I'm moving...

I'm moving to wordpress. All my future posts will be posted here. Now I am working on a creative(??!!) header image for this new blog, so the first post may not happen very soon.

See you there.

Kemmangundi on a team outing

A trip which got materialized after 11 months with 11 members. Thanks to all those leeches, which made the trip more adventurous and dramatic with all that blood scenes. Yes, that was one bloody good day.





Rest of the pics here

A weekend in Kerala

One weekend. 2 guys. 1 Alto. On a mission to Kerala.

Onwards:
Started-Bangalore: Friday night 12.30am
Reached-Bekal : Saturday morning 10am
Route: Bangalore-Mysore-Madikeri-Sullya-Kasargod (pathetic roads from Madikeri to Sullya)

In Kerala:
Places visited on Saturday: Bekal fort, Pallikunnu beach - near Kasargod
Places visited on Sunday: Dharmadam, Muzhupuzhangad beach and Kannur fort - Kannur

Return:
Started-Kannur: Sunday evening 4am
Reached-Bangalore: Monday morning 5am
Route: Kannur-Thaliparamba-Iritty-Kottiyoor-Boys town-Mananthavadi-Batheri-Gundalpet-Mysore-Bangalore (Excellent roads without any traffic, but complete ghat roads till Batheri and very steep hill climbing between Boys town and Mananthavady. Crossing the Bandipur forest zone was thrillig to see road signs saying "Go slow-Wild animals crossing". Car puncture after Mysore made things worse and got struck in the highway in the midnight. Finaly someone came for help.)
Rest here

Solutions just a mail away

Yesterday, I mailed to the head of a bank, Karnataka-loan recovery division with copies to the south zone and country heads. The content of the mail below:

Hi,
This mail is to bring to your notice regarding the issues I have been facing with your recovery team.

I had a two-wheeler loan from your bank in 2006 (loan a/c no LTBNG0000XXXXXXX) which I cleared it in 11 months EMI. Few months back, I was stopped by the recovery team of your bank claiming that I have bike loan due. After producing my loan a/c no to the bank, I came to know that there is another loan account created for the same bike registration number and also with my name for which the EMIs are in due. I made it clear to the bank then, that I have no dues( I remember it was someone named Harish from Bangalore office who talked to me, ofcourse in a harsh way thinking that I have absconded for this loan). After few days, I was stopped again by the recovery team, claiming that I have not paid the loan. After proving themn again with the correct loan no, I was told that there are chances of ceasing the bike without my knowledge if they see it in public and they demanded for money (for reasons I dont know) and I paid them an amount considering the situations where I would have to park my bike somewhere in any public place.

Yesterday, I was again stopped by a group of people asking for the loan due. I would call it as an harrasment, the way they approached me on the road. It needed again another 30 mins for me to prove them that its not my fault and I dont have any dues. This has become so annoying that everytime they stop me when I am in a hurry to go to work. Again, they were asking for some money (read as bribe) saying that if I pay the money, the issue will be solved immediately. This time I didnt pay any money and am sure that they are not happy with this. Also, I am really scared now to park my vehicle in public places as am aware of recovery people taking the bike. I may not be there always with my bike to prove them that my loan has been cleared already.

Immediately, I made a call (Call no ref: XXXXXX) to customer care with hopes that they would be in a position to take action or atleast lodge a complaint or service request. But they denied to take it as a complaint and asked me to approach the bank for the same. I have mentioned the details below.


Details:
Loan no: LTBNG0000XXXXXXX
Bike No: KA 04 XX XXXX (you may search with this bike no and you will be surprised to see two loan accounts created for this bike no)
Bike model: Unicorn
Bank Ac No (ECS payment) : XXXXXXXXXXXX

Please do the needful and remove my bike no from the list.


Thanks,
--
Abubaker Siddiq. A

I got a call from the local head within hours asking for apologies and assuring me that my number has been removed from the records immediately. He was going on with the usual stuff that 'we value our customer..blah blah blah". He said nobody would touch my bike and I am free to park it in public places. Also he assured me that I will get my NOC delivered to my address within 2 days for which I appplied long time back. After that call, I wrote a mail saying:

Hi X,

Thanks for your efforts on solving this issue. I dont know how fast this would be materialized but I am glad that at least someone was there to hear my concerns.

You were asking me on the names of the people and I could remember one name -XYZ (Mob no: 9731XXXXXX). I think he is a Police official who came along with that recovery team. Please make a note of it. Well, I hope that giving this number doesnt get me into any other unnecessary problems.

Again, thanks for your efforts. I really appreciate that.

Thanks,

He called me back again to assure that everything is clear now and asked me to keep a copy of the NOC always when I travel to be on safer side.

Now I am just sitting relaxed and waiting for the NOC. Well, this is just one instance where you get into problems for someone's mistakes. But atleast now things have changed to an extent to solve your problems in couple of mails. They say its as simple as that.

Chim Chim Cher-ee

Mary Poppins hangover here. Yes, I watched my first musical play yesterday night. We managed to get a ticket 3 days earlier to the show and as expected the theatre was packed. It was really surprising to see people coming in coaches to watch a play.



Grand stage, beautiful sets, amazing choreography, incredible perfomances and a jaw dropping scene of Mary Poppins flying over the crowd. Altogether, an helluva experience it was. At the end, it had its deserving standing ovation.



Now, I want to see the Beauty and the beast as well and I am missing it by a week's time. I hope that it comes on a tour to India. Yeah, I know that is too much to ask for but you never know. So till then I sing,

Chim chiminey
Chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-ee!
A sweep is as lucky
As lucky can be...

Onsite and all that…

In a country where eligible bachelor status is directly proportional to the duration you spend in a foreign land, it’s always considered blasphemous when you don’t have an ambition of settling in a foreign country. Its not that I don’t like traveling (for that matter I really love traveling and visiting new places) or I have any personal grudge against a country, but just that India is so beautiful that you would realize it only when you are visiting another country. Yeah, some would argue that it’s all about people and not place. In a way it is true, but India works better for me even as a place. After visiting places like Statue of Liberty, Tower Bridge (London Bridge), Big Ben and the most-hyped skyline views, Taj Mahal still stands out at the top as my first choice for the second visit. The skyline view of a city would be the most boring thing to do as sightseeing and you get to do this more often in the “developed” countries. Given an option of free stay in NY’s most luxurious hotel for a week or a stay in a farm house of a village in Kerala, it would be Kerala hands down for the very obvious reasons. This reminds me of a conversation I had with an American-born-Chinese girl in a flight from Chicago to Atlanta and here is the conversation excerpt.

She: so, when are you going back to India?

Me: Next month.

She: Oh, so you have already planned for the vacation?

Me: No. Actually I am here only on a short business trip for two months.

She: Wow. That’s great. I have been to India for few weeks on a scholarship program. It was this city called Cochin in South India. I just loved that place; it’s so beautiful with the rivers. I loved the samosas over there. I was so happy that I would get 10 samosas for 1 dollar.

(Me trying to say something about samosas but she never stopped)

She (continues): I went to Mother Teresa’s home in Kolkata and I cried there. I didn’t manage to learn wearing a saree. It was so great in India.

Me: Wow. That’s so nice.

She: So how did you like US?

Me: Hmmm. US is Ok.

She (with a wide-opened-mouth in surprise): Jus’ ok?

She was really surprised that I wasn't excited about visiting US. Like that, it wasn’t that fascinating to be there except for taking some new pictures.

Onsite trips are not always fairy tales, at least for me. You will be bored to death in a new place that you start eating lunch in your cubicle; your only entertainment would be internet in home as well as office. Even worse if you are on a completely different time zone, you will not have any of your friends in your messenger in your time. All you get to do is work non-stop which would ultimately increase the productivity. You get to eat everything which has a tag ‘ready-to-eat’, ‘frozen’ and ‘instant’. Above all this, there is a soft part to these onsite trips, where you get to meet your old friends in that land. But mind you, if you don’t have any friends in the place you are doomed. Well, it is a different case if you are settling with your family.

That said, onsite trips are always good where you get to see new places, earn lots of money, meet new people and learn new things in work, but the place you want to get back soon is always, you know, home.

Google Chrome - First Look

Google Chrome. The new browser from the Google team is out and am blogging from it. Here are my some first (random) thoughts about it after using it for 4 hours.

• Simple design and fast in loading the pages.
• It doesn’t look great with no toolbar and menu bar. People who were used to clicking home buttons will have a problem with this.
• It failed to import my settings from my live Firefox. I didn't want to close it.
• The idea of running a multithread for every tab doesn’t look so great with many processes running.
• Open in incognito window is already there in Firefox3. So it isn’t a new feature.
• A little delay when opening a new tab when you have more window previews in Most Visited.
• The autocompletion of URLs work as same as the Awesome bar of Firefox3.
• I will have to try out the bookmarks bar on a new window. It looks cool.
• Opening a new tab with "+" button is very easy. It still follows the firefox shortcuts to open and close the tabs. The tabs are shown above the URL bar.
• The “Press [Tab]” option to search for a string in the website which you have typed in URL is very cool.

That said, it has got its own advantages and disadvantages at this beta stage. It can be a very good alternative to IE but it will take ages to beat Firefox. With Google renewing the relationship with Mozilla Foundation till 2011 and a strong response from John Lily, my fingers crossed for the next version of Firefox. Now let me go and have a look at this.

Update: When I was about to publish this post, Chrome went to non-responding mode and popped out a small dialog to stop the Shockwave player and after stopping that, I got back the control.

Update 2: Mozilla is back with a sneak preview of Firefox version 3.1 alpha, which shows the performance of TraceMonkey faster than V8 (the Javascript engine used in Chrome).

Let’s put a smile on that face!

With a legendary performance from Heath Ledger, the Joker character of The Dark Knight is one of the best characters ever written for a villain role. Jonathan and Christopher Nolan have created the Joker character so dark in such a way that Jack Nicholson of 1989 edition reminds us of a funny clown. This Joker is evil, insane, psychotic, terrific and scary and above all a perfect enemy for any super-hero. There is no doubt about Ledger’s performance as the Joker or the buzz which he has created with his performance. His untimely death taking its credit over the hype and his performance is a blasphemous act. This Australian born late actor seems to be a strong contender for this year’s Oscar and if he wins that would be the second time by any performer (actor or actress) to win a posthumous Oscar after Peter Finch, for the film Network in 1976.

With a cynical smile, Ledger made all the dialogues to be memorable quotes forever. And here are my favorites. Yeah it’s a lot, so what? I like all of them.

“I’m like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one…I’d just do things.”

“I thought my jokes were bad.”

“The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules!”

“You know, madness is a lot like gravity… sometimes all you need is a little push.”

“Do you want to know why I use a knife? You see, guns are too quick. You can’t savor all of the little…emotions. In their last moments, people show you who they really are. “

“I want...I want my phone call. I want my phone call.”a

“If you're good at something, never do it for free.”

“How about a magic trick? I'm gonna make this pencil... disappear.”

“Call me when you want to start taking things a little more seriously.”

“You… you just couldn’t let me go could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You are truly incorruptable aren’t you? You won’t kill me because of some misplaced sense of self-rightousness. And I won’t kill you because…you’re just too much fun. I get the feeling that you and I are destined to do this forever.”

“I don’t want to kill you. What would I do without you? Go back to ripen off mob dealers, no, no, no, no, you…You complete…me.”

“Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos, I’m an agent of chaos , and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”

“I believe… whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you…stranger.”

“It’s a funny world we live in, speaking of which, you wanna know how I got these scars?”

“It’s not about the money; it’s about sending a message. Everything burns!”

“Come on, I want you to do it, I want you to do it. Come on, hit me. *Hit me!*

“You look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got 'em?

“See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite...and gunpowder...and gasoline! Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!”

“Why so serious?”

“See I’m not a monster, I’m just ahead of the curve.”

“Let’s put a smile on that face!”


Image Courtesy; rottentomatoes

Firefox 3 - AwesomeBar hacks II

When you type an URL in FF3, it displays all the history/bookmarks URLs which matches any part of the typed pattern. This was not the case with Firefox 2, where it would show only the results matching the beginning of the URL. In this latest version, you can have both the features. You just type '//' and then the the URL to match only the beginning.
This new feature to match any pattern comes very handy when you are typing a blog or a flickr URL where you just have to type the profile/nick name. This is an awesome feature and am just loving it.

Firefox 3 - AwesomeBar hacks

Firefox 3 is awesome with lot of new features added to it, but its AwesomeBar has been annoying me with autofill of bookmarks. With thousands bookmarked, I had to find a way to get back the old bar or at least to disable the bookmarks autofill. When searching for that, I came across some really good tweaks which made my life easy with this new version of Firefox.

No of pages to show:

The number of results it should show in the awesome bar can be controlled. In about:config, browser.urlbar.maxRichResults sets the value for number of results. When it is set to 0, it will show nothing.

(To get into about:config page, just type about:config in the url and hit enter)

Hide unvisited :

Installing this add-on, hides a bookmark that you have not visited since clearing or deleting history.

Edit middle:

Installing this add-on, shows the result even when editing the middle of URL bar. For example, if you have entered gogle.com and editing in the middle of 'g' and 'o' shows up the result.

Hidden places

This add-on stops specified URLs being added to the AwesomeBar. Enter a comma separated list of domains that you don't want to be added to places:
google.co.uk,digg.com,microsoft.com

Web pages from those domains will then be removed from places (history) without having to turn off the history completely.
Note: This will not stop bookmarked items showing up if they belong to the same domain.

Enter Selects:

This add-on allows you to press enter in the AwesomeBar to select the first result (without pressing down).

Old bar:

If you don't want both the title and the url to be shown in the result, this add-on reverts back to the firefox 2 style with only urls.

Distrust ( Private browsing):

Hide surfing trails that the browser leaves behind.Once turned on, this extension monitors FireFox for its activities. Once turned off, Distrust will remove history items cache and cookies that were used during the distrust session.

Hide the Bookmarks icon:

Open your userChrome.css file located in your profile folder. Add this line to the end of the file: #star-button {display: none !important;}

Hide the web feed icon:
Open your userChrome.css file located in your profile folder. Add this line to the file:
#feed-button[feeds] { display: none !important; }

P.S: I got the above two tweaks from here. This page has got more tweaks which I haven't tested yet.

P.P.S: This page has got Tabbed browsing tweaks.

A Dios le Pido

Que mis ojos se despierten
con la luz de tu mirada, yo
a Dios le pido
que mi madre no se muera
y que mi padre me recuerde
a Dios le pido
que te quedes a mi lado
y que ms nunca te me vayas, mi vida
a Dios le pido
que mi alma no descanse
cuando de amarte se trate, mi cielo
a Dios le pido

Por los das que me quedan
y las noches que an no llegan, yo
a Dios le pido
por los hijos de mis hijos
y los hijos de tus hijos
a Dios le pido
que mi pueblo no derrame tanta sangre
y se levante mi gente
a Dios le pido
que mi alma no descanse
cuando de amarte se trate, mi cielo
a Dios le pido

Un segundo ms de vida para darte
y mi corazn entero entregarte
un segundo ms de vida para darte
y a tu lado para siempre yo quedarme
un segundo ms de vida, yo

A Dios le pido
que si me muero sea de amor
y si me enamoro sea de vos
y que de tu voz sea este corazn
todos los das
a Dios le pido
que si me muero sea de amor
y si me enamoro sea de vos
y que de tu voz sea este corazn
todos los das
a Dios le pido
a Dios le pido

Que mis ojos se despierten
con la luz de tu mirada, yo
a Dios le pido
que mi madre no se muera
y que mi padre me recuerde
a Dios le pido
que te quedes a mi lado
y que ms nunca te me vayas, mi vida
a Dios le pido
que mi alma no descanse
cuando de amarte se trate, mi cielo
a Dios le pido

Un segundo ms de vida para darte
y mi corazn entero entregarte
un segundo ms de vida para darte
y a tu lado para siempre yo quedarme
un segundo ms de vida, yo

A Dios le pido
que si me muero sea de amor
y si me enamoro sea de vos
y que de tu voz sea este corazn
todos los das
a Dios le pido
que si me muero sea de amor
y si me enamoro sea de vos
y que de tu voz sea este corazn
todos los das
a Dios le pido
a Dios le pido

Artist: Juanes
Album :Un Día Normal

How I learned to stop criticizing and love…

I have been suffering from an unknown fatal disease lately. Its a disease which has got a ‘z’ in its name; a weird pronunciation; few silent letters; and no info in Google. It’s a disease which changed my senses of cinema. With different stages over a short span of time (say 4 years), it changed the way I perceive cinema.

Early stage (Pre-torrent era):
In this pre-torrent era, I watched all the Tamil and most of the Hindi movies. I managed to sit in the theatre for Oru naal oru kanavu full movie. The English movies varied from Starwars to Incredibles to War of the Worlds to Cindrella Man. (trivia: Iqbal and Cindrella Man in back to back shows). Then it happened. The entry of World Cinema with the beautiful Children of Heaven and brilliant Amorres Perros to make an impact and a yardstick for all the movies I watched from then.

Mid Stage (World Cinema era):
In this stage, I had a great difficulty in tolerating some Tamil and Hindi cinema. I thought that I should avoid watching such movies as it’s an insult for my senses of cinema. I watched all the movies in world cinema I came across and I compared that with the Indian cinema. It was the time, when all the Indian directors were criticized. I just made a point on a plagiarism everywhere. I categorized people as two: people who like Pokkiri and people who don’t. I got frustrated with Kabhi Alvida... and avoided Lage Raho... just to prove a point that I don’t watch normal entertainers. I watched a movie every single night and sometimes two or three in a row. IMDB became the most visited site in my browser history. I spent a huge portion of money in Burma bazaar for dvds every month. (Trivia: for foreign language movies, contact Rahman, Shop no: F-10, Burma bazaar, Chennai). I watched the movies of Ray, Almodovar, Wong Kar-wai and others. Ray became the most favorite director in India. It all happened so fast.

Final Stage:
It reached this stage where this kind of behavior can only be associated to a disease. This is the stage where some part of early and mid stages got back its position. A déjà vu feel when I saw most of the movies. Sometimes it happened when watching a movie for the first time. The movies just failed to register in mind. It took till end credits to confirm that the movie has been watched before. Shockingly, Azhagiya Thamizh… looked like a very entertaining movie for me and so did Kallori and OSO. “Okay” was the comment to every movie. I never bothered to write any reviews. I just enjoyed reading reviews and blogs.

In the end, I just started enjoying movies for its making and its writing. If I didn’t like it, just that it wasn’t intended for me. What do you call me? A movie buff or a movie maniac?

A Star is born

It’s very rare that you will find an actor with all the required skills. Here we have an actor with everything… every bleddy thing. The most charismatic actor our film industry ever had.

Hearththrob!!!

King of kings!

A dark horse in the next superstar race!

And he is…

SAM ANDERSON

Some scenes from him impressive debut ' yarukku yaro'

Hero s intro




Best choreography..



Advice to robbers



David, the automobile genius




and the climax punch..

Sam Anderson will be the next superstar... hands down