Time for the Outdoors!

Prabalgad

After many months of waiting, it's finally here. The monsoons and trekking season! I'm not much of a trekker but I really love being outdoors in the rain.

Hilly landscapes covered in every imaginable shade of green all looking so clean and fresh, waking up early on Sunday morning to a calm, quiet Mumbai, the picturesque ride, and best of all, walking up the hillsides through the gleaming streams as they bubble and chatter away over rocks and stones.

Mountains, fog and trees uninterrupted by human intrusions are a sight for sore urban eyes. I could spend hours just looking into the distance from the edge of a mountain, just losing myself in the scenery. I really need a nice rainy trek.

I think we are closest to ourselves, when we are close to Nature.

I'm off to Prabalgad Fort this Sunday. Really excited! :)

Running #21

Today's Run:
Distance: 8 km
Time: 44 min 31 sec

Indoor. The best time I've done in a while but I haven't been working out regularly so that's been at the back of my mind. It's a bit annoying. I feel lazy and lethargic when I don't go out exercising. Bleah! I've slacked a little on the exercise routines because I've been staying up late to watch the Euro '08 football matches. Thankfully it's getting over on Sunday. Looking forward to the weekend.

Tinkering

I spent a good part of yesterday tinkering on the Internet. Here's what I discovered through my Internet guru, Mandar:

1. Foxmarks: If you use Mozilla, you can save your Bookmarks (a.k.a. Favorites for IE users) online using Foxmarks. What that means is that you can import your bookmarked links from your office computer to any other computer (or vice-versa) without having to visit any of the many many bookmarked links again. Basically, you're Bookmarks are accessible no matter which computer you work on. Such a boon! Sorry if you're already familiar with this stuff, I'm a bit of a novice here.

2. Del.icio.us: A great place to post links that are interesting, but may not be bookmark-worthy. Again, very very useful.

3. RSS Feeds: I finally understood, somewhat, RSS feeds and how I could use them. I'm currently experimenting with an RSS feed from the BBC Football website. You can see it in the column on the right below the hit counter. Quite interesting.

I am also a recent convert to Firefox and I love it! Three cheers for Firefox 3! :)

In Bruges

Watched In Bruges twice in two days and I loved it both times!

I love British humour! Understated, caustic and stinging.

It's a dark, completely mental and hilarious movie with a bit of blood, gore and expletives thrown into the mix. Brilliant!

Two hit-men. One gay, the other with the brain of a 5-year-old. The gang leader, Harry, who calls his wife "an inanimate fuckin' object", a Russian gun-runner, Yuri, who calls dum-dums dim-dims, a racist midget (the same one from Death at a Funeral!!!) on ketamine... the list is endless.

The beauty of the movie is that it comes across as idiotic. But beneath the surface, there is a lot of serious thought, wit and darkness.

Please do watch! Blood, gore and expletives notwithstanding. DO NOT miss the last few dialogues of the movie!

P.S. There was this stupid teeny-bopper who actually cried at the end of the movie! The world never ceases to amaze.

Running #20

Last Thursday's Run:
Distance: 8 km
Time: 48 min 30 sec

Outdoor. That's all I remember of it.

Running #19

Today's Run:
Distance: 8 km
Time: 45 min 34 sec

Indoor. Inspired.

The right tracks playing at the gym, a longish rest and general feel-good factor all sort of came together to help me run this time. I don't know if I'll be able to match this on an outdoor. We'll see.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Apparently, the Internet is changing the way we think. And they may be right.

Read more about it here.

Link via: Inkscrawl

Caribbean Monk Seal - R.I.P.

The Caribbean Monk Seal

Yeah, that's right. Our race has wiped off another beautiful animal off the planet. They were killed for their blubber.

I can't tell you how sad I felt when I read this in the papers yesterday. A horrible helpless sadness.

How long will we humans live like the world was meant for only our "consumption"? How long will continue to systematically destroy our planet while we spend our lives lusting after more of everything?

Some day, all our indulgences are going to come back and bite us so hard in the ass that we will regret every little one of them. And it'll be too late.

I guess it's a cycle. We're (I include myself here) too stupid to understand how our lives and our lifestyles will destroy us.

Private jets, highly fuel-inefficient Hummers, food wastage, smoking, our hour-long drives to work in private transport, all our greed... it's all going to come back.

I'm not even sure we can reverse the damage we've done. I don't know. The least we can do, nay, must do, is to live as eco-friendly as possible. Because one day, the Caribbean Monk Seal's fate will be our own. The saddest part—we'd have "hunted" ourselves down.

To read more, click here.

P.S. The Hawaiian and Mediterranean Monk Seals are also at a high risk of extinction. If nothing else, pray for them.

Running # 18

Today's Run:
Distance: 8 km
Time: 48 min 32 sec

Today's run was beautiful. Outdoor and in the rain. I was able to take a couple of minutes off my last time because it was cooler.

It felt great to have the rain hit my face on Marine Drive. Cool, refreshing and a welcome change from the sultry summer. The streets look washed, the air has that yummy rainy smell and you stick your tongue out to catch a few raindrops. If the monsoons were a woman...

Anyway, I followed-up the run with a monster breakfast. Here's what I pounded after it:

1. 3 boiled egg whites
2. A big glass of watermelon juice
   
3. A slice of whole-wheat bread
4. 3 of those small yellow bananas
5. 3 chickoos
6. A bigger glass of mango milkshake
7. 6 almonds

Holy shit! I just realised... that's a lot of food!!! There must be an orchard growing in stomach right about now.

I love breakfasts! :)

Running #17

Today's Run:
Distance: 8 km
Time: 50 min 32 sec

Outdoor. Very disappointed with the time. Happy to finish, but I've not done such a slow run for ages. A below 10km/h run.

There are two possible factors that I can attribute this to, three actually:

1. Heat
2. Humidity
3. I've recently stopped taking the protein supplement I've been having for the past six months. I think the supplements really make a difference. You lift heavier at the gym for sure. Now it seems it helps you run faster too. The nutritionist at the gym told me to get started on it way back because I'm vegetarian. But I've always felt it's better to be 100% natural. I don't want to get to a stage where I'm dependent on protein supplements. If that means I have to work harder for the same result, so be it.