Viva Las Vegas

December time…. time to party and leave town and hit the road to newer places. And being in California, the nearest places evidently, for guys, turn out to be Las Vegas. And since the drive itself was long, we planned to throw in a trip to natural wonder of Grand Canyon. That would mean a trip across three states within a span of four days. As wonderful as the trip was, the most amazing thing that I got to lay my hands on was a brand new Toyota Avalon. Packed with a loaded dashboard, amazing interiors and leather seats, it is what pumps adrenaline into any guy who takes driving as a passion. Not surprisingly, that is what I miss the most of the trip. Talk about strange rememberance and memories ! The trip though, in itself, was quite amazing. The man made beauties of Vegas combined with the natural views of the Canyon – what more could one want.

For those interested, pictures (loads of it) are available here.

A night in the woods!

The four, three guys and a girl, got off the bus in the silent serpentine road, bordered on either side by nothing other than tall trees, engulfed in dark shadows of themselves. As the bus drew off, the darkness surged back in. The only light visible from any direction being the small flashlight paving the way. A few quick steps and an old gate stood blocking the way into more wilderness. As expected, the gate opened with a squeak and the party walked on into what seemed like more nothingness. Until a house came into the view.

Now would you not expect this to be the most cliched beginning of horror movies ? And that was exactly the eerie feeling as we walked in to this place in the woods of Bonnydoon, off Santa Cruz. But once in we were greeted by something quite different. A lavishly decorated house, complete in all respects (including a wonderful home theatre system complete with a widescreen HDTV and 5.1 surround sound system). The place was as cozy as it was huge, and equally well maintained. When I had first come to this sleepy town of Santa Cruz, I found it a welcome break from the noisier big cities that I had lived in previously. Now this place was just like an outhouse place where one can safely retire away from the humdrum of daily life. As if that was not enough, it was topped off with total alienation by lack of cellular service network.

I enjoyed staying there the night. But living there — no, not for me. I am, perhaps, too much of a worldly person.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Sitting in my cubicle, I sometimes indulge in sneaking off into the world of the internet to hunt for quotes, funny and otherwise. The reader’s digest Quotable Quotes is what I think got me interested in this habit of collecting (and even memorizing) some lovely quotes. So much so, that I sometimes find myself making them off-hand. Hmm…. the bad thing is that I might be losing my originality. Anyway, it is hence not a surprise that I stop by the Reader’s Digest online edition and check it out. That’s where I came across this cartoon :

It takes me back to this other night at a party. In some way the talk came to pets – the most common ones being Cats and Dogs. I had read some article somewhere describing the psychology behind the usual female attraction to cats as opposed to dogs for guys.

Disclaiming it to be any way something that I came up with or feel, the explanation goes like – Modern day ladies, with all the women’s empowerment movements around the globe, want to be in control of their own lives. They want to be independent and a server of none. Cats, with the concept of them owning you as opposed to you owning them, somehow fit into all that women today aspire to be. Dogs on the other hand, are more of the listener. They will obey the masters command and be loyal to the food provider. That’s exactly what men, somewhere deep down in their subconcious mind, have been genetically coded to look in a household. The control of it, being the master – the head of the family. A lot of all this really does not fit into today’s world, I guess.

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.” ––  Robert Heinlein

I was explaining this to a lady and she decided to take a poll within the uninitiated evenly populated group chatting away on different topics. Surprise, surprise. The theory stood. For whatever reasons, most of the guys were either for dogs, or both. And the opposite for the fairer sex.

And I thought that psychology was just a mind game, which I feel I am good and bad at, at the same time.

Life is beautiful

When greed meets pride, the worst sins are committed. And religion has nothing to do with it. I am in a bit of a heavier side sentimentally since I got off from watching this movie. If humanity has anything to be ashamed of, it should be of the acts which require a father to lie to a child to protect him. Ashamed of the fact when Annie Franks have to go into hiding when she should really be enjoying life. Ashamed when kids barely in their teens have to take up arms in the hope of survival. Or for the survival of hope.

They say that our sweetest songs are those which sing of the saddest tales. Truth be told, I thoroughly enjoy watching such films in solitude. Enjoy – for lack of a better word to describe the occasional shame of being human. Perhaps the only species so brutal to its own. Every such movie made, I guess, is a graphic sorry blurted out by people who did not commit the crimes, by people atoning for sins of others.

What astonishes me even more is how we fail to learn from history. How we turn a blind eye to our past in search of fame and power. How we turn deaf ears to numerous Pete Seegers*, blind eyes to movies and books showcasing the wrongs. The reasons differ, the actions differ, but the suffering remains the same. There just cannot be a winner in a war. “When will they ever learn ?”

* Pete Seeger reference made for the following song : “Where have all the flowers gone”.

A lot of nothings…

Statutory warning : most of the stuff in this entry are technical in nature and may be boring to some (if any) readers. This is an aberration from the general content of my posts !

Well, what do you expect? It seems just like the other day that I arrived here, and the first quarter of the academic is year behind me already. Haven’t got much sleep for the last week or so, some nights out of necessity, some just for the heck of it. So when I warmed up my bed for such a long time today, it felt like a long overdue thing. So finally I get time to play around with my new laptop. People who know me know that I am the kind of person who spends time and (some) money on sight and sound. I am glad that I spent a few extra dollars on the slick screen that came with my new Dell laptop. I was really pissed off when the Ubuntu distribution I tried out did not give me the best effects out of the box. Google, google, hack, hack…. and finally !! A great screen. I would say it does not come far behind the excellent Mac ones.

There are other things in Linux to be taken care of still. The wireless thing is not readily supported, though the Ethernet car works just fine. I expect to get that working by today. And stupid Matlab will not install because of some display problem. Now these are real deal breakers. And high on the priority list of working around right now.

In my perpetual search for extensions to Firefox, finally my hopeless search of getting European football action delivered to my browser is satisfied. For sometime now I have been trying to get the latest news, scores and schedules of the big league matches displayed in my personalized Google home. That and the authentic weather of the three cities that I am interested in, the ones that I have stayed in. But things just refuse to refresh, with updated and authentic information. And finally, FootieFox looks like the answer to the football part of the search. This thing so excites me with what it promises to deliver that I am tempted to devote a separate blog entry for this extension alone. But I refrain from reporting too early. Let me evaluate it for a few days and then probably I will give it its just dues. Right now it reports that Reading leads Newscastle United 2:1 in the English Premiere League.