Pashi's lounge

Bottoms up!

2007-11-11T15:39:00.000-05:00

I recently came across this 'scientific news' on the Times of India website. According to some researchers in Europe, beer is a slightly better replenisher than water after a strenuous workout. Based on this, they recommend consumption of 500 ml & 250 ml of beer for male & female athletes respectively. Now, you don't have to be a scientist to ask the question 'where is the comparison with an electrolyte solution?'.

There is no doubt in my mind that this research was funded by the beer industry. Sounds very much like the case where the tobacco industries would hire top notch scientists from the 'American Cancer Society' and 'National Cancer Institute' to work on projects funded by these industries. They would time and again come out with results that would create doubts in the mind of the public about the relationship between smoking and cancer. This issue was the premise of the movie 'The Insider', which of course was based on a true story.

All I know is that if you don't work out the calories gained from beer consumption, you will be repleneshing your body's fat content.

A documentary that opened my eyes!!!

2007-02-28T00:08:00.000-05:00

I know that I have been hibernating in oblivion for a long long time but this particular documentary has woken me up from my slumber. The documentary was on a channel called PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) which is state funded. Each state in the US has its own PBS channel. I really admire this channel because it deals with issues affecting the country and the world and not just local news (which are quite limited). The channel also airs interesting documentaries and reruns of classic British comedies.

Anyway, let’s come back to the documentary that inspired me to write again (at least this piece). The topic was the changing face of news reporting and journalism. The article segued from how newspapers were fast losing their readership to television and online resources like news websites and blogs and to how the various newspaper corporations were restructuring their organizations to meet with the demands of their business. The emphasis, however, was on how news reporting had metamorphosed from investigative journalism and what the news reporters and journalists wanted to share to the very same corporations pandering to the ‘tastes’ of people. Thus in the old days, CBS ’60 minutes’ would expose something or someone in the political or corporate world while now the channels are busy catching sexual predators or dealing with the lives of moms and students who work in striptease bars to earn some extra money. Basically they think that people like money and sleaze and that is what they are showing. In a public poll asking which program they watched to get their news, the winner was ‘The Daily Show’ hosted by Jon Stewart. The funny thing is that it is aired on ‘Comedy Central’ and actually makes fun of the latest happenings. The producers themselves were a bit disappointed to know that people were relying on their program for their daily dose of news.

Another thing that the documentary dealt with was the way the young generation (people in the age group 20-30) was receiving their news. Most of the people in this age group receive news through the internet. This is hardly surprising since they spend most of their time online and this actually the fastest and more convenient way to get the latest news. This is also a generation with short attention spans. Thus the news is limited to 20 sentences and in fact they prefer news with a short video clip. I too prefer this medium because: 1) I don’t get to watch a lot of TV 2) If you watch a news channel a couple of hours after a particular news has been broken, you wouldn’t understand what they are talking about since they would be talking about the latest developments without actually repeating the original news and 3) Buffalo doesn’t have a newspaper to boast about.

Personally, I’m a big fan of newspapers. Nothing can replace the sensations of the smell and touch of a fresh newspaper. I used to read almost an entire newspaper (and sometimes two) on a daily basis when I was in India. Unfortunately, life in the US is simply too busy to enjoy the simple pleasures of reading newspapers and novels. I do occasionally get to read the New York Times, thanks to the Readership program at our university. I was surprised to know through the documentary that reputed newspapers like the one I mentioned before, The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune have a turnover of close to a billion dollars a year with the profits being somewhere close to 200 million dollars. That is a lot of moolah!!!

The documentary also touched upon the growing influence of blogs as a source of news and communication. It showed a couple of instances where blogs, not news agencies, had helped in exposing scams. One was the misleading reporting by Dan Rather of ’60 minutes’ about criticisms of George Bush’s service in the US National Guards during the 70s which came to be known as ‘Rathergate’. The other was how a minister in Florida had homosexual relations with his subordinates (I am in no way against homosexuality)

I am an avid blog reader and get a lot of news from other blogs. I believe that blogs are doing great community service by shelling out information and keeping local events alive. However, I have to agree with one of the interviewees that in the current scenario, blogs cannot replace mainstream news media. I think that many blog writers are good reporters but they hardly contribute anything to journalism (I hope people realize the difference between the two).

The documentary then went on to show how the various newspaper organizations restructured themselves but its not interesting enough to be mentioned here. I think I have written quite a bit and should stop, keeping in mind the short attention spans of most readers. Will this piece inspire me to write more often? Only time will tell.

October surprise

2006-10-28T15:49:00.000-04:00

That's the name given to the snowstorm we Buffalonians had to endure during the night of Oct 12 which dumped around 2 feet of snow and paralyzed most of the infrastructure for a week. The university, schools & many offices were closed for a couple of days. Close to 300,000 households were without electricity.

Personally, I'm very disappointed with the nomenclature of the storm. Buffalo is rarely in the limelight and this was a very good oppurtunity to make people take notice of this city (although admittedly, its not the best incident). After Katrina, Rita & Wilma, who's going to give a damn about 'October Surprise'? It should have been named something like 'October Blitzkrieg' or 'Hell freezes over' and suchlike.

Anyway, I'm glad that the US government has finally acknowledged the destruction caused by the storm and has agreed to give some federal aid to Erie county in which Buffalo is located.

How could a snowstorm cause so much destruction? This must be the question foremost in your mind. Fall was not completely over and most of the trees still had leaves on them. When the snow deposited on such leaf-laden trees, they could not bear the weight of the snow and most of the branches started falling. More than 90% of the trees were destroyed. The falling trees and branches took down power, telephone & cable lines with them. This left most of the homes in the dark.

Fortunately, the apartment complex in which I stay was not affected and I & some of my friends made the most of it. The following day (Friday, Oct 13), the storm had subsided, the sky was clear & blue and seemed like a perfect day except for the fact that there was still 2 feet of snow around us. One of my friends came over to my place, we went outside, called another friend & played in the snow for almost 2 hours. I then called some more friends including my roomie & his wife for some more fun. We then went indoors, played some board games, cooked food & ate lunch while watching 'Sholay'. All in all it was a day to remember although I feel sorry for some of my other friends who may have had the most miserable times of their lives.

Here is a collection of some photos. These are some crazy videos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6.

Till then, stay safe!!!

Some links

2006-09-27T20:08:00.000-04:00

I honestly don't have time to write something original. So the next best thing is to post some links.

At some point in our lives, we all have been terrified of maths. Here is a collection of math problems & the ingenious ways some people have tried solving them. I couldn't stop laughing for quite some time after reading this.

The football world cup is long gone and this video might seem irrelevant now but I have to post this since I liked the French team and the Italians somehow messed up the plan. Here is a spoof on the practise session of the Italian players.

Here is the ultimate parody. Before I show you the parody, you must know what its based on. There is this very melodious song by James Blunt called 'You are beautiful' which is a big hit in the US. Watch it. Then some guy came up with a parody of the song titled 'My cubicle' chronicling his usual day at his office. Enjoy the song and I'll leave you with that.

Apologies

2006-09-12T15:34:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry but right now I'm just too caught up with the Fall semester. So no blogs for some time to come. Please do keep checking my site from time to time though.

Pour some Cola on me!!!

2006-08-09T10:07:00.000-04:00

'Pour some sugar on me' goes the song by Def Leppard. After seeing the pesticide content in Indian cane sugar, I'm sure he would modify the song. Cane sugar in India is more contaminated with pestcides than water according to this article. It goes on to say that coffee and apples are about 100000 times more contaminated while the colas are just 24 times more contaminated than accepted levels. The contamination, it goes on to argue, is because of the sugar since the bottled water products of Pepsi & Coke, namely Aquafina and Kinley respectively, are free of pesticides.

There is no doubt in a majority of people's minds that its just plain politics. The political parties need some agenda. Taking the first step towards this is the Gujarat government which has banned both Pepsi & Coke. Following suit are the Kerala and Karnataka governments. I doubt the Maharashtra government will ban it since most of the sugar comes from the rich and politically influential southern Maharasthra belt (Sangli-Satara-Kolhapur).

I think its a case of 'Much ado about nothing'. Let me know your thoughts while I take a cola break.

Pepsi vs coke

2006-08-02T17:17:00.000-04:00

I was just surfing youtube.com and came across an interesting topic: Pepsi vs Coke. Its a promotional battle between the two companies and it seems that Pepsi has won this battle hands down. Now, I am not taking sides here. Just my observation.

Here is a commercial of a cute girl impersonating Marlon Brando as the Godfather.

Here is one of a boy reaching out for Pepsi on a vending machine.

Two truck drivers, one for Pepsi and the other for coke, fight over their favourite drink.

Here is a private production featuring two teenage boys.

I came across a private video where Coke comes out tops but I didn't like it.

Just to reiterate, I'm not taking sides here.

Camping trip - Day 3 (July 3)

2006-07-30T21:54:00.000-04:00

The last day of the trip. Basically it was nothing more than a pack-up day. Before I go into the details of it I would like to elaborate more on our arrangements. Here is a snap of the bare essentials of the trip.
The black containers are called 'Bear Cannisters'. These are environment friendly and bear friendly containers. Previously, people who used to go for camping trip would use plastic bags to store food and the wild bears would unwittingly eat them along with the food and die. Nowadays, most of the trekkers pack foodstuff in such cannisters and the bears can't open them and eat the stored food (ofcourse, in this photo the cannisters are open since the foodstuff is outside). Also, during night time, we would keep the cannisters a fair distance away from our tents so that even if the bears smelled food, they would play around with the cannisters and not venture too close to our tents.

The green cans are propane gas which was our fuel source for cooking. These are really small, convenient and safe to carry around and in fact they form the base of the stove. The black can is a water-proof sealant which we would spray on our shoes to keep them moisture-free since it had rained the previous night. This spray forms a layer on the shoes which is effective in keeping away small quantities of water. The blue plastic bottles are electrolyte replenishers. We also carried them in powder form. We also had iodine tablets to purify the water from the stream. Basically, u collect the water, put a couple of iodine tablets in it, wait for 30 min and the water is safe for drinking. This water has an unpleasant taste and to mask it we used the electrolyte powder. We bought a lot of packed food; mostly powdered soup and ready to eat Spanish rice. Apart from this, we also had macaroni and flavoured oats. The grey bundle is a sleeping bag. There is just one shown in the snap but we had one for each of the eight of us. Believe it or not, the black bag contains a tent. It has 3 rods which form the skeleton of the tent, the main cloth which forms the tent, a water-proof cover and clamps to hold the tent on the ground. We also had energy bars and torches. These are some of the things you have to carry for a camping trip.

As for the third day, I slept really well the previous night and was one of the first to wake up. I called the other guys, brushed my teeth and started preparing tea. Slowly but surely, everyone woke up and we had oats and tea for breakfast. We packed everything, dismantled the tent and waved our final good-byes.
We went back the way we came. So first we crossed Marcy dam and then walked for ever till we reached our van. This took us more than an hour. Since this area had all the facilities, a couple of us decided to take a bath before leaving for home and while they were doing so, Mukul, Chetan & Harsh got busy stuffing everything inot the van and to tie off the sleeping bags on the top of the van. Here is Harsh smiling after a job well done.
We all left after spending almost an hour at the parking lot. We had to feed our hungry stomachs and some peolple opted for subway sandwiches while others including opted for Chinese food. This Chinese restaurant is situated in the downtown of Lake Placid area. The downtown is very beautiful with a European touch and was chock-a-block with tourists. We then went to an ice-cream shop and had juices and ice-creams.

Then began the long drive back to Buffalo. We had breaks in between where we would change seats, sing along the songs played in the van and sometimes do nothing. We stopped in the evening at a Burger King for our dinner. At the very end of the trip, Vatsala got bored with the songs that were being played in the van and hence she started listening to the songs in her i-pod. She would sing the song aloud and at that moment, since I was the navigator, I paused the song being played in the van and recorded a clip where you will see my lips moving but actually it is her voice in the background. Such fun!!!

We ultimately reached Buffalo around 9:30 pm and thus ended a successful camping trip. I am sure I won't forget this for a long long time to come. I thank Harsh & Mukul for borrowing some of their photos and video clips. A big 'Thankyou' to Amol, Ranjana, Candice and Chetan for arranging this trip and to Vatsala for sportingly bearing our constant bantering. Here is a photo with the names of the members:
From left : Harsh, Chetan, Candice, Ranjana, Amol, I, Mukul & Vatsala.

Here are the photos again in case you missed them in my previous write-up.

Camping trip - Day 2 (July 2)

2006-07-20T21:29:00.000-04:00

Here we go. The most exciting day of the trip. Most of us got up at around 8 am and this place looked so different in the morning!!! It turned out to be a very organized place with log wood cabins and lots of people around camping in their own RVs which is basically a trailer attached to a vehicle. Heck, they even had bathrooms with running hot water.I didn't take a bath but some of the more 'hygienic' ones did. Duh, this is not how a camping trip is supposed to be. Anyway, while the others were getting ready, I & Harsh sneaked out to the lake nearby and clicked some photos and a video. The weather seemed really violent.U can clearly see the waves behind Harsh in the photo and ofcourse in the video.
By the time we got back, the others were ready and packing up everything. Once we thought we were done packing, it was the other guys' turn to make a visit to the lake and have fun.

Before leaving, the forest rangers told us to be wary of the weather since thunderstorms were predicted for the day. That didn't at all dampen our enthusiasm. And so we made our way to the adirondacks lodge which was around 30 miles from where we camped last night. On the way, we passed Lake Placid again. We finally reached our destination and started gathering all the important stuff. There were lots of really good cars parked around which indcated that not only were there a lot of trekking enthusiasts but also that most of them must be financially well-off. Look at this car!!!

We left behind some things in the van and the rest was stuffed into our backpacks and each of us held our own sleeping bags. We all were ready and raring to go and to our delight, the weather was with us too. The sun shined brightly and brought smiles on our faces.

So off we went in search of the perfect camping spot. On the way we met many trekkers who were on their way back and I was thinking 'are we too late?'. As always in all trips some people are faster than the others. In this case, one of us was slower than the others. Any guess as to who it was? Well it was the one who was making her debut in trekking - Vatsala. She had started off with great enthusiasm on day 1 but now that was no where to be seen. It was really good to be in the midst of nature and I realized how much we take nature for granted. The trail was not really beautiful since we were always surrounded by bushes and tall trees but it was fun walking nonetheless. We took a couple of breaks in between, mainly for the weak link, and finally reached our pit stop - Marcy dam. It offered a breathtaking view of the Adirondacks and we could see the tallest mountain in the region 'Mt. Marcy' as well as our destination 'Mt. Phelps'. Here are some views of and from the dam as well as a video.

We walked a kilometer more and reached a spot where Amol & Co. had camped before. So while we waited at that spot, Amol & Candice went in search of another perfect spot and soon enough came back with good news. This place was just a couple of hundred metre from the previous one and was fairly hidden from the trail. I still have no clue as to how they found this spot. It was perfect. There was a stream containing icy cold water flowing by and a clearing which was just about enough for two tents. We immediately started setting up the tents while simultaneously, Ranjana was arranging to feed our hungry stomachs. By the time we were done with the tents, Ranjana had heated up soup for us and was busy heating up Spanish rice. Harsh was enterprising enough to offer a good view of the spot with this neat video. We all devoured the food and prepared for the uphill climb. We kept most of our things in the tents and took only the essential items like water, energy bars, torches and cameras.

Pretty close to our tents was another stream over which a couple of logs acted as a bridge. Mukul, our official photographer clicked some snaps and here is one of them.

We had to cover an altitude of around 2000 feet and I thought it would be pretty easy but boy, was I proved wrong! There are 3 colours to indicate the degree of difficulty of the trails; Yellow for the easiest; Green for intermediate and Red for the most difficult one. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out that we took the red one. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be fit enough and had enough stamina to keep going. As before, Vatsala's progress was pretty slow and I stayed back with her and Amol for most of the climb. On the way, we met more people and they all would say that its just 20 minutes or so but in fact it took us two and a half hour to make it to the top. We reached there at about 4:45 pm and was disappointed to see that there was only a huge rock on which we could rest, otherwise the top was completely covered with bushes but the view more than made up for this shortcoming. There were mountains all around and the wind was pretty strong; in fact sometimes strong enough to jeopardize our balance. We spent around 30 min and clicked some snaps and videos, one by me and one by Harsh.

Then started the descent and this was more difficult and dangerous than the ascent because the rains from the previous night had made the trail muddy and slippery. Somehow after two more hours of walking and talking we finally reached our tents in one piece. We all were exhausted and I had a severe headache. Ranjana diligently started preparing dinner and most of us had gone bonkers over the soup. After dinner, we clicked some crazy pictures and later gathered in one of the tents for a session of story-telling. Needless to say, it was about ghosts and spirits. A couple of us already fell asleep and that's when we decided to call it a day. Here is a compilation of all the photos from the trip.

Coming up, day 3.

Camping trip - Day 1 (July 1)

2006-07-18T22:57:00.000-04:00

This has taken a long time coming. I have been procratinating to blog about my camping trip but at last I have got down to write this. Harsh, my ever resourceful friend, informed me that some of his friends were planning on a camping trip and asked whether I would be interested. You bet I was but I was dilly-dallying since the trip was planned for Jul 1-3 and I and Dhaval were planning to move to our new apartment on the 1st. Well, we talked to our new landlord and he had no problem with us moving in a day or two earlier. So we moved on 29th June and I was all set for my camping trip.

The masterminds of this trip were Amol, Ranjana and Candice since they had prior experience of camping. The remaining enthusiasts were Chetan, Mukul, Amol's sister Vatsala who was vacationing in the US and ofcourse, Harsh and I. I had the luxury of just accompanying them for the trip without having to worry about buying or planning anything. All I had to do was buy a sleeping bag and a raincoat and pack my stuff.

So Harsh and Amol went together to rent the mini-van for our trip first thing in the morning of July 1st, a Saturday. We were supposed to leave around 9 am and so I got ready at the decided time. As things would have it, I didn't realize that we would be running on IST (Indian Stretchable Time). I reached Harsh's place at 10:30 and by the time the other guys reached it was past 11. We all got busy stuffing everything into the van (which turned out to be smaller than we imagined) and tying our sleeping bags to the top of our van. Here is a snap of Mukul after satisfactorily tying the sleeping bags.

So off we went, the seven of us, to Rochester which was on the way to our destination to pick up our 8th member, Candice. We were going to the Adirondacks mountain ranges which was around 350 miles to the north-east of Buffalo.

Only Amol and Harsh could drive the vehicle since only their names were enrolled in the contract. We reached Rochester in good time but got lost for sometime before we reached Candice's place (thanks to modern technology using cellphones and Candice guiding us by looking at an online map on her laptop). Candice had recently moved to Rochester for her internship and we all took a look at her apartment. Her roomie was an American and look at the number of pairs of shoes she has!!!

We hadn't had lunch till then and so after joining the highway, we halted at a service station for lunch but it was so crowded with tourists, that we decided to eat at the next service station which happened to be 40 miles further away. After lunch, our real trip started. The girls were sitting in the backside and they were constantly complaining that the seats were cramped and uncomfortable.

Whenever we made a halt, we would change seats, like we were playing musical chairs. After a lot of leg-pulling and bantering episodes, we finally reached Lake Placid indicating that we were pretty close to the Adirondacks. Vatsala took over as the navigator, a job she became adept at and hence I gave her the nickname 'GPS'. She was expertly guiding her brother but try as we may, we couldn't find the way to our intended stop. We were searching for a road to our right but when we eventually did find one it turned out to be a private property. After wandering around for some more time we reached the banks of a lake which was jam-packed with people who had come to watch pre-July 4 fireworks. We did not stay there but decided to look for a camping ground. Unlike in India, you cannot just set up a tent anywhere you want unless it is designated as a camping site. On our way, we could see the fireworks from a distance and it was really magnificent. We reached a camping ground but it seemed to be full. The guard there, a sweet old man, gave us directions to another camping ground and so we made our way back and again saw the fireworks at the exact same spot. We finally decided to fill petrol in our van and to replenish our stomach at a convenience store. We bought some muffins and a couple of cheese pizzas which we microwaved at the store and greedily consumed. We also asked for directions from an employee at the store. Despite the tiredness and the frustration, we found time to click some snaps.

After refuelling, we set of to search for a new camping ground. We drove a couple of miles and Harsh slowed down at a stretch since we thought that we were close to a camping ground. A car came behind us and Harsh signalled them to overtake us. To our horror, it turned that it was a cop and he flashed his lights. Harsh manouvered the vehicle to the right, switched off the vehicle and put the blinkers on. We all were discussing what to say. The cop walked toward our vehicle with his torch on and knocked on the window, Harsh rolled the window down and explained the problem to the officer. Meanwhile, another officer came to the passenger side with his torch and was visually scanning the whole vehicle and made a mental note of the number of passengers inside. The officer turned out to be very helpful and on seeing this, Vatsala started asking some questions too. The cop did have difficulty understanding her Mumbaiyya English but eventually he said that our best bet would be a site which was just 2 miles down the road. Thankfully, the cops let us go (our only conceivable fault was driving at 30 mph on a 55mph stretch). We managed to find the site and after locating the forest ranger we registered ourselves and he was gracious enough to give us a spot to set up our two tents. We parked our van such that it could throw light on the spot and we went about putting up our tent.

The tents were pretty easy to set up and was completely waterproof. As usual we had the enthusiasm of clicking more photographs and here is a view of the 2 tents.

Some more photographs:
We said our good-nights and went into our tents. There was absolutely no problem of mosquitoes or bugs and the ground was pretty flat too. I am a poor sleeper and I knew that I would have a tough time adjusting to these conditions. Turned out that I was right and had great difficulty sleeping. I could hear the thunder and the rain. The thunders were so loud that it felt like I was sitting in a theater with an excellent surround sound system. It was both scary and exciting at the same time to be in the midst of nature because you never know where the next lightning would strike.

Watch this space for the exciting details of day 2.

At last, its over!!!

2006-07-12T14:57:00.000-04:00

I'm talking about the football worldcup. I say 'at last' because almost every afternoon we would slip out of our lab to watch one of the games and this would be followed by the guilt of having done that (although most of us didn't have anything else to do). At the last stages of the tournament, it was taking way too much of our time and energy. Although the quality of football in this worldcup was not as good as in the previous one, it was exciting because the results of most of the matches were decided in the last 15 minutes.

The contest between Le Bleus (French) and the Azzurris (Italians) was nothing compared compared to the one between Germany and Portugal. Its a pity that the Germans couldn't make it to the finals since they were playing like champions throughout the tournament except for that lacklustre semi-final against the Italians. I have never seen a hungrier German team and with the likes of Klose, Podolski, Borowski, Schweinsteiger and Schneider in their ranks, they would be my favourites to win the next world cup to be held in South Africa in 2008.

Coming back to the final match, I wanted Zidane and Co. to win it but destiny had a cruel twist to it. Italy dominated the first half but seemed to have run out of gas in the middle of the second half and this trend continued till the end of extra-time. Had Zidane been there for the last 10 minutes, France might very well have lifted the golden cup. I don't want to attach pictures or videos of Zidane's antic here since you can find them in numerous other sites and blogs. I don't care what Materazzi did or said to him but what Zidane did to Materazzi was absolutely unwarranted and highly deplorable. We know that sledging is pretty common in sports like cricket and football and should be taken in its stride. If its too much, you can just talk back and/or lodge an official complaint after the end of the match and let the officials deal with it.

People call Zizou a 'gentleman' but the fact is that he has done this before in a European championship and hence he doesn't qualify to be called one. One witnesses such incidents in club-level or street football. Zidane has had an illustrious international career but people will keep questioning his school-boyish behaviour for the rest of his life. What a way to end the last international match of your life!!!

Eventful day at the World Cup

2006-06-23T00:17:00.000-04:00

Czech & Croatia out of the world cup. Boo hoo:( I was really impressed by Croatia. Its a pity that they couldn't get the better of the 'Soccaroos' (Aussies, for the uninformed). So now, we have 2 teams who have qualified for the knockouts for the very first time - the other being Ghana. I am glad that Ghana defeated the US. Now they will realize what 'World Championship' is. Actually, it won't make any difference to most of the ignorant Americans.

Ronaldo at last came good and scored 2 goals in Brazil's 4-1 win over minnows Japan. His world cup goal tally is now 14, equalling that of Gerd Muller of Germany. One more and football fans will remember him for a long time to come. Not too long though since I predict that another German sensation Miroslav Close will overtake his tally in the next world cup, if not this one.

In other news, Iran sacked their football coach. Good thing, they didn't execute him for his 'incompetence'; hee hee.

Yellow Yellow, dirty fellow

2006-06-17T00:02:00.000-04:00

This used to be a prank we used to play when we were kids. One of the kids would ask an unsuspecting kid to say 'Yellow Yellow' and when the latter said that, the former would reply 'You're a dirty fellow, sitting on a buffalo'. See how that rhymes!!!

That hardly seems to be the case in sports though. Right now, yellow is on top; literally. I mean the team wearing yellow jerseys are proving to be winners. Take cricket, for instance. The current Limited Overs International champions Australia wear yellow. The Winter Olympics ice-hockey champions Sweden wear yellow. The Superbowl champions (American football) Pittsburgh Steelers wear predominantly yellow (some would argue its gold & black but heck, gold is a yellow metal & while we are on yellow why should we even bother about black!!!) . Even Alonso's team Renault in Formula 1 Grand Prix have a conspicuous yellow streak on them. Now the father of them all; (in keeping with the 'Father's day' spirit here in the US) the football (soccer for the Americans) world champions Brazil wear a yellow jersey.

So my prediction for the football worldcup: The team wearing yellow will win (not counting Sweden, Australia, Ukraine & Ecuador). My heart wants England to win but they don't have yellow unless Beckham & co. decide to dye their hair yellow. Yikes!!!

Sports overload

2006-06-13T23:26:00.000-04:00

Most of us are familiar with the term 'information overload'. It is the availability of excessive information and the helplessness of not knowing how to deal with it. This season, most of the sports-loving males of the species Homo sapiens seem to be suffering from the problem of 'sports overload'. For starters, there was the French Open which will soon be followed by Wimbledon. Then every Sunday, there is the familiar sight of Alonso taking the podium (the way Schumacher used to do last year) in the Formula 1 Grand Prix. The gaze of three-fourths of all the Indians is fixed on the heroics (and sometimes the lack of it) of Rahul Dravid & Company in the ongoing cricket tour of the Carribean Islands. To top it all, we have the 'baap' of all sporting events - the football world cup - which will last a month. The whole world will watch the magic of Ronaldinho, Beckham, 'Zizou' etc with bated breath.

Then for all us 'brown asses' here in the US who are also interested in American sports, there are the NBA (Basketball) and Stanley Cup (Ice hockey) finals while the baseball season is in full swing.

What do you do with this overload? Simple. Switch on the TV, invite your friends over, watch the games, have petty arguments and discussions and in general, have fun!!!

Gum for thought!

2006-05-23T15:06:00.000-04:00

Do you know that chewing gum is banned in Singapore?? I realized this on watching a video on youtube which was pasted in someone's blog. Here is the interesting video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Flfj3mmaU

Some funny chewing gum commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S3THlF_Z04
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To-hsc6y9u0

While on the topic of chewing gum, here is an interesting short animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZDVXgP21Ao

Clearly, youtube is a modern day messiah!!!

The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-20T22:49:00.000-04:00

I watched Da Vinci code on the very day of its release. I don't remember waiting for any other movie so eagerly. Incidently, this is the first English movie I watched in a theatre since I came to the US almost two years ago. I'm not going to write a review of the movie since you can find it from numerous sources. I'm only going to express my interpretations and thoughts on the movie. The director, Ron Howard, did a commendable job of not meandering away from the actual story. It is very difficult to condense a book into a two and a half hour movie. It was interesting to note how Ron interspersed several sub-plots when in actuality, they are separate events in the book. I read the book more than a year ago and hence do no recall each and every incident. Suffice it to say, many incidents from the story were conveniently deleted and I was able to detect two 'artistic liberties'. One was at the very beginning of the movie where the symbologist Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks) presents some cultural misinterpretations of very common symbols. The second was near the end of the movie where Langdon browses the internet using a cell phone instead of going to the library and searching for some information required to solve a riddle. Thankfully, no chemistry was shown between the two protagonists.
As far as acting goes, Tom Hanks' array of emotional skills were grossly under-utilized. Audrey Tautou, playing Sophie Neveu, as his accomplice on the run was adorable. Paul Bettany as the albino monk Silas was really scary and portrayed his character to the hilt. I read in one of the websites that his might be the first character which speaks Latin into a cell phone. The icing on the cake, however, was the character of Sir Leigh Teabing played by Ian McKellen. He was hilarious at times and a raging lunatic at others.
Ofcourse, its just exhilerating to watch the sites of Europe with the Louvre, the Eiffel tower, the many churches, chateaus and the beutiful landscape.
Even though many who have read the novel would be disappointed, it is an absolute thriller for those who haven't. All in all, it is worth a watch.

Sweet nothings!!!

2006-05-15T02:19:00.000-04:00

Whew!!! The exams are finally over. Although I didn't do particularly well, I think I will survive. The past few weeks have been really hectic and stressful. In the interimperiod, I did manage to do some research ( thanks to my friend Vindy) and completely revamp my blog. Summer is almost here and I would be busy with my research work but thankfully no coursework for some time. This means that I should be able to indulge in more things than usual.One of them is watching more movies.
I along with some friends watched 'MI:3' a couple of days back. Thank god we didn't spend any money since we watched the pirated version. It was more like a Mithun or Rajnikant movie, only on a much grander scale. There was just excessively absurd use of technology like inserting
a time release capsule through the nasal cavity into the brain, which upon rupture after a certain time interval, would kill the poor individual. Other mouth-openers include identifying a person from behind a wall through infra-red radiation by comparing his blood profile and building a mask of a person in just 10 minutes to name a few.
Poseidon didn’t get great reviews since like most disaster movies, it was very predictable and hence I’m going to skip it. The movie that I (and a multitude of others) am waiting for is ‘The Da Vinci Code’. I read the book when it was a rage about a year ago & fell in love with it. The movie stars Tom Hanks as the symbology, or more appropriately, a semiology expert, Robert Langdon, who is summoned to the Louvre to decipher a mysterious murder incident. He is helped in his crusade by the victim’s grand-daughter Sofia, played by Audrey Tautou, of ‘Amelie’ fame. For those who don’t know about Amelie, it’s a French movie which I seriously recommend everyone to watch. It’s a satirically funny movie and Audrey as the protagonist is splendid. I will do a comparison between the book and the movie after I watch it. Till then, I will be counting the days to the movie’s release.

Would you like to work for a biotech company?

2006-04-23T18:18:00.000-04:00

This is the question I received from an Indian student I know at Buffalo. I met this guy, let's call him 'pseudo-Mallu', a week before I got his call at the campus-shuttle bus stop. Seemed like a nice guy, very talkative, inquisitive, wanted to know all my history-geography in a matter of minutes. We got down at our final destination, exchanged phone numbers and I completely forgot about him. So pseudo-Mallu knows that I'm doing PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences and says that he has an interesting project in collaboration with a biotech company and he wants to involve me in it (with the added incentive of extra money). I say sure & we decide to meet the next day (Friday) at a Starbuck's at 5 pm.

I reach there on time and this guy turns up a few minutes later looking very professional, carrying a leather bag and all. We buy ourselves coffee, find a nice secluded place to sit and exchange pleasantries. Then we get down to business. He starts the discussion by asking weird questions like how much free time do I have everyday and what do I foresee for myself in the future. Suddenly, I smell fish instead of the sensuous feeling of coffee. He then mentions something which I recognize immediately - 'Quixstar'. Its multi-level marketing, I said. Call it whatever u want, dude, but this is the next big thing he said. He then goes on to question why we should buy Pepsi when Britney Spears gets paid for it, buy Nike and Tiger Woods goes all the way laughing to the bank. He gave me a brief history of how a guy started McDonald's, which is now the biggest chain of fastfood joint in the world. Apparently, he had his own restaurant, started giving training to other restaurants or people who wanted to open restaurants, asked for a lifetime cut for each sale and became rich without investing a single cent in opening a new outlet. Pseudo-mallu says that there are people who have taken early retirement from their jobs since this thing pays them so well and they have all the time in the world to do anything they wish. He gives me a booklet and a couple of CDs to listen to, basically talks by highly successful people in this field. I go home really disappointed. By the way, did you notice that not a single time does he mention the word biotech!!!

I had learned about Quixstar a few months back when the eldest son of a friend of my father drove all the way from Washington DC to explain me this concept. Pay around $250 to get started, buy products online from Quixstar, convince other people to do the same and you get a cut each time a new member joins in because of you. I had recently moved from Fargo to Buffalo and said that I was sorry but I neither had the time nor the inclination to do it.

So I read the booklet, listen to the CDS, one by an American named Bill Hawkins and the other by a guy from Orissa, now in the US and apparently, retired at the age of 29 because now he was earning 4 times more than he would have earned doing his job. This Oriya guy spoke horrendous English but was funny at mocking people who did not join this 'business'. I seriously recommend him to do some stand-up comedy.

So, pseudo-mallu calls up a week later and we decide to meet the next day, same place, same time. I was very busy and somehow forget about it ( not too difficult to do if you are not interested). I realized this later when he called me up at night. So we decide to meet the following day at his place. I reach there and am really surprised to see many people inside. One of their more succesful business partners, actually their mentor, had come all the way from Chicago to convince other people to join this scheme. There were around 10 people listening to him, including a Russian. Basically, it was a sophisticated version of what pseudo-mallu had explained to me. The other members of his team including pseudo-mallu were listening and watching him with awe, as if Moses himself had come down the mountain to deliver the 10 commandments. I noticed that most of the people there were students on the verge of graduating or who recently got jobs and were looking for ways to pay off their student loans asap. Apparently, this company had recently tied up with a biotech company I had never heard of. So later, pseudo-Moses talks one-on-one to me, asks me what my primary concerns were. I said I'm a student and have other priorities. I don't have financial problems, am busy with my studies and in my spare time want to do some recreation instead of chasing people around. He gives me another CD to listen to, take my time and tell pseudo-mallu my decision.

So pseudo-mallu calls me a week later, comes to my place and then I tell him 'Heck, I'm in'. Just kidding!!! I politely say no and his face was worth watching. Disappointment was writ all over his face. He said that he respected my decision but then asked for a more difficult task; giving him the contacts of 2 of my friends who I think would be interested in this. Now who shall I make the 'bakra'?

So in future, if I do face some financial problem, don't be surprised if I call you and ask 'Would you like to work for a biotech company?'

Ohio trip

2006-04-18T23:28:00.000-04:00

This may be really late for something that happened a month ago (17-19 March), but as they say, ‘Better late than never’, I am referring of course to my Ohio trip. The reasons for the delay…. oh well…. forget it. It was just the two of us, I and my ‘travel partner’ Harsh. We planned a two and a half day trip including the traveling time. We left for Columbus, Ohio from Buffalo, New York at about 12 pm Friday. The distance..300 odd miles and the time required would be just more than 5 hours. This time went in Harsh’s car. It’s a stick-shift & since I haven’t driven a stick-shift car in the US before, there was no way I would have tried it this time. This meant that poor Harsh would be driving during the whole trip. Well, this was a fair deal since I had driven during our two previous trips. The drive was uneventful except for the fact that we bypassed a couple of major cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland. The Cleveland loop was amazing. We were passing through just outside the city and were parallel with the city traffic for almost 40 miles with regular exits towards the city roads. There were offices of major companies like Progressive Insurance, Mettler-Toledo intruments etc. At one point, we say a truck ahead of us & it seemed to be coming from the opposite direction on the wrong side toward us. It was only when we were a bit closer that we realized that it was being towed away by another truck. We called it the ‘Ghost Truck’.

We reached Columbus at around 5 pm. Harsh’s friend Rohit came out to help us pull out our stuff from the car. We sat in the drawing room, drinking tea, chatting and getting to know him and his roomies. All were in the pharmaceutical sciences dept and one of them was my roomie Dhaval’s senior during his BPharm days back in Gandhinagar. The other roomie incidently was one of my MPharm junior’s friend. The world indeed is a small place (at least the Pharm. Sci. world).

Rohit then took us to his dept in Ohio State University. Apparently it is one of the biggest universities (at least in terms of the number of students studying, a staggering 40,000). There were a couple of high rises with equally tall buildings completely dedicated to parking. We reached his lab and took a couple of snaps. At around 9 pm we walked to a Mexican place for dinner. After that, we went in his car to see the downtown. Columbus is a relatively new city and there is nothing much to see. There were few tall buildings but one which stood out was made to look a bit old with a tinge of red lighting. Inspite of the cold conditions, we saw many people hanging out, especially the not so young ones. There were lots of parties going on but none of us were in the mood to join one. We roamed a bit more in the downtown, saw the council hall and took some snaps by the Ohio river. Unfortunately, none of the snaps came out well since it was dark.

The next day, we planned to make a round trip of Dayton and Cincinnati, both in Ohio state. We got the directions from a website and left for Dayton. There were four of us; I, Harsh, Rohit and Dr. Negi, a professor at Dehradun Univ who was here for a three-month project. We picked him up from Rohit’s dept. Our first stop was the US Air Force National Museum at Dayton which was around 60 miles from Columbus. It was a really impressive museum and was divided into four sections: Early aviation and WW I, WWII, Cold-War and present. We learnt a lot about how the first flights were tried and the first successful flight was by Oliver Wright (one of the Wright bros, the other being Wilbur) and how they and many others improved on each model. Most of the early models were based on car engines and we came across names like Ford, Mercedes-Benz etc. The later models were quite different and far more sophisticated. We were done with all the sections in about 3 hours and even then we missed out on seeing some planes, it was that huge. We had a pathetic lunch at the museum cafeteria since we all were really hungry and did not have any other choice. Meanwhile, Rohit called up his friend Sujeet in Indiana state since he too coming to Cinicinnati just to meet us. For this, Sujeet had to travel 2 hours each way to meet his friend for just 3 hours. Cincinnati is 40 miles from Dayton and when we reached there we weren’t sure where exactly to go. In between, we lost our way and ventured into Kentucky state. Cincinnati is on the border of Ohio and Kentucky states. We finally reached the downtown and after a lot of searching found a place to park ($8 for 3 hours). The city wasn’t as big as I had imagined. We saw a football and baseball stadium from outside. I wasn’t really impressed with the downtown. Must have been the cold and the dearth of people. We finally went into a Starbuck’s, ordered coffee and chatted away for almost an hour until Sujeet showed up. We then walked a bit more and finally decided to have dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was close to the University of Cincinnati. Now this restaurant called Ambar was, to my utter surprise, one of the 4 Indian restaurants in the same area. There are many more in other areas of Cincinnati. We had a couple of different chicken dishes which were spicy as hell and tasted the same. After we hungry monsters were well-fed, we decided to head back to Columbus. We bid good-bye to Sujeet and by the time we reached Columbus (110 miles, 2 hours), it was past 1 am. We dropped Dr. Negi off to his place and went home and slept till almost 11 am the next day. Oh, before going to sleep, I called my folks in India and surprised them by saying that I was in Columbus.

We had planned to do a couple of things in the morning but we neither had the time nor the energy to do it. We finally had brunch and Harsh and I left for Buffalo.
We reached around 7:45 pm and after 30 minutes were ready for dinner at a friend’s (Suraj) place.

Thus ended another journey and the spring break. Harsh and I have traveled together almost 3000 miles, with I driving 1700 miles, and covered 6 cities. Hope we have many more road trips but the problem is we are running out of places now!!!

Don't forget to check out these snaps and video.

Pittsburgh trip videos

2006-04-08T15:54:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,
Here are a couple of videos from our Pittsburgh trip. Thank you for your response. Yes Vicky, I had a haircut before my Ohio trip which I should be posting shortly. Enjoy!!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=l0vk6P7Epcc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IeOAVl9nJMo

Pittsburgh Trip

2006-03-23T01:51:00.000-05:00

For a long time I have been planning on maintaining a dairy. I even started writing one with gusto but could not keep up with it because of my schedule or you could call it 'pure laziness'. But taking inspiration from a couple of friends who contribute regularly to their respective blogs, I have decided to start my own blog. I do believe I have a flair and penchant for writing. Ofcourse, you won't find very personal stuff but you will get a very good idea about my likes, dislikes and my persoanality. So here I am, typing away drops of words in this infinite ocean of the world wide web and even if two people glance through what I have written, I would consider my job done.
I went along with a couple of friends, Harsh and Puneet, on Sun, Mar 12 from Buffalo, NY state to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in my car. It was a 3 and a 1/2 hour drive on a gloomy day. Our first stop was the Sri Venkateshwara Temple which is supposed to be one of the oldest temple in the US. After losing our way when we were almost there, we finally found it. As expected, it was fairly crowded with a variety of different cars parked in the parking lots. I was a bit disappointed with the interiors since it seemed that they tried to fit many deities in the reasonably big complex. Even the 'Gopuram' seemed to be made of plaster of paris instead of the stone ones you have in India. On the other hand it is commendable that there are such things in the US. I mean 20 years ago you could not have imagined having temples in the US but now almost every major city in the US has a substantial Indian population and atleast one place of worship, be it a temple or a Gurudwara. Pittsburgh, by the way, has 2 temples, the other one is simply called 'Hindu temple'. After visiting the temple, we had lunch at this small restaurant near the the temple called 'Udipi cafe'. We had a sumptuous south Indian meal and I must say that it was a pretty authentic one. We then went to see the actual Pittsburgh. This city was established in the late 18th century and was very well known for its steel. That's why their football team is called the 'Pittsburgh Steelers'. We went to the top of a hill, just minutes from the downtown, at a spot called 'Duquesne (pronounced due-ken) Incline'. From this spot we got a very good view of the downtown and the confluence of 3 rivers, Ohio river coming from the west and the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers flowing from the east. The temperature was quite comfortable and the view was fantastic. We clicked a lot of pictures and some videos. We even requested on of the tourists to click all the 3 of us together and here is the output.

After staying there for about 45 min, we made way to the downtown. There is nothing much to talk about the downtown except that there were huge buildings but very few people since it was a Sunday. We walked through the Point state park which is build on the confluence and it was surprising to realize that we were so close to the waters. Right across, we could see the Carnegie Science Center and the Heinz field where the football matches are held. By football, I mean the American version, not soccer. It is said that baseball is America's favourite passtime but football is America's passion. We also saw a group of youngsters playing this game. You may notice that most of them are extra large. Two-thirds of the American population is overweight and one-third of these are obese.

It was 5 pm and we decided to see the University of Pittsburgh (UPitt) even though we had not planned it initially. So we found out the route using the city map and we were cruising along Forbes avenue when all of a sudden, it became a one-way. So we had to make an unexpected turn and just lost our way and landed up at the gates of Duquesne university. This is one of the universities that one of my friends Suraj studied in and we just clicked away. We couldn't find anyone who would tell us the way to UPitt and after some searching, we came across an Indian student who happened to know Suraj. Incidentally, he too was going through UPitt and we followed his car and when we reached UPitt, he signalled us and sped away. We parked our car, looked at our watches and reached a consensus that we had a hour and a half to look around. UPitt is arounf 5 miles from the downtown and is a downtown in itself. It does not have a campus feel to it since the main roads pass through the university but we were really impressed with what we saw. It was an aesthetic mix of the new and the old. There were some really delightful old structures like the libraries and the cathedral. The world famous Carnegie-Mellon institute is situated here. We saw the buildings of software, music, art and natural history institutes from the outside and clicked snaps in front of statues of renowned people like Bach, Michelangelo, Shakespeare etc. The area was very young and vibrant since 90% of the people around were students studying in the two universities. It kind of reminded me of the MIT-Harvard area in Boston.

Thus after a very satisfying day, we finally bid adieu to Pittsburgh.

The following weekend, I went to Ohio state but that is another story. Till then, enjoy some snippets of Pittsburgh.

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/pashi_v/album?.dir=1714