Mystical Reasonings

Ze February post

2012-02-08T11:30:00.001+05:30

which is a post thats put up in February...

Auto complaints

2012-01-17T11:50:00.001+05:30

Nope, its not something thats done automatically. If you are in Bangalore and want to make complaints about a particular auto - like charging you extra, not wanting to take you to some place (which are the norms), then you can send an SMS to complain.

IndiBeers - everything about beer and much more

2012-01-12T00:04:00.000+05:30

I came across this beer forum recently - www.indibeers.com. Love beer and thought I'd check out this forum. Though it is kinda new, loved the idea and have registered there. Would love to see my friends there too.

Though there are beer forums abroad, very rarely do we get to see reviews of beers in India or beers that we get in India. Or they're not written by people from India. Though the IndiBeers mods might not agree, I think that that is what makes this site unique. And yes, IndiBeers accepts and encourages registrations from outside India too. Check it out - register and start writing your own reviews of beers you've had.

Infact, check out these great reviews written by a friend at IndiBeers - http://indibeers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=57

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-03T12:06:00.001+05:30

And Hollywood predicts that this year, the world will end.....

First post for December

2011-12-01T20:55:00.001+05:30

.....last post for 2011

11/11/11

2011-11-12T00:40:00.001+05:30

Its just a date, you fools.

Marco Simoncelli - RIP

2011-10-23T21:58:00.001+05:30

Marco Simoncelli. No, I will not pretend to have followed his career all along or to quote from rote all his podium wins or teams that he has worked with. I just know that this racer really caught my fancy in MotoGP though I have been really following it only for the past 3 seasons or so.

What really interested me was the fact that he would somehow take positions from seemingly impossible places - overtaking at just the right time, taking calculated risks sometimes that even hardened "veterans" would think twice to! And that crazy hairstyle that he had - his hair peeking out from under his helmet too! I have thought that it would even slow him down sometimes! Just cannot say anymore rather than say that he will be missed. I will miss watching him on his white Honda screaming down at a turn, stick out his lanky leg and try and take the turn full on - with that stupid orange hair sticking out of his helmet, trying to fly away! I am sure he had a crazy grin (picture) stuck on his face everytime he overtook someone. Will miss you Marco! MotoGP has surely lost a "cool" racer!

R.I.P!

Metal or plastic - biking? Royal Enfield and other assorted oil-leaks!

2011-10-14T16:49:00.000+05:30

I've been an Royal Enfield fan for many years. My earliest memories of a Royal Enfield was in my hometown where we'd have many regal old men dhup dhupping around in their Enfields. In fact, many of them still own it but cannot ride it and neither are they willing to sell it to the next gen.

Well, its this love that kindled a fire that has been living within me for all these years. I really believed that a bike should be a Royal Enfield and nothing less. But as the years passed by, I did get some respect for even the smallest of bikes and understood that biking is more than just about one bike. I even owned a TVS Max 100R for around a year or so and really, really loved the bike. To look back, I really appreciate that year spent with that bike - it has taught me things about the philosophy of biking that I might never have learnt otherwise. It was a modest 98.2cc two-stroke engine that was way more fun in those days. Modest mileage too. But fun, yes!

Anyways, fast forward to the future and I start earning and all that - no savings though mind it! But loans were cheaper in those days and I was confident enough to try on an Enfield. Though my heart earned for the Standard 350, I thought that the Thunderbird would be a more suitable choice - what with it being a newer bike with the new AVL engine too. So did the test ride and was impressed - what with having ridden a Max 100 R last! So plonked down the money and have owned the bike for 6 years now. Not without its problems though.

But that is not what this story is about. The Royal Enfield has its share of problems. The damn machine would be fine for a month and suddenly, out of the blue, would not start. You take a rickshaw to office and go through hell for that. You get back from office and try to start the bike - she would start without any problems at all! WTF!!

I have had days I would wake up early in the morning just so that I can start the bike up and keep it ready to ride to office. But start it up, it would still not start up, leaving me stranded. But again, that is not what this story is about.

I have had times I've totally hated the Enfield. Hated it. I then decided that enough was enough and that I would buy another reliable bike at the first opportunity. Planning came to fruition when I could finally lay my grubby hands on some cash and I decided to buy the Honda CBR 250R. But again, that is not what this story is about.

The story is actually about the attitude. The biking attitude that I have come to respect. This respect has also been helped by my Royal Enfield club - Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club where members not just love the Enfield but all other bikes as well. When some noobs loudly proclaim that "Plastic (read Japanese) bikes suck. Metal (read Enfields) are the best", they are met with sniggers from the club members. Though we love our Enfields, we have equal or more respect for other bikes - including so-called "Jap Crap"! To tell you the truth - I hate that term. I'd equate that to some sort of racist chant!

It is this what I actually wanted to write about. Biking is about the attitude. The sense of one-ness with the open roads. Respect - for the bike, for your fellow-biker, for traffic rules and for other road users. To understand that biking requires your complete attention - you are not driving inside a cage that protects you from all the elements of the road.

To all Enfield-only fans - I have this to say. Open your mind - biking is about the attitude. Not the attitude that the Enfield is the only bike there is and there ever will be. I wouldn't totally agree to this statement from a forum - "Once you've ridden another bike, you'll never ride an Enfield after that". But I would ask you to try other bikes too - including so-called "plastic" ones. You will realise that there is another spectrum to the rainbow too. Err, not sure if that can ever be correct technically but you get my drift.

Ride safe!

October 2011

2011-10-11T18:02:00.000+05:30

Wake me up, wake me up when September, err, October ends...

Twitter anyone?

2011-09-22T12:40:00.002+05:30

Blogging is dead - this is my post for this month.

Anti Corruption

2011-08-10T18:47:00.000+05:30

This month, might end up writing a long post about anti-corruption. Something along the lines of a post I'd written years back - more than 5 years back. I'd equated casteism to racism. You can read about that post here - Casteism = Racism.

My quest for the perfect sound

2011-07-08T09:25:00.002+05:30

Been reading up of late on a lot of jargon, equipment, reviews, specifications for stereo and A/V sound. Have also joined some forums to help me in my quest for good sound.

It all started years back in school when I used to buy the AV-MAX magazine religiously month after month to drool at A/V equipment. The prices quoted in those days was quite high - high enough to give me the good sense not to start the topic with mom or dad. Nakamichi is one name me, Manu and Gerald will remember quite well cause of the astronomical prices. Due to high prices, I kept my dream aside till now.

But I would often check up on speaker prices and keep an eye on happenings to see if they ever did come within reach. Suddenly, some weeks back, I came across the Mordaunt Short Carnival 6 floorstanders quoted for 13,000 on some online site. Quite not believing them, I assumed that it must be for a single speaker. But their website clearly stated that the price was for a pair. Woohoo - I could finally think of even starting off my A/V dream. I didn't think twice - the name Mordaunt Short was enough to push me forward and I placed an order for the same online.

I received it a few days later and I unpacked it - to again let it gather dust for some time since I did not have an amp to connect it to.

My main requirement was an amplifier for music. I'd actually started off thinking that I can go for a good stereo amplifier for a good price but getting some good ones was a headache. Since my search began for a stereo amp, I also noticed that the starting range for A/V receivers was the same. Did some research on the internet and also got some help from forum members and I decided that for my usage of 80% for music, I would need to go for a stereo amp only.

Well, honestly, I was about to plonk down some money on a Yamaha integrated amp but a friend from the forum said that I would not like a Yamaha and asked me to do some testing. Did the same and man, am I really glad that I did not end up blindly purchasing that amp. It was pathetic. I'm talking of the Yamaha A-S500.

Some directions from friends asked me to check out amps from Marantz, Arcam, Cambridge Audio and NAD. These are some of the higher brands especially when it comes to stereo. But to get a demo of these products was a real job and pain in the rear end. Simply because not many dealers have these products and even if they have, I believed that they would be selling at the premium. Also, the A/V products in demand these days are only anything connected to a Home Theater. Speakers, receivers or anything that will allow you to watching movies at home. With all the snazzy sound effects of a bomb blasting behind you or a mosquito farting in front of you.

Stereo sound seemed like a lost art.

But hope was available online and in some knowledgeable dealers. They did indeed show me the right direction, though not necessarily in the right price bracket. Well, as luck would have had it, a person who owned a Cambridge Audio stereo amp was selling it online and for a very decent price. I quickly lapped it up and Anoop was able to get it for me from Chennai.

And now comes to the part of hooking it up. Speaker cable manufacturers will tell you that only their specific high priced speaker cables are the best. That these can "increase soundspace", "generate depth" and all other kinds of mumbo jumbo. And our people happily lap it up - as in the case of the Emperor with no clothes. Cause it is firstly, a case of placebo. Secondly, you do not want to be left out - your friends all say that costly speaker cables give amazing sound - and you believe it. You do want to say that the Emperor's new clothes are simply amazing! God knows what you were looking at!! So I decided to buy Finolex cables - the ones that are used to do house wiring. And they do increase soundspace and all that - they sound simply amazing.

Well, some say this is just the beginning. That I will be needing higher components soon and that I will also be upgrading, spending more money and time. For me, this has taken so much time and I can wait for a long time till my next upgrade.

Oh and most important of all - the combo sounds just GREAT. The Mordaunt-Short speakers go really well with the Cambridge Audio amp and I am floored. Love it!

July 01, 2011

2011-07-01T18:32:00.001+05:30

July 01, 2011 is an auspicious day!

June 2011

2011-06-13T21:02:00.001+05:30

Oh well...

May 2011

2011-05-07T14:18:00.001+05:30

Did Facebook and Twitter just kill my blog?

Feminism, Darwinism

2011-04-23T21:58:00.001+05:30

Feminisim messed up the Darwinian order

April 2011

2011-04-14T12:48:00.000+05:30

Continuing on our intense discussion on the same topic around this time last year, here goes...

April Mayile Pasumai’yae Ille Kaanju Pochuda
Intha Oorum Pidikala Ulagam Pidikala Boru Boru’da

BIOS flash for ASUS M2N-E and 4 GB RAM

2011-03-11T22:20:00.003+05:30

I recently upgraded my computer to Windows7 - yeah, I know, I know! But hated Vista and knew that Windows7 was a much better improvement and better to use. And for the first time, I have activated my Windows OS with Microsoft - a fully legal copy of Windows!

The installation was a breeze and did not have any trouble at all - no device drivers etc were needed to get things up and running though I wouldn't have been satisfied with that. So I downloaded all the drivers I needed - especially nVidia drivers and installed them.

To go with the new OS, I increased the RAM on the machine to 4 GB from 2. A small hitch there though - the OS could only recognize upto 3.5GB RAM. I knew this to be a known issue on 32 bit OSes but this was a 64-bit version of Windows7. Some googling and I found out that it was a feature on the motherboard that needed to be enabled - the memory remap feature. The motherboard is an old Asus M2N-E. Read up on the internet that the memory remap feature can be enabled from the BIOS settings. Tried to locate this for my motherboard and such a feature was not be found at all.

Finally ended up on the ASUS site and I'd read somewhere that this feature is automatically enabled on my motherboard and that I would have no control over changing it. But since it was still showing less RAM on my machine, I decided to try a BIOS flash - basically upgrading the BIOS firmware.

I remember in days of old where flasing the BIOS was a scary thing to do. Most of the times (as far as I knew), BIOS upgrades never were stable. Either the newer BIOS version was unstable or the flasing would render the whole motherboard unusable. You would also need to save the flash file on a floppy, copy DOS onto the floppy, boot up with this floppy and then flash the BIOS etc. And if the floppy was corrupt, then you would again end up with an unusable motherboard.

But all this has changed. ASUS has this nifty utility called ASUS Update wherein you can just install the software, it will check the BIOS version on your motherboard, let you take a backup of the existing BIOS version and even download the latest version of the BIOS for your motherboard. But best of all - you can even flash the BIOS from within Windows itself! This is for me - simply amazing. So I did that and flashed the BIOS - did a restart of the machine and voila - the RAM displayed as 4GB. Awesome.

Only downside was that Windows7 at once notified me that there has been a system upgrade and did some message-sending to the Microsoft office that I might need to validate my OS again if I ever tried something of this sort! :)

Well, now that my machine has 4GB of RAM - let me go check video editing and photo editing.

Seagate hard disk service - Bangalore

2011-03-02T13:20:00.001+05:30

Recently, my hard drive died. Thankfully, it was a slow death - gave me a number of days advance notice and then passed away gracefully. If only celebrities and some other people could....well, thats for another post!

Since this was the case, I was able to purchase a new hard drive and transfer all important data onto the new drive beforehand. I knew my older hard drive was in warranty and tried to locate information on where I would need to go to get it replaced.

Now started the hellish work of locating information. We seem to have so much access to information but very little real, useful information!! Anyways, to cut a long story short - here follow the details for the Seagate service center in Bangalore.

This is completely taken care of by Accel Frontline Services. Their address:
No. 2 & 3, New Raja Building
Narasimha Raja Road,
Opp Town Hall
Above Andhra Bank
Bangalore - 560 002
Phone: 080 – 41231496, 080 3007 8348 (forget these numbers, they never pick the phone!)

The only problem with this address (on the internet when I was searching) was that they conveniently forgot to mention that most famous landmark - Town Hall. If they had mentioned that on the sites, would have made things a lot more easier.

Best way to reach this place is locate and reach TownHall. Go forward from there (if TownHall is on your left) towards the Mysore Road flyover. Just after the signal, the New Raja Building is on your left. Look out for the Andhra Bank on the ground floor. Accel services are on the 2nd floor.

Now, before you rush off - note that you will need to create a profile on their site before you take your defective hard drive to them. This is compulsory and if you do it beforehand, it will save you the trouble of having to scream at their staff! You can register at their site - http://myservice.accelwms.in/index.aspx by selecting Seagate from the vendor list and creating a new profile link on the next page. Thankfully, I had done that. Once you have registered, all you have to do is take the drive to them, get a token from the damn helpful little security guy there, wait your turn and give the drive over to the damn helpful person at the counter. Their warranty checker never works, so check for your warranty status before you go there. You will need to give them your profile id (where you'd created it on their site) and done - they will swallow your drive and let you know when you can go and collect a replacement drive.

Oh and the link to check the warranty of your drive - Seagate Warranty Check.

March on!

2011-03-01T01:45:00.002+05:30

Marching on into March.....

Won't this be a lovely "taxing" month!

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011

2011-02-18T03:20:00.000+05:30

Wow, the "World" cup for cricket is just around the corner - a few days away. I would compare it with the American Baseball "World" series - where teams from only the USA participate.

So, how many countries play cricket? Yes, I know - too little to count. Hence, found this ad from Yahoo! interesting.

I read it as - Follow the cup that counts - the cup that can count how many countries participate in the "World" cup.

Comments open.

Flickr total views > 100,000

2011-01-28T03:18:00.000+05:30

Woohoo, my Flickr photostream has crosses 100,000 views! Thanks to all of you who've viewed my photographs over the years. Thanks to all those people who've flicked my images and used them without permission :)

Thanks all!

Un-Clicked at Behance

2011-01-17T00:33:00.000+05:30

We at Un-Clicked have joined the Behance network - take a look at our portfolio there. Hope you like the work.

2011

2011-01-12T12:20:00.001+05:30

2011 has been good already!

New blog template after 6 years!!!

2010-12-30T23:07:00.001+05:30

Well, I've been blogging for 6 years now. Thank you, thank you!!

Finally decided to change my blog template after 6 long years. In fact, I had not even made any changes to the blog template for all these years - not even the background colour. So decided to make a change - cause hopefully, the new year 2011 is going to be a year of changes.

Thanks to all my friends who've stuck with me through thick and thin - you know who you all are! Appreciate it....

A final look at the old template - its already looking lousy..... :)

Here I come....onto 2011