VmBloG

2006-06-12T22:43:00.000+05:30

Reloading the Matrix

2005-11-23T02:40:00.000+05:30

If you are like me, you have more fun watching movies the second and third times over. Missing bits fall into place, you are ready for parts that flashed past you too fast the first time. There is also the added fun of having an as yet uninitiated one around so you can keep nudging him/her before the juicy bits come on screen.
Picture then, me with my roomie watching The Matrix Reloaded. The man hadn't seen a comic book till he was twenty or so. Before the movie started, I had my suspicions about the seemingly overloaded dose of sci-fi I was going to administer him.
An hour into the movie, the suspicions remained. When the credits came up I thought I had imagined the discomfort. The guy seemed to be taking it well.

A bit too well.

Third time over, I realised what I have always known. It is useful to pay attention to suspicions. He pointed at Laurence Fishburne and said, "This guy.... Trinity.... he's a robot right?"

Gasp! The Wachowski brothers would have turned in their graves. But they are not dead.

Test

2005-11-23T00:52:00.000+05:30

Posting to my blogger blog from Word 2000. Fingers crossed.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Raids on Indian health officials

2005-11-23T00:31:00.000+05:30

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Raids on Indian health officials

CBI is a detective agency?

Kyunkii Blog Haii...!!

2005-11-23T00:27:00.000+05:30

Kyunkii Blog Haii...!!

:: rogerebert.com :: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2005-11-23T00:26:00.000+05:30

:: rogerebert.com :: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Us at Mumbai

2005-11-16T02:26:00.000+05:30

Boo hoo... No Visa!

2005-11-16T02:23:00.000+05:30

Our beds

2005-11-16T02:20:00.000+05:30

Gopal's blog

2005-11-06T03:34:00.000+05:30

The boy started blogging finally.

2005-08-19T15:35:00.000+05:30

Aha! Mobile blogging works. This calls for a change of template. And a crisper tag line. But what is more important than anything than anything else, and probably the most important thing of all, is something I have conveniently forgotten. Oh well!

2005-08-19T15:25:00.000+05:30

Testing testing.... 1 2

Mumbai

2005-07-07T22:49:00.000+05:30

It has been an age since I last posted here. But then, I never thought of what life would look like by now either. If anything, it has far passed any of my expectations. I, who was once a daily multiple post blogger, barely find time to type out a two-liner in days now.

Am in Mumbai right now. It's... not Chennai. Let that suffice for now. But upside is that for someone like me who is an alien to more or less both cultures, the overheard conversations here make more sense.

Fiddled with the template again. Old habits die hard. Don't know when I will blog again but let this stand. A much humbled blogger signing off for now.

glassdog interviews kottke

2005-03-13T11:50:00.000+05:30

Glassdog interviewed Jason Kottke for the usual reasons. Here's how it starts:

Glassdog: Jason, what the fuck?

Jason Kottke: First of all, I’d like to thank Lance for this opportunity and such a nuanced and interesting first question.

Well, the fuck is that I wasn’t enjoying my professional life as much as I used to and it was putting a real damper on the rest of my life. I decided that if it was possible to change that and start doing something I love, I should go ahead and try to do that.

Read the whole thing.

Saw Fockers

2005-03-13T11:42:00.000+05:30

Spent yesterday evening watching Meet the Fockers. Was a bit too corny for my tastes but funny nevertheless. See for yourself. Let my rants not sway your choice of visual presentation.

The (official) buzz

2005-03-12T11:10:00.000+05:30

After the blogger comment system downtime yesterday, which was quickly handled and got much applause, today saw the release of Blogger Buzz. All familiar blogger folk contributing to a team blog about blogger, blogs and everything blogospheric.

A must syndicate for everyone on blogger. Everyone who cares anyway. I tend to generalise a tad. Forgive me.

Notice the mention of Google on the blog's banner though. Talk about gradual morphing of identity.

Blogger comments stick

2005-03-11T12:43:00.000+05:30

Since morning, I have been having difficulty commenting on blogspot. Its the blogger comments system. While those with Haloscan steer clear of this tragedy, many with blogs that host frequently interesting debates on various topics have been biting nails since morning.

While comments show up on post pages, the comment-post screen is out of bounds for any one who tries. My apologies to everyone who awaits my comments.

PJ of my own!

2005-03-11T12:05:00.000+05:30

What did the super-villain say to Captain Planet after they had lunch together at Vasanta Bhavan?

"You'll pay for this Captain Planet!"

ROTFL at my own PJ!

What do I do...

2005-03-10T18:49:00.000+05:30

...with this label?

Things are pretty much officially out now. I am not getting back at any one person. I just think that some one who represents a major publication (no matter how niche the readership) should have enough insight to be able to stay clear of generalisations. I guess I might be being vicious here. Don't take any thing here too seriously if you think I am being unduly aggressive.

So, here's the funny part. Apparently, I was too geeky for one of India's leading Tech Mags! That's something to pride myself on. Don't you think? Just joking. In reality, it was a long standing dream/wish/whatever of mine to get to work for this particular publication.

Dreams don't die. They just go to that big recycle bin in the sky. It is only a matter of time that I restore the file into its rightful folder.

BTW, what file extension may dreams have? .drm ???

Am down I agree, but definitely not out. Am I ever? But then, you wouldn't know, would you?

Something coming - watch out!

2005-03-09T17:44:00.000+05:30

The out of the bolt interview results are out. I have been hearing flying stories of the note that they sent to the college announcing their rejection of all four candidates who applied. Myself included. Will not say anything now. Need to verify some bits. Things sound just too incredible to be true. Until they start making sense, and until I calm down enough to be able to comment on what happened, just hold it...

Ahem!

2005-03-08T20:04:00.000+05:30

I uploaded this site to freewebs (just love it) today. FTP sucks! We also started with the CMS for Digantik today. Makes life so much easier.

Note: My blogs I read link on the sidebar will now link to the site above. Will modify it soon. No time now. Also, my livejournal is getting more frequently updated than this blog can possibly be. Sorry about that. Keep reading the livejournal.

Bolt!

2005-03-07T12:38:00.000+05:30

As I wait for the results of my test, out of the blue comes another chance. One that stands at par with what I think will be the best. Hope I can give it a good shot.

Interview in forty-five minutes. Hope it goes well. Like I always do.

Update: Interview over. Went well.

Took the test

2005-03-06T13:38:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, I took the online test. For that same dream-job-position. I know the hyphenated phrase is ungrammatical but it has kind of stuck on. I wish I could reveal what it is for but I do not have quality wood to touch around here.

Keeping my fingers crossed and hope I have the opportunity to get past this level. If they like what I wrote in the test, I will get an interview call and then... you know the drill.

Signature

2005-03-04T12:42:00.000+05:30

Found this cool way for generating Gmail signatures. Via The Indian Blogger. There are only three templates. This one was the best. Though a bit unwieldy to put it in the sidebar.

Condolences

2005-03-03T14:58:00.000+05:30

My heartfelt sorrow to all affected by the recent Doodle-Board Disaster. This from the site itself.

DoodleBoard to become Members' Only Service
Costs are running very high, and our signups are by hundreds daily. Our sevice provider has informed us of the high usage of the DoodleBoard service and we have no choice but to act to resolve this. As a result, we regret to inform all our Basic Users that DoodleBoard will no longer be able to provide the service free. Enhanced members will continue to enjoy DoodleBoard service with no service disruption.

I hate it when they do this. Some time back mBlog.com did this. Unprofessional doesn't begin to describe it. Hope everyone finds chat elsewhere. Amen!

Days past

2005-03-03T14:38:00.000+05:30

The searchlet works again. Am glad! Have not been posting here for days. Quite a few things have happened. My dream job position is much closer now. Wish I could blog it but can't. If it all works out fine, then I will post plenty of links and stuff and text in bold and other such generally garish celebrative stuff.

My latest discovery: Samit Basu has a blog! Predictable but enviable URL! He even commented on my livejournal. I like the man. No hang-ups. The sequel to Simoquin Prophecies is going to be out this November, says he. Drool all!

Blogs in javaconnect

2005-02-25T20:47:00.000+05:30

While stealing a quick bite at a Reliance WebWorld cum JavaGreen joint yesterday, I came across a piece on blogging in javagreen's magazine javaconnect. My unjust self could call it shallow but given the tendency of everyone classing geek stuff and normal stuff so far apart, I guess the effort was commendable.

Here's a bit of it:

"Yeah? Why not create a blog on what ails the Indian cricket team?"

Why not indeed. You want it - go get it. That's what blogging is all about.

Followed the cold coffee up with Scorcese's The Aviator at Sathyam. Best presentation I saw in all my time in Chennai. Do watch it (that is if you have not been hiding under an unusually heavy rock like me till now).

Technorati malfunction

2005-02-23T18:23:00.000+05:30

The technorati searchlet on the right is malfunctioning right now. Even when the this blog radio button is selected, the search fetches results from all blogs on technorati. Wonder what's wrong. I re-installed the searchlet but to no avail.

Tags: Technorati, Tags

Kottke to blog on

2005-02-23T17:41:00.000+05:30

Jason Kottke, got the web talking in the last few hours. What has he done? This…

Quitting my job to run kottke.org full-time is possibly the dumbest economic decision I’ve ever made in my life.

Guardian’s Online Blog takes a safely cynical view of Kottke’s decision. While Ev is all GO! for it.

Quitting a job for creative pursuits is not something I would disapprove of. For those of us without jobs, it is something we can only approve of. In spite of the misery of joblessness creeping in from all sides, this is what Yahoo! emailed me this morning.

You silver-tongued devil, you! As if your already indisputable way with logic weren’t enough, you’ve suddenly been additionally gifted with the ability to charm the socks off of any audience member. Is that fair?

No seriously! Is that fair?

Off

2005-02-22T11:23:00.000+05:30

For the time being, I may not be posting much. Try this blog to satisfy your craving for all things me till I write here again.

Actually, I may write here in the meantime too. You know me!

Love story

2005-02-21T16:28:00.000+05:30

They don't make love stories as they used to anymore!

Google is scanning

2005-02-20T14:57:00.000+05:30

Read this story in expressindia about France's National Library's fears of Google projecting a unipolar view of the world in the process of its next big initiative. Just in case the story goes into the archives before you get to it, here's an excerpt.

California-based Google Inc. said last December it would scan millions of books and periodicals into its popular search engine over the next few years.

Its partners in the project are Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University, the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library.

Google says the project will promote knowledge by making it more easily and more widely accessible. It aims to make money by attracting people to its Web site and to its advertisements.

Interesting tiff!

Livejournal's new look?

2005-02-20T12:05:00.000+05:30

Sadly no. Its only the SixApart re-designed site's livejournal page. A time shall come...

Ideas

2005-02-20T11:06:00.000+05:30

This, after reading through Seth Godin's Bad ideas Post and forcing myself to think a bit on some stuff that passed my mind ages ago. Web forms to me were something I came across everyday. Godin's idea may be subject to intelligent debate by people much more conversant in usability theory than I am. But I remember the first time I signed up for something on the web, ages ago, I had to fill in things like race and gender. Race's very presence was offensive and the drop down list for gender had only male and female in it. Some web services do have options like other and/or do not reveal but mandatory fields like this only go on to enforce conformity upon those who do not wish to.

Tags: Ideas, Web.

The DC Universe

2005-02-19T14:32:00.000+05:30

Not that I have any time to kill, but I was killing some anyway at dccomics.com. Perhaps it was my new year resolution for the year before last - I will re-acquaint myself with the mythologies of both the DC and Marvel universes. Lost touch long time ago. TV spoiled me. I wallowed in the mock-glory of television series while the stories kept growing. I must get back on track before it all becomes far too incomprehensible.

Check out Kid Flash for example. Also, don't miss the new Super Boy and Robin.

Tags: Comics, Books.

Firefox me!

2005-02-19T13:36:00.000+05:30

Interesting! If you just type vmblog in the firefox address bar and hit enter, it automatically leads you to this blog. I knew this happened with Google's I'm Feeling Lucky button, because the query 'vmblog' features my blog on top of the Google results page.

Funnily, the first time I tried, typing vmblog yielded some other site as the number one result on Google. It was a non-english company website. I checked and found that the vmblog.com URL is now parked on GoDaddy.

The reason why Firefox seems to love me may have something to do with Google's being its default primary search engine. The Firefox Start page is powered by Google. Resembles the rounders template of Blogger.

Schindler's list

2005-02-19T12:54:00.000+05:30

Saw Schindler's List yesterday. Yes, I know I arrived a bit too late in the day but this is not a review anyway. I just want to say that I saw Schlinder's list! Would watch it on the big screen someday again. Loved the line:

Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.

I have a strong feeling that I would be humming the theme for the next week and even a couple of days into the next. Unless something new presents itself to my sensitive ears of course.

Tags: Movies, Quotes.

Gmail is out! (Almost)

2005-02-18T09:55:00.000+05:30

As of now, an email is sitting in my inbox that tells me of Gmail's finally made its debut in the free email market. LazyGeek's premonitions have come true. Even I thought the neat little blue box on the left bottom of the mail interface had serious things to say. Those who signed up for an update from Gmail's side when the service becomes public, have been sent email sign-up links. It goes...

Thanks for signing up to be updated on the latest Gmail happenings. We hope it's been worth the wait, because we're excited to finally offer you an invitation to open a free Gmail account! Just click on this link to create your new account...

Luck to Google!

Me throughout

2005-02-17T20:27:00.000+05:30

The day just whooshed passed me in a blur. First, a link on a prominent page saying something on the lines of 'We are hiring!'. Then, a lot of drool. Then, quick enquiries as to how to go about the sour business of marketing myself by way of a resume. Then, the realisation that my blogger template isn't IE5 and earlier compatible. Then, shock and fingernails bitten. Then, a sudden inspired urge to do the Mozilla Foundation a favour by downloading Firefox 1.0 on eight of the lab computers. Then, sighs of satisfaction as VmBloG loads to perfection on all those slower-than-thee machines.

Then, glee at the Firefox start page which is the browser's default home page. Then, logging into blogger to blog all this. Then, this.

Tags: Firefox, Browser.

Live Web!

2005-02-17T15:49:00.000+05:30

The more I see of the-live-aggregation-of-web type services, the more I am impressed. Technorati Tags, Daypop's aggregation, Blogdex and now Intelliseek's Blogpulse. Ignore the now in the last sentence. Discovered Blogpulse some time ago. It is the act of actually contributing to the web that makes me stop and wonder out aloud. This is not consumerism. This is something that justifies the original plan for the Internet.

The difference is conceptual. The Internet is not a library. At least not the kind of library we are used to. If it is a library then perhaps it is one where you are allowed to disagree with the librarian loudly. You are allowed to scribble on the walls of the library and in some cases even write on the books if you find a typo (wiki).

Every click you make adds to the Internet. There is something very natural about the web. Like replenishable natural resources. Something very conducive to the human spirit. The Monalisa is not unique. You can copy it and send it to as many people as possible. Each copy would be as real as the original. As long as you mention the old man's name, I don't think Da Vinci would mind either.

I am currently in the middle of Lawrence Lessig's The Future of Ideas: The Fate of Commons in a connected world. The book is awe inspiring in its scope and frightening at times.

There is this line we all tread. On one side is the consumerist. On the other side are those who pay for his sins. He tells us that order is impossible without control. We agree, and then wonder why it must be he who exercises that control.

Tags: Internet, Web, Blogs, Information, Books.

Past the Tsunami

2005-02-17T14:52:00.000+05:30

I remember ruing not being in the city when the waves lashed it. I was vacationing in Cuttack then. Totally out of the scene then, the longing for the thrill of 'being in the middle of it' was pressing. Until a week back, it was the waves that came to one's mind when one looked back.

As of now, the tsunami has spilled over into life. You no longer go to beaches and fishermen's villages to see its 'impact'. Its all around you. It won't be dead for a long time to come.

Flashing past

2005-02-15T15:12:00.000+05:30

The last few days just went flashing past me. I don't even remember when this started. I think I have forgotten who all owe me money! Besides, something tells me that before the week ends, I will have either something major on my hands, or something to rue over for life.

Blogger.com reloaded its comment system, perhaps I will test it out for a bit.

Searchable now!

2005-02-08T19:42:00.000+05:30

Alright, back to template talk. Added the Technorati Searchlet to VmBloG. It works! Try it. Although the reason it works is that my blog has been on technorati for some time now. Won't make this another one of those self possessed rambling posts.

Cricket and the Dork Side

2005-02-08T15:44:00.000+05:30

It's not as emotional a flash-back as the title makes it sound. Just one of those lazy afternoon nostalgia things. Its monday and another quiz was in order. Funny things happen in quizzes. There were disappointed souls after the smoke lifted from the battlegrounds. I, thankfully, was not among them. My scores have been improving. 3 (last to last to last week), 5 (last to last week), 8 and a half (last week), and a whopping 16 and a half today.

All this doesn't even bring me close to the halfway score. But its better than starting at the top of a steep slide.Ahem! Back to the promise. Honestly, it was not even a promise. Forget solemnity and serious crap like that. It so happened, that one bedraggled soul revealed her ignorance with the sport called Cricket and got a somewhat more enlightened one started into what was soon to become a horridly detailed view of the thing. As fact after funny fact made its way into my skull against the guard I had put in place years ago, my mind travelled back to the days when Sunday morning was heaven.

My knowledge levels in all matters cricket have never been anyone's envy. Yet, owing to a father neck deep into it and the avrage smalltownish cricket-doped environs, I did stand in for impromptu crickety sessions (so called because games then were referred to as bat-ball games).I devotedly followed the Sunday morning line-up of cartoon shows on Doordarshan. There were Disney's Aladdin and Batman among others. I missed special art classes, family events, social gatherings for my bit of heaven. I even avoided friends who were inconsiderate enough to drop in. Sometimes when under the strict gaze of ma, I had to meet them, I tried and converted them.

The promise? Yes, getting to it. It's simple really, there were only two things that ever kept me from Sundaying. One was Math (pending homework, that came to the notice of dad), or Cricket. I could never (still can't) fathom the extent of insensibility that Doordarshan suffered from to be able to scrape an entire Sunday for a bunch of... Gasp!I made a Bruce Wayne kind of vow (in my sub-conscious thank you!) to be uncricketical for life. I don't get it and I don't like it. I thought this might be a good time to remind myself. The dork side is where I belong.

National Treasure

2005-02-02T20:01:00.000+05:30

A bit of the father-son thing from Indiana Jones but the rest was cool, I dare say better. Nicholas Cage has a cool name, Benjamin Franklin Gates in the movie. What made it watchable was that Cage had generations of explorers to look back upon. The (however sentimental) premise of family and tradition made the movie so enjoyable for me. Am a sucker for things like that!

The introduction where young Gates is mock-knighted by his grandfather was extremely cool (my opinion).My first impressions didn't desert me this time. National Treasure maintains the pace throughout, with minor exceptions. Diane Kruger was a major distraction. That she sent the entire row behind me groaning, wasn't a bother (I was drooling too). I am just. Justin Bartha gave a superb performance as Riley Poole.Would like to have a proper and educated sounding end to this but can't. The movie didn't exactly rock. But go for it if you dig treasure hunt tales like Indiana Jones.

Technorati Tags: Movie, Movies

SkyCaptain and the blah!

2005-01-31T20:54:00.000+05:30

For once, I was stumped. How can a movie's technical folk be so innovative and the creative folk be so uncreative? I admit with much shame that my intuition deceived me on this. Usually, my first impressions are correct about any movie whose trailor I have been exposed to.There is a comic book touch to all the scenes. The villain is an unseen (and suuposedly insane) scientist. He sends forth giant robots and flying machines (which BTW, are aerodynamic impossibilities) to rob the world's major cities of their power generators. There is the hero who takes to the skies in one of those mythic WW2 type planes. No ordinary plane either. Refer to your old gadget ridden comic book collection for the details. There is the proverbial daring (dolt!) reporter by the name of Polly Perkins. The genius gadget-maker who has made everything makeable. Gasp! I am revealing too much of the story. Suffer for yourself.Now for the innovative 'old time' look that I was talking about. It is much easier to appreciate the presentation if I block out the content. Everything from the scene transition to the impossibly comic bookish looking giant robots are made perfect to the period. There is even the inexplicable air of old school swashbuckling skyward bound adventure to the presentation. The plot had little to do with it though.Perhaps I am being too harsh on it. Maybe they wanted to make a dumb looking movie. Well, they did.

Technorati: Movies

Testing

2005-01-28T10:45:00.000+05:30

Blogger support said the post had cache issues. Let's see if this shows up.

Additions

2005-01-27T18:37:00.000+05:30

Been doing some additions lately. Added the bloglines list to the sidebar, added the creativecommons license to the bottom and added a full grown blogger to the blogosphere. Classmate and news hunter Ratan Gaikwad has started blogging. Wish him luck!

Incredibles (Again)

2005-01-27T13:23:00.000+05:30

Technically, The Incredibles was the second movie I saw for the second time. The first movie I saw a second time was Spider-Man Second. Enough of that. Point is that I did NOT regret it. Smiled through Boundin' and displayed ample childlike glee right through the adventure.

Not that it had much of an original plot but that's not what one asks of a mock superheroic anyway. Dash was my favourite. Probably because he was the only one not involved in any amount of sentimentality that I could blame the movie of (if I had the heart for it). Frozone just reeks of Samuel L. Jackson but is none the worse for it.

Time well spent, second time over.

Rohan Pinto's Answer

2005-01-25T19:34:00.000+05:30

Rohan Pinto has published an answer to all the ruccus of the past week or so on his blog(?). His domain has been stripped of all colour and the lack of a permalink hurts. I feel his arguement doesn't pass muster.

From my perspective, all I did, was post exceprts and in some cases the entire of the best of blogs that i stumbled upon.. Well, looke like bloggers own copyrights to their posts, The uncanny fact is that they do not post any copyright information, which makes me wonder as to why there exist copyrights like creative commons etc...
Well, fellow bloggers, do post copyrights on your site so other fellow bloggers do not make mistakes by pulling out excerpts from your site. We are all humans and make mistakes, but being branded from mistakes can often cause the downslide of human existence

But then, this is how you should post excerpts. You tell people that this has been the source and that you wish to thank the original authors for their understanding.

Rohan Pinto the Plagiarist

2005-01-24T17:18:00.000+05:30

Rohan Pinto has been copying matter from other blogs into his own. First of all, its bad. Secondly, its just damn dumb. I hope every such pest is identified and taken care of.

It is because of this kind of behaviour that the free culture inherent to the web is looked upon as a problem to be taken care of. Power and responsibility again.

Kisna Sucked

2005-01-23T13:09:00.000+05:30

I hardly ever have good feelings about Subhash Ghai's movies. At best, its melodious and colourful. At worst, illogical. Kisna, if I remember correctly, had started making waves even before Mukta arts had started advertising. I seem to still think that I watched Titanic. There is this old lady who comes from the far west and starts on the elaborate business of looking nostalgic by looking past cliffs and caressing rocks. Then there are the stupid journos who frustrate her into retelling what she is nostalgic about. She recounts an untold tale of love, devotion and utter boredom. I wouldn't sully my blog with the details. This is turning into a freaking review. Something I never do. Watch it to get what Ghai has been serving for ages. Sickeningly male chauvinist images, dumb tricks, eminently censorable fight scenes in which the enraged hero chucks the baddie into flames wherefrom he emerges with a half burnt face (but an uncannily safe eye) to shoot the hero.

King of Hindustan

2005-01-20T20:21:00.000+05:30

What crap! These people called themselves an encyclopedia? Hanuman is the monkey god and king of Hindustan. It is because of parochial images like this projected across the continents that India is still a country of snake charmers. I should hold my indignance actually. Its just another one of those chuckable web resources.

Son of Hanuman

2005-01-20T13:36:00.000+05:30

A certain post on Sammy's Blog about flying being common in vedic times, brought back memories of watching B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat on Doordarshan long ago. I remember hearing one story about the son of Hanuman. Yes! I know how it sounds. I told someone the same story some time ago and got, "Yeah sure! And I am Queen Elizabeth..." kind of responses. Whatever that might have been, here is the story - or what I remember of it.

It seems that after the mighty warrior ape had set every single 'attalika' in Lanka to fire, he landed on the beach and extinguished the flames on his tail with the sea water. The tail was slightly scorched but that obviously didn't mean a thing to the 'mahabali'. He took off at wind speed toward Shri Ram's camp across the sea, unaware of that shred of burnt skin that had travelled through the sea into paatal lok and then to Naag Lok (the land of the serpents). This is where my memory blurrs. What I remember is that there was a certain serpent maid who, having been brought up on a steady dose of Hanuman tales and in obvious awe of the mighty, flying warrior ape on the surface. So smitten was she that she impregnated herself with Hanuman's ansh (DNA folks! The Naags had advanced genetics. They could morph into anything, from what I've heard).

Years later, Hanuman meets a young Naag who resembles him every respect. Just one thing. He's a Naag!

I did NOT cook this up. Couldn't even look up more on this myth on the net. If someone knows more please expose the ape of steel!

Spidery Business

2005-01-20T11:00:00.000+05:30

Not quite able to hold my glee at spider-man India's impending release, I posted an entry on my livejournal hoping to be picked up by technorati's spiders. They didn't pick me up.

Desperate to do talk some about Spidey, I uploaded the above pic to FlickR. Technorati tags are supposed to pick up the latest image tagged with the same tag as them. Easy to imagine that no one else had been uploading spidey photos for some time now.

Digantik.com is now online!

2005-01-19T17:34:00.000+05:30

Some people are modest. They don't make a big deal out of every small accomplishment. I assure you I am one of them. In spite of the lack of any serious accomplishments. Just this once however, I will drop the pretensions and yell into the virtual spaces yonder.

A week on assignment, an almost hellish fortnight with deadlines whooshing past, hours and hours of brainstorming over design concepts (majority of which never made it past the 'brain'), and a supply of patience I never knew existed within me. All this and a lot of hardworking and responsible people to count on, made what we today uploaded to http://www.digantik.com by the name of Covering Deprivation.

Its easier on my fingers to type now. Even as more serious concerns surface and formally resign from the design team with honest and noble intentions of devoting more amounts of time to my GK (got 3 and a half in the afternoon news quiz) and actual fieldwork, I hope I DO more.

Refrain from plots to kill me!

2005-01-17T19:18:00.000+05:30

Please hold on as I work to restore comments, navbar, recent posts link list, badges, FlickR gallery.... phew! Somehow, the list didn't seem so long when I first thought it up. Doing it all from scratch. Bear with me.

I Express Blogging

2005-01-17T18:03:00.000+05:30

Indian Express carries a story on Blogging. Via Kiruba.com.

Pavitr Prabhakar

2005-01-17T17:57:00.000+05:30

Pavitr Prabhakar found mention on Oxblog. The Indian version of Spider-Man is soon to make a debut. Are there many others looking forward to his swinging in ceremony?

Aha! Part 2

2005-01-17T15:57:00.000+05:30

Things happen, usually for the better. I could say they happen for the best here in the blogosphere. I could even say they happen for me! But I won't say any of these things because there is no wood around to knock. Not quality, knockable wood anyway. So here goes the unemotional account of the day past.

Shortly after yesterday's template disaster, and my eminently shakeable faith in Blogger suffered another major jolt. I love the service for being Google's and for being completely at my disposal (minus the downtimes of course!) at all given times. And the problem wasn't with Blogger even. My clumsy fingers did it all. Then there was the Technorati Tags Query which got me this response from Dave:

It isn't very hard. Instead of linking via "< a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/tags">tags< /a>" you simply use:"< a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/tags" rel="tag">tags< /a>"There are also some easy-to-use bookmarklets out there, look for technorati tag bookmarklet on Technorati to get and use some...

Thanks to David for the tips. Thanks to Ganesh for telling me he has been watching cartoons.

Life in general, is back to normal and ............... I will blog again!

See? I told you!

2005-01-16T16:33:00.000+05:30

No matter how hard I try, no matter how far away I run, blogger always draws me back and forces the role of amateur hackster on me. I played with the template more and messed up again. This time the text part of it was accidentally gone. I managed to delete half the template.

Lost Haloscan, lost my ultra cool banner pic, lost everything worth living for. How long will this go on? Please god! Why me? Answer me!

Technorati Tags

2005-01-16T13:35:00.000+05:30

Partly due to the urge to shamelessly publicise the entries herein and partly due to morbid curiosity regarding the FlickR-like tags on Technorati, I want to link to a tagged page. Completely because of my dumbness in relation to all things code, I can not do that.

May I then , entirely out of goodwill, extend a hand of friendship to any fellow blogger who might agree to teach me to link using a "rel=tag" in the href?

If you think I wrote all gibberish and still are moved by my call for help, refer to this page and read the grey text on the right. You can carry a post on it on your own blog and leave a link on the comment thread here! May the muses smile at you!

Aha!

2005-01-16T13:12:00.000+05:30

wBloggar now has support for post titles on blogger. That's a load off my heart. Somehow, I had never figured out how to do that in the earlier version.

Livejournal.com is being acquired

2005-01-05T19:57:00.000+05:30

Six apart, the weblog provider, is acquiring Livejournal. I went back to Livejournal and found it to be no different from what it was a few months ago. Although they do seem to have toned down on the home page resource section.

My livejournal, which I updated once in a while was surprisingly, alive. Played around with it for a while and firefoxed the URL to discover the atom feeds.

Once you have the livejournal client, it is much easier to blog when the urge strikes. The pages update more readily than bloggers' do. I hope the merger brings cool new manna for all of us! Amen!

Link to my Presentation

2005-01-05T15:22:00.000+05:30

I made a presentation on Gmail in the first term, following which Gmail user base grew by a dozen or so. It had been sitting in my Yahoo! Briefcase for a long time. Here's a link. Short and web accessible.

FlickR

2005-01-05T13:59:00.000+05:30

photoblogging via flickr Originally uploaded by vimoh.

Because Ganesh made a post a short while ago on photoblogging but left out FlickR, I think I could sing a little about what I use. FlickR is the absolute photo storage and sharing solution. Photos are converted into flash format for public viewing and can be resized. You can blog not just your photos but any photos that users anywhere in the world have chosen to make public.

Users have to register their blogs with FlickR however. This is made easier because FlickR has auto setup options for popular services like Blogger and Livejournal. The way the photos appear can also be played around with as they have multiple layout options.

Feed Reader

2005-01-04T19:45:00.000+05:30

Feed Reader Originally uploaded by vimoh.

I still see that many fellow bloggers in the neighbourhood visit their favourite blogs one by one through the browser. Ganesh carried a somewhat lengthy post on automatic blog checking some time back.

Mouth Shut!

2005-01-04T19:20:00.000+05:30

mouthshut Originally uploaded by vimoh.

This is what the 'my account' page at mouthshut.com showed me after I visited it after ages.

Here!

2005-01-04T19:18:00.000+05:30

sprawled Originally uploaded by vimoh.

Avishek Dastidar taking an afternoon nap. Click on the image to get a closer look at what the computer screen says.

comp you!

2005-01-04T19:13:00.000+05:30

comp you!Originally uploaded by vimoh.

Ok, this is why things seem to be going wrong all of a sudden. They took my lucky comp away! If things go their way, I will have it back only after two weeks. Until then, its lab4_1 that'll serve me. I understand its an able machine with noble intentions but it will never replace good old nineteen

ERROR!

2005-01-04T18:32:00.000+05:30

I had to delete all the recent photo posts made from FlickR. It so happened that the picture's width was sending the right column of the template down below the left column. Some posts will be back. Maybe it was the muses' way of keeping me from over photoblogging. Perhaps some copyright violation would have met me some way down the future lane.

Dumbohood!

2005-01-04T14:09:00.000+05:30

This just in! My latest dumb stroke. A classmate gifted me a cellphone stand. Because it looked suspiciously like a (miniature) chair, I decided not to hurt her by telling her that she had grossly under estimated the proportions of my rear.

Someone told me a minute ago that I could use it as a desktop accessory too.

Word of the day!

2005-01-04T13:44:00.000+05:30

Me! Just joking! Its my birthday today. Not that I am particularly festive. I remember an old man (from my recent trip to AP) who was guiding us through a maze of hilly paths lined with dense bushes and sharp rocks. He looked older than most people I had seen in my life. Must have been at least eighty-five. When I asked him his age (during one of those breaks which we city bred ones had to take to prevent falling right off into the valley) and he told me he didn't know. I remember I laughed out aloud inspite of my breathlessness.

It is only we on the 'surface' who need to remind ourselves of our existence by 'celebrating' our birthdays.

The word of the day BTW, is twit. The forgotten expletive came back to me when I read this post on oxblog.

2005-01-01T14:13:00.000+05:30

Even though it may seem odd to wish someone a Happy New Year at a time like this, but I guess this is also when we need to prevail upon the despair that the sad state of affairs has caused us to drop into.

The week that was

2005-01-01T13:17:00.000+05:30

I usually try and keep my posts' topics as uniform as possible. But due to the somewhat disorderly state of affairs that prevailed throughout the last week, I am forced to make this post a bit cluttered. Do NOT mind!

I reached Cuttack on the 19th of December. Cuttack is a city in the south eastern state of Orissa in India. Before this I had spent one fantastic week in the Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh, a southern state of India. We were there doing our Covering Deprivation tour. We (I love saying this!) travelled more than twenty kilometres and up to almost three thousand feet above sea level to a village called Machikachintalavalasa up in the mountains. The Orissa border was within sight from there. I even found villagers who spoke my tongue, Oriya. It was something of a dialect but most of it made sense anyway and all was well.

Enough situating. As I was saying, my last week was spent in Charbatia. Charbatia is some eighteen kilometres from Cuttack city and on the other side of the river Mahanadi. It is past a place called Choudwar (infamous for its roudy population) and is officially known as A.R.C. (Aviation Research Centre). It is here, in the A.R.C. campus that I was brought up. The 'campus' as it is known to all within, is an odd sight for someone who has passed mostly rural scenes in a CROWDED bus to get to it. The roads are clear and hardly ever in need of any serious repair (almost always).

The people are by no means all Oriya. Sometimes it even appears to have more bongs than Oriyas. The block I live in, for example, has three Bengali families and one Oriya one (mine).

This time, I had plenty of school reunions to look forward to. I was really sorry my camera was not with me. Things came back to me at such a frequency that I started to wish there was something called mindblogging! I found censored clippings from the recent scandal triggering tapes doing the rounds of the school's kids. I found that our market now had two cybercafes catering to the hangout-hungry romantic couples. I wondered how a cubicle that barely held someone of my proportions, could accomodate a 'couple'. I guess comfort was out of the question.

My time there ended in a hurry. I could have had more of Charbatia I guess. But I am increasingly missing Chennai. My train leaves this evening from Cuttack. I can't wait to get back.

Charbatia!

2004-12-30T16:47:00.000+05:30

Alright, so I am back. In a very no-promises kind of way. Charbatia now has two cyber cafes. I am right now packed in a cubicle of the newer one. Its new alright. There are puja flowers on the keyboard. The ISP (ahem) is R Connect.

Have started missing Chennai. Part of me rues not being there when 'stories' were literally floating in the air just waiting to be drafted. Another part of me rues not being there for more humane reasons. I have to blog a lot about my time at home. But I doubt blogger.com will comply with such a fragile data transfer rate. So, when I get back to Cuttack, I will make a long post out of several little two liners I've been jotting down in my notebook. Signing out!

Bye! (For now!)

2004-12-27T18:59:00.000+05:30

superman, originally uploaded by mattvideo.

Well! This is it! Before I head off into three days of blissful do-nothingness. Let Superman greet all visitors till I'm back!

Beach

2004-12-27T10:24:00.000+05:30

day shot, originally uploaded by vimoh.

Was reminded of the meet at the beach.

2004-12-27T09:18:00.000+05:30

Offline again:

I may be offline for a period of five days from tomorrow onwards. I will be visiting Charbatia, the A.R.C. campus. The place I grew up in. The 50 feet market place does have a cyber cafe` but I am not too intent on visiting it. If however, I am convinced of better service from them than I have had in the past (which involved typing URLs in the address bar, hitting enter, growing old and dying), I may blog again.

2004-12-27T08:46:00.000+05:30

Sify News of this morning said that the overall toll in TN has reached almost 2500. A look at Yahoo's count tells you of an overall south asian toll of 11,800. This is getting worrying by the minute. Ironic then, that the morning of the quake here, when there were rumors of more tremors in the Cuttack - Bhubaneswar belt, my mom actually said, "I wish nothing happens before you leave for Chennai".

Andaman and Nicobar faced a quake after the tidal waves. 20 killed and 100 injured.

Sri Lanka lost over 4000. Not that I wish to appear stoical and all but the kind of numbers we are reading remind me of the post super cyclone days in Orissa in 1999.

I am missing home!

2004-12-26T10:03:00.000+05:30

Earthquake! Not quite the destructive variety though. The glass panes on the shelf started gently clinking against each other. Then my uncle roared for us to get out of the house. In a minute there we were, all seven of us out in the street. When someone asked my brother what it was that caused even me to get up at six thirty, he sheepishly told them that it was nothing.

Upon returning to the comfort of the blanket, I was told that further and more powerful quakes are expected in the Cuttack - Bhubaneswar belt. Upon getting online fifteen minutes ago, the feeds tell me that Chennai had the real thing.

Hope all stays calm.

2004-12-25T18:49:00.000+05:30

Isn't a part of being gutsy, being upright about it?

2004-12-25T14:30:00.000+05:30

At long last, passwords to my home computer are accessible to me. Guess what I did with them. I am making this post from W.Bloggar, this time from home!

Merry Christmas!

2004-12-25T14:10:00.000+05:30

I wish everyone a merry christmas! Be (very) proud! You have just been granted a happy new year by me!

Words!

2004-12-24T15:17:00.000+05:30

I haven't the slightest idea as to where the counterparts of our desi representatives of the people rank when it comes to being vocal with their emotions, but I think we would outrun the closest competitor by footlong phrases!

Where else, but in India, would you find the likes of this?

Trisha's Complaint

2004-12-24T14:51:00.000+05:30

Ahem! This is to further some fellow bloggers' apprehensions regarding the recent ruccus. Can blog. Will blog, might be dangerous. But it has been expounded upon in ample detail and thus my going into it in any major way is unnecessary.

Just beware!

Air Force One

2004-12-22T13:20:00.000+05:30

More proof of the fellow who seems to be running the show. Yesterday evening, while I sat remembering the days when they asked me to "go study", Star Movies treated me to Air Force One. I spent the full two hours revelling in utter US deifying rhetoric and marvelling at a US president who does the right thing!

It is oddly liberating at times to view world politics from a point of view as naive as Hollywood's. If only the 'real world' was as journo friendly!

Arrival?

2004-12-21T10:56:00.000+05:30

Yesterday saw the prominent oriya daily The Samaja selling out its frontpage to Airtel. The full page ad showed Sachin Tendulkar saying something to the effect of "We have arrived". Airtel recently entered the mobile services market in Orissa with the usual bang.

I never expected (or did I?) The Samaja to.... But then.... Gasp.

The stray reader who picks up papers from news stands just to get the headlines would have all the more reason to complain.

Back to college

2004-12-20T16:09:00.000+05:30

I went to college today. The same one I graduated out of (with honours... just in case you forgot!) Felt funny being back among the petty politics and among those I love and those I particularly don't. But being objective and all I chose to just carry around the broad grin that had plastered itself upon my unsuspecting face and look around for possible changes. There were none. Cuttack changes slow. The number of old acquaintances I ran into was phenomenal. Makes you wonder if there actually is someone running the entire show after all!

A bit of a detail: My best friend has a girlfriend now. Felt funny (again) to see the dork tenderly hold his lady's hand while they both sipped pineapple juice (my treat!). I guess our drooling days are over now!

P.S: This entry was composed while I listensed to the background track that accompanies this site. Thanks Prabhu!

Addition

2004-12-19T16:59:00.000+05:30

As someone younger than me once said, "Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog".

2004-12-09T19:41:00.000+05:30

For those who came in late...
Posted by Hello

2004-12-09T19:34:00.000+05:30

I literally grew up on comic books. Among our local horde of superheroes, I particularly loved the whole RAJ Comics bandwagon. Pity, their site is so full of bad grammar and bad design that apart from bringing back fond school day memories, it serves no practical purpose.

I remember the accolade a classmate of mine received for having figured out that giving comic books brown paper covers like textbooks makes reading them during classes a lot easier. Also, the whole exchange chain that had all of us in it. I buy one. Some others buy one each too. Then we exchange them so no one misses out on the monthly adventures. Somewhere down the line, one of us would lose one book and then eventually forget it. Months later, the same issue would be found doing the rounds at some other exchange chain! No one, not even the most shameless of defaulters, were ever thrown out of the chains. By the time I finished B.A, we had only two left in the chain. Me and a guy called Ajit Sahu. Not much of a chain that! But I learnt that he wasn't buying comics any more. He sourced his monthly adventures from a school kid who lived next door to him. The kid's chain mates were missing their comics!

2004-12-09T19:00:00.000+05:30

Ram Mahesh S looking at two big rocks that reportedly were used by Bhimsen from the Mahabharata as a stove.
Posted by Hello

2004-12-09T17:21:00.000+05:30

This is what I got as part of my mid-term assessment:

"Consciously strive for depth and and improvement in your work and not be content with merely fulfilling the bare necessities of a task".

I shouldn't be blogging this actually. Future employers getting scared off and stuff. But if we do have a similar assessment in the third term, I will blog it too. Just to see what levels I am pushed to.

2004-12-09T15:45:00.000+05:30

Here's something to smile about!

2004-12-09T14:09:00.000+05:30

Vijayendra Mohanty looking cooler than usual. Photo: Virat Markandeya

2004-12-09T13:51:00.000+05:30

I just made a presentation on (of all things) relativity! Was by far the most competent one I have managed in my life. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was talking about something I love.

I was in charge of going about the business of what happens when you exceed the speed of light. Because our instructions were to keep it as 'layman friendly as possible, I kept to examples and avoided equations and numbers. We started with H.G. Wells' idea of an objects existing through time being an essential. Then took them through the speed of light being a said constant and Einstein's much loved E=MC² and went on to describe in a bit of detail, the relation between the speed of light and time dilation due to gravity. Then we got to the possible ways of reversing what Hawking calls the 'arrow of time'. We took off from 'The Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns' of economics and made an attempt to relate it to the way time behaves when mass exceeds the speed of light.

If none of it makes any sense, blame me. I will blog some of it later if any one is interested. This is just a post presentation 'high' entry.

2004-12-08T15:06:00.000+05:30

Here I am again. On yet another avatar of odd. I do not suppose any number of apologies would be enough for those who have displayed superhuman patience as I have switched services and tools in the course of the last year. I am seriously beginning to believe in what one of my teachers told me. That technology tends to wean you away from what you use it for.

I have returned to blogger after numerous adventures elsewhere. The looks will take time coming back to the way I want them to but for all practical purposes, this is where I will be from now on.

P.S: If you are firefoxing, please take note of the feeds. Sorry again!

Royally ....

2004-11-03T13:31:00.000+05:30

The blog is not showing up at all! Just the blogger navbar. RSS feeds are picking up updates as soon as pinged but the browser gives me the cached copy. I thought it was an IE issue but Opera is stuck too. More as soon as Blogger support responds.

Added On

2004-11-03T12:12:00.000+05:30

Added a new quick comment feature. Source this page. Try it. Good for easy access by visitors.