Flavors.

I've officially fallen in love with the soundtrack from Flavors, yet another desi-Amru movie, but with a cast that's fairly multi-ethnic, it (hopefully) will be of a better flavour than Amru Desi, that NRI-angst flick which got all its cultural affinities wrong. I particularly like the Nagumomu track from the lot; it's an interesting juxtaposition of jazz-like beats with a classical composition. The singer, Sobha Raju, is a classical singer of considerable talent, and with a voice that's melodious enough to cross the sea and immerse ourselves in Falejbagh yet again.

I also fell in l..., ahem, well, the infamous (and bigoted, racist) Clause 2 of the Project for the New Mating Century policy guidelines has suffered a minor amendment because of one of the cast members. I mean, since when have Gult ladies started looking so international?

Referral Fight!

Never really bothered much about the referrals box on Metlin's website, until I found my blog listed high up there.

We now fight fire with fire.

NaNoWriMo.

Now that we're laden with our salary and, more importantly, a brand new mp3 player, we take this oppurtunity to announce our support for, and participation in, the (Inter)National Novel Writing Month. Over the next one month, we intend to write (at least) 50,000 words of a novel that's been brewing inside my head for over two years now. The current working title is "The Keeper of Time - The Secret History of Falejbagh's Dawakhana", but we'll probably modify it as we go along.

The narrative will essentially be non-linear, 'coz that's how my brain works, so expect to see at least one posting a day on this. Will be working on the details and modalities (might have another blog for instance, or a site perhaps) for the rest of the day today, but yup, we're definitely looking at 50,000 words by Nov 30th.

So to all who read this:- Your support, feedback and encouragement is crucial for, well, me, but hey, you'll get some good literature out in the end. Think about it.

Quizzing Brains.

About the IndusTel submission on quizzes: yup, you're speaking to one of them trivia addicts. Twice Bournvita Quiz Contest finalist, among other wins. :-)

No, TriLaDre,

no I won't cry. I know you're there with me now, and because you are there, I know it doesn't matter how I've been shafted. I know you will (or can) take me in your lap, and gently rock me into a lovely sleep. I know you will do these, TriLaDre, whether you are here or not, so I'm not worried about that, I will not feel sorry for myself.

I'm just concerned about this plan of action of yours. I know you read this, and still refuse to post or email directly, but perhaps you could send in another of those clue-tsunamis of yours? Beginning to love dots these days, the way people put them on themselves, and the things that drop out of them, so would love to connect your dots.

I know you aren't into this God nonsense, and hate it when I raise you to an aural level, but just give me a Sign, okay? I need hope, and I need confidence. And, given tonight, I need you TriLaDre, more than ever now.

Or can I ask you something: was it you who set me up? Actually, don't bother, I already know what you will say: I asked for it. You know, you is teh sux, but still, I need you TriLaDre, I need you while I work on things. I need your input now.

(Ed Note: This could probably be one of the last in our TriLaDre series until I deploy that new blogging engine I was speaking about. You will be able to sign abstract stuff out and focus on the masala instead.)

When you win, to lose.

It is true that the moment was a success.

It is also true that the moment was a failure.

It is true that there is joy.

It is also true that there is sadness, because there is joy.

It is true that I listened to my heart, for once.

It is also true that I listened to, and trusted, my instinct.

It's just that I didn't like what my instinct told me. So I didn't listen to it.

I've been beaten, but I think I've won.

I can't say I don't like winning.

On being an asshole.

That I'm an asshole is not a matter of conjecture. What is indeed muse-worthy is the assertion that I'm a likeable asshole.

First there is TriLaDre.

Then there is confidence. This is a tale that must be told.

Now, TriLaDre isn't her real name of course; this is a complex Sanskrit-Spanish pun that is difficult to explain, so let's just say she doesnt mind it one bit when I call her that. In fact, she'd respond to any name, she once claimed. I think she was challenging me to create new names for her. I called her Mandakini. She called me psychotic. I told her, ((2^n)-1) yourself; or at least, that's what Srinivasa Ramanujan would have said. She grinned at that, and then said, you fool, you'll never learn math; you will still have to come to me for that. I agreed, and went on to explore the strange new world of hyperventilatory networks; butterflies in Peking will cause tornadoes in Washington, Konisberg will still find no bridges to cross, Brahma will have shipments to deliver from Benares to Hanoi. And I would be domiciled to Hyderabad's city buses.

There are times when I wish she'd be with me once again, even if it's only to do with math. Yesterday was one such evening. In fact, I believe she was there. No way she would have missed those drums, the dhuls; she'd have come running all the way from Jalan Kreyu for all you know.

You see, TriLaDre, for all her immense greatness, has one weakness; she's a sucker for artistic perfection. She told this when we were staring at this dome I know in Heartland Hyderabad. That changed my life; all of a sudden, I catapulted from rocky wells and smelly drains to the heights of the gumbad; Green Hands go where eagles dare. We learnt eternal vigilence without the requisite diligence. Which is why I still haven't been able to impress her; you can't really be artistically perfect unless you are diligent, know what I mean?

Then there is this time when I studiously avoided her; I kept propping up stupid excuses about the night, and how working then was more beneficial. It was stupid; frankly, it wasn't my mistake all, I blame it all on a certain Mr Tan. He later turned to be a moron, but back then, he was a leading beacon. On hindsight, I should have seen through him the moment he gave Tim Tams In The Time Of SARS, but how was I to know they weren't meant for me; they were meant for her. Hey, no competition man, she's all yours, just don't give me leftovers, mmkay?

It all ended finally when she sent me her recording on an mp3. It was the most touching thing anyone sent me. I cried. Had to. It's the last time I ever cried, though; even when the Bhantus came, I still didn't cry. I was fat, but I was also brave; in some corner of my mind, I knew TriLaDre would be there. She didn't tell me, but the signs were obvious.

I went back to our secret spot in Hyderabad. They now have a food court there serving dum biryani, burritos, chow mein and pizza. The bajji stall is long gone. They're also making a rock garden somewhere close; for that, they have truckloads of labourers. The labourers are now stuck though; always stupid to sleep so close to them rocks, once they pull you in, it's very difficult to extract yourself out. Especially if the government changes. The saruses are an exception of course; they can fly away anytime they want. We can't. Just ask Tanaeshah.

All in all, I really didn't think she'd want to go there.

I think she'll come here. The Valley of a Thousand Soldiers is our new secret spot.

Know what? I think she's already here.

I can't believe this.

I mention Halo 2 once and they already copy my blog's design!

On other news, apologies for the lack of updates; working on a new blogging engine here, stay tuned for some serious kick-ass action.

The Between Builds Posts Series: Tech Evolution.

"All programs evolve until they can send email." -(Richard) Letts Law

"Except Microsoft Exchange."- Art's Corollary

"All hardware evolves until it can take photos and play music."- Flonker's Corollary

(source)

Heaven and Earth 2: New Moon by the Poolside.

The lack of the Moon was only matched by the lack of feminine company, but the breeze, the wine and the dips in the pool more than made up for it.

On Intruder Detection. Well, password protection is basically the level 3 security, and even at that, I've put it in encrypted SANSKRIT. So even if I told you that the password was, say, maarjaalam (which I believe is the Sanskrit word for 'cat'), you'd still have problems typing it in: you actually have to know the Inscript keyboard layout to enter the system.

IntruderCam is just to get visible, non-deniable *proof* of intrusion into my *room*.

As for spiking my toothpaste, well, they already are one-up on this. My cucumber supplies were sabotaged recently; they were brutally crushed under the weight of a five litre orange juice can. I'm thinking of subtracting a few water bottles from the fridge in return.

DesiDate had emailed me earlier, and wants to meet me for lunch on Friday. Meanwhile, I've become convinced about three things, first that she's already attached, second, she's trying to play tease with me, and third, time to dump her. I've got to find ways of ejecting out of tomorrow's planned date; sorry honey, no second chances, no comebacks.

The X-Box Live party was a by-invitations-only thing held at Zouk, sg's biggest, and most popular nightclub hangout. While I wouldn't say I can't stand the place, it is fairly decent, I would definitely say it's not my first option for clubbing; given my new found interest in salsa, I prefer places with better music. For, as everyone would agree, better music == better crowd.

Anyway, the point here is that the X-Box party was not a place where you'd find teenagers, unless your mom or pop works in one of those gaming companies participating in the event. And in any case, Jedi Academy is all passe now; the show was all about Halo 2 [got to play it some 26 days before it was officially released :-)] and Forza Motorsport, a multi-player racing arcade that seemed better than NFS Underground. I don't know guys, but video games no longer carry that extra kick for me these days; don't really find it compelling to do the same tricks all over again, but with better sound and graphics. I mean, if I really wanted to race cars, I'll just whip out my mobile, you know what I mean?

I guess MS will really have freebies when they bring their roadshow to kid hangouts like, say, NUS.

Well, that's about it for tonight folks; come back tomorrow evening for a much more elaborate posting on, well, too sleepy to remember what.

The X-Box 04 LIVE Launch Party!

One word: Lame.

I blame Metlin for the hype.

That said, the free fish fillets were rather good. (And so was the free Tiger beer, but thank my Microsoft-er friend for that)

Intruders In Our Midst 1:- Heaven and Earth.

One of the rather interesting reasons why, I believe, there was so much, shall we say, interest in the DesiDate episode is that I've hardly talked about the other varied characters that invade my living space out here. That is a definite shortcoming, as you'll see, for there's a good bedtime story out there that could very well escape Bollywoodization if I don't record it for posterity.

To be precise, it appears that at least two of my flatmates have a persistent habit of using my comp when I'm not around. Neither uses my comp when the other is around, but yup, both of them do, and at least one of them has actually googled for nude pictures of Manisha Koirala. In the process, he had also installed some spyware on my system, a piece of muck that took me 1.5 hours to remove. Neither know that I know they snoop in.

We now have a motion detection cam in place to catch the intruders as they enter my room. Stay tuned for some ugly pics.

This Evening's Public Service Message.

Say No to Dance Floor Oppression!

Radical Change.

First off, a bit of hat-waving: thanks to Khanh's reporting of Yudi-dhar's not-so-successful game, I had decided to find out about ice hockey possibilities in Singapore. Turns out the head honcho for the local Sg league is some proffy dude at BizAd; interesting guy, think I met him once or twice for a research project (Or may be it's his brother). Anyway, guy offered to get us (convinced a couple of friends as well) in touch with an ex-ice-hockey coach who'd "teach" us the game for an hour a week. Basically, it's an excuse to use their facilities at a cheap price every Monday. The difficult part, of course, is that we will have to learn ice-skating before hand.

Speaking of hobbies, might pick up salsa as well every Saturday. Courtesy another NUS lecturer, this time a dude I actually worked under for a year on a research project. Another fantastic chap; Dr Aslaksen is the sort of a guy who can speak to you for hours and hours together on calendars and yet find time to marathon-run and dance the salsa. Will have to remember to mail him soon; might have another joint 'project'.

Incidentally, he and I have long agreed on the fact that we are closet historians who might come out any day. Which is why you wont find the following defence out of character.

You see, Almandrax still seems to insist that drinking is anti-religious (or anti-brahmanical, to be precise) because

Sukracharya forbid all brahmins to drink any alcoholic drinks. Apparently, there are two versions; my version, with the brahmins and the raakshasulu ['demons' -MM ] being forbid to drink and the other more popular version with the raakshasulu alone being forbid to drink (thus resulting in them being called aSurulu (those who do not drink alcoholic drinks) and the dEvathalu becoming Surulu.

Well, I always thought it was more to do with prefixes; the 'su' prefix is auspicious, so 'surulu' are the good guys. The non-good guys will, therefore, be asuras. Or something to that effect. But that's a trivial point; RailCat has studied Sanskrit in school, and I haven't, so will have to take his word on that.

While mythistory explanations are interesting for historiographical reasons, they, however, still don't address the key point here; there is direct chronicled, archeological evidence of the fact that the ancients drank for religious reasons. The Vedas could very well have been written with a soma bottle in hand. The Vedic religion (as opposed to the 'Hindu' religion, if you want to put it that way) does not find drinking abbhorent.

Things have become slightly interesting with DesiDate; there's a bit of a complexity here that would, probably, require another phone call to resolve. Or probably more, I don't know.

Here's a poser then to end this post: would you date a person who is attached? If so, how would you approach the whole shebang? I have already made up my mind; just interested in knowing what the junta feels.

But wait, that's not EOF; this is. Subh raatri, Satsriaakaal, shabba khair and please do take good care of yourselves.

Say No to Warnock's Dilemma!

We start tonight's proceedings with a public service message: Warnock's Dilemma must die!

Observation.

To do math, you need peace.

ASP.net Koan of The Day - 2.

By seeing the previous message, you would have understood sessions handling.

ASP.net Koan of The Day.

To understand sessions handling, see my next post.

Return of Rehman (tm).

After producing irritating, abusive, puke-worthy noise, India's favourite programmer-musician is teh back [1] from BritLand, Middle Earth and the Takla Makan desert with new sounds.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I refer to sensual, soothing Swades ("homeland"), an album mastered to rock and reggae precision.

In particular, check out his tracks, Yeh Jo Desh Hai Tera ("This Land That's Yours"), Yun Hi Chale ("Simply Going")[2], a rare mix of rock and reggae not often heard in Indian film music.

---

[1]- With a decent stopover in Hyderabad, admittedly.

[2]- "Rahi" == "Rasta" == "Route" ?

Sightings in Blogodom.

It appears that Khanh has finally found the book that all tiger-oriented people should read. I love big cats, especially the ones you can assassinate; so it's probably no surprise when I say that I'm one of those who has dedicated his/her life to the Life and Teachings of Richard Parker.

Metlin, one of those Random Tech-Desi Dudes With a Plan (tm), is up to no good lately; he's been fondling the Rubik's Cube in strange new ways. Brings a whole new dimension to tech, apparently. Which is why we'll be tracking him as well through my swanky new RSS aggregator [1].

Meanwhile, in RailCat (tm) world, there is pathos:

mmm... I can't afford to eat too much pizza. I don't drink beer for religious (well, I think it's religious neway) reasons and my doctor told me to lay off the ice cream. Now, how do I not get pissed off or green with envy when I read this? On a side note, no Ben & Jerry's that serves "Chocolate Fudge Brownie" within a 560 mile radius of where I live.

Let's take that piece by piece.

I can't ... eat too much pizza

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

I don't drink beer for religious ... reasons

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

lay off the ice cream

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

no ... "Chocolate Fudge Brownie" within a 560 mile radius of where I live.

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

In the real world, I have lost two kgs since I started gymming, partying hard and working, well, moderately hard. I'm also late on my pets, but all that's for a reason; if all goes well, we're talking free junkets to Hyderabad in Dec, and possibly, London next September. Cross your eyes in holy dread, for I on luck need to be fed.

--

[1]- Only Firefox 1.0 admittedly, but we're beta-testing some revolutionary new software lately.

Alamandrax is on the news!

Someone at the Hardford Advocate seems to have googled and has gotten the blog of this an ONLINE personality named Sankar. :-D