Funny robbing commercial :)

Buying a Wii

I am walking in a store... this is what I was thinking... Too bad I'm not going anywhere for holidays and most of my friends will be out of town...
Can I go somewhere not paying fortune over tickets.. nah... does not seem to be possible. Oh well.... what's that? an advertisement for "Nintendo Wii for $250 limited stock on hand"...
I don't play video games much... let me find out... store employee says they don't have any in the stock but might get some on Friday morning. That's too much I think.. it's easier to buy online.
I come home and search online for Wii.. it is not available anymore.. not for affordable prices anyway... Let me get up at 7am on Friday and give a shot.
I get up and call store...
Me: Did you get any Wii's?
Response: Yes we got some but they're all gone.
Another store.. same response... and another.. same response.

Well, let me give a last shot- call one last shop. The answer there is "yes sir, we've few". Five minutes later, I'm in the shop. And five more minutes, I'm a proud and happy Wii owner.... something to cheer about finally:)

Extremes of evolution: Pistol shrimp

I just saw this on Discovery and I cannot believe that a shrimp just a few inches long can produce a bubble that can burst at solar temperature...

Cheetos

Whenever I was hungry late after the noon at office, one thing that I liked to buy from vending machine without thinking was Cheetos- hot and crunchy version



Today when I walked to the same old vending machine, I found baked and lifeless version of Cheetos (with flashing words "fewer calories and less fat") replacing my favortie snack at the office and hidden ... world is getting filled with those diet-minded idiots... hmm life sucks....

Amazing football play

This is last 2 seconds from a Devision-2 game between two unknown small colleges. But the play is unbelievable. Tigers did 14 laterals in alst 2 seconds to win the game...

Colts will beat Pats

Colts just beat Jags and are 6-0 and Pats are 7-0...
Two great teams... but only one can stay so after Nov 4th.
My pick: Colts!

Real life James Bond... from Russia

This is crazy news... a teenage boy has somehow survived a two-hour flight clinging to the wing of a Boeing 737.

Here is the link.

One dream fulfilled

Almost two decades of following cricket hoping that India will do well only to get disappointed time and again...

Finally then comes world 20-20 championship....
Beating England and South Africa to reach semi-finals, and beating Australia in semis and then beating Pakistan in finals...

Phew... one lifelong dream fulfilled....

Birth rate and contrasting rules

As we've heard over the years, China has been practising one-child policy to keep birth rate low and had success over years.

On the contrary Russia, which has been seeing declining birth rate over decades, now has a new promotion: "Make a baby. Win a car"

Favorite song of the last month

Thanks to Dhingana, Youtube, TeluguFM, and myriad of websites I can listen to so many songs each day. Of so many songs, somehow few get the most attention that I end up playing the same song in loop all day all week.
And few weeks, another song comes that just flatters me and it's in loop.
Here's my current favorite...
Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah

Fancy vending machine, traditional wedding, and colorful menu...

For amateur astronomers...

Google introduced a way to see and learn a bit about the sky and navigate thru galaxies ... something that can be a good pastime :)

Boring Monday noon

It is 3 pm on a not very bright Monday...
Tea is not helping much either... time to go back to old games...
Smack the pingu :)

While scoring high is fun, getting the lowest score (of course, higher than zero)is more challenging...

Finally!!

No melodrama, No crying
No gadgets, No stupidity

One man... haunted by the past... hunting for the beginning
Lot of men... scared by one man... hunting for the man

And after a long time a movie really worh $10 ...
Here is a good scene and the title track...

Been a while

I can't recall the last time I made a sketch. It makes me happy that the days are brighter and merrier. Though, I still wish I had made couple sketches...
Some old sketch, copied from somewhere...

Couple more Fevicol ads

The one with Katrina Kaif

Rajasthani background

Pain of writing self-review

Every six months HR keeps sending reminders- "please remember to submit your self-review". May be it is their job to remind me that I am part of a company not just my team. No matter what and when, I always found it to be a painful experience to review myself.

I'm good at this, I'm not good at that, blah blah blah.... it means nothing in the end anyway. I know what I'm good at and I also know what I'm not so good at; everybody knows, my manager knows too... I'm not sure what to make out of other's comments, if there are any...

No matter what I write or what I babble I'm going to end up with what management wants... then why document all this? Why every six months?

I'm not sure if there will be a change in the system? ever? I wish there was somebody who can write my review as a service ;)
For noew, I guess I've to live with it... and go back to writing my review :(

When you're bored

For simple timepass... play this
http://www.freestuffhotdeals.com/hacker/1.html

You can search for meaning of words but don't use answers from web search...

China to control Olympics weather

Apparently China is planning to force rain ahead of Olympics so that they can bring sunshine to the opening ceremony. How I wish they make it easier to afford so we can use it in June here...

From a news article(Link): Chance of showers during the 2008 Beijing Olympics: 50 percent. But Chinese meteorologists have a plan to bring sunshine.

The meteorologists say they can force rain in the days before the Olympics, through a process known as cloud-seeding, to clean the air and ensure clear skies. China has been tinkering with artificial rainmaking for decades, but whether it works is a matter of debate among scientists.

Fun ideas for a rainy/gloomy day

So I was thinking what I can do on a gloomy weekend day...
There are couple things like hanging out with friends, doing sketching...
Wondering what else we can do with a group...
Any ideas???

Three little words :)

Funny quote for today's 70's show:

Fez to Kelso: Kelso, why don't you tell Jackie where you go. That way she can find you when she wants to do it.

Kelso to Fez: Fez, the foundation of a good relationship is three little words: I don't know.

What're you doing? I don't know.

What're you thinking about? I don't know.

Who's that under you? I don't know.

It's bulletproof man.

Corrupt state of Indian legal system...

An article forwarded by a friend...

Kulkarni, the only remaining witness in the infamous BMW case catches both prosecution and defense lawyers on camera colluding to buy off the witness.

We know it always happens, but when you actually see it, it's even more depressing. The accused, Sanjeev Nanda is the son of a rich arms dealer, who 8 years back, ran over 8 people and killed them driving his BMW.

The video of the expose is on NDTV.

Indian airliners campaign war

Apparently the hoardings were put up within days of each other- starting with the jet airways hoarding (at the bottom), followed by Kingfisher air hoarding (middle) and finally Go Air following the suite (top) :)

Fear of needles

Daydreaming at the time of the blood test...

Some things never change

There were plenty of very nice ads that I saw in India- ranging from LIC to AIG, and from RIN soap to Surf Excel, from thums up to pepsi gold. I just wish somebody will put them up soon on YouTube...

India exited very early from world cup but the faith in the team did not disapper completey yet. Couple of ads showcasing that:

An old woman sketch

Making of Tom & Jerry

I was talking to a friend over dinner on how earlier days of animation involved thousands of hand-drawn sketches unlike today's computer generated pictures... how 100s of hours of effort was put into a 5 minute cartoon... so here is what I found on the web.

Every second of finished film consists of 24 frames, requiring 12 to 24 drawings, depending upon the speed of movement - faster movements need more drawings per second, slower moves can be animated with less, with three or even more frames shot of every drawing (from).

And here is a small sketch that I shud have made long back :)

How to play marbles (golis)

When I was a small boy, I did not play too many sports but one game that I sure did and was good at was playing marbles. There were 2-3 versions of the game that we used play regularly.

Here is one game which I liked and where I won lot of marbles from other players. It can be played with any number of players taking turns but here is the simple two-player version.

First, we etch a rectangle shaped box in the sand(called "the box"), with a readily available wall typically designated as one of the rectangle's edges.
Then, we draw a line, about 8-10 meters from the box, from where players have to shoot the marbles.

A typical round 1:
Player 1 and Player 2 pitch in one marble each.
Player 1 goes first. He throws 2 marbles into the box from the line. Player 2 has to select a marble (lets call taboo marble) which makes it tough for palyer 1 to shoot and hit a goal. Player 1 is now supposed to shoot and hit any marble other than the taboo marble. If he hits, he wins the two marbles. If he fails, the player 2 gets a chance till one of them win...

After this round, second round starts with two marbles each.

Notes: If any of the marbles fall outside the box, player 2 uses his index finger to push the marble into the box. He tries to push it closer to the marbles inside the box so that it'll be difficult for the other player to hit the goal marble.

I always had one or two favorite marbles which I used as shooter marbles. One lucky shooter marble once earned me about 40+ marbles.

If marbles are ever broken, the play is considered dead and it has to be restarted with new marbles.

One Dollar coin

So, a girl walks up to vending machine with the intention of buying a snack...
'a dollar bill' is inserted in...
'oops! my favorite cookie isnt there' says she...
'return the money' button is hit...
'Ding'- a dollar coin falls down...
'a dollar coin'- it is the first time she is seeing one ...
'...' - I don't know the word for that expression ...
here's my comic sketch for that... :)

My geeky friend

Talking to a friend...

Me: What's up?
Her: Hi
Me: You look different.
Her: I'm totally blank.
Me: Oh, when are you not?
Her: Really, I feel high...
Me: Hmm?
Her: I went for work-out in the morning... you know lot of exercise makes me high...
Me: (chuckle..)
Her: It's true... exercise releases Endorphin which makes people get high...
I: (faint)....

Can the world get any geekier? :)

For a change

I copied from c&h...

My first "original" sketch...

It's a pen-skecth...

A young boy

in winter....

A view from the flight

Happy ending

Colts beat Bears 29-17. What an happy ending to the season...

Well, the season itself did not shape too well for the team I rooted for,Seahawks. A season that started with so many expectations after last year's Seattle's superbowl run... was full of inconsistency... team was all banged up by countless injuries throughout the season... result Seahawks' season ends up with a loss to Bears in sudden-death overtime game 27-24 in divisional playoffs game.

Losing to bears in overtime.... That automatically meant I rooted for any team that was playing Chicago. Chicago plays NO in NFC chamiponship game... To be frank, unlike the rest of the America, I didn't expect New Orleans to beat Chicago in Championship game... and that meant Chicago was in the superbowl.

Meanwhile in AFC, Colts advanced to Superbowlby beating Patriots in a mind-blowing AFC championship game... I was so happy to see that reault itself... as I was rooting for Colts in AFC playoffs...

And that sets up Colts vs Chicago... and today Colts beat Chicago.... After an exhausting football season, I can't easily describe how happy I am for Colts and Manning and of course for my self.... Thank you COLTS! Thank you Manning!

Ending of the season = What am gonna do on Sundays when Sun is hiding?
Maybe more skecthes... :)
Nevertheless a happy ending to the season = I can sleep happily till the new season starts....

Perception of being fat...

Pepsi & Cadbury ads... from India...

Salam-E-Ishq

How come in Bollywood

Weird things keep happening in the movies, again and again and again...
For all the changes that Indian cinema has been through over few decades, somethings have not changed...

Why do actors suffer from certain types of amnesia where they lose only the memories of their loved ones?
Already through an accident, why are they so careless that they will get into another toward the end of the movie? (Invariably, the memory problems from first one get resolved by the second accident)
Why does heroine suddenly stop wearing makeup, while at the same time she does all other things fine? Why will she be trying to undress in hallway and then close the door on seeing the hero...? (Few drops of glycerin falling and that's it... the girl gets up from bed and ready for another slow song)

And will Vidya Balan ever stop crying????? (Btw, I heard a PrajaShakti rumour that they've shot series of secens with Vidya Balan crying and acting as journalist/radio jackie bla blah... and making use of those secnes in different movies like LRMB, Guru, SEI... ).

I'm a believer

A very nice song... thanks to A for telling about this one....



Lyrics:
I thought love was only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else but not for me
Love was out to get me
Thats the way it seemed
Disappointment haunted all my dreams

Then I saw her face
Now Im a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
Im in love
Im a believer
I coundnt leave her if I tried

I thought love was more or less a giving thing
Seems the more I gave the less I got
Whats the use in trying
All you get is pain
When I needed sunshine I got rain

Then I saw her face
Now Im a believer.....

cricket highlights blog

If you're bored... this one has the highlights of latest matches.
http://cricketvideosunplugged.blogspot.com/

First attempt...

to draw a cartoon using MSPaint

Now a diet drug for Dogs?

The world's first weight-loss drug for dogs has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)... (news )

WTH- They have a diet drug for dogs now.
Who looked into dogs' minds to read that they are worried about their weight?
Why to feed the dogs so much in the first place anyway?


Sorry chubby, you have to stop dreaming about bones and fatty food. Your friendly humans have decided that they will watch your weight besides theirs.

What is HA4S?

HA4S (Hungry At 4 pm Syndrome), also known as EHS (Evening Hungry Syndrome) is a tummy infection that lot of indoor workers suffer from on weekdays.

Symptoms:
Stop working around 4 pm.
Start pinging people online to find out tea/evening snacks plans
Important issues at work don't seem important anymore
Start checking in messenger who is still in office.

So, when I discussed this with my friend, he put it in better perspective "well- it is breakfast time in HongKong; if its eating time somewhere, you gotta be hungry" :)

Evolution- part I: The rise of Broccoli

Some 1000s of years ago, somewhere deep in a European forest...



Centuries later sometime in the 19th century, a fine European gentleman saw that wild by-product and mistook it for something edible...
That moment on, people's lives and eating habits have changed forever...
(Broccoli Saga to be contd...)