04 September, 2006

The Nomad's Checklist Tag

Gp, wrote his wishlist for the future here. Looked like an interesting tag, Here is my wishlist for near future.
  1. Want to buy a car- a little cute black santro zing for now. Later Honda city
  2. Get a laptop and restrict all these internet related stuffs to that. And concentrate more on work in office
  3. Change my wadrobe. Definitely can't change my physical look (I know how smart I am :)) so wanted to change my wadrobe to make me look more kewl and smart
  4. Plan my day and execute it as per plan
  5. Get back my lost frenship with my best buddy of life. You know who!
  6. Came a long way from reserved small-town guy to freaky bangalorean. ;) Wish to be sweet chatterbox after this
  7. Want to have a trip in all weekends. Hurray I am going to Ramnagaram adventure trip along with my college mates in this weekend
  8. Learn to walk slow :) I just dont inherit big ears from MK Gandhi and his walking swiftness too.
  9. Rejoin dance class.
  10. Get more friends and get to be develop more best friends. All along, I try to be independent even inmidst of gang of frens, now paradigm change- want more to be with friends
  11. See Rang De Basanti movie. I somehow missed it man. Just citibank reminded my wish today by gifting me the audio cd of this movie.
  12. Develop thinktank on the new ventures and innovations with friends
  13. Plan atleast a bit for my future
  14. Read few good non-fiction books. List- will come later
  15. Trip to this god-own-little-home
  16. Trip to singapore and mauritius.
  17. Meet and have a talk with this guy who acquired my company recently
  18. Travel and enjoy life like this gal

 


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Unposted Emails

Well, I was strolling with these thoughts for two days. The concept of unposted emails is not new. There are occasions in life where silence is better than any words uttered. When things go bad, better take life as it comes; don’t ever speak more and make things worse. The basic etiquette in email conversation is it should start in smile and end in smile. If your email is going to be about any negative feelings, better post the email to yourself first. Then at the end of the day, take a re-look at the email. If your negative feelings (anger, jealous, possessiveness or irritation) still persists, delay posting the email again by a day. Don’t send those emails ever with the same mood in which you have written.

 

The world has really become a global village, become small by improvement in communication mediums. Emails, chats, skypes, mobile phones replaced most of face to face meetings. Over the years, I lost confidence in most of the other mediums in helping true communication. I try to maintain friendship with people whomever I meet in daily life. I am little bit matured enough to hold back my negative feelings in F2F meetings. The smile in my face rarely goes away or few times I show a kind of irritation in my face. But I fail miserably lot of times in using these ultra-modern means of communication. Expressing feelings over emails & chats is really tough for me. Most of time ends up with misunderstood statements.

 

Trust and beliefs in people are tender things which you need to be much matured to handle. The differences between the people never blow up a big issue when they are in love. But the day when someone lost love for other; even a small misunderstanding will become big issues. The nuclear family culture - when guy and gal start living together- teases them with a lot of problems based on this. There may not be any elders to advice them what to do during those times. These occasions can cause lot of failures, don’t get dishearten when you face failures, it is just a lesson you got to learn. http://www.dpgsulo.com/images/tsunami09.gif

 

[+] There was couple of interesting columns in Ananda vikatan in this week issue. One is by Dr.J. Radhakrishnan, IAS officer in Tamilnadu. He talked about the social issues and the fallouts in our primary education system. I can't agree with him more. Our primary education rears students with competition rather than breading good social culture. Our education system complements a guy who gets first rank based on marks and demotivates another who don't excel much in studies. Both of them has rights to co-exist happily in the world, then why do we disparage between them. Just because a student can't score marks in the exams, he has to be deprived of rights to live peacefully. Nay. The education system has to be refined so that everybody win the race; one can excel in studies, another in music, acting, sports, organising and any other.

 

http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/11/images/2005081114280201.jpg[+] The second column is from actor Prakash Raj. His level of maturity in handling human emotions is unique. The latest episode about love and the issues lover face after the marriage. He quoted an example of his two fren who fall in love and failed after marriage. The "panni kutti" story as explained by him was little rude, but absolutely a matured talk. He uses other people's emotions to express his feelings. Those writing style reached grabs my attention immediately. Last episode was about the his kid asking him questions about terrorism. May be that kid is not so big to ask him so many questions, may be it is just his figment of imagination, but lovely style of writing. He discusses the problem and leaves the issue to people to conclude. Well, way to go, Mr.Prakash!

 

 


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02 September, 2006

What good stuff have you done in recent past?

This question is few standard stuffs in self-help management workshops. It kindles new experience and new flow of thoughts in you, when tried to answer. I joined as volunteer in DaD computer workshop again today- but with new set of kids, new set of syllabus, new faces around and getting ready for whole new experience. Spoke about my earilier experiences here. And this is not one more post on that! So.... :)
Shashank started the group discussion with the question in title. We are just eight of us there. And this question was thrown to bring the positive vibe to the think-tank. It worked out well too. One fren talked about how she helped a lorry driver to take an u-turn in mid of high traffic road; how she stopped her car and made the whole crowd wait behind her car, which considerably ease out the tension of the heavy vehicle driver and how he bowed out of his door to wish her a big thanks. Sounds great, Isn't it?. I had to race my thoughts back to find out what good have I done in my recent past. Left blank also for few moments. Finally could remember one incident happened a week back. What I quoted was: "Me and my friends were having our lunch in a hotel. That restaurant was unusually crowded that day and the waiter of the table couldn't attend to us properly. We had to remind him 10 times to get our side dish, main course, or even for a glass of water. Our usual reaction in those moments: We get bugged up, call the owner, shout at his face and show the anger on the bearer in mid of whole guests. Those negative reaction won't work out most of time. What happens finally is you get tensed up and you spoil the mood around. Today we consciously decided that we are not gonna do anything negative. We sat quietly, waited and reminded him every time patiently and finally left a good amount of tip also. That would not have made the bearer understand his mistake, but definitely eased out his tension on that busy day".

Feel free to share your experiences folks!
 
Popcorn Entry:
How is my new template folks? :) or :(
Theme is to potray optimism everywhere in my blog. Title says it all, I guess.


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How crazy can you go?

Binary WatchMe and my friend had hours of laugh on seeing this watch. Actually my another room mate had spent 130$ to buy this Binary watch. He seem to be bitten by digital gadget freak bug! Did his one month homework to hit the nail on this gods-own-crazy-thing! His mission is to own an unique watch where time has to be shown in an coded format. First, What's binary watch? It has LEDs to display hours and minutes in binary format. For example, hours LED section include 4 lights with weights as 8,4,2,1. To display 9'o clock, the first and last LED will be kept on. Similar logic goes for minutes section also. The technology behind the watch is nothing complex to grasp, it has two counters- one for hours and one for minutes, few LEDS, some chotta circuit, which can cost you nothing more than 5$ (equivalent to Rs.250 in India). The idea of owning an unique watch is atleast ok, but to shelve out 130$ (or nearly Rs 6000) for this stupid little thing has made us laugh like devils yesterday night.
He was wearing it and we failed to notice it when he came in. So this good chap has to strike a pose with his cute watch's LED on to grab our attention. Then we blasted out with laugh. Ha ha ha......It looks like those colorful sunglasses kids buy during festival times in the villages. The bright LEDs definitely can't go in tune with our so-called formal or casual attire. Worst is- the LED can't be kept on for 24 hours, because it will drain out the battery. You gotto to press those knobs on the side to see the time. Alas! it is coded, you gotto work out mental arithmetic to understand that it really shows us some meaningful time. How crazy can invention go after this yaar? Ideas pls...
 


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01 September, 2006

Vettaiyadu- Vilaiyadu - Movie Review

After long time, I saw a no non-sense movie . The story line seem to be taken from lot of "medical detectives" episodes of Discovery channel. Yet the racy screenplay keeps the spirit in this lengthy 3-hour movie. Had never seen this director's (Gautham) earlier movie  . Kakha Kakha experience seemed to have added a lot of expectation for this movie- which would have been a spoilsport for majority of audienece. The script is the real hero, which keeps the story line bristling with energy all the way.
 
Surya would have done a better job than kamal. But Kamal's presence adds a majesty to the movie. His larger-than-real-life image definitely is a plus point. Jyothika acting skill are being tested in those sentimental moments in the movie- she did a fair job too. The goa song is an absolute inspiration from Bollywood movies; may be the director had intention of selling that song alone to any hindi movie :) The first half of movie unfolds clearly with no major hiccups, whereas second halg got slowed down by those unnecessary songs.When prakashraj and his wife got killed in Newyork, Kamal speaks to his boss asking him to be oathed to the case. His speaks so politely and I couldn't avoid comparing that with the situation where our softie frens speak politely to their manager to get an onsite assignment ;)
 
Few interesting moments from the movie:
When kamal and Jo meet in a hotel in NY-
K- "Raghavan"
Jo- "Aradhana"
K- "Enn??" (asking about the suicide attempt of her)
J- "Enna maniratnam padam meri dialogue pesiringa?"  :)
 
Kamal goes out on investigation with detective Anderson in NY
K- "I have a gut feeling"
A- "What? what feeling you said"
K- "Back home it is called Raghavan instinct"


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30 August, 2006

Jillinu Oru Kathal

AR Rahman absence was felt for long time in Tamil Tinselworld. Hurray. He is back with bang in Jillinu oru kathal. Listen to it. Newyork song by ARR is my favorite. Thanks to vali - lyrics came out in a great way with strong words portraying the feeling of the hero who misses his love.
 
"Newyork Nagaram  Urangam Neram
 Thanimai Adaranthathu,  Paniyum Padaranthathu
 Kapal irunkiye, Kattrum karaiyal adaranthathu
 
 Naangu kanadi suvargalukul
 Naanum mezhugu varthiyum
 Thanimai, thanimai-yooo! Kodamai, kodamaiyooo!!"
 
Translated verse will sound like this. In a dusk in Newyork, loneliness hugs me like mist. Poignant wind fills the breadth, fresh from sea. Me and a lonely candle were drowning in a glass palace in loneliness....
 


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29 August, 2006

Mergers & Acquisitions Season!

After a relaxed long weekend, I was greeted with a surprise news today morning in my office . My company is getting acquired by another giant. There was a lot of discussions along with management. The acquisition got thums up from wall street as both companies have complementary product line and geographical presence. The deal is expected to go through on Q4 2006. More hot news to follow in coming days. Will keep this blogpost a sticky one to update.
My company share prices surges on this news
Official press release
 


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19 August, 2006

suttum vizhi

Youtube is filled with lot of copyrighted stuffs. Like this.
 
  • It is bad, because anybody can sue the author for the publishing copyrighted stuffs.
  • It is good, because, we are archiving a lot of quality contents from movies in the internet. Internet is supposed to be one-stop shop for any of your search, right?
  • Anyway this song has got everything called lovely. Have fun, Enjoy
  • Can somebody tell me how can we download the coded video from youtube. I want to take this video to my mobile phone which can play video at QCIF, 3GP format

Sticky entry:
After 2-3 hours of research, I have found way to take videos from youtube to my mobile. Give it a try.
[+] Using streaming recording software, record the video from youtube. Link. The file downloaded will be in flash video player format. *.flv
[+] Use flv converter to convert the video to mpeg1 format. Link. Now we have a mpeg video file
[+] Use mpeg to 3gp converter software next. Link. Now the file you want is in 3gp format.
[+] Using data cable, move the media file to your mobile phone or personal media player
Enjoy!

 


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09 August, 2006

This year Magsaysay Award goes to...

Ashoka fellow Arvind Kejriwal is honored with Ramon Magsaysay award for this year. Have you ever wondered what keeps the social entrepreneurs like him motivated? It's honors like this and recogonition of the changes they brought into the society. The usual suspect, Arvind is a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology. What he did? He used Right to Information act to empower a change among the lifes of poor slum dwellers of delhi. Started his career in Indian Revenue Service. Worst practise and bribery prevalent in tax departement baffled him. He dreamt about bringing reforms in tax department. He started Parivartan, submitted a five point agenda to Tax department to bring in more transparency. Ofcourse people reacted badly against it, later he resorted to Gandhi style satyagraha infront of the tax department. His first success came when the department accepted to implement his reforms. Wow! Later he worked to "stop bribery" in state Electricity department. The Emergent leadership award from Ramon Magsaysay foundation has been awarded to him for his work on taking RTI act to grass root level. RTI act empowers people to see any government records. He used RTI to help people conduct social audit on the government's projects for the upliftment of their area. In the audit in Sundernagari, people have found out corruption to the tune of INR 7 Million by the officials. Thats worst truth to hear.
 
[+] Congrats Arvind, We are proud of you. Link


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07 August, 2006

Dump the trains!

My tête-à-tête with Indian Railways is always funny. Never am I lucky enough to get a reserved berth in sleeper class ;) This time too, I and my friend tried to book our sleeper class tickets two weeks in advance and still ended up in most coveted sitting and sleeping seat. Our seats went into RAC list in that dumb jam-packed train. Was tag-tailing the TTE for a whole one hour to find out that that not even one berth got cancelled in the last moment. We reached Bangalore today morning with red eyes and fully drained out. I am wondering how to work actively even with this tiredness. Earlier, I was lazily sleeping for the whole day in Chennai. That is my usual weekend schedule in my brother’s home there. After light breakfast, I doze off for 2 hours in morning. Wake up for heavy lunch and again doze off in afternoon. In midst of this tight schedule, try to find some time to play with my niece and keep her entertained.  It’s rather other way around, she keeps me occupied with some work for the day.

Traveling in reserved class in Andhra Pradesh is a unique experience. Even if you reserve you berths, people simply hop into your berth and demand their share. Earlier, during my one vacation, we boarded the train to Delhi. Slept happily in the night in our berths, woke up in morning in Andhra to find three monkeys sitting in the upper berth with us, one relaxing with legs over that special fans of Indian railways, another trying to build bridge between two upper berths and third analyzing what’s the red chain used for. Those are not real monkeys, just people who throng into reserved coupes too and take their comfortable seats. Trains are afterall common man’s chariot in this democratic country!

Coming back to the topic, I love bus travel rather than this dumb trains. See you all after gooooooooooooood sleep. Awwwwwhhhh!


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