T20

GreatBong says it well.

Bloggers of the world unite

Man, this is not funny anymore. Here's Amit Verma's summary on the IIPM vs Sabnis/Bansal/free speech episode. The latest update is that Gaurav Sabnis has resigned from IBM over this issue.

Hey!

Hello, world!

Blogging as usual

After a few weeks of being blase about blogging, we are back to our regular programming.

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I leave for San Jose on Sunday night. Will be passing through sunny Singapore, where I have a day to kill and a date to kill for. Will be back in Bangalore on the 31st.

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Had a good laugh watching Ju-On the other night. Sorry, ! I guess I'm too old for all this now.

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Dean Koontz once wrote a book called 'How to Write Bestselling Fiction'. While I don't rate Koontz very high as a writer, I thought he made a few good points. One that stuck with me was that a good book should always immerse the reader in the story so much that the reader shouldn't realize he is reading a book at all.

Stephen King's Wolves of the Calla starts off by dragging you deep into the story. Obviously inspired by Seven Samurai and other such epics, it does a fairly decent job of keeping the reader occupied. Occupied and happy till the last couple of pages, when King slaps you twice across the cheeks, pours cold water on you and jolts you awake, yelling "Hey, wake up, dummy! You are reading a book! Muahahahaha!". Jackass.

I'm not looking forward to reading Song of Susannah now, though I know I must. Ka.

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The office serves free lunch on Fridays, usually ordered from a nearby restaurant. The food is a mix of non-vegetarian and grass-roots fare and is almost always yummy. A co-worker brought his own lunch today, though. He told me it was to protest against the Benny Hinn event in Bangalore. No, seriously. He felt that he would be supporting the show if he ate the food at work, so he stuck to puliyogare and curd rice.

I think I'll pack up and go home now.

Zenarchery

Nice post on evolution and faith.

Mozhsenikku Sultansom

I bronched the kobble, platted the keeble and wranked out all the pichandles. Looked minumel to me, so I natted to everyone. The response was knuhel, knuhel, knuhel.

Krab the mottlestone, this is reeventide.

Question

I'm looking for a blogging tool - preferably freeware - that can be used within an enterprise. This is to be used mainly for knowledge management, sharing of information, email updates, etc. Should have a good search function and security features.

I'm not sure I can setup LJ to do this. Does anyone know of other tools that are available? Movable Type? WordPress? Any pointers on how to set it up easily?

Blah blah

Just can't be bothered to post much these days. I'm entering that oh-so-familiar phase of LJ withdrawal, where I drawn in my keyboard, tuck away the mouse and surf the web for porn.

I was composing an LJ post while watching Laksyha the other day, but just didn't have the energy to convert it into bits and bytes. I liked the movie, Hrithik is a very underrated actor, Amitabh was miscast, half an hour could have been shaved off, there are too many cliches, the cinematography is excellent, the climax is brilliant and Farhan Akhtar is on the way to God-hood in my book.

I feel so blah about LJ I don't even feel like talking about the small accident with the car. My brother was driving, no one was hurt, got the car back yesterday, insurance is taking care of 80% of the damage.

Wanted to talk about the first night-out I had at work in five years, but blessed are the blahs: I will stop.

PS:

Note to self: Do not be argumentative in others journals. , I owe you an apology

Falling flat..

Remind me not to attempt being funny again. I just don't have the knack for it. And hey, if anyone's going to click on that link, Matrix SPOLIERS in the comments! Be warned !

, smileys are essential !

More on my live-journal

Funny how this journal thing turned out. When I started off, my intended audience was mainly myself, though the inspiration came from and . too started to post and it became a way for real life friends like us to update each other on the latest and greatest. Nice and cozy.

The first real invader was . He added both and me to his friends list, which caused us a lot of confusion and worry. Who was this guy in real life ? We were sure he was one of our college mates - who else would be interested in reading our journals ? Enlightenment dawned when we realized that you don't need to be friends in real life to befriend another l-jer. A-ha ! , the grand-daddy of all India based l-jers was next, followed by , , , , , et al. I went out and searched lots of journals, went on multiple adding sprees. Removed some, retained most.

I've been consciously trying not to post for any specific reader in mind. This journal is exactly what it should be, IMO - an online diary. Its been fun and I don't want to stop. However my target audience remains the same - myself. This is being quite self centered I guess, but what the heck ! My previous post was intended to convey this. It wasn't an angry outburst against anyone or anything in particular.

One very pleasant outcome of the entire l-j experience has been meeting a bunch of extremely nice people with similar tastes. I've met folks here who share my passion for movies, books, quizzing, trivia, beer, beef, asterix, kerala, sheer cussiness and what have you. You folks know who you are, take a bow. And thanks for making this a great ride.

Thoughts about my live journal

One thing you will never find on my journal is syrupy cuteness. I hope not.

I will not write *hugs* or (((((hugs)))))) in response to anyone's comment.
I will not drool over your new shirt nor your new makeup.
I will not ask you for your opinion on the war.
I will not mind if you add or remove me from your friends list. I do the same anyway.

And oh, this privacy thingy has been bothering me for a while. Most of my posts are now friends-only. A few have been private and a couple have been for just a few friends. So sue me.

Hello World

I'm here, alive and well. Just been too busy to post.

Viva Live Journal !

Is it just me or do others also think that most of the Indian blogs on blogspot are full of pretentious twaddle ? Hmph !

Yes, I am bored !

Friends online

Most of the people who read my journal - or have me as their friend in l-j - are folks known to me. Updating l-j has taken the place of sending them email. Which is not a very good thing. My fault really, since guys like still continue to mail me every now and then. But not the other way around. Sorry, buddy !

The good part is that not all the l-j friends are people I know personally. I was surprised to see add me to his list of friends. Went to his page and thought that the name 'Kiran Jonalagadda' was familiar. Poked around a bit and found that he used to work for Chip, a magazine I was addicted to some time back. Small world.

Ditto w.r.t. , who remained mysterious till a couple of months back. :-)

Maybe I should get out and meet more people. At least online.

Back in business

Updating L-J after a long time. Was busy with my back. Then with work. Right now both are under control, so have some moments of breathing space. (take a deep breath...)

Hunted all over Bangalore for the second and third parts of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Finally found the second, The Subtle Knife, in the unlikeliest of places - Gangarams ! My opinion of this bookshop went up marginally after this. Was so happy I picked up a couple of other books too - Peter Carey's Booker winner A True History of the Kelley Gang and Terry Pratchett's Guards ! Guards!

I read in a web site that the Carey book doesn't use commas. Interesting.

Terry Pratchett's Guards Guards is the 8th in his Discworld series. The book is dedicated to all the guards who appear in movies around the 10th minute and are summarily dispatched by the hero. Poor souls.

Completed 2/3rds of The Subtle Knife. Quite good. Comparisons with Tolkien and JK Rowling are inevitable, according to critics. To my mind though, I don't think Pullman should be compared with Rowling - they are in two different leagues altogether. Not to pull Rowling down, but her books are targeted primarily at children. Pullman is also classified as a kiddies writer, but the two books I've read can be appreciated at multiple levels. Tolkien however wins the battle hands down for the sheer depth and range of his writing in The Lord of the Rings. Suffice to say that I think all three authors have their own space and market. The good part is that both Rowling and Pullman are alive and continue to write !

Tried to see Robert Altman's Gosford Park, but the audio was quite bad. Didn't like it much and switched off without bothering to find out who the murderer was.

Pirate of the 21st Century

Ran into some Divx stuff - lots of movies, amazing quality. Found out a good web page where one can get tools to convert these files into formats which can be played on vcd players. What more can one ask for ? Bliss...Of course, this is all theory. Need to try it out and confirm if everything works.

Hot Topic of the Day - was voted as the Man of the Year in a recent Web event. Bravo, Mujib ! We always knew you had it in you !

Sindha has gone back to Manipal. We were together for over 2 weeks, what with Christmas, New Year and other stuff. Being separated after a long time together is tough.

Kichan might be coming over to Bangalore to prepare for his Civil Services prelims. I am on the lookout for good coaching centers. Haven't zeroed in on anything yet.

On a Tuesday afternoon...

Had a good weekend at Manipal. Booked my stay for New Years also, from Dec 29 to Jan 1.

Finally managed to get a ticket to Nagercoil on the 21st. So my trip to Kerala is on schedule. Reaching Tvm on the 22nd. One day trip to Tiruvalla on the 23rd. Return to Blr on the 25th. Short and (hopefully) sweet.

The cassette player part of my Aiwa music system conked out on Friday. It makes a lot of clicking noises and flatly refuses to play. I'm relying on the CD player to tide me over. Need to find out a good service center and get it fixed soon.

Looking through my old posts, I realize that I prefer books to movies. Surprising. When I started this journal, I thought I would be writing a lot about films and film trivia. But its been over a month now and I've been talking mainly about books. Nice to know what I like. :-)

I'm re-reading Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None'. This is the politically correct title of 'Ten Little Niggers', which I had read in school. I now realize her flaws as a writer - weak characterization, wafer thin descriptions, etc. Still, a darn good read.

Roll out the red carpet, bring out the champagne,...

Roll out the red carpet, bring out the champagne, shout from the rooftops " Madhav has started his web log !!! "

Thanks to Kiran and Mujib for providing the inspiration. Now I know whom to flame when I run out of ideas.

The current idea is to write about movies and books. A little bit on my life. A bit more about my friends. Lets see how it goes, you and I.

Onward !