BlogSat

Some of my best memories from b-school came from working on the student newspaper, ChiBus. So I was pretty kicked that a year after graduating of the results on the first page for ChiBus within the ChiBus site 4 are mine, and bunch are special features that I contributed to. My favorite is this April first issue  article.  Wow, its amazing how long I carried on with that one-trick joke.:) 

Another ChiBus issue out last week..nothing new about that. I didn't read most of it...nothing new about that either.:) But, I just realised...it was the first issue in 2 years that didn't have a single article with my name on it.:)

I loved Knocked Up : really funny, but still kinda sweet. The tone is very much 40-year old virgin , but slightly sharper, and with a greater emotional payoff. Unnecessary trivia: the lead actor was co-producer for both the movies above, and also a writer on the Ali G show. Also just started Dreaming in Code . I'm not sure what prompted me to go and pick it up from the library, but its fun so far. Also, wrote my final ChiBus article last week; got more comments for this one than the usual...expected I guess given the sappy tone and the content.:)

New ChiBus article last week. I've learnt that reviewing anything is fraught with peril. People who're mentioned get ticked off; people who aren't mentioned get ticked off; people who you make fun off get ticked off...well, the last one is kinda expected I guess.:)

The WSJ had an article today on yet another issue that some parents apparently consider while naming their kids. They check that Google thinks their uniquely precious one really is that unique. In the words of a proud mother of a young baby boy, their excuse for wanting to name their child Kohler is the currently low Google return for this "I wanted our son's name to be as special as he is" Sheesh! Yes, lady. Unfortunately your telling this to a WSJ reporter now means that the first 100 links for your precious one's name are going to be links to articles where people are questioning your decision.:) Now I'm as big an ego-surfer as anyone else out there , but this is carrying things too far. Parents overthink the names of their kids, and that's natural and to be expected. What annoys me is when they start unnecessarily worrying about optimizing these names to suit the environment. I have friends of Indian origin who're giving thei...

I'm a big fan of BBC radio . I used to listen to the online stream religiously for a while. I learnt two things today this week about the BBC that made me smile They have an incredibly ambitious Web 2.0 program (slightly negative tone to the paidcontent post though.) Given how much news tend to be over-sensationalized and needlessly analyzed today, I think its kinda cool that in 1948, the BBC radio broadcast said "There is no news today - goodnight." I can't find the link to the Economist opinion piece where I read it, but this a pretty funny spoof instead.:) They're responsible for the first three seasons of Coupling . Season Four was good, but... New ChiBus article out this week as well. Wrote it in a terrible rush, but it was the most fun I've had writing an article in a while.

I was watching an advertisement on TV and the background song was the muppet show "mahna mahna" song. So simple, but pure genius.:) The original clips are below Also, new ChiBus article this week. Update: I'm wrong on the origins of the song. Here's the wikipedia entry .

Oh dear God!! This is so frikking cool, I'm not sure what to do. I'll probably rarely use this, but I can't even believe the technology is good enough to do this, and to see it rolled out and integrated in to Blogger!!! And so easy to use!! Whoa... The feature is Transliteration and I learnt about it at ContentSutra (that's a good name for an Indian tech site; almost as good as Alootechie :)) Anyway, I should explain. Look at the heading. I just typed in "Satyajeet", but with the push of one button it became सत्यजीत . It's not the perfect translation into Devnagri , but it's pretty damn close! Now, I've really lost the ability to write in Devnagri; well not really, but I probably write at the level of a 10-12 year old (and not a very bright 10-12 year old.) I wrote two Hindi plays once in college and though the dialogue was all in Hindi, I had to write it in the Roman script , because writing in Devnagri would have taken me too long. Someone...

...well I don't really believe that (I think), but I just realized how much context and mood can color everything that you do, and how much depends on the reader's mindset and what they think of you even before they start reading the article. I was recycling this chibus article for an upcoming Admit Weekend issue and just realized how many of the things I put in for humorous effect can actually make me sound like a bit of a pompous jerk, and more disturbingly...just pure mean. Some of it I can blame on a lack of comedic talent, some on the fact that I was a little bitter about a few things then, but still...I can't help wondering how much of this happens in real life. Great..more existential angst for me to deal with. Update: Wow, that article was so bad it was not salvageable. Nothing from me for this ChiBus issue either.:)

Did a last minute stand-in, rush job on the Four To Follow feature in ChiBus . And the best part: the regular writer decreed that I go by (Former Editor Posing As) TheInternetGuy, while (and if) I write the column again. Talent is so hard to work with. I should link to all my ChiBus articles at some point. Might be fun to look at, at some point.

I loved this post on salary discussions over at FreeExchage (and yes I agree with my Macro Professor, the Economist is the best business/econ magazine that there is). The dynamic once you're in school changes a little bit: at least for me. I'm kinda touchy talking about money, not because I care, but because I think most others do. So basically, if you ask me how much I make, and I know you reasonably well, I'll tell you. However, unless I had a good reason to, I'd never ask you....it'd feel weird. Yeah, I know I have issues. Kinda touched on that money part in this chibus article .

Deep meaningful thoughts about life in posts soon, but new chibus post here. I also added a cute script to the site from Snap , that shows you the site you would jump to.

So how do I follow up my bold resolution to blog regularly? By slacking off for a couple of days of course.:) I have to say I'll start with an easy post though: I'll just write a bit about a site that I'm using right now as I type this up: Musicovery It's a lot of fun, and...well it has to be experienced rather than explained. The basic idea is so simple, and so well executed you can't help being impressed. My wishlist for the site now is a search feature (probably not coming for a while because of copyright issues.) They recently added the "skip" and "pause" feature I really wanted for a while. The site now competes with Netvibes for the honor of being my favorite French Web 2.o site. Yeah, I'm sure someone cares about that... Oh, two articles in ChiBus last week: The first one from the BFL I attended in December, the second I'm not quite sure what the hell its about, but there was a point there when I started.