Where is my award?

Angry, frustrated, emotional........I'm all of that and more. It's getting harder by the day.

New York City..

After so many years of indifference towards it, I have to admit that I have started to develop a sort of love for the city. Not so much to want to live there but enough to want to go there every now and then.

Snapshots of another interesting weekend..



I have had my fill for now.

The Mrs. has been baptized!

It's taken 5 years of goading, urging and at times offering to watch chick flicks in return but it has finally happened. I have seen an entire Manchester United match with N while she was equally engrossed in the match. We went to watch the Liverpool Vs United match at Nevada Smiths yesterday and though the result (of the match) was not quite what I was hoping for, the reaction of the Mrs. was brilliant. In her own words - "I was stuck in a sports bar with no distractions so had to watch the match and I really liked it. We should come here again for other games and next time we come I want to wear a United jersey." And that's not all, as the game wore on, I saw her clapping at good tackles, sighing at near misses and here is the icing on the cake, she sang and clapped her hands to - "If you hate the bloody scousers clap your hands, if you hate the bloody scousers clap your hands, if you really %^&*^& hate them, if you really %^&*&#$ hate them, if you really %^&%*&^ hate them clap your hands", both during and after the game. And now, with my heart filled with joy, teary eyes and choked throat I can finally say, the Mrs. has been baptized!

Disclaimer: The author may have twisted some facts for dramatization.

Shava-shava from Iceland

My sister was in Iceland a few weekends ago (she highly recommends the place). During our "How was Iceland?" chat she happened to mention a small fact - Iceland has Bollywood dancing schools. Now, like any good bollywood movie watching Samaritan, I was very intrigued by this. After all, what in the world has Iceland got to do with Bollywood and vice-versa? So I went to the so called "Solomon, The wise" of the modern world, google baba and put in "Iceland dancers Bollywood" as keywords and voila; I had the link to  "From Russia with Long Legs" on India Today. I always wondered how these Bollywood directors get  firang dancers. Apparently, it's a blooming business with multiple agencies amicably dividing up the world map and choosing their area for recruitment. Who would have thought?

Weekend Highlights

Diwali-potlucks-pakodas-diyas-rava idlis-peanut chutney-lemon rice-puran polis-mithai-Forgetting Sarah Marshall-J-NYC-5th Avenue-Saks-Tiffany & Co. (no..I didn't buy anything there)-Top of the rock-Chinese Mirch-MoMA design store-lots of walking-catching up with J after ten years-bad weather-trying out Chanel and Cartier perfumes-hearing J say "we smell more expensive than we are":-)-St.Patrick's Cathedral-remembering good old college days-exhausted at the end of it yet feeling nice.

So near and yet so far!

The wait is just getting painful and frustrating or painfully frustrating..whatever!

The Fab Faux

We went for the Fab faux concert ( A New York City based Beatles tribute band) yesterday. Initially, it was a little weird to be sitting and watching them perform.......and I kept comparing them to the Strawberry Fields, another tribute band whose concert I had attended a few years back. But slowly, I got into the groove of the music and started enjoying it. They were really good, some of the songs - I am the Walrus, Here comes the sun, Come together and Penny Lane, amongst others were performed beautifully. Overall, both of us had fun..and we came back home humming our favourite numbers and wishing that it had lasted a little longer.

Birthdays and Celebrations

I love celebrating birthdays, festivals and all happy occasions. For my birthday this year, we went for dinner to Pithari, the Greek restaurant in HP. I liked the place and the blue. Our only crib was with the large portions that they served. I might never forget this birthday. 3 days before it, A & I had the most nasty fall down the steps of NY Penn station and I lost my most favourite earrings that night.

A's birthday was on a Sunday. Birthday weekends are fun. There's so much more that you can do. On Saturday night, bro, sil & niece dropped in. There was garlic bread and tomato soup, the pasta that I overcooked, blackforest cake from Hotbreads and wine. We had a good time. On Sunday, we left early to have brunch at Cornelia Street Cafe in NYC (Thanks D & R - we love the place) and then spent the rest of the day at the Museum of Natural History. Everything was great but for the weather....rainy day! Need for Speed was his birthday gift. ..we have been at it since that day. Surprise surprise, I am enjoying it too!

Fun in the Sun

Beautiful beautiful day. Only recently started using the front entrance of our home. This is where I have all my sun sessions, read (finally got around to doing it!), listen to music and, essentially, have my "alone" time since A hardly ever comes down here. The intention or the need to have any time alone has never really cropped up but now that I have it, I'm savoring it. So, after devouring half a Crumbs Cappuccino cupcake, the New Yorker in my hand and the sun shining down brightly at me, I'm sitting here thinking of the Fab Faux, Diwali, J's visit........I'm happy.

My PhD in numbers

0 - number of people (me included) who thought I will do a PhD
1 - number of years in grad school before I decided on a PhD
2 - number of papers published so far
2 - also the number of trips made back to India
3 - number of years I was a TA
3 - also the number of specific aims in the thesis
4 - number of years it took me to finish
4 - also the number of pscyhophysical experiments conducted
5 - total number of completed studies I was involved with
6 - number of semesters it took to finish coursework
7 - number of intramural soccer seasons I have played in
8 - a number I couldn't relate to anything in my PhD
9 - number of conference abstracts published so far
10 - hourly rate at which subjects were paid
11 - number of months it took to finish PhD after proposal defense
28 - number of subjects that participated in the studies
35 - number of course credits completed
38 - number of research credits completed
159 - number of pages in the dissertation
400 - roughly the number of hours spent on running experiments

I apologize to the other numbers that didn't get a mention but were just as important, like the number of soccer games I followed while in lab, number of soccer games I didn't watch because I was in lab, number of coffees I drank while in lab, to name a few.

3-D illusion: Rolling eyes & nose-ring on hollow mask

This was due a long time ago.
Its an illusion created by my advisor for the Best Illusion of the Year 2008 competition and it eventually won the third prize.

The Beckham Story

Arguably the best, when it comes to dead ball situations on a football field and with an ability to drop the ball on a players head in the penalty area from almost any part of the field, a product of the Manchester United youth academy. A guy who was a default selection in Sir Alex Ferguson's side, the captain of the national team. Not to mention the most celebrated football face in the world, the only football player to have his posters on the walls of people who couldn't tell what position he played on the field.

Then something went wrong, his celebrity image got to his head the performance started to drop (though still better than most on the dead ball), the attitude changed and then came the final nail in the coffin, the dressing room boot in the face incident with Ferguson. He was sold to Real Madrid for 25 million pounds, a good deal for both clubs. Man Utd got the money, and Real Madrid got a useful player with a iconic image in Asia and rest of the world. They got what they wanted the most, an improved fan base outside of Europe. The only loser in the whole deal, David Robert Joseph Beckham.


Though, no one imagined it would be so bad. Real Madrid is a big club and is always among the trophies, but for some reason after Beckham arrived, they have failed to win a single trophy in three season, have seen six coaches and I think two (may be three) presidents. To make matters worse he hasn't started regularly for the club for the past two seasons, and now he was even dropped from the bench under the latest coach. His performance for England started to go down, at Euro 2004 in Greece he said his fitness level have gone down because there are not enough training sessions at Real (duh!!! Even a kindergarten kid can come up with better excuses). He was disappointing in the world cup as well, resigned from captaincy and then dropped from the national team. Now he is dropped from the club team and in yet another "making the sport more popular" move he is being sold to LA Galaxy where he would earn a whopping 70,000 pounds a DAY.

A real sad state of affairs for a player who was part of the treble winning side for United and was one of the more promising player for England.

To sum up he started as a football player who enjoyed a celebrity status, but is ending his career as a celebrity who can also play football.

Steve Waugh on winning and role of a leader - Always inspirational.

This is an excerpt from Steve Waugh's autobiography, his thoughts after the record breaking winning streak in test matches.

"To win so many in a row we must have been doing something right. Winning at test level requires an ability to handle pressure for sustained periods at a time and more consistently than your opponents. You have to seize the moment before it presents itself, which comes back to being able to recognize when that moment is upon you. You have to know when to retreat and stem the damage, and when to up the intensity as you sense weakness in your adversary. Each team member must know his game and prepare accordingly, with bowlers generally tapering off leading into a big game while the batsmen tend to up the tempo. The captain has to pull together 10 different individuals with contrasting personalities and character traits and get them all going in the same direction by treating them equally but differently. He also has to keep the team's reserves energized and filled with a sense of being part of the big picture. He must build morale in a way that leads to everyone believing in each other, even when those outside the team have doubts, and empower players to get outside of their comfort zone to fulfil not just their obvious potential, but also to awaken the dormant skills they might not even know about. He has to strive to continually improve his own game by recharging the batteries, clearing the mind, improving physical fitness to strengthen the body and maintaining the technique to ensure consistency, while also massaging and suppressing egos that may otherwise cause damage to the karma of the team. No one can rest on their laurels - the hunger has to be real and the intent clear."

Need I say any more about the man's thought process and man-management skills. I finished reading the autobiography long ago, and I have to admit he is the greatest of them all. The ultimate sporting idol.

For the Computer Geeks

This quote was part of the signature of one of the matlab toolbox developers.

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan

A more professional Spam

Got this mail today,

Barr.Bernett Stevenson.(Esq.)
For B.Stevenson Chambers & Advocates
Tel : + 44-702-4060982

Good day,

I am Barrister Bernett Stevenson personal Attorney to Ronald Lake and
Joyce Lake who used to work with Frank Howard Allen Realtors. On the
31st of January 2000, my client and his wife were involved in a Plane
Crash (Alaska Airlines Flight 261) all passengers unfortunately lost their
lives, since then I have made several enquiries to locate any of my
client’s extended relatives but this proved unsuccessful.

You can read more about there death on this website below:

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/

After all these several unsuccessful attempts, since it's not
compulsory that the next-of-kin must be a blood relation to the deceased, hence
I contacted you because you are from the same country with my late
client, Be informed that a next-of-kin can be anybody, friends or
organization.

Presently, the Bank where the deceased (my client) had a Deposit valued
at US$21, 437, 000.00 Million issued me a notice to provide the
next-of-kin to my client to receive its benefit or have the account
confiscated, so I have contacted you to assist me in repatriating this benefit
left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared
unserviceable by the Bank.

To this effect, I now seek your consent to present you to the Bank as
the next of kin of the deceased (my Client) so that the proceeds of this
Deposit valued at US$21, 437, 000.00 Million can be paid to you and
then you and I can share the money; 50% to me and 40% to you, while 10%
should be given to any Orphanage Home.

I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement
that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please get in touch
with me viaE-mail:bernett002@yahoo.co.uk with the below details
immediately you acknowledge the good receipt of this message.

Full Name:
Full Address:
Telephone Number:
Fax Number:
Mobile Number:
Private Email:
Age:
Occupation:
Country of Origin:
Sex:
Marital Status:

Your prompt response is highly imperative.

Yours sincerely,

Bar. Bernett Stevenson (Esq.)

Any takers???

The most inspiring speech ever

I am sure most of you have read this speech by Steve Jobs, which he gave at Stanford University. Read it if you haven't. I read it sometime last year, came across it again today. I really like the connecting the dots story, I can almost relate to it. It is like the hindsight quote on my blog, you can connect the dots only looking back.

"Stay hungry. Stay foolsih".

Is it inevitable?

Last Sunday I went to drop challa to the airport, he walked in to a duty free shop and the lady at the front desk said I couldn't walk in since I wasn't traveling. I waited outside and had a small chat with the lady. She must have been about 65 years old or so. Here is how the conversation went,

Lady: Are you his brother?
Me: No, he is friend of mine
Lady: You from India though?
Me: Yes, and where are you from?
Lady: I am from Denmark. When did you come to US?
Me: About 2 years, not so long ago. How about you?
Lady: Oh! I came here a long time ago, I came here around 1960 for my bachelors. Never went back. You can't go back after you come here.
Me: Why would you say so?
Lady: I wanted to go back, but you get caught in two worlds. You want the freedom, your own country. When you are here you want to go back and when you get back you want to come here. You get caught in between, you can almost never make up your mind.
Me: Hmm, may be!!

And then challa came back, so had to leave.

What scares me is the way she spoke, there was almost an air of inevitability about it. At this point of time I am not thinking about when to go back, simply because it's just too far ahead in time to plan, I am just concentrating on my PhD.

But like I said, the lady almost made it sound like its a decision that's already been made, its inevitable, is it?

Ever talked to a corpse head, had a bullet through your brain ...

Those are just some of the dreams that I have had over the last year or so.

- A man who was switching personality between neville (my friend and roommate) and Bruce Willis along with another huge guy were after my life, of course I killed the puny neville and just as I was about to kill this huge guy he pulled out his gun and shot me down and I swear to god I had a distinct feeling of my brain leaking out as I collapsed, it was almost real. Next thing, I woke up.

- I was talking to head who later told me he died because the jaggery I used to make some sweet in a party I threw at my place had poison in it.

- Ben the dude who lives in the apartment below us and is terribly pissed with us for making too much noise once came up to our door and forgot what he wanted to say.

- my house maid in banglore yelled at me for not cleaning up my closet.

- I was dreaming and was at a really weird place, but then in my dream this is what my thought process went - "what am I doing here, I need to wake up Nithya" :(, for people who don't know her, she is a big bully and I am gonna get my butt kicked for writing this.

These are the only things that I can come up with right now or in other words my computer is free now, need to go have a look at the results.

Ramble on

This is something what I do as a full time job, ramble on without making any sense. An (f)art I learnt back in the IIT days. But that is besides the point, which makes this whole post an oxymoron coz the idea is not to make a point. Ever seen Monty Python, I so much relate to them. For the past few months it's been a craze in my house, some of my jobless friends and me have been ruined if I may call it. "You know what I mean, eh? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more"

And now for something comletely different, the bug at the back of my house tripped over a rice grain and broke his leg.

P.S. I apologize for such a horrible post, but someone else is running my experiment on the other computer and I have nothing else to do.

The title should have been general updates

Its been a long time since I have written anything. Ideally, its a general update time. I have no enthu to write anything now, but I will leave you with a couple of pics that I saw on yahoo mail homepage.