Deepu's Candy Box

what is this trendline?

2011-11-17T10:20:00.001+05:30

7am arivu Review

2011-11-07T20:26:00.002+05:30

The story of a prominent hero of our city of atlantis- "Kumari kandam"..Murugadoss bit more than he could chew... Ithula oru comedy ennanna Kumari kandam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumari_Kandam pathi solrathukku Innoru submerged periodic city atlantis pathi thaan solla vendi irukku. matha padi waste padam. One thing makes me proud. Bodhi dharmar belongs to third tamil sangam...i.e., when we were recuperating from the end of second Ice age.. Apdina Athukku munnadi ellam how civilized we would have been..When the other races were yet to find their primal senses, we were equipped well with seventh sense!!!! Kudos to Murugadoss and team for reminding this to us!!!! This movie could have been a cult....Alas!!!marappom mannippom..

THE OTHER INDIA

2011-06-12T00:54:00.003+05:30

Yeah, Gandhi bought(pleaded, infact... and Phirangi found no use of us, so he left) us freedom, well I can't say freedom, it is independance....It was BG tilak who did start it. The following excerpt from firstpost triggers a similar chord, the notes are different here, "freedom from netas". I cant metaphorise Baba Ramdev to BG Tilak, but Anna Hazare can be. Tired middle class wants no more Bofor, 2G, Ayodhya, Gujarat massacre, kashmir bullshit, ....but India as a better living place

It’s easy to be cynical about Baba Ramdev. This is the godman who giggles. He suggests doing pranayam and shut his nose after the Pakistani terrorists attacked Mumbai. It’s a little harder to be cynical about the thousands who have gathered in his name, the families that are parked on the ground, heads resting on a battered carry-all, damp towels and undershirts draped on the bamboo fencing.

It is, instead, chastening. An old man, in his seventies, with thick discoloured glasses, walks carefully down the aisle, holding onto to the bamboo fence next to him. He’s from Indore, he tells me. He has eleven children, two of whom have died. He’s come because he wants to make India a heaven. “Don’t you?” he asks me and hands me a photocopied pamphlet about the economic fallout of corruption. Instantly five people gather around us, anxious to get his pamphlets. The man beams. “One at a time,” he says.

One at a time. That’s strangely the most un-Indian thing about the whole affair. One at a time to fill your water bottle. One at a time to get your pamphlet. Standing in the hot sun, in a long line slow line, Indians do what Indians do. They try to wangle their way into the front of the line. A retired man, who now runs a school for girls, admonishes them.

“One at a time,” he says. “Go stand in the line. We are all standing in the sun. Brother, what kind of anusilan ke sipahi (soldier of discipline) will you be if you break in like this? We are not here to watch some movie.”

For most of us in facebook, it is "THE OTHER INDIA". Yes, the other india wants someone who can lead them, which netas and saffrons make use of..... and I write about this in a suddenly spiked nationalism, on FACEBOOK, and I go off to browse the internet about "how to become a PMP certified leader" :)

My Bike Ride

2010-10-13T14:40:00.002+05:30

Planning to Write a miniature MotorCycle Diary :), well dont ever compare this with the real Motorcycle Diaries...

Plan is to ride on my bike to Ooty via Bangalore, Mysore, ...

Well, let us see..how for I stick to my plan...

Yayy!!!!!

2010-08-31T12:31:00.001+05:30

I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog

Yayy!!!!!

2010-08-31T12:31:00.000+05:30

I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog

Flash Player plugin on Fedora 12

2010-02-21T01:00:00.002+05:30

Kernel:
[root@Samuel ~]# uname -a
Linux Samuel 2.6.31.5-127.fc12.i686 #1 SMP Sat Nov 7 21:41:45 EST 2009 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

To Download the RPM:

[root@Samuel ~]# rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

To Download the Key Code:

[root@Samuel ~]# su -c 'rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux'

To Install the Package

[root@Samuel ~]# su -c 'yum install flash-plugin nspluginwrapper.x86_64 \
> nspluginwrapper.i686 alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686 \libcurl.i686'

To enable the plugin, exit browser and start again.

VLC on Fedora 12

2010-02-21T00:07:00.003+05:30

For normal steps, I followed the link
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-fedora.html

Encountered problem wth repo list in fedora 12...
Updated the following repo files
/etc/fedora.repo
/etc/fedora-updates.repo
with removing the comments of lines starting with baseurl & commenting lines strating with mirrorlist.

Back Again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-12-14T20:50:00.002+05:30

Always figuring out ways to amuse my two months old boy, he laughs at me when I try to scare him out.... lot of things to be written... hoping a better script :)

Few pictures of my new cam

2009-06-30T14:38:00.003+05:30

These pictures came out as a surprise given my level of expertise with photography.
Camera :- Canon SX10 IS

Canon SX10 IS

Guess what, This is chennai

2009-06-25T08:00:00.002+05:30

Daddy's Recession

2009-05-09T00:59:00.002+05:30

Watch this, A Daddy explains an economic meltdown to his son in his own funny way

Curious Face of Benjamin Button

2009-04-08T00:42:00.006+05:30

From cradle to the grave , born as on old man, growing towards Youth, enacted by a single man.... Really curious, the face of older Brad Pitt is completely Digital....

for all those noobs who know much of Slum Dog Millionare due to oversold Indian slums, this is a movie which got its share of oscars, really intriguing...

Predictable Irrationality over Chapatis!!!

2009-04-08T00:05:00.003+05:30

Being adept at myself being a guinea pig for my wifes dangerous culinary experimentations which might lead me almost to an irresistible instinct to disapparate, let me explain the concept of predictable irrationality. Predictable irrationality is

When you face a situation of eating neolithic chapatis, you are bound by your reactional mind to shy away from them, then you look at your wife, who looks at you, which says it all-How much pain she had endured in making those chapatis really neolithic, and you are bound to eat them, even your rational mind prefers other alternatives by doing a Cost benefit analysis on getting a mouth ache or breaking some of your teeth, considering the even more cost of soothing her.

Here is one more serious example:

When your company gives you gifts such as a company branded bag, even though you dont need it, you line up for the gift, which many of you think as completely rational, because you may think that the bag may come in handy some times later and refusing the bag may result in unfavourable opinion from your bosses or even your Peers.

Reverberations

2009-03-31T23:46:00.000+05:30

vizhi moodi yosithaal angeyum vandhaai munne munne
Thaniyaga pesidum santhosam thandhaai penne penne

W. Review

2009-02-07T14:21:00.004+05:30

While S.D Millionaire was iced with bollywood masala, well , this movie must be first of its kind the Academy awards selection committee have seen, W. is all set to be for the awards. My expectations rose with the release of the movie W. while Bush was still at the seat. Ambitious enough for Oliver Stone.
The movie is all about the rise and fall of George W. Bush, the Junior. My expectation was high as Oliver stone had taken the biopic of a man who had lived the most eventful life, one has to admit. I was little sceptc that this movie could end up as another biopic mulling around the characterisation of Bush. It wasn't.
The story starts with Bush's fraternity days in Yale, and traces his carefree alcoholism to Harvard and his patch job at Oil refinery. to a born again christian whose belief in religious destiny leads him to the top job. This story every one knows, what interested me is the characterisation of his circus at the white house with Dick cheney as the monster manipulating him into the Iraq war, constantly sitting on his shoulders. i couldn't stop laughing when I saw the conoleeza rice character. She was meek and had a subdued in the inner circle, was it made purposely or the characterisation was wrong. I wonder the real condoleezza is what as shown!!!!
The movie was made for one purpose, that is to denounce Bush. Even little nuances like the camera closing on the Bush highliting his (bad) mannerisms like picking food specks by hand from his mouth, taking out the salad from the sandwich, eating lot of crackers, was not missed.
When Bush senior wins the Iraq war, and stops stops with that, W reveals his true nature, he insists on getting saddam, which he does when he comes to power.. the world's leadership at the hands of a man who takes everything personal.... really frightening. When post Iraq war casualties mount, he starts quesioning about the real existence of the WMD, the real reason behind the invasion ( he he). and nobody knows who is responsible for tracking WMDs, and every one starts the finger pointing. Really scary to think if this is the way the US government works.

IM in your Linux Distro

2009-01-26T02:04:00.001+05:30

Google any IM client for Linux. E.g., http://pidgin.im/ which I am using on my Fedora codre 8.

Download pidgin and save it in /etc/yum.repos.d/
Then Run the installation

$ yum install pidgin

This should help.

To confgure the pidgin for google talk,
the following link may be useful
http://www.google.com/support/talk/bin/answer.py?answer=24073

Install VLC on your Fedora

2009-01-26T01:42:00.002+05:30

I have always wanted to do this for quite a long time. My creaky CPU fan and the dwindling HD memory made me think of upgrading my system. Thats when I thought why not re install the Xp and the fedora.
This may not be helpful to my readers, yet this is for me :) i tend to forget things where i keep, esp the help files.

install VLC on Fedora 8
***********************

[deepu@localhost ~]$su -
[deepu@localhost ~]$yum update

You must be connected to internet to for the below two commands.

[deepu@localhost ~]$rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm

[deepu@localhost ~]$yum install vlc

else get the source from http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.9.8a/vlc-0.9.8a.tar.bz2

$ bunzip2 vlc-0.9.8a.tar.bz2
$ tar -xvf vlc-0.9.8a.tar
$ cd vlc-0.9.8a
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install

In case of any dependancy errors, install the dependancy first and try installing the vlc again. Anyhow, yum is the best way if you are connected to internet.

Most Comical

2008-12-11T19:30:00.004+05:30

Do you believe this in your most insane mind? have a look at this picture.. not the SRK, the legal notice below. Since India doesnt have any anti spamming law, an Indian company follows US law!!!!? Does that mean an Indian company can follow any country's law that suits its needs?

Kudos to them

2008-11-28T18:46:00.003+05:30

But little uncomfortable with the interview on the background of gunshots. Is the interview really needed when it is still not over?

I want you to take a look at : Terrorists aware of Taj lay out: Marine commandos

Nordic resilience?

2008-11-10T14:17:00.004+05:30

I am in Oslo for the past two weeks and…. Oslo is similar to any contemporary European port city and…. its quite costly, given the limited(miserly :( ) daily allowance from my employer, I had to be very careful not to burn my wallet. The high cost of living in Oslo may be due to the landscape of the country. Being a northern Scandinavian country, I should have thought about this early, atleast my employer should have. Surprisingly the Europeans have thought of this, and my European counterparts have a higher daily allowance for cities like Oslo and Paris. Well, that could raise another question, and I do not want to raise an issue here. Otherwise, Oslo is a really an international city, and I found a little natives living here. I got a chance to visit one of numerous museums, in fact Oslo can be called a city of museums, FRAM museum, that holds the ship that had had made a longitudinal cross country of earth, reaching both north pole and the south pole. Earlier I wasn’t that interested, since I have a bad taste for museums. I had really contemplated the thought of writing a travelogue, hence I had thought of giving a photographic tour of the museum.

IF you know something or anything about Ronald Amundsen, you might have studied in your fourth grade, you may have something interesting here. The FRAM is a hardy ship built in 1800s, handled by two great explorers, Nansen and Ronald Amundsen. The two explorers are Norwegians, particularly Oslovites. What impressed me is the majesty of the ship.

The Transsiberian

2008-10-24T02:11:00.007+05:30

Just happened to watch the sundance 2008 release "Transsiberian". The movie moves along the longest train route in the world, the transsiberian railway, from vladivostok in the east to the Moscow in the west. Much hyped to have some hitchcock touch, the film was worth a watch, esp. on a sleepless night. After all, I was used to the idea that snow(I am talking about real white snow, with all due love to my snow) is joy being in chennai, but this film gave me an idea, how cold and brutal a winter could be. Imagine being always in snow, clad with triple wound doubly knit sweaters, seeing faces as white as the snow itself, fighting off frostbite.... Chennai would be heaven even though the sun gets me tanned every summer :). Well, the story is about a young(hope so) couple whose marital life is on a bad patch, deciding to give a last push to make things better. So, they decide to go on a transiberian journey to Moscow,after their humanitarian misison in Beijing.

As you might have guessed, the story goes around the journey. The couple were joined by another couple, and a little KANK(Kabhi Alvida Na Kehana) going on for a while, except that the heroine kills the Italian seducer, when he tries to rape her luring her into an abandoned church. Then she learns about the Italian as Drug trafficker, who and his girlfriend were on pursuit by the corrupt police(Ben Kingsley). After that it's american guy, american girl escapade bravado from villains....
It is crap to compare this to Hitchcockish, though it has its own sharp turns. The movie keeps you always on the edge of the seat, even though you know what'd happen. This may be due to the location, ( a laid back lithuanian snow forest), which gives additional creepy touch to the cinematography(kudos to whoever did that). Some interesting dialogues by Ben Kingsley, who was not used completely, such a versatile actor...

"There are two kinds of people in Russia, one who fly up in private jets, another who go down in coffins"

"We have a saying in Russia: You can always go forward with a lie, but you can never go back."

p.s: This movie was released against the "The Dark Knight", may be that could be the reason why it didn't get through well.

rating: 7/10

Earworms

2008-10-19T00:11:00.004+05:30

My wife looked at me like I am a some kinda plesocratanian, when I hummed this song

18th time, this day. Puzzled at my own behavior, got this word from google. earworms???
Some songs you hear, and you'll be unable to forget them for a quite a long time, start humming them umpteen times that your girl friend kicks you out of bed. Nicely said.. Earworms... the last time I heard this song was two weeks back... my list of earworms inlcude even the commercial of saravana stores. I pity Sophia......

Desire, fried, flat rice crepes, Papad, fried rice and lentil fritters

2008-10-14T01:29:00.003+05:30

That is the literal translation of "Aasai, Dosai, Appala vadai"from Tamil to English, courtesy Krishashok.... Man, this one literally ripped out my stomach off laughters... Hats off man... But one thing... You missed those "Aiing", infront of those words.. May be you didn't get some in English for those.... :)

7 reasons why you won't get a raise this year!! I've got my 3

2008-09-29T14:12:00.003+05:30

An interesting article was forwarded by a colleague of mine about some 7 reasons why you won't get a raise this year. Pretty interesting reasons, the blames were mainly on the concerned person, and his inability to act at the right time, like threatening his boss with other job offers with higer perks. One more intersting thing is that there was only one reason out of seven that blames the employee directly - " make yourself valueable to the company". I've got my 3... :)

To be sensible or sensitive: Driving in Chennai

2008-09-28T13:50:00.004+05:30

After a long time I was scrolling through the communities I have joined in orkut. There was a community started by a colleague of mine( ofcourse with intuitive ideas of mine), named "Good Citizen". Pretty interesting topic related to Driving and I wrote them... I couldn't believe it...May be all drivers in chennai need to read this, esp. indicab night ghosts with yellow number plates

Never Let any Westerner

2008-09-23T13:55:00.003+05:30

I knew it would happen... that Minneapolis Guy who attended my wedding reception had wriiten a blog about indian wedding, quoting me...$!@*$^, thanks a lot uncle Bosco :). One thing I noticed, his language was simple,despite his long long suffixes... it could be one of those priesthood virtues....

Indian Wedding Ceremony-noted by Prof.Edward Ulrich,Ph.D,USA

--online-attached-message:

Perambalur-Feb 2008

I spent the first two weeks following the departure of my students finishing up everything involving the course and resting from the experience. Following this, my first main destination was Kulittalai, a village near Trichinopoly where Abhishiktananda had founded a monastery. On the way to Kulittalai we stopped at Perambalur, the hometown of Bosco’s wife, Amali. There we attended a wedding of one of her relatives. This was the first time I had attended an Indian wedding ceremony and I was very happy to have been included in this three day event.

The first day was a gathering of extended family at the groom’s family home. There I spent many long hours sitting with the family. I knew very few of the people, but Tamils love foreigners and the environment was so different from America that it was fun to be present. One difference in the environment was that extremely loud music was played on speakers outside the home both day and night. Indians are very proud of marriage, and the music announced to the village the good fortune settling on the family.

The wedding ceremony was Roman Catholic, so I was startled to find out that the second day consisted of Hindu-based rituals in the home. However, I was learning, as I had been learning for years, never to be surprised in India. These rituals involved of arrangements of food and flowers, and anointing the bridegroom with sandalwood paste and the red kumkum powder. Although learning not to be surprised, I was startled again on the same day, for I learned that the wedding service would be held at 6:30 am on Monday morning! A wedding early in the morning on a Monday? That seemed perverse to me; Monday mornings are a miserable time for Americans, celebration is the last thing on our minds then.

Many of the celebrations were held in the local Kalyana Mandapam or “Wedding Hall.” These mandapams, used by Hindus, Muslims, and Christians, are huge, square buildings decorated with brightly colored lights. The lights attract one’s attention from a long distance, announcing the joy of the families. In traditional Indian weddings the bride and bridegroom are regarded as a prince and princess. Indeed, at the mandapam Deepak and Sophia looked very regal, Deepak in a dark suit and Sophia in a brilliant red sari and bedecked from head to foot with jewelry. The faces of the couple were very solemn, and bold drumming served as a continual backdrop.

At the mandapam the couple had to spend long hours greeting the throngs of family and friends who come to visit. The women wore saris with deep, beautiful colors, while the men wore white dhotis and light colored Western dress shirts. Whenever a family elder greeted the couple they would, in a rapid and fluid manner, immediately drop to their feet in prostration. The sight of this young, fancily dressed couple dropping so quickly in prostration before the frail body of an elder, dressed simply in white, was stirring. Further, the very loud drumming magnified the both the joy and solemnity, making it seem as though a royal couple from ancient times was holding court. Also, the reader may be aware that a common Indian greeting is to join the palms in prayer before someone. Though religious in nature, when I saw this greeting given by the groom in his suit and with the drumming as a backdrop, the gesture seemed very worldly and masculine, a manly gesture of fellowship.

I was struck by how well the western suit and tie on the groom looked with the sari on the bride. Traditional Indian clothing accentuates differences in manners and appearance between men and women, and the difference in clothing between Deepak and Sophia, which was a difference of Western vs. Indian clothing, accentuated the difference between genders. The long, straight, and box-like nature of the suit contrasted with the broad, loose, and flowing bride’s garment. Also, the dark color of the suit highlighted the woman’s bright red sari. The hair of the bride was tightly bound back. Normally I associate long, flowing hair with beauty, for one can appreciate the shape and texture of the hair as a part of the overall appearance. However, having the hair tied back accentuated the beauty of the face, which included high cheekbones and dark, sparkling eyes.

2008-08-02T09:53:00.002+05:30

Who said a Doctor shouldn't wear a kurta on his duty time!! The doctor who treated me for my 100 degrees wore a kurta, amicable, but not his shot at my butt... one interesting aspect.... The relatively smaller clinic at the NGO colony road was opened by the governor of Tamilnadu????!!!!!

A Joker's movie

2008-08-01T18:28:00.003+05:30

Miller... This is not what you wrote... This is meant to be Comics, a children's turnpage.. And to Christopher Nolan, You couldn't have wanted to do this, turning a comics into a chaotically brilliant movie... The handover from the comics to the big screen was emphatic, yet this is batman movie right? where is the fun?

I dont think that the Batman movie would ever be fun to watch, take your family to the hall. Just happened to watch The Dark Knight.. A psychotic performance from Heath Ledger, well to say the truth, it's even better than brokeback mountain. If you are expecting the Story here, Sorry pal, Hit the Broadway... Its more fun there... If you happen to watch it in DVD, turn the subtitle off and try to watch the movie rather than read those pathetic subtitle, you'd miss the best part of Heath Ledger.
Well, the movie has Alfred, tha batman's butler, and the Fox(Morgan freeman, what a waste!!!), and Harvey Dent.....

Christian Bale does it well as Bruce wayne and his alter-ego vigilante, Batman. Kudos, great work dude...
Heath Ledger, up in heaven/hell, what are you planning upto... Ledger has portrayed the Insanity_is_the _start_of_Joker so psychotically, it nearly seemed he enjoyed every bit of that role. Should have been so hard to relive the chaotic, brilliant, intelligent, has one's own twisted logic that people, so called civilized, are as sick as he is in dire situations, yet he done it perfectly well. The batman doesn't need any acting skills, leave him to his gizmos and gadgets. It is the personification of the Joker, that needs tremendous effort to characterize the character.
Other than that, the Christopher Nolan has taken the movie to another level, so different from a typical comics_to_bigscreen. Good visual effects, Briiliantly choreographed action, well the movie was not exactly the one I thought to be.
Some thought provoking/interesting quotes from the movie......

You'll see, I'll show you, that when the chips are down, these uh... civilized people, they'll eat each other.

The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules!

See, I'm not a monster...I'm just ahead of the curve

See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite...and gunpowder...and gasoline! Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!

Can you avenge evil and not become it?

Oh! Rafa! Rafa!

2008-07-07T08:59:00.005+05:30

There was sigh! There was agony! There was pain! The Endurance was unending!. Atlast Federer might have thought "Let's give this boy some respite". Yes, Rafel Nadal, affectionately called as "Rafa", became the new King of the Centre Court at Wimbledon. It was a perfect finish, The match had all the drama and tennis at its finesse, even Borg was there to witness the epic battle between the Emperor and the Gladiator.
It was a heartstopping classic. Look at the results 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7, with the match starting at 2:30 Pm and ending at 9:30 pm, with the weather god interrupting twice to give the fans something to catch their breath.
At the start Rafa was my Favourite. He started immediately by forcing Federer to his backhand, so he could not get near the nets. Such was the sting and the precision of Rafa's looping forehand that Feddie has to stay back and the first set was claimed by Rafa. The next 48minutes, Rafa claimed another... I thought "man.. History is near...Rafa, come on, hang on for one more set". But the weather gods were enjoying this match too, that they wanted this match to extend a little. There was a little break, if it wasn't for rain, the course of the match would have been a little different, and the world would have missed such an epic that'd be remembered forever in the minds of the fans. The rain might have given fresh insight into the minds of Feddie...
The King started claiming his Domain. Federer's counter-attack was immediate and it rushed him into a three-game lead in the third set which he extended to an apparently commanding 4-1 with his sixth and seventh aces, only for the irrepressible Nadal to bounce back with some thrilling, all-action stuff. To Federer's visible anger, his serve was broken as a stretched volley flew out of play and Nadal pulled level at 4-4 as Federer squandered yet another break point.

Now Nadal was in full, thrilling flow, breaking Federer again to lead 5-4 with another huge forehand and celebrating with pumped fists. As he was serving for the second set, Nadal received a warning from umpire Pascal Maria of France for taking too long between serves.

Clearly unsettled by the timing of that censure, the Spaniard permitted Federer another break point on a wind-caused error, but in typical fashion dug deep and clinched the set when Federer once more mistimed a backhand into the netting. So, having swept five games, Nadal was in the driving set, two sets ahead.
Nadal's authority suffered a scare in the third game of the third set when he slipped in making a sudden change of direction and called in the trainer to check on his right knee. No time-out was requested by Nadal, though his speed around court appeared to be affected for a while.

He was at full stretch in the next game, fighting off two Federer break points and, as dark clouds began to mass over Centre Court, the champion went flat out to recover a set and get back into the match. But four more break points went begging as Nadal held for 3-3 before wasting three break points of his own which would have put him 4-3 ahead and perfectly positioned to win.

Instead, with Federer leading 5-4, the expected downpour set in and play was held up for one hour 20 minutes. On the resumption it was Federer who dominated when a tie-break was needed to resolve the set, hammering four aces to take it by seven points to five.

The fourth set did not contain a single break point for either man and when the second tie-break of the match arrived it was a sensation, with Nadal first leading by five points to two and then reaching, and missing, two Championship points before Federer levelled at two sets all when a Nadal backhand error left him the winner by 10 points to eight.

Another downpour drove the players off court for half an hour with the score at 2-2 in the final set and when they returned the light was fading. But the spirit of both finalists burned bright as they hammered the ball at each other just as eagerly as they had done when this marathon first began.

At 3-4 Nadal saved a break point which would have left Federer serving for the title. At 6-6 Federer saved a couple of break points. Finally, in the gloom, the Spaniard broke to lead 8-7 when Federer struck a forehand too long.

So Nadal served for the match again, getting to his third Championship point only for Federer to hit an incredible backhand service return. Deuce once again, but Nadal moved to his fourth match point with a big serve and, with the crowd going wild, Federer finally cracked, dumping a forehand in the net.

It was late, very late, but not too late for the coronation of a new king to begin.

Bryan Adams and Corrs on my Anniversary

2008-06-16T11:14:00.003+05:30

The day is 16th june, and suddenly I remembered this is the day when I lost all my hilarity in my life. I couldn't stay asleep over this blissful late morning, I knew I'd be under trmendous pressure to finish what has been assigned to me this day. yes, I'm happy, proud, sad (Imagine you are hearing gregorian chant as BGM) to say that this is my anniversary. Hope my girl doesn't read this. Wait, dont be so happy, my inner non-conformist( or naradar or cho or ..) says.. You have to buy her a gift!.. so started I contemplating what she might have in her audacious, labyrinth'acious, cannot-be satisified'acious, every'acious ( in this od forbidden English language) mind. Suddenly I remembered her calling me Mumble, as I was once out of my stable mind trying to do all funniest things (like mimicking Mumble's Tap dancing) to make her happy, so I thought of buying her a real Emperor Penguin, except that I'd be in prison for the cause of PETA, so I had to rule that out. So, a dummy would do. What a great Idea man, you've made it, you almost saved half of your think-what-to-present day. As I was not an expert in getting gifts, I google'd soft toys+penguin+chennai shops. There was one interesting blog by a guy named krish ashok, who was also in the same state ( poor us guys) for the valentine!... After reading his blog about all the non creativity, and stuff, I had to admit I dropped gift-buying-strategem. So bye bye soft toy. So, let me write some poems and present her.... so I created my first poem by googling ( It is a common accepted fact that googling is creativity) Bryan Adams+love songs... All I could end up was the ones I faked as my own when I was in my high trying to woo her.... that's be dancgerous to send the same again... I remembered a Corrs song, what can I do to Make you love me". May be I could use my creativity tweaking that song and send it to her... That'd be dangerous too, she knew every word the corrs have pronounced right from their childhood.... So, I am googling now, to find atleast the rudimentary version of some sort of poem... May be I should tweak our National anthem

Jana Gana mananthaal, unai naan manapaen
illayeal maranathai manapaen...
punjabi sindh gujarati marati
ithanai irunthum unnai en mananthaen.

sounds great man... you're almost there.. comeon

A PIG-IN-A-POKE

2008-05-31T17:49:00.004+05:30

Vow, the AC repair man almost conned me with a crappy remote control. Hadn't been for this assistant of him, an angel sent from God, who almost betrayed his master, by having an unconvincing look, which told me the whole story. And it would have been another born-loser-story and a nasty look from my wife.

61 books

2008-05-29T21:46:00.004+05:30

61 books and an average time of 8 hrs per book.... 500 hrs spent on reading books, hmmm the only achievement in my otherwise well bored life... any way I must thank shelfari, I never realized I've read so much...

01:16 AM Friday

2008-05-16T01:16:00.005+05:30

Are these nendhiram chips tasty? why would anyone munch these yellowish, sticky-in-the-mouth coconut smelling chips? Why dont you think this is a gimmick played by those mallus to sell off their excess... think man... lots of coconut oil.. you are already obese...
Am I an emotional eater.... well this reminds me of an article in NXG of yesterday's hindu about emotional eating... for god's sake why should I choose this nendhiram chips to drain out my drearing emptiness in me.. Isn't it ironic? or meaningless... drain out my emptiness in me :) where would you drain your emptiness.. instead fill up your belly with nendhiram chips.... anyway both are same... I realise Im hungry now... but the pastaish noodles i ate last night makes my stomach growl... why shouldn't I be an UMTS tester? they are offering me this... get it... decide... you know you cheated on them(i think this is my conscience speaking).. anyhow I proved them... got to meet my mom this weekend...interviews?..... Aaah... F*** those interviews.. im tired of attending interviews... getting selected.. then going into a state of zombie.. atlast rejecting the offer... what the F*** do you want in this world? money? girls? cars?...... that f****** idiot didnt call me... I have to get the car only when he comes here... nobody is perfect... this prison break drives me crazy... cant this deathmule integrate all the episodes into one? :) he ain't the director.. im sleepy but dont wanna sleep... I dont wanna write about the issue btw me and my girl... why wont these girls be like men? hmmm G B shaw helps... brain and beauty dont go along eh!......
why wont my brain go blank and remember nothing... is there any quick formatting of brains cells?... yes there is... get married... no no this is not the solution.. when you get married... your brain becomes beautiful... it stores in cache all the sweetest memoirs of your life.... so they'll pop every often reminding you miss them a lot...

Dont be a tee totaller like me...that is very bad... drink.... drink to your mind's content... get your brain some rest... what!? am i writin this for someone? is this a some kinda advice? i dont like advice... its like quentin tarantino movie.... is he a psycho or what? if he is, then so are all in this benevolent green globe... lemme finish my remaining nendhiram chips and then zombie

give me peace

2008-05-16T01:11:00.003+05:30

longer the night, greater the peace in mind... i dont want days... only nights.... Dont wanna think....dont wanna go to office.... dont wanna see my idiot box.... I really want a break.... please someone give me some salvation...

A teethless comb for hairless head

2007-09-03T11:33:00.001+05:30

I had one more doubt regarding our second topic... I searched in google..came up with another interesting article

Alzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap

2007-09-03T10:56:00.001+05:30

Argh!@#$@@.. those are the ketta vaarthais which our team needed to be bashed with.. That was how our team performed in ALZAP...( one event that our so called team builders or manager-aspirants... I wudn't call them as real managers... organised)..It was some nice horrible experience overall.. the event had three rounds.. the first round was to design a logo and a caption for a product thay would give on stage... and they came up with all the things that their crazy minds could think of...in an attempt to make it more difficult, they turned bit crazy and stuffy.. for us it was 'Gypsy pencils'...( I googled it.. pretty much sure they couldn't think these words on their own... found Gypsy pencil is a ...godforsaken LIP LINER... man!... who knows it....Yeah.. I should have guessed it.. but in the end we ended up with a literal graph... a pencil and a gypsy girl on it..)... I thought we could salvage it in the second round.. One thing i lshould say.. Danny was not interested at all. As usual we prepared half an hour before the event, given our tight work schedules...( i know you would be laughing... :) )..
The topic for second round was given earlier... three topics and we selected one-Comb without teeth-.
I thought Our Idea was perfect.. could be raucous, but being our audience mostly the ones who knew little tamil and the judges( I was wondering why abid was there as a judge.. given his notorious reception for jokes, esp practical ones).. but we ended up sodhapifying it. came up with teleshopping idea...the idea was nice.. but we didnt have enough time for scripts and actions.. I was also wondering about some teams who performed well. was it acceted as a project by them?... How could they find time for practice?!...

The third round was an advertising round.. we have to advertise a brand that we'd be provided on stage.. and what we got? ..... Koundamani MP3 players.... @#!$#!$@#%&@%... these go to the event organisers...and danny was eager from the start to push cricket.. and he used cricketers to advertise it.. horrible man... I think the whole event was a black comedy by someone who was bored with reading official mails and our pantry snacks... Any how we enjoyed seeing ourselves vazhinjifying in front of the stage...

2007-08-25T13:31:00.001+05:30

Today a question: I ask the same question tyler asked....Which is more noble? Allowing a pair of pandas to live off of this land knowing that they will never procreate and their species will go extinct or "rescuing" the pandas and forcing copulation for a steady wave of camera toting tourists?

2007-08-25T12:51:00.002+05:30

Another Interesting movie... Fight Club.. I was exactly in the same mood yesterday.. totally down.. even my gf, who usually has no work, dumped me coz she got some f* tickets to solve.. dropped early out of office... stopped at trinethra and picked some apples and went home to the comfort of extremely thin couch. That was one hell of a movie.. dont know how i missed it.... one particular interesting thing in that movie.. Brad Pitt aka Edward Norton gives an assignment to his club members that every one should pick up a fight with a total stranger... hmmm.. I might end up punching my boss, next my gf's brother, next all of those starers( whoa! what a name! for those who stare at any one unabashing...) list goes on... this thing is for sure.one day it might happen... but suddenly i was back to my reality when my gf called me o pick her up... now I wish.... you know what :)

Deathly hallows...

2007-08-24T14:13:00.002+05:30

Just happened to read Harry Potter, the last book(huh! atlast)... just

captivating enough.... but i couldn't stop wondering whether
ramanarayanan missed the chance of his life...( His trade mark stuff...
A soul being split and stuffed into souvenirs... bla bla)... but for
harry's fans...( not you maaapla ...never
would be a fan for ya.... ofcourse except in orkut.. which some how you
managed to get.. or did you made a patch in orkut fans software).. a
treat.... but, a req to hollywood producers.. pls stop producing the
series.... really horrible.. leave it to the imagination of minds...

Maxed out - review

2007-08-10T15:34:00.000+05:30

This is for the guys who revel in bulging their wallets with credit cards. Are you a guy who pays the minimum monthly payment on time? Then you may not have confronted guys who are termed as 'debt collectors', you may not have got any honey combed calls regarding the excess amount you have to pay nearing what you have actually spent. This is a film which gives us a detailed look of excessive credit card debts and how financial institutions make profit out of that. Well, the whole story is about how things go in America, though things are getting scary in India too with most MNCs pushing their gas paddles. It gives us an inside look into the modern financial industry, revealing the industry's drivers and the effects excessive debt can have on customers.
Well, this is a documentary, but i would say more than a docu, mostly hilarious through out the story, also giving us a deep thouht before swiping the card. The film goes like taking different case studies of different persons who got affected by excessive debts. The sequence is well scripted with how the so called financial institution lures the customer into its trap promising lot of offers and then targetting the less than perfect pay backers. Guys, i think this is high time to think before swiping the card. The fact is that the less perfect customers are the most profitable to the financial institution. This film could be an eye opener for us(esp. techies, who are the most targeted). Please watch this film. nothing can go wrong in wasting(i dont think so) a few hours of you weekend.

After a long Hiatus

2007-08-10T12:50:00.001+05:30

Suddenly started getting appreciation for my blogs(enakku vekkam vekkama varuthu) from some of my friends, that i remembered about it(thanks guys). Like everyody else I wanted to boast my vocabulary and my creativity(that's what they said.. i have good vocabulary and creativity), so decided to change my blogsite's name. Changing my Blogsite's name was a bit perplexing. Tried with different names(chocolatebox being my favourite) but ended up with this. Hope my friends like this. From now on I should keep my blog updated( hey! serious man.. this is not my new year resolution)... keep waaaaatching out guys for some really serious blabberings...

Dragging the days of slog

2007-03-28T20:09:00.000+05:30

being trapped into the inevitable-being-in-bench, I try to get on to something to get a hold of myself. When i was surfing thru my frnd's blog, ofcourse to kill those slog hours of my office, hit upon three entirely different, yet amazing relevant issues that burn hot today. The first thing is highly unstable mind of a young programmer, or should I say coder, then a review about the movie ' An inconveniant truth' and the last one is the eventful 2007 cricket world cup and the gory background of the game.

Discussions regarding the previous post....

2007-01-11T16:36:00.000+05:30

Some discussions that may answer ur questions......

Hey,

Thanks for ur interest & ur involvement.
Pls find my answers inline. Lets get things cleared; so that whomsoever asks abt this u wud be in a position to answer.

Well..Good one.. we can completely eradicate impersonators... u know sevalaya.. they are following the same thing.. and they are doing this for 18 yrs... this cud work... I am in.

Not much idea abt sevalaya, but dont think some NGOs has followed it.
Residential school hear means; all public & gvt schools has to allot certain % for these children - say now they r 100 NGOs( for eg) the age group of children they accom diff from one NGO to another. This prj aims only for the kids above 4 yrs - meaningschools(Residential schools) has to adapt these ppl.

This wud be done by a committe formed & they r responsible for "how they can be accom"; "whether schools treat them properly with all the basic things they need; which includes conselling & mental fittness of that child" etc etc..So far i hv seen, kids admitted in these NGO have their own background; somecase its extremely worse which in turn he/she wud be distrubed mentally. So the comitte has lot of work to formulate.

yet we have practical difficulties and repercussions...(konjam peria mail..> :) ) First and foremost thing is the transparency in the utilisation of funds... most of these homes run on donations...donors will certainly need to know how their funds been utilised till the end level... but this plan is proposing an idea of channelising funds to different institutions, which may result in loss of transparency.. take this one as an eg.. This yr we tried to donate a Xerox copier to sevalaya, which was eventually refused by my friends, coz they weren't sure about the level of usability.. and we ended up providing mats and some toileteries to the children.. which means they are used by the children directly according to them and they were satisifed.. I am not telling every one will be like this.. but due to this we may lose a major section of donors....

The pt u said is correct. To be frank all doners doesnt take pain to see how the money or things they donated is utilised. Not blaming them; its just the time constraint.U hv all rites to ask them how the money is utilised and they hv to answer for that. I dont see ny issues in this. Here too transperancy is there;Also to be noted; here there is a statement saying flow of money through single channel; but never mentioned that u shd never donate personally to ny NGO( obvis if this system is implemented number of NGOs wud be reduced & number children they accom is less). NGO still exist for those who r below 4yrs. This prj is only for 4 yrs & above.

The second one is the investment thing.. I done agree with ya.. The main thing is that share market is volatile and a NGO cant afford to lose even a negligible amount, IF incase... and these money resemble stagnant economy.. we need a dynamic economy to run our institution.. Well this cud even be solved by other measures...

Seriously ; i dint get this pt of urs..:-( . Think u r speaking some high funda....Mite be u explain wat u try to say in person. Let me clear out; if i can.

Another thing is the nearly impossible task of integrating all of these homes..I dont know how far its been done.. if its done already, then it is well and good These homes are run by ppl on their self initiation... well, think abt snatching ur work which u are doing for a long time, even though for a good cause.. well.. there cud serious repercussions.. those homes might even end up starting their own schools.. this is also good, u cant deny this..

Guess, u hv misunderstood abt the implementation. Read my first few lines abt Residential schools. Also, think i hv answered this too....this is not against NGO. Ppl who involve themselves in all these kinds of work shud really be appreciated. Def those Gud souls would also welcome this. This is not a money making & selfcentered one; If more than 2 crores kids are benifited by gvt; then there wudn't be a repercussions for this.

These are only few that I know.. Well, for me, It is good.. I am in... have fwded this to some of my frnds.. awaiting responses from them as well..
Thanks for this. Pls fre to ask further doubts if u hv. 'll clear it to u the level i can...

Well, Good Souls, pls read this and provide ur comments

2007-01-11T16:06:00.000+05:30

Interesting and cud be ur destiny... pls read this fully.... pls do not neglect as usual.. coz I did the same for the first time..

The Redemption.
The words ‘Orphan’ and ‘Orphanage’ have been used far too often by the society in a wide plethora of contexts. The question now rises; to what good and to whose good? All the socially neglected, parentless, homeless and impoverished children of India will ask us the same question tomorrow if we remain indifferent today. And if the 12 crore odd underprivileged children of today challenge us tomorrow, would we have an answer? Is there a permanent solution in place that can challenge the obstacles of the present day and mould the children of today with education, social responsibility, righteousness and last but not the least, patriotism? What could be the permanent solution to provide upliftment, self-confidence, economic and social equality to these children? Do we not want our children to atleast become responsible humans, if not leaders of the future? Where is the redemption?
The solution is right in front of us and all we need to do is stop being oblivious to its presence and take a step in the right direction. All of the following, we believe, are a definitive step towards that end.
We hereby put forth our humble selves before all the State Governments and the Centre in order to make our proposal as below;
A ban on setting up of any new orphanages.
The governments should impose ban on establishment of any new ‘orphanages’ or destitute homes. The whole system of ‘providing shelter to destitute children’ has created or could create an opportunity of money making outside the interests on child welfare itself. It needs to be ensured that the money granted to these children is utilized to the fullest extent to the cause.
Convert existing Orphanages into schools with residential facilities.
The managements that run homes for destitute children should take the responsibility of rehabilitating such destitute children by providing proper education in recognized schools, if necessary, by opening schools under their own management.
The managements of destitute children homes which are not able to provide education in their own schools should transfer the maintenance and care of the destitute children, to the schools which come forward to give residential accommodation and proper education.
A School based upbringing
Each affluent school should give residential life for atleast 25-30 abandoned and destitute children, with their existing level of facilities or by constructing new residential facilities. These children should be given the same kind of education as the other children in the school. These schools must make provisions for the homeless children to study along with the other children during school hours and reside in the same place after school hours. This must be made as a pre-condition before granting permission for establishment of new schools.
Parents/Guardians who deny basic education to their children should be counseled and instructed on child education. Any non-compliance to the system should be treated as an offence against law and due penalty awarded.
Humanitarian studies should be made compulsory in the curriculum from primary to University education.
Every school or every few schools should have a dedicated medic/nurse, a child psychiatrist and a sociologist, who would serve in the above mentioned functions for the entire school and also as caretakers for the residential children. Girl children have to be taken care of women caretakers only. Also a committee of five should be setup at the school level comprising of socially responsible parents of the children studying in the school. The committee would act as a supervisory body at the local level and interact with the residential children on a frequent basis and support the caretakers in the process.
Mandatory provision should be made to insist that those applying for opening new schools should set apart 5% of the admission strength, to give free education with residential facility to rehabilitate destitute children.

Single-Window system for Funds Channeling.
A single-Window system should be introduced to distribute the child welfare funds to schools directly and thus replace the existing system of disbursements through multiple channels.
Social Responsibility for all people below poverty line.
A very disturbing fact is that over 90% of the Children in destitute homes have either or both parents and have been abandoned by them owing to a lot of factors. This especially is not uncommon with people living below the poverty line. So where lies the problem? The lack of social responsibility.
Any parent deliberately trying to abandon a child in an ‘Orphanage’ or a destitute home should be punishable by law. Government should enact laws to follow up on guardian less single mothers in order to ensure the proper upbringing of the child. This could, in a good way prove to increase the social responsibility among the poor masses.
Reservations for NGOs.
In order to ensure the highest possible efficiency of the scheme Non Governmental Organizations with over 10 years of experience in Humanitarian work should be granted representation in the State legislative assembly and the Parliament. Selected NGOs will have atleast 1% representation in the parliamentary committee by means of their responsibilities as Members of Legislative Assembly and the Parliament. The MPs/MLAs will represent the children under the scheme and voice their considerations on behalf of the children. They will ensure the right disbursements and expenditure of funds, proposing demands for more funds in needed sectors, curbing of any unlawful or untoward handling of funds or the scheme itself and outlining measures for further streamlining of the existing system.
Ref: Response letter from The Government of India, Ministry of Women and Child Development, CW Section; F.No. 2-17/2006-CW dated 7th June 2006.
Despite the hope these suggestions provide, one needs to admit that these are not without a downside; the primary downside being the problems with implementation. The major implementation problems are twofold, one being administrative and the other monetary. However, having foreseen the problems the following solutions have been drafted to address the issues.
Administrative system:
The major hurdle is that the schools could face tremendous difficulties in terms of selecting the helpless children in order to integrate with its own. It is not an easy task to identify and allocate each and every child into various grades.
All ‘homeless’ children currently studying in various schools and taking shelter in various ‘orphanages’ can without problem just be transferred to a residential facility of the school. However the major issue arises only with parentless children who have not had any education or impoverished children who have had to discontinue their education owing to family situations.
A separate committee needs to be set up in order to identify these children and counsel them in order to determine the level of competence required to enter each grade. Children found satisfactory of entering any particular grade should be granted admissions into that grade and should continue to be educated from there on. This committee will determine the overall intelligence level of the child and its suitability to enter any given grade based on the recommendations of each and every school. This is done in order to avoid too much of age difference among children of the same grade.
For children from 6-14 years of age who have not had any kind of education the situation is addressed in an entirely different methodology. All children that are recovered from various child labours and children who have not had any kind of education should all be brought under a different educational system. A separate curriculum should be drafted for all children under this category who fall under the age group 6-14. This special curriculum drafted specifically for the needs of these children would comprise of a concise and easy to understand version of all syllabi from Grade One through Ten. This would include all compulsory subjects like English, Regional languages, Hindi, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Humanity Studies, apart from Moral Instructions and General Awareness. Participation in NSS or NCC should be made compulsory for these children. In addition to these, the children should be given vocational training that could enable them to be self-sustaining once they have finished their basic compulsory education scheme. Compulsory participation in sports and training could one day make them great sportspersons too. This educational system will function as a separate entity under the supervision of a committee empowered by the State Governments.
Advantages of this System:
Increases employment opportunities for youth. The positions for a number of teachers, counseling consultants, administrative posts, vigilance teams etc could offer great opportunities for employment with the State Government.
The basic compulsory way of education and the kind of subjects included pave way for a righteous life for the children. Under the guidance of the schools or committee the children can grow into responsible citizens of the future with a mindset for serving the country and the humanity.
The residential way of life and humanity studies inculcates a sense of discipline in the lives of the children.
The problem of child labour would have a definitive solution.
Disadvantages of the System:
Implementation on a large scale requires a lot of time, labour and money.
Monetary System:
Since the project would be resource intensive, channeling and maintaining funds would be another major obstacle. The following proposals address the issues to that end.
A single Window System needs to be implemented for this cause. All funds pertaining to child welfare like funds from UNICEF, World Bank, Foreign and Local Corporates, Private Donations and Government funding etc should all be channeled through a single body responsible for the entire administration of this residential schooling system. The National body would have its branches in every state and Union Territory of India and be the topmost administrative center in this regard. This body will also oversee the funds disbursement for comprehensive education system that functions as a separate entity.
A separate ‘Children Welfare Investment Fund’ could be initiated, that could attract capital from the general public. For example, a one time payment such as Rs. 50,000 could be accepted from service minded public and can be invested in stocks of all Large Capitalization government and Private Organizations and also Blue chip companies. The resulting returns could be split in half between the investor and the Child Education Body. This amount could be used for infrastructure maintenance, tuition fees and health expenses of the children. Each school or set of schools should have a financial officer responsible for the monetary well being of the scheme and would be a member of the body.
All educational trusts and Corporates should contribute atleast 1% of their profits towards this good. Any educational trust that is forthcoming in providing residential facilities and education to the destitute and impoverished children should be exempted from the contribution. Also all such cooperating schools should be rewarded on an annual basis depending on the quality of their process.
Advantages of this System:
Fast and efficient channeling of funds to the required places.
Reduces slippage of money that could happen through a multi channel system.
Pooling in people’s/ corporate money reduces the burden on the government.
Makes the investors themselves take special interest in the well being of the functioning of the system.
Disadvantages of this system:
Initial investment on infrastructure could be high which could cause a higher budget allocation for education at the centre.
People’s investment amount may be locked for a period of 3 years only after which it would be returned back to them.

Well! The decet recent movie ever in Tamil this season

2006-11-23T16:13:00.000+05:30

Well a review by one of my friends..about a moview which was claimed decent for this season's relaease... I hate posting movie reviews... what to do.. Here it goes Hi all, Yesterday I had the opportunity (or say the fate ) of watching the tamil movie "E" literally translated as " THE FLY". The movie, in itself, with all the hype regarding BioTechnology, BioWar etc was seeming quite OK, atleast from the trailers ,posters,and reviews and eventually I never expected the "Jatka" after seeing the movie, esp. coz my last movie was "Casino Royale". To start with, the movie is based in slums of Chennai (As if Bihar & UP are not poor enough ). Suddenly the (anti)Hero : Jeeva in this case, gets beaten up by police and then the next moment he there in the streets jumping around with girls clad in microminio (I still don't know what that girl was doing - well u will get to see this song in all music channels soon). By this time the much needed heroine in tamil films has already entered (Nayantara) the scene. She is a bar dancer and lives nextdoor to "E".The start was not that boring with some excellent Camera work and some good dialogues. Even the acting was quite good by almost all the actors. So as the story goes, our hero, an orphan, lives around doing small crimes and dreams of making it big...well this part sucks..what I mean by making it big is big crimes like smuggling, murder etc. Even this part is digestable considering that our hero had the privilage of having an extremely bad past ( as if its new in Indian films). And then as he hangs around our Villian Dr Ramakrishnan (Ashish Vidyarthi) enters the slums. He projects himself as s sort of "social serverce guy" who is providing free medical service, while in reality he would be using the poor, uneducated slum dwellers as guiana pigs for his weird experiments. Now again there is another Nurse hanging around this doctor and as the story progress this nurse can be seen here an there with lesser and lesser dress. ( even nayantara was overtaken in some scenes ).. The funniest part was that every time the nurse injects the syringe into some poor guys body a superb graphics piece pops up showing blood vessls and haemoglobins and the poisonous medicine mixing with the blood streem. First time it was OK, but imagine seeing this same stupid piece 10-20 times..well you will have to bear this through out the movie and as the movie nears its end more graphics will come. You will definitley feel the nostalgia of "sakthiman and starwars".. And then one more character enters the scene. Nellai Mani (Pasupathy), a naxalite, who is after the Doctor to kill him and to save the poors from the international mafia ..yeh you heard it right..by the middle of the movie, things goes to international level with FBI and team searching for this Nellai Mani. But you don't have to be clairvoyant to predict that Nellai mani will end up with "E" at some point of story and there will be a "knowledge transfer" of all the tricks and tips from the master to student. :))... Well luckily all these things are covered in a stupid flashback song (after Nellai mani's death). Thankgod director is unaware of "Mask of Zorrow"!! So as the director tries all combinations to keep the story moving, like nellaimani trying to kill doctor, doctor trying to kill nellai (ofcourse using E's help), and "E" messing around here and there, and Nayantara showing her belly , you will be happy to see the sign "Intermission".. As the movie enters its other half, Now I was getting totally pissed off, really hoping that something will happen in second half. So another song happened..what else can you expect. Now slowly the director, tells the audience all the nonsense about biowar, in a laymans point of view, (well it is appreciable, but exaggerrated). I am not going in to details like the poilce serching Nellai Mani, police announcing prize money, doctor offering 10lacs for nellai's death etc...but in the end Nellai is wounded badly in a encounter and Jeeva helps him to a hideout. Even though E's initial intentions are crooked , he will eventually end up being a follower of the fight for the "good cause". There are some fight sequence ( why these fights always happen in RAIN, I guess people fight in Chennai only during the months of Oct-Nov ). After this there are some good graphic sequence like the Doc's medical lab ( more or less a 3D copy of Dexter's and Mojojojo's labrotory --well does anybody watch Dexter and powerpuff girls..well they are far better and they getover in 1/2 Hr. And best of all you can always switch off the TV if u want ). The climax was fast. Nellai dies, Nayantara leaves Jeeva, Jeeva kills Doctor and then he is shown in Krissh like setting jumping like a monkey on top of a building. .. Well thats "E" for you. If you still dare to experiment , well you can try it, but be very very careful...your girlfriend/boyfriend ( who ever paid for the ticket) might actually end up hanging themselves. Infact I felt that you can watch a live FLY for 3Hrs or for that matter you can watch any insect but "E" is waste of time especially if you are in genre of people watching movies once in a fortnight for relaxation.

A tribute to Tolkien

2006-11-17T20:49:00.001+05:30

And his master piece..infact two masterpieces, The Hobbiton and the Lord of the Rings. What made me write this? Was it the excellent stroy telling by the maestro himself? or the incredible imagination that he emulates on our minds? or I was too involved.. It has been quite a long time since I read the book( I cant forget those days, maybe I can say it as one of the main reasons for my sixth sem flunk).... "You gotta be really nuts to read such a huge book", My friends used to say.
As for me, the book was a bible, as it triggers imagination out of bounds..creating a sense of aura around you, feelling one among the characters, you could be Aragon or Logolas or Eomer..or even Gimli save his long beard.. I know this post is outdated, but I really liked to give a go as a tribute to the master storyteller.
When the LOR trilogy was released by peter, I was overwhelmed and also disappointed to see what I had imagined. Credits to him, that the picturization almost came upto the imagination, except for the sheer size...ofcourse you couldn't expect all the weird things you think to be realised. One thing I was always sceptic about Tolkien is that did he write the novel keeping europe in his mind, coz the map of the middle earth almost resemble the europa and the middle east.. This could lead to further debates like if the middle earth resembles Europe( or the western world here), then who are they fighting with.. the middle east?.. When you look at the minute deatils of the map, You could find that the land of death valley has oil spurts at places, covered with ash.. does it hit u with oil reserves of the middle east?
Man.. this is getting serious.. I'll stop with this. this is the problem with me.. I started this praising tolkien ending up as his critic..
But Tolkien always denied any allegerical motif to the dangers of the present or the appeasement of the leveling effects of modernism. Tolkien being a post Imperial writer, you might be tempted to think that he might be lamenting on the gradually losing glory of the old england.. We could also make a silly comparison of the hobbits to the europeans.. living peacefully, unarmed, Protected by the Rangers of the north,yet can rise to the occasion, if the situation demands. we could also level up more comparison. but as of now end this up , will be continuing in the next post...........

God damn my machine...

2006-11-16T21:58:00.001+05:30

Man .. My draft blog was shaping into a good piece of shit.. and this machine started its protest.. and suddenly all my two hours thinking was gone with the wind.. some times it hurts when it goes suddenly.. your several hours of hard worked blogs not even saved as drafts.. damn it.. lemme save this first.. yup..done..
I was talking something about the holy trinity( not the chrisitian one, but the softee's one, The Procrastination, Unaccountability and Irresponsibility).. Yeah thanks and curses to it for extending my stay in stuttgart.. thanks that i am earning a bit more, curse that I have to wait a week more to see all my loving ones and "loved by me" ones.. whatever it is, dont ask me about my last vacation at neuchsweinstain castle, and I am not gonna say the melodrama that happened at the foot of the falls. Its tempting that i should write about it.. I give up..
I started last saturday early at 0700 hrs, with our usual trekking pack. Our destination was Fussen, one God gifted city with the Alps all around.. God damn those who are in Europe and had not an idea about this city. got to the Hauptbahnhof at 12:45 pm. The castle was at walkable distance, so we hiked a bus :).. Running our mill through the usual tourist stuff near the castle, we atlast had a glimpse of the breathtaking view.
I dont know much about the castle's history, but for sure it is not a fortress, nor a teutonic castle, but a pleasure p(a)lace for some beforgotten duke and his duchesses. The castle at once reminded me of the Minas Tirth( The last stronghold of the men of middle ages in LOR).. with its high built portico. Also got back some memories of Rivendel( the stronghold of elves.. sorry what-the-hell-is-LOR guys, I was too involved with the story.. I am thinking of writing a seperate blog for that.. what an imagination!) with its beautifull falls flowing down from the snowy alpine. And there is a bridge(u wont beleive.. it is a manmade..cantilever) connecting the two hills that protect the castle on one side..And the view from that bridge.. breathtaking....
Enough with hobblwobbling history shit. Then we reached the foot of the fall.. thats where the real show begun.. I, already thirsting for a real adventure, started climbing those steep rocks.. and stood proudly on the top of the small rockock, sorry hillock, just for a stupid snap. Others thought it should be easy to cllimb down as ot was for me to go up. thats were the problem started.. the rocks got slippery due to the sudden snowfall and i couldnt even get a hold ... not too steep but a twelve feet high, u wouldn't die if u jump save a few cracks and bruises.
I was scared deep to the shit, but showed a brave smiley( lota people started watching me.. girls too. and they were pretty too.. goddamn them).. My friends were too busy taking their own snaps and they wouldn't hear me. so, had to wait till the place is empty.. and started climbing down.. and now my trusty friends started noticing me blinking like a mountain goat... they got what was happening and that was it.. my legs started drumming.. icouldn't even hold a rock.."calm down man, you have handled more than this".. hell i haven't handled even a 6 feet hurdle on my ncc training.. took my shoes off, wrapped'em round my neck.. slid down the rock..my goddamn 100 € zod going into smitherens.. finally landed my foot on the beloved soil.. what a relief.
I missed my tour into the castle due to this, as my friends aren't history buffs as me. It was already 0400 evening.. so found a nice thai.. pounded on the rice with chicken.. got back home at 0900. One thing i forgot.. karthick copied his predecessors by taking snaps of himself holding the castle like atlas, drinking the whole falls, the same illusion photography thing. man, he is going to kill me when he reads all of my blogs, esp. the venice one.

Law of the Jungle

2006-11-14T17:05:00.000+05:30

sliding to get back to my conscience, i found this short story more intriguing than interesting, not that i got a shocking revelation that i am in the same situation: The story goes like this,
Two guys were hiking through the jungle when they spotted a tiger who looked both hungry and fast. One of them reached into his pack and pulled out a pair of Nikes. His friend looked at him" Do you think those shoes are going to make you run faster than that tiger?"
" I dont have to run faster than that tiger,." his freind replied. " I just have to run faster than You".
Guys, what would u do if i pose a question" what would you do if you were in the same situation?"

This question is really tough to answer. Before answering this question, one question stands banging before us"Are we in a jungle?". Ironically the answer is yes, we are living in a jungle meticulously redoing the above story in every possible way.. but doesn't that mean we are leaving a scape goat behind us to suffer? The problem is we dont even let ourselves think of letting our conscience do the talking. We may argue that " If we live in a jungle, then we have to be like the guy who left his friend suffer, sfter all its us who really matter in the end", but for me, ethos are more important than animal instinct.

How to Quit without Guilt: An interesting article

2006-11-13T17:15:00.001+05:30

Hi Friends,

I find a very interesting article in ‘The Hindu’ opportunities of a wedneday. Find below it.

How to quit without guilt

BIDDING adieu to corporate life is as difficult as saying good-bye to your loved ones. Getting into a job is tough but quitting one is tougher. The latter has certain constraints and repercussions, which people often tend to overlook.

Most of us fear the thought of quitting a job. Not because we are not sure of getting a better opportunity but because we just don't want to step out of the comfort zone and the benefits thereof.

People are wary about losing stable salaries, perks and the plushy ambience of their workplace. A regular paycheck gives a sense of financial security that cannot be easily substantiated by any other income. Being a member of a corporate family gives the feeling of being an `insider', which might be lost once you turn into an entrepreneur.

As the stress, competitiveness, and instability of the corporate sector is on the rise, corporate personnel have been considerably turning into entrepreneurs. Sophisticated technology and ample availability of resources are encouraging people to give up the corporate world.

Some of the excuses that you could dabble in to free yourself of a corporate job include:

Lapse in ethics: When you are forced to go against your morals and beliefs, you are made to compromise with your self-respect.

Loss of will to work: When you don't know why you are working and what exactly you are doing it's better to stop working. This could be an indication of an internal problem like depression.

Careless about deadlines: When you are just not serious about your project deadlines, presentations to be made or the happenings in your company.

Looking for excuses: When you start looking for excuses to avoid going to office, calling in sick falsely, reporting late and shirking work by dumping it on somebody, you need to give it second thought.

Identity crisis: When you feel that your boss or your colleagues no longer appreciate your work and that your presence in the office is of no avail.

Don't wanna be like them syndrome: Whenever you see your boss or colleagues you ask yourself `Will I end up doing the same'? And shudder at the thought.

When discriminated: When your efforts go unrecognised and you are a victim of racial or religious discrimination.

Bearing the brunt: When you were made a scapegoat for something that you haven't done, and made to overwork unnecessarily.

Gender discrimination: When you were harassed because of your gender, and your colleagues do not support you.

Most people in the corporate sector, however unhappy they might be with their jobs, do not leave due to several factors like - regular income, the corporate halo that the company might generate, the lavish lifestyle, family pressures, domestic requirements and finally the branded image they have got used to sporting.

So, the next time you feel depressed with feel like an insomniac do not hesitate to excuse yourself from it.

Salary negotiation: tips and strategies

2006-11-10T20:40:00.001+05:30

Guys and Gals,
Our contract nearing an end, and those of us hoping for a career shift(bet u are..), Many of us would be wondering what our next salary would be. And this would be hitting ur face harder when you sit infront of your interviewer, posing u a question "Are you willing to accept a salary within that range?"... And many us dont do a complete analysis before switching over to another company. This article will be focusing on the self analysis of oneself before jumping into action.

The first question would be where and how to start? As for me, the salary negotiation doesn't start in the interview room, but with oneself when u have decided to make a switchover. Many of us have a bad habit of following your predecessor's path in making salary related decisions. That would be like keeping your wrong foot onto the podium. The first thing would be to do a self analysis that how much you are worth. How to do it? Analyse your skill level and expertise at your domain and compare it with the offerings for the same at the outside market. You may start by including the value of your current pay package and comparing it with the new employer's likely offer and the approximate market rate of pay for the job you're seeking. You must enter salary negotiations with a definite understanding of your expertise and your perceived usefulness to the company. How interchangeable are your skills. What are your strengths? Be sure to factor in the positives in your resume, years of experience etc when valuing your worth.If you are relocating to a new place, you may take into account the relocation expenses, differentials in living expenses, if any, and other expenses you may have to bear when calculating a pay offer. Include savings and contingencies in your budget planning. These facts aren’t unchangeable but they will help you ballpark your initial expectations. You may find it useful to research the company’s hiring history from peers, fellow professionals, website of the company because they might advertise similar positions and mention likely compensation packages too.

Next thing would be the following which for sure would affect your evalauation..... have a look at it guys..

Compensation and benefits - How much more than your current job should the compensation be, be clear that ur pay includes both your salary and incentives...

Location of office and travel - ..as far as we are concerned, we have lived a very sofisticated life, having our affice at city centre.. soo this could also be a critical factor in determining ur evaluation...How much do you want to travel and whether you wish to relocate. If you do, how much will that disturb your current life.
Job-security - As far as Job security is concerned, a company will never lose its precious employee even at the time of depression.. so no need of worrying about job security..
Level of Independence - We have a greater level of independance at our office when compared to other firms.. For me this is very much important.. I'd go for a smaller company that offers me a greater independance and a moderate pay.. so guys.. you've gotta think about this also.. And some other factorsl like your career growth oppurtunities and the company's reputation.. yeah i forgot about ur career growth.. may be I'll add them as an important facto..
Career Growth - The things youve gotta remember are how much ur newfound job would provide u oppurtunities for ur future career prospect.. I know lot of our guys have suffered ending up in the wrong place.. or you might be blinded the compensation offered by the company..
These are some of the factors that need to be decided upon when u jump.I gues thats it from my side.. If you feel there are some more which can do justice.. feel free to ..u know..

Also I found something which might be useful in assessing ur salary evaluations.

http://swz.salary.com/jobassessor/layouthtmls/joel_start.html

Powers of ones thought

2006-11-10T17:13:00.001+05:30

Have you ever thought about the powers ones thought ,
I would say the most poewrful thing in this world is ones thoughts
even it is said the universe was created because of a thought,

Jus look around , every man made object that you see around you
is just an manifestation of an human thought ,
the buildings, technology, whatever it may be small or big ..
it was first thought , by an human ie in the mental plane ,
then it came into reality ...
So what one thinks he can achieve it ...
It is so true ..
Thoughts become things ..
What do you say ...

A legal way of Robbing.. guys.. use ur potential in a right way

2006-11-10T15:20:00.002+05:30

A legal way of robbing.

Last week I attended a presentation about a business. Most of you have come across it, Referral marketing they call it. Let me give a small overview about that business.

Generally in referral marketing, your investment will be a certain amount that u pay to the company to become an agent. You generate money in that business in two ways. First, by selling their products at a higher margin than what u actually bought it from the company. Second, by referring other persons to market their products, and in turn getting a commission for it. Even when the referred person refers someone else, you will get a share out of it(but the amount will vary, like when you are referring some person you are getting Rs X, if that person refers some person you will get X/2). We call this kind of marketing as MULTILEVEL MARKETING(MLM).The thing i came across is a little bit different and seems to make it more popular than MLM.

Before saying about the differences I will say a little bit about that multinational company. It belongs to a network of a few companies, where each one deals with either technical products or automobiles or tour packages etc. The company of our concern is dealing with numismatic coins. They manufacture gold coins imprinted with great people or events and sell it. To make that coin as a rare piece they destroy the mould. so that they cannot make the coin like that afterwards, good way to make things rare and increase the demand na, the products which we can buy is this only, others are too expensive.

Now we will see the differences. In MLM you have to buy their products every year, where as here if you buy once it is enough. The other strategy is they are following a binary tree like structure where you can refer only two people, and you will get money only if those two people refer another two. So if you have three sales on your left side and three on your right you will get money. The person above you will help you because only if you refer a person he will get money. Clear about the business? ok now we will deal in numbers. The product range starts from Rs 33,000(includes agency fee and product price), and it is a gold coin i suppose, and on every six referrals ( you have to get three on your left and three on your right, you will not get any money for a 4 2 or 5 1 combination) you will get 11,500.

Let us make ourselves clear with the money flow. From where are we getting that eleven thousand or 2000(approx) per referral? Is the company going to pay you from their hand? Absolutely not. Its the money of the person you refer, am i right? Let us assume the best probabilistic event, a perfect binary tree. The hierarchy goes like this 1, 2,4,8,16,32,... How long will it continue, may be up to one crore people. Let us consider it is saturating at that level. How many will be in the last level of that binary tree?? Half right?? i will justify my statement with this example. Consider this tree 1,2,4,8,16. Total no of people is 31. And the no of people in the last level is 16 which is half the total number of people(31).

For one crore people, the number will be 50 Lakh in the last level and 25 lakh in the penultimate level. From where will these 75 lakh people get the money? So the people above them are getting money eventually by robbing others money who are at the last two levels.

Let us take for each person that company is gaining some 1000 rs and also huge share from last two levels will go to the company. You are robbing your own peoples money and giving it to some person outside the nation right? If it is going up to one crore people, minimum of a 10,000 crores will be going outside the country( 1cr*33,000*0.75 ~ 20,000cr. Out of this half,we could consider, would be shared by the 25lakh people above the last two levels.)

I really feel very bad about this, because most of the persons who are involved in this business are from top engineering colleges. In the presentation that I attended, a guy was very proud that he earned lot of money and got a car. I don’t know whether he is aware that he is robbing others money or not. Is this the way to use our potential, think?. don’t rob your own peoples money, keep a share with you and give a share to that company which taught you the strategies how to rob. Think, use your potential in right way.

Government should take action on those who are involved in this. The most the persons who are falling prey in to this are software professionals. Think before you get fooled and stop fooling others.

please dont go to venice..

2006-11-09T21:37:00.001+05:30

This was my most waited and delayed trip. We booked the tour with the Ikarus guys two weeks before, but it got postponed due to unavailability of minimum number of ppl. Atlast they could get the bus filled only this week. Here goes..

Day 04th November 2006:

*********************

Again the last minute delays… do not blame me.. It was karthick.. He got some call from one of his US friends and started his katha kalatchepam.. The plan was that the bus would start at 08:00 PM, but it was already 06:00 PM. Atlast I somehow managed to push karthick from the office. We reached home at 06:30 PM. Once entered the room he locked himself in the toilet, acting as if he was completely unaware of the delay. He came out fresh and shaved at 07:00 PM. He looked at me in an expectation that I wouldn’t take bath in due resp. of the delay, but I didn’t want to give it up jus like that and entered the toilet to delay a bit for my part(he he.. can u see two horns and a red tail growing over me)..( meanwhile I had steamed the rice for the supper.. ). I came out at 07:15( I didn’t take bath ..hehe). some how finished the dinner and reached the station at 07:25. We had to reach vaihingen by 08:00. Ive heard it from kumar that it was on the way to the airport and might take some 20 minutes, depending on the availability of traffic at S bahn. “Man..We are not gonna make it” I said to myself “If not, I’d make this senseless idiot pay for this..”.. That mindless faggot was still blabbering something over phone( I think he was then a middleman to some love problem of one of his friends). That lucky bastard escaped, we caught the bus at 07:50. It was cold out there and I’d give anything to get into the bus, and this faggot saw a booth and started scratching his calling card.. I had to stand beside him for the next freezing 10 min.(coz ofcourse he had the ticket..and those ikarus guys were germanically systematic allowing none without their tickets) It seemed that the guy on the other side was not interested in talking anymore.. and thanks to the driver for starting the bus Atlast we boarded the bus

I started scanning the bus for any Indian faces, a sardar, two tamilians from some fucking automobile related company, and some other faces I didn’t recognize( ofcourse they were Indians.. and I couldn’t find what I expected.. L ). We settled on our seats and this maramandai was blabbering mindlessly over his phone.. wow! Ho! Two german girls on the seats infront of us and they were looking at us… ( read this twice). I tried to respond and exactly at this time, karthick finished his big brother activities and looked at the bus suddenly coming to his senses that he is inside a bus( It must be a wonder that he didn’t cry over in astonishment). Those two german girls had another two friends sitting in front row.. . Other than those four girls, Indians and us, others were with their opposite sexes. Suddenly I remembered pre.( Man its been so long since I left) and I don’t know why.

The bus started once everyone got settled into their seats. Me..ofcourse with my ipod. Karthick started talking something which I couldn’t understand even a single word, I had to shake my head for every word he spoke. Suddenly I realized the bus was too crampled. “This journey is going to break my neck” I said to myself. One advice guys.. if u want a comfortable journey.. ikarus is not for ya. After some thirty minutes I switched off my player and tried to catch some sleep, but some fucker started his own version, that too at full sound.” Inniku sivarathiri thaan pola”. They stopped the bus at a highway inn for supper. It was freezingly cold when we stepped out of the bus.. might be sub zero temp. Those girls gathered and started smoking. I looked at karthick.. and he went inside the inn. I followed him.. Inside the inn(Inn is not suitable.. must be said a buffet hall). I was thirsty and I liked to have some thing hot liquid. I ordered for a hot browny( I didn’t know what it was.. but ordered it to the burger king man as if I’ve been having this for eternity J ). I saw the two drivers of our bus having the dinner of their life time(it seemed to me like that..) and I wondered “are we in safe hands?”.

My hot browny arrived..damn it.. it was a chocolate pudding(that too perfect black with very little sugar)..Karthick seemed to be smirking peevishly at me.. again I didn’t want to give up.. I started eating the cake as if I am enjoying every crumble of it( it really sucks u know.. I had to empty half a bottle water to wash it down ). They started the bus half an hour later.. thanks to the hot browny I didn’t feel sleepy thereafter, otherwise I could have missed some real scenarios( I meant the natural one.. J not the ones that happened in the bus..).

The road that we were traveling on was a real high highway.. getting over the alps.. valleys of the mountain.. beautiful. Atlast I caught some sleep when the bus reached Brenner( I don’t know it is Italian or german or Austrian). The raod we travelled was one of the tracks we used to play in NFS 5( to the NFS buffs..The one with lot of tunnels and turnings..I think it comes after the Normandy track, and I felt stupidly proud for this thing)..

Atlast we reached Venice at 6.45 am Sunday. Some 800 km covered at nearly 8 hrs.. man.. that was real fast..I didn’t owe to that fact of the NFS track..

We finished our kaalai kadan at the tourist information centre( ofcourse we paid in euro.. all these information centres are similar atleast in this aspect). One thing was puzzling. I’ve heard that Venice is city on water, and till now we’ve been traveling only by bus..no traces of houses having their doors flooded with water..

Atleast that was what I had pictured Venice in my mind. My imagination was shattered when I saw Venice as a normal port city with the smell of the fuel and fish.

But then I tried to condole myself that there are some real nice historical places to visit.

We bought a day ticket( 12 €) valid all throughout the Venice for 24 hrs. We boarded one of those Vaporettis or water buses . San marco is the main tourist attraction of this city. There were two ways to reach it, one was short and another one floating around the city. I suggested we should take the one that goes round the city, as afterall we’ve come here for a tour. As usual my suggestion my overlooked by karthick and he sought suggestions from the sardar..( yeah he got stickin around those guys, and an explanation for this.. “ namma alunga”).. and that sardar,.. I think his name is kulwinder( or spell it with a big G as big as his mouth), never stopped talking except for the OC beer he somehow managed to squander from the kazhakhstan guy( yeah another character.. name is zhomart..z is silent as he was always.. doing his PhD in Rocket propeller science.. hmmm ) . Let me also tell the other guys with us. One is Rajesh, tamil, some f* motherson company, short, plumpy..quite bossy. I hate this when he started asking the khazak guy about his country’s position now and before. That guy seemed not to talk politics while on a trip and tried to divert him, but this bossy guy was relentlessly asking questions and at one point the kazhak guy stopped talking. And one more character in our group, pugazhendi, tamil, lean, I think married(coz he didn’t even spend a single penny that whole day in Venice). And we together started exploring Venice.

Our first stop was San Marco or St. Mark’s Square. It is the city’s main place with a large open concrete space surrounded by the St. Mark’s Basilica, The Boge’s palace and the king’s museum and a Bell tower. The buildings are mostly gothic with impressions of Byzantines.. atleast that was my perception. I decided to look at the Boge’s Palace. 12 € per head, but I’ve decided. Karthick was hesitant, but he agreed to come with me hoping to take some “see me” snaps in the king’s robe. The Palace was a monumental building, itself being built at late 15^th century, completed by three boges. We visited the different sections of the palace. The noteworthy of the kind was the Armory, with diverse kind of the middle age weapons ranging from the British long Bows(I don’t know how those Goths being primarily infantry, managed to get the long bow, the specialization of British weapon wizardry..) and cross bows to the wooden spears, long handed swords, double handed swords, not to mention the plate mail armour. I was awakened to the present world by this moron ( who ofcourse karthick..) urging me to follow our Indian friends(coz, our luggage’s been in the same cloak along with them and he didn’t want to miss his precious sandwich and apples). I reluctantly left the palace. Our indissch colleagues’ final opinion about the palace was “ 12 € waste” as per rajesh, “ 12 € not fully consumed” as per kulwinder. Morons.. My party is going to be spoiled…

It was already 11:00 am. Kulwinder started suggesting plans for the rest of the day. I’ll put’em in his own words, “ Firjt we’ll have clear plain. What I am trying to jay ij we’ll go to that temple on the other jide of the island(thank god s is silent here), then we’ll cover janta della maria, jo that we’ll be here atlast to the plaje where we jtarted” Man.. its like thrusting a hot rod into ur ears whenever he speaks.. Karthick agreed immediately and I…followed. The first stop was San Giorgia Maggiore( I know its difficult to pronounce it), standing directly opposite san marco covering the entire island. A great architecture, heard it was built by palladio himself.. I entered the church.. awe inspiring one.. a separate section for the choirs.. I had to spend some 50 cents to lit up the choirs( one peculiar way to squander money out of the tourists)..any way it was worth seeing. I was again dragged by karthick coz those guys were not interested and they were leaving already.. I don’t know why they planned to visit Venice at the first place.. then we hopped to another island san zaccaria.. with a church dedicated to St. Zaccaria. I suggested we move into the church.. but as usual overruled and was lead otherway. We started walking for 10 minutes..then for half an hour, and it seemed like we’d never stop. Atlast, thanks to those engineering guys blocking the beach way.. our marco polos found that was the end of the island and started walking back, atleast to my relief. I was then feeling very hungry.. these guys never seemed to have a stomach( atleast not the sardar, coz he’d packed chips from Stuttgart for 15 €, man…). Then I suggested, no declared I was hungry and we should find a nice pizzeria. All of them pored their faces over the map and started looking for a pizzeria in a map..

I decided that this aint gonna go anywhere and boarded a bus to santa della maria. We visited the famous basilica, but the guard seeing our way of dressing or some other thing, did not allow us into the church, though I had a peep into the church.. a real nice quiet place.. once common thing all these churches.. they are all ornamented with large organ pipes that create music as per laws of mechanics and harmonics..no electric or electronic stuff inside the church…

Karthick had now become the official explorer of our party.. Somehow he grabbed the Venice map somewhere.. he started leading us through the crisscrossing maze of Venetian streets.. at one point of time we seemed to be lost in the maze.. Atlast we found a café that served pizza as well, ordered three margarita. Karthick as usual suggested we’d order first two margarita and if the wasn’t enough, then we could go for another one.. I grabbed the first one and finished up the whole thing..hehe.. now they have to order another one.. then I had espresso ( really good). Meanwhile the sardar guy and the kazhak guy had vanished somewhere , I think to have another beer. After the lunch we started our walk again through the streets of Venice.

One thing I must mention that I met a road side musician, who was playing his lute.. being myself a music lover, started listening to his play.. our guys were getting impatient.. then I had a little chat with him. He said he was a Hungarian, did his studies on classical guitar in hungary and he was then in Venice for a world musical tour. I bought a CD of him, offered my best wishes and looked at our guys.. you must see their faces.. I was really happy you know.. Being brought down to lighter mood I started talking with karthick as usual..

Then again we moved back to square one, I am sorry san marco square. We played with the pigeons dwelling there. The time was then 4:00 pm and we had covered almost all of Venice. Now we had to kill the time.. so we went for shopping. As usual karthick bought a “Venice ninaivaga” souvenir and I joined him. What a surprise! Those were the same we met at Mt. Titlis, yeah we met the lawyer from Chennai and his wife with his precious onsite paris son . They were so happy to meet us again. His son, like every SE onsite, asked about our assignement and our daily allowance.. and that’s all. We xchanged a few pleasantries and moved on( kai valikuthu, so I am going to finish it soon). Mean while the pughazendi guy had taken his 100^th solo pose. Karthick should be ashamed..

And then the real 7.5 started. I suggested we’d better take a round trip of Venice so that the remining hours caould be spent or killed whatever.. To my astonishment karthick agreed. So we started our round trip. The time was then some quarter past five. That was a nice trip..realized we’d missed a lot.. but it was too late than, so had to move on. At 07:00 pm we reached san marco. Suddenly karthick disappeared out of vicinity. I searched for him around the square for ten minutes and decided that there is no point in searching him in the darkness. Also I didn’t have a chrono, so I was never aware of the running time.. when I reached one of the vaporetti stations, man.. The time was then 07:15 pm and the next bus to the car parking was only at 07:19. I was already warned by karthick that those ikarus guys would not wait for anyone. So I came to a conclusion that karthick should then be in the bus assuming I would be following him, as I was all through out the day.. So I boarded the 07:19 bus( atleast the Venetian transport system is punctual).. it took around some 25 minutes to reach the car parking. I could see karthick waiting or panicking at the station.. man..cool.. Meanwhile I had thought of other options.. to get a ticket to rome,spend the Sunday there.. but this is how it goes..

So, we boarded the bus at 7.50 and reached Stuttgart at 0500 hrs Sunday.. Thanks guys for being patient to read my full nonsense..hehe..

Write anything here: 2006-11-05

2006-11-09T21:35:00.000+05:30

Write anything here: 2006-11-05

So..finally a blog too

2006-11-09T21:25:00.000+05:30

Hi ppl,
This blog is primarily dedicated to the vetti guys of vnd. So vettivnd, start posting guys.. give it a kick start to your brain, burn whatever trash here.