ESSC syndrome!

Well, am a fan of Dilbert, Dogbert, Asok and infact of all the characters that Scott Adams uses in his cartoons.

They are so funny and sarcastic that they give everyone a good nice laugh.

Well, here is one i caught recently in a desi dilbert forum:

Mr.A: Hi guys, I went on a trek to Mount XXX. It was so thrilling and adventurous.

Mr.U: You should have actually tried the Mount Everest. Mount xxx is a waste of time.

Mr.A: Infact Mount XXX has some tortuous and steep trails.

Mr.B: Wow, thats great! Hey, i purchased a new diesel SUV. Man, its a great machine. Always wanted to have one.

Mr.U: Very bad. You should have purchased a Petrol Vehicle.

Mr.B: Never mind. I love my possession and like going on long drives.

Mr.C: Guys, we have a desi get together this week to celebrate the Independence Day.

Mr.U: It is a waste of time. Of course, i would not waste my time and money on such silly events.

Mr.D: Btw, what do you do Mr.U?

Mr.U: I am affected by the ESSC (Eat, Shit, Sleep and Complain) syndrome. So, i do ESSC and play XBOX games during my free time!

Mr.U, then goes to another group and…
Mr.U: You know what! A, B, C and D are useless.

hahaha..Remember “Kyunki, Saans…” vamps?

More from Scott Adams…

Remember the Pre-placement talks from the seniors, working for major IT firms!

Great Interview skills!

The Bourne Series…

Recently, i watched the latest in the Bourne movie series, “Bourne Ultimatum”. Having read the original novel by Robert Ludlum, i felt that the movie script deviated a lot more from the original plot in the novel. After a few hits in the WIKI, i realised that the novel was published way back in the 80s and so the original plot needed a touch up to live up to the expectations of the current day movie goers.

Another suspense thriller that comes to my mind is the “Day of the Jackal” by Frederick Forsyth. It has a great plot and would keep its suspense quotient intact until the reader reaches the end pages. Frederick Forsyth’s “Odessa File” is another great read about the Nazi plots in modern Germany and a secret organization called Odessa. His latest one “The Afghan” is about the modern day terrorism.

Dan Brown and Michael Crichton are my other favourites. Brown’s “Angels and Demons” and the “Da Vinci Code” were an instant hit among the literary folks, more for the controversy they created and also for the amount of meticulous reseach involved. Michael Crichton has been a favourite among the hollywood producers for regularly churning out mind-boggling techno-thrillers. His “Jurassic Park”, “Sphere”, “Congo”, “Disclosure” have all been very successful films. “Andromeda Strain” and “The Terminal Man” have been techno thrillers which appealed a lot to me.

Dowry->FemaleFoeticide!

I rarely do blog on social issues. But today, while i was googling i saw this poster ad and i was deeply moved by it.

Even though gallons of ink and gigabits of disk space have been consumed with literatures condemning this heinous crime, the dowry system still thrives in India. More and more people should come out openly against this and the onus is on the educated class to lead the way.

Mount Bukhansan Trek!

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Bukansan National park in Seoul for a mountain hiking experience. Bukhansan is a huge expanse of mountains and for an entry fee of $2, its all yours to explore!

The park has many steep rocky cliffs and precipitous mountains, dissected by many deep valleys. Overall, hiking here is a very thrilling experience. Most of the trails are pretty safe and they are all lined by ropes for support. Hoewever, there are a few trails which are challenging and are not for the weak hearted.

Believe it or not, one is bound to see many aged people hiking at this park. The fitness levels of the general public here in korea is amazingly very high.

We successfully climbed two peaks – Baegundae and some other peak whose name i forgot ;(. Being totally exhausted after climbing the peaks, climbing down proved to be a much difficult proposition. Also, there are a lot of temples along the trails.

The next pit stop was at the Namaste Indian restaurant in Dongdaemun. Here, we did all those things that we possibly can do to get back all those calories spent during the hike!

How True!

Dravid Dropped!

The Indian team’s selection for the Pakistan tour has evoked a lot of strong opinions. A lot of them are due to the dropping of Dravid from the team. I think that this was a right decision taken by the selectors. Start grooming the youngsters and gradually phase out the oldies.

Its great to see that the fans have not resorted to effigy burnings and protest marches. Tells a lot about the civilised behaviour of the Bangaloreans! There are a lot of other issues of national importance which require such acts. Neways, if either Ganguly and tendulkar were to be dropped, then there sure would have been a lot of profits for the effigy makers!
And coming back to the team, there are 6 openers, 5 bowlers, 1 wicket keeper and 3 middle order batsmen. Now the headache is to pick 2 openers from 6 and somehow get 4 middle order batsmen from the 3 chosen. A task only the Indian selectors can do! Dhoni, am sure, will miss Dravid against a tough opposition like Pakistan. And am sure that Pakistan will be happy to hear this news.

And coming back to the openers dilemma, Sachin will not bat anywhere else (his feelings are of paramount interest to the team management and the selectors than the results ) and Saurav cannot bat anywhere else. So, the other openers picked would probably be warming the benches on all the 5 matches.

Let the action begin. The build up to this series is quite encouraging for the Indians. They have done well in England, won the Twenty20 World Cup and performed up to their expextations against the tough aussies. Hope the better team wins! And that obviously is India on current form!

We are the World Champs ;) !

Finally we watched the culmination of the World Twenty20 Cricket Championship. And it could not have been better scripted for an Indian Cricket fan. The final match was worthy of the occassion. Any match between India and Pakistan is bound to attract a lot of attention. The fact that the two teams conspired to meet each other in the finals made the final match a lot more spicier. The final was a humdinger of a match and am sure that quite a few finger nails have been chewed all over the world.

Shoib Malik’s statements during the presentation ceremony have sparked off a lot of controversy. Those sort of comments were definitely not on during such an important occassion. Sports and religion are miles apart and mixing them will definitely produce sour results. Read this nice article about the Final match and the controversy – http://blogs.cricinfo.com/meninwhite/archives/2007/09/scenes_from_a_final.php

There were a lot things to remember from this World Cup. A few that come to mind are follows:

1) Australia losing their first match to Zimbabwe
2) India winning the Bowl out 3-0 against Pakistan
3) SriLanka slamming a record 260 against hapless kenya
4) Yuvraj’s six sixers

There are a lot of positives to take home for the Indian team. The youngsters took the oppurtunities and made them count. The future of Indian cricket does look a lot brighter now. Dhoni’s captaincy was of first grade. He has a nice, cool and a calm head on his shoulders and leads the team with a mixture of maturity and aggression. The series against the Aussies is definitely bound to challenge his leadership skills. The Big 3 are gonna figure in the scheme of things once again. Whether their inclusion is gonna help Dhoni or prove to be a hindrance in his execution of his plans is anybody’s guess.

Chuseok Holidays

Here in Korea, we had a long weekend last week because of a festival called chuseok. It is pretty much like our harvesting festival, called sankranti in South India. The koreans also do perform a ritual called thanksgiving, wherein they pay homage to their ancestors. A pretty nice ritual, but what i am more interested is on the five days of holidays these festival do bring along with them. As always, i had made some eleborate plans to visit some exotic places around Korea. But fate had an other story to tell and i ended up being in office on three of those five days ;(

On monday, i hauled my SUV out and drove to a nearby island called Wolmido. The drive was very soothing and i was pretty surprised at not seeing much traffic on a holiday. I had the whole highway for myself and my SUV and we both literally burned the rubber. Wolmido Island is not an exotic place by any stretch of your imagination. But it is very well maintained tourist spot with lots of hotels, pubs (tempting but wifey had a firm grip on me), souvenir shops, small fountains and what not.

Me and wifey had a great time and of course a sumptous lunch there. Btw, did i tell you that there is a small theme park nearby. But we decided that it is ill advised to sit on those thrilling rides with our fully loaded stomachs.

On tuesday, we went along with another desi family to a popular water park called Carribean Bay. Had a great time in the Wave Pools, Spas and Saunas. The water slide is the most exciting. The one in carribean Bay is a pretty long one and it takes you through a dark tunnel for around a minute or so. By the time you reach the ground Zero and splash in the pool you would be thoroughly thrilled and exhausted.

The remaining few days were spent in watching the 2020 live cricket matches, cricket highlights and of course discussing with friends about what Dhoni’s strategies should be, about the field placings, the batting orders, the bowlers etc etc..

Yuvraj’s Sixers

Twenty20 Worldcup: I thoroughly enjoyed watching each of the six sixers that Yuvraj belted off Chris Broad. I enjoyed it partly because it came right after that verbal spat with Flintoff
And Broad is a pretty decent bowler and we saw that during the 7-one dayers Natwest Series in England. He was pretty much beating the bat every alternate deliveries in those helpful conditions. Those sixers sealed the fate of that match.
And the fresh news is that India defeated South Africe by a pretty good margin. Three cheers to the men in Blue.

But, my advice to the knowledgeable Indian cricket fans is not to go overboard and start jumping up and down. We know our cricket teams knack of snatching defeats from the jaws of victory ;( . Lets just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best!