wat's wrong with blogger

There is some problem with the blogspot, or this is happening to me alone... It doesn't recognize line breaks anymore, and if i give my own line break i see two lines when published... this could be effect of 3rd party templates i was using long back, but thats been ages. All my recent past posts look weird... apologies for that

Taare zameen par....

i am just speechless... master piece! absolute master piece!!!!

wow!

This is the phone which i had wanted for a long time. GPS enabled but by none other than the big GARMIN itself. Take a sneek peek at the phone, first resemblance is iPhone but who cares. I am kind of worried if its going to be AT&T again, those people are going to be expensive and i would even imagine they charge for the GPS usage. Lets wait and watch what happens when this is launched. http://gizmodo.com/350894/garmin-goes-beyond-portable-navi-with-nvifone

Three signs of how i feel now

Source yahoo- "Awful," "dreary," and "miserable" are adjectives that many people use to describe their jobs at one time or another. Dissatisfaction on the job is common and often temporary. But not many people take time to analyze what makes a job miserable, and how to fix it. Fortunately Patrick Lencioni has done much of that work in his book "The Three Signs of a Miserable Job." Job Misery Is Universal The author notes that a "miserable" job differs from a "bad" job, as one person's dream job may not appeal to another worker. A miserable job, however, has some universal traits. "A miserable job makes a person cynical and frustrated and demoralized when they go home at night," Lencioni says. "It drains them of their energy, their enthusiasm, and self-esteem. Miserable jobs can be found in every industry and at every level." Lencioni blames much of the problem on managers, who are a key factor in the job satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) of their employees. A recent Yahoo! HotJobs survey points to a similar conclusion: 43% of workers said discontent with their boss was the main reason they planned to look for a new job in 2008. The Three Signs Lencioni identifies the three signs of job misery as anonymity, irrelevance, and "immeasurement." Anonymity: Employees feel anonymous when their manager has little interest in them as people with unique lives, aspirations, and interests. Irrelevance: This condition occurs when workers cannot see how their job makes a difference. "Every employee needs to know that the work they do impacts someone's life -- a customer, a coworker, even a supervisor -- in one way or another." Immeasurement: This term describes the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contributions or success. As a result they often rely on the opinions of others -- usually the manager -- to measure their success. Three Remedies for Job Misery For workers who may be experiencing the signs of job misery, Lencioni recommends three steps to improve the boss-employee dynamic and enhance job satisfaction. 1. Assess your manager. Is the boss interested in and capable of addressing the three factors mentioned above? "Most managers really do want to improve, in spite of the fact that they may seem disinterested or too busy," Lencioni says. 2. Help your manager understand what you need. This could mean reviewing with your manager what the key measurements for success are for your job. Lencioni also suggests asking your boss, "Can you help me understand why this work I'm doing makes a difference to someone?" 3. Act more like the manager you want. "Employees who take a greater interest in the lives of their managers are bound to infect them with the same kind of human interest they seek," the author says. Or find ways to let your manager know how his or her performance makes a positive difference for you. Be Realistic Richard Phillips, founder of Career Advantage Solutions, agrees that "managing up" is a good way to improve job satisfaction, but he cautions employees to be realistic in their expectations. "Managers are not mind readers," he says. "Take the responsibility to communicate upon yourself, and remember there has to be an ongoing dialogue, or change is unlikely to happen."

General knowledge

he he... check this one here!!! http://www.furfy.com/virginitymap.html?source=qgyh2

Mist - Movie review

For once, i went to watch a movie without reading review and without knowing what it was about, the movie is pretty ok and story-line though not too different from various fictions, is well taken. Based on the Stephen King's novel is definitely a one time watch, a lot of people might not like the way movie ends, but then i felt there was no other way it could have either... Verdict - go for it 4/5

Hilarious

vel - movie review

CAST - SURYA, SURYA, ASIN, VADIVEL rest i dunno

DIRECTOR - HARI

MUSIC - YUVAN



[+] - i dunno what is plus in the movie, sorry except for one song, even yuvan disappointed. Even surya's acting skills are wasted.

[-] - Director hari, one humble request, we all know that making a movie is not a joke for that we have high regards, but make a movie enjoyable, this movie is like a repeat telecast of your earlier movies --- extensive use of cell phones, high speed jeep chase, mixing three four scenes together...dude we saw this earlier and we saw it from you... so please stop

overall verdict... watch the movie only if you have no other work

1/5

175th POST

1-800-GOOG-411

Free service from google, use it to search local listings.

what in the weird

chk this

wayne rooney

steffi

Restaurants

Hey guys, i have started a new place where i can publish my reviews about restaurants in and around irvine. I will not limit myself to irvine, will also write about restaurants in other places. The site

Bourne Ultimatum - review

Watched the third one in the offing...i wouldnt say it is a must watch, but it indeed is a decent movie

[+] - Visuals [+] - Jason bourne [+] - Sound track [-] - Fails to explain a lot of incidents, this is what happens when your try to make a novel into a movie.

So, if you have a weekend to while away your time, go for this one

Stats....

Petrol consumption per day Country wise...I am speechless

Real life anniyan

What happens to corrupt people?? Hindu article I dunno if it is right? or wrong either... what do you guys think

This is bad

Jammu: In a second case of suicide in two days among the armed forces deployed in Jammu and Kashmir, a soldier shot himself with a rifle at a camp near her e on Monday, apparently due to work-related stress.
<\br> The Hindu

is it?

is it necessary to be harsh to someone, whom you dont want to hurt????

Live free or die hard - review

Today saw this movie, i kind of liked the movie...to me it lived to its trailers' expectation. My verdict go see it!!!

Also watched movie sivaji n my verdict -"no comments"

U.S. wants India to lower wheat quality specifications

so are we supposed to eat lower quality food? how mean....!!! but i am happy that, india has started demanding things..!!!

Chk out this Hindu news article

Typical Bachelors Kitchen

Thats how our kitchen normally looks...

nice video

Pic

will write about the mammoth trip soon... i made a chicago trip in between...

This is lake michigan frm Holland,MI

Mammoth Part II

1. Gondola ride

2. From the summit

3. June Lake

4. Sunset at Mono lake

5. June lke

Our group was the only group in june and mono lake.. that made it more beautiful

Mammoth trip fotos

I will write about the trip later... first the Photos

This i took on the way to mammoth... a place where they sell Beef Jerky... Mammoth village by night Village clock tower

Mammoth summit - 11053 feet

I will put more photos in the next post

Yahoo! Mail goes to infinity and beyond

This is true! check this out!!!

This weeks video

1. Pray for my brother - a r Rahman

2. Thanhayee - Dil chatha hai

Cricket

I have never been a fan of this game...I dunno what so ever! I always thought that media and people gave too much attention to the sport. Anyways this post is in support of the indian team.. yeah! they lost big time... but what the heck? they are humans

Media and fans please give them a break.... Its "just" a game ... and please treat it like one.

This weeks video's

There are two videos that i have added this week

1. Jamelia Superstar

2. Climax from Sadma The videos are on the right column. Scroll down a bit to see them

Mozhi - Review

Got a chance to see this movie, let me tell you this movie is way better than the movies that are out recently. I must also confess that i have not seen all the movies that were out. Thanks to prakash raj again for such a lovely movie. A simple story but very well told. I would give a 4.5 out of 5

[+] - Prakash raj [+] - Story [+] - Jothika [+] - Light but nice humour

i cant actually see any minuses in the movie. If you get a chance then dont miss the movie

DSC T50

Thats my house taken with my new camera DSC T50

sometimes it is better that things go unsaid! Probably i am a little emotional person... anyways it was not funny!

cauvery

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200702051701.htm

and btw this is my 150th post... took a very long time to hit this mark

what is this?

http://www.hindu.com/2007/01/08/stories/2007010822890100.htm

2006-2007

You realise that you dont write to me? Emailed my cousin, and what he meant was i never take the initiative to write mails. I was more happy to press that 'reply' button than the 'compose' button.

May be 10 to 15 years back i remember my mom asking me to add 3-4 lines in her letter to my granparents...she would say ' you should make it a habbit of writing letters' they will be happy to see your message. Same was the case when we recieved letter from them, my grandad made sure he wrote a paragraph just for me. The problem was reading it... his writing was a perfect example of a doctors prescription. He was a doctor! It used to take me a while before i could decrypt the message and read. Now that i am proficient enough to read his letters he is no more. Anyways that is not the issue and i dont want get too emotional on that.

I felt that, this year i was too lazy when it came to writing mails. No more leaking pens, no more stamps, no more rainy day... no more...err almost nothing... all it takes is 'write n send'... rest assured that it has reached the intended person.. unless mr.daemon decides to reply you back. A small simple mail personally addressed makes me feel happy... and i bet everyone agrees with me. So i would try my level best to write mail, i mean initiate of my own.

Year 2006 has been a nice year... few ups and downs and looking forward for 2007.

wishing all my blog friends a happy n prosperous 2007.

mapquest

Yesterday for the first time i used map quest... this site has a feature that i can choose not to use highways in the route to the destination and since 5 north is pathetic in the evenings i gave this a try.

I took me to another street by the same name in the same city... tho' i had given the full address.. lucky me that.. it was within 5 miles of my destination

Guru Movie

Thats me in the Dona point beach... i dunoo but for some reason i like this foto... i went to see the movie borat... my advice please refrain yourself! My god.. i cant imagine how they can even think of making a movie like that... I was told by my friend and still i went to watch...

another movie about which i dont want to talk about is dharmapuri...

and by the way this post has nothing to do with the movie guru.

Listen to this

I got this song from radio blog. thought you ppl would like..



i have not been regular with posts... i guess i will be back to normal soon

The Prestige - movie review

This is a movie about two magicians played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. A story of friendship turning to rivalry and which turns to vengence! I went to see this movie for the reason that, it was from the director of momento and batman begins. The movie is good and definately worth watching once.

Scarlett Johansson has a worth while role in the movie! The only drawback in the movie is when Tesla box comes into the picture. Other wise, the performance, screenplay and editing is all flawless. So my verdict, go see it!

I saw prestige on friday and another movie called The Departed yesterday. Though the ratings for the movie were good, i din like the movie much. The movie has a similiar story line to that of kuridhi punal by kamal hassan. Undercover cop gets into a mafia gang and the gang is trying all means to find out about the rat! The movie is nothing great considering that it has Matt damon and jack nicolson. My verdict watch it if you have nothing else to see

Yesterday we all had a small get together for diwali, it was fun. It was fun playing with the kids. But poor them, they dont get a chance to fire crackers here! I bet they will be afraid to play with them when they go back to india.

Hope everyone had a safe diwali! subha i owe you the tag, i will write one soon

Watch this and enjoy! these guys rock, its called the Yogi B n Nachathira Feat Lock Up - Madai Thiranthu

weirdo me

I have been tagged by marutham, its been a long time that I wrote a tag. Well the tag game is back and I am back with a tag story. The tag is about few weird things about me. I reckon everyone has their own weird side and here is mine.

CAR SINGER: you would have heard of bathroom singer! Now what is this car singer?? Well perusa onum illa. I like to sing when I am driving alone. one crazy habit! I know if I turn the speakers off, I would myself stop singing as my voice is pathetic but anyways..

COMIC LOVER: There is nothing weird about this, other than the fact that, i still love to read comics and watch cartoon. If anyone out there is like me, then you tube and google videos rock. I saw tintin in tibet in google videos.

POORI HATER: yeah! I hate those pooris! I cant just stand them, I used to like them when I was a kid, but I dunno when I started hating those things. Poori dripping oil, my god! I cant even imagine.

Shoe lace: This might sound totally non sensical, but I cant tie my lace which will hold itself for more than an hour, I dont know what happens to the stupid thing. After a preset time, the stupid thing unties itself. So atleast 5-6 times in a day I tie my lace… thats sad!

Maths : Guys at college know that I was pathetic in maths, what they dont know is at times I can really silly with simple ones. Like 11 in binary is eleven or 70 + 29 is 89, even now I do these mistakes.

Absent minded: I was never like this, but these days I am turning into one big time. The list includes, trying to call my own cell number from cell itself, ends up listening to my unread voice mail. Taking exactly the wrong freeway (North instead of south) and realizing after a while.

I am tagging sp, nawaz

limited or no connectivity

Disclaimer : Computer Related

I dont know how many of you have had this problem? Yesterday i had this problem in home laptop. I could'nt connect to my wireless router. It kept giving me this error.At first i thought it could be the problem with the router. What happens at times is, as we dont turn off our router for days together, it would require a simple restart. I tried that but in vein.

Then i saw that, this message (limited or no connectivity) i was recieving when my system was trying populate it ipaddress, i mean thru DHCP. So now i thought DHCP server in the router was not working properly.

So i assigned a static Ip in the subnet as that of my router and DNS as my router and tried again, this time it was wierd, i was able to ping my router but nothing beyond it. So this eliminated the problem with my wireless card.

I tried repairing the network connection, tried restarting the laptop but all measures failed. Was wondering if i had re install my OS, that would be tedious.

So when i googled from my friends system, i found that, the culprit could be some spyware. My firewall program (ZONE ALARM) had run a scheduled check previous night and had found handfull of spywares, and some sites said, while removing the spywares some of them corrupt the TCP/IP stack.

So, that could be a posibility and luckily i found this tool

I must say that this is a must have tool! work fine and if you are worried that, its altering ur registry you can also, take a snap shot of ur registry with this, in case u want to revert back.

Second Life

Has anyone heard of this site before? Its been around for a while... This site is more like a game, its basicaly your virtual life!! Rather than me telling you about it. You check it for yourself!

Going to cinema

For people abroad it is a comman excuse for seeing a movie online is that, the movie has not released in a theater near by. So? you download a movie and watch it?? No thats not the way! i am not being a saint here and not that i have not done that. Yes! i used to do but these days i feel it is not a very good thing to do...

Why do some sites even do it... my point here is atleast dont upload the movie for atleast 30 - 45 days. Recently i noticed that some movies were online almost the very next day... that is not fair at all!

Point number one..this is not fair and point number two... the movie loses its quality and why should we do that? and for people who make it a point to watch movies online it is nothing less to stealing. Try to refrain from doing that!

anyways saw munnabhai in the big screen yesterday and it is a ok kind of movie, yes it has lived upto the expectations to some extent. My verdict is go watch it!
ghandhi-diri ... haan lage raho munnabhai

on the debris

on the wtc debris these indian building stand! confused what i am talkin about. Read this article. Certainly not a feel good factor for me.

Read this

Paper again

I hope this one is real...unlike mooligai petrol

thalavar retires

An emotional Michael Schumacher admitted to being "overwhelmed" when he announced his retirement plans moments after his victory.

Others carried or dragged away the wounded. Many of the wounded were taken away on handcarts. - cnn

vinayagar poojai

all home made! 1.Kolakatai 2.vadai 3.pongal 4.sambhar 5.rasam 6.sundal

Sony psp

My latest gadget - psp

This thing rocks

1.games -awesome

2.Movies- The clarity is amazing

3.mp3

4.pictures

5.Wireless browsing

cons

UMD disk..but yes its nice... never was a fan of iPOD and never will be

----- I heard that there was a minor stint with the ISP's blocking blog sites... whats going on guys...its our only source of entertainment these days. trust me i get to know a lot of happenings from blogs than newspaper sites. So please dont deny us our entertainment n news...

The amount of time that i browse at home is getting lesser these days. Its more like work eat sleep...oru vidhathula naladhudhaan...else willl be vetti browsin all the time.

Gopalan i still owe u the tag. Will definately write it soon..

hey guys n girls just out of curiosity ...

how many support love marriage n how many not ?

arranged love marriage?

Yahoo answers! and what does it answer for the above question? One person has to say this

arranged marriage - murder ||| love marriage - suicide

arranged love marriage - allowing someone kill you... lol!

posts are brief and am not writing that frequently... nothing suspicious, just been too lazy... will start writing soon...

UTAH

i wanted to write about my UTAH trip a while ago but then was too lazy to write. Moreover my blog for some reasons needs to much of editing with respect to HTML, anyways. . .

We ssn'ites had planned for the july 4 weekend to meet in Salt Lake city in utah. I was looking forward for this trip as i was going to meet bharathi after 4 years. The trip was fun and something to remember and cherish.

We all flew from different parts to SLC on 30 jun. (Deepak, ghuru, sai, bharathi, narendran, pradeep , joshua and myself)

bharathi from seattle,deepak from chicago, sai from chicago, narendran from san antonio, ghuru from sunnyvale, pradeep from cedar rapids , me from la and joshua was in slc.

we were there for four days and for the four days it was like in college again. we did white water rafting, ATV, camping and hiking. It was so refresing, thanks a lot guys for making it happen.

.--..--..--..--. I have been tagged by gopalan, will write the tag soon

Clothes and shoes were strewn along the tracks. -BBC

may their souls rest in peace

get direction - india

I forgot to mention about MSN maps in my last post. It is amazing, guess what? I can search route from guindy to avadi in Chennai.

There is a problem when searching routes in India, poor thing doesnt know the names of small roads and hence says take left/right on the "local road", still this thing is coool and not to mention the amazing picture quality of "birds view" of places in US.

msnMaps

Desi version of Amazon? Claims to have a lot of titles! Old and new books for sale online. Check it for yourself

Daily News and Analysis is Mumbai based site and targets youth. Section to voice yourself and the news is exactly what I want, unlike what I wrote in Tsunami post

Want to send family in India photo? This is a nice site, but I was told the courier at times gets delayed, but the prices are catchy

mp3

Now that I have more than a gig space in my mobile, I have started listening to music more than before. The songs that I listen repeatedly are :

1. Fanaa (Mere haath mein, chand sifarish, chanda chamke)

2. Krrish( Main hoon wo aasman, pyar ki ek kahani)

3. Rang de basanti ( loose control, khalbali)

4. Patiyal (kane vittu kan imaigal)

5. Swadesh (yeh jo des hai tera)

6. vetayadu vilayadu ( karka karka, partha mudhal naale)

7. Parijatham (onai kandanae)

8. Bluffmaster (bure bure boro, say na say na)

9. Gajini (sutrum vizhi sudarae, ranghola)

10. kaka kaka( uyirin uyirae )

11. Indian ( pachai kiligal, telephone manipol)

12. Johny (aasaiyai katrula thoodu)

13. Mila thirandhadhu kadhuvu (ora sanam )

14. Nizhalgal (poo kadhavae )

15. Boys – all the songs

16. Ayudha eluthu ( yakai thiri, oru unmai sonal )

17. Alaipayudhey (pachai nirame)

Almost all of the above mp3 can be downloaded from here

when tsunami strikes

I guess I already wrote something similar to this before, but time and again I get frustrated by the media and n number of news channels show casing biased news. Yes! Today the media in India has grown into a power which is capable of challenging people whom it was not able to a few years back, but on the flip side, coverage is becoming more and more biased, either political affiliation or geographical boundaries.

Remember tsunami, when a calamity of that scale occurs, what people expect is medias’ unbiased coverage. Two leading private channels in Tamilnadu were more focused on the political affiliation than the issue at hand.

Political parties however diverse their ideas be, should have come together to bring immediate relief to the victims. Political parties and media are just capitalizing the needs of day worker, the proof being, a govt. being elected just because it promised color tv. I am not against any party here, but just imagine how the party catapulted itself.

Man there are other basic needs, leave uninterrupted power supply, I dont know how many villages even have electricity, and metro city like Chennai doesnt have enough water!

Now coming back, what has happened to the people once the cameras were packed? What happened to the relocation and promised relief measures? May be its the hyenas time to cash in the situation!

Time for contractors to take control of the situation, tenders being given to the favored ones and no one knows about it! Now all this happens in Tamilnadu and just three days after tsunami struck, I read times of India and the main headlines was about a issue in Pakistan. Headlines is fine, I was not able to read news about tsunami in its entire first page! I had to select "states" page and in that "chennai" and there I found a news about this. Why this discrimination? Are they running short of reporters? Was this news not important for the people there?

I open Hindustan times, just to see a UK model posing for a photograph in the first page. Hmm thousands of lives have been lost and this paper is celebrating with model fotos.

All these things just increase my hatred towards media and other ignorant Indians.

audio blog

this thing is awesome! u dont have to sit n type... just call the number, record and refresh ur blog!

but the only drawback is, the number that they have given is a US number, so guys in india i guess will have to wait some more time before this happends there too! thnx to sp

Fanaa Review

Fanaa! First half of the movie is nice! though u would feel that you have seen a similar scene before. I liked the movie for its shaayari n modest emotions. There is one particular shaayar in which amir goes ' kahin kudh ki nazar na lag jaye, allah ne appko nazar hi nahi di'

kajol is blind in the movie n amir soluraaru 'un kanne un melai patudunu kaduvul unuku kanu paarvai tharala'

[+] kajols’ acting (good to see in her true form)

[+] Amir, he has performed with ease

[+] Subhaan allah song

[-] Second half has a bit of unwanted masala

[-] Second half looked a bit senseless

If u like n understand the shaayars' then probably this is a must watch!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

For the long weekend had been to Yosemite! it’s a nice place, giant trees, fresh air , fresh water… the trip was refreshing and gave us a much needed break.

-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-

Was wondering if it is good to be selfish ??? I have not been able to be like that!!! But some people survive being one! it is all the more disturbing when you get affected Probably I should learn how to say a 'NO' or show my disgust right in front of the person, Whenever I wanted to do this, always I would wonder what if the other person gets hurted! hmm anyways

gabdain of andhra....

i couldnt control myself....

tagged

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4. Ans. ATLAS SHRUGGED -ayn rand "can we have any security or plan everything"

2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.& catch air? Ans. Grabbed some junk papers

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV? Ans. Don't remember..(have no tv)

4. Without looking, guess what time it is? Ans. 330

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time? Ans. 328

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? Ans. Panic alarm of a car

7.When did you last step outside? What were you doing? Ans. Morning... was tlking on the fone..

8.Before you started this survey, what did you look at? Ans. SP..

9.What are you wearing? Ans. tshirt n shots..

10.When did you last laugh? Ans. After while talking to sai n joshua..

11.What is on the walls of the room you are in? Ans. Poster of 'POLAR EXPRESS' n 'The Prefect Man'..

12.Seen anything weird lately? Ans. hmm...i dunno..

13.What do you think of this quiz? Ans. fun..

14.What is the last film you saw? Ans. M1-3..

15. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy? Ans. i need some time to think on this..

16.Tell me something about you that I dunno Ans. pass....next q pls..

17.If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do? Ans. I would change where India i will ship it to europe..

18.Do u like to Dance Ans. Yeah but...i dunno to ..

19. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her? Ans. arpita..

20 Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call her? Ans. sonu..

21.Would you ever consider living abroad? Ans. yeah!..

22.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates? Ans. missed u!..

n i am tagging..

pk, gopalan, bharathi, deepak, marutham n badri..

gabdain in hollywood

Watched United-93 and MI-3…. No comments about the first one…it’s a one time watch and was pretty heavy for me….Lets talk about MI-3, I never knew there was Gabdain (Mr.VijayKanth) in Hollywood.

The movie has everything that a typical tamil movie has emotion, romance and comedy…but wait a minute! MI’s are supposed to be action movies , yeah! Just that action is similar to our gabdains actions…and hence comedy.

The movie has everything but story!!! Things I learnt from this movie

1. Any thing that can be inserted into key hole of a lock can open the lock (wire, pen refill …)

2. You can take your computer and laptop to any place and do weird things (roof top, bus, van and control machine guns and guns firing tennis balls…)

3. To blow the fuse of a high tech device that is implanted into your brain, you should electrocute yourself( namma gabdain rumba naal moonadi transformer vedika vechaaru theriuma..andha madhiri)

4. Gabdain is everywhere…!!!

In short this movie is hug hug hug bang bang bang….

------

Its been 2 years into blogging…!!!

impressions

Unai Kandanae Mudhal murai… Song from ‘Parijatham’…plays in my mind---as the horizon gives way to my first glimpse of Grand Canyon… wow! It is one of those places which are really worth the fame. Grand Canyon holds its place in the list of natural wonders and a special place in my heart. I had been to GC and Las Vegas over the long weekend (I know it is too late…was just lazy to write) GC is 460 miles from here and las vegas 290 miles from there and whole trip was around 1300 miles, and best part was we started only Friday evening, coz we wanted 2 of our other friends to join us and they were working that Friday. The trip was tedious especially driving all that distance, but I reckon it was worth it. Coming back to GC.. despite its dryness, it tugs at my heartstrings like little else can… it is one place where you have to be, to feel it…no pictures or motion pictures can actually capture the true essence of the place. So if you are in south west US…try to make it to GC. Right: Thats Sunset at Grand Canyon. About Las Vegas---nothing to say, as I slept the moment I entered the room and woke up only at the check out time.. we reached vegas 2 in the night n I was dead tired. Friends went around vegas n I guess other than clubs n casino’s there is nothing much there.

are these people running out of names??? thats a road on the way back to LA from Los Angeles. All the fotos are from my mobile and i guess they wont be all that clear.



I am planning to move my blog to wordpress soon...

inbha thunbham

thnks to marutham The topic ‘inbha thunbham’ hmm… just wondering where to start…?

Ok will start with one of the part time job I did while doing my masters… used to get up at 4 in the morning and cycle 3-4 kms and do a cleaning job… yes! a cleaning job… man it used to be painful… I guess nawaz will be able to relate to…coz we both used to go together…

The schedule was something like this… wake up at 4 - 4:30, put on our gears (oldest possible dress and a helmet) and cycle to the work place (building meant for refugees)…used to sign in and start work at 6 in the morning. Trust me it was not easy, being tall has its own disadvantages, I had to clean the ceiling… ok anyways… we used to do this till 3 in the afternoon (of course with a lunch break in between). Then cycle back home have a nice shower and go to university at 17:30 … university used to be till 21:30, come home , cook something, eat, sleep and wake up at 4 again… wat is ‘inbham’ in this??? Money getting credited every week…

The next would be working night shift in 7-11… though it was not as tiring as the cleaning job, but it was boring and you were not supposed to sit down whole through the night… you can find my 7-11 experience here… actually was wondering what n all part time I have done while at aus Dish washing Cleaning Distributing junk mail Worked in 7 – 11 Worked in a sri lankan shop Worked in Australian post In a way, I feel that these things actually make you both physically n mentally strong..

Of course my list will always have the lovely ssn days… man those were the days of my life… those were the days of ssn…sigh! ---

n i would like to tag nawaz sudharshan bharathi sathyus sathyapriya bharathi barti

There is some problem with the blogger these days, the alignment is not proper and I am adding the line breaks et all myself n hence the crapy appearance so please bear with me. I don’t know if that’s blogger issue or template problem.

Was feeling bored and decided to watch some Tamil movie…was browsing through the net and came across this site. The deal is pretty ok, they charge $10 for a month for SUN TV. No! I am not a fan of sun TV, the money is worth for the news and the clarity is pretty good too… the timing is US central time… and guess what?? In the week days I get to see all the tele-serials when I reach home…grrr…

Half heard news…Mr.k has announced ‘vana tholaikatchi peti’ for everyone!!! Err.. whaat ???Man where are we heading? I seriously don’t understand the election gimmicks.

Watched patiyal few days back and my verdict, it’s an ok movie… same old masala movie with a different director and actor… Btw any good movie released???

foto recognition

Pkarthick has mentioned in his blog about foto recognition software... i thought it was not a easy job, this software does a decent job. You first need to upload your foto, it automatically detects the faces present in it; and the free version actually gets a closest match of a celebrity from its database...

This is wat i got ... aprom enna inga naan orae scene dhaan!

Of late as my friend rightly pointed out, I am also getting into the habit of writing too few a mails and with too little content. I wouldn’t blame my work schedule (yes! the amount of time spent at office is more than at home)…I am just lazy to type a mail…I realized that I don’t even chat much!!! I log in only once or twice into the messenger…

I presume a lot of people are doing the same! Do we think that everyone is email-able ??? and we need to mail them only when it is needed??? The fact that I have been proactive in my groups, and there are people who are worse than me makes me feel even worse… College days now looks like a distant past, I don’t even have a clue about the whereabouts of few people in my class… was this bound to happen??

I know everyone has had a special feeling for college friends, and when we separated we always thought that the chain will remain intact no matter what, hardly four years and I already see it breaking up… but at least I am happy that I am still in touch with a lot of people…I wish that we are email-able, callable and chatable …. Here is a list of my college friends, who have shared my ups n down and still in touch Nawaz, bharathi, ghuru, deepak, gv, thirumathi, suresh, vetri, selva and susi….this a list of those people, whom probably I will never forget! You wake me up at midnight and say ‘nawaz’; even if I knew 100’s by the same name… the first person to ring the bell would be this guy…
others who have been close to me or rather I have been close to:
Sai, narendran, jk, gopalan, ilango, arun(aluku), alex, gautham, ramya, barthi, kavitha, naveen, thiaga, pradeep, shyam(bulb) and sham….i hope I haven’t missed anyone…. I guess that’s too much of senti….
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here is foto i took at a temple near by...n i guess thats the max i have smiled for a foto!!hmmm...!

tagged again

Tagged by pk…
So here is my version

Movies I would like to watch over n over
1.dil chatha hai 2.nayagan 3.Terminator –II 4.Matrix –I
5.Mauna Ragam


TV Shows
Shows on Nat geo and Discovery

Favorite food
1.chapathi (only when mom makes)
2.Fried chicken noodles ( wangs kitchen)
3.chicken teriyaki (Subs) 4.puliyodharai and chips
5.thalicha curd rice

My Greatest Victories
Never thought on those lines till date…

I hate
Ego clash (This is really bad…)
people who put up different faces….

Great Personalities I would like to dine with
1.captain (want to see what he eats…hee hee)
2.of course with my long list of fans (Jlo, Angelina jolie, asin, amrita arora…) they have been waiting for long time now… so you know
3.definitely a romantic candle light dinner with that ‘someone special’
I would like to tag none…

banking system

Washington Mutual, that’s my bank! Almost all the desi’s around have an account in it and y not? It has a scheme for desi’s 1.No minimum balance 2.No monthly fees And I bet these two things are enough for a desi to open an account, but hey it has catch, is doesn’t have a concept of net transfer!!!! (So basically you use the netbank to see the statement) At first I thought this feature was missing only in this scheme, later found out the bank itself doesn’t have this facility! So even if you are a premium customer of WAMU, your netbanking will not have this feature…. So how do I transfer money to someone here??? Use cheques!!!! and you pay for the damn cheques!!! (how developed…) When asked the banker about this problem she says there are two ways to transfer money 1.Pay the person a cheque (really innovative guys… I never knew about this system huh! ) 2.Your name should be added to the account to which you are trying to transfer money (wowie- so I add my name to all the accounts to whom I think in near future I will transfer money!!!) Bharathi says Bank of America has net transfers but then, it is only between accounts of bank of America!!! (That’s better but still…) hmm... banking.................india is better mobile...................india is better publictransport...india is better(getting into one is a different question... atleast the damn thing exists)

just another post

was tagged by ponna long back... finally am writing... am gonna write about mom ofcourse! what i like about her... very understanding, caring and know what i need every time. i like anything she prepares (to be specific i like her chappathi n porotta) happy belated womans' day .. i know it is too late! -- --- --- --- ---- --- ---- --- -- last week had been to universal studios... its quite close to where i live... the place was good, but i guess kids would enjoy more... one ride that was good there was something called jurassic ride or dinosaur ride... and a 4-D show of shrek was good too! It is worth a one time. Saw 16 block last week, a ok ok movie...

thats one the way back home from tustin! the only place where i found some green stuff!! hee hee

some more foto to upload soon

ticket!

Already got the first parking fine…actually I never knew about this great (spell it absurd) system. We were given a parking a sticker, which we always placed on top of the dash board. We had hired a Chrysler convertible, and one day tried driving without the top… I very diligently placed the parking (tag or sticker or whatever it is) inside the dash and forgot to place it back on the top. Next day the car was missing…the car was inside the parking area meant for the apartment and the only way, one can go inside is with a remote!!! The car was towed from the parking lot of the apartment and the reason the sticker was not on the dash… I never in my dreams thought that, the sticker was needed inside the lot also… hmm… I would understand if this thing had happened in public parking place or we had parked the car outside the premises…. Doesn’t make sense to me at all coz 1. You can get into the place only if you have a remote to open!!! (No key lock at all) and for the remote also you pay! 2. The possibility of tailgating is minimal and even if it happens then, I don’t see the need for it to be towed away!!! Hmm… you park in your place and still pay a hefty amount. ------------------ ------ -------- ----------- ---------- ------------ ------------- -------------- ----------- ------------ ---------- i wanted to introduce this cutie next door...

he is choooo chweeet!!! and a real entertainer

he cant say 'l' so he says.... " i am no szeepy" or "i am szeepy! i go papa home"... he took nano pod to a mobile fone and started to talking holding it like a mobile... "hi... wazzup". I will keep talking about this guy the whole day... thats how much i am impressed.

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loads to write n post will do it soon

nothing to write

that was last year in trivandrum

kitne door ...kitne paas

ok! a week over and what did i do? last week end was whn i landed here.... din have much of Jetlag! din go out apart from travellin from home to office! wierd things here 1. These ppl have a weird way of doing everything the other way 2. Mobile has incoming charges (pathetic.....hmmm) 3. No public transport, again sucks but i am not sure if it is like this all over US. yesterday we wnt all the way to a place called anaheim to have indian food.... to find tat place was already booked.. so came back n ate near our place....hmmmm....! thas all for now folks... the chef in me is callin me .. hee hee

US of A

Wanted to post 3-4 days back, but seriously had no time to do… I am now in a place called Chino near Los Angeles. The journey was fine… I hated the s’pore – Hong Kong leg…. Man the flight was stinking inside (Cathay Pacific)… It’s been only 2 days now… my first impression about this place… it is dry, very less greenery (compared to good old Melbourne) Public transport is pathetic…again a big disadvantage… Will post lot more soon…

Melodies

Now that vidya tempted me by reminding vaseegara from minnale, i thought of collecting some all melodies....my list goes like this 1. Nee partha parvai - hey ram 2. Vassegara - Minnale 3. Iruvu kavidhai - sullan or something (heard this in TV) 4. Thenpaandi seemailae - nayagan 5. poo puthadhu - Mumbai Express 6. Raasathi una - 7. Piryae pirayae - Pithamagan 8. i forgot that songs name from moonram pirai any other song i am missing.. please lemme know..(i know i have listed only a fraction of good ones)

0 1

Google reinvents itself very often and the latest buzz is google chat... this thing is integrated with your gmail account... you dont need to download google talk to chat with your friends anymore, atleast for the text based chat.. they have integrated the smtp based mail with chat...isn that intresting check this out bloggers check out google's analytics it is another awesome free service. Yahoo! i reckon is the leader in messenger service... its just awesome... let it be the photo sharing or the stealth settings... yahoo rocks! i guess google will catch up very soon. Then there is this VOIP software called voipStunt this thing claims that you can make free calls to a lot of places (the list is in the home page), i actually tried calling UK, US and Aus... it did work but after some 5-6 calls it is asking me to buy some credits to make free calls... i dont understand the logic, but yes it definately allowed me to make free calls to home phones. Intrested in remote desktop? then there is this (logmein), i dunno if it would beat RealVNC or TightVNC, logmein doesnt ask for the IPaddress to log in to your PC, the client once installed in your desktop takes care of that work. All you have to do is log into the site with your details and your desktop is all yours.... isn it simple.

best blonde joke ever!!!

Hey check this out

mugged!

been mugged by ponna so here is my mug !!! my friend had presented this few years back

beat this

Ever felt: 1.Irritated to the core? 2.Tied to your seat? 3.Like hitting the person who did this to you? 4.Like coming out of the place before it was over? I felt all of this last week while watching parama sivan @ satyam… I actually came out of the theater for a break before the interval I even dozed for a while inside the theater… No more comments about the movie…!!! Lesson learnt : Never trust bulb

What is racism and is it prevalent in India? We can say racism is a system that discriminates people based on their so called ‘race’. Some say that dominant groups in the society are racist, coz it is that group which has the influence and means to oppress others. Racism is a plague in today’s world, a lot of nations which were racist have reformed themselves, and leading example would be Australia with ‘all whites policy’ till 1972, today it is multi cultural and multi ethnic. These developed nations were and some are still racist but at least they have not discriminated their own people. In India we would not hear this term explicitly, but its definition is very well practiced all al over. In India racism is spelt casteism. I will come back to this shortly. Other than that there has always been ethnic tension between the Tamil people and Hindi majority. I grew up in Delhi and till my 10 I was there. Though I have been there for so long and I have been one amongst them, I have never been able to appreciate their thoughts for south Indians. Note: Not everyone is like that. Still some north Indians think that below madya Pradesh everything is called madras and they call everyone ‘madrasi’. Hey guys you cant be so ignorant. I remember when I came to Chennai from Delhi for good after my 10th; my chemistry staff asked me “do you people in madras have worthy colleges?” now that’s ridiculous and not expected from a educated person like her. I never bore the brunt of my co –students coz no one could differentiate me from others by my Hindi accent as it was as good as a delhite, but some new comers from south were always made fun of. Which means that even students had a bad conception of people from south? What is the reason behind this? Is it the complexion that gives them that superiority complex?? You guys would have noticed that in many Hindi movies and in many Hindi serials, an actor portraying south Indian role would speak worst possible English. You can’t mock all the while. Even the auto drivers here speak good English. Wake up guys I think we guys are not that bad and may be we are better than you. It’s high time you realize that. For some reason I have had a strong feeling that even the central govt. has not been fair to these four states, the best example would be the kaveri issue. Why no stern action has been taken? On the other hand the international river treaty between India and Pakistan was enforced immediately. Indian tourism is on the ‘athithi devo bhava’ drive and Chennai is not included in the list of heritage cities! That’s not fair. This kind of pervasive attitude has a decisive hold on individual’s behavior and relationships. This is changing and will take long to completely change. People are realizing now that these four states can’t be taken for granted. The silver lining is that we stood united for good on a 15th august. The feeling of being one should be there for everyone. Its high time south is taken seriously. The next evil is casteism, a theory that some are born superior and some are born inferior. This theory ensures power to the dominant group through oppression of the inferior, this is prevalent throughout India. Untouchability is still prevalent in some villages in India, and these things make casteism even more dehumanising than racism. Would people believe that these sects have separate burial grounds??? Indian government swears by an egalitarian constitution that prohibits any form of discrimination, the fact remains that it is prevalent everywhere. This is deep rooted and will take a long to get out of the society. This is a poison that we have lived with for more than 1000 years. We have just started to uproot it. P.S. Not all the people are like the way I mentioned.

western influence

I had purposely left this topic in my last blog. I am talking about westernized culture and its effect on us. I feel we are imitating the western life too much; not that western culture is all that bad, just that we are chasing our tradition away. We are instilling social and political ideas that are not indigenous to India. Those days whatever we borrowed from British were good; we realized that Government is an acceptable institution. Britishers also made us realize that Government would give us freedom of opinion, expression and the right to drive public demands in a peaceful manner. Yes! What we have borrowed so far has benefited India a lot, but now with growing IT companies and media the unwanted culture is penetrating deep into our society. We are as such sunk in ignorance and with this happening now, I feel we ourselves are eroding our own ‘self’. Yet you ask anyone about this topic they will have a ready answer “I don’t think western culture has done any harm to us, our culture is very strong and every Indian is held very tight to his/her root” but the stark reality is we are on the way loosing ourselves. The worrying aspect is some people are doing just for the heck of it. Already people are comparing Bangalore as another Bangkok! (I don’t want to dwell into this) Senior people are left on their own by the uncaring wealthy youth, and we would soon see another class poor old people and rich youth, and with this class on the rise we will see a lot of old age homes springing up. The emotional bond that we are proud of will soon die. The diversity that we are proud of will also soon die if not checked. A survey says that Indians are the most patriotic people, and with the current influence even that will change. Why is this happening? One reason is the IT industry and another is media. You see any bollywood movie made these days, but for the name of the movie and actors, it completely resembles Hollywood though in a smaller scale. Movies like murder which din have single page story line ran houseful and the reason is well known. Youth are like clay models who can be molded in whichever way wanted. Hey guys this is not the way to box office, please give us better and sensible movies. The challenge for India is to prepare itself to sit along with any other world class nation in a competitive world market. At the same time, it needs to avoid a problematic juxtaposition between cultural indifferences. Every culture has its depravations, every culture has had saints and great man today as it had earlier. Trying to imitate others will result in only one thing; we will have traditional values and cultures only in history books for our children. Lets hope we are not the cause for it.

developed India

During my couple of years in the AUS, I used to read every 'feel-good' article and magazine about India with great enthusiasm and pride. Read a lot of articles as to how India became world’s back-office destination. How the middle class was enjoying the economy surge et all. Came in 2004 with some moderate expectation… only to find nothing has changed! Of course its too short a time to have expected too much, but the media had hallucinated me! Yes the urban life style has changed but that’s just a part of the population, and I am still wondering if this change is for good… lets forget the westernized influence for time being. Talking of Chennai; it still has electricity problem, leave the rainy season, summers are known for frequent power cuts…. The Krishna or veeranam or whatever water that the govt. promised comes to many houses but is it potable? {should be happy that connection has been laid, though at many places it is hand pumps} Traffic jams and pollution are just the order of the day. Probably all the cities here are facing the same problem but nothing is being done, except Delhi where I believe Govt. is really on the move. What has changed? {not just 2-3 years, lets say what has changed in the past decade) o yes! Somethings have Almost everyone sports a mobile Toyota, Hyundai, skoda are becoming more common Malls and multiplex culture. Divorce on the rise! Yellow journalism on the rise. We need growth at the root level! On the contrary only a section of the mass is progressing (may not be in all aspects but at least in materialistic way). The socio economic pyramid is getting steeper by the day, and which is not a good sign. No wonder the crimes are on the rise. Too much of blaming the Government ( not that they are doing their duty properly), what are we as individuals doing to improve the society apart from following the rules and paying the taxes. I was thinking if I really did anything for the society at least this year? Hmmm the grim answer would be NO! One thing is for sure we should stop blaming the govt, and start looking at ourselves, one area where the westerners have excelled in leaps and bounds. The individual feels more responsible and acts accordingly. and till each and everyone start contributing we will still be in the bottom list of developing nations leave alone developed countries. What should we as individuals be doing to improve the place in our own small way? I am just running out of ideas. Hope all of us has a better 2006 and see a better India. Wishing readers a happy n a prosperous 2006

One puny guy on a cycle with two gas cylinders tied together on the carrier was in the front, ready to cross the road as soon the traffic police showed him green. Else he wouldn’t make it in time. Police had different plans. Actually this cyclists was ahead of all the motorists, he had to be else he would be stuck in green signal race. The cons (traffic constable) walked to him and said Cons: “ cycle a inga orama niruthu va” Cyclist: blinking and without uttering a word, parked his cycle in the side and came back Cons: seri poi andha vandiya thalla help panu po Cyclist: dint say anything and went were cons pointed… I couldn’t see for while and thought he was gone, but as soon as we were given green signal, I saw this poor guy pushing a police jeep. I din wait and watch, but I felt bad for the guy…

Sting operation on MP’s this time christened as “operation chakrvyu”..shows them collecting bribes for favoring contracts… This is second time in a month, in fact when I saw the news in the paper, for a moment I thought it was the previous news. These things come on National news networks and still these people are not worried and go ahead in doing what they are best at. Who is at fault? these people or the ones who give them money? I Guess who give them money .. they are the real criminals… as the hindi saying goes “ na rahega sanp, na rahegi baasuri” That’s too much politics in here… Avasara police ------, ---- Mohamed and now this is my ----- avadhu postu!!! Took a year n a half for this

chor chor

Yesterday while driving back home, near Guindy industrial estate this happened. Ahead of me one bag from an auto fell down. A guy in a 2 wheeler picked it up, it happened to be a ladies hand bag. The auto driver cornered the auto, meanwhile this guy never stopped and looked as if he was trying to get away with the bag…. The traffic was so much that he was not fast and before that 2-3 cyclists n one motorist caught him. Soon a lot of people gathered and we all had to see the drama as there was no way out. The lady (in her late 20’s) came out of the auto, one of the cyclists snatched the bag from the guy and came running to the lady(feeling proud of himself). He gave her the bag n said “ellam correct a irruka parungo madam, neenga andha alla pathi kavalai padathingo avana pudichitom…nalla matikitaan” couldn’t see what was happening to that guy, with all the people around, but he was being cursed by everyone there. This lady she made her way towards the crowd… something happened and after sometime, the crowd cleared, I saw the lady was sitting on the pillion seat of the bike!!! What heck? ?? They were actually couples n they had some small fight and she was in the auto and this poor devdas was following her in his bike… before he could convince her or anything this happened. People were surprised especially our cycle hero… but anyway, their reunion had to happen this way. I guess they will never forget this incident……

nyabagam varadhae...

Everyone would have gone thru this, yes it has been long time but it still looks and feels like it happened yesterday. Me talking about the examination results n waiting for them. The talk about the results used to start at least 15 days and sometime even before that before we could see the results. Some one would come n say “dei results next week da” how do you know? “My friends uncle’s chithappa’s son blah blah……… is working in madras university and he gets first hand info”. That’s it from the next day, would make sure that I scan all the pages in HINDU before I go to college. Then weird talks in the college from the rumor day like.. “dei you know this paper correction has been very strict because the paper was easy” “dei the pass percentage in that paper is very bad da” all this before we saw the results…n then THE D DAY. The paper would carry the sites URL on which results would be posted. Avoluvdhaan refresh refresh n refresh…till finally one by one we had seen all the subjects. Had someone checked our BP n heart rate then….! Before me, Deepak used to see my results and was lucky for me as well… and nawaz as well hmm… gone are those days. Got reminded of all this stuff today and the reason; we guys had a nice phone conference today… Starting from Aus to US to UK and to India and 5 times zones. Deepak called and this was the first thought when i saw his number flashing... Was like one guy called one and he called another and so on. It was like in our college class room… Guys it was fun.. all said n done college days were like in heaven… Me getting too senti… ha ha

baCk

Had small operation last week and now feeling better... here is abstract of Gates and moorthy on NDTV....for those who could not see it.... some one sent me this, it was good, n as good as seeing the interview itself. .......------........ THEY are rich, have a good sense of humour and come across as down to earth. Even after 30 years of making it big in the global IT scene, both Mr Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corporation, and Mr N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman & Chief Mentor of Infosys Technologies, are still chasing a dream — to change the way the world is today. Be it the motivation factor or the defining moment in their lives — be it admitting to having split personality or just the way events have unfolded in their lives, the striking similarities between the two IT honchos were there for all to see and hear on Wednesday at an event organised by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). "There are days when I attend a meeting in the morning, discussing how to make more money and in the afternoon, I would be sitting in another meeting to give away the money that I made," confessed Mr Gates when asked about his split personality. Last year, Microsoft donated more than $47 million in cash and $363 million in software to non-profit organisations throughout the world. For Mr Murthy, the power of money is to give it away. "Mr Gates is from a highly developed country, while I am from a poor country and therefore, it is easier for me to get a split personality. I don't have to go too far," said Mr Murthy. The Infosys Foundation is carrying out projects in the areas of healthcare, education and rural upliftment. The event anchored by Mr Prannoy Roy, President of NDTV, had plenty of lighter moments with Mr Gates' quick repartees, throwing the audience, mostly comprising entrepreneurs and corporate executives, into peels of laughter. For instance, when Mr Roy asked about the challenge posed by companies like Google, which is promoting free software downloads instead of Microsoft's model of charging a royalty for software usage, Mr Gates took a dig at the company by saying, " Google should start sharing with the users the money it makes from its search engine. We have started paying those who use our search engine. Google's model is not going to hold up for long." Had it not been some defining moments in their lives, both Mr Gates and Mr Murthy probably would have been somewhere else. For Mr Gates, it was the opportunity to use a PC when he was 13 and being asked by the school tutor to take classes that led him to believe that IT was his destiny. "The second defining moment was the decision to drop out of school to undertake a project that was the first of its kind and it worked. I was willing to take risks," said Mr Gates. For the Infosys Mentor, it was his arrest and the subsequent release by Bulgarian authorities for having talked to a girl in French that changed the course of life. "They released me when I told them that I am from India. They said that I could go, since India was a friendly country. My dream from then on has been to set up an organisation that is respected globally and we are miles away from it," said Mr Murthy. Success has also brought worries that keep both of them awake at nights. While for Mr Gates, it's the fear of missing out on a technological change that might be noticed by competitors first, for Mr Murthy, it's the issue relating to scalability. The two, however, do not make rough weather about the worries. Instead, they choose to dream big to keep themselves motivated. "My original goal was not sales, but a dream computer. I am still looking for that dream computer that will change the way we live and put you and me back in control of our lives. Our dream is to see a PC on top of every desk and we are no where near the finish line," said Mr Gates. Probably, by the time the two of them share a platform in India again, we will get to hear more about that dream getting realised.

news or nuisance ?

This has become a regular feature in two channels off late. But yesterdays news was awesome! Channel ‘A’ claims that a lake in the outskirts of Chennai is overflowing and posing a hazard to the people in the vicinity. To show the gravity of the situation it kept the camera almost at the water level and showed the water gushing like that in a flood. It obviously had an interview in which a guy is scowling at the camera saying, “ life is pathetic and govt. is not doing much about this”. Channel ‘A’ conveniently forgets and hides the stories some years back. Channel ‘B’ had its own version. It showed the same lake and says that, this lake is full after almost 9 years and people around are flocking to get a glimpse of it. It also claims that this place over the days is turning out to be a tourist spot, and no wonder it also had interview (some crap). Now what are these two channels up to? One country where Media is politicized…excellent work guys! K guys will be off from blogging for a while…

Gimme morE

first it was 2MB of MSN and 6MB of yahoo....and then Gmail came up with 2GB.... at first i thought there must be some catch in it. so far so good. Then i saw this which gave me 3GB though the features were not as good as gmail! Few days back i came across this one , and it gives 1000 GB..... 1TB of email space.... now thats huge.... i think a lot of you would have come across this. For those who havent go grab your place there. Though i have never filled my yahoo account so far..i keep creating account in these sites. Heard that Microsoft has already come up with a online OS!!! good work guys....google you were a bit slow in this.

machar the great

One of the most annoying noise….uinnnnnnnnnnnnnn by mosquito into your ears when you are trying to sleep. This happened 2-3 days back when our flats had to shut down the main power coz the meter room was flooded and had no power for one whole night. My maid promptly left the fans ‘on’ to dry the clothes in the afternoon and end result the inverter also discharged. I came from office to find it was totally dark and I din even have a candle…. Luckily my neighbor gave me one. For once I realized how boring it can be alone with absolutely no entertainment. The toughest part being these tiny bull dozers….. the moment I close my eyes uiinnnnnnnnn ….and I had to punish myself, unsuccessfully slapping myself. The methods I tried that day…. Two rounds of 2 mangaldeep agarbathi’s, no use or perhaps these things liked that smell. Tried to cover myself completely though there was no power. Still these things found a gap and again uinnnn…… pulled my bed all the way to another room intelligently thinking that, they cant sniff me out in that room. These things were better than the aliens in the movie war of the worlds. In few seconds I was found and attacked. It was like hiding myself from a great predator. At last I gave up and dunno when I slept….. 2 sounds that I hate : 1. mosquito 2. Alarm

Roaming free...well not exactly

Well it’s been a week today that I came to Trivandrum to celebrate the festive season with my parents here. I took two days off and got the whole week, I reckon holiday like this is hard to get. This is the second time I am coming to Trivandrum my first visit was very short -2 days. This time around I din plan much just wanted to relax. Trivandrum is a nice place, but the place comes to a grinding halt after 8 in the evening (reminds me of Melbourne days), you can’t expect much after that time. Possible shops open after that- Pharmacy and Restaurants. Went to Kanyakumari and on the way went to a temple in susindhram (I think the spelling is correct) the place doesn’t have anything other than the temple itself. Though I have been to old temples before but this one I think is one of my favs (guys if you have not visited this place before then trust me you should visit). There are a lot of unusual things here. 1.There is tree which every one claims is 2400 years old (that’s a bit hard to believe but then..) 2.There is vigneshwari (yes female Ganesh …have you heard of that) 3.The temple itself is 2300 years old ( again hard to believe …) 4.The saptha swara pillars – these things are marvelous and if they were built at that time, man those people were genius. You hit one pillar and stick your ears to others (actually one person should hit the pillars and others should listen to it) it is amazing!!! ..the people there say that all these saptha swara pillars are carved out of one single stone…(6-7 thin pillars close to each other) it has to be, otherwise it is not possible at all 5.The navagraha ….this unlike the other places is not on platform, but are carved in the ceiling. Hey guys, I was just wondering that if the temple was built 2300 years before and they have this navagraha (which denotes seven planets, sun and moon) did the guys then, knew about those planets? Its quite mind boggling. Next stop was Kanyakumari … it has a bhagavathi Amman temple. The main attraction is the nose ring of the goddess, the original one was stolen by the British (that’s what the priest there claims) the nose ring made of diamond once served as a light house to the ships sailing by (so bright! hard to believe….but).Now you don’t see the diamond ring but something else which is bright (I don’t know what it is) Vivekananda rock is a nice place and the jetty ride is good as well (the govt can improve the place a lot though). There was no ride to the thiruvaluvar rock, they don’t allow after the tsunami, that’s what the locals say. It was heavily raining and sea had swollen a bit. Also went to a place called Neyyar dam (one a separate day this is not on the route to cape comrin). It has a large lake (27sq km). We took a boat ride, it normally takes 20-30 mins, we arranged for a 1 hour ride. The waters are croc infested. You can spot them near the shores of small hills. These small hills actually boost the scenic beauty of the place. There is also a lion safari….it was fun, it is a mini van and you think will this thing make it.The driver opened the door when we spotted two lioness very close (his explanation that we get is that we will get a clear view for snaps and the both the lionesses were pregnant and wouldn’t harm us…still…you know) Overall… susindhram is a must a visit and neyyar dam a nice place to relax. croc in the neyyar dam Agasthiyar mountain at the backdrop!

late entry

This is the "lake like 100 feet road" that i mentioned in the previous post. Happy diwali to you all....and id mubarak ho

puyale puyale...

Have I ever seen raining like this in Chennai…? Probably no! Atleast I do not remember. It has been raining for almost 3-4 days but the rains were sporadic and not very heavy. It all started on Wednesday evening when the temperature dropped to 22, by night it was pouring and I wake up Thursday morning only to hear the rains pouring. They say it rained 19cms in just 5 hours. Now that is too much of rain for Chennai to withstand.

Though I knew many wouldn't come to office I took an auto to reach there( din want to waste a leave). Gosh the moment auto took left at kathipara junction and hit 100 feet road, it was like a lake. I was wondering will the auto ever make it. Just as I thought the auto stopped and you know what, even my legs were on the seat as water was inside the auto almost 3-4 cms from the floor.

The driver was desperate, each time he tried starting the auto I could only hear blup blup blup…. The water had entered the silencer as it was well below the water level. The guy said he will catch me another auto, I was in now way prepared to step into knee-deep water. Luckily his last try and auto started… god knows how?

Though I have been against auto drivers in Chennai, yesterday these people were in demand and were very special. They were charging at least 1.5 times the normal outrageous charge but still they were driving. This guy was a peculiar guy who was not at all worried about the rains. He was worried of two things:

1. Some one had started the rumor that there was a crocodile in T.Nagar doraisamy subway ( adapaaavingala unga naala summa iruku mudiyadha?)
2. Sivakasi (vijay's new movie is scheduled to release today and he had 75 tickets to distribute - he says thalai padam puyalae vandhaalum parkanum (rumba mukiyum ippo natuku)

When I got off in front of the office, one that he told me that touched my heart was… veetiku seekirom po sar… velai nalliki kuda parthukalam odumbu dhaan mukiyam. Hmm… would this happen in US or AUS… I don't even consider US after the Katrina riots… time when people should be helping each other they were looting…!!!

Having seen the rain… I would definitely say that, many things could not be avoided. I understand that the roads were bad, but then with such a down pour the water logging will be there at least for a day.

SUN TV was ready with the camera blaming the govt. Yes! A lot of improvement is needed, but for gods sake don't give us mock interviews. I am just fed up with the high drama interviews that it shows… for me most of the them look pre planned. Like the one yesterday one guy in the railway station is blaming that the electric train is not in time… and literally shouting on the camera that he was late to office. The tracks were submerged and anywhere in the world, trains don't run when the tracks are submerged and on top of that it is electric train, which needs electricity. The council had promptly shut down the power supply, just in case if some short circuit happens. SUN TV, you are always the first to blame people you get real thumbs down. (me not supporting jaya tv in any case)

Today morning it was totally different, the water is not even 5% of what it was yesterday… it is simply amazing. Life back to normal and what else do you need.

Chennai : lesson learnt – There are some wonderful people out there.

The storm drainage system that was built indeed works.

The life gets back to normal in matter of hours.

As the saying goes "vazha vandha vargalai vazha veikum Chennai ku jai"

sattai payyil ....

Yesterday while driving to office, I could faintly hear sutum vizhi chudarae song being played from gajini; I turned around there was an auto and a car, I thought someone playing the song inside the car. Then again when I reached ashok nagar signal I heard the same thing, I thought that this song has become very popular and is being played everywhere. Actually some 2-3 years back the song ‘o podu’ from Gemini was so popular that you could hear it at least once a day somewhere. Thinking in similar terms I was driving and once again I heard the same thing… oh man! Is this coincidence or something? Then I came to my place and once again heard…. What is this??? I looked around and finally figured out that; it was actually my mobile that was ringing all the while, and a day before Mr. Naresh was playing with it and promptly changed the ring tone. End result 3 missed calls.

rain rain come again

It’s raining again after a break of 2-3 days. It’s good that it is raining in Chennai but the roads... Some cloud reader has predicted earth quake by reading clouds; now that’s interesting. Hey! You scientists out there, you still have not found an earth quake warning system; come here and get some tips from this guy. He says that for the last 20 odd years he has predicted earth quakes by just seeing the clouds. {Why the hell he din warn people? May be it took all that time to convince himself} what does he do keep staring at the sky??? That reminds me of the new coke ad which says “ sar ut tha hai coke pinae ke liya!” it shows a lot of situations where you raise your head like – to pray, to express to joy and some crap and in the end it says…. In a similar way you raise your head to drink coke…. (do I drink pepsi standing up side down?) whatever… There is one astrologer who claims that Chennai will witness floods, but when he can’t say, but he is sure that Chennai will witness { naan kuda dhaan soluvein that some day there will be flood in Chennai} Is this year having too many natural disasters or it’s just that we are hearing more of them? Whatever may be the case, one thing is for sure…. Mother nature is showing its fury and we are just helpless… it’s a warning sign and there is some major change happening to the tectonic plates. One good thing about this is the true nature of globalization is visible… remember tsunami, when so many countries came forward to help. Maybe nature wants to tell us “hey idiots stop fighting each other, you will be able to fight only if you have a place to fight”

this is how chennai looks after 2 days of rain... it was like crossing some ditch.

i am a doctor akela hoon bimaar hoon

Today I started to office pretty late. Actually I had told that I will be coming late, now don't ask me why.. as usual was not feeling well.

As I crossed vadapalani signal, the road was unusually empty. The very next signal was the one near the TCS office, even it had a green signal. I throttled a bit and as I crossed the signal I saw mama ( police) waving at someone. I don't bother to look at him again as I was sure that he was not waving at me.

I throttled a bit more and was kind of enjoying the ride. After some time I realized that I was driving a bit fast and to my amaze the speedometer was showing the arrow ahead of 85 and almost 90 (Gosh! What has got into me, immediately I started slowing). I took my off the speedometer to look at the road, but was too late.

A mama was standing almost at the middle of the road and asking me to stop, he was just ahead of me some how I managed to stop.

Mama : Enna speed limit laam theriyadha?

Me : {usual excuse } sir naan indha ooru ku pudhusu, enaku therilae. Naan rumba fast a laam otaliyae?

Mama: fast a otalia??? Adhu seri…. Seri urru ku dhaan pudhusu nalla sokka pant laam poturukae, unuku English kuda va padi ka theriyadhu…yethini yedathula speed limit poturukku ( by this time I knew I was loosing the argument, but had last excuse)

Me: (held my ID CARD half covered by my hand itself and wanted to tell him that, sir I am coming from vadapalni office and urgently going to ambattur office –actually was coming from home only, anyway wanted to try it) Sir enakku kunjom urgent a….

Mama: sir idha modhaliye solla kudadha ( naan onummae sollalae…. And I wanted to look at my ID CARD, do I resemble any big shot…or does my ID CARD have something else that I haven't seen yet…what does this guy think of me)

Mama: case attend pora…konjum medhuva po sar, illa neeye case aiyuduvae…!( what the heck….what case, what is he thinking, but I kept silent, simply blinking)

Mama: ini "+ "sticker otiko sir, police will not stop you. ( god! He thinks I am doctor)

Mama: seri seri poituva….

 

Came to office and looked at my ID CARD again, what made him think that I am doctor and even so do doctors wear ID CARD outside, whatever…. One ID CARD saved me atleast 100.

wednesday

If you want to speak English fluently Read the following message 5 times Quickly “I am a Can I “ “I am a When I” ----------------- God made daylight and called SUN God made entertainment and called FUN God made nightlight and called it MOON God made you called Tube light. --------------------------- IQ Question A rich man needs----------- A poor has------------------- If you eat------------ you will die Only word fits in all the blanks…. What is it? ------------------------------ read this rediff article and read this where is chennai heading?