Sunday, July 31, 2005

The advantages of living in a big city & being a celebrity

Denise Richards.
Probably you all know this Bond girl.

Denise,34,the ex of Charlie Sheen, just delivered a baby. And she , waw, you must look at her latest pictures. She has lost all the extra weight that she gained during pregnancy and looks so beautiful. The secret of her is this diet from Fresh Dining. These guys deliver fresh, organic if you want, food daily at your door steps. This service is only available in Los Angeles, I guess. Very healthy food too. But it comes at a huge price. That's like $50 a day. $1500 a month. Kick ass.
This weekend was a needed break for me. I didn't do anything on this weekend.
I had ordered the Indian Oil Cup Cricket matches featuring India, Sri Lanka and West Indies. This was not broadcast on satellite. So I had to order on the Internet. It cost me $80 bucks. Which was basically a rip-off for the quality of broadcast. Even though it was ok and better than last time I ordered over the Internet, it was no way near the satellite quality. Every now and then it loses the stream and attempts to reconnect. And in-between it starts to buffer. So it was not really interesting to watch it.
Internet has a loooooong way to go when it comes to streaming media.

On Saturday I went for my massage and later did my groceries. Also returned my Panasonic DVD recorder at Circuit City. I love this 'try and if you don't want return' policy in US. It's so customer-friendly. Iam not sure if in India you can do this now.
It's cool.

On Sunday I again saw the match little bit. It was another boring match to be honest.
You can read about both matches on my friend VJs blog.

Then on Sunday afternoon I made 'Chettinadu Chicken Curry'. Well, now I can proclaim myself as a super awesome cook. I rock when it comes to cooking.

Then I sat down to watch 52nd Filmfare awards for South Indian Movies.
It's still going on. hehehe. DVD recorder kicks ass. I can record and watch at my comfort.

Right now watching 'Adhu Mattum Ragasiyam' on Sun TV. This series has been so well directed and it's so interesting. Iam a big fan of it now. Every now and then I wonder why I didn't get into the movie industry. hmmm...something to think about.

Friday, July 29, 2005

Natural Disasters & India & The Mystery of 26

January 26, 2001 - Bhuj earthquake (Loss of lives : Thousands)
December 26, 2004 - Indian Ocean Tsunami (Loss of lives : Hundreds of Thousands)
July 26, 2005 - Heaviest rainfall in Mumbai (Loss of lives : Hundreds)

Where is Bollywood?

At least now the people should stop God worshipping the Bollywood heroes and start doing something for the development of Mumbai.




CNN.com Pictures

So where is Bollywood?
Well....they must be relaxing at home until the water recedes completely and the Mumbai mess is cleaned up.
Iam sure after that they will have a 'fund raising concert'.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie : A Love Triangle

Well… we all know what the problem is.
Brad Pitt,42, wants to have babies but Jennifer Aniston,36, has other plans.

Jennifer feels that she still has lots of time to settle down and raise kids.
She believes that she can make it big in Hollywood and she wants to focus on her career.
Whereas Brad, he has seen the heights of Hollywood and he thinks its time to settle down and raise a family also.

Bang Bang.
We have a conflict of interest.

Now, Angelina Jolie,30, enters the scene. Angelina is fond of kids. She in fact has adopted kids. She also does lots of charity work. She is also a good will ambassador for the UN.

Brad and Angie got the sparks going between them on the sets of Mr and Mrs Smith (Which by the way I still haven’t seen. Dammit).

I wonder what will happen to this love triangle.

Sometimes, I think Brad and Jennifer should separate as they both have their own interests which conflict.

And Brad and Angie have common interests at least when it comes to kids.

Sometimes, I think that Brad and Jennifer should work things out between them. But that means one has to compromise or sacrifice or adjust or whatever you call that thing. But then, one of them will be either unhappy or living for the other.

I donno.

What’s best in a married life?

Should one give up their own interests and ambitions(in a conflict-of-interest situation) and live for the partner or just go ahead and do what they actually want to do in life?

I think east falls into the former category and west falls into the later.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Dude, Where’s my Beer ?

I have started to wonder what's going on with my life these days.
Life has become so fast and busy for me in the last few months. It's like as if I don't have enough time. I feel that I need more than 24 hours a day. I don't know if it's true that time is really running fast. I've been doing some research on this particular phenomenon called 'Schumann Resonance' and this is what I came across.

"Time is actually speeding up (or collapsing). For thousands of years the Schumann Resonance or pulse (heartbeat) of Earth has been 7.83 cycles per second, The military have used this as a very reliable reference. However, since 1980 this resonance has been slowly rising. It is now over 12 cycles per second! This means there is the equivalent of less than 16 hours per day instead of the old 24 hours. Another interpretation is - we, or rather Consciousness have been down this same road seven times before over the last 16 billion years. Each of these cycles of Creation runs 20 times faster than the last one. The same amount of Creation is paced 20 times tighter. This is why time seems to be going so fast. It is not "time" but Creation itself that is accelerating."

Is the above true or is it just that Iam managing my time badly and having an illusion that time is running fast!!! I wonder.

Everything is so fast today. Right from the time I wake up in the morning till I get ready to work, have breakfast, reach office, work, lunch, work, drive back home, gym, dinner, TV, everything seems to be happening so fast.

There is actually no time to sit and really turn myself inwards-
Shut down the outside world distractions and meditate and look inwards.

When our ancestors and some enlightened souls say, "Know yourself, you will know the world" what exactly do they mean. How many of us have even tried to know ourselves. Who are we? Why are we here? What are we doing here? What are we supposed to do here?

Has anyone else felt the same or is it just me?
What the hell is gowin on?

Yeah...what the heck. Its like 112°F outside.
Dude, Where's my Beer ?

Monday, July 25, 2005

Atlantic City, NJ

I went to Atlantic City last weekend. One of my friend booked ticket on James River Bus Lines, a local tour operator. The bus started at 6.00 am on Saturday morning and reached Atlantic City around 1.00 pm, an hour late, thanks to super heavy traffic. Huh.

Anyway, the bus ticket was $45 and they gave $27 coupon to play in Bally’s Casino.
So technically, the ticket cost me only $18. Damn cheap :)

I had lunch at Pickles, with few of my friends. Had Philly Chicken Cheesesteak. Then went for the boardwalk and spent some amazing time on the beach. WAW. So many girls in bikinis and some topless, on a perfect sunny day afternoon….what else can you ask more ;)
hmmm….may be a beer :)


mmmmm.....what's going on here...

Anyway, then I later went to the casino and played the slot machines, which is the only one I know how to play in casino. I used the $27 coupon. I won around $20 but kept on playing and finally I ended up losing all that money. Then I used another $15 from my pocket and lost them too. Then I realized Mr. Luck and I are not good friends and quit playing in casino.

Meanwhile Saravanan also joined driving all way from Wilmington, Delaware. We then hanged out on the boardwalk for the rest of the day before we finally decided it was time to get some dinner. We went to ‘Country Kitchen’ and had our dinner.
It was almost 10.00 pm and I had to leave to the bus as it was scheduled to start at 10.30 pm.

I was little exhausted and I guess I slept well on the bus during our return trip. We reached Richmond on Sunday morning around 5.00 am.
The return ride was little bumpy. Old bus. I realized that the buses in India were excellent. Far superior in quality and comfort than this bus.

Anyway, but I did enjoy my whole trip otherwise. It was fun.

Trip pictures are being developed in my lab. Will post it when it's ready.

Friday, July 22, 2005

An email letter to the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and President Dr Abdul Kalam

Dear Mr. Prime Minister/Mr. President,

I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for all that you have done to our Great India, so far.

I’ll keep this email short and simple as I do not want to take much of your precious time.

I’m aware of the fact that many government schools in Tamilnadu, have ‘Sathunavu Thittam’ (free meal), introduced by the late Chief Minister MGR, where kids are given free meal everyday during lunch hour.

I was wondering if it will be a good idea, to provide children with Multivitamin tablets or Nutrition supplements everyday they come to the school.

I’m not sure if the meal given in the ‘Sathunavu Thittam’ is a complete meal. Multivitamin tablets or Nutrition supplements though may not take care of the hunger, at least it is guaranteed to provide our children with the daily minimum necessary nutrition. And I guess mass production of this Multivitamin tablets or Nutrition supplements will ensure that the costs of these are very low.

Probably it would be ideal to provide our children with a meal and Multivitamin tablets or Nutrition supplements.

I’m not sure if this has already been implemented or not. If so, please ignore this email.

Thanks for doing an excellent job.

Jai Hind,
Vimal Natarajan

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

23 million men may not get wives in 2011!

"Not many will react if you told them that the 1981-91 census showed that there were one crore 37 lakh more boys than girls in India. However, tell them that if the trend continued, 23 million men would not get their life partners in 2011 and you would have a lot of eyebrows being raised."

http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/jul/19ncw.htm

"You reap what you sow."
"தன் வினை தன்னை சுடும்."
"To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
"Karma."
"Time for us girls to Kick Ass."

What the hell am I talking about?

Well...when the demand for girls go high in 2012 (Whaaaaaaaat 2012? So this is what is going to happen in 2012...eh...when the Mayan Calendar ends)

oh.k...when the demand for girls go high in 2012 they will start asking dowry from the guys.

hmmm....If I have lots of baby girls...then I can retire comfortably...hmmm....

think about this, seriously, I will....

Thursday, July 14, 2005

I have a way to see the referers of my blog. And once in a while, when I get bored, I go and check that out.

One of the referers was a URL, from the search results of Google.

Man, look at the search keyword.

I think by far this is the most funniest search keyword I've come across.

Funniest search keyword

My blog is listed 8th I guess.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Muslim charity claims Taj Mahal

"An Indian Muslim organization has declared that it owns the world's most famous monument to love, the Taj Mahal.

The Sunni Waqf Board says it owns over 100,000 properties in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where the spectacular marble mausoleum is located.

It says since the Taj Mahal houses several Muslim graves it falls under its jurisdiction."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4348663.stm

eh....mmm...all the land in India (including graves), falls under the jurisdiction of the Indian government.
So by their(Sunni Waqf Board) own logic, the Taj Mahal falls back under the jurisdiction of the Indian government.

So what is the problem here???

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Do you know that pilots of fighter planes and long range bombers wear diapers?

This is in case they need to 'relieve' in flight.

Women pilots and most men pilots use diapers and few men pilots use urinal-type bag.

"Not sure about pilots but if its raining then it isn't necessary to stop a motorcycle to urinate."
-Anonymous
Read the title of this article in Times Of India.

http://cricket.indiatimes.com/quickies/1167134.cms

And people talk about me using the word Kick Ass. huh.

I was first to report Aish becoming fat. Then the news later came in Times Of India.
Now this one. Iam wondering if Times of India is copying content ideas from my blog.

hmm.. Wondering Iam....
copyright my work I will.

Disclaimer : Iam not responsible if you are totally pissed off when you open the above link and have no pop-up blocker in your browser.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Oopsie

I got a call today evening from the insurance company of the Honda Accord guy. She told me that the guy had canceled his insurance this May. She said she will contact his agent and see if he has a new insurance with someone else or not and let me know.
If he doesn't have insurance, she said I can claim the damages from my insurance company and my insurance guys will go after that Honda Accord guy and even sue him if necessary :-O
I just got off the phone talking to the father of the lady who was involved in the accident. He told that her neck was bothering little bit yesterday and also her ankles. So she was in hospital for a day and returned home last night. He told that she is feeling better now, just a little sore neck. Iam glad that she is ok. Thank God.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Other than the Saturday accident that I had, this weekend was a normal weekend.

Manjunath, who was supposed to come to Richmond this weekend, couldn't come at the last minute as he was unable to rendezvous with his brother-in-law at Baltimore on Saturday. So I just ended up going to some local clubs to do some Page 3 stuff.

Since almost every software company is doing good these days, I too decided to join the rat race. I registered a software company in the name KASC.
KASC literally stands for Kick Ass Software Corporation. The slogan of my company will be 'We Kick Ass'.

Then I cooked Sri Lankan fish curry and chicken curry on Sunday. Then...Oh my God, I got to do my Laundry. C'ya guys later.

How it feels to be 'kicked' from behind? It hurts.

Somebody kicked my ass on Saturday, sorta !
Well, actually it was my car's.

I was waiting on Three Chopt Road merge ramp to get onto N Parham road on a beautiful sunny Saturday noon (around 1230pm).



Suddenly I had a big shock, I knew immediately someone hit my car from behind.
I parked my car right there on the road and got down to see what happened.
A 2002 Mercury Mountaineer had hit me from behind.

This is the same SUV that I've been talking about where Jill Wagner comes in the TV Ad.

Then when my eyes went to the rear bumper of my car, I noticed few minor damages. I had few scratches and a little chip.
The Mountaineer too didn't have much damage on its front. The damages were actually less than what I anticipated based on the shock I had.

Then I walked around and saw and realized that I only had a secondary impact.

What actually happened was a Honda Accord had come fast and hit the rear of the Mercury Mountaineer and the Mountaineer had reacted to it and hit my car.

The reason I believe that the Accord had come fast was because of the damage to the Accord. It was very bad.
The airbags were deployed, and the windshield had cracked because of that and engine hood of the car had crumpled. There is no way all that could have happened, in my opinion, unless the driver had been driving fast.

That driver was a guy around 30s.He had some sore scratches on his face, due to the impact of the airbag.

But the lady in the Mountaineer, she was injured the most. She had a strange feeling around her throat. She said that she felt like someone is squeezing her throat and the back of the throat felt like was pushing at the front.

The Accord guy called 911. 911 is the emergency number here in US. You can call that number for virtually any kind of emergency. Road accidents, Fire accidents, Medical emergency, robbery, theft, almost everything.

This is one of the things that I admire in this country. After calling 911 within 3 minutes we had a Fire truck at the spot. The next minute a rescue squad ambulance was at the spot. Then they all helped the lady to lay her on a stretcher and took her to the hospital of her choice in the ambulance. The cops were on the scene on the 7th minute.

Anyone remember the scene from Anniyan movie, where a guy was left to die on the streets of Chennai?

Even though many in India may not like what Iam going to say now, well... lets be honest, that's the truth.

Seeing such things, sometimes I wonder if the value of life in India, in many occasions, is less than the value of life here in America.

Whenever someone says India is becoming more westernized...I feel sad. Being westernized is not just copying their Friday nights and Saturday nights. It's not all about the way you dress or talk. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong in copying , but what you copy makes the difference. Instead of following good things, we only follow the not-so-necessary things. Or in other words, Page 3 kinda things.

There are so many good things that India can learn from the west and be westernized in that sense, not just Page 3 stuff.

Anyway, the cop helped all 3 of us to exchange our car/driver/insurance information. The lady's father had arrived at the scene by that time. The lady had earlier called her father.

I came home and reported the accident to my insurance company. I took my car to my dealer and Matt who is my dealer told that Monday he will give the contact details of a person who does touch-up work.

I hope I can get all the repair charges from the insurance company.
Anyway, now my Bimmer is not new any more and it's not perfect any more.

I will have to call the lady's family on Monday and check how she is doing.
I hope she is ok. Car's can be bought and sold.But life. Thank God. Hope she is not injured much and recovers fast.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

What happened in Virginia Beach?

Though no outsider knows what exactly happened at Virginia Beach, some documents which were earlier declared 'Classified' have been released for the public.
These documents does not tell the story completely.

Unconfirmed reports say that the other highly classified documents will never be made public due to their highly sensitive content.

Released documents

More protests over Ayodhya attack

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has criticised the protests, saying they were being used to score "cheap political points".

Opposition leader LK Advani has said people had a right to "express their anger over the attack".

Advani has clearly proven this time that he is an opportunistic.

I agree with our PM Manmohan Singh.

I don't know if Advani has Alzheimer's or not.
Did he forget that one of the country's worst terrorist attack, attack on our parliament happened when BJP was in power?

At that time, I think Sonia Gandhi and the whole nation stood by and supported the government.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4655639.stm

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

My white water rafting trip pictures

At last I managed to configure 'Gallery' software in my server.
I have uploaded the pictures of my White Water Rafting trip here.

http://www.planetvimal.com/gallery

I think it's super slow.

Iam sorry for that folks. I'll talk to the server guys and see why it's slow.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

White Water Rafting at New River , WV

WAW. What A Weekend.

What a long weekend!
This was one of the best adventurous weekends I had so far.

I went White Water Rafting in West Virginia (WV) on the New River Gorge.
It all started on Thursday when I decided to change plans from relaxing at the Nags Head beach to rafting. Saravanan, was cool with the change of plans.

I decided to book a cabin this time, as I love staying in the woods. A welcoming break from the hustle bustle city crowd.

I booked my cabin at Rifrafters Campground

This was so cheap. Only $15 per person, per night. The cabin pictured in the website is the same cabin where we stayed. More pictures in trip album.

I also reserved a trip with ACE Adventure Center.
I decided to do the Lower New River Whitewater rafting.

Saravanan drove all the way from Delaware on Friday evening and reached home around midnight. We then started the next day afternoon to Fayetteville, West Virginia. It was almost 4 hours drive from Richmond, VA.


Our Cabin in the Woods

We checked-in our cabin that evening and started out to see the New River Gorge Bridge, which is the largest arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere. It was just 2 miles from our cabin.

We went to the bridge, took lots of pictures. We also went hiking near the bridge. Got some super awesome pictures from the top of the mountain.


New River Gorge


New River Gorge Bridge


New River Gorge and the Bridge


Rafters

Then we drove all the way down to the river and spend some time there. The drive through the gorge was adventurous.

Then we came to our cabin and settled for the night.

The next day we got up early and went to ACE to start our adventure.
The rafting trip was 16 miles with around 30+ rapids.
2 of them were Class V rapids. The remaining 70% of them were Class IV and the rest Class III and Class II. Class VI rapids are the most dangerous, Class V following it.
Very few have survived a fall in Class VI rapids.
It’s that dangerous.

It was a full day trip. The trip started at 1030.
Our guide was a super awesome girl called Erin. She was really good and funny.
Morning we came across few Class II, III and IV rapids.
We did all rapids perfectly. There were 7 including Erin, in our raft. One Chinese guy called Peter kept falling off the raft so often. Wherever there was a chance of falling, he fell in the river.
He was very funny.

After a while there was a huge rock, besides the river. It was like 20-25 feet high. People were allowed to jump from the rock into the river. I was so nervous at first attempt. Standing at the cliff and looking down the river, I backed off.
On my next attempt, I just took a deep breath and jumped. This time I only looked down at the river after jumping. Even though I’m not a good swimmer, I had a PFD. So I did a pretty good job after I jumped into the river. I surfaced and was enjoying my swim in the river. That was amazing experience.

Then after some time, we were allowed to swim at a different place where the river was little calm. Then we banked on the river to have lunch. Lunch was some sandwich, got by ACE.

After lunch we started the second part of our journey. This segment had 2 Class V rapids and lots of Class IV rapids. We managed to get through all of them. Peter, as usual kept falling in the rapids. We also did surfing in the rapid holes.

Man , surfing was one hell of a wild adventure. Tons of water pouring over us and the raft and the raft tossing and turning in all directions, sometimes about to flip-over, WOW, white water rafting kicks ass dude.
Even though the surf lasts only few seconds, those few seconds can be very wild. Trust me.

Then it was like almost 6 in the evening. Our adventurous white water rafting came to an end. We all deflated the raft and boarded the bus to base camp. It was so good to taste some refreshing beer on the bus.

Then later at the base camp, we went to the bar with Erin. I bought her a drink and was hanging out for a while in the bar. It was lot of fun. Erin was very funny and very excited, even though she had done this so many times. Then after a long day I called it a night and drove back to the cabin for some good sleep.

The next day we got up and packed our stuff and started our journey back to Richmond.

Overall, it was a wild adventurous weekend. Lots of fun.
Gonna do it again

Friday, July 01, 2005

Men are promiscuous - Yana Gupta



Yana Gupta on men, movies and more...

Happy To Be An Item Bomb : I enjoy the item girl tag and am not hankering after full-fledged roles. In fact in place of doing roles like that of Madhuri's in 'Devdas' or Rani Mukherji's in 'Black' I would prefer doing the roles of smart, tough women like Jennifer Garner in 'Alien' and Angelina Jolie in 'Tomb Raider'.

If You Have Seen One, You Have Seen 'Em All : There is one word which describes all men - promiscuous. All they care about is looks. I see so many of them going out with beautiful women who are shallow and driven by self interest. Well, to each his own.

At Home In India : I have travelled all over the world but feel at home only in India. You cannot compare India with any other country in the world.

http://people.indiatimes.com/tabloid/1157513.cms