TRK's blog on everything and nothing

Moving

2006-09-01T20:45:00.000+10:00

From trk7.blogspot.com to http://trk7.com/blog through trkesavan.blogspot.com. In short: the blog has moved!

Beauty with brains

2006-07-08T22:36:00.000+10:00

I remember an episode in Seinfield where Newman uses this expression: "Beauty with Brains". I don't know if Kim Van Kooten has brains (of course, she does), but she can definitely act like a pro and yeah she is a beauty.

If u have got the time, watch the movie Phileine says sorry, a nice movie about a young lady following her love to NY.If you don't mind some suggestive erotic scenes and if subtitles don't repel u, the movie is guaranteed to to entertain you.

Did I say, she was attractive, well that was the whole point of posting this on my blog.

Post No- Well, who cares?

2006-06-30T18:20:00.000+10:00

Memories of a Murder

[img] courtesy: http://www.nexbase.net/

One of the perks of living in the western world is that you get to experience a lot of cultures. A few days ago I was casually surfing through the TV channels and was glad that I did, for I saw this very nice Korean thriller Salinui chueok.A very interesting thriller (based on true incidents). If I were to say the story is about a serial killer (?) whose victims are mainly attractive young females, most will feel that this is just another film about a psychopath. My impression was along those lines when I read the tag line on the screen.Nevertheless I decided to watch as I had the time and also wished I could see some beautiful Korean actors. Not many beautiful female actors but I was struck by the believable characters and good acting of the leads. The pace of the movie was ideal, with many twists that would keep you guessing.Brilliant soundtrack (a Japanese music director for a Korean film!). Unlike many Crime/Murder/Thriller movies this movie thankfully had some humorous moments-even though it wouldn't make you pour your guts out- but definitely does blend in with the whole movie. No wonder it was big hit in South Korea.

Lock stock and two smoking barrels

Another wonderful movie I got to see recently. The story revolves around 4 friends who also happen to be thugs. The movie is about how these friend end up owing about a million pounds to a bigger thug and how they try to pay him back. Lots of goof-ups, dead guys, laced with some nice dialogues. Humorous to the hilt!

Kung Fu Hustle

A action movie that I hugely enjoyed. Thanks to Hemanth. Some wonderful background music, what can I say? Wonderful, wonderful Comedy.

City of God/ Mudhal Mariyadhai

2006-06-04T00:47:00.000+10:00

City of God

I can't say I ever wanted to be a gangster, maybe a lawyer, a scientist, etc...but no not a gangster.Well I ask myself did I ever want to be what I am, I can't tell.My father is a banker, his father was a temple priest and I guess my ancestors were all priests.It's highly unlikely that any of them were gangsters.Now I might get into a different profession someday and my descendants probably do something different (for a living) from their antecedents. Probably one of them is going to b a gangster. Point is a normal middle class Indian has a very little probability of being a Gangster.I guess it can be applied to middle class families around the globe. Take for instance Brazil and the colorful Rio, fernando meirelles confirms the point. But I do seem to like gangster movies like Nayagan, Godfather, Good fellas, Pattiyal, Pulp fiction and yeah City of God. Not to mention the gangster/mafia novels like The Sicilian, Fourth K, Omerta and a few others. If I were given a list of people and asked to pick the gangsters out of the list, my first step would to eliminate anyone under the age of 20. I would have been terribly wrong, City of God is about Gangsters who are mostly Kids. In fact the main gangster in the movie is named 'Kid' until he got his name changed. I cannot read long passages on a computer and hence I tend to limit my posts to few 1000 words and I will briefly tell why I felt the movie was so good.

I watched the movie with subtitles (characters in the movie speak Portuguese) and after I watched the movie I read somewhere that one can follow the movie with the sound/subtitles turned off, I tried it and it worked.Credit to the director/ actors.
All the other gangster movies in some way glorified gangsters (if they form the main character(s)), this movie doesn't.
Non linear nature of the movie, brilliant story telling.
Superb acting by mostly non professional actors.
Highly realistic,
and as the director says, the movie is about hope, in some way hoping that children born in slums/poor families need not have to become a gangster to survive.
and yeah some of what the director says in the interview here

Mudhal Mariyadhai

I am mostly a very reserved person, I could go without speaking to anyone for a number of days without any problem. This movie is full of great songs/dialog's.If I could watch the City of God without subtitles/sound, I wouldn't do this with this film. Don't watch this film if u don't know Tamil, and if u do know the language, please watch it.

Kamal Hassan is a very talented Indian actor, in Devar magan he was Sivaji's son, an excellent film with wonderful performance by Kamal.There was this particular scene just before Sivaji dies, when they r talking, the camera first shows sivaji expressing a feeling and then it shows kamal expressing the same (of, I guess father-son affection), and just that one scene made me realize that even a veteran/versatile actor like Kamal is not even close to the dizzying talent heights the late Sivaji had reached. Anyway, it is therefore assumed that Sivaji gave a splendid perfomance in the movie that is part of the title of the post. The move has some excellent songs and conversations that are lyrical and extremely enjoyable.Bharatiraja did a great job penning and directing this movie.Illayaraja proved why he is so well respected in music circles. At different stages in my life, I liked different female actors.Amala, Manisha, Kaishma and so on. I found them attractive, but Radha( one of the or the main female leads) of the movie is a class apart and that is how I will remember the movie- the movie that revealed to me a beauty named Radha.Maybe it is her character in the movie that I enjoyed, neverthless, the Aishwaryas, priety Zintas, madhuris and the rest do not make to k7's list of eligible saha dharmini's.

trk7.com

2006-05-31T19:26:00.000+10:00

currently working on my site trk7.com.

Now what is this?

2006-05-28T20:11:00.000+10:00

(via kiruba<<mohan ) and yeah it is for sale.

ater a few flipping/merging/brushing/saving in photoshop I am uploading this:

Hate and Love as mirror images.Volte-Face seem to be the order of the day!

Starting with Revolution/Wii

2006-05-20T12:44:00.000+10:00

"Wii is a gaming machine also for the non-gamers"-is how the CEO of Nintendo describes/markets it. I would agree as, I never was a big fan of Games (I was a big fan of NFS & Age of Empires titles though). If you consider watching TV (or Idiot Box) as a waste of tome then yeah, playing games (virtually) should b considered waste of time as well. But maybe the geek in me attracted me toward the Wii (especially the wii-mote and Nunchuk controller), finally I can play a game as I always wanted it to be. Ironically, I was drawn away from games because of the myriad controls and the complex controller that bound me with it's limitations/complexity, but I am drawn to Wii because the controllers would set me free from it. Forget the not-so-great graphics of the Wii compared o PS3/Xbox, forget the fact that there r very few games that I would play- I am getting one as soon as it is available in Australia (read in MX that it might cost around 400AUD).

Official Nintendo Wii Site (with some nice videos): http://wii.nintendo.com/ Another nice site:http://wiinintendo.net/ (look @ thisarticle:http://wiinintendo.net/?p=193#more-193)

Might b watching the davinci Code this weekend.

2 weeks of watching movies while doing other stuff

2006-04-11T18:27:00.000+10:00

Been wanting to write this post for a long time and finally I found the time, am not going to spend hours on this post and so the quality is not going to be good ( as with most posts, I should add).So here is the list of movies that I managed to watch and nzoy:

Dum Dum Dum

I am not a big fan of Jo (I in fact think she 'Over'acts, might b a little 'Over'weight and so on).Love stories, I find them boring not only because of the high density of Love based movies in tamil cinema, but also because I think they are so centered around 2 individuals, when there is many unfair things happening in the society ( I did watch V, thankfully).I do hate the unnecessary songs that we get to watch in Tamil cinema, but if there is one movie that I would watch just for the the background score and song music, this would b the one! Marvelous work by K Raja. Not to mention Madhavan's/Viveks performance and yes Jo did do a fine job.A decent and enjoyable movie.

Pattiyal

A film essentially about friendship/protection, a film also laced with killing.Halfway thru the movie I was compelled to stop watching the movie,but I persisted and thankfully did not miss watching the best part. The first half of the movie is 'subtly' violent, slowly getting romantic towards the middle.A beautiful ending (not because of what actually happened, but bcoz of the message it conveyed). I am not going to elaborate on the ending as it would b a spoiler.The director/writer according to me have turned what could have been an essentially violent movie into a meaningful one. The music, i found to be average.

Kand Naal Mudhal

The background music is good.The performances of the leading artists are commendable. Once again a love story that is actually entertaining without the cliches associated with them.Laila is wonderful as R(T)amya. I hope Tamil Movie industry comes up with more movies like this (by that I am not referring to just Love stories, but to movies that actually have a good/believable stories with fine performances by artists).

Oru Thalai Raagam

A movie set in the 80's, actually made a year before I was born.Another good story revolving around youngsters.I haven't seen much 'old' Tamil movies and hence this movie actually showed the different looks/getups of youngsters then.shows how jealousy/selfishness/indifference/smalltalk of a society ruins it's own members when they should b njoying their "vaaliba vayasu" filled with love, affection and care.Nice story and a few good songs.

V for Vendetta

This is the kind of movie that I would greatly enjoy (and, I did). A movie that has clever/sharp dialogs, a great theme and a message that is conveyed not with pompous speeches but thru action.Not everyone would like a movie like this, and I would understand that, for it is not for them but is for those who actually want a future that is not filled with deceit/autocracy/barbarism.My language skills are inadequate to describe a movie like this one, so I stop here.

P.S: I watched the first few mins of 1984 and yeah they seem similar.

O Brother, Where Art thou

Another beautiful film that I got to watch.Good ;story, perfomance and some wonderful music.Not to mention the characters 'Big' Dan and George Nelson.I was particularly drawn to the racy background music when the main characters meet George and are chased by the Cops.My inadequacy in writing a decent view on films means I shall have to stop here and I will with a full stop.

technorati tags: Cinema

My status---

2006-03-22T11:21:00.000+11:00

I am still alive! 65 million results

Cheran's 'Own Signature'

2006-01-21T01:57:00.000+11:00

Autograph - The Movie as I see it

-- Ok, it's 2:00 AM in the morning and hence forgive me if what I write is a meaningless blabber. -- A great movie! Must view! 5 Stars! Makes you write about it when you would normally be sleeping! Cheran (the director and also the male lead in the movie) knows to direct a fine story, no kidding. The thing that I like about the movie is it is not a 'typical' tamil movie. By typical I mean: a movie with meaningless dance sequences with lightly clad women pretending to be horny or giving you the impression, a movie with unbelievable fight sequences, a movie that kind of raises the hero's status to that of a demi-god, a movie about someone other than the common man, a movie that is made with the sole intention of making monetary profit. I forgot to mention that most tamil movies are sentimental and Autograph is no exception. I couldn't take it after about watching 1/3 of the movie, but then I knew the sentiment part is actually a direct reflection of that experienced by a Common man and hence proceeded to watch the rest of the 2/3 and yeah, I am impressed. The story is seen through the eyes of the male protagonist (no way will I call him a Hero, it would deprecate the movies image): Selva (a subtle and effective performance by Cheran). He is getting married and personally goes to the various cities that he grew up in to invite his friends to his wedding. Memories can hit you like a gale at any time - a long forgotten sound, a smell, a song, a book, a movie and so on - can trigger a series of chemical reactions in our body and the amazing brain recreates the past - as we saw it - in the present- sometimes painful, sometimes heartening. So yes the song Mudhal Mudhal which is peppered across the first half combined with the visual images tell us about Selva's teenage years in a small town in Tamil Nadu. Enter Kamala his teenage heartthrob who -he later realises- is his first love. Again, no stupid songs with them running around, no sir, this movie a lot better than the masala crap that is full of these dances. Then they separate, later realizing that the untold love is still present ( in what way I don't know). Fast forward a few years and we are into Selva’s College life. Selva's father is a Postmaster and as with most Government Employees (at least in India) gets transferred evey few years, now to a town in Kerala. Enter Lathika- Selva's college mate- a sweet and charming girl who fills in the void created by his 'separation' from Kamala. I think this is the strongest part of the movie: the scenes in Kerala where he tries to win Lathika's heart and succeeds in getting her to love him back. This part of the movie paces up the movie from the sentimental part preceding it. And yeah, no dancing around trees, actually while checking again, there is a song "Manasukulle" but I can live with it.Lathika's family oppose her love for Selva and gets her married to someone else. In the process Selva is beaten up by men sent by Lathika's father and there is also a fight sequence, I have to admit Cheran has enough guts and sense to make the fight look as realistic as possible and it's a pity that films released long after this movie haven't understood that the unrealistic fight sequences makes no sense to someone with even half a brain and they are mostly repelling to a person like me. And again separation hits Selva, he is taken aback by what has happened and becomes almost deranged-mentally- until a thoughtful and understanding father saves him from ruining himself. Selva now is in Chennai, where he searches for a job, hear Divya (cute Sneha) sings an Inspiring song and I guess this motivates him not to lose hope in his job search and finally through his efforts and Divya's help gets a job at Divya's ad firm. Hard work brings him to a respectable position. In the meantime a strong friendship develops between him and Divya. As the story is narrated the suspense regarding Selva's bride is very well executed. I for one thought that- Divya- was a strong candidate for being his final love. Selva meets Lathika to invite her to his wedding and is shocked to see her as a widow. Selva is taken aback and wants to cancel his marriage, but a good friend as she was- Divya advises Selva to go ahead with his marriage and yes, in the picture above the three women are chatting with each other at his wedding. Time is a big healer and Life (has to) moves on, that of course is the obvious conclusion. The movie also stresses the importance of friendship and healthy relationship with your family and also people outside it. This movie is as much about friendship as it is about cherishing it. An autograph that is inedible in your heart that just needs a slight trigger to be brought alive and Cheran has done that through this movie: he brings the emotion filled memories back to life. Well done, Master.

2006

2006-01-07T15:18:00.000+11:00

Posting after a long time, I like to blog and it's strange that I didn't feel like posting for about a month. Another new year and the first week has been great for me, pyschologically. I have a feeling that this year is going to be great and will probably lead me into a new direction in my life. Resolutions, yes, a few:

Learn a few tricks in photoshop.
get my website up and running.
develop a java based program (details are secret, radio app for one).
Get fit (strengthen my abdomenial area specifically).
eat less junk food.
eat regularly.
make more friends (girls, ofcourse)
get a job (literally!)

yeah, that's it for now.

Of everything and nothing!

2005-12-03T13:46:00.000+11:00

I was looking at my site stats and one of the visitior visited my site by searching for "a blog on everything" and getting my site link in the search results, interesting, so according to google my site is about everything!

I am loving Digg, amazing and amusing, now that is a site about everything (related to tech).Got this story thru Digg: a electrical engg student swapping the barcode of an ipod with that of a headphone and in the process getting a huge discount and is now finding himself in a jail.I knew I could do this, but couldn't get myself to 'steal' something. Am finding myself in great spirits, am happy and had been humming my favourite tunes and also shaking my body (extremely rare for me), dunno why.One thing has been giving me the shit, Internet, we are in the process of switching our broadband providers (as the 20GB limit on our previous plan was not sufficient), and so had to use dialup until the switching takes place, I had huge problems sharing the dialup connection between the two mac's in our house-my love the mac mini and my housie's dear iBook G4- using the Airport express, now when we had broadband, sharing was no probs, just had to connect the base station to the DSL router and presto! our macs synched with each other.But, dialup was a different issue, I was frusturated with sharing the dial up connection, was even thinking of going back to a wired solution, the blue wire running from my housie's room to mine, a sloppy and even dangerous arrangement!The other option for me was to use the iBook for internet until we got broadband.This was not easy for me as I am used to the 17" amazing Dell monitor and found it difficult looking at the 14(or 15)" screen of the ibook and so avoided using internet.But then I could not stand not being without the internet and started googling as t how to solve the problem, was looking at Apple's site and saw that on the Airport express page there was no mention of sharing Dial up, it mentioned sharing Cable and DSL but no mention of Dial up.I almost came to the conclusion that sharing dial up using the base station was impossible.But then, thanks to this site, I am sharing Dial up internet connection using my Airport Express Base sation. digg story

News and links

2005-11-27T14:59:00.000+11:00

Been sometime since I actually posted something.I had been busy working and this new job involves no computer, I kinda like it as the only computer I can use for a long time is my Mac at home and since my 8 hours of work involves no computers, my eyes are not strained by the rays of the CRT, which made me tired and look away from my computer @ home when I returned from work, when I used to return home from my last jon. But here is some news that I had been following in this week:

Firefox 1.5 RC3 has been released.Download here.Review here.
Well the earlier versions of Firefox defiinitely had memory leakage problems or atleast some problem that made my browser quit and crash on my Mac OSX, then I switched to Flock which was stable but tended to be less responsive when I switched between tabs, I also missed the extensions that I loved in Firefox.Now I have been using Firefox 1.5 for last 2 days, no crashes and also is fast.Some of my extensions do not work with this versions but yeah most of them do and it's going to be better.My commendation to the Firefox Developers, I am thinking of adding the support firefox logo into my blog!
Menshealth has this article titled: 18 Tricks to teach your body some nice tips (i find some of them difficult to clearly understand or I am not sure if I understand them right), there is an answer for something I always wondered as to why it happens, the side stitch on my body (liver I guess) when I run for quiet some time and here is a trick that prevents it, these tricks are clever and mostly informative for a person who hated Bio(& zoo)logy at school (memorizing stuff is something, I prefer not to do, remembering the planktons, blood circulation diagrams, no of bones in the body etc, etc and all the diagrams that I was very bad drawing at.Dissection of the mouse, god thankfully had to to it just once, and my dissection was miserable).But this is the kind of biology or zoology that I would have liked to study at school: informative, practical, scientific and providing answers to everyday problems.the article is nice and read worthy.
MIT"s $100 Laptop story here.
Gallery of GUI's (screen shots) here.
Gonna watch the movie Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang , here .

and yeah, I wish I don't have to go to work tomorrow :(.

Favicon generator from an Image.

2005-11-20T17:10:00.000+11:00

Ok, I had been wondering for a while as to how an icon shows up on the addressbar before the URL of some websites. Believe me I am not a novice webdesigner, but just that I didn't find the time to investigate further.But thanks to this site , I realised that it has a name 'favicon'.The icon also shows up next to the page title( even in tabs) and also in the bookmarks folder.It gives a professional look to a site.

Look at the icon of myself in the addressbar!.You can have a favicon for your site as well.Use thes sites to generate a favicon:

http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/ - Generate a favicon from an Image (I used this site to create my Favicon)
http://www.antifavicon.com/ - Generate favicon from text that you input (you can have custon color schemes).

Once you have generated the favicon download it and save it somewhere.(I saved it in the webspace provided by my ISP, as I can't store files on Blogger) and then type this code between your < head > ... < / head > tags -

 <link rel="shortcut icon" href="URL of your favicon" />

add this code to your template so that the favicon is displayed in all the pages of your site or just to the page that you want the favicon to appear.
This site has a list of favicons of some popular sites, check it out.
digg story

iPod Nano Price Distribution

2005-11-19T02:05:00.000+11:00

I don't exactly know, why I created the above chart.In case it's not self explanatory-let me explain: the chart represents the price of iPod Nano (2GB-Black/White) in a few countries.I took price information from Apple's International pages (except for the Indian price, which was taken from Rediff and the Currency conversion was done at XE.

I am not, what you might call as smart, but this is my observation.
//Nano's price in India is the highest among the group (and I being and Indian, makes me wonder why???).

//Cheapest is HongKong closely followed by USA (sorry the other way around).

//apple.co.uk is actually not an apple site! (if it's something that is very well known, I accept I //am not only 'un'smart but also ignorant.

//I can successfully create charts on excel

//and also embed watermarks using photoshop

//my previous idea of shopping at Singapore or Malaysia, on my way to India (whenever I go there) has been dropped and I would probably catch Cathay Pacific get down at Hong Kong, //shop and leave from there to India.

//I seem to love blogging!

//any kind of software I use, seems to give me great trouble, when I most need it.

and as the double slashes ('//') indicate, all these observations obviously can be ignored.anyone there with some great analysis on this data (?)

P.S. Don't take this data to be accurate (most probably it is) and I accept no responsibility for any kind of damage (including financial) resulting from it's usage.At best it is a extremely bored person's idea of having some fun!

technorati tags: iPod, Nano, Technology

Mac machines with Intel Processors Releasing soon!

2005-11-18T15:26:00.000+11:00

One more post from me, i am unstoppable -:), thought would share this news with everyone. Apple is most likely to launch it's Inel based machines early next year (Jan 2006) and an ibook is going to be the first MAC (commercial) to have an Intel processor. Rumor has it that they are going to be $200 cheaper than present i-books.Don't get too excited, developers are not going to come up with compatible programs until mid-next year.But then, heh I would like to lay my hands on Mac-Intel machine if I could save enough money. I shall go for a powerbook, as my Mac-mini is having trouble keeping up with my demands.And surely then, Hell will freeze!

More info here.

technorati tags: Computers, Technology
MAC

A game for the smarties out there!

2005-11-18T14:43:00.000+11:00

Thanks to Digg ( a online link sharing portal) found the link to this game. Engaging and could be additctive.If you think you are smart (or intelligent or great visualisor) prove it there!

I ususally suck in visualising, but got enough score to be on the Top 20 ( almost everyone at digg seem to be in this bracket), lemme c if I can go higher.You know, I got a lot of free time.

And thanks to Digg again the game is interactive Tangram ( a chinese puzzle), wiki reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangram.

Of Google, Google and more Google with Flock and Digg added.

2005-11-18T00:39:00.000+11:00

[pic] http://labs.google.com/papers/sawzall.html (click on the pic for a better view)

The above picture shows the distribution of traffic coming to google on 14-Aug-2003. Interesting.I just had a feeling that the traffic distribution is somewhat related to anti-clockwise rotation of earth, lemme knowif I am correct.

I have heaps of time available, had been submitting my blog to a variety of Indian Blog directories and actually am getting some traffic.Thanks and will add the links to these directories soon (that's a promise).Apart from that had been checking Google Analytics – which is a website traffic analyser and more.

Google Base is another site I checked out (basically u can upload information about news or items and google will make it searchable, it might even end up on a search result on the actual google page). Somewhere in the introduction, I also read about able to publish what u write without actually owning a site. Makes me thinking. Could be possible that that after say 20 years there is just a single URL called say JOLTGOOGLE (Jack Of All Trades Google) and type whatever u want in the search button and presto U got it, instead of going through the myriad no of pages and url’s.Just a crazy thought.BTW, I have added the Sania story (refer to my previous post) into GB and it should be available in about 40-60 mins, so search for it on GB

Had come across the above picture thanks to Digg (which is basically a user contributed news website), looks cool to me!Some interesting stuff!

My Firefox has been crashing repeatedly for some reason, so ended up using Safari and this browser called Flock. Flock has the Firefox engine but has some great features like an integrated Blogging tool (which also has a Flickr toolbar, so I can drag my photos on Flickr from this toolbar and use it in my post-pretty cool!).Another great feature is when I type in something onto the search toolbar I get results from my history and if that isn’t enough I can press enter and yeah can get results from Google.So say for example, I forgot the name of my blog, I type in k7 on the search toolbar I have a link to my site on top, very useful.Flock is still a developer version, doesn’t support firefox extensions (hopefully as more people start using this browser, we shall have more extensions), and still a bit slow on my machine (esp, when I try to go to another tab, while the current tab is loading).But overall a very nice Browser.

Sania Mania- Making sense?

2005-11-15T11:17:00.000+11:00

Sania Mirza turns 19 today

I am not a big fan of tennis, I rarely idolize sports personalities, for me Birthday is just another day. But I love girls, good looking, young,intelligent, giving and achieving.So this morning when I got up and habitually looked at timesofindia, this is what I see in Indiatimes> People> Quickies, it is her birthday!

I am going to be honest - people talk about her attitude, determination, her forehand and backhand, her aggression, her meteoric rise to superstardom from a middle class family background - these are all great no doubt, but the bottomline is she is attractive (if I can, i will advise her to get rid of the rings on her face).So that is the single-most important reason for me to say "Happy Birthday, Babe!".

Don't get me wrong, looks are not the only thing I notice in girls.But then with all the hooplah sorrounding Sania nowadays, I am reminded of another icon of my childhood time, Payyoli Tevaraparampi Usha or P.T.Usha, a true sprint queen.A quick intro of P.T.Usha. Born June 27-1964, 2 silver medals in the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi, 5 gold medals at the Asian Meet in Jakarta in 1985, 4 golds and a silver medal a year later at the Asian Games at Seoul.She came very close to getting India a much needed medal in Olympics (source:http://www.rumela.com/women/pt_usha.htm).

Now, maybe I am wrong, but I dont remember P.T.Usha's Birthday getting this much national coverage.I was a kid when she won all the medals, but then I am a person who uses facts and figures to justify what is happening.I guess going by Usha's achievment she deserves as much adulation as Sania or even more, While Sania is basking in the limelight , getting crores of rupees for being brand ambassadors for products, I am thinking why is Usha and so many other Indian sportspersons not getting the recognition that they deserve?

Now this is Usha's picture

[pic] rumela.com

If she were as attractive as dear Sania, would she be as popular as Sania?
I am again being honest, when I say that I would wish P.T.Usha a Happy Birthday on June 27 next year and yes it is because of her achievements rather than anything else.

Dark Tale

2005-11-08T00:46:00.000+11:00

[pic] pickettphoto.com

He sat there: in his tiny little room in his tiny little apartment, he could feel the sound of the cars whizzing past on the highway near his apartment as if they were running away from someone. He imagined the cars carrying people: small, tiny people; leading an inconsequential, meaningless, tiring, boring life. With their tiny jobs earning tiny money. Leading a life of rejection, dejection and frustrations. Leading a life of deceit and fear. Deceiving themselves of the reality of the smallness of their lives and ignoring the poverty, illiteracy of their fellow denizens. Overwhelmed by their own state, they refuse to even think about anything other than their tiny little families or job with an strong emphasis on how it could affect them.Fear of - or caused by- tiny little people who cohabitate this tiny planet in this tiny solar system. Led by corrupt, dishonest, cavalier, heartless, stupid, insipid, greedy tiny little leaders.

With their only accomplishment in their entire lives being either, the tiny little promotion or the tiny little degree they got or the tiny little family that they have or the tiny little car that they are travelling in.

Where is greatness? Who is great? Can someone become great? Can everyone become great? What constitutes greatness?

Is honesty, integrity, chastity non-existent? Is grace, beauty just associated with the body?

Sipping the drink he was contemplating, thinking. Infuriated, dejected, disheartened, and depressed by the world that he was living in.

Then he heard something. Very different to the noise of the traffic. It was pure, sweet. It was a voice, of a person, a tiny person, maybe a girl. He recognised the voice instantaneously. “DAD", it was his daughter. She twisted the doorknobs with her tiny little fingers, pushing the door open with her tiny little palms. There she was in front of him cherubic, angelic, and beautiful while being tiny, small.

His heart, which was filled with gloom, despair was suddenly filled with love, affection, warmth. He picked her tiny little body, slowly, carefully, placed her on his lap.Wrapped his arms around her and placed a peck on her tiny little cheek. Then he beamed like a thousand Suns and said "Yes, Dear!"

He loved life, even with all its shortcomings, it allowed him to have a tiny little child for company.

........and the title of the post is Dark Tale turns Bright.

Pics From Sydney

2005-11-06T14:32:00.000+11:00

With Sydney Opera House in the BG.

Another view of the Opera House.

Harbour Bridge in the BG.

Canberra, Sydney and SRK.

2005-11-02T23:23:00.000+11:00

[pic] Reuters

SRK turns 40 today.From timesofindia.com:

Even Time magazine reported on him: ‘Every film he graces is a surefire smash; every product he endorses is a bestseller; there are so many shrines to him across India, that he can launch a new religion.

I might disagree, but anyway the man deserves to be praised (actually most men deserve) on his(their) birthday(s), even if it's slightly exaggerated.The problem occurs when something like this happens everyday in a man's life.Women's life is different, they deserved to be praised everyday-if they r good looking-otherwise not even on their birthdays, sorry that wasnt a great attempt at making jokes.

Anyway, let me focus on my life.Was back from my tour yesterday.Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney-Canberra-Melboune in 2 days , around 2000 Kms by Car and I shall stop with that.Actually I will add a few more lines.Canberra is small and not very impressive,Sydney seems to be huge (pardon me if I am wrong,I was there for 4-5 hours and half of it was wasted in finding an Indian restaurant called Dakhini, if I remember) got some pictures of Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Monorail.Monorail is one of the very few elevated rail systems in the world, offering an elevated view of Sydney CBD with actually being in between the buildings.For $4 a trip, it's worth it (wish the loop were bigger than 3.6Kms).Must C and ride.I also found that Sydney has Trams.The opera house is huge got a few snaps in front of it.A friend with me was commenting, this is nothing compared to Taj Mahal (and I as thinking we still look back to history to prove that we r better, couldnt help but smile).I am no expert in architecture and don't really understand it, but I also don't understand why film stars birthday gets covered in major newspapers in India.If people in India get emotionally charged on a Star's bithday does that mean they are dumb enough not to appreciate Design and Workmanship?The same guy was in awe when he saw the skyscrapers earlier.I thought I dont understand girls, my knowledge of guys is just as bad! I looked at some of the aerial photos and they were awesome, will go back gain to see what I missed.

Apart from that, had a quiet deepavali and as with most NRI's, wish I was in India.

Canberra-Here I come!

2005-10-28T23:49:00.000+10:00

I am leaving to Canberra tomorrow with my friend.More than 600 Kms travel in a day, starting from Melbourne.9-10 hours journey, never been out of melbourne in the last 21/2 years that I have been in Australia.We have decided to start at 7:30 AM tomorrow and my guess is we will leave by 9:00 AM at the earliest.I tend to cynical about my punctuality.

Numerous occasions, I have been late.My principal @ KV-Lawspet in pondicherry Mr. Rajamani, for whom I have lots of respect used to call me Late Latif.Not to mention the problems that I had @ KV-Ashok Nagar when I was late.I was very efficient in escaping from missing the prayer sessions @ school (obviously because I was late).I also remember being late to my Board Exam (10th).My la(o)st job, I used to be late a lot and pissed off my TL.I had been late to an interview, but somehow managed to clear it.I shall write a seperate post on each occasion I was late, after I return.

Now dont be mistaken, I had been on time on many occassions (my recent interviews, I was on time, but didn't get through which is another story).U can say, I am as punctual as I can be ( I dont like blaming myself). Coming to our trip starting tomorrow,as I don't drive, it's going to be hard on my friend I guess.Neverthless, hope the change in scenery lifts my spirits. Will try to post some pics, we should be back by next tuesday (1-OCT-05),Hope to see meet some nice girls before Deepavali. Adios.

Torrent of bits - Cohen on Fortune

2005-10-18T13:51:00.000+10:00

Bittorrent is hugely popular with me and my friends.I guess a lot of people use torrents.It's creator used to live like this:

First he lived off savings from the handful of jobs he’d worked during the bubble. When that ran out, he lived off credit cards, following a rigid system for applying for and transferring debt to 0% introductory-rate cards.

according to this article , Interesting read!I have been trying to do this (transferring balnce from one credit card to another) with mild success. and this is his (Bram Cohen's) blog.I was running out of blogs to read and have a new one now!

Mr President,Happy Birthday!!!

2005-10-15T15:01:00.000+10:00

[pic] rediff.com

India is a country obsessed with Film & Sports personalities; not to mention senseless politicians (read political leaders).Personally, I rarely celebrate birthdays (not to mention the don't care attitude I have for New years day, Valentine's day and so on).

I am probably right in saying that Mr. Kalam would feel the same about his birthday.Then, why this post, you might ask.Well, exceptions are so part of my life.While the number of people that I have wished HB is numerically less than the number of fingers I have (10), and except for my sister, I cannot say I was 100% sincere while wishing (this is revealed, with the hope that those guys and girls don't read this post);I have to say that Mr. Kalam has an iconic stature in my heart, and I take this opportunity to wish him the best, so he can do what he has been doing for my country.

Go here, if you wanna wish him the same.

Mr Kalam says:

In this world, fear has no place. Only strength respects strength.

and I sure have to tattoo it in my mind, thanks kalam, sir.