Digital Fortress

I finished reading Digital Fortress. Unlike Dan Brown's two other creations which I ate up in less than a week, it took me almost a month to get through this.. No, not that it wasnt interesting.. and no not that it was a huge monolith.. It was just that I didnt have long periods of contiguous time intervals when I could get the reading done.

I've started seeing a pattern in Dan Brown's stories.. In all the three books, the perpetrator turns out to be the person that you least expect, the person who is in a high, influential position and seems to be the good guy all along.. Thats good for the story's sake, and good for the aspect of surprise's sake.. However, when you are on your third book of Mr. Brown, you get to a point where you start seeing a pattern, and unfortunately, before the actual surprise at the end, you already know who is responsible for it all.

In this particular book, I did figure out some critical elements much before the characters in the story did.. However, I was sitting at peace in my chair, or 35,000 feet above sea-level sipping juice, while the characters in the story were on the verge on a nervous and mental breakdown in the early hours of the day, some trying to save their lives. So I give them the benefit of doubt..

I liked the story, its been laid out very well.. Pretty well tied up with the technical world. Lots of running around. You feel like reading ahead to see whats going to happen.. Its difficult to keep the book down since the tension is very well created. Descriptions of the NSA's building, and TRANSLTR are more than enough for you to imagine how it actually might be if it actually was or is.

Ahh what a weekend!

One of my friends came over to Austin last weekend. He brought with him a couple of his friends.. And we had the most fun time ever in Austin!

The weekend began at 3:30pm on Friday! People from our office took us to play Glow-in-the-dark-putt-putt-golf. About 2 hours into it, and I ended up at 5th place out of 7 people. I'll try again, I'll get better :).

Later in the evening, we went out to a lake, saw some dogs play around in the water, followed by a visit to a mall, and the omnipresent Starbucks. Caught the late evening show of Cars and by then it was too late, and I was too tired to do anything else.

Saturday morning my friends came over, we met at the Capital of Texas building. I hadnt been inside it before that.. so thats exactly what we did. And it was a good relief to get out of the humid afternoon heat.

After lots of picture taking in the Capital building, we shuttled over to an upscale grocery store where we had lunch. Theres like a dozen stations to pick from - bbq, sushi, chinese, pizza, bakery, southern, etc. Post-lunch, we decided to go to a mall, where I incorrectly gathered that theres a lazer-tag arcade. So, after a couple of quick calls to the bus people to get routes to the mall, we raced a bus to the bus-stop to catch it before it left and ended up at the mall. Alas, there wasnt a lazer-tag arcade, and we ended up just walking around it.

Then, back to Austin downtown, and we fought for a place
under the Congress bridge to watch the 750,000 bats that come out of the bridge everynight at sunset in summer. After a long wait (and a little bat-cursing), we saw the bats stream out endlessly out from under the bridge. Some more pictures of downtown in the fading evening light and we jumped into the "Bugsmobile" and came back home, only to rest for half an hour and then back to watch Cars!


Sunday saw us searching for the canoe rental at Town Lake. We found it finally, and rented a couple of canoes and a kayak. My friend and I were in a kayak... and mann it was fun! We were on the water for almost 2 hours, pretty tired by the end of it - rowing is a good workout indeed. After a quick shower and change, we met up for lunch in a restaurant in downtown, where the 6 of us gulped down enormous quantities of food.

After a short walk to the bus stop, it was time to say good-bye, as they headed off, and I came back to take some much needed rest.. Ahh what a weekend!

Cars

I had been waiting for a good amount of time for Cars to come out. I watched almost all of the trailers and teasers that came out before the movie. It looked pretty interesting. But I was blown away by the movie. I really really liked it.

Firstly, I got to watch the digital version of the film. It was exquisite. The colors were so very vibrant. The animation quality was excellent. Pixar is really getting better at what they do.

I loved the story line. The characters are portrayed so wonderfully. You really start believing these cars to have their own individual personalities. I loved Mater, Mario, Luigi, and Mack the truck. But, all of them are so good in their own special way. There are tiny jokes all through the movie, and watching it a second time (which I did!) or even a third (which I intend to) is worth the ticket money. The part where Mater and McQueen go "tractor-tipping" made the entire theater burst into laughter!

Some might feel the pace of the movie slow down after about 30 minutes. But I think the slow pace does effectively symbolize the slow and laid back life in a small town. The scenes in the big city are fast and hectic, while those in Radiator Springs are much more relaxed. I liked the fact that they didnt try to make the cars look explicitly similar to the actors voicing them, as in Shark Tale. But most say that the cars do have a tinge of the actor voicing them, especially Paul Newman. The flash-back of when the interstate is built, and Route 66 is by-passed does make you feel a tad sad for the cars in Radiator Springs. I bet the lives of real people along an old road thats been by-passed by a big highway mustn't have been much different. A real example is the Mumbai-Pune highway. The old NH4 is being used lesser and lesser every month, as people prefer the new expressway. Now, small towns, restaurants, and road-side attractions that have been by-passed seem like they've had their time in the lime-light, and now they're languishing in dust, dirt, and empty chairs and tables, which once had families around them, kids playing, cars cooling down. Many of my childhood memories of going to Pune are of the spots on the highways, favorite turns, sandwich stops, the treacherous hilly road, etc. Ahh well..

The more that I think of Cars, the more I like it. Each of the cars, even the ones at the side, eg. Mia and Tia - the Mazda Miatas - McQueen's fans, Fred - the rusty truck, the sponsors of McQueen, Mack the truck, the helicopters, etc. have "acted" so very nicely.

All in all, a very nice story, deep characterizations, plenty of attention to minute details, lots of explicit and sublte humor, and exquisite visuals. Go watch it before it goes off the big screen.

A month into the job

Its been a while since I've written a post. I'vent been having a lot of time now, since I've started working now! But mainly because I've been too lazy to write a post on my time off from work!

It'll be exactly a month tomorrow in my job. I like it so far. The functional training so far was pretty interesting; I got to learn a number of business processes, and Oracle Applications. From last week, we've been put onto code. The code was pretty overwhelming at first.. Its always difficult (for me, at least) to look at someone else's code and make sense of it straightaway rather than writing my own code. But, I'm getting the hang of it now, and know which section of code does what.

The people in the office have been pretty friendly so far. They are all very excited about the development center in Mississippi. We'll be getting a few more people there in August, and some more in December. So, it'll be pretty interesting.