Another broken promise

I promised myself to keep posting here. But here I am. Trying to break bad old habits but just can't do so. I am irritatingly fucking stubborn.

More than three months have passed by and the year is ending now. I have been busy with lots of things mostly professional.

• Worked hard in these months to get customer satisfaction index of 5/6 (which for your reference is stupendous).
  
• Had chicken pox for three weeks.
  
• Had been visited by Jiju and parents lately.
• Met some of the most influencing personalities (Angus, Acky, Anuraj, etc. - all professional)
• Celebrated first anniversary in a modest way.
• Celebrated first Diwali after marriage at home.
• Started playing AOE again. :)
  

Have lots to write. But have to start AOE. Will post soon. Promise. :)

Good links

1. Alternate web browsers

Fcuking long weekends

After 2 and a half months of rubbing my ass on the new project, finally comes the long weekend. And guess what - I am in no mood to rejoice or rest. I have changed. I am no longer looking forward to the long weekends. And thanks to Murphy I have 2 more coming on my way. Fcuk Murphy. Fcuk, I am seriously pissed off. Hope the mood changes quickly and I am again the same old guy.

FRM Deferred

Not even 24 hours have gone by after coming from London and I have taken the decision - a very hard one - to defer the FRM exam to May 2010. I have missed the chance to write FRM in one shot. From next year, it is going to be held in two stages. So, I would have to clear Level 1 first before sitting for the second level. That was another $250 bullet in my credit card.

Amrita Arora and Lamborghini

What a day !! Went to Oxford Street directly from office. Oxford street in London is like Connaught Place in Delhi with all the big brands occupying thousands of square feet place. We were walking the street and Amrita just passed me by. In the first glance, I was not sure she was Amrita. So, I called out her name - "Hey Amrita". She turned back and said "Hi". I said "Hi". And thats it. I was delighted but didn't ask her for a photograph.

The second surprise in that evening was a black Lamboghini with pink interiors. It was like a gay batman's car. :D Even with the pink interiors the sheer beauty and the power of Lamborghini cannot be undermined. See for yourself:



My first Lamborghini experience was in Las Vegas, US when i was roaming with my then girlfriend and now wife Madhura Karandikar. :D Here is a pic:




The third surprise was the GBP 2900 Armani Jacket I saw (and touched :D) and GBP 27000 Ferrari watch. Man, they were awesome. I turned materialistic for sometime.

Constant battles within my mind

Everyday I come from office thinking that I would study for FRM. But after having dinner while watching Simpsons, that feeling goes away. I am also confused about postponing my exam to May next year. It is going to cost me $400 and a chance to be an FRM in one shot as the exam is going to be held in two levels. I have to have a strong state of mind to go through this. "It is just a matter of few months." - thats what I tell myself every day. A few months.. this is more than I can give. I am kind of feeling exhausted. But, somehow I have to gain the momentum(or rather start it) or else I have to forfeit the game.

Missing Home

6th August, 2009
Upton Park, London

Its 11:15 PM here and it is raining. I am missing the cozy cozy atmosphere at home. Rains can be romantic or brutally painful. To do away the blues, I usually get into the extremes of other moods. This time, I watched a gruesome movie Saw 5. It comes nowhere to Saw 1, but it definitely turned my mood around.

Lets hope the weekend goes fine. And by that time I would have started my studies for FRM, a $700 affair. :D

Signing Off,
Cheers,
Sachin

Goodbye Depression, thanks for passing by

Coming out of Goldman Sachs loop was a feat in itself. This is the second time I escaped the dreaded walls of GS office. All the days I spent in training for GS interview (4 days to be precise) I remember Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption. The perseverance and the patience kept me going.

Always a kid

Time and again, I have behaved like a kid. I get excited quickly and can get over depression quickly. At times, I tend to be adamant like a kid over a thing. Sometimes, I crib over petty things as I did when I was a kid and my pencil was lost. I like to be among friends and enjoy their company. I hate foes and tell them on their face. I just can’t keep the hatred towards them to myself. I think I have not yet developed that ability. Being a kid doesn’t always hurt. I am very open. You can look my face and tell what mood I am in. This openness has won me trust and faithfulness from others. I hope I remain the same in this cruel, competitive and cynical world.

Subsiding Toothache and IPL

The last 15 days passed by struggling with the toothache and watching IPL. The fantasy cricket I was playing is over. I got 57250 points with 7396 rank. Not bad considering that I started playing late and missed about 20 matches. With the concluding ceremony of IPL, the daily dose of cricket, fakeiplplayer's blogs, cheerleaders' glimpses and fantasy cricket has ended. Now, I wonder what would I do next until the upcoming World Cup T20.

The toothache is subsiding with every passing day. I had developed a condition called "dry sockets" after the surgery. A very good link about it is
http://www.animated-teeth.com/dry-sockets/a1-dry-sockets.htm
I went to the dentist again and he induced some blood clots. The gums are still healing and I will not be able to eat paani puris and burgers for few more days. :(

Now my own IPL team

I have been busy in this IPL season. I have bought my own team and I regularly gauge the performance of the players and make necessary changes. Though, I started late, I have been catching up fast with other teams in the league. When I started, my rank was around 28000. As of today my rank is around 12000. Here is a link where you can create your own IPL team.

http://fantasygame.cricketnext.in.com/cricket_game/

The best part is that you can make unlimited number of changes. Make your team, create a league and you can play against each other.

My team's name is crazyking. You can track my team, invite me in your league and compete with me.

So much for a tooth, which is useless

After more than 2 years of sporadic toothache, I finally got rid of the wisdom tooth. It was a minor surgery lasting around 70 minutes. The dentist injected 6 syringes of anesthetic substance in my mouth followed by one each in arm and buttocks. Even after such a high dose of anesthetics, I could very well feel the drill going on in my mouth. At many occasions, my mouth was filled with my blood. After many ouches and uffs, the tooth was out. The dentist charged me 50% extra for the complicated case. Nevertheless, now when it is out, the pain has gone down - thanks to the painkillers and the antibiotics.

Wisdom tooth, as I have read is rarely used in chewing the food. It usually gives pains when there is no place in the gum for it's uproot. I spent so many days and nights with its pain, surviving on liquid diets sometimes and having painkillers for it.

After the surgery, I vowed to take a good care of my teeth and gum lest visit a dentist (besides regular checkup). To my surprise, the dentist advised me not to use mouthwash regularly. Twice in a week is fine, but not daily. She said that a regular use might tarnish the enamel and the whiteness on the teeth. An alternative for the mouthwash is to gargle with salted lukewarm water.

Search Engines and Browsers WAR

Many of us would not be amazed to know that the most widely used search engine is Google. But can u tell the market share of google? It is around 90%. Now that is monopoly. What about the traditional monopolist in the software industry Microsoft? Microsoft's Live is well below 1%. Yahoo comes second with market share of around 8%. Here is the graph for the search engines.




The war in the web browser's zone is interesting. Here, Microsoft has maintained the top slot, but its market share is declining continuously. Mozilla's Firefox popularity seems to be increasing. Very recently, Microsoft has launched Internet Explorer 8, but it has very few takers. I am sure that Microsoft will be able to maintain its lead in browser domain mainly because of its dominance in OS battlefield. IE comes pre-installed with Windows, even when the version is pirated. Try uninstalling IE from Vista and if you succeed, let me know.

Am I a smuggler?

I just thought about it while reading a newspaper article. On trips to US, I have brought many cameras back for my friends, relatives and myself. For all these cameras (4 of them), I did not pay any duties. One of them was very expensive ( $1300). I have been to US 4 times and I am aware that I can bring one camera for my personal use per trip. So technically, I did not break any rule. Still, I felt the guilt of bending one. Now you people tell me - Was I wrong not to pay any custom duties?

Resurrection of my blog 1

I am very very sorry for a really long gap in posting on my blog. A lot of things have happened in this gap of 7 months:

• A trip to US - This one was memorable. I was working with one of the Directors of Wachovia. Saw some biggies falling like Lehman Brothers, Merill Lynch, AIG, etc. Visited Smoky Mountains, Philadelphia, Dallas.
• Marriage - I got married to Madhura on 29th November. The marriage took place in Bhopal and Pune. The function was very long. It lasted 7 days. :) I created few webpages for the marriage. I will post the URL and the snaps soon.
• I moved to a new place which is a 2BHK apartment.
  
• I have bought PS2 slim version.
• I went to Kodaikanal on a long weekend.
• I saw AeroShow in Bangalore on 14th Feb, Valentine's Day. I saw some of the most wonderful flying machines like Sukhoi, F-16, Apache, etc.
• I watched some good movies like Slumdog Millionaire, Billu, Malena

I now promise you that I would regularly post on this blog.