Tuesday, February 24, 2009

MS errors and Indian-o-meter

It seems Microsoft is asking their laid-off workers to pay back extra money, which happened due to some error in calculation.

One of the comments in the article read,” Tell them to shut down and re-start. It works for all the other MS errors.” :-)

To me, the Slumdog Millionaire movie is an Indian movie. At least, it is more Indian than Bobby Jindal and Sunita Williams. We rejoiced when Sunita ate samosa. Why can’t we accept the movie as Indian? This is in my humble opinion and I can’t get more humble than this.

***
Had a long weekend as yesterday was also off due to the Shivaratri festival. Suddenly planned to go to Ooty without S with some of his friends. The plan crashed even before the take-off and they SMSed me with an apology. Crestfallen, I watched some more movies and finished a novel. Invited another couple and we partied at our place. I wanted to add some more exotic starters to what S was already preparing. After browsing for hours together, the exotic item that I prepared was beetroot salad.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The new job, the house-hunt, the old friend, the husband, and the Oscar

Almost a month and nary a word said!
It is time to get eloquent though I am still not sure what it is that I want to say. The new job is good (so far). The team is amazing and some of them are quite experienced and know much more than I know. Hope to learn from them. My antennas are in the receptive mode right now, learning and trying hard to impress.

There were more than ten compliance courses. To go to the loo, there was a compliance course, to talk to your colleagues, there was another. At the cafeteria, I could not laugh at the jokes fearing if I have broken some code of conduct and failed to honor another compliance course. If I had met any of my ex-colleagues in the first week asking about my whereabouts, I am sure I would have whispered the name of the company or just walked away without replying anything BECAUSE of the compliance courses. So, you know how they must be.

In the house-hunting front, we hunted an apartment. I had even imagined the wall colors the interiors, and the curtains, but decided not to go for it and just wait and watch. What are we waiting for; I am not really sure. Perhaps, we are looking to find out which one happens earlier, the fall of the price or the fall of the salary and along with it, whether we live hand- to- mouth with or without an apartment to our name.

I have a friend who wanted to buy an apartment but ended up buying a nice car. I am thinking if I must buy a Scooty. Yes, the Scooty Pep in pink. I’ll ride by putting a board reading Scorpio or Chevrolet Spark on it and get snooty with the Scooty. (wah, it rhymes).

The boys met and bonded over beer and rum. Meg came down and bonded with S. I managed to extract a gift from him-buttered him while he was in the U.K and sent him my wish-list whenever an occasion demanded. They praised me a lot and it went something like this:

S: Yaar, she doesn’t even bother whether there is Onion or Potato at home. She just comes home singing. While me on the other hand, think about all this the moment I step out of the office. I carry the entire load walking back from the office while it is just a stone’s throw away for her. If I don’t do it, there is nothing in the house. She will enter the kitchen happily singing again, and tell me, eiyo! there is no potato. I told her the potatoes are not non-state actors who would just appear from nowhere and have to be fetched from the shop.

Meg: And you remember her dance? She sent me the link and kept on asking me for the feedback. I come home around 11 pm and had to switch on the system and go through the ordeal almost dozing. When someone puts a gun on your head, what else can you do?

I couldn’t take any more praise and finished off the chicken before they could.

Moral of the story: Praise the woman if you want to eat something while you drink.


Here are the nominees of the 81st Oscar, and I have watched the following across all categories:


WALL-E
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire
The Reader
The curious case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Wanted
Hell Boy II: The golden army
The Duchess
Australia
The Wrestler
Vicky Christina Barcelona
The revolutionary road
Changeling