FreeRice.com

Thanks to Chinmay! I got a new pass time!!

This is basically vocabulary test and with each correct match you get some point which is depicted as your Vocab Level. But thats not all, as the site puts it and I quote -

"For each word you get right, we donate 20 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger"

Isn't this nice, donate rice while polish your vocabulary. I love it!

Trip to Kolkata

Almost after 8 years (6 years according to my mom, still the debate is on with her :)!!!) I finally got a chance to visit the eastern part of the country.

The reason was my cousin's marriage. Wedding was in Vadodara and bou-bhaat (aka reception) was is Rishra, a suburb near Kolkata. Rishra is also my native place. My Thamma (paternal grandmother) and many relatives live there. It was quite a fun to visit after so many years and meeting so many people together.

Most exciting thing was I was not able to recognize a single person. After meeting so many people and the rounds of introduction I was the totally confused. Boy! I have quite a big family tree. Cousin's marriage gave a good opportunity to meet many of them.

In between all the wedding functions I did get some chance to visit Kolkata. Since my childhood days, I used to always love a drive through the city of Kolkata (Calcutta then) and crossing the Howrah Bridge was the main attraction. This time also it felt quite the same, not much seems to have changed. Thats one thing I love about this city. With so many old buildings in the city it looks like a one big historical monument, a heritage city.

This trip also gave me a chance to travel in train. Yes! I love long journeys in a train and after many years of traveling in flights this time I had the luxury of time to travel by the train. Enjoyed every bit of it! In fact I always believe slower the mode of transport more you enjoy the travel and the surroundings.

Phew! I traveled the entire cross-section of India. We traveled the western to eastern India. Now the trip has ended and its back to work from tomorrow.

Shubho Bijoya!

Wish you all a very happy Bijoyadoshomi!! It's that day of the Durga Pujo when I feel bit low. Today morning only I was telling mom, every year I feel Durga Pujo is like a 5 seconds festival though we celebrate it for 5 days. But it’s also the day when I remember how much fun I had in last 5 days. And I would like to share the memories with you all too...

Ablum URL: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album34

Just 24 hours a day ... not enough!

Today I came early too office, about 8:00 a.m. Those who know me might get worried reading this, reason being I normally don’t even wake up by this time. In fact this would almost midnight for me. But yes today I came early due to some work at office.

For last many early I have drastically disrupted my daily routine. In school days I had to reach school by 8, so had no choice but to get up early. Once in college the slide began, initially it came to 9 then 10-11 and finally I even have record of getting up after-noon. I had primarily two reasons - staying up late in the night and nothing better to do getting up early. This used to work for me as long as I was a student, but once I landed in job it cramped my day.

I had very little time in a weekday to spare on anything after office work. And slowly as the work increased in office, I started feeling more cramped. Then I started feeling that there should be more than 24 hours in a day!

But sitting early in office today, I feel how foolish is my demand. Are my productive hours limited to 24 hours? In fact NO! Actually it’s up to me how much I want to use productively. 24 hours just changes a Thursday to Friday, but it doesn’t limit me from achieving more from a day or my life.

These days there are lots of thing which I want to do, but I always didn't find time. Today I woke early for a reason; I guess I need to find one daily. If I can have an official reason, I should also be able to find a personal one.

More than a year back I had asked a question on this blog - "How to be an early-riser?". I guess I have one answer now to try.

Hello!

It has been quite a while since I last wrote in this blog. A lot has happened since my last post which I wrote when I was about to leave Chennai. Since then I have re-located to Delhi and was bit busy 'starting-up' my home here. I have joined my new office in Noida which is much bigger in size than the one in which I used to work in Chennai.

I will cut short this update as I just logged in to say hello to all of you who keep visiting this blog. I hope to pick up speed in filling this space of lots things which have happened in last few weeks since I came to Delhi/Noida.

Team get-together

Album: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=album33

Doing what?

I was looking at my blog and saw last few post were purely about movies. Does that means I am not doing anything except going to theaters? Well I looked back and answer came a big YES.

Weekdays are mostly busy at office and weekends are mostly taken by my laziness and sleep. Whats left of the weekends goes in cleaning the house and bring it back into order to be messed up again in the coming week. Only other thing is going for movies Saturday nights and writing about them on this blog.

Oh yes, now remember I did do something else. I finally finished reading The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas, a novel I had got some two months back. Thats pathetic compared to my normal time taken for finishing a novel. In good old days a week was the maximum I would take for finishing a novel that too if it was really thick one. But now I happy at least I did something rather just wasting time in doing nothing. Since novel has come up, let me tell a bit about it also.

The Three Evangelists belongs to the crime/mystery/thriller genre. This is genre which I love the most, though this is first time I am venturing out of Sir Aurthur Connan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot & Miss Marple) or Satyajit Ray (Feluda). The Three Evangelists was bit different from the all these as it doesn't has a specific investigator. Its does a good job in holding the mystery in the plot till the end. One thing about it which really tested my patience was the fact that the plot moves too slowly and many events happen which cannot be related back to main plot till the end. If it would have been bit tighter and faster in pace, I would have bit more happy. Nevertheless its a beautiful novel to read and has left me wanting for more which is a good sign.

Reading has always being my habit ('bad' habit), but somewhere down the line I feel to have lost it. Hmm ... thats not good. I think I will go get a new novel. I am introducing a new label for my posts - books, starting today. You should see the count going up for it in days to come.

Ocean's Thirteen

Ocean's series is getting better with each increment. With Ocean's Thirteen they came back to Las Vegas, where it all started. I saw the movie today only and its very much lives up to my high expectations. With a star cast like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Al Pacino; what can possibly go wrong?

This time Ocean (Clooney) and Rusty (Pitt) are robbing Bank (Pacino). And as usual they do it in style. Best thing like about the Ocean's series is the humor, its subtle but sharp. The actual plan is cleverly masked from the audience till the very end though the entire planning is shown in detail. And last but not the least the start cast, its the best lot, each one of the character is equally entertaining.

Honestly I don't need to fill good adjectives here to convince you to go for it. I knew it would be a must watch even before I had seen it and now I am confident. If you have missed Eleven and Twelve, don't worry you can still watch Thirteen and catch those two on DVDs sometime.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

This is the only part which I saw it in the theater out of the three. I watched the earlier two editions on DVD in preparation to going for this one. First edition (The Curse of the Black Pearl) really caught my attention. Johny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow is awesome with his unique style. I think he is USP of all the three parts, without him the movies will loose half their charm. Second edition (Dead Man's Chest) was bit of average where the director mostly continues with the narration and holds the story. Also this part sees bit less action from Johny Depp, maybe thats why I kind of felt it a bit boring.

Third edition (At World's End) is truly the best of all three. Its like a cherry on the cake. Special effects, locations, plot ... in fact in all ways its very good. Also, Capt. Jack Sparrow is back in his full action. The plot of the movie moves and changes so fast that you left guessing till the end whats going to happen at the world's end. I specially like the scene where they sail under the star studded sky while going for the rescuing Jack; and also the one with outside view of the Shipwreck Cove just before the Brethren Court convenes.

Its surely an entertainer and must watch for all action and adventure movie lovers. Since this one leaves Capt. Jack Sparrow alive for another voyage, maybe we can expect a fourth helping.

Cheeni Kum

Cheeni Kum. Latest Amitabh Bachchan release and I guess the first one with Tabu. Both Amitabh and Tabu are splendid in their work. Though its a cliche but thats the only thing good about the movie. Only entertaining pieces in the movie are the scenes between Amitabh and Tabu. Amitabh's mother, child actor 'Sexy' and even Paresh Rawal are more of burdens on the movie. For me the movie ended with interval. After interval the hunger strike by Paresh Rawal and movie getting dragged around it was simply diabetic.

I think its best to miss this movie unless you are big Amitabh or Tabu fan, because they are the only things to watch in the movie.

Bheja Fry

Its quite a while since I saw Bheja Fry. But didn't get the time to write about it. Movie for those who really love genuine comedy.

Though the movie is average in many aspects but you will have a nice laugh start to end. All the credit goes to Vinay Pathak (aka Bharat Bhushan), who single handedly makes the movie a worth watching. Rajat Kapoor gives him a good support but director could have done better with him. Others like Sarika, Milind Soman and Ranvir Shorey are simply extra baggage. None of them add much value to the movie.

On a whole its definitely a must watch. This is probably the first time the comic potential of Vinay Pathak has been utilized fully. You might not be expecting anything from the film and might come out highly satisfied. That is the best thing about the film.

Young forever!

Yesterday I was chatting with one my friends about 'not' growing old. During that conversation I said one line, about which I did not think until now.

"today I am younger than tomorrow ... so I am young forever"

But when I think about it now, I feel that I almost created a beautiful quote. Sometimes its not bad to take self-credit. ;))

But as long as its in first person it sounds bit selfish, let me be generous and re-phrase it for all you out there. Also this to put on record I was the first person on face of earth to say this in case I become famous down the line ... :)

"Today you are younger than tomorrow ... so you are young forever".

Dedicated to all those who think age-defining creams can hold your age.

Cleaned off Himesh

Just now did a Shift+Del on all Himesh Reshammiya songs.

What prompted such an extreme behaviour? Because of him my music taste has come under scanner. Usually I play my entire music folder without picking or choosing. And these days with mp3s and huge storage you always have all sorts of songs. I had few Himesh songs. With so many songs who has the time to remove selected few from play list. And these days I was putting my current song as my status in GTalk. Two of my friends have put question mark on my choice of music when the saw Himesh songs playing. :(

So I decided to do away with Himesh songs so I don't get to listen them and my friends don't doubt my eardrums. Also, for record, I don't like songs sung by Himesh Reshammiya. Not very musical to the ears.

Public Interest Info: Spidey bores!

If you read this post well in time stay away from Spider-Man 3.

It easily finds its way to the my most boring movies' list. It can way be called an action movie, the best it can be called a romantic movie but that too will be a crime to many beautiful romantic flicks.

I frankly do not have anything to say about it. Don't what they tried to show in the movie. Spiderman is half-time confused and other-half fighting with his girlfriend. Takes lot of time to reach the scene of action, like the Bollywood cops even they have improved these days. Total incapable to match the bad guys. So many stories intermingled and almost nil action, whatever action is there Superman is trying to save himself, makes this edition a big time disaster.

You can surely count me out even if they are optimistic to make 4th edition, cant risk it second time.

Unnale Unnale

Thats the Tamil movie I saw this Friday. My 4th one after coming to Chennai. No, don't get an idea that I have learned Tamil. 2 years in the city I still hardly managed the language. Yes, I can communicate and understand but definitely not converse or follow Tamil. For the movie I went with my office colleagues so had lots translators to help me out. After movie we went to KFC. We had a nice time and lots of fun, including one of them banging in a glass wall not realizing there was glass wall. :)

About Unnale Unnale? The movie was boring, not because I understood only 60% but in fact in Hindi too it would have been equally boring. But songs were definitely cool.

Microsoft eyeing Yahoo takeover!

I hope many of you would have seen this headline recently, in case you missed it here are few links I came across:

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/business/05_2007/microsoft-eyeing-yahoo-takeover-39765.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070504/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_yahoo

Are you surprised? I am not. This definitely a big breaking news but not a surprise. Microsoft and Yahoo both companies were feeling the heat increasing dominance and market share of Google. Google has now entered almost all spheres of internet-based services. It has been doing really good and in some cases provided some path-breaking services. Microsoft and Yahoo were the original market leaders but these days they are mostly trying to catch up with Google.

Microsoft is surely the strongest in desktop application and proprietary softwares. Yahoo was doing good and had a huge head start with Google concentrating on search business for long. But search alone has earned Google a huge population of faithfuls on the web and when it choose to diversify it didn't have sweat it out to get people to start using its services. Also, personally I like Google services better simple they give lots features for free service which others give in their paid services and all Google services are by far more simpler to use.

Hats off to Google!! If this merger happens I don't see Google getting threatened by it but it definitely shows Google has been doing everything right all these days.

The Pursuit of Happyness and 300

Two movies - The Pursuit of Happyness and 300, so different in the era and story yet so same in the underlying message. In both movies the protagonist is alone on the path to achieve something he believes in. Its very difficult to pursue a path on which you have no support but you know its the right one. Many of us will stop mid-way but few go till the end and become legends. Other go to see the movies of their tales, clapping and whistling, people like me. :)

The Pursuit of Happyness, splendid piece of work by Will Smith. The real life story of Chris Gardener narrated in a beautiful movie. Smith, who plays Gardener himself, and his real-life son are simply awesome. Personally enjoyed every moment of the movie and would recommend not to miss it at any cost.

300, on the other hand is more close to fantasy, Spartan King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fight to the last man against Persian King Xerxes and his army of over one million soldiers, yet very inspiring. Nothing new or amazing in the storyline but the fight sequences and the graphic work of this movie are something definitely worth watching.

हिंदी ट्रांस्लातोर सुविधा

अभी हिंदी मे भी ब्लोग कर सकते हैं। यह वाला पोस्ट से मैंने प्रयोग करके देखा। हिंदी मे लिखना बहित आसान हैं। बस हिंदी हे शब्दो जैसे बोलते हैं वैसे ही इंग्लिश मे टाईप करना हैं और ट्रांस्लातोर उसे हिंदी मे चंगे कर देता हैं।

इस पोस्ट को लिखते समय एक चीज़ लगा। बहुत दिनों बाद हिंदी लिख राहा था और ज़ादातार इंग्लिश के शब्द याद आ रहे थे। पर अभी चार पंक्ति लिखने के बाद हिंदी शब्दकोष वापस याद आ गया। लगता बीच-बीच मे हिंदी मे लिखना परेगा भाविय्षा मे। बहुत मज़ा आया। आज कल कार्यालय मे अधिकतर इंग्लिश का प्रयोग करके हिंदी मे लिखना तो जैसे भूल गया था।

अगर आप भी इस को त्रय करना चाहते हैं ...
https://www2.blogger.com/hindi (or by going to Settings > Basic)

Objects with no objective

I came across this article in The Hindu - Objects with no objective by Indu Balachandran

It reminded me of my experience I have each time we refresh our room. Last one is pretty fresh in my memory.

Last week only we executed our long pending plans for cleaning the room. Phew! Its always an herculean task as it always done when it gets overdue by weeks.

When I look at my racks, they looks very innocent on the surface with all useful stuff. The moment you scratch the surface the real story comes out. Full of empty cans n bottles, movie tickets, papers to which I cannot relate to, etc etc. This time I actually found a useful thing in all the trash which was kept so carefully, a long lost picture album.

I actually wonder how these this get collected. At home also, I remember, whenever I used to clean my room, after getting a threatening from mom, the story used to be quite similar. Sometimes we think we would be able to find use for a broken or used stuff and keep it carefully but later we forget about it. And when we come back to it, we ourselves wonder why in the first place did I preserve it?

After we finished the cleaning exercise this time we had four bag full of 'objects with no objectives'. Mind you I am talking about big size bags, not the normal shopping ones. I do not expect the situation to improve in future. Its actually fun to have the 'no objective' stuffs, else what will I clean? Also it makes the cleaning process a bit interesting. ;)

Finally we have reason to celebrate!!

After a disappointing World Cup outing of our cricket team, we have a big reason to celebrate! Vishwanathan Anand has become chess World No. 1!

India's Vishwanathan Anand has become the number one chess player in the world after FIDE, the world chess governing body re-calculated their rankings.



Courtesy: CNN-IBN (http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/37525/anand-becomes-chess-world-no-1.html)

Even the fool has a day!

Today is the April Fool's Day or the All Fool's Day. Celebrated on April 1 every year across the globe, the day is mainly about having fun fooling people with hoaxes and practical jokes.

Since my childhood I was always curious why this day is named as it is named. What so special today? But till date didn't get an exact reason. In school days it was mainly about fooling teachers and classmates. I used be on my guard so that I don't end up being the fool. In college days it remained quite the same. It was fun as you never know what to expect. Sometimes try a few pranks myself, though cant recall anyone I pulled off.

Today was a holiday so was in room alone, so no jokes or pranks. So spend time fooling around the web on the topic. These days internet is the main medium of pranks and jokes on this day. I was looking around to understand the history of this day. Found quite a few details on Wiki.

By the way, did you check-out the new service which Google has launched today - FREE breakthrough broadband with Google TiSP (BETA)? The link is there on Google search homepage.
Links: Press release - Service link.
If you think it's a April Fool's Day prank of Google, think again ... Gmail was also launched on April 1, 2004.

Happing fooling around! Today is your day! ;)

The Tale of Three Movies

Posting in retrospection, as the tale happened about a month back. Forgot the day but it was an interesting one. That day I saw three movies, each quite different.

Movie names? Serendipity, Eklavya: The Royal Guard and The Devil Wears Prada.

Serendipity. Watched it over the internet. With unlimited broadband connection you do not mind the buffering time. I had first watched this movie about an year back and liked it very much. Unfortunately never got a chance to watch it again after that. Then luckily I stumbled on it in the internet. It's nice little romantic story. After watching it this time eagerly searching for the video CD/DVD to add to my collection.

Eklavya: The Royal Guard. This one I watched in theater with my new roomie in evening. First Bollywood flick of 2007. An Amitabh Bachan film. Though the film boasted of many other heavy weights but story was weaved around Eklavya (Amitabh's character). The film was bit slow in it's pace but the plot holds you with it's twist n turns. My verdict - not to be missed.

The Devil Wears Prada. The CD of this movie was lying for a long time and me belonging to the nocturnal species decide to have an after mid-night show after returning from Eklavya. The story is about fashion magazine editor and her newly appointed not-so-fashion-conscious assistant. This movie was about average not so entertaining. Watching it on a CD was fine but going to theater would have been a bit of a disaster.

The Departed

Just back from a night show of The Departed at INOX, Chennai. Many firsts happened today. First time went to INOX, first time went to Chennai City Center mall in which INOX is located and first Hollywood movie in 2007 which I saw in theater.

Chennai City Center mall. Newest kid on the block. It has been quite a while it opened but I never got a chance to visit it before today. All this days I visited only Spencer Plaza on Mount Road. City Center is impressive architecturally from both outside and inside but somehow I felt thats where its attraction ends. It is nowhere close to the size and the number of shops which Spencer Plaza has to offer. I guess it will be just an second option after Spencer, which will continue to be my first choice.

INOX, Chennai. Newest multiplex in Chennai. INOX met my expectations with the quality of interiors, seating and overall experience. But unfortunately INOX will stay my second choice after Sathyam which was my only option before INOX came up. Primarily reason being a higher ticket cost of Rs. 120/- much more than the costliest one in Sathyam. Also, Sathyam is doing a bit better with the variety of movies it offers at time and its simple yet very useful online booking.

Maybe I got into an "old is gold" syndrome. But as a consumer I need to make a intelligent choice, cant let the gloss fool me.

Now coming to the movie. The Departed. Actually I think I do not have much to say about it. The movie was nice and entertaining. Nice storyline and director has handled the whole thing well. The ending was something that quite didn't make sense to me, but then its an Academy Award winning movie. Not a must-watch still worth watching. Am I contradicting myself?

Internet fixed!!

We fixed our broadband connection at home this Thursday. Earlier we were unable to send mails and post blog. But now all set to rock!! :)

Expect quite a few posts to follow this one.

Visit to the Sri Venkateswara Temple

This weekend I visited to the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Tirumala, Tirupati along with my relatives. I am not one with a religious bend of mind, so I would not be going to temples by myself but I surely love if someone pulls me along. Also this trip gave me a chance to go out of Chennai.

We took a morning train from Chennai to Tirupati on Sunday and reached Tirumala by noon. That day we kind of relaxed and did some sight-seeing. Our Darshan at the Sri Venkateswara Temple was scheduled for next day 10am. So had our Darshan at the temple on Monday. This time it was really good. Last time I had gone to Tirupati it was lot crowded so could not stand for even a second in front of the idol. But this time I stood there for for good half a minute. After Darshan we relaxed a bit in the temple complex, before returning to Chennai by the evening train.

Actually train journey was something I enjoyed a lot. I was traveling by train after a long time, I guess 4-5 years. It was fun! Also took few photos during the trip check them out below ...

Album URL: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=album31

Yahoo Mail infected!

Yesterday when I was logging into my Yahoo Mail beta, the Symantec Antivirus popped up saying there is virus in one of the files which are getting loaded with mail login process and it deleted it! So far so good. I was very happy with the proactive protection given by symantec. But that deletion actually hindered yahoo from completing the login and show me my mails.

There I was sitting confused and trying to understand what happened. I did a second try with same results. Now this was something very difficult to digest. I can understand getting virus in the mails which come on yahoo and yahoo has a virus scanner to screen them. But virus in the yahoo page itself was something total unexpected.

I was in two minds whether to believe yahoo or symantec. I chose to take the safer path and believe symantec and wait for a day. Today when I login, I don't get the virus alert which tells me my choice was correct as the virus definition had not updated.

Anyways I can see my mails again, thanks to both yahoo and symantec. But this again reminds me don't believe anything on internet. Its a jungle out there.

P.S. Wish you and your family a very happy and colorful festival of Holi! Holi Hai!! Have a great weekend!

Why use Gmail?

Didn't find the video as much exciting as I would expect from something out of Google's stable would be but then I am Google fan, can excuse them as this not their usual domain.


Courtesy: Gmail

Labeled!

Finally I finished labeling all my posts on this blog! Phew!

Believe me its a tough job not volume-wise but to classify each of your post into a label. I mean you can classify each one but then you cannot end up having one post per label. That sort for defeats the very purpose.

So after lot of self-brainstorming sessions and drinking lots of water, I finalized on 8 finalists. Check them out on the left-hand side. It was mainly the blogs under scrapbook and analects labels which confused me most. Each of them were so different that each one called for a label of its own. Finally I searched the dictionary to find these 2 words which loosely describes the posts which were troubling me.

I am happy with the labels, hope you to find them useful too.

P.S. - Now what should I label this one?? No, I cant think anymore now. Let it be label-less for now.

Check if you are eligible to bargain!

Courtesy: A handicraft shop in Araku, AP, India

Naturography

Naturography - no need to pick up your dictionary to find its meaning, you wont find it there. I coined it for this post, out of 'Nature' and 'Photography'.

Nature Photography refers to any outdoor photography which captures the world around us. In last few outings me and my friends have indulged into it quite a lot. Sharing a few my favorites out of the whole bunch.

Happy Valentine's Day!

One day late though :) hope you all had a great Valentine's Day with you loved ones!

I am posting here after a long time, in fact my last post was at Christmas last year. Since then life has been bit busy which kept me away from my blog. Now we are in a new year, hope you had a great year till now and wish you a happier and successful year in days to come!

On my side many things happened since my last post. My room-mate got married. I went to Vizag, A.P. to attend his marriage ceremonies. We had a nice time at his marriage. This was the first time I was seeing a south-indian marriage live, so was great fun. From there we had a one-day trip to Araku, a small hill station near Vizag. Beautiful place and awesome company. We all had lots of fun there, you can get a glimpse of it in the photos below.

I will end this post with my Araku photos and wish to write the next one pretty soon.

Araku album link: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=
album30