:: On a positive note... ::

There comes a time when you must stand alone....

You must feel confident enough within yourself to follow your own dreams....

You must be willing to make sacrifices....

You must be capable of changing and rearranging your priorities so that your final goal can be achieved....

Sometimes, familiarity and comfort need to be challenged....

There are times when you must take a few extra chances and create your own realities....

Be strong enough to at least try to make your life better.Be confident enough that you won't settle for a compromise just to get by....

Appreciate yourself by allowing yourself the opportunities to grow, develop, and find your true sense of purpose in this life....


Don't stand in someone else's shadow when it's your sunlight that should lead the way!!

:: Navarathri Celebrations and My Golu 2008 ::

Navarathri - the nine sacred nights is one of the most celebrated festivals of India.

And its one of my favourite too :)

This begins from the first day (Pradhamai) after Amavasya in the month of Purattasi as it is known in Tamil. This nine days festival is essentially celebrated to worship Devi and to commemorate the victory of good over evil, i.e bringing to an end the atrocities of Asuras like Mahishasuran, Shumban, Nishumban, Madhukaidapan, Thumralochanan and Rakthabheejan.

During Navrathri Devi is worshipped in the form of Sri Durga for the first three days, as Sri Lakshmi for the second three days and as Sri Saraswati for the next three days.

The best part of navarathri is Kolu/Golu.

Golu is basically adorned with dolls - predominantly with that of the Gods and Goddesses depicting mythology.

This year the Navarathri beginned at Mahalaya (sept 30th) and ended at Vijayadasmi (Oct 08th)

So here is the kolu at our home :)

:: Belated Bday Wishes ::

My Blog has completed a year successfully - Its one year old now :)

In this one year it has got many new friends and has grown quite intelligent smart and cute.

Thanks to each one of them for all da love and support..!!!

:: Thot 4 da we(e/a)k ::

If you want something you never had, you have to do something you have never done…!!!

:: BigFlix... No popcorn pleasure...!!!! ::

I was extremely happy when Reliance started BigFlix in india coz im a great movie freak...

i subscribed to Bigflix.com 2 months ago.. with Plan 1 DVD at a time , The service has been good for the entire first month, just until last week...


when i put a request to pickup DVD i was expecting the delivery guy to come on the same day (thats how it was working for the past one month) but there was no response...

i waited for more than a week.. called them over phone n finally decided to send a complaint mail stating that if the issue is not addressed within 24 hrs i would cancel my subscription... to my surprise the bigflix guys came within 2 hrs for picking up my DVD not once but twice :)

but again i thot i would get some DVD... But what happened was the delivery guy told me that “ we don’t have any delivery for you coz there are no titles available in your queue so its just pick up today”

so again i had to send a mail.. to which the guys appeared in the same usual manner.. in 2 hrs.. bringing a DVD which was the last title in my queue of 28 DVD's (according to BigFlix they claim that the first 5 titles in your queue will be delivered first based on your plan) its highly unlikely that out of 28 movies in my Queue all would be unavailable at the same Time...!!!!

This is very bad and highly unprofessional, if i have 28 movies in my queue i expect prompt delivery of any one of those DVD's... its something BigFlix have to look into as they have just started their business.... they shud understand that customer satisfaction is very important....

The following was an appeared in Indian Express on Sunday, June 29, 2008 under the name

No Popcorn Pleasure

Renting movies from Big Flix has its good and bad moments THERE was a time when DVD players were expensive and not all of us had them in our homes. But the mass production factories in South Korea have brought down the prices. My first DVD Player in 2000 cost me Rs 23,000, and now I can buy a branded player for under Rs 3,000. So the problem isn’t the player now, the DVDs are. The movies you want to watch are still cost Rs 299+ and this makes the movie rental business interesting. Seventymm took the lead, then came in guys like Moviemart, and now big brother Reliance has entered the business with Big Flix.

Big Flix is spending millions on advertising, and it appeared a bargain to be able to rent movies unlimited for unlimited time at just Rs 299 a month. A month ago, I took the bait. It took me less than two minutes to sign up on http://www.bigflix.com/. I was surprised to see that contrary to their ads, they had a limited number of regional language films, but for those whose basic choices will be English and Hindi films, they have enough. They offer the option of renting out 1, 2 or 3 discs at a time.

In the FAQ section, I learnt I needed a wishlist of at least 25 titles to ensure timely delivery. I opted for some 30-odd titles and waited for my movies to arrive. I had registered on a Saturday and presumed I wouldn’t hear from anybody till Monday. But Sunday brought a surprise visitor who came armed with two titles from my selection. However, he demanded that I hand over two movies I had borrowed. I informed him I was a new member and that I did not have any Big Flix items in my possesion, but he would have none of it. A ring to their call center on Monday (no responses on Sunday) ironed things out, and I was told this would not recur.

But things went wrong after that with confusion over titles delivered, about the number of discs I was entitled to borrow at a time and other hassles that left me aghast at the ineptness of the whole operation. Even after sending an email to customer care (an automatic ticket number was allocated and I was assured my complaint would be looked into), two weeks down the line, the discs don’t arrive on time, no one from customer care answers and movies automatically go into a pick up request.

I kept a movie for more than five days to see if I could hang on to it for as long as I wanted. I got a courteous SMS reminder reminding me of my misdemeanour and asking me to arrange a pick up.

Here is the score sheet

Customer Service: Worst possible

Movie listing: Good. Claims 15,000 titles.

Staff: Courteous generally, but most of them are ex-courier boys so some can be off-putting.

Presentation: The movies come packed in their original boxes. Some discs never played on my players due to a lot of scratches.

Delivery: No guarantees, erratic.

Pros: Big Flix has stores across the country, so you can always go there and pick up movies or return them easily. Online site could have been better, but it is improving.

Cons: If you want to watch a specific movie on a specific day, you are good either buying it or watching it on Video on Demand on DTH or renting it from the local DVD fellow. Cost: Attractive

:: Why i started hating my Iphone::

I guess Iphone is one among the most over rated phones on earth...!!!


I was actually tempted to buy this crap when i was in California...
With a price margin of $399+tax n beautiful black box cover i was very much thrilled when i first bought this phone...



when i came back to India, i had hell out of a time to unlock this phone... where ppl demanded 3000 bucks for just unlocking (thank God and Sujeet.. i din pay even a single penny for that)



Finally after 4 months of my purchase i successfully unlocked iphone on April 3rd... i have been using it for 3 plus months till now...

IM EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED BY THIS PHONE.....!!!!!

lemme list out da reasons which made me hate this phone like mad...

First n foremost... i cannot forward a SMS message (wat a crap it is...!!!) n there is no MMS too...!!!

Secondly no blue tooth... with the sickening 2MP camera.. u can transfer your photos only through your PC or through email... even while sending your snaps thru email you can send only one at a time...

everytime you need to add new songs or videos you need to take a backup of the original list (thats another heck of a work) and then sync your phone with iTunes (remember only iTunes.. this will not work with ay other softwares)... so by the time you add a song to your phone you wud have wasted half of your day...!!!!

Now the next big thing... you cannot choose ur fav song as ringtone... either you need to buy (at a cost of 99 cents) them thru itunes (i wonder do we get any tamil or other Indian regional songs in itunes)

There’s no way to cut, copy, or paste text!

No video recording, not even a low quality one. You can only take pictures with the 2 megapixel camera, but not video recording.... its quite a bummer...!!!

Poor external sound quality... esp the inbuilt ringtones sucks to the core....

Contact groups can't be emailed as contact lists.....

No removable battery.... n the battery life sucks a life time...

The glass touch screen... u drop it down accidentally.. ur gone... u will have spend rest of ur life with a cracked screen....!!!

It lacks proper support for Flash websites....

You can not save documents on it.. documents can only be viewed as attachments when they’re sent to your e-mail address....

No Inbuilt GAMES.... u need to install third party games (highly risky)

Its “quick list” dialing sucks compared to traditional speed dialing, which it lacks....

Heat issues... the iPhone can get very hot when it is in use.... n believe me it hurts my ears badly.... n its bulky too...

For WiFi.. i had to spend nearly 3000 bucks for my airtel router connection....

n last but not the least.. my phone s hanging down for the past 2 weeks.. n it behaves in a unusual way at times like there is no life no display n nothing... quite a back fall...



Whatever be the case i loved this phone initially when i started using it... but now after three months im quite unhappy with its performance n rather goin back to my old phone SE W810i...



I have used SE, Nokia, Samsung, LG n Motorola... this is the first time im changing my phone in jest a short time span of 3 months...



IM EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED BY THIS PHONE.....!!!!!

:: The 3 mistakes of my life.... ::

One more excellent work by CB... a very gud book... worth reading...

for a gist of it click here....