Another hot day. This is getting monotonous!

Luckily, airconditioning in my cabin and in the conference room should be functional tomorrow.

Shubha went snap-happy in the garden, the results can be seen here. Also some great photos of Judo, especially this one.

Poor Judo is suffering (though that is not visible in these photos). This is the worst time of the year for dogs like him. We douse him once in a while, but he is very obviously not a happy dog in the heat.

Anjali’s vacations have officially begun, and I can finally start digging into Myst III. Installed it and played for a while – my hair is already standing. Outstanding graphics!

Have been listening to Roger Waters’ “In the Flesh” album. Sony (my collegue, not the firm that published the CDs!) mentioned that he preferred the David Gilmour versions of these songs, but I sort of disagree. Since I have a chance to listent to Pink Floyd’s live show (“Pulse”) at the same time, I find that the brig problem with the current Pink Floyd shows is that they sound *exactly* like the studio recordings, which really gets stale after a while. Though I wouldn’t turn down a chance to see them as well, I personally feel that RW’s versions have a sense of freshness about them – the songs are familiar, yet different, and very “live”. IAC, if you get a chance, judge for yourself.

Mrinal seems a happy camper, now that he has his ticket for the RW show on next Saturday. Pity he has internal exams starting Monday – I’d have liked to jam through RW’s set list with him this Sunday (and possibly with Gaurav too, in fact the whole Phenom). Hmmm, maybe on Friday and Saturday before the show….

OK, time to get online, post this entry and settle in front of the TV.

Roger Water’s “In The Flesh” CD set rolled in today, making it the second time in a row that Fabmart blew my socks off with timely delivery. Not bad.

The album is *really* nice, but what struck me were the liner notes. Here, read this extract:

“Anyone who is familiar with my work and with the comments I’ve made during the course of my career will know that I have an antipathy towards football stadium rock shows.

These arenas are perfect for sports, political rallies, and Billy Graham-style revival meetings….I mean, they suit God and football, but I don’t think their scale is appropriate for rock’n roll which has always worked at its best in circumstances which allow for a much greater degree of intimacy, and contact, between the performers and their audiences.

There’s something about playing before 90,000 people that brings out the worst in everyone. In the performers, it can’t help but to encourage and exaggerate the puerile, attention-seeking part of our personality which is more concerned with power and status.

Audiences for their part get sidetracked by the scale of the event, and the last thing to be properly celebrated is the music.”

Roger, if that is how you feel about it, I am afraid you are *not* going to be a happy man in Bangalore on the 13th! If my guess is right, you are going to be facing an audience of between 30,000 to 45,000 fans for whom this show is going to be a milestone event in their lives!

On the other hand, Bangalore rock audiences tend to be highly supportive and wildly enthusiastic. And don’t be surprised to have tens of thousands of backing singers at the show, with perfect lyrics and rythm! And luckily, Bangalore Palace is not a stadium but more of an arena.

The album pretty accurately follows [WARNING:Spoiler ahead] the set list Roger has been following on this tour, which means that I now have a pretty good idea what we can expect – which suits me just fine. I like being prepared with lyrics, chords and tabs. It helps fill in the gaps – you know, the way the LOTR fanatics do seeing the movie, having read the book.

Still no decisions on vacation destination, though a trip to Germany is now officially ruled out (which upset Anjali greatly). We sat and discussed things this evening, and despite Anjali’s objections will probably choose either Kodaikanal or Ooty.

Nothing much happened today, apart from my going and buying our tickets for the Roger Waters show. Most impressive – credit card shaped, in plastic, with hologram and barcode. Definitely a collector’s item.

Oh yeah – in a record breaking feat of customer service, Fabmart managed to deliver the “Pink Floyd – Pulse” CD set in ONE day! And the “In the Flesh” CD has also been shipped and should reach me tomorrow. Whew!

Had nothing to do this evening, so went into the basement and put on the Pulse CD *LOUD* and jammed along. Hmmmm, I really need to check how many fingers David Gilmour has on his left hand. Are you *sure* it is less than 15?

Office is still in a mess, but things are beginning to fall into place – the new UPS is now functional, and the cabins rewired. Hopefully things should be back to normal by tomorrow.

Had a hilarious time at lunch. Avinash told us of this new sandwich bar near the office, so Gopi grabbed my lunch from home, and the rest of us set off to sample the cuisine.

Turned out that the place wasn’t open for business yet – another week to go. In the meantime, of course, Gopi had polished off my lunch!

Went over to Viking for food. Viking is this utterly out of place restaurant near the office – an honest-to-goodness non-veg joint, complete with bar! Unheard of in Malleswaram! Reasonably good food. We had to teach him a few things (most of all that real men drink Coca Cola, not that sugary acid-in-a-bottle the competition sells), and whup butt until he started accepting credit cards, but now things function well. When we walk in, he hides the Pepsi ads, and happily accepts our cards.

Still no decisions on summer vacation destination.

The heat – did I tell you about that? It’s bad.

The electricity scene is bad, too. Luckily, the new UPS in the office frees up bunches of small 1/2 and 1 KVA UPS units, some of which I intend to hijack to take home.

Been playing more with Crossover Office, more and more Windows applications are kneeling before the power of the OpenSource world.

Discussions with various people across the planet, some of whom are looking for the next million dollar idea, and are convinced that I know what it is. Right.

Music scene is static – everything is now oriented towards the Roger Waters concert on the 13th. I hollered at Fabmart, which resulted in them making all the Pink Floyd albums available. And what do you not know – they even got the “In the Flesh” CD that goes with the RW concert! I ordered it immediately. Found Pink Floyd’s Pulse as well. Ordered that too.

Sad news – Jon Lord of Deep Purple has left the group. I hate it when an era passes. It makes me feel old.

Nobody gonna take my car
I’m gonna race it to the ground
Nobody gonna beat my car
It’s gonna break the speed of sound
Oooh it’s a killing machine
It’s got everything
Like a driving power big fat tyres and everything

I love it and I need it
I bleed it yeah it’s a wild hurricane
Alright hold tight
I’m a highway star
—Highway Star (Deep Purple)

Started the week with a bang.

CDROM drive on notebook not working. Called TVA help.com, who collected it for a checkup.

Office in chaos – we recently purchased a huge UPS to power the entire office, which requires extensive rewiring. End result – I got evicted from my cabin into the conference room.

Hey, it’s Monday. What did you expect?

Marathon meeting planning the next financial year. Decisions, decisions.

Went home early – the weather just became too unbearable. Airconditioning is still not in place in the office, and the heat just plain got me.

Found home in chaos too – apparently all Anjali’s friends decided to drop in after the maths exam and got themselves soaked by the sprinkler on the lawn. Judo went completely nuts wanting to join them, but his cruel mistress decided to keep him indoors to swelter. Judo used mind control to make her call me, and I of course gave the release order, freeing the poor mutt from his misery. He pounced on the sprinkler, Anjali and her friends, and evidently had a ball.

LiveJournal Friends in suicide mode – with Kallu giving up life (like he had one to begin with) and Mrinal giving up music. April 1st works in strange and mysterious ways on some people. Luckily, they were cured when no one jumped up in alarm, urging them to reconsider – in fact, Kallu must have been appalled with everyone urging him jump!

Managed to see the episode of Voyager that I missed yesterday courtesy the Karnataka Electricity Board. It sucked.

Major pressure on the home front about where we are going for the holidays. The answer is – I don’t know. Quit bugging me.

Two days more before I can disappear into the Mysts of time….

Sunday.

Zzzzzzz…..

Well, not quite, but almost so.

Bangalore heat is now the number one topic in all diaries and journals I follow. Everyone seems to be suffering.

No major excitement during the day, I slept like a log after lunch. It was way too hot to do anything else. Ask my dog.

Evening got up to watch some TV, then to order Pizza and Coke.

Video chatted for a while with someone who has lost an amazing amount of weight (even though I didn’t let on that I noticed), got some recommendations on diets.

A piece of advice – Coke after an afternoon nap is a baaaad idea if you hope to sleep through the night.

Especially a night that suddenly has a few minutes of rain, followed by an extended power-outage, and lots of mosquitoes.

Arrrrggghhhh!!!!

Ah, the day is done.

Anjali’s birthday today, so naturally we had to get up at midnight to wish her – dog, cat and all.

She appeared to be thrilled with her gifts – The complete set of the “Lord of the Rings” books and three PC video games – The Sims, Simcity 3000 Unlimited and the boomerang present – Myst III.

I am a *major* fantasy fiction and games freak (something that a few people should have known in a discussion a while back) and have just about all the big names under my belt. Myst and Riven (Myst II) were major milestones for me – unbelievable depth. While I know that Myst III is likely to be a wee bit on the “let’s squeeze blood from that stone” side, I am sure I am going to enjoy it.

Whether *Anjali* will, remains to be seen She hasn’t played either Myst or Riven (both games went to my mother after I finished them, and there is no retrieving them).

Because of the ease that I get addicted to fantasy game playing (or Role Playing games – RPGs), I normally stay away from games altogether. Hence it has been several years since I have dived into one – but the time has come

Now the only misery is that I have to stay away from the game until Anjali finishes her exams on Thursday!

In other news, went with Mrinal and visited Gaurav in the hospital. Woah – serious redecoration there – I *really* would like to see what state the van is that he ran into! A big plaster on the head, and major straps on the right leg. However, I was glad to hear that there are no fractures, though lots of stitches. He should be in college-going state in another week or two.

The side-effect of that visit was that I got to see just how far away Mrinal will be once he moves – oh man, it is almost half-way to Mysore!

After the visit, we went to Reynolds to check out nylon string guitars. Major disappointment there. All the guitars they had were overpriced and except for one fairly lousy to hear/play. The one that I liked was price-tagged at Rs.6500, which was, of course, insane. I guess I’ll have to shelve that wish for a while.

While I was there, I decided to buy a notestand to prop up my lyric/chord sheets, a few more cables and another guitar strap.

Evening sat down and watched “The Phantom” on HBO. Good fun, even though it made me miss part of Voyager.

Nice movie if you aren’t a rabid Phantom fan – the changes in the story line and background are pretty heavy – more than someone who has been reading Phantom comics for close to 30 years can swallow!

But overall, if you switch off your mind, this movie rocks. And even if you feel that it doesn’t – it had Catherine Zeta Jones in it.

’nuff said

Yesterday, I read about this new product called Crossover Office. It essentially allows you to run quite a number of Microsoft products under Linux, including (hold your breath now) Microsoft Office 2000.

Hmmm, the holy grail – MS Office under Linux? I couldn’t resist this, bought the package ($54), whipped out my MS Office 2000 CD, and tried it out.

I am stunned. It works exactly as advertised. I now have Excel, Word and Powerpoint running under Linux – no VMware, no emulation, no Windows!

Actually, it did not work as advertised – it worked better! To my surprise, MediaPlayer worked (and showed me all the Windows-only media files I could lay my hands on), Tally worked (OK, no big deal, I know, since Tally has always worked well under wine, and there is a Linux port almost ready for release), printing worked, Outlook worked…..

And (now hold your breath, everyone) INTERNET EXPLORER WORKED!

Whew!!!!!

Crossover Office is actually a highly advanced version of Wine, along with some additional software that makes installing packages like MS Office, Lotus Notes, etc. much easier.

And the answer to your question is – it’s fast (not slow as under VMware).

Coming on the day that Sun’s StarOffice 6.0 Beta expired, this is indeed welcome news.

In other news, decided to hijack Mrinal and head for city to look for a nylon string guitar. Turns out that being Good Friday, Reynolds was closed. So headed went and bought way too many gifts for Anjali (whose birthday it is on Saturday) and headed back home.

One of the gifts is actually a boomerang, but more about that tomorrow.

Sunday is Easter. Memories of childhood. In Germany, my mother would hide nests of chocolate eggs all over the house the night before, and in the morning my brother Arun and I would turn the house upside down looking for them. Sometimes we wouldn’t find them all, and Mom couldn’t remember either, so it wasn’t uncommon to suddenly stumble on a nest of melted chocolate eggs months later

Have been contacted by the German Linux Magazin, who have asked me to write an article about Linux in India. After almost a decade in the writing business (in English), this will be the first time that I will be writing in my mother-tongue! Wish me luck!

First up – I have changed the domain for my official website from “atulchitnis.com” to “atulchitnis.net”. It has nothing to do with a certain company’s attempt at hijacking the existing .net TLD and everything to do with the fact that my website is not commercial (as implied by the .com in the earlier domain name).

IAC, relax – I have a transparent redirect in place, so even if you go to the old domain, it will get you here.

Heard that Gaurav (of Phenom) met with an accident. No details, and he is apparently hurt, but OK. Apparently, he got hit by a van while on his bike, and he wasn’t wearing a helmet (he normally does).

I hope he gets well soon – I look forward to another jam session with him and Mrinal soon.

The heat is killing me, and I don’t seem to be the only one. Everyone’s diary/journal is full of complaints about the weather.

Ah, as if it wasn’t hot enough, people decided to try their hand at flaming me about something other than Linux for a change. How utterly refreshing!

In other news, Bangalore is getting hotter and hotter, and if it doesn’t rain soon (April showers) I am going to migrate.

Anjali’s birthday this Saturday, but with her having Math exam on the Monday after that, I am afraid that any form of celebration get shelved till the next weekend.

The old Thinkpad came back today, fully repaired and functional. A year of agony has come to an end, at the cost of Rs.2650.

Nothing more to report for the day, other than a weak wag of the tail from Judo, who is *definitely* not thrilled with the heat.