professionals and personal life

Nike has finally started using Kobe in its ads. kobe now has his own logo. check out NikeBasketball.com for more details. I'm eagerly waiting for the tv ads :)

just when I was hoping to catch on nike's ads sporting kobe, he was accused of raping a teenager. the case is now closed and nobody except the two know what really happened. but a lot of people went to the extent of even hating him for that. I always loved his game ... especially the performances he gave right after returning from the court room, every time. they were a real treat for fans like me.

I wonder why people attach so much to sports persons. we should just learn to like what they do on field and not off field. many adore these sports persons as role models. but they forget the fact that these guys are professionals too. they have a heart of their own and a family to feed as well.

this is similar to what happened with Azhar in India. many disliked him when he ditched his wife and married sangeetha bijlani. why? we all came to know him only as Azhar the cricketer and not as Azhar the husband of his wife (sorry I don't know her name :) )

cursing

most of curse atleast once a day. generally its out of anger or disappointment, or even happiness :) and when we do, we typically curse a person as such, or go one generation upwards. then the target would be the cursee's parents :)

but thats all the languages has to offer us. knowing tamil, english, and hindi to some extent, I always used to wonder if there is any language that has words to go further up :) just for a change.
and yes there is. its arabic guys, apparently they go even 7 generations deep :)

interestingly, hebrew speaking people curse a lot in arabic. now thats what I call a healthy influence :)

world tour

I wanna go on a one yr vacation ... touring the entire world :) guess its never going to happen, not even in my wildest dreams :) atleast a two month vacation to europe ... huh, even that doesn't look optimistic.

we don't have the time now, but when we do have it, we'd be too old to enjoy the way we want it. and on top of it you need to take along ur chintu and pintu as well (read kids) :)

wish I atleast get to work in different countries for every 2-3 yrs :) I'm willing to serve as an Indian ambassador for various countries ... anyone hearing :)

adult stuff and rating

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a popular video game here, gets an adults only rating for sexually explicit content. not just sexual content, but many of these games are gross and extremely violent as well. so is it OK to have violence and drugs in these games and tons of kids playing them? what kind of rating system is this?

I wonder if our Indian movies have a decent rating system at all. take the movie "Anniyan" for example. for all those gory killing scenes, it should have been given a double A. in my opinion kids below 10 shouldn't be allowed to watch this movie.

thanks to Anniyan, lot of people are now interested in Garuda Puranam, for all the wrong reasons. Garuda has much more significance, probably the most ... what to say.

snippets from my trip

this was the first time I took Air India. contrary to all the negative publicity, I had a good experience. their service was excellent and it was a comfortable journey. they could improve on two aspects though - start on time (this one is on their list from time immemorial I guess) and buy new flights (think they just placed a few orders).

frankfurt airport is the crappiest i've ever been to. their transit lounge is extremely small and isn't suited for even a few hrs of wait. on the other hand, bombay's transit hall was perfect. they even had bed-like easy chairs.

got to see President Kalam in coimbatore. he was on a vist and since cbe is a small town, almost all of us had a chance to see his motorcade and Dr. Kalam was waving from his car. he even visited saibaba colony (our neighborhood) for a dinner at his friend's place. inspired on seeing him, I'm now reading his "Wings of Fire" :) :)

and dental costs in India aren't that cheap. I found it cheaper in the US with an insurance than to have anything done over there. great profession to be a dentist :)

I don't want to bore you with more :)

cousins galore :)

i'm sure most of you would have atleast 10 cousins. I have about 31 :) yes THIRTY ONE. people in my office disappeared into a state of shock when they heard it for the first time. they asked me how it was possible, as if I were the one responsible for all this :)

for long I thought I held the record for max no. of cousins among the people in our company ... well today I'm shocked. A person in our company has 90 cousins ... yes NINETY :) all from her mom's side. she apparently has 18 siblings.

p.s: cousins here refers to immediate cousins :)

pongal vadai for breakfast :)

though I didn't eat a lot this time, I still managed to have a good breakfast everyday (unlike the usual cup of milk I have here). inspite of the growing coffee shops and other western eat-outs, Annapoorna in coimbatore still commands the same respect. anytime of the day it was jam packed and I had to wait for a table :) but it was definitely worth it for their stuff is heavenly :)

I'm still in the India mood and yesterday morning I was just thinking of stopping by a nearest annapoorna for a pongal and vadai for breakfast. only moments later I relaised that the nearest one is atleast 10000 miles away :)

why no kate or karen :)

"thats impressive. being in the US for 5 yrs, you still chose to marry an Indian girl" - invariably everyone told me this back home. and I seriously didn't know whether to cry or laugh. thanks to our stupid Indian movies, most of the people have a biased opinion when it comes to people returning from abroad.

now forget how I am when it comes to relationships ... in my opinion human emotions are more or less the same everywhere. it doesn't become suddenly easy to impress an american girl and nor do every girl just fall flat for Indian men :) its purely personal. nobody is God here :)

me back !!!

so finally back after a memorable trip to India. didn't get married but got a step closer :) visited chennai, trichy and bangalore ... liked bangalore a lot primarily for its weather. it rained in chennai last week, but only made things worse.

since this was a special trip for me, I never got to do any standard Indian stuff ... like watching a lot of movies and eating a lot too. managed some here and there, but by and large I ended up shedding some weight :) watched Anniyan, thought it was one of the worst movies of the yr. ennikku dhaan shankar vidhyasama yosippano.

will keep posting from now on, thanks for all your comments and wishes :)