Pune. What is happening to you ??
No electricity on the weekend. First sat - 1pm to 5:30pm. Then Sunday same time. Anyone following me on Twitter would have seen my inconsistent complaining about the lack of power on and off. I had thought that it would go away after the Youth Common-Wealth games , but the situation is not improving.
With no infrastructure projects for power generation in the future, the prospects look bleak here.
This has revised me on my ranking about the cities that I lived in . I now put Hyderabad above Pune in terms of ease for an outsider
Nov 10, 2008
Nov 7, 2008
Stressed for Time
As people who know me know - I am crazy about 2 things in life ( apart from life and wifey :) ) - gaming and biking.
For biking I have the BikeNomads group. I am quite pleased about the group having grown so much. We had the 3rd annual meet this year in Dandeli. Check out the pics if you have not done so far. Then the assosication with Yahoo - being awarded as one of the most 'interesting' groups in the Moderators conference in Mumbai, and now the featured writeup on Y! Groups Blog. The next plans is to really work on the website and take the group to the next level - Making it easy for people to find groups to travel with.
The 2nd obsession is not that great going. If I had gone to USofA during/just after graduation, I know I would by now be a developer in a gaming company. That did not happen. So, I spend my time playing games . Here i have done 2 things.
- Started a google group for the players of World of Warcraft - but focusing on the Indian community. As of today 78 members.
- Started a game blog. Well, this blog was there for sometime, but it kind of felt limited. So, I have moved it from a specific character blog - to more to do with games in general. Please visit it and leave your comments there :) .
I really do not know how fast I will be updating the blogs - I am quite stressed for time ;-)
Nov 5, 2008
BN on Yahoo Groups Blog
Woot !
Epic win ! :D
BN is now a featured group on the Yahoo Groups official blog for India.
More of the story at :
Please leave a comment on the writeup on Yahoo.
Nov 2, 2008
Happy Diwali !
Diwali has a special place in the minds of people all over India. This year, I just had to go to my hometown, to Dehradun. It was my first time to the house after it got completed - and the feeling was just fantastic.
Home
With my sister also having taken a week off from her work, it was a super family get-together.
As usual, I will not bother you with family detials, but share with you some pics ...
Oct 9, 2008
Sep 30, 2008
BN Annual Ride to Dandeli
Day after tomorrow I start on a ride for the BikeNomads annual meet. This year it happens in Dandeli.
The route and distances are going to be as follows :| Place | Hop (kms) | Cumulative(kms) |
| Pune | 0 | 0 |
| Shirwal | 41 | 41 |
| Khandala | 26 | 67 |
| Satara | 33 | 100 |
| Karad | 50 | 150 |
| Peth | 28 | 178 |
| Kohlapur | 46 | 224 |
| Nipani | 38 | 262 |
| Sankeshwar | 19 | 281 |
| Yamkanmardi | 17 | 298 |
| Belgaum | 32 | 330 |
| Khanapur | 27 | 357 |
| Londa | 23 | 380 |
| Dandeli | 30 | 410 |
So, thats it then. 410kms one way. 4 days of a meet.
Sep 27, 2008
EvE Online - 2nd and 3rd impressions
2nd Impressions :
The 2nd impression was fraught with failure.
Last time I started off as the Minmatar race. A republic. Followed the training sessions. And then continued from where I had left off. This lead to another 'Agent' (basically the quest givers) and I had to wrap in space to another solar system. Pretty cool... until I figured out that damn ! I had to load the quest item given to me (it was a courier mission) into the ships cargo hold ... oh damn ! warp back again, and back again. nothing to do - just put the ship on Auto Pilot and do something else.
Its boring after a few times.
The next mission I got said it had to be done in 24 hrs ! huh ! A time limit ?? :(
Unfortunately that does not work for me - with erratic office schedules - there is no way I am sure whether I will be online the next day or not.
There endeth the 2nd session. Not something I wanted to play.
3rd Impression
This time I started on the Amarr Race. An Empire race with a cool looking ship. The MinMatar ships looked unfinished while these ships look good !
This time I figured out that I did not need to take up the mission if I forsee not having enough time the next day. I just don't accept it - and leave my ship docked in one of the stations. I also figured out that almost everything is menu driven (shame ! bad game design !) and that once I warp to a solarsystem where I have a quest I need to warp to the quest location in the drop down menu. phew ! Much better.
The last mission I did was about meeting a rebel ship who asked me to join his side ! nice ! :)
On the whole a nice space simulation. I am still not clear about how good a game it is though. Things are confusing at most times, and this game requires me to lvl up skills - which take days. So, the longer one is subscribed to the game, the better he can potentially become. This seems to be a money gathering option for the game studio.
next blog will do a comparison with WoW - as both games , inspite of being similar are quite different.
oh .. and yes .. I play this on Linux !
The 2nd impression was fraught with failure.
Last time I started off as the Minmatar race. A republic. Followed the training sessions. And then continued from where I had left off. This lead to another 'Agent' (basically the quest givers) and I had to wrap in space to another solar system. Pretty cool... until I figured out that damn ! I had to load the quest item given to me (it was a courier mission) into the ships cargo hold ... oh damn ! warp back again, and back again. nothing to do - just put the ship on Auto Pilot and do something else.
Its boring after a few times.
The next mission I got said it had to be done in 24 hrs ! huh ! A time limit ?? :(
Unfortunately that does not work for me - with erratic office schedules - there is no way I am sure whether I will be online the next day or not.
There endeth the 2nd session. Not something I wanted to play.
3rd Impression
This time I started on the Amarr Race. An Empire race with a cool looking ship. The MinMatar ships looked unfinished while these ships look good !
This time I figured out that I did not need to take up the mission if I forsee not having enough time the next day. I just don't accept it - and leave my ship docked in one of the stations. I also figured out that almost everything is menu driven (shame ! bad game design !) and that once I warp to a solarsystem where I have a quest I need to warp to the quest location in the drop down menu. phew ! Much better.
The last mission I did was about meeting a rebel ship who asked me to join his side ! nice ! :)
On the whole a nice space simulation. I am still not clear about how good a game it is though. Things are confusing at most times, and this game requires me to lvl up skills - which take days. So, the longer one is subscribed to the game, the better he can potentially become. This seems to be a money gathering option for the game studio.
next blog will do a comparison with WoW - as both games , inspite of being similar are quite different.
oh .. and yes .. I play this on Linux !
Sep 23, 2008
EvE Online - First Impressions
After a discussion in the office about Homeworld, World of Warcraft and then EvE-Online, I decided to try out EvE.
EvE is similar to WoW that it is an MMORPG. After that the distinction ends.
EvE is similar to WoW that it is an MMORPG. After that the distinction ends.
So, last night, after office, I created a trial account and logged in. I had approximately 1 hr of time before i slept, and I thought I would get some action before that. In WoW you can level up 5 levels in that much time pretty easily. Thats about some 15 quests.
The start screen in EvE is quite daunting. While WoW provides one screen for choosing a character, EvE has multiple screens to go from one to the other. Anyways, the comparison is for a later date.
After spending 20 mins clicking , i chose a race and other attributes. I was reading all till about 10 mins, then i got bored, and just click-click-click to the next screens.
Then the game starts with a tutorial - played out with a sulky woman's voice. I am looking for a way to shut off that audio.
3d space is quite difficult to navigate. But the game mechanics make it quite easy. Most of the interface is based on clicking on things either in space or in the different boxes which litter the screen. The interface is quite cluttered.
The interface
Its also lonely.
Usually in WoW the starting areas does have atleast a few people who are questing in the same space - but in EvE - in space, you are alone. As far as you can see you have lots of ... space !
The tutorial is long - and I have not yet finished it. Hopefully, the next few days should see me progress a bit. Right now - the game looks very complex and daunting.
Sep 20, 2008
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