Sunday, May 30, 2010

Banker's Suit

A young Banker decided to get his first tailor made suit.
So he went to the finest tailor in town and got measured for a suit.
A week later he went in for his first fitting.He put on the suit and he looked stunning. He felt that in this suit he could do business. As he was preening himself in front of the mirror he reached down to put his hands in the pockets and to his surprise he noticed that there were no pockets.

He mentioned this to the tailor who asked him, "Didn't you tell me you were a Banker?"

The young man answered, "Yes, I did."

The tailor quipped, "Who ever heard of a banker with his hands in his own pockets?"





The World Before Computers





Before computers....

- An application was for employment

- A program was a TV show

- A cursor used profanity

- A keyboard was a piano

- Memory was something that you lost with age

- A CD was a bank account

- And if you had a broken disk, it would hurt when you found out

- Compress was something you did to garbage , not something you did to a file

- And if you unzipped anything in public , you'd be in jail for a while

- Log on was adding wood to a fire

- Hard drive was a long trip on the road

- A mouse pad was where a mouse lived

- And a backup happened to your commode

- Cut- you did with a pocket knife

- Paste- you did with glue

- A web was a spider's home

- And a virus was the flu

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper and the memory in my head. I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash  -But when it happens they wish they were dead!........................




Grave Danger From Pakistan !


Pigeon held in India on spying
suspicion for Pakistan
(AFP)

28 May 2010,
NEW DELHI - Indian police are holding a pigeon under armed 
guard after it was caught on an alleged spying mission for arch rivals 
and neighbours Pakistan, media reported on Friday.
The white-coloured bird was found by a local resident in India's 
Punjab state, which borders Pakistan, and taken to a police station 
40 kilometres (25 miles) from the capital Amritsar.
The pigeon had a ring around its foot and a Pakistani phone number and
 address stamped on its body in red ink.
Police officer Ramdas Jagjit Singh Chahal told the Press Trust of India (PTI) 
news agency that they suspected the pigeon may have landed on Indian soil 
from Pakistan with a message, although no trace of a note has been found.
Officials have directed that no-one should be allowed to visit the pigeon, 
which police say may have been on a "special mission of spying".
The bird has been medically examined and was being kept 
in an air-conditioned room under police guard.
Senior officers have asked to be kept updated on the situation three times 
a day, PTI said.


Chahal said local pigeon fanciers in the sensitive border area had told
 police that Pakistani pigeons were easily identifiable as they look 
different from Indian ones, according to the Indian Express newspaper.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

AAADD

AAADD

KNOW THE SYMPTOMS.......PLEASE READ!

Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder.
Somehow I feel better even though I have it!!


Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. -

Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests:


I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway,

I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.
 

As I start toward the garage,

I notice mail on the porch table that
I brought up from the mail box earlier.


I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table,

put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table,
and notice that the can is full.


So, I decide to put the bills
back

on the table and take out the garbage first.


But then I think,

since I'm going to be near the mailbox
when I take out the garbage anyway,
I may as well pay the bills first.


I take my check book off the table,

and see that there is only one check left..
 
My extra checks are in my desk in the study,

so I go inside the house to my desk where
I find the
can of Pepsi I'd been drinking.


I'm going to look for my checks,
but first I need to push the Pepsi aside
so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The Pepsi is getting warm,
and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi,
a vase of flowers on the counter
catches my eye--they need water.

I put the Pepsi on the counter and
discover my reading glasses that
I've been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk,
but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter,

fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote.
Someone left it on the kitchen table.


I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV,

I'll be looking for
the remote,
but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table,
so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs,
but first I'll water the flowers.


I pour some water in the flowers,

but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.


So, I set the remote back on the table,

get some towels and wipe up the spill.


Then, I head down the hall trying to

remember what I was planning to do.


At the end of the day:

the car isn't washed
the bills aren't paid
there is a warm can of
Pepsi sitting on the counter
the flowers don't have enough water,
there is still only 1 check in my check book,
I can't find the remote,
I can't find my glasses,
and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.


Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today,

I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day,
and I'm really tired.


I realize this is a serious problem,

and I'll try to get some help for it,
but first I'll check my e-mail....


Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your 
day is coming!!



Tuesday, May 25, 2010

CricTrivia

England won the World Twenty20 with a side containing four players born outside England, and they will, in all likelihood, field a similar side in this year's Tests. When was the last time England fielded 11 players all born in the country in a Test match? 


The last time England fielded 11 English-born players in the same Test side was in the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle in December 2003. Nasser Hussain, who was born in India, missed that match but returned for the rest of the series. (Thanks to Mike Leach, who squirrelled out this answer on Facebook.)

When was the last time the players wore white clothing in a one-day international?

 The last one-day series contested by teams in pristine white clothing were the five matches during Zimbabwe's tour of India in December 2000. The last time it happened in England was during the early-season series against South Africa in 1998.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Glorious insults..............


"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time  reading it." - Moses Hadas

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.." - Oscar Wilde

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing  trivial." -Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in  others." - Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." -Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" -Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." -  Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."  - Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

  







Crossover Dress?


Close Comfort

Sachin in leggings? Stylists may frown, but our master blaster has his own ideas about what is right to wear for practice on the greens. His uniform is ready the night before every game. If the laundry is late, he apparently gets fidgety.
Close Comfort

3D pics













Below are 3 beautiful 3-D pictures. 

 

Click on the picture and move your mouse around and the picture will give you a 360 degree view..........


 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




 




A Golfer's Fable


An 80-year old man goes to the doctor for a check-up.

The doctor is amazed at what good shape the guy is in and asks, "How do you stay in such great physical condition?"

"I'm a golfer," says the old guy, "and that's why I'm in such good shape.I'm up well before daylight and out golfing up and down the fairways."

"Well,"  says the doctor, "I'm sure that helps, but there's got to be more to it. How old was your dad when he died?"

"Who said, my dad's dead?"

The doctor is amazed. "You are 80 years old and your dad's still alive..How old is he?"

"He's 103 years old," says the old golfer."In fact he golfed with me this morning, and that's why he's still alive. . he's a golfer too!!"

"Well," the doctor says, "that's great, but I'm sure there's more to it than that. How about your dad's dad? How old was he when he died?"

"Who said my grandpa's dead?"

Stunned, the doctor asks, "You mean you're 80 years old and your grandfather is still living!? Incredible, how old is he?"

"He's 128 years old," says the old golfer .

The doctor is getting frustrated at this point, "So,  I guess he went golfing with you this morning too?"

"No.. Grandpa couldn't go this morning because  he's getting married today."

At this point the doctor is close to losing it, "Getting married! Why would a 128 year-old guy want to get married in the first place?"

"Who said he wanted to?  But the bride is pregnant...that is why "




Friday, May 21, 2010

From Sweden : Slow Down Culture


From Sweden : Slow Down Culture

It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. 
 

 Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.Globalized processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to possess a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.


  1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil

  2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.
  3. Stockholm has 500,000 people.
  4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies to the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the  hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park the car, far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, 'Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there  are no other cars in the lot.' To which he replied, 'Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think?...... ......... ........Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe name Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing.  Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of 'hurry' and 'craziness' generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of 'having in quantity'(life status) versus 'having with quality', 'life quality' or the 'quality of being'. French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%...This slow attitude has brought forth the US's attention, pupils of the fast and the 'do it now!'

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the 'now', present and concrete, versus the 'global', undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity   of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time   to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of  products and services, without losing the essence of spirit. In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where the blind Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, 'I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now'. To which Al responds, 'A life is lived in an instant'.  Then they dance to a tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, 'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans'.

Congratulations for reading till the end of this message. There are many who will have stopped in the middle so as not to waste time in this globalized world.............

  

 



Pictures from Oman

Acacia Tree, Ibri, Oman


Grand Mosque, Muscat



Watch Tower of yesteryears.....
Posted by Picasa

MyReview : Kites

A hint of moustache, facial hair, a few pimple thrown in, puffed -up face hinting she is close to 35, if not 40 - that's this Spanish "beauty"  Barbara Mori you have to be ready to suffer for over 2 hours....if this is not enough, just feast on the mediocre acting, senseless plot, lame music while you "enjoy" the experience of the latest Rakesh Roshan blockbuster...the old man was smart enough not to direct this..... it seems the US Police is as dumb as ours, it is perfectly easy to shoot people in US and get away with it.... hitting and physically pushing women ( fiancee at that) it what rich Indians are taught to do, the Indians in US are so powerful that they can go to a Railway Station and shoot dead the Station Master just because he is not giving a required cue....

The so-call stunt scenes make you yawn as you see badly mounted chases and the ad-nauseum numbers of cars turning turtle in slow-motion.....

Thirty or more years back, the Indian film viewers rejected the romance between Raj Kapoor and A Russian -speaking circus artist...... the 2010 version of  Hritik and the Spanish girl is no less insipid.....

Well, in any case Rakesh Roshan has made some very average films like Koi Mil Gaya, Krishh etc and clearly he is not in the league of earnest film makers who gave us Dil Chahta Hai, Rock On, Kartik, Love Aaj Kal,3 idiots, Chak De India to name a few..... but this one is poor even by his own standards....

They say Hritik is a great dancer and female fans swoon over his physique...may be that will bring in some crowd but as for me, THIS KITE AIN'T FLYIN"

RSK

Sunday, May 16, 2010

The Princess, the Weaver and Goldman Sachs

Everyone knows that we Indians invented the zero. Without zero and the decimal number system, writing and calculating really large numbers would be very difficult. This would be awful for people in the financial industry, whose work depends on having really big salaries. Fortunately Brahmagupta came to their rescue.

Another thing which is crucial to the financial services industry is the concept of being too big to fail, which has been put to good use by Citigroup, Bear Stearns, and Goldman Sachs over the past few years in sucking money from American taxpayers. This beautiful concept was also invented by an Indian - Vishnu Sharma, the author of the Panchatantra, in the story of the Weaver and the Chariot Maker.

The story of the weaver and chariot maker is one of the Panchatantra stories that usually doesn't make it to primary school textbooks or Amar Chitra Katha, mostly because it's full of sex, war, and moral hazard. Since you probably haven't read it, here's a quick summary.

A weaver sees a princess during a festival and falls in love with her. As a weaver, he has no chance of marrying her, so he sinks into depression. His friend, a chariot maker decides to help him out. He designs a flying chariot in the shape of Garuda, dresses the weaver up as Vishnu, and tells him to fly the chariot into the princess's room, tell her that he is Vishnu and wants to marry her Gandharva style.

That is, the wedding is kept a secret from everyone except the
princess and the faux-Vishnu. The princess agrees, and the weaver comes back every night to consummate the marriage.

Eventually, the maids notice that the princess is spending her days in total bliss, suspect that she's in love, and tell the King. The King asks her what's going on, and she tells him that she's married to Vishnu himself. The King is absolutely delighted, and decides that there's no point in paying tribute to the Chakravarti now that Vishnu himself is on the kingdom's side. The next night, he catches the weaver as he enters the princess's room and asks him to fight the Chakravarti's army.

The weaver is horrified. Pretending to be Vishnu was fine when it
allowed him to make sweet, sweet love to the princess, but taking on the role of Vishnu to face an imperial army single-handed is another thing altogether. On the other hand, if he confesses to the King that he is not actually Vishnu and has been boinking the princess under false pretences for the past month, he will have his head chopped off. So he decides to get on to the battlefield and do the best job he can, while the King is whipping up enthusiasm in the population by telling them that Vishnu himself is going to do all the fighting. By this time, Garuda (the real one, not the mechanical one) has tipped
off Vishnu about what's going on, and warned him that if the fake
Vishnu doesn't win the battle, the people of the kingdom will lose all faith in him. Vishnu doesn't want to see this happen, so on the battlefield he enters the weaver's body and annihilates the
Chakravarti's army. The entire army. Every single soldier. After this, the weaver marries the princess, everyone goes on worshipping Vishnu, and the king becomes the new Chakravarti.

The moral is that you should conduct your affairs in such a way that if you fail, it will lead to someone or something even bigger or more powerful failing too. This lets you get away with anything. The weaver got away with having sex with the princess on false pretences (this is rape under Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code), pretending to be a god (awesomely enough, this too is a criminal offence under Section
508), and annihilating an entire army that was fighting a just war - after all, it was the king who broke the treaty (you could make a case for this being genocide under Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide).

American banks and financial institutions were very good at absorbing this lesson, and leveraged themselves up to such an extent that if they failed they would take the global economy down with them. And just as the weaver lived happily ever after with the princess, banks have lived happily ever after with taxpayer-funded bailouts.

But no matter how hard American investment banks try, Indians still remain the masters of this art. If the whole truth surrounding Lalit Modi is revealed, big politicians might be trapped. Modi is, thus, likely to get away lightly -- as is A Raja, who might have given away spectrum at bargain basement rates, but whose sacking would lead to the government collapsing. All this goes to show that no matter what the anguished elderly gentlemen who write letters to the editor feel, Indians are still in touch with our ancient and glorious culture.

Aadisht Khanna labours at a factory outside Kanchipuram from 9 to 6
every day. He blogs at Wokay.in, and can be contacted at
stereotypist@wokay.in

________________________________________________



Saturday, May 15, 2010

Navigation and the sexes



Hunters and shoppers
Apr 29th 2010 
From The Economist print edition


Men and women navigate differently

Hunter-gatherers at work


MEN are generally better than women on tests of spatial ability, such as mentally rotating an object through three dimensions or finding their way around in a new environment. But a new study suggests that under some circumstances a woman's way of navigating is probably more efficient.

Luis Pacheco-Cobos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues discovered this by following mushroom gatherers from a village in the state of Tlaxcala for two rainy seasons. Two researchers, each fitted with GPS navigation devices and heart-rate monitors, followed different gatherers on different days. They recorded the weight of the mushrooms each gatherer collected and where they visited. The GPS data allowed a map to be made of the routes taken and the heart-rate measurements provided an estimate of the amount of energy expended during their travels.

The results, to be published in Evolution and Human Behaviour, show that the men and women collected on average about the same weight of mushrooms. But the men travelled farther, climbed higher and used a lot more energy—70% more than the women. The men did not move any faster, but they searched for spots with lots of mushrooms. The women made many more stops, apparently satisfied with, or perhaps better at finding, patches of fewer mushrooms.

Previous work has shown that men tend to navigate by creating mental maps of a territory and then imagining their position on the maps. Women are more likely to remember their routes using landmarks. The study lends support to the idea that male and female navigational skills were honed differently by evolution for different tasks. Modern-day hunter-gatherers divide labour, so that men tend to do more hunting and women more gathering. It seems likely that early humans did much the same thing.

The theory is that the male strategy is the most useful for hunting prey; chasing an antelope, say, would mean running a long way over a winding route. But having killed his prey, the hunter would want to make a beeline for home rather than retrace his steps exactly. Women, by contrast, would be better off remembering landmarks and retracing the paths to the most productive patches of plants.

The research suggests that in certain circumstances women are better at navigating than men. Which might lend some comfort to a man desperately searching for an item in a supermarket while his exasperated wife methodically moves around the aisles filling the shopping trolley. He is simply not cut out for the job, evolutionarily speaking.


Tigers and Girls.............



It's official. Only 1400 Tigers left in India............. 15 sent to Windies came back as lambs..............Forget Tigers, save girls, only 824 left per 1000 men. You can't take a tiger on a date...




A Dream Wife

Hmmmmm.....

RSK



Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

CricTrivia



The last over of Australia's innings against Pakistan was a five-wicket maiden (two of them run-outs). Has this ever happened before in any form of cricket? 


That zany final over, delivered by Pakistan's Mohammad Aamer in the World Twenty20 match against Australia in St Lucia last week - the exact sequence of events was wicket-wicket-run out-run out-dot ball-wicket - was a first for international cricket. There is one previous known instance in first-class cricket of five wickets falling in an over - it happened in Hastings in 1972, when Sussex lost five wickets (but also scored a run) in the final over as they pushed for a win against Surrey. The bowler, Pat Pocock, set a new world record by taking seven wickets in 11 balls (his last two overs read W0W20W WWW1W0, the last delivery producing a run-out). With three overs to go Sussex, chasing 205, were 187 for 1: they finished with 202 for 9.

All 20 wickets fell in Australia's World Twenty20 match with Pakistan. How many times has this happened before? 


I was surprised to discover that the match between Australia and Pakistan in St Lucia was indeed the first instance, in over 150 Twenty20 internationals at that point, of both sides being bowled out. At that time there had been six instances of 19 wickets falling, including the match between West Indies and Ireland in Providence two days previously.


Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Chinese English ( New York Times)

Monday, May 10, 2010

What the Europe debt bomb looks like...




The numbers are huge !

RSK

Mr Guru



'Obama called Manmohan Mr Guru'

Agencies Posted: May 09, 2010 at 1549 hrs
New Delhi "Mr Guru" was how US President Barack Obama greeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the Copenhagen Climate Summit, which showed the degree of respect he has for the Indian leader, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Sunday.

"President Obama has certainly got the right instincts on India. I know for fact, when Obama was in negotiating room, three times he mentioned word Guru when he referred to our PM. Your Prime Minister is our Guru," Ramesh, who is here on a visit, told an interactive session with the members of Foreign Correspondent Club.

At the end of the negotiations the US had with BASIC countries - Brazil, South Africa, China and India – the first person Obama went to was Singh and said: "Mr Guru what will we do?"

The BASIC countries hammered out the Copenhagen Accord, which has now been recognised by over 100 countries.At the same time, Ramesh said no "US President can match the warmth President Bush showered on India.President (George) Bush was bad for the world but great for India. He was outstanding for India. There is no question. With Bush yard stick any US President will fall short," he said.

Compared to high degree of warmth Bush showered on India, "it may appear we are not having the same degree of prominence in Republican administration which considered India as a bulwark against China."

"I do not think one should worry about Obama's strategy in Afghanistan. I do not think it is anti-India in a sense of the term if it means for him to build close relationship with Pakistan that is American policy objective."

India's concern is that military equipment should not be used against it, he said.

"By and large we recognise the compulsion under which he (Obama) is operating. He is suffering (in India) because of his predecessor where as Obama is glowing in all other areas because Bush had set extraordinarily high degree for warmth in India," Ramesh said.



Friday, May 7, 2010

Websites With a Difference...............




Pl check out some interesting websites on following link




Incredible India



# We live in a nation where Rice is Rs.40/- per kg and Sim Card is free.


# Pizza reaches home faster than Ambulance and Police.

# Car loan @ 5% but education loan @ 12%.

# Students with 45% get admission in elite institutions thru quota system and those with 90% get out because of merit.

# 2 IPL teams are auctioned at Rs.3300 crores and we are still a poor country where people starve for 2 sqaure meals per day.

# Assembly complex buildings are getting ready within one year while public transport bridges alone takes several years to be completed.











Tuesday, May 4, 2010

CricTrivia



Who was the leading run-scorer in one-day internationals before Sachin Tendulkar took the record? 


The leading run-scorer before Tendulkar was another Indian, Mohammad Azharuddin, who finished his one-day international career in June 2000 with 9378 runs. Tendulkar passed that in October 2000, and has been in front 
ever since. Before Azharuddin the record was held (in reverse order, and starting from 1000 runs)by.........

  • Desmond Haynes (8648 runs), 
  • Viv Richards (6721) and 
  • Greg Chappell (2331).



Monday, May 3, 2010

Quote of the Day




"Don't you wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work."