dev2r

Why online recommendations don't work - II

2007-04-03T21:36:00.000-07:00

Why onl

Fame - The Article

2007-01-18T21:26:00.001-08:00

By Brad Stone, (of the non-porn variety), a piece in the NYTimes about LMB.

Moved.

2006-07-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

Just because.

Faster Pussycats

2006-06-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

Pictured above: The roving skater chicks of NYC. Their vigilante justice is swift and... sexy. They roam the mean streets of the city looking for jaywalkers and handbag snatchers, preferably Prada or Vuitton.

A fun thing to do in NY: Stand in front of the WTC PATH Station and mislead tourists. The WTC PATH station lies right below the street level of Ground Zero. The throngs of camera-laden visitors to the site are easily confused by the imposing entrance to the PATH station. On any given weekend, any person emerging from the station is bound to be questioned by tourists if there's anything worthwhile 'down there'. There is really nothing down there -- just a bunch of paintings by kids. I guess that's something.

Freefall

2006-05-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

I skydived (skydove?) for the first time yesterday. The rush when I just walked off the airplane into nothing and realized what gravitational acceleration actually meant was incredible. The experience would have been even sweeter had I actually pulled the cord myself and steered some more.

Still, jumping off a propeller plane with a 220-lb hungarian man strapped to your back and realizing all you have is 12000 feet of thin air between you and the ground is quite exhilarating. I would definitely do it again, if only to prepare myself to do a solo.

Hysteria - Trifecta

2006-05-20T06:39:00.000-07:00

It is said that the female gender is ten times more likely to suffer mental disorders than the male. So much so that the word 'hysteria' was coined from the same root as the word 'hysterectomy'. A few filmmakers, perpetually fascinated with the female gender and its enigma, try to explore and depict this in their movies.

There are three films I can think of that center around this subject.

* Through a glass darkly - Part of Bergman's Faith trilogy, the film shows Karin is going mad and is completely aware of it. Given to Bergman's trademark dialogues (and monologues), Karin muses on the futility of faith when she can see herself sliding into madness.

* Turkish Delight - Rutger Hauer's first starring role. The film's protagonist might be an exuberant sculptor in love with an equally exuberant woman, but the film focuses more on the woman when the joie-de-vivre of both gradually turns into despair.

* Betty Blue - A french film that comes pretty close to being the quintessential film in the 'woman gone crazy' genre -- if there is such a genre. Again, the woman's liveliness is only the crest of her manic-depressive cycle, so the man in love gets a fair helping of both phases.

Apart from the depressing subject matter, all three movies are a pleasure to watch. 'Through a glass...' for Nyquist's black-and-white cinematography, and the other two for their share of unashamed nudity. 'Betty Blue', with its brilliant summertime colors and eccentric characters, is quite a visual treat on High-Def.

Pulse

2006-03-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

There are two nightmares I had as a child that I still remember. They both came during a fevered sleep.

S. was our housemaid and she came and washed clothes and cleaned the house everyday. In one of my nightmares, S. was washing our clothes on a big stone placed in the center of a concrete platform. The platform was designed to drain water from the washing into a small gutter. As S. was beating my mother's sarees on ths stone , a strange thing happened; the colors of the saree began to fade and run into the gutter. And along with it, S.

Imagine a three-dimensional person turned into a two-dimensional palette of red, purple and black, and dissolving into oblivion. This was my own 'Scream' and scream I did, when I woke up in the middle of the night.

A few weeks ago, I watched a movie that came close to representing what existential horror was. After watching 'Pulse' I was left with an incredible sadness, one that lingered for some days before dissipating.

There were no weird-eyed freaks or girls of the Japanese horror genre in this movie. It was more of a meditation on loneliness combined with a backstory based on the supernatural. What does my dream have to do with Pulse? It seems that the difference between existing and not-existing is just one of dimensions - three to two, and then you're gone.

Cashing in on the hypno-monkey craze

2006-03-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

This came up as a google link on my other blog. It was too weird to not click.

My first real blizzard

2006-02-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

The incomparable Bill Hicks:

"Haven't been here in a while, man. Livin' out in Los Angeles now...LA, or as I like to call it, Hell-A, and uh, I just like getting out of there at any point, just to go anywhere, for the weather.

They don't have fucking weather there. Hot and sunny, every day. Today: hot and sunny in LA. Yesterday: hot and sunny. Every day: hot and sunny, and they love it. 'I'n it great, every day, hot and sunny! Hot and sunny every day.'

What are you, a fucking lizard? Only reptiles feel that way about this kind of weather. You know, I'm a mammal, I can afford scarves, coats, cappuccino, and rosy-cheeked women...and all are available for sale on the streets of New York...

Where I soon be returning, because LA is a nightmare city, and the sooner it falls into the ocean due to a major earthquake and is flushed away like the turd city it is, into the Pacific bowl, the better this world will be, thank you, good evening.

Yes, good evening, how are you tonight? Good. The comedy of hate. Join me."

PosterWire

2006-02-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

I've been browsing through PosterWire. It's a good read for anyone interested in the art of film posters. The most popular genre of movie posters seems to be 'Big Heads Floating in the Sky'. I used to have 'The Two Towers' on my wall - one more that belonged to the BHFITS category. Back when I used to photoshop on Fark, posters were my favorite medium. I was pretty good, if I may say so myself. :)

Of polka-dots and bikinis - I

2006-01-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

I was 14 when I first heard the remix of the song "Itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny, yellow polka dot bikini" on MTV. The lyrics were simple, but it didn't matter; the refrain was so catchy you couldn't help sing along.

It was the summer vacation and we used to play table tennis at The Club. There were two tables: A 'Stag' for the more experienced players, and a generic, rickety one stored in a 11'X11' room for the amateurs. Only four could play on the superior table, and the other was reserved for the hordes of bored teenagers who didn't have enough skills for the better one.

The only way to give everybody a chance on the bad table was to play 'Americans'. The way it worked was everyone to go round and round the table, hitting the ball back and forth until one missed it and was ejected from the circle. There were cabals and conspiracies to eject certain players, but that's a whole different story.

Now imagine 30 hormone-filled boys going around a table that barely left any space in a dingy room on a hot April day, chanting "Iiiiit waaaas aaaan itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini"; it was religious. The Masai tribe might have had its initiation for boy-men around a fire with ashes and embers flying about, but this was our own initiation; to boldly shout a taboo word instead of a war-cry, and waving our cheap TT bats instead of blood-tipped spears.

Jersey City?

2006-01-03T17:37:00.000-08:00

Anyone in Jersey City/Harrison? I'm looking for some information, please email me or post a comment if you can help.

Do the Brown Nose

2005-12-24T10:54:00.000-08:00

My roommate and I were discussing how difficult it is to get recognized simply by your own merit when you're working with a south-asian supervisor. You had to basically turn into a fawning chamcha to the aforementioned SAS(south asian supervisor) to get anywhere. It came to me then that we are genetically destined to do so.

We weren't blessed with brown noses for no reason.

Going Ape

2005-12-22T18:53:00.000-08:00

This is how you remake a classic. I can't understand why opening-week sales were low for the film. Maybe the continuous snowfall around most parts of the US had something to do with it?

Serkis should get an Oscar for again playing a CGI part to perfection. Something I read in 'Rolling Stone' made me realize how much effort had gone into playing Kong. Gorillas are known for their strict rules on eye-contact. Jackson and Serkis had to actually plan the scenes where Kong made eye contact with anyone else.

The only bad things about King Kong - too many monsters and Jack Black. Seriously, I don't need a huge gorilla, half the known dinosaur genus, giant crickets and head-swallowing worm-things to make me watch the movie. I also didn't need Jack Black saying,"Beauty killed the beast" like it was the opening line of a Tenacious-D song.

Naomi's 'O' face (while screaming) and Kong atop Empire State would've done the trick.

Every subculture has its own band

2005-12-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

Ever heard of 'The H1Bees'? It features famed Kollywood singers like Tippu and GV Prakash (albeit a bit grown up), singing about earning dollars and missing home and other talking points of the H1B manifesto.

Everything is connected

2005-12-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

One of the last few rooftop antennae (antennaeus paricapitis) remaining in the wild. Captured in Topeka, circa 2005.

Saw 'Syriana' yesterday. Watching it was like taking a crash course in the dynamics of the oil industry. Very few movies like Syriana and Network come close to capturing the cut-throat atmosphere behind billion-dollar enterprises. With new players like China and India with their increasing fuel needs, the game is only going to get dirtier.

***SPOILERS ALERT***
p.s:
1) When Clooney turns into an unwitting suicide bomber at the end, I wondered if it was an ironic twist that the director intended.
2) Why haven't suicide bombers targeted oil tankers yet? Sometimes I feel that movies and books just give them more ideas to kill more people.

Bunny Re-enactment

2005-11-30T15:43:00.000-08:00

See if you can get all the movie references... (video takes a long time to load).

Two Gaijin Thumbs Way Up - South Korean Edition

2005-11-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

The second part of my picks for the east-asian film genre are much less shocking than their Japanese counterparts, yet they are wonderfully strange and must-sees for anyone who's looking for some variety in his/her weekend viewing.

1. 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring': One of the simplest but most beautiful movies I've ever seen. I would compare it with 'The Seventh Seal' for its straight-forwardness but the amount of monologues, dialogues and conversation in 'Spring, summer...' is much, much lesser. There are no flashy gimmicks, no technical wizardry. If there was a movie that could be called the perfect Buddhist film, then this would be it. Much of the story takes place on a lake. The lake with the surrounding scenery becomes a metaphor for life. If you don't want any surprises in a film, but a linear, no-frills story that speaks to you in powerful, simple ways, then this is the one for you.
My Rating: armchairs out of 5

2. '3-Iron': Another movie by the director of 'Spring, Summer...', Kim Ki-Duk. Kim takes on the weird this time, and plays with ideas that are bizarre but pleasing at the same time. A hero who never speaks with the heroine, more buddhist imagery, and death by golf-balls - these are the elements that make this a delight to watch.
My Rating: out of 5

3. 'Oldboy': I saved the best for last. It's the movie Tarantino would've made, if Tarantino had been a philosophy professor. The director of Oldboy, Chan Wook Park, used to be one and it shows through in his creation. It's as exciting as a whodunit, but the story revolves around the whydunit. When the revelation comes, you realize that no one has gone this far before. Even if the setup seems too fantastic, the payoff in terms of action and style is well worth it.
My Rating: out of 5

What's right with Kansas ? - II

2005-11-22T09:17:00.000-08:00

An update on why I love Lawrence.

Two Gaijin Thumbs Way Up - I

2005-11-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, I browse the forums on Rottentomatoes, where everyone's an armchair film critic and rates movies, as if it mattered to the rest of the world what he/she thought about 'Madagascar'. For example, in this deep thread about Colin Farrell's and Vin Diesel's acting credentials:

I figured it's time I rated my own list of movies, and I wanted it to be about ones that come from a certain portion of the world: East Asia. We've all seen the Ringu's and the Grudge's and the Dark Water's that get remade, but there's a whole slew of them that are just too disturbingly strange to be forgotten.

Here's my favorites:

1. 'Audition': My first Takashi Miike film. What starts out as a romantic melodrama, turns into an absolute nightmare halfway through. Miike uses an interesting gimmick at the end. In horror movies, there's usually a scene that's extremely scary, but turns out to be a dream. In Audition, he does the reverse, and uses an idyllic dream sequence in the midst of ... well, you have to watch it.

What I learnt: When a cute Japanese girl says 'Kuru Kuru Kuru' to you, STAY AWAY!
My Rating: armchairs out of 5

2. 'Ichi the Killer': Miike's obsession with the Yakuza continues, and the movie's filled with blood and gore, the way Quentin Tarantino's movies are not; the blood-letting is not fun to watch. Here's a review that summarizes the movie well.

What I learnt: Man-seed can be put to creative use in the opening credits sequence of a movie.
My Rating: out of 5

3. 'Visitor Q': If you've watched this , you can be sure that all other exploitation movies made in the future will pale in comparison to the number of taboos depicted and broken in this single one. The strangest thing about Visitor Q is that the actions of the characters make perfect sense in the logic of the movie. Beneath the jaw-dropping scenes, lies a logical solution to a family crisis.

What I learnt: Necrophilia, coprophilia, incest, and a lactation fetish can make a perfectly sweet 'family' outing.
My Rating: out of 5

What's right with Kansas?

2005-11-13T18:54:00.000-08:00

Living just thirty minutes away from a place you considered home for the last 3 years can make a big difference... especially if you live in Kansas. I never understood the snide remarks that people made about the state - they usually involved the words 'toto' or 'evolution' - until I moved to Topeka.

The difference between Lawrence and Topeka is the difference between life and ... non-life. Driving through the streets of Topeka gives you the feeling that you're riding through a ghost-town. I keep asking my new room-mate, "But what do people do here?!"

Lawrence is an example of a liberal college-town. Walk downtown and you're liable to meet potheads and sax-players in equal numbers. The nightlife is amazing; on any weekend night, there are at least four bands playing in live-music venues. Sunny Saturday afternoons are even better; downtown is bustling with families and college-students, in cafes and specialty shops.

Downtown topeka, by contrast, is known for muggings of L1-Infoscions at night. The only brewery-pub in town closes by 10:30. Live events are restricted to country music radio station 'comedy' stars. (Think 'blue collar comedy tour', but lower on the humor ladder).

The difference between L. and T. could figuratively illustrate the difference between a red and a blue state. Each town is the epitome of what it's supposed to represent. Lawrence stopped construction of a second Walmart; Topeka's state board of education voted to make Intelligent Design( a.k.a. "the theory of evolution-doesn't-explain-everything-so-it-must-be-wrong") part of the curriculum.

So, what did I get from moving? Savings of a couple of hundred dollars per month and a much, much shorter commute. Which brings me to why the little white band sits on the top left corner of this page. I was unsure about doing something like this, or even if I should try for something new, but I figured it was worth a go. If you know someone with good connections, let him know of my extreme employability. :)

Ik ben geen beroemdheid

2005-11-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

Thanks to celebrity face matching on MyHeritage.com, I discovered that I look like Jan Peter Balkenende. Such a shame, I was expecting someone more of a... celebrity.

via Kingsley2 > Riya > HorsePigCow

p.s: apologies for the japanese porn pixelation...

Degrees of abuse

2005-10-30T22:29:00.000-08:00

Compare and contrast. One is disappointing while the other is depressing.

I've noticed that in South India, most women always walk two feet behind their husbands. This has nothing to do with submissiveness or respect. The sari, by virtue of its restrictive 'cylindricalness', hinders women from taking longer steps. The same goes for Kimonos, which are, if anything, even more tightly wrapped than saris. Is there a relation between how women dress and how women assert themselves in different cultures?

Update: Added Suddenlee to the blogroll. His burning desire to nuke mylapore is overshadowed only by his morbid fetish for dinosaurs.

Needs more Torgos

2005-10-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

via SepiaMutiny: The desi/asian answer to MST3K - Uncle Morty's Dub Shack. Check out 'Goatman'.

Smart Cars

2005-10-11T15:11:00.000-07:00

Here's another reason why Canada rules - Smart cars. I thought the car I had spotted during my trip was a custom-ordered model. I was planning to google it up but had no idea what it was called. In one of those happy coincidences in life, it turned up on MeFi today. Turns out the smart car is marketed in Canada exclusively and outsells Minis and Beetles.

The last line of the article was particularly apt. It took all my motor skills to drive at 70mph and get a proper picture of the Smart Car.

When the Man comes around

2005-10-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

He wore black. He had white hair. And he had a square face. Except for the glasses and his height, he looked a lot like Johnny Cash. He was going to drive me to the airport.

It was a sunny day; as sunny as it gets in October in Calgary. Being the only two people on the bus, we found common ground on the time-tested subject of Weather. Johnny Cash told me of the drought six years ago, when all the grass was burnt to a crisp. He spoke of the melting ice-caps and the extreme phenomena all around the world.

"It says in the Bible that Man will destroy himself.", he said. "Yes, but we can't just give up", I said. He softened. "That's true, we just have to live it one day at a time, and that's what we do.", he said. I agreed, and I arrived at my gate.

While I was there, it snowed. After a while, the sun shone. It could be the next ice-age in a few decades, or global warming could melt the ice-caps into oblivion; but looking at the lake, it felt good to live today.

Rule of thumb

2005-09-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a little tip that might come in handy:

If you're playing Scotland Yard with a group of extremely Christian people -- one of whom is 1/8th jewish -- try to avoid using the term 'grammar nazi'.

Janet in Yemen

2005-09-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

My globe-trotting friend Janet is in Yemen this year. Check out her new blog with cool pictures of life in Yemen.

Forging the Supply-chain

2005-09-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

Losing a room-mate is a lot like going through a divorce: Silence fills your apartment, and half the furniture disappears. I probably missed his 27-inch flatscreen TV more than my ex-roomie, so I went to Walmart to get me a decent-size flat-screen of my own. ('Decent-size' here meaning 'not portable-size') I decided to get a 20-inch and found that the brands that matter the most in Walmart -- the Durabrands, the Emersons and the Magnavoxes -- were completely sold out. The salesperson told me that a shipment was due that very evening and I was amazed at how quickly Walmart responds to customer demand.

I remembered someone posting on /. about Walmart's data-mining on crisis-shopping. I googled for it and found this blog on Gartner:

For example, in between the two Florida hurricanes of last year, Wal-Mart analyzed which products consumers purchased. With Hurricane Frances not yet arrived, Wal-Mart analyzed sales data from Hurricane Charlie to get a better sense of what consumers would need for Frances. In addition to the usual items such as flashlights, Wal-Mart discovered that Pop-Tarts were a big seller.

It's surprising what you can deduce from good statistics; makes me want to make 'Freakonomics' my next read.

Commie Pinko Altruist Opportunist

2005-08-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

I fished out an old gas receipt from my wallet yesterday; Gas was $1.71 a gallon. I saved it for posterity; in a few years I can look at it with nostalgia.

One of life's small pleasures these days consists of filling your tank before there's a sharp spike in the price. I saw a $2.84 today and felt happy that I filled it at Citgo for $2.55 yesterday. Today, I find out via Fark that Citgo is owned by the Venezuelan government.

Hugo Chavez has offered aid to the US in a shrewd political move. The reaction of the Americans probably would be: "Barrels? We don't need your stinkin' barrels!". Also came upon this from the thread. The source is obviously a bleeding-heart liberal website, but I would buy gas from the devil himself if it was cheaper to buy from him/her.

Freedom of choice is great.

A coincidence

2005-08-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

So I was doing my usual blog-hopping today, when I came across celebrity journalism via something Anti had posted on Hathirpithi's blog. The thought of George Costanza being married to Britney Spears is funny enough, but I came across something else that was interesting - the Bianco ad campaign.

The reason I found this interesting was that I'm a regular reader of SomethingAwful. I'm no wonderful specimen of human perfection, but it always gave me a sense of schadenfreude to look at faces that are uglier than mine. That's where I saw the same face, only this time it was posted on HotorNot.

Someone must've deliberately done this, but still goes to show the Internets are a small world, after all.

Iconic

2005-08-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Anti's 'View Source', I now have a favicon : . Thus unbridled narcissism abounds.
If anyone has a good idea for an icon for their blog but needs someone to execute it, let me know. I'm interested in doing micro/mini projects on the GIMP.

Romba Nalla Paattu

2005-08-15T15:46:00.000-07:00

Via Sepia Mutiny and Metafilter: Tamil in a Stand-up Comic act. Not *very* funny, but it involves a highly obscure south-east asian language...

Look Ma, no Hands!

2005-08-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

I completed my first GoogleMaps hack. I feel so proud.
*sniffle*

Get off my lawn, you young whippersnappers!

2005-08-02T20:39:00.000-07:00

Another birthday passed by. The ones who remembered, remembered out of habit. This year, I wanted it this way.

I got news from my friend who moved to Canada. The youth there were just as drunk and rowdy as those in any US college town. I wonder how the weekend booze-bingeing, foul-mouthed youth of America will turn out. I sometimes feel I should've done things like that when I was in college. And that's when I begin to feel old.

Anti did a round-up of racism against desis, and teenagers figured prominently in the demographic (at least Canadian teenagers seem to be non-prejudiced for now...). Living in a Christian state has its advantages -- people are much more tolerant, if you can get past their church talk. I've had strange glances once in a while, but an explicit instance of prejudice hasn't happened to me yet.

But take a quick mental survey -- how many desis you know have voiced opinions generalizing all african-americans as people with lesser morals? In the racist ladder, we happen to be in the middle rung, and crying foul will not change anything.

A Eulogy for Konard

2005-07-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

When I joined my job a year ago, a big,black man walked into my cube, introduced himself and started talking. He was the janitor, and he said the mandatory office 'Hi, how are you?' with genuine warmth. Since I stayed in the office after everybody had left, I met him several times when he was doing his evening rounds.

When I was 'promoted' from 1/4th of a cube to my own room, he popped in and said, "I'm really happy to see you moving forward fast, man". His idea of spending a relaxing weekend was playing with his grandchildren.

Two weeks ago, we crossed each other once again, when I was leaving the office late. He said he needed to be more careful, and he needed all the prayer he could get. (That I don't 'pray' was something I didn't tell him.) He had a weak heart and the doctor had advised him to stay off junk food and pop. He declared he was going to make changes and stop drinking a lot of Coke. In short, he was looking forward to making amends and living some more.

He didn't. He died two days ago, but not of a weak heart.

Konard was a real human. Konard was a good man.

If you meet me, kill me

2005-07-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been trawling the local bookstores for good books on Buddhism. I've even seen "An Idiot's guide to understanding Buddhism" and I feel uncomfortable paying for a book that calls me an idiot.
Considering the fact that I have the face as my banner here, I feel like a pretender when I don't know much of the philosophy behind Buddhism. I do know that a couple of bloggers who visit here (albeit rarely) are practising buddhists, so I'm asking for suggestions on good books on the subject. You know, books that don't talk about possibly false theories like reincarnation or the afterlife, but the deep, philosophical ones that ponder questions like, Does anyone hear when a tree tries to clap with one hand in the forest, but falls down in the process?

Still living in a fish bowl...

2005-07-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to AOL (now that's not something you hear everyday), I could listen to Pink Floyd's reunion at Live8. Gilmour's still got his chops, Waters seemed to be singing off key. 'Comfortably Numb' still sends shivers down my spine.

Bjork isn't too bad either.

Send this to 10 more people and the monkey in your closet won't bite you

2005-06-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

I probably don't blog as much as others, but one of the main reasons I started was because I was curious to see how memes and personal communication methods worked. I wouldn't call myself an early adopter of the Internet in India, but I certainly was fortunate enough to have a dial-up (blech) when not many others had it in the neighborhood.

Good times were had, chatting on the internet with babes on Yahoo! and IRC. I got quite a few long-term e-pals that way. I also became an early A/S/L impostor, when my Dumb-C teammate and I pretended to be a 16-year old girl and played havoc with the emotions of a young Romeo. And all this from our slow-as-heck college computer...

But I digress. Here's a link to a websurvey, inviting bloggers to participate. It's not your average chain-mail hoax, it's from MI-freakin-T.

So what's a Nation-State?

2005-06-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

I had always maintained the view that the ethos of a country represents the ethos of its people. A very simple example : The acts of Germany in WWII were tacitly supported by its people. When the majority of people in a country stand for something, the country itself stands for it. Although a broad generalization, it captures what each nation represents in a global arena. Another simple example: When the U.S. invades Iraq, it is because a majority of Americans supported the invasion -- representative democracy in action.

A while ago, I was speaking to my friend from Serbia. An inevitable discussion came about the Serbians and the ethnic cleansing. My friend told me about the days of constant shelling of her city and the meager supplies of food. I raised the question that was bothering me, "So why didn't you do something about the genocide?". Her reply was : "Do you think the average person cared about what her government was doing? Making ends meet was an ordeal by itself. Not all of us are evil."

I could see the validity of her position. A few minutes later, we started talking about the Albanians and their insistence for their own land carved out of Serbia. And then she told me,"Those Albanians - they are an uncultured bunch. They multiply like crazy and now they want their own country".

The dichotomy of her position didn't escape me. She could divest herself of her national identity when the situation required it and use it when she needed to. I realized that I too am guilty of this convenient separation.

And thus my realization, that a country's people are not always representative of the country as a whole. This might seem a trivial fact to some, but it always seemed to me that those who are proud to call themselves Indians and Serbians should take responsibility for India's and Serbia's shames too.

Satire in print

2005-06-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

Twelve years ago, I got my first glimpse at satire. It came in the form of a book called Prince Harry's First Quiz Book. My father, who knew about my interest in quizzing and quizzing related activities, brought this home one day, thinking his son would eventually learn enough about Brittania to participate in the original BBC Mastermind.

I started reading through it and began to wonder where all the trivia about british royalty was hidden. All the content seemed to be poking fun at the monarchy through subtle wordplay and not-so-subtle profanity. Understandably, my father gave me a strange look when I quoted my favorite line from the preface of the book :

"Shall I be plain? I want those bastards dead." - Richard the Fourth.
(The line was obviously made up.)

I haven't read much in satire since then, other than the occasional Internet article. So when I got the chance to read "America - the Book", I was happy to see satire again in its most unadulterated and concentrated form.

The book takes aim at almost all branches of American politics, and I learnt about the political process more than I could have imagined. The best parts -- and the most eye-opening ones -- were the chapters about the lobbyists and the media.

Give it a read if you can find it somewhere. It makes excellent coffee-table reading if you're only midly cynical.

L-Town Represent

2005-05-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

Some of you might have seen today's post on /. about ChicagoCrime , a GoogleMapHack, developed by Adrian. Adrian is one of the team members at Lawrence.com (Yes, that Lawrence, my home for 3 years).

NPR recently carried a story about the company that owns pretty much all media at Lawrence. The Simons' family owns the cable, internet, phone, local TV and newspaper of Lawrence. The service, for a small town in the mid-west, is pretty reliable and hassle-free.

As a web-developer (though not the kind that Adrian is), it's good to see your town and its geeks being recognized throughout the technological blogosphere.

So this is an Outhouse...

2005-05-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

Arkansas, May 2005

Maybe this is what Drew Barrymore meant. It must be really liberating to take a dump right in front of Highway 71 in the morning.

(In all fairness, Arkansas is so beautiful, taking a crap in the Oauchita woods would be totally zen.)

Babies in Peril

2005-05-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

From this story.

Although the story is about russian orphans being killed, it doesn't mention masked gunmen or 3 month infants anywhere. As far as I know, it's an American woman and a 6 year old boy.

Assuming this is photoshopped and not staged, one has to wonder what the artist was thinking. What kind of world do we live in when graphic designers can actually photoshop dead baby jokes for a major newspaper website?

The look on the baby's face is priceless. It made me sad and made me chuckle at the same time. These russians sure know how to pull at the readers' heartstrings.

Why online music recommendations don't work

2005-04-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

It is a well known fact that connoisseurs of classical music, while buying Bach and Tchaikovsky, will download 50 Cent's Massacre and Moby's Hotel to provide a well-balanced musical diet.

The Human Condition

2005-04-17T22:01:00.000-07:00

Tried to do my own 'The Human Condition'. This thing is harder than it looks. This is as close as I could get.
Still, it's pretty cool.

Sin City

2005-04-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

"Sin City" is great. Even the CAPAlert guy seems to think so. Go see it and treat yourself to multiple castrations! The film is worth the admission just for Mickey Rourke's story.

The day is done...

2005-03-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

You know your day is shot when you're watching a cat masturbate to a Tamil song at 9:00 in the morning.

Lower My Bills

2005-03-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

Each time I sign out of Yahoo!, I get attacked by an unsightly LowerMyBills banner on the logout page. The "concept" behind the LMB ads are a mystery. Sometimes it involves clicking a state on snake's tail, sometimes it's a psychedelic peacock. I kept my eyes peeled for further LMB ads on the internet and was suprised to find even more inane ones.

So I did what any self-respecting amateur archivist would do -- capture each ad for posterity. I've started another blog http://lowermybillswatch.blogspot.com to document these ads. They are not funny, they are not interesting, they are product of a retarded Flash developer's brainrot. I plan to update that blog whenever I find some LMB ad that makes you go whaaa?

Check it out.

Liveblogging from Chicago...

2005-03-02T06:12:00.000-08:00

The view from my hotel room. It's not the view of the navy pier I would have preferred, but hey, who's complaining!?

What would you do...?

2005-02-28T14:34:00.000-08:00

Remember this girl? She starred as the girl-friend of my American alter-ego-elect on The Wonder Years. Now she's also grown-up and purty... and she answers your math questions. Hot!

Also discovered while dredging the metafilter thread, Dolph Lundgren was offered a Fulbright scholarship at MIT!

Fear and Paranoia in Blogosphere

2005-02-22T15:10:00.000-08:00

If you're using IE, you'd be better off not clicking on the 'Next Blog' link on your navbar. Looks like some blogs are being used to install spyware.[via MeFi]

Million Dollar Baby

2005-02-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

-- SPOILER ALERT - Spoilers Below! --

By now, the spoilers must have reached your ears. And the backlash has already begun; expect to see protests at the Oscars by bible-thumpers and right-to-lifers. What happens at the end of this movie is not something you would expect out of Hollywood - that land of Rocky Balboa moments; the chewy center of feel-good eye-candy.

It starts out as a regular boxing movie, and becomes a slow-burning and agonizing wait for the final solution. A second viewing is required to decide if the actions of the protagonists are justified. When the movie ends, you're left shaking your head, saying, 'I can't believe it ended like that'. The audience leaves the theater stricken and uneasy.

Is Clint Eastwood courting controversy for controversy's sake? In the land where for the vocal majority, life begins at conception, the hero's decision is absolutely unthinkable. Eastwood performs a coup-de-grace when he could have opted for a Ron Howard ending, and it is a breath of fresh air.

It is not the movie I went to see, but it proved much more interesting than the one I was expecting. This movie is not Cinderella Man, which is a ... Ron Howard movie.

The new year starts now

2005-01-26T23:57:00.000-08:00

Living in a college town has its peculiarities. Although it's been a year since I graduated, I still think in terms of semesters. Life appears to go through a four-month cycle. The new year is properly welcomed only when spring semester officially starts. New resolutions are decided upon in the third week of January. Old memories are thrown out, new ventures are looked into. 'Hope' springs eternal with the arrival of warmer weather.

I had to go to the campus today after a long time. Parking was a pain as usual and I had to park in the visitors' garage. As I walked on the campus roads, I could see the faces staring at me - an outcast, in my business attire - you get curious looks when you're too young to be a professor and slightly too well-dressed to be a poor desi student going to an on-campus interview.

Two Indias?

2005-01-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

Even when I lived there, I could sense the simmering casteism in my relatively urbanized area of residence. The undertones were there -- 'He's the head of the local Dalit association. He's constantly organizing meetings in his home'. But then, neighborly peevishness was always non-discriminatory. I've also heard, 'They are Pentecostals. They organize carol-singing in the night at their home with 20 people'.

Did I turn a blind eye to the real reason for these comments, or were they simply complaints of disturbing-the-peace?

But when a humor site like somethingawful posts about Dalits being driven out of refugee centers, you wonder if you lived in a different country than the one mentioned in the story.

Almost Nawlins'

2004-12-27T12:20:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since an update. I travelled to Louisiana over Christmas and then to Smoky Mountains. I had a chance to field-test my Canon A-95 and the snow pictures came out looking great. Check out the new flickr link on the right for some good pics.

Although I flew to New Orleans, and stayed in LA for more than 3 days, I could only visit New Orleans for 2 hours. A quick drive through Bourbon street was enough to confirm its reputation as the place where the party lives 24/7/365.

The New America ?

2004-12-15T07:08:00.000-08:00

I'm speechless. He'll probably get away with this.

Bollywood encourages suicide...

2004-11-24T07:55:00.000-08:00

... but not for the obvious reasons of inanity and absurdity. Also in the article, Tamil movie influence, which supposedly makes people even more suicidal than Bollywood. I'd rather slit my wrists than watch HAHK again.

What's the stupidest Hindi movie, ever?

What do you need that for, dude?

2004-11-18T11:32:00.000-08:00

via Craigslist:

I have a vintage 1973 Average Johnson which was manufactured by the Great American Penis (GAP—no affiliation with the similarly-named clothing stores) Corporation. I am able to supply documentation to support the age of this Johnson, though there is no visible JIN (Johnson Identification Number) on the organ itself; so, unfortunately, a CockFax^® report will not be available to prospective drivers.

This Johnson has been maintained by a single owner, who has also been its primary driver. There have been three other drivers of this Johnson at various times, all of them within the past five years, and all of them female. (The most recent of these merely took it for a test drive, and although pleased with its performance, she elected not to continue with its use secondary to geographic concerns.) Each of these drivers has also been a passenger at some point, and they all expressed satisfaction in the ride of this Johnson. (Say what you like about women drivers, some of them are actually quite skilled in maneuvering an authentic Johnson, given that chance.) The original ragtop was displaced shortly after production; however, this Johnson can be (and has been) successfully fitted with a number of synthetic covers for protection from the elements as well as ride comfort and a variety of vaginodynamic effects. There are no other cosmetic defects; it is otherwise unmodified and has the typical dimensional variability one would expect from an Average Johnson. It retains its original color: Classic Caucasian Clearcoat. All things considered, this Johnson is actually in near-mint condition.

I am currently seeking to place this Johnson with another driver/passenger, preferably another female. Prior familiarity with this type of equipment is desired but not necessary, as I will be present for any test drives/rides and will be able to provide training and/or feedback, as necessary.

Note: Except for the lack of original cover, this is a stock Johnson and not technically a ‘hot rod’ (though the differences in appearance are minimal) and is therefore inappropriate for speed trials! Regardless, this Johnson has been well maintained is able to faithfully perform on a variety of terrain and under various environmental conditions.

I am able to supply photos of the owner with or without the Johnson for evaluation purposes, as I assume any prospective new driver(s)/rider(s) might wish to know more about the man who has taken care of this classic piece of equipment and how it has been maintained. Photos of the Average Johnson itself may be made available at the owner’s discretion.

New Phishing Scam!

2004-11-08T06:13:00.000-08:00

-----------------------------------------------------------
Dear respected member of Washington Mutual Bank,
Our department recorded a payment request from Expedia - Online Travel Agency ( EXPEDIA.COM ) to enable the charge of $ 619,49 on your account.
This amount is supposed to cover the cost of a 5 days reservation ( 10-14 November / 2004 )
at a Five Stars Hotel located in New Delhi / INDIA, under the name of GARY EDWARDS.
THE PAYMENT IS PENDING FOR THE MOMENT.
• If you made this reservation or if you just authorize this payment, please ignore or remove this email message. The transaction will be shown on your monthly statement as "Rama Bangalore-Hotel".
• If you didn't make this payment / reservation and would like to decline the $ 619,49 billing to your card,
please follow the link below to deny the payment:
**DECLINE** - javascript:OpenWin('http://64.4.56.250/cgi-bin/ linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=3202f45452441697f302e11034621277&amp;lat= 1099923098&hm___action=http%253a%252f%252f66%252e206%252e6%252e228%252fReval%252dAn');
(Click "DECLINE" button to stop this payment.)
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of the entire Washington Mutual, Inc. system.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Please do not reply to this mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered
----------------------------------------------------------

The Washington Mutual site immediately warns us of an ongoing scam. The javascript button links to revaltrading.com, which seems to be a legitimate business operation.

F%#$ Hotmail. While Yahoo! increased its free space to respond to Gmail's challenge, hotmail is still dragging its ass after promising more space. Hotmail lusers, beware!

***update*** The day after I bitch about the free space, Hotmail increases it to 250MB. What gives?!

DoD - II

2004-11-04T20:47:00.000-08:00

The 'Dukes of Dixieland' was a merry band of white musicians, chiefly consisting of the fraternal trio of Frank, Freddie and Papa Jac Assunto. This borderline-insane group was ably supported on other instruments by several other insane people, as we shall soon see.


Stanley "Mimey" Mendelson: Stan had begun his career as a professional air-guitar contestant. Soon, he diversified into air-baton, air-dulcimer, and even air-figure-skating. Stan is seen here playing his invisi-piano, while his bandmates studiously avoid looking in his direction.	Freddie "Dorkymada" Assunto: Freddie suffered from a rare and debilitating disorder called Parkinsons-Bends, that caused his body to go into the fetal position and convulse whenever he was forced to hold his breath. Freddie overcame this condition and used it to his advantage when playing extended free-styling solos on his trombone.	Frank Assunto: I'm the only sane man in this entire clusterf**k

Kansas - Crimson and Blue

2004-11-03T07:12:00.000-08:00

See the only two blue counties in the entire state? Yeah, I live in one of them.

The Dukes of Dixieland

2004-10-31T11:23:00.000-08:00

I've always had a thing for vintage album covers and retro art. Lileks' Institute has provided me with hours of endless fun. The typography and the bold colors of the 60's and the 70's are a welcome affront to the blue-and-grey corporate culture of today.

So I couldn't resist this vinyl record when it appeared at an auction at work. The bold assertations that proclaim "A STUDY IN HIGH FIDELITY SOUND" and "...YOU HAVE TO HEAR IT TO BELIEVE IT!" illustrate the optimism in popular science that our grandfathers had. A half-century has passed and Audio-DVDs have appeared on the market, but popular science has failed us. Where's the hovercar? What happened to the food-o-matic?

Since I don't have a record-player, I have no way of verifying if the Dukes of Dixieland were as good as they claim to be. But in honor of the unflappable joie-de-vivre of these musicians, I shall attempt a brief pen-pic of them in my future entries...

The 'award' winner

2004-10-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

From the 'what-the-hell-were-they-thinking' department...

Google Desktop Search - So Good, It's Scary

2004-10-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

By now you've probably tried out Google's new desktop search and oohed and aahed over the results. You might also have had a few unpleasant suprises when innocuous searches turned up cached emails that you composed days ago.

Contrary to what you might believe, this is not a good thing, especially if the tool is on your work/college computer. You can disable searching for emails by selecting the right options in 'Desktop Preferences'.

Renaissance Festival

2004-10-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

I finally got a chance to go to the Renaissance Festival after 3 years. The RenFest, as it is usually called, is where Americans display their dubious anglo-saxon tradition by dressing up in 16th century garb and generally being as anachronistic as possible.

None of the fantasies are left out; pirates are on an equal footing with royalty; fairies and pixies cavort amongst ale wenches. The whole atmosphere is surreal and it seems like a county fair from the middle ages gone berserk with interlopers from the present.

The 'actors' participate with gusto and their roleplaying is un-self-conscious. They become the very characters they portray. This couple spent 15 minutes talking to us about the entire gypsy history of english monarchy in the first person.

Exciting events like the joust are recreated. Visitors can compete at roaring like a Scottish chieftain. Pirates are welcome to try their Arrrrs!!! with impunity. Most visitors can be found wandering with a plastic cup of beer and a huge piece of turkey. If only there were fewer visitors, the time-warp effect would be complete.

Burning Man

2004-10-04T18:57:00.000-07:00

Burning Man - doesn't mean a lot to most desis. An annual event held in the deserts of Nevada. Once each year, this festival becomes a meeting point to the weird and the absurd of America. People come from all over the country to participate.

And participate they do. Each person is a living, breathing piece of art. Amidst the various art installations, the creators walk, themselves an expression of what they create. Day and night lose meaning; Clothes[nsfw] are an afterthought; Sleep comes whenever, wherever. It's a state of mind.

This is the escape they have been looking for. A few days in the desert, wandering, searching for nirvana. The rules of polite society are thrown to the wind. Some people visit Burning Man, and go back to their cafe lattes after a weekend - 3 days of freedom from consumerism. For some people, it's Burning Man all the year. They are the flower children of the new millennium. For them, this is Woodstock, 200X. The line between sanity and insanity is erased.

At the end of the festival, The Man burns, a catharsis of a year filled with credit cards and monthly bills. The visitors are made anew, and there's always next year.

(photos by Patrick Roddie @ webbery.com. Hips are beautiful [nsfw].)

Radiohead Moment

2004-09-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

The next morning, Belbo was radiant. "It works,", he said, "It works better beyond anything we could have hoped for.". He handed us the printout.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The templars have something to do with everything
What follows is not true
Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate
The sage Omus founded the Rosy Cross in Egypt
There are cabalists in Provence
Who was married at the feast of Cana?
Minnie mouse is Mickey's fiancee
It logically follows that
If
The druids venerated black virgins
Then
Simon Magus identifies Sophia as a prostitute of Tyre
Who was married at the feast of Cana?
The Merovingians proclaim themselves kings by divine right
The Templars have something to do with everything
------------------------------------------------------------
"Here is my interpretation," Belbo said. " Jesus was not crucified, and for that reason the Templars denied the Crucifix. The legend of Joseph of Arimathea covers a deeper truth: Jesus, not the Grail, landed in France, among the cabalists of Provence. Jesus is the metaphor of the King of the world, the true founder of the the Rosicrucians. And who landed with Jesus? His wife. In the Gospels why aren't we told who was married at Cana? It was the wedding of Jesus, and it was a wedding that could not be discussed, because the bride was a public sinner, Mary Magdalene. That's why, ever since, all the Illuminati from Simon Magus to Postel seek the principle of the eternal feminine in a brothel. And Jesus, meanwhile, was the founder of the royal line of France."

- "Foucault's Pendulum", Umberto Eco

Refrigerator magnets, where we hope poetry would arise out of jumbled pieces of metal; Words we disassemble to fit the boxes of the crossword puzzle, meaning arises out of a seemingly random combination of symbols. If a million monkeys could produce Shakespeare, it would be worth to employ two million monkeys for two million minutes to produce another classic.

From the early Jewish hope of arriving at the meaning of Life by permutating the letters of the alphabet, to Radiohead lyrics that seem to point to something deeper, to movies to books, it all seems to be there, if we knew where to look.

2004-09-21T15:23:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart on O'Reilly!? [wonkette]
*mind implodes*

WildFireFox

2004-09-15T18:53:00.000-07:00

------------ begin geekspeak -------------
So this morning I'm trying to run my code on Oracle's 9iAS. I usually test on two browsers - Firefox and IE. Wonder of wonders, my page is displayed quite well on IE, but the CSS is lost in Firefox. I click the nifty javascript console in FF to see what's happening. The message, is as useful as can be - 'The stylesheet was not defined as mime type text/css , thus has not been loaded.'

This leads me on a wild chase through the internet trying to figure out how to enable text/css on 9iAS. After 4 hours of fiddling around with the .conf files, I give up. 9iAS, being the behemoth sphinx it is, refuses to yield its secrets to me.

Bored and with nothing else to do, I decide to install FireFox 1.0PR. After 4 minutes of installing, I start up the new FF.

Lo and behold, my page works! The culprits in this case were the transitional XHTML definitions in my DOCTYPE definitions. While FF 0.8 didn't render CSS in transitional or strict XHTML, FF1.0PR does! Bravo to the mozdev community!
-------------- end geekspeak -------------------

If you didn't understand a single word of that rave above, here's a summary -- GET FIREFOX. The spreadfirefox community has as its goal, 1 million downloads of FF1.0PR in 10 days.

Question: Why is FF > IE ?
Answers:
* Tabbed windows - no more 25 open IE windows in your taskbar
* Inline text searching / link searching - just type the words and the links are highlighted - forget the mouse
* Complete standards adherence - CSS, HTML - see geekspeak above
* Excellent pop-up blocking - I've only got two pop-ups in a whole year, and they've only started appearing of late
* Extensions for just about everything - adding links to text (bloggers take note), ad-blocking, mouse gestures, the list goes on
* It's free!

Go ahead, give it a try. It's not panacea - but it's an alternative to the 80% stranglehold that IE holds over the browser market.

Laboring is fun

2004-09-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Every year, on September 5, Americans undertake their own pilgrimages - but these pilgrimages are not dedicated to gods or goddesses. No, these are pilgrimages to propitiate the all-american gods of vacationing, meat, and beer, though not necessarily in that order.

The details of the pilgrimages are the same. Waking up at ungodly hours to start for the trip, bleary-eyed baths, pre-departure checks on the gas range, heavy traffic on the highway all headed in the same direction, waiting in line at gas-station restrooms, checking in at the hotel and dragging your baggage through the carpeted corridors. I must admit that these details are considerably more simplified in America - no cold baths at 5:00 a.m. with a red plastic mug, no restrooms at all to wait for, no irumudis to bear on your head, and no litanies to repeat at the moment of departure.

We went on our own pilgrimage to Arkansas this year, which is pretty much the closest place to Kansas with any resemblance of natural beauty. And beautiful it was - tall semi-alpine trees all along the roads, low undulating hills covered with greenery, lakes and rivers all along the highway.

The highlight of the trip was our kayaking trip on the Caddo river. It was a glorious, exciting and tiring four hours of constant paddling. Almost at the end of the kayak trip, I spied a rope hanging above a dark pool of water. There was a branch of a tree that overhung the river and small wooden steps led to the top of the branch. You had to climb up the steps, grab hold of the rope, swing over the river, and jump. The catch was, you had to swing in a semi-circular arc, to land in water. If you swung straight, you had a large rock waiting to smash your bones below your feet.

I crossed the spot, changed my mind, paddled upstream to reach the spot again and dug my canoe in at the bank. I watched a brave boy swing and drop and come up gasping. It seemed exhilarating. But I changed my mind.

Later that week, I heard about a guy from my college drowning in Texas while doing a similar jump. The parallels were unmistakable. The incident raised a plea from Raapi, who enjoined us to remember our limits and responsibilities before trying anything for just ephemeral excitement.

But it is ephemeral excitement that has brought us into this world. It is ephemeral excitement that makes me feel alive, in my mind-numbing daily routine of melancholy and drudgery. One's chanes of dying in a road accident are probably higher than dying in a freak drowning accident. Does this mean we should never drive again? Life is much more fun, when there are peaks and valleys, than when it is a straight, flat journey, much alike Kansas.

So RIP, PJ, for your zest for life. The rest of you, do something crazy. Your limits are defined only by people who have done it before and survived. Your responsibility is only to yourself.

Masks and Mirrors

2004-09-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Not too suprising, since the Republican party, as I've always believed, is sincerely interested in furthering the Christian agenda a.k.a. 'We're Right, You're Wrong, so suck it, Infidels'. Does the Democratic party hold secret rallies for 'people of faith' ?

And in case, you miss more conspiracy-mongering, The Diebold Enigma. MS-Access?! The mind boggles!

While the DNC had earnest, but boring speakers like Obama, Edwards and Clinton, the RNC has managed to make speeches fun, with Arnold, Guiliani and Dennis Miller. Many of Arnold's talking points were unfounded placebos, but hey, he said 'girly men' and 'I'll be baack'. Arnold was supposed to rope in immigrants who come to America to pursue their dreams - yes, immigrants who are muscular movie stars and are married to the Kennedys.

Unless Kerry comes up with something earth-shattering, it's 4 more years of Bush.

/rant off

update: Let's see how long it is before this gets buried... Anyone else notice how Bush looks really tired in all his campaign appearances?

Nationwide crazy spree

2004-08-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

* Quite possibly the strangest news article on a desi I've seen. A car rented in Florida, chemicals pilfered in Kansas, and a car accident cover-up attempt in Nebraska - the mystery deepens.
Authorities don't think the incident was connected to terrorist or criminal acts, Tarpinian said.
Great. Just what we've been needing.

* Janet is a friend of mine from Kansas. Apart from possibly holding the largest private multiethnic dinners in Lawrence, she is also a sinophile and world traveler. She is now in Azerbaijan as part of an English teaching program. Here's the first entry of her Azerbaijani blog. I hope more will be forthcoming soon.

* Added to my favs list on the right - Warcraft III - The coolest freaking game. Ever.

Fortress of Stupitude

2004-08-17T15:25:00.000-07:00

Anti and Nilu vent about 'a major filmmaker'. Having never seen any HR film, except for the one with him and Shah Rukh Khan (... the one with the name made up by randomly stringing 5 words together, just like every other Hindi movie), I'm still pretty sure HR didn't deserve the award.

And just to prove that South Indians are right about Hindi phillums, here's a review of Superman - the desi version. For additional side-splittery, don't forget to view the gallery and other reviews.

Beautiful Agony

2004-08-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

* Finally, an urban myth has been proven true! Thanks to the diligent efforts/pure luck of my room-mate, we got to hear our neighbour 'getting it on' with some chick. I had kept hearing about about this traditionally American act of voyeurism but had had no luck with it. I was beginning to think either my apartments had really thick walls, or Kansas had more celibates than the Vatican. All my doubts were smashed today when we, ermm, listened in on the feminine groans and moans emanating from across the walls!

* My interest in Cycling is merely limited to keeping tab of the number of times Lance Armstrong has won the Tour de France. Watching the 'Triplets of belleville' got me curious about the kind of monotony cycling involves and the perseverance required to cycle for days on end. Given the abundance of really long trails near my apartment, I've had the chance to test my own skills at cycling, and it amazes me the Tour de Francer's can do it for days when my own bad knee threatens to leave its cosy confines after just two hours of riding.

It looks like there's more than just stamina and concentration involved. I came across kottke's post on Lance's tactics during the 18th stage of the rally. The pictures describe what's happening very well. Looks like there's more brain-work involved than just keeping yourself focussed on pushing the pedals. I had a similar awakening when I started following F-1 racing in India, and found out that it wasn't just people driving cars real fast.

Meeting People is Easy

2004-08-03T15:23:00.000-07:00

Last week was an experiment in social skills. Based on gentle prodding from some friends and downright sympathetic looks from acquaintances, I decided to try this 'going out and having fun' thing.

I travelled to Manhattan, KS on business and did everything but business. Fine upscale dining? Check. Karaoke in an empty bar? Check. Shaking my proverbial tail-feathers and managing to look like a Hare Krishna having an epileptic attack? Check. Driving back to the motel incredibly slowly, because, 'alcohol, like, slows your reflexes, man...'? Check.

Later that week my room-mate and I went to the Royals game in Kansas City. There I was introduced to the fine art of tailgating by an ex-fratperson. One hour and several lite beers later, I found myself talking 3 times more than I usually do.

Conclusions: I probably met more new people in a week than I do in a year. Making conversation is not difficult, especially if there's a bit of the social lubricant involved. Hmm, if only I could repeat my performance without the benefit of bitter hops...

String Theory

2004-08-01T21:40:00.000-07:00

More crap from Target [via April Winchell]. How nice, now my mom doesn't have to mail this to me every year.

A centuries-old spiritual tool used by Kabbalists, this red string is believed to protect against the evil eye, a negative energy source. What makes this particular piece of string so special is, in part, the fact that it has traveled to Israel, to the ancient tomb of Rachel the Matriarch, and returned, imbued with the essence of protection.

Riiiiggght. It probably made a short visit to the red-dye vat in a factory in Xinjuan, China.

The Gyllenhaals

2004-07-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

Ooh, Maggie, where are you these days?
via Gawker. Celebrity sightings galore at Target. In Brooklyn.
Being seen at a Target is cool now?

For all the Donnie Darko fans, DD esoterica.

A rude introduction to the other side

2004-07-19T22:27:00.000-07:00

My birthday this year was quite different. No midnight cake-cutting ceremonies. No birthday bums from room-mates. No 4-peg salutes to Bacchus. The fact that I live 15 minutes from the desi ghetto might have had something to do with this. People tell me that the next quarter century of my life will be the hardest. They obviously haven't heard Rajini's eloquent analysis of the eight stages of life. I'm looking forward to the next 25 years, though. Maybe I'm just thinking crazy, but I just might manage to get some 'action' within the next 25 years!

Had a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant. We got some ice-cream after the dinner and were walking through downtown, when my friend met an Iraqi from school. He started talking and told us he had dropped out of grad school and was working as a driver now. He said that he had got a job as a translator from the American government, but he wasn't going to accept it. Chances were pretty good that he would be posted to Iraq. He said, "I realized driving a bus here was preferable to being beheaded as a traitor in Iraq".

What was really shocking was when he told that his sister had been killed in a bomb attack. His father's house was also destroyed. This attack wasn't by the "freeedom fighters" but by Americans. Still, he didn't seem too outraged or saddened. He shrugged and said, "Well, that's her fate. Baghdad is full of american soldiers and they are going trigger-crazy being so far away from home".

It takes a live person to make us realize the other side of the story. News reports mention the 14 killed in Fallujah yesterday, but make no mention if they were normal Iraqis or terrorists. The marriage massacre question has finally died its death, without anyone actually knowing what really happened. The flag-waving American media, is now focussed on the more important question of M.Shyamalan's connections with the movers and shakers of the ouija board.

If the real Iraqi people don't resent American occupation, where are all these fighters coming from? The very interesting book "The ends of the earth - a journey to the frontiers of anarchy" by Robert Kaplan, was written in 1993. The author postulates that revolution and anarchy arise when rapid urbanization occurs without the corresponding availability of natural resources. The situation seems to be reflected well in Baghdad right now, where water is still not available in plenty and electricity seems to be scarce.

The same situation can be applied to Madras too. One only has to know how precious water is there and how traffic has exploded over the past few years. Not a single day goes by without some random retired person being murdered in the suburbs for a piece of gold jewellery. Ethics and humanity go out the window when unplanned rapid urbanization occurs.

Et Tu?

2004-07-12T17:33:00.000-07:00

I had the chance this summer to go see 'Shakespeare in the Park' again. This time the play being staged was 'Julius Caesar'. We reached there early, but there seemed to be more people this year. After two days of rain, some renaissance-faire genius had got the brilliant idea to dry the grass with hay. Of course, this only left the lawn more soggy and stinky as cooum itself. We navigated our way through the muck and found a spot at the far end and plunked our gear down. Armed with garlic dip and crackers, we got ready for a relaxing evening with the bard.

The play features all the main characters from our history books -- from Caesar, to Antony, Brutus and Cicero. We get treated to a tale of shifting allegiances. What's was puzzling to me was Antony's actions. Was he a righteous man, who had the welfare of Rome on his mind, or was he just plotting to take over power by defeating the entire cabal of conspirators? The performances by the actors were great, though Antony was a bit lacking in his famous 'Friends, Romans, countrymen' speech, in my opinion.

The stage was a minimalist affair, with a roman facade and wide,round steps. There were no scenery changes in between acts, except for some strategically introduced prop benches. The war scenes were pretty impressive, with orange-red lights and the ever-useful smoke machines used to give the illusion of fire. Given our distance from the stage, I could barely see the faces of the actors, but I could hear them very well, thanks to the excellent PA system. Their voices were strident and their intonations confident.

In the days of digital wizardry, it's refreshing to see live theater that can still evoke emotions without having to resort to CGI. There seems to be no theater left in Tamil Nadu except for Crazy Mohan and similar troupes. If there is, maybe I missed noticing it, given my unenviable geographical distance from Chennai. Gone are the days of P.U.Chinnappa and T.S.Manoharan, which my grandfather and uncle used to recall. Banal megaserials have taken their place, with auditions that probably cover 3 major categories:

a) The demure yet 'strong' married woman: (preferably a tam-bram)
Acting Requirements: Ability to shed glycerince tears for at least 15 minutes without stopping.

b) The evil, older woman: (preferably a widow, white saree a plus)
Acting requirements: Fatter and shorter than above-mentioned heroine. Must be able to hold the jadai of heroine and drag her into the street after she takes over her business.

c) The cuckolded husband: (silent, but not strong)
Acting Requirements: Should be able to make weepy faces from behind jail-bars.

Megaserials are the opiate of the tamil masses. I fear for the day reality shows become popular. Or have they already?

2004-07-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

Testing Hello...

Liberal bias

2004-07-08T21:17:00.000-07:00

The only channel I watch these days is Comedy Central and Cartoon network. And the only shows I ever watch are The Daily Show and the sunday lineup of Adult Swim. On the TDS today, Jon Stewart was as usual being his sarcastic self. Commenting on the forcible recall of retired soldiers to the war, Jon pointed out ot the fact that musicians were being called for service, especially an euphonics player. Digging into the mystery behind the need for musicians, he found this fascinating piece of conversation between General Franks Somebody and one of the sub-committee senators:

Subcommittee Senator: What is the need for the euphonics player to be called back into service?
Gen. Franks: The euphonics player is required for the burial services of our soldiers.

Needless to say, the usually boisterous audience went completely silent. You can tell that things are going bad in a war, when you have to conscript extra euphonic players for burial services.

Another show that has kept me LMAO is Crossballs - a fake debate show. Today's topic of marijuana decriminalization brought some lady who thought President Bush was a role model for children who hadn't taken drugs. The fake pro-pot debater shot back,"Yeah, but he has snorted coke. Respond to that!"

A TV channel can choose to be partisan, but when the facts speak for themselves, it's difficult to call the station biased.

Fahrenheit 9/11

2004-07-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

How does a faux-documentary become a box-office hit with its scatter-brain approach and shoddy directing? Simple. Make it tell the truth. The Weinstein brothers have reportedly taken great care and employed a horde of fact checkers to ensure Fh9/11 was accurate, and it shows.

The movie starts with African-americans on the senate floor after the 2001 election. Representing the tens of thousands of blacks who were not on the voter list, they are unable to find a single senator to support their cause. Al Gore himself, as president of the senate, has to deny their resolution. The screen fades to total darkness. You hear the sounds of 9/11 and see people looking up the towers. A chilling reminder of 9/11, with not a single shot of the actual crash. With an excellent start, Moore goes on to eviscerate Dubya as a country yokel with less-than-impressive intelligence and big-corporation connections.

What rankles, however, is the way Moore covers a lot of ground and tries to cover all his bases. There are no definite conclusions to his conspiracy musings. If you're a democrat, you come out of the movie agreeing whole-heartedly with it. If you're republican, you come out hating democrats and Moore even more. If you're a right-thinking human, you wonder how you can get away with anything depending on which side you're on.

Fh9/11 is probably the most powerful negative ad against Bush. Whether people will be affected by its powerful accounts of those directly involved in the war, or be turned off by its incoherent ramblings, remains to be seen.

From MeFi, apparently outsourcing works the same in Iraq as here. (user-email: infinion@gmx.net , passwd:infinite)

My favorite moments: The Taliban minister wondering about the american woman's conjugal capabilities and Wolfowitz's make-up tips.

Ganesha Smash!!!

2004-07-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

From the Indian Superhero PS thread on Fark.

The next 15 minutes of internet infamy

2004-06-29T20:38:00.000-07:00

Debra LaFave - has had her complete life unravel before slobbering netizens and farkers. Is this the kind of backlash she would've expected? I don't know, and I couldn't care less. 'Cause... dayummm, I'm hot for teacher!!!

Crime pays, artistically

2004-06-27T17:28:00.001-07:00

I finally got to see the 'City of God' this weekend. The movie has tons of style, that's for sure. The stylized violence in the movie did nothing to detract the message. The movie spans across 3 decades, and narrates the interconnected stories of hoods in the slums of Rio do Janeiro and people who are trying to get out of there. The film is based on a true story, and shines a light on the sordid lives of people on the wrong side of the wealth gap.

Movies about organized crime always seem to be critically acclaimed(Godfather is the obvious example). Is it the need to vicariously satisfy our instinct for vice that makes us like these movies? CoG shows us the violence that is bred out of lawlessness and poverty in slums, a situation that could very well be happening at Dharavi everyday. In fact, the movie reminded me a lot of 'Satya'. (Of course, we Indians had to milk the bhai-log-cow and start making suck-ass movies like 'Company' or whatever it is Vivek Oberoi was in...)

CoG also managed to break one of the taboos that prevail in film-making -- that of depicting young 'uns being shot in the leg at close range. The scene is definitely one of the most harrowing in the movie.

For anyone who entertained doubts about CoG being the inspiration for the crapfest called 'Ayutha Ezhuthu', they can rest at ease knowing that CoG is more like the first half of 'Nayagan' than the one where Maniratnam tries to Shankarize himself.
(Shankarize - now that's a good word for empty-style masquerading as message...)

MoveOn

2004-06-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

212 nights later, he gave up all pretense, and he cried. A single tear crawled down his cheek and the trail of chill it left on his face surprised him. He closed the book in his hand and let the tears crawl some more. "So this is what happens", he thought. He felt the rejection of love, without having felt love itself. A thousand maybe-I-should-have's ran through his mind. "It still wouldn't have mattered", he thought. "Either you're on her procreation-possibility list, or you're not".

He made up his own hate list. Is it possible to make up reasons to hate a stranger?
1. IS VERY STUPID.
He was reminded of her laughter. The way it abruptly began as a chuckle and became a tinkle.

2. CANT SPELL FOR SHIT.
He thought of way his college hat was too large for her head. And he remembered the fragrance that lingered in it afterwards.

3. MATERIALIST/OPPORTUNIST.
The way she looked at him came back to him. Those placid eyes, and the lopsided smile-shrug that hinted Mystery once, conveyed Apathy in hindsight.

He couldn't think of any more. Weren't these enough to prove her moral and mental inferiority? He laughed inwardly for having fallen so low. "You percieve dimly after your first true love that it wasn't true and it wasn't even love.",he realized, and thus he lost his Innocence.

And yet he hopes.

Networking not working

2004-06-10T14:45:00.000-07:00

Anti asks me, if I think this is real (For those of you uncool enough to not have an Orkut account, it's an alleged Orkut profile of John Kerry).

Networking software like Friendster, Orkut were supposed to be the next killer apps. There was even Dogster. Lonely Internet nerds and cynical yuppies were supposed to find like-minded people who were friends of friends and do "stuff" with them. Social Networking was supposed to bring you jobs, friends, hobbies, and who knows, maybe even romance. Did anything of this happen to me when I signed up at Orkut?

I spent a couple of hours creating and modifying a profile that would somehow make me seem more interesting than I actually am. And then I waited. Nothing happened. No one emailed asking me if I wanted to go see Bubba Hotep. No one called me up for a game of tennis. No secret admirer sent me flash sites with slow-fade roses. Maybe I should have taken the initiative and mailed my friend's friend in oh say, Tennessee. But then, what next?

I'm not sure if there is a strong desi community in Orkut. I've noticed a lot of south American people, though. Still, the question remains: Do social networking software actually yield fruitful results, or is just an elite version of Yahoo! chat? Dvorak says it better.

Why I won't get any Action. Ever.

2004-06-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

Anti >> Hemanth >> this. Why single Southies are doomed in their love lives - a darn good read!

Videonoia

2004-05-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

Why do people like to post their faces on the Internet? It's understandable if you were a supermodel or Fabio with short hair, but there are some who post grainy webcam shots all over the place. I'm a regular consumer of all kinds of internet "indie" pr0n as much as the next guy, but I've never really grokked the whole webcam thing. Some webcammers say it's a form of self-expression, but there are certain faces that should never be pixelized for viewing.

The above rant was merely a poor segue for these two links... Hmm, that reminds me, I should get a picture of my own that doesn't look like Dahmer on full medication...

My boss is the best ever.

2004-05-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid this might happen to me someday. Once you get really involved in blogging/livejournaling, you tend to play to the bleachers and start venting on random work/school related stuff.
Which is why I'm going to stay the hell outta posting my daily frustrations on any blog.

"Hi, I'm Narender Lal Kapadia, would you like to contribute to the GOP today?"

2004-05-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

Via Mefi: Bush used Indian call-centers for fundraising. Boy, that must've really pissed off those who were already fed up with their dell tech support.

Save your xenophobia

2004-05-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

Consider a run-of-the-mill Indian bride. She marries a relative stranger, and goes to live with him in his house. She has two sets of parents now, one from the pirandha veedu, and one from the pugundha veedu. After 30 years of connubial ~~bliss~~drudgery, does she not have a say in the workings of her pugundha veedu? All this outcry over being ruled by a foreigner is a typical jingoistic knee-jerk reaction. If India is "shining" now, it is because some CEO in an MNC decided he could profit more by paying 5 Indian code monkeys for the price of one American.

If inexperience and incompetence are benchmarks for rejecting political candidates, Bush II and The Governator wouldn't ever have been elected. Sonia has spent most of her adult life in India. She has the ability to surround herself with competent statesmen even if she doesn't possess the ability to be competent herself. There is no reason for her not to be the next P.M. All the naysayers who raise the objection of her being foreign, would probably have raised the objection of her being a woman 50 years ago. The "people" have voted for her and I think India has made a true step forward in thinking as a global democratic entity rather than a narrow provincial nation-state.

Bravo you poor huddled masses!

Both Bush and Kerry were right next to my office premises today. Today, America celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Brown Vs. Board decision. It was right here in Topeka, KS, that the decision to desegregate schools was taken. Parallels can be drawn to the decision taken 50 years ago and the current mandate of Indians. It's time to start looking at ourselves as a human race rather than being of black, latino, or an Italian ethnicity.

/liberal hippie tree-hugger mode off

Obligatory Post Poll Post

2004-05-13T14:58:00.000-07:00

A good measure of how out of touch I am with Indian affairs is when the poll results came out today. I use The Hindu as my primary Indian news source and most exit polls indicated an uneasy lead for BJP. Congress winning more seats than BJP came as a big surprise to me. The prevalent reason for the ouster seems to be that the poverty-stricken majority of India didn't swallow BJP's line of economic well-being. Is Congress going to affect a major policy shift? I don't think so. The poor have once again deluded themselves into believing that things would change. As someone from a comfortable upper-middle class background, I see no reason to welcome the Congress. The only moral reason I would have to oppose the BJP would be it's Hindutva platform. Anyway, I don't think this change will affect people of the blogging community in anyway. After all, we ~~are~~ were all part of the relatively comfortable UMC persuasion...

Let them eat cake!

Covering all bases...

2004-05-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

Google has a blog. It's been a long time coming, considering Google owns Blogger. But here's what MeFi has to say about it:
Today's entry on the Google blog was altered in a subtle way. The earlier entry boasted of their Bangalore data center, but the afternoon's version now features the Zurich center more prominently and relegates Bangalore to a footnote. Could it be that the company is a little less boastful in their handling of the outsourcing debate than they thought they could be?

Raapi has been posting updates of a "true" "love" story. With main characters generically named Laxmi and Srini, and a contemporary backdrop of a Coffee Day(check out the weird couple on the right), it could be a coming-of-age story of EveryMan, including you.

BTW, What's up with Nilakantan's blog? I have to confess that I miss the rantings of a pretty weird individual...

Ouroboros

2004-05-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

I guess the decision to get a tattoo was on an impulse. Choosing the tattoo - I wanted something to do with the dichotomy of life - its ups and downs, the pain and the pleasure, the sadness and the happiness. I thought it would be cool to get a yin-yang on my small-pox vaccination scar, but the tattoo guy vetoed it. I also had the Ouroboros in mind, so I decided to go with that. I trawled the Net for suitable ouroboros pictures and came with 4 possible ones. One was a simple no-frills image. The second was an aztec symbol for the O, and looked really cool. The third was something I picked off a Chakra-NewAge site that looked vaguely oriental/indian. The fourth was a totally chinese dragon-looking thing. I picked the Indian looking thing because it seemed to be intricate and within my budget($150).

I finished work and went home and grabbed a bite. I arrived at the parlor 10 minutes late. My friendly neighborhood tattoo artist was a big biker guy called "Big Al" with a bald head, a goatee and fierce tattoos all over his arm. I couldn't have been tattooed by a more cliched figure!

Al had replaced the intricate details of the snake's body in the blueprint with scales since they were too intricate to be tattooed. I was a bit apprehensive about scales looking good. He told me replacing the scales with a celtic-looking design would take too much time, so I just decided to go with the scales. He also told me it would only cost $100, which was fine and dandy by me.

After signing the required form, I went downstairs with Al. Not surprisingly, Big Al was a big Iron Maiden fan. His room was filled with bloody skulls (not real ones, of course) and iron maiden action figures. After cleaning up my arm and shaving any excess hair, he started in earnest.

I braced myself for the pain. I had read different accounts of tattoos and none of them indicated it would be too painful... and it wasn't(unless you're a big pussy). The initial sting is similar to a syringe being injected or a red ant's bite. The first few markings of the tattoo gun are uncomfortable, then your endorphines kick in and it just feels like someone's scratching you very hard.

Al started marking the outline with a smaller needle and completed it in 20-25 minutes. Then he replaced it with a broader needle (you could tell by the whine of the gun) and went to work on the shading part. The snake head looked great after shading. He did good work on the scales too, giving each of them a slight shade so that it looks 3D. He was finished in another 20 minutes. He didn't talk much, neither did I. I guess that was his preferred method of working , and it was my preferred method of being worked on too.

After finishing, he wrapped my arm up in clean bandage and gave me after-tattoo care tips. Looks like I have to wash the tattoo area gently for at least 2 weeks. The skin usually does some peeling off in a week and he told me to be ready for that and not scratch the area. I thanked Al for the great work, bought some ointment and left the premises.

There it is - I now have a permanent mark on my left shoulder. Do I feel liberated or different in any way? Not really. I had made the decision and had decided to go through with it. Has my attitude changed in any way? I certainly don't feel any more hardcore than I used to. The only justifications I have now are the same reasons I decided on the ouroboros in the first place.

***Update***: A lot of searches hit this page looking for ouroboros symbols. Here's what I've managed to salvage from the dead links.

Aztec Ouroboros

Miscellany

2004-04-28T15:29:00.000-07:00

Too little time to browse, too many interesting links!

It's gonna take me ages to sift through this site on word trivia, but I think it's worth it. Also came across double dactyls, which, contrary to my first impressions, had nothing to with cretaceous flying creatures.

Iraq Graffiti

2004-04-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

Make your very own Iraq message. Usage of "I got invaded and all I got was this stupid cardboard" is forbidden.
The Tree of Life, which I used in my first GRA project, was posted on MeFi today. MeFites came up with some interesting members of the TOL.

Waffles

2004-04-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

After Dubya's 'Miserable Failure' googlebomb, comes John Kerry's 'Waffles'. The reason? Kerry has backtracked on so many issues in the past. Given a choice between the devil and the deep blue Kerry, I would definitely go for the latter.

I now have a gmail account. Reach me at iam.dev2r [at] gmail.com! All blogspotters who sign in should see an invitation on the page immediately after login. I LIKE it! My only grouse: It spoils my text-search capabilities on Firefox since gmail's shortcuts override those of Firefox's.

Business Forecasts...

2004-04-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

This article paints the current U.S. economy in the right colors. There has been a shift from hiring full-time workers for longer periods to hiring temps for shorter project-based periods. This seemed to be restricted to high-tech areas like call-centers, consultancies etc., but now it seems to THE business model for almost all kinds of businesses, from manufacturing to state government agencies.

But here's a forecast that I really liked: Those concerns will ease over time, and employers are likely to convert some of the jobs now staffed with temps to full-time positions. But the new approach to employment is likely to be more permanent, analysts say.

Yay for me, possibly.