Illustrations

Kyle T. Webster has such a distinctive sharp style of drawing...I am going to get inspired from his drawings and doodle...

Women are always a good topic for sketches.

From Wall Street Journal..on Food Snobs..

"Bodyguard" Movie Review

It's amazing how Bollywood makes profit out of  mega-budget movies that have no stories. I can not understand why the producers undertake such projects. Except for the designer dresses for the lead actress and some dialogue lines, nothing works in the movie, Bodyguard.

"Lovely" Singh, the protagonist (Salman Khan) is hired as a bodyguard for Divya (Kareena Kapoor), the daughter of Sartaj (Raj Babbar) while she completes her studies in Pune (probably at Symbiosis College). Apparently Sartaj has made many enemies fighting against criminals. These goons are a threat to her life. For a college-going actress who is waiting to get married to a London based NRI, studying is only a formality.(Indian MPs and their sons are richer, more powerful and well-connected today). So far so good !!

No one can be happy if such a macho bodyguard hovers around all the time, wearing the same uniform and acting mechanical. The bodyguard is also supposed to wake her up at 4am in the morning, help her in the gym and teach her self-defense moves. He's so serious about his job that he follows her to restrooms, classrooms, library everywhere.

Being tired of her bodyguard, Divya decides to bring changes in him if not get rid of him totally. First, she tries to make him lose his uniform in vain. Following which, she decides to make him fall in love with a girl. In order to execute her plan, she keeps making anonymous flirtatious calls to Lovely Singh as Chayya. After all, man is a man !! The plan works. He falls for the girl behind the voice. This is the only "Oh Shit !! Now what ?" moment in the script.

Divya enjoys her daily prank as it works in distracting her bodyguard from constantly following her. Here comes the twist. The villain goons spot Divya in a bar and their intention is to kill her (out of enmity with her father). Predictably the bodyguard saves her from them, killing & injuring them shown through a cliched action sequence. What is the outcome, Divya immediately falls in love with him. He is already in love with Divya (or Chayya). Bloody fight killed some goons and the brother (Aditya Panchali) is furious on his brother's death. He and his team pledge to take revenge on the bodyguard and Divya.

Divya is in dilemma how to express her love to Lovely Singh. Her friend suggests her against it, reminding her of her father's expectations. One day Chayya asks Lovely to meet her at a park on Sunday. On Sunday she accompanies him to the park requesting him that she would only see his meetup with Chayya from a distance. Here is an emotional turn. She makes him do a dry run on how to express his love and feelings for Chayya. She gets very emotional hearing his confession of love for Chayya. Then he leaves to meet Chayya.
Divya calls Lovely from a distance pretending to be Chayya to say that she will not meet him as Divya has accompanied him to the park.

I do not understand what more to be told in the script. Now, the villains are really really angry. They want to come back hard. Before that happens, Divya makes the final call. She can't take it anymore. She wants to get married. So, she tells Lovely to meet her at the Railway station (Pune). Her friend listens to this and informs her parents. Sartaj is very angry, obviously...

The goons come back before she leaves for the station with Lovely. This is followed by the final fight between them and Lovely Singh. When Lovely along with Divya is about to head out to the station, the father with his gang arrives to the scene. In order to escape the wrath of her father, Divya lies about her love for Lovely and makes Lovely go to the station. Obviously she cannot not get married immediately.

The movie is still not over. It cannot end like this. Since Lovely singh has to show that he will meet Chayya, Divya sends her friend to the station. Otherwise, her father's assistant will know about her lies. The best friend reaches the station but instead of telling Lovely the truth, she betrayes Chayya/Divya. After all where can she find a better and handsome husband. She pretends to be Chayya and subsequently gets married. They have a son.

However, as Karma would have it. She suffers from a terminal disease and dies. Soon after that the son and father come to meet Sartaj. Surprise, Divya is still single. No more London business. The son's name is also Sartaj. This only adds to the humor when Sartaj's assistant (Asrani) calls the kid as "Beta Sartaj" (son Sartaj). The boy comes to know about Divya and her love-sacrifice reading his biological mother's diary. He insists that Divya should accompany them as her mother.

Finally, they board the train and somehow Lovely gets to read the diary and they live happily after.

Probability Question

It is interesting to interview fresh grad candidates. I'll post interesting questions as I find them. Please let me know if you have good solutions. I often find the candidates in interviews cannot answer the following question correctly.

A couple has two children. One child is boy. What is the probability that the other child is boy ? Assume that a boy or girl child is born with probability 1/2.

Another interesting version: A couple has two children. One of them is a boy who is born on Sunday. What is the probability that the other child is a boy. Assume that a boy or girl child is born with probability 1/2.

Thanksgiving Vacation.

Mostly spent time at home relaxing. Original plan was to go for shopping on early morning. However due to stomach ache, had to stay in. Managed to visit a couple of electronics shops on Black Friday with mild stomach pain. Such was the power of discounts offers of Black Friday :)  As asked by Dan Ariely, why is it difficult to resist temptation for free (discount) stuffs? Why do cheapest stuffs sale so fast although the next expensive stuff is only a few dollars more?

Visited software section in different stores. I found that many software were FREE after mail-in rebate. For example, one could buy AVG anti-virus s/w (valid for 2ys) for $60 and they would get cash rebate within 8 weeks. I am wondering why people were not buying? Do we value $60 and its depreciation so much that we hesitate to keep it in someone else's pocket for two months?

Books Read/Reading in 2009.

1. 401(k) for Dummies
2. Predictably Irrational
3. Outliers: The Story of Success
4. White Tiger
5. Kite Runner (reading)
6. Super-Capitalism (reading)
7. Effective C++ (reading)
8. Code Complete (reading)

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Haven't watched the movie but from the review it seems many people like me can identify with Mr Suri (SRK character). The songs are awesome -- quite relevant and meaningful and were sung by good singers -- Sukhwinder, Sonu, Shreya, Sunidhi, Roopkumar etc. 

The song "Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte" is so funny in that an amateur singer often mixes up different songs and their tunes. What an observation from the composer !  

"Dance pe Chance" is a song on how to teach dance steps to a novice. I can really identify as I had the same experience in my dance classes. The instructor would break it down into basic steps.  

Convergia Rip-Off

Yes, there are still scam and fraud businesses in US and can rip one off blatantly. Convergia is a Canada based company and has agents in India and elsewhere. I kept getting annoying calls from agents probably located in India. They would call me periodically and used to offer a great deals for calling to India. Convergia agent told me that the deal would be flat rate of $60 dollars and unlimited calls to any numbers in India from US. The first month would be free for trial. They gave me a code and asked the local carrier such as AT&T to add that code. They told me there was no paper contract and I could disconnect anytime. I could pay the bills using check or card card.

The deal sounded quite reasonable and I subscribed to it. After using for 3 days, I could not make any further calls to India. After trying for many times and waiting for long long hours, I got hold of the customer care agent. She told me my account was blocked by the computer due to over-usage. But there was no mentioning of it in the contract. Actually there was no contract (my mistake that I didn't have the proof). I immediately cancelled my subscription on phone. After a month, I got a bill of $111. They mentioned that I was charged for all the calls. Wait a minute, I was told the first month was free. It seems they didn't cancel my account. I didn't send the bill. In the second month, they send another bill of $222. I sent a check of $111 and wrote on the check "my account should be canceled as soon as this check is encashed". Now, I have a proof of cancellation. But I am still trying to resolve $111 that was charged in the second month although I made no calls.

Garmin GPS

I have been using GPS navigation devices for sometime. I was told Garmin was the best brand for GPS. It's hard to judge how good a brand could be unless one uses some other variety. So, last week, I rented a Hertz car in which they had already installed a GPS which was custom made. I would say, the GPS only helped me find a route between a source and a destination. The interface was not friendly at all - it was not a touch screen and the keypad prompted every key I pressed a key. Pressing the letters and numbers was inconvenient. Morevoer, there was no option to search for businesses close to a place. It happened that I pulled over the car and searched for the Starbucks cafe. However, it returned all addresses in different states and cities. I realized that I was standing next to a Starbucks cafe and the GPS failed to locate it. What a performance !

It is obvious that the Garmin GPS is indeed among the best. First of all, the vendors underestimate the value of simplicity and user-friendly (Google-like interface). The interface needs to be touch screen. It's a pain to punch in keys. Today I was traveling from LA to Riverside and the traffic on the freeway was extremely bad. However, the Garmin GPS kept finding alternative routes for me. The GPS takes into consideration an existing congestion in the freeway. For example, at one point of time, it told me to take an exit and re-enter the same freeway from the right side (it was awesome that I could cut through the traffic for 1/2 mile several times). It does many other optimization to save time. Another feature that I like in Garmin GPS is the option to localize near by attractions, restaurants etc.

Interesting thing is that all the GPS devices have the same broadcasted information from a satellite, still there is so much difference in performance.

More Interview Questions:
As I went through more interviews, I was asked some interesting questions. If you happen to know the solutions or want to know the solutions, you write to me.

[1] Given an array of n integers both positive and negative integers. Find the sub-sequence of the array which has the largest sum. Find the algorithm with a better complexity than brute force one.

[2] Given a character array, print all the palindromes. Find an efficient algorithm.

[3] Write a C program to show if stack is growing into higher memory.

[4] How to make a server accept client connections in a non-blocking mode efficiently ?

[5] Find the Kth largest element in a binary search tree.

[6] Many more to come ...

Good Interview Questions


Sometimes I wonder what is the purpose of asking problem solving questions in an interview ? Some of the interesting questions I came across in the recent past are as follows. I have solutions to some. Do let me know if you have an effiicient solution.

1) Given an array of integers randomly selected from [1,n], what is the average number of comparison to be made in finding the minimum integer ?

2) What is the complexity of merging two lists of numbers ? How will you improve the complexity if one list is very large compared to other ? What if the numbers are distributed uniformly in [1,n] in both the lists ?

3) Given a circular list of integers (some of which could be -ve), find an index i such that sum of integers from index i to index j is never < 0. First find out if such an i exists.

4) Given n sets and each set consists of characters. Let the sets be S1, S2, S3, .., Sn. Given a string denoted by x1..xk. Find out if the string x1..xk can be constructed from S1, S2, ..., Sn by first looking at S1 and then S2 and finally Sn in an efficient manner. You can look at any set only once and you need to follow the ordering for looking at the sets. In one case, assume that you can skip a set. In another case, assume that no set can be skipped.

SPAM

I have been getting this spam again and again.

"Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2008 13:08:14 +0800
From: Miguel Wall <a-3446@agenziairis.com>
To: dhiman
Subject: Chatting online

Hello! I am tired today. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at Gunnel@WilderGoLovan.com only, because I am using my friend's email to write this. I will show you some great pictures of me."

I am sure there is a person sitting on the other side who edited this. However, I am wondering why does a girl who is tired today want to meet me ? Also, if she could log in to her friend's email, why couldn't she login to her own account say, yahoo or gmail or aol or hotmail ? Why would I be interested in seeing her pictures ?

Reality and Talent Hunt Shows

These days talents shows are at rampant. Personally I find these shows quite interesting. I have been following the Indian reality shows mostly. A few years back, when I had visited home, my sister used to talk about Abhijeet Sawant all the time. I could not understand why she was so excited. Then she suggested me to watch Fame Gurukool. It was silly that I was spending time to watch how those teen aged girls and guys would talk/act something useless in front of camera. However, I started enjoying the singing part of the shows. I also started liking the comments from the judges more. My vacation got over but I used to discuss with my sister until the show got over.

Due to popularity of Web 2.0, now we can access media content of all such reality shows on Internet. As a result, I could follow many reality shows such as SA RE GA MA PA, Great Indian Laughter Challenge, Indian Idol, Little Champs, Chhote Ustad, Indian Cricket League and recently started Jhoom India. I want to hightlight some of my observations.

Its quite encouraging to see how these shows have offered accessible platforms to middle-class and poor sections of society to showcase their talents. If you follow Chhote Ustad on Zee TV, you will find a kid named Aamir Hafiz who cannot go to school and his father is an auto-rickshaw driver. There is another girl named Vasundhara Raturi from Delhi who is blind. Although North and Western India are mostly well-represented in such shows, there are two talented girls from North-Eastern and Eastern parts of India as well. People might also remember that a few months back, there was a wave of Indian Idol fever across Darjeeling and North-Eastern India when two guys from those parts of India won to be the finalists of Indian Idol 3. So, such shows are definitely creating opportunities and jobs for many.

Until I saw Fame Gurukool, I didn't know who was Krishna Kumar Menon (or famous Kay Kay). I didn't know who composed music for DUS, Om Shanti Om until I came to know of Vishal-Shekhar Duo. Many people don't know that a song like "Aalha Ke Bande" was written by Vishal. He is same person who sang "Dhoom Again...". After watching Rubaroo of Indian Idol, I now know who choreographed dances in Dhoom 2. It is through Indian Idol guest judge Adnan Sami, I could see how to lose weight 100+ lbs in a few months. Many such tidbits (although useless information) came to my attention.

One thing which I believe holds universally is that "beauty lies in details". It sounds charming when music gurus point out the intricate details of music and songs. Another thing to note is that people like "Originality" and "Newness". This is true even in research work. Sometimes I feel politicians should be selected through such reality shows in that politicians have to compete in front of Indian population. There will be debates, eloquence, decision making tests and so on. Voting process can be made more tamper proof. Kapil Dev tried to implement the concept into cricket to certain extent. I think most of the award ceremonies should take into consideration Peoples' Votes in finding the winners.

I hope the until some other concept proves better, reality and talent hunt shows will continue to entertain us more and find better talents from every section of society.

First Two Weeks in Bay Area

I became fond of Bellevue in three months. However, I forgot the heaviness in heart amidst hectic packing and checking out spree on the day of departure. Little did I know that my first two weeks in Berkeley would be so un-welcoming. I had booked a room in a Hotel room near UC Berkeley before leaving Washington. On reaching the Hotel in Berkeley at 10pm in the night, I was informed that someone had cancelled my reservation. I am still searching for that person did that. Hotel looked quite dazzling from outside but it was such a run down place from inside. The bathtub, broken sink, furniture, spider-web and ambiance all gave me an impression as if I was in 1960. I decided to checkout immediately and call a cab. A cab came and the driver was Nepali. It was already 11pm. All the restaurants were closed. I was dead hungry. How could an area near a university campus be such dead closed so early ? The driver stopped near a Chinese hotel which looked closed. I called the manager from outside the gate and he answered, "I will open the hotel later, go and have coffee and come back at 11:30pm". I told the driver to go to another hotel. I checked in an expensive hotel and after staying there for two nights I felt it was ripping me off by wallet, so I went to another cheaper Motel, the best known Motel in the town.

A new challenge in my life was to find an apartment as soon as possible. I never had to do apartment hunt before in life. Every morning I would get up, sincerely search Craigslist, seek appointments and meet Realtors, property owners and who not. Sometimes I got frustrated, but sometimes I met interesting people. I did this for two weeks, every day without failure. I would visit India grocery stores with the hope of finding some housing ad. I came to know of an Indian realtor and I decided to give it a shot there. On visiting the realtor's office, I found an Indian lady (I think she was wife of the owner) at the office who was from Hyderabad. Following is an excerpt of conversation with her:

Me: I am looking for an apt in Berkeley. Do you have anything available ?

She: When do you want to move in ?

Me: If possible, now.
She: No, we don't have anything now. We will have one available on Oct 19 and one on Oct 9

Me: Do you think any tenant might move out by Oct 1st ?

She: If I FOUND, I'll call (pronounced as kyaall) you. PEOPLES sometime move out before lease ends.
........

She was giving me different options and every sentence she uttered had some grammatical mistake or other, and she was speaking so confidently in typical southy accent. Although I saw two units she suggested, but I didn't opt for either. Both were quite badly maintained and environment was dirty. However, I still remember her punch line, "If I FOUND, I will kyaalll you".

Later that day, I went to Point Richmond area in East Bay area as I was getting an apt for 3-4 months lease. I wasn't even there to meet the realtor, I decided not to rent to an apt in that locality. I was passing through the most crime-proned areas and even during day I could sense that. However, later on the realtor (young American-Asian) guy told me that people in Point Richmond area wanted to keep the area as it was. He told me, Pixar company was started there. Essentially he was trying to entice me.

Next day, I had another appointment with an American landlady and she showed me a lot of her attitude. My first question to her, "So, where do you live ?". She answered, "Do you need to know where I live ?". I immediately decided not to rent her apt, although I stayed and let her show me her two units. The units were nice and furnished. She kept cracking meaningless jokes. I left her units with a sense of failure in finding an apt.

The following day, I had an appointment with another person who I later found out to be a billionaire. On seeing him for the first time, I got an impression that he must be a janitor as he was wearing shabby and dirty clothes. He then showed me an apt which was stacked up with antiques and different collectibles from China and India. He told me about his real estate business and other foundation work. The next day, he came to my Motel since he wanted me to show his other two properties in San Fransisco and East Bay area. He talked about his past and how he made all his property. I was impressed. Then he told me that I could stay in one of his mansions for almost free but in return I would have to develop some software to be sold to Google. Later on I decided not to rent any of his apt. At some point of time, I was wondering if he was like that old man in the movie, "Hostel".

It was almost two weeks I was staying in that Motel. Every morning, I would call frontdesk and extend my stay for another day. Meanwhile I befriended the manager there and his assistant who was Nepali. The assistant was excited as Prashant Tamang became the 3rd Indian Idol. I had not eaten home-cooked food for more than two weeks.

Eventually, I started seeing some light of hope. I visited the most posh area in Berkeley, Emeryville. I increased my budget limit so that I could find something. The real estate agent showed me an apt on 30th floor in a posh complex offering a nice view of San Francisco and Pacific ocean. Pacific Ocean was around 500 meters away from that complex. Strong breeze and sunlight would be there always. It was a high-end luxurious apartment. However, USD 1700 per month was beyond my budget. However, I do dream to stay in such apt someday. After that, I found an apt in a complex very nearto it within an affordable rent. However it was unfurnished. I had to furnish it. The landlady is the best landlady I have ever met. She is a Filipino. Here I am little settled now, going to work regularly and eating home-cooked food.

Lost In Translation

I realize how a lousy translation can kill the essence of something and make it sound funny. I can understand it may not be always easy to translate something from one language to another without losing original meaning, humor and flow but why is it so difficult to translate simple dialogues of Bollywood Hindi movies to say English. I wonder how Tagore had translated Geetanjali from Bengali to English. Let me give some examples from some movies that I watched recently.

In "Apne", Sunny Deol was going afroad on business purpose but his father wasnot happy with him . However, his mom said to him, "...Mein unhe samjha lungi..".Subtitle on that diaglogue was: "...Don't worry, I will satisfy him..". In many other movies, translators just translated word-to-word, e.g., Butterfly for 'Titli', 'Bhabi' for sister-in-law. I am wondering how would viewers understandwhat Bhabhi is if they cannot understand original dialogues. I was also surprised to see incorrect translations of dialogues in "Aporajito", a sequel of Pather Panchali by Satyajit Ray. "Appu" (correct one should have been ApU) was baptised as a priest and he was instructed to pour Ghee (like butter) on fire. However, the translation was "Put honey on fire". Is Ghee same as Honey ?

Earlier I used to tell my friend -- I would like to work for Quality Assurance in Netflix, that is, I would like to get paid for watching movies. Now seeing such incorrect translations, I tend to feel more motivated for QA job title.

On Move

Writing after a long time. Was busy shifting from Riverside, CA to Redmond, WA. It does not rain that much in Redmond now. Shops, grocery stores, restaurants are close by compared to that in Riverside. Lush green surroundings add to the beauty of the place. Interestingly, found an Indian restaurant named Preet's Casual Indian Cuisine. This place serves snacks like parathas, chaat, tea, etc and not main course dishes. Such was the restaurant I was looking for in US. Next, this place is full of Indians (H1,L1,F1)s and GCs and can also see many married couples stralling in the evening or going back home carrying grocery bags. Also notice many Indian pregnant wives. I hardly used to notice such crowd of Indians in Riverside. Probably because it is university campus environment. Have to visit several places in WA. At least Redmond hasn't alienated me so far.

Silver Line

Every Dark cloud has a silver line. After abysmal performance of Team India in World Cup 2007, millions of cricket fans are furious. However, India's defeat might be good for several other things.

Several board, entrance exams are scheduled in April and May. IIT JEE entrance is scheduled on April 8. Students can now focus and study instead of watching matches on TV.

India's early exit from World Cup tournament also teaches several Indian players (hopefully ! and others too) that success does not come from past laurels. There is no substitute for hardwork, dedication and determination. Money and stardom cannot buy victory.

Awesome Talk

During the course of PhD, it often comes to mind if doing PhD is really worth it. Several thoughts cross through mind -- all friends are doing job, they are settled and even have family of their own; parents need helping hand; am I really going to change the world with my work etc etc. I feel if something is difficult it means something worthwhile, even if the thesis does not turn out to be ground-breaking. The uncertainty a person goes through teaches one to become patient, matured and persistent. Sometimes, I feel doing PhD is meaningful only in places like MIT.

Attending to technical talks is integral part of PhD life. But theoretical talks are most interesting as was today's talk by Nicole Immorlica which made me realize once again how exciting research could be. She got PhD from MIT and has been working with Microsoft Research. I learned some nice theoretical results in Algorithms Game Theory. Specifically, she gave nice application of Classic Secretary Problem. The Secretary problem states:

"If an office wants to hire a secretary from a set of N secretaries, assuming that each secretary has some measure of her goodness, and decision to hire or reject should be done at the end of interview. The question is how to ensure that the office hires approximately the best secretary (if once rejected secretary cannot be hired or once accepted secretary cannot be rejected later)."

Game Theory is one of my favorite subjects and auction-theory that she was talking about is one of its sub-field. Furthermore, I feel one of the features of presentations given by theoretical computer scientists is that those are immaculate -- such talks are absolutely free from rubbish, everything is precise and succinct. In contrast to common wisdom, theoreticians are have also good sense of humor. Basically, a clear and careful thought processing shows up in the presentation. That's when I realize, Aha ! here is the fun of doing research because no one else knew this result before her.

Indian Universities and Application Process

Although many universities in India have international repute, the application process is those univs is pretty much done in the same old fashioned way. I am sure there is increased number of students, faculty and staff, but the attitude of the people has not changed much. Recently I had to contact several univs to enquire about admission procedure into MSc programmes. Only thing I could say, I ended up being frustrated.

Although many universities have launched their websites, there is hardly any relevant information on those. For example, I was directed to the website of Periyar University to dig information about MSc in Life Science and actually there is nothing on it. I could barely understand, why can't they post contact telephone numbers.

There are different issues to deal with even if one gets contact numbers. I was visiting North Bengal University website and surprisingly there was no contact number. Only contact number one could find was of the company (AMBITION) which made homepage. So, I had to call them to find a relevant number of the Registrar. On another occasion, I tried to talk to staff in a college in Anna University. It appeared as if I made a mistake by calling them, the person was in so much hurry to hang up that I had to request not to hang up before asking every question. I had to send 4-5 mails and call equal number of times to get one piece of information. I really don't understand why they don't learn etiquettes of telephonic conversation.

I was little surprised that one has to struggle so much to talk to staff or people in Delhi University or JNU. Either there is no departmental homepage or even if one exists, there is no contact numbers of staff in the office. One has to go through separate directory search to unravel contact number of only Dept Head or professors. Sometimes, the website of a University is not even accessible, e.g., Univ of Tezpur.

Furthermore, I don't understand why can't they upload .doc or .pdf version of the application forms on their webpages. One has to order the application forms by sending Demand Drafts by post and acquire the application forms. Why can't they make it credit card payable ? What is the point of having booming IT industry ?

Christmas Trips

Decided to take a friend to LA and Universal Studios on Christmas Weekend. A gate pass with head-of-the-line priviledge was quite costly, $79 dollars per person. We were already late, arrived to the Theme Park at around 3pm since we forget to take exit 1C. Poor Annotation on Highways ! We managed to see a few shows. First one was, 4D Shrek. We know about 3D movies where one wears glasses and the screen looks 3D. But in 4D, even the seat moves and shakes so the audience feels the jerks if a vehicle moves. Similarly, there are pores on the back of the seat through which they air is passed and water droplets are sprinkled if there is rain on the screen. Pretty amazing sequel of Shrek they showed.

Then, we went to the Studio Tour on a Bus. Following are some of the snaps from the sets of Hollywood. Its pretty amazing how exact replica they create.

From hollywood

Next day we were supposed to go to Arizona. We set out on 5 hours drive at 7:30am from Riverside. Its amazing how the scenery changes as desert starts. We saw many Windmills. It reminded me how on many occasions I made models of Windmills for science projects in school.

From trip to phoenix

Desert expanses made me wonder about powerful Nature. There was nothing but barren land, cactus and rocky and sandy mountains. There was no trace of water. We could see two roads cutting through the desert.

We reached Phoenix at around 1pm local time. We had tea and then started driving towards Grand Canyon. It was fun as there were three friends in the car and we were drinking, munching chips and listening to hindi album songs. We reached Grand Canyon at around 5pm, it was too late. But we managed to see Grand Canyon from the southern rim and at the twiligh to dusk.

From Grand Canyon

As it was getting, we could feel the chill in the air. When we returned back to Phoenix it was already 10pm in night and we were pretty tired to go to sleep.

Twin Heroes

Watched James Bond flick - Casino Royale last weekend. Can't say it was impressive. Only things that James Bond movies are good in showing are new stunts and new bombshells. While it was over, I was still confident that Jack Bauer and 24 series were still the best. Just thought of doing head-to-head comparisons of the two main characters.

Character:	James Bond	Jack Bauer
Actor:	Daniel Craig	Keifer Sutherland
Profile:	MI6 agent	Field Ops Director, Counter Terrorist Unit
X-factor:	Charming to girls	Natural Born Killer
Voice:	Barely speaks	Well versed, always ready with answer
Killer Punchline:	My name is Bond, James Bond	My name is Jack Bauer, I am a federal agent, CTU
Weakness:	Hot babes, usually wives or girlfriends of villain	Daughter, Kim; does not care about hot babes
Skills	Aided with gadgets	Highly patriotic, no fear of death, too sharp with contingency plans
Tragedy	Most girls die who he loves	His second love killed his wife
oomph moments:	When he ravishes bombshells	when he talks and obliges to President of USA directly