Radix lecti

2006-03-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

Bush plays cricket...

Check out this interesting series of pics.

2006-02-21T14:38:00.000-08:00

M*I*A

Too lazy to post, but there have been so many things happening in my life over the last few weeks that I need to come out of my hiatus. First- looks like my bachelor days are being numbered- definitely not more than 191.

Have moved out of my apartment into a place which can at best be described as a MESS right now. Hopefully things should kind of clean up as the weekend approaches.

And I shall keep people updated on the marriage front, could be very interesting with all sorts of misunderstandings happening already- might be 191 more before the wedding.

2005-12-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

Inzy the third most feared athlete in the world!

In this article here Inzaman-ul-Haq is considered the third most feared athlete in the world. What happened to all the other guys? Sachin, Sehwag and the whole Australian team? Even more mind blowing is the fact that Inzy is being compared to Ortiz.

That's why- Americans should not attempt to write about cricket.

2005-12-06T07:51:00.000-08:00

In praise of W...???

Apparently some textbooks in Pakistan have this poem as part of their curriculum:

THE LEADER by anonymous
Patient and steady with all he must bear,
Ready to meet every challenge with care,
Easy in manner, yet solid as steel,
Strong in his faith, refreshingly real.

Isn't afraid to propose what is bold,
Doesn't conform to the usual mould,
Eyes that have foresight, for hindsight won't do,
Never backs down when he sees what is true,
Tells it all straight, and means it all too.

Going forward and knowing he's right,
Even when doubted for why he would fight,
Over and over he makes his case clear,
Reaching to touch the ones who won't hear.

Growing in strength he won't be unnerved,
Ever assuring he'll stand by his word.
Wanting the world to join his firm stand,
Bracing for war, but praying for peace,
Using his power so evil will cease,
So much a leader and worthy of trust,
Here stands a man who will do what he must.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the poem is in praise of GWB (Hint: check out the word/name formed by the first letters of each line!).

More details on this suck up attempt can be read here.

2005-12-06T07:39:00.000-08:00

Chennai - the next Detroit?

Very interesting article on the booming automobile industry in Chennai.

"Ford and Hyundai have opened factories in Chennai; BMW recently announced that it would follow; Volkswagen and GM seem interested."

Impressive huh?

2005-12-02T13:51:00.000-08:00

Of Pav's and Bhaji's

Recently a couple of my colleagues from work (Ankur and Rahul) set up a Pav Bhaji stall as part of the Festival of India, an annual event where the proceeds are used for the benefit of the Hindu Temple. It was a great experience and was good fun where the entire Indian Community contributed to a worthy cause.

2005-12-02T13:45:00.000-08:00

BAASHA......

If I say one time, Its like telling it 100 times...

One of the all time famous dialogues in Tamil movie history- (translated into English, of course). This movie is a cult classic and just for kicks, check out this song which when translated into english goes like this:

I AM AUTOFELLOW
I am autofellow autofellow
Four knowing route fellow
Justice having rate fellow
Good people mix fellow
Nice singing song fellow
Gandhi borning country fellow
Stick take means hunter fellow
Big people's relation fellow
Mercy having mind fellow da
I am all poor's relative fellow da
I am always poor people's relative fellow da
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only

Town become big, population become big
Bus expecting, half age over
Life become hectic in time, exist in corner of street
Ada eye beat means love coming they telling
You hand clap means auto coming I telling
Front coming look, this three-wheel chariot
Good come and arrive, you trust and climb up
Mercy having mind fellow da
I am always poor people's relative fellow da
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only

Mummy motherfolk, danger not leave
Heat or cyclone, never I never tell
There there hunger take means, many savoury
Measurement food is one time
For pregnancy I come free mummy
Your child also name one I keep mummy
Letter lacking person ada trusting us and coming
Address lacking street ada auto fellow knowing
Mercy having mind fellow da
I am always poor people's relative fellow da
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only

(Credit: An email fwd from sasubram@umich.edu)

Timeless....Classic....Sic...

2005-11-16T08:42:00.000-08:00

Guess who...?

For all the guys at work...guess who this "gentle"man is...

2005-11-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

The end of one of the greatest websites of all time...

Back in the day when the internet was all new to me, I used the internet primarily for viewing porn and maybe mail. I remember distinctly one of the earliest porn sites I used to go to; thanks to a whole lot of knowledgeable friends was desibaba.com. It used to be such a favorite among all of my friends back in IIT. There were even rumors that a few of the guys from IIT Madras were regular contributors to the stories section (which would have given Penthouse Letters a run for its money). But now, apparently, the site is dead. It has been shut down. The Great Bong writes about the closure and how iconic a website it was here.

Lets all observe a moment of silence to ensure that desibaba's soul rests in peace.

2005-11-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

Google vs Yahoo! :: Nazi's vs ????

Found this interesting article about the statue (?) and the corresponding plaque which read :

"Presented to the Yahoo! Mail Team by the good people of Yahoo! in recognition of tremendous intellectual efforts put forth in order to defeat Gmail.
Not since the code breakers in Britain's Bletchley Park deciphered Germany's Enigma code during World War II has so much brainpower been focused on kicking an enemy's ass.
The Yahoo! Mail Team's bravery, courage, and cumulative intelligence will not soon be forgotten. (At least not until the next version of Yahoo! Mail is released.)"

2005-11-02T07:23:00.000-08:00

The most famous pair of leather pants...

do not belong to any rock star.

Check out this post on ebay which has made it probably the most famous leather pants ever - atleast on the internet.

2005-10-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

Are you proud to be Indian...?

Convince me you are after reading about this incident . It really made me feel sick in my stomach.

2005-10-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

World's leading designer is an Indian...

Indians are very well known for their software designs; for their engineering designs; but how about this- the worlds leading condom designer is an Indian! Let me have the pleasure in introducing Dr. Alla Venkata Krishna Reddy (Reddy!!!! why am I not surprised that it had to be a Reddy?), the designer of some of the most popular (apparently) condoms in the market (the Pleasure Plus, the Inspiral and the Trojan Twisted Pleasure).

Well when you do think about-it is natural for Indians to invent something like that; Kamasutra and all (am not talking about KS the condom here).

You can read the complete coverage of the inventor and the ensuing trouble that he is going through here .

2005-10-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

More Marketing, of the mocking kind

Found these ads in this blog.

2005-10-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

Oh Rats....

I am sure a lot of people have seen and even interacted with furry little animals called "R-A-T-S" (though I still dont know the difference between a rat and a mouse). Lots of us have complete disdain or absolutely dont care about these creatures. In fact most women are absolutely scared of them. But just go back in time and remember the famous mice of all time? Mickey and Jerry?

How is it that people absolutely adore these creatures on the television but detest them?

A cause for the upliftment of the "great pointed archer" (or the rat) has been undertaken by this society. You can find lots of interesting facts on there about the great pointed archer and various tips on how to start loving them. Come on and love these furry little animals...:).

Now that you have seen this site, would anyone believe it if I told you that the website is actually owned by an ad agency? This is their way of selling out to their various clients; their message being, "if we can upgrade the image of a furry little rat, we can definitely upgrade your brands image".

2005-10-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

Marketing at 'it's best?

Was sent this link and all of us have been taking guesses at what it could be. Looks from the color scheme that it is a product made by ebay. But I have a feeling it is not a product but a service. Maybe IT stands for internet telephony or something. Does not make sense for ebay to venture into making a product, not really core business.

But got to wait 12.00 hours and 11 minutes to find out...

2005-10-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

Comment of the Day

Delen on seeing men at the Womens Networking meeting:

"Maybe they are aspiring to be women..."

2005-10-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

Houston = Boston?

The way Houston choked away their 2 run lead in the 9th inning leads me to believe that they very well could be the new age Red Sox. To even imagine that the Astros have never made it to the WS and they are 0-5 when a win could have gotten them into the elusive series.

"Close but ...
The Astros are now 0-5 with a chance to clinch the NLCS and go to the World Series. The list (including status of series going into the game):
YEAR OPP SERIES SCORE
1980 Phil. 2-1 5-3#
1980 Phil. 2-2 8-7#
2004 StL. 3-2 6-4##
2004 StL. 3-3 5-2
2005 StL. 3-1 5-4
#–10 innings ##–12 innings"

Bill Simmons - one of my favorite writers on ESPN (so much so that I even ended up buying his book on the Sox winning the WS) wrote about last nights game.

2005-10-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend happened to be Tanmay's B-party; not his birthday but rather his bachelor party (though the rumor mill has it that the guys did see him in his birthday suit!). So all of us ended up hiking up to Atlantic City. To me, it was a weekend to look forward to, other than the party in itself. Never been to a casino which was surprising to most people. So a few of the guys who wanted to gamble this last weekend left on Friday night to maximize the time spent.

We went to this Casino called Borgata, where the poker room was my home for the weekend. I had heard from a few friends who frequent the place that the Borgata is more like the only Vegas style casino around. Just read this on Wiki :

"Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa is a hotel, casino, and spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey owned by Marina District Development Corporation, LLC. The Borgata was built to bring high rollers back to Atlantic City. At a cost of $1.1 billion, The Borgata is a 43-story hotel with 2,002 guest rooms, 70,000 square feet (7,000 m²) of meeting space, 11 gourmet restaurants, a 50,000 square foot (5,000 m²) spa, and a 125,000 square foot (12,000 m²) gambling floor. While other large casinos in Atlantic City seemingly cater to an older crowd, The Borgata targets a younger crowd of 25-45 with the addition of two night clubs, and 3 bars. With a profit margin of about $600,000 a day on non-gambling profits, The Borgata's total daily income is about $2,000,000. Many observers feel that The Borgata is one of the primary reasons that all four Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 21, 2004."

It was a pretty good experience and since most of you will not be interested in the finer details of my poker play, this graph should give an indication of how I did.
On the whole it was a great experience inspite of having slept for 4 hours over a weekend.

Lots of interesting observations/BS (Bobbitt Stats for the uninitiated).

1. 30-40% of the people in the Casino are over 50 years old. Is it what happens to people who work so hard to earn their money over their entire lifetime and then decide to blow it all off when they get old? I felt bad taking money from old ladies who were at my table...
2. 20-30% of the people in the poker table were women- of which 95% of them are ATM's who just dish out the money.
3. Atleast one guy at each table looked like he was poor enough (like a tramp) that he should not even have been at the table. He might be better off trying to buy a lotto ticket than give away money to everyone else.
4. And on Saturday night, you find a lot of young drunk guys who want to blow up a couple of hundred at poker. Good for us.
5. I know it could sound like a racist comment but there were not very many good African American poker players. I had the "luck" of sitting on the table with a few of them and they were ATM's as well.

So now you see how I made over $600 playing poker- took it all from old ladies, clueless women and poor tramps, not to mention the rich "brotha's".

2005-10-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

Came across this very interesting letter:

"Dear Friends,
Here is a personal experience, as well as a moment of national pride, which I want to share with you. Hope you find it worth the time you put in reading it :
"In the middle of 1965 India-Pakistan war, US govt - then a close friend of Pakistan - threatened India with stopping food-aid (remember "PL-480"?). For a food deficient India this threat was serious and humiliating. So much so that in the middle of war, Prime Minister (Late) Lal Bahadur Shastri went to Ram Leela Grounds in Delhi and appealed to each Indian to observe one-meal-fast every week to answer the American threat. As a school boy, I joined those millions who responded to Shastri ji's call. I continued the fast even when the war was over and India became self sufficient in food. Hurt deep by the national humiliation suffered at the hands of the US govt, I had vowed to stop my weekly fast only when India starts giving aid to USA.
"It took just 40 years. Last week THE day arrived. When Indian ambassador in Washington DC handed over a cheque of US$ 50 million to the US govt, two plane loads of food, medical aid and other relief materials were waiting to fly to the USA. Time to break the fast? With no bad feeling about the USA, and good wishes for the Katrina victims, this humble Indian feels proud of the distance India has covered in 40 years. Let's celebrate a New India!"
- Vijay Kranti. Dean - IIT Madras
"

Though I agree on the intent of the letter, I have a feeling it has a few errors. So did some digging around and read some message boards and found out...

1- There is no dean called Vijay Kranti at IIT Madras.
2- $50 Million is a lot of money by Indian standards. 50M ~ $200 crores. Still way too much money. So check this out : http://www.indianembassy.org/press_release/2005/Sept/5.htm
3- The aid was given to the Red Cross and not the US government.

2005-10-14T09:01:00.000-07:00

Finally! I get to have my blog. Now the first question for all guys un-acquainted with the fascinating world of Tamil movies, one of the all time great characters is "Padayyappa" (portrayed by the "great" Rajnikanth). This first post shall be a dedication to the actor and his capabilities.

I had to dig around to find this amazing piece written by someone a while back which highlights the actors capabilities-

"Once, Newton came to India and watched a few Tamil movies that had his head spinning. He was convinced that all his logic and laws in physics were just huge pile of junk and apologized for everything he head done.
In the movie, Newton was confused to such an extent that he went paranoid. Here are a few scenes:
1) Rajanikanth has a brain tumor which, according to the doctors can't be cured and his death is imminent. In one of the fights, our great Rajanikanth is shot in the head. To everybody's surprise, the bullet passes through his ears taking away the tumor along with it and he is cured! Long Live Rajanikanth!
2) In another movie, Rajanikanth is confronted with 3 gangsters. Rajanikanth has a gun but unfortunately only one bullet and a knife. Guess, what he does...He throws the knife at the middle gangster... & shoots the bullet towards the knife. The knife cuts the bullet into 2 pieces, which kills both the gangsters on each side of the middle gangster & the knife kills the middle one.
3) Rajanikanth is chased by a gangster. Rajanikanth has a revolver but no bullets in it. Guess, what he does. Nah... Not even in your remotest imaginations.
He waits for the gangster to shoot. As soon as the gangster shoots, Rajanikanth opens the bullet compartment of his revolver and catches the bullet. Then, he closes the bullet compartment and fires his gun. Bang...The gangster dies...
This was too much for our Newton to take! He was completely shaken and decided to go back. But he happened to see another movie for one last time, and thought that at least one movie would follow his theory of physics. The whole movie goes fine and Newton is happy that all in the world hasn't changed. Oops, not so fast!
The 'climax' finally arrives. Rajanikanth gets to knowthat the villain is on the other side of a very highwall. So high that Rajanikanth can't jumpeven if he tries like one of those stunts that our heroes normally perform. Rajanikanth has to desperately kill the villain because it's the climax. (Newton dada is smiling since it is virtuallyimpossible...)
Rajanikanth suddenly pulls two guns from his pockets.He throws one gun in the air and when the gun hasreached above the height of the wall, he usesthe second gun and shoots at the trigger of the firstgun in air. The first gun fires off and the villain isdead.
Newton commits suicide..."

Now, a question for all you trivia buffs- Rajnikanth is a "mega-star" in which country- so much so that his movies are all dubbed in that language?

Answer: JAPAN! I have no clue as what the Japanese see in his movies.

Even more surprising is the power that he has in the political fortunes of his state. He could do an "Arnold" and very well become the next CM of Tamil Nadu.

Since I can very rarely keep a secret, told my friends that I am writing a blog and that padayappa is featured in it. The different comments about this venture -

" If you write about Rajnikanth, I will have to stop introducing as a Golt"
"Who is a Padayappa?"
"What is a Padayappa?"