Well, for want of a better title I chose this !
Gajabhuja in Sanskrit means the trunk of an elephant !
So, in short, the title means big/huge fundas !! :-)
28 February 2005
finally
finally it's the end of laloo raj in bihar.or is it really ? i hope it is.it is a shame if he decides to get back to power.oh but then politics is never a place where you have morals and self esteem :-) after a looong time i did not see any movies this weekend.oh i did see reruns of reservoir dogs and lord of the rings but no new ones.the ones on my list right now are milion dollar baby and finding neverland. let me try to catch hold of some vcd's ! and beginning tomorrow im back to running my daily quota of 7-8km.well it's been just a week since the marathon and it already feels like it's been a month or so.sometime time files and sometime it does not ! K.Shyam
How many images are we used to seeing on the internet ? well Here is the first image ever to be seen over the internet ! Info thanks to Slashdot a must read website for those who want to keep themselves updated on the latest technology happenings ! K.Shyam
a hectic weekend is coming up folks. railway budget is coming up and more importantly bihar election results are due to come up on sunday.i hope that laloo looses.well it's just a feeling.i have never been to bihar and he might have improved the lot of ppl.but just as the ignoramus up north claim that amma jayalalithaa must loose without knowing what she has done for the state, for once im trying to be as them :-) and im a more serious note i have never been for the hype that the indian media create.the media created hype over a UP student topping the NASA exam has fallen flat. In this sense i think Hindu is a better newspaper as it does not rush to print such absurd and nonsensical news items. And since i have a lot of things to finish and wind up over the weekend let me close with this for now K.Shyam
been slightly busy over the past few days.both at professional front and with my research work. on a more intresting note does checking for errors in a program lead to increased code size ? i guess not.the compiler must be smart enough to put in some kind of a generic error handler to recognize the error handlers.i am yet to dig into this aspect of code generation but fiddling around with assembly and other language code's tells me that error checking will not lead to a significant increase in code size. there was something i wanted to put my thoughts on but it kind of slipped away. mandolin srinivas and sivamani are in bangalore this saturday { 26th } in all probability i might go.i have somethings to finish @ college but time willing i shall go. and on 7th there is mark knofler coming here along with some members of his band.ok guys this is not the original dire straits guy.he was a part of it.and fundamentally his music influenced dire straits.so please dont hype it up saying dire straits is coming over. i would love to see him play the guitar.but the tickets seem to be too expensive.come on 2000 rs is a tad too much.and secondly the traffic hold up in palace grounds seem maddening whenever a concert is being held there.my sincere appeal to the organizers to consider holding it in the jakkur aerodrome.when you can get benny hinn to perform there why not dire straits ? K.Shyam
as seal says in the song "kiss from a rose" "And now that your rose is in bloom, A light hits the gloom on the grave"
it pumps me up to no end to see such beautiful flowers.
and after a loong time im back to cycling on bangalore roads.ya after running the marathon my legs are under a bit of pain but i guess cycling kind of soothes it instead of making it more acute.oh when i say cycling i mean the relaxed kind say around 12kmph and not the pumped up 20kmph kind that i normally do ! I think vidyasagar is slowly becoming the melody king of tamil music.His song from chaturangam is already making waves.Now is the song ding-dong from the movie Ji here. Quite a lilting melody.And some brilliant singing by Madhu balakrishnan.I felt that instead of sadhana sargam, Harini would be a better choice.If you dont believe me see for yourself how sadhana pronounces the words "iravu pagal neelgirathae" { translated into "how the days and nights are getting stretched" ! } Madhu Balakrishnan has a voice that is almost close to what "God" hariharan has though not with the amount of base tenor that Hariharan has. K.Shyam
firstly here are some snaps 1. me and my brother.courtesy Kribs
2. My number for the marathon.
3. The chip that was supposed to track the distance covered by each runner.
Ok so here are some of the observations from the marathon
1. It is pretty hot in madras during this time of the year.So make sure you have some eatables with you ! I was pretty sogged out by 15km that i was forced to stop, walk to a nearest store and buy some juice to drink up.My brother got a good head start of aruond 1.5km by that time. 2. There was an american and another guy giving me company for around 7kms.Thanks to them i managed to run that distance.At around 27kms i saw my brother walking back on his way determined to finish the 41kms atleast by walking."There's no one at the 30km point" is what he told me.Absolutely drained of any more motivation { not stamina folks, my co runners were running it quite beautifully and in fact they were determined to finish it in 6 hours! } i walked back the remaining distance along with him which was around 7km. 3. The organizers closed the race at around 3.25 hrs.It so bad guys.come on you should give guys like me a chance.The main reason was that the race was being held on one of the most important roads of madras.And that being a metro city there is no difference between traffic on a sunday and traffic on any other weekday.Hence the police had given permission to the organizers to close the roads only for around 3.5hrs.I hope the organizers choose some other route which will remain open for atleast 5 hours. 4. The participants were given a chip which was to be placed inside their shoes.This was supposed to be used to track the distance covered.While it is a commendable aspect that they were using such technological features, there were some organizational hiccups which i hope will be solved in the near future.Not all people had their chips ! and hence the whole thing turned out to be a farce.So guys make sure that the next time around the chips arrive properly 5. The refreshments counter were not adequately stocked.They had just juice.Please try to give some buiscuits and some glucose too ! It helps. 6. And finally if you want to run the madras marathon make sure you train in madras to get used to the heat.I trained here in bangalore.Though bangalore is hot now-a-days, the percentage of the hot days is not as much as in madras.Hence your body will definitely not be able to cope up with the heat !
Im now all set for trying out the bangalore marathon. K.Shyam
I got hold of the entire calvin comic collection.But there in lies the problem.They are independent gif files.Now im on the lookout for a gif file concatenator.im pretty sure there ain't any.Now if someone knows of such a tool do let me know.Else im planning to put up some time from somewhere and write one.Write one ? Am i Kidding ? No folks.I firmly believe that if you have a problem which you think can be solved then go ahead and solve it.So im trying to hunt down the specss of gif format.Im pretty sure there has to be something like headers+data where the headers tell u things like data length, version etc.So it must be pretty straight froward to read the file in binary format get out the headers and concatenate the data and add the new header.Note that this is all of my assumption.Im yet to get over to reading the gif format itself.But judging by the number of multimedia formats that i have seen gif must be pretty simple. Ok all this trouble for what ? To concatenate all the calvin comics in printable format so that i can take printouts and bind them up as books.Books my dears count as my best friends more than television and sometimes more than the internet itself ! UPDATE : Ok after some thought i think it's easier if i get ps files out of the gif files.Like for example i can create a latex file which would embed the gif files.Then i can convert the latex files to ps files.Any latex guru's out there who can tell me the format to embed gif files into latex files ?
Im leaving to madras tonight.{Ok why am i having that inner feeling of excitement?}.This time it's buisness all the way folks.Im running the madras marathon on sunday in aid of Saathi Foundation who are taking care of AIDS patients.In case you can loosen up your purse and spare a few for the AIDS afflicted people please do so.Remember not all AIDS afflicted people get it out of their own carelessness.I shall try to post my marathon experience once im done with it.Im pretty sure that i can run 30km non stop.But the so called runner's wall supposedly beings only after you have done 30km :-(.
And something which i have been predicting for long has happened again.The temprature in bangalore has shot up again.It reached 36 degrees centigrade yesterday.The last time it did this was in feb 2001.While the newspapers in 2001 were saying that this is the first time such a thing was happening, I still remember posting in my office newgroups that this will not be the last time.I stand vindicated folks.Something needs to be done on a war footing to save this place.From what i can see in pictures and talking to people this was indeed a very beautiful place.It's a shame that this has been destroyed in the name of development.And trust me this is not the first of the hot days that we will be seeing.Drink up folks either a glass of beer or water.Dehydration is a sure killer and here when you dont sweat, you will not have any indication that you are getting dehydrated. Have a gr8 weekend. K.Shyam
Oh i love being nostalgic about my days in REC Trichy.To be precise i spent exactly 2.5yrs there, August 1997 - December 1999 { oh ya i welcomed the millenium @ hostel in the usual way ! } doing my MCA there.Ok now why did i get nostalgic ? My friend had got a 500rs discount voucher from reebok stores.Being the true tamilian i am, i cannot refuse such freebies.So off i went to reebok store on brigade road to check out some running shoes.I could not find any.In case you want to get good variety do not go to brigade road reebok.Instead head over to reebook in forum koramangala.I wish i had done that in the first place.Would have saved us lots of time and trouble navgating the bloody traffic. Ok it was in forum that i heard this lovely song wafting through."pehala nasha pehala huwa" from Jo Jeetha Wohi Sikandhar.No not the remix version.The remix version stinks like an unwashed sock worn throught the week.This was the original version.Man i must say that for a moment i was transported back to my REC days ! The memories came hurtling forward.I still cannot forget my classmate who sang that unforgettable song "kabhi kabhi".Such a beautiful voice. I dunno why but somehow those songs have associated some memories of my hostel life.Trust me folks nothing like a hostel life to make u understand the real world out there ! So here are a few of the songs which really bring back the good ol memories 1. Pehala Nasha from Jo Jeetha 2. Woh sikandhar hi dosto from the same movie.Every new batch needs to memorize a class song and sing it during the fresher's party.This was our class song.We had quite a lot of guys in our class who did not know hindi and the seniors used to thrust mikes in their faces to see whether they just lip synced or really sang.man it was so very fun ! 2. Kabhie Kabhie from a movie of the same name.This is the male voice version of the song 3. Almost all songs from the movie DTPH { Dil to pagal hai } 4. The title song of the movie Gupt.It used to give us the creeps when suddenly this song used to blare out from one of the 10 hostels in the campus at around 3am when we were in deep sleep ! { it's a different matter that shortly later i learnt to sleep from 4am - 9am :-) } 5. Almost all songs from the movie Thullatha manamum Thullum, in particular the song thoda thoda venavae sung by "God" Hariharan.Our college was about 17kms away from the city and you had to take buses to reach there.The government buses never had stereo sets so we used to wait for the private buses to take us to college, complete with music.The most often heard song was this ! 6. Akele hai tho kya ghum hai from QSQT 7. Alice by Smokie.Ok this song has pretty objectionable lyrics but that is the remix version folks.the Original version is pretty good ! 8. All songs from the movie en swasa katrae.For one full day ie from morning around 10am till next day morning around 5 am we heard this tape again and again as we played carrom.Just 4 guys.We did nothing the whole day.played carrom and went to mess.Came back and played carrom.Non stop just like that. 9. The stirring title music from the movie titanic.As my friend said "it's not a movie man it's an experience" 10. And finally kasu mela kasu vandhu song from the movie kadhala kadhala.I remember how we danced away to a frenzy with this song during our farewell. There are still more but then i dont have the patience to type out all of them ! those sweet Memories will always be dear to me ! { as it comes in that song do u remember from the album dangerous by michael jackson ! }
My one year hostel stay in Indian Institue of Science was no where close to this.I had morons in the hostel block who used to crib when my stereo set used to reach 3/10 in volume.Silly buggers ! K.Shyam
One of the reader's of this blog had mailed me this pic.seems that this came in the "picture of the day" in this very own blog.However for every time a page refresh is made a different picture is shown. Hence this picture might not be seen even by me !Ok note the point that i maintain a neutral attitude against Bill.He is a gr8 marketing genius.I stop with that ! K.Shyam
HP's ex boss clary is being paid a whopping 45mn$$ in severance.Now this should serve as an example to companies recruiting honchos for the top posts to be careful with the severance package. She is soley credited with reducing all the ESOP's to worthless toilet paper.That is the common grouse against her by almost all the employees inside HP. When the company's bread and butter buisness has been reduced to practically nothing is such a severance package necessary ? Well that is corporate america for you folks.Milk em when the time is right !
I have always been maintaining that the courses at Indian Institue of Science are at best totally theoretic and put off many an intrested student from opting for it.To give an example consider the course which i myself took called performance modelling.Man that was real PITA.Totally arbit crap about random number generation and other useless stuff.Now i did manage to leave in the course feedback section saying that there is a total disconnect with the course goals and the way it was taken.I mean performance modelling should be able to give you an insight into how to model the performance of large scale systems when you are not able or not ready to build such systems.Now that is indeed theoretic but then it does give you a practical insight. A project can be assigned where you try to put forth such a system and probably use petri nets or whatever to simulate. Similar stuff exists in that ECE department too.You are made to belive that reading about protocols and other stuff is child's play and given some lenghty monolouges on poisson process and differential equations etc etc.Why is there not an attempt to mix both ? Ok the point is not about that. There was an intresting news item that aerospace students will be taken on aircraft rides and given demonstrations on how wingspan and altitude and other factors determine the speed and stability and other parameters of an aircraft in flight.This is in my view a very very important step in making the students feel the real essence of what they are doing in their textbooks.No point in solving some deep bat shit mathematics without really understanding as to why and where such things will be used. IMHO college studies without telling u the practical applications is a total waste.Ok it need not tell u all the applications but atleast give you a hint.
One of my long thought about activity is to build a school where students are taught subjects by application to real life and not just bookish knowledge.CBSE stream in that sense is pretty ok folks.The calculus i learnt in high school had about 35% weightage for real life applications.
After my 30km run on sunday i went back to the running track for a small 8km run.luckily i did it today.i could feel my knees creaking and my ankles and thighs screaming.If i had done this on race day { feb 20th } then it would have been a total mess !
On a more intresting note i have been challenged to a 30km race.And to make things more intresting im totally unaware of my opponents skills and practise levels.In a total deviation from my methodical and practical self i have accepted on a whim or was it an utter confidence level that since im training for a marathon anyway i can win ? i dunno.It promises to be intresting though :-) K.Shyam
One of my most fav grouse is that technology is now-a-days used more for those cosmetic effects, seeing video clips on my mobile, seeing news on my mobile, using my mobile as a camera.I firmly believe these are those little { and fringe } pleasures of life. Technology is not being used for the betterment of the basic needs of human life. Using technology to improve the sanitation, water supply, health care etc is in my opinion more apt. Anyway Prof.Ashok Jhunjunwalla of IIT Madras is indeed doing something along that lines. Ok this is not about that.This is about an article i read in The Hindu today and im not able to get an online version of it. Three s/w gumbals have designed a tsunami warning system.The prototype is pretty simple.There is atleast 15mins to 2hrs time gap for a tsunami to originate and hit the shores.The detection is pretty instataneous.So once it is detected by the satellite a program will take it and use WAP to channel it out to the mobile operators and then mobile users would get the message on their mobiles. This is pretty much a simple idea.However the model which was proposed by us a few weeks back envisaged the use of SMS instead of WAP.If you know any of the guys who have desgined the system that was published today do let me know.Im more than willing to share with them our prototype which uses SMS instead of WAP. IMHO SMS is a pretty cheaper setup instead of WAP.However the implementation level issues will have to be dealt with. K.Shyam
1. I saw the movie Ji.A pretty bad movie i must say.Ligusamy the director gave two quality films.His first one was anandham and the second one was Run.Both of them had pretty good screenplay a very good script and some good performances.However Ji falls flat on all fronts. 1.1 Ajit is in no way suited for the role of a college student.The mistake that mani rathnam made in casting ajay devgan as a college student in Yuva was repeated here too. I think the director should have been more careful with his choice here. 1.2 As it stands it is a very good story of mixing politics and student elections.If you remember ramgopal varma made a film with the same subject called udhayam { his first movie incidentally }.He had handled it pretty well and in fact no movie ever made after that comes close to that.It did have it's flaws but the handling was pretty good. 1.3 The background score { vidyasagar } was heavily inspired/lifted from titanic ! That was pretty stunning considering that vidyasagar is one of the rising stars of melody music.If you dont believe me check out the song called Vezhiyum Vezhiyum from the movie chaturangam here 1.4 Overall the movie seems to drag too much.Well the director seems to be trying to tell something to the audience but unfortunately neither he nor the audience are able to grasp the message ! 1.5 Avoid it if you can :-)
2. In a prelude to the madras marathon i ran the 30km on sunday. 2.1 The heat in bangalore is pretty killing.30 degrees at 8am in the morning and that too on the outer ring road ! And in april there's the bangalore marathon too.Im still not brave enough to run the full marathon in that heat.Anyway let me see about that later 2.2 It is pretty tough to run the 30km itself.Im now having some real doubts about the full marathon.However i was running it all alone.i think some company might make things just that little bit easier
3. Sania mirza won the hyderabad atp tournament.Way to go madame.Im pretty happy for you and best wishes.may you win more such tournaments.
4. I saw two more movies, ghost and darkness *ing van kilmer and michael douglas which was pretty bad and the movie few good men.If you can get hold of this movie do not miss it.some stunning performances especially by tom cruise and jack nicholson. worth seeing it again and again !
and Kribs has sucesfully conducted his vodka party.its so sad that it had to be conducted when i was not there in town but i guess it's ok.my time will come :-)
and here's something that used to go around in my hostel. Q : Why is nov 14th known as children's day ? A: Coz it comes nine months after valentine's day :-) No offence meant Mr.Jawahar Lal Nehru. Since today is valentine's day i thought i better post this one though :-) Uh ok i dont believe in valentine's day crap.And im pretty much bored with putting up the reasons for it! K.Shyam
One of my all time favourite heroines Namratha shirodkhar { Nams ! } has got married to mahesh babu.No i never liked her for her acting.Trying to find acting talent in her is like trying to find chicken biriyani in Krishna Kafe.{ if you dont know Krishna Kafe is the one true tamilian veg joint here in bangalore }. But one of the reasons why i rated her as my favoutire is that hazel eyes and that nice looking mole in her chin.Oh ya i always rated her higher than aishwarya rai too ! Here's to Wishing her the best.and undoubtedly im a bit depressed :-( . yet life must move on ! K.Shyam
I have always maintained that there are three great levellers in life.Nature, god and traffic jams.Nature and god are something that are always known.But what is it that makes educated, so called cultured people act like some stupid dumbos and morons in a traffic jam ? Education is not just cramming whatever is there in the text books and scoring high grades and getting a cushy cushy job, education is simply about giving you a outlook towards life.IMHO education is supposed to make you understand how to handle the pressures of everyday life.traffic jam is one such pressure.
Just have a look at how people irrespective of whoever it is are driving in a platform during a traffic jam. How much more worse can this get ? if there is such an urgency to get to your destination why dont you start early ? and yes ppl to whom i tell this immediately give me a rejoinder saying it is impossible to start two hours early.well i say you have only two choices.either you start early to be in time for your appointment or you get a different job in a different place.for god's sake its not that there are jobs in this only place in this whole country/planet.but dont degrade yourself by driving in a platform that is meant for people to walk on.you could try petitioninig your local authority to reduce the platform length atleast.i feel really sad at seeing such people.
after a real looong time 7 and odd yrs to be precise i had a real heavy breakfast today.during the years 1994-97 when i was a student in madras i used to be fed heavily by mom in the morning before i went to college.living alone for the past 8yrs changed all that with many a days passing by without any breakfast.well im feeling the after effects of it now.whenever i see good food and gorge it down there is almost an instantaneous reflex action to download it :-) anyway let my troubles be with me !
my jaw pain has got sufficiently better.a little introspection told me that the half marathon that i ran on saturday with a slight cold is the culprit.normally whenever i have even the slightest of cold i dont exert myself.this time i ran the half amrathon resulting in a total inflammation of my sinusits glands below my ears.im treating it with citrazine and the results seem pretty encouraging.im now able to feel my molars on the right side without pain ! more importantly im also able to yawn out fully without getting that stinging pain ! things are getting better.now to give myseldf sufficient rest before i start practising again for my marathon !
K.Shyam
If you had seen me moving around { not exactly zipping around coz i dont do that } in a TVS victor, it's because of the largesse of my friend vichu.He went to london for a three day assignment and i used that time to refresh my driving skills.Driving in bangalore is a lot more tougher now than the time it used to be when i learnt it !
I have however returned back the vehicle to him.Thank you once again vichu.So nice of you to lend it to me :-)
In all probability in a day or two i shall be booking a vehicle.Oh ok is it the honda unicorn indeed.
Somehow that nagging cold has resurfaced.I think its time to make a trip home and check up with my doctor.I don't mind the trip to madras though for this.
The aero show has started here in bangalore.I am not going for it though.I did go for it in 2001.Im not that much enthu about this one though.Also the 20km travel in current day condition makes me tired.
oh ya and after about a 1.5yr of wait i got a dvd of the movie reservoir dogs.I asked my friend coming back from us of a to get it for me.I now own all of trantino's movies except jackie brown which i didn't quite like it that much.
K.Shyam
my jaw pain got slightly better.still not out of the woods yet.the cold that i had has kind of subsided but there is a lot of phelgem stuck down my throat.it is still too early to safely say that the jaw pain was due to the cold but im optimistic !
i wanted to post some obervations that i had after my half marathon on saturday:
1. do not run with cotton socks.these absorb the sweat and become totally wet and start scraping your in soles.im having a blister the size of a lemon.
2. as far as possible wear tight shorts.the shorts i wore were so loose, and i also had my mobile and wallet in either of the pockets, that the lining of the shorts scraped against my inner thighs giving me some really irritating bruises.
and im still thinking that no matter how fast or how slow i run my speed is remaining at 10kmph.still thinking that i should somehow push it to 13kmph or atleast 12kmph so that i can finish the marathon with a respectable timing.
beginning this friday till next friday i will be doing the half marathon on alternative days.intrested to join ? drop me a mail.
and bangalore is also going to have a marathon.its on april 24th.and yes i shall be running this one too.head over here for more info
K.Shyam
one of the most repeated comments i get is that my blog is named funda and i have not yet posted any funda till now.
so here is my most fav funda which i follow all the time:
"Never Run Behind Money"
I always believe that the moment i start thinking how do i manage this money issue, that is the moment i loose my sleep. Hence i just stay relaxed and think and budget it.No point in getting yourself worked up over it.
exactly two weeks to go for the madras marathon.i am now thinking i could do with some more practise.
and im having a real bad start to the week.my jaw is aching terribly.its at the point where your jaw bone meets the ear.now what worries me is that whether the bad cold im having is the cause of this, or did i sprain my jaw muscles while gritting my teeth during the gym, or is it that my teeth has been damaged ?
so first step is to attack the cold and clear it out.and then a diagnosis can be done.
I ran the half marathon on saturday with a slight cold.normally even if i have the slightest of colds i dont do any kind of physical exertions.did that half marathon disturb my sinusits so as to give me this pain ?
this whole pain came up pretty suddenly.from saturday afternoon if i am not mistaken.
Im at a total loss.and im thinking of going over to madras this weekend if things dont get sorted out by wednesday.i have to show this to my doctor.and i hope that it is not a teeth issue.not that i have perfectly lined pearly white teeth like the models who come and fluant it for the toothpaste ads, i still dont like the prospect of loosing my teeth !
K.Shyam
I got my hair cut today.so what's special about that ? i had a haircut in bangalore after about 5 months.does that mean that i did not cut my hair for the past five months ? no.just that for the past five months i will be in madras during my hair cut time.you see i dont like growing my hair.hence i visit the local barber every fourth sunday with unerring regularity.so it was just a coincidence that i was in madras all these months.
i always feel that whenever we visit a barber we want the shop to be neat and clean and yet we wear smelly clothes { read in desparate need of a wash }.when you want the shop to be clean is it not your responsibility to be clean too ? henceforth please make it a point to wear clean clothes to the shop.
it's not that i have any grouse against long hair or something just that i keep wondering about the effort to maintain it.i do however feel that a boyish cut on a female gives her that zing look.if you are not able to understand what i mean see catherine zeta jones and her cut in ocean's twelve.she does look zing ! i do however have a serious grouse against facial hair.i started sporting a clean shaven look from 2001 onwards.i was stunned by some comments like "a man must have a moustache" from a lot of ppl.man what a statement ! somehow i think a clean shaven look will suit anyone well.except of course in some real cases.
black has not got a good review from rediff.com . however both express and hindu have given it good reviews.i shudder to that what that TOIlet paper would have written.he genrally succumbs to hype and i think this case would be no different.
on a more intresting note i had to do experiments on 2 problems as a part of my thesis.the good part is that guide has agreed to accept the results for the first problem.and the second idea which i suggested has also been approved.with luck i might finish my degree by august 05.keeping my fingers crossed
K.Shyam
Yet another weekend is here ! just when i dont want the days to blaze away at this speed is when i find the days running past by ! loads of things to do.im targetting at completing my thesis by jan-06.Hope that is done.
This weekend im running the half marathon again.Intrested junta living in bangalore can join me on the outer ring road-sarjapur road junction.The run will be from silk board to marathahalli a distance of ~12km one way.So i guess it's close to 24km both ways.im planning to do this in < 2 hrs time.
on a more intresting note it seems toyota has stopped production of its super hit suv the qualis.Though the support for qualis will extend for another 10 yrs toyota is planning to introduce another suv it seems !
Kribs is putting up a vodka cocktail party in madras on feb 13th.grr dunno why he has to do that when im stuck here in this god forsaken bangalore.anyway if you are in madras and intrested in meeting up with a lot of bloggers head over to his blog for more details.
K.Shyam
Crica 1994-1997 : The FM radio broadcasting had at that time been privatised. There were 2 radio stations going guns in madras.One was Priya's show and another was { i don't remember who }.No they were pretty different from the Radio mirchi and Suriyan FM of today.These are more well packaged.Ok that is not the point. The point here is every sunday at 2.30pm there used to be programme by an astrologer. Jothida Thilagam Ln.Dr.K.Parthasarathy Avargal.Some of his astrlogy things were pretty scientific.In fact he even de-bunked quite a lot of blind faiths that most people were having.It is a different issue that the stations suffered losses due to heavy license fees and had to close down.That again is not the point.
The issue here is that the astrologer commited suicide. What ? You might ask.YES.He commited suicide by hanging himself. Now the circumstances leading to his suicide are pretty strange.Seems he read his own horoscope by chance on 1st Jan and found out that he will die on 21st January.On 17th January he had a mild heart attack and yet did not let that out.
Now comes the shocking part.He hanged himself on the very next day.Now how did this happen ? Was he afraid of dying ? He could not be coz he committed suicide.Then why the blazes did he commit suicide ? It all seems so strange to me.In fact im preplexed by that news item itself.
For a man who did astrology on the basis of science and logic what drove him to take such a decision ?
K.Shyam
Was in a meeting all day long.I hate days like these.Makes me feel really tired and totally zapped.Ask me to write code all day long i dont mind.But asking me to sit in all day long meetings is just a bit too much !
Seems Apple is introducing Ipod into the indian market at a lower prices.Got to keep a watch on that one !
K.Shyam
I went to mysore with my sister and that cool li'l nephew of mine over the christmas weekend.That reminded me of my earlier mysore trip done during april-04 { i guess } when i had a friend visiting me over from us of a.We teamed up with another friend of mine, all of us going way back to when we wore shorts and went to school days :-).Anyway the point is not that.The point is we landed in mysore only to find that the chartered trip had left and we had about 1.5hrs to wait for it.Being the irresponsible foodies that we are we headed out to the nearest hotel that screamed "Buffet Lunch Ready".Yess.Lunch at 11.30pm and that too a buffet.As joey says in that TV show friends in his un-imitable style "This is where i get my money's worth!".For Rs 50 we trashed the place.The waiter made a mistake of saying to us that the buffet includes unlimited chappati's side dishes and rice ! Man that was enough.We poslihed off all the roti's { I'm not joking here.All means around 40+ between the three of us } and gulped down a few more bowls of rice before we decided to spare the guy.Last heard the hotel has stopped giving buffets.
Can't help it man.Im a horrible foodie myself and add to it that american friend of mine.I still remember when i was stuck in his house in america during Feb-03 when they had the worst snow storm.We walked over to a restruant called IHOP that serves pancackes and that gluttony guy had 2 plates of pancackes !
Ok so coming back to my recent mysore visit we landed in chamundi hills during sunset.So check out some of the phots i took with my nikon coolpix 3700.
In general before i buy something i read some reviews about the product etc etc.{Ok i accept im not a compulsive buyer!}.But i made a mistake in buying this one :-(.The damn camera does **not** have monochrome picture capability.So if you are someone whom you know is planning to get this one better be warned.
Ok without much ado here are the pics :
These are a few pics of the sunset from the hills.In case you want to use them as wallpapers let me know and i shall mail you the full image { high hopes huh ? ;-) }
I tried this shot of setting sun and trying to silleouthe { ok forget that spelling! }.Somehow i like this shot !
