Welcome to my la-la land!

After a year of silence, I decided it is this blog place which has made me incapable of blogging. Well, you do need excuses to move on in life and here is another.

I have just begun blogging at http://kayspan.spaces.live.com and hope to maintain this blogging streak. Wish me luck!

As to this blogspot, here is the final message: R.I.P

Robin Uthappa
Sourav Ganguly
Virender Sehwag
Sachin Tendulkar
Rahul Dravid
Yuvraj Singh
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Ajit Agarkar
Harbhajan Singh
Zaheer Khan
Munaf Patel

Amazing performance. I enjoyed the World Cup Final today. We almost won the cup. Just heard this from one of the commentator on the show.

"There has never been a team which promises so much on paper but delivers so little" Perhaps that's exactly how we could characterize our country. We are such pushovers.

So who are we killing today?

If status column is looking RED, then it means your flight is cancelled or indefinitely rescheduled. This is today's flight status and only 50% of the flights are displayed here.

Pack some mattresses, will you ...

Since there are several curious souls who want to know about the effectiveness of GM Diet, I hereby declare the results of GM Diet.

I enjoyed the GM Diet program and maintained a journal of all my experiences on a daily basis. Here is how the journal reads from the section where I recorded my weight differences.

Day 0: x kgs
Day 1: less by 1.2 kgs
Day 2: less by 0.8 kgs
Day 3: less by 0.9 kgs
Day 4: less by 1.1 kgs
Day 5: less by 0.7 kgs
Day 6: less by 0.4 kgs
Day 7: less by 0.5 kgs

There you go. So I lost 5.6 kgs by the end of 7 days of rigorous diet routine. Do note that I measured weight every day around the same time.

On Day 7, my legs felt good. On Day 8, eating a full meal was a different experience. Just out of curiousity, I measured my weight on Day 8 after resuming my usual eating habits. Guess what? I made good progress. I gained as much as 5.1 kgs of the 5.6 kgs I had lost by the previous day.

I'm so happy about the results. Shows what I'm truly capable of.

I have the nasty habit of arranging all news channels in a sequence, by language. Quite often, the same story plays on all news channels. Same face, same interviews ... what are the odds? You flip the channels and you catch the same story in every news channel. Like they are pre-programmed and synced. Worst part is I don't even consider these stories worthy of a 8 PM or 9 PM time slot.

Sample this .. Prime time news informs you that Ash and Abhishek are engaged. You are shown a repeating clip of Amitabhji trying to drive a car with the newly engaged couple seated in the back. Next story informs you that Abhishek popped the question when in Canada after Guru's premiere. Now its time for the visual to show you Guru's hoarding. Next story informs me that Amitabhji and Amar Singhji are very happy with the couple's decision. Time for these two accomplished individuals to show off their sherwanis. Next story informs me that there is celebration in a street in Allahabad. A bunch of eager-to-please street faces appear on the visuals now. Then comes the last story on the headlines where I'm informed that Ash's parents are tight-lipped about the developments.

Question: Why is the whole nation hijacked by these news channels to show us only one story? Did the whole nation come to a standstill? How come there are no other stories?

And then there is always a "breaking news". Breaking News used to be an alert! Something significant. But for our desi news channels, breaking news can be an entire cricket match covered through that narrow strip of screen space. Or it could be that some Singh kissed a Rakhi Something on the lips. Or it could be that Jade Goody has been issued a Indian VISA to travel to this country. There are more, but I'm sure you get the idea. Breaking news segment will actually flash for an hour even after moved to the headlines. So what the heck is the meaning of breaking news? There is always some news that breaks out every second, every minute, every hour. I have huge respect for CNN. Our desi news channels must learn from CNN how to be selective about announcing breaking news on their channels.

Every day, many junkies sell & buy illegal drugs. But when a Rahul Mahajan or Fardeen Khan buys stuff, its national news. Then the country wakes up to the ill-effects of drug usage and abuse. On a daily basis, asians are subjected to racial abuse in countries like UK. But when a Shilpa Shetty is hurled racial slurs on a highly paid up TV appearance, the whole nation is served the breaking news. And now even the ministry wakes up and decides to do something about it. Are we enlightened of these sorry state affairs only when led by a celebrity? Narmada Bachao Andolan needs an Aamir Khan. Sudan needs George Clooney. Afghanistan needs Angelina Jolie. Malawi needs Madonna. AIDS awareness initiative needs Richard Gere. Is activism the birth right of celebrities? Hey, is anyone aware of the work done by NGOs in this country. Some of them are working to find solutions in this country right from the grassroots level. How many NGOs have success stories that are shared in the glare of media? You still need a celebrity to draw the cameras to where the issues are. No wonder, this nation is ruled by bunch of film stars. Call it retirement planning. After a successful or unsuccessful stint at the movies, every rahul, raj and roshni choose politics. And I thought fame lasts only 15 seconds.

And then there is the middle class uprising. Now suddenly any voice raised against the atrocities is traced back to the middle class. Quota issues. RTI act. Protests on the road? Must be the middle class. Who is dissatisfied in the country? Middle class, of course. So do we have a lower class in this country? Not at all. Zilch. We only have middle class and celebrity class. India Shining you see. India Is Poised!

Anyway, I'm not able to tolerate what the news channels bring into my living room these days. Media loves the celebrities. All the national news channels must rename themselves to celebrity news channels. Every hour, the headlines will definitely contain a segment on Ash-Abhishek union. Then there is chicken curry specialist Shilpa Shake-Hips Shetty.

May be I don't need the active medium. I don't want anyone pushing insignificant news into my living room. My appetite for news is solved by passive sources on the web. Yes, I'm a RSS junkie (RSS - the web lingo and definitely not the saffron brigade). I get my daily dose of news from various trust worthy source on the web and I can choose to ignore every celebrity something.

Wonder when my television set will learn to cater content that I like; content that I truly want. Until then I have no other option but to watch Amitji telling me that he is very proud of his son for choosing Aishwarya Rai. May be I should wait for another six months to hear about domestic violence between the newly-weds.

Oh boy! India is Poised alright.

I have always wondered what kind of topics I would like to post in this blog! No conflicts within me as far it was about blogging my life, about my friends, any issues with a social relevance ... politics, leaders, regional, national, international issues ... anything goes. But on several occasions, I have stopped myself from blogging on business related topics, my beliefs on how a business must be run and any neutral comment on the state of affairs. Perhaps, I didn't want my comments to reflect on my professional association. But now that I have NO professional association, I decided to record my observations, comments on this subject. Of course, not in this blog for I don't want to suddenly change the spirit of this blogspace. This is the la-la land remember?

Introducing my latest blog titled Of Davids and Goliaths which is available at the web address http://ofdavidsandgoliaths.blogspot.com. Do expect this blog to deal with business affairs without favoring any individual or an organization. Would be great to see you all follow this new blog too, if it suits your interests. And of course, spread the word around.

Ok so have been planning to take support of one of the so-called fad diets. After looking around for a while, decided to get serious about GM Diet. GM diet plan involves a total cut on carbs and has specific diet plan to be followed for 7 days involving fruits, vegetables and high protein diet. No alcohol during these 7 days too. An advertised end result of following this diet plan is the ability to lose up to 3 kgs at the end of the plan.

Weight loss or otherwise, I wanted to regulate my carb intake. Moreover wanted to do a favor to my knees and make them feel better with little less weight to carry, but that is it. Of course, after these 7 days, I will be continuing an exercise routine. Who said there was a short-cut to these things?

Today is the first day of of my GM Diet routine. Eating just fruits and vegetables isn’t so bad. It gave me a chance to buy all the fruits and veggies that I love eating. Then spent the whole day eating just fruits and water was the drinking companion. Of course, when attending a meet this afternoon in a restaurant, someone was eating a big sandwich. I wanted to snatch it from his hand and eat that yummy bread. That was the only time I felt bad about being on this diet. And its only the first day!

At home, we ate lots of melons, cantaloupes, pomegranate, grapes, apples, sweet lime & oranges. Missed out on pears, plums, strawberries ... some of the other fruits I love eating. It was quite enjoyable. Let's see how the remaining days unfold. Oh yeah, noted down my weight at the start of the diet so I can at least see if there has been any change in my body weight at the end of this diet :-)

~ 1 plate pani puri
~ 1 plate sev puri
~ 40 mins break
~ 1 dirty martini, bitter; top it with honey
~ 2 plates of onion rings
~ some rice, some side dish

The day before. Tomorrow, it's a different story!

Ok so the new year is already here and knowing that I must make some major changes in my life, I hereby publish the very first official list of resolutions to my blog:

1. I will work out at least once in 2 days and watch that weight
2. I will start those french lessons
   
3. I will work less than 50 hours per week and spend less than 15 hours on the internet everyday
   
4. I will start saving money again
   
5. I will eat better - no more untimely meals + cut back on the carb intake
6. I will get some health checkups and take better care of myself
7. I will drive slowly and take care of eleanor (at least one service in this year)
   
8. I will graduate to wine and leave the rest behind
   
9. I will chase that dream of my ultimate profession (still keeping the kerala business model under wraps)
   
10. I will post to my blog at least once per day

Okay…it’s out there…now I have to do it.

Misspell blogspot.com and you get a "mega-site of Bible, Christian and religious information and studies".

Awakening?

The countdown begins ...

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UPDATE: 2 more days to go ...

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MORE UPDATES: Just a few more hours away ...