4th of July

Modern art is best left un-described

Smileys come in different shapes.

This one of the odd ones.

Supernovas or sea urchins?
They are all up in the sky.

These resemble the flares used by aircrafts
to ward away the heat seeking

Atlantic City

Have you had so much fun that you actually stop believing its true anymore? This NYC run has been something like that. Atlantic City was impromptu just as another plan so far. It was Friday evening when a friend of mine called me and asked me if I was game for Atlantic City for the weekend? You know me - I'm always game.
The plan was to start late, reach late and come back early - the next day. Like we had it all worked out, I was up by 11 or so, and was there at Hertz by 12:30pm. I remember grabbing a few bite and, vanilla milk shake at fatburger nearby. The guy ahead in Hertz line rented a Mustang, we had to make do with a Lincoln. I hadn't driven a Lincoln before; hell - I haven't driven a lot of things before. That car is huge, feels like a Contessa; I admired that car for a lot of reasons. Size isn't a reason. The drive to Atlantic city was filled with wildly spread traffic, I mean - tell me which part is a fly-way? Certainly, the drive to Atlantic City isn't!
We started the journey with some onion rings and French fries, at around 3:00pm. Not bad for start. The drive wasn't too eventful except that we couldn't take the express way for the lack of an "ez pass". Painful, but we weren't too disappointed as the traffic on both sides seemed to chug along at the same pace.
Exit 38a Take a right towards Atlantic Avenue ; thats what Google maps said 93 mile drive on the Garden State parkway. First impressions: No sky scrapers, for a change! There wasn't any thing about the city that strikes from the outside. But, only later I realized that the interesting bit is in the inside.
The Casinos - Trump, Caesars, Taj Mahal, Tropicana. I'm not sure if there were more. Hard to say. I liked Caesar for some a strange reason, must be the royal nature of the name. It was fun all the way through, gambling and all. I wouldn't for a lot a reasons divulge the losses that night. I rather paid for the experience. The casinos are grand and ornate, as you would expect. There was plenty of alcohol for the drinking, and hot women for betting; - again - as you would expect. Phew! Makes me sweat even. It was smoking in there. Roulette, black jack, poker, they'll take all you have!

What do you call this?

Its a chaotic organization of well coordinated facilities and infrastructure. When it works, it works well. You can only wonder how. When it goes down, it brings a furore along. Before you even realize it, its back on its feet again. The past few days has only amazed me; to a very large extent annoyed me. It was strange sequence of problems that arose last week (as usual, the write up is a late).
The was pipe that broke across in Hoboken apparently - "accidentally" by a contractor that wrecked chaos around the place I live. No water anywhere. Not a drop to drink, let aside the necessities! The city entered a panic mode for short duration. I was relaxed as usual "hoping" that the situation would be resolved soon. I think the whole day passed. My room mate even went over to Target to buy some water to drink. To his dismay, drinking water had been sold out, already! It wasn't as bad for me because I was out for the day to Atlantic City (more on that coming up). It was already too late for me when I reached from Atlantic City. All I had to do is nothing after I came back. All I did was sleep. Yeah, that counted. I slept through the confusion. When I woke up there was water running in the taps - though I wasn't sure if I was going to drink it.
If water I though was a necessity, there had to be something more critical that had prove its worth. Electricity. After I woke up, (it was around 2pm) stretched around, had brunch, and laid down to read a book. It was already 6pm, I tried switch on a bulb I remember when the electricity went out. I thought I busted a bulb. That lucky bulb lives to see another day. It was the electricity that was out. i stayed calm as usual and, went back to bed. With in no time, the hear alarms ringing police cars outside. Hmmmph - what do you think? There was an incident? Hell, yeah! There was an incident. There was power cut in New Port!!! There was an announcement on the PA in a few minutes - "This is to all the residents of Southampton building, there has been a temporary loss of power in the new port community due to lightning hitting a transformer. There is no emergency in the bulding. I repeat, there is no emergency in the building". Of course, I remember everything verbatim. The PA went on with the same thing with a pesteringly very highly frequency.
I want to rant about it for long time; because these are incidents that I don't hope to see too often.

Transformers - The Review

Optimus Prime, is the leader of Autobots out on a mission to save the Earth from the evil Megatron the leader of the Decepticons. Have you heard that before? I'm not a cartoon freak, but couldn't resist the hype of the Transformers. I had to see it. The movie was joke, filled with really bad attempts at humour, macho equipments with the stunts too wishy washy.
Megatron is this evil dude, who had crash landed into the Arctic Circle more than hundred years ago on his inter-galactic picnic, I think, and has been frozen ever since by humans. Oh, we humans also sweetly called him 'Non-biological Entity - 1' OR NBE-1. What a name! Its not even geeky, as a matter of fact it is sick! There is also a second NBE, its thoughtfully called NBE-2 - Its a darn cube.
The entire story is weaved out with a frozen chunk of metal (megatron), a energy radiating cube, Widwiki's broken spectacles, a bunch of cars that can (un)fold itself like in one of those Motorola ads. Oh boy! I say the cars were so hunky that they looked stupid. The only car I did like was muddy, dirty yellow looks of bumble bee which later transforms itself into a gay looking chevy. The rest were really were never meant to appeal. I mean there was a truck in there too that pop out an ax of fire or something which 'it' uses in battle, attempt to choke an NBE with smoke, tugging bumble bee in battle field. Oh, my god!
Its a shocker how aliens can transform into cars, raptors(?), trucks and hack into NSA's networks. I mean, its a pity. I don't know how the movie is doing in out there, I'm assuming its doing well - with a lot of Hollywood metal! I never had a taste for these sort concepts. I think these sort of concepts are for geeks :) I'm sorry if I hurt your feeling. Frankly, get a life next time around.

Back

Too bad. I get into my ill practice of not updating my blog to often. Too bad. New York city has been so much fun. Five weeks into my internship, I feel absolutely great about the city and the place I work. Lets talk about the city for sometime.

Wouldn't I sound like a chauvinistic if I said "There is no place like New York City". I can rephrase that to say - I have never been in place like New York City. Vibrant , diverse and full of life. There is something for everyone. (Of course, there are exceptions if you old, lazy, and can't keep up with the pace of the city - Go live some place else - This city is not for you:)

There were too many things that happened over the past five weeks to update over a single blog. I'm too lazy for that. At the top of head, I can remember doing the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Times Square, the 4th of July fireworks, Top of the Rock. Impressed huh? Yuck! I wouldn't go there for a second time. Err, Times Square - may be ; I work a few blocks from there.

As a newbie around in the city, it a crime to visit the same place twice. I have never done the same place twice in the last five weekends. I don't seem like it either. Weekdays are totally different question. Burritos and chicken over rice. They are pretty good deal for a cheap lunch! Its quick, its awesome!

They are few things that are more awesome in the city (when I mean awesome - they can so quickly turn into a pain ;). The subway system - It is so darn convenient to get to any place in town. I love the express trains. Hmmph, I can't take one to work anyway. BTW - the Path Train rock too - New Port 33rd Street Station in less than 20 minutes. As quick as it can get huh? Beat the traffic (Yeah, it will be a while before I can get own car :) One thing I will eventually loathe about these trains - are that they are really crowded when I have to get to office.

Well, if you have been wondering why I posted this absolutely pointless blog. I will tell you - The database I should be working on - is currently set for upgrade and I have nothing much to do for the next half an hour. So, I'm just holding you up sucker!

Live & Collective Soul

"You liked it, didnt ya?" This was rocker of concert. Not too much of a collective soul fan, but I went anyway. Loved it. Super thumbs up!

First impressions

I was coming in from Philly by one of those chinese buses, with two baggages and a friend of mine. Dropped some where in Chinatown, I had no clue where to go. Obviously, I hadn't done my homework well. I had make a couple of quick calls to get to the place I had to, I mean, I place to put the lugguage and all that. My friend and I, had a hot and crusty pizza for lunch and checked in to near by hotel. Whew! We were set for NY!

It was tiring, and heat wasn't helping. We bought a couple of tickets to south ferry; oh - thats the Statue of Liberty, strolled around the battery park area for a while. There wasn't anything awe about it. It's just NY.


We were waiting for the train to start from south ferry towards uptown, busy as the city is. There was an elderly lady trying to get in to the sub; with the doors closing. She was half way through neither in nor out. For second, I thought this was going to be a freak accident. It wasn't. This gentleman next to me ran to the doors to help the lady with the door; she came in and the train started with a jerk. This put the man off his balance and nearly tipped over a passer-by. The man the profusely apologetic about it though there was nothing to be. The passer-by replied very ticked off - "Next time be careful" waving his index finger at him. New York City.

Prelude

New York City. Yes, like hell I'm excited and raring to go. But, I have to arrange for accommodation and set some things right. The first place to look for was of course craigslist. I was there on room mates dot com too. After a lot of searching I found two good deals. Too bad I couldnt get either. a) Two bedroom apartment in Manhathan for $1350. That's what the owner of the apartment; a wedding planner currently in UK told me. By the way, thats how manhattan was spelt in a copy of the her passport.

That was easy; anybody with a stable head should have cracked that one. The next one was harder. $700 for a single bed room in a double bed; on Manhattan again. Believable? I fell for it first up! Its a great deal or, so I thought until a day a before when the owner mails me informing that she has to run to London due to her mum's failing health. I wanted to move in the by weekend, I was *high* - on New York. She asked me transfer the money soon to her address in UK for her mum's medicine through western union. Uh oh! It was kind of an emotional attack; the urgency, and the sincere plea. She was good. I have nothing against western union, its convenient - but in matters like these its a give away.

This was my third and my final stint as it turned out. All I wanted at this point was a place in New York (rather I should say around New York) to rest my head for the next ten weeks. I was browsing through sulekha dot com for more. There were a lot of available apartments around Jersey city. I picked a number, called it. It was a brief chat about where the apartment was, how accessible it was to the place I work and all that. I asked him to send in a few pictures. It was great I should say. I wanted to take the apartment. He said if you want it come get it; well something to that effect. I was in Pittsburgh yet! This called for some serious help. I could get in touch with a friend of mine to get the apartment confirmed and, that I could move in by 25th of May. Well, today is the 25th of May and I'm in varjun dungeon waiting to go to my place in a few hours.