...shoOOonya...

   When a book is authored by the creator of CSI (which is a personal favorite of mine since 2006 when I first encountered some episodes); it doesn't take long to jump into it and devour it quickly. But once I started reading it, I realized it was not so simple. I read while I travel and I prefer to remain off-line when travelling (or when away from laptop) so I don't really use internet on my phone. This book makes you go to a website every 50 pages or so to experience the story in a different media (audio-video). This book is a new concept of DigiNovel … a multi-platform experience that moves the reader from passages in the books to videos on Level26.com … so you read the book and watch engaging videos shot in the style of a movie. This website is an interactive extension of the books series (a trilogy) and put together they form a "Digi-novel". What I find interesting is the marriage of the 2 media (text + video) to create a more engaging experience f...

My father often complains nowadays that it is not easy any longer to identify the coins just by a mere glance. You really got to look carefully and actually read the numbering and lettering on the coin, which is not exactly readable either. He often wonders why the Government of India / mint not use the coin designs from 2 decades ago. I remember the different coins that I have seen in my childhood. The different coins had different shapes and sizes which made them easily identifiable. Look at this picture here. On the contrary; today the 1, 2, 5 rupee coins are all round and shiny with similar styling. Even the 10 rupee coin is round; the saving grace being its two-tone (two-color) design which makes it stand apart from the others. I guess till the year 2000, the coins of 1, 2, 5 were still pretty identifiable with different physical features. 1 rupee coin was round, 2 rupee coin has ridges and 5 rupee coin was smaller and thicker with smaller ridges on the periphe...

  A single change can trigger a host of other changes in life and hence we should always be careful what we wish for. A decision to change one thing can change several others … in fact it might even trigger a chain reaction of changes in life. Case in point: My recent change in job. Decided it was time to switch jobs (triggered by a chance opportunity that came up). When I took the decision to change jobs; I was aware of some big changes that this decision would bring to my life. What I missed out on was the several small changes that would also be part and parcel of this change package. So let me try and list down the changes that a new job has brought in my case (a part of this list will probably be generic enough to apply to You too if you decided to take the leap). 1.   Change of Scenery – From my office in Pune with a lush green scenery around to this current office with a concrete and glass jungle around with even a factory chimney jutting out into the l...

Yet another book from Blog Adda to review and this one was a very interesting read right from page 1 primarily because it was written in first person as a biographical narration of a 'clockwork man'. 'The Clockwork Man' by William Jablonski was yet another new author I got to try thanks to BlogAdda's Book Review Program.  Strangely, wikipedia did not have an entry for William Jablonski nor for the Clockwork Man novel.   Strangely, the clockwork man is not referred to as a 'Robot' in the novel. The reason would be that robots have always been considered as 'electrical/electronic' contraptions while the mechanical man in our story is a purely mechanical 'contraption' devoid of any electronics but instead based on clock work and is designed by an expert creator of artistic clocks.   The way the clockwork man describes the things around him … the creator, his kids, his relationship with them, the way people behave and react around him (i...

I always wanted a break between two jobs but somehow it did not happen 2 years ago. It did not happen even now. So I am left with only a measly duration of 2 days … only one weekend of being unemployed ! Wish I had a longer break ... at least a week … which would have translated into 9 days. But then, I did take a weeklong vacation last month so its OK. So if you are wondering about what I did to enjoy my unemployed weekend; well … Saturday was spent recovering from sleep deprivation of past 3 days where I got something like 4, 5, 6 hours of sleep only. So Saturday was spent in sleeping. Well … that sets the pace of my unemployed weekend J Addendum: I had some high hopes of enjoying Sunday but they were pretty much literally ‘washed away’ by the torrential rains that raged across the day. The plan to go out with the entire family and spend some fun time was reduced to a restaurant visit for dinner in the evening.   I was supposed to get documents photocopied/printe...

    In the old days all great emperors always had one fool in their court (often called the Court Jester). They had many wise men, counselors, ministers and prime ministers, but always one fool .   Why?--because there are things so-called wise men will not be able to understand, that only a foolish man can understand--because the so-called wise are so foolish that their cunningness and cleverness closes their minds. A fool is simple, and was needed because many times the so-called wise would not say something because they were afraid of the emperor. A fool is not afraid of anybody else, he will speak whatsoever the consequences.   This is how fools act--simply, without thinking what the result will be. A clever man always thinks first of the result, then he acts. Thought comes first, then action. A foolish man acts; thought never comes first.   Whenever someone realizes the ultimate, he is not like your wise men. He cannot be. He may be like ...

    Remember the movie Minority Report. Keep that in mind (if you have seen it and) Consider this …   You can see future using the system and prevent the crime. You have created the system and are aware of the people who are trying to discredit it. The system represents you and anything going wrong with the system or the system getting discredited would destroy you and your ideology.   The system comes up with Your own name as a 'future murderer' and now you are in a fix. You know you have no intention of killing the man you don't even know so you are innocent. But if you claim that, then you are saying that the system is wrong. That destroys your work.   So do you go ahead and commit the murder and destroy yourself to keep the systemyou're your own name and ideology alive. OR Do you go ahead and prove the system wrong, discredit your own work and destroy yourself anyway.   Paradoxical situation … isn't it ?   ...

  I saw the movie Paycheck some 6 year ago and loved it. The basic premise and the way the story moved forward from one clue to another. While doing some net surfing today, I realized that Philip K Dick was a pretty famous and celebrated author and about 10 of his stories (not novels, just short stories) had been converted into Hollywood movies. One look at the list of movie and I was impressed. Minority Report and Paycheck were very much in this list and I was bowled over by the premise and plot of both these movie.   Well, I jus couldn't wait. I searched the internet and found both the short stories - Paycheck and Minority Report. So I am reading them now. It's amazing. How a complex and intriguing tale was written in the form of a 30 page short story.   Over the past year, I have become more of a short story reader (while I still read the 2-3 novels every month) and more I read, the more I realize that the authors of those times were wonderful creatures...

  A discussion with a colleague turned into a soul searching session questioning our perspective towards our career and what makes us wonder if we should begin to disrupt the normal course of life and bring about a change.   We were just discussing randomly about my impending change (change of company, that is) when we started talking about the motives of change. Incidentally, in either of our cases, Money was not the driving force. We hadn't taken the leap because we were offered a bomb of a salary package. In fact, in his case, he was being offered a bomb to stay back. He was offered several privileges too. But he still decided to move on from his company (which is the biggest brand in its category, the largest player in that field)   We both moved because we wanted to disrupt the status quo. We were both in good jobs, good companies, having a pretty decent pay package, well respected in our area of work and considered the best in the company for the particu...

  21. Of Course, I Love you by Durjoy Dutta & Maanvi Ahuja When I picked this one, my expectations were not much. With a lot of Indian novels coming up, most looked like time-pass rather than serious fiction stuff which would leave me impressed. This one turned out just the same but on the whole I enjoyed reading it. I read this across 2 days and enjoyed the minor twists and turns of the story of a playboy kind of guy who is in and out of relationships and keeps messing up things in his life. His various kinds of relationships with girls are an interesting read. I am sure there would be quite a population who would identify with the character (not me though). The novel does have an element of veiled eroticism with references to the several escapades of our protagonist with the various girls in his life including too many references to the assets of various female characters. The book also reinforces the myth that 'ek ladki ladka kabhi dost nahin ho sakte'....

Continued from previous post ...    11. The Mayan Prophecy by Steve Alten 21 st December 2012 being the date when the Mayan Calendar had predicted the end-of-the-world; I think I should be reading some novels on the Mayan end-of-the-world theme … at least this year. This novel begins with a paranoid convict who is actually a patient but has ended up in jail. A new intern assigned to him begins her journey of sorting out fact from paranoia. She not only begins to believe in him but also listens to his pleas and helps him escape from the prison. Together they explore the depths of the ocean and discover an alien ship which is sending out WMD's to different locations in the world; disturbing world peace. Each nation suspecting the other of a nuclear testing/strike leading to the situation of World War 3 … with a point in the story when thousands (literally) Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles are heading towards their targets with ETA of a few minutes ...

  After an astounding April, I was looking forward to May for an equally good reading month since this month also carried the chance of extensive travelling which means extensive reading for me. A vacation trip to Bangkok & Pattaya (Thailand) … and then the business trips to Dubai (UAE) towards the month end gave me some airport time once again … this meant some good time to read (except let's say the Thai trip where my reading would only infuriate my wife, but she was understanding and allowed me to read the book which I was to review in a week's time) I began May reading with short stories by Satyajit Ray and Mysterious Traveler Magazine; followed by a Japanese authored novel; followed by a Mayan end-of-the-world themed novel; followed by a short love-story kind of novel by Indian authors; all the while continuing to read my usual reading series/stuff and beginning with the non-Conan Sherlock Holmes short stories. New author this month: A Japanese aut...