Why on Earth ....

My ramblings about some unrelated stuffs - each of which I am not able to reason out rationally.

My swimming trunk has 5 pockets just like a Jeans pant. What on earth could a person possibly be carrying in his pockets while swimming that warrants 5 pockets. After a couple of laps do they expect a swimmer to stop and check one of the pockets if his SSN or DL card is still there or if they have drowned to the bottom of the pool, or worst, a cop swimming right behind pulls over a swimmer to the lane side and ask for an ID of some before checking him for SUI (swimming under influence)!!!

If you have been following the various Finance related websites - Google Finance, Yahoo Finance - you would have realised this. These sites typically boast "the most sensational yet utterly useless headline" of all media sites. If the market is open they will say something like "Dow down 100 points" while the graph next to it would convey more news than that. To top it all, they would try to come up with an explanation as if they know what they are talking. Once in a blue moon, an event like Lehman Brother's collapse helps them save their skin when explaining. With the real time updates on the indicies reflected on the websites in no time, the headlines now-a-days look more foolish than ever before trying to keep up. Today Google Finance said "Dow up on consumer confidence" while the realtime quote showed the index down by 30 points. They could use a software script to auto-generate the headline at the same speed the index is being updated so that, however hilarious, atleast it looks in sync with the number.

After 8 long years in America, I am tired of (or rather used to) organizations/businesses using superlative terms to describe themselves - the best, greatest, cheapest, most-this, most-that etc etc. Here are some funny superlative statements I came across -

• SDCCU (San Diego Country Credit Union) claiming that it has been voted as the "BEST credit union in the County by the readers of the San Diego Union Tribune(UT)" - How many credit unions can there be in SD county (not even double digits) and even among them, how much of a circulation does UT have and of that much circulation how much would have taken the pains to participate in such a poll. Is that even a category to claim anything meaningful ?
• Kia, the automaker, in an add recently boasted of an award from JD Power and Associates. Kia.com Ranks HIGHEST Among ManufacturerWeb Sites in Satisfying New-Vehicle Shoppers - When was the last time you or someone you know visited an automaker's website for buying a car as lame as KIA.
• Monterey Bay's - The world's MOST beautiful 17 miles - Drive. This was a total let down. We agree that drive was roughly 17 miles. Other than that, it was anything but beautiful. Our relative warned us but still we wasted 10$ on the entry fee. It was just another innovative way the filthy rich have designed to further rip off the less opulent. The drive had 21 so called "vista" points of which the most hilarious one was Ghost Tree.

J D Power and Associates is a friendly agency to any business. Give them their fee, they will surely find a category so obscure that your business will be the best of that category. Remember the Kia example. It would only be fitting for them if they come up with a "Most Over-rated Tourist Attraction" category and award that to the Monterey Bay 17-mile Drive. See today's pic of the Ghost Tree - one of the so called vista points- in the 17-mile drive.

Freaky Freeways

Living an hour from Los Angeles, the "city of angeles" (aka LA), I dont think I have ever seen any angels flying over there but most drivers on its freeways seem to be flying high for sure. With its myriad number freeways being barely able to cope up with its enourmous traffic appetite, an outsider ,or worst, a first-timer, driving into LA at pretty much at any point of the day is sure to get hit with a shocking number of winding freeways, exiting on either sides at short notice, bumpy with sometimes narrow lanes, bumper-to-bumper traffic going mad at 80 mph, drivers who dont seem to use anything other than steering wheel and gas pedal, reckless truck drivers who join the meelee and to top it all off, the city's penchant for bright hoardings dangerously close to the freeway straining at the already stressed-out drivers' eyes throwing all sense of caution to the air. Throw in the night atmosphere in this mix, well, you will have one memorable experience. Trust me, I have had two in the last as many months.

Incidentally, a considerable chunk of LA traffic doesnt seem to go anywhere within LA. They are just cutting across the city to get to the other side and proceed their own ways. This is particularly true during holiday seasons. This bunch can be easily diverted outside of the city's freeways by having what we call in India as "by-pass" roads. Essentially a national highway enters a major crowded city and the traffic that does not have anything to do with the city just takes a bypass road and circumvents the city to catch the highway on the other end of the city. I dont know why such an idea dint get folded into the well-thought-out-and-executed American Freeway system. Definitely cities like LA stand to benefit from that. I wouldnt mind travelling an extra 30 miles or spending a buck more on the roadside coffee/snack if I can avoid cutting across LA, that too with my family now blissfully asleep in the rear seats.

To prove my point, attached pic shows a speeding pick-up truck (an F150) in front of me at close distance with the blue light from the freeway hoardings reflected off of the road. Picture taken with camera suspended at road level.

Whose Line Is It Anyway ? - #4

• I was attending a call from the auto dealer fixing my car (for damage from an accident I mentioned earlier). I was on the phone and was asking them about my remote keyless entry system which I wanted them to fix as it was not functional. The youngman besides me was grasping every word I am speaking and when he heard the terms "remote - key - car", sprung on his feet and came to me telling "Appa, ask them to repair my remote control car as well. Grandpa broke it earlier". I remembered his remote control car gone bad after a while and we had orchestrated that grandpa actually broke it and our guy is still waiting for insurance to come and repair. I had to promise him a new one to continue attending my phone call.
• On the day of Vinayaka Chathurthi my wife decided to wear a traditional Saree to the temple. I was waiting there for her to appear in the Saree, nervously rehearsing in my mind the appreciative words I would soon tell to save my life. She appeared and before even I could comment, my young son, who woke up dreamy eyed from him midday nap, took one look at his mom in Saree, and his eyes brightened up with a quick comment - "Amma, you look like A grandma". Apparently he remembers only his grandma in a saree attire and thought only she wears that. But for me, he is the only person in the world who can get away unscathed with such a comment about my wife.
• Aug 31st was "back-to-school" day and our young man was moving to a new class - Its a first for all of us. First time he is moving to a new class (upper preschool). Figuring out he may not be needing any major stationaries, my wife, prudently, talked me into getting him bunch of new dresses instead. The one he wore on the first day was a neat sports jersey like Tshirt with the number "22" on it and it said he is the "Team Capt". I wondered out loud if my wife found any number other than "22" at the shop while in my mind trying to relate that number to a sports celebrity in any game. My son, agile as ever, took one look down at his new T-shirt, came out with a cute "Amma, my T-shirt has "55" written on it". He was right though, from where he looked at it, the inverted "22" sure spelled "55". In our hurry, we couldnt get time to explain why its actually 22 and not the 55 he sees.
• I and my wife are in (one of) the difficult stage(s) of parenting - making the kid eat his food by himself. One afternoon, I was spoon-feeding our young man as he refused to do it by himself and got cranky. When he asked for water (which I know he can drink by himself and likes doing so as well), I refused to give him that pleasure saying "if you dont eat your food by yourself, you cant drink your water by yourself either. I will give you some myself". A day later, somehow, I and my wife's stars aligned and our combined patience prevailed our young man's revolts. He was eating his dinner by himself with a spoon while I just stood by his side. When he asked for water, I offered to give him the same myself (thinking that I can give him less so that he doesnt stuff his tummy with water). But I was caught off-guard when he retorted back saying "now I am eating my food myself, so I will drink my water myself too". I had to yield. As I said in my earlier posts, this little one remembers !!!

Back on Track

After 14 long years, I was able to come back to some of the religious aspects of my life that I had enjoyed when I was a child. Thanks to my wife, it felt good and promising. Felt hopeful in more ways than one.

During my child hood, thanks to my parents mainly, I have always enjoyed "Vinayaka Chathurthi" - the morning shopping for Lord Ganesh's clay idol, carrying a wooden plank (palagai) with me to carry it back home, the colored paper umbrella for him, the arugampil for the lord, my father driving the idol vendor mad with his bargaining, decorating the idol at home and more than anything, the amazing "ammini" and "uppu" kozhakattai my mom makes. After I left India, it remained just in memories. At my wife's suggestion, we went to the Shiva Vishnu Temple where kids made the idol themselves from a mould (wife did the major part for us), took it back to the temple a week later on the day of chaturthi with a small paper umbrella over him and my kid did all the ganesh homum/pooja along with other kids, offering akshathai etc to their idol, we brought the idol back home, offered him "sweet" and "ammini" kozhakattai my wife made. To top it all, a grand finale, the "Ganesh Visarjan", immersing the idol into the ocean for good, was held by the two San Diego temples combined at La Jolla shores. Some 150+ motivated San Diegan devotees from across India turned up on that hot day, sang bhajans before taking a procession of the idols into the ocean. The usual beach crowd of sun-bathers and surfers were surprised at this new event and some started photographing as well. The usually cold Pacific was surpringly warm and pleasant with the food and buttermilk after the visarjan finishing it all on a high note.

At my wife's behest, this year, I even went to the temple for the Avani Avittam in traditional dothi and vibuthi instead of doing a half-baked-upakarma at home.

Attached is the photo of Lord Ganesh (idol we made) gracing our home. Also shown is the kozhukattai-es in the second rack.

Reverse Idea Drain

I have heard about Brain Drain back in India (when talented educated minds sought greener western pastures) and also now to some extent we hear "reverse brain drain" - some of those drained brains headed back home.

On a related note, back in India, I have often seen movies inspiried by Hollywood hits - GodFather - for eg. The said "inspiration" has ranged from "being reverential" (eg. RGV's "Sarkar" on the footsteps of GodFather) to outright plagiarism (innumerable). If we call this phenomenon "Idea Drain" from a western world point of view, what I stumbled upon recently, interestingly enough, should be called - for lack of a better word - "Reverse Idea Drain". I came across two movies whose plot is exactly the same as that of two Tamil movies of the 1960-70s era. Both these movies are predominantly British, centered in London and were released in 1998-99 time frame. I dont know how much more are there. Here are the two -

• "The Parent Trap" - 1998 - starring Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson and Lindsay Lohan . ( I should credit my wife for bringing this movie to my attention when it was being broadcast on TV). This is an exact westernised replica of "Kuzhanthaiyum Deivamum" - 1965 - starring Jai Shankar, Jamna Rani and Kutti Padmini in the lead respectively. Lindsay Lohan is no where near Kutti Padmini in playing the young twin girls role, Dennis Quaid compensates.


• "Notting Hill" - 1999 - starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. The story line is exactly the same as "Sumathi En Sundari" - 1971 - starring the legendary Sivaji Ganesan and Jayalalitha in the lead. I couldnt stand the stoic expression-less Hugh Grant playing Sivaji's role. But Julia more than compensates for that.


• "Something's Gotta Give" - 2003 - starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves and some other girl in the main characters. The story is along the lines of the Balachander's legendary "Apoorva Raagangal" -1975 - starring Major Sunderrajan, Srividhya, KamalHassan and Jayasudha respectively. While the tamil movie, in which RajniKanth debuted in a cameo role, attempts to explore complex human relationship in a decent way, the copycat is falling short of that ideal and seems like a cheap skin flick (distasteful at that too) just capitalizing on the complex human relation aspect of story. The main cast of the original was beaming with acting talent while the copy cat had to contend with quirky Jack Nicholson while the rest just filled the roles name sake. Keanu Reeves seems elegant but fades in front of talented Kamal Hassan. This, if any, is an insult to the original.

Came across the following piece of advise in a mailing list on photography - "Good photographers make good pictures - equipment is secondary. I'd rather listen to a great guitarist on a cheap guitar than a mediocre guitarist on an expensive guitar. " - How true. Today's pic is of a twins I took in Yosemite Glacier point. I hope to capture the shot with their faces not very visible but still giving the idea of twins by their attire. I dont know why I converted it to B&W

Whose Line is it anyway - #3

• Our young man is in the exciting phase of exploring the world of words in both English and his mother tongue, Tamil. True to our Indian roots and to parenting in general, sometimes we couldnt help ourself shouting at our little one when his acts becoming unmanageable. Suddenly he will cut a cute face, come and embrace you. This time, he wanted to say that we should talk to him softly and not harsh. The word harsh hasnt come under his radar yet. Here he goes - "Appa, you should to me softly. You should not talk to me BIGLY".
• Qualcomm is the name of the company I work for. Our young man had noticed the Qualcomm sign board outside my office building when he sometimes accompanies him mom for dropping me off. He wanted to master the spelling. But incidentally the logo of our company has the ending two "m" entwined to resemble an electrical signal. Our guy was able to make it that there is an "m" there. so he goes, "Q-U-A-L-C-O-M-M-M-M-M-M". See here for our company logo as to why it confused our lad on the number of M's in the end.
• We went in a train ride in Yosemite. The train was pulled by a Steam Engine which greatly attracted our kid's attention with its huge black body and steam bellowing nose. Back home, my wife decided to build on the inspiration and was trying hard to find an equivalent item to demonstrate it. She was contemplating all things from pressure cooker to mimic the steaming part. To our surprise, our man came out telling we already have a steam engine at home. Only when he pointed out to the object, we realised how observant he is and how out-of-touch are we with creativity. The object is none other than - our house humidifier - shown in today's pic - shaped as the cartoon character "Thomas" the engine. And the vapor coming out of its nose exactly resembled a steam engine in motion.

Close AND A Cigar !!

The cigar is hot and smoking. Okay. Peace. This is what happened - Over the weekend I got my cell phone upgraded. Unlike my usual upgrades ( to the costliest FREE phone available ), this time around I was excited about the upgrade for a different reason. I was working on a cellphone chip 5yrs ago which is now available in a commerical cell phone product. Not only that, the feature I was working on in particular (Touch Screen) is the main UI on this phone. I was really excited to receive that albeit it cost me a good $50+tax after the discounts. But the wait was worthwhile. Not many times in your life you will come across this - your work/effort seen in reality that too in a tangible fashion and everybody using it and you able to tell them that you did it. Every time I tap the Touch Screen and it gives a "click", I know exactly whats happening inside - every circuit thats processing my tap. The phone, in case if you guys are curious, is LG Versa from Verizon Wireless. Verizon also sells an accessory to this - a full fledged QWERTY keypad - for the technically challenged. But no thanks, for now, I am more than good.