Priorities and movie watch-list

I have yet to make any progress from the last post that I talked about how office and home should not be the only end points in life and that one should start working towards your career. It's a big ask and tough one to emulate. Am still working on it.

On the other hand in one of the articles in ET about some of game changers in FMCG/Retail industries and what makes them tick, I really liked one. I don't remember the name of the person but his message was "Do everything you like and everything you want to the fullest. Do everything you can to live up to it."

Of course, what is unsaid is the proper planning that should go with it. For me movies/series and books are the top most priority. That said of course I gotta keep up with industry, so need to catch up on that front too. I have now decided come what may, I am gonna dedicate an hour to my knowledge build-up. The only time I want this is in the morning. I also need to fit-in my fitness exercise

God, too many things, too less time. Will update this blog in a week's time on my progress.

On the other hand there are hellava movies I need to catch up. Listing some of them here-

Ship Of Thesus

The Lunchbox

Lootera

Gangs Of Wasseypur

Shahid

Next up or in parallel (some series)-
Suits
Arrow
Friends
Two and a Half men

Authors to catch up on -
Japanese authors
Anita Desai
Rohinton Mistry

That's for now. 

The Big Bang Theory rocks!

Just finished watching The Big Bang Theory Season 6 up until the last episode and it has got to be one of the best shows ever. The one I loved the best was the episode 22 titled 'The Professor Proton'.  I laughed so hard I had that my stomach and jaws hurt. Just wanted this to go on my blog for recollections. 

Hunt for the next book

Having finished "Inspector Singh Investigates: The Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder"  I am in the process of finding the next best book to read. Should I go for profound and poignant Indian novels such as 'A Fine Balance', 'Lessons in Forgetting' or any Anita Nair's books or should I go for Japanese thrillers or should I go for stay-whole-night-and-complete kind of sci-fi novels?

For almost two months now I was in a state of book-drought thanks to 'English August' by Upamanyu Chatterjee. I haven't been able to complete it for the simple reason that the book is not compelling enough to invest time every day reading it. I have to admit it is one of the most funniest novels I have ever read depicting the story of a IAS officer posted in remote village called Madna and the realistic descriptions of the lackadaisical attitude of people in authority, the kind of hold they have on uneducated villagers, their lives in general were accurately portrayed and make you part of the lives in 40's India. The problem is it doesn't seem to hint at where the story is progressing. Almost half way through and the novel is still about the same set of people with their idiosyncrasies. As much as it made me laugh it also made me sleep quite wonderfully I might add.

Here is my review of Inspector Singh Investigates novel that I am re-posting from GoodReads -

This is a murder mystery involving a certain Singh from Singapore on assignment to Malaysia to save a high profile Singaporean celebrity accused of murder. Though this definitely is a page turner it doesn't really show any ingenuity in the police thinking or clever wits of a detective. Without giving much away the police only find out who the murder is by the murderer's own confession. Pity.

Was looking for a thriller on the levels of Keigo Higashino Devotion of Suspect X but was severely let down. Good time pass read. 

I have now decided to remove the The Vishnu Puri chronicles from my to-read books as even that has a similar pot bellied sardar investigating murders. Ain't fair eh? So be it.

Coming back to the task at hand in order to avoid this predicament of knowing what to pick up next, I had chosen the root of tagging books with 'Want to Read' on goodreads. Sadly I see that it isn't helping me. Some of the ones I chose aren't available in Indian store and for the ones that are makes me think there must be better ones out there! Ironical isn't it? The reason they are there as 'Want to Read' is because I had spent considerable amount of time zeroing in on them and to make this part of search anyway.

I digress. When it comes to book selection the only God I look up to is the one and only Jai Arjun. No matter how many other book reviewing websites I have dug up, I always come back to his. His reviews are impeccable and I just lap up to the books he recommends. There were one or two instances where I didn't enjoy as much as what he wrote about a particular book. I am trying very hard to remember about someone who told me that he/she also does go through the same route of selection.

I did something similar for movies until Roger Ebert passed away. Thankfully I now have moifightclub blog. Well currently though my search is still on. Will update the blog with the one I chose.

Note- somehow I am highly inclined to Japanese thriller.

Edit-
Finally I have chosen 'The Bone Season' surprising myself and even Jai Arjun maybe. Touted as the next best thing to happen to Literary World since J.K. Rowling.

Funny ways how your mind works

It is a habit of mine that I get a urge to eat something that I like and keep my stomach full whenever I accomplish some difficult task racking my brain for long time during my office time. Earlier this used to translate to eating Chicken Biryani or Chicken Soft Noodles during lunch and if its a snack time that would be one plate Rava Masala Dosa or Samosa Cutlet etc.This was during my bachelor times.

After marriage though my appetite has changed for good but my cravings didn't. I only found out yesterday. There were 3 issues plaguing me since last week. Yesterday I was able to successfully close two of them around 5 in the evening. It was snack's time and my regular coterie of friends weren't around. Anup was off to his driving school, Nitin was sick and had taken half day leave and that left only Hegde. Somehow it doesn't work. Anyways my stomach was growling with anticipation.

I rushed to the ground floor where we had the common eateries for the building. My first thought was to have a nice warm soup and be done with it. I went to Shanghai Shef only to be shooed away saying they were closed until 5:30. I then went to sandwich maker but then I thought "Heck I am not going to pay 35 bucks for one sandwhich with two bread slices and some aloo. Come on I almost get to eat whole 4 slices of bread at home once every two weeks or more than that". I ruled that out.

I then went ahead to the general counter where they serve all kinds of assorted food where you get all kinds of chat, poha, samiya, cut mirchi, bajji of various kinds and so on. My first pic was Cut-mirchi. I stood in the queue with 5 guys ahead of me. By the moment two guys left, I had a change of heart. Wasn't it too oily for?. I went back to the menu and then decided I would have dosa. Then again don't I get dosa twice every week, why should I buy and eat? Then I thought samsosa which I outright rejected in my mind. I was also in the queue in the meantime and it was my turn.

Quickly on the spot I decided I am gonna have one Boost. This was done not to embarrass myself as the guy at the counter already saw me in and out of the queue twice. It would be pretty awkward to make a hat-trick of it. Upon finishing my order I had a really good laugh with the way my mind works and no wonder people tell me I am confused all the time. Damn it, the one thing that I want to get rid of but comes back to me like a long lost acquaintance, mingling with you nonstop.

First off I need to get hold of Shrivas, who had recently told me not once but almost 2-3 times in the last week "Itna confused kyon ho bhai?"

H to the S to the B to the C - HSBC

My relationship with HSBC dates back to almost 7 years now and they have kept their word not to charge me annually. Few years back when they shortchanged the bonus points, I felt absolutely cheated. A bonus points of 1000 that fetched 750 bucks now gives only 250. They never kept their promise of increasing the credit limit. That was the second shock.

I did inquiry around to immediately looking for alternatives. I mean what the heck why should I keep losing the goodies? The other ones I tried were HDFC, Axis itself and of course the Citi. All these demanded a mandatory clause of 15K spending per year. The reward points too I saw that were actually same across the banks. I stuck to this. On top of all this I am making great effort to stay away from credit.

Excepting for the months expecting variable pay,  we were able to achieve it quite well. For good number of months there were absolute zero transactions. I hope to continue on that.

Anyways the sudden interest in bank has come about because of the latest new security device that the bank has delivered. After completing all the PIN generation and security set up etc. I realized that with the new set of security I would first need to enter my username, password, then enter security device password get the security code, and then enter that number to finally enter it.

Its frustrating to the tilt. Suckers.

The Extras that matter and hurt

First it starts at the outer layers on the face, on the cheeks, near the chin. It then builds up on the stomach, then it takes over your thighs and before you realize, it then creeps on your hands and legs. The once fit body becomes a constant irritant and taking two steps at a time walking a staircase makes would start feeling as if you have done an hour of trekking without a break. Deplorable and absolutely pathetic.
Deep within myself I know tomorrow is the day and I vow to keep it.This extra bit of fat hurts the most and matter the most. 

Dangers of Pass-By Date

Among many things I have been reading (a lot actually) be it on web, quora, twitter, zite, flipboard and so on, one of the comments in an article caught my attention. The commentator talks about the idleness and the complacency exhibited by millions of working Indians post marriage. I can just look at myself in the mirror and give a resounding stamp of approval for the theory.

I look around among my colleagues and friends its the same story. Excepting the times when someone looks for a job change, the zeal and the desire to excel and gain knowledge is sorely missing. This quest for knowledge need not be in one's own field. It also may be related to some other professional courses that one can take up like the hundreds of MOOC's that are available free of cost. With a baby thrown in after few years one can as well forget it. Doing one's work in a day itself will tire them out leaving not much scope for further development.

I am without a doubt in this dangerous zone and it's really scary. On top of that being part of support all I am able to help is in troubleshooting issues occurring in Prod and not adding any value to myself in terms of learning. As the Dev team keeps building components here I am languishing lethargically doing nothing of significance. It's as if my pass-by date is stuck on my forehead and having nothing new to bring to the table.

I have to set this right and I have to do it right now. I shudder to think if I leave my brain to rot and relish in this 9-7 lifestyle will be extinct by the next cycle. I have to start setting targets, giving presentations, learn new things and make this habitual.

"Don't take medical seats, your life will never set. You have to keep on reading and writing exams for ages together before you settle. Even then you would need to upgrade" This used to be my oft-repeated quote to many a post-intermediate folks. Thing is this basic motto extends to everyone. This kinda reminds of one of the recent advertisement for Kaun Banega Crorepati where a guy refuses to study further thinking all that was needed to learn was over only to find himself losing out entirely in his profession.

I pray I don't bccome that guy. The things I need to set out to accomplish would start with mastering of XQuery, SQL Server Replication, SQL Server MDX and the biggest of all - Hadoop with BigData.

Godspeed.

Movies and what not

Doing night out in office yesterday in office, not for the first time and not certainly for the last, I began to regret for not having my phone loaded with some movies with which I can utilize the full powerful HD capabilities of my iPhone.

More than movies/series some funny clips or some action scenes at least. Here in comes Revanth, with whom I am in awe for ever for uttering the words "Exorcist em movie ra. Idi horror aa. chi.." after watching the Exorcist in iPod shuffle sized screen and earphones. He had this habit of having a good collection of nice funny clips and enjoying it watching it on his iPod or even his then Nokia phone, which I used to envy but never really bothered much about. Back then I was more than occupied catching up with latest movies, cataloging the ones to see, ones to download, whom to ask , how to get and so on.

Things change and after marriage they change in supersonic mode. I have such a huge list of pending movies to see and I am so darn outdated with the latest and the best I am now clinging to the idea of having the nice funny videos or some best movie scenes in my phone.

Top of my mind that I can think of -

1. Brahmanandam comedy scene from Athadu
2. V for Vendetta - Message of Hope
3. 300 Movie war scenes
4. Up movie scene of Ellie and Carl
5. Minion scenes from Despicable Me
6. Sri Devi's tearful speech from English Vinglish

Such is life that I can't think beyond this right away. Not to be too pessimistic though. I know this is a ongoing process and movies come and go and there are helluva lot more things to be put.

This and music would be keeping me occupied for a while. 

Organizing Music Collection and More - I

Scene 1-

Hari, Nikmo and I were gathered at Niks house. I don't remember the occasion. What I do remember is me sitting at his MAC looking at the album covers that was set as a screensaver. These album covers for flipping over arbitrarily and when the songs had to change the album to which it belongs flips. I am not cent percent sure on that. Anyways I was fascinated by this.

It feels always good to flip through covers of the albums as it gives out lot of details. To start with the main actors in it, the age of the album (old/new) and sometimes the memory you associate with the movie in itself. Of course all this within the realms of songs from Telugu or Hindi films.

Scene 2-

Nick, a colleague of mine had come to India on business trip and told me he had brought along his hard disk in a casual discussion we were having. Immediately piqued I asked him to bring it over next day. To which he replied "Dude, it doesn't contain many movies man".
"Come on dude, with 2 TB hard drive it should have some movies at least. If not are there any series/documentaries in it then?" I asked.
"Nope, nothing of movies or series. It's plain music. The other stuff I have it on my server back home."

That blew my mind away. It took me some time to digest. Then he went on to explain how he had setup a kick ass server at his home in Montreal which makes his collection accessible wherever he is. He even showed me how he accesses it. The only glitch here being it would take hellava time to copy bulk loads of it over the net.

A month ago my hard drives were choking. I had no space either in my 1TB hard drive or the two other 500GB hard drives. Just to note the two other 500 Gigs hard drives aren't accessible any more. Some sectors have gone kaput. My computer drives too were full. I started by deleting the odd movies that I had seen and didn't wish to see again. When I come to the drive that had songs in it, it showed the three folders Hindi, Telugu and English all combined together was comprising a full quota of 18GB!

Both the above mentioned scenes hit my mind and first question that popped up mind "Are all these songs really necessary?". Such humongous songs collection was always a thing of pride for me when I used to give my hard disks and never forgot to make a mention of it. Now it looks like a dead weight. I mean, what was I even thinking lugging them around.

Even the album artwork of the movies that appealed to me sounded a possibility. Just the thought of flipping the albums on my iPhone was setting my heart on race like giving a juicy candy to a 5-year old. All the times on ads for mobiles or Apple events one clip at least would contain the albums flowing in and out. That was what I wanted.

Implementation -
Getting the cover art proved to be more tedious than I thought. Here are the methods I tried -
1.Select an Album in iTunes, search the net get the cover flows and paste it.I had done this for almost 20 albums before losing the steam.
2. Jotting down the movies without cover arts and proceed with step 1. The main hindrance was deletion of the albums you don't want to have from iTunes and then from physical folder and in parallel doing the pasting job.
3. Delete all the goddamn tracks from iTunes. Every single track. Go back to your songs folder, start cleaning the junk right out from the folder locations and be selectively choosy about the ones you want. End of Story.

(3) is what I have been doing and am proud to say I am done with 128 albums in Telugu folder. I know there is another round of revision but that's for some other time. My next task is to pounce on the ones in Hindi. On cursory glance everything looked good and deciding on what to delete is hard task.

My idea of choosing good or bad is like this - Do I know this movie? Did I hear any songs from this? How was the talk about this during the time of release and what my impressions were? For example there is a movie by the name Raju Bhai in Telugu of which one song I know is good. So I kept the album with this one song. Will I listen to this anytime? Even a remote yes gets my vote. Examples include Avakai Biryani, Anumanaspadam etc.

The English songs folder itself had almost around 8 GB of songs of which I might not have listened to more than 10 -15 songs. Hello? These were always in the category of someday I will listen and get to know some English music artists better, be cool etc.

Suck It Biatch! I also saw Wake Up Sid and I don't think I like Jazz either. So that's that.

Will be posting a sequel to this post about the progress and thereof.
P.S. - Quite frankly, this cleaning up has given me some perspective on what I need and what I don't and to keep things simple. Is there any goddamn point in having junk in your life?
P.P.S - This post is dedicated to Nikhil a.k.a Niks.

Random Thoughts

A popular saying goes "Half the problems in this world are solved if people do half the things that they want to do but never do". Someone must have kept me in mind before writing that. This is what I guess they call control, control of your mind your body and your soul. Accomplishing your tasks no matter how small they are or how menial they are just adds that much confidence in you. I have decided to name them as Mental blocks. Not long ago I had to work on a task that demanded extensive focus but my mind just wasn't into it. In order to punish myself and also for self-motivation I decided I wouldn't jog, nor blog nor mail etc i.e. other mental blocks in my mind. This instead has boomeranged very badly. Not only have I become lazy in not doing things, I have just let things move on in a slow pace.

Jogging. One of the best things that happened to my life. It really was. Last year for almost 9 -10 months I was full into it and it was so darn refreshing. I had lost hellava weight and was feeling very upbeat. Just checked my weight recently and I see that I have now touched 81 kg, 4 Kg increase in 4 months time. Not bad by usual standard but really that's worse. I have been trying to revive it on and off. Here is what I have decided now. I am gonna eat junkiest and fattiest foods on the day I don't do jogging, starting from today.

Distractions. New found discovery - Serials takes your mood off on anything. Over the last few weeks I had been watching Dexter and Breaking Bad. With them in place I hadn't been able to do anything else at all. First I wanted to put one mail to Jash, second was to look at the videos that Niks had sent, third was to speak with Ranjit regarding his beautiful daughters and to get in touch in general. None of it has happened. God knows why.

Blog, well what can I say about the Blog. It just hasn't kicked off the way I wanted it to be. There seems to be no time at all. Even this very thing that this post mentions has taken me 3 weeks to write. Don't wonder too much if it lacks any coherence from start to finish.