| First post from my MacBook |
[Feb. 9th, 2007|09:53 pm] |
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I finally bought a MacBook from the 5th Avenue Apple Store :-) It is one of the most exciting purchases I have done in quite some time. |
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| End of my MBA course |
[Feb. 28th, 2006|02:27 pm] |
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Today I gave my last exam of the MBA course. That brings down the curtains to the zillion evaluations I went through in the past 2 years. Ironically, I was so bad at this last exam that I walked out after 15 minutes of the 3 hour exam. Honestly, over the past one month I did not pay much thought to how it would feel walking out of IIM Bangalore. But I can feel it now. The gloom of not being able to walk past the corridors of this campus is taking over the joy of securing the degree. A feeling I have experienced so many times in the past, but it still hurts. |
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| Perulo emundhi aka What's in a name |
[Dec. 14th, 2005|08:52 pm] |
I hail from the land notorious for people carrying long names and my name is no exception. No, let me restate that. With 36 characters in it, my name is longer even by telugu standards. My last name keeps changing depending on the occasion, the form I am filling, the country I am in etc. Since filling out the GRE application form, the first thing that grabs my attention is the number of vacant boxes in the NAME column. All forms resemble the Y2K problem to me. The space is just not enough to fit my name. Long Long ago when my name entered the official records, I did not have the vision to foresee the weird situations my name is going to put me in.
Today I faced yet another situation which made me think "Only if my parents had found a shorter name for me". I had outstanding balance in one of the college accounts and I went to the accounts office to withdraw the money and found that the refunds can be made only through check. Well, if its a check my name will figure on it and I know by previous experience the various possible combinations of my name. So I looked at how my name appeared in their database and I had guessed it right.My name was truncated. So i told the clerk (who was alien to such long names) the sob story of my name and requested her to make the check on a different name. She first said that if my name was long its my problem, but finally accepted to change the name. Through all this i had to endure the amused look on the faces of the staff working over there. No wonder I feel jealous of people who have short names :( |
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| Physics |
[Dec. 4th, 2005|10:18 pm] |
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I admit that I do not have much intuition for Physics, but Elegant Universe made me wish I had some. After watching the videos, apart from so many other things I already wish I were, I wish I was a Physicist as well :) One of the scientists quotes that, no matter how much we try, we cant teach a dog a lot of physics concepts and so he extrapolates that human brain may also have its limitations making it impossible for humans to uncover all the mysteries of the universe. Well, he need not have taken the extreme example of the dog given that there are human brains like mine :-( |
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| Movie Mania |
[Dec. 4th, 2005|09:49 pm] |
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Over the past two months, I have been serving the movie lover in me generously where I started off with a bunch of Hongkong Movies (In the Mood for Love, 2046, Infernal affairs I and II), some Hollywood flicks (film noir, A history of Violence, Incredibles, Doctor Zhivago, Kill Bill for the nth time) and I thought its time to round it off with some of my favourite telugu movies of the past. So I watched Siva, Geetanjali, Gayam, Kshana Kshanam, Gayam, April 1 Vidudala, Anukokunda Oka Roju, Aha Naa Pellanta, Anand, ToliPrema, Nuvvu Naku Nachavu, Sakhi in rapid quick succession. Watching the old RGV movies made me realize that he may not be able to produce that class anymore. When I watched Sarkar in theatre I could recollect many of the shots were lifted from Gayam (which though unacknowledged has some GodFather hangover) and watching Gayam recently revealed a lot more. I do not care if he gets influenced by movies of other director, but when he keeps copying himself I lose some respect for him as a director. For me, Siva and Kshana Kshanam were RGVs best. Kshana Kshanam was actually ahead of its time and didnt taste much commerical success. Telugu movies for all their faults have humor unmatched by other languages. May be because its my mother tongue or may be it has something to do with the language itself, I find that humor is easier to generate in Telugu movies and it is also helped by the amazing actor talent in the telugu comedy genre. |
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| Barbarians at the Gate |
[Nov. 29th, 2005|07:38 pm] |
Finished reading this bulky book about the Leveraged Buy Out of RJR Nabisco in 1988, the tale which earned a TIME magazine cover. The whole narration of the greed and big egos of WallStreet proves that sometimes fact is more fascinating than fiction. The way the valuation of the company is revised in increments from $75 to $108 per share is satirical about how judgmental valuations turn out to be. Now its time to catch up with the HBO movie based on the book. |
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| Loss Vegas |
[Nov. 28th, 2005|11:25 pm] |
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At last I made a short trip to Vegas, only to realize that I have to visit the place again with a lot more time and money at hand. One really cannot explain how crazy the whole place is built to be, with all the money pumped into the hotels/casinos on "The Strip". I made and lost money at fastest ever pace of my life and I realized how addictive gambling could be. My first ever press of a slot machine yielded a whopping return of 5000% (well, to put it in perspective I made $25 on 50 cents). As expected, Vegas played its tricks on me and I lost some 50 bucks in no time, thanks mainly to probability theory playing havoc with me at the "Wheel of Fortune" table. But I am not complaining and I wish to make a return to Vegas, probably with a different story to tell at the end of it. |
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| voice over data (or) data over voice |
[Nov. 28th, 2005|11:00 pm] |
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While working for Motorola, I remember the efforts to get more data applications onto the mobile phone to make the user view the phone as a more sophisticated machine (than just a device to make/receive calls,) thus increasing the computing power of the phone to process data. In a reverse effort, today I came across Google's new venture of "Click to Call" advertising service which places a call to the stores (using Skype service) by clicking the advertised link on Google, which is a push to increase the voice traffic over the internet leveraging Google's search. I somehow found these two seemingly different approaches worth making a note of which in future will increasingly blur the differences between a mobile phone and a computer connected to the information highway. |
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| Measure for Measure |
[Nov. 24th, 2005|05:49 pm] |
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The Shakespeare Globe Theater has been performing the play "Measure for Measure" in UCLA as part of its U.S tour. This was my first chance to witness a Shakespeare play by a reputed organization. I bought the student discount ticket, but since the house was not fully occupied, we were allowed to move up front and I gleefully switched from the very last row to the very first row.My knowledge of Shakespeare plays is only through reading the summarized english translation books and predictably during the play, my brain on some occasions couldn't keep pace with the Shakespeare language uttered by the actors. On one occasion the Duke of Vienna had such a lengthy dialogue that none of the audience could decipher and at the end of it, the house burst with laughter and appreciation. I enjoyed the liberal dose of humor which I was not expecting. To be faithful to the traditional Shakespeare plays, the female characters were also played by the male actors (which disappointed me a little ;-)). A nice experience overall and I wouldn't mind watching another performance of a Shakespeare play. |
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ghareesh's journal
