Simpsonize Me!

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

Image courtesy SimpsonsMovie's Avatar maker and Windows Paint.

Bone Marrow Registry

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Patrick's Point near Eureka, CA.

Press Print to Play

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.