The Vermont Countryside

The picture perfect Barn .. in Vermont.
The Lake Champlain seperates the states of NY and Vermont and some of the bigger islands in the Lake are joined by roads .. is beautiful to drive along the lake shore and you encounter the beautiful and serene countryside of Vermont.
On one such road saw this barn and snapped it up :-)

HP, P&P .. Movies and me

I am a movie buff .. but hardly watch any Desi movies .. even back home watched very few select ones ..
Netflix has been feeding my appetite and have been able to watch some good movies which I had missed .. and have been discivering some new ones too .. but off-late have not liked that many Hollywood flicks ..
watched Pride and Prejudice on Friday Friday night. liked it .. have loved the book and thought that it was pretty well made but for a few places .. which I feel was more to do with personal dislikes that stood out as sore points for me, Keira was good for most of the time and the Hero (who ?) was OK .. he looked uncomfy initially .. the mjusic score was good and the Brit feel was all prevelant .. which I liked :-)
Harry Potter was a complete dissapointment ... for ppl to see this as a first time HP franchisee might like it .. for the special effects and the look of the film, but for soemone who has read the book, am sure this would be a letdown ..no Quidditch games, no scenese from the classrooms, the trivialised 3rd challenge from the TriWizard .. and too little time spent on anythng .. kept getting the feeling that it was too fast moving no not fast moving, but rather disjointed .. and very little of Prof Snape !! and talking about Proff .. what is Dumbledore prancing about all the time?
Overacting by Hermione at times, the weasely twins lookign girlish (?) .. dont rem much of the book but wasnt there more of Sirius? and was there anythgin in the book showing the weasely twins and Ron and Harry sitting in the same Snape class?
anyways .. was a letdown :-( and dont like Order of Phoenix at all .. so not looking fwd to the movie .. but will b interested in the next one after that ... hmmm ..
apart from this .. have been watching loads from Netflix .. Layer cake .. another Brit gangsta movie (like Lock, Stock and two smoking barrels, features the new James Bond), Oldboy .. was Tarantino's fave movie sometime back, is an Asian flick .. was a good movie .. but the Über surprise(loveee the word :-))ending was great tho was disturbing .. looking for more Korean\Japanese movies and Brit ones .. Hollywood is turning into another bollywood :-(
got "pi: Fith in Chaos" and "Hitchhikers .." at home now .. the former is a Mathematical dosucmentry and the other is .. well .. ppl who recognsie will know and others wont :-D
oh .. also have "The Clockwork Orange" .. by someone called Stanley Kubrick :-P

Why I like Terry Pratchett ?

well .. the books are so very funny .. took me a couple of books to get addicted .. ironic, dripping with satire, great characters and all such a parody of a life normal that we are used to .. a parallel Universe..
Just a sample below that I liked .. from one of my favourite books .. The Reaper Man .. its about the grim reaper .. or DEATH .. and how the "auditors" try to put him into retirement.
anyways .. the sampler

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'That's 'oo I am, ' said Mrs Cake.
'Am I addressing Mrs Cake?' said Windle.
'Yes, oi, know,' said Mrs Cake.
'My name's Windle Poons.'
'Oi knew that, too.'
'I'm a wizard, yoysee -'
'All right, but see you wipes your feet.'
'May I come in?'
Windle Poons paused. He replayed the last few lines of conversation in
the clicking control room of his brain. And then he smiled.
'That's right, ' said Mrs Cake.
'Are you by any chance a natural clairvoyant?'
'About ten seconds usually, Mr Poons.'
Windle hesitated.
'You gotta ask the question,' said Mrs Cake quickly.
'I gets a migraine if people goes and viciously not asks questions after
I've already foreseen 'em and answered 'em.'
'How far into the future can you see, Mrs Cake?'
She nodded.
'Roight, then,' she said, apparently mollified, and led the way through the
hall into a tiny sitting-room.
'And the bogey can come in, only he's got to leave 'is door outside and go
in the cellar. I don't hold with bogeys wanderin' around the house.'

'Gosh, it's ages since I've been in a proper cellar,' said Schleppel.
'It's got spiders in it,' said Mrs Cake.
'Wow!'
'And you'd like a cup of tea,' said Mrs Cake to Windle. Someone else
might have said 'I expect you'd like a cup of tea', or 'Do you want a cup of
tea?' But this was a statement.
'Yes, please, ' said Windle. 'I 'd love a cup of tea.'
'You shouldn't,' said Mrs Cake.'That stuff rots your teeth.'
Windle worked this one out.
'Two sugars, please,' he said.
' It's all right.'
'This is a nice place you have here, Mrs Cake,' said Windle, his mind
racing. Mrs Cake's habit of answering questions while they were still forming
in your mind taxed the most active brain.
'He's been dead for ten years,' she said.
'Er,' said Windle, but the question was already there in his larynx, 'I trust
Mr Cake is in good health?'
'It's OK. Oi speaks to him occasional,' said Mrs Cake.
'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Windle.
'All right, if it makes you feel any better.'
'Um, Mrs Cake? I'm finding it a little confusing. Could you . . . switch off . .
. your precognition . . . ?'
She nodded.
'Sorry. Oi gets into the habit of leavin' it on,' she said, 'what with there
only bein' me an' Ludmilla and One-Man-Bucket. He's a ghost,' she added.'Oi
knew you was goin' to ask that.'
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Speed !

This one is from quite sometime back . . 24th July to be precise .. had a long and tiring day wandering around the Cambridge-side Galleria mall .. and trying out my Friends new Canon A95 ..
We were on our way back home .. and I was tired and sitting down at the MIT Redline subway stop waiting for our train ...
Saw a train coming in the opposite direction and got a braiwave .. I wanted to capture the train as it was leaving the platform such that it was half in and half out of the frame .. I pre composed the shot I wanted and clicked and hoped for the best .. and what you see here is the result .. single shot .. cant tell all how lucky I was to get this .. I have tried but in vain to get another capture like this .. with different camera's .. but have not even come close ...
The idea was good .. but luck played a big part .. and dont think I can get this shot again .. :-D



On another note .. the various Subway stations in Boston have distinct characteristics . . the 4 lines Red, Blue, Orange and Green .. each have their own charm .. the plan is to visit each nd every station :D and in case I am still aound till winter .. would be one thing we can do without the snow being a showstopper !

Weekend Getaways

As mentioned in my previous post, I was traveling a lot of weekends to Minneapolis, for around 3 months between mid April and Mid July.
The place I used to stay, with my wife, was close to a lake and the walk upto the lake was beautiful with houses and cottages next to the road and lush green walkways bordering the roads.
The two pics featured here were from the same place.



The house with a small pond, with trees and shrubs .. just the way a child would draw a "scenery" .. I used to do it .. My idea of a scenery was a house, a fence, water (pond or stream), bushes and trees.. throw in all this and I have painted countless masterpieces with various permutations and combinations of the locations of each of the objects mentioned above.
The pic is symbolic of it and I guess thats why I like it so much ... its my paintings coming to life !
Lake Josephine, a large Lake where private boats and jet skiers get together for a lazy warm summer afternoon .. the lake is again bordered with lush greens where one can sit and soak in the Sun ..



I could never paint anything like this. The Sunset is Golden Yellow and with the light filtering through the clouds .. is almost surreal..
One of my favourites .. like the almost black n white feel of the photo ..
Again .. these two snaps taken with the Cannon SD series (SD300 or SD400 dont rem)