Recycled glass bottles can be made into roads, tiles, even surfboards.

Funny Quote of the Day

Casey Stengel - "All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height."

HA HA HA!

The best one!

I was reading all the posts on my blog since y'day. I know you would think what a waste of time, but well, I like to go over it, and I enjoy doing this.
So, I realised that my favorite post was the one that said Mind Games. It conveys a simple yet powerful message, I don't mean to brag by-the-way.
Somehow this post is very .......

“ I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty. ”
—Warren Buffet[30][31], 1987

for my friend

Alrit, my friend Pop, suggested that I put up some of my Google Talk status messages along with the timestamps on the blog, coz he was laughing all through about it I guess. And added me to his laugh list too coz it was soo funny..! I agree, this is absolutely hilarious even though I wasn't quite willing to post it and make myself look foolish. Nevertheless, here it is.

अन्नी'snew status message - want some chudwa in the newस paper cone!! 11:14 AM
Annie's new status message - craving some chudwa in the newspaper cone!! 11:14 AM
Annie's new status message - craving some chudwa in the newspaper cone with onions, lemon and kothmir!! 11:15 AM
Annie's new status message - craving some chudwa in the newspaper cone with onions, lemon and kothmir at necklace road!! 11:16 AM
Annie's new status message - craving some chudwa in the newspaper cone with onions, lemon and kothmir exclusive to necklace road!! 11:16 AM
Courtesy: Pop's Google Talk!

Happy Pop?

Flooding.....cause of global warming?

My heart goes out to those people in Bihar who are stranded in the floods and have no food to eat or water to drink, despite being surrounded by so much water! I hope some action is taken ASAP! not only towards relief to the flood vics but also towards global warming!

Black Black Black....
Razed in Black!

Smoggy

I just looked up the dict., smoggy is a word.

smoggy Main Entry: smog·gy Pronunciation: \ˈsmä-gē, ˈsmȯ-\ Function: adjective Inflected Form(s): smog·gi·er; smog·gi·est Date: 1905 : characterized by or abounding in smog

Everday deal?

I know I've been writing about the weather for too long now, I might soon be rhetoric at that. Well, being in the midst of all this action-adventure (that's how I like to address nature's variations), one doesn't have much of a chance to ponder on anything else. Like this morning, it was soo foggy or maybe I should say smoggy(is smoggy even a word? I know SMOG = SMoke + fOG).
So, back to foggy/smoggy, couldn't see beyond the 2s deal. But it was pretty and mysterious. I think I'm going insane!
So, yesterday was the first day at daycare school for my master.....and boy did I miss him, infact all of us at home missed him, thinking about how he was doing and whether he ate anything or if he got any sleep! Whew! He was soo happy when I went to pick him up in the evening, his face actually lit up! But I think he enjoyed, coz this morn when I was leaving he wanted to come with me, so isn't that a sign? But, today is his day off, so he gets to be home and relax and rest and play a bit with his gramma.

Back after a Fay-cation...

....and totally Fay-tigued! Whew, quite a storm that was! But well, been at home for almost 5 days....and it was good but stressful at the same time with constant TV viewing and weather updates. We were almost in the path of a tornado and well the winds were almost upto 65mph and it was pouring!
Well, back to work now....too much to finish.

Fay Fay go away!

It's dark,
it's gloomy,
it's cloudy,
it's windy,
it's drizzling
it's plain terrifying here

We are waiting on 'Fickle Fay' to beat us up but we are all prepared so bring it on! What an unpredictable system this is and the path its taking is just so weird. But then as I always say nature never ceases to amaze me. The anger that a storm/hurricane brings with it is so immense and powerful, no one or nothing can stand to it, everything/one fades.

The 4-5 mile long bridge that I cross every morning was so hazy, couldn't see beyond 20 feet, the fog and darkness and light rain added to that is the wind....my car was swaying ever so slightly, difficult driving conditions...o yes! The drive back would be even worse, by then the winds will pick up, there will be more rain and more water and that means flooding! I hope this time around, the appliances wont blow up at our abode. My plants which I painstakingly planted, will they fight this storm and survive? The worse of it all is yet to come on the 'morrow.

Bottom line -
Stay away Fay!

Irrelevant rambling....taken from here n there

My horoscope for today...
"You may feel a bit under the weather--or it could be some aspect of your health just catching up with you. See a doctor if it feels too bad, but you maybe able to figure out how to adjust on your own."
Alrit....now I think maybe its got something to do with Fay, the tropical storm....or just the thunder showers, either way we haven't seen much sunshine off late...gray days!

"Today's fortune: A well-directed imagination is the source of great deeds"
Hmm.....I'm imagining! What? Yet to!

Tropical storm soaks southwest Florida.

For a midnight snack, eat a small amount of protein and no carbs or sugar. Mix protein powder in water or eat a bar.

BBC News front page headlines
Afghan ambush kills French troops
Nato cools relations with Russia
Bombing kills dozens in Algeria

"President Bush's former press secretary wrote a book. In his book President Bush's former press secretary said that Bush has a "lack of inquisitiveness."
When he heard this, Bush said, "I don't know what he's saying, and I don't care."
- Conan O'Brien

A cop pulls over a drunk driver. The drunk driver says, "Ossssifer, you need to get your records straight. You just asked me for my license, but you took it away yesterday!"

Greg Giraldo on Jon Lovitz: "There hasn't been a more effeminate Jew in the closet since Anne Frank."

Two cents for...

An individual should never be content. The day that happens, there will be no progress.

The blog-fire has subsided just a tad bit! Alas!
I wonder what's next!

Aug 15th, 2008

Happy Independence Day!
Vande Mataram!

Steve Paul Jobs - Words of Wisdom

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Incredible India!

I was asked by some people about our Gold medal winner Abhinav Bindra, which led to discussions about our country, Bharat, and a little into its beautiful history and the struggle with the British. I looked up what Wikipedia had to say about our pride and culture. This is the link to their article.
What bothers me the most is, why am I not living in my country? Why is my life now based on a foreign land? Why do so many of us migrate, is it just the trend that we follow or did we really want this? Why are we not serving our motherland? I have so many questions on my mind! We have come to a point when even 15th August is just another day, when in reality we must really be celebrating our independence! Do we take our freedom for granted?
So many questions to ponder on and the thought that this trend/migration will be eternal.....but our love for our land will always remain and passed on to future generations!
VANDE MATARAM!!

Quote from Calvin

"Today for show and tell I've brought a tiny marvel of nature: a single snowflake. I think we might all learn a lesson from how this utterly unique and exquisite crystal... turns into an ordinary boring molecule of water just like every other one when you bring it in the classroom. And now. While the analogy sinks in. I'll be leaving you drips and going outside." - Calvin

Kudos!

India won a gold at the Beijing Olympics for Shooting Men's 10m Air Rifle - Abhinav Bindra .....Good job and may you bring more success to us! Finally, after a century!

Change in Gmail

Now I have 7010 Mb in my Gmail.....so no issues with 7007!
Thanks PoP for explaining that to me.....Ding!

Let the fireworks begin

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics have begun ...it is the 8th day of the 8th month of the 08th year ....08/08/08! Now how oft do you get that!
Lucky number for the Chinese, so you hear that thousands of Chinese couples are getting married on this day.

Hollywood goes Bollywood!

So by now most of y'all might've heard about the various Indian actors (I don't use the word actress here, coz I think its very gender differing, hence actors refers to both male and female) going on Hollywood projects. But the latest I heard this morn on the radio was that Hollywood filmmakers are actually looking at Indians for producing their films. The likes of Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey, George Clooney are being associated with Reliance for their multi million $$$ projects. So, outsourcing Hollywood movies too huh? Now thatz called 'globalization'
As I've mentioned in one of my previous posts, looks like India and now Bollywood have become regular words in Hollywood....well Indian food is also not behind. So many people ask me questions about our cuisine and culture and I am so proud to answer all of their questions. Finally, non-Indians will realise that India is about a lot more than just snake-charmers, elephants and poverty right! The new gen of America is being constantly educated about the real current India. I just wish the people who actually are in India would stop imitating the west blindly, and enhance our ancient culture in a positive way.
Proud to be an Indian!

why?

Why does Gmail have a storage space of 7007 MB? I mean why 7007? Whatz with this number, does it have any significance? I would like to know.

tick tock tick tock....

Its just 9:30 a.m. and I'm already thru 2 cups of kauphy........well actually, one cuppa coffee and one cuppa green t....now does green t come under the caffeine category? I don't think so, but it tastes so bad that it sure wakes me right up and it is supposedly good for you too...so added benefit!
Well, back to work now....rest of the day will be hard to go by, with me being so slumberous, but I will be productive!

Concept cars..is that it?

I cannot even figure out where to enter from, in this thing, leave alone driving one.

or even this thing...

or how about this thing...looks like straight out of some futuristic movie.

and this one is inspired by women's fashion??

it does...doesn't it?

I'm not even sure if they are called cars....hence the non-usage of the noun.
I liked the concept of them running on alternative fuel sources. But, the images sure do make for some neat posters adorned on the walls of a boy's room, not sure about their functionality.

Comforts midair

I'm not sure if the credit goes to Boeing or Emirates for creating this wonder....the A380 aircraft that will operate from Dubai-JFK. Call me rural or whatever, but the first-class in this airbus is just mind-blowing and as the author says....all bling bling!
Well, I'm not talking about private jets or planes here.....just regular airplanes for regular people by regular airlines. So, now that I got the facts seperated...
Your own private suite....Imagine showering in an airplane! or even enjoying a drink or two in the lounge area with a bartender on call...and many more....but alas, the cost of all that bling is upwards of $10,000! What do we expect next?
This is the link again
http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2008/08/flight-report-a.html

I feel....

I'm feeling Spoony today! (not really...just wanted to use that word)

Wondering what's Spoony? Well, if you were reading the 'Word of the day' daily, you wouldn't have that question!

Waiting for the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday!

I think Paris Hilton's campaign ad is indeed hot! Maybe she really should run for President...and I like her choice of VP too!

I do use a lot of exclamations dont I? and also .....? huh?

T-A-I

This popped up in my Gmail webclips!------------->There is no limit to the number of times an aluminum can can be recycled.

Hah, horizontal arrows are easier!

Y, HOW?

How did the Internet get its name? and why did the internet also be known as the "Web" or "Net"? Couldn't they have called it something else like, mesh maybe, or hook, capture, or trap? Weird innit?
|
|
|
|
\/
Suggestions are synonyms for web/net... :), smiles!
(Damn! I cant get that arrow thingy right!! some help pls??)

Pretty pretty pretty...please!

Quoting Jean-Luc Godard "Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion."
I got thinking what really is beauty....is it just the external part that we see or the internal too, which we usually tend to ignore? I had a tête-à-tête with a few individuals and well though most of them might have denied (save a few souls), they do judge a person on how they look and dress.
Let's say you are someplace with just 2 people around apart from yourself, one of them is good-looking and well-dressed and the other is well, differing. So, given a choice would you rather approach the welldressed person or the not-so-well-dressed? Think about it.
What interests me is that, though people might want to opt for the better looking one of the two, they will not say it aloud, even though looks are deceptive. Its just the human outlook.
In conclusion, let me quote the famous saying, "Beauty is only skin deep", so look beyond beauty. A person who is beautiful on the inside, radiates outwardly as well.

Laugh out Loud

Get some gigs out of watching "Goodness Gracious Me" videos on You Tube!
One of my faves is --->this.

Greeting!

Happy Friendship Day! Belated ofcourse!
I seem to have long forgotten this day, unless I have someone emailing to wish me! Well, at one time.....Friendship Day seemed to be such an important day in my life...and now....?
Looks like the definition of friends alters as time goes by.....maybe 10 years down the lane.....I might even forget what's Friendship Day, but still have my friends? Does this mean I'm not getting any younger?
Sometimes, I get this notion if I am keeping up with times? Like hell I do....so no more thinking! and enough of this pep talk with myself.....I have absolutely no qualms!

eclipse

Today's solar eclipse was so beautiful. Once again, nature never ceases to amaze me!

Little wonder/s

Talking about our little master always makes me happy and he never ceases to amaze me! So last night, I was prepping dinner and he was a bit angry, for reasons beyond me. And, did I ever mention that he is a huge Dhoom 2 admirer. When he wants to watch the videos he goes "Mama dhoo dhoo" and points at the TV and gets me the various remotes(somehow hez aware which remote is for what device!). So I thought i would surprise him with Dhoom 2 songs and when the videos began, he was so elated and so much in josh. Its hard to describe in words, but I am so proud of him. Not only was he dancing to his regular steps, he was even trying to dance like Hrithik to the title song, inc. the whistling which he made up with clicking his tongue sounds. The hand, leg, head movements all were in-sync. Then came the "Touch Me" number and there he goes doing that Abhishek dance....and also singing "oooo baby..." and in between when there is some spanish words...he says that also, and on time! When it was time for "Crazy Kiya Re", he does his version of removing the hat just like Ash does and well, I guess he was a bit tired so he slowed down just a tad and then danced to his own tune! I guess by now, you might've understood the frequency of watching Dhoom 2 in our household! Well, Partner, Jab We Met, and a few select songs also get almost similar response, but to a lesser intensity against D2. I just love the way he asks for dhoo dhoo and that too for a specific song and then his dance! I have tears in my eyes!