Happy New Year!

Wishing Everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR! I guess this will be my last post this year. I am taking a new year resolution to be more regular next year. Hope to see y'all more frequently.... Seeyaa.. Have a great time and stay good...

Deep Blue

I have been feeling blue recently. The last few days in particular. There is something about the end of a year that tugs at my heart. It is the time to be with your near and dear ones. Being away from everyone is having a kind of negative effect on me. Despite all the claims of the world becoming a global village, I am finding out that nothing is a substitute for the physical touch. There is something therapeutic about that touch. Nothing can beat that physical proximity. Another reason I guess I am feeling so blue is the shocking news I heard a few days back, about the demise of one of my batch mates during my graduate studies in Wisconsin. It was totally unexpected. He died of cardiac arrest. We used to smoke and drink a lot during those days and there were a lot of occasions when we shared a drink or a joint at the Memorial Union. The more I think about it, the more I feel that I would have ended up in the same position had I remained in US. When I came back to India I cut back a lot on my substance abuse. And now I am almost clean. Not that I was an alcoholic or a chain-smoker. But I had my share of them. A lot of credit also goes to my friend who put a stop to all that. I wouldn't claim that I have a healthy life style now. But this news somewhat sobered me up. I was not thinking of it overtly. Maybe I have not yet accepted it completely. But it is always there just beyond the grasp of my conscious brain. Which is why I am writing this post. I don't know if I will submit it. Since it seems to be growing somewhat personal in nature. But I think I need to let this out in some form and right now this seems to be the best way to do it.
Is it the dog-eat-dog competition to stay on top in this world which is causing all this? The tensions that we have to face in life is increasing over time. The race to earn more, own more, spend more, enjoy more... where is it leading us? Weighty questions... I am still searching for the answers. Maybe I will find it someday. And with it, the key to happiness. From what I have learned in life so far, the questions may be same for everyone, but, the answers, different. If the answers I find can help you, I will definitely post them here, once I find them.

Photography Actually...

I know, I know. Its been a long time since I posted anything. I could probably blame my work schedule for that. But to tell the truth I have not been doing much in the last couple of weeks. But then I got caught up in creating websites... That is right. Yours truly have been creating websites (More of web pages actually...), thanks to google. Google has a little known service called googlepages . It is one of their google labs products. Apparently anyone with a google account can create up to three webpages. I say 'apparently' because it has never shown up in my google apps or services anywhere when i sign into my google account. But the undeniable fact, is that it exists. And so... I have created two webpages in google. One is, a rather selfishly titled one . And the other is a webpage on digital photography. Now you might be wondering, 'This guy! And photography! Oh, he is so talented!'. Whoa, Slow Down, Slow Down!!! I am not much of a digital photographer. Of course I own a camera, and i know which button to push to get the picture (hmphhh... got the picture? hehehe.. pun intended...). But then around four weeks back, the photography bug bit me (metaphorically I mean, not an actual physical photography bug... hmm... Are there photography bugs?... Argghh.. Anywayyyy...). And I get this sudden inspiration for photography. I look around and find that, voila, my camera is broken. Now any other person would take it as a sign that the camera committed harakiri, rather than get itself sullied in my hands. But, NO! Not me! I consider it as a sign, to move on to a better camera, one that will appeal to the artistic side in me, and, of course, one that doesn't feel like i am holding a credit card rather than camera and is built on sturdier material. Anyway, finally after much searching I found this NIKON D40 camera, on Amazon, which kinda called out to the inner photographer in me! (Noooo... It didn't scream 'Help!HELP!'). So currently I am a proud owner of one such (hapless?) specimen. You would probably see the results of my digital err... ah... ART... in a few days on this very site. Alright then, it is time that I go and polish up my photographing skills... Ciao!!!! (Camera yells.. 'Help!' in the background... indistinctly... finally dying out in a whimper...)

Back after a break!

And back with a bang too! First off, a big thanks to all my friends who wished me a Happy B'day! It was a very hectic B'day followed up by a very hectic weekend. I actually managed to make it home for a long weekend after almost a month and a half. It was heaven, just sitting around and lazing in my home.
Apart from having to pretend not to have heard mom's snide comments regarding your's truly reaching marriageable age, and occassional proposals that i would turn down offhanded, the break was rather enjoyable. I did manage to met up with old friends, visit some temples and generally spend the day sleeping in. With all the food (sweets and otherwise) that I consumed in the last three days i feel as if i have gained around 5-10 kilos, mostly around the middle.
Work is going on in a hectic (snigger...) pace as usual. Hopefully an initial release would be out sometime before the end of this month.
Speaking of releases, this weekend saw a couple of movie releases that I desperately want to see. One is Shivaji (The Boss), starring Rajni and the other one is Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Both of them are opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of cinematic style, but there are two common threads of grand budget and total unbeleivabilty in both the films, which make them quite attractive to me.. :-D .. Oh, and there is one more film I really want to see... Shootout at Lokhandwala! I heard that Vivek Oberoi has put in an awesome performance in the movie. And that "ganpat" song makes me laugh every time I hear it.... especially the "kaishwarya" line due to the history between the two.. Anyways, enough from me. Signing off now to do some actual work... Hmmm.. Time for a coffee break before I start I think..

Mid Week Blues

Here we are at the middle of yet another week.

I was thinking yesterday about how we face each day of the week. Monday is when you stumble into office all muddled up from the weekend enjoyment..
On tuesday we slowly wake up to the fact that there is an office around us and there is work that needs to be done.. Hmm.. Well.. Well.. Well... we have the rest of the week for that..!
For me atleast, wednesday is usually the time when I wake up to a rather obvious fact. I have managed to cross half the distance between two weekends. The fading memories of last weekend is replaced by the anticipation for next weekend. In addition to that we decide to start doing whatever work is there for this week... from tomorrow..
Hmm.. Then there is thursday.. which is when you realize you have not made any plans for the weekend.. So you start checking out new movie releases.. Possible weekend trips.. Whatever that keeps you ticking..
Finally.. Friday.. Beautiful Friday.. arrives... And quickly turns ugly when you find that you forgot to do most of the work that you were supposed to do that week.. And then you start catching up on anything and everything in a last ditch attempt to clean the slate before the day ends.. Then when people start leaving office and you are about the only when left, you promise yourself..."Next week I am going to finish all this stuff early.. Let me go and enjoy this weekend for now...."


And thennnn... The weekend starts.. And we forget all our promises...

I AM a GEMINI!

You are 80% Gemini

How Gemini Are You?

Err... Am I that abnomal???

You Are 28% Abnormal

You are at medium risk for being a psychopath. It is somewhat likely that you have no soul. You are at medium risk for having a borderline personality. It is somewhat likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at low risk for having a social phobia. It is unlikely that you feel most comfortable in your mom's basement. You are at medium risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is somewhat likely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

How Abnormal Are You?

A rare personality!

Your Personality is Very Rare (ENTP)

Your personality type is optimistic, curious, enthusiastic, and open. Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 3% of all women and 5% of all men. You are Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

Shortest Personality Test!

Your Personality Profile

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Hmm... Is this me???

Another weekend came to a close. It was a pretty hectic one too. One of things that made this weekend unforgettable was the rain god. Bangalore got its first monsoon shower on sunday, and i had pretty much first hand experience. Riding on my thunderbird in knee deep water over "roads". Other than that petrol got stolen from my bike (again)! I seriously need to put a fuel lock on the damn bike... Hmmm... As soon as my office schedule gets a little less hectic I will..

My Fortune from Orkut!

Today's fortune:
You will do well to expand your business

My First Blog

Finally Orkut has integrated Blogger too! Talk about integrating all the google services on one platform!.. The Question now is how much more integrated is google going to get. They already have Google Apps( which provide spread sheet and word processing functionality). Is that going to be the next thing to be integrated? The way things are going, soon all you will need on a pc would be a browser!

More insights next time!