It's been a year.

Can't believe that a year has flown by since I last posted.

Here's to 2008. Here's to another start.

A quick highlight of what I've been up to in the last year. Well, not much, its been a lot of void and bloopers but I'll try to cover them up.

1. Got back to Soccer. After a decade or so. Found a pickup soccer club that plays Sunday morning. People don't believe that I used to be a highschool soccer superstar. May be they would if I didn't suck beyond reasonable doubt.

2. Visited India. After a long time. Was a lot of realization.
Some things never change - beautiful beaches with molaga bajji (fried flour battered hot green chillis - unhygienic but delicious), crazy traffic and crazier driving..
Some things change a lot - married friends, new malls, newer IT parks..
Stopped over London on the way home and Dubai on the way back. It was a real vacation.

3. Got a taste of Vegas. Someone told me that you had slots in the airport. I didn't believe then. Now I do. The amount of money exchanged, I mean donated in that short strip of land is amazing. I came to terms with the fact that gambling was not a good investment option after all.

4. Got a chance to peek at the Grand Canyon. Gives you a sense of security - the next time you think you are in deep shit, think about the deeper things in life and take solace.

5. Age went up. Again.

6. This new year sucked. Pretty much like the last one. For some reason a new year doesn't excite me. It illusions a mirage that things will get better. It reinforces your inability to keep resolutions.

The crown and the frown.

Beauty is much over-rated. So was Miss Universe 2006. I wasn't even aware, did not care, until Ms. M introduced me to the event on Saturday. I was advocated on the opportunity of patriotism. Influenced, I decided to watch the grand finale. This decision meant I was willing to halt my LOST-1 marathon that was going on non-stop from Friday night.

It was going to start at 8 pm and I was all ready. Only a Spanish channel aired the preview and I was glued to the TV (despite the stupidest ads ever and audio that I had no clue of) just to catch the glimpse of our star participant. Miss India, Neha Kapoor. But they missed India and didn't show her at the preview!! What a disappointment. Bummer. *Frown* (this is where I stealthily make the title that rhymes count - its almost like this in IT. We invent a fancy acronym and then plug in the expansion). After this unruly act, all of a sudden a collection of pageants looked Indianish! In true spirit, I started extending support to sorta Indian looking babes Ms. Bolivia and Ms. Columbia while Ms. M totally disapproved it and accused me of being a traitor.

9 pm and the real show was on. There were a few learnings from the program:

1. New countries are being formed every day and beauty pageants are the most effective ways to announce it to the rest of the real world.
Quoting Ms. M, "St. Martin sounds more like a school than a country :p"

2. Starting this year, they allow laaaaarge costumes so you can legally block the view of 16 contestants behind you.

3. You can ALWAYS count on Ms. Venezuela.

4. Africa has more countries than you think.

5. The 800 diamond crown is worth $250,000.

6. You can send flowers to the pageant of your choice from $19.99 to $399.99

7. The Official Swimsuit Poster of Miss Universe 2006 is yours for just $5. No, I did not buy it. Not yet.

8. Beauty sells.

The finding of Bachelor Cooking.

We have this potluck at work. The last time I had potluck I was in luck. My aunt and my cousin came to my rescue and made delicious Pav Bhaji and Chicken Tikka. It actually made me popular at work despite the bad reputation I had - hard earnt with my stupidity and practical jokes.

What do I do this time? Popular categories like cups, plates and sodas were gone before I could put my name on the intranet.

Oh ya, intranet. This time there was public humility at stake as well. Who invented this concept of potluck? I sigh.

After eons of deliberations and sleepless nights I found the magic.

Badam Kheer. Thanks to MTR.You got to love the recipe.

Badam Drink (Hot and Cold)

Add 2 tsp (about 15g) of MTR Badam Feast to 1 cup of hot milk (150ml).

Add sugar if desired.


Stir. Serve hot or chill the same for cold badam drink.


So I registered to bring Badam Kheer (Almond Dessert Drink, I proudly translated) and prepared 2 gallons and put it in the fridge. Other than minor "not really my fault" incedents like boiled milk spilling all over, paper towels catching on fire, discovery that aluminium foil is a bad substitute for funnel, etc. the preparation went on pretty well.

My dessert is chilling at home. Potluck is tomorrow. Now for the garnishing part. I search recipes for Badam Kheer for garnishing ideas. I bumped into this Indian cooking site which had several categories like breakfast recipes, chutney recipes, rice recipes etc. Much to my surprise I saw a category "Bachelor cooking".

If you are a bachelor, stuck up in an isolated place and missing your mom's cooking like anything, browse through this section for some quick and easy recipes. Yes, contrary to popular belief, plenty of bachelors around the world can whip up lovely delicacies in a jiffy, with whatever's available in the house. Conversely, many a married guy makes for the worst cook. However, bachelor culinary expertise is fast becoming an artifact these. days, thanks to frozen and take-away foods. Whatever be the ambience, check out these quick delights and have a rolling time.

Interesting!!

Red means go

One might wonder with characters like Ms. S, that girls have immense foresight and are always looking ahead. Except that Ms. S is an exception.

Scene 1:
You are on the passenger side and a girl is driving the car (and/or your fate, actually!!). Its all good, the car is cruising at 40s, nice music. What can possibly go wrong? Wait until you see a red light. So there is this red light staring at you. There's a reason they chose red. Its blaring, can't miss it, red is danger, right? You wish. This car has no intentions of stopping, steady, still at 40, like red means go. The surprise quickly translates into a shock. You go "Hey, hey, red, red, hey you.." *car breakkkkkkkkkkks*

"Oh I was looking at that next light, it was green.. hehhehee"

Scene 2:
Shopping mall, wildlife sanctuary, ship, prison, no matter where, as long as there is a door with a sign "DO NOT USE THIS DOOR." you can bet $90,000 or more that a girl will use that door. Or try hard to if its not cooperative. Its as if they suddenly they lose their 18 years of literary ability. They can't read.

Letters or colors. They can't read. Unbelievable! We tested this on 12,211 female subjects. 12,210 subjects demonstrated the above behavior. Oh, 1 was a guy dressed as a girl.

Note: If you are a girl and I don't open the door in front of you, its only because some experiement is in progress, not that I'm not gentlemanly.

The Geller effect

I have a "Monica type" friend. Ms. S. Of course she denies it but here are a few sample activities:

1. Her movies at home are arranged in alphabetical order.
2. Her clothes are organized in the order of rainbow color shades. I'm sure she's got one of those complex looking physics lab "-scopes" to maintain accuracy.
3. Most things she buys undergo initial antibacterial, antiviral treatments before use. Yes, we are talking about new things. Manufacturing facilities these days, you never know.
4. When you visit her you most probably get a complementary supply of germ-x and a napkins.
5. Recently she is researching on how cleaning products can be cleaned.

Reminds me of F.R.I.E.N.D.S,
Monica is vacuuming the carpet. Then she uses a handy vacuum to clean the vacuum machine and goes "If only they had smaller vacuums to clean this one."

You get the idea.

Ms. S' latest classic:
"I would bring you the DVD but I already packed it.."
"Oh you found a place? Where are you moving to?"
"No, but I started packing" (D'oh!! written all over her)

Other suggestions:
You can wake up before you sleep.
You can get off work before you go to work.
Etcetera. Etcetera.

(updated)
Spotted at Ms. S's:







Yellow sticky to Ms. S read..
"Now you wanna be Ross? What's with you and the Gellers?"

Note:
One may not trust me with my bad prior history of rare, mild exaggeration of things, but I swear this is true.

Finest in fine print

Heard on radio a few weeks ago. After a commercial when they say the fine print stuff at the end.

Like "Zamestrica PM relieves pain from your dull head in milliseconds and gives you a good night's sleep so you can continue to have your nightmares. Zamestrica PM is proven to provide fastest relief. The money you pay for Zamestrica PM will give you so much pain and grief that the original pain feels like nothing!! Ask your doctor if you can try Zamestrica PM" You should not have Zamestrica PM if you have diahoerrea, cold sore or stinky feet. Side effects include losing hearing ability, losing balance, vomitting and in some cases dieing"

This was not after a Zamestrica ad, but some ad I did not pay attention to. End of it said "Life is precious." As part of fine print message. Sometimes we forget simple things in the mundane, fast track, busy lives we lead. We get older day by day and forget to realize the preciousness of life.

That message revitalized the fact that "Life is precious" and a moment to think. Sometimes the finest thoughts come out of a fine print.

Observed absurdity

Ok, here's a pet peeve I've been petting for a while.

Scene:

A meeting at work where the conference line is open.

Seen:

Admist heavy discussion whether it would rain heavily this weekend or would it be sunny.. Oops that was going on in my mind. I waver every time we have a meeting and I can't get enough from 8 people repeating the same thing 8 times. Well, I mean I waver every time we have a meeting.

Well the actual discussion was about "should we update something in one place or update something in both places". That's not important here. When someone says something seemingly important, the caller on the conference call goes "I can't hear you, can you speak up please?" and at least one person sitting by the phone relentlessly INCREASES THE PHONE VOLUME
ON OUR END".

I just don't get it. What does the person increasing the volume think in his head??

"I can't hear you"
(Increasing the volume) "Well, we can hear you, and now we'll hear you better now."

"I can't hear you"
(Increasing the volume) "Oh here we go, pushing up the phone volume increases the vocal chord pitch of every one in this room, how cool"

"I can't hear you"
(Increasing the volume) "Too bad for you, now at least you can hear yourself louder"

"I can't hear you"
(Increasing the volume) "Oh let me do a magic"

I am not kidding, I have observed this absurdity at least 11 times by 11 different people. Common sense like they say, is so uncommon!

Dude, wheres my car tags?

I am a practical guy. I am a funny guy. (This claim comes from the opposite gender treating this as a #1 quality in guys. Not good guy, not a teetotaler guy, but ya, funny guy. I was late to know that, not too late to evolve funniness in me) That gives me a lot of opportunity for practical jokes.





Alright, this was a few weeks ago. Had a busy day at work, I was listening to music and staring at the computer like I do every single day. My roomie, Mr. S shows up and goes "Why are your number plates on your bed?". Well thats a quality, more like a virtue, imbibed by years of religious ignoring of my dad's advise, warnings and orders to "keep things where they are supposed to be". Can't believe he used to say that. The world would be so boring, so predictable. Ridiculously ideal. No need to search for anything, no Google, no GMail, imagine??

Anyway, I tell him "Didn't you see the apartment notice near the mailbox?"
"What notice?"

"There was a notice for the residents. Yesterday someone stole the licence plates off 20 something cars"
Puzzled, "Wwwwwwhat??"

"You didn't glance at the other cars when you got off, did you? Everyone's walking around with number plates in their hand."
"No, I didn't notice"

"Hmmm, yes, so until they respond to this incedent by putting security into the apartment they advise us to remove the number plates and take it with us"
"Are they crazy? Who an earth will remove the licence plate when we get off the car? It's not the key to bring it with us when you get off.. Wait a minute, you are kidding, right"

"What kidding, they aren't kidding. They even quoted a clause from the lease by which the management is not responsibile for your car while parked in the apartment premises"
"What lease? What crap? These people are crazy I'm telling you. I am going to sue them. This place is hell."

"Well I took my tags off. You might want to take yours off, you don't want to be stranded tomorrow morning"
"Are you telling me I got to screw and unscrew every time I want to use my car, this is ridiculous"

"Up to you"
"Let me go and read the damn notice. How dare they..#^$%&@" mumbling and fading away as he walks downstairs.
Me goes ROTFL. I couldn't believe this guy buys my stories. Could not guess I changed my licence place from my moving from MD to VA.
Oh he's back from a quick fun trip to the mailbox "Damn it. Idiot. #$&*@^$&#"

Cell phones that inhibit communication.

The other night I went to this Thai restaurant with a friend of mine. Right across our table was this young Indian couple. Both of them were on the cell phone engaged in some serious conversation. Their food came. They were still lost in the cell phone talk. We ordered food. They must have something really important going on. Our food came. They go on and on and on. No signs of cell phone advertisement around. I get curious. Probably, probably they have to hang on the conversation. Or they'll die. The Night Shyamalan in me started to play the play. At one time I consciously noticed if they were talking to each other on the cell phone. You never know, we Indians sometimes, (who am I kidding? always!!) have this habit of abusing anything that's free. Are they making "use" of the free night minutes?

This was getting more interesting than the Thai delight that was served.

Sometimes I wonder if technology gets too much into our lives. Long distance communication is so accessible that we don't get to talk to people right in front of us.

Oh yeah, they finally hung up, hastily munched the food and walked out. If only there was handsfree eating!!

Cop Car Crap.

Tuesday morning. I decide to leave office a bit earlier that usual. Sunny day and morning radio make me all excited. I cruise along the road and drive faaast so I can beat the signal light like I do every morning. That's when I spot a cop car. Copppppp. Reflex action couldn't function better. Instantly I apply the brakes and watch the dial in front of me. 60s, 50s, 40s, should be just about right, I hope.

Goddddddd, Godddddd, Crapppppp. Copppppp. The cop car takes off as soon as I pass it. I know the drill now, been through this "get caught and temporarily be careful" cycles 2 times. Red and blue blinks right before me and I stop. "Sir, you were stopped because you were driving at 57 in a 35 zone. Can I see your licence and registration?". Holy crap. That would be state #3 that gave me ticket for speeding. As he was writing me a ticket for some reason Chennai Police hainted my mind in a flash. Along with the instances where I carelessly swifted through them before they could get me. I'd know they are hiding behind Gemini flyover pillars to catch people who run the red light but the hero in me knew exactly how I must maneuver to get past them. Practiced. Perfected. Taking turns in a no turn area. Making U turns whenever I felt like. Changing lanes like nobody's business. Crossing red lights until it was physically impossible. If they wrote points for my offences like in the US, I would have got state first or something. I would have made my family proud for once.

I used to mock at their helplessness. What goes around, comes around. Life teaches lessons. I stare blankly at the ticket and listen to the officer say "Here's your ticket sir, drive safe". Damage is hundred and freakin forty and freakin five dollars. I am on "get caught and temporarily be careful" phase again. Damn.

Hello this is Chad Chowdary, how may I help you?

Friday night, all of your friends are out partying either becuase they are plain lucky or because you just suck. No one home, TV just does'nt do it tonight. What do you do? I don't know what you'd do but this is what I'd do. Call any damn Customer Service after 9 EST and if your insurance provider, cellphone operator, plumber or the cleaning lady is smart enough, the call will be directed to a few continents away. Hamara India.

Time to pick on our call center friends.

If you get serviced by the right guy or girl, you got free entertainment. Keep some stock of popcorn, pop and pizza. How often can you call your family and friends paying 12.9 freaking cents per minute? (0r 6.9 cents per minute for one way conversations) Here you talk to someone in India not necessarily family, but hey! make friends dude!

Ok, I don't do that every Friday night, but I could. This post is dedicated to this guy who I am holding on right now and many others whose primary aim in life is to entertain me from thousands of miles away. As it happens, this is a genuine call to straighten some of my car insurance stuff, but waiting till 9 EST was quite some match-fixing effort.

Some of the salient entertainment features of this call: (This salient word was such a doh! every exam had it and I just hated it)

1. I was placed on hold the first time so he can do some "research" on my policy information. That research took a while, here I am chatting, thinking and fishing for million dollar ideas and getting more hungry, I only hope his research went on well and he got his PhD degree out of that.

2. He came back to me and asked me the same questions he did when I first called. I perfectly understand that he had to make sure I was not drunk since I last spoke to him, sober, could recite the alphabet, recide poems and capable of giving the same responses each time I was questioned under scary and extenuating circumstances.

3. It made no difference to him that I had a Honda Civic. He just kept referring to it as Honda City all along. I am sure that was premeditated to make me feel 'at home on Indian roads'. It made me feeling like I was honked at from all directions.

4. After one of those "can I put you on hold so I can discuss this policy with my superior" (the closest I could think of is supervisor) expeditions, he came back and said "I have good news, Sir"and reported that the policy amount actually went up. Since when did money become a bad thing? You can start to feel happy when they rip you off.

5. There was this one problem he could not help me out with. He says he will give me a call tomorrow to discuss the same and asks for my number and best time to reach me. While he was at it, I'd so much appreciate if he can conference call my mom. I'll try asking him tomorrow.

It used to surprise me why they use American names and fake accent while we have our Indian signature underlined and bolded in our accents. Nowadays you hear the Indian names itself, Chowdary talks to you instead of Chad, Navneeta instead of Nate. Quite a relief. Think about it, we learnt English from the British, we do business with Americans, but we invented our own Indian English and stuck to it. Pretty cool.

This post is meant to be taken in the lighter sense only, no harm meant to anyone. If you still feel you have been hurt, just get over it, truth hurts ;)

What's so Bunsen about the burner?

I was going over this article about UML and RUP and principles and methodologies and processes (Ok, ok, for non-technocrats with no prior Dilbert exposure: this is supposed to be the tactic by which I impress upon my mundane, 'any damn guy can do' job.. don't tell the any damn guy, I could use lesser competition.. by the way 3 letter acronyms are becoming less popular and less techie, need to invent and use more 4, 5 and 6 lettered ones until they sound like words themselves).

I was presented with a cartoon that shows how different 'stuff' reacting together to produce new 'stuff' (non-technocrats, here is the part where you stand up and appreciate my stepping down the elite geekiness). They used a chemistry lab depiction where this A+B+C -> D happens. And the reaction was sponsored by our own, the one and only Bunsen burner. (I had to squeeze through the nine years of chemistry I forced into myself to remember this Bunsen guy.) This post is not aimed at avenging Bunsen for the two points I lost because I could not remember his stupid name. And no, he was not the only one who contributed to my hatred to Chemistry. He was just one and I have reasons slam him today.

So I ask myself, whats so Bunsen about the burner?

Some guy was creative, insightful and thoughtful enough to prove for the first time that a burner that you use for other everyday essential activities like melting used plastic pens, lighting cigarettes, scaring pets away, heating up the chair before the teacher sits on it, etc. could also find use in a chemistry lab. Good job! Great!! Thanks!!! But people, get over it. That didn't even deserve calling it the Bunsen burner for like an hour. Or all of Bunsen's life. And by no means we should address the burner like that forever into the future. That makes me so wild. Here we are technologically unchallenged, with the invention of CD burner, DVD burner and the Dual DVD burner and still who wins hands down? Bunsen Burner! Damn it! Lucky B#$^@%. I mean, lucky Bunsen!

I would be so damn pissed if I were Edison. Freaking people, after spending the whole of my life inventing light and discovering other things which no can ever see - like the electrons (thats the beauty, met anyone who questions the very existence of electrons?). And you people honor Bunsen. All I get is a city in NJ where Indians spit at my invention in every direction. How are we to convince Edison that we don't mean to tranish his image, all we are trying to do is to preserve our heritage.

Oh Man, thanks to Wikipedia, I found this article that adds fuel to the fire. Or Bunsen fuel to the Bunsen fire.

Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (31 March 1811 – 16 August 1899) was a German chemist. He perfected the burner that was named after him, invented by British chemist/physicist Michael Faraday, and worked on emission spectroscopy of heated elements.

So technically this guy did not even invent the burner in the first place, all he did was "perfect" Faraday's burner. There are no references in the article about the killing of a German chemist by a British chemist) A stitch in time could make history. Faraday Burner could potentially become the Bunsen burner. This Bunsen guy sure had phonetic advantage. May be Faraday should have tried Faraday Funnel or something. Oh, he did do something! He probably got mighty pissed when Bunsen stole the lamp, wiped it clean, painted and wrote the word Bunsen on it (read as "perfected"). In his own capacity, he earnt credit for the unit of capacitance, the Farad.

Well, after all, this Bunsen guy had something. For people like me, who cannot find the time to invent stuff admidst several social and antisocial commitments, this guy is a true inspiration. I am on the look out to find something I could perfect. And the world shall gloriously have its own Sri range of products:

Sri Satellite, Sri Sky, Sri Shoelace.. What's the S word? Any suggestions?

Its so true, necessity is the mother of invention!

There are two kinds of people in this world

Ok, theres something with the recent Hindi movies I saw:

Bunti Aur Babli
"There are two kinds of people in this world, those who lead and those who follow. I am of the first kind."

Rang De Basanti
"There are two kinds of people in this world, those who die screaming, those who die calm. And theres the third kind."

My Story
"There are two kinds of people in this world, those who buy shirts that fit them, and those who buy shirts that they want to fit them. I am the second kind, so there is a shirt I bought, and to fit into it, I need to get fit. Fits my plans!"

The plan A is,
in 6 months I would get into the shirt more easily it without stretching the the hell out of the buttons

Oh theres always Plan B!!
in 6 months, at the least get into the shirt without breaking the buttons.

This is the latest resolution - to lose some pounds I could afford to lose without having to give self incriminating disclosures like these:

Ms. P: I weigh about 100 pounds. I've been like this for 10 years.
Me: (Damn it! Now stop making me feel bad and skip lunch. And overeat dinner)
Ms. P: Shri, whats your weight?
Me: (Ouch!!. How do I escape this conversation?? This has got to stop!)
"Somewhere between 100 and 200"

Girls, if age is just a number, so is weight!

Worst pickup line.... like ever

It was mine. :D

Back in 1992. "So, you take French?"

For God's sake it was only on the phone, so technically I could take advantage of the fact thay she had never seen me! (That IS an advantage, believe me! Whenever I fell in love at first sight, the girl would yell at first sight ;) ) Hmmm..... So that was my line - "So, you take French?" And she replied "Yes." And then, doh! it never went anywhere.

After religiously enquiring about all the other courses she could have possibly taken, and passing a few desperate moments in absolute weirdness, I hung up. She hung up.

However it was my first pickup line, and of course, I did not pickup anything! I dropped some things though.. like my self-respect, the chick magnet image that I managed to build within myself ignoring all laws of nature and common sense. As you can tell, most of my crushes and deep loves were one-sided and short-lived.

My misfortune had to do with me. And my screwed up schooling in a boys' school. Ok, I had no choice there. I'd rather blame it on fate.

There were several other things in life that I myself voluntarily messed up. Since my schooling was spoilt (I wasn't, thanks to the stupid freaking school again) I did not have anything useful or useless to do and resorted to studying. I ended up with a decent score that gave me the luxury of choosing a school I wanted (not ANY school I wanted, IITs, Anna University and the the like got filled like months before my turn came) And that is when I screwed up again. Grave, grave, grave. Chose Mechanical Engineering. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, as if I was born to invent some creepy engine tha will run on water or something. Damn It. Even God won't pardon me for that.

That was Boys II of my life. (Since it involved a lot of 'man'ual labor, it is very uncommon in India for girls to take Mechanical) Not a single girl in my class. I am not saying there were no single girls, there were NO GIRLS. All through my four years of undergrad, ALL my senior classes had samples of womankind, ALL my junior classes had some representation of girls. So I was a loser all along, teaming up with a bunch of other losers who claimed that we wouldn't see girls anyways, since we didn't trust girls, girls were a waste of time, girls were mean and any other false propoganda we could think of to defend our weakness with the weaker sex.

Thats a lot of cribbing. Anyways I have evolved as a better stud after those days, got better towards the final year... On Valentine's Day, I cut out hearts and distributed them to the good looking girls (its very hard to use plural here, but anything for my dear college girls), used the hollow heart shapes to give broken hearts to the not-so-goodlooking ones. And forced a foot long rose to a junior girl, etcetera, etcetera.

During my masters I did a lot better, cut off all my guy friends and strictly spoke to girls. So now I have better pickup and keepup lines but still ain't happening, may be its not just the lines.

Thought Wave

Where there is a will there is a cheat code.

I wish I was a..

Have you ever wondered if only you pursued the profession that your heart desired? That what you are into currently came from mindless pressure from rest of the world to become a "successful professional"? That you set your foot in a bit too much to take a U-turn now? And your aspirations and inspirations just remain as thoughts and forgotten memories, burrowed just to bring up a sigh and a brief flashback once in a while when you are depressed, only to make you more depressed?

I do have one of those.

I was lucky to have all the freedom in terms of education. I did what I chose to, made several decisions as to what I would pursue myself. Sometimes I was happy-go-lucky, sometimes I messed up, but I've learnt to take everything positively and now I'm kind of happy where I am. Like my job, like my paycheck, peace. What else would you ask for?

Still, sometimes I wish if it was a journalist. Or a pilot. Two professions I would have loved. Or loved more. Just a thought, nothing more, nothing less. A forgotten thought, nevertheless.

Sidin. A blogger who has left his consulting to become a freelance writer like he always wanted. It takes guts, planning and perseverence. I feel good to see him move. Closer toward where he wants to be. Good luck Sidin.

Rest of us. We choose too. Whatever works for us!

Thanks gapingvoid.com for pic.

Holiday Whopping Shopping

Are you a..

Bargain shopper n.
the desi who masters the art of buying stuff after comparing 190 online stores and 17 brick-and-mortar stores, usu. electronics at ridiculously cheap prices and being proud about it

Well, I am one. Why pay the full price when you can get the same stuff for lesser? I am for it. In the every sense and nonsense of the word.

Its Thanksgiving and shopping time! Time for weird shopping habits. Been there, done that.

It was last thanksgiving when we were outside Best Buy, from 11 PM waiting for the store to open at 6 AM. And guess what, we were not the first in line. Our group were second. Sleazing cold, we tried to feel at home on the platform (literally) with our comforters, and taking turns to enjoy the luxury of being inside the car. And at 5:30 AM there were like 1500 people outside the store. And we did walk out with all the good stuff. Couple of desktops, a few laptops and the like.

This year I am going to stick to shopping online. And not bust into the store with the mob. At least I'll try. So heres some neat sites that can get your stuff for cheaper. Ever seen that "Coupon code" textbox that makes us think "why don't these morons send me some codes along with those stupid spam mails". These sites exist for the social cause of leaking such cool codes!

These guys are awesome!
http://www.fatwallet.com/
http://www.currentcodes.com/
http://www.pinchingyourpennies.com/
http://www.couponcabin.com/

Freedom of Speech!!

Thanks, http://yellowcakewalk.net/

I was on a stroll to Washington DC a couple of weeks ago.

I was zapped seeing Bush protestors protesting with signs and encouraging the commoners to protest in front of the White House lawns. The blatant contempt and the outcry against war, right under the nostrils of the highest level of surveilance by the U. S. Secret Services monitoring the area with god-knows-how-many cameras!

"Bush is a war criminal"
"Impeach Bush"
"Gearge Bush: Serial Killer"
"Bush Liar"
"Blood for Oil"
"Bush Lied Thousands Died"
... and a lot more in 30-something languages hand-written by the hundreds of tourists who visit the White House every day.

Thanks, http://yellowcakewalk.net/

They encourage you to pick up a flyer, take a pic with it front of the White House and promise you will be featured in their website - http://yellowcakewalk.net/.

Note that "cycle gap"la one of our makkal thamizh kodiyai nilai nattittar!!

Long live the 4 o' clock spirit.

It rarely happens that I sleep before 12 midnight.

Rarely do I get get up at 3:45 (not necessarily off the bed) in the morning and don't know how to while away while the morning awakens the rest of the world.

Rarely do I sit up tight and think of getting to my blog after quite a break. And actually update it at 4ish in the morning.

Damn.

Long live this spirit. Any day, I'd rather be an owl than someone who wakes the rooster up.

The Duck Story.

Caught in DC:

Ready..

Set..

Go...

Done...

We Don't Need No Education

I am hooked to a book called "CODE - The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold. It talks about the basics of information exchange and how humans have evolved the art of communication.

The first page of the book introduces a simple anecdote. How the kid next door would use a flashlight to convey an idea to his friend who's bedroom was right across the street, turning the flashlight on and off. This was, by itself, a simplistic code. This story graduates to the Morse Code and before you know, you investigate the nuances of the Braille System, all along with the analogy of the flaslight code. It goes on to explain the intelligence of these systems and how they leverage the limited code elements and maximize the efficiency. In Morse, the E is a . and T is a _ You know why if you watch the Wheel of Fortune, they are the most common letters in English, coded to be the most simple.

The book encapsulates the fundamentals of concepts that make up computing, in steps - logic gates, binary, flip-flops, bytes, hex, microprocessors, ASCII, floating point, High and Low Level Languages, graphics... - its all in elegant baby steps and based on a mantra - K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid!

I have come across if not "memorized" all the topics this book talks about, but that was all an attempt to just gulp the content without understanding why how these things work. The sole aim when I studied was to amass about 80%, that made me a smart student and kept everyone happy. Indian education is great, without which our prowess in math and analytical thinking would not have been inculcated, but I feel our education is lagging in staging practicalities and nuances in a simple manner. It does not encoura ge an average student to be inquisitive, it does not ground the fundamentals enough. We are trained to work a formula and not investigate too much, as a result we can get the job done when told how to do it, and cannot come up with a creative solution to newer problems. We just cannot think outside the box. Education would have been more fun if only I studied off books this.

Education needs to teach, not just preach!

Whatever it takes!

As read on CNN

They...

...quit eating out
...quit wearing anything that needs dry cleaning
...do their own hair
...are not renewing any magazine subscriptions
...take lunch to work
...traded in BMW for Nissan
...quit smoking
...watch movies at home
...eat lesser!!!

All these are moves the commoners are taking to fight the ever-rising gas prices!

Used to be 1.13 a few years ago
Remember 1.70s months ago
2.10s were not very long ago
2.30s a couple of weeks ago

Now the cheapest gas station around this area sells gas at 2.65. Thats about $40 to fill my tank! Some stats for the DC area.


Theres really very little you can do about driving less and saving the extra miles. So the only way out is to cut down on other costs, unfortunately. I drive around 50 miles everyday to and from work, and thanking my stars cos I planned to move closer to work (thats still 30 miles though) this weekend.

Consolation prize on the price:

I get Gas Rebate whenever I use my AAA Credit Card to pump. Which saves me amazing 'couple of cents' for every gallon I pump!

Its gonna be $3 per gallon, wanna bet?

And there are ironic ways to make some extra money which you can use at the pump! Go bet that the gas prices will touch $3 by New Years's in NY or LA. No kidding, real betting! And heres the wager, people!

Random Shots

When: September 2004
Where: Los Angeles, CA

90 Days in 90 Words

Yahoo messenger was one medium I used to stay in touch with my friends. I do not get much time to go online nowadays, so here’s whats been happening with me in the last 90 days.. I'll try in 90 words.. or less ;)

Moved to DC for work – Consultant Business Analyst – damn, its as hot as Chennai here – found a temporary apartment – drive 30 miles to work, one hour, one way, I-495 sucks – busy weeks, lazy weekends – major weekend until now: two days of lakeside fun, jet skiing, banana boating, kayaking, canoeing, tubing, sailing, getting soaked – saw Anniyan in the theater – started running in the mornings – awesome Siva Vishnu temple nearby – wonderful homemade food, thanks to my aunt and cousins –moving to a permanent apartment next weekend – life’s treating me okay for now.

Walking Posters

I caught this one in New York City, two advertisement channels engaged in a conversation!