History of blogging

Review: Blink (Malcolm Gladwell)

Average with flashes of being nice.

My feelings on reading this book at the end of some pages:

page:35 - Easy read but not quite intriguing or challenging the thought process. Not really pushing me to read more

90: Amazing (This was probably the place where he was discussing Implicit Association Tests)

120: Good piece.

150: Stories dragged too long. e.g. the hospital one.

190: After long wait, a good test about Colas in three glasses.

End: Good to see it cleared the initial perception that this book builds. I have heard people saying that this book is about "Intuition vs Logical thinking" or this book says "first-few-seconds-impression is better than the logical thinking". This book is *not* saying those things. This book just shows that how powerful can first-few-seconds-impression be in our judgement making and how can that be intelligently used to correct people's perceptions about several things (e.g. how those women got into the music group).

Though somehow the high expectations created by "The Tipping Point" were let down. Stories were way too stratched than what was required. Probably a thinner book would have been far more slick.

Smile

Recently while watching a Cricket match, one of my friends said,
"McGrath always keeps smiling. Even if he gets a four hit on his ball, he smiles. It is like he means to say that 'Okay you have hit it this time, but you will get out anyway'. Such an arrogant person he is."

Now I don't quite get this. McGrath might be arrogant, but I don't understand why his continuously smiling is being misinterpreted that way? Why is not being taken that he means to be cheerful in all odd conditions?

To continue watching match and since others were in agreement with this view, I had to stop arguing there, but I still din't get this :)

Fashion?

Wondering if it is a fashion nowadays -

- To hate Siddhu
- To hate Aishwarya Rai
- To hate Shahrukh Khan
- To hate Himesh Reshammiya
- To hate Indian music/movies
- To hate remakes
- To hate software engineers
...

I have encountered many people boasting about these sentiments. Besides not considering achievements of these hated people, my main worry is 'hate' being the fashion. Why is 'liking' something considered less important than 'hating'?

Also, I believe 'hate' is a way too strong a word to be used so frequently and freely without any thoughts on its meaning.

April fool

Untimely post, eh? :)

Why?

Ok, Karnataka had a Bandh (CloseDown) today. I find the bandh itself stupid, but I'll not say anything about that as not sure what all went behind it.
But once its finalized, I want to know what's the reason behind cable-operators not showing any channels other than Kannada channel? We already had to go through an ordeal and were forced to feel the pain when Dr Rajkumar passed away. Firstly what's the point of not showing some channels? Secondly, if Karnataka is bandh, shouldn't the Kannada channels be banned and not other way round?
And then, the BSNL broadband went down. I have my intuition saying that even that was because of this bandh as it was restored after 6'o clock. Again, why?

Why, why why? Why, why?

Daily life humor

Happened today in my office:

My mouse (computer wala :P ) was not working properly sometimes so I lodged a ticket yesterday.
Today while I was working, I saw that mouse is working fine. I got that sick feeling that now when that technician comes I won't be able to show him that it doesn't work sometimes.
Then after some time of disturbance (more than 1 hr) I see a mail in my inbox which says that ticket has been closed as mouse was replaced.

Couldn't stop laughing at myself :) Might not sound so funny. But I literally laughed.

Movie Review: KANK (Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna)

Movie was bad, alright. But what else would you expect from it after the past experiences and those trailors? Anyone who would have gone to watch movie would have expected what was to come. So why this hue and cry?

I preferred to capture the positive points and I think good points were "the idea, story n the end".

Although the director and script writer were confused about what chemistry and emotions they wanted to show, but that in a way was intriguing as well. It was interesting to see how a person is more comfortable with someone than other. And how that other one is more comfortable with someone else. What we see in movies is that everybody is compatible with good ppl and nobody is compatible with bad ones. Here, all of the ppl had some bad qualities and good ones. So it was a refreshing change that way.

The adult-clothes/toys comedy was sick.!!

Play Review: ART

"ART" staged at Rangashankara presented by "Evam"

Play was quite nice definitely. Numerous moments when u burst into laughter.

It started with testing patience of audience with nothing happening for some time. At a point I thought probably they will start only when clapped. And then that kid playing violin for too long a time. And then it took a while to warm up. But then it just didn't stop. Simplistically presented but very well acted with nice dialogue delivery.

Only thing that I didn't like was the kid who kept coming again and again without actually doing anything worthwhile. It was good for an experimentation though. Also, the scene where these three people discuss fighting each other was little dragged but well recovered.

"Ivan" telling his wedding planning issues which involved talking to his mom on phone etc was AWESOME!! Man he just kept speaking non stop.

Very well done.

Play Review: Friends will be Friends

'Friends Will Be Friends' a musical directed by Saad Khan & choreographed by Charlie staged at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore.

I feel sad to say that I didn't like it. It started with a crappy feeling and never recovered, except for one scene where old Ishaan Mistri sees his past life recapped (Probably because it didn't have any dialogues or probably because it seemed to spell 'the end').

Play's highlights:

1) 3-4 good jokes
2) Pretty females


That's all.

If you like usual Hollywood flicks, u won't like it. If u like usual Bollywood flicks, u would hate it. Poor dialogue delivery with nothing concrete happening ever, it just doesn't appeal u to remain on ur seats. Play could have been ended at several places, including just after 2 mins. But it "surprisingly" kept resuming again and again.

A good performance by few ppl. I liked the Sonia most. She delivered her irritating dialogues pretty well (I hope she was supposed to do so). Also, the first dance (yes it has two dance numbers!!!) was pretty well choreographed but following the Bollywood tradition, it was perfectly misfit in the script. Only logical thing I could think about that was that those colllege kids went to probably a dance bar.

It used all Bollywood masala and probably it worked also as I heard someone saying it 'brilliant', but that was one odd case probably because I saw LOT many ppl leaving the theatre.

Simple solutions (Wider or Wiser?)

Heh, Nothing more to be said :)

Tipping Point : Review

More than the book, I would call it review of the author. In one line, I liked it. Being lazy, since I didn't write comments earlier, I might have forgotten some.

I like the way the author is away from redundant statements. He may use examples to put one point across, but won't write long sentences with complicated words which would ultimately mean the same thing (e.g. the way Amartya Sen does it).

And I felt I have some chemistry match with the author.

For example, I remember while reading a particular paragraph I was thinking he is talking about obvious things, and the next line I reads "It may sound very obvious at first glance."
In another case I was getting a chilling feeling that how can someone talk about suicide in this way. The next line says "There is something chilling about this passage. Suicides aren't supposed to be trivialized like this". I feel good in situation where I can relate with the author. It also shows that at every point author has kept the reader in mind.

And if you like observing psychologies of different people in day to day life, the book continually feeds you with them. Very interesting observations.

Zorbing!

Some stupid friend kept pestering (looks like this is not a valid word in dictionary) me to write my experience with Zorbing. So here it is, dedicated to her.

• Woke up at 6:30 am and and made tremendous efforts to wake the roommate up
• Somehow managed all that and reached venue at 8:15.
• Some miscommunication had happened, and correct time to reach was 9 and we thought it was 8.
• We had some juice etc and I was being cursed by my friends (2) to why I brought them there and we rather should be going to watch Fashion Parade in IIMB fest or to the Bryan Adams concert.
• I convinced them that Bryan Adams concert can be attended even after this and we have already booked tickets so lets not waste.
• On the way we all three didn't get seats together. So I had to sit somewhere else where one boy and girl were talking about all topics under sun. For around 1 hr they talked about politics.
• Then I called up Kanny (shifted to Microsoft) and Dayal (PL now) and did some timepass. Increased my GK by hearing their talk. Did you know

1. If a female in Rajasthan smokes bidi, it implies that she is the bread winner of the family
2. Carrot and potato were not originally grown in India. They came from somewhere else
3. Vasundhara Raje Sindhia (CM of Rajasthan) is a genius. (I forgot why)
4. The ivory bangles that Rajasthani females wear in their full hands, indicate that they are married.

• Finally we reached to the destination
• We had to break in two groups. One for Zorbing and other for Raft building. We idly let ppl go the groups and at the end went to the one which had less ppl (Zorbing).
• There were good number of ppl and rolling the Zorbing-ball down, bringing up back etc was taking long time and we managed to do the Zorbing. It was good fun. Although the track was very small so fun lasted only for few seconds.
• One of my friends did it twice :(
• Meanwhile the photo session was ON. We even shot a video of ball rolling
• Then came the lunch. Those two ppl didnt eat it, except the 'banana' and masala-roti. I ate curd rice of one of them.
• Meanwhile I went to pee somewhere far in Jungle, thinking there won't be anyone. After I was done I saw a couple doing something. I didn't want the guy to be shamed of me (think why?) so I came off soon.
• Now raft building. Some confusion with which bamboo should be where and how rope should be taut etc. Somehow we managed.
• The life save jackets were not of good quality. But we went for a ride on our raft and came back.
• After this, the usual ritual of changing clothes took place. The organizers gave some strawberry shake, which went down.
• Highlights of the day were one guy who was boasting that he has swam in Brahmaputra so he doesn't need life jacket, but so that others don't feel inferior, he'll wear it. Other was a kid around 8-9 who was asking innumerous question on why,how,what,when,where. Uff. Somehow we were being decent throughout this, but at the end this conversation happened which made us (we 3) burst.

Boy to his father: Daddy, are we going NOW?
Father: Yes
Boy: When?
^~($*(#!(*%

Others were still wondering what's wrong with us.

• While going back, we thought we'll sit on the top of bus, at least for some distance. One of was not enthusiastic about this. One of the friend that we met there got enthu about it and went and sat on top of the bus. But our friend convinced us and we conviniently went into the bus. Some others also went to the top and came after some time.
• While in bus, we grabbed some of the grub that others were generously distributing.
• After reaching the 'source', we departed and my friends decided that they r not enthu about Bryan Adams concert any more.

Phew!!!!!

I never wrote this much even in an examination.