Obelix in Rome

Talking in complete sentences

2008-09-01T14:28:00.000+01:00

A good friend had this to say abt some test which based on her browsing history threw up these results:

"Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 41%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 59% "

And then went on to say - and i quote -
"Ok, now I gotta go pee standing up of course,scratch my balls, furiously channel surf so that I spend no more than 1.3 seconds per channel,watch repeat live telecast of Netherlands Vs Bangaldesh 20/20 and generally be a nuisance..."

and i complete the sentence here...

"(continued...) while someone from the fairer sex is going blah..blah, talking abt shopping, and how sex and the city is a good movie, and has to spend 3 hours on hair, showering, getting ready, and if she is a 'lady'-wants to go powder her nose, etc..etc and generally be a nuisance"

Sentences have to be complete..... :)

My results (proudly!) :

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 32%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 68%

Site	Male-Female Ratio
google.com	0.98
imdb.com	1.06
bbc.co.uk	1.44
google.co.uk	1.35
play.com	1.04

Ah....it works!

2008-07-10T14:24:00.001+01:00

Yes, since the last post did miraculously appear on the website, the integrated piece does seem to work.

But there is some uncertainty still because the software still does throw up errors now and then.

Seems probabilistic now! Huh !!

Another Test

2008-07-10T14:14:00.001+01:00

Didnt you read the title?

This is another test post. Probably the billionth test post that i might have made. Well, for the curious this it to try a new blogging feature integrated into your firefox. It seemed to work but I am not so sure now. My office firewall seems to be blocking the software from logging into my account at blogger.com. But it did work the first time around, which is why i am still persisting with this.

Given my inaction and blog-activity, all this is superfluous. As I keep saying I have more test posts than anything else!

Duh me!

The bbc reports...

2008-07-10T12:08:00.001+01:00

Picked this one story up on the net....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7496923.stm

Now, England and the UK in general can be a bit of a wierd place when it comes to news. Here's one for instance.

What are the chances of finding a bat in your bra? I mean, seriously what are the odds? Well, it does happen.

Truth stranger than fiction!

experiments with my computer....

2008-06-19T11:46:00.001+01:00

I have been playing with my computer for a while trying to make it feel and look better, having got thoroughly bored with how it looks now. After trying numerous useless and CPU or memory intensive programs, finally came across a google video giving a good demonstration of how you can almost, i repeat, almost make it look and feel like a Mac. Now, almost is a nice word - its quite there, but not completely. I can live with that.... :)

Anyways...i finally found some success yesterday with this whole thing, thanks largely to that video. I tweaked some of the stuff myself, but now i just love the way my comp feels. Luckily, most of the tweaking has not cost me a lot in CPU or memory resources. Atleast so far. Maybe i will put in a couple of screenshots.

As for the video - try searching for 'windows XP look like Mac' or 'windows looks like Mac leopard' etc. on you tube or google videos. There are quite a few videos out there for this now.

Funny, i thought i was stuck with my boring windows xp look. Imagine how long we have come with this stuff....not many years back, we thought windows was such an amazing program. I know Mac lovers will not agree with me, but unfortunately, i did not see a Mac till much later.

And in the fight of the browsers, safari is now available for windows. And the latest version of Firefox, that's firefox 3 is also available for download. Between the two, i still prefer firefox 3. Ok, i am no expert, but i just got the feeling that safari was a bit more CPU/memory intensive.

But all that said, i still cant get my 'recycle bin' to disappear from my desktop and there is another stupid icon called 'My Bluetooth Places'. The second with my laptop. I will try some more googling around to get those two to also disappear as well.

A double rainbow

2008-04-30T17:43:00.000+01:00

There is a double rainbow outside right now! I have never witnessed two parallel rainbows - it is quite a sight! Infact, i have rarely seen a rainbow with so much clarity as this one. There are two - one of them is so clear and so close that I could almost reach for it! It had the whole office stop work and stand up, crowd around the glasses and admire it.

That makes my day !!!!

For those who are wondering whats all the fuss is about and about why a rainbow should prompt a post - in my point of view, to put it in perspective - After all, how often in a lifetime does one witness a double rainbow???

:)

So thin and yet so thin

2008-04-20T15:34:00.001+01:00

So far away and yet even at such distances the strings that connect you to
your home lands are stretched thin, but yet they pull with such strength
that it pains.

But then to be fair it is what makes who we are.

few more thoughts...

2008-04-18T12:01:00.001+01:00

I am not much of a driver, but i do like the occasional drive in the car. I came across something very interesting here. You know two vehicles approach from opposite directions on a narrow road, one of them needs to give way to the other. Now, from where i come, the trick is to flick your light first to 'claim' the right to go through first. So, if you flick, the other driver should (thats a big SHOULD! doesnt work always) oblige by giving way.

Well, the interesting bit is here - it works the other way round. You flick your lights to 'grant' the right to the other to go first. So, you see you cant take the right away from the other, though you can give it to the other driver. You flick first, the other guy goes first.

very interesting....indeed very interesting ! Makes a tonne of difference on the road i think !

on a last note - its friday!

Just a thought....

2008-04-18T09:47:00.001+01:00

Why would anyone wear a tonne of make-up to come to the office. I admit she is a good looking girl by herself and really doesn't need that level of make-up. It does more harm than good. But even so, why do you wear that amount of make-up to come to the office. I can understand if you going to a club or a big party but this doesn't make any sense to me...

Men more likely to die of broken heart

2008-04-04T15:59:00.001+01:00

Came across this interesting article!! I always suspected this!

Apparently men are more likely to die of a 'broken heart' than women. So,
all of you women out there, take care of those hearts....dont endanger
their lives!

here is the link anyway...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Men_more_likely_to_die_of_broken_heart/articleshow/2925457.cms

========
Men more likely to die of broken heart

LONDON: Doctors have long understood the impact of grief on one's health.
Now, a new study has revealed how fragile a broken heart can really be.

Researchers in Britain have found that bereft people face the risk of death
in the first year of being widowed.

In fact, men are six times more likely to die of a broken heart than women.

According to lead researcher Dr Jaap Spreeuw of the Cass Business School in
London, the study has confirmed the existence of "broken heart syndrome".

"We all know that the death of a loved one will have massive impact on the
life of the husband or wife left behind, but this shows it will have direct
impact on their mortality. It statistically proves that people can die of a
broken heart during the earliest stages of bereavement.

"The effect is stronger for older people who have been married longer. The
good news is that after the first years of mourning, the chance of dying
goes down. Although it remains higher than for couples where neither
partner has died, it does lessen over time," Dr Spreeuw said.

========

Run run run.....

2008-04-03T16:40:00.000+01:00

I have this urge to run away from everything. I dont know what I am running
away from, but its a constanat urge to do so. Whats going on, I have no
clue. I have been having difficulty concentrating at work. I have managed
to wrap up a big project effectively, and I was happy that it was done.
However, I failed to feel the sense of acheivement (not much anyway), but
still it counted for somthing, that I usually feel when I accomplish that
was challenging and difficult. This was one of the more tricky things that
I have worked on. It all went well in the end, inspite of having to jump
hurdles everyday constantly. Yet.....I don't feel it. It feels like
something has changed within me.

Am i no more who I was earlier? How earlier was I, me. Who is the true me?
Who am I now? What am I doing? Where is my life taking me?

I cant even dare think about any of this now. I try to constantly drown
myself to keep my head away from the questions that plague me. And I think
I am being successful in keeping my mind away.

When will I finally get over this? Will I ever?

Couple fighting in public

2008-03-14T21:02:00.002Z

Lovely couple till 5 mins back and now they are fighting and shouting at the top of their voices.

Oh no, and now the girl is crying.

Its quite a sorry sight. Makes me sad.

The Band's visit

2008-03-12T14:43:00.002Z

I recently saw this movie, and I should I found it refreshing. The idea is simple - a band from Alexandria, Egypt is visiting someplace in Israel to play at an Arab culture centre there. However, they reach the airport (Tel
Aviv, i presume), but no-one turns up to receive them and they are left to find their own way to this place. Apparently, due to the nuances of Hebrew language, they get on the wrong bus and end up in the middle of nowhere. That effectively marks the starting point of the movie, and I shall not go into more of this for the fear of spoiling the fun for anyone planning to watch the movie.

The movie is mostly in mix of arabic (when the band is talking among themselves), hebrew (or maybe yiddish, not sure, when the locals speak) and english, when they talk to each other. The characters in the movie is
what makes it so appealing - everyday people - a proud old captain, who doesn't seem to have the respect of his sub-ordinates, the second in command of the band - who aspires to complete his unfinished piece and take charge of the band one day. A young man, who is almost rebelling against everything, a shy guy who gets his first kiss with a girl, a not so shy restaurant owner lady who takes pity on the band and offers
shelter.

The topics the movie touch on are not about arab-israel relations (which i almost expected in the movie), but something even more basic - about loneliness, human interaction, child-father relationships, self-esteem and
the like. Nothing is glorified, and nothing is 'said' however you revel in the way things move, in the way you identify with the characters in the movie - somebody you knew very closely, somebody you were, somebody you fear you might become....

Overheard

2008-03-09T10:25:00.009Z

This one is short....

Overheard last night, as I walking back from a grocery shop with two bag full of shopping for the week (very mundane stuff inside the bags - ok, if you must know - semi-skimmed milk, corn flakes, bread etc., that sort of stuff.)

Anyways, deviating from the point. As i said - overheard last night, as i was walking home with shopping bags and i passed this local pub, with a guy and a woman standing out. Both puffing on a cigarette (if you don't know, smoking inside pubs is banned in the UK now! - so suddenly when you go to a pub with friends/colleagues now, most of the interesting talk and gossip happens outside. And if you don't smoke, you look like a total loser just hanging on with friends to not miss the talk. Becomes a moot point, if they offer u a cigarette and you say-'No thanks, i don't smoke'. They give you this look which sort of 'wtf, you standing here for?')

Anyhow, not to deviate from the point again. Ahem! As i was saying - overheard. The lady puffing on the cigarette had a glass of wine in one hand and the cigarette in the other. And all i heard of the conversation was this :

Lady : '....and she was a double J at the time. Can you imagine what thats like?'

Guy: 'hmm...not sure, its difficult'

Me (thinking, not aloud!) : 'Wow...did i hear that right? Is it what i am thinking it is?'

Lady: 'Yeah, its tricky - she was just a walking pair of massive boobies! Oh man..you should have seen her!'

Guy: '...'

Me(thinking, not aloud): 'Bang on, i was right....holy shit...walking pair of boobies...'

Lady: 'But now, she is a double D, she was been working out very hard and did a few other things..'

Guy: '...Wow...'

Me(thinking, not aloud): ' Wow...impressive, good for her.'

By this time, i was out of ear shot, and so readers, i do not have any more of this conversation!

But, I still wonder - 'there IS a double J?

.....from the captain, we wish you a nice flight!

2008-03-04T13:39:00.000Z

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7270000/newsid_7274600?redirect=7274640.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1&bbwm=1&bbram=1&asb=1

Just saw this link on the BBC's website about a plane attempting a
landing in high winds! I was just wondering the state of the passengers
inside.

How much do i weigh - II

2008-02-28T14:31:00.000Z

http://obelix-in-rome.blogspot.com/2006/04/how-much-do-i-weigh.html

Since I dont have any readers, I cant say - "For those who were following this". Its not relevant. But anyhow, I still dont mind coming up with part-II of this old, very old post.

The good news is that I have crossed the 70kgs barrier onto the better side. Thats good news, is it not? Well, I hope so. I think my rowing sessions helped. Maybe its time that I start going back to the rowing club. It was quite fun after-all. But, i am also a nervous wreck when I am out in the river. I seem to have already forgotten all the terminology. Which was stroke side again? No clue at the moment. Its sort of cool to come up with names that nobody else uses. Its the way to impress impressionable people like me (and a lot of others) with all this jargon. You just stand there mouth wide open wondering - "what the hell are they talking about?". But at the same time, you also decide that you have to pick up this lingo, and missing out on it is like missing out on a vital life experience.

For all the impressionable people out there - Yes, thats a vital life experience!

On a side thought - I was truly impressed by the composition of the club. There were young people, middle aged people, old people! You need some sort of dedication to get up early morning on a sunday when you are a 40year old mom of 2 kids. There were even 60 year old men, who still can give any decent rower a run for their money. And they make swell coxes.

I would consider myself happy if I have half their energy at their age. Forget age, I still dont seem to have it.

Lotus oh Lotus!

2008-02-28T14:08:00.000Z

I never thought I would say this that I actually like a MS product. But compared to Lotus notes by IBM, MS Exhcange seems like a much better choice. I just cant get used to Lotus notes.

Its totally non-intuitive, and they have given shortcuts that go way out of tradition or practicality. Here is something to illustrate my point - F5 - the usual key for doing a refresh, works everywhere else on windows. Now, that try that on Lotus notes and it will react with derision and will display its disgust at you - the immortal incoherent, imbecile user- by locking you out! To do anything more, you will have to enter your password. Its almost like a trap!!

Another example - delete - I still cant figure out how delete works. There seems to be a difference between doing a delete via the menu and simply pressing the delete button! Why? Why? Gaaawwwdd !

Find - another feature i seem to understand. Its never a fool-proof way to search....it seems to miss out always. Search for 'abc' and sometimes, and this is the key bit that i dont understand - sometimes, it will simply refuse to find a mail which has the word 'abc' in it. Maybe it depends on its mood.

Hate it!

Damn formatting

2008-02-25T12:49:00.000Z

I hate to see my posts with line breaks everywhere. I think it might have something to do with using rich text rather than plain text.

Hmm....dont know, but I need to figure it out!

Audience or not

2008-02-25T11:28:00.000Z

So far I seemed to have very few readers, and I liked it that way. My idea
when I started this blog wasn't for anyone to read it. It was purely for me
to write what I felt. No readers, meant I had no restrictions. I could
write about even my closest friends if I wanted...to push the idea to an
extreme! Well, I don't think I ever did that.

But, on the flip side - it also meant, that there was no feedback. The lack
of readers might have lead to a lack of motivation after a while, which
eventually led to the current dormant state of this blog.

Now, I have decided to make a change and pull in a few readers. Coax them
into it is more like it. But lets see,where this goes!

Starting again...

2008-02-25T11:07:00.000Z

A close friend recently started blogging and she is good at it. She also
encouraged me to start doing it. Only that she didn't know that I used to.
Then it just fell out of habit...became more erratic and then finally
reached a stand-still...ie. no more posts.

So, yeah - I am thinking - "what the hell, lets start again" and with the
test successful, it means, that logistically speaking I can blog from
anywhere I want (that reads- I can blog from my office). :)

Hence - here we are - on my first proper post in a very long time. Lots of
things have changed in the meanwhile. I would not even care to update you
with all that, since I don't care!

signing off...
Obelix!

2008-02-25T10:54:00.001Z

Test message - after a long time. All i seem to do is test!!!

Test

2007-10-04T17:41:00.001+01:00

test - post

Sleepy in the office

2007-04-09T08:18:00.000+01:00

Office has been a drab for the last couple of days. There is not much to do and even though my manager knows it, he seems to be at a loss about how to tackle the situation. I start feeling very sleepy, when there is not much work to do in the office. That's the worst thing - getting through a lazy day.

5 more hours of office to go still. I cant believe that I am just sitting here and wasting my time away.

Changes in Indian Cricket

2007-04-08T14:17:00.000+01:00

Finally it is time for introspection after all the media hype of the World Cup has died down. Of course, the world cup continues in its splendor (or the lack of it), but India's hopes were cut short by a determined Bangla and Sri Lanka team. South Africa were also at the receiving end of Bangladesh, as they were routed out in the Super-8 match yesterday. Some consolation that India's loss to Bangladesh wasn't purely the failure of the Indian team (it still majorly was due to that).

With the dust settling, Greg Chappell has also played his master stroke by resigning and submitting, what is believed to be a candid assessment of the state of Indian cricket. I was reading one of his interviews, and one line he spoke, captured the essence of Indian cricket today - without mincing words he said "You cannot have a selection procedure like Zimbabwe and expect to play like Australia". Word my friend - very truly spoken, I felt.

Of course, its easy to blame the coach and the captain for everything that went wrong (as is being done by most media channels, specially ones like Zee), but that doesn't absolve the rest of the team of their part in what happened. It was a failure of 11 members of the team, not of the captain and the coach alone. Dravid has been gracious enough to accept responsibility and keep mum about what else has been going on behind the screens.

Tendulkar was swearing upon the umpteen years he has dedicated to Indian cricket. I do not wish to take away anything from him, but my friend, I do believe its time you had the decency to retire in style, than make an inglorious exit at the hands of the coach or of the selection team. Come'on, why all the crying and the cribbing on being hinted to sit on the sidelines - are you really blind to what's written on the wall, or do you just choose to be ignorant.

Its good that BCCI has sat and taken up some strong steps to improve the situation. Firstly, Indian cricket shouldn't be the honor club of just a few. Coming in shouldn't be easy, but going out of the team shouldn't be difficult either. India needs some good bench strength, and if you cannot perform, its time you take some time off the international circuit and let others take a chance. International matches and tournaments shouldn't be the avenue to 'practice and regain form'.

Current Indian team is like a bureaucratic organization, one cant get in easily, but if one comes in, he doesn't leave easily. Every new player who might threaten your position in the team is discouraged and forced on the sidelines by the clout of the 'senior' player cartel. Sounds like we are talking of economics in a capitalist world, not cricket. But really the similarities are very disturbing.

As spectators, we can only hope that all this comes to something good and that Indian cricket might get the chance to some of its glorious days.

Is it Raining Outside?

2007-03-11T19:09:00.001Z

I do not know why I get this overwhelming feeling that it is actually
raining outside. My eyes feel a little dim and I can almost hear the muffled
hum of a light shower outside.

The only problem, of course, is that it hardly ever rains here. I can count
the number of times it has rained here in the past year on one hand, and I
still wouldn't have used half of my hand's fingers.

Then where does this feeling emanate from? Is it wishful thinking or am I
day dreaming?

Today is one of those days. Its been raining for nearly two hours now, even
though I know the moment I step out of my office - it would have been a
normal bright sunny day!

Of Phones and their cries

2006-06-27T12:14:00.000+01:00

How often as it happened that you have felt irritated by the ring tone of
some mobile ringing near you? I dont know about you, but i just dont get it
- whats it with people and stupid ring tones?

With all the luck, i also seem to have quite a few of these on my floor at
work. One has a voice shouting "Anybody there? Pick up....Anybody there?
Pick up" OH MY GOD - you call that a ring tone, and whas more, the guy
absolutely loves it. Yeah, i know, its his choice, but thats not all. He
never carries his phone around and he usually does a lot of running around
in the office. So, effectively nearly every time that the phone rings, he is
in another corner of the floor, while the phone starts screaming at the top
of his, much to the athe otherof others on the floor.

Another colleague has this steadily rising siren sound (much more louder and
much more harsh, then some bloke-bounce shouting "Anybody there...". But
anyway, whenever his phone rings-its truly scares me and i look positively
alarmed. The icing on the cake??? The guy sometimes takes his own sweet time
to take the call, even if he is carrying it in his hand. Sometimes, he
keeps gazing at the phone and keeps staring for a full 2 minutes, before he
decides to take the call. Well, buddy, i hope you do know that your phone
also has a 'silence' option to silence the ring, even if you dont want to
take the call. And yes, I am sure your phone has that facility, I have
already checked ur model for that. :)

[WC 06] Crucial Matches Today - Group A & B

2006-06-20T09:38:00.001+01:00

As we enter the last round of the group matches in the World Cup 2006 (WC06), we have four matches daily for the next four days. So, 8 groups, 16 matches, 4 days to decide who shall be the lucky 16 to get into the next round. The remaining teams, can all - Thank you very much - go back home and watch the hallowed 16 fight it out for glory.

Some of these matches in the next couple of days are not really for qualification into the next round, some are for deciding the positions in the groups, which will determine who will play whom in the next round. For some, these matches are just a matter of fighting for some pride.

Today - Sweden take on Eng, and Ecuador take on Ger. The winners of these matches might have to meet the losers of the other match. So, Ger would want to get this win, so that they not have to meet Eng (assuming, Swe will not be able to defeat Eng). But as they say - on any given Sunday, you can win or you can lose and this world cup has shown enough surprising results to
doubt it.

Poland lost, Ecuador won - the group tables surprised everybody. Poland would be looking to winning some pride back against Ivory Coast, while Trinidad and Tobago will want a good victory over Paraguay and hope that Sweden loose miserably to Eng, for their survival into the next round. Lets see..

Lets catch up on those mugs of beer, cheer for our best teams, hope for some exceptional football !!!

May the best teams win!!

A Flight to Sanity

2006-06-20T09:38:00.000+01:00

After a long break, I am back. The break was on account of my visit to my parents and folks back home. So, it was a good way to get away from the local madness that usually engulfs me here. A quest in sanity, so to speak!!

I went by Air-India Express, it was my first experience with them - and I would not call it very pleasantly memorable. Firstly time seems to be a very very vague concept with these guys. Two flights back and forth, and both delayed by nearly 2 hours and that too on a corridor that takes about 3.5 hours to fly. It seems they use the same aeroplane back and forth and
they are unable to make up for that lost time now. Pretty bad, huh??

Service is not so great either - its positively distasteful. The food is cold and is a bad combination of a cheese sandwich, a cup cake and a smallbottle of water with some other very small items, which i dont even seem to remember. But, I am not to complain about the food given that its a
no-fringe, low-cost airline. But time is important - it threw my plans at both destinations out of gear.

Signing off...

Three for one

2006-06-05T16:04:00.000+01:00

This is one more in the list of the idiosyncrasies in my office. Around the
beginning of every month, usually in the first week, our office peon comes
pushing a trolley full of crates of bottled water. Whats interesting is that
this happens only once in a month and what makes it killer interesting is
that you get exactly three bottles of water, each of 1.5 litres.

Yes, that's 1.5 X 3 = 4.5 litres of bottled water every month. Reminds me of
camels..

What do you call military supplies? Yes, ration supplies...is there a better
word? This sounds very similar, doesn't it?

Anyway, I received my supplies of water for the month two days back and I am
already finished though them. I must be a bad soldier, eh? I use more than
what  is allotted. Gladly and to my utmost relief, there is a water refiller
in the  kitchen and I wonder how lucky I am that I can consume more water
than my share.  Wow, I must be truly blessed.

Btw - this post is extremely tainted with spiteful sarcasm and a very moody
author.

Deja Vu

2006-06-05T05:53:00.000+01:00

Long Rant - And very self-involved.

This is probably the second time that i am using such a title or something close to it. But the occasions are very different.

Why Deja Vu now ? Well, its because I am feeling exactly like how I was feeling last year around, when I was about to quit my previous job. I was extremely frustrated, even more dis-contented with everything going on around me in the office and a general feeling of utter confustion and horrible disgust at myself. All this, repeated all over again right now.. every minute of it!! GoD!!!

I dont understand how I manage to get myself so damn frustrated in these jobs. I have hardly completed a year in my latest stint, and i can hardly bear it any longer. I just cant seem to understand.

I also am beginning to understand more about the work life in general. Fact is, there is a lot of shitty work that needs to be done in every organization and the guy lowest in the food chain always does it. Thats why, he is the lowest in the chain. Thats his purpose in the company. Only problem is that i get very easily tired of all that and soon reach a stage where I can no longer handle it and want to get out. Also, learning in most of the routine jobs, falls expenonentially, you learn maximum in your first couple of weeks and the learning goes downhill from there-on, unless you are really lucky.

Work should have a considerable amount of projects of different types and should not be extensions of one another. So, basically we are talking about a role, that has considerable variety to offer in terms of area of work. These projects should not be repetative or extensions - i.e. each project should be holding on its own, and solving one should not imply that you have already solved 95% of the others (these are just applications/customisations, not really independent projects)

Back to the future

2006-05-27T14:39:00.000+01:00

India went back to its old form in the West Indies series - having lost three of the four matches played so far. That's Damn Right..the series is already out of hand. Atleast what they can do is to win some respect back by winning the last match to be played in a couple of days.

What went wrong, everyone seems to be asking? I frankly don't know..but I do suspect complacency - of being number 3 in the ratings, of playing against number 8. But, as the line in a movie goes (from "Any Given Sunday" ) - On any given Sunday, you can either win or loose.....

Test Message

2006-05-27T07:52:00.000+01:00

This is just to test some new changes that I have made.

Start to a slow week

2006-05-27T07:47:00.000+01:00

Come Saturdays, and its time to start a new week. I am not suddenly so fond of saturdays anymore. It used to be my favourite day of the week before coming to Dubai.

But, I will like this week, I think. The big boss on our floor is not in town, and that means our floor will start behaving like a bunch of school kids without a teacher. Its good and its a welcome change.

Another piece of good news is that i will soon be going home for a short visit, That will give me some time to rest and catch up on things.

I have also been thinking about my college a lot lately. I really miss those days. As bryan adams song goes - those were the best days of my life. Things just spiralled out of control, when i left the institution. Suddenly i was part of the coporate ladder and worse still, part of its food chain. I should write something about those days at college. Life looked much more meaningful then.

I am pretending to work since morning, since i realyl dont have much to do today. Everybody else is also pretty relaxed, so why should i bother anyway? Negativity, you call it? Huh.. like i care. ;-)

Also saw another couple of movies recently. My movie streak is still continuing. Will post updates on them pretty soon.

Signing Off..

The Gym Finally..

2006-05-22T09:07:00.000+01:00

I finally managed to join a nearby gym last week. And whats more, I have been regular in visiting the place for the last couple of days. Not bad for a start, eh ? :D

But, things have to come to an extremen, before I took this step. My weight has been increasing constantly, and I needed to do something about it. I just hope that I can sustain this enthusiasm.

This new gym is locatd inside a hotel nearby. Gym-wise, its not the best gym I have seen. But, its pretty clean, and is well aired. The cooling is good and its got a decent host of machines. Four treadmills, one cycle, and one of those nautilus monster all-in-one pack of a machine in the center, with levers, wires, and pulleys all over it. I am still learning how to operate it to its best.

The advantage in joining this place, is that its also got a suana, a steam room and also a swimming pool. The pool is nothing great, is in a weird shape at its boundries. Its maximum of maybe 25 meters wide/long at its best. Its not great for doing hard-core swimming, which by the way, I used to do in college in a 50mX25m pool.

But, coming back to present times, this sort of arrangement, I think will help me in atleast maintaining the rythm. I can mix and match, do the gym on some days, the pool on others and the steam/sauna once in a while.

Lets see. In the mean while, as they say - to health !!

Long Movie Time

2006-05-19T15:54:00.000+01:00

Lately I have been catching up on some movies, that i had missed out earlier. So, i made a couple of trips to the local dvd rental place and the nearest theaters, and over the course of the last two weeks, have been busy.

So, here goes the list (in no particular order) :
The Chronicles of Narnia - The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Failure to Launch
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Wallace and Gromit - The curse of the Were Rabbit
Chicken Little
16 blocks
Ice Age II - The Meltdown
North Country
Wedding Crashers
Jarhead
Yours Mine and Ours
Lord of War

I think thats about it. Not all of them were a joy. Some of them were passable and worth their time and money spent. Some worth more than that - and some outright good.

Let me just try to classify this list again in the upcoming posts.

Long Movie Time : The Good Ones

2006-05-19T15:15:00.000+01:00

North Country
Def. the best one in that list. A wonderful movie to watch. Dont miss this one out. I could see why Charlize Theron was upset on not getting the Oscar on this one. I would love to see what Rachel Weisz performed in The Constant Gardner (been trying for its dvd, no luck so far)

The Chronicles of Narnia
Another pretty decent movie - for its sets, scenes and ofcourse, makeup and costumes. Good story too...

Jarhead
I dont think many would agree with me on this one, but I liked this movie. Kind of reminded me of Full Metal Jacket - no, i am not comparing - just reminded me of it. But all in all - a good movie and has got a catchy tune throughout (I loved it!!).

Long Movie Time : The The Decent ones (Passable)

2006-05-19T15:00:00.000+01:00

Wedding Crashers
Nothing great here - some good movie and some good looking girls. :) But worth one watch and is a good time-pass.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
I am a Harry Potter fan - more of the book than the movie.

16 Blocks
Hmm.. was ok sorts movie. Nothing worth remembering though. Am putting it here because it was not hopeless neither was it any better.

Lord Of War
A pretty interesting movie - takes you into the underground gun-running business. Nicolas Cage throws a good performance and makes u wonder sometimes where the world is headed with so many weapons.

Yours, Mine and Ours
Okay, 16 or 18 kids (i forgot the number) in a household - what ??? wtf?? are you crazy. Well, thats what this movie is all about. Some good comedy though. Watchable once.. only once! :)

Ice Age II - The Meltdown
Among the toppers in this category. Was good to see manny, sid and deigo back in action. Its a good movie and it does not dissappoint this time again. I thin they manged to pull it off pretty good, after Ice-Age I.

Long Movie Time : The Forgettables

2006-05-19T14:15:00.000+01:00

The remaining ones are all probably in the third category :D

No list here - why??? Dont you get that from the very title of this section ??

By the way - i am posting the "Long Movie Time ..." series posts by editing their posting times, just to get them in the correct sequence when displayed.

Signing off...

Google Trends..

2006-05-11T17:04:00.000+01:00

Google has come up with a new launch - called Google Trends. From what I understand, it gives you a couple of graphs and breaks down the search and news traffic into languages, regions, etc. So that should give you an idea about which searches are popular with what city/region/language of people.

Its interesting to try out. But, what it also tells me, that google has been tracking searches for a long time now. I bet they have a record of very search done using their engines. Every single one of them, including millions of details, like region, city, ip address, isp,maybe even personal information etc..etc. Thats a lot of information in one place. Kind of scary, if you ask me. Yeah, their philosophy is about no evil and all that, but that doesnt comfort me. We have all seens organizations, which started out in the best of interests and intentions, but lost their way and did manage to do a lot of harm then. I just hope that Google doesn't become one more of those cos. Such a massive amount of information can be very valuable and can be mis-used.

My paranoia apart - here is a shot of an interesting search I did on Google Trend. Interesting that the second and third spots for the search word "india" are held by UAE and Pakistan. :)

Btw - try out the tool at Google Trends. And the specific search that i mentioned here.

Time is indeed relative

2006-05-11T16:34:00.000+01:00

Everyone knows that - time is relative. It passes differently on different days and while doing different things. Things that you enjoy and things that you dont.

Its the weekend here - and i managed to nearly sleep the entire day off. Imagine, I only get two such in a week, and I have already wasted one of them sleeping it off. I went to sleep late last night, at about 3.30 am, after returning from a local pub, where a couple of us had grouped up. But, I woke up at 9.30 am today morning, that way most of the day was still in my hand. Btw, its wonderful to wake up on your own once in a while, and not to the shrill and disturbing sound of an alarm. They say - that the first things in the morning goes a long way in deciding what your day will turn out to be. So, you can guess, what sort of days, I must be having I am waking to the sound of the alarm everyone. Even the world is not sugar-coated -its the ALARM, indeed!!!

Anyway, coming back to today - i got up at 9.30am and went about the usual things that I do on weekends. Logged onto the net, caught a couple of friends online and chatted for some time. EVerything went well, till right after lunch time. I was reading a book and i fell asleep for nearly 3-4 hours. See, 4 good hours gone. :(

But, I did wake up with a good and amazing relaxed feeling of laziness and idleness. Maybe it was worth after all.

A Cup and a Trophy!

2006-05-10T09:15:00.000+01:00

Imagine what could be so much of a privilege that it needs to kept under lock and key away from the common eye and the access of lesser mortals like me.

Come..on.. take a wild guess!!!

Now, if you have guessed it right, I can only imagine that you have either already identified my company and its ways, or you have been working in a similarly pathetic place.

Coming to the secret closely guarded - these are paper cups. Yeah, there it is - its out in the open now... paper cups - which you can probably buy for like a pack of 20 for the cost of two diet cokes.

These famous Paper cups (given their celebrity status - I shall write those as names complete with caps) are kept under lock and key in a cupboard in our kitchen in the office. Now these are only given to the senior managers of the company when they want it. Most of the managers luckily use their own cups for coffee and tea. 'Others' like me have to live with cheesy and 'cheapest of the cheap' plastic cups. These are so thin that you can't hold it hard, without distorting or nearly mutilating the poor cup. Pour in some hot water - (you cannot avoid this, unless you make coffee with cold water) and thing nearly melts - you can see it actually. There would stretch and shrink marks all over the cup after pouring in some hot water.

Now, I am not much of a tea or coffee drinker and so, I haven't brought my own cup to the office (which I regretted, just this once). But I felt a sudden urge to drink some coffee (I missed breakfast, and the coffee; I thought would hold my hunger till lunch). While I made the coffee, another senior guy came in looking for some coffee himself. But, when he say the normal plastic cups, his look changed to a mix of revulsion and disgust (aren't they very close anyway - hell - I just put it in for the effect). So, he called the guy who is in charge of the pantry and asked him for the better paper cups....oops, sorry, Paper Cups!!!

Mr. Pantry-Incharge came and he takes out a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocks one of the cupboards - to take out a pack of the paper cups, casually takes out one, hands it over to the Mr. Senior and then starts putting the remaining back. So, I ask him politely - can I have one of those?? - I am still stirring my coffee and my plastic cup already looks like it has been exposed to fire! He gives me an amazing look - which I cannot decipher - and then says "hmmm.." then "ahem"...and then "very few cups...(cough)....mainly for managers - You can use the plastic cup". And then he quickly avoids my look, locks the cupboard and rushes out.

Mr. Senior looks at me and says - "wow..he didn't give you one" - and my brain goes "yeah..did you notice that???.. how nice. Do you want my plastic desolved coffee..GUESS NOT, eh??!!!". I just manage to blurt - "Yeah, Paper Cups are a privilege here.". And I walk out, throw the coffee in the trash. My hunger was gone anyway.

Seriously, I didn't see this coming..even in my wildest dreams. Paper Cups - the coveted Paper Cups..Damn!! Looks like I might not be making my own coffee in the office for a long time to come.

This place never stops surprising me. It can spring one, when you least expect it.

White it is...

2006-05-07T18:16:00.000+01:00

I managed to watch Memoirs of a Geisha a couple of days back. Its definitely one of the better movies, that I have watched in some time. The locales in Japan are really beautiful and really blends in and suddenly the make-up and the way of dressing up as a geisha doesn't look so odd anymore. Think about it - i am not talking about the kimono or the hair-do, but the way the face is made-up. All that white paint (what exactly is that??) would look so ghastly (or ghostly?? :D) in a more normal setting. Why, it could even scare the life of some kids (also some adults), if you happened to bump into one in the middle of the night on a lonely road? It would be funny, isn't it ?

But, in Japan and in such a setting, it only looks very familiar.

Btw - the movie is pretty good. I know there was a lot of hype around it, and the fact that it was factually correct etc..etc..and that it had glamorised etc.., no comments on all that. But, as a movie, I liked it and definitely one of the better movies of last year (it came out in 2005, right?).

Another week passes by..

2006-05-07T18:13:00.000+01:00

And as another week comes to a close, life goes on as usual. In fact, it has become so monotone, that I am not sure, what something 'exciting' feels like. I haven't felt that way in a long time. Don't you feel that sometimes? As if, if there was something that you could do to feel that rush, that excitement.

Coming back to more mundane things, there is nothing much going on. Work at the office, is a little hectic, with lots of presentations and excel files that I seem to be meddling with from morning from evening. Actually, there is one big meeting coming up in a couple of days, and our team is presenting something during that - and I have been working on preparing the slides and getting the data for the slides. But, you know, there is just one annoying and bugging thing with presentations, specially when you are making them and then gets reviewed by your boss, and then his boss :) Its this thing - the presentation never gets finalized till the last hour. Your boss will ask for some cosmetic changes - change the colour here and change the comment there etc..etc. and the way things are presented. Funnily, when he shows it to his boss - big boss will revert some of the changes and suggest some of his own. :D

So, you have revisions and then more revisions and then even more. More than often, you start numbering them to keep track of versions and revisions, and soon you will reach from "Final Presentation XXX 1.0.ppt " to "Final Presentation XXX 12.2.3.ppt". You get so tired of the numbers that you then start calling them "Later Presentation 3.2.ppt" and then "Latest Final Presentation5.0.ppt". You can see whats going on here. It doesn't end here - the worst part is when, lets say, after a couple of weeks you need to pull this same presentation out again, you just cannot locate the last one which was finally presented.

Anyway, lets see how it goes- but I expect I will be busy for another couple of days due to this presentation.

See, how pathetic my life has become, this is all the excitement that I am having in my life and am writing about them !! Damn.. whats come of this world and my life.... ???

Ooh Meee Gaawd..Its May DAY!!!

2006-05-01T13:44:00.000+01:00

With shock, as I accidentally looked at my mobile and noticed the date, I realised that we are into the fifth month of the year. And why do I have this feeling that I am still at the beginning of the year?? Why is that feeling lingering on and not going away??

I have nothing against the feeling, just the consequences are scary. Suddenly I realised that this year is nearly about half-done. One more month and we'll be in the sixth month and there are only 12 months in the year. Its the number 5 of the month May that scared me today morning.

It also tells me, that time is running out and very fast at that. At the beginning of this year, I felt that this year, I should do something about where I am headed in my career. I have ideas of doing a MBA, or an advanced degree in some other area that I am related to, or going back to the academia for doing some research. All of these were thoughts and still are. That's why, the date on the mobile, scared me so much. The year is nearly half gone, and I have not even started on anything.

Its scares the very daylights out of me !!!

People Are Strange..

2006-05-01T08:48:00.000+01:00

Of course, they are strange. They always have been. That's why they are so interesting.

Why am I putting out all this? Well, a small sequence of events have just proved that above statement to me again. I was just reminded of it, and wanted to write on it.

So, lets back to the story of what these sequence of events, as I call them, are ?

In the past, I have more than once ranted my frustration on my company and why I am beginning to dislike working here. Most of the reasons, have not been very clearly said, mostly because they have been written in fists of rage and desperation. Of course, reason abandons you at such times, and passion takes over. So, I have ended up writing things about my boss, my particular profile of work etc. But, there are things that cause these things. An organisation has its own identity and its own distinct culture and a 'way' of doing things here. That's what I am not so comfortable with here. The rants against the boss, and against my work are all specific instances of what is a bigger problem.

So, anyway, as you can guess, I am not the only person who has faced these issues. Others have also faced it, sometimes much more than me and have voiced their concerns to whom it should have mattered, and when they started turning a deaf ear, to friends over mugs of beer and pegs of vodka and whiskey.

And thus, I shall introduce my central character for today's' post (apart from me...hehehe:)) - lets just call him "U".

Now, U is a good friend of mine and he was one who had been in this place for long enough to understand that things were not so great with this place. But, since he is more patient than I am, he continued in his daily work, without a lot of complaining or whining. I would have turned rebel a couple of years ago, if I was in shoes. But, that's not the point - his shoes are not mine and vice-versa, our shoes would not fit anyway!

Gradually, U reached a stage where he started feeling that enough was enough. And that led him to what it has already led me to. The first step and stage of changing your job - the ceremonious event that we shall call "the CV updation" routine. I am already there, even though, I have been this place for only about 1/4th the amount of time, that U has been here. Let me just remind of the 'shoe' thing to stress why it took his x amount of time, while it just took me x/4 amount of time. I am not more smarter or anything, its just that we are different people. He had more patience and perseverance, which I lack.

Without digressing too much - with purest of intentions, and a couraged heart, U started his job-hunt. He sent out those mails (with CVs as attachments) into the world. He, being a good natured guy, kept us updated on every turn of events. (see, that's one more difference, I would keep it all hush-hush, till one day I could finally drop the bomb and say I was shifting jobs next week :D). Oh..sorry, back to U again. The first couple of weeks for U did not go well. He did not get the number and kind of calls for interviews that he would have liked. It slowly started getting to him - to the extent that he started having doubts over his abilities. But, then a tide came and with that a plethora of calls, interviews, so much so that he had to put off and reschedule a couple of interviews to avoid clashes.

As good luck would have it, he got a couple of offers soon. Good news, eh.!! End of story, you guess? Hold on...

U finally got a very good offer with a good organisation in India, and whats more, very close to his home-town. Jut to digress again, in India, the concept of a home-town is very important. Families are important and your hometown is just the haven of all your relatives and your parents. Additionally, this place is also where you would have spent most your childhood, schooling etc. So, the place always holds a special place in your heart. So, I considered this guy, very lucky to have found this new job. It was well-paying, it was close to his 'home-town', and it was in India. He had been looking to go back to India also for a while, because of his plans to get married sometime soon. It all looked as if, it was working like clock-work.

But, then something called a retention strategy started work. Simply put, the company wanted to retain him. Enter my next character - whom I shall call FUB (for Future U's Boss). FUB was not U's boss, but knew him through work. Now, FUB wanted to expand his team and when he heard about U's move, he swooped in and asked him if U would like to work with him. Of course, U was flustered and confused, because FUB was a powerful figure in the bank. To make things more attractive, FUB also mentioned that he could increase U's pay and designation, if needed. Now, this put U thinking - and U made some strong demands in terms of a pay-hike and a designation.

Now,as I hear from U - they have agreed to the increase in pay, but the designation thing is still under discussion. From how excited and happy he seemed - it looks like he has already made his decision to stay on and move into FUB's team. I am happy that he is excited and happy with this. But, he made me wonder - he didn't not want to move because of a salary issue or a designation issue. He didn't have to resign to solve them, if he had a issue. Yeah, haggling after resigning gives you a lot more power and he might have got a better deal this way. BUT - he did not resign because of these issues. His reasons were more of the company in which he worked and his idea to move back to India, and plans about marriage. Of course, all this seems irrelevant to him now and i wonder why.

If I had been in his shoes, (i am sure, you must be getting tired of this shoe!!) - I would not even have thought about a retention offer. The job change was not for due my role, it was bigger than that - it had to do with the company, its culture, about returning back to your own country and working there, marriage plans. I would not even have thought once about the retention strategy. And in general, I think he is getting himself into a fix now by taking the retention. People know that you had jumped the boat once and will always think that you will do it again (NOT GOOD!!). Then, even if due to some genuine reason, you have to quit very soon, they are all going to blame you for stabbing them twice (argumentative sakes at least).

People are strange. Not just him, but him, me, you and everybody. We all think differently. That's what is so interesting...see, in this case, I could write about all this, while sitting at office! :D

What can one vote do?

2006-04-29T18:01:00.000+01:00

According to this report, one vote can cause the election officials a lot of hassle. Interesting article, nevertheless. I am pasting the original link here as well.

Lone voter keeps democracy afloat in Kerala booth

KOZHIKODE: After keeping polling officials on their toes for hours, a lone voter in a booth at Perambra Assembly constituency in Kerala exercised his precious franchise on Saturday afternoon.

Cherangattu Dasan, who attained the status of a VIP for keeping the 'babus', six in number, including a policeman and a driver, engaged since yesterday and evoking much interest throughout, turned up for voting at the Office of the Assistant Engineer Kakkayam Civil Maintenance Station, atop a hillock, at 1356 pm.

Although an exact figure was not available, a polling official said the Government had to shell out thousands of rupees in the way of TA/DA and transportation expenses for the employees for extricating a vote.

With this booth No 156 had the distinction of 100 per cent polling in the state.
The hapless officials, who reached at the booth on Friday, descended only in the evening even after the voting because as per the Election Commission norms booths could only be closed after 5.00 pm.

Dasan was the lone voter at the booth at Kakkayam Dam site in the
2004 general elections as well.

In a bid to close down the lone booth, the Election Commission had recently sent feelers to Dasan to exercise his franchise at another booth, 13 kilometres away. But the response was lukewarm as he said ''nothing will happen if I stay away from voting,'' according to sources.

The Commission cannot dictate terms either as according to stipulation the voting centre should be within 1.5 km radius of the place of residence of a voter.

Hailing from Pambady in Kottayam district, Dasan came to Kakkayam as an employee of Charangattu estate in 1968 and now stays in the dense forest along with his five cows.

Earlier, there were 350 voters in the booth. But others left after the estate was closed down.

According to reports Dasan's decision was influenced by the estate owner, who was engaged in a legal battle to prevent a take-over bid by the Government.

Test of man..

2006-04-29T09:03:00.000+01:00

A friend once told me, that the real test of a person is not when he is in difficult times, but rather when he is in emely good times. Give the man, some power and space and then he will show what his true colours are. He will show then, whom he considers friends and whom he looks down and whom he respects. In diffficulty, this is not so.. he "needs" friends, he "has" to respect his compatriots, but when in power - all this changes.

The reason, why he mentioned this to me, was ofcourse, one guy whom we were quite friendly with in the office, had suddenly had got a little wind-fall. His boss had given some very important work and additional responsibilites, not for any other reason, but because there was nobody else to do it, because Mr. boss was going outside the country for some other work.

Well, after this happened, the guy just changed, he suddenly stopped hanging out with us, and whats more, even started ordering us around - luckily, my work was not related to his in any way, so I didnt have to hear it from him. But my friend, bore the brunt of it. He even showed us e-mails, where this was very evident.

Why did I remember this today - I am not sure, I was wondering if I had also fallen into the same trap. How would I know? I also felt the same thing, from another colleague of mine, whose attitude has changed slightly, and so has his langauage over the last couple of days. Are these the beginnings of change? I dont know, and I hope not. But as they say, only time will tell.

I am watching it again...

2006-04-28T20:29:00.000+01:00

for the n-th time, I am watching "You've got Mail" - they are airing it on television, and I cant keep myself from watching it again. I like the movie - yeah.. i know, its a mushy movie, but its what it is and I like it. I enjoy it everytime.

I am a big fan of Tom Hanks, I love most of his movies. Nearly everyone of them - Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, Sleepless in Seatle, The Terminal...etc..etc.

My favourites - lets see ...hmmm...I think it is "Forrest Gump" and "The Terminal". Ofcourse, this is among the list of movies starring Tom Hanks, I can remember off-hand.

Caught in the act...

2006-04-28T16:13:00.000+01:00

Funny pic I got in one of those forward mails. No wonder I still put up with all the forwards, that I keep getting, every once in a a while, you get something really nice ! :D

Of pain in numbness.

2006-04-23T08:42:00.000+01:00

Another day.. another story. Yeah..right!!! I wish!!!

I woke up today morning with a really bad pain in my back. Infact, it was the other way around. The pain was what awoke me, so I got up earlier than usual. I just could not understand why it was paining so much. Everything was fine, when I went to bed. Unless, I sleep walk and got bashed up by somebody on the back or fell down the stairs, I cant think of any other logical reason. Anyway, it was bad - i was even having trouble drawing in deep breaths.

I decided to skip bath - i usually look for some excuse for that, but today i had a genuine reason (being in pain, you can cut me some slack, eh?). I walked down to the office - but the pain persisted, though decreased in terms of intensity.

More mundane work and more frustration and I am mentally buzzed - I feel numb in my head, and i feel some sort of panic rising within me. I dont know why, but some days at the office, i get that feeling.

And that leads us to the present, where I am utterly disoriented and i decide to write this, so that i can take my mind off the 'mind-numbing' work that i am doing...(i was told that the work was challenging, but i didnt know it was challenging this way!!).

I am reminded of two songs (two of my favourites) - one is Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, and the other is "I want to break free" (by Queens)...

While i struggle to get the rest of the day over with - may these two songs ring in my head and keep me compnay.

V for Vendetta...........V for vu - Deja vu

2006-04-22T15:18:00.000+01:00

Saw V for Vendetta last night. I should say i liked it and it thouroughtly entertained me. Good visuals, good style, good colours (specially the backgrounds), and a good story. The story constantly reminded me of two book that I had read some time back - one was 1984 (by George Orwell) and the other was Brave New World (Aldous Huxley). Its a genre of fiction/philosophy that appeals to me. Censorship, its role in society, different forms of society - like democracy, communism, totalitarian, etc.etc...topics like this intrigue me. Maybe thats the reason why I liked the movie so much.

I could have become a millionaire.....

2006-04-21T07:41:00.000+01:00

Got this mail once again..this time, its after some time. I havent got this one in a couple of months, it used to very regular before that. Or maybe, I have been receiving these mails, but the spam filter picked them up. This time, it missed.

This one is also slightly improved, it even includes an external link to a bbc report on a concorde crash that happened a couple of years ago. Wow...now did that make it more believable. :D

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM MR. HAMED MBADA
THE MANAGER FOREIGN REMITTANCE DEPARTMENT,
AFRICA DEVELOPMENT BANK(ADB)
BURKINA FASO.

Dear Partner,

(TOP SECRET)

I am Mr Hamed Mbada , the manager in charge of auditing and accounting section of Africa Development Bank.AFRICA DEVELOPMENT BANK(ADB) Ouagadougou Burkina-faso West Africa ,with due respect and regard. I have decided to contact you on a business transaction that will be very beneficial to both of us at the end of the transaction .

During our investigation and auditing in this bank, my department came across a very huge sum of money belonging to a deceased person Mr.Andreas Schranner who who died with his wife and their only daughter on July 2000 in a plane crash and the fund has been dormant in his account with this Bank without any claim of the fund in our custody either from his family or relation before our discovery to this development.

The said amount was U.S $10.150M ((Ten million one hundred and fiftythousand US dolloars)). As it may interest you to know, I got your impressive information through internation search in Burkina-faso here in Ouagadougou Burkina-faso.
Meanwhile all the whole arrangement to put claim over this fund as the
bonafide next of kin to the deceased, get the required approval and transfer this money to a foreign account has been put in place and directives and needed information will be relayed to you as soon as you indicate your interest and willingness to assist me and also benefit your self to this great business opportunity.

In fact I could have done this deal alone but because of my position in this country as a civil servant(A Banker),we are not allowed to operate a foreign account and would eventually raise an eye brow on my side during the time of transfer because I work in this bank. This is the actual reason why it will require a second party or fellow who will forward claims as the next of kin with affidavit of trust of oath to the Bank and also present a foreign account where he will need the money to be re-transferred into on his request as it may be after due verification and clarification by the correspondent branch of the bank where the whole money will be remitted from to your own designation bank account.

I will not fail to inform you that this transaction is 100% risk free. On smooth conclusion of this transaction, you will be entitled to 40% of the total sum as gratification, while 60% will be for me. Please, you have been adviced to keep "top secret" as I am still in service and intend to retire from service after we conclude this deal with you.

I will be monitoraing the whole situation here in this bank until you confirm the money in your account and ask me to come down to your country for subsequent sharing of the fund according to percentages previously indicated and further investment, either in your country or any country you advice us to invest in. All other necessary information will be sent to you when I hear from you. Trusting to hear from you.

You can visit the sit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

Yours faithfully,
MR HAMED MBADA

This woke me up today morning..

2006-04-20T16:40:00.000+01:00

I was jolted out of my sleep today morning by this sudden sound (cant really remember what it sounded like..) followed by a continous blare of a loud car horn, which didnt stop for atleast 10 minutes.

There was some accident that had happened..and i got this image of what was left..as you can see, it looked bad. Luckily, nobody seemed hurt - because there was no presence of any ambulance, even after the cops had arrived and cleared the scene.

The image is not clear too clear though - its taken at a very high zoom (abt 10x) and at 400ISO and poor light. I am still very much an amateur at photography..so if anyone has any tips on taking better photos in such situations - pls feel free.

How much do I weigh..?

2006-04-18T08:43:00.000+01:00

I just found out the answer to this question and let me tell you - the results were not even remotely good. Infact, on the contrary, it scared the helll out of me. I always thought I was putting on weight, whenever I saw my self-image in a mirror...that I knew - I am not a dreamer - what hit me ws the alarming rate at which I am gaining weight.

Anyway, here are the results with my head hung in shame : 76kgs :(

And that is after I was 71kgs about 6 months back. 5 kgs in around 6 months - man, i am gaining 1 kg nearly every month. Now if htats not scary wht is not????

Anyway, I need to do something about this - no more french fries, even as side-dishes, and also need to start going to the gym as soon as i an muster the strength and the will to do that.

so, ladies and getlemen, while i take the weight-loss train and hopefulyl cling/keep holding on it - wish me luck and well !!

Here goes then...

If I am not too ashamed to declare the results of my efforts, I will keep updating on this topic..

My face...

2006-04-17T18:51:00.000+01:00

I have just choosen this image as my face on blog-world..atleast for the time-being....

Have always been a big fan of Hobbes !!

Cheers !! ;-oD

Syriana

2006-04-16T21:41:00.000+01:00

Finally got to watch the movie "Syriana" - I am glad that they finally released the movie in this part of the world. I had my doubts over the release of the movie here, because of the controversial nature of the movie.

The movie is insightful and makes you sit up and take notice - notice not only the movie - but also the what it is trying to potray or convey. The Oil industry, in my opinion, in this movie is just an example, probably the most pertinent one given the current situation in the world (read - the Iraq occupation). And the location of the movie in the Middle East is also just beause of the story being based on Oil. But, I think the story would have also been relevant to other industries and major lobbies - like the arms industry or maybe something similar to that.

The essential point is that major econmoies and government policies are not mostly independent of the interests of the major lobbysts and the major players in the concerned markets. Be it oil or arms or aircrafts, or steel or any other goods, natural resources. Goverments can sideline its idealist attitudes (if it any time had any) and adopt these stances to acheive the ends of the players behind the scenes.

Puppet goverments or pro-interests goverments are alawys in order to facilitate these ends. These have been very evidently illustrated by the actions of the previous USSR in Afghanista or its neighbouring states like Hungary (the old iron-curtain countries). Similarly, the US has tried its infulences in some of the Latin American countries (like the Chile, Venezuala, Cuba etc.). Ofcourse, things in many of these places have not really gone in the way the US or the USSR would have wanted it. Bloody revolutions, or in some cases, by democratic methods, these countries have cahnged themselves.

Anyway, without digressing too much from the point of the movie - the movie, I believe acheives its goal . Atleast now ppl will notice how international politics work. So, when a country says we are ''liberating - it might not be true. THere is probably a bigger end and motivation to their efforts.

Unfortunately, as sad as all this sounds - international politics have alawys functioned like this. We just live in a world where every body is human - its just pure human nature.

The internet connection !

2006-04-13T16:57:00.000+01:00

Touchwood - I think i have finally got a stable internet connection at home. Whats more its a wireless network I am accessing, so I can access it from anywhere in my place. Thats ind of cute, isisnt it ?

Who would have thought a couple of years before that wireless internet connections would be so common. Now, you can practically, just walk about with your computer and connect to the network from any plcae.... like a coffee shop or a shopping mall or a restaurant or just at home. Its wonderful the way the technology has made such significant advances in this sector. First there was the land-line phone, then came the mobile phone...which was revolutionary enough..and then it was just a matter of time before internet was available via a wireless connection!! Bravo !!

With the technology jumping ahead by leaps and bounds, its only natural that some people will feel that its too much and too fast for them. Keeping abreast with the latest technolgy is not easy..and i am not surprised if the older generation of people feel technology (even the younger guys feel it.. sometimes even I feeel it). I am just afraid, by the time I reach a venerable age, things will be so different and so advanced, that we might say "in the old days of the mp3 songs" or like "in the old days of the i-pod" - think about it....it might scare you sometimes...your kids will more smarter than you.. at 1/4th your age..your 6 year old grandson might be more tech-savvy than you are. :oD

The future is ours to wait and watch for the coming generations to define....

Music for "Inside Man"

2006-04-09T23:59:00.000+01:00

I just got back from the cinema after a show of the "Inside Man". I am not sure if I liked the movie - which is probably a better way of saying that I wasnt really very impressed by the movie. Hmmm...basically I felt quite indifferent after the movie. Now, thats not something that I like abt movies - I love movies which give you something to take out of the cinema when you leave.

Anyway, I also noticed that the starting and closing themes in the movie is the song "Chaiya Chaiya" from the movie "Dil Se" - that music was by A.R. Rehman. Now, I wonder if they took permission from Rehman when they decided to take it as the starting and closing themes for the Inside Man. I did not see any acknowledgements either. But, its possible that I might have missed that - I didnt wait for the entire scroll to roll.

But, I was dissappointed by the movie - I liked the trailers - thats the reason why I went for it in the first place...Yeah.. yeah.. thats what trailers are supposed to do. Screw it.. i think this trailer was pretty good.. it managed to get me to spend some money to watch in the cinema. Damn.. i havent fell for that in a long time now...

Damn!!!

Congrats to the Coach !!

2006-04-06T13:35:00.000+01:00

Congrats Greg !!!

I think the coach needs a good pat on the back for pushing the team and getting them to perform well. Its a team effort after-all and the coach as much as a part of it, as anybody else. And his role is such that he needs special mention.

Inspite of all his critics and the various controversies going around - i still think he is a good coach and is working on the team and is also making them work. Particularly, I think since he came in as coach, he and Dravid have a good chance to a lot of youngsters leading to very good discoveries and lots of potential good players. A good team also needs a very strong bench and constantly up-coming players.

Congrats and All the best once again !!

cheers!

India Wins the Series !!

2006-04-06T13:29:00.000+01:00

Yoohoo !!!

India just managed to wrap up the series entirely. In 7 matches, India are leading 4 matches to nil..thats a pretty good picture, dont you think? :-)

Many fans like me, will be thrilled at the turn of events and how this series has been going along. Its good for India, because India is managing to win inspite of Sachin's absence and also the lack of form from Sehwag. Till sometime back, without these two men, it would have been hardly possible for India to manage a win. Well, critics say that its also because England is a weak team in this series, because a lot of their older and experienced players are not in the one-day series. But, yet, I think its a good thing for India because new youngstars are getting a good chance to play an international side and also perform. THere have been a couple of good discoveries in this series - like Powar, and Raina's coming of age. So, India is also not playing with an "experienced" team, so to speak. So, I think its a fair fight.

Three more matches to go - lets see how they progress. Winning the series already, should take pressure off the struggling players and also gives the coach and the captain lot of choices to experiment and try out different things and give more youngsters a better shot.

Keep playing guys, and keep up the good work.

Continuing problems and no solutions

2006-04-06T13:22:00.000+01:00

My internet accessing adventure is still going on. My landlord is now making it more and more difficutlt for me. He keeps promising me that he will get everything done "tomorrow" but nothing ever has happened as yet. So, the proverbial "tomorrow" is still very far away.

In the mean while I am only getting more and more frustrated with the turn of things, because I dont feel good without an internet connection. I am out of touch with all my friends and family (atleast compared to what I would have liked ). I feel restrained in the absence of a decent internet connection.

But, its probably that habits die hard - and i have probably just got too used to the ease of having an internet connection - till now.

Still hoping for things to work out - in terms of priorities, obtaining an internet connection is top for me at the moment. I also need to plan out my future endeavours and plan out what i want to do next. I think I might go in for another degree (like an MBA or another masters in my line of career). Or maybe just change my job. I dont know how to approach this yet. Its a big problem and needs careful thinking and planning.

Another Day

2006-04-04T12:11:00.000+01:00

Another day at the office goes along.

The day started with a three hour meeting. Hopefully there will not be any more meeting for today, atleast that way, I can get some serious work done from my end. There is definetely a limit to the number of meetings you should organise, but aparently my boss doesnt believe in any such dictum. He just loves calling and attending meetings, and as far as i can see, thats pretty much all that he does.

I am feeling this more and more. I have concerns about the way he is running things all around. I think he is making too many arbitrary decisions without properly communicatng it to the concerned people. Well, thats ok with me - i mean, that should not be my problem but hte problem of the guy whose toes he is stepping on. No..no..thats not worrying me. As the team leader, he makes these decisions, but asks us to implement them. Thats when I start getting cold feet. And that too, without properly even communicating it with us, whom he expects to implement things.

Let me start at the beginning itself - so that I can clarify it to myself. I think I started loosing trust on him, when he made decisions, asked us to follow them (which we did, hardly too much to ask), but later backed off and reversed his stand when faced with pressure from others who were affected by it - saying that he had said "thing y", while we just interpreted it as "thing x" or something like that. So, he basically put the blame on us and our lack of understanding of what he expected of us. Thats not even an excuse, because if you are a team leader, then you are also accountable for the actions of the team as a whole and of its individual members, and cannot get away blaming it on "communication glitches" and "inadequecies". Thats when I could go no longer believing what he says - because he might as well just change his stance (believe me - it does not take a lot to convince him of anything and then again counter-convince him 5 minutes later!!! :D) and then blame the others for it.

So, now, its reached a stage, where the "team" idea is defeated because my peers or me dont trust him anymore. I dont trust him to back me up on something or even atleast back himself on what he decided or said. Thats the whole issue. But that hasnt stopped him from jumping the gun and romping around making changes and taking decisions which go beyond our team and has dependencies and impacts on other team and lot of other things. And then when they come back with issues, well, he just backs off.

Thus, the situation is such now that I insist on getting everything in writing from him. But I have noticed that he is very dimplomatic with this and usually writes it in very general terms and deals non-specifically.

Anyway, lets see how it goes. I frankly dont know what to do with a host of issues that are cropping up but I cant resolve because he is not ready to make a decision in writing (he is always ready wiht a tit-tat answer, but will never writes a mail communicating it).

As a simple eg: I had some issue, that was raised by a couple of people and required a decision beyond my authority and so I sent him a mail to escalate the issue, so that I could have a proper directive from him. Only that he just walked up to me some time later on and said - do this..this..this...etc..but never replied to the mail, not even when I insisted so that the others involved could be kept in the loop. He at his level can make such a decision and communicate it, but I at my level cannot!! Thats my he is my boss!

Its a strange conundrum, and me and my colleagues are intrigued by it. We all know that this is certainly an issue now, but we dont know how to solve it!

Frustrated and Fuming

2006-04-02T07:02:00.000+01:00

This place is frankly frustrating for me. I just dont like whats going on in my life right now. Nothing seems to be going or working out in a manner I would have liked to. I just cant even make a list of things I like to change in my life, because it might just include nearly everything going on at the moment.

Getting an internet connection at home is turning out to be an adventure in itself. I just dont know why its taking so long, and everytime I get to hear abt some new excuse/reason, why its difficult and time-consuming, if at all possible (only if I have the patience to persevere)

I have been putting on weight, non-stop. The food I eat is mostly crap and I am running out of options to eat. Nearly all of it is not good food anyway.

The work in my office is also getting me down. Its not any more interesting, and is becomign routine. On top of that - there is the usual complain abt having a boss who hardly himself doesnt know whats good and whats not. Most of time, he just manages to get us into additional and more useless work. Thats a common complain, I hear. I just wonder why? Is it psychological. I hope it is not!!

But the point is I am getting on the edge everyday. I am going to moody bouts where I come to the conclusion that I need some changes in my life.

Mood : Pensive and frustrated.!!

Office ****

2006-03-28T14:59:00.000+01:00

I suddenly begin to understand why Dilbert is so famous.

Four of us were sitting in a meeting room discussing something which we know was of no use, the meeting was of no consequence, yet we all persisted and dragged and managed to keep our eyes open for the entire duration! Thats an acheivement.

Probably that was the only acheivement of the meeting. Test of battling with your eye--lids to keep them from dropping for a full one hour or more while everybody was mentally asleep. All of us had a blank expression on our faces, and we all took turns to blabber enough to "participate" and to keep the meeting going !!

What crap !! What a show were we putting on there??

God Save insignificant me !!

YIPEEE !!

2006-03-28T13:39:00.000+01:00

YIPEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!

INDIA has managed to pull off a wonderful victory in their match against England. Thats an amazing way to start the One-Day series from India's point of view. Who would have thought after seeing the score at the end of the first innings??

India's batting in the morning was disappointing and left much to be desired of. At lunch, when India finally managed to drag itself to 203 - after some spirited batting from the tail-end (specially Bhajji) - I had my doubts on how defendable that total was. These are the days of higher and higher scores...we have had matches in the recent past with totals of 450+. So, a total of 203 is not even humble or decent. BUT, this was not the day for big totals or for "inspired" batting. Maybe another day, but not today - today the bowlers ruled supreme.

When the second innings started, I never thought India stood a decent chance in this match. But at the end of the day, the England score board didnt have any spare wickets and score was a value less than 170. :o-D

Cheers to India for the win !!

Back in Office

2006-03-26T07:50:00.000+01:00

Its another morning, and I am back in office. Didnt really get a lot of sleep last night. Was awake till nearly 3.00am listening to some of my favourite songs - mostly Pink Floyd and some of the oldies like "California Dreamin'" and "When you are going to San Francisco.." etc. So, woke up feeling all groggy - I hate this!! I hate waking up in the morning to the sound of an alarm. But it seems there is no other way I will wake up and make it to the office in time!!! Imagine that...

There are some days when you just feel that you could sit and home and do nothing. Is there any job in this world which gives you this sort of freedom? And also allowes and pays you to travel to exotic locations? Maybe Europe..maybe autralia, maybe thailand... hmmm.. I must really start searching for some job like this. I think I might like this sort of job! ;oD

But today is a very different day at the office..today is the first time in probably 4 months, that I have less than 100% utilisation. Usually, the work is such I get overloaded to about 150% every day. I end up working like a dog..not being able to even take a small break. The only break I get during the day is during the lunch time. Thank God for small mercies! And in the evenings, I dont gome home after finishing work - no..no.. dude..the work never gets over..the more you do, the work increases..managers just love overloading people who can work and slog. So, at some point you just call it a day and then walk-off from the office, and tahts the end of the day for you. Go home, eat, sleep, recover from the hectic on-goings at the office, catch your breath, by which time its usually time to go to sleep. And lo and behold - the whole story repeats itself all over again!!

What a mundane life!!! Pity me....

Another Sunday morning

2006-03-25T20:56:00.000Z

Its late into the night...and I still am awake. Its not yet sunday morning - well, technically its early - very early sunday morning.!!!

Somehow sleep eludes me. I feel like doing one of those all-night things - maybe watching movies or playing games. Except that I am all alone now and I am going to get bored. So, sleep will eventually win and into its sweet slumber lap shall I surrender seeking refuge from the maddness around me!!

Hehe..he..i am getting slightly poetic.. hehe...maybe its the lack of sleep ;oD

Just kidding..

Sholay

2006-03-25T17:57:00.000Z

Was just watching Sholay on television. One of the networks was playing it.

It continues to be one of my most favourite Hindi movies of all time. And to think that they managed to shoot such a movie during the 70's is something. And it launched an entire generation of movies of a similar "daku-village' nature.

Sholday is long, but it has everything in it- there is tragedy, there is more than enough drama, a good collection of songs, an amazing villain - everything in the melting pot for an amazing power punch of entertainment.

Amjad Khan is jst amazing!! I think its one of the best and a revolutionary villainous role in HIndi cinema. He was eccentric, he started the 'trade-mark' psychopathic laugh, he was just a trail-blazer!! I thin it was the best thing that ever happened to that movie. Hindi cinema would not have been the same if it was not for him.

Unfortnately, this great artist is no more among us. This is to him!!

Salud!! Cheers!!!

Lazy day

2006-03-25T15:18:00.000Z

Its been another lazy day at the office. Not realy lazy, but office is a lazy place. I have ofcouse been doing more than my share of the work. Its not abt whether I have been doing work or not. Its just the way the work is - you hardly need to move from your place and all you do whole day is just sit around and plod through some paperwork and lots of computer typing and running codes and working on different softwares.

Anyway - my point being - as I told you earlier I am putting on weight and I am trying to find ways to cut down.

Ideas are welcome !!! :D

Calvin

2006-03-24T09:58:00.000Z

We all know Calvin - the famous kid of the Calvin and Hobbes fame. Currently he makes my happiest moment every day. I get this daily calvin in my inbox, and it always comes as a break from my monotone life and its maladies. It brings out the child in me, when things were carefree, and life was much more simpler.

Calvin and Hobbes is Bill Waterson's satire on the whole world today. We are all kids at some level, no matter how much we grow up. CnH just manages to bring that part out when you read it. I like the black and white ones more than the "longer" coloured strips. Its just a personal preference.

His alter-egos and his flights of fantasy in his 'time-machines"/card-boxes, are all what we would have liked personally. Sometimes we all wish, that we could change the world as we know it and transport into a world where the rules are set by you. PLay games, where you decide the rules and you change them as per your whim. Its the ultimate power that Calvin holds in his world. He moves in and out of this world, taking his tiger along with.

Its ingenious, the idea of it all, the simplicity of a six-year old and his imaginary tiger. It simply 'rocks'!!! And I love it !!

Somethings Changed

2006-03-23T14:40:00.000Z

I dont know what has...but I do know that something has drastically changed over the last couple of months. As I told earlier, in this duration in which I have changed places and jobs. And I am now back to blogging after nearly six months. Thats a long time.

Coming back to my original point - something within me has changed slowly and gradually over the last six months. I am still trying to figure out what has. I am trying to get interested in things, which used to be of interest, only now, I seem to be struggling to just even get interested in it. It even applies to music. I am listening to same music as I was before six months, but now I dont seem to enjoy it so much or like it so much. But, I clearly remember I could derive much more satisfaction and relaxation and could "into" it, previously but now its not there - its just not there. Its such that it nearly scares me. Its almost as if, I am a strager to myself. What has changed ? I dont know...I am trying to figure out.

Is it my new job which has caused this? This new job is defintely much more hectic and pressure-full than my previous job. Its draining me out - that I can see and feel. Its so strainfull and stressfull, that I just want to sit back and eat, drink and sleep the rest of the time. I have also put on some weight - maybe I should just admit it - I have put on a LOT of weight. This whole thing is really scary. Where does this all lead me to ?

Long Time.....New Place.. New Times

2006-03-22T15:04:00.000Z

Long time..no see - as they say. It is indeed right. I have been practically absent from blogspace for quite some time now....more than a couple of months to be more precise.

A lot of things have changed since. I am in a new place now.. infact, i have been here long enough that its not that new either. I switched jobs and had to relocate due to this.

I hope that this is not a rare event and that I will manage to post more regularly from now on.

Keeping the fingers crossed!!

:)

Signing off...

Freedom at Midnight !

2005-05-04T05:45:00.000+01:00

I have been spending a lot of my time reading this book - "Is Paris Burning?" and as I approach the end of it, I am realizing that I like writings of Lappiere and Collins. This is the third book that I have from this duo. The first was "Freedom at Midnight", which I loved. That encouraged me to take up "The City of Joy" . City was Joy (CoJ was not strictly from the duo, it was by Lappiere alone) was also a wonderful book, and in fact has also been conerted into a movie. And now Paris is Burning.

I loved "Is Paris Burning" and "Freedom at Midnight" more than CoJ. The first two somehow evoke a lot of emotion, when I read them. The authors somehow manage to do that.

I still remember the part in "Freedom at Midnight" that i liked the most. There is a long acount of Mahatma Gandhi's march to Dandi to break the salt law. As millions joined in the way on this determined march to abide and unite with Mahatma Gandhi.. one cannot just be untouched by the profound intensity of feeling, of determination, and the simplicity of the idea and the overwhelming effectiveness of such a non-violent measure. The book describes this in all its emotion and passion and the reader is transported to the age, to right behind Gandhi as you watch him, an old frailing man walking determined followed by millions on foot and much, much more in spirit.

With one hand of salt picked from the sandy beach of Dandi, Mahatma Gandhi breaks the will of the British Empire in India. With that one hand of salt he also demonstrates and brings hope to the millions in India to carry their stuggle, come what may. Everybody agrees that this act of breaking the Salt Law was highly instrumental in the way the Independence movement was going to take shape and in eventually forcing the British out of India.

Sergei Bubka

2005-04-13T04:03:00.000+01:00

In my last post I had refered to Bubka and his history of bettering his own records at pole-vaulting. Hence this short post on him.

The number of times that he has improved his own record, I sometimes wonder that was a record in itself. But, the poor guy always had a bad time at the Olympics. Just won one gold at the Olympics. This is what the BBC site has to say about him: Sergei seeks glorious goodbye.
Here is another link from Wikipedia on him: Sergei Bubka

The guy set around 17 records indoors and outdoors and broke the world record about 30 times. Can you beat that ?? It was obvious - he reigned the sport like a GOD. There was no one who could even challenge him. Such was his greatness! His world record of 6.14 mts set in 1994 still stands to this day. Thats 10+ years already and at a time, when sports are getting more and more competetive and demanding, thats quite something.

How many times does someone like this dominate a sport to such an extent?

A match lost and Sergei Bubka

2005-04-12T19:10:00.000+01:00

India again lost the match yesterday to Pakistan. Its was a close match, but it always looked like Pak had the match in total control.

For the good news, Sachin finally got his long awaited century yesterday. That means another world record..he will continue to create a record with every additional century that he scores. Such is the greatness of the man. Reminds me of an old pole vaulter from Russia (or Ukrain, I am not sure. this was probably before the disintegration of the USSR). This guy, whose name I think was Sergei Bubka, had this habit of bettering his own record a lot of times. Maybe I should write a post on him sometime soon.

Pak need to be applauded for their disciplined innings at the field. The Pak scoreboard was a delight to watch.. their whole top and middle order managed to get into the 40s. No big scores, but a consistent and sincere contribution from everyone took the match away. It was certainly not a fluke victory for them.

Now, is 2-2, and that means the stakes have just gone up. Both teams cannot afford to lose a match because that would effectively mean that they then cannot win the series. Remember, this is a six-match affair. Kanpur is up next !!

Oh.. one thing: Saurav again was hauled up for a slow over rate. I dont know why that happens to the Indians so much. This time, the punishment is severe - he has been banned for 6 one dayers. Need to wait and watch if the board can show some mercy and maybe decrease the sentence? Here is a link for the article on TOI: ICC bans Ganguly for six matches

@home on the weekend

2005-04-10T05:53:00.000+01:00

Another weekend is passing by. Well, not passed yet, but ...

Yesterday was a peaceful and laid back day for me. Didn't do much. Watched the match. Disappointing performance from the Indian batting line-up. They dony seem to perform at all under pressure. Winning the match would have been very difficult any way..that huge a total is difficult to chase. But, what was sad was how the Indian batsmen crumbled so quickly under the pressure of the total. Contrast that to the Pak performance in the last matche, where they were faced with huge totals but still they gave a good fight. Thats something to note.

The plan for today? Nothing much...planning to watch a play in the evening with a couple of friends. Other than that..its an empty day.

Are they above the law?

2005-04-08T18:11:00.000+01:00

Or are they the law. In India, they usually are...but maybe not outside the country.

Just read this article on TOI:
Only Queen Not Frisked.

I'll quote our honourable Speaker from the above article.

"It is beneath my dignity. It hurts not only my personal dignity but that of the country. If a government can treat a parliamentary speaker like a security risk, I am sorry I cannot compromise my country's image and prestige."

Firstly I do not understand why is a routine security frisk a matter of dignity for our dear Speaker. The logic, kind of, fails me. Secondly, even if it is (by some wierd idea, concept or notion) is it "beneath my dignity" only for the Speaker and not for the usual and mere mortal citizens like you and me ?

And I surely hope that my country (or for that matter any countries') dignity and image DOES NOT DEPEND on whether its top official was applied the same security checks and routines that the rest of its citizens are subjected to.

After all, are these not the men, who make the laws of the country and the basis of our Constitution being "equality"? Or as the principles of Animal Farm says "All are equal, but some are more equal."

Vanity, Critisicm etc.

2005-04-07T18:28:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, at the office we had this session with our HR manager where we were to discuss the good / bad things and the shortcomings of our manager. These sessions are supposed to be feedback sessions for the manager so that he can improve and the HR manager can realise how each manager handles his team. I guess for them, its also an oppurtunity to see who are all capable of taking more responsibilities and who can take on more leadership roles. Though I also have my doubts about whether it actaully amounts to that or not. Going by the kind of people I have seen in decent leadership roles, and their way of things and abilities, I seriously doubt what I said earlier. I guess there are lots of things that also come in and can influence the flow of matters - things like political influence in the organization, sycophancy, personal favour, vintage etc. It is indeed a complicated affair.

Anyway, I digressed from the original topic. What was most interesting for me yesterday throughout this session yesterday was when the HR manager had a discussion with our manager on the talk that we had with the HR. He (our manager) then gave his opinions and his thoughts on our feedback. In case I forgot to mention, the manager is not present during the first discussion between the team and the HR manager. I guess thats to avoid personal vendetta and retribution. His thoughts after the listening to the feedback was what amused and interested me the most. I am one who believes that the real test for a person comes when he has to face critisicm from people close to him. And I would say, he failed miserably and I am sorry and sad for him. More disappointed. What I realised is that, most people really hate to listen to their critisicm and take it very personal rather than as a feedback for improvement. When asked about his earlier professional life, his answer and his listing of his acheivements also showed vanity rather than humility. He was nearly glorifying the things that he had done and saying things like "I was the best", "my work was the best", "my work beat all industry comparisons by miles". Well.. eh.. ahem. I was confused - wasnt humility the virtue.

At the end of it all, I doubt whether this whole thing helped him in any way, because he didnt seem to receive most of the things and some of it was wrongly received. I was optimistic at the beginning this could be an useful affiar, but I stand to be disproved!

After everything was over - me, and a couple of team mates were having a small discussion at the coffee table. The very manager specific chit-chat boiled down to one thing - are good managers born or are they made. I really dont know. I wish I knew, though. But I can tell you what I belive - A person's inherent attitude and outlook is a very important factor, but improvements are always possible. So maybe a bit of both with a bigger helping from the second dish.

Its Rain and Fever

2005-04-06T16:36:00.000+01:00

Its been raining since a couple of days now. It was certainly a welcome change from the earlier hot and dry times before that. The climate has certainly changed. But...But..what happened when it changed? It took me along and now I have got a really sore throat and fever since yesterday morning. How more delicate or sensitive could I get?? I am surprised and disappointed.

Anyway, partially recovered now. One good thing - because of the ill-health, I could get out of office early yesterday. That doesnt happen so often in my job. I felt good about that. Not that I did anything worthwhile, just slept it out after coming home.

Win.. Win

2005-04-05T13:40:00.001+01:00

ITS ANOTHER WIN FOR INDIA

quite an effort from the Pakis... they did manage to nearly reach 300. Had one partnership flourished, this would have been a tough one...though India might still have won. A 350+ score is too high to chase..

Cheers to the Indian Team once again !

More Joy for India.

@ Vizag !!

2005-04-05T09:30:00.000+01:00

Interesting match going on.. i am just sitting at my desk and following it on cricinfo. Got too much work to sit in front of the TV.

Fireworks from Sehwag and Dhoni today morning..

I was wondering : how many batsmen are there, who would lift the ball over the fielders for 4 twice in their first maiden 90s ?? :O Dhoni apparently can do that !

India - 356/9 in 50 overs.

357 the target for Pakis !

Whats gonna happen ?? Excited!

India Wins at Kochi !!

2005-04-04T08:50:00.000+01:00

Yipee. ...

What a match ! Total fun. Great cricket from the Indians. I havent seen the team so professional on the ground in the long time. The fielding was also very amazing.. not something that is usual for the Indian team.

Abt the batting - Sehwag and Dravid great job. The others have dissappointed me. I am more dissappointed from Kaif, Yuvraj and the gang there more than Saurav.

And yes, tendulkar can ROCK with the ball..!! 5 wickets! Ha.. ha ! The Inzy dismissal was pure thrill to wacth.

Cheers to the Indian Cricket Team!! This has been India's day and I am happy for that. The average happiness quotient would have gone through the sky today in India. After all, how many things are there, which can bring so much joy, hope and happiness to the lives of so many Indians in India and around the world ?? I cant think of many... can u ?

Even Fools have a day!!

2005-04-01T16:43:00.000+01:00

Every dog has its day.. goes the saying. But today is the day for the fools, or rahter to make fools of one and all.

:-)

Happy April Fools Day to All !

Enjoy the day....

Out of action !

2005-03-29T07:27:00.000+01:00

Have been out of action on the blogsite for some time now. Mainly due to one reason. I have been traveling around quite a bit since the last two weeks. Firstly there was this trip from the company to a place near North Kerala. Good Fun and relaxing the trip was. After that, I again took off after two days - this time headed home and spent some time with family. Also visited my sister's family.

Otherwise life is going on as usual. Nothing much developing around.. Oh..yes. I nearly forgot. I got my bonus for the year. :D

Missed gym for nearly 10 days and was also hogging like elephants during the company trip (because the food was so damn good and tasty!) and also while I was at home. Right now, I am worried that I migh thave undone a lot of the good work and sweat at the gym! Lets see..

More later....

Good-Bye time !

2005-03-12T07:57:00.000Z

One more in the series of the "farewell" kind. The friend, I referred to in the last mail as A, finally left today early morning. All of us (4 in all) went to dinner last night to a good European restaurant. It was a good time all-together and add to the fun, it started raining (when it rains, it pours!) while we were having our food. Rain ! After a long time, maybe more 4 or 5 months now. The rain, came down on a city unexpectedly and that was the best part of all. Nobody was prepared, ppl were getting drenched and roads were getting flooded.

As it was raining, the power also went out, then came back after a minute, then a transformer nearby (we could see it) blew up in a spate of fireworks and the power went out again, and this time it did not return (atleast not till the time we left the place).

Then we went to another late night joint for some ice-cream and more gossip before we went to A's house, dropped her off, bid good-bye and went home ourselves.

Saying good-bye is really weird sometimes. I was just wondering, whether I would be able to meet A again someday ? Maybe not. Thats the irony of our lives. So just bid luck and byes and we all go our way to our separate lives and pursuits.

But this post is to her - cheers to you A. !!!

All of us did enjoy your company and I will cherish all that time and fun that we had for a long time to come. After all isint that what life is all about. If it were not for your friends and family where would be sanity in life and its various pursuits ??

Once again, to Friendship and all the Good Times, A !!!
Cheerio !

Farewell !

2005-03-08T08:59:00.000Z

Just heard two of my good friends are leaving. A is moving to another city, while B is moving to another company. So, looks like its farewell time for now.

And the best part - I had heard that A is leaving, and we were planning for a farewell dinner for A, when we get an official communication saying that B is also leaving !! Whoooopsiee..

What I hate about this corporate lifestyle is amount of secrecy that is there always around you. I would not blame B for not telling the rest of us, nobody does that for some reason. Its just the way things work around here. Though I dont know about what happens in other companies and firms, a lot of things seem stupid to me. I still cant figure out the reason for this though. Why cant a firm be gracious when a person is moving out and give him a decent farewell, say that "X is moving to ZZZ firm" and a couple of good sentences about him would not do any harm. But right now, all you get to see is "X is pursuing oppurtunities outside YYY and he/she is here till so and so month end." So?? Is that a grave sin, which calls for corporal punishment ? Everyone knows that people will leave for various reasons. Sometimes its because of a personal problem, or simply greener pastures and sometimes even "its just time to move on".

Why can't it be accepted graciously? Why this cloud of secrecy ??

Million Dollar Baby

2005-03-08T03:34:00.000Z

As I promised, here is a post to the movie that took away so many of the Oscar honours this time.

Firstly, as you start watching the movie, you start realizing that this movie is certainly one that you could call "run of the mill". It is different from the very start. I was getting this feeling that either this movie will be very good or very bad. It might either elevate itself and the viewer or just crash to the floor like a piece of crystal, shattered and destroyed. Luckily it was not the second case and thus, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a good movie at hand. Ofcourse, by the time you are watching the end of the movie, you are not feeling a wee bit happy that this movie is so good, but feeling that gut-wrenching sensation in your stomach. I was left wondering if I could watch the movie once more. Maybe not, maybe only after some time. Not now certainly. Its just too sad and tragic for me to sit through it again and feel all the pain and suffering and desperation that the movie conveys.

I shall try not to include any spoilers here, so let me just stick to what I felt about the movie and not what the movie is about.

Hillary Swank - a wonderful actresses. She is not the one, I would call "HOT", but then beauty and acting ability have seldom to do anything with each other. But the entertainment industry does certainly have a lot to do with each other. One can debate which part is more important. I shall not get into that now. She has done a wonderful job in this movie, she looks so natural in the role that she plays.

Clint Eastwood - champion of earlier times, is still going strong. He is still so young at heart. How many people are coming out with the best in them at this age? I am simply just amazed at the energy of this man at this age. I wonder if I can even muster the courage to do something big and unique at my age now. Maybe not. Not only has he been active as a director, but here he is on the screen playing a wonderful character. His dialogue delivery is so unique and characteristic. What hit me most was when he walked on stage to accept his Oscar, there was hardly any difference between him then and the character he played in the movie.

This movie is just by and for these two characters. Morgan Freeman does provide some counter viewpoints in the movie and is generally a silent character, but then he is so good that his silence is more powerful.

It is a wonderful movie all together. But as I said, I don't know if I can watch a movie like that everyday. No, I can't. I prefer and love movies, which at the end of everything still leaves you with some hope. This one, didn't leave me with any.

I would like to thank..

2005-03-02T03:44:00.000Z

The Acceptance Speech Time

The wating is over, the best and the brave have been honoured. This time's Oscar awards was pretty boring in terms of presentation. Chris does not even come close to what Billy Crystal could do on stage. There was the lack of the "impromptu", and it all looked so rehearsed that it was not even a presentation, it more looked like someone playing a role.

Anyway, apart that the best ppl have been honoured and here is the list of the top awards for you:

Best Film : "Million Dollar Baby"
Best Director: Clint Eastwood for "Million Dollar Baby"
Best Actor: Jamie Foxx for "Ray"
Best Actress: HIllary Swank for "Million Dollar Baby"
Best Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman for "Million Dollar Baby"
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchet for "The Aviator"

Just take a look at that list and you know which is the movie to watch for the year! :)
Four top honours, its not everytime, even in the Oscars that something like that happens , specially when the running favourites were from "The Aviator"

Cheers to "Million Dollar Baby".

Btw, I finally got to watch "Million Dollar Baby" and "Finding Neverland" over the weekend. Shall write abt them in the future. Still waiting to watch "Ray" and "The Aviator"

And the Oscar goes to....

2005-02-28T03:39:00.000Z

Who will win the oscars this time ??

The oscars are to given out on Feb-27 evening and best of Hollywood will be there to witness it. For those who swear by the demi-gods of Hollywood, this evening is the day to watch most of them together at their best (well, mostly..) , wearing their typical plastic smiles, in their designer wear congratulating each other (thats something I like watching.. that fleeting moment when you realize the Oscar has gone to your friend and not to you and before you can put back that smile and start clapping away as though you wouldnt have it any other way - thats the moment when the guard is down and you are exposed). But I must admit, most people in the Industry are good at this 'moment', probably because they are all associated with the acting industry.

To everyone who is nominated for an Oscar tomorrow....here's to you ! Cheers !

Another weekend

2005-02-19T15:30:00.000Z

Been slightly busy this week, so couldnt get to write much.

Phew. Finally its the weekend again. Went to the gym in the morning again. Looks like i have finally managed to shed around 1.5 kgs of body weight(i hope all of that was fat) :D.

Been a dull day till now. Was feeling too lazy to do anything during the day-time. Got another hour of sleep before lunch. Went to a friends' place after that. Then came back and watched a romantic and mushy movie (after a long time), which just got over.

Got a couple of plans for tomorrow. Next week looks a little tight-scheduled, got my hands full in the job.

Right Now, just relaxing ....

V-day

2005-02-14T10:08:00.000Z

V for Valentine NOT victory.

So, its V-day today. Wishes to one and all on this occasion.

Did O ever have a valentine? Hmm.. something to think and dig around for. I think there was this one book, in which he does have a big crush on a dame who is pining for her lover (who in return is a hostage to the Romans). That didnt work for O, but it did for the lady and her lover.

See, what I mean abt Obelix in Rome? ;-)

more later.

Page 3

2005-02-08T13:04:00.000Z

Finally watched Page 3 in a theater yesterday. The whole theater was nearly empty except for maybe some 50-60 odd people who had come on a Monday night to watch a movie.

(Lesson: Ppl dont go out for movies on Mondays, because the weekend has just passed anyway.
Hypothesis and Extensions: Tuesdays should also be free days. Things will start to turn around on Wednesday, to peak on Friday before we enter the weekend again) :-D

Now abt the movie: Its good. Its more than good. Its one of those movies, which show that Bollywood is not only growing but also maturing at the same time. The movie shocks, disgusts and thrills you, all at the same time.

I wont go into the movie storyline and the plot etc., watch the movie if you are interested in knowing all that.

There is not much of a story in the movie. Its just sees the world through the eyes of a Page-3 journalist. What she experiences is very effectively shown and even felt by the audience. Its ridicules the life style of the rich and the famous and also shows the flip-side or rather the dirty underbelly of these ppl.

One characterisitic of the movie, is its emphasis on the characters in the movie. Characters are introduced and built in minimum amount of time and then illustrated so that we get a very stron feeling of whom we are looking at. There is no character confusion to the viewer of the movie. The switch of emphasis from one character to another is very fast and in spite of that very unfelt and subtle. You hardly notice that a new character has been introduced and the old one is out of the story, atleast temporarily. I havent seen many such movies, where I see this kind of thing. In this movie, this characterisitc gives the movie its fast pace and magic, gripping the audience.

Final Word: A wonderful movie. I would give it a **** on a scale of 5. Its certainly not a movie for the ones who are looking for "time-pass". This movie is anything but tp. This movie makes you think hard and see into yourself of what we are all upto in this modern life.

For a blog named Obelix in Rome, I would say that this movie shows the Rome of today!

Sunday !!

2005-02-06T14:50:00.000Z

Ah... a Sunday! Welcome break.

Nearly the end of the day now. Spent most of the time in my room, just whiling away my time. Played another round of AOE2 (The last chapter in the story of "Attila the Hun"). I think its called the "Fall of Rome", and the one before that is called "The Catulinian killing fields".

Hd lunch and then went off to sleep for an hour. Lay awake for another half an hour. Thats something that I cant do very often now and I miss it. Just lying in bed in the middle of the day without anything on your mind (which is usually difficult) is pretty relaxing.

Its evening now. A couple of friends are supposed to come over. Am waiting for them. Hmmm... waiting. Reminds me of "The Terminal" which I again watched yesterday for the second movie. A wonderful movie it is. Pure delight to watch Tom Hanks on the screen. He is just too good. He looks so comfortable playing the role of the stranded traveller. The movie has got its good share of good and light moments. Catherina also looks so simple and beautiful after a long time. A great movie. If you havent watched it, sure do...

Chow!

Gymming...

2005-02-05T04:09:00.000Z

Had recently joined the gym. Have been going continuously now for three days!! :-)

Now thats an acheivement for someone of my degree of laziness and lethargy!

Other than that its a Saturday.. so no office. A free day... nothing planned as of now. But I hope the day is good and productive in some way. I wanted to meet a couple of ppl, for some time now, lets hope that this weekend atleast it works out.

More later... as the day progresses...

Why the name ?

2005-02-04T09:52:00.000Z

is the first question that I need to answer, more to myself than to anybody else.

Because sometimes I wonder how O would feel if he ever reached the modern age, keeping his copyrighted simplicity still intact.

Come to think of it... from an O's point of view, are we not in a pretty or rather very very wierd world. But I do not intend to make this a commentory or a critique of the world as we know it today, or is it generic. Its personal in many respects, and is just an attempt as a medium of expression of my thoughts on numeric things, that are difficult to explain to somebody else or articulate. And ofcourse, it will include many things which are neither of any of the above... just random postings on anything thats worth posting.

So long for now.. Hope that I can keep posting at regular intervals.