varnam

This weekend I met Dave Barry, Scott Turrow,Amy Tan, Matt Groening and many other people who made a career using the written word.

Last week it was Dave Barry. This week I met Yanni at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. The Hollywood Bowl is no Taj Mahal, Forbidden City or Acropolis, but the music was out of the world. The energy in his music is so high and has a grand majestic feeling to it. If he is playing near your area, don't miss it.

Today I discovered an easy way to write style sheets. This for people like me, who do not know HTML, CSS etc. This technique has been around for thousands of years. It is called stealing. Looking at many CSS files, I have successfully created a new one. No more images on the side bar. I am going to stick to text for a while. Next item in the TODO list is to create an outrageous banner which will be done when I find some more time to idle and nice tutorial to follow.

Liz Hurley, Nayar have another spat in the skies

Elizabeth Hurley has done it again. Just when the British Airways staff was recovering from her outrageous demands of upgrading her boyfriend to first class on her way to Barbados last week, she has once again thrown a tantrum while returning to London. Demanding an upgrade for her Indian boyfriend Arun Nayer this time too, 37-year-old Liz went one step further.

This time I am going to India on British Airways. But fortunately I am not travelling in first class due to some personal reasons (no money). But I hope, now as official policy British Airways must be upgrading everyone who has a surname Nayar/Nair to first class.

While boarding the British Airways flight to Chennai from LAX, I tried to tell the woman at the check-in counter, that my surname was Nair. I said that a few times. I told her I knew Elizabeth (Hurley). I have seen Austin Powers a dozen times. Still they did not upgrade me to First class.

The tamil actor Vijaykanth was in First Class. I am sure he got that by telling his surname was Nair.

The monsoon has not yet arrived here in Kerala. There were some pre-monsoon showers. Still June 1 is the expected date.

I am back in Los Angeles. Since we had four pieces of luggage British Airways decided to leave two of them at Heathrow. They will be delivered at home tomorrow (within 24 hrs, that is the promise). This was the first time I travelled by British Airways and still I think Singapore Airlines is the best in terms of overall professional service.

Chennai airport has a new International Departure terminal, which is very spacious and has polite policemen.

Yesterday I was in Chennai, and it rained. The day I landed in Chennai from LA, it was the hottest day in 100 years. Now there is nothing more to see in life.

Blogging will resume in full swing from tomorrow.

British Airways finally delievered the lost luggage yesterday. One bag was delievered at 10 am. The other at one hour past midnight. They still operate as per GMT.

I think we all have heard this, "Great Wall of China is the only man made object visible from space". It seems like that is wrong. The following are visible from space

• highways
• airports
• dams
• large vehicles
• harbors
• ships
• tankers
• Egyptian Pyramids

So next time someone tells you about the Great Wall, correct them.

"Is it true that you can see the Great Wall of China from space?" asked an eager television interviewer.

Yang answered: "Erm, no."

Irony: Chinese Astronaut, not being able to see Great Wall from Space

We are off on a road trip with friends to (1) Grand Canyon (2) Las Vegas and (3) San Diego. The aim of this trip is to visit all the popular tourist spots. Last time I visited Grand Canyon was in 1999. This time I will see if there has been more erosion in the region. Last time I did not make any money in Las Vegas. This time I do not expect miracles. So blogging will resume after a week.

Ankh has started an effort to google bomb, the liar Praful Bidwai as Resident Idiot

He needs support.

I have been trying to order some books from Rediff Shopping. I added few books to my cart and kept browsing for other books. After a while I was told that my session expired and my cart was empty. And this was not as an anonymous user. I had logged in with a user id.

Rediff still has not understood the idea of online shopping. People do not come with a prepared list and order everything in 1 min or less. If I add something to my cart, I might leave that session, come back later and continue.

I am off to India tonight. So blogging will be sporadic till mid-February. This also means I may not be competing in the next Blog Mela, which might give some Mallu bashing opponents a chance to actually win.

I am on a short vacation till Monday. So there may not be any postings till then.

I am on a short vacation till Monday. So there may not be any postings till then.

I have some GMail invites. Leave your e-mail address if you need one.

I have 6 more GMail invites. If you are dying to get one, leave your email in the comments or mail me at tiptronicus at gmail dot com

First it was as if I was feeling dizzy. Everything around me on thr 6th floor started shaking. When I got up and looked around, people were all running towards the stairs and evacuating the building. The building stopped shaking in about 25 seconds.

We survived yet another earthquake in California of magnitude 5.8. This is not the first time for me as I have survived earthquakes, floods, fires before.

Last night I attended a concert by Shankar, Gingger, Zakir Hussain and Shivamani and it was one of the best music performances I attended (The others being, Amjad Ali Khan, Ali Akbar Khan, A R Rahman and Yanni).

• The program which was to start at 5 PM started at 6 PM. At 5 PM the gates were not even open, which means the artistes probably woke up at that time and said "Ghosh! we have a show to do"
• Even though the show started late, they did not have time to adjust the audio system, and so Shankar and Zakir Hussain were giving instructions to the audio control guys while performing. At one point I thought Shankar would fling his double violin at guy at the controls.
• The first part was about 45 mins followed by a 1 hr intermission when the artistes probably went to sleep again. But the last 90 mins was just awesome.
• I had seen Sivamani in two A R Rahman stage programs, but here there was a solo performance by him in which he produced sounds from almost anything he would lay his hands on. But then there was no connection between the various sounds he was producing. It would jump from one rhythm to another without any smooth transision.
• This was followed by a solo performance by Zakir Hussain and then you know why he is called Ustad. I never knew such varied sounds could come from a tabala. He knows to work the crowd and is an entertainer.
• Finally, the number of standing ovations: Zakir Hussain: 2, Sivamani: 1, Shankar and Gingger: 0.

Starting next year, Dave Barry will not be writing his weekly columns. He is taking an indefinite leave of absence from Miami Herald.

''I've never not had a column in a week in all of 30 years, even when I went on vacation,'' Barry said. 'At some point I said, 'Well, maybe it'll be OK to not do it for a while.' And I didn't want to wait until I hated it and I didn't want to wait until I thought, 'Oh, I've got no more columns to write.' ''[Dave Barry will take a timeout]

His columns will definitely be missed.

Related Entries: Rock Bottom Reminders, Tricky Business

Yanni is on tour again and this time I saw him in San Jose. It was the same as last year, but an amazing performance as usual.

If he is visiting your city, don't miss it.

We are in Vancouver & Victoria, Canada for vacation for a week. Blogging will resume on Monday.

I am traveling for the next three weeks and so suggestions on how to improve the world will be sporadic. Instead there will be picture updates from random locations till Thanksgiving.