Standout Characters on TV & Madagascar !

Sheldon Cooper: Big Bang Theory
"Stewie" Griffin: The Family Guy
King Julien: Madagascar

Standout characters have some distinctive traits which make them standout and become hot favorites ! Some of them are intentional and some I believe, turn out to be so good, that they stand out. And then these stand-out characters garner more screen time, better story around them & a lot of attention. 

Madagascar 3 is a riot of colors ! with colorful wigs and colorful circus tricks ! All in 3-D.

And it's funny as usual with everyone contributing to it especially penguins & lemur "king julien".

some of the funny moments in madagascar 3:

1) penguins wasting "private"'s college education fund to buy a circus.

2) King Julien going down the building & maurice lemur's face lighting up.

3)  Da-da-dadada-da-da-circus, da-da-dadada-da-da-afro-circus, afro-circus, afro, polka dot, polka dot, polka dot afro!

4) Alex: Me, I voted me. Because I'm the leader.

5) "Skipper: You pillow fight like a bunch of little girls! (Gets smacked with a pillow, busting it and sending feathers flying) Chimichanga! These pillows are filled with baby birds!" -

6) Alex (as Marty's driving the van, badly): What are you doing?! Zebras can't drive, only penguins and people can drive!"

7) And many more !

And the song which plays when Alex & Gia perfect their trapeze act for the first time is beautiful too.

"Love always comes as a surprise "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML9onG0a6wQ

Another nice song in Rio:

Say you, Say me, say it together !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=MxN1JOuBtEA

And the dance song from Madagascar:

I like to move it move it, which gets translated in hindi dubbed version as " Hil Hil ke naacho naacho ! :)

Online Shopping, Marketing & App Ideas

Perhaps all of us have fallen for it !


I think online shopping is great if we want to explore more opportunities, compare various vendors, get the best price and see lot of variety without getting up from our couches. All in the comfort of our own home.

The only disadvantage is not able to try it on own to check the size & fit, so it works better if we are aware of the right sizes for the options like clothes & shoes. We also miss out on the ambience, learning trends by observing crowds, having a coffee or burger while shopping at our favorite shopping mall.

So maybe online retail should start suggesting what others bought to complete the ensemble or even send home a free coffee or burger ! :) 

So I prefer to buy earrings online & now I even have a collection of silver earrings which I bought online.

I have observed that I get routed to the online shopping sites by the beautiful stunning displays they put through sponsor ads on facebook. So, maybe that makes me a shopper who gets enticed to buy in the online retail world by the window displays.

Earlier I used to have a preference for a specific online retail site which used to send colorful banners for beautiful stuff in my email inbox daily. When they replaced it by discount offers, they sort of lost me as a customer. In this online retail world, it has also been observed that some sites first raise the prices more than the list price and then show an artificial discount.

A Point to Note for online marketers: "Beautiful Stuff Ads work better than the discount offers". Maybe they should combine them both together. Pinterest is a great social collaboration website which focuses on enabling people to share beautiful pics of interesting stuff online.

Then there's another ongoing marketing mode where they offer discount coupons, I think that this idea works too where the buyer ends up believing that they have landed up a more genuine discount, as the discount coupons work uni-formally across all purchases.

Online shopping works great for books too, as demonstrated by amazon so well. Another upcoming idea  practiced for long by online marketing is the ability to predict your references on the basis of your old purchases, thus making the experience pleasant for the buyer as well as for the seller.

I would really love the idea of an online app who knows all my preferences & makes suggestions for my e-book reading, tech news reading automatically. Think of a juke-box which automatically prepares a playlist for you. In future, a juke-box which picks up on your mood based on the selections which you make and then automatically populate the play-list with those type of songs. So, if today I am in a mood for soulful 

I would love to write that app and sell it, or as I act lazy, I would prefer someone else to innovate, develop it already and shower it on us for free. Maybe the upcoming world of predictive analytics will take us there very soon.

It's expected that very soon traffic apps will appear who will study weather and divert traffic accordingly & send warnings to the people. I heard of an app which sees your location online, shares your location with a taxi agency & buzzes a taxi to you in no time.

Maybe 10 years ago, there were no cellphones, we weren't using GPS. As, they say, the opportunities to innovate and keep on improving human life are endless & all the hottest technologies available now will keep on getting utilized to serve us better.

And all our new ideas, which are now getting churned real fast, because of mobile phones, mobile OS, ease of starting a start-up are accelerating this idea - to - application machine. And believe it or not, we humans do end up doing all these things for the "Common Good". 


As for the parting note, a Digressing observation below:

As the guys in "Roxbury Guys" movie say while bobbing their heads in unison:

"What is love ?" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2h4PhgobI8

The answer can come from a quote from the movie Wedding Crashers: 

"True Love is a Soul's recognition of its counterpart in Another."

And I like Rachel McAdams so much that I am right now watching "Wedding Crashers" movie on TV just to watch her. For a better movie of hers, watch "Notebook" or "Mean Girls" or "Time Traveler's wife" or even "Morning Glory".

Human Design at Evolution Company !

Context: Long ago, If humans were designed as androids - as genetically coded robots with gene sequencing working just like an underlying source code by aliens.


Scenario: A group of designers brain-storming about human-design in company conference room


Top Manager Says: "This is Evolution Company, this millennium's most innovative company and still our designs are not perfect ! "


Senior Designer interjects: "See, I told you, Adding more brain cells is always a good idea ! Although we still haven't been able to resolve the minor physiological bug occurring as appendix. And nobody is minding losing tail as well, because human test-bots aren't climbing that many trees ! "


Innovative Upcoming Troublemaker (I challenge everything) Designer: "The Human Testing team keeps on raising facial hair as a bug, which we keep on deferring for the next version. And then there's a secret list of bugs as well, which might make humans act insane and irrational at times." 


Senior Designer: "Oh, that's a secret feature, Life needs chaos, randomness, change and creativity. So, we have let the idea of independent thought appear which makes humans unique and makes them think in an innovative and imaginative manner."


Senior Tester: "Yeah, The latest batch of human-bots have designed a flying thing out of large leaves and the older set has fashioned a round object out of stone which they are calling wheel."


Top Manager: "And humans somehow want to have a faith, a belief in something supernatural or higher conscience inspite of being programmed as scientifically rational minds- can anybody explain that ?


Does it serve any purpose or do you want to put in a trapdoor to let them know about us ? Are we science or a myth ? Do we exist ?"

New Phone

Bought samsung galaxy s2, more of a tablet than a phone :)

The SIMS Social are on Facebook !

SIMS are there on facebook now, and I am playing it as expected from a social gaming enthusiast. I recently read that gamers either zone out and get relaxed while playing repetitive easy games or play them for winning. The winning atttitude people get bored of the game when either it turns too tough or too repetitive for them.

You can be good at a game either if you have many friends playing the same game or you will have to pay through cash for going through stages. That's how the gaming companies make their money as there are people who are so invested in the games, that they would even pay some money to get ahead in the game !

The Upside of Irrationality

I recently completed the theory of irrationality by dan ariely and it contained many nice sociology theories like:

1) Improve a bad experience by giving yourself consolation prizes: e.g. if you are sick, watch TV :)

2) Motivating people and finding meaning in your work is more important than huge monetary rewards.

3) People attach more value to something which is their own creation e.g. my own created dish, sculpture, painting even if it might not be the best of the creations which you might have seen in this world.

4) You want to contribute, so whatever you do should end up as having an impact, you don't want your work to be scraped.

Festivals should be special !

My few observations about celebrating festivals:

1) If you ignore a festival, it will ignore you back !

2) When you are a kid, small things matter more to you !

3) Good experiences matter more than good objects !

4) Read something good, get some new experiences, variety enriches your mind and widens your horizons !

5) Create, Innovate and Contribute !

X-Men: First Class

I am a huge fan of science fiction genre and thus x-men is one of the favorite movies. So as per the generic trend, x-men first class was out as a prequel trying to define the earlier years of charles xavier and magneto. Charles Xavier being played by James MacAvoy as a benevolent positive character aiming at the peace among mutants and humans is well etched out. The transformation of a child named Eric caught in a concentration camp at the time of world-war II to Magento is terrifically tragic and has a shock and awe factor.

There's another theme of accepting yourself for what you are as a proud mutant and has been told through another character Mystic who finds it difficult to accept the rejection from men as she has an indigo blue scaly form. She might have been thought attractive in avatar by Navis ! Anyway mangeto gives her the confidence to accepts her for herself thus gaining her loyalty and alignment in this world where even mutants have various warring factions.

James McAvoy is brilliant in another movie atonement with Keira Knightley. I missed Scot and Jean in x-men first class, and everyone missed wolverine !  Still it's a fabulous way to tie the loose ends in the story !

Learn to Float !

On our Rishikesh trip, I finally was able to gather up all my courage and learn to do some basic things related to submerging in water. Go away ! The fear of drowning and here comes floating and cliff jumping ! 

Floating is all about relaxing, letting water enter your ears and spreading your body to balance your body weight and make yourself float like a dead body. It's an amazing experience as your mind goes blank, you can stop thinking and completely relax.

While doing the Cliff Jumping, I was more worried about not hitting the rocks around and atleast I was able to make on attempt at it, though from a lesser height ! :)

And in rafting I sat at the centre of the raft at front and just encouraged my friends to keep rowing by repeating the commands given by the captain ! :)

Google+

Google + has just been launched and it's main underlying concept is to create groups or rather circles more easily and enable users to share content with a subset of friends rather than the complete friend list. After a basic preview, I have not yet been able to observe any new outstanding innovative feature. Facebook is already allowing creation of groups for selective publishing of content, but facebook's tendency to share more rather than less was pushing persons like me to do a lot of self censorship.

Let's see how well Google+ ends up creating any differentiating critical factor to pull users or not ! Or it might end up as a less used orkut or buzz ! 

CityVille

My favorite game these days is "Cityville". I think it's strategic till now, and involves decorative elements and you really feel that you are going ahead and planning a city. The next aim is having a sea port, then the city will also have a beach. I as a mayor will try to ensure happiness of all cityville citizens :) The things which are still missing in my city are a bank, a hospital and a library. I am wondering that the game is not catching up as much as it should in my fb friend list. Ofcourse I need more neighbors and some easy ways to earn more games cash ! 


I am at level 25 and let's see when will I get bored.. maybe by level 35 I will stop playing this game ! Till then cityville ahoy ! seaward ho !  Of course it's from Treasure Island ! not the game ! But the book by R L Stevenson ! :)

My official blog entry on SaaS applications

 http://blog.newgensoft.com/enterprise-applications-moving-to-cloud

iPad Cover Art

See here: NYT gadget blog

I really liked this article describing an iPad cover's art from nytimes gadget blogs. So I wanted to conserve it and hope you will like it too :)

Cloud Computing - My first tech scribble !

Cloud Computing is the latest buzz and hype in the software industry today. The term cloud here refers to the abstraction of computing infrastructure. It means that you are able to use certain hardware infrastructure for your computing needs, but you are not aware of the exact hardware location in terms of the data center as to where this hardware is present.

The cloud revolution gives you the capability of renting hardware infrastructure on a subscription basis, just like you use electricity. It provides you with an ability to rent the infrastructure for your computing needs and use and pay for it till the time you need it. It gives an entrepreneur an ability to test their software on rented hosted hardware. They can also host their entrepreneurial venture on a cloud and thus get an easy start in their endeavor.

There are various vendors who provide Infrastructure as a service e.g. Amazon, Rackspace, Savvis, Terremark etc. Eucylaptus provides a free open source cloud option. Amazon gives you an ability to rent processing power, hard disk space, bandwidth etc. Amazon also provides you with an online calculator which will help you calculate your approximate monthly bill of hardware hosting.

The cloud hosting vendors provide various operating system options from which you can choose e.g. Windows, Linux etc. Thus, just give it a try and host your application on any cloud. Have a Happy Floating Cloud Experience !

Facebook ads

Surprisingly I click on facebook ads.. :) m still wondering why they look so clickable :)

Planning a trip to Binsar !!

We leave tommorow for binsar.. let's see how it goes :) .. will focus on photography this time.. thr shud be very nice landscapes and vistas waiting to be captured.. just wondering tht heavy rains should not play havoc !!

thr's supposed to be no electricity in the KMVN resort in the Binsar WildLife sanctuary.. so lanterns and candles will create the magic aura !! then jungle walks should add to the fun !! and trek to the zero point should be interesting too :)

What I know & want to know ?

I know how to play cafe world well with a constant buzz rating of 105..
I know how to buy aesthetic cool stuff in Yoville !
I know how to drive cars well in Need For Speed !
I know how to code in java,jdbc,jndi,jsp,vc++
I know how to find and read good books !
I know how to be curious !
I know how to be always in a learning mode !
I know how to over analyze situations !
I know how to be critical and judgmental !
I know how to read real fast !
I know how to type fast without looking at the keyboard !
I know a bit about how to write a blog ! A real tiny bit considering the number of few entries !
I know how to try my wit at humor !
I know how to try to be happy !
I know how to try to adjust with people !
I know how to think logically and rationally !

It's very difficult to define even oneself. The above list is a feeble attempt and I wrote what all came to my mind first ! When we don't even know ourselves well, our attempts to try to understand others is a difficult endeavor too ! Still my one of the top wishes to any genie will be how to read a mind and have a sneak peek in what the other person thinks !

I really depend on Facebook !

The facebook games must have introduced many netizens like me to networked games where you have to depend on the help of your dearest friends to progress further and play well. These games have discovered such a simple way of increasing their memberships. Any player will play better if she has more team members and thus will encourage all possible friends to join the games.

I am such a player and thus first I start urging my known netizens to show some interest in joining facebook which will offer them a chance of playing quizzes, games etc. After that the next suggestion is, please join mafia wars or yoville or if possible farmville. Dont play if you dont like, but do join.

Now I have started getting bored and all the games are seeming like chores. I am tired of harvesting crops, killing people online, and buying stuff for my virtual home. I am now desperately waiting for the day when I will be free from the shackles of this facebook gaming addiction of mine and will be able to move onto something new ! Perhaps brand new facebook games :).

I think that atleast for me the primary reason for playing any online game is to simply win ! To reassure myself that I am a perfect human specimen, intelligent & knowledgable who can go jump levels in all the games real fast, gather trophies & gifts, decorate an online home showing off my asthetic sensibilites, or create a beautiful virtual farm by deciding on better earning crops and buying tractors.

Online quizzes on facebook have a similar "will win" fascination too for so many of us fb people. Yes, I want to know that I know all the movie trivia and can recognize all movie characters, songs, even actors from their childhood or without makeup pics. And these quizzes often generally tell me that I have beaten 100% of my friends who have taken this quiz. The beaten friends might be 1 or 2 in number, but I have beaten both, so I have played better than 100% of quiz takers who belong to my friend set.

Then there are personality quizzes which will show us our real self, which we are not able to see from our literal eyes or as said in hindi "mann ki aankhein" i.e. the inner eye. We answer approximately ten random questions like our favorite color to whether I hate losing family members more than death? Then the quiz application throws up any random quiz result from the answer set, like the one which told me that I am like Luke Skywalker and I have happily published it along with so many other almost accurate quiz results to the world.

But still all facebook activities offer more oppurtunities to comment on other people's activites. We post, publish, comment and discuss. We pick up and do some activity which has just been done by any of our friends posted to our wall or try to generate some new activity through our favorite applications.

If you are unable to think of anything else, goto youtube, find any intersting video and post it on facebook. The link to add it on facebook is conveniently available through share option. This should be counted as a facebook "how to be active" or "what to do" tip rendered by me on my blog which might help any blog reader who is a fbian too :).

We may not interact with so many of our friends directly but we can see how they are going on with their lives by observing them online. One day I tried to track all old college seniors on facebook and see who's doing what. I am indebted to those facebook friends who have given me online gifts required for playing well on my favorite games and will always try to replay the favor in that facebook game. See how all this online gifting of virtual game objects has strengthened our bonds of friendship.

Another prominent feature is twittering, i.e. latest status updates chatter shared by friends. These are really interesting ones and do generate normal, friendly, leg pulling or even controversial discussions. I have shared a quote or too at times, but am unable to twit or chatter much. I think it's helping us Indian prudes to lose our inhibitions to declare to around 200 persons about what we ate in breakfast, what I am currently watching on tv etc. I wonder I might not start declaring too much to people in real life too about everything I do.

Ohh, I think it's enough blogging about facebook. I have to compulsively check my facebook wall for any new posts.

My addictions & quirks !

I think I live by my addictions ! My addictions are the oxygen which make me live and make life worth living. Now rating these various interests would be really difficult as all of them have some equivalent hold on me. Perhaps these can be discussed in chronological order.

When I was 2, I tried to give up drinking milk and starting on tea despite severe objections by my parents. The war still goes on ! I love almost all coffees especially cafe mocha too. What can be better than having double shots of caffiene and choclate and if possible icecream straight from one glass. The resulting feeling of bliss stays for a long time and the intoxicating head rush makes life look beautiful. Sometimes when I am sleep deprived, I cant even open my eyes and start working unless and until I have savoured a good cup of tea.

Like any child I was provided with many toys and some balloons specifically on sunday mornings. I took great interest in ensuring immortality of all my toys and tried to extend the same immortality concept to saving balloons forever too. This as expected led to my weeping sessions as soon as a balloon dropped dead. Till now I don't like candles because they die so soon, cant pluck a flower and dont like to get flowers as gifts as they die too.

On the other hand, I like killing mosquitoes, flies, cockroaches and any other minor insects. I turn into courageous killer of lizards and rats too as and when the need arises.

The next greatest love would be for noodles starting with hamara apna maggi noodles. I loved its smell and ate it with great fascination since I was in second standard. Then I explored Top Ramen, curry smoodles etc, and survived on it whenever I didnt like the home or hostel food. The food for which I fantasize these days is only italian to be eaten at Flavors or Big Chill. Perhaps as I go rarely, so the novelty hasn't worn off.

Home food does have its own charm and certain dishes have that taste which cant be found anywhere else on earth. My mom, me and my brother specialize in that. Infact we can cook certain dishes in such an exactly same manner that the cook cant be distinguished e.g. rajma chawal. Perhaps learning recipes from same guru leads to this.

I have a propensity to be addicted to online games as well, but thankfully I get bored after a certain time, say 15 days or a month. Still I have spent a good deal of time on all need for speed games, my eternal favorite. The current ones are mafia wars and yoville on facebook. If a friend is currently reading this, kindly join facebook and these games for me, I terribly need some more crew.

I love good movies, watch them and read about them on net as much as possible. Wikipedia articles about matrix movies are great. I can be considered a cult fan of any series for which I become passionate.

The interest where I seek most of the novelty is songs. I get bored soon and can listen only as long as there's certain tone of voice or music which my conscious or subconscious mind hasnt learnt by rote yet. Once the novelty is over, song no longer holds any charm for me. I might still like the song if I hear it after some time or for that matter any other time, but the initial high is over.

I am saving my greatest addiction for the last - books. I owe my poor eysight to them. I started early, learned to read real fast, started reading champak, nandan, parag etc. i.e. many magazines for kids. I still remember so many of the stories and read comic books too like nagraj, super commando dhruv categroy. Then moved onto Enid Blyton and sort of the stuff. Finally today, I am an ardent fan of Harry Potter, twilight, all malcolm gladwell books, Dan Brown, Sidney Sheldon, John Grisham,Ayn Rand, Jeffrey Archer, Erich Segal. Once I start an interesting book, I cant keep it down even if my eyes hurt or it maybe 2 or 3 in the morning. I have completed many books by the light of my cellphone when electricity went missing. The escape from real world to an alternate reality is too much of a wonderful experience. The only serious hobby which I could boast of is reading.

I liked painting and sketching but left it long back. Still colors have a strong asethetic appeal for me.

This was an easy post to write because as expected I know myself quite well. An individual is so complex that she cant be described in a few hundred words. Nothing of the above items make me unique as all are somehow typical human traits. But as its my blog, and this sudden brain wave about the word addiction caught me, here's it.

Trip Ideas !

Taking trips and going on vacations is one of the greatest enjoyments of life. I distinctly remember my early trips to Himalayas with my parents and how much I enjoyed each one of them. Later on, more trips happened, which can be attributed to office group initiatives. I was always spellbound by the majestic mountains, floating clouds and beautiful weather and novelty of the new places visited.

The opportunities to learn more about flora, fauna, art galleries, religion, history, architecture and culture are as amazing as are the treks taken to reach these wonderful places.

I was wondering what I could write about for a very long time and thought to publish something about the places I have visited and plan to visit. It will also offer me the unique chance of pasting scenic pictures in this blog :) Hence, here is the humble history of my journeys ! Though I intended to cover many places, but I think right now writing about one or two interesting places will suffice.

I visited Naggar nearby Manali with my parents a long time back. We went to some nearby place by roadways bus from Manali and trekked up till Naggar. It turned out to be a quaint wonderful place with a beautiful temple, a wooden castle and boasting of a Nicholas Roerich Art Gallery. I especially loved the art gallery with a collection of beautiful paintings. All the photographs clicked by us are hard copy and someday I will scan and add them over here. Till then, I think I will paste some pics browsed from net overhere :)



A painting made by master himself !
Source for the pic: vansaires.blog124.fc2.com



Naggar Castle
Source for the pic: www.tribuneindia.com/.../spectrum/main5.jpg

Next I think I should write about our interesting office trip to Ranthambore. Our office group of around 20 colleagues went to Ranthambore. We went by train and reached Ranthambore station in the early morning. We were being provided by the transport by the Hamir Resort and hence we greeted our open safari vehicles transport with apprehension in the cold weather of November. Everyone tightly wrapped shawls, jackets and caps and braved through the cold winter morning to reach the resort.



Safari vehicle added to lot of fun!
Pic Source: My boss's camera !

Once we reached the beautiful resort everyone was excited and happy to see the beautiful resort and a quick game of cricket was set in motion.There was a lot of confusion and conflict while playing which added to the fun and I was recruited as the fair umpire to give final decisions. There were many wides and many fours and sixes on loose bowling.



Hamir Resort !
Pic Source: Same as above.

Then after having breakfast in the Hamir mess decorated with tiger pictures we set out for the safari. Ranthabore fort is situated in the midst of a dense jungle. So we had a grand tour of safari looking for tiger, depending on monkey calls and bird calls. The happy chattering noises of our group didnt help us and thus we ended up seeing many types of deers, birds, a few crocodiles and tiger pug marks.



Crocodile enjoying a sunny day !



Cute Deer having fun !

Then we moved onto visiting huge Ranthambore fort which loomed on the horizon from a distance and looked majestic. We had a long trek in the huge fort exploring various temples and platial structures in the fort and looking down from high & strong fort walls. There were various tunnels and domes in the fort adding to the mystical lore and inspiring us to discover and explore the fort. Our huge group got split in various smaller groups and ended up exploring different areas of the fort. Hence we got to see a lot more of what we had missed from the photographs taken by other groups. We were only bound by the time as we had to reach back to the Hamir resort in time and it was getting late in evening.



After reaching back even though we were tired, we arranged for camp fire and music in the resort and ended up having a lot of fun playing antakshri and dancing a lot. Hence, we concluded one of our wonderful trips ! Our office group is currently planning to make a visit to Tungnath which should be a wonderfully scenic and amazing trip :)