Bay area randomness

Couple of old friends were visiting me, and we decided to see the bay area in an utterly random fashion - Wake up way past noon, and decide what could be accomodated in the remaining time before sunset. The outcome of that was that we ended up seeing a bunch of stuff we never intended to...LHS, Atomic and I shared credits for the [zero-]planning, and we ended up discussing all of this amidst some hectic PlayStation 2 gaming, generous doses of chocolate/maple syrup, waffles and Atomic's Pongal treatise...





We saw Stanford, of all places...There seems to be a general paranoia about out-of-state folks about seeing Stanford...I personally cannot find anything awesome about going all the way there to look at a bunch of buildings....Ah well...to each his own.







This was followed by a rather brief accident prone visit to half-moon bay....All we did was play ultimate, without any connotation to the word 'ultimate'...in freezing weather, and a rather stiff breeze, to complement my quite still-broken leg.













There was of course the traditional requirement to seek divine blessings...

We visited the Livermore [Food] Temple. Blessed were we to utilize insider information about the copious 'prasaadham' given to devotees at lunch. We even followed this up by a long drive+trek up Mt. Diablo.

Lol, indeed. Remember "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand?




Santa Cruz was a fun outing too, with the weird "Mystery Spot" thing, replete with a trip to the famous BoardWalk....We still couldnt figure out what was so amazing about the place though.






I should'nt forget to mention how seemingly mundane gatherings can turn rather engrossing.
Clubbing together with droves of ex-classmates eeking out a living in the bay area was certainly more fun than I expected it to be...








I even took them to see the center of my world [work, of course!] (and grab a couple of [free] espressos!)...




Considering my past ravings about Body Worlds(R) at Dallas, people just had to see the second edition on show then at San Jose Tech Center...We spent almost an entire Sunday evening seeing dead bodies suspended in weird angles, sometime to the point of nausea...



[I know people shall hate me forever for using this abbreviation....but what the hell.]





And of course no bay area pseudo-tourism is complete without a visit to ol' San Fran.


Incidentally, I also learnt the 'smelly' art of driving on sixty degree slopes on a dumb automatic [-With tire spin stinking up the road-]...

Hotel Kerala-fonia

I have heard great praise about this particular spoof of the Eagles' classic "Hotel California".

You probably need to know Tamil/Malayalam to really appreciate the quality of the spoof...I suggest listening to the original before the spoof, to get the awesomeness of the word replacement.

Big Bang Theory

I have become a big fan of this new series being aired on CBS.

The story revolves around two uber-nerd roommates [Leonard, Sheldon ]living across the hallway from a dumb blonde girl [Penny]. One of the roommates falls for the girl, whereas the other admonishes each of his efforts at wooing her as "statistically improbable".

Most of the dialogue is rather astutely worded, and quite hilarious, with the techy repartees all through slick with greased humor. Other characters include two other geeks [Howard, Rajesh] and a smarter-than-thou cool super-promiscuous female [Leslie].



Leslie is Leonard's lab mate, and secondary love interest. Leslie, Leonard, Howard, Rajesh and Sheldon, all hold PhDs in Physics.


Sheldon's famous board:



---
Sheldon: Someone touched my board....My equations!
[yells out] Leonard! Someone's tampered with my equations!!
Leonard: [waking up, dazed] Uh, what? Looks like that fixed the problem you were having.
Sheldon: Are you insane? Are you out of your mind? Oh! Hey! Look, that fixes the problem I was having!
Leslie: [walking in] You are welcome.
Sheldon: You did this?
Leslie: Yeah...I fixed it when I got up to get a glass of water. Well, now you can show that Quarks are asymptotically free at high energies. Pretty cool, huh?
Sheldon: Cool?! Cool? Who told you that you can touch my board?
Leslie: No one.
Sheldon: You don't see me coming to your house and touching your board.
Leslie: There are no incorrect equations on my board.
Sheldon: That is so....so...so...
Leslie: I gotta run. If you come up with an adjective, text me. [leaves]
Sheldon: Inconsiderate....thats the adjective...Inconsiderate. [texts Leslie]

You can see the above episode at http://www.seedownload.com/megavideo.php?id=PS74B9CM
[Episode 1x4]


---

The Halloween Party:


Raj goes as Thor, the almost-Indian, Norse god of thunder, Leonard goes as Frodo, the little dwarf [as he is addressed at the party], Penny as a cat, Howard goes as a very Peter-Panesque Robin hood. Sheldon goes, one should have guessed, as the Doppler Effect!

Leonard's been wooing Penny for six episodes now. Leonard runs out of Penny's Halloween party mad over her ex-boyfriend's presence. Penny comes over to Leonard's to apologize, when Penny suddenly kisses him.


Leonard: Are you sure you are not doing this just because of all the alcohol you just had?
Penny: You might be right. Leonard, you are so smart.[Penny pulls away from Leonard]
Leonard: [sarcastic] Yeah, I am a friggin' genius.
Penny: Why can't all guys be like you?
Leonard: If everyone were like me the human race wouldn't be able to survive.

--

The show's on hiatus now, thanks to the writers' strike. Dozens of shows have been affected since mid-November, with no end in sight. News is that CBS plans to continue Big Bang Theory next season, in case the strike doesn't end this before summer begins.

"Funky" Shankar

I have nothing against the music, except for the English portions, which are totally unnecessary.

Funky Shankar - The Journey Begins

This Funky Shankar is a Tamil guy raised in Singapore, singing about him being separated from his super-hot girlfriend...

I hope the girl in the song isn't his real-life girlfriend...that would be too much of an analogy with "Beauty and the Beast".

Read great books online!

I found a list of online e-books. Its awesome what books you can read here without a trip to the library...

Dwalin (in the list in the link above)is one of those 'legit' sites that I prefer.
It has mixed English and Russian literature, and has all the novels in text, so its easy to read, without the pixellation artifacts of pdfs.