Car stuck on beach

This happened on 14th february. I was awestruck by the sheer power of a 4 wheel drive car and the utility of this feature. I mean, I always knew what this '4 wheel drive' jargon means, but for the first time I saw the remarkable difference that a 4x4 power machine can make during off-roading, as compared to a more conventional rear drive car. On Valentine's day, when most of you folks were out with ur dates, I and my 4 male colleagues drove in our Mercedes C280 to a far off beach - about 25 kms from our place. I know the plan sucks on V-day, but that's how it is in a foreign land - come whatever may u r always stuck around with the same bunch of people. Anyways. I was driving the car. The beach was beautiful and to soak in more of the pristine natural beauty, Vijay on the back seat, was pumping me to take the car closer to the water. I kept driving towards the ocean through the quick sand and soon ...the worst thing happened. Our car with 5 of us inside it, got stuck in the sand! We tried hard to come out, but harder we tried deeper the car tyre would sink in. Man, we were doomed. What do we do now? Almost all of us were engineers. How could we let such a god gifted opportunity - to apply our indigenous mechanical skills - to go, without making the most of it? It was extremely windy and we got down to work. I would disucss some ideas that may come to you in such a situation, and would seem very bright initially, but they would NOT work. We thought of fitting a jack under the car and lift the wheel. Car jack of Merc, is a scientific instrument in itself. Its very different from the usual car jacks. See the picture which I found somewhere on the net, which depicts such a car jack.

The car has an inbuilt hole (which had to be discovered), where the jack would fit in and there is no other way that it can be done (which we figured out after trying various angles and positions for 45 minutes). In the mean time Gopi went to another car that was standing far away to get a 'normal' car jack. He also asked the driver of that car to direct a rescue vehicle to us in case any happens to pass by. After a LOT of crap ideas and some decent ones, we were able to lift the two rear tires one by one and put stones under them. By this time we were all covered with the beach sand, even eaten some of it, quite tired, and after out best efforts I didn't have even 10% hope that we would be able to drive out because even if we could escape this pit, its sand all around. Just then I saw a big old car coming towards us. It was a Hilux 4x4 car driven by a gora man with pierced lips and eyelid. His girlfriend was sitting next to him. I believe the driver of the other car (the guy who lent us the normal car jack) had directed him to the bunch of desi idiots. This Hilux was cruising towards us extremely smoothly. For a while, I thought even his car would get stuck in sand, and professional help need to be called to rescue both the cars. But this guy could smoothly come, stop, turn back, move ahead etc in the same sand, where we were stuck and struggling for last 1.5 hrs. I don't know why, but this guy had a very strong synthetic rope, which looked more like a strap and the two claws to hook on the two cars. He pulled it out, fixed the rope in the two claws, anchored one on our car and another on his and our car was ready to be pulled out. It took him just 5 minutes to do all the setting. It seems that he comes across people like us quite often. He pulled out our car so easily - like a hot knife from butter - just like that! We really thanked him and all, and he started on his journey all the more deep into that sand field. Again, without any difficulty. I felt like an idiot, first to buy a Merc, then having driven it in sand, and then having got stuck & this guy came with an old looking vehicle (ignore the 4 wheel fact for a second) pulled us out and carried on with the rest of his journey - all without straining a muscle of his forehead. Man, I was impressed! Kapil got into the car and started driving it out. I think he paniced a l'il bit or something and the worst thing happened again. We were stuck in sand - Again. Terrible. TERRIBLE!!! V-day with a bunch of guys - very bad - they being your colleagues - badder - your car being stuck in sand - all the more worse - your car being stuck in the same sand AGAIN - Arrrrrrrgh! Some1 who said about universe conspiring shit was right - Its celestial conspiration that's bent upon screwing me up! Luckily the Hilux guy saw our S.O.S signals and came back to help us again. We said we were sorry and confeesed that we r idiots, but we need his help again. He said no worries boys - but get a 4 wheel drive next time. His car deserved that praise i believe! He pulled us out again. I was double impressed by this 4 wheel funda. This time I carefully drove all the way up to the road. This guy dint charge us a single penny for this, when we offered to pay him. If we would have got professional tow-away service, it would have lightened our pockets by atleast 400 dollars - may be even more. We all were so involved into this entire episode that it didnot even strike me to take pictures. My bad. Looking at pictures with this post would have been fun. But all in all it was great adventure.
Thanks Hilux guy. I like your dirty car! New Zealand folks are very helpful.

Avatar - the best cinematic technology

I watched the movie Avatar and I simply loved it. The film - as we see it on the screen and the effort, technology, patience and hard work that has gone into the creation of this masterpiece is simply AWESOME! If you haven’t watched the movie, hit yourself three times for the crime and go and watch its 3D version right now. If you have watched it, then you partly understand what I’m talking about. This post is to appreciate the entire movie making process of Avatar, right from its conception in Director James Cameron's mind to becoming the highest grossing film of all times even surpassing the 12 year old record held by Titanic. It’s not about the film, but about the technical aspects of movie making.

Whenever we see something unreal on screen we just attribute it to a black box called "computer animation" and enjoy what is shown to us. However, we tend to forget that this black box is actually as much a human effort as a machine’s capability, where a group of nerds have worked day in and out to create that shadow of your favourite animated character, which you may not even notice, but it tricks your senses to believe that its actually happening in some wonderland which looks a little strange from reality, but where most physical laws exist.

Avatar is the epitome of this computer animation. Though I don’t claim to be a technology guru or an animation expert, but the facts listed below make this movie stand out and speak for itself.

1. Avatar is a technological breakthrough in movie making with 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking cameras, specifically designed for this film. Don’t ask me what it means. It’s some advanced Hi-tech funda!
2. James Cameron conceptualized the movie in year 1994. At that time the technology had not caught up with the story and vision that Cameron intended to tell. He waited for 15 long years for the right technology to develop and then made the film. Oh, in the meantime I grew from 12 to 27. More than half of my life so far, some1 spent waiting for some technology to be developed. Whatz wrong with this guy!!!
3. James Cameron had to do a proof-of-concept for Fox executives to demonstrate what he has and mind and whether it is at all feasible! As if making the Titanic sink on screen wasn’t enough to prove his worth for these bunch of good-for-nothing Fox execs.
4. At one point, Fox decided to pass on the film. This got Walt Disney interested in the movie. Fox then exercised their right of first refusal and went ahead with making the film – what faceless losers!!!
5. Film had two different production designers, and two separate art departments, one of which focused on the flora and fauna of Pandora (the city of Navis), and another that created human machines and human factors (Navis) – watch the movie to see the magic they created!
6. The live action was filmed with a modified version of proprietary digital 3D Fusion Camera System co-developed by Cameron himself – you are a genius Mr. Director.
7. Cameron made use of a virtual camera system which displays an augmented reality on a monitor, placing actor’s virtual counterparts into their digital surroundings in real time allowing the director to adjust and direct scenes just as if shooting live action. Cameron gave fellow directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson a chance to test the new technology – Try this assholes, I’m better than you.
   
8. Navi's (ten-foot-tall blue-skinned species of sapient humanoids in Avatar) language is developed by a linguist at University of Southern California which comprises of about 1000 words and is partly inspired from New Zealand's Maori language. What’s the need to hire a linguist? They could have been speaking Tamil for all I know, I won’t understand – but I’m sure it would have been funny then.
9. Navi's are blue in colour for two reasons. First, Cameron's liking for blue colour and secondly the connection to Hindu deities (lord Shiva) - as remarked by Cameron.

A few interesting facts about the movie:

1. Avatar means Incarnation of the Hindu gods taking flesh form - in Cameron's words!
2. Movie Avatar implicitly criticises America's role in the War in Iraq (see, u never thought about that!)
3. Avatar is partly shot in Wellington, New Zealand. Now you'd ask why this is interesting. Find out where I am :)
4. Love story between Jack and Neytiri in Avatar is similar to Jack and Rose in Titanic - star crossed love theme - which means both couples come from radically different cultures that are contemptuous of their relationship and are forced to choose sides between the competing communities. They both fall in love with each other, but they need to fight side-by-side, and so there's that kind of requirement to let the other person go in order to do what they need to do.
5. Movie has been nominated for 9 Academy awards

Source of Information: Various websites, publications and Wikipedia.
Source of crap comments: Yours truly :)

Proud owner of ultimate luxury

Does this symbol of a three pointed star remind you of something in particular? Since I was a child and I realized that cars interest me, this symbol has reminded me of the epitome in luxury sedans – Mercedes Benz. Recently with global auto makers targeting Indian market, there are options, but a Mercedes will never loose its charm. Being a true desi I have always secretly wished to own a Mercedes one day, and I always thought that I’ll be able to afford one, at least when I’ll be nearing my retirement age. But my friend up there had different plans. He made sure that my first car is an EFFING MERCEDES BENZ C280 - Aiiieee jhakaas! Yes I’m the proud owner of this mean beauty baby, which I bought in New Zealand! Man – it feels good.

It’s a grape red (dark dark maroonish) colored, 4 door luxury sedan with a factory fitted 12CD changer and a sun roof (Rest all is also there, but these were the highlights). Can you believe that the front seats can be adjusted in 6 different ways all electronically.

Although I bought this car about a month back, but I am writing about it today because I got the feeling of ultimate luxury very recently. Not that I dint get it before, but that day it really sinked in. I woke up late on a lazy Saturday, brushed my teeth, slipped in my shorts and muddy floaters – half sleepy, drove my Mercedes to the near by super store and bought a bread! Man, the feeling soaked in that day. I drive Merc to buy bread – unlike those who clean it everyday in their garage & take it out on that special once-in-a-lifetime occasion to impress their neighbors (or worst - relatives)! I was swell the whole day and especially while enjoying my bread toast.

Attaching a few pictures to make some of you jealous and some of you proud, of me.

In the streets of New Zealand, if you spot a sexy Mercedes, with windows rolled down, sun roof open and loud dhinchak bhangda music playing, come over and say ‘Hi’. It would be nice.