Random Rants/Adventures in Life

Happy New year wishes for everyone..........

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2392365&page=1 " When Sawyer asked him what he feared the most, Irwin's answer wasn't venom or teeth, it was the animal within each of us. "I'm most afraid of people," Irwin said. "The places where I go, the people factor is just so scary, you know, bad guys running around with guns and stuff. "

Article Link: Hypocrisy Dean Jones, the former Australia Test batsman turned TV commentator, has been sacked by his employers, Ten Sports, after being heard calling Hashim Amla a 'terrorist' on live television during the fourth day's play between Sri Lanka and South Africa at Colombo. When Amla, who is a devout Muslim, took the catch to dismiss Kumar Sangakkara, Jones was heard to say "the terrorist has got another wicket". Now get what Dean has to say on all this on being fired from his job. ""I'm gone, I'm on the 1 a.m. flight," he admitted. " It was a silly and completely insensitive thing to say and, obviously, it was never supposed to be heard over the air. I am truly sorry to have caused offence to anybody and the last thing I intended was to be disrespectful. "Everyone needs to get away from perpetuating the myth, publicly and privately, that beards associated with the Muslim faith are somehow suspicious, and I intend to do...

First they outsourced their customer service, then their market research analysis, then teaching and then some more....... Well, if Time is to be believed, the day is not far when we have the US Army outsourcing its 'war on terror' to where else ? - INDIA !! What do these "soldiers" get - US Citizenship. According to "Fast Track" in the August 7, 2006 issue of Time. "When President Bush visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center last week to witness three U.S. soldiers seriously wounded in Iraq become U.S. citizens, he said that "if somebody's willing to risk their lives for our country, they ought to be full participants in our country." It was an executive order signed by Bush four years ago that allowed this trio, and 35,000 like them, to petition for U.S. citizenship as soon as they donned a U.S. military uniform, instead of waiting the customary three years. So far, 26,000 of them have achieved that goal. Be it patriotism or the easier p...

One more July 26 passed by today, what is so special about July 26 ? One man's picture Need I say more ? While we debate about freedom of speech and whether blogs should be banned or not, we easily forget that seven years ago and to this moment there is someone who watches over us, every moment so that you and I can blog and enjoy this moment with everyone around us. Here's to a silent prayer for everyone who looks over us....

Anyone else miss the irony?? On the same day we are writing a USD 25 million check for "earthquake relief" to Pakistan, we get kicked in the guts. Atanu Dey had brilliantly blogged on all issues about this earlier in a three part series, India Funding Pakistani Jehadi Groups India Funding Pakistani Jehadi Groups - Follow-up Funding Jehadis - Part 3

Need I say more ?

What happens when someone finally wraps up a major release and has some time on a rainy Saturday ? Naturally one watches movie(s). One of these weekends when you know you have to just watch a movie or two, or maybe three to "while" away the time till Monday creeps along. Well, yours truly made one such one trip to the neighborhood Uncle (NB) (NB has been discussed here earlier) and NB taking pity on GHE finally relented and brought out some classics for GHE to view. To cut a long story short, GHE ogled at the movies (much like a person from an all-boys school at the first day in college ogles the opposite sex) and profusely thanked NB. But then NB had a surprise in store, yeesssss, our own Mithun-da's movie !! GHE snatched the movie, paid for the movie (always important, otherwise the only source to Bollywood movies, NB usually gets super cross) and raced out to the car and zoomed and vroomed back home !! GHE then surreptitiously checked the surroundings (always a saf...

Late Mr. Surjan Singh Bhandari During The Attack on Akshardham temple on 24th September 2002 this Brave Man fought the greatest battle of his life. Yes he was the N.S.G. Commando Late Mr. Surjan Singh , who sacrificed his life for the Nation. Sadly On 19th May 2004 he lost the Toughest an d Longest battle against life exactly after 600 Days being in Coma, he lost this life. The Bullet which hit him in the head made him Unconscious for almost 600 days. His family members were hoping that one day their Hero will open his eyes but he didn't. It was the Longest Wait for the family members of this Brave Man. When the whole India was busy in Guessing Who will be the Next PM of the country - Will it be Sonia or will it be Manmohan Singh, This man was fighting his Last battle. But it's so sad that in the hype of all the Political Drama, the News about his Death was Lost like a needle in a hay stack! Even the leading News Papers & So Called Best News Channels of India...

Some media interviews are really funny. Stuck inside my apartment on a snowy day, I was going through some old book-marks and I came across a really funny interview of Ismail Durbar, the once famous music composer who has given us the hit tunes of "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam". In a 2 part series on Rediff, he makes some really outrageous claims !! Read the whole 2 part to get the laugh of your life, My work is better than Rahman . The second part of the series is at " History will be created ". Ismail Durbar was again in the controversy recently again for his shenanigans on the popular Zee TV show, SareGama. He reportedly got into a tuff with Aadesh Srivastva and other people on the show. This entry linked to Wikispaces page (Blog posts)

Sometimes, you are priviledged to come across some really moving words, " Some melodies are quite simply, magical. I pick one and go into raptures about it for hours, only to sigh at the futility of trying to imprison the intangible in words. I know I could never articulate how I feel, yet I hopelessly try. It touches my heart, I say, and then realize how facile and commonplace that sounds. How naive it is to try and quantify a feeling so sublime. But not quite ready to give up yet, I break it down into its elements — the voice, the words, the mood .. but I know there is something more, something I cannot see .. like a soft breeze that tosses them all together into a beautiful whirlwind. A silence within the sounds, that speaks to me. No one, but me. I feel its presence around me always. Sometimes as it sweeps me up into a storm, leaving me breathless and gasping for more .. and at other times, as it slows down to softly set me back on the ground, before resuming its ...

On a typical workday, quarter of the team is chasing documents down, one quarter is furiously working to making sure version control guidelines are being followed while preparing for the status meeting, one quarter is passing outdated versions of the same documents out and the final "smart" quarter is quietly following the new revolution in business !! Document management is a nightmare in most organizations. No one is quite sure of the most current version, people who are working on a particular section take a break, meeting notes are stored on someone's PC, hard drives crash, intranets are not updated and on and on. Most organizations do have some sort of content management solution in place, but nothing seems to work. Either the solution in place is too technical for employees to use or the solution is too simplistic to offer anything of value. Often, the solution is not a true solution at all, because it is not available outside the company domain to work on. In such ...

What to do ? Assorted pics lying in the temp folder, to be uploaded is the best solution ! Picture Courtesy : Mi

I have been travelling a lot in India on my current trip and it has been a pleasure on several sectors. One such sector where I have made several trips is the new Baroda - Ahmedabad Expressway, also christened as National Expressway - 1. The road surface is excellent, the National Expressway has definitely a feel of an American Interstate and you can routinely average speeds of 120 kmph without breaking a sweat (Unless you are in a private Volvo bus careening at 100 kmph and making you feel you would be airborne any moment !!) However, three things struck me on NE-1. The toll on NE-1 is 61 rupees (@ USD 1.37) one-way between Baroda and Ahmedabad. What is the rationale behind having 61 rupees and not say 65 or 60 ? Someone indicated that is a formula based on the per kilometer toll calculated by the National Government. This sounds absurd to me. The rates on a toll road should be based on the local conditions. People travelling on a toll road in this sector have a choice of using t...

Spoiler Alert – Some observations, mostly a long rant !! Not that I would be missed a lot, but a big reason for the “enormous” delay in getting online was my total inability to get a high speed internet connection at hom e. The "smiling" icon on the left is of Iqara communications . Amit Varma of India Uncut makes a very valid point when he says , " Telephones In the 1980s, it would take you years to get a telephone in India. Today, it takes anything from a day to a week. Q: What has changed? Ans: Competition. That's why competition is a good thing, even if the competition keeps messing up. So Tata Indicom may give me sucky service and Reliance may hassle me in different ways, but I have options. And it's because all these options exist that even MTNL's service is vastly better than in the pre-liberalisation days. Competition rocks. And even though liberalisation is no panacea, without it, I wouldn't be online right now and typing this. Would you be read...