...shoOOonya...

2010 proved to be a year full of changes for me. Life changing changes … Marriage in May Change of Company … From Mahindra Satyam to Fujitsu Consulting … in August Change of Role … From a Consultant to a Lead … where I am leading the Business Transformation / Change Mgmt Competency and even got the role of a Manager. Change of location ... Back to Dubai in November after spending almost exactly 11 months in Mumbai… 2010 was a year of reading … lots of reading. I completed 46 books (includes 8 very short stories by Matthew Reilly, counted as 1 book) during the year. I plan to continue my reading spree in 2011 although I might restrict to select authors and more of short stories rather than 300-500 page novels unless something really exciting and unputdownable comes my way :) Saw quite a few movies in the theatre. I saw 28 in total, including the last movie of the year which I saw in Dubai. Guess the score might drop in 2011 ... since every movie outing is quite an expense i...

  1. Buried Fire by Jonathan Stroud     I started reading this one in November on the way to Dubai. I did some Airport reading and a little bit of flight reading before I got distracted by the Angelina Jolie's Hollywood flick 'Salt' playing on the in-flight entertainment system. Could not read much but just got started. Continued reading in Dubai but the reading was rather slow since the initial days were busy and travel time was short & busy. Hence I was not able to complete the book in November and it overflowed into December. It was an interesting read no doubt but not something that I couldn't put down. It was not something that I could read in spite of distractions. I was easily distracted and it did not really hold my attention. For almost half the book, the story did not seem to move at all at times. It is like a very slow narration of events unfolding over a span of a few days. The story moved slowly and I had trouble completing the book. This book ...

  Yeah Yeah … only one movie this month In fact, this will be the first movie in Dubai after coming here this year. Saw this one at the Sahara Mall which is actually in Sharjah … actually on the Sharjah side of Dubai-Sharjah border … about 10 minutes walking distance from my hotel which is in Dubai :) I actually wanted to catch Band Baaja Baarat but it was no longer screening at this theatre and going to other theatre to catch it was inconvenient. So ended up wasting my money on TMK. Tees Maar Khan A good one but a disappointment nevertheless I was disappointed because I had pretty high expectations from Farah Khan. Om Shanti Om (OSO) and Main Hoon Na (MHN) were far better creations from Farah Khan. The amount of planning and creative brainstorming which must have gone into creating those movies was pretty much visible. TMK seemed like it was completed in haste with tight deadlines. The humor quotient was low. You just cant leave the humor to Akshay. We have seen his disas...

  Just yesterday I posted about rains in Sharjah and my wish was answered today !! The ground was wet in Sharjah when we came to office in the morning and I felt that I missed the rains again. BUT … it began to rain soon and I actually went out and enjoyed the drizzle !! Oh the wonderful feeling of rains … WOW !! I just love it ..  

It rained in Sharjah today early morning .... I missed it ...   Hope it rains again soon in Sharjah and Dubai and I am there when and where it does ...

  A whole lot of Rajinikanth jokes keep circulating and with every new release, there is another round of re-circulation and some new ones popping up too. Recently received an email forward with fresh ones and I really couldn't stop smiling / giggling / laughing at them. I just couldn't resist posting them her … He truly is The Boss … actually he is THE BIG BOSS !!   1.   Once a big stone obstructed Rajini's way. He kicked high in sky and now it is so called . . . The MOON   2.   Once when shooting on a beach in Tamil Nadu, Rajinikanth kicked a stone.. Now that stone is known as . . . SRI LANKA   3.   Rajinikanth participated in 100 meter race and obviously he came first... But Einstein died after watching that... Because ... . . . LIGHT came second...   4. Once Rajinikanth participated in Moto GP Bike race...... . . Don't even try to guess what happened . . . Rajinikanth won d race on neutral gear!     5.   Rajinikanth doesn...

I started visiting the GYM recently and began with 10 minutes on the Treadmill.   Yesterday I saw a guy there and asked him if he was a gym Instructor ... he said Yes.   I told him about the tyre around my stomach and askled him for specific exercises targetting the tyre.   He showed me 2 of them on day 1.   So now I am gonna try and reduce my tummy   lets see how it goes ..,

1. Golmaal 3   Delivered as promised. This one was again a riot of colors and laughter. And of course, not to forget the numerous cars exploding on the screen. Don't even think about the story line etc. Ignore it and enjoy the movie minute by minute. I have written about the Golmaal brand of movies earlier and it would be mere repetition top say anything more here.   2. Action Replay   This one was an interesting one. I won't say I liked it. I won't say I hated it. It sure reminded me of the movie 'Back to the Future' where the 'hero' has to unite his father and mother after he accidentally becomes the reason they may never meet / marry. Bcoz his mother is developing a crush for 'him'. Action Replay seems to have lifted a similar concept but bollywood'ized it. The movie was colorful. And Akshay was showing off the styles and dressing sense of the 70's/80's …BUT what about Aishwarya. She looked very much from the 21st centur...

1. Hover Car Racer by Matthew Reilly   Yet another fast paced book by Matthew Reilly. The book was about racing and hence speed was an inherent factor. Surprisingly the book was not as fast-paced as his other novels. The book had its fair share of twists and turns (figuratively as well as literally) with the usual turning points spread across the book.     Just like it happens to Jack West Jr. or Scarecrow or any other lead characters of MR, Jason Chaser (lead character of this book) also goes through a near-death experience where we are given a feel for a few moments that the Hero has perished and there was no way he could have survived, although MR fans know that the hero survived and are actually wondering how did MR manage it this time.   A very interesting read over all and now that I have exhausted all of MR literature … I am like .. Now What? MR has already spoiled the genre (this is something we keep saying to each other time and again – me and my best Friend). Any th...

  I have begun visiting the Gym again in my hotel in Dubai. Since I have just begun after a long gap, I am restricting myself to only 10 minutes of treadmill walk.   Its a start.   I might give GM Diet another shot in coming weeks / months.   I have done both of the above in Dubai earlier (last year) ... lets see how it goes this time around ...

Well Well Well … I missed the century mark once again.    Just like last year when I missed my 200 th post and instead made Post No.204   I was just looking at my score this year in terms of blogging and I realized that there have been quite a few. A count of all posts since inception and I realized I crossed 300 mark this month.

Do you judge a book by its cover? I mean the cover design. I do. In fact, I read the title from the spine of the book and then if it interests me, I pick up the book, have a glance at the front cover for art work etc and immediately flip the book and read the back cover which gives a snapshot of the books storyline. If it interests me, I take it. If it doesn't, I leave it. Reminds me of a time in my school days when I would judge the book by the cover and the title alone :) That's how I picked up my first of Sherlock Holmes (The Hound of Baskerville) as well the 3 investigator series. The first thing that struck me about the Three Investigators series was the title of the books and the cover art graphics. They had extremely interesting titles and they were the primary reason why I picked up those books in the first place. A bit of googling gave me a list of all the 3I titles. I am putting down the entire list … highlighting (bold font) the ones I find most interesting. ...

ROBOT   This one was a must see. A Rajani movie released in Hindi is definately a must see. I had even seen the non-Hindi version of 'Sivaji - the Boss' before the TV channels started telecasting the hindi dubbed version.   ROBOT is a technologically superior movie (as compared to any other bollywood/Tollywood movie ever made). It was also an interesting movie to watch. Entertainer.   The final climax sequence of 100'sof Rajani's on screen was definately a delight for the hard core Rajani fans who saw him in double-role throughout the movie and had 100's of him on screen in the climax. Some one said "It doesn's get bigger / better than this"      Khichadi - The Movie   I had seen a few episodes of Khichdi on TV a long time back and it seemed like a light comedy. Senseless but still it seemed better than all the idiotic K-serials and red-saree clad jewellery-decked scheming women on the screen. It was a welcome relief from all the cry-...

  1. Scarecrow by Matthew Reilly   It has been quite some time since I read a Matthew Reilly. So as soon as I got my hands on a MR novel, I scheduled it up next. Scarecrow is a Schofield series novel not a Jack West Jr. one. Scarecrow novels are action packed adventure with modern technology weaponry. No myths or legends here. No ancient sites & unbelievable mythological stories here. There are secrets but not of the ancient types. The two characters have different genres although both thrive on nail-biting thrill. Having the expectations set right is important or else there is disappointment even if the book is good.   I have read Ice Station & Area 7 from the Scarecrow series and it was like a reading an action sequence out of a movie. I expected Scarecrow to be nothing but pure unadulterated action. It only turned out better.   The action was not only fast paced but uninterrupted. MR puts tight deadlines / timelines to his stories and a lot of action is pa...

  Just a few days I wrote about my international trips and the counter went up again. I travelled to Muscat, Oman and came back on 3 rd Dec. One more international trip and 2 immigration stamps get added to the tally. And yes, I should mention here that this trip was My Shortest international Trip till date.    The sector was Sharjah (UAE) - Muscat (Oman) - Sharjah (UAE) 6.00 - take off from Sharjah 8.08 - landing at Sharjah So in a matter of 2 hours … I completed an entire trip :) (Considering the air-travel) I left my hotel in Dubai around 3.30 PM and went to Sharjah Airport … and by 9:00 PM I was back in the hotel. The whole journey was like a whirlwind. I was carrying my laptop and a book to read.   At Sharjah airport, the wait was long since I reached pretty much in advance. Funny thing was that there was a Mumbai bound plane at the same gate from where my Muscat bound plane was t take-off.   Every time they announced for people to board the plane, I felt like doin...