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Rolodexo makes managing contacts fun and effective!

See this mailer in your browser

Dear Sir/Madam! We would like to introduce to you a revolutionary new way of keeping all your contacts in one place. Not only that but with the added benefit that your contact information always remains up to date. And not only that but you can also assert your identity in a multitude of ways by creating a Rolodexo Business Card of your own.

Below are only a few sample ways in which you could assert your identity with your Rolodexo card:

You want a Business card! You want to replicate your company business card? We have everything on our site to make you the perfect business card, complete with your company logo.

Are you self-employed? A non-corporate job must not deter you from having a business card. Here's how you still can have a business card and that too for free!

You got it right! You can have your own Rolodexo Business Card like the ones shown above, for free! But don't forget that this is going to be your invaluable tool to keep all your contacts in one place and always up to date!

So, what are you waiting for? Enrol here, asap.

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Entrepreneurship and me

I hope the spelling of the 'E' word was right :)

So, this year started very eventfully with my decision(no idea when it became concrete) to go on the E route. Where it came from? It came straight from the car-pool. Everyday for the previous two years we've been cursing the management and bosses for their ass-hat approaches and policies and how we were atrophying in this job. And then one day my home loan was all paid. Didn't have any other loan and had some money in the account to last us for sometime. And then this bug wouldn't leave me i.e. to put my money where my mouth is.

I started by looking for work on Elance. The response was encouraging. I was fortunate to get a couple of good projects. While working on these projects I realized how much I was working everyday! On a good day I'd be working 15 hours. Never less than 8 hours. I had the freedom to do whatever I want. I was learning what "I" wanted to learn. Never was I tired or sad that was working so much! That adage "You are not working when you do what you enjoy" is so true.

When I look back at the years I spent working for companies I wonder why I didn't work like this in the company I worked for. Not that I did not have spare time in the office to do things I like. It turns out that there are many factors:

• Unless you know what you are working towards you can't get the motivation to do the things that you need to do in the middle. Things like learning new technologies, knowing the intricacies of what it takes to make a product success, etc. When you are an 'E' you know what you are working towards, at any point of time. You will do what it takes to reach there. I remember that in the orgn. you will work hard to an extent and then raise your hands that I can't do more than this. When you are in the E-mode you will not rest till you resolve it. You will take some hard decisions like changing technologies mid-way but you will keep working towards your goal.
  
• Apparently, the surrounding negativity is a bad thing for productivity. When your colleagues are a demotivated lot and nobody has a good word for anything in the orgn. then it is a bad place to be in.
• Politics of the work place. You can't beat that. I can't imagine how much productive time we spent in the cafeteria discussing the politics being indulged in by bosses and colleagues.
  
• I think this one a big factor: Responsibility. When you are responsible to make your decision a success then you will slog for it.
• Motivation through discomfort! Or rather lack of motivation due to comfort. When you are getting your salary for just showing up and pulling your ass around, though at salary levels which are not at the killer levels of other companies but decent enough, where is the motivation to outperform?
  

People say that, maybe, I could've tried doing this thing that I am doing by stealing time from office hours or out of office hours until I get a good feel of it. Where is the time to do it when you spend 2-3 hours on transit, atleast 2 hours on socializing in office on lunch and coffee breaks, and 3-4 hours of ass-hat meetings and at home after a heck of day? You'd have to be extremely possessed to do anything fruitful in that model.

Well, I have started my company but currently I have no people working for me. Naturally, my next thought is on what to do or what not to do when I have to employ people. Motivation, motivation and motivation! That is the only way people will be productive in a company. Convert all the above points to motivate people in some way or the other.

• When someone hates you but they work for you do not expect them work more than what is expected out of them. If you demand performance out of their current abilities then listen to them and be on great terms with them. I hated my bosses from the bottom of my heart therefore I never worked for more than what was required from me. If the boss-employee are on such terms then there is a one big money leak in the organization, in these times of high salaries. No point in continuing to keep the relationship going.
  
• Can you make each employee feel like an entrepreneur themselves?? If you can achieve it then there is a model that's bound to succeed. One good example is performance driven sales-force which is quite common in IT sector. The sales force gets a major chunk of their annual take home based on how much they sold. If this model can be replicated to each and every employee at whatever level then you have a winner. I would like to name this thing with a term I have coined: Entrepreneurial-node(e-node for short). i.e. every employee in the organization is an e-node. So, the organization is a network of e-nodes.
  
• Make your employees an integral part of the profit-sharing. Stock options,etc had started with that motivation but as the companies grew the benefits diluted that much more. How can you make a grass-root level worker motivated to put in those manifold delta efforts when his share is going to be 0.0001% of the profit taking??? Most of the big companies these days are top heavy. The takings rise exponentially as you climb up and so do the profit-sharings. It's an age-old debate on who is more instrumental in making a company profitable, the grass-root code-warrior or the meeting-maniac management. I think that if a company can work out a package structure that doesn't alienate the mass workforce which are at the bottom of the rung then they've got a winner.
• Stop creating vertical heirarchies! Can't stress this enough. This was a one big problem for me. I admit that I got carried away with the managerial suffixes and pursued streams in the company that didn't appeal to me. But this is a real employee killer in companies. Rather than creating new and improved heirarchies encourage employees to take up streams that they like and attach equal importance to all positions or rather don't provide any importance to any position. Once again, stop the managerial position mongering.
  

Phew! That was an hour or so of productive time spent on an even more productive job. That is to put down in writing what my thoughts on work culture are.

More on how it's going for me, very soon. I need to tell you why I am pursuing a product than pursuing consulting.

Blood is thicker than water

If there's one truth of life that comes in the top ten it is this. Well mostly.

I might've think that I had the worst ever quarrel with my wife or my mother or my sister. But after we have cooled down, we get back together. Not because we have to. But, because we feel it our right to open discussion lines with them, because we don't feel ashamed in saying sorry to them, because we know they won't bitch about us outside of the circle. I don't restrain myself from approaching my mother when she's not talking to me because it's my right. I know I will talk to her freely again.

Moral of the story? It is too late in the night and I must stop thinking :)

This is a true incident

Rachna and I were on our home mac downloading the pictures I had taken on my mobile. I had connected my mobile to the mac with the USB cable to download all the pictures I had taken on my mobile during the vacation. After downloading all my pictures onto the computer, I right-clicked on the drive icon that was my mobile and selected the "Eject" key, so that I can unplug my mobile safely.

At this point, Rachna jumps out of her seat and looks under the table at the drive bay of the mac and asks me "How did you put the phone into the cd drive?" To the puzzlement of my wife, I couldn't stop my laughter for a few minutes.

It's our 9th anniversary today..

..aur baar baar mere zehen mein ek hi gana aa raha hai:
"Nau saal pehele mujhe tumse pyaar tha...aaj bhi hain aur kal bhi rahega"
Toh kya hua agar Sau ko Nau banaya...gana toh theek baith raha hai na?

It's been a heck of a journey, these nine years and more. Here's how we met against pretty strong odds: http://rachnasays.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-knight-in-shining-armor.html
I mean what are the odds for two people to meet, one from mumbai and one from hyderabad, studied in different B-schools and worked at different places. Imagine, had I met her before the ad in Jeevansathi and told her that "u, yes U will be marrying me. So I am going to put arm around your waist like this" what would her reaction be? I'd be getting a resounding slap, right? So, what's the way to be able to do this rightly? It goes through Jeevansathi.com :)

What can you say about a simple cosmopolitan Mumbaiite girl who loves her family unconditionally with the same fervor as she loves her alu-badiya dishes :) She is a UPite but she has the sophistication and polish of a British royal. In my 9 years of marriage I must've heard her fart(more of a whimper, if u ask me, which needed to be confirmed that it was a fart), maybe, 3 times. I haven't seen her pick her nose ever. English and hindi are probably the only languages she know but her knowledge of them are impeccable. I still discover new hindi words from her even to this day :) She might not know why the 3 pin plug is not going into a two pin socket but she knows how and why our body functions. She is a walking-talking human encyclopeadia but she also admits that she discovered a lot of amazing human features only after marriage, which she feels is super-human ;)

She always know what is the right thing to do in any given scenario. No wonder that she has never had any problems with her in-laws ever! That doesn't mean that we haven't had our share of tiffs. But that is only because I am the most stuck up, boorish and tactless person in an area 50 kms around me. She's the kind of tension difuser the sorts which I haven't seen before her. She'll be the one to open up conversation lines with me even if she's mad at me, of course for bad things said/done by her due to my misbehavior(read above) ;) She's the darling of the kids because she's the best mom that is ever possible, unless, of course, if they step on her nerves on a wrong day.

I do injustice to her beauty by taunting her with my innumerous-virtual-hot-girlfriends :) But somebody has to be there to do the clowning around and keeping up the giggles in the marriage, right? Jokes aside, I take this day to tell her that she's the most beautiful woman I know inside and outside and I can't imagine life without her. This must the be the most romantic thing I have ever said even secretly ;)

Formula to get your own state

Very nice! KCR has evolved a Do-it-Yourself-at-Home formula to get your own state. Following is the formula:

1. Purchase student leaders in the major cities with promises that they'll get leadership positions when their state forms. The destructive..er...disruptive force that students wield during protests can never be too underestimated. Police cen't use excessive force against them too for the fear of escalating tensions into a civil war.
2. Make the regional leader go on a fast-unto-death amidst a sprinkling of violence/arson/loot from the students you have purchased. All the while escalating the protests cum violence levels a notch more everyday.
   
3. Nearing the 6th day of the fast put the region on a complete halt with our well-known protest called Bandh.
4. Use our 24X7 media as a catalyst in the whole process by showing the ever increasing protests on TV and the regional politicians unleash venom on the government.
5. As soon as the doctors attending the fast-unto-death politician declare that he is in mortal danger of slipping into coma/death the center will blink and say "Yes" to the new state.
6. There is going to be a lot of rejoicing and also demands for pardon to the "patriotic" students who had indulged in arson/loot during protests.
7. Profit!!!!

Already Gorkha Jagran Morcha(GJM) has stepped up its demand for a separate state using the above formula. Waiting for Vidarbh, Poorvanchal, Bodoland,etc to go on similar paths soon.

People, I am going positive

Just the other day I was reflecting on my online history and I discovered that I only write negative things!!! Negative about our President, Prime Minister, Heroes, Heroines and almost everyone. For a bystander it may seem that I no longer seem to have anything positive to say about anyone. I know it's not the case. The actual case is this. I take the effort to write only if it is anything negative about anything! And I pass it off in the garb of humor. I don't know from where I have took that inspiration or when it began, but it looks like I was emulating a columnist or an editorial. Nobody writes a column on positives of anything unless it is about spirituality, right? Look at Shobha De, Khushwant Singh, Vir Sanghvi, etc.

I am putting an end to it now, on the records. Even if I have to write something negative I am going to force myself to write 2 things positive about the person or thing. If I don't do it flog me publicly, people :)

As a first step I've deleted some immensely negative sounding articles from my blog. Please point me any article that still needs to be removed. Thanks!

My second rant on Big Boss 3

Ah! Yesterday's BB was an episode nobody will forget in a hurry. BB opened the session for nominations and we were on the edge of our seats to know who the new guys will nominate and whether Bakhtiyar is still in the cross-eye of the evil-five(Vindu, Rohit, Raju, Poonam, Claudia). We were also eager to see how BB deals with the way Vindu, Rohit and Raju discuss nominations so freely. And an edge-seater the episode turned out to be.

BB let Poonam, Pravesh, Vinod, Bakhtiyar, Aditi and Claudia cast their nominations. And the killer blow - Vindu, Rohit and Raju, basically, lost their previlige to cast their nominations. And the other killer-killer blow: All six who got to nominate got nominated - Bakhtiyar, Pravesh and Aditi with 3 votes each and Claudia, Vinod and Poonam with one vote each. The damndest thing of these nominations is gonna be that a person with one vote is going to leave BB this week(my hunch is Claudia). Then the Killerest blow - BB showed all the contestants a prolonged video of how Vindu, Rohit and Raju discuss nominations. All the while Vindu(the scum of the earth) and Rohit(the sni-bitch of the world) were laughing at eachother. And Raju later clarifies with Vinod that he was just lending an ear to the planner and that he could not alight out of a moving train. Later in the evening Rohit has a nervous break-down when the magnitude of the event dawns on him/her. But he has shown such drama before. So can't tell if his "evilness" has reduced.

Poonam Dhillon got to talk to her children on the gift that Tanaaz gave her before she left BB. I was surprised that her children were telling her that they were proud of the way she is playing. Thankfully, she showed that she still has some human element in her by not nominating Bakhtiyar. But this woman is still the weirdest woman in BB3. She never displays strong feelings even after seeing her supposed allies bitch and plan about her. I, personally, detest people who do not show their true emotions and slyly indulge in the game.

Pravesh - I had high hopes on this guy. But turned out to be a damp squib. He nominated Bakhtiyar and Aditi, in alliance with the evil-axis, and without displaying any tangible reason.

Bakhtiyar - as if you haven't guessed by now, I love this guy. He has until now played a clean game and is extremely emotional(this is not the reason i like him). I like him because he shows his true emotions. But he sure can work on the amount of crying he does.

Claudia - The dumb-bimbo of the show does her nominations for petty things and things that she doesn't understand and most of all because of opinions formed by things told to her by others. I'd be glad to see her go out this week.

Another guy who has played cleanly is Vinod Kambli. Surprisingly, I hated him when he came in. So, I tell myself again, not to judge a book from its cover.

Just when I was planning to quit watching BB because of it's similarities with the daily soaps where everyone is scheming against everyone else, comes a redeemer of an episode. I am hoping to see a new alliance forming with a few misunderstandings clearing up and the evil-axis shutting their trap and leaving the BB mansion one by one.

My first rant on Big Boss 3

My first post on the happenings of BB3 after week 4, or is it 5? Finally, it seems like all the characters are unravelling.

Yesterday was nominations. I thought Vindu would be the person who’d get maximum votes in it. But came to a conclusion that you can never tell how a woman thinks! You would think that after how Vindu behaved with Sherlyn before she left BB3 house all right minded women would first vote for him. But I was wrong to think in that way. Apparently, there is a bigger concern for women than utter disrespect to womankind. And what is that? Somebody bitching about them behind their backs. Two out of every five women are more concerned with bitching behind their backs.

Shamita, oh how i hate such over-sugary treats. She is a one sickeningly sweet personality who’d be okay if she kept her mouth shut. Every week she’ll nominate her two housemates with loads of sorries and they are actually very good people syrups. This woman lacks conviction. She lacks a vent for her pent-up feelings. Oh wait! Are her tears her vents? If so then she is venting fine :)

Raju Srivastav, this person was in the reckoning for the title. But he had to play politics. Like they say, you can’t keep politics out of a UPite or a Bihari. I am hardly a person who would spend Rs.3 to save a person. But I had thought that I’d save him if he ever was nominated. But this week he lost that privilege from me and the wifey.

Rohit Verma, the weirdo in the house. Every season BB tries to put in a weirdo like this. And mostly they are lucky if they survive two weeks in the house amidst the intensely hostile housemates. This one is a eunuch. First few weeks our sympathies were with him/her. But he has turned out to be the most potent snitch in the world. Now, how I wish Kamal was back to get a piece of his ass :)

Vindu, an example of a failure son of a famous actor. He is the motor-mouth, rambler, mentalcase, empty-head of the house. The whole of India is wondering why this loser is in Big Boss. Nobody is even vaguely aware of his anticidents to merit a berth in BB, except that he is a son of a Famous Shwarzneggeriesh Indian actor. BTW, BB fared miserably in selecting it’s contestants. Jaya, Vindu, Claudia, Kamal, Rohit – we hardly knew them. The trash of BB3. I’ll be glad to see Vindu leaving from the house.

Yesterday, BB made the nominations an open affair because most of the participants were planning nominations with eachother. This was fair to the people who planned their nominations b4 hand but it seemed unfair to those who didn’t. But what to do…aisa hain toh hain. Everyone came to know the true colors of each other. The planners couldn’t change their plans lest they’d be thought of as cheats in front of those who they planned with. Tanaaz and Bakhtiyar were together nominated with overwhelming majority with 6 votes each. Next in number of votes were Vindu and Ismail with 4 each. When everybody was thinking that only Tanaaz and Bakhtiyar were the only two who’d get nominated BB played the trump by nominating Vindu and Ismail too. I think it makes commercial sense to the channel as people would hardly vote to save one of the couple. Who’d they vote for? But now they’d get overwhelming number of votes. They’ve already got 4 votes from our house. 2 to tanaaz and 2 to bakhtiyar, one from each one of us. Yes, we voted for the first time yesterday. I guess, we are trapped into the charm of what is BB :) As far as what we’ve seen BB3 and we think we’ve seen 95% of that stuff :) we think Bakhtiyar and Tanaaz have been true to their self. Even Raju has fallen by the roadside.

Does it mean that BB will try to get them nominated to drawn in huge votes? Let’s see what the coming days bring us.

Review of VGP Golden Beach Resort, Chennai

We visited this resort for one day on Sep 24 '09. We were actually visiting Pondicherry when we thought that we must also pay a visit to Mahabalipuram before we left to Bangalore. That is when we struck upon an idea of staying in seaside resort nearby. Somebody had suggested to us this resort. So ,we had called up VGP to book for two nights of stay and the person made our booking without even taking any down payment. We were a bit uneasy about it. But later realised what a big blessing it was!
As if the hot and humid weather of Chennai wasn't enough of a spoilsport, VGP resort did its best to aggravate the feeling. Since it was so hot and humid we decided that we'll stay here only for one night and the reception didn't make a fuss about our initial 2 night booking we had made on phone, thanks to him:).
First, about the overall property. They have a vast estate but very ill-maintained. There are umpteem figurines lining the whole estate but they look like straight out of a horror movie. There were stray dogs all over the place but not aggressive(thanks to the small mercies), more on them later.
We had taken the sea-facing row-house for Rs.2000(+250tax). The room was big but again ill-maintained. It had a damp smell in it. The bed sheet hardly covered the mattress and kept coming off if we slept on it. There was no blanket in the room. There was one sofa kept there which had holes in it with an old looking cloth upholstery. There was one coffee table with an old and torn rag on top of it. Why even bother covering it, I ask? The A/C had no swing fins! Its remote was not working. The TV did not have a remote. And the channels were all fuzzy-wuzzy-the house-keeping would later explain to us that it is the same for all rooms as a great consolation. There was no drinking water kept in the room.
The house keeping was another nightmare. When we called them up to ask them for water, remote for TV, etc they couldn't speak in english. They knew only Tamil. Other times they were giggling and passing the phone around. When asked for drinking water they said that we could take the water from the garden! Even the room service was lousy. Again only Tamil speaking staff and the food was pricey and greasy.
Nightmare of nightmares, we were shook off our lounging in our room by a thundering sound outside the room followed by a dog's squeals. We thought something big must've fallen on one of those listless stray dogs outside. When I went out and enquired from the house-keeping staff hovering outside the room, we were told that they were shooting down dogs!!! And we were thinking of going out to have our dinner outside the resort. It's another story that we did go out, didn't wanting to bother with their hopeless staff. We saw men dragging a dead dog when were coming back(was I relieved that it was not a dead person or what!) and my younger son kept asking why they were doing so! :( We could hear gunshots until early morning of the next day.
We were glad when it was 8am when we started checking out and fled from the place. Thank god they didn't take money for 2 nights of stay in the first place!

Most essential software that I install on my computer after a fresh OS install

That was a heck of a long title, wasn't it? But helps in search engine tagging ;)
Ok, so, the past few days I've been busy with the re-install of the OS of my company laptop. And I am just about to get my new laptop. So, I thought that it would be a good idea to list down the basic essential software I would spend time downloading and installing. Here it goes:
1. First and foremost would be Firefox without any questions. Not if I were installing a linux system on my machine, though, because all the flavors of linux come with Firefox as the default browser.
2. My corporate laptop came with WinZip already but an archive handler IMO is the next important thing anyone would need on their computer. WinZip is commercial but there are infinite options for a free archive handlers as well.
3. PDF file reader! I have grown fond of FoxReader as opposed to Acrobat. Adobe acrobat is sly fat lady of pdf readers. It occupies huge memory, it takes long to load and it keeps downloading latest versions on its own. I don't like it one bit.
4. VLC media player for playing ANY video file. There is no replacement of vlc in this department. There is no media player that will play any media file out of the box(OTB).
5. Pidgin, for IMing. Pidgin is real nifty with support for many proprietary IM clients like yahoo, gtalk, msn, etc.
6. TweetDeck, for the twitter client.
7. For some java related stuff that I have in which I store my personal information I need a JDK. So, a jdk is next in line.
8. I would like to have a copy of Eclipse for that occasional outburst of programming. And these days I am checking out Android. Therefore, the android SDK is next.
9. My corporate laptop has Microsoft office pre-loaded. But on linux/Mac OSX I'd need something like OpenOffice for that occasional document that I need to create or view. Many linux flavors already come packaged with a copy of OpenOffice.
10. Ah, did I forget the flash plugin download the browser will make you do to watch anything on youtube?

Please add a comment if you feel there is something I missed.

The Twitter Experience

Finally getting around to write about my Twitter experience!

But why did I turn to twitter ITFP(in the first place, duh!)?
I was getting sloppy with blogging inspite of the heck of an audience that I get everyday ;) And facebook I found to be heavyweight. Heavyweight? I don't know where to start but here are my grouses with facebook in no particular order:

• It takes a heck of a long time to open.
• Finally, it's a bunch of people updating some statuses and people commenting on it.
• There are some nasty people putting nasty comments viewable to whoever is your friend which you cannot delete!
  
• No quick way to see what people are upto. Like, with the help of some clients.
• I know you can write about yourself only as much you like others to know. But facebook is just intrusive in it's format. If you say tyoo little about yourself you are a voyeur and if you tell too much about yourself you have privacy issues. There is no winning.

Overall, it has never appealed to me. Then there is the IM. But IM is hardly ever used these days except for chatting where calling is not an option. AND its soo gay if you chat too much with your best same-sex buddy ;)
In comes Twitter with a lot of buzz attached to it. And I think what the heck lemme give it a try.

At first Twitter comes through as utterly unfriendly. It's, like, saying I am the one who's popular you will have to f*$king search and know more about me, how to use it, etc. It's lack of newbie help is just too stand-offish. It must be something wrong with me to not try and get to know it better and give up on it, is its message.But having stuck to it I find it better than the other alternatives in the following ways:

• It is lightweight. No lengthy bio-data to fill-up. Heck it's based on the max SMS length of 140 chars so it's gotta be pithy.
  
• It's based on a very simple format. 1. Broadcast a msg to your followers. 2. Your followers can reply just to you. 3. World can see your broadcasts but cannot send msg to you. 4. You can direct message one follower for privacy's sake too. 5. The best part nobody gets to see what others are writing to you.
  
• There are n-number of clients for it. Also, plugins with IM clients.
• I have a few people I no longer IMed much, on my follower's list now and we catch up quite often. This is the most important reason why you need twitter. Because IM is history and this is the most unobtrusive way to catch up with people who you used to IM before.
  
• The other appeal of twitter is the Mobile way to update your followers while on the move. Which I haven't tried but it's there. Phew! what if I get stuck on an island with only SMS & MMS working then I can update my followers with the sexy scenes of the exotic island that they are missing :) Or heck, a quick twitpic update of the dripping gorgeous air-hostess right from the esconce of your seat :) The possibilities are mind-numbing.

Anyyways, here are some lessons to the newbies while am at it:

• Be careful about what you broadcast as it is open to public viewing.
• Be careful about what you reply to followers with @username too. Though it is going only to specific person it is still viewable in your public timeline.
• The only way you can be sure of privacy is when you direct message someone.
• Do not reply to someone in a broadcast way as it clutters the timeline of all your followers.
• Also do not post helluva lot of broadcasts in a day. Again the same problem. I have personally unsubscribed people who did that.
• You don't have to think much before unsubscribing anyone. It's least unobtrusive. I keep getting random followers and I even don't come to know when they've unfollowed me. Also, you are not obliged to follow someone just because they are following you.
• The best way to use twitter is with a client. It makes replying, keeping to 140 chars limit and shortening lengthy urls a cakewalk. I use TweetDeck. Also, it instantly updates me with an alert of any update I got from someone I follow.
  

Last but not the least, twitter has MANY java APIs which I plan to use to make a java app for my mobile, one of these days. And finally the last thing my twitter id: http://twitter.com/gparmar :)

Damn funny alien joke

Well sonny, let me tell you bout the time the wife and I met some aliens. They landed on our farm one night and introduced themselves. Nice people. We got to talkin' and of course the conversation turned to sex. Now, the wife and I are open minded, so we thought, you know, in the name of science and interspecies understanding, we should give it a try. So the lady alien and I go off the the saucer while the male alien takes my wife to the bedroom.

Next morning, the wife and I talk about it. She says the alien had such a tiny penis, she started to laugh. Well, he says they aren't built like us. If she wants it thicker, just pull on his left ear. If she wants it longer, just pull on his right ear. So she gets it set up the way she likes and they have a great time.

"How was it for you?" she asks.

I say, "Pretty good, but that alien damn near pulled my ears off!"

Quite an interesting conundrum, this one

What must happen here in this story: http://chattahbox.com/curiosity/2009/04/02/sterile-man-pays-neighbor-to-get-wife-pregnant-and-then-things-get-weird/

While it seemed like a male fantasy coming true for Maus he has to now contend with twists like he is sterile, his wive's been cheating on him and he might have to return the $2500 that he took for his favors. I wonder which one of those twists is giving him a sleepless night.

On the other hand, Maus' wife got more in bargain than her husband indulging in IT with another woman, though with her knowledge. She had to go through the trauma of telling her husband that she's been an infidel. All this for what $2500?

Maus, though he did provide a service in exchange for compensation. But, does the fee, once paid, not entitle the buyer to some assurance Of reliability? Hmm? Huh? Ahh. These are not easy questions to answer. Not for any man.

Here's wishing Capt.Gopinath a delayed/cancelled election

Capt.Gopinath, the low-cost air-travel pioneer in India has enlisted himself for election '09 to get elected as an MP. He had founded Air Deccan which started the era of low-cost flying in India. And with it's demise so did the bubble of low-cost flying too burst. Along with low-cost flying Air Deccan also was known for really shabby customer treatment. Almost 90% of it's flight would take-off with atleast 2 hours of delay. If the requisite number of seats on a flight were not filled, Air Deccan would cancel such flights without batting an eyelid, too. Air Deccan flights were reminiscent of the buses on our Indian roads, plied by the private operator, that would not start until they had filled up. One could see such buses on our roads where the driver has started the bus and is stepping on the gas for people to think that it is about to leave but the truth is that these buses wouldn't leave without all of it's seats getting filled. Air Deccan reminded one of this scene.
Let me take this opportunity to be a good samaritan inspite of being one of his disgruntled passengers and, duely, "not" wish him any of the following on his maiden political venture: That he gets elected as an MP and:
1. His first flight to Delhi is delayed by atleast 4 hours.
2. His government alloted home is cancelled when he arrives there with his lock, stock and barrels.
3. He enters into a post-poll alliance with a party that ditches him midway.
4. He is asked to pay extra for even peanuts inside the parliament building.

People, would you want to add anything more to this? :)

"Pakistan - Riding a Tiger"

‘Pakistan is only taking half measures in the fight against terrorism. Pakistan is paying the price for not heeding our advice,’ Mr Chidambaram(PC, our Home Minister) said. ‘Unless you dismantle terror, one day or the other you'll be hurt,’ he told Pakistan. ‘We have put enormous pressure on Pakistan, but the response is in Pakistan's hands... They have not gone the whole distance to dismantle terror infrastructure. We advised them that it is not enough if they nab one or two people whom they suspect to be the masterminds.’

Kudos to our Home Minister, I am glad we are, finally, talking how we should have been talking all the time. May I add my own aphorism on the subject, "Jo doosron ke liye gaddah khodta hai wohi usme girata hain(Those who dig a grave for others end up falling in it themselves.)". This is after a longtime that I find pride in our Home Minister and Foriegn minister. On the other hand I had expected a lot more from Zardari, a person who lost his wife to Terrorism. He is the living proof that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Banning his opponent from contesting elections, treating LeT, JeM, Taliban, etc with kid gloves are not the ways expected of a person who is a victim of terrorism. Under his leadership Pakistan is leading a way of speak and counter-speak.

That said, my sympathies with the police personnel who lost their lives in the lahore attack.

Arguments lately

Lately, I've been embroiled in, sometimes heated, arguments, with one person in particular, on various subjects. The three subjects of arguments are as follows:
1. Whether Renuka Chaudhary's war cry "Pub-Bharo" was in good taste or not. I was obviously in favor of it :) But I have solid reasons, mind you.
2. Whether wizard based technologies should be the way forward. I am more in favor of "control" in my tech stuff so A-to-Z wizard based stuff is not for me. I need the element of control that ties ends together or I don't feel in control. And it is the case, if you want to do something out of the way of the wizard technologies, you end up scratching your heads.
3. Whether Sachin Tendulkar is god. I admit that I went through a phase where I used to think that India had no chance of winning when his wicket fell. But I am well past that phase. In fact, though I like the cricket the new team plays under Dhoni, I am no longer a fan of cricket! I fail to understand how a person who was so very inconsistent on the field be termed the God of Cricket! When I was young and impressionable there is no dearth of times when he has let me down by giving his wicket away.

Believe it or not: This chart works!

Just discovered this chart according to chinese lunar calendar which predicts the gender of your baby pretty accurately. Please note that this is posted here not as a gender selector for "ishq par waqt ta zor kab raha hai....ha...ha...ha"
http://www.thelaboroflove.com/chart/cal.html

I have checked this chart for my boys and myself too and it accurately predicted my sex..i mean gender :)

Red Indian Vs. White man

Red Indian Chief 'Two Eagles' was asked by a white government official,
'You have observed the white man for 90 years. You've seen his wars and his
technological advances. You've seen his progress, and the damage he's
done.'

The Chief nodded in agreement.

The official continued, 'Considering all these events, in your opinion,
where did the white man go wrong?'

The Chief stared at the government official for over a minute and then
calmly replied.
'When white man find land, Indians running it, no taxes, no debt, plenty
buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water. Women did all the work, Medicine man
free. Indian man spend all day hunting and fishing; all night having sex.'

Then the chief leaned back and smiled. 'Only white man dumb enough to think
he could improve a system like that.'