“Eighty heads of state and government will grace the Beijing Olympics in August but PM Manmohan Singh will not be among them.” [link]
Instead, the Chinese people, being as smart as they are, have invited the real ruler of India. The Madam. They did not invite the prime minister or the president, but the mere head of congress party.
Small mercy though, that madam is not going to go because of her busy schedule. Some relief!
And we used to think that the times of kingmakers were gone. What does this say about the state of the Indian democracy?
Its a shame that this government may fall for a progressive step that they wanted to take. We just hope that the next elections produce a stable government, and our country gets over the Gandhis for good.
You may notice a new logo on this blog saying ‘u comment i follow’. Essentially, this is a way of giving back to you readers. If you comment on your site, the link to your blogs will credited by way of search engine/technorati indexing.
By default, wordpress adds the rel=”nofollow” tag to all commentor’s (commentator?) links. This instructs search engines to not follow this link while indexing this page. This is supposed to help reduce search engine and comment spam.
But the efficacy of this attribute is dubious:
“Link spammers will continue to spam everyone to reach the sites that do not use rel=”nofollow” [link]
“Of course it didn’t deter spammers at all. And people who comment properly and regularly on your blog weren’t getting as much value as they could from doing so.” [link]
“Worse, nofollow has another, more pernicious effect, which is that it reduces the value of legitimate comments.” [link]
So here’s my experiment.
I have taken this attribute off my blog as a little token of appreciation to you guys. If i start getting a lot of spam, i might make this a little more strict, but till then, you comment i follow.
“Russell your show was mind blasting. Mmmind Blaasting. Not mind blowing…anything can blow the mind. You just blasted the mind”
Russell Peters, talking about Indians complimenting him after shows.
The venue was the Borgata at Atlantic City, where the Amreekandesi family spent their weekend. We were going to to the Vegas of the East coast as it is, and were pleasantly surprised to find Russell Peters performing this weekend. Me and the missus managed to get prime seats very near the stage.
Close enough, but not too close, if you know what i mean!
Russell Peters and Friends, they called it. Mr Peters and some other stand up comics performed over a couple of hours, and at one point my stomach actually hurt from all the laughing.
First though, for those who don’t know what i am talking about, Russell Peters is probably the most famous south-east Asian stand up comic. You can watch some videos of his earlier performances here and here.
Back to this show. The thing about Russell Peters is that most of his jokes are on race. The others are about sex. Sensitive people will likely not like him.
The Rockefeller Center is one of the tallest buildings in Newyork standing tall at 872 feet. A place where you can gain a real perspective of Manhattan.
Central Park is larger than two of the world’s smallest nations. It is almost twice as large as Monacoand nearly eight times as large as theVatican City.
Central Park constitutes its own United States census tract, number 143. According to Census 2000, the park’s population is eighteen persons, twelve male and six female, with a median age of 38.5 years, and a household size of 2.33, over 3 households.
Upper West side
East and West have this thing going about who is more elite…
“These vehicles were given a complete look and feel of a Popemobile by putting a white coloured hood, white tyres, seat upholstery, and white body paint. The insignia on the doors is specially handcrafted. The entire vehicle was given a complete unique decor to suit the aura of His Holiness,” Ravi Chopra, CMD of Piaggio’s Indian subsidiary, told TOI.
In true journalistic style, TOI was quick to title the report ‘A three-wheeler made in India is Pope’s new ride‘.
It’s like me emailing Sonia Gandhi a link to my blog and saying that she is addicted to my writing. Wait…she already is? Never mind.
“A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said “Hey, why don’t you stand over there and do that dance. I’ll record it.” He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It’s actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea.
A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on. Now Matt is quasi-famous as “That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I’ll send you the link. It’s funny.”
Now that’s how you do it. Way to go boy! Love the dance
Fear seems to be the underlying theme of our lives these days.
Parents fear their kids not being smart enough to make it to the good colleges. Worse, they fear their kids being too smart to care for them. Teachers fear students filing FIRs if spoken rudely to. Kids fear getting paralyzed because a reality show host talked rudely to them.
They grow old and then they start fearing bad relationships. Or jilted lovers trying to throw acid on their face, or just kill them. Not being rich enough.
Americans fear Indians taking over all their jobs. Indians fear slowdowns in the American economy affecting their rapidly increasing prosperity. America fears losing its prestige as the global policeman.
The government fears getting booted out if it does a good deed for the nation. Drivers in delhi fear getting shot by someone mad with road rage. Women fear going out alone because of the horrible law and order situation in Indian cities. Old people fear getting killed by their domestic help.
Now that amreekandesi has a new address, it was just fitting that we had a new symbol. For those who noticed the new header image on the page, here’s more comments/thoughts about it.
July 4th. The American Independence day. A day for barbeques, picnics, family get-togethers, and fireworks!
The Macy’s ‘spectacular‘ has been a Newyork tradition for the past 32 years. This year we decided to watch it from Roosevelt Island, which supposedly offers the best views of the show.
The show was nice. I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as i did the first time two years back, but then the first time is always more enjoyable.
Here’s a video.
(There’s more videos of the show on my youtube page, for those who are interested)
For the non punjabis, this phrase means ‘i know you’. Coming from Steve Carell’s mouth, it doesnt quite sound like punjabi though.
In a blink-your-ears-and-miss-it moment from the super fun movie Get Smart, this is precisely what he says to the Indian Giant in the WWE, popularly known as ‘The Great Khali‘.
The first time I didn’t even realize what he was saying. Then it hit me…this weird thing that Mr Carell is saying while getting bashed up by a seven feet tall monster human is actually punjabi!
(Image courtesy:allposters.com)
Talking of Steve Carell, i just love this guy. His character in ‘The Office‘ is so insanely awkwardly horribly sadistically nasty, yet sometimes he comes across as a person you just feel for. He grosses me out most of the times, yet i don’t hate him as much as i think i could.
Back to the topic…watch the movie if you are a Steve Carell fan. Actually watch it if you are an Anne Hathaway fan, a Rock fan, or a Khali fan. Or if you simply feel like going out and having some fun!
amreekandesi.com is up and running now. I am still trying to iron out some glitches. I was able to import my older posts from wordpress, but the youtube links are messed up; images are pointing to the wordpress links; having some issues with the new theme…
But this is so much fun. I am finally running my own website where i am the boss and can do whatever i want.
For the inquisitive, i signed up with bluehost which seems to be on top of most best web hosting providers’ lists. Their offer included a domain registration (yay!), and a bunch of other features. Hopefully they will live up to their impressive reputation, though sometimes my page takes a while to load.
Thanks lekhni for your helpful post. I used fantastico to install the wordpress software which i now use to manage the blog. Currently i am discovering the incredible array of plugins available out there to make it a better (blogging) world.
Once again, if you find something not working on the blog please dont mind. Even better, send me a note.
I am considering going Big…getting my own website and doing a whole lot of fancy stuff with it. Just wanted your take on this…yes yes you reader..i am talking to you there.
What do you think?
Would be very interested in hearing from people who have made a similar switch from Wordpress to their own blog. People who didn’t make the switch? Would i lose everything (my readers, my pagerank(!?) etc)?
Any tips?
Any recommended hosting services?
Above all, would you still read the blog? Visit more often?
Here’s a video of Steve Jobs delivering the commencement speech at Stanford in 2005. He talks about his life, its ups and downs, and how he got to become one of the greatest men of our generation.
In the middle of East river between Manhattan and Queens lies a little island called Roosevelt Island. One way to reach this island from Manhattan is a tramway, one of the few in the US.
Here’s a brief account of our trip to this nice getaway. All pictures were taken by me…feel free to compliment me on my photography skills.
South point on the island gave me something that i havent encountered often in Newyork - Silence. Its like a little oasis of desolation right in the middle of one of the noisiest cities in the world.
The American Dream may start anywhere - college, well-to-do siblings, parental pressure, but eventually it has to make a mandatory stop to get a colorful stamp in the passport. Its the american visa, and many a bright soul has spent sleepless weeks, months even, going through and fearing that ordeal.
Here’s how it works.
You pay the application fees at HDFC bank, and WAIT for two days. Apparently that is the amount of time it takes for them to activate your application, and only then you can enter their system.
Now starts the interesting part. You need to get a visa appointment date. Sounds easier than it is. You go in to the most user-unfriendly website to check the dates availability, and find out that the dates are not open yet. No dates. “Sorry, no dates are available” (or something to that effect). The beauty is that they don’t tell you when dates will open up. Its all random. Any day they will open up the dates. Some of them. 2-3 days or maybe a week at a time. The ball’s in your court and it is your job to keep checking the site every few days if you want an appointment next month, or probably every hour if you want one next week.
Who needs the IPL to get their adrenaline going if you are a prospective visa applicant?
The Rise of Indian English - As in Britain, employers complain that the standard of English is so abysmal that recruits cannot write a sentence without three grammatical mistakes."
Check out the adventures of Makkadman...your friendly neighborhood superhero !!
India's rise is good or bad for America? -"..headaches that could soon cause India to look a lot more like any prosperous Western country wrestling with complacency, obesity and all the other ailments"
The Land of a Thousand Bad Newspaper Articles - "refusal by journalists to look beyond the immediate and the superficial comes at the cost of accuracy, nuance, and depth"
(4.5 out of 5)
(4 out of 5)
