Isn't this one of the cutest videos you have ever seen?

An old fashioned cobbler

You get to see them fairly regularly in India, what with majority of the population unable to afford the snazzy shoes that the minority flaunts these days. But cobblers are usually in the vicinity of most residential areas and are fairly busy.

I had not seen one in Singapore. Until yesterday.

Yesterday, I was at the ICA building (next to the Lavender MRT) to extend my mother-in-law's social visit pass date. Since almost the whole of Singapore had decided to do the same thing on that very day, there was hardly any place to stand, let alone sit in the obsenely crowded space. And since it took me a while, I did not get a chance to catch lunch. So I stepped across the street to get a Coke, mainly to get some sugar into my system to keep me going. And while I was walking back, I saw him.

A really old man mending shoes right outside the Lavender MRT station.

And he even had a customer.

Cool!

I did not think people in Singapore felt the need for a cobbler, cause you see shoe shops everywhere and almost all of them crowded. But just his presence there indicated that there are people here who need him to do his thing.

I learn everyday!

No...not really!

Nope...I've not been on vacation. The long silence just goes to show that it's been a hell of a busy time.

So...what's been happening, eh?

A couple of weeks where my time was booked from 8:30 in the morning to 7:00 in the evening. I had thought a lot of people would take leave around Christmas, but boy...was I wrong? Almost every single customer of mine seemed to have something or the other happening and I really ran out of time.

To add to that, my parents-in-law are in town. So the customary rounds of Singapore are on. And they seem to have the impression (which I can't blame them for) that I'm working longer hours just because they are in town! Luckily for me - probably luckily is not the right word, but it's the most apt - I was working long hours even when my parents were here. So at the very least, they cannot accuse me of discrimination!

Now...some bad news.

My best pal lost his father a couple of weeks back to Lung Cancer. I was hearing about one of the fittest men I know withering away. All in a month's time. This was the man whose house is a second home to me. I've lived there for days on end, made food requests to his wife and just had a whale of a time. Even though I couldn't speak to him in those last days (mainly cause he couldn't, not for lack of effort), I wish I had. I will miss him.

What else?

Oh, more bad news...but not the tragic kind. My golf buddy has gone back to India, leaving me alone to deal with the decline in my game. Yeah, he's gone already. Must have played a couple of rounds there by now. So I'm by myself all over again. Thankfully, golf is a solitary sport. I WILL endure this as well. I am not so sure how I am going to endure, but I will give it one heck of a go.

And it's been raining buckets here in Singapore. It's been so gloomy the last few days, it's even more depressing.

But then there's ManU!

One extremely lackluster game (loss) and two absolutely fantastic ones (wins, of course)! A cracker of a goal from Paul Scholles, definitely the goal of the season, and a few more by Ronaldo. Of course, a few great goals from Drogba & the rest of the EPL gang and football never felt better.

To take it a step more, Chelsea drew their Boxing Day match against Reading & ManU stuffed Wigan 3-1 on the same day to extend the lead at the head of the table by 4 points.

Some sunshine in all this gloom!

A cracker of a game and 8 points clear

It was worth the wake!

Arsenal went to Stamford bridge to meet Chelsea for what promised to be a fabulous match. Of course I stayed up and watched! (Just FYI, the match starter at 12 midnight my time).

Surprisingly, Arsenal dominated the proceedings for two thirds of the first half. They had most of the possession, made Chelsea look queasy and did not let their opponents settle into any rhythm. What they also lacked was the shots on goal as they pretty much created no chances. They sorely missed Thierry Henry, who is out with a neck strain.

So the first half went 0-0 and I was in no shape or form going to miss the second half.

I think the lockerroom saw some Morinho screams cause Chelsea looked a lot more lethal in the second half. They hit the post three times and created a lot more chances. But Flamini struck a nice Hleb pass into the Chelsea goal to take Arsenal one up.

That is when they experienced the wrath of Chelsea. The pressure Chelsea put on Arsenal's young defence was unbearable and something had to give. But the defence was not the reason the equalizer came.

It was a fabulous strike from Michael Essien from outside the box that sealed it. And while it was a great strike, it could have gone any way. And so I attribute the equalizer to luck more than great play. But Chelsea deserved the goal and should have gotten one in by the level of play.

At the close of play, both teams returned with a point each.

Which means Chelsea slip a further two points away from ManU!!!

YESSSS!!!!

ManU calmly destroyed City in another derby-day contest with a cool 3-1 score line. Now ManU are sitting pretty at the top of the table with an 8 point cushion over Chelsea. Even if Chelsea win the game in hand they have, they will still be five points behind...a change from the three point gap that existed before this game. An even bigger change from the greater-than-15-points-difference Chelsea had last year.

Go ManU.

And I cannot believe I am saying this, but a big thank you to both Arsenal and Chelsea for giving all of us such a wonderful match to watch.

This is why the English Premier League ROCKS!!!

Common sense is not so common

This post is also about golf, so bear with me.

As usual, my pal and I went over to Batam yesterday to play our customary round of weekend golf. Since I was playing after a couple of weeks, I wasn't entirely sure where the ball was going to go. So while I did not have any high hopes of breaking the course record, I wasn't too worried about losing it completely as well.

As it turned out, we were playing behind this painfully slow four ball and so we had to wait for every single shot while they either took their shot or putted in on the green.

Behind us was another two ball who was playing at around the same pace as us, so we weren't holding them up unless we ourselves were being held up.

On one of the holes, after we teed off, we were made to wait as the group ahead of us was still on the green. And so we waited patiently for them to get off.

And along came a golf ball over me left side!

The jackasses playing behind us had teed off!!!!!!!

IDIOTS!!!

Only after I started to holler and create a racket did they stop.

Here's what pissed me off completely. They had been playing behind us for most of the round. If they could not see us on the green ahead of them, they should know that we haven't got there yet. Instead, they chose to decide that we had mysteriously given up our round midway and that it was OK to tee off.

I'm not sure if these bozos are aware that a golf ball travels at an average of a 100kmph. That's quite a bit, you know. And a hard plastic globe travelling at that speed can cause some serious damage.

If it had hit me, the best they could have done would have been a mostly genuine "Sorry", but that's it. The damage it can cause to someone because of reckless, irresponsible behaviour would be a lot, lot more.

And it's idiots like these that yanks my chain. I was fuming all the way for the rest of the round.

These are the kind of people who should be ashamed of calling themselves golfers

He actually wrote back

I regularly go to The Register's news site for their very funny takes on the IT news for the day. The site gives me my news with a nice anecdote to remember it by. And come to think of it, it makes me smile at least once a day. That's a good thing, right?

Yesterday, as per my habit, I went to the site and was reading The Register's take on the report by Danish researchers concluding that cell phones are safe and do not cause cancer (something that I blogged about in one of my posts yesterday).

Towards the end of the article, I noticed this:

Of course, this is unlikely to plicate the Campaigners Against Stuff who will point out that the study only shows no evidence of risk; it does not prove there is no risk.

What caught my eye was the use of the word plicate.

Now plicate (according to this free dictionary I have) means "pleat". And I did not see how that was relevant to the topic. Which made me think that the author, Bill Ray, wanted to say placate, which means pacify...and which sounds congruous to the article.

Since I had seen a similar gaffe in print earlier, I thought I will write to Bill to point this out.

So my mail to him looked like this:

Hi Bill

Let me begin by saying that I love TheReg and am on your site
pretty much every day.

But I just want to know if there is a spell checker that gets enforced before the story is submitted. Cause at the very end of your last article on Mobile phones being safe to use, you mention - and I quote - "Of course, this is unlikely to plicate the Campaigners Against Stuff....."

Did you actually mean plicate or placate? Or am I not getting the meaning of what you want to say correctly?

I remember a similar grammatical goof up I read about last month which I blogged about here.

But what do I know?

Just checking...

And once again, I love ElReg, so keep up the good work.

Cheers

I was pleasantly surprised to see Bill's reply in my mailbox this morning:

Glad you like the site, but the fault here is entirely mine.
Spellcheckers are so ubiquitous one does start to rely on them when one should really be reading with more care. I'm not convinced that"plicate" is even an English word (Cambridge dictionary seems to agree that it isn't, but the Word spellchecker is convinced it is; so I suspend judgement).

Of course, we do have a sub-editor who really should spot these things, not to mention an editor too, so I'm not taking all the blame myself.

Just for reference: it didn't placate them, as my mailbox
testifies.

Bill.

Glad to see your reply, Bill. Thanx for taking the time.

I just went from being a regular TheReg visitor to an avid fan. Keep up the good work, folks at ElReg. No matter how many people it does not plicate!

That's not a lot of aid, is it?

The Philippines recieved aid worth - hold your breath - USD 50,000 after a devastating typhoon there caused widespread damage and killed an estimated more than 1,000 people.

I am sure it's a very humane gesture...and more countries should help The Philippines in this time of need, but fifty thousand bucks? A mere fifty thousand? At a time when Philippino President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has declared a state of national calamity?

That's like saying "We will help in fighting to clear the haze caused by the fires in Indonesia by all going to the roof tops and emptying our bladders"

This is the kind of cynical mindset you can get to when you watch too much of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (a show which I absolutely adore!).

Scheduled Downtime again!

YouTube is at it again!

Just a week after they had a scheduled downtime, YouTube is down again...in fact it just went down (Singapore time - 1641hrs).

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I find that highly amusing and a lot more unexpected for an entire site to go down for scheduled maintainence.

What I find more disappointing is that they have to go down for the second time in just over a week.

So they don't increase the chances?

A recent study done by Danish researchers suggests that using cell phones over many years does NOT increase your chances of getting cancer.

So, while you may get disturbed while on vacation or you might get startled when the phone set on vibrate mode suddenly goes off during a meeting or the battery might die in the middle of an important call, the good news is that the study suggests you can no longer blame your cell phone if you get cancer.

The researchers looked at phone records of people who have been using cell phones for as long as, take that, 21 years! And do you know what they found?

People who used cell phones for longer durations actually showed lower risk of cancer!

That should make some of the women I know quite happy...given the amount of time they spend on their respective cell phones! :-)

Unnecessary tagging

What YouTube has done for me personally is allowed me to watch a lot of the clips that I would not normally get to watch of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The reason I cannot watch his critically acclaimed and Emmy award winning show is because Comedy Central is NOT AVAILABLE here! And that sucks.

But what I can now do (since beggars can't be choosers...and. let's face it, I am a beggar...If you don't believe me, look at my bank balance) is search YouTube for Jon Stewart and watch all the snippets people have uploaded of The Daily Show. And it is certainly entertaining and Jon is an immensely funny guy.

Digression here: I highly recommend you watch Jon Stewart roast the hosts of CNN's later discontinued show "Crossfire" here

(You can also read the transcripts of the show here ... cause it's really funny)

But coming back to the point - or the post - I noticed that when I search for Jon Stewart, a lot of videos come up with the tags Jon and Stewart, sometimes even Daily Show, but have nothing to do with either Jon Stewart or The Daily Show. And that's one of the ways people are getting more of their videos being featured in more searches.

That's atrocious!

While that speaks volumes of the fact that Jon Stewart is such a heavily searched tag that people are prompted to do this kind of tagging, it is a serious nuisance to someone who wants honest results to searches.

And isn't YouTube a Google company now? In which case, shouldn't the by-now-omnipresent-and-by-far-most-used search engine be integrated with the Youtube infrastructure? Ok, so it takes time for an acquisition to fully get assimilated into an environment, but we are talking about Google here.

Anyways, I just hope people stop doing these pathetic things. It's just plain annoying.

Still at the top of the table

I stayed up really late to see this match, and I must say I enjoyed every bit of it.

ManU beat a really spirited Middlesborough (final score 2-1) to retain the top spot on the premiership table, now six points ahead of Chelsea (who have a match in hand...so essentially three points and a lot more in terms of goal difference ahead).

While the match started with Borrough putting a lot of pressure, ManU eventually started to impose themselves with some great passing and moves in the first half.

And then Christiano Ronaldo fell.

Literally fell.

Not to be read as "was felled".

As Ronaldo approached the goal, the goalkeeper made a sliding tackle where he did not have any contact with Ronaldo. But I still think that the intent was there and believe that the penalty decision was correct. Louis Saha burried the ghost of the penalty miss two weeks ago by calm putting the ball into the back of the net.

United one up.

Then came a fab goal from Borrough and then an even swifter response from United. Within 2 minutes of the equalizer, ManU was ahead again... A lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the match.

This season looks very very positive for United.

I just hope they make mincemeat of Benfica when they play at Old Trafford on Wednesday night to go through to the next stage of the Champions League.

Fingers crossed.

Meebo Deebo Doo

Of course, I couldn't say Yabba Dabba Doo, but you know what I mean :-)

I am talking about Meebo, a service which allows you to simply and easily see all your chat entities (yes, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ, et al) on a single Web page. That too with a consolidated buddy list and a neat interface which allows you to chat with ur friends with the help of only a web browser.

From now on, if all you are interested in doing is chatting (and not want the ability to do VoIP) OR if your corporate network does not allow you to install chat tools or restricts the proxy on the corporate firewall, you can now use Meebo to chat away.

Cool, no?

People don't like to be questioned

Last night we went over to my wife's business partner's house for a barbeque, mainly to celebrate the beginning of the new business relationship. So all four partners and their spouses were there, with the inclusion of one of the partner's brother and his wife.

The ordeal began with trying to light the coal. As I had experienced during my vacation in India (where my buddy and I spent a lot of time trying to light coal so that we could enjoy a hookah), coal is extremely stubborn and takes it's own sweet time to get going. The starters that we had bought also turned out to be quite useless. So it took us a while to get the heat and start putting things on there so that we could eat.

Having sated our appetites, it was the time to cut the cake to celebrate the occasion and then speeches from the new business partners. As it turned out, there was a surprise in store for us.

The brother of this business partner, who was there as a guest to celebrate the occasion, decided to hijack the stage by going on a speech of his own. And the speech was about this project that he has been working on for a while which he wants my wife and her partners to collaborate with.

First of all, I think if he has a business proposition, he should do it on the business partners' time, not on the day of the celebration at a barbeque pit. Second, he should do his homework.

As usual, I played the part of the a$$ho1e who argued with everybody. But I did not argue just for the heck of it. I was really pissed off with this guy hijacking everybody's agenda. And then I started asking questions which he did not have answers for. Because of which, he promptly had a sulking expression on his face and refused to talk after a while.

If he was not prepared to be questioned on the soundness of the business plan, he shouldn't have brought up the subject in the first place. And I think people should do their research before they venture into making business decisions.

All in all, I realized that people who have been here for a while (more than 10 years) don't like to be questioned. And they have lost touch with reality.

I don't care.

Long live the liver...

It's confirmed...

As per the doctor, I have completely recovered from my Jaundice and my liver is functioning just fine. All of the measured results (except for GGT) were within the acceptable range. That, according to the doctor, is not something we need to worry about and just to be safe, we can check in 6 months.

So I am back to being a normal human being and therefore a normal diet.

Cheers!

Me? Strange?

Got chatting with my pal this morning. Yep, this is the same guy whose family's welcome I abused during my visit to the Bay Area.

As I may have forgotten to mention in my post about the US trip (mainly because of not posting for a while because of vacation, then the illness and then the travel), I hit off famously with this guy's four year old daughter and we became really close pals. In fact, she would make her parent miserable every time I stayed in my hotel room instead of their home.

But this is not the point of the blog.

During my chat with the guy this morning, he related a hilarious incident that happened in his daughter's school.

The kids were being taught to understand (or is comprehend the right word here) the concept of "Strange". So as the teacher got to asking every child what they thought was strange, his daughter went...

Mally Uncle is a boy....but he wears an ear ring!!!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

I just could not help cracking up. And neither could he. And he had to explain who Mally Uncle was to the teacher when he went to pick up his daughter. :-)

That was Super Cool! For multiples of reasons. One, that his daughter remembers me so often. Two, she's had this discussion about my ear ring with me when I stayed with them (where I had explained to her that if it was OK for her to wear pants, it was OK for me wear an ear ring).

I really love that kid even more for this.

Flogging the dead horse

A couple of weeks back, Michael Richards (of Kramer fame from the hugely popular and successful Seinfeld sitcom series) lost his cool during his stand-up show at The Laugh Factory comedy club when a couple of African American dudes heckled during his routine.

Richards responded by going into a racial tirade and repeatedly used the N-word. What he did not count upon was the fact that there were people in the audience with phone cameras who knew how YouTube works.

Within a day, enough people had seen the video of incident and the outrage followed. And rightly so.

But here's the thing. Please don't get me wrong. I am not in any way siding with what he did. It just became news because of two things: One that he is a white man saying all these things and two, he was captured on video saying it.

Now I have seen quite a few stand up shows by Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Chris Tucker and the likes. Their entire show is racist...Chris Rock amongst the most. There are so many times when so many digs are taken at white people, but everyone in the audience (including white people) are laughing about it. That's cause it is expected of them to say these things.

And also the fact that since they are Black, it's OK for them to refer to other Black people using the N-word.

If the Black community does not like being referred to with the N-word, there should be no distinction on who utters the word in the first place. Be it Black or White. Or in my case, Brown. Oh, don't even get me started on the Brown racism. Being Indian (which is neither Black, Brown or Asian) is a different thing altogether.

So here's the thing. Racism in any form is still racism. No matter who says it and in what context. So if people don't want to get these tirades from stupid people like Michael Richards, they should not accept this kind of behaviour from Black people as well. I agree with what Rev. Jesse Jackson and others have to say. If the N-word is derrogatory (and I am sure it is), it should not be used by ANYBODY! No exceptions.

But that would mean a lot of stand-up shows will lose their punch. I can almost see the expressions on the faces of people like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle.

In the meantime, the media can stop putting up news articles claiming that Michael Richards is "shattered" by the tirade. Enough is enough. He's been an ass. He knows it. His career is over.

Let's move on.

Yesterday YouTube, today Blogger

After YouTube told me yesterday that they were down for some "scheduled maintainence", today it was Blogger's turn to do it to me.


Is this what we are to expect from these services that we have come to depend upon?

Scheduled downtime? In today's world?

This is what I saw just now.
This is not supposed to happen in today's always on...always connected world, is it? Agreed that this is not a "business critical" or "mission critical" service, but that is the case with most services on the net.

How does the entire service go down?

Haven't seen that happen with a Google, Yahoo or MSN service before!

Update: It could be because of this recent news announcing "YouTube in deal with Verizon"

Update 2: After more than an hour, YouTube is up again...

Thanks for making this the busiest month

November 2006 was the most hit month for my blog since it's inception slightly over two years ago.

The blog has seen the visitors grow from just people who know me and want to keep track of what I have been doing to people who are coming in because of queries they made on Google and hopefully my posts had some answers for them.

There are the few loyals who have regularly come to my blog. This group used to be made up of mostly my friends, but now has changed to include people who I don't know, but come in anyways.

When I started blogging, I did not think that so many people would take my thoughts and my writings seriously and that there was even a reason for the blog to exist. But all of you have (thankfully) proven me wrong.

And I thank you for putting up with me.

There have been times where I could not post for a variety of reasons, but am galvanized by your enthusiasm and hope to do better for our combined sakes.

Here's to a better future!

And here's the prize...

The fruits of my labour!

This is the medal of honour for spending a lot of time on the keyboard to churn out something that looks like a novel. But this time was different.

I was more prepared for what was coming and was a lot more organized. No more was I haphazard about the plot, no longer was there an ebb and flow about the characters, not too many deviations to what the story was supposed to be about. And here's the funny thing.

The story isn't even complete yet!

The novel has reached probably 60% of it's complete state and I think it's going to be OK. Far better than my first attempt. But I am not sure I am going to be able to put in the effort to get it to the finish line.

What helped me this time was the plot and it's readiness in my mind. Most of the characters were already formed and the plot (to a large extent) had moved from the beginning to the conclusion (in my mind, of course). All that was left was to put all of that down on paper (or in my case, a word processor).

From the first week itself, I knew I was doing a lot more words per day than last time because I think my typing speed has gone up significantly. Also, since I knew where to take the plot for the day, it was a lot easier.

So there you are folks. NaNoWriMo winner for the second year running. And this time, without breaking too much sweat.

And once I finish this one, who knows...I might even get it published! :-)

Yeah Right!

That's how good Tiger is

A friend of mine pointed me to this one...

In a recent shoot for a Nike commercial, Tiger Woods was asked by the director of the commercial to try and aim for the camera. And guess what?

He hit it!

This is a still I captured from a video showing the ball just before it hits the camera lens. As you can see, Tiger is quite a distance away from the camera. And he has hit the lens! That's how good he is!



You can see the complete video of the news below (thanx to YouTube.com)

It waited more than 10 seconds...

What was to a large extent a disasterous round of golf suddenly livened up on the 14th hole.

Both me and my buddy had driven quite strongly to the center of the fairway (which was quite the exception for the round as we were hitting the ball all over the place). Both of us then managed to hit our approach shots over the green. I chipped in to about six feet from the hole and then waited for my buddy (who was just off the fringe) to chip on with his putter.

As the ball left his putter, I thought it was tracking all the way to the pin...which it was. It rolled right upto the hole and then stopped. Right at the edge of the cup! And then just stayed there!

And we screamed abuses at our luck and how it was robbery.

And then, after a full 10 seconds, it fell in! All by itself!

And that was an immensely satisfying birdie for my pal! What a great way to get it! Reminded me of the Tom Watson putt last year. Super cool!

Another event of note! I have driven the green on this particular par 4 (306 yards) a couple of times...once four putting for bogey (yeah, I know...) and then once birdied it. This time was even more peculiar.

I drove over the green! The ball landed just short of the green (with a fade spin) and then rolled over the green and went off into the greenside bunker in the back. From there, I had to get out and managed to make two putt for par. So now I have three different results from driving to this particular green!

That's golf...cutting you just enough slack to keep you coming back.

My feet were going tappity, tappity, tap...

Of course I am talking about Happy Feet, currently the biggest movie around.

My family and I watched this really cute penguin dance away into our hearts. The little ball of fur is so cute! Even on the flash website, you can see this little fella dance in that really cute way.

Of course this movie had something for everybody...my daughter loved the Mumbo (the central character in the movie), hated it when Mumbo was being chased by a leapord seal and was really sad when Mumbo is all alone. There were also a lot of subtle jokes which grown-ups would enjoy (I certainly did, but not too many people in the theatre laughed at them).

What I appreciated the most about this movie was the message. Something that I have believed in for a long time. Supply will stop only when demand stops. It is in our hands to not buy things like ivory, shark fins, fur...anything that causes our ecosystem to go out of balance.

It's the same sort of message An Inconvenient Truth is trying to get across to us, isn't it? That we are abusing the planet we live on and all of it's resources.

Shouldn't we be doing something to ensure that our future generations get to enjoy the beautiful planet we have all inherited?

It's worth a lot more than just a thought! Think about it!

Friends go better with Wine than Cheese

I had a drink (ok, a few more than a drink) with a customer of mine last night. Needless to say, I think he is a great guy and I think he can be a very good friend.

Which is very different because he's the first native Singaporean about whom I can say this.

We were at the Wine Garage, which is right next to Brewerkz (one of my favorite places in Singapore) and has a fairly big selection of wines waiting to be imbibed. Since both of us have a leaning towards red wine, that was what we elected to go with for the evening.

So the evening began with a bottle of South African stuff. And we experimented with a cheese platter which is supposed to go well with wine. This would be my first experience with cheese (although I confess that I have a liking towards the Mozerella kind and regularly have fairly large quantities of it) and I was quite apprehensive of what was in store for my taste buds.

And I was right to be apprehensive. Only three varieties out of seven that constituted the platter were found pallatable by my taste buds, only one of which I actually liked. No amount of honey or celery would make the other cheese varieties taste any better. And the only way the Danish Blue would be better is if I did not eat it.

But coming back to the wine, we thought the South African was quite nice. It was as smooth as the conversations we had (work, politics, sports...typical guy talk) and I realized that this guy is very easy to speak to. After the success with the first bottle, we chose to get an Argentine replacement. Again a red wine (of modern packaging...no more corks, only a twist off cap), this one I thought was smoother than the first and a lot more drinkable.

Along the way the conversations became more animated and a lot more fun. We had a friend of his join us for the evening and so there were more friends to be made. He just so happened to be a Liverpool fan (and that gave me enough and more opportunity to rib him about their current performance as compared to ManU).

After WineGarage, we headed to a local eatery on Balestier Road to have Ribs soup...local style! It was a lot of fun and I was actually eating local stuff with local guys at a place I have never been before. And I actually liked the food.

So we signed off the day (pretty late that too) on a really happy note and went our own seperate ways. With the hope that more of these kind of meetings will happen in the near future and with the promise that they will introduce me more of Singapore and Singaporean food.

A very profitable day. I added two possible friends to my account.

I hope the interest on that account is good :-)

Photographic memory?

As I walked into the house after a long day at the office yesterday, I was greeted by a hug from my 6 year old in her ballet uniform (she looked so cute!). Half my tiredness vanished right then and there.

So even before I had taken my bag off my shoulder, I was asking her what she had done at school. And a cheerful reply came back: "Music".

"And what did you do in Music class?"

"We sang a Christmas song!"

"Can you sing it for me?"

And sing she did. And it turned out to be a song with more than four verses in it! And she had it down pat. I was stunned at the speed with which she had memorized the entire song. So I asked if they had been doing the song for a few days.

"No...just today. We sang it three times."

In just three repetitions, she had memorized a really long song! And she didn't feel like it was a big deal, mainly because she has always been able to remember songs very well. As you may remember, I had mentioned a long time back and some time back as well that she is fantastic with songs (both in her choice as well as her ability to remember and understand the lyrics). But now, her memory capability just astounds me.

A few days back, we (my daughter and I) performed an experiment. I asked her to look intently for a few seconds at the cover of a new book I had bought for her. Then I asked her to close her eyes and answer questions I asked about the book cover. And you know what? She answered almost all of them perfectly. She described the shapes, the colours, the numbers, the title, everything!

So today I checked up (on the Internet, of course...where else?) about children with possible Photographic Memory and how to encourage and nurture it.

I came across something called Eidetic Memory (the medical reference for photographic memory) and possible online games to help children develop their already powerful memories.

I am going to play some of these games with her tonight. She already is freaking out with the iMac we bought a few days back and is already going to a few childrens game websites to play online games. I just need to prod her down this other lane as well.

Let's see how it goes.

The shake of the head said it all

Yesterday, I saw a display of tennis of the highest quality.

Roger Federer (henceforth known as The Great Man) played against James Blake in the final tournament of the year at the Shanghai Masters. And never have I seen demolition in a final match...until yesterday.

The score said most of it (6-0, 6-3, 6-4), but Blake's body language said a lot more. There was a sense of disbelief on his face after every shot from The Great Man. He even applauded a few of the passing shots The Great Man made.

Such was the mastery and the grace of The Great Man that it looked like he was playing against me! It was as if he was playing against an opponent who is an amatuer and who is not yet ready to play tennis at the highest level. And this is the American #1 he was playing against!

I don't think there are enough superlatives in the English language to describe The Great Man and his performance. The only thing that needs to be said is that Roger is King! Truely The Great Man!

And by dominating the Masters tournament, he ensured that he will beat Jimmy Conner's long standing record of 159 straight weeks as World Number 1. It takes something special to be World Number One in today's competitive Tennis environment. To break a 30 year old record, that too while looking as if he is not even breaking a sweat, is way beyond special.

Now the only thing that The Great Man needs to do is win the French Open (along with all the Major titles that we have come to expect him to win) and he will have the Grand Slam.

I don't think even when Sampras (andother Great Man and Champion) was playing, anybody talked about him winning the Grand Slam as much as we EXPECT The Great Man to do it.

That is the level of domination he has achieved.

What an extraordinary era I am fortunate enough to be living in. To see these legends like Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Michael Schumaker dominate their already intensely competitive sports is one heck of a treat.

I thank you guys!

A little longer, a bit greyer

I am, of course, talking about my hair.

So after sporting a pony tail for more than 3 years, then shaving it all of this April, I am back to growing my hair. Let's just say that I miss my long hair and really miss my pony tail.

So the hair is growing longer (and therefore is in the unmanageable territory right now). So L'oreal is my pal, with the styling mousse as part of my daily morning ritual to fight the mess that is my hair. Every morning, I have to attempt to make my ever growing hair look presentable before I leave for work.

I know the reason I shaved it off in the first place. The heat, the sweat, the effort to maintain long hair. But I miss it!

The biggest difference between then and now, though, is the number of grey hair that have crept in. For a while now, I have had unblemished jet black hair. Now there are a few grey hair that have made their appearence felt and will probably go us as time goes by. I think it's just an indication that I am getting older and that the body has moved into a phase where I need to take care of it more often.

Which brings me to my next point.

I am going to start cycling every single day. Mainly as excercise to begin with, but then eventually (once I get used to it) to use it as a mode of transportation to and from work. There are a few logistical things that I need to take care of before I start doing that.

First, there is the parking problem. Where do I leave my bike when I am at work? Do I have to pay parking charges for it? Is there a provision to keep the bike safe when I am not using it?

Then there is the problem of taking a shower once I reach work. This thing, I think is imminently solvable as I think there are a couple of shower rooms in the office building.

And then there is the ever important thing about breakfast. After cycling a few kilometers (hopefully at a high enough pace for it to be an excercise), I will feel hungry and, lets face it, the breakfast IS probably the most important meal for me. Also, there is the thing about lunch. Currently, I carry my lunch with me (packed graciously by my wife). Once I start leaving early enough, that advantage will disappear. So I need to worry about the two primary meals of the day.

But whatever the impediments, I WILL get on the bike and I will cycle.

Step one is buying a good bicycle. For that, I think I will just hop over to the store close to my office which looks like a very decent store to buy one. I actually went over to check it out and even have an estimate of how much it will cost to get a decent bike. Then there are the accessories (helmet, lights, etc.) which need to be considered.

I also do not know the laws governing bicycles in Singapore. Where am I allowed to take my bycycle? Do I have to pay ERP (I am yet to see a bike sporting an ERP machine, so that is a clue, but I still don't know for certain)? Does a bicycle qualify as a pedestrian thingy rather than a vehicle so that I can ride it on the sidewalks?

So many things to clarify. A visit to the local Police Station should help answer most of my queries. Which is where I plan to go in the next few days.

iCame, iSaw, iMac

That's right!

We bought a 20" iMac as our home machine today! Went over to the Apple store, checked out the prices and bought it. Just like that.

And it's a pleasure to setup and use. Very easy. It has everything built into the monitor, so it uses absolutely minimal space on the desk. And then there is the Mac OS X which is an absolute beaut.

So the day (and most of tomorrow) is going to be spent getting all the music, all the family pictures and stuff onto this machine (which, incidentally, has a 250GB hard disk and 2GB or RAM). Once all of that is there, this will officially become the family machine.

The only problem I have so far is the ability to do Google Talk Audio Chat on the machine. From what I have read so far, most IM vendors have ignored the Mac platform when it comes to their VoIP offerings, Google being the most offending because most of their apps are only for the Windows environment. The only audio chat service that IS available Skype...which is decent enough, but not the best IM solution. I would have preferred to do my chat and my audio conversations on GT. But then, I cannot have everything.

So now we have a great iMac at home to do all the stuff that my wife complained she could not do on the older system we had.

No excuses now! :-)

NaNoWriMo on stealth mode...

Oh...and I forgot totally to mention this...

As you all know, November is for NaNoWriMo. In case you haven't noticed, I talked a lot about it last year (here, here, here, here and here).

This year, instead of talking about it here and wasting my time, I went into total stealth mode and typed like crazy whenever I could. The difference, this time around as compared to last time, was that I already had a framework for the novel ready. The plot was almost final, the characters were ready (to an extent) and I knew where everything was going (to an extent).

I'm glad to announce that I crossed the 50000 word mark today and at the same time, finished my novel today!

That's my second novel in a row!

What is it all about? If I told you, I would have to kill you :-)

They're not in a hurry, but we are?

Let's take a hypothetical example...

This person and his hypothetical collegue meet a hypothetical solution provider to discuss a hypothetical mutual oppotunity. After the discussion, over a hypothetical lunch, the hypothetical solution provider agrees to provide the hypothetical people in this hypothetical example more details on the hypothetical solution by the end of the day.

Nothing materializes even by the end of the next day.

Finally, the hypothetical solution details arrive a day and a half later. And now the hypothetical collegue of this hypothetical person is pushing hard to get their side of the information done ASAP.

So this person feels that this hypothetical solution provider does not view this opportunity as something really important (given their speed of response) and so they are not in a hurry, but this hypothetical collegue is...even though the solution is mostly about the hypothetical provider's solution.

I would get so mad if this happened to me. Luckily it happened to this hypothetical person.

Sort of reminds you of Sir Humphrey, doesn't it? ;-)

Microsoft Firefox?

Sounds like an oxymoron, right?

When The Register reported here that Microsoft had released a version of Firefox with certain improvements (which sounded, in true Reg fashion, hilarious), I just checked the site out.

The site is called www.msfirefox.com and is one of the most authentic sounding hoaxes around. It allows you to download MS Firefox 2007 Professional (which is actually an IE7 distribution) and is complete with a support section.

Check out, however, some of the notes from the support section...



The "Note" actually says (and I quote)

* Note: Previous installations of browsers such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, will automatically be overwritten. The removal of Microsoft Firefox from your system violates international copyright law. Therefore, you cannot legally uninstall Microsoft Firefox.

WHOA!!!

Look who's quibbling over increase in GST

Not people like me...

It's the RICH people who're crying foul over the Singapore government's decision to increase the GST from the current 5% to 7%.

These are people who drive fancy, really expensive cars and have multi-million dollar houses. Sure, they are the people who will pay 2% more when they buy these expensive things, but at least THEY HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY THESE THINGS!!! SOME OF US DON'T EVEN HAVE IT!!!

And we all will have to pay that additional 2% on everything. Be it groceries, gadgets, books, movies or clothes (that's the extent to which my wallet allows me to think). These guys will have to pay it on a lot more things. How unfair!

I think that just sucks...but as they say, the rich get richer...and I stay where I am.

Even the technicians know about it...but they won't fix it

There's a peculiar thing about the elevator in my office building.

Since the 1st and the 7th level are the most frequented floors, one of the elevators has a peculiar problem. Sometimes, the doors just won't close unless you press on the safety stoppers in the middle of the doors! And this is a fairly well known peculiarity among the people who work here.

So every time the door does not close, someone presses the safety stoppers and the doors close and we all ride to whichever floor we are going to.

But today, another elevator was being serviced and the technicians were there to maintain it. One of them rode up the elevator with me and at level 1, he noticed the door not closing and promptly proceeded to press the safety stopper!

So they know about it! Why won't the fix it? Especially since they are the guys who fix these sort of things anyways. Up until now, I thought that this was a problem that had not been highlighted to the maintainence company, but after today, I know otherwise.

Maybe someone has to yell before this things gets fixed.

I'm going to be that one.

Rain, Slice, OB, Longest Drive

As you know, I played the Nongsa Cup Tournament at Batam over the weekend.

Just as we were about to start the first round at Palm Springs, the clouds rolled in and threatened. As we teed off (incidentally, on the hole 8th hole on Island, marked for the longest drive prize for the day...which we were never going to get, considering that this would be our FIRST drive of the day).

As we teed off, the clouds made good on their threat and rain crashed down with a vengence. Surprisingly, I made par on the first two holes, that too recovering from fairly attrocious tee offs. I attribute that to dry grips and a dry glove!

On the next hole, I should have realized that luck was not going to be in my favour that round when a very nice driver shot took a nasty sideways bounce and landed on the downslope of a water hazard. Just getting the ball over the hole and then onto a green surrounded by really deep bunkers cost me a few strokes and I posted double bogey.

And then came a lovely birdie. A fairly long putt after hitting the green (nowhere close to the closest to pin spot).

After that, it was all downhill. By this time, my glove had become soaking wet, the grips slippery and the rain torrential. So to avoid the club from slipping from my hands, I held on tighter than I normally do and promptly started slicing the ball Nor-Nor-East when I want it to go due West. OB and lost ball! The next two holes (a par 5 and a par 4) had the exact same scenario and the exact same results as well.

That, and a few more disasters, helped me post a monster 52 as my 9 hole score!

On the come back, I shot 5 pars, 3 double bogeys and a double par! Three more balls were lost on this nine (I dont need to tell you on which holes...you can figure them out). Oh, and to make matters worse, I four putted one of the disaster holes and three putted another. This was clearly not working for me.

So I came back with a soaking body and a soaking score card to match...having posted a 99 on this God forsaken day. The only upside to this was the possibility of a rain free game and the hope that this was the worst that I could do.

So after partial attempts to dry the footwear (with a hair dryer for 20 minutes), I teed off (this time at Tering Bay for the second round) at again one of the most difficult holes...the par 3 seventh which has so many bunkers around it that you feel you're playing in a desert. And as I like to make things difficult for myself, I promptly landed inside one and did myself no favours by taking 2 strokes to get out of there.

This time round, it was clearly the putting that was lacking. Too many GIRs and then 3putts. Too many times landing on the fairway and then landing short. I took 35 putts to finish my round of 89 (a marked inprovement over yesterday, but good enough).

The only bright side to this whole effort? My drive on the 10th hole at Tering Bay. This hole was being used to judge the Longest drive off the tee. If you haven't played this hole, it is a longish par 4 with a fairly wide fairway and a bunker at the left side of the fairway, around 250 yards from the tee, to threaten your drive.

As we stood on the tee, we could see that someone had already put a flag there, level with the bunker, as the longest drive candidate. I was the last to drive off and hit a screamer!

The ball went dead straight and went over the previous maker on the fly, going another 30 yards after it landed. I would estimate my drive at around 290yards, which could have been longer had it not been the fact that it came up against an upslope. So the marker went up there with my name on it. And it stayed there...cause I won a small crystal trophy for the longest drive for the second round of the tournament!

Cool, huh?

The tournament was won by some show off who shot an 8 over round in the rain (with some 7 birdies!....I want to know who his marker was!) and then shot a two over for the second round to shoot a gross score of 154! Hideous, isn't it?

So all in all, a few terrible rounds, but a trophy to keep in my living room!

I can live with that!

How inconsiderate it that? Part II

Just yesterday, I blogged about someone who was not only being inconsiderate, but also breaking the law.

Well, just this evening, it happened again.

I was in a bus on my way home. At one of the bus stops, a couple entered looking all shifty (well, at least the guy was). The woman with him looked like she was high on something, judging by the way she was walking unsteady and swaying. And then I noticed that she had carryied a lit cigarette onto the bus!

The moment I noticed that (and the guy saw me looking), the couple decided to get off the bus. That did not stop the smell of burnt tobacco from staying in.

How inconsiderate it that?

Looks like not all Singaporeans are law abiding citizens...



Case in point: This inconsiderate driver who stopped right opposite my office building so that he could pick someone up. This happened today, just this afternoon

Now, mind you, this is a busy road and usually there is a lot of traffic during office hours. And this guy caused a lot of people to slow down and then drive away, with a honk to show their displeasure.

That's just not done! Shame on you, whoever you are!

My first real tournament cometh

I have a confirmed registration for the Nongsa Cup Golf Tournament being held at Batam over this coming weekend.

The tournament is mainly to promote the Nongsa Pura Marina area (with the Palm Springs and Tering Bay golf courses and the Batam View and assorted hotels in the area) on the Batam island of Indonesia. The tournament will be held over a 2 days period (like a regular tournament) with the first round being played at the Tering Bay course (which is hell on a few holes when the wind is blowing) and the second round being played at Palm Springs (sort of my home course, one that I have played at the most since I moved to Singapore).

My wife surprised me completely the other day by not only agreeing for my participation in the tournament, but also suggested that she and my daughter would love to join me at Batam so that we can have a mini vacation. That, I thought, was a great idea and so that's what's going to happen. We are all booked at the Batam View hotel (which, I know for a fact, is a very nice property...having stayed there during our office offsite).

So the next weekend is going to be one where the family and I will chill out (apart for me going away for a few hours to slam balls in hopefully the right direction) and return in the evening on Sunday.

So far, after the last round, I am convinced that my swing has deserted me. So I think if I am to take this tournament seriously, I need to go to the driving range at least once to work on some of my shots, mainly the longer clubs. For most of the last round, I was grappling with the driver and the 4 iron. Also had trouble with pulling the short irons on short par 3s. Need to fix that, cause I don't want to get to the tournament not knowing where the ball is going to go.

So...it's three days more to go for the tournament.

Let's see how I fare in competition pressure (not that it's like the US Open, but it's still a tournament and I would like to win)

What I would do to get a swing like this! (SIGH!)

If you haven't watched the recent Nike Golf Swing Portrait Commercial featuring Tiger Woods, then you're missing something (or you are not a golfer...in which case you pretty much don't care).



Be that as it may, even to non-golfers (it's ok, it's no shame, nobody's perfect), this swing is a work of art. Just watching it can make you go "Wow!" Even if you didn't know who Tiger Woods is or you didn't know what a good golf swing is supposed to look like, you would look at this video and go "That looks great! He must be good at whatever it is he is doing!"

And it is this pursuit of perfection that maddens us all. The ability to have a repeatable, dependable, powerful, versatile swing that we can take to the golf course. And that is every golfer's dream. Every single one of us (even the social golfers who I loathe)!

And just watching this portrait (of a truely great swing, I needlessly add), I realized something about my own swing (Yeah, I have a tendency of doing that! Just last week I learnt something from Retief Goosen's swing)

If you look at how he has teed up his ball for a driver, you will see that the ball is teed up with most of it facing the driver's clubface. What I have been told (up until now) is that the ball should be teed up high enough so that half the ball is over the top of the driver's face when you keep the driver on the drive at address position. As you can see here, Tiger has his ball teed up way, way, WAY lower than that.

Probably that is why he presents the full clubface to the ball at impact and that is why he gets the spin and the distance that is legendary of Tiger Woods. Maybe that is one of the mistakes I have been doing up until now and is something that I should change.

Time to hit the range, me thinks!

Driving the green and rash in my pants

The best way to present the highlight (and the lowlight) of my day yesterday.

My golf buddy from India (the 2nd leg of the golf triad I was part of in India....aaah, those beautiful days....oh, back to reality!) was flying from the US back to India and he wisely took a flight via Singapore so that he could stopover and, guess...guess....guess, play a round with me! Oh yes, he's as crazy a golfer as I am!

So he landed midnight on Saturday and Sunday morning we left for Batam to have a round at Palm Springs.

I went to the course thinking that I had fixed one key fault in my swing (something I noticed when I was watching Retief Goosen play...which is almost always a pleasure. As I watched him swing, I realized that I almost never finish the way he does and that I change swing planes when I finish, so I had to correct that), but my problem with the ball position still continues to dog me with these new irons (nothing against you, my Mizuno MP-32s....it's all my fault).

So I had a fairly disasterous front nine. Forty five. On the back nine, somehow, for the first few holes, the game looked like it was going like the front nine. But then the last 5 holes, I went Par, Par, Bogey, Par and then BIRDIE!!!

The last hole was absolutely sweet. It's a 313yard par 3 (downhill) and I actually drove the green! My ball stopped around 15 feet on top of the cup which makes my drive close to 320 yards (so what if it's downhill)! From there, I two putted to pick up my sole birdie of the day and a round of 86.

Considering the pathetic way I played, I think I got away with murder. 86 is not a bad score to post when your playing as if you are trying to emulate disaster. What I loved the most, almost consistently through the round, was my chipping. I was for the most time chipping very close to the hole, either for a tap in or for an relatively easy putt. I saved a few shots that way.

So after realxing once I had finished the round, I realized that the humid climate and the heat had caused another problem for me. I had a severe rash in my pants and after coming home, despite applying a lot of Aloe Vera cream, I was walking like a penguin for the rest of the day.

Come to think of it, I still am walking like a penguin. Luckily people in office either have not noticed or are too decent to say so to my face.

I need to hit the range to fix my swing. I need to find a way to beat the rashes. These are my personal challanges for the week.

Jon saves the day (I mean, PDA)

I had a lot of trouble with my O2 Atom PDA when alarms started going off when I didn't want them to, but not when I wanted to.

Apparently, my Notification Queue had filled up and that had created all sorts of trouble for me in terms of multiple alarms for the same date, no alarm on the clock when I want it to buzz, etc.

So, on the suggestion from my friend, partner in crime & IndiPPC Admin (Bobby Bhai), I used softwares like MemMaid to clear the notification queue. While MemMaid is a very handy software, it does not do very well at detecting which notifications are duplicate (especially if they are created with different timestamps as a result of multiple syncs). So I deleted a lot of entries manually...and promptly lost the ability to Activesync.

That sent me into a wild tizzy to hunt for information on why AS was not working.

There's a big troubleshooting guide for activesync 4.x here on microsoft site which, as the site quotes, covers all the most common issues like

• Connection between a Device and PC is dropped during data transfer or synchronization.
• Connection is never established between PC and the Device and there is no visual feedback.
• Synchronization is completed partially, but does not finish as intended.
• Windows appears to stall or crashes upon connecting a device.

What this place does not cover is something that happened to me.

A lot of people had the same problem and most of them ended up hard reseting their devices. The scenario looked extremely bleak for me.

I found, later after a lot of posts, is that AS puts in an entry called repllog.exe in the Notification queue and it needs to have a few things there. One is quite easy. Add \Windows\repllog.exe with the event "RS232 connection was established" in the queue manually. What it also needs is the ability to on the event "RunAtRndisFnDetected" which CANNOT be created manually (because there is no option in the even drop down list).

Fortunately for me, Jon here had the exact same problem, but he being far less technically challanged (being a developer) than me, he created an application called FixASRunAt which solves the problem!!!!

YEEEE HAAAA!! Thanx a lot, Jon. You saved me a hard reset!

Thank God for the Internet!

Which bus service do you prefer? SMRT Vs SBS?

For the last few weeks, unless I have an emergency, I take a bus to and from work.

It's only a short walk for me to the bus stop and the bus drops me off (either ways) in 20 minutes. That's not bad, considering that it only costs me 89 cents one way! As opposed to between $8 and $10 depending on what time I leave home / work!

So I almost always take the 143 from Newton Road to get to Chinatown. It is a fairly pleasant ride, with not too many people to crowd the bus and enough space on the double decker to ensure that you spend 20 minutes on your rear end thinking about what you want to do when you get to work.

For coming back home, I have 2 options. Two busses that go on almost the same route. There's the 166 and the 851. The thing is, both busses are run by seperate bus companies. The 166 is an SBS service while the 851 is an SMRT venture. And that is where the difference starts.

The 166 is pretty like the journey on the 143 (another SBS route)...calm and without too many jerks (not the people jerks, the jerks caused by braking and accelerating sharply). The 851, however, is a completely different kettle of fish.

All the drivers for the 851 route are as if they had their racing dreams still born and they want to take vengence out on the streets of Singapore. The acceleration out of the bus stop is enough to push you a few seats down the aisle. Then there is the zig zag as the driver gets into a smaller car's slipstream and then races by them with a nod of his head and then the sharp late braking as if he is making an overtaking manouver on the race track, but in actuality, he is just stopping at a bus stop where he was flagged off more than a few tens of seconds ago.

All in all, in my limited bus experience, I think the SMRT drivers are way more rash at their driving as compared to their SBS counterparts.

I know I may be wrong and that generalizing in this manner is not fair. But in my observation, almost every single SBS bus ride for me is more of a pleasure than an SMRT bus journey. Then why don't I just take the SBS bus all the time, you may ask.

The reason is that if I miss the 166, it comes back in around 15 minutes. And sometimes in that time, the 851 comes around twice. So in the interest of time, I have to take the 851. Though every single time I see a 166 approach, I catch myself going "Yesss!!!!" in my mind :-)

Tolerable Cruelty

What I was saying here is somewhat what Jon Stewart played out on The Daily Show.

The point being, the US government is affecting changes to the Geneva convention to allow for the requirements of the CIA, then why can't everyone else?

Check out the video...it's hilarious (as is everything on the Daily Show!).

Thank you very much, Jon Stewart!

That's how good it is to be a kid

In just a few days, my daughter picked up how to play James Blunt's "Goodbye My Lover".

This is a video that I shot using the camera in my phone (because I don't have a digital video camera and I have not yet setup the camera on my notebook), and so the video / audio quality is not the best.

But the point is not the quality of the video. The point is...she is playing extremely well for a six year old!

Isn't that great?

Page overhaul

Have been wanting to do this for a while now, but never got around to doing it. Always either ran out of time or patience (never really managed to understand what all the numbers and tags meant in the template).

But today, finally, FINALLY, I have successfully managed to change the template to the way I wanted it to look.

So hope u folks like it.

Cheers

Do as I say, Don't do as I do

That seems to be the western world policy, isn't it?

I mean, it's ok for all the developed countries to develop and have a nuclear arsenal, but not for the developing countries, right? (Remember the sanctions on India after we conducted our N-tests?)

It's OK for developed superpowers to invade other countries in the name of faith, but not OK if other people do it, right? (Remember Iraq's Kuwait invastion?)

And now, it comes to the environment. A lot of developing countries are being pushed to sign the Kyoto Protocol when the biggest contributors to environmental change are the bigger, more developed countries.

Please understand, I am not against progress. But not at the expense of the environment. And so I will not stand for the argument that just because someone else is doing it, so can we. Countries like India and China, with very strong growths in their respective economies, have to take responsibility to grow while making sure they do not harm the environment. But where I have a strong concern is the bigotry of the developed countries.

Take the case in point: All this time, a lot of countries have achieved their current "developed" state on the back of environmental harm. The CO2 contributions made to the atmosphere, the nuclear waste dumped into the oceans, the materials used to make more efficient air conditioners. All of this has brought the planet to the state it is today.

What state is that? Watch "An Inconvenient Truth", a documentary movie featuring Al Gore.

I accidentally caught the movie when I was flying to the US on a business trip. And I think the creators of the movie have not done a big enough job of promoting it. Cause the movie is FANTASTIC!!! It just lays bare the state to which we have brought our planet.

And now we have Australia choosing to not sign the Kyoto Protocol because of a British environmental report.

Where are we all going? When will we all stop looking at just the monetary side of things? When will we consider the repercursions of our actions? When will we start thinking about the world we are going to leave for our children?

When does it all stop?

Do our actions even qualify as "development" if it causes an overall deterioration our the living conditions?

Term of convenience, huh?

Usually, when people use the word "Asian", they mean people that, for the lack of a better category, look Chinese. I know I am doing grave injustice to all the other races (and my most sincere apologies), but I am refering to people from the South East Asian countries.

What a lot of people miss out is exactly that. They are refering to people from South East Asian countries! That's just a part of the Asian continent. But that's how it happens.

Nobody notices the fact that India is a part of that very same continent and quite close to the South East region as well. But we Indians don't get refered to as Asians. Not all the time anyways.

But this morning, one of us did get mentioned as one.

Jeev Milkha Singh, one of our many outstanding golfers, won the Volvo Masters tournament on the European tour. On the same day, KJ Choi won the Chrysler Open on the PGA tour. The Straits Times article this morning shouted (on the top of their newsprint) that two "Asians" had won on the same weekend on two different tours and how the "Asian" golfers have come of age.

While I laud the achievements of either of these players (both playing down some really stiff competition to win their respective events), I just disagree with the selective usage of the word Asian.

I am an Indian. That makes me an Asian. Why the world has a problem with that logic is beyond me.

Even the British can't spell right

Hmmm...

I was reading the EPL (English Premier League, for all the people who don't follow it) highlights on their site as I had missed the entire weekend's worth of football (business trip...what can I say).

The fantastic news: Manchester United destroyed Bolton Wanderers at their home Reebok Stadium by a scoreline of 4-0, Wayne Rooney helping himself to a hat-trick of goals just a few days after turning 21.

What I really found funny: Gary Neville being quoted on the EPL site. Check out the headline and the summary below it. Well, since you're so lazy, I am pasting a copy here (no offense and copyright infringement meant to the EPL).

NEVILLE: CONSISTENCY KEY TO UNITED SUCCESS
Gary Neville believes the seeds of Manchester United's blossoming title challenge were sewn at the back end of last season.

Sewn? SEWN??? I thought they were talking about seeds! If it's seeds, it should be SOWN!!! Cause that's what you do with seeds... You sow them! Sew is what you do with a needle. And so that would have made sense had they been talking about the plans for ManU (at least a little bit).

Even if sewn and sown are pronounced the same way, they convey very different meanings. I would have thought the English would know better(considering the fact that they are called just that: The English)

Funny, huh?

The book is out!

Yep...my late night efforts for a month (don't take any naughty connotations of this statement) last November as part of the NaNoWriMo have borne fruit. In case you didn't know about it, you can read about my tryst with NaNoWriMo here, here, here, here, here and HERE. :-)

Thanks to the stellar effort of the co-ordinator of the Singapore NaNoWriMo charter, Rozen, a few of us from Singapore have excerpt of our novels published in a book called "So you think you can write a Novel?"
The book is an eclectic collection of excerpts taken from novels of various genres written by 19 people from different age groups and backgrounds, but all residing in Singapore.







This is how the book looks




The book is published by Marshall Cavendish and was launched today at the Singapore National Library. Unfortunately for me, I could not attend the launch as I was travelling on business. Oh well. Somthings you get and some you don't. I would have loved to be there, though.

I hope the book does well as it is the first time a novel like this has been published. I also hope it is a good wake-up call for all the people who have a writer inside them, but have not given that part of them a chance to come out.

Frankly, I did not know I could write. As a matter of fact, I still can't. But I was a lot worse. I think blogging here has belped quite a bit. And the experience of writing the novel helped a lot too.

Now that I look back, there are so many things I would do differently with my novel. There are so many things that I don't like about it and so many things that could have been better. But it has all been worth it. It has been a good learning experience. I think I will do better in my next effort.

Oh, and I forgot. It's WriMo time again. That's right, NaNoWriMo fever kicks off again in a few days (on Wednesday, to be precise) and so it's off to the race for some of us. I very strongly encourage you to join in. You can register yourself at www.nanowrimo.org and have a go. And who know? You could be joining me at the winners podium at the end of the month.

See you there at the end of the 30th of November!

Isn't this just beautiful?

Just look at this picture!


This is a shot of the beautiful signature Par-5 on the famous Ria Bintan golf course in, of course, Bintan! While the picture is breathtaking, the experience of actually being there is way, way, way beyond. The course is that beautiful.

This hole, incidentally, has been rated the most beautiful par 5 in Asia! And I most certainly agree with the rating. It is a very demanding hole with the requirement to keep to the left or center of fairway off the tee, a blind shot to where you think the forest is and then a sharp downhill shot to a small green surrounded by water (where I promptly hit my ball!).

As a collegue of mine described it: "Beautiful course, ugly game"! That pretty much sums up how I played that day.

But the course was absolutely beautiful!

When was the last time you looked directly at the Sun?

It's been hazy for the last few weeks (as you might have noticed from my last post), but this just took the cake.

This is a picture I took when I was taking the ferry to Batam to play a round of golf. Mind you,
this is in the morning!

Normally, the sun is strong enough for you to reach for your suntan lotion bottle, but this time the sun was barely visible, let alone powerful.

You could barely see the light reflecting in the water, which is usually reflecting so harshly that there is no way of avoiding your sunglasses, and all around was this grey gloom which pretty much looked like it was a worldwide phenomenon (which, come to think of it, it is).

Made me think about how the dinosaurs would have felt (assuming our theory about the meteor hit is true) when they were engulfed with dust. I felt so miniscule in the grand scale of things. A fire somewhere had an impact (currently just an irritating one, but impact nonetheless) on my life in another part of the world. How we are all interconnected to a large extent.

And how fragile our ecosystem is. And how much we abuse it.

Reminded me of Sting's "Fragile".

On the way back, I took another picture. This one, you can barely see the sun. As in the first
picture, I have marked it just so you know where to look. Cause the sun looks like a remote spec in the sky.

No longer the mighty fireball that we associate with, but a meek blip on the horizon.

No blue skies, no more clouds. I can't remember the last time I saw a clear blue sky since I landed here.

It threatens to clear every day, the wind notches up a bit to raise hopes, but the haze presses in the next day, reminding us that it's there for a while.

How long is this going to last? When do we see the skies clear? When will I get the chance to curse the equatorial heat when I play golf?

Smoky air

Smoke and ash billows from the fires
Mother Nature put to the test
Wind blowing the ash toward us
Giving the city a smoky crest

The entire city is in a haze
Sunlight filtering through
The dull lighting in the morning stays
The sky no longer looks blue

It feels harder to breathe these days
Or maybe it's just me and what I think
My throat feels parched always
No matter how much water I can drink

For a change, it's not been raining these days
That would have helped clear things about
The wind is our only ally now
But it blows more ash and smoke in than out

How a fire in one part of the world
Affects people so far away
How an earthquake in one corner
Causes a Tsunami in the other

We all live in a connected universe
We all affect each other's lives
Maybe it's time we all realized
The privilege of what we call life!

The God of guitar is coming to town!

Eric Patrick Clapton is coming to Singapore in January!

He is actually going to play live here at the Singapore National Stadium.

I can't wait. My browser is not allowing me to make the ticket bookings, but I will get that done as soon as possible. I am not going to miss this show.

Caught with my trousers down

As I promised, I am posting some of the things that happened in my life before I went off blogging. So here's installment number 1.

I had left office around the 5:45pm mark and was walking toward the bus stop to take the bus home (trying to save some money, you know). The bus stop which I need to get to is on the other side of the People's Park complex. So naturally, I have to walk through the complex to get to the stop.

As I was walking through the complex, I noticed a few massage parlours there. Now if you know me, I have a weakness for getting pampered. I LOVE getting massages. And it just so happened that I was feeling quite stiff all day with a body ache.

So I decided to pop into one of these places which promised a 45 minute massage for just $25 (which I thought was a great deal).

I was ushered in by this woman who led me to one of the free booths and gave me a pair of shorts to change into while my masseuse arrived. Shortly, another woman came in, asked me ot lie down on the massage table in the booth and tucked a towel in the back of my shorts (obviously to keep the massage oil from messing them up).

She had just started with the massage when there was a bit of commotion in the lobby (if I can call it that) of the place and a couple of people peeped through the curtains of the booth. My masseues rushed out and just left me there, in my shorts with a little bit of oil on my back and a towel tucked in the back of my shorts with part of my ass hanging out!

I later realized that the folks who had barged in were cops and this was a raid on this place. It was mainly to check on people who were licensed to work in that place and people who were "freelancing". It turned out that the masseuse (?) who was attending to me was not exactly allowed to do it (as I later found out).

So I had to sign a written testimony about how I came there, who ushered me in, who attended to me, all the details of time, place and circumstance. And after 45 minutes (without a massage), I walked out of there after experiencing the first raid here in Singapore.

Not the most positive thing in the whole day, but a lot better than getting arrested myself...that too for going to a massage parlour without checking if your masseuse was legally allowed to give you a massage!

It has to happen to me, right?

Back in the Alley

Apologies, my loyal readers.

It's more than a month since I last blogged. And you deserve to know why you could not read the stellar content I put up here. Even if you didn't, I am going to force it down your throat, in typical Mally-Alley style.

Well, all the week that I put in my last few posts (end August), I was feeling tired and unenthusiastic, unenergetic and exhuasted. I had also lost all my appetite. My wife promptly blamed the symptoms on me being "allergic" to her. She claimed that I was fine when I was all alone here in Singapore and when I was enjoying my vacation in India, but I was tired as soon as she got back here. And I had to endure all her comments for a while.

The beginning of September was my wife's conference in Malaysia (for which the entire family travelled, just so that all of us could see her present her paper there). Even there, I had to put up with all the comments, especially one that went right to the top of my temper pole. She had heard about "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" at the conference and did not waste any time in labelling me with it.

While we were heading back, my mom commented that I was looking "a bit yellow". That raised a lot of eyebrows (mainly cause I am not Chinese and don't lay any claim to being part of the Yellow Race). As usual, my wife got into hyper mode and insisted that we get me checked...a suggetion that I was not entirely averse to.

As it turns out, I was diagnosed with Jaundice! But I was not exhibiting any of the symptoms of "classical" Jaundice caused by Hepatitis A or C. I had no pains in my abdomen, I did not have fever, I did no have nausia. I was just exhausted and unenthusiastic about food in general.

Since the doctors did not have any clue why I was the way I was, they suggested that I get admitted to the hospital for observation so that they could wake me up at all odd hours to take my blood pressure, keep my hungry as the reason for a few tests and not do those tests at all, and in general to keep me away from home.

I spent 4 days in that state with needles stuck in me and my patience running out. I also think I lost a lot of weight in those few days.

My wife, in all of this time, silently bore my snide remarks about how accurate her statements were about the "chronic fatigue" I had and beinf allergic to her. Her expression told me that the one comment I made to her was enough. I was unwell when we went for the conference and she knew that I never complained once.

Finally, the doctors told me that I had Epstien Barr Virus (EBV). When I Googled it, I found that it happens to 95% of the populace of the world, only mostly in the early years. When one gets it in older age, it's a bit harder to recover from. And with that momentous news, they allowed me to go home on the condition that I will not step out of my house, eat food only given to small kids and in general, behave like an intelligent vegetable.

I spent the most part of 2 weeks in this state. And I realized how weak I had gotten when I started getting tired after going from my bed to the restroom. Even talking on the phone made me get tired. And after 2 weeks, I had shrunk to where I could put a fist into my 34" waist Levis and still button it down. I had gotten to the point I thought was not possible.

From there, it has been a slow path of recovery and I am glad to say that I am a LOT better today. I feel hungry a lot more often, I am not at my usual energy levels, but I am getting there.

All in all, I hope that the blog does not go silent and that I do justice to your faith in this site. I know I have a lot to tell you folks, something I intended to do earlier, but could not because of the medical condition I went through.

So, me hearties, Mally is back to the Alley.

Stay tuned!

"Chat is disabled"?

That's the message Gmail threw at me just now.

There was some trouble the chat part of the Gmail window was having in connecting to the server, but usually you get a message saying that there is a problem connecting and whether you want to retry.

Just now, I got a "Chat is disabled" message. I refreshed the window and the message disappeared.

Funny, huh?

I've been noticing a gradual decrease in the service quality of Google and Gmail / Google talk. Hope they solve the problem.

Not sure if Darling's darling will like this

Further to this and this, the O2 service station have given me a loaner O2 XphoneII.

For the people who don't know, or couldn't care less, this is the smartphone version of the O2 range (not the PDA kind). So it looks like a real phone and talks like a real phone. Has a keypad and all.

What it also has is a list of contacts belonging to the guy / gal who loaned it before me. And there is a number in the contacts list called "Darling" with messages to go with it which are "Why not answering?" and more mushy stuff.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that the guy / gal is extremely pissed off at the fact that I have his / her Darling's number and some of the messages that go with the number.

Now don't think I am a peeping tom. I would never have noticed the messages on my old phone, but on this one, it takes you to the messages application to read a new message. So when I got a message from a collegue, it took me there. And the message right below it was from Darling!

Which brings me to a very important lesson. I need to know how to reset this phone before I return it...cause I don't want my sensitive information leaking out to just anybody who loans the phone next.

I think that was a bit unprofessional on the part of the O2 service center. All they had to do was reset the phone after every customer returns one.

I'll put that as a suggestion when I return mine.

3 to 5 days become a week and a half

An update to this post.

I just got a call from the O2 service center. It seems that they need to replace the entire main board of the phone (no wonder it conked off!), but they don't have the board in stock. It will arrive only by Friday this week and so the earliest I can collect it is on Monday the next week.

Now this sucks!

A simple ROM upgrade should not zap an entire board. But then, maybe the problem was there all along and was causing all the intermittant problems I was facing earlier.

I hope this board change make the phone stable. Cause it it doesn't, I'm in deep trouble.

I will be left with a $1000 brick and an angry wife!

The only 2 days when I am really religious

Sunday and Monday were part of the Ganeshotsav festival honouring Lord Ganesha.

To me, this is the single most important of all the numerous Hindu festivals thro the year. For a simple, solitary reason.

Lord Ganesha is my chosen representation of the Ultimate Being, of God. Of his many forms, I find this form the most endearing. And also the most potent.

Lord Ganesha is known as "Vighnaharta", literally meaning "Remover of obstacles". But to me, he is a lot more. He is my benefactor, my friend, my sounding board and my strength. He is the one I go to when I don't feel strong enough, and he gives me strength.

I never thought myself religious. I am not a devout Hindu, I don't hold much store in rituals, I refuse to chant things that I don't understand. But when it comes to these two days in a year, I am a completely different person. I pray, I chant, I bow and I watch.

As you might have read - in between the lines - in my previous post, I have always felt blessed. Always felt guided. As if He is watching over me.

And I am thankful for that!

Ganapati Bappa, Mourya! Pudhchya Varshi Lavkar ya!

Interview

Don't worry...I'm not quitting my company. Not just yet, anyways :-)

Had to go to the US embassy this morning for an interview. Since I have to go to the US in the next couple of months, and since my US visa had just expired a couple of months ago, I had to apply afresh here in Singapore.

When my travel agent put in the application, the embassy came back with the requirement of an interview for me. So I had to go there this morning.

It's not much of a hassle, not when I compare it with my first experience with the US embassy in India. There, one had to start as early as three in the morning to wait in the queue to enter. And the queue was still a huge mammoth thing that one had to negotiate. It was also a fairly unique experience for me.

As I progressed thro the queue and reached the final destination, I was asked to move to the "final" queue, which was directly in front of the Interviewing Officer. And I could see and hear the questions and answers. And here's the funny thing.

I had more than 8 guys in front of me. Every single one of them got rejected!

Every single one of them!

The reasons were of all types: "I don't think your English language skills are good enough to live in the US", "Your documentation is incomplete", "You look like a potential immigrant". Just about anything could have been the reason.

But it did not really worry me. Despite the fact that this was my first trip to the US. I guess the trip did not matter to me that much. And I got the VISA.

Today, here in Singapore, the queue was a lot shorter (but still formidable) and we were allowed to enter the embassy a few at a time. After I got in and showed my documentation, I was asked to move to counter 8 for my interview with this pretty American woman.

The usual questions ensued: Which company? How many years? Why are u going? How long? Why don't you want to work in the US? Why Singapore? How long? etc.

And at the end of the interview, she smiled and said that she was giving me a 10 year multiple entry VISA "so that you don't have to come for the interview again" (in her very own words).

Maybe be disliked my face so much, she didn't want it anywhere close to the embassy, neither did she want the photo in the application to be seen ever again :-)

But whatever the reason, I walked out with a 10 year multiple entry VISA to the US. Now I don't have to worry about spot decisions to attend my conferences.

At least something good this morning.