Aditya's Online Diary

How to make Curd in 90 minutes (using a microwave oven)

2011-07-23T16:07:00.001+05:30

Disclaimer. I am a cooking noob. I am not even at level 0 when it comes to cooking.


I'm totally a black belt ninja dragon warrior when it comes to eating though

Anyway, getting back to the topic - Rimi told me about this one.

Cook something in the microwave for a long time (so that it gets hot). For example, bake some chicken.
While the baking is in progress, make sure you have the raw material of curd ready (warm milk mixed with a bit of curd in a ceramic bowl)
Take out what you were baking and put it some where like your mouth and enjoy the taste.... I'm not responsible for burns ;)
Put the bowl mentioned in point # 2 into the microwave. Shut the door and turn it off.
Go watch a movie. May I suggest Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2? They're brilliant.
Come back after 90 mins / when the movie is over (whichever is earlier). If the movie is not over, wait for a few minutes more, pause the movie if its not over (seriously, do you watch documentaries or movies?) and take out the bowl from the microwave.
Curd is ready to eat! Put it in the fridge to cool it down and serve chilled :)

Voila! I am not responsible for explosions, alien abductions or pandas assaulting you.

Headaches vs Electral

2011-07-19T18:12:00.001+05:30

Its one of those rare days when I finish work early and Rimi is still stuck at office. She told me to leave for home while she'd take the 8pm bus. I'd be home alone for 3 hours. Enough time for me to complete a mission or two in World In Conflict - Soviet Assault.


If you haven't played this RTS yet, you're missing something.

I'm making my way back home, through the inevitable traffic jams, and I reach home within reasonable time. There's a slight headache, but no big deal, I think. Except, I was wrong. Oh, so wrong. The headache struck me like a ton of something heavy. I couldn't think, couldn't play. Worst of all, I had told Rimi to get me something to eat (apart from the awesome things she cooks) from her cafeteria. I simply couldn't have that. I couldn't even go to the balcony to clear my head.

When Rimi got back, the first thing she asked me: "Did you drink water?".

Eh. What has water got to do with it?


A lot, actually.

Good thing that I'm not a doctor.

The first thing she gave me was a cup of that magical salt, Electral. Have you ever seen that ad where the person drinks glucose and seems to get bigger and stronger? I felt the exact same way, within seconds of drinking it. It felt so good, that I had another cup. Headache gone.


This shit's magic.

Guys, I tell you. If you have headache, eliminate the dehydration factor by drinking electral. It totally helps.

Gadgets and me, an ongoing experiment.

2011-06-21T19:52:00.001+05:30

I always thought I liked blue. I still do like blue. Except if they are hyperlink colours. None of my gadgets ever had the colour blue, though.

Except one.

I love gadgets that allow me to keep in touch with people, and look good while doing it. I started off by.. errm.. "borrowing" (permanently) my dad's awesome Nokia 8210. It was ultra sleek, fit inside my palm and had a yellow backlight! In my defense, the other models of that age had boring green backlights. The larger screen didn't hurt, as well.

It was RED and it was AWESOME.

Now that the टशन and novelty bug was satisfied, I needed to move on to bigger and better things. When one starts working, one pays attention to daily agendas. Enter my first windows mobile phone, the HTC TyTN. This reflected my priorities at the time, i.e. a better user experience, integration with my personal and office calendar and better "James Bond"-fication.

It's got Windows Mobile 5 and can cause serious head injuries if I bash it on your head.

Boy, was the TyTN big. I then came across the HTC Diamond, a sweet and sexy phone that did everything the TyTN did, and looked good at the same time! I was hooked. I was in touchscreen heaven for a year, before the phone conked off. I will miss that phone.

Just look at it. Beautiful. All glowy and cool.

My fascination with touchscreens died with my HTC Diamond. I just wanted something that worked, synced perfectly to my online social presence, and whose didn't die in an hour if I switched on GPS and GPRS. Both my HTC phones are guilty of pathetic battery life. Enter my Nokia E71, the old warhorse. I had got it for my Dad for once (instead of the other way round) and then got it back since my dad started using a Blackberry.

This phone rocks.

As I have got older and wiser, I have gone from flashy to functional for my mobile phones, but still cannot resist a little flash. That's why my laptop is a kickass red Dell XPS, which was top of the line when I got it, and still gets envious glances when I take it out of my bag.

Yes, it plays Crysis. (Haven't tried Crysis 2 though)

Notice that this one is red again, just like my first phone. I keep wondering whether I should change my favourite colour from blue to red, officially. :P

Now you have got to the end of this post, do vote this blog post up from the depths of obscurity into instant fame... Click the pic below to vote on Indiblogger

I'll give you cake if you vote.

This post is part of a competition by Indiblogger and Dell. I was supposed to write about how my gadgets reflect my personality. If you liked this post, do share it and comment!

How to get rid of AVG search

2011-06-02T08:04:00.001+05:30

After updating my AVG, I suddenly found that the default Google search had gone away, replaced by the VERY irritating AVG search, powered by Google. Disabling search add-ons, browser extensions didn't seem to work. AVG forums didn't tell me how to remove it.

my life was ruined, melodramatically speaking.

Then, I found out about Firefox's about:config. And the solution presented itself.

Type about:config into the location bar and press enter
Accept the warning message that appears, you will be taken to a list of preferences
Locate the preference keyword.URL, double-click on it and change its value to the link shown below

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=

Tell me you're not grinning, now you know what to do :D

The legal stuff: If you don't follow the instructions above TO THE LETTER, I won't be held responsible for anything that happens. (for e.g. you winning the lottery)

I am one LAZY blogger!

2011-03-11T11:59:00.005+05:30

OMG! I just remembered I have not updated this since petrol was cheaper than a bottle of Grange!... You would not believe that I'd been abducted by aliens. I prostrate myself in sorrow and beg thy forgiveness..

(wink)

I am so busy with my tan, learning to fart the theme to neighbours, just generally being asleep, dreaming and chancing to anyone unfortunate to cross my path, my day is filled with fluorescent light from the second I am woken by murderous Teletubbies to I run out of alcohol. I am not being a whinging Pom or anything. life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.

I will try to remember I promised you I will update you with my nefarious activities as soon as I get a chance. Well, I'll try. Assuming I don't get distracted by counting my chest hairs..

The fine print:
I haven't been blogging for a while, and as my good friend Meghna pointed out, I really needed to do something about it. Finally in desperation, she showed me this link that can blog for me. You see the results :D

I agreed to post this ONLY if she used the same link to generate something equally funny... so go to her blog and let her know that you're waiting for her post!

STOP THE PRESS! She did post it :D Now go to her post and comment! :)

I'm back! (Again) (I Hope)

2011-02-11T19:00:00.000+05:30

How long has it been since I last posted? A heckofalot of things have happened in the meantime. I got married, (as the last few mugshots would have undoubtedly told you so already), I fell down and injured my knee (which the mugshots don't show... how stupid of me), I sold my bike (for a good price too, if I may say so myself, but i do miss it ) and I got a Nissan Micra (best small hatchback evar)!

So this is the 20-20 version of my status update. I want to write but I never seem to have the time. Today I found Meghna write about her MBA times, and that spurred me to write something as well. I hope I write a post a week. I have some ideas stashed up in my head, so let's see what my time has to say about it. :D

The Bro Code

2010-06-22T07:22:00.000+05:30

Kaustubh, my bro posted a series of photos on facebook, which I <3 so much, that I simply had to put here. Left to Right - Kaustubh, Rishi, Ankit, Moi. This was taken within the last few months.

The evolution of telephone usage

2010-06-19T15:33:00.003+05:30

My HTC Diamond, well, actually it was Dad's, before I borrowed it permanently, was just over a year old when it conked off. I think these phone manufacturers arrange for such things to happen, and milk their customers on after sales support.

The loss of a gadget you come to take for granted, has given me superhuman powers... of contemplation. Sheesh. Some superhuman power. Anyway, this blog post is the result of that. Power, I mean.

Why didn't I get... The batmobile or something

Someone's uncle once said that with great responsibility comes great power, or something like that. I sure am a responsible guy, and as I said, I have attained this power of... contemplation (dammit.. I really wanted something else), so we see that the uncle was not taking through his hat. So, what do we do with this superpower? I will turn this awesome power towards the history and evolution of my phone usage. It's pretty interesting, in a way, to see how my needs and wants keep increasing to match the telephone's functionality.

The first time I saw a telephone, it looked like a tank, compared to the wussy things we have these days. It was a rotary phone, and had a nice curly wire which I could play with. (I was a baby back then). I spent most of my time playing with the dial and pretending to call people, and accidentally calling them once in a while.

As the years went by, telephones evolved - the dial was replaced by a push button keypad. I evolved from a baby to a schoolkid - and my usage correspondingly involved to communicating about homework, movies, coaching classes, parties, etc. Still quite basic.

The mobile boom came to India in the early 90s. We used to pay for incoming calls in those days. Crazy. The only utility of a mobile phone was to give missed calls - I hear we Indians invented that concept - to transmit information.

Or take hilarious pics of sleeping classmates. This is Deepti, by the way :P

I really liked that phone, my Nokia 8210 was small, sturdy and awesome. It lasted a week without charge, had a really loud ringtone, and thought it was Wolverine in disguise. It could work when it was broken and had rubber bands to stick it together!

It was smaller than my palm and could easily get lost too

Anyway, I stayed in this mode, till one day, Pranav, my boss, suggested "Adi my boy, get a touch phone."
And this catapulted me to the next stage in the evolution of phone usage... Combining office usage with the regular phones.

The HTC TyTN I took had 3G features which I couldn't use at that time, but I was able to sync my office and google calendar to it. This gave me the power to add friends birthday reminders, which I was really bad at remembering.

Missed out on the break-egg-on-the-bday-boy's-head ritual again. gaaaaah

I could also sync my travel information to my google calendar and get reminders. I still missed flights, though. But, while pondering the futility of syncing calendars and still missing flights, I could read ebooks on the phone - I devoured a lot of ebooks.

Then, came the Diamond. Aaah, the Diamond. It was greased lightning compared to the TyTN, and the interface was simply amazing.

And it could tell me that it was hot outside. It could also clean my clothes.

When I came to Hyderabad, I didn't know most of the roads, except the few main roads, and this phone's GPS saved my sorry backside quite a few times. I don't know why, but this phone died within a year.. and I'm back to the TyTN.

Going back to a phone with limited functionality after you have seen the potential of what "can be" is really quite frustrating. I will get a phone soon... Which one should I go for?

~ flexiPoll: free online web poll ~

Download comic book reader for Windows

2010-06-01T09:17:00.001+05:30

Digital comics come in 3 formats, as far as I know. PDF, CBR and CBZ. as far as the windows platform is concerned, anyway. Of these, I don't like PDF for some reason. Probably because Adobe reader is such a waste of hard disk space.

Enter the comic book reader - CDisplay. Its less than 2MB, and displays the CBR and CBZ files like a dream. Some kind soul had hosted it on Yahoo's Geocities before that portal was taken off the grid. Luckily, I had downloaded it, and made it available online for everyone to download.

Download comic book reader

Why CDisplay and not other comic book readers? Because it has a small footprint and doesn't try to be everything for everyone. It will display digital comics for you, nothing more, nothing less. Give it a try.

Happy birthday to me :D

2010-05-25T00:19:00.002+05:30

I claim that I don't mind if people don't wish me. Really, I don't. But that doesn't mean that I don't feel good when people DO wish me. :) I checked my blog, surprisingly I have blogged just once about my birthday. I remember my first one spent in Chennai, when nobody knew that it was my birthday. That was one lonely day.. :P

But now I am at Hyderabad - I have my uncle, aunty, cousins and my bro drops in from time to time. Actually, he has dropped in just once. We took the opportunity to celebrate my birthday in advance... There was some awesome cake - which was promptly used to give me a face pack. Thankfully, I wasn't given the famous Sanyal brand birthday bumps... All my bros are tall and strong, easily able to lift me up and tenderize my backside.

Mom and dad gave me an awesome shirt, Rimi gave me chilli flavored chocolates..

I'm gonna get her for this :P - But they are damn cool!

and also a couple of books. And a zoozoo. I was also treated to a super chinese dinner by my uncle and aunty.

While all this was happening, my poor phone was bearing the brunt of calls, messages, and more calls. The battery dies after a couple of calls, but thankfully, it didn't let me down this time.

As Arjun tweeted,

@madguy000 what's the birthday boy upto....?? This is your LAST bachelor boy birthday - make the most of it..Thu May 20 06:08:45 via TweetDeckArjun Mahajan
recnamorcen

This birthday remains a memorable one!

Airports and me - redoux

2010-04-21T02:25:00.000+05:30

Airports and me - we have a history. I have missed flights, held up flights so that friends could board planes, been kicked off flights (actually just one flight) due to clerical errors, argued with check in attendants about check in luggage limits, and also found loopholes around max luggage limits. ;)

I'll see how you board your connecting flight - The pilot actually said that to me

Lately though, I have managed to board flights without incident. Mostly. Once or twice, its been quite dicey, but I haven't told my parents (they will know now!) and I have boarded some flights at the last possible moment. This is the story of the worst case scenario of them all.

I had to go to Delhi last January to attend my cousin sister's wedding. Varmeet, my roommate was also scheduled to go to the airport around the same time that day, so he offered to give me a lift in the company car. So far, so good. I had already identified the stuff I had to pack into my backpack once I came back from work, and everything seemed to be proceeding as per plan. The only thing I forgot to do was to check in online.

Big Mistake.

Murphy's law started to kick in around this point. First, Varmeet called to tell me that his meeting was being extended beyond what he had anticipated, so he would not be able to pick me up. I had to go home and pack quickly, but still missed the airport shuttle bus by minutes. Took the next one which came half an hour later. I still had a buffer of 60 minutes around this time. I had forgotten to account for one thing though.

Hyderabad Traffic. Justifies an invasion by George Bush.

The shuttle had to navigate through the stupid zombie traffic that reared its head just when I didn't want it to. Moments like these make me want to enact my Grand Theft Auto escapades in real life. That's when I realised that I MAY get late to the airport. "No worries" my brain said, "check in online. You do have GPRS, use it for something other than twitter for once."

Not if Mr. Murphy had anything to do with it.

Indogo's site helpfully told me that web checkins are allowed only upto 24 hours before departure.

Shit.

My brain starts to go to overdrive when things start to go downhill. Just when Mr Murphy started getting complacent, my brain found a cheat code. Varmeet. I called him.

"I won't make it in time to check in"
"I know someone at the Indigo counter. I'll ask him to do something. Don't worry." (How does he get to know these people anyway)
"Ok, take my booking details and try to get my boarding pass."

My train of thought was - if the boarding pass is issued, the plane won't take off without me. Hopefully. Anyway, I called him after sometime to follow up, and he hadn't got around talking to his people. I was getting desperate. This is when my brain showed me why I rate it so highly.

Check-in kiosks FTW!

Varmeet just had to go to the kiosk, get my boarding pass and wait for me. I just had to reach the airport before the boarding gates closed. Simple, right?

Wrong.

The ETD for my flight was 15 minutes away, and my shuttle had chosen this day of all days to be uncharacteristically late, thanks to the traffic. Varmeet was giving me panicky calls - he had his flight to catch as well. At last, my bus stopped, and I made like the Flash, running towards the security check. Found Varmeet standing inside the security area, he had talked to a guard to watch out for a fat guy with specs and a huge bag running towards him, and had given him the boarding pass.

I was the last person to board the plane.

Moral of the story? Whatever I do, I will not miss flights. :P haha

A very interesting Q&A session about the Yakuza

2010-03-20T13:07:00.001+05:30

I have recently started watching Fox History on cable TV, especially their "Deadliest Warrior" series. One particular episode pitted the Mafia and the Yakuza against each other. While that episode ultimately ended up with the Yakuza's defeat, they still have been quite an interesting topic for me to read up on. I have come across them in various pulp fiction novels, comics, movies and online. The latest place I found them was on the blog Boing Boing, which gave me the most in-depth information about them yet.

Lisa Katayama interviewed Jake Adelstein, the author of "Tokyo Vice", which talks about his adventures as a crime reporter for Japan's largest newspaper. He has made a lot of enemies, and friends as well, in the Japanese yakuza.

In the two part interview which you can read here and here, he reveals (to me at least) that the yakuza controls quite a lot of Japan, and has a lot of front companies which you may know about from their public personas. Many of the different clan headquarters can be openly found on google maps.. o_0

Here is an excerpt from part 1 of the interview -

Goto has been connected to 17 unsolved murders. His people are responsible for the attack on film director Itami Jyuzo in 1992. Itami made a movie parodying the yakuza. It showed them as what most of them are, as a bunch of obnoxious sneaky lying thugs, and they didn't really like that. They didn't kill him at first — they just grabbed him as he left his house and slashed open his face in the parking lot. A few years later, he allegedly committed suicide. But what I heard from people who would know is that they dragged him to a rooftop, stuck a gun in his face, and said you can jump or we'll blow your face off.
Are you scared of the yakuza?
Of course I'm scared of them. Even the guys I'm close to I'm scared of. They're like wild animals. These are guys who make a living through violence, and they're very very tough. They just have incredible endurance and tolerance for pain. They're like the Energizer bunny; you can beat them and hit them with a hammer and they'd still come at you like the Terminator. I'm saying this from personal experience.

Here is an excerpt from part 2 of the interview

The Liberal Democratic Party was founded on yakuza money. Former prime minister Koizumi's grandfather was a member of the Inagawa-kai; he was tattooed all the way down to his wrists. According to magazine articles written in the nineties, the current minister of finance Kamei Shizuka received $400,000 from a yakuza stock speculator and certainly received donations from the emperor of loan sharks.

Most of this may be highly "sterile" data, and I'm totally aware of the murky stuff which these guys do. But, you cannot deny that this makes for highly interesting reading. Check out the links I've linked to, I don't think you will be disappointed.

Filler material aka the case of the missing blogger

2010-02-24T08:11:00.001+05:30

Hello everybody... I haven't been blogging lately. I've been extremely lazy and I need somebody to kick my butt to get me posting. That happened when quite a lot of people liked my facebook status which said that I need to update my blog.

I have quite a few topics buzzing in my head, and I'll get down to writing them ASAP.

Do bear with me in the meantime :D

adios amigos, till we meet again

28 days later - A very short review

2009-12-29T20:02:00.001+05:30

I had gone home recently, and my bro whipped out a movie I had been meaning to see. 28 days later.

Here are the things that went through my head when I was watching the movie.

Never let a shieking chimp out of a cage. Thats stoopid. Especially when the scientist says they are infected. You deserve to prove Darvin's survival of the fittest right, woman. This year's Darwin award goes to you.
Running zombies. oooooh. OMG they r not running, they are SPRINTING. We're dead.
Everybody's a zombie? Now what?
HELLO? What the...?

Good movie, though :) Go see it.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Ninja Assassin - movie review (i think)

2009-12-03T10:19:00.000+05:30

A good ninja is never seen.

What about a good ninja movie?

Trick question. ;)

I never see movies at this time of the week - it's Wednesday. But, due to some strike or the other, my cousin bro Ankit wasn't able to go to med school in Warangal. So, we planned to hit Ninja Assassin, along with his dad. I have seen ninjas being portrayed in a bad light - The Hunted (1995) and The Last Samurai (2003); as well as cheesy - All the ninja turtles and american ninjas you can take. I was curious to see what would be dished out by a movie titled Ninja Assassin.

Maybe a guy riding a Kawasaki Ninja, killing dudes? Naah.

One thing you will see a lot of in this movie, is blood. Lots of badass fights and lots and lots of blood. The movie begins and ends with blood flowing like someone turned on the tap and left the house. Our hero basically is in a room, doing all sorts of crazy ninja training and then getting flashbacks of his life gone by when he was a kid, training in a secret clan called "the black sand clan", who kill their targets, but not before making them wail in fear by mailing them an envelope with black sand inside it.

Like this, but it will say "You're dead"

So, basically, the movie is all about how this ninja clan is so secretive, and brutal - if you go AWOL, you basically are terminated with extreme prejudice. These guys supply their assassination services to people who have more than a hundred pounds of gold to give them. Our hero is the star student, but he goes rogue when they kill his girlfriend who ran away during training. So, in spite of graduating at the top of his class, he doesn't get his diploma. He does get a death warrant though.

He missed out on this plushy Ninja diploma.

The rest of the movie is one big crazy fight sequence. Ninjas fight on the autobahn, ninjas fight in warehouses, ninjas fight in dark rooms, ninjas fight in secret government prisons, ninjas fighting the hero, ninjas fighting soldiers, and basically introducing the sharp end of their sticks to the backside of whichever butt they are currently kicking. The story is non existent - don't go to this movie expecting something so fancy as a storyline. I can tell you the story in 3 sentences, and it won't spoil the movie experience. (But I won't.) The USPs of the movie are the fight scenes. You will need bullet time vision to actually understand the moves these guys make. Also night vision, and maybe infra red. And you will be dead by the time the systems boot up, you know what I'm saying? Guys, go see. Gals, tag along :D - after all, you make us go to all the chick flicks with you!

3.5 stars out of 5. Signing off.

Kurbaan - A review

2009-11-21T02:36:00.001+05:30

Ever so often Bollywood picks itself up by the bootstraps, rises above the typical "running around the trees" formula and delivers something so different, you simply get blown away. I was lucky enough to see an example of such an effort today.

Kurbaan is yet another proof that the Hindi film industry is maturing. Given a good story, and a good budget, you can do wonders. This movie is an attempt to show a terrorist strike, but the protagonists whom we observe this time are the the terrorists, and not the good guys. We get to see their rationale behind their acts. Saif plays a gray character who takes advantage of a girl to get into USA under the radar. The movie is frenetic, and I was beginning to think that they won't have a break in the middle, the story seemed to move from climax to climax.

Without revealing too much of the storyline, I can tell you that each character has been played beautifully.There are no song and dance routines to disrupt the story, the music is great, and camera work fantastic. Don't miss it. 4.5 out of 5 stars

SPOILER ALERT don't read further if you hate spoilers. My brother forwarded me some really funny imaginary tweets the main characters would have made were they in twitter. Read on and enjoy :D

Saifu:

Hi..I am Ehsaan

I want to go onsite.

I like coffee.

I love Avantika.

I am jihadi.

I am planting bomb in plane. Excited!

I love Avantika.

I want my child.

I am jihadi.

Let’s have 9/11 once again.

But I love Avantika.

I am DEAD!

Wait..my name is Khalid and now I am DEAD!!

O wait for a second, ‘he vivek, don’t look at my Kareena, and don’t forget, your Diya is also up there in heaven and I am going just there!’

Kareena(Avantika):

I don’t like coffee.

Infact I do.

A lot can happen over coffee..I like saifu..

I am going to NY..Saifu is also coming.

NY is great but damn..my TV doesn’t have Star Plus. I need to peep through neighbour’s door to get some family drama. But that’s fun!

Saifu is good boy, but our neighbours are terrorists.

OMG..Saifu, u liar!!

I am on diet..Zero figure calling back!

U old woman, u shoplifter, so cheap! I am embarrassed.

I hate Saifu.

I am pregnant..that saifu is saying it’s his child. ;)

Why that old lady is again taking me out for shopping? Hope she doesn’t embarrass me again!

O my purse has bomb. Saifu defused it..so sweet!

Police is killing my Saifu..he just told me his real name is something else, I forgot!

Omg..why this vivek is now looking at me like this?

Vivek:

Iraq is in mess. But my GF is not.

But my dad is..grow up old man!!

Met Avantika..not bad!! Let’s hope her husband is not a terrorist!

My GF is gone! Bomb blast! BOOM!!! Btw, RIP dear !!

I know terrorists but not telling cops. I don’t want movie to end before interval.

I am feeling alone ..joining some classes to end my loneliness.

There’s one cute gul in class but she is asking me to leave America.

Saifu invited me to his home. Excited!
oh..Biryani is delicious..btw, seems like their family business is ‘terrorism’..but who cares? Biryani is awesome!

I think this old man liked my cell. Go man..see your face..consult some dermatologist first!

I have asked Kareena to help me finding map. Let’s see what happens tomorrow morning.

Saifu is looking happy..very happy! Dunno why!!

Again this old man wants my coffee..whats his problem man??

O they found my true identity..1..2..3..run!! Wait a minute..take this old man..SHOOT..SHOOT!!

C’mon cops..come with me. I will show you where Saifu is. Go kill him.

Kareena is crying alone..poor soul…but wait a minute..Kareena >>>Dia..wat an idea??

Don’t listen to Saifu.. Diya doesn’t like coffee.

Block twitterfeed from Twitter timelines

2009-11-10T20:03:00.000+05:30

This is a rant.

I hate idiots who add a twitterfeed to update every few minutes from their blog, or worse, from THEIR SUBSCRIBED RSS FEEDS, to their twitter account. I don't have ANY interest in your RSS feed. If I do have an interest, I don't want to read it via twitter. I use twitter to know what are you doing, not what your RSS feed is doing.

How the heck can he have so many followers with just a RSS feed?

Twitter etiquette demands that you don't update your twitterfeed so blatantly, for if you do, you will result in spamming a timeline and thus spoiling the experience of other users of twitter.

What is the solution? Currently, except unfollowing the jerk, none whatsoever.

What I would like to do? To block updates from my timeline, using rules having "user" and "user-agent" for example, if @jerk updates his twitter using "twitterfeed" then block that update from my timeline. There may be others who use twitterfeed properly, so I won't mind looking at their updates.

Twitter, or greasemonkey scripters, or firefox add on developers, are you listening?

Champions League T20 memories

2009-11-06T05:44:00.118+05:30

Twitter has its uses :)

Ever since I have shifted to Hyderabad, interesting things have started to happen.

I have a lot of friends from college in this city, and so I have been able to meet up with them,
I have my folks in Secunderabad, so I can drop in and meet my cousins anytime I want.
It's much closer to home - Kolhapur - which makes going home easier.

Basically, my time in Hyderabad has been much more awesome, so far, than Chennai.

So, extrapolating, it's really no surprise that I end up winning not one, but TWO contests on Twitter, resulting in yours truly being in the hospitality suite as a guest of Lalit Modi, watching the semi finals and finals of the inaugural T20 champions league. I won't analyze the matches themselves, that's part of history. Here, I will tell you about the experience of being in the ground and watching those matches.

The ITC hotel where the cricketers stayed in Hyderabad is next to the office where I work. So, its pretty natural that I bumped into a lot of cricketers when I came to pick up my pass for the matches.

Rhymes with Bruce Lee

I have activated google maps on my phone, which took me to the ground through roads I have never been before. Since I was in my first few weeks in Hyderabad, I had never been through MOST of the roads anyway. I reached safely, though.

View Way to cricket ground in a larger map

I also gave the famous Hyderabad Traffic Jam a miss

The Rajiv Gandhi International cricket stadium is still under construction, and they say it will be one of the better grounds in the country.

It still looks awesome

The corporate box is airconditioned, has seats for 15 people, and we can even catch the action from the LCD inside the cabin. Of course, the best way to view the action is from the balcony!

Action from the balcony.They don't show this on TV

Not to mention awesome food and drinks, served by the hospitality staff. Its total 5 star treatment. When I went to the finals, guess who dropped in to the party.

Yeah. This came on Getty Images. I'm famous :D

Lalit Modi is very friendly, and knows how to work the crowd. He came out on our balcony and the crowd went ballistic, trying to get his autograph. I think we came on TV that time, not really sure though ;) We had spotted Gilchrist on the floor above us, and he obliged our request to get him down here with us. Flipped out his cellphone, called "Gilly" and asked if he could come down to meet us :D

Did Gilly meet us? OOOH yeah :D

I'm tellin' ya, the next time this guy has a contest, you better participate. He makes sure you have a good time! The local guys here were excited because a certain "Venky" was in the balcony near us. I was more excited about Sania Mirza, although I couldn't spot her balcony.

Spotted these two guys wandering about, though

The finals concluded with a ton of fireworks going off, which kept my aunt awake, she told me later. Going to a cricket match involving India to this ground will be awesome, me thinks.

The grass is always greener...

2009-11-03T21:45:00.001+05:30

What are you looking at? That's my grass, fool

I was talking to my friend AB and Sonali about the good points about various cities. I told them how much I loved where they stayed and worked (Noida / Delhi), because of the crowd, but they disagreed. "Stay here for a few days, and you will start noticing how rude people are, how bad the traffic is", AB warned. Then, he said, "I just LOVE Bangalore", he liked the weather there. (He had been there for a day, I guess).He didn't know about the famous traffic jams of Bangalore. I hate those jams with a passion.

Like this, only with narrower roads and cows. And stupid bikers and pedestrians

That got me thinking. We always like what we don't have. It seems attractive since we don't know it's bad points. Or, we have been away from it for so long, that we have forgotten / glossed over all the bad memories.

Case in point - I can readily attest that I enjoyed my MBA more than my Engineering. But, see what happens when I start talking to a friend about coding -

(Paraphrasing on friend's instructions. He really likes his privacy. I won't link to his blog for that reason.)

Friend - I'm looking for a coding job dude.

Me - Sigh. I remember the times when I was a kickass coder. Being a coder is so much fun. No tension whatsoever.

Friend - No! It's a lot of tension! Your managers screw you! Managers don't do coding but they own the product! I envy their role!

You see where I'm coming from. Everybody has problems and believes that the other job is better. That's life.

(related weird joke) Coming to think of it, I wish I had a wordpress blog. It would be so cool....

Regeneration.

2009-11-03T09:23:00.001+05:30

Sonali had given me a watch ages ago.... It had a sweet leather strap and looked awesome.

Thanks, Sonali :)

Unfortunately, leather and water don't mix. Rather, leather and sweat. Uh-oh. Bad combo. In Chennai, it was inevitable that the strap rotted away one fine day - within 6 months! It's a miracle that it didn't fall on the road. like a well behaved accessory, it died in my room. I felt very bad about it, so I bought myself a bigger watch.

Kickass.

That was an impulse purchase right after I came out of a movie screening in Citi Center. I actually should have done the saner thing and replaced the strap, but this seemed more fun :P

Anyway, I thought I should do the sane thing so after a year of the old fastrack sitting in my cupboard, I finally walked into a Titan showroom at Hyderabad. The guy was about to put a leather strap again - sly bugger - I told him to put a steel strap. So now I have an awesome matt steel strap matching my original watch face.

Only, imagine the face to be white

The awesome has now become awesomer. My old titan has been replaced by this as my first choice watch. World, here I come!

Goodbye, my 1st website

2009-10-24T16:05:00.003+05:30

Remember your first drawings? They are so silly but they hold senti-mental value. My first website was on geocities, and since its closing by the end of this month, I took screenshots of the pages there since I didnt want them to get lost in the big server in the sky. The pages I have describing my friends is pretty cute :P

Check it out!

Update: Thanks to Rishi I also took screenshots of the comments on the guestbook. Whew. Thanks, bro

Trekking and other tales

2009-10-17T15:11:00.007+05:30

Well, here we go again. I have deliberately not posted about my trekking experience for sometime, since I wanted to take advantage of the weird beast called hindsight. It has the capability of totally reversing your point of view. On the flipside, this is ages after the particular trekking experience I am going to blog about. Figure that out.

I have been exposed to the "concept"(read as: theoretical knowledge)of trekking ever since I can remember. I have been camping during my days as a Scout, and I have been to "picnics" in the hills, and climbed up hill forts (Singhgad in Pune, if you really wanted to know) as part of a casual day trip. Veteran trekkers, try not to laugh at the last two sentences :P

During my Symbi days in Pune, we had a group of students in my class who used to call themselves Roadies (this was BEFORE the more famous reality TV show came into existence) - they used to go for overnight treks.

At that point, I used to think that trekking involved very little effort, just a casual walk across hills and streams. Hey, how bad could it get?

Famous last words.

Basker, my colleague at office, is one of the principal members of the Chennai Trekking Club. This club is said to contain one of the most enthusiastic and serious trekkers, this side of the Vindhyas. It's founded by a bloke named Peter Van Gelt, who has strangely got hooked to the Indian weather - a far cry from Belgium eh :P

Anyway, Basker persuaded me to join in a couple of times, and I used to refuse politely. My idea of a good weekend is to wake up by 1200 hrs in the afternoon and take it easy for the two days. Plus, I had my engineering classmate Vivek in Chennai in those days, so I didn't really need to seek out other activities to kill time. But, after he left, I thought "why not" and signed up. Raveesh, the project manager for BI services, had also joined.

The trek itself was managed quite awesomely. They have a very structured system of vetting members and approving participation.

My footwear collection was not at all suited for trekking. I did not want my shoes to look like

the wasted shoes you see here. So, I went and bought these...

These are slightly heavier, if you compare their weight to running shoes, but they really save your feet when you jump down rough terrain.

I also got my torch for the "post-sunset" trekking activities. They are also useful to tap the skull of any lion or tiger or naxalite who pokes his or her head where we trek. (laugh. this is a joke.)

Ok, skip to the trek.

My dim hazy memories tell me that I absolutely enjoyed the trek, but I can still tell you this - during the trek there was nothing I wanted more than lying down and resting - just for that one more minute. I carried way more than the recommended limit and totally jacked myself up. What I carried was nothing compared to what hardcore trekkers carry, but I was out of shape, and to put it mildly, I was very tired - we traveled over 20 kms horizontally and atleast 150 meters vertically.

At the end of the day, I was exhausted.

Dramatization

Blistered feet from jumping downhill on those rocks with a heavy backpack did wonders to my mobility, and I had a tough time on day 2. But nothing will stop me from going to a trek once more :D

Here are a few pics I took of the trek

Bday memories

2009-10-17T13:07:00.001+05:30

Found this video of my cousins and bro giving me some birthday love. ouch.

Do Re Mi all the while... I guarantee this will make you smile!

2009-10-16T16:42:00.005+05:30

This is a slightly old video, but I came across this today. Its a flashmob at Antwerp's railway station, dancing to Do Re Mi. Check out the video and tell me if this doesn't make you smile!

Wake up Sid! , Inglourious Basterds and other stories

2009-10-03T11:34:00.001+05:30

I used to see movies most of the weekends I was in Chennai. This was my first weekend where I wasn't otherwise occupied - well, the cartons are still in my room, but I will take care of them tomorrow.

One movie I saw was Wake up, Sid! - Vermeet, my roomie, and I went to Cinemax at Banjara Hills. It's a stand alone multiplex with a half decent food court if you are a non veggie, which I am. But Vermeet doesn't like it as the veg stuff is all "ghaas phoos" :P

On to the movie. Wake up Sid is a nice movie overall, worth a watch with friends. You will identify with many moments shown - I did - especially the studying for exams bit. The whole movie is coherent, I had figured out the story 10 minutes into the movie. One thing I found jarring in this movie was that "Sid" used a Mac notebook, and Windows Live Hotmail as his personal email client. I don't think that combination exists in the real world. A few characters vanish without explanation (the gal who liked Sid, where did she vanish?) but you won't notice unless you pay attention. The songs are nice, and the dance moves are easily replicated if you want to dance to the beat. :)

Late Edit - Sid has some awesome T shirts.. Where do you get the star trek T shirt he was wearing?

3.5 out of 5 stars

Inglourious Basterds - Here is a movie that is not afraid to tell a story which they want to tell. If I want to kill Hitler off, then by God i will kill him off, who cares what people think! If more than half of the movie is in subtitles, it only makes the story a bit more realistic. This is a funny, violent and kickass movie, and you HAVE to see it. A few scenes were evidently cut in the Indian version, so I will also wait for the director's edition DVD.

3.5 out of 5 stars.