Weekend Listee

- Got ripped by the new ISP guys - Clear. Had to go through a whole lot of trouble having to cancel it. Still not sure, if it's done. //todo : Write a letter, spread the bad word around and register with consumer complain agency. (Like it'll ever work)

- Waiting for World Cup Soccer to start, but not sure how I will catch all the action. Most games will be during day time; which sucks. Will this be Leo Messi's year? (Check the slow motion part of the video. It's a cracker..)

- Tories won most seats in UK general elections this week, but fell short of majority. I wrote something about British Elections in one of my earlier posts where I said - France the poster child of liberal Europe brought in a conservative Sarkozy to power. There's a good chance England will follow suit in next elections. My prediction fell short by just a few seats, but it still looks like 10 Downing will have a conservative PM after a long time. Being a centrist, I consider this a good sign, and hope for sake of UK that David Cameron does the trick.

- Still waiting for my IRS refund. The first time home buyer thing din't really click. We din't qualify for 8 grands as promised by US government, and that was a real bummer. Will take the pro-rated amount now (crumbs really). Damn the fine print.

- Was looking for some old Hindi "lori" songs on youtube and came across this signature Gulzar, RD, Kishore Kumar trio song. Liked it.

- Will like to end this Listee with one good quote I found - "The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind" :D

Have a good weekend!

Fridaynama

It's friday again. And TGIF..

Holiday Season : Feels like the Holiday Season is right around. There's already talk of Halloween costumes. Last year some babe in our office paraded as Sarah Palin for our annual Costume party. Boy! a year has already passed since we had Tina Fey making mess of Ms. Palin...

And I am back : Brees and Co did some real good to me in fantasy league last week. I am now 3-3-0. Not bad for a first timer. Go Saints!!

Average Joe : I usually mess around with names and piss my wife big time. So there's this guy called Jose (pronounced Hozey, as you can tell) and I keep calling him Joe. He's our mover for this weekend. I even have him listed as Joe in my phone. One of these days he's gona yell!... Moi is Hozey... J,O,S,E...

Mad Men : So I think Mad Men is good and all. Well made. But I guess the writers are too caught in the 60s mode. In 2009, instant gratification is the name of the game. You got to keep your viewers attention all the time, baby. If I have to reach for my laptop while watching the show, it ain't working. With Sopranos I was always hooked.

Metra Rides : My suburban rides to work and back on the Metra will be longer and more taxing from next month after the move. Not to mention the long walk from the new station. (The current one was so convenient and easy). Wonder why am I moving at all!! Some one called it the 'Home buyers remorse'. Here's my question, how do these term strike people?


Formality ?? : One of my old friend, CK, from the gone by era, send a friend request on Orkut. (Yeah, I still have an account somewhere in there). And on asking him - "How are you man?", His reply was - "Why the formal message? Is someone behind you?" ... I was like wtf!!! So what was I suppose to write after all these years.. "Saale.. Ga%$& LKB.. L@#%&du.." and make it informal? I tell you boss! decency has no place in this world...

Weekend Tweets : Late Edition

Marathon : My friend AK was here in Chicago for the Marathon. He knocked it off in awesome time (with a minor toe injury and some cold, that was a super effort). Kudos and more strength to him. Figured, it's more emotional than physical; the strength that is needed to accomplish this, I mean.
Overall was fun to be with the Ks over the weekend.

Fantasy : My limited knowledge of NFL players is now biting me in my ass. Lost two games back to back and with real bad scores. None of my dudes are firing :/

Cold Conditions: Chicago is racing towards winter. The temperature drop is as low as it ever gets in October. But rumor has it, it's not as bad as Denver.

The Move : Will be officially closing this week. Seems like I have been too involved in it for a while. Need a break when this is all over. Phew!

The resignation : V offered to resign from her current place as the move is going to make it hard to travel. Luckily, the people over their won't take any. They are offering her work from home. This should be cool.

Gadgets : My co-worker C, was explaining some 'cool' features of his new phone. I was trying hard to "fake interest" in it and it was probably showing. eh! it's monday morning.. so it doesn't count.

Weekend Levity

Found this moderately funny. So posted it.

It's Friday again

5 Year Celebration : Was chatting with a friend yesterday and he told me he completed 5 years in the same company. I congratulated him but at the same time it struck me, how is that a cause for celebration. I mean the previous generation folks would stick to same job (often to same desk and same chair) for 30 years and carry that as a badge of honor. Not anymore I guess; we now have 5 year anniversary, and that's a big deal. If you stick around 5 years, you are already loyal. Except may be in Japan where they still join and retire from same company (or otherwise commit suicide, which ever comes first)

Leno : Had some guts calling Rush Limbaugh on the show few days back. What a freaking jerk that Rush guy is. Wonder why NBC even allowed Leno to go with it?

Hmmm I see : So "The US Senate on Thursday voted unanimously to triple non-military aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion per annum till 2014". OK, so lets get this straight. They are tripling the aid AND moving out of Afghanistan? Whoa! Talk of unleashing some Pak on us ..

Contributing : Coming days we intend to make some heavy duty contribution to the economy. Our visit to Ashley and Sears and Costco may just be the beginning of a long winter of shopping. It's exciting and tiring at the same time to think of it.

Punjabiyat : An overdose of that in the new Yash Raj Hadippa movie was what got me. Although the theater was full (what a surprise!) and I noticed there were lot of Pakistanis in it. The underlying theme of movie is Indo-Pak cricket matches. On a side note, the stupid pop-corn cost more than the ticket.

Was Wondering : If things have come to such a stage that I have more online friends than offline. I need to write something about this social networking thing in a new post (as if I don't BS enuf). My father still beats me hands down with his friend circle and social network, and he doesn't have to login in Facebook/Linked etc. How he manages such an awesome network at this age, is amazing.

Fridaynama

Hadippa : My wife is pushing me to watch new Yash Chopra movie - 'Dil Bole Hadippa'. I am not sure how to bail myself out. The theatre is right next door. She's incentivizing me saying, 'Rani wears a bikini in the movie..'; how shallow am I, she thinks? Well can't blame her.. but only if I was a Rani fan.

Foosball : I thought I had lost that art. But I beat 2 or 3 good players last week. Looks like I found my Mojo. I will be shooting from all cylinders today..

Pani Puri : The Bombay Chat House guyz don't know what Pani Puri is. They kill it. My mom makes the best Pani Puris in the world. Period.

Fall : Looks like Chicago skipped a few weeks of Summer and has entered Fall pretty soon. The air feels wintry already. :/

House Inspection : I got a feeling, thats just a formality. If your seller has decided to screw you up, nothing can stop it. It's not possible to check each and everything. But I want to trust Humanity for once.

Patriots : What an ass-**** Brady is. He made possible two touch downs in last 2 mins of game against Buffalos. Made an ass out of them.

Festive Season : It's right around the corner (in India). We miss it here. We'll be visiting some temples to get in the grove. Specially since I like Dosa at Aurora Temple and Samosa chat at Swaminarayan.

Weekend Tweets

Nut Jobs : The conservative idiots are now opposing Obama's speech to students. They fear 'indoctrination' of their kids. Freaking morons; If O is asking your dude to stay in school and study hard, that indoctrination is WELCOME, no? Idiots.

Woohooo : Brazil beat Argentina to qualify for WC next year. This is swell. Brazil is my favorite team in Soccer and Argentina is one of my least favourites. What more, Argentines are gasping for breath. They are close to being eliminated..

American Dream : Or something like that. Chasing that and finding a home in suburbs is a painful process. Specially when one of your innate traits is - impatience.

Fantasy Football : I have no clue why I joined it.

Cross Training : C is teaching me Italian, L is teaching me Spanish and I am teaching them Hindi. "Are you Happy" is 'Estas Feliz' in spanish as it is 'Lei Felechi' in Italinos. And quite frankly 'I am' or 'Si' :)

Bollywood Hollywood : C and his wife are hooked to Bollywood movies, and we are running out of giving him more Cheesy recommendations on netflix. Coz Bollywood is slowly turning.. non-Bollywood. And those guyz are smitten by colors and song and dance and..everything that till date, defined quintessential Bollywoodness..

Magic Jack : Is one helluva cool thing. My parents and in-laws are having a ball. Talking back home was never so easy...

YSR Shock : My friend told me that the pilot Satish Reddy who died in chopper crash was his uncle. He had recently retired from Armed Forces on insistence of his family to stay back with them in Hyderabad. In Kargil war he survived a plane crash a few times and had close call with death. The irony is he died in a civilian role. Fate has a strange sense of ...

Friday pop tarts

@ Have a sore finger from playing volleyball at company picnic. But can type; Which is a pre-requisite for any job in 21st century I guess.

@ Looking to watch some old mindless Govinda Movies. They are available on Netflix. They can be a good break from monotony of heavy/intense movies.

@ Not sure what's the criteria for "Cash For Clunkers". My wife's Accord gives a mileage of less than 19 gallons. So it *is* a gas guzzler after all.Could have been a good candidate.

@ I am so NOT following all this health care fuss. I am completely checked-out from National news here. Don't have the stomach. My only source of current affairs is the NPR radio, I listen to while driving to and from Metra Station. That is all of 20 mins.

@ 'S' sent 2 pictures from the Alumni get-together in India. Boy!, people have grown pouch. We are now officially into the "Uncle" zone.(Moi included)

@ Chicago is expected to hit mid-90s tomorrow. It became a 'talking point' on Lunch@Work. Simply coz Chicagoans can't handle HEAT.

@ Just remembered, Summer is called "Dhoop-Kala" in Nagpur. And so far I have enjoyed my "Dhoop Kala" in Chicago. (What an awesome term!)

Weekend Twits

- So even after gulping a few beers in our Agile Scrum room, we could not come up with a name for our new team. Looks like we need more Beer-Fridays@work.

- Called up my good'ol' college friend 'S' in Nashik. Little did I know I would be connected to 6 others via conference. Chiwda galore and I was laughing till my throat dried.

- A new Desi theatre has come right next door in our Burbs. With "Bombay Chat House" adjacent to it, this place is fast turning into an Indian Katta.

- Saw Quantum of Solace on DVD. Why are these people hell bent on destroying the Bond Franchise?

- I got sucked into debate, my two co-workers were having over (you won't believe) - Lord of the Rings. I finally added it to my netflix list; The extended versions of that. I hear it's painfully long.

- A guy in the car front of me on the light was busy picking on his nose and was in intense 'tandri'. I finally had to honk him... It was hilarious and gross at same time.

- It's been a while since I got hooked to anything on Cable. The last thing was Sopranos. Even HBO sucks big time. (At least the ones we have)

..

Men

Link

Fridaynama

Take your pick : Some call him Akhmanadinajad and some call him Ahmadinajad. You guyz, pick one! (He won anyways)

B-Grade Actor : So this bollywood 'actor' called Shiney Ahuja has been accused of raping his maid. What is clearly a perverted piece of news, has now been converted into a public orgy of ridiculous proportion. Check the rediff.com message board. (Sample this : all that shines aint gold!!truth is ugly always preferably covered nice masks...)

T20 : And by the way, its now official. SA is cursed. Next time they should just show up on the day of semis and go back. That's as far as they can go anyway.

Not you 2 : There has been a demand in certain quarters that Delhi should be named Dilli. That would complete the full circle. Delhi is last citadel holding on.

Office Sport: TT, Yes. This would be my next new thing. Although I still feel I am a decent foosball player, I think I am getting better @ ping pong. If I can get past office champ Mohammad, I think I may break the glass ceiling.

Stallone : In a new bollywood flick, Sylvester Stallone and Dennis Richards have been cast. This is a loaded with symbolism. Remember a time when we had the the one-offs, sprinkled here and there. A Kabir Bedi , an Om Puri, an Amrish Puri.. playing something trivial in Hollywood. The wheel is turning....

Weekend Listee

French Open : So it was Roga all the way! What a mincemeat he made of poor Soderling in the no-match finals. I am guessing Roger's win would have been sweater if Nadal was the one he was taking for breakfast. Nevertheless he is the undisputed King of the lot. (I am still not givin in the notion that he is the 'greatest ever'. That would take a lot of convincing)

Obama : Lot of fuss was made over Obama's 'historic speech' to the "muslim world" this week in Cairo. Not sure what was so different about the speech. He pretty much spelt out the same old stuff, only in a more immaculate manner. But since it came from Obama, mainstream media as a rule has to go gaga.

'Left-wing extremism': This article in Times of India made an interesting read. I feel like we've seen this before .. "..which extort the money hardly pump it back for running the movement but instead use it to maintain luxurious lifestyles for their masters". Mmm... I am reminded of messrs Yaser Arafat,Castro and Co.

Bizarre : There's something freaky about this piece of news.

Rajeev Motwani : Became more famous after he died, than he ever was when alive. And also because of this tribute

On a lighter note : My wife's friend who visited us this weekend commented that I have put off a lot of weight. I instantly jumped on the scale only to see no change whatsoever. Nevetheless, I could not bring myself to tell her that I was more worried about my 'pait' than weight. (If only my PJs had the more edge)

Weekend listee

# This research does not explain why Taller men earn higher salaries than short ones. Neither does it explain why Fat men earn more than slim ones. But "research" it is. Link

# Leno ended his 17 year stint with NBC's Tonight Show yesterday. I missed it but it's recorded on the DVR (damn! i love the DVR). Hope he din't get misty and all. That won't be the Leno I know. But Salut to him. He kept the institute going. And how!

# Finally got Tickets for the Blue Man Group. The show is packing up in June. We want to make this summer, the summer of Chicago shows. Hope it sticks..

# I am still unable to figure out why Twitter is such a big thing! Just because it got the Hollywood backing? If that's the case, twitting is sad. (Although I have an a/c that I use sparsely)

# I am getting 'philosophical' with my old friend Sunder on emails. First we went back-and-forth on 'what success really means' and now we are talking about human's nature of setting unrealistic goals and being out of synch with reality in general. I think I am two emails short of becoming another Deepak Chopra. (Sunder if you read this, you are forewarned: I am coming back with a big one on the last reply )

# Barcelona beat Man United last week in Champion's League. Boy! I love it when United looses. Not a big fan of Ronaldo. neh!

# Not following French Open really. I don't find it as appealing (if that is a valid usage here) as Wimbledon. Hope Federer wins though. This is the only major that has eluded him.

Friday Spoofs

# The spoof says - Pakistan is awarded World Heritage country
Well, makes sense to me; any entity that is in danger of being extinct should be declared World Heritage.

# Pak, says it will probe the incident of flogging of a young girl.
So what's the probe? Whether the incident happened at all (I think you have it on camera already) or ...

# Just discovered at the work lunch table today that Chicago has an area in city called 'The Viagra Triangle'. The reason it's called such, is because the restaurants around that location are visited by rich old men with fancy cars accompanied by young females. Enuf said.

# SRK says, Cheerleading is not vulguar. I would have to agree. Although, his cheerleading for the Congress party, is...

# Rohit heard this another BS doing rounds in work meetings nowadays and this one was swell. "The ninja move for getting this thing done now is...". Ninja move?Here's my question though. How do you Bull Shit with a straight face?

Almost Weekend

# The Pope says condoms are the reason for increase in HIV cases.
And as I always say - 'In God we trust'

# The Goyal. This random item is the ultimate LMAO this week - read it
(Thanks Rohit for the link)

# Pak says, it's not happy with India's reply on 26/11 attack.
What did we forget to provide? Ass-prints of those Mo Fos??

# Rediff.com has an opinion poll on sexiest Bond Girls ever
Sans Halley Berry, the list seems inadequate to me.

# Rediff.com also has a chilling account of 26/11.
Makes my blood boil.

# This whole AIG thing has me thinking. At the rate we are printing dollars, would it be a good idea to buy stocks of company called Dollar Ink ?

# My 401K is clocking at minus 15% currently.
Such are the things that I am actually pleased with it.

# And thank you Ashu, for letting me know Citi is now trading at 3$. I was blissfully unaware I made a loss of 300% already [virtually speaking :)]

# Google is eying Expedia.com and IBM has made a bid for Sun Microsystems.Both these news items hit close home.

# I am trying not to join the twitter bandwagon. But one of these days I might...

# Ok,whoever contributed to this wikipedia link
You guyz rock!

# Apple has introduced 3.0 for iPhone
I'd say, this did not come a day sooner!

# My Toyota Prius has served me royally for 2 years now.
If there's one thing I am gona miss dearly if/when I leave US, the hybrid, it wud be.

..

Fridaynama

Sinkedin

This Linkedin thing. It can bring you down...sometimes.

Like the other day I accepted a request from an old buddy to join his Linkedin network. We were roomies at one point during my bachelor days. This dude is now like a god-freaking-Sr-VP-Sr-Director.... or some shit like that in some god-damn company in India. And then later today I got another such "request" from another dick-head I worked with not long time back. I hear he is a Senior fking Director in some company in California.

OK! So I get it. The world around me is moving fast. And I have been sleeping on my ass (which i usually do and am good at) and quite clearly I am in no hurry to catch up. Not a day sooner..

I'd say, who the f cares. As long as I have my fortnightly salary being deposited, I am ok. Yeah, tha'll work for a while. Reminds me of that episode from Seinfeld though
Seinfeld : Newman, you give up too easy...!! Newman : I usually do.

TomGi

Same old story. A super hot model. A super duper sports hero. And thats it. Simple right?

As if Tom Brady did not have everything already.... he now has the world's hottest babe as his wife.... Lucky bast... I tell you boss, some people... Likha Kay latey hai

Useless Book

So I am loving this Book of Useless Information that i read while traveling. It's fun. It has trivia like.. "Both Hitler and Napolean had one testicle"

(Well then.That explains)

Fridaynama

The week that was..

economictimes.com : The last editorial surprised me. I have not seen such an openly biased editorial in India in a while. It's obvious that the economictimes editor is rooting for the twisted version of secularism in India, as defined by the Nehruvian polity. The totally one sided slant does not bode well, specially coming from the second most successful financial newspaper. Any which way, Business and Productivity (GDP) is moving towards the "Communally governed" states of India (latest being Nano moving to Gujarat), and I can see why Economic Times is being uncomfortable with that. Their bosses at 10, Janpath are not liking it. The silver lining for me though is, these arm-chair editors, living on crumbs thrown to them by 10, Janpath are almost always not in tune with nation's opinion. As a thumb rule, if economic times is rooting for a party X, it's opposite party Y is more likely to be beneficial for over all country.


Open Letter Season: Talking of Nano moving to Gujarat, seems like every one is falling into the "Open Letter" bandwagon. First it was Modi who sent an "open" letter to Buddhadeb and then came Ratan Tata who sent an "open" letter to people of West Bengal. Since when was sending confidential posts / mails not in vogue?

Zakaria GPS : Last Sunday on the CNN's GPS, Zakaria had some "eminent" economists on the panel. Not surprisingly majority of them had that "we-told-u-so" chip on their shoulders about the current Economic crisis. All these eminent experts almost always come out in open and give fundaes, when things go wrong and analyze something in hindsight. I find it a little amusing.
So one of these experts said, the Reagan era of free-market is over after 30 years. And he had a glee in his face, as far as I could tell.

Oh please , "OVER"? Isn't that a bit extreme? I mean this same era gave us the Microsofts, Oracles and Googles of the world!! Yes the "evil" Corporate America that makes this blog's existence possible; and GPS possible and CNN possible with 24 X 7 crap of these eminent experts!
One crisis, and the system is OVER? Oh for crying out loud. When will we stop this extreme talk. "It's over", "All has ended", "Back to Socialist format now"....

It's fair to say a System failed to plug the holes of greed of few fat cats. It's fair to say that a Design flaw was exposed. It's fair to say that we need to 'correct' the flaws; but to write off this entire Free Market, which by the way, is helping those 10 Million Chinese labors, who these bleeding hearts find so endearing? I find it a bit of a stretch. No?

Whatever.

Friday Nama

Let's see what's going around..

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Rajdeep rooting for Indian Debates : IBN's Rajdeep Sardesai, who and his wife Sagarika Ghosh, redefined "shouting" journalism, argues that Indian Television should have it's share of Election Debates now.
Well let's see here. So I am trying to think how in last general elections, a one on one television debate between Vajpayee and Sonia would have looked. I know. Don't even bother.

He does point out something interesting though - "As for Mrs Gandhi, in over a decade in public life, she has barely given three and a half interviews, most of them carefully choreographed, the questioning in most instances confined to the gentle and routine."

Ahem Ahem. Makes me wonder; are we qualified to judge other country's VP nominees who falters in couple of interviews, when we as a nation have allowed a de-facto ruler to rule us for last 5 years; someone who was as clueless about Indian affairs, both domestic and internationl, as my 8 year old niece?

Don't know. But sounds like a valid point.

************


Terrorism Bail out : As if to take a cue from the on going bailout season, the Sonia Gandhi led UPA government in India has decided to bail out the mushrooming madarsas of the coutry. Times of India reports that a sum of 3.2 Billion rupees is being granted to Madarsas to "upgrade".
Well.. it's only fair. After all, bombing and maiming people does require resources, management, technology and man power to execute plans on such massive scale. The already well funded religious schools, probably needed 'some' Government support after all.

**************


Veeps don't weep : Yesterday's Vice Presidential debate was ok. No home runs scored. No gaffes. I thought it went alrigt. In any case the VP debates, I think have only entertainment value. They are not meant to be game changers in any case.

Biden's, sentimental moment, stuck out for me. May be it was genuine, but certainly not (vice) Presidential. He is expected to be in control all the time.

P.S : I hate it when CNN's Wolf keeps parroting -"Best Political Team in Television" ad nauseum. But CNN is still better than watching left wing haven - MSNBC and right wing idiots at FOX. Hardly a choice though.