August 24, 2004

Another boring day in office gone. I cannot imagine how people spend years here like this, maybe they work. Only bright thing in the day was visit to the farmer's market at fisherman's wharf. Its quite a place and the best part is that you can try out so many things, like different cheese, peaches and almost everything. First time I know that there are different types of cheese and they taste different and they are all very expensive. I tried some different type of hummas also today, they are the closest thing to chutney I can think of.

August 12, 2004

This is another of those saturdays I am spending on office by choice, doing nothing. Though I am not sure why. In the morning I was sitting in my rajai, all nice and cozy, not a thing to do in the world and reading Hitch Hiker's Guide and also contemplating if I should go back to sleep. What a dream weekend, then suddenly it struck me, why not go to office and them gym which is near my office. And here I am, after 1 hr of smelly bus journey, sitting in office, reading my 100 useless mails at orkut, yeah they still do not have a select all and delete button, someone knock some sense in those people.

Only Love - Erich Segal

Finally there is a story which is not nostalgic, not overly modern and futuristic. This book resembels a regular hindi movie story, love, passion, betrayal etc. etc. Its a nice bed time reading. Nothing thrilling or chilling about the book, no surprises, you can almost guess the story. But what makes this book good is the author, the way he presents such a normal story that it looks interesting and refreshing. According to me (like most other Erich Segal books) this is a worth reading.

Timeline - Michael Crichton

One of the classical sci-fi books about time travel (ooops, there is nothing like 'timetravel'). It does not take a IQ of 100 to guess that this book talks about people going back in time, visiting history. You will learn a lot (a lot, more than you would care to) about history of france, england, while you can also revise your fundas of quantum computing, relativity and some other modern things. Its a typical thriller, no mystery, but people fighting againt a deadline. Worth a look I would say. If history bores you, then it would be enough to just read first few chapters, before people actually go back and last few chapters.

August 4th, 2004

Its already August, and there are still 5 more moths I need to spend here, and then guess back on the roads. San Francisco is showing its true colours, its been drizzling, drizzling, foggy, cloud rain, cloudy and all that for more than a week now. Only on sunday did we get a little darshan of sun. I wonder how its going to be in winter. How can people spend their lifes in such climate, this is what I call gloomy (believe me, I do not think that Seattle is at all gloomy), when its cloudy, drizzly and extremely windy all the time, and on top of that the city is so crowded, that u have to literally look straight up to see any sky.

The Best Laid Plans - Sidney Sheldon

This book is somewhat a disappointment. I would have expected something more subtle and intelligent from Sidney Sheldon. I just kept waiting for that one moment in the book when u go, "wow! that's brilliant", especially since the title of the book itself talks about best laid plan. There does not seem to be any plan in the book and even after finishing the book, I could not decide who the main character in the book is. There are surprises, but they surprise you in a stupid way, its just too obvious. I would say if you want exciting, suspense novel, then do not waste your time on this one.

The Long Road Home - Danielle Steel

This is definately not a happy book to read, full of tragedies which even sound real. Makes you think a lot of things about life (atleast made me think). Made me somewhat gloomy too. Like most of her novels, this is also well written, no fancy stuff, its easy to get involve in the book. Still I would not say that its the kind of book you cannot put down before finishing.

Sewing machine and cold weekend

This weekend was I guess more full of activities then any I had spent in SF. I got the cold at the right moment, eod Friday, so Saturday I was down with that cold and remained in my rajai almost whole day, convincing myself that this is the best thing for me, and reading book. It was nice in a way. Sunday was little better, so I dared to go all the way to library and got a bunch of books. Came home and my land lady was struggling with her sewing machine. She asked me, do you know anything about sewing machines. Well, do I know anything, not really except seeing my mom making dresses for me every summer. But anyway, I wanted to help her, we looked at her machine, and I ended up spending 4 hours cleaning, trying to make it work, recleaning and retrying. We used all funds of mechanics to understand why it was not working. And what do I say, these complicated machinery of present day!! All we had to do was press a button, and boom! there you go :D

Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov

This is the 4th book in foundation series. This book is filled with even more bizzare concepts than the first three, and there are few things which are just beyond understanding or explaination. If you try to understand the book and why some things happen they way they do, you have to really stretch your imagination to the point where it can break and everything look like a hallucination. For the prople who loved the first three foundations books, I would say that if you have not read this one, you are surely missing something. If you want to start the foundation series with this book, then I would say, give it a second thought. Whatever the author says, according to me, to fully appreciate the book, you need the background. (unless ofcourse you have a out of the world imagination :))

Friday 23/7/04

End of another week in San Francisco. Nothing exciting happening this weekend, planning to sit in the public library and look at some spanish stuff. Recently I have been planning to get something new done with my hair, maybe a new style. That might also materialize this weekend, although according to me, summer is not at all the right time to change your hairstyle as you cannot hide behind a scarf. Still I think I'll give it a shot, at present there does not seem to be anything to loose ;)

The Foundation Triology - Isaac Asimov

This series of three books consists of Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation. I am writing the review for all the three together as its hard to see these books separately. The official claim (which is I guess true) is that each book is complete in itself and you do not have to read the earlier ones to understand the later ones. But for me, I would say that it was hard to be satisfied with reading just one. I actually started the series with Foundation and Empire, but halfway through the book, I realized that I want to read the first book first. So I went to Foundation and then read all the three in order. These are one of the best Sci-fi books I have read. The books are written well, author gives you enough time to grasp all the concepts of space settlements, millions of world, gazillions of people, space travel, hyper-jump and what not. Though I was surprised by the absense of robots in these books, but maybe that was because I had been reading only the robot books of Asimov earlier. I would say that this is a must read for anyone interested in spreading humanity on other planets.

Mt Hood camping trip

I have written a account of our camping trip to Mt. Hood, columbia river gorge in Oregon this long weekend (july 4, 2004) at http://rahulandtulika.blogspot.com/
I still have to figurout how to upload the photos.

Tell Me Your Dreams - Sidney Sheldon

Just finished this one. An interesting reading, plot not very original, but there are definately surprises in the book. The main character suffers from multiple personality disorder, you can guess that after reading first few pages, though the author wanted it to come as a surprise at the end of first part. There is little dramatization which feels very unreal. In all a nice reading.

Long time, something new

ok, its been looong time since I posted anything, so many things are happening, that its hard to keep up. Went camping over the long weekend, it was usual fun, no surprises this time ;). Anyway, today's posting is about the new blogger that I have created where I (and hopefully Rahul also) are going to post our opinion about the books that we read. here is the URL, would be interesting!!
http://bookreviewsbyus.blogspot.com/
comments are ob welcome :)

Prelude to Foundation - Isaac Asimov

Completed this book few days back and to be frank, it was a disappointment. I have read the first three books in the series, Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation. I loved all the three books, but after them, Prelude to Foundation appeared pretty boring. The book seems to spend pages on small unnecessary details. As we say 'kheencha hua hai'. The end was indeed a happy surprise (especially for those who also like Asimov's robot novels), but for length of the book, there was not much matter.

free free free!

ok, i am finally free of studies. exams over, projects over, its all over. and now is the best part of moving - packing!! that is the time u discover what all stuff you have accumulated. it feels good all the time :)

SF week

ok, so finally I found a place to live in San Francisco, a million thanks to Andy, it turned out to be not that difficult. And I am going to be living in the city, so hopefully it will be a lot more fun after this dull San Diego. (yeah, it is a dull place to live for years, although very exciting to visit). Now next few days are going to be novel and movie days. any ideas about good novels to read are welcome.

BBQ weekend

ok, fianlly things seem to be under control, quarter and my last few days at school are coming to an end. It feels like freedom after serving a looooong sentence.

long weekend

a horrible horrible long weekend. has it ever happened to you, that u have lots and lots of work, but u still cannot do anything when u have time, and feel bored. well, that happened to me this weekend. no work done, just TV and getting bored. I am beginning to hate studies, 10 more days to go and then i'll be free. and i'll never never take any course in my life again.

more testing!!!!

Can you believe it, it actually took me another full day to complete the rest 4 tests. Infact only 2!! Bhagwan na kare aur kisi ko aise testing karni pade.
Of course there was no scope for doing anything in the whole day. Cooked a bit, and guess what my roommate wanted me to teach her a few indian dishes. She actually liked what I made...