I am Legend.

Yes...Muscat daily, a daily newspaper here have published my photo .... oh yeah...you all thought they wouldn't...didn't ya .!! ... In fact, I never expected them to do it either.... but they did... and I saw myself for the first time on an international news paper... I only wish i had given him a better pose than this :(

yeah yeah....I know.... I ain't that photogenic..!! :(

Photo Shoot

Yeah...finally made some plan to go around and click some pictures... ..but ended up taking pictures from the balcony window... I m too lazy to go around and take pictures.... in fact there is nothing much to click here..

I wanted to test the camera in a broad day light...and I felt real good after looking at the clarity of the pics and the amazing 10x optical

zoom it has...

check out this picture...

well this one was taken from my balcony with the maximum zoom...quality got decreased because i crammed a 3.6 MB file to a 700 KB one .. upload speed is damn slow here.

check out the actual pic with the normal zoom ..

Yes you are right....you cant even see the cars from the 1st pic here in this picture....The 1st picture is the zoomed version of the traffic signal at the base of the clock tower u see here...the clarity of the zooom is damn good... If u want to take pictures of the people from a far far away place without getting caught...and u want that piece to come at a cheaper price and in a compact shape... trust me...blindly go for fujifilm F70 EXR.

Celebrity ... Me..??

It happened....It happened finally.....I have been interviewed by a reporter .. and my picture might come in the next day newspaper... I have to go grab that paper tom to see my face in it..!! :)

I know... u are all wondering ..who that idiot is that took my interview... Before u blame the poor guy let me tell you what happenend.

There was a blackout.... no.. not just in our area .. but in the whole country the power went done. It was for a little more than 2 hours... I am working in a bank here and all those people are busy taking backups and stuff.. and being so jobless, i came out for a cup of coffee...with a fren..no need to say he was more or less jobless too :p

Then a dude came... like the one in those English movies...fat, curly hair, phirangi types.... here is our conversation..

" hey there mate... can i have a minute of urs... I am from muscat daily and i want to take ur feedback on the black out that happened here..."

I could have gone for that happy dent advertisement... I was smiling..smiling..and kept smiling... i cudnt digest the fact that i am getting interviewed...he then asked few more qns... and then ..pooo pops out of a camera...and took my pic..!

Like a celebrity..!! i waved...hey..no cameras man..no ..pics..!! noo.... noo...shooo get lost..

He told me... Dont worry we are not gonna put you on front page..!! :( Big blast... I just smiled he took the pics...and he was gone..!!

Funny feeling.... waiting for tom news paper...to see my dirty face..!

PS : I should have shaved my face..... I was looking like a loafer today..!! :( ...god knows how my pic comes tom, If at all they take the Brave decision of publishing it.. But i dont think they would risk taking their paper sales to a record fall..!!. any case, waiting for tom paper..!!

Muscat Musings

" Hi .. Vivek .. How are you.. " .

This is one statement i hear atleast 5 times a day. Omani's are extra friendly. They greet you every session without fail...

I am working here with a bunch of omani's and few jordanians. Atleast i m getting a tad bit accustomed to multi cultural practises these days...and I donno whether i should be glad or not for this.

I cant wish every guy good morning...good afternoon ...and a goodbye every day ... Every time u meet phew..! This is a complete contradiction to the practises that take place in India. In My office back home no one gives a shit...and there is this flair of flamboyance in our colleagues back there... that gives us the sense of closeness... Yeh shaane ye dekh server down hey..!! abey saaleh ye code kaam karta kyu nehe... sounds much better than .. "Ah ..Hello theeere seeeeems too beee a litttttle probleeemmmm withhh ur Kode.. can u see that." ....

Yeah I feel like i m talking to a kid when i m speaking with few people here. U have to talk real slow. U ll feel much better when u see some one who has problem with the firangi language more than u have. :) . well I do.!!

My work is to deal with two jordanians every day. Nice guys they are.. wont trouble me with too much work. Here is my first conversation with one of the Jordanian.

" Hi.. what is your name .."

I am Vivek..i m from infosys.....

" Nice name...vivek... *Big Smile*

I was Silent for some time but courtesy kicked in....so I asked "what is ur name ..." . I was prepared to say "Nice name" right after he says his name no matter how it sounds. I just want to sound courteous ... I donno why whenever we go to some foreign place, we get extra courteous to the localites.. until they kick our butt some day .

The Jordanian responded... Zihaad. I fell silent.

PS: He is a very nice guy...zihaad. I was dumb stuck after the incident , i just got back to work.

Arya 2 Songs

Songs are Awesome... do listen to them here.

FujiFilm F70 EXR

I got to say, I am pretty amazed by this little toy of mine.. It takes amazing pictures. My experience with it so far has been real good and the controls and features are so user friendly , it takes just minutes to adapt to them.

I particularly wanted to check that low light pictures and pro focus mode for which they got a global award for...so I went out for a walk at 11 pm in the night to see the quality of pictures i can take with it. I must say i was suprised to see the quality of it compared to the other range of cameras i have used.

The above one is a sample picture which was taken in the normal mode.

The one in the left is taken with the pro- focus mode. Pretty good ha... both were taken at the same time.

Will have to check out this camera in day light..will post some pictures of them soon...

The quality of the pictures is drastically reduced due to size limitations. :(

PS: Just bought my cam one day back...so posting some pictures... soon ll get back. Need help regarding posting pictures here...the alignment sucks...!!

Bought a Digicam..

Bought a Digicam finally... its not a sony or a canon or a nikon... its a Fuji film F70 EXR...

Have read some nice reviews about it and seems like it is the best in the market compared to other products for its price range and the nice thing in it is that it has got a 10x optical zooom... design is sleek and its got a 27mm wide angle lens.. Even though the 2.7' LCD screen is a tad disappointing...the overall features of the camera shadows that single drawback..

I am gonna have to explore the features of it now..soon i ll update on the quality of pictures taken from it...... will be posting pictures too.

In case you want to check this one out... here is the review .. Click Here .

PS: Got it for INR 16k.. I hope its worth the price. Its a bit cheaper here than in India.

8 things to do before I leave muscat.

I have decided to make a sample list of things that I need to do before I leave this place.

1) Ride a Ford Mustang or a Merc SLR or a BMW 7 series or a hummer.. .. I see them everyday here..so not a big deal. (Beg, borrow or steal .. I just want to get on that wheel ) .

2) Visit the king's place and take a picture of the king myself.(I know.. I also feel it is highly ambitious.)

3) Get a make over. People should barely recognize me once i go back home.

4) Talk to a Arab girl and take her out for lunch or dinner. (If i do this one..i ll tell it to a million people for sure..)

5) Do snorkelling or wake boarding in the sea here. (I hope they have those in these beaches .. )

6) Attend a street car racing circuit.. and take pics of all those sports cars. (will there be babes too?)

7)Get in to a fight with a foreigner just for the heck of it..(and don't get knocked out by him/her)

8) Try to learn arabic and use it and give someone an impression that i have been speaking arabic for years...(I still cant beat the slang of my mother tongue..It follows me all the time.)

well i have started off with a title .."10 things to do...." but 10 things to do is the most clichéd term ..so used 8 instead :) .. well actually i don't have anything else in my mind to add to this list. if there is anything in muscat that is exciting to do, please let me know by leaving some comments. I ll be forever grateful to you or .. may be not.. but still .. leave a comment. thanks

Random Thoughts

well life in this new place is not that dull after all.... I went to a dance bar, visited few shopping malls, got a good massage (*Details in a later blog) ... went to a temple, did nothing at work yet got away giving a workaholic kinda impression to my manager... andd...visited all the eating joints around...spent a good amount of money and the most important of all.. i have started waking up early for work .... back in india, i never used to get out of bed until the clock strikes 9 am.

here i am at work by sharp 8 am .... and guess what.. i m having my break fast everyday ....going by this schedule everyday , there are good chances for me to put on some weight. Even though the hopes are very less (Been trying that for years... ) i have my fingers crossed.

I have been planning to buy a digicam for myself from the past few days. did some online research and zeroed in on two models... sony w230 and sony T5oo... still not sure which one to go for. Both of them almost are on same par considering the performance. Looks wise and price wise T500 is on a higher level. w230 wont burn my pocket that much but the look of it isnt that great.

once i buy that... i ll update the pics of this place... i just cant wait to get my hands on it... i am certainly not a photogenic material myself..so i wont be posting pictures of mine here... but i believe i have got good taste ..and will show my photographic skills here. I am a novice in photography still, so playing with those little toys. I will buy a SLR one day..and take photography as a serious hobby..but till then ..its playboy time. :)

oh..totally forgot.. happy diwali everyone. havent done anything big today, but it aint dull either.. and ..tell me something.. bird watching in a temple is allowed..? i mean ..not legally... would god really mind..? dont think so right. .. after all i m just admiring him for his wonderful creations... right ;) .... right??..right?? .... I thought so too..

Travel Blues 1st Day - Second part

Muscat International Airport -- Day 1 9.20 AM

Out of the immigration check, straight in to terminal. someone told me that weather will be a little cold during october, so there i was ... wearing a jacket under the steaming hot sun.. i heard a few giggles too....from few onlookers. ..well f@k them...

I came out and the cab driver was no where to be found. i roamed around here n there looking for him , and there is no way he can reach me as i have no working mobile with me at that time. there was only one logical thing to do and here comes the language barrier. even though, most of them can understand english or hindi.... i see a weird look on their face when ever i ask them where can i get a calling card to use the pay phone. "I Blame the Dress" .. Finally got some 2 rial card... i had only dollars with me at that time..and that guy at the reception used his own conversion rate.... donno how much i got ripped off...but reaching my destination safe was my first priority, so took the card called up the cab and reached my destination....muscat is damn hot...!!

Road from airport to CBD was awesome. Everywhere i look there were mountains...and only mountains.... I got a glance of the sea on the way ... heard there are few beaches too....but aint that popular it seems... arrghhh..!!anyways I wasnt expecting to see one and two pieces in omani beaches either..!! kind of making up your mind that you ll never see those well before coming to this place... immensly helps... atleast when you see one... u get to scream ... "I saw one".. "I saw one"..!! :)

Well i crashed in the hotel...slept for few hours... and then roamed around the place where i was staying.... surprisingly almost everyone here speaks hindi.... hmm...thats it for the first day...
and damn the cable isn't working in my room....

I know this is such a boring post... but my life is not all exciting all the time.... the much better things happened afterwards..watch out for more..

First International Visit

There i am standing totally confused in the Muscat international Airport with a laptop bag in one hand and a heavy bladder (..not in the other hand.) . I came inside the terminal and i see few muscatis there directing people to go to the immigration counter or some other place. I was hell bent on finding a Rest room i could hardly concentrate on the things they are saying. It is not like i can understand them anyways. Finally i found what i was looking for and i dashed in to one and i was even more confused then i previosuly was. I badly missed a camera at that point., the expression on my face was ... u know.... priceless (I missed it too... u know..i wasnt actually in a mood to look at mirror to see myself....but i can feel it..)ok ..there i go.... i entered a ladies restroom... that too for the first time...that too in a foreign country.... and to make it worse... there was a lady there ..

It was actaully now i realised i was in the wrong section.... for a moment i couldnt think of anything else but stare at that women standing opposite to me.. Thank god she didnt scream or make fuss about it..she just said.... the door next to this one. I smiled and rushed out as fast as i could. Nice lady she was... otherwise i would have got detained in the international airport for improper conduct or some other shit.. who knows... !!

well the travel woes didnt end there itself..... there is still lot more and this is just the 1st day and i wasnt even out of the airport. I will continue this when time permits... till then see ya