Seven months later...

I'm still here. Although in these past seven months, I have done much. Now I say that in all modesty, but believe me when I say that I've been no couch potato. Let's see, I got certified by Microsoft, changed jobs, lost 5 pounds, got rid of the bespectacled look of 17 years for a new pair of contact lenses and moved to a new city.

Yet life is the same. O.K , so now I take I-526 for 12 miles to work instead of GA 400. I work in the software industry when back then it was pulp and paper and yeah I get up 30 minutes earlier than before because my freaking contact lenses take forever to wear.

This post is not another bewailment and I'm not looking for sympathy, although if you are a pretty girl, it wouldn't hurt if you leave your phone number. But seriously, how come climbing the corporate ladder is loosing it's appeal so early? Are life's hidden treasures premanently stashed away? It's sad that to most people, the $9.50 plus taxes they pay at the Cineplex becomes their only means to witness anything extraordinary.

I once read in a friend's journal entry that life isn't about breathing everyday but about those days that take your breath away. I think that's enough said....

Goodnight y'all.

I believe Hollywood is back

I just saw the new Martin Scorsese film and I must say I am speechless. That’s why I am writing. Let me tell you something about myself. I am a movie aficionado and for me the last few weeks have been drought season. After Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby , nothing else caught my eye until last week, when I watched the trailer of The Departed. A stellar cast, a brilliant director…I made a quick note to not miss this one.

As I grew up in India, watching in awe, the “English movies”, I wondered about the genius minds behind the scripts, the special effects and the actors themselves. How do they do what we can only imagine to emulate? Saving Private Ryan showed me why war is not what the world needs. Casino walks you through the lives of gangsters. Training Day threw light on corruption in the L.A.P.D. I feel The Departed is something like that. This post isn’t going to be a spoiler and so I’m only going to say the one thing you may already know. It’s an action thriller. For some reason the “Action Thriller” genre has been abused lately. If the screenplay doesn’t make you swear more than a couple of times, it falls short of being a thriller. However, this one is different.

When you are watching a movie, and you realize the lighting is different, the background score is overwhelming or there's not a lot of makeup, you know the director has something up his sleeve. In The Departed there are no heroes, no special FBI agents who pull out their guns every five minutes and yet survive till the end and walk away with the beautiful marine biologist or pro bono lawyer they met somewhere in first 20 minutes. Instead at the end, it will make you raise your eyebrows to your friend as they put the lights back on.

Looks like I finally got some rain.

I'm lovin it!

It’s Friday and I don’t feel like working. That led me to the WWW and I stumbled upon this pretty ad about the Sansa media player. It’s an MP3 player. It’s the brainchild of SanDisk, and they got an idea for a mascot that I believe will be a sleeper hit.

It’s a furry little black creature christened Sansa, the Lil’ Monsta. It’s a HE by the way. You can check him out at http://www.lilmonsta.com/index.php. They’ve got all kinds of cool stuff about his glamour shots (gallery), his vital stats (product specs) and where one can find him.

I always like to analyze the psychological reasons behind most ads. What drives them to make such an ad? You see, it’s an MP3 player and when you think MP3, you think iPod. Apple has an 82 percent market share and Microsoft is coming out with the Zune. So what does some company like SanDisk do when they roll out their MP3 player. They get their best minds in the marketing division to create the Lil’ Monsta.

And that’s what got me thinking about the technology industry. Behind our Lil’ Monsta, is an MP3 player which is a consumer product, just like the TMX Elmo, or the Xbox 360. And like every other consumer product ever made, it is made for one purpose alone, to drive the consumer to spend dollars on buying it, and ultimately generate more revenue/ profits for the manufacturer.

To do that successfully, you need a product that is solid in its features and reliable. You need technologists and engineers to work on everything from the plastic that houses the product to the processors that bring it to life. You need artists to design the shape, color, texture and feel of it. You also need managers who work on project management and Six Sigma to ensure the delivery of the product. I’m talking about highly trained, smart people racking their brains to do a good job. Then you have CEOs talking passionately about how this is the next big thing for the company and how it’s going to change their lives.

To me this is fascinating because there’s so much that happens behind the scenes to get you and me to spend that $139.99 plus taxes at the mall. Now the best part is, you and I can crash their big party, by doing one little thing. Don’t buy it.

And there in lies the challenge.