Fakesteve needs help !!

and we need to stop the tarnishing of the Indian film industry's reputation.


Will the right person (I dunno.. haven't definitively identified the language myself) step up to clarify and translate:

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/06/can-someone-in-india-tell-us-what-hell.html

Okay, some more: caution: video subtitles are pretty crude at places. The language is Tamil.
Trying to analyze why I found it so funny:
1.) its basically done very well, and the correspondence between the spoken and the written word work very well
2.) it satirises the song-n-dance of indian cinema which so needs satirising
3.) its in tamil which is icing on the cake -- les tamiliens tend to be a little chauvinistic about their language

There is apparently a cottage industry dedicated to doing this kind of translations and several of the comments and YouTube links give some of these.

Grab the opportunity

My ClustrMap (see at the bottom of this page) is going a little wild, claims I got 346 visitors from all over the world on Sunday. Either this is my 15 mins of fame, or its a bug in their software. Quick go take a look at it -- its not likely to last, either ways !

According to Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan you can't change what you do by thinking differently, but you can change how you think, by doing things differently.

Discuss.

McDonalds in India

We went to a McDonalds for dinner this Saturday (we are the wild partying type, see). There is actually a certain infectious energy there. The guys at the counter are buzzing around getting the orders together, they are all high energy amiable types and the vibe was very good. In big cities (especially in good locations) the traffic through US fast food restaurants is huge. If I were in McDonald's management, I'd feel like giving up the boring messy US market (with the activists screaming foul all the time, people starting to eat healthy, lawsuits over hot coffee and vegetarians being served non-veg food) and focus on markets like India. Indians love McD. And for all the pickiness of the average Indian woman about her food, they seem to like american fast food. (Side note -- I fondly remember In-N-Out Burger in California. Now that was a really satisfying burger ) Video below tries to capture the buzz. It was at the McDs in Sigma Mall on Cunningham road.

I piss on you, Bangalore International Airport !!!

Man -- what a dispiriting experience, on the way back.
It is sooo far from the city. I took the bus back, and the bus itself is nice and the idea is good and will succeed. But god ! the ride back is so terrible. Its so far and the highway is dotted with traffic lights. During peak hours this road becomes such a disaster. The airport is a significant distance away from the northern tip of the main city (Mekhri circle) and then after you enter the city, you'll have another excruitiating experience negotiating traffic inside. And if you live to the south end -- good luck. And if you're taking the bus, you'll have to do the home stretch by auto anyway -- deal with the a**hole auto drivers.

Lots of things are nice about the airport but this commute is just impossible. For any place that's reachable by an overight train or bus journey, just forget about flying there. I predict we'll see 10-20% reduction in air traffic from the current level just because of the inconvenience of the new airport. (Not a bad thing, actually).

I'm further aggravated by the lack of planning. On this highway which is now a key artery of the city, one would expect it to be lined by establishments that suit the nature. Instead you have Vidyashilp academy, a school ('international' presumably), a pharmaceutical plant and other manufacturing units, army establishments, tons of resort hotels, and similiar nonsense.
My guess is that this mess is because some asshole politicians (not worth asterisking out the abuse in this case) made the location decision in order to make their own killing on the real estate market.

I really do piss on you, new Bangalore International Airport.