Weekly Tops

Songs:

- "One Way Ticket" - Eruption
- "From of a Distance"
- "One Last Breath" - Creed
- "Chanda Ke Kiranon Mein": Kishore kumar
- "Unwritten" - Natasha Bedingfield
- "You and Me" - Lifehouse
- "Escape" - Enrique
- "When You Say Nothing At All" - Ronan Keating
- "You took my heart away" - MLTR
- "Kuch to log kahenge" - Kishore Kumar
- "koyi hota jisko apna" - Kishore kumar
- "But it rained" - parikrama
- "Mamma I'm coming home"

Movies:

- Chak de India
- Bourne Ultimatum

Welcome Back!

Welcome back rhapsodic readers; your best-loved blogger is back! Let not my hiatus from blogging, my friends, insinuate my hiatus from fun, work, life, and love. A lot has transpired in the interim and I dare only pen a 20,000 feet executive summary, not doing justice to any of the bullets, lest I fear getting lost in the labyrinth of the glorious summer I've left behind. Not to mention losing my readers bored by the details :-). Hmm... where shall I start. Indeed it has been an amazing summer; the best since I left home, long long ago.

- Undoubtedly, the place to start is update you of my burgeoning love life. Mallika Kumar is her name. I reserve the word "SHE" in the rest of my blog for her, forever. It all started that thunderous full moon night on the 1st of July. And since then, I've never looked back...

- And yes, I was interning at Google. I loved it! Yeah, that does include work, not just food and pool.

- Worth noting is our escapade to Steffi's baby shower. As we walked toward Steffi's apartment, Mallika told me: "And BTW, I didn't tell you the baby shower is technically only for girls" :P. While she was trying to pull a fast one, as we entered, to both our surprise Steffi said: "Uhmmm, Anish, I must warn you, you might be the only guy here". And sure enough, that evening I was with 10 gorgeous women in one room with no reason to complain.

- What else, I bought tickets for my India trip this winter! I'll be off for more than a month in Bangalore. Can't wait to get back home after a long year!

- I've moved on-campus :). EV 86. Stop by for unprecedented hospitality: dirty apartment and no food or soda to offer. J/K.

- Four of us (Atish, Himani, Mallika, and I) made a trip to Orlando, Florida. We saw alligators, parasailed in Daytona, went on the fieriest rides in disney, and much more...

Oh, I almost forgot, I owe you an explantion. Not for the hiatus, but for the return to the dark. SHE said "You write really well! Why have you stopped blogging?" :)

Alright, stay tuned to this column for further posts. In the meanwhile, stay beautiful.

Weekly Tops

Songs:
-------
1) "Because of you - Kelly Clarkson" (looking for mp3)
2) "How Do I Live" - Trisha Yearwood
3) "These Dreams - Heart" (looking for mp3)
4) 'Kandisa" - Indian Ocean
5) "Lay a whisper" - roxette?
6) "Leaving on a jetplan" - John Denver

Movies:
--------
1) Silence of the lambs
2) ...censored...

Poker Party Minutes

Friday, 20th July was a night to remember... a night of fun, frolic, fights, derision, and debauchery.

What: Poker, Games, and more...
Who: Kavya, Ranjit, Aditya Jami, Dilys, Sidjon, VK, Mallika, Atish, Anish

Standings:
1) Winner: Atish
2) Runner up: Anish
3) Third spot: Ranjit

Credits:
- The thinker: VK (Thought for 5 minutes and folded :)
- First time drinker: Sidjon (drank a glass of vodka+cranberry)
- Teetotallers: Dilys, VK, Mallika
- Most Illustrious player: Ranjit (back after playing the WSO Poker tourney at Vegas.)
- Surprise performer: Aditya Jami (First time player performed really well. Neophyte's serendipty.)
- Drunken Driving: Kavya :P (flunked her driving test next day :( Good luck next time round!)
- The strategist: Mallika (ask her why!)
- From rags to riches: Atish (was penniless in between, then ended up winning eventually)

Free Furniture (first-come-first-served)

Hello,

If you or anyone you know needs furniture, we are giving away furniture for free. The price you have to pay is transport it from our place (749 Stanford Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94306) by 28th July, or latest 29th July. Call or email ASAP if you are interested in looking at or taking any furniture.

We have the following (in addition to several other smaller things. Drop by or let me know if you are interested in the complete list and I can send it over):

- couch
- 2 convertible beds (foldable to make it a chair)
- coffee table
- wooden dining table with 4 chairs
- side table
- 2 large computer tables
- 2 large chests/drawers for clothes
- small bed table
- modem

All the stuff above is available for free (only because I need to clear my apartment by 29th July :( ). You can also buy the stuff below if you wish:

- Comfortable leather chair ($20)
- Queen size bed + mattres ($40)
- Microwave ($20)

Top Songs

I saw only a couple of movies last week and hence publish here my top songs' list (in no specific order):

"How do I live" - Trisha Yearwood
"Top of the world" - Carpenters
"Where'd you go" - Fort Minor
"Ankhiyon ke jharokhon se, maine dekha jo saanvare" - Hemlata
"Right here waiting" - Richard Marx
"Ever the same" - Rob Thomas

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Tahoe

Lake Tahoe it was the past weekend. Preceeding our trip to Tahoe was amazing food+movie+games at Uttu+Manjeera's place (kudos to Manjeera and Himani for the cooking!). After we lost SidJon, Deva, and Dina Fri night, the gang that embarked on the memorable journey to Tahoe was: Utkarsh, Manjeera, Atish, Himani, Mallika, VK, and me. As the days passed, the numbers dwindled. First night, the horrendous fateful night, was the campfire night (next was the forest fire night). Next morning we went rafting, and then in the evening to the casino. That's the executive summary.

I'll spare you all the gory details of every minute of the trip, instead just give you samples to convince you that it was all happening there. Beautiful, crazy, wondeful things happened: one among us was christened "handsome retro", VK got a speeding ticket, Manjeera had a coupla milkshakes :), awesome cooking by manjeera+himani, atish fell into the water rafting, Uttu accepted a dare and walked on the edge of the raft while in motion, himani was so drunk and deluded she thought she won a fortune at the casino, videos of VK+uttu snoring were taken, Mallika was caught "playing" with a teddy bear, we got free drinks at the casino, there was an embarrassing restroom episode following anish+mallika getting lost in a 500 mt radius circle, resulting in a 911 call, a graphic story was constructed on the drive back from Tahoe, in addition to lampooning Mithun Da, fortune cookies of atish&himani caused them to want a "shield" in the car, and not to forget, witnessing the taho forest fire in all its fantastic fury. The rest is history. It'll suffice to say it was one helluva trip!

Weekly Tops

Weekly posting of top songs I've been listening to, and movies I saw. In no specific order...

Top Songs:
========
- "She Hates Me", Puddle of Mudd
- "Here I am", Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron
- "Lag Jaa Gale Ke Phir Yeh", Woh Kaun Thi
- "Chiquitita", Abba
- "Circle of Life", Lion King, Elton John

Top Movies:
=========
- Kill Bill
- Life is Beautiful
- censored... (kidding :P)


If you want your favorite song/movie to appear here next week and/or think I've missed something, lemme know! I'll check em out...

Beijing!

Was in Beijing 9-16th June for SIGMOD 2007. Presented a paper titled "Leveraging Aggregate Constraints for Deduplication" (I know you don't care, but for completeness :). What did I do apart from attending talks and schmoozing with people? Here are some highlights:

(1) Went to the Great Wall, which blew me away. 3000 miles long wall built atop endless mountains, winding all around. No wonder it's a wonder of the world. Hiked up to (the most famous and highest) peak of the wall, got a certificate for reaching there :), and took the cable car back down. Was amazing!

(2) Ate some snake delicacy, lots of roast duck, and several other weird things I don't remember. The snake was better than the cocoon I ate at Korea :D. Oh yes, there was this interesting street in Beijing I went to late at night where you get tons of food on skewers, including scorpions, snakes, starfish, dogs, and more. I didn't partake any of it as I had filled myself to the brim at a traditional dumplings restaurant earlier.

(3) Went to the "Pub Street" in Beijing. A street full of pubs. We had chinese beer in one of them. Was additionally exciting as all four of us were out there very late at night, and didn't know the language. Four strangers left at the mercy of cab drivers, and a piece of paper with our hotel name written in chinese to take us back. The story about our journey from the pub back to the hotel, and the adventures thereupon stay in Beijing!

(4) Went to this street mall were young pretty chicks try to sell you clothes. Don't remember what I wore that day but plenty of the chicks came to me and said "handsome guy", etc :-). Then when I didn't end up buying things from them, they'd say "dirty/mean guy". It's true I'm both (both doesn't stand for dirty and mean, but stands for handsome and dirty/mean!) LOL...

(5) The conference banquet was at the gorgeous Summer Palace. Took a boat to reach this island palace. Saw a traditional chinese (changing face) opera which was amazing. Also witnessed an acrobatic performance by young kids, a Beijing opera, a magic show and more. In all it was wonderful.

Pics of the trip coming soon, so stay tuned.

Blackwleder Ping-pong Tourney Update

The Stanford blackwelder ping-pong tourney concluded a few weeks back. Needless to say I won the men's singles, and VK and I won the men's doubles. Too bad the mixed doubles got cancelled else I'd have been part of the winning team there as well :-)

Anyway, the prize for the men's singles+dubs has given me close to ~$30 worth of Jamba juice, and $15-20 worth of stuff from the bookstore, none of which I've used yet.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.