MEME - 4 Things

Suhanya tagged me on 4 things MEME. I've been too busy with my work for the last two months and hence I couldn't post anything. Since this wouldn't take much time, I am doing it now. Thank you Suhanya!

Here are my four things...
Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Data Conversion Technician
2. Group Leader
3. Senior Test Engineer
4. Developer

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Thillu Mullu
2. Anbe Sivam
3. Sabash Meena
4. Anand (Hindi)

Four places I’ve lived:
1. Chennai
2. New Delhi
3. Hyderabad
4. Singapore

Four TV shows I love:
1. Kalakka Povadhu Yaaru
2. Tamil Paechu engal Moochu
3. Coffee with Anu
4. Lollu Sabha

Now a days I feel most of these shows are boring. I stopped watching Sun TV almost 6 months back. Now I am losing interest on many of the Vijay TV shows too.

Four places I’ve vacationed:
1. Pulau Tioman and Langkawi - Malaysia (The Best relaxing place I've vacations so far)
2. South Korea and Japan (Visited my brother in S.Korea and then we travelled together to Japan. It was real fun)
3. Hongkong - (The first country we visited after coming to Singapore)
4. Phuket - Thailand (Beautiful Island but too much crowded)
These are my last 4 vacations. But my best vacation till date was when I went to Munnar and Ooty(for my first anniversary) with my whole family(parents, in-laws et. al.) It was real fun.

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Chicken Lollypop
2. Mutton Kurma
3. Fish Fry/Sura(Shark) Puttu
4. Sambar

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Gmail/Yahoo Mail
2. Rediff
3. Flickr
4. Dailythanthi

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. My Home at Singapore/India
2. Playing with my Cousin in S.Korea/India
3. In a resort in Tioman
4. In Swiss

I am tagging:
Tamizhini and Madhav.

A MEME and an Award

Suhanya has passed me this beautiful award "A PERFECT BLEND OF FRIENDSHIP AWARD".......

Thank you so much Suhanya! I'm counting my age now as someone said, "Count your age with friends but not with years";)

Purpose of the Friendship Award
To send love and acknowledgment to men and women, who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy. It's been a blessing and an inspiration to meet all of you through your wonderful blogs.

I'm passing this award to Srividhya, Srilekha, Madhav and Suhanya(reciprocate).

I'm glad to have such great friends. Thank you friends! Have a great day!!!

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I have been tagged by Suhanya and Srividhya for the MEME: "Facts about me".

The rules of the meme are:

(a) List these rules on your blog.
(b) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.
(c) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

I'm not going to follow rule c;). Well, 7 Facts about me...

1. From : Chennai. Have worked in Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and now in Singapore. I've been working in Singapore for the past 3 years.

2. Studies : Diploma in Computer Technology, BCA, MSc IT.

3. Career : Completed 10 years of working in IT enabled services and IT recently. Currently into development but QA/Testing/Automation is my major experience. Started my career as a Data Conversion Technician.

4. Hobbies : I love sports. I'm a soccer/volleyball player. Currently I get chance to play only Badminton and Soccer. I love to learn and play any game that requires physical effort. Other than sports, I love photography, blogging, drawing and music.

5. Friends : Have a big set of friends. Not in regular touch with many of them. Miss them all, especially my school and area friends since I've grown up with them. I was delighted to find some long lost friends through Orkut but still couldn't find many. Frienship really means a lot to me. And now, I'm really happy to find new friends through this blogging world because of whom I'm writing this post. Thank you friends!

6. Favourites : The soil smell when it rains, hot coffee during a rainy day, Chettinad style dishes, Nailpolish/Jasmine smell, Travelling, Watching Horror/Thriller movies in the night after switching off all the lights, Playing with children, Teasing my brothers and many more...

7. Nature : Friendly, Trustworthy, cool-headed, rarely get angry (exception: wife - without this it's not fun;), take things very lightly (though I get scoldings from my better-half;), try to make fun and keep everyone around me happy as I really hate to see people serious, very calm and soft(only during the first meeting;)

I'm tagging Srilekha and Madhav.

Thank you Suhanya and Vidhya. Finally you made me to post something;)

The Quest for Gold

Abhinav Bindra has clinched the World Championship gold in Air Rifle, the first ever for India in the 2008 Olympics in China.

My hearty congratulations to Abhinav. He is going to hit the headlines in all the newspaper dailies the next few weeks for this remarkable achievement.

During the luch break, I was discussing with my friend about India getting a gold in this olympics. I was telling my friend that it's not so easy for India to win a gold as I don't see any efforts being put by the government to encourage young talents. But I was surprised to see this news after coming back from lunch.

When US and China fight to increase their Gold Medal count, many other countries like India are fighting for their first Gold Medal. For India with more than 1 billion population, this shouldn't have taken this long.

Click the link to know more about Abhinav Bindra. I hope this page will get updated with more details very soon.

What some women involved in politics can do in India?

(Picture Courtesy: Daily Thanthi)
This picture was taken at the Bandh conducted by Vishwa Hindu Parishad on July 3rd.

This nation-wide bandh was called by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and BJP to protest against the Jammu and Kashmir government's withdrawal of it's decision to transfer land to Shree Amarnath Shrine Board.

Just see that poor guy. He is not related to the bandh in anyway but he has become a target in the hands of these ugly people who work for the cheap politcians. If the women in the parties can be like this, just think about the men? By forcefully closing the shops and hitting public, they think that the bandh will be successful. But people are going to just throw them away.

VHP general secretary Praveen Togadia told reporters that his organisation will not hesitate to adopt a violent path if the government fails to accept their demand.

Asked about violent incidents in parts of Madhya Pradesh and clamping of curfew in some areas of Indore, Togadia said his outfit was not responsible for the violence.

See the contradictions in his above statements. This is also a kind of terrorism.

CLICK YELLOW for Bri

CLICK is a food photography contest that happens every month and this month’s CLICK is in honour of Briana Brownlow - ‘Bri’ to her friends. I wish Bri a speed recovery. People who would like to contribute to Bri, please click the below link.




This months theme is Yellow. Yellow is the happiest colour in the spectrum. It signifies hope and enlightenment. Though the work of the LiveStrong Foundation, it has also come to signify the fight against cancer.

I'm trying my luck this time and this is my entry for the contest.

I really never planned to participate in this. When I was eating Jack Fruit, this contest suddenly came into my mind and I thought why not we participate? So, I clicked this shot with my EOS-400D camera with 17-85mm lens.

The Despicable BCCI

When the Australian's said that BCCI is controlling ICC, I said "Why not?". Since BCCI had so much of money to invest in Cricket, why don't they favor BCCI? Also we never got any justice from the ICC for any controversies that happened so far and the judgement always goes in favor of the opponent. But now I changed my stance and I feel that ICC can't just be a doll in the hands of BCCI. Why I say this? Just read on...

I recently read this article(ICL policy could cost England - BCCI) in Cricinfo. After I read it, I was like "it's toooo much and enough is enough". The Gist of it:
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"Two weeks after the ECB announced the US$5 million Champions League Twenty20 tournament, England are in danger of not being part of the event with the BCCI officially deciding on Sunday to bar players associated with the unauthorised Indian Cricket League (ICL).

Niranjan Shah, the BCCI secretary, told Cricinfo Pakistan had been asked to join the tournament after the Indian board found it would not be possible to invite English counties due to the ECB's "policy of letting ICL players play in their leagues". The IPL - a part of the Indian board - is the driving force behind the Champions League while the rules for the tournament are currently being framed by Cricket Australia."

IS Bindra, a member of the IPL's governing council, told Cricinfo that "as of now, three [participating] countries are confirmed - India, South Africa and Australia". "Pakistan may be the fourth, but first we have to get a response from the ECB on the ICL issue," Bindra said. "Teams from England can be considered, but only those who don't have players associated with the ICL.

"The BCCI is very clear that ICL players will not be featured in the tournament. If the ECB can't guarantee that it will clear only teams without ICL players for the tournament, then we will look at the replacement."
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How can they be so cheap? First they banned the ICL players from playing for India and in any other official BCCI tournaments. Now they don't want them to play for other countries as well? Who the hell are they to ban them from playing cricket in other countries? I just get irritated so much by these kind of mean people in India. They bring in politics wherever they go.

They are not as gentle as the Pakistan Cricket Board too. When Shoib Akhtar was banned from playing in IPL, PCB came down and requested IPL to allow Shoib to play, though he was not allowed to play in Pakistan. Can't BCCI just learn from this? They are earning all these money in Cricket just because of the millions of cricket fans in India. They are nothing if we stop watching cricket.

And another thing I got irritated about is this IPL. These were taken from an interview by Rediff with Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman.
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Lalit, how does it feel to look around and go -- I did this?
A: It's a great feeling to find that you can fill a whole stadium up with this kind of enthusiasm that the people have. And you can see that the game hasn't even started today and they're all so lively. And it's absolutely an incredible feeling. It feels great to be able to create a product that everybody loves. And I just happen to be there -- at the right time, at the right moment. And followed the opportunity and were able to go out and launch it.

So there's you know a lot of people making a lot of money off the IPL, but you're not one of them?
A: No I'm not one of them, unfortunately not.

Why not?
A: Well, I do this in an honorary position and BCCI is a charity and a trust. It's a non-profit making organization and we do this for development of the game and I'm passionate about the game. And we do this so that the people in India can enjoy the facilities and we can build a great cricketing culture and we can have great facilities for our players
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Just read the words that I highlighted in red above. If there is no ICL there is no IPL. IPL is just copied from ICL and you can't take the credit for it. You don't need to pay them anything for that but just try to be gentle to them. If you are passionate about the game, why do you bar the ICL players? Is this the great cricketing culture you are going to build?

When I read the comments in Cricinfo, I can see that almost everyone wants BCCI to stop this. I was even happy to see everyone blasting BCCI. I got this link from one of that comment. People who think likewise, should go to this link and send your feedback to ICC. Hope ICC will take some action.
http://icc-cricket.yahoo.com/about-icc/feedback.html

Kung Fu Panda - Don't miss it

Actors: Jack Black (Voice), Jackie Chan (Voice), Dustin Hoffman (Voice), Angelina Jolie (Voice)Lucy Liu (Voice) Produced by: Melissa Cobb
Directed by: Mark Osborne, John Stevenson
Distributed by: DreamWorks Animation, Paramount Pictures

When I booked the tickets for this movie, I wasn't that keen to see this movie. Since my wife who loves animation movies had suggested this instead of 'The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian', I opted for this. Moreover, there are no other good movies this summer and I'm sure this is going to be a biggest grosser.

This movie is one of the best Hilarious Animation movie I've ever seen. It is a full length comedy movie and I'm sure you are going to hurt your stomach laughing so hard. The cute and funny expressions of the Po(The Panda), witty dialogues, fascinating and beautiful sceneries of ancient China makes this a Wonderful Movie.

The story line is, Po's(Gaint Panda) father runs a noodle shop who wants Po to take over the shop from him and the secret ingredient of making noodle but Po always dreams of becoming a kung fu champion. With the expected twist of events, Master Oogway(Tortoise) designates Po to be the Dragon Warrior to fight the evil warrior Tai Lung(Snow Leapard) to bring peace to the Valley of Peace. Tai Lung was the former student of Master Shifu(Red Panda), Master Oogway's protege.

This upsets Master Shifu and his five students Master Tigress, Master Crane, Master Mantis, Master Viper and Master Monkey. The rest of the story is how Po gains other's confidence, learns Kung Fu and defeat's Tai Lung. Angelina Jolie has lend her voice to Master Tigress, Lucy Liu for Master Viper and Jackie Chan for Master Monkey. Though the story seems to be an action movie, it's a great comedy movie. Even the stunt scene's will be funny like in Jackie Chan's movie. I'm planning to go for it the second time. So, don't miss it.

Click here for the movie official website.