While talking to Suprithi online about 'childhood memories', I just mentioned that in a weird way, I remember my hostel (RKC) days, like short stories from R. K. Narayan's book Malgudi Days. The memories are vague, but strong, if that's even possible. She said she didn't know the book and I told her that they made it into a TV show and it was quite popular in 1980's and early 90's. And the theme music kinda went 'ta na na na na naaaaaaaaa' and she instantly remembered it :) Though neither her nor me remember any of the specific stories. All I remember is that they were based in a typical village with atypical impressionable characters - simple, very simple stories, yet touching.

Add a Comment

Count of Monte Cristo was quiet possibly my favorite book in my early teens and I just saw the movie. I remember, 1992 - grade VI. We had to read the book in the class, and I finished it in just one saturday afternoon. There were a lot of words I did not understand, nor the intricate storyline. In the following months I read it multiple times and became a sort of master. I think it was Mrs. Sen who said that I should help the three new kids from Bihar, Nitesh, Pawas, and Mrinal, with the English literature book. That's how I became good friends with them. Throughout my hostel life, they were one of my best friends and Nitesh still emails me once in a while. God knows what happened to Pawas and Mrinal. Hope they're doing good.

As I was watching the movie, I realized how precious memory is. I knew he would escape the prison by getting inside the bag. I was certain he would invite hundreds of royality to his château and not speak to anyone of them. And I remembered her name was Mercédès. For the past two hours, I was Chirag Mehta, Class VI, 900402, RKC, Rapur, M.P. It's interesting how our minds assign priorities to past events and items. I never thought I would think fondly of the days I made my class laugh by using a magnifying glass to project the reflection off my watch, on to the back of Mr. Tripathi's head. But then I never really realized it, that Count of Monte Cristo was my favorite book. Just like for the past ten years, I didn't remember that my first favorite song was Dil Ke Armaan.

Something has happened to me recently. All of a sudden my memory has been unlocked, and I keep remembering things that I never thought I would.

Add a Comment

Here's a human-walk simulator. Select the gender, body-type, relaxation intensity, and happiness level and it starts walking. Pretty cool.

Add a Comment

A lot of college students complain about expensive books etc. Tonight I'm gonna show you my trick of buying books at extremely low 'net' prices. It's quiet simple actually - buy low, sell high :) I buy all my college books (used/2nd-hand) cheaply from Amazon and after I use them for 4-5 months, I sell them at a decently high price on Half.com. If you have ever taken an introductory course to Economics, you might remember that in a perfect market system, the price of similar goods is same everywhere. So if somebody's selling a book on Amazon for $15, the sellers on Half.com also have the similar price. However, what most people don't realize is the difference in the markets. Amazon is the cheapest place for used books. Half.com is owned by eBay and is the bookstore for people who use eBay a lot.

Now most people who use eBay, use it as the sole online store - they don't buy from anywhere else - that is how much they are addicted to eBay. Since more people use Amazon, the prices of used books are obviously lower there. So I buy my books from there. And since eBayers don't really care if some book is $10 cheaper on Amazon (or maybe they don't even know there exists an internet beyond eBay), they are willing to pay a higher price for the same book. So I bought my Math book for $45 few months ago from Amazon, used it for my class, and then sold it on Half for $55. That's $10 for USING a book (less $2-3 shipping).

This is not a good business scheme, cuz it takes a while to setup online accounts, go to the post-office to ship the books and to wait for the books etc. So even though I discovered a way to make a little profit, it's not good enough to pay my rent. However, it's a great cost-saving plan. In the last 2 years, I've spent at most $100 net total on books, whereas almost everyone I know spends $300-400 PER semester. So there you go. This is how to save some good money.

One important thing to remember is not to buy the cheapest book, but one that you can sell at a higher price. If the book is real cheap but in bad condition, it's possible nobody's gonna buy it. So it's better to buy a $100 book and sell it for $90 than buy a $25 book and not be able to sell it at all. Oh as a final show-off note, I actually made $40 or something on my Calculus books, that I used for 3 semesters (1.5 yrs!). How? I bought it from another student for a real low price and sold it on Half.com.

Add a Comment

I never pass up an opportunity to spend money on myself. So when Mason told me he was going grocery shopping, I tagged along. I bought myself 6 big potatoes and a little garlic powder bottle. Well that's about it. Don't need anything more. Then got home and took a nap. Woke up a few mins ago with a bad headache. Eh.

Add a Comment

Weird as it sounds, Rate My Kitten is pretty cool. Hmm. I wonder how my friend Jenny's cat 'Chime' is doing. Hehe.

Add a Comment

If you live in US and control your expenses, you may want to read this article dispelling some of the top Credit Card myths.

Add a Comment

I have now every South Park episode ever! Took me a few days but I'm so happy.

Add a Comment

Michele drove up to New Brunswick to see me. We had dinner at Chilis. I'm so stuffed right now that if anyone as much as even punched me slightly, I'd explode. It felt good to see her. In a few days everyone's gonna move in. Vicky's already moved in. So have Chris and Nick. Mich, Kat, and Cigir all should move in this weekend. Tomorrow's my last full-day of work. From next week, I'm down to 20 hours a week. Less work - good. Less pay - bad. Oh well. Who needs money when you have pretty ladies taking you to the dining hall :)

Add a Comment

Nick is cool.

Add a Comment

Today was a long day. I worked till 12:30 pm and my buddy Arthur came to pick me up. We went to my aunt's house, I got dressed, and we drove to Freehold - for Michele's mom's viewing/wake. It was a sombre atmosphere and since I had never seen a corpse before, I was kinda scared. Not scared like a child, but by the realization of inevitability - the fact that this is how it's all gonna end, always, for everyone. As usual, Mich seemed to hold herself strong. She's a very strong person and I know her friends love her. It's gonna be hard for her but I'm positive she'll manage. She's gonna live on College Av. campus now and so will be just a 2 min. walk away from me.

Art, being the awesome guy that he is, dropped me back to my place - prolly 4 hours of driving for him all total. Thanks a lot buddy. I REALLY appreciate it. At 6pm, my friend from work Mason called and said I should dress up well for the ResLife Banquet. We reached the Busch Dining Hall at 6:30pm and I was amazed to see how formal it was - I simply thought it was a nice dinner for the 150 students who monitor the all dorms. Turns out it was a formal event, that takes place every year just before school starts, to prepare and wish best-of-luck to all the students. These are the same 150-180 people I have been showing my system to, in the last few weeks, and almost all of them recognized me as the 'computer guy' or the 'new system guy.' While it sounds like an informal and quite insufficient title (considering the work I do is pretty complex), it's amazing how good it feels, just talking down Easton Av, and hearing 'Hey man! Good job...' just randomly.

Mason introduced me to a few close friends and we just chilled around the dining table. Food was decent and since I wasn't that hungry it didn't matter. What mattered is how I felt. After an eight year gap, I had a rush of adrenaline that I used to have in RKC, right before the prize giving ceremony - the feeling that what I do is important. Last few years, I've been making softwares, websites, and systems for people I never see. Half a million people have downloaded Glass2k and TrayPlay, and I have seen not 20 of them. Tonight, as I walked alongside Mason, everyone smiled at me, said they love the new system, and congratulated me on a job well done. Stuff like this never gets into my head. I don't suddenly feel all important or heroic. I simply feel accepted and loved. This is a good feeling. Something tells me, this final year in college is going to be wonderful.

I've decided a couple of things. I am NOT going to complain anymore about my studies. I pay FAR too much to study and fretting over homework is just plain immature. I have already decreased my website load and not taking new clients - meaning I'll have a little spare time to relax and unwind, like tonight after the banquet. I went over to Mason's place, we played James Bond 007 and some other Boxing Video game. He kicked my ass in both the games. Hehe. Yes, I suck at games. And then we grabbed a beer, opened a bag of popcorn, and watched Terminator III. I just got home, and here I am.

Gotta wake up @ 7:30am tomorrow, so I better head to bed.

Add a Comment

This Zombie Infection Simulation is quite interesting.

Add a Comment

Photo of the day: Hubble shot of Mars.

Add a Comment

Cigir asked me if leftover mocha frap was safe to consume. I asked my friend G what he thought of leftover mocha frap. For some reason, he shows me a blog entry from Urban-Gypsy. Pretty funny. Random blog search is interesting.

Add a Comment

The last place I want to read about the Gateway of India is on a CNN's frontpage story. 46 people dead and 161 injured; 100 detonators found near Nasik. Selfish as it sounds, I really hope nobody I know was injured.

Add a Comment

Quote for the day: "There are two types of friends... those who give energy, and those who drain energy." - Derek 'ever-so-wise' Prospero

Add a Comment

I got the news via Suprithi, that my close friend Michele's mom passed away due to cancer. I never met the woman so all I have to offer are my rest-in-peace wishes. Being stuck here in New Brunswick without a car, I can't even go see Michele. Please take care Mich.

Add a Comment

I was just thinking about Chetan and his baby. If he has a son, the poor kid will have to learn how to shave on his own! Since Chetan still hasn't grown a beard! Hehe. Guess Vishal will teach him when the time comes. I miss both my buddies.

Add a Comment

Oh by the way, every batch of students gave me a standing ovation, simply cuz they were blown away by the ResLife Network :) Good encouragement. And now 100-150 active students know me. I even got a kiss on the cheek and lotsa hugs. Hehe.

Add a Comment

From 1pm to 6pm I showed about 100 students how to use the new system I wrote for Rutgers, in batches of 16. It's been a long time since I talked 5 hours non-stop. Tomorrow I have about 40 more students to show the system to. From Monday about 200 people will regularly use the system and over 1000 documents will be created. From the reactions in the training room today, I am certain the last two months that I slogged @ work making this system easy/simple/efficient/fast were worth it. Due to confidentiality reasons, I can't talk anything specific about the system, except that 200 people will use it to document the residence life of over 8000 students who live in Rutgers Housing. However I can definitely say with confidence that EVERYBODY loved it - even people who hate computers, simply cuz it makes their lives so much more easy.

So now 5 of my systems running in Rutgers, making over a 1000 people's lives easier and simpler. That's a good feeling. People ask me what I want to do when I'm done with college (6-7 years from now). I say I simply want to add a lot more zeros at the end of it - from 1000 to 10,000,000 or who knows even more. Systems - the best ones are easy, simple, and efficient for the users, and complex but evolving for the designer. The worst systems of course are those that take days and even months for the users to adapt to, and are static and bulky. Maybe someday I'll write a book about it. I have a LOT more to learn.

Add a Comment

One of my best friends in India is gonna be a father - Chetan & Shradha are expecting a baby sometime in 2003-end or early 2004. He's just one year elder to me, actually more like 6 months. And he's gonna be a father. Wow. I don't know what to say, except Congrats Bro! As much as I'm trying to digest this great news, I'm just overcome by emotions. Wow. My buddy, a father. Wow.

Add a Comment

It's a creepy feeling. I can't believe I'm actually experiencing this long lost emotion. For the first time in years, I am extremely bored. I've been watching TV all this week after my exam ended. I've watched tens of episodes of Family Guy, hours of standup comedy on Comedy Central, and listened to music till I got tired. If you noticed, I didn't mention computers because I'm giving myself a mental break.

So now even though I have whole two weeks of free time to do as much work as I want to, I am gonna relax a bit and not work 24/7. I owe that to myself. And now all of a sudden I find out, I am a normal human too; who gets bored, wants to go and meet people, do stuff. Of course I can't do anything cuz sadly NONE of my friends are on campus (or close by), my family's in Bahamas, I can't go meet any of my far away friends cuz the trains/subways aren't really working, AND I have no money! Since the ATM machines around my area are down, and credit-cards are not working (because all of these rely on databases centered in NYC), I am literally stuck here. I've enough food to last me one month, but my point is, I wanna go out and do something. No money, no car, no train = no fun. Hmmm. Oh well, this STILL beats having 3 project dues and 2 exams. Hehe. So life is good. Except it's weird. Cuz as I said, I haven't been bored in a LONG time.

Add a Comment

So Bill Gates sent a memo to all Microsoft employees, saying: "Today, in the developed world, we do not worry about electricity and water services being available." Looks like somebody didn't get the news about the little blackout in NYC.

Add a Comment

Presenting the mute blog.

Add a Comment

August 15th is also now the Fair & Balanced Day. For one day, all the participating sites have changed the title of their 'blogs to Fair & Balanced, and if you see on the top of this window, so did I.

Add a Comment

Overheard @ work: "Oh is that a girl? Oh it's Chewbacca." - Nick 'gone-blind' Martin, as I was checking out b3ta newsletter. Now I know the kinda girls Nick goes for. Hehe.

Add a Comment

Happy Independence Day fellow Indians :)

Add a Comment

Utah, New York City, and a very lucky man.

Add a Comment

Oh by the way New York is in a state of emergency right now. Other than some parts of New Jersey (thankfully) most of the east coast is having a major power outage. There is literally NO power in New York, Cleveland, Detroit, and parts of Canada like Toronto, Ottawa etc. There was a 5 second power failure in Jersey @ 4:15pm too but luckily things are back to normal. Millions of people are stuck in New York City right now without power. People stuck in subways, elevators, and traffic. In most places, the traffic lights are not working either. Total crisis situation. Also there is no evidence of terrorism. Most probably either the Con-Ed power station or the Niagra-Mohawk power station had transformer failure.

Add a Comment

After 8 hours of stressful work, I come home and check my email. Emails like these make my day:

Hi Chirag,

You have officially earned an A, in case you had any doubt. :) It's too bad we can't give out A+'s, since you would have received one.

Thank you for your participation in the course; it was a real pleasure to teach this subject to a receptive and interested audience. You did an outstanding job, and I hope you'll keep taking math courses.

Please stay in touch! You have a standing invitation to visit my office (especially if you ever take an abstract algebra or advanced linear algebra course), or to ask for the insider's word on which courses and professors are the good ones.

Again, congratulations on a job very well done.

Good luck next semester,

Michael Weingart

So I guess I did well in the final. Especially since I only studied for 2 hours. Hehe.

Add a Comment

I just gave a big presentation to all the graduate students, area directors, and Deans of housing on Rutgers - my new project: Rutgers Residence Life Network. It's a very easy to use system that lets the student monitors and Rutgers staff manage the student issues in the dorms. It was a 90 minute presentation and at the end I got a long round of applause and everybody went home happy. From what it seemed, it's a great success and people loved it. Now I have a list of 20-30 additional features they want. Gonna do all that before Aug. 22nd - that's when I have to give a presentation to over 100 people. I love my job. Couldn't ask for more.

Add a Comment

More interesting thing I found out about the Diamond article - the Choksi family: "One such group - headed by the Choksi family - bought a $35,000 batch of preliminary Gemesis research stones last year and is currently selling them in India at a 10 to 20 percent profit." I'm pretty sure they are refering to Ruchi's family. She's my cuzin Purvi's best friend and I've met her a lot of times. I know they're extremely rich and in the diamond business. I gotta verify this fact though. Sweet nevertheless.

Add a Comment

I miss my sister. Happy Rakshabandhan Bena!

Add a Comment

I'm still reading the Diamond story and must admit it's one heck of an adventure. The plot involves a US Vietnam General, genius Russian scientists, top diamond cartels from Belgium, corporate executives from De Beers, research scientists from Univ. of Florida. Add in a little blood and you have a Hollywood blockbuster!

Belgium... My friend Arpan is in Belgium right now. I talked to him just a few days ago. He's in the diamond business too. Still learning the tricks of the trade but he's honest and hard-working, so I'm sure eventually he'll hit the diamond mine :) Shout out to Arps! Hey buddy! Hope life's good in Antwerp.

Add a Comment

Diamond, you see, is now the geek's best friend. Companies like Gemesis are now mass-producing real diamonds (yes real, not artificial/American) for extremely low prices. Good news is, this is good for computers, esp. semiconductor industry. Can't wait for my diamond crusted AMD Athlon XP 5000!

Add a Comment

Holy damn! The news of mugging has made it to the New York Times! Ya Peter's Liquor, two block down my street. That's where most students go shopping before a big party.

Add a Comment

Here's some news to scare my family in India. The President of my University, Dr. Richard McCormick was robbed and beaten outside a liquor store, just a block or two away from where I live. Let me repeat, the PRESIDENT OF MY UNIVERSITY. Thankfully there was a student nearby who unknowingly helped the Prez. Lately, there has been increased rate of crime on Easton Av. (where I live), Wyckoff Street, Senior Street and Bartlett Street. These are all tiny streets most Rutgers students walk down from day to day. Not to sound hysterical but last month a girl was raped just 5-6 houses down my street. Thankfully I live in a basement with double door entry and no breakable windows.

It's not been the safest campus to be in lately. Every other night all Rutgers students get an email from the head of the Rutgers Police Dept. warning about new criminals on the lookout. It's like a weekly news. I seriously hope it's a summer-vacation thing and once there's 8,000 students around the campus all the time, crime goes down. So ya, here's a "Hello I love you" call to my family. Don't worry. All the muggers want is the money I don't have in my wallet. Can't take what I don't got. With that, it's sleep time.

Add a Comment

Exam over. Was quite well. Not as good as the midterm but I thoroughly expect an A in this course. Tired now. Sleep time.

Add a Comment

Been working + studying hard lately. Nothing interesting happening, unless you think Gaussian Quadrature is interesting. Math exam tonight. My two week vacation starts 9 pm tonight. In my dictionary, vacation simply means no school. I still have to work full-time every day and make websites all nights, but at least no more exams and homework for a couple of weeks.

Add a Comment

We have a winner! The food was quite good. A slight bit spicy and enough to fill me up. Next time, I'm gonna try the thali.

Add a Comment

A few weeks ago a new Indian restaurant, Thinisu opened on my block. I just ordered a Pav Bhaji + Veg Biryani from them and am waiting for it to be ready. If you convert the dollar amount to Indian rupees, sure it sounds expensive. However in comparision to other options (Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Wendy's etc) a $5.50 Thali is a pretty good bargain. How far is this place from my house? About 6 houses down the street. Let's hope my Pav Bhaji is tasty and then I've found a good cheap source of food. Only one problem. There's a major chance however, that they may not attract enough customers and shut down soon. Rent is quite expensive in this area and unless they have at least 100 people per day, I don't see how they'll survive. Once college starts though, I'm sure things will get busier. The parent company EBilva doesn't seem like a major organization to me; seems more like a small-scale family-run business. That means they have put a lot of money at stake here and will probably try harder than, say McDonalds or Pizza Hut, to survive and profit.

My OnYourCell project is now in the sales/marketing phase. More about it later, once we have a few more clients.

Add a Comment

It's Friday evening and that means creative computer time for me :) I'm trying to integrate text-to-speech into my remote and was thinking of some voice like Dr. Sbaitso from the old Creative Labs - SoundBlaster era. After failing to implement Microsoft DirectX Speech libraries, I started looking for alternatives and frankly I'm blown away. Turns out IBM has a great TTS (text-to-speech) solution that you can test online. AT&T has an even better natural voice solution that is soooo real it's astonishing. A couple of years ago they said TTS was gonna hit big. I think the technology has finally advanced now to an acceptable level. I wouldn't mind hearing my news spoken by Rich and frankly Claire sounds creepily like Madeline Albright. Oh and they even have Anjali talking with an Indian accent! Of course I still have to find a good TTS library for my remote software. Hmmm.

Add a Comment

So I finally gave in to my cuzin Priya's nagging and took The Geek Test. I'd seen it many times before but didn't take the test cuz it was too long and I was afraid of finding out the truth. The truth is, I am only 32.94% Geek. That's like saying I am not even geeky enough to be a real geek! Urgh. Well the truth is, I am not into Star Wars, LOTR, Anime, D&D etc. and thus I scored zero on them. The only places I prolly scored 100% were the computer questions. Oh and I can count upto 1023 using binary fingers.

Add a Comment

Two b'day girls again: Happy B'day to my awesome cuzin Jenisha!!!!!!! And to my cutey Kathleen!!! She's turning 21. Damn everyone's growing up. Thank God I'm still 12.

Add a Comment

G4Tv interviews the Chapman Brothers (hi-res video), the makers of Homestar Runner :) It's kinda spooky to see Eric do the voice of StrongBad and others. The best thing though is that the video ends with Techno!

Add a Comment

Vote for Terminator!

Add a Comment

And tonight children, Bruno Bozzetto and Roberto Frattini (not to be confused with Roberto Benigni of the Life is Beautiful fame) shows us the difference between Italians and other Europeans (note: 2mb download in flash format - will appear to be frozen for a while).

Add a Comment

This has got me laughing so hard. Microsoft is sooooo helpful. Weird info - they own the domain www.fabrikam.com and use them for test purposes. Weird.

Add a Comment

CONGRATS TO MY SISTER - ROSHNI! She's a college graduate now. I still have 1 whole year to go before I can call myself a graduate. I miss you Bena...

Add a Comment

Blog time! Two things about me tonight - my intelligence and my stupidity, not in the same order. Let's begin with your favorite topic - my lack of common sense. So I come home after work and it's kinda drizzling. I get ready for class and step outside and the rain has begun. The bus stop is 5 mins away from my home and yet somehow I decide it's not that bad and just keep walking. I could have simply turned around, walked into my room, and got my raincoat, but it just didn't occur to me. The only thing I could think of was how long could I stand under some tree/roof before I missed my bus. So I walk down Stone St., getting wet by the second when all of a sudden it starts pouring. Even under the trees I was getting soaked. Then I saw my bus move across the street and ran up to catch it, getting my jeans drenched in the process. I walk into the bus and everybody just stares @ me like I'm an alien. I guess I was, considering everyone inside was dry and calm while I was soaked and panting.

As I stood here, trying to dry myself, I kept wondering why I was the only one who was so wet, cuz it was raining so hard. Then it hit me, I was the only one without a raincoat/umbrella! Ya, so I'm plain dumb. What can I say. Sometimes the most common things just don't come to me. When I see rain, I don't think of umbrella, I think of either enjoying being soaked or running really fast to get to wherever I wanna be. I went to my math class and had to change into my gym clothes. So there I was, in my shorts and jersey while everyone was in casuals/work-clothes. My teacher looked funny @ me, especially when he saw that I was drying my jeans and wet t-shirt on the desk in front of me. Hehe. Sometimes I just forget that I live in a world full of "people" who actually notice how oddly I behave. Eh! Who cares.

Now on to some good stuff. My work's been going great. In fact so great that I'm rejecting large projects every other day. I've just rejected two websites each worth $5000 simply because I want to study hard starting September and not just work day/night. Anyways, I'm now gonna be involved in 3 projects - OnYourCell, GuptaMedia, and consulting with a friend of mine. If things work out, who knows... Also I'm slowly realizing that my skills are really in demand at the moment. Not to be immodest but I'm quite smart when it comes to computers and what most programmers take weeks to do, I can do in days and sometimes hours. As a result, people who've seen my work, instantly realize I'm too good to miss. So I get more and more work. However, I'm seriously losing interest now. I need a break. I don't really NEED all the money either. What I need is peace of mind. And some good quality time with myself - doing nothing, just watching TV, reading a book, and sleeping.

Next week's my math exam. So this weekend I'm gonna study non-stop. Might go home on Friday, not sure. Eh I got nothing more to say.

Add a Comment

I just bought myself a new 160GB Maxtor hard drive via eBay. I'm running out of space and need to setup something for nightly backups of my crucial files. My life's worth of work is most definitely more valuable than $130.

Add a Comment

My buddy Chris @ work showed me Terragen - it's kinda like Bryce 5, but simpler in the interface, better in the performance. Can't wait to get home and give it a test run. If I like it, I'll start rendering again. My new pc's perfect for it. Hehe.

Add a Comment

Who needs a phone line when you have a cell, AIM, and cable internet?

Add a Comment

Forgot to mention, one of my favorite progs ever - HotChime was selected as one of PC World's Top Ten Free Utils for 2003. If you are a poweruser with good keyboard skills, I HIGHLY recommend giving it a shot. It might be a little hard to learn but once you get adjusted to it, you'll wonder how you survived without it.

Add a Comment

This brings tears to my eyes. A Farking Wedding!

Add a Comment

Cool lightning strikes Sears Tower, Chicago. Tiny coincidence - just a year ago I posted a pic of me and my cuzins in Chicago. Hehe.

Add a Comment

Who knew all those fake forms I filled up with email address - blah@blah.com actually went to Verizon.

Add a Comment

So last night I finally setup my new remote (popup hell) and now I can finally be the lazy ass I am. I can start my PCTv, change channel, control volume, view full-screen, play songs on TrayPlay, view and browse tv listing, and mute all sounds. And since it's RF remote, I can do all this from the shower or under my blanket in any direction :) Now I just need to set it up to control my mouse and I'm in business.

Me hungry now. It's been looooong since I had some good greasy food. Pizza anyone?

Add a Comment

Sam's Club presents Matrix *Relocated*.

Add a Comment