Saturday, June 28, 2008

humming...

Kahin to hogi woh - Rashid Ali (Jaane tuya jaane na)

this one is fresh! and Vasundhara das gives it a completely new feel.


Yaad Aaye Jaaye - Mohit Chauhan (Ugly aur Pagli)


hehe yes! this one is from t he movie 'Ugly aur Pagli', But Mohit Chauhan is Mohit Chauhan

Saturday, June 21, 2008

A site to see

ReadyMech is so cool :)



I took a quick print out of their 'do it yourself ' Japanese toy and with some scissors & glue was able to make a 'toy' in 10 minutes.

It looks awesome!

Visit the website for more free and cool toys.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

BIAL -Bangalore Airport

If one were to visit the BBMP (aka BMP) offices and manage to sneak past the files and the babus, I am sure somewhere in the innermost sanctum sanctorum of that great edifice sits a monkey tapping away at it computer and churning out plans involving flyovers that need traffic cops and signals perched atop, and underpasses that need you to take deviations from the main road so that you can use the underpass to get to the main road that you just deviated from.
Warped? What else can you expect from a monkey?

Well, before I deviate like the Bellary Main road, let me get back to the topic at hand!

The road to the airport has taken its own sweet time, The airport however is on a completely different level altogether!

Wonderful parking facilities, a sprawling complex to accommodate everything that Bangalore can throw at it, very nice waiting lounge and wide open space if further plans of expansions exist.

After the Hebbal flyover the road leading to the airport is fantastic! (yes all 27 kms of it). No traffic snarls what so ever!

Excellent transport facilities to and fro from the Airport and for once some one in the planning committee has done something right!

I am a big fan of the new airport and I am appalled that so many people are complaining about the airport.

Bangalore is imploding, the need of the hour is to spread the city out, yes, there will be transport issues for some time, but so what?

Lets face it, the old airport was but a pathetic excuse for an airport, tiny, cramped, lacking basic facilities.
But no, we were willing to live with all that, just because it would save us 30 minutes of travel time to the airport.

What about the lack of seating in the lounges?, what about bad restrooms?, what about serpentine customs queues?
Never thought how much time was getting wasted there?

Its time we stop suffering from tunnel vision, and accept change!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Lovely!



Jive gave me this!

Batman Begins: The Official Movie Guide

130 odd pages of sublimity :D :D

A wonderful present indeed :) Thanks Jivey!

Vaav! vat-e-day...


On Saturday, I learned that my presence was "required" at our lovely Chennai office ASAP.

The earliest (I almost wrote 'Soonest' :P) possible for me was Tuesday, and out I headed to the fantastic Bangalore International Airport (I will sing its praises in a future post *is not sarcastic*) to catch a flight to the land of humid weather, polite people, Rajinikanth and sambhar

I had my tickets booked for Tuesday (Jet Airways) with a return planned on Friday (Air Deccan).

Wait at the wonderful Bangalore airport lounge : 8:00 am to 10:00 am - 2 hours ( I like an early check in)

Some 4-5 minutes away from boarding the flight, I got a call that inform me that the reason for which I was hurriedly headed to Chennai no longer existed. *Clicks a finger* just like that!

Given that the tickets were already booked and at that moment, Chennai was 45 minutes away compared to my Bangalore office that was a minimum of 120 minutes away, I decided to fly out anyway!

Some confusion about the boarding gate (Hey we are boarding at gate 8, err actually gate 10, hey guess what peehpul! Gate 11 it will be!) and off we flew to Chennai.

Flight time en route to Chennai: 1 hour

Reached the Chennai office, socialised with the crowd (a few old faces a few new) and decided to reschedule my friday evening flight.

A quick lunch, some more socialising and an auto ride saw me at the Chennai airport, at 4:30 pm well in time for the Air Deccan flight scheduled at 5:30pm.

At check-in I discovered that the flight was late by 40 minutes (The plane has not yet arrived saar!)

siiiggghh, I settled down to catch up on the days news, A TOI, an Indian Express and 15 minutes of watching cyclic clips of the latest developments in the Arushi murder case on the airport telly and I was all set to board the flight

Wait at the Chennai airport lounge :4:30pm to 6:10pm - 1 hour 40 minutes

They took us in the bus to the plane, got us to sit in the plane, gave us a couple of Kingfisher mineral water bottles and then the Captain's voice boomed on the PA system

"Welcome on board our flight #### to Bangalore, we have an engine failure and hence are presently unable to take off"
"You know it is after all a machine and is liable to fail anytime, thank you for understanding"

*Makes a straight face*

Fail anytime!?? wow!

Some reassurance that! So in about 20 minutes it was decided that the plane is not going to be air borne anytime soon.

Waiting time in immobile aircraft : 30 minutes

Off we were loaded back into the bus on the way back to the waiting lounge.

After the screaming and shouting at the Air Deccan ground staff, we were pacified with "refreshments" which included what seemed like a fruit cake, a mango juice in a tetrapack and 2 slices of bread with some cheese within.

We were to be put on another Air Deccan flight scheduled for later that evening at 8:50 pm

Out came the P.G. Wodehouse, Thank heavens I had carried it along.

Waiting at the Chennai Lounge, Phase 2: 2 hours 10 mins

at 8:50pm, we were told that the flight is delayed by 15 minutes, (The plane has not yet arrived saar!) a wave of Deja Vu.

Waiting at the Chennai Lounge, Phase 3: 30 minutes

Finally we did board the flight at 9:20 and this time it did take off and stayed aloft long enough to reach Bangalore!

Flight time back to Bangalore: 1 hour

That makes it a total of 8 hours and 50 minutes at the Airport or in the plane!

And I have not even factored in the time to get to the Airport and Back.

Whew! a long day and a long post :)

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

ads

On one hand one had ads such as Bajaj Caliber (the unshakeable), the wonderful close-up Jingle and a hundred other classics!

and on the other hand you have Max insurance ads :|

Weirdness! The Max ads (Screeches of "Sanju, Sanju" and "Ek bimaari") are like fingernails that
run over the blackboard of my mind.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

In the cranium...

Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich - Hold Tight!

Silk Route - Sabse Peeche Hum Khade

Spent all of Sunday singing these two songs :D :D

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Show Off!



Yaaay I won big!

Beating krymsson 532 to 335 is something worth showing off!

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

One long day

Thursday, saw me at the land of the Wodeyars, the silkworms and the Mahishasur (not in any particular order, mind you)

Mission: Pre-placement talks at a couple of colleges that we would later in the year visit for campus recruitment.

Prior Experience: Whenever time has permitted , I have tagged along with the recruitment team to help give a quick talk about ThoughtWorks and life therein.
Just the way the students go "wooow!"when we show them videos and pictures of what life at ThoughtWorks has in store, makes my day!, not to mention the saccharine sweetness with which the placement officers us.

Mysore, however was a different ball game altogether!


An early morning start, breakfast at Lokaruchi and Mysore by 11:45am, just to make it in time for the first presentation at SJCE (a well known engineering college), or, so we thought.
When the placement officer was called and informed of our arrival,
Pat came the reply "you see, I am driving down from Bangalore, I shall reach Mysore in next 30 mins, then I shall have a bath and come!".

Dude! notwithstanding your lack of punctuality, at the very least spare us the gory details.
He finally arrived(when we were well into the presentation) and left in about 20 mins, stating "I have some grandmother's ceremony I need to attend to"
but, not before he had told us exactly what had held him up in Bangalore, apparently he had gone to the Forum for some shopping and in general seemed to have spent his time about doing inane things, while he should have been on the road to Mysore!

Hilarious!

The students however were pretty chirpy and surprisingly had quite a few smart questions to ask, though one of them did manage to squeeze in a "Do you have a swimming pool at ThoughtWorks?" question.

A quick pit stop for lunch and off to College #2

National Institute of Engineering

Well, here, the placement officer welcomed us with a smile, offered us tea and thats when it went downhill, as he picked up his phone and proceeded to make half a dozen phone calls to random people, all the while, shouting his lungs out.
If he wanted to show us that he was a very important person, the shouting and the having to introduce himself a minimum of 3 times over the phone did not help.

He seemed to have clean forgotten we were there. We our tea (good tea it was!) and set off for the presentation.
The students trudged in about 15 mins late and I was soon done with the presentation!

Off we left Mysore only to return at an ungodly hour - 12:30 am t o be precise

Bottom Line - Placement officers in Mysore have failed to impress
The lighted windows dim
Are fading slowly.
The fire that was so trim
Now quivers lowly.
Go to the dreamless bed
Where grief reposes;
Thy book of toil is read,
The long day closes.
- Henry Fothergill Chorley and Arthur Sullivan


Monday, June 02, 2008

Neil Young

I want to live,
I want to give
Ive been a miner for a heart of gold.
Its these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And Im getting old.
Keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And Im getting old.