Hilariously Stupid Musical Ad

Remember the AIRTEL theme AR Rehman made, and how it was widely popular. Feels like its a cool strategy for companies to advertise their product through a musical, right ?

... WRONG !!! ...

And providing proof for absolutely pathetic musical ad's ... the 'Wow is Now' musical from microsoft. Amazingly you can even get it on your mobile .. HA ..

Read "The Register" (similar) comments on the same here

White Water Rafting

After a long break from reckless / adventerous activities, we ( JJ, Niranjan, David, Sly, Timir, Kastubh, Abhishek and myself ) finally set off to the French Broad River. The overtly enthusiastic Niranjan had contacted Nantahala Outdoor Center to arrange this exhilarating ride. He got group discounts for 35$ a person. (Hmm .. I still got to pay him ). The location is a 3 Hour drive from Greensboro.


At the French Broad River Outpost - In our Dry Suits


The French Broad River


Getting Drenched !!


Boat 1 Going over ...


Boat 2 Going over ...


Everyone Survived

The NOC guides mentioned that they offers special discounts for volunteers helping maintain the cleanliness of the river ( We did see some trash .. car tyres, plastic wraps and the like on the river banks ).

Do The JJ

Do The JJ (d th JJ)
V
1. Ignoring a person while nodding your head.

[Do; Middle English don, from Old English dn. See dh- in Indo-European Roots.]
[The; Middle English, from Old English the, alteration of se; see so- in Indo-European Roots. ]
[JJ; English (US), from Jayanth Jayanth Indian (Karnataka) Roots]

Usage Note ( 'Do the JJ' situations):
-------------------------------------
Sly: Dude ... I wo'nt be at home for few days. Can you feed my fish ?
JJ : ( Nod ... Nod ... Nod )
Sly: Do you have the slightest idea what I just said ?
JJ : Say what now ?

Rang De Basanti

Khoon Jala, the blood boils - You would have heard A R Rehman sing. However, have'nt you heard it before, yourself, musing, in the police station, bribing to have a theft reported ? Have'nt you heard it, your heart straining to shout out loud, at any 'pulic service' office, and everytime you bribe the traffic constable ?

Our jobs (and ourselves) are our top priority, so in such situations, we ADJUST, supress our frothing anger, and get on with our lives. Me, I accept it (part of the 'bloody system'), don't vote (inhibiting me from criticising the govt, and the country), tell myself 'Get out of this dump', find a job in the US, and cowardly, flee. Yet, when I saw the movie ... Khoon Jala.

Have we become comfortably numb ? Why do willingly submit to corruption till it kills us. Yes, it does kill us, and then its too late. How secure are you, on a train, for example. Does'nt corruption kill more innocents than terrorists do ? Yet, we fear terrorism and ADJUST to corruption. How illogical and irrational can we be.

Is it hard to note the person whom you are forced to bribe ? Is it so difficuilt, to get your friends and collegues, and their friends and collegues together, and picket peacefully, his house or office ? Is it so unfruitful to have your voice heard ? Are your work/priorities so demanding ?

As a working class, we are restricted (but not completely, the half hour we spend griping on the 'current situation' over lunch is good enough). The youth students have more freedom. Sooner or later, there will be a revolution against corruption.

I would urge you not to be a critic unless you have voted for any election atleast once. Anyone can be a critic, but it is his voice that instills patriotism, who has strived for a better India.

Complete Calvin And Hobbes

Currently reading the Bible of all Comic Strips. The 'Complete Calvin And Hobbes' is slightly expensive but well worth it. Will be giving the book to my parents, for two reasons:

1. An appreciation for enduring my childhood
2. I dread any child in my vicinity armed with information from the book.

Go here for official comic strips.

Atlanta

We ( Ramya, Anu, Ankit and Myself) went on a trip to Atlanta, to drop off Ankit and also to tour downtown atlanta. Met with Sid, his bro, and his bro's friends at GA Tech.

The day was spent visiting CNN center, Coke Museum and Georgia Aquarium. We also met up with Ramya's friends before driving back to Greensboro in the night. It was 3:00AM when we reached back.


Framed !!


Christmas @ CNN


Ramya and Bush


A Looong Way Up


Awaiting Chinese Food !!


At the Coke Museum


Touching the Ray fins.

Chicago

Getto at Chicago @ Jobi Babu's House. Rahulan and Santho were there too. So was Appukuttan, Aama and others from their (babu's) batch.

Day 1 was spent sightseeing and hiking. Yup .. Hiking ... from Navy Peer to Sears Towers. Apparrently, we thought the tower was close by, as we could see it from the navy peer.

Day 2 was spent being sober from the evening at Joby's. It was also Tinu's ( Joby's wife) birthday.


Rahulan


View from Sears Tower


Santho family Photo


Joby Babu family Photo


In front of Joby's House

Blue Ridge Parkway

Went on a trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway ( JJ, Ramya and myself), enjoying the fall colours. We had a slight hiccup with our plans for lunch, as the blue ridge was intented to be a recluse from society and people and restaurants.

We started on the southern end of the parkway and drove on the parkway till Linville, where we visited Linville Falls and Linville Caverns. Exited parkway on Route 421, to come back to Greensboro.


On the Blue ridge Parkway


B'witched


Enjoying the scenery


Inside Linville Caverns


Stalactite


Near The Linville Falls

Austin

With Thee Thee @ Austin
--------------------------

Was with Thee Thee the weekend before he left for India. Visited the coolest theme park in Texas, schliterbahn. They have a water ride that goes up !! Though we had to wait for hours, the ride was worth it !!!


CID's from Bangalore !!

Hanging Rock State park

Jayesh drove over to Greensboro one weekend. He reached here by 4:00 AM, so we abandoned plans to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Was googling for possible alternatives when I stumbled onto the 'Hanging Rock State Park'. Since we didnt have anything else to do, we left for the park.



At Hanging Rock State Park


Posing near the Lake


The Summit

New York

Went for Thanksgiving trip to New York with Jayesh. He came down to DC, and we started off to NY. Met Zacchu on the way, and stayed at his house for the night.

Next morn, we toured Statue of liberty, Ground Zero, and Empire State Building. We also toured a couple of NY metro's as a part of our getting lost in NY act. We finally made it to Ju's by evening.

Spent the next day at an Indian localoty near NY. Feasted on yummy Dahi Chat, fried Fish etc. We went back to NY downtown on the corner of empire state building, where we met Ajay. Then it was off to Scranton (Jayesh's place).

Spent the next day travelling ( Scranton to DC to Greensboro ). Thats a whole lot of travel !!!



Lady Liberty


Jayesh in 'Kal Ho Na Ho' Style


With JU

Grandfather Mountain

Visited Grandfather Mountain with JJ, Ankit and Ramya. Trekked a little, enjoyed a lot, even spent some time at a local vineyard too, sampling their stuff. Something on the lines of Sideways.


At the Grandfather Mtn


The Summit !!


Vineyards


At the vineyard bar !!

Salt Lake city

Went to meet Rahulan, Appukuttan and Nishant @ Salt Lake City. Appukuttan had come up from LA.

Day 1 was spent visiting the Great Salt Lake to watch the sunset. Met Zen Abraham, my friend from school. We had a wonderful time in the evening at rahulan's place.

The next day, we went hiking near Timpanogos Cave. Unfortunately, we couldnt get into the cave as the tickets got sold out. However, the hike made up for the excitement.

SALT LAKE
-------------


CID's from Chennai !!


The Salt Lake



At the salt lake


Sunset At Salt Lake

Near Timpanogos Cave
------------------------


Lake on top of the mountains.


We hiked on these !!

Its been awhile

And Its been a while,
Since I read some blog
And Its been a while,
Since I had time to myself
And Its been a while,
since I gone and posted something up on this blog ...

Inspired from 'Stained' ...

A Memorable Disaster

Images from 4th June 2005 keep haunting me, each time I open the dashboard of my car and gaze at the amount printed on the service bill. I did salvage most of the depression on the 5th June though. However, the scar still remains.

Rajesh (Pandi), Rajesh (Bull), Gopi and Myself had gone on a trip to Ooty that weekend. We planned to leave for Mysore by 4:00PM on Friday and camp at mysore for the night. Our first setback. Pandi had a meeting which extended well over 6:00PM. It was around 8 when we started off from Bangalore.

Construction was in progress on the road to mysore, to widen it to a four-lane highway. Traveling on such a road (when its in construction) is a nightmare. They had built speed-breakers for fun. You would come across a solitary one, sometimes a pair ( the construction Corp considered romantic aspects perhaps ? ), and sometimes in groups of five or more !! I spent more time on verbal slander than on driving, till I reached mysore.

Next morning (Ie, doomsday morning), we left for ooty at 7:15AM. We had planned to reach ooty by around 11:00, so that we could enjoy the beauty of the place before getting down to some serious boozing !!


Story as told by Hercules XXX Rum (pint bottle):
---------------------------------------------------------------
They bought me on Wednesday, at an exorbitant price of 160Rs (as it was past 11 PM) and took me home. For some reason, they didn't drink that day. On Friday evening, pandi casually dropped me in the car. They were planning to drink once they reached ooty.

On Saturday morning ( around 9:30 AM Approx), a policeman at the karnataka-Tamilnadu border picked me up gruffly and took me to the station. Pandi had to bail me out @ 500Rs. The border police then asked us to go back to Karnataka, drink, and then enter Tamilnadu. I think everyone's interest in me had waned by then, as I was poured out on the roadside by krishnan.


Story as told by My Hundai Accent
---------------------------------------------
The drive to Mysore was peaceful, albeit the interminable speed-breakers and curses from krishnan. Next day, we drove past the KA-TN border, circled around the area again, and left for Ooty. There are two routes to ooty, and we picked the shortest (30Km less, but with 36 hairpin bends instead of 6). All was peaceful till we started the climb. Very soon, I was over-heating and my engines fuming, and I finally faltered and conked out at the 18th turn.

After I had cooled down a bit, krishnan opened up my coolant tank and concluded that we had been loosing a lot of coolant, as there was none in the tank. Pandi and gopi volunteered to go to Ooty and come back with mechanics from the Hundai service center. They came back at 2:00PM in a Jeep (which cost them an exorbitant 450Rs).

We drove back ( some in the Jeep, Gopi and a mechanic with me) to Ooty, where they re-fitted me with a new coolant tank, ( as the current one had ruptured) and filled me with coolant. I am a pretty expensive guy to have around, It cost them around 2700Rs.


Story as told by the Auto-Rickshaw @ Ooty
--------------------------------------------------------
They hailed me in front of the Hundai Service center at around 4:00 PM. They hadn't booked any accommodation at ooty, but gopi knew of this place called 'Hotel Lakeview'. The lodge is on the suburbs of town. However, all rooms were already let out. Our next stop was 'Hotel Queens', where the event repeated. We went around town to a few other lodges too. Finally, they asked me to go back to the service center.

Ill-fate seems to be following them everywhere, as I got punctured around a Kilometer from the showroom. They decided to walk back.


(Back to my story)
At Ooty, We finally found a lodge next to the Hundai service center at around 5:00PM. It was a small dingy room, with an extra cot on the floor. The roof started leaking as soon as it began to rain. However, we were getting pretty used to our destiny to notice.

The receptionist mentioned a decent bar named ' Court' and Bull remembered seeing a signboard 'Rose Garden' near a hotel. We hailed a Rickshaw to take us to 'Rose Garden'. He promptly took us to the botanical garden ( We learned later, the signboard 'Rose Garden' bull saw, also mentioned that the place was 1Km further, and in the botanical garden. Lucky he didnt seen the signboard 'bangalore' anywhere) !! We then asked the Rick to take us to 'Court'. He questioned 'Selvans Court' ? and we nodded our assent.

We reached 'Sullivans Court', a posh 3 Star hotel after a few minutes. We paid a lumpsum to the auto driver ( getting quite used to paying money for nothing now, bull had sardonically joked we could just go to the street and give money to every person we meet ... It would be cheaper that way ). We got into another auto, and told the guy to take us to a nearby Bar.

It was at the Bar that our train of ill-luck was laid to rest, as we subdued our desperation with opious amounts of alcohol.

The next day was calm and peaceful. We had a wonderful time at ooty, and left for mysore by the long way.

Stranded!!

Finally found time to blog this, as the event was so memorable. It is only rarely that incidents like Getting Drunk, Mobile conking out being out of range, awake at 1:00 AM midnight, miles away from any abode, dogs barking at you etc ... happen together as it did this time !!!

It all started with my thirst for adventure (quenched visibly since then ) appealing to me at 11:00 PM in the night ( practical absurdities seem trite after you have quaffed opious amounts of alcohol ). We ( Nambiar and myself ) decided to go on a drive way beyond sarjapur.

Beyond sarjapur is a total wasteland, converted intermittantly into farmlands, which were growing something like cabbages then. Not a soul around for miles, till at around 1:00 PM, when some poor farmer decided to check out a car and two people squatting at the end of his field. After his interruption, we decided that it was time to back home and sleep.

We turned back, only to realize that the car tyre was punctured. Nambiar visibly remembered ( intoxicated though he was ) removing the tool kit from the car a few day prior.

Incidents like these tend to clear your mind in a flash, as we began to realize the situation we were in. Its in times like that you wish you were too drunk to comprehend the gravty of these situations. Unfortunately ....

I believe I failed to mention seeing no vehicle passing by where we sat, and our location was a few miles away from the nearest road. We spent our first hour trekking along the countryside, awakening the dogs in the neighbourhood, until we finally found a location where our mobiles indicated a barely available network. We spent the next hour by the side of the main road awaiting our friends and pondering on the impending slandour.

Our friends finally came at 4:00 in the morning, and all ended well as we were saved the verbal assault since our friends were too sleepy !!!

Home Alone

For the first time in four years, I am home alone this weekend.

I share my humble abode with five others ( Actually, around 4 years ago, there ware about 14 of us living together. However, the major resource, the restroom, proved to be a huge bottleneck ).

However, this weekend my friends have business elsewhere:
Hari - Gone to Goa
punnadi ( A.k.a Gopi ) - Gone home
Bull ( A.k.a Rajesh) - Gone Home
Thee thee (A.k.a Vikas ) - Gone to the US
Rahulan - Gone to the US

I am trying to acclimatize to this environment. Its better to be prepared for some off chance situation of being alone !! Atleast 'It will build character (Calvins dad in Calvin & Hobbes)' .

Incidentally, I have just spent my first hours of being 'alone' blogging on my PC and visiting orkut communities !! More of these experiences, and I will be one serious blogger !!!

My world of streamed audio

Finally got my piece of streaming audio action today. I had access to streaming audio earlier too, but today was the first time I found the audio mesmerising and exhilirating during my working hours at office.

• 128 KBPS - Kinda mp3 quality, which, is kinda CD quality. So this is kinda kinda CD.
• No congestion - I assume my collegues were too engrossed in their work to download anything.
  
• Real Audio 10 on Solaris ( DO refer to my blog on installing software on solaris)
• Radio Paradise Yeah ... It Rocks ( and Pops, Reggae's )
  

Need I say more ??

Search and thou shall find

The internet - The all encompassing colossal warehouse of information ( and mp3's, and exe's ). Then, why is it that finding 'stuff' ( as in mp3's ) on the internet always seems interminable and the files elusive ?

My mooooost prrrrrefered seeeearch ennnngine ( U guessed right .. gooooogle) usually disappoints me when I want to search and download some 'stuff' on the internet. It feeds me news reviews, concert timings and almost all information on the topic but the files themselves. It is frustrating to know that there is a file out there just outside your reach.

Finally, I seem to have figured it out. The problem is not in the search engine ( obviously not !! ) . The solution is in properly guiding google to find your file. The files are out there, hidden in some server, waiting to be accessed by someone.

There are two ways to get to the file. One, by clicking on links and closing annoying/lascivious popups for what seems like eternity to get to the above said server, or two, by searching within the servers directly (through google). I will now divulge my ken on the second method.

For example, if you want to find your favorite mp3:
Google search for:
"index of" "parent directory" your favourite mp3 ".mp3"

You know you have hit the jackpot if you find a result matching:
Index of /some server/[~] some name/
One glimpse at the site contents and you will understand why I used the above search terms.

exe:
"index of" "parent directory" your favourite exe ".exe"

pdf:
"index of" "parent directory" your favourite pdf ".pdf"

Now .... It all seems soo easy ... Doesn't it.
I guess its time for you to upgrade to a faster internet connection !!!