Musings From New York

A little summer cleaning ...

Ozzy the Cat's blog has been removed from the list of Virtual Friends. The blog became inactive 2 weeks ago after several months of silence.

Ah, Nostaliga

Writing about Iron Maiden sent my train of thought down a new set of tracks, towards a very happy memory from ... hmm, must've been my second year in Pilani.

Prashanth (Metal) and I had just had a rock-out Iron Maiden session, and we decided to "write" an Iron Maiden song. This from two guys who had no musical experience or education ... but what the heck, right? That's what real fandom is about! For whatever reason - perhaps mostly since Maiden wrote a lot about historical figures and events - we chose to base our song on the Luftwaffe bombing of London, and titled the song, Blitzkreig.

We tore out a clean sheet of paper from a notebook, and placed a pen next to it ... and for the next ten minutes looked at it and each other ... blankly (pun intended). Then, seized by a fit of inspiration, we grabbed the pen, leaned forward, and carefully wrote ... "Bruce Dickinson screams".

We then high-fived each other, and knocked off to the All Night Cafeteria for chai and samosas.

Ah, the good old days.

Farenheit 1997*

Wil Wheaton (or as he will always be to geeks like me, Ensign Wesley Crusher) had a piece up today about tabletop games, and invited his readers to submit their favorite "analog" or "tabletop" games. I put down a comment about Rummy, Bluff, and Uno. Gotta admit, in a raucous and boisterously fun group, Bluff is a heck of a lot of fun for a card game.

Anyway, thinking about card games made me think back to my senti sem (last semester on campus, so named as one gets sentimental about times spent in BITS), when my wing had a nightly ritual of playing a game we'd dubbed "Temperature". Don't me why. Just roll with it. I thought I'd share the rules of the game with my readers so the more jobless & group-oriented might have a try at it.

1. All cards have face value. Picture cards (i.e: J/ Q/ K) are 10 points each. Aces are 1 point each. Jokers are 0 points. The winner of a hand is the first person to successfully declare the lowest hand (i.e.: the hand whose card values is the lowest)

2. Depending on the number of players, multiple decks of card need to be used, including the Jokers. A judgment call has to be made about how many cards are dealt to each player. So from experience: 5 players need 1 deck, have 5 cards dealt to each player, with the remaining (29) cards in the middle; 6-7 players will need 2 decks, have 7 cards dealt to each player, with remaining cards in the middle.

3. With the remaining deck in the middle: open the top card and slide it under the deck. All other cards of that value are the additional Jokers, with 0 points value. Open the next top card and lie it face up next to the deck. This is the active card.

4. The person to the left of the dealer starts the game.

5. As stated above, the object of the game is to lower the total value of cards in hand. This can be done in several ways:

• Pick up the top card of the deck in the middle, and discard one card from the hand (in that order). The discarded card can be the one you've just picked up.
• Pick up the active card (top card lying face open in the middle), and discard one card from your hand (in that order). However, the discarded card cannot be the one you just picked up.
• If picking up the active or top card created pairs, triplets, etc. of a type, then all cards of that type, regardless of suit, can be discarded together on the next turn. So for example, if I have a Queen of Diamonds, and the active card is Queen of Hearts, I can pick up the Q-of-H, and drop the Q-of-H and the Q-of-D.

6. If the middle deck is exhausted, pick up the pile of open cards, turn them over, shuffle them, and reuse them as the new middle deck.

7. When a player thinks he has the lowest total, he shows his hand and declares the total. If he does have the lowest total (which can be non-zero BTW), then the player receives 0 points, and all others receive points equal to the value of their hands. If the player has incorrectly declared, he receives a 50 point penalty, the real "winner" receives 0 points, and all other players receive points equal to the value of their hands.

8. As players cross a pre-designated threshold, for example 300 points, they are eliminated from the game. The last man standing is the winner.

Tips & Tricks:

• Take risks early on by forming pairs and triplets to drop on the next turn. This means I've dropped my hand value by a large number, but more importantly, I've decreased the number of cards. This is quite an important strategy that pays off in middle and end-game: if I have 5 cards in hand, my maximum value is 50 points, but if I've lost one card, I can only have 40 points. Towards the end, when most players have just one or two cards, it becomes quite a guessing game if a one-card hand can beat a two-card hand.
• Beware picking up high value cards to form pairs or triplets in the end-game. Other players can see how many cards you have and its no great feat to deduce the value of your hand based on the card you've picked up. This may lead another player to declare before you've had a chance to discard your cards.
• Remember - its not just picture Jokers that have a value of 0. An additional Joker was drawn at the beginning of the game. If you're lucky, its a picture card (J/ Q/ K) that went from 10 point to 0 ... if you're unlucky, the additional Joker is an Ace, which was only 1 point to begin with.

It sounds a bit long-winded I know, but once you get the hang of it, speed up the game play, and let the good times roll!

* It's the temperature at which your brain explodes.

An Evening With Friends

I finally got round to meeting some friends a couple of nights ago ... this, a week after arriving in Bangalore, and 3 days before I leave for the US, too!

First stop, KLA & Priya's post-modernist abode , a delight to architects everywhere. Very open and airy in construction, with a few interestingly new (to me, at least) designs , such as clay pots in the ceiling. I also got to meet Maya , their two-month old (almost) bundle of joy & tiny waving fists (of fury?).

Next stop, Rubal & Mona's place ... which you know is going to be a lot of fun once you enter their converted living room. We went out to a place called Jukebox, in Koramangala, just down the road from Raheja Arcade. Good food, I must say. The quirk to this place is the incongruity between it's decor and the music played. The joint has numerous pictures on the theme of jazz - photos of artists, scribbles & sketches of instruments, and so on - yet played only classic, hard, and prog rock while I was there. But nonetheless - good meal, good company, and good music. What more could a guy ask for?

Holy Fermented Potatoes, Batman!

Harish "Vodka" Shivaram has a blog!

And he was inspired by Akshay "Axe" "Studmuffin" Anand!

The Lady Speaketh

Inspired by yours truly, the Lady has decided to start a blog of her own.

The link to the blog can also be found under the "Virtual Friends" list.

I need movie suggestions!

I've been toying with the idea of writing another mock Hindi movie script. Thus far, the only details I've sketched out in my head are that I want to make a total mockery spoof of the rom-com-dramas of Karan Johar ... and so the action needs to be spread across at least 3 countries, preferably 2 or more continents. Throw in Switzerland for a song-and-dance sequence, too.

Filmi Hindi won't be a problem now ... but I need movie suggestions to get ideas on how to construct the mock script. Thus far, my list is KKHH, K3G, and KANK. Only problem is that they're the summation of current source material.

So I open it out to the Hindi movie watching junta: give me some movie titles.

Congratulations to Shweyta!

For finishing the DC Marathon in 4:37:26!

An appeal from Shweyta

A good friend, Shweyta, is running the DC Marathon (the deja-vu in my life is extraordinary, I tell you). She has this message for all your kind hearted and charitable folks out there.

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Help provide Basic Education for Children in India.

Hello Everyone,

As most of you already know, I recently ran the NYC Half-Marathon on Aug 27th, 2006 in 2 hours, 1 minute and 27 seconds. (Yah when they say ask a runner the true value of 1 minute and 27 seconds, they mean it:) I kept telling myself, I could have sprinted for that time and made the Half in under 2 hours.

Its been 21 weeks now that I have been training and can say with surety, that it's been a very rewarding and evolving experience; both physically and spiritually. I have now decided to take the plunge and run the Marathon this year too; I will be running the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington D.C on Oct 29th 2006. With 30,000 runners participating the Marine Corps marathon is 5th largest in United States and 8th largest in the world.
I am running the marathon to raise money for ASHA, ( http://www.ashanet.org/nycnj/); a Non-Profit organization working to provide basic education to India's underprivileged children. The goal is to raise a $100 per mile, i.e $2620, which will educate 10 kids for a duration of 1 year.

Hence; through this email and my write-up on my marathon web-page, I urge you to donate whatever amount that you can, towards this noble cause.

Here's the link where you can make your credit card donations:

http://www.ashanet.org/nycnj/lib/marathon/publicmypage.php?1647

I would love for you to be a part of this enlightening journey of mine, so please keep checking back on my web-page to see my running log/ money raised in these few weeks. I recently ran the longest distance ever I have in my life; i.e 21 miles in 4 hours on last Saturday. There were moments during the run when I kept looking at my watch and thought "I must be crazy to do this", that too on a beautiful Saturday morning when I could have been out drinking last night and had breakfast in bed like before:) But running for a cause has changed the course of my life and thought and I urge you to remove your wallets, take out your credit cards and make your generous donations towards my cause of education, so that some children in India can read.

At ASHA Marathons, each one of us runs, with the belief " I run so they can read".

Robert Frost's following lines, now have a new meaning in my life:)

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

Lastly, I am sorry if I am spamming your mailboxes with my fundraiser emails, but it's all for the good cause of education; without which none of us would be what we are today! So please help give the lesser privileged, a chance at that.

 

Thanks,

 

Shweyta
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Now fork it over. You don't want me to come over there and smack you.

Congratulations are in order

Nikhil is now the father of an adorable daughter, Sharayu. I think she's now ... 3 weeks old?

I've been bugging him to make some photos public but he refuses. Sign here for a petition to see cute baby photos!