Winter Has Arrived in Redmond

So, winter finally arrived in Redmond with all its troubles. Today morning when I got up, the grass was all white, road was slippery and there was a thick layer of ice on my car. It took 15 min, lot of pain in fingers and the ice scratcher to get rid of it all. 10 min drive and 15 min of ice scraping!! And this is going to being a every day routine for next 3 months. Time to take out all those sweaters, coats, gloves, caps etc. etc. and layer up. Its also time to move back to California. Oh sunny San Diego !! Even windy San Francisco does not look that bad now.

Birthday Surprise

Telescope..........
This birthday was indeed a BIG surprise. I got a telescope!! A 6inch Orion XT6 beauty :) Spent one whole day assembling it, reading manuals and stuff. It reminds me so much of those wonderful nights star gazing in BITS. That telescope was of course 4 times size of this one. But excitement is still the same. And the way Urvashi and I used to bike back at full speed at 11:00 hoping the MB gates would still be open when we reach. But now I can look past that curfew :). Its a totally different story that we get 9 months of rain and extra looooooooong day light in dry season, still I am all over again excited about looking at rings of Saturn, craters of moon and galaxies.

Other highlight of the day was the mazing Chocolate cake with Chocolate icing and chocolate chips! yummiest!! Thanks to all the friends. And I ended the day with dinner at Thai Tom, which was ok, I think I am getting over its greatness now. Ethiopian next time.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Saw the movie on Friday in the theatre outside office, thinking that will see it again on a bigger screen. But the movie was somewhat of a disappointment for someone who as read, reread and heard the book. It not only deviated from the content of the book but also tried to introduce un-Hogwardly elements to make it, I donno what, more masala movie. Most disgusting was the "Rock'n'Roll" at the ball!! I could not believe it, Rock'n'Roll in Hogwards!! And the 10 minute long overly dramatized scene with the Dragon egg task, what was all that about. And they totally messed up the World Cup scene, Harry watching that man create the dark mark!! I do not remember that happen. The movie was running like a express train, fast fast and faster, but that I can understand given that the book was long and had too much content.

But of course, if you have not read the book, it would probably be enjoyable.

Harry Potter once again

there are some books and movies you cannot get enough of. So it was time for Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire once again, the movie this time. It released yesterday midnight, and I so much wanted to be there first day first show. But alas.... responsibilities of life do not allow me to be out untill 4 on a weeknight. So not first show, but I will sure be there first day. IMO, this book was a lot more action filled as the kids are growing now. Will see.....

State of Fear - Michael Chrichton

After a long time I read a book which presents concepts, ideas, which can actually be discussed and I am dying to discuss it!!
Spent the whole weekend reading "State of Fear" by Michael Chrichton, whole day, nothing else. Its quite a interesting book, it started with about being some environmental issues, and huge scale conspiracies and now is drifting towards influence of media on public opinions and stuff, and ended with random ideas by author about how we should 'manage' nature. Of course I have huge problems with the 'manage' concept.
The theme of this book is global warming and other effects of industrialization on global climate. Its a typical thriller by author, measuring up to Jurassic Park. There is also a element of suspense, very well written. Story line is great and proceeds at the exact pace to keep you involved in the book.

The author mentions really interesting facts about effect of media on people in developed worlds. He introduced PLM syndrome (or something) - Politics, Legal and Media. He said that these three things combined create a State of Fear in which most people of developed countries live. The media can create a picture of catastrophe from any smallest of events, and it paints such scary pictures, urging people to be prepared, to be careful, to be scared!! He also mentions the role of legal and politics in continuing that state. I totally agree with that, I can clearly see the difference while watching local news, every news story is amazing, everything is something to be scared of, something to be prepared for. Its these type of stories that keep people's attention and keeps the media profiting.

Towards the end he also throws in lots interesting ideas about what we should do for environment, the ideas I do not agree with. He does not seem to believe in conservation of nature, but in managing the nature. He says that natural balance is all non-sense, and you cannot just leave nature alone and let it recover from any damage that we have done. Though in the beginning he also presented examples on how human beings end up destroying nature by trying to manage it. But later he proposes to create a 'test environemnt', where we can experiment and learn what is the best way to manage nature, something that I totally do not understand.

Its a must must read.

quoting Michael Chrichton cont...

well, I thought that I would get the time to share what Michael Chrichton had to day in the book, but nope, I had to return the book and anyway I don't know if copying anything from the book would be copyright violation. I guess its not, but in this country, you can never be sure !@!

So anyway, I will just write the book summary at http://bookreviewsbyus.blogspot.com

One concept that he talked about, which I found so true was PLM syndrome (or something) - Politics, Legal and Media. He said that these three things combined create a State of Fear in which most people of developed countries live. The media can create a picture of catastropy from any smallest of events, and it paints such scary pictures, urging people to be prepared, to be careful, to be scared!! He also mentions the role of legal and politics in continuing that state, which I have sort of forgotten already.
And he also presents some interesting ideas about what we should do for environment, the ideas I do not agree with. He does not seem to believe in conservation of nature, but in managing the nature, though in the same book earlier he has presented lot of arguments about how we cannot manage nature, as we cannot fully understand it. But later he proposes to create a 'test environemnt', where we can experiment and learn what is the best way to manage nature!! Talk about million year plan :o

More later ........

quoting Michael Chrichton

This is one of the best and IMO most accurate paragraph I found in his book State of Fear. Unfortunately as the book is not online, I will have to type the whole thing out.....
coming up......

aaiye, aapka intzaar tha!!

That is how you can greet people on yahoo! messenger now and in a sexy voice and look too.
During our saturday monopoly session I discovered that Yahoo! has come up with a bunch of funny audibles in Hindi. The standard messenger audibles have some of them, when you go to more audibles - international - India, ( or something like that). To get all of them, you have to install the messenger from www.yahoo.co.in, its a pain with yahoo trying to change all your settings, but its definately worth the trouble.

Year 2084

A friend sent me this sometime back

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/10/10/opinion/1010opart.html

pretty impressive, humm!!