Last night...

Playlist

1. Radius - Illuminate
2. Athlete - Street Map
3. Augustana - Stars and Boulevards
4. Madonna - Future Lovers
5. Apollo 440 - Stop the rock

when life was carefree and so much fun

Lately I begin to wonder if I really am growing old. My bro does, when I ask him to lower the volume; when I prefer pubs (ok, its only Tavern) than nightclubs - thats the only place I can listen to my kinda music! And then I have this fleeting glance at the old pics and memories just gush in. Of 3rd class ordinary sleeper travels from Cal to Bombay and then a journey to Goa (we even had a serious accident then), all 20 odd of us. Of more travels across the country during college days due to the aiesec conferences, of travels abroad alone. The first time I was alone and travelling abroad was in my 1st year of college and Switzerland it was for an aiesec conference; thats how I figured out that boots could break due to ice! There's just too much to talk about here.

Progga's bag flying out of the train just before we pulled into the station. Xanthe, the Australian trainee who went missing for a few days. The dance in Helsinki city centre inspite of the rain. The cruiseship from there to Stockholm. Meeting people online after years through business networking sites and it seems no one really noticed that! Friendships they say are struck quickly, it takes a lifetime to forget them though. Quite sad that now all of us are absolutely spread all across the globe and we end up catching up once in a few months by mail or a phone call. Quite sad I say. But C'est la vie!

Mid-week blues!

This is going to be a quick 2-min power crib!

This conference is killing me - its on next week. Now my phone number is available to all delegates...am thinking of auto-forwarding my calls to the control room number! :)
But at the same time its getting exciting as the day nears - I love organising stuff and this has been fun so far.

I slept for 2 hours last night. Watched the ManUtd match where they had a goalless draw yet again. Went on till 3:30am. Think I should rather sleep during the Benfica match. Anyways, I was up at 5:30am. Mummmyyyy!!!

Its raining. Its depressing as its been a constant grey colour and this irritating drizzle thats been on since I got up this morning. And Bangalore weather rocked!!

Ok end of crib time. Back to work now.

The perfect Sunday...well almost!

Its been good this weekend, sporting-wise. India came up trumps against the Springboks. Man Utd rode a Rudd brace to slam Charlton and give us a long-shot title hope!

Woke up late today and found there was no water in the house. The landlord had put in a mechanism to stop the overflow in the tanks, and forgot to wire it to the pumps. So the early morning rituals were completed with mineral water...how crazy is that? Maybe quite hygienic. Well whatever. So armed with a huge whiff of deo all around I met up with Dibyo, Anda and Belph for a morning brunch at Mojo's. It was damn nice actually. They give you eggs, bacon, sausages, mashed potatoes with white/brown bread for Rs.60. Nice. Beer was called for and we wolfed the food down and ordered for some appam and stew and then some chicken thingy to eat with some dosas. Burp!

Then we headed to see Harry Potter at PVR. I am seriously disappointed with the film. Its just does not do it for me like the Lord of the Rings. I saw LOTR after I read the book cover to cover and Peter Jackson made it come alive almost like all of us visualised it to be. But the last couple of Potters have been poor - this one had poor editing, scenes which were of no consequence, just does not follow the book. And no offence but Radcliffe is not a good actor; Rupert Grint (Ron) and Emma Watson (Hermione) do far more justice to their characters. Maybe he will surprise me in the future.

And yes, I got a set of 12 shotglasses as a gift. Always wanted them and now I have them. Yippiee!!!

Partying with Madonna

Just got my hands on the album...I can't get enough of it. Madonna had said this album was just gonna be about dance and thats what it is. I read a few reviews where people have blasted the album as not a true 80s disco album and that it does not come close to tracks like Holiday, Ray of light, Music etc. I think they haven't understood the sound of this album or the fact that you can't make a 80s album in 2005. Madonna worked with Stuart Price (producer/mixer/DJ) to give a new sound while borrowing from her past as well as the 70s and 80s. You will find shades of herself alongwith Abba, Pet Shop Boys, Donna Summer, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Kylie etc. The result of which is a different sound - part disco, part techno - you can damn well shake your bootie to this - its in the beat!

Madonna said, "I made a lot of political statements. But now, I feel that I just want to have fun; I want to dance; I want to feel buoyant. And I want to give other people the same feeling. There's a lot of madness in the world around us, and I want people to be happy."

Thats the basic objective of this album. Shut up and dance. The diva has reinvented herself yet again! Madonna rocks with this one! Have a listen.

U2 and Bruce

I was a lil' sleepy today after getting in at 7am and immediately working at those excel sheets. So I took some time off and logged in to the U2 site to check some of the exclusives. The one I really liked is Bruce's speech to induct U2 in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in march, 2005.

"Uno, dos, tres, catorce. That translates as one, two, three, fourteen. That is the correct math for a rock and roll band. For in art and love and rock and roll, the whole had better equal much more than the sum of its parts, or else you're just rubbing two sticks together searching for fire."

Bono commented that with the current state of the music industry, there is no chance that a group like U2 could form and exist over the next 2 decades. And he's right. Everyone's in for the fast buck. Song writing has gone for a toss. Great albums are hard to come by. You would be lucky if you liked more than 1 song in an album. Album's like Joshua Tree do not get produced. The new album was more akin to the older U2 - a stronger show since the 'All that you left behind album' - one that promised a lot but somehow fell short of expectations.

I wanted to plan my UK trip sometime back so that it coincided with their shows at Manchester. Unfortunately it was sold out as usual (in 40 min) and while my cousin was willing to dish out more than 300 quid, I was kinda short on that one. So I do hope I get to see them live and soon and not in some farewell tour!

The Mach3 Power experience

I tried the new Gillette Mach3 Power Nitro razor with its new PowerGlide blades. It was good and bad. There was less friction and you can go against the grain without burning your skin, the handle's more ergonomic and gives a good grip. But it gets a little weird when you turn on the motor which sends micropulses to get you a closer shave. Two things happen - your thumb keeps switching the thing off and on due to the design and your hand get a good massage (it literally shakes). I was hoping the razorblades would massage the face instead of my hand. So I switched it off. This is unlike my Braun toothbrush which makes the bristles whirr and oscillate to create more friction and clean better. It doesn't make my hand dance!

The path more travelled one...

...is Hosur Road. My life unfortunately revolves around it, it being the only road to work. And if you have kept up with my usual rants, it takes me an average of 2 hours to travel on this 10 km stretch one way. And it forced me to change my office timings to a 7am to 4:30am schedule.

That said, guess how long it took me today to get back? 15 min.
No I'm not kidding! The news I got was that some European President was in town and was visiting the Infosys campus (thats THE tourist site in Bangalore for the ignorant). As such Hosur Road was adorned with atleast 100 policemen (I have not even seen so many in Bangalore...and that too working in perfect unison waving all cars on - like the spectators in a F1 race). So i wondered why? Few reasons I thought were - usually they don't let any car to stop for fear of assasination, and how could they show Bangalore clogged-up due to traffic? No can do. Arre humara shaher ekdum rocks...we have wide open spaces...you can drive at 80km/hr (maybe the lower limit at a European motorway) etc etc is something someone must have been telling the President. FDI here it comes!

So basically, President (the European one) ki jai ho! Infosys ki jai ho! Har din ek president aa jaye iss shaher mein...too cool this city and Hosur Road are gonna become! Someone suggested elevated roads and trains? C'mon!

Playlist

1. Alanis Morissette - Crazy
2. LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk is playing at my house
3. Kaiser Chiefs - Na na na na naah
4. Imogen Heap - Hide and seek
5. Texas - Can't resist

Pained!

I have had it with this city. It took me 2 and a half hours to get home on Monday (a 10 km stretch). So have decided to beat the system - I don't believe in the funda of 'if you can't beat them, join them' - so now I get into work at 7am, leave by 4:30pm...go back home and logon through my VPN...so its simple really! Been doing this since yesterday and so far no complaints - I hope not too many people start doing it now!

I pre-ordered the Live8 2005 4 dvd set as my birthday gift to myself - I didn't know what else to splurge on. The lineup's pretty good and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

While the diwali weekend was a damp squib, the last weekend was good fun with Vinay getting married - Jiggy, Homo, Sweetie, Arjun, Guns, Bee all dropped in with Belph, Dibyo, Anda and me making up the usual suspects list. My house turned into a dharmashala overnight and don't even start about the dirty dishes. All in all a good weekend, can't wait to get away from Bangalore for a short trip this weekend too! Lets see how that goes.

Last but not the least a couple of Dilbert's:
Absolute vis-a-vis Relative Wealth
Strategy?

The Red Devils do it again!

ManUtd won 1-0 against Chelsea - after a horror of a week. Last year they broke Arsenal's unbeaten record, this year they did the same to Chelsea.

Read more here.

Mourinho and his songs!

Listen to these awesome dressing room and Sky interview spoofs with Mourinho. Its just awesome stuff...just too hilarious. Go to the SocBlog right now!!! Who wrote the songs??? Hehehe.

Look to your left

ok, i meant the left tab...under the skype ad. you wanted to see the new Madonna video eh? so here it is. eat your heart out!

Happy Diwali?

I had written a lengthy post last night and then my Firefox Beta 1.5 crashed just before I was going to publish it. Firefox's been crashing a lot lately...and it was making me quite happy till then!

Anyways, I shall get down to the post now. Diwali, if I'm not mistaken is the festival of lights. It signifies the victory of good over evil; of Lord Rama coming back to a brightly lit Ayodhya (after his banishment and also the slaying of Ravana). Nowadays, you know Diwali must be in the air when the loudest cracker goes off less than 5 metres from your precious ears! I've never been a huge fan of loud crackers; i like the ones in the sky which lead to brightly coloured stars which come tumbling down to earth! As such this Diwali it was home to loneliness and lots of noise (which has been my loyal friend). Could not go home and could not go travelling either (due to the rains). And if that wasn't enough, thanks to the month of Ramzan the morning alarm has been taken care of by the sleepy Mullah/Maulvi (Muslim priest) who wakes me up without fail at 5am every day. I only catch Allah O Akbar and then everything is slurry (plus my Urdu hasn't been that great). So yes loneliness has noise for company. P sent a nice mail last night when I was exchanging mails. Set me thinking.

Office was out since last Friday. As such there was DVD shopping to be done and movies to be watched. The ones I caught on DVD are: After the Sunset (Ms. Hayek is absolutely hot and simmering in this one, which otherwise is a poor man's JamesBondmeetsThomasCrownmeetsHeist kinda story - nothing to write home about), Mississippi Burning (saw it again after a long time - one of the best movies in the racial genre; the other being American History X), Fantastic Four (you don't need to ask me what I was thinking, have asked myself the same - trash!), Bully (if you like Larry Clark then you know you have a strong stomach for this - the other ones of his that I have seen were Ken Park and Kids).
Finished my first season of Lost - an amazing RobinsonCrusoemeetsSurvivormeetsLaw&OrdermeetsCSI thingy - would be looking forward for the next season! Seinfeld Season 4 is also here and so would be my complete X-Files (68 dvds...eat your heart out!!). Picked up Nip Tuck (season 1) and Bad Education. So its quite a lot to watch actually.

And to complete my shopping for the week, it was Robbie Williams' new album 'Intensive Care' (he's toned down but this is a better album) and Around the World in 80 treasures by Dan Cruickshank (a book on which the BBC program is based on).