The competition is set to begin. Make sure you have your tickets! Things are going to get crazy!!!

For those of you looking to get tickets for BBC, be sure and hit up www.BostonBhangra.com and get them before they run out. We are sold out of orchestra and running out of Premium seats. Do yourself a favor and get em now.

Boston Bhangra Has Officially launched “Boston Bhangra Nites!” If you like bhangra, and want to dance to bhangra all night long, this is the night for you!

Boston Bhangra Nites will be Held every THIRD FRIDAY OF THE MONTH:
Friday, October 19th
Friday, November 16th
Friday, December 21st
Friday, January 18th
Friday, February 15th

Where: Mantra
Age: 21+

Register for Boston Bhangra Nites through BostonBhangra.com and pay only $10. It will be more at the door! Remember, you must register through http://www.bostonbhangra.com/BBinc/BBnites/index.htm

You don’t want to miss this night of free CD’s, the hottest bhangra songs, and simply doing BHANGRA!

Be sure to keep up to date on the Semantic Web project. It’s building steam.

I have to wonder who comes up with buzzwords and why. I get it, but I’m frustrated when I hear people talk about web 3.0, web 4.0 etc etc. I’m comfortable with ‘Semantic Web’. Let’s start there, and not let too many people get rich blowing smoke up my arse about how web <x>.0 is where you need to go. I know about enough to know that if a marketing book is on the best seller list, that’s all you will hear about for the next year or so. The long tail. Is that a lizard of some type? Please stop creating hype machines to fill the coffers on slackers turned consultants. Thanks!

The 4th Annual Boston Bhangra Competition is here! After the phenomenal success of our competition the last 3 years, we look forward to bringing an even better competition to you this year! Teams from all over North America & Canada have deemed us the “best bhangra competition” in the country, and we look forward to living up to that title again this year.

BUY YOUR TICKETS AT : http://www.bostonbhangra.com/bbc

Watch as the following teams battle to become the 2007 Boston Bhangra Competition Champs:
* Apna Virsa (Vancouver)
* BU Bhangra (Ma)
* Cornell Bhangra (Ny)
* DRP (Ca)
* LBC (Ca)
* MIT Bhangra (Ma)
* NU Bhangra (Ma)
* Rooh Punjab Di/Shan-e-Punjab (Toronto)
* Rutgers Bhangra (NJ)
* Sher Foundation (Ca)
* UBC Girls (Vancouver)
* VCU Bhangra (Va)

Congratulations to all the teams that have been accepted, and again thank you for all the teams that applied!

…::Boston Bhangra Competition::…
Time: 5:30 PM – 9:30 PM
Ticket Price: $20, $25, $35(VIP)
Place:
Historic Orpheum Theater
1 Hamilton
Boston, Ma 02108

…::Pre-Party::…
Age: 21+
Time: 10PM – 2PM
Ticket Price: $15
Place:
Baseball Tavern
1270 Boylston Street
Boston Ma, 02215

…::After Party::…
Age: 18+
Time: 10PM – 2PM
Ticket Price: $25
Place:
Paradise Club & Lounge
967 Commonwealth Ave
Boston Ma, 02215

I forgot to post something when I returned from India and Japan, so this is a better-late-than-never kind of thing. Neena and I spent the month of August in India and Japan on business and pleasure. Both countries were amazing! I’ve never left the continental US before, so the long flight and the stories I had heard made me a bit nervous. The flight was awesome, business class ROCKS! I have to say, I’m sooo not going to want to go economy next time…The flight attendants were teasing each other about how it must suck to be back in coach with ‘those common people’. Anyways, I woke up more rested than usual from the trip. It was excellent. Kudos to Continental.

 The trip itself took us to New Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Bengaluru (Bangalore), back to New Delhi and then to Tokyo. Every city in India was so different. We were in top-notch hotels (http://www.tajhotels.com) and that didn’t hurt.

The chaos of Indian traffic can’t be described in words. I loved it, but it’s tough to know exactly when to leave for an appointment. Sometimes it could take as much as 2.5 hours to go 6km(~4mi)! By contrast, Japan was extreme in the other direction, everything is ontime, dependable, predictable. All rules followed. Extremely crowded, moreso than India actually, especially at rush hour, but really cool as well. More to follow.

Last night, TiE held a great software services SIG meeting at the MIT Museum. It was very well attended, with perhaps 75 people in attendance to hear some of the top names in the industry talk about robots, software design and much more. The night was led by Neena Buck, an industry analyst, who gave a great overview of the industry focusing on its origins and growth possibilities. Next, one of the leaders of TiE Boston spoke about the organization for a few moments.

The main draw, however, were the panelists, who were all quite accomplished in their respective areas of the field. Helen Greiner, of iRobot gave a cool presentation about the formation of her company. There was a lot of video and personal stories which the audience seemed to appreciate. Dan Kara, President, Robotics Trends was the moderator of the panel. The panelists included:

• Joe Jones, Co-founder and CTO, Q Robotics
• Rory Mackean, Manager of R&D, Mobile Robots
• Cory Kidd, PhD Candidate, Robotic Life Group, MIT Media Labs
• Dr. Christopher Wallsmith, CKO, BlueFin Robotics

Aside from the heat in the room, everyone was very attentive and the panel went on for quite some time with everyone getting involved. I thought that a lot of good thoughts were revealed and many audience members asked questions to the panel. The MIT Museum itself is very nice, and some of the participants had brought their robots to be shown.

The event was very well run, and many people commented to me that they were very glad they could come and be a part of a fun and educational night of robots.

I took some photos of the event, which I have uploaded to the site.

As part of my upcoming travel plans, I’m off to get my shots today! I can hardly wait. 9 more days or so until I’m enroute to India and Japan. Yay!

I need one of these for my cubicle.  RoboTaser could be the best invention I’ve seen in a long time.