ROFL

* UPDATE :
Karthik Rai has started his blog - watch out people , he is here !!!

Check these out :

The War on Terror

WW2

Both of them had me in splits for real long - especially the second one.
Seen sooo many kids behave that way online :-)

Ideal vacation ...

I was reading chimpu's post ... and got me thinking , what would be my ideal vacation ?

Somewhere I can relax and enjoy the simple pleasures of life ...
Dont know what it is about staring into the sun and listening to the waves crashing that completely relaxes me ... makes me very contemplative - usually about my life.

Will describe one the best beach incidents that I have had - at Palolem beach.

This happened when we went to Goa last year - the weather when we reached the beach was absolutely gorgeous !
Relaxed for a while , the waves were amazingly gentle and there was this mild breeze blowing inwards with just a hint of salty tang to it - the start of a beautiful evening.
We fooled around for a while , got our pants wet and headed back to vegetate on the sand ... the soft , white sand.
Srini and Girish left soon after to arrange for transportation , leaving me and Aparup to just sit by the shore looking out into the sea and the sun.
It was extremely peaceful .... my mind went back and forth between totally blank to meditative contemplation about myself ... mostly my past and the uncertain future.
The hypnotic waves and the slowly changing sky made me completely at peace with myself and my surroundings.

Pretty soon the sky was crimson red and then started to darken , slowly ... oh ever so slowly !
It was a riot of colors ... and yet so tranquil and mesmerizing.

Soon after the others returned , we sat and chatted for a while ... but everything was mellow and melancholic - unlike the boisterous banter that we usually share.
By the time we left , it was dark ... we could see flickering lanterns and steady 100W bulbs dotting the beach.
Destination : our rooms , ETA : 2 hours later.
We left that beach slowly , and took away with us 3 hours of what I might cherish my whole life.
Everything was so serene and calm - it could have lasted for ever :-(
The journey back was a blur - as usual, I slept ... while Girish got christened I.T Mamman and Srini and Aparup had shitloads of fun :)

These guys are a gem to be - I will forever treasure that trip.

Yet another Bangalore visit

Aparup , a really close friend who used to work with me , is getting married - congratulations !
OR , like I tell him almost daily nowadays - enjoy your last few weeks of freedom ;-)

So , will be in Bangalore to attend his wedding - on 29th of July.
Planning to stay there and get some work done the subsequent week.
Dunno when I will move back , hopefully it should be sometime next month ... going to look out for a house near my office while I am there.

Catch you all then !

* This should also answer AK's q in the comments to my prev post :)

Book Tagged

* Update : Forgot to mention about Terry Pratchett !! I LOVE his works - the humour is just killing :) Would come under "Books that mean something to me"

This post thanks to Anoop ... do you notice his name is actually An-OOP - ok , ok , a lame joke I used to crack at college :-)

Books I own
Two carton's full ... most of them are not even unpacked since I reached here about 2 months back.
Oh, and about 20 odd books outside , which I bought while moving/after moving/etc.

Last few books I bought
These would be the ones I mentioned in my earlier post ... in my trip to Bangalore.

Last book that was gifted to me
Dont really recall ... must have been ages ago ! Or , as usual, my memory is failing me here.
If one of you did , sorry - just dont remember.
Ofcourse , I do regularly gift books to myself ;)

Last few books that I have read

That would all be Doctor WHO books , and a few chess books :

* Doc WHO and the Daemons - Barry Letts
* Doc WHO , Terminus - John Lydecker
* Doc WHO and the Ice Warriors - Brian Hayles
* Chess - Reuben Fine
* Chess Fundamentals - J.R. Capablanca

These are the books I finished since coming back from Bangalore ... the chess books , I dont really read them cover to cover - just hunt for nuggets of patterns which I can convert to code or will give me better ideas :-)
Been extremely busy with work , following by gaming (read doom3 , CS :-P) ... so reading has suffered massively :-(

Books that mean something to me
Tough one - let me just list the ones which I really enjoyed/continue to enjoy even today. I might be really missing lots of possibilities while making this list.
Usually , my liking or disliking something can be very very mood dependent.

* Catch 22 - Joseph Hellar
The BEST book I have ever read - till date.

* Mother - Maxim Gorky
I will just say , brilliant and extremely touching.

* Science fiction books : esp books by Asimov and about Doc WHO
Yep , I love most of them :)

* Calvin and Hobbes - Bill Watterson
I am an ardent fan :)
Yes , I own them all Muhahahaha.

* Unix Network Programming by Richard Stevens.
The book which taught me so much in the initial unix days !

Books I really enjoyed when a kid - from the attic of my brain :)
Might be really missing out favourites here !

* Books and articles by Helen Keller
Dont really remember them much now, but I was very much influenced by them.

* To sir, with love : E R Braithwaite
Really nice book.

* Adventure series by Willard Price
These were a series of adventures of the 'Hunt' brothers.
It was adventure mixed with info about animals and "exotic" locales.
Used to 'hunt' for them until I finished them all ;-)

* Hardy Boys , Nancy Drew , Famous Five , Adventurous Four , Enid Blyton series , etc.
Used to devour them until about 13 - 14 years old I think.

There used to be a paucity of books when I grew up ... and parents used to clamp down on the number I can read a week since I used to do nothing else !

Books I plan to read soon

Mostly , the ones that I am currently reading - the list is long and checkered.
Just dont get enough time :-(

* Basic Chess Endings - Reuben Fine
This is the definitive encyclopedia of endgame knowledge : has been a "project" of mine to complete this for the past ... 2 years I think !
Nowhere near completion ...

* OpenGL Programming Guide (Third Ed) - Mason , Neider , Davis , Shreiner
Still not completed - somewhere in the first quarter. Totally absorbing !

* Distributed Operating Systems - Andrew S Tanenbaum
Some progress made ... started after I got back here from Bangalore

* Minds , Machines and the Multiverse : The quest for the quantum computer - Julian Brown
Someone recommended this to me ... would be starting this soon.

* Design Patterns - Gang of Four
Already read most of it as articles , books and quotations by other authors ... got this to read it from the "source" : the book that started a revolution !

* Mathematical Analysis : Echoes from Resonance - Alladi Sitaram , Vishwanbhar Pati
This book looks promising , might really enjoy it.
Will start off on it when I get some free time and when I am in the mood for some analytical thinking.

* The Art of Computer Programming - Donald Knuth
The definitive guide to computer science.
Step one completed : bought them :-D
Step two , start reading them soon ;-)
Giving myself about 2 years or so to complete all three volumes , ROFL.

Thats it for now.
The lists above does not include anything that I read online ...

Whom do I tag ?
Would have loved to tag Alok - he reads really interesting stuff and reads a lot , but then he does not blog :)
So , I tag you ... please let me know in case you do write one - would love to read interesting works and this would be a fine way to get feedback about authors/books that I am undecided about.