Futsal Day 1: Nevis beats QED

With splendid victory on the first day of tournament against QED (don't ask me what does it stand for, because even one of that company's guy didn't know it!!!) we are too charged up to play tomorrow's (err... it's already tomorrow, so today's) 2 upcoming matches. I'm tooooooo exhausted, but thanks to chilling coldwater shower and steaming-hot cup of my Mommy's SUPER-DUPER Masala Tea, I am able to keep my promise of taking the news of this victory public right away after the match!!!
Thanks to Pune's GOD DAMNED ^@#$ed up traffic, I reached home a little late & could barely manage a cup of tea before the match. By the time I reached ground, I had lost my composure. Reaching at 2110 hrs (9:10 pm) I was 20 minutes before scheduled time (thanks to no traffice @ Swargate) and overall plan was running late by an hour which helped me cool down a bit.
Within first 5 minutes of starting, Sagar scored a goal followed by Ranjit. It scared the hell out of QED and built tremendous pressure on them. But they were determined to attack with vengeance. Thanks to Amit (our former star forward who's out due to severe ligament injury) he played an amazing goalie. Our defense was pretty solid and opponent could only take advantage of our few mistakes.
By second half, we were leading 3-2 and just before last five minutes QED leveled the score! Boy, that goal scared the hell out of us :-( But thanks to Ranjit & Sagar who managed to score in last 2 minutes taking Nevis to 4-3!!! I should say Sagar & Ranjit managed their nerves too well to have scored in last 2 minutes. It was a very beautiful coordination, only short of a camera shooting :-( Everyone was dead tired after the match but we all managed to drive home safely ;-)
Special thanks to Chidanand and Malhari because Chidu postponed trip to his head quarters & Malhari promised to drop him early morning @ bus stop.
With putting a couple of issues to rest at office and Nevis' victory, I would claim today's day was pretty well! Now, with my clock reading 0130 hrs (i.e. 1:30 am way beyond my *normal* bedtime) & much worried about couple of check-ins, merging & status-reporting, I should go to sleep for I have to reach office in time.

Have a SEXY night (or day, as applicable), sleep tight/work hard!

For those who don't know what Futsal is, it's an indoor version of football (soccer) with slight modification in rules and 5 players each side. For more details check this out.

So called researchs

Latest research news!
'USA erratic news agency : A recent study shows that upto 59% of people who do blah blah face upto 69% lesser risk of blah blah compared to rest of the people who face upto 10% higher risk of same blah blah than an average person! Additionally, 23% of those who underwent blah blah test, who were females, claimed to be more prone to same blah blah before enlisting for this GOD DAMNED blah blah programme!!!'

Phew! WTF!!! Haven't you seen constructs of this kind all over the net and newspapers???
Using lightening-paced means of communication and smart language, people around the world are equiped to lure you into anything they want!

This prompts me to reveal an amazingly, impeccably, supremely, ost fundamental and earth shattering of the recent studies:

'USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of every four people make up 75 percent of the population.'

Well, what I'm getting to is this, 'Study Shows One Third of All Studies Are Nonsense' Read on this article to learn more!

BTW, which 'third' does this research fall into? Find out for yourself!

Is Programming An Art

Or a Craft? Or a Science? Or neither of them? Or All?
Damn, you are as confused as I was! But even before you dive into it, can you attempt to define art/craft; in a sense that majority of people interpret it?

This in an interesting thread of discussion I caught on /.

"A constant question for software developers is 'What is the nature of programming?' Is it art or science? Does creativity or engineering lead the design and implementation of a program? John Littler talked to several well-known and well-respected programmers (including Guido van Rossum, Andy Hunt, Bjarne Stroustrup, Paul Graham, and Richard Stallman) to find their answers; he shares their thoughts and his own in Art and Computer Programming."

You can find his complete article here:
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/30/artofprog.html
If you go through it, feel free to share your views with me. Personally, I found Richard Stallman's view to be most suitable:

I would describe programming as a craft, which is a kind of art, but not a fine art. Craft means making useful objects with perhaps decorative touches. Fine art means making things purely for their beauty.

The Godfather, Mario Puzo

I know, claiming to be a novel-lover, I'm a little too late to read a novel as GREAT as The Godfather. But better late than never :-D

This is another novel that I would STRONGLY recommend to all the serious (& not not-so-serious) readers.

Covering crime & corruption, passion & loyalty, this stands as a definitive novel of the Mafia underworld. At some point while reading, you actually start suspecting if Mario Puzo himself is a celebrated underworld don! Or at the least, was at some point of time! That's the beauty of this novel. Every character protrayed so vividly, that you can actually make a real living person out of it, had you had the power to create life forms!!!

The story is about the most respected and revered of dons, Don Corleone, how he established his empire, guarded it and earned his respect. He is then brought down by his enemies, ruthless and equally powerful. With none of his sons quite incompetent to guard the BIG empire, leave alone running it, how is the Don supposed to get out of the mess his enemies has put him in? Should he put down his weapons and surrender? Or should he flee away? Or should he come up with supremely master-mind plot to wipe out all of his enimies!!!
As intriguing this story sounds, this is an amazing page turner.
Not all underworld dons are merciless and reckless! This novel, for sure, will give you a fresh view of the underworld, unlike you must have seen in movies or read elsewhere!
I bet you will secretly want to personally owe a favour to such a Don!

Read the novel to find out what I mean!

I want to get hold of his equally revered novel, The Last Don.

Detective, Arthur Hailey

Detective is a can't-put-it-down novel by Arthur Hailey, an author who is VERY well known for his extensive and thorough research prior to writing a book. You cannot doubt the authenticity & credibility of the information in his novel.

As you might have guessed from the title by now, his novel is about homicide investigations. He takes you on a roller-coaster ride through the complexities and hazards involved in such a profession, where human lives are at stake! The novel starts off with Malcom Ainslie, (main lead), of Miami police is about to take his well-earned vacation with his family. Just then he is called on an urgent mission: Elory, a criminal, wants him to hear his confession. Will he confess all the gruesome double murders for which Ainslie got him convicted or he just want him to take a confession as a Catholic priest?
Will it be worth flying down to Elory dumping his long awaited vacation plans?
I should admit that while he dives deep into the singular topic (homicide investigation in this case), he never lets his readers distract from the central plot. Only down side is the gory murders he explains VERY vividly. The descriptions might tend to linger around in your minds for quite some time.

Thoroughly informative & exciting, I would STRONGLY recommend this for everyone and a MUST for suspense/thriller fans.

I desperately want to read his more celebrated titles: Airport, Hotel, Final Diagnosis. At the time of buying Detective, I enquired about them but the store didn't have any of them in stock :-(

Currently, I’m reading ‘A Beautiful Mind’ biography of John Nash. It’s more of a serious kind of novel and you can definitely NOT take it as a sedative to bed!

Coming up... review on Deception Point and The Godfather!

Mr. And Mrs. Smith

Well, I believe it's just too late to put a review on Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but still thought of putting a few lines for completeness and keeping my promise ;-)
I would rate it at 5 on a scale of 10. An average movie, it mostly seems to be a hodge-podge of various events/ideas! There's absolutely NO chemistry between Jolie and Pitt on the screen. The director has tried hard (with little success) to create interest by using hi-tech gizmos, hi-tech weaponry & little comedy here and there.
Performances of both the stars is average, but what's interesting is how these 2 of the world's deadliest assassins hide their true identity & profession from each other with being married happily for six years (first flaw: how can such smart people NOT find that out!). Their worlds fall apart
when they face each other while they are assigned to terminate same target! Then, these supposedly the most precise of assassins, make a terrible mistake! In the event of killing the common target, each one of them believes the other to be an obstruction in his/her assignment & turn against each other, yet unaware of who the other assassin is. It's only after they go back to their hiding thorough R&D to they figure out about each other. BTW, even the way they discover each others identity is a little hard to digest.

If you ask me what did I like about the movie, I'll have to scratch my heads in vain! I had great expectations from the movie and dragged a whole gang of friends with me, only to get disappoinment & grumpy faces.
Many preposterous ideas/scenes shown in the movie, won't discuss them here. People over net have done better job on that already!

All in all, don't go for it, unless you have absolutely nothing else to do in life!

Eagerly looking up to War of the Worlds, directed by Steven Speilberg (one of my favourite directors)!

Movie 'Kaal' Busted!!!

About a few days back I HAD to see a movie called Kaal (is it really a movie??? Well, lets not dive into that fundamental question right now!). I know you might be wondering why the heck is Atul talking about Bollywood movie! I had almost forgotten about it until I read an article in a reputed wildlife magazine: Sanctuary Asia. And thought of sharing this information with you.

I will only reiterate interesting facts I read in the article. It only corroborated my faith that movie is full of utter dinosaur shit (qualifier 'dinosaur' is to emphasize quantity!) Ever since the movie was made, it's in controversy amongst the environmentalist and naturalists and even law has tried to bite it hard. Even before the release of Kaal, Supreme Court as well as Uttaranchal Government sent notices to producers for allegedly violating the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and shooting film in core areas of the jungle. Since trained animals (tigers and pythons) were used in the film, producers were also charged under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. The movie was touted as India's first 'wildlife' movie with a message and guess what... it failed miserably. The characters in the movie themselves portrayed utter lack of knowledge/respect of forest etiquettes. Such an ignorance is common amongst the tourists, but not expected from a supposedly 'tiger expert' Krish. Too much of utter nonsense: They land up in the Park in monsoon when it's closed, they chain smoking on the way through forest, they hunt, wander off alone on foot, bribe their way into restricted core areas and show complete disregard for any rules! No wonder they pay with their lives! But if movie has some message, the why not all of them die??? And why Kali plays the role to avenge, is he the caretaker of the jungle? Why not mother nature? Seeing the murdered bodies, we easily place that it's not the deed of any jungle animal, there has to be damned human factor! What lessons does this apparently wildlife movie implant! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

It is GREATLY regrettable that given the current tiger crisis the film-makers did not choose to get into the VALID problems facing national parks such as poaching and wildlife trade. Potentially, Kaal would have been a really groundbreaking film!
Actually, in a sense it really has been a ground-breaking film: did break the ground (in literal sense) and got buried deep into some dead dinosaur shit!

P.S. All links provided here were not present in the original article, so if you find any incorrect links, feel free to report them to me.

Have you ever felt this?

Oh GOD! Have you ever felt this...
Your goal is right in front of you! 'I can get it, right now!', you tell yourself. Just the thought of it energises you and you start moving with all fervour you have! But the very instant you start, you see your goal moving away from you and in an instant you are enervated. You loose interest in your goal, life, and everything around. And, even in crowed clamouring cubicle, you feel lost! You keep pounding on your keyboard, generating tens and hundreds of lines of code (which actually works) but even that doesn't appease your troubled soul! You browse through your favourite site, thinking to regain composure, but nothing helps :-( :-( :-( Don't know what causes this this irritating ride on a seesaw! I'm sure lot of you out there must have gone through this... (if not, I wish you don't have to go through this mess)

What do you do to get out of such blues? What causes it???

P.S. No, this is *not* love, please, I can recognize when that happens. I'm dead serious here. And no, I haven't been working hard as hell right now. Oh! Is that the solution: Work hard as hell and burn away all the !@#$ing blues! Man, I don't know :-(

-- re-edit 1--

Prasanna says:
If things are going wrong in proffessional life, it matters most. Especially when its setback to you goals, ambitions. Think like, you failed to anticipate that things may take such a unwanted turn...
Well, I fear you are right to an extent. This is definitely one of the factors.

Coming soon

Upcoming posts...
I don't have time right away... but am EAGERLY looking ahead for a few posts as soon as I have some time:
1. Review on Detective by Authur Hailey
2. Review on Godfather by Mario Puzo
3. Review Deception Point by Dan Brown
4. Movie 'Kaal' busted!
5. Movie Review Mr. and Mrs. Smith

If you are too curious, go for 1, 2 and 3. Don't EVER go for 4. And 5. is average.