Recently, I tripped on the cable and broke the left ear wire (or made it loose at any rate). This led to intermittent song playing in the left ear, which is extremely irritating!

Here is what you need to know to fix this.

Then see this link on instructables on how to solder wires.

Only catch being that the HD202 wires have lacquer on them. You will need to burn off the lacquer with a lighter or a match. To double check, after burning the lacquer check continuity with an ohm meter!

Also, since these wires are exposed, it is a good idea to heat shrink them.

I have seen this tag on so many blogs and why not, it’s a wonderful tag! The name is ’150 Things To Do Before You Turn Thirty’. The rules are,
1. The things you have already done – make them bold.
2. Italics is for things that you are dying to do!

Here I go!!

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive (will do next time I am in vegas!)
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope (and a pretty big one too!)
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight (i won’t be doing this again, i hate wasting food)
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster (I was laughing. maybe i was delirious!)
35. Hit a home run (do sixers count?)
36. Danced like a fool and didn’t care who was looking (i always dance like this)
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer (I have 4 or 5!)
40. Visited all 50 states (My count is up to 15)
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe (want to!)
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing (will do in about 6 months!)
49. Taken a midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs (i am going to also say that I am obsessive about my mp3′s)
57. Pretended to be a superhero (and broke a tooth at it)
58. Sung karaoke (i am a karaoke whore!)
59. Lounged around in bed all day (favorite thing to do)
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theatre (go bring popcorn!)
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business (but i want to!)
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced (see #72)
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest (i was a small kid!)
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on a television news program as an “expert”
83. Gotten flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror (but I have been part of the audience)
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favourite band/singer on tour
98. Passed out cold
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking with the windows open
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart (probably)
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a TV game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for 30 hours in a 48 hour period
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. States
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad and The Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Hack #1: Iron Elimination
If you take your clothes out as soon as it finishes drying, and hang them in your closet, there is no need to iron clothes. Clothes may not look starched, but they will be wrinkle free!

Hack #2: Iron Elimination, Part 2
Sometime I forget to take clothes out of the dryer after it is finished. Or I run of time. At any rate, the clothes stay in there too long, and they get wrinkled.

I found out today that if you let your dryer run for 15 minutes (with your clothes in them!), and then hang your clothes back in your closet, they are less wrinkled (less perfect than method 1), but still acceptably clean. This works best in winter since you are probably going to wear a sweater over the damn thing anyway

I use Reliance Global Call for my calling card needs. They have released a new application called express dial for certain smart phones (supported list) that make it so much easier to call back. When you dial an international number, this application intercepts that call, and calls the reliance toll free number instead. And it handles all the underlying work for you.

So the next time you need to call back home, you just dial your home number. Ah, life is good!

I was listening to PRI’s – The World on WLRH while driving the other day. It then struck me that the 2 second preview they play is to help the listener to differentiate between different people who might be speaking. If multiple people are voicing their comments, and there is only one translator, the only way to differentiate between them is by the preview audio sample that is played before the translation takes over.

I have now started using the straight edge razor – yes, very old school! (FYI, I’m using a razor with disposable blades).

It is very involving, but I feel great after. I’ve managed to nick myself in several places, but hopefully my technique will get better with time and I don’t cut myself at all!

Unfortunately, I don’t think this can be a part of my daily schedule. It is very time consuming. Shlick for the weekdays, straight edge during the weekends!

I’ve tried to research this more, and have found this:

Most of this is based upon this paper:
Coats, R. Morris and Pecquet, Gary M. (2008): The effect of opening up ANWR to drilling on the current price of oil. Unpublished. The rejection letter is interesting.

The price points for the above work is based on this published paper.

Conrad, Jon M. and Koji Kotani (2005). When to drill? Trigger prices for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Resource and Energy Economics 27:273-86.

Over this week, I am going to try and see what kind of assumptions have been made, and if those assumptions are valid as it pertains to ANWR. Keep looking.

I went on a trip to Chattanooga this Saturday! See the pics on Flickr by clicking on the photo

For 5$, download of high quality flac files is a good deal. I enjoyed the music, and I think it will be on my playlist quite a bit! In case you are wondering if you will like it, you can get the torrent download from piratebay.org . Yes, he put it up there himself! What a great idea. If you like it, you can purchase the music in a wide variety of formats at http://ghosts.nin.com/.

Go out, support good music and artists who are willing to take a stand against the studios who want to push DRM onto us!

Jan 20, Sunday

I land in India after traveling for about 24 hours. It has been almost 5 years since I went home. Things should be interesting…

Service on Emirates is pretty good. Note to self: Getting seats next to the toilet would be pretty nasty. Please do avoid!

The flight from Dubai to Chennai was pretty interesting. I took a seat in the back of the plain (seats were available for the taking). There was a small baby in a incubator. They were moving the baby to India for some kind of surgery. The doctor was onboard the flight. The baby survived the flight. I hope the surgery went well.

Thankfully, I had no issues with customs, and I did not have to bribe anyone. Awesome!

I landed in Chennai lightly jet-lagged. I went around and saw relatives. I also got to go to Marina Beach (see the pics!). I got on the phone with my friends, told them I was there and when I would see them. I slept early as I was tired.

Jan 21, Monday

Went around, shopped in Mylapore. Bought some shampoo and moisturizer. This stuff is cheaper to buy in the US. Spent quality time with family. Shopped for the big function day after.

Jan 22, Tuesday

My nephew Vishnu’s first birthday function went off well. It was pretty expensive, and it was a great opportunity to see all my relatives I had not seen in ages all at once!

I went to the City Center mall. Stuff here is expensive! Everyone tells me it is normal and I have to get used to it. I went to Landmark and bought Pushpak. I hope it is as great as I remember it to be!

After I came back to the chatram (place where the function was conducted), we needed to move some of the stuff we had back to the apartment. One thing that has not changed in the past 5 years is the dammed auto drivers in Chennai. I don’t see why they are allowed to pull all the crap they pull. The auto fellow negotiated for a Rs. 15 fare for a 5 minute walk. When we started loading the luggage, he wanted more. Most of us being from a civilized part of India (ahem: Hyderabad, take a bow!) are not used to putting up with the crap. Tempers flared, and I almost hit the auto guy.

By this point in my trip, I had sworn off autos. I went to the railway station to drop my mom off and say hi to my other relatives who were also leaving to Hyderabad. I caught a bus and came to Mylapore. It cost Rs.3.50 while an auto would have cost Rs. 60 and endless heartburn.

Jan 23, Wednesday

With the function successfully completed, I left for Tirupati with my dad, sister, bro-in-law and nephew. Tirupati is the biggest temple in India, and the richest in the world. Move over, vatican. I wonder how much of the dollar depreciating accounts for this phenomenon.

Anyways, I fought the mad throngs of people in addition to the security checks of all bags, which seemed very disorganized. The “Jaragandi”/”Move along people, there are others in line” attitude has not changed, and people will push and shove to get a darshan (view) of the lord. So freaking crazy.

I came to the conclusion here that Tirupati is depicts a microcosm of the Indian life. The more money you are willing to spend, the earlier is it for you to get darshan. There are free darshans, which may take you anywhere from 6 hours to 12 hours. If you pay more, you get to wait lesser in line. I think this does not make sense when one is supposed to be queuing up to see the lord almighty, and you don’t really have time to spend there. If I was a believer, I would definitely prefer the Chilkur Balaji, where everyone is truly equal, and you cannot “bribe” the God.

Anyways, by the time I got out, I resolved never to go back there. We will see how that goes.

I got out of there late night, and took a bus to Bangalore.

Jan 24-25 (Thursday – Friday)

I met up with my college buddies Ashwin and Pavan. I must thank them here for making me feel right at home, and making me feel right at home! I had a great time there! We spent several hours recanting our college stories and generally catching up!

I spent some time with my cousin Anand, spent some more time book browsing in a local store, and generally pigging out on the good food!

Things were slow for the first time after my trip to India began, and I was glad because of it. But, good things are not meant to last forever. And I bid adieu to my friends.

On the way out, I met up with Subir, a friend of mine from Helix. We met up at the TGI Fridays, and had a couple of beers before he had to take a flight out to Hyderabad and me a flight to Chennai.

We walked to the airport from the TGI Friday’s , which is about a 20 minute walk. I reached the airport at about 8.00 PM, with a flight out at 9.00 PM. However, the security check-in line was a long drawn out affair. I talked to the lady at the counter and she nonchalantly replied “Don’t worry sir, the flight will not take off without you”. I was reassured, and my flight finally took off at about 10.00 PM, exactly an hour later. I was the last passenger on the flight. A guy in the front remarked, “Thanks for being so early!”. Hey, I swear…I hate being late!

Since my auto incident in Chennai was still fresh in my mind, I took a cab home.

Watch out for part 2 of this entry, which should be written shortly….