OMG Its so cool!

Let's Go! We left Las Vegas in the morning. Nothing exciting about it but just to mention that the entire ride to Grand Canyon involved lots of sledging, shouting, getting emotional about relationships and talking about other's affairs and marriages. Yeah, I completely agree with you here - aren't my friends becoming *uncles* and looking like settling in life? (besides the sledging and shouting part) ;) Anyways, all this happening with loads and loads of music (thanks to my iPod+FM transmitter). We noticed a few listening patterns here. All of us have similar music taste but which song to listen to next depends on the mood. Everybody tried DJing but some failed to put the right song next. While the iPod rotated through different people, it was only one iDJ who came out on top (the one who *created* the best mood in the car). Unfortunately, that award does not go to me (I admit I suck at DJing). Its Bonda! From "Qayamat se Qayamat Tak" to "Love Rap", it w...

Drinks with Cleopatra Just an attractive title to catch your attention :) But its ok. There is a Cleopatra in the story. Read on! After freshening up in the hotel, we decided to visit a few more casinos. We headed to the heart of the Las Vegas Blvd strip and considered parking in Ceasar's Palace parking lot. We enter the parking lot without taking a parking ticket or anything. It was free! Its not what you'd expect in US where in most big cities, parking is like $15-20 bucks. I did tell my friends about this little fact but they didn't seem to believe me. At that point though, everybody agreed with me that parking is indeed free all over in Las Vegas. Actually, my friends never believe me the first time for anything as I come out with these wierd facts which simply sounds, umm, made-up. Well, sometimes they are not! :) So, as we entered the parking lot, [Again, this section is censored. Its the damn confidentiality agreement of 813ers]. ... and we walked out of the parking ...

Arrival of the Corporate Pal, Bonda and I were leaving Luxor's 32nd floor when we got a call from Patil. He announced the arrival of "Black Beauty", otherwise known as the Corporate. The Corporate's characteristics are very peculiar. His poker-face will hide every thought in His mind but His *broadcasting* nature will make sure we are up-to-date with the latest in our common friends' lives. Why is he THE Corporate? Because He is known for his adventerous lifestyle, having extravagant dinners, buying latest gadgets and ofcourse, his frequent trips to Europe, Mexico and to his ideal city, Raleigh. The Corporate made no exceptions in this trip too and made sure he had the most expensive airline ticket and paid a whopping 25 bucks for a cab from the airport to our hotel. But it took us only a few hours to bring Him out of his *corporate* mode. Bus ride Pal, Bonda and I leave Luxor to return back to our booked hotel. We had to catch up with Patil/Kokate to pickup *corp...

Rental Car We booked a rental car at the airport itself. All five of us were waiting in line to get one car. Its the kind of close friendship we have (umm, and the other reason is that otherwise, they would have just left the whole goddamn thing on me). So we got a Ford freestar but boy, its horsepower felt less than my Honda Civic. This ford minivan dragged like a hand-cart and a full press of its acceleration pedal only resulted in the rpm zooming into the red zone (but the speed would remain the same). That's ford's magic for you! Anyways, Pal was the navigator and he sure knows how to be a *pain-in-the-ass*. For the car! :) Our rental car policy is simple. Drive to its extreme! Taking some hints from New Orleans trip, Pal jumped up to take the sole responsiblity to check the music system. Yea, it did sound *loud* at full volume and no, it didn't break the car windows. Oh, he even tried slamming the doors a few times in the parking lot to make sure it sounds *closed*. Bo...

Poop Fluid When we left for the flight, we didn't have breakfast. So, we grab a quickie at the terminal only to find the coffee was horrible (that liquid shit made me dehydrated throughout my flight). I had a muffin too which was really wierd. It had a shape like a wild mushroom. Somehow, in the anticipation of meeting old pals, I gulped it down. The Airport Timetable 03:00 EST: Bonda leaves Erie to reach Pittsburgh in 3 hours time due to heavy snow. His first experience of driving in heavy snow went alright. 05:00 EST: Along with Patil, my journey starts from Raleigh. Keyur drops us to the airport while he was suppose to leave for India the next day. 08:00 EST: We meet Bonda on Pittsburgh airport. Our connecting flight is the same flight to Las Vegas. 08:15 EST: Patil calls up on Pal. He's fast asleep. Lol. PST, EST mein gadbad. 10:00 PST: Pal confirms he's waiting for us. So does Kokate 11:00 PST: We reach baggage claim. In a second (literally), we find our bags and Pati...

"We ride together, we die together. Bad boys for life." Introduction I look back two months ago and I don't even see 7 of us ready for the trip. Two weeks back, we had no details of the trip. Somehow, we got it right. As always! :) There is so much I have to say that I could write a 200-page book on it. But who has the time for it, unless ofcourse, somebody is ready to pay for it :) So instead, I'll just write my experience in a blogger's style. We planned this trip in a way that, with one stone, we kill 2 (actually, a lot more) birds at the same time. We visit Las Vegas, drive to Grand Canyon, visit some *points* and return back to Las Vegas. Ofcourse, during the trip, we see casinos, take fun-rides, see the sunset at Grand Canyon, maybe even a helicopter ride and gamble. The icing over the cake was that this was suppose to be our 1st annual reunion. But not everything worked out. We planned for a "Frisbee Football Championship" (a Clemson tradition) bu...

Some Bollywood movie titles are unique. They have 2 parts. First is the actual name and the other is the slogan. I like the slogan part. Sometimes, they would not even match the actual meaning of the name of the movie. I feel its gotta have a deeper meaning to it! Or maybe, that makes the title sound *interesting* (to the producers, I guess). Double Cross - Ek Dhoka, Fareb - Twisted Love, Lucky - No Time For Love, Waqt - Race Against Time and Aan - Men at Work are a few. Ofcourse I like this concept. No wonder they inspired me to title this blog in the same way. After you read the rest of the blog, you'll think, and think again, to realise the true essense of this title. I work in the storage industry. Since it involves understanding SAN configurations, I gave a thought for a second and realised if I were to give a brief description of what SAN is, I would be stumped! A short, simple answer of my industry should be good enough to prove my knowledge here. So, I start Googling for so...

"VANDE MATARAM"-TRIBUTE OF A.R.RAHMAN. "I dedicate this album to the future generations of India. I wish that this album inspires them to grow up with the wealth of human values and ethics that this country is made of. I wish that the youth of today would wipe out phrases like 'chaltha hai' from thier vocabularies and find themselves motivated human beings." - AR Rahman . Get it Here

Google has given us more ways to see a lot of things that we did not want people to look at. Be it your house via satellite (Google Earth), your achievements (Google search your name), your phone number and even your address (Google Phonebook feature). It so happens that if you are good at googling, you can pretty much find anything. The other day, I was buying a computer accessory from CraigsList and I made a deal with this person. He only revealed me his email when he replied to mine. Not only did I get his full name, I got his significant achievements, his video, his phone number and his address. Virtually, I am over his house right now in Google Earth. Is this bad? Good? Who knows? I got an idea beforehand what his address was and it was easier for me to get a printout of the directions. I won't reveal his identity here but its a classic case of identity revelation. Take for instance the Phonebook feature. My cousin wanted my mailing address and I gave her mine. For curiosity, ...

I listen to these prank calls from Z100 and watch Punk'd on Mtv. I wondered whether I would be gullible to such pranks. "I am sure I would never get mad", I said to myself. Unfortunately, Bonda punk'd me! I was so so mad at him for not joining us for our reunion trip as I must have put so much efforts to find him a deal. I was helping him make the decision on buying the ticket and he kept delaying, sorta lying. Basically he just stumped me! During my lunch time today, I was at my peak when I talked with Dsu, Korade, Pal - all sympathizing with me of Bonda's behavior. Then Bonda revealed the truth. He had bought the ticket a week back. He just got me (or rather, us) big time! I must say, his act was pretty darn good .... I guess I am gullible to such pranks too "I got punk'd, man!" "Damn!!! I always wanted to say that :):)"

Last weekend, I went to my first concert in the US. The performers were top 2 of my college-time favorites - Bryan Adams and Def Leppard. The better part was Bryan Adams though - Def Leppard acted like jackasses towards the end of the concert. Man, they were just rushing. Who cares? They played all the ones I liked (and a few more). Some people got turned off with that but I am loyal to their music. On the other hand, Bryan Adam's performance was amazing. Not only his music and his voice was so damn clear, he has an amazing stage presence. You could actually feel THE Bryan Adams performing on stage. ... and all this for 30 bucks including food, lawn chairs and beer!!! Not bad, huh! :)

[Its my story but I am giving it a twist. I have written this blog in a style (cheaply) imitating a dumb Blondee writing it. Enjoy] This one time, my roommate had an unlimited 10 bucks-a-month blockbuster account at which time I used to join him to get some movie. There were these DVDs at a particular shelf that always attracted my attention. The DVD cover was white and showed 2 feet. Yea, Actual feet!! The font used for its title was a little strange and I read the title as, "SALU". So, I thought this could be a documentary about some tribe who walk bare-foot. After 4 months of that incident, my friend suggested me to watch a movie in which there's this 2 guys tied by chains in a room with a dead man's body in the center of the room. The whole movie revolves around it. When I went to blockbuster to get that movie, the BB guy pointed it to the same DVD I thought was a documentary. It was actually SAW. The font was deceptive. So, yup, that was about it. Nothing extraor...

Can you freaking believe it? I drove all those miles in just 12 days. It took me 8 bottles of Aquafina, a bottle of Dasani, 4 Rest Areas stops, a dozen food exits and NO speeding tickets to drive those miles. Facts aside, all the trips were special to me in some way. Newark, NJ + Manhattan, NY - 1300 miles I started off this long 10-hour journey over long weekend and let me tell you, its exhausting! I tested my limits of driving alone in this trip. You know, after 8 hours in traffic, you are at a different level than other drivers. I did not even feel the speed, the traffic noise and the AC of the car. I was like Neo from the Matrix. I pushed my car to 90-100 miles on the NJ Turnpike while it was full of traffic and dodged all the way to my destination cutting my time by a couple of hours. I was changing 5 lanes at a time just to get ahead of those cars. I moved so fast that others thought I was being chased by the cops that they actually made way for me :) For a second, I thought time...

A half-filled tea cup is sitting on my desk. The tea-bag is still in the cup and the tea should be lukid warm now. An Eddie Bauer transparent pearl-grey water bottle is right next to the tea-cup. Its cap is hanging on the side and there is some water left in it. An empty coffee disposable cup is lying in the trash can right behind my desk. Some statistics are running on my desktop screen. My fingers are cold and my hands feel the burden of my fingers. And my mind is swinging from one topic to another. You may be wondering, "What's going on with this guy? Had I not been surrounded by tea, coffee and water, most of you might think I may be high. Apparently I am not high or dry but just feeling weak and am trying all things to get better." So how did it all come down to this? One or more of the following caused me to fall sick - 1. Change of weather (suddenly, today morning I felt quite cool - but that maybe because of the sickness) 2. Dropping off car for service and doing ...

I was in Clemson this weekend and boy was it a nostalgic trip. From the lush green Bowman field to the lively Clemson Downtown - it was all the same! I met my old friends at Keith street, friday night playing pool. Believe me, I went straight to Keith street the time I reached Clemson. Ofcourse, I passed by Astro, our $2 movie hall (which shows 2-month old movies), Louis Bregger's house (his backyard was our pee-hole :)) and Village Green (desi-hub). It all started when I thought of meeting up Dsu and Korade in Atlanta. As it so happened, Patil's research-group friend had invited him to Clemson too. Now, with a lil pursuasion, Viraj joined us too. Keyur, my roommate, was ready to come Atlanta/Clemson but last minute "health problems" forced him to stay home. Even I was not sure of making this trip then till Dsu made a final call to invite us in. And since I wanted to meet Dsu's girlfriend about whom I had heard such good things, I wasn't disappointed meeting h...

Anyone from Mumbai would have experienced this at his favorite roadside vendor - Paani Puri - You are there, in a queue, and the vendor is in a zen-like state of panipuri-distribution, his hands working purely on instinct. He does multiple things at the same time, juggle preferences - like one customer wants only sweetened pani, one wants more of the filling, another wants more onions , keep a count of how many of the gobblers around him have gobbled how many panipuris. You are part of the system. You lift the panipuri from your plate in one fluid motion, taking care not to spill the water on your clothes or your shoes or ( sacrilege!) the ground. You gulp it down, making sure that you do not breathe when you do so - lest you cough up the puri on your neighbour and cause all the devotees considerable distress. And you also ensure that you're done with the panipuri that was assigned to you before the next one lands on your plate - otherwise the older one will get soggy, and the newe...

Officially launched the new version of my homepage - 3.0 . I had started my first release with a plain white interface with orange Flash buttons to match my university theme. For a year, I had many 1.x releases where I changed the logos and the main content of my homepage. After a year, I came out with Welcome2.0. This homepage version was an instant hit among friends and had a cool neon interface. DHTML links and CSS layout were its highlights and lasted for a couple of years. In early 2005, the Welcome2.0 bugs were prominent and the site's popularity gradually went down. Took fresh efforts to come out with 2.x releases but could not complete due to lack of resources. Finally, inspired by Andy Runton's homepage, I thought of considering a simple and elegant style for my homepage. This new 3.0 is my simple homepage with Antipixel design buttons and a collage of me and my previous releases. Hope you like it :)

Try it out! Wiki is really wicked! You can get all kinds of information from definitions, concepts, guides, tutorials to images, ideas and advice. Its much more than an enclycopedia. Its beyond that! Its based on the idea that anybody can edit and create content for free. You may not realise that this makes it so powerful that over time, all of our knowledge would be in Wiki. Really, I am not kidding. My company has started using Wiki to manage our Engineering documentation. This approach allows us to edit pages so that we have the RIGHT content all the time. In fact, I am glad a bunch of Computer Science students from my university has started off with a ClemsonWiki project. They are trying to list departments , professors , dorms, housing , dining areas, happening places etc in it. Students share their on-campus snaps on it. I was interested in knowing about Dr. Geist (his teaching is amazing) and I am pretty sure that Patil, my friend, would be interested about his advisor, Dr. Li...

I got back to my work today and it was a long and busy day. I had piles of work but got it almost done. This week is surely gonna keep me busy (and maybe, over the weekend too). Its good that last weekend's trip was not tiring otherwise the side-effects come over the week. We had been to Blowing Rock to meet Vishal's "business-friend" over the weekend. The place where we met him was Blowing Rock which is at the border of TN and NC. Its a beautiful place but I found mostly oldies out there. Its actually good for skiing and winter sports and is considered to be in the Appalachian mountain range. ALso visited a waterfall. Although the falls weren't that great, the view was fantastic. Here's a glimpse of it

Today was a very sad day for me. My grandmother expired yesterday and however hard I try to control myself, my eyes get wet. Maa (that's what we used to call) was suffering with a deadly disease, as suffered by Michael J. Fox and M.Ali. She was an intelligent woman and had great will power. She fought the disease for many years. I think in her final years, she struggled a lot to live and suffocated in that body. Her body shook for hours and she needed a lot of support. Maa even started forgetting her near and dear ones but occasionally, remembered one of us. She would always smile when my brother used to visit her and would keep holding my hands when I met her last summer. She had very strong likes/dislikes and also had few common tastes like me. I know this because I stayed all my childhood along with Maa in a joint family. Maa was respected by everybody in our society and people occasionally came to visit her. I had hoped that she would get cured some day and lead a normal life b...

I made a second trip after the memorial day and it was completely unplanned. My cousin Jinal was on an East Coast trip and she was here in Maryland. So on friday evening, I set off for Maryland and dodged the cops all the way to reach in like 4 hours. I had really nice time with her (and some good time with my uncles, aunts :)). I tried to show off my ipod music collection only to realize I deleted them somehow which put me in an embarassing situation (she knows I am good with techie stuff but still made this blunder). Then, I had to listen to her songs which, surprisingly, were mostly desi. I hardly have any desi songs with me. Its time I should get some. nho on Sunday, I called up a dear friend of mine - Maulik. He told me he could meet me in the evening. We met at a gas station after 4 years! Some nostalgic moment, huh? Naa! we talked for a couple of hours as if we meet each other often and then I headed back home. You know, the best part of these unplanned trips are no expectations...

I was returning home last week at this time after a 2-day camping trip at Gatlinburg. Dsu, as usual, was the jungle guide trying to explore new trails (mossy rocks, messy streams and muddy paths). In the process, I broke my sunglasses and Dsu fell flat on his back (that brought him to his senses). Kris came along with his childhood (or was it undergrad?) friend and I came along with Viraj and my roommate. You can visit here for the snaps. We planned for bungee jumping only to realise Gatlinburg has like, 20-feet jumps which was a complete turnoff. We thought of going for go-kart racing but thought it was tooo childish and decided to play mini-golf :) It was a tiring game! :D Actually, there was lot of traffic behind us and we had to hurry up our game. I would also count this as one of my excuses of not winning the tournament ;) Since I lost my sunglasses, everyone felt bad for me and took me to an Optics shop. They all bought a pair except me! This trip brought something new for me - ...

Where do Mana, strength, dexterity, magic, weapons and skills come into picture? In video games! I love to play these games occasionally. Since I do not have a PS2/Xbox, I play them on my PC. For a few years, I had been playing only the Need for Speed racing series but I have jumped to a different game now - Diablo II . I am all hooked up to this game these days and just want to finish it. Ofcourse, I use cheats and trainers so that I do not "die" if some enemy hits me and it also helps me finish off the game earlier. I love the idea of playing "God mode" even though it is criticized by avid gamers. I think its a good work-around for people like me who don't have sufficient patience and time to keep playing the game the sincere way. The next in line are Populous: The Beginning (Fantastic concept for a strategy game) and GTA series.

@ Wilmington

A beautiful Rainbow after a very dull, wet day. As seen from my apartment on 3rd floor

Everybody knows how annoying spam could be! I even stopped using Hotmail for the simple reason that I started getting more spam in my Inbox than the real emails. Ofcourse, it became really slow service too! And even Bulk folder seemed helpless! Now, has anyone ever got junk emails that were automatically subscribed to you for some newsletter service? I hate it when they do that! I had bought a gamepad from Overstock.com and they kept sending me a newsletter everyday. I unsubscribed to their newsletters about a dozen times but it kept coming. I think its about time I take some action. About 3 months back, I had made some email enquiries for new car price quote. I keep getting their email newsletters even now. I clearly remember requesting them to please remove me from their list. No reply and the mails kept coming! Today, I got really irritated by their mail but instead of a rough reply, I thought of a better reply: "UNSUBSCRIBE. I don't need any more updates as i have moved ou...

Recently, there was this "exposure" of Shakti Kapoor (aka Goga, Mogambo ka Bhatija :D) on a b-grade news channel. Shakti asked for "favor" from a girl who wanted to be an actress. The channel staged the whole thing and caught Shakti in the act. What they did was helped his wife find out that he was cheating on her. Shakti is neither a politician nor a government employee. He neither works for secret services nor does he work with public affairs. So, why the focus on him by this news channel? Just a stupid entertainment stunt by a naive news channel! My belief is they misused technology and behaved in a childish manner. They have no right to invade privacy of this person. I completely agree with Anil Thakraney on this issue. Read his article.

Scenic Sunnyvale With Pal and Myself With Pal in Silicon Valley

Potholes! Lots of potholes and much more dodging with them! I face them after roughly two and a half years. Ofcourse, I had a brief period of their encounter last summer but they are back again to haunt me forever. I thought I would never find them in the States but I guess I was wrong. And yes, there are differences between potholes from, back on the streets of Mumbai, to the curvy roads of Durham-Morrisville. Here, the potholes are much deeper but smaller, ruin your car suspension by those deep impacts and a big pain in the ass. Back in Mumbai, the potholes were larger (so you basically can't avoid them), shallower and since the Indian cars were not comfy anyway, so it did not much matter what your car is going through. There is a protocol that car owners follow for avoiding potholes. People are very cooperative out here. If you are following a new car, the driver will take all the steps to avoid his car going over a pothole. So, follow his footsteps! If he diverts a little left,...

For the past two and a half years, I was deprived of my right to eat at Indian restaurants for the only reason that there weren't any desi restaurants in my locality. Now that I have access to half a dozen desi restaurants, my aim is to make up for the 2 years in one week. This would definitely upset my stomach and eventually, feel a "spicy curry" punch down my intestines. But as long it satisfies my cravings, I would keep munching tandoori khaana :)

"Right? Or left?" "Argh! I better go right!" "Oops! Wrong direction!" "I told you to take the left from there" "Yea! Yea!" That's me murmuring while trying to find my way back home. I have lost my way almost every time while trying to reach home this week. Since I have just moved from Clemson, a tiny town in SC, I have been puzzled by the twisty highways of Raleigh area. What I really need is an accurate GPS navigator which can guide me and tons of music from my collection so that even if I get lost, I can still listen to some good music instead of the stupid talk shows on radio. Apple, help me out! ;)

I lost my touch. I think so much, still find no luck. I used to write a blog, I found right. Now I need to be bright and sharp like the edge of a knife. Yes, I am coming back to life.