I will no longer blog here. Blogger and Google has pissed me enough. I am moving to LJ. Those who subscribe to the RSS can now listen to this.

Bye Blogger. So long.

So, I wanted to watch this Spanish movie. I only had a .avi file and after looking for days I found the English subtitles in a .srt

I used this command to encode the subtitles on the avi.

mencoder -noodml -o new_video.avi -oac copy -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=970:max_bframes=2 -vf-add harddup -sub Pan.srt -subpos 97 -subwidth 80 -subcp latin1 -ffactor 1 -subfont-autoscale 1 -subfont-text-scale 4 -subfont-blur 8 -sub-bg-color 1 -sub-bg-alpha 22 orignal.avi

Last weekend I had the misfortune to go to Pondicherry. Where can I start? Lets start from the good parts:

There was a kingfisher party which started at 11:40 PM and got shut down at 1 and the organizer got arrested. The party consisted mainly of White kids and no one asked for any refunds.

Other than that Pondicherry sucks. The food sucked. None of the restaurants could make a bowl of bolognese. French architecture? French architecture my ass -- The place is a giant village.



The waiters at Pondicherry seem to have taken the phrase "give time a break" (which, unfortunately is Pondicherry's official slogan) literally. Hours go by while you wait for something as simple as fried eggs to appear.

There was a place called Daily breads, they refused to give me breakfast because it was past noon -- when I arrived the next day at 11:30 they said they didn't have bread. By this time we knew it was time to leave this god forsaken place. We packed and left.

Pondicherry sucks. Don't go there.

Mahabalipuram is two hours drive from Pondicherry on the picturesque East Coast Road (ECR). The drive is a wonderful experience.

  

Once in Mahabalipuram, be prepared to be involved in a skirmish with beggars, guides, white backpacker kids and so on. It is part of the charm of Mahabalipuram and not to be frowned at. Thats what gives the otherwise dull place some life.

We found a place to stay without much trouble, two bedrooms with kitchen and a bathroom with hot water for around 600 bucks a night -- no wonder the white kids never leave. Food was generally OK. Nothing exceptional. Sea food prices were on a higher side and all they had to offer was squid and tuna. There is a nice cheap breakfast place called "The new cafe.", they also serve beer and play awful jazz and is crowded by regulars.

The beach, walking distance from our place was much cleaner than anything in Pondicherry. We decided to buck office on Monday and stayed an extra day. Mahabalipuram is by far a better place to visit than Pondicherry.

The drive back via NH7 Kanchipuram -> Vellore -> Krishnagiri -> Bangalore is a much better one.

Pictures.

In the year 2001 -- well! the less said about that part of my life, the better. A thoroughly undisciplined man, I was angry at myself and at everybody else. I spent most of my waking hours drinking, and, smoking pot. Needless to say the "experimentation" seeped into music as well.

What would prove to be the biggest mistake of the 20th century, I gave some trance to Oldmonk, a 40 year old narcissist, who thought one could trip on bohemian rhapsody. Coming months would see "Oldmonk the enlightened" leech the galaxy dry of psytrance.

Here we are half a decade later and he's still tripping to it, and, wants you to do the same. Oldmonk and cray3 come together to give you Radio Schizoid, give it a spin.

This sunday I made Dosas and tomato chutney. It was approved to be "good" by two tamilians, which made me quite happy.

 

Here is the recipe,

Dosa:
Buy dosa mixture from the supermarket :P, Don't buy the poweder, buy the stuff which is in paste form. Add some water and a bit of salt to it. Heat a flat pan and pour a tablespoon full spread it. Add some oil on top.

Chutney:
You need three big onions, three tomatoes, a spoon of mustard seeds, red chilli and salt.



Cut the onion into half and chop sideways as shown in the image. Cut the tomatoes the same way. Heat some oil in a pan add onions. Add spices and the tomatoes when the onions are done. cover and cook for 6 minutes. you're done.

If it was your last meal before you died, what would it be?

Me?



Bacon and eggs for sure.

• When life gives you a mango, use it to make sangria.
  
• Life is a like a box of chocolates -- it is overpriced., will make you sick if you have it too quickly, and if others see you with it, they will try to take bits of it away from you.
  
• Do not waste your time wondering if the glass is half empty or half full, if it is half anything it is time to order another round.
  

Credits: I moved your cheese. -Darrel Bristow-Bovey