Eye Grabbers

Bollywood dancing ?

2008-07-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of this show,So you think you can dance aired on Fox. The dance show throws several challenges for aspiring dancers,with different styles,forms,routines. The show is very competitive with highly skilled contestants. This week,as a part of a challenge the contestants were asked to perform an Indian style pronounced Bollywood. Are you kidding me ? I can't believe we are going global,if i was skeptical before, on us showcased on world stage,i am not in disbelief any more. And on the dance itself it was choreographed by Nakul and performed by Joshua (African American) and Kate (Asian American). God this couple can dance,I always used to wonder when they do waltz,jazz,salsa,chacha,tango (to name a few). Are they dancing well,can i assess them in my eyes ? I sure can now.The performance was phenomenal for someone who would have had only a couple of hours training.I can only take my hat off.Hey take a bow,you too.

Change of Guard

2008-07-06T14:34:00.000-07:00

I am exhausted seeing the wimbledon finals.I am a die hard fan of Fed express,the ever graceful champ.I have never doubted if he was the greatest player on grass,if not on earth.But to be honest,i feel Federer is not as good as Sampras on grass.Nadal is an exceptional talent,the kid is too good.Lets face it,he deserves it today.But still,I cannot see Sampras broken so many times on grass like Federer today.I donot know if Federer was carrying a niggle but the champ looks ever so vulnerable two years running.I don't know if its age or mononucleosis ?.If he doesn't bring his "A+" game i cannot see him winning again on grass,or against Nadal atleast.For that matter,Djokovic is good on hard courts and Nadal is proving to have taken over clay and grass.The truth of the matter is,there is a change of guard and there is a little crop which is coming along.Nadal and Djokovic are showing,yes its possible,champ can faulter,like what Fed did to Pete on 2001.But on a different note,I thought Fed was unbelievably resilient today.It just showed me,don't ever under estimate the heart of a champion.Well this leaves me thinking,can he surpass the coveted 14/7 of Sampras.Is he the best ever ?.He leaves unanswered and with a bit of tears atleast for today.Well for fans like me,i hope he comes back swinging hard,for now the champ is challenged and dethrone and there is a change of guard.

SRK in Kya Aap Panchvi Pass Se Tez Hai

2008-02-26T18:47:00.001-08:00

lam heck a lot busy these days and if one can use lazy interchangeably with it,you can figure out a reason for my long hibernation.However,its good to be back.

I was going through rediff.com and happened to stumble on the subject in the blog.Here we go again,one more Fox super hit tried upon (copied ?) in India.I am talking about,Are you smarter than the Fifth Grader ? .To Star India's credit this show definitely looks more universal.
I would be interested to see the progress.I can say right now that i ain't smarter than the 5th grader and probably thats the reason why i am forced to survive far away from my home.....

VinceSanity !!!

2006-09-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

I happend to step over this video incidentally.What is Vince Carter doing?.He is making a 7'2 dude,look a baby.What a dunk.Showtime from 2000 Syndney Olympics.Enjoy.

Mr.Pluto got kicked out :)

2006-08-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

It's very funny,all of a sudden we are one planet less in our solar system.I think i would have said in my science class that universe comprised of only 8 planets.I knew i was right,i'm a nasa stuff over,however my science mam never entertained me.Can she apologise to me or get me that elusive point in my paper :),Inventions and expeditions...lol....Just kidding.

Intresting read pluto is gonner

Topless Car Wash

2006-08-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

This is freakin funny.I did laugh my ass out,enjoy :)

Orkut Buyukkokten

2006-08-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

I was whiling my time and happened to flash by this piece of info.This guy (Orkut Buyukkokten) seems to have invented Orkut or atleast the concept was his brain child.In case you are as curious as me,this happens to be his page, or atleast thats the rumour.I wish i can ask him,if this web site is on a dot net framework or is it a camouflage.I see the file extensions as .aspx in their web pages/form submit ;).My common sense says Microsoft properites .aspx extensions,and hence logically itshould not be masked in the application server.Also the fact that Google thrives on open source frameworks/softwares/systems fuels my curiousity.

If you know ?,let me know :).

Work life is it too different ?

2006-08-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

I was asking myself this question after a while since i started to work here in US.I always felt that work as a quantity is valued more in India and less with respect to quality.Does it really matter to just stay on and on and on.How much is my personal life valued ?. I had done lot of night outs,my day clock always runs a bit slow in the morning ;) ,few weekends where i come to work,all in India only.I remember one of my managers expected me to work over weekend and preferred over others for me being single :).What the fcuk ?.Dont single guys have a personal life,can they not enjoy their weekends.Not sure how many will echo my emotional outburst :).Thinking of it,iam perflexed if being an consultant now,meant a Mayan civilization.As such do we understand consulting in India or otherwise ?.I would however reserve this as a personal viewpoint.I hope we can but more often than not we hail ourself as being flexible timers on work and drag ourselves to midnight.Though to me work from home is a mere absurd,i have really not heard several instances of the same in my home land.Can i work between 9-5 in India ?.Can i say no to work in weekends ?.Why is it said that,they say you are paid 9L and you should stay long hours ?.Not really sure.All these questions remain unanswered in my mind.IT as a whole is hailed a lot in India but the ethics,culture,work style may have to improve a bit.Job outsourcing ah ???.I hope just the mere presence is not the proof :).

S..O..A vs ????

2006-08-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

I was reading on SOA just in the recent past and couldn't resist the temptation of asking myself what or who
to challenge it now.Theres a no rest battle right now.There is a passionate debate raging on the merits of SOA versus REST that I don't get. Some argue that SOA/WS-* is too complex and too "enterprisey" and that we should write off the complex WS-* standards approach in favor of a simpler REST approach.

There is also the need to aggregate fine grained services into business processes. This concept is supported with model driven tools that orchestrate a set of services to form a more complex business process. Weblogic provides a clean abstraction to invoke EJB layer specifically Stateless Session Bean through JAX-RPC style with effortless ease.
To put URIs around a set of services that will never be presented in a browser to be aggregated for reuse doesn't make much sense. Even if web services did not exist, I would not use REST for this purpose. I would use messaging such as JMS.

Messaging brings up another issue with REST inside the firewall. It is often desirable to use SOAP over JMS versus HTTP inside the firewall to simplify transaction management and security. For example, you could expose a web service as HTTP(s) externally and though a gateway service as SOAP over JMS internally. Protocol abstraction, security and transaction management are more enterprisey details you have to bake into your SOA.

Development tools support importing WSDLs, generating WSDLs, creating SOAP request documents for debugging and so on. Some of the more complex WS-* standards are now supported in tools, with many more to follow, that abstract this complexity from the developer such as DataPower's support for SAML and federated identity management. The concept of federated security is indeed enterprisey, but for many a necessity.

I have nothing against REST. In the early days of the Internet we had built several e-commerce systems with these techniques - back then, I did not even know I was using REST when building those long, ugly URIs. But the tools being created now for developer's use are moving to WS-* standards support to solve enterprise class problems. I personally think enterprise wide and complex problems are most interesting but though iam not a expert on SOA implementations or systems.

Million Dollar Home page

2006-08-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

Tew an 21 year old student from England,in an effort to raise funds for his higher studies,came up with this mercurial thought of building a home page,http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com.He wanted to sell every pixel for a dollar here and hence divided the page into 1,000,000 pixels.Guess what today he is a millionaire.Though i would say only morons would advertise in this page,but the novel thought is a incarnation of ingenious.

Verizon Wireless a joint venture ?

2006-08-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

I was reading my daily dosage of news article and understood that vodafone has 45% minority stake in Verizon Wireless.After working there for more than 21/2 years,i thought i should have known this.I hope its better late than never.

Make more money with Google Adsense

2006-07-31T11:53:00.000-07:00

I dont know i just started to integrate my blog space with Google's adsense.Iam trying to understand the whole concept and its keeping me occupied for the time being.You may also want to try your luck :).Hope its lucrative and we strike a win-win deal.

Its my Chicago ;)

2006-07-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

I was pleasantly suprised to see Chicago in the list of world cities and ranked so high :).Wikipedia (Source)

What the hell is Google Checkout ?

2006-07-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

Google’s new service enabling consumers to make purchases from online stores using payment and shipping information they keep on file with Google, officially launched with the name of Google Checkout, rather than the rumored GBuy.
Google Checkout, as reported by The New York Times, is priced at rates which undercut current credit card processing fees:
Google is charging merchants 20 cents plus 2 percent of the purchase price to process card transactions, less than most businesses pay for credit card processing. Banking industry executives say that credit card processors typically pay MasterCard and Visa a fee of 30 cents and 1.95 percent for every purchase, so Google will be subsidizing many transactions.Sounds like a good deal if you do a lot of transactions.

Shakira Shakira !

2006-07-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

I happend to watch this music video in yahoo.Boy shes got a voice with a amazing poise.Her Hips dont lie :).

Win and Sin in the city

2006-07-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

"Las(t) Vegas" or "Get Los(t) Vegas" was my last vaccation destination during the July 4th weekend.
I got off McCarran Int'l Airport,Las Vegas,Nevada and to my suprise suprise saw a ton of slot machine welcoming me/anyone to their city,as if to say come on folks !,the money loss starts now.I did laugh my ass out,donno why :).But,kudo's to architect on their vision of
refactoring a desert into a multi million dollar hub.

Casino - as if to say i own damn Sin in Sin city.Made me wonder if luxury is a real understatement ?.Some of these Casino's were truely enthralling.I thought Caesar's Palace was the best among them all,though i did like Bally's which had Eiffel tower,Bellagio,NewYork NewYork,Alladin,Mirage etc. one of the very many ways to loose $s (or) may be make few.

Also you get a lot of good shows screened here.If you are connoisseur of dramas,stage shows you just cant miss the action.I was fortunate to see Celine Dion,few road side shows,comedy shows and a broadway comedy/dinner show Tony and Tina's wedding.I had mixed feelings was a different and unique experience,but they served food with champagne and starters.

At the end of the tour i fell in love with Poker b'cos of which iam lurking around Yahoo! games these days.Okie dokie time to play catch u later.

Zidane Head-Butt's

2006-07-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

Nontax, but fascinating stuff: check out France soccer star Zinedine Zidane's head butt of the Italian defender in overtime of World Cup final, which earned Zidane a red card (disqualification) in the final game of his career and led to France's loss in the penalty kick shootout:

As David Post notes on The Volokh Conspiracy, this is the equivalent of Derek Jeter announcing his retirement before the World Series and then getting tossed in the ninth inning of the seventh game for punching the first baseman when the score is tied 1-1.

Foot...Soul...Goal.....

2006-07-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of revetting fan,thousands of slot machines,a big screen and five projectors was the picturesque Stratosphere LV,Nevada Casino live casting from ESPN WC Soccer 2006 Semi final game between host Germany and rivals Italy.

Emotions were high,tensions soared but none of them scored in the full 90 minute regulation as we moved into extra time.The Oh Ah's from Klinsman the coach of German national team or the inspiring speech from Michael Ballack ,the captain,only one i knew from (German team) just depicted the mood of the game.German with a clear upper hand that moment.

ET started and with in a minute or two suprise suprise ! Italians struck the goal post twice.If only the ball had gone in.Game progressed with slowly becoming a brawl and even the first 15 minutes of ET ended.I would say Italians were looking very very convincing by now.

And then,came 119th minute and came Mr.Fabio Grosso,have you heard of this house hold name in soccer now,yeap he was the one who meticulously twisted the ball into the far side of the net and i feel for once made Beckham say "Bend it like fabio". Rampant Italian fans elated in joy all over the world especially in the casino.Then Alessandro Del Piero clinched the 2-0 win a minute later with a counterattacking goal as the Germans pressed frantically to equalize.Daggers in their heart and the last nail in the coffin.From jubilant fans to the devasted host.Tears all around their dream is over.German go home or rather go home empty handed.

Will Italy be the champions of the world,time will be the answer ?,i sign off if the finals is half as inspiring the latter trust me i shall be back.Thanks for your patience.

Barbaric Salvage :-(

2006-06-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

Iam back and on popular demand i decide to write. Hee Hee...

Well,one of my friends Mr.K had a nice refreshing hair cut few weeks back first one in Chicago.Looks like it was some mexican beauty,anti aging expert who attended him.Seeing him look so buyont i thought it was worth a visit though there were only a few featherly pieces which pepped out trying to cover my ears.The shop named "HairCuttery" is located in Broadway Chicago.I dint have an appointment,one of the oldies from my grannies batch put me on a queue thanks to who but computers.There were quiet a few beauticians inside and i was hoping to have a good one.It was my turn,yahooooooo.. i went inside with lot of expectations,and suddenly a grim in my face,why ?,coz there was a guy who was free.In no time,i heard a voice from behind,asking me "Sir How i can help u?",ah. with a new hope i sighed away and said sure to progress stealthy towards her.Suprise Suprise it was the oldies.From a refreshing face to transformed a lousy look i sat down in the chair seat.Whole damn thing began right here.....
Dont know what happend to me,i didn;t realise her customery query ?

Oldie : what should i do with your hair ?.
Me : Thinking she asked "What do you do Sir" i replied boasting "Well i work a Software Consultant in Chicago Mercentile Exchange" and gave her a supreme look.
Oldie : with a super dooper silly look (sounding idiot) "thats fine,what should i do with your hair".Well as we say in tamil samma bulb.
Me : There was no tone on my part this time very feebly i said short pls.

It took another 3-4 mins to finish and we progressed towards the payment counter.It was a customery cut which costs atround 13 $,i gave her the bill and said keep the change(manly tone if u can imagine).She said are you sure?,I said huhmm...huhmmm (if u know to read most desi's including me do it pathetically).She said 20 $ tip ?,I said what ?.Yeap its 20,it was a sudden blush i gave her 2 one dollar bills and got mine (20) back and fleed like a rocket from the place.

Another one in my legacy !.