Drogba - The Real Match-Winner

That Brilliant Winner Against Everton By Drogba Magic At Its Best About 15 Yarder!

Photonic Textiles

Have anyone thought of towels, jerseys, drapes as a placeholder for intelligent systems. In the recent edition of RD, an article titled Power Dressing seems to be very appealing. It was a very good article about the next generation Photonic textiles.

Imagine in a country like ours, where we encounter the power shutdown problem so often, this kind of textile will be of great advantage. The researchers say this kind of textile can also be interactive. The most adverted example is having this system in the backpack with controls to play the desired song from the mp3 player. (Nice to have)

Let us wait for the arrival of this power dressing and definitely we can say "India Shining".

The Great Escape

Today we happened to see a wonderful sight during our usual short walk after lunch. One kite was crying for help with its leg got stuck in its victim's nest and hanging. Soon we saw two or three kites coming and keep pulling the sufferer from the nest. The effort from the kites resembles of a fighter plane's attack. Finally after 20 minutes of crusade the kite got freed.

Well deserved effort from the crusaders.

In search of god

On my recent visit to Tirumala, I went for the Archanantara Darsanam seva which starts at 4:30 am in the morning. The darshan of the lord was good and for longer period than my previous visit, the reason being they had put a wooden platform before entering the main shrine(Nice to have). Went to tiruchanoor(i missed out during my first visit) and the place was crowded because of brahmotsavam happening. The event was being telecasted in the giant digital display kept outside(A good arrangement).

We took up the package trip by aptdc and I can say that overall arrangement was quite good.

Bus journey - no more a pain

Bus journey always been a painful for me as most of the bus does not have ample leg space. However I had a chance to travel in a sleeper bus wherein I felt really comfortable. Though we do have to adjust in a twin-sharing berth(quite big), the journey was good . The only problem I faced was whenever the driver applied the brake suddenly or took a sharp turn; I was sliding all the way. Believe the bus journeys are not painful nowadays.

Two-wheeler parking

You may wonder why I'm talking about two-wheeler parking when parking now generally means for four-wheelers?.
Many people commuting by two-wheelers are now parking it with side-stand which takes up two bikes place. Earlier, the side-stand was an accessory and was made into the bike component since its easy to park in any emergency cases. However its not meant for long duration. But we poeple always park it with side-stand which eats up hella lot of space. Moreover, most of the people who ride two-wheeler doesn't have the sense of parking as they park in an angle which also results eatting of space. Will the highly educated Indian youth change their attitudes while parking the two-wheeler?.

Versatile Indian Cricket Team

The article in rediff, wherein Indian coach replied "He is doing a different role for us at the moment," when asked about Irfan's poor performance. Wondering whether Chapell is making a bowler to a batsman and vice-versa. I personally feel that over stressing Pathan on batting and bowling will affect his career and also gets him fitness problem. Let him concentrate more on bowling which helps our team. He has the batting skill naturally which he can exhibit when needed.

No Parking

Recently, I came across a sign board saying 'No parking' infront of ICICI bank which has left an ample space for parking. It also has an ATM. Wonder where people will park their two-wheelers. Earlier I have seen same kind of board infront of Shopper's stop in Bannerghatta road.

Will BDA or atleast the occupant of the building provide us an alternative parking space?

Intelligence in need

The PM's recent acceptance of Intelligence failure after the Malegaon blast is really ashame to the Indian Intelligence. This is not the first time the people in Delhi tells this. After every blasts in India, they came up with the same bloody excuse and what the hell they are doing there?. Have they taken any steps to improve our intelligency service. The bastards are fighting in scrimpy factors of votes and not concentrating in improving the indian Intelligence.

The vision of our great President of India 2020 will not be achieved without improving our intelligence in preventing these kind of blasts.

Superannuated offers

I'm using the Citibank Credit card for a year now and I noticed often about some promotions or offers they provide. Most of them would have been expired or outdated before the information reaches us. In some cases, only one or two days will remain to use it.

Could not understand what is the purpose of posting us the outdated promotions?.

Cola Vs Government

The article in Hindu, reignited the war between the colas and the Centre for Science and Environment. Earlier a year or so ago, when these people said colas in India (PepsiCo and Coke) were way away from BIS standards, a lot of voices aroused to ban them. However it didn't happen. Now after the new report, definitely there will be lot of voices to ban or to regulate them.

Personally I feel banning won't be the possible solution as these companies rains the government with lot of money. This issue will again slowdown in the pace and the politicians and other organisations will move to different issue.

Government should come up with very nonindulgent measure so that they (Cola) exists in the market and abide by the regulations of BIS.

House hunting.

Its quite a long time I blogged any of my thoughts and the break was because I had a week leisure before joining the new company.

Planning to move to a new house, I utilized this week for house-hunting. I spent this time with the real estate agent for a house and couldn't get any to match my expectations.

Sometimes back, I read an article saying the real estate price are going down in Bangalore which I feel is not true at least with the case of rented house.

Initially, I got a house however had a problem with the house-owner who refused to give either the rent receipt or the rent agreement, which left me with no other option than to move out.

Finally and luckily got a house which matches with my expectations after a month long hunt.

Do people losing their tolerance

The recent criticism that delayed the screening of the movie "The DaVinci Code", raised a lot of questions in me. India being a secular country, tried to satisfy the group of Christians and promised that it will make sure the film is not hurting their belief. However in most of the part, being accepted as a fictitious movie, the Christians here started demanding for "Disclaimer" and a certificate from the Sensor board.

Not only this is the case, lot of Tamil movies have fallen into the hands of critics (mostly politicians) who being backed up by some activities everywhere. What makes them to do this (limelight and always in focus from media perspective) or what they are gaining.

I feel these kind of politicians are gaining support from the people who are started losing their tolerance level. Why people are nodding to those vote-centric politicians and what makes them to lose the tolerance.

A real unsung hero

Today I received a mail talking about the blog by Swaroop. A real unsung hero and it was really nice to see that some educated people still do care about the society.

A visit to Planetarium

Last Sunday, I had been to Nehru Planetarium in Bangalore. This is my first visit to this kind of place and it was really astonishing. Telescopic views of Moon and Jupiter were mind-blowing. Then the show started off with the position of moon and other planets in the sky. They explained in a very lucid manner about the movement of moon and other celestial stars with respect to time.

It was a nice experience for me and I would like to visit it very regularly.

Ignorance

Today 6 of us (office friends) went to the restaurant "Bombay Post" for a treat. We asked for non-veg and veg platters (a starter - mixture of all delicious starters). When I saw the plate while serving, it was really shocking. The waiter said it was the bigger platter which will serve 6 people. We nearly wasted half of it. I got really frustrated with this kind of behaviour. Is that our problem for not asking how many people it will serve?. Prior to this, I haven't seen kind of "big" or "small" platter. A nice way to make money?.

Is this our fault of not asking about the servings or Is this their duty to ask if they have different varieties in the same dish.

Nearly 60% of our bill came from this dish, and of course the most important is we wasted half of that. Of course money doesn't matter here only the wastage.

do the restaurant take up this and explain the customers if they do have different varieties in that?.

Making the people fool

The fever of the assembly elections in Tamailnadu has made the politicians crazy. The election manifesto of every party promises lot of free stuff. They behave as if people are fools. One party is offering 10 kg of rice free per month, the other party is offering 2 acre of freeland, rice for 2 kg, free color TV and blah blah blah.

If they offer 2 acre of free land for all BPL families, they have to get the consent from the neighbouring states or they need to provide the land from the bay of bengal. What a statement to fool people.

EC please do something, to get rid off these crazy politicians, so that India would become the prosperous country.

Watching the watch

Recently, I have been suffering from a habit ie..having great fond towards the wristwatches. I do dream about owning the most stylish watches particularly the sports watches. (Is this any kind of mania..) Not sure what triggered me this.

I believe I will be having lot of friends who are suffering from the same habit.

Aftermath of Dr. Rajkumar's demise

Dr. Rajkumar undoubtably one of the legend of Indian Film industry died yesterday complaining of cardiac arrest. However, even he won't agree for what is happening after the news reached the public. All the shops but the Medical shops (kudos to his fans) are closed. I can see lot of people roaming around to get food for night as most of the shops are closed.

As the government announced a public holiday today, the eateries and the hotels are closed and again most of the people suffered a lot. It would be good if they allow hospitals, hotels and medical shops to remain open in the future so that no people wil suffer of basic needs.

GooglePage

Due to overwhelming response for the Google Page Creator, I got the invitation recently. And I have created my googlepage which is in its initial stage. Will try to add more content to it.

I have created an additional page wherein I put my favourite books.

Quotas & Reservations

As the business schools and IITs are raining money for the graduates, the announcement by the ministry of India came as a shockwaves for lot of executives. The reservation percent may be increased in IITs, IIMs and Central government run Institutions.

Will this affect the standards of the IIMs and the IITs ?. How this will be taken by the market and the companies. Why can't they provide reservations based on economy?. That will help the economically weak bright candidates will get the benefit.

I remember an incident happened in Uttar Pradesh some 4-5 years where a candidate who scored 2 marks in the entrance granted a medical seat as he was the only candidate applied under some quota.

We often cry about the brain drain, and if these conditions continue to prevail no one can help our country for better growth.

Traffic Again

The news article in Hindu today, talks about the pollution level in Bangalore. It doesn't come as a surprise for most of us who travel quite a long distance to their workplace. I can realise that minimum traveling time to my office has increased from 25 mins to 45 mins. (A quick quans here - as distance remains same and time increases what happens to the speed of the vehicle).

As I mentioned in one of my article, "Traffic traffic traffic"(Jan 2006) the news article says about the importance of mass public carriers.

Does the government act with agile?

One Month Fever

The world's favourite sport of Football again comes under limelight as the world is ready for the game feast of World Cup finals.

The world cup finals of 2002 started with a great shock when Senegal upset France to eliminate the holders&champions out of the tournament earlier in the event.

We can expect the same kind of upsets this time, however most of the teams seems to be very strong this time. England, Argentina, Brazil, Netherlands and of course Germany are in the list to win the Championship. Though not sure of Italy and Spain, they will also play an important role however they doesn't have the lady luck with them very often.

Missed Calls.

An article from Rediff, instigated me to write this blog. The missed call is nothing to save money I believe. I strongly believe that during this period of "India One", people doesn't think twice to make a call. People used this to communicate others to confirm on the pre-agreed stuff. Say example, one can give a missed call to his friend, once he reaches a meeting place or his office. This of course, reduce the network traffic ;-).

Sometimes, this makes people lazy. One can give the missed call to his friend, who doesn't need to key-in the number.

There are people who are not aware of this wonderful feature and make the caller angry by anxiously attending the call.

Ides of March

15th March, marked as Ides of March reminds everyone of the brutal bloody murder of Julius Caesar. Ides, which occur every month (marked by Full noon). For the months with 31 days, Ides occurs on 15th (except Jan and Dec) as per the Roman calendar. For the rest, it occurs on 13th.

However, Ides of March takes up the limelight after the murder of Julius Caesar. It is called as a day of infamy.

My interest in knowing "Ides of March" plays behind this posting.

Clash of Titans

The fifth one-dayer between SA and Australia was really a mind-blowing game. It showcased the determination, composure and killer-instinct of the south africans after letting the Australians to score a mammoth score of 434/4.

This was definitely an unrealistic game of cricket from both the teams. Ponting showing his sportmanship by declining the joint Man of the match and giving that to Gibbs as "he deserved it".

The character shown by SA really needs to be praised, and we can learn from it.

This remains me of a saying "Pressure makes coal a diamond".

The Emerging Mind

Presently, I am reading the book "The Emerging Mind" by Villayanur Ramachandran. Its all about our brain and its functionality and how it reacts/influences our activities.

The book starts with couple of experiments which was conducted by author along with his students clearly explained the perplexed human brain.

He also sketched a brief introduction of the brain parts and their basic functionality in a very lucid way, which helps lame people (like me) to understand about our own organ (Atleast I'm confident that I do have one).

One of the incident, where the patient couldn't remember his mother's face, however could remember her voice. Whenever his mother enters his room he shouts "You are an imposter". The author did his experiment with this person and explained it in a nice way (which I am not, here).

Another incident, a person whose arm was amputated still claims he is waving "Hi".

The book is really interesting and sure it will make you aware of what u have ;-) and how it behaves.

Phobia

Usually I am very fond of pet animals especially dogs, but recently I have a hunch that I am suffering from Cynophobia. Earlier I avoided to ride my two-wheeler in the roads where stray dogs are there. However in the recent times, I slow-down the vehicle's speed whenever I saw a dog in the street. This yields me a great result. Yes, I was not chased by the dogs.

Talking about the phobia, I could remember my grandpa who had Gatophobia, when I had cat as my pet. He told me that whatever you feed it, it always tries to tumble the kitchen utensils for milk.

Attention Educated people - Be a role model

Recently, I have been to Bangalore Central (a shopping mall) and after purchase I joined a queue for the express counter (the signboard tells "ONLY CASH" and "items less than 10"). The lady before me had morethan 15 items. :-( . I moved to next express counter, where a man was providing his credit card for the payment. I got really irritated as only the educated people, who are supposed to be role model doesn't follow the rule or instructions.

The person in the counter doesn't object to this. Why do they have a express counter ?.

Other day, I saw a man parking his car right next to the "No Parking" sign-board.

What does the education in India teach us ?. Do education meant only for earnings?.

I request the educated people to behave and be the role-model for the rest.

Air Vs Rail

The Railway budget presented by the Union Railway Minister, clearly showcases the healthy competition between the Rails and the Air.

Being time conscious people will opt for Air-route however the reduction in the fares of A/C and first-class tickets would see a rise of first-class, II A/C commuters.

Announcing new trains, the world's largest employer would definitely benefit the poeple of India.

Learning - No age bar

Today, I read an article in DeccanHerald about a 106-old lady who attended the computer learning centre in Kerala (Rosakutty.. If I remember correctly). An amazing interest from the lady. No wonder how Kerala has more literates.

Of course, whether its needed or not, but India needs these kind of killer-instinct people. If we can get these kind of attitude in our younger generations, definitely we have the answer for Rajakumar's question.

On bench

Most of the times, I was hearing from my friends saying "It's really boring" when they were on bench. I thought, on bench, would never be my part of work as all my IT experience are with product development company. However, as the sayings "Man proposes God disposes" my dream is hammered now. Being on bench for morethan 2 weeks now, I realize how difficult is to kill the time @ office after couple of acquisitions by the company where I work.

Other side of the coin

We, the people always curse the traffic policemen for all the traffic hiccups. However when I went out at noon, I can realise how difficult to work a whole day as a traffic police. They do suffer a lot to serve us. They are serving us all the days. True, the police and traffic police does serve us on holidays and weekends.

Often, I can see that we don't respect them in signals. we just override them. Today I saw a call-taxi cab not responding in the signal, when a constable signals to stop. This irritates the police and he asked the vehicle to take reverse till he goes behind the yellow line. I can understand clearly why the police behaved this way ?.

Definitely, they deserve some respect for their work. Let us give them respect and abide by the traffic rules and help them out in regularise traffic.

Proud to be an Indian ?

The recent controversy of Mittal's bid to Arcelor, rose a lot of speculation among the Indians and the media. Even his interview with one of the news channel he admitted about the racism. Is this being blown out of proportion by the media. Can't believe it?. But I feel its happening to Indians.

But to the contrary, the French government says the bid by Mittal doesn't project any plans for the future or the industrial growth but merely on financial basis, which makes them to think twice. Chirac also says that they are worried about the future of their employees.

Do Indian Govt also look into those issues, whenever there was a takeover by Foreign companies here ?.

Unwanted survey

The Indian government committee seeking the information about the number of Muslims in Indian Army seems to be an unworthy exercise. Are they planning to introduce the reservations in Indian army ?. I strongly believe working for Indian army is a service rather than a job. Will other community remain in silence after this exercise?. Why these Indian politicians always keep running behind the so called 'vote banks'. Reservations at other central government job really helps them, however its not good at Indian army.

Will this survey help our army in any improvisation ?.

Customer hostile

Two days back I had an undesirable experience with one of the big (so called) travels KPN travels. I booked a ticket to my native place wherein I was told to report at 2:45 pm and the departure time at 3 pm. Reconfirming the same with the clerk, I asked my friend to arrive there by 2:45 pm.

We were taken to Bommanahalli, where we have to board of. There we were told that the actual timing was 3:45 pm (@Bommanahalli). We lost our patience by this time.

On asking why you asked us to report by 2:45, we didn't get a proper reply from them.

As we don't want to wait for an hour, we asked the clerk to cancel this ticket and book it in an earlier bus to the same place.

Here lies the actual funny part, he said "no cancellation". Why ?... because recently they started the computerised booking which doesn't offer the cancellation procedure.

What a wonder ?. A software engineer now a victim of software... Really a painful experience.

This is really atrocious as the clerk wasn't really customer friendly and doesn't bother to answer any questions, moreover not ready to cancel the tickets. (blaming on software)

Not really sure when India will rise up to the really customer driven culture.

Traffic traffic traffic

Grab anyone going beside you in the road at Bangalore, and ask him what is the major problem he is facing and yes you are right. I can realize of traffic in B'lore. When I joined my new company, it took maximum of 35 mins to reach office. However in recent days, these timings have gone up to reach minimum of 45 mins for me.

Relocating to the closeby areas won't solve the problem too. If companies adher to the concept of car-pooling and if the govertment sketches a rule where the mass public carriers are treated with importance (of course, they need to provide good mass public carriers) , the mentioned scenario may go down.

If government comes up with a plan for a trial, I believe they will get good support from the public.

Increasing Tolerance Level.

This weekend we made our life miserable by watching movies 'Aathi' and 'Paramasivan'. Though we couldn't hear anything good about these movies, we want to test our tolerance level. Surprisingly, the tolerance level has increased tremendously as we watched both the movies till the climax.

Both the movies possess a lot of similarities in the way targeting the audience as victims of the fully faltoo (fault) movies.

Lot of violence, sense of no-logic, no continuation in the flow of movie and the most was the re-recording. I think the music director wasn't satisfied with what he was paid. It was so annoying that he should stop scoring music only to the songs henceforth.

I believe these movies get a box-office hit only by comparison. We feel that the movie we watched first was better than the second.

Do we bother about our rightfullness

In this consumer oriented world as so called, that it happened to me and may happen to anyone else who bothers about their rightfulness.

I happened to visit Shopper's Stop, Bannerghatta Road branch in Bangalore on Sunday for purchase ;-) . When I entered the security told that there is a parking fee which will be re-imbursed on purchasing any goods in Shopper's Stop.

On billing, when I handover the receipt to the cashier, he said the parking fee will be reimbursed only for the First-Citizen card holders.( This is a privileged group of people, of Course not a frequent buyer from SS). You need to pay Rs. 150/= to become a privileged customer.

When I asked the Customer care Executive there, the way he answered was really absurd and not really customer-friendly.

I asked the executive that it wasn't good to distinguish or reimburse the person who became a privileged one by paying Rs. 150/=. He said it was the rule in SS and if you want to go by that come here or else.. and he took the money to give us. I even suggested to them saying you can give the privileged card to consumer who buys for Rs1500 or more at a time or so. I even sited an example where another retailer (Bangalore Central) reimbursed the parking fee if you buy something.

Its fine if you are not reimbursing the customers who aren't buying. But why for a buying customer but not a privileged customer.

Not sure why our public are not really bothered to raise issues like this, as this is an illegal way of money making. Either pay Rs.150/= to get your parking fee reimbursed or pay the parking fee. Is this a correct way to make the customer pay you?.

I think our socienty needs to be educated on these kind of issues or the governmend should take proper action against these kind of money making?.

how can we create a public awareness on these things. ?

Think tanks

Recently one of my roommate misplaced the TV remote and for the whole day we were searching for it. During that period, we the think-tanks in our house came up with a new brilliant ;-) idea for locating the remote.

The idea is we need to have a facility (a button) in the TV so that on press it, the remote should "beep" which helps us to locate it. We are even thinking of patent this great innovative feature in TV.

Clemenceau controversy

The decommissioning of the French warship "Clemenceau" and the dismantling of it arised a lot of controversies around the world. After the countries like Turkey and Greece declined the work of dismantling, the ship now travelling towards Alang port India and eagerly waiting for the decision from the SC. The PIL was filed by the environment lovers claiming that the warship carried over 45 tonnes of Asbestos which will affect the environment. Waiting for the SC decision, though the ship was not allowed to enter India's zone till Feb 13, 2006.

If the SC allows for it to be dismantled in India, it has to make sure that the labours working there should be provided with all kind of preventive measures like gloves, mask which I feel is more important and the wastes are cleared appropriately so that it would disturb the environment.

Insipid match of Cricket

The ongoing test match between the Arch rivals India versus Pakistan at Gaddaffi Stadium, Lahore fails to make the test a thriller one. As the pitch is going from worse to worst in offering nothing to the bowler, I suppose team can ask there non-regular bowlers to bowl so that they won't dash the hopes of the regular bowlers. Maybe a reason to attract more crowd, as the run-scoring becomes a more exciting in modern-cricket. But this really makes the whole series unexciting. Let us hope for the good pitch and good game of cricket in the forthcoming matches.

Ground-breaking cars

Honda, the japanese car maker started making cars of brain-storming fuel- cell technology and the model of FCX is really amazing. Definitely a great technology, it will help in controlling the atmospheric pollution. Believe a lot of improvement will happen to make this a success.

New Year Celeb

My new year celebration of 2006 was elated because after a long time I had couple of my college friends in Bangalore. Though we didn't roam around much, we spent time in the house, chatting talking & reminiscing of our college days.
It was really a very good new year celeb, though I missed out a dinner-out with my roommates.

Flash Player

Last week I got Creative Zen Nano Plus as a gift from my friend. I was very amused of the features it provides and also the sound quality. Though I haven't used much of it features, its mp3 encoding from any audio source is really mind-blowing. The audio quality is really good. Will post my reviews of the same once I use all the features. Even the quality of FM receiver is fine when used during travelling.