Luck?

A very tongue-in-cheek post (at least by my standards) follows. You are all warned!



The IT industry in India has transformed quite dramatically the lives of many middle class families back home. The first salary that comes into a household from someone working in this industry usually surpasses that of their parents who have been working for some 25 years! Apart from this financial gain, there has also been the whole H1B program for working in the US which has helped the financial cause even further. Of course, there are many who travel to US for the better quality of life or for want of better career opportunities or better academics. But most of the H1B visas that do get doled out are lapped up by desis who want to make some green. Once we desis get to Uncle Sams land on one of these coveted H1's, its expected that most will get enamored. What follows then is a carefully timed application for a green card with the right employer, someone who will not crap out on you. What follows this of course is an US citizens. Without knowing all the details, I am sure citizenship in the US is very hard to get and a green card is a far far cry from citizenship, but it is a step in that direction. Again, this is a generalization for the sake of an argument, so no flaming please. :-)


With this as the context, imagine what one would feel when you see an Ad on TV which says that there is a lucky draw to get a green card! :-) All those waiting for green cards can apply and hope to get lucky. And if you do win the raffle draw, you gonna get to your citizenship by luck? So, would you then say "I love US, coz I got lucky!" But I guess someone who has dropped his/her citizenship by birth for a citizenship of choice doesn't have to be governed by the same unsaid rules.



For all those who got in line... best of luck and all those who didn't, what are you waiting for?? :-))

Lets keep track...

The cricket world cup is round the corner and it would help those of us who don't have the luxury of being bombarded by the media to have some simple way of keeping track of the match dates. :-) Here is something I got via email yesterday. I am sure we will have more or better tools showing up in the coming days, but we need to start somewhere.



Here we have the outlook calendar integration file which helps have the World Cup schedule in your Outlook.

Steps to integration: {Tested and working}



1. Download the .ics file

2. Open up Microsoft Outlook and from the 'File' menu select 'Import and Export'

3. From the next menu, select 'Import an iCalendar or vCalendar file (.vcs)'

4. Select the calendar file and upload

5. The tour schedule will now be sitting in your Outlook Calendar

Warning: The matches will come up as huge blocks in your Outlook Calendar. So, if you are in a corporate environment and have your calendar shared, you may not want to have your boss know that he cannot call you into a meeting because you are scheduled to see a cricket match. :-)

Pacey problems

I am tip-toeing some very icy surface here. I don't want to sound too old but at the same time indicate my struggle to catch up with time. :-)

There is a certain pace at which you live your life. I didn't or rather don't realize this till I travel to some place which alters this pace. For e.g. if I am on a long lazy vacation I feel a kind of frustration creeping in. I feel the need for the hustle-bustle of daily life in the city. When I travel abroad, since the social commitments are down to zero, all I end up doing is work. This leads to a different kind of frustration, one that makes we want to get back to everyday family life.

Why am I writing all this? Actually, I don't know. I just realized that it has been a week since I updated this blog. This by itself is not as strange as that I didn't feel an inclination to update it. Its like travel makes me lose the external perspective, makes me lose context with life, the news, the views... and frankly, this disconnect is so damn frustrating!

Anywayz, since I have now noticed it, and fighting procrastination is one of my new year resolutions, I am gonna do something about it. ;-)

The wait...

Another 3 weeks to go.... hope its worth it!

Catch Up?

I am taking another shot at Microsoft... guys have taken shit from so many people over the years and continue to do so, but hey, they are the big guns and its always fun to slander them up, they sure have the money to make them feel better. :-)

Six years since its launch Ipod is one of the most common place gadget in the world, it rocked the music listeners world over. The idea was innovative, presentation was stylish as ever and marketing was spot on. Ipod is an Apple product all the way and it revived Apple to no end. Microsoft had to do something. They did, almost 5 years later... came up with a clone which is a glorified Toshiba gigabeat and called it Zune. Tried to build an industry around it.... still trying.

Apple rocks the boat again with iPhone. A fancy phone, all classy, all featured and all costly. Does Apple see a huge market for it?? Sure it does! Microsoft doesn't want to be left behind and guess what! Playing catch up? Not so nice Microsoft... for a change, try being the innovator. :-)

p.s: BTW, I don't like Ipod and I don't fancy Zune either. ;-)

Stooopid!

There is this popular program on NBC called "Dateline NBC - To Catch a Predator" which tries to catch sexual predators who solicit minors online. I had seen this program back in the US a while back, but since the presentation and locale is very local to US, it doesn't air in India and the Indian channels have not started a rip off on this concept yet (I know they will soon, they always do!).



Happened to find the above video on youtube the other day! This decent looking desi guy gets scammed big time! The dimwit actually thought he would get away with it and notice how he first tries to wriggle out of it and actually asks "Am I gonna be in trouble..." Well... what did you think dopehead!

Is this it?

After all these years of hearing the craziness of sports in the US, I finally get a chance to watch "The Date" on the sporting calendar in the US, the Super Bowl. The Indianapolis Colts took on the Chicago Bears and true to expectations(yes have been following it), the Colts win it 29-17. I understand quite a bit of American football and as far as footballing games go, it was not as high quality as I had expected or seen during the packers or patriots days.

None the less, I stayed glued to the TV set the whole evening watching this not so interesting match, coz I wanted to have a look at all the Super Bowl Ads that usually are highly publicized and supposedly cost millions. Was I disappointed or what?? There was not a single Ad that I saw that stuck to my mind! Seriously folks, did I actually see the real Super Bowl Ads or does CBS have a secondary set of Ads? The set that they show to people who check-in into the regular budget hotels and don't pay for satellite TV? Anywayz, back to the point. There are these programs that come on Indian TV which say "Funniest Ads", "Sexiest Ads", "The Best Ads" etc etc. Where are these Ads shown? I don't see any even half as interesting on American TV. I hate to compare... actually, I don't. :-) The Ads that are shown on Indian TV are a lot more innovative and interesting. Yes, there is the usual argument that, the Ads made in India are obvious to appeal to Indians and similarly the US Ads for Americans. But nowadays, I relate to an American movie like LOTR or a serial like House more obviously than I do to Kal Ho Na Ho or Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki! So, that argument doesn't hold the same amount of water as it used to.

So, answer me people, where are the good Ads? Show me an Ad that runs on regular American TV that can compare to the Hutch pug ones or the Happy Dent ones or the Fevicol ones back home??