Is it a bad day?

Yesterday, the longest evening in my life. I was fully tired yesterday, after a trip to coorg on the weekend. I planned to leave early in the evening, at 4:00 PM. My cell phone was not functioning properly for the past couple of weeks, so I decided to go to a nokia service centre, which is on the way to my house. and also near to Christ college, who will miss the fun of parking vehicle near christ college and roaming there.

The nokia centre was crowded and I registered my name. I was waiting there for half an hour and later asked the receptionist, when will be my turn? After hearing that it will take atleast an hour, I decided to come back to office and started back to the nokia centre by 5:30 PM. I got my turn soon after that.

Nokia rep: sir, what problem do you have with your phone?

Me: If i speak, the person on the other side is not able to hear the voice,
and sometimes my keys locks.. (and I showed my fone).

N: (after looking at my phone) we cannot do any upgrade on your phone,
but you can give for service.

Me: Ok. (that why iam here.)

N: if your phone has any component fault then we cannot fix it, you may need to go
to infantry road.

Me: then, what else will you do?

N: we will clean your phone, keypads etc.. and see whether it will work.
(phone clean panrathukku oru service centreaa?)

N: and you have to pay 50 bucks for it, if it works.

Me: hmm, 50 Rs for cleaning the phone.. (Which I could have very well done in my house :-().

N: one more thing, your phone may get dead!

Me: why?

N: one in 1000 cases it will go dead, but I am sure it will not happen to you
(it looked like as if she was keeping track of the count ;-), and why did she told me when she is sure? ).

Me: Ok.

N: one more thing, you may lose your taata?

Me: taatava? which taata?

N: taata sir taata.

Me: oh, datava. I am fine. (In fact, i was very desperate to repair it).

N: your name?

Me: I told.

N: can you please spell it?

Me: K.r.i.s.h.n.a r.a.m.

N: ok sir, please sign here.

Me: after looking at the sheet, "hello my name is not rao, but Ram".. (naama andrha meals saaptu valarnthathu avalukku eppadi thaan therinjatho?).

N: ok sir, please wait outside, I will calll you.

After 10 mins, she came and told my phone cannot be repaired. and asked me to collect the same from "dispatch counter" after 10 mins. It was 5:50, and I was feeling hungry by that time and decided to go to a Sagar nearby. I was back to the centre by 6:05 and the security did not let me in, since their working hours is till 6:00. I was not able to convince him, but he convinced me very well and asked me come tomorrow. With disappointment, I came outside.

I was surprised to see my vehicle missing from the platform. Panic. Later the security told the police ppl have towed my vehicle and asked me to go to koramangala police stattion.

after withdrawing some cash from ATM, I went to an auto fellow for koramangal police station. He did not look like a tamil guy (i thought it was the time to improve my hindi) and...:

Me: Koramangala police station aaghaya? (hey I tried to mean aayegha.. but my poorness..)

He: (laughed, but understand what I tried to ask him), sir, koramangala police station nahe aayegha, humae uthar jaana hain..

Me: I smiled and got into the auto.

HE: sir, which language you are? (he asked me in English, and he is good in English also.).

Me: Tamizh.

He: tamilaaa, enakkum tamil theriyum sir.

Me: neenga adichcha jokku, oru tamil padathula yaerkanavae vanthathu thaane..

He: he he, aaman sir. neenga ethukku police station poreenga?

Me: ennoda vehiclai kadamai thavaratha police kaaranunga thookittu poyitaanga..

He: oh, athukku neenga Adugudi police station ponum, inga illai.

Me: seri, angayae vudunga...

He: Ok, talk to the police guyz in tamil/kannada, and tell him that you are unemployedd...(Etc, ippadi naraya advicee.., namma neram theriyaama romba advice pantaaru).

later he told he is doing part time BCom, and he is planning to join BPO/call center after couple of months. a good aspiring student :-). he dropped me at the police station. my friend joined me there and we waited there for an hour or so.. after an hour, the police waala came and told my vehicle would be in madiwala police station..

again took an auto to madiwala police station and found my vehicle. ended up paying 500 bucks (300 for fine + 200 bribe for my expired pollution control certificate). :-((. after I told that I am unemployed, new to the place etc, I got 50 bucks back. :-). later watched a detective movie from mamutty and went to bed. the dreams were bad. I was playing chess with my friend, because of that I was missing my exams, later losing the chess game...(I got many a different interpretations for the same)..

Today, I went to the service centre and got my phone back. She did not ask for 50 bucks, since they thought my phone is not repaired and the good news is my phone is working fine now. They are the real experts in cleaning the phone..Surprisinlgy, they do the same for most of the customers. Looks like fixing in hardware is simpler than in software ;-).

Google Analytics

Analytics. I think this is a very recent product from Google. This can be used for analyzing a website. Basically, for collecting statistics like ppl visiting the website, their region etc. And does analysis on the data collecting and displays in kicha-friendly format.

www.google.com/analytics

First you may need to request for an ID. Once Google gets a free slot you, it will give you a script which should be added to your website. I got one such and have added to my blog. It may take a while for getting one.

It looks like lots of people around the world are looking through my blog :-).

here are some region:

Santa Clara, Bangalore, Madras, Bombay, Scottsdale, Warwick, Muenchen, Winchester,
Saint Louis, Vishakhapatnam, Sedgwick, Bhopal, Raleigh, Walldorf, East Hartford, and the list is big. (In fact, I dont know most of the cities, where they are located. anyways, thanks for all of your visits!).

Do you wonder how google gets city location? It has become very easy to track an IP Address. We can easily find upto the granularity of ISP and also it's location.

Look at http://www.dnsstuff.com/.

Open this page, you will get where you are, at the top right corner of the page!

Software engineer and Indian Politics

As TN election is nearing, situation is becoming HOT in TN. I was chatting with my friend who is doing his MS in germany. He is bit curious to know about the happenings in TN. I told him about the "balti"(/somersault? ;-)) of vaiko. We were discussing how shitty the politics is.

Actually, I did not find much difference between politics and our corporate life.

I can tell many of the incidents that happens in day-to-day life of a soft engineer, (which can be easily correlated to politics).

00) during interviews: HR asks, "why do you want to join our company?" (this is mostly posted to freshers). then the candidate will start saying that "i have gone through your company website, and i found my frequency of thoughts are inline with the goals of the company"... or some crap like this. everyone knows what that guy will do after a year. put his papers....

01) the most funny part is: guys coming back to the same company. in exit interviews, the same HR will ask, "why do you want to leave our company?".. and the candidate says , "the pay is not good, i do not foresee, much growth in this org." etc.. I know many guys returned back to the same organization working in some other company for 6 or more months.. the corporates accept those candidates, also. the worst part is, the package will be more than what he would have got if he has continued his career...

10) Non-co-operative movement (as what Gandhi Ji did). happens particularly between the US team and the indian counterparts.

10) heights of politics in giving promotions, salary hikes, US trips, etc..

I do not see differences between a software engineer life and politics.

Joy of working in a small company!

It has been 15 months since I joined this networking company, a Santa clara based. The company as such is a small one, and we were claiming ourselves to be pioneer in metro-ethernet.

Now, it has got acquired by a Telecom giant and a fortune 500. Going back to a huge organization, again. I felt really great and happy working in the small company. Besides some minor disadvantages, I have seen lots of advantages. a few are:

a) clear visibility to the top management.
b) great responsibilities on my shoulders! believe me, I was responsible for three components, and I did significant contribution on all.
c) flat hierarchy and more transparency than bigger companies. (I assume, this would be the case in all the companies).
d) and good work pressue.

and more flexibilities like not wearing badges, going in short pants etc ;-).

the only sad part is no one knows about the company. particularly, it becomes difficult to face relatives. once in my native place, i met one of my relatives.
my mom introduced me to him and she said I work in bangalore. and my relative immediately asked, "oh, are you working in wipro?"... (I dont know how people conclude that Wipro is the only company in bangalore, or is it that his sone is working in wipro?). I said "no, but in Company X". he asked, (just like that), how much you would be drawing, around 50K? First I was shocked to hear the way he asked and also about the figures.. later, I told I am drawing some decent salary, which is more than sufficient for my daily needs... his face became red...

anyways, I love working in small companies, not sure whether I will get a chance in future! Happy working.

Oviyaas

This post is dedicated to the works of oviyaas. Wow, the oil paintings are too good. All the work is from the artist Thangapandi. Actually, he is a good friend of mine. We did our graduation from the same college.

Posting my favorite here:

Looks interesting right? Those who are interested can look at his gallery at www.oviyaas.com.(http://www.oviyaas.com/gallery.html). He is totally dedicated to painting, by profession. So feel free to contact him for business.

Election

Next election is nearing and lots of campaigning have started in TVs, newspapers.. I do not know much about politics, and I have decided learn it from this election. So, I have started analyzing leaders and their parties. I have decided to post few of the funny things about our politicians, how crazy they can go while compaigning.

This post is dedicated to Swamy (CM J kae kannula verala vittu aatirukkaru!). There is a rumor that Swamy has promised the following during his last campaign in madurai.

1) will bring beach in Madurai (motha Vaigaila thanni konduvarattum!)
2) will make the madurai airport as International
3) will support the growth of sourastra community (he claimed that he has close relationships with sourastrians. actually, his wife's grandpa's father in law is from saurastra ;-) ).

Believe me, this guy has potential to dissolve any government :-).

Vijayakanth is next in my list, keep your fingers crossed...

Valentine's day activities: a summary

Today evening I was chatting with my friend. Here is snip of the chat (hope he does not mind).

my friend: hi da machi
me: hello
my friend: epdida irunthuchu valentine's day? (valentine's day kaisae tha?, learning hindi these days!)
me: lots of proposals da
my friend: wow!
me: and I rejected all of those, as usual ;-)...

the conversation continued and we ended with discussing the differences between a project and a product (ippdi iruntha namma ennaikku urupudrathu?!).

Ok, coming to the point, I know that most of the fellow bloggers are very much eager to know what I did on this day!

Here you go!

7:30 AM: I woke up, and my friend prepared a good tea for me.

10:00 AM: Came to office. My box has got crashed. Later IT folks rectified it. Checked my mails and had morning tea!

10:30 AM: the most expected activity started. I was browsing through 123greetings.com and other greetings website to find a suitable greeting card for a suitable person. Later did not find any thing good after 1 hour of browsing! (projectae ennanu theriyathu, athukkulae code adikka aarambichittaen ;-) )

12:30 PM: Went to Forum for lunch with my friends whose thinking are in the same frequency as mine (I mean, they are loners like me).

5:30 PM: I planned to participate in Anti-valentine's procession near palace grounds (initiated by shiva's senas), though, my intention is different from them. Later sat in office listening to music.

7:30 PM: planning to go home early, to watch Top ten in Sun TV.

juz' another Valentine's day!

Do girls drive smart?

Hmm, long time no post! Juz because I did not find any topic interesting to post!

Yesterday, I did not have work in office (dont take it literally, ;-) ). So I decided to leave early (6;00 PM, its my early time from office). I was driving back home by my street hawk (athan, namma ooru vandi splendor). my house is 10 KMS from office. (1 KM is 0.6 mile). Usually I prefer to stay as much away as possible from office. I am not a rash driver and the avg speed of my vehicle will always be 40 KM. I need not explain the busy traffic in Bangalore during peak hours.(In fact, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM is the peak hour in Bangalore, and you will be definitely caught in traffic jam during this time).

In the busy traffic I saw a gentle-lady overtook me and was driving fast and rash. She was not wearing helmet. I have seen many young girls driving rash and fast both in chennai and bangalore. But hardly heard a case where in they met accidents. Why I always hear news like Youth met with an accident, where "youth" will always be "he", not "she". Or guys sacrifice and save girls from accident? Do girls drive smart (even without helmets and @ high speeds)?

Dog Bite

[Warning: This post is more tamilian friendly. For others, reading this post will be injurious to your mental health].

These days I am receiving lots of mails with "kadi" jokes, thathuvams...Some are interesting, but most of them are THE real kadis, it irritates and will make us mad soon. suddenaa enakkum antha maaari kadi thathuvams podanumnu aasai vanthuruchu (saddist ;-)). Here, I am writing my own kadis... Ennoda "sense of kadiness"ai konjam thoosi thaatirukkaen. ensoi(?) pannunga..

உடம்பு சரி இல்லைன்னா Glucose எத்துவாங்க, ஆனா Glucose சரியில்லைன்னா உடம்பு எத்த முடியது. கடைக்காரன்ட்ட தான் போனும்.

ஓரு "ஆண்"னால "ஆண்"லைன்னா(online) இருக்க முடியும், ஆனா ஒரு பெண்ணால "பெண்"லைனா இருக்க முடியுமா?

"Fan" சுத்தினா காத்து வரும், ஆனா தலை சுத்தினா வாந்தி தான் வரும்

என்னதான் இருந்தாலும், ஒரு ஆண் "penguin"ஐ "penguin"ன்னு தான் கூப்பிடனும், "ஆண் கிங்"னு கூப்பிட முடியாது.

கண்ணாடியை மூக்குல போட்டா மூக்கு கன்னாடி ஆகும், ஆனா அதை தரையில போட்டா "தரை கண்ணாடி ஆகாது"..

Last but not the least,

"Kicha di"ன்னு சொன்னா Kicha வர்றான்னு அர்த்தம், "Kichadi"ன்னு சொன்னா "kichadi" வருதுன்னு அர்த்தம் கிடையாது..

இனிமே எவனாச்சும் கடி "mails" அனுப்பட்டும் பார்துக்குரேன்...

For those who dont get tamil fonts, here is the transliterated version (No one can escape from me and this post;-))

udambu sari illainnaa Glucose eththuvaangga, aana Glucose sariyillainnA udambu eththa mudiyathu. kadaikkaarantta thaan pOnum

Oru "AN"naala "AN"lainaa(online) irukka mudiyum, Anaa oru peNNAla "peN"lainaa irukka mudiyumaa?

Fan suththinaa kaaththu varum, aanaa thalai suththinaa vaanthi thaan varum

ennathaan irunthaalum, oru AN penguinai penguinnu thaan kUppidanum, "aaN king"nu kUppida mudiyaathu.

kaNNAdiyai mUkkula pOttA mUkku kannaadi aagum, aana athai tharaiyila pOttaa "tharai kaNNAdi aagaathu"..

Last but not the least,

"Kicha da"nnu sonnA "kichadi" varRAnnu arththam, "kichadi"nnu sonnA "kichadi" varuthunnu arththam kidaiyaathu..

inimE evanAchchum kadi "mail" anuppattum paarthukkurEn...

2005++

After celebrating Jesus Jayanthi, I switched back to my day to day works. Started working from Tuesday and my boss assigned me enough work before he started for vacation :-((.

And now its time to plan for New Year. After enough thought on this, I decided to go germany for New Year. Wow, doesnt it sounds interesting? Couple of my friends started asking about the ticket fare, Visa details etc... Stop, stop, I made it clear to them that I have planned to roam only in German Airport for 6 hrs, after that flying back to homeland. Yes, my trip is getting over and 'm excited to go back to mother India... Is US ma kinda place, huh? US is the best place to freak out for short trips. no more comments on this...

And couple of friends asked me about new year resolutions. Ellarukkum onnu solla virumburan, "kicha does not wait for New year to take resolutions ;-)", (ithukku mattum korachchal illai).. and as a matter of fact, I do so.

But I have some cool tips for others, who can take some of these resolutions on new year:(namma makkal michavangalukku "tips" kuduthae olinjuruvaanga...)

for net freaks: (read "From this new year, I will"...)

a) not login in invisible mode on YM
b) not use BUZZ (ctrl+G) button on YM
c) not do re-search in google (see my earlier definition of "research")
d) not do ego-surfing

for soft engineers: (read "From this new year, I will"...)

a) not do regression testing for www.indiabulls.com during office hours
b) not use Office VoIP phones for making personal inter-nation calls (saving dollars..)
c) not to listen online songs during office hours (saving bandwidth)
d) not expect more than 20 percent salary hike
e) not play online games during office hours (this is applicable to me, but I have not decided yet on it ;-) )
f) not spend more than 60 minutes in office cafteria, per day (i have not decided on this also ;-))
g) not send more than one fwded mails, per week (I am sure that this will pull down the growth of inter-networking technologies)
h) not use "copy+paste" for more than once an hour

for NRIs returning India: (read "From this new year, in India I will"...)

a) not use "Jesus christ....", "Actually in US...", kind of phrases... ;-) (First of all, I have to control myself from saying these in Bang, hahaha)

b) not use the word "Desi" (folks, whenever I hear "Desi" I remember the infamous desibaba.com....)

for bloggers: (read "From this new year, I will"...)

a) not tag any other fellow-bloggers

Enough kiddings!! I wish everyone a prosperous new year 2006. 2005 is the worst year in my life (Lots of losses :-(( ), hope 2006 will be a memorable one.

Disclaimer: The only disclaimer that I have is with the Title. If you try to use 2005++ in C, 2005 will NOT become 2006, but the compiler will generate an error message, "LValue required"....

Happy blogging!

Snow Storm

Last last weekend there was a heavy snow, before I started to Boston to meet my pals. Upto 10 inches of snow piled up on that day. It was nice to walk in snow, on the slippery land...



this is one of the fotos captured by my colleague, and it looks great!!

I was looking at the foto and got involved too much in it..Later my favorites lines stroke my consciousness and got back to work :-).

The woods are lovely dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
- Robert frost

King Kong dies

One of the most expected movies of the season is out. King Kong! Yesterday, me and my friend went to the Regal cinemas, at Newington to watch it. (There is a "regal cinema" in madurai, which always plays English movies, and also it is notorious ;-)). We got the ticket for matinee show, crowd was less. One thing that surpised me was, there were no seat numbers and anyone can sit anywhere. Wow, it reminded me my golden days at mdurai theatraes. And more surprisingly, first few rows were getting occupied faster than the last rows.. I agree that in first few rows you can see bigger king kong than last rowers, but I did not find any other reason for contention of first rows.

This is the first King Kong movie I've watched. I have heard a lot about the pre-quels of this movie and had my expectations high. Was bit disappointed when I watched it. In the first hour they hardly showed the beast. few comedies were good, but it was dragging. All of sudden, some tribals appeared on the screen and they never turned back during the last minutes. After the Kong came to the screen, it was interesting and fast moving! Every beast has a weakness. It gets soft-minded for the heroin, and saves her from the enemies (dinosaurs, bats,...) (engayo kaetta story?). It gets trapped to the anti-villains of the movie and they bring it to the city for money. The last hour was very much boring... The movie ran for 3 Hrs, and I went there, knowingly. (I can hear u saying that unakku ithuvum venum innamum venum...). the movie is OK, overall, but does not worth for 3 hrs.



The above fight was like the one between our MGR and nambhiyar. Atlast, MGR saves J.lalitha. LoL....

Oops, forgot to tell about the message. After the King Kong was killed (actually, it was a suicide, but no one noticed it), one of our anti-villains appeared in the screen and said, "it is not the aeroplane which killed it, but, the beauty killed the beast". But no doubt that anyone will fall for Naomi Watts. So, the message is, "Beauty can kill any beast", ;-). Actually, I was expecting some message like "anbae jesus", juz kiddin'.. but,..

It looks like the Chinese have started protesting against the movie since the name sounds like their(?) prestigious city(?), Hong Kong. I know you are searching for some thing to beat me up, but this is the impact of reading many "kadi jokes" mails..., and after all, this sounds like our old "border movie and Allan border" kadi Joke, happy blogging!

Modern Art

Last monday, me and my friend went to Mac Donalds for snacks(or lunch?). Near to our seat there was a painting, hanging on the wall. I did not understand anything in that painting and told my friend that I did not get anything in that painting and asked him whether he gets anything. He said, "me too". happadaaa, enakku mattum thaan puriyalainnu nenachean. and he said," but that is modern art, you will not understand it". Stop, stop, stop.... I have been said the same thing alway about modern art. "if you dont understand some paintings, then it is called modern art". I got one good explanation from another friend who is very much interested in painting. He gave a definition of "modern art": a picture that conveys a message. Oh, thats the reason why everyone stare at some paintings and try to find what the artist is trying to convey. nammalakku straightaa sonnale sariya puriyathu.. ithule hidden message veraya, kilinjichchu!!

the following is one of such modern arts taken from an Aquarium centre, Boston.



seri, irunthaalum freeya vida manasu illai, I want to interpret atleast one modern art properly. For that I have to learn modern art. The best way to learn a language is to speak it. I thought the same should be applicable for modern art as well. Hence, I took my mspaint and broke my head to draw some picture which conveys some message. the result is:



Can you guess what the above picture conveys? If you are not patient enough for guess, then proceed further without guesses..





in Tamil:

"vaazhkaingurathu oru vattam,
athula jeykkuravan thoppan,
thoppavan jeyppan..."

in English;

Life is a circle(/cycle) of success and failure.

Hope I will able to interpret modern Arts in future.

enathu Laptop

It has been three years since I have used computers at home. I had a computer during college days. it was such a minimal configuration that the CPU becomes busy while running MP3 songs ;-). After my college days I refrained from computers during home hours. For the past few months I started feeling that a computer can make my life more comfortable. First I planned for desktops. Hmm, the rates have become so cheap that we can easily afford it. For frequent travellers like me a laptop would be better than a desktop. But it is bit costlier than desktops, but far cheaper than the PC that my father gifted me in Jan 2000.

My search for laptop started, and when I came to USoA, I felt that I could buy one. After a decent amount of research on Dell laptops, I decided to buy one model.
(Note: 'research' means searching for the same string in Google). Inspiron 600m is the model that I have chosen and I got it today. the following URL gives good description of it.

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/entnb_600m?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn&~tab=specstab#tabtop

Now just playing with the configs of the laptop...

CFC

yesterday I called up my mom, and she was saying that it is heavily raining in chennai and in fact, chennai is inundated with water. Bad news for everyone.

Why these days we frequently here about floods and storms? I was discussing about this with my friend in madurai, during "hurricane katrina" time. He was saying that it is closely related to the depletion of ozone layer. And heard the same from many others too. Why suddenly Ozone layer started depleting, why it did happen before 100 years..Its all because of chemicals that gets emitted from our vehicles, air-coolants, etc.. Out of this, chloro fluoro carbon(CFC) is the major contributor for the depletion of ozone. CFC gets emitted from our air-coolants (fridge, ACs..). CFC does not do any harm to our atmosphere,I mean, it does not pollute of atmosphere. But it gets accumulated over the top and depletes the ozone layer.

Is there any remedies to avoid ozone's depletion? We can stop using all of our modern day-to-day medias and go back to stone age, to live a healthier life. or we can create devices which emits new chemicals,say XYZ, which will not harm our atmosphere. But we cannot guarantee that it will not create some other problem.

Sometimes I think that we can fill up the holes that are made in ozone layer, with ozone manufactured from earth. Like use the following reaction(?) and generate ozone, take a Rocket and fill up the ozone and come back home.

O2 + O2 + O2 === catalyst ===> 2O3.

This may sound absurd or funny, but if we have something of this sort then we can re-fill the ozone layer with ozone and can continue our fun with fridges and ACs and also we can avoid "hurricane simran" in future.

Welcome to the Hotel California

Atlast, my dream trip to california happened during thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving is like our "kaanum pongal", meet relatives and friends and have fun. Landed in Los Angeles on thanksgiving day, and went to my sisters place. It was exciting to meet my sister, brother-in-law and my cute niece after a long time. Lots of old memories shared and I felt nostalgic.

On friday, we went to Universal Studios. Wow, thats the place for pure entertainment. Mummy ride, Jurasic park, Van helsing.. are quite a few to mention about. First time I watched 3D and 4D movies. Nice experience. It was crowded (heavily), hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend.

Saturday, we went to Sea World in San diego, first time I saw a dolphin show. Sea world was not so exciting, unlike Universal studios, still, quite a lot of interesting things to see. Actually, I planned to meet two of my friends on saturday, but due to some reasons that I cancelled it and went to San Diego.

On Sunday we went to Laguna Beach, near to my sister's house. Wonderful beach to see. Atlast, I saw pacific ocean and my ocean count has increased to 3. (see my previous post on Atlantic ocean). It is far better than the Hampton beach that I visited couple of weeks back in east coast. Also, laguna beach is crowded (but not like the crowd we see in marina beach). Have posted few of the fotos I have taken, hope you will enjoy it. Later part of the day, went for shopping and was roaming here and there.

















Actually, we planned to Disney land on monday. But we were too much tired and my niece was feverish, so monday was rest day and I started back to Boston.

Right from the first day, I was searching for the "Hotel california" on roads. But with no luck. I thought it would be similar to our "Hotel Tamilnadu"...But did not find any Hotel california,even the last time I did not find any...big disappointment.

The most exciting(?) part was on Tuesday. I went to office early by 11:00 AM and my boss called me "Mr.California". Later we had a long chat about California and showed good productivity on that day :-)

This weekend I am taking rest.("athu thaane week fulla pannittu irunthe"nu neenga ketkurathu enakku ketkuthu....). Next weekend the next exciting part of my trip is going to happen. I am going to meet few of my best friends in Boston.

Hope it will rock!

'E' is equal to MC square

hmm, this is the first photo I have ever seen with maximum number of scientists!!

@lantic Ocean

I have seen Atlantic ocean in map. I remember days when I always get confused with atlantic and arctic ocean and wrongly fill the maps. But, now I can easily.

Last weekend I had a good time pass. On saturday, I washed my clothes and after that I got tired, lifting wet clothes from the washing machine is not as easy as you think. I spent later part of the day watching some tamil movies(holy crap!). And inthe evening we started planning for the next day(ithukku mattum korachchal illai). We planned to go to hampton beech. I have heard lot about American beaches. So, with enthusiasm we started on sunday,by 12:30 After noon. If it is some other place, then we would have started little bit later than noon :-P. We took a print out of the map, courtesy: the googlers. And it has mentioned that it is 20 minutes from my place. We caught the NH, I was the navigator and my friend was the implementor (athaan driver). After 20 minutes, I was not able to correlate the map and the road. We were lost!! We took the next immediate Exit and were bit relieved from the highway traffic. The road ended suddenly, and there was only one liquor shop. ada paaveeegala (vivek tonele), liquor shoppukku oru exitaa!!

(ramanaa stylele)
motham portsmouthle 3 million per vodka adikkuraan
athula 2 million per raawa adikkuraan
athula 1 million per mail-in rebatela adikkuraan......

hmm, now, I got how the american government has enough cash.

Our chase for next exit started immediately. And my map is not showing where we were!

After a long struggle we went to hampton beach. The time was 2:30 PM. The climate was very cold. (atlanticlna chummava??). To our surprise(and disappointment) kannukku kulirchiya ethume illai.

But the view was amazing! Calm as our weekday besant nagar(ithu konja overu)! only the sound of the ocean, and some birds. I love beaches and was very much excited to walk in the beach, after a long time.

Here are some snaps, which we took during our beach walk. (and of course, comments on side)



Wow!!, super foto graphy.



ai, vellai kaakka, who said "varumayin niram sivappu?"



ka(adha)l vettu! everywhere, lovers are same! I remember seeing ka(adh)al vettu
of mookkaayan and mookkayi at azhagar koil.(one of the favorite places for lovers in Indian philadelphia)


(last, but not the least, itz me boldly facing the currents of atlantic).












In my horroscope it is mentioned that I will see a BIG break in my life, after I visit all the 5 oceans (hey, wait a minute, how many oceans are there? is bay of bengal an ocean?, geo-graphyle namma konjam weak). ok, my journey of ocean is continuing, I am going to Visit pacific ocean next weekend. Yeah, I will be travelling to California for "nandri therivikkum thirunal". (thanksgiving day, in American language).

Figures!

Figures!! The thing that most interested me right from my school days and even now it is interesting me. Hey, dont mistake figures for babes, but it is all about digits. I like playing with figures and I observed one peculiar property of palindrome numbers, during my school days. Actually, I observed it during my college days. As you know I am currently in a place where colleges are called as schools,
I am using the same notation ;-), when you are in rome, become roman :-P.

Coming to the matter, this is what I observed: A palindrome integer of even length will always be a multiple of 11. If it sounds obvious to you or you dont like playing with figures, then press the "X" button on the right-top corner.

11, 1221, 1441... are some examples of even-lengthed palindrome numbers. A number is a multiple of 11, if the difference between the sum of the digits at even position and the sum of digits at odd position is a multiple of 11 or 0. Take 385 for example, (3+5)-8 is zero, hence multiple of 11.

Now, let us see palindrome numbers. If the number of digits is odd, then the number of digits at odd position will be more than that of even position, and also "odd digit set", and "even digit set" will be with unequal digits, hence it cannot be a multiple of 11. In even length case, the digits at odd positions will be same as the digits at even positions. so the difference will be zero and hence it will be multiple of 11.

Lo-Fi

These days I am seeing lots of "high five" things in blogosphere. I used to write "my favorites" in slam books, right from my school days. And I am tired of writing favorites. So, for a change I am writing things that I dont like.

Low fives:

Worst movies I've watched:

a) Kalki (heights of "abhatham": same story as "sindhu bairavi"
but I liked the later. KB forgot that he has already
directed one movie with the same
story)
b) mein hoon naa (last hindi movie that I watched in theatre)
c) aa aaH (sema kadi except for the heroin and songs)
d) enter the new dragon (junkest movie)
e) Lord of the rings (it was like raama narayanan's movie)

Five things I can live without:

a) mouse (I mean competer mouse)
b) non veg = goat, chicken, crab, pigeon, shark, prawn, rabbit...
c) moustache
d) girl friends
e) GOD

Heroines I DONT like:

a) deivayanai
b) jyothika
(sorry, my count over heroines is just two ;-))

Actors I DONT like:

a) vijayakanth ( I am losing the attributes of a maduraian)
b) murali
c) arnold (I consider him as my rival :-P, kela "bolt"tula nammaloda rival, he he he)
d) prasanth
e) TR

Celebrities I DONT like: (ellam "stomach burning" thaan)

a) Michael douglas (zeta zones)
b) Tom cruise (penelope cruz)
c) Ajay dev khan (kaajol)
d) pierce brosnan (*.*)
e) salman khan (aish, katrina)

Believe me, it has taken more than an hour for me this to compile. if I have written "high fives", then it wouldnt have taken more than 10 mins.

Five people whom I DONT like to pass this tag:

jagan
maduraiarian
kalai
mazhai
div

Happy blogging!!!