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The EmScale [1...10]

2011-04-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Emotions are essentially the colours of human life. Colours have different shades, these shades may differ ever so slightly but each is a different colour (you may as well check the hex representation!) in its own right! Greater is the number of shades in a painting, the more colourful is its appearance. But for a colourful painting to translate into a mesmerising piece of art, all the colours need to be in the right place! But is the same true with a person brimming up with different emotions? Is there a prescribed definition for “right emotion at the right place” ? Don’t think so and that’s what makes a living personality dynamic and different from a static painting. (I know the above text has something in it that makes it sound like a mathematical proof, I am an engineer after all, and more mathematical interpretation is unfortunately going to follow).

The expression of an emotion, should it always be spontaneous and unplugged? Or should an emotion come out after actualizing the logistics of the situation at hand? (That sounds so supply-chain-ish). You may agree neither is the best way to go about! (This is going to be the style for this blog, ask something and then deny it!) Expressing every emotion just like that, takes the fun out of it, and has a dull notion of predictability associated with it. At the same time, the conscious suppression of an emotion is a deep and intense realization which makes this feeling itself a heavy-weight when ranked amongst its peers. The people we describe as normal are generally emoting on the line in between these two extremes. And yes these “normal” people are more inclined towards one or the other side of the “emotional divide” (This phrase is a nice candidate to be the title of this one...let’s see)

Let’s analyse if we have an “Emotional Scale” (let’s call it something fancy...say The EmScale™ :P ... you must be able to think of something better...) from 1 to 10 in order of increasing emotional expression, what should be the ideal world mean be? Five may pop up as an answer, which implies there are equal number of people on both sides of the emotional divide. But is it so simple? Can a person have a fixed rating on this scale for his entire life in every situation? May be in an ideal world yes, but the “normal” being is dynamic enough to have a fluctuating reading. He could be “1” at a given point and change to “10” is the spur of moment. For instance in an argument he could range from “1” to “10” with the simple tool of voice modulation! The equilibrium of an argument can essentially be defined as closeness of the mean value of persons involved being close to “5” (Wow, see now I am defining terms based on what I just defined!). So it is actually the instantaneous mean value of “5” which we are looking for in the larger sense, for a given situation, for a given group of people and for the world as a whole! (I know it is so stupidly mathematical, but it is my blog, and I felt like writing that sentence!)

So what is your value on this scale? Or let me correct myself and say what is your current or instantaneous value? (Which may prompt you to say that the correct parameter to define a person on the basis of this scale is “Standard Deviation”... but let’s leave it for higher mathematicians!)

The train-people! (Part-I)

2010-04-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

“Kathgodam se (pause) aane vaali (pause) Delhi ko (pause) jaane vaali. Sampark Kranti Express...” and this much of the announcement was enough to get the people moving . The people rushing and brushing past you here, there and everywhere, very much like the little kids pushing around to be the first one in the queue (...atleast they care to form the queue...) for getting into the school bus. It is hard to imagine an Indian Railway platform not buzzing with this kind of (hyper-)activity and I guess, I don’t want to imagine a super-orderly crowd of silent people acting as if others are aliens to them. They tried to implement the latter pattern at Delhi Metro, but off late the metro-junta has come to its own, where you just need to be near the door and you will be automatically steered in or out of the metro depending on which side of the door you are. Coming back to the good-ol’ railways, this rush of people, full of excitement of going to wherever they are going, scampering to get into the train even when they have reserved seats, carrying tonnes of luggage as if carrying the whole household and last but not the least, full of best wishes & suggestions for someone they are seeing off , makes the experience truly and positively Indian!

The platform is only a part of the experience; the train is the real deal. And what makes the train travel an interesting experience is the train-people! Yes “train-people” are a special type of people who come to their own when travelling in a train. I came across quite a few varieties during my 4 train journeys (to-and-from Delhi) in the last one month. The rest of this blog is dedicated to types of train-people one usually finds in our trains. Have you ever acted like one of them, I surely have, read and find out.

1. The Newly-Weds

This is one of my favourite types. The first thing is recognizing such a couple. The common characteristics are – a very college-going look with lots of big red bangles on the girl’s hands, a couple too happy with one another, often found leaning and falling asleep on each other, other characteristics can only be visually observed :). The fun part comes when the husband is sitting in the window seat, the wife in the middle and suddenly an Uncleji comes and occupies the aisle seat (...and you are seated in the parallel seat in the position of a keen observer ;)). The Uncleji (...likely with a thick moustache and teeth red with Pan Masala...) sits and spreads out in the most relaxed position he can, capitalizing every penny of the ticket he has paid for and takes out his...newspaper. The girl visibly irritated, shifts slightly away from the uncle towards the husband. 1minute...2minutes...3minutes...the Uncle and the paper spread a little more, the girl shifts a bit more. [Re-read the previous sentence, till there is no more space to shift and the husband is literally squeezed into the window]. The husband with an evident frown says “you come in the window seat and let me come here”, the tone is potent enough to cause an immediate sideways glance by the Uncle and he pulls the paper and himself a little a away. But the damage has been done, the shifting takes place and all is well again :). The girl in the window seat, boy besides her and Uncleji has to now actually read the paper.

2. The Manorma/Sarita/Grihshobha Uncle

These as you may have realized are names of popular women's magazines. And yes, these are found mostly with Uncles in trains at least. Afterall when that hawker comes with a tempting offer with all three costing just Rs.10 very few can dare refuse the package. The primary features of this type are- they appear as if they are reading the most important thing in the world, they hate when the little chintoos (...they are another important species of train-people...) make annoying noises or when the mischievous houseflies bother them and sometimes they behave like the Unclejis mentioned in the previous description. I wonder what they are reading in these womens'’magazines, I bet it is not the recipies. It can be quite a task sitting alongside them, when they are smelling of the cigarette they just smoked off at the compartment door. Mostly silent their only expectation is silence to read what they are reading.

This one seems like it’s going to be a long blog as I have a long list of train-people to describe. Some of them being:

....

The "Bhaiyya-adjust-to-karna-padta-hai" aunty/uncle

The "Ever-so-irritating" Chintoos

....

I’ll talk about them in the next one. For now let’s see if Kings XI Punjab manages to pull this one off against RCB!

@shashiTharoor ... #cattleClass is cool!

2009-09-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

This title may seem like a tweet at the wrong place, as it is intended to be so. This title in twitter lingo is dedicated to the recent remark of Shashi Tharoor posted on twitter. Shashi Tharoor is India's MoS for External Affairs (…who has been caught in an internal affair...). To bring everyone on the same page (…ya I hear a lot of this in office...it has to come out somewhere!…), let’s do a bit of background…Recently the Indian Govt. has laid down a directive that the central govt. ministers will have to do all their air travel in the economy class. This is only applicable while traveling within the country (…may be coz they believe in the great Indian saying - ghar ki baat ghar mein rahe…) . A bit of googling will land you up on a search results page listing snippets having the phrase “Indian Govt.’s austerity drive” (…don’t google now that’s why I have put it all here ;)…).

So when Mr. Tharoor, who is a regular on twitter was asked by an innocent someone (…this guy will surely be having a certain feeling of accomplishment at this moment…) that if he would stick to this directive, and travel in cattle class (...and so he used the term first) ? Mr. Tharoor had something interesting to tweet about it. This is what he posted as a reply-'Absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!'. Note that this was not a comment made in any interview/to media, it was a simple little tweet. But the twist in the tweet came when the holy cows within his party described the remark as insensitive and uncalled for, painting a not so good image of Mr. Tharoor. And that’s when this became news and since then people have been searching for it.

This austerity drive launched by the govt. is an attempt by the govt. to express its solidarity with the mango-man (source:Love Aajkal) in a drought struck nation owing to an indifferent monsoon (…hope some of it has been compensated by the recent spells of heavy rainfall…even causing river Yamuna to kiss the danger mark). Guessing from the way the Indian mango-man’s sentimental flow usually is, the first thing one would expect is sharp criticism for Mr. Tharoor, but on searching on twitter for responses to this remark, a lot of results pop up which receive the remark with a bit of humor occasionally sprinkled with sarcasm (…as probably it was intended to be). Another reason for this observation can be that there aren’t enough specimens of the great Indian mango man on twitter! But let’s consider the former…just for the sake of it (FSI…if you have read it).

Mr. Tharoor has had a stain free reputation of an intellectual and was even billed as India’s candidate for the UN Secretary-General in 2006. His frank tone didn’t exactly make the right noise in his party’s ears but he has often utilized his right of free speech & expression (…which twitter has come to unofficially represent…). As was in another episode when he along with another minister was asked to vacate his room (serving as a temporary residence) in a five star hotel. He retorted back saying that he was paying the bills himself and not billing the govt. Although he had to vacate it like here also he has agreed that he will travel in the cattle class.

One thing all this has done is make twitter famous. Surely a lot more people have come to know about twitter following this incident. Already twitter is becoming more popular in India, although not at the speed at which Orkut accounts were initially created, but still I can say as the number of followers of mine (…this “followers” is totally a twitter term here :)…) have been constantly increasing. Coming to Tharoor, may be he will have to follow the rule “think before you tweet” because as of now there is no real block feature (which may prevent selected people to view your tweets) in twitter. This is another debate, which we’ll discuss another time!

For the Sake of It...(FSI)

2009-02-09T06:24:00.000-08:00

We do many things which are just "for the sake of it...". This is a phrase that often saves us (...well, "us" definitely includes me...) from a trash full of explanation to our ownself. Doing things 'For the Sake of It' (...FSI, from now on...you might say abbreviating just FSI...) , may sound boring to some but for others it becomes a way of life. OK, let's try a small exercise, try to remember things that you did recently or which you normally do just FSI, which would have not ended like they did, had you given it a bit more thought...

Fine, stop straining your mind, I'll make it a bit easier for you to enlist them from my personal experiences. Here are some of the things which I do FSI...watching some films (Saawariya, Om Shanti Om, CC2C...I knew these were just a notch above awful except the first one...it was below awful, but I still watched them FSI...), going to some of the birthday Chapos (...good food out weighs FSI sometimes though...), googling, refreshing my inbox again and again, setting silly gtalk status messages (...I don't do that often, but for the completeness of the list...or rather FSI :)).

In addition to these, there are some other things, which I have seen people do FSI...greeting someone with a bland "hi" (...whom you would not normally talk to even when you two are locked alone...), sending silly replies to emails sent to a mailing group, especially when the message is not meant for you, missing classes...&...sometimes going to classes, ordering The Hindu, ET (...even when you are itching to read TOI from under your neighbor's door, i.e. before he wakes up...), cracking PJs (...agreed that is always FSI :)...) and worst of all is when someone is giggling...just FSI.

While the list of FSI doings mentioned above, has an effect of labeling FSI with careless/time-pass/"aise hi" activities, there are situations when doing things FSI, actually acts as life-saving (...read a*s-saving...) or has a positive impact. A common example of this can be someone whom you used to know FSI, someday turns out to be the ultimate contact...OR...the online contest form which you had filled FSI, makes you win a (sur-)prize. So, following the middle path, while it is not a good idea to do everything or rather let all happen FSI but I believe and you might agree some situations are best handled by the FSI approach. So, some may say FSI is a boring and easy way of life, but FSI in some cases does prove to be the best action possible.

I had not posted for a long time on this blog. Now I would like to share what transpired to make me write here again. Actually, reading the boring gtalk-status messages which people had set FSI, led me to think of something interesting for my own status message (...actually just FSI :)...). So I thought of setting the URL of this blog as my status message again FSI...but it occured to me that I haven't posted for a long time, so before I put it there I should blog something even if it is just FSI.

Save the Cheerleader(s), Save the World (IPL!!)

2008-04-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

So finally I have a headline catchy enough to compel me to compose a new post for my dozing blog. For those who perhaps couldn't connect that well with the above Tagline, this one's straight from the TV series Heroes and I feel is a fitting one too for the current IPL situation. And if you are wondering what this current situation is, then either you are not amongst the papers these days or you are a Hindu loyalist (...wait...by that I mean "The Hindu"...). Hopefully by this line both aware and unaware ( ...they must have googled "cheerleaders + IPL" by now...) souls must be sharing my sympathies for the IPL Cheerleaders who have been labeled as hazardous to "Bhartiya Sanskriti".

The first voices were raised in Maharashtra, no not by those (...they are busy planning for the next Valentine's Day...), this time it's from the Govt. itself. The ministry is bound on grounding the gals. Apparently, they are convinced that the Cheerleaders have crossed all thresholds of vulgarity and their acts amount to obscenity. The Pseudo-concerned in other states are not far behind, and are slowly but sternly threatening the existence of the IPL "Item-Girls". Meanwhile the BCCI and the IPL have given signs that the Girls are here to stay and none of the fours or sixes would be left unCHEERed for.

Cheerleading came to India(in the IPL) as a part of the established T20 format. Its been there since T20 started and the organizers thus thought it to be normal enough to be included in the IPL's scheme of things. In fact it was there in the ICL too, but perhaps the eyes there were too few for the raised eyebrows to be counted. The cheer leading acts draw immediate parallels with the Stage shows and TV performances of the "Item-girls". If they can survive the test of tyranny so can the Washington Redskins (...Redskins who?...ask Vijay Malya...). Perhaps similar thoughts finally have prevailed, and there have been talks of having conditional performance licenses (like those for stage-shows) for cheerleaders, instead of banning them.

I wouldn't say that they are critical for IPL to run (...to that extent, the headline amounts to a bit of exaggeration...). As such the T20 format has enough in it to sustain interest without the "Boundary-Barbies" (...this I believe is the best synonym, I could think of...) but it will never be righteous to go down at the hands of the pseudo Moral-Brigade without fighting, specially when their hidden motive is to add to their political "Sanctity" and not the "Sanskriti".

Scary Movie Bollywood Style - OSO

2007-11-15T04:30:00.000-08:00

Spoiler Warning: No spoilers in here, relax(...anyways there isn't much to spoil about the movie). I'm not going to reveal the story or do anything of that sort which may deprive you of a first hand experience of Om Shanti Om...let all "burn then learn". The following is not an attempt to reprimand the film and its makers, any such thing, if it happens it is purely coincidental and unintentional (...don't trust the last couple of words)!

Thanks to Farah Khan and SRK, we have our first homemade Scary Movie, the only difference being that instead of horror films, some hit films of 70's have been the target (for those who didn't get it, the Scary Movie series is a series of comedy films which mainly specialize in spoofing popular Hollywood flicks). To add to it, in OSO most of the times they also mention the movie which they are making a parody of. For most of its length the movie can be best described as an extended version of "MTV Fully Faltoo", and the duplicates are there too-this is the baap of all MTV spoofs. And talking of MTV, one thing is for sure, SRK did manage to pull off a large scale "Bakra" on Diwali.

"Om Shanti Om"-Just like the title, the film also has too much of Om(SRK) and less of Shanti(Deepika Padukone) in it, a bit more of Shanti(pun not intended) may have helped. Actually, in the middle of the movie, one begins to think if it would be better to take this movie as an out-and-out comedy film, but sadly the film disappoints there too, most of the scenes which make you laugh are those which were meant to be dead serious and ending this sentence with vice-versa won't be exaggeration.

The film has great special effects and they are perhaps the saving grace (who knows what's behind the much talked about 6 pack abs!) , but all that is special is not always effective. What I liked the best was the awards clip with Akshay Kumar in it...not spoiling it for you by telling more, check it out and I'm sure you'll agree with me.

This reviewing thing is not what I do often in this blog, but I had to find a way to get this "Dard-e-OSO" out. Anyways do watch this one coz I've heard the other alternative in the Diwali package doesn't even provide the scope of this much to talk about it. To sum it all up, I believe quite a few of those who had great anticipations before watching OSO would have been crying this even before the film ended...."(Kya) Picture abhi baaki hai dost???"

T20 Part 2

2007-09-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

It is not very often that I post two consecutive blogs meandering around the same topic(probably coz I don't post that often...:)). So when I'm doing it, that itself conveys something. When I was wondering how could I give this post a binding start something with which I can trap the reader into reading the second paragraph after he finishes with the first (yes...trap is the word...now you know what was I thinking while keying in these lines...mind you this is also the first para...)...I realized that the introduction of the previous blog just fits in here too...
(quoting...)
"The title of this one suffices for the introduction. You probably guessed it right this post is an after effect of the India-Pak Twenty20 encounter. Having just come out of the hostel TV Room, jam packed with fans going berserk, I had to write this one in order to let the overflowing energy flow out peacefully."

But all was not the same as when the two teams had met each other in the Group Stage. This time it was the final, and that too of a World Cup. The build up was exciting as ever. All Indians had their statistics right when they confidently stated "Pakistan has never beaten India in a World Cup match" but the point was that would these stats still be loyal to India after the final.

For Dhoni, the newly appointed ODI captain, it was a chance to win over some Ganguly loyalists who wanted to see Dada back in his favorite office. Pathan, Harbhajan also had certain things to prove, with a lot of others in the team trying to shine out of the lot. The excitement quotient had left no remainders.

The match gave the fans more than they anticipated. For a change this time it was different from the usual one-sided Aussie affairs, which one associates with World Cup Finals. Although it didn't lead to a tie followed by the penalty shootouts but the final over by all means managed to create the same tension, thrill and excitement buoyed by the magnanimity of the occasion.

This World Cup has proven to be a great success. The fact that Twenty20 has made its way into the next Asian Games speaks volumes of the nature of its popularity. The aftereffects of this slam-bang form of cricket are yet to be seen in ODIs and Tests. We might be spectators to the ODI scores rocketing to new heights and a lot more results in Tests. Perhaps T20 is the much needed pill of Viagra that would lead to the requisite resurrection of cricket.

20-20=100% Entertainment

2007-09-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

The title of this one suffices for the introduction. You probably guessed it right this post is an after effect of the India-Pak Twenty20 encounter. Having just come out of the hostel TV Room, jam packed with fans going berserk, I had to write this one in order to let the overflowing energy flow out peacefully.

Shorter duration, bigger shots, crazy outcomes (Zim bt Aus, Ban bt WI...the latter not being that crazy...) and top that up with Penalty Shootouts..."Chak De India! style". Yes, I could have said "Football Style" or "Hockey Style" but I feel Chak De! had its own effect in adrenalizing the thrill and excitement to a new level for the viewers. The final moments were definitely reminiscent of the World Cup Final Match in the film (the girls were missing though...)

Well the future of Twenty20 depended heavily on this match. Had this been a dull one sided game, India's (read Indian viewers') first encounter with the shortest form of the game would not have been exactly encouraging from the audiences' point of view. The first impression, even if not the last impression, is a lasting impression so it would have definitely had its toll on an average Indian fan's interest in this novel form of cricket.

The tight finish, better call it the tied finish followed by the hit and miss penalty shootouts made it a treat to watch. Guessing from the reactions particularly this match has generated it seems Twenty20 will go places (unless India have really tough luck in the matches ahead and the short-lived memory of the common Indian viewer undergoes a negative "System Restore" blaming Twenty20 for the team's unholy deeds....but why even think of this...let's stay in the "Safe Mode" I mean the Chak De! Mode for the time being...)

So are the 50 over matches ready to be trimmed to the shorter version (now this phrase "shorter version of the game" has a new definition)? I believe the two forms or rather the three forms of cricket can co-exist in harmony, as after much hue and cry Test Cricket had to settle in with a fresher and a more dynamic form in the ODIs. With the ODIs ageing fast, people being interested only in the first 10 and the last 10 overs of the match it was only natural for Twenty20 to come up and be successful (For those who did not realize the mathematical gravity of the this statement...first 10+last 10 of either innings=Twenty20...I just told you the philosophy which gave birth to Twenty20!). And with this Eureka thought about the origin of the new firebrand form of Cricket, I come to the end of this post....will come back soon.

Long time, no see...

2007-08-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

The above headline refers to this blog. Apparently but inadvertently I wasn't able to take out some time for putting up a new post here. When I started this blog, it was with this thought that it wouldn't be a one or two time affair and I'll keep this updated with regular posts. But somehow this time the interval between the posts extended a bit too much. O.K. now since I'm back posting here- "main is blog par mouse rakh kar kasam khata hoon ki, jo bhi likhoonga post karronga aur frequently karoonga."

By now you must have realized that I'm writing this one just for the sake of it. Nevermind if you decide against reading the rest of it, coz I've to anyways write this for the shear magnanimity of the pledge I've taken above in the preceding para.

Fine so you are still willing to linger on...let me warn you there's not much I have to talk about in the coming few lines, but if you have come so far, you might as well read through the whole of it...as it seems you too are on a timepass trip on the net. Actually continuing to type this one even when I have nothing much to talk about is only a reflection of my firm resolve to mend my ways and increase the frequency with which new posts appear here. Once more I echo it here in the words of our first PM -

"At the stroke of this midnight hour(add one more to it), when the whole world sleeps(not quite sure...), I'm awake writing this blog post."

By the way "PM" reminds me that our current PM to is also not having things going according to his count. Infact he is having some trouble at the very starting of the count...123...and that's where the trouble starts. He believes that the left is not allowing him to go the right way. All this while when he was busy getting the best Nuclear bet from the US, it seems that the nucleus of his alliance has become somewhat unstable. Let's see which way the deal goes - if it results in fusing an Indo-US Partnership or if it follows fission and breaks apart. Now this sounded really Nuclear...this much for the 123 deal.

This I believe suffices for a comeback post. With an honest intention to return here soon with a new post...I hereby click the submit button, in effect declaring this post "published".

Breaking News or Broken News?

2007-07-26T23:47:00.000-07:00

This one was due for a long time, lying in the drafts folder with dust collecting over it, so here it is...
How often does it happen that you turn on a news channel and see those flashing "Breaking News" banners marqueeing all over the TV screen...actually it happens all the time now. What this is meant to imply is that there is some news which stands out of the bulletin and demands immediate attention, but these days this is rarely the case. It is often not the news item but the poor channel which pleads for your attention, putting any of the seemingly eye-catching news in the flashing ticker and if that does not rake in the desired TRP's, they don't shy from creating some news that's "breaking" enough(breaking what, they only can answer that).

What prompts me to bawl out on these channels are the following so called breaking news, have a look at these and decide yourself which one is the most breaking...

"5 year old girl claims to be a reincarnation of Kalpana Chawla"...reporters quiz the poor child for an hour on live television, the channels calls on a host of people ranging from astronomers to astrologers inspecting the veracity of the claim...

"a man who eats only grass"...gets prime time coverage on a leading news channel and is interviewed about the rather different preferences of his taste buds...

"a 14 year village boy suddenly starts speaking fluent English in American accent and further declares to be a rebirth of a scientist"...the boy being confronted by a panel of psychologists, astrologers, scientists and many others...this story was shown continuously for about two to three hours after every hour...in short the boy was a runaway TV star, threatening even the ratings of Ekta Kapoor's daily soaps.

And not to forget the daily dose of "bhoots and disturbed souls" who also get their due regularly on prime time news. Another man who has made a name for himself is the "Sansani guy", don't remeber him?..."Chain se sona hai to jaag jao"...this must help you replenish your memories. Perhaps the guy was chosen to anchor this programme coz his appearance helps the audiences to relate better with the wanted criminals he's making us aware against. Some even say that the old night time warning given by mothers to their children- "soja beta nahin to Gabbar aajayega..." would be far more effective this way..."soja beta nahin to Sansani vaale uncle aajayenge..."

With the growing list of News channels these attention seeking TRP wars are set to be more intense but what's going to suffer is the credibility of these channels and availability is of quality news. Hope these channels stop supplying broken news as breaking news and salvage their own reputations.

When ads become sensible...

2007-07-09T04:45:00.000-07:00

Nobody likes the interruption ads cause be it on TV or those stupid banners on web pages taking millions of seconds to load...but ever wondered if the ads could just serve to your interests, if the ads could be sensible enough to market something you were just thinking of...Google has made this a reality with Adsense.

Google Adsense...is an advertising program by Google to participate in which website/blog owners put a small snippet of code onto their sites and in turn "Contextual Ads" are displayed on their webpages. What this means is that Google scans the content of the pages and only the ads related to the subject matter of the pages, the user's geographical location and some other factors (which are therefore aptly called Contextual Ads) are displayed.

Thus the probability of users visiting the site being interested in those ads becomes substantially high. For example, on a recruitment related site, Adsense will automatically be showing ads related to "writing resumes" or "potential recruiters" which are likely to interest the visitor. Now coming to the money-matters, when the visitors of the site click on these ads the owner of the site gets paid by Google, which in turn is paid by the Advertisers(who have subscribed to Google Adwords), in simple words Adsense is a Pay-Per-Click program but with the Google flavor.

Google also uses the same Adsense technology in Gmail and Google Search Results also. Have you ever noticed while using gmail, that the ads in the sidebar are closely related to the content of the mail you are reading. Similarly the sponsored links in the search results are also targeted towards the search text.

What prompted me to dedicate this one to Adsense was the popularity of this concept. Today you can seldom find sites not having the "Ads By Google" tag on them (mind you this one's no different, there's one at the top of this post).

There are a lot of Adsense success stories. People are bringing up websites and blogs for the very purpose of deploying Adsense on them...coz all it takes is a Google Account and then it's just clicking and picking....

What's also noteworthy is the fact that Adsense has been known to be really smart, people have left no screw unturned to trick it - "hiring others to click on the ads", "using automated scripts doing the clicking work" and many more...but Google bots have proven too smart to be fooled and above attempts have resulted in people getting banned from Adsense.

If you feel ever so slightly tempted to use Adsense after reading this then don't wait, hold firmly your scrollbars, scroll a little upwards and there's an invitation to glory(Referral button) waiting for you....;)

Lucky 7!

2007-07-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

Do you realize this blog you are reading is gonna make you extra lucky....Why?...the answer lies in the date of post..."07.07.07" and yes don't leave the fact it's a Saturday, which is the 7th day of the week...This date has been dubbed as a super special one all around the world. Its on TV, internet, papers everywhere...Well I'm not one of those who believes in these sequential superstitions...coz you can find something like this occurring every year...like 05.05.2005 or 06.06.2006...so what's different this time around....

Those believing in these ceremonious sevens have more to say...they start making you count the colors in the rainbow, the days in a week, the continents, the number of musical notes and the eternal list goes on. By the way, you may ask why I chose ceremonious to describe the trio of sevens, that's coz brides and grooms, especially, looking for a little extra dose of marital fortune, are flocking to the decorated podium in droves on 07/07/07.

Whatever it is majestic or not, I think this supposed bit of positivity even if superstitious to an extent is nothing bad, after all the coming together of the sizzling sevens gave me something to write about....

Kaun Banega Rashtra-Pati/Patni

2007-07-01T23:08:00.000-07:00

As you might have rightly guessed this one's dedicated to the lady who's most likely to win the much hyped "Race to the Raisina Hill"(I wonder how the News channels always manage to find attractive alliterations for their headlines!).

When one gets teemed up with the musical junta singing their throats out on every other TV channel(no doubt the judges always prove to be more entertaining...), the news channels are the final resort. Thus being largely influenced by the hourly dose of the same recipe I am writing this one on "Kaun Banega Rashtrapati"(another of those famous taglines...which actually appears to be more of a misnomer...as the title of this blog suggests).

So lets meet the contestants! ( actually I feel like calling everyone a contestant nowadays thanks to the talent show hangover)...or I should better call them candidates, which is more politically correct (pun intended ;) )...Madam Pratibha Patil and BJP's independent candidate Mr. Shekhawat.

Ms. Patil who's riding high with Sonia asking one and all to support her so that we can have a lady first citizen perhaps she needs to shout a bit louder coz everyone seems to be aware of the fact that Ms. Patil's name popped up out of nowhere to serve as a compromise formula and what gave her the edge was the loyalty coefficient.

Confronting her is our current VP in Shekhawat, who's quite assured of something unexpected happening and thereby improvising his present portfolio. Unexpected coz the numbers quite clearly suggest this time we'll see a lady in command of the Armed forces.

So without sounding very much like a news channel myself, I'd like to conclude this one. This time the presidential election promises to be a lot more interesting than usual lack-luster affair, of course it would take some more time for our contestants to generate interests comparable to their American counterparts...but I guess its all a matter of the stakes involved...one is a mere rubber stamp, the other has his(or perhaps "her" seems to be a better pronoun here too for obvious reasons) stamp running all over.

A Rendezvous

2007-06-27T22:06:00.001-07:00

Well I'm back here and that too in less than 24 hrs( this Blogolution thing is really getting to me...), what follows is something I had written in one of those strange moods of mine(this one sounds a little overboard to me also when I now read it).
Nevertheless thought let me put it here...

A Rendezvous

lying in the bed i thought
pondered unguarded, whirled through whims
searching the soul was my goal

the past uncoiled, turn by turn
"must've done","should've done","could've done" left me undone

don't intend a pun, but my head really spun

brooded over the future too
saw promising pixels of a pretty image
the time ahead, looked in good stead

amidst this all
also thought, where is sleep

caught in insomnia's mess, train of fancies seemed endless

the purpose of it all?
this calculation of foregone and future
a rendezvous with the inner soul, that after all was the ultimate goal

just starting out...

2007-06-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

Finally the Blogolution wave has swept me over...and lured me into scribbling something here.
May be I'm writing this one just for the sake of it but don't think blogspot would mind hosting another of these urls.

For the past few days I've been skimming through a lot of blogs, just out of curiosity, to see what actually prompts people to flood the web with long paragraphs and I mean this literally...while some where quite PARAnoid, others were sometimes pleasantly and other times just GRAPHical.

What I actually did was had some fun with this url http://www.blogger.com/next-blog, each time you plant it in your address bar and hit go, you'll see a new blog, in simple words I just kept on clicking on the "Next Blog" link in the nav bar of each blog ("Boredom at times can be hazardous...")

To cut the short story shorter...this trail of events led me to this innocuous piece of writing or say "typing". This one can be termed as the alpha version and lets see whether the beta is better. Perhaps this much suffices for the first one.

Long Live Blogolution!