Active members

Recently I was required to preside over a meeting for a committee I was chairing. I was supposed to introduce all the members of the committee and give a little pep talk to boost their morale.

I was to recognize all the active members and also encourage the not so active members to start taking active participation in the committe activities and other events.

I prepared a small speech for the meeting but mid way through the meeting I realized that almost everything on my speech was already conveyed to the members by other members of the committee executive board. Since I was the last one to speak I thought I might end the meeting on a lighter note and so started out laying the different kinds of active members in our group.

Active members: Members who actively take part in the activities that they seem to be interested in.

In-active members: Members who willingly avoid almost any kind of participation in the committee activities.

Over-active members: Members who with their high energy levels display their state of high caffiene and do things that they are not even supposed to do.

Re-active members: Members who do not take part in any activity and instead stop others from taking active participation.

And now my favorite...

Attr-active members: These are the real crowd pullers in the group who are not really required to do anything but make people around them actively participate in the group activities with their charm.

When the talk ended, I thought it was in my best interest to not wait for people to come up to me with their reactions and quietly slipped out through the back door. Now that was a talk wasnt it ;)

Sports and Sponsorship

This morning I was listening to BBC world and guess what ? Two of my most favorite sports were being featured - Cricket and American Football. Hearing about cricket in USA was muchly cool !!!!

There was a time (until Sachin beat Desmond Haynes' record for the highest number of test centuries) when I could recollect at length the way every ball was bowled, the way it was hit by every Indian batsman, any incidents of spectacular fielding - you name it and I could be the talking parrot. So much that midterm exams were of no importance when it came to an Indian cricket match. 8 hours ( or 8x5 hours) of pure bliss. None of my girl friends dug me back then.

Here's a bow to the greatest sport ever - Cricket.

So coming to this morning, the show featured the influence of sponsorship on sports. ICC chairman stated that a whopping 1.2 billion dollars would be amassed via sponsorships by the end of 2008. Also a few cricketers featured on the programme ( yesh, British english) Stephen Fleming the kiwi captain and Mushtaq Ahmed (not a big fan of him). They were talking about endorsements and how they exercise caution while deciding to endorse a product.

Then came the interesting part - tobacco and sports. The above cricketers claimed that they would never endorse anything related to tobacco, alcohol and gambling. I was sitting there saying bull !! Didn't we not have the Wills cup ? Wasn't Four Square a big sponsor of cricket? Feh !

In any event the experience was great just listening about cricket and too bad no Indian cricketer was on. That would have definitely made my day.

By the time I reached our concrete parking lot, satellite radio gave up on me and also reminded me there are less important things like earning my bread than living in passion for cricket. Also I could not listen to the rest of the programme.

Keep in touch

I have always heard my friends and sometimes myself end conversations with these three words "Keep in touch". What does this keep in touch really mean. What do we really mean when we ask them to keep in touch.

I always wondered how often should you call or talk to your friend to make sure you stay in touch. Conversations with friends are a never ending process and no matter how much you talk to them, you know there is always something thats left out and you need to start another conversation to finish that one. Its a never ending process. The closer the friend is, the more you need to talk to them and discuss your life with them. If its the closest friend then he needs every detail of your personal life as well.

At the end of the day no matter how much you talk to them, does all the talking qualify as you staying in touch with them or am I over doing it? This question is way beyond my intellectual ability.

Guys Vs Gals

Here is another one in the guys vs gals wars. Got this in a mail forwarded to me.

Seems this is an open letter from all guys to their gals.

The Guys' Rules­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Please note that all the rules are numbered "1" ON PURPOSE!

1. Men are not mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat.

You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides.
Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want.
Let us be clear on this one:
Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly Acceptable answers to almost every
question.

1. Come to us with a problem only If you want help solving it. That's
what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem, See a doctor.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 Days.

1. If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.

1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one

1. You can either ask us to do something Or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible , Please say whatever you have to say during
commercials.

1. Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.

1. All men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, NOT a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what Mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," We will act like
nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, Expect an answer you don't want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear Is fine.  Really.

1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to
discuss such topics as football, baseball, the shotgun formation, or golf.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape, Round is also a shape!

for(i =0; i<=evry1; i++) hello;

Now is that something really smart or utterly dumb.

I would go with the latter. I would not expect a normal person with a normal or higher degree of intellectuality to read that and go " hey, hello to u too". BTW, just for the record, that for .. whatever it was, meant a simple hello.

I had this sent to me by my "Expert Programmer" friend who thought it was quite innovative and said a lot about his programming skills. Well finally I have a reply befitting his "hello". Next time I have him come over to my place, I am gonna offer him beer as in :

function whenfriendvisitsmyplace()
{

if(friend==you)     //you as in you my expert programmer friend
yougetbeer = false;

}

The Gult's Ride

Not so long ago, I went on a shopping spree - for cars. Now how is buying a car considered shopping spree? It is especially when you end up buying two cars in a span of 3 days.

I got a new Acura TSX "Arctic Blue" with all the bells and whistles of a high end luxury car and the must-have navigation system. It was indeed a luxury car and you don’t even have to sit and ride in it to know that. For me, the price tag was enough to give a heart ache. It made into my list of prized possessions. Why I am not driving the Acura is a totally different story. (And oh btw if you haven’t noticed I am not flaunting the Acura)

Although the Acura was nice, I needed a Gult's ride for me. Ergo I make the obvious choice of buying the Gultima (Right, you guessed it the Nissan Altima). The most popular of ‘em all. Rumor has it that Carlos Ghosn is planning to rename the Altima to Gultima just to give a gult allure :P

It’s a known fact and often desis are ridiculed at for owning the entire spectrum of (only and only) Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas(high-end and low-end alike). So much that these brands have been stereotyped to become what’s called a 'desi' car. This is true given the fact that almost all 'desis' I know own at least one of these. But isn’t the choice more likely dependent on the fact that the Japanese vehicles are extremely reliable and harbor an ever lasting engine.

People talk, but a desi lives to brag about his ideas and thoughts on almost everything relevant and irrelavant. So obviously the ideology behind the desi car got around faster and people stuck to these brands only.

As for me, I don't care for any of what I just said - I just need my ride, 'Gultima' , the Gult's Ride.

Krri'shh '

The shh in the name is highlighted for a reason. In the movie, almost everybody sitting around me tried to 'shh' me whenever i made an attempt to understand the movie or smile at the supposed to be funny moments in the movie.

Hindi movie industry, well what can one say. A billion dollar industry churning out about 700 movies every year and almost each and everyone of them is as bad as the rest of them. 'Krishh', the most awaited movie of the year, I donno why people are waiting for it to release, so that they finally realize that Hrithik is not that good an actor or his dad is not a very good movie maker.

So I get my tickets beating the very many online in time and manage the best seats in the hall. The movie starts with a flashback kind of situation wherein we are made to relive the whole experience of Koi Mil Gaya. The movie then takes off with the story of the new superhero in Indian cinema, Krishh.

By the way, what was so superheroic about him afterall. I have seen other movies, wherein the hero (not superhero) fights 50+ people in a single fight sequence, jumps off cliffs faster than Krishh and still manages to romance more than 3 gals at the same time. Some of the other not so super heroes even blocked bullets with hand, cut bullets with a knife and shoot from a galaxy far far away and still manage to hit the target. So this 'Krishh' is not so super afterall, is he? But I did sit through the movie only to realize that I will have to watch the other Hrithik from Koi Mil Gaya with this Hrithik in Krrishh at the end and come out all glazed with my head spinning.

Gosh.. what a waste of useful time and energy. So again, why was i 'shh'ed in the theatre?

My rating: Never mind out of 5

*Expletive Snakes on the *Expletive Plane

I wanted to see a movie this weekend and what is better than a scary snake movie when you are out with your date ;)

Wish it was that way. The movie is one of the worst movies I have seen in the recent past, with every shot perfectioned to crap. The basic plot of the movie itself was so bad that oh, I just ran out of all the good (non-expletive) words for bad.

For one thing, if you need to bring a plane down and you can circulate fermones in the plane air circulation system, why not just circulate some poisonous gas, no complaints and all dead. I did not expect "Eddy Kim" to go down so easily. The snakes bite deaths were ghastly and there were more deaths shown than there were people on that plane.

Finally, when Samuel Jackson says that he is done with the *(insert your favorite expletives here) snakes on the * (here too) plane, i felt like I am done with this * (and here) movie and the *(and here) story and I am out of here.

But I did finish the movie unlike most of my other fortunate friends. At the end of it, I did realize that even though its a snake movie, supposed to be scary and all, it did not even fit the category of a date movie (if you know what i mean *wink*).

My rating -9 (thats right, a negative 9) out of 5. Take that you people with crazy ideas of snakes-on-crack on the plane.

The "Laptop"

I always wondered about the many uses that I can probably put my laptop to. So I started out by making a list of everything that my laptop does.

• Acts as a mobile workstation
• Gives a techie look to the user (me)
• Keeps me out of unwanted conversations (all I have to do is start staring at the screen and pretend to think)
• Is a good strength exercise equipment (weighs almost 9 pounds)
• Cooking
• Keeps people away

Anybody would wonder what the hell do the last two mean. Well, the "DELL" that I got two years back gets so hot after an hour of trying to use it that i can probably make an omlette or pancakes off its back. Now for the best in the list, I can simply get rid of people by making them use this laptop, you can figure out how ;).

Now whoever thought that laptops can bring peace into troubled lives. :D

Hello world

There you go, my first "blog". I am glad to be a part of the blog world. I think after all the years of thought I put into starting my own blog, (also I was beginning to think that people might mistake me to be an ancient homonoid too incompetent to dig blogger) I finally decided to write my own blog. I do not intend to come up with a new post every day, but again life is full of suprises. I might get more bored than I am right now and end up posting 'stuff' every day.

Being a techie that I am or atleast pretending to be one, what is a better way than to start my blog with the two words "Hello World".