Waiting for my ride back

To cannes.

Tonight I eat Indian food!

The prison itself

Famous inmates

The man in the iron mask.

I'm now on St. Marguerite island.
What u see in the distance is Cannes.

This island is 15 minutes away by ferry

This is where the man in the iron mask was imprisoned for 11 years.

More tunnel

F1!

The monaco F1 tunnel!!

See what all u can do when you don't have MNS to worry about?

Copy cats!

Richest neighborhood in the world and they can't come up with their own way of beating the sea waves?

Straight copy from marine drive!

I wonder though if we'll find some peanut wrappers in the midst of all that rock!

Wow! Fishes!

Huuuuge aquarium. One of several.
Easily the best thing to see in monaco.

And I don't even like fishes but the sheer size of the aquariums will hold you spell bound.

Its like you can see sea life from the comfort of your sofa!

Or - you could say this is Big Boss for the fishes :)

The famous Monaco harbor

Quite possibly worth a billion dollars if you add up all thse boats!

Le Casno

Possibly the most famous monument in monaco!

The bridge of the devil

I'm awesome!

See those tiny houses?

I trecked up from there!

Cactus!

View from the top.

Yup. I climbed all that!

I'm here!

Fragonard

One of the prem"ere perfumeries in the world.

Or so the brochure says.

The smell is making me sick!

More Eze

That's Eze

My destination!

Eze village

Walking up to eze village
View along the way!

This is lovely. Not to mentioned inclined as hell.

Surviving A Bomb Scare

An interesting thing happened at work today.

We had a rather panicked security person walk upto me and say, sir, we have some police cars and a bomb squad that has come to our office complex. Do we evacuate?

Hell yes. And we promptly evacuated all our employees (which were strangely few for 11:30 AM on a Monday morning!)

Anyhow, what was more surreal (than actually being part of a bomb scare evacuation) was the fact that when we got to the ground floor - I felt like I was at a tourist location and people were having a picnic!

You know the feeling - backslapping jokes, lots of funny stories being exchanged, snacks and candies being passed around and, in some cases, those who had not met in a while decided being thrown out of their office due to a life threatening explosive was an awesome reason to catch up with people they had not met for a while.

So here's a big fuck you to all those who plant bombs - as you can clearly see, we don't give a damn. Yes, it's really sad that many people do die, and we are angry about it but we are not scared - and as long as that stands, irrespective of how many people you kill, you lose.

Perqs of being an OIympian

Just when India is getting rather ecstatic about how many medals have been won, I have just unearthed the single biggest reason why world+dog (excuse the expression) wants to be an Olympian.

Give this a read. You will soon see why there is a whole other kinda marathon going on!


And yes, the medals are irrelevant.

At riverview chiplun

Superb staff.
Awesome service.
Great food and just breathtaking view

Crows - More civilised than the average pedestrian in Mumbai

The world before the internet

Yup, despite your firm belief that a time such as this didn't exist, there are legends of just such an "era"

Here's what it looked like:
Just a word of advice, spend time on each entry and read the screenshot.

How to find yourself a soulmate

If you are under 30 or are looking for a below 30 soulmate but haven't yet found one or are currently thinking that the one you did find isn't exactly it, well, help is at hand. I have now discovered a foolproof way of finding yourself the perfect soulmate.

No you don't have to tell me your birthdate, or birth sign or wear rings and medallions with ancient looking (but Made In China) symbols. There is no magic, no hawans and definitely no saadhus, astrologers or yogis to consult. I'm the one stop shop to the answers and the answer is dead simple:

The only way to find a soulmate is to write their MBA application.

No kidding. I recently had to go through this experience with my girlfriend of 8 years and believe me, there were STILL things I didn't know about her and I don't mean it in the "i want to know about your high school crush" way because heck I AM that high school "Crush" :)

If you think a passport or PAN Card or a job application is comprehensive, an MBA application is all of those together and then some. While passport and PAN card forms merely ask about your basic details about where you live, whats your mothers name etc. and a job application focusses on what you have achieved and a cellphone number they can reach if they wanna call you, an MBA application will ask for all that and more. It insists that they cannot give you admission unless and until you have your entire life charted out in powerpoint and excel right down to the moment immediately preceding the moment you die.

It's fucking ridiculous but its descriptive as hell. If there was a time when your mate bought an old lady flowers and helped her cross the road, it will be on the application. The lousy 3rd grade student he defeated in tennis? Yup, that will be a tournament written about in such glorified fashion that you'd think it was Pete V/s Agassi.

So you see, not only will you be absolutely aware of the honest truth, you and he will sit together glorifying it. This is important because in future when he boasts about how he kicked ass in the office Pool tournament, you know exactly what must've happened.

The application doesnt end there, you also have to explain in explicit detail as to why exactly you should be admitted to a b-school which expects you to know everything before hand and will merely provide a "multi-cultural environment for growth" which is basically similar to a subway ride in any major city in the world minus the sweat and smell.

But I digress. The fact that the applicant (aka your prospective soul mate) will remember things from decades ago with vivid detail and emotion ensures you will never have the nasty surprise that your husband is gay. Sitting and writing an application with him would clear that up for you.

BTW, just to be sure, if you have been going to him in the evenings to help with his applications and he hasn't been trying to get in your pants, there are only 2 possibilities:
1. He is gay
2. You are ugly betty

If anyone tried getting in your pants before this guy/girl then you can pretty much rule out option 2.

And if you are wondering HOW to get him to ask your help for an application, well, if he hasn't asked you himself, that should be a ridiculously big hint that you guys(or girls or a mixture thereof) AREN'T soulmates. Jeez!

Oh incase you're wondering what's with the "below 30" thingy, well, if you are 30 or above and THEN going to college for 2 years, never mind, you are no one's soulmate.

The new India

While I was waiting for someone to join me in the car, I was playing a game (bricks, if you must know!) on my blackberry

The driver on the other hand was reading Outlook Business!

Don't go by the picture here, he wasn't merely looking at that ad, he was discussing the phone with me!

And yes, we had to wait for a very long time.

Soundbytes from Buffet

Warren buffet spoke at the University of Austin

Must read

I think I have your pilot!

I think I got the same pilot today that one of my friend's got sometime ago.

He STILL cannot find his way from delhi to mumbai.

Sorry about the crappy picture but Blackberry's aren't known for their cameras. No not even the gay looking Pearl.

Vienna here I come!

Breakfast at the airport

Leaving munich for vienna today!

3 hour prior check-in for a 1 hour flight!

Gotta love travel security rules. Thanks to them, I'm here at the airport at 5am and for a 7am flight with NOTHING to do but wait and eat.

German efficiency further compunded the problem because walking into the airport check-in and passport control took 7 minutes. 7.

Hard rock cafe, Munich

Glockenspiel

The marian statue

In the centre of the marianplatz, is a golden statue of the Virgin Mary.
This was erected to commemorate the swedes leaving germany after the 30 year wars.

A day out in Munich

This is The "NEW" Town Hall or the Neus Ratahaus, at Marienplatz, Munich
Platz is basically like - plaza or square and munich has tons of them.
Marienplatz,odeonplatz, karlsplatz.. you get the idea.

Anyway, it is called the NEW town hall because they built it from 1867-1909 and it houses the government houses.
The Altes Ratahaus or old town halls was built in 1474 and rebuilt after it was mostly destroyed in the 2nd world war (the last of many times)

it was finally rebuilt completely and now is a museum with toys etc.

Every day at 12 noon, they have the "glockenspiel" or "the play of bells" basically, lots of bells ring in a nice little tune. There are moving statues in the tower (look towards the top) which depict 2 key historical incidents. One the marriage of one of the dukes and the other shows a famous dance of munich called the schafflertanz which was performed during the great plague epidemic in early 16th century (1515 if i remember right)

What a view!

 

The view from Castle Neuschwenstein, built amongst the Alps by king ludwig II.
It's breathtaking with the snow covered mountains, the river (intermittently frozen) and the trees dropping snow all over you if you so much as breathe under them.

Lovely!

Beer at the haufbrauhaus

All good things come in small packages?
This "mug" defies that theory entirely!

Just so we are clear, this is not one of those "pitchers" you order at restaurants. This is a drink for one person!!

Neuschwenstein castle

Finally! The castle!

Made by king Ludwig II. This was his 3rd and final castle but he never finished it and died mysteriously.

This is supposedly the MOST visited castle in the world with over 1.5million tourists every year.

Walt disney modelled disneyland on this castle which made it immensely famous.

The castle is fine really. Although the rooms do feel a bit cramped (as palaces go)

The view from the top though is breathtaking. Especially if you (like me) manage to get here in the winters in the snow.

Bavarian cafe!

Hotel Muller below the castle.

You must eat here but eat less on the main course because the speciality is the bavarian cream and you must try that as the dessert.

Its heavy but the 1+ mile climb to the castle will burn them off. If u STILL have some left then the steps in the castle will burn those off.

Ofcourse then there is also the business of climbing those steps down and walking down back to the car park.

Cute little bavarian village

Second stop on the tour to neuschwenstein (I think that's how its spelled) castle.

Notice how the flower pots don't have plants but trees!

Onto the autobahn

On the bus tour

Off to somewhere in Austria to see ludwig's castle amidst the mountains.

Nice clear sunny day today. Hopefully won't freeze to death. Outside temperature an hour ago was zero!

Allianz arena

The new football stadium. Looks cool!

No kidding abt the snow

All the white bits u see is morning snow!

Apparently even the snow fall in germany is efficient.

All around the road but not on it. Life goes on.

Pickup right on time

And we are away!!

He tells me its been snowing here. Snowing!
Cursing mumbai some more.

You cannot BUY serious warm clothing there!
I looked for 2 days!

Waiting for luggage in the land of BMW

And Audis
And mercedes
And Beer
And ofcourse the Autobahns!

Ah landed without engines freezing

Muncih on the other hand IS freezing. 2 degrees outside and it looks like its been raining!!

Just how cold it really is!

On my way from Vienna to Munich.
It is so unbelievably cold right now that they are actually spraying antifreezing stuff on the aircraft wings!

See you on the other side. Hopefully.

My shiny Mac!!

Its been a while since I've done some serious fiddling with my laptop(s) so atleast a new OS install was due.

But one of these is over 2 years old and even then, it was mediocre at best so clearly, it wouldnt run Vista, considering my mega powered desktop (C2D 6800, 88GTX SLI and 4gig RAM) sometimes croaks). The option ofcourse was to hack and install Apple's OSX - I'm not much for Linux. I think its pretty terrible as an OS.

I figured since Apple moved over to Intel, the OS should atleast in theory throw lesser tantrums while installing on an Intel notebook.
The spec:
Compaq Presario V4118AP (V4000 series)
Intel Pentium M 1.73 GHz
512 MB of DDR memory
Intel GMA 900 graphics (integrated)
60GB HDD
DVD burner
Broadcom Wireless 4318
Realtek Ethernet NIC


After all was said and done, my compaq laptop is now fully functional with Mac OSX except for a few minor irritants like inability to toggle bluetooth and wifi independently. Apparently in OSX there is no software switch to turn off bluetooth (unlike the airport switch which lets u switch off wifi)

Also, for some reason I wouldnt get any display as OSX thought my laptop display WAS the secondary display. A hardware trick of inserting paper clips in the VGA port sorted that and it now works like a charm!

What truly blows me away though is the speed of the OS. It takes like 40 seconds from cold boot to wireless connectivity!!

The same thing on my PC with Vista ultimate (and mind you, that's NOT a pirated edition) takes over a minute!

Another thing that amazed the hell out of me was just how EASY it is do things over the network with OSX. I just click on the network icon and in literally milliseconds it finds out ALL the other computers on the network so I don't have to search for IP addresses (since my home network is DHCP) I only wish they had this kind of network ability built into Vista. It is always SUCH a pain to transfer files between my PC and my notebooks. Now it takes milliseconds to connect and I have a feeling even the transfer rate is faster (but that could just be my imagination!)

2 days of running this OSX and I am beginning to see where the fanboyism is coming from.
However, if you are looking at making a switch, make sure you have about a week to use OSX before you go out on the road because the biggest issue I have had so far (since I am completely new to the Mac universe) is the lack of nifty tools I got so used to on Windows. It’s not that tools aren’t there, it’s just that experimenting to find out which is the one you REALLY like is time consuming.

If you want to find out how to put OSX on your non Mac notebook/PC head over to www.insanelymac.com. An awesome resource I discovered only after I spent the night banging my head trying to install this. It has so far been able to solve all the minor issues I have experienced.

If you need my help, you know where to reach me!