Monday, August 27, 2007

The party called life!

While I do not really believe and neither am I even slightly ever motivated to write something like a dairy. I thought I have to write a record for the week that just passed. It was not a holiday.. merely suppose to be a regular working week with a couple of event here and there. As it turned out, there was so much to do and so little time, 24X7 was just not enough to rock my world :)

Monday was a slow start. It actually started as a bit of a work day.. but I soon realized that working at Microsoft has really spoilt my working habits (as if I worked so much earlier). I was somehow tired as hell in 2 hours and decided to hang around in the campus for some time before going home. Just a plain vanilla movie on TV and a few hours of computer games to end the day.

The 28 hour party -- Yup 28 hours is right, this started at 7 on Tuesday with a meeting for the movie we're about to make. The earnestness of the guys was amazing as minute details of the script were discussed and finalized. Then I started with the marathon game of civilization 4 as I reached home. The human race should most definitely be banned from playing games like this. One game last 10-15 hours and the game is immersive enough to hold you on your seat forever. This one kept me going for over 14 hours as I finally left my laptop at noon the next day. I was already late for the team outing at Runway 9. Well I reached there around 1:30 and almost headed straight to the go-karting track. finishing a competitive second in the IDS team over a series of competitive races. Laser combat, archery, shooting etc were the other indulgences there before I quickly headed to catch my movie at PVR at 6:15. I was exhausted as hell and driving my car around the streets have never been as hard as it was at this time. Ok, I thought I'll make use of comfortable seating and air conditioning at the hall to make up on lost sleep. The movie was Chak dae, a typical sports movie with the same dramatic story as they typically are. Something /someone charges up an absolute underdog and they go on to win something quite big. But I must say that this one was pretty well made and one of the few movies where I didn't feel like laughing on the emotional sequences. The movie managed to keep all my attention for the entire duration and I couldn't sleep a wink. Then came the hard drive home... damn I managed to take my ride straight into a city bus. It now has one less headlight and is awaiting to be fixed :( . But that's what insurance is for isn't it :) At home I thought I'll indulge in some more gaming but the body refused to co-operate and I was forced to end my party at 11:00PM Wednesday.

Thursday I was off to Chennai for my Visa interview. I will have to say Microsoft India is not at at all miserly when it comes to employee welfare. Being given an option to stay at The Hilton, Radisson or Park immediately made my spirits higher. Flew Kingfisher (wow there is so much to see on that airline) and had a nice Baleno at my disposal for my stay in Chennai. For the interview, I was just asked one question, "Why are you going to the US" to which I gave a one line answer. I was told immediately that my visa would be delivered shortly. Anyways, I was back home at 11:30PM on Friday, watched the remainder of Sin city that I had missed on my return journey before going to sleep. I had plans for a long day day ahead.

We were to reach for shooting at Saurabh's house at 6:00 AM in the morning. The thought made my soul scream blue murder but for the cause. To my own amazement, I reached on time and to find guys already there and started off with the scene that was to be shot at dawn!! I'll actually be putting up more details of this on the movie blog so lets just skip the details here. But it was amazing fun and we continued till 7:45 odd before my body started failing me again. The evening was a relaxed affair as we chatted and played games as usual till quite late.

We had tickets to Transformers and Rataouille for Sunday but the bomb blasts in the city the previous day had played spoil sport and we were unable to watch them. Anyways as they say, the party must go on so we indulged in multiplayer gaming for the whole day of Sunday(11:00 AM -2 AM) non-stop. I definitely missed my bath and I think even the tooth brushing ritual in the midst of all the non-stop gaming.

I just read the post and was almost starting to get jealous before I remembered that this is my own story ;) This Monday I seem to be continuing where I left off yesterday. I have been writing blogs at a frantic rate, this being the third one for the day. The party of last week is over but the party called life continues....

-Prashant

100 crores and growing!!

I was finding it hard to move through the crowded airport at Hyderabad as I was heading to check in. It was definately more crowded than any railway or bus station I had ever seen.

But that was only the beginning, then came champion suprême Chennai. Sorry for the poor resolution on the poor man's phone camera but if you look carefully you'll actually be able to see the metal detectors far far far away. Bhagwan kasam, never been in a line as long as this one in my entire life!!!

We Indians have simply got to stop breeding at this frantic rate........

-Prashant