there was a lovely princess.

But she had an enchantment upon her of a fearful sort which could only be broken by love’s first kiss.

She was locked away in a castle guarded by a terrible fire-breathing dragon.Many brave knights had attempted to free her from this dreadful prison, but none prevailed. She waited in the dragon’s keep in the highest room of the tallest tower for her true love and true love’s first kiss.

Want the full story? Click here, then!!

And yeah, my favourite lines….

Donkey: – All right. Nobody move. I got a dragon here, and I’m not afraid to use it.
{Roars}
Donkey: – I’m a donkey on the edge!

Semi-autobiographical, trust me.

Aiyyo! This is confusing. Just when I thought the load-balancer design was all hunky-dory, there comes along the problem of configuring the administration service. Have to create a LOAD of MBeans, and also take care of parsing/updating the xml, which in turn means building ConfigDataObjects for EVERY component that can be updated at run-time. Aah, the consequences of under-designing a hot-deployable product…..

I wrote a long mail to Gayatri yesterday, and I guess it was a li’l bit weird, because she responded with a lot of concern –
“I guess I managed to pass on some of my existentialist confusion to you. I might just die from guilt this evening….If you’re not blathering, then you might be actually going through what is called “existentialist angst.” Questioning everything, etc. Once you’re out of it, you are supposed to be a more grown up person. ;-)
P.S. Don’t u write depressive mails again”

:-)) Plus, she also reminded me that I have a lot of Neil Diamond classics to listen to. One singer whose voice enthuses me very much. Can’t really decide whether his version of I Am A Believer is better than the Smashmouth version in Shrek.

Galilee got over quickly, don’t know whether I read it without my normal parallel-processing only because it was unputdownable, or because I wanted to be done with it and forget it forever. Not bad at all, maybe this is the kind of stuff you would find in Mills and Boons novels, if they were a bit more literary-inclined. Of course, I wouldn’t know for sure. This is definitely not horror. Not epic fantasy, either. Romantic fantasy? OK, can stick with that.

Lots of good things coming…Chicago is in town. Lord of the Rings:The Two Towers releases next week. Harry Potter, Order of the Phoenix is two months away. Ram Gopal Verma’s Bhoot. Jhankaar Beats. Am pretty glad the World cup’s getting over, let Fridays be fun again!!!

There’s got to be a word that describes the feeling I have right now. The feeling when you can’t precisely describe how you’re feeling….

It will pass.

Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas scared me. All that detailed buildup of communal sentiments in a small village in 1947 – how one thing led to another, snowballing into a night of rape, looting, and murder – it scared me like hell. I wish everybody reads the book. But no, even if they did, they would start taking sides. And that’s where it all breaks apart.

I remember that there was some furore when the serial by Govind Nihalani got released. The preface of the book (by Nihalani himself) says that inspite of complaints and dharnas, Doordarshan decided to go ahead and telecast the entire series. Way to go! This from a channel that banned a serial after it showed Netaji Subhash Bose drinking some alcohol. (I think the serial in question was Raaj se Swaraaj tak)I wish I could see Tamas. Some company should bring out VCD/DVD collections of all these old serials. They have done it with Ramayan, Mahabharat and Mirza Ghaalib. Not interested in any of them. What about stuff like Kachhe Dhoop or Indradhanush? The latter was the first “intelligent” children’s sci-fi serial, even better than Space City Sigma.

Tamas was really good, though. In case anybody decides to read it, try using the Bandit Queen soundtrack as background music when you’re doing so. Adds to the creepy, chilly feeling of foreboding.

Have picked up something by Clive Barker. An 800-page “masive epic that delves into America’s dark heart with Clive Barker’s grand metaphysical vision” named Galilee. Nothing to do with Christ or Christianity. It’s more of a fantasy, relating two families caught up in “a mutually destructive frenzy”.

Whoof. I hate it when I have no clue what I am going to read about. Sometimes it’s fun. But mostly, such a book promises too much, and then slowly and methodically chops your brain into dog poo-poo.

Am halfway through, and at least I am sticking with it.

Saw Lagaan for the nth time. At Anand theatre. To put it mildly, ’twas good!! :-D

Just found out that our company gives away kilo-packets of sweets only on Diwali. Holi gets conveniently overlooked. Sighhh!!!

As much as I promised myself I wouldn’t do something like this, this was a chance too good to pass up on.
Take this quiz, I did. Waiting, the Dark Side is. Go, I must.
Hasta La Vista, Bay-bee!

:: how jedi are you? ::

Thanks, shaurya!!!!