Another sad day in Indian History

I hope there doesnt come a day in the future when you sit and wonder.. Jeez what went wrong.. and then you go back in time and see the stupid decisions made by such stupid Blood sucking, money minded, conniving theives, who call themselves Politicians that serve the people of India...
This is an excerpt of the Interview given Arjun Singh to Karan Thappar brought to my attention by one of my friend.. Thappar rocks..

Karan Thapar: Let’s approach the issue of reservations differently in that case. Reservations mean that a lesser-qualified candidate gets preference over a more qualified candidate, solely because in this case, he or she happens to be an OBC. In other words, the upper castes are being penalised for being upper caste.
Arjun Singh: Nobody is being penalised and that is a factor that we are trying to address. I think that the prime Minister will be talking to all the political parties and will be putting forward a formula, which will see that nobody is being penalised.
Karan Thapar: I want very much to talk about that formula, but before we come to talk about how you are going to address concerns, let me point one other corollary - Reservations also gives preference and favour to caste over merit. Is that acceptable in a modern society?
Arjun Singh: I don't think the perceptions of modern society fit India entirely.
Karan Thapar: You mean India is not a modern society and therefore can't claim to be treated as one?
Arjun Singh: It is emerging as a modern society, but the parameters of a modern society do not apply to large sections of the people in this country.
Karan Thapar: Let me quote to you Jawaharlal Nehru, a man whom you personally admire enormously. On the 27th of June 1961 wrote to the Chief Ministers of the day as follows: I dislike any kind of reservations. If we go in for any kind of reservations on communal and caste basis, we will swamp the bright and able people and remain second rate or third rate. The moment we encourage the second rate, we are lost. And then he adds pointedly: This way lies not only folly, but also disaster. What do you say to Jawaharlal Nehru today?
Arjun Singh: Jawaharlal Nehru was a great man in his own right and not only me, but everyone in India accept his view.
Karan Thapar: But you are just about to ignore his advice.
Arjun Singh: No. Are you aware that it was Jawaharlal Nehru who introduced the first ammendment regarding OBCs?
Karan Thapar: Yes, and I am talking about Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961, when clearly he had changed his position, he said - I dislike any kind of reservations.
Arjun Singh: I don't think one could take Panditji's position at any point of time and then overlook what he had himself initiated.
Karan Thapar: Am I then to understand that regardless of the case that is made against reservations in terms of need, regardless of the case that has been made against reservations in terms of efficacy, regardless of the case that has been made against reservations in terms of Jawaharlal Nehru, you remain committed to extending reservations to the OBCs.
Arjun Singh: I said because that is the will of Parliament. And I think that common decisions that are taken by Parliament have to be honoured.

To read the Full interview, which you must in my opinion.... CLICK HERE

Eddies in Space-Time Continuum

Eddy who?? whats he doing in Space-Time continuum?? What the hell is space- time continnum?? What the frikin hell is continnum anyways?? ahem.. ahem... Who cares...
I have been re-reading the master work HHGTG - 5 series novel by Genius Douglas Adams.. Hence the title inspired from that....
Was watching this Romantic comedy "Kate and Leopold" on TV. Now dont ask me why am I watching such Tear Jerkers or Chick flicks... and why the second post on a such kind of movies.. When you live in a place, where you dont have much of a choice to see English Programmes, you have to put up with what you get.. evening movies that incl. the 3 hours epic Titanic.. Pity me... buhu.. buhu..
Well anyways.. In the movie, a guy travels back in time , not using a time-machine unlike most of the Time travel movies, but due to the Gap in the Time Field... I thought that was pretty interesting concept for a romantic movie and got me very interested in the movie. So a guy travels back and forth between 18th and 20th century by falling off Brooklyn Bridge. Apparently, thats where there is a GAP in Time field or Domain(if you want to gt very geeky). So he can jump off that bridge in the 20th century and land on the ground in 18th century and vice-versa.
Now call it a Black hole or Worm hole or Eddies or Currents in the Space-Time Continuum as Douglas Adams likes to call it.
Isnt that prety interesting to stand in one place on Earth(itself an insignificant part of the whole universe) and then just travel back and forth in time to see how this particular location would be in different time periods?? Wouldnt it be amazing to see the history of that place and how it evolved into the present and how the future shapes it?? all this w/o needing to invent a time machine... and all this is just One-dimensional travel.. Time travel and space coordinates fixed...
What would be even more interesting is to travel in multi-dimensional Time-Space coordinates.. But I am not sure if we can comprehend how it will be... Like for instance travel from one place in the present to go to a different place in the past through several different places in-between the present and past... I would go nuts if even to imagine such a phenomenon... But wouldnt it be amazing just to "fall and fly" and then catch this train journey through the Gap in the Time Domain by falling onto the right spot and then keep traveling .... Seems like a fantasy.... Seems like you are on ecstasy.. Is it really so?? I dunno... What d'ya think?? Lemme know if there is a real time gap in the brooklyn Bridge, I can risk my life for such an experience even if its One-D Time travel.... :)
P.S: Oh.. Space-time geeks(Scientists incl.)... Pardon me, for such reckless usage of High level Geeky words like Worm Holes and Black holes and Eddies and even Space-time w/o understanding them properly... then again they are just some english words to me and I can use them how I want to, depending on my understanding of those words, which may or may not be the same as what your dictionary says... So Sc*** you if you ve got any problems with it.. :-D)

Homer Simpson - The Philosopher

Homer Simpson rocks... and so does Bart.. :)
Check out this article on BBC

I love the Simpsons....
Forever the 10 year old kid... the Kid who never grows up... the bratty bart....

and zimbly amazing Homer...
his funky hairstyle (just 2 strands of hair) and the efforts he takes to maintain it that way, his totally cool and awesome lifestyle - sitting in front of TV with a beer can and doughnuts and creating craters on the sofa bcos of his big fat ass... well..well.. If you havent watched Simpson, you aint lived your life.. well thats just a phrase which sounded nice... So dont take it too serious and argue with me on it.. Just read what BBC has to say and post some nice comments about Homer and Bart... or else "Eat my shorts"

London Trip - April, 2006

Time line: April 1st and 2nd, 2006

Took my own sweet time to write this ... Infact the previous post on Lord's Cricket ground should be associated with this post...

Another training and another weekend to spare.. where to go... when the training is in Milton Keynes, UK and an hour away from London, there wasnt much of a debate there... to London obviously...

Highlights of the trip... Saw the Aston Martin Workshop from the outside on a dull and rainy evening in Milton Keynes, Big Ben and the House of parliaments, Lord's Cricket Ground and Baker Street... if you have played the board game called "Scotland yard" you will be even more excited to follow the map and make your way through the Undergrounds and buses to get to your destination quickly in London...

To read the complete Travelog, CLICK HERE

Photos of my London trip

Photos of my guided tour to Lord's Cricket ground

Recent Late-night Anti-Bush Jokes :-o)

Did you guys hear about the Stephen Colbert's Speech at White House Correspondent's Dinner... I watched the video on the net and it was damn funny. Check that out...

"Best of all, I got to meet my main man, George W. Bush. I shook his hand -- very soft hands by the way. ... I delivered the closing speech. Needless to say the audience could not contain its excitement [showed footage of the audience looking bored]. ... Very respectful silence. The crowd practically carried me out on their shoulders. Although I wasn't actually ready to leave." --Stephen Colbert, at the White House Correspondents' dinner

On Faith-based initiatives: "When President Bush was in New Orleans, he said 'We pray there is no hurricane coming this year.' This is what we call faith-based disaster planning." --Jay Leno

"President Bush says he wants to find alternative sources of energy. He says they're looking towards solar power. In fact, he and Rumsfeld are planning an invasion of the sun." --Jay Leno

"President Bush introduced former Fox broadcaster Tony Snow as the new White House Press Secretary. See, this is the perfect example of wasteful government spending. I mean, why is the president paying someone to join his staff and tow the party line when he was doing it on Fox for free?" --Jay Leno

"At a press conference, President Bush introduced his new press secretary Tony Snow, and the president said, this is a quote, 'His job is to help explain my decisions to the American people.' Yeah, then Bush turned to Snow and said, 'Good luck, you poor bastard.'" --Conan O'Brien

"It's been announced that White House adviser Karl Rove will not be creating the day-to-day policy for the president anymore. You all know Karl Rove, he's the man they call Bush's brain. No, that's what they call him, Bush's brain. Now he's only going to be working part of the time, just like Bush's brain." --Jay Leno

and just one more... :)

"Republicans in Congress are demanding that President Bush investigate whether oil companies are now gouging consumers on these gas prices. That's a good idea, Republicans asking Republicans to investigate other Republicans. And you know who they're going to blame? The Democrats." --Jay Leno

These are just select few jokes picked from the following website which regularly updates with jokes from all the late-night comedy shows...
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bldailyfeed3.htm

Tidbits from TV

Did you guys watch CNN International's 'The End of AIDS' - Talk show by Dr. Sanja Gupta featuring Former US President Bill Clinton?? Did you notice the lady sitting behind him?? It looked to me like Hot Property - Vasundara Das from Hey Ram. As always she looked hot.. :)
Did you guys hear about the recent stunt from the Man from texas... Dubya... He and his lookalike had lots of fun in some presidential dinner at Washington. Dubya standing on the podium with his lookalike, who is poking fun at Dubya's scholastic skills in in English. What has the world come to?? Dubya is actually poking fun at himself, in front of his own crowd in Washington?? I should say, it was a bit funny.. those jokes.. Among the two, who do you think was "The Decider" :-o) there? Take a guess... Looks like Karl Rove is doing his job well... Tring to get some attention before the Mid-term elections... Something like President Clinton appearing on Jay Leno show and playing Guitar and singing a song to catch the Youth's attention when he ran for his second term... What do u make out of this?? His popularity is going to increase bcos of this stunt?? I say he has set some standards which no future president can even dare to dream of.. I mean how low can u stoop down than our own Dubya??

Paris trip - March, 2006

Bon Jour.. Mesdames et Messieurs..
I am just very lazy when it comes to new posts and this sorto post takes quite sometime to put together... Finally, I have logged my trip to paris a month back...

Timeline: March 4th week, 2006

I had a great time this week. Last time when I came to attend a training, I had very little time to explore this wonderful city. But this time around, I had plenty of time to walk around and see some of the famous monuments in Paris and just roam the streets of Paris, hop on and hop off the Metros and RER's(Fast trains) from Point A to Point B. It was just fascinating, that you can go anywhere with very little difficulty with just the help of a map. Its like a dream come true, though I really never dreamed so much of visiting Paris, dunno why and pls. dont ask me, why not. Def. Heard from friends and read in a few books, but being there and seeing it, was totally a different experience.

Veni, Vidi, Felix Sum... (rough translated as I came, I saw and I am happy).. Blame google, if this translation is wrong :-o)

Let me try to summarize my visit in Chronological order...

Read on....

Check out for more photos HERE

My Best Friend's Wedding

Well... this is not about my best friend(s) or his/her wedding. This is about the movie which goes by the same name. Again this is not a review or critic. The movie had two gorgeous women (Cameron Diaz and Julia Roberts) which basically tempted me to watch the entire movie flipping the channel between the Champions League game between Aresenal and Villareal. I started focussing more on the movie after it was clear that Arsenal were going to Win.
I thought it was pretty interesting movie. Two women going for the same man kind of story. Just in case if you havent watched it, Julia and the guy were going together in the past but then remained closest friends. Then the guy falls in love with Cameron Diaz and they both decide to get married. But Julia after a long gap suddenly finds her in a position that her best friend is being stolen away from her and she also realises that she actually loves him. So she is making desperate attempts to stop the wedding at any cost, but in the end just gives up and lives with the fact that she was just too late to realise that she actually fell in love with him.
Now comes the point of my blogging about this. I agree it was more hollywood and dramatical, but in reality do people realise that they actually love something only when they lose it/him/her the most(I know this cannot be generalized)?? Like in this case the women had the guy all ga-ga over her in the past, but she was just happy to be his friend and nothing more. In a casual conversation with a friend of mine, he was saying that women, when they date guys dont want to commit, but want to keep their options open, sort of like window shopping. Maybe there is a better guy outthere. Some I heard even handle 2 or 3 guys at the same time, by calling them friends. It was his opinion from his personal experiences perhaps. But interesting thing is, when the same woman finds the guy taken away from her, then she realises how badly she likes him and how much she wants him. There is another point of view that most Indian women always start things with guys as good friends. They somehow find this very comfortable to start with. But does this phenomenon lead to a stage that they actually become close friends and then suddenly something tells her that how can u go for a guy who is your closest friend. Ofcourse I have seen the cases where 2 very good friends have ended up being together and things have worked out too. So I am not trying to generalize, but merely trying to see what other people think about this situation.
What I am wondering is that, is it human nature which common to both men and women or is it more feminine charecteristic?? I know its kinda silly post to even talk about this. But consider this as a Tea-time or Coffee table talk over a coffee table with your friends and post your opinions or comments about the same. You could go anonymous if you want to share personal experience and dont want to be public with it. I would def. love to hear the opinions from the fairer sex on this.

My trip to Luxembourg

After so much of confusion and indecision, I finally made the decision of buying the train tickets to Brussels from Paris upon my friend's insistance. He was nice enough to offer me a ride in his car from Brussels to Luxembourg and back to Brussels, in time, so I can catch my train back to paris. After lot of considerations, what if my plane gets delayed, what if there are strikes in France (which is so common these days!) and lots of other what ifs, I booked my tickets in Thalys for the TGV train from Paris airport to Brussels.
I was quite excited to make this trip. I was traveling in a TGV and average speed of that train is about 250 kmph which is almost double the speed limit in most highways except Autobahn in Germany where there is no speedlimit . I know I sound like a small kid out of rural village saying 'oh. thats a train. I would like to go on one of those'. That was precisely my feeling back then about TGV. I realised the high speed only after we zooming past a few cars in the adjacent freeway or motorway(however u call it).
After reaching brussels, I went and parked at my Friend's colleague's place for the night. Just went out for a couple of hours in Brussels city late in the evening, but did not get enough time to see the city properly. Old and typical European buildings, Some palaces and Museums in the city center are the main attractions. It was quite amazing that they have about 3 languages spoken there and most official business is done in 2 or 3 languages (French, German and Dutch). Just had enough time to walk the streets for an hour or so and headed back.
Next day, we started early to Luxembourg. Having lost the way initially and losing some time enroute, we finally reached luxembourg. As lonely planet describes, it is a tiny country on the map with not enough space to contain the letters of its name. Considering the size, you can easily travel north to south or east to west of the country in about 2 hours time. As expected it was a very beautiful city. We took the map and started making our way through the streets, full of fellow tourists. We went to a old Fortress which consisted of 2-3 levels and long corridor which was mainly a hiding place and a bomb shelter during the WW2 from the German attack. We then walked the market place and saw the Grand palace from outside and a few old cathedrals.
We were then told that there was a beautiful old Castle in a place called 'Vianden', an hour's drive from Luxembourg city. The drive through the country side was the most fascinating part. Those Valleys and Lushgreen countryside was very picturesque. Maybe it seemed even more so, bcos I was just starving for a change from snow. However the Castle trip didn't let us down. It was a very beautiful Medieval Castle with lots of old artifacts and armours, swords etc etc. We went inside and on to the top and got a good view of the entire areas surrounding it. They also lots of Wineyards nearby that area. Thanks to my friend, we were back to Brussels intime for me to catch my train back to Paris.
Click HERE for more Photos

Home of Cricket

I assume it must be every cricketer`s dream to play for his country and to play at Lord`s Cricket Ground some day. Just for the same reason, it must be every cricket fan`s fantasy to watch his team win at Lord`s. Well I got pretty close, except that noone was playing and tt was open for Public Viewing.
Yes... I went to Lord`s Cricket Ground and..My god.. It was a great feeling to be Up Close and Personal with the Lord`s Lushgreen Outfield where many a great cricketing heroes have stamped their authority. Well this is how my trip goes...

As an ardent cricket fan I had to make a trip to the two of the great cricket grounds in London city, the Lord`s and the Kennington Oval. I couldn`t get a sneakpeak of Oval ground bcos the security wouldn't allow me inside. But I found out that they have a Guided Tour of Lord`s ground in the Off-season. Its an hour and half and it covers almost all the parts of the ground. Off I went and bought a ticket to catch a glimpse of Cricket History and enter my name in the guestbook of the Lord`s.

First we were taken to the Pavilion and into the Visiting team`s Changing room. It is the same room where the visiting team uses when they play any game against England or the Host team(if its a World cup game), however the case maybe. It was just great feeling to be in that room. There were couple of boards which carried the names of Visiting team Batsmen who scored centuries at Lord`s and Bowlers who took 5`s and 10`s. Saw some of the familiar names on that board. The room led us to the Visiting team balcony. It was a Grand view of the ground from there. Its the same balcony where Kapil`s Devils celebrated their 83` World Cup Victory and where Saurav did his Famous Strip tease and thumped his barechest after beating England to clinch the Natwest trophy in 2001. Many a great cricketing moments come to my mind right now related this same balcony.
After taking a couple of snaps, we were taken to the Museum of Lord`s where the Prudential World Cup, Famous Ashes Urn and the Recently won Ashes Crystal cup and also the Diana Memorial Cup are preserved. I also saw framed photographs of some of the great moments of Cricket like Kapil Dev's Famous 4 sixes against England to avoid follow-on, Brian Lara's Wagon Wheel when he scored Record 375, Original Scoresheet of Indian's Victory against West Indies in the World Cup '83 and several others.

Then we were taken to the side stands to get a closer look at the ground.


Later we went to the Media center end and got a closer look at the outfield from there and then we went upto the top of the Media center. There were 2 levels, one for the Journalists and other for the Commentators. It was much like the Media Center at Aggie Football stadium at Texas A&M with many small rooms for different channels(Closest I can think of in Comparison - then again not trying to compare these 2 gounds. That would be a sin). We were breifed about the Design and planning of this Odd Space ship like structure. Infact it is just an inverted Hull of a ship which was actually contsructed by a shipyard company in England. So many times we have seen the view of the ground from this center on TV, but it was a different feeling to be there to see it. Then we came down and we were shown the practise ground where players usually practise before the start of the game. Finally before we left, I signed the Guestbook, the same book where the 'Pigeon'- Glenn Mcgrath had also signed.

For More photos Click HERE

Some Tips: Nearest Undergrounds: St. John's Wood or Baker Street. I suggest Go to baker Street and take a Bus.
Timings for Guided tours: http://www.lords.org/lords-ground/tours/

March Madness ... !!! :-o)

If you are an ardent basketball fan and expected to read about NCAA basketball I am terribly sorry :-o). I just borrowed the term as it sounds cool. Anyways this March has been totally crazy for me. First I moved into my new apartment and had to settle down with all my stuff in my not so big but centrally located apartment in the City of Oslo. Needless to say, that my House is a total mess right now. I still need to do tons of work cleaning up and arranging and re-arranging stuff which I haven't gotten around to, yet.
Then comes the best part.. I had a couple of training programs to attend. Guess where?? One in Paris and One near London :) My last week to Paris was so hectic that I barely got a chance to go around the beautiful city of Paris. This time around I had lots of time and an excellent company to tour paris(You wouldnt believe if I said We had people from pretty much from each continent except Australia and that in a small group of 10 or so). I had 2 weekends and the weekdays in between. 4 days went off for training, but we still got the evenings to ourselves and the Friday off-work. So thats a lot of time to see paris.

First weekend I went to Brussels upon my friends invitation and from there he took me to
Beautiful Country/City of Luxembourg. Tiny as it may seem on a map, it was really picturesque. The city had lot of history and also the country has some of the oldest castles. We also visited one of those. I didnt have much time to go around Brussels though.

Then back in Paris, I was able to visit almost all of the main tourist attractions and enjoy the most beautiful and romantic city in leisure using the Metro trains and buses and ofcourse 'with a little help from my friends'. I will blog about each of these trips seperately with some pictures taken later.

Following week I had to attend another training program in Milton Keynes, an hour or so from London city. Very calm and nice place, it was. Come weekend, I went to London and stayed right in the dead center of city, Piccadily circus. I found out later that it is the most happening place on a saturday night in London where all night clubs and famous pubs are located. Got lucky I guess, but at a high price(Had to shell out close to 50 pounds for a room/night with shared failities and it was the cheapest I could find.. ridiculus maximus!!). Got to see many a famous places incl. the Lord's Cricket ground (which was on top of my list), 221 Baker street (which actually doesn't exist !), Former house of H.G.Wells on Baker Street, palace, Big Ben and all that. But couldnt find time to knock on 10 Downing street or to see the Famous London Tower Bridge(I feel like an ass for having missed out on this). Also did the Famous Open top London Bus tour(which I feel is very overrated and not cost effective). I felt more comfortable taking a map and using the underground to go different places. Anyways Will Blog in detail later. Never thought touring is so easy in such big cities esp. when you are single.

I am still on a floating high from the last 3 weekends. I am not sure if it was from the sheer thrill of seeing these places or just excessive French Wines and Warm English Beer from London(Asterix takes a dig at British for drinking their beer warm:-). After such a hectic touring (or should I say official touring!), I am back in Oslo in the middle of an extended never ending winter which is just not giving away to Spring. I miss the wonderful and Sunny weather from Paris and London :(. But snow is slowly melting now and thats a welcome sight for me. Spring is coming.. yee..haw.... Watch for more travelogs..

Of Commas, and Dots...

Why do we really need punctuation marks to convey our message? Most of time I am more comfortable writing without any of those commas and fullstops.. but more generous with my dots which I think is more cool than just one dot for a fullstop.. Why does the language have to be so complicated so that we lose the meaning if the commas and dots dont fall in the right places? Why do we need them at all?? For instance I ve pretty much managed so far without the dots and commas but then again I have not written anything so complicated that it will lose its meaning if I dont include these marks... I frikkin hate them... Again there is no standard way of using also.. In the US you will find that USD 4,000.00 means that it is 4 thousand dollars and Zero cents... The same amount has to be written as 4.000,00 in Europe ... Isnt that crazy?? Anyways now that you ve come this far you can put commas and dots as you wish and decipher this code .... Watch out for more Travelogs to come...

Sledging

Sledging is lot of fun. Not the sledging between players in sports, but Snow Sledging. It was a small sledge where one person can sit and go down a hill packed with snow(see pic). Last sunday was fantastisk with Bright and Sunny day and perfect for outdoor activities. Getting used to the idea of sitting on a sledge and going downhill at reasonably high speeds negating some dangerous turns and quite a lot of dangerous bumps was bit of a challenge. After couple of trips we sort of figured out how to steer the sledge in steep turns and to avoid hitting fellow sledgers.

Since it hadn't snowed for couple of weeks the course was more of hard packed snow than fresh snow. So sledge picked up speed very fast as you go down hill and those bumps were very dangerous for our Bums. We almost fell off the sledges few times, but it was total fun. Plan to do some more this weekend with lot of fresh snow and also try snowboarding.

Cosmo Kramer - The Assman

I was watching 'Seinfeld - Merv Griffin Show' yesterday night and I decided to dedicate atleast one of my blogger posts to the Legendary 'Cosmo Kramer' a.k.a Dr. Van Nostrand.

There are 2 types of people in this world, among those who regularly watch sitcoms. They are Seinfeld fans and Friends fans. If you are a die-hard Friends fan, there is still a possibility of appreciating Seinfled and become a seinfeld fan. But once you become a Seinfeld fan, you will probably never become a fan of any other sitcom. Guess its the Famous Seinfeld curse, which extends to its fans also and not just the actors.

Well, coming back to Merv Griffin Show, its just simply amazing the way Cosmo Kramer character picks up the old furnitures and Tv-show setup from the trash and creates a Virtual talk show environment in his own house and invites people(ofcourse his neighbours and friends) to participate in his fantasy. I just love this character 'Kramer' and his Kramerisms(his signature sliding in act when he enters Jerry's house is my numero uno). He is the life of the entire show. I can't even imagine Seinfeld w/o kramer(well i can extend that to every main character :-o). Such is the genius of Michael Richards who brought this character to life.
Kramer and his fantasies, his new and bizzare money generating ideas like collecting cans for recycling in Michigan state or Coffee table book and so many others just makes you think, if this character were in the real world how wierdly creative he would have been.

To sum it all up, Goerge describes Kramer's lifestyle in episode - The visa

"Kramer goes to a fantasy camp..??. His whole life is a fantasy camp. People should plunk down two-thousand dollars to live like him for a week. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating. *That's* a fantasy camp!"

Hail the genius of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, for having created Cosmo Kramer !

Love actually is all around you

Well.. that was the tagline for a stupid but funny, bollywood type romantic comedy which Sumit(my friend and ex-roomie) would call a total chick flick. And here I am writing my review for this movie in another one of my Boring posts, which completely lacks imagination and creativity. Oh.. wat the hell... I need to update my blog with something.
I was surprised to see such a heavy weight cast which incl. liam neeson, hugh grant, colin firth, emma thomson and so and so forth...
The film started out to be just yet another romantic comedy which wouldnt make sense in real life. Totally stupid at times and very loose story line with lot of loopholes and many things unexplained. But in the end, i really felt good after watching this movie. So I would say its a feel good movie. As usual High grant being the king of such Romantic english comedies takes the lead role and also that of the narrator. He always gets lucky with his dialogues in many of his movies, catchy and funny at times. But I liked Chick who plays his assistant. She was Sexy and Chubby. I especially liked Mark(Friend of married couple)'s character.

Message was very simple - No matter wat, Love is all around you. Something that is definitely needed with so much violence all around the world. Didnt mean to end in a philoshical way, but it just happened.

So if you havent watched the movie yet, I suggest its a good timepass and you wouldnt regret watching it.

Sexual Harassment in Indian Court of law

http://us.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/13guest.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

Can you beleive this? Sexual harassment right in the middle of the Court of Law. How low can the judge stoop down to? I sincerely feel sorry for this Lady lawyer. Only goes to show that Our judicial system, a corrupt system heavily influenced by Money and Politics, needs a big revamp.

Letters

Oh.. boy. doesnt it feel good to make contact with those old friends from good ol' school days... ?? ... Out of the blue I got an email from my old friend my Primary School (or do you call it middle school). I had no idea about internet until I came to College. So you can imagine how communication would be with your old pals, esp when you keep moving from one place to another and one school to another every 3 years or so. I guess we wrote couple of letters (hand written). Cant even imagine that I actually wrote a letter... Anyways got tired of that and we lost touch. and today I get an email from my good ol' friend and hence restoring that lost contact. It definitely feels good to read his email after such a long time and knowing that he is doing very well in some part of the world(well.. not that far from where I am actually).

My Go-Carting experience

for the racing fans.... yesterday i went for go-carting as part of a group activity. It was fantastic. it was bloody cold , almost 5-6 Deg C and it was raining on the track and it was night time and floodlights all over. basically vision was blurred bcos of misty, rainy and cold conditions and on top it track was bloody slippery. well def not a great way to have a first time experience on carting. We were given a pair of thin cotton gloves which didnt help much and got wet and was even more difficult to drive with. after making whole lot of spins on track bcos of slipping and hitting ppl with full speed headon.. i can feel how diff it must be out there even for the best F1 drivers... it was bit scary and fun... ofcourse carts are not at high speeds.. but was nice experience to know that YOU DONT BRAKE HEAVILY when it rains and also DONT Go at HIGH SPEED when roads are slippery... out in the cold and rain after 10 mins i really wanted to run back in.. cos my hands were just frozen and were dead meat in those conditions... but was a fun excercise... you guys should try some carting if you get a chance and opportunity .. i highly recommend.. esp for racing fans...

Oscar '06 Host - Jon Stewart

Yo ppl.. My man 'Jon Stewart' has been chosen to host this year's Academy Awards. Its going to be one heck of a show. I can already imagine myself laughing at all his jabs at the right wing conservatives and his short & quick punch at everybody in general. This guy knows how to make people laugh. If you 've watched Jon Stewart's 'Daily Show' on comedy central, you would also agree with me in saying that this is an excellent choice and for once the Academy has chosen a right person than the likes of Whoopi Goldberg. Go Stewart, go... and for those who lives outside of USA, you can watch weekly edition Daily Show on Saturday around 11PM on CNN international. Check local timings just to make sure.

Doodlemania

Google has become such a household name thesedays that almost every kid would know about Google. But they are also very creative. I love their search engine and also the main page during some important occasion or festival. They put up some nice holiday logos on that. Recently their Holiday Doodle is on for Xmas... Click on their logo and it will take you to page where they have put up everyday's logo for this Xmas season.
http://www.google.no/doodle10.html

In case you have missed previous Holiday logos.. go here for their entire collection...
http://www.google.no/intl/en/holidaylogos.html

Enjoy Googling...

Disclaimer: I am no employee of Google or a paid advertising agent for google. This is no advertisement for Google either.

Something that caught my attention

Some of these popular dialogues from movies are just very fresh in my memory, though I dont remember them word for word. So maybe you(movie buffs) guys could tell me who said this and which movie? or atleast movie... most are cult-movies, not very hard to figure out... Do not Google for answers.... well. you will anyways...

1. I don't tip because society says I gotta. I tip when somebody deserves a tip. When somebody really puts forth an effort, they deserve a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, that shit's for the birds. As far as I'm concerned, they're just doin their job.

2. Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

3. I will make him an offer he cant refuse

4. " The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you." (too easy to guess)....

5. I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy, but they're definitely dirty. But a dog's got personality. And personality goes a long way.

6. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.

7. You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world

8. Remember Sammy Jankis?

9. Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts.

The Graveyard blues

Have you, anytime, passed through a graveyard and not felt happy and felt very gloomy or afraid ? I always used to. Gloomy is still Ok as the place is supposed to be a burial spot of dead people etc. But I used to get slightly scared. I never figured out why. I am thinking probably because of the movies. In most movies we would find some horror things happening in graveyards or some murders or death happening in graveyards and some horror music in the background( Though I love the Nagesh's narration in "Kaathalika Neramillai" and the hindi equivalent played by Mahmood). It is always portrayed as a spot where bad things happen to people. I have actually never gone to a graveyard or passed through it in the night. But the very thought itself is slisha scary. I guess there is a little child in every one of us.

Glimpse of Greatness

One week in Norway and it feels alrite. Definitely very cold but can handle it as it is not very windy. Got bored of swtching channels only to see most of it is in Norwegian, me and my roomie went for a walk in Oslo City on Sunday. He is from Algeria and is a very nice guy. We talked about respective countries and cultures. Just then we passed the 'Grand Hotel' on the Karl Johan's Gate in Oslo, and we saw big entourage and heavy security waiting for someone and suddenly we realised thats where IAEA President, Mr. Mohammed El Baradei, was put up. People were waiting outside in the cold just to have a glimpse of this Year's Nobel Peace Prize winner. Just as were expecting He came out of the hotel and got in to his car and went with his security to some place. Well, Now i can write in my dairy that I caught a glimpse of a nobel peace prize winner. Closest I could ever be to Greatness...

Winter in Oslo

After so much of confusion with packing and finally realizing that I have put my passport pouch with my cargo stuff after it was packed and taken to the mover´s warehouse gave a quite a scare and esp when u have to fly out that night and u have sent the passport with movers.. But they were nice enough to unpack and get it to me in the heavy rains that drowned Chennai... These rains have become quite a menace now.. too much of water all around this year ..
anyways amidst all this, my plans were all set and finally after gettting my passport back after that scare i was focussed on packing my other stuff to carry with me. i cant ever travel light. Gues i am not a travel person.. or light travel person.. i guess i have to improve upon traveling light and leaving old baggages behind and move on w/o carrying them (pun intended)..
So after all that it was cool... slight delay with flights..chaltha hai...
reached Oslo around midnoon only to find it covered by a sheet of snow and still snowing... so naturally its very cold also... and it got dark by 4 PM (duh....).. guess thats also something i need to get used to.. very little day light during winter...
So far so good... have to report to work tomm.. and lifes going to be diff.. but miss everybody at home.... guess thats something i can put up with...

P.S: Saw the tamil movie 'sachien' on flight... i would highly recommend that movie .. watch it and curse me... dunno how such worse movies are made and actors get paid for that...

Sooper Starrr...

Though I am not a great fan of Rajni or anything.. but this was a forward I got which was damn funny...

There is a popular story saying that wherever you go, you will find atleast a Rajinikanth fan, here is an interesting new story!...Rajinikanth was bragging to Jayalalitha one day, "You know, I know everyone there is to know. Just name someone- anyone, & I know them." Tired of his boasting, Jayalalitha asked, "OK, Rajini how about Tom Cruise?" "Sure yes, Tom & I are old friends, I can prove it" Rajini said. So Rajini & Jayalalitha fly out to " />Hollywood & knock on Tom Cruise's door, & sure enough, Tom Cruise shouts "Thalaiva! Great to see you! You & your friend come right in & join me for lunch!". Although impressed, Jayalalitha is still skeptical. After they leave Cruise's house, she tells Rajini that she thinks Rajini knowing Cruise was just lucky. "No, no, just name anyone else" Rajini says. "President Bush", Jayalalitha quickly retorts. "Yes", Rajini says, "I know him, let's fly out to Washington". And off they go. At the White House, Bush spots Rajini on the tour & motions him, saying, "Rajini, what a surprise! I was just on my way to a meeting, but you & your friend come on in, let's have a cup of coffee first & catch up". Well, Jayalalitha is very shaken by now, but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds, she expresses her doubts to Rajini who again implores her to name anyone else. "The Pope", Jayalalitha replies. "Sure!" says Rajini, "My folks are from Poland & I've known the Pope a long time". So off they fly to Rome. Rajini & Jayalalitha are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Rajini says, "This will never work. I can't catch the Pope's eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me just go upstairs & I'll come out on the balcony with the Pope." And he disappears into the crowd headed toward the Vatican. Sure enough, half an hour later Rajini emerges with the Pope on the balcony. But by the time Rajini returns, he finds that Jayalalitha had a Heart Attack & is surrounded by paramedics. Working his way to Jayalalitha's side, Rajini asks her, "What happened?" Jayalalitha looks up & says, "I was doing fine until you & the Pope came out on the balcony & the man next to me said, "Who's that on the balcony with Rajini?"... regards rajni

Freedom of Speech (Kushboo Episode)

What's your take on the whole issue? I think its pretty stupid. Kushboo went out to say something which got twisted and the demented, extreme right wing extremists like Ramadoss make a big deal out of it and some male chauvinistic pigs jump on it and now shes landed up in a big legal tussle with these idiots.. Btw Whats wrong in her statement?? When Men can have Premarital affairs, Y cant women have the same??? I mean its fair enough. Ofcourse not all do it and not many will in favor of it. Each to their own. After all it was her view. Why cant they respect it, disagree and then move on? Why legal issues and non-bailable warrants etc...?? Bunch of Hypocrits.. billions of blue blistering Banacles... ten thousand thundering typhoons... Grr....
I fail to understand all this... and most of these politicians and their party people i am sure would have had hundreds of affairs in their lives and a few mistresses. Are they morally qualified enough to claim she's wrong? Most ppl who initially supported her like Suhasini and Sania Mirza etc are backing out now due to the pressures from unknown places... Their reputation at stake now... and most of all the TV clip of Kushboo crying when they issued a Subpoena and a non-bailable arrest warrant was very sad...Shows The sad state of Freedom of Speech in our country and Twisted minds of the few Hypocrits and demented souls... May God not haveth the Mercy for these and unleash terror upon them... atleast set a few dog on them...

Spidey's Spiderman

This was the Parting gift given by my Friends and Colleagues at work. Isnt that Cute?

My last day in my first job :-(

I ve got mixed feelings about this. This is my first job after I finished my Master's in the US. I was initially very reluctant to come to India to accept this offer in Bangalore but then decided to come anyways. With all that said about low salaries, work culture or the lack of it, etc. etc. in normal Indian companies, I was initially very guarded. But I felt that it was completely normal and an excellent facility and great people made me at ease. I really started liking this place and the city mainly for the weather, but for all the traffic jams and lack of infrastructure, which I dont even want to get into. Nevertheless its been a great ride for an year and half and I made some good friends, had good times, few treks and picnics and some good quizzes and great food. Plus point being, it is only 6 hours from Chennai either by bus or train. But now that I have to leave this job for a better one, i got a mixed feelings. Dont want to lose an excellent opportunity and get stuck here and at the same time I will be missing this place and people.
Just been sending Good bye mails to all the people I ve interacted here and I got this interesting quote in reply from a very good friend. Thought I should put it here...

If we meet again, we shall smile
If not, why then, this parting was indeed well made!
- Brutus to Cassius, Julius Caesar

Coincidentally I played the role of brutus in 'Julius Ceasar' Play in High school.

For those friends and coleagues, whom I leave here.. but I will always hold u in my memories. So long and hope we may meet again. Until then, Ciao.... and Good luck and best wishes...

Holiday Season or was it the Rainy season :)

Well spent holidays at home with family.. but damn those rains.. they made my life horrible. U can already imagine a Calvin looking up at the sky and shouting a few expletives.. :)
I think it was sunday morning, I was woken up in a jolt by a loud bang... for a moment i thought it was some terrorist bomb attack in chennai near my house. But it was a huge nerve racking lightning and thunder.. one followed another and spoilt my sleep. On sunday it rained so havily that there was knee deep water in front of my house and i had to literally carry my luggage on my head like a coolie and walk the waters a long distance to catch an auto and ofcourse i had to shell out more than twice the regular charge to get to the station only to find that all trains are running late atleast by 2 hours. Train which was supposed to depart at 11pm came to station around 3 and left around 4... we were late by almost 6 hours to bangalore.. thank god, i had some good company. Chennai central station looked so yucky and not a place to sit. The moment they announced the platform for the train to Bangaloore, you could see loads of people converging to the platform from all directions all in no time. It was as if there was an organized Flash Mob. Rains have completely played spoil sport damaging all good roads. I dunno when they will be set right... But they def have brought lots of water to the city. Atleast Chennai will not have water problems, or lack of water to be precise, for sometime.

Sad day for India :-(

Its a very sad day indeed. 3 Blasts rocket the nation's capital and one train derailed and so many dead after all those who have died in the recent rains in south. Nature has been unleasing it force and now those damn terrorists across the border. I sincerely wish all of them just fall dead in the next tremor in POK. Damn you guys.. If it were US of A they would be scraming for blood by now. Whats the next course of action by the PM?? Lets wait n see. Hope the rains stops soon. There has been enough damage due to water all over the world in the last one year starting with Tsunami. Hope the festive spirits are not dampened due to this. Though they may try toi create terror, lets us stand up to it and show them the middle finger... Lets continue to live our life.. Though I still feel sad for all those who have died... ok i will stop this arbit scrapping... Happy Diwali again folks and take a minute to mourn all those who have died...

Happy Diwali

Amidst all the waiting time for the wait listed train ticket to get confirmed and scramble to buy a comfirmed bus ticket, finally i had to part with 460 bucks to get a A/C bus ticket finally. Theres so much of rush to get tickets to Chennai and now all chennai bound trains are getting cancelled left right and center. Thank god I got a bus ticket.
So much for the Diwali season and for the hacov wrought in by the monsoon rains. Its going to a Rainy Diwali. But atleast I will get to eat mom made sweets and namkeens and good festival day food on the Diwali eve and Diwali itself. Yummy....
So guys n gals.... Happy Diwali to one and all... Nalla enjoy maadi.. Khoob sweets khao... maze karo... Bring some light into your lives this time... I am still looking for a good source of light for my life... ;-o) Hope I dont find a toally fused tubelight. haha.. Bad PJ.. with that all I have to say is Happy festive season and happy shopping.. I ve already blew more than 10 grand so far on shopping on different sales..

Something I read about Success

This has already got a bit serious tone to it. So if you are in a jovial mood, you may still want to read it becos the person I am going to quote is none other than Daily Show host "Jon Stewart".
My friend, Sumit, brought my attention to this link. This is the commencement speech given by Jon Stewart in his Alma Mater. Very funny and very sensible too... In between all the jokes and the sarcastic quips he did mention something about success which totally floored me. This guy is great.... it goes something like this....

"College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don’t worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency.
Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may"

If you want the complete transcript of his hillarious commencement speech please go to
http://www.wm.edu/news/index.php?id=3650

and if you want to listen to the audio...
http://www.wm.edu/news/av/jonstewart_audio.wvx for Windows media Player and
http://www.wm.edu/news/av/jonstewart_audio.rm for Real Player

P.S: Thanks Sumit for sending me this link. I thought it was a wonderful one to listen to.

Its Holiday time

Just the time I have been waiting for. Go home chill out, eat n sleep peacefully. haha....
that just goes to show that i ve absolutely nothing interesting to write about except for some office jokes like dilbert or relate dilbert to things happ in my office. But since i dont want to talk about work in blogs, i will refrain from doing so. So that leaves me prety much nothing to write about. Just when i think i have something to write, i dont have access to my comp and when i sit in front of the computer, i dont remember what material i had. some of my freinds from work are planning a trip to Ooty without any solid plan. So i hope it works out ok for them. they have just packed their bags and come to work today. They will leave from work to bus station or train station and see what options they have. Thats a pretty bold thing to do. Just get there somehow and work out your options later. There would be a nice dussera festival procession in Mysore.

My whiteboard is cluttered with phone numbers and my mind is wandering around and my fingers are just typing something that makes sense to nobody including me. Guess this is what they call Iirelevant conversation if I were to talk to somebody, assuming ofcourse there is someone who would lend their ears to all the crap i would say.
The weather outside is so beautiful and tempting and i dunno what i am doing inside my cubicle. That reminds me of a dilbert jokes about cubicles at work place, personal furniotures such as Chairs and office stationaries. Want to watch Pink Panther and New Harry Potter movie.

Ok thats enough crap for the day... those who read, dont curse me. I didnt ask you read this far. Life is all about choices. You had a choice and you chose to read this. So Curse yourself.

More to follow.... Matrix Exploded....

Life in Bangalore

Havent seen a single movie in a long time. There is no good video rental shop near my house and besides by the time i get back home its pretty late to sit and watch a movie. I leave home by 8 sometimes and reach back home only around 10. almost 3 hours gone in commuting trying to cope with all the traffic in bangalore. some 8-10 hours gone in office, leaving very little time for oneself. I wonder what is the quality of life in such cases. Even if you plan to leave early say 6 PM invariably you are struck in traffic and reach home only around 730 - 8. some how life just goes on and nobody really gives too much thought to all this. I really dunno how married people cope with this esp with lot more responsibilities at work for their position and more responsibilities at home too... Its almost as if there is no life. Thank god, most companies work only 5 days a week. Otherwise life would just be hell. I know always keep complianing, but atleast some will agree that living in a place such as bangalore, life on weekdays is almost non-existant.

Rains in Chennai :)

Surprise Surprise.. It is raining in Chennai... This place really needs some rains and water. So finally Gods have answered to my calls... while its raining i can write about my weekend trip to Oslo... :)
Well... Dont ask how i went why i went.. i would like to akip all that.. maybe some other day... but i went to Oslo for a personal trip or more for a future, i would say....
it was a lovely place to be in.. had sat evening and sunday to roam around and explore the place. Its not very difficult for a new person to find his way through. I asked the Hotel people about the places to visit and they handed me a map and explianed where i could go and how i could get there... the city is so well connected with buses, trams and subway trains... buy one pass and thats enough to take you by any means of transportation. i walked on the streets of oslo to get a good feel of the city. Oslo ppl like to dress up well. They dont mind spending a lot of their clothers esp for branded stuff. There are tons of cafes/bar/restraunt all over the city. You can walk into ay restraunt and u can find a mini bar there and get a drink. People party a lot and party till late night. All in all it was a wonderful city. I also visited couple of museums to get a feel of the culture, some norwegian expdeitions etc. Lots of visitors still pouring in Oslo even though summer is officially over. But i really liked the place. wanna see some of pics click here http://photos.yahoo.com/jsprasanna Look up Oslo folder.

Long due

Its been a long due posting. But I still dont have enough time or material enough for a good post. So Keep refreshing this page on your computer every now and then and keep looking at it intently and something will appear in the near future. Thanks for your patience and have a good day.

New Trailer is out!

'Harry potter and goblet of fire' new theatrical trailer is out. Watch it on Yahoo Movies or ifilm.com. Personally I would recommend ifilm.com cos it has lots of nice clips, like Jon stewart in CROSSFIRE firing paula begala and his co-host and many more. Cant wait till November to watch Harry Potter. Sounds very kiddish when u say I am a harry potter fa, but then its really a griping story full of action. wathehell i dont care what ppl say... Harry potter is a very good read and movies are ok..def not bad...

Hail England

Congratulations to English cricket team for their fantastic Ashes victory. Aussies didnt look like themselves. Somthing wrong with them. Its their bowlers who have always lifted them and won their matches and so this time too. Mcgrath didnt play 2 matches and both were won by england. Warnie is getting only better with age. But find of the series is Pieterson. and ofcourse Freddie has shown why he is great. Lets see what the aussie selecters come up with now... Will hayden, martyn and katich be shown the door? End of dizzie and kasper??

Finished Half Blood Prince..Hurray!

Its so hard to keep it down that i finished the whole book on monday... was just very thrilling. now i cant wait for the thrid book. Hope JKR comes up with it soon enuf. So many questions on my mind.. and so many predictions... who is RAB and if that is Regulus, what did regulus do with Horcrux he stole... what will snape do now from now after having killed dumbledore. my guess is snape is a good fella.. but doesnt want other deatheaters to know he is good. He will eventually help harry kill voldemort.. but what will the ministry think of snap now.. by killing dumble he has angered all the good wizarding community. How will he regain back that trust? How will dumble be able to help harry.. somehow he has to come and help harry now.. either he must have stored all info he has in some penseive or some book like voldemort.. w/o dumble i dont see harry even killing lowlevel deatheater...

Half way thro the Half-Blood Prince

What a gripping story it has been so far. I am almost halfway and I cant keep the book down. But I feel that maybe I should refresh Book-5 a little bit for the perfect continuity.

The Grand Finale!

The Ashes final test has already started and I am so excited. What a series this has turned out to be ! I wouldnt want to watch the boring India and Zimbabwe tests after this. I am sure Indians will get beaten and roughed up pretty badly. I am sure both teams are going to fire on all guns and it would be a thrilling encounter. McGrath and Lee firing on all guns and warnie bamboozling with his legbeaks, flippers and rippers and Flintoff carrying the entire England team on his young shoulders.... what a way to end the series... If Aussies win, they retain the Ashes and if England draws its enough for them to claim back the glory which they lost after 1987. I really dont care who wins this series, bcos if England wins its very difficult to stop the meadia gloating about it for years to come and if Aussies win, it would be very sad to see the English Cricketers lose it after a very tough fight. The closest anyone has ever come to derail the Aussie juggernaut... So ppl comment and let me know whom u will be supporting... for the moment I am all for a great cricket.... be it Fredie, or warnie or the gritty lee...

Hail Ganesha !

Since it came int he middle of the week, I had to visit my sister and her family for the awesome food they had cooked instead of going home to chennai. I was so stuffed that I felt like ganesha for a few seconds there. ahem..ahem.. anyways good food.. great sleep.. wat a way to spend a holiday..

Dil Chahta Hai

I dunno Y , but I am totally stuck on this movie's soundtrack today. I heard 'Tanhayee' yesterday and got reminded of this movie. I think it was an awesome movie and well made one. It has the fun elements, emotions and the whole lot. All 3 characters were dealt with very nicely. My favourite songs are 'Tanhayee' and 'Kaise hai ruth ke'. Both these songs were very situational and capture the emotions and feelings of the actors. Very nice meanings to it too. You can relate to it if you are either in love(kaise hai) and if you are in love and it doesnt work out(tanhayee). Especially I like the Tanhayee song. Aamir Khan's character is such a fun loving until before this song when he realizes that he is in love and he is not able to tell her and now she has left her. Sonu Nigam has sung it so well and its really a moving song. Aptly Aamir's character just breaks down at the end of the song which gives that extra depth to that song. 'Kaise Hai' is such a melodious and feel good song. You can listen to it anytime and it will make your day. Other songs are mostly timepass songs with the exception of 'Woh Ladki hai Kahan' which had such a hilarrious video in the retro style.

Another nail biting finish

Its all happening here in England. What a thriller this Ashes summer has been for the Cricket fans!. Another flamboyant century from the Big man Freddie and wonderful reverse Swings from Simon Jones and Fighty gritty knock and Final burst from Brett Lee and Leg Break magic from the Sultan of Spin, himself, the one and only Warnie-the blondie! With a target of 129 to chase, England really started to struggle once warne was introduced and Brett lee unleashed Hell on england by removing the funky hair-do - Kevin Pieterson and Freddie Flintoff. Somehow Giles and Hoggard England through some really tough times. It was a great to see somebody challenging the Mighty Aussies and never give-up attitude of the ozzies. The OZ tail has played really well thro out the series with shane going very close to a century. Undoubtedly the closest test series in a longtime between two top quality teams.
And in the other Hemisphere, we see the exact opposite. the worst display of cricket by an international team- India. Whatever happened to the magic of Team India and the famous 'Huddle'. First the Kiwis almost made a world record by scoring 397 in 44 overs and next day we see Indians getting out cheaply for 48-8. Cant handle a different Shane. Bond, Shan Bond as he would like to introduce himself, he removed the Indian top order so cheaply that they can all retire. Whats with the captain Saurav. So many years in International arena and he still cant handle short pitch balls aimed at mid-riff. Whatever happened to the Wall. I really sympathize with Greg Chappel.

Finally I moved into my new apartment

After 2 months of payingf rent and not occupying, i stayed in my house yesterday among all the rubbish and some new construction work going on to remodify the house. so much of dirt piled up over the days that it took me a long time to clean up the place. Lots of arraning to do still and its going to take a long time.

Two Weddings and lot of fun :o)

Took a long break from work and attended couple of my cousin's weddings. Lot of fun after a long time with all the relatives whom you havent met for a long time. But it has its cons too. Everybody starts asking Whens your turn? Why would ppl do that... Why cant they just say hi then talk about nice things and just push off. Anyways it was fun nevertheless. Lots of nice food to eat and good sweets. Those idlis, masala dosas , mouth watering ladoos and badam halwas... It was great. and some dance too. In one of the weddings, we did dandia dance too... it was lot of fun and it was a slighlty new concept in our family weddings and esp in chennai. Weddings in chennai are usually not so much of fun. But this time it was. Music, dance and all that... A nice break after a long time. Total refresher.

Landmark Quiz

Come 15th August, there is a big open Quizzzing event in Chennai conducted by Landmark Book store. Its an amazing event with high quality of quizzing. This is the first time I am attending in Chennai and it was fantastic. A couple of college buds and I tooks the prelims and did decently or so we thought. But the usual suspects made it to the finals. The finals was done by the famous Bounvita Quiz master Derek-O-Brian. He was pretty ok this time around compared to last year when we saw him in the CRY quiz at Bagalore. Less theatrics and more of serious quizzing. But on the whole it was total fun. 5 more points and we probly had a shot at the finals. Maybe next time we will make it. Watch out Landmark Quiz in Bangalore on Nov1st. I know I will be there.

Happy Independence day

Happy Independence day folks !!!

Everybody says F*** OFF Mate, but POMs say Flint OFF Mate

That was the caption on a card which an English Cricket Fan was holding in the Second Ashes Test between the Ozzies and POMs. Man, what a thriller it turned out to be!! Warnie tried to googly the English by a sizzling 45 in the second innings and Brett Lee's stoic 46 amidst all the blows he received from Flintoff, but all in vain as they lost the test by just 2 runs. In the end England FL*** OFF'ed the Fighting aussies. Warne;s 10 wickets and Brett's crucial 4 in the 2nd innings and solid 46 didnt help them much. Only australia could have fought back from the position they were in. 182/8 and 100 more to win, anybody would have written off the batting team with tail enders to come. But the 'never say die' attitude of aussies almost won them the game, but for the brilliant catch by Geraint Jones, the Wicket Keeper to dismiss Kasper.
Day-3 was meant to be Flintoff's day out. Whatever he touched turned out to be gold. He hit 4 towering sixes, 2 of Brett Lee and 2 of Kasper. One of Brett Lee went on top of the roof near the camera man. It was just fun to watch him hit the ball effortlessly. The raw power of flintoff gave them enough hope both in the 1st and 2nd innings and he also took 3 crucial wickets all at crucial times and also took the most important catch of Gilcrist who could have changed the game. All in all, it was Flintoff's test match. If England go on to win the Ashes, No doubt it will be tagged Flintoff's Ashes somewat like Botham's Ashes. Afterall Flintoff is England's new Botham.
Moral of the Story: Next time you meet an aussie, its enough to say FLINT OFF MATE to offend him.

How to choose the Correct shoes?

Over the past 2 years I have to come to realize the importance of correct footwear to suit the purpose. I used to have a slightly loose tennis shoe, used it for running and thought it is too loose and not serving the purpose. So I went for one size lesser and ended up with toe pains. That is becasue I was using tennis shoes for running and running shoes for cros-training. So to practise for long distance running, I bought a Reebok Premier Road Plus shoe, which is a piece of art. This shoe provides the right amount of cushioning and great balance while running. Then I realized the importance of footwear match. Its so important for comfort and to avoid injuries. I have this problem of twisting my ankles even while walking. Call it lack of balance in life or walking on wrong foot. But now-a-days shoes come with a transition bridge beteen heel and center foot. This also prevents your shoe from twisting. This helps you to acheive balance.

Choose the right tool for your battle.

Check out these links for choosing the correct shoes.
http://www.athletesfoot.com.au/documents/Howtochoosebrochures/HTC%20Tennis.pdf
http://www.epinions.com/content_1068933252
http://www.footcaredirect.com/shoes.html

From my previous blogs you can clearly see that I am so fond of shoes. The other day I was talking to my friend about my goals in life. I jokingly mentioned that my goal in life is not to think beyond this week, to buy my next pair of shoes, next pair of Shirt and Trouser and next few meals. Ofcourse it was just a joke and I hope my friend didn't that seriously. But looking at the amount of research being done in coming up wth new models of shoes, it is really tempting to buy them just for the foot comfort it provides. I pity those pre-historic guys who walked on barefoot to hunt. That reminds of 'George of the Jungle' movie, where Brendon fraser, after his trip from the Big Apple, gets a new pair of Nike Air and flies like Air Jordan.
I wouldnt mind if the shoe companies give me a free pair for all the advertising that I have done for them in my blogs.
BTW I am still waiting for donations to Shoe relief fund to buy a "Adidas One-Intelligent shoe". Hurry up people!

Intelligent Shoes

Check out these babies!!!
http://www.adidas.com/campaigns/adidas_1/content/index.asp?strCountry_adidascom=in&strBrand_adidascom=performance
with your headphones on.
This is Frikkin' awesome. If somebody wants to gift these to me, that would be great. (Btw my Shoe size is American 9 and UK 81/2)
Seriously, Impossible is nothing. Its like stretching your imagination. Its pretty cool.
When you can spend 11K on a small mobile instrument, why not on shoes?? You dont even have to remove them except while changing the socks, Otherwise it would turn out pretty nasty.
I will soon start a Sriram Shoe Relief fund. Then I would post the link. Please donate generously towards the fund so that I can buy these dream pair :-o)
Speaking of shoes, my god!! these companies price the shoes at ridiculous amounts here in the outlets. The shoes which sell for 50 USD on Reebok Website is being sold at Rs. 5000(roughly 120USD) and shoes which sell at 70 USD are being sold at 8K and 9K Rs. This is atrocious. Is it just bangalore or all over India?. Somebody, please do something. They are selling at double the price you can buy it in the US and making hello lot money. Down with these companies in India. They are ripping off the people here.

So long and back again !!!

Two football matches, sudden change in weather and some rains were all that was needed to give me Cold, Fever and Sorethroat for the past week or so. I was a makde shift goalie in last match I played and shouted so much from the back that my throat was badly affected. Some anti-biotics and bunking 2 days of work just to sleep at home was the cure. Damn, I didnt check my email for 4 long days. That was like 4 days in Hell not to be in touch with the world. Now I know I can live w/o a mobile but not w/o internet connection. 3 Cheers to WWW.
Heavy rains in Bombay, One Oil drilling platform down in Bombay High and with that went 38% of Oil supplies for India for 1 year until a new one comes up and another 15 ,000 Crores of rupees(roughly some gazillion dollars) to Re-build a new one and bomb blasts all over London and Egypt and some Lathi charges in Gurgoan. What is the world coming to?? One more Samaritan crying out for goodness.
I think there should be samaritan law (like the Seinfeld episode) implemented everywhere. People who are the scene of the crime and dont help should be jailed. Maybe this will reduce some crimes.
Aandava ellarayum nalla padiya vaipa... Enna mattum konjam nallave gavanichiko.. :-o)

5-0 and badly beaten!

Enter the Soccer tournament, and I see so many companies field their best teams with great amount of practice and here we go with 3-4 days of practice and completely match unfit to take on a very good team which had good soccer sense and passing skills. Not surprisingly we were beaten 5-0. Though i was just standing in the lines cheering for my team for most of the playing time, it was great fun just to be there. I got to play approx 1 min of playing time towards the end of both halves. We got one more match today and I am already looking forward to it. It was great to play on grass again after a very long time.

How do you add smileys or emoticon in blog postings?

Please comment and let me know

Top Question of this Week

"How does one know when you have run out of Invisible ink?" (Source: Invisible as per request)
All creative and innovative answers are most welcome. I cannot promise any patent or IP rights :-p)
When you solve this, the source will become visible to you :-o)

PotterMania to SoccerMania

The title says it all. Yes.. I have started playing soccer again. There is an inter-corporate soccer 5-a-side tournament going to happen in 2 days and I am nowhere close to match fit. In fact most of my team mates are also in same condition. But some are experienced footers and athletes from school and college. So they will manage. Though I will be on the bench, if not a water boy, I am very enthu about going back to soccer field. I always used to feel great pain in my toes after soccer. Now I figured out that I was using Soccer boots, one size smaller. Somehow I have to manage this time and buy a new pair later. Boy...it feels great to be kicking the ball high and up and running and passing it. Reminds of KINE Soccer class I took at TAMU and the soccer games we used to play in summer with Desi boys and some other guys at Rock praire, CLL.
Sad part is that one of our soccer buddies, met with a horrible accident in College Station and another guy who was in the same car passed away. He was also a good friend. Condolences to his family and I hope my soccer buddy recovers soon enough to play soccer again in College Station.

New Mobile T630

Electronic Cousin of T610, not Cosmetically though. I think 610 is more cute and sexy than 630. T610 had the awesome curves and looks that anybody would want. 630 is same on the features side and so-so on the looks. No complaints though. and this time I have insured it. So much for a small piece of electronic device which makes or breaks lives and relationships. So much packed in this small instrument that literally you can spend one whole say with it and not feel bored at all. All the new gadgets have Mp3 players, FM Radio, Internet and also tons of games and MMS. Wat more do u need from a mobile phone and some occasional calls too.

Manic Monday

It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my funday
My I don't have to runday
It's just another manic Monday
-- Bangles

Thats sums my mood for the day. What a beautiful day outside. Nice weather and so inviting to sleep all day. And here I am sitting in my cubicle in front of my comp. Lifes like that.

Still no concrete evidence in Rove case and I am just waiting to see the Google News flash up saying Rove is Guilty. I also wish it says Bush and all his aids are guilty of the Iraq War. Well.. I am not hoping for too much though. London bombing and 4 people captured, watever happened to those who attached the Ayodhya and many more who keep attacking J&K everyday or every nook and corner of the developing world. Well.. Nobody cares for those who cant make the news or who dont have money.
Been reading lot of books lately. Jack's autobiography and his 'Winning'. Pretty inspiring stuff really. Yet to get my hands on Harry Potter and Half blood prince.

Rove on the Rover to Moon!!!

Haha.. Catchy title eh!
Karl Rove... I am missing Jon Stewart's jokes on all the Rove investigation going on in DC. I hate Rove for the main reason that he was the architect of the Bush's election campaigns and mainly the Re-election in 2004. Now that there is so much of information coming out of the box everyday and more evidences emering to prove that he may have been behind the CIA leak. I would like to see the Dems get back at him. They are already calling for Bush to remove Rove from White House. I hope he goes to Jail, not because I have anything against him, but it will be a defeat for the Bush team. I also hope Karl Rove spills the beans about Bush team's real intentions on going for the Iraq war, which is very unlikely to happen. He may probly be removed from his office and given a nice Retirement in Some Villa on the beaches of Jamaica or Virgin Islands or maybe in the Posh Colonies on the MOON with a Land ROVER to explore the landscap of the Moon.

PotterMania(c)

Potter.. Potter..Potter...
I dont have a kid brother or Kid sister or else I would have heard only Potter..Potter everywhere. A great fan of Potter myself or should I say a great fan of JKR. I am also eagerly waiting for the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I havent reserved a copy myself so far. I will wait for som more time. Last time around I caught hold of a 'pdf' which was doing rounds on the net just after the release of the book. Can u imagine I read the 700 odd page book on the comp putting 2 nightouts. Damn... I was so jobless. This time I will wait for paperback to hit the streets and I will buy at a cheaper price than the hardbound copy. So who is dying in this volume 6? Could it be Dumbledore?

Sarkar - Ek Soch

Watched it yesterday on my Comp. Would still like to see it in Big screen. Amitabh has done full justice to his role. Somehow I felt some discontinuity or lack of smoothness in the flow of the script. Good that they didnt try to fit in songs just for the heck of it. But would rate 'Nayagan' far better in this category of Don movies ripped off from 'God Father'. Cant obviously compare either Kamal or Amitabh to the legendary Marlon brando as the DON. Good Movie nevertheless. Lots of movies to be watched in my list.

Word Origins

I was just wondering what if Sandwich were Sandwitch and what would have been the origin to it? Then i realized that I did not know the origin to Sandwich itself. My Frnd and I googld and my frnd stumbled upon this good site. So here you go
http://www.brownielocks.com/wordorigins.html (courtesy Deepti)

Its got some real good word and phrase origins. Good site for more Trivia. Idle mind does wonderful things such as these. I am still looking at a good model to buy. I narrowed my options to 2 models. K700i of Sony ericsson (advanced T610) and Moto V3 RAZR (pencil thin Moto). Now please do let me know if you have heard about any negative points on any of these. I am reading all reviews online. But if you have any info please pass it along.

Ra Ra Ra.... Raa... Raa ...Raa....

Ra Ra Ra.... Raa... Raa ...Raa.... Raa ...Raa... Raa... Ra Ra... Ra Ra Ra.... Raa Raa Raa.... Raa Raa Raa Raa...
Fortune Fame
Mirror Vain
Gone Insane
but the Memory Remains!

Ash to Ash
Dust to Dust
but the Memory Remains!!!

-- Hail Metallica.. You Rock....

Question of the Day ???

My friend recently asked me this question
"Observation: while going on train or for that matter a bus or a car, if I sit on a window or stand at a door, I always feel air rushing in. I hope u all feel the same. If not, please ignore the rest of the mail.
Question: if so much of air is entering the system from all possible openings, how is it going out? otherwise we may someday see a phenomen of train burst, if we dont find an answer."

Please let me know if anybody knows the answer and I will pass it on to my Curious friend.
He is planning to collect Question of the week. If he does and if its intersting I will pu it up here.

Time for a new Post

Still havent bought a mobile! What am I waiting for... But I do find it convinient w/o it. I dont have to bother to call anybody and for all those who constantly tell me 'You havent called me in a long time. You have forgotten us etc etc" .. one simple excuse... I lost my mobile.. Let us se how long this goes until I finally have to buy a new one. The problem is I cant settle for any mobile which has lesser features than T610 and obviously that mean more money.
Been very busy at office in the past week with some project presentation and hence no recent posts. That should answer ever curious Sathyusus comments on Why I dont post very often?
So Whats new in life? I had a small House warming/Get together in my newly rented 1 BHK. So much for a rented house was my answer to all the pestering from my parents, my aunt and family. All thats well, ends well. All my family members seemed to like the place. Its in 2nd floor right in front of a park and right next to it is 3 empty plots. So I get all the breeze and an excellent view from the terrace. But except for the noise from the cieling fan, which I hope to fix soon, everything else is Ok with the house.

Adios! Amigos!

Protocol to be followed when you lose a Mobile

When you lose something thats worth a lot then it hits you that you never had precautions to prevent it or retreive it. So the first thing Y'all do is to find out what your IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number. There are different ways.
1. It should be written on your receipt or box that comes with mobile
2. Punch ' *#06# ' and then IMEI number will pop up on your screen. This code maybe different for different service providers. So if this doesnt work for you then find out your code to get the IMEI number from your sevice provider. This will come in handy

To block your SIM or your number from misused you need to file a poilice complaint and submit the complaint form to the service provider so he can block your SIM and give you the same number when you get a new SIM. I think this is cool. Even if you ve lost contacts in your phone book others can contact you. Ofcourse there are Pros and Cons :-o). But then again you ve got to shell out some money as Bakshish to the police guy to get the copy of your complaint. Aint that sucks.. you lose an expensive mobile and your SIM and then you shell out more money to block it.

Another thing I did was to write down all the Credit card info(number, exp date and contact number) and DL number in a safe place in case of emergency.

Mobile Philosophy!

Obviously it can't be Mobile Philosophy bcos Philosophy aint mobile! So it has to be Philosophy about Mobiles :-p). The term mobile here doesnt refer to the adjective 'mobile' which according to dictionary means 'capable of moving or being moved'. It refers to the Mobile Cellular instrument which is being used by the humans for communication. Ofcourse even the animals like dogs use it thinking its a bone and they can chew. In those cases the instrument more or less ends up in a dustbin. Well coming to the core pholosophy here... Can one live w/o mobiles? The relationship between a human (man, in this case) and a mobile is very special. Whenever u feel like talking, writing, reading u use the mobile. People also use it to store numbers and in some cases use it as calender and also to keep their accounts in their daily lives. Some even use it as watch for wake up alarms. In those cases its more or less shutoff immed or thrown away at the instant of the alarm sound. So when mobile becomes a core part of your daily life, how can you live w/o one?

How to cope up with the loss of your mobile?

Losing a mobile is like breaking up with your girlfriend or ending a relationship. It could be very painful. Your whole world suddenly looks dark, not that it was any bright before. You ve lost all the contacts you had(as if you ever had any contact with the human life out there), bcos they were through your mobile and you have not stored the contacts elsewhere. All accounts back to zero and Nobody owes anybody anything. Its something like somebody messed up with all your bank accounts(did u ever have a positive bank account??). Losing a mobile means, you ve got to wear a watch all the time. No more 'blackberry thumb' or in this case 'ericsson fingers'. Its like you are at the bottom of the deathvalley. So you ve got to get a new one to carry on your already non-exitant life and to improve your defunct lifestyle. But choosing a new one is a very difficult choice. There are so many Models out there. You ve got to make a good choice. The choice you make can make or break your life. How will you know you ve made the right choice? You must feel the vibes to choose 'the one'. You always make this choice in the hope that you dont lose this one as well. At the sametime you ve got to move on in your life. Cant think about your old mobile, however good it was and compare the new one with the old one. But this time you take all the precautions so that you end this relationship also. But aint the First time, always the Sweetest??
Ok.. this is by far the cheapest and lowest I can ever get in terms of PJs, but isnt it a good way of attracting your comments?? So please do comment and let me know of the available choices I have out there. Its like setting up your friend on a blind date with someone you know :-o).

Obituary for my T610

Its a sad day in my life :-( . I lost my Cute Sony Ericsson T610 mobile. That baby was very sleek and cute. I will miss it. I am still wondering how it went missing. I got out from home to catch my office bus. I realised that I was bit late to walk to my usual bus stop to catch it. So i took a city bus to my regular office busstop to catch the office bus. Somewhere along the way, either I must have put my hand in pocket and my mobile must have fallen down and didnt realise it or somebody must have flicked it in the bus. The painful part is I had stored my niece's photos in it and all my phone numbers. So for those who read this blog, please email me your phone number either to my office email or my personal email. Its sad but I ve got to move on in my life w/o my cute T610. Its amazing how we get stuck to such petty materialistic things in life. And life w/o a mobile is very difficult these days :-o)

Parineeta - The Married Woman

Kaash eisa title hota!!! then it would have definitely sucked big time. This new hindi movie is a must watch. Its got all the Devdas like settings, but only far better in every aspect including the key factor called 'acting'. If Madhuri was the saving grace in Devdas, then new actress Miss. Balan has done an excellent job in this movie. Its a very well made movie from the start to finish and should be watched in a big screen. You would clearly see how much Saif ali khan has matured as an actor over the years and even Sanjay Dutt has done justice to his small cameo. Overall its a good movie only to good to be missed. Ppl who read this blog could watch and come back and comment on it. I would greatly appreciate that!

Back to Quizzin...

Long time since I did some quizing. This sunday, Raju and I, went and took part in KQA's centennial celebrations - General Quiz, a quiz which I attended after a long time. Though we made 21 out of a possible 44(Thanks to Raju), where the cut-off was 30, we thought that was a decent performance. The finals was awesome as usual with the chennai team taking the honors. I ve Got to conduct a Dumb-C in office as well sometime in the next few weeks. So working towards that.
Jus started my week by watching some Jon Stewart's Daily show videos. The best way to start your day is by watching Daily Show at your workplace :-o). I also noticed that none of mainstream media in the US is covering the leak of Downing Street memos on the Iraq War. I looked for it in NYT, WP but in vain. I hope there is an enquiry into this and the press gets to it. I would like to see the press exposing the dirt and scam behind the Iraq War plans. Well..Lemme get back to my Daily Show videos and then maybe work a little bit today. hehe...

Finally Some relief

Yes... I finally found a 1 BHK for rent. Well it didnt quite come at the price I wanted, but a compromise worth it. Now I can chill out peacefully. Nothing's quite worth mentioning to write today. So I will come back later with something interesting.

Still House Hunting...

I will tell you this. House hunting in Bangalore is a big pain. You see all the classified columns and go look at a house. Theres always something missing in that house or it is ridiculously expensive. I wish some big metoer falls in Bangalore and land prices drop down. Cant live with prices soaring up sky high. PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF COMING DOWN TO BANGALORE FOR ANY JOB. Look somewhere else. Bangalore sucks.
Dunno when i so picky and choosy and when i am going to get a house for rent. I hate the real estate agents also. They always hike up the prices and too demanding. I HATE YOU ALL YOU DAMN BROKERS. HEAR ME RIGHT! ITS PLAIN HATE.
well... Lifes been going on fine so far with all the calvin and hobbbes and Tintin and dilbert links I keep getting from friends. Heres a few links to make your day folks... Enjoy maadi...

http://www.uffen.org/calvin/index.htm

http://www.anuragjain.com/chgems.html

http://tintincomics.topcities.com/index.htm (its got all tintins online)

awesome stuff
http://homepage.eircom.net/~odyssey/Quotes/Popular/Comics/Dilbert.html

Dogbert's advise on Dating:

Dogbert : "Women like men who boast about their accomplishments, but they hate men who boast. I will be your designated bragger, allowing you (Dilbert) to appear Humble."

Dilbert : "One potential problem with this plan is that I have no accomplishments."

Dogbert : "Yeah, and if she isn't wearing make-up we'll be honest too."

Dilbert's Boss:

"I saw the code for your computer program yesterday. It looked easy. Its just a bunch of typing. And half of the words were spelt wrong. And dont get me started on your over-use of colons."

Wally (My fav character)
"Its now time for the Wally report, a weekly status update. My income is 80% of industry average, Enthusiasm is at 63% of capacity and my Ego Shield is holding at 15%."

"Your enthusiasm is up from last week."

"Yeah, someone left the supply cupboard unlocked."

Well.... finally I have updated my blog. Hope to update it soon with more interesting Geeky and Nerdy stuff such as these.