It was an packed and eventful weekend with friends. The best part is 'I bought my first suit'. Actually I went with my cousin to help him in his wedding shopping. Got impressed with Louis Philippe suits collection, got one for me too. Incidentally my first formal shirt and pants were also from same brand :)
The suit in this advertisement is similar to mine.
Wish you all a great week folks!
Aye! I got broadband internet connection in home!
For those dummies who don't understand the rationale behind this excitement: Getting a broadband connection shouldn't be an achievement in other parts of the world. But...
But in India, broadband users numbers has grown exponentially over the last few years. None of the ISPs expected this growth and don't have the infrastructure. Even private players couldn't cater to the demand. Private players don't offer the low cost pack to users in Bangalore. All they could offer is 699 INR (for 128 kbps unlimited) or 999 INR (for 256 kbps unlimited) pack for home users, which are costly compared to services provided by national player for similar infrastructure. Thats the rationale behind my excitement for getting broadband internet connection. It was a loooooooooong wait indeed!
Days are flying by as mixed bags of frustrations, headaches and excitements...
Today is no different. I was trying to add new changes to my module, got struck somewhere. Had to time out to look afer the other tasks. The other task involved decoding some obstruse application code written for our processor. The Readme file was much more obstruse than the code. Had to break head, bug my team's linux experts to get it to a good shape; couldn't finish it till the evening. Adding to that woes, I was trying to internet my laptop with Bluetooth modem of mobile phone. I had a working configuration with USB cable modem before; and the phone's data cable port had developed connectivity snag today. The bluetooth modem didn't seem to work at all. Atlast in the midnight, I got it fixed after bunch of windows restarts and mobile phone reboots. Hurray! It's so gratifying to solve atleast one problem before falling into bed. And this configuration (laptop and bluetooth modem in mobile phone) rocks!! It's flexible and convenient than other wired options.
Ran wrote about his movie marathon over the weekend. Guess I am eligible to compete with him in this regard. I watched these over the week (not on weekend only)
Last week, me and my team were working for a product's demo for our customer. In the mid of the week, we almost hit our target. But not yet there fully. I had an optimization change to the project, which theoratically will fill that target performance gap. I integrated the changes and made the code work without errors. The result was a big surprise, the performance were in same level as before. Hell! I couldn't crack the puzzle, the code looks same as in my standalone testing system. But the integrated product still run at the level below target.
Helluva lot of tests done, I roped in my team lead for a review. Went back to my testing system, searched for any loopholes there. Nothing was leading us to the end of the tunnel. I was sitting with irritation for the whole day.....bad, bad day ofcourse. I decided to scrap out the changes and planned to do it afresh on saturday morning and left for the day. On saturday morning, I entered my cube with fresh mind and motivation to nail down the error. I started reverting back my changes, and came to the project's makefile. Something caught up in eyes, it was a macro difference, literally MACRO difference. I was using a macro to configure my files and that macro wasn't consumed by the compiler at all! Alas! Silly little integration mistake..........
After nailing that stupid error, the demo crossed the target comfortably. OMG! this isn't the best experience to trace down those errors. Thought I caught up the tail of tiger that leads to big issue somewhere, but definitely an ironical end. Now we are laughing at this badly here!
It does gonna be a year since I landed in this exotic city - Bangalore. Here climate is rocking, and I had seen one full climate season now. The winter cold is abated now and these days, we are witnessing lovely and adorable early morning fogs. Fogs give a special fresh look to the lovely mornings in this city. Few 'foggy' moments as seen by my cam are here.
I was going through two articles from different parts of world, which has a hilarious correlation. With all due respect, I am paraphrasing one of my friend's wishes. He got bugged up being addicted to emails, phones, orkut and all latest software developments, he wants to break free and be natural. Later I found another article about a girl who had broken free from world and started living in animal world from her childhood. Now people had found her in a deep forest and trying to rehabilitate her. May be this friend of mine should consider this girl's way of life to run away from this new-world-computer-menaces ;)
The emergence and threat from chinese economy is often quoted and discussed in Indian business forums. I was looking for the reversal of topic in chinese newspapers and found this interesting article "India's economy is unlikely to continue growing at over 9 percent due to its hefty fiscal deficit and creaky infrastructure, global credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service said." as reported by a chinese national newspaper. The words usage in this critique on Indian economy is harsh, based on the facts are stated by some foreign investor services firm.
I was taking part in a Multimedia Forum for past two days. It was organised by our partner Processor manufacturing company and basically a business development meet. Me and my managers represented our company. The tutorial session in the starting session of forum were very much sales talks, you know. Then followed by one-on-one ragging(!) of us by those marketing guys. We had nearly five sessions with different business unit heads, some meetings were technical, some were typical marketing. My business directors from Fremont were supposed to attend this forum. As all the acqusition business came up in company, We had to represent the company. (Pooh, it was more fill-gap arrangement). Neverthless, I loved it because it is my first business development meet and oppurtunity.
There were quite few insights about the business model we are running in:
The software billing for mobile handsets run at sub 1$. Which basically means more the volume, more will be the revenue generated for the company. The kind of competition we face in marketing the product is scary. The solace is that my company has past history of giving competitions a run for their money. The past success aren't guarantee for future business growth (sounds like mutual funds investments, right? but thats true). The kind of application we are talking about in the company here are yet to see it market's genesis, looks like we are working in air at times.
I spoke about the business model of PC division before.The PC business model is much more sane, scalable and has enough ammunitions than the embedded business. We have core competency in codecs development. We are looking at the full system development in DTV space. DTV inturn can jump into multiple verticals like mobile TV, DVB-H, 1seg DTV, in-car entertainment. We work with competitive processor development companies too. But all these yet to see a green bucks rain till now. Sounds depressing! but can't help it either.
In conclusion, I have a confusion over the future of embedded market as such all over the world. Are all our folks working in to build some castle out of nowhere? With this confusion, I was browsing in my google reader, got struck by this post of Guy Kawasaki. I take his words as is "My theory is that when you’re young, you should work eighty hours a week to create a product or service that changes the world". It's better to sit back and concentrate on my work now. Leave all this business deals and worries to my business development managers. Eventually this will come to me, till then I am active listener!
We (me, anna and Harini) went out for shopping in evening. Just when we were busy buying out the groceries for home, Harini was yelling at her loud voice
Harini: Apppppppppppaaaaaa...... (at her Peak voice)
My Anna: Ennada chellam?? (thinking she got something important to ask him)
Harini: Nalla irukiyaaaa? (in her childish's voice)
Ohh Man, You should have seen my anna's face then!
My other niece Sakthi started going to play school from july this year. She is a popular star in her school now for her naughty remarks and questions.
Teacher: Sakthi, stop crying. I will call your mom.
S: Mam. I stopped crying. Prrr(giggles)... Where is my mom? (she starts crying again)
My dad took out Harini for walking. Walking for Harini means she will sit in your hands pretilly, you gotto walk around! Yeah, its walking for you guys, but pleasure funny ride for her. My dad never got used to this idea....He took out her for small distance and quizzes her
Dad: Walking nalla irunthicha??!!
Harini: Enna thatha, ingeye irukkom. Sithappa suthi suthi povanga.....Neeyum thokkitu po
Dad: Ennala mudiyathuda....
H: Nee seriyilla thatha, Appo veetikooo po!
Sakthi's teacher was complaining to my cousin (her dad) about her naughtiness in school.
Teacher: Next week there is fancy dress competition in our school. I gave butterfly role to your daughter
Cousin: Wow! thats wonderful role. Mmmm....
Teacher: But you see, She is not standing in one place. She is very much active (she is complaining with intention that parents will force sakthi to be calm in show)
Cousin: Ohh, thats your problem You see. Which butterfly in this world will stay in one place?
Now you know...he is one more freak. She got bugged up with that answer, left that place and started complaining to her mom now.
I am laughing at loudly in office today, it's because of this Russel Peters videos. Wow man! He is crazy, he got his head filled up with all parodies to tease all races in this world dude! Lovely show!
Kid's world revolves around simple logic, he/she wants to do whatever interests her. You can see big guys cribbing over a boring job, but continue to do that job. But you can never force a kid to do whatever she don't like, not even for a minute. I found babysitting with my nieces Harini and Sakthi always interesting. Thats what I did for past 3 days in chennai. Lovely Kids, lovely weekend too! :) I have few photos here.
Wish you all a great week ahead! Have a good day!
Start you work with Bebot song from Black Eyed Peas!
I found this weekly brand equity quiz from the hindu business line always interesting. Eight out of ten questions can be answered if you are good in google up for answers ;) There are always two questions that I can't answer: one is identifying the personality in photograph and another is jumbled words. I could never able to answer those questions till today. Wish image searching research improve much more like when I submit a photograph, that should list down all references for this photo in web. Dunno whether such an image search engine exist in this world!?
Do you know? There are few palindromes in Tamil. Courtesy- My dad (I am not typing in Tamil font, these are transliteration of those words in English) Moru porumo (Appr english translation is: Had enough of buttermilk?) Theru varuthey (Appr english translation is: The chariot is coming on) Write those words in tamil, then you can understand the palindrome nature of these words. Do you know any more like this?
Some more playing with words. In a recent saravana stores advt getting aired in Sun TV, actress sneha uses the word 'Ekkachakachakachekkama' to mean the large volume of goods available in the store. It reminds me of my good ole days when I used to say 'Superindent of Police' as 'Superindendendent' and 'Tutorial college' as 'Tutitorial college' ;) Just playing with accent to make comedy in lighter sense. Even the title of this post is one word like that, seen this word usage in MTV. This list is big like 'Englibish', 'Tanglish', 'Tamilinglish'....
Hakuna Matata. Thanks to one of my fren, I got to know about this word. This word has become popular after the Lion King movie. Liked this song.
And Happy weekend folks! I am leaving to chennai tonight for my weekend. Looking forward for a refreshing weekend with my niece in chennai.And to all my dear chennai buddies: if you happen to see this post, you can call me to say a hiiiiiiiiii.
My boss called me a 'rolling stone'. This tag marks my character of worry free. Rolling stone gathers no moss, Isn't it? It is true to an extent. I wish I could settle down in a place, but could never able to do that. I want to settle down in chennai forever, but don't know when I would be able to go back there. Time alone can answer this.
Yesterday, I was re-reading the book 'Who moved my cheese?'. It is a small story about four rats and how they adapt to the changes. Sniff and Scurry are rats with less thinking ability. They live by their instincts. Haw and Hem are more like humans. They try to reason out the happenings around them. All four rats found out a cheese station in a maze. All were living happily because of unlimited cheese with no hardwork attached with them. One day, the cheese gets completed. Sniff and Scurry pack their bags in search of a new place for their food. But Haw and Hem refused to accept the fact that cheese got over. They started believing that someone had stolen their cheese. And they were in no mood to look for it. Rest of the story is about their feelings and thoughts in the scenario. I love the story because of the simple and very much relevant story plot. People become lethargic after tasting success in life. They forget the past struggles which brought them to the current position. We should be always ready to face the change. The story goes like this apothegm : 'The only unchanging thing in this world is CHANGE'. I could associate myself with Haw rat. Whatever I blabbered all along when I was in depression of love break is similar to Haw's thoughts in the story ;)
Lighter topics:
The songs used while introuducing heroines in movies are always very cute. I love them and have a big list of those songs. The happiness in a guy's mind when he meets his girl for first time is unlimited. Almost all these songs market on this fact and try to project the girl as beautiful angel.
She is a fantasy
sweet as a harmony
now you know she is a mystery
fills your heart with ecstasy
On friday night, We were in the Bengalooru (!) airport to send off our friend. One of my roommate had left for HongKong on that day. He is an embedded system techie. He had accepted a job offer and going there on long term work permit. Is it some kind of precursor to this trend? The china story is becoming more prominent in embedded industry now. Indians are losing in competition with chinese engineers in embedded field.
On a lighter sense, we had a quite entertaining time while waiting for his early morning flight in airport. Two of his girl friends were also there. They were sweet chatterboxes. We didn't have to do much action, they would start with some topic and kept on dragging my friend's legs. Driving (ooturuthu..ikku english translation nalla irukka??) is fun for me as long as I am not in the hot seat. :) Had a cold, ice-clad, Tropical Iceberg coffee on that cold night in aiport coffee day outlet. I love having cold drink in cold climate (Is it some weird habit of mine??!)
My college days was very interesting, thanks to 20 odd clubs there. We had a big Dramatix club, those guys are wholesome entertainers. They perform dance, ad-mad, adapt theme and adapt theme in lighter sense too. Here are few video clips from one of their comedy show. It was performed by my juniors batch. All credits goes to Balamurali (98-02 CIT) for uploading the videos to youtube.
On saturday night, I saw 'varalaru' movie with my friends. It was ok-ok movie, could have become more interesting if music was good. AR Rahman had done a lousy job for this movie. The story line kept people fixed in seats for the whole three hours. I had an interesting dialogues with a fanatic fan of Ajith after the movie
Some Ajith Fan Mr.X: "Super movie-ila da". He was clapping for long time after the show
Me: "Ada pavi, intha kadi padathu poi oruthen superb movie-ina sollaran da" (i was passing comments with my friends)
Another Ajith Fan Mr. Y: "Sir, intha movie-ku enna korachal?" "It gathered three crores in the first week in tamilnadu itself, theriyumma??" "And you know what, this movie is going to Japan for a release"
Me: "Aiyo, nanga kashtapatathu pothatha??! japan makkale vere Ajith torture pannunuma??" :)
Mr.Y: "Enna sir, ippadi sollintingo? Intha padam nalla illaney sollaru muthal allu neenga than sir"
Me: "Ithellam too much boss" :)
We left the conversation then itself, but it would have hurted his sentiments on Ajith. He was morachifying (staring at) me for the remaining time, when we were coming down from PVR. ;)
The culinary experience of eating sea foods is taken to new heights in 'The Kudla' restaurant. I was dining in this restaurant with my cousins and his friends on sunday night. Had a memorable time with crab, fish and all sea living creatures ;) I would definitely recommend this restaurant for all my friends. It can boast itself for serving best sea foods in the city. Note for all those whom I promised a treat in the city: I will host you a dinner in this restaurant if you are a non-veggie.
Koncham 'polambals' time:
Depression has become a vicious addiction for me. I was (atleast trying desperately) free from depression of love break for quite a while now. But few incidents put me back in the depression cycle once in a while. My pillow might have had count on number of nights I slept with wet eyes. I am happy that I didn't torture any of my friend by narrating my feelings to him during this time. My independent attitude kept me silent now. One of my best buddies in US of A has recently scrapped me in orkut asking me,
She: "Nirek, How's life? What's happening in her end? Any updates"
Me: "Hey, I am just sticking to your words. I am waiting for her to speak to me. so no talks and no hurts till now. Life is sailing on"
She: "Thats good for you, Enjoy"
But, I got back into depression cycle yesterday because of my trip towards Malleshwaram in bike. I went there to meet my cousin yesterday. I was travelling in same roads which had a beautiful past memories about my love. For a split second, I thought I will drop plan of going in the road and go back to home. Then somehow managed to go to my cousin's house in sadashiv nagar. I was silent for the whole day and slowly depression thoughts has creeped in. First love and first love break are not definitely a good memories to live with. I wish I move out of this city as soon as possible. There are some developments in that side. Will keep you posted guys.
Drizzling rain and long stretch of roads are always biker's paradise. I am still hooked on to biking because of few occasions like this. I was on bike with my friend on saturday evening to visit a new apartment of another guy in such a pleasant climate. My new bike shows its mighty in high speeds and we were zipping past all heavy vehicles in the outer ring road.
Tummyful- Few more restaurants discovered ;)
Aangan in Koramangala - Asli punjabi khana. Food quality is good and the hotel ambience is also great
Sharma in Koramangala - Great quality food at damn cheap rates. I love this
Parika in CMH Road - a decent multicuisine restaurant with as usual sky high bills. Mangalorean dishes are surprise addendum in their menu. Dunno whether this is best hotel for mangalorean foods, but liked it!
Song for the day. This one is from movie parineetha, 'Piyu bole, Piya bole'. Again one more smashing hit in Sonu and Shreya combination. Have a lovely time with the song (English subtitles are also there in the video for non-hindi speaking people)
Solla Maranthuten!
Saw Valavan movie last weekend. It wasn't a great entertainer. And as promised I am not writing a spoiler review for it. I liked the first half of the movie. It was more casual and the story plot is about love as seen by this generation guys. Engeyo sontha kathai pakkirey mathiri oru feeling!! ;) Balakumaran's touch was seen in dialogues only at few scenes. Santhanam and gang done their comedy role neatly. Yuvan's songs are the real face saver. Editor could have played a little more proactive role in second half of the movie and could have reduced its length.
Diwali gives us an occasion for family get-together. I love diwali for this reason. Crackers, sweets, visiting temple, new movies, big TV shows... can come next in priorities for diwali. When I landed back in office today morning, all friends greeted with same question "How did you diwali go?". I enjoyed and relaxed in this vacation. When my granny was there, diwali vacation used to pull in all family members. The time spent with cousins are best part of my childhood memories.
Chinna vayasu terrorists dialogues: ;)
Me: "Ippadiya iruntha evalo nalla irukkum! mmmm.....next week school will reopen...bore, bore! "
My cousin: "dont worry da, Iraq-ila Bush podara bomb onnu kooda target mari namma school-ila vizhamala poiyudum??!! :)"
Me: "Wow. appadi vizhuntha romba santhosam. Jolly"
On sunday, my brother was planning for a trip to sirkazhi (20 kms from my homeotown). He had to catch up with anni's side relatives it seems. He usually get bored in those visits, so he needed some company. He was calling me pasama "Satheesh, nangala ellam mama vitikku porum, neeiyum variyada?". I was not aware of his grand plans, so said yes. I had to get out of my comfortable couch for the trip (missed sleeping!). First we went to my mama's house, then to anni's relative place and then to anna's friends house. Visiting relatives during diwali can become a dangerous experiment at times, everybody will welcome you with lot of sweets. Everywhere I have to say 'hi' and chat with lot of unknown people. These chats are usual boring stuffs which turn me off in few minutes. Thank god, my niece was keeping me engaged throughout the evening. While coming back, I was polambfying with anna. "Ada, paavi, neethan kalyana pannikitu ella relatives vittikum porey, ponnum. Enna ethukada matti vittae.. :) " Anni was laughing all the while. I missed outing with friends on that day because of this trip.
My love story didn't get any importance during this visit. Nobody was talking about the past incidents now in house. So sad :( Dad started it in mid, but left it out saying "Unnaku unga ammaku thane problem. Solve it yourself. Nee love pannina ponnai unga amma thane parkalamey reject pannita. What to do?" Amma didn't open up this topic and all. I have no grudges on them for not speaking about my love. I ,myself, don't know the state of my love, then how on the world I can expect them to talk for me? Seri, seri, romba polambals vendom! :) Hope you guys had great diwali too.
I have few photos to share.
I am in mid of diwali vacation with family. Hope you guys had fun filled diwali too. Vacation in home looks at times boring, too long to pass off. Thankfully it's time for family get-together and catching up time for lot of my school time buddies.
I was seeing 'Silinu oru kathal' movie with family yesterday. My expectation from the movie was nill, because of lot of spoiler reviews. Movie minus last 30 minutes is a real entertainer. The scenes between surya, Jo and their kid are too good to cause jealous within any married couple. Love after marriage is dealt beautifully in the story. In one scene, surya in a high state
Surya: "Nee ennai nalla santhoshma vachirikey. Are you happy with me?"
Jo: "Naa enga ammakitey irunthathey vida, enga appakitey irundhatha vida, ungoda romba santhosama iruken da"
Wow. Those words conveys proper answer to man's expectation in love. Every man wants to keep his girl happy and satisfied throughout his life. If his girl is happy, that makes him the happiest man in the world.The past story of surya isn't anything new. Can't avoid getting Deja Vu feeling in most of stuffs in college time love story. But you can't avoid it, as kollywood story tellers has done enough research before in love stories :)
Now time for spoiler review. Me and my friends landed in 100th movie of sarath. 'Thalaimagan'. On diwali day evening, after our usual chit-chat, we needed some movie to relax down. Unfortunately we were forced to this cinema, because other movies had enough audiences to fill in the hall. I know most of you will skip this movie, but writing a spoiler review now to save you, if you get a faint notion to watch this movie.
Hero as press reporter, Heroine as co-worker, Mineral water factory, hot dialogues, baddie lady police cop, one more politician villain, comeon, you can write this story yourself after this. Vadivelu tries his best to keep the audience alive for few lighter moments, couldn't do much. We should have run away from the cinema after first introduction song of hero, that is sung by sarath himself ;) But we were out of movie hall after the second song. Ohh man, I could not even think about anything interesting in the movie. Rating is highly avoidable.
After long time, I am traveling home bound. Gandhi Jayanthi with pooja holidays gave all Techies a long weekend here. Hope all would have been back to work after the weekend; I am still away from my office. I am on continuous travel. Will update you with photos of the trip later.
I am working on planning of teaching email to kids. This is for computer workshop which we conduct for kids from Ananya. This activity is part of Dream A Dream computer program. The intended audiences are kids with ages ranging from 10 to 16. The topic of the workshop is "Email- Basics". The session also includes creation of email address for all kids. The basic aim is to impart the basics of email to kids in an interesting way. The secondary aim is to make them realize the importance and advantages of emails. The session is for one and half hours and each volunteer has to teach for two kids personally. As a team, we had a discussion before on this. I prepared a PowerPoint presentation on the topic, which basically aimed to help volunteers in taking the concept further. Now baton is over to you folks. Feel free to post your feedback, comment and advices.Pls.
I have tried to embed the powerpoint file in this post. If i'ts not working in other browser, try opening the blog in IE.
How many of you felt these kinds of SMS are utter bull shit, yet still forwarded it.
“Tomorrow is international ‘I LOVE YOU' day. If you get this it means that you are loved....Send this to at least 5 people in the next 600mins and tomorrow will be your best day ever. Tonight at mid-night ur true love will realize that they love u. Something good will happen to u between 1-4 pm tomorrow, it could be”Lot of pop and rock songs sounds lovely, as long as you don’t care about what’s there in the lyrics. I felt odd on hearing these two songs. It’s basically those guys hatred towards their girl. Those lyrics sound really yucky.
”My gal..” Nirvana.
”Runaround sue .. by Dion”
