joie de vivre

Those Dark brown eyes....

2010-06-11T13:47:00.001-07:00

I once laid my eyes on the most beautiful pair of eyes
a pair of eyes that can only described by the aptness of its name
a name that still echoes the familiarities of a friend
a name that still brings back the memories of the eyes, those most beautiful eyes

The dark brown eyes just stare at me from the abyss
taunting, scrutinizing, tearing at the lengths of every emotion
i know not what it wants from me, but for enticing me to get lost in them

A name which aptly beholds the deep brown eyes it possesses
a name that does not know the power of the subject it assesses
i knew not that i had a poet in me lay
until, in those deep brown eyes my heart began to sway
i still know not what is it about those eyes that hold me astray
but i do hope those deep brown eyes do begin to sway

for if not i shall always be lost
in the quest for the brown eyes that still holds me astray

I have a great time with my life and I love living!

2010-04-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

I was recently going through a blog post which was giving the usual advice on living and being successful, though some of the thoughts were well articulated I didn’t find anything unique in the posts except for this one. This had nothing but a collation of quotes by will smith, the actor. Some of the things that he said really stuck me, quite powerful stuff from the actor. He goes on to talk about life and how hardwork and focus is what it takes to become successful, you can find the complete video here. But two things that he says in that video really stuck onto me

"We didn’t grow up with the sense that where we were, was where we were going to be, instead it was with a sense that where we were didn’t really matter because we were becoming something greater."

"I know who I am. I know what I believe. That’s all I need to know. Period "

Those two sentences pretty much sums up what has been bandied about countless times around the world. Believe in yourself and who you are and live the current moment like there is no tomorrow. Watching the video I made a promise to myself, that I have to take control of my life; I can’t wait for the next best thing to happen.
We many a times tend to; work, talk, play, do things; that will make us happy tomorrow. This is the work I need to do so that I am successful tomorrow, this is what I need to do so that my future is secure or this is how I need to live my life so that I don’t face any problems tomorrow. It’s amazing how much of our current is depended on the future! While I do agree that one needs to be aware of the consequences of your actions, the pure act of living today for tomorrow is a heinous crime. I am sorry if I have bored you of a lot of BS, anybody who has read the Power of Now will probably accuse me of plagiarism, but this is something that I strongly feel the need for at this point in my life.
So there it is I make a commitment to myself today, that I shall take control of my life. While going through a lazy Sunday afternoon, I make a few more notes to myself-

If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you
Everyone needs to make sacrifices, and the pain of making the sacrifice always hurts more than you think it’s going to. Sacrificing your job, your friends or even for that matter your ego. Today I accepted that I had made a mistake, today I also accepted that I have lost a friend for life. My actions from today may help overcome the mistake that I made or get that friendship back on track, but it doesn’t matter, not really. What is done is done

Nobody cares, do it yourself
This I picked up from Hugh Macleod’s blog, but it applies perfectly well to anything that you do. It’s true; everybody is just too busy with their own lives. Nobody gives a damn about what you do, unless in some way it benefits them or tingles their curiosity levels. The people that are interested in your work are the ones that are benefited by them. Nobody really wants to read your blog, nobody really wants to see your pictures and nobody really wants to know what’s happening in your life. Accept it, live your life by it and it will be far simpler.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to be a cynic here. I mean, you do have friends and family that support you and that care about you. But that’s not really what I was talking about.

Time - does it heal

2010-04-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

Watching, staring at the window seeing lights passing by
Listening, to the sound of silence hoping time doesn’t pass me by
Thinking, its 3a.m. I must be lonely and outside it starts raining

All night talking to myself that I should get some sleep
Because, he says, tomorrow there might be something good for you.
I almost believe him when I say, hold on, I don’t think I want to look out for tomorrow
Because, I say, all I want is the past to come back

I am living for the past
Everything in front of me looks so good, but I keep longing to go back
Longing to change my decisions, who's to say my other present wouldn't have been perfect
I can't get back, but I can't let go either
I have this hope and hope is a good thing, says Red
Hope is probably the best of things. Maybe it is, maybe just.

A tear comes to mind, when I think of you
And remember the time when our friendship was new
I have stopped counting my fingers,
the number of mistakes that I have made
I look back at yesterday
oh what was i thinking

A few good men

2009-03-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

People, they say are inherently good by nature, it is the world that makes them not so good to be with.

It's probably this thread that binds us all together and sometimes makes you realize that the world and inherently, the people that live in it, are not too different from what you are. Why is it that no matter how you perceive a person, the more you get to know a person the more likeable he/she becomes. The more time you spend with them the more common traits you discover.

The eternal search to understand this world begins with the quest to figure out the different masks people wear. It’s the search to belong in a masquerade of people flaunting their masks sending you off a quest to parade your own mask. Each mask telling its own story of fear of exposing what lies beneath.

People could argue forever about whether an act is a good deed if the doer's motives are mixed. By my understanding of the term, a gift to charity is a good deed even if it produces a tax deduction for the giver. A service performed by a child is a good deed even if done on assignment from the Scoutmaster. Someone who rescues a neighbor from a burning house has done a good deed even if the thought of getting a medal flitted across his or her mind during the rescue.

If you define "good deed" so narrowly as to exclude all acts that earn recognition, you have a logical problem. Good deeds are likely to be recognized. The stranger to whom I give directions on the street may thank me, thus showing appreciation. Having pulled my neighbor out of the burning house, I may get a medal from the mayor a year later.

Surely these acknowledgments don't knock my altruistic acts off the "good deeds" list. Many of my actions are pre-decided by me knowing that they are good and in essence I expect some form of appreciation from it. The reward might be anything, from a thank you to a medal or making someone feel good about yourself.

Giving in secret is nice, but giving in the open and doing it for a reward is nice too.

I want to feel young again

2008-10-30T23:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had one of the most memorable experiences of my life. An experience that I was sure I wouldn't have the chance to experience so early in life! I had a chance to look back upon my childhood, and by childhood I mean the time when I knew which class I was studying in but didn’t know what it meant, the time when I was pretty sure I was going to be king of the world.
It al started when I met up childhood friends from my locality. These were the people I roamed around my "area" in half pants and colorful t-shirts. When climbing trees felt like conquering beasts and cycling across roads and running across fields felt like conquering territories. When boredom didn’t have a place in your life because there was so much to do. We didn’t need a field to play and neither a sizable number of people to have fun. Strange games would be invented from pebbles and leaves. Roads were our playgrounds, 'payas' and houses being constructed our hiding places and bushes and 'morries' places to get lost into. So many funny things that we used to do. The strange names that we used to call each other, how proud we were of our Bicycles and how I loved to ride it, how we cut and cleaned 3 foot long wild grass to create a playground for ourselves.
Sitting around and thinking back upon these memories was just so rejuvenating. But what stuck me most after coming out of our little reunion was that I had never in my dreams thought I would be looking back upon my childhood at this early stage in life. I always thought that I would be this old retired 'budda' before I start looking back upon all my experiences. For the first time I got a sinking feeling of getting old.

Time to look onto the blue-green yonder and start feeling young again!

PS: This was the time i am talking about :)

WORDS

2008-05-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been jealous of WORDS?

"The unit of language" is what the Oxford English Dictionary defines 'word' as. Have you ever felt that the word sometimes is more than the unit of language. They say that the meaning of a sentence is more than the sum of meanings of its words, but is the value of a word as good as its sentence?. I like to think otherwise, because words are just that WORDS. You cannot define a word, but yes, you can feel it, express using it and also play with it, but you can never quite define a word. This is where i tend to get very frustrated with these words. I can understand the sentence they are used in , I can understand why they used there, I can even understand what the word is supposed to mean, But i can never quite get across to knowing the meaning of the word.
I am quite sure you must have heard of 'CATCH 22' or 'MIDNIGHT's CHILDREN'. These books are literary legends and are already part of folklore. I took to reading these books recently and i have to say i was quite amazed at the usage of words in this book. The words themselves were not profound but the way they were used was mind-boggling. While heller uses his words in such a twisted sense that you feel a sense of sarcasm at every word you come acrosss, rushdie is more straight forward, but nevertheless, the thread of words he uses to describe situations and emotions is amazing. I take the instance of these books because they show you that the a sentence can only be connected by a thread and also give you a profoundness about its meaning [and also because these are the only 2 books i have read in the jouner].
Now coming to the jealousy part, i was mended and sometimes laughing at the sentences that i found in these books, But i never could get around the fact that they somehow made so much sense on the whole that all i could do was admire them, even though i couldn't understand them. This is what frustrated me to the hilt, these books had sentences so profound and yet the emotions came across so clearly that i was left confused. and it was all due to those 'UNITS', those nagging little things hanging around sentences when you read them. What did i do? Well i went back to my staple of fictious fiction.

Smells like Home

2008-05-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

Many a times I wonder when people say that they don’t have a city they call home. Too much time away from home makes home itself a foreign place they say. I got an opportunity to experience this feeling (kind off) when I returned back to Bangalore after a while away.

I was really surprised at how things had changed around my house. The new buildings and shops that had come up, many of the old hangouts that had been remodeled. The more I strayed out of my house, the more I started to see how different things had become. I was beginning to wonder if the city had actually become so different in such a short time or was it just me.

That’s when i decided to take a bike ride across the city on a election Saturday afternoon. I started to observe the new buildings that had come up, the increase in traffic, the increase in temperature etc… But as I rode along, I started to encounter so many familiar things from my past expeditions along these roads. The faces of traffic cops were still recognizable, many of them were still at the same junctions. The condition of the roads had become better or worse but the curves of the roads were still the same, I still knew when to overtake where and how fast to take a turn.

Nothing can beat the green road drives in Bangalore. I could still go onto the Asoka pillar road and feel the same breeze blowing in my face. I could still ride through the roads of JP Nagar recognizing the smell of the stalls on the roadside. The roadside stalls hasn't changed, the galli ka dosa camp hasn’t changed. Even the traffic signal remained true and loyal. I still could time myself to go through J.C.Road through town hall without catching a Red.

I was feeling a little good after my drive around when I stopped at a stall to buy some stuff back home, and I talked to the guy in mixed Hindi and English. I had never spoken to a stall guy in English, leave alone Hindi, before when I was in Bangalore. Maybe it was not the city, maybe i had changed in all this time. But it felt really good to finally be back in a place which you could feel like HOME.

Mujhe Sone Do

2007-12-27T12:18:00.000-08:00

I am doing my MBA in one of the top ten institutes in India
I have my End terms tomorrow
I have like 50 hrs of reading time to catch up on
I am bottom of the class and need to kind top tomorrow to avoid abvious consequences

Now that i have given you a "context" of my situation, let me tell you why i am writing this blog. I am WRITING this blog because a friend of mine, a classmate, just came across my blogs and asked me why i was not updating it. I got thinking as to why i had not blogged in such a long time and so started to write this blog. Since i had already commited to thinking, my thoughts wandered to what all i was not doing since joining college. From blogging to soccer to reading some inquisitive books i have been missing out on a lot of things since joining PG, and to no avail, if you can call being bottom of class something to judge by.
I do have to agree one thing though, MBA definitely teaches you to think differently. Everything i want to say comes in the form of a framework, defined in parameters of context, process or just any other 2x2 BOX.

Before i loose my capacity to think let me try and catch up on those reading times. Thanking MiMo for instigating me to write this blog.
adios

PS: now that i am back with a vengence be ready for some frentic blogging!!!

I wanna be a ROCKSTAR

2007-09-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

i am sitting in my room alone. i am trying to collate a set of pictures for............................. I am editing a soccer movie. i love soccer. i live soccer. i am doing my MBA.
It does not make sense to you? it doesn't to me either. i don't know why i am sitting at 12:00 in the night with my stomach growling to eat something and my head telling me do the assignments that is lying beside me, and yet i am preparing videos for soccer. Is it because preparing videos will help me convey the message to others better? or is it because i get gratification by looking for and collecting videos. or it maybe because i get to curse the IT here, who doesn't let me download the videos i want.

Right now i am listening to

"I'm through with standing in line
to clubs we'll never get in
It's like the bottom of the ninth
and I'm never gonna win
This life hasn't turned out
quite the way I want it to be"

right now i am feeling

"I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar"

why is it that when u r doing the thing that u enjoy u find urself wishing u were doing something else. why is it that what you are trying to achieve in life always looks different from what you want to be in life. Is it because i really want to be a rockstar.
I'll just go back to playing FIFA and then my head will be clear enough to start doing pre reads and assignments. Well then i wouldn't be blogging if it was clear now would i.

"joie de vivre" is written in my ip settings. am i or do i want to be.

Leaving LAS VEgAS

2007-05-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

This is an experience on departing ways with your company. Oh Boy, leaving the company is not such an easy task. Apart from the usual headaches of resignation letter to exit interview, which i am sure there are many online helps that cover, there is the all important task of handover of responsibilities/work or whatever you call it.

The important thing while handing over of tasks to the assigned person is that every task is tagged and followed to the second. what i mean is that there is always someone harping at your back following up on you. from the companies perspective everything that you have learnt during your stay at the company needs to squeesed out of you and squeesed into your replacement. logical enough, but this is a rather tedious process. From a personal perspective we need the handover to be hassel free and importantly very quick.

Now i was in a similar situation recently and found myself in a real big fix. The reason was mainly because, with the ego that i have, i wanted my superiors to know and appreciate the work that i had done for the company over the past few years. So i sorta amplified every small detail that i had learnt and developed and completed. now at the end of the day this did have the necessary effect on the manager, as it drew a soft appreciation from his side, but more importantly it also created a whole new plan for my handover. The manager was now thinking only of how to get all this experience transferred to another person. At this point i want to clarify that i see nothing wrong with what my manager did, but it did put me in a very 'frustrating' situation. So instead of handing over and training people just about the current project [which believe me would have been sufficient], i ended up telling them even wht i had done in my previous life.

So here is an experience shared. the best thing would be to put that feeling of "i want to get appreication from my superior" and think about a smooth exit from the company. otherwise you will end up working in the office even though you have your releiving letter in hand.

PS: this blog does not talk about the relationship you need to maintain with your manager and collegues. That is left to user definition.

Ambulances in India or rather in bangalore

2007-05-27T05:53:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you see one of these in your rear view mirrors. If you a considerate enough person, you will give way to the vehicle. You give way assuming that the blaring sound and flashing lights indicate someone critically injured or ill is being transported to the necessary destination. You also assume that impeding the ambulance will probably result in putting the passenger of the vehicle in graver danger.

Imagine my surprise, or frustation, when i saw a similar blaring ambulance, but the difference was that it did not carry any passengers. It was EMPTY at the behind! Just to make sure i followed the ambulance and saw that the ambulance put out its garishness once out of the JAM and The TRAFFIC SIGNAL. This means that the driver took advantage of being in a ambulance. I know many of you would be saying that the the ambulance may be heading for a potential complaint, but why switch off the shahnanigans after the traffic signal? No sir this was a case of a selfish driver trying to use public service for his own needs. What is to say that the next time i see one of these vehicles in the mirror i will hesitate to let him by. What is to say that half a dozen people do the same?

Well you have got to think how much such inconsequential things make so much consequence in some cases.

Just to add have you seen how usefull/easy it is to follow an ambulance in a traffic JAM. It makes a huge difference. I have done it a few times and it is definitely usefull in bangalore traffic jams.

Please go & buy a couple of wingers this summer Arsene

2007-05-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

Despite what anyone says, this has been the most disastrous season for me as an arsenal fan. Some people have ponited out that until the carling cup final things were positive for us, that we were being touted as the next big thing. Very True, even i was impressed {everyone had to be} at the way the 'young guns' were performing. But how many of us really thought that we could get something out of this season. The problem with this team, as has been indicated umpteen times, is consistency and that showed up very early in the season. So the premiership was out of the way. The same inconsistency showed up at the carling cup final, we were great in the first half but lack of experience got to us in the second half. The FA cup match against blackburn was one of the most nerve wracking performance by an arsenal team. Sure they parked a BUS in front of goal, but is that reason enough to lose against a mnediocre team over two legs. I definitely don't think so. No the loss was all down to the teams insipid performance. The only 'non footballing reason' that afected us this season was when we were thrown out of the CL. It was during that match against PSV that strange forces conjured up against us. My stomach still curls up at the notion of being beaten by PSV.

So at the end of a season, that arseblog rates C+, we are again ruing missed chances and looking at FUTURE prospects for a championship team. I am too tired to talk about the FUTURE prospect of this team, don't get me wrong here i totally appreciate what the young fellas have done, but as a team we need to start looking at players who can collectively win us the championship. I am not going to reviewthe players performance here, That has been done by arseblog quite extensively here -> . But i would nyways like to add this comment i found at the forums "Please go & buy a couple of wingers this summer Arsene with whatever meagre funds you have available along with anything the sales of Almunia, Gilbert, Flamini, Song, Reyes, Ljungberg & Aliadiere might bring in."
I think tis s serious concern. We don' have a left winger at present and the only right winger we have is Ljumberg. Irrespective of whether ljumberg stays or otherwise we need two 'world-class' wingers, and by world-class i mean players who have performed at the highest level. Ribery would fit this situation best. It makes it easier for us that neither MANU nor cuntski are going to be in the frame, and of course he is french. The other winger i have no idea. some are suggesting malouda, but i really don't see how he fits the bill. Whoever comes arsene has to make sure he doesn't put another talented MF into a wide position. Sometimes we play so narrow that it is easy for teams to defend. I really don't see the manager buying two wingers {even though we need them} but considering he buys ribery this would be my idela lineup for next season

Lehman

Eboue Toure Gallas Clichy

Gilberto

Fabregas Diaby/Rosicky Ribery

Henry RVP

OR we could go for a 4-3-3

Lehman

Eboue Toure Gallas Clichy

Gilberto

Fabregas Diaby

Rosicky

Henry RVP
[Milanisque u might say, but rosicky will be beautifull in that hole]

Any which way we definitely need a winger and a striker. yes a striker. henr is no more the 30 goal a season machine and van persie has had injuried in the last two seasons what is to prevent him from havig one again. So we might, at some stage of the season,be left adebayor and bentnder. I love adebayor for his workrate but he needs to have a better conversion ratio for a striker and bentnder, lets say we don't need to take any risks by depending on him. Considering that the biggest letdown for us this season has been our finishing, we need to have one more consistent striker. Eto',tevez, etc.. are out of the question but Klose is one striker we could have, considering that he can be snapped up for about 7mil it will be ideal for us. another striker that was mentoned in the forums is Javier Saviola, a decent enough striker who is free at the EOS.
So "A frustrating season on many levels, however laced with potential and promise for the next." is the quote i will use to nd this post.

PS: Hoping we will not be repeating the words "potential" for very long.

The APPLE i phone

2007-01-24T02:37:00.000-08:00

And so it is finally out, the "i" in the phone from apple was unveiled to an eagerly awaiting world. With steve jobs in cherubic mood [You have to watch this video to understand why i use the word 'cherubic' http://youtube.com/watch?v=p01RjigiYF0 ---- http://youtube.com/watch?v=fsOCigIvnJ0 ], everyone waited to see what the innovation bellweather would bring forth. But the curious part was, inspite of all the haggles and expectations, there was only one thing on everybody's mind; Will this be the ipod of the telecom market.There were 3 reasons why, despite all the odds, people were expecting it to be the ipod of the telecom market.1. apple were releasing the productInspite of all the board room shehnahigans, with steve jobs truly back at the helm, apple were at their rejuvinating best.2. The pre launch controversyFrom its share of bickering with cisco, to jobs himself announcing that this product is truly revolutionary{which says something about the product} assured that eeeryone was sitting up and take notice3. And of course the most important, it has an i before its name
Now, people reading this blog might say that discussion on this topic is a bit too late, considering that it has been beaten to death by everyone on the net. But i at least wanted to see the damn thing before writing about it. So let me finally come to the good, bad and ugly part of the blog.
The good part is that the iPhone is just awesome. No matter in what way you look at it, it leaves you breathless!. The device converges entertainment and connectivity in a device with a truly revolutionary interface. I mean the device screams “See me, Feel me, Touch Me…” and with only one button. Using simple hand gestures to control a device you can view pictures {in a gazillian ways}, automatically flip between landscape and portrait through state switches, listen to u2 in your ears and oh, there is that odd thing that you can call at the same time. and it comes with the full version of itunes. Just BrilliantNow THE BAD. BATTERIES;the iPhone comes with a sealed unit.It would have appealed way more if it had a removable, and more importantly, replaceable battery. Add to that the restriction that third party applications are forbidden, the functionality of the phone is restricted very much. The pricing also leaves plebian people like me in the lurch.
So how much impact will the product have in the market? well i will be a no brainer and say that we will have to wait and see, considering the complexity of the telecom market and its dependence on external factors,like operator preference, i would seriously not bet on anything.
SS, i almost forgot, i have to mention the ugly side of the review. Inspite of all the brilliances,pardon my vocabulary, of the product that i described above, i am still uncomfartable with its basic working. I mean everything touch screen in a phone is going too far, even for apple. Personally i always liked it when i could close my eyes and use the phone, with all touch screen i don't know how comfortable i would be. The phone might do a damn good job of feeling me but how the hell am i going to 'feel' the phone? well i suppose i have a couple of year to work that out, the time it will take for the phone to debut in india.In the meanwhile Apple’s stock went up more than 8%, Palm and Rim’s stock has dropped 6% and 7% respectively. In other words: Ugly for Palm and Rimm. Beautiful for Apple.
Well, if google and apple can't do anything, nobody can, right?

I am contemplating thinking about thinking

2006-09-15T00:19:00.000-07:00

The preamble of those working in the IT sector:
"We the unwilling, lead by the Unknowing, are doing the impossible for the Ungrateful. We have done so much for so long, with so little knowledge that we will one day qualify to do anything with knowing Nothing."

Be proud to be working in this wonderful business!!! J

Every now and then you feel hard done by life, start to think about the what you need o think tomake things work for you. Well i am definitely not feeling so today, cause everything seems to be working without me thinking. the reason i wrote this was because i was feeling like a miserable S***t yesterday, and because i was feeling like a miserable s**t, i was in no mood to write a s**tty blog. well at least i am thinking straight today to write this s**ty blog.But you got to admit nice heading though!
moving on to something more meaningfull, today is engineers day. so HAPPY ENGINEER's DAY to all. An away win for arsenal in the CL, three points in the bag and i am still left feeling that we are going to get screwed by those red c*nts. But what a goal to clinch the match. AW needs to show this goal to the team over and over, just so they know that once in a while adventuring pays off. hope rosicky can get a performance like that on sunday. I can't say that i am not waiting for the match thi weekend, but i am left feeling that this could have come at a better time, a time when we are not 17TH in the table.
oh and i forgot, today is engineers day because it the birhday of sir M Visvesvaraya. bet none of you knew that. I am great fan of the greatest thinker of the century. but i will leave it to these guys to give u all the lowdown

How many of you think an auto can be better than a limo? get this link to find out
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/this-auto-runs-without-a-driver/21402-11.html

A Spectacular end to the spectacular show in a spectacular fashion

2006-07-11T01:09:00.000-07:00

The world cup ends in the most spectacular of ways[not in footballing terms though], and the ZiZou saga continues, and i guess it won't settle for a long time, what with all the expert lip readers that are surfacing out. I won't add to much of the mayhem though, but i have to say i am tempted to say "i said so" about france going all the way. It might have very well been true on another day. You might sit and aargue upon the point that the best team in the competition won, Italy did not show any weakness throughout the tournament, but i would still like to see football winning rather than a set of farts sitting on their arse and kicking everything thrown at them. True, cannavaro was brilliant at the back, but i would want italy for once to produce have that quality up front. Because at the end of the day u will still enjoy Klose scoring brilliant goals than to see ugly, but brilliant, tackling at the back.

Well at the end of it all there is no news bout the most talked about team at the start of the tournament, looks like brazil are the ones who have a set of old farts. Another nation that failed to deceive ??wah?? was england. THE most boring footballing unit in the hisoty of the game.

And why is TH14 getting so much sympathy all of a sudden. true he played well, producing some moments of brilliance and he finally came good in the french unit. But i still dont understand why all the arsenal fans are moaning about him playing alone up front, for craps sake he has played in that position throughout the CL. I think he was just tired and couldn;t get his Vrooom back. He better get used the 4-5-1 cause we have to a lot of him in that situation, albeit in arsenals new kit.

Well check out the new kit here:

829 MINUTES and counting

2006-04-20T01:15:00.000-07:00

So this was it.........The final champions league game at highbury, and quite fitting it was.The final European game at Highbury was always going to be a special occasion and last night featured a pitch-invading squirrel, Spanish play-acting, a rare Kolo Toure strike, Gilberto Silva's inspirational display , The captains definitive cutbacks and the thrilling reality that Arsenal have taken a significant step towards the climax of the Champions League in Paris on May 17.Arsenal would have taken a 1-0 victory gladly before the match, but after the performance last night they would be ruing their chances and cursing their bad luck.Arsenal deservedly went ahead through KOLO toure[his first goal this season] after bombarding the visitors goal post for the first 40 minutes.We stamped our authority right from the beginning of this emotionally charged night, and ended the night with our noses in front but still left ruing our missed chances[and the referees incompetence].After seeing the first half you definitely expected more action, and much of it was on display albeit of a different kind.The fallacy with which villareal played the second half raises questions as to how they could make it so far.the visitors were more than happy to keep the margin of defeat small instea of taking the game to arsenal, and this is what might let their fans down. Whichever team u support, you would like to see the players take the game to the opposition, than being involved in play-acting.Much superior throught the game than the boorish villareal, we would have prefferd to take a much larger advantage to El Madrigal. But as TH14 said at the end of the game, its better to take a 1-0 lead away from home than 2-1.You can be sure of one thing though, they won't be playing as cynical at home.Hoping that the back 4 can go all the way to paris, that would be an awesome 10000 minutes of not conceding a goal.Until the next time then[to talk abt the last greatest primiership home game at highbury].
PS: It would just have been perfect if DB had prodded in TH crosspost header in the final minutes of the game.

The ice man cometh

2006-03-12T06:17:00.000-08:00

It was the day.........The D day. The first race of the season and what a race it was! First time in a long time 22 cars were on the grid, new teams new drivers and he only constant being Mclarens If-only's. kimi's problem halo continued to haunt him, but it was better that he got it over in the qualifying itself. And what a race he had. People say that the mclaren strategy worked out, but I tell you it was built entirely on kimi' performance . he had got through 4 cars at the first corner, another 3 at the end of the first lap and 22 cars by the end of the race. Quite the amazing driver he is.Anotheramazing driver i had to mention was rosberg. Did he look like a rookie, overtaking 3 cars in the last 4 laps with ultimate pinache. Guess who a certain NK should lean from. Just great stuff mate......... couldn't have asked for a better season opener. And I am not going to be a downer and talk about "what if mclaren hadn't had that problem".................... well then off to watch the big highbury match, need to get give a very warm welcome to the guests u see. [if u people haven't figured it out yet i am talking about the arsenal-liverpool match]. i will beback tomorrow with the 4-0 thrashing to explain.

the modern art of hunting

2006-02-27T05:14:00.000-08:00

Its the new beginning of another day and a brand new week, a fresh start to all the ambitions that u plan to match..................... until the end of the week comes and u really get to see how far ur ambition of becoming the next larry page or jimmy page is turning out. But hey, i got no complaints, this is what keeps me from banging my head against the desk everyday in frustration.

i recently tried to bring more activity into my life, so i went computer hunting. i had to, less my archaic computer started to feel the pressure of my intensive playing of solitaire. So i went about my hunt to find a suitable computer, so that i could play and do all the things that my friends rave about. i got to bring one fact to ur notice here, i remember 'hunting' for my first bicycle and recall that i spent no less than 5 hours on a dusty crowded road looking through 100's of cycles to find my perfect match. But now al the hunting i did was on the highway that is the internet. and it took me all of 45 min to browse through all the gazillion combinations to find my perfect PC. i have to say i came back empty handed from the 'super-highway', and i had been thinking choosing a cycle way difficult. But none the less those 45 min were very well spent. I got a whole spectre of knowledge, from how to connect a PC to the best prices in memphisand chow-chow land, i even got to know how to build a PC from scratch.

One of my friends recently bought a new mobile, after weeks of persuasion from all and sundry. His main intention was[or the lack of it] to buy a mobile that has all the essential features[like video, memory, mp3, radio and if possible a dvd burner] and whose 'lifetime' would be veeeeeery long and of course the price has to be GOOD................................and he thought he was confused! he should have tried buying a new computer with the above consraints. Its awefully difficult to buy a computer ..............
ill give u the details once u have tried it on ur own.
until i finish my hunting.
P.S by the way, ARSENAL LOST. holy ^%$&

just for me

2006-02-22T04:11:00.000-08:00

The following appeared as part of an annual report sent to stockholders by Olympic Foods, a processor of frozen foods.
"Over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. In color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3-by-5-inch print fell from 50 cents for five-day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one-day service in 1984. The same principle applies to the processing of food. And since Olympic Foods will soon celebrate its twenty-fifth birthday, we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximize profits." Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument,
what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

The memo that is issued is to the stockholders of the olympic foods, hence it would be safe to assume that all of them have a good understanding of the olympic foods. Based on this presumption, the argument takes its merit from anotehr industry.
This line of reasoning is weak in its roots. The companyt would have done well to put in an example with corelation to a topic in its own industry. Moreover the analogy drawn between the color film processing and the food industry may not be accurate. Another line of reasoning used in the argument that falls short is to rely on the fact about falling print prices over time. The fall in prices does not necesarily mean the reduction in costs, it very well may turn out to be that the external factors-raw materials and labour-forced these price changes. thus the weakness of the argument to rely on an unrelated topic comes to the forefront.
The argument would have been better if the subject of positives was more directed towards ths oragnisation itself. For instance the argument should have stressed on how it has learnt to do things better, and how it has been more efficient, than to generalise the argument to all the industries.The shareholders are more interested in the process of improvement of their own organisation and the performance of its own products.
The memo should have focussed more on its upswings, and quoted the succes of any of its products to indicate the change in market. Since the main aim of the memo is to highlight the 25 year of the company, which the above argument overlooks, it would have been better if the argument had some points highlighting the bright points its salient past.

the magic in europe

2006-02-22T04:08:00.000-08:00

*boik*
MADRID 0-1 ARSENAL.
*boik*
what a night.i am still not able to come to terms with myself or the performance of the team. one of the greatest wins, if not THE greatest, for us in europe.and to come at a time when there are so many peopl on our backs is truly amazing.
It was a perfect performance from all the players, but more importantly it was the perfection with which the team played that is awesome.just AWESOME. and the 'king' scored the goal of the season, reducing the galacticos to a very very meagre team.
it was worth the night out, even though i was seen dozing off at my desk by the boss.But hell, what does he know how it feels to conquer europe.
I am counting the 15 days off my fingers.........
gooooooooooooooners.

2006-02-20T04:45:00.000-08:00

well its a monday.......................
i didnt intend to convey anything, just wanted to get it out of my system. This is the most irritating day in a software engineers week,
unless of course you have a very pretty girl waiting with open arms at your desk. After slleping my way through the weekend, its time to get back to work [what i mean is to resign urself to the fact that a 21"screen is ur only window to the rest of the world].. Ok, so now that i have finished cribbing, let me start of with the purpose of writing this blog, which is........................................people who were expecting an answer should have first checked out the name of the blog first.
well chelski moved onto the next round, riding of course on abrahmovich's riches. and real madrid kicked manu off the top spot of the rich club list. Both pretty unspectacular news concerning footbal, perez getting all the cash into the boreroom but leading real FOOTBALL all the way into the gutter and of course what with chelski spending millions on developing 'cow-dung' pitches, sows how brave they are against the marauding catalans.Same time last year would have seen me write pages about the gooner machine, but now i have to be content with gaining sadistic pleasure from chelski's histronics.

SI edition

2006-02-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

its out, its out, its out.......................... well not the cat, but the annual sports illustarted swimsuite edition. check out this link http://sexmate.blogspot.com/2006/02/maria-sharapova-in-sports-illustrated.html
oh maria, oh maria when will u come home tonight!

What are advertisers thinking?

2006-02-18T21:03:00.000-08:00

The following was used as part of an internet advertising company's appeal to businesses: "Furniture Depot employed our internet advertising company to help. Since then its sales increased by 10% over last year's totals. Furniture Depot's success demonstrates how using our internet services can increase your profitability"

What were these people thinking? I can't believe the marketing guys at these companies get paid a gasoline dollars just to put up such insipid ads, and mind u I am talking about a very prominent services company.

Any ad, whether it represents a services firm or a development institute, should first give a very comprehensive insight into the company. It is what the consumers first relate to. The ad should be able to capture the imagination of its target audience, by this I don't mean an over the top campaign or an out of sight advertising, but just deliver the intended message to the target audience in the the simplest possible way.
Now come to think of this Ad quoted above. A first time reading doesn't even give us a vague picture of what it is promoting. Then you realize that it is supposed to be for a internet 'services company', but what services does it provide, it is related only to furniture depot's or all kinds of furniture manufacturers. It doesn't give an insight into the type of solutions it provides. In the melee of Ads that are bombarded on us every second, only a furniture depot owner would be interested in the services provided by the company.
The Ad should be eye catching, make everyone notice it and then deliver the message to the target audience. So instead of the usage of a specific furniture client, the ad could have broadened to include a host of companies. And then there is that banal argument about the increase in the company's sales by 10%. With all the tools that are available to measure a company's standings, the usage of increase in sales as a marketing ploy is pretty naive. The ad should more focus on how it helped the company in any way, say by attracting more clients, or by helping it cut back-end costs. The main argument about "increase in sales by 10%" hardly reflects upon the credentials of the services company, it more so adds "" to the furniture depot company. So a better argument would have been to say that the services company helped in turning around profits for a lot of companies...............
NOW, if u r still reading this, then u wud already have ackowledged the fact that I am never going to make it into marketing trying get more sadistic pleasure in reading a little mover into my analysis of the argument. Well enough is enough, but be reminded I am someday going to prove myself at this, and when that time comes.................I haven't yet thought about it.

And in other interesting news, Liverpool beat manure. Not that I am happy or sad about it, but since those red f!@#s beat arsenal in midweek I wud have gained some sadistic pleasure in seeing them lose.
just check out the Maria picks in the SI swimsuit edition, WHOA!

i beleive intoductions r in order

2006-02-18T08:41:00.000-08:00

well well well what do u know, i am bac after a sabbatical. hehehe.............
well not actually.
firstly let me say something abt myself, i am pradeep j reddy a true blue bangalorean[tryly beleive in 'mera desh mahan'] and of course a software engineer. i am just beginning to wonder how long bangalore will take to get back to normal, i mean if i say i am frm bangalore it is implicitly assumed that i am a s/w engineer. true it has been the hub,growth centre blah blah blah ....... fro the s/w and services sector, and i am dam proud of it, but for pete's sake[s thats right] that is not the only thing it has got. i certainly liked it when it was being called the GARDEN CITY. and coming bak to the job, i can very well be [well not literally] an ISRO engineer, An HAL employee, an IISc prof........ and so many elite things. but no, i have to be a software engineer[which i am] of course].
i sometimes get to wonder how this industry even survives, i mean all the people i know[except me of course] utilize only 30% of their time "working" and even a lesser percentage towards the GOALS of the company.[man i gotta learn typing faster].
and s coming back to me, as i said i am a software engineer and well um h uu u know involve in this and un well u know that....................
well bloody hell, i cant think of one qualification to add to my already existing illusttous cadre. So i AM bloody proud of being a software engineer. now anybody who is interested in mailing me can do so at gokickurselfinthebutt@yahoo.co.in or iamtotallyf@#$edup@itsme.com.
and pls dont mind the url, not able t othink abt any name for my illustruous yahoo account i came up with this brilliant stroke of genius, well now u intelligent people know my id, and i got stuck to it like gazillitron to the antigravitycarburator[all u HGTG fans will understand].
so thats me then, if u r reading this sentence apart from surfing for porn or sports or even blogging urself then i consider myself deeply privileged to have caused an irreversible chage in ur way of life.
hope to blog next time......
ARSENAL rocks, and MARIA sharapova on the rocks!