Inspirations...

Through the ages we could list so many odd things that hav inspired man to write... i guess it started with his need to keep an inventory of the food left for him... then slowly he started writing on Nature... you could call it painting rather than writing...bcoz back then there was no language...he drew and drew and drew alll that he could see in this wide open world... he drew elephants...on the walls...in the caves... we would still call this a writing...though no words were used...
Then came the period where in men started writing just for the sake of writing... this is the period where great works of literature began to emerge... epics were written almost every fortnight... Every language had its share of this period... and great men cam to limelight everywhere around the globe...
And then came the period when even women inspired men to write...i mean can you think of such a thing happening... a woman inspiring a man...that sounds totally unwomanlike.... but then that did happen...
Then came a time where he started writing for the money... yup the very same thing that made men do things they wud have never doen if there hadn't been something called money...nope i am not turnin philosophical here... sayin just the truth...no more...may be less...
Just when man thought there could be no more wretched things left in the world to inspire him to write...zooooooooooooooooom came the project managers straight from... well you know where... browse thru the blog world and you wud see umpteen amount of blogs on these forbidden beings... From Scott Adams to every single software professional... there is a whole race of mankind getting there inspiration everyday to write... to share with the world their experience... and enthralling experience it is... Even the best of the men in the world become a laughing stock the instant they become a manager... and i am not exaggerating when i say this... I always thought they were a useless bunch of individuals...living only to check the deals online and torturing his reportees in every possible way... but that was until i started reading dilbert and become a member of the bloggers' world... now i understandhow there is some purpose behind Gods every creation... i mean if you could some purpose behind creating those pesky managers he sure must have thought something when he created you... doesn't that make you feel even better... well thats his second purpose of creating managers i guess.... oh man!!! i am really becomin somethin ain't I?

Lady in the Water...

After keeping you inside high wals of woods in his last movie 'The Village'... Shyamalan now takes you inside a quiet apartment complex and keeps you enthralled till the end... I am not gonna give any spoilers in this blog and so you can read thru the entire blog without havin to worry about losing the thrill... The movie is more of a bed time story narrated with perfection... Shyamalan sure is a master story teller... well for a sure change he has made ppl laugh at certain scenes in the movie... I prepared myself for the worst of a thriller before entering the movie hall But Manoj kindda cheated me on that... And the hero Paul's performance is simply brilliant... So what are you waiting for... rush to the theater near you... grab a canno pepsi and 'corn... get a block rented in Manoj's apartment....

From Shyamalan the master... comes Lady in the Water...

Italian Pizza Vs French Fries...

Right from the day the World Cup final match was announced... till the end of the Second half of the match... the entire world of fans beleived there is only one man in this world who could decide the outcome of the match single handedly... Zizou...For the uninitiated Zidane... Everyone beleived that he could join the ranks of Pele and Maradona... the demi-gods of the soccer world... but fate would have it otherwise... If only Buffon would have misjudged his jump when he saved the header from the magician, a new history would have been written with Zidane as the theme... After losing his last nerve Zidane was right there in the middle of the field to be intimidated... the trap was set and he reacted as expected.. and Lo... there falls another legend... his one last unforgettable act made him fall from the abode and laid him down with the mortals...

After his fall and with the front men Henry and Ribery out of the field... There was no game left on the field... After all without an Orchestrator ther could be no Orchestra... and that lead the game to the solo performances... With 2-2 in the penanlty shoot out... the game was moving towards the sudden death... It seemed like only Luck could play an important role in the game... and it finally did... but against the wishes of the world... The very same luck that favoured Zidane by making the ball bounce into the net from the post, did not stand by his team this time... After all luck too seems to have been disappointed with Zidane's act and joined the opponents... And when the French fries were getting half cooked... the Pizza boyz delivered...

Open Season...

Well this blog is definitely not about the soon to be released animated movie...(The trailer of this movie seems to be very promising by the way...) but is about the i-got-shit-and-here's-ur-share season... yup u got it right...The ever entertaining performance appraisal season... the word s performance appraisal are soon becoming the most abusive words in IT parlance... i mean puke on a guy and his reactions wud be definitely better than the one he sports after his performance appraisal...
The current cube that is allocated to me is kinda strategically located for maximum entertainment... It is located between two project managers and i get to listen to all the crappy shits that they have to share in their meetings and phone calls... yup... the content i hear is more entertaining than a friends serial with 10 Joey characters... i mean i sometimes cannot control my laughter after listening to a few of the conversations and i had to take frequent breaks to catch my breath... And with the open season in place wat more do ya want?...

Everyday ppl call them to complain about the appraisal results and they have the standard template answers to everyone... (I had a chance to work under one of these two some 1 year ago... and the template answers seeems to have not changed...) So here is this guy complaining about the way he was rated and that he has given everythign that he could for the project and bang comes the reply.... the PM turns philosophical and narrates his own experience... and how he is helpless with no decimals being allowed in the final rating results as of a 4.2 would have made the dude happier than a 5... Performance appraisal is suppose to evaluate how i performed and it has nothin to do with me being in US or in India in the last six months while my team mates are waiting for a chance to fly.... Evaluate me on wat i did...how i did it... did i do justice to the money paid to me... am i ready for the next level...

All the managers should realise is that these appraisals should encourage the employee to do better than wat he does now.... not bog him down and make him another liability to the company(apart from the PM)...

The Niagara....

Well i am stayin home free after a pretty looooong time... got nothin better to do... so here i am trying to update my blog with few more craps...

Last week i went on a short drive to Niagara...(yup the drive was 8 hours short of a full day).... the ditance between the place i stay and the falls is exactly 763 miles... the plan was to start friday evening at 4... drive to Niagara non-stop... checkin to a hotel early morning and take rest till noon... roam around Niagara for as long as the body premits... spend the night again in the hotel room and start back on sunday morning... now any American who reads this would faint immediatley...because i am talking about 26 hours of driving in a 50 hrs trip... when i went and told my manager (an american) of my travel itinerary he looked me up and down and said "man, why dont you take another day off and break your journey... i mean iam born and brought up in this country but i've never crossed Balttimore in North... and even i myself would not dare to plan a journey so hectic as urs..." well thats him... a very nice guy and had loads of advice for my safe journey...

So as planned we started at around 4P.m and by the time we reached charlotte,NC it was like the entire population of America was trying to get into interstate I-77... my friend on the wheels was new to driving in American interstates and was driving as if he has taken a vow never to break speed limits in US...it took 2 hours to cross a 12 minute stretch and amidst this we had to take a break to empty our tanks and fill the car's tank... once we reached the Virginia's the view of the smokey range was breathtaking... it was like we have come to a totally new fresh world... with all the abundant natural vegetation zooming along both the sides of the car... and then came the dusk and i had to take over the wheels... i was already half asleep... and the backlight of the cars in the front and the shimmering lights in the other side of the road were making sure that i feel comfortable in closin my eyes... now this part always is fun... you never know when you sleep and when you are awake... i was drivin like this for about six hours... and after reachin Buffalo i handed over the car again to my rule abidin friend... and by the time we reached it was 6 in the morning... we went to bed and woke up and were ready to see Niagara by 12 noon...

we took the all-park pass and were ready to get on board the Maid of the Mist... so there we were waiting for the boat to unload... and by looking at the crowd i got the feelin like the boat has come straight from Indian coast... out of the 70 odd ppl aournd 60 were indians... just then i realised that even amongst the crowd waiting to board the next maid, 80% were Indians!!!... Then i realised why Americans are pissed off with Indian techies... So here i was riding the maid for the second time in the last six months... and then we marched to the Cave of the winds... but there was no cave there... instead it was like standing in front of kutrAlam falls... except that i was wrapped in polythene bag instead of a thick layer of nallennai (oil)... and there were no masal vadai stalls around and there were no lungi clad Reps trying to sell me some highly rare herb that would boost up my "preformance"... (if you know what i mean....)...

Now the reason to drive to Niagara for the second time was to take the chopper trip over the Niagara.... but i could not do that on Saturday due to bad weather... and there was no light and music show in Niagara that day to the disaappointment of everyone... so the entire crowd of 40 Indians (in 10 cars) who have travelled 16 hours for this show had to go back to bed a bit earlier than their plans...

The next day we woke and got ready and thanks to like minded ppl in my car... we decided we would cross the Niagara border only after takin the chopper trip... and there we were shuttling from America to canada in air over the niagara.... oh man the trip was worth every buck i spent on it... A few photos from atop Niagara....

Good read-I

Read this in one site... too gud...

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may or may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you do not realize is that they are realizing that too and are not really cold or catty or mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would be doing or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and are scared.

You miss the comforts of college, of groups, of socializing with the same people on a constant basis. But then you realize that maybe they weren't so great after all.

You are beginning to understand yourself and what you want and do not want. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging a bit more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and add things to your list of what is acceptable and what is not. You are insecure and then secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough to get to know better. You love someone but maybe love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you are not a bad person.

One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap and getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision.

You worry about loans and money and the future and making a life for yourself and while wining the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

Idle thoughts...

Its been almost three years since i passed out of my UG... In the third year i had thought about going for higher education... infact i was closer to appearing for GRE and finally decided against going for MS... I am not sure if that was a wise decision then... but now i feel life would not have been any different if i had done my MS... instead of wasting my time on developing a module for my company i would have wasted it trying to find a theory to prove that prime numbers would always be prime...

Is it worth going for two more years of education... i mean it wud be fun to go thru the whole process of writing exams... and waiting anxiously for the results...celebrating the last exam with movie and party..etc...but will it be worth...well whatever it is i've planned to appear for a few of the supposedly competitive exams just for the fun of it...I have decided to bell the CAT to start with...