouquet from my brother and his girlfriend to cheer me up. Look at the bright side they said, next year it will be the big 3-Oh!

Thanksgiving Stuffing

2004-11-26T14:50:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Shal and Roopesh who invited me for Thanksgiving, I cant fit into my Levis' anymore.

Thanksgiving ~~Turkey~~ Chicken

Turkeys were sold out in the Bay Area and Shal did a wonderful job preparing the meal with chicken. Also, mashed potatotes didnt require boiled potatoes and the kneading process, She simply added potato 'flour' to boiling water.

Topped off with Apple Pie...in the end even freshly brewed cappucino couldnt prevent us from passing out on the couch after lunch.

In the Line of 'Fire'

2004-11-16T20:36:00.000-08:00

Learning from QueenOfSky's experience at Delta (Diary of a Fired Flight Attendant), troutgirl's at Friendster (ShitCanned), Michael Hanscom's at Microsoft (Of blogging and unemployement), I have made a few changes to my blog for reasons of anonymity. I have removed any mention of my last name, email address and IM handle from this blog...with the assumption that my first name is as common in the bay Area as are Paul, John, George...and Ringo in the UK. More tips here if you need identity protection for your blog.

Things arent exactly rosy at work and while blogging is a welcome distraction I really dont want to join the ranks of the unemployed with my tirades. Its hard dealing with attrition at work, dealing with an exodus is even tougher. Colleagues who constitute a healthy part of a techies social circle are suddenly scarce. I can only take heart from this core truth identified by Buddhism: Everything changes, and our desire for things to stay the same causes us pain. My ranger colleague also motivates me with these lines from the Ranger Creed:

"Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission though I be the lone survivor."

On a lighter note, the bloggers who got fired have found fame...as well as an alternate job which has only whetted their blogging appetites. On the same day that I read about QueenOfSky's termination on news.com (she had posted certain risqué pictures of herself in Delta air-hostess garb on her blog) I read this article in CNN Money about McDonald Gals featuring in a forthcoming edition of a bestselling girlie magazine, as a follow up to their pictorials on Walmart, HomeDepot and Starbucks women in their work attire...and also without their work attire ;)

Guesses on which corporation's women the magazine will feature next...not too sure about Delta Airlines!

Road Trip Blues

2004-11-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

Like the migratory birds in winter, I decided to head south to Irvine this weekend...primarily to hangout with my high school buddy - Aditya Chauhan and his fiance. Unlike the migratory birds, however, I decided to drive down. Some lessons learnt from the trip follow:

A road trip can become a guilt trip. If not the melting ice caps in the artic, the upwardly mobile gas prices should urge you to consider public transportation.
Consider Mapquest instead of Yahoo! Maps for your directions finding needs. It can not only shave off 50 miles off your iterinary...but will also give you peace of mind.
LA traffic is not for the faint hearted. 24 hour carpool lanes (I-405) should give you some idea. Graciously allow the southern californian swinging in from 3 lanes away to cut you off by inches.
Consider renting audiobooks from the local library for the trip. Caution: If there was a book that you couldnt get past page 2 while reading (for example, Men are from Mars Women are from Venus) dont expect a narration to work miracles...you will only end up turning on the radio and gladly listening to fading radio stations playing mexican serenades.
Exits marked with gas stations might be duds. Make sure you have atleast a quarter tank full at any time.
The Lonely Planet guide to California has a section on San Luis Obispo in Central Coastal California. You can skip the Bubblegum alley on Higuera St. It is just a narrow alley abandoned by the municipality. For Indian travellers think of walls splattered by Paan (Betel) juice and if such an alley is worth visiting :)

Bubblegum Alley - San Luis Obispo

I have the Power...Book G4

2004-11-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

After two years of staring enviously at my colleague's 15" PowerBook G4, I finally got my own..his powerbook. When I first laid my eyes on the PowerBook I had this klunky Dell that I used as weights for my on-the-road workouts. My colleague who owned the laptop, Dan, urged me to get the PBG4 (he owned several shares in Apple). I resisted the temptation at that time and persisted with Dells. Dan decided to to get a new one with a SuperDrive and now I got a hand-me down PB that I gladly use for my Blogger posts...notice the elegance of my recent posts.

This computer is now the "apple" of my eyes :)

Birds Eye View

2004-10-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

View of my apartment from 2000 ft. above the ground. It just isnt safe to walk around my apartment in my boxers anymore!

Birds Eye View

This image was obtained using the keyhole software, which google acquired lately.

Prediction: In a few months you will be able to enter an address into the google search bar and get a satellite image of the location. Satellite images of Indian territory will be off the air due to a certain government regulation that prohibits creating an exact map or satellite image upto a certain level of detail.

Update: True to my prediction, Satellite imagery was added to maps.google.com. http://www.betanews.com/article/Google_Adds_Satellite_Imagery_to_Maps/1112671379

Whats better is the ability to get directions entirely based off satellite images...Google never ceases to amaze.

Tribute to the ZX Spectrum+

2004-10-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

Exactly 20 years ago, a home computer was introduced that would eventually transform several lives...primarily mine. It was the ZX Spectrum+...powered by a 3.54 MHz Zilog Z80A CPU, 16K of RAM and a display of 256 x 192 pixel resolution on the television monitor. It was introduced in India a couple of years later with a different name- dB Spectrum+.

My Dad, who was terribly concerned about his kids obsession with soccer, cricket and tennis, introduced us to computers hoping to get us concentrate better on our studies. He took my brother and me to a local computer store (Computer Point, Dickenson Road, Bangalore) and entrusted the sales guy to teach us something about computers. No sooner did Dad leave to run some errands, our new instructor loaded a game of cricket on the computer and had us experiment with the game using the keyboard.

We absolutely loved the game and the machine. Never had blinking lights on a television monitor enamoured us brothers more before this. India's TV media was still state-controlled at that time, and besides the sunday afternoon star trek, there was no real entertainment broadcast on the only channel available. When Dad returned, we harrassed him to no end to buy the machine, citing educational aspects of the computer (which we never availed). We got the computer...and also a free game of cricket and practical chemistry-I which I never recall having ever loaded.

As days passed, we spent more time indoors playing games...actually mostly loading games from the tape cassettes which took horrendously long times to load as compared to todays hard drives, cds and yesteryears cartridges.

The ZX Spectrum+ a was very sensitive device. Long periods of usage would get it to automatically reboot..which would require us to restart the lengthy loading period. I however enjoyed my many hours of playing pacman, maziacs, bricks, enduro racer, renegade, bombjack and several others that my fading memory doesnt recall.

I came across a post of the ZX Spectrum clones on slashdot. The ZX spectrum still lives on :) Infact, My office mate- Ben Kolin actually has simulators of the ZX spectrum. The sight of the (c) 1982, Sinclair ZX spectrum on his monitor got a tear out of my myopic eyes.

The Windsurfing Diaries

2004-10-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

Saw a beautiful movie - The Motorcycle Diaries. It inspired me to begin my windsurfing diaries ...

I windsurfed at the Foster City lagoon along with May and her friend Stefan. It turned out to be a very humbling experience :(

Conditions were overcast and the winds fickle...changing directions like bollywood heroines dresses during an item number. The worst was when the winds died completely leaving me stranded at one end of the shore. With my sails rendered useless I tried every technique to prevent my board from being pushed back to the shore by the waves. Swimming along the board (salty mouth), dragging the board (grimy feet), lying on the board paddling hard (exhausted arms) had all the lake visitors chuckling except me. There was even a marriage reception crowd who took a break from the festivities to watch me get out of the doldrums. An hour later, the wind resumed and I finally got into some action.

Next time...I should better check the wind information channel!

America India Foundation

2004-10-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend I volunteered at the AIF Summit in the hospitality department. Ran into a few celebrities, pictures of whom follow...

With Nandita Das

With Rahul Bose

I also met Usha Uthup and the Bombay Dreams and they rocked the San Jose Convention Center with their music and dance.

Pictures courtesy Tony Sehgal. Check out his real work at his web site.

Nephew is born

2004-10-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

I am an uncle again. My nephew was born on Sept 30th. Sinij is his current name chosen by his sister...until a more meaningful name is found :)

She was also responsible for naming her female labrador pup - princey...and the name stuck that time.

Nephew and Neice

Update: 11/15/2004
My sis plans to stick with the name 'Sinij' for her son. We searched the web for languages having this name, just so the kid wouldnt grow up wondering what his name ever meant.

In russian, Sinij mean 'dark blue'. There is a ukranian flower named Sinij Dozh , theres a german andUkranian blogger who go with the same name, a german album - The blue album.