Friday, June 16, 2006

Bye bye Delhi...

hello Bangalore.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Half time

England is putting up an exceedingly poor display against Trinidad and Tobago. Its half time and they haven't scored a goal. In fact they just managed to escape being down one goal. The score is right now 0-0.
The only snazzy thing which happened was Gerard kicking a ball with full power and it colliding with some other balls, which were gallantly provided by Yorke of Trinidad and Tobago. Needless to say it invoked agony in the player and humor in those watching.
Which makes me ask you one question: Do you remember the first time you were kicked/hit/stabbed/crunched/punched ... errr.. .. there? If not ponder and write your feelings in 500 words or more and come back for more tips on wasting time.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Brazil Vs Croatia 1-0

Its official now, I'm also engrossed with the Football World Cup fever.
Contrary to my previous beliefs Croatia wasn't annihilated by Brazil. The Brazilian team looked a bit too relaxed. A lot of their players looked overweight and the great Ronaldo looked fat. He moved like molasses and other than one shot at goal, there wasn't really anything which he did before he was substituted in the second half.
Interestingly Croatia had a lot shots on target, they were just unlucky that they didn't go in.
Anyway, there was this other match between France and Switzerland and it was too boring. The match ended 0-0. But even more frustrating was the ESPN presentation in between matches. Especially the ones in which the Channel [V] VJ's come out and try out their hand at humor.
I don't know what the Indian comedy scene is coming down to these days. There was a time when genuinely funny comedy movies / TV serials used to be released. Movies like "Golmaal", "Jaane bhi to yaaron", "Andaz apna apna", "Hera Pheri" etc, which had pure unadulterated comedy. The guys
then didn't have to resort to cheesy double meaning jokes, as they do now. It was much enjoyable. The genre of comedy movies these days comprise mostly of Hindi remakes of Priyadarshan's Malayalam movies. They seem to be raking in cash, but believe me the original Mallu movies are much better.
Of course, if you don't understand Malayalam, then the jokes on you.

Among other things, Google in a bid to compete with Flickr has launched Picasa Web(courtesy Ankur). They are offering 250 MB for a free account and 6 GB for a paid version ($25 for 1 year). I will hold on to my preciousssssss Flickr Pro account and view everything else with suspicion.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Eating one's own words

If not here, I have at many places said time and again that I don't like to watch football matches (I don't mind playing though). They were too slow, too boringly lethargic (coming from a guy who watches 5 day cricket test matches... yeah yeah I have my double standards). My excuse being that the number of goals scored were too less. Being a basketball player, I guess that excuse was valid to some extent. But then today I saw this world cup match between Japan vs Australia. Australia came back from behind and beat the Japanese 3-1 and ignited in me a new appreciation for the game. I like to watch now.
Now I'm looking forward to the annhilation of Costa Rica Croatia at the hands of Brazil tomorrow :)

Other than words, I'm also eating a lot of other things. Be it visits to coffee shops, restaurants, pubs , roadside vendors, and a countless amount food items which my mom is forcing down my throat, they are all adding to everything to what I had lost earlier... ie.. the thing which grows below your chest. And I bloody well can't keep my tempation under control..

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Why I ended up diskliking Da Vinci Code.

There are somethings in life which at first you like, and then after some time you end up not preferring too much. To quote from my life, some examples will be: The Times of India, Almost everything which comes on TV, Chilli Gobi and Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Its like when you meet a person and you really like them, but in a few days, when you get to know them better, you wished you had kept your distance. Something like that happened to me.

My computer got crapped up and I ended up with a lot of fiction novels to read. The prequel to "The Da Vinci" code, "Angels and Demons", was one of them. Now what is interesting is that in both novels the plot is essentially the same. You have a gruesome murder at the beginning, of a person who hides a big secret (which actually is the theme of almost all Dan Brown fiction novels written till now). Then you have the femme fatale who is somehow related to the murdered person, who, inspite of facing such a grave emotional loss, manages to laugh, act sexy, and carry herself as if nothing happened. There is the evil conspirator who is easily guessable and always has a code name, ala "Teacher" and "Janus". Then there is Robert Langdon, who keeps on blabbering about symbology shit at the most inappropriate moments. It all just doesn't seem practical to me anymore.
At one time, though, it did.
When I watched "The Da Vinci code" (the movie), it was merely a test of patience for me. I had read the book. I knew the plot. I knew the answers to all the puzzles. It was really not worth it. I think the movie will not be appreciated by people who haven't read the book (if there are such people ie). I didn't like it even after having read the book.
The good thing though about Dan Brown books is that they do give you a lot of knowledge about a lot of things. Be it art, architecture, cryptography, the works. His books are, as one friend of mine puts it, "Masala books".

I burnt my motherboard

After bearing the 2 and a 1/2 years of torcher at the hands of many in Cochin, my motherboard, ironically, stopped working in Delhi. The reason why this happened is still a mystery. Some speculate it was the train journey and others think that it was due to the heat. Whatever be the case, I have a new one (ASUS A8N-VM-CSM, Rahul's reccomendation) with a 64-bit AMD 3000+ processor on it. Motherboards supporting 32 bit processors are almost extinct. For some reason the sound drivers are not working and I have to get that sorted out. Other than that, I'm just happy to get my "online life" back :)

Pssssstttt.... If you are on the lookout for an AMD 2000+ CPU, I'm always there for you :)