Sole Bank of India

I recently opened a joint account in SBI.

Received a Welcome letter from the bank.

The following is the verbatim reproduction of what the letter said in the first two lines:

Dear Sir / Madam,

Welcome to the State Bank of India - the only bank to figure in the list of 100 top banks of the world. We are confident that the new relationship would be mutually rewarding.

I wonder what happened to the rest of the 99 banks!

Where were you...

It was on the cards anyway!

Ware is not such a user-friendly name for a place.

Colleague: Shifted to an apartment?
Me: Yes
C: Where?
M: Ware.
C: Yeah, where?
M: W A R E, Ware!
C: Excuseme? Its W H E R E Where!
M: No No, the name of the place itself is Ware, the way I spelt it.
C: I knew that, I was kidding.

This morning at the bus stop:
Another Colleague: Where were you being shifted to yesterday?
Me: Ware. W A R E. Its the name of the place itself /* ha ha...beat that */
AC: Where in Ware were you shifted?
M: I am going to faint!

A nice gesture

Okay, everyone in Bangalore knows Vasanthi Hariprakash.

She is a big fave for all those early morning office goers, to spice up the mornings preparing us for a good long day.

So it was nice to see her comment on one of my posts, on the RadioCity visit at office.

Just wanted to say "Nice of you, Vasanthi" :)

Vicky Becky, I dont like the booky

I didnt know till the previous morning, that Goffs Oak, which I pass daily on the way to and from office, is where Victoria Beckham grew up. Her parents still live there, as per the cabbie who told me this fact. An interesting fact noted down.

The second fact is that, I dont like the book 'Three Dog Night'.
The start didnt impress me, and I continued to check if it was just the start that went wrong. But the rest of the book seems to be worse, in my own opinion.
The author has good imagination and does infact put in some nice lines. But the overdone description of the surroundings, and the stubborn continuous usage of complicated lines and regular fall back on unpronouncable medical terms, seem to be putting me off. I would like a story which gets soon to the point, with appropriate deviations to set the plot up. And lot of conversations. I love it when there are lots of dialogues and exchanges. Not when I have to sit and read constantly on how a tree looks before getting to know what the person under the tree is doing. It looks like a kind of cover up for the fact that there is no major plot.

But, having started a book, it has always been a moral obligation to finish it, and so I will complete this book anyway.

Oops - Just stole a bunch of grapes from a nearby desk. Yumm. Little mercies of life-late-in-office.

Easily Difficult

Warren Buffet says:
'There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.'

How correct is that!

Many times now, I have been noticing that when someone finishes something in 5 or 10 minutes, which usually takes more than 30 mins, nobody is bothered and act as though it is expected.

But at the same time, when someone huffs and puffs to complete something that takes 5 minutes, in 30 minutes and then makes a big deal of it, people actually sit up and notice and cry out how great this person is!

It is universal truth and people like to think everything is difficult; and the more you struggle to do something, the more you are appreciated! Well, most of the times!

I have worked with people who silently do the toughest things and you'll never know it, and I "am" working with people who do housekeeping of instances and go on about it for a week - and get all the attention!

I am somewhere in the middle I guess.

I missed the longest day

I spoke to dad sometime back and he reminded me that I could have gone through the longest day of 2007 in UK. He went through it when he came to New Castle a long time back.

I just checked the dates, and it seems I've missed it just by a few days. According to this site, it was on Thursday, June 21, 2007.

Well, the Autumnal Equinox is on Sunday, September 23, 2007. I'll get to experience that. So, looking forward to it!

Oops! I had myself Caught!

Now that was FUN!!!

Difficult animation and playing around made so simple!

This is a cool site. And look what I did to myself! Searched for a pic where I looked like a crook, and there were many of them! Sigh! I hoped I wouldnt find one. Anyway, this is what I made of it.

And yeah, you can give your own voice for the picture too. I couldnt do it from office, but nevertheless typed a few words that will be read out by pre-recorded voice.

Update: Wife just checked it out and listened to the voice. And I had said "sleeping" in the text I gave to be voiced out. And the site has added a "snore" noise to it! Aha! Thats SUPER cool!

Get yourself out of shape @ Gizmoz.com

Rain

Spray of Innocence

What do you do: Situation 2

You know two people. You know both of them very well but they dont know each other.

They have to interact and one acts in a particular way. To the other, it looks odd and unreasonable. To you, it sounds perfectly expected, and in a way unavoidable, since you know the person very well and have gone through many things with the person.

To the second person, everything is new and finds reactions odd. You understand that too, but to resolve this, you have to explain to the person the reasons behind this, which are things that you have always wanted to run away from. But you are bound to explain it afresh now, and you feel uncomfortable.

Both people are indispensible to you and you cant let the discomfort continue between them.

You know both sides and you are responsible. Both of them target you for the problems now since you havent been able to handle them well.

What do you do.

What do you do.

You have to tell a person something.

You have a profound reason for that.

You cannot explain the reason to that person, but just want the person to get ahead with what you tell, because you know its right.

The person feels you are wrong. You have justification, but you cant tell because it hurts you and might hurt the person too.

What do you do.

Click: Women's Tennis

Okay. Now the mention of "Women's Tennis" by itself gives a kick doesnt it.

For years now, naughty references to Women's Tennis have become a way of talk when something corny has to be shared.

And the events are a photographer's delight, and naughty angles, some with a bit of taste and some utterly distasteful, are way too common. Infact, even a normal picture will kindle the imaginations.

Following the French Open, I was just wondering, are we the people to be blamed for deriving such sinful pleasures at the expense of the players, or are the players, rather the new fashion brigade, endorsing such pleasures for fame.

The Source of Language: Island

Why would they call an island an "island"

An island as we know, is a land covered by all sides by water. So, it takes a bit of exploration and travel to find one.
So people were on a ship trying to explore. And one such ship which was lucky enough, was getting close to land. And in primitive english, the crew started exclaiming! So the captain got a bit frustrated and asked the crew what they were yelling about - "What is it you nerds?". ('Nerd' is primitive english) And the crew members started shouting "Is Land!!!!"..."Is Land!!!!" They found out later that the land was covered on all sides by water and not just the side they approached it from. So to distinguish such a land, they used the first words that were uttered to identify this land. "Is Land"...

And to cover up such a blatant lack of imagination, they just pronounced it with the 's' being silent. And hence the word.


PS: I have too much free time to kill.

An Observation - What is your blog's name?

When I was in my 10th, I held a mobile phone for the first time. It was my friend's dad's.
This friend had got it to school to show the mobile to us. It was a big Motorola phone, with a bigger antenna.
An outgoing call cost Rs 16, and an incoming call cost Rs 8 or something. We were so afraid of even pressing a key accidentally. It was a marvel, a Star Wars type gadget.

And we know cell phones as of today. And as we see them today.
Right since my college days, which were four years back, everyone was supposed to have a "cell number". People who meet for the first time, would talk, get aquainted, and then exchange "cell numbers". It was taken for granted that everyone had a cell number. It is only getting more taken for granted these days.

Similarly, the first time I ever came across "blog" was in the final year of college. But never bothered to check any, since our internet connection was pathetic that time at college. It was good late at nights, but by that time, people had "different" interests and purposes for the internet. The first time I ever created a blog was in 2004. It was a big thing by that time, and I was just catching up. And now, it is taken for granted that everyone maintains a blog or a domain.

And so people meet, get aquainted, exchange cell numbers and note down blog/domain names!
And after that we go to orkut and check if the person is there :)

So everyone is on the net, we can locate and know about anyone, in some cases even if they dont want to. We know earth as a planet and home, is the net an alternate habitat for existence?