Angels & Demons: Dan Brown

Crammed with Vatican intrigue and hi-tech drama, this is TRULY a fast-paced novl. An instant oage-turner! An ancient secret brotherhood! A devastating new weapon of destruction! An unthinkable target! Unthinkable connections with ancient history! WOW! What a combination.
Remember I made a statement about Da Vinci Code: "if this novel doesn't get your beats rising, you better get your medical checkup done" ... then let me tell you that I found this DAMN FAR More Interesting, More Intriguing, More Involving & More Enjoyable than Da Vinci!!! Do I need to tell more! Well, have a look at the facts that this novel touches upon, and you will be compelled to read the novel, maybe just to figure out the connection between all this apparently disconnected elements.
Once you have read the novel, don't forget to visit this page! Spoiler Warning! Please don't click now! It’s meant to be referred after you are through with the novel.
I bet his other 2 novels, Deception Point and Digital Fortress should be equally good. Am gonna read them too! Anyone read them already?

What next? I plan to pick up "A Beautiful Mind, by Silvia Nasar" a biography of John Nash, who shared Nobel Prize in Economics for their pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games!

Back from vacation!

I know you all were feeling very lonely without any posts on my blog for more than a week! But don't worry, I'm back. For those who don't know, I had gone to Anamalai, South India, for Nature Trails in Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park, with Foliage Outdoors. The trip was EXTREMELY invigorating! I took lots of snaps, some of which I'll share in coming posts where I intend to describe my 5 days stay in midst of a jungle. I learnt a lot about birds, insects, mammals, reptiles, plants, etc. etc. etc. And I have come to one conclusion, which I know many of you might oppose and despise me for saying:

Science is far too weak to defeat the Divine power of Creation!
Science may NEVER be able to unwind the mystery of Creation, despite the claims that we have been able to decode Genetic Code!
Nothing beats Mother Nature, no matter whether you land on Moon or Mars!

Of all the photos, the one below has THE BEST composition.



There was one cute butterfly which was playing around where we sat to take rest and she (yes, it was a female butterfly ;-) ) kissed my hand and posed on my watch. She was tolerant enough of my bodily movements when I clicked one of her snaps! Isn't that exciting!!! Now, this is what I call Eco-Friendly Watch! LOL! As of this writing, I'm still to come out of the vacation mood.

Nevis New Year Bash!

We had an AMAZING New Year Party (well in advance ;-) ) yesterday night at a VERY ROMANTIC place: Oasis, on Pashan-NDA Road. The open air ambience was GREAT. DJ sucked! But starters and dinner was good. An interesting thing happened that night ... there I discovered a VERY CUTE female. Her skin as Soft as Butter ... as Fair as an Angel ... she was as Beautiful as a Fairy ... So Cutie Cutie Cutie ... Sweetie Sweetie Sweetie ... And guess what, I'll share her photo with you all! But before I do that, I WARN you that she might take your breath away! So keep a life-supporting system handy ... and be careful! Here you go ... click 1 ... click 2 and click 3! Thats enough, I guess!

Here are some photos from the party ...

1. Look out bud! The liquid in those glasses is not meant for kids ...
Myself having ball of a time ...



2. We Will We Will ROCK You!
Buddies in FULL form ... (reminding you that this was despite the fact that DJ SUCKED like HELL!)









3. Angels And Demons ...
(second half not literally ... )




4. Men In Black ...
Hmmm .... not bad ... Barry Sonnenfeld can make a MIB trilogy!

That's it! It's 0940 hrs @ office now and only a few people have turned up! People indeed had a lot of ____ you know what ;-)
Party mood out ... work mood in! Have a GREAT DAY ahead!

Photo Credits: Atul Talesara
Equipment: Fuji FinePix S3000
Mode: All photos taken at AutoFocus setting

What next!

Hey Buddies, in my previous post about latest novel I read, I forgot to mention that I've picked up Angles & Demons, by Dan Brown. The reason I'm dedicating a special post just to tell that I've picked up that novel is not that I don't have any work. Far from that! It's just becasue it's SUCH A WONDERFUL novel that I couldn't wait to finish it and urge you guys to read it. It is a prequel to Da Vinci Code. And I tell you it's hell of a novel! Of the 100+ pages I read, I bet this is more exciting, exhilarating, enjoyable, action-packed ... than Da Vinci Code. So pick up a copy and devour it! Esp. with a hot cup of tea (or coffee, chilled beer, or whatever) in the balcony, yourself draped well in warm cozy clothing! What the hell ... I'm getting again and again to that mist! I don't want to sit here in my 10x10 cubicle with such a wonderful morning outside. Such a waste of Nature's Beautiful Morning!

What a drive!

I’m listening to the songs of Mughal-E-Azam while driving towards my office. WOW!!! These wonderful songs while driving through empty misty roads with vision clear as far as my eye can see, blocked only by the thick mist! What a wonderful way to start the day! You don’t see so much of mist in Pune upto this late in the morning. How BADLY I wish I still were a student ... would have definitely bunked the college and gone for a long drive with buddies ... stopping by a small hut-like stall to have HOT Vada-Pav with Steaming Hot Masala Tea!!! GOD damn this phone! Got me out of my fantasy ride! Be right back with you ... till then ... envy me uh ... rather my fantasy!

The Best Laid Plans, Sidney Sheldon

The Best Laid Plans an amazing page-turner, is what I would call it. Its about a beautiful and ambitious executive, Leslie, who learns that for some men, Oliver, power is the greatest aphrodisiac. The rest of novel is dominated by the explosive collisions between the two equally determined people. With Oliver aiming at the White House, to become a President, Leslie swears to make him wish he was never born! Though it’s an amazingly action-packed fast-paced thriller, end is something that disappointed me. If you like thriller and suspense, the novel has plenty of both. And least to say, it has most unexpected twists, and the one in the end is the only one that disappointed me. But I don’t repent reading this novel, for I enjoyed it until the last but one page!

BTW, as of this writing, I peep out of my window and see mist all around. How desperately I wish I had a GF, I would have gone with her for a wonderful breakfast and maybe movie thereafter ;-) How romantic! Hell ... the fantasy ends as my watch beeps that it's time to take my butt off the chair and head to office!Got LOADS of work @ office, as usual.

My own 2 cent VIM Tip

I was editing some code and it required HELL lot of comments (well ... I do put ample comments in the code!!!) and FIXME/TODO notes. I like the format to be something like:
AtulT 17-Dec-04 TODO <text follows here>

Typing this tens of times is !@#$ing boring. You can abbreviate it as:
ab coM AtulT 17-Dec-04
ab TODO AtulT 17-Dec-04 TODO
ab FIXME AtulT 17-Dec-04 FIXME
But that's no GOOD!!! Why??? Hell, I have to change ab settings every day! Thats not how a programmer codes! I knew that HAS to be a better way, esp. when I have VIM! And yes, I discovered my own very very sexy way of doing that. I would love to share my own 2 cent tip with you.

Add this to your .vimrc file:

" Special settings to include date and my name in
" TODO FIXME and comments
" date "+%d-%b-%y"
ab coM AtulT ^O:r! date +\%d-\%b-\%y^[ kJA
ab TODO AtulT ^O:r! date +\%d-\%b-\%y^[ kJA TODO
ab FIXME AtulT ^O:r! date +\%d-\%b-\%y^[ kJA FIXME

BINGO! There I am! Now I coolly type 'coM' and vim expands it to 'AtulT 17-Dec-04'. Same goes for TODO and FIXME!!! The best part is that it will ALWAYS picks up the current date. I'm not sure if there's a sexier way of achieving this, but my own tip is SEXY enough ;-) You can change this to include time, pwd, exact user-id, GID, ... any damn thing.

AtulT 30-Jun-08:Adding space between ^[ and k (i.e. Esc and k) made this tip work for terminal-based vim.

IMPORTANT!
^O and ^[ are special control characters, the way to enter them is, in insert mode, press Ctrl-Q followed by Ctrl-O and Ctrl-Q Ctrl-Esc resp. You know you have entered them right if you navigate over ^O and ^[ and cursor passes through both at once, as a single character. Use Ctrl-V if Ctrl-Q doesn't work for you.

Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown

This is one of those few novels where you cannot conclude if its fiction or fact! You never grasp where the facts end and author's fiction/conclusions start. Facts and imagination are interwoven so beautifully! The first (and the only one) novel I read of this type is "The Seventh Secret, by Irving Wallace", which explored to depth the possibility that Hitler never committed suicide but escaped before the allied forces stormed into his bunker. After reading Da Vinci Code you are bound to doubt the very foundations and basis of modern Christianity. The novel is about (well, don't worry, no spoilers! I won't reveal any suspense) deliberate anomalies/oddities in Da Vinci's paintings wanting to tell it's viewer something, giving you premises to doubt the very claims of modern Christianity. The story is set in Paris where symbologist, Robert Langdon, comes under policemen's eye as a prime suspect in murder of museum's curator. Fighting against all the odds, studying and deciphering the hidden hints in paintings, carvings and anagrams Robert vows to uncover the murderer, a quest that will lead him to the deadliest and most closely guarded secrets of history!!! There's no looking back once he steps in! Whether you love Arts, History, Suspense, Thriller, Drama, Action OR Secret Cults ... this novel is going to race your pulses!!! In fact if this novel doesn't get your beats rising, you better get your medical checkup done, :-) LOL! This novel has definitely made into my Top 20s list!

Moral: This novel is a MUST READ!

What next? Well, I wanted to read The Glass Bead Game, by Herman Hesse(genre Spiritual), but couldn't manage to borrow it from my buddy in time. So started with Sidney Sheldon's "The Best Laid Plans". Review on that will follow soon.

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayan Rand

Hurray! Finally, I've finished reading this novel! Yes, for not-so voracious reader like me, it was an arduous task to read this 1700 paged novel with microscopic typesetting! It's a philosophical novel portraying what would become of world if all the rationality was destroyed from it and the world was left to be run by the moochers (read ____ing power-hungry parasitic politicians). Everyone trying to earn, not by his effort or ability, but by mere needs; claiming ownership on fruits of others' hard work just on the basis of his needs. Trying to claim that it's the extent of need that decides who gets what, and not the capacity of a person to produce or his caliber.Ayan Rand goes to the extent of saving that without rationality the purpose of a man's life is to become an abject Zombie who serves the purpose he doesn't know. And I tell you, she does a pretty good job here. If you are labeled "Selfish" when you feed your son with milk while the neighbouring child is starving, then YES! You better be selfish! Well, I'm not supporting selfishness, but Ayan gives us a look into different kind of selfishness, of the type I just mentioned above. Had it been in my capacity, I would have this novel as "Code of Moral Conduct".
After reading second novel by this Ayan (first being Fountainhead) I have come to believe that she is BEST at describing human gestures of any kind. So much so, that an animator can EXACTLY model it without any difficulty of any sort. Yes, the length of novel can be attributed to this characteristic of hers: The description spans 2/3 paragraphs where something as simple as "And he grinned" would have sufficed! If you don't like circumlocution, you better keep your hands off her novels.
This novel is NOT for those who:

- despise elaborate descriptions

- hate philosophy

- hate slow paced novels

- love to take novels as a sedative to bed

But this is a CANDY for anyone who likes philosophy.

Divided in 3 sections, first section sets the stage where rationality keeps vanishing from the world, second shows how a few rationalists people manage to survive in such a world and the last one ... well, not supposed to tell you that, I don't want this to be a spoiler to prospective readers. So get your hands on this novel and read through it!