I had no plans to fight the dragon. Or of rescuing the princess. I didn't even know there was a princess until the dragon told me so. Perhaps I ought to start at the beginning. My name is Dee. And this is the story of my life.

It was a bright summer day when I found myself at the precipice with a herd of rhinos rushing towards me. Perhaps it had something to do with the magic rhino egg I stole. So I do the only logical thing to do under these circumstances - I jump off the cliff. And BAM! I land on my bottom. Hard. It hurts. Bad.

I find myself on the back of a fire-breathing dragon. The dragon roars and I squeal but I hold tight for that's the one place I know the dragon can't reach. After turning its neck this way and that, the dragon gives up and says, "Hey buddy, you win. You can have the princess. Mind getting off my back now? You're awfully heavy". "Oi! I so am not!". And I whack him with the magic rhino egg. And he turns into an apricot.

The dragon defeated, I enter the princess' bedchamber where she is fast asleep. So I do what all handsome princes do in fairy tales - I start making out with her. The princess wakes up, screams and whacks me with her umbrella. It hurts. Bad.

We return to the kingdom, where the king decides to get the two of us married. On our wedding night, the princess runs away with the best man. The best man turns out to be a leopard in disguise and eats her up. The king is devastated and sells me to a slave trader.

I end up an oarsman aboard a warship. The food isn't great, the work hours are long and there's always the threat of a being eaten alive by a sea creature.

After I retire from slavery, I move to a foreign country where I get myself a little house. I spend the rest of my days planting flowers and growing old - a very very cynical man. Kids make fun of me and call me a grouch. They ride their bicycles on my lawn and ruin my flowers. One night they break into my house and steal everything I own. Even my false teeth by the bedside. I die of starvation.

My name is Dee. And this is the story of my life.

Moral - A garlic a day keeps the vampire away.

The following snippet returns the euclidean distance between two places on the globe using the Yahoo Maps API. Replace API_KEY with your Yahoo Maps API key.

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#!/usr/bin/env python
# Distance Module
# by Pravin Paratey (pravinp at gmail dot com)
# Code is licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India
# http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/in/
 
import urllib2, cgi, re
from math import sqrt
 
class Distance:
    """
    Using yahoo maps api (http://developer.yahoo.com/maps/rest/V1/geocode.html),
    this class is responsible for returning the euclidean distance between
    two places
    """
    def getDistance(self, start, end):
        """ Gets the euclidean distance between start and end """
        (start_x, start_y) = self.getCoords(start)
        (end_x, end_y) = self.getCoords(end)
        # 1 degree = 111.12 kms or 69.047 miles
        return sqrt((start_x - end_x) ** 2 + (start_y - end_y) ** 2) * 111.12
 
 
    def getCoords(self, location):
        """ Gets the co-ordinates for the given location """
        url = 'http://local.yahooapis.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=' +
                API_KEY + '&street=' + urllib2.quote(location)
        response = urllib2.urlopen(url)
        (x, y) = self._parseXML(response.read())
        return float(x), float(y)
 
 
    def _parseXML(self, xml):
        """ Parses XML and returns latitude and longitude """
        m = re.findall('<latitude>(\d+.\d+)</latitude><longitude>(\d+.\d+)</longitude>', xml)
        # In case of multiple matches, return 1st match
        return m[0]
 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    d = Distance()
    print 'Distance in kms: '
    print d.getDistance("Hiranandani, Powai, Mumbai", "Dadar Station, Mumbai")

By day, he was your average teenager in geeky glasses and by night, he was SooperDee - fighter of crime and upholder of justice. Like all superheroes, SooperDee had his own set of super powers. He could lift small objects, swim real fast and flick his tail in an enticing manner - which always caused the merchicks to get weak in their knees.

This story begins one fine day when SooperDee was out with the other merboys sitting atop the rock to watch the merchicks go by. He would wait on this rock every day after school until Muriel arrived. Muriel, daughter to King Neptune, was not the fairest of the merchicks, which explains why SooperDee had fallen deeply in love with her younger sister, Ariel.

Now, SooperDee had worked up a deal with Muriel. In exchange for a pebble, she'd tell him something new about Ariel every day. "She likes listening to the Beatles," Muriel had remarked the day before. And SooperDee had spent the whole day humming, Yellow submarine. After it became annoyingly repetitive he had switched to Lovely Rita.

Today, SooperDee again found himself trading a shiny pebble for another tidbit about Ariel. "She loves coconuts," said Muriel. "What in the world is a coconut?" wondered SooperDee, but he was out of pebbles and Muriel would tell no more. "Oh well," thought SooperDee, "Perhaps Kitty Kaht the fortune un-teller would know about such things."

"Peanuts," said Kitty while staring into the crystal ball and simultaneously gyrating to Stereophonics. "Er no, Coco-nuts," corrected SooperDee. "I meant," Kitty replied, "Pass me the peanuts." "Oh," said SooperDee and handed her a bowl of peanuts.

"I see a little merchild. Boy, you sure were cute as a kid!" said Kitty. "Well," blushed SooperDee, "I still am." "Of course Dahling," said Kitty and rolled her eyes, "Okay, about the coconut - It's big, it's green and it's found on trees."

"Wew, those trees sure are tall. And the coconut is waaay up there," thought SooperDee from the shallow waters, "I wonder how I'll get to it". And SooperDee swam towards the tree. Just as he reached the tree, a coconut fell on his head and knocked him out.

Meanwhile, the author of this little tale got distracted and lost his train of thought. He decided to skip directly to the part where SooperDee and Ariel get married and live happily ever after.

Moral - If you get too close to a tree, the coconut is bound to fall on your head.

One merger
Two acquisitions
Two splits

It's been a gruelling two weeks. And I'm tired. Very tired. But then, a whole new world awaits. B-)

What was 2007 like?

And there's no need to hurry
Take your time I'll still be here

- Dido - Closer

For the most part, it was laid back. I didn't do much, but I did accomplish a fair bit for myself. I crossed a bridge that I thought uncrossable, and in doing so, I re-discovered myself.

I met some amazing people along the way and made some awesome friends. I broke a couple of hearts too. And I didn't do a good job patching up. But then I believe it was for the best.

Oh and I fell in love *wink*. On an unrelated note, I'd like to add that Nitin rocks.

What will 2008 look like?

And you go dancing through doorways
Just to see what you gonna find there

- Dire Straits - Love over gold

I expect this year to be a lot more dynamic. I've marked 2008 as a year of preparation. Lots of things have been planned on both a personal and a professional front. I hope to accomplish what I've planned and set the stage for 2009.

I guess time is the most precious resource you can give a person. I plan to spend more time with people who matter to me - my little ones, my close friends and members of my family.

Here's wishing you all an awesome and happy 2008. May the force be with you.

I couldn't have said it any better!

I've been tagged 8-things by Aditi and Amy.

1. I happen to like Fridays more than Tuesdays. I also happen like cake more than ice-cream. I also happen to have four fingers. And a thumb. On either hand.
2. Don't let the dorky exterior fool you. I'm a superhero in disguise - I can lift small objects, jump up and down, yodel at the top of my voice and type without looking at the keyboard. Also I'm awfully cute. Really!
3. I like being at the heart of things. I love people fussing over me and I love attention. But when I don't get any, I tend to sulk and throw tantrums. Apart from other objects.
4. When I was much younger I wanted a dog for a pet. I read all about keeping dogs, stocked myself with books on pet care. But we never got a dog. The closest I got to it was when my mum got me a stuffed dog for my 14th birthday. Oh but my parents did get me a pair of love birds, a parrot, a sparrow, a tweety bird and a kitten. And a set of encyclopedias.
5. Then I grew older and wanted a girlfriend. They gifted me a computer. And the internet. So I spent my teenage years with people called janine_sells_dope, hottie_4_u, tammy1985, yukoncrazygirl, miss_broadback, weenylozar.
6. Point 5 isn't true. I didn't have an internet friend called yukoncrazygirl. Or weenylozar.
7. Then I grew still older and wanted to be a sportsman. I tried my hand at various sports. I'm not very proud of the results of that experiment.
8. I typed this while munching on a pear.

Have you ever walked along the beach and caught your foot in sea weed? Only to realize it was dog poo. But then to save face made up a story about an electric eel, a chocolate bunny and a jug of precariously balanced milk?

No? I thought as much. You guys sure live boring lives!