024 - @ Rice Bowl

Yes, this place is called the Rice Bowl of Kerala....

A relaxing day.. A heavy breakfast.. a peg of Black dog, lunch, a nap, lil work, walk to the temple and tv.

Dinner, peg, now on the bed...

Tiring.. Last nights travel was so relaxing :-) time to sleep..

Shubha Rathiri..

023 - To Gods Own Country

Karnataka Sarige aka AC bus of Karnataka SRTC...

Stay away!

I usually travel by the volvo, Airavath. Long weekend, it was full. So booked this AC bus, thought should be good as thier normal bus Rajahamsa is good, just that it has no AC.

But.... 3 seater.. no arm rest.. no push back.. no space!!! And best of all it waited for an hour for passengers who never came!

022 - Bunkum Thoughts

The other day somebody asked me a question I have asked myself several times..

Why is this Blog called BUNKUM THOUGHTS?

Is it because i write Bunkum? Or i write about Bunkum things? Or something else?

Lets find the answer over a sleep :-D

Guten Nacht

021 - towards Storm

Yes, you guessed it right.. Am i moving towards the Storm? My N80 has become lil slow, takes a lot of time to start or boot up..

No I dont want to spent another 27k on a phone now.. at least not a time when people around want me to save money.. And I need to still find out if it supports office tools, swf, pdf, PC/MAC Sync, etc...

Y are all nice things costly? Am i costlier too :-D

Bunkum..... Bunkum Thoughts...

Water Water Everywhere, Not a drop wanted to drain.. Thats what will happen if somebody or you forget to connect the Washing Machine drain outlet to its right place.. Having become an expert at this and faced more disastrous situations.. this was Jujube :-D

!

020 - I might miss you

Dear Diary,

I am getting busier day by day.. I might not be able to blog daily.. Office - Home - Cook -......

There a lot of things I wanted to write about, but when am here...

Memory... I need to work on it...

I need a reminder to read about increasing memory...

019 - Using Chopsticks

The other day went to dine at Colonial, adjacent to Cinnamon Botique on Lavelle Road, Bangalore with a colleague and client.

For the first time in my life I enjoyed eating Prawns, that too wrapped in bacon! And then appeared Baked Crab. Please note that this must be only the second or third time am tasting them. Too Good :-)

As if all this was not enough, experimented Sushi with Salmon. Amazing! Though i was supposed to use chopsticks, and kept feeling bad about not knowing to use it, just another day to the days of rancor. I was relieved when I heard my mates did not know too :-D But lets learn to use chopsticks...

Teachers 50.. listening to some old numbers.. Hotel California, Black Magic Woman...and then discussions of favorite tourist spot - Himachal Pradesh, different cusines, little work... and why the road is called lavelle road. Did you know? The entire place was once owned by John Lavelle.

A deserted place but am sure I will go there again for the ambiance and food...

Good Night to yet another eventful day..

018 - in Fortsetzung

An old pic..

Guess its clear from the image.. No?

Its the menu card of one of the popular restaurants, Adyar Ananda Bhavan... with atleast 4-5 in Bangalore and more in several parts of South...

If you do not know, they can teach you to apply brakes to your fast :-D How? Simple have one of the dishes, brake it and then resume :-)

Ok only pun intended.. But couldn't they get thier menu cards written or reviewed by somebody who knows the language well?

Hope they rectify it soon.. People could be mislead to think thats the way you write! Breakfast..

017 - A lot could happen over a cup of tea too!!

I hardly drink Tea these days, yeah I am addicted to Black T these days.. And Last saturday I treated myself with a cup of T. I loved it! Relishing the drink near my window, trying to solve the Rubik's Cube, reading the quote on the mug, thoughts slipped to the moment I received the mug. Got that when i was selected for the best employee of the month award at my very first organization. Things were very different then. A lovely team, no politics, no foe.. Blessed with lot of work.. Working almost 18-20 hours a day... Peers desorralla into life time pals..

Dear comrades! I miss you all! May be its an obscure relationship now, but I do want to tell you, I remember you all very often.

Never found a better working environment and colleagues...

The setting sun ensured that I do not slip away into the world of memoirs.. Got up, had a quick shower and went shopping... nah.. not shopping cloths or gadgets..

Rice, Snacks, Cookies, Chicken, Veggies, Milk...................................................................

016 - Storm

No its not the weather condition, its not time for a Storm and I have hardly heard about a Storm in Bangalore :-)

This is about Vodafone Blackberry Storm.. The new mobile form Vodafone.. Looks and feels like thats gonna be my next phone. Prima facie it has got all the features that I would want in a phone..

• Size (L x W x D) 112.5mm x 62.2 mm x 13.95 mm
• Weight (battery included) 155g
• Memory 128 MB RAM memory, 1 GB eMMC, 16GB expandable memory
• MicroSD™ located under battery door cover
• User interface Intuitive touch screen
• Navigation Touch screen navigation, with ClickThrough for user selection
• Display High-resolution 480 X 360 pixel colour display, Transmissive TFT LCD, supports over 65,000 colours
• Camera
• On screen keyboard – SureType® and Multi-tap portrait, QWERTY landscape
• Voice input/output
• Integrated speaker and microphone,
• hands-free headset capable,
• Bluetooth® headset capable,
• integrated hands-free speakerphone
• Ringtones 32 polyphonic – MIDI, MP3
• GPS Stand-alone GPS, preloaded with BlackBerry® Maps
• Media player video format supported MPEG4 H.263, MPEG4 part 2 simple decoding 30fps), WMV Media player
• audio format supported MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, WMA
• Bluetooth

Source.

But read somewhere that it will cost INR 27K... Do I have to spend that kind of money on a phone now? Its been only 2 years since I last purchased a phone for somewhat same amount!

While I keep thinking, au revoir now :-)

015 - Thinking

Thinking what to scribble...

On Y Sanjay Dutt shouldn't join politics? I hate politics..and...
Or Y people look up while thinking? one of my friends asks that on gtalk status

Not both.. Basically not in a mood to write.. too tired and sleepy..

014 - Happy Pongal

Wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Down in Kerala, its no special day, just for the Makara Vilakku at Sabarimala..

Client meeting and office work kept me busy.. and then went to meet a friend... Time... Its been 7 years since I know her! I have grown 7 years older..

Had a good time playing with her baby. You tend to forget everything when you see the cuttie pie..

Packed some dinner and back home.. Kept feeling that its weekend.. but two more days to go...

013 - English

Look at this board

If it is not clear enough, it reads SARE JIKJAK FALS.. I saw this board while walking to the main road from my house. At first I thought its some water fall, named jikjak. But then I thought how can you have a water fall on such a narrow raod. Then the bulb glowed.. it means Saree Zig Zag Falls. Not even a single word is correct!

Would you go to such a place?

I might! I wouldnt have but for the conversation I had with one of my partners, Dr. Sujendra Prakash. To know how to do repair a car, the person need not be a mechanic and now how to write a car. I am sure you would have seen "Pancher Shop" in every nook and corner. Though they dont know how to write it, they might be jack of the trade!

We cant judge a person by his/her looks... and by his/her education..

Lucky we, we are educated..

I wish I could correct the board for them, but... I dont know how to converse with them!

012 - Team Lunch

It was a Friday.. we at office decided to lunch at Chung Wah Opus at Jayanagar, 3rd Block.


Usually a deserted place, this day, we had to wait for a table! Been there a couple of times and by now we know most of the staff there.. Looking at the size of the team and the business (of course) they arranged a table..

Clicked this one with the same N80, Thats my colleague in a double role..

Usually a silent place, but this time it was... !!
Y is it that most corporate citizens go out for lunch on Fridays?

There are some changes in the menu. They have removed all Pork dishes as there is a Mosque nearby and added a thai menu. Ordered a thai dish, Kha Phad Nam Prik Phao, supposed to be spicy. But it was not thai.. it was just a flavoured version of fried rice!

011 - Sunset

Sunset from our office Balcony.. Times when i feel, if I had a better camera.. But I should admit, N80 is a good one!

Yet another day passes by with the two Bs of my life.. BSNL and Barclays.. Still unresolved..

Haven't been able to online coz of the poor connectivity.. lil laziness :-D and then tiredness..

Its difficult to understand certain things.. Just now an old friend pinged, said hi, asked if i were working and then said a bye!

010 - Still the same

Petrol strike continued the next day and though its fun to watch the angry crowd and the fights, Thank God I am not one among them!

You must be thinking what am I doing near this petrol pump daily? No I am not a reporter nor jobless. This place is near my office and on way to the cafe coffee day.

This is the 10th day and the 10th blog.. Record broken!

009 - Its Weekend!

The stock fuel campaign continued on Friday. On my way to office I saw a deserted petrol gas station. Within an hour, this is what I saw!



Thanks to who decided to call of the strike. Can you imagine a weekend at home? To get to office yesterday, I had to stop at least 5 autos to hear Saaar, no petrol

Caught up with a friend at lemon grass, kormangala for dinner. Got home late and was pretty tired.

Time to go..

Have a great day :-)

008 - Fuel Crisis, Twitter

Yet another early day to work.. Look what I captured en route breakfast.

I was happy that I am not one among them, I don't own a two wheeler or a four wheeler :-) We rarely get a chance to feel good about not owning one.

But I do depend on a three wheeler.. You all know which one. And most of the time that depends on LPG. The shortage impacts power generation units, aviation supplies, and many more. No cooking gas too!! Fuel stocks meant for 2-3 days were finished in a day! Yeah I did see my colleague looking for an empty bottle to collect petrol from another colleague's vehicle.. Mama, will I be able to go to work tomorrow?

50 % of Pumps in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai are dry! Heard that Indian Oil corporation sacked 10 employees.. Will this get over?

Just when I decided to get active on Twitter, look whats happened! 33 accounts were hacked which included Obama's and Britney's. While Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 is clearly the next big thing, its time to think if we can rely on them..

Dinner time..

Eeniyaa eeravu,
Cheers,
VS

007 - Condom

बुराई condom में नही हैं, तुम्हारे सोछ में हे!! (There is nothing wrong with condoms, its to do with your thinking!!)

Am sure you would have seen the commercials by National AIDS Control Organization, which is part of the condom normalization campaign, produced by the BBC World Service Trust. Now in this particular one, a lady holds a puppy and calls out its name loudly, condom. One of my colleague's three year old daughter picks up a puppy soft toy and calls it condom! BBC has penetrated the target audience!

But, what if the baby asks what is a condom?

I appreciate this commercial as it is intended for a cause. There are many commercials which should be shelved. Especially, most of the Virgin Mobile ones. It sends out a wrong message! Will blog on these sometime later :-)

The BSNL issue got resolved a few hours back..

“Warm summer sun, shine kindly here. Warm southern wind, blow softly here. Green sod above, lie light, lie light. Good night, dear Heart, Good night, good night.”

Shuva Ratri,
Cheers,
VS

006 - The 2 Bs of my life

Thats BSNL and Barclays. Two pains that I still carry from the last year. While one is recent, one is more than 2 months old.

My last post explained the BSNL issue. Today i waited the whole day for the technician, but in vain.

Barclays, though an international brand, I must say has got a f*** all process! Sorry for the word, but am damn pissed.

I had made a purchase worth Rs. 7000 Rs on Oct 4th 2008 using my credit card. As per the bill, the due date was Nov 1st 2008. According to the Bank’s instructions that I found on the bill, I had made a payment of Rs. 3000/- on the 28th of October through NEFT, i.e four working days before the due date. And a sum of Rs. 4000/- on the 7th of November. The payment of Rs 4000 that I made through Billdesk got through.
However after realizing that the payment has not got through, I cross checked with my savings account bank and received a confirmation from them that the amount has been transferred. They did share the NEFT Code too. I immediately called up Barclays customer care and registered a complaint, which was on Nov. 7th. Since then I have made numerous calls to the customer care and send emails requesting to sort the issue. It’s really sad to note that not even once did I receive a call updating the status of the same. Instead I keep receiving around 3-4 calls per day from the Barclays collection department for not making the payment and now they have added Service Tax and late Payment Charges on the card and the amount to be paid has become above Rs.4000/- In addition they keep threatening me about credit history.

When I realized that the Bank is least interested in resolving the issue, I decided to get into it myself. Upon checking I found that the NEFT code that Barclays claims on their Website is different from which my savings account listed while doing the transfer. I called the customer care and the agent gave me a totally new code! Now there are three NEFT codes! They are not sure if they have got an I or 1 on their code. I asked the agent to make a note of it and to initiate an investigation. But I realized today that the agent has not done anything on that!

This is just one instance! Their Collection Department is totally isolated and do not have access to disputes and case histories. If you ever send them an email, they will revert after a week and ask you to call customer care for details, and if you call the customer care for details, the agent will never know about such an email! They will keep sending you emails which reads "We refer to your e-mail regarding non-receipt of statement on your card account. Please be informed that your credit card statement are dispatched via courier and you will be receiving shortly.", Though you would have never send an email.

The saga still continues...

Will wait for a week and probabky then send an email to the consumer forum..

Got to hit the sack now, need to go to office early.

Masaa al-khair
Cheers,
VS

005 - Happy Birthday Vaisakh

Yeah, its my younger brother's birthday today and it was decided that we all (Big Bro, sil, and my fiancee) will meet for dinner tonight. Though confusions about the venue and meeting time triggered some negative energy, the positives that occurred subdued the effect.

We met at Via Milano in kormangala. If that's Italian, I love Italian food :-) Now if it was Indo-Italian, I love Indo-Italian :-) Will go to Italy someday to figure out. I had Beef in Rosemary sauce and beef marrow gratin with carrot and beans :-)

The night was and is wonderfull :-)

It was a lousy day.. unlike the others, got up late and got late to office. Did some bank work in between and had brunch. Was irritated the whole day.

Will be going late to work tomorrow too. My broadband is down since 2 weeks and everytime I raise an SR, they call me, understand the problem and close it without fixing the problem. Somehow the guy has agreed to come in at 1100 hours to fix the issue.. lets wait.. Amen

Tired an Sleepy,

Buona notte,
Cheers,
VS

004 - A lot can happen over a coffee

A lot of blogs have already been written on a lot can happen over a coffee, most of them talk about how coffee is different and, how friendships brew and how they treasured the lovely moments with their partners. There is also somebody who says how she got courage to learn Maths after drinking 15 cups of black coffee. More interesting one is a couple of engineers discussing the Rajani style using a gun and a knife to kill house flies!

Now there is something different that happened to me today. I was there to meet an ex colleague of mine. In his absence, I started browsing through LinkedIn. A young guy, must be around 25, walked up to me and asked if he could analyze my handwriting for a fee of 99/-. Interesting! I agreed and this is what followed. Looking at my handwriting he said that I always try to be unique and will stand different from peers, I have high fluidity of thoughts and emotional intensity and that i lie a lot, but will ensure that i don’t hurt anybody. I am aggressive, irritated, and tempered. Then he analyzed my signature and said that I have an unhealthy ego, extravagance and that I have a low self esteem.

Though I differed on these, the analyst was adamant that they are 100 % true. Up to you all to commend on that! :-)

Did you know that you can change your personality traits by changing your hand writing? I didn’t. He says 90% of your writing is influenced by your subconscious mind and by changing your hand you will influence the subconscious mind to change your trait! We did argue on the same and the fact that handwriting depends on the kind of pen you use and your mood when you write. What If I were totally drunk?

This was an initiative by CCD and Handwriting Institute of India.

To relish the Aloo Paranthas I used to have regularly a few years back, packed some and came home. Though plans were on to go out and shop, nothing happened, instead I ended up cooking beef and then everything that’s required for a prefect dinner.

The weekend is over. Unlike the other Mondays, there is an adrenaline rush to get to work tomorrow. Some new business opportunities and gossips to share!

Adieu to yet another relaxing and refreshing day...

Gute Nacht!
Cheers,
VS

003 - Absence

No, the absence is not a Seizure one...

Was at a friend's place last night and no access to the internet.. Its nice to get together with friends once in a while :-)

Furniture do come at a cheaper price! Was surveying and working on the budget for my new house.

An ex colleague did call a couple of times asking if we could meet. Probably will meet him today.

Cream Fudge serves good ice creams..been wanting to try since a long time... 3 easy steps as they call it :-) Select your Flavors, Select your Topping, and they will mix it for you on a cold marble table :-)

Have a great day ahead.. Talk to you at night..

Best,

VS

002 - Memory

After last year's resolution of blogging everyday was unsuccessful, i decided not to think of any resolutions this time. I am sure i have at least 75 % of you who don't believe in resolutions. :-) On my way to office this morning, I kept wondering what should i write on tonight and I did get a topic, but I don't remember now!

Short Term Memory loss!!! :-D May be the Ghajini effect. After all the hype, decided to watch it and its a flop! You might not agree, but Aamir could have selected a better movie.

It was a wonderful day today.. Didn't have to wait for an Auto, my means of transport. To and fro, the first one i asked to, was ready to ferry me :-) At work, completed a list of things that was pending since long time.. almost 2 weeks! I need to learn to control my temper. Hum honge kamyab ek din...

Left office around 1900 hours, came home and started surfing channels and greeting people on gtalk, yahoo, msn, aim. Started chatting with an ex colleague, was nice talking to him. Some business oppurtunity at the end of the tunnel..

Somebody's gtalk status read "How many years have you wasted" Coincidence.. Was discussing the same with a friend of mine on the new year's eve! How many years do you think you have wasted? Me? 5 years... The rest were beyond my control.. But why think of the wasted years?

Dont waste your time always
Searching for those wasted years
Face up... make your stand
And realise youre living in the golden years

How would you understand the importance, unless you have wasted one?

Guess its time to sleep ... Have a great weekend,

Shubh Rathiri,

VS

001 - Happy New Year

the first day of the year did start well.. no hang over and full of enthu. company of old friends and good dinner with brothers and sil. Back home and online.. chatting with an old friend, discussing future plans...Overall a peaceful and pleasant start.. hope the year remains the same...

But I do understand that all was not well around. Serial blasts rock Guwahati again... a snippet that I saw on rediff. News Channels dont seem to talk about it. May be such things are not categorized as NEWS any longer or maybe they would have thought not a nice NEWS to share on the first day of the year..

Hope we will be able to to make our planet a better place to live. Time to sign off and hit the sack..

Good Night..