Over the years..

The kind of people who influence you the most, are the friends that you grow up with, you end up influencing each other. Those school and college friendships are special. These are the friends who have grown with you, thru all your insecurities, sharing most of them. The friends that you make as you grow old, as nice as they can get, just aren't the same, you just don't take the same kind of liberties. It’s more of a mature friendship and not the kind of friendship that matures over a period of time.

You have seen each other thru the best and the worst, thru winning over their first crush to many heartbreaks
You scramble thru those examinations exchanging notes and giving few tips,
You see each other thru times of seeking jobs thru to their first jobs
You talk absolute nonsense thru 3 hours yet end up having a great time
You can say anything on your mind and still get away with it
You sure would have had your share of misunderstanding but then you learn to grow over it
You can be mad, insane and weird and they are still your friends

You don't have to be nice to them always, to be their friend
You did not have the money to throw around, yes shakes and creams was your favorite hang out
You fight over food, chocolates especially (me)
You are so different from each other
You get irritated and offended with them over small things, but
You end up understanding each other better and like the person for what they are
You share so many nostalgic memories with them..

Time goes by,
You may not stay in the same city and most often end up in different time zones
You may not be able to call each other as often as you would have liked to, but they will still be your 3 A.M friends, that they don't answer your call at 9 P.M itself, is a different thing :)
You may not get to meet for a long time, but when you do
You pick up the thread from where you left and end up having a crazy time :)

To all the amazing people I know,
I really do feel blessed!

Once in a while I suffer from this case of an emotional flu, mostly when am pondering over, what I can do next and when my options are to sleep(trying desperately not to fall for it) or to finish off the book that I am reading(when the book you are reading is Life of PI, I would rather read it when am not that tired, this book has already got me thinking and wonder how I did not get to read this before) and of course I ended up writing this.

The genuis that Calvin is..

Calvin : Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads.

Hobbes: then what are you?

Calvin: I pragmatically turn my whims into principles.

LOL :)

The man, the magic, the game called Tennis - Go Federer!

This man seems to be breaking records of all sorts, if not creating some. As a commentator pointed out that we are going to sound like a broken record if we talk about the records this man is going to break or create. That's Roger Federer for you, the man, many say is the greatest player this game has ever seen and he proved that yet again in the US open -It's four in a row for him, the first man to achieve this feat in the open era.

But Djokovic is the man to watch out for, all of 20 years, it wasn't easy for Federer, Five times close to winning the first two sets, he was out classed by Federer, clearly the results do not reflect what this man deserved. I am sure everybody's heart went out to him. Well he is just one of the very few who have the history of defeating Federer in the recent past, if this match and the past is anything to go by, this man is someone to watch out for, for he has great fitness levels and is playing amazing tennis too.. :) ( Don’t miss out on the imitation of Sherapova and Nadal by Djokovic, this man has a great sense of humour too.. Be sure to check this out on you tube )

Federer definitely was not at this best in the US open final, and this match was no way close to the edge-of-the-seat 5-setter marathon thriller in the Wimbledon final between Federer and Nadal earlier this year, yet Djokovic was the one who dominated the first two sets, being a shot away from winning a set 5 times, the final result was a lot different, it was Federer, who was not at his classy best but yet managing to emerge a winner. It is for this reason, that he is touted as the best. A 25,000 odd crowd, a legacy to live up to, a few records at stake, and being down but yet he does it yet again, not once but twice in the first two sets and there he is the undisputed king of modern day Tennis. ** Greatness ** Can anybody be better than the best, the answer is NO, but as everybody agrees that the gaps are closing in, Nadal and Djokovic are people to watch out for. We got to wait and watch.. but for now it's still Federer's ERA.. Rafa and Djokovic your time will come.. 2008 already promises to be exciting :)

Randomly Random..

Why do people always think a "fun" weekend is only when you have some plans for an outing or a party or something of sorts, why can't a weekend where you are just home tucked under the comfort of your comforter, watching movies, sitcoms, reading books and you have absolutely no plans be fun.. I exactly "plan" to do that this weekend, and am more than sure its going to be a rocking weekend.. Ah there just got an invite for a get together on Saturday :)

Why can't I have a phone conversation that lasts more than 10 minutes these days?? Ponder Ponder..
(Rewind: I used to be a total phone person back in college and a little after that, to get with the same people all thru the day and you are back home and you still find something to talk about over the phone and yet again meet the next day and still you have something to talk about.. )

Why do people who have gone back to Chennai after a long time of staying outside of it, find that there is something amiss , that the charm of the city that they left behind is not there anymore. Has something changed about my most favorite city, (I hope not) am waiting to find out, 60 days to go..

Edit: I just heard from the friend who is on a vacation in Chennai, that they have implemented gps in the city buses and the digital board in the bus stands which says ' 21H arrives in 4 mins', its still in the pilot stage but will be implemented thro the city, now ain't that kewl :)

Did you know that the movie Exorcist was inspired by the St.Louis Exorcism. Yes I live in one of the most haunted cities in the US of A

India pulled off a remarkable victory against England, chasing a target - once impossible over 300 runs. will another thriller unfold at the Lord's.. can't wait to find out..

What's at stake for Federer in the US open- A fourth consecutive US open title (will he be the first to achieve it?) , a 12th grand slam title (only Pete Sampras is ahead of him) and some great tennis matches for his fans world over to cheer about, we have already witnessed two of them :), the higher the stakes, the better he plays. I think if you are even remotely interested in watching tennis or in the game, you should watch this man play, after all, he isn't dubbed as one of the greatest players this game has ever seen for no reason.. I missed out on watching him play at the US open this time around but if am lucky, I will get to watch him next year :)

The LP (Linkin Park) concert totally rocked (literally), a crowd of over 25000, electrifying music - it was my first hard core rock concert experience (if I don't count the Aerosmith concert in St.Louis which I think sucked, they absolutely had no stage presence), I thoroughly enjoyed myself and will definitely go down as an experience of a lifetime :)

If I have to talk about live performances and experiences, memorable ones at that,this one would certainly top the list and something I that would recommend to everyone, the cirque du soleil shows, I happened to watch one of their shows called 'KA' in Vegas (tickets are priced a little on the higher side but hell who cares, the experience is priceless), the acrobatics, the stage set up -everything extravagant and mind boggling to say the least, I have never seen anything more magnificient on a stage.I always happen to have so much fun in Vegas, there is something for everyone there, the grandeur, the magnificent buildings, it sure is an architectural delight and of course the fun gambling as long as you know the limits, I have only lost money but I stopped when I did reach the limits I had set. Let me correct myself, I was told that in Vegas, you don't say you lost the money, you say you spent the money :)

I want to see a Broadway show, I still haven't been to New York :(

That was as random as I could get.. Yippee it's a Friday!

I am not always right, but am never wrong..

This is it. I've reached the pinnacle of laziness... How depressing. There's no place to go after you've reached the top.
Eat, sleep, be lazy, derive pleasure out of doing nothing. That's Garfield for you..

I think I was born to be like him. This world has changed me in many ways, I work for a living and like challenges, I have multitude of interests but all said and done, I like being lazy and love sleeping. No matter how many hours I sleep, I simply can't wake up in the mornings I have to force myself every single day to wake up. On a weekend , "Oh no! I overslept ! I'm late ! For my nap". I realized its easier to have an inspiration who is so already like you, so that you don't have to work towards anything.. yes Garfield is my inspiration..

His Philosophy is my belief.

• Odie, let's talk effort versus return here. You know, you can still lead a pointless life without all that running around.
• If you want to appear smarter, hang around someone stupider.
• If you are patient...and wait long enough...Nothing will happen !
• I'm not messy. I'm organizationally challenged !
• Good times are ahead ! Or behind. Because they sure aren't here.
• Anybody can exercise... But this kind of lethargy takes real discipline.
• Avoid fruits and nuts: after all, you are what you eat.
• Eat every meal as though it were your last
• All I do is eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. There must be more to a cat's life than that. But I hope not.
• You can bet it wasn't an exercise freak who invented power steering.
• You know it's Monday when you wake up, and it's Tuesday
• Diet is die with a 't.
• I'll rise, but I won't shine.
• I look back on my life with regrets. All those wasted years. All that time spent awake

Oh, I Love this cat, its zimply purr-fect !!

Of Garbage trucks and 200 $$$$...

Just another normal day. 8 A.M we set out to work.I-55. Same way. Same lane. Music wasn't playing in the car, courtesy Miss A who was sitting in the passenger seat taking her offshore call. I was driving, M was sitting right behind me.

I hate driving in the mornings as I am usually grumpy and half asleep, but I still fight my mood and sleep and drive sometimes(mostly Miss A likes to drive in the mornings), its been a routine for more than a year now.. Gossip, insane conversations (courtesy M and me, Miss A tries to maintain sanity but in vain.. we tried to change her but that did not work either), Complaining (whats life if we have nothing to complain about), or sometimes just plain silent, this is how we travel to work everyday. Most days we do have floating members in the car. People who want to get to work earlier than their usual time or people who cudnt wake up in time to go in their regular car pool, new people who come in in.. when most of you who work in the same company stay in the same apartment complex invariably everyone would have travelled with everybody else at some point of time.

We were two exits close to work, I was driving, Miss A was still talking, M reacts to the sound of a shattering glass, well the only thing I knew at that point was that there was a really huge garbage truck to our right, and following instructions to move to the shoulder, I overtook the garbage track and moved over to the shoulder. I later found out that something flew from the garbage truck and hit the window pane on the rear right hand side, and the window pane cracked and shattered. There was no sign of anything else except for a polythene bag with a paper inside the car which flew into the car. There goes the garbage truck well past us.. and 200$ for a new window pane .. Thankfully there was nobody sitting on that side of the car today considering that there are usually more than 3 of us in the car. We drove back home( thank god for it wasn't raining nor was it winter, we only had to survive the wind blowing hard into our ears), gave our car for service, M drove her car and we were back to work to start what was another usual day at work, just an hour late than usual though... !!

The Wrong side of 24 years and 365 days..

I thought and then thought all over again, What was I thinking? Is it cool to be 25 ? Being 25 certainly has one benefit in the US, your car insurance is a lot cheaper (the only logic behind this and I could think of is that they think you are responsible if you are older and perhaps even more responsible if you are married... ahem), someone asked me the other day about how it actually felt to be 25 (somehow this seems to be a landmark year for very many reasons) and for a minute I actually felt old.. somehow being 23 was so much more fun, and being 18 was lot more fun. Is it human nature to always think that life in the past was always better than what it is now or always hope that the best is yet to come. As a kid, I always wanted to be older and working, earn my own money and feel responsible and independent and now I feel being a child and those innocent years could probably be the best years of your life. May be that is why Costanza's theory of life is so relevant, he believes that you should be born old with all the knowledge and experience and as you live your life, you unlearn and grow young and probably live the best part of your life towards the end. Firstly the miseries of old age, golden age of retirement, then the midlife crisis and then the twenties where you live the time of your life and before you get bored, you are almost reaching the end of your life, happy and with pleasure and no burden of unwanted knowledge. The typical 25 going on 30 scene - You are going thru a phase, you are not sure about your work (if that’s exactly what you want to do in life), marriage becomes an integral subject of discussion, you either know who you want to get married too but there are a million hurdles before you could even think of walking the aisle or you don’t know who are going to get married, the fear of whether you will meet anyone you would ever think of spending the rest of your life with, you are scared if you will be able to pull off the responsibilities that marriage tags along, you are having fun with the way life is at the moment, but scared about what the future has in store for you. Well the best part is that you are not alone, every other person of your age is going thru the same emotions and same feelings as you, if that’s some consolation :) and before you realize, you turn 30 and you will look back and say somehow being 25 was so much more fun.. And that’s life..

These lines from the "Wear Sunscreen" by Baz Luhraman

"Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday "

So there!

Life is a roller coaster..

Monday morning,woke up with my neck hurting beyond my tolerance levels and before you draw any conclusion ,I did not get involved in a physical brawl or neither was someone trying to strangle me, it was just that I did not manage to keep my head( "If" only I managed to keep my head :) and remembered Rudyard Kipling) on one of those crazy roller coaster rides.. yay finally managed to go to six flags over the weekend. Temperatures soaring and crossing the already uncomfortable 100F and feeling uncomfortable after eating a lot of cashews(I just got greedy, I love cashews) and just minimal sleep the previous night (after watching a late night show of bourne ultimatum- Matt Damon looked like he was born to play Jason Bourne), it wasnt a perfect setting for a theme park outing but neverthless we set out on a mission: to have fun and the destination was six flags St.Louis. It was an all girls outing, all the guys decided that heat was just too much for them to handle.

Temperature - 110F

Wait time for all the rides : 400 minutes

Actual Ride time: 1000 seconds

Thrills : Priceless.

This isn't the first time am going to six flags, but with every trip it only reaffirms my belief that I love roller coasters. I probably still havent been on the worlds most scariest roller coasters and may be I won't and all this considering that while I was in school/college , I was scared to ride on the only roller coaster in town in MGM at that point of time, I sure have come a long way. My personal favorite was the super man tower of terror. Its takes you to a height of probably a 38 (some random number there) storey building, and you are left hanging in there for a few seconds, as you get a glimpse of the whole park and surrounding and you hear the cars next to you drop, you await your turn, and there you go.. those 20 seconds of absolute thrill, there is no time to react or feel when you actually come down and before you realize you are back.. all excited :) and for the speed thrill, Mr.Freeze, the catchline is that its the coolest coaster in town, and for me it sure is, 0-70 mph in like less than 4 seconds, it is a ride that takes you through some great turns and twists and then vertically up, and before you realise you get to relive the entire ride, only this time its backwards and you are back to the start, 100 seconds of pure thrill.
Well there is nothing in the world that is 100% safe, there was a freak accident a month ago on the same superman tower of terror, a teen age girl lost her leg as one of the cables snapped and she came down the ride without her legs, hopefully the doctors will be able to help her walk. But then again the chances that we might get killed in a road accident are more, We still go the beach after the tsunami.

This line from the movie Troy as Achilles points out - " I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again "

Life is a rollercoaster, Just gotta ride it !!

Will Klusener ever forget this or Will we??

Will SA or Lance Klusener ever forget this?? What a series it was for Lance Klusener, he was single handedly responsible for getting SA to the semis and well so near yet so far.. What a player, Klusener.. under pressure. If only Gibbs did not drop the catch, if only better sense prevailed for the last run.. things would have been so different.. I was never so upset as I was after this match.. well some moments go down in history.. this one surely will in cricketing history.. Klusener may have lost his flair but he was a treat to watch in that series :):)

Gandhigiri....

After spending many 10 dollars , many friday nights of watching movies from the world of bollywood and some self introspection, I believed - "Like a physicists search for the "Higgs Boson", the hindi film industry's attempt at making movies that can entertain or leave you thinking is only futile". But then again rules or resolutions are meant to be broken. I decided to go and watch Gandhi, my father. "Only one show" they advertised, but yet half the theatre was empty .Jhoom Babarar Jhoom, had people scrambling for seats for the first show. Doesnt it say too much about the audience of the biggest movie industry. I really think the tamil movie industry totally rocks. So many movies in recent times, some masala movies, some youthful, some with a message, but they have been different (Maybe am just biased, but hell do I care, I pay 10$ to watch a movie, I do expect to see something.. yes I paid 20$ to watch Sivaji but I was entertained to its worth and maybe more, ok am a rajni fan ) ok.. back on track. Gandhi, the father of our nation. Reading "My experiments with truth" will make you feel that, he is yet another mortal with his own flaws and limitations and maybe you will get cynical about Gandhi and his principles. This movie takes you thru the life of Gandhi as he is with his elder son Harilal.. There are many things you still dont understand after watching the movie, why is Gandhi upset about his son getting married to a girl he had chosen for him, was he being selfish, did he need his son to be a part of his struggle,sacrificing his life ? but well then he was married too.. at the age of 13 (talk about marriages in those days) and the reason as to why he did not want his son to pursue his dream of studying in London. Barring a few glitches, this movie is a perfect example of a well translated tagline "“One family’s tragedy was the price of a nation’s freedom” onto the big screen. I think Akshaye Khanna as Harilal and Shefali Shah as Kasturba played their role to perfection. Akshaye Khanna has played his role with great conviction and for many people who might criticise this movie saying, a lot of the freedom struggle was thrown in unnecessarily, but isnt Gandhi all about that and that is the exact reason why he did not give the needed attention to his son, when he needed it the most. The film has its moments, you feel the patriotism rise in you.. Whether it is a footage of Panditji delivering his famous "Freedom at Midnight" speech or the scenes in South Africa, the Indian in you will certainly take over. You will be misty eyed everytime you listen to "mile sur" or the soulful rendition of vande mataram or rahman's passionate rendition of the same, so will you be, after watching some scenes in this movie. I did not regret it one bit. A little heavy for a friday evening as it may not be a perfect setting to start the weekend party.. oh yes, sometimes bollywood can make movies which are heart rendering.. A Black and now this one... maybe we should wait for eons before the next one is churned out.. till then.. enjoy some tamil movies and some great movies that hollywood has to offer.. :)

P.S : I love Physics, I tend to read and discover some fascinating things, and today I learnt abt the "Higgs Boson" and it had to find a place in my write up, well what it means is "The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the only Standard Model particle not yet observed, but plays a key role in explaining the origins of the mass of other elementary particles"..