That was cold!

A few weeks back while I was in Minneapolis, the taxi guy taking me from the airport to the hotel started a typical "taxi driver" conversation

Driver: "Where are you from?"

Me: "From Dallas. How about you?"

Driver: "If you are from Dallas, I am from Minneapolis. If you are from India, then I am from Somalia."

Ouch! The weather was not the only thing that was cold at that moment

Fed raises interest level

Over the two weeks around Labor Day in the US, everyone was keenly following the Fed's moves. For several years, Fed was dictating terms and had managed to maintain a great interest level. In recent times, Fed had to deal with increasing pressure from superpowers in Britain, EU and the old Russia and very recently was unseated from its top position. As contradictory as it might sound, this deflation was the reason for the increased interest levels over the two weeks. It required Fed to play hard ball again to bounce back. Everyone seemed to ask, can the Fed live up to the challenge? Is the US really open to a new legacy? Can Fed recover from the slump? We got our answers on 8th September, didn't we? It may not have made the headlines of Wall Street Journal, but we saw the supreme Fed back to life. It may have been aided by a chanceless British rescue operation, but nevertheless, the King is back. Roger Federer is back to his best. I loved every moment of the final. The US Open is not yet ready for a new legacy.

Doctor Who?

Last week, our friends had to take their toddler to the hospital and the doctor on duty happened to be a Dr. Band. I thought this was a funny name for a doctor. If this doctor were to give first-aid, its only fair to call it a band-aid :)

Acting on an Impulse

A passing glance at an ordinary advert within a London Underground tube station, and for reasons unknown, a decision was taken instantaneously "I want to run". So, I am running for the Royal Parks Half Marathon on Oct 12th at 10AM. I have been training for this event for the last 2 weeks or so and have managed to cover 5 miles twice in the last 7 days.
54 days to go, 8 more miles to train for, should be lot of fun.

The true Twenty20

In the movie Dumb & Dumber, Jim Carrey asks the character Mary "What are the chances that a beautiful girl like you would go out with a guy like me?" to which Mary replies slowly and uncertainly "1 in a million?". Jim is ecstatic to hear that its a non-zer0 chance and says "Yesss! So, you are saying there is a chance!!". Now, thats called hope.
At a time when Twenty20 is the in-thing and Indian test cricket team badly needs a cataract operation, nothing could have been more contrasting to the Colombo Test than the gold medal won by Abhinav Bindra in the Beijing Olympics. If Jim Carrey was ecstatic, Bindra must have been ecstatic times 1000. He is truly 1 in a billion. The nature of the sport he won his medal means that he has perfect vision. Isin't he the true 20/20 champion? Congrats, Bindra - India is proud of you.

Thanks, Norton

Silka restaurant in London was in our short-list of restaurants to dine last week because they supposedly server low-fat India food. So, the usual procedure of the google search, and then the website to get location details happened when Norton Internet Security captured and deleted a Downloaded Virus and from our short-list too. A virus in their website, wonder what would be in their food? Now, that would be useful information to collect anonymously and publish

Another Barack in the Wall

An extract from Obama's speech at Berlin - a metaphor taken too far

Speaking less than a mile from where President John F Kennedy enraptured Berliners in 1963, he warned of the danger of allowing "new walls to divide us from one another".

"The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand," he said, emphasising his lines with clipped, precise movements of his hands as his words echoed through the huge crowds.

"The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand," he continued, as applause began to ripple amongst his listeners.

"The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand," he said.

"These now are the walls we must tear down," he concluded to screams of approval.

Silly question: Was the Berlin wall Made in China?

The Gates Bill

We were on one of the London's infamous bendy buses this weekend. The windows in these buses are almost big as the doors. Anyways, one of the doors wouldnt operate in the middle of the journey. The driver stepped out of the bus, tried a few things and then came back completely turned off the engine and started again - and guess what it started working! So, I have decided to amend The Gates Bill which states that "stuck Windows can be fixed by a restart" to now include doors.
The Gates Bill is more universal than what you think

Inspired by Inspiron

A few months back, Bundar's inlaws and outlaws visited them for a few weeks. His Dell laptop was running literally 24x7 to watch Sun TV, cricket, etc online. A few days after both parents left, the heavy weight use took its toll & his laptop conked. Dell diagnosed it to be motherboard problem. I told Bundar "You had no choice, Bundar. Otherwise, your mothers would have been bored"

Courtneys

I recently called up Courtneys to enquire about gym membership rates. The guy on the other end of the phone asked me in return "How much are you looking to spend?". I was really annoyed to hear that question - no average Joe I know of is looking to spend his money. Average Joe also would rather play online bingo than play the can-you-guess-Courtneys-gym-membership-rates-over-the-phone game. Its not like I called up with a budget of £1 per month (or £1000 for that matter) in mind to haggle nor did I call up a real estate agent not did I call up my bank for investment advice. I wanted to say "Great question, wrong place" but being the nice guy I am and modesty being my middle name, I went with a simple "Why do you ask?" but I had to endure a few more rounds of stupidity & temporarily change my middle name to rude to finally get a quote over the phone.

In the end, it was really a flat rate for all practical purposes and there was really no tact whatsoever to his line of questioning. I hope its just the guy being stupid, not Courtneys in general.

p.s: 100th blog :)

Powerpoint Gap

There is an unofficial term called the "powerpoint gap" in software sales.

Typically, the sales guy will go make a fancy presentation and impress a prospective customer. The customer will spend large amounts of money to buy the software that can solve all his problems based on the powerpoint or a proof of concept. He starts complaining when he realizes that the software cannot tie his shoelace automatically nor can it make his cup of tea or solve his sleep depravation issues. The technical guys/consultants tell the customer the real deal and the software is then developed to suit the customer's needs although he would have still tie his own shoe-lace, etc. The software version that was used for the proof of concept was an alpha or a beta release at best.

Replace, the sales guy with BAA; the customer with BA - and you have the familiar powerpoint gap issue at T5. And, T5 sounds like a beta release too!

I guess BA is not ready to go GA, yet.

A Lost Kesh

This long Easter weekend P & I were in the beautiful Cotswolds region. As we were preparing to leave the hotel on day 2 of our trip, P was frantically looking for something all over the room. Then she asked me "Have you seen my comb?" to which I replied "Maybe it got lost in the Comb Mela".
That was my contribution to aid the search :)

Gone with the wind

If you live in London, you couldn't have possible escaped seeing those Big Black Bins labeled as "Big Black Bins" (duh! Thanks, Ken), specifically mean to collect recyclable waste. UK as a country is quite crazy about being green. I think it was taken to the extreme recently with the councils wanting to charge households by the amount of waste they generate and also penalize them if they dumped anything recyclable in the general rubbish. Prince Charles recently gave a recorded speech as a hologram in Abu Dhabi to reduce carbon footprint. The UK government has made a commitment to generate 10% of its energy demand from renewable sources such as wind energy by the end of 2010.
So, green is good is the general perception. Wind energy is good. Windfarms help generate electricity, and it's a reality. There are companies now that provide electricity via windfarms.
But, this has to be optimized with the age-old wise adage "Too much is too bad". Last week, 10000 homes in UK were left without electricty. Why? Rain and high winds!!! So, how high can the wind be without killing the electricity that it can provide? It probably makes a good PhD topic for multi-objective optimization.
I guess we humans are not very different from wind. Neither are stable when they are high.

To Be or BT?

Forget sky-diving, fire-fighting or rock-climbing. If you want a death-defying experience and test your will power, all that you have to do is call B.T. (your defacto telephone line provider in the UK) customer service. In every call, you gradually lose the will to live and if you hang up alive, then your will power has prevailed! You have effectively defied Lord Yama.

I have been asked "Have you switched on your computer today?" when I have called them about broadband issues. Am I supposed to say "I feel ashamed. I actually felt kinda lonely. You want to be my pal?"

The latest incident is blogworthy and happened last week. I called B.T. Moves & Switches department and told them I would like to move my telephone line to my new address but would like to disconnect my broadband service during the move. The rep tried to persuade me by offering 6 months free broadband and 6 months at the existing price plan (£19.99 per month) if I sign a 12 month contract per this offer. (You dont have to be good in math to figure out that this would effectively make it £9.99 per month). I wasn't enticed by the offer and told him I am firm in my decision to disconnect BT Broadband. Obviously, the system is not flexible enough for 1 person to carry out multiple functions. He can only do moves and transfers as-is with all services remaining the same. So, he transfers me to broadband customer service. I tell him about his colleague's offer since he asks. Now, this brilliant man tells me "What if I offered it to you for £14.99 for 1 year?". I asked him if its on top of his colleagues offer. He says "No. its instead of his offer".
Eureka moment!! Was it a trick question. I felt a little like Dr. Evil "Why pay £9.99 when I can pay £14.99. Hooohuuuhaa. Hoohoohaaa. Hoohuaaa".
So, my refusal to take up this revised offer led him to set up the disconnection. I wonder if I had taken up his offer, I would have been passed on to "We like you because you are dumb" department with a revised offer of £24.99 per month

My 2 pennies of advice to my ardent readers - get your cup of coffee, read up self-improvement books before you dial that 0800 800 150 number.

Big Brother Live - New Season

You may have grown up to the concept of a curtain-raiser to usher a new event, a new concert, a new movie, etc but in the age when the Archishop advocates Sharia law, if you haven't realized you live in a topsy-turvy world. So, as a fast learner, in order to kick-off the latest reality series, I have brought the curtains down. If you know where to mount your cameras, all that you need to do is hire the guy from Big Brother to provide a live commentary "P has now returned from work. A is on a conference call. P is very hungry and survived on a cous-cous salad all day. A decides to help P out in the kitchen and still attend the conference call...." and you have your own Big Brother, thanks to yours truly. Your time runs out on Wednesday evening, however when I collect the curtains back from the dry cleaners.

p.s: Not my best piece of work after a 4 month hiatus, but I finally got the better of inertia