Ah! Google

And lo! they added themes in gmail. So, you may say whats the big deal with themes? Well, I had the tree theme, and it changes based on the weather. Its rainy outside today and its rainy on my gmail. If its sunshine, its sunshine on the theme. Its pretty impressive.

Good job guys.

My blog gets famous!

Students in Appstate are reimplementing my blog website using Zope! WOW

Update:
I didn't know when S posted this post. It's just one student and that hapens to be none other than S. Sick, S, really slick , think I must change my pwd

Changes

And I was able to make some changes to my new blog as well. One the label cloud, thanks phydeaux3 the other the blockquote. I liked the blockquote that I had in my old blog template

this is how my new blockquote looks like. see its Likable.

At least I like it. Good things.
Time to sleep. Weekend over.

S for Swimmer

When I was a kid, I used to go to the public swimming pool in our city. There we used to have two sections, Non-Swimmers and Swimmers. The Non-Swimmers Section was 5 ft deep max, small, crowded, lots of irritating kids grabbing you as they swim with their floats on. The Swimmers section on the other hand, started with 7 ft deep water and went to 21 feet deep, was huge, less crowded, with 3 levels of diving boards, a side jump board, it was the perfect heaven for a prankster kid like me.

But there was one little deewar ka wall between the Swimmers Section and Me. The S (- for Swimmer), with a round sun like circle around the S, stamp on my swimming pass was missing. I was the Amul Chocolate ad in terms of swimming. Ready to Swim but not fit to be in the Swimmers Section.

Well it so happens that to get the awesomest of the awesome stamp on pass, I would have to lap 10 laps of this huge, uncrowded section. Thats 10 50 meter laps, I dont know about you, but a kid in the 4th - 6th grade age, that was a lot for me. So there I was, sulking in the 5 ft deep Non-Swimmers Section. Oh in case you think why couldnt I just sneak in the other side, I tried that a couple of times, but there was a jerk of an instructor who knew I wasnt supposed to be there. That could be another post in itself.

Well, I figured a trick to all this, I let my membership end and didnt renew it for a month. And then I went back for a new membership. What that did towards me getting the awesomest of the awesome S stamp was that for a new membership you just needed to lap 2 laps around the huge pool and lo! you are a swimmer. So I did just that. And as a sweet payback, it was the khadoos instructor who had to approve that S on my new pass.

Well, if I had some persistance, today I wouldnt have been beaten to death when I tried to lap 22 laps around a similar 50 meter pool. It was like I could almost see that instructor laughing at me as I was on my own personal victory lap number 22, struggling to keep my head above water, and splashing water just like two hippos mating in the water. But I did it. I lapped not once but twice the entire course to get the S- for swimmers stamp on my pass. about 10- 15 years late, but I did it. In you face mr. khadoos rayban instructor. I am a swimmer today. Twice officiated.

GCOMWNTBCWWG

That would now be the tag that I would be using for a personal mission.

Gaining control over my weight, not to be confused with weight gain.

I am a member of this website sparkpeople.com which provides tools to control your weight. I am loving it so far. Next week should see a lot of improvement in me and hopefully that elusive 200 lb mark would for once and ever be achieved and maintained. So there you have it. Next time you see that tag, this is what it means.

In search of a car

My new thing since monday has been to search for a car. Well we need the 2nd car to help the commute for S, so the 2nd car has to be a cheap car that I can drive for the 4 mile commute to work and pass on the better car to S while she commutes the longer distance over the weekend. It makes sense since the better car would have zero chances of a breakdown in the middle of redneck no-where. 

So here we go, looking for a used car. 

Time to sleep.

Congratulations America!

CA M.R. Venkatesh

My friend saw this video and asked me to take a look at it. Its a whole one hour long video where Mr. M.R. Venkatesh (let me call him CA) talks about "Globalization/Globalisation" (shoot even Mozilla is recommending the American spelling).

His take on it is this: the US debt is huge (nowadays a known fact) but the US is a consuming economy and Asian economies are Saving economies. He mentions some really cool facts such as the fact that on a average every 1 unit of currency earned by an Asian and hence the Asian governments, they save about 20% of it. Whereas every $1 earned by the US, it spends $1.07.

He got almost everything right, and he totally convinced me with his agenda except for his last observation. With a Swadeshi movement background and a India bias that we as Indians always have to an extent, he mentions, that the Indian economy will save because of the Indian housewife.

Sir, times are-a-changing, the Indian wife exists, but in rural India, the cities portrait a different view. Independent woman, single moms, etc are all concepts that you can greatly see in the cities of India. But thats not my point. It is not the institution of family that will save an economy. It is the importance of the domestic market that relies on the domestic product at the same time exporting some product out.

That will save economies. The 20th century to an extent saw some biased economies of scale, but the truth was one commodity was produced in one nation and traded for a different commodity with another nation. But slowly that has changed. UK, is about 80 - 95 % reliant on imports for all needs and necessities. This is where you start going wrong. Service Industry in India, Manufacturing Unit in China, Sales unit in US, Banking Unit in UK. Do you see something wrong here? We are headed in a direction where if you want to do a particular type of job you may want to change the country you live in. So if China produces and US buys, what does US do to provide money to buy what China sells?

I feel that its complicated, yet, at the cost of sounding conservative, I feel, that each nation should have its balance of jobs. Each nation should have its riches and its poor. And the world will have Rich and Poor economies. Because that is the balance. If we dont have extremes and are all at par, there wont be any motivation, innovation, excellence, aspiration,determination and all such -ations. No nation is by choice a poor or a rich nation, each nation that understands the rules, plays the game, plays it smart and excels will be a rich nation. And boy I can start off bashing any Indian with an Indian-Pride to a point that he admits, we as a nation havent yet figured it out. Well, enough of this, I need to get to my sleep. But if you have time and want to listen to some facts, watch his video. Do keep an open mind and dont be biased in a total agreement/disagreement attitude.

I do get a lot of time over the weekends.

Seinfeld

So what do you do when you get your hour back? So I dig up my collection of Seinfeld and watch a couple of episodes. Its always a great way to relax. soothing .. relaxing .. sleeping .. yah .. nothing like the weekend.

Its closer!!

CNN has an election calculator, this is how I feel its going to look like.  There are some states here that the calculator will not allow me to change the degree by which a candidate will win, For eg. NC will be a close call, it would be a democratic win, even though my picture says republican, but thats becasue i feel it would be close in NC. The youth in the city settings of NC will elect BO, but the rural settings of NC will still vie for JM, the surprising statistics here is that the number of youth in the cities going to vote is almost equal to the rest of the population in the state. Thats the clincher. 

I dont mind biting my words, later on if BO loses. And thats kind of explained in previous post. But, JM is doing a hell lot of good job saying what the other candidate does not do well, but not saying what he will do.

I feel thats wrong. The republican campaign is all about how Barack Obama is not the right candidate, but they fail to say what they will do to change the current situation. 

Yes you Mr. Senator John McCain, how do you suggest that with your experience you will calm the storm? What is your plan? What are you planning to do? Besides saying that BO is not tested? What are you talking about, have you previously been the president before? I didnt think so. You are just the same, untested.

Get a plan, show how you can change the situation, show what you can do for the poor, show how you can help the situation. Thats what people need to know. Not that Barack Obama is untested.

You may ask why am I so fired up? Well cause, I have a family to support, I have a job to keep, I cant be at peace in this economic situation and keep my bank account in a bank that is already merging with a second bank. 

I remember 2 months back I read, that the economy has not yet hit rock bottom, that one big major bank will close, and then things will stabilize. Well, 5-6 banks have closed. 5-6 banks around the world have government help. 1 economy (Iceland) crashed. 5-6 governments across the world are pumping money in the banks, reducing rates and god knows what else. Wheres the bottom to all this? When do you say we have hit the bottom, and from here on no matter what happens this stays, and we can just improve?

Thats why I'm so fired up. I dont think this one man can change the world, for that matter the US. But then the others have all huddled up and been doing the same since the last 8 years, so definitely change is needed and will be accepted.