The Chronic Bachelor

Where I worked, we had an arts club. We used to have a regular music band for our club functions. (Still it must be there ) Every year for the club day, guys will get together and will practice for the day and perform. Family members also participate in this. We got our regulars for various roles. I used to go for the show but did not actively participate in anything. Now in a performance of our 'Ganamela' group, there are certain unwritten rules by which it is done. First song is devotional, second one a melody, third an old Malayalam song, then slowly fast paced songs as the party gets warmed up. Invariably, 'Mere Sapnon Ki Raani' will also be there :D

That year a few of the regulars got transferred to other units. So they were looking for replacements. Now, I mainly worked in a lab which used to give some privacy and me and my friends used to sing in the lab while working. Our Arts club secretary sometimes drop in for other official business and when there was a vacancy in the band, we were offered chances.. So I and my friend decided to give it a try for once.

Another friend of mine was the compere. When I got the call (3rd) he introduced me as the 'Chronic Bachelor' of our company. That was the name of a popular movie that time and I was known as the oldest bachelor around the place then at 36 or so. (Those guys were exasperated with me because most of them had tried at one time or another to persuade me to be a married and settled guy. We were sort of a close knit family at work place and they felt it their duty to advice lol) Well, the song went reasonably okay. It was a surprise for those guys because they never seen me singing before. The title stuck for a while after that...

It was a memorable day for me too :)

I could possibly write a book on my experiences at our company. Tons of very interesting characters. Only I do not want to name anyone here. All of us with distinct nicknames none very flattering :D I was called the name of a devil in a popular cartoon who is very active looking for mischief all the time ;)

A Depressing Recession

People tend to identify the economy with the stock markets, unless it directly affects them as a job loss or something like that. The economy is going to get worse before it gets better. The recent upswing in the markets does not indicate a turnaround in the economy. Markets correct every now and then for technical reasons. There is even something called a Dead Cat Bounce. There are policy decisions which affect the market directly. So long as the mainstream media do not tell us the real shape of economy, we tend to think things are getting better when we see a surge in the stocks.

It is said that Citi reported operating profit recently but rumor is that it is one of those, 'Dead Banks Walking'. No stimulus is going to fix the economy. The sooner they let the failed entities to fall, the sooner things can try to make a recovery.

Recently the Chinese voiced their concern over their investments in the US. The US will need to issue a lot of debt to finance their deficit. Sooner or later, there will not be enough people to buy that debt. Then they will have to increase the interest which is not an ideal condition for growth of the economy. Or the Fed will start buying those. Search for quantitative easing for additional info. Printing more dollars is like an indirect taxing. It debases the existing currency.

I think this here is not comparable to the Great Depression.

This could be a Greater Depression..

Those are just my opinions. I am not qualified to make predictions on these matters.

The Candid Blogger: Shocking Report On US Military Deaths in Iraq

The Candid Blogger: Shocking Report On US Military Deaths in Iraq


I found this a good post.

Recovery in 2 years?

The Fed chairman reportedly said that, the U.S. economy is in a “severe” contraction, and warned the recession may last into 2010 unless policy makers can stabilize the financial system. (Bloomberg, Feb24th)

Now, here is the Trillion dollar question. Does he think that anyone can stabilize the financial system? Does anyone have any idea how to fix the 'system'? It is like one of those viral infections. It is going to run its course. Only, this is going to take a LONG time and a lot of pain.

Cyclical Research

Summer is here. Last year this time we were researching how to make a contraption for low cost cooling. I read a lot on this and my fried (my gym friend, whom we call Bhai )actually made a crude cooler. It contained a pipe in which was kept a pad made of some herbs. This pad was kept wet and air was drawn in to this pipe and forced through the pad. Well, the available fan was not powerful enough to produce any appreciable cooling. Bhai claimed that it cooled some but I think it was a psychological effect. More ideas about using chilled water for wetting the pad, using copper tubing circulating with chilled water attached to the front of the fan etc were considered but before going to any extremes, the monsoons came.

The temp is going up and I am feeling like looking up all those things again :?

I Am Afraid To Click My Own Blog!

I was racking my brains on how to make money online or working from home or whatever. I tried to learn more about Google Adsense. I almost signed up for it but there are tons to read on their policy. So I didn't complete the process and decided to wait a while. I clicked view my blog to get away from the Ad nonsense. And when I see my blog, there is an ad which was not placed there by myself. It says Google Friend Connect or something like that. Now I remember that one thing about the Adsense was that I am not supposed to do the clicking myself. So I have a problem. There is this ad and I don't know what to do with it. And I haven't yet registered with adsense. So what is the use of having something on my blog which I have no idea about?

Making Money Out Of Nothing At All

No, of course I have no idea how to do it. There is always some effort involved somewhere. I used that title because it sounds like a song I have heard once.

I spend a lot of time online. I wouldn't mind earning some cash online, if it is possible. Like everyone else, I have been giving it a lot of thought. I trade online and make a little money already there, more than enough to make the net pay for itself. But new ideas are always welcome. This blog itself is a result of that. This is my experimental blog. May be I will have my own website some day. Meanwhile, I think I stumbled upon something.. :?

Looking For That Elusive Bottom

Well, the bottom is dropping out. I feel the stock markets are in for some serious crashing. No stimulus is going to fix the economy. The stimulus, at best buys some time. Where do you think the money is going to come from?

Any of my friends, who come across this, please take note. Watch where your money comes from and where it goes. When you have free time, think how you will prioritize your needs and cut expenses if asked to make a tight budget. And if you can afford to buy some gold or silver as part of your savings, it may be helpful in the future. If you don't have experience trading in shares, better not start now.

If you do trade in shares, one thing that might turn out well in the future could be, gold mining stocks..

Tragicomedy

"Tragicomedy is fictional work that blend aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy.."

That was from wikipedia.

I was watching some Malayalam movie. Don't remember the name. As usual, came across it while channel surfing. What puzzles me is that, what makes others happy makes me sad and what makes others sad, makes me ROFL.


Becoming cynical again, aren't we?

I Added Smileys!

Now in the comments, smileys can be added. But still I have no smileys here or any formatting in the original post itself.

The Thing With Gold

In December, a historical first happened for gold. It went in to 'backwardation'. It is a situation where the spot price is lower than the future price. In other words, a situation where you can sell your gold now at a higher price and buy it back next month at a lower price if you bought the Jan futures. Why, everyone should have taken that profit and hence it should have disappeared in no time. But it persisted for a while. (frankly, I don't know if is still there) This happened because people didn't want to sell the physical gold for a future profit. People didn't have confidence in the 'paper gold' or the ability of COMEX to deliver the gold in future.

It is speculated that the gold price is suppressed artificially. In the present scenario, the currencies are shaky. Dollar is practically doomed. Euro's future is also uncertain. No stimulus package is going to save the day. Where do you think all that money is going to come from? The govts will print money, thereby debasing the existing currency. So it will be a good idea if one had a little gold or silver as part of their savings. Even if there is hyperinflation, one can still buy things with gold.

Last time I heard, they needed 50 Billion of their dollars to buy 2 loaves of bread in Zimbabwe.

I Killed My Video!

I added a video here which I had on youtube. But I see that after it plays, it shows a bunch of videos which I have nothing to do with. One of them is my own and 3-4 I have watched too but the rest is no way connected with me :? I will have to upload stuff directly from my computer, it seems.

I was fooling around with the code of this blog for some time now. I added widgets (whatever it is) and have the digg thing too. But the best thing I like is the hangman game. A pity it does not store the scores.

You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet!

You believe that the stimulus packages are going to work? You think the economy is going to turn around by the 3rd or whichever quarter in 2009? The first wave was triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers or somewhere about that time. The second wave will be harsher. Wonder what is going to trigger it. But it is coming. The DJIA could even go below 6K.

I could write volumes on this. Later, perhaps.

Free Software I Use

I still use Win2K pro. I once signed up for the MCSE (which I didn't complete) and received some CDs as part of the package. My Win2K is an evaluation version, which works for 120 days beautifully. After that, it tends to work for sometime and then warn that it is going to restart (or shutdown? I don't remember) after one hour and does it without further warning. I have no problems with this setup as I reformat and reinstall the OS 3-4 times every year. More over, I think I can get around this 120 days limitation but I don't need it yet. I have SP4 downloaded and kept in a different partition ready for installation immediately after setting up the OS.

I use Openoffice program, which is free. It helps me in opening Excel, power point etc in that. I don't need these programs a lot but I let it stay in my computer. For anti virus, I use avast. So far, no problems. For firewall, I have Zone Alarm. That is also free. I don't get virus and such nonsense a lot. I have gimp but don't work much with graphics anyway. For playing back media files, I have different software which I got when I purchased certain hardware. And I use Firefox! I prefer it over IE.

I plan to change over to Linux. I have 3 distributions downloaded but haven't fully switched yet. I had a dual booting set up before but right now, no Linux. I am thinking about getting one more PC later. Then I will have Linux and then in due time, it is Good Bye Microsoft!

The Love Meter

Well, I had a dream last night. You might think what is there to talk about dreams. In my case, dreams are rare. I could say even sleep itself is rare. Yeah, I haven't forgotten the advice about drinking a glass of milk but I don't like milk!

In this dream, me and my wife are together. We are generally cleaning up the room and rearranging things. We talk and generally fool around like 2 friends who are quite comfortable in each others company. She is dressed in a black gown, sleeveless thing. I don't remember her facial features (It is only a dream). She is slim. The point is, an average woman and not a remarkable beauty. She suddenly draw my attention to the Love meter sitting nearby. The thing has got electrode/probes which one attach to the body before being kissed. The reading is noted on a digital display. She want to test my love. She attach the probes to her and I kiss her. We look at the display and it reads 40. We laugh together. I am drawn by this laughing face so close by. I see the woman, her laughing face. The lips so near. I see nothing else. I kiss her again ever so gently. Now I lose all senses. There is an unexplained gap in the dream where nothing happens. I am brought back to reality by her gasp. (Why do women have wandering minds?) I look in to her eyes and follow her look. The LM display is racing up. We see 128, 146 flashing by and as we look at it, it peaks at 178. I can say I didn't put an effort in to the test. I didn't even think about it. Like tasting something delicious, or watching something superb, enjoying some great music..She smiles at me, and lean in to kiss back. I joke that I haven't got the probes fixed on me when she snatch away the contraptions away from her and throw them away.... And then I wake up.

Later, when I am combing my hair, I watch my face closely. Sure enough, I can feel and almost see it on my lips. A mouth ulcer coming on the bottom lip close to the outside. I get them when I don't get good sleep for a few days continuously.

BTW, is it ominous getting these weird dreams so close to the Valentine's Day?

Who Are You?

If anyone from IFF is seeing this page, let me know who you are, please? Curious, because this is not a serious blog so far and I haven't told anyone about this yet.

End Of Days

The date is Dec 21st, 2012. That is based on the Mayan calender. The subject is complex for me and I am not trying to describe in detail. If interested, look up on the web for this. What I understand is, it is a winter solstice. Certain celestial alignments take place. The prediction is for the world to change from the way we are familiar to it, in some way. I came up on this while looking for something else.

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What do you think is the biggest news right now? It is the economy. It is like a big, rare celestial event happening in slow motion. I don't think any stimulus package is going to stop the events. The st.pkg will only delay the inevitable and make the agony worse. The govts will have to let the incompetents fall at some point.

When a govt cannot raise the money it needs, it resort to printing its way out. And in comes hyperinflation.

(May be I will come back and add more to this. I thought about posting this on my other blog, but feel this is not yet complete)

Thank God, We Are Still In Business!

The blog is still visible and I manged to sign in again.

Today I searched and found some of my old books from a dusty corner. I am thinking about working part time. I haven't decided yet. No harm in looking up the old textbooks. And meanwhile I am short listed for an interview for a research opportunity. If I get in and successfully complete the thing, I will be holding a title equivalent to a doctorate. That too, not decided. After all, why should I need a degree if it is just learning I want? I can learn whatever I want without moving my ass from here. I don't want to land a lucrative job after completing a doctorate. I just turned 4o and I am not interested in working under someone permanently anymore.

And I feel like writing a post in my 'other' blog about the economy.

Where Did My First Blog Go?

I created another one but now I cannot log in there myself. Talk about locking myself out. No big loss anyway as that was an 'introductory' blog. What if the same thing happens here too?