bikku's Journal

Batman: The dark knight

2008-07-23T12:32:00.000-07:00

Watched 'the dark knight' last week. It was a good movie, no wonder it is making all this money. The characters were good; Heath Ledger was superb and played the dark psyche of Joker brilliantly. However, the last quartile of the movie, as one of my friend said - "was an excuse for torture and wire-tapping". Something to contemplate I guess.

Caravan AKA Himalaya

2007-08-07T08:14:00.000-07:00

Caravan, renamed Himalaya, is a movie about the people of Dolpo (Mountains in Nepal) and their struggles for survival against the elements of nature. The movie was also nominated for Oscars in the best foreign language category. I won't write more about the movie because I don't consider myself a critic, but as a viewer who enjoyed watching it, I recommend y'll to watch it if you get a chance.

Sunset point, Sarasota

2007-06-25T15:59:00.001-07:00

Picture taken by a friend, Ravi, at Sunset point, Sarasota...

A blog about nothing

2007-02-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

Recently, I read someone's blog about new year resolutions and one of the resolutions was to blog more frequently. At that time, I realized that I had forgotten the password to this account, but I didn't worry much because I knew that blogger.com has the password recovery system. But then I had forgotten the username as well. Hahaha... I guess this is a common thing as blogger.com has a system to recover your username as well. So, this post is dedicated to all of you guilty of forgetting the usernames and passwords.

On a more serious note, it is getting more and more difficult now-a-days to remember all the sites of which one is member of. I would be happy to own an ID and use it everywhere instead of registering at every site. I believe thats the larger pictuer behind Microsoft passport and some other universal login program. Lets see what will happen in the future.

hehe... how to dissuade yourself from becoming a blogger... good one..

2006-09-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

Interesting read....

How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger

What a buzz all the bloggers are making these days! It seems like just about everybody is pouring their musings into a text box. Are you feeling tempted to start a blog of your own? Here are some ways to bypass the trend.

Steps

Find five completely random blogs, and read them daily for a month. After thirty days, you will absolutely dread your self-imposed requirement to read all that dreck. Any blog you create will most likely be on par with what you've been reading. Don't put anyone through that.
Consider that your voice, even if it is truly a good one, is a tiny peep against the massive wave of tripe out there. The odds of anyone you don't already know finding your blog are low.

etc. etc...

For more details go to:

http://www.wikihow.com/Dissuade-Yourself-from-Becoming-a-Blogger

Life is complex!!!

2006-07-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

The Broker

2006-07-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading the "The broker" by John Grisham, an alumni of MsState. In fact, there is a library room dedicated to him -- The John Grisham room.

Anyway, coming back to the book, it shows some aspects of lobbying, the spy games, and the human attitude towards survival. Most or rather all of the books from Grisham revolves around a lawyer and contains a lot of political tension. In this novel, he went a step further and went international. Some description of Italian cities/towns, some insight on learning the Italian language, and also into the workings of the world of international assassins like CIA, Mossad, Red China etc (May be complete fiction, but I would like to believe that he did some research before writing). All in all, I would like to say that the book is a good read and a good pass-time.

The case with Ronaldo

2006-06-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

In sports there are some prodigies who never reach their potential. No matter what they achieve, people always point out faults in them – someone is too old, someone is fat, someone doesn’t score fast enough, someone is not a match winner etc. etc. Ronaldo is one of such players. I remember him in France 98, hugely hyped, and he delivered until that final with France. What happened then, I cannot explain. But, that Brazil team was not the team I was following earlier. And this happens, when the player that the team thinks will deliver them to the glory, gets some unexplained fit. And he did suffer some serious injury after that.

But, then there was WorldCup 2002, where he delivered. And since then, I guess he is playing pretty well. Just check the list of top scorers in Spanish league over the years, and also the number of goals he scored for Real Madrid. I would say he is pretty consistant except for this season where he was injured.

2002/2003
----------------------
Name Total(Penalties)
Makaay (Deportivo) 39 (3)
Ronaldo (Real Madrid) 30 (0)
Raúl (Real Madrid) 25 (0)
Nihat (Real Sociedad) 23 (0)
Kluivert (Barcelona) 21 (1)
Dely Valdés (Málaga) 21 (6)
Kovacevic (Real Soc) 20 (1)
Saviola (Barcelona) 20 (0)
Eto'o (Mallorca) 19 (3)
Pandiani (Mallorca) 19 (6)
Diego Tristán (Deportivo) 19 (4)

2003/2004
----------------
Name Total(Penalties)
Ronaldo (Real Madrid) 31 (1)
Baptista (Sevilla) 25 (7)
Mista (Valencia) 24 (1)
Salva (Málaga) 22 (6)
Eto'o (Mallorca) 22 (6)
Ronaldinho (Barcelona) 22 (4)
Torres (Atlético) 21 (5)
Villa (Zaragoza) 21 (8)
Pandiani (Deportivo) 20 (1)
Raúl (Real Madrid) 20 (0)

2004/2005
--------------
Name Total (Penalties)
Eto'o (Barcelona) 28 (4)
Oliveira (Betis) 26 (2)
Forlán (Villarreal) 25 (0)
Baptista (Sevilla) 25 (7)
Ronaldo (Real Madrid) 24 (1)
Torres (Atlético) 20 (6)
Ezquerro (Athletic) 19 (0)
Riquelme (Villarreal) 18 (9)
Villa (Zaragoza) 18 (3)
Owen (Real Madrid) 16 (0)

2005/2006
----------------
Eto'o (Barcelona) 26 2 6 34 (1)
David Villa (Valencia) 25 2 1 28 (7)
Ronaldinho (Barcelona) 17 2 7 26 (10)
Diego Milito (Zaragoza) 15 6 0 21 (1)
Ewerthon (Zaragoza) 12 8 0 20 (1)
Ronaldo (Real Madrid) 14 1 0 15 (1)
Larsson (Barcelona) 10 4 1 15 (0)
Luis García (Espanyol) 10 3 2 15 (2)
Saviola (Sevilla) 9 0 6 15 (0)
Baiano (Celta) 13 1 0 14 (3)

Clikedy clikedy click

2006-06-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

If you have watched "Barbapapa" then you know what the title of this post stands for. And if you haven't, it is nothing worth learning about.

Anyway, I watched the movie "Click" yesterday. It is a good time-pass movie where Adam Sandler gets a Universal remote, at the Beyond (lol) section of Bed, Bath and Beyond, that can control his life like a usual remote controls the tv and other electronic stuff. He surely enjoys the liberty that he can exercise using the remote, but ends up messing up his life. In a way, the moral of the story is "There are no short-cuts in life". I don't want to spoil the fun by ramling about the movie, but I will say that it is a fun way to spend some 2 hours and 7 bucks. So, go ahead and watch the movie if you don't have anything better to do... I am eagerly waiting for Mr. Sparrow (Pirates of the Carribean) and Superman to hit the theaters though...

And there is this Football World cup (Soccer for those who don't know about it yet!!) that I am following now. The next match is between Argentina and Mexico... Would be a fun one to watch. I am supporting Brazil as always. Hope they win again.

Actually I follow almost all of the games that I can, besides baseball... I don't know if one day I will start following it as well. I used to hate cricket, and somehow got hooked with it. I think the cable television industry has a lot to do with spreading the sports around the world. Current score between India and West Indies is
West Indies 581
India 64/1 (14.0 ov)

Tire Safety

2006-06-15T09:33:00.000-07:00

Yet again, another tire of my car was hopelessly worn out, and I had to replace the tire. This is the third time in two years that I had to get a new tire. When I think of it, I had replaced the tire around 2 years & 9 months back. The way the tires are advertised you would think that these are going to last forever, but sadly mine seem to get bust pretty fast...

So, I concluded that I didn't take care of the tires as I should have. I never rotated the tires, never balanced them, and didn't inflate them as often as I should have. If I had done so, then they might have lasted more. I am thankful though that I changed the tire before it went flat and I was stranded.

Here is a good link to tire care... Read it and drive Safe!

Monday morning!

2006-06-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

What can I say, its Monday morning! Start to a fresh week, and a sad sad farewell to the relaxed weekend.

I don't know about you guys, but I always have trouble getting up early on a Monday. By Friday, I get up on time even without the alarm but again with Saturday's and Sunday's blissful morning sleep; the body cycle goes haywire. :(

About the Nepal Trip: Follow up

2006-06-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

Well, as a follow up to my earlier posts about the Nepal Trip - I did go to Nepal, via Qatar on Qatar airlines and Continental. As I was talking about the airline tickets and other information let me give some insights... Tickets were damn expensive owing to the US travel season, which falls during July-Sept and Dec-Jan. So, take my advice and try to avoid these times for travel to save the mucho-dinaros. Service on planes was all right but they did manage to lose my bags on our way back. They arrived 4 days after I me, badly soaked and torn. After a while, I stopped pressing for compensation... I have now realized that, after some lousy hours on the phone with the operator, it is not worth it!!!

About the trip itself, it was great to be home... But I also realized, that you never go back to home.. Things change... People change... and everything else changes...

Here is a Picture of Shwyambhu in Kathmandu...

Comfort Zone

2006-06-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

Well, its been long since I wrote anything on this post, in fact too long. But, today a friend came and told me that he has started to write his blogs on a regular basics. I went through it and I enjoyed reading his blogs. If you are interested, then you can check it out in http://rohitchaube.blogspot.com. It was when I remembered that I had created this blog.
I have been contemplating about comfort zone, the title of this blog, for a long time now. Why do we get comfortable with our surroundings? Why do we resist the changes? I am not talking about the conservative and liberal debate here but general life of people. I have seen people, all the way to US from their home overseas, still living within 1 mile from their first apartment after 15 years living here. Because they are too comfortable with their surroundings!!! I am looking for a new apartment now and that is exactly what I feel. I would like to live near the place I am living now and feel secure, enjoy the surroundings, and be in my comfort zone. Also, I am also working in the same place where I was working as a student and didn't look outside much after being offered the job by my employer. Another comfort zone scenario... Sometimes I feel what and where I would have ended had I attempted to venture outside my comfort zone... Well, you never know...

Nepal Trip

2005-06-18T09:18:00.001-07:00

I am planning a trip to Nepal and now I realize the overwhelming number tasks that need to be done. First of all, June-July-August is the peak season and therefore tickets are expensive.. Therefore, one needs to find the travel agencies that specialize in the tickets to Nepal. Those who specialize in India are generally not good enough for us as they are giving me higher prices. The best rates that I have got so far are from Himalayan travels, Third eye travels and peaceland travels... all run by nepalese.. And don't even think about orbitz, travelocity etc...

Another aspect of the travel is the process (not that overwhelming but as important).. International Office of my university has been very helpful and have forms and procedures in place.

And finally, the research work has to be documented. Also need to define the directions and milestones and maybe schedule (and follow it) so that I graduate in the fall.

New rules: NO Hongkong

2005-06-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

Last time I talked about the Nepal trip, I was optimistic but then again I faced some unexpected problems. Hongkong, where people from certain countries can stay without a visa for upto 90 days, requires a transit visa for Nepalese. Hongkong, where there are over 50,000 Nepalese as lawful residents requires a transit visa for Nepalese. Hongkong, a place florished by free trade requires a transit visa... Ironic, isn't it? but what bugs me most isn't their policy regarding Nepal and Nepalese, rather it is the silence from Nepalese media, politicians and everyone else. Whoever I talk to rather blames the Nepalese people than questioning the motive of the Hongkong govt. Hopefully someone does.. At least ask why?? The next step would be to reciprocate the gesture.