First blood - reloaded

i just consumed this a few minutes back. It is raining and very chill outside here in Hyd. Came back from office, parked the car, started my Yamaha and Vrooooooom to the nearest Haleem shop .... Hot haleem in cold weather - Yummmmy n D E L I C I O U S !!!!!!



For readers new to my blog, please read my blog on "First blood" written a year ago.

Did you guys realize something - Its more than a year since i started blogging.
Danke to Moinu & thanks to Ashok for the encouragement and for being regular readers of the junk that i've been giving for a year.

About 20 blogs in a year - Not bad isn't. Mr. Bachi was saying this is not going to last long when i created the blog. Soon you guys are going to see me cycling & also play piano :-)

The Best Puzzle happens to be the Worlds biggest selling Toy.

Are you Man enough to solve the Rubik’s cube every time its kept in front of you? Not just once – E V E R Y T I M E.
I can’t explain the joy that you’ll experience when you solve a Rubiks cube in front of someone (or a set of people) and then toss it off with all the cubes in its place. You have to experience it yourself.
Will talk about ‘tossing’ a little later.(and if I don’t, remind me).

Before I start facts and fictions about Rubik’s cube, my credits to 4 people without whom I wouldn’t have learnt this art.

1. Mr. Mark Jeays – who explained the physics behind the cube.
2. Mr. Bodsd – who translated Mr. Mark’s explanation to something which I can understand.
3. Mr Ashok Vedagiri – for pestering me to blog
4. and last but not the least, Mr. Erno Rubik for inventing this toy which can be played all through your life and still find it new & exciting every time you solve it.

Solving rubik’s cube has been my favorite timepass for the last couple of months and I might’ve solved it, may be 250 times and am pretty sure all 250 of them were unique combinations.

Read on to know a little more about this toy.

Wiki says “Rubik's Cube or Rubix Cube is a mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by the Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. The plastic cube comes in five different versions: the 2×2×2 ("Pocket Cube"), the 3×3×3, the 4×4×4 ("Rubik's Revenge"), 5×5×5 ("Professor's Cube"), and the 6×6×6 cube. The 3×3×3 version, which is the version usually meant by the term "Rubik's Cube," has nine square faces on each side, for a total area of fifty-four faces, and occupies the volume of twenty-six unit cubes (not counting the invisible cube in the centre). Typically, the faces of the Cube are covered by stickers in six solid colors, one for each side of the Cube. When the puzzle is solved, each side of the Cube is a solid color. The original 3×3×3 version celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2005, when a special edition Cube in a presentation box was released, featuring a sticker in the centre of the white face (which was replaced with a reflective surface) with a "Rubik's Cube 1980-2005" logo”



I told you earlier that I might’ve solved it 250 times and each time it was unique. Sounds like a cock and bull story isn’t?. The fact it has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 unique combinations and this is just the number of possible positions. The number of solutions are a much bigger number and knowing that number is of no relevance to anyone.
Its humanly impossible to find out all such combinations and solve it too given a very small life. So that makes this toy a one of its kind. Anyone at any age can find it interesting to solve it.

How I reached the pinnacle: It was a Saturday night, when 3 of us (Amit sharma, Bodsd & myself) had a light dinner at GK and went back to my place. After discussing about cars, home interiors et al with Bodsd, I crashed onto my Bed at about 4 in the morning. Bodsd had a flight to catch at 7 and if he goes to sleep, he is not going to make it to the lane. So he kept himself amused by fixing the Rubik’s cube lying near by cot. When I woke up, the cube was fixed, Without giving much attention to the cube we went to the airport. When I came back I was wondering how on earth one could fix a Rubik’s cube. Bodsd flew to the U.S and we met up again after 3 or 4 months. During these days I did not shuffle the cube and was trying to understand the solution. Googled and found few forums where they discuss about solving it blind folded, solving with one hand etc, but never could make any sense and was thinking this is for people from Mars.

Client’s place is a good place to venture into all these isn’t? I was in U.S and visited Bodsd’s place almost every day for dinner. Thanks to P2k & Bodsd for the amazing food and hospitality. They are simply superb hosts. While P2k was cooking, the only thing that Bodsd & myself were discussing was on the Rubik’s cube solutions. There were times when I called him on his mobile when I was stuck with the solutions. After 6 full days of trying “I SOLVED IT”. I felt like I had wings to fly which many other human being din’t have. Since then I have been solving it whenever I get a chance to. I started carrying it in my pocket when I went to restaurants, when I go for a walk, and once when I was in a movie. Now I solve it in about 6 to 8 mins on an average with 100 to 130 moves. I know am a kid in front of millions of Rubik’s cube solvers who do it more efficiently, but am still above billions of people who don’t know how to solve it 
This is one toy I’ll cherish and play for the rest of my life.

Coming to the ‘tossing’. When bodsd first solved it, he tossed it off his hand onto the sofa giving a gesture that this isn’t a big deal and that he can do it with so much ease. I like the way he tossed it and I do that too in front of others, afterall showoff is honey for some and beer for others.:-). Now I realize that the pleasure derived by tossing it off is more than solving it.

Back to basics

Never been under such tremendous pressure to write blogs. People are calling my blog site a stale tank, calling me a lazy bum (although i am), and Moinu criticizing this as a temporary stint.
WTF man. Blogging is becoming a social responsibility now, like attending weddings or giving gifts for birthdays.

Ok, here's something that i've been holding back for sometime now, for the simple reason that this shouldn't go down as a hall of fame for 'showoff'. (it may turnout to be one), but who cares. If honey is sweet, so is showoff. If beer fizzes, so does showoff.

Back to basics - You can get back to basics on so many matters. The coach of a soccer team goes to the drawing board after every match. Cricketers go to the nets. Here am getting back to the basics of Photography, the film, the negatives, the pinhole camera ,the chemicals ,the trays , the dark room and the red light. I know, at this point of my blog, it invites most of my readers to look at the 'back button' of the browser or at the "X" button on the top right corner of this page. Will cool it down for you folks and make it less technical :-)

just a couple of paragraphs on the lost art - "the Conventional non digital photography". if you find a suitable name for the above, please let me know and i'll get your name evangelized through my stale blogs.:-). I call it the Dark room photography.

I dont have a digital camera and i dont miss one. Digital photography has made life so easy for everyone with advancement is lens, the sotware used, the memory, the additional features etcetc. But as it advances, the conventional means of developing a photograph is slowly becoming extinct like the post cards /inland letters and fountain pens. You don't need computers, you don't need sofwares to crop, straighten, glow, tint and filter. You learn each one of them to do it yourself and enjoy the essense of dark room photography.

Even if you use a conventional camera, you end up processing in the lab for a few bucks. Why not process and print your black-and-white photos instead of sending them to a lab? Quality and control: both are diminished the moment you let someone else process your photographs. If you have the time and commitment, processing your own work will give you an amazing amount of control--and creativity. And here, "Creativity". Isn't this a word that every one wishes to be associated with? This is exactly why it kicked me to learn more about the LA (lost art) and as a result, the showoff started. Yes am setting up a dark room in my house. The equipments for film processing are on its way. Ill upload few snaps of the equipments (thanks to my grandpa, who is a professional photogrpaher) who is kind enough to hand over the baton to me and continue the legacy. Ofcourse those are digital snaps :)


It will be an overdose, if i explain the steps involved in film processing today, but will attempt to do each step as i learn (sometime in the near future). For those interested, I'll talk about
a) What you need?
b) What to learn?
c) How it works?
d) Where to buy

On the outset, Dark Room photography is simple and affordable and is a hobby well worth spending your time and money. I wish readers of this blog pick up interest in this and do film processing some day or other and keep the dying art alive for some more years. For the rest, good luck with digital photography and hell with all those softwares that can make crappy snaps looks like masterpieces.