Notes for 12th June

  • Is there a way to keep Paris Hilton in jail? And put Britney Spears in there too?
  • Actors & spouses Tori Spelling & Dean McDermott have a new reality tv show
  • One of my fav bands, Nickelback, are being honoured with a spot on Canada’s Walk of Fame
  • Cochin (atleast parts of it) got plenty of rain last night and some areas have water levels that are a foot high
  • Discovered a blunder done by our client on one of their products
  • Had a laugh about it with some of my colleagues
  • I might shift back to the night shift (4-1) again partly due to requirement and partly due to the fact that I seem to get more free time at home in that shift
  • It has started raining again

Song for the day – “Dam That River” – ALICE IN CHAINS

Thunder In The Distance

After a week of doing a 4-1 night shift, I am back now in the regular shift in the land of the living, doing 9-6. My trainees needed to get assessed and certified today and all but one did! That is good news, even if it did drag by much longer than I thought it would. The third person could not make it due to a family crisis and will make up for it tomorrow. I can relax after that. This hand over is very critical for me since it seems many people have noticed the issues that I faced while it was going on.

I have enjoyed the rain every night for the past few days and as I type this, my open windows user in the cool breeze that accompanies tonight’s rain and I can hear thunder in the distance. I’d prefer it if it rained every night, rather than in the mornings, although an afternoon shower would also be nice. Keeps the temperature lower and makes it easier to bear the usual heat.

I went to have a yummy pizza and a shake this evening as I barely ate anything for lunch. The prize is reasonable so that makes me happy too.

I was sleepy earlier, round about 8:30 and I had lain down for a nap but I had to attend a conference call with my colleagues and a member of our client and out went the sleep. Now, I feel like watching some tv but a rerun of an episode of Friends is the only thing that is on and worth watching. So I sit and listened to some songs on mp3 until sleep catches up with me. How about you?

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Song for the day – “Made Of Steel” – OUR LADY PEACE

Mr.Bean

I find it hard to believe that there are people out there who do not find Mr.Bean funny! In fact there are several who admit to hating him and actor Rowan Atkinson!! Really? And there are idiots who like Boybands!!

Anyway, I like both Mr.Bean and Mr. Bean : The Animated Series, favouring the animated version a lot more, since I think it is very endearing and cute. I have seen most of the episodes of both several times and still enjoy it. My younger nephew Adhitya, loves both shows very much and he has memorized the events that take place. Even he has said that he prefers the cartoon version over the live version.

So how is the animated version different than Rowan Atkinson’s antics in reel life? For one he looks more friendly & cute to kids and there is a whole lot more you can do with a cartoon. Bean lives in an apartment that is so much better looking that his flesh counterpart and a whole lot more cozier and spacious. Teddy, ofcourse is with him by his side in every episode. Teddy is the teddy bear that Bean loves immensely. Bean’s sometime girlfriend is there as well as you can see in the image above. And, not pictured but still an essential part of the show, is his prized car.

The new additions are the old haggy looking landlady of the apartment and her one-eyed cat. Both have been problematic for our hero but he gets by in the end. I hear that Rowan himself voiced the character of Bean.

Star Trek IX : Insurrection

This is the 9th Star Trek movie made and 3rd with the crew of the TNG series. Starring : Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Johnathan Frakes as Commander William Riker, Brent Spinner as Lt.Commander Data, LeVar Burton as Lt.Commander Geordie La Forge, Michael Dorn as Lt.Commander Worf, Gates McFadden as Commander (Dr.) Beverly Crusher & Marina Sirtis as Commander (Counselor) Deana Troi. The Ba’ku are a peaceful race living on a planet that offers regenerative radiation, and therefore incredible lifespans. The Federation and their associates the So’na are secretly studying the seemingly primitive beings, the Ba’ku and their planet when Data, who is also on the team, goes berserk and attacks the hidden Federation station and escapes on a vessel. He is apprehended by Picard & Worf and taken to the Enterprise for a checkup. Admiral Dougherty, who is heading the Federation’s team in this research is eager for the Enterprise crew to be on their way.

Our suspicious crew beam down to the surface of the planet and find the Ba’ku are not what they seem to be : they are actually a much advanced race but they have rejected technology for a peaceful life. Picard & a now fully recovered Data lead some of the Ba’ku to find find a Federation ship which contains a holodeck reproduction of the Ba’ku village, apparently so the Ba’ku can be unwittingly relocated without their consent, and learn that Data had stumbled upon it previously and had been shot by one of the Son’a aboard, causing his malfunction. During the course of their investigations, odd effects occur — Picard seems to grow slightly younger; Riker and Deanna become affectionate and seem on the verge of renewing a long-abandoned relationship; and Geordi’s optic nerves begin to regenerate. Picard even becomes attracted to a Ba’ku named Anij, a forty-something-looking woman who claims to be ten times that age.

Picard confronts the Admiral on the plot to covertly remove the Ba’ku from their home and move them to a similar location on another planet, inorder for the Son’a & certain greedy elements within the Federation to harvest the ‘fountain of youth’ like elements in the rings around the planet. He is ordered to leave the region but disobeys them in order to help the Ba’ku. He is joined by his ever faithful crew. Son’a leader Adhar Ru’afo and Dougherty change their plans and start simply transporting Ba’ku to the holoship by force. When Picard and crew lead the Ba’ku to areas resistant to transporter locks, robotic devices are sent after the Ba’ku to tag them to make them easy to lock onto.

Picard is captured by the Son’a and Dougherty, he reveals to Admiral Dougherty that the Son’a are actually Ba’ku who were exiled from the planet a century ago and are simply out for revenge, a fact Dr. Crusher’s medical examinations had recently revealed. Picard convinces one of the Son’a, who seems ambivalent, to betray Ru’afo and spring Picard and some other captured Enterprise crew. They take control of the holoship. An attempt to capture the harvester by deception, using the holoship to trick Ru’afo and the other Son’a, fails, and a climactic battle ensues in which Picard and Ru’afo fight onboard the harvester. Picard succeeds in activating a self-destruct and, having sent its message, the Enterprise returns just in time to rescue Picard. Ru’afo is killed. The Son’a, suddenly leaderless and mostly more moderate than Ru’afo was, decide to try to put aside their long-standing blood feud and try to live among the Ba’ku, who welcome them despite the scheme they’ve participated in. Meanwhile, the Enterprise returns to its usual duties.

Relax,

I need to relax on my day off, be it Sunday or any other day of the week. I don’t care about the particular day but relax i must. And ‘relax’ can mean either going out to enjoy myself and have a few drinks or something or staying at home all day and watching a movie or two and listening to some cool tunes, while browsing the net at my leisure, reading a book and sleeping a bit during the afternoons.

Having fallen asleep only by 4 am, despite reaching home by 1:45 am, I was drowsy and tired as I woke up at 9 am this morning and went back to sleep for another solid hour without much trouble. I only wanted coffee (the stronger the better) and read the paper while having some. I watched two episodes of Star Trek : Voyager while putting my feet up on the bed and relaxed. By 1 pm I was in the shower and feeling hungry and thirsty, I headed out to Oberoi for some drinks and some grub. I stayed there for over two hours and enjoyed the afternoon. However during the last 30 mins or so, I was pissed off at the two assholes at the next table who were smoking cigarettes and blowing that second-hand stuff in my direction. A couple of coughs and a few glares made them put out their offending cigarettes and I could breathe a little better.

Song for the day – “Do It Anymore” – NICKELBACK

When was the last time you…

Hey, I got this from one of my fav bloggers, Tina @ reddirtroad

Ate your favorite ice cream?

Two weeks ago? It’s Wimbledon Delight and it is yummy

Followed a butterfly’s flight till it was out of sight?

I did it last night, although I think it was actually a moth :)

Sat and looked at the awesomeness of the fullmoon on a clear night?

I do that all the time, whenever there is a full moon. I love full moons.

Listened to a piece of music that made you close your eyes and pay attention to it?

This happens to me quite a lot, since I take music very seriously. So, all the time, nearly everyday.

Danced in the living room?

Living room, no. But I dance and play air guitar in my bedroom atleast a couple of times a week. :D

Lit some candles and sat in the bathtub til your skin was wrinkled up?

I don’t have a bathtub and haven’t had one in years. I used to do that a long time ago. 15 years back or so.

Called a loved one just to talk to them?

About to do it; I am going to call Asha since I miss her a lot and I just want to hear her voice since I can’t see her, what with her being in Hyderabad.

Smelled your clean laundry?

Everyday :P. So today morning will be the answer. Somehow I love the smell of clean undergarments (only mine) and shirts and dhotis!

Brought home some flowers for yourself?

I am a guy!!

Went to a movie by yourself?

October 2004, can’t remember the exact date :)

Went to bed early to read a good book?

Last Wednesday.

Bought yourself something nice to wear?

January 12th and I wore that shirt today

Looked through your old photograph albums?

Oh boy I hate my photo albums. I guess three years back.

Walked through a museum?

I think when I was 15, on a school trip. That was more than 15 years ago!!!

Created a gift for a friend?

Oh, I think you always buy gifts. Do mixed tapes count?

Gave yourself a pedicure?

Don’t make me laugh. Me buff hombre not little girly man.

Sat and literally smelled the roses?

I can safely say, never. :P

Nearly There

Today will be the last day of my current induction batch of trainees. I am particularly relived since this is the batch that has given me the most problems adherence wise. They are good kids and with some experience but it just seems that things go so wrong with this bunch of kids. I can’t remember ever having to gone through this much trouble with completing a batch and trying to get people to come on time and finish things on time. I will be relieved when I finally hand them over to operations at the end of the day Monday.

Even today two of the remaining trainees were not feeling well and I was going crazy about how to get things to work. I had to take a deep breath and make sure that they both came to attend the session on quality that someone from the Quality section was handling for this day, their last day of training. I kept telling myself that ‘you have just a day more to go and hold on’.

The day did go smoothly although it started later than I had planned. But the important thing was that it did get completed and hence a burden is lifted from my shoulders and I get to relax as tomorrow is Sunday and I can relax with some vodka and some good food.

Song for the day – “Release Me” – PEARL JAM

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And I think it’s going to be a long, long time

William Shatner spoofs the 1972 hit song “Rocket Man” (written by Elton John & Bernie Taupin & sung by John) at the Science Fiction Awards in 1978. Only Shatner can pull this off in his impeccable narrative style. Ironic also that for an actor most famous for his role as the Captain of an adventures & exploratory crew, he is singing this song about a lonely astronaut in space who misses the Earth & his family.

Song for the day – “Rocket Man” – WILLIAM SHATNER

Rain Drenched Cochin

So my wishes were answered last night as it rained quite heavily and there was lots of thunder & lightning. The balcony of my apartment was completely wet and I almost slipped there as I went there in the morning. I missed most of it, enclosed as I am in my office building and inside my training room. When I went to the open air canteen (well we have a huge roof but it is not enclosed) at around 8:30, it wasn’t raining yet.

But a little after midnite it started raining and pouring like so heavily that the roads were filled with water in some places. Luckily it didn’t rain for too long. But it is a welcome sign of things weatherwise.

I had to go all the way to Vypeen before reaching home. For a guy whose work got over at 1 am, I reached home only by 3 am. The reason being that everyone else in the cab were dropped at their residence first since they live closer to the office but there was this one girl who lived in Vypeen. We have to ensure that there is atleast one guy (other than the contracted cab driver) from the office left in the cabs if there is a lady still to be dropped back to her home. And he has to see to it that the girl reached home safely. Being the only male left, I had to accompany her till her house and then get dropped back to my place, which is closer to the office than her place! Anyway that is to be expected. But I was so tired & sleepy by the time I reached home.

But it wasn’t a total waste of time; she was good company & very knowledgeable and we chatted quite a bit about her project (slightly different from the one I am in) and I got to know a lot about the issues that they are facing.

Song for the day – “Weapons” – TARA MACLEAN

Love Bond

I was just reading about this guy in Poland who came out of a coma after 19 years. Jan Grzebski, 65, a Warsaw railway worker who woke up after 19 years in a coma is learning to live and to understand a politically altered Poland. In 1988, when Poland was still run by a communist government, Grzebski sustained head injuries as he was attaching two train carriages together and fell into a coma. Doctors also found cancer in his brain and said he would not live.

Despite doctors’ advice that he would not live, his wife Gertruda never gave up hope and took care of him at home. Last year, she noticed that he was trying to speak, the papers said. He returned to the hospital and came out of the coma some two months ago. He is now in a wheelchair, re-discovering the city & country and amazed at what he sees. When he went into the coma, he was in a communist nation and he woke up to a modern democratic city.

19 Years? Wow man! That is fidelity & loyalty!! How many would have given up hope in a year or two or even less?

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I almost splattered a girl

Today I plan on sending an official complaint to our admin department at the office, plus my immediate supervisors, concerning our doors at the office. See, whoever designed the office construction has done a stupid thing – they have built it in such a way that the doors to discussion rooms & training rooms only open towards the hall and not towards the inside of the room. I hope you get what I am trying to make you understand the way it is; the doors do not open into the room! Which means when you open the door from the inside, to come out, you have to be careful not to hit someone who just so happenes to be walking on the right side of the door. Get the mental image.

Well yesterday, I almost splattered a girl when I opened the door to see what the noise was! I was in a training room, conducting a session and I heard a noise. It was this new girl who had joined the company and she was running back to her desk to get her bag and leave for the day. I didn’t see her so I opened the door to check what the noise was and as she was running back the door opened in front of her. She put on her breaks and just about avoided a collision with the door. She & I grinned sheepishly and she was a little embarrassed as to what could have happened, as I gave her a word of caution on running in the halls, especially with these kind of doors. ;)

It wud have been tragic but also funny had she spattered against the door – like in Tom & Jerry or some other cartoons, when u see them flat against the wall or door and someone comes to peel them off it. :D

Song for the day – “Before You” – CHANTAL KREVIAZUK

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Sleep the morning away

I literally slept the whole morning except for an hour or so when I finished reading a book. We had no power from 9 am till a few minutes ago when it came back on again. The morning was hot & cloudy but there was a good breeze coming in through my windows, so I just went back to sleep after my breakfast & coffee. I scanned through a few pages of the latest Reader’s Digest that was laying around during coffee. The good thing about doing a 4-1 evening shift is that you seem to get more free time but with no power I got to focus on my sleep instead.

So i decided to close my eyes, enjoy the breeze and slept from 10 am till 1 pm, waking up in between to check who sent me messages on my cell and to take a leak. By 1:40 pm I have had lunch and am checking my e-mail and reading other people’s blogs and generally shaking the cobwebs in my head. In a few more minutes I will be taking a cold shower and will head for the office. Oh, that reminds me! I have to take money out of the ATM to pay my internet bill.

Song for the day – “Where Have All The Good People Gone” – SAM ROBERTS

Shifting Gears

This week I will be doing the 4-1 evening shift that I don’t like. I am not sure what I dislike about it most – working till that late hour or going back in the cabs with a bunch of noisy kids, among which I won’t know most. The noise and the constant chatter is distracting and I am glad that the trip will be a short one as I live in Kacheripaddy.

I had to inform all my trainees on Saturday not to come to the office at 9 am like usual but at 4 pm. I only missed out on one guy; I kept trying his cell all Saturday evening and for most of Sunday but kept getting a ‘switched off’ response. He called me up this morning – turns out he lost his handset and was unable to get my message as well.

Reading ‘The Sky Is Falling’, a novel by the late Sidney Sheldon. Saw a great episode of Law & Order : SVU last night, probably one of their best yet. It was about a 10 year old Honduran girl who was sold to a paedophile who takes her pictures and abuses her, while keeping her locked up and shut out from the world in the basement of an electronics goods store in New York City. She finds his cell phone and calls 911 and speaks to ‘Olivia Benson’ and they finally track her down before her capture can kill her. It was really moving.

Song for the day – “Big Picture” – LISA BROKOP

The Necessity of Atheism

“If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses? If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them? If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him? If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable? If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him? IF HE HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED? If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest?”

– Percy Bysshe Shelley (renowned poet, in his treatise The Necessity of Atheism)

The Da Vinci Code

Finally I get to have a taste of what the fuss is all about viz-a-viz the Da Vinci Code as today afternoon, I got myself a copy of the movie. I almost bought the book as well but I decided to leave it for another time. And to tell you the truth the movie did disappoint me a bit, as I had expected a grand finale and all that jazz. I guess the book is even better as many people have praised it and the movie did get panned by critics. Anyway, I was looking forward to it a lot and I am glad that I did watch it.

As most of you know by now, the story revolves around the notion that 1) Jesus was but a mere man (as Ian McKellan’s character Teabing so wonderfully states, after Sophie asks “He was not the son of God?”, “Not even his nephew twice removed”). I shall remember that quote for as long as I live, 2) that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute as popularly believed by most Christians, but in fact his wife and was carrying his child at the time of his crucifixion and that a bloodline of Jesus exists as he has descendants from that child & 3) An organization was formed to protect the descendants of Christ and another (closely associated from the Vatican & the Church who supress the truth about Jesus and his descendants in order to remain in power and prolong the myth of Jesus’ divinity.

As Teabing himself puts it so well, “Witness the greatest cover up in the history of humanity”

Sir Ian McKellan on NBC’s Today: “Well, I’d often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer at the front saying, ‘this is fiction.'”

Clouds & CDs

Planet M was having a discount sale – 3 cds for the price of 1! Well, it was Rs.399 and the cds were mostly crap that I would not be caught dead listening to but still it was worth checking out. Amid all the compilations of love songs, acoustic guitar instrumental versions of love songs, world music stuff, Tamil, Hindi & Malayalam compilations and some things that I don’t know how to define were some Flamenco music cds. So I took three of them and have listened to one and man does it sizzle.

I was in CCD today, had some coffee and a muffin and later had two beers along with lunch (noodles & garlic chicken). I must admit that it is so hot now, especially during the nights. We were treated to a spectacular display of clouds & fading sunlight in the evening hours that I wanted to capture on film but my lousy Samsung only has a VGA camera! I should not have bought that cell. But it was really lovely to see the sky and admire at nature’s beauty.

Song for the day – “Let Me Roll It” – BIG SUGAR