Have time - Will waste

Hello y'all - So many things have changed from the time i blogged last time that i am not even sure if it's the same me. Here's a list of things that kept me going over the past year in no particular order:

-> "Happiness is not enough for me, i demand euphoria." Prized possession of entire C and H collection.

-> Scorpions, Creed, Eric Clapton, Floyd, Cold Play - actually, the list goes on.

-> Movies - Watched Gladiator at least 4 times over the past year.  It keeps coming on TV andi cannot switch it off. I guess, i have the dialogues memorized :-). Avatar was an epic. But my favorite of 2009 is Disctrict-9. It is an amazing movie which i ended up watching twice in the theatre. Oscar to Hurtlocker was a disappointment of epic proportions.

-> Scrabble - If anyone who is reading this wants to play this extraordianry word game with me, please leave a comment. Btw, I do not play with amateurs.

-> Cricket - Playing, watching, discussing, reading and idolizing Sachin.

-> Tennis - Playing, watching, discussing, reading and idolizing Federer.

-> Poker - Learnt playing this game last year. My favorite card game.

-> Driving, traveling, Hiking, Rafting, Kayaking.

->Smoky Mountains - Over the past year, have been there five times. There is lot to explore in these mountains. The fall colors trip was truly amazing.

-> Books - Read Salman Rushdies, HG Wells, Dawkins, VS Ramachandran, Wodehouse, Margaret Mitchell, Harper Lee, more Wodehouse. I feel like i need to be more regular in my reading habits.

-> Friends - Facebook helps! :-)

->India, Family.

Wanted to desperately blog and clear the dust off this forbidden place. I want to make this a weekly habit. And from next time on, I promise to revert back to my usual style of picking a specific topic - if anyone cares, that is.  Adios!

P.S: Y'all take care - i hate it when people use the word y'all. I did it thrice in this post just so that the reader is subjected to the same level of frustration (if any) as an indian living in a small town in the soutehrn part of US.

Conservatism, Nuclear war and pointless-ness!

I do not know why i suddenly wanted to blog. I have been listening to a lot of conservative radio lately (Rush limbaugh, Shawn Hannity etc.). I find it interesting. Really interesting. It is the exact opposite to what you hear in the mainstream media. Some characteristics of these shows are: impressive vocabulary, extreme pessimism, too judgmental and as right-winged conservative arguments as you can hear anywhere. One fact that continues to amaze me is how each day an issue is picked and continous anti-'obamba' stance is grilled into the minds of listeners. American citizens (like any other voters across the world) are an easy prey to fancy rhetoric. I feel that such rhetoric is as essential as the credentials of a person staying in public life. (In this issue, there seems to be a stark difference between the American and Indian voters e.g. Manmohan Vs. Obama.) Anyway, coming back to the subject of conservative radio shows, the primary element of criticism arises from the way the economic stimulus package is being handled. Some facts that i find sensible are - the trillions of dollars of debt the next generation of citizens is likely to bear; nationalization of health care becoming a huge burden on current and future tax payers.

But, wait a minute, it was only 4 months that the libearls took over. Is it fair to lay blame on the current administration to taking such drastic steps in the face of a recession only second to the great depression. May be that is the only way. Mr. Limbaugh says: "This administration will take all the credit for its achievements while laying the blame on the previous administration for its failures." I agree. May be, that is what the Mr. Bush deserves. In any case, the next six months is going to be interesting. If indeed Mr. Obama succeeds in putting the economy on track (which seems likely) there are so many issues that remain to be taken care of. (abortion, gauntanamo bay, health care, budget deficit etc.)

Anyway, the world is a screwed place now with North Korea also getting Nuclear weapons. I would give the whole world 50 years to survive (before the nuclear war, i mean). This makes the above post totally meaningless because - to hell with conservatism, economy and health care - Our grand children may not even know the world as we do. BTW, did i mention how cynical my children are going to get ? :P

Ten Tech Advances

This blog is getting updated more frequently than i ever imagined. Please stop inferring anything about my workload as a graduate student. STOP. Now, read.

Ten technology advances I want, now, soon.

1. To check my email: All I need to say is ‘email’, all my email accounts, should come up one after the other. Better if it can appear on the living room wall avoiding the necessity of monitors.
2. General browsing of internet through a remote control, coupled with the above mentioned set up.
3. Cell phones: huh, what boring gadgets. It has remained the same for ages now. One innovation on top of my mind: cell phone with a battery charged for life. Good bye, chargers!
4. And internet: It’s too slow. I mean, download speeds in the order of Mbps is what we deserve.
5. No more dealing with all these huge chunky projectors in classrooms. Need something like a laser pointer. It should have a USB port. You load the presentation in it and just press a button, PPT on wall!
6. When are robots coming? Just program them to cook and release the beta version.
7. Flying cars. Period
8. Space tourism: For this, i am willing to wait for 20 years, not more than that.

Did you ever stop writing a blog for the simple reason that you can’t think of 2 more things to finish the list of 10 you promised your readers and then go out for grocery shopping and find out in the intermittent conversations with a friend that he holds a similar opinion on today’s technology and gives you those exact two points to finish up your blog. Well, it sounds exciting and has happened to me just now. So, the last two advances I would love to have, although not in my own words.

9. Computer: it’s such a dumb machine. It started off as being dumber when it was invented 2 decades ago and now it has now grown to be dumb. It cannot recognize things or people or simply put, it does not even have the intelligence of a small kid. Change it.
10. Although not a pure technical advance, this is a fitting closing remark. We know every single molecule, chemical formulae and complex structure of starch, we have developed the technology to simulate temperature and pressure of considerable range, yet we cannot produce a single grain of rice. Of course, unlike the above 9, this does not affect my living room design but it sure would change the way of living!

Don’t even get me started on the ‘heroes’ kind of fiction: Time travel, eternity, flying men, regenerating women and memory muscles for I don’t want such wacky stuff. Don’t argue that some of above mentioned already exist. It doesn’t matter much if Ambani has them in his house, aam aadmi like me need them. Don’t know what these mechanical, electrical and computer science students are doing. Stop talking and start doing. Shame on you guys. :P

You have snow, You sure will glow!

People say, they are up for summer,
I sure agree, just wait for this to be over,
But do they realize what we would lose,
My little Snow-Queen and her cute pose!

Fairy tales occur only in places of snow,
For, you have snow, you sure will glow,
Like the Snow White and in her countenance,
look for the beauty and find the penance!

It Smells like nothing, feels like the boring sand,
When the fall starts, it needs the whole land,
And soon, people scream and lament,
I just enjoy the snow on my pavement!

Ploughing the snow is fun, i never did it,
Driving in the snow is fun, i never tried it,
Playing in the snow is fun, a little bit,
Watching it from my window: Mastered it!

I just love to see the heaps of snow,
clean, fresh, natural but before they blow,
Of course, Who likes the salt that is rubbed in,
Remember, making it melt is close to a sin.

Light is made up of all colors in sight,
Ultimately it is still called white,
For white is the color of unity,
Camouflaging the hues of diversity.

Far, far away, In the Snow-land of my dreams,
It would be the Purity of thought, plainly fragrant,
Neatly disguised and honestly packaged,
I call it, curse for the sane, bliss for the insane.

P.S: Hope they clean the snow before tomorrow morning, need to come out of my house.

Too Optimistic, You think!?

Two posts in two days, I rock man! Basically, I am jobless, rather I should say, running away from job. So, I better make use of it and engage myself in the holy blogging world…lol.

[How can High Definition Television Advertisements, help the makers achieve what they want to. People watching ordinary TV (me included) cannot feel what HDTV has to offer, even though they show it to us on a big screen in the Ad and people who have HDTV anyway would not want to buy another one.]

Anyway, I was blessed with one more brilliant idea(!) today to which my roommate has paid attention for half a minute. Hence, to make myself heard, I preferred to turn to the blogging world. Now, here’s my idea:

How about we have a Carpool/bike share day, say in the city of Hyderabad for one day.

It’s just a simple idea. Just ask people to consciously make attempts to Carpool or share bike ride to work for one day. It could be a kind of government promoted activity. Spend some amount in advertising it and denote one day every year for this day. Probably, pick the day after the New Year (could be Ugadi, Telugu New Year). Just tell the people the advantage of having one less car on the roads and make them spend that extra minute waiting for their colleague or spend that extra mile to pick their child up rather than having a denoted car/auto for him/her. I definitely know it’s a cool idea much would depend on how it is publicized. Of course, no special reason to pick Hyderabad, I would be more happy to see it happen across all the cities in India.

One day of encouragement could go a long way. Realizing its benefits, people might want to take it up more frequently, Companies could insist more on the issue and probably it could also play a role in influencing the housing decisions of new joiners in the companies. Too optimistic, you think!?

See this also

Comeback Article: From the Northern Hemisphere

Hello Friends, folks and fans!

It took a while for me to get to reality after the overwhelming response to my previous blog. I was busy reading the fan mail. Please don’t look at the ‘dull’ comments section: there were many people who buzzed me on Gtalk to share the views on blog, Of course, I would like them to comment it on the blog so that I find the comments section a bit more exciting! (It is kind of weird to blame my readers for, I strongly know the consequences) Anyway, a lot of good things have happened since the last post and It would be a blatant lie for me to say that I did not have time to blog. (While on this point-of-excuse-for-not-blogging, It seems to be a common phenomenon with most of the bloggers who have started blogging 2-3 years ago when it became really popular.) But definitely, there was a certain time for 2-3 months in the past one year, when blogging seemed to be the last activity I would pursue. And later, I got used to it.

Now, I am in the United States of America. It’s been quite a while, in fact, exactly five months. It’s just been five months and hence it is too early for me to become nostalgic about everything back home although I sometimes imagine what it would have been if I stayed back in India….reading the Hindu paper and drinking the filter Coffee!

Discursive, Adj :

1.	passing aimlessly from one subject to another; digressive; rambling.

2.	proceeding by reasoning or argument rather than intuition.

(Yeah, while on this issue of the Hindu, off late I am reading a lot of criticism about the way the newspaper is showing uncharacteristic favoritism towards communists. Well, I hope that it is not true. All I have access to is, it’s lousy website where news is dumped in a corner with a vague flashing pattern going now and then. Although, With some effort I could get to the editorial section and read about the Russian IT revolution, Praveen swami’s concern for Glaciers melting in J&K, and a typical Nirmal-Sekhar article – More knowledgeable and enjoyable than the junky Google news. Felt reassured and don’t know what the fuss is all about! Clearly evident was the Chinese Obsession, though!)

Pick a sheet of paper, imagine that to be the map of USA and sprinkle some water on it with your finger tips. Carefully, mark all the wet points on the paper, which is where I have at least one cousin. Consequently, all through my childhood, I heard many stories about this country, in fact, so many that I felt that I already knew much of it before actually seeing it.

Fundamentally, Americans are very proud of their society. (This might also be true with few other countries, including France and England.) Before I go any further, it is very crucial to note that in US, social behavior of individuals is not affected by the kind of work that each individual is associated with. Many of us may feel that courtesy would follow currency, but it need not be! Well, anyway, more about US society later.

The hottest topic in US television right now (apart from weather and sports, of course) is the race to President. My views:

Reason number 12 why Clinton should not be the next US president: If she gets elected, and gets re-elected after five years, only two families would have ruled US for 3 decades. Well, who cares what I have to say. I cannot vote even if I wanted to, but still the presidential debates deeply interest me. After all, their tax structures, health care plans and foreign policies are relevant to me.

Well, she almost cried and consequently won the New Hampshire caucus, and probably that’s the comeback which might fetch her the democratic nomination. From the face of it, it appears to me that there is little difference among the policies of all the democratic candidates and that is why the debates have lacked the punch one would have wanted. But, Obama’s take on the policy structure that provides healthcare to all the people looks genuine to me. But again, as I said before, not much difference among all the other candidates. I became a big fan of Obama, he somehow makes me feel that he is the most genuine guy among the lot. I am ill-informed about the GOP candidates but with the little I read about them, Mitt Romney seemed fresh, energetic and sensible.

The whole point is this: How did Bush come through all this? Wasn’t he involved in all these debates before his race or is it just like the same drama back home where the words spoken don’t mean much. Well, I remember reading a spurious article which said that he managed these debates through a secret microphone. Anyway, the economy is staring at a possible Recession, Half of the world hates America, Oil prices are soaring, a grand welcome to the new Mr. President.

“It is easy to be the American President. Just find the army and point an area to shoot.” Homer Simpson

This is one of my best articles... Pointlessly touching all topics and wasting your not-so-valuable time. Yay!

The Smile that was...

To me, blogging never became a habit. Over the past two weeks, this is my third desperate attempt to write something. For various reasons, it never took off. The topic of farewell-iitm-life is kept for the best of the emotional moods and narrating-btp-woes is a wantedly avoided topic where as the deadline of lit-soc creative writing has discouraged me to attempt a rather very interesting limerick about ‘your-major’. This so-called one paragraph threshold has played a major role in eschewing my blog-update. Let’s see how this one goes.

I was always confused at the audience that I would target for my blog. Now that, I would shun my publicity-shyness and paste this link in my Gtalk, I am at least clear about my potential readers. Dear new readers, welcome to the most frequently updated blog in the whole world. I suggest you scroll down and read some of the older didactics because, as of now, I really do not know what I am going to blabber on.

Generally, I resort to blogging, or at least the act of it, when something strikes my heart, good or bad. Something similar happened today(written 10 days back!) and I feel that I can put my experience in a fresh perspective and of course, the world needs it. J

IIT Madras celebrated its 48^th institute day today and by far, it is the best function that I have ever attended in my life in iitm till now, slightly exaggerated, but what the heck,(!)!It is my own perspective… Two people made it a memorable day for me and that’s what I am going to blog on.

There were best alumnus awards and there were institute blues that were awarded to the most successful students of our batch. It was inspiring to hear the entire alumnus speak and a gush of passion ran through the audience when each of the alumni dedicated their awards to their memorable professors at iit Madras. I enjoyed it not knowing that best was yet to come. There was an award for the best young faculty awarded to Dr. Kamakoti of Computer Science department and as soon as he went on to the dais, a small girl sitting beside me jumped to her feet and started shouting “appa, appa”. Her mother was thoroughly enjoying the moment and dint care to stop this little girl from shouting aloud and the vibrant face, innocent smile and admiring looks of the girl, conveyed a strong statement. I am sure she does not know what that award means to her father nor can she remember this evening later in the life. A lucky girl, I should say, for having a role model in her own house! Regular readers of Hindu open page would comprehend this train of thought, lack of role models for Indian youth. Anyway, that is a topic in itself.

Then, there was this decent looking chap, who went on to take an award for best academic record in a particular semester and again, to my left his parents were sitting and they immediately called the little girl and told her with a sense of pride, “that’s my boy.” It was again nice to watch…

I desperately want to get back to blogging. Although this blog is not crap, neither is it pointless. Hope you agree. This is for the records. From now on, blog will be updated every month. Dear readers (Gtalk friends), if you enjoy reading my blog, keep buzzing me till I update it monthly. Thanks.