Friday, January 30, 2009

Is This Cake Going To Create A Mess Too ?!?!

Anyone remember this:

INDORE, November 17: Cutting a 'Tiranga cake' during the World Cup has landed Sachin Tendulkar in a legal soup as a local court on Saturday issued a notice to the Little Master asking him to present his case in the next hearing on December 15.

Link

And now, read the newspaper scan below -

cake

hmmmm….

2009 – Super Leap Year ??

 

Arab times

Scanned from Page 2 of the Arab Times – January 28th 2009.

Err.. How many days in February ???

Gran Torino

grantorino_galleryposter 

Err.. not too bad.

The thing I hated about the movie - the lame chinky gang members. Should have put in at least some effort in their casting and characterization.

Watchable. 

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Lighter Camera

cigarette-lighter-camera

    • Lighter DVR with built in Micro camera for your home or office surveillance when you are not there. it records everything what you missed while you are away.
    • Built in Digital Audio Video recorder will give you all the evidence you need to prove in the court. In case some one came to your home or office for bad purpose.

Product page

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Gmail – Work Offline

Once you turn on this feature, Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache of your mail. As long as you're connected to the network, that cache is synchronized with Gmail's servers. When you lose your connection, Gmail automatically switches to offline mode, and uses the data stored on your computer's hard drive instead of the information sent across the network. You can read messages, star and label them, and do all of the things you're used to doing while reading your webmail online. Any messages you send while offline will be placed in your outbox and automatically sent the next time Gmail detects a connection

Link

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Think Like An Indian ???

Thankfully, I don't think like an Indian anymore.

Read that line on my friends blog. I really enjoy reading his blog posts. Profound – is usually the word that comes to my mind when I go through his posts.

Now I have heard people say ‘Think like the criminal’ or ‘think like your opponent/rival/competition’ , but thinking being influenced by one’s nationality…. hmm. That’s something I haven’t been able to comprehend. Nationality has little (if any) effect on a person’s character or his thoughts – personal view (and has been for a while now).

How or why would one’s nationality determine the individual’s thought process?! The people around you, past experiences/present circumstances/situations that you have gone through will definitely have an effect, but is it that the situation experienced by an individual of one nationality can not or will not be experienced by another individual with a different nationality?

At times, the same person reacts differently to the exact same situation – when compared to how s/he had reacted to it earlier. This doesn’t necessarily imply that he has now acquired a new passport and hence has a different nationality.  His thought process may have changed, but there are definitely more credible reasons for that change.

There are tonns of other things that will effect the way one thinks, but I seriously doubt one’s nationality would be a leading criterion.

What was even more interesting about that blog post was one of the comment:

This was really sad to see. Are you saying you started thinking like an American? Its painful to see a person who has lived ~23 yrs in India, and then maybe 2 years abroad, thanks his lucky stars that his mindset is no more Indian. A generalization like that is a little unfair, and borders on the insane.

Errr.. ahem… aren’t YOU generalizing as well, mate? Tum karo to - fashion… hum karen to – peshaa. Let’s just all think logically, shall we. Now unless logical thinking is nationality dependent, I don’t think we should be having any problems.

Cheers.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Weeds – Season 2

weeds-show

Finally found the time to catch up with Season 2. Still a lot of fun. Really enjoying the show, so far. Andy Botwin – played by Justin Kirk -  remains my favourite character.

Friday, January 23, 2009

One Cube At A Time

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One of the finalists in the recent Toyota IQ-sponsored Royal College of the Arts design contest was this simple but effective ice cube tray. Graeme Davies invented Quicksnap so that single ice cubes can be popped out without the normal problems associated with twisting an ice tray

Link

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Defamation case against A R Rahman, Anil Kapoor

PATNA: An office bearer of a slum dwellers' body has filed a defamation case against music director A R Rahman and actor Anil Kapoor alleging that the award winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" calls Indians dogs and slum dwellers slum dogs.

Link

hmm. People seriously have way too much time and not enough brains to utilise that time.

If you DO want to file a suit for something this pathetic, wouldn't it make more sense to sue the producer of the film or the script writer or …

I seriously doubt Rahman or Anil Kapoor had anything to do with the name of the movie or with the script/story. people seriously need to start thinking. If this continues, I would be more than happy to finance a film with a title ‘Idiotdog’. Initially I thought I would cast Bush Jr. in the lead role. Now I think I could find enough candidates in India itself to play the title role.

Dikhaawon pe mat jaao.. apni akal ladaao.

Saale chutiye.

Get ‘@live.com’ Account

windows_live_logo

I don’t know why anyone would insist on having their email still on hotmail or live, but whatever.

A friend of mine was complaining that he couldn’t get an account with the domain @live.com. He was asking me for US proxies he could use to accomplish this. I have no idea if this will work with proxies or not, but in case someone wants a @live.com account, well there is a much easier way (in case you don’t already have a way).

I think the people having a problem are ending up at this link when they try to register for a @live.com account. And as you will notice, the drop down box allows you to select ONLY hotmail.com

Well try this link. and as you can see, you have both live.com as well as hotmail.com

I don’t know if this is a problem for many people, but two individuals asked me about it in this month. Just thought I would post it.

Windows Mobile 6.5

Microsoft is expected to start delivering its Windows Mobile 6.5 OS (operating system) to handset makers in mid-2009 following the expected debut of the new mobile OS in the upcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, according to sources at Taiwan handset makers.

Link

Merlin

 

Merlin460

Website

Started off with this new tele series (done with the first 7 episodes). It’s a British show. Not too bad, I don’t have too many issues with any of the characters, so far - except for the Dragon and sometimes Uther. Might not be sticking to the legend of King Arthur and Merlin – but it’s fine, I guess.

This isn’t the greatest series I have watched, but it isn’t too bad either. Definitely watchable (so far).

Bye Bye Bush

 

bush-leaving-lk0116ad

bush-curtain-call-wpcbe090117

bush-mistakes-wpcbe090116

Government Hospitals In Kuwait

Just a suggestion. If anyone ever has to visit a government hospital in Kuwait, especially for conducting special tests i.e. MRI, Bone Scan etc – ALWAYS make sure that you know someone in that place. Do NOT go there without any contacts. If you don’t have any contacts, try to insist that the doctor suggesting those tests puts up a note on the request form or better yet – comes with you, when you are going to get a date / appointment.

If you have no contacts and can’t find anyone, be-friend some Bangladeshi walking around in the section where you have the work. Trust me, it makes everything a lot easier and it doesn’t usually cost more than 1 KD.

Even if you manage to get an appointment that isn’t after 3 months, the wait for the test is still too long. Even if your test is scheduled for 11:00 a.m, it’s advisable to be there at 7 or 7:30. If you are lucky – they will put you in once everyone is done with their morning tea and gossip session.

A day or two before the actual date of the test, it would be helpful to go there yourself and meet with one of the technicians or doctors who conducts those tests (this is for specific tests, I am not talking about blood tests and all that). This too proves helpful.

In my experience, I had first made calls, and it required a lot of effort and patience in getting the right person on the phone. After that I made a quick visit to the place and met the technician personally and I have to say, he proved to be extremely helpful not only on the day of the test, but also a week after the test when I had gone to collect the reports and was told that the reports weren’t ready yet. I waited for 30 minutes and this technician made sure that I got the reports. 

Whenever you get a report – MAKE SURE that you get a copy of it before handing it over to any of the nurses or doctors (eg. The MRI images will be on the film, but along with that, there will be a one page print out, summarizing the results, get a copy of that one page print out).

You can get a copy from the filing room etc, but a quicker way is walking into one of the Administrative offices and telling the secretary or office boy over there to give you a photocopy. Being a prick helps.

Yes I know it’s a hassle, running around for a photocopy in the hospital, but it’s much less a hassle when compared to the event where the nurse or the doctor ‘misplaces’ your report(s) or hands it over to some other patient.

Yes, they can still print another copy from the lab, but that takes time too (for some reason – everything in a government hospital takes time).

The best alternative to all this is – private hospitals. Sure it will cost a bit, but hey – it’s a hell lot convenient. I always suggest going to the private hospitals for everything. But recently it has been explained to me that sometimes for complicated cases, the private hospitals might not be able to handle all the issues and they themselves will refer you to the government hospitals. Actually that is why I had the misfortune of experiencing the service in a government hospital first hand.

Even in that event, you can always go to the private hospitals or labs to get the tests done quickly.

However (and I say this from experience), you could get the tests done privately and then take those reports to your government hospital, and they just might insist on getting the same tests done again in the government hospital itself. I have no explanation for that. I doubt the guys at the government hospital have any either.

Awesome Title

untitled

Cool title for one of the posts on Boing Boing. Too GOOD.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Monday, January 19, 2009

Face Kuwait

www.facekuwait.com (thanks Yousef)

untitled

 

Exactly…. WTF!!

Jasper Motor Vehicle Company

KOLKATA: Kanishk Sinha, 30, and his wife Lipika, 25, chose to do something different from looking for jobs - they invented a fuel-less environment-friendly auto engine.
"This engine is switched on by a chemical reaction between zinc and oxygen; hence it is pollution-free. This technology also increases the durability of the engine," Kanishk Sinha, chairman of the Jasper Motor Vehicle company, said.

The young couple established the company registered in the US five years ago with Rs100 crore raised from non-resident Indians. They got the engine patented with BigPatents India, a body supported by the Ford Foundation.

Link

Did a quick google search (just the first page) for Jasper motor vehicles. The link below made some sense.

http://www.jasperengines.com/about-jasper.htm

Couldn't find the name SINHA anywhere on the ABOUT US page. So I am assuming that’s a different organization. However, there are other results about the same story, but they all seem to be from newspaper articles – tribune, deccan herald etc.

I mean.. for a IRS 100 crore company, you would THINK they would have a reasonably well promoted website, right?

Furthermore, at least in the TOI article, it doesn't say ANYTHING about the specifications of the engine (other than how much distance it can run) - as in - the speed…. (which is important to some, if not everyone).

Weird.

I mean, seriously, this would be a rather important invention (assuming it actually works) and a bit more details would be helpful. Otherwise, we can just pile this up along with the other zillions of GROUND BREAKING POLLUTION FREE concepts.


ALSO SEE - Link

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Ghajini – Another Review – By Pride

Thank you Pride

Just want to share the comments of one of my friends. I found the comments so good and wanted to make sure that more people read it. So putting it up as a post.

hi......i pretty much agree with ur review..... should have been an effortless performance but Aamir was trying too hard!! aka SRk......sort of hamming!!

haven't watched Memento ,but intend too.......

u bet the villian,police officer,and tinnu anand......aur koi actor nahin mila kya sarey film industry mein???,...pivotal roles wasted......

Aamir was surely disappointing.....!!
the scene in the morning when he see's himself in the mirror n growls n grunts,i'm thinking...........WTF!!is he turning into a were wolf or what!!

Jiah khan,thru the movie,just 1 expression............

Asin was a bit over the top.......

looks like everyone was tryin too hard....instead of takin it easy coz subject and story was great......tested formula ki MB kar di!!

Pride

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Intel's Classmate Comes To The UK

 

A new version of a laptop originally designed by Intel for the developing world is making its debut in the UK.

The newly designed Classmate machine can be converted from a traditional laptop to a tablet PC to allow children to write and draw more naturally.

It will be available in the UK in February, and will be sold directly to schools as well as via online retailer Amazon and high street store Argos.

But with a retail price of £349 the machine will not be cheap.

Link

Wataniya Offer

New Picture

Windows 7 Beta

Windows7logo

Download Link

A friend of mine installed the beta on his Assus (N10J). Just had a go at it and I must say, for a Windows Operating System, this thing is rather fast. It actually seems faster than XP. So you can be sure that it’s super fast when compared to Vista (thuuu). Loads up IE8 really quick.

Of course I am never going to use IE 7/8 ever. I am pretty much hooked to Chrome (yes I even use Chrome on my Mac – Unity feature on the VMware Fusion is amazing). I just might give Windows 7 a shot, but as of now, the OS of my choice remains Mac OS X. Once you go Mac, it’s hard to go back.

Steve Jobs – On Medical Leave

Team,
I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

Link

Windows Live Writer - 2009

Using it now. Not bad at all. I have mentioned this before as well, this is one of those few applications that Microsoft has managed to get completely right.

Link

Hottest Watch Ever – Vintage Gadgets

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Wrist Watch lighter.

Link

Obama’s New Ride – The Beast

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Link

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

poster_2524

Typical bollywood masala movie. No, I wasn't expecting anything else. It was watchable for a while, but then they had to put in zabardasti ki story. It was obvious that the story was being pointlessly dragged on. Seemed like an Ekta (bitch) Kapoor serial for a while.

See, THIS is star power (no, I am not a Shahrukh fan, but I will not deny the obvious). I mean, total crap movies like Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om became superhits. These were horrid movies without any plot whatsoever. All they needed to become big hits was SRK and a star crazy population that has completely stopped thinking and has a serious lack of taste.

RNBDJ is at least watchable till a little before the interval. That's a reasonably big achievement for a bollywood movie (considering the recent crap).

The worst part is... I am going to have to watch this crap again with my family in the theatre (most probably - I will be walking out of the theatre before the interval).

download

Ghajini

New Picture

Let me start off by saying that I loved Memento. I can watch that movie again and again and not get tired of it.

Now about Ghajini - cheap knock off.

Aamir is the only good thing in the movie, barring a few scenes of course. I have no idea why in some scenes Aamir grunts like an animal. It seemed like he got confused about the character he was playing. For those scenes, it seemed like he was playing a werewolf or something along those lines.

The movie is seriously lacking. Asin, well I guess she looks ok. In the movie, acting was way over the top and I honestly didn't enjoy the performance one bit. But we should be blaming that on the script.

The villain, played by Pradeep Rawat is horrible in the movie. Too lame! Especially for some one playing the title role.

Whoever played the role of the inspector is equally pathetic / lame. And whoever scripted that character needs to be whacked on the head. WTF!

Jiah Khan - Never really thought she was good looking. She plays the character Sunita, which again is perhaps the most pathetic characters I can recall in recent times.

Tinu Anand does what he usually does in any movie.

The movie SHOULD have been better... much much better. You had a brilliant plot/story. All it needed was a more sensible script and a bit believable acting.

Extremely disappointed.

Lakeview Terrace

lakeviewterrace_galleryposter

I am beginning to hate Samuel Jackson. It's not the character I hate, but I am beginning to hate Samuel Jackson because of the characters he ends up playing. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's pretty much along the same lines as I have started to hate Denzel Washington.

NO! it has nothing to do with both of them being black.

I just find their characters being repetitive. There is a difference between being repetitive and having a particular style. Denzel and Samuel, according to me, have become repetitive.

About the movie, well it's watchable, but nothing great. Would have been better if the story wasn't dragged on so much. At the end of the movie, my reaction was ' pointless crap'.

Like I said, it's watchable. Just that. Nothing more.

Shoot On Sight

shoot_on_sight

No, it's not a hindi film.

Not bad. I was pretty much prepared for a crappy disappointing movie, but this wasn't too bad. I actually found it rather interesting. Engaging.

What's the movie about, I am pretty sure the poster says it all. 

Burn After Reading

burn-after-reading-poster 

Huge disappointment. I found the movie rather irritating and stupid. When I see the ratings this movie got, I am not sure if I watched the same movie as the other reviewers. Dark comedy - my ass.

I think Bradd Pitt put in a good performance, but the movie was pathetic. Too slow and didn't really seem to go anywhere. Extremely annoying characters. Some of the things were good though. As I mentioned, there was Bradd Pitts good performance and also the scenes showing the CIA. It was fun. But the movie as a whole... total crap, waste of time. 

Been A While

Things haven't been going well. Was off from blogging and from practically everything else as well for sometime. Papa is having health problems (don't wish to get into details). Problems in India (again, don't wish to get into details).

Papa's treatment going on. He was operated on, in December. He has completely recovered from the surgery. Follow up tests and treatment is continuing and will continue for a while. Over the last week, things have gotten a bit back to routine.

Was a bit difficult to manage work along with everything else. But the guys in the office have been very understanding and considerate. Would like to thank them all, especially Yousef, Sulaiman, Shaukath, Ali, Anoud, Adnan. Thanks a lot for understanding and helping me out. Really appreciate it.

Haven't really had time for friends but some of them have gone out of their way. Thanks again for being there.

Neelu, Bhishu bhaiya, Sarabjit bhaiya - I have no idea how I will ever be able to express my gratitude. Mere thanks is not enough. Just want you to know that if ever there is anything I could do to prove myself useful to you, I will do it.

Above all, I am thankful to God for blessing me with such caring people around me. I pray that all the issues get sorted out soon.

Speaking just about myself, life continues to be a painful prison for me. I need to break out.

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