If you can't say it, just SMS

Check out the video, one of my most favorites. The creative guys in Optimus indeed deserve a pat :-)

Moving on...sigh

While some might read the title with a big relief, I would like to clarify that I am not going to stop blogging. Read on...

Just 10 months have passed by, since 've migrated from 'filter coffee' chennai to 'fine' singapore to join one of the top private bank's in the world but I 'am already changing jobs! The move is definitely a blend of excitement and disappointment. While the excitement awaits me in the form of what I had always enjoyed doing at where I probably belong to, disappointment in terms of my inability to adapt to a new workplace, new team especially a new domain might probably haunt me for sometime now. I guess I need to do a lot of homework if I were to continue to be what I am in the years to come...Anyways, wish me good luck with my new assignment!

English Grammar

So near, yet so far

I just got through my Basic Theory Test to obtain a driving license in Singapore. Phew, I am indeed relieved now!

I had enrolled for the test in April and managed to get the earliest test date for private candidates only for July 2nd. The preparations for the test did not happen till last week of June until I heard the passing score was 45 on 50 and a few I know flunked the test on their first (some even second) attempts. I had no choice but o carry the BTT booklet on the MRT like many others and read through it during my travel to office and back home. I could do that only for 2 days 'coz they weren't rocket science!

Come July 2nd, I did everything wrong, right from taking the wrong bus, missing the shuttle, struggling to find a cab, finally sitting in the wrong room until the instructor directed me to the right one. For the test at 9:15 AM, I took incharge around 9:20 AM and was out in 10-12 minutes passing my test. The questions, like I've been telling my friends were so dumb and its quite funny when you have get through 50 such one's to clear the test.

While I had a sense of accomplishment (despite the dumb questions), the major blow came in when I realised that despite having a foreign license and having cleared my BTT, I was required to have the International Driving Permit (IDP), usually issued by the domicile country of the candidate. Yikes!!! All my excitement crash landed like the Colombia Space Shuttle. Given that there aren't any easy options available to get through, I have decided to wait for a couple of months after which I would go to my hometown for my vacation and have this thing done as the first activity :-(

Bless me!

Smile, for a day...wish it is forever ;-)

The autorickshaw's in Chennai had been demanding for a revision (okay, an increase!) in the fare and after months and years of deliberation the fares were increased in January, early this year and the auto drivers were not too disappointed though they had some concerns. However, it is no secret or surprise that the auto drivers now use the revised fares to demand more and continue with their contract rates. Given that the demand for revision of minimum fare had been settled with the GoTN, the Tamil Nadu Auto Driver's Association has now called for a state wide strike on the 8th August citing various reasons as below;

a. Discontinue the act of cancelling the driving license of auto drivers causing road accidents

b. Provide allowance of Rs.5000 for auto's running on LPG

c. Implement ESI scheme for auto drivers

d. Increase the pension from Rs.400 to Rs.1000

e. Prevent ill treatment of auto drivers by the policemen

f. Curb the brokers domination in RTO's during the processing of FC's, Registration, etc

I've never liked the attitude of auto drivers in chennai city, for that matter in the whole of Tamil Nadu. Lessons from our neighbour, Karnataka, must be learnt in this aspect, who have every reason to boast of their reliable autorickshaw drivers.

The auto driver's and their "association", predominantly controlled by the politicians & policemen in Tamil Nadu is one bunch of unsettled, ever dissatisfied crowd and their knack to pick causes for going off the road and creating the stir should be observed.

I wish they go on strike starting 8th August till their demands are met 'coz I feel the state will be a lot cleaner and nicer, especially the traffic scene, with the auto's off the road, forever!

PS: Too bad I would not be in town to enjoy my drive through the chennai roads without the auto's...sigh...sob!

Virtual Barber Shop - Scintillating

More than ten days since I posted something to my blog and I think this is the right one to go in.

Tried to get this plugged into my blog the whole of last noon as soon as I listened to this from one of a forward. Close your eyes and put on your headphone in full volume, sheer brilliance!

Unnalae Unnalae

I happened to pick up the CD of this Tamil movie after a few unsuccessful attempts in a video rental shop nearby my house. I should say it really wasn't worth the attempts I had made earlier to watch this.

The movie starts off with Sada as Jhansi and new face, model turned actor, Vinay as Karthik ending their love affair due to Vinay's fun loving, playful and flirtatious character. Vinay is deputed by his construction company to Melbourne (Oz) and bumps into another model turned actor Deepika as Tanisha in the plane. Surprise awaits Vinay when he sees Sada escorting Tanisha away from the airport. Sada happens to be working in the company that had contracted Tanisha for an assignment.

The movie then runs into flashback with a few songs in it and ends with the split that happened to be first scene of the movie. Jeeva seems to be adopting his "12B" style of movie making and I should say has fumbled in this one as well.

The rest of the movie surrounds Vinay trying to patch up with Sada with Tanisha and Srinath helping them despite Tanisha having a soft corner for Vinay. Eventually, the movie ends with Sada leaving scene, setting up for Vinay and Tanisha's union.

The music by Harris Jayaraj was the biggest plus and the movie towards the climax was pretty okay. Otherwise, the movie was a very big let down, especially with Sada's role, more or less similar to her previous one in Priyasaki with Madhavan. Model turned actor's Vinay and Tanisha did justice in their debut. Vinay's dancing skills deserve a special mention as much as Jeeva's skills with the camera. He is awsome with the camera more than his direction skills. Choreography, handled by Raju Sundaram who also happens to play a role in the movie as Vinay's friend is neat!

PS: I am just waiting to get hold of my wife's cousin who said the movie is awesome and much better than Mozhi. He better stay away till I compose myself $&^$&#*%&*%*

கதையல்ல, நிஜம்!

- நன்றி இட்லிவடை / தினமணி

Chicken or Egg?

The incredible has happened!

The spat between the DMK's first family and Maran's family has opened up lot of If's and But's. To me, from what I have observed since Murasoli Maran days, it's basically a Chicken or Egg story. Both sides were complimenting each other well enough to create an impression that the SUN Group was the unofficial bandwagon of the DMK. On the other hand, It is indeed difficult to say that the SUN Group could have emerged as such a large media house in India without MK's political backing.

Following Murasoli Maran's death in late 2003, Dayanidhi Maran, with absolutely no prior political experience was fielded by the DMK from Thousand Lights constituency in Chennai in the following central elections in 2004 May and eventually made the Central Minister of the plum portfolio, IT & Telecommunications. What SUN TV managed out of the ministry is a different ball game. Just a blog post cannot detail the nitty-gritty's of it and I ain't Dr.J.Jayalalitha to dig to the history and geography of the subject and have it on top of my head ;-)

In-turn to thank grandpa, the Maran brothers let use of their SUN Group as extensive as possible for him to return to power during the 2006 state elections. DMK led alliance crushed the AIADMK alliance and made it to the power. With DMK in power in the State and virtually controlling the Centre, DMK's point man was identified as Dayanidhi Maran and he was seen shoulder to shoulder, sometimes like a walking stick for MK. I could hardly remember of any ocassion with MK involved not having Dayanidhi besides him. There have been instances when MK.Stalin was missing at time ;-) This definitely irked Stalin and Big Brother, MK. Azhagiri and definitely many others within DMK who were waiting for the right opportunity. The burning of Dinakaran office in Madurai was what probably everyone against the Maran's were waiting for. I shoudl say that all of them have used the opportunity very well to outst Maran's and create a sense of uncertainity for the SUN Group which is planning to venture into Aviation, publish English tabloid with Media baron Rupert Murdoch and what not?

With all the history behind us, it would only be interesting if the family feud will settle (I wish not!) or will create more surpises.

Copy Cat

I should really say that Sun TV is becoming a copy cat or probably running out of ideas as once blogged by Kaps. First it was the poaching of the Kalakka Povadhu Yaaru from Vijay TV and it was also rumoured that the comedy show Lollu Sabha was also targetted. While Lollu Sabha team did not succumb, it later ran into troubled waters, thanks to the Sun TV's creativity in finding ways to tone down the show's originality, etc.

Latest in the list is the copy of the Airtel Super Singer show on Vijay TV (again!). As always, they have gone a step ahead and roped in Rahman to judge the finals of their show, Ooh La La La. While the Vijay TV's show is the hunt for an individual event, Sun TV's one is for a band. Big deal? Huh!

I am sure there would be plans, probably already drafted, to copy out the other interesting shows like Neeya Naana, Koffee with Anu and Jillunu Oru Jodi which feature on Vijay TV.

Who can forget the curtailing of the Vijay News (no prizes for guess which channel instrumentalized it), which probably was the only unbiased news channel with superior quality amongst the others sometime back?

Posted on 6th May >> I just realized that the Koffee with Anu is also copied, hosted by my all time favorite actress Gowthami as "Anbudan" on Sun TV and BTW, my wife disagreed that the Ooh La La La is not a copy of the Super Singer...I hate my wife ;-)

Bon Appétit

Having had the thai sizzler a day before our wedding anniversary, we decided to go in for the mexican sizzler the next day. This one again is from the Tarla Dala website.

It's the usual story, my wife made it, me di a bit of helping, infact my 3 years old darling daughter chipped in her bit by watching TV throughout the preparation of the sizzler, not disturbing us ;-)

The food was awesome, a fitting brunch for our 6 year old relationship.

Burp!

My wife and me have always enjoyed eating various cuisines of vegetarian food and equally enjoy it when it comes to cooking. While I have not contributed much to the cooking bit, 'coz she does it best herself, we decided to do Thai Sizzler, a recipe for which she pulled out from Tarla Dalal's website. While usually the recipe on the website and the actual outcome do not match closely, the Thai Sizzler was awesome. I have a feeling that the Thai Sizzler my wife made would have been better than the one Tarla Dalal would have really made ;-)

The sizzler had much of Thai ingredients and also some Chinese flavor. Coconut curry, Red Curry Paste, Soya Sauce, Corn, Herb Rice, Baby Corn, Broccoli, Carrots and much more. While we decided to have it as a 'brunch', when we made it at 10:30 in the morning, being very hungry, we finished it much ahead of the plans ;-)

Oh BTW, we (okay, my wife) decided to make the Thai Sizzler for our 6th wedding anniversary (April 29th), could not wait till the next day, so made it and had it a day ahead of our anniversary and...slurp....burp!


I love my wife!

Kids Kampong - Pasir Ris

Saturday was okay, infact did nothing much and was home doing the usual household chores (hope my wife does'nt read this post), some shopping with my wife and kid in the evening.

Sunday started as early as 8 AM for us as we had planned to take our kid to the Kids Kampong at Pasir Ris with a few other freinds and their kids. We started around 10:30 am and reached the Kampong around 11 am. The kampong had various activities like fishing, fish feeding (both for kids), an aquarium, koi farm and a pet department store (was as big as a decently sized NTUC, whoa!)

The fishing bit was fun. We were provided with a fishing net, bucket with water, some fish feed, coupons for ice cream and water for the kids. At $11 per kid, it was indeed worth the price. However, all this did not impress my my three year old daughter who was terrified after having caught a fish. It was them my wife and me doing the fishing bit. I must say that the fishing bit was very exhaustive. Infact i was passing a comment to my wife that I seem to exert myself more at the fishing than a complete week at work! LOL. We managed to catch some fishes and gave it off to our friends for them coz we were not too sure of a place to grow them.

After the fishing it was the feeding bit. The fishes were big with mouth as big as they'd probably eat a kebab or a spring roll ;-) The fish feed however never seemed to turn them away. While my kid and me stayed away from the feeding bit, worried if it would bite us, my wife was bold enough (as usual) to try her hand in feeding the fishes and even touching them (horrified aftert she touched the fishes is a different story). We later has some food and moved onto the aquarium, the koi farm and the pet department store in quick succession to escape from the scorching sun.

Back home at 1:30 pm. Phew...

for a good cause...

British Broadcasting Corporation, widely known as BBC, is planning to put up One Million Hours of the its past online, free of charge. It is understood that Radio and TV material of shows that have never been repeated will also be up in the air and will be available to be watched, listened and downloaded.The process of transferring the content to web has already begun.

 

Read the full article here 

Indians are the fastest

In a freak (?) sex survey conducted by Durex, the Condom makers, it was revealed that the Indians are the fastest in the act at 13 minutes, quicker than the global average of 18 minutes! The study also reveals that Indian on an average have sex 130 times a year, again a lot more than the global average of 103 times a year.

I only wish and request all the Indians out there to have protected sex to contain the growth rate than overtake China and make it to the headlines :-(

Read the full article here

தமிழ்ப் புத்தாண்டு நல் வாழ்த்துக்கள்

இவ் வலைப்பதிவு வாசகர்களுக்கு எனது இனிய தமிழ்ப் புத்தாண்டு நல் வாழ்த்துக்கள்!

Customer Service - Couldn't be any better

My Canon A95 digital camera ran into some funny problem early this year and I was contemplating if I need to go in for a new one. To shell out 400-500 SGD for a basic digital camera was something I was not too convinced about. The DSLR models were 1100 upwards!


2 years since I bought the camera, and being out of warranty, I first settled to send the camera for service, get a quote and then decide on going in for a new one. Before sending it for service, not to be fooled, I did a bit of google (I've no clue where my life would head without Google) based on the symptoms and came across Canon's website which admitted defect in the CCD's supplied by Sony for several models. I was overjoyed to find mine in the list and the symptoms matching theirs and the best part, no warranty or proof of purchase required!


Immediately I set off to their Service Centre at Keppel Bay and gave the camera for service. While I was told that it would take 2 weeks for them to respond, if it is indeed the CCD problem, the same being fixed and delivered home, free of cost but if it is due to something else, then they'd revert with a quote. This actually sent butterflies again in my stomach. I came back to office with a confused mind and 3 days after I had sent in my camera for service, the same has been fixed and delivered home this morning!


I should say their customer service has exceeded my expectations though I was a bit disappointed after knowing that if the CCD problem could not be have been fixed, my camera would have been replaced with an equivalent current model! Joke's apart, hope this post of mine can help the needy one's who face similar problems.


Curse the lord!!!

பாடலாசிரியருக்கு ஜெ!

சிவாஜி படத்தில் சூப்பர்ஸ்டார் ரஜினியின் அறிமுக பாடலை எழுதிய நா.முத்துக்குமாருக்கு ஒரு ஜெ! குறிப்பாக, கீழ் உள்ள வரிகளுக்கு;

காவிரி ஆறும் கை குத்தல் அரிசியும்
மறந்து போகுமா..?

ஓ..தாவணிப் பெண்களும் தூதுவிடும் கண்களும்
தொலைந்து போகுமா..?

உன்மையிலேயே இப்பாடல் வரிகள் சுவையானதா அல்ல அவை தமிழிலில் இருப்பதால் சுவையானதா என்பதை சாலமன் பாப்பையாவை வைத்துதான் பட்டி மன்றம் நடத்த வேண்டும் போல...

வாழ்க தமிழ்!

How China could trigger a Dollar decline?

Well, 'am neither an subject expert in forex matters nor an economist but bumped into an article in MoneyWeek while I was getting to understand Carry Trade (?)

An excerpt from the article;

"China does not have to sell any of its existing dollar reserves to precipitate a decline in the dollar - all it has to do is stop accumulating dollars. The current US trade deficit with that country alone is running over $20 billion per month, and that is not an insignificant amount. If China stopped accumulating foreign reserves, those dollars would be sold into the foreign exchange markets and I expect that when that happens, the dollar will fall."

Read the entire article here.

Broadband Speed Test

When I took up my broadband connection, I always wanted to ensure I got the speed that was advertised by the ISP and did quite a bit of google and came across a lot of sites. However, none of them were user friendly or interactive or comprehensive until I bumped into Speedtest.net

A very user friendly website, with exhaustive details like past results, country average, continental averages, etc. FYI, the site was revamped a few weeks ago. I personally felt the old one was good (is there anyone who likes a change???) but the revamped site has a lot of details, so I could probably live with the change ;-)


Oh, BTW, snapshot my connection below