kansa

SRK's over (re)action?

2009-08-16T05:36:00.000-07:00

SRK in news, for a humiliating reason (probably for the first time). He has been interrogated by the Immigration officers in US. For two hours.

Many of us who go to US face similar kind of security checks, sometime because of wearing turban, somtime because of wearing dhotis, sometime because of carryingpickles along with us! Last when I travelled abroad, I got stopped in one of the transit airports because I carried a nail cutter, now a days they stop for any liquid food also. It has always made me sense for these checks, after all, these checks make sure we are in a safe zone (country).

Now given these facts, any US entrant will go through these checks, and it doesn't matter to them whether he/she is "larger than life" icon of his/her country. So I feel SRK has over reacted to what had happened to him, which happens/happened for many of us. He has to understand the following:

- US in the past has done similar things to famous icons. Even Narendra modi faced visa issues (though he doesnt belong to "M" community, but because of the communal violence in gujarat).

- US is a country which cannot afford frequent terrorist attacks, unlike India. The security check
he has undergone is after all for the millions of NRIs living in US.

- Celebrities get indulged in crimes, and terrorist activities. (There are couple of examples to quote, but I don't want to do it now).

- VIPs in india can literally by pass anything and everything. How come he can expect the same in US?

- Moreover in US, film stars are not seen as idols. They are just like other celebrities. So as a general advice, we should remove our "social mask" of the current country while moving to the ther country, and be co operative to the immigration officers!

- "We will give the same treatment to Angelina jolie", can be a good dialogue for his next movie, "Phir bhi dil hai hindustani US jaane aane kae baath" (or you can it like as PBDHHUJAKB ;-) ).

- Even many other film stars faced similar problem while traveling abroad. Once Kamal hasan faced inquiries in the cannadian immigration when he told he came there for "shooting" (actually he meant film shooting). But I dont think Kamal made much noise that time.

Oops, now I feel I am over reacting, sorry guys.

Figuring out the figures

2009-03-16T05:36:00.000-07:00

It was a fine day in my college, except for the boring lecture I was attending. I was least bothered about the lecturer's' preaching. I was scribbling some random numbers on my notebook and I observed a peculiar property of divisibility of numbers. It is, if the last n-digits of a number is divisible by 2 power n, then the number will also. I was fascinated by this, and I told this to my friend after the lecture. He told me that he already knew this, he said he read it in his text books during school days, but it was totally new to me. Not disappointed; to me, the real fun is not in finding something new for the world, but in something new to the self! Here are some of my other observations.

* A palindrome integer of even length will always be a multiple of 11.

* if (k, m) are co-primes then, k power n, & m are also co primes

* the difference between a number and its reverse will always be 0 or multiple of 9. This can be generalized to, the difference between a number in base N system and its reverse will be 0 or multiple of N - 1.

* log 1 to base 1 is indeterminate.

All these can be proven by mathematical induction, except for the last (which is intuitive)......

Are women from venus?

2009-01-21T07:53:00.000-08:00

I found lot of interesting things from the last two books that I read, related to the universe & its origin. There are various compartments to be understood to get a picture of the universe, ranging from astronomy to astrology. Some of them are brilliant and many of them are to be disproved in future.

If we look back at the history, we have got misled by the events in the sky, many a times. Many of them had turned into false beliefs, over a period of time. I found these false beliefs more interesting than the actual truth our astrophysicists have found ;-). One good example is in believing the menstrual cycle of women related to moon's cycle; the former with a periodicity of 28 earth days, and the later being roughly the same. No wonder the word, menstruation is etymologically derived from the word moon. And of course it is just a coincidence.

The role of cosmic objects in mythology, has also interested me much. (I bet, its a great source of bed time stories). Each and every naked-eye visible object in the sky has played role in the myths. One interesting myth(or a belief) is that men lived in mars, women in Venus, long long ago. Venus (Aphrodite) is the goddess of love & beauty, 'manmathi' of the Greek mythology. But the actual facts found about the venus is disappointing, not matching much with the characteristics of women.

* Venus is the hottest planet in the system

* It rotates itself in a direction opposite to that of Earth, and of course opposite to that of Mars too :-p.. (FYI, Uranus is the only other planet to do so)

* Its atmosphere is full of droplets of sulphuric acid, and thickest atmosphere. Women & Venus are always toughest to deal with :-).

* And it has the slowest rotation rate, takes 243 earth days to make a rotation of itself, while it takes only 225 earth days to make a revolution around sun.

* It is one of the five planets that are visible to naked eye. The other four are mercury, mars, jupiter and saturn. These five visible planets played vital roles in ancient astrology. Sun & moon have also contributed their part. Later, the shaky astrologers included new planets, at their convenience. To me, astrology is nothing more than pseudo science.

Do you find them interesting?

2008 - Self appraisal

2008-12-24T20:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, in cafeteria I asked my colleague whats his plan for the new year... he joked another 12 months of his life is wasted, so no plans... I know he didn't mean it. His joke triggered me to look back and see what I did in the last 12 months.

I have a habit of giving "treat" to my friends at the start of the year, (sometime in jan/feb). The reason is simple; I know lot of good things will happen in that year, and its the treat in advance. Yes, swalpa optimistic. Now lets see what has happened so far..

I think I've watched highest number of movies this year than any other year in my life! I have started watching hindi movies again ("patta kaalile padum"nu summava sonnanga, progress is not made when mistakes made are repeated, lol). The first hindi movie I watched this year is sholay, reminded me of MGR + nambiyar old movies. Taare zameen par is the best hindi movie, I became amir khan's fan again (the previous time was after hearing "paapa kehathae hein badam karega" in chitrahaar, lol). All other hindi movies were "yet another" hindi movie. Bommerillu, happy days, saroja, beta house, the incredibles; I could say they topped my list. Genelia & katrina retaining their position in the top of my list ;-).

Now something serious; athampa office front; A hectic year in office (as always ;-) ), I did the work what I was longing to do for the past years; shipped a product with a significant contribution from my side. Good job kuttuva, self-pat ;-).. I know I am on track to become Chief technology opeecer ;-).

Photography is something which I tried different this year (or atleast in a different way than I did before ;-) ). Bought Canon SX 100 IS, which I felt much better than nikon coolpix series I tried before. Friends & nature were always my focus, got decent appreciation from both of them ;-). Few a times, I clicked inside temples, and I have started admiring the architectural supremacy of our ancient times. Brahadeeswara temple is the best I have seen so far, and the more I read about it & raja raja cholan, the more admire.

Market & me: have incurred some losses, just got misled by suggestions, expert views, etc. hope I will recover it in long term, arasiyalle ithellam sagajamappa :-). Globalization is the main reason why I got something to work on, and also the reason for losses ;-). kootti kalichu paartha kanakku sariyaa thaan varuthu :-p.

Books; I didn't get much time to read books this year, since I think I have spent most of my free time watching movies. Tao of physics is one of the best picks of all the books I have read. The explanation of eastern philosophies & the latest happenings in theoretical physics was neat & simple, but the correlation/gluing of both was not convincing. Still, the book is good one to read. I usually don't read biographies, (the last one that I had read was Mein kemph, four years back). I hesitantly picked "The man who knew infinity", (Ramanujan). Later felt, it is a good one; almost all the details, his works were covered in this book; to be noted, with unbiased views. (Of course, I skipped the mathematical works which was hard to understand).

Madurai: I contributed something to the money flow in madurai, by building a house (in fact, my parents contributed the most, in terms of effort & also money). Guess where it is? In the narrow kansa mettu street, where I was brought up, most of my childhood memories revolve around it. I dont remember precisely any of those, so I havent written any related post.

Most of my travelling was to madurai for the first half of the year, to check the progress made by our engineer. The second half, I got some breathing time. In september we (with my other friends) went to chikmagalur, one of the best trips, I rate it in the scale of the coorg trip which I went with my schoolies. Then in october it was the trip to tanjore region, to celebrate my parents shashtiabthapoorthy, the best time with parents. Many of us dont know why we celebrate milestones like 60, 80, but why not something like 50, 75 etc. The reason is simple, by 60, person would have seen 750 full moons, and by 80 he/she would have seen 1000 full moons. (which adds sense to the figures 60 & 80). BTW, the trip was a very good one, I felt very happy for my parents. And Tanjore looked more beautiful/green than the madurai regions.

Bride hunting: Peer pressure is high, many of my friends have become parents, but not much progress in this regard. It will happen when it will (this is the most repeated phrase from the senior people of my society), and also if something can go wrong, it will :-p. So I am keeping my fingers crossed ;-)...

What's a year without a mathematical touch? I got a forward mail on why the ambulance number is chosen as 108, I didn't understand the rationale, but I liked the mathematical logic behind it. Add the last two digits of your year of birth to your age; it will be always 108. (and if it doesn't hold good for you, then read it on jan 1st 2009, it will). Next year, after your DOB, it will be 109. The proof is simple, I leave it to you.

Wish you all the very best year ahead, keep rocking!

How to talk to girls

2008-12-21T08:07:00.000-08:00

First read the following tips:

- Girls don't like desperate boys,
- Show off your skill, which you are good at.
- Life is hard, keep moving on, even when a girl ditches you!

Guess, who would have given these tips. Nope definitely not me. Its by a nine year old kid, who has written a book of ~40 pages on pleasing the ladies.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12022008/news/nationalnews/i_wrote_the_book_of_love_141817.htm

a true "pinjulae pazhutha" payan.

Absense of mind - Release 2

2008-12-03T21:35:00.000-08:00

This is my second post on absence of mind. If interested you can read the first one here.

Yesterday I returned home late after visiting my friend's place. I searched my bag to find the gate key. I was surprised to see it was missing. I hardly remembered taking it out from the bag, either at office or at my friends place. Later found that I had left the gate key along with lock, hanging in the gate itself. Now I got shocked, how the key is still in the gate. Looks like I had forgot to lock the gate back while going to office. (then I hardly remembered putting the key in ;-) )... Hope it wont happen again.

Couple of weeks back while leaving office, I was searching my ID card (with a tag), which I usually keep in my desk. I searched all over the desk, but didn't find. Went to couple of my colleagues desk whom I was talking to sometime back.. but didn't find out. I didn't find out till my neighbor pointed out that it is hanging in my neck.

And the list is long....

Terrorism - When it will be just history?

2008-11-28T19:04:00.000-08:00

Terrorism is shaking the entire world, when it will be just history?, period.

Few snaps from TOI and I found it good.

The future students will be memorizing the terrorist attacked dates. Slightly different from our days, we memorized when Babar invaded india or Raja raja cholan invaded sumatra.

Courtesy: TOI

MJ - The king of pop

2008-11-20T23:59:00.000-08:00

While I was driving back to office in the morning, I was thinking of writing some article about Michael Jackson sometime, my favorite during my college days. The first time I heard about Michael was during my school days, when paandiarajan claims "michale jackson yen machan, yen aatathe paarthu kapsa adichaan".(what it means is, MJ plagiarized from a kollywood actor). Then, the first time I watched/heared his song is in my first year of college, after that I became a great fan of Michael. I watched almost all of his works and realized how much of his steps, choreography, style are copied in indian movies. (and ppl like paandiarajan took the credit of his works :-p ). The stage performances from him are the best of his; good choreography, good team work.

He became the king of pop, I have seen many videos in which fans were dying for him. He rocked the world. But, somewhere something went wrong. He became a publicity freak, did anything for it, accused of child molestation cases and he became infamous.

And why this blog? The first news I read today in office is about him, he converted to a different religion. And got one more reason to write a blog.

http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/nov/21mj-turns-to-islam.htm
ci

Catchy warnings

2008-11-13T22:29:00.000-08:00

There are lot of things to notice on road while driving: shops, new vehicles, number plates,... (my favorite time pass while driving is to look into the number plates and find any 'magic'ness in the numbers).. One more thing that I have started noticing, the warning messages; that are pasted, mostly at the signals. Many of them are creative, and catchy. Here are quite some which I found good.

Speed is a five letter word, so is death;
Slow is a four letter word, so is life.

Helmet or hell met?

Speed thrills, but kills.

But none of these matches "vootle solltu vantiya?" from auto drivers ;-).

Classical languages

2008-11-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

Today I read some news on classical languages, and got some interest over how it is classified. There are four match criterias for classifying a language as classical:

00) High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years.
01) A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.
10) The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community.
11) The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.

And the languages that are matching these criteria are: Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu. I have intentionally listed these lexicographic, not chronological, for obvious reasons :-P). In some places its mentioned that pali & prakrit are also classical, but I am not sure how true it is, and I doubt anyone will make it an issue, since its hardly spoken these days.

I am glad that I have got a chance to learn tamil & sanskrit, anyways, I don't remember any of its literature stuffs. Definitely both these classical languages have played an important role in my life, particularly in academics. And also now I see a reason why should I learn kannada & watch telugu movies ;-)..

I am going crazy now by imagining few robots arguing/fighting for classical status for C, C++ etc in 5000 CE, period.

Thamizhan endru sollada?

2008-10-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Issue: Mistreat/Genocide of tamizhians in Lanka, the island country, demanding ceasefire.

October 17: Members of Parliament belonging to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam tendered their resignations to party president and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Friday.

Nowadays, the ulterior motives behind political parties are not so ulterior, it's obvious, 100% for political gains. Mamta bannerjhi - Singur 'movement', Raj thackeray attacking northies, are quite a good examples.

When malaysian tamizhians were ill-treated, the TN govt condemned it and urged the central to take some steps to stop it. It made a lot of sense to me, since many of our relatives, living/settled in malaysia. Lots of family here depend on them, both morally & financially. What not making sense to me is, TN govt supporting the tamizh speaking group from lanka, where hardly Tamilnadu lineage tamizhians can be found. Lankan army doesn't even let tamizh fisherman from TN to reach their boundaries in the ocean, so tamizhians from TN settled in lanka in recent times would be very very less. Tamizhians in Lanka could have settled pandya/cholas time when we frequently invaded sri lanka (Raja raja cholan invaded Lanka during 1000 AD is one such instance), which is long back.

TN govt expressing grief for their situation is different, which could make sense, but going to the extend of resigning the ministership does not. Moreover the govt is interfering with the internal issues of a different country, when we have enough internal issues to be solved. The govt/ruling party could very spend this energy in resolving the dispute with the neighboring states. We are not friendly to our neighboring states, though we are part of the same country, but friendly to neighboring countries for no good cause, which is absolutely ridiculous. Grow up kicha, the motive is simple: Racism/Groupism, for political gains.

P.S. The above passages does not mean I am not a fan of tamizh/tamizhian, in fact, most of my favorites are from TN, I love tamizh more than C/C++.

Disclaimer: We/Govt/Ruling party is used interchangeably, rephrasing is required wherever applicable.

North East West South

2008-09-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

I have always had a good habit of NOT reading news papers, right from my child hood. :-). But now a days I am forced to do read them, to kill my time. Today I was skimming through Times Of India (TOI) found couple of interesting news .My paper-wala rated TOI as number one news paper in India (and I subscribed to it because it's always filled with masala news and nice pics).

enna kodumai sir ithu... a testimony for the speed of our system, court, lawers etc... now that guy will be really feeling ashamed in front of his great-grand children, (getting caught for just 45 bucks, cost of a capaccino in CCD, hehe)

Inflation is very smoker's friendly :-). On the serious side, thanks to those hundreds of thousands of children who have kept the production cost of match box very low, since the inception of independent india.

ma people

2008-09-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

People tracking my blog may know that I hail from Indian philadelphia, the real city of brother-hood. I always wanted to do something which will be immediately recognized by ma people. But I have never succeeded. I am writing quite a few of my failures.

I joined guindy engineering college, supposed to be number one in my state; most of ma people mistook it for annamalai university, few thought I didn't study well, didn't get a seat in local college, few thought my father paid huge donation for studying in metro.

I joined HCL technologies, those were the days I really felt proud of being in software company. most of ma people didn't recognize that it is a software company, some thought I work in a calculator company; some thought I work in some mechanical company.

It didn't stop.

I joined riverstone networks, it was a startup company with a strength of 40 employees in india office. So you would have guessed what I had faced.

Then it became Alcatel. Now I was able to convince few of ma people, not all, that it is a big company with a strength 50K+ all over the world. Still many are thinking that I can't make it to Infy, TCS, Wipro, which are the only companies famous among ma people.

mudiyalai.. :-(

Integer 7

2008-09-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

I saw some interesting information about "7" in a musical website, and copy pasted the excerpts from it. I found these interesting because number 7 or it's multiple has appeared more frequently in my day to day life. I don't want to list those (and get critical comments which I already got for "3 and me" http://kansa.blogspot.com/2006/06/3-and-me.html")

The integer seven is an interesting one. There is something special about this number 7. There are seven continental and seven seas in this world. The number se7en is famous within Indian Cultures and subcultures. This number 7 is life, Universe, and everything for them. Indians strongly believe that there are seven re-births after death. They believe there are other seven worlds in Heaven. Lotus is emblem of Hindu Goddess. It has seven petals in its last bottom corral arrangement.

There are seven wonders in this world. The number of stellar objects in the solar system visible to our naked eye is seven viz., the Sun, the Moon and the five classical naked eye planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. The number of colors in a rainbow is seven.

Bond.. My name is James Bond 007. You might have feed up of hearing the same old dialogue in his every movie, codename for James Bond, a movie fictional secret spy agent.

We can add and pile up this list more…

And finally coming to subject matter, there are seven musical notes starting with first seven alphabet C-D-E-F-G-A-B ...

IT GOES ON.

26th august

2008-08-25T01:56:00.000-07:00

கலையாத நினைவு நான்
விலகாத உறவு நான்
சிதை ஏறும் போதிலும்
மறையாத பந்தம்
விலகாது நண்பனே
நமது ஆன சிநேகம் - Salangai oli

By today it is 3 years, missing my friend a lot, still not able to accept the truth.

This is how windows work

2008-08-23T01:58:00.000-07:00

I had a peculiar problem (might be a common problem) with windows. Few months back, whenever I plug-in the USB cable (from home router) to my laptop, windows crashes! Then I gave my laptop to system admin of the office, but no use. appuram vera vali illai, I started living with it. Whenever there is a power flap windows crashes. Once, the tube light in my room flickered, guess what, laptop crashed!!! Then I totally stopped using the USB port for networking.

Yesterday, I gave a try again with the USB (gave enough time to windows for self-recovery :-P). To my surprise, it didn't crash. I was happy about the self-correcting windows, and was browsing for almost half an hour. Then my roomie, sitting beside me, lifted his hand for picking up something behind him. Windows crashed.

Some crazy idea

2008-08-21T21:36:00.001-07:00

I got some crazy idea this morning. That is, to manufacture ozone here and fill the holes created above the antartica. Did some search in the internet and found the link convincing that it is not viable.

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/makemore.html

Tuticorin express

2008-06-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

A blog after a long time doesn't mean that I was busy, just that I didn't get topics ;-).

I travel more these days, but the destination and transport remains the same. Yes, its madurai and the train is tuticorin express. I happen to see a lot of interesting things while travelling and yes, the blog is about that.

Panic passengers
These are the kind of passengers who are always in panic even when train comes 30 minutes late. Most of them would be "rules sigamani"s ;-).. as soon as the train comes, they get into the nearest entrance of their coach, even when the berth is at the other end. The result is, Chaos.

Berth hoppers
These are the kind of passengers who never get near-by-near berths for group. Once a gang of youngsters were in same cabin as mine. All were colleagues, making a trip to madurai. One guy asked in tamil, "engalle oruthanukku next coach vizhunthirukku, if you don't mind, neenga antha next coachukku poga mudiyuma?".. I said, "I mind, and Sorry". I usually don't like transferring, especially not to next coach. After sometime, another guy from the same guy, asked for the same. But this time in English. A BIG NO this time.

Last century friends
The best part of travelling we will get a chance to meet our old friends. I have met many of my such friends, some did nursery with me, some school mates. Last week, a guy with big spectacles, and thick moustache approached me..

"Hey krishna ram.. how r u? (actually he asked in sourashtra), mee aswin ra...".

Actually I was not able to recognize him.. but tried to pretend.. asked him "SPVM school mate?"...

he replied, "no da, TVS lakshmi"..
"oh ok, after noon batchaa?"..
this time he got angry over me... "no da, forenoon session, XII A, your class mate... and you dont remember me..." and walked away. Even after 5 mins I was not able to recollect, my bad memory.. Later I walked to him and apologized for this bad brain, and made a general talk.

A different part of my pleasant trips.

LKG school mates

I have seen couples who talk, talk, talk... for hours. I don't understand what do they talk for such a long time... (is that why I'm still single, huh?). For couples, it made little sense to me. I came across a case which was not understandable at all :-(..

Once in our cabin, a girl was sitting, in the side lower berth. (Three of us were travelling). In the next cabin a guy was standing talking to TTE, ticket checker. After the TTE gone, he just looked back at the side lower berth. He started giving talk to the girl, it all started like... "hey you are ** so and so ** studied in *** school, LKG right?"

My friend was keen listening to this. later we were teasing their conversations (aming ourselves), and went for sleep. My friend woke up at 3 AM for peeing... and was shocked to see both of them talking again. Even though I didn't understand the rational, I really appreciated their talkative nature, with their only commonness being LKG school mates.

Signing off for now.

Year 2007

2008-01-01T06:13:00.000-08:00

Am I sitting idle? Then why this crazy idea stuck my mind.... to list down the movies that I watched in 2007, and the list of books too. (I think it is good exercise to my memory, which is very-forgetting these days).

Movies first:

super duper mokkai movies: Sillunu oru kaadhal, Kannamoochi yaenada, Vel, Malaikkottai, Thottal Poo Malarum.

movies for self-sadists ;-) : Azhugiya tamizh magan, (as name says), Pasupathi, aval appadi thaan, parattai endra azhagu sundaram.

Yet another movie: Om shanti om

Good movies: Katrathu tamizh, Sivaji, Billa,Polladhavan, Kadalora kavithaigal, kireedom, Paruthiveeran, Pokkiri

Best movies: Beautiful mind, Mozhi, Chennai 28

Animation movies: Toy story, Toy story II, bug's life, meet the robinsons.. This is the new thing I tried this year. The book "Icon" inspired me to watch animation movies.

Wow, I have watched 25 movies this year.. I think this is the highest in my life in a single year.

and now books I read:

Digital fortress, Midnight children, Freakonomics, A tiger for malgudi, Iraq plus sadam minus sadam, Fountain head, Life of pi, The inscrutable americans, Kee.pee - kee.moo, Prelude to foundation, Srirangathu kathaigal, Icon, Swami and friends, Malgudi adventures...

Out of these, midnight children is the worst I have read, and fountain head is the best.

Useless facts!!

2007-11-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

Today, Rajyotsava day in bangalore. The day when the state was found.. Dont know much about its history. and i dont know more than this, just enjoying the day :-).

After playing good cricket in the morning we came home fully tired. I made pongal + daal for brunch. Dont ask me how it tasted like! Miles to go :-).

It started boring after noon. I asked my roomie to browse some interesting website. he suggested me, "why dont you search for "interesting website" in google. I searched, first few from the search result was junk. Google had hiccups in giving the good result which came only in the next page of the result :-). It was a page full of facts, useless facts, but still interested me.

I browsed through the website for almost an hour and found many of those so-called useless facts, interesting to me. I thought of sharing few of them here. my comments are marked in green. For complete referrence: http://www.angelfire.com/ca6/uselessfacts/

History

The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children. - Wow, what a man!! (padayappa dialogue) ;-)

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David; Clubs - Alexander the Great; Hearts - Charlemagne; and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

Animals

Guinea pigs and rabbits can't sweat. Rabbits never walk or trot, but always hop or leap.

Snakes who have the genetic mutation of having been born with two heads have a hard time eating, because the two heads generally fight over which gets the food.

Cows are the only mammals that pee backwards.

It takes seven years for a lobster to grow 1 pound. - and a man takes just 7 seconds to finish it!

The ostrich egg yolk is the biggest single cell in the world.

Most cows give more milk when they listen to music - ithu theriyama naama "raama rajanai" romba ottitom ;-)..

The bite of a leech is painless due to its own anesthetic. - but it committed suicide by biting my friend ;-)...

Inventors

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. - the da vinci is more than a artist.. he is suspected to be one of the Illuminatis.

To an observer standing on Pluto, the sun would appear no brighter than Venus appears in our evening sky.

Dating back to the 1600's, thermometers were filled with Brandy instead of mercury. -- they would have faced lots of thermometer thefts ;-)..

Strange laws

In Saudi Arabia, a woman reportedly may divorce her husband if he does not keep her supplied with coffee. In Hartford Connecticut, it is illegal for a husband to kiss his wife on Sundays. enna kodumai saravanan ithu?

Surveys (from US)

Forty percent of American adults cannot fill out a bank deposit slip correctly.

The average human scalp has 100,000 hairs.

Someone within 200 miles of your town claims to have had direct contact with a monster, ghost or other unexplainable being.

A recent Gallup poll shows that 69 percent of Americans believe they will go somewhere after death. And almost 70% beleive in rebirth!!

Focus group information compiled by CalComp revealed that 50 percent of computer users do not like using a mouse.- Oh I have company!!

P.S. This is my 100th post. I know I have taken long time to this. (like Sachin taking 20 balls for scoring 5 runs to reach hundred ;-) )..

Happy birthday Kithna maama

2007-09-09T23:33:00.000-07:00

Context: oh yes, i have started my 27th revolution around sun.

September 5th evening: I met my sister her at her PG acco. She gave me a pleasant surprise with a flower bouquet and some sweets. and got the advance wishes from her on the eve of my birthday.

September 6th: this time my room mate got the honor of blessing me first ;-).. i packed up to office, after couple of calls from brother and friends. i didn't celebrate my birthday for the past two years (don't ask me the reason). "wearing new dress" thaan nammaloda celebratione ;-), not more than this. I said NO for treat to my friends and colleagues since I don't have a habit of treating on birthdays ;-), one nice excuse to escape from treat.

I was invited to Mr. J's place that evening. I thought it was going to be just a meet. It was much more than that. My friend and his family has brought a bday cake for me to cut. And my friend's niece started singing birthday song, "Happy bday to kithna maama". She tried saying Krishna mama couple of time and ended saying kithna maama. and it was very cute to hear her saying kithna mama. mazhalai pechu is always nice to hear :-). they made my evening a pleasant, wonderful evening of the year :-).

September 7th evening: it was Friday, as I usually, I was heading towards Madurai, in Tuticorin express. I got into a wrong compartment because of the discontinuity of the compartments. And the wrong compartment didn't seem to be wrong, it was full of girls. (and mostly good looooooking ;-)). I can get into the right compartment only in the next station, Hosur, which was still an hour to go. There was a side lower berth empty. I asked for the girls in that cabin, to sit there for sometime till the next station. Most of the girls did say No, except for one girl, who permitted me to sit. Then, all the other girls started teasing her. And they were from Mount carmel, and going on a botanical trip to kodaikanal. When the train was nearing to Hosur, that girl came to me with a camera. Can anyone guess what she told me?

"UNCLE, can you take snap for us?".. haha, enakku siruppu thaan vanthuchu (In fact, I pitied her ignorance :-P). Appuram, Hosur came and I got into the right compartment, thinking about my 27th revolution.. how interesting it is going to be :-)..

Krishna - a female character?

2007-08-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is all about the Lord Krishna, an Hindu Mythical figure. This post is about him, particularly as a character, not as a god.

Somehow I got a feeling that Krishna is a female character, from my recent experiences.. Or I should state that the probability of Krishna being a male character is not convincing.. here are my arguments for that:

a) There is a story in Mahabharat that, Krishna married Aaravan, Arjun's son. How could Krishna can marry a male? By dates, Mahabharat should occured before 2500 years. Definitely, before 2500 no one would have capability of sexual transformation. So there is a possibility that either of them is a female, but being portrayed as males.

b) We went to Coorg a year back, and got to see one painting of Krishna, where he was portrayed as a girl. Oh no, thats not modern art. Thats a classical painting. So there is a sect of the society who see Krishna a female.

c) And this argument is a week argument: I have met couple of girls (my school mates) who are named as Krishna. (It is simply Krishna, no additional names to it).

d) Ayyappa: He is the child of Shiva and Vishnu. Once again this questions....

e) And in many other places, Krishna is disguised as beautiful girl, and traps Asuras...

I know I sound rubbish for all the Hindu-believers, but these are just my thoughts..

Your last transaction is cancelled

2007-07-20T02:19:00.000-07:00

in 2003:

I was taking money at an ICICI ATM in chennai. After I took the money out of the machine, I accidentally pressed the Cancel button, my card is still inside the machine. Surprisingly, the machine threw the message "Your last transaction is cancelled". I felt very happy to read it, to see my last transaction is not accounted after I took the money out ;-).. But later I realized that it got accounted, just the message misled... many of my other friends have also tried this and they too had the same feeling...

in 2007:

I somehow developed the habit pressing the cancel button after taking the money out. It just gives some sense of pleasure that I have not taken money out, and I still have something on my hand to spend it..... and continuing this till now.

even life has got Cancel buttons, just that it doesnt work like what we think, as in the case of the ATMs...

BhagmatiS

2007-05-13T02:41:00.000-07:00

I, along with my roommates, went to Pongal to have lunch. While getting the token for lunch I saw three hijdas in the neighbor shop collecting money. Hijda means Aravaani in Tamizh. eunuch in English? Wiki has got good answer for this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia). It also gives the history of the rituals in Koothavandavar temple in Tamilnad.
[Hijda, is being used as derogatory terms, but I am using it just to mention the third sex).

I knew that they will also come to Pongal for collecting money. And they shocked us, by sitting in front of us, in the same table for eating. One of them went for washing hands, but water didnt come, and she told "Thanniyum varalai ***niyum varalai.." aloud and everyone in the hotel looked at her. (Note, I refer them as she, since they wear sarees/women dresses and they want to earn sympathy by doing so). While eating they started speaking aloud.. They dressed in a very obscene manner, using vulgar words, disturbing us as well as others in the hotel. They told to themselves that I and my cousin (my roomie) looks like brother. They went one step more and clarified with my cousin that we were brothers... It really spoiled the mood of eating and I took only half of what I usually take. And we came back to house.

I could understand that they were thrown out of the society, were teased literally and lots of other discriminations too.. But this kind of nuisances will make the society to grow more hostility among them, and will discourage people from helping them. I have seen many decent looking hijdas, dressed up in pants and T shirts moving freely in public places. They were not treated as how other nuisance-creating. The problem is with other two sexes too, who teased them and brought them to this state. But having formed their own organizations, socieities they should move out of this circle, and increase their status, avoid nuisances to the public...

All these incidents, reminded me of the character Bhagmati from the novel, Delhi (by Kushwant singh). When she was born, the doctors were not able to identify her sex. She was named Bhagmati and treated as she by her parents because they did not have any female child that time. But at the age of 4, she was handed over to hijdas in the city. She, later became a prostitute, married to another a man who already had two hijda wives. What if Bhagmati's parents took care of her, shown the true love and given her a life? Definitely, she would have led a better life with better status.

6/5/2007 - Mysore express

2007-05-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Nowadays I travel very frequently to my native place, madurai. (The indian philadelphia :-) ). And I like travelling in trains. Particularly to Madurai, because of the scenic views in the morning and mild breeze in the evening. So I developed a habit of standing near the door for 15 to 30 minutes to enjoy the nature.

Smoking and drinking is considered as offence in Indian trains. But I could see lots of people violating this. Yesterday, when I was coming back I could see cigarette smell coming out of the toilet. I have seen this previously also. what shocked me is when 4 guys came near the door and they opened coca cola bottles and started drinking COKE. They ate peanuts as side dish. Fortunately, they did not create much noise. But who knows, they might have gone bad after they are drunk...

I wanted to hang them outside the train like Anniyan, but I stopped with my imagination.. I went back to my seat for sleeping.

No more Bachelor...

2007-04-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

I have been preparing for this for the past two years, and it all got finished last week. I am no more a bachelor degree holder, successfully completed MS from BITS, pilani. It has added significant knowledge to my brain.. hopefully, it will add some value in my career in long term. The experience was quite interesting, which i will share here.

August 2005 - First semester

I paid the semester fees at the start of August, and didnt bother to lookup their website till the end of August. When I did on the last day of August, I was shocked to see that the mid semester exams are afetr two days. Then I came to knew about make up exams, (for ppl like me who intentionally or unintentionally miss the exams ;-)), which was at the third week of ctober. And the 4th week of October is the final exams. Oops, now I had to prepare for the whole semester within one and half months. The first good thing I did was I bought the books (which I hardly did during my under grad days). Started preparing.

One week before the make up exam I thought trying sample papers. There was a shock again, I prepared for one subject which I didnt register for !!!!!!! head started spinning.. and managed to clear all the papers. (the best of my luck ;-) )...

Jan 2006 - Nov 2006

Second semester and third semester, I started preparing seriously, unlike the first. I managed to go for a US trip between the first and second sem.

Dec 2006- Till date

It is a project work (dissertation) semester. Once again, I was about to slip a dead line for title submission. Though I had an idea of the project, I didnt bother to look their website (heights of laziness). I submitted it by standing on the dead line. Now, it all went fine and finished.

Now holding on for the certificates which will take couple of months.

Happy learning!

TIP and Bribe

2007-03-06T20:22:00.000-08:00

Once again I landed in US for a short trip, and about to go back to my motherland. There are lot of things that I miss in US which I get in India, and vice versa. Got a chance to meet many of my old, still good, friends, and my sister too. Went to LA. This time Disney land. It was awesome. I always liked the 4D shows and Virtual reality shows. Even last time, I wondered after watching Shrek, and "Back to the future" shows in Universal studios. Technology speaks, definitely.

One thing that I dont like in US is, the habit of tipping... Go to hotels, restaurants, cabs, house keeping.... everywhere we have to TIP. I have always skipped those if I have encountered them only for once. But still, in other cases I ended up paying huge TIP, which looks huger when I convert it to Rupees. (No, I havent coined the term Huger ;-).. ).

In many a ways I feel that TIPing is similar to the bribing habits in my motherland. There are some differences like, TIPing is after Service, and bribing is before service, one is legal while the other is not... hmm.

Signing off now.

Happy new year, happy new year!!!

2007-01-02T04:13:00.000-08:00

Got a bunch of hearty wishes from my friends and sibblings on the new year 2007. And quite good number of forwards from my e-friends.

And this year is really going to be happy because it has got more holidays (52 weeekends + 11 local holidays). I got a mail saying that this year has got maximum number of weekends. I got a doubt after reading that. a non leap year consists of 52 weeks + 1 day. So, whichever day the Jan 1st is, the number of weekends will be 52. In case of a leap year + the Jan 1st is on Sat, there will be 53 weekends. Even in that case, we lose two holidays (Since Jan 1st is on saturday, Dec 25 of the previous year was also on saturday, and some local holidays like pongal may fall on Saturday (Jan 15th)).. ethu eppadiyo, the number of weekends will not add much. The good thing about this year is "pandigais thethi weekendsle illai".. (no festival on weekends). A software engineer should really feel proud of this and should forward the mails to their adjacents.

how was my 2006?

it was a good year in my career, learned lots of management tricks, and some technical things too. On the personal side, it was a very good year. I know I was not able to cope up with certain things, others expectations etc. I regret for this, and I dont know whether i deserve their forgivance.

I read lots of books. particularly indian history books. I was always reluctant to history, but got inspired by the works of my friend, and read books related to indian history.

how was new years' eve and Jan 1st?

I usually hear mokkai jokes like, "I slept last year, and woke up this year", "I am taking one year leave" etc.. but this time I escaped from these jokes on Jan 1st. On new year's eve, I went for shopping (I call it year end shopping). Happy to see that others are also shpopping, and keeping the economy healthy :-). This new year might have definitely given good revenue for telephone operators. It was anticipcated that 1 billion SMSes would have got exchanged in India. Source: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/12/30/2203035.htm

how will be my 2007?

Expect the unexpected.

What I dont understand?

Yesterday (Jan 1st), I saw a big queue in a hanuman temple for Dharshan. What I dont understand is, how January 1st became an auspiciuos day for Hindus?

Why did I do shopping on new year's eve? Why didnt I do the same on tamil new year?

Stuck in infinite loop!

2006-12-11T04:20:00.000-08:00

Recently I read on Dhirubhai ambani's Orbit theory, which impressed me very much.
(Yes, you guessed it right, this article about his theory).

Being a soft(ware) engineer, I would like to represent his theory using the following simple C code, and here you go.

while (level) {

if (condition) {
continue;
}

level = level->next;
}

everyone have their own definition of "level", and "condition". "orbit" is the definition given by Ambani for "level".

Phoolwala - On valentines day

2006-11-06T01:54:00.000-08:00

(Note, I have not mentioned about this in valentine's day post).

11:30 AM. A office boy came to my desk and asked me whether I am Krishna. He said I go a phone in the next room. I went there, and attended the call. here is the conversation:

Me: Hello

She: Sir, this is XYZ calling from phoolwala.com. and we have to send you a bouquet.

Me: what?? (I showed as if I am surprised, though I was expecting many bouquets on a Valentine day ;-) )...

She: yes, sir. anyone can send any bouquets to any one through phoolwala.com, and someone has sent it for you...

Me: Ok, what should I do?

She: you give us your phone number, we will send SMS message and you confirm.

Me: (I gave my number without second thought...) and she hung up..

I was thinking who could that be... I told to my friend Mr.J, about this and we was surprised too..we came up with some theories, but no luck, not able to gues who has sent me a bouqet...

after 30 minutes, I got a call.

She: (a different She), sir this ABC calling from a consulting firm? would you be interested in.....?

Hmm, I said no and hung up. appuram thaan realize pannaen, how the phoolwala made me a fool wala..

Disbelievers

2006-09-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

Theism - The art of Disbelieving in the Inexistence of god,
Atheism - The art of Disbelieving in the Existence of god.

Oh my god, this planet is full of disbelievers...

Smart workers

2006-09-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

I found the following statement in a UML book and it is simply good.

Cats are smater than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow. - Jeff Valdez.

And it motivates smart workers like me ;-)...

MOTD

2006-09-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

Management expects consistent performance from Engineers,
Engineers expects consistent recognition from Management,
And both never worked together.

[ey dandanakka danakkunakkaaa ;-) ]

ஒரு கவிதை...

2006-09-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

After a long time, I tried a kavithat in tamil.. here is the result:...

மாலை நேரம்
சாலை ஓரம்
விடைப்பெற்றது சிவப்பு நிலா
நாளை வருகிறேன் என்று....

August 26, 2005, Bangalore.

2006-08-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

I was in chennai, with my parents. I was shocked to hear the news when my roomie called from bangalore.. my head was spinning, and I started to bangalore along with another friend. after couple of calls, we changed our path and ended up at Salem, instead of bangalore..

It was the demise of my beloved friend who met with accident at inner ring road. Being an excellent driver, a man with great reflex, the accident still remains a mystery for us. The one who admitted to hospital, also disappeared and not able to track.

He has been my inspiration right from my college days. He is the one who taught me programming, taught me histories, taught me philosphies, etc, and the list is long.

2005 is a black year in my life, missed my grandpa and him, both of them being my role models... Though I dont believe in souls and re-birth, sometimes I feel that the concept of souls should be true, and they should appear in my life, at some point..

Robert frost quotes | more

2006-07-31T01:17:00.000-07:00

came across some quotes from robert frost...

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_frost.html

and excerpts from the above link:

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day. (though this is not applicable to S/W industry ;-) )..

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

1998, August, Electric train - Singara Chennai

2006-07-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

After making a decent score in higher secondary, I secured a seat in a college in chennai. August, 1998, was the first days of my college life. I think it was third weekend, on which I planned to meet my cousin sister at Minjur. (sub-urban areas of chennai). Now, minjur has become famous after ghaana ulaganathan used it in his song (manapponnu vizhangu meenu minjooru thaanungo...). My cousin said there are periodic trains from chennai central and I can catch one of those and get down at minjur which is 45 mins from chennai central.

Since I did not know much about chennai, those days, I tried to explore by taking longest path from the college. and the path went like this...

Caught a bus at Gandhi mandapam at Guindy and got down at Karunanidhi arch in saidapet.

Went to Saidapet railway station for a train to Park (chennai central). After waiting for few mins, a train to beech arrived. Before that, I asked four or five people which train should I catch.. the answer was same, "beech pora train...". The Train was very much crowded, and enough crowd at the station to make my journey a horrible one.. atlast, I managed to find a coach which was less crowded. And the train started immediately after I entered the coach... After the train started I felt some un-easiness and looked at the other passengers in the coach. Oh Man, all were ladies and women.. A gentle lady near me told its a ladies coach. Hmm, it is a news for me, I never knew electric trains have reservations for ladies. She recommended to get down at next station and change the coach. I agreed (in fact, I have to).

Mambalam station: My parents were advicing me to be careful with electric trains, since it stops only for few seconds and it moves fast. As soon as the train reached the next station, Mambalam, I got out of the ladies coach and get into the next one. And the train started immediately.. Again a surprise, the coach was very less crowded, and I thought everyone got down at Mambalam. There was one guy smoking, inspite of some warning boards there.

Nungambakkam: Some ticket checker got into the coach and started checking the tickets, while the train was heading towards Egmore. I showed my ticket. He said this coach is a first class, and my second class ticket is good for nothing, here. It was a painful surprise for me... He caught the other guy also, who was finishing up the last puff of his cigarette. I was calculating how much I have in my purse, some fifties... got some unnecessary imagination of counting Kambiis in jail...

Chetpet: First, the checker was asking the other guy to pay the fine. The other guy said, he know some commisioner etc..(in vivek's style).. but nothing worked out for him. Atlast he paid the fine and the checker turned back to me... I said, "Sir, I new to this city.. first time electric train, study in college..." was olarifying a lot with my arai-kurai english and I showed my ID card. Dont know what he thought, but he relieved me without asking for the fine.. and I took the next train for Park, of course, this time in the right coach.

Park: got down at park, in fact, 3/4 th of the train got down.. I have seen central station only few times (when I went to Hyderabad during my skool dayz), and also in some tamil movies (wheneve the director wants to show Chennai).. After couple of enquires I crossed the subway and went to the central r/w station. Not able to locate trains to Minjur.. later someone told it is the next building, where sub-urban trains depart.. Atlast caught a train reached Minjur safely...

Catching and travelling in electric trains are always interesting.. It is the place where I started liking some old songs, which blind people sing and ask for help.... I am humming the song "koduthathellam koduththaar athu yaarukkaga koduthaar...." and closing this....

A rose between two thorns

2006-06-29T03:54:00.000-07:00

[Jinnah, Louis Mountbatten, Edwina Mountbatten].

Their meeting had begun with an unhappy gaffe, a gaffe poignantly revealing of the meticulous, calculating Jinnah to whom no gesture could be spontaneous. Realizing he would be photographed with the Mountbattens, Jinnah had carefully memorized a pleasant little line to flatter Edwina Mountbatten, who he was sure would be posed between the Viceroy and himself. "

"Alas, poor Jinnah! It was he and not Edwina who wound up in the middle. But he couldn't help himself. He was programmed like a computer and his carefully rehearsed line just had to come out. 'Ah,' he beamed, 'a rose between two thorns'."

(excerpted from the famous Freedom at Midnight)..

This book is very interesting and is giving a picture what was happening in 1946 - 47...

Some funny Tamil to English translations

2006-06-14T01:30:00.000-07:00

Some funny translations that we use in day to day life to show our Peterness.

Bad donkeys, small wall...

Donkey doesnt know camphor smell...

Yesterday rainle grown up mushrooms..

This side, that side is green.

and our peterness continues..

indraya thathuvam

2006-06-14T01:27:00.000-07:00

Thennai marathukku keelai kallu kudichchalum
ilaneer nu thaan nenachukkuvanga..

- Kicha, 2000 A.D

3 and Me

2006-06-08T23:04:00.000-07:00

Sometime back (after the death of Pramod Mahajan), I received a mail which contained some facts(?) about the role of "3" in Pramod Mahajan's life. One sample is, he died on 3rd of May...

Three, being my favorite number, I started finding how 3 is playing a role in my life.. here are some:

I am the 3rd child for my parents (this might be a reason why 3 became my favorite number...)

I know 3 natural languages and 3 programming languages...

my door number is 7, which has 3 ones in binary.. (ithu konja overnu enakkae thonuthu)..

my date of birth is multiple of 3.

month of birth is also a multiple of 3.

3 big crushes in my life (so far ;-) ).

"tamizh" kku moondrezhuththu, "uyir"ukku moondrezhuththu, intha "kichcha"kkum moondrezhuththu...

me stopping here since I have received a mail saying "3 things in life.... Good one...", me going to read it now..

Tamizh FANaticS

2006-05-15T02:29:00.000-07:00

A short conversation...

He: Why you guyz are hesitant to learn our national language, Hindi?

Me: Sorry we cannot help out, that's problem with the government..

He: Hmm, looks like TN Govt has to take some initiatives on this front...

Me: Hey, I meant the Central govt which has declared Hindi as National language,
instead of Tamizh..

He: ?!?!

Me: Udal mannukku uyuil Tamizhukku...

Note: Me is not me.

if (nxtCM == Mr.V)

2006-05-07T09:45:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is election in TN. DMKs are keeping their fingers crossed for something good to happen, this time. Some new parties are emerged in this election. One such political party is under the leadership of Mr.V. People are thinking that he can do many good things to TN. But, IMHO, it will be difficult for him to form a corruption and a successful government. The reason is, DMDK is formed with support of many other minority groups, and for sanctioning something good, he has to get approval from everyone. He cannot form a government better than MKs. (some parties like Lok paritan which is not made from minority and other coalition supports, can definitely make a difference).

Anyways, on a lighter side I could see many a good things will happen if Mr.V becomes CM of TN. (please read it UnSeriously ;-) ).

a) the first thing he will do after becoming CM is, he will go to Pakistan border, and will talk to Paki militants for ten minutes. Every ten minutes from then every militant will start supporting Indianisms.

b) On the way from Kashmir, he will go to Delhi parliament for a Talk with our PM. Mr.V will talk in Tamil only, fortunately APJ will be available for translation. And also, APJ will clarify Mr.V that Tamil is not our national language.

c) will bring Top vidum potti (athaan pambaram) in Olympics. Starring Mr.V jointly with Suganya will represent India.

d) Once in a year, he will take a day off and will go to US for helping NASA engineers. (Note: Even there he will talk in tamil with NASA engineers and of course they will learn Tamil in 24 seconds).

e) For the next 5 years, there will be un-interrupted power supply to whole TN (Narashimha watchers can understand this).

f) High courtle enna judge vanthalum theerpu solrathu namma Mr.V ya thaan irukkum.

g) Last but not the least, we will not get his movies for next 5 years, happaadaa.

I'm afraid that he may say, "tamillae enakku pidikkathae orae vaartha "arasiyal" thaanda, ngggu" after the results.

Anyways, my support is for Amma. Mithavanga ellam chumma.

I am sure that my last two statements will determine the fate of TN for the next 5 yrs.

Is it a bad day?

2006-04-25T00:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the longest evening in my life. I was fully tired yesterday, after a trip to coorg on the weekend. I planned to leave early in the evening, at 4:00 PM. My cell phone was not functioning properly for the past couple of weeks, so I decided to go to a nokia service centre, which is on the way to my house. and also near to Christ college, who will miss the fun of parking vehicle near christ college and roaming there.

The nokia centre was crowded and I registered my name. I was waiting there for half an hour and later asked the receptionist, when will be my turn? After hearing that it will take atleast an hour, I decided to come back to office and started back to the nokia centre by 5:30 PM. I got my turn soon after that.

Nokia rep: sir, what problem do you have with your phone?

Me: If i speak, the person on the other side is not able to hear the voice,
and sometimes my keys locks.. (and I showed my fone).

N: (after looking at my phone) we cannot do any upgrade on your phone,
but you can give for service.

Me: Ok. (that why iam here.)

N: if your phone has any component fault then we cannot fix it, you may need to go
to infantry road.

Me: then, what else will you do?

N: we will clean your phone, keypads etc.. and see whether it will work.
(phone clean panrathukku oru service centreaa?)

N: and you have to pay 50 bucks for it, if it works.

Me: hmm, 50 Rs for cleaning the phone.. (Which I could have very well done in my house :-().

N: one more thing, your phone may get dead!

Me: why?

N: one in 1000 cases it will go dead, but I am sure it will not happen to you
(it looked like as if she was keeping track of the count ;-), and why did she told me when she is sure? ).

Me: Ok.

N: one more thing, you may lose your taata?

Me: taatava? which taata?

N: taata sir taata.

Me: oh, datava. I am fine. (In fact, i was very desperate to repair it).

N: your name?

Me: I told.

N: can you please spell it?

Me: K.r.i.s.h.n.a r.a.m.

N: ok sir, please sign here.

Me: after looking at the sheet, "hello my name is not rao, but Ram".. (naama andrha meals saaptu valarnthathu avalukku eppadi thaan therinjatho?).

N: ok sir, please wait outside, I will calll you.

After 10 mins, she came and told my phone cannot be repaired. and asked me to collect the same from "dispatch counter" after 10 mins. It was 5:50, and I was feeling hungry by that time and decided to go to a Sagar nearby. I was back to the centre by 6:05 and the security did not let me in, since their working hours is till 6:00. I was not able to convince him, but he convinced me very well and asked me come tomorrow. With disappointment, I came outside.

I was surprised to see my vehicle missing from the platform. Panic. Later the security told the police ppl have towed my vehicle and asked me to go to koramangala police stattion.

after withdrawing some cash from ATM, I went to an auto fellow for koramangal police station. He did not look like a tamil guy (i thought it was the time to improve my hindi) and...:

Me: Koramangala police station aaghaya? (hey I tried to mean aayegha.. but my poorness..)

He: (laughed, but understand what I tried to ask him), sir, koramangala police station nahe aayegha, humae uthar jaana hain..

Me: I smiled and got into the auto.

HE: sir, which language you are? (he asked me in English, and he is good in English also.).

Me: Tamizh.

He: tamilaaa, enakkum tamil theriyum sir.

Me: neenga adichcha jokku, oru tamil padathula yaerkanavae vanthathu thaane..

He: he he, aaman sir. neenga ethukku police station poreenga?

Me: ennoda vehiclai kadamai thavaratha police kaaranunga thookittu poyitaanga..

He: oh, athukku neenga Adugudi police station ponum, inga illai.

Me: seri, angayae vudunga...

He: Ok, talk to the police guyz in tamil/kannada, and tell him that you are unemployedd...(Etc, ippadi naraya advicee.., namma neram theriyaama romba advice pantaaru).

later he told he is doing part time BCom, and he is planning to join BPO/call center after couple of months. a good aspiring student :-). he dropped me at the police station. my friend joined me there and we waited there for an hour or so.. after an hour, the police waala came and told my vehicle would be in madiwala police station..

again took an auto to madiwala police station and found my vehicle. ended up paying 500 bucks (300 for fine + 200 bribe for my expired pollution control certificate). :-((. after I told that I am unemployed, new to the place etc, I got 50 bucks back. :-). later watched a detective movie from mamutty and went to bed. the dreams were bad. I was playing chess with my friend, because of that I was missing my exams, later losing the chess game...(I got many a different interpretations for the same)..

Today, I went to the service centre and got my phone back. She did not ask for 50 bucks, since they thought my phone is not repaired and the good news is my phone is working fine now. They are the real experts in cleaning the phone..Surprisinlgy, they do the same for most of the customers. Looks like fixing in hardware is simpler than in software ;-).

Google Analytics

2006-04-07T04:39:00.000-07:00

Analytics. I think this is a very recent product from Google. This can be used for analyzing a website. Basically, for collecting statistics like ppl visiting the website, their region etc. And does analysis on the data collecting and displays in kicha-friendly format.

www.google.com/analytics

First you may need to request for an ID. Once Google gets a free slot you, it will give you a script which should be added to your website. I got one such and have added to my blog. It may take a while for getting one.

It looks like lots of people around the world are looking through my blog :-).

here are some region:

Santa Clara, Bangalore, Madras, Bombay, Scottsdale, Warwick, Muenchen, Winchester,
Saint Louis, Vishakhapatnam, Sedgwick, Bhopal, Raleigh, Walldorf, East Hartford, and the list is big. (In fact, I dont know most of the cities, where they are located. anyways, thanks for all of your visits!).

Do you wonder how google gets city location? It has become very easy to track an IP Address. We can easily find upto the granularity of ISP and also it's location.

Look at http://www.dnsstuff.com/.

Open this page, you will get where you are, at the top right corner of the page!

Software engineer and Indian Politics

2006-03-30T04:17:00.000-08:00

As TN election is nearing, situation is becoming HOT in TN. I was chatting with my friend who is doing his MS in germany. He is bit curious to know about the happenings in TN. I told him about the "balti"(/somersault? ;-)) of vaiko. We were discussing how shitty the politics is.

Actually, I did not find much difference between politics and our corporate life.

I can tell many of the incidents that happens in day-to-day life of a soft engineer, (which can be easily correlated to politics).

00) during interviews: HR asks, "why do you want to join our company?" (this is mostly posted to freshers). then the candidate will start saying that "i have gone through your company website, and i found my frequency of thoughts are inline with the goals of the company"... or some crap like this. everyone knows what that guy will do after a year. put his papers....

01) the most funny part is: guys coming back to the same company. in exit interviews, the same HR will ask, "why do you want to leave our company?".. and the candidate says , "the pay is not good, i do not foresee, much growth in this org." etc.. I know many guys returned back to the same organization working in some other company for 6 or more months.. the corporates accept those candidates, also. the worst part is, the package will be more than what he would have got if he has continued his career...

10) Non-co-operative movement (as what Gandhi Ji did). happens particularly between the US team and the indian counterparts.

10) heights of politics in giving promotions, salary hikes, US trips, etc..

I do not see differences between a software engineer life and politics.

Joy of working in a small company!

2006-03-29T05:37:00.000-08:00

It has been 15 months since I joined this networking company, a Santa clara based. The company as such is a small one, and we were claiming ourselves to be pioneer in metro-ethernet.

Now, it has got acquired by a Telecom giant and a fortune 500. Going back to a huge organization, again. I felt really great and happy working in the small company. Besides some minor disadvantages, I have seen lots of advantages. a few are:

a) clear visibility to the top management.
b) great responsibilities on my shoulders! believe me, I was responsible for three components, and I did significant contribution on all.
c) flat hierarchy and more transparency than bigger companies. (I assume, this would be the case in all the companies).
d) and good work pressue.

and more flexibilities like not wearing badges, going in short pants etc ;-).

the only sad part is no one knows about the company. particularly, it becomes difficult to face relatives. once in my native place, i met one of my relatives.
my mom introduced me to him and she said I work in bangalore. and my relative immediately asked, "oh, are you working in wipro?"... (I dont know how people conclude that Wipro is the only company in bangalore, or is it that his sone is working in wipro?). I said "no, but in Company X". he asked, (just like that), how much you would be drawing, around 50K? First I was shocked to hear the way he asked and also about the figures.. later, I told I am drawing some decent salary, which is more than sufficient for my daily needs... his face became red...

anyways, I love working in small companies, not sure whether I will get a chance in future! Happy working.

Oviyaas

2006-02-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to the works of oviyaas. Wow, the oil paintings are too good. All the work is from the artist Thangapandi. Actually, he is a good friend of mine. We did our graduation from the same college.

Posting my favorite here:

Looks interesting right? Those who are interested can look at his gallery at www.oviyaas.com.(http://www.oviyaas.com/gallery.html). He is totally dedicated to painting, by profession. So feel free to contact him for business.

Election

2006-02-21T02:59:00.000-08:00

Next election is nearing and lots of campaigning have started in TVs, newspapers.. I do not know much about politics, and I have decided learn it from this election. So, I have started analyzing leaders and their parties. I have decided to post few of the funny things about our politicians, how crazy they can go while compaigning.

This post is dedicated to Swamy (CM J kae kannula verala vittu aatirukkaru!). There is a rumor that Swamy has promised the following during his last campaign in madurai.

1) will bring beach in Madurai (motha Vaigaila thanni konduvarattum!)
2) will make the madurai airport as International
3) will support the growth of sourastra community (he claimed that he has close relationships with sourastrians. actually, his wife's grandpa's father in law is from saurastra ;-) ).

Believe me, this guy has potential to dissolve any government :-).

Vijayakanth is next in my list, keep your fingers crossed...

Valentine's day activities: a summary

2006-02-14T04:47:00.000-08:00

Today evening I was chatting with my friend. Here is snip of the chat (hope he does not mind).

my friend: hi da machi
me: hello
my friend: epdida irunthuchu valentine's day? (valentine's day kaisae tha?, learning hindi these days!)
me: lots of proposals da
my friend: wow!
me: and I rejected all of those, as usual ;-)...

the conversation continued and we ended with discussing the differences between a project and a product (ippdi iruntha namma ennaikku urupudrathu?!).

Ok, coming to the point, I know that most of the fellow bloggers are very much eager to know what I did on this day!

Here you go!

7:30 AM: I woke up, and my friend prepared a good tea for me.

10:00 AM: Came to office. My box has got crashed. Later IT folks rectified it. Checked my mails and had morning tea!

10:30 AM: the most expected activity started. I was browsing through 123greetings.com and other greetings website to find a suitable greeting card for a suitable person. Later did not find any thing good after 1 hour of browsing! (projectae ennanu theriyathu, athukkulae code adikka aarambichittaen ;-) )

12:30 PM: Went to Forum for lunch with my friends whose thinking are in the same frequency as mine (I mean, they are loners like me).

5:30 PM: I planned to participate in Anti-valentine's procession near palace grounds (initiated by shiva's senas), though, my intention is different from them. Later sat in office listening to music.

7:30 PM: planning to go home early, to watch Top ten in Sun TV.

juz' another Valentine's day!

Do girls drive smart?

2006-02-07T21:08:00.000-08:00

Hmm, long time no post! Juz because I did not find any topic interesting to post!

Yesterday, I did not have work in office (dont take it literally, ;-) ). So I decided to leave early (6;00 PM, its my early time from office). I was driving back home by my street hawk (athan, namma ooru vandi splendor). my house is 10 KMS from office. (1 KM is 0.6 mile). Usually I prefer to stay as much away as possible from office. I am not a rash driver and the avg speed of my vehicle will always be 40 KM. I need not explain the busy traffic in Bangalore during peak hours.(In fact, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM is the peak hour in Bangalore, and you will be definitely caught in traffic jam during this time).

In the busy traffic I saw a gentle-lady overtook me and was driving fast and rash. She was not wearing helmet. I have seen many young girls driving rash and fast both in chennai and bangalore. But hardly heard a case where in they met accidents. Why I always hear news like Youth met with an accident, where "youth" will always be "he", not "she". Or guys sacrifice and save girls from accident? Do girls drive smart (even without helmets and @ high speeds)?

Dog Bite

2006-01-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

[Warning: This post is more tamilian friendly. For others, reading this post will be injurious to your mental health].

These days I am receiving lots of mails with "kadi" jokes, thathuvams...Some are interesting, but most of them are THE real kadis, it irritates and will make us mad soon. suddenaa enakkum antha maaari kadi thathuvams podanumnu aasai vanthuruchu (saddist ;-)). Here, I am writing my own kadis... Ennoda "sense of kadiness"ai konjam thoosi thaatirukkaen. ensoi(?) pannunga..

உடம்பு சரி இல்லைன்னா Glucose எத்துவாங்க, ஆனா Glucose சரியில்லைன்னா உடம்பு எத்த முடியது. கடைக்காரன்ட்ட தான் போனும்.

ஓரு "ஆண்"னால "ஆண்"லைன்னா(online) இருக்க முடியும், ஆனா ஒரு பெண்ணால "பெண்"லைனா இருக்க முடியுமா?

"Fan" சுத்தினா காத்து வரும், ஆனா தலை சுத்தினா வாந்தி தான் வரும்

என்னதான் இருந்தாலும், ஒரு ஆண் "penguin"ஐ "penguin"ன்னு தான் கூப்பிடனும், "ஆண் கிங்"னு கூப்பிட முடியாது.

கண்ணாடியை மூக்குல போட்டா மூக்கு கன்னாடி ஆகும், ஆனா அதை தரையில போட்டா "தரை கண்ணாடி ஆகாது"..

Last but not the least,

"Kicha di"ன்னு சொன்னா Kicha வர்றான்னு அர்த்தம், "Kichadi"ன்னு சொன்னா "kichadi" வருதுன்னு அர்த்தம் கிடையாது..

இனிமே எவனாச்சும் கடி "mails" அனுப்பட்டும் பார்துக்குரேன்...

For those who dont get tamil fonts, here is the transliterated version (No one can escape from me and this post;-))

udambu sari illainnaa Glucose eththuvaangga, aana Glucose sariyillainnA udambu eththa mudiyathu. kadaikkaarantta thaan pOnum

Oru "AN"naala "AN"lainaa(online) irukka mudiyum, Anaa oru peNNAla "peN"lainaa irukka mudiyumaa?

Fan suththinaa kaaththu varum, aanaa thalai suththinaa vaanthi thaan varum

ennathaan irunthaalum, oru AN penguinai penguinnu thaan kUppidanum, "aaN king"nu kUppida mudiyaathu.

kaNNAdiyai mUkkula pOttA mUkku kannaadi aagum, aana athai tharaiyila pOttaa "tharai kaNNAdi aagaathu"..

Last but not the least,

"Kicha da"nnu sonnA "kichadi" varRAnnu arththam, "kichadi"nnu sonnA "kichadi" varuthunnu arththam kidaiyaathu..

inimE evanAchchum kadi "mail" anuppattum paarthukkurEn...

2005++

2005-12-30T15:59:00.000-08:00

After celebrating Jesus Jayanthi, I switched back to my day to day works. Started working from Tuesday and my boss assigned me enough work before he started for vacation :-((.

And now its time to plan for New Year. After enough thought on this, I decided to go germany for New Year. Wow, doesnt it sounds interesting? Couple of my friends started asking about the ticket fare, Visa details etc... Stop, stop, I made it clear to them that I have planned to roam only in German Airport for 6 hrs, after that flying back to homeland. Yes, my trip is getting over and 'm excited to go back to mother India... Is US ma kinda place, huh? US is the best place to freak out for short trips. no more comments on this...

And couple of friends asked me about new year resolutions. Ellarukkum onnu solla virumburan, "kicha does not wait for New year to take resolutions ;-)", (ithukku mattum korachchal illai).. and as a matter of fact, I do so.

But I have some cool tips for others, who can take some of these resolutions on new year:(namma makkal michavangalukku "tips" kuduthae olinjuruvaanga...)

for net freaks: (read "From this new year, I will"...)

a) not login in invisible mode on YM
b) not use BUZZ (ctrl+G) button on YM
c) not do re-search in google (see my earlier definition of "research")
d) not do ego-surfing

for soft engineers: (read "From this new year, I will"...)

a) not do regression testing for www.indiabulls.com during office hours
b) not use Office VoIP phones for making personal inter-nation calls (saving dollars..)
c) not to listen online songs during office hours (saving bandwidth)
d) not expect more than 20 percent salary hike
e) not play online games during office hours (this is applicable to me, but I have not decided yet on it ;-) )
f) not spend more than 60 minutes in office cafteria, per day (i have not decided on this also ;-))
g) not send more than one fwded mails, per week (I am sure that this will pull down the growth of inter-networking technologies)
h) not use "copy+paste" for more than once an hour

for NRIs returning India: (read "From this new year, in India I will"...)

a) not use "Jesus christ....", "Actually in US...", kind of phrases... ;-) (First of all, I have to control myself from saying these in Bang, hahaha)

b) not use the word "Desi" (folks, whenever I hear "Desi" I remember the infamous desibaba.com....)

for bloggers: (read "From this new year, I will"...)

a) not tag any other fellow-bloggers

Enough kiddings!! I wish everyone a prosperous new year 2006. 2005 is the worst year in my life (Lots of losses :-(( ), hope 2006 will be a memorable one.

Disclaimer: The only disclaimer that I have is with the Title. If you try to use 2005++ in C, 2005 will NOT become 2006, but the compiler will generate an error message, "LValue required"....

Happy blogging!

Snow Storm

2005-12-22T16:44:00.000-08:00

Last last weekend there was a heavy snow, before I started to Boston to meet my pals. Upto 10 inches of snow piled up on that day. It was nice to walk in snow, on the slippery land...

this is one of the fotos captured by my colleague, and it looks great!!

I was looking at the foto and got involved too much in it..Later my favorites lines stroke my consciousness and got back to work :-).

The woods are lovely dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
- Robert frost

King Kong dies

2005-12-19T13:58:00.000-08:00

One of the most expected movies of the season is out. King Kong! Yesterday, me and my friend went to the Regal cinemas, at Newington to watch it. (There is a "regal cinema" in madurai, which always plays English movies, and also it is notorious ;-)). We got the ticket for matinee show, crowd was less. One thing that surpised me was, there were no seat numbers and anyone can sit anywhere. Wow, it reminded me my golden days at mdurai theatraes. And more surprisingly, first few rows were getting occupied faster than the last rows.. I agree that in first few rows you can see bigger king kong than last rowers, but I did not find any other reason for contention of first rows.

This is the first King Kong movie I've watched. I have heard a lot about the pre-quels of this movie and had my expectations high. Was bit disappointed when I watched it. In the first hour they hardly showed the beast. few comedies were good, but it was dragging. All of sudden, some tribals appeared on the screen and they never turned back during the last minutes. After the Kong came to the screen, it was interesting and fast moving! Every beast has a weakness. It gets soft-minded for the heroin, and saves her from the enemies (dinosaurs, bats,...) (engayo kaetta story?). It gets trapped to the anti-villains of the movie and they bring it to the city for money. The last hour was very much boring... The movie ran for 3 Hrs, and I went there, knowingly. (I can hear u saying that unakku ithuvum venum innamum venum...). the movie is OK, overall, but does not worth for 3 hrs.

The above fight was like the one between our MGR and nambhiyar. Atlast, MGR saves J.lalitha. LoL....

Oops, forgot to tell about the message. After the King Kong was killed (actually, it was a suicide, but no one noticed it), one of our anti-villains appeared in the screen and said, "it is not the aeroplane which killed it, but, the beauty killed the beast". But no doubt that anyone will fall for Naomi Watts. So, the message is, "Beauty can kill any beast", ;-). Actually, I was expecting some message like "anbae jesus", juz kiddin'.. but,..

It looks like the Chinese have started protesting against the movie since the name sounds like their(?) prestigious city(?), Hong Kong. I know you are searching for some thing to beat me up, but this is the impact of reading many "kadi jokes" mails..., and after all, this sounds like our old "border movie and Allan border" kadi Joke, happy blogging!

Modern Art

2005-12-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

Last monday, me and my friend went to Mac Donalds for snacks(or lunch?). Near to our seat there was a painting, hanging on the wall. I did not understand anything in that painting and told my friend that I did not get anything in that painting and asked him whether he gets anything. He said, "me too". happadaaa, enakku mattum thaan puriyalainnu nenachean. and he said," but that is modern art, you will not understand it". Stop, stop, stop.... I have been said the same thing alway about modern art. "if you dont understand some paintings, then it is called modern art". I got one good explanation from another friend who is very much interested in painting. He gave a definition of "modern art": a picture that conveys a message. Oh, thats the reason why everyone stare at some paintings and try to find what the artist is trying to convey. nammalakku straightaa sonnale sariya puriyathu.. ithule hidden message veraya, kilinjichchu!!

the following is one of such modern arts taken from an Aquarium centre, Boston.

seri, irunthaalum freeya vida manasu illai, I want to interpret atleast one modern art properly. For that I have to learn modern art. The best way to learn a language is to speak it. I thought the same should be applicable for modern art as well. Hence, I took my mspaint and broke my head to draw some picture which conveys some message. the result is:

Can you guess what the above picture conveys? If you are not patient enough for guess, then proceed further without guesses..

in Tamil:

"vaazhkaingurathu oru vattam,
athula jeykkuravan thoppan,
thoppavan jeyppan..."

in English;

Life is a circle(/cycle) of success and failure.

Hope I will able to interpret modern Arts in future.

enathu Laptop

2005-12-13T16:26:00.000-08:00

It has been three years since I have used computers at home. I had a computer during college days. it was such a minimal configuration that the CPU becomes busy while running MP3 songs ;-). After my college days I refrained from computers during home hours. For the past few months I started feeling that a computer can make my life more comfortable. First I planned for desktops. Hmm, the rates have become so cheap that we can easily afford it. For frequent travellers like me a laptop would be better than a desktop. But it is bit costlier than desktops, but far cheaper than the PC that my father gifted me in Jan 2000.

My search for laptop started, and when I came to USoA, I felt that I could buy one. After a decent amount of research on Dell laptops, I decided to buy one model.
(Note: 'research' means searching for the same string in Google). Inspiron 600m is the model that I have chosen and I got it today. the following URL gives good description of it.

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/entnb_600m?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn&~tab=specstab#tabtop

Now just playing with the configs of the laptop...

CFC

2005-12-04T14:13:00.000-08:00

yesterday I called up my mom, and she was saying that it is heavily raining in chennai and in fact, chennai is inundated with water. Bad news for everyone.

Why these days we frequently here about floods and storms? I was discussing about this with my friend in madurai, during "hurricane katrina" time. He was saying that it is closely related to the depletion of ozone layer. And heard the same from many others too. Why suddenly Ozone layer started depleting, why it did happen before 100 years..Its all because of chemicals that gets emitted from our vehicles, air-coolants, etc.. Out of this, chloro fluoro carbon(CFC) is the major contributor for the depletion of ozone. CFC gets emitted from our air-coolants (fridge, ACs..). CFC does not do any harm to our atmosphere,I mean, it does not pollute of atmosphere. But it gets accumulated over the top and depletes the ozone layer.

Is there any remedies to avoid ozone's depletion? We can stop using all of our modern day-to-day medias and go back to stone age, to live a healthier life. or we can create devices which emits new chemicals,say XYZ, which will not harm our atmosphere. But we cannot guarantee that it will not create some other problem.

Sometimes I think that we can fill up the holes that are made in ozone layer, with ozone manufactured from earth. Like use the following reaction(?) and generate ozone, take a Rocket and fill up the ozone and come back home.

O2 + O2 + O2 === catalyst ===> 2O3.

This may sound absurd or funny, but if we have something of this sort then we can re-fill the ozone layer with ozone and can continue our fun with fridges and ACs and also we can avoid "hurricane simran" in future.

Welcome to the Hotel California

2005-12-03T14:26:00.000-08:00

Atlast, my dream trip to california happened during thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving is like our "kaanum pongal", meet relatives and friends and have fun. Landed in Los Angeles on thanksgiving day, and went to my sisters place. It was exciting to meet my sister, brother-in-law and my cute niece after a long time. Lots of old memories shared and I felt nostalgic.

On friday, we went to Universal Studios. Wow, thats the place for pure entertainment. Mummy ride, Jurasic park, Van helsing.. are quite a few to mention about. First time I watched 3D and 4D movies. Nice experience. It was crowded (heavily), hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend.

Saturday, we went to Sea World in San diego, first time I saw a dolphin show. Sea world was not so exciting, unlike Universal studios, still, quite a lot of interesting things to see. Actually, I planned to meet two of my friends on saturday, but due to some reasons that I cancelled it and went to San Diego.

On Sunday we went to Laguna Beach, near to my sister's house. Wonderful beach to see. Atlast, I saw pacific ocean and my ocean count has increased to 3. (see my previous post on Atlantic ocean). It is far better than the Hampton beach that I visited couple of weeks back in east coast. Also, laguna beach is crowded (but not like the crowd we see in marina beach). Have posted few of the fotos I have taken, hope you will enjoy it. Later part of the day, went for shopping and was roaming here and there.

Actually, we planned to Disney land on monday. But we were too much tired and my niece was feverish, so monday was rest day and I started back to Boston.

Right from the first day, I was searching for the "Hotel california" on roads. But with no luck. I thought it would be similar to our "Hotel Tamilnadu"...But did not find any Hotel california,even the last time I did not find any...big disappointment.

The most exciting(?) part was on Tuesday. I went to office early by 11:00 AM and my boss called me "Mr.California". Later we had a long chat about California and showed good productivity on that day :-)

This weekend I am taking rest.("athu thaane week fulla pannittu irunthe"nu neenga ketkurathu enakku ketkuthu....). Next weekend the next exciting part of my trip is going to happen. I am going to meet few of my best friends in Boston.

Hope it will rock!

'E' is equal to MC square

2005-12-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

hmm, this is the first photo I have ever seen with maximum number of scientists!!

@lantic Ocean

2005-11-21T17:29:00.000-08:00

I have seen Atlantic ocean in map. I remember days when I always get confused with atlantic and arctic ocean and wrongly fill the maps. But, now I can easily.

Last weekend I had a good time pass. On saturday, I washed my clothes and after that I got tired, lifting wet clothes from the washing machine is not as easy as you think. I spent later part of the day watching some tamil movies(holy crap!). And inthe evening we started planning for the next day(ithukku mattum korachchal illai). We planned to go to hampton beech. I have heard lot about American beaches. So, with enthusiasm we started on sunday,by 12:30 After noon. If it is some other place, then we would have started little bit later than noon :-P. We took a print out of the map, courtesy: the googlers. And it has mentioned that it is 20 minutes from my place. We caught the NH, I was the navigator and my friend was the implementor (athaan driver). After 20 minutes, I was not able to correlate the map and the road. We were lost!! We took the next immediate Exit and were bit relieved from the highway traffic. The road ended suddenly, and there was only one liquor shop. ada paaveeegala (vivek tonele), liquor shoppukku oru exitaa!!

(ramanaa stylele)
motham portsmouthle 3 million per vodka adikkuraan
athula 2 million per raawa adikkuraan
athula 1 million per mail-in rebatela adikkuraan......

hmm, now, I got how the american government has enough cash.

Our chase for next exit started immediately. And my map is not showing where we were!

After a long struggle we went to hampton beach. The time was 2:30 PM. The climate was very cold. (atlanticlna chummava??). To our surprise(and disappointment) kannukku kulirchiya ethume illai.

But the view was amazing! Calm as our weekday besant nagar(ithu konja overu)! only the sound of the ocean, and some birds. I love beaches and was very much excited to walk in the beach, after a long time.

Here are some snaps, which we took during our beach walk. (and of course, comments on side)

Wow!!, super foto graphy.

ai, vellai kaakka, who said "varumayin niram sivappu?"

ka(adha)l vettu! everywhere, lovers are same! I remember seeing ka(adh)al vettu
of mookkaayan and mookkayi at azhagar koil.(one of the favorite places for lovers in Indian philadelphia)

(last, but not the least, itz me boldly facing the currents of atlantic).

In my horroscope it is mentioned that I will see a BIG break in my life, after I visit all the 5 oceans (hey, wait a minute, how many oceans are there? is bay of bengal an ocean?, geo-graphyle namma konjam weak). ok, my journey of ocean is continuing, I am going to Visit pacific ocean next weekend. Yeah, I will be travelling to California for "nandri therivikkum thirunal". (thanksgiving day, in American language).

Figures!

2005-11-18T17:06:00.000-08:00

Figures!! The thing that most interested me right from my school days and even now it is interesting me. Hey, dont mistake figures for babes, but it is all about digits. I like playing with figures and I observed one peculiar property of palindrome numbers, during my school days. Actually, I observed it during my college days. As you know I am currently in a place where colleges are called as schools,
I am using the same notation ;-), when you are in rome, become roman :-P.

Coming to the matter, this is what I observed: A palindrome integer of even length will always be a multiple of 11. If it sounds obvious to you or you dont like playing with figures, then press the "X" button on the right-top corner.

11, 1221, 1441... are some examples of even-lengthed palindrome numbers. A number is a multiple of 11, if the difference between the sum of the digits at even position and the sum of digits at odd position is a multiple of 11 or 0. Take 385 for example, (3+5)-8 is zero, hence multiple of 11.

Now, let us see palindrome numbers. If the number of digits is odd, then the number of digits at odd position will be more than that of even position, and also "odd digit set", and "even digit set" will be with unequal digits, hence it cannot be a multiple of 11. In even length case, the digits at odd positions will be same as the digits at even positions. so the difference will be zero and hence it will be multiple of 11.

Lo-Fi

2005-11-17T07:29:00.000-08:00

These days I am seeing lots of "high five" things in blogosphere. I used to write "my favorites" in slam books, right from my school days. And I am tired of writing favorites. So, for a change I am writing things that I dont like.

Low fives:

Worst movies I've watched:

a) Kalki (heights of "abhatham": same story as "sindhu bairavi"
but I liked the later. KB forgot that he has already
directed one movie with the same
story)
b) mein hoon naa (last hindi movie that I watched in theatre)
c) aa aaH (sema kadi except for the heroin and songs)
d) enter the new dragon (junkest movie)
e) Lord of the rings (it was like raama narayanan's movie)

Five things I can live without:

a) mouse (I mean competer mouse)
b) non veg = goat, chicken, crab, pigeon, shark, prawn, rabbit...
c) moustache
d) girl friends
e) GOD

Heroines I DONT like:

a) deivayanai
b) jyothika
(sorry, my count over heroines is just two ;-))

Actors I DONT like:

a) vijayakanth ( I am losing the attributes of a maduraian)
b) murali
c) arnold (I consider him as my rival :-P, kela "bolt"tula nammaloda rival, he he he)
d) prasanth
e) TR

Celebrities I DONT like: (ellam "stomach burning" thaan)

a) Michael douglas (zeta zones)
b) Tom cruise (penelope cruz)
c) Ajay dev khan (kaajol)
d) pierce brosnan (*.*)
e) salman khan (aish, katrina)

Believe me, it has taken more than an hour for me this to compile. if I have written "high fives", then it wouldnt have taken more than 10 mins.

Five people whom I DONT like to pass this tag:

jagan
maduraiarian
kalai
mazhai
div

Happy blogging!!!

Interesting facts!

2005-11-10T16:36:00.000-08:00

Got a mail full of facts!, I am posting excerpts of that mail, which interested me:-)
(with some comments from me within braces)

The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear. (then I am wondering how kushbu made it to sound like "I love you", oru vela "love" is injected in blood?)

The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it's already been digested by a bee.
(but our "honey"s are not so easy digests ;-))

It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it (if we consider inflation rate then I think there is no big difference between the figures)

The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting

Human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death (oh, thats the reason why ghosts have long hair and nails!!)

Every day 200 million couples make love, 400,000 babies are born, and 140,000 people die (looks like most of them are keeping it safe :-p)

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair (Oops, my hair is full of metals)

Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are: Mizaru(See no evil), Mikazaru(Hear no evil), and Mazaru(Speak no evil)

Last but not the least:

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural cause.

Good lyrics

2005-11-09T17:20:00.000-08:00

(This blog is related to kollywood, if u dont know about it, keep your fingers crossed for my next post).

I love listening to songs, and I used to gather information about the lyrics, singers. Now a days I am listening songs on wire, because I dont have the MP3 versions in my laptop.musicindiaonline.com is my favorite music portal for tamil songs. It has got good variety of songs, very well indexed on movie names, singers, musicians...

Yesterday I was browsing through the site for "Nizhalgal" songs.(one of my favorites tunes). I was literally shocked to see the lyrics writer of "Poongathave.." song. Can you guess who it is? Is it Kannadasan? No, no. Is it Vairamuthu? No, it is "gangai amaran". I never thought that "gangai amaran" has contributed to good songs via lyrics.

Some of my favorites are written by him and few are:

poongathave - nizhalgal
aasaiya kaathule - jhonny
kaatril varum geetham - jhonny
oru iniya manathu - jhonny
snow reta i love you - jhonny
en iniya pon - Moodupani

And the following gives a very good subset of his contributions as a lyricist.

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/l/26/m/lyrics.1378/

I know he has composed some good music also, but not able to find it out.

United States of America

2005-11-05T15:57:00.000-08:00

Its the second time I am visiting United states, after 2 and half years of my first visit. I was longing for such a trip, since I got bored with bangalore and I wanted a change. The result is a two months trip to US.

This time it is New hampshire state, portsmouth. When I told about the state name and place, to one of my friends in UK, he was surprised, because he has seen the same state and city in the UK map. Hmm, there were days when Americans copied things from Britains, like what we (indians) do from Americans, these days. The weather is very cold and I am able to manage with my winter clothes, but I am used to this weather condition in madurai, chennai.. ;-)

The 16 hrs of journey thru lufthansa airlines was really hectic. I had a feeling of travelling in TTC... hectic, really. But the view from Top of the world was amazing, and I got a window seat to see those.

Landed here on last monday, Once again things started looking new to me.The driving style, ground floor notation, switches..... and a lot. u know wat I mean, right??? ( this is one of the most commonly used phrase here).

Everyone on the road is saying "Hi/Morning" to me. If we do the same in Bangalore, thats it we will be keep saying for ever!

First day was good, get to know about my new manager, colleagues... our manager took
us to an India restaurant. I am surprised to see him liking Indian foods. I saw the menu card, the price was shocking!! I ordered one stuffed roti and channa masala, that costed 15 $. My mind started doing the conversions, 15 * 45 equal to....and I stopped doing the calculation, knowing that I will not be paying the bill today, and the boss paid!

Second day we went to a chinese restaurant for lunch. I ordered one soup (miso soup) and tofu dish, thinking that it will be good. And my boss ordered something similar. The food was really pathetic,and my boss really enjoyed whatever he ordered. At that time only I understood the reason for my previous day "surprise". Jesus christ, he likes all the crap!

These days life is getting better since I have started cooking in my kitchen, cooked parathas, tomato rice, dal....and I never thought that I can cook such tasty food.

The winter is about to start here and the leaves are falling down. Each tree has different color than the other and it is very beautiful to see. I forgot to bring my camera and missed to capture the photos!

People say New hampshire is famous for the "change of color of leaves" and infamous for its bad weather during winter. Hope the winter will not be as cold as I am expecting.

கஜினி - ஒரு சிறப்பு பார்வை

2005-10-10T01:33:00.000-07:00

மதுரை சிந்தாமணி டாக்கீஸ்:

அடியேனும், நண்பனும் சேர்ந்து "கஜினி" படத்துக்கு சென்றோம். 5 நிமிதம் கால தாமதமானதால் கொஞ்சம் சீன்ஸ் மிஸ் ஆயிடுச்சு. முதல் பாகம் நன்றாக இருந்திச்சு. இரண்டாம் பாகம் கடியை போட்ருச்சு. படத்துக்கு ஏன் அவ்வளவு கூட்டம்னு தெரியலை. நாங்க "கதை"க்காக தான் போனதுன்னு பொய் சொல்ல மாட்டேன். போனதே "அஸின்"ஐ பார்க்கத்தான். வேற எதுக்கு?

சரி, படத்தை கொஞ்சம் அலசுவோம்:

அ) படத்துக்கு ஏன் "கஜினி"னு பேர் வச்சாங்ன்னு தெரியலை. எனக்கு தெரிஞ்சு முகமது கஜினி, இந்தியாவை 17 முறைகள் போர் தொடுத்து, 17 முரைகளும் சூரை ஆடிற்கான்**.

ஆ) ஏன் இரண்டாவது வில்லன்னு தெரியலை. தமிழ் படத்துல இது எல்லாம் சகஜம் தானே ஃப்ரீயா உட்ருவோம்.

இ) கதை நல்லாதான் இறுந்துச்சு. "ஸ்க்ரீன் ப்லே" = சொதப்பல்.

ஈ) படம் எடுக்கிறப்போ 15 நிமிஸத்துக்கு ஒரு தடவை இயக்குனருக்கு கதை மறந்துடுச்சு "கோலி வூட்ல" ஒரே பேச்சு.

அஸினை பத்தி ஒரு வரி டமில்ல சொல்லனும்னாம், "She has done a wonderful job dude".

கஜினி - யாரவது ஃப்ரீயா கூட்டிட்டு போனா, ஒரு தடவை பார்க்கலாம்.

** - வந்தார்கள் வென்றார்கள் (மதன்)

Coincidences

2005-10-07T05:53:00.000-07:00

I got a chance to read a post last week; the post was about "coincidences" and "god playing dice". I see things as mere coincidences, instead of playing dice. But it is difficult for us to see things as coincidences, since we always think of probability and possiblities of the events.So sometime it makes us to think that Someone is controlling us and is responsible for this coincidence. Isnt coincidences, only?

I remember one good coincidence, that happened in my college. There was a very nice chap, funny guy from our batch. He became a very good friend of mine. In hostels, each year students will be allotted new rooms. during my third year I got one such room and the room number was 23. Surprisingly the number was same as that of the registration number of good friend.

When I read that post, I remember this coincidence that happened in my college. That night I travelled to cyber city(athaan namma madurai) by bus. More surprisingly the seat number was 23. I didnt realize even while booking, and only after I got into the bus.

I started applying my school maths and calculated probability of all these events and ended with 4.6 * (10 power -6) which is almost zero :-).

No one cannot play dice to end up with these coincidences.

Absence of mind

2005-10-06T03:41:00.000-07:00

These days my brain is hesitating to work :-( and presence of mind is slowly disappearing.. I remember one funny incident which gives clear picture of "my state of mind".

It was the time when RPG cellular was taken over by AirCell, and I was one of the high priority customer for RPG, I used ot say "kicha speaks RPG". (hope chennai aalungan remember this caption "chennai speaks RPG).vishayathukku varren, I thought of checking balance for my prepaid connection. I dialled a 10 digit number (saw that in a banner), automated enquiry systems. I think mistyped one of the digits and one lady picked up:

lady: hello
(after hearing her voice)
me: "is it aircell automated voice system?"
lady: no, it is not.
me: "oh sorry, i thought it is automated system".

and hung up the phone. Only after hanging up the phone, I realized it.

one more incident: i have a friend (jagan) beside me in office. one day he asked me my access card. i dont remember what i was thinking, I gave him my debit card. the saddest part the same happened again within a month..

ippadi vaazhka odittu irukku...

"1 comments"

2005-09-29T04:48:00.000-07:00

When I opened my page in the morning, I was happy to see "1 comments" for my previous post. irukkathae pinnae, it was a lengthy one.. later got disappointed to see that it was a spam. but the comments are good, "you have a great blog here. I'm definitely going to bookmark you". ... I want to stop these junks.... F1..F1..

Dhada vs Me

2005-09-28T05:37:00.000-07:00

By looking at my previous blogs, and my previous talks about our indian
cricket team, you might be guessing that I am a die hard fan of Ganguly.
Yes, your guess is 100% right. Now, you should be thinking that I dont
know anything in cricket!. no, you are wrong.

I have played plenty of cricket during my college days (most of the time,
with tennis balls). I heard that westindies cricket players practice with
tennis balls. This discouraged me from playing with circket balls, instead
play (practice?) with tennis ball. Coming to the point, I remember a period
where I got "duck out", continously, five matches. Should be a record in
our gang.. Now, you might have got the reason why I liked ganguly ;-).
Whenever I got out for no runs, I walked from the pitch telling to myself
that, "Form is temporary, class is permanent". I think it is not required
to explain my "form" and my "class".

I am posting the only FWDed about Ganguly: (In fact, this is the only
mail I have ever received about ganguly, supporting him).

1:Ganguly is the most successful captain for India as his record of 19
test wins[out of that 9 overseas] which no other captain of India has ever
acheived.The funniest part is before Ganguly took over as captain India
had only 13 overseas test wins in the history since it was playing test
cricket

Ganguly -9 overseas test wins
India [before Ganguy as captain]- 13 overseas test wins.What a record
guys?

2:You people say Shewag,Shewag ,who grommed Shewag,it is our beloved
Ganguly who spotted the talent and promoted Mr.Shewag to opening slot.
But when cricket masters said how can shewag open in a test innings
it is our captain who backed Shewag and nurtured his talent.It is
not only Shewag other members like KAIF ,YUVRAJ, PATHAN, BALAJI,
NEHRA, ZAHEER are all grommed by our dadha.

3:Lets not forget when Flintoff threw his T-shirt and went for a
stroll in Wankhade Stadium, we timid Indians were mute spectators for
that Insult.But it is the guts which Ganguly possess which made him to
shout and retort to Mr.Fintoff in the balcony of Lords.I was proud to
be an INDIAN because of dadha. Which Indian captain will have that guts
to retort like Ganguly as he did in LORDS. Can GAVASKAR,TENDULKAR,
Azharuddin ,or even dravid have guts to do that. Never.It is this
guts which makes Ganguly so special.He is a man of GUTS.

4:Ok I can't understand why people make such hilarious statements about
our dhadha.Have we lost the series,no ,pakistan just squared the series.
Thats it. Lets not forget pakistan lost the series to INDIA in their home
soil.If India would have lost the series , my god Ganguly would have been
burnt to death :-) See if Balaji might have stayed for 6 odd overs and
saved the match then I dont think so, such statements would have been
made about our dhadha. We would have praised our team and the focus would
have not been on Ganguly.

5:I accept the fact that he is out of form, tell me which batsmen is not
out of form Even the greats Sachin,Lara,Richards had rough patches.
So give some time for our dhadha, he is prince of Calcutta, definitelty
he will rise to the occasion.

Let us wait for the dispute to settle down, let us hope he will continue
as captain.

Lateral thinking

2005-09-27T01:20:00.000-07:00

Can anyone form a story over the following statement?

"I got married, and I cancelled the credit card".

I have already got two. Let me see how mine matches with others..

Chappell Vs Ganguly

2005-09-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

looks like the issue is getting hotter.

http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2005/sep/23gang.htm

arasayalla ithuvum sagajam thaan... not sure how much true the above is.

Good morning

2005-09-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Starting the day with a bad stock market collapse (dont ask me how much I invested in stocks!).

Got a good forward from my friend, thought of sharing with you...

The most selflish word "one" letter word - I - avod it
The most satisfying "TWO" letter word - We -Vuse it
The most poisonous "THREE" letter word - Ego - Kill it
The most used "FOUR" letter word - Love - Value it
(50 kg taj mahal?)

The most pleasing "FIVE" letter word - Smile - :-), keep it
The fastest spreading "SIX" letter word - Rumour - Ignore it.
("u" in rumour is british style?)

The hardest working "SEVEN" letter word - SUCCESS - Achieve it
(it always succs)

The most enviable "EIGHT" letter word - JEALOUSY - D is tance it

The most powerful "nine" letter word - Knowledge - Acquire it.
(it is not "nine" thaara)

The most essential "TEN" letter word - Confidence - Trust it.

A fwd with a message.

Chappel clarifies

2005-09-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2005/sep/19greg.htm
http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2005/sep/20ganguly.htm

arasiyalla ithu ellam sagajam thaane ;-)

நாவலோ நாவல்!!

2005-08-22T05:32:00.000-07:00

பல நாட்களாகவே, பிலாக்கை அப்டேட் பண்ண வேண்டும் என்று நினைத்து கொண்டு இருந்தேன். அலுவல் வேலை அதிகம் இருந்ததால் ஒன்னும் அப்டேட் பண்ண முடிய வில்லை :-(.

கடைசியாக அடியேன், "பொன்னியின் செல்வன்" படித்து முடித்து விட்டேன். கதையில் முடிவு இல்லாதது கொஞ்சம் வருத்தம் தான். இன்னும் ஒரு வருத்தம். "வந்தியத்தேவன்"ஐ, கல்கி ஏன் கதா நாயகன் ஆக்கினார் என்று தெரிய வில்லை. எந்த வேலை செய்தாலும் உருப்படியாக செய்யவில்லை. ஆழ்வாற்கடியான் இல்லை என்றால், வந்தியத்தேவன் கதி அம்போ தான். அதே போல் "குந்தவை"யின் மதி நுட்பத்தை சரியாக விளக்கவில்லை. எனக்கு பிடித்த பாத்திரம் கரிகாலன் இறந்ததும் கொஞ்சம் வருத்தம் தான், ஆனால் எதிர் பார்த்தது. மத்தப்படி கதை நல்லா தான் போச்சு.

Thalaivar joins 10000 club

2005-08-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Ganguly joined the 10,000 Runs club, the elite club, in ODI.
he has played almost the same number of matches as tendulkar and far better
than inzamam, in reaching this score.

His image is shattered because of his poor performance in few previous matches,
I am seeing a sign of recovery from the set backs.

more news at:

http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2005/aug/03gang.htm

Taking over

2005-08-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

Oracle has acquired 44% of i-flex stocks.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/jul/25oracle.htm

I would like to know the difference between the take over and acquiring majority of
stocks. (or both are same).what would be the difference b/w the people soft and this
case, as for as oracle is concerned. will it get full admnistrative, authoritative
control in both the cases?

anyone knows the answer please comment...?

Just for salary hikes ;-)

2005-07-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

'nother senior executive has put his papers in Wipro, after vivek paul.

http://sify.com/finance/equity/fullstory.php?id=13902758

are they putting papers, just for salary hike ;-)?. (from an engineering point of view).

Jesus born in 4 B.C.?

2005-07-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

Jesus born in 4 B.C., does not this sound like a fallacy? Yes, Jesus was
born in and around 4 B.C, not in 0 AD or 0 BC. It took centuries to
accept BC/AD concept worlwide..so when they calculated the birth of
jesus, it was 400 centuries ago.

I found this fact(?) interesting and the following link gives a detailed explanation.

http://www.gotquestions.org/BC-AD.html

TNPCEE

2005-06-27T23:27:00.000-07:00

We were very much surprised when the tamilnadu government cancelled tnpcee 2005,
and declared engineering admissions will be given purely based on theory marks.
it's good that some ppl protested and filed case, and the court has given result
against this decision (and the govt has appealed to the supreme court).

TNPCEE is of good standard (better than HSC theory question papers), and it is
acting as a good filtering mechanism for engineering courses. In fact, objective type of exams are better than subjective questionaires. combination of a subjective
(HSC) and objective (TNPCEE) is a very good mechanism for bringing good professionals. the theory based exams' correction is highly influenced by teacher's mood. so evaluating based only on hsc exam is not a good idea and let us hope the govt will withdraw it moves on this front.

of course, entrance exams are nightmares for village based school students. but removal of the entrance exam might not be the solution for this. instead, the govt
can think ways to improve the quality of education and teaching for village schools and work out ways for bringing more exposure to those students, so that they will be
given equal advantages.

பெண்கள் நாலு வகை

2005-06-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

பார்த்து ரொம்ப நாள் ஆச்சுளே? ஒர்க் கொஞ்சம் கூட இருக்கு, அதான்..

இப்போ நான் சான்டில்யன் கதைகளை ஓரம் வச்சிட்டு, கல்கிக்கு மாரிட்டேன். "போன்னியின் செல்வன்" தான் இப்போ படிக்க ஆரம்பிச்சிருக்கேன். கதை ரொம்ப நல்லா போகுது.... இருவருடைய கதை சொல்லும் விதமும் ரொம்ப வித்தியாச பட்டிருக்கு. சான்டில்யன் கொஞ்சம் இலக்கிய நடை உடனும், கல்கி கொஞ்சம் உரைநடையாகவும் எழுதிருக்காங்க. சான்டில்யன் கதைகளில் கூடுதல்லாகவே "romance" இருந்துச்சு. கல்கி கதைலே கொஞ்சம் கம்மி (இது வரையில்).

என்னடா "பெண்கள் நாலு வகை"னு டயிட்டில் பொட்டு எதுவுமே சொல்ல மாட்றான்னு நினைக்குரீங்க... இதோ மேட்டருக்கு வர்றேன்..

"பெண்கள் நாலு வகை"னு நம்ம மலைசியா வாசுதேவன் பாட்டு கேட்குரப்ப எல்லாம், அந்த நாலு வகை யார் யார்னு எனக்கு கேள்வி வரும். அதோட விடையை "போன்னியின் செல்வன்" கதைல "explain" பண்ணிருக்காரு நம்ம கல்கி.. "பத்மினி, சித்தினி, காந்தர்வி, வித்யாதரி" என்பது தான் தேடிக்கொண்டிருந்த கேள்விகள்க்கு பதில். ஆனால், இவர்குளுடைய attributes/characters என்னனு விவரிக்க வில்லை. ஒரு வேலை சான்டில்யன் "போன்னியின் செல்வன்" எழுதி இருந்தால் விவரிச்சிருப்பார்னு நினைக்கிறேன்.

இப்படி பாதி பதில் மட்டும் கிடைத்ததில் கொஞ்சம் வருத்தம் தான்...

பின் குறிப்பு: "ஆசை நூறு வகை" - அடுத்த வாரிசு படத்தில் ரஜினி ஆட, மலைசியா வாசுதேவன் பாடிய பாடல், அன்டு, எனக்கு மிகவும் பிடித்த பாடல்களில் ஒன்று...

Something technical..

2005-06-14T01:01:00.000-07:00

I found the following link interesting, and it gives good explanation for aligned and unaligned memory accesses, and why some processors do not support it.

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-dalign/

But I am fully not convinced why some processors dont handle the unaligned accesses,
although the circuitry to perform the adjustment is going to be cheap. That part is not clearly stated, here.

Ooooty trip

2005-06-14T00:55:00.000-07:00

Life is getting better these days.. Meeting old friends and chatting with them.

Last weekend i was in Ooty, it was an exciting trip, except for the hair pin bends.
i felt Ooty hotter than bangalore in day time. The place was damaged and exploited
by the tourists (like me). Ooty is meant for its tea plantations and I bought some excellent Tea which I need to try it this week.

These trips make me to feel younger and brings in more energy.

A riddle for Chennaities...

2005-05-17T01:23:00.000-07:00

A temple in chennai, which will be opened only at afternoon.

guess?

My T-Shirt

2005-05-10T02:23:00.000-07:00

It has been long time since I updated my blog. Yesterday, I was thinking deeply
on updating my blog. The result is a T-Shirt, designed on my own.

The message is easily understandable.

Our Amazing mind

2005-04-29T04:26:00.000-07:00

got the following FWD from my friend and I just wondered how I am able to read this
fast, scrambled words...

jsut raed tihs........ I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod
aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal
pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr
the ltteers in a wrod are witren, the olny iprmoatnt
tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the
rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can
sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but
the wrod as a wlohe. Azmanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas
thought slpeling was ipmorantt! Ceehrs !

ஆஸ்பத்திரி

2005-04-19T06:26:00.000-07:00

சென்ற வாரம் என் முக்கால் வாசி நேரத்தை ஆஸ்பத்திரியில் களித்தேன். என் தாத்தவை ஆஸ்பத்திரியில்
சேர்த்தனால் அவரை பார்க்க பொயிருந்தேன்.. அப்போ..

ரூம் நம்பர் 101 :

ஒரு வயதான நோயாலி அங்கே படுத்திருந்தார்.. அவரின் உறவினர் இருவர் வெளியே உட்கார்ந்து
பேசிக்கொண்டிருந்தனர்...

ஒருவர் மற்ற்வரிடம் கூறினார் (மெதுவாக): இவரும் ரெண்டு வருஷமா படுக்க படுக்கையா இருக்காரு,
இவரு பண்ண தர்மத்துனால தான் இவரோட உயிரு போக மாட்டேங்குது..
அப்போது 4 பேர் பேசிக்கொண்டிருந்தனர்..

ரூம் நம்பர் 102 :

இங்கேயும் ஒரு வயதான நோயாலி படுத்திருந்தார்.. அவரின் உறவினர் இருவர் வெளியே உட்கார்ந்து
பேசிக்கொண்டிருந்தனர்...

ஒருவர் மற்ற்வரிடம் கூறினார் (சத்தமாக): "இவரும் ரெண்டு வருஷமா படுக்க படுக்கயா இருக்காரு,
இவரு பன்ன கொடுமைக்கு இவருக்கெல்லாம் நல்ல சாவே வராது.."

இதை எல்லாம் கேட்டு கொன்டிருந்த நான், "போர மனுஷனை நிம்மதியா போக விட மாட்டாங்க பொலே.."னு சொல்லிட்டு தாத்தாவே பார்குரத்துக்கு பக்காத்து ரூம் போயீட்டேன்...

S.Ve.Sekar kinda jokes.....

2005-03-30T01:02:00.000-08:00

ஒருவன் 1 : டேய், நயன் தாராவோட அக்கா பேர் என்னடா?
ஒருவன் 2 : டென்(10) தாரா டா
ஒருவன் 1 : ?!?!?!

இந்த மாதிரி ஜோக்ஸ் எல்லாம் நம்ம "S.Ve.Sekar"னால் தான் முடியும்.. போன வாரம்,
அவரோட படம் ஒன்னு பார்த்துட்டு இருந்தேன். அதுலேயும் இந்த மாதிரி
ஒரு ஜோக் படிச்சேன்.... இந்தா அந்த ஜோக்....

வாத்தியார் : AIDSஐ விட 3 கொடிய நோய்கள் சொல்லு?
மாணவன் : நயன்ஸ்(9ஸ்), டென்ஸ், இலவன்ஸ்....
வாத்தியார் : ?!?!?!?

இப்படி தான் நானும் யோசிச்சு இருந்தப்ப தான் நம்ம " நயன் தாரா" ஜோக்
தொணிச்சு...அதான் எழுதிட்டேன்..

இனிமேல் அடிக்கடி blog எழுதனும் நெனச்சிட்டு இருக்கேன்...உங்கள் விரல்களை கோணலாக
வைத்துக் கொள்ளவும்...

my life is...

2005-02-23T06:45:00.000-08:00

i was roaming inside landmark, forum, on sunday evening. i was looking for some t-shirts, with printed phrase in it..

the wordings in many of the T-shirts was very good and funny. of all, i liked the following..

His life is HIStory,
My life is MYstery...

the bad thing was that, that t-shirt was not for my size... quite bigger...

Valentine's day

2005-02-14T05:22:00.000-08:00

I do not wait for new year to take resolutions; and
I do not wait for valentine's day to propose...

iiiiiiithu eppadi erukku :-p

ஒரு கடி ஜோக்....

2005-02-09T08:13:00.000-08:00

ஒருவன் 1: டேய், லிங்கு சாமியோட அடுத்த படம் என்னடா?
ஒருவன் 2: H
ஒருவன் 1: !?!

ஜோக் புரிஞ்ஜவங்க என்னை அடிக்குரத்துக்கு ரெடியாயிருப்பீங்கன்னு நெனைக்குரேன்.......,
புரியாதவங்கலுக்கு, லிங்கு சாமியோட LATEST படம் "ஜி"...

தூக்கம் வருதா?

2005-02-05T05:12:00.000-08:00

சென்ற வாரம் நான் சென்னை போயிருந்தேன். சென்னை தமிழ் பேச்சு கேட்டவுடன்,
மனசுல ரொம்ப சந்தோஷமா இருந்துச்சு... அப்புறம், சென்ட்ரல் புகை வண்டி நிலையத்தில்
மொதோ வேலையா போய் ஒரு ஆனந்த விகடனும், குமுதமும் வாங்கினேன்.

ஊர் சுத்தின டயம் போக, நல்லா ரென்டு புத்தகத்தையும் படிச்சேன்...

அதுலே, ஒரு கவிதை படிச்சேன். அதை படிச்ச உடனே, எதோ ஒரு பிழை இருப்பது போல
தோனிச்சு...

அந்த கவிதை, இதோ...

இடம் மாறினால் தூக்கம் வராது,
மனம் மாறினால் தூக்கம் போகாது...

இதை நம்ம எழுதிருந்தா எப்படி எழுதிருப்போம்னு யோசிச்சேன்,(கருத்து பிழை இல்லாமல் :-)),

இடம் மாறினாலும், மனம் மாறினாலும் தூக்கம் வராது...

எனக்கு தெரிந்த பிழை உங்களுக்கும் தெரிஞ்சுச்சா?

Doomsday

2005-02-01T00:28:00.000-08:00

Today, being February 1st I would like to put down one interesting fact, here.
In non-leap years, both february 1st and march 1st falls on the same day.
This is due to the obvious reason that non-leap februaries have 28 days, and 28 being
exact multiple of 7...... chumma kosuru info...

What is so special about February 28 or 29? It is called the Doomsday and
it is used to find the day for the any given date/month/year..
The algorithm is, the so called, doomsday algorithm.

the following link gives very good explanation of the doomsday algorithm.

http://rudy.ca/doomsday.html

Oxymorons

2005-01-29T06:55:00.000-08:00

The following URL gives a list of oxymorons, which is interesting to read...
http://www.oxymoronlist.com/

and the top listed are :

20. Government Organization
19. Alone Together
18. Personal Computer
17. Silent Scream
16. Living Dead
15. Same Difference
14. Taped Live
13. Plastic Glasses
12. Tight Slacks
11. Peace Force
10. Pretty Ugly
9. Head Butt
8. Working Vacation
7. Tax Return
6. Virtual Reality
5. Dodge Ram
4. Work Party
3. Jumbo Shrimp
2. Healthy Tan
1. Microsoft Works

and when I talk about oxymoron two things pop on top of my mind.
one is my name, itself, "Krishna Ram". doesnt this sound like a oxymoron?

and the other is a firm where I was working... when a friend of mine and
myself, were talking about oxymorons in cafetaria, we found that,
"GCL Technologies", the company name, was an oxymoron :-))..LoL

net jargons

2005-01-28T03:34:00.000-08:00

Dropping here after a long time :-(. got busy with my work (hey, dont ask
what work I am doing) and had very less time e-chatting with friends. But my mail
traffic has not go down, surprisingly. I sent lots and lots of mail during last
couple of weeks...

While typing mails, most of the time I felt bored typing looooooooong words
and phrases. So, I quickly googled and found some acronyms which are widely
used in mail/chats, now a days. just thought of sharing those, here comes....

EZ - Easy
CWOT - Complete Waste Of Time
LOL - Laugh Out Loud
ROFL - Rolling On the Floor Laughing.
ROFLMAO - Rolling on the Floor Laughing my a**e off.
IMO - In My Opinion.
IMHO - In My Humble Opinion.
BTW - By The Way
PMJI - Pardon Me for Jumping In
A/L - Age and Location (the most frequently used acronym. LoL)
AFAIK - As far as I Know
EOM - End Of Message
PAW - Parents are Watching
GSOH - Good Sense of Humour
CTC - Care To Chat?
J/K - Just Kidding

Will try to post more... keep your finger crossed.!!

FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD:........

2005-01-12T07:38:00.000-08:00

Forwarded mails!! A software engineer's day work will not be completed
without forwarding a mail.. And I am one among them :-). And I could say that
atleast one out of every 10 forwarded mails will contain useful information.

I am just copy pasting one such mail(only the body :-)), which I received from one of my friends, named vijayakumar.

A Visas (Official Visas)-
A-1: For Ambassadors, public ministers & consular officers
A-2: For immediate family members of A-1
A-3: Attendants & servants of A-1 and A-2 holders

B (Business/Visitor) Visa -
B-1 Temporary visitor for business
B-2 Temporary visitor for leisure

C & D Visa (For Aliens in transit) -
C-1,2: Alien in transit directly through US
C-3: Family of C-1,C-2 in transit
C-4: Transit without Visa(TWOV)
D-1: Sailors departing on vessel of arrival
D-2: Sailors departing by other means

E - Visa (For Traders/Investors) -
E-1 Treaty Trader, spouse and children
E-2 Treaty Investor, spouse and children

F Visa (Students) -
Want to study or research at a U.S. college? Then F is the visa for you -
F-1: Academic Student
F-2: Spouse or child of F-1

H (Temporary Worker) Visa -
H-1B: Persons in a specialty occupation
H-2B: Seasonal nonagricultural workers
H-3: Trainees other than medical/academic; also training of handicaps
H-4: Dependants of H visa holders

I Visa (Mediapersons) -
Are you a reporter, film person, Editor? Then you require an I-visa -
Essential docs: Your press ID, a letter from the editor.

J & Q Exchange Visitor Visa -
J-1 exchange visitors may be academics, scientists, businesspeople or
students.
J-1: Visas for exchange visitors
J-2: Spouse or 'child' of J-1 under 21

Fiance(e) of US Citizen -
K-1 Fiance(e)
K-2 Minor child of K-1
K-3 Spouse of a U.S. Citizen (LIFE Act)
K-4 Child of K-3 (LIFE Act)
Docs: Marriage certificate & Photos, Intent of marrying within 90 days in
US(for
K1).

L Visa (Intracompany Transferees)-
L-1A Executive, managerial
L-1B Specialized knowledge
L-2 Spouse or child of L-1

Vocational and Language Students -
M-1 Vocational student or other non-academic student
M-2 Spouse or child of M-1

O -Visa (For Prodigies) -
O-1: For a Genius in Sciences, Arts, Education, Business, or Athletics.
O-2: Alien's (support) accompanying O-1
O-3: Spouse or child of O-1 or O-2

Athletes and Entertainers-
P-1: Athletes & Entertainment groups
P-2: Entertainers in exchange programs
P-3: Entertainers in cultural programs
P-4: Spouse or child of P-1, 2, or 3

R-Visa (Religious Workers)
R-1 Religious workers
R-2 Spouse or child of R-1

Keep your eyes opened.....

உடல் மண்ணுக்கு உயிர் தமிழுக்கு

2005-01-11T06:49:00.000-08:00

உடல் மண்ணுக்கு உயிர் தமிழுக்கு!!

அடியேன் தமிழிலும் ப்லாக் எழுதுவதாக தீர்மானித்துள்ளேன்.

படிப்பவர்களுக்கு வசதியாக, என்னுடைய ப்லாக் செட் அப்பில் கீல்கண்ட TஆG சேர்த்துள்ளேன்.

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அத்துடன் "http://www.suratha.com/reader.htm" (**) இனயதலத்தின் உதவியால்
"text" அடித்துள்ளேன்.

பிலை இருந்தால் என்னை திருத்துவதர்க்கு தயஙக வேண்டாம்

இனி தமிழுலும் வலம் வருவேன்!!

Raja thilagam

2005-01-04T06:46:00.000-08:00

Now a days, I have started reading tamil novels (thrown out tamil thrillers
by rajeshkumar and co). The first one to start with is, "Raaja thilagam",
by saandilyan (a history novelist). I got this book from my sister.

Story outline:
-------------
the story is about rajashimhan, who is the princess of a pallav ruler,
who got defeated by vikramathiyan(I), and Co.

vikramathiyan invades kanchi and mahabalipuram, with the help of his neighbor
kangans. the pallavans vacates kancheepuram, before vikramathiyan enters the city,
to preserve the art of the city. and the army gets scattered and a part is defeated
by kangans. later, rajasimhan forms a bigger army and follows vikramathiyan, who
had started invading the southern most. The most interesting opening by the
rajasimhan side, is the battled formed like a scorpion, so called "latha viruchagam",
portraying the aggresiveness of lord shiva. later vikramathiyan gets defeated
by this stratergy, inspite of the support from the pandiyas.

the story as such is good. but I feel the screen play (?) is quite lengthier..
lots of pages on romance of the princess with his two lovers (myvili and rangabathaka devi). myvili name sounds interesting to me!..the romance sometime
irritates and breaks the flow.

a good historic novel.

Robert frost

2005-01-04T05:59:00.000-08:00

Robert frost, one of the good poets, whom I admire a lot. here, I am going
to tell some thing about him and his poems.

Robert Lee Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. After the death
of his father, by age 11, he settled in masachusetts. he lived in this planet
till 89th age and died on January 29, 1963, in Boston. He has own three pulitzer
awards, for the following products from him :

Collected Poems (1931), A Further Range (1936), and A Witness Tree (1943).

The most inspired poem for me, is his "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening",
and the last stanza keeps ringing in my ears :

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

and the stanza used to appear in diaries of jawaharlal nehru, first indian prime minister, after independence.

and some of the following quotes from him, are also sounded good to me...

"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on."

"Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it"

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

going home, with the lines lingering.....