Boring.. isnt it?
Tonight is the semifinal of Euro 2004, Holland vs. Greece. But there is some fight going on between cable providers and ESPN/Star sports. So no soccer as well as Wimbledom for me.
One more thing happened today. GMAIL gave me a server error. Reminds me of the old jungle saying "Noone is perfect.. not even google!". Last night I saw . It is based on the true story of . She was executed in 2002. Media labled her FIRST EVIL FEMALE SERIAL KILLER.
The movie is shocking. It is a love and betrayal story. And in the end you keep thinking that if the world is really like that? Maybe it is. The performances are amazing. No wonder Charlize Theron got an Oscar for it.
It has been criticized that the movie tries to generate sympathy for the killer and makes people think that she was betrayed by her lesbian lover. I think its the way you look at it. There are always two sides to the story and its upto you to decide whose story you want to believe. Because in the end nothing is right or wrong, its just what you think. A few days ago, I had posted my thoughts about
Capital Punishment. Just came across a story called by George Orwell. This is an account of a true incedent when he was a policeman in burma. Quite poignant.. dont know why. Well.. thats the question I have been asking myself since morning. In Calsoft, we had a 6-day week and I used to crib about it. My whole argument was that you need atleast two days to relax after 5 days of hard(!!??) work. After I left, they made it a 5-day week. Here in Adaptec, we have a 5-day week. But the problem is two days fly off so soon that it feels like Monday comes right after Friday. And, like today, I always keep thinking about what happened to the weekend on every Monday. Is there any company that has a four-day week? ;)
On sunday, I slept thought out the day. In the evening I was talking to Smriti and found out that the whole world is watching movies almost everyday and I havnt seen a movie since 'yuva' which was on 22nd May (just checked up in the blog ;)). That was a horrible feeling and decided to go for a movie. Saw last night. OK movie. Nothing great. Could have been better. But Not bad atall.
Pros: Very Good performances. Technically very good. Good entertainment.
Cons: A little weak story line.
Abybaby is amazing just like he was in the old . Akshaye is good. Amrita Rao has NO role atall. But she's sizzling in one song. I liked it coz I have seen far worse movies. :) After a long time I am posting an extry on a Saturday. There were many reasons why i dint/coundnt post on saturdays. When I moved to Bangalore, I dint have a computer at home. When it was shipped to me a month or two later, I dint have the right cable to connect my cell phone for dial-up connection. Today also I am using my roomie;s computer and his data cable to get online.
In other news: France lost yesterday. Amazing isnt it? While at the subject of translation, read this . I laughed so hard when I read this that my stomach ached! :) Someone forwarded this to me. Amazingly Funny!
Try this :
Go to 'language tools' on 'Google'
Type in "my mom is nice and cool" in the 'translate text' box and
convert it from 'English to Spanish'
Then copy & paste the answer into the 'translate text' box and
convert it from
'Spanish to English'
Believe me, the result is a riot. :)
Every Calvin and Hobbed strip is funny as well as thought provoking. Bill Waterson is a genius. Just take a look at strip and you will know.
I got a forward from Smriti today. Hilarious as well as true. . Last night, on some news channel, they were covering a news about an . It was a weird story. While at it, they were trying to raise the issue of .
Their point was that capital punishment should be banned because the system is not perfect and an innocent person could be a victim of it. That would be shocking and sad, i agree. But in my opinion we need capital punishment in certain cases. I am not saying that hang everyone but I am sure that there are people who deserve to be hanged.
That is my opinion right now. But like all my opinions it is also subject to change. I think about this issue everytime when i see . I think its cruel and inhuman to kill someone. And its still inhuman even if the law allows it.
I just cant make up my mind on this issue. Only thing i can say is Dont ban it but dont use it either. Use it only if it absolutely neccessary. Easier said than done. Just now I tried hosting this blog on my tripod site. It worked but FTP hosting was slow. I feel like I have a lot more control over the content if its on my ftp site. But I am not ready as yet to shift from blogspot (since it shows up in google ;)). So I shifted back to blogspot. When I tried to publish here I got a "004 dk.eos.net.FtpError: Login incorrect" error. So I did what people (atleast I) do whenever they get into trouble. I Googled. Its amazing how Google comes to rescue whenever I am in trouble. It directed me to this page. According to them you need a reboot to get it working. B*llS**T! Reboot is SO WINDOWS! I just removed all the cookies and it worked. Note: The word "date" in the title referes to date as in "dd/mm/yyyy date" and not as in "going out on a date"
Yesterday was 22nd June. It is a special day for two reasons. First, It is the longest day of the year.. or is it 21st June?
It is also a date to remember because on the same day some 100 years ago assasinated Rand. The day was 22nd June 1897. Its a very thrilling incedent and happened in my home city, Pune. There is one amazing movie called "22 June", directed by Nachiket and Jayu Patwardhan on the same incedent. It is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Right now I am inspecting a shirt. Given to me by Adaptec. It is nice and denim blue. I also got a mug from them. Nice. Since this blog is getting popular (that means it shows up in google and three people know about it :P), I have added a on top.
Keep Googling. It makes you smarter(TM). Got up in the morning to find that the bathroom door was jammed and there is no water. Called up the security and he started the water pump. That solved the water problem but bathroom door was still jammed. Called the security guy and he tried all the keys he had without any luck. Finally we were just tinkering with the lock with a scisor and it opened as if nothing had happened! Stupid Doors!
Parents were suppose to catch a train in the noon. Ordered a taxi for them but it dint come on time. People started panicing and just as were went out to get a rickshaw we saw the taxi coming :)
Came to office. Had lunch. Did some work. Back to the normal routine :) My parents were here for last 10 days. Also my cousin from Pune and a cousin from Bombay and his parents. Since all were here we were planning for a weekend getaway. Only problem was to decide on a destination.
Till last moment we were planning to go to . We booked the taxi and called up s hotel there to book the rooms. That guy there said it was pouring there and dint recommend to come. So at the last moment we changed plans and decided on . I had been to Ooty before some 7-8 years ago. But that day it was raining and we spent most of the time in the hotel room.
I had come to office at seven in the morning on Friday and went home at 1:30. The taxi was ready and we left at 2. The drive was good. Road was nice. But near Mysore we had a flat tire. Driver, his name was Raju, changed it and we moved again. After some time we got one more flat tire. This time it took time. We were stranded for almost an hour. After that we were again back on the road.
It was getting dark and we knew that the road ahead was through hills with a lot of hair pin turns. Coincedently we were passing through and though that it would be a great experience if we could stay in some lodge in the jungle. At about 11 we found the government cottage and got a room there.
When we were walking towards the room in the dark, we heard some noises. The guard threw the torch light aroung and we found that we were among hundreds of deers! We were thrilled!!! The room was ok. Those guys also made "Sambhar Rice" for us. It was amazing. We also booked for the jungle safari.
On saturday, got up at 5:30 in the morning. Got the first glimpse of the jungle outside. I just cant explain how beautiful it was. Deers were roaming around the room. Monkeys were sitting on the trees and watching us watch them. Birds were chirping. Weather was beautiful. It was awsome!
The safari was nice too. It lasted for an hour. We saw some elephants, deers, peacocks and wild dogs. It is a place where you can spend days without getting bored. But we had to leave for ooty.
We reached ooty and went to . It was very very very windy. There was a small building with a small telescope inside. Those guys were charging 3 Rs. to see Ooty from the telescope. Since we were tourists in a tourist spot, we had to make all the stupid things that tourists usually do. There was a queue of stupids. When my turn came and I put my eye in the telescope, then only i realised how stupid I was. You cant make out what you are seeing there.
Then we went to . Amazing and huge place. I remember I was there in the rains last time. This time it was a little crowded. Its a well maintained garden with a large number of trees brought from all over the world.
We checked in in a hotel. Coincedently it was the same hotel we stayed last time. We had lunch and we slept. In the evening we just went out for a walk. It was pretty cold and after walking for some time we felt better. The hotel manager told us that it was raining for last 20 days and we were lucky to get such a wonderful weather. We walked through the market. I found couple of book stores and had to go inside :).
Ooty is a big town. We wanted to buy something but we could not find anything that is not available in Pune or Bangalore.
For dinner we went to a place where they served some dosas that made us lick our fingers. We also had a lot of home-made chocolates. Yummy!
On sunday we got up in the morning and had breakfast. My shoulder was still aching. But felt better after a hot water bath. We went to Ooty station and caught a narrow-gauge train to . If you ever go to Ooty, DO NOT MISS THIS TRAIN RIDE. Just like , I just cant explain how beautiful it was. You have to experience it yourself. Our taxi was waiting for us at Coonoor station. We came back to Ooty, again bought some chocolates and left for .
Near Mysore, we had lunch and after that got inside the Mysore Palace. I had been there earlier. That time I was pretty impressed by it. But this time around dint feel much. In the end, I had seen so much gold and silver and ivory that i was bored of it. A middle class person like me feels bad to see so much efforts and resources wasted for a kings palace without a good reason.
Last night we came back to Bangalore at about 8:30 in the evening. Had dinner and slept. The cool and memorable weekend was over. :)
Yesterday I posted an entry on this blog. One friend saw it and told me the name of the bird that I saw. Its . This is amazing. This is amazing because I dint ask any question, still someone volunteered. Because of this blog, I have a new entry in my GK bank.
Thanks Vaibhav. Since I had nothing better to do, I was just browsing through my own blog archives (sometimes I think they are right when they call me a narcissist). And I came across this post. The moon was looking so pretty that night and I thought "Well.. there has to be atleast one person with a camera who must have felt the same way like i did!". I searched .. sorry.. no.. I googled and found that it was a very rare occasion (once in 400 years) that day. Someone has posted the . Now you will know what I was talking about :). I found a also. :) Today morning when I was coming to office, I saw a bird, what we call "A Bharadwaj" in Marathi. They say it is a good omen. Whatever. :). And that made me think about the same bird I used to see at Pune on a tree near the house. In early 80's, when it was a new house, and a lot less poluted area, we used to see so many birds around the place. Sparrows, crows, parrots were the common spots. Sparrows used to be a house hold thing. And for last couple of years they have stopped showing up. I dont know exactly when this happened. But I feel kinda bad about it. I used to get annoyed by them but they used to keep the house chirping all the time, literally. I miss those quiet afternoons when the road infront of the house used to be empty with sporadic "vrooom" and a constant chirping in the backgroud.
Those were the days. Having a very slow day today. After a looong time I actually worked for some time. Spent some time understanding how GCC packs a structure and different attributes you can give for alignment. While I was on it, I found a very good . Very smart. Just check out other articles on that guy's home page. Smart. The last post was the 100th post on this blog. I have also posted more than 10000 words since last december. Way to go! Nothing happened. My shoulder was still paining. Went to a doctor and got anti-titanus injection. Thats about it.
Today I am in office and catching up with the blog and news and mails and chat. Sunday started as any normal Sunday. And nothing happened till the evening. We planned to go to cousin's place for night. So we packed, got a rickshaw and went there.
We reached there and after some time found that we forgot to get the bag out of rickshaw and now its gone. We searched for that rickshaw but (as expected) could not find it.
At night, we went to pick up a cousin who were supposed to come from Pune. The train arrived but he wasnt on it. Everyone got worried. Finally, after an hour, he called and we found out that he wasnt supposed to be on the train on which we were expecting him to be. We thought, all is well that ends well. We were on our way to home in a rickshaw with two cousins leading the way on a bike.
When we came near the house, the road was empty and rickshaw was doing 50-60 km/hr. Suddenly some dogs (4 to be precise) came running in front of the vehicle and the driver lost the controlled.
After 3-4 seconds I found myself beneath two other people in the rickshaw. I knew I wasnt majorly injured but dint know about my uncle and aunty. Thank god everyone was safe. I had an injured left shoulder (thats why I am typing all this with my right hand) and a sprained left ankel. After some time we took another rickshaw and went home. They say I was not just pale but almost white with fear. :) Nothing happened in last week (i.e. till sunday). The computers in office were packed and we could not do any work. Till tuesday (8th June) we were too busy looking at the trek snaps. Awsome!
I think we had gone for bowling on Wednesday. And I sucked big time.
My parents came to bangalore on Saturday. What happened on Sunday needs a separte blog entry. :) Last weekend (4th, 5th and 6th) I had gone for a trek. The last trek I had done before this one was in 2001 and that was in . It was called Indian's trail i guess. It was infinitasimally small compared to this one.
The trek is generally known as . This time there were seven of us and we took two cars. We left at 6:30ish on Friday evening, all packed including 3 tents. The drive was amazing. The driver of the car I was in was no less talented than Michael Schumaker. The way he was taking turns (he has this habit of speeding at the turns) was making me scream. But after a while i was used to it.
We had dinner at a hotel "Hotel Mayura" on the way and reached a small town "Sakleshpur" at around 11. We stayed in a Lodge,"Ashrita Lodge", for the night and left at 6:30 in the morning. We parked our cars at Gundya, the place from the trek starts. We had some delicious idlis there and we started on our feet.
First one and a half was an uphill trek. And then we reached the railway track. This is where I encountered the first . It was just horrible. But at the en of the trek I am happy to announce that I have conquored the fear of leeches (with four itchy leech marks on my legs).
The weather was amazing. We crossed numerous bridges and bat-infested tunnels. Some of the tunnels were as long as half a kilometer. We were expecting lots of streams on the way but were disappointed. Atlast we managed to go out of our way and find a small waterfall+stream (with leeches next to it). We immediately stripped and got in. It was heaven. That was the best part of out trek.
At around 5 in the evening we reached our destination, Yedakumeri station. Everyone was tired after some 15-20 kms of walk. But dudes would not rest. We had a tennis ball but no bat. So we invented a special kind of dumb charades. Someone immitated the bowling action of some bowler and the rest guessed the bowler. It was fun.
Then we pitched the tents and discussed about ghosts and general physics in the dark of the night. When we were a little scared and ready to sleep, it started raining and we all were worried about the wind that threatened to blow our tents away. But all the tents held on till morning. It was a great experience.
In the morning, We started down-hill. We crossed a stream and got lost immediately. We found the right way after 30 mins and a kilometer. At nine or ten we were waiting for our friends who went to get the cars (hitching a lift in a mail-van) on the high way. The drive back was cool with Rehman music all the way. We halted for breakfast and lunch at Ashrita and Mayura respectively.
We reached bangalore at around 5 in the evening. Took a nice hot shower and slept. It was a GREAT weekend :) Yes, I am back (with the usual "Hey" title).
I dint have access to the net for last 10 or so days. And I survived. This somehow proves that I am not a net addict. But I missed google a lot. My office has shifted to a new place and the people who were responsible were tooo sluggish. Anyways, Today most of the shifting is done (there is still no toilet here!).
Just 10 days and I have so many things to write about. I just dont know where to begin. Maybe I should just post separate entries. Sounds good. Read on for the amazing adventures. :) Its 6 o clock now. I am leaving for a trek. YES! I will write about it in detail when i come back on to office on Monday! :)
Having a very slow day today. Came to office at 7 in the morning for meeting. Spent some time of python and Cool stuff. Yesterday we came back from the Wind River conference after lunch. It was more of a marketting thing. They introduced their new VxWorks 6.0 though. Apparantly it is an embedded RTOS with the support for virtual memory. Sounds weird isnt it? Maybe they are just worried about dumb programmers who do things that causes the kernel crash.
Today morning I had gone to the doc. He said the pain could be some muscular pain and It will die off soon. Lets hope he is right.
