Russel Peters in Bombay

Posted by Nishit Shah on September 28th, 2008

Russel Peters is coming back :) This time there are 2 shows in Bombay..Yippee… Just happened to check the Ticketpro.in to check if Def Leppard’s concert tickets are up for grab and lo..found Russel Peters is gonna be playing here. Searched the net hi n lo..even the deep web :) but cudn’t find any place to buy Def Leppard tickets. Even Def Leppard’s site says CHECK LOCAL PRESS. Since the concert is roughly 20 days away, I hope they start selling soon…

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

keep off the grass

Posted by Nishit Shah on September 18th, 2008

Keep Off the Grass

Summary

What do you do when you are a twenty-five-year-old Yale graduate making half-a-million dollars a year as a hotshot investment banker on Wall Street?
You bust your ass and become a millionaire by thirty, of course. Not if you are Samrat Ratan, born in the USA to immigrant Indian parents; you quit and enroll in business school in India instead.
Samrat’s rollercoaster journey begins at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, where he spends his time getting high on marijuana while his grades – and self-confidence – plummet. Soon, Samrat’s quest for identity turns increasingly bizarre as it takes him places he hadn’t planned on visiting – prison, for example – and makes him do things he hadn’t banked on doing: ‘meditating’ stoned with a sexy Danish hippie in the Himalayas, hanging out with a cannibal on the banks of the Ganga.

Does Samrat – Yale valedictorian, investment banker, convict, pothead – survive his fall from grace?

Very smart book. Read cover to cover in just one sitting and enjoyed is thoroughly. I just couldn’t keep the book down as it became more and more interesting as I turned the pages. I usually don’t read fiction and almost never by Indian authors except for Chetan Bhagat and an occasional Anurag Mathur.

This book is a complete thriller and yes, it does justice to the number of trees cut to make this book :) I enjoyed reading it more than the last 2 attempts at writing fiction by Chetan Bhagat. What Chetan had done to IIT in Five Point Someone, which I liked, Karan has done to IIM-B and done it well.

Makes me think that anyone who has stayed in hostel long enough and made lifelong friends and has had too many ups and downs in the span of 3-4 years can write a bestseller by adding some masala to it :)

Since this book is Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Semifinalist, I would rate it 4.5/5 and an extra 2 points for the last sentence by Mr. Bond, for putting it in such a fine manner.

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

Follow me

Posted by Nishit Shah on September 11th, 2008

twitter

Though I have been micro-blogging for a while now, the updates aren’t that significant as others. I am just following a bunch of people whom I know personally or have met some day at some conference and feel that their updates matter a bit to me. Somehow, I donno why, even if I try I can’t twitter as much as others are doing it. I guess this account is just for the sake of it :) No reason to follow me @ http://twitter.com/nishit

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

PHPCamp

Posted by Nishit Shah on September 8th, 2008

phpcamp

Wots PHPCamp ? As the site says, its an ‘ad-hoc gathering‘ for PHP community. It similar to barcamp, but more focused towards PHP based web application development. This is the first ever PHP camp happening in India and looking at the sessions lineup, I am pretty excited about it. This time around I am planning to take a couple of sessions, one on CodeIgniter, which is an Open Source PHP web application framework, along with Latesh and if time permits, PHP as CGI, which is more focused on sysads rather than developers.

If you have worked on PHP b4 or wanna learn it and network with other geeks then this is the place to be.

Event Details

Date: 20th September 2008 (Saturday) .

Time: 10:00am to 6:00pm (Whole day event) .

Venue:

Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd.,
Plot No. 9A/12, CTS No. 12A/12,
Erandwana, Near Padale Palace,
Pune - 411 004

Check PHPCamp.org for more details.

BTW, BarCampMumbai4 is scheduled for 4th & 5th October and planning for BarCampPune5 has already started.

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

My bookshelf

Posted by Nishit Shah on September 7th, 2008

Little more than a year back I had written about my most prized possession, my bookshelf. I have bought a lot of books since then and my bookshelf has grown pretty fast. Most of the newly bought books were in a mess as they were not properly arranged.

bookshelf

Being Sunday, I had a bit of spare time to clean up the mess and neatly arranged the books. It took me almost an hour to clean and arrange them properly. The number of books have grown and I can no longer arrange them vertically as I used to before. So, I had to let go arranging by categories and have arranged them by book sizes :(

I prefer buying all my books online, usually from IndiaPlaza. If I come across any books that I like, I add it to my wishlist there and then buy them usually a week before I run out of books to read. Guess I  need to start looking for an alternate place to store my books as I feel I am gonna run out of place soon on my bookshelf :)

Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

Random Pics

Posted by Nishit Shah on September 6th, 2008
Share This!
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

Copyright © 2007 iBlog: Nishit Shah. All rights reserved.

Disclaimer: Nishit Shah works at URBZ - the opinions expressed here are my own, and neither URBZ nor any other party necessarily agrees with them.