Au Revoir 2005 as terror strikes good ol' Bangalore..

Looks like my hibernation period for this blog is 3 days...Every third day, an impulse says "key down ur stuff for now, else wait for the third day"

Finally they got into Bangalore...Thats the reaction i saw on everyone's face yesterday, after the IISc shootout..So very shameful that someone could even enter a prestigious institution with guns, ammunication and what not...I guess its not only the folks at IISc but the police (or defence, whoever is in charge of security for Bangalore..) who should have actually made an attempt (atleast!) to beef up security after all those threats and terror plans for the city...Well lets just hope this makes things better for all that Bengaluru has at stake...IT firms, Software parks, or whatever we call them...Am sure many a executive office would have discussed 'security' after what happened...No wonder the guard at my office wanted to have a look at the badge today, even before entering the campus.

Returning to the dirt track, drove the Scorpio TC3 2003 model, awesome drive..great pickup, nice interiors..really liked this one!!..but its not mine yet...and donno if ever will be..!

Didn't read anything and just ambling along these days at office...
'Dead Tenants' on Discovery was great yesterday night..Its about how a family has ghosts hidden (literally hidden) in the house and these experts who are clueless about the house come over for the weekend and find and rid the house of the spirits within..:)

Can't say they made up everything, there should have been some amount of truth to what they showed. Most of the psychics shown looked REALLY psychic...
My take, whatever was showed wasn't a sham....and the best part is the presentation...keeps u glued..

Ok, waiting for someone to go to lunch...
Let me see if i go to hibernation/standy this time..

College Fests, Motor's and me..2006 is just round the corner!!

Christmas breezed past!! But Santa was no where to be seen..Well maybe 'me' toooo grown up now for him...'The Santa ClausE' on * movies did take me back to the days when Santa really used to show up..Anyway, will expect him next year...

Played Cricket a long long time after, on Sunday..It warmed up the muscles and stirred up the joints!! Played well, good start to the season..:)
Methinks Team India's gonna win the series against Team Paki...(waiting for the one-dayers.)

A lot of college fests going on..Mood Indigo at IITB, Intaglio at IIMC...Well our IIM-Bengaluru also has its own ( forgot the name..memory's going slack)..Last year it was awesome with Strings, Parikrama, Moksha et al..

Test drove a Scorpio, Fusion and a Safari on the weekend...Scorpio was good (as expected, i found it better designed than the other two..) Fusion and Safari have a spanning dashboard (or maye its my impression..), that you need another person on the side seat for navigation..
But if not looking for a SUV, i found the Fusion a better deal..Good sturdy car, nice features, competitively priced,good manoeuvring. Checked out the Swift also, the base model really sucked..the dashboard was a copy of Fusion's...but i guess the high end model is a good buy with some new features that MUL didn't have in any of its cars till now..No wonder you see so many 'froggies' on the road..Am i going to buy a car, donno, maybe or maybe not..!!

Need to have lunch now...
So packing up...ciao!

Christmas Time - December '05!!

Two days..one movie, one walk down MG road (de facto 'Downtown' for Bangalore, or should i say Bengaluru....the latter sounds so very cliche, i guess we will know to live with it, as always..), and i am here again..

Well, was not hell busy these two days, but was jus cooling my heels. My manager says i can take the next week off and come afresh in 2006. Sounds great to me but things still need to be done, if not technical then concerning the appraisal thats coming up ( coz its the time of the year when we need to brag about what we have done all year and the staff decides if its good enough..) I have my fingers crossed ( as most of the ppl here...barring some who think its their birthright to be recognised even if they jus moved a stool from here to there..jus kidding) and hoping for the best..

Lets talk about a movie i saw just yesterday. It was 'Flavors', mostly a comedy on the indian people living outside (by choice, not birth...).......It was a witty script with not great actors (infact most of them didn't look to be actors at all..) but i guess that was the charm of it...Ordinary ppl doing things they would naturally do...

Met some preacher yesterday on MGR or downtown...whatever ( as it IS Christmas time..)..
He started saying, "These days people have a lot of pain in their hearts ( which is right) and that what we need today isn't fun (read it -- wine, dine, flirt..) but LOVE and that's what will take us to the next level of existence. We humans have come this far, made so many things, invented so new ways of relaxation but fell short on developing the inner soul. Most of us carry a lot of pain in our hearts, and each one is after something, but a little tender love, a little sympathetic touch makes us forget our pains for a moment..." and on and on..
Am not preaching what he said although I do agree with the GIST of his statements...And these things need not be tied to any religion....we all know and we can but will not do anything about it, thats known...

I have a lot of reading to do ( a new SAS and a new mini project/task that i need to do, come 2006), so i guess thats what i am going to do next week and maybe this weekend...
So Merry Christmas, if i can't find time before Sunday.....

The Blog Debut's!!

This is the first of my posts, as is evident... Always wanted to have a place to scribble what i like about. i will maintain this as a generic journal - talking everything under the sun..from what's happening in my life, what am i up to, where i have been, what's my company up to and what are we all up to...Obviously without saying it goes that views are mine and solely mine and is represented by solely me and me.....

Unlike many i really dislike ( probably too hard a word..) personal blogs where ppl write about which side of the bed they woke up to where they puked the night before...Ofcourse unless its someone hiding away in the middle of a war ravaged city, and this being the only means of communication...and wants the free world outside to know how it feels being where he/she is....
I guess that's how this all blog culture gained in popularity...BaghBad Burning???

About me, i write system software for my company...Its the chipmaking behemoth, Intel where i work presently...Good as a company to work, pretty good prospects as it's one of the less number of companies that believe's in innovation and is one of the few companies which can drive and change the market..Ofcourse, i am not eulogising Intel just because i work here, but that is what i feel about it. Doesn't have a very relaxing work environment, as sometimes it does get quite stressful out here and there's a lot of onus on an individual to perform...But if that's the price to be paid, so be it...

Enough about Intel, let talk about me...passed my engg (electrical) in the year 2003 from a college in the western part of India. It was in Surat, i really want to talk about that city, coz it has a charm and raciness that i haven't seen in any other city. Its the business hub of Gujarat and its amazing how even in the most depressing of times, it maintains that sense of 'hope' running in its streets (you can almost feel it in the air...)..

i'll end my first post here...
And my blog's just begun...
See you soon...