Cursing your luck? Read this.....

Jason exemplifies the traits that British researcher Richard Wiseman ascribed to lucky people in a 2003 article called The Luck Factor: "They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophecies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good."

In one experiment, Wiseman asked two groups of people - one who described themselves as generally lucky and one who said they were usually unlucky - to count the photographs in a newspaper. The unluckies spent several minutes flipping through and counting the photos. The lucky people got it in a few seconds. How? On page 2, Wiseman had inserted a message in giant headline type: "Stop counting - There are 43 photographs in this newspaper."

The lucky people, always on the lookout for unexpected good fortune, spotted it right away. The unlucky people, whose minds are closed to such signs, missed it completely.

(I grokked this from CNN money)

Lyrics that Rock...

Some songs have these thought provoking verses/lines that just stay with you for life.
These are a few that i can think of on the spur of the moment:


I know you'll be a star in somebody elses sky,
but why can't it be mine?

Pearl Jam - Black

Moving on is a simple thing
What it leaves behind is hard
You know the sleeping feel no more pain
And the living are scarred

Megadeth - A Tout Le Monde (Dark, tragic, like most of metal)

Megadeth - Peace Sells but who's buying? (All of it)

I'm running down a dream
that never would come to me
working on a mystery
going wherever it leads

Tom Petty - Running down a Dream

The Waitresses discussing politics
as the businessmen slowly get stoned
and they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But its better than drinking alone.

Billy Joel - Piano Man (Awesome song about how everybody is trapped in lives that they don't want to lead)

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind

Bob Dylan - Blowin in the Wind ( The whole song is beautiful, anti war)


Well maybe I'm the faggot America.
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along in the age of paranoia.

Greenday - American Idiot (Very relevant song for the political scenario in 2004 very californian, what say ?)


Life is bigger
Its bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no Ive said too much
I set it up
Thats me in the corner
Thats me in the spotlight
Losing my religion

REM - Losing My Religion

(Losing My religion is a southern slang which means 'to lose ones temper')

We're Just, two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Runnin over the same old ground, How we find
Same old Fear , Wish you were here.

Pink Floyd- Wish You were here (Pink Floyd's tribute to Syd Barret )

My child arrived just the other day
Came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
He was talkin fore I knew it
And as he grew he said,
Im gonna be like you, dad,
You know Im gonna be like you.
And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man n the moon.
when you comin home?
son, I dont know when. well get together then.
You know well have a good time then.

Ugly Kid Joe - Cats in the Cradle

What else should I be
All apologies
What else could I say
Everyone is gay
What else could I write
I don't have the right
What else should I be
All apologies

Nirvana - All Apologies (Probably one of Kurt Cobain's best)

"After a While" -- All Time Favorite

"After a While"


After a while you learn

the subtle difference between

holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn

that love doesn't mean leaning

and company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn

that kisses aren't contracts

and presents aren't promises

and you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

and you learn

to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow's ground is

too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down

in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much

so you plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone

to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

you really are strong

you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye, you learn...

© 1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall


(Author's note: This poem has been plagiarized, bastardized, renamed, reworded, redesigned, expanded and reduced. But it is my work, which I wrote at the age of 19 and had published in my college yearbook. Why anyone would want to claim it is beyond me, but for what it's worth, I wrote it, and if I'd known it was going to be this popular, I'd have done a better job of it. - V.S.)

Mapping Ya'all

Whew man, Orkut is really rockin these days . I totally love this new feature where they show a mashup of your friends list and Google Maps. Totally awesome, i need to increase my friends circle in the midwest! Who's place would i crash at when i go to Denver ?!!

Music Recommendations - Part Deux

• Blue Oyster Cult -Don't Fear the Reaper
• The Who - Teenage Wasteland
• Keane -Somewhere only We Know
• John Lennon - Imagine
• Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
• Lynard Skynard - Freebird
• Five for Fighting - 100 Years
• Pearl Jam - Jeremy
• Nirvana - All Apologies
• Thin Lizzie - Whiskey in a Jar
• Pink Floyd - Coming Back to Life
• Ellis Paul - The World ain't Slowing Down
• Greenday - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
• Tom Petty - You don't know how it Feels
• Tom Petty - Last Dance with Mary Jane

My Music Recommendations for the day

Songs that are on shuffle mode on my Playlist. If you are into Classic Rock/Grunge/Alternative like me, i highly recommend these tracks..

• REM - Losing my religion
  
• Breaking Benjamins - Diary of Jane
• Tom Petty- Runnin down a dream
• Tom Petty - Free Fallin
  
• Trapt - Headstrong
• Soundgarden - Outshined
• Buck Cherry - Yo Crazy Bitch
• Pink Floyd - High Hopes
• Nirvana - Man Who Sold the World
• Pink Floyd - Hey You
• Pearl Jam - Better Man
• Lynard Synard -Don't ask me no Questions
• Jimi Hendrix - Electric Guitar Land
• Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
• Greenday - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
• Greenday - Wake me up when September Ends
• Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
• The Doors - People Are Strange
• The Doors - Rodehouse Blues
• AC/DC - Have a drink on me

Oriah-Mountain Dreamer : I love this poem

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own;
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself;
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty everyday, and if you can source your life on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon.

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

Stack Overflow? Not so fast

class Foo
{
Foo()
{
this("bar");
}
Foo(String s)
{
this();
}
}
public class TestFoo
{
public static void main()
{
Foo f=new Foo();
}
}

Hmm i was really eager to get a C'tor loop going to get the stack to overflow, after reading about Contructors in the java cert book by KS and BB . But the Compiler caught a recursive C'tor call at compile time. So i never got to the point where an ambiguous runtime call to Object's super() would cause a stack overflow. Smart Compiler

Jet Ski 'ing on Lake Lewisville

Went Jetskiing last weekend at Lake Lewisville in Dallas. It was awesome. A very Windy day lots of waves and traffic on the water and it was the first time i had jet skied. When you are ripping the waves all by yourself on a jetski, you literally bounce off every wave you hit. It gives you a high. Turning has to be done in wide arcs, ( the sequential left brain sort of assumes that you can make turns because you have a handle to do so) you have to get used to the training. Anything with speed thrills especially if its on the water!!! i look forward to doing this on the Ocean.

Whats in a Language?

Sapir Whorf hypothesis theorizes that thoughts and behavior are determined (or at least partially determined) by the language. To this day it has continued to baffle researchers world over.....really interesting

This hypothesis is being used to convey the fact that learning a new programming language might alter your approach to common programming tasks. Ever since i have caught the RubyOnRails bug, my fascination with this hypothesis continues to grow.

Taking Stock....

Exciting/ Fun things that i've done in the past 2 years:

1) White water Rafting on the Royal Gorge in Colorado
2) Halloween on the best freakin halloween party in US ofA Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC
3) Watched 4th of July celebrations from Brooklyn Bridge in NY.
4) Skiing on Arapahoe Basin near Breckenridge Colorado.
5) Trekking and Camping in Rocky Mountain National Park near Boulder CO.
6) Sat on the vertical drop ride on top of Stratosphere in Vegas.
7) Drag raced against Hemanth's Mustang, touching 110 mph near Dallas.
8) Earned 60$ on my first attempt at Blackjack at MGM Grand in Vegas!
9) Steamer ride to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.
10) Go-Karting 30 Laps at Go-Kart racer in Burlingame CA.
11)Pub-Hopping in San Francisco and getting lost while driving a Ford Winstar.
12) Partied like a Rock star on New Years eve in New Orleans, hangover the next day was a near death experience :)

Things that i want to do this year:

1) Drive down the Pacific coast in a Convertible.
2) Wine tasting in Sonoma Couty
3) Bungee Jumping
4) White water rafting in West Virginia

Jam Topics

JAM (Just a Minute) was a popular event during college fests in Bangalore. Me a my friends were in a nostalgic mood a few days back and were trying to recollect a few popular Jam topics.

A brief history of JAM

Just a Minute was devised by the late Ian Messiter who came up with the idea on the top of a number 13 bus. He suddenly remembered being given the horrible task of speaking for one minute without hesitation or deviation by one of his school masters. The idea is to speak on a random topic for 60 seconds without "deviating",hesitating" or "repeating" ! If a contestant deviates,hesitates(pauses) or repeats then you can raise an objection to the JAM arbitrator and take over the mic. The scoring system is based on the participant's correct or incorrect challenges.

JAM Topics

-Sympathy, Empathy, Venkatachalapati
-Bal Gangadhar Senna said Garage is my birthright!
-Abortion is Love's labor lost, No Foetus can beat us
-My Aunt uses viagra on her face to give herself a facelift
-A psychic midget escaped from prison and the headlines read, small medium at large
-