Random Thoughts and Events

!!!!!!

2007-09-22T22:16:00.000-05:00

Chop 1/2 a cabbage into fine pieces.Put it in a bowl.Chop 2-4 green chillies and add it to the cabbage.Add 1 tsp turmeric powder, Salt and 1 tsp chilli powder and mix well with the hand . Allow it to set.
Boil 1 cup of Chana Dhaal. Use a pressure cooker if available. Mash it.
Chop 1 medium onion and 1 medium tomato.
Add some oil and splutter cumin seeds. Add onion fry for around 2-4 minutes. Add tomato fry it for a minute or two. Add the cabbage. Fry it for around 5 minutes. Then add the mashed dhaal.Let it cook for 3-4 minutes. Now take the mixture and put it in a pressure cooker for one whistle.
If pressure cooker is not available, add little water and allow it to cook. Make sure that the cabbage is cooked. dont add too much water also. Once it cabbage is done add 3/4 cup of shredded coconut and cook for a couple of minutes. Eat with rice/chappathi/naan.

The new face of comedy

2007-04-27T22:34:00.000-05:00

Edgar winter,Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have done it again. If you thought shaun of the dead could not be bettered watch Hot Fuzz.An absolutely brilliant and stunningly intelligent comedy, superbly original script, brilliant acting, classy dialogues and some stunning action sequences. Hats of to you guys for delivering one of the movies of the year.

A neat, easy and healthy recipe: Avial

2007-04-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

Boil 2 cups of vegetables: I used carrot,peas,beans. You can use potato/chena kai( I dont know the english name for this), raw plantain also.
Grind coconut,yoghurt,chilli into a thick paste( note the consistency, it has to be thick).Add some salt.
Reduce the heat when almost all the water has evaporated.Add the grinded paste.And mix well.Heat the mixture on sim for ar0und 3 minutes. Add salt.The final mix should not be watert it shud be a thick paste.So adjust water/yoghurt quantity according to that.

The heat some oil, splutter mustards,cumin seeds and curry leaves.Add it to the mix.Serve with rice.

My Futon Day

2007-04-08T21:51:00.000-05:00

Saturday:April 7th 2007. A particularly cold weekend in Austin.Temperature was in the 30s.It was drizzling the whole day.I decided to stay in.Both my roommates were going out, one to San Antonio, the other to San Marcos. I had the house to myself.
All the matches I wanted to see on Saturday were coming on FSC.Yeeeaaah.Woke up at 8. Started watching the chelsea spurs game
on my laptop sleeping on my bed.Chelsea won 1-0.Exactly the result I wanted.Next Liverpool reading game.Liverpool won 2-1.Perfect.Exactly the result I wanted.Around the same time Arsenal Westham match was going on.West Ham won the game.Perfect result again.Then around 10:30 I moved into the living room and started watching the Manu Portsmouth match on TV.I was lying on the futon,covered with my comforter watching a high class attacking soccer match.Cud this day get any better.Yes it could, Portsmouth won the match which was as u guessed,exactly the result I wanted.

Match ended around 1.Slept in my futon for around an hour.I then walked to my laptop in my bedroom.responded to a couple of emails and then took some research papers/Vonnegut's breakfast of champions and climbed back into my futon.When I climbed back in m futon,I remembered where I had saved one dissertation which one my labmates might find useful for a presentation.But during that thought process, I had comfortably settled into the futon and i was unwilling to climb out and respond.I was anyway planning to have a haircut in an hour.I will go to my bedroom enroute and then respond to that email.
So comfortable settled in my futon, I did light research work and alternated it with breakfast of champions.Around 2:45 I got up again, responded to that email with the location of the dissertation, walked to Tgf to have a haircut.I went and wrote my name on the list.Crap, there were 5 people ahead of me who had booked a hair cut slot. Then one of the barbers walked up to me and said that I am next.I asked him, but i was the last name.Apparently 3 people who had booked did not show up and other 2 had requested special stylists.Perfect.Had a haircut.Went to Its a grind, celebrated with a white choco moca and then walked back. Now the time was 3:30.I had a bath and by 4 I was back in ,you guessed right, on the futon. I was lying on the futon.Ate lunch doing so.Then alternated between sleeping,reading BOC and some research stuff.

Around 6 I decided to watch a movie.I had finished BOC by then.Luckily i had the two dvds within hands reach and I could insert the DVD into the DVD player without getting out of my Futon.I watched Internal Affairs 2. Watched that while preparing my prob stats review session lecture.Then around 8 got out of the futon, responded to some mails went to quiznos,bought dinner and got back into my futon by 8:30.Enroute to my futon,I picked up "A long way gone" by Ishmael Beah which was in my bedroom.Ate dinner sitting on my futon,watched internal affairs 3 and did some light research work.By light research work i mean reading papers in bursts, with an average rate of 4 paragraphs an hour and some random thinking.After finishing Infernal Affairs 3, I came with some examples for my prob stats class. Around 11 I started reading A long way gone.Finished 2 chapters and then began contemplating about war while watching frasier.Basically in the first 2 chapters this is what happens. A 10 year old kid in sierra leone.Him and his friends do the things normal children their age do.PLay, Listen to music.they get infatuated with rap and decide to walk to a nearby town to participate in a talent search competition.The two ins 16 miles away.They decide to walk the previous day.Have a stop at their grandma's village.Then reach the town by night time.Stay at their friends place.Next day in the morning,their friend comes running back from school his face ashen.His message, school is closed,rebels have attached his grandma's and parents village and wiped them out.he then describes how he walks back to grandma's village sees corpses everywhere, people wailing walks back to town.This is where I stopped. I then started contemplating,I have read a lot of war stories, watched a lot of war movies, why has this affected me. reason number 1:this book is a true story of a 10 year old kid whose life gets turned upside down within a matter of days.reason number 2: the language used is brilliant, simple, straightforward english.It is the exact language which i have seen my labmates use to describe their weekends. No dramatization, nothing. Ishmael describes it in as normal a way as possible. and thats what affected me the most.

I then start thinking about a conversation I had with my dad when I was in my seventh grade.He started explaining to me what a bad thing war is. He explained to me imagine we are living in a city in a war zone.Imagine the tension whenever there is an air raid.He went on to explain how the economy wud be affected.All shops would close down.Businesses would close down.People would become unemployed.People would move out of the place and maybe live in refugee camps.things we took for granted coffee at a nearby coffeeeshop, would no longer be available.I was playing this conversation through my head. It was 12:30 and i remembered two quotes by hemingway on war:

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

with that in mind I decided to get out of my futon, walked to my bedroom and went to sleep.

Weird ..huh

2007-03-11T11:11:00.000-05:00

A conversation at the coffee shop at 7 in the morning

Me: I will have a bagel
Coffee Shop girl: What type do you want
Me( Still drowsy making a random noises and avoiding prepositions since i was half asleep and defo not in the mood for making hard decisions which is gonna affect my life):hmmmmmmmmmm.. random bagel
Coffee Shop girl:I dont think we have that.We have wheat, spinach,raisin .
Me:Wheat please.

Never knew random was not a commonly used term. Always wondered how much my language got affected after being not in touch with the "outside" world for a long time. I am now trying my level best to avoid using engineering terms in normal language. To be fair to me, Iw as mumbling at that time and I think she did not hear random. I think she just heard a random sound begining with r which did not sound like any type of bagel they carried. Reminded me of an incident which happened in my senior year.

Friend's girlfriend who had just cut her hair short and had a makeover
ME: Hey, You have changed your font
She: huh..what
Me: err..font...u know appearance
She:thats geeky and disgustingly baad
Both of Us:hehehehehehe

On a more geeky note, did u note that the owner of slashdot and the moderator of their forums proposed to his girlfriend on feb 14th by posting a message in the slashdot forums and setting up a poll " Will you marry me?"and she accepted with "Yes.Dork. You made me cry. :)"

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,50428,00.html

I'm strong to the finich, coz I eats my spinach!!!

2007-02-25T08:18:00.000-06:00

I was watching a couple of popeye cartoons when I decided that I needed to make some spinach dish this time. The obvious choice was Palak Paneer( Spinach and Cottage Cheese Curry).I got an excellent and easy to make recipe from Sourabh Sinha's Website:
http://members.tripod.com/~SourabhSinha/food.html#PALAKPANEER
I followed the same process but I modified the amount of each ingredient because :(i) I was looking to cook 6-7 servings (ii) The main content of the gravy is the spinach which has a bland taste and if you dont add enought spices, the taste of spinach overpowers the taste of the spices.

Cut Paneer(cottage cheese - get it at your local India store) into cubes and fry them in oil. You can use Tofu as a replacement.But If you are using Tofu make sure you increase the spiciness in the gravy as it can get a bit too bland. For Paneer- use the entire block which is the standard size sold at India stores here. Tofu- I would recommend medium hard ones and use around 1.5-2 packets.

Boil spinach, Garlic, Ginger,Tomatos. I used 4-5 flakes of Garlic, 1 inch of ginger( chopped fine), 2 reasonably big tomatoes( chopped fine), 5-6 green chillies(chopped fine and slight along the middle sold at HEB - lies below the jalapeno aisle) and 2 small rectangular packets of frozen spinach sold at HEB.I waited till the frozen spinach thawed, looked at the water content and then added water accordingly( around 1/2- 1 cup).I boiled it for around 10 minutes.I then allowed the mixture to cool and blended it.

I then chopped two reasonably big onions into fine pieces and fried them in oil until they turned transclucent and slightly brown( for about 5- 7 minutes).Then reduced the heat to low and added the following spices:

2.5 teaspoon chilli powder
1 tsp cumin powder
3 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
(recommend adding 1/2 tsp garam masala and 1/2 tsp of powdered pepper if your using tofu)
Fried the mixture on low heat for about a minute.Then increased the heat fried it for about 15-20 seconds.Be very careful here, the spices should not get burnt.If your feeling unfortable remove the vessel from the stove, add the spices mix well and put it back.
Now add the blended mixture, Fried Paneer and One cup of water , salt to taste( around 1 one tablespoon ) and bring the mixture to boil.
Goes well with rice, and very well with bread/tortilla/parathas.

goan vegetable curry

2007-02-19T22:14:00.000-06:00

Boil potatos,peas and carrots. Fry onion,chillies,ginger,garlic,garam masala, coriander powder,pepper.Grind it into a paste.
Fry the paste in a pan and then add the cooked vegetables..add salt. add 2 cups of water and let the mixture boil..reduce the heat add 1.5 cups of coconut milk and let it simmer for 3 minutes..garnish with cilantro leaves...

A nice and healthy dinner/breakfast item

2007-02-13T21:13:00.000-06:00

It is really weird how tastes change as you grow up. I used to hate bitter gourd,rasam, cabbage when i was a kid. Out of the three I used to have a particularly high hatred for cabbage as we used to have it atleast 3 times a week for dinner and lunch.In fact in high school I was nickname khose paiya( cabbage boy) for a year for the amount of cabbage I used to bring for lunch.My mom used to take me with her to go grocery shopping and I used to start whining as soon as picked up a cabbage/bitter gourd and sometimes I used to try to push her away from the cabbage aisle to voice my displeasure:)). After coming to US,all of them are among my favorite dishes.Now here is the recipe I like and kinda developed.

Cut approximately half to 3/4 of a cabbage.Make sure you mince them into fine pieces. Chop one big onion into fine pieces.The finer they are minced the better they taste when fried.Cut 4 green chillies.Mix them all together.Add one teaspoon turmeric powder and one teaspoon chilli powder and mix well. Let it set for 10 minutes. Boil green peas in the mean time and set them aside. After 10 minutes, add 3 eggs to the cabbage/onion and mix well. Let it set for 5 minutes.

Heat approx. 1.5-2 tablespoon of oil. Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and Chana Dhaal.The Chana dhaal is optional.I add them because I like the taste of fried chana dhaal. Once the mustard starts spluttering, add the cabbage mix. Keep stirring continuosly. After 5 minutes add other spices you want. I add a little bit of garam masala and little bit of coriander powder. These you can vary depending on the taste. Add the peas. Add salt to taste. Keep stirring for another 10 minutes.

Cabbage/onions/eggs - all 3 of 'em are pretty bland items and hence you can vary the spices to cater to your taste. If you want it hot, add more green chillies/chilli powder. Be careful while stirring as it can get burnt pretty easily.

This is called cabbage poriyal/thoran.I normally like to eat it with rice and rasam/dhaal/sambar.It is a very good side dish if u make coconut rice/Lemon rice. And it also makes for a great breakfast item, just stuff it inside a rolled tortilla and you have your indian taco.When I used to cook for myself this was one of my favorite items as I spend around 45 minutes on it and it used to act as my dinner/breakfast/lunch.

peas curry , bitter gourd pachadi and rice

2007-02-10T21:41:00.000-06:00

Took around an hour to cook.Looks decent.Bitter gourd pachadi is my mom's recipe and got the recipe for the peas curry( kerala style) from a blog.

Felt like doing some thing retarded

2007-02-05T22:05:00.000-06:00

Been thinking about research for the last 2 days..getting a bit bored..felt it was time for some retarded photoshopping...here it goes

seminar flyer!!

2007-02-04T14:49:00.000-06:00

My favorite seminar flyer...
No unnecessary details about the profs bio..univs he taught/centers he headed..
No unnecessary details about the research he is gonna present on...
The topic of the talk and pic of pizza...the most efficient utilization of space
on a flyer ever...succint and to the point....it caught my eye when i was buying coffee...

Too tired to think of a proper title for this post

2007-01-31T21:00:00.000-06:00

Wanted to start working in the afternoon.I started reading a paper.Felt sleepy.Slept for an hour.Woke up.No enthu to work.Was feeling a bit tired.Decided to try out a new recipe - vegetable Kurma. Used peas,potato,carrots,onions and tomatoes as the vegetables. the gravy was created by grinding coconut,cashewnuts,green chillies and fenugreek seeds. Added turmeric/chilli/coriander powder and garam masala as the spices.the end result(see photo).Not bad eh!!took an hour and 30 minutes to cook the kurma, rasam and rice.
Good news - one more vegetarian recipe to my resume.
Bad news - My cooking mojo is slowly and steadily getting exhausted.I always have spurts of cooking enthu during some periods when I try out a lot of dishes. I had one during spring break last year which lasted a week.One during september which lasted 2 weeks and an elongated one now which started around christmas time. Hopefully when it strikes next time, I would be near graduation with a decent publication count. I cannot imagine the Dean and Head of Departments of universities sitting with my CV and going " Fellas! he may not have many publications, but he does cook a mean veggie kurma!!!!!"

saturday night dinner

2007-01-27T22:05:00.000-06:00

Over the last few months we( my roomies and couple of friends) have had a number of dinners at our place where we have tried out cooking a lot of new indian dishes. Thanks to such dinners my culinary skills have improved a lot. Today's attempt was really really good. We had Rice,North Indian Kidney beans curry( 2 pic top right corner), Pineapple rasam(a soup like speciality of Madras, 2 pic bottom right hand corner), ground turkey fried with indian spices( the third iterm in the second pic), kerala shrimp fry(first pic bottom left corner) and for desert we had samiya payasam(speciality of Kerala, top corner in the first pic). It was very good array of dishes as the tastes varied from moderately spicy ( Kidney beans curry,turkey fry), sweet and spicy( pineapple rasam), extremely spicy(shrimp fry) and extremely sweet( samiya payasam).

I am very happy at how my rasam cooking skills are progressing. I have now become confident of cooking pineapple rasam,lemon rasam and normal rasam. Hopefully by the end of the sem I will have more rasam types in my resume.My next rasam target is to master the garlic/pepper rasam which is my dad's speciality.

"Interesting" - The Adjective of the year

2007-01-03T12:34:00.000-06:00

Scene: Potluck at friends place. For those people in

India

who are not aware of what a Potluck is, it is an event where lots of people cook some stuff and congregate at a place and eat. If you want to be seen as a sociable guy who hosts loads of parties at your place but lack the culinary skills to cook for a big group or don’t wanna spend money ordering food , potluck is the way to go. All you need to do is send out a mail "hey, I am organizing a potluck at my place". And if ur the host you can get away with not cooking anything also. People don’t ask and even if they do just point at the table where all the dishes are kept and say a random food name like Assamese Texas style grilled vegetable curry. The reason I hate potlucks is that there are too many people in a constrained space. Also when I leave I despise the fact that I have to turn to the potluck hosts and say thanks for hosting this potluck. It seems so wrong. It is against my fundamental principles. And another reason is that most of my potlucks are with friends whose wife’s are very good cooks. So I end up bringing back 90% of what i cooked which is also humiliating. Everybody leaves with empty vessels and I amthe only guy carrying everything back. Basically one percent is by people who taste it and the 9 % is eaten by me as I don’t want people to see that nobody has eaten my stuff. And whenever people taste my dish, the adjective used most of the time to describe my cooking - " It is interesting".

Because of such incidents, the word interesting used to evoke negative thoughts in my mind until one day it hit upon me that interesting could be one of the most useful word I have ever learned. In American society it is acceptable to describe anything as interesting. We don’t use interesting to describe a person, back in India. But here it works. And here you can use it to describe a person whom u like/don’t mind hanging out/absolutely detest and still appear normal. Let me give you an example. Suppose people ask you an opinion about a person A and you like him. Then you can go "yeah, I like A, A is interesting." Make sure u say this in a highly excited voice. But the place where interesting helps the most is when people ask you opinion about a person B whom u don’t get along with.

Say a person C asks "Hey what do u think of B?" Then you can choose from the following responses.

B is interesting, but <insert negative attribute of the person here>

B is interesting, but ..........u know ... and shrug couple of times..most probably the other guys goes " yeah i know " and the conversation ends there...

Yeah, B is interesting (say this in a bored voice), but (now act like ur thinking deeply) <..pause....pause...then say in a doubtful voice>..I don’t know…..u know.....somehow ,dont wanna hang out with him...

And if u play ur cards correctly u can go

B is interesting, but say in a slow voice filled with regret, ur negative attribute which is the reason why u guys dont hang out. Kinda like the "it is not you it is me" break up routine. Shift the blame onto you.

and my favorite

B is interesting but we just haven't hanged out..work.. ..u know..deadlines..

There is no other word which helps you convey the fact that you hate a person in a positive manner than interesting. It is brilliant. Whenever u are suddenly asked an opinion about anything in a social setting and if ur the type who panics and struggles to say something not stupid under such circumstances, interesting is the way to go.
How was the book? interesting.
the food? interesting.
movie?interesting.
place? Interesting.
music ?Interesting.

And if you actually like the object whose attributes you are being asked to give an opinion about , all you need to do is to prefix interesting with really or really really.

How was the book? really really interesting.

A culinary nirvana

2006-12-24T10:06:00.000-06:00

I am normally a pretty impatient cook. The only criteria I use while choosing items to cook is that it should be over by an hour and even during that time I shud have the freedom to leave the kitchen and watch tv/listen to music etc. I am not very finicky about taste and I normally eat anything which is edible which Kinda complements my cooking style as thats the term I
use to describe most of the stuff I cook - it is edible. But sometimes I have these waves of enthusiasm to cook something proper.I normally randomly throw in spices in no particular order and do not bother about the order, the amount of time each spice should be fried etc. But since it was vacation time I decided to expand my culinary skills by cooking a proper dinner.
I had help from my roommate,Vimal, who had a lot of information on when to add spices and who had loads of little tips on do's/ dont's of proper cooking.

So with that in mind I decided to cook madras style coconut rice and kerala style egg curry. It was a weird combination but somehow I felt that it would click. Even though kerala was the land of coconuts, I have found it odd that people in Kerala dont normally cook that.Coconut rice was something which is native to tamil nadu. A pretty simple dish to cook and one of my favorites if I wanted to pack lunch and bring it to school. Coconut rice can be eaten by itself or with a loads of other side dishes like raitha,chips,pickles etc. I first cooked the coconut rice and then started on the egg curry. Took two onions, cut them into fine slices. In the meantime I kept 6 eggs for boiling. I cut three tomatoes into fine slices and also one capsicum( I think they are called green bell peppers in USA, not sure). Added two table spoons of oil,once it was warm added mustard seeds and let them splutter. Once the mustard seeds have spluttered I added a tablespoon of fennel seeds and let them fry for 30 seconds.I then added onions and fried them till they turn light brown. Then added capsicum and fried it for 2-3 minutes.

Added half teaspoon turmeric, 2 tsp of coriander powder, 1 tsp chilli powder, and 2 tsp garam masala. I fried all the spices on low heat for a minute. These steps made the difference I guess between my previous cooking and this attempt. I was there all the time controlling the heat depending on the levels at which the vegetables were getting fried. My roomie also gave me
the tip that I should fry garam masala for some time in low flame for the flavor to come out.Tiny subtle things which made a huge difference between my normal cooking and this attempt. I then added tomatoes and mixed them well and closed the pan and let the gravy cook for 10 minutes in low heat. All the tomatoes reduced to a pulp. During that time, I took the shells of 6
eggs and cut them into half. Once the oil in the gravy started floating towards the top, I added salt and then took the yolk of one of the eggs and smashed it and mixed it well with the gravy just to give it that uniform egg flavor.Another piece of inspired advise by my roomie. I then added the eggs and added 3/4 can of coconut milk. I turned the heat to low and on the
first sign of bubbling of the coconut milk I switched it off.

For many people this might seem like a relatively simple dish to make and wonder what the fuss was all about. But to me this was the best dish I had ever made. It took more than an hour and the coconut rice egg curry combo was electric.I had not left the kitchen during that time and my concentration was wholly on the dish all the time. It was a new record for me. The spices
mixed with coconut milk and the egg yolk flavor gave it a unique taste. Of course I had eaten dishes which were 25 times tastier at my friends place but this one was the most satisfying. It got even better when I kept it over night in a fridge as during that time the coconut milk seeped through the eggs along with the spices.

Maybe he is not used to the elevation

2006-12-01T21:33:00.000-06:00

Visits to families with new born babies have always been the most awkward of my social excursions during my childhood.Simple reason, you are expected to make cooing noises and cajole the baby and make the baby laugh in front of 20 people. I like babies, dont get me wrong.I am good with them whenever I am alone with the baby.But to do it in front of an audience, always makes me nervous. I get stage fright. So when the baby is handed over to me I end up moving my head up and down with a stupid grin and make random clucking noises like a hen, hoping the baby would laugh.I guess babies are very good at perceiving my nervousness and start crying within 20 seconds. Then normally the mother would come and rescue me. The baby would end up crying for another 10 minutes and all the laughter and merryment which was going on would die down leaving me feel like a party pooper.The fact that all my cousins were absolutely brilliant at making babies laugh added to the discomfort.Once when I was in middle school,10 minutes after I had made the baby cry, a 4 year old cousin did some wacky dance routine and made the baby giggle.That was the nadir.

Times were about to change.I had sudden growth spurts during my 7th and 8th grade and I was now one of the tallest person in the family. The next time I was handed over the baby and he started making uncomfortable noise I suddenly blurted out "Maybe he is not used to the elevation". I never knew what caused me to say that. I was thinking," There is a new utterly cringeworthy socially awkward statement made by Fig in town".And then as if by magic, they all started laughing.So the process of transferring a crying baby to the mother became smooth. That was the line I used every other time.That was my line.It was lame, and pathetic to a degree but it worked as in such happy moments, people are looking for a reason to laugh.I became confident during my social visits involving babies. I had the magic manthra, my social viagra.I had the line.

After using that line for about half a dozen times, I started running into problems with that line. Problem 1, I was getting bored by repeating that line.It was fake and staged but I still used it as it was my only get out of jail card. Problem 2, there were intersections in the sets of people who were present during my numerous social baby visits. By repeating the same joke I came up with when i was in seventh grade I was only going down even more in their estimation.Problem 3, I was now 21 and I felt kinda low that I was relying on something I came up when I was 12. Luckily, I got admitted into graduate program in the USA and that effectively ended my baby interaction.

Now recently, a colleague of mine gave birth to a baby.They bought their baby over to school for the first time today at around 6 in the evening.Only a couple of people were around. The Mom gave the baby to me to hold and with events taking their natural course,he started crying. I was about to utter the line, when I stared at the dad. He was as tall as me. The baby was used to the elevation.What do i do?Panic sets in.I needed to say something.My brain was working furiously when the mother took the baby out of my hand.At that point the dad said," Dont worry, your doing better than I did.He screamed when I first held him". Bam, I responded,"Maybe he was not used to the elevation". I dont think the dad heard that, but the other two grad students present started laughing at that line.Crisis averted.The line saved me again.When I was walking back to the lab,I realised,"There are some really tall dude/dudettes in this country.If I have to survive here, I need to find a new line.I decided I am not going to use the line again."Thank You "Maybe he is not used to the elevation".You have no idea how indebted I am to you.The time i discovered you was a defining moment in my life.

Random impeccably

2006-11-29T13:35:00.000-06:00

dressed women who get into the elevator on the second floor and grin at me, why do u keep doing that. I am assuming that ur a HR person who has come to interview people. But is it written in ur job requirement that you will grin and say hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii to every goddamn person on the planet with a look of happiness as if u have found ur long lost son after 20 years. I can understand u being nice to formally dressed students as they may be interviewing for ur company.But the way I dress, there is no way ur mistaking me for a possible interviewee

A new low!!!!!

2006-11-26T21:09:00.000-06:00

I always find it difficult to say something nice when i accidently run into people whom i dont meet often. There has been numerous times in the past when I end up asking something stupidly obvious in the process. Today i was shopping at HEB when I accidently ran into a couple Mr.and Mrs.X I had not seen in 2 years. Both of them were family friends of one of my high school friend. Mrs.X was pregnant when I had last seen her. Now she had a child in her arms. I suddenly saw them as I was turning the aisle, we were face to face. I went on an elongated Heeeey.Both of them did the same. Then i thought I need to say something. So I pointed at the baby and went " Yours?".There was silence for a few seconds and both Mr. and Mrs.X comprehended the stupidity of my question.Of course it was there's. I knew at that point once again I had made a blunder and this time it was new low. After a few seconds Mrs.X went yes with a slight grin on her face. We then did the usual "howz ur work" blah blah blah. During the conversation i could read their mind thinking of rude responses to my stupid question. Hell no F** Face, thats not ours, we just picked him up from the baby aisle next to the chicken aisle. Luckily they did not say anything rude.I guess they realised that there was nothing they could say to prolong my humiliation. U dont get lower than that.i am sure right now my question is being passed on to numerous of his/her colleagues and friends.Even when they were leaving they waved at me from the car grinning. I can bet a 1000 bucks on what they were discussing when they saw me.

Some times I think that I shud come up with standard dialogues under such circumstances and I know people who do it too. but somehow i hate that.Feels so fake.But after tonite's incident i am reconsidering that.

My ability to obssess

2006-11-25T20:40:00.000-06:00

I seem to have lost it and I desperately need it back.I was never the brightest in terms of actual intelligence in my high school class. However,one of the main reason I maintained above average grades was, during that time I had the ability to obssess about any task. The ability to think about a topic day in day out night after night till I solved it. I never needed coffee to keep me awake during those times. When I was in the zone, I could think about a topic while taking a
shower, playing cricket, watching TV,cooking. In the process I have burned myself making tea, mildly electrocuted, almost got run over by a bike and of course bump into infinite people and objects.I was slowly getting it back couple of months ago when I was working on one of my dissertation problems. But a series of non research issues with respect to the topic, broke all my interest in the paper. I was not able to think about it for an hour let alone a day. I thought I will take a break from the topic and come back at it after a month or two and now I am stuck in the same state. I am working hard, spending a lot of time in the lab but still not able to obssess about it enough to make it into a good paper. I remember my advisor telling me about how he used to think about some of the proofs all the time and about how he made a breakthrough once in the kitchen.I need to get into that mode and I need to do it fast!!!

On a totally unrelated note, the more I learn about Muhammad Yunus,Nobel Peace Prize winner 2006, the more I am impressed with him. His theory of Microcredit for the poor, which breaks every rule in banking is simply amazing. Add to that his modesty and simple demeanour. As Jon Stewart rightly said, it is the simplicity of the scheme which makes it truly brilliant.
Next time I visit the bookstore I need to remind myself to purchase Banker to the Poor.

mutha ****** snake on a plane

2006-11-15T18:27:00.000-06:00

King cobra in plane

NT Bureau
Chennai, July 13:

A king cobra was found in a parcel on an aircraft from Ethiopia that landed here.

The workers without knowing it was a king cobra killed the reptile, and this led to tension for a while.

The men had loaded the parcels from the aircraft which arrived from Ethiopia and towed it to the section, when they sighted the snake escaping from inside a bundle.

The workers chased and killed the snake which was later known to be a king cobra. It was not known whether the snake had sneaked in from Ethiopia or already was in the cargo section.

http://www.newstodaynet.com/13jul/rf2.htm

Me talk pretty one day versus running with scissors

2006-11-12T13:20:00.000-06:00

Lots of people have compared the style of Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris.In fact any review of the above two books will invoke the name of the other author.However, I dont think they are similar at all. In fact the only similarities between the two authors is that they are gay and they write memoirs of their childhood and teen life. Sedaris is more direct and more funny.Augusten Burroughs version is a much more darker version of David Sedaris.Running with scissors is like a car wreck on the road.Everybody slows down and peers out and then exclaims I wish I had not seen that.However,that never stops them for taking a peek when they see the next accident. While reading me talk pretty I burst out laughing at numerous places. However, I felt that me talk pretty was a bit of a drag in the middle portions. Even though running with scissors did not make me laugh, the story was a bit more gripping. I think running with scissors has a higher average while me talk pretty has a higher peak in terms of entertainment value. Part of the reason I feel is that me talk pretty was a collection of random incidents with no continuity in between. I feel Running with Scissors had more continuity between sections.The helplessness augusten feels because of a disfunctional childhood is more apparent in Running with Scissors. All in all I think both are very very good books. Sedaris is an author whom I would recommend to everyone.If u have the stomach for some extremely dark reading then try Running with Scissors.

Souvenir Pics

2006-11-11T18:04:00.000-06:00

Last week i visited New york and like most other tourist decided to go to the observation desk on top of the Empire state building. On the 80th floor before one climbs the elevator to go to the observation desk, there was a photo shoot opportunity. These are available at all famous landmarks where they take a picture of you with a green background and then superpose your image in a beautiful view of the landmark. I was under the impression that they would make the picture realistic and thats what the guard also told me. The picture cost 20 bucks and most of us assumed that they would superpose our pic on a beautiful view from the top of the empire state which our point and shoot digital cameras would not capture. Also we could pay the money after we saw the final product and therefore all of us were excited by the arrangement.Finally when we entered the photo room to see the final product our jaws dropped.Right there on the wall
was a photo of me hovering in mid air near the top of the empire state building.Also I was half as tall as the building.Trust me, that was the funniest pic of myself , me and my friends had ever seen. And there many other tourist who were laughing looking at their pics.

Considering the fact that the pic cost 20 bucks is it too difficult to make the pic look slighty believable. I took a proof version of the pic and showed to my labmates. We felt that if this could be considered a souvenir pic then we should start an entire range of souvenir pics. So here it goes my first attempt. Me and couple of my labmates vacationing in Egypt.Click on the pics for a clearer version

I achieved one of my life's dreams today

2006-11-01T11:09:00.000-06:00

Back in Undergrad we used to have a lot of tough mid terms and finals which I could not finish even if i had an extra 30 minutes. But when the prof used to say 30 minutes remaining, there was always one guy who used to slowly walk and submit the paper with a confident look on his face. The guy used to stand there for 5 minutes joke around with the prof and walk away with a bored look stating this was easier than high school math. That guy used to strike panic in the hearts of the other students who were struggling to finish 50 % of the paper. Note it was not the same guy in every exam.
I always wanted to be that guy but never did.Today I was that guy.Aha. When the prof said 15 minutes left I slowly ambled to the prof with a bored/confident look and then submitted the paper. Immediately atleast half a dozen econ grad students looked at me with a dazed look as the paper was really tough. What made the experience even more sweeter was the fact that I was royally fried in this paper and I decided to leave as I was 100 % confident that I would not answer a single question even If i had sat there for 10 hours.

Nice PPT tip for phd students wrt equations:

2006-10-30T14:58:00.000-06:00

When ur preparing ppts did u ever have to put multiple equations and text on the same slide.
Have u ever carefully formatted equations 1 and 2 and the assorted text and lost all the formating when u insert equation 3 with eveything going crazy.Well then, go to Tools, Click on Autocorrect options, click on the tab autoformat as u type, and uncheck the box automatic layout for inserted objects and proceed.

NIce Advise from a friend

2006-10-30T13:40:00.000-06:00

I just remembered one of my friend Rejindher's(not his real name) advise on how to succeed in research. His views were: To succeed in academia you need to have atleast two out of the three characteristics: (i) Brilliant (ii) Hardworking (iii) Likeable. I came to appreciate your quotes yesterday when I was thinking about it. Thanks for the advise, buddy!!!. Coz I know for me there are 2 out of the 3 which I can control and I'll start working on those from now on.

Things I always wanted to scream out to people but didnt - PART 1

2006-10-27T16:40:00.000-05:00

Background:

I dont drink alcohol. There are two main reasons for it : (i) I am a stingy bastard who does a cost benefit analyses before fishing out my money and I would prefer a cafe latte than an alcoholic drink for the same price (ii) I have never felt the need to consume alcohol. That was the way I was bought up. The reason I dont drink is not out of principles( i have very few of them and they change from time to time),the reason is not religious, the reason I dont drink is errr..I DONT DRINK.. thats all.

Incident:

I was at a restaurant with a bunch of friends and a couple of elderly people one of whom was in the mid 30s.And one of them started pressuring me to drink.This has happened a number of times and I am accustomed to it. So no problem. He then started
mildly taunting me about how I was acting a spoilsport and destroying the friendly group atmosphere. He then starts poking fun of my habit of not going out on friday/saturday nights as I used to wake up early sat morning to watch EPL. NOw i was getting angry. I wanted to grab him by his shoulders and shout " Listen TIT-FACE (that was the exact adjective I wanted to
use),peer pressure techniques never worked on me when I was 18 and surrounded by close friends . Now I am 26 and it is defo not gonna work when a 35 year old FUCK-FACE( a bit excessive I know, but I wanted to use this on him too) acting like an 18 year old tries it on me." Of course I did'nt. I just bit my lips and gave a silly grin until one of my friends chimed in and rescued me.

Because I luv it !!!!

2006-10-27T16:31:00.000-05:00

As a phd student I have gone through the whole gamut of emotions regarding why am i doing, what I am doing. At first there was the excitement of research, the thought that i was going to enter a system whose ideals matched mine - with the quality of work being the only criteria for success. After 12 -14 months when i saw how the actual system works, the madness to get papers, marketing your research etc., cynicism set in. I started doubting myself. Am i doing the right thing? When i saw my friends in the "real" world making money, talking about bonuses, property prices, getting married, settled down in life, the anxiety deepened. And the worst part of this feeling was that ever since the age of 16, I had never let other people's success affect me. Now here was i stuck at one point while all my mates where zooming ahead in their life. It was not jealousy. It was weird feeling which I was not able to put a finger on. Talking to many of my friends it became very obvious that you don’t have to be better in solving analytical problems to be a success in life/career. I understood pretty fast that the qualities that make a person a "success in life" are intangible and is primarily dependent on reacting to the pitfalls which life throws at you. And it was with all these doubts in mind that I took a vacation to my home in India.

These doubts where whizzing through my mind for the first few days. It was around 8 in the morning when i woke up and I was feeling very nostalgic. I stared across at my table and started remembering the memories of my high school when i used to sit there and solve problems out of Irodov. I remembered how I used to literally punch the air, feel nice whenever I solved a tough problem. I remembered, how once I paced around the room with a big wide grin when I gave a very elegant solution to the problem: (a,b,c) are sides of a triangle show that a/(1+a) + b/(1+b) >= c/(1+c). I used to do this while many of friends used to go out for movies, hang out, and do the normal cool things. The normal teen community would have labeled me a looser and I never used to regret spending time this way. Part of the reason I used to spend time this way was my desperation to get into a great university which will ensure a "better" life. At that point, I realised that the actual reason which spurred me on was more than just getting into a good university. I actually liked spending time solving such problems. A few months earlier when my academic cynicism was at its peak, I was having dinner at a friends place and the guy got really excited about an elegant proof involving a sum of series equals PI. I remember my instinctive involuntary feeling was wow that’s a great one, but i immediately covered that feeling with a "Dude, u need to get a life". I was so enamored with other people's lives that I was trying to become some one else.

Deep inside my heart, i realised whenever I see some elegant proof I get hooked. I immediately start wishing that I could do some thing like that. I am not really good at it, I am better than average still no way good enough to come up with really really clever ones. But I still like trying solving problems, both practical and theoretical. Every time the course list came up I get excited and come up with a list of atleast 5 courses which I want to take. I like doing new courses. I have met some fascinating people in school. Geeks/Nerds however u might want stereotype them but I learned so many things from them and I hope some of them will remain friends for life. I may not be in school for long. I may end up doing a job which may not require a phd, but I will never regret doing a phd because I can say at least for four years of my life I did something which I inherently enjoyed. And there are a lot of things which I have learned, which I think will help me succeed in the real world.

2006-08-16T09:04:00.000-05:00

Hoffs Pipex Ad 60 sec version

Wowser!!!!

2006-08-16T09:03:00.000-05:00

Hoff introducing Mini-Hoff!

More Hoff

Hasselmania in the lab

2006-07-13T15:28:00.000-05:00

Today Steve showed me the video “secret agent man” by the entertainer extraordinaire - THE HOFF himself. This precipitated a discussion on Hoff videos leading to the idea of a HOFF countdown. So I started searching videos of The Hoff on youtube and came up with a list of 5 top Hoff videos. Note that the Hoffdown is restricted to videos available on youtube at this point.

And the HOFFDOWN beings with

Number five:Hoff does the Jekyll and Hyde in Confrontation

Number four:Je t'aime means I love you

Live performance on German TV.Note how the Hoff misses on the lip sync at the beginning when he is distracted by the teddy.

Number three: Secret Agent Man

Watch out for the Hoff doing the Indian snake charmer routine at around 3:01 with a woman doing the snake dance in the background.

Number two:Jump in my Car

Watch out for Hoffey Apples and a hot cup of Hoffee at around 1:20

And Finally..Number one: Hooked on a feeling

At very few times in a person's life, come occasions where emotions are so strong that mere words cannot express them. Viewing this video was one such very special moment. All I can say is that it was simply Hofftastic!!!

And a special mention to Wings of Tenderness!!!!for the lyrics

"We're flying on the wings of tenderness
Riding the rivers of gentleness
Into the garden of love wi'll flow and watch it grow together
We'll build a castle out of honesty
Fill every room with the harmony"

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Mans Chest

2006-07-08T18:21:00.000-05:00

Pros:
(i) Johny Depp
(ii) Special Effects blended in really well
(iii) Did I mention Johny Depp?
(iv) Good Background Score
(v) Oh!! In case I forgot to mention: Johny Depp!!
(vi) A "not soo wimpy as part 1" Will Turner and Elizabeth

Cons:
(i) Abrupt ending
(ii) A bit too long

Comparing to the Curse of the Black Pearl:

Part 1 was a simple story which was well executed. It was a movie for kids which the adults also enjoyed.Dead Mans chest is a more complicated story which is not so well executed. The focus this time is on the adult audience.The characters are much darker this time. There is a lot of uneccesary scenes of gore which are not exactly suitable for kids.

But overall a fun ride!!!

Youtube Rocks !!!!

2006-06-27T21:27:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite websites on the web!!!
Some of my favorite links on youtube

afro ninja
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKa3pNrWQrc&search=afro%20ninja

Basketball Kid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFjQ-JeMZCM&search=basket%20ball%20kid

Disco mobike man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1wXnm0pVg&search=soccer%20am%20disco

Music:Canon by Funtwo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Sl8sZuT-U&search=canon

Music:While my guitar gently weeps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9mEKMz2Pvo

Matt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4

Kailash Kher - Kailasa

2006-06-15T20:03:00.000-05:00

A very good debut album by a brilliant musician.I was impressed with Kailash Kher the first time I heard Allah khe Bandhe a couple of years ago. Kailasa is definitely one the best private albums released in India in recent times.My favorite song in the album is Teri Deewani. Tauba Tauba and Albela Sajan are other songs from the album which I like. Another singer whom I will be keeping a watch out in the future is Zubeen - the Assamese pop singer who sang Ya Ali in the movie Gangster.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time

2006-06-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

Curious Incident of the Dog in the night time: Christoper Boone is an autistic boy who is a mathematical genius but cannot understand the emotional aspect of human life.He can think logically and solve complex problems but finds it difficult to connect emotionally to any human being. Christopher lives his life by following a set of rules some of which he came up with on his own and the other with the help of his tutor.He is accused of murdering a dog in the neighborhood and takes it upon himself to solve the mystery by following the lead of Sherlock Holmes. In the process of solving the mystery, Chris finds out more about his dead mother and the relationship between his mom and dad. The book is relatively short compared to other novels I have read in recent times and the language used is simple. The book is written from Christophers point of view and the author does of a brilliant job of explaining the world as Christopher sees it.By getting into the mind of Christopher, the author also does a very good job of portraying the problems that children with autism face. I could not find any significant flaws in this book. Rating:3.6/4.0

Shantaram: A Novel

2006-05-02T12:19:00.000-05:00

I first heard of Shantaram:the novel when i read a news article that johny depp was going to star in a movie based on this novel.It immediately piqued my curiosity and i checked out the reviews on amazon.The reviews seemed pretty good.The fact that the novel is based out of India made me even more curios and I decided to buy it.
I have to say the novel lived up to its reputation.Shantaram is the story of an Australian doctor who is jailed for heroin addiction.He escapes from prison,comes to Bombay,starts a clinic in the slums,gets involved in the Bombay underworld and bollywood,fights a war in afghanistan,falls in love and meets lots of interesting characters in the process.

Outside of all the twists and turns in the plot, Shantaram is the story of a guy who discovers what urban life in india is all about and in the process rediscovers himself.The author tries to understand the psyche of an average indian and attempts to explain why indians do stuff the way they do and does a reasonably good job of it.

pros: The novel is very personal. The author analyzes his characters brilliantly and in a very intelligent manner. Another major plus in this novel is the way the author describes every setting and place he is in. The plot is very good.The fact that it is autobiographical makes it all the more interesting.There are some really good philosophical discussions.The vocabulary used in philosophical discussions is simple which makes reading those sections even more enjoyable.

cons:The author is verbose at times. The novel makes life in the slums of bombay look a bit too positive.The language is poetical and even though there are some memorable lines in the book,the author goes overboard with emotions at times.At many places I got the feeling that there was a pragraph or two extra .

Overall a very very good novel.But I would not rate it as a great novel.Shantaram had the potential to be a great novel, but it aint.I feel that if the author had been a little bit more crisp at places I think this novel would have been a great one.

rating:3.0/4.0..