IyerTalks

I do own a Playstation - The PS2 slimmer version. I bought this after seeing my friend Madan playing the Price of Persia - yes the DOS game with the small skinny prince running around the screen - on his Tablet PC. The game looked awesome with great graphics and all and as usual Madan’s recital of the story line was tremendous and I decided that I needed to play this game. I am not a great gamer and never play games on my computer so did not want to buy the PC version but wanted to play it using a proper video gaming console.

I had two options either an XBOX and go with Microsoft or go down the Sony road and buy the PS2. I felt that the XBOX was quite big and clumsy when compared to the PS2 which is small. God was I right I have carried it a few times to India now and it is so easy to carry around and store.

So I got this PS2 for the Prince of Persia - Sands of Time. It is a very good game and I highly recommend it. By the time I completed the game the second part of the game was out Prince of Persia - Warrior Within. Now I was addicted to this PS2/Game and I went ahead and bought the game from EBAY. It was not as good as the first part and it did have some glitches and it was quite a lengthy and complicated game which you cannot play without the help of this site J now by the time I completed this game there were rumours of the 3^rd part of the game being available by end of the year 2005. Now I have completed this game and I did not have any other game to play so went and bought a few Tom Clancy Games – yes this is the same guy who writes those FBI/CIA novels. December came and Prince of Persia – The two thrones released and I grabbed it at Amazon with a Gift certificate I had (I am not a person who is ready to shell out 40 Quid for a Game on the day it releases I can afford to wait for 2 months and buy it for 15 Quid or even lower) got from Amazon for some previous shopping. Nice I got this game and played for a few days and then realised that I am loosing out on my Grades In my Masters and I packed it off to play it after I complete the module and when I get some free time. I completed the Module but never managed to get free time to start playing again. I am taking modules back to back so it has been hectic. I have not even touched that game and I have a few like that on my shelf mocking at me. J Here is a list of Games I Own.

• Prince of Persia – Sands of Time.    [Completed]
• Prince of Persia – Warrior Within     [Completed]
• Prince of Persia – The two thrones. [Started]
• Tom Clancy – Splinter Cell             [Still in Demo Stage J]
• Tom Clancy – Chaos Theory           [Unopened]
• Tom Clancy – Pandora Tomorrow.   [Unopened]

The Tom Clancy stuff was a bit of the foolish side in me surfacing I bought the Pandora tomorrow and then realized that I needed to have played Chaos Theory then purchased that and then I realized that it was a continuation of Splinter Cell and now I had to go and purchase that as well !!!

Now why did I drone of on this Playstation stuff – Saw this groovy gadget on Gizmodo - AK Rocker 200 Gaming Chair and that made me think of all the games that I have on “Q” to play J

My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister's bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package. "This," he said, "is not a slip. This is lingerie." He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite; silk, handmade and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached. "Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion." He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, and then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me.

"Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're alive is a special occasion."

I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores that follow an unexpected death. I thought about them on the plane returning to California from the Midwestern town where my sister's family lives. I thought about all the things that she hadn't seen or heard or done. I thought about the things that she had done without realizing that they were special. I'm still thinking about his words, and they've changed my life.

I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting on the deck and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden.

I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time in committee meetings. Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experience to savour, not endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.

I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event-such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, the first camellia blossom.

I wear my good blazer to the market if I feel like it. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries without wincing.

I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party-going friends'.

"Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now. I'm not sure what my sister would have done had she known that she wouldn't be here for the tomorrow we all take for granted.

It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew that my hours were limited. Angry because I put off seeing good friends whom I was going to get in touch with-someday. Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write-one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and daughter often enough how much I truly love them.

I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and lustre to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that it is special. Every day, every minute, every breath truly is...a gift from God.

Awesome!!!

That is the one single word I have for this kind of meeting. This is the first time I am doing a presentation over the web and it was to good. As I told earlier I used WebEX as the provider for the meeting.

Had a few glitches in the initial stage - mainly attributed to the fact that I did not have prior experience on this tool. I also had the fear that the client would not be able to login as they are behind a firewall but I was surprised to see that the WebEX tool was able to tunnel through the firewalls.

I shared my presentation to the client and it was seamless no delay between me clicking for the next slide and the client seeing it on their screens [How did I know this? – I was constantly asking them if they are seeing the slide until I was told off for doing that J]

Great software highly recommended J

Okay status on my Camera – Should be receiving it today but unfortunately I need to go for a meeting and I will not be at home after 1130 Hrs hopefully I should receive it before that, If not I need to schedule a re-delivery to a client site. I am at a client site all of next week and the week after.

As promised will post the photos of the Kit and the camera once I receive it.

Got up in the morning (Late than usual - 0930 Hrs) and went to the first room of the day and had running hot water to brush my teeth and got under the shower and realized to my horror that the hot water had stopped and I am actually freezing under a cold shower (In this Yonder land I never will be able to take bath in cold water since the cold water is usually 2-3 degree Celsius.) it took me a few minutes to come back to my senses and I rushed out of the bath and got myself on the phone to my rental agents. The good lady promised me that she will send a contractor out immediately. Looked around and realized that my place is a mess and started cleaning it a bit and ended up throwing all the unwanted pamphlets that have got collected over a period of 3 months at my place. Reality struck and I realized that I have a WebEX tomorrow with a bank in Holland!!!

The bell rings one hour after the call and I have got the contractor at my door, let him in and he started telling me some gibberish about why my boiler conked out, i am preparing for a WebEX seminar tomorrow and did not take anything he told into my already swarming brain, after sometime he changed something in the boiler and there it was happily making a nice humming sound and I had hot water in under 10 minutes.

Happy man me, happy man contractor leaves. After two hours this big noise like something falling inside the house comes and I have this ear splitting noise coming out of my boiler. The whole house is rattling but I still have hot water. Called my rental agency again and this time it is going to be tomorrow before anybody can come and rectify this until that time I am going to be sitting in the middle of this earthquake, even tried the regular i need them now as i dont have Hot water drama which did not go very well with her.J

BTW – My Amazon parcel should be out of Amazon by end of today UK Time.

Writing my assignments it is already overdue. I always say this but never practice it – Never put off anything that you can do now J

After serious web searches and contemplating on if I really needed an SLR camera (I am not a great photographer and had no experience with a SLR Camera before) I finally bit the bullet today.

The main reason that prompted me to get this is an Amazon Gift Certificate that I had and did not find any great use to, so decided to get that as a late New Years gift for myself. J

Walked around Canary Wharf trying to find a good deal which was better than Amazon. Dixons indeed had a good deal but was overkill. They had the same product for £599 with an extra lens and all but I thought I would not be using the other lens initially so did not go for it. John Lewis was quite high priced even though they would match Dixons prices it would be difficult to convince people to reduce prices by a 100 quid I need to talk a lot and was not interested in doing that. The people at Jessops were too good, the salesman there explained the camera and the accessories and all about a SLR camera for an entry level person like me but the price was again steep compared to even Dixon’s.

Finally got the product at Amazons and this is what I purchased a few hours back. You can read a review about this camera here.

Did not get a SD card for the camera (The camera does not come with a memory card like other Digital Cameras.). I have a 1 GB Card which I got with my D600 phone last month. The guy at Jessops did not recommend this but i still wanted to give it a try before shelling out anther £40 for a 1GB SD card. The other thing which is still saved for a later buy is a case for this camera, I needed to avoid buying this since the earliest delivery dates for this product was like 2 weeks from now and did not have the patience for that J

According to Amazon the delivery should happen between 28 April 2006 and 3 May 2006.

Will post more photos when I receive the kit and you are sure to see a lot of photos taken on the camera as well J

Sometime Google is so good that it just astounds me on the various statistics that they are giving you. It also instills fear on the amount of stuff that they tracking about you and they can know a person better out of his activities on the internet which is clearly some privacy issue but Google is really good on protecting your privacy, that was apparent when they fought the US federals on the release of search history.

After I joined this MS IT in University of Liverpool I am now more on the internet than a year back. Unfortunately Google are collecting your search history for the past 15 months maybe so I don’t have statistics to give you but I am sure I was not surfing so much.

This is how my trends are looking according to Google Trends. [To Access this you need a Google account and should have enabled search statistics collection.]

I have been searching like crazy for the past one year.

If you see there I have been away from my course during February and did not have much access to the Internet. Also I Started my MS IT in October last year and you see a spike from that month on search activity. No ideas why I have a spike in July, May was in India and did not have any internet access. J

Over the last week this is how it looks –

I have been banging away on the internet for all of last week trying to find materials for my various assignments and projects. Tuesday was the day I came back to London and had a whole lot of stuff to complete so was running against time and using the search capabilities a lot.

Over the past 24 Hours this is how the whole thing is looking.

I usually work late into the night so you will see that there are search activities in the wee hours as well.

See the amount of statistics that are being collected it makes me feel faint J

It is 02:00 AM here and I sitting here listening to these great melodies of Dr. Maestro Illayaraja on radio. The good thing about this radio channel is that it is aired in IST and I get to hear great songs and skip the dirty beats and the love loonies of the morning. (That is a post for another day).

Fascinating that this guys is able to catch you completely by surprise every time you listen to a song he has composed. I have a huge collection of his songs and I would have heard every song that the radio plays like 100s of times but it is still a unique experience each and every time a song is played.

Playing now as I send this off – Vaa Vaa Vaa Kannaa Vaa from Velaikaran (1987)

God Bless his soul

The election is approaching and the parties have started slinging mud on each other. I have started watching the SUN TV News these days as it is turning out into a humor show. I am missing the SUN News and Jaya TV which will have more debates and more humor J

I was hearing Bhagyaraj talking the other day (Pro DMK) and I was rolling on the floor laughing it was too funny. I have to appreciate the fact that he is a very versatile person and can keep you enthralled when he talks.

BTW the Lok Paritran the party started by IITians is contesting the elections from

1. T Nagar

2. Mylapore

3. Park Town

4. Thousand Lights

5. Saidapet

6. Anna Nagar

If you are in any of the above councils give these guys a chance and let us see if they can do anything at all to clean up the mess that is prevailing in Tamilnadu now.

Something similar to Ayutha Ezhuthu J

Came across this very nice tool to format SQL and PL/SQL Statements

Really good and I think I will use this a lot, the application that I regularly support has too many SQL’s that are not formatted and it drives me crazy to debug them, I usually end up rewriting the entire SQL.

I have this thing with formatted code and I always make it a point to format and indent my code and when I was teaching in NIIT I used to always ask (should I say force) my students to indent and format the code or risk loosing the program. Lot of them learnt it the hard way but not sure how many people carried that into their day jobs.

A Program is like your handwriting the more you format your code and write it the more people would be able to read it and support it.

I feel a lot better now after talking to the concerned. I am truly gifted to have friends who understand me and are able to support me during lean times.

Cheers !!!

Take the lead - Read Reviews here - Cast details here.

What an excellent movie. Went to the theaters to watch Scary Movie 4 but ended up in this film since the guy in the ticket counter recommended this. I have got this Unlimited card from CineWorld Cinemas and it allows me to see unlimited movies for £10.99 a month at my local cinema so I really don’t worry about the quality of the movie that I am watching, at least I will not feel bad if I walk out of the movie in the middle if it is drag.

Coming back to the movie - Antonio Banderas has done an excellent role as a Ball room dance teacher who opts in to teach students on detention at a public school, the art of dancing. The story is about the problem he faces with his students and how he adapts to their needs and the students to him.

Worth seeing – Please be aware that this is not the usual Hollywood Masala Flick, it is based on true incidents so don’t expect any sensational action scenes.

After the depressing day that I had it was good to divert myself off into something else.

I am not sure if I need to believe in this anymore than what I believed in it all these days. Things seem to be getting on concrete on this whole malarkey of horoscope matching and the eye wash of the whole thing.

I am still an eligible bachelor and thought will shed that coat in a few months, unfortunately by the twist of events I have to, I think wear this coat for a few more months/years/decades. My Parents are hell bent on making sure they get a perfect match for me by matching horoscopes and since I have left my marriage in their capable hands I don’t question them. Still sometimes I feel that the astrologers are driving me up the wall when one say that it is all nice between two horoscopes and then somebody else juts in and says that these two horoscopes wont work and if they marry their life is going to be miserable.

Who is wrong and who is right!!! – Unfortunately nobody can say that and everybody has his or her own opinion on this and the more you think about it the more crazy it seems. Astrology according to the experts is math and I am sure that for anybody 2 + 2 = 4; but I am not sure how each astrologer gets a different answer to the same problem – they either need to attend Elementary Classes again or we need to stop feeding them with horoscopes (Latter one is the easiest and I hope the current generation grows up and realises this)

I am not sure if the person on who was involved is reading this, but the least I can do is to

Get on my knees and ask for a public apology for all that has happened.

Hope she understands and forgives me and I sincerely hope that I have not lost a good friend. I have seen brighter days and this is one of my most depressing days!!! L

According to this report here - she has committed suicide by hanging herself using a shawl.

Not sure what prompts people to commit suicide. One day the inevitable is going to happen and why do you want to hasten it. You need to have courage to embrace death. L

The joke on the entire report is the age of Vaishnavi J

Get hassled here.

Nice way to get reminded to do something on a regular basis but in a random way. If you add more than one person to the hassle me email then one person selected randomly from the list will get the email at random intervals. Good if you want to remind your team about something.

Talking about Hassle and Spam - You may want to check this site - A nice way to stop spam. Lot of times I need an email ID to receive a trial product key but don’t want the product company to store my email address and send me email reminders to buy their product, I always used a junk email account for this but this Mailinator thingy is wonderful as it maintains the account for a few hours (Selectable) and then deletes it. No hazel free service.

Give both the sites a shot.

Went to Akshardham @ Delhi on the Sunday 16^th April 2006; A beautifully constructed spiritual center that is also a showcase for the ancient architecture of our beautiful country. These architectures are seen in the ancient temples of South India and I was quite taken aback by the amount of effort that has gone into making of this temple. Somebody told me they have spent close to 6000 Crores (How many Zeros beyond 6000 that is?). I was astounded by the size of the temple it is extraordinarily huge.

While I was walking around the temple I was saying to myself “What a huge waste of money”. The reason for me feeling like this is that we have too many temples in India which have more intricate carvings and workmanship but are not being taken care of this money could have helped those temples. If you feel that you don’t want to help another temple they would have at least constructed a world class college or school that will give free education to the deserving many that are not able to afford to study and hence are forced to work at a very young age. I am sure the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha is surely doing a lot of great work in these social fields but still ….

Felt the same way when I saw the Universal temple of Ramakrishna Matt; Right next to the  Kapaleeswarar Temple this I felt was overkill as people seldom visit the Kapaleeswarar temple and I feel we should encourage people to visit temples that are already there and not build new ones and use the funds for building new temples towards helping the downtrodden. As BAPS RK Mutt does a lot of good things and I am a big fan of them but still this Universal Temple has sort of become a tourist spot these days and meeting point for the Love birds of Mylapore J

It is great to be back in London for some reason though I always keep complaining about this country I like this place a lot for the nice weather (Now it is nice and warm outside) and the greenery around you.

Flew back by Jet Airways again but this time preferred an Aisle seat and had a good sleep on the flight did not even wake up to have breakfast. As I mentioned earlier I am a Gold Member of KLM and they are partners with Jet and as part of the privilege I get to carry 10 KGs; I am not sure why the staff at the check in counters are not given classes on these membership benefits; I had to argue with the check-in clerk to allow me to check in my Hand Luggage as well and she finally relented when I told her I am making the life of my co passengers easier since I don’t have to put that big bag on the hold all.

Okay after a lot of searching around Delhi I finally managed to et some sweaters for the people I had promised at Thapar at Connaught place.

The collection was limited but I at least was able to see some selections and selected two sweaters and two scarves.

I skipped the coats since I felt that people may not finally use them and spending 60 Quid on them was a wasted effort.

On a different note – After being in India for the better part of my life I managed to see the Parliament and the Rashtrapati Bhavan today home to the President of India.

A Special thanks to my friend J

Felt this link was worth having on the side bar. Your Amazing Brain

Try taking those tests on the site.

PS: Sorry for the single liners that I am posting. It is me stumbling on the internet and I am just posting things which I find interesting.

Female Freedom redefined.

Not sure if you noticed but Google now has a Calendar. They also have a Blog about it.

Unfortunately it complains that IE 7 is not supported and I just now had my IE crash on me.

Anyways as usual it is commendable work and I am greatly impressed.

Give it a try.

I am totally astounded by the fact that Delhi stores don’t stock winter clothing during their summer months. I know there will be a very small dribble of customers like me who want to buy winter clothing but I still feel they are customers and they are at the end money for your business and figures on your balance sheet.

Running around almost all of Gurgaon and Delhi searching for these winter clothing!!! Not even Raymonds carry winter clothing.

Promised people that I will come with coats and sweaters to beat the cold in London (which is again freakish - it is past Easter and we are still having real cold spells) I think that is another promise squashed under the foot.

In Chennai we don’t have any winter months but shops do stock winter clothing like woolen sweaters and woolen coats. They are basically catering to the NRI crowd that leaves Chennai in hordes every month. Maybe the population in Delhi is more of a stagnant crowd and there are not many NRI’s.

EAST OF NOWHERE by Robert Chalmers.

Very good book highly recommended I completed like 200 Pages on the flight yesterday and every page brings a smile.

More reviews at Book Reviews

Okay to be very frank I was thrilled that I am going to fly in Jet Airways – A private sector airline doing quite good in the domestic sector in India – from London to Delhi, I usually take Emirates though the cost was comparable I got a better timing on Jet Airways than Emirates or BA.

I have traveled in Jet Airways before this from Chennai to Pune and did not have any bad experience and compared to the Government operated airlines this airline is god send for the domestic sector with on time departures and great in-flight meals and good service with nice looking people taking care of you.

Now I need to start from the first – This goes before my breakfast post of yesterday.

I am a KLM Gold member so got to do Priority check-in at the Jet Airways check-in zone B at London Heathrow Airport [LHR]. Checked in 27.7 KGs no ideas where it came from it is a three day trip and I was not carrying any major luggage; no raised eyebrows by the check in clerk (had a funny feeling that she was not all that interested in the job she was doing), Jet had already reserved an Aisle seat for me and I am not sure how but when she asked me I was like “I need a Window seat” (IMHO it is easier to sleep on the flight when sitting near a window) she just gave my boarding pass with a window seat and a comment that the next to yours is free and I am off to my breakfast thinking I will have a nice seat and a good sleep after a glass of wine.

They did not announce the gate till 08:00 Hrs and the flight was scheduled for 09:30 Hrs and considering that I need to walk 40-50 minutes to get to the gates I cleared security and was loitering in the duty free at LHR (I usually don’t buy anything at the Duty free at LHR since I feel that the price is not all that different to that of the High Street for electronics and I am not a big connoisseur of Spirits so no pricing information on that.) The Gate was 36 and indeed as anticipated was a long walk to that gate, should have topped 6000 steps on the pedometer if I was wearing it. Entered the waiting area and again got to do a priority boarding (Thanks to the Gold Card).

Shock of my life I was at seat 73K (I fly economy if flying for my company and not the client) I did not know that a flight can have so many seats since I have only seen 49-50 seats but not 75 Seats in any plane I have traveled (maybe I am a lot under educated on the seating of planes) went and sat at 73K and the next shock was that there was a lump under the seat in front of me (not sure what that is for)  preventing me from stretching out and to increase the woes I managed to get a fellow passenger on the next seat (the check-in clerk told me that the next seat is empty) he was also tall and since I was not able to stretch I just had to use up his leg room and sit in an awkward position making him also uncomfortable. To add to the woes of the seat the arm rests had holes in them to operate the remote – not sure who came up with that brilliant idea of having easy access to the Remote - for the in flight entertainment, so no chances of keeping your arms on those arms rest without inflicting serious marks on your skin.

To make myself comfy and also not create problems to the person sitting next to me I requested for an Aisle seat without the lump under the seat in front of me. The option I had was sit here or move to the end of the cabin (Seat 75 which was near the toilets), I preferred to move as the seat was empty, even though there was no lump there I was not able to stretch my legs and I realized that the flight had been cramped like one of the cheap fare flights that operate in Europe (This ticket did not come cheap it was 540 Quid). Asked for a feedback form and I never received one what a commendable way to take feedback from the client.

Sitting near the Toilet had its own woes and I was half the time breathing through my mouth J

It was a 9 Hour flight and I was praying that I don’t get a DVT before I land in Delhi. My IPOD and my book, (Also the girl in the front seat I should ad) gave me distraction from the seating woes.

I was thrilled to get out of the flight in Delhi after 9 Hours.

All apart I need to commend the airlines for the excellent in-flight service of Lunch and Dinner which was hot and also good compared to other airlines on the same sector where you either get no food at all or get stale food.

So the moral of the story –

• Don’t Travel In Jet long haul economy
• If you do travel don’t take a Window seat or seat in the middle row even if it is aisle. These seats have the lump!!!!
• Don’t take a seat near the Toilets as they are not sound proof and not odor free (You will feel like you are part of the action)

Okay I seem to have got a feel of how this works now … J