Riddle me this!

There has been a lot of news about the Mehtas abortion case. There has been a zillion opinion polls already and a lot of view points. Usually most issues that we see or hear in our day to day lives (even through media) have very simple positioning, when it comes to which side of the story you are on. Rarely do you come across something that you don't know the solution for or even don't know who is right and who is wrong. This particular case was one such for me.

I assume everybody is more than aware of the details of this case, thanks to utter lack of privacy on the part of the media. If you don't, please go through the link provided earlier. Among the most popular of opinions I have heard is, "What has the court got to do with all this! ?" The Mehtas have, and with good reason, chosen not to have the baby. It has to after all be their choice, since they are the ones in a position of sacrificing a big portion of their lives, earnings, time etc etc. On the other hand, why can't this be branded as a case of 'perfect baby' syndrome ? And this can, with little reasoning, be extended to be a case of boy vs girl child. Who decides the perfectness of the baby ? What is perfect for one person needn't be so for another. Here there is a case of a child with a heart problem. What if there is a case later where the child is supposed to have one leg shorter than other and the parents happen to be athletes and hence feel they don't want the child ? As you can see, this is now a case for the court to decide, since this almost points to choosing life and death for a fetus. And choosing death amounts to murder!

Because of all the emotions involved in this, its relatively (and obviously) easy for us to find fault with the courts as being insensitive to the Mehtas. But, this is a case that will have implications in the coming years, as the high moral ground that we Indians claim to stand on erodes as the years go by. The Indian values that we pride on, have been morphed by us to suit our current lifestyles. We are making a valiant attempt at keeping them alive, while each passing day is another nail in its coffin. With more and more parents getting more and more involved in their professional careers and the rat race in general, who wants to spend more time in taking care of a less than perfect child ? On a different note, lets say the court orders the government to take care of all medical expenses for the child. I am sure a certain portion of the people protesting against the court order will be ok with this solution, but would this be good enough for the Mehtas ? Would they have then wanted to have the baby ?

The latest development in this case gives a new twist to the whole saga. A mother and father who didn't want a baby are being forced by the law to have one. Is it too much to imagine that they did whatever they could to avoid complying with this diktat ? Can it not be claimed that the Mehtas murdered the fetus ? If so, is that right ? If not, who is to get the Mehtas to justice ? Who will file the complaint in order for there to be a further probe ? Who wants to be the cold hearted impassionate villain ?

This issue may or may not be in the news for long, but this sure has had me thinking a lot!

Finally...

India wins a gold at the Olympics outside of hockey!

Way to go Abhinav... made us all very proud. Now I have the josh to watch the Olympics, even if we don't win anything else in this edition! :-)

Perspective

Japan has always been ahead of technology and development the world over. They are supposed to have the fastest trains, but this video sure gives a very different look to the whole thing.



Makes our problem with crowded cities a joke. :-) How many still waiting for the metro ?? :-))

Need Time to See Time!

In this super charged rat race that we are all part of, the most precious possession in our hands that keeps eroding away at a pace far greater than we realize is TIME. If there ever were to be some statistics drawn on how often people look at their watches or mobiles or any device that gives them the time over the years, we would know how time-centric we have all become. I once counted more than 20 objects in my house that could show me the time at any give point of time. :-)

One way for us to reduce our fetish to be on top of time all the time is to get devices that make figuring out the current time as obscure and difficult as possible. The experience has gotta be so irritating that one should think "I am better off not knowing the time". This company, quite unknowingly, is making an honest attempt at helping us here, in the garb of fashion or attention seeking.

Here are some samples:










Now.... who can tell me the time without going through an user manual ?? :-)

Bangalore needs help!

Do your bit...

Sad and Clichéd

Just got to know that Ishmeet, the winner of Voice Of India contest on Star Plus last year, is dead. As tragic as this is, just look at the last line of the article:

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said the country had lost a 'gem' and a 'void had been created in the music world that would be hard to fill'.

Really... void in the music world... really! C'mon dude, think original or real for once!!

Wiki Wickedness

Google is making too many business enemies while winning many many users, and they are doing both at an astonishing pace. One of the most revered and welcomes services online is Wikipedia. Google has now attacked this haven too with Knol. I am sure you will start seeing context sensitives Ads and more pretty soon on Knol, which is something that would never happen on Wikipedia. But then, knowing Google, they are gonna make this service so much more cooler than Wikipedia.

Let the wars begin or rather continue. We users have all to gain... :-)

IM Jack

I have used MSN Messenger at the start of my IM days, then moved to Yahoo messenger, then gtalk and now use skype. Skype is mainly for work related stuff and is the only one on which I am online all the time. One of the reasons I couldn't keep in regular touch with many of my friends was paucity of RAM, yes, computer RAM. If that ain't an innovative reason, I wonder what is. :-) I just don't have the RAM to run MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, GTalk and Skype at the same time. So, I prefer not to run any except the one that which gives me roti, kapada and makaan.

I have waited patiently for an app that can be an all-in-one IM tool for all these services. I was among the first beta customers for Trillian. The app sure has come a long way since its early days and is quite good. Its major drawback was/is, it can't do skype yet. In the last few years, many more all-in-one apps like Digsby, Adium and online ones like Meebo, ebuddy, miranda etc have come up. They all have their strengths and unfortunately one big weakness... yup, none of them can do skype.

The reason none can do Skype is more to do with Skype than any of these apps. Skype was very close doored when it came to integration, until recently. The first to make use of this benevolence from Skype was Pidgin (formerly GAIM). Some good samaritan (maybe from google) came up with this integration tool. This tool with a few glitches here and there works quite well with Skype. The only drawback is that you need to have Skype app running all the time. Pidgin moves it to "Invisible" mode and take control of all chat sessions, in and out. I have not tried voice chats yet though.

All in all, I have finally found the jack of all trades of the IM world and I am loving it. Try it ... :-)

Movie Review : The Dark Knight

A master director comes with a sequel to an already very very successful prequel. Christopher Nolan brought the comic hero out of his comic book persona created the earlier batman series, and got us the very dark, more real (well, as real as can be) batman with Batman Begins. With The Dark Knight, he has taken the franchise to the next level.

The movie is again very dark, in true Nolan signature style. A warning to folks interested in watching the movie, you are hopefully a fan and hence know the characters, else do some reading. Nolan has not spent much time in delving into the past or significance of characters, so, come prepared. Though Christian Bale has done a great job along with the rest of the regular cast, the show was owned by the refreshingly cool and eerie screen presence of Heath Ledger as Joker. A once in a lifetime performance, and sadly his last, as was later pointed out by my cousin, that Heath Ledger died earlier in the year. With all respect to Jack Nicholson (ex Joker), Ledger made me sit up and watch the Joker and not find him funny. Since the plot and suspense is truly what made this a great film, I will refrain from even coming close to it. But the ending description of Batman and Gothams need for him... well, truly great writing(again Nolan and his brother!).

IMDB has given it 9.7 on 10 making it the #1 film of all time, Rotten Tomatoes has given it a 94% fresh.Needless to say junta and critics find this a great movie... and why not, It is! I give it a 9 and take away a point coz... well, I think Nolan could have been a little less caring for the bad guys in the movie, but then, DC Comics couldn't let him have his every which way, could they. :-)

They are Legends!

I am watching the mens singles final going on at wimbledon. Another Federer/Nadal final and another great match! Unfortunately, the English weather has acted up again. The match is now stopped and the score reads 4-6, 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(8), 2-2 (Deuce). Can a match get any closer ? Whoever wins this match, we have been privileged to be seeing one of the greatest finals ever at Wimbledon.

Bravo Legends, Bravo!!

Edit: The match has just ended, with the final score reading... 4-6, 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(8), 7-9 for Nadal. The greatest match of tennis I have ever watched! Speechless...

Dilbert - Layoff Reasoning

:-)))

TRP Loses... Sport wins

We have all witnessed the TV spectacle that IPL was. TV viewership of the other soaps and reality shows took a serious beating, thanks to IPL. Many of the Bollywood filmmakers decided to delay the release of their films, so as to avoid competition with IPL. All this went according to the Modi TRP plan and guaranteed that players would actually fight with their respective boards, if needed, to get a chance to play in IPL.

Lets now talk of the most played and viewed sport in the world, Football. In stark contrast to how IPL did things, Euro 2008 has chosen to given give more importance to the game rather than the TRP or viewership. During the first half of the group matches, we had two matches per day and each being played at different times. Now that we have gotten near the end of the group matches, and many of the quarterfinal spots are going to be decided by these matches, the organisers have chosen to play both the matches at the same time. This almost halves the neutral viewership, for e.g. as in todays case, I am watching the Austria vs Germany match and haven't been following the Poland vs Croatia match. They did it so, because, no game should become a dead rubber, if they can help it. In IPL, we didn't have a single such situation of a clash in match timings. No way can the money-hungry-TRP-craving administrators afford to lose viewership.

As made note by me in an earlier post too... there is always going to be more to sport than money. And this simple fact eludes the money-ruled cricket administrators in India!

Do Not Disturb - Does Not Work!

About a year back, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) introduced the "National Do Not Call" registry. This was supposed to help reduce the number of unsolicited calls that we receive on our mobiles. I registered myself within a few months of seeing this news in the paper.

Since then I have seen no reduction in the number of "spam" calls I get. Each time I get the call, I remind them of the registry and why they don't update the databases with the information in it. Most times the poor soul calling me has no clue of the registry and feigns ignorance and cuts the call. I wait for all such calls daily and then call up my service provider (Airtel) and inform them of the numbers. They promise to "work" on it. Nothing ever happens and calls never stop!!

Do Not Disturb.... having registered for this sh*t service has only had me spending more time trying to get it to work!!

Intention ?

One of the unsung heroes on the chaotic roads of Bengaluru are the traffic policemen. They usually do as good a job as can be expected, at least for the extent of monetary motivations they have. They also are now part of a chicken and egg problem on maintaining road etiquette. The growing traffic results in traffic police not able to stop people who are violating rules, because that will result in a bigger traffic jam. And since the traffic police are not hauling people up, people tend to bend/break the rules more brazenly. This has to be bettered and looks like they have found some method.

What the traffic cops do now is to be more active during non peak hours and weekends, when they doing their job will not result in adding to traffic jams. While this is all good, the intention behind fining people for traffic violations seems to be lost. We have drivers licenses which have the scheme to allow for warnings to be marked. We don't necessarily have a centralized system to track this, but that isn't an absolute must at this point. If someone is found violating rules, take note of his number and if he has exceeded the max number of warnings, send notices to him to pay the fine. This is already been done for some cases (parking violations) and needs to be made the de-facto mode, in my opinion. Instead, what happens today is, stop people who haven't broken any rules, ask them for every possible document (which is good), point to silliest of things physically not right with the vehicle (not so good) and if nothing works, use the trump card, emission test report. Most law abiding people will have all the paper work except for this, coz lazy folks (me included) can't get a lifetime emission report and hence will most probably forget about it.

By fining a person who has all his papers right, but doesn't have emission report is not wrong. But when this same person sees blatant traffic violations happen day in and day out and see them going about it merrily, while he waits behind a pile of vehicles following lane discipline or stopping at red lights of giving right of way to pedestrians etc etc. it does dampen the spirit. Why doesn't the government think of outsourcing the traffic violation fining to a 3rd party who can hire enough number of people to do the job. Assuming governement makes Rs.300 per violation, I can see several stretches from my home to office where daily collections would be more than Rs.1L. This will fill the coffers and also put the fear of the traffic police in everybody. Once the coffers are filled, they won't have to fine Rs.600 for not having an emission test report, and leave such poor souls at peace.

p.s: The above is not a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely intentional. :-)

Lurking for feedback

Looks like BIAL folks are on the net looking at junta response to BIAL and this does auger well it general. Being attentive and sensitive to peoples feedback is half the job done. Here is the comment I got for my blog post.

Hi Ajay,

Thank you for your interest in Bengaluru International Airport. Your comments and feedback are appreciated. If you have any queries on the airport do feel free to get in touch with us.

Regards,
BIAL Communications team

Nice!!

Reliably Stale!

One of Indias most touted people company, Reliance, has made several inroads into the retail and consumer business. One of these forays is into daily commodities, FMCG, fruits, vegetables etc. via Reliance Fresh.

Like anything that Reliance does, they started their Reliance Fresh wing also in a very big way. They have many outlets in Bangalore and are growing. They have one conveniently close to my place and we decided to give it a try. Since it was their first couple of weeks of operation, I didn't expect things to be smooth and they sure were not. They were so far from not smooth, they were abysmal in service. We decided to never use Reliance Fresh again.

Many months have since gone by and Mango season has come around. I happened to go to Reliance Fresh with a cousin of mine to help with his shopping and I saw that they had a Mango mela on, and had the famous Alphonso Mangoes for Rs.75 for half a dozen which comes to approx 1.5kg. Seemed like a good deal, bought it, and surprisingly the mangoes were damn good! Since then, I have frequented Reliance Fresh to get these mangoes and have continued to have bad experiences with their service every time! Todays experience:
1. I got there at 7:30AM, the time the person in charge of Mango sales told me to get there to get fresh mangoes.
2. They officially open only at 8:00AM and I am told to wait.
3. It ended up opening at 8:15AM and I found only one stale box of Alphonso Mangoes. I asked the person in charge of the Mango sales and he said "I have 4 crates of fresh alphonso mangoes being unloaded", and suggested me to wait. I had anyway lost my sleep, so, there was nothing more to lose, hence waited longer.
4. I waited till 9:00AM, inquiring every 10 minutes on the status of mangoes and all I get is "They are being unloaded".
5. Finally the sales person tells me, "Sorry Sir, no alphonso mangoes today!". I asked him, "Didn't you tell me you had 4 crates of it!" He just gives me a blank face in reply. I am pissed, but what could I possibly say or do! I decided to buy some other variety of mangoes and headed towards the billing area.
6. I was among the first few who got into the store, but with all the waiting, there were hoards of people already near the billing area.
7. To my surprise, they opened only one billing counter!
8. To save some pennies, they have decided to have the person doing the billing to be the same person who does the packing! Double the work, less efficient, more than double the time!!
9. I went and complained and had another counter opened. But not to my surprise, the bar code scanner was not functioning properly and the lady at the counter had to hand edit all the items. And this of course, gets very messy for someone who doesn't know English well, but is supposed to bill Spinach and button onions and what not, while all she knows are the Kannada names for the same!! She is running all over the place to get them translated.
10. I got out of the outlet at 9:30AM, 2 hours since I started the saga of trying to buy 2 kgs of Mangoes!

Reliance is probably very good with their energy and petroleum and chemical factories and refineries. But when it comes to direct consumer service, its pathetic and penny wise pound foolish! They can learn more than a thing or two from a much smaller competitor, at least in number of outlets, M K Retail !!

Now on, never going to Reliance Fresh, even for Mangoes!!

Futbol Time!

Get ready people.... Euro 2008 is here! For those who use google calendar, here is an event reminder which is smart enough to adjust the start times to IST.

Goooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllll !!!!!

SmartyPants Idea

How often have you gone... "Wow... now thats an idea!". This is something what I say almost on a daily basis, thanks to the whole lot of information at disposal these days via the internet. The ideas that people get for new products are not necessarily big money ideas or grandeur-spelling-headline-making always. But even the simple ones are so uniquely fresh!

Here is a site that helps you with auctions on products you want, but have been misspelled by the seller on the auction sites. As is the case with any auction, more people that see the product listing, the more the item is in demand, and more the cost. If the product name is misspelled (ipoo for ipod ;-) ), then there is a low chance of people having viewed it and hence number of bids on it will also be less. And since the seller is bound by the auction site to sell the item for once listed, you end up getting it for cheap.

Now how is that for a simple yet smart idea. :-)

BIAL - Howzit ?

Its almost been a week since BIAL has started functioning. I haven't been to the new airport and hence don't have any personal experience to share. But here is some hearsay stuff from blogs and friends.

1. The new airport kicks ass!
2. The Volvo bus service (for arrivals) is fantastic. And at Rs.150 extremely affordable (for somebody who can afford air travel)
3. The Volvo bus service (for departures) is slow and at times doesn't stop at the designated places.
4. There are services like this, which come close to shuttle service, but since they provide some luxury, its for the upwardly mobile.
5. Taking a generic City Taxi or the all Logan fleet is extremely costly.
5. ATC still has some issues and flights do get delayed or routed to the HAL airport.

Looks like BIAL had an OK first week.

I told you so....

Have a look at the first news heading here. Remind you of anything ? :-)

Krriminal budhi boyz and galz all over the place, I say. :-))

ControversyTube.com

Most of us visit youtube at least one a week for watching some video or the other. The youtube service was launched with the intent of enabling amateur videographers to get their content online and get some viewership and critical feedback, maybe. But what it has turned out into is the dumping yard for anything and everything legal and illegal, just like bittorrent. :-)

Seeing the obvious interest of people to watch free TV or movie via youtube, the big honchos like viacom and warner brothers have a dedicated team (some warm bodies) of online drones/bots whose only job is to pull down content on sites like youtube that are a copyright violation. Youtube, being the good guy here, pulls down the content the minute someone raises an objection. We, of course would like to see the "objectionable" data... always! So, here is something that comes close to doing this for us, YouTomb. This is a pet project inside MIT which keeps track of all the videos that are pulled down from youtube because of copyright violations.

While this is nice start, I think there is scope for another niche web2.0 company to grow here. :-) Yes, I have another product idea and you can blame it all on this conference call I am stuck in, which I don't want to be in!! Anyway, getting back to topic. What folks (definitely me) would be more interested in would be to view these oh-so-bad banned content. Since it is copyright violation content, no legit site would want to host it. But since almost all such content is usually downloaded by someone and uploaded somewhere, there should be a bunch of insignificant sites/blogs that have the same content. The media mafia is unlikely to have the patience, energy and drive to bring down each and every such lowly site/blog. So, what we need is a service which can keep track of the content that is brought down because of copyright violations and then crawl the world wide web and find all the sites that have this content mirrored.

Since I have the time to come up with such ideas (mostly useless) with no intent of ever doing anything else with the idea, I need a sounding board, and I am gonna start being active here. :-) . Of course, feedback from the readers of this blog is always welcome! :-)

Mr.Transformer: Tiger To Wuss

My interest in IPL has increased over the course of the tournament, simply because we are able to witness some good spirited performances from old, new and unknown cricketers. But the fact that the Bangalore Challengers team sucks has not helped my interests in any way.

Though the IPL is yet to come even close to the rage following that something like EPL has garnered, I think it has started in the right direction. So, even though I don't care much if Bangalore loses, the caring is not nil either. I think Dravid, Charu and co. have to be blamed for the team selection, coz the team does suck, comparatively. This being said, for someone who claimed fame because be brought back Tipus sword and oozing with compassion for Karnataka, and strong local interests, the business beast inside Mallya didn't take long to surface. His decisions and his comments stink of typical board room moves. You throw people out of a company and then manage the outfall. But in the world of sports, things are a little different, as he has quickly learnt. He threw Charu out and Brijesh Patel came in, what changed ? Nothing! He apparently cut short Venkatesh Prasads opinions when it comes to team selection, what changed ? Nothing! He made the worst of comments against his team captain, what changed ? Nothing! So, Mr. Mallya... understand this... this is unfortunately business in sports, but as you can see, there is a different way of going about the business of sports!

I don't know if, like the EPL, the bottom feeders are relegated and some other team is given a chance. If so, first off Mallya and secondly Bangalore don't deserve to be part of the next edition of IPL!

Needed...

Since I have gotten home early from office and since there isn't much to do at home, the devil's workshop is in full gear today. :-)

Here is another startup web2.0 idea exclusively for India ;-). Most of urban India spends at least an hour a day in front of the TV. Most people (including myself) are channel surfers. But this is probably because I don't have an easy way to know what is showing on which channel. I need to hunt for the days paper, and search through the fine print for the program schedule. What I suggest we need is an online TV guide for India, much like this or this or this.

What say ? Will it fly ?

Chit-Chat

I read an article in TOI today about the WWE Wrestler Khali meeting the President of India, Smt. Pratibha Patil. The article seemed so improbable and meaningless, that it was funny!



I double checked with a google search and rediff too had reported the same! Imagine what a 7ft 3in 400+ pound man, who is used to shouting at the peak of his voice and a hardly 5ft, feeble sounding first lady (president?) have in common to talk about. What would they even discuss? Here are some questions they could have traded...

P. How many eggs do you gobble up everyday ?
K. What kind of weight training are you on ?
P. Have you ever tried using cotton pants for your matches ? I can help you with the selection.
K. You should try the undertaker pile driver, Clears your sinus.
P. Hope you are a vegetarian. What is your favorite vegetable ?
K. Thanks, no coffee or tea. Can I have the chicken broth soup with some beef jerky to nibble on ?

I can go on... but timely inspiration eludes me.

Movie Review: Tashan

Its been a while since I have blogged on a movie review. Its not that I have not been watching movies but no movie evoked a strong enough response in me to blog about it.

Then came Tashan... wow, what a movie! As soon as the movie ended, the first I wanted to do was blog about it! The movie was horrendously disappointing!! Yashraj films never had it off late (IMO) and they have proved it with Tashan. The films has pathetic performances from everyone. The most irritating was Anil Kapoor with the screwed up Hinglish or whatever you call what he was talking. Saif Ali Khan does nothing, and Kareena's performance was a huge let down after Jab We Met. She has got a great bod, but there is only so much crap that can cover up for. Akshay Kumar was ok, let me reemphasize on the OK.

The music is decent, at least 3 songs which you can hum to. But what really lets the movie down is its lack of a concrete script. Too filmy a story for this day and age. Imagine 100 people firing machine guns at a target which is some 30 feet away and not a single bullet hitting the target! There are some gross oversights too.. for e.g. in one scene Akshay does get shot by a bullet, but the very next scene there is no sign of the bullet wound.


Anyway, a real crap movie, 4 on 10.

Keep Waiting!

The international airport at Bangalore is ready for use. Bangalore has been waiting for this airport for a long time and its now a reality. We will now have 747s and 380s taking off and landing in our very own Bangalore.

Wow... all the above sounds so good, nice and a done for deal. Just that all of the above are true and still no flight is gonna take off or land at the new airport any time soon. The politicians are at it again! Craving for election issues, they have now landed on this issue. The problem that people claim is that infrastructure to get to the new airport is bad. All understood, well intentioned and well pointed. And how is the situation being construed by the politicians ?? They are now going from Governor, to Prime Minister, to President to Supreme Court to keep the HAL Airport open till infrastructure improves! This time around, they also have all the people of Bangalore frustrated with the infrastructure in general supporting them too.

The point being missed here is... why the noise now ? Did a genie come and magically create the international airport in one day ?? Nope... all these politicians knew very well, that this day would come and there were no concrete steps taken to solve the problem before it hit us. I remember numerous statements made by one and all for each days delay in the opening of the international airport. All this pressure... for what? To see this day ?? We are now, point by point, going back on the very basic of agreements based on which we had international funding garnered for the international airport! How sick is that!

Now lets take a different view to the whole problem ? How many in Bangalore can afford to travel by air ? The answer to this question already brings us to a very small percentage of populous of Bangalore. How many of us who can afford air travel use this mode of transport ? Thanks to budget airlines, this number is quite a bit. That being said, how many times a year do we travel by air ? I would say 3 or 4 times a year should be a healthy average. Can't we take the pain of a few hours to get to the airport these 3 or 4 times ?? Is all this hoopla for a few sales, marketing, wealthy people who happen to travel every week ? If so, why don't they shift their residence to some place close to the airport and put all of us out of this constant ruckus! Lets have the politicians concentrate on getting their manifestos more focussed on the real issues!

I am in no way saying that the infrastructure is fine, no way is it even close to bearable. But then, the people who should be fried or fired for the pathetic state of affairs that we are in today are escaping it all by telling us that not having the HAL airport is bad for the public and that they will lose a tooth and limb (never will they ever) to ensure that the old airport is kept open or the new airport will stay closed!

Pricks! @#$%^&

Obviously shocking

The Indian Premier League T20 tournament is going great guns! I seriously am not interested in the tourney as its hard to not applaud a sehwag slog or a dhoni catch just because they are playing against the Bangalore Royal Challengers. This being said, I find myself spending a good 1-2 hours daily watching live action of IPL and this is exactly the reason why this tournament has become such a big success.

One thing that has come good out of this tournament is the obvious shock that the old guard does not fit into the new scheme of things. Dhoni was right!! There is no place for a Dravid or Laxman or Ganguly in this form of the game. Sachin has not played a single match, else I think he too would have been a failure, though he is the only one who has even a slight chance of success. Each one of these stalwarts is more of a liability in their team, creating batting order chaos and nothing more. Imagine Misbah-ul-haq sitting out of the Bangalore team or Herschelle Gibbs sitting out of the Hyderabad team or Gayle/Brad Hodge not in the playing 11 for Kolkata. Look at who from India is performing well... its rohit sharma, its uthappa, its sehwag, its dhoni, maybe even yuvraj. Basically, the new guard is doing the job and justifying why Dhoni took the bold decision (and all the flak) to drop dravid first and then ganguly from the one day squad.

I hope this tournament lays to rest the otherwise constant crib of each of these states on why their star player is not part of the ODI or T20 squad!

Thought for the day

There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

:-))))

Its Different

Nice clock to stare and spend some time on... maybe even get a bit scared.

Wakeup Call

I noticed the below sign board near the K R Puram bridge and was not sure if its a promo for some movie, like this, or if it was for real.




I went to their website and they look like its an honest attempt to get people out of the "hum kya kar sakte hain" attitude into "chak de!" way of looking at things. How valuable my vote is, I really don't know. But if its worth anything, I would rather give it to a party I can relate to and the current national or regional parties don't seem to fit my bill. But this party... maybe I will vote for them.

We won... sigh

India just leveled the series against South Africa and have retained the fear of touring the sub continent. This is one of those very rare occasions when the result is in India's favour and yet I feel this sense of sadness. The world No:2 and No:3 test teams have lost a total of 32 wickets in 3 days. The match is comfortably finished by the end of 3rd day. Morne Morkel bowls a good length ball and the ball fights to even go above the shoes of the batsman. Harbhajan Singh bowls the first over of the second innings even though we have 2 fully fit fast bowlers in Sreesanth and Ishanth.

All in all, a desperate attempt for victory by India. We have gone to the extent of making the Green park in Kanpur void of the slightest bit of grass and in fact, it was a bigger dust bowl than one has seen in the most gloomy of days of Indian cricket. I am sure history will remember this series as a 1-1 draw and nothing more. But lest we forget, the more pitches we create like this, the lesser we become as a cricketing nation. In fact, the pitches in all the 3 matches of this series have been disappointing. The first one at chennai was a dead pitch, the second one was more green than it should have been and the last one was more brown that it should have been. I don't believe in changing pitches in India to be similar to Australia or South Africa. The Aussies or Springboks cannot be expected to create a spin friendly pitch and similarly, there is no need for us to make pace friendly pitches. But that being said, we need good cricketing pitches. Test cricket is interesting when matches go the distance, not when things end on the 3rd day, with one team having the obvious advantage, like what happened in the 2nd or 3rd tests of this series.

Anyway, yippeeee... we won! :-(

Flattery?

Someone once said "Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery". I am sure this was coined by some guy who plagiarized his way to the bank and then when he got caught, he had a well phrased statement coined and ready for use.

During the usual weekend manga sessions, me, my wife and cousins usually discuss about bollywood, movies, music etc. One of the constant topics over the last year or so has been the hits being delivered by the combo of Pritam, Kay Kay and a band of unknown singers. The constant in the equation is always Pritams music. I always had this gut feeling that he was definitely copying stuff from somewhere, but could never really find out from where. Even while watching his latest blockbuster Race, I was getting this nagging feeling... "Man, this guy has gotta be lifting this stuff!". My dad, who could care less about Pritam and his music, actually liked the songs of the movie and therein lies the secret to Pritams success. Every song revolves around 2 or 3 notes and catchy lyrics to go with it and viola you have a hit album. His music is shallow but peppy and that is apparently all that people need.

Unlike his predecessors like Anu Malik, Pritam does an extremely good job of choosing songs that he gets "inspired" by. During some general youtube browsing I came across these 3 videos which makes quite an eye popping revelation of Pritams flattering ways.







Since its unlikey that this info will ever reach the bigger audience, the hit music director, Pritam, will continue to make oodles of money on someone else's hard work. :-)

Spoiler

Had a hearty laugh when I saw this. :-))

Product Idea

I am a reluctant orkut member. I don't necessarily like the idea of orkut, but apparently many near and dear ones of mine do like it and hence I am on it. Another such social networking website which is gathering some momentum in India is facebook. They have smartly tied up with the yuppie youth channel, MTV, whose VJs try to coax you into getting onto facebook. We also have fringe players (in the world scene) like hi5 which are quite popular in India. Similarly it won't be too far in time when other sites like myspace or bebo, which got bought for $850M by AOL try to expand their horizons and get to India in a big way.

With such a plethora of social networking sites, the story is going to be very similar to the Instant messaging world. It started with AOL, then ICQ, then Yahoo, then MSN, then GTalk, then rediffbol etc etc. People will try all and eventually will have settle on one. They will do so not because they don't have friends on the other IMs but because they do not have the patience to manage multiple apps and also the CPU sap that would result out of running all these apps. Similarly, people will want to receive scraps or whatever from all these sites, but their inability to spend the same kind of quality (questionable) time on each of these social networking sites will hurt them socially, so to speak.

I think, in this crammed world of web innovations, here is a niche space for a company to flourish. How about a website that aggregates your data(scraps) and contacts from popular social networking sites and show them on a single page ? Something like a trillian or an orgoo for the social networking world.

Will this fly ? Anybody interested in funding me ? :-)

Beat this!

I remember having a discussion with a NRI a while back on the telecom sector in India versus the one in the US. He was talking of how fantastically cheap billing was in the US and that he had to pay only $60 for a fantastic tariff plan. I of course countered his tariff plan with my Rs.250 (then $6) tariff plan and then factored in all the freebies he got and had my total bill come to less than 50% of his. He then shrugged it off by telling, "Wait for the market to mature, and then lets talk".

Well, its been 2 years since this discussion and even as I agree that its not enough time for the market to "mature", it sure is long enough to know the general direction of the maturity :-), and this is the way its headed. Virgin Mobile has launched its CDMA services in India and apart from having attractive phones on offer they have a very unique feature in their plan. You will get paid for incoming calls (10 paisa/minute)!! US is still trying to get free incoming for prepaid and here we are... paying people for getting incoming calls. Damn, c'mon market, mature! ;-)

On a more interesting note, lets see if we can run a scam here. I am sure we all have changed mobiles in the last year or two. Lets assume we have not sold the old GSM mobile we had. Now, I am relatively confident that if I hunt hard enough, I can get a tariff plan from some service provider which will have all calls to one mobile free or some ridiculously low price of 1 paisa or something. Now start a call from this mobile to the virgin mobile and leave it on the whole day. You will be making approx 9 paise/minute. I am sure someone will catch this and ban the number or something, but by that time we would have made some money off the service providers.! :-)

... And it gets better!

I had already blogged about MTV Roadies 5.0 and how I have really gotten into it. Now, the folks at MTV and of course GiftMate have sweetened it for me and I am sure for many others.

Giftmate in an attempt to get more popular and gain userbase have tied up with MTV and have made the Roadies show not only entertaining to the eyes, but also very pocket friendly. Though Roadies is not a SMS based voting system, they have a number that people can SMS too, to voice their vote on who would go out. Giftmate will give a Rs.200 voucher for anyone who sends an SMS (which costs Rs.3) to MTV Roadies. These vouchers are accepted at almost any e-retail site in India, like indiaplaza, rediff shopping, indiatimes shopping, bookmyshow etc etc.

I have sent the SMS, got the voucher and used it already, so it all works. :-) So, what are y'all waiting for...

Brave or Cornered ?

In what can be considered as one of the bravest decisions by the software giant, Micro$oft has decided to provide online access to their office suite of products. We all know that the cash cow for the company has always been its office suite of products and providing online access to it is proof of 2 things:
1. The other online office competitors like zoho and writely (google) etc etc have gotten to M$
2. M$ realizes that with net becoming so big, exposing itself to this market sooner than later makes sense.

None the less, it does come with a catch, as its meant only for those who already have an office license. Anywayz, if anyone wants to give it a shot, here is where you can do it.

Enzoy maadi!

Obvious Design... but, money ?

I use skype everyday mainly for office and sometimes personal stuff. A lot of the time on skype is spent on conference calls and I have many a time felt a need to avoid the headset with mic as I don't have access to it all the time.

Some company has apparently seen a significant enough business case of people who will pay to solve this problem.



Though the pic is obvious, a little explanation. This special keyboard automatically selects the onboard receiver to be the audio in/out for skype and makes skype more mainstream, so to speak.

Smart idea but wonder if people will spend money for it! I love it, but I won't pay for it if I have to spend 10% more than a normal keyboard.

Road Rage Is Fun!

Don't read too much into the subject, as road rage is never fun. But when this rage is from a bunch of guys and girls on a show which is always on the road, then, well, it sure is fun! I am referring to the MTV reality show "Hero Honda Roadies". The show is in its 5th season, and is unique among the plethora of reality shows that flood all the tv channels these days. For a change the channel is not trying to fleece you off your money, at least not directly. There are no sms based voting eliminations! Yipeeee!! The commercial breaks are also less than 6 minutes, which is about 3-4 minutes less than the average commercial break time for other reality based shows. Add to this, the creative team behind the Roadies earnestly works towards making every episode unique with a guaranteed surprise element to boot.

This year the roadies selection process, which is one of the highlights of the show was as entertaining as ever. And when the actual show started with the 13 finalists, there was bound to be a lot of fun. Since this is their 5th season, people came in more strategically prepared, more emotionally prepared and most importantly more prepared attitude wise.

Its been a treat watching the first 3 episodes and sure promises to be a great season ahead. When I talk of surprises, lemme take the example of the first 3 episodes.

1st episode: All the contestants know that they had to vote one contestant out of the show. The groups have already started forming, the votes had been more or less decided. The surprise factor: Change in plans, they now had to vote 2 people out of the show. This changes all the equations and in fact 2 of the stronger contestants leave the show, instead of the forming villain of the group.
2nd episode: The villain of the group continues to be the overwhelming favourite to leave the show. But again, 2 relatively strong contestants seem to have polled all the negative votes and one of the more confident looking contestants leaves the show. The villain doesn't get a single vote against him!
3rd episode: Again, the group villain goofs up even more and looks like the absolute bakra to go out. But again, the person who was thought of as one of the most scheming guys on the show is voted out.

Watch it guys... its definitely much better than the rest of the crap reality shows on tube these days! I am loving it!!

Its Working!

I don't know if anybody has ever used my method of getting Google calendar notifications to on your mobile as an SMS. This post of my mine was specifically meant for Airtel Karnataka subscribers and I have blissfully used this feature for all of 1.5 years and was very very happy with my improved productivity, thanks to Google calendar doing the remembering and my mobile doing the reminding.

About a month or so back, as a new year present, the email portal for Airtel Karnataka subscribers stopped working and promptly so did my productivity enhancement tool. I resorted to only email reminders and since I am not always in front of the comp, I have missed many an appointment (movie :-)).

Some 4-5 months into me using this tool of mine, Google introduced reminders to be sent to your mobile and this worked in India with some service providers and unfortunately Airtel Karnataka was not one of them. I did give it a shot then, and as documented, it didn't work. At that time I could care less, as I had my tool working and that was good enough. But after the Airtel folks blocked the email portal, the desperate me just gave the Google calendar to mobile one more shot and to my surprise, it worked! I promptly got an SMS from Google with a reminder I had set in the calendar. Airtel Karnataka is still not listed as a supported carrier, but I guess Google just got lazy (who doesn't!) with document updates.

Go ahead people... give it a shot and get productive! :-)

Ban them all!

I was getting back from office today and it was 7:30PM. This is peak traffic time in the evenings and I was having enough trouble already with the unruly traffic. Add to this is my current tryst with ligament tear, which make the continuous use of the break/accelerator to give me enough pain to last me till I sleep.

As if this was not enough, some genius big shot (dunno if its a politician or movie star or whatever!) decides to have his entourage go right through the city. To make his/her life easy, traffic is halted and re-routed. Traffic police are doing their job, but there are now a bunch of well minded Samaritans who also wanna help! They helping is fine, but who gave them the right to hurl abuses at anybody who is just trying to get home and doesn't know the reason for the detours or the detour routes ? I didn't get any abuses as I just followed the car in front of me, who got a healthy dose of expletives in Kannada.

I demand that we stop this practice of helping these VIPs get past all the traffic mess! Let them feel the pain! Its their short sightedness which has resulted in this infrastructure chaos we are in today! Even after the last 3-4 years of non-stop abuses being hurled at the politicians for Bangalore's bad shape, they still don't do things fast enough to make a difference. For e.g. the international airport is almost ready and people will have to travel 2hrs in some cases to get to the airport for a 20 min fight to chennai! There is no concrete proof on the ground of things being improved in this regard.

Wanna be a good Samaritan ? Take a leaf off the book of the old man who stands at the Meeras school junction near Cambridge Road directing traffic and kids day in an day out without losing his cool and even in the worst of weather. The rest of the instant Samaritans are more pain in the ass than anything else!

Our Planetary Neighbours

NASA's Spirit has picked up some strange human looking life form on Mars. Yes people, the answer to our question 'Are we alone' (as if the 7+ billion was not enough) has been answered. We are not alone! Like this is what we really wanted at this time! We have so few humans around, why not get some Martians to stick around!



Too bad the Martian doesn't look anywhere as cool as depicted in the movies. :-) And since this picture is just as grainy or hazy as any of the ones of Sasquatch or Loch Ness monster, it must be true. :-)

Anyway, some more fuel for the SETI gang to continue their search.

Silly Billy

The final test between India and Australia is winding down to a draw and the main culprit for the result is probably the lifeless pitch. So much for cricket friendly Aussie pitches! :-) But then, this is apparently the first draw at Adelaide in 10 years! Can't blame the pitch much I suppose. Probably just 2 teams who played well when it mattered and hence the draw.

We had Billy Bowden as the umpire for the 3rd test match along with Asad Rauf, and the same pair officiated in the 4th test too. This was after ICC booted Bucknor off the series. After the 2 tests that Billy has officiated in, what is the general consensus on his umpiring? Was it better than Bucknors? At first glance, and considering the furore at Sydney, the answer would probably be yes. A good umpire is supposed to make the right decisions, be it out or not out. And with this as the context, on a closer look, you would see that Billy has taken the easy route out. He has played it safe by not giving any of the LBWs, even ones which were out. I think Billy's umpiring has been just as bad as Bucknors, just that people won't be as critical because, there is always the matter of the umpire being consistent and secondly, no one lost the Adelaide test specifically because of Billy decision making or the lack thereof!

Broadband alternative

Internet access in India has been around for a long time, but broadband access is relatively new and its now pervasive enough to reach the larger audience. The next step in net access is the mobile/wireless reachability. Though we have WiFi at home, we need to get to WiFi on the streets. Since that is a bit of a stretch, atleast in India it is, we have WiMax, which is much more suited for this application.

Reliance communications has gotten into this business in a BIG way and after initial hiccups have started their WiMax broadband availability.



Though this is still fixed wireless i.e. they will have a wireless modem/receiver on your roof and what comes into your house would be an ethernet drop. You can still choose to have WiFi inside your house. The dream is still to have access all over, but that will take a while. Rest assured, we are getting there. :-)

The R.I.C.E way...

I injured my leg last week playing football and it looked quite bad. I initially thought it was a fracture and that was a scary thought. I have been playing different types of sports for many years but never had a fracture or for that matter the serious kind of injury I had last week (touch wood!). I had a few friends at office who had faced similar injuries in the past assure me that it was not a fracture. This did bolden me when I went to visit the doctor.

He pressed a few of the bones and joints near the ankle area (the problem area) and since I didn't shout out, he figured it was not a fracture. A friend at office did the same to say that it wasn't a fracture. The doctor later told me to take an X-Ray and confirmed after looking at it that it was not a fracture. He later said:

"Have a lot of rest, put some ice near the swelling, put some crepe bandage to keep it tight and ensure that you put your feet "up" i.e. fighting gravity." To my surprise, another colleague of mine later pointed me to this, which is exactly the same stuff that the doctor said. Either I have an office full of orthopedics or this is very common knowledge. The doctor looked earnest in opinion till this point and then the financial reasoning came forth and he asked me to come to his hospital and start on physiotherapy. He didn't want to understand that I have to get to office and to start physiotherapy at 10:30AM is not something that will work for me at all. But nope, he wanted me to do it and didn't encourage me to get it done somewhere closer to my office. I have boldly decided not to do the physiotherapy as suggested and trust the wiki page or some other specialized website for directions on what I could do in "MY" time!

I may regret this decision to not go with the physiotherapy, but the inflexibility of the doctor to place the welfare of the patient ahead of his own business needs didn't appeal to me at all. Yes, we all work for money, but a doctor is not expected to talk like a salesman. In the software industry, we have specialists to do each job. Some of us code, some of us test, some of us manage, some of us sell, some of us do the marketing and so on. Shouldn't the practice of medicine also be similar ? Should a person in a higher position of trust, like a doctor, try to talk you into something that is forced more by the needs of business rather than the needs of the patient ? What does such talk by a doctor do to the faith bestowed on him by the patient? In our hour of desperation and pain, we will tend to listen to "whatever" the good doctor has to say. Misusing this trust points to a question of ethics, at least for me it does!

As previously written, the profession of medicine is so much more different from any other and continues to intrigue me.

p.s: I have very few friends who are doctors. :-)

Queen Maker?

Coalition politics are here to stay in India and since Congress and BJP can never partner with each other, the local players of each state will be the king makers in each state. At the center the story is different but not too different. The power players of each state do have a role to play, but we then have a few big players too. For e.g. the left parties and more recently Mayawati.

Mayawati understands that she has her very best chance of becoming the PM now. She sees the Congress losing in most states, BJP winning in some. If the nuclear deal results in India going for mid-term polls, she knows that there is a very good chance of neither of the big guns getting a majority. This opens the door for her and she is readying herself. If she manages to split UP into 3 states (which is good, but being done for the wrong reasons), her party will now have majority presence in more than just one state. This will give her more bargaining power and don't be surprised if she does a Deve Gowda and ends up becoming the Prime Minister of the country!

Here is a preview of her fancy plans.

Not Funny!

I initially intended to post the new concept DAPs at CES 2008 by iriver, but was halted and veered away to another post by this rather bizarre happening at the CES this year.

Gizmondo is a very respected gadget guide website, one which I frequent often for getting the latest on gadgets or to catch a review of something I wanna buy. This being said, they released the below video on their blog of the bizarre happening I was talking about and I certainly didn't enjoy it!



This prank to shut off some of the LCD screens at the CES show was the brainwave of editor of Gizmodo! He has since been banned from this years show and the site probably has a lawsuit on their hands. If you have seen the above video, you would see many of the presenters being presented with their worst presentation nightmare, and not just once! The motorola guy tried to recover by moving from his primary LCD, which had stopped working, to the secondary LCD, which also went off within seconds.

Pranks are fine if this was a convention for college kids. But this is CES, one of the most looked forward to events of the tech calendar. There are serious companies showcasing there path breaking or at least money making (hopeful) products for the coming year. And to have such a serious event be disrupted like this is just childish!

Edit:
The above video has been removed by youtube. Here is a link for the video right from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Monopolistic

The Indian government supported bodies or companies always seem to get the better of the rules of the land, thus making them monopolistic in nature. I had written a while back about how doordarshan gets to relay the live feed of cricket matches from Neo Sports without paying them any money and yet make money themselves on Ads in between overs. The situation in the fuel market is not very different.

I choose to fill petrol from the Shell outlet on Old Madras Road. The reasons for choosing them over a HP or IndianOil petrol pump are many fold.

1. I don't have to keep my eyes pinned on the money or fuel meter to see if they are trying to pull a fast one on me.
2. They don't make the choice of premium or normal petrol for me!
3. They clean the windshield of my ever dirty car. :-)
4. They give me a bill for every transaction without asking for one.
5. I have a smiling face welcoming me to the petrol station, and not someone who seems to think that he is doing a favour by pouring petrol into the tank.

There are more reasons, but then, they are not big enough to mention, but significant enough to make you feel more comfortable.

Last week, I went to the Shell petrol pump and got to know that they have stopped selling normal petrol in Bangalore and Chennai and that they would now sell only their premium version of petrol and diesel. The reason cited is that the subsidies provided by the government is only for the PSU Oil companies, but the private players are expected to keep the price fair inspite of not having the subsidies. They were kind enough to warm me before they started filling up and also had the below notice given to every customer who had any query regarding this.



I better reacquaint myself with the skills needs to fill petrol elsewhere!

Small is Big

Finally we have a few glimpses of the 1 lakh car from Tata.

The Looks:


The Details:


Tata is clearly trying to woo the low end car market (Maruti 800) consumers and the high-end 2 wheeler consumer into switching to the 1 lakh car. The current market leaders of the high-end 2 wheeler segment, Bajaj, cannot let this happen without a fight and they have released some news about their own version of the 1 lakh car.



More details here.

The small car market is pretty big in India and these guys know it. Let the wooing games begin! :-)

Outrageous!

I didn't plan to write this post, but I just couldn't contain my anger. Here are a series of events in the second test between India and Australia in Sydney.

A delve into the past... In the 1st test between India and Australia, Yuvraj is unhappy with a very bad decision given and lingers a little longer than he should have. He is held up by the match referee and then let go. The ICC chief is unhappy that yuvraj is let go scot-free. Now to the present... where there is an ongoing investigation against Harbhajan for alleged racist comments against Symonds, one in which the match referee didn't see anything, the umpires didn't hear anything, but the aussies go to media with statements like "we have a strong case against Harbhajan". All this happening in the middle of the match!

Now, lets get to the center of all the controversies and we have many in this match.

1. Aussies are in a spot of bother in the first innings, Ponting is batting on 14 and snicks a ball to Dhoni. He does not walk and the umpire Mark Benson does not give him out. No questions asked, India... tough luck.
2. Symonds is pulling aussies out of trouble, he snicks a ball and the catch is taken. He does not walk and the umpire Steve Bucknor does not give him out. Since Bucknor takes for ages to give any decision, Ishant Sharma continues to appeal. Bucknor complains about him to the match referee for sustained appealing. India... tough luck again.
3. Symonds is now playing well and Dhoni manages to get a stumping very much against the run of play. He appeals to the square leg umpire, who decides to go to the 3rd umpire. The replays show that he was definitely out, but again, the 3rd umpire has other plans. India... not your day, not your test.
4. Another stumping off Harbhajan by Dhoni on Symonds. This time Bucknor who is at square leg doesn't even go to the 3rd umpire. The action replays show that he was out! India... Bucknor eyes are as good as that of a bat in daylight, trust him!
5. Jaffer is bowled by a beauty of a yorker by Lee. Action replays show that it was a no-ball. India... the ball was so good, the umpire was distracted from seeing the no-ball.
6. Aussies see Harbhajan of all the people giving able support to Tendulkar and they can't stomach it. They start their needling and Bhajji responds back in as many words. The Aussies feel pissed and lodge a complaint. India... Shut up, we, the aussies can sledge, your part is to only listen and not react!
7. Michale Clarke into bat in the 2nd innings and slashes at a ball from Kumble and the catch is taken by Dravid in slips. There isn't even an iota of doubt, but Clarke doesn't walk. Indians are flabbergasted and finally the umpire lifts his finger. India... Its after all Clarke, the vice captain of the team, if he is standing his ground, there must be reason!
8. Kumble has taken 2 wickets in a row and is on a hat-trick. A very valid lbw appeal against Symonds is turned down. Since Bucknor is so slow in deciding, Kumble continues the appeal and Bucknor has a word with him on sustained appealing. Hawk-eye shows that the ball would have hit the middle stump! India... when will you realize that Symonds has a contract for one let-off for every 50 runs he scores!
9. India is playing its 2nd innings and trying to save the test, Dravid is decided to plonk is feet down and is playing very well. A loud appeal from Symonds for a brush off the pads, supported very ably by all the close in aussie fielders including the 'preacher' Adam Gilchrist. Bucknor doesn't bat an eyelid and gives Dravid out. A disgusted Dravid laughs his way back to the pavilion. India... if the aussies have to win dravid can't be around.
10. A ball from Hogg hits Dhoni on the pads and bounces up. Ponting dives for the ball and catches it, but comes up grinding the ball in the ground. A definite not out, but there is a huge appeal from Ponting. Luckily the bowler appealed for LBW and Ponting for cthe catch and the confused umpire didnt give either. India, see, you may not be lucky, but at least on this occasion you were not unlucky.
11. Ganguly in prime form has scored run a ball 50 and is looking to save the match. A snick from Lee goes to Michael Clark in slips. There is definite doubt on whether the catch was taken cleanly. Ganguly stands his ground. Umpire Mark Benson instead of going to the 3rd umpire to confirm, instead of going to the square leg umpire to confirm, goes to the opposing captain, Ponting, who gestures to the umpire and to the batsman that ganguly is out. India, you got to understand, Ponting plans on becoming an umpire after his active career and he needs the practice!

All these decisions have brought India very close to defeat, with kumble battling on with the bat. This has been one abysmal performance by the umpires and unfortunately all decision minus one went against the Indiansremoved from the e. If they are bad, they need to be bad to both the teams, not just one! Its about time Bucknor is removed from the elite panel of umpires or at least not officiate in matches involving India. He has been complained on by India in the past, and he still is persisted with. He is the umpire for the 3rd test even. We will be blessed to watch more of his wonderful decision making!

What action will be taken against the belligerent aussies after then very sportmanly conduct? What action will be taken against the umpires, who have made more than their fair share of mistakes and even worse almost all against one team?!?

Change Needed!

The telecom sector in India has changed the life of people by leaps and bounds and in the process has revolutionized the way we view the telecom industry which was monopolized by BSNL. I have had very little interaction with BSNL in the last few years. The last I had contacted them was to get ISD enabled on my landline and I had to wait for 2 months for it to be activated after providing a written letter with a photo attached requesting for the enabling of ISD services. I should have been happy that it at least got done and stayed away from BSNL till absolutely necessary, but nope, I am a sucker for hoping things will change! :-)

I had been to a BSNL customer care center last week to buy a landline prepaid card. I went to the lady who seemed to have nothing to do and asked her for the counter where I could get the card. The lady without raising her hand, without telling a word, just moved her eyes in the general direction of the counters. I figured she is keeping "Mouna Vratha" and moved towards the counters. She apparently is the person in charge of enquiry section! I go near the counters and wait my turn. In the meanwhile, our lady of inaction seems to be exercising her eyes ever so often, with every enquiry being pushed off to some other official or counter. Then is the icing on the cake, when one individual expects an answer from her and not just bharatnatyam movements! This irks her so much that she in fact fires the guy for not being able to help himself! The disgusted customer shouts a bit and then walks out. There goes more business away from BSNL.

Now continuing my time at the counter. I asked for the card and told the denomination I wanted. Later I asked for the call charges, for which the answer I got was "Same like all the other cards Sir". Was this answer supposed to help me? If all the cards are same, then why have so many different cards or so many different denominations. Further more, the official is searching away his small pile of cards for the right one. He is taking for ages and doesn't seem to know what is kept where. I am able to spot the card I want and tell him "The card is there sir, to your left". He doesn't heed my help as he goes about the search in his own slow pace and finally pulls out the card and hands it out to me. The cost of the card is Rs.312 and I pay him Rs.1012 to help him with the easy math to get back the right change. But I was surprised that he got the calculator in front to do the math and waste some more of my time!

The whole experience took around 15 minutes which I think could have taken less than 5 minutes. Its not the 10 minutes that matter, but the lack of adaptability by the BSNL officials to the already changed consumer mindset and expectations!

TOI Goof

Given more time, I am sure I can update the Times Of India goofup section almost daily! This is what is seen in todays paper.



Which Ind vs Aus match was the TOI following?

And this was in yesterdays edition.



How about a spell check before you increase the font on the headlines?? Will avoid us from becoming the victims! :-)

Music Review: M.I.A-Kala

To start off... Wish you and your family a very happy and healthy 2008!

A friend of mine pointed me to this youtube video. The music was extremely catchy and infectious! My friend and myself discussed this and felt it sounded a lot like dapang-koothu and very gaana sounding lyrics. To add, it seemed to have some sorta desi influences in the basic tune too. Now that it had got my attention, I had to dig around a little more...

The name of the artist is M.I.A and the name of the album is Kala. I remember seeing this as one of the best selling albums of 2007 on some music trivia page. At first sight, this reminded me of some hip hop artist from US and disregarded it. But after hearing it, was totally impressed with the peppiness. And once I got to the wiki page, I was convinced with whatever my friend and myself had discussed.

The artist M.I.A's real name is Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, a UK based artist originally from Sri Lanka. Her dad is a LTTE member and she has been shuttling between Sri Lanka, India and UK during her early years. Her first album is named Arular, named after her father and her second one is named Kala, which is named after her mother.

All in all, a very new and interesting sound. A definite must-hear.

The year gone by...

Only a philosophical sounding title and no more crap from me for this year. But I am sure you can do with some words of wisdom from Wally. :-)




Wish you all a fun filled evening/night ahead.... :-)

Digg This!

What does one need to do to get a recording contract ? Well, one needs talent and creativity and just as importantly needs to know how to use all the technology at ones disposal.

Kina Grannis has all of the above and she has reportedly been approached with the offer of a singing contract for her toils. Here is the video she released on youtube which has gotten very very popular thanks to the obvious dedication to digg and of course the instant fan following guaranteed by youtube.



Find more videos of her here.

Love it - Love it not!

I have been following the Barclays premier league quite intently and like widely believed is the best league in the world. I do think there are other European teams that are better that those in the premier league, but overall quality of the teams is definitely better in it.

Since most of the matches are on weekends, I get to see quite a few of them. Though there is some flair missing in the game, it is definitely pacey and well coordinated. This makes for good viewing and definitely keeps me glued to the TV set. But then, along with all the good stuff comes the ever so common, acting and even worse cheating! Almost every team is full of crooks who just want to act their way into get a foul or a penalty or getting the opponent yellow/red carded. Some argue, this is part of the game. I would have bought that argument, had it not become the biggest part of the game these days. You have the most talented players acting like they were hit by a rock when all that happened was a finger of the defender just grazing the players face.

I believe there is a severe lack of use of technology in football. Every other sport has embraced it to make itself better, but football authorities stay as stone-age friendly as ever. At least use technology to monitor offsides, it does not take much time, probably a single replay would do in 95% of the cases. I don't know how of much technology will be actually ideal, but right now, its the best acting team that wins, not necessarily the best football skilled team.

p.s: I have just finished seeing the Everton vs Arsenal match, where, Arteta, Evertons best midfield creative player got sent off with a red card for a "maybe" yellow card offense all because Fabregas(Arsenal) acted like he had been hit by a bullet instead of Artetas elbow! The match lost steam after this and a close match till then ended tamely with a 4-1 win for Arsenal!

Movie Review: I Am Legend

Long time since I saw a new release, and was hoping for a winner with I Am Legend. You mix Will Smith with weird beings or aliens and you have a recipe for a blockbuster or so I hoped.

The movie is all about a virus which infects all of mankind and other living creatures, killing 90% of humans and making most of the remaining into very physically powerful zombies. The only thing that they fear is light. Will Smith for some unknown reason is immune to the virus and lives his life with his dog. His daily routine is pumping iron, conducting experiments on rats with different variants of his blood in an effort to find a cure and then wandering abandoned streets in search of DVDs to watch. All goes terribly wrong one day, when he is trapped by the zombies using one of the contraceptions that he uses to catch them! In the fight that ensues, his dog gets infected with the virus and he has to kill it. He loses his cool and tries to kill how many ever of the zombies as he can. He kills quite a few and is about to become zombie food, when miraculously, a girl and her brother come from nowhere and save him. This is the most unconvincing part of the story.

The surprise inclusion to the list of human survivors sets up for a finale, wherein Will Smiths house is raided by the zombies and he manages to save the girl and her brother but not before he magically finds a cure and not without having to blow himself up. The girl and her brother escape to meet up with more survivors (wonder where they were all along) and who are expected to help use the cure on the zombies.

All in all a disappointing fair. There were moments of tension and newness, followed by absolute ridiculous turns to the story and in the end there are just too many questions left unanswered or answered unconvincingly. Will Smith is ok in the movie and can't say much for the acting of the zombies. :-). I would give it a 6 on 10.

Hopping Gavaskar!

Anyone who has been listening to Sunil Gavaskar as a commentator would have seen his absolute anger at some commonly used terminologies or common spectator practices. He almost sounded like he was from a different planet! For e.g. He doesn't like the Hindi film industry being referred to as Bollywood. He also hates it when spectators make caps out of the national flag or if the national flag is not with the right dimensions or if the chakra has fewer spokes etc etc.

Considering Gavaskar being such a strict customer, he would have gone bonkers at seeing the streaker at the MCG on Boxing Day and the preferred clothing provided to him thereof!



I must say... the picture shows some very inappropriate stop-gap arrangement by the cops. If the streaker wants to parade naked... let him! But does he have to be covered using the Indian national flag? Can't they get hold of some piece of paper or something? Even if they don't, is it more important to cover for obscenity at the cost of insulting a nations national flag?

Smart move...

ICL just finished its first tourney and gave us a glimpse of what could be. Though I didn't really find the interest to see the matches, the never before heard grounds where these 20-20 matches were played were chock-a-block. There is still no clarity of whether the young players in ICL will ever be considered to play for India. Also, international players who played in the ICL face the effects of BCCI trying to pull strings. But one section of people associated with cricket who are raking in the moolah and not facing any of the BCCI wrath are the commentators.

I remember seeing articles from Tony Greig in the newspapers and on cricinfo.com giving thumbs up to ICL, comparing it to the Packer series in the late 70s. He later went on to commentate as a special panelist for ICL. Surprisingly, I now see Tony Greig in his regular role as commentator with Channel 9 in the ongoing India vs Australia Boxing day test match!

Maybe its time for the oldies in the different international teams (Lara, Atapattu, Andrew Hall etc etc) considered taking up commentary rather than playing rebel tournaments. :-) Its less/not objectionable and yet makes lotsa money.

Slingling From Bangalore

I got my hands on my Slingbox PRO today! A minorly customized coax cable and 5 minutes later, I am Slinging! The pic below is taken with me sitting in my bedroom with my lappy and seeing Star Cricket while I work/browse at the same time...



I have to say, I have not setup any other gadget in as less time (minus the cable customization) as the slingbox. This is a really well engineering product and deserve the good publicity they get. I had my worries with coax being outdated in the US and with PAL/NTSC issues, but luckily all worked well.

Damn.... this is bliss!!

The business of medicine

I have been meeting quite a few doctors in the last 2-3 weeks. There couldn't be more contrasts in any profession like in the field of medicine.

1. You are earning direct karma points from God for helping people
2. You can goof up and screw lives of people
3. You are the saviour for most and reminder of pain for some
4. Most keep money before the passion of the profession

Some of the doctors I met are established, raking in the moolah and could care less about the patient. There is another lot, though established, is trying to promote their new hospital and hence are nice to you. There are also the ones who are new to this and want to earn some "good" name which will hold them in good stead in the future. Each one did their job with a different demeanor and yet, at the end of the day, I don't see any real big difference from one to another. Its probably because, deep down, I could sense that there was no genuineness in any of them. Everyone had a hidden agenda and everyone had an angle to work. But I also thank all of them just the same, as at the end of the day they all helped in their own way.

One always feels a very special high when we get to hear good stuff from customers who have used the boxes that run the code we write and of course feel the shame when the customer is furious over some bug. Imagine living the life where you can feel this high each day and also face the complaints live from the customer!

The world of medicine... maybe its worth the money.

Bengalooru Bangalore-d ?

A friend of mine recently pointed me to this article. I spent some time reading it and this was my reply to my friend.

Read the article... a very theoretical and derived view of what could be, not what is. Bangalore is still the IT capital even with all the political apathy. Like any other city, the present boom in India is not applying to all strata of society. Some of us, mostly the middle class and upper middle class seem to be able to make good in this situation along with the rich (who always make good). With all the influx of people, I, who is a thorough bred bangalorean does feel that, Bangalore is slipping away, but then, I am still part of it, thanks to IT, thanks to my pay check. But the not so well to do are feeling that Bangalore is slipping away and they can do nothing about it and have nothing to do
with it and may soon not be able to afford to be in it.

Of course, the economic disparity has increased, but Bangalore is not alone and definitely the IT industry is not the specific target of any ire.

Agree? Disagree?

Just 'E'scape

Gotta give it to Scott Adams, he sure can make every mundane yet passable situation in the IT industry abstracted into the most humourous cartoon!

:-))

Life happens

A longish break from this blog. Not planned, not intended, but it happened.

Anywayz, life is back on track, and so is this blog. :-)