When you come out of a movie discussing with your friends how some
alternate endings could have made it better, then it must be a better
than average movie, right? Butterfly Effect is a better than average movie
by that standard. It has time travel, but without all the science
fiction baggage.

Hmm.. This week was mostly uneventful, just classes and meetings. Oh yes,
I started to code in Java a little. I never thought I will program
in Java in my life, always associated it with web application programming.
Its a language which was consciously designed from scratch, and not
something that evolved over time like C/C++. I am not saying its the
best language to program in, though.

I ran 2 miles and played 5 games of badminton this evening.
"Hard Days night..."

I used to be good at badminton few years back. I was totally out of
touch, especially my back hand shots. The shuttle simply wouldn't go
when I hit it with back hand. Should practice that.

I updated my publications
page. I wrote a script to log
the clicks to the papers. Thats the only exciting thing about it.

I finished reading Speaker for the Dead. Not as exciting as
Ender's game, but still a good read. Should start some other book next.

I was chatting with one of my friends from undergrad days. She
reminded me it has been almost 10 years since we started undergrad.
Thats a long time! I was chewing the cud for some time, trying to remember
old events and friends. Nostalgia! Whats was I thinking what I would
be 10 years from then? Maybe I should have written a diary. Oh well,
the term blogging hadn't even been coined then, I think. I didn't have
internet access until my 3rd year. Boy, its scary think of it now,
but again, how can you miss something if you even don't know about it?

I managed to submit the final version of my paper today, way past the
deadline of January 9th. I observed this when writing the paper : I am
thinking in English. Back in my undergrad days, I never "thought" in
English, because I was speaking in Tamil most of the times, with friends
and even with professors outside class. When I went to Bangalore, most
friends didn't speak Tamil, so I had to converse with them in English.
Even then I used to think in Tamil and translate to English. I am not
able to pin-point when the transition happened. I guess when I went to
work for HP, I was speaking English most of my waking hours, so may be
it started then.


Today is
Pongal, one of my favourite festivals. I am missing the sweet pongal
jaggery/coconut thing that we used to have during this festival. I
ate so much that I invariably used to get a stomach upset after it.
And of course, the sugarcanes. Boy! its more than 2 years since I ate
sugarcane :(


I have started running, afterall. Ran 2 miles today. Its an indoor track, kind
of boring. But better than not running.


It snowed and snowed and snowed today. Probably 5 inches. It was a pain
getting around.

Culture is a virus. Atleast it spreads like one, according to Neal
Stephenson in "Snow Crash". I finally finished reading it. I took a long time
since I started reading it about 3 months ago. The book got me thinking on
couple of things : Why are human languages so different? Why do they tend
to diverge instead of converging? If our brain is a hardware,
is it reprogrammable? Anyways, it was a nice thrilling science fiction.


I saw this movie "Groundhog Day". I am convinced Bill Murray is the
funniest actor. The movie had an interesting concept too. Bill Murray is
caught in a time loop that spans a single day. Leads to some hilarious
as well as thought-provoking situations. It had a nice screenplay too,
not involving unnecessary sci-fi like scenes.


Classes have started for this term. I have been trying unsuccessfully to get
into a groove, so that I can plan my regular running times. I guess I will
start once the final version of the paper is submitted, which I am quite
close to.


India is doing quite well in the match against Australia. I can't go to
sleep with such an exciting match going on. Which means I will wake up
late tomorrow. So much for the groove..

Happy New Year!

I am sort of glad the break is over. The freedom during any break begins
to become fulsome towards the end, especially if you are not going on
trips. I guess its the case with lot of good things in life, like sweets.
Anyways, classes begin Monday and I am sure I will start complaining about
the lack of freedom soon.


I watched Peter Pan few days back. Decent movie. I think it was much better
compared to the earlier Robin Williams starrer.


I was watching an old Batman movie today. They were flashing interesting
tidbits on the bottom of the screen, which were hilarious. When Batman and
Catwoman were kissing, they said "Bats and Cats have different mating
seasons". When an helicopter with Batman and Robin gets hit by a missile
and is nose diving, they said "Bats can fly much better during night". There
were many others which I don't remember, but I had a good laugh.