Uyire Yen Uyire 12:16 AM, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2005 Composer: Harris Jeyaraj Album: Thotti Jeya Singers: Karthik, Anuraadha Sriram, Bombay Jeyashree Chorus 1: Karthik: Uyire En Uyire Yennavo nadakkudhadi Adadaa indha nodi Vaazhvil inikkudhadi Oh oru nimidam oru nimidam Yenai nee piriyaadhey Yenadharugey nee irundhaal Thalaikaal puriyaadhey Nijam thaaney kaeladi Ninaivellaam neeyadi Nadamaadum poochedi Nee yennai paaradi Stanza 1: Karthik: Idhuvarai yengirindho Idhaiyamum unnai kaetkiradhey Penney yengey maraindhirundhaai? Yennul yeppadi nuzhaindhukondaai? Anuraadha: Unakkuley olindhirundhaen Uruvathil udhiramaai kalandhirundhaen Unnai unakkey theriyalaiya? Innum yennai puriyalaiya? Karthik: Naan sirithu magizhndhu silirkkum Vanathai nee koduthaai Naan ninaithu ninaithu rasikkum Kanathai nee alithaai Jeyashree: Yengeyo un mugam Naan paartha nyabagam Yeppodho unnudan Naan Vaazhndha nyabagam Chorus 2: Karthik: Uyire En Uyire Yennavo nadakkudhadi Adadaa indha nodi Vaazhvil inikkudhadi Oh oru nimidam oru nimidam Yenai nee piriyaadhey Anuraadha: Yennarugil nee irundhaal Thalaikaal puriyaadhey Karthik: Nijam thaaney kaeladi Ninaivellaam neeyadi Nadamaadum poochedi Nee yennai paaradi Stanza 2: Anuraadha: Unnudan irukkaiyiley Nilavukkum siragugal mulaikkiradhey Idhuvarai naanum paartha nilavaa? Ithanai velicham kodutha nilavaa? Karthik: Unnudan nadakkaiyiley Yennizhal vannamaai maariyadhey Unney unney nam nizhalgal Ondrai ondrai kalakindradhey Jeyashree: Nee pesum vaarthai Serthu vaithu vaasikkiraen Un swasa kaatril Muchu vaangi swasikkiraen Karthik: Nijam thaaney kaeladi Ninaivellaam neeyadi Nadamaadum poochedi Nee yennai paaradi Chorus 3: Jeyashree: Uyire yen uyire Yennavo nadakkiradhey Adadaa indha nodi Vaazhvil inikkiradhey Karthik: Oh oru nimidam oru nimidam Yenai nee piriyaadhey Yennadharugil nee irundhaal Thalaikaal puriyaadhey Jeyashree: Yengeyo un mugam Naan paartha nyabagam Yeppodho unnudan Naan Vaazhndha nyabagam Naan Vaazhndha nyabagam PERMALINK | 9 COMMENT(S)

Dave Matthew's Concert at the Gorge 1:30 AM, SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2005 Last Saturday, I went to watch the Dave Matthew's Band concert at The Gorge Amphitheater, along with a big group of my old friends - most of who are now married. (From left, I, GanP, Neelu, Shilpa, Arun, Ganesh, Denis, Pradeep and Niru) We started off at 10:00AM in two cars filled with food, games and picnic items. We stopped by Moses Lake (which is about 30 miles from the concert grounds) and spread out the picnic blanket. The weather was awesome and after eating, we played lots of games, until it was time to head to the concert grounds. At the concert, we secured a nice spot in the lawn and watched from there. The concert ended at 11:30PM and we headed straight back. The drive back was suprisingly fast and we missed the "bad traffic" that we were supposed to hit. And oh, by the way, the concert sucked! PERMALINK | 10 COMMENT(S)

Where's the Keyboard Blog? 12:51 PM, TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2005 Well, it turns out that Microsoft hasn't yet released the Keyboard I was talking about. So, until it's been officially announced, I've decided to turn off that blog. PERMALINK | 1 COMMENT(S)

Of T's and Keyboards 6:06 PM, MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2005 It might seem a bit silly to be excited over a new keyboard. Especially over one that's not yet released. Yes, it is hard to describe how happy I was when I first saw this picture. But I will nevertheless, try. I use the Microsoft Natural Pro keyboard at work (and have been doing so for the last 4 years). As a direct consequence of this, I've gotten used to the keyboard layout, and anytime I have to switch keyboards, my brain does one of the two things. It either goes bananas or takes an undeserved vacation. "So what?" you may ask. The problem is, Microsoft stopped making that particular model of keyboard a while ago. Although they make a lot of newer and cooler models of keyboards, these don't have the same keyboard layout as the Natural Pro (in particular, the 3x2 layout for Insert/Home/etc and the inverted "T" for the cursor keys). It so happens that most Microsoft programmers are fond of the same Natural Pro keyboard, and again, as a direct consequence of this, these keyboards are of very short supply. Anytime one pops up in the hardware recycle bin, it is gone in an instant. This has gotten me worried a bit - because my keyboard is now 4 years old and has lived well past its lifespan. Also, it's kinda dirty, but that's not the issue here :) So, when I saw this new keyboard with the same keyboard layout as my old favorite, my joy knew no bounds (pardon the hyperbole). Now I can finally get a new keyboard without having to retrain my hands or my brain! PERMALINK | 34 COMMENT(S)

Daylight Savings Rant, Again! 3:02 PM, THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2005 Remember the time I was complaining about the concept of Daylight Savings? Well, here I am again, doing just that, though, this time, it's about the energy bill that was recently passed! Did you know that the daylight saving time will start earlier than usual in 2007? Now, not only is this going to piss me (and a few others who share my feelings on this whole DST thing), but also wreck some of those gadgets which would have to be manually corrected (provided we still use them in 2007). Not to mention that Canada will now have to change their DST structure, or else, we'll suddenly have new Time Zones! Apparently, they're doing this to save some energy. I searched around a lot trying to figure out how much energy they can actually save by all this mumbo jumbo, but I couldn't find that information anywhere. Well, if they're going to enfore this and subject everyone to this silliness, they better save some MASSIVE amounts of energy! Well, if my rants aren't enough you'll get plenty more here. PERMALINK | 1 COMMENT(S)

Out of Hibernation 6:41 AM, MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2005 Finally my manager, Lars Bergstorm has come out of hibernation and has added... TWO entries in less than a week! This time, he promises to continue and has laid down a few topics ahead of time. Check this out. He talks about our team, the processes we follow and something about rolling on the floor for want of a chair. PS: There's also an opening for a UI dev in our team and trust me, there really is no shortage of chairs in Microsoft. PERMALINK | 1 COMMENT(S)

Man of the Year, #1 1:09 PM, FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2005 And the winner is: For context, check out The Pothole! PERMALINK | 1 COMMENT(S)

Man of the Year, #2 10:32 AM, THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2005 Presenting the runner-up in this series!! PERMALINK | 2 COMMENT(S)

Man of the Year, #3 10:34 AM, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2005 Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome #3! PERMALINK | 2 COMMENT(S)

Man of the Year, #4 11:31 AM, TUESDAY, AUGUST 09, 2005 4th place goes to: PERMALINK | 3 COMMENT(S)

Man of the Year, #5 10:39 PM, MONDAY, AUGUST 08, 2005 I'm starting a series describing how to be a man! And to begin with, give it up for #5. Left Behind! PERMALINK | 2 COMMENT(S)

This is your wake-up call, Sir! 12:38 PM, MONDAY, AUGUST 08, 2005 How would you like to be woken up in the morning? How about a loud whir challenging a supersonic Jet fighter that just did a Mach2? That's how I was woken up this morning! I have a small lawn in my backyard and once in a while (more frequent in summer), some dude comes over and mows it. For reasons beyond my apprehension, he always chooses to mow my lawn at exactly 7:00 in the morning. This is getting to be very annoying, now that he's started doing this almost every week. This has also been compounded by the fact that it is warmer these days and I have to keep the windows open when I sleep. So, this morning when this happened, I found myself suffocating with a pillow on my face, wishing for a meteor just about large to knock that dude out. But somehow that never happened and I eventually got out of bed, very grumpy and swearing a lot. Good morning, Sir. And thank you very much for using our Wake-up service. PERMALINK | 5 COMMENT(S)

I messed up my Vista! 2:06 PM, FRIDAY, AUGUST 05, 2005 I run Windows XP SP2 on my dev machine at work. And, unlike many people here, I have only one dev machine and I use my laptop only to check emails and store music. On a separate partition in my dev machine, I have Windows Vista installed. Last night, I decided to upgrade my Windows Vista Beta on my dev machine and once the installation was under way, I went home. When I came back this morning, I was shocked to find out that instead of upgrading my old Windows Vista partition, I had mistakenly replaced my Windows XP partition with the new Windows Vista. I didn't have a machine to work on today. Bummer! At that point, I had 2 options. 1. Try and start recovering my machine. I didn't know how or how long it will take. 2. Clean up the partition and start fresh. This was straight forward, but would have taken up my entire day. Today, being a Friday and feeling a bit adventurous myself, I decided to give option 1 a shot! To start, I went around hunting for a bootable Windows XP Pre-installation CD. That was futile. So, I decided to burn my own. Now, I had to hunt for a CD burner. Fortunately one of my team members had a CD burner, but didn't have the right software to burn ISO images. I wasn't going to give up. My hunt turned towards CD burning software. Finally after a lot of searching, I landed on a free utility that did the job. Armed with the Bootable CD, I went back to my computer and booted it off the CD. I was pleasantly surprised to see all my old Windows folders (including "Documents and Settings" and "Program Files") backed up by the Vista installation. So, I copied them over and changed the Boot.INI file. I rebooted my machine and voila, I see Windows XP load screen! My computer booted up with everything intact and though it was an adventure, it all ended well and I was able to get back to work in less than an hour! PERMALINK | 3 COMMENT(S)

Age of Empires III Update 12:41 AM, FRIDAY, AUGUST 05, 2005 A new "official" website is now up - http://ageofempires3.com. They've released four in-game music clips and some game-play videos. The website also contains information about the different civs. Bruce Shelly, the architect of this game has a blog which reveals interesting details about the game and the way it is developed. PERMALINK | 1 COMMENT(S)

Microsoft Company Picnic 11:31 PM, MONDAY, AUGUST 01, 2005 Saturday, I went to the Annual Microsoft Company Picnic with Charles, Curt, Elaine, Jessie and Tootoo. The company picnic is organized once a year by Microsoft and is usually in the Meadows by Northbend near Mt. Si. As usual, this year, it was huge and there was plenty of food, drinks, music, casino, sports, games, etc, etc. There was about 20 food stalls, each serving a different kind of food. The day was gorgeous and a lot of people had turned up (along with family and kids). This led to huge lines for every single attraction. Pretty soon we got tired of standing in line, in the sun, and decided to leave, but not before we all had enough sun for the whole month. PERMALINK | 3 COMMENT(S)