Bandeau Aid

My buddy and I are planning a trip to a certain nordic country somewhere in the first few months of the coming year. Knowing the frigid temperatures in that part of the world, not withstanding the current snowed out conditions in most of northern Europe, I know that I have a tough time there, especially for someone who is not very fond of cold weather.

For most of my adult life (and a part of my childhood as well), I have had the tendency of my hands and feet getting cold with the slightest hint of cold weather. I'm not even talking snow conditions...even if the temperatures go slightly below 20˚ C, my hands and feet go colder than the ambient. Given this tendency, I prefer to be in places which are predominantly warm.

You would realize now that Nordic weather will be quite a challenge for someone of my body characteristics.

One of the big "To Do" items on the list is to buy warm clothing. This includes mostly inner wear, jackets, shoes and the like. I recently added another item to the list...and just got possession of it.

The place where I got it lists it as a "Bandeau Multifonctions" or Multipurpose Headband. It is also sometimes referred to as a "Buff" or a "Snood" (Samir Nasri of Arsenal wears one for every cold weather game, so if you see him play, you know what I mean).

This Bandeau / Buff / Snood is a tubular garment which is supposed to be worn around the neck or head to protect against the cold. The key character of this garment is that it stretches only sideways and not towards the edges. This allows me to wear it as a tubular neck scarf, a skull cap or a bandana. The most important way of using this would be where the back of the neck scarf is pulled over my head and the front is pulled over my lips, thereby shielding me from the super cold temperatures I will encounter once we get there.

My trip just became a little more comfortable...in my head. Hope it goes that way too :)

Thump and Stump

The last two nights have been a bit crazy. Thanx to the snow storms hitting parts of the UK the last 2 weeks, a lot of football matches were postponed which made the post-christmas period a mouthwatering prospect.

Unfortunately, all the games scheduled on weekdays would start really late in the night :(

Monday night saw Arsenal play Chelsea, a highly anticipated fixture especially after Arsenal were coming off a loss to my beloved United the week before. Cutting a long story short, Arsenal played some beautiful football and thumped Chelsea 3-1. A very nice game to watch indeed.

Now comes the sad part. Last night, thro a position that looked comprehensively offside, Birmingham equalized to draw the match against United 1-1 :(

Net result: two sleepless nights. Now I gotta catch up on in before new years. Can't have my quota backlog run into next year :)

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11 call drops

Let me begin by saying that Airtel sucks! How can one of India's largest mobile services provider have such a crappy network that causes at least 11 call drops on my way to / from office?

It starts just after Richmond Circle, near Kudla. That's 1. Then before the turn at the stadium. 2. Just before the entrance of Cubbon Park. 3. At the turn in Cubbon Park. 4. Near the Planetarium. 5. On the airport road next to BGC's 3rd fairway. 6. At Windsor Manor. 7. At Mekhri underpass. 8. On CV Raman Road. 9. After the CPRI gate. 10. At the Ramaiah Hospital gate. That's sure shot 11 call drops on my way home. 11!!! ELEVEN!

This is of course not counting the extra few that Airtel throws in every now and then at the Magic Box overpass after Windsor Manor, Kaveri Circle, before the Cubbon Park gates. It is sooooooo frustrating to be on a call and have it drop so many times. Even worse if you are in the middle of a conversation with some call center or the other where you have to go thro the entire rigamarole of getting them to the point where u dropped off in the conversation.

I even called Airtel customer care once to illustrate this point and asked the lady to give me a number where I could reach her all the time as I was driving to work to show how many call drops I got. Guess what? They can't do that.

I am sincerely waiting for Mobile Number Portability to become fully operational so that I can test a few other providers (my eyes on Tata Docomo) so that my mobile phone usage is a little less frustrating than it is now.

Cast away

My little angel twisted her leg two weeks ago. The doctor suggested a cast as a precaution so that her growing bones are safe. And she's been hobbling around since then.

Tomorrow the cast comes off! And we're very excited to have her back to running around and being the bubbly exciting child she is.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow!

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All those magnificent men / women in their flying machines

Nope, not talking about the movie, but am using it to reference another set of machines.

I have been busy digitizing and reformatting my entire media collection the last few weeks in anticipation of the arrival of my AppleTV device (which needs the help of someone coming in from the US, so if anyone is heading in that direction and back, please give me a shout!). I finally managed to convert most of my video files to work in the AppleTV format and added them in the library. Only way to test how they would look is if I went into Front Row on my iMac and saw how the library would show...since I assumed that's how the AppleTV interface would look like too.

To my surprise, my Movies section was showing every piece of video I had added to my library. Now some of these videos are part of TV series' which I am in the process of ripping from my DVDs. Things like "Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister", "The West Wing", "Coupling" and "Seinfeld". Problem is, all these shows with all their many episodes from many seasons were now showing up in the list of Movies in Front Row.

To my dismay, the solution on the Apple support website was anything but. It said I had to change the media type of the files to something other than TV show, then move the files out of the library, delete the media references from iTunes and then push them back and change the media type back to TV shows. This is no solution! There had to be an elegant way to do this.

Evidently, Doug thought so too!

He created these Applescript scripts which can be added to iTunes and which help fix this problem with ease. An adult solution to a problem that should not exist in the first place.

This is one magnificent man in his flying (computer) machine!

The reason my post title says "men / women" is because of another reason I had to go to the community to solve my problem.

I have been trying a new software which will help me backup some of my stuff from my iPhone a little easier than iTunes can. Was having a bit of trouble getting the connection to work and so thought I need to restart the phone. Ended up restarting in recovery mode (force of habit what with all the hacking to jailbreak my current and earlier iPhone). Here's where another set of magnificent men/women came to my rescue.

All I did was download iRecovery, type in "setenv auto-boot true;saveenv;/exit" and there it was! My phone booted like normal.

There have been so many instances when some selfless coder sitting in some remote part of the world has come to my assistance without even knowing it. These people put out these pieces of code just because they encountered some problem and thought that making the solution public would help someone. Or maybe just because they love this stuff. Either ways, people like me benefit from the brilliance and work of others.

This post is to thank these magnificent men and women. They have made my life a bit better and a little less stressed. Thanx a lot, folks!

And nothing else matters

For an audiophile, last night was an extremely gratifying experience! To be surrounded by the cleanest sound I have ever heard and that too from songs that I have loved and adored my whole life was simply one of the most amazing few hours I have ever spent.

My ex boss, Anil, is into actually making audio gear. From stereo speakers to subwoofers to his very own class A amplifier, he's made them all. If you walk into his home theatre room, the first impression you would get is that there is WAY too much equipment in that room! There's a HUGE, and I really mean huge, dual cone subwoofer with 15" cones thumping out some serious bass frequencies. That is surrounded by at least 4 separate pairs of stereo speakers, all of them with their own sound signatures and characteristics. There's the open baffle configuration, there's the Altec theatre horn and LF box and then there's the one that blew my mind away!

Quite simply, this floor standing box with a labyrinth as part of its innards produced the cleanest and purest sound I have ever heard in my life. I have not heard stereo music reproduced this beautifully. Period.

What surprised me the most of this setup was the versatility of the sound and the purity of the reproduction of every single sound that was part of the compilation. We heard Hindustani Classical, Instrumental, Indian fusion, Bollywood music, Classic Rock and even Heavy Metal. Simply put, the speakers blew my mind every time I listened to every one of the songs.

To top it all, we played songs like "Stairway to Heaven", "Brothers in Arm", "Nothing Else Matters", "Beat It" and "The Pianoman" on LPs and the added warmth these speakers added was simply amazing. I never really appreciated Stairway to Heaven quite as much as it should have been up until last night! And to hear Jimmy Page's guitar play so clean and so crisp coming out of these wonder boxes just left me getting goose bumps all evening.

Thanx a lot, Anil. You made my evening. An amazing experience. The cleanest and the most wonderful sound I have heard till date. Thank you so much.

When your body refuses to listen to your mind

I have to warn you upfront...this is a golf specific rant! Read on at your own peril!

Sunday promised to be a nice day for golf. The weather in Bangalore has been near perfect for a round of golf with temperatures in the low 20s and cloudy days to ensure that you don't burn your skin walking around the course. To make the most of the weather, my golfing buddies and I had planned to hit the Eagleton golf course very early in the morning to ensure that we finished quickly and had most of our Sunday to ourselves. Little did I know that this was going to be torture on a scale of comparison to Torquemada!

We started off from the back nine with me making three double bogeys in the first three holes. Now that's not so alarming as I could attribute some of it to bad luck. And I had always bounced back from a bad start. But that was not to be the case today. Today was only promising to go from bad to worse...only I did not know that then.

To avoid adding insult to serious injury, I will spare you the description of the front nine and will only say this. Seven double bogey, a bogey and a par made sure that I finished nine holes with a score higher than my handicap! My partner and I were already two down by then (thanx to some stellar play by my partner) and had already lost the front nine.

The back nine is when I tried really hard to focus and get my game right. And I was completely focussed. Only, this time around, my body refused to cooperate with what I was intending in my mind to do. Nothing worked. Absolutely nothing. Even a birdie on the 17th hole did not stop me from coming in with 8 over on the back nine to make it an infamous 23 over for the round. I don't remember playing this badly in a loooooooooooooooooong time! In fact, I don't remember posting such a bad score in a few years.

Usually when I play a bad round, there are a few good take aways from the round to make me want to go back. A good shot here, a good chip there, a nice putt to save the hole. This round was different. All the 95 strokes I played on the course were forgettable. Every single one of them.

I think I have lost my swing somewhere. If someone finds it, please let me know. In the absence of that, I am going to go back to my old coach Mr Vijay Divecha to see if he can track down my swing for me. Until then, it's a sabbatical from the golf game on the course and my attempts to not make a fool of myself swinging a golf club like a circus trained monkey.

Addicted to a series?

How often does that happen to you? You watch one episode of a series that someone recommended...and then handed you the entire season of that series on DVD...and you end up watching all the episodes back to back?

The first time it ever happened to me was with The Office. Not the American version. The British version. The original. The one with Ricky Gervaise in it. I was recommended the series by one of my buddies from the Singapore office when I used to work there. He even got the DVD sets for the two seasons the series ran for. At that time, I waited for everyone to sleep before I started watching, mainly cause I had been told that the Office needed a different kind of humour appreciation to enjoy it. So I stuck the first DVD in, fired the first episode and watched in horror as the first episode hurtled past. Really didn't understand what the hell was going on. So almost gave up on it. But then I thought "might want to watch another episode and see what happens". By the time the second episode came to an end, I was starting to get what the series was all about. By the end of the third episode, I was laughing freely. And before the DVD came to an end, I had to bite down on my finger to not laugh out loud! So I had to go into the special features section to see the outtakes and see Ricky Gervaise just keep hammering at some really funny stuff that would have been great in the series. Needless to say, I was done with both seasons in 2 days (well, two nights) and would have loved to watch more.

The next time that happened was with The West Wing. I had heard of the series for a while, but never really managed to catch an episode, so didn't really know much about the series except for the part that it was about the White House and the President of the US. So when my buddy from the office volunteered to give me the DVDs for the first two seasons, naturally I jumped at it. And guess what? I'm addicted!

I watch episodes back to back. I love the characters and the twisted scenarios that come up every episode. And I have come to appreciate the role that Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and yes, even George W. played while in that office. I also realized how difficult it is to enact legislation in a country which is a bit more mature than my own country. So I can only imagine the horse trading that must be going on for getting a single piece of law passed.

Now you know that both the above series have a bit of continuity in them. As in, the events of the previous episodes have some bearing on the current and future ones. But there are the remarkable sit-coms which I am addicted to as well. First there was M*A*S*H which was, in my opinion, one of the finest shows I watched growing up. Then of course is Seinfeld, which is still the funniest series I have ever seen in my life. And then came Coupling, the british series which is currently my second ranked funniest series. All of these make me want to watch the next episode as soon as one ends...and then the next...and then the next...and then the next.

And then of course, there's the Big Bang Theory. My third ranked all time favorite comedy series. Once again hilarious, smart, intelligent and sometimes just plain crazy. The only thing that makes BBT stay alive with me more is that the series is still ongoing and is currently in it's 4th season. It is also the only series to which I do not have access to DVDs of, so I am stuck to watching these episodes on free streaming site which have a time limit on how much one can watch in one shot without having to pay for it.

Now the question I have for you folks is: Do you have a series that made you watch one episode after another?

PS: If your answer is "24", then please spare me!

708, but never a dull moment

Did I say before that I love my car? Ummm, maybe a few times. Ok, a lot of times! Fact is, I really love my Skoda Laura. And now I love it even more.

My lovely Laura ran for 708 km in one tankfull. That's almost a mileage of 13km/l in peak city traffic conditions! Isn't that fantastic?!?!

This along with the additional pleasure of driving an absolutely gorgeous car. One of the most rewarding things at the end of the day is to drive my automatic car in peak traffic and not be bothered with shifting gears or getting irked with the honking that is going on all around me. Just me. my music and a lovely drive.

But now here comes the rant.

It's the part after I have gotten out of the car is when the problem starts. The amount of honking that the people in this country are capable of is not even funny. I did this experiment standing outside my office building - which I might add is in the middle of a mostly residential area - to figure out how long the traffic outside can go without honking. Guess how long it was between honks?

4 seconds was the longest pause!

4 seconds!

That's insane!

There should be a law enacted that puts a fine of Rs 500 for anyone who honks.

The country would be a lot better place if it got a little bit quieter.

Her first cast

My little girl twisted her foot getting into the school bus after school. Luckily she has no fracture, but the doc has advised immobility for 2 weeks, so she's sitting still wearing her first cast.

She was so embarrassed that I shot the entire cast making process :)

Will post the video later :D

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A craving for Rock On

Let me begin by saying that I absolutely love the movie! I think it is one of the most flawlessly made movies - not just Hindi movies - of all time...a timeless classic that I would love to watch even 20 years from now. But that's not the point of the post.

I used to carry the Rock On DVD in my bag so that I could watch it often after it was released. Then a colleague of mine asked to borrow the DVD. No harm, right? WRONG!

I got the DVD back as if it had come back from the dry cleaners...or worse thro a car wash! It had so many scratches, it looked like Baloo the Bear from Jungle Book had stuck it to his back while he was scratching it against a tree. And as with any scratched DVDs, it gets stuck as soon as the plot gets interesting. I f'n hate that!

Now the big problem is that I had not ripped the DVD as soon as I got it...so I had lost a perfectly good movie and I couldn't watch it when I wanted...which is the objective of buying a DVD in the first place.

So I went on FlipKart.com and ordered it...and it landed in less than 3 days with free shipping and at a discount to boot! I was impressed!

Guess what the first thing was that I did? I ripped the disc :) Yep, in Apple TV resolution as well as iPhone resolution. And now that I have it, I can watch my DVD in peace whenever I want. And I'm never lending my movies to anyone. Ever!

RIP, Sir

My friend's father passed away two nights ago. May the Force give him, his mom, his sister, his wife, his kids and his entire family the strength to deal with this.

I'm here if you need me.

The score does not tell the truth

Another round of golf. Another tale of woe. Another parameter to misjudge.

A very early morning tee off from the back nine saw me hit 6 pars, a bogey and two double bogeys to shoot 5 over for 9 holes. This was including two putts that lipped out that had no business not dropping in. Aah, to hell with it, says I. That's how the game goes. Some days they drop, some days they don't.

The front nine started very nicely. A great drive, a delicious 30 yard chip and then a 3 foot putt to make birdie. I should have known that it was going to be all downhill from there. Two magnificent double bogeys, four bogeys and two pars later, I had scrambled down to a fabulous 13 over round for the day :(

Problem is, the score does not show how badly I played. I played some exquisite shots to compensate for absolutely horrible shots elsewhere. A few absolutely beautiful chips and a few putts which either dropped or didn't made me feel better about myself and my game, but overall I was soooooooooo disappointed with myself and my game.

I need to do better. I know my game has the potential, but I am not playing up to it yet. Need to work harder.

Flipkart rocks!

I bought a couple of things on Flipkart.com, you know, DVDs, books, etc. And was really impressed! Not only are the books available cheaper than at most places, they are also delivered home FOR FREE! And the delivery is prompt and speedy.

Full marks to you, Flipkart. You have found a repeat customer.

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The only one there

I got this weird reminder on my phone two days ago. It said "Challenge to meet at Koshy's" for the 8th of Dec between 7pm and 8pm.

Now I remember sitting with a few folks where we were talking about how friends decide a time and place to meet a few years later...cause in today's world, we don't know where we are going to be. So the experiment was to pick a random day and see if we could keep a date with each other.

Naturally, I landed up curious to see who all were there...assuming anyone even turned up.

Guess what?

I was the only one there!

I sat by myself for an hour, hoping that someone would turn up. But alas, I left alone.

40,000 and 13

What's the relationship between those two numbers, you ask?

My lovely Skoda Laura just crossed into the 40,000 km zone since I bought the car in September of 2007. That's a lot of comfy mileage that I have clocked in this super car. A few long drives to Pune and Goa, a few short trips in and around Bangalore and a LOT of drives to the golf courses around here. Which brings me to the second number.

Played 13 over at KGA on Saturday. An early tee off from the back nine saw me play bogey golf for 9 holes with 2 pars and 2 double bogeys with every other hole played to a bogey. In this time, my partner and I had already lost the nine hole matchplay by being a hole down. Then started the front nine where I made birdie to square the match and my partner and I quickly ran up a 3UP lead. Finally managed to play to 4 over on the back nine to make it 13 over (85) for the round.

Also, this was the first time I was playing with the adjustments made to my Scotty Cameron putter on thursday. Until then, I had to change my putting stance and grip to be able to square the putter. Now, the putter has 4˚ less lie and has 2˚ more loft on it which makes it easier for me to hold in a regular putting stance. Only problem now is that I am missing more putts to the right, something that I need to correct soon.

A clean bill of health?

Now if you remember a post a few days back ("A weird dream"), I dreamt of my buddy from engineering college who passed away a year and half back. I just happened to mention this to my friend the next day and he said, in a solemn voice I might add, that nothing is a coincidence and that I should get a health check up done.

Now most of you who know me know this about me. I am not superstitious nor am I religious and I certainly don't believe in this stuff. But something about the way he said it got me spooked.

So I scheduled an appointment at the Columbia Asia Hospital for a general health checkup yesterday. Had to go there early in the morning without breakfast for a bunch of blood tests, x-rays and ECG tests. Then some breakfast and more blood tests after two hours. Then the long wait until the results land in my hands...which would be 5pm in the evening.

So when I land up at the hospital to collect my reports, they tell me that the reports will be available when I come for my doctor review appointment the next day. Bull Shit, I say. I was asked to come at 5pm and I'm not leaving without my reports.

So I did get them.

Blood pressure 120 / 70.

Almost all blood tests normal...except for LDL and Triglycerides which are on the higher side. These have always been on the higher side for me ever since I can remember, so am not sure if it has to do with something genetic about me or something of my lifestyle that is causing it. Will know when I go for my doctor's appointment in the evening.

X-ray normal.

ECG report not received yet, so will know by end of day today.

All in all, I'm hoping to be given a clean bill of health...and for the doctor to tell me that I'm doing fine and that I should continue with the debauchery in my life :-D

Fingers crossed!

How can anyone be late for a timesheet?

We have an early morning slot at KGA for tee off at 7:05am. What that means is that unlike the usual state where we land up at the golf course and wait for a slot to open up, we actually HAVE a slot booked 5 days in advance where all we have to do is land up on time and tee off.

How hard can it be, right?

Wrong!

Some guys don't take that little thing called time for granted and will be landing 30 minutes past our scheduled tee off time.

There's an hour of sleep I'm never getting back.

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Ganne ka russ after a looooong time

Have you guys tried Cane Crush? It's apparently a chain of food joints serving sugarcane juice. It's clean, hygienic and economical (Rs 10 per glass).

Had a glass yesterday and couldn't stop at one. Took me all the way back to my engineering college days when we used to stop by the local stall after a day of studying hardly :)

But what it really reminded me of was a time when I was in the 8th standard and had gotten a bad case of jaundice. As part of my recovery, I was told to have a lot of sugarcane juice to build up calories in my body for it to fight back. So what my mom used to do was go to a particular sugarcane juice stall - which was quite a distance away from where we lived - just to get the juice for me. That wasn't enough, tho. She would make the stall guy thoroughly clean the crusher and then get the first bottle full for me. Amazingly sweet of her isn't it?

Thanx Mom!

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