23 years

Whew! 23 years.. today. Man.. I feel old. Anyways.. I've enjoyed every moment of my life, even the moments when I was asleep. It seems like eternity though. I don't know still if I'm taking a road that was least trodden, but I'm sure of one thing. No human's life can be similar to another in every single way. I've made a lot of friends, enriched the lives of my parents and relatives and followed my dreams with the wonderful support of each of the people I know extended in their own way. I thank everyone for being part of my life and putting up with my overzealousness, overconfidence and overindulgence. Okay.. and finally as I end this one.. Happy Birthday to me..

Nov 26, 2006 3:19 AM. - Arunan Rabindran

Star Wars Marathon

I recently watched a marathon session of Star Wars (all the 6 episodes) in order. The brilliance and inventive genius of George Lucas never ceased to amaze me as I was taking in the details frame by frame. A character that is memorable with just "Grrrr.. Aarrh"(Chewie) or "static.. sound"(R2D2) is simply unbelievable. More than the story and the plot, the technology and improvisational moviemaking that was used impressed me more. I was too young to understand the movie's finer meanings when I first saw it. Whenever I see it nowadays, I find it to be very exciting. Each time I watch it I discover something new that I'd not noticed or thought of before. This series must have surely affected the lives of a great deal of people out there, now I too salute Star Wars and count myself as one of them eventhough I realise this pretty late.

My first Console

My first console was a Nintendo FamiCom (Family Computer). I was too young and curious about a wierd short red guy in my TV screen, hitting his head on some bricks floating in the sky and becoming a bomberguy when he walked over a mushroom to understand how it worked and I really didn't care(How I wish I could be like that now). My father and brother still played with me. I even remember vaguely, the order in which the the 31 games that came with the game cartridge. Super Mario 2, (names I might not remember properly.) Super Mario 1, Circus, Kung-Fu, Galaga, Battleship, Wrestling, Champion (some streetfighting game, that guys in my family went bonkers about), Excitebike, Macross, Zinja , Ice Climber, Pacman(of course!), Pinball, Balloon(awesome game! balloon fighting rocks.. especially when you can burst your brother's balloon.. ), Road Fighter (or whatever its real name is..), Popeye, Baseball, Tennis.. And even now a million games later I can never forget those games.. ever.

My first PC game

My first PC game was Digger by Windmill Software. I don't know if it was too old for 1989, since I believe it was released in the year I was born (1983), the year that India won the cricket world cup. But, I played it in my first PC ( A Siva PC - Produced by Sterling Computers ). It had a 40 MB Seagate harddrive which was as bulky and heavy as a DVD drive housed in a big / heavy external enclosure nowadays, 6 MHz processor speed, a CGA video card and I forgot how much RAM I had. There were other games like Cat, Carmen Sandiego that I enjoyed. But Digger, was the first ever game I played. It was great playing it, and I'd always had fun with it. I think the PC itself cost around 47,000 Rs. (around 1000$) including the Epson LX800 Dot Matrix Printer.

I might not have been good in digger because I think each time I start I haven't got past 6 or 7 levels maybe.. but I will never forget that game, ever...

UIC

Well .. my sojourn at UIC has taught me a lot of things. I can't believe its just been a year since I joined the Computer Science program here. The main reason I came here was there was a game programming course here. Now, I am sure I've learnt a lot more than what I did in the four years of my undergraduate program back in India. Being exposed to a variety of graphics programming , I feel that I've got enough out of the time I've spent here. Eventhough I'd like to improve a lot, my studies here have provided me the confidence and I am pretty sure I will still follow my dreams wherever I go.

My new camera

A sudden interest in photography has prompted me to purchase a brand new DSLR camera. Well if you don't know me personally I'm a bit unpredictable and adventurous. The thought of uncharted territory has always made my heart go whooosh! So, I just want to try my hand at photography just as I started out on various other interests like poetry, writing that were short-lived but I enjoyed every single moment.

Creative people have always held my interest. I've found that new technology has only increased the number of artists in the world. The photos you randomly stumble upon at flickr.com or any other photo sharing site for that matter are just plain amazing. Maybe I'd also post good photos someday when I've learned how to use this new camera of mine.

Well.. I'm here.. at last

I've been keeping away from writing blogs until now. You will read my daily log in these columns. Let's hope I don't waste my time and yours.