Google+ seems promising, for me at least. This is why:

• I don’t need to open a separate browser window. I google millions of things each day and having a tab on top to help stay in touch is effective.
• Google has had a previously built up reputation of erring on the conservative side so far as user privacy is concerned, save for when it got all ‘Buzz’ed up. Facebook, on the other hand seems to have had a policy of “We know it might annoy our users. Let’s implement and enforce it. If we are pushed back, we can go ahead and tweak features to reduce privacy-related complaints.“
• The prima facie logical grouping in circles (already present on facebook, but somewhat painful to manage on its UI) might help make communicating between different groups more effective, given how our personal circles are expanding at a considerable rate.
• With all the good, positive ways that google has used to help change lives as we know it (not drastically, but in small, cumulative ways that add up to be greater than the sum of the constituent parts), this would help too. Admit it, the odds of staying in touch with and subsequently putting blade on (hitting on) people you’ve met in real life has increased drastically since the time of Orkut previously, though Facebook has now taken that role up effectively.
• Lastly, do check this video out. I quite like the soft, lilting background music interspersed with voice-overs that has me sold completely on Google+.

Granted, it will be a pain to migrate from FB to google, but I’m sure there’s ways and means that this product will have to facilitate a smooth transition.

With Amazon hitting the Indian shores, there’s enough heat being generated in the domestic front along with this battle between Google and Facebook to keep us all intrigued on the competitive strategy front.

I think it is time to sit and re-read my Competitive Strategy course pack from B-school, this time without exams in mind and with more relaxed time lines to boot.

When I do invest in a super stud laptop, I think I might as well kiss my TV viewing goodbye for the most part, since all viewable content is generally being uploaded on youtube simultaneously. There are many situations wherein a lot of content put up is being taken down on the insistence of production houses and such, but then again, most production houses are also putting up their own official and verified youtube channels for public viewing.

Over the past week or so, after the end of term 7, I’ve had to stay back on campus to partake in the job hunt and it is during this break that I’ve managed to admire and respect youtube even more. When I was much younger, our family used to view or at least talk about some of the more popular regional language movies in Kannada, Tamil and Telugu and we’d also made visits to the cinema theater to watch a few of these movies.

As the years have gone by, most of my movie viewing has gravitated strongly towards English movies and to a small extent, to Hindi movies and other foreign language movies ranging from Iranian cinema to Korean and Japanese flicks, to those made in Eastern Europe.

However, thanks to youtube, my interest in south Indian cinema has now been rekindled. The features on the website, combined with some kind soul’s generosity has led to playlists being created that can now stream entire movies. Our internet speeds on campus are like a dream come true and as a result, movie viewing has been taken to a new level altogether.

In the past four days, I’ve seen movies like Billa, Kadhalan, Boys, Chennai 28, Alaipayuthey, The Angrez, Sivaji the Boss completely over youtube. Some of these movies have been seen previously and some others were viewed for the first time. But its nice to not have to run to the video library looking for older movies, since youtube, in all probability has them all. I wasn’t able to locate a complete movie playlist for Thiruda Thiruda however.

The kind souls that have uploaded said movies have also been generous enough to include subtitles in the movies to make life easier for those that don’t know the language completely. My extremely limited knowledge of Tamil and Telugu have been somewhat supplemented marginally over the past week due to these movie watching binges.

Not only that, I’ve also been reintroduced to all the A R Rahman tracks that I’d been crazy about when I was a kid and had then abandoned later on for other music that took over mindspace. The more I listen to ARR’s stuff, the more I think that his older work was more melodious and representative of his musical genius and that the rest of the world in general that has gone bonkers over his work in Slumdog Millionaire would have tears of joy in their eyes if only they’d listen to his entire discography.

I can’t really pick a favourite, but the music from the movie Thiruda Thiruda would definitely rank highly among the works of ARR.

I strongly admire people who’ve mastered multiple languages and I wish I could’ve done so myself too, though with 4 + 2 (partial knowledge) languages that I know, and a few words here and there in the others, I’m way behind where I’d like me to be.

If youtube were around when I were a kid and I’d been allowed movie binges like the ones I’m enjoying currently, I’d have probably been a true blue polyglot! What’s gone is in the past, and in the present, I have the second half of Alaipayuthey to watch before I go to sleep. So until next time, here’s hoping you are able to unleash the power of youtube to make life more fun.

PS – I swear google didn’t pay me for writing this post, although any gifts in cash or kind would be most welcome. I’m game for accumulating some good Karma as well, seeing as how much it might help in the afterlife.

Gunda has had such tremendous fan following, and has had among the highest ratings [citation needed] that a Hindi movie could’ve ever had on IMDB for it incorporated all possible genres that one could think of into an intense three hour movie-thon.

Deshdrohi is the BIMARU film industry’s cinematic response of sorts to Raj T’s MNS’ anti-Bihari campaign. Now we all know that Raj Thackeray has been certified insane, and is doing this just like Paris Hilton did her multiple sexcapades and Presidential campaigns for footage from all quarters possible.

After enough visibility, Raj T plans to release an album and / or star in a few movies, but that was something his PR agent told me in strict confidence. Given the low readership of this website, I’m not really concerned about this news spreading around too much anyway.

“KRK is the new SRK“, screamed the headlines of the widely read Times of Patna. Considering the total subscribers of aforesaid esteemed newspaper are equal to the total number of google reader subscribers to this website, one can imagine how popular KRK has now become. Please note that I did not say ‘readers’, only ‘subscribers’. There is a difference.

With a star cast boasting of among others, Gracy Singh, who said this performance of hers makes her work in Lagaan look like that of Bobby Deol’s in Dostana, and Roza, who dated Saif Ali Khan for three days and landed six B and C grade movie offers in the process, as well as Hrishita Bhatt (who has added some three extra H’s and some seven T’s for numerological luck), who said in the Times of Patna that compared to KRK, SRK (with whom she’s worked in Asoka) was positively meh, this movie is also worth checking out for the eye-candy factor that it provides in addition to the strong social message which you can get when you watch the movie.

KRK has overthrown Ravi Kishan to now become the most sought after actor from the BIMARU states.

Ravi Kishan who needed a serial like Bigg Boss as well arbit ad-libbing of Kabir’s Dohas as the Bhojpuri voice of Peter Parker in Spiderman-3 to become famous all over the world has now gone on the offensive and last heard, was dubbing for all of Jean Claude Van Damme’s movies, to make JC’s famous quotes more accessible to everyone in the BIMARU region, while at the same time, increasing his market value.

In the Times of Patna, he was last quoted as saying that his drop in market value was due to the ” people going for recess” (emphasis mine) in Europe and America, and that once they all got back, he could start charging his regular rates. For the record, he was both a reader AND subscriber of the ToP.

KRK, reportedly charges a princely sum of INR 1000 per movie, and like Megamart’s offers, will do three for INR 2000, and perform his own stunts as well.

I would’ve quoted dialogues from the movie on my website, but I want all of you to go and watch the movie. I plan to convince my team at the office that this would be an ideal movie to watch during our upcoming team outing.

Pretty badly.

Forget all the sugar-coating fundaes that Dr.Manmohan Singh has given us about how things are bad but will get better. If global trends are any indication, lay-offs will, like every other trend perpetuated by our western civilizations, hit Indian shores sooner than you think.

Question is, are we equipped to deal with it, with panache, with courage, and most importantly, with dignity like most seasoned laid-off people have done so?

In our country, a pink slip hasn’t yet reached the levels of acceptability that it ought to, considering we’re used to dollar equivalent salaries, tech infrastructure and benefits like the original silicon valley inhabitants. It is considered as a blemish on one’s record to have been laid off from a job, even though the employee might just have been caught inadvertently in the middle of an organizational restructuring plan.

Take for instance the case of the twenty four thousand people who will be searching for new jobs once Hewlett-Packard completes its merger with EDS, out of whom, some might be from our country, and might not take too well to this move, as compared to their counterparts abroad. However, since they plan to implement the merger in a phased out manner, most employees might be given enough time to desert the mothership.

However, employees of Xerox, Dell, Yahoo and eBay haven’t been as lucky. The axe is falling, and as Rajiv Gandhi said in 1984 in a completely different context altogether which we can extend to this present situation, “When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes“.

We are but hapless ants, scurrying around, foraging for the best available deal, and if we’re caught under the tree as it lands on us with a resounding thump, such is life.

I don’t know if you know how it feels to be an Indian in the tech industry, and enjoy the somewhat uncomplimentary feeling of not being laid off that easily due to the relatively low cost incurred by the organization employing my services through my parent company, but once again, this time in the greater scheme of things, being a cheap fellow has its distinct advantages.

When I was in Seattle earlier this year, I had a few serious discussions, off the record, with people in the company that I was sent to,where I was to undertake the particular project I was working on until last month, and their views on being laid-off weren’t even remotely as vehement as I’d expected them to be.

In fact, just like we Bangaloreans are used to motorists coming at us with their high-beam lights flashing in our eyes, blinding us out, on the wrong side of the road no less, the Americans in their tech industry are used to being laid-off. Of course, such scenarios are unpleasant, but one has to, apparently, learn to live with them.

I percieved some sort of hostility from some people there, who weren’t entirely happy about the brown people invasion, and understandably so. However, I must admire those who were somewhat hostile for their professionalism and committment towards getting the job done. However, on the other hand, there were those who were extremely chilled-out and were good enough to hang out with, during the evenings.

From what I was told, these lay-offs are seen as an opportunity for getting one’s house in order, learn new stuff, take time to chill out and then regroup in order to renew their assault on the job market once it becomes more conducive for employment. The severance packages aren’t that bad either apparently.

But all this is hearsay, unfortunately. It does not, in anyway, make me feel less guilty about being indirectly responsible for someone losing his/her job just because I am willing to bust my ass off for that extra bit of time, and I come at one-fourth the price that the other person commands.

Sure, this makes business sense, and if one is to examine the entire scenario with the typical cold-blooded outlook of someone interested in making a profit, this is probably the best move that one can think of. But sometimes, just ever so often, I’m slightly unsure of how responsible I am, for someone else’s life being miserable, and the thought that I might be accumulating some negative Karma in the process is disconcerting.

Yes, WTF are undoubtably there. However, I found out that most of them end up searching for ‘Ewmew Food’ and are redirected to this post, which has turned out to be the post most visited on my site so far, in its 22 odd days of existence.

Now why the Argentines are searching for ‘ewmew food’ in droves is something I am curious to know more about. Incidentally, searching for the said text string in the google Argentina home page will throw up the aforelinked post as the first hit.

However, someone landed up on my blog by merely searching for ‘Hari’, and I was quite surprised at how high my site must have been to show up while merely searching for my first name.

On putting a swift google search, I did try searching for what rank my site had, but I wasn’t able to locate it within the first hundred hits. Thereafter, I was too lazy to hunt for what was literally akin to a needle in a haystack and so I gave up conveniently.

However, what caught my attention was the third hit, which you should also check out. A website (who’s full name I have expanded in the title of this post) that, without a shade of doubt, gives one more wtf moments than one could possibly imagine, more so if your first name is the same as mine.

Not knowing what to do, I had previously linked my domain name to my blog, which most often than not received random traffic from search engines due to reasons I’d rather not be too proud about, for now.

I was additionally maintaining a livejournal wherein I had initially started putting in any arbit rambling that I wanted to pen down and preserve, and this sounding board then turned out to be the one that I used with greater frequency compared to my blog, which I was afraid I was going to abandon.

In the midst of maintaining a blog and a livejournal, I chanced upon a few blogs that were hosted on their own server spaces and had exclusive URLs, and this, combined with the need to customize what I spew out in writing prompted me to purchase server space and host this website on wordpress, which is what you are seeing right now. In this regard, I have to thank Aadisht and SKimpy, for their random tech support level assistance on gtalk as well as for having guided me to Madhu Menon, who provided me with the necessary server space, and deserves to be thanked as well.

Thanks also to Monkee, the cheap guy that he is, for having been the first person to subscribe to the RSS feeds of my new website, much before I could do so myself, and for some invaluable inputs and constructive criticisms that prevented me from doing some things that I realized in retrospect were stupid.

Shrenik Sadalgi, friend, colleague and photographer extraordinaire provided me with his old camera – a Canon powershot A620, which is super enough for my face, to shoot the pics that you can see in the header. Refreshing or clicking on other links will switch the header image, thanks to a php script written by Matt Mullenweg.

The wordpress forums are stud level so far as resolving issues related to everything under the sun is concerned, and it is a result of their assistance that I’ve been able to put my site in the current shape that it is in.

Clicking on the bars on top will take you to the different categories under which I’ve posted, and I will update and add new stuff to it. Currently, if your office’s internet proxy isn’t benevolent enough, you will not be able to see any media under the music category.

The primary intent of the blog is to fan my already bloated ego, and also to serve as a means of providing me with more freelance writing opportunities, the likes of which I have engaged in for a few print as well as online publications. I have managed to import and include most of my blog and LJ entries into this site, but I haven’t been able to tag and categorize all 400 (approx) of them for now, which means that you will still see that ‘uncategorized’ label on the top bar until I’ve had enough time, patience and enthusiasm to remedy it.

Feedback is most welcome, just leave a comment, and do subscribe to the RSS feeds of my site. This new blogging journey will be awesome!

I wholeheartedly intend to Rock you like a Haricane.

For those sorry souls who don’t know Elmer Fudd, and for those that do and would be infinitely kicked by it – THIS!

Tony Fadell was the guy who originally came up with the concept of the iPod and was hired by Apple later on, and Jonathan Ive was the person responsible for its subsequent designs.
This is not a blog posting extolling their virtues or their contributions to society and to music lovers (and of late, music video and photo lovers too). I have not reached the level yet, where my blog is going to revolve around anyone but me. Tis true, empty vassals make more noise, sort of like empty vessels themselves.

Anyway, for more on these guys and the iPod, go here.

In the last posting I spoke about how the music died, ever since I started work. I thankfully have the good fortune of being able to have 24/7 access to the internet, which I shamelessly exploit by downloading mp3s, among other things.

My comp at work has a sound card, and I am given the liberty of being able to use headphones while at work, whenever it is not required that I listen to someone. This is rarely the case, with a million interruptions about this bug, or that doc update or a whole host of other things that inadvertently ensure that your listening experience is as smooth as travelling on an unserviced pre World War I era bicycle with flattened tyres on the roughest stretches of Bannerghatta road.

In addition, my material assets, allegdly portable, did not warrant being carried around because my built is not conducive to me wearing pants whose pockets are big enough to accommodate a five inch diameter discman, without it appearing as if I have a bulge in my pants. The bulge in the pants would not be such a bad thing if only God made me look more like Adam Garcia, so that it would invite pick-up lines from nubile pretty young things, and not so young nubile pretty things, and not so nubile pretty young things and so on (3 parameters, how many combinations….go figure!). But for the one single time I took it, all that the flattened lunchbox lookalike of a discman that could only play audio CDs and not mp3s invited, was looks from jackasses with mp3 players and compact ear plugs with long battery backups, who made me feel as if I was Leopold, (from Kate and Leopold) minus the charm, the good looks, the charisma, the money and the sex appeal. In short, apart from the fact that my headphones looked like I had robbed a 3 year old of her hairband, and the flattened lunchbox thing which was half out of my pockets when I sat in the office bus, I thought the music had come back to my life.

Note: travel advisory- please travel in office buses without speakers, which keep blaring songs from radiocity 91FM in the morning, for they will induce a feeling that makes motion sickness seem orgasmic!

I don’t get paid much. Come to think of it, I think the salary that I draw is about 0.0002 percent of what my CEO’s fixed deposit for his pet dog gets as interest, and that divided by 12 is what I get monthly, and minus tax cuts and so many other deductions that leave me as confounded as I did when I tried to understand women from as early as class 2, I am left with this paltry sum of money with which I can barely make ends meet (whatever the definition of that is).

The prospect of listening to music on my antiquated discman was so inviting that I totally overlooked the fact that I couldn’t carry the bulky 9V adapter with me in the bus. Hence I had to rely on batteries, and alkaline batteries are about 40 bucks a pair. I didn’t for the life of me imagine that I would have to make daily investments of that amount, to be able to listen to 13 songs on a CD burnt when I was a little less musically enlightened than I currently am. In short, it was not exactly a pleasant experience. I decided to switch to standard batteries for some time, but they ran dry so fast, (half a song listened to at volume to drown out radiocity playing on the bus) that I felt that the company that made discmen had some sort of connection with these battery manufacturers to make the lives of the ordinary consumer miserable by draining them out faster than a swimming pool would be drained if Obelix jumped in it. So much for asinine consipracy theories.

After the debacle that was CAT 2005, I figured that I had to do something to get a fresh start to the new year 2006, and made up my mind to get the music back into my life, and do a proper job of it this time.
To cut a really long story to pieces and examine the most relevant part with an electron microscope and present it to you, I zeroed in on an iPod.
A work of art, a wonderful companion, black, stored 30GB of whatever you wanted it to, played videos and stored photos, and was sleek and thin.
A good friend of mine named Vinayak Kamath came down from the US for his engagement, and at the same time, managed to buy me an iPod that meets the above specs.
It was love at first sight, and it felt like a new relationship altogether, me and my iPod.

Life has now become an endless movie soundtrack, and right from the time I take the long walk to the bus stop till the time I get back home, everything feels so good.
The other day, I had to catch a bus, and had to chase it for quite a distance. PF’s “in the flesh” was playing in the background, and I could actually visualise myself running towards the bus in slow motion, with other hapless motorists swerving to avoid running me over, to make it to the bus stop and lunging towards the door just in time before the driver could get the bus into second gear. The whole mundane exercise of chasing the bus seemed so romantic that now, I really look forward to even being chased by a ferocious canine at the dead of night, with some appropriate song playing on the pod.

I need to add something to my definition of an ideal life, something I guess I had taken for granted for quite some time.
Good food, good sleep, good shit and good music.

This blog posting is dedicated to an amazingly talented guitarist, someone named Prashant Linus Patrick (fondly called Prashant Anus Fat-dick), who was the lead guitarist of the band I used to play for onceuponatime ago, who lost half a finger on his left hand in an unfortunate accident. Hope he gets to play again.