My Journey

Heights of commercializing and making profits out of your Mobile network ----> "Reach Out GOD with your Airtel Mobile" is a perfect example for it ..!
I mean, What the heck is this all about, You are watching a NEWS report, for the news reporter to conclude and then give her final conclusion on it, he wants us to SMS our opinions to the poll ..!, you are watching a reality show, to select the next dancer, actor, singer, you need to SMS whom to ditch or to select ..!, You then switch to sports, even here I need to SMS them and say who is gonna win/lose, and this one's crazy, "Has aishwarya done the right thing by choosing Abhishek..?" Even this needs to be SMSed..!!! Man, if all this weren't enough, Now even for an offering for GOD, I need to SMS...Someone stop this craziness..
The AD for it says "The offering amount goes completely to the temple, only the service charge is the SMS cost .." and now the story gets interesting, Airtel in the form of service-charge-only gets to rake in millions if Rupees..!, Even a poll to a NEWS channel is an avg 4Rs/- or 6Rs/- & just imagine, the whole nation comprising of millions of subscribers are participating in this..!! Even a samll % participation means BIG MOOLAH to the service provider...
Sometime back, my friend was telling me during my engineering days, that if you want to make money, then involve in these / start any of the 3 things :
They were:
School / Educational Institution
Bar (Family BAR and Restaurant ;) ) OR
a Temple ..!!!
Yes, a temple seems like is a big revenue-spinner, the only thing needed is that there needs to be lot of trivia and stories-of-miracles-associated-to-idol and there you are the next millionaire and your income is Tax-free too, what more can you ask for..?
and this new promotion of Airtel is a standing example for it....
This "commercializing-of-GOD" has to be stopped and people..!! please maintain at least this zone from the filthy material things...!!
GOD doesn't want us to reach in such "novel-and-techie" ways anyways...
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What do you say about this article ..?
SMS your views to 8888 , hahahahaha ...seems like its difficult stopping people, haan ;)

Is it that "Nobody will get everything he wants; we all must compromise" ..?
I seriously get irked off when people start compromising in bloody everything in their lives...!
You are in the middle of two extremes when you compromise..
Picture this `You set out buy a commodity and then you also enumerate the list with all the requirements you would want in that commodity. Now you set out for the purchase, and then there you find this 'other' commodity which doesn't have many of those you would want to see in the commodity you wanted to buy in the first place, but then it comes with a flashy-price-tag (dead cheap). So now you decide to go for it and buy it and then Live with it '...

I strongly believe in restricting one selves in compromising in everything and I get pissed off by those actions...!

So it was my colleague Mathew's turn now to "voluntarily join for Life" with another partner ;) and the place that was to happen was decided to be Kothamangalam, Kerala.
Seven of us set off from Bangalore to witness it through our own eyes and landed on Saturday morning in Kothamangalam and here's the list of events that happened thereafter....

After meeting the man (Mathew) and having breakfast at  his beautiful abode, we set off to the guest-house( all well-arranged by Mathew) and got ourselves freshened up..
Then we set off to the local sight-seeing & just when we were into the "Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary", the rain gods showered on us and we had come back...
We continued from there towards a small river in which we almost spent 2.5 hours trying to do all sorts of aquatic sports(!!)...people forming pyramids and then trying jump off it, it was fun-filled and refreshing
Then in the evening attended a small ceremony in Mathew's place where the priest visited his place and blessed the groom.
After dinner at his place, we set off to the guest house which was about to witness the "marathon-bluff" (played using cards)  game , we 7 of us and another 5 friends of mathew joined in and had nice amusement and a good pastime..highlight was me bluffing Satya 6-7 consecutively on-a-row :) and me winning the game eventually and I became the official "BluffMaster"...
Next morning we set off to the church where the marriage was set to happen, He is a  sirian-catholic and was my first time attending one, got to witness the ceremony which lasted for almost 2 hours, it was very well conducted with the choir singing in a very melodius manner and the priest(bishop) chanting prayers in between ...
After having a sumptuous meal and meeting some of my friends who had come from Kochi (my former colleagues) set off to guest house...
Ravindra and Sudeep had to leave as they had to report to work on Monday..
Five of us stayed back. We decided to catch up with a movie and we decided "DON"...I think I'll take up the reviews in the other post, all I can say is "It was like making mockery of the original filled with dumb-scenes" ...
The next day we decided to again visit "Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary" and do some trekking..!
The sanctuary is located in the thick forest. We hired a localite as guide and we set off with full energy, Just after treking for a KM, my body's sweat  glands decided to go in for a show !!!, I started sweating profusely and was shedding litres of waters in minutes and same was the case with Satya and Nikhil.
It was very exhausting and was very very steep and after about 8 kms, we were there..atop and were "on-top-of-the-world"...
The view that we could get was amazing...!, just to say...
Then we took a different trail down-hill and this time it was much easier for me, but you could always hear someone skidding and falling down as it was difficult to get a grip..We could spot a tree which was 400 year old (according to our guide), a tree which sheds blood (!!!) and lots of different species..what we couldn't spot were birds ( oh, common we were inside a Bird Sanctuary, for gods-sake...! )
Then we found a stream and that was the  thing we all needed , everybody immediately got into water and after spending about 30 minutes there, We all were totally refreshed and all our tiredness was vanished.
We were already running out of time and we had only an hour to pack-up and catch the bus, which we successfully did and reached Bangalore at 6:45 in the morning of Monday.
One trip in which I thoroughly enjoyed and was memorable...!
Here are some of the pics ( Coutesy: Sudeep's Fujifilm Finepix!!) which I managed to capture.

 

Got this as a mail attachment
{
The latest edition of Outlook magazine has an interesting article on jobs, which says –

"So, if you are working for an Infosys or a TCS, and you get married to a colleague, there's a marriage gift waiting for you. In TCS, it's Rs 1 lakh each for the husband and the wife with a foreign jaunt thrown in. In Infosys, it's a new B-segment car!"

The entire article is available at
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060424&fname=Jobs+%28F%29&sid=1&pn=2, as well as in the magazine itself. So, get your seat belts tight, there's goin' to be now a bloody war….for the cars…of course...who cares about the gal next cubicle…BEST OF LUCK
}

After a small stint and then going into oblivion !! Here I am ...:)

Noun: Resurrection

1. A revival from inactivity and disuse.

eg: " It produced a resurrection of HOPE "


Updation regularly expected ..!

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


Congratulations! If your mission in life
is not already to preserve the English tongue,
it should be. You can smell a grammatical
inaccuracy from fifty yards. Your speech is
revered by the underlings, though some may
blaspheme and call you a snob. They're just
jealous. Go out there and change the world.


How grammatically correct are you? (Revised with answer key)
brought to you by Quizilla

Jus happened to travel by BMTC to work today & that's when I noticed this ( see Pic below )

 

Pic Credit: My Mobile Phone !!!!

But then do people really care for whats been put up ?.It surely is annoying withe every other commuter's mobile Rrringing , But I guess banning mobile phones inside the bus will be a difficult move than banning smoking.

After complete wash-out of my first photo-shoot which I carried out at Omkar Hills, I decided to take the pics of the reliable "Sun". So I woke up as early as 5:30 in the morning ( It had been a loong time though ), & after waiting for nearly 45 minutes, teh clouds started clearing out & I was able to catch the beauty through my lens, though I was not able to get stunning pics,did manage to get some decent pics & I am contended :). Would like to have many more such photo-shoots....

Here are some samples ( Would like to post all of 'em some time, the download speed @ my end sucks ! )

And then I spotted this in my garden

 

 

PS: I Know that all these have to be cropped & may b enhanced a bit using PS / Gimp... but didnt hav much time :(

 

 

Its been years since I have updated my journal, so here's whats happening...

First it was time for me to change my mobile, I owned a Motorola E365.It was my first phone, though the phone was a "low-cost" "camera" phone, it suffered from many bugs. The phone was jus' takin years to open the msg inbox, very bad "not so-pleasing"UI, phone ring which even I cudnt hear at times!, but the only silver-lining was the camera, it was the best part of this low-cost phone.

And then when it came to select a new phone, again standing between MPX200 & V878, I went in for V878.( the decision, which I am repenting till-date :(  ), though the UI of this phone is "awesome", works at blazing speeds , loaded with lots of features, it lacks a Bluetooth or even an IR Tx capability !!, the camera comes with a camera fitted with "FLASH" which is rather useless, But the phone is very sleek though, the best part, "Its a ....flip....phone .: )  Thanks a ton to Avinash ( avinashn  ) coz of whom I got this 22k! phone at a take-away price.

And then my dream of buying a camera, yes! camera did come true....It was the call from  badikumar  on the evening of November 6th which made me think " Oh man! I think, if its not today, its not gonna happen anytime....", So even though I was short of cash, Badi did give in some ideas of how I can put my credit card"s" to best use. Immediately I left my place to meet badi at MG Rd, We were to spend roughly around two and half hours, So after making rounds to Whizz, then Chem camera city (Newly opened in Infantry rd, Gem Plaza building ) & then finally to G.K.Vale, that day I became a proud owner of Canon PowerShot A75 camera !!!!!. Its a 3.2MP, 3x optical zoom cam. Still RTFM & Exploring lot of options of the cam :)..Will definetely post the magic tht comes out of the Cam.

 

 

Guess enough of talk abt my cool gadgets?...

 

Ahh, Rathore has finally made it!! The shooter finished second in the final of the men's double-trap shooting event at the 28th Olympic Games in Athens today.This is Indias first individual silver ever at the Olympics !!.

 

Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat.Jus' finished reading this book which I had bought last Saturday.
This is one book that I actually enjoyed reading every page of it.
It is a story( fiction inspired by real life characters ?) of 3 IITans Hari,Ryan & Alok.How these 3 guys like any others enter into IIT after sloggin throughout their school days & thn how they mess up their lives in IIT by having a life apart from physics & Mechanics.The book is written with Hari as first person,he's a very simple guy who falls in love with Profs daughter!!Ryan, the character that is responsible for many events is the cool dude who wants to enjoy life to the fullest & always comes out with wierd stuff & crazy ideas & who tempts his 2 friends & finally ends up in a soup.Alok is another extreme who is poor,has lot of responsibilities on his shoulder.
Hari starts narrating this story with the ragging scene in the hostel,his friendship ties with Ryan & Alok, his views on both of them which keeps changing throughout the book! his love life with Profs daughter,exams,Vodka,suspension,research....
This book reminded me of my eventful school & college days, all the friends I had made during these days.Highs & Lows of relationships.
Chetan adresses the kind of stress the students go thru, child-parent relationships, friendship,academics v/s practical knowledge, GPAs deciding ones lives .....
So all three try to enjoy their lives to the fullest, cheating in exams( C2D), Vodka, Movies,Love,Arguments,skipping classes, suspension,.....

So will they be able to pull it through all this???Read it to know what happens

Got the WORLDSPACE satellite radio system last week , I went for the Celeste Vibe model, BPL make.
The best part is that it plays 'awesome' music 24 hours a day non-stop, and being DTH ( Direct to Home ) there are no ads on any
of the channels !! so its un-interrupted music that plays for you all the day, but it comes for a price though, the subsrciption charges is around 1200 bucks for a year !!
( But it was free when they launched it 3 years ago ).

( Tech Stuff )

Google is offering free download of Picasa!!
Its a photo-editing, viewing software with lots n lots o' features loaded into it.
It looks really neat.& by far the Best! image viewing s/w tht I hav come across.
I'm still exploring all of its features.
So is Google on its way to IM ?? We'll have to wait & see .

There is gonna be a LIVE! performance by "Bifocal Brothers" in our office's in-house Amphitheatre, Never heard about this band, Seems like they play a blend of Carnatic, Rock & Folk Music. The show is about to start. Will Update later about the performance.

"Haan Haan main yahaan symphony mein movie dekh rahan hoon, badiyaa hai ", yells the person sitting next to you. What the heck! , what did happen to all the civic sense. By the way the scenario is same in almost all the theatres I guess( atleast I have witnessed this in majority of movie halls in Bangalore ), did I tell you that people do come to movie halls with mobile phones to show off the latest ringtones that their gadget has downlaoded in its memory. Theatres screech "Turn off your mobiles".But no. Have mobile. Will use. Its really annoying when people do not turn-off or switch on to the "Vibration ( Meeting ) " mode ( or worse, do people really know that such a feature exists in their phone ? ) . I get to hear the latest bollywood numbers & msg alerts  frequently when I'm sitting inside the theatre. "Ok dude we'll catch that movie in Rex to-night " .....Not Again

Did catch up with the third installment of Harry Potter ( & the Prisoner of Azkaban ) on Friday with Ezzy & Ayan Pal. Those who have read the book & then see whats hapening in front of them, they'll surely be dissappointed. The geographies of Hogwarts too have been changed a lot in the third when compared to the last 2 movies. The 3 kids, now did I say kids? are no more kids & are growing up as the story moves forward.They have ditched the traditional black robes too that they used to wear all the time.I guess the book is too much to be able to fit in a 2 hour movie, the new director has tried to sensationalise only some parts of the book in the movie & many portions in the book have been removed. Then on Sunday thought of watching "Day after tommorow" at Innovative multiplex, but man it was not to be, tickets for only AAN ( ??? ) & HP-3 was available, so since Avinash(avinashn ) hadn't watched it, I finally agreed to watch it again! for the second time :( .Its monday & Its time to get back to work now !

Sigmund Freud says " Everything you and I do springs from 2 MOTIVES : The sex urge and the desire to be GREAT "

John Dewey puts it in this way , He says that the deepest urge in human nature is " The desire to be IMPORTANT "...

Well, I cannot deny these statements completely, So are we doing whatever we are doing just to be IMPORTANT ???

What do you want in LIFE ??

This is what rediff is offering now...
It has all the ODD news collected from all around the world & posted everyday,
you can EVEN subscribe to the ODD newsletter & to make sure u never miss-out your daily dose of bizzare stuff happening around the globe !

 

( ( excerpts... )  )

Last week saw the final day of my colleague , Jose ( jose_pt ) in Wipro. So the next thing to be done , Yup ! the Farewell party.We had it in  "Lemon Grass". Had a good chat with him.He'll be pursuing MBA in XLRI , Jamshedpur. We both met the very first day in Wipro & we both were late for the training session the very first day! & then finally ended up teamed up for the same project !. All the best to him in LIFE.
..........Now coming back to WoRk
The new project has kicked-off & now since I'm more than 6 months experienced ( !!! ) & its believed that I now know the entire design flow & also have the domain knowledge , which means that I have MORE responsibilities & this time I have been teamed up with Vikas, ( the bi-lingual guy  ; ), He can speak Japanese ) & we both are responsible for this entire project.
So its time to get back to the Lab and by the end of this project, who knows I might start speaking in Japanese ?.

In other news :
Jerry Yang (the co-founder of Yahoo! ) has sold 8 million ! shares.
and Schumi is back on track. ( Isn't this dominance making this game more boring than ever )