ScribblinG

விளம்பர இடைவேளை

2011-12-21T00:07:00.000+05:30

Ads are inseparable part of India media. From serials my mom watches to the boring formula one race that no one watches in my home except me there are ads and ad breaks. So there is lot of importance that's stressed in the ad industry in recent times, they are sometimes given more weightage than mainstream. Here was an post by paramesh that gets you to the time of DD.

I picked one best, one worst and one all time favorite ad in recent times.

Best one: Kanjoos friend Airtel. I liked it for the fact, it was short & sweet and conveyed the message.

Worst one: Lalitha Jewellery. Watch it for yourself and I got no comments. Sad point is I get to watch it in cinema screen every time I visit PVR.

Favorite one: The Force: Volkswagen. No wonder its in the most watched videos of youtube.

If you have got your collection, scribble it in the comments. I'm interested to see them.

House rants

2011-09-03T11:40:00.000+05:30

Abirami recently got her four wheeler drivers license after rigorous training at the driving school. So every time we loan the Zen from my inlaws place for a ride, I would ask her to drive. She would politely decline the offer by saying roads are too crowed or not in a mood to drive.

One day we were driving some where outside and I slowed down near a speed breaker. I asked,
Vijesh (Me): Abi, which gear would you goto to slow down at these speed breaker?
Abirami (She): Hmmm, First gear.
Me: You can slow down to second gear, that would be enough, I think.
She: Oh ok. Most of the times I drive in first gear.
Me: Ohhh! (I looked amused)
She: Then I will drive in second and third gear at times.
She: But will never goto fourth gear!
Me: Why is that?
She: I get confused. Instead of the fourth gear, I will put the reverse gear.
Me: Astonished I looked and said, "Abi, I will drive when we go out."

True - Its not his thing

2011-08-15T16:50:00.001+05:30

There was a nice article [link] on Hindu's open page on August 14th. It reads, "Wife wins hands down".

The columnist wrote precisely what was in my mind. Everyone knows who come out of home for work, who achieve, who get rewards. People write books about them! But no one really care about or even think about who was behind them. They don't even get recognized, with the opinion that its their daily duties. There are so many home heroines whose stories are untold. Have your ever recognized your Mother for sitting all the night & getting you hot tea on wee hours during your 12th grade? Married men - do we know how much is spent on getting milk for the family? I tried cooking one meal and cleaning them, sigh! I can't imagine how someone can do it, 1095 times a year. So don't wait and go tell the behind the scene achievers that how awesome they are! Don't just do it on mother's or wife's day that Hallmark and Archies invented as a marketing strategy.

I humbled that the author mentioned his wife name (Griha Lakshmi), else I would have got him by his collar. :-)

End of Summer! Almost

2011-05-29T04:07:00.000+05:30

My wife handed me the mobile, on the line is a common friend. After less than a minute in the conversation she asked, "Why no update in the blog? What are you doing these days!" I paused for a second to think, but was not able to make up a convincing answer. Yes gone are those days for active blogging. I just hopped the list in the blogroll to find almost 75% of them seldom write it anymore.

Myself, Getting into the groove of Chennai life. My first real summer in Chennai after I relocated. Few bike rides on the weekends can be more draining that work days. So I seldom take it on longer rides. Spending long hours with the O-General air conditioner is the only relief. Even my laptop reboots automatically after the cpu fan spinning its life out to keep the processor cool. Living on real fluids this time (yeah! I'm not in bangalore to have more than one meaning to it). Hopefully some showers come in soon or atleast I met dept should stop making predictions.

Otherwise, went to an IPL match, got a ManU jersey (courtesy: UK return Karthi), coding in Java after a break and no improvements in weight loss effort.

Oh yeah, I don know how I missed it - Light Story. Visit the facebook page too.

What can images do?

2011-04-08T09:52:00.002+05:30

Great morning!

Just stumbled upon JR's video, he is a social artist from France. Yes, a "social artist". His project 28mm is an astounding collection of human emotions, portraits that were printed and displayed in the museum of streets. These subjects and their theme were for a social cause and were apt to the area it was shot. Photography & print were used as medium. He was also a speaker in TED 2011. His themes and the way he handled his subjects were inspiring. The video below is about his 28mm project.

Nadunisi Naaygal movie review

2011-02-20T16:09:00.001+05:30

" Obsession - Sexual abuse - MPD "

Nadunisi Naaygal is a Photon Kathaas production from the director Gautham Menon. After success from romantic Vinnaithandi varuvaya, Gautham's attempt in an alternate genre is Nadunissi Naaygal which he tags as a psychological thriller.

The movie is about a psychotic man who has a dark childhood. His obsession with a woman, sexual abuse in his past and his multiple personalities lead to the killing of many girls who come across in his life. The whole movie is a flashback narrated by Veera, the lead role in the movie. The first half is about what happens in his childhood and how he is rescued and is given a chance of new life through Meenakshi, a neighbor. Soon, memories of his childhood start haunting veera and he turns violent. He goes hunting for girls, abuses them sexually and eventually kills them. Sameera reddy aka Sukanya is the turning point in Veera's life and brings him to limelight. The story continues to end narrating how Sukanya's life changed because of the kidnap.

Technically there are no songs or BGM (that's what Gautham Menon claimed in an interview) in the movie. Many credits to the cameraman who has done a great job with unusual camera angles. Especially scenes within the car and some scenes where the camera acts a character's eye view. Sound engineering is another plus in the movie, but not great. Screenplay is like a sine curve, there are peaks where it moves fast and valleys where it is slow with repeated dialogues. I would say that dialogues are the drawback of this movie. "I love you Meenakshi amma, naan ungala nalla vechu pathukren", makes many from the audience giggle, since it sounds similar to "Chellam, I love you da" - from Prakash Raj. Another aspect that I felt missing in the movie was that the movie rarely was "thrilling", and only few scenes really gave goose bumps. With a storyline like that Gautham Menon could have made a great thriller, if the screenplay had been better.

It's a common sentiment that the movie is disturbing. How disturbing, that is left to one's tolerance. There was a moment in the first half when I felt "Can we leave the theatre?".

Overall, Watch the movie if you are inquisitive about the movie after watching the trailer.

Takeaway from the movie:

I don't think my wife will ever ask me to go and get popcorn while watching the movie.
Never get a lift to home from an old friend.
If my wife had used her own suggestion (in this discussion) she would have escaped the trauma and the other girl would have ran away in the middle of the movie.
I lost my chance of suggesting a movie next time I go with my wife. :P
I really liked the graphics in the movie title and the numerous posters that were created. :)

Puzzle: Help Jim

2011-02-11T13:07:00.001+05:30

Lora and Jim agreed to play a number game, Lora comes up with a statement that “for any two prime numbers greater than 6 and whose difference is 2, the number between those two prime numbers is always divisible by 6”. How can Jim prove it?

Enakku 26, onakkum 26

2010-12-29T00:00:00.005+05:30

Yay, its time...

Crossed the four hard days. Happy that she did not recite it so many times as I expected. Anyways, Many more happy returns of the day to my home's Finance Minister.

Now its my turn to receive gifts, fingers crossed!

Bokeh Experiments - How To

2010-12-11T20:56:00.002+05:30

Seasons greetings everyone.

After my earlier post of Instant miniature studio many had left comments saying it was useful. Thanks for your comments and feedback. With Christmas and the new year aproaching, here is an interesting walk through to make your photographs more interesting this season. This time we are going to play around with the bokeh.

Its fairly simple to get a bokeh like the below one. You need to keep the lens in a low aperture like f/1.8 and with some back ground light.

But what do to when you want to make it more interesting like the one below?

Here is how to do it. You can easily try it at home. You will need:

1. Camera and a low aperture lens (50 mm f/1.8)

2. Chart paper, preferably black.

3. Compass and Scale.

4. Paper cutting knife and scissors.

Measure the diameter of your lens or simply go with the measurement of your filter that you got for the lens. Use that measurement to make circular rings in the chart paper using the compass and scissors. Make sure the ring exactly fits in the lens (one would need to remove any lens filters attached, for this experiment). Now draw shapes(hearts, square, clove, anything) in the center of the circular paper ring and make sure the shapes are exactly at the center. Use the paper cutting knife to cut out the shape that was drawn.

Now it's almost done, fit the circular rings in front of your lens and start clicking. Enjoy the custom bokeh shapes.

Technical mumbo-jumbo or How It Actually works:
Technically the shape of the bokeh is controlled by the shape of the aperture. Ideally the aperture is made of multiple blades to form a near circular shape. As the number of blades differ from lens to lens, by keeping a high f-number like f/5.6 the bokeh produced might be polygon in shape. Here since the light entering the lens is controlled by a custom shape which overrides the default circular ring of the aperture, it gives the bokeh a custom shape. This said, it is left to each one's creativity to decide the shape and the kind of picture to use these techniques on.

P.S. It was fun to use the compass after eight years, last I used it was in the Engineering drawing class in the first semester of college.

Framed

2010-10-04T15:49:00.003+05:30

My photograph has been selected for display at Bangalore Photography Club's Fifth annual photography exhibition, Frames of Mind - 2010.

If you are in Bangalore on the Oct 22-24 weekend, do come and check out the photographs in the exhibition. There are interesting photography sessions as part of Fotocamp. Meet you there!

Here is the selected entry. This was shot from the 6th floor of Novell's office. If you look closely, you'd see the reflection.

Lalbagh Flower Show

2010-08-23T23:34:00.000+05:30

Was visiting my friends place in Bangalore a week back, also knew there was a flower show happening at Lalbagh. Somehow managed to loop in Srihari and his Aunt for the photo shoot on Sunday morning. We reached there early and walked around the park. When the gates opened we had a good 45 mins shoot in the flower show in spite of the crowd and police whistling to move fast. It was a colorful shoot.

For convenience I have uploaded to

Let me know your comments.
Happy Clicking!

Photography Day

2010-08-19T22:53:00.000+05:30

You know when you're ready

The Art & Science of Photography - Kalyan Varma

2010-08-03T13:37:00.000+05:30

Last weekend I did a trip to Bengaluru to attend a workshop conducted by Kalyan Varma (Kalyan Varma is a well known wildlife photographer.) - The Art & Science of Photography. It was a two day workshop covering a wide spectrum of topics. Both the days were well structured that one could learn and also test the skills learnt. Course content was chosen such that it would neither intimidate someone who is very new to Photography nor bore anyone who was skilled relatively.

Day 1:
The first session was about the Science of Photography. Like the school days physics classes, it was on fundamentals, fundamentals and fundamentals. Kalyan gave a very good perspective and understanding on the topics. Even after all the reading I have done on these jargon, I can say, "I have never understood them better than now!". Immediate hands-on in the classroom for some of the concepts were the highlights.

Second session of day 1 was on Art of Photography. It was very crucial to understand the art side of photography. Kalyan handled it well with the approach of "learn by example". He talked about composition of pictures. In the later half of the first session, he spoke about camera gear including body, lens, tripods, flash and bags.

Day 2:
Ah! Saw 6 am in my clock after several months. :) Got up and headed to Lalbagh for a photoshoot with Kalyan and others. It was interesting to have a hands on at Lalbagh with the various subjects present there: people, rocks, dogs and flowers. After a portrait session, we headed back to the classroom where we had a session on post processing. We had an interesting session as to what should be done in the name of post-processing and what should not be, as learning post-processing will give you a total control of your photographs.

Post lunch, we had a critique session where various shots taken by us over the morning photo shoot was discussed and critiqued. Finally we had to call it a day with a conclusion speech by Kalyan, I have a lot to take from the workshop.

Highlights:
- Kalyan's command on the subject and the ability to carry on for two full days without boring the trainees :-)
- Ganesh and Harsha, who were part of Kalyan's team in conducting the workshop. Along with Kalyan they helped out folks in the classroom as well as the photo shoot. Special thanks to Ganesh for the ride to lalbagh in the bullet.
- "Food" - serious kudos to Casa de Bengluru who fed us some yummy food :-)

Instant miniature studio - How To

2010-06-03T02:00:00.002+05:30

Two weeks down the Nikon D90, its so tempting to keep it down and she hates it. :-) Last weekend I got a Shrek toy as part of the Happy Meal. Soon after coming home, I wanted to take few snaps of it. So quickly thought of home studio lighting setup to take photos.

All you need is

- A note book, preferably plain white sheets in them.

- Alternate source of light, like table lamp.

- Tripod (preferred)


Nikon D90 on the tripod + table lamp + note book with 50mm lens as the subject

Place the note book like a slanting 'L', this gives white flooring and white background (laptop and few white sheets will also do). It would be nice to slide a paper over the edge, so that there are no sharp curves on the background. Make sure there is no folds in the paper that's used (since it will caste shadow). Set the tripod in front of the notebook with the camera mounted. Now place the table lamb between the tripod and notebook, such that it does come inside the frame of the camera. Also make sure the table lamp does not flare the lens. No place the subject in the tip of the paper that stands sliding and start shooting.

Keep the light at different angles to the subject to get various effect on the subject and control how the shadow is cast. Prefer using the timer shutter to avoid any chance of camera shake.

Here are some samples and more photos at flickr

Go ahead and comment your feedback and questions.

To vijesh, as per your wife's orders

2010-05-26T14:41:00.001+05:30

From: Revathi Priya <...@gmail.com>

Wed, May 26, 2010 at 1:46 PM

To: Vijesh K <...@gmail.com>, Abirami Rajendran <...@gmail.com>

Rava dosa recipe

Ingredients1:

1tsp of oil

Mustard seeds

Cumin seeds

Dry red chillies(broken into small pieces)

Asafoetida/Hing

Salt

Heat oil in a large pan(you end up making the batter in this one). Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, broken dry red chillies and asafoetida and let it splutter a bit and then switch off the gas immediately.

Measure out equal proportions of Semolina/rava and Rice flour(with one normal sized cup, you can make upto 8 dosas). Mix them both with the seasonings that is already there in the pan(Make sure the gas is turned off).

Add 1 cup of butter milk(or diluted curd) to it and keep mixing. Add about 2 glasses of water(approx) until you get a really watery consistency.

Now comes the fun part. Add 2 large tbsp(15 mls approx) of Diet-Coke to it. One that has a lot of fizz. This helps to set the batter quick.

Keep it aside for 10-15 mins.

Diet-Coke Rava Dosa

Heat the tava real well. And pour the batter on it. Since this batter is very very watery, you are not going to get a perfect circle and the batter wont spread well like normal dosa-batter. So when you pour it will form small holes on the surface, which is okay. Pour more batter and lift and move the tava to spread the batter(DO NOT trying spreading it using the laddle that you use to pour the batter coz that wont work. It will form lumps. So spreading the batter is only by pouring more batter and shaking the tava itself). Let it cook for a good 3-4 mins and turn it when you notice that it has browned.

Enjoy :)

I was given the sample photo that needs to be kept as bench mark. Such is life!

Diet Coke Rava Dosa recipe rights: Revathi Priya

Nikon D90

2010-05-25T23:25:00.003+05:30

After pressing the shutter release button ~13,000 times, I was strongly convinced that it was time for an upgrade.

Why did I need to upgrade? - Simply the point & shoot was not fulfilling my need. The need of total control over the composition of the picture and the lens focal rings were not doing what I wanted them to do. A need for bigger and better sensor. Less grains on a low light photo even after cropping. Options for variety of shots from wide angle to telephoto.

Firstly I was aligned with Canon or Nikon, because they were the top two brands and nothing outside it pleased me. Second I needed to carefully list down my needs, so that I can pick the right camera. This was a long process. Finally shortlisted these camera bodies,

Canon 50D
Canon 7D
Nikon D90
Nikon 300s

My wedding photographs were a deciding factor in selecting the brand, body and the series of lens that I would go for. The photographer we hired had a Nikon D300, Nikon D700, Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon 50D and a whole lot of lens. But after carefully studying the output, I totally fell in love with Nikon.

Finally I got a Nikon D90 body and 18-105 kit lens. This camera had all features that I was looking for including 12.4 megapixel, well built body, controls and video capabilities. Nikon 300s and 18-200 lens pair was over shooting the budget and the learning curve is pretty steep. So far I'm pretty happy with the output and the performance.

Thanks to my wife for this.She has started to love the sound of the shutter.
Image Source

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear

2010-05-24T23:45:00.001+05:30

Photo credit: Tom

Longest substring 0's & 1's

2010-05-18T00:37:00.000+05:30

Given a string containing 0's and 1's. One would need to find the longest sub-string such that the count of 0's is equal to the count of 1's in the largest sub string.

0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
|<------->|
|<------->|

Here solution is either 0 1 0 1 0 1 or 1 0 1 0 1 0.

redbus.in #fail

2010-05-17T22:36:00.001+05:30

After the sudden spree of agents booking of tatkal ticket, it has become an easy thing to see 64 odd tickets vanish around 8:03am (sigh!). So we decided to book the tickets in redbus.in for the travel to my home town. Soon after the failed attempts in IRCTC, we queried redbus.in, few tickets available in one or two buses. One travels called Sangita, claimed in bold letters, "executive A.C. bus with 2+2 seater". Price of the ticket was Rs 930. First, I have never seen a bus ticket so pricey, second never booked bus ticket for ages. So we took the call and booked the tickets.

Friday, 9:45 PM Koyembedu bus terminus.

As the auto was nearing the bus terminus, traffic started to move inch after inch, we got down and decided to take a walk. (nostalgia of Majestic, BLR traffic). A mob of people were waiting to board their respective buses. Soon our bus was announced and we moved to board it.

On the first sight of the bus, I did not believe it was our bus and I started to look around for another volvo. Didn't spot any. Soon I inquired about the bus and where it was heading. Was shocked, when he said 'Yes, it was the bus'. It was a normal bus with sliding window and the interiors forcefully remodeled to work as A.C. bus. Sigh! Normal push back seat. Adding to it, AC duct right above our seat was broken and it was chilling the spine. Soon I had to stuff my hand kerchief to control it. Seats that bend unevenly, broken air conditioner from which the defrost water started to drop on the head, -cramped leg space and ...

Trouble did not stop there, one passenger learnt that he had got a high priced ticket (Rs1200/-) and started to yell that he was cheated. But no one listened, soon he demanded that they screen a movie on the t.v. since he had paid so much money. So they started it at 11:00 PM, and movie ended at 1:30 AM and we had a pit stop at 2:15 AM for break. Finally tried to sleep around 4 AM and the bus reached at 8:00 AM.

So who is to be blamed for these high priced tickets?
One thing is clear, the Sangita travels guys said that he got Rs 450/- for the ticket, rest the agent kept for himself. So is it redbus.in to be blamed to hike the price on demand? Unknown! Bottom line, start planning early, redbus.in sucks and I don't recommend it and I will try avoiding it at any cost.

Array of single & double bytes

2010-05-08T20:15:00.000+05:30

@arun_ragh asked me this interesting question.

Given an infinite array containing single and double byte entries in random order. A one bit flag is used to identify if the given entry is single or double byte. If the first bit is set to '1' then its double byte number else if its set to '0' then its a single byte number. Given a pointer to a number somewhere the middle of the array. One needs to find if the previous entry is single or double byte.

Note: There are cases where one would not be able to find out the solution. But assume there exists a possible solution.

Preview

2010-04-20T19:51:00.003+05:30

Using my wife's credit card is Fraud

2010-04-11T00:45:00.004+05:30

I ordered a merchandise from a popular vendor using my wife's credit card and shipped it to Friend1 and gave Friend2's address of billing.

Soon...

My account was blocked and I get a response:

we believe it may have been accessed and used by a third-party to make purchases without your permission, but it appears they did not use your credit card to make these purchases.

I learn my lessons the hard way.

Ehh, Whats up doc?

2010-04-11T00:44:00.000+05:30

Too many things, simply too long to write. To summarise I can call it - Change

Not just the fact that I got married. I moved to a new city with a new job. So I have enough challenges everyday to keep me busy from logging into Gmail. Fortunately I live in a locality close to Electricity board minister Arcot N. Veeraswamy and that give us no power failure, despite the who of Tamilnadu celebrate Earth hour daily. But I'm yet to receive my first EB bill. The city I live in is hot, super duper hot. Like the ganges that flows from shiv's head, sweat starts tickling down. (FYI: Agni Nactachitram is yet to start). Work is fun. I will not talk about the rest, since I need to come back home everyday for my food and shelter.

My office is nearly 18kms from home. So I spend nearly 3 hours in commuting. Been listening to all the radio stations and even know the program schedule for the hour across channels. Slowly learning the road routes, Its a big city you know!

Update post: Vocabulary

2010-03-23T23:09:00.001+05:30

Original post here.

Update:
After all the writing the above post author blurts out, "Ayoo, intha Tablet ah kudikanuma! Ena 'kudikanuma', paaru un kuda senthu ipidi aiyeten."

Me: job done for the day! :-)

till then..

2010-03-19T23:47:00.000+05:30

http://smartassbride.wordpress.com/

married

2010-03-14T07:39:00.000+05:30

Now with this post I can officially call the sabbatical I took from this blog is over. Guess I need not give more reason.

Save Our Tigers

2010-01-30T23:14:00.003+05:30

I hope they make it. http://saveourtigers.com/

6 more days to go

2010-01-29T01:29:00.000+05:30

That means you got 4 more days to make a decision if you want to book tatkal tickets. Let us know if plan changes.

Do not miss to visit the Big temple and take few clicks. After all the Big Temple is celebrating its 1000th year. See it (a 360) for yourself. (Rent a wide angle lens I say, its worth it) :)

Myself, I find me most active ever in all the social networking arenas. In the triangle of eating, sleeping and talking. Preparing huge checklists of items that I should take. Help filling the marriage registration form and answer questions like, Are you married? If yes, how many wifes are alive? More than all spending valuable time at home and in spare time reading 2 states.

Oh yeah, just in case you missed it. When Vijesh met Abirami.

Tomato Rice

2010-01-24T13:27:00.000+05:30

If you had seen this tweet, here is the follow up post of how to prepare it. Tomato rice is easy and fast to prepare for a meal. It goes well with a small curry (potato, brinjal) or papad or curd. Also if you are off to a friends family picnic its good on the menu. The below will serve a meal for two.

Pre-requisites

Tomato - 7

Rice - 1 and 1/2 cup

Turmeric power - 1/2 tsp

Chilly power - 1 tsp

Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp

Salt - 1 and 1/2 tsp

[last 4 items qty as required]

First smash the tomato in the mixer to liquid state. Then pour the smashed tomato in a pan and heat it for a while, until the raw smell of tomato is gone. Keep stirring it in the pan so its evenly cooked (it becomes slightly thick). Pour it in a cooker along with 1.5 cups of rice, 7 cups of water (or as required), add turmeric, chilly power, garam masala and salt (qty mentioned above). Stir the mixture well. Let the rice cook. Its ready!!!

When taking it form the cooker, just add two teaspoon of oil and mix the rice well in it, so that the rice does not become sticky.

Bon appetit!

Whats the plan guys?

2010-01-20T22:24:00.001+05:30

Well, a ping that bring smiles for people in my home, "Whats the plan guys?". We had been planning and executing them cleanly. I can say we had the best time in Bangalore in the last few weeks. Things have changed then, we got new plans.

Santy will be going to the guitar classes promptly after a month, since he is travelling until then. Bon voyage! Also decided to read two thirukural per day. I hope he does not stock the book in his usual place.

Gethu has decided to pull the hand break. Be on diet and hit the gym. He has promised me a new look in my wedding. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Dams, is busy searching places for santy to visit in US. :) Sure still keeps him busy with the multiple legiyam and podi's.

Kishore still claims being part of the investigation team and keeps him all busy with the sms and calls. Also will soon get his six pack done.

JK would be going to Asha nikethen and taking the lead in cooking. Will continue to be a Vijay follower and wait for his next release too. Also being a good neighbour he would be getting new guy or gal for the home due to retention rate in our home.

Jr Santy has moved to Chennai for good and promised that there would be change since he is with his family. But yeah we also got the updates of his first day in office. :D

I would still keep my plans going. :)

Pasangala, Enjoy Das anna's food, DJ's music, those debates, street cricket, Anjappar and don forget about the hike we planned for the high performing maid. :D

P.S. Called them now, they are watching ayirathil oruvan again.

Wedding Invite

2010-01-20T13:12:00.001+05:30

All credits to The Bride. :-)

How is a Christmas Birthday?

2010-01-16T12:34:00.000+05:30

Ayirathil Oruvan - missing the magic

2010-01-15T02:42:00.002+05:30

It's a Selvaraghavan movie. Rated 'A'.

A film that had a good start and a bad ending. The whole film is split into two parts. Part I (first half) is fun, adventurous and entertaining. Part 2 (second half) is an art film with a clashing cultural script. It looked like selva ran out of ideas to complete the movie. The 32 crore budget is predominantly spent in graphics and animation. Certain places there are glitches, but over all it is a good effort. Selva shows his psychotic nature in this film again. His earlier films were on similar lines too. One about adolescent gags and teenage capers and another on psycho boy in love. If you had watched the trailer, it exactly tells only one half of the movie, the remaining is the untold story. The films dialogs go from vulgar words that were beeped by the sensor board to historic Tamil. Many places the script seems broken. Lot of scenes and actions are left for the audience to interpret. This raises many questions at the end of the movie! Also selva copied many scenes from movie 300.

Andreya - not up to the expectations. She would have spoken 10 lines of dialog in the movie and all the 10 lines were spoken in the first half. Second half she just had to appear with the crowd.

Karthik - Another different try, but still less role in the movie.

Parthiban - Featuring as an old king, he did a good job in the one half of the film that was given to him. Carrying the majesty of the kings and his expression in betrayal are good.

Remasen - She is the pivot role in the movie. A good second starting for her in the film industry. Did a neat job for the role that was assigned to her. No doubt she will bear few awards for the movie if at all they give one for it.

Why not to watch the movie?

Too many unwanted scenes on killing, war, blood and women.

Jobless

2010-01-14T02:55:00.003+05:30

After many years I'm being jobless. Seems like an intermediate childhood state. I don't know what I will do tomorrow. May be will sleep the whole day. Ok, whats after that, sleep more. Watch TV, spend time reading all the blogs that I follow. Still I will be left with more time. A good break from buzilla, V1 or clarity. Life is calm.

It was a busy day where you give those 200 odd hand shakes and bid farewell. Dumped all the messed up cubicle things in two carton boxes, submitted cupboard keys and ID card to the security. It was a wonderful stay in Novell, Bangalore.

As to celebrate my joblessness, we had booked tickets to Avathar. Mind boggling stuff from Cameron. The movie raised the bar for modern day pictures to next level. I wish others keep up with it. Else these directors will be in the next generation. Though the 3D was not as great (could be because of the small screen) it was a block buster. Until next post, sleep tight.

Moving on

2010-01-13T00:57:00.000+05:30

Today is my last working day in Novell.

What next? The Wedding.

An appeal

2010-01-12T11:47:00.000+05:30

On behalf of a fellow Tech'ian. Please do the needful. If you are interested let me know will help you in getting the bank details.

Thanks in Advance...

Camera & lens - learning links

2010-01-05T12:24:00.000+05:30

Off late, I had been researching a lot to upgrade my camera to DSLR. I came across many interesting links to help better understand the DSLR and Lenses. Since one needs to know what those numbers are on the lenses and what the DSLR is equipped with before ~~investing on~~ buying them.

Credits to Nikon to have such learning materials for people to know their lenses.

Lens Simulator - Best place to try out the lens before you buy.

Lens positioning map - Compare focal range & f-number of the lenses.

Terms - All the jargons explained.

Camera labs - Nice video reviews on body and lens. (When tired on reading, listen to the video and relax)

Lens review - user reviews

Photozone - Show me the numbers style.

P.S. Will soon publish my learnings. If you got more links, let me know will update it.

Welcome 20TEN

2010-01-03T18:15:00.001+05:30

Firstly, Happy new year 2010. Have a fabulous 365 days to come.

I had a quiet start for 2009. I did make up some resolutions. I did reduce my caffeine count, but office steps were steep as days went and took a lot of time too ;-). Though I was not able to go around with BWS, will have to try after I upgrade my camera. So with many pending resolutions, there will be none this year. Life has been like taking a roller coaster ride. I became so obsessive about this blog that I got this t-shirt. Few tags to take up. Also the best tennis match of this decade was witnessed last year.

As responsible guys, we had many weddings to attend. We did them promptly one after the other after the other and the other until I realized that I was next in the queue. To fulfill the new year resolution, tried out new things with the camera from nature to ghosts and some yummy cakes. Those debates on weddings, love and many more.

Well, I think all your wishes in the beginning of new year had come true. I had to shed my tag as bachelor. I will be getting married early next month. So come there and sing a song.

Its a new year, an Year of change to me. Wishing everyone all the very best. Also many thanks for all the readers, who patiently spend time on this page and took effort to write a comment.

Birthday

2009-12-29T05:05:00.003+05:30

Happy Birthday...

Now that you are as *old* as I am.

Change

2009-12-24T23:48:00.000+05:30

I know life calls for change. Now I realise it. :-)

Its not that simple

2009-12-16T18:01:00.000+05:30

BharatMatrimony Marriages - BharatMatrimony.Com/Register-Free - Marry Indian Boy Or Girl From UK Register Free! Search, Chat & Marry

Saw this ad in my Inbox.

Comments moderation policy

2009-12-16T00:40:00.001+05:30

Well, recently the comments inflow increased in this blog (may be a hype). But I don't have a blog maintainer to take care of it. Also this being a public blog, I felt that moderating comments was bit redundant. So I'm removing the comments moderation on this blog (until further notification :D)

Got some more,

- The blog disclaimer holds good for any of the comments I write.

- The authors of the comment are *only and wholly* responsible for the comment and the owner of this blog will not take any responsibility.

- Anything the author feels is inappropriate in the comments, I hold full permission to remove the comment. I may or may not intimate the reason to the comment author.

Thank you for understanding.

Unfair world

2009-12-15T21:19:00.000+05:30

V Sehwag R-146 B-102 4s-17 6s-6 SR-143.13
TM Dilshan R-160 B-124 4s-20 6s-3 SR-129.03
KC Sangakkara R-90 B-43 4s-10 6s-5 SR-209.3

Sehwag takes the "Man of the Match". I agree that it was an entertaining innings from Sehwag, but Sanga was also equally great. If "Man of the Match" has to be from the winning team, I would have given it to Bajji for 10 overs. 5.8 rpo and 2 wickets or shared it between Zaheer and Nehra for the last spell. Keep aside all, just horning Dilshan innings would have made it share with Sehwag. Unfair...

Shopping

2009-12-13T22:58:00.004+05:30

Shopping! A lot of shopping.

Once I started preparing for the wedding, first in the itenary was shopping. I thought I will do it sometime in mid January since I was not sure what my hip size would be then. But due to other logistics we decided to do it early. So I landed in Chennai over a weekend for shopping with my parents.

Destination: RMKV Silks

Usually I have heard real life experience from men as to how it would be to shop with women. So I was extra prepared, since I was with my mom, mom-in-law and The bride. We entered RMKV around Saturday afternoon. But she was smart* she had already selected the wedding saree. So we need not wait until we select one. [To brief: RMKV has a good bridal7 collection saree, that is one of the 'n' number of collection they have for the brides, Ideally including the designer silk and stuff. The shop has two floors packed with sarees] Everyone liked the saree that was selected. Now-a-days one has an option to keep the saree on them (the girl) and see in those big mirrors of how one looks when they wear it. We got the selected saree. So one saree down, and one more to go.

We decided to see the collections in both silk and designer silk. [Designer silk sarees are silk sarees that come with lot of work in it including glass, stones and chumki] We went to designer silk section and started to pull out one saree at a time and looked at it. The border design first, then the central pattern finally the color and lower border. Everything should match to their taste so that they would pick it. We started piling it on the table, suddenly we realized that the sales guy would not be visible on the other side if we continue. We were already two tea breaks down. :-) So we paused. End of day one.

Day two, we again went to the silk saree section and looked at more sarees. [Pack your bag with few cans of Red Bull] My job was simple, I have to say how the sareee looks. Frankly I loved all the sarees since it was so colorful. [No wonder the 24 bit true color RGB palette will not be sufficient] They got sarees in all the colors I have ever seen or can think of. So finally after looking at close to 90 odd sarees we narrowed down to 2 sarees. Since the shop had yellow lighting inside, we decided to get select the saree after looking it in day light. :-) They got an option to take it outside and see it. Selected the second one. (*claps*) Yay! We are done.

There is a row of chairs placed in the centre of that hall with its back facing each other. It was an interesting sight. Its for the men to rest and think about killing time. I saw faces that read "nothing". One guy was solving a whole book of Suduko, another baby sitting, another was looking at the roof and counting the bulbs.

Its Sunday afternoon by now. They also decided to get pattu vestti sattai (silk dhoti and shirt). Whoo! Finally I get my turn *grin*.

Me: Pattu vesti kaamiga!

(Show me silk dhoti, show me all designs you got!!!! I should at least look at half of what the bride looked)

Sales Guy: What color sir, White or Sandal?

Me: Sandal would be good.

Soon he picked one from the right hand corner and one from the rack below. Placed it in the table. I was still looking at the racks for more. He then made me look down at the two dhoti's shown.

Me: Both looks good, are there more designs?

Sales Guy: Thats all. Only two designs. One with diamond border and another with wave border.

(Thunder on the groom's head)

Me: you're sure, its only two!

Sales Guy: yes

I choose one. Then I was told to get a silk towel with it. Then I turned to that guy and asked, "show me designs in silk towel". He replied, "no designs and all sir. There is only one, and it will fit with all."

(Bride from behind, "It seems like the choices are less". Groom wonders, "choices..") :)

Then we needed to get a silk shirt. Soon we were in the 3rd floor for the same. I did not have any hope in the shirts section, after the trauma in the dhoti's section. As expected, only two shirts were close to the dhothi's color. Rest were all like the ones I see in Ramarajan film including golden yellow, dark green etc. I choose one. End of shopping for the groom, and we clocked 15 minutes 20 seconds. :)

We were finally done with shopping in RMKV.

P.S. Men, everything within square brackets is FYA.

Happy Birthday Sister-in-cork

2009-12-11T06:39:00.001+05:30

We met once in a coffee shop with our common friends (we ended up sitting there for thirty minutes and didn't order any). Then we planned to meet for a night trek, but our common friends had different plans of kidnapping her and ended up in the Airport. Then may be a puli kolambu lunch at my home, but the host betrayed. So her curse still holds good! :-( we bonded more in our blogs and are good friends now. She is also one of my favorite bloggers.

Many more Happy returns of the day Revs! Wishing that many more wishes of yours come true.

One more wish, Happy Birthday Rajini. God bless you with more success and give us few more hits like Thillu Mullu, Thalaphathi and Baasha. :-)

:-)

2009-12-09T01:01:00.004+05:30

It's been a while since I wanted to post this. Here is a personal update.

By 2007, I met this smart, energetic and lovely person and got introduced to her as a junior in office (I was dressed up in formals and stood in her cubicle for the transition). Like in all regular love stories, we soon became good friends. We had a lot in common and we started spending more time together (That and the fact that she was my unfortunate neighbour for almost two years).

After a lot of coffee conversations (we are confirmed caffeine addicts) and long walks to book shops (a conspiracy that was aimed at reducing my tummy, I think), I asked her one day (making sure I was insured and that I knew a few self defense karate gimmicks), "Will you marry me?". She replied, "hmm..." (I expected tridents!) and after taking her own sweet time (which included some more kadalai and many more walks to book shops) she said, "yes!" After all the waiting-for-green-signal-from-parents routines, Abirami and I will be getting married on Feb 4th, 2010. (Fixed!)

Abirami is also from PSG (No, I have not met her in PSG and yes, I know you won't believe it) and a celebrity blogger. I'm a big fan of her poems and blog. And yeah, before she puts this this piece of information (that has been chanted by her a few thousand times) in her blog I'll confess, "She was the one who helped me to make my first code check-in in my career".

We'll send you the invite shortly and we hope to meet you at the wedding/reception!

Post updated.

Hangover

2009-12-07T01:22:00.000+05:30

A weekend I spent for myself in Bangalore after a long time. Yeah I had been travelling all the last four weekends attending weddings and getting personal work done (later about this :-P). You could have seen it from the previous photo posts.

The head count has also increased in our home to 8 after few old timers coming back. So it was time for fun and the Hangover. They stay proportional. The recent addiction was a card game called "Literature". Some guys does not like them to be challenged intellectually, so does all of them here in our home (Sigh!!). So this game was fun. Thinking hard, observation, recursing, remembering and reasoning are the keys of the game. So we almost came close to sunrise Friday night. So guess the hangover!

I should also confess all my debating talent rooted to my college free hours and this bachelor life here. We debate for all things that one can come across. After the last test match win against Srilanka, Sewagh has come into the firing line. Is his firing innings so necessary for Indian opening? Is 30/1 in 4 overs makes sense or 70/0 in 15 overs makes sense? Can a wicket be thrown away every time one tries to give his team a flying start. You want to voice out, write to us or comment on the post. We will include it. Another topic on Kamalhasan acting (duly censored for the benefit of blogs wellness) :)

Lastly I have been test driving the Canon EOS 500D with 18-55 lens. Thanks to Srihari. Its fun and I'm loving it.

Emergency

2009-11-25T01:15:00.001+05:30

It was an Emergency!

Those wheels moved with red horns, that tried telling or may be crying. But no one to listen since it was close to midnight. He should have been a scientist to exit that gate. Illuminated in white light, it was transparent inside. They were fixed looking down. They tried reaching some phone numbers, someone has to be woken up soon. He was at the far end and she was close to the door. We approached from behind. She tried reading who was behind with a numb face, but she could react a little. Her eyes were telling million things about him. He could have been her hero or may be more. She wanted silence as blanket to travel this mid-night spur. I know I'm nobody, but I wanted to tell, "He will be fine. Wish him the best."

Happy married life (02mw)

2009-11-22T12:50:00.002+05:30

Happy married life (02mw21)

2009-11-21T16:14:00.001+05:30

openSUSE 11.2 launch party :)

2009-11-12T17:41:00.095+05:30

openSUSE 11.2 is released. Its one of the coolest Linux distros thats available. Loads of new features. Install and have fun.

Meanwhile, few geeks and nerds out here decided to celebrate the release. Cake (yummy fruit cake, with geeko printed on an edible thing), burgers, chips, fries and pepsi was there in the party. Srinidhi gave a ~~sweating~~ talk on the new features in 11.2 (Wow the list was really impressive, esp the numbers). It was a fun launch party overall.

more photos...

Ah! We missed a group photo. :-)

[Post disclaimed, please read the blog policy]

Siddhara Betta Trek

2009-11-08T22:11:00.003+05:30

Many a time less planned things work well. This is one of them. A small one day trek to Siddhara Betta.

History

Siddhara Betta, as the name suggests, it was a place for the Siddha's. They came to the hill to meditate as well as for the rich herbs and shrubs found in this place. To testify that there are many small temples and Mandapam's at various parts of the hill. Also at the top are huge rocks touching that make it a cave like environment for the Siddha's to come.

Team

A group of 8 nerds (me, Rohit, Puthali, Aditya, Jinu, Ravi, Arpan and Sanjeev) decided to trek on Siddhara Betta. After a short meeting a plan was sketched. We decided to meet at NGV and started at 9:30 AM in Tata Safari. Yup its one of the best SUV's for a trek. Just that the last two seats were a bit cramping. Ravi was our navigator and Rohit/Jinu took care of the steering.

Destination

Reaching Siddhara Betta was an easy thing. Where ever you are in Bangalore, try to get to the road that goes to Tumkur. Post the tollgate keep going straight up to Doobspet. This is a good place to re-fuel, get some snacks and refreshments. Going further 2-3 kms you would find a fuel station with Kamat restaurant and Coffee Day (CCD) on either side. We parked the vehicle in CCD. This was a neat and closest place to park the car.

[P.S. Yet to verify the correctness from the navigator]

100 mts from CCD is a small tunnel below the railway track. The trek starts from there. The whole route seems me an easy trek. Keep following the trail, after some initial rocky terrain one would find steps for climbing to the top. (Many blogs said there are alternate route to the top. But try it only if you have an local guy to navigate) Approx one can reach the top with 90-120 minutes of climb.

The low depression in the coastal regions of Tamilnadu made the trek interesting with occasional drizzles. We had to take strategic breaks under the tree and beneath huge rocks. Slippery rocks were something one has to watch during a rain. At the top there was a temple, an there were 2 intermediate madap's. The local guy there said, people used to come in masses during Sunday to the temple. Also he told about few caves behind the temple, but it was impossible for us to explore due to the heavy rain once we reached the top.

Once we climbed down, reached a dabba on the way back and had yummy late lunch before reaching back Koramangala again.

Highlights

Perfect one day trek route this would be.
Carry own water and food. Not needed much, unless its a sunny day.
Easy trek, anyone could try it. We found a family, including old people descending from the hill.
Easy to reach by road. Own vehicle more easy, local transport also available in plenty.
One of nice place for night camp, esp on a clear full moon day. The view of the NH would be nice.

Lowlights

Polluted. Lots of plastic waste.
In the name of God, a chicken feast has happened recently. We found lots of feathers at the top of the hill.

Thanks to the Team for make sure, we did not drop any plastic or paper waste through out the trek. They were disposed safely.

Start, crossing the railway track

We took a detour to do some rock climbing, Courtesy Ravi

Gecko. Thats how this rock looked to me!

Puthali, trying a rock slide

It was very refreshing to take a break from the Cubicles

Risky, So take care

Didn't I say it was slippery. Jinu getting some balance.

A ruined madap. Some locations for night camp.

It was raining and we had some friends

CCD

Note: Next on the cards would be KP for December.

An old photo

2009-11-06T22:20:00.000+05:30

An old photo, that was not framed, that was not even printed. But like a million line memory its telling stroies. Stories of life from past. A memory that was powerful enough to remember every emotion of it. A light heart and a slight grin. Its a rollercoster that you travel standing still.

Happy Birthday Kannan

2009-11-04T23:59:00.002+05:30

Who said Birthday's are to be celebrated at 00:00 hrs of The day. So differently we decided to celebrate it at 23:59 hrs. Thats the easiest excuse we can take of the laziness. But its fun to wake the half asleep guy and stuff some cream on his face. }:-) Sigh! What is life if you cant eat an German Chocolate cake! :-( I officially hate GM diet.

Happy Birthday Dams. We wish you many more growths in your life ;) and success be with you. Share the cake with Vijay too. :)

Also one more new arrival to the our home (dhanda selavu). The Raja of our home got a new Guitar and a posh bag for it. Dams duly said, "Hey the bag is big enough that you can stuff extra cloths when you are going home." Perspective varies you see! :)

Well the highlight of the day was this Happy Birthday song The Raja of our home played in his new Guitar. Listen and Enjoy!

happy birthday.wma - Santy

P.S: The audio is very low. We will try getting a louder and good version soon.

Personal

2009-11-03T20:27:00.000+05:30

Post Diwali, I had been pre-occupied with so much of thought and work. Yeah had lot of mails to send, many reminders and TODO slips hanging out. Somehow managed to progress a little. Still a long way to go. Also an unplanned flu disturbs a lot. Apart from being sick, two sad part of the flu was that I was not able to donate blood since I had antibiotics within one week of the donation. Also had to miss a travel too since my host said, "I'm not supposed to travel when I'm not fully recovered."

I had so many things to write here, but I did not have time when I wanted to write and I don remember what I wanted to write now. Apart from twitter, facebook, Google reader and blog updates I had not been doing anything for myself. Apart from the movie I did watch last Sunday! So planning to take some time off and spend them for me and see what I can do to keep me interested. So that means I would spam less on all the social networking update boards.

November seems to be a month of Wedding. I got 4 weddings to attend and that simply means 4 weeks of continious travel. So a break seems mandatory!

Some reason Youtube recommended this video and I loved watching it again & again. :)

Niece

2009-11-01T10:16:00.000+05:30

Oats Love (Part 1)

2009-10-27T00:04:00.000+05:30

Yeah, its coming in a series.

I wanted to write about this. But Arun has already done the documentation. So could not stop myself from cross posting. Do try this out and you will enjoy it.

Recipe: Oats Kichadi

Nephew

2009-10-25T15:31:00.000+05:30

இனிய தீபாவளி

2009-10-19T22:10:00.002+05:30

Lately Diwali means good food and photography for me. Once a year I gain lot of weight and workout the rest of the year to reduce it. A colleague of mine wishing everyone, comes to my cube and says, "This Diwali also photos and no crackers is it?". Thats true! More than burning those crackers I'm fond of taking pictures and calculating the amount of money totally spent in buying them.

This Diwali was no different. After my mom repeatedly reminding me to get a dress, I decided to shop. Rule#1: No black dress, already I have enough that I'm banned for lifetime. Rule#2: Need to shop in 30mins. I will lose interest from 31st minute. Rule#3: No jean and t-shirts. Amen! Whats else is there in those to shop then? I romed around for 120 minutes and took a shirt. Trail piece fits well and finally ended up not having my size in the lot. End of Diwali shopping. But made my mom happy, by the patent shirt I got from office. :)

I spent the Diwali night at the rooftop with my camera. It was a spectacle to watch those fireworks reach skies. Had a chance to click some of them and miss many of them. Also its fun to anticipate from where the next big one will come in the sky. Also meet some friends and few more to go. Food food and lots of food.

I'm so patient with this 5 mins timeout internet at home. :) BSNL sucks at this part of the city.

Have fun. More photos in my flickr.

Human bite

2009-10-18T21:15:00.001+05:30

Me: How does it feel to get Human bite? Does it pain? Is it poisonous? Should one get a TT for it?

Him: Admitted in apollo..doc says this is a peculiar case.. needs immediate intervention to prevent brain damage.. subject which bit is to be quarantined, so that it is not a threat to homo sapiens.. US marshals are on their way!

Me: Sitting fingers crossed. :-)

DOCOMO moment

2009-10-14T11:40:00.001+05:30

Today Oct The 14th, my good friend is writing his GRE. We are all excited at home already. He will be our Muhmud of Koramangala and still with high spirits. After all the long hours he spent, I should be giving him many "Burnt the Midnight oil" cards. After those, "Sir, as I'm suffering from fever, I would request you to kindly give me one day leave!". Its show time today.

Inspired from Tata DOCOMO's, "Life can change in a second". We identified DOCOMO moment for him. After the online test, there will be an option to view the marks. Clicking that and knowing his marks would be the DOCOMO moment for him. It will decide if its gonna be a hazy evening. ;-)

All the very best, to him....

With Regards,

Kannan, Sri, Me, Gethu, Nair et al.

Update:
எது நடந்ததோ அது நன்றாகவே நடந்தது,
எது நடக்கின்றதோ அது நன்றாக நடக்கின்றது,
எது நடக்குமோ அதுவும் நன்றாகவே நடக்கும்.

Why?

2009-10-10T22:46:00.002+05:30

Why men seems to be hard nature mostly and
why women seems to have soft nature?
Why did history evolve like this?

Cricket: Overdose

2009-10-08T21:37:00.003+05:30

Airtel's Champions League Cricket tournament was kicked off in Bangalore today. What does this mean, another round of T-20 cricket with some known and unknown teams playing for a prize money of 2.5 M. That is half the prize money of Cricket World cup. Immediately after the Ashes series, it was India vs Srilanka then it was Champions Trophy and now its Champions league cricket. Too much cricket, I would say. Look at the next 12 months fixtures, it looks packed.

Don't think this tournament was Lalit Modi's brain child, it was a cheap copy from club football. But seriously its very boring and does not stand near the 90 mins of a football games action and drama. These tournaments started more of a way to promote the game, its now becoming a Modern Poker (already in the first match, players are putting down lolipop catches and run outs). That is sad. So at least I'm pulling out of the viewers list of this Trophy! (I can do better things than watching this...:-P)

But, all said and done. Its good for the small business that runs around the game. We will be getting back the profit that we lost by moving the last IPL to South Africa. Still one set of people who strictly ban the whole thing would be your mom and wife who wants to see the Kolangal mega series. So guys get a tatasky and record the matches and watch the replay or get your salvation from cricinfo.com

Tagged: cricket

Wow, you must have a really good camera!

2009-10-06T11:06:00.004+05:30

Anyone who has ever taken a sharp, properly exposed,
and well-composed photo has heard these words,
"Wow, you must have a really good camera!"

Then anyone who can code or write well, should
have a "really good keyboard and computer!" :-)

Took the excerpt from this article by Vic Berardi.

Health care takes lower priority

2009-10-04T01:14:00.005+05:30

I live in Bangalore. A city known for its slow moving traffic and rash driving. Today I was watching this spectacle happen in Sony World Junction.

Somewhere 200 metre's from the signal an Ambulance got queued up along with queue of cars, bikes and auto's that were waiting in the signal. The siren was reaching the sky and red emergency light was in so contract that was making the whole area look in emergency! It was around 30 seconds and still none of the vehicles in front of the ambulance moved. Hence the driver in the ambulance increased the siren louder and longer. Another 15 seconds passed and still no signs of traffic moving. I got curious and looked at the junction and find vehicles from other lane still moving. The so called public servants are busy scratching some parts and not clearing this lane with ambulance. WTF! Finally the ambulance got it chance to move only when there was green to the lane. It was a sad sight to watch.

Think the case of a politician. He/She gets a free ride from airport to his home without his driver keeping his foot on the brakes. I was made to wait many times in IRR for the public servants to go in a free lane and I would find the whole of Bangalore police lined up, busy working for their appraisals.

Why is health care taken with lower priority? Right from public servants to public take it for granted when an ambulance comes, like the ambulance crosses this place 5 times a day! I guess the rules are also not strict enough for people to take it seriously. In US health care is given first priority when it comes to roads and any vehicle that does not give way could be given a ticket up to $155. Be it the hand or the lotus, it will take time to change. I think the change should happen in small scale, like the pune govt has imposed a rule to fine people who are spitting in public.

Please, drive safely and wisely.

I'm spamming

2009-10-03T02:42:00.003+05:30

I take feedback seriously.

Today I was talking to one of my friend from Ireland and my blog reader, raising concerns over comments not getting replied properly from me. Taken!

Hence I quickly went to all my post (the recent 50 entries) and replied were ever appropriate. So if you were subscribed to my comment's feed (I know that sounds insane) or comments reply. You would have got multiple e-mails.

My apologies for spamming!

How else can I plan?

2009-10-03T00:42:00.007+05:30

3:15AM	I got a new BMW after taking down G - Mac and his gang. Still no signs of getting tired or plans to sleep after driving for many hours. I look at wonder why my nails have started to grow in different directions. Also did a quality check on my wrist and keyboard to see if everything was intact.
3:20AM	Even in that darkness, a 200 watt bulb suddenly glows up my head. OMG, I got to book thatkal ticket that Morning at 8 AM. Literally 5 more hours. Since its a long weekend, it would be a huge task to get one thatkal ticket.
	[It will be an impossible task to sleep now and get up with all sense up and running at 8 AM. (S/w Engg slang)]
3:33AM	Text message to Friend 1 and Friend 2. Please please wake me up by 7:45, if you see this msg before that. I got to book tickets.
	[Main plan: Alarm at 7:45 AM]
	[Backup plan 1: Reminder at 7:50 AM, since alarm will snooze again at 7:55]
	[Backup plan 2: Reminder at 7:59 AM, with note "Idiot get up at least now!!"
7:51AM	My mobile blares and I feel like yelling #WTH. I attend and find Friend 2 on the line, waking me up. Thanks a ton, Friend 2.
	[PS, I was thinking I should file a complain to Nokia, that the alarms and reminders are not ringing. My roomie later confirmed that it was I was sleeping like corpse not noticing it. :) I spare Nokia]
7:55AM	IE, FF and Chrome is open and irctc.com is loaded. Even filled the quick book form with name, age, sex etc etc and even took care of timing flaw.
7:59:45	Finally even counted seconds for the irctc server to tick 0800.
8:00:12	Refresh the page to submit my booking.
	[The site is unavailable]
8:00:40	Frantically check the other browsers and to see if any one of them to connect to server. But all reply the same.
	[Suddenly I feel there is an unusual silence around me. Almost ignored in the panic of retrying.]
	[Noticed that it was the power cut (sharp like a samurai sword) at 8:00. Ah! Even BESCOM is synced with railway timings. :-(. The modem / router is switched off. Sigh]

How else can I plan?

Typical

2009-09-29T23:30:00.002+05:30

I cannot agree this any better. The peaks are so well placed. The trying to complete mode before a vacation and the panic mode on seeing 350 new mails are so well placed. "Phew" is ultimate after checking all the mails. :)

A debate

2009-09-28T23:33:00.000+05:30

We are a good bunch of *bachelor* nerds at out home in Bangalore. We spend time at home, reading, laptop, movies, cooking and chatting. Some days we get to a big debates on certain topics, just because of the topic or for the sake of argument. But its fun always. Yesterday we even recollected the big debates we had during the last 5-6 years. Some interesting topics include:

Love marriage ↔ arranged marriage.

Usability of Windows ↔ Flexibility of Linux

Rajini ↔ Kamal

Sensible age for the girl/guy to get married

Illayaraja ↔ AR Rehman

Illayathalapthi Vijay a mass hero or a massive zero

I really cannot trace how it started, But two groups got divided based on the discussion on, "Spending huge on wedding saree a must or its material wastage".

One group claimed that its a traditional thing that many families wanted to follow. It becomes a pride & prestige factor when it comes to a wedding gathering when your relatives and friends have gathered. Wedding is an one time occasion for many Indian families and whats the problem in not making that grand. Many people have the money to spend on it, hence they do it.

The other group seems very calculative, whats the amount spent on that saree? How many occasions does the girl wear the saree again? If its just the grandness that its expected out of the saree it could have been got from a nominal cost saree. Is there a resale of that saree? Including the maintenance cost of the saree in a longer run, its not worth the money spent. Instead of spending in materials like this it could be spent on Gold which appreciates in value. Its like procuring an elephant for one ride.

....

Worth fighting for?

2009-09-24T23:58:00.004+05:30

MARCUS: Maximus, let us whisper now. Together, you and I.

You have a son? Tell me about your home.

MAXIMUS: My house is in the hills above Trujillo. A very

simple place ... pink stones that warm in the sun ... kitchen

garden that smells of herbs in the day ... jasmine in the

evening. Through the gate is a giant poplar. [His voice

accelerates with the joy of the memory.] Figs, apples, pears.

The soil, Marcus, black ... black like my wife's hair. Grapes on

the south slopes, olives on the north. Wild ponies play near my

house, they tease my son. He wants to be one of them.

MARCUS: [Smiling at Maximus as he listens to him describe

his home.] Maximus, when was the last time you were home?

MAXIMUS: 2 years, 264 days and this morning.

MARCUS: I envy you, Maximus.

...

Reassuring

2009-09-23T00:22:00.005+05:30

I keep running all day and night for my survival like others. I turn around to see the backgrounds changed and things are not really the same. All along I got lot of hurdles to jump and choices to make of which path I will keep running. I only had Boolean choices in a perfectly designed digital circuit were the choices once made cannot be redone (God's genius). I made those choices assuring it would be the best I would have made.

Now, I stop for some breather and think of the choices I made. If I had to pick once choice I would want to think over again? I think. Wait, or do I already know it? What ever it is, I have one. Instead of sitting ducks, I'm reassuring that things are fine.

Do you have a choice that you want to make again? Think again!

:-)

Find a fast solution

2009-09-22T23:17:00.001+05:30

I came across this problem recently and found it interesting.

Say you got an input array and output array of equal length. The input array has random integers and you need to populate the output array by following this criteria.

The element at index i of the output array will the product of all the elements in the input array, excluding the element at position i.

ie output[k] = Product of i's { i=0..n-1, where i≠k }

Write a code/algo that will work the FASTEST.

cross posted at basicsuncovered.

Divinity: Ganesh & Kumeresh Violin

2009-09-19T02:40:00.003+05:30

333

2009-09-18T20:37:00.004+05:30

If I was David Shepherd, I would have done the hop, skip and jump for this post. Yeah as the title says its 333'rd post here or at least close to it including the hidden drafts. :)

Sometimes its good to avoid writing when its not so pleasant. After The hyper active brain that disobeys to rest during sleep. When characters around your life starts to overlap and cross boundaries. One would feel almost drained when the alarm blares early morning. Some day,

Nallaval/Vallaval Friend: hey

me: yea

Nallaval/Vallaval Friend: do u know any counsellor/psychologist?

me: no, I will be searching for one soon..

why?

Nallaval/Vallaval Friend: lol

Today I did a reality check by playing football (that too in rain). Approximately after 3 years and literally my tongue was hanging outside at half time. Right calf muscles had cramped already! Its fun you know, I keep telling all that I played football today like I'm doing here. My roomie said, "Dei you have already told it twice to me! Let me see if you play it continuously for a week."

Been to Login 2009 (my department's annual technical symposium) last weekend and it was interesting to meet many faculties. Thanks to Arumuganathan Sir for his good feedback on my blog. It motivates!! Dinner stand up meeting with HOD and many other faculty. Not much change, except for the college buildings that have occupied every square meter of the campus.

I recently discovered a phobia of missed calls. Searched the phobia's official and seems like its not named yet. May be not many cases were reported. May be I will suggest a name like miscalphobia.

Had been learning cooking from my cook for my survival skills. :-) Will share them soon.

ScribblinG turns 4 today

2009-09-16T00:00:00.000+05:30

Time runs fast and here this very own blog of mine turns 4 years today. Happy Birthday ScribblinG! Yeah it seems sane to me to wish this page Happy Birthday year after year. It was so much part of me all the way.

I always wanted to have a page of mine out there on the web. Even with limited and high cost in affordability of Internet, I did have a page in geocities (but geocities is already history and I'm not able to trace my page back). Thanks to Google and Blogger, things got simpler and I created this blog during my internship in Intel. Started writing many rants and became a serious hobby. In fact it was a space for me.

Those rants, travelogue, sports, photography, poems, videos, minima template and lot more have always given me so much fun. I gained many friends and critiques through this very own page. Personally I improved on my writing.

Posts: 332

Once again where ever you are Thanks for being a Reader!

A walk with a mahout

2009-09-14T17:15:00.000+05:30

Punnathur Kotta Elephant Sanctuary is 2kms ride from the Thrissur temple town. Around 66 elephants are care taken in this sanctuary. Starting from the security gate to the far corners inside the sanctuary there are elephants tied to tree trunks and big cement blocks. We decided to take a walk through the elephant sanctuary guided by a one of the mahout's there.

This is a typical sight one can find, elephants tied to the trunk of the tree. Some take the shade and some do the sun bath. They do "yo yo" moves for some jazz music to keep them warm as well away from the small bugs. Interesting to see innovative moves done by the elephants. Also some use a branch of a coconut tree to scratch their body, other throw sand on their body to keep the bugs away!

Its easy to differentiate a male tusker from a female. The male elephants have long tusks, Ah some tusks are really long as you see in the above pic (6 vidyasangal sollungal paarpom). Trust me its a really tough skin and rock solid tusk. I almost fled the spot when the elephant made a sudden movement. (@revs & @tom your requests fulfilled)

The female does have tusks, but they are very small. Like the one you see above. They are also slightly short in height than a well grown male. There are some male elephants that has a female face, ie with a shorter tusk these are the ones that will be used the circus, said the mahout.

Elephants will undergo a period (around 3 months) known as musth. During this period the testosterone levels increase in the elephants and they become very aggressive. Its identified by a thick oil like substance that's secreted on the temporal glands on the side of the elephants head. So even an experienced mahout dares to go near the elephant. Once elephant is identified for this, all four legs are tied in huge chains, food & water is supplied from distance using a hose pipe.
This is a sad part of the elephant care taking. A stick is kept behind its ear. The elephant has to stay (stand) without the stick falling down. This is said to teach discipline to them. If it fails to hold the stick, it is given some lashes with it, says one of the mahouts. Some times the elephant takes the stick thats dropped and pleads for guilty by holding it on the trunk.

Also this sanctuary has some of the elephants that were donated by film stars and politicians like J.Jayalalithaa.

Transitive

2009-09-11T17:31:00.001+05:30

Teacher tells a student
a=b, b=c implies a=c.
Tell me an example.
Student: I love you,
you love your daughter,
so I love your daughter.

All right

2009-09-11T02:08:00.005+05:30

So, if I asked you about art, you'd probably give
me the skinny on every art book ever written.
Michelangelo. You know a lot about him. Life's work,
political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual
orientation, the whole works, right? But I bet you
can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel.
You've never actually stood there and looked up at that
beautiful ceiling. Seen that....If I ask you about
women, you'd probably give me a syllabus of your
personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few
times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake
up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a
tough kid. I ask you about war, you'd probably
uh...throw Shakespeare at me, right? "Once more into
the breach, dear friends." But you've never been near
one. You've never held your best friend's head in your
lap, and watched him gasp his last breath looking to
you for help. I ask you about love, y'probably quote
me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and
been totally vulnerable...known someone that could
level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel
on Earth just for you..who could rescue you from the
depths of Hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like
to be her angel, n to have that love for her be there
forever. Through anything. Through cancer. And you
wouldn't know about sleepin' sittin' up in a hospital
room for two months, holding her hand because the
doctors could see in your eyes that the terms visiting
hours don't apply to you. You don't know about real
loss, because that only occurs when you love
something more than you love yourself. I doubt you've
ever dared to love anybody that much. I look at you: I
don't see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky,
scared shitless kid. But you're a genius, Will. No one
denies that. no one could possibly understand the
depths of you. But you presume to know everything
about me because you saw a painting of mine and
ripped my fuckin' life apart. You're an orphan, right?
Do you think I'd know the first thing about how hard
your life has been, how you feel, who you are because
I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you?
Personally, I don't give a shit about that, because you
know what? I can't learn anything from you I can't
read in some fuckin' book. Unless you wanna talk
about you, who you are. And I'm fascinated. I'm in.
But you don't wanna do that, do you, sport? You're
terrified of what you might say. Your move,
chief.

Source & more

Happy married life 02mw(01-09)

2009-09-06T13:33:00.006+05:30

There are days

2009-09-05T10:12:00.003+05:30

When I said (f#$k off) a polite Thank You and left the room.

A simple wedding

2009-08-28T11:16:00.005+05:30

Yesterday I traveled to Guruvayur temple, Kerala for one of my friend's wedding. My mom reminded me that, I'm going to the temple exactly after 24 years. So ideally I would take this my first visit I can remember. :) It was a Malayali wedding that I attended and I really loved the way the whole ceremony went.

Step 0: Get the bride and groom dressed up for the occasion.
Step 1: Wait in the temple's wedding queue. Yes, there are multiple podiums outside the temple where lot of weddings happen on a given day.
Step 2: Get on the podium, the chief priest will do a small ceremony and the groom ties the mangalyam (sacred rope) to the bride and pray to lord Guruvayurappan for their well being. That's it, click few snaps and you are done. Approx time 5-8 minutes for each couple.
Step 3: Walk to the nearest wedding reception hall that's already booked.
Step 4: Exchange rings, Flowers and round the sacred grains and lamps that were kept on the stage. Finally sign the registration papers. :) Its done again. Approx time 30-60 minutes.

Then its left of the members of the family and friends to give fruit and milk to the couple. Finally each of them coming to the podium for a photo session. The whole thing called wedding is done. How simple, neat and crisp.

Instead of complex long chanting mantras, burning fire, smoke, asking the bride to change the Saree every one hour, occupying a huge wedding hall for two days, the grooms horse ride the previous day and the numerous other small ceremonies that happen, its sometimes good to keep things simple. Spending so much on the materials for the wedding. Literally the bride and groom become so tired by the end of the day. Its agreed that these are traditions in many families and they did not want this to fade out and every parent will wish their children to get married auspiciously.

Still this is something many families can think about following, except the loads of gold that the bride wears. ;)

Love marriage, Arranged marriage

2009-08-25T16:05:00.004+05:30

Last Sunday I watched the "Neeya Naana" episode in Vijay TV. Topic was "Acceptance of arranged marriage and acceptance of love marriage". This always seems to be a sensitive/hot topic for people to debate about. So I'm not going to do it here.

In the current generation, the probability of people who are against love marriages is more. They might include mostly people who are more than 30+ years old. They are people who are from the previous generation living in this generation. In fact the various reason's they quote for not accepting love marriages are,

Caste the guy or girl belongs
Religion
Language they speak
Pride they might lose of accepting the love marriage
I don trust love marriage

Its their personal preferences and we don have a say in it.

But, how will the next generation be? Will there be a change? Will there be freedom for men and women to choose the people whom you want to live with? I remember a couple telling, We will be more than happy if their kid finds someone from its opposite gender. That should be all. Some say I'm even OK with them being gay, provided they are happy. But will this all eventually happen! We got to wait a few more decades for an update. :)

But definitely the chance to choose the life partner will increase in the coming generation. People will make their own choices and will be independent. But still there will be people who will sail along to the next generation with the same ideology for love marriage.

Whats your view?

Test Cricket Ret'urn's

2009-08-25T00:13:00.004+05:30

It was a splendid summer for England winning The Ashes test series 2-1. But really it was cricket that won at the end. Australia faces reality by sliding down as 4th team in test cricket standings. Time has gone were many questioned, if there can be team who can perform better then mighty Aussies. Many teams have already re-written the history books. New performers like Stuart Broad and Ben Hilfenhaus come into the centre stage and what a perfect moment for Fredy to step down. I'm loving this form of cricket.

Test cricket once was a pride for nations to play and win. The long five day format of the game were each team plays two innings. Then came the shorter form of the game, One day internationals. Yeah It was one day. The game became faster and obviously more interesting for the spectators. Time rolled they introduced a much more shorter version. 20-20 Ah, Its sudden death. I still feel Test cricket has its own charm for the game. After witnessing The Ashes it convinces that a test cricket match can always end with a result.

Thanks to Australia for playing such a competitive cricket. Without them the thrill of who will win the match is not there. Since they have players who can turn the game and win series. Thanks to the never dying spirits of the English men. Using the home advantage and holding their nerve till the end was creditable. Incredible captaincy and they won as a team. Cheers to the Barmy Army, guys you made all the noise to send the message loud and clear, "Its Barmy Army...."

If I had to watch cricket it would be of this order

The Ashes test series
Border Gavaskar series
ICC Champions Trophy
IPL in India
ICC World Cup

Two incidents one outcome

2009-08-23T16:55:00.003+05:30

I was reading my early posts and suddenly noted this interesting similarity.

Recently in Sankar's blog

Very early in my blog. (Paragraph starting "Then 9th")

This reminds me how long it had been since playing Cricket. Apart from limited bowling run up and arm action I do when I walk in office corridor. Its a very good way to stretch myself. Yes, I'm lazy. I should confess that first for not playing in the play ground, since nothing stopped me really. :) Let me see if I can play a few games in near future.

Anonymous

2009-08-17T20:14:00.004+05:30

I wish I had been an Anonymous writer....

Photography: Avoiding camera shakes

2009-08-17T20:00:00.001+05:30

Did you goof up the last night's birthday celebration photos or messed up one of your favourite portraits due to camera shake? The image became blurred, never mind. I really cannot guarantee you for a sharp click next time, but it can be largely avoided. I will try in my own K.I.S.S way! Thanks to Dwarak to start a cubicle side conversation on this.

Why does camera shake occur?

Primary reason is one shakes the camera when clicking the shutter button!
Low light could be another reason for the shake to occur. (Though this does not come under camera shake, its a reason for blurred images)
You should have kept the shutter speed less.

How to avoid camera shakes?

Practice and get used to your camera shutter button. Try to hold the camera in various ways and try clicking the shutter button. Since there might be a need to lie on the floor, in this case how will you hold the camera and click. At first someone looking at you practice might think something is wrong. :)
If you are clicking with your right hand, you can use the left hand as a base to place the camera. This will avoid camera shake in lot of way. Samples here.
Shakes can be very much reduced when you can keep the elbow in a stationary object. A table or a small projection should be good enough to keep your elbow.
Try to stick the view finder to the bone near your eyebrow. Keep it gentle, else it my hurt a bit.
If you have got a tummy, use it to your advantage by tucking in your elbow in it.
I practice holding my breathe for a few seconds when I click the shutter, It works for me for concentration as well avoid shakes.
Nothing work, invest on a tripod. :-)

Delicacy

2009-08-17T18:04:00.005+05:30

A Chinese restaurant thats almost good to be recommended. After some little hesitation we decided to visit this restaurant over this weekend (yeah, my cook was on PL).

Name: Delicacy
Location: Use this map or take the road opposite to Maharaja hotel in Koramangala and the first left before smart. The entrance will look like this.
Food: Chinese
Capacity: Max 10 people can dine at one shot. Yeah only 10.

That last point was the only drawback I can think of. Food was tasting good and the price was very moderate when compared to its other cousins like China Perl, Yo China, Chung Wa. So worth the money you spend. Most importantly good service in the small place. Tried all veggies this time and they were good. But Non-Veg and sea food options were also available for most of the dishes.

So give it a try!

Cool headed

2009-08-14T23:25:00.004+05:30

News is I'm back from Tirupathi and had a good Darshan. Thanks to the volunteers - who man handled people in the queue to take a break when we were there. Also tonsured my head during the holy visit. Hence here is the aftermath of being without something after many years!

- After taking bath, I tried adjusting my hair and ended up scratching my scalp.

- Esp when few girls got down from the adjacent bus, the hand auto magically goes to adjust the hair. :-) Chinna viyasu palakam.

- Some of my testimonials said, I was a cool head. Now I know.

- One of my roomie has more hair than me as on date.

- Its a bit awkward to see my own shadow, the curves look sexy on the head.

- Never knew a potential of a "Tamil film villain" within me. What to do, once in a while movies like Shivaji also get screened.

- Even committed the sin of touching the comb.

Airtel reads your private data - How sick!

2009-08-12T17:34:00.003+05:30

Here is the series of events that happened...

My friend (say Santosh) used to stay in Hyd previously! I used to make calls to santosh often when he was there.
Three months back, santosh moved to Bangalore. Hence he got his Airtel mobile transferred to an Airtel Bangalore connection. So this migration was done at the cost of a change in number.
The Airtel Hyd ppl had some queries to santosh regarding his connection and they tried calling his Hyd no (which was eventually not present).
So now Airtel sweetly browses his Hyd connection call history and gets to find my number in the list and gives me a ring asking me to remind santosh to get back to them.
I initially thought Santosh should have given my number as an alternate contact number or something and informed the Airtel guy that he moved to Chennai. Also said will remind, once I see him.
I also asked Airtel, Don they have his transferred Bangalore number? He replied "no"!
Now is the ugly act two: The Airtel guy now calls Santosh directly and talks. Wait a sec. Did they look through my call logs on the server and guessed Santosh number?

I called up the person in Airtel (he was a Relationship Manager there) and asked "how did you get my number?" He said we went through the call log and got this number! I was shocked! Do you read call details like that? It should always happen with the concern of the client! Or at the worst case an FIR should be there to look into a clients private data! Asked him, if there is a disclaimer written for looking at such data? He said "no" again. After me asking many questions to him that he did not have an answer he said he will call me back! He did not get back to me, and if I ring back again he colleague picks the call and says he is not around!

So do they read just the call log or even evesdrop in the call when they are bored or browse some random sms and emails that flow across?

Is there something I can do about this breach?

Can I file a complaint some where?

P.S: The place and character name are fictional. But events along with Airtel are real!!

ROFL: SBI Card

2009-08-10T18:10:00.001+05:30

via

And

2009-08-06T18:56:00.004+05:30

This was the photo I submitted and this was the hand made photo frame goodie I won @ office as a part of Green Week celebration.

BlogPost (test post)

2009-08-03T19:39:00.002+05:30

BlogPost is one of the project as part of HackWeek. I was simply interested in it from the beginning, for the reason its related to Blogging. :) So yeah, here is my test post using BlogPost. You can read more about the BlogPost in Suresh's blog. Suresh is a Kernel hacker whom I can find in my floor!

Distractions

2009-08-02T00:54:00.009+05:30

Thank God! I have them. After an incrediable day, here are some experiements from my studio! Let me not forget, the first two is a crop from Arun's pics and model is Kishore! Good night.

That's my city

2009-08-01T18:39:00.005+05:30

This is what my HOD Dr R. Nadarajan had to say about my college,

"As far as PSG College of Technology is concerned, there is no gap between theory & practice. But in addition to what is thought in curriculum we provide some extra training, which are actually very much required by the industry. In that way our students are salable in the market."

Source Moneycontrol.com

SetFocus()

2009-07-31T14:48:00.008+05:30

When I login to the multiple websites, I'm impatient. Impatient of the jazzy flash to load, for the Ads to be fetched. As soon as I see the Username and Password fields get rendered, I start typing and hit Enter. Many of you would have encountered this problem. When one starts typing the password, the client sets the focus in the Username text box. Result, I end up typing the password in clear text. More over, it gets cached by the browser.

So yeah,
1) Is there a way to avoid this late focus? Can't the code be written to set the focus as soon as the component is created!
2) Is it a problem with the code or the browser?
3) How about making Username text box also masked with "*" character. When one can type long passwords with special characters correctly, (s)he can very well type the Username correctly.
4) Why does this late focus happens? Technically!!

P.S. I've got three UI developers in my home. :-)

Update: psankar commented a cool tip,
one thing that you can do after this has happened is, you can do a shift+del, to delete that entry alone from autocompletion list.
Many people dont know this and end up clearing full history.

Er, you dint say that

2009-07-30T15:17:00.004+05:30

Experience one:
I walked into a grocery store the other day, the usual weekly visit. I picked up some biscuits and toiletries. Then, I went to the deodorant section and noticed a bright label saying "buy 2 get 20% off". I thought that was cool. I picked up an orange color and a silver color (they were flavors that pleased me a little). After waiting in the long queue for billing, I got the things billed. Strangely I noticed in the bill, both the deodorants were billed in the actual selling price. Annoyed and tired, I walked to the guy in the billing section and asked him to reason out for the 20% discount that was missing. He wittily replied back,"Its only when you take both in the same flavor". WTH.

Experience two:
One would have seen the latest Airtel ad were a girl and her friends save a paper boat to float in heavy rain. Its for their new connection plan called, "Special 5". I read the specification of the plan in the website and it was good when compared to the corporate plan I hold. I then called up customer care to change my plan. Swiftly she replied back, "Sir its not available for corporate plan holders". WTH++.

Later one of my colleague walks to my place and says, Did you know there is a per day rental of Rs 1 for each of the numbers you add as part of the Special 5 plan. So its like Rs 5 per day! Whooot! Then went back to airtel.in again to find there is a faq section (yeah, you read that right :)) that says about the rental charges. WTH++.

The whole point here is, its sick of these brands to do this kind of false marketing. Letting the customers know only the nice side of it in big banners with a small * sign at the end of each line and its left to them to explore the ugly side of it. These leeches will not let you go unless they are happy. So lesson here is to change oneself to be super smart when you spend on things.

Recent Addiction

2009-07-23T22:13:00.005+05:30

I have a natural affinity to Physics. I remember my Physics lessons vividly and still occasionally get time to read something on the same line. Lucky that I either got a good Physics teacher at school or compensated that in my tuition classes. My Physics teacher used to start every unit with this statement: "What is Light? Define light?" After many students trying to guess, he would say, "Light is nothing but Light!". Experiments used to amuse me, I liked the way how candle flame used to get inverted through the convex lens and the Pendulum experiments.

Recently one of my friends tweeted about this new addiction, yeah, it's a game! Gravity Master (http://www.gravitymaster.net/),a game based on Physics. You have a rolling ball, you have to move the ball to the glowing black circles. That's it. Looks simple. Now it's left to your imagination how you reach the destination. Drawing lines, shapes are all left to one's imagination. My room mates, friends and many around me started to play. Incidentally I introduced my friend and she sat thro the night and mailed me in the morning that she completed 21 level in one stretch.

So addictive it is! Right now, I'm stuck with 23 and really need a mouse to play it, because it's hard to work with this insensitive touch pad mouse. Try it, have fun.

P.S: If you are a computer scientist don't miss Box 2D and Crayon Physics in the "Thanks To" section.

Ashes, I'm loving it

2009-07-20T20:15:00.009+05:30

Today England recorded their historic win against Aussies in the second Ashes test again. I told my friends in UK,"If you are gonna meet Ponting after the first test, tell him he will lose the next". I wish I was at lords for the Party. :)

A nail biting (no it was even finger biting) finish for the first test match where the tail end saved the test match for England from the jaws of defeat. What does that mean to Aussies?They have an upper hand start in the series. English will become under dogs going forward. They used this label very wittily in the second test. A sensational start from Strauss and Cook in the first innings. They posted a neat 425 in their first innings. Australia came in to bat and Anderson to start the damage of getting through the Aussies wood work. Good fielding and support from other bowlers helped England manage to restrict Aussies for 215. Nasty boy Ponting surely did try his tricks by talking about poor umpiring.

England not forcing Aussies for a follow on was a crucial move (I liked it). It would have been less pressure on the Aussies than coming on the 4th day to defend the test match with a target of 500+. Then a quick 300 at 4.35 run rate, England came back quick to the field. Then the magic man Flintoff to remove both the openers and put a base for the downfall. Finally it was a match turning innings from Clarke and Haddin. Sure the huddle meeting before the new ball worked out. :)

Day 5: I asked Rohit, "Who are you putting your money on?". No prizes for guessing the answer. Wicket for Clarke almost forfeited the match to England. Nothing like winning an Ashes test in Lords.

It was like watching the true sprint of the game. This is what I call cricket! Cricket at its best. The fancy 20 over cricket is an over kill and boring on a longer run, since its money driven. Once again Congrats to the English team. We got more work to do, let's avoid another Amazing Adelaide! Like the Ashes, I wish we make Border-Gavaskar trophy more interesting.

Open feedback

2009-07-17T23:06:00.005+05:30

Hey Readers!

Thanks a ton for reading this blog.

A silent friday night like this when I'm running a fever, a friend of mine rings me. She gave me open feedback about the things that have changed with respect to this blog (http://hsejiv.blogspot.com/). What she used to like on my blog and what has changed. What made her read it once and what's missing now. What's good about this blog etc etc.

It's a good wake up call, So here is this 360 feedback. Let me know what you think.

Thanks all, I'm done collecting them. Now it's time for some data analysis.

Are we really busy???

2009-07-15T14:08:00.003+05:30

Authored by Red. Read the full post from his blog! A small cross post below!

The latest buzz word which i hear often these days is "busy". its either "i'm busy" or "i thought you're busy".

First, when will you say that you're busy? or how can you identify whether we're busy or not? My answer for that is plain and simple, when you haven't spoken with your friend for 'long time' (and the time-period for that 'long time' varies based on person to person). The reason for me to use 'friend', than any other relationship, is just because, you've the total freedom with friends, its neither a 'duty', which is the case with parents and relatives, nor 'mandatory', which is the case with your other-half or lover. you have the entire control over, when to talk to your friends, and also whom to talk, in that big list of friends. And all these absolutely out of your own personal INTEREST......