Movie spree

My latest movie spree began a couple days before, and the list of Hollywood/Bollywood stuff goes like;
Wedding crashers (quite okay a comedy, but drags over towards the end), Envy (va"poo"rizes from memory the moment the movie gets over),Bunty & Babbli (Hindi version of Catch me if u can), Farenheit 11, Terminal,Nick of Time, Open water, The Forgotten, Hide and Seek, Hotel Rwanda, Mind the gap.....

Crossword

This simple crossword has come to be one of the daily liesure activities of mine, now-a-days. Its simple. Doesnt tax your brain like the Hindu crossword. You could finish that in, say, 15 minutes. You, just may have to bear with the few Greek and Jewish info that they expect you to know ocassionally.

Just a simple streching exercise for your brain. Applies to mediocre people like me.

Mercurial Musings

As the heat wave shows no signs of abating and my cerebral neurons are displaying increasingly erratic firing patterns, I thought it worthwhile to find a google therapy for it. In the process, I stumbled into some common facts/misconceptions about heat related illness;

1) Heat with high humidity is worse than dry heat : Because, when it's humid outside, it's much harder for sweat to evaporate. You stay hotter longer and can't cool down as quickly. This high body temperature can lead to damage of the brain or other vital organs.

2)Going back and forth between air-conditioned ambience and the outside environ is probably a good thing.

3)Fans are good up to a point They can help evaporate sweat, which is an important cooling process. But when it actually gets too hot, in the 90s, for example, all the electric fan does is circulate hot air. Not adviseable then, it seems.

4)Northerners Vs Southerners : The former might have more trouble acclimating to extreme temperatures. Southerners are exposed to more days of extreme heat and humidity, so their chances of getting past high heat and sun are greater.

Drink a lot and stay chill !!........I mean water.

First Audio blog !

My voice is aweful ! I dont think I will do much of this. Anyways dare to hear?

Hitch

"Life is not the breath you take. Its the momemts that take your breath away."

Old saying. But got to hear it in the hollywood movie "Hitch". I always liked the words, and its up here. As for the movie, mediocre stuff.

While we wait for Columbia's launch

We have, as kids, played with building blocks and constructed myriad things. But, have you ever thought of assembling the ISS (International Space Station)?. Try this;

OPENLINK Click here
GOTO Special report "All about the ISS", which opens a macromedia flash rendering of the ISS.
DO as instructed there.
IF bored break.
WHILE your patience persists.
CLOSE

Ever wanted time to fly?

Its too short a life. So if every minute were to pass like a day, we would have a lot of time on hand to enjoy the pleasures of living. And tortured existence is better over soon. So it all depends on one's present context. The point, I wanted to make is, rarely, do we want the time to fly. It happens when you are eagerly waiting for something or meet some one or even on a boring day. Thats when you feel if time could race and come to a screeching halt to the point when the much awaited thing happens. I feel that way today and so this blog. There's probably a client interview tomorrow. Is that why I feel so ? Silly,isnt it? I wish time could fly till....hmm...I am not saying that.

En Singara Chennai

Things, about Chennai, etched in my memory;




• The serenity of Mylapore Kabaleeshwarar Kovil.
• “Puli sadam” at Parthasarathy temple.
• “Kanda shashti kavasam”, that every tea kaddai religiously plays, early,every morning.
• Madras tamil, though not courteous.
• The Marina beach and “sundal”.
• “Ponn vasanam” at the roadside hand pumps, which are the lifelines of Chennai’s water supply.
• Racing with PTC buses on Mount road.
• Driving on East Coast road to Mahabs.
• Haggling with the Auto drivers.
• “Meen vandi’s” adding to the delight of driving on Madras roads.
• Some stuff, with funny names, that I used to eat off the push carts in Parrys corner.
• "Otel" Saravana Bhavan.
• Come home every evening from office and wash my face with saltiest of water.
• Devi and Satyam cine complex.
• Shopping in Pondy bazaar.
• Onyx staff meticulously picking garbage.

Good or bad, these are few of the things that I feel gives Chennai its flavor. i Welcome everyone to add more points to this.

Poem # 2

Here is another poem of mine, written while in 11th grade. Its all about how I felt after I prepared well for an exam, but performed moderately. It might sound childish now. But, then it was remarkable to me for the reason that, in it I had attempted to draw parallels between what was going through my mind and a storm building outside.

Pen ever in hand

With hopes all great,
I trod up to the test
And then fly fast towards the gate.
I might get late, lest.

All came in time.
With pen in my hand,
I got into, with rhyme.
That, suddenly, light darkened upon the land.

Just as sun into the cloud did go,
All my thoughts
Went so low,
That know not I, what on me got.

From the hand it dropped.
All the blue(*) came to merge,
And on me they cropped.
What an omen! In and out so large!

It(#) began in drops,
And then in lashes.
To eat up all the crops
And leave me to ashes.

From my hand did it drift,
Bearing just my name.
And my heavy heart I lift
To limp home lame.

Through the window, I kept my stare
At the lying reed.
In spite of every care
The wounded heart liked to bleed.

Not long after it ceased,
Leaving all toppled…...yet serene,
That I got appeased.
Nothing had gone lean!!

Then could I see,
That all came up new.
Nothing went into the sea.
Even if, they were few.

Thus I learnt
That miseries come and go
To leave a little burnt
And show the tinge of foe.
But if you could stand,
Then why care about a little test?
A strong hand
Will never drop for the rest.


Legend:
* clouds and the ink in pen
# rain and tears

What kiss am I ?

Some fun test had this to say about my kiss;

Quote
You have a mysterious kiss. Your partner neverknows what you're going to come up with next;this creates great excitement and arousal never knowing what to expect. And it's sure to end in a kiss as great as your mystery.
Unquote

What kind of kiss are you?

Hot day !!!

Having spent two summers in Louisiana, I certainly expected NJ to be cooler in summers. Atleast, thats the impression I had of summers in Northern parts of the US. Its now I realize how badly informed I am. The humid-blistering heat of today probably vaporized chunks of my brain. Or why else should I be ranting about heat when I actually ought to be rummaging throuh SAP help site !! Okay, Bob signs off to study.

Hooked to the net

Last Friday, from morning the internet connection at office was on a flip-flop for about 2 hours before it finally blinked out. After that the populace poured out of its desks and started gossiping about nothing over mugs of coffee. Some got on to their mobiles, some on computer games and so on. Welcome break, you could say. Still everyone’s eyes seemed to be talking of some profound loss.

The lunch break came in time to quell the noises in our stomachs. The internet service wasn’t up yet. Everyone had something important to be finished; pay up credit card/mobile bill, important emails to be attended to, study online tutorials, chat with family/friends.....endless online activities you see! It was then that we realized how badly hooked we were to the internet. It has become such a part and parcel of our lives that it’s difficult to get over one day of no-net.

Jokes apart.With nothing to do, I started listening to music. Also heard, after a long time, “Ale Ale” from the Tamil movie “Boyz”. And it stirred some interesting memories from my Ruston days. What say Doc & Shaun?

Emerging 'isms' of the new economy

Here's some intersting stuff I came across, and which kept me in splits;


INFOSYSism- You have a 1000 poor cows. You put them on a nice campus, & send them one at a time to the US for milking.

WIPROism- GE has a cow. You take 49% of the milk.

DELLism- Intel has a Goat. Samsung has a Camel. Buy milk from both & sell it as Cow's milk.

IBMism- You have old stubborn cows. You sell them as pet dogs to innocent
small businessmen.

MICROSOFTism- You have a cow. Force the world to buy milk from you. Spend a million dollars to feed poorer cows.

INTELism- Microsoft makes horse shoes. You nail them to your cows & wonder why they don't run fast.

SUNism- You have a bull. It doesn't give milk. You hate Microsoft.

ORACLEism- You have a cow. You don't know which side to milk, so you sell toolsto help milk cows.

SAPism- You don't have a cow. You sell milking solutions for cows implemented
by milking consultants.

APPLEism- You have a cow. You sell iMilk.

SONYism- You have a cow. You spend $50 mn to develop the world's thinnest milk.

CITIBANKism- Welcome to Citibank. If you have a cow, press 1. If you have a bull, press 2...stay on line if you'd like our customer care to milk it for
you.

HPism- You don't know if what you have is a cow. You sell complete milking
solutions through authorised resellers only.

GEism-You have a donkey. People think you have a 100-year old cow. If
someone finds out, that's his imagination at work.

RELIANCEism-You don't yet have a cow. You sell empty cans to people for Rs. 501,because Dhirubhai wanted everyone to have milk.

TATAism- You have a very old cow. You re-brand it as TATA Indicow.

Nature & Adventure

They have never ceased to amuse me. I do not know if it is because of my love for nature & sports, or the sheer adrenalin rush that they provide. Whatever, before the names of nature/adventure spots I have been so far in the US, fades away from my memory, I thought I will put them on my blog;


Camping & Hiking at Lake Claireborne & Bisteneau in Louisiana, Albert Pike ( Ouachita National Forest) & Archedelphia (Caddo river) in Arkansas.
Canoeing at Lake Bisteneau & Caddo River.
Kayaking in Shenandoah River in Virginia.
Ice-skating in Chicago downtown.
Cave visits to Blanchard caves (Ozark mountains, AR) & Lurray caverns (Virginia)

Having had my fill of camping, canoeing and kayaking, I next want to try my hand at skiing, jet skiing, white-water rafting, and bungee jumping. Costlier sports like parachuting & gliding can wait, I suppose.

Power of desi dollors

It was the Hispanics, the Chinese and now its the American Desi's who are being seen as another big market by the American firms. The purchasing power of desi dollors seems to have attracted the marketers of corporate America in a sizeable way.Thanks to IT and our strong belief in higher education.
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