stark spring

Clicked this phuchhi outside my door last week...
before the rain got to it...

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

-Wordsworth

quote

God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December. - James M. Barrie

Chungking Express

"If memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates?"

Chungking Express is a phenomenal movie. Before today I would have said that "In the Mood For Love" was Wong Kar Wai's best movie, but I've changed my mind. Maybe I'll change my mind after watching more of his work, but for now Chungking Express is on top.

I cannot start describing the many many little things that make this a great film. The cinematography by Christopher Doyle; the imagery, vivid, grainy, soft - so smoothly blending into each other; the soundtrack - with Faye Wong's (isn't she delightfully neurotic??) mandarin rendition of The Cranberries' hit "Dreams"; Tony Leung's conversations with the soap and the towel. You gotta watch it to know what I mean.

And the strangely surreal Indian connection. The drug smuggling ring, the Indian kitchen workers speaking in hindi in the background and the indian music during the chase scenes.

I'm glad I watched this movie.

Ads on the internet...

I've always known myself to have an unholy amount of patience when it comes to ads on the internet...
-pop-ups - i just shake my head and Alt-F4 them,
-pop-unders? I just ignore them, let them stack under..
-Full page flash moving pictures and stuff.. I admire the guts of the website owner to subject the audience to such crap and shake my head avuncularly - website, naughty nephew - and 'X' it off...
-Even those multiple pop-ups in geometric progression... close a window and two pops up and so on - so popular with those shady shady sites that i do not visit (wink,wink) - even those i could handle with some deft Alt-F4ing...

BUT - I have met my nemesis - "The swat a fly and win an ipod flash ad" - its not the ad - its the sound.. the BUZZING of the fly .. and even BUZZ if you click BUZZ on the damn ad it BUZZ doesnt stop - and sometimes the ad BUZZ banner is hidden at the bottom of BUZZ a page and you have no idea where that BUZZ goddamned sound is coming from!!! And the only BUZZ way to get rid of that sound is to mute your speakers or BUZZ kill the window!!

hehehehe - ya, its not fun reading the last paragraph is it? exactly my sentiments..

I would have though advertisers would wanna attract you to their sites or products, not make them hate you so much that even if you were offering free ipods and macminis and additional cash on top of that i wouldnt go to them.. just coz of the buzzing fly..

My firefox ad-aware didnt catch it.. oh well who knows.. too many damn configurations to take care off.. makes me wanna go back to DOS.. or no computers, no internet, black heavy noisy bakelite phones and if you wanna call long distance - trunk calls that have to be booked. Blue Inland Letter Forms or Aerogrammes for writing your letters. Onion skin letter pads for air mail - other fancy letter pads for other fancy mail. When mail meant a honest-to-god letter you could touch. Fountain pens rather than dot-pens - a bottle of ink - Sulekha? Chelpark? the smell of the ever present ink stain.... ooohhhh Nose Hurting Now - (if you dont get the nose hurting joke, ask me)

To get back to crib of the day - just the memory of that fly buzzin sound kills me... try scratching your nails against a wall or a blackboard - you'll know what i mean.. bleeeearghhhh

Have a good week all.. :).. If I finish my paper by the 20th (i.e. on time) I'll treat you all to photographs! :)

p.s. Watched "Ichi the Killer" today - Japanese flick - very very very disturbing - spurting blood from slashed jugulars - massacres resulting in slippery abdomen filled floors and blood splattered ceilings - Lots of sadism and masochism - But what's amazing is that they made this movie with all the blood and gore but at the same time managed to pack in a decent story into it.. with good acting to boot! i should watch more japanese movies.

A Good Laugh Finally!!!!!!!!!

Read this story... Scientific Conference Falls for Gibberish Prank

In short, a bunch of MIT smartasses put together a computer generated gibberish scientific paper and sent it to one of those "scientific conferences" that are held in all the hotspots and it GOT ACCEPTED!!

I feel ( and I realised today that I'm not alone in this) that these conferences are not organized for the sake of scientific research but coz these conferences are mega-money. And they actually accept non-reviewed papers for publication.. hehehehe.. I wouldnt have been surprised if this particular paper WAS reviewed and THEN accepted. But shouldn't there be a standard of peer reviews in journals and conferences?? I guess thats why there are "prestigious" journals and then the rest of the riffraff...

What is really irritating about these conferences is the almost-spamlike emails that they keep sending out with invitations to attend and publish etc. Its like one of those Nigerian Bank Scams!

Anyway - was good for a full belly laugh today!

While we are on the topic of scientific research, I came across this video today. Can someone tell me what this is??? WTF??

And on the subject of videos and birds.. check this out.. This bird is just amazing.

Thank You

This is to acknowledge all those that either leave comments on my posts or leave something on the tag-board.. Its nice to check on my site once in a while and see that theres a new comment from somebody! I've never acknowledged those on the tag-board itself, but this is let you guys know that I read and I appreciate! :)

Am not going to list out all the names okay?

Indian Researcher arrested in the US on suspicions of terrorism

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050412/asp/opinion/story_4602509.asp

So this poor guy, sent to the University of Central Florida by the Indian Government is now in jail for trying to show his sponsors that he actually did some work in the US and didnt spend all his time and stipend on the Florida theme parks.

Remind me not to make backups of my work and take them home!!!

Cause and effect

Tracing back a domino like sequence of events to the beginning is quite enlightening - not satisfying, mind you - but just informative.

Someone, something pissed me off on Friday morning. (Work/Research/School related politics stuff which I shouldn't be posting here). Anyway, yup, wakey wakey, get outta bed, check my emails and messages and BLAAAM .. in my face. OK great, so now what? Go face the day, keep your cool, count till 10 and all that junk. But things just deteriorate...

And the miserable thing is that all the time I know whats happening!! All too clearly. But at that moment its like your life is a movie in slow motion, and youre just an observer. You can see whats happening, you can see whats going to happen, but youre helpless, like those milliseconds of time between pulling the door shut while at the same time realising you've left your keys inside.

So anyhow, I bite my tongue a dozen times throughout the day, plasticize a smile to my face when all i feel like doing is gouging out eyeballs. The day goes by, and all the while I guess the tension in me grows.. I dont even realise it but I'm on a hair-trigger... and its the poor people who interact with me that have to feel the brunt of it... Sorry all the blameless people who had to interact with me. Thanks for not making it worse.

This lasts the whole of Saturday too.. and even today. I'm still mad.

And when youre mad at one thing, other things also tend to get u equally irritated. I guess I really wouldnt be all that pissed off at Blogger going down a million times, but man was I mad at them. Irrationally mad. I wouldn't normally be mad at some stupid newspaper article but I was... read my previous post!! I wouldnt get mad about inaction from certain people about certain issues. But I did. I went to an Afro-Latin JAzz Concert on Saturday and hated the fact that the percussion was so goddamn overpowering and got mad at them... and then dinner at ABC and an R & B Funk band was playing and they stank and so I was mad.

All coz of ONE DAMNED AVOIDABLE THING, maybe small but very goddamn important to me!!

I hate politics and I hate bureaucracy and I hate paperwork and I hate incompetency and I hate stupidity and I hate overeager brown-nosers and I hate officious pricks and I hate hypocrites. I could go on and on, but then I'd look like a misanthrope wouldn't I ?? Well maybe I am. I'm anti-social enough anyways.

NYT - Technology - Pogues Posts - WTF!! It really sucks!!!

OK.. I'm in a mood today so forgive this uncharateristically vitriolic post if it offends someone's sensibilities. Actually.. wait, no.. if it offends you, you know where to shove it!

The New York Times is a venerable institution. Respected journalism, top of the line articles, read by the masses and the literati alike... A bastion of balanced news reporting in this age of "Fair and Balanced - Yeah right" news. So, what the heck are they doing with the Technology and specially the Circuits colums?? Particularly Pogue's Posts. Pogue's daily blogs which NYT supposedly considers to be in step with the times (oooooh look honey, a blogger!!) and hence fit to fit into the "Technology" section.

OK, so they have Pogue blog once a day or so in Circuits. That DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU BLOG CRAP!!!!!! PLEASE DO NOT WRITE FOR THE SAKE OF WRITING!! Pogue, you are an embarassment to the technical blogging community. Like someone said, He probably writes more than he reads!!! WTF?? The posts are gruesomely inadequate to be in the technology section of NYT.. and today he's outdone everybody!!! Yup, click on the title - Disguising a PC.

Don't get me wrong - this 'easement' guy, the "wily hardware hacker", has done a nice job with hiding his MacMini inside an old Dell case. Kudos. Great idea dude, and nice of you to share your pictures. He's just a guy doing his thing. Like how there are a thousand other guys doing their things..

What sucks is that Pogue blogs about it. WTF right?? Didnt you get something else to write about Pogue? You know, if you dont have anything to write about, dont write at all. Do you think hiding a MacMini in a Dell is news enough to be put into the NYT? Man o man.. I dont know if I had an over inflated impression of NYT or they do not realise that they're paying this guy to write a paragraph of junk everyday. And not just that, each of his blog is actually an article from another blog or news source - normally wired.com. Cmon man, youre a reporter, be original. Leave the blogging of news from wired.com or others to the bloggers. You remain a reporter for NYT. Stick to your dumb "Battery tests" and "Digital Camera comparisions". BTW, you suck at that too.

Skype Answering Machine

I've got the Skype Answering Machine now!!!!

You can call me up any hour of the day (provided my computer is on) and leave me a message!! :) Almost like a regular phone now!! :)

One way street??

Why don't people comment on my posts?? Just for the heck of commenting.. am not looking for profoundly insightful remarks on my latest blab.. just something to tell me what u feel about my latest rant..

Click on the "Comments" link at the end of every post, a window should pop-up. Type in a line or two and thats it!!

Or go all the way down to the tag-board on the right column and drop me a line there.

:D

http://maps.google.com - They've started showing a satellite image of the address that you are mapping. Thats cool and for the paranoid, very very scary! :)..

Watched "Finding Forrester" today - touch of "Scent of a Woman", touch of "To Sir With Love" and all that.. not bad though.

Want news and info on Kalimpong, check out http://www.kalimpong.info.

Nice old picture of Kalimpong Main Road here.

Thats it for today... I had started this thinking I'd write about the wisdom of storing so much information nowadays on hard drives, knowing that it could be lost just like that.. and a longish essay on the implacations of that on history and the future society.. but I lost my train of thought.. so sorry folks. Next time maybe huh?? :)

Google Gulp

Google Gulp

Latest Google Innovation. I would have thought that scientists would have come up with something like this a long time ago. I mean the technology is already out there, its just a matter of a clever mind putting it together and slick marketing to the right demographics.

I wish the Google Gulp bottles were recycleable though! No, they're not. I would think a multi-billion tech company would want to show that they are environmentally concious too.

And more flavors please. There's no cheese flavor!! What the????? This product is not going to fly at all in the US where cheese is the favouritest flavor (some may say BBQ sauce flavor, but I still think cheese).

I've got some Google Gulp caps with me in case anyone wants them. You need to turn in a Google Gulp cap to get a 6-pack of Google Gulp, in your choice of flavors. So email me or leave a comment if you want me to send you a cap. Or send me a SASE at my address, which you'll find in the "Contact" page.

2 gigs from gmail!!!!

2 gigs?? 2 gigs??????

what next? :)

i'll soon have more storage capacity online than on my desktop!!

Well, google announced this today. Today is the 1st of April.
Better not be a joke google!! PPl might not find it funny ;) ...

------------------------

Went to Boston today.. NU.. and on the way back had to stop by ASL in Bedford to check out their Mobile Eye. Their niftiest, newest, portablest, eye-tracker. Pretty clever!! Have tons of thoughts about uses and research ideas!!! hmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

------------------------

p.s. Happy All Fools' Day to All ya fools out there ..