wasabi

Vodka Martini @ TGI Fridays

2008-12-24T00:11:00.002-05:00

Vodka Martini @ TGI Fridays
Originally uploaded by ...Soumitra

Enthusiastic after the last one, I clicked this while a dinner party
at a nearby TGI Fridays.
Believe me, this was the only one I took.

I tried to blog directly from email, but there is something i am missing, not sure what.
The last time, i had only added the flickr email. So this time, i added the '2blog' email too, hoping that it would work. Still nothing. Instead, it posted 2 photos in my flickr account. ( So i had to delete one copy).

Anyways, let me look around what exactly needs to be done so that i don't need to do anything other than clicking the photo and emailing.
Meanwhile, enjoy this (picture of) Vodka Martini (Bombay Sapphire) with green olives, straight up!

Last Post

2008-12-14T16:04:00.004-05:00

Now don't be scared. Or overtly ~~happy~~ ecstatic.
This isn't what the title appears to portray. Rather, this is about the last, as in previous, post. Unfortunately.
So, last month, i became, by an extremely unusual of fortunate circumstances, a lucky owner of an iPhone. As my even better luck would have it, it is an old generation 16GB ...yes, the one with a recessed headphone jack, no assisted GPS, and, shiver mah timbers, no 3G network.
Pray, may you ask why this is turn of the cards a betterment of your plebeian life if you are not using the latest iPhone?
You may.
and the simple reason is that i will be saving quite a fortune not having to pay for the data plan. Obviously, i had it JailBroken, and am using my existing service that is off the contract. Plus, this one has a metal body unlike the plastic shell of the new one, which i think is sturdier in my "I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter"y fingers.
besides, there are no other differences between new and the old model that might have made a difference anyways. like copy-paste. (i think it's akin to driving a Ferrari with a couple of missing cogs in the gearbox...not that i would know how that would feel... i'm just guessing.)

anyways, so about the last post.
so i thought that with the iPhone in my life, whatever spare time i used to find for writing (which was almost non existent) would wither away into nothingness.
but fear not.
i mean, i thought that to myself, i'm not asking you to not fear. rather, you should be afraid, be very afraid. {pleased} (i always wanted to say that!)
now i'm gonna be photo-blogging. using flickr and my iphone camera.
you see, flickr has this nice feature where i send them an email with a post and they post it over here. apparently, this functionality is as old as email, but since i've been living in a cave, it somehow slipped my limited attention.

so when i enabled my flickr account for doing just that, the previous post was what resulted.

ah, beholdest thou the complexities of simple things!

Flickr

2008-12-11T22:43:00.001-05:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Quotable Quotes From LOTR

2008-11-24T20:30:00.016-05:00

Some of my favorite quotes from The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R Tolkien) that i had painstakingly noted down while i was reading the series...

On Life:

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

-Gandalf to Frodo

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

-Bilbo's birthday speech.

"We live now upon an island amid many perils, and our hands are more often upon the bowstring than upon the harp."

-Haldir to Company in Lothlorien

"...and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread"

-Aragorn to Frodo.

"'Despair, or folly?' said Gandalf. 'It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope."

-Gandalf at the Counsel of Elrond.

---------

...and to them Mordor had been from childhood a name of evil, and yet unreal, a legend that had no part in their simple life; and now they walked like men in a hideous dream made true, and they understood not this war nor why fate should lead them to such a pass.

---------

He laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder: never before had he been so suddenly and so keenly aware of the feel and texture of a tree's skin and of the life within it. He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself.

---------

On the World:

"The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out."

-Gildor to Frodo

'I have never been out of my own land before. And if I had known what the world outside was like, I don't think I should have had the heart to leave it.'

-Merry to Haldir.

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."

-Haldir to Merry.

"I do not believe that the world about us will ever again be as it was of old, or the light of the Sun as it was aforetime."

-Merry to Haldir

...it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

-Gandalf to Imrahil

---------

On Elrond:

"The face of Elrond was ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His hair was dark as the shadows of twilight, and upon it was set a circlet of silver; his eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars. Venerable he seemed as a king crowned with many winters, and yet hale as a tried warrior in the fulness of his strength."

---------
On Galadriel:

Young she was and yet not so. The braids of her dark hair were touched by no frost, her white arms and clear face were flawless and smooth, and the light of stars was in her bright eyes, grey as a cloudless night; yet queenly she looked, and thought and knowledge were in her glance, as of one who has known many things that the years bring. Above her brow her head was covered with a cap of silver lace netted with small gems, glittering white; but her soft grey raiment had no ornament save a girdle of leaves wrought in silver.

---------

On Lórien:

It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien there was no stain.

---------

On Man:

"..such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.'

-Elrond at the Counsel

and my favorite...

"It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise."
"Yet seldom do they fail of their seed," said Legolas. "And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli."
"And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess," said the Dwarf.

Google Chrome: Initial Impressions

2008-09-02T21:05:00.019-04:00

when it comes to using browsers, i am a browser.
i mean, not in "computer program used to surf the Internet". not even as in browser of the newspaper.
at this point, if you are thinking "as in animal who eats shrubs", then you would be right; partly though, coz i have turned vegan for a short while, but that wouldn't be entirely the point of this discussion (as you might as well have guessed from the title).
in any case. as i was saying, i'm a browser. as in in "one who looks around without seeking anything in particular". and a power browser at that, i might as well add.
if i say that i have been using browsers (the computer program kind) since ...well, not mosiac, that would make me like 200 yrs old ... the Navigator, you can definitely hypothesize that ~~i am not exactly in my teens~~ i have come a long way using them.
so when Google today launched their new Chrome browser ... funny name, coz ironically, the browser lacks one... i felt compelled to test it for myself.
i will briefly tell the experiences i had so far (a few hours, i confess, but nevertheless).
frankly, i have no idea what the hoopla about "different tabs are launched in their own process" is all about. Microsoft has been having that "feature" optional - optional, mind you, not "take it or leave it", since their IE 4!! (For those of you who remember, IE 4 came default with Win98). Forget that, since IE 5, the designers made it switch automatically if the machine had more than 32MB RAM.
if you don't believe me, do this simple test. Open IE using Ctrl+N in an existing browser instance and it uses the same process. Open it using the desktop icon (or Start menu, or Quicklaunch icon...whatever way you swing) and lo behold, it's a new process!! Oh, btw, one can see processes using the Processes tab on the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc, or Ctrl+Alt+Del, or Ctrl+Alt+Del and clicking on the Task Manager button, or Right clicking on TaskBar and clicking on Task Manager menu! Whew!!)

therefore, Chrome designers, nothing new in that.
but the similarities end there. there are a lot, and i mean an awful (in a good way) lot of UI changes in the Chrome. putting the tabs above the URL ...sorry, the awesome bar... oops, that was for FireFox 3, ... i mean the Omnibar is one. then there are the vista-esque window buttons, especially the close button that ever so slowly glows red on mouse over. i loved the unobtrusive "save password?" menu bar style dialogue box instead of the irritating pop-up alert in FireFox 2 (didn't much want to install 3, though i have the beta, but hardly ever use it. Why? it doesn't support the iFox Graphite theme... well, didn't when i last looked)

one thing i noticed is that this browser is waaaaaaay tooooo faaaaaast. Blaaaaazzzzing, to be precise. i guess that has got to do with the V8 (not the popular 100% juice) engine that has some javascript interpreter or some such hi technology stuff the details of which you can easily find on wikipedia or Google's site itself. but it is using the same webkit engine or whatever that Safari uses. tho i miss safari's amazing tab options and the find feature. you should check them out. i mean, separating tabs into windows, merging.... they're brilliant. right now, only IE8 has the 'coloured tabs for the same group' feature that i'd like firefox, chrome and safari to incorporate too. i have little doubt that they won't.
chrome also copies the 'incognito' mode from safari. it is using that same yellow coloured text boxes for the 'AutoFill' feature from the Google toolbar, that i had the misfortune to see when they launched that toolbar. (frankly, i keep away from toolbars and even google desktop. i think it just makes you even more messy ... haphazardly storing your stuff in the nearest place you find on that ginormous hdd, then relying on such tools to look for it when you need it the most, and then curse them for not finding it.)
there's also a lot of ajaxy stuff - you can move around tabs etc, but what i felt was lacking was the absence of config options. plus, it is too much dependent on the pointy tool, aka mouse.

at this point, i have to deviate somewhat to tell you this. i am lazy. i mean, i know that you had already guessed that from the frequency of my postings, but you had no idea how much. till now. so here goes. i am sooo lazy, that i hate to even take my hands off the keyboard, and then, in paainstaaking mootioonnss move the hand (with the mouse, natch) to the exact location of the target, making sure that you have the mouse pointer hotspot in the same area as that of the target's hotspot, and then, after you have done all that, click. and then wait for the action to happen. and then do that all over again. except, i refuse. that is sooooo slooooow, it makes you think you're watching yourself do that in super slomo. you could do such actions at warp speeds ten times over using the keyboard. and then some more. (if you're interested, check out a FF extension named mouseless browsing or MLB. awesome!). these days, the keyboard shortcuts in a GUI is often an afterthought.

okay, enuff blamestorming, now back to chrome.
for downloading files, it creates this Download folder in MyDocuments and stores files there. also, multiple processes or not, it does tend to freeze up sometimes. i was on a secure site, and the other window was streaming audio, but it was breaking up. maybe it was me... i mean my measly Celeron equipped with an even measlier 512 MB, but let me check it on my souped up office machine.
and be careful though, these vista-esque menubar buttons i was telling you about, if you're like me and using it on anything else, it isn't a really smooth transition. if you are using modified themes and that blue bar sticks out like the Pontiac Aztec (i don't know why they 'hard coded' that. they could simply have used the OS default.)
then there are a lot of security features etc, which i am too ~~lazy~~ tired to go into too much details.

but there you have it. chrome is here to stay. check out their long, but well illustrated comix and while you're at it, marvel, just as i did, at the way they use their resources to load test their software!

Update:
firefox is also releasing their scriptmonkey or some such, which is similar to the javascript VM/interpreter that chrome has!

the browser wars have started again...

Poision Pill

2008-05-25T11:41:00.003-04:00

When was the last time you took some medicine pills that you were actually looking forward to popping into your mouth?
not in quite some time, if you're like me.
Problem is, the pills aren't exactly user friendly (for lack of good vocab.).
i mean, while hundreds of billions of units of currency worldwide have gone into these pharma companies for R&D and what not, why can't their brilliant scientists try and make the misery inducing tablets more enticing to the unwell? Oh, and don't confuse this with the sugar-coated pills or capsules. These shouldn't lose their initial taste once the coating dissolves, thank you very much.
And while they're at it, why not offer a choice of flavours? Novocain that tastes like vanilla rather than nitrous oxide or pain relievers in Jolly Rancher assortments? or cough tablets like hard candy.
Wait. cough drops come that way already.
but i guess you get the drift. this isn't too much to ask now, is it? So why, then, are they not doing it?

Well, i haven't really thought too deep on it, but primarily, if the pills were too candy-like, we'd all be popping them like, erm, candy. while the uninitiated may argue that the pharma companies would prosper that way, a longer term outlook would suggest otherwise.
and they wouldn't like to get sued by ppl getting OD'ed or those long term effects start becoming common place. (as the tobacco companies found out few years ago).

whaddya say?

A Life Less Ordinary

2008-05-04T20:48:00.008-04:00

It is the middle of Spring and one of the glorious days of abundant Sunlight and intermittent breeze.
i sit outdoors sprawled on a beach chair on our front porch, listening to a multitude of melodious bird calls and watching puffs of clouds sail by, slowly and silently.
The same wind that drives the clouds noiselessly above, softly rustles the new, green leaves, and the branches wave as if they're happy to get some movement in their otherwise staid existence.
Small birds dive through the dense branches most possibly looking for food, while squirrels jump around and scamper up and down tree trunks seemingly implying they don't have time to hang around.
Water seeps through the soil and trickles down from huge boulders, a drop at a time. Every drop hesitating for a fraction of a second before finally taking the plunge from the edge of its diving board to meet Mother Earth below. Light briefly glints off them in that pause, and goes off. Like fireflies glowing on and off at regular intervals.
Creepers hang from the rocks, snaking across the flat surfaces and moss clumps provide colour to the gray and black background. Some small plants find their way through the rocky crevices and protrude out seeking the Sun.
The scent of the forest - grass, trees, an Earth - gently wafts through the surrounding like incense.
The slow drone of an aircraft somewhere above makes me look for it. It is not hard to locate. The vapour trails streaking across the skies effortlessly lead me to it. The trails stretch for some distance like slashes of light cut through the blue expanse; curling and evaporating into nothingness at the tail end as the aircraft blazes across - as if trying to get away from the very sound it is making.

Mind wanders. Thoughts criss-cross; present, past, future, as i lay still in the placid moment. Why is it so hard to let go? don't i want to?
is it this restlessness of the mind that has brought Mankind to this state? always wanting, always yearning for more, overlooking what it has been bestowed. always brooding, always contemplating.
i close my eyes, trying not to think. only trying. songs play in my mind, and i resist my music player.

time passes, as ever. i try and relish the moments. it does not last. (does it ever?)

The wind falls. Overhead, the clouds begin to gather and Sunlight pales, signalling the inevitable.
i wait till the first of the raindrops crash on my skin and shattering into even tinier droplets that latch on to the surface forming fragile miniature domes... only to dissolve into others to form a rivulet and slide off to the side.

like a fool, i get up and head indoors into shelter.

The Whore Of Mensa

2008-04-27T13:35:00.010-04:00

A Short Story by Woody Allen from his book "Without Feathers", Random House, 1975 (tr.it.: Citarsi Addosso, Bompiani, 1976)

THE CLIENT

One thing about being a private investigator, you´ve got to learn to go with your hunches. That´s why when a quivering pat of butter named Word Babcock walked into my office and laid his cards on the table, I should have trusted the cold chill that shot up my spine.

"Kaiser?" he said. "Kaiser Lupowitz?"

"That´s what it says on my license," I owned up.

"You´ve got to help me. I´m being blackmailed. Please!" He was shaking like the lead singer in a rumba band. I pushed a glass across the desk top and a bottle of rye I keep handy for nonmedicinal purposes.

"Suppose you relax and tell me all about it."

"You ... you won´t tell my wife?"

"Level with me, Word. I can´t make any promises." He tried pouring a drink, but you could hear the clicking sound across the street, and most of the stuff wound up in his shoes.

"I´m a working guy," he said. "Mechanical maintenance. I build and service joy buzzers. You know - those little fun gimmicks that give people a shock when they shake hands?"

"So?"

"A lot of your executives like ´em. Particularly down on Wall Street."

"Get to the point."

"I´m on the road a lot. You know how it is - lonely. Oh, not what you´re thinking. See, Kaiser, I´m basically an intellectual. Sure, a guy can meet all the bimbos he wants. But the really brainy women - they´re not so easy to find on short notice."

"Keep talking."

"Well, I heard of this young girl. Eighteen years old. A Yassar student. For a price, she´ll come over and discuss any subject - Proust, Yeats, anthropology. Exchange of ideas. You see what I´m driving at?"

"Not exactly."

"I mean my wife is great, don´t get me wrong. But she won´t discuss Pound with me. Or Eliot. I didn´t know that when I married her. See, I need a woman who´s mentally stimulating, Kaiser. And I´m willing to pay for it. I don´t want an involvement - I want a quick intellectual experience, then I want the girl to leave. Christ, Kaiser, I´m a happily married man."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Six months. Whenever I have that craving, I call Flossie. She´s a madam, with a Master´s in Comparative Lit. She sends me over an intellectual, see?"

So he was one of those guys whose weakness was really bright women. I felt sorry for the poor sap. I figured there must be a lot of jokers in his position, who were starved for a little intellectual communication with the opposite sex and would pay through the nose for it.

"Now she´s threatening to tell my wife," he said.

"Who is?"

"Flossie. They bugged the motel room. They got tapes of me discussing The Waste Land and Styles of Radical Will, and, well, really getting into some issues. They want ten grand or they go to Carla. Kaiser, you´ve got to help me! Carla would die if she knew she didn´t turn me on up here." The old call-girl racket. I had heard rumors that the boys at headquarters were on to something involving a group of educated women, but so far they were stymied.

"Get Flossie on the phone for me."

"What?"

"I´ll take your case, Word. But I get fifty dollars a day, plus expenses. You´ll have to repair a lot of joy buzzers." "It won´t be ten G´s worth, I´m sure of that," he said with a grin, and picked up the phone and dialed a number. I took it from him and winked. I was beginning to like him.

THE SETUP

Seconds later, a silky voice answered, and I told her what was on my mind. "I understand you can help me set up an hour of good chat," I said.

"Sure, honey. What do you have in mind?"

"I´d like to discuss Melville."

"Moby Dick or shorter novels?"

"What´s the difference?"

"The price. That´s all. Symbolism´s extra."

"What´ll it run me?"

"Fifty, maybe a hundred for Moby Dick. You want a comparative discussion - Melville and Hawthorne? That could be arranged for a hundred."

"The dough´s fine," I told her and gave her the number of a room at the Plaza.

"You want a blonde or a brunette?"

"Surprise me," I said, and hung up.

"I shaved and grabbed some black coffee while I checked over the Monarch College Outline series. Hardly an hour had passed before there was a knock on my door. I opened it, and standing there was a young redhead who was packed into her slacks like two big scoops of vanilla ice cream.

"Hi, I´m Sherry." They really knew how to appeal to your fantasies. Long, straight hair, leather bag, silver earrings, no make-up.

"I´m surprised you weren´t stopped, walking into the hotel dressed like that," I said. "The house dick can usually spot an intellectual."

"A five-spot cools him."

"Shall we begin?" I said, motioning her to the couch. She lit a cigarette and got right to it. "I think we could start by approaching Billy Budd as Melville´s justification of the ways of God to man, n´est-ce pas?"

"Interestingly, though, not in a Miltonian sense." I was bluffing. I wanted to see if she´d go for it.

"No. Paradise Lost lacked the substructure of pessimism." She did.

"Right, right. God, you´re right," I murmured.

"I think Melville reaffirmed the virtues of innocence in a naive yet sophisticated sense - don´t you agree?" I let her go on. She was barely nineteen years old, but already she had developed the hardened facility of the pseudo-intellectual. She rattled off her ideas glibly, but it was all mechanical. Whenever I offered an insight, she faked a response: "Oh yes, Kaiser. Yes, baby, that´s deep. A platonic comprehension of Christianity - why didn´t I see it before?" We talked for about an hour and then she said she had to go. She stood up and I laid a C-note on her.

"Thanks, honey."

"There´s plenty more where that came from."

"What are you trying to say?" I had piqued her curiosity. She sat down again.

"Suppose I wanted to have a party?" I said.

"Like, what kind of a party?"

"Suppose I wanted Noam Chomsky explained to me by two girls?"

"Oh, wow."

"If you´d rather forget it..."

"You´d have to speak with Flossie," she said. "It´s cost you." Now was the time to tighten the screws. I flashed my private- investigator´s badge and informed her it was a bust.

"What!"

"I´m fuzz, sugar, and discussing Melville for money is an 802. You can do time."

"You louse!"

"Better come clean, baby. Unless you want to tell your story down at Alfred Kazin´s office, and I don´t think he´d be too happy to hear it."

She began to cry. "Don´t turn me in, Kaiser," she said. "I needed the money to complete my Master´s. I´ve been turned down for a grant. Twice. Oh, Christ."

It all poured out - the whole story. Central Park West upbringing, Socialist summer camps, Brandeis. She was every dame you saw waiting in line at the Elgin or the Thalia, or penciling the words ´Yes, very true´ into the margin of some book on Kant. Only somewhere along the line she had made a wrong turn.

"I needed cash. A girl friend said she knew a married guy whose wife wasn´t very profound. He was into Blake. She couldn´t hack it. I said sure, for a price I´d talk Blake with him. I was nervous at first. I faked a lot of it. He didn´t care. My friend said there were others. Oh, I´ve been busted before. I got caught reading Commentary in a parked car, and I was once stopped and frisked at Tanglewood. Once more and I´m a three time loser."

"Then take me to Flossie."

She bit her lip and said, "The Hunter College Book Store is a front."

"Yes?"

"Like those bookie joints that have barbershops outside for show. You´ll see."

I made a quick call to headquarters and then said to her, "Okay, sugar. You´re off the hook. But don´t leave town."

"She tilted her face up toward mine gratefully. "I can get you photographs of Dwight Macdonald reading," she said.

"Some other time."

FLOSSIE´S

I walked into the Hunter College Book Store. The salesman, a young man with sensitive eyes, came up to me. "Can I help you?" he said.

"I´m looking for a special edition of Advertisements for Myself. I understand the author had several thousand gold-leaf copies printed up for friends."

"I´ll have to check," he said. "We have a WATS line to Mailer´s house."

I fixed him with a look. "Sherry sent me," I said.

"Oh, in that case, go on back." he said. He pressed a button. A wall of books opened, and I walked like a lamb into that bustling pleasure palace known as Flossie´s. Red flocked wallpaper and a Victorian decor set the tone. Pale, nervous girls with black-rimmed glasses and blunt-cut hair lolled around on sofas, riffling Penguin Classics provocatively. A blonde with a big smile winked at me, nodded toward a room upstairs, and said, "Wallace Stevens, eh?" But it wasn´t just intellectual experiences. They were peddling emotional ones, too. For fifty bucks, I learned, you could "relate without getting close." For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartok records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master´s, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine´s over Freud´s conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys. Nice racket. Great town, New York.

"Like what you see?" a voice said behind me. I turned and suddenly found myself standing face to face with the business end of a .38. I´m a guy with a strong stomach, but this time it did a back flip. It was Flossie, all right. The voice was the same, but Flossie was a man. His face was hidden by a mask.

"You´ll never believe this," he said, "but I don´t even have a college degree. I was thrown out for low grades."

"Is that why you wear that mask?"

"I devised a complicated scheme to take over The New York Review of Books, but it meant I had to pass for Lionel Trilling. I went to Mexico for an operation. There´s a doctor in Juarez who gives people Trilling´s features - for a price. Something went wrong. I came out looking like Auden, with Mary McCarthy´s voice. That´s when I started working the other side of the law."

"Quickly, before he could tighten his finger on the trigger, I went into action. Heaving forward, I snapped my elbow across his jaw and grabbed the gun as he fell back. He hit the ground like a ton of bricks. He was still whimpering when the police showed up.

"Nice work, Kaiser," Sergeant Holmes said. "When we´re through with this guy, the F.B.I. wants to have a talk with him. A little matter involving some gamblers and an annotated copy of Dante´s Inferno. Take him away, boys." Later that night, I looked up an old account of mine named Gloria. She was blond. She had graduated cum laude. The difference was she majored in physical education. It felt good.

________________________________________________________
One of my instant favorites! imagine this story illustrated by Frank Miller - it'd be awesome! ;)

Economies Of Scale

2008-04-24T01:58:00.011-04:00

i knew it!
Capitalists will always be that. they can wear all the socialist garb they want, but it's a poor camouflage.
in (yet) another display of actions speaking louder than words, OLPC chairman announced that he wants to use Windows instead of Linux. That's right. Ditch the open source and embrace a proprietary, capital intensive, world dominating resource hog!
from the beginning, i knew that this "we care about the education of children of the developing world" was a load of BS. i mean, instead of trying to analyse and solve the problem of efficient delivery of education for the resource-handicapped schools, these capitalists would rather concentrate on the billion students, coz that would mean more sales of the laptops, and ergo, investors laughing all the way to the bank.
Getting a laptop to each child is not going to transform the facilitation of education. It is the teachers who should be first shown how to teach better.
Okay. Maybe i am wrong about this. what about e-waste?

On the one hand they talk about environment and how treating e-waste is turning into an international issue, and on the other, they are trying to encourage this One Laptop Per Child, which are more susceptible to be wreaked, simply becoz they are going to be handled by children. Any parent knows how fast children are at turning perfectly working, supposedly unbreakable toys into materials to be fed into trash receptacles (for lack of better disposal techniques in the developing world). How long do you think these 'rugged' laptops are going to last in the hands of tiny tots? And once they are hooked, they are not going to let their parents have an iota of peace till they get a replacement. So it's Cha-Chingg! all the way for the laptop manufacturers.
Well, i agree that the XO was specifically designed to be environment-friendly. but what about the copy cats? i do not suppose they care about the environment as much. and frankly, i don't suppose any of the developing countries have US equivalent eco-friendly manufacturing processes in place. (and even if they did, corruption would ensure they were conveniently by-passed)

As a parting note, here is a quote straight from the horse's mouth:

"We need to reach the most children possible and leverage them as the agents of change".

you can very well imagine what kind of change he wants to bring about...specifically related to the bank accounts of his and his investors!

Save The Turtles

2008-04-15T17:03:00.007-04:00

A few days ago, i got an email from one of my friends. it went something like this:

...just written to Ratan Tata asking him not to go ahead with building a port in Dhamra, Orissa, dangerously close to one of the world's largest sea turtle nesting grounds for the Olive Ridley Sea Turtles ... can't bring about that change alone. I need help from lots of people ...
Thanks a million ...

with a link to the site (that you can go to by clicking on the title).

so, if you want to feel proud, you can go ahead and enter your name and email (they say it won't be spammed) and if everything goes as planned, we can hope that all will be well with the world (the turtles', at least).

What you get out of it? Well, you can sleep sound, thinking that you have done your bit for the environment and carry on living your lives as usual.

OR, if that got you started, you could join Greenpeace and do more than your share for the environment.

Not that those are the only choices. You could get some tips from here while you are at it.

That's about it.
(For starters, here is a simple green tip from yours truly: if you carry a kerchief with you for wiping your hands and runny noses, you could save that paper towel or that electricity for the blow dryer.)

Nostalgia ... Ep. 3

2008-04-12T17:47:00.006-04:00

There used to play a serial on DD in the days back then. It was called "Phir wohi talaash". It was about some village boy (Narender, if i recall correctly) coming to Delhi for college and falling in love with a city girl (Padma...this i know for sure coz the the name sucked. No offense, but i just don't particulary like it) . Anyways.

I didn't fancy the serial as much as my parents did, but the title song stuck in my head.
It's only when i grew up that i realise the meaning of the title song and its relevence.

This is how it went.

कभी sss , हादसों की डगर मिले,
कभी sss मुश्किलों का सफर मिल|
(repeat)

ये चिराग हैं मेरी राह के;
मुझे मंजिजों की तलाश है|(२)

Then the serial continued for about half an hour (don't recollect if there were ad breaks in between, but i am guessing not. Those were the days!)
When the serial ended, the second stanza, which was even more compelling, continued.

कोई हो सफर में जो साथ दे,
मैं रुकुं जहाँ, कोई हाथ दे|
मेरी मंजिलें अभी दूर हैं;
मुझे रास्तों की तलाश है| (२)

Waiting for Godot

2008-03-31T00:03:00.005-04:00

Of the time i have been allocated on this planet, most is spent waiting.

Here is a typical day:

waiting for the car to warm up
waiting for traffic signals
waiting in traffic
waiting for public transport
waiting for the public transport to reach destination
waiting for the elevators
waiting for the machine to boot
waiting for reply to emails
waiting for programs to build & compile
waiting for webpages to load
waiting for the other party to answer the phone
waiting for the microwave to warm up food
waiting for my turn in the queue at the shop counter
waiting for the coffee machine to brew
waiting for the time to go back home
waiting for a gap in vehicles to cross the road
waiting for someone to open the fron door
waiting for the tap to dispense hot water
waiting for food to cook
waiting for hot food to cool down before storing it in the refrigerator
waiting for time to pass after dinner so that i can sleep
waiting for Lord Hypnos to bless me
...

and so it goes (the time, i mean).

If i take a wider view, there are other, err ... events, for lack of a better word (my vocab sux), that i am waiting for.

waiting for the paycheck
waiting for the project to end
waiting for interview calls
waiting for a good job offer
waiting for new project to begin
waiting for some windfall to get latest gadgets

Even wider view,

waiting for 'someone special'
waiting for a life i'll spend doing things my way
waiting for the bank balance to get to 'comfortable' levels
waiting for a peaceful easy life
...

While i have read all kinds of advice on 'not waiting for things to change and enjoying life in the present' and all that jazz, waiting is all that prevails.

I don't mind waiting; just that realising the the futility of it all in the ultimate certainity makes me feel even more exasperated.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock...

Nostalgia ... Ep. 2

2008-03-28T00:55:00.005-04:00

Continuing with posts about my obsession with Doordarshan (during my childhood), here is one of the more popular advertisements of that time.
Advertisements are fresher in my mind, simply due to their frequency.

Bajaj used to air this commercial for their scooters (Vespa 'inspired' design).

यह जमीं यह आसमां
हां sss
यह जमीं यह आसमां |
हमारा कल
हमारा आज,
हमारा कल
हमारा आज|

बुलंद भारत कि
बुलंद तसवीर ssss
हमारा बजाज| (२)

I don't remember where i have seen "Chunnu Munnu de papa di gaddi...", do you?

Update: Found the video on YouTube:

Clark Kent and Moses

2008-03-08T17:24:00.004-05:00

Superman and the Bible are plainly cut from the same template: baby Superman and baby Moses are both rescued from certain death, sent off by their desperate parents in a rocket ship/wicker basket, and are then raised by an alien family but always remember the ways of their people and spend their lives fighting for justice.

- by Stephen Dubner

Dear Steve,

We also have a similar template for our Lord Krishna. So don't worry, you are not alone.

Nostalgia ... Ep. 1

2008-03-07T00:01:00.011-05:00

When i was a kid, i used to watch a lot of television. and by 'a lot', i mean right from the time transmission started, (those were the days when *shudder* there was only the good ol' DD and no 24 hr programming... heck, i was fortunate even to have a television set), till we went back to the colour bars, and then to static.
For the uninitiated, those were the days when Shahrukh Khan was one of the actors in Fauji, and popular serials were only allowed to have 12-13 episodes.

Films Division presentation was one of my favorites. They used to show dubbed versions of popular cartoon films, along with their own creations.
A few days ago, i tried to look on youtube if i could travel back in time when we all used to shuffle in front of the idiot box in order to reserve the best place on the sofa. No such luck. All i could find was multiple versions of एक तितली.
So i thought i would try to write down whatever little i remember, lest i forget. (In any case, i have forgotten most of it.)

Here is the first one in the series... Sindbad The Sailor.
Though it is only one stanza, let me know if you know the entire thing.

सिंदबाद

डोले रे, डोले डोले डोले रे || 2 ||
अगर मगर डोले नैय्या
भवर भवर जाए रे पानी|
नीला समंदर है,
आकाश प्यासी
(आकाश प्यासी)
डुबे ना, डुबे ना मेरा जाहज़ी
(मेरा जाहज़ी)
डुबे ना मेरा जाहज़ी|
...

Imagine...

2008-03-06T01:00:00.004-05:00

Can you imagine the future?

and this is just the begining; the posibilities are endless ...

पुणेरी Google

2008-03-02T23:23:00.010-05:00

Google पुणेरी आहे असा माला बरेच दिवस वाटत होत, पण या एका line मुळे खात्रीच पटली .
तुमच्या (पु. लं च्या भाषेत, निन्देच्या) सोई साठी screenshot सुधा घेतला आहे.

अता तुम्हीच माला सांगा, आहे की नही Google पुणेरी?

Disclaimer: माझं मराठी भारी असल्या मुळे कही चुका होण साहाजिक आहे, त्यानना कृपाया क्षमा करा।

Update: If you can't see anything other than '?' (as ashD kindly pointed out in the comments), please visit this page.

File Not Found - sounds.wav

2008-02-18T15:53:00.003-05:00

Regardless of where you stay, there are some sounds that you just cannot get to hear outside of your home.
being in this "situation" for quite some time now, i realise that there are quite a few of them that i miss on a regular basis.

So here they are, in no particular order.

Leaves rustling with the wind on a lazy Sunday afternoon (during winter, natch)

Night-watchman's stick hitting the ground during unearthly hours
A car's reverse-horn piercing through the still of the night (i never thought i'd miss this)
The different sounding horns of trucks,the mechanical bells on cycles and the squeeze horns on rickshaws
Faint sound of far off trucks passing through the streets late in the night
Shehenai playing on the loudspeaker of a near-by marriage hall / bands playing tunes of totally unrelated Bollywood numbers with meticulous attention to detail
Pheriwalas shouting out 'bhaajiiiiyaa ...' or 'paaeepaarr ...' every minute as they pass your lane roaming the streets
VividhBharati's jingle and the announcements of their RJs (we can call them that, right?) in their proprietary, monotonous voices
Bangles clinking as the womenfolk go around doing their housework
Stray dogs/cats barking/mewing away to glory in the middle of the night
dialogues from afternoon soaps coming from 5 different directions (the same one) other than your own TV set (especially when you are trying to concentrate on something)
unoiled, heavy iron gates/steel almirahs creaking while opening and closing
...

Your mileage may vary, of course. Do you miss any sounds from your days of yore?
Do let me know in the comments...

||श्री ||

2008-02-16T00:19:00.019-05:00

Welcome, reader!

Some FAQs regarding this latest initiative...

Why?
i have been writing even before i started blogging. So i am certain that this ...writing, i mean ...is not going to cease anytime soon.

Why now?
after dabbling in blogging for quite some time, i was exasperated by the limitations.
i signed up on blogdrive for free blog services. it was great at that time. i could build and tweak my designs, and all went well for some time. but they have limited file space and they don't allow deep linking.
a couple of years ago, I got a domain and the host offered TypePad services for free. But I found it quite tedious to update the designs. Maybe it was just me. so i switched to WordPress. the same story repeated. basically, I refuse to learn php. the blog is still there, but i stopped updating it a long time ago. I would rather host my own blog in Roller on JBoss off my home machine, if it were not for greedy ISPs who block all incoming ports.

Why this?
Thankfully, i found blogger that conveniently meets my requirements.
I can embed flickr, twitter, and whatever else is on its way that i may find myself signing up for. but most importantly, it has indic transliteration.
(The comments page is a little ugly and needs work, so maybe i'll have to look into that.)

What's in a name?
...That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Juliet not withstanding, for lack of imagination, i am calling this place wasabi.
it would, might as well, have been foo, bar or foobar, but i am trying to learn Japanese at the moment, and also recently happened to taste wasabi. to say that the flavour was weird is an understatement. (maybe, so is my blah).

What about?
ah! the $1000,000 question.
frankly, i am not sure. it will all be blah (as this post) which is what life is, anyways.

How often?
"उसका एक सवाल, मेरे दो-दो जवाब| एक सवाल, दो-दो जवाब| सवाल-जवाब, सवाल-जवाब, सवाल जवाब... चुप| लम्म्म्बी खामोशी|"
mostly, my posting frequency will also follow salmaan's dialogue, particularly the end part. :)

any more questions, let me know in the comments, and i'll ~~be happy~~ try to answer.

That's all folks!