How to kill time?

In the afternoon today, I was thinking about putting up a post to express my indignation and desperation of how horrible weekends in Bangalore are.
Some how as the hours passed by I found a means of killing time. A stab of a movie killed it for 2:30 hours. At the end of it time was up again, this time in arms, to take its revenge on me - that is to bore to death. Here I express my gratitude to water problem that accompanies me, where ever I might go whether it is Bangalore or Chennai. I sought refuge in it to negotiate time. Yes, I meant the water problem by "it". To tidy myself I badly needed a bucket of water and in whole of my house I didn't have a drop of it. I spent nearly an hour to get a bucket of water and another half an hour waiting for the water to get warm. I am not conventional enough to put the water on the gas stove nor am I modern enough to use a geyser for the purpose.However, I am clumsy enough to use a 1KWH immersion rod to heat the water up. I have to own it up now that I entirely miscalculated the time duration. Bad equation: 15 minutes for half a bucket of water so 30 minutes for a full to heat up.Immersion rods are really quick than I anticipated and as I realised later, half an hour is too long for a bucket full of water to get warm.The water was boiling hot before this enlightenment dawned on me and I did not have another drop to cool it down. So, waiting was mine. Clock ticked away 15 minutes, I let another 900 seconds pass by and telephone call helped me with another half an hour.A Bangalore's hour was good enough for a bucket full to cool down. If this were Chennai the water would be cool enough to bath only the next day. This is one upside of the downside. Downside because, first of all, I should never have had the need to warm up water in Chennai.
That's how it was, run out of water, spend an hour to get bucket full as it were a desert, heat it up carelessly past the admissible Celsius then wait for the water to cool down. Perhaps, Louis Pasteur arrived at the procedure of pasteurization - the process of boiling milk and then rapidly cooling it down to kill bacteria- in a similar fashion. Whoever said Genius is a product of naivety should add a clause to the definition - Genius is a clumsy consequence of lethargy and carelessness. Wasn't penicillin an accident? Wasn't rubber being flung into sulphur another? How would you describe Newton lazing under a tree when an apple blew his wits out? And what do you have to say about devising a way of killing time with a bucket full of water?

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Moron and Oxymoron

"An enterprise often contains a variety of applications that operate independently but must work together in a unified manner".This is the oxymoron under discussion.
"Applications that operate independently" but " must work together in a unified manner". Doesn't it sound like searching for shadows on a moonless night? Doesn't it seem like chasing mirages in an endless desert? Then what am I trying to prove here? Trying to prove nothing - that's another oxymoron.Huh! One is enough to spoil a life time. I can not accommodate a second.
The opening sentence is what EAI means. For the benefit of my blessed readers - blessed, if you do not know about EAI - I take the infinite pain of expanding the acronym EAI- ENTERPRISE APPLICATION INTEGRATION. That is in brief about my job. As a fresher, who knew nothing about IT industry I took the oath of integrating applications for a lifetime - possibly - you never know.

In short, according to me, here are the seven simple and defining principles of the oxymoron, EAI.
1. Build your enterprise anyway you like, in as many applications as you wish.
2. Your enterprise becomes huge and untenable. If it does not, make sure you make it.
3. Find innocent "somebody" outside your organization.
4. Repeat step 3 till you find "somebody" because you do not find intelligent goats easily.
5. Once you find that somebody, sit on his head and force him to wire the applications together.
6. Scream TTM(Time To Maket) and ROI( Return on Investment).
7. Repeat step 6 for ever, at regular intervals.

In the meantime major IT players, in the name of solving integration problems, form consortiums and arrive at industry standards. In the name of no-vendor-lock-in products, these companies release proprietary tools. The business houses to meet the ever rising bar of customer satisfaction ( that is our satisfaction, don't we ask why is this bank's website so slow or why is loan approval a week long manual process?)buy different off-the-shelf products from various vendors to reduce Time To Market. The disparate products from various, obviously and not surprisingly, do not agree with each other. And, the integration problems go to next level where the then( future dated ) big players, again, sit together to arrive at latest agreeable standards and go on to build different products on it. Thats how IT evolves.

Evolution IT has gone through in the past 40 years:
1. First, data and operations were put together. (procedure oriented languages - C)
2. Then data was separated from operations for the sake of data security . ( OOPS- JAVA, C++)
3. Next adapters were built for operations to access the data residing elsewhere. (EAI - whole lot of middlewares)
4. Then operations were combined to form services so that similar data operations could be done at a time( SOA).
5. Next the services(combination of operations) and data are colocated so that only way of accessing the data is through those services. ( Master Data Management - Websphere WCC/MDM )

Don't you see a full circle in this evolution, from operations and data together to services and data together? I do. I say all this irrespective of the fact there are huge monies involved in such projects, and I am very much an IT consultant who makes a living out of solving integration problems. Money wasn't the topic under discussion, at least it was not today.
Okay, do you find a moron(meaning: idiot,mental retard - otherwise no vulgarity intended) in the entire story? I promise there is more than one. I found out the Oxymoron you find out a Moron, at least one.

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I hate luv storys - something I never said before

If I successfully draft and save this post it would be third this week. I am on a roll :) :) :).
Yeah, I am talking about the Karan Johar flick "I hate luv storys". Loving somebody and breaking off to latch on to somebody else is in vogue these days. At least it is in the bollywood. I do not understand the logic of loving somebody and then finding love in somebody else. You might argue it happened with "the" Romeo( I used the definite article because there are so many these days), one who killed himself for the sake of love, then why not with others. However, I beg to differ change becomes a habit and life ends before you stop changing people.
Why all this pep talk about love when I am talking about a movie? Then read the next lines carefully and figure out how meaningful it is. " A girl loves a guy, breaks off from him to love a guy who does not believe in love". The story is as meaningful as the above sentence. However, the lackluster story line does not dissuade one from enjoying the comedy that evolves from the backdrop the movie is set against.
Veer Kapoor( Karan Johar look alike) is famous for his romantic blockbusters with a superstar( Aamir Ali - a SRK look alike).J( played by Imran) works on the sets of Veer's latest venture. He struggles to get along as he does not believe in love which is, of course, the mainstay of Veer's film. Simran(played by Sonam) joins Veer's crew as an art director and the movie takes off.
The whole movie is an enjoyable satire on bland romantic movies and Karan Johar's style of movie making. Karan Johar must be appreciated for allowing his director do a satire on him through Veer's character. Other than this brave satire by the director Punit Malhotra, another entertaining element is Kavin Dave( guy from sprite ad).He plays a good supporting role as J's colleague and companion.In fact Bollywood could have just discovered a good sidekick in him.
The chemistry between Imran and Sonam, though not very romantic - of course the movie did not need it, is quite good. Punit succeeded in making a movie that is light, humorous, and devoid of loud comedy and drama. The good thing about the movie is you do not have a single punch being thrown or a heart wrenching sequence in whole of it. The movie, for sure, will not bore you unless you are expecting car crashes, bleeding noses and/or wet cheeks on the screen. All in all a simple, light movie to watch it after five days of whipping and slogging at office.

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FIFA. Fever - Over

That was a horrible doggerel to begin with, alright, but that was the simplest thing I could say.My language might not be the most flamboyant - okay I will tone down a bit- my language might not be flamboyant enough- hmmm, I understand, you don't deserve any of this, now I will come to terms with the ground realities - my language is not good enough to describe and summarize a fabulous, marvellous, magnificent and meticulously organized mega event called FIFA.However, I would say the attempt is mine and the result is yours( that is the reader's).
Neither did I follow every match of this world cup nor am I a big fan of foot ball to do a effective sum up. I am a big fan of cricket. But now I am looking for a replacement, as cricket is no longer what it was. I feel so, do you? Well, of course keep Sachin Tendulkar out of this, he is what he is even if the game should lose its sheen.In fact this football world cup is the first major tournament I followed and it was only from the middle of the tournament that I picked up. The dramatic exit of defending champions Italy triggered interest in me and the disgraceful exit of France did me into FIFA 2010 completely.
Critics and spectators voiced their indignation about the lack of grace in Brazil's game, which was far from bad, but it appears everybody turned a blind eye on how Spaniards played throughout the tournament.This FIFA world cup witnessed the exit of two of the best teams, Brazil and Germany, because of the sloppy but effective strategy devised and executed by Netherlands and Spain.
I feel Germany should have been the rightful finalists for the way they played and not Spain. Though I supported and cheered Spain throughout - even against Germany( I support a team which I know for sure is going to win. Bad Habit) - I say this. And, according to me the final was the fight for the 3rd position which was entertaining and enthralling unlike the actual final between Spain and the Dutch. Netherlands replied Spain in their own language only to come second in the 113 minute of the play.Then what the deuce were they doing themselves through the first 90 minutes?On an average every fifth minute of the final, the referee was forced to use his whistle and yellow-card one or the other. It was no better than a school football match with players faking and falling like nine pins.It was like two students of same school of thought pitted against one another but a day can only bear a single winner and Spain took home the cup this time. The only capturing element in the whole of final was anybody could be the winner because both the teams employed the same strategy and each was waiting for the other to flounder. If you watched the final,definitely you would have been bored enough to empathize with me.
To wrap it up, I feel sorry for each of Brazil and Germany. Brazil vs Germany would have been a match worth of World Cup final. If it were the final, then the opening and closing ceremonies would have remained just ceremonies instead of overshadowing the whole World Cup as they did now.However, one thing that would get catalogued in my memory, forever, is "the hip twister" Shakira's "WAKA WAKA" which became a chant to many and I, the other would be Paul the octopus which proved a German nemesis. Now it is time to return home from Africa!!!

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The topic is "My Blog"

I spent many sleepless nights to bring My Blog to current shape it is in. Why in all days did I chose to write about My Blog in My Blog today? Today definitely is not an anniversary of My Blog.December is no where around and it is too early to even long for it.However, Everything falls under the "cause" and "consequence" umbrella and so does this.
During the initial days of starting My Blog I tried to make it popular among my friends and acquaintances. Every time I published a piece here I went around and updated a select few who evinced interest on hearing that I started a blog. Few of the initial readers still remain on My Blog and many others do not. Those were the days when I knew nothing other than 9 hours of work at office and 4 or 5 hours of time on My Blog. I tried many templates and browsed the net for some good sunset pictures before settling with the current template and self-shot picture. The interesting fact is, "December Evenings" sits on a Sunday Morning snap. I shot that at 5:30 a.m in the morning having spent a sleepless night( sleepless here means staying awake forcefully and not struggling to catch sleep). Needless, to say I took a lot of pain in My Blog, which I no longer do and derived pride and pleasure from it, which I still do.
As the days passed by I stopped troubling people. I put up updates on orkut and left it for the interested readers. This was till the last days in TCS. Back then I did not have a laptop of my own.Whenever I got hold of my friends laptop first thing I did was to fair and post the content which was either a quick scribble on a piece of paper or was a carefully typed, edited and mailed thought from my office desk.
The day I joined SAG, I got a laptop and my first thought then was "Unlimited blogging". Alas! little did I know about the side effects of a uncontended laptop. Along with laptop comes unlimited Internet and along with Internet come other avocations. Otherwise very useful, these avocations have proven counterproductive to my blogging - the number of posts plummeted, yeah I meant the word because if you were to draw a line graph you would see Mt. Everest and Eiffel tower juxtaposed.
Every evening of the past one month, after returning from work I have been thinking about My Blog and sometimes sign on to post something( They are so many things which could be interesting pieces), but I am either busy - with research( not rocket science), defeated - at work ,enervated - after a long discussion or elated- that I am going to Chennai. Ha! Chennai comes again into My Blog which has been the case in my recent posts. When I travel across Chennai many things come to my mind which are worth posting, but the moment I enter Bangalore they vaporize.Okay! enough is enough-please stay tuned - I swear I will not mention Chennai again in this post.
I come back to the topic of this post that is My Blog. Two weeks ago I met one of my college friends by accident in a shopping mall near to my workplace. After we went about the usual how-are-yous and what-are-you-uptos he made a mention of My Blog. This took to me by surprise and I was ecstatic when he said he read my posts. I felt very happy about that and I thanked him for his readership. I got some readers, in fact voluntary readers. I do not mind even if they are my critics, it is good to have someone listening to you rather than crying all by yourself to a wall. This put additional onus on me to keep wrting and keep writing good. However I tried I could not pen down a single post owing to the work schedule. Even as I type the previous sentence I look at my system clock to check how many hours of undisturbed sleep I could catch before the alarm shatters my dreams at 8:30 a.m tomorrow morning. That was a necessary short break from the monotonous topic of My Blog. Again today one of my school friends and said that he reads My Blog. This was the trigger to write this topic My Blog.
Did you count how many "My Blog" I put in this post? Count them an let me know for the topic is My Blog. Ain't this a different kind of blogging? Opinions and comments are highly solicited. Signing off from my blog. Happy counting if ever you count.

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