Bludddy Desis
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
I came across this story on Digg where a restaurant in Utah allows the customers to pick their price for the meal they ordered. If the customers absolutely cannot pay, then they can do the dishes or weed the garden but there is no obligation. While reading the story I was thinking to my self that this concept would ultimately fail in the sub-continent since we Desis love to get everything for free. Sure enough at the end of the article I found this piece.
Paying the check by honor system has its risks; there are always those who will exploit the opportunity and eat for free — perhaps more so in big cities. At Babu, an Indian restaurant in New York City, the pay-what-you-feel-is-fair method resulted in too many people getting a free meal. One Friday night, a rowdy group of 10 young Indians walked in and took over the restaurant's large central table. Their response to no prices was to leave no money; not even a tip for the wait staff. Babu now states their prices.
I love my India :).
P.S: I know I generalized in this post, I do know better.
Please welcome
Sunday, December 17, 2006
one of the newest members of the Purdue Alumni...
Thanks to Shiraz for braving the chilly winds and taking these photos.
12 Days of (Indian) Christmas
Friday, December 15, 2006
I have no idea about the purpose behind the song, but it has a funky rhythm
Time Presents: The Best Photographs of 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Check it out, a collection of the most dramatic photos collected over this year. I must add that most if not all are depressing to say the least. I'm sure they couldve thrown in a few happy photos in there. Meh. I personally like the second photo of the mother and her son.
read more | digg story
Brake, Brake, Brake!!!
Saturday, December 09, 2006
This post is dedicated to my room-mate, Shiraz. No need for explanations :)
Edit: To any concerned readers, nothing actually "happened"; it's just that Shiraz isn't engineered to complete a driver's test successfully. (although he drives fine otherwise)
Yes or No?
Monday, December 04, 2006
Fill in these blanks with either Yes or No :
1. _____, I am not human.
2. _____, I am the thief.
3. _____, there is no treatment for me.
4. _____, I am the one who is mad.
I was amused (enough to make a post :P)
Digg ticker ^ ^ ^
Friday, December 01, 2006
If you havent heard of Digg.com then let me show you the way to hours of worthless browsing. It is a social bookmarking site. What is that you say. It is a site where users submit stories and other users get to vote on the story ('Digg' the story). If it gets enough diggs it makes it to the front page and millions of people view the website submitted and in most cases crash the server on which the website is hosted.
In any case, I am a bored soul so I frequent the site a lot so I figured I should add the Digg ticker (which I found on Digg via a story) which basically scrolls the stories that I found interesting enough to be "dugg". Word of caution, Digg is one of those "check every few hours" kinda site. It does get very addictive since its always brimming with fresh and mostly interesting stuff.
Thats all, I just needed to let you know what the ticker on top was displaying. It saves me time from making a post about the interesting things I find on the net :).
Insight
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Ive always wondered how those cars found on the roadside in Dubai, wrapped around street light poles or crushed into a tiny box form came to be. I'm thankful for not having seen any of this madness with my own eyes. This video below just shows the dangerous combination of money without the brains or as the rest of the world likes to call it, "oil money".
One part of the video is particularly graphic and there is even a separate video just for that incident but I believe its best not shown. Anyway, take a look, but take no notes ;).
The way life is...
Monday, November 20, 2006
Something amusing I received via email:
A man in a hot air balloon realized that he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below.
He descended a bit more and shouted "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The woman below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 50 and 51 degrees north latitude and between 114 and 115 degrees west longitude.
"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.
"I am," replied the woman. "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "Everything you told me is technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information. The fact is, I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip."
The woman below responded, "You must be in management."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. ...... You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air.... You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep.... and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems.
The fact is, you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, you've managed to make it my fault."
Superman, the prequel
Monday, November 13, 2006
I DARE you, press the play button and last the entire length of the video, go ahead! Govinda and Rajnikanth should get definitely get together and make a superhero movie.
Do not waste a good tantrum!!
Friday, November 10, 2006
Jeez, how many times do I have to fall down and bawl!?
Riddle
Monday, November 06, 2006
An interesting riddle I came across recently.
A father and son were in a car accident. An ambulance took the father to a hospital 4 miles away and the son was taken to a different hospital which was fifty miles from the accident. When the son was taken into surgery the surgeon said "I can't operate on this patient because he is my son." How can this be?
BTW, goes without saying that if you've already heard this one, just keep the answer in your stomach for a while; I just want to see some "wrong" answers if possible. I know, how selfish of me to indulge in this torture :P.
On a separate note, me posting that Roxen album seems to get a number of visitors through Google. Just something I noted, nothing against them or anything. :)
Edit: We have a winner and its Pravin! BTW the surgeon was the boy's mother. It normal for us to associate surgeons with men it seems.
Animals are better than you!
Friday, November 03, 2006
ROFL, one of the funniest videos Ive seen...
Ramble
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Its been a while since Ive rambled on this blog. So as a precautionary warning, if my sentences arent coherent just take them in stride.
(Stop reading here if you're scared of engineering terms)
--------
College is being a bitch lately, mostly due to senior design. My team is not getting a lot of progress done mainly because my team mates are both CompE's and analog circuits isnt exactly their forte. My design too seems to be hitting roadblocks every now and then. My part of the design includes building a RF transmission system, and I chose to do that via tone generation and detection. First mistake. As it happens the RF system provided to us isnt capable (reliably) of transmitting over 1kHz tones. That is a problem because I need enough bandwidth between two tones so that my detection circuit does not pick up duplicates. In layman terms, I have six buttons and because of the current limitation it would be possible for one button to trigger two or more functions. Bad bad bad.
The tone detector circuit is modular and has six detectors being fed with output from the RF reciever. The detection frequency is tunable via capacitors and resistors but each frequency is not accurate. It will pick up a range of frequency and set the output to high. Which is why a bandwidth of 1 kHz is really limiting. My only hope is to go ahead and build the circuit and hope for the best (the worst thing an engineer can do basically).
------
(start reading again)
My other course, dealing with a multi-discipline project is going really well. My team here is supposed to hook up the world with traffic info from a specific traffic junctions around campus. We got most of the site worked out (mostly my coding) and its available here. Click on the Etrans/estadium team btw and choose any traffic point. The live view is kinda bandwidth hungry so if it shows a static image then bad luck.
One good and bad part about this course is the voluntary PHP class Ive had to take. It was fine the first few weeks but it got really hairy afterwards and I lost the instructor (he's a TA) completely (mostly because its a crash course and I crashed). He wants to give a final exam and I'm really not interested. I dont care basically because the profs I'm working under have outright told us that if we manage to fulfill our proposal, its an A, and we have for most part. Moreover its a freaking one credit course, I cant be bothered when I have Senior design to worry about.
Apart from that college is fine :P.
Winter is here and it sucks ass. Hate it...
Eid came and went. Missed home folks a lot that day. Made a lot of calls to dubai as well as nagpur. Got to talk to most of my cousins; luckily they were all at my grandfathers place in nagpur.
Weird thing happened today, I was reading gulfnews online and read about this family of four who died on the spot after meeting with an accident in Dubai. My sister Sarah tells me today that one of her friends died and it turned out to be one of the same family. Tragic. Stuff like this makes one aware of the uncertainty of life.
Current fav song : Roxen - Lams (from the album Rozen-e-deewar). This song is almost hypnotic, mainly because the singer repeats the same line over and over. The whole album is really good and if youre into Pakistani rock, check it out.
Edit: Full album download links (Copy paste each URL into your browser)
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140789/01_-_Sapnay.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140840/02_-_Chaltay_Rahay.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140884/03_-_To_Phir_Aao.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140912/04_-_Aaj.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140954/05_-_Lams.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1140981/06_-_RoXen-e-Deewaar.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141006/07_-_Jag_Chor_Diya.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141035/08_-_Yadeein.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141137/09_-_Mujhko_Satao.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141200/10_-_Malangi.mp3.html
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1141247/11_-_Mujhko_Satao_-_Instrumental.mp3.html
I think I can feel my laziness creeping back in, so thats all from me. Maybe in another 4-5 months I'll write another update. Until then enjoy the stupid videos and jokes :D
Greetings
Monday, October 23, 2006
Eid Mubarak all. Hope you all enjoy your Eid very much and just eat an extra helping of that good stuff that gets made for Eid on my behalf ;).
New form of Sadism
Thursday, October 19, 2006
See, this is a good outlet for all your frustrations. (courtesy: Rollercoaster Tycoon)
Slo-mo
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Wanna make a mundane event look cool? Make a slow-mo video of it, simple! That said, this video is so cool :P.
Photos at last
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Went to Chicago over the October break, twice. Second time though, I took my camera with me and took a few shots @ Navy Pier. We rented out bikes and rode along the bike trail for a couple miles. Good decision photography-wise ;). Some favorites (read touched up and glamorized)...
Click to see gallery
All other photos (read average trip pictures) from the outing can be found here. Be cautioned, you might just catch my mug in there somewhere ;).
The essence of a Bollywood "Hero"
Thursday, October 05, 2006
And more often than not, this "hero" will be played by Rajnikanth ;).
What really matters
Sunday, October 01, 2006
You know what's a really humbling experience? Looking at astronomy photographs. We are this tiny speck in some corner of our own galaxy much less this universe. And I mean tiny:
- VV Cephei compared to the sun. VV Cephei is the largest known star; 1621 times the size of the Sun and 300,000 times more luminous.
- As far as the eye (Hubble) can see. Milky way is just one of the hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.
It makes me wonder on the possiblity of other life forms out there. We just cannot be the only ones in this vast emptiness of the universe.
Wikipedia to the rescue of all bored philosophers ;)
Rajni, the superstar
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Man, this is why you should watch all of Rajnikanth's movies, "side splitting" comedy has no language! :D
Just so you know, the translation doesnt make it any better;
mother:"what are all doing disturbing him, dont you see he is sick ...SHUSH"
midget:" give me a smoke"
Superstar Rajnikanth: "look at you, you're a kid"
midget:"im 10 years older than you, now give it before I shave u off"
midget:"phooosh"
I'm normal...for once
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Joe Normal
39 % Nerd, 30% Geek, 34% Dork
For The Record:
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal.
This is not to say that you don't have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you--we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren't much of an outcast.
I'd say there's a fair chance someone asked you to take this test. In any event, fairly normal.
Congratulations!
THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST
Just a lil game of Tag
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Tagged by Keith and Tahseer
I am thinking about...
all the homework that I havent done yet (only because I'm lazy)
I said...
you said, this can go on for a while.
I want to...
eat some home made food.
I wish...
I knew what life has in store for me.
I miss...
everybody/everything from Dubai and most of all my family.
I hear...
that Pluto might not be a planet anymore *gasp*
I wonder...
who the hell has time to think up these tag games.
I regret...
not coming clean with someone when I really should have.
I am...
not your worst nightmare, but I'm pretty darn close.
I dance...
when I'm drunk or really happy (which is the same thing nowadays).
I sing...
with my headphones on so that I dont torture myself.
I cry...
never, but I so want to sometimes.
I am not always...
emotionally available.
I write...
veri bad inglish.
I confuse...
other people just for my entertainment purposes.
I need...
to take a shower :P.
I should try...
to control my sarcasm.
I finish...
last and that's because I'm a "nice" guy.
Tags: Danu, Maryam, Shafaq, Sadaf and Saad
Simple humor
Friday, September 01, 2006
Signs of things ahead
Saturday, August 26, 2006
A funny story as told by road signs. :LOL:
Uni has started, first week has gone by and the reports are in.
PSY 240 (Social Psych): Looks good, havent really started any course material yet but I believe it will overlap with the social psy course I took in AUS so that should be good news...yea right :P.
ECE 369 (Discrete Math): Ok the prof is a crazy mofo with even crazier grading policies and homework submission policies. I've had one lecture with actual coursework and everything, I repeat everything just flew over my head. The course seems to be geared towards programming so I just might have dug mself a deep hole here. Pray for me! :(
ECE 495V (Vertically Integrated Projects): Im in a team called E-Trans(portation). Our teams goal is to allow cell phone users with upto date traffic reports and images from intersections around the campus. This is useful during times of football games. We will work with major carriers and in built traffic sensing technology to supply the data and will also be responible for using a van loaded with tech gadgets to check the roads for potholes and other hinderances and notify the correct authority. Im more towards the web applications side which means I will be helping out in making the backend of the cell phone pages. The course seems interesting but I will have to learn some MySQL and PHP (web programming languages) to be competent enough. I think I might enjoy this course...still pray for me ;).
ECE 402 (Senior Design Project): Ahh, the big one at last. The project is very much like the one given to students in the previous semsters but with added challenges. A team is supposed to build a system which can correctly identify 3 cubes made of steel , aluminum and plastic and sort them accordingly. Also if the cube is aluminum it has be detected for cracks. All this is done in a non contact manner and is video controlled. One interesting aspect is the hacking of a black and white video signal to make it display a specific color for each material on the test display. Involves digital signal processing and what not. It seems intimidating right now but if the alumni are to be believed it gets interesting to the point of obsession. But you can still pray for me :D
Well thats about all, hopefully I *will* graduate this semester (just scared about that math course, damnit).
The agony I tell you
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Alas! I have no more will to live. I have been classified as one of the lowliest creatures to roam the planet. A few days ago the Blogger.com administration sends me the following email:
Dear Blogger user,
This is a message from the Blogger Team. In order to maintain a free,
high quality service, we use an automated classifier to identify spam
blogs.
This system has detected that your blog has characteristics that
resemble spam. Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is
probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and
we sincerly apologize for this erroneous result.
You won't be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your
site and verify that it is not a spam blog.
Me, me of all people, a spammer!! how could you blogger...I gave you everything, everything damnit! *sniff*
Ok so that was a lil over the top but I was surprised to say the least. What in this evil and vile world made my utterly neutral blog look like a spammers paradise?! Was it my outrageously bad writing skills or the so-so photography. I wonder.
Needless to say I did verify my blog since I'm posting this piece.
In other news, I miss the whole of my vacation; from the sizzling and happening Dubai, to the cool Swiss Alps, from the nostalgia loaded Nagpur trip to the fun filled Chikhaldara trip. I miss some of it so much that I lit up the hookah yesterday and made some cold coffee to go with it coz thts wht I did in Nagpur at a Cafe Coffee Day outlet with my cousins. Damn, why do good times have to end.
4 days to the onset of Fall depression.
Last of Dubai...
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Laptop's back, unformatted, time to rejoice! It actually back in a better condition than before apart from the booting problem. After its first stint at toshiba's repair center last year the external LEDs for Power and hard drive werent working but they are now...woohoo! (Nerdy, yes please)
Some more photos for my thousands of fans. I love you all!...wait what was that..only 5 u say..well I love u 5 to bits.
Click
and jo-incidence is coincidence with a J
Thursday, August 03, 2006
My laptop's dead... for no good reason apparently...I returned from India and it refused to boot...I believe its got something to do the old and really bad X-ray machines at Nagpur airport...damn them. What is worrying me is that I gave it to the dealership and they seem to not care about the gazillion photos present on my hard drive (why should they) and might just wipe my entire hard disk...everything...gone...I will be sad :(.
Whats funny is that it died about the same time last year...and that was worse...atleast I'm here in Dubai so my loss isnt a very drastic loss. I mean to say that I still have access to other PCs and other forms of entertainment in general.
I bought an extended warranty last summer when I realized some laptop probs are just beyond my geeky domain, so hopefully I wont be stuck with a huge bill for the repairs. Toshiba was nice enough to let me knwo that if I didnt have a warranty they wudve charged my some 500 odd dollars..I dunno what it will be now.
If anybody is still wondering about the post title, watch more F.R.I.E.N.D.S, its good for your health ;)
edit: Double jo-incidence, my earlier post linked in this entry also makes a reference to F.R.I.E.N.D.S, makes me wonder on the way my brain works..hmmmm...
Best of Switzerland
Saturday, July 08, 2006
As usual, select photos, touched up...
Come n get it!
Switzerland
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Switzerland, it is everything Bollywood makes it out to be. That country is blessed with natural beauty and the Swiss people know it. Completely decked out for tourism, competely free of pollution; the air and the noise kind, and completely breathtaking.
As before, I hardly believe in describing the trip in words since I really invest my time in capturing the best photographs, limited by my ability and camera (to some extent). However I will give a brief run through of the trip since it will help put names to the places seen in the photographs.
First stop, Zermatt:
A tiny village located south of Switzerland and the best stop according most of my group members (not mine though, I preferred Interlaken). A village so much in love with its natural beauty that they have disallowed petrol powered vehicles from entering. Only seen running around are small electrical cars and horse carriages. However, the village being very small, everything is a stone's throw away and walking is the best mode of transport. Zermatt is also home to Mt. Matterhorn, a mountain with a recognisable peak (seen on Toblerone chocolates). It was one of the places that we went up through cable cars (a height of approx. 3400m). The other activity that we indulged in was taking a hike through a gorge that meanders along the foothills surrounding Zermatt. A few people and I also wanted to go paragliding but bad weather played spoilsport.
Zermatt Gallery
Second stop, Interlaken:
Situated between two huge lakes, the city's name doesnt come much as a surprise. One of the lakes, called Breinzersee, has a pristine turquoise color that one only gets to see in travel photographs of some exotic beach in Thailand. Apart from taking a boat ride over this lake we also took a rail upto the highest rail station in Europe, named Jungfraujoch (German spelling bees must be hell). Situated a few hundred metres below the peak of Mt. Jungfrau, this was the only place where we encountered bad weather. Almost zero visibility due to 50 km/h winds and comparitively pretty cold weather (about zero degress celcius which is actually not that cold according to my standards).
Interlaken had the right mix of natural beauty and developed areas. I felt more comfortable here for that reason. Also we had an Indian restaurant behind our hotel. It cost an arm and a leg to eat there but what's 300 CHF (abt 900 AED) after 4 days of fast food :).
Interlaken Gallery
Third and last stop, Luzern:
The largest city on our iternary, Luzern was the least "Swiss", in the sense that one imagine bustling towns when thinking about Switzerland. Also situated along a very large lake, the name of which I forget voluntarily for the fear of having to spell the montsterous name. On our first day there, a festival was taking place and the lake shore was packed with young people, avery welcome change from the majorly old population of Switzerland. And I was particularly thankful for the "hot" day if you know what I mean ;). Also adding to the atmosphere was Portugal's win over England in the QF. There were cars honking, people dancing, babes taking their shirts off (no, I just imagined that). The sad part to this story is that I forgot my camera in the hotel room and was too lazy to go get it, so no pictures :(.
Other places of intrest were Mt Pilatus and Mt Titlis (yes, what a wierd name). Mt Pilatus was just beautiful beyond words (which is why I have pictures) and Mt. Titlis had a "snow park" which had toboggan slides cut out of snow. That was just a blast. Going downhill on a chain built out of 5 toboggans and having your family screaming their heads off behind you is a totally different experience :).
Luzern Gallery
What a trip and now I'm geared for my trip to India which should be in a few days...
So Lonely
Friday, June 23, 2006
I LOL'ed...hard
...and then I realised that the skirt is disturbingly small :P
Weekend fun
Saturday, June 17, 2006
This weekend was amazing. I was off to Jebel Hafeet on Thursday and then to a beach resort in Ras al Khaimah on Friday. Both days were enjoyable beyond expectation. didnt do anything extra-ordinary, just chillaxed with friends. Since a picture is worth a 1000 words and being a better photographer than a writer I shall leave you with my 133,000 word recollection of the trip. You better have time to read all that ;).
Click
Pick your poison
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Even though its been 5 years, 9/11 is still a pretty controversial topic. Most ppl have seen Fahrenheit 9/11 but the video below is more indepth and looks at the event more scientifically than politically. If you have a hour and a half to kill I suggest you watch it through, it will enlighten you.
Loose Change Pt 2
Or if you really dont have tht much time to kill and dont feel like racking your brain over a dead horse (the 9/11 issue), heres something in the lighter vein. BTW if you subscribe to Etisalat's crapnet you will not be able to see the video. Tough luck.
Melon Kick
Materialistic
Sunday, June 11, 2006
News Flash: PAD is hard to keep up ;)
My 'Koss' headphones, bought only because I was sitting bored in West Lafayette one day and hadnt blown money on stuff that I didnt really need. Having said that, it was the best 20 bucks I have spent. (What? my impulse buys are also very well thought out...welcome to the boredom named Ali)
PAD - Zen
Friday, June 09, 2006
Serenity amongst madness, more popularly known as Mehta Hardware Trading (dad's shop).
PAD - Signature
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Low light
Slow Shutter (8 secs)
Cigarette lighter
Countless focus issues
End Result:
PAD - Majestic
Ventured into low-light photography, got some interesting shots to showcase but for now, a bronze horse found in my living room.
Hilarious stories of Death :D (courtesy:Death Psychic). If you do find out yours please post it in the comments.
Mine: You die of a massive heart attack during extremely wild sex, only seconds before orgasm. (Atleast I go out happy)
PAD - Did someone say cheese?
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
My laziness finally caught up with me...thus there were no photos for the last few days...maybe I should do photo a week now :P..quality over quantity. Anyways, for now, my most willing model, Sarah...
PAD - Ant's Eye View
Friday, June 02, 2006
Heads up!
PAD - Types of AUS grads
Thursday, June 01, 2006
First the whole sample:
The School of Mafia Grad (aka Tariq):
The School of Crazy Grad (aka Tahseer):
PAD - Mynahs
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
A couple of mynahs have decided to lay their nest in a tree outside our kitchen. Busy bodies these birds. I must admit that I was hard pressed to find something to shoot today, partly becasue I was stupid and forgot to take my camera with me to AUS. There was a lunch for all the 2006 grads and a class photo in cap 'n' gown of the same. Actually lots of ppl made sure that I didnt miss a camera in my hand by making me take a gazillion pics of them with their fellow grads. Also, everybody felt the need to point out to me to press the big shutter release button if I actually want to take a picture because I was under the impression that cameras work by voice commands. Anyways there's always next time; which luckily for me is tomorrow, at the 6th AUS commencement (comparable to the 198th I attended at Purdue in May).
PAD - a la Microsoft
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
This photo reminds of the Microsoft XP & Vista wallpapers. It would have been upto that grade if the main branch was cleaner and without the white fibres. Still, I quite like the look of this one...
PAD - Sign vs Road
Monday, May 29, 2006
One signboard that should best be ignored...
PAD - Reminisce
Sunday, May 28, 2006
This post dedicated to all the fresh graduates that I know; Shiraz, Tariq, Tahseer, Maryam, Vivek, Payal, Mercedes, the featured model Ahmed and to anybody whom I failed to mention here. Best of luck to you all, I've heard real life's a bitch!
PAD - AUS Mosque
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Continuing the AUS series...
PAD - Columns
Friday, May 26, 2006
Tariq took me to an Alumni/Graduate "luncheon" @ AUS (double quotes because it was at 4 pm) today. Although the function itself was nothing short of fly swatting fun, the photo-oppurtunity was unmatched. American University of Sharjah is beautiful as it is, but at sunset and especially during night it really shows it grandeur. No night shots but enough sunset shots to keep the 'photo-a-day' project alive for a few days. For now enjoy "Columns", others soon to follow. Critiques more than welcome.
PAD - Charge!
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Some random store in Mall of the Emirates..reminded me of the final battle scene in LOTR - ROTK...
PAD - B-Ball
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
No net for a day...why me GOD why me? Oh I know..I dont pray..its all good :P.
PAD - Lake sunset
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Taken yesterday evening while my sister and cousins were out playing with the ducks in the local neighborhood lake. In the background is the upcoming Dubai Marina.
Project - Photo a day
Monday, May 22, 2006
In Dubai and lazy as ever (no complaints though). Thus to combat the slight boredom and to de-rust my photography skills, I have decided to make an effort to take & post one photograph each day. Now, knowing me I will keep it up for a while and get tired soon but when that time comes, *you* can tell me how much I rock and that I should continue or on the other hand how much I suck and still need to practice ;). Now without further ado, I shall get down to today's entry. Actually I liked two today and this being the first day so you get a treat from me :D.
...could practically eat off it
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Hello people. Its been a while since the last entry, the sole reason being that I just wanted to pretend that I was studying hard for my exams whereas I was actually just disdainfully looking at countless equations that I would need to regurgitate soon. So lets get the ball rolling..
First exam: ECE 382 (Feedback systems). Yup, same anti-calculator guy but this time i cant rant about that fact. Even though the calcualators werent allowed, I didnt feel the pinch this time. This time my own stupidity let me down. For the record I have practically taken this course twice now. Once in AUs and once here in Purdue and this time I was allowed a formula sheet which I made but for some goddamn reason I didnt put basic block reduction formulas (I mean really basic) and sure as anything my mind blanked in the exam. I cursed myself to hell and back.
Second: ECE 414 (Lasers & Fibre Optics). This course is just a joke. Nobody attends the lecture and I mean nobody. Even the prof comes to the exam and tel us that he only sees 3 people during lectures but the whole 20 during the exams :P. So this course is all about long ass formulas and knowing how and when to use them. So we have to make this formula sheet which can span two sides of an A4. This time around Shiraz gets the bright idea of 'copy pasting' formulas from the pdf notes (not as text but as images since the formulas contain many complicated terms). That saved us an easy 3-4 hours in preparation for this one. The exam had some really wierd questions and equally wierd answers. I dont know if I did well on this one or not. Most probably not.
Third: ECE 438 (Digital Signal Processing). I actually like this course. Deals with sound and image processing. Lots of time to prepare and it was used well. Nothing much to say about this exam. There was one standard question that I had no idea about but then tht was the case for all midterms too. This one actually went well, relatively.
Fourth: ARAB 102 (like...Arabic..u know). As always, a joke of an exam. There were two parts to the exam. One take home and one in class. Both equally easy. This should help my sagging GPA a bit.
Overall, I gave them all I could (wht a cliche..tch) and will be happy with whtever I get. Purdue has shown me the light :D.
So, Shiraz's mom comes in two days. So without fail we had to detox our apartment. Armed with "All purpose" cleaning sprays and a magazine of brushes we got down and dirty (literally). The kitchen was taken care of by Shiraz while I vaccumed up the living room and bare floor area. Then came the nuclear waste zone, the bathroom. This one needed both agents on the floor. Flimsy gloves could barely keep the grime and hair that came off the floor, sink and bathtub.
There's something wrong with Americans. They dont believe in having a drain on the floor of the bathroom, nooooooo, that would just make it too simple to clean the bathroom. Nope, you have to get down on the floor, use insane amounts of sprays, wire brushes, other brushes and kitchen towels to pick up the gunk by hand and throw it in the bin. I say this because mops are as useful as points on "Whose line is it anyways". Thank god Shiraz was high on something to actually volunteer for the floor job while I got the bathtub. Not that it was easy or anything. West Lafayette's water is amazing. It so dirty that taking a shower in it should be a physical oxymoron.
Anyway, with enough scrubbing everything now looks squeaky clean. So clean that we could practically eat off it, but we wont, just in case. However, we both knew that no matter what, Jabeen aunty (Shiraz's mum) will still look at the apartment in contempt and have a go at our 'bad' living standards :P. Oh well, can't win em all.
Cedar Point tomorrow...woohooo
Dubai on the 13th....double woohooo
Photo Restoration / Time flies
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
New
I find it hard to believe that time flies so quickly. Above is a picture of my cousins from way way way back. To give an idea about the time frame I'll let you know that Shafaq (second from left) just (I use that loosely, it was on the 24th) brought into this world a beautiful niece of mine, named Yasmeen:
My heartiest congrats to Shafaq apa and her family...
I'm a proud Mamu (maternal uncle), for the second time now...
Just wanted to let the world know, thats all :)
Flashed-back
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
I was browsing my own blog yesterday (wierd isnt it?) and it was amusing to say the least. To people who know me well also know that my memory sucks big time so as I was browsing through my old posts, I realised I'm having a really hard time placing all the events that I wrote down in the posts. The funniest part was that there were quite a few posts containing jokes and I read them as if I was reading them for the first time. Yes, I am that far gone! :).
This mini-excercise also reminded how little I write on here now. I guess its not as exciting as before but I will try from now on to write tidbits just so that I can go back and know what I did and where.
I have the summer free!!! I dunno why I was doing 4 credits in summer and then only 4 more in fall. It would've wasted so much more money. Must've been some misunderstanding somewhere. Anyway, Im gonna go back to Dubai for a longer period this time and hopefully get a trip to India in the middle. Its been a while since I've been there.
All them Owls
Saturday, April 15, 2006
I just cant get enough :D
Huh?
Portraiture
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Exercised portraiture skills to some extent yesterday; external flash bought ages ago finally got a chance to show its worth.
A second helping anyone?
