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!

Good bye NY

On my way back! Finally after all the weeks of travelling.

God I miss being home!

My shiny new DSLR!

Lusted at for months, this baby is finally mine with a cool 18-200mm lens to boot.

Dinner

Pretty nice restaurant this. Although the photo is pretty crappy.

Santana row seems to be a real nice place!

Lunch!

Remanants of what is easily one of the best Tiramisu's I've eaten. Really nice restaurant this.

Irish yoga!

Sausalito

I could just live here!

2 minutes drive from golden gate's bridge. Its lovely

More!!

And more sausalito

More sausalito

Hard rock cafe

The san francisco version!

Pier 39

Typical american deli

And they had niice veggie food!

Called lorie's diner near union square. Don't miss the bike on the ceiling!!

Jesus playing baseball!

Just outside south san francisco city.

Heck of a painting though!

Lady with the laptop

This is why there is a market for the tablet and the UMPC.

People want to get a great computing experience wherever they are because they r using them in more and more locations for more and more things.

This is possibly the biggest reason of iPhone's success, great internet on the go capability. Ofcourse, this experienced over wifi coupled with 3G in their next version could hammer the nail in tablet and UMPC's coffins

Hillsdale

Hey look!! They have houses on the hills too!!
Sort of like a millionaire version of the hill with slums in Mumbai!

Except that these probably cost an arm, a leg and your two kidneys all at once :)

In the train

Off to san francisco.

Damn the weather. Its rainy all day today but thankfully sunny for the rest of the day!

Maybe the golden gates bridge won't be all cloudy although I do hear it looks rather dramatic that way - with the bridge disappearing into the clouds and stuff.

San francisco. The vacation begins!!

Yea!! After 2 days of near terminal meetings, I'm finally ready for some serious shopping and sightseeing!!

Just outside my hotel and damn! Its raining for the first time!!

Hopefully sfo will be better!!

Messy carpet

Yup, and this airport won "best airport" ?

Are you kidding me?

Dirty seats

Brussels airport

Sitting waiting for my connecting flight to US.

Fortunately, travelling Jet so the experience is really good :) no one does hospitality like Indians, whether it is hotels, airlines whatever.

Strangely enough, a Jet brochure said brussels was rated as the best airport in 2006.

So far, I can see stained seats and dirty carpet making it look more like bhopal than brussels.

I guess no one bullshits like Indians too! :)

Listen to Osama speak english!

Finally! In Dubai

Which is good because the Grand Hyatt is an infinitely better hotel than the Marriott in Paris!

Gotta get ready and go to Gitex!

Notredame

After 4 days of pure gruelling meetings which lasted 12 hours everyday, finally got some well deserved break which meant I went sightseeing in Paris

About the only 2 things I hadn't seen in Paris were the cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried and Notredame.

Now I just haven't seen the cemetery.

Notredame is famous for its artistuc stained glass which has survived despite the attack on the cathedral which almost demolished the building!

Better photos when I reach my next destination - dubai!

Dinner!!

After 12 hrs of presentations (including my own I daresay) we finally get to eat.

Dinner was at Royce, a terrific restaurant right off Champs de elysse.

Must go back when I'm not numb and tired!

Grande Arche

The most famous monument in the district. More commonly known as Arche de la defense.

Apparently this was built by launching a design competition at some French president's whim.

A danish guy won it and so now u know why it looks more like a hollowed pastry than a "monument'

It isn't even that tall! Ust a 110 metres. Propogandists say it looks like a 4 dimensional hypercube projected in a 3dimensional world.
That's absurdity of cosmic proportions!

To its credit though, despite being almost 20 yrs old, it doesn't look its age. At all!

The two vertical sides have offices and the rooftop has an exhibition centre.

Looks right at home in La defense and u could argue its the modern version of arch de triomphe but then, la defense is so out of synch with rest of paris that this along with the whole region is a monstrosity.

10 on 10 for urban planning but minus several million for architectural beauty.

Room without a view!

Currently in La Defense. Contrary to the military sounding name, it is the new business district which sadly makes paris look like any other city.

No parisian architecture, just the regular high-rises with lots of glass so if you were to suddenly wake up here, you won't be able to tell whether this is Paris, New York or even London for that matter.

Even worse, this is the only place I have seen in Paris where the sky is grey and not the usual lovely blue.

I want to be out of here!

Touchdown in Paris!

Charles de gaulle continues to spend more space towards everything BUT passengers.

Lately though (past 2 trips) I've seen them being bitten by the "airport modernisation" bug. Perhaps we are exporting more than just silk and spices

On my way to the hotel to crash into bed. Have to go check out the la defense arch at night!

Oh and I'm famished.

Mini market at the airport

Sure, while DIA has tons of shops, it is this mini market smack in the middle that gives the place its character. A very fruitful mix of old and new.

While I don't actual figured CDG definitely seems bigger in size but most of that area is quite wasted and not really for use by passengers.

DIA on the other hand makes super use of the space available splitting the sitting and eating areas and the shops.

I wish they had somewhere to sit on the ground floor. I could sit and lust at the cars in peace without making my leg muscles give all hope of rest and aching beyond what I thought was muscularly possible..

Ok boarding time!

Travelling... Again

This time going to the same city - Paris but thankfully npt flying the dreadful Air France. An airline whose service is perhaps second best only to a prison!

On Emirates this time and MAN do they know which planes to buy. The economy seat had so much leg space that the person sitting next to me could get up and move about without actually having to wake me up. This was really good for him because this flight being a 4am flight meant I was at my sleepy and cranky best and the last thing I wanted was for someone to ask me to get up cuz he can't hold it on a 2hr flight!!

Dubai airport, much like the city never ceases to amaze me. Built out of land reclaimed from the dessert, this place is living example of man's technical genius and a sensible government's will to make things better for its citizens and visitors.

Quick trivia - 40% of world's cranes are in Dubai!

1 hour stopover till my connecting flight to Paris.

I'm going shopping!! Would be crazy not to! :)

Fancy a smoke... Or 20?

The cutest college girls in Mumbai!

Incredibly serene

One of the few times when bandstand is so devoid of people!

An absolute must experience to sit and have coffee here at 6AM.

No crowd, no traffic. THIS justifies the outrageous property rates this location commands

I'm 24!!

Happy birthday to me!

Thanks to my awesome friends for the cake!!

The only book I have never finished.

Usually, I like to, as they say, close the loop. If I start something, you can bet I am going to finish it. And if it is you who started it, .. well that's another story.

However, there are some things that I did start or wanted to start but never finished and this book is top of the list (the others being learning to play the guitar and taking classes for French)

Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance: There has never been a book that I started reading and left unfinished. Never. Heck, I even went through an entire Nancy Drew! But ZATAMM is the exception that proves the rule.

Believe me, I started this book 3-4 years ago and I still haven't finished it. It's just too boring, I cannot figure out what the author is trying to say! I kid you not, everytime I try to read it, 5 pages is the maximum before I am hit by sleep like a steam roller.

Cleaning the shelves today, I found this book again. It is sitting in front of me, taunting me, daring me to read it and I can't. It's too boring.

Oh wait.. It's 2 in the night, I should be asleep but I'm not. Heck of an excuse to read it! As for the guitar classes, they will have to wait but I will hopefully start french lessons this Saturday. Look out for future posts in French!

Bonnuit mes amis!

Why guys love boobs!

Watch and learn ladies, watch and learn!

So what did Osama do exactly?

The recent Al Qaeda threats to Indian brought back a thought that I had long forgotten.

Why is the world looking for Osama Bin Laden?

Well, the world isn't actually. It's mostly America and the ease with which he and his "colleagues" are shooting videos, they aren't doing a terribly good job of looking either. Unless, we talk about looking the other way!

Digging up some information on the web, it seems that the US isn't looking for Bin Laden in connection with 9/11 at all! Surprising, you would say?

Here is the REAL reason why they are looking for him:

"Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people."

So they want him for attacks which killed 200 people but not the one which killed just under 3,000 people? Baffling.

Here's the thing, in nearly 6 years since 9/11 we have not had one shred of evidence which linked Bin Laden or Al Qaeda to the attacks. Al Qaeda hasn't owned up to the attacks. It is simply been the US government that has been claiming Bin Laden's involvement, without proof.

I am not saying Bin Laden is a saint but this certainly is food for thought.

Al Qaeda Threatens India. OOOH WE ARE SCAREDDDD

The recent Indo-US nuclear deal has not gone down with our friendly neighborhood Al Qaeda and has resulted in them threatening us with "attacks"

I don't know who the Chief of Propaganda at Al Qaeda is but he/she(?) clearly has misunderstood how things work in India so let me spell it out for him/her.

We don't care for your threats. Frankly, we don't even pay attention to it. Why? Because we have been battling terrorists and people have been dying because of that for far too long for us to be too worried about you. You are just another name on the long list we have.

When you say this attack will be bigger than 9/11, we are less than impressed. In terms of casualties 9/11 wasn't that big really. Total number of casualties including pilots and plane passengers was under 3,000.

In the past 10 years, in J&K alone, 40,000 people have lost their lives. That's an average of 4,000 per year in one state alone.

Then there is Punjab, the North east, the south and ofcourse, the preferred destinations - Mumbai and Delhi.

A very rough guesstimate would put official annual terror related fatalities at around 7,000-10,000.

So please don't go around telling us how you will kill thousands of people and expect us to shiver. We know what that tragedy is like. We have been fighting it for over a decade already.

And here's the funny bit. Al Qaeda's tape threatening India made less news (in India) than another recent tape threatening the US.

Bring it on.

The most idiotic interpretation of a Harry Potter Book

Wow. This lady is seriously messed up in her head. While I am all for religious and cultural diversity including different opinions and point of views, NEVER have I seen or read anything this out of touch with reality.

Basically, Harry Potter is bad and Lord Voldemort is Good. He is apparently "Jesus".

Jesus DIED to save the rest of the world not cleanse the world of non Christians (Mudblood and pureblood)!

Excerpts:

"Ginny, like our own children, is captured by Potter's serpent-like green gaze, and maybe his tongue; Mrs. Rowling gives away in the first book that the boy can talk to snakes, and considering what we already know about Potter, we should not put seducing an innocent girl into original sin past him. Like our own children, it is a lure she cannot resist, and one the Virgin Mary never had to face."

"In a particularly distasteful and lewd display, Potter tries to tempt the rightfully furious Angel by raising his pant leg and showing him his nude ankle. In this way the Harry Potter books contribute to the hidden gay agenda."

HUH WHAT??

Frankly, this lady needs help.

Can you figure out this ad?

If you get it, let me know in the comments section. Its bloody brilliant!

Douglas Knew It All Along!!

If you have read Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, then you probably know that all the world is not really a stage, its an experiment. And a rather critical one at that. It is an experiment to find the ultimate answer. The answer about life, the universe and everything.

Well, in Douglas's book, the answer is "42" Yup. This is the answer that solves the ultimate question.

Now scientists have found that Mr. Adams wasn't that far off the mark. Infact, he had the answer dead right!

You can read all about it here. Take THAT Nostradamus! and take THAT you snooty scientists with your pretentious Nobels.

Bloody Iraqi Lake

I get it, that George Bush is sending over troops by the plane loads. But someone please tell me what the hell this is.

Looks like a blood filled lake to me. If you think you can stomach it and want to see it for yourself, head over here

If this is what it looks like, may George Bush burn in hell while he is still alive!

One of the most intelligent ads. Ever

This ad is so cool and so brilliant just so thoughtful and intelligent you HAVE to see it. Oh and, see if you can guess what it's about.

NASA Pays $19mn So Astronauts Can Drink Their Own Pee!!

This is just BEYOND gross.

NASA (Not A Smart Agency) has decided that it is going to pay up 19 million USD so the astronauts in space can drink recycled urine instead of water.

This is their attempt at solving re-entry problems. Assumption is, if astronauts have been drinking theirs (and their colleagues) recycled urine for weeks, they are going to actually look forward to a messed up re-entry and death instead of living with their loved ones NEVER kissing them for the rest of their lives.

The Russians are laughing all the way to the bank with this one. While socialism has collapsed, they have done the Americans over by getting them to PAY for drinking piss. I bet they are praising capitalism right about now! Bring on the Absolut and put some Tchaikovsky Comrade!

News here

The New? 7 Wonders results are out!

Yup, the votes have been counted and the results are in! And before you get all antsy, The Taj Mahal is in the 7 wonders so with a sigh of relief politicians can now device new scams to siphon off money in the name of saving/protecting/beautifying the Taj etc.

Here's the list of those that made it vis-a-vis those that I voted for.

My Votes
1. The Taj Mahal
2. The Eiffel Tower
3. Chichen Itza
4. Easter Island Statues
5. Machu Picchu
6. Pyramids of Giza
7. Stonehenge.

The Winners
1.Chichen Itza
2.Christ Redeemer
3.The Great Wall
4.Macchu Picchu
5.Petra
6.The Roman Colloseum
7.The Taj Mahal

What amazes me however was the sudden flurry of activities in India around this voting. Quick question, HOW do we know all those SMSes sent were actually reflected in the votes for the Taj? I don't see the SMS numbers and/or codes listed anywhere on the "official website" just promos floating about on billboards and TVs.

Frankly, it smells like a big scam to me but we'll never know now.

What to pray for if you are caught watching porn.

Kids mother puts a church CD into the computer and up pops some porn clips.

The kid is worried sick till he sees her mom screaming about how the CD has been possesed by the devil. She then promptly takes to smashing it with a hammer.

Dont you just LOVE it when both, God and the Devil are on your side?

More here

The Internet Models

It is amazing what the internet can do for you. With it's wide reach and instant access, it really is a whole new world. Infact, THIS could be the new dimension that scientists are looking for elsewhere. It affects our daily lives, it has world changing consequences, without it, the world cannot exist any more. It is not critical but plain NEEDED for us to function today.

Therefore, if you do it right, you could be very famous real quick. If you get it wrong however, you could end up in a psychiatric ward like the first (I think) YouTube star "The star Wars Kid"

If you get it right (almost) however, you could be like this lovely girl fondly known as "The Everywhere Girl" or Jennifer Chandra.

The story is fascinating. Jennifer Chandra did a photoshoot at Reed College and sold the shots to Getty Images, an online image bank.

Call it the overuse of stock photography or plain laziness at corporations to hire photographers and do their own photoshoots, people have repeatedly used Jennifer's photographs in all sorts of advertisments. From Dell,Gateway, HP, Visa, Microsoft, BBC, US Department of State, CNN and tons more. Hence the name "Everywhere Girl"

If you would like to see a collection of her ads so far (and I believe this is ongoing), click here

While the everywhere girl is actually quite cute, our next internet model is anything but.

If you and your cause are both extreme Islamic fundamentalist you have your very own poster boy "fondly" called The Islamic Rage Boy. His real name is Shakeel Bhagat and he is 31 years old. He is also very VERY angry about something.

Just what that something is, he hasn't quite been able to figure out yet. Whether it is Salman Rushdie's Knighthood, or freedom for Kashmir, or the pope benedict's faux pas with anti Islamic comments. He was even screaming himself hoarse and shaking his angry finger and bug infested beard (no seriously it probably has its own flourishing flora and fauna!) at those Danish cartoons about The Prophet.

Frankly, those cartoons aren't even that clever but if you would like to see for yourself, click here.

Shakeel's protests rage range through the whole gamut of the "protest inventory". With his massively intense face and loud (ofcourse angry) slogan shouting and scuffles with the police, the chap clearly works hard. The only thing that I think he could be so angry about is the same thing that most professionals in this world are angry or unhappy about. The pay must suck.

Speaking of which. The Everywhere Girl isn't a millionaire either. Despite all her fame she has difficulty paying her bills. Clearly, being famous on the internet doesn't mean you will move to Beverly Hills with a shiny Ferrari in your backyard. Pity.