Thursday!

I got my lunch from Subway. I am not going there anymore. The lady is too rude. When do they start accepting credit card? Next century? Needless to say, the store is run by desis!!

And, Snoop Dog is busted again! What a fizzle! Is this man totally out of control or what?

Russian spy, Stephen Hawking, Pope, Iraq – No, I am not going to say anything. Not in a mood to write anything.

Then I heard from these two guys. One guy really wants to go back to India, but still has some concerns. Other guy works for a well-known Indian IT outsourcing company and totally disgusted by the abuse that goes on there. Well, what do you expect me to say? When was life perfect?

Drama!!

This is how members of a political party staged their protest in a recent Mangalore City Corporation meeting. Land of ‘Gandhi’ always finds innovative ways to protest, uh?

Another interesting incident from the same meeting was when former City Mayor, a national level power-lifter protested against one of the expelled members from his party over a chair! The expelled member was a state level Karate champion.

Needless to say, the protest was peaceful. ;)

Rambling continues…

Wisconsin’s largest Chocolate Santa? Eeeeww – I almost puked! Why chocolate? No clue!
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So….Britney was seen partying with Paris? I wonder what influence they will have on each other! Let me guess - Britney will start puking on the streets and Paris will marry a cab driver and start popping babies very soon!

What happened to Nicole these days? She reminds me of those rescued from Auschwitz!

Well, well, well...few more gutter rats in the sewer pipe of entertainment – I don’t think it makes a big difference!
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I am a desi and bring lunch to work everyday (well, almost!). But it’s very nice weather out today. So, I have two options – Either walk to this public market and get my favorite middle-eastern food. Or, eat my rice/daal and bitch about the whole world!

Ummm…I am still thinking!

Bunch of….

Six Muslim clerics were removed from a US Airways flight yesterday at Minneapolis airport. So, now we need to feel sorry for them?

This country, as far as I know, definitely has a very high tolerance level to other cultures, faiths and languages. Nobody has stopped me from doing what I want to do or worship in the privacy of my home or temple. Why do we have to be so adamant about our religious practices in public? I have seen how these ‘daily prayers’ bring some of the streets in Mumbai to a complete halt!! Totally ridiculous in my opinion!

Freedom to practice your faith should not be mistaken for causing inconvenience to others in any way.

Let us get it straight – even the open minded societies can get skeptical after something like 9/11. Nobody would have stopped these Imams before 9/11 happened. Now, it’s a different story and these ‘peaceful’ folks have to understand it.

Islam has to earn its trust back before pointing fingers at others for ‘not understanding their religion’ or ‘hate crimes’! Good folks at C.A.I.R should stop worrying about Al-Jazeera’s search for a US carrier and focus more on misguided people and hatred in their religion.

Ouch!!!!

Google is down by $20. Both Nasdaq and S&P are down. Color red everywhere – all are bleeding! Holiday season didn’t meet the expectations? A weak outlook from Wal-Mart? Man, Am I missing something here? Any wal-mart store I see here makes so much business – it’s always like a festival out there! Now, a weak outlook? What the…!!

Moral Relativism and Hypocrisy

I have been thinking a lot about these two lately.

A pure vegetarian(??), Adolf Hitler slaughtered millions of Jews. It’s moral relativism.

A promiscuous woman, who calls herself a very good Christian - Good example for hypocrisy.

Shiites and Sunnis who kill each other in hundreds everyday in the streets of Bagdad in the name of same religion and God – Is this moral relativism or Hypocrisy? Well, I think it’s little more than both! I call it stupidity fuelled by moral relativism and hypocrisy.

Indian cinema...

Well, you decide... :)

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of my favorite places for gathering information. I know that some of the information may not be correct. It’s not easy to get all the facts right in all the cases.

But I don’t know how to react when kannada version says “Girish Karnad was born in Uttara Kannada district” and English version says “Girish Karnad was born in Matheran, Maharashtra ”!! Are they talking about the same place?

Cold, fat and lazy...

Well, that's how I am feeling now!

A day after thanksgiving...Reached home this afternoon. Traffic wasn’t too bad. Since Wednesday night, it was eat, drink, eat, and drink! I probably don’t need food for next two days!!

Ok - Here is a video clip on my magic skills! In other words, a proof of why I can never be a magician! :)

Thanking all of you…

It’s hard to imagine a country fighting two wars at the same time and still maintaining a normal life for its citizens. Thanks to two large oceans on both sides, friendly neighbors and a powerful military. One war is good enough to ruin the fabric of any country or society. But here, nothing really seems to have been affected except for those dead soldiers and recent politics. No NFL game has been postponed. There is no shortage of fun and entertainment. There is more curiosity to know if Paris Hilton puked on herself ! Is this a sign of long-term war? Or, Is this a sign of very powerful nation?

140 bodies turned up on Baghdad streets – Ohh! A single bullet in the head is a quick way to go. But these guys had their hands tied and tortured before seeing their final moment. Waiting for your turn to get shot in the head is bad enough. My heart goes out for them. Why men are so cruel to each other? It’s really sick.
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I am driving up north tomorrow to have Thanksgiving lunch / dinner. It should be fun. Remember almost all the shops (except Chinese food joints!) are closed on Thanksgiving – so, make sure that you have all the ‘supplies’ you need at home. If you are traveling, stay safe.

On this occasion, let me take a moment to thank everyone from my family to military to every person out there who made my life better. Especially, thank you all for reading my blog. : )

Happy Thanksgiving!

Few observations…

Some of the republican-leaning blogs that I visit on regular basis have gone awkwardly silent. Just before the elections, they had reached hysterical levels. After the elections, these ‘Terrorists-want-dems-to-win’ morons have gone very silent. Ummm…I wonder why. Did they run out of their talking points?
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We definitely have a new entertainer for KKK now. Yea – I am talking about that Seinfeld guy. Kramer – whatever his real name is! I hope he was on drugs when he did it.
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Some construction work is going on outside the office building. I wonder how those guys can work 6-7 hours in such a cold weather everyday?
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Buyer’s remorse sounds familiar, right? But I am going through seller’s remorse now!! Thanks to soaring Google! Ah haa – Life is beautiful. :)

Diary

Do you have a diary? How many years since you started writing if you have one? I know exactly when I started mine. I started it after reading ‘Anadobrahma’ novel by Yendamuri Virendranath. I was in primary school when I read it. If I recollect it right – the lady’s name was Mandakini. And, Yaji (main character in the novel) will have an initial crush on her. The weekly magazine (Sudha) published this novel. It was a great story. I had already become a great fan of this writer (Yendamuri) after reading his novel on a chess player who falls in love with a girl he had never seen. Interestingly it was the very first novel I read in my life! This novel went onto become a movie by the same name. I never bothered to watch it. Few things are best left for our imagination.

My first diary book was basically a notebook. Most of my initial entries revolved around my life goals, study plans, friends and occasional arguments/fight with my brother. Funny thing is – I always started my entries with a prayer to Lord Ganesh and Anjaneya! Later it graduated to more serious stuff like philosophy, religion, Karl Marx etc. In fact, once I drew Karl’s picture on a diary page! When I got into charcoal drawings and cartoon drawings big time during my high school days, most of the diary pages had cartoon figures! Diary was a channel for me to express myself without any inhibitions. When I got enough courage, some of my articles on religion and blind-believes ended up in the weekly magazine – Taranga. My father wasn’t too happy to see his son’s name on a popular magazine talking about religious fanatics!

During college days, I started writing stories – most of them were based on my real life experiences. Some of them got published as well. Many stories never saw the end! I tried poetry too – but I never dared to read them to anyone!

During my recent India trip, I collected all my diaries and brought them over here. Last evening I was going through some of them – it was a great feeling. By the way, I had a real bad argument with my brother on March 16th, 1986 at around 6:00 PM!! Is it really 20 years since it happened? WOW!

PS3 mania...

I should admit I never was a hardcore fan of anything. Fortunately, I have enough sanity. The closest I came to being insane was during my student life. For example, me and my friends wanted to see the movie, Baazighar on the very first day, first show! We all bought the tickets at a higher price. I could have used the same money to fill 6 liters of petrol for my Luna!! Especially, for a student like me who was on a very tight budget, it was a huge money to spend!

Well, those are the days when we thought we were at top of the world though in reality we were hardly any smarter than those monkeys on the streets of Mysore!

This report proves again that there is no shortage of such characters! Life goes on…

Sold !

Google sold at $490. So, there goes my long-term investment within 2 months. But a return of 21% in 6 weeks is not bad, eh? Feeling like true Warren Buffet here! Ummm, exxxcccccellentt!!! (Oh my God! Am I turning into Mr.Burns from the Simpsons???)

One more boring post…

Test Your Refrigerator Food Safety Savvy

Answer YES or NO to the following questions:

1. Is it safe to leave perishable foods at room temperature for longer than TWO hours TOTAL time? (Perishable foods include: meat, poultry, fish, eggs, tofu; dairy products; cooked pasta, rice and vegetables; fresh, peeled and/or cut fruits and vegetables.)

2. Is it OK to refrigerate foods while they're still warm?

3. Should you eat refrigerated leftovers within a day or two for safety and quality?

4. Should you keep your refrigerator at 40 degrees or lower?

5. Can you always see, smell or taste bacteria that cause food-borne illness?

Answers

1. NO. Refrigerate perishable foods so the TOTAL time they're at room temperature is less than 2 hours. At room temperature, just ONE bacterium in these foods could grow to 2,097,152 in 7 hours!

2. YES. Just leave the container cover slightly cracked until the food has cooled. Refrigerate foods in shallow containers to speed cooling.

3. YES. Eat refrigerated leftovers promptly.

4. YES. Keeping your refrigerator at 40 degrees F or lower slows bacterial growth. Keep your freezer at 0 degrees F or lower, which stops most bacterial growth. Freezing DOES NOT kill bacteria.
Keep an appliance thermometer in your refrigerator and in your freezer to assure they stay at these recommended temperatures

5. NO. When in doubt, toss it out! You can't always see, smell or taste bacteria that cause food-borne illness. It takes from 1/2 hour to 6 weeks before you get sick from contaminated food.

My World!

I guess I truly missed drinking from sewer pipe! I realize that I can’t stay away from this world for a long time. I can choose to look only at the bright side. But, that would be naïve. After all, it’s my world and I can’t ignore it.

So, as soon as I plunged into this mad, real world again, two stories caught me by surprise. First one is on Chad Conrad Castagana. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin had nothing to say about him! So much for their intellectual honesty! Click here to read the full story.

Second one is on O.J.Simpson. I don’t know what to think of this guy. If I were him, I would shut my mouth and live my life thanking the second chance given by pure luck. As we all know, you are your biggest enemy. So there he is - our old friend, Simpson, testing the limits again. Click here to read the details.

Peace!

I guess I did the most wonderful thing today. Didn’t listen to any radio or TV. Didn’t read any news or opinions from any site or newspapers. So friends, I have no idea what’s going on out there.

After a long time, I just sat alone by the piano and drank a cup of coffee playing my random thoughts! No TV, No talking heads! True, there is so much beauty around when we weed out the noise from our life. Christmas tree in the living room looks beautiful. Santa looks very peaceful under the lamp! Then, there is little Budha by the plant. Yes - Just Santa, Budha and me...very peaceful.

Well, I am getting old faster than I thought! :)

Old man's ramblings....

Why is world so biased? See, how the media is picking on this poor guy, Kevin Federline. Yes, he was nothing compared to his very successful (ex) wife, Britney Spears. Yes, he is not very talented. Not very bright either. Ok – agreed, he is a shameless freeloader too. But why pick on him? At least he didn’t marry Elizabeth Taylor for her money!!

Tell me, how many times you heard about this young, good looking lady marrying an old, ugly guy for his money? Look at Donald Trump showing off his ‘trophy wife’. How about the weird Anna Nicole Smith, who married almost dying billionaire!! Look at Newt Gingrich, our Republican hero, savior of family values, who shows up on Fox News channel frequently. He married a young woman (congressional aide) who was 23 years younger to him after divorcing his second wife! Look at another case of Paul McCartney (former Beatle’s) who married a young woman after the death of his first wife.

Well, who said world is perfect?

Ok - It’s Friday - Time to sit down and relax. Order your favorite food, grab a cup of your favorite drink, sit by your most loved person and relax.

Here is a clip that I am going to listen to for millionth time tonight. Hope you will enjoy too.

Two days after the bloodshed…

Not sure what is causing this. It’s almost 60 degrees today. This is supposed to be November and freezing. I came to office without a winter jacket today! What’s going on?

I think one of my back muscles got pulled. Typically this happens when I go little overboard with my exercises! Lately I have been trying hard to improve my strength. It’s interesting – when you first start with weights, you struggle. Then, you see a surge in your strength. Then, it reaches a limit – You find it almost impossible to go higher! That’s when you need a change in your workout and food supplements. Well, now with the muscle pull, I need to be careful for next 2-3 days! Probably I will be doing only lower body workout and cardiac. Booooaring….!!

Macaca is still not giving up. I think he is living in a different world. He needs to accept the reality. Time to go home and do a little introspection, my friend! You don’t use racial slurs on camera and lie about it later. Allen called the person in the picture a ‘Macaca’!! (See above). So, a colored skin person looks like ‘Macaca’ to you, Allen? Go home – you have no business in Washington! That’s all.

I’m planning to sell Google at $480. So much for my long term investment!

Licking wounds…

So, there it is. A slap on the face. Everybody expected it – but not so hard!! It was a total massacre! So many casualties including Donald Rumsfeld!!

Dems have taken the house and Senate. I am glad that George Allen, the racist from south, has lost! We don’t need another big liar and racist to cause more damage to conservative movement!

Nancy Palosi had the biggest smile last night.

It was clearly a vote against Republican arrogance and corruption. They ignored their own base, got into too many scandals and showed middle finger to conservative values. The power had corrupted their mind and soul. People had enough.

Clearly this will have an impact on three major things – Iraq war, Immigration (read ‘Illegal Immigration’) and Gay rights.
Conservative movement has been torpedoed by neo-cons and morons like Ann Coulter. One of the blogs I regularly visit wrote to the effect that Terrorists wanted dems to win. I just left a short comment – “You are the reason behind this loss. Stop demonizing your own country men!”

The Judgment Day!

It all comes down to this.

The bodybuilder in California is going to win. I hope the racist George Allen will go home tonight, not Washington! I don’t want any publicly racist person to do more damage at the capital!

Thanks to John Kerry again – I guess he blew up chances for a few democratic candidates like the one in Montana! John, John, John!!

Joe Liberman is going to win again. The question is - would he be more favorable to Republicans? My gut feel is that he would continue to be an independent voice. But, who knows?

- I don’t believe in open borders. I don’t want millions of people pouring in illegally. In my opinions, it only sows the seeds of a very corrupt society in the future. (Ok – Go ahead and call me names!)

- I don’t believe in un-regulated capitalism. It only leads to mafias like today’s health care and Insurance industry.

- I don’t want to raise children in an experimental society. Though not religious, I believe we need strong family values. Increasing number of births out of wedlock, increasing sexual activities among teenagers and excessive exposure to pornography – It bothers me a lot.

- On the other hand, I don’t want to be associated with ‘Jesus is the only way to heaven’ kind of group either. They scare me more than drug junkies!

- I don't care about abortion. It's a personal choice. But I do care about global warming!

- I want our government to handle the Islamic terrorists (aka Peace loving people) with strength. Not as a bunch of weaklings.

So, there it is. The rules I have in mind to vote for the right party. But, Alas – both parties have failed!!

Radio, TV and a song

Saturday night, a good dinner and a chilled beer – my mind runs back to my childhood. There is no terrorism or politics. It’s just me and a nostalgic mind. Why memories are always sweet? I have no idea.

You probably would be surprised – TV came to my town only in 1984, just in time for LA Olympics! A very few houses had TVs. Since we didn’t have TV at home, we would run to our family doctor’s house (needless to say – he was rich!). There would always be a crowd watching TV! Then came the assasination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi!! The whole school went to this Doctor’s house to watch the funeral. They had to move the TV outside so all kids could watch the program. Can you imagine today’s kids watching a program as boring as a funeral on TV for hours? Well, we did!

In those days, the TV reception totally sucked – we could hardly see the pictures. It was black and white. Most of the times, we were happy to watch commercials. So, all the responsibility of keeping us entertained fell on Radio. We had a vacuum tube radio that was the size of today’s TV set. It would take a minute to warm up after turning the power on! And, if I am right, there was also a Radio license – One had to renew this every year!

Everyday at noon we would eat our lunch listening to radio songs. In the evenings, we would switch to Band-3 (higher frequency) and try to tune into Radio Moscow or BBC. We would try to listen to the broadcast though we couldn’t understand a word! It was an exciting thing for us! At nights, we would fall asleep as we all listened to movie songs from different radio stations. Since I grew up in a small town, we hardly got the opportunity to watch good movies!! So, in those calm nights, we would listen to these songs imagining our favorite heroes and heroines.

Here is one of my favorite songs, which brings back all the memories of my family, childhood and radio! I agree – the little kid’s dance is annoying! :)

Another sucker...

Yes – my theory is right – there is always more space at the bottom!

It’s only a few days since I wrote on the filthy degenerates living in the bottom most dungeons of human societies. In the darkness, they drink from cesspool. But they hide it. They inhale the toxic fumes and get high. But they hide it. They live amongst us like normal people. They speak well, dress well. In fact, they go one step ahead! They can fake a good father, good husband, good brother, good priest and a good human being. It’s all in their acting. Fake!

One day the fake mask comes off exposing the true, ugly darkness that they personified all along!!

BTK killer was a good example. He was a good father and husband. He was a Scout leader and President of a local church!! But nobody knew he craved for blood like a devil worshipper!

Here is the latest from the pack of two-faced liars. Rev. Ted Haggard - The Leader of National Association of Evangelicals!! He spewed hatred towards gays. He lobbied against gay marriages. He preached high morals. He called himself a ‘good Christian’! (I remember seeing his face on Jesus Camp movie clips!) He was friendly with White house (Well, this doesn't suprise me!). But, when nobody watched, he would enjoy the company of a male prostitute! He would do drugs!! In private, he drank from the same cesspool that he denounced in public!

What a gutter rat!

Once again, my theory is right – there is always more ....!

Agile Process and Religion of Peace

Again, it’s time for raising the same questions and give the same answers. They call it Project Sunset review and I call it ‘Bull ****' since nothing really changes from those ‘learnings’.

It’s funny that I am also part of the team rolling out a new agile process. I don’t think anybody is naïve enough to believe that this would be the silver bullet for all the issues we are facing. But the current process is clearly not working – so, it’s time to explore other options. For the past few days, I have been reading this book - ‘Crystal Clear’ by Alistair Cockburn. This is one of the many sources I am referring to…as I try to recommend changes for different roles in a project.

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It’s almost the time. Come Tuesday, it would be the moment of truth. All the news outlets are so full of political bias and hatred. Just a visit to CNN, FOX news and MSNBC sites reveals where they stand politically. When Fox can’t seem to get enough of stupid Kerry’s comments, MSNBC finds it totally irrelevant!

As the politically charged media clouds other stories, I just couldn’t let two reports go un-noticed. Both are related to Islam (aka ‘religion of peace’). First one was from Iran – apparently they held a cartoon contest on holocaust. Yes - they think the slaughtering of Jewish people during Second World War is an exaggeration and media hype!
Second story is from Palestine. It talks about how the local radio called on women to form a human shield around a mosque where a bunch of Hamas militants were hiding from Israeli troops. And the local women did follow the orders and helped militants to escape from Mosque. In this process, a woman got killed in the crossfire.
So, there it is – the ‘religion of peace’.

I know many of you are going to call me a judgmental personality. Trust me, if you did, you wouldn’t be the first one. :) I always wonder why this ‘Religion of Peace’ always finds itself in confrontation with other religions. When they criticize the western countries so loud, why can’t they look at their own home countries that they left to come over here? Look at some of the notorious mullahs from Britain! They all ran from their countries to avoid religious or political prosecution. Thanks to welfare system, they don’t need to work either! Simply sit on your lazy bum and bitch about west. Can it get any worse? Well...

Today

It’s chilling outside. I sit by the window – I could see the first snow flakes for the season. But I have been running around like a mad man! There was a last minute request from our client. We had to make those changes. The project was technically over yesterday and we even had deployed it.

We didn’t have the main technical person to do the change today. I had to talk to resource manager to borrow another technical person so we could make the final changes in production site! It wasn’t pretty though. Thank god – it’s finally over!

It’s always a challenge to get the project completed within the budget while meeting client’s expectations. To be honest, I haven’t seen any place where projects are done within initial budget. Earlier I worked in an Indian company where projects went way over budget. But it was nicely covered up by not reporting the extra hours!! So, all projects were done within the budget, meeting CMM Level-5 standards! Yea, sure!

It has been very peaceful lately. I don’t know if it is the changed weight training or the new vitamin pills!! :) But I have a very strong feeling that it’s the weather – the arrival of winter has definitely made me happier. Last evening, I was sitting by the window and listening to a beautiful composition in raga – Todi. It was so beautiful I had to grab my Mridangam – but, alas, it was set to higher pitch!!

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Finally I have started using IE7. It seems to have some cool features. But it’s really interesting to see how they have copied the creative aspects of graphics (like color, font style) from Apple!!