My interests

I got to thinking what are my real interests since I am seem to be dabbling in several different random things at  different points in time...

Food - I like eating but do I like cooking? I might if I get good at it. I definitely like experimenting and discovering new food. What do I know so far? I like Indian,Mediterranean, Italian, Spanish, Thai, Mexican, ... I don't like kimchi (Korean), BBQ spice mix (in general strong spices used in meat dishes), etc. i will blog my pursuits @ allmyexperimentswithfood.blogspot.com.

Travel - I aspire to travel a lot, explore new places. If only I can plan and realize this dream...  Goingplaceswithdegz.blogspot.com

Photography - I have a D7100 and not very good at using it. I intent to learn and get better at it. What better way to do it than blogging about it. Learningtocaptureallofit.blogspot.com

Astronomy - my childhood fascination. It still is but I am no more knowledgeable in this topic than I was when I was 15 years old. I am probably going to buy the gigantic Orion XT8 dobsonian telescope. I am enrolled in an online course on cousera and it has been pretty fascinating so far. I hope I stick with it and this turns into something that adds value to my life...  I will blog my pursuits @ letusseewhatsoutthere.blogspot.com

Fitness - ah well...

Random pursuits / interests....

- piano: I bought one purely out of a random impulse. I can barely play the basic c chord.

- violin: I'll probably dabble in this sometime soon. I have been obsessed with violin since my teens; so I will probably get one soon. My musical talents are questionable at best...

Stuff to remember on thanksgiving

No this is not about being thankful etc. (which by the way I am); this is about what I don't need to buy this thanksgiving. Things to remember amidst all the hoopla and needless hype & excitement. I have already spent a good 3-4 days researching stuff that I absolutely don't need this year; and most of them I already have.

I dont need no - 

#1. Blueray\DVD player - no matter how smart or how internet ready they are; you dont have any bluerays and I dont think you will ever go rent one or buy one. Just connect the TV to one of your 3 laptops and watch whatever content that you can stream; you already donate monthly to Netflix.

#2. Roku\Smart devices - refer #1.

#3. Tablet - ipad 2\3\mini - whatever; think about the 2 kindles that you never use, dust them up atleast.

#4. TV - well I haven't made my peace with this one yet; but I do have 2 32'' Sony Bravia's and I paid good money about 3 years back; not only you will loose money on a perfectly good piece of TV that you like; you will spend another 1000$ chasing the 55''.

#5. Laptop - again I am not sure about this one. I have an old macbook (which crawls now a days); toshiba (work) and vaio (technically wifes). Technically looks like I may have to invest on a personal laptop for some personal projects. But I hate shelling out big bucks for a macbook pro; maybe look at an ultrabook ?

Comeback and read this all throughout this holiday season. Let see if you win this battle.

Men who built America

Anybody watching this on History Channel ?? Whoa !!!

Andrew Carnegie - The steel magnate

Cornelius Vanderbilt - Shipping & Rail road

John D Rockefeller - Standard Oil - 600 Billion USD in adjusted value !

JP Morgan - The Banker, General Electric

Building empires from scratch; and get about a dozen streets and building named after you in every damn city ! (for a second lets not pay attention to their means ) Pure capitalists but the drama is gripping !! Thomas Edison + JP Morgan v\s Rockefeller and then Nicola Tesla. But JP Morgan bailing out the country tops it. and ofcourse Morgan
, Rockefeller & Carnegie buying the republican nominee is nothing out of the normal.  functional innovation for the masses; economy with scale. Ruthless or Smart.

Note to self: need to get some more reading done on the political thinking of the founders and the thinking of these building blocks of the economy.

Weekly call - Nov 3rd week

NFL
 - Rex Ryan is done with the Jets. Lets bring in some new guy. Ditto for the QB.
 - Broncos\Manning - Now there is something I'd like to hear more about
 - Eli Manning - give him a break. Cant decide if he is overrated but what the heck he has 2 rings.
 - Superbowl - XXIV - Romans are not around anymore and it takes me a while to interpret this. I agree  with SportsNation - enough already. I want to know the year of the superbowl and yes ofcourse get rid of the pro bowl and I want the telecast on thursday nights and all New England & Broncos games.

NBA
 - Lakers and D'Anoni - Lets get started already. 11 championship rings for the Zen master - that was before this Miami Heat ! let us rumble and see if we can shake up the western conference. Dont see how Nash, Kobe and the two trees can play together.
 - Celtics - Bro's time to get it together; otherwise KG might be in for an early retirement

Politics
 - Romney\Ryan - Yo enough already. May be I should say this to myself and stop reading all the articles from the Election category on google news. Take CNN out of favorites.
 - General Petraeus, General Allen - what crap? when did some innocuous email drafts turn in to a sex scandal !! Erin Burnett, Wolf Blitzer & all the Fox Pundits - please take a breather and let the man in Afghanistan take care of business and get the people on ground on to doing something worthwhile.
 - Fox News - ROFL - Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better or is this real?   

Work
 - Time to find some side project. To hell with putting in a days worth hard work everyday. Time to move on from a blue collar mentality to a white collar mentality.

Personal
 - whatever; lets move on to next year already and wish I could drop about 10 lbs without any hardwork.

my blogs

I dont know why but somehow I tend to blog more at livejournal for no abvious reason. I started checking out livejournal as it was opensource even though I was registered here and eventually somehow got stuck there. Usabilitywise i donot see much pros & cons as I am not really an advanced user but just an occasional trivia blogger - whose blogs nobody reads :). But If you want to read something for some strage inexplicable reason then you are better off reading my livejournal blog.

what makes a man, the man he is

what makes a man, the man he is - is the choices that he makes and how he chooses to end them - courtsey - Hellboy !

I like Hellboy - I really do admire him for the kind of arrogance that he has towards life - that shows his mental strength and ability to sustain any kind of barrage - mental or phisical and his readiness & willingness to sustain it and his confidence that he will get thorugh any shit!

I think it is this kind of mental strength that makes super heroes. It is the same kind of strength or will that you see in those Quentin Tarantino movies. kill bill for instance - be it gogo, Elle, bill or the bride herself. it is this strength ! that clear unwavering mental strength. probably thier excellence in whatever they do, follows this strength. thier ability to sustain through the torturous traning sessions and ability to constantly motivate themselves to be on top of whatever they are up to.

plan in place

after a long bout of procastination, finally got my GMAT prep rolling, as per current extropolation sept 1st week looks to be the ideal test date after about 10 weeks of prep. Also got my physical fitness program rolling and I seem to have lost abt 5 lbs in a week - way to go !! finally my (ur)anus in retrograde seems to be having some effect !!

spent the weekend playing some bad tennis - got the serve going on saturday but it totally let me down on Sunday and my game seems to be as bad as it was! probably it is because I try to play all those shots that I see on TV without having tried even once before in real life - get real man ! and ofcouse my religious jogging around the Sun Microsystems office has been going on nonstop - though still it is more of walking than running, I am sure I will get there. All I need is some practise and some real motivation.

'Phir Hera Pheri' - saw this on friday - it was amusing to some extent - cant say it is a outright good movie but paresh rawal and akshay kumar had some moments when they the funny bone tickling. But most of it was inneed cliche.

I was looking at rudresh's flickr photos http://flickr.com/photos/thoughtography/ - amazing how he shot those fireworks. That shot of auto in motion is just amazing.

got to study some basics to put mu Rebel XT to some use atleast !