10 days to go...

Well..the betting has begun.
Not just for the bookies, but also for me and my friends here at MT.
We're betting on each match right from the round-of-16 to the finals, with the stash value increasing every round.

Here's my list.
A lil bit of heart over mind, cos i want England to win. But I've included 3 dark horses - Ukraine (Shev's the man), Ecuador (Exc qual record) and Togo (like the name very much,*smirk*).
Ahhhh...let's wait and see!

* Round of 16 *
49 Germany - Sweden
50 Argentina - Mexico
51 England - Ecuador
52 Portugal - Holland
53 Czech Rep - Australia
54 France - Ukraine
55 Brazil - Italy
56 Spain - Togo

* Quarter Finals *
57 Germany - Argentina
58 Czech Rep - France
59 England - Portugal
60 Brazil - Spain

** Semi Finals **
61 Germany - France
62 England - Brazil

** 3rd Place **
63 Brazil - Germany [Brazil win]

*** Final ***
64 England - France [Eng win]

By the way, Adidas has unveiled a golden +Teamgeist ball for the Final. Beautiful aint it?

viva AMD!!!

I got an opportunity to attend an AMD DevCon (first time in India) the week before last. Since free-time is a resource that is very scarce nowadays, I couldn't blog about it. Anyway, I've got a few mins now..so here goes...it was held at the Taj, right at the end of MG Road. Me and *my blog-hacker* US got an invit and literally jumped at the oppt. And man! wasn't I glad i went!

It was a pretty big gathering with many IT developers and other Top Brass from all over India. The fact that I got an AMD bag and other freebies even before the event started made my day!

Ok..1st Note: I've been a die-hard AMD fan for a few years now, so all this was extra-special for me. I was practically as excited as watching a ManUtd-Arsenal match. No kidding!

We had talks right from AMD's Indian GM, top guys who had come for the DevCon all the way from the valley of sand, to a lot of other five-star techies from AMD. You might imagine that the talks were boring, but no! seriously dude..very very interestin stuff...and imagine the scene..me sitting wide-eyed right upfront on the 2nd row munching on every word spoken...lol.
We had talks from the event sponsors who were HP, Microsoft, RedHat, Oracle, and Acer.

Note 2: Lookout for these terms -> 'virtualization' and 'concurrent programming'.
You're gonna hear a lot more, i repeat - a lot more about them in the near future.

Ofcourse, no AMD show would be complete without taking a free shots at their dearest rivals..a little-known company who's name starts with 'I'. There were demos on benchmarks between the AMD 64-bit Opteron and the Xeon processors. Also, loads of demos comparing the Athlon 64 X2, Sempron, Turion 64 and the corresponding rival processors.
If you didn't know, AMD had called its rival to an open duel sometime back. It turned out to be a walkover. For more info, go here - DUAL-CORE DUEL. Don't miss it! there's a hilarious duel video as well!

Ok..the best part..there was a stall running FarCry64 (a modified version of Crytech's original) on a dual-core dual-pro AMD Machine..that's practically 4 cores churning out eye-blinding power!! And they were using a 34" widescreen TV too! Hahaa..people who know me well, will believe me,when I say that they pratically had to drag me by my hair to my seat whenever a session began! lol.

The Taj is not bad at all..atleast the buffet wasn't and it was kinda hard to not put in some shut-eye in the post-lunch session. Aahh..but where there's a will, there's a way and I should thank those volunteers no end. :))

In the end, there was a lucky draw for a Turion 64-bit based Ferrari Laptop..aaaannddddddd...hmph - i didn't win. :(( (That would have made my year!!) Anywayz..was a soooper experience..yenjoyed to daa coreeee!!!

Hacked Again

Never make the same mistake twice.

This hacker is a person who likes to quote --

Lord, deliver me from the man who never makes a mistake, and also from the man who makes the same mistake twice. - William James Mayo

Never make the same mistake twice or you'll never get around to all of them - Unknown

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time - George Bernard Shaw

Sadly, our Stan_da_man ran out of luck, on a chilly Friday afternoon. He handed his machine to me. This is the second time, he has left his machine un-attended. The last time is documented at this link

This post in in continuation to the above link "Oh Staney Boy", only that with passage of time and effects of evolution, it has shrinked to simply "Boy" OR "Stan".

Further, this hacker likes to write senseless things. Here is the earlier passage extended with more senseless things. Makes Sense.

Staney Boy went to a garden.
Staney Boy ate a banana.
Staney Boy drank milk.
Staney Boy put on his bunny shoes.
Staney Boy said "Is it"
Staney Boy asked a girl "Is it."
Staney Boy asked a boy "Is it"
Staney Boy went both ways.

Stan Boy got a call
Stan Boy got another call
Stan Boy got a scrap
Stan Boy got another scrap
Stan Boy got an IM
Stan Boy got another IM
Stan Boy got an e-mail
Stan Boy got another e-mail

Boy went to Lunch
Boy went to Mafia
Boy went to Boost
Boy went to T.T.
Boy went to soccer
Boy went to CS

Stan posetd a blog
Stan posted a testimonial
Stan posted a scrap
Stan read a blog
Stan read a testimonial
Stan read a scrap

Boy downloaded a midi
Boy converted to a sp-midi
Boy uploaded a sp-midi
Boy downloaded a sp-midi
Boy got a ringtone
.........

Hint for those trying to understand the above lines -> Don't
You will hear from me, when Boy leaves his machine unattended again.
--
Cheers
US

Please comment to save this hacked entry from deletion by the hands of Stan_da_man. All comments will be counted as votes for survival of this post.

*Note - Boy is too busy with DirectShow, any help will be appreciated.

[Boy speaks (after getting over the initial shock): Grrrrrr!!!!! US!!! I handed over my PC to you cos you said you'd install DX for me when i went to lunch...not hack into my blog!!! (again!!). Hmph..being the considerate p-mate (note: projectmate / not playmate) that i am, I've decided to not delete this post. (again..again!!) And thanks for FountainHead! Enjoy Muzafarnagar, and don't kill the guy next to you in the train with DVB-S specs!! haha! :)]

25 days to go...

Some people think its is a matter of life or death but it's far more important than that. - Bill Shankley


I can see it on the horizon....It's getting closer.

The rains are back..and the madness!

The rains have decided to pay surprise visits to Bangalore again... Its been 2-3 days now. I've been regularly getting drenched, and it isn't helping the cold I caught just before leaving Trivandrum abt 5 days ago. (It seems I have a Tvm-cold&fever-jinx : I almost always get it, even if I go there for like 2 days!!)

Anyways..thats not what I wanted to write about. I have to vent out my frustration against the madness that seems to spawn itself when it starts raining in Bangalore. I'm speakin about the Traffic. The Roads. The People. Aaaarrgghhh!!!!

For example, yesterday evening, all I wanted to do was reach home quickly from MG-Road at about 7:30pm, after attending the AMD DevCon at the Taj. (my next post, very shortly) Anyways, it was raining, pretty heavily too, and my projectmate and I couldn't find even one autodriver who was willing to take us till Banashankari. (They never seem to agree when you badly need one, right? and they even give you a sarcastic apologetic smile if its raining!) So we started joggin in the rain along the footpath, checking if any BMTC bus stuck in the slow-moving traffic was going our way. After about 8 minutes of running, jumping over rain puddles, getting mud-splashed by vehicles, bumping into people, and 15 buses, we finally got one that was going straight to Banashankari bus-stand.

Ahhh...that was a temporary relief, though standing with dripping clothes in a crowded bus was not gonna help us make any quick friends.

Well, after snailing its way through the populated roads, the bus stopped near Jayanagar 8th block, and they told all of us to get out. I guess the driver was bored with his career and suddenly decided enough was enough. So, we step out, and not surprisingly, the rain was heavier now. After our almost-dried clothes had got drenched again, we got an even-more crowded bus to Banashankari.

Well, 20 minutes and 200 dirty glances later, we reached Banashankari finally. I just had to travel 3 more kms to reach my flat, and my friend a couple more, so we decided to catch an auto. After getting drenched in the rain for the 3rd time, we got one and even settled for a '1 n half' metre charge. Ahh, I couldn't bear to argue with the autodriver, I just wanted to get home fast. Well, after moving forward for like 500m, the driver suddenly stops. What now?! "Saaar, too much traffic sir, it'll take 1 hour to get through"...Traffic? in Banashankari? I looked ahead and saw a couple of vehicles, and there was traffic ahead alright, but not a jam, it was moving-traffic for Godsakes! It couldn't even be called "traffic" by B'lore standards, it was as good as it got! "No saaar, it's too much saaar. I won't go further!" Daaamn..ok fine...stepping out into the pouring rain (4th time), we ask him how much - "18Rs saar" (Easy math- min. charge of 12Rs + another 6. Brilliant!) Whadaaaahell? But the guy was too stubborn and we didn't wanna have a fight in the rain, Hindi-filmy style. So after paying 18Rs. (for travelling a distance that maybe required like 18 strides), we started running to the next bus-stop.

Reached the stop. Kadirenahalli Cross. Ahh..there was one bus that was actually going to my place, and it was relatively empty too! Had my luck changed? Apparently not. Cos as soon as I seated myself, I saw the driver tell something to the conductor. The conductor immdiately stepped out and ran off to the nearest shop. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity to me, actually 10min, he came running back and handed over to the driver a packet filled with vegetables. What the..! Apparently the driver thought he would take advantage of the sparsely populated bus to do some timely grocery shopping for his wife!

Well, without much further incident, the bus reached my place. Except ofcourse, in between, when we almost rammed into 4 or 5 cars on the Outer-Ring-Road intersection. Huh? I was surprised that happened, cos usually there's a traffic-policeman regulating traffic there. I looked out of the window, and lo!..to my surprise, I saw the policeman (fully geared with hemet and raincoat) doing his job, but under the protection of a shop's asbestos sheet, some 30m away from the actual intersection! LoL! Inspite of my pitiful situ, I had to laugh. How much crazier could this place get?

Well..that's that.
I reached home after approx. 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Drenched to the core. Starved. Tired.

A Wet Bangalore - sakkath crazzy magaa!!!

What is it...

....with England and metatarsals?

This is the question that hit me, as soon as I heard the news that Rooney had fractured his 4th metatarsal in the collision with Paulo Ferreira during that horrible match when ManUtd were beaten 3-0 by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Now, mind you, 3-0 was a very wrong indication of how the match went along, the fact confirmed even by Jose Mourinho, who actually said that ManUtd were better than what the final score indicated. (Maybe the man has a good side, or maybe he was just thinking crazy, engulfed by happiness.) But the bottomline is that Chelsea won the premiership for the 2nd year running, and I'm glumly agreeing that maybe they deserved it.

Now, coming back to the topic...
England and metatarsals have had a long and tragic history.

What is a metatarsal anybody asking? Okay...
The metatarsus consists of the five long bones of the foot, which are numbered from the medial side; each presents for examination a body and two extremities. These are analogous to the metacarpals of the hand. Each bone is called a metatarsal, and is numbered from 1 to 5.







Okay coming back...
First, it was David Beckham in 2002 who fractured one of his metatarsals in a collision with Duscher in the ChampionsLeague Quaterfinal with Deportivo La Coruna. That too, just 2 months before the WorldCup. This meant that even though he played in Korea-Japan..he wasn't upto top form.
After that, Gary Neville fractured his metatarsal and was out for a couple of months.
Next - Euro2004 - and Rooney fractured his metatarsal in the match against Portugal. England went on to lose the match, and were knocked out of Euro2004. (Bad Omen indicator beeps...Ferreira is Portuguese. not again!) Rooney only returned 3 months later. (to debut for ManUtd..and scored a hat-trick!!!..damn..i'm diverting again!)
Around a month and a half ago, Michael Owen injured his metatarsal playing for NewCastle. The poor lad hasn't started playing properly till now, and even limped off in his comeback match last weekend!

...and now the Latest Victim - Rooney! (again..*SIGH*)

However, the good news is that doctors say that he'll be back in six weeks, just in time for England's opening match. However, I do feel that is a lil too optimistic. Maybe he'll be fit to be play when the knock-out phase starts. That's when England really needs the boy.

It seems ironic that England's World Cup hopes are now pinned on the tiny bone shown below...

...the 4TH METATARSAL.

Indian Idol or Idle ?

I'm sure most of us watched the Indian Idol-2 finale episode last Saturday..plenty of drama..glitter..suspense. All the gossip and hullabaloo regarding Sandeep Acharya and Karunya, things like - who's the better singer, who's looks better, blah blah finally came to an end.(thankfully). And in the end, the usual melodrama over how the actual better singer (Karunya was the crowd favourite to win it i hear) didn't win it, was enough to set the runour mills buzzing full steam. Just like last year when Abhijeet Sawant upstaged Amit Sana to win the coveted prize! Anyway, the Indian public just love and adore all of them..and can't seem to get enough of them!

Sony Entertainment Television's Musical Talent Hunt is indeed a HIT for the second year running!

Or is it?

What HIT me the most while watching the finale was not the glitz or glamour of the show.
It was the talent on display.
Or rather, the lack of talent on display....

I mean..I might be wrong because I've hardly watched 2 or 3 episodes, but the finalists didn't blow my mind away or anything. In fact, they didn't even come close to it. And when the "oh-so-over-hyped" Abhijeet Sawant started singin Rang de Basanti, I changed the channel after forcing myself to listen to him for two minutes. It was such a poor rendition, I was left wondering how they allowed this guy to win last year! Was it his dazzling smile that did them in? "them" being the Indian judgin-threesome: Sonu Nigam, Farah Khan and Anu Malik, along with the millions of public voters. Okay...Mohabbatein Lutaaunga was good, his saving grace if I may say so, but is he good enough? Earlier winners of talent-hunts like Viva, Aasma are also pitiful, seriously!

Comparing Sony's II-2 to Fox's original American Idol 5 (airing in India on Star World), OMG -seems like there's a huge divide in talent between the two countries!
Just watching the performances of AI-5's Top 7 a week ago on TV left me amazed at their talent! They all sounded so good, and did amazing renditions..for example, songs like Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Creed's Higher, Beyonce's Work it Out were performed so well, aahhh...it left you wondering why they weren't belting out albums in the mainstream music industry much earlier! Previous AI winners like Fantasia, Kelly Clarkson are already selling worldwide. Look at Kelly - Two Grammys don't lie!!

AMERICAN IDOL'S TOP 7













Ok..leave the contestants for now..looking at the two shows as a whole, almost everything is better in the original! Why do we Indians always go in for cheap remakes? Just like KBC a.k.a "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" indianised. But that wasn't so bad (atleast for Star's cash registers) mainly thanks to Bachchan saab! Now take a look at the judges panel. The American judge triad of Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul beats the hell outta the Indian ones!
Their personalities - ranging from Paula's 'caring pity', Randy's 'verbal-showboating' to Simon's 'suicide-inducing sarcasm' are major contibutors to what makes the show so successful. For example, Simon's sardonic remarks like "Pathetic!" or "Are you drunk?" accompanied by his eyeball-rolling smirk are hilarious! Do you get all that in our desi version?
Nopes! All you get is our typical bollywood masala, flashy dance sequences, people like Isha Koppokar and Alisha Chinai getting roped in to gain more viewer ratings. This was a talent-hunt if you forgot, not a filmy award show!

SIMON-PAULA-RANDY










What's happenin here? Why aren't we seeing good Indian talent on show? Is it a case of our country not having any? Call me a proud Indian but I do not think that is the case! Is it cos the talent hunt show organisers are not doing enough "hunting"? Hmmm...you tell me!

Rage n Munich

I returned from Tvm yesterday...spent Easter at home.Went for a Rock Show at Nishagandhi with my bro, Beny, Jerrin etc...had a pretty good time...
The Rock Show (held by SCT students) pretty much sucked and only one band actually stood out from the rest.. The band was 'Rage' and they played the usual Metallica numbers, including a superb rendition of 'One'.The other two bands, local 'Rubberband' and 'Afterdeath', a band from Hyderabad, didn't impress at all.

RUBBERBAND














RAGE














Out of the 3 movies I saw, 'Chintamani Kolacase' sucked bigtime!!! 'Taxi Driver', a 1976 Martin Scorcese flick starring Robert de Niro and Jodie Foster was pretty good. But the best was 'Munich', Spielberg's Oscar nominated movie. It's all about what happens after 11 Israeli athletes were murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Briliant i must say, and me felt like playing those college-time fav action games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honour once again. Eric Bana was simply great too.























Here's an review extract from IMDB about the movie. Once again, if you ain't seen it yet, go watch it !!! And get ready for some pretty gory Saving Private Ryan-style violence!!

Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind." What distinguishes justice from vengeance? This echoes throughout Steven Spielberg's "Munich". "Munich" is powerful and perhaps Spielberg's most compelling and thought provoking work. He weaves a tapestry of political and social threads focusing on terrorism and the cost of violence. "Munich" is truly amazing in balancing linear storytelling and horrific acts of violence, demonstrating the impact of the aftermath. Spielberg's "Munich" seen through the eyes of Eric Bana's Avner is a powerful allegory that even in the most just and noble fights against terror we eventually become that which we despise. "Munich" really serves as a reminder. Mossad team leader Avner played by Eric Bana is absolutely riveting as the man who begins this righteous cause only to find that the cost is his soul. Anver asks, "When does it ever end?

Nothing about "Munich" is easy, though it is simple. Eric Bana emerges as the noble hero battling to salvage his own humanity and his very soul. "When does it ever end?" Perhaps even in the current context there is no real answer—maybe what Spielberg is getting at. It is a reminder of our humanity, that even the most righteous cause may cost our souls. "Munich" is truly a powerful movie worth seeing.

50 days to go...

"The object is round in shape. It lasts for 90 minutes. Everything else is just theory..."
[Quoted from 'Run Lola Run']

The Countdown has begun.

A visit to the Harbour...

"As the world shrinks, so our palate grows.
As our lives become more complex, we crave simplicity.
We are living through an eating revolution.
Welcome to the Harbour Market."

Well this weekend, My friends and I ( happy??? - to someone who's bent on showing me that "I" doesn't come first..lol ) decided to go and check out Mohanlal's new restuarant, named "Harbour Market", here in Bangalore. Actually, it's his first restuarant in India..the previous ones being in Dubai etc.

After spending like an hour trying to locate the place...which according to the ad, was opp. Malige Hospital, Crescent Road, near Racecourse road..blah..blah, we finally found out it was in the lobby of a hotel called the 37th Crescent.

Well, it was a seafood speciality place..according to what we'd heard.
What we hadn't heard was that it was also a super-expensive seafood speciality place.

Anyway on entering, the first thing that blows your mind away is the ambience..ultra-posh styling, lights, everything! All the waiters were dressed in actual sailor attire. Although I didn't recognize who the head waiter was, my friends did. No it was not Mohanlal himself...It was another Mallu actor called Ponnu. Very fake english accent but very courteous as well. He was taking the orders on his PDA as well-well!!

Well, one look at the Menu, and my stomach (already grumbling not havin eaten anything the whole morning) turned into a sailor-knot. Well, you guessed right - It was the bloody prices!!

To give you an idea,
Idly 65 - Rs.150
Vada - Rs.150
One freakin kerala paratha!!! - Rs.40
All other dishes - Rs.250 min -> Rs.350
Other delicacies like crab, squid etc - Rs.800 and above!!!

Well, the four of us felt like fish out of water! Although the idea of just drinking the water and walkin out did cross our minds, we decided to stay and explore the "Harbour" further.
And no..we didn't just order a kerala paratha and share it, we actually did order good stuff, all-be-it with a glum face knowing that we were burning a hole in our pockets.
The place was soooo "over-the-moon" expensive that my friend Nithanand commented, "Ippam mansallayee Mohanlal orru velliya actor aayee poyannu." lol.

You might imagine that such a costly place would be sparsely populated, but oh no! it was full...hardly an empty seat...all richie-rich families, achayanmaaru...and the odd northie couple too.Well, we did get time to have a nice long chat among ourselves after ordering,because it took like 1 hour to get our food! Grr..the wait was so irritating we started wondering if it was Mohanlal himself who was sweating it out in the kitchen trying to prepare lunch for us!!

But the good part was...when the food finally arrived..it was worth the wait. Mmmm...Finger-licking to be exact..and that is exactly what we did, cos we knew each lick was worth like 5Rs!! (perverts can stop reading right here.) We blew a lot of money, but it's a pretty decent place to go like once in a blue moon, or maybe more often if you win a lottery or something.

Well, that was Saturday.
Not much to say about Sunday. Maybe only 3 lines...

ManUtd-Arsenal match.
We won 2-0.
el partido ilimitado comenzó...

A Friggin Paranormal Dream Trilogy!!!

----------------------------
*PART III: Thursday-Mar 30th-9:33am
----------------------------

The End....
Green grassss...blue skieeesss...
white clouds....pigs on the flyyyyyy...
It was a beautiful summer day.
I was feeling great as I settled into my Featherlite chair..expecting a pretty dull and no-work morning...smiling idiotically as I do when I know my lazy-persona is gonna be fully fed."beep--beep" went my mobile..indicating that I'd received an sms. Still smiling, I picked it up, unlocked it, and started reading the sms, which was from my friend, let's call her De* . [Names are hidden for the sake of privacy].
Well, the sms started off sayin..."hey, U won't believe it Stan, I saw you in my dreams last night..and...".
The smile vanished from my face.
Then, next thing i know, the walls were dimming...and the lights were closing in on me...or..maybe vice versa. Anywayz, I was too freaked out to figure it out. I was like...No way!!! Not you too!!! Aaaahhhhh....

Confused?
Ok..Let me rewind the time by exactly 10days and 12hours.

-----------------------------
PART I: Saturday-Mar18th-9:33pm
-----------------------------

The Beginning...
I was at my cousin's place, enjoying a family party with over 20 cousins. "buzzzzzzzzzzz...." went my silent-mode mobile, indicating a call..I picked it up and it was my friend Sha* from Chennai...she (not the first one as i was soon about to find out) tells me about the crazy dream she had about me the previous night. It seemed I made a quick trip to Chennai, and for whatever reason, i quickly fled from there within a day and so on. Hmmm...i was like..hey kool yaar...(It feels good right when a nice friend, esp a gal, sees you in her dreams right? hehe...). Anyway I didn't give it much thought after that. Until....

--------------------------------
PART II: Wednesday-Mar22nd-1:33pm
--------------------------------

Four days later....
Me and my Mafia mates were just getting ready to play....
and then another good friend n colleague of mine, Amo* , starts off saying.."Hey Staney Boy!!... Guess what...I saw you yesterday night in my sleep!!"...(gulp) Sheeeeezzz...this was getting weird..and it was a very weird dream as well...she went on to say that she and her friends came over to my place (in her dream let me remind you), and first of all, I was all green in colour!! ...and even worse..I had a pet along with me...a pet OCTOPUS!! The dream was soo damn crazy that it totally psyched her out too! Anyway i was like...hmmm..weird consequence dude....2 gals dreamt about me....in 4 days...
It was just another 7 days when i got De's sms.

----------------------------------
* Continued from PART III: Thursday-Mar30th-9:33am
----------------------------------

So now you can understand why I got all freaked out right??
Anyway...continuing with the sms...It seemed in her dream, she saw me buying a big boat..and she was like, "Now what the hell would you do with a big boat like that in B'lore?!". I don't know...and that's the least of my unanswered questions! 3 dreams - 3 gals - 10 days! WTF is this???

I have to admit..I don't like such weird "co-incidential" events...
It's slightly freaking me out....but thankfully, there hasn't been more cases reported after that... :-)

Hmmm...now just for cheap thrills..let me try connecting the 3 dreams... Like what?...ok..first I go to Chennai...and there I buy a big boat!!...and then I go fishing...and maybe I catch an Octopus,,,but then how did I turn green?..cos my new pet Octopus puked all over me? lol...:) I dunno...but it makes no sense to me either!!

I am no Sigmund Freud, and am in no way decently knowledgeful on the subject of "Interpretation of Dreams", though more interested mortals can look here.

What I've been more interested in lately, is making sure my friends, and that too, especially girls, haven't been dreaming about me. (However incredibly ridiculous that sounds!)

Art - Part II

Ambigram craze....
That's what it is! and that's what i'm crazy about right now!

Must be cos of having read Angels&Demons recently.
For the uninformed, here's a lil info.
An ambigram, also sometimes known as an inversion, is a graphical figure that spells out a word not only in its form as presented, but also in another direction or orientation. [from Wiki]

It seems there are different kinds of ambigrams, but my lastest craze is creating 'Rotational Ambigrams', those that are mirror images of themselves. In other words, the image will look exactly similar even if you rotate it by 180 degrees.

Here's a few ambigrams I did @ work, using Corel PSP-X.
I'm still an amateur at it, but I'm getting better!
Its great fun too..another point that can be added to that forthcoming book of mine, "Things I do @ work:The_Uncensored_Edition".

Actually, making ambigrams is not all that hard. It'll take a lil bit of "upside-down" thinking in the beginning, but gradually you get the hang of it and it becomes easier.
As you can see, the first one is my name itself. The second one is the logo that I made for our Multimedia Community here @ MindTree. The 3rd one is the title of this blog. If u wanna verify, all you have to do is save these pics and then rotate them in any ImageViewer s/w. Or you can just screw your neck upside down....or watevaaaa!

Anyone who wants their names to be made into ambigrams...just post a comment and i'll get to it! (For a very reasonable price too...lol.) kiddin! laaayyytaa!

Art - Part I

Sometime back, my friend Beni told me about a site -> mrpicassohead. Pretty simple actually, a place where you could create your own picasso-style art.
Picasso Art is Weird yet Stylish.

Best part is that you can sit in your cubicle and waste away time. If you want to. And if you have nothing better to do.

Here are three I did...

A cricket coach and a football hat-trick

Phew...what a weekend!
Had to go for my DeviceDrivers training program even on Sunday!
Grr..in fact i'm again sitting here in this training session right now blogging.
Want proof? take this.

// {2ED8260D-0706-4656-AFF9-6FBD5278BDC2}
DEFINE_GUID(GUID_SAMPLEIO_DEVICE_INTERFACE_CLASS,
0x2ed8260d, 0x706, 0x4656, 0xaf, 0xf9, 0x6f, 0xbd, 0x52, 0x78, 0xbd, 0xc2);

Hehe..sorry! that was supposed to be pasted in some driver file called genport.c, but anywayz..
I haven't posted in quite a while, partly cos work has just shifted into a higher gear, leaving me with lesser free time, and football training also has spawned itself into a rigorous 3 times/week mode.
I scored my 2nd consecutive hat-trick during football training last Friday. More than a case of good-form, I think it was cos of poor defending by the opposition.However, I got clattered twice during practice, which left my left ankle bruised with shades of black, green, purple and blue.

On Saturday, we had our CA (Consumer Appliances) IG outing to Eagleton Resorts, which is actually a full-fledged golf-course also. We had great fun but I again got injured (this time my knee) while playing extreme diving-prone squash and badminton.Well, while I was walking past the golf-course, actually the lunchroom area :-) , I noticed 4 foreigners sitting at a table. One of them looked oddly familiar, but i wasn't very sure. So I walked by twice, and then ran off and called my friend Umang a.k.a 'Toy' to help confirm. And indeed, my excellent observation skills were right!

The suspected party was our very own Indian Cricket Team Coach - Greg Chapell!

My initial thoughts ->
1. Go upto him, shake hands and take a pic with him.
2. Go upto him and say "Hey mate! How about bringing Ganguly back?"

Choice no:2, I knew, could be met with unexpected and uncontrolled reactions, ranging from showing me the finger (Greg loves doing that if you didn't know)...to an abuse+slap combo (now don't start!) ...to maybe even picking me for our struggling Indian Team (but hey I'm too busy for a part-time job right now) so I decided not to opt for it.

So only Choice no:1 was left. Even while standing there, I saw another guy doing just that. Grrr..i did not have my digicam with me so i had to rush off and get one from my colleagues. But by the time I got back, a small crowd of around 10-15 people had gathered so Greg and his mates decided to flee the scene. Hmm..missed an opportunity...(I meant Greg missed an opportunity to meet ME) :-0 But anywayz....not everyone gets lucky ;-)

That's how my weekend sped by...but atlast chilled out yesterday watching ManUtd thrash Birmingham 3-0, while applying ice to the injury I sustained during football training yest morning too. The third one in three days. Hey, that's a hat-trick in itself!

Ok...it seems today morning's training session has been terminated.
Lunch calls, but more than that, Mafia beckons.
Logging off...

Soccer and the Butterfly Effect

Like i mentioned before, I'm a Sports Freak. So i'm gonna stay with the same theme for this post too.

Most of you must have heard about the Chaos Theory.

In a scientific context, the word chaos has a slightly different meaning than it does in its general usage as a state of confusion, lacking any order. Chaos, with reference to Chaos Theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules. The two main components of chaos theory are the ideas that systems - no matter how complex they may be - rely upon an underlying order, and that very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events. This latter idea is known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions, a circumstance discovered by Edward Lorenz (who is generally credited as the first experimenter in the area of chaos) in the early 1960s.

The Butterfly Effect, first described by Lorenz, vividly illustrates the essential idea of the Chaos Theory. In a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences, Lorenz had quoted an unnamed meteorologist's assertion that, if chaos theory were true, a single flap of a single seagull's wings would be enough to change the course of all future weather systems on the earth. In the due course of time, this statement was refined to - "If a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, there will be a tornado in Texas".

After last week's Champions League encounter between Arsenal and Real Madrid, my good friend Hari Shenoy came up with another definition for the same ->

"If a mid-fielder on any football ground in the world sneezes,
Jose Antonio Reyes of Arsenal will have a fall!"

Here are a few more I added to the list.

"If a defender blinks during a match, the next thing he will
witness is Ronaldinho celebrating a hat-trick."

"If Mikael Silvestre receives the ball, the oppositon
will celebrate a couple of self-goals."

"If Ronaldo (Brazil) scores a goal, he will wake up
wishing it were true." (Reverse Butterfly Effect?)

"If Joe Cole takes a shot on goal, atleast 5 defenders will be
left rueing the result of a wicked deflection."

“If a footballer is tackled and rolls in pain during a match in
any football ground, Jose Mourinho will cite 'simulation' as a
reason to why Chelsea didn't win their match." (With his
sulk-mode on ofcourse.)

and finally...

"If a certain Russian slips on a banana peel and dies,
Chelsea will get relegated to the 2nd division."

A flashback on SUPER SUNDAY

It's funny really.
I've already read three blogs about the exact same topic.
And i know I'm 3 days late too.
But i have to post this. I confess openly - I'm a Sports Freak!
What the hell am i saying? not makin sense? Read on plz.

I got back to Bangalore 2 days ago.The only whole day i got in Tvm to spend time with my family n friends was Sunday.However, ironically, i ended up sitting glued to my TV set for 10+ hours. I coudn't help it..i again confess- I'm a Sports Freak!

Ok, starting off... we had a pretty good Ind v/s Eng test match happening since morning. But this was nothing compared for what was in store that day.

Firstly, F1 started again! I was so damn glad after Qualifying, but my spirits were dampened after seeing Schumi relegated to 2nd place, edged out by Alonso. Kimi came in 3rd. This year's championship looks like its gonna be an edge-of-the-seat thriller. I already can't wait for the next race!

Next, just when F1 got over, a feast of football began. My beloved ManUtd was playin Newcastle where Rooney was on fire, and we ended up winning the match 2-0 when even a 10-0 scoreline would have done justice to the way we played..no i'll change my words..the way we did everything but finish. Maybe 2-0 was actually deserved for the plethora of chances wasted.
Not such a big story but, Arsenal defeated Liverpool 2-1 after that. (Does anyone actually support these teams?..hehe..juz kiddin.)

Ok, best part of the day was taking place at the Wanderers in South-Africa. The cricket match between Aus and SA. What a record-breaking game dude!! 870 runs plus in 100 overs, two 150s, 28 sixes, records just went on tumbling. In the end, South Africa scraped through, winning with one wicket and one ball to spare! They chased down 435 runs! Believe that! Those ESPN guys should have framed the look on Ponting's face when Boucher scored the winning runs and send it to me. I had predicted to my housemates that SA would win the series 3-2 and they did. One of my housemates, Harish even said he would shave his head clean if SA did win. We are still waiting for that. I think it was sweet revenge for SA in more ways than one. Cos SA is the unluckiest team in cricket i feel, right from the '92 WorldCup where Jonty was left staring at the screen which said '22 to win in 1 ball'. The '99 WC where Zulu ran himself out when the scores were level to let Aus go thru. The '03 WC when a bad Duckworth-lewis system mistake meant that Boucher didn't take a single of the last ball cos he thought SA were thru.

Sweet Revenge i say again.
And in some subtle way, i think that Hansie Cronje too was smiling down on the Wanderers that day.

Return to Innocence

Alrighttyy then! (dunno why i just said that, was it Ace Ventura's line? maybe) Anywayz me back home now in Trivandrum. I'm here just for the weekend. Initial observations:
-Tvm is hot!!! (all u Blore peeps who complain abt d weather shut up!)
-Ferrero Rocher tastes 10 times better when eaten after an year. ;-)
But it feels good to be back home. My bro's back from the UK and my sis+hus has come down too. Family re-union i guess.

Home, Home again..
I long to be here, when i can...

I had a good journey via KSRTC's Airavata Volvo bus. Not bad seriously! Before i boarded the bus, i gota meet my friends Mintu, Lekhsmi, Rekha and Pinku.(ppl i hadn't seen in a long time.) I'd expected the usual kinda bus-trip where i'd isolate myself to my fav music col from my discman. But before i could get to it, I noticed a small kid of max. 4-5 years sitting on his dad's lap on the seat opposite to mine, accross the aisle. The cute small boy was speaking to his dad very excitedly and I could'nt help but eavesdrop on what he was sayin.

Boy: "Daddy!Daddy! how did the dinosaurs die?"
Dad: "Mone..u see.." (i think the dad was thinkin of some good answer which would convince his son..tuff question you see. No-one is sure exactly!)
Boy: "Pooja's mother told me that they died because 'avvaru kootil kerriyilla' (Mallu->Eng translation: they did'nt enter their dens) so they became old,so old and died."

Hahaha..i had to control myself from bursting out laughing. The joy and happiness on the kid's face seeing his dad n mom laugh at this was a sight.The innocence of his answer - humbling.
He didn't stop there.He went on to ask how Gandhi died..and his dad explained to him all about Godse etc. Next question...

Boy: "Daddy, how do the cows give milk?"
Dad: "Mone..cows have the ability to transform water into milk."
The boy seem pretty satisfied with the answer.But he had many questions left...

Boy: "Daddy, how does a small plant become a big tree?"
Dad: "Small plants eat their food and grow big..."
Boy: "Daddy, how do small babies learn to speak language when they grow?"
Dad: "They listen to what their daddy and mummy says and repeat those words. For example, the first word you said was 'Amma'. "

I could'nt control myself after that. I told the dad how smart his kid was and asked him his name. "Nikhil" said the dad. "Say hi,Nikhil" and Nikhil shyly waved his hand and whispered "Hi". He continued quizzing his dad and daddy patiently answered all his questions.

Then came the STUNNER.
Nikhil: "Daddy, you know these people we see on the roads who come and ask us money no? How is it that these people have no money but we have?"
STRIKE 1,2,3.
The Daddy was out without an answer. He fumbled on saying how he had a job..etc etc.

I was left marvelling at the kid's intelligence and curiosity. At his innocent perspective of Life. And this world. Innocence unblemished.
We were all like this at one point. When and how did corruption,pervertism,jealousy,egosim,hatred, and guilt invade us and rob us of this innocence?

I'm not sure but...
I think a 'Return to Innocence' is essential for all of us.
A lesson taught to me by Nikhil on my 'Return back Home'.

:-) cya all ..oh and by the way, Ferrai just got 1-2 in Qualifyin!! Scarlet days back again?? Can't wait for Raceday!!

Hey Lad!

[The below material is the original creation of uSTANnochans Creations. It was written in conditions of extreme boredom in the LGfloor,MT-WC. All rights reserved. All characters mentioned in the peom below are fictional, and any resemblance to a real-life person is an impossible coincidence. Even though you will feel like killing the author after comprehending the poem's extreme senslessness, please avoid doing so since insanity is a trait common to people of his age. No hate mail either.ThankYou]

Hey lad, why do you feel so glad?
When you see a gal scantily-clad?
If she thinks she's lookin rad and it's the latest fad,
Believe me - You could be the model of the next Axe ad!

Hey lad, why do you then become stark raving mad?
Just cos someone like her treats you bad?
It's better to leave such people as they are
Rather than trying to get over it in the nearest bar!

Hey lad, before drowning your sorrows in amber,
Wait a sec and ponder - Is your life a clamber?
If you've fallen into the fire from the frying pan,
It's time for advice from stan_da_man!

It's a Pitty i'm not Brad,
or have a voice like Nickelback's Chad,
else you'd have listened to this crazy ballad,
and earned your bread instead of robbin your dad!

[ThankYou again for reaching this line - THE END ;-)]

A Tribute to Gilmour

Today is March 6th.
Today is David Gilmour's 60th Birthday.
David Gilmour - The voice and guitar of Pink Floyd.

And not by co-incidence surely, today is the release date of David's new solo album 'On an Island', which has been inspired by the Aegean Island of Kastellorizon. For more info, goto David's new offical site.

Here's a photo tribute to David and his Fender Stratocaster.

And the award goes to...

Brrr...whenever boredom sets in, it's time to have some run-time fun! So here I am blogging again, and I've decided to conduct my own awards ceremony, for the best movie dialogues (or rather, the best ones i like) based on random categories of my choice. (Ofcourse, only English movies count - Hindi and Mallu flicks will just have to wait.)
Ok..let's start folks!!

The Best Movie Dialogue in the category of 'Staney Boy's Childhood Favourite' goes to .....
"Hasta la vista, baby" from the movie 'Terminator-2:JD'.
[One of my all-time fav flicks. The only bigger T2-JD fan (than myself) i know is my friend, Somu (who's now onsite in some pattikad in Kerala..hahaha..sorry da!). He knows almost all the dialogues by-heart n in sequence too! This dialogue was the symbol of absolute power and macho-ness for crazzy lil kids like me who used to dream of using big guns to shoot down the baddies like Arnie did!! hehe...crazzzy i was..and still am.]

Ok next one.
The winner in the category of the 'Most awe-inspiring dialogue' goes to .....
"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the armies of the North, general of the Felix legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." from the movie 'Gladiator'.
[Another great flick. This dialogue seriously raises goosebumps. Especially the scenario in which it is said, when he comes face-to-face with his sworn enemy - the Emperor, after many years. Brilliant.]

The winner in the category of 'Most Grim and Chillingly-confident dialogue' goes to .....
"I'll make him an offer he can't refuse." from the movie 'GodFather'.
[Only one man could have delivered that dialogue the way it was meant to be said - Marlon Brando. It's the fav of many friends of mine, but none can imitate it better than my friend Ashwin Richie (yo dude! Where in zee blue hell are ya?)]

Let's keep going.
The winner in the category of 'Most saddening and pitiful dialogue' goes to ....
"E.T. phone home" from the movie (what-else-but) 'E.T. : The Extra Terrestrial'
[I don't about you guys, but hearing this line almost made me cry. Dunno why though. Maybe it was the way E.T. said it..hehe.]

The winner in the category of 'Most Romantic dialogue' goes to ....
(hahaha..not from those romantic classics like Gone with the Wind, Casablanca.. nah nah.)
"You make me want to be a better man." from the movie 'As Good as it Gets'.
[Damn! Jack stole my line! hehe. This movie has excellent dialogues all over. Brilliant acting performances from Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. It's no surprise they both won oscars for their roles. You should see the movie and understand Jack's character to get the essence and feel of this dialogue. It's amazing.]

The winner in the category of 'Most Sarcastically funny Dialogue' goes to ....
"Sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up here." from 'As Good as it Gets' (again)
[Like i said before, you have to see the movie to get the feel of this. And the setting ofcourse. Jack's character is easily the most pessimistic and sarcastic ever! I think almost 50% of his dialogues from the movie can get nominated in this category!]

The winner in the category of 'Biggest Cult Dialogue' goes to ....
"One ring to rule them all,One ring to find them.One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness.....bind them!" from the 'Lord of the Rings'.
[Cult book/movie and one of my all-time favs. Words can't express. JRR and Peter Jackson, thou art great!]

The winner in the category of 'Most Jaw-dropping n Shocking Dialogue' goes to ....
"I am your father" from the 'STAR WARS V : The Empire Strikes Back'
[ wow maaan...the truth-revealing scene is unforgettable, esp for die-hard Star Wars fans like me. You almost utter the next sentence of the movie yourself which is "Noooooooooo..." from Luke Skywalker. George Lucas, thou art great too!]

The last award.
The winner in the category of the 'Best Closing-Line in a movie' goes to ....
"Oh, no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast." from 'King Kong'.
[Excellent way to end a great movie. Me n Shyam were watching it @ INOX and both of us went softly "wooooow" hearing it. Collectively with the audience.]

Ok, that's that. Award Ceremony over. Now for the post-ceremony party, and sorry, none of you are invited!(hahaha) so bye to all for now...cyaaa...(sorry, but) I'm feelin real high and my adrenaline's pumping like hell - maybe cos of listening to DreamTheater non-stop. But I don't care cos this is my blog and i get to rant all i want! hah! (ok,winamp's off, i'm back to my senses) Actually..office-time's up, so i gtg home now. Until next time...