My Chronicles and my take on life...

Irony!!!

2008-11-08T14:43:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it has to come down to this...I have to write this post to make my wife believe that I actually own this blog!!!

The Calcutta Chromosome

2006-06-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

I got this book from the library yesterday, thought I will flip throught some pages while I waited for the train, I eventually ended up staying up late , so that I can finish the book. A very intersting story, with a mix of science fiction, occult, technology. Its is a story about how a programmer in New York finds a ID card of a person, who has gone missing in Calcutta and tries to find him. And what he finds is absolutely out of this world. A rivetting book that is very hard to put down.

I must be really bored....

2006-05-30T17:44:00.000-07:00

to post twice during the same day. Anyway, for those of you who are not satisfied with having a million friends in your orkut friends list and a zillion scraps..another site to keep you busy http://fo.rtuito.us. It lets you meet people whom you have never met before...worth checking out.

This is what boredom make you do

2006-05-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4?
"And the boy asked if this would be the first time that Craig-Vyvyan would test him" Taken from Freddy and Fredericka - Mark Helprin. Not a bad read if you are looking for something funny.

2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.& catch air? Box of Granola bars! Don't ask me what they are doing here...

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV? That 70's show

4. Without looking, guess what time it is? 7.15pm

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time? 7.28 pm

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? The air conditioner

7.When did you last step outside? What were you doing? Went to work ...duh!!!

8.Before you started this survey, what did you look at? My mail, for the 100th time today.

9.What are you wearing? Shorts and T Shirt

10.When did you last laugh? Yesterday

11.What is on the walls of the room you are in? Nothing...my room is really bare!

12.Seen anything weird lately? This whole tag business is pretty weird

13.What do you think of this quiz? Like I said, this is weird ...how does it matter what I wear...Perverted if you ask me.

14.What is the last film you saw? Sin City

15. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy? An Island.

16.Tell me something about you that I dunno? Why should I....fever gets tagged by the weirdest people

17.If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do? Everybody gets a month off every year, starting Aug 31st :-)

18.Do u like to Dance ? Ballroom.....actually Bathroom dancing!

19. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her? I guess I'd like to know that name of the mother first.

20 Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call her? Atleast a hint of the mother's name would do!

21.Would you ever consider living abroad? And finally I realize it, this whole tag wasn't meant for me !!

22.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates ? You've got the job..I'm outta here!

And this tag stops right here

Chennai surgeon performs 50 surgeries

2006-02-13T17:14:00.000-08:00

Chennai surgeon performs 50 surgeries. I was just appalled by this story. Why would someone actually play with the lives of 50 people just to create a world record. A Hernia operation might not exactly be as complex as a bypass heart surgery, but isn't this doctor even a little responsible. Now I wonder how many of those 50 poor souls actually needed an operation and how many actually got it done successfully.

2005-12-19T04:46:00.000-08:00

How is temperature 1 deg F if the Low for the Day is 11 deg F and if that is not bad enough it actually feels like -11 , because of the wind chill.....I can't wait to get to India!!

The Kite Runner

2005-11-20T08:11:00.000-08:00

Have picked up a reading habit in the last couple of months. I tended to waste too much time on the Internet and this seemed to be a more useful diversion. I just finshed reading a book called "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. This book came highly recommened and rightfully so. It's a very simple, well thought out story but quite depressing. But that I guess is the beauty of the book. It keeps coming back to haunt you. Its quite interesting how the sad stories always leave their mark behind, you never tend to forget them easily. Well, definitely read it, if you get a chance. I'm now off the the 1400 page magnum opus by Vikram Seth called "A Suitable Boy".

Rechercher sur Internet

2005-11-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

AOL is my favorite search engine from now onwards.
Type "google earth download here.Rechercher sur Internet....Actually, is that AOL , america online ??? I have no clue!

Assasination Victim .....what the hell ?

2005-11-09T18:11:00.000-08:00

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Test Results

2005-11-09T18:07:00.000-08:00

Test Results: "

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

" .
That is the kind of "Movie I am ". Everbody looking at this , give it a shot..its fun!

IHateGanguly.com

2005-10-31T16:59:00.000-08:00

Check out I Hate Ganguly...Thought this kind of stuff happens only in the US. People in my university came up with this site Fire Ron Zook. Zook being the coach of the football team. Believe it or not, the website played a major part in the sacking of the coach. I hope the same thing happens to Ganguly, hope he is not allowed to play cricket until he learns how to play a short ball.

Guess what I found....

2005-10-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

...on my desk today. A Shiny Black IPOD Nano with my name inscribed on the back. Apparently my boss is pretty happy with our team and so everyone got new Ipods . This makes it my second free ipod, the first one being a mini( courtesy my apartment office). I thought my phone was small, but this one is in a different class of its own. Has to be seen to be believed. Enuf said..Goodnight!!

Boring Boring Boring!!

2005-10-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

Got back relatively early from work today , and have no clue about what to do. Ironic, isn't it, you think about getting back home early everyday and the day you do get back early, you have absolutely nothing to do! My luck ran out even with baseball games, was hoping I could watch atleast one whole game, but the White Sox won the championship yesterday... not that I'm unhappy about that, but they could have atleast had a game today. Come to think about it, the White Sox is probably the only team that I've supported that has gone on to win the national championship.

As long as I followed cricket, India never won a world cup. I use the past tense because the only thing I follow in cricket nowadays is the Ganguly - Chapelle love affair. Guess a couple of new things have been introduced into the game recently, power play and super sub..both of which I don't know much about..super sub sounds a lot like the designated hitter in baseball, might as well start playing baseball if we keep getting stuff from them.

Actually every team I follow seems to be jinxed..Formula one - I can't stand schumacher and for the past couple of years , my only interest in F1 was to see if he would crash, atleast that way mclaren to get a podium position. Well, they did change the rules, and I think .Ok..Fine..mclaren have a good car, good driver and this year is the championship year...well guess what, the renault was better.

College Football- Passionately follow the Florida Gators-- last year was miserable, we get a new coach, this guy has been the BEST coach in the country for the past 2 years, Has lost a measly 4 games in as many years and his team went unbeaten last year. So you think if you can get a coach with a record like that , the team is going to have a wonderful year. Well, it turns out the coach ends up with a losing record....

and so it goes on...the list goes on..but I'm going to stop ranting and start doing nothing. Amazingly, some body has been jobless enough to write this down...

Plan ahead. Whether it's an hour, a day, or a week of doing nothing, cancel all of your appointments for that block of time.

Let people know that you'll be unavailable. Whether you choose to tell them that you're actually setting aside some time to do nothing, or you just give them the vague explanation "I'm going to be busy" (busy doing nothing!), tell them not to call, visit, or interrupt.

Find a quiet, private place where you feel unpressured to do anything. This might be your bedroom, the garage, the car, or a local park. Find that place and go there.
Set your watch or an alarm to go off when your "nothing" time is over, so that you don't have to constantly look at the clock and count the minutes. Turn off your cell phone, and maybe even all other phones within your reach.

Sit quietly by yourself. Feel the breeze, the sun shine, and the chair touching your skin. Listen to the rustle of the trees and birds singing, and water flowing. Do not think about the past or future. Avoid the temptation to turn on the TV, listen to music, write a note to yourself, get a bite to eat, or whatever. The only thing you should do is go to the bathroom if needed.

Learn how to meditate and clear your mind. That way, not only will your body be doing nothing, but so will your mind. Since your brain is constantly working, learning how to give it a break can provide a major sense of peace and regeneration.

More of this stuff is here

Au Revoir

Why does every post need a title

2005-10-06T17:37:00.000-07:00

Alright,alright fine....if want it so badly, here it is...but stop the phone calls, stop the comments and the emails! :-P ..a bit cheeky for someone who is posting after two month but who cares. I do appreciate the people who have been regularly checking though, and for the ones who haven't( sitemeter never lies ) I'll put in my best effort to see that you blogs don't rank high with the google spiders!

The past couple of months have been a complete whirlwind of activity. Was pretty much swamped with work and if that wasn't enough I've been taking stock/option trading classes that are being offered by my company. I still remember April 28th 2004, I had just walked out of my final Programming Language Principles class, thinking that this would be my last and final (crappy)exam. But here I am, back again, two classes a week, assignments , quizzes et al.

I used to think that there isn't much to trading, after all you buy when its cheap and sell when its high. Quite easy isn't it.. But the extent to which it is an exact science is quite mind boggling. I never had an idea that things would be so complicated. The class itself feels like an advanced calculas class, and whenever there is math ivolved, only seven words ring in my ears. "Deepak, will you pass in the exam ? ". These prophetic words were uttered my none other than my first year maths teacher and this single statement was enough to shatter whatever little confidence I had in myself, that I could somehow come to terms to whatever mathematics had to offer. I still remember struggling to make any sense out of the maths question paper that year and praying that her words don't come true. I was lucky enough pass with a stamp!

Enough about the math, I was lucky enough to be in sacramento a couple of weeks back to welcome the newest member of my family - Samhita. My sister gave birth to a cute little girl on the 23rd, just a day before my nephew's birthday ! Pictures of my neice are up here, where among other things you will see me clumsily holding the baby and praying that I don't drop her! That is probably the only eventful thing that happened between my last post and now.

@Nawaz - You asked about my comments on the Ganguly affair..I say chuck him out,chuck dalmiya, chuck bhajji...actually chuck everyone one out, shutdown cricket till tendulkar comes back and follow American football till then.

Well..thats it, feels good to be writing again. Enjoy guys!!

Google IM

2005-08-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

It has been talked about for a while, some said it was a rumor but turns out its not. Google does have an IM, although its not official yet. It doesn't have an interface though, you'd have to use a client like GAIM to connect to talk.google.com. I got all this info from here. So check it out. Its a lonely world on google IM,I'm the only person on my list :-p. This is another way to waste time I guess, as if yahoo and msn weren't enough, but if its new and free..I ain't saying no!

Two post in two days...is life getting easy ??? No way!!! realized fighting a lost cause is no use...might as well chill!

2005-08-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

Google Desktop 2 - Check out the web clips feature..very much like a feed reader

Are they being sarcastic or just plain dumb?

2005-07-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

The headline at rediff says in bold "Narain 19th in second German GP practice"

Leaving behind his technical snags, Narain Karthikeyan scorched the 4.5740-km Hockenheimring, touching speeds up to 323 kmph to finish 19th in second practice on Friday.

The Indian rookie driver, racing for Jordan Grand Prix, stopped the clock at 1 minute, 17.506 seconds and left behind teammates Tiago Monteiro of Portugal and Nicolas Keisa who brought up the rear finishing 22nd and 23rd.

MindComet :: Blog In Space

2005-07-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

MindComet :: Blog In Space is quite an interesting website. They claim they will broadcast your blog into space using satellites. I doubt if it really works , but I did put in my blog address. Just doing my small part in inviting an intergalactic invasion !!

OMG!

2005-07-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

Looking at the comments from my previous post, its quite obvious that nobody got to the disclaimer part of it. "Ramblings of a tired mind" are never to be taken so seriously! Maybe I missed out on smiley somewhere..But I still belive in the essence of the post. Neither a temple nor a mosque should exist on that peice of land, can't it be put for some other good(ok..a nuclear test site is not good, just in case anybody is unclear about my interpretation of the word "good") use. Wouldn't that be a fair solution?

@#$%&*

2005-07-05T19:41:00.000-07:00

I'm sick and tired of hearing about the temple/mosque at Ayodhya. Just when you think everything is ok and everybody has forgotten about it, it has to pop its ugly head again. Its quite sad that a small peice of land has caused so much death
and suffering. Well atleast this time, thanks to the CRPF, only the terrorists were killed. But you really have to hand it to the terrorists, not only did they fail in their mission,but they also managed to rekindle the BJP's temple cause which seemed to be dying. Surely the dumbest bunch of terrorists I've seen.

And if the BJP is so disgusted and angered by the terrorist act, they should be protesting in POK and not in their street corners. I don't think they give a damn if the temple is built there or not as long as they can get publicity which ofcourse translates to votes.

Methinks the best way to get rid of this whole problem is to convert the site into a bombing range for the airforce, so that they can bomb the shit out of that place..or better still, just test our next nuke there, so that that no soul in his right mind would ever step on that site again. Well, thats just my opinion...also proof that I can never be trusted with any kind of power or responsiblity :p

Btw, all the opinions expressed in this post are ramblings of a tired mind. I think I need a long weekend just to get over the tiredness after a trip during the weekend. Again proof , that I'm also lazy , but who cares!

PEACE!

Google Earth Download

2005-07-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

Google Earth can also be downloaded from here. What you have to watch out for though, is that sometimes google earth doesn't work when you start it up. It says it can't connect to the google earth servers. Be patient and try after a while and it usually works. Sorry for the delay, but am on the road in Indiana ( Finally, a long weekend plan did work out...:-) ).

Google Earth is amazing

2005-07-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

If you thought Google Maps were the best, you are definitely wrong. Check this out Google Earth. It actually gives you a 3D picture of major cities in the U.S. The camera angles are amazing, you can literally walk between the buildings. They do have information on India, but the resolution isn't that good. This is still the Beta version I guess. I've posted a few screenshots below...Enjoy!!!

2005-07-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

Cubbon Park, the Golf Course and Chinnaswamy stadium

2005-07-02T09:24:00.001-07:00

View of Downtown Chicago

2005-07-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

Check out Chidambaram stadium and the sands of the Marina Beach

2005-07-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

My Home

Fridays

2005-07-01T04:10:00.000-07:00

- I don't need an alarm clock to wake up.
- Am in a Happy mood, no matter how hard my current project is.
- I don't think of anything but plans for the weekend.
- Just raring to get to work - Early to work means early out of work , that means no vetti browsing, no checking email every 30 mins! . Finish up work and get the hell out of there!

TGIF!~

Movie and Dinner

2005-06-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

Since everyone seems to be writing reviews on "Anniyan", I decided to weigh in too. Anybody who appreciates the movie should be given a copy of Matrix Reloaded and Sidney Sheldon's Tell me your dreams. It is quite obvious that despite having spent so lavishily on the movie, Shanker forgot to hire a story writer. The only thing that is worth watching in the movie is Vikram's acting at the very end. All in all , 10 bucks and a weekend evening wasted.

Well, the evening wasn't all that bad. We went out for dinner to IHOP and Prasad starts out this game where everyone guesses the name of a movie starting with a certain letter. You give up if can't remember a name and the game goes around the table without you. Quite a good game I should say, but it is one of the most addictive games I've ever seen. We couldn't stop thinking of movies long after the game was done and when we were driving home and I still can't stop thinking of movies starting with the letter 'M', and its about 8 hours since the game ended.

Alrighty loyal readers, I would have loved to write more, but this week is a 7 day work week for me :-(( ..gotto go now!

Holy Cow

2005-06-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

First, there was Virgin Mary on a Grilled Cheese Sandwich (which actually sold for thousands of $$$, then she was on a highway overpass
and now Jesus Chris is here. Damn..I shouldn't have cleaned my bathroom, I think I saw a couple of deities on my moss covered bathroom wall!

Sideways and more...

2005-06-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

I actually sat down to fill out a performance review form for work. It has been 30 minutes and up until now, I have only managed to fill out my name. I had no idea when I joined this job that there were "business, individual and developmental" goals involved. I have 5 pages to fill out and what's worse is that my manager is going to go over this with me in person in the future. Edhuellam munadiyae solla matangala?? Had actually set aside 3 hours to do this but spent the last 2 hours blowing the up aliens in Halo...this is worse than writing an exam!!

"pure movie bliss","classic"," brilliant use of cinematic language and pacing","touching and thoughtful movie "..... all names given to an insipid,boring ,depressing movie called Sideways!

Back to work now....

Why me???

2005-06-08T18:34:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to the two wonderful orkutters who tried to have a phone conversation with me last night. First of all, I'd like to thank you for making my day today. I pretty much spent half the day at work trying to catch up on some lost sleep.

Now with regards to our conversation, I would have preferred to have a two way conversation rather than me shouting "Hello Hello" in the middle of the night. As to the part where you played some music, the idea was quite innovative I think. But that hindi song was so crappy, it made me sick. In the future, if you do decide to play some music for my listening pleasure, please choose something better. I would suggest something more like Smooth Jazz! Also, if you'd like to listen to some music, just put in a request before I go to bed and I will do the needful.

And I hear that, you think that I'm "cute" eh....well, Thank You :-)! But there is really nothing I can do with it unless you leave a name and a number. Anyway, I guess you know what you need to do. Adios!!

Why do I even try...

2005-06-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

My Long Weekend Plans

Plan One : Smoky Mountains , Tennessee on Memorial Day Weekend! This one started all the way in march. By 1st of April, we had atleast 10 ppl confirm, middle of april..down to 6 and by the end of april, plan was postponed to July 4th.

Plan Two : California , - ( Actually I'm still not sure if it was LA or the Bay Area, so detailed was our plan.)- Again memorial day weekend. This one entailed 3 of us go to CA, three lazy asses didn't do shit. Plan was dropped saying that it was better for 2 to fly to chicago than 3 to CA. Obviously , it didn't work out,if you make this kind of a change a week before holiday. Plan busted again.

End Result : Ended up watching 4 movies during the weekend.

Plan Three: US Grand Prix - June 19th. At first there were many....then down to 4 definites, tickets were booked. Now one person is going to india, one is not so much into F1 if nobody else is coming and in all possiblity, the tickets are going up for sale in ebay tomorrow. Goodbye Karthikeyan, may be I'll see you next year atleast!

Plan Four: July 4th weekend. My former room mate is all enthu, definitely wants to do something. Head Count says 3 and in that one cannot be depended upon to come. Places to visit are Washington DC, New York and Niagara Falls. Just looking at the plan convinces me this in all probability will die a natural death.

Plan Five: July 4th Again....Talk of California again...lets hope atleast this one suceeds.

Airport Trouble!

2005-06-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

Had a pretty good weekend. A long weekend after a long time is always well appreciated. Bharathi was in chicago for the weekend. Seeing him after a long time made me very happy. As always, when you have him around, something is bound to happen and this time was no different.

I woke up groggy eyed on tuesday at 5.30 am. I was all, but certain that Bharathi wouldn't have woken up for his 7.30 flight. I gave him a call and was quite surprised, that not only had he woken up ,but was also ready to leave. Obviously I thought, somebody has been having a good influence on him after a long time.

About 30 mins later, I get a call from the man himself asking me a simple and innocent question "Machan, do you think southwest airlines flies from O'Hare Airport , because I dont' see a sign for Southwest Airlines". Turns out that "Mr Responsible" didn't check which airport the flight takes off from. I checked his email, and after digging through several cancellations and flight bookings, managed to find the right email which said that the flight departs from Midway airport!! Now Midway airport lies all the over at the other end of the city.

Now that he had found the right airport, it was only a small matter of driving across the city of chicago to get to Midway airport. And only then does our friend realise that he is actually sitting in a rental car which has to be returned at O Hare. Luckily he remembered this inconvenience at Ohare and not at Midway and took a taxi. All things said, he still managed to get to the flight. I wonder how he does it. Some people never change I guess.

Well, his trip had more interesting experiences but I will leave them for later.And Bharathi, if you ever do make it to this page, I'm sorry but this one was too good to be left out.

whatever!!

2005-05-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

Finally,I do write something and this is what I get when I hit publish..

001 java.io.IOException: EOF while reading from control connection

Burnt Out

2005-04-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

My mind has a dozen ideas but my body can't take it anymore. I feel totally burnt out. I guess I should have known last weekend, when I was actually tired on sunday night. They say the weekend is to refresh yourself for the week ahead , but an action packed saturday and a work filled sunday gives the body little respite. And eleven hour work days don't do good either. The weekend is here , and sadly I have I have to spend some time at work tomorrow. Man, do I look forward to that or what? :-( .
Actually, ever since we moved to the new apartment, things have been busy for me and my roomie. We were under the impression that an apartment close to work would mean, less travel time == more free time. Apparently, my boss thinks differently, his equation reads more like less travel time == more time to work!!

I don't even know why I'm blogging, well maybe this will explain the half a dozen unanswered emails and dozen calls that I promised to make! Anyways, fridays are always good and the next week shows signs of not being this stressful. Alright folks, got to go , keep visiting though!

Update on the Router Situation!

2005-04-11T21:58:00.000-07:00

My roomie got a letter today, saying that we cannot get a full rebate on the router because the we bought it after the rebate offer ended.

So we are now stuck with with a 40$ router ( assuming the other rebate comes in, else 70) which doesn't work.

Icing on the Cake, eh??

Belkin Sucks!!

My Cup of Woes for Today!

2005-04-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

"If you don't see this blog or see only half of it, don't blame me, blame my router"

This blog has moved to a new location!

Actually only its owner has. And as with every change in life, comes a new set of problems. My new apartment is fine, pricey ,but close to work. Not much of a night life after say 7(infact,even the grocery stores are closed), but hey I'm no casanova. And there is no way that I'm going to be at the office @7 if I start experiencing the night life.

But the one thing that really gets to me is the internet connectivity. The apartment does provide me with a free internet connection, dsl modem et all,but it literally took us(my roomie and myself) 3 hours to decipher the "encrypted" instructions for the modem. Finally we managed to connect the dsl modem, phone line, router and computer. With all the connections being made correctly, the least we expected was the get some data out, but alas our hopes were dashed. Big deal, we thought, we have phone numbers of the router and dsl company, one quick call and everything will be solved. Anyways, 3 hours , 5 phone calls later, we finally managed to get it to
work. I was pretty overjoyed, happy to know that my major source of news, entertainment, communication, was up and running again. But obviously, its my destiny that I would still have to wait for net nirvana. My router seems to have a mind of its own, every other minute it decides that I am not worthy enough of another byte of data.

I'm sick and tired of listening to the router guy asking to change settings, leaves me frustrated to the core. Reading mail takes me as much time as it would take me to strip and put back the computer.

And that is the reason for my poor blog rate. And if any of you guys who do accidentally read this post and do have a lil bit of knowledge of networking and routers , please do leave a comment around. All help will be much appreciated.

I'm done with this post now, not sure if my router will let me get it out, so please don't blame me if you don't see a post.

Not a Joke anymore

2005-04-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

This is a forward from one of my friends, thought it was a lil exaggerated when I first read it, but after seeing the scorecard of the 1st one dayer, it actually makes sense. Anyways Ensoi!!!

Best Seller by Ganguly: Back to the Pavilion in 2
minutes
- Shoiab Akhtar admits Ganguly is faster and quicker
than him. "I haven't seen any one get out so fast.
Man, I envy his speed. I am quick but he is
quickest.", he says. "I think I should now cut my run
up short when I bowl to him. Or else, he might be gone
when I am half way thru my run up."
- Narain Karthikeyan to get some tips on Speed from
Ganguly. His sponsorers have asked him to talk to the
Prince of Kolkotta. They are also planning to endorse
Ganguly.
- Dinesh Karthick confesses that his skills in getting
ready and padded have improved a lot. As soon as
Ganguly goes to bat, I know there is very little time
in getting ready. "I must have broken world records a
few times in this series" , says the Indian dimunitive
wicketkeeper.

Q: Any Guesses which is Ganguly's favorite movie?
A:Gone in 60 seconds.

- Railways keen on Ganguly: Atleast we'll be having
someone who comes (back) before time. This will help
them improve the image with the Indian public.

Q: Which was the hottest place in B'lore Chinnaswami
Stadium for the past few days?
A: The seat Ganguly was sitting in while in the
Pavillion.

- Ganguly to donate all his bats to charity. "I don't
require a bat nowadays", said the Indian southpaw.
- Dravid's latest comment on Ganguly: "In the
pavillion, there's God, and then there's Ganguly
(always there)".

1) What is common to a 100 mtrs race and Ganguly's
innings?
Ans: They both last for the same time
2) How can u say "Get Out" to Ganguly politely?
Ans: Ask him to go to bat
3) If Rahul is "The Wall", what is Ganguly?
Ans: The hole in the wall
4) How can Ganguly save time everyday?
Ans: By not bothering to pad up
5) Who is the only cricketer who does not bat, bowl or
field and yet plays international cricket?
Ans: no comments...
6) Why has Saurav Ganguly been recommended as the
fielding coach for India after retirement?
Ans: No one else can provide catches as easily as
Ganguly

5 marks questions
Which are the 5 ways to get the wicket of Ganguly?
Ans:
1) Bowl to rib cage. Ganguly jumps in his place.
mistimes pull. Easy catch for short midwicket
2) Bowl good length outswinger. Easy catch to
keeper/slip
3) Full length delivery at off stump. Easy catch for
gully
4) Bowl short pitch outside offstump. Ganguly drags on
to the stumps
5) Bowl a flighted delivery. Earlier Ganguly would hit
sixes. Now he either gets bowled or stumped or catch
to close in fielders

This is what I miss , more than the game itself

2005-03-26T18:20:00.000-08:00

This had me in splits!!! As much as I can't stand sidhu, manjrekar and the others, it would still be good to hear them once in a while. Just love the way they make fools out of themselves!

What a Day!

2005-03-11T06:12:00.000-08:00

My roomie and myself go to sign the lease for the new apartment after finishing work. After that, we headed to the train station to catch the brown line back home. Now the brown line isn't usually that full even during rush hour, well maybe you don't get a seat but there is still space to stand. But things were different yesterday, the train was literally packed to the doors, moreover they were running late. Two trains passed by and there wasn't even enough space to put a foot inside....we then decided to head to the red line since that is faster and more frequent. Anyways time wasted 30 mins.

Now we walk 4 blocks to the red line station and wait for the train. I hear a distant rumbling sound and think that our train has arrived...turns out its the train going the other direction, well in 5 mins I hear another sound, again another different train. Well anyway, 7 trains going the other direction passed us before our train decided to show up! And again the blood thing is packed ! Again we skip it! With no other colored trains to go to, we decide to wait it out there. Well...another one does pop sometime later(15 trains have already gone the other direction) and this one is a little bit less crowded. we manage to squeeze in and head home. Time Wasted 45 mins.

Now finally, we get home....me in a hurry to answer nature's call, when I discover that my keys decided to disappear. I usually pop it in my bag when I leave in the morning. A "thorough" search doesn't reveal any keys and so with resignation I call the after hours desk of my apartment. The sweet lady tells me its going to cost me 50 bucks. My only other option being camping out in 20 deg F temperature outside, I agree. (Like I have a choice!). Well, she tells me the building engineer will be there in 30 mins. With nothing else to do, we head out and grab some dinner.

Now the building engineer takes his own sweet time and decides to show up at 8. He opens the door and asks me for the cheque. And while I'm writing out the cheque , he says he will get me a spare key. I take out my cheque book and write out a cheque and being totally disgusted with life , throw my bag towards a corner...and Out pop my keys. All I can scream out is "F***"!!

Oh well,here I go again!!

2005-03-06T08:36:00.000-08:00

Hear One , Hear all...I'm back again by popular demand. "Popular Demand" hmmmm..well there are probably only three people who occasionally visit my blog. One of them being myself(sad but true), so popular demand isn't something I should use. But again , its only because you guys that I took time off my busy sunday morning schedule (snoozing to be more accurate) to blog.

I'm not going to delve into the reasons why I wasn't able to blog, coz thats going to sound more like a lesson in history than anything else. Lets just say that my last few weekends were as exciting as ever. Moving to Chicago has been pretty good for me with regard to meeting old friends. After living in florida for close to 2 years I hadn't met a single old friend, although I made a bunch of new ones. Just 2 months in chicago and my list of friends I met reads something like this.

A good friend from chennai , whom I have known for close to 5 years but have never ever met. A good ol cyber friendship you might say.

My best friend from school in Bangalore, the last I met him was when my 10th std results were out. That probably adds up to around 8 years...now that was quite a meeting. Courtesy of him, I got to see chicago a lil bit , and realise that sears towers was only a block behind my office building.

And met up with a couple of friends from college...that was pretty entertaining. Reliving college days was fun until somebody brings up something about you , that you had hoped everybody had forgotten :-).

Well, I guess I will never get back those good old carefree days. And I also know that life will move on and one day I will think about this day and wonder what a wonderful life I had. Oh well, the grass is always greener on the other side.

Adios Folks!

My Thoughts exactly

2005-01-23T10:55:00.000-08:00

I really couldn't have said it better. Read this. Something i completely identify with.

TGIF

2005-01-22T15:08:00.000-08:00

Its 7am ,Friday morning...I wander into my office, half asleep, counting the hours before its 5 in the evening and making plans for the weekend. Boss emails me with an excel sheet of some data which is obviously not formatted and therefore he can't get it into database, wants me update each entry manually. Me for once am delighted, that my boss has given me some mind numbing work, superrr...now I can happily dream and waste away the day without coding, aha ...the weekend has started early.

45 mins later, one of the traders screams , some system has gone down....me thinking .."oh lord..some people are going to be busy, not me coz I don't know squat about the applications they are running". My boss and another techie crowd around the servers looking tense, and then I hear the words from hell..." Who is updating XYZFDKO table? ". Even the best coffee has never had such an effect on me...I look up and say that it was me....I'm wide awake now! Super boss comes in , asks the team whose fault it was, 3 pairs of eyes look toward me....me thinking to myself "Ok deepak, your probation is going really well, you might have to consider reposting your resume on Monster"....... luckily enough, everybody recognised that although it was technically my fault, they really couldn't blame me, coz I was assigned the work and nobody knew that the server was going act that way. Anyway, end result, I was the butt of jokes that day ...phew!!! thank goodness for database restore....taught me one lesson though, I'm never ever going to do a delete, insert or update of a database without thinking twice!!!

Weekend Report !

2005-01-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

As always, weekend seem to zoom away faster than any single weekday. Atleast I found something to keep me occupied this weekend. I consumed 3 tamil movies in the past two days and endless hours of football.( I guess that doesn't really help in my argument that I'm not a "Couch Potato"!! )

I started with "Maha Nadigan" , which promptly put me to sleep halfway through. I didn't bother to make a effort to see it completely , and wonder why I ever bothered to watch a Sathyaraj movie. My second adventure was with " M. Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi " , which was very watchable, until the hero started shouting, someone needs to tell him to take things a lil bit easy. "Kathal" was probably the best of the lot that I watched, quite realistic compared to the others, but the end was sad. I really didn't know what they had to say at the end , there was a big paragraph in tamil, and the first line took me like 5 mins, and I didn't know if I was reading correctly. One of the reasons I need a room mate who can read tamil !

Tried my hand at some Fried Rice today using some of "Sun Birds's Fried Rice Seasoning". The recipe on the back said it was going to take 10 mins, by the time I had finished it was almost an hour. Anyway, the whole experience taught me one thing, I'm a worse cook that I think I am and should probably stick to maggi ( and pray that it doesn't get burnt, that has happened twice !! ). But the most important thing is , even after consuming half cooked meat, burnt green peppers and tasteless rice, I'm still able to blog. Does say a lot about my digestive system!

Something for my friends Down Under!!

2005-01-17T18:22:00.000-08:00

http://www.toiletmap.gov.au/

Couldn't help but post this. I wonder if this is taking technology a bit too far or if it is really that useful!

2005-01-15T18:30:00.000-08:00

Oh well, boredom drives me again to blog....this weekend hasn't been that boring, maybe i'm getting used to it now. Watched a 7G Rainbow Colony last night , which is quite ironic, considering the fact that I have probably watched more tamil and hindi movies here than I ever did in India. I'm all set to watch another one tonite....thanks to newindiafilms.com .

Have been wanting to get out and explore the city , but the 8 degree F and football on T.V makes sure that my fat ass is parked at home at all times. I want to get out now , but its already dark and there isn't much to see now. Hopefully tomorrow I will stick to plan and get something done! I guess its really a question of company, I hate sight-seeing alone or eating out alone, and those are the only things I can/want to do here..well, hopefully, I'll have a room mate in 3 months.

Got my first paycheck yesterday, desperately wanted to celebrate...decided I would go out to someplace nice to eat. I walked up and down Clark, but couldn't settle on one restaurant, eventually ended up at Oodles of Noodles, where I had been to,only a couple of days back. Got the supposedly "HOT" Governor's chicken, turned out to be someplace between sweet and really sweet.....I'm sure my tastebuds are going to die out here! Today's dinner is going to be another expedition, I hope the cold doesn't drive me to the first place open--- oodles of noodles.

Lonely & Bored

2005-01-09T11:27:00.000-08:00

I just noticed that my last post was a little while after I started working , well now I have a different job and in a different city. It seems so long ago since I blogged , but it really hasn't been that long. Its just so many things have happened between now and then , that it feels like a really long time.

Reading my last post almost makes me laugh, I thought the work I was doing in Sac kept me busy......well , well, well, that seems like a holiday now. Yesterday was the first time in a whole week that I managed to get a glimpse of daylight. Leaving at 6.15 and coming back after 6 in chicago doesn't really give you an oppurtunity to see too much of daylight. I actually couldn't recognise the street that I usually take from the train station , coz it was the first time I was walking on that street in broad daylight.

Its getting so boring in here , that I'm actually looking forward for work tomorrow. Tried calling friends yesterday and all I got was voice mail. 10 messages later , I was sick of it and stopped calling...!! Thank goodness my apt has high speed internet and cable , I would gone mad otherwise.

Looks like bloggin might be able to make a comeback afterall!!

2004-11-12T23:12:00.000-08:00

Well, eversince I started work 2 weeks, life as I know it has been turned upside down. No more going to bed at 12 or later, no more endless hours on yahoo, no more "Everybody Loves Raymond". I have ended up getting up at 6.30 in the morning, atleast thats the time I set the alarm for, but am usually half awake before 6am, thanks to the time change!!! 6 AM , a far cry from the days in gainesville, when 9 am in the morning was reserved for days I had to get up early( esp for a 9.30 meeting with prof newman).

The first few days of work were crappy....I have a nice cubicle, a small office with only 6 people , with 2 indians among them, all friendly people, a boss that comes in maybe twice a week and talks to me 10 mins at most.......so what was my problem? Well, I really didn't know what I was supposed to do, it took me a quite a while to get the big picture and figure out what the minute details would be like. But work is getting more interesting by the day I should say. I guess as I start getting things done, I have a feeling of satisfaction, a feeling of achievement.......a feeling I had almost lost touch with.

Blogging has been impossible for the past 2 weeks, I just don't touch the computer when I'm home, eight hours during the day is quite enough!! I am tempted to title this blog 'Back Again', but it sounds too trite, god knows how many comebacks I've made to blogging! I have had so many thoughts this weekend, that were tagged for blogging, but they never made it. Hopefully, I will be able to settle down and get into some kind of schedule so that I can regain atleast some of the things I miss doing!

The Final Frontier and the Curse

2004-10-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this post even has laxman pulls one straight down to mc grath....another miserable indian loss, nothing new there I guess. But this loss is even more significant than ever especially since we finally give into the australian juggernaut. The Final Frontier has finally been conquered ! Steve Waugh's all conquering aussies weren't able to win a series in india, for that matter any aussie team that visited in the past 35 years. Its probably a historical event, if I can call it that, in the world of cricket.

Another event of "historical" importance took place in the world of baseball this week, the Boston Red Sox finally won the world series after 84 years, breaking the " The Curse of the Bambino". I'm no great fan of baseball, even though it has more similarities with cricket than any other sport. I find it quite boring actually, although the game is probably much shorter.(One of my pet peeves, why is it called the "World Series" ,when Boston is playing against St. Louis and the american baseball team can't even qualify for the olymics??). But I really rooted for the Bosox to win....I didn't know squat about the game till about 3 weeks back. So what brought about this change in me...well, the red sox were 0-3 in the division finals, facing none other than the mighty New York Yankees, what do you expect from a team that is 0-3 in the best of 7 series, just one match away from elimination.... well, they gave it all they had and beat the yankees 4-3, the biggest comebacks i've ever seen, made me an instant fan!!!

The only reason I'm writing this blog is because this week I was witness two great events in sporting history....one established by pure brilliance and the other by sheer incompetence. I don't think I need to explain which is which. But what pains me most is that India lost withouht even giving a fight, I didn't think the aussies were special this time. I think its fair to say that the Indians lost rather than saying that the Aussies won.

I guess the Indian team always finds a way to sink to the depths of infamy even after showing glimpses of glory....I really shouldn't be complaining, its been the same story ever since I started following cricket.

Work , Work & more Work!!

2004-10-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

The past week has probably been the most I've worked in almost 4 months. Spent the whole week....literally 7 days, working on an application with PHP. The week started off kinda badly I guess, now that I think about it , it was actually funny. Went to sign some papers for the job at UC Davis...lost my way on the way back. Ended up walking for close to 2 hours coz my pride wouldn't let me call somebody for help. Finally figured it out and returned home dead tired....well, that should have normally slowed me down, but for some crazy reason , I started coding then and sat for 5 hours straight. I think its because I have been out of the loop for such a long time that I really looked forward to doing this....I actually felt happy to be coding. Well, thats something I always bullshit in interviews and SOP's, but maybe I can make a career out of this....hmmmm....maybe that masters won't go for a waste afterall.

Am I the Jinx???

2004-10-17T01:36:00.000-07:00

Have been following the India - Australia test match at madras for the past 4 days( the first day on cricinfo and the rest on TV). And during this period , I haven't seen one aussie wicket fall, all the wickets fell only when I went to bed , duly disgusted by the Indian bowling.

So I thought today would be a pretty good day to watch some aussie wickets fall, given the fact that our indian team thinks so highly of its bowling and the aussies themselves think that they "might " make 150......he he he....well, its 12.20 now, almost 3 hours since the start of play and not one wicket has fallen!!! They're so desperate that ganguly himself has started bowling now. Imagine Gillespie facing a 128 balls and still not out, I truly am the jinx!!!

I'm not going to sleep for another hour, just making sure that the chennai crowd gets value for their money and I get to watch some more cricket tomorrow!! he he he !!!

One reason why I shouldn't shave so often!!

2004-10-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

8.30 Am - Look in the mirror and see hair all over my face, been a week since I shaved, no wonder people were giving me strange looks at Trader Joe's yesterday.

8.35 Am - Gilette Sensor Excel does the honors!

9.20 Am - Door bell rings , guy says

"I'm from 'XXX' company , we are talking to everybody in this
community about their roofing needs, Are your parents at home?"

WTF???? I need my beard back!!!

2004-10-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

This one says it all!!!

SETI@home

2004-10-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

I finally downloaded SETI@home , have been wanting to do it for such a long time, but don't know why it too me such a long time. My usual laziness is the main suspect I guess. Anyway, I'm happy that I'm atleast contributing something to some important research! SETI has always interested me, coz I feel its probably the single most directed effort to solve the biggest questions of our existence. We as a human race may have made immense progress over the ages, we can now send up man to the moon and machines to mars and dig up the deepest trench in the ocean, but we still don't know why we are here! Sometimes I wonder why we live the way we do, man toils his entire life and achieves what he thinks is something valuable and one fine day his life is over. We seem to live to fulfill our ambitions and goals in life, but is that really significant or does it matter at all in the grand scheme of things ??? I could go on and on....but there is no solution, the more you think of it , the more you see how helpless you are. I will probably never know if extra terrestrial life exists or what was the origin of life. Sometimes , I guess its more easier to accept things as they are and flow with the crowd....and that is what I will do!

The Presidential Debates

2004-10-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday was the third and thankfully the final debate. At the start of the debates, I was frankly quite excited about the whole process. I had even wished that maybe someday in India we would have vajpayee talking to sonia and even maybe even "The Mother" -- jayalalitha take on the karunanidhi. But after 2 weeks and 4 debates (1 vice presidential), I'm sick of the whole thing. My head is filled with tax-cuts, healthcare costs, iraq, gay-issues.......a load of crap. I just can't take it anymore, once the bosses stop talking, the spinners start and its more of the same , again and again and again......I wonder if they will ever stop. Undecided voters shouldn't be allowed to vote, these morons don't deserve the right to vote if they couldn't make a decision looking back at the 3 and a half years but need somebody telling them how bad the other guy is in the last 20 days...man,these people are stupid. I'm much more happier with the indian system where the only issue is which guy is giving you more money to vote....nobody cares about issues , because its 5 more years of the same no matter who is in power.

I am rabidly anti-Bush, I really wonder sometimes how people can support him after all that he has done or maybe not done, depending on what issue you are talking about. The polls show that he is drifting down, just hope he doesn't pull off something spectacular before the elections. Something like catching the elusive OBL or UBL as he calls him, rumor has it that they have in secure in guantanamo bay....boy that would just be horrible!!

BBspot - Which OS Are You?

2004-10-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

Take this quiz to find out what OS matches your personality. Apparently I'm OS X type......now, what is OS X??? beats me..!

Miserable Weekend!

2004-10-11T16:03:00.000-07:00

The Gators lost to LSU this weekend, it was miserable. The offense totally sucked, it was pathetic. I've never seen a team struggle so much. And what pisses me off even more is that we lost in the final quarter with 27 seconds to play. This is the second time in the season that we've lost in the final minute. Whats more intersting, this is only our second ranked oppenent and we've lost to both, which begs the question, should we even be ranked?

Imagine a team who gets thulped by georgia just the week before, has 2 new quarterbacks,ranked 24th in the country, comes to the swamp(supposed to be one of the loudest in the nation) and still manages to beat the "#12 Florida Gators". I get a feeling of deja vu when I say this, reminds me of the Indian cricket team(oh yeah, they got beaten too this weekend)......why does every team I support with all my heart have to be like this?????

After the game, I was MAD....promised not to watch college football ever again, a couple of hours later, I thought maybe i'll watch next season onwards. Today I checked the gators schedule, thought I will watch them if they beat georgia.......well,now I'm checking to see what time they're playing this saturday.......oh my god, i'm just an insufferable sports fan!!

Lou Dobbs and India!

2004-10-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

For the uninitiated, Lou Dobbs hosts a show on CNN every weeknight. He is what I call the "self proclaimed knight in shining armour against outsourcing". An extremely conservative guy who takes pride in bashing up china ,india and every other developing country for its economic growth.

I understand that outsourcing is a touchy subject and I would probably feel pissed off too if my job was taken away just because somebody else is doing it for cheap. But I think Lou Dobbs just goes crazy with it. Take for example, this story that ran on wednesday. They were talking about outsourcing animation work to India. They start out the story from South Korea, would you believe that..... the republic of South Korea, it turns out that the work was being outsourced to South Korea from the 70's and is now being sent to India, and that is supposed to be bad for Americans.....

I have no clue as to why that is supposed to be bad for the American economy, if anything it should be the South Koreans who should be complaining. His India , China bashing has reached such a stage, that it doesn't even affect me anymore, I feel its kinda funny to a certain extent! Yesterday, Argentina happened to be the target of Mr Dobbs's crusade, and this is a classic..he says "Companies in Argentina succeed because labor costs are cheaper than costs in India", does that mean he supports India now???

And some people feel, that he should be voted president...God save the world!!!

Google Time Bomb - Will Weblogs blow up the world's favorite search engine?

2004-10-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

Google Time Bomb - Will Weblogs blow up the world's favorite search engine? - Microcontent News, a Corante.com Microblog

Sunday Night Blues

2004-10-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

It's the same feeling every sunday night , no matter what. I could be on vacation or have nothing to do during the entire week, but I just hate the thought of getting up on a monday. Guess the feeling is somehow ingrained deep and just won't go away. Just hate the thought of getting back into the grind, the weekend means freedom! I don't have a history of ever doing anything constructive during the weekend. Although I have nothing to do tomorrow or for that matter the four days after that, sigh...the weekend's gone :-(

I went out shopping in the morning , since my folks were coming back from vacation today. Started out at around 9.45 am and there were hardly any souls on the road. On Hazel Avenue, where I usually come across like a 100 cars , I spotted 2. It was pure pleasure driving today, nobody in front to dictate your speed, no speed freak breathing down your neck from the back...and more importantly no worries changing lanes. Boy, wish everyday was like sunday morning traffic.

The weekend was good overall I guess. gators won on saturday. Started out slow, had an explosive 2nd quarter and then let the razorbacks come back in. Typical zook game, gets on the defensive too early and in the end it gets too close to comfort. I guess I see shades of myself in the gator game, I start out early, get all the hard stuff done, but then when I know i'm on top of things, I let go. Finishing up is such problem, get too complacent too soon. My father used to say this all the time, I used to disagree at first,but I'm beginning to see it myself.

Well, all said and done , I'm glad i'm getting this posted. Hope to make blogging a habit. I've been following blogs by other indians for the past couple of days and it seems pretty intersting...
Well, I guess this is a nice way to spend time now that I have got over chatting, gaming, online gaming, orkutting....hope blogging lasts longer.

Sayanora....

I'm Back Again

2004-10-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well, It's been a long time I guess. Had pretty much given up on blogging, but had a long conversation with Shanawaz yesterday and saw his blog and that made me think about blogging again. I guess its a nice way to spend some time, since I have so much time on hand. Also, its probably a good way to hold on to memories !!!

Anyways, was at rajkumar's place last night, had dinner and watched a couple of movies. Saw parts of the scorpian king, I thought it looked exactly like a indian movie, same crap , same bullshit. The worse thing is they are showing it 3 nights in a row..man, talk about a boring weekend. Saw "Fida" next , with fardeen, kareena and another guy whose name I don't know. The story was a little different from the usual hindi movies, but I guess they messed it up somewhere in the middle , thankfully the movie was a short one, must have been only 2 hours, thank goondness for that.

Drove home late at night and called Bangalore, was happy to speak with everyone and guessed they were happy too. I guess nikhi was keeping everyone busy! Didn't a good sleep last night , kept tossing and turning, had lots of weird dreams, was either dead or someone was killing everyone I knew....actually got up tired in the morning today. The Gator vs Arkansas game is going on now, florida up 7.

Dont' know whats wrong with leak , hardly any downs, just one good pass till now, its the 2nd quarter. Hope he improves..

I guess I'll sign off for now, got to get back to the game. Hope to keep blogging....daily would be good!

My First Post!

2004-07-28T23:21:00.000-07:00

I guess the title says it all, want to see what the fuss is all about.....I guess I kinda like the concept. Don't know if i'll be able to post daily ...but lets see..