tuesday's gone.. with the wind..

woke up at 9 and staggered to work.. i tell you this waking up at the crack of dawn does not suit me at all!! worked until lunch cleaning up the wreckage from yesterday.. not so much power tools today.. by the way, you know what's even better than getting paid to work with power tools?? getting paid to watch hot girls in skimpy clothes working with power tools!! yeah baby!! to just illustrate my point, please click here.. then click on 'most popular', and the second entry should say "Women with Power Tools".. enjoy!!

read a few very interesting blogs: suzannah, therapy, wasted nirvana all made good reading. if hilarious reading is more your kinda thing, then rahul phondke has surpassed himself in this week's Funnybone

my cooking turn today, so just made up something simple, then chilled out watching a movie.. we did this really cool 4-way conference on the phone.. shiv, bunty, abi n me.. pinku wasn't picking his fone.. and we were chatting with koshman on msn.. that was loads of fun.. then vip called, saying he was lighting one up.. so had to go - when you hear the calling, you simply have to go.. so we smoked up.. and were doing this hilarious conference with a certain someone who should remain unnamed.. unless she(oops!!) would like her name mentioned here!! we did prove the 'passive-high' principle.. whereby the other person gets hammered by just listening!! seriously, we knew that the power of auto-suggestion was strong enough to get the people around you high, but we managed to prove that physical presence was not necessary.. and it carries over air waves too!!

manic monday

those of you who know me know that monday and i are not friends.. there has not been a monday in living memory that i can say that i have enjoyed immensely.. today was no less.. instead of resting my bones after a hard weekend's partying, i had to get up early and go work at the archi. dept. cleanup.. that was fun though.. i'm getting paid good money to play with power tools.. woo hoo :-)) demolished a wind tunnel in a few hours.. its all a huge pile of firewood and screws now.. though i am wondering if i can get the twin fans from it and put it somewhere in the house.. the heat and humidity will NOT be a problem this summer then!!

ahh. monday suddenly got so so much better.. gaurav just got back from india.. brought a bottle of seagram's 'blender's pride'.. nice.. and of course, there was the wills classic as well.. drank well, ate dal-rajmaha-chawwal and had a nice time reminiscing the summer's 'harkatey'!! good times man, good times..

mellow

the day after is always sooo mellow.. you enjoy every minute of the day.. watched a very explosive czech side dismantle the resolute danes 3-0.. am definitely tipping them to go all the way.. with playmakers like nedved and poborsky, even average strikers like baros(he spent half the season sitting on liverpool's bench) cannot help but score! holland vs. czech is looking like a very likely final now, unless mr. figo can pull a few rabbits out of his hat, hopefully without the ref's help this time round..

a quick thank you to the 60+ people who read this blog everyday.. i really appreciate it, and would like to ask more of you to drop a line in the comments section.. it would be very nice to hear from more of you - comments, complaints, compliments, or even a simple hi!

had the GISA-organised cricket tournament final today.. in which the 'balle balle' boyz narrowly lost out to 'sam's south select'.. the boyz were ultimately undone by controversial umpiring no less.. good work by all: kavin, raghu, vamsi, adi(abcd), reddy-ul-haq, vip, molson express, asif, dawg, shashi.. got together at molson's place after that.. smoked up.. and had to endure pritam gilchrist's amazingly awful guitar-playing too.. master pai is back in town too, en route to penn state from long island..

owww

my head hurts!! beer is not supposed to give you a hangover!! then again you're not supposed to chug endless beers either.. ;-)) apparently we went through 5 18-packs of bud.. saurabh and his friend dhiraj came in from pittsburgh yesterday afternoon.. showed them the downtown and the two UB campuses.. then at night we barbecued at vip's along with his cricket team.. what a wild lot.. raghu dude, reddy and kavin.. adi is also big time into new rock.. molson express and vamshi were quiet.. and then mallick and puri also dropped in.. puri's back from india.. with enough packs of Wills Classic.. ahh, Wills Classic.. *nostalgic moment*. we grilled some chicken thighs, they came out pretty awesome!! was really really hammered.. came home and crashed on the couch straight!!

woke up solid sozzled still, hey, that's alliteration! i have realised that i do my best and most inspired work on the day after.. the day after is always gooood, you always wake up with a smile on your face ;-) went with mayank and the juniors to Moti Mahal for the lunch buffet.. $5-all-you-can-eat.. couldn't stuff myself silly as usual.. which is definitely the best indication that i'm getting too old for this rock n' roll lifestyle.. sigh.

took them to the niagara falls after that.. had a nice long chilled out nap there under a tree.. spoke to quite a few people at length today.. smi, abi, neil, my aunt in NJ.. then i joined the baccho on the Cave of The Winds thingy.. hurricane deck rules!! got back home at night around 12ish, then vip called - we had the living leaves, the fantastic foliage, the vonderful vegetation, the verdant vitality.. felt goood to smoke up after so long!! went to Third Base with ash.. was very quiet and chilled out today, luke was bartender, nate was sitting around, and dodi and hubby were pretty tight, you should have seen ash squirm!! we made it worthwhile though with the captain morgan flavoured rums.. i just lurrv the pineapple..

greece did the business on the french!! amazing!! they beat them 1-0, and actually pretty much outclassed them too. then holland took out the swedes on penalties.. they finally seem to be getting over their big-tournament-penalty-hoodoo.. wow, some euro this is turning out to be.. the superpowers are all out.. now portugal play holland, and greece play the winner of cz. rep. vs. denmark, most likely cz.. cool!!

thursday's here again

despite all my good intentions of waking up early and going to the lab, i could not - the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak, sigh!! ;-)) just played around a bit with the blog, and made some modifications and stuff. you will have noticed the My Photos and My Poetry sections on the right hand column (not all is original - you can tell my stuff way before you reach the credits at the end!!). by the way, shavi and abi, saurabh gupta of your wing is coming here for a couple of days tomorrow.. he's currently in pittsburgh at carnegie-mellon for his summer training.

effectively did nothing constructive today then; no going downtown for Thursday At The Square since i had to go to the archi. dept to help out with the cleaning, then was fiercely hungry, so came home and cooked.. mal, nats, sank, vip and ash all came over.. and we had to watch 'Main Madhuri Dixit Banni Chahti Hoon' yet again.. raja of course stole the show: "sab toh nahin dekh pahte hain.." and "bhaiya chai faltoo hain kya?"

england got knocked out on penalties yet again in a major tournament, by hosts portugal this time. they did have reason to feel aggrieved though, since they had what looked like a perfectly good goal disallowed due to goalie ricardo's antics.. the 'silver goal' rule didn't ease tensions either.. and the penalty shootout was a thriller too.. beckham has not exorcised his penalty demons yet has he?! ricardo also committed himself too early as three consecutive penalties went in dead centre.. did anyone notice he was keeping in the shootout without his gloves!! poor vassell looked overawed as he shot tamely at ricardo, who picked himself up too shoot very well into the bottom left corner and send the host nation into raptures. just a quick note about wayne rooney - no doubt he would have been a major influence to the game had he not limped off after 20 minutes.. and from a very selfish evertonian point of view, hopefully now the big team scouts will stop hounding him!!

midweek laziness

yesterday i woke up and thought, since i've made it to the middle of the week, might as well take a day off!! so i did ;-)) it didn't help that i was on the phone until around 3 before that - had spoken to mal, smi, john, karrishma, and my cousin tulz.. and then really made an effort to finish that Harry Potter V.. and i must say that JK Rowlings has written an eye-opener for all the pre-teen kids who will read this!! harry and hermione keep going at it every couple of pages!! yeesh!! they're like a couple of bunnies!! vip, mal, ash, guess who i'm thinking about right now ;-))!!

watched a very ruthless czech republic 'B' team do the business on the germans 2-1.. and then holland dispatched a visibly exhausted latvia 3-0, so the germans join italy and spain on a early summer holiday.. the quarter finals start today.. england & hosts portugal face off today.

went and did a bit of the clean up with nats n' mal, then went over to their place, sank, vip n ash also came over.. and we had some awesome pasta (mal made!!) and choccie-chip cookies (nats made!!), with a bottle of port (thanks viki) and a 3 litre box of white zin (thank you thank you!) - came home buzzed, and slept off early for a change!!

just a quick line to say a very big THANK YOU to all of you who keep coming back to read the blog.. it's getting around 40 hits a day thanks to all of you.. and i have put up some pics in the My Photos section on the right.. enjoy!!

happy birthday!

it's my roommate inder's birthday today!! yay!! went out for dinner to "Taste of India", and stuffed ourselves silly.. now i'm too full to sit!! nats made chocolate-chip cookies, and i passed those up, so you can imagine how full i was!! saw some really cool sites today.. one of them i'm trying to make myself - Saurabh's World, no harm in a bit of self-promotion eh?! ;-)) .. the other cool one was Worst Case Scenarios, which contains info on how to get out of all sorts of weird and wild scrapes - i found it especially useful, knowing the kinds of things i keep doing!!

nilesh finally did what i have been sooo lazy about.. he posted most of the florida pics at his yahoo pics site - http://photos.yahoo.com/decemberdude.. enjoy!!

sweden and denmark somehow contrived to get the exact 2-2 score that they would need to both go through, and lock italy out.. much as one hates to say that it is not possible to rig an interational soccer match.. but the bitter man in me does feel really aggrieved.. italy created chance upon chance and finally scraped out a 2-1 win over a very resolute bulgarian side.. though what the f**k had the ref been drinking/smoking before the freaking game!!!

arrivederci

my friends, it is with a very heavy heart i sit here to write this.. only the cruellest juxtaposition of the stars would serve to eliminate italy, yet the trajectories did cross, and the azzurri are out of euro 2004.. with it bringing to a certain end the international careers of three great italian forwards.. christian vieri, pippo inzaghi and, and.. and alessandro del piero.. who at 29 has had his legs fail him yet again on the international stage.. 24 goals and 66 caps say nothing about his amazing talent, leadership and gift of reading the game.

i have followed alex since '93.. when he first stepped into roberto baggio's shoes.. and immediately became juventus' wonderkid.. and testament to his faith and belief in the bianconeri, 'il pinturicchio' has never played for any other club at the highest level. i have been with him through all his highs and lows.. five serie A titles, four champions league finals (3 consecutive), 1 inter-continental club cup, 3 copa italia finals.. and the big championships.. euro '96 when he was in the squad that got eliminated by czech rep. drawing 3-3 with russia, world cup '98 when cesare maldini's indecision over del piero and baggio led to france shutting them out on penalties, euro 2000 when del piero was heavily blamed for not scoring in the final and france pulling back to beat them on golden goal, world cup 2002 when trap could not decide whether to play with totti and/or del piero, and now euro 2004 where trap is playing him on the left tip of his arrowhead formation.. it has been a very frustrating international career for alex.. plus the numerous niggling injuries he has picked up in the serie A, truly the toughest defensive league in the world. one hopes he still has it in him to play world cup 2006, but he remains one of the greatest players to have never won an international crown.. grazie alessandro, buona fortuna for the future, and arrivederci for now. maybe it's time for me to hang up my italia no. 7 jersey..

no monday blues??

i really need to get back on a more normal sleep cycle.. somehow i don't get sleepy until 5 am.. and then the whole of the next day passes in a groggy haze.. not that its bad, but when there's work to be done it does get irritating. went to the lab and made backups of the floppy.. will go in tomorrow to acually starts doing a few scans.. met up with mal and nats to see to the archi. dept. cleanups - i need some money for food (and drink!!) before i start the internship!! here's a pic of me too at a bar-b-q!

one of my favourite juniors kriti has a blog - he's got a nice blog, and i remember how it felt being that age too.. from a link on his site, i read a very interesting blog too - astha narang is "Indian-Belgian-Iranian-Czech-Pakistani(my sindhi roots).. oh, and part Canadian".. she writes pretty well.

pinku had gone down to indianapolis for the Formula 1 race there this weekend.. he did get close to all the drivers and called us all up to hear what F1 cars sound like.. predictably, schumi won.. again!! will put up teh pictures as soon as he sends them to me.. bunty made a surprise road trip to new orleans to see ranj.. more details in his blog, he also got a very sweet picture of ranj, which under threats of severe pain and injury we have both been intimidated into not displaying here or on his blog.. what happened to FREE PRESS???

wayne rooney just cemented his place in the history books didn't he!! he's looking so fresh that everyone's glad everton manager david moyes rested him lots.. talking of which.. it's gonna be very very hard for everton to hold on to the starlet. he scored two very amazing goals yesterday as england saw off croatia 4-2, and with france beating the swiss 3-1, it meant france top group B and play the greeks in the quarters, and sets up a delicious england vs. portugal in another quarter.

meanwhile, my favourite azzuris.. they need to win by 2 or more goals against bulgaria.. alex del piero.. my hero, we have never needed goals and inspiration from you more than now!! oh yeah, they also have to hope sweden and denmark do not draw 2-2.. or by some weird and wild arithmetic they still get knocked out even if they win 46-0!!!

taking it easy..

i love these chilled out lazy weekends.. where i don't have to do anything but lie in, read a few good books, eat some good food, have a few good drinks, watch a few good movies, listen to some good music.. yup, one does enjoy the good things in life!! got to chat with quite a few people over the weekend - a very cosmopolitan mix!! anne (from kenya, now studying medicine in north carolina), my cousin rana (high school in kenya), farhina (from kenya, air hostess with emirates in dubai - sigh! farhina, farhina, where art thou my precious..), sophie/sofi (from kenya, working in the UK), pranay/pondy (studying at IIM-Cal), shruti (from india, studying at yale).. so apparently i have a 'sister' who looks like me back in kenya.. she's also a 'mittra'.. and is studying in AKA.. where (apparently!!) i'm stiil a legend!! HAHAHAHAH - me like!!

spoke to mom n' dad after quite a long time.. they were glad to hear about the internship.. actually relieved would be more like it.. dad is really really pissed with the italians.. shabana's birthday too, so called her up as well.. she's doing well.. her work pressure seems to have eased off.. i chilled out the whole day with Harry Potter V - Order of the Phoenix, though it's a lot like reading a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew or something.. the kid has the hots for anything female on two legs!

watched some of the best soccer around yesterday as the czech republic showed how damn good they really are!! pavel nedved showed why he was european player of the year.. poborsky still has his awesome guile.. rosicky and baros are solid players, as is smicer.. jan koller is the tallest man in soccer.. and peter cech is worth every bit of the big bucks chelsea paid for him.. holland didn't stand a chance as czech pulled back from 2-0 down to win 3-2.. and the dutch remain with the tag of "nearly-men"!! latvia fought bravely to hold germany goalless.. and the germans really really need to sweep out all the hapless oldies - schneider, klose, bobic.. who snatch misses out of clear goals!!

portugal rode their luck and knocked a very feeble and inefficient-looking spanish side out.. the spaniards always flatter to deceive; raul and morientes never replicate their club form, they have a plethora of good wingers and midfielders who are just that, good - none in the class of guardiola - mendieta, valeron, joaquin, alonso, vicente, albelda, baraja, they are not really world-class and the defence now is shambles.. ever since hierro and the barca trio of nadal, sergi and abelardo retired; though goalies casillas and canizares are two of the best ever.. luis enrique was really good, and xavi is not getting a look in.. shame, that. in the other game russia salvaged some pride beating greece 2-1, but portugal still top group A and greece come through second on goal difference. much as i like the portuguese, they are showing none of the class or flair that led them to being called the brazil of europe.. they are patchy at best, and christiano ronaldo is too much of a showman.. where are the workhorses?? where are the rui costas and paulo sousas who complement the luis figos? where are the stable fernando coutos, the effective sa pintos, and the hard-running carlos secratarios and sergio conceicaos.. i fear it is not to be portugal's year again..

YAY!!

guess what people?! i got an internship!! woohoo!! that mga research thingy i had mentioned yeterday, it worked out.. it's gonna be part of my CPT.. so i'll probably take the next semester off too and work with them!! i spent the whole afternoon bouncing around with joy..

until the italy game that is.. actually until the 82nd minute.. when 'trap' took off alex del piero.. one just knew no good was going to come of it.. and sure enough sweden came back to tie 1-1.. i was really really glad that he played so well.. should take some pressure off him.. especially after totti got himself idiotically suspended!! denmark overcame bulgaria 2-0 in the other game.. so italy is barely hanging in there now.. stoichkov was right about the new bulgarian captain stilian petrov, he needs to move to spain or italy.. he'll never develop at celtic!!

we had to go out and party at night, so when going back home, ashish, vipul and i had to pass by Third Base (of course!!).. we had a 'happy meal' each.. for the uninitiated, that is NOT what you get at Mickey-D's.. it's a tequila shot chased by a cold corona.. and it's called the happy meal because one of them in the evening and you're happy the next few hours!! :-)) kelly is out of town, so nate's sis natalie was filling in.. i do have hazy memories of dancing with her on her birthday.. and i do remember she was totally hammered.. so we were trying to refresh each other's memories!! ;-))

went over to mal and nat's place.. opened a bottle of shiraz.. that was ok.. we saved the port wine for later!! nats n sank had plans with dan and jess, and mal didn't feel like pubbing, so it was us boyz again!! by the way, sank better watch out, he's slowly losing his 'boyz' status.. the man has stopped drinking.. or almost!! we demolished a double order of hot wings from Just Pizza.. then when we got back to Third Base it was like all family there.. it's awesome now.. we barely have to buy drinks these days.. the first round went on bo, then john got us the next.. nate did a round of shots.. then bo again.. then natalie.. we had to return the favor though, so we did two for the house.. dodi was there, and so was the hubby, but ash was undaunted, turning on the charm and the pool form in buckets!! after innumerable jack n' cokes, tequila shots, harley davidsons, wild turkeys, and god only knows what else, they finally had to throw us cos it was like 4.30!! john gave us some freebie tshirts too!! yay!! then with dodi and alisha we ended up going to Jim's Steakout after that to settle the munchies, and also cos saying b-bye to dodi was too painful for ash!! we really need to get a tab going there.. this cashflow is a biig issue..

poor poor ash.. after the happy meal we fed him, he was buzzed.. at 8 in the evening when its still light out!! then the glass of shiraz.. by the time we landed at vip's at 12.. he was dazed and just wanted to crash.. but vip n i.. shetani dimaag.. dragged him to third base.. with the lure that we just want one jack n coke each, and he can say hi to dodi (how could he say no to that!!) then there we kept getting plied with shots.. and dodi kept hovering tantalisingly close enough to him, but the hubby was around too!! steakout mein toh ekdum chippak ke behte the.. aur kaan mein kuch kusur-pusur karey jaa rahey the.. lagey raho mere sher.. or should i say .. mere daw-g!!!

let it rain, let it rain..

woke up, saw the rain, and promptly went back to sleep.. ain't life grand!! finally had to wake up.. and decided that i was not going to the lab in the rain - my excuse? i don't have an umbrella!! thursday's at the square also got scrapped as a result!! i mean, for us at least..

had some awesome news in the mail!! the guys i had mailed up at mga research want to speak to me!! so i called them up.. it turned into a telephone interview!! now they wanna see me tommorrow at 2!! woohoo!! it's perfect, not too early either!! my advisor dr. baier told me to just chill out and take it easy, they are very informal and so not to worry at all, just read up on ur material and be cool!! sweet!! i can be cool!! will probably take a pack of camel lights and a sixpack of bud and make a picnic of it!! what say?! ;-))

and now football update.. rooney is my man!! i hate to tell people i told you so, but i told you so!! he came good and whacked swiss ass!! england beat a wrongly-depleted switzerland 3-0.. and then croatia lived up to their mercurial billing by rocking the 'vichy-souiss' boys.. france did recover to make it 2-2.. trezeguet finally came good.. but for all of you who watched the game.. did anyone notice how good zidane still is??!! i am very impressed!!

nondescript

today was one of those humdrum days which is the bane of bloggers and diarists everywhere.. what do you write about? woke up, went to the lab, did some work, ate some lunch, came home, watched a movie, went to the mall, ate dinner, came home, slept off.. spinning a yarn out of this is one helluva effort..

did some good effective work today though, the microscope and comp are up and running, will make the backup discs tomorrow and start scanning some old germanium samples.. went to north with mal and vipul.. nats and sank finally went to the doctor, and will be contributing around $150 to the nation's medicine coffers (or will they?).. watched part of "mona lisa smile" at mal's place.. i am sorry boys, i have committed the grave sin of watching a chick-flick.. but it was already running, and to my credit it didn't draw too much of my attention either!! besides, i watched "munnabhai MBBS" after that to restore some of my faith in film as a form of entertainment!! went to boulevard mall with mal and nat's sis-in-law priya.. and ended up buying so much shit.. i am so ashamed of myself!! :-((

spoke to davo in rolla, it's been ages.. the poor man is stuck there trying to get done with his undergrad.. apparently he spoke to anne sometime recently.. anne.. leo hata mimi nimeona.. haya ni mapenzi gani?? ya maovu tu.. ati sasa umenikatsia tu??!! sasawa.. kaa tu poa.. mpaka nifike NC you better 'play me on the low'..

euro is getting hotter and hotter.. greece have shown they're a team of true mettle.. otto rehhagel has instilled some of that bayern munich grit in them.. they held a rampaging spanish 'G-Unit' to 1-1.. is this finally the year for the matadors and conquistadors?? portugal finnally got going with a 2-0 over russia.. the 'golden generation' refuses to go out with a whimper.. figo played an awesome game belying his age, and embattled ac milan captain rui costa came on as a sub to score too..

no-work-tuesday

woke up early, and decided i didn't wanna do any work, so promptly went back to sleep.. did eventually get up and finish up debugging the goddamn comp.. had gotten infected by the 'coolwebsearch' spybot.. had to go through the registry weeding out the regitsry entries.. damned trojan hijacks your web-browser and makes its own search engine the homepage..spoke to the landlord today.. he will give us 33 heath for the same rent.. niiice!! we should be inking that deal soon (touch-wood).. and that is one helluva party-house, perfect distance from everything - everything that matters that is: On The Run, Third Base, Kenmore Liquors, Tops, Aldi.. did i miss anything people? is anyone holding their breath waiting for me to say school??? hehehehe!!

started work on my webpage on the engineering website.. www.eng.buffalo.edu/~smittra .. i will need to learn a hefty bit of html and stylesheets to make it look even half decent!!

latvia gave the underdog-supporters something to cheer about, but czech republic's experience told as they came back to win 2-1; nedved is one helluva playmaker.. watching the holland-germany game was weirder than yesterday.. the audio track was 2:32 behind the video!! even the soccernet scoreboard was faster than the audio.. so it was kinda cool as i could tell who was getting substituted even before the bbc boys knew!! ;-) it did look like a nice, open game, ending 1-1: not what you would expect from these two teams!! the german youth brigade looks awesome, the next world cup in germany in 2006 should be good for them - schweinsteiger, kuranyi, ernst, lahm..

finally finished watching 'hey ram'.. it's an epic!! quite an eye-opener on indian history though.. does anyone know if it's a true story?? the pistons nailed the coffin and sent the lakers packing today 4-1.. wow, what were the odds!! my heart goes out to malone and payton.. passing up the big bucks for the championship ring, and yet it eludes them..

the plans seem to be falling in place for a massive RSF reunion in early august.. shiv will be back from his internship in amazon, and will most likely be making it to buffalo around 11th aug; arul should be landing here on 1st aug and ranj will be here around then too - pinku better get his hirsute personality up here then too!! spoke to smi today too after ages.. her parents left today after a whistle-stop US tour.. could i have the niagara falls pics?! don't worry about that f**king advisor, just give me his name and i shall add him to the database of "desi-profs-in-US-who-are-asshole-advisors-stringing-you-along".. justice shall be served to them too honey!!

another week begins

rushed down to the lab, set up the computer and then inventoried the microscope and its parts, then ran back home - italy vs denmark at 12!! the viewing arrangements reeked of desperation: some live kuwaiti channel streaming on a 1" by 1" media player screen, which i had to mute to avoid the arab gobbledegook, and listen to the bbc commentary of the game on net radio - it was tough enough to distinguish the two teams jerseys, and added to that was the phase lag of 23 seconds that the video was behind the audio track!! it wasn't worth the trouble either.. the azzurri were miserable in grinding out a scoreless draw.. and mr. del piero was non-existent.. henrik larsson showed why the swedish royal family and 80,000 swedish soccer fans signed a petition urging him to come out of retirement by scoring two and making two as they hit bulgaria 5-0.. the days of hristo stoichkov seem so long gone now.. tomorrow holland-germany should be fun..

radical shift in reading pattern - moved to pg wodehouse now.. enough of sergeant mcnab's grim humour.. one must say that there is something flippant and light in the way mr. wodehouse presents to us bertie wooster and jeeves; indeed, refreshing would be a word not uncommon to most of his writings. went to check out 102 heath.. $550 is a bit too much for that three-bedroom, though there is the added incentive of two girls moving in downstairs!! got drenched for my troubles too, damned evening thunderstorms!!

i felt i had to make a comment to RSF about sv's missive to the group: he seems to have lost his excellent grammatical prowess in his 'sanyas'!! i quote his mail in full -
hi guys its me ...S V (correct me if i'm wrong , but wasn't that shiv's line?? it's me, shiv!!) how r u guys
and somebody tell me what the hell is happening with this shavi and this sneha gal????
byee
ps:....abi thendi chette ... u were suposed to call me
shiv ... same to u
and there the hell is that grizly bear dissappeared to (someone please explain this line to me!!)
SV

by the way sv, i'm just kiddin u man.. i supposed we should be grateful that you wrote in the first place!!!

sunday bloody sunday

U2 must have written the song on a godforsaken sunday like this one.. cloudy, gloomy, morose, lazy.. so many words to describe it. euro2004 is off to a cracker, and i can't watch it either.. :-(( portugal got a can of greek, souvlaki-flavored whoop-ass opened in their faces yesterday, while spain was business as usual over russia - finally they get over their slow-start jinx. croatian guns and swiss cheese battled to a draw, though one did get the feeling that the swiss were mighty relieved to get a point.. hot damn!! england-france!! what a game!! what a comeback!! those people writing zidane off better start finding a rock to go crawl under!! eng could do with more stability and strength - rooney, rooney rooney, what will come of you my boy.. i am still counting on you though!

went and saw a house on 82 merrimac, looked okay.. but 180 pp is still a lot man.. so we just tossed the football around and came home and settled in.. very sad kinda day.. finally made the pork chops in the oven - note: 45 minutes at 350F is too long!! we were too lazy to go downtown again.. so just hung around..

chilled out at vipul's and listened to lakers getting whupped by the pistons - finally finished the mcnab.. same story as usual of him getting royally f**ked over..

barbecue

had an awesome and elaborate barbecue last night.. made some pretty good stuff.. corn-on-the-cob, hot dogs, mixed veggies, fish steaks, pork chops.. sank, vipul, ashish, mal, nats, her sis-in-law priya and bro aditya, jessica (+ her guitar!) and a frnd pranay.. got some beer too, and played some good music too.. overall fun time!!

everyone was still kinda whacked out and dazed from last nite.. we took some really crazy pics with the black light, and the red bulb too.. hehehe.. had a couple of labatt's finest and leftover dogs and potatoes for breakfast.. which happened at 2 pm, which is still a very early hour of the day to be up and about..

went to the allentown arts festival downtown.. it was pretty amazing.. they had blocked off a mile-or-so section of delaware street, and had art stalls lined up.. it was pretty awesome.. some of the guys had really cool stuff.. me, i dunno much art, so i did get bored after some time.. the 'music is art' concert series was awesome, but i was just too hot n tired to hang around.. tomorrow is courtney love, smile empty soul and klear, so it should definitely be better!! though i just read that courtney was arrested for a DUI, assault and battery charge yesterday night in LA, so i am wondering how she will make it here!! ran into yann and yuri there, long time no see fellas! the french connection seems a bit frayed now that lucie's gone..

chilled out at home in the evening with mr. andy mcnab, ex-SAS, in his latest tale of shit hitting the fan.. liberation day.. i love the way he clearly stated that we are such victims of life's biggest f**kers - lack of information and lack of time!!

friday friday!!

aaand the weekend is off to a flyer!! woo-hoo!! last night was so much fun, and it only gets better.. today's a holiday since its reagan's funeral (bless his soul, the man got us a free holiday!!) this weekend is the allentown arts festival.. all free entry, as well as two days of weird, wild and wonderful live music and dancing, organised by robby takac (of the buffalo boys goo goo dolls).. should be loads of fun!

for my brothers of RK-CTM, what a relief with the bike issue!! motlax finally made up his mind and got a hero honda passion plus.. after countless tidbits of advice from paddy, vivid, nits (aka code-guru!!) as well as every man and his dog too.. i had told him to save his money for when he comes to the US.. but alas, it appears ctm doesnt see what i see in this land of opportunity!!

my ppl back in kenya.. farhina has her maiden flight today!! u get it.. maiden.. farhina ;-)) hehe, i know, not funny, but i'm sure that cheapskate nick would be cracking up with that one!! how's anne u dog?! and you know which anne i mean!! yes, that pointie you seem to have the hots for!! mohan is getting married soon, congratulations my man!! be a good husband, and don't beat your wife - try not to get beaten up either!! davo.. jamaa.. umepotea wapi bwana?! hata simu nimepiga! alhamdulillahi marafiki wangu, daudi ametusahau si wote.. na huyo anita piya.. jameni jameni.. mungu awabariki tu. aha, sofi!! as for your comments.. i have my little cousins who read this daily tale of debauchery, drunkenness and defilement, and i would like to spare them the gorier details.. but honey, you are welcome to ask me anything you want on chat!! it seems minister mwiraria unleashed a poor man's budget.. we shall see.. it will also be interesting to see what the NARC government does about pattni's revelations.. which the mwananchi always knew about.. but never dared say loud.

to reiterate my statements about describing grad school in 4 words.. during the regular year it's "advisor-budweiser apartment-department".. but during summer that becomes "beaches babes barbecues beer".. nice, me like!!

had an awesome and elaborate barbecue last night.. made some pretty good stuff.. corn-on-the-cob, hot dogs, mixed veggies, fish steaks, pork chops.. sank, vipul, ashish, mal, nats, her sis-in-law priya and bro aditya, jessica (+ her guitar!) and a frnd pranay.. got some beer too, and played some good music too.. overall fun time!!

RSF!!

ok.. going with the dark and gloomy day outside.. it has been decided that the time has come to pour vitriol on some certain RSFians.. savals valsa kumar chakkamadatil (aka Agent T aka 'tawla') - if you are online and available, please do us the kind favour of replying, and not signing off when ppl msg u.. u see, i don't really care, but koshy and abi will kill you - you do NOT want Kommando and Lambz getting mad at you!! And then there is our food engineer, pinku - dude.. it's really no point having a cellphone is it man?? i think we used to get to speak to you much more when you did not have the cell!! since you never respond to any other form of media, i guess i will try this way - bunty is in buffalo from 2-11 july, and ranj from 29th july to 14th aug, and arul is flying in on 1st aug, so if you could do us this great honor and maybe come up for a few days? we shall remember this favour that you do for us with everlasting joy and happiness as to how blessed we are! in fact, while we are on this degradation trip (for fans of jerry cantrell, i sincerely apologise! especially to you abi..) arul, where are you!! how was your trip to bangy? and how are your bevy of beauties.. dude, we eagerly await with bated breath!!

went for Thursday at the Square with ashish and mimi.. dudes.. all of u who missed this.. eat your hearts out.. cos magna-fi and fuel just simply ROCK!! magna-fi are opening in every leg of ozzfest this summer, and fuel.. well, fuel need no introduction.. ('hemorrhage-in my hands', 'down', 'shimmer', 'bad day', 'falls on me'..) it was simply mindblowingly amazingly good shit!! and guess what.. that was not even the best part!! the hot chicks there, and the even hotter chicks who were body surfing.. niiice!! yum yum!!

went to Bobby McGees with sank, nats, mal and vipul to watch lakers get their yellow asses bitch-slapped all over detroit after that.. sad game.. and then ashish and i had the inspired idea of going to Third Base.. good call!! met kelly there (she was off-duty today).. i finally got kelly's number today!! :-)) and met her bf too :-(( met her friends dodi and alisha too.. hmm.. dodi(sigh!!).. both ashish and i have gone bonkers over her.. despite her being married 6 years and it being her 29th birthday on saturday.. happy birthday dodi!! kelly has promised to hook us up with some friends of hers if we show up tomorrow.. now we have an excuse to go to Third Base tommorow!!! as if we ever needed an excuse to get hammered!! kelly was really sweet; she ended up putting on her tab two beers and i dunno how many shots for me .. there were these pineapple rum shots we had.. dudes and dudettes.. u so wanna try this stuff out!!!

now that i'm good and hammered.. i think it is time to quit this blog while i am still ahead of myself!! g'nite people!!

still hot

whew, yet another hot hot day!! it's a good thing i decided to not do any work today ;-) watched the 'Count of Monte Cristo', plodded on manfully with Andy McNab's latest gory offering 'Liberation Day' and chatted with quite a few long lost people today.. friends from kenya.. and kgp too.. farhina (one of my perennial crushes!!) is now an airhostess with Emirates.. on the Paris-Colombo route.. hmm, arul is from Colombo and lucie is in Paris.. is a trip on the cards?? ok maybe not, it's coming to around $1,500.. hahaha.. if i had that much money to spare for a flight i'd be driving a red mustang now!! farhina, wait for me honey!!

finally got the new memory card for the digital camera.. no more rushing to upload now.. buffalo seems to be totally rocking this summer, check out the calendar!! just heard that varsha defended on monday, and she's done now - is there a party in the offing?! went out in the evening with ashish looking for some houses around heath and merrimac.. some pretty decent looking places.

oh joy!! it's raining!! finally!! oh no, this means tomorrow will be decent weather, i.e. back to wrk :-( it had better not rain tomorrow evening though - it's Thursday at the Square again.. and it's Fuel.. been really looking forward to this..

hot hot hot!!

damn, summer is definitely here!! and the beautiful people were out in force too - me like!! too hot to do any decent sort of work today.. stayed in and watched 'Scarface' and 'Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon'.. finally found the computer and the system disk for the infra-red microscope.. the IBM comp must have been top of the line.. some 20 years ago that is.. it looked like it would have a major seizure if i tried to run even internet explorer on it though!! did they have IE back then?? another major headache trying to find a computer that still has the 5 1/4" drives to run the original floppies!!

came home early and had a nice siesta.. cooked up some beans and rice.. vipul came over too.. it's bloody 1 a.m. already.. looks like tomorrow's gonna be another day where nothing gets done until the second half!!

euro 2004 starts on friday,and we can't watch it.. damn!! some hick channel has the rights, but it costs $195 for the whole tournament.. not happening man.. anyways, forza del piero, forza italia!!

monday blues

it is seriously becoming very tough maintaining this rock n' roll lifestyle!! getting kinda too old for these consecutive all-nighters.. besides i seriously think it's us who keep the On The Run in the beer business.. messrs. labatt and budweiser must be paying them bonuses to stay open till 4.. what was supposed to be a chilled out sunday evening turned into a beer marathon.. and we almost got another orange traffic cone to add to vipul's collection.. we did get another photo of us lying on the road though!!

such a typical damned monday.. monday blues should be a medical condition, where the doctor can prescribe a couple of cold beers to fix you up, and yet have it covered by your medical.. that sounds very very ideal by the way.. thank god the weather is compliant.. i had to meet dr. baier in the morning to discuss what direction my thesis is gonna take.. luckily he was on for an early lunch so i only had to meet him at 2!!

damn, suddenly i'm headlong into work!! feels kinda weird, for the last few months not having done any activity whatsoever which requires more mental effort than deciding how much longer the steak should sit on the grill or will it be the 12-pack or the 18-pack.. and suddenly i'm delving into the innards of damned infra-red microscopes!! lesson to be learned here for all: this is what you get for writing tall tales in your resume!! was so whacked out by 4 that i had a glass of white zin and a blue, then crashed for a couple of hours in the evening!!

the reviews have started coming in.. people.. there's a comment link below each post, kindly do drop a line or two when you pass by.. would be nice to hear from you all! as for those who were asking me to write longer stories.. well, i really would, but i'm not doing anything that i could write about.. i refuse to start writing here about " Extremophilic Sensors: Advanced Biosensor Technologies Based on Semiconductor-to-Bacteria Adducts as True Biochips", which is what i am workin' on now.. work should be left at work!!

by the way, for those who don't know about him, rahul phondke is one of the most hilarious characters ever.. his weekly column Funnybone is one of the best ever!!

lazy sunday...

what a day yesterday.. went to watch the new Harry Potter.. i liked it, it was kinda more mature than the previous two.. chilled out, then decided to go club-hopping (vipul, nirav, sanketh, natasha, malvika, viki and i), so it was the regular "pizza & wings before you go pub-hopping dinner" from Just Pizza.. it was kinda quiet on main street, most kids have gone home.. went to Blu, which was not happening.. so we moved onto Iberia, where the dj seemed to have a 80s fixation (NB - the bartender there, jen, is hot, but her surprise cocktail was a very limp screwdriver..).. we broke our tradition by not dropping by Third Base on the way home.. but people were kinda tired.. vipul's buddy from boston, nirav, was nice and happy, and kept talking, and talking, then the cold pizza got him quiet! i have since been contacted by his lawyer, who vehemently denied his client eats pizza.

so like all other sundays, this was a nice relaxed sunday, chilling out.. watched a movie in the afternoon, then did battle with Rugby 2004.. EA Sports latest offering.. and hung out with vipul n' nirav..

saturday's here!!

yes, it's the weekend again!! had a quiet friday night for a change, recharging my batteries after a crazy Thursdays At The Square which ended in a barbecue and many, many beers!!

ranj's friend viki is coming down from rochester for the day.. so this weekend is definitely gonna be off to a flier, though the weather definitely doesn't look like it's gonna co-operate..

it's great i bought the enclosure for the external hard drive.. i finally can access all my Friends episodes as well as all my music, and the most most important thing.. my music videos!! RSFians.. remember the MFCSSOB folder, with the music videos, and friday nights, after Walds & Park.. and we'd pick up some 'greenery' from Greens, and on to my room.. them were the days boys!!

easy!!

ok wow, this is actually so much easier than i thought it would be!! stay tuned for further revelations as i get to understand this whole concept more!!

Welcome y'all!!

just a quicknote to say hi, and welcome to my blog!! will start posting stuff soon..