My night at the museums in Vienna, Austria

It’s been a month since my last post. I had been busy with work and moved to Vienna (Austria) last week for a new assignment. Just yesterday I had time to venture out on this beautiful city and that warranted a new post.

My colleague mentioned about the ‘Long Night of the Museums‘ event that happens every year in October. This year it happened yesterday, 4th October 2014. On this day, all the participating museums can be visited from 6:00 pm to 1:00 am for just 13 euros that includes the transportation cost too.

Stamps on Madras (Chennai)

I wrote the first version of this post for the 375th Madras Day in 2014. Additional information about places and few stamps were added for the 377th Madras Day in 2016. Further philatelic items were added for the 379th Madras Day in 2018. Now it is the 383th Madras Day in 2022 and this post definitely needs an update.

Being born and brought up in this lovely city and being a stamp collector, I don’t have a better way to show my love for this city than through stamps.

The Ugly is the Beautiful!

While flipping through ‘The Hindu’ newspaper three days ago, one article got all my attention. The article was about the passing away of Eli Wallach, the man who played ‘Ugly’ in the iconic movie, ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’. Who can forget one of his famous quotes in the movie, “When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk”?

He seems to have had a wonderful career in both stage and screen, but I think most people including myself will remember him for his role as Tuco in this movie. He aptly titled his autobiography as ‘The Good, the Bad, and Me’!

Tuco’s character is the most interesting among the three main characters in the movie. Eli Wallach made it lively and beautiful with memorable and sometimes funny quotes.

Gotta watch that movie again! 🙂

In spirit of the season… football stamps!

Just thought of sharing few football stamps from my collection in spirit of the FIFA World Cup 2014.

Guatemala released the following stamp in 1948 to commemorate the CCCF Championship football tournament. These tournaments were conducted for Central American and Caribbean countries between 1941 and 1961. Guatemala was the host country for the 1948 tournament and they were the runner-ups.

For the foodie in you…

There are people who take pride in calling themselves as ‘foodie’. Of course, I am one of them. But, of late I have had a change of opinion. I have come to believe that there is a foodie in each one of us. Every person has their own favorite dishes, restaurants, recipes, cooking methods etc. In that sense, everyone has got a ‘food lover’ in them.

Do you feel bored at eating out at the same places or you don’t know which restaurants are popular in your locality? Have you moved to a new city and wondered where to eat or which cuisines are popular there? Or do you want to know how good the new restaurant in your area is?

Watching an Immortal Epic

What’s New: Additional content and related postal materials have been added.

Original Post – 2014:

After so many years I went to the Music Academy to watch a play. Little did I realize that I will be immersed in the experience for days after watching it. My wife and I have never read the novel that the show was based on. We went to watch it with an open mind.

Writing Accessible Content

Last Thursday, I read in ‘The Hindu’ that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made it mandatory for all banks to transform all the ATM machines to be disabled-friendly. The news article talks about installation of talking ATMs with Braille keypads, construction of ramps to ATMs and bank branches, etc. The article left me wondering how do I ensure that the content I write is suited for differently-abled people.

God on the Elephant

In my native place, Kanchipuram, during May/June every year, the Varadharaja Perumal Temple Festival is held for 10 days. On these 10 days, the main deity is taken on various vahanams (vehicles) from the temple to a mandapam (hall). The temple is on the eastern side of the town whereas the mandapam is on the western side. The vehicles used to take the deity are shaped in the form of certain animals and birds.

Today, the deity was taken on a vehicle shaped in the form of an elephant. My wife, who hasn’t seen this particular vehicle procession, assumed that the deity would be on a real elephant! You could imagine her surprise by the following picture of the vehicle!

Front view of the Elephant Vehicle

Side view of the Elephant Vehicle

Tomorrow, the deity will be taken on a Temple Car. The legend has that one of the necklace adored by the deity during the Temple Car festival was gifted by Robert Clive, the British General. I’m hoping to take some good pictures of the event. I will publish those in my next post. Keep watching for the updates! 🙂

Transcending through Artificial Intelligence

I watched the movie, ‘Transcendence‘ today in theater. The movie has a interesting plot of a high-profile Artificial Intelligence (AI) researcher creating a machine that provides unimaginable possibilities. Johnny Depp plays the researcher who creates the AI machine. The machine uses all the intelligence in this world and responds with human emotions. The movie really takes off only after the researcher is killed and his machine form takes over from there.

In one scene where the researcher interacts with a AI machine called ‘PINN’, I was reminded of the MS-DOS command-line chat-bot, ‘Eliza’ that I used once during my college days. The chat-bot responds to your questions that you type at the command prompt.

Go watch the movie if you like science fiction.

On an another note, Stephen Hawking shares his thoughts on the movie and AI here.

Adrenaline Rush

I watched ‘Need for Speed’ movie at Luxe today. The movie is based on the most popular car racing video game series of the same name from Electronic Arts.

It was during my college days that I played this racing game for the first time. The thrill of driving luxurious cars such as Ferrari, Jaguar, Mustang, or Lamborghini on wonderful race tracks along countryside, sea coast, and national parks was just awesome. Needless to say, I was hooked to the computer screen for long hours with adrenaline rush. Of all the car games I had played, ‘Need for Speed’ is the best.

In late 2008 I got an opportunity to visit Electronic Arts’ main office in California. As an avid player of their games, I was very eager to visit their office. It was one of the best workplaces I have seen in my life. Every floor had few gaming consoles for the employees! Even though it was for just three months, I can never forget the time I spent in their office.

So it was with much enthusiasm that I went to watch the movie and I wasn’t disappointed. The cars, the tracks, the races, and the chases were beautifully shot. Though the movie is about street car racing, which is illegal, it gave me such a high adrenaline rush. Imogen Poots as the exotic car dealer with a heavy English accent was lovely to watch. The final race finishes on the beautiful Californian coastline. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the movie.

Ravi Writes

Communicating Myself to the World