Anew!!

New job, new city….new circus….let’s see if it is a new act!

Yes, changing jobs is pretty much turning over a new page. A fresh start may not necessariy be a good thing when it comes to one's career...as that would imply you have lost what ever distance you had covered...whatever 'edge' one may have gained in the last job.

Somehow I like the parallel of a circus better! And yes, I learnt it from a one of those chain mails on funny out of office messages "I have left to join a new circus".

Taking the analogy further, I guess the question really is whether the new circus is better than the old one. What makes it better ofcourse depends on which lens you chose to to scrutinise a job selection: better pay, larger scale, greater responsibility or 'work life balance'.

Ofcourse all these questions have to blend in the unerlying truth...this was the circus that was willing to take you in for what you asked in return.

Assembling my own Desktop

For a very long time I have been thinking of assembling a desktop. I never really had a home computer, did not need one.

Wherever I read about assembling a desktop it seemed a really easy thing to do….mostly they would say...it is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle together.

After doing some thorough research on you tube and various technology blogs I was kind of ready…the moment had come. I will have a home computer and I will assemble it. So it is said so let it be done!!!

Well, continuing my research on the net I found this wonderful site of a shop in Bangalore–Binwaryworld in Indiranagar BDA complex. The shop appears pretty workman like, does not impress on looks. But their website is mind blowing and in the shop they get all the stuff you need.

Reviewer’s on the net said their prices were the best…I did some prelim checks on eBay and a few other sites and found this to be true.

So on 13^th April’10 (14^th April was a holiday) I went from office to purchase all the stuff…thanks to the net and BW’s own website I knew exactly what I wanted.

At INR 24,053/- I got all the parts to assemble a Pentium Core 2 Duo, 1GB RAM, 500GB HDD with Logitech webcam, iBall speakers, UPS and Samsung LCD monitor. Within that price I also got a toolkit though I knew only the basic Philips screw driver would be needed.

It took me some 4 hours and a lot of constant cross checking on the net to get there. And I did. Check out the pictures.

Move over IPL, here comes ILL!!

When was the last time you went to the zoo? Try to remember …you go to the zoo all excited hoping to see a whole lot of wild animals running around.

Imagine the disappointment when all you get to see are animals lazing away showing little signs of life…the tigers, lions, crocodiles, pythons…large intimidating animals playing dead all day.

In this milieu any animal that stirs will immediately attract a huge crowd before its cage. Its 'TRP' shoots up a la Times Now's during its shamelessly biased 'coverage' of Sunanda Pushkar.

Watching the proceedings in our Parliament leaves you with a similar sense of disappointment. Other than the one person speaking, all others pretty much behave like the motionless pythons and crocodiles in the zoo.

You keep watching hoping to catch a rare glimpse of life. If someone shifts his weight from left bum to right, moves his chin from right palm to left, and pick his nose while still keeping his eyes half closed you pretty much know the zoo trip is done for that day.

So imagine my absolute joy when I get to see these highly animated or should I say animalistic displays that in Parliament these past days. From funny man Lallu Yadav to the slumberous Sudip Bandopadhyay to Anantha Kumar.

Truly it was the J&K Assembly that pioneered the whole movement with an inspired show from its members on 9^th Apr’10. A cracker of a reality show….it was like going to the zoo and chancing across a Nat Geo moment being played out before you.

Of course all the national TV channels ensure these events get maximum coverage. After all IPL and Mr Lalit Modi have long moved out of our headlines, what choice do our media have?

I do not remember the last time the J&K assembly featured in the national news, do you?

Three cheers for Parliamentary democracy.

I think we have a winning formula here. Let's have the new IPL – call it the Indian Legislators League – ILL in short.

Have a ‘free for all’ show in every session of Parliament. Set aside some time for it…. (we have Zero Hour, call this… Hero Hour?) and allow our MPs to have a go at each other. Hammer and tongs, no holds barred.

You can follow a model similar to IPL where you start with iconic team captains (Sonia, Mamata, Advani, Lalu etc) and bid for the other players. So you can easily trade your team members once in a while. I am sure corporate sponsorship of every kind will be readily available.

If you step back and think the present set up is not very different.

The key advantage the ILL will have over Parliamentary Democracy - this would be transparent and a lot more fun.

Let the leaders we voted to Parliament at least provide us with some entertainment.

With the IPL under a cloud and allegations of match fixing, the time maybe ripe to win over the IPL crowds to our newly formed ILL.

I believe ILL's viewer ship ratings can far outstrip anything that IPL would have seen.

Long live ILL.

Here's to a new beginning

Here's a new resolution --- can't call it a New Year one in the month of May!!!

Either way, I have decided going forward I will be majorly regular in my posts on this blog.

There is a reason....I finally decided to get a home computer!! And on 12th Apr (remember 13th Apr'10- Wednesday was a holiday) I assembled by own desktop.

Yes, I probably would have got a laptop at a similar price, and a desktop for less.....but I would have missed out on the tremendous kick of assembling a computer.

In the next post I shall share some photos of this grand activity.

You will see me more often these days!!

And just to pick up some stray internet traffic to drive up the activity level, I have started this post with a photo of Rakhi Sawant. Yes, it is her!

How was your weekend!!

End of another weekend….I dread going back to office on Mondays. I especially hate the first few hours of the week in office.

No it is not the usual Monday morning blues. What I dread is the question that has become all too common among today’s working class.

'So how was the weekend? What did you do?'

Here’s one that is worse: - 'How was this weekend?' (Note the accent on the article).

Actually come to think of it, it can get even worse….

'God, what a weekend!! How was yours?'

Or someone scoring brownie points – ‘I may have worked all weekend but I am feeling much better having completed all the reports. Is yours done?’

Now, I do not know about you, but if there is something I am looking forward to doing on a weekend then it is nothing.

Yes, that exactly is my weekend plan, every weekend of the month and year. Do nothing.

While that may not make a very exciting Monday morning conversation, it does make me feel very good.

And I am good at doing nothing. Remember the adage….if you like what you do…it will be like doing nothing…or something like that!!!

However I do not like the condescending or patronising look that inevitably follows the revelation of my weekend activity, rather the lack of it. And if the other person does not know me well, he will most certainly walk up to me the coming Friday saying, “Hey you know what….I have a great idea of how you can spend this weekend.”

Go away!!

I have tried lying (not one of my natural skills), sarcasm (natural skill) and show of plain disgust and lace my answers with these expressions at random to make sure that there are no repeat offenders. Unfortunately you keep running into new people and many of the old people keep forgetting.

I even started giving advance warnings on Twitter and Facebook – Sunday evening updates like….’a great weekend…did nothing’. But even that doesn’t work. Those that do read it actually come back asking….’No tell me…what really made the weekend great?’

Well, it is getting late now…time to shut down/shut eye and tomorrow morning in office….'Shut up!'

King George lives!!

Well done US of A! Change in guard notwithstanding, the spirit of George Bush & Donald Rumsfeld leaves on. “You are either with us or you are with them”

In response to the gruesome killing of its operatives in Afghanistan, the CIA has come out with the rather Al Qaeda like statement:-

“The CIA has sworn to avenge the killing of seven of its operatives by a suicide bomber at a forward operating base (FOB) close to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border…”

Is this not the language of those who the US liberally calls terrorists?

Without trying to apologies or anyway condone the terrible act, is it not true that this is the way of war.

After all, how many innocents have the US killed over the decades and most recently in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan? What that the term they so love to use…”Collateral damage”

N D Tiger Woods Tiwary and 3 Idiots

Well….after a very long time I saw a movie on its first day of release. Actually I do not know how long since I cannot remember the last time I did that.

I somehow ended up with a free pass to a Friday show of the new Aamir Khan film “3 Idiots”. It is a movie about 3 guys and a girl.

But no sooner had I got over the movie, I learnt of another movie that has been shot. This is about 3 girls and a guy!

An 86 year old guy. ND Tiwary - the pride of Indian men, the new age sex god, our very own Tiger Woods. Eat your heart out, Mr Berlusconi and Monsieur Sarkozy!! You Italians and French have a lot to learn!!

I think this is a tremendous opportunity for the Indian male to capitalise on and market its sexual prowess. This country is known for its software, BPO industry and its emerging economic might. Now for once, a true leader of India has risen above all, and shown what else the Indian man is really capable of!! This year's Incredible Indian - N D Tiwary!

I think, in the right hands, this can become the greatest advertisement of Indian sexuality since the Kamasutra.

TV news at this time of the year is really boring with year end wrap-ups and mushy Christmas sentiments, M/s Tiwari’s sexual romp actually brings on much cheer!! Thank you NDT, thank you ABN (the Telegu news channel).

I am sure with some research, Mr Tiwary’s prowess in the horizontal sport can be attributed to anything, depending on who is marketing it. Yoga, if you are Baba Ramdev, Indian spices (Indian Spice Board), Hindu asmita (if you belong to the BJP), or Viagra or and equivalents to let horny old guys get into a foursome.

If there is one guy who is finishing the year (and probably his career) with a bang we know who that is!!! Attaboy!!!