Leaving your word docs open too long...

When I was a kid I remember my mother used to scold me if I left my textbook open and went to bed. She explained that if you keep your textbooks open for too long Lady Saraswathi would punish you for this.

For the curious lot: Lord Saraswathi is the Goddess of Wealth and Knowledge in the Hindu religion. So those days I figured She might not like it if I left the books open. Although I never really understood the actual reason behind it, I used to think this and dutifully close my books and go to bed.

Nowadays I have to say that the times have changed a lot. Today when I logged-in to my onsite machine and upon noticing so many open applications in the taskbar (pending work) I also seemed to notice a few RQSDs (Requirement Specification Documents) opened in MS Word and went...OMG!!!

The bar stupefaction

I’ve been in and out of bars several times before with friends. However don’t mistake me for an alcoholic. I don’t frequent to bars that much. And frankly people won’t ask me to booze because, well, lets face it, I look like someone who gets stoned easily. And if that happens that’s half their fun-time wasted on me!

But one fine evening an old school friend who had been to Chennai suddenly asks me over the phone:

dude where is a good bar in town?

The feeling was like googling. You typed in a query and got entries. This is analogous to the fact that I have visited several public bars before. But the search results I’d clicked on led me to only blank pages – this is analogous to me, after all these years in Chennai, and having been in and out of bars, didn’t know where to find one!

Well, this was a bit embarrassing. Not knowing how to find a bar, but acknowledging the fact that I’ve been to many bars, the best thing that hit my mind was: to call a friend who took me to a bar for the first time.

I don’t mean to purposefully allude to this but the ‘first-time at anything’ can be useful to get you through very peculiar situations sometimes.

R.A Puram

For those who have lived far away from home, trying to make a life out in another city, there is always the very first time you've ever done so. Getting used to the town, the people, what they speak, the names of various places, etc are all part of the package of being young, & 'lost' in another town. And thats how my first few months in Allsec went about.

I heard of a place called R.A Puram for the first time, when I was in training in Allsec. They have another branch in R.A Puram. Sometimes a new batch of trainees go there to attend training. There were a couple of mallu folks I was friends with. Most of the then were comfortable speaking & understanding Tamil and had been in Chennai more than I have. But as the evaluation day just got over, some of them didn't have enough scores to make it through. Some people I know left the job because of better opportunities else where. The others went to re-training to R.A Puram.

So one in that small group (of people I knew) was trying to keep in touch one day. That person was not in Allsec at the time. He was enquiring about another friend who was in re-training. I texted him something in the lines of: yeah he is in R.A Puram for retraining.

But what I actually typed was:

yeah he is in aaraepuram for retraining

The friend I was texting to never bothered to correct me. I am guessing he figured out where exactly that place was, or he must have thought it was a new town in Chennai.

And I later learn about this mistake, in the most astonishing fashion ever. I was probably on a 21L bus heading to Guindy/Velachery (don't remember). I was probably travelling through Adayar. I just took my nokia 6021 out of my pocket, just to know which locality I was in, and read:

R.A PURAM

Those stupid 1st time things

Ever since tht bus trip bck 2 chen frm calicut (last dec - t 1st f the unofficial lonely wandrer.com series) things hve changed. At least I keep chanting, no matter wht happens: "Life is a celebration; a bizzare inspiration"
Last nyt i ws watching t movie "resident evil - afterlife 3d". Somewher in t mov i just realized tht my ph ws in outdoor mode. I happily took t ph out f my pocket, set it 2 silent, n then slid it bck into my pocket, n went bck 2 watch t movie.
Then i realized tht i ws lukin @ my ph wearin 3d glasses!
I took my ph out and took a gud luk @ it again.

Turtles

A fun episode I recall in my life was those initial training days at Allsec. We were doing accent training. And you've probably already heard how these things go. Everything thing is 'American'. You've to learn something about their culture everyday. We were doing a fun session one day - dumb charades - on American movie title's. Its usually played with two teams. A team thinks of a movie title, and picks a target from the opponent team. The person from the other team has to enact it in front of his/her team until they figure the movie.

This activity is really fun. The only sad part was, that day most people were only getting to know what dumb charades were - they were being 'trained'. (Sigh). So, my trainer was the one who enacted a movie she thought of. There were several teams in this case; and I belonged to a team way back in the last seat.

Most of the people there were not exposed to this 'american movie culture'. Hence they were slow at figuring out movie names. But there were a few who were quick at it too. The trainer, took a bit of a pause trying to figure out what to enact next. She began; she hinted the title contains 4 words. She was going to enact the 4th one. She put her hands one above the other, and started moving her thumbs. She was trying to convey its a fish; she was hoping people would figure out the word 'turtle' eventually.

I began to think:

Fish?...Do I know a movie with a "fish" in it?

Then someone accidentally spurted 'turtle'. By now, I thought, damn, any one could have guessed this by now. The excitement in the trainer's eyes was proof enough.

I laid back. The trainer was actually enacting it to some other team if I remember correctly. It seemed to me that they'd pass.

And they did.

Still no one could figure.

She started doing the "fish" again. She couldn't speak; it was how the game had to be played.

I finally did it. I shouted TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

Dead silence in the room. Everyone turned their heads towards my direction. Everyone was probably thinking how can he guess that movie from a "fish"? Someone posted a doubt quietly: did he go to college or the cinema theatre for graduation?

I on the other hand wondered how was she going to enact the word 'mutant'? - She was still standing there, surprised, doing the fish...

Damn, I could have had more fun! :)

A Trip to Hill Top

I did my 9th & 10th std frm hill top public school, puthiyara, calicut. V were on our way bck 2day frm our classmate jamshad's marriage; en route to my plc, i suddenly thot, 'hey y don't give our school a visit?'
V went up the small 'hill' tht leads 2 t school's entrance. Found tht ther ws no lock on t gates. Opened it, took our car inside. Got out of t car n headed straight to t basket ball court.
At t bck f our head v knew all f this ws illegal n v cud hve gt sacked big time fr this...but tis ws a common activity v used to do while v were doing school ther - barge in2 t school on sundays!!!
All v evr wanted 2 do ws taken some pics w/ t cam, visit n then leave.
V were just getting started w/ our photo session vn t security guard appeared. V politely told him hu v were n wht we intended to do. He ws adamnt. Told us v r nt supposed to do such things her. After several retries v thot it ws best v let him do his job.
V had already taken sum photos. Aftr he told us nt to v bluntly said 'oh no v hve 2 delete those photos immediately'.
V decided v close the gates b4 we went down. So 1 of my frnds went to the gate. We kinda started t car, n approached him.
Our frnd started yelling at us...'don't u knw 2 day is sunday, n no 1 is supposed to take photos here. DELETE ALL THOSE PHOTOS I SAY'. Don't knw wht t guard felt. Mayb t nxt time v c him v'll send him a sorry card, probably even a bottle f rum.
Altho v knw its illegal, if he hadn't shown up, v wud hve had an awesome nostalgic evening.

center of attention

Last evening I was walking through crowded streets for some shopping. It was sometime long after sunset. I was getting tired of carrying my helmet with my hands. So I just put it over my head such that it exposed my face. So picture this - me in black jeans, black round neck shirt, and a black helmet sitting on top of my head. The only thing not black were my shoes. (Even my socks were black)! I removed my glasses and let it hang on the neck of my shirt. It was kind of disturbing me because of how I wore my helmet. My friend didn't notice me wearing the helmet at first; and then, when he saw it he couldn't help smiling. It won't be difficult to find you in this crowd he said.

I didn't mind the occasional stare I got from people. What was important at the moment was they noticed me and let me pass. They noticed my head and sometimes even stopped to take a good look at it. But people who enjoyed it the most were the women. I noticed a woman was walking through the crowd speaking on the mobile. Her eye sockets weren't so distant. She had a huge head. I could notice from the distant her pupils were transfixed onto my helmet, and she carried a smile. She was probably on her way back home after work. And, when she passed me, she gave a light, playful, knock on the helmet.

I noticed a lot of smiles from a lot of woman that day. Most of the smiles I got made me assume that they thought I was young and crazy. Kinda realized, what the heck, its not something they see everyday. However I remember the last smile I got. This woman was probably 30-something. She looked kinda in a hurry. I was just ascending up the stairs and almost jumped into her path. She looked at me, smiled and bobbed her head in approval. Yeah! She realized what I was up to...and so I smiled at her back.

I was just celebrating life...

The Con-Call Excitement

I participate in a lot of conference calls as part of our work. Coming from a BPO where I had actually been an agent talking to customers in the US, I know there are some etiquettes you have to follow on call. Because its a telephone conversation, and the other person is more probable to cut you off if you break those etiquettes, I tend to stick to them like they are my ten commandments or something. And American people (not to sound racial in anyway) are 'hard' to keep engaged in a telephone conversation.

Well, this post definitely ain't about America or its people. We have a project manager (Indian) who works abroad interacts with the client, gathers requirements, clarifies our queries to those requirements, etc. This person stays with his wife and child in US and has been doing so for the past 3 years. One day we were trying to reach this person. My team mate (a female around my age and my senior) and our team leader who sits in the adjacent bay to where my team mate sits were involved in this conversation. The project manager lives on a different time zone. So when we call it'd be usually be 9 or 10 pm their time.

My team leader wasn't exactly with us when we were about to make the call. He was busy sitting in his bay and doing his work. My team mate called the reception and asked them to dial our project manager in the US. The call went through. The phone rang. A lady's voice went "Hello". This was our manager's wife. Now look at this conversation from his wife's perspective. Its almost 11pm in the night. Her husband has gone out for getting some medicines (I believe) for their son. The phone rings. She attends and says "Hello"...a lady's voice from the other end says "Hello...uh...Subbu??!"

Subbu is our manager's nickname. We don't even know if his wife calls him by this name. (Perhaps she might refer to her husband as someone more elderly and call him with respect). She was silent for a while. My team mate and I were staring at the phone. Suddenly even my team leader joined in to experience the telephonic drama about to unfold. I guess my team leader and I was excited about Subbu's wife going to explode and give my team mate a nice lesson. But the wife didn't do that. She said her husband has gone out to get medicines. Team mate asked when can we callback; the wife replied, after half-an-hour. And then that conversation ended.

I looked at my team mate, and said 'Thank God she was Indian. She was kind and at least she understands!!! But if the wife was an American woman, she would have given you nicely over the phone". To this we all ended up laughing.

Yet another indian railway passenger reservation enquiry site...

This sounds "usual". There are probably many sites out there which do the same thing...hence no surprise. However I couldn't find one that was designed for mobile phones; so I went and built one!

And it ain't all that great. In fact it shares a very simple relationship with the actual site. When the actual site is down, my application might be down too :(

Sure as glad that I didn't get the opportunity to go ahead and design the actual Indian Railways Passenger Reservation Enquiry site. Else for every "network connectivity failure" I don't know from which direction I might get incoming...

This application will not run on all mobile browsers. It should work on those phone browsers that has some special capabilities . But I am thinking of extending support to those unprivileged phones.

The url to the application is:
http://deostroll.appspot.com/pnr

Clicking on the title of this post should directly take you there directly. (Yes, it will run in your ordinary browser, but I'll warn you it won't look all that good). I'll pray it looks good on your phone though. I encourage comments if you've got ideas to make it look better.

I enjoyed the exercise though. It did fascinate me to think like a mobile web developer for a while

In order to prevent spam I've decided to moderate comments. Commenting won't be the same...but this shouldn't discourage you in anyway I hope. Please do comment till your hearts content! Just don't spam. I hate to say this, but Google isn't the only thing the Chinese annoy these days. :) (Wasn't sounding racial there). Take care.

The unofficial lonelywanderer.com adventures: the kid, professor and me

Well the last journey I had back to chennai was a sort-of planned one; so there wasn't a lot of things happening. Just the usual stuff, and the usual “small” things. Else this post would have had to run into an even bigger mega series again. But I guess the length of this post kind of compensates the need for running this into a series. Like before this post is again not related to the actual site. The characters in this post are real, just like any ordinary passengers you'd meet while on a long journey. I don't know the names of the passengers involved in this narration, nor do I have that strange policy of just getting to know all the passengers in the train just for the heck of it. Reality check: I was a passenger too!

By writing this post I don't mean to mock what other people (I am familiar with or otherwise) firmly believe in. I also want to let my readers know that I don't usually judge other people this way.

Train No. 2696. The most arduous thing I recall about the last journey was the chilly night. I just wore a tshirt. Somewhere in the night I had to wake up, pull out a used shirt out of my bag, and wear it over my tshirt. And in spite of doing so I have contracted an elegant cold.

The next morning I was quite lazy to wake up. But I did anyway. Couldn't go back to sleep anyhow. So I sat with my legs crossed in the upper berth and began to read. Below in the side berth a cute girl, probably in her early twenties or something, was playing with what seemed like her nephew; or it could even have been her little cousin. I didn't care. There was a slightly elder looking woman sitting opposite to her and the kid; this would have to obviously be the kid's mother. After reading for some time, I decided to brush my teeth and opened my bag to take the brush and paste out. I noticed a lean woman wearing a blue churidar, again probably in her twenties, reading a book. She looked as though she was of some late Maharashtrian descent. I was searching for the damn tooth brush and looked into my bag. And on finding it, I looked below again; this time she was reading another smaller book. It probably had something written in sanskrith or hindi. But from the upper berth it looked like chinese. It really didn't matter.

After freshening up a bit, I returned to my place. I decided I'd sit in the berth like how passengers normally do on a day-time journey. On the lower berth, below which I had rested for the prev night, were seated three men. One looked slightly elderly than the other two. The other two were probably in their mid 30s. There was a fair & slightly plump bespectacled lady wearing a yellow churidar; she sat in the same berth the lean lady had, on the opposite berth; so the men and these two ladies were facing each other. The stout lady was sitting at the edge of the seat; the lean lady was seated next to the window. There was space for one person to sit in between. I reached for my bag, put the brush back into it, and kinda expected the stout lady to huddle close to the lean one - you know the saying birds of the same feather huddle together. The stout one looked stone cold. She didn't budge. I thought: Well, this one must have evolved. And so I had to occupy the space in between.

I looked over to the side berth to catch the cute girl and the kid playing. Was even expecting the girl to be even more naughtier than the kid. But she was quiet, calm, cute, yet playful, and damn good looking! I envied the kid for a while. That little chap was so lucky I guess. But I thought she'd probably already be in a relationship. Why else should she be so radiant and good looking?! And even if I were in some strange fantasy relationship with the girl I can't imagine the length of horror scenes I'd have to face. And if God directed a movie based on this relationship he'd probably want to give it another silly lunar title: Black Moon. And then the makers of the Scary Movie series would eventually mock it and probably even call it Funny Moon.

Then I seemed to notice a conversation was going on beside me. Eaves dropping would not be the technical term to call it; I was being subjected to listen to it. Each time I look the other way the conversation goes another way. Apparently the first book the lean one was reading was written by Sri Mata Amritananadamayi (aka Amma). I noticed her photo on the book. The person the lean lady was having conversation with was the old man, eldest of the three men seated opposite beside the window. He spoke highly of the book and what was written in it. What caught my attention was the topic: these people were discussing about farming. I didn't get the connection.

The old man went on to explain how modern methods of agriculture actually degrade the quality of our fruits and vegetables. The lean lady seemed to be intently engrossed with this topic. I was wondering why would Amma write about farming; I thought she was a spiritual leader. She should talk more about spirituality. Then the old man went on to explain that the use of pesticides and fertilizers destroys the natural order of things; the earth is bound to react one day to this. The lady seemed to concord; she even tried giving a corroboration. She said, the earth is already reacting! Every month you can see some calamity somewhere on earth. This conversation was getting highly illogical to follow.

The lean one was a conversationist. The old man had told her that he owned a piece of land and cultivates some crops there. He only uses cow dung and bone powder for manure. No pesticides. No artificial fertilizers. The poor man's flow of English was broken, but his points were coercive; convincing. The lady beside me asked him about crops the old man cultivated on his stretch of land. He said a lot of things. His dialog suddenly changed into fruits he cultivated. The lady also intently joined in saying she always had problems eating fruits like mangoes or pineapples which she purchased from the shops because of the pesticides. The conversation went on and on. I was getting a little tired; the allergy pangs were rising and falling. I was holding the hanky to my nose and trying to breathe through it.

I noticed the kid was playing quietly now. He was totally external to this conversation. The people next to me also showed gestures at times as they found parts of the conversation interesting. Suddenly as the old man was talking about his cultivation he said loudly and defiantly, I don't sell my crops to any one. If they want my crops they'd have to pay me high. I cannot give you quantity, but I'll give you quality, but at no point I'd give you poison!

Everyone's attention was focused at him for a while. Even the cute girl who was shuffling in her seat and who was totally disengaged from this conversation looked at him. The two other men sitting in front of me looked at each other. Their eyes kept rolling around in their sockets as if the part of their berth in which the old man was seated was about to get violently torn off or something. I noticed the stout lady beside me was holding her mobile phone; she kept staring at it from time to time. Wanted to ask the stout lady if she had some music in her phone, and headsets to accompany with it. For me, it didn't even matter the choice of music she might have had. I would have listened to Carnatic music too if that was the only go.

It was quiet for a little while. The lean lady offered to ask the publishers to send the old man a copy in his regional language. It seems she had connections with many swamijis and all. The lean lady and the man got to know each other better. This was when I learned that the old man was a professor. The lean lady worked in Citi Bank. Her name was Minu, I think. She claims she was settled in Chennai. But her lineage doesn't seem to suggest it however. The old man talks about his wife and son. He says the wife is staying in Idukki. She always had health problems because of eating fish and meat. The son too followed his mother's suit. However this old man kept to his ways; he was a staunch vegetarian who got his vegetables from his own land. He kept saying all these things about our teeth, intestines, etc were not designed to eat meat. He later went on to saying that we don't need Veterinary hospitals. We domesticate the animals. Had they been in the wild they'd know what to do if they fell sick. Now they don't know what to do. Time and again he had some valid points we could all debate about. But time and again he'd conclude it with some stupid pompous remark.

The train was nearing the Chennai central railway station. I think at the time we halted at basin bridge junction. And now the train slowly started to move forward. The kid grew more active all of a sudden. His entertainer was on the phone. He happily and boisterously kept repeating whatever she said over the phone. She was probably talking to her uncle. She couldn't stop with her laughter, and the kid's antics. The little kid stood on the seat, stooped near to her face and shouted everything the girl said into the phone. She was trying to shield the kid, but he stood pretty strong and shouted happily. And then finally she hung up on the call, and started to fight with the kid.

The train was a few kilometers away from the Central Station. The lean lady beside me started getting ready for the arrival. She took out her only bag from underneath. The old man asks, only one bag?! This woman was travelling alone. It was as if the old man was expecting a whole family of baggages, and instead found only one. He then pats his own baggage. It was a linen bag (we traditionally call sanji), and it was packed. He said, do you know whats in my bag? He seemed to be very excited about telling this. I am carrying 1 kg pepper, and 3 kg of green tea!

I instantly looked at the kid dispassionately. I envied him deeply now. The professor has 1 kg of pepper, and 3 kgs of green tea; you are lucky kid, 'cause you don't even give a damn and finally happen to listen to this.

I don't want to dampen the old man's spirit. In fact I respect his ideologies. I would have even chipped in a few points had there been a few more people who willingly sort to participate in this conversation. It was not just farming they talked about. They talked about history, the Spice Route, how pepper was discovered, how the egyptians actually built the pyramids; they touched a lot of things like this. At one point of time I did want to relate to all of this. Heck, imagine if everyone were talking, and then the kid suddenly spoke about global warming, wouldn't you want to say something too?!

My roomate, corn flakes & the min swipe amt comedy

One evening me and my room mate (Libin) stopped by at Spencer's Daily, Velachery. He wanted to buy Cornflakes! He never knew what Cornflakes was until about a few weeks back. That was when I decided to have Cornflakes for breakfast before going to work. This wasn't my idea of an ultimate breakfast however, so when the pack of Cornflakes I bought got exhausted I never bothered buy one again...

But my roomy was convinced that this was an ultimate breakfast solution. After my pack of cornflakes got over he brought a new one; and started having it for breakfast each morning after he'd come back from work. I thought well, nice that he actually loves it. He'd pour half litre milk in a 1 litre mug; saturate it with the flakes to give you the illusion that there aint no milk at all! And then he'd spoon into it as if he's literally trying to fish the cornflakes out. Everthing until this point is watchable, until the spoon goes into his mouth; its like a sad nirvana, you don't want to know! But at least he enjoys it.

Today was the day he decided he replenish his stock of cornflakes. So we were at spencers to buy the only thing - Kellog's Cornflakes. It was probably about 7.30 pm in the evening. People were listlessly waiting for their turn to pay in the queue. My roomate also joined this queue. I went and stood afar. It was when I observed the queue from that position that I remembered a strange quote: if you think God doesn't have fun, just look at people waiting...

I wasn't actually laughing out loud per se. I was thinking to myself: we are such a mess and sometimes we don't even know we actually enjoy all of it.

My roomate reached the end of the queue. He waved out to me. Seemed like it was a matter of having no money. He wasn't sure he could purchase the pack of cornflakes with just the debit card: your purchases should total a min of Rs. 150/- if you want to swipe your card. He looked clueless. I went behind the cashier and politely enquired about the min amount to swipe in. She confirmed it was Rs. 150/-.

The cornflakes costed around Rs. 125/-. Damn, he thought. I just gave him a gesture of confusion out of realizing something, and told him that was what the two ice creams were for...He forgot about them. Before I broke off from the queue, I thought, why not an ice cream; picked up two moderately expensive cone ice creams, and gave it to my roomate. He happily received it and kept it in the basket beside the cornflakes.

He scanned the price on one of the ice creams and looked amused. Hell, even I was amused; I never thought about the minimum amount you had to swipe for...I just thought about having an ice cream. And incidentally this was what saved him from the immediate embarassment that was to come.

Class Notes on the History of Accounting - MS Word

Class One

Class Two

Class Three

Why he fainted...

Firstly I would like to openly congratulate my friend and colleague, thalaivar, R.Karthikeyan and his wife; his wife just gave birth to a healthy baby boy last week.

Now here is a small drama I am writing to probe my writing skills. The main character (or protagonist) in this story is real. Though the whole story ain't true, parts of it are actually fact. So here goes:

Prelude: 8.30 am. Our Hero is hurridely going to the hospital...

Scene 1: Trichy. Hospital. 9.05 am. Nurse's station. R.k is roaming about tensed. Nurse enter's the scene and occupies the desk.

R.K: Is the baby out yet?
Nurse: No.

The poor nurse began to recall how his wife was struggling earlier with the contractions two minutes apart and all. The nurse looked at R.k.

Nurse: Is this her first child?
R.K: NO this is her HUSBAND!

The hospital Mother enters the scene. She was on her daily rounds. Today she just happens to pass the maternity ward where R.K was roaming about impatiently.

R.K looked up through the window nearby into the heavens.

R.K: Lord. Please I hope you can launch the baby soon.

The holy Mother stops in front of him.

Mother: The Lord aint like you my son who has launched 35 RBI outbound campaings...

On listening to his our hero's face looks perplexed (confused). The holy Mother exits the scene.

Scene 2. The same hospital scene. 9.30 am. Nurse's desk.

There was a cry of a new born infant from outside the scene. The nurse enter's the scene with the new born in hand who is crying. There is a little, just a little, excitement on our hero's face. But he is still tensed. He walks towards the nurse to hold his first child.

Nurse: This one is a healthy baby boy. 3.5 kgs!!!

A loud crash. Our hero falls unconscious. All the othe nurses enter the scene to make our hero stand up right. And finally he sits on a chair with his apparent unconsciousness clearing. The nurse who held our hero's son shifted the child a bit to hold him tight.

Nurse: What happened? Why did you faint?
R.K: I thought...I thought, the child weighed 35 kgs. He weighs more than me. I didn't know how to carry...

And thats the end of the scene. We all hope our hero can feed his son properly, and hopefully himself too.

ROTFL

Got this while searching for some pregnancy jokes. Disclaimer: by publishing this here I do not want to disgrace pregnant women, or women expecting to get pregnant, or the whole phenomenon of pregnancy.

Just thought this joke was too good.

A lady from a foreign country who could not understand much English wasn't feeling well and went to see her doctor. After examining her he said, "You are pregnant. Please understand that you have an insufficient passage and if you have a baby it will be a miracle."

The lady rushed home crying and told her husband, "The doctor says I'm pregnant and I have a fish in the passage and if I have a baby it will be a mackerel!"

Ps: more related jokes if you google or click the title of this post...

3 idiots is awesome

Went to watch 3 idiots yesterday. The movie aptly captures the frustration of the Indian Education system from all angles. It also teaches us to follow something very importantly - your heart. Be what you wanna be. Even though you've come this far, its never 2 late 2 change...if you want to change...

How we decided to go for the movie was more fun. Couldn't get any matinee or post-matinee show tickets. They were all reserved 4 sun. But then thats how life goes in chennai. But there was a 7.30 am show on Sathyam.

At 1st we were kind of thinking...dude...7.30 am?!...and then we had our hands on the head. Then we heard good reviews and finally decided...wtf...breakfast or no breakfast; 7.30 am...3 idiots it is...

I booked for 5 idiots. (Me inclusive). Even I wasn't that crazy about the fact that I was going for the movie until Jerry told Suresh Rao (team manager - development) that we were actually going for the 7.30 am show. Suresh had his right hand to his forehead at the very mention. It was not that I had imagined how he would have made through the Sathyam gates with his wife and daughter, shouting, honey, baago, hum late ho gayae; that too at 7.30 am on a sun morn...we made him think it was so crazy that we actually enjoyed the apparent Schadenfreude – we enjoyed his feeling of disappointment. Guess it made us feel youthful.

Ah, the times are always still young! :D

Twitter turnkey turkey

The ads which appear on facebook towards the right side are cool; they luk neat. But sometimes it does inspire you to think of some really weird and crazy things...like for e.g. this is how I misread the following ad.

This ad was about some Twitter Turnkey Scripts...think its some customizable scripts which enhance your twitter experience. (But I don't think its free though). Never really bothered to look what the product was at the time...I misread turnkey as turkey and started thinking:

What? Turkey twitter scripts?!!! Is twitter going to change its logo soon from the twitter bird to a turkey?

Hmm, then this must be their plans for next year thanks giving probably...

When I read it again, found out my error, I was psyched. But twitter changing it logo to a turkey seemed to hit my sense of humour. But the twitter turkey ain't all that a new idea. If you google for it you'd probably find this:

There are probably a lot of ideas you can get looking at ads sometimes. There is another one I haven't given that much publicity earlier though. The final result of this ad was a mock song. The ad which initiated it was none other than Google Chrome. Lets say these are times of several browser wars, and what do people do admist these wars...browse a very popular four-letter-word which their parents might even now probably cringe to hear...

The song which I mocked actually comes in the movie City Of Angels (Meg Ryan, Nicholas Cage); sung by - Sarah McLachlan (an extra-ordinary woman). The original song is titled "angel", and its a lovely song - don't mean to pun it though by all means. I've titled my song as "as the page loads in ur browser"...wanted to do a solo video of this song. Truly thought this would be a stunt which would celebrate the spirit of life. But then as I shot the video I thought I looked stupid, and dropped the idea altogether. But I think the song is really funny; I've posted it on my google notebook.

So enjoy the song, and happy new year you all...