Today was also friendship’s day. How weird is it, that within a year, the whole concept and its importance goes down to being negligibly important to you. Last year, friendship’s day was a big fanfare event. We went all over town, and even had a good deal of alcohol. My inbox overflowed with messages and it was a long day of communication. Today, the complete opposite. The only person I even messaged was the son of a friend of dad’s and that too out of mannerism. Last year was dominated by girls, and that didn’t change this year as well ;) I almost scored with a friend of mine,w hile her boyfriend’s not in town. Then I went for dinner with another friend of mine, with whom I had a great deal of convo about fornication :) She’s a darling :)

Signing off with an old adage, Good night and god bless !

What have I been upto? Well, yesterday night was a lot of fun. Finished 3/4 of a whiskey bottle all by myself, which is in part responsible for the headache and stomach ache I have today. It was a lot of fun catching up with Sahir, my old pal from grade 2. Although we stay in the same sector, I think I met him properly after like 6-7 years almost. Good times.

My AIMCAT scores were a relief this time round. Scored a healthy 95 percentile. Its important to see how well I do here after, cause now only about 15-20 sundays are left before I actually write the CAT. Gotta go right now, will post more later.

The acting skills of all the actors in the movie are immaculate. The Late Heath Ledger was outstanding to say the least. I haven’t seen the old Batman with the Joker (Jack Nicholson) , but even though I am a huge fan of Jack, Heath has undoubtedly surpassed him in every aspect. The acting was so good, and in parts of the movie, makes you finch as he seems to be so much into the skin of the character, a notorious one to say the least.

The movie has an enthralling storyline, something a lot of superhero movies lack. It’s not just about the action and special effects, rather an underlying plot that unravels as the story moves along. The movie is about 2 hrs 30 mins or something, awfully long for a Hollywood flick, but not for one moment did I look at my watch; the screen had so much better to show. A lot of moments in the movie are memorable to say the least, especially the scene involving the scene involving the Joker and Batman with Joker driving the truck and the one where Batman abducts the Chinese guy in Hong Kong.

The special effects are excellent. The performance of Christian Bale, one of the most amazing actors of all time and one of my favorites, gets overshadowed by those by Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart.

I cannot wait for the next one by the Nolan Brothers, irrespective of whether its a Batman movie or not. After movies like Memento and The Prestige (Wow!) and now the Batman Series, they just raised their own bar a notch higher.

Hmm…. Took the 0915 AIMCAT today. The paper was easier than before, T.I.M.E. seems to have got its act together :) I did decently well. Should get a percentile in the 90s which would be a major morale booster after dismal performances lately. The weather outside is incredibly beautiful. It’s the middle of summer, and the AC has not been installed even today. So this is a good respite until tomorrow. Will write more later.

They released their new album, Viva La Vida. Have downloaded 2 songs from their album, and both are awesome. The guy, Chris Martin, their lead singer, has an awesome voice. And his wife, the talented and beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow, is a lucky woman. It’s like having Madonna as your wife :) Then there’s this band, NickelBack.

Their lead singer, Chad Kroeger, has great vocals as well. A true rock star’s vocals. This song by them, Rockstar, is totally kickass. I couldn’t believe I didn’t have it on my hard drive. Just downloaded it, and got all grungy :)

Next week’s going to be very eventful. Karan’s coming back, Kanav’s coming back, Kabir’s coming back – The three Ks. Ritish and all would be coming back as well. Then the week after that or something, I go to Delhi, and FINALLY get my new phone. Meenu’s leaving for the US on 11th, so that means approx. 2 1/2 months alone at home with Mom and Dad. I need to make the most of this time though, cause when she comes back, the BIG sis is going to accompany her back, and well life’s going to get tougher. Jiju is not coming sadly, that’s a let down. I am pretty sure that next year, before I go off to college or join work, I am going to visit them in the USA. I definitely deserve to go abroad, what with all the excitement I have always had to go to the USA and the UK. Now that Kanav and Karan are going to be in London and maybe Gupta would be studying there as well. I am guessing it’s going to be a lot of fun. My preferences keep changing everyday about what college I want to go to. Now the list reads

1) Tanaka Business School, Imperial College, London
2) Cornell University
3) Other colleges abroad (max. 3 more)
4) IIM, Calcutta
5) JBIMS, Mumbai
6) Any other IIM
7) XLRI, Jamshedpur
8) FMS, New Delhi
9) IIFT, New Delhi

That’s pretty much it. I don’t think if I get into another college, I would want to study then. I would rather join Grail and get a good amount of work ex and then straight off head to an MBA college abroad itself, or even, if I dare say, ISB.

Will write more later.
9) SP JAIn/ Narsee Monjee

As far as Kismat Konnection goes, the only reason I want to see it is because of Shahid Kapur. Before conclusions of me being gay or something are drawn, the guy can act very well, dance very well and the promos look nice. I think it’s his time; when he gets a fair share of the kind of admiration he deserves. Vidya Balan on the other hand is an aunty. No dressing sense at all; she’s a perfect example of how someone’s public image can dwindle overnight (remember post Parineeta success?)

My Windows is giving me a lot of problems. Windows Vista got corrupt due to some electricity problem, which means the hard drive could not read all sectors probably. The thing I recently discovered, which kind of came as a surprise, was the fact that even if you format your hard drive, or delete stuff from the recycle bin, you can recover it. YES! It’s possible. I think, I have not confirmed, but the underlying principle is, that when we delete something, Windows just deletes the entry table of memory locations that points to the data. It might be a measure of recovery, but the stuff still exists on your drive. Now, I can relate to why it takes so less time to delete things, and so much more time to copy them. The main time spent is in changing pointers and creating new access tables. Once we copy new things to a location from which we deleted stuff, it simply overwrites the old material. And as there is no formal record of anything being present there, there is no need to get a permission from the user or warn him or her. However, recovering files is a tedious process. I started checking for files on my disk partition of 62GB and after 30 minutes, 15% had been completed. Phew!

I am eagerly, no no, desperately, waiting for my new phone to come. After having used the iPhone for like 4-5 months, and then losing it on my birthday due to, err a certain someone, I wanted to get it again. Now, I somewhat have a reputation of never sticking onto one phone for too long. I remember having sold a phone off and bought a new one within 2 weeks. So it came as a major surprise to most of my friends, and as an even bigger surprise to me, when I wanted to buy the same phone again. But I couldn;t help it, the iPhone was AWESOME! I hadn’t expected it at all. But using the phone, I got hooked onto it, even though, it’s camera was just ok, had no video, and no bluetooth. Now that Apple has launched iPhone V2.0 and realized that India is one of the most lucrative market segments for any mobile manufacturer, the iPhone is coming to India. With only 5-10% people declaring incomes (read paying income tax) and with an estimated 35% population having an income suitable to buying an iPhone, every Tom, Dick and Harry would own one. Which means one thing only – I CANNOT BUY THE IPHONE ANYMORE!

I have a thing for exclusivity. When I bought the iPhone, i estimated no one in Chandigarh would have one. I was way off my mark, but still only a few actually owned one. This time, I wanted to buy a phone that would be exclusive, posh, something that makes a statement; a tool to show off. And I found the perfect fit – The Prada Phone. No one in Chandigarh has that phone. I would shave my head off if that statement went wrong :)

LG Prada Phone

Will write more later. Am posting another one of my works below.

Now that the love is gone...

The reason this realization is dawning on me today is for the simple reason that today I bought the CAT 2008 bulletin. Also filled the form for IIFT. Not keen on filling the form of MAT as I am aiming to get into JBIMS (toughest accrding to me) through it, (by getting a 100 percentile. hahaha) and they would not recognize the test scores from this edition of MAT. But seriously, despite the horrendous show in the last two AIMCATs, I guess people can make it to the IIMs or some other A rung college, er not easily, but its manageable. I have for example, found that my english section is pretty strong, the one most candidates are scared about. My quant on the other hand is suffering, something most others are very good at. DI, I believe depends on the day you take the exam. Seriously, after having as accuracy of 99% in one exam, it is quite disappointing to get 30% accuracy in another. Need to get more consistent with that.

Moving on from exams, am listening to songs by the

Thievery Corporation and Buddha Bar

right now. Amazing stuff. If you want to listen to something thats calm, soothing, yet enjoyable, lounge music types – Listen to these. No favourites as such, they are all instrumental, so each song has a different flavor and stuff.

I saw Jaane Yu … Ya Na Jaane again today.

I would rate the movie 4 on 5 – Fresh, fun and a lot of people can connect with it. Some things I didn’t quite like, the sudden change in pace as to how Aditi realizes she loves Jai – Too quick and the whole airport story background… I hate them. But then thats a personal opinion. College has officially started, but classes have not. Will go tomorrow as well, but then don’t expect classes to be held. Anyways, I would be studying for my GRE and CAT, not the college studies anyways, so….

Returned the enchantress of florence today. Turns out, people got to know about the new book releases and so it has reserves on it. The sea of poppies, the one I am currently reading had more than 4 reserves and the other book, the bastard of istanbul, which i had shortlisted, had already been issued. I didn’t expect that, acted fast and reserved it. Mr. Mahajan, who was accompanying me, could not get cool with the idea that I read books :) Clearly the wrong person to accompany you at the library.

Till next time….

You know, it’s kinda funny, but somehow, when I look back at life, I cannot imagine the things I have done. Stupid, sweet, unselfish, seductive … pretty much any adjective you can find in the dictionary. And then, recounting them, a smile always comes on my lips, for various reasons of course. Like my blog, started off for a stupid reason, but today it gets reborn, for a purpose. I love three things the most in my life: My computer (and everything attached to it; internet, video etc.), music and movies and reading and writing. I know i am using two things in one space, but then this is my blog :) Also, the above things are the things that are important to me in the leisurely aspect of my life.

So off lately what have I been upto? The job interview with Grail Research went fantastically well, landing me the much coveted job. Business analyst. sounds nice! Delhi was fun, apart from the fact that I had to realize my pals had moved on from the way I knew them to become more professional in a very bitchy,aggressive sort of way. Well, what the hell!

Tried reading the Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie on the way back on the Shatabdi. The book is very florid, amazingly well written with a plethora of words I have never heard before; easily 2-3 words per page that would make you want to refer the dictionary. But the way Rushdie writes, WOW! He seems to pass off as a poetic writer. His sense of expression is just flawless. But the book is not the types that would appeal to everyone, including me. I read the book devotedly for the first 150-180 pages, and after that in bits and pieces till the end. The story is interesting, but the style is too detailed for my liking. On the other hand, I started reading another book. The sea of poppies, by amitav ghosh. A very well written book, in the sense that it gives a very graphic description of the story, and is very well written in simple understandable english. it’s not like I cannot decipher meaning or cannot read or understand well :) Just that if I begin reading a 550 page novel, I would like to start it from the like. I normally do not put books down without finishing them once I start, but then again, times have changed. I do not see putting this book down anytime soon. Have just read 50 pages though so a long way to go.

Hmmm…. Music. I experimented with downloading songs by Farhan Akhtar (the director), from his altest offering, Rock On! And what a pleasant experience it was. AMAZING STUFF! Good rock music, with good vocals (surprisingly) by Farhan. I have always like his voice, would have loved to have a voice like that, but man can the man sing! Socha Hai, Rock On, Picchle Saat Dinon, Tum To Ho, Ye Tumhari Meri Baatein, Phir Dekhiye … And these are songs I would recommend highly. Makes up more than 80% of the album. There’s this song, Kahiin to from Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na… I love that song, AR Rahman is a musical genius. Been listening to Singh Is Kinng (Snopp Doggy Dogg… Woohoo!) and others as well. But as the movie goes, Rock On! is the clear choice for me for the next few days…. And i am rocking!

I have been working on my designs as well. Feel this is a good place to upload stuff as well. If anyone checks this blog, please do let me know how the stuff is. here’s one of them….

Typography Illustration

Also saw lock stock and two smoking barrels yesterday. Amazing funny movie. Tried to get hold of more of the movies by the same gy, turned out to be Guy Ritchie (Madonn’s husband… must be mad on her :) hehehehe ) and turns out the guy has very good ratings on most movies on IMDb (My favourite place for movie ratings)

British movies are awesome! well atleast some of them. Another one I would highly recommend is The Bank Job.

Gets a bit slow at times, but worth a watch, definitely.

Well that’s it for now. Think i’ll hit the sack for right now. Have never ever in my life experienced the ‘early to bed, early to rise’ thingey in life. Somehow, end up being too busy. Have to start prep for GRE and CAT tomorrow seriously (something being put off for more than 2 months). Actually college starts tomorrow, finally a place to study everything other than college studies :)

So lemme make three resolutions that I HAVE TO complete by november end
1) Lose 15-20 Kgs weight (manageable if I stay away from food. Been done before by me, unfortunately bloating up again)
2) Prepare amazingly well for CAT and GRE and get excellent scores, make my parents proud
3) Get into a top notch (A,A+ category B School) OR a good master’s course abroad

If nothing works, I can always go to Grail now :)