We’ll we woke up late as usual since it was a weekend. But we at least woke up by midday. When we got to school we could not get into the science building since all the doors we knew about were closed, and I agree we knew very little. After a few minutes of search up and down the campus pathways we found the door, in plain view.

People were already enjoying with a lot of consoles. You can see (or not) the Nintendo Wii on the left and people playing RockBand on the right. There was a PS3 on which two guys were playing soccer all the time. There was no PC gaming because people said that it took too long to set up the PCs to make them playable. There was also an Atari system which was never setup.

There were Doritos and lots of soda to start with. The Pizzas came in late along with Simon, the guy with a PC in the first picture. We dug in as soon as they arrived. As usual there was lots of food to go around. It took a while even for us to complete everything but in the end we got there.

We ate, talked and played various games for about 3 hours and then they gave away some casual prizes for the largest scores. I didn’t get any of course because it was my first time at a console game(the real reason might be that I usually suck at games but I still do not stop playing them). I had a great time meeting some people. And here I am sitting in the SF State library and writing this blog post among the book stacks.

Whenever I  saw people hawking cheap wallets, with zillions of slots for plastic cards, in India - I used to think these people are crazy. Whose going to use so many slots? But coming to America changed that.

In just a month after coming here, I have like already accumulated 8 cards. You can see that there are ID cards, Bank card, Credit card, Health Insurance card, Social Security card, etc. You’ll get a card at every other place you go. And if you go to a new place one day, people there will be after you selling their specialty ’store’ card - ANOTHER card for you to add to your wallet. And trust me these are just the cards that I carry in my wallet(Yes, I do have to carry them everyday). Apart from these the public transportation runs on magnetic cards too.

How about someone implement something cool like a “Super Card”. Any card that you would normally get should be just another piece of data that can be stored on your super card. Just one Card! Boy I sure would love that. There was a concept like this a few years back but I definitely don’t know whatever happened to it.

The weekend is here and finally some quality time to watch some movies. I have been downloading a lost of stuff but never had the time the past week to watch any. And we have a Game Day tomorrow sponsored by SFSU ACM. There will be Nintendo Wii and some traditional Atari games. Free pizza and soft drinks too . I love ACM. We have like great food whenever we have a meeting. And we have a meeting every week.

Nothing better to do on Friday after my classes I decided its finally time to see the Pacific coast. I google’d a bit for it and to my surprise found that its real close to where I live. Fort Funston, a decommissioned army base acts as a beach area. So I took my friends bike and headed out.

It took me about 15-20 minutes to get there and there was a little hike from the road level to get to the coast. Its actually a cliff side. I had to go up a log staircase to get there and go down another log staircase to get down to the beach. The first thing I noticed were dogs. There were lots and lots of dogs. I didn’t know that this area is one of the most visited dog walking parks in San Francisco. And then I saw Battery Davis which you see below. I was amazed by the sheer size of the Gun that it used to hold.

To the side of Battery Davis is Fort Funston’s hang gliding viewing platform used by spectators. Fort Funston is now a major site for hang gliding with an area set aside for opening and folding gliders and taking off.

I’ve never done so much in just one week of my life. Earlier for whole semesters I used to do nothing more than just let life pass by. There was never much to blog about anything. Now I do. Enough to make an unordered list out of it:

• Shopped at Dollar Stored, CostCo, Malls, Indian Stores and online etc etc etc.
• Gone basement hunting for stuff to furnish our new apartment (You won’t believe the stuff we’ve found)
• Attended our first week of real classes
• Gave my first quiz in the US
• Done some non-web related real coding after some three years
• Broke a lot of stuff in my home one evening (Don’t ask me why - Don’t want to go into the details here)
• Really managed to study even when I had no test or exam the next day
• Walked what felt like many miles to and from the school
• Joined a Gym but not regular yet
• Applied for and got my Credit Card, Debit Card and Health Insurance card (Wallets already filling up with cards)
• Did my first scam in US and applied for a Social Security Number (We’ll not exactly a scam but its what everyone does for an SSN)
• And last but not the least - Lots of Babes

I took 3 classes this semester which add up to like 8 hours of classes per week. Analysis of Algorithms, Software Development and Theory of Computing - I’m finally studying something that interests me after 4 years of total brain wastage doing my Electronics and Communication Engineering. Seriously don’t even ask me what a diode is - I DON’T KNOW.

The other day one of my friends, Ram, showed me a video by The Richter Scales. It was so hilarious that I had to blog about it. It really is whats really happening these days in the world of web companies and the VC’s backing them.

And to top it all the songs real good, in a funny sort of way though. Just tell me what you think.

For those of you interested, I’m in San Francisco and I really like it
here. I’m all settled in and my school starts from
tomorrow. I’ve ordered a Dell Vostro 1500 which I’m yet to receive from those infamous DHL thugs. Here’s the configuration for fellow geeks who are interested:

• Vostro 1500, Intel Core 2 Duo T7250, 2.0GHz, 800Mhz, 2M L2
  Cache
• 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD display with TrueLife for
  Vostro 1500
• 2GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 DIMM
• 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
• 160G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+R write capability
• Integrated High Definition Audio 2.0
• Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
• Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card
• Dell Wireless 355 BlueTooth Module, (2.0+EDR)
• Integrated 2.0 mega pixel webcam
• Dell DataSafe Online, 10GB for1 Year, for Dell Vostr(FREE)

Any Comments?

News Happens. You Blog about it or you don’t but news doesn’t stop for you. And sometimes it has to be something grave about something that you’ve liked, to jerk you back into existence and start blogging again.

Heath Ledger, one of my favorite actors, was found dead in his apartment in New York with pills near his body. The Police are contemplating a possible drug overdose as an autopsy is being conducted. For a while now I was thinking of posting a small article on him. We’ll now I know thinking is not writing.What I wanted to write about was how similar four people can look. I always confused between Heath Ledger, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon and John Cena(the wrestler). Just Google for their facial images and see for yourselves, you’ll know what I’m talking about. They look so much alike. But I guess now I have one person less in my list of confusee’s.

Whatever the role, big or small and whatever the movie good, bad and even very bad ones, Heath Ledger did them with style and a certain coolness that only he had. I’ve like watched so many of his movies and am yet to find some fault with him which I normally do with all the actors. We’ll all I can say is R.I.P dude, you rock(ed)!

The site updates and blog posts have been erratic since a few days. There’s a reason. I have been admitted to San Francisco State University for which I got a VISA on Dec 5th. I was busy making all the preparations and will be so for another week or so, because once I come to United States it will be a couple of years before I can go back home. So there are things to take care of.
Truly,
Sri Harsha Yalamanchili

Gmail added yet another exciting feature to its latest version of its email - Colored Labels. Currently the label colors are available only for IE7 and Firefox 2 according to the official blog.

This provides eye candy indication of the kind of mail you receive in your inbox. Also the Official Google Blog announces that they do like folders concept and are not entirely against it and that they are developing something folder sort for Gmail. If you ask me I’m fine with Labels and not one of those who would die for folders in Gmail.

Today I was surprised to see a small Notice popping at the bottom right corner of my screen notifying me that someone just posted me a scrap. Going into settings I saw this:

At first I thought I had accidentally left GTalk logged in so I was getting some message. Under normal circumstances when your are browsing some forum, you have to go back to your scrapbook and refresh it every time you want to check for new scraps. But this great addition to orkut rescues your from the routine which can become quite tedious.