Owner: Mental Perambulations URL:http://mentalperambulation.blogspot.com Join Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:45:18 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: I wish I could say this was about the existentialist ramblings of a 20th century neo-philosopher. But alas! Interestingly, you can find my opinions on movies, music, pub-brawls and other hair-raising experiences along with lotsa general rambling! Site statistics:Click here
Social Bookmarking in Blogger (Technology is cruel!) 2008-04-05 13:53:00 Ok so I decided to pimp out my blog a little and though I'd add SocialBookmarking
links so that people could 'Digg' my posts so that others could 'StumbleUpon' them etc (oh, I am so clever!). So I start looking for some widgets to easily add to my blog template and realize there aren't that many out there. And the one that I found let me add the widget to the blog as a whole and not to each post. Now, why would someone want others to bookmark his/her blog for cryin' out loud! .......So then I started looking at XML code available online for inserting these buttons onto my blog and it's insane! There is no one single instance of this code on the web that works! Either the parsing is incorrect or .png files are not tracked right or in some cases, I couldn't even understand what the problem Read more:Blogger
, Technology
, cruel
, Social Bookmarking
Entrepreneur is not one of them... :-( 2008-04-03 04:13:00 Came across this link that tells you what your ideal career is. Tried it and following are my ideal career choices:ArchitectArtistBusiness strategistCollege professorComputer programmerMathematicianNeurologistPhilosopherPhotographerVideo game developerAlready 'am - Business Strategist, Mathematician, Philosopher :-)Tryin' to be - Artist, PhotographerWould love to be - Video-game Developer, Architect, College ProfessorNo interest in becomin' - Computer ProgrmmerHuh? - Neurologist Read more:Entrepreneur
Not how to get out of 'em but rather get on with 'em... 2008-03-25 17:14:00 I was out over the past weekend with some friends. Had gone over to a pub, some 6 of us. And we were havin' a pretty good time when, as it happens so often (or is it only with us?!), some random guy at the bar ticked off a friend of mine who got annoyed et al. Anyways, I was standing right next to my friend and figured it wasn't worth ruining a perfectly nice evening so I went in and broke them up. We went on partying till about 1 in the night and decided to head back.So we exit the pub and we see the same guy hanging out near (I think) his car with a couple of his friends. It looked like he was pretty high and was looking for trouble. We start walking towards our cars when he comes up behind us mouthing some 'maa-behen" stuff. I walk up to him to try and calm him down and get some sense i
Err....Did you say 'Black & White'? I see gray...... 2008-03-16 14:25:00 Saw 'Black
& White
' today.a. Script: It's like an idle man's rhetoric. It like someone asked Subhash Ghai to talk about terrorism and jihad and he just went rambling on for 2 hours. 0.5/10b. Casting: While Subhash Ghai must have clearly wanted Anil Kapoor to play the role that he did, I don't think he or the ADs paid any attention to the rest of the casting. Right from the terrorist (Anubhav Sinha) to the one-scene police officer. The result is you are left squirming in the seats thanks to inept performances by the rest of the cast (with the exception of Shefali Shah)...... The trick about being an actor is not about being good when the camera is facing him/her but when he/she is the background in the scene. 3.5/10c. Screenplay: The director is confused. And it shows. 2/10d. Backgrou
The trek up Gunnbjorn Field. 2008-02-29 17:09:00 "When your soul is ripped apart and your spirit is all that is left, it is easy to roll over and give up. It's about the choice you make.""To those who understand, explanation is unnecessary. To those who don't, it's impossible."(Ian Wright) Read more:Field
Hey Hey My My.... 2007-09-12 18:55:00 "Society is a vehicle for earthly heroism....Man transcends death by finding meaning for his life....It is the burning desire for the creature to count...What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance......Ritual is a technique for giving life. His sense of self worth is constituted symbolically, his cherished narcissism feeds on symbols, on an abstract idea of his own worth. Man's natural yearning can be fed limitlessly in the domain of symbols. Men fashion unfreedom [a large measure of conformity] as a bribe for self-perpetuation."- Ernest Becker Read more:Hey Hey
Encryption Algorithm 2007-08-18 10:06:00 I was toying around when I came up with what I believe to be a new algorithm to encryption. Reproduced below is a message encrypted using this algorithm. Give it a crack and let me know!TRIHENEIVFGEONSTPTMRIEOONMNTOBONAAFYRRCDILODEAPSRRAEOLDPBAOYIBOCAFINLCKOITATLNALEWYDHOSOWUBACSRDIYEDAFIBGCheers! Read more:Encryption
Hurdy Gurdy Man. 2007-07-26 21:15:00 Why is it that some movies get me? And I mean get me hook, line and sinker? And a very tiny few of them? I am not a movie buff. But that's not to say I don't watch as many movies as the average guy does (actually, I do watch a lil more but just because I have an unlimited internet connection to d/l the choicest of movies :-)But why is it that those few few movies get me? By the end of when I watch such movies, I go hyper! Not hyper in the sense of jumping around on a pogo stick but hyper mentally. I think more and surprisingly seem to think more clearly at the same time after I have seen such a movie. What is more surprising, the people that I watch such movies with come out of the theatre with a "well, it wasn't as great as I expected it to be" kind of look on their faces. I mean, don't t
What 'am I thinking? (Don't know) 2007-06-21 14:21:00 Alrite. First things first. All those of you reading this, visit It's a blog related to my business venture that two friends and myself maintain. Would love for you to check it up regularly for updates.I am going to format the rest of this post as a series of statements/opinions not related to each other in any way simply because when I had a specific topic to post in mind, the brilliant Blogger.com team banned my blog for some reason and now that the blog is alive again, I can't think of any topic I might want to waste 300 words on :-)-Loved the scene in the latest Rocky installment, the one in the last round of the final fight where Rocky gets knocked down and as he is trying to regain his bearings, he has this voice in his head that tells him that life is not about how hard you hit but Read more:thinking
Giramar! 2007-03-05 08:47:00 You may find it amusing to know that I, like David Ogilvy, have never learned the formal rules of grammar. I learned to write by reading obsessively at an early age, but when it came time to learn the “rules,” I tuned out. If you show me an incorrect sentence, I can fix it, but if I need to know the technical reason why it was wrong in the first place, I go ask my girl friend.
Total time-pass! 2007-01-27 18:44:00 drawing many intersecting lines. hajaar fun! :-) Read more:Total
Of right and wrong.... 2007-01-26 17:54:00 There are only two kinds of people…..And the second kind is very rare. Allow me to begin from the beginning. My contention is this – we all know what right and wrong is. At least at the non-meta physical level. We all know which is the right thing to do and which is not in our daily relatively normal lives. We know stealing is wrong. We know being fair is right and all that. Where relativity creeps in is in not in our interpretation of the code but our sincerity in following it.Consider this; a person who works in an office receives his pay slip for the month. As he is going through it, he notices that there has been a substantial amount of money that has been credited to his account, much over and above his normal monthly wage. He tries to understand why through informal chats with hi
No title 2007-01-21 16:40:00 Yea I know. Alrite yes I know! 'ts been a terribly long time. but then again, what can a man do when he has a) no inclination to compose his thoughts into words and put them down, and b) no time?But like the our dear Arnold, "I am back".P.S: My keyboard is souped. Spilled something on it and now the keys are like stone. I am worried I might be hurting my fingers typing :-(The moment is here, the time is now. Have put in my papers at my current work-place. Reason? The answer to many questions in life is actually not 42 but Gnome. People in the office didn't really comprehend the reason for my decision. Everyone thought I was bonkers to quit while I was on the fast-lane to the way up in the organisation. At least that's what everyone thought. But like most things in my life, this one too doe
The Three Kinds of People. 2006-10-26 07:56:00 I believe there are three kinds of people in this world.The first are those kind of people who don’t care about Google or its achievements or its strategy going forward. They are just ordinary people going about their lives. They use the Google search tool once in a while when they are looking for the cheapest price of an iPod or when looking for a song to download. They think of Google as a ‘software’, a tool that gets them information they want. Such people are growing lesser by the day, let me tell you.The second kind of people are those who just can’t stop raving about Google. They seriously believe Google is the most ‘awesomest’, the most ‘kickass’ thing that ever happened. These people are not talking about only the search tool. They are talking about Google Inc., the Read more:Three
, Kinds
Three dots make a trendline. 2006-08-21 15:11:00 Do I say that because the first time it didn’t work the way I imagined it to, I take the result of the first attempt as the general default answer no matter how many times the experiment is repeated? Or do I say that this is just one data point and it doesn’t represent the general tendency? I choose the latter.After about two and a half years, a substantial data point was generated. The result wasn’t what I expected it to be but it is nonetheless, a data point and therefore, should be treated with appropriate respect. But to say that because this result wasn’t what I expected it to be, I shall not repeat the experiment is to go against my very basic engineering nature (not that I am much of an engineer). When in the lab trying to complete a project couple of hours away from the dea Read more:Three
One more ramble.... 2006-08-21 03:26:00 i have to say is - HA HA HA.now shut up.
Principles of Comfort 2006-08-08 15:35:00 Just back from watching ‘Corporate’. Yeah, the one supposedly about the inner workings of India’s biggest companies. Alrite, before I succumb to the temptation, let me state that I have no intention of doing a critical review of the movie. Nope. This post is about something much more important (and maybe a lil more realistic ;-)….)Iron Maiden said in one its songs, “There’s a thin line between love and hate”. Yeah maybe there is. I don’t know about love and hate and all but there is definitely no thin line between corporate ethics and downright blunders. And if someone sees it as a thin line then probably she is either far away from the circumstance or she forgot her glasses.The movie depicts a character that is completely at ease bribing government officials and hiring a g Read more:Principles
A Day in the Life of an Advertiser 2006-08-06 16:17:00 How do you sell a low-involvement product/service? It’s easier to sell a Ferrari than say a newspaper. A Ferrari is a high-involvement product where the prospective customer spends enough time learning about cars in general and Ferrari in specific. But what about newspapers? The news are pretty much the same in any. How then do you try to get the prospective customer to pick up your brand of newspaper over others?And this is requires a very good understanding of marketing and especially consumer behaviour. How do you make a purchase decision? Why do you pick up what you pick up at a store? With high or medium involvement products, there is a conscious choice. The decision is made before the consumer enters the store. The store then is only a point of sale. A place for the consumer to pic Read more:Advertiser
Hey Hey My My.... 2006-08-04 15:27:00 Long long time ago, in a place far far away there lived a guy. lets call him Tnahs. he was the weird youth for his generation...long hair, tattoos, hell-may-care attitude...the works. Tnahs was in college then trying to some sense of himself and his existence on the planet amidst all that he saw and experienced. The more he lived life, the more he got confused about it. It was like having ice-cold caviar.There he was whiling away his time when suddenly one day, he bumped into this girl. not literally (though he wished) but.....virtually, if i may. they met in a place that cannot be looked up in a map...that exists but doesnt at the same time. the usual banter followed and he came to know that her name was Ahsuo. they exchanged numbers and the such and started chatting up pretty frequently. Read more:Hey Hey
Daa.....Da Da Daa...... 2006-08-03 03:04:00 I heard the background score for the television reality series ‘The Contender’ by Hans Zimmer a long time ago on a friend’s computer just when the first season had begun. I hadn’t watched the series till then and didn’t know anything about it. But just listening to the first 30 seconds of the piece and I was sure it couldn’t have been anyone else but Hans. The man makes some very good and fitting music.Remember the Broken Arrow score? Remember Gladiator? Remember The Last Samurai? Remember The Crimson Tide? Remember Rain Main? Remember The Thin Red Line? Yes, all of them have been the work of this man. And boy is he good.Coming to the score for ‘The Contender’, there is one basic piece with innumerable variations. Sometimes slightly subdued in a piano or a guitar piece, som
Kutte! Mein Tera Khoon Pee Jaaonga! 2006-08-02 16:39:00 Am I the kind of person people take advantage of? I have been told that I am too nice towards other people while not so much towards myself. I have been told that if someone were to wrong me, I would gladly try to help them out the next time they came to me asking for help. My question is, “Why not?”I believe we people in general tend to spend way too much time making movies. Movies in our head. Didn’t you think about what you will do with that huge bonus that you were going to get at work? Didn’t you think how it is going to be when you start going around with that gurl you just met? Hell, didn’t you think how well you were gonna score at the bowling game tonite? And in the same vein, we make movies of how we are going to get back at that person who wronged us. That person who l
Of bits and pieces... 2006-08-01 15:02:00 Currently on this book, "In Search of Excellence" by two McK guys. Pretty neat I must say. The book is full of common sense but that's exactly what makes it interesting. The authors make no bones of the fact that they are not uncovering new ground. They actually go ahead and declare that what the book is about is simple straightforward 'soft' capabilities part of any organisation which are constantly overlooked for more 'rational' measures. Things like 'work style', 'organisational values' and 'micro-ownership' have been delayered with a delicate finesse leaving the reader with the knowledge that he isnt gleaning new information but at the same time imploring those old 'knowns' simultaneously.The book talks about 'micro-ownership', about how employees' effciencies shoot up when they feel t Read more:pieces
Heard of octopus autophagy? 2006-07-31 14:59:00 Was watching the news today when this news report on Dalmiya’s re-election as the chairman of the BCB came up. And amidst the usual dramatic coverage of the event, the reporter waxed eloquent about the ramification of this development not just on the cricket field but also in the political corridors of West Bengal before finally ending with one of those stupid audience polls - “Is Indian cricket being destroyed by politics?” No sooner did I hear the question than a couple of sentences immediately formed in my mind. “Anything gets destroyed when there is politics involved. Even politics gets destroyed when there is politics involved.” Made sense in a subverted sort of way. Read more:Heard
Adios my friend! 2008-04-06 15:56:13 It was September 2006. I was at the Mumbai airport waiting to catch a flight to the UK. The flight had been delayed and so I went looking for something to do (after I ran out of battery on my phone talking to someone :-) I see a bookstore in the lobby and pop in to take a look. It's an eight hour flight to the UK and I am not carrying anything to entertain me. I start looking at some paperbacks thinking of picking one up for the journey. After flipping though some, I think I was pretty much decided on a Gabriel García Márquez. Don't remember which one but the blurb looked interesting. Was about to take it over to the checkout counter when a stranger behind me quipped, "I really wouldn't recommend that". I turn around to see a well dressed bespectacled man in his early thirties holding a Read more:Adios
, friend
My lovely pigeons! 2008-04-12 08:30:35 Yello everyone! How you doin'! Btw, since my blog revamp, I have been inundated with requests from junta asking me to do the same to their blogs. I'd love to. But it's gonna take at least 2 coffees and one dinner for it :-)The window sill in our drawing room is one nesting ground for pigeons that are so common in Mumbai. This sill offers the perfect setting in terms of cover from natural elements and thanks to the variety of plants my mom grows over there, a nice camouflage from other birds. And thanks to my dad's affection towards them, our window-sill has gained quite a reputation amongst the winged community!And for the last couple of weeks, there's been a new guest here. It settled itself comfortably in one of the flower-pots and has pretty much not moved since. Every evening, my dad c
So how different are we anyways?-Part I 2008-04-15 18:02:51 Facebook has a feature which lets you view certain tastes and preferences collectively of members in a network as well as pieces of a collective profile.Was playing around with it and pulled out some stats on members within 3 specific networks - India, Pakistan & New York (well, they didn't have USA!)Let me present these stats in comparision and also my comments.(Legend: a. Orange colour to indicate matches between 'India' and 'Pakistan' b. Green colour to indicate matches between all three networks (India, Pakistan & NY) c. Yellow colour to indicate differences between 'India' and 'NY' in one section.)(Membership Details: India (632,875), Pakistan (158,367) & NY (861,425))Clearly, the subcontinent and NY listen to completely different
music. Haven't channels like VH1 and M Read more:anyways
So how different are we anyways?-Part II 2008-04-17 15:42:11 Alrite! Let's continue.Ok, first of all, absolutely no regional programs in the India and Pakistan lists. Not even something on MTV! It could be that MTV is more for the surfing kind of viewer who catches a song on it between flipping channels but nonetheless, MTV and Channel V have been trying hard over the last couple of years to come up with specific programs viz., Roadies, Campus Star, India's Hottest, etc. Even so.....Also, 9 out of 10 top favourites in the India list are aired on Star World. No place for AXN (except for 24), Zee Cafe, Zee Studio, BBC Entertainment,et al. Guess, that's the effect of Rupert Murdoch's reach and foothold in international programming. Star guys should be pretty happy about this. While there isn't a clear match amongst all three segments, I see substantial Read more:different
, anyways
Indian Premier League gets underway! 2008-04-18 16:03:59 Alritey! After all the showbiz, drama and news (not that I mind when Preity Zinta is in it :-), we finally get down to some cricket starting today!Planning to attend at least a couple of matches here in Mumbai.The event schedule is as follows: Time Match Venue Friday 18 April 8:00 PM Bangalore vs Kolkata Bangalore Saturday 19 April 5:00 PM Punjab vs Chennai Mohali 8:30 PM Delhi vs Rajasthan Delhi Sunday 20 April 4:00 PM Kolkata vs Deccan Kolkata 8:00 PM Mumbai vs Bangalore Mumbai Monday 21 April 8:00 PM Rajasthan vs Punjab Jaipur Tuesday 22 April 8:00 PM Deccan vs Delhi Hyderabad Wednesday 23 April 8:00 Read more:Premier
, League
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