Karmic

The new release of Ubuntu - 9.10 aka Karmic Koala is out. The download link is here .
Tried it as an update on my lappie running Jaunty and everything seems fine till now. Well , you never know what others would claim.

Wifi - running , check
Sound - running , check
Pidgin still remains as its an update . Empathy would be there in a fresh install.
The new backgrounds are something which you might feel as different as you start off with tweaking your machine. Yeah , yeah : the UI splash screen has undergone many changes as well. The blinking filesystem check is another .

Let me go back to it ;) ..

Untitled .. Unfinished

Fun with a Capital F ( Oh , Well .Isn't it how you have already written it . **guess I am going nuts ** )

That would be the aftereffect of meeting some faces ( Ofcourse ,with the bodies intact) which I would have wanted to meet a bit back . I have only myself to blame for it. As my sis used to put it “ You are missing out on so many things my dear Bro “.

Was I just waiting for an invitation to hit the road and end up in a room filled with some 15 odd faces to which I ( with a guilt ) in heart , I was trying to associate names? Good God ! It's just been 4 years since you were not in a similar room with the same faces. Or was it 5 ? Conscience is a heavy thing.

Still writing....

I

In the silence of the shadows
I dwell
In the draftiness of the winter
I sweat
In the sounds they call evil
I found my soul
In the exuberance of the carnival
I felt apathy
In the fields of despair
I tread
In the colors of life
I felt like a dog
In the strings of life
I find those hidden notes
In the comforts of a lie
I exult in vain
In the answers which said 'the other way is tedious'
I thought why not
In the songs of the Rofous
I found a longing
In every sailor's heart
I saw a bigger ocean
In every friend I had
I found a stranger
In every street I passed by once
I saw my life in reels
In Beethoven's symphony
I hear a deafened soul
In every tear that fell
I saw broken dreams
In every drops of blood spilt
I saw a mother wail
In my every step
I felt close to perdition
In the face of a smiling kid
I found heaven
In the faith of my lord
I found solace
In the arms of my love
I surrendered

Morning Blues

Getting too much used to the long weekends.
After effects : The blues have left Mondays for Tuesdays !

Good God !

Film : Tomorrow Never dies
Actor : Gerrard Butler !!

Windows 7 Yippie

Though the recent purchase of a Dell laptop ( Studio 1555 - mike Ming Sunburst edition ) set me back by a 57K , I found out a week back that Dell had a plan in place for folks who bought some of the selected models to have a free upgrade to Win 7. I registered today for the same and guess what !. I am entitled to get it too ;) . Just need to figure out if that is an upgrade CD or a fresh Install CD or just an upgrade option . !

Sea of Poppies : A review !

Normally, books or authors do not make a lasting impression on me, largely owing to the fact that I have very little memory of what I have read before. The only reason I picked up the ‘Sea of Poppies’ was that it was nominated for the Booker, though I was not particularly kicked that the tiger finally won it. A few pages into the book, I recognized the author Amitav Ghosh’s other books and I was hooked.

Set in the early 1800s, history comes alive as Ghosh weaves a masterful tale that starts at Bihar where the East India company has converted the farmlands to seas of poppies which has driven the farmers to debt traps forcing them into labor at the opium factories. Deeti, married to one such opium addict and subsequently widowed is rescued from her husband’s funeral pyre by Kalua, a low caste and is forced to elope to save themselves from certain slaughter. The reader is then transported to the archetypal lives of the Europians in India where Paulette, daughter of a liberal French botanist, brought up by an Indian nurse has to subject herself to the snobbery and pretensions in the home of her care takers. The scene deftly shifts to the palace of Raja Neel, a Bengali royal who is too naïve and honorable for the wily ways of the British and is soon booked for financial fraud. We also get a glimpse of the slave ship where Zachary, the American sailor finds himself pushed to the role of second command, with tips from the leader of the deckhands on appropriate command behavior.

It is at Ibis, the ship set to sail to Mauritius, that these motley assembly of characters converge,each with hope for a new life ahead. The only complaint I have is the dialects Ghosh injects into some conversations in the ship which turns a bit weary.The voyage across the ‘Black Water’ is sprinkled with a wide range of emotions among these strangers thrown together seemingly randomly.The novel ends with promise of a new life for the protagonists in the next two volumes of the trilogy.

ME

Who am I ? Remember a young Jackie Chan running around buildings doing spectacular martial arts asking the same question in a flick by the same name which became a classic ?

Who am I ? I am bewildered young man ( at heart atleast , though the lines on my face say otherwise ) with the same question. Masks ; lying here and there : of a son , a lover , a brother , a friend and so many more . The day will come when I need to be ME . And as I recollect , I can't distinguish that ME from the masks I have been wearing . Or have they outgrown the real ME ?

Dreams : HONDA

GOd , these are just amazing . Have a look here .One of the few good videos I have seen in a while.

Rio to host 2016 Olympics ..

I ( as always ) didn't know that the South American country was in the run for the bid for 2016 Olympics. I have heard from a friend that the economic condition of Brazil hasn't been smooth in the recent years.

2016 can be a like a coin which can flip any side.

Pros :
1.A good economic boost
2.More inflow of money due to tourism
3.Olympics as the major factor of attention helping more in point 2.

Cons :
1.PRESSURE !! ;)

Pooj .. I need a place to stay for two for 2016 Olympics.. Hope that can be arranged ;)