lunatechian (lunatech-ian)

OMFG!! Is that a Romulan Warbird decloaking in front of us. OMFG!! They are hailing us.

Actually, no. It is just me posting to my blog. I had a busy month and hence my website and my blog took a backseat.

So what all have I been up to -

• Facebook is the new Orkut. I find myself logging into FB every day now.
• Yahoo!'s iphone app is great.
• Finally got myself a postpaid AT&T connection, with their data plan. In my opinion, it is easier to get a phone connection in India than it is in USA.
• I am now cycling to work! After some research, I bought myself a Schwinn Frontier bike and I am pretty happy with it. The only problem that I see in this bike is its hard seat, but from what I heard, this is not a bad thing. This review pretty much sums up my opinion about the bike as well.
• Oh yes - Star Trek!! I saw this movie and I was impressed. In fact, I was so impressed that I clapped when the movie ended (oddly, very few people clapped)
• GIT. That has been a new addition to my programming arsenal. Git is really nice and I am loving it. I have to deep dive into the git branches, but even the basic stuff from git have made source control easy.
• Oh yes - I checked out Songbird music player. If you are already using Amarok, don't bother with Songbird. Amarok is way ahead of it. If, on the other hand, iTunes is the only player you know, then give Songbird a spin. It is much nicer than iTunes.

Holi is one of my favourite and I really love all aspects of it - colours, the burning of the bonfire the day before Holi (Holika Dahan), Bhang and the food! I had not had a good Holi celebration after I moved to Bangalore (2005).

However, I had a GREAT Holi yesterday when I joined thousands of others from Bay Area in the Asha Stanford's Holi celebration. I had tons of fun coloring my wife, friends and random folks, having yummy food and enjoying a beautiful day in the sun.

We had planned to take the train to one of our friend's (N) place and then accompany him and his wife to the Holi celebrations. The day started at 8 AM and we had a hiccup when we missed our train to get to our friend's place. We had to wait another hour to catch the next train. However, things started looking better after this incident. We ran into another acquintance Of ours on the train station and they got on the same train as us. We passed them a few tips about which places to visit in San Francisco (they were on their way to SF for some tourism).

We got down at our station and N. came down to pick us up. We went to his house, chit-chatted for a while and then started off for the venue to Stanford.

I was expecting a jolly good time and that is what I got . The holi was in full swing when we got there. One of the playgrounds had been cordoned off for the holi festivities. We took our tickets and jumped into the festivities. There were lots of colors and lots of people. After we had colored each other, we started putting colors on random people. After 30 minutes with colors, it was difficult to recognize each other. There were some dance performances by some Stanford groups. And then the dancing started. And then we put color on more random people. The festivities ended around 3 PM. We had some food and then we came back home. Back home, we had to scrub ourself for around 15 minutes to clean out the colors, but it was a minor hassle.

Overall, I had a very good time and I hope to go back to the Holi celebrations again next year.

I woke up rather late today (around 8 AM). I have been suffering from back pain for the past 3 days. Hopefully, it should get better tomorrow. This has made me miss my workout.

Today I started on the G. M. Diet to reduce my weight. I have been eating fruit for the whole day. This is supposed to help the body to detox. I did not have a carving for any other food. I hope I am able to get through the one week of this diet plan successfully.

Surprisingly, it rained a lot in the afternoon today, but the weather was pleasant.

The most favorite activity that Bangaloreans indulge in is Trafficking. It is a social activity surpassing the bounds of caste, creed or religion. Every morning and evening all the people in Bangalore come out on to the streets with whatever vehicle(s) they own and create a mass procession. They honk, rev engines, brake hard, bump, double park, shout, jump traffic lights ... its a mass revelry. — Taken from Uncyclopedia

After living here for three and a half years, I think I can say with some authority that commuting in Bangalore is a daily adventure. Every day there is something unpredictable that will happen and will affect the flow of traffic. Either a truck would be parked on the wrong side of the road, or a car would have broken down, or the traffic police would mark one of the roads as one-way.

There is a "magic window" in the Bangalore traffic. This is the time when the traffic flows without the interruptions of the traffic police and the heavy trucks have not yet come out on the roads. If you are able to get to your destination in the magic window, your day will be relatively tension free.

The amount of time wasted on the streets is staggering. If we add the cost we pay in terms of health and peace of mind, the costs would be enormous. To give you an idea, the route to reach my office is around 12 kilometers from my home. However, it takes me around 30 minutes to cover this distance.

In my opinion, a two wheeler is the best way to navigate your way around Bangalore. It is easy to work your way around cars and trucks waiting at the traffic signal. Not to forget, the savings on the petrol bill.

Speaking of cars, I don't understand why people buy luxury cars in Bangalore. I have seen quite a few traffic snarls caused by one luxury car going slow or waiting to take a turn.

Anyhow, enough of my rantings.

In the morning I had to visit to the VFS office in Bangalore. The place has very strict security. I was carrying my laptop and the security person at the gate did not allow me to go in . The man at the parking section said he could keep the bag, but he wanted 50 Rupees for that. I really lost my head when he told me the amount. Anyhow, I did not think it would be safe to leave the laptop with him. I will have to visit that office tomorrow again.

Due to time taken to visit the VFS office, I could not do much work at the office.

I had woken up at 6:00 AM today and that had given me enough time in the morning to do some emacs hacking. I really should spend time on learning lisp instead of copying stuff from random places.

Today my trainer at the gym changed my exercise schedule. It became quite grilling. However, I was able to get through the workout. Hopefully in 2-3 days time, I would be able to breeze through the workout.

I spent the first half of my day working on some emacs customiation. I am writing a major mode for blogging and it is a good learning experience.

In the evening I watched 2 episodes of Star Trek, the original series. The plot was thrilling and the pace was good. Captain Kirk did not need to seduce alien women to protect the Enterprise .

As it was a weekend, I did not go to the gym today. I was very happy with my workout on Friday and I hope I would be able to maintain my pace in the gym tomorrow too.

Links:

• Emacs major mode tutorial
• The Squire of Gothos - Star Trek Season 1
• Shore Leave - Star Trek Season 1