My dream machine...

..Harley Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic. I wouldn't say no to Road Glide either. In fact I wouldn't say no to any bike from Touring Family of Harley Davidson. Is any one getting any hint or do I need to be explicit? Okay, I am not taking any chance when it comes to Harley:

(This photo is by a friend who doesn't like her name in print.)

Yosemite Valley National Park...

..is a must see for anyone visiting California. Why, you ask. Have a look:

This is Half Dome at Yosemite Valley National Park

Wish you a Merry Christmas...

Londoner

"Back in London, we have a Tube every two minutes. Me and my friends complain when we have to wait for 7 minutes for a train".
Millbrae station at 9 PM. The next train was at 10:24 PM.

"You can drive on the wrong side of the road?"
Its the RIGHT side of the road, in all the sense what-so-ever.

"I can't see any pedestrians on the road!"
Welcome to US!

"There are so many people in the camera section of this store. Back in London, no one knows about the electronic stuff."
Circuit city store. Weekend before Christmas. And yes, an average American is a "Gadget-freak". They want to have all the latest piece of equipment even if they don't know how to use it.

"She knows about Panaromic view in a camera?"
We were trying to capture Christmas Decoration at a mall when the attendant asked us whether we are going for the panaromic view. And almost all the cameras now-a-days (at least all the Canons) have panaromic option.

"People in Europe are extremely health conscious."
We have a bimodal distribution (consisting of two peaks or in lay man language, the people can be broadly divided in two categories) here: Extremely Health conscious and Extremely Taste Conscious.

"Come to London, I will show you better decorations."
I was pointing to the Christmas decoration in a local mall. My mistake, I agree.

"Wow, its beautiful out here. Just like Highlands in Scotland."
Finally, one compliment. I have given up. I know nothing here can be better than UK so I am satisfied to be at least as good as them in some respect. (BTW, the compliment was given when we were in the wine country).

"You have become an American."
And you, my friend, have become a Londoner.

P.S.: 1. No offense meant to the Londoners or the Americans here. Its just two friends catching up after 4 years. I apologize in advance if I hurt someone's feeling in the process.

2. A side effect of being with a Londoner: Politeness. It means I apologize quiet a lot these days. Forgive me, if that distresses you. :)

Now you know who I am ...

...and I am not ashamed of it.

Chaos...

..is the latest stage of my mind. I just went through 40 Hindi sentences, translated them to English and identified the subject,object, verb, tenses and all that crap in them (in Hindi sentences). I have been listening to Telugu song and refreshing my Tamil (konjam-konjam Tamil that I know). So my mind is in complete chaos. It seems like all the languages (and their grammars) are fighting inside my head. I am not sure if I am making any sense right now. I am completely confused and lost.

And to top it of, we (me and my visiting friend) were chased by my friend and her mom. They wanted to pay us for the hours we put in, it seems. As if its not my farz to help someone trying to learn my language. They literally chased us till our car with the envelop in their hand. That was a first for me. To be chased away by the money! Not that I chase money but I was never chased away by it either. I hope I haven't angered Laxmi devi. I don't want to loose the little money I have (remember: I am a PIGS (Poor International Grad Student)!

P.S.: Please pardon my grammar and spellings(if they are wrong)...I told you my mind is in CHAOS.

Health is terrified!

Yesterday, we were helping a friend translate few Hindi sentences to English as part of her assignment (She is learning Hindi). We came across the sentence:

"Meri Tabiyat Bahut Ghabra Rahi Hain. "

She started the translation by writing the literal meaning of the words as:

Meri: Mine
Tabiyat: Health
Bahut: Very
Ghabra: Terrified
Rahi Hain: Is

So it actually summed up to: "My health is very terrified." instead of "I am feeling nauseated." Don't you just love the language translations?

I am back!

The internet is working! Yay, to G3! I will be writing normally from now on...

Photo Time

I know, I know. I am very very sorry but the internet connection is not working at home..still. Right now I am borrowing someone else's internet (well we didn't exactly ask for permission though..its an unsecured internet connection) to post this too. We are still working on the problem. Meanwhile enjoy this picture we took yesterday on the street. You got it, it was raining and slightly windy. Hence the results.

Oh yeah, have you heard the song Jill Jill Jinga? Well for people with no clue, its a Telugu song. I don't know Telugu either. Trust me you don't need to know Telugu to understand this song. Just know that you add an "u" in end to make Telugu words like "Waiting" becomes "Waitingu" or "Chatting" becomes "Chattingu". Nice song. My friend (from London) got me addicted to this one. (If you want to read the lyrics, here it is).

London se aaya mera yaar..

A friend of mine is visiting from London and the internet connection at home is down so again, a slower blogging for few days I think. My friend is from IT and she isn't going to rest till the internet connection at home is fixed (I think the internet connection knew that she is coming, somehow). So I think I will back in no time. Till then, ciao...

Bumper Stickers

More accurately, Virtual Bumper stickers..its an application in facebook that I just added. And here are the bumper stickers from the application:

Hahaha...

(Image from a lot of sites including:this, this, this and this.)

Pleonasms

Redundancy is rule of life and part of our daily language. You don't trust me? Tell me that you don't use these phrases:

- Intermediate between: if its intermediate, it automatically means its between two things. you don't have to say it twice.

- Revert back: you revert to or go back to and not revert back to. If you revert back to something yo will end up in completely different direction.

- Plan ahead: well if you are planning, it will be in advance. Thats why its called planning!

- Advance reservations: Again reservations are always made in advance and not on the spot.

- Advance warning: imagine giving the warning after the event has happened.

- Armed gunman: well if he is a gunman, he automatically has a gun and hence is armed, for crying out loud.

- Baby boy was born: I know, you don't see anything wrong with this, do you? How about if I say baby is redundant? Who can born but a baby?

- Free gift: Gifts are supposed to be free, signor.

- Frozen ice: As opposed to boiling ice?

- Commute back and forth: When you commute, you do go back and forth.

- Unexpected surprise: Is there something like expected surprise?

- Regular routine:So whats your irregular routine?

- Difficult dilemma: Dilemmas are always difficult, trust me.

- Green in color: As opposed to Green in taste or Green in smell?

- Poisonous venom: Oh please, snake that bit me had non-poisonous venom. :)

- Reason is because: you are an idiot?

- Pair of twins: means four people, i.e., two sets of twins.

- Autobiography of my life: as opposed to autobiography of someone else's life?

- at 12 noon: At noon means at 1200 hours. It can't be at 1100 hrs or 1300hrs, can it?

Amitabh's magic

Okay here is a story. Once I was going somewhere through a jungle and I had an encounter with a lion. The lion ate me up. The end.

Yep, thats the whole story and it happens to be my favorite story. Only difference, Amitabh sang and acted it out in an unforgettable way. I never pondered about the actual story before today. I was always so wrapped up in the whole song that I never thought about how pongi (stupid) the actual story is. But thats magic of Amitabh, isn't it?

I simply can't...

..walk in high heels. Today I had a poster presentation at a conference. So to complete the "professional" look, I went ahead and put on high heel shoes. BIG mistake. My feet kept crying "HELP. TORTURE. " the whole day and I can't put them on the ground anymore.

Result: I actually have a new respect for all those fashion-conscious girls around the world who undergo this torture willingly. My salute to everyone who can wear and walk around in high heels. I simply can't.

I just don't get...

...people who wear shorts/T-shirt in winters and then complain about the cold. They will bundle in front of the heater/radiator and keep on about how cold and chilly its out there. If you feel cold, wear more clothes. Its that simple.

I know few people may have problem being all covered, all the time but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Just stop whining.

Cloud Nine

Lately, I have been getting a lot of compliments for my photographic skills. Most recent being,

"You should sell your shots of Stanford Campus to the Stanford students and alumni".

Okay people, I am on cloud nine. Does anyone know the route back to the Earth? I am seriously scared of heights. I will send you this picture for free (I told you, I am on cloud nine), if you help me out. That is, if you like it. But either way: HELP.

Old and Young

Just read:

"That's the duty of the old to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old." --Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass.

And people in middle get to do both, don't we?

Color Blindness

Nope, I am not giving a lecture on Color-blindness. If you want to read about color-blindness, then this article is for you. All I want to tell is that Color-blinds don't see the world in B&W.

Our eyes are like the color computer monitors or color TV (Actually its the other way round, they took inspiration form human eye system). It has three nodes to give the entire spectrum of colors. You might have heard some where or the other about the RGB (Red, Green Blue) nodes. Thats what we have in our eyes too, which help us define the entire color spectrum.

The simplest way to explain color-blindness: Remember, when your color TV got old, one or the node stopped working so that you had a greenish hue or reddish hue over everything. There were certain colors that didn't appear right. Thats how color blind people see the world depending upon which color node is defective (I think. I am not an expert on the subject so thats the best I can come up with) . The most common ones are red and green blindness. Blue color node usually work for most people (only one in 10,000 people has blue cone/node defective). Anyway, here is how different color-blind people see the rainbow.

(Image from J-Fly site)

Just FYI..

Color-blind friendly

Out of 250 people in a room, most probably 10 will be color-blinded. If you want to make color-blind friendly presentation/posters try out this link (its actually a ppt file (9.3 MB) that you would need to open/download). And if you are looking for creating an effective poster, check out this link.