Have I lost my minds?

Here's why I'm saying this...
Yesterday was my brother's birthday. On the way back home from office I stopped by a cards shop, and bought him a nice(???) greeting. Now, what I bought was a card which implied as if he was leaving the country for a long time! DAMN! I was supposed to buy a birthday card! But when I read the words, I got so carried away that I bought it. Without even realizing what on earth was I buying. Where the hell was my mind wandering? And the worst part is, it was only when he pointed out did I realize what I bought was *not* a birthday card :-( How dumb can I be at times.

I haven't given him any gift yet, thank GOD that his exams are going on, otherwise he would have taken me left and right and given me a real tough time, esp. after this card goof-up ;-) Though I didn't admit it was a goof-up :-D

BTW, can you beat this?

For you I wait

The very first time I saw you,
You took me by complete surprise.
I knew my heart was set.

No one else in the world can even compare, You're so perfect.

For you I would climb The highest mountain peak
Swim the deepest ocean.

For you I would cross The rivers most wide
Walk the hottest desert sand To have you by my side.

For You've captured my heart And touched my soul.
For you are the one That stepped out of my dreams

Each time I see you My heart skips a beat.
For you define beauty In both body and mind

Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel blue
But whenever I see you, I'm as happy as can be

For you bring a smile upon my face
And a feeling of joy within my heart

No buddies, I'm no poet, and these aren't my lines. But the feelings conveyed are indeed mine. It's not right time for me to introduce her, for even she doesn't know me yet!!! Be a little patient (as I've been for months now) and you shall see my sweetie yourself!

Update: Here you go: My love, finally she's out!

It started again

Sunday: Day started with an amazing full-strength (well, not exactly, it was 10 a side) football game. Two of Univ United's founding members Prash & Vinay, turned up. But they left a little too early, maybe they found the game too chaotic compared to theirs :-( With a STRONG feeling of having an amazing day ahead, I reach home, have a relaxing bath, eat amazing warm lunch, read newspaper for a few minutes (I could never get myself to read newspaper for more than a few minutes), and dump myself onto my bed. Just when I was about to get a DEEP and SOUND sleep, with exciting sweet dreams, my bloody cell rings. !@$!@#$ I could sense it's not a good sign... And I wasn't wrong!

My manager's manager wanted me to report to office & handle a critical activity, and that too immediately. I convinced the caller that if I come right away, I'll have to sleep in the office, so I committed I'll be there in an hour or so. With spending Saturday too in office, I don't have to tell the rest... You can picture yourself how all of my weekend plans shattered into pieces.

Not that I didn't want to work, but I had to demolish (brutally) all of my weekend plans and commitments that I made through the week and eagerly waited to live by. God knows if this stops or not [a thousand sighs]

Hope at the least you guys had an amazing weekend.

Anyway, here I'm, once again furiously assaulting my keyboard...

Amazing firefox XUL

Found this amazing link: Awesome firefox XUL example!
(What is XUL)

It searches amazon for various items with lots of details displayed in digestable form!
You must see it to believe it!
Of course, it goes without saying it has to be opened with only!

Weekend Update

Waiting for the details of new assingment to be communicated to me, I thought of posting a weekend update. Nothing exciting happened over the weekend...

Saturday, I had been out to do some household chores, then went to Shooper's Stop as they had Sports sale of up 50% off. As you can expect out of any sale, any thing worth buying is never discounted above 10%, this sale was not exception, and I walked out disappointed. Sunday football was disappointing, as not many people turned up and had to do away with short (8/9 aside) game. After a long time, I chilled out at nearby food joint with buddies after the game. And to top it off, I also had VERY VERY sootihng Jacuzzi after more than 2+ months! Evening was fun as we thrashed UGS at basketball with a whooping difference of about 10 points! Most of the points we scored were on counter attack, and yet the opposite team just refused to mark our start scorer (Ravi) who was standing near their basket for most of the game, and waiting for a direct throw from our end. I saw After The Sunset some time back. I'm not a fan of Bond, and never got myself to like bond movies. For that matter, I hardly devoured any of Brosnan's movies. But this movie changed my view, Brosnan is after all a good actor. Plot goes something like this.... 2 master thieves (Brosnan & Hayek) decide to retire to their tropical paradise after one last successful mission. Not convinced, a FBI agent, who was fooled and stupified in Brosnan's last successful mission, follows them to ensure that this is indeed the case. While Hayek is setteling in new life, Brosnan is still contemplating whether to go for the last diamond chase or not. Will he cheat Hayek? Will the agent finally catch him red-handed? Will Hayek assist him? Is this retirement just a veil over their secret plan? I won't spoil your thrill by asnwering any of these.

Brosnan's acting is cool, he seems so casual, care-free, unassuming and relaxed. This demeanour is bound to leave a lasting impression on you. But what makes me urge you to see this movie is:

Firstly, the mind-numbing, breath-taking, stupefying beauty of the location where this movie is shot: The Islands of Bahamas. If were to believe that there exists a heaven, I cannot imagine how much different can it be from this location! Sparking blue transparent water all over, with wonderful clean beaches, and an amazing houses overlooking them! I almost sweared that I would visit this place once in my lifetime, and I bet so would you!

Also saw Laws of Attraction, starring Brosnan and Julianne Moore, this is a movie about 2 top notch divorce lawyers. Brosnan advocates that poeple should fight to save marriages with every ounce of strength and Moore having utter hatred for marriage. Fate gets them to fight against each other, and then starts an interesting tangle of love, hatred and professionalism! An interesting movie to watch. Not all of you might like this movie, but if you are looking for a romantic flick, be sure to grab this one, worth watching once.

A New Experiment

It takes me about half an hour to drive to office, and about an hour to drive back home from office. And these are very optimistic numbers! If am unlucky enough, that is lights in the areas I drive through is gone, and it the dumb-a$$ traffic police controlling the traffic, the traveling time can shoot to 1.5 hours! This is too much of a time to cover just 12-15 kms distance! All the time, I've my radio as my mate. But unfortunately most of the times I travel Vivdh Bharati is airing some regional programs, bhajans, etc.

Then an idea dawned upon me! How about having book as a companion! Well, am not talking about paper-bound books, am talking about audio books (in fact I recall my mentor mention that such a thing is VERY common in US where people face similar issues)! And today was the first day of this experiment. I've started listening to this wonderful book:
Breathing:The Master Key to Self Healing, by Andrew Weil

Will bother you with details of it later, but it sounds very interesting, at least the first 20 minutes. This is one book where author openly admits that the esoteric science of breathing and it's unprecedented power to heal multitude of disorders originated in India and diffused to various parts of world and took many different forms.

For completeness, a small warning!
Beware, if you are planning to do anything like me, then you better drive slow, for now half of your conscious mind is listening to the audio!

No Good deed...

In the midst of an important checkin, as I logged into one of my systems, this MOTD flashed and there was a strong urge to share it with you... right away!

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished!

(- Clare Booth Luce)

What a wonderfully correct statement in, what is called in Hindu Mythology, Kali Yuga, that is, in this modern pitilessness world, filled only with greed, war, fight, cruelty, lust & corruption! Be good to people and one day or the other, they screw you left-right, top-bottom-and-center; take you for granted; consider you to be a pushover.
I cannot agree more with Luce. Not that I'm being anti-social, nor am I propogating inhuman qualities, but just expressing one point of view.

Vacation Blues

With vacation over, today I'm finiding it really difficult to concentrate on work :-(
Where I left my work, where to pick it up from, what to do, new deadlines... GOD! These tasks seem so stupendous. I believe it will take some time for me to come out of vacation blue.

For completeness, here's story of remaining days of my vacation...

On the last 2 days of vacation, i.e. 31st & 1st, I was to my ex-hometown, Mumbai (I still prefer calling it Bombay). It felt so good! Had some work out there & travelled a day sooner for a shopping spree to Heera Panna! WOW! It was so much fun. Though I didn't buy too much, it was fun to see all the clothes and electronics! Enjoyed eating junk food all the day long. Man, food on stalls in Pune is so poor in quality! Eat food on in Bombay stalls once and you will never ever feel like even looking at Pune stalls! Driving there was fun as well, everyone driving to their lanes... you can be just 3 inches away side-to-side to a bus and cruise at 80kmph! A feat you can NEVER think of achiving on Pune roads with Puneri drivers! If attempted, there are 99.999% chances that you will find yourself in hospital soon (and that too *only* if you are lucky enough that GOD is too busy to admit you in one of his rooms up there!) On 31st I shopped so hard that I had no energy left to do anything else, slept too early to give anyone New Year Wishes. Of course the next day, I had to face the heat of my relatives and friends for doing that!

That was all about material world. Philosophically, 5 day break from grinding routine presented an opportunity for deep introspection. Helping me understand what-when-how-why of corrections I need to apply to my daily life. Don't worry, won't bother you with gory details of the same ;-)

Contrary to what you might expect, this is pretty much all about my 5 days vacation! Nothing too exciting, but not boring either. Now getting back to work...
ZZ