Vodafone ads on Indian television : ZooZoo …Thumbs up!

In India, the best thing about Vodafone(formerly Hutch) is its advertisement. Frankly, I haven’t enjoyed being on their network and have dreaded to have conversation with their customer service. However, Vodafone’s business marketing has been amazing. The latest one on the list is “ZooZoo”, white squeaky egg shaped anthropomorphic creatures seen on the latest Vodafone ads.

While the brand Aircel has roped in heavyweights like MS Dhoni, Airtel has had several stars brandishing the cellular service over the years. But, Vodafone with its simpler ads(starring Irfan Khan, the pug and the little girl) have been by far, most effective in reaching out to the masses.

Coming back to ZooZoo, I was particulary impressed with the “beauty tips” ad.

The rumor is in that some countries are already considering “ZooZoo” as a mascot for its forthcoming Olympic games.

Now, that is a “April Fool” alert starring “ZooZoo”.

ETYMOLOGY OF "ZooZoo"!

[Taking reference of the Wikipedia]

The word "ZooZoo" possibly has its origin in "Zoomorphism" which is shaping of something in animal form or terms.

Examples include:

* Art that imagines humans as animals
* Art that creates patterns using animal imagery, or animal style
* Animal-deities, such as exist in Egyptian mythology
* Therianthropy: the ability to shapeshift into animal form
* The tendency of viewing human behaviour in terms of the behaviour of animals, analogous to anthropomorphism, which views animal behaviour in human terms

The word derives from the Greek ζωον (zōon), meaning animal, and μορφη (morphē), meaning shape or form.

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE, GAME WEEK 35- PREVIEW VIS-A-VIS FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE.

Image: Courtesy-MorgueFile

On a quick glance over the clashes this Game Week, it is apparent that the results of most are predictable.

Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, Everton and Aston Villa will definitely win their respective matches, played at home or away.

Last week, my team had an average score and I lost two places in the soccer league that I revere the most.

This week, I have made a change to my squad in getting Tristan for Macheda. I had hopes on Sir Alex playing Macheda regularly but it appears Macheda will be underplayed.

Tristan on the other hand looks promising at 5.5 mn and 9 points in the last two matches.

Let us now predict the heroes!


Middlesbrough V Man Utd 2 May 12:45

Players: Rooney, Vidic, Ronaldo, O Shea.
My squad has: Vidic


Chelsea V Fulham 2 May 15:00

Players: Lampard, Kalou, Drogba, Schwarzer, Dempsey
My squad has: Lampard(Captain), Schwarzer(GK) and Dempsey. However, I might substitute Dempsey for Tristan at the last minute.


Man City V Blackburn 2 May 15:00

Players: Robinho and Ireland.
My squad has: None.
Reason: Manchester City's form has been a roller coaster ride throughout. Hence, I have avoided using players from either squad.


Portsmouth V Arsenal 2 May 15:00

Players: Arshavin, Bendtner, Adebayor, Fabregas and Crouch
My squad has: Arshavin, Bendtner. I pray Bendtner ends his goal drought this game week.


Stoke City V West Ham 2 May 15:00

Players: Better be avoided.
My squad has: Tristan(Substitute)


Tottenham V West Brom 2 May 15:00

Players: Aaron Lennon, Bent.
My squad has: Aaron Lennon.


Wigan V Bolton 2 May 15:00

Players: Better be avoided.
My squad has: None


Liverpool V Newcastle 3 May 13:30

Players: Gerrard(Yes, he is back!), Kuyt and Torres(I miss him in my team!)
My squad has: Gerrard, Arbelo, Benayoun


Sunderland V Everton 3 May 16:00

Players: Baines, Cahill
My squad has: Baines.


Aston Villa V Hull City 4 May 20:00

Players: Carew, Milner, Ashley Young, Geovanni
My squad has: None.

More on "Soccer"

Google mail(GMAIL) finally has an insert image inline feature

It is finally here! Google Labs has now introduced the feature of attaching photos directly in the e-mail body.

To enable this feature, navigate to Labs->Settings of your g-mail account and enable the "Inserting Images" feature.





Note that you must enable rich text formatting mode. Now, you will observe that the image icon will appear on the text-toolbar. You are now ready to embed pictures on the body of your e-mail either by selecting a picture from your computer or choosing one from the web.

Gorkha Mela on 31st May 2009 at Nandan Football Ground, Austin Town, Bangalore

Since 1981, Bharatiya Gorkhali Welfare Association (BGWA), a social non-political outfit based in Bangalore has been working extensively for a progressive Gorkha community.

From helping those in need, to providing insurance for low income personnel or sponsoring and mentoring under privileged students, BGWA has been the forefront force for welfare activities.

In 2008, it organized the first "Gorkha Saanjh" in Bangalore to a rousing reception.


Now, for the first time in Bangalore, BGWA is organizing "Gorkha Mela" on 31st May 2009.

A full day's event at Nandan Football ground, Austin Town, the mela will be a pot-pourri of "Fun, Frolic and Games, Skit and Cultural Performances" and the crowd favorite, "Gorkhali Khana".




There are over 20 games in the list including traditional games such as "Khopee", "Hooplah" and the interesting "Weigh the Bhaaley" competition.

Donor passes are currently available at a nominal price of Rs. 100 which includes game coupons worth Rs. 90 .

To avail donor passes, please contact bgwabangalore@gmail.com and someone will call you back. Note that tickets are not available at the venue.

Love Poem- Ode to a calf love !

dear u are so near
close as the mountains and the snow
the rivers and the banks together which they flow
..yet the threshold calls-"you are so far!!"
often did i proclaim infact
the love for u that i had
the minds spoke but the lips did fail
and its now i realise
the thing i lacked being solemnised..
yet you are so far..
calf love is what may be called
surfing the cry of my heart
indeed lost opprtunity is never gained
me thinks u have faded down memory lane!
and i think but realise..
u are so far yet so near!

I wrote this poem in the year 1999 and is posted at www.poetry.com. This was the first poem of the oeuvre I "lost". Hopefully, I will get it back!

Election India and the mechanism change needed to suit fast life!

The turnaround in Bangalore's vote was an abyssmal 40-odd percent and I can see only one reason behind it. The election mechanism needs to suit the needs of a fast life. I am speaking of this strictly on the basis of why I didn't cast my vote.

Image Courtesy: Morguefile

This great cosmopoliton city has a large floating population. Most of us have come miles away from home to work here. On similar lines, a lot of Bangaloreans are settling or settled abroad or are outside Bangalore.
Every election, it becomes a challenge for us to cast our mandate, wherever we are.

Some may argue that I have been staying in Bangalore for some years now and by virtue of knowing problems we face, it becomes an obligation to cast vote here instead.

I agree but the first criteria to vote in Bangalore is to have our name de-registered in our home town. My home-town is a small cozy town in the laps of Himalayas.In the year 2007, I had been home and luckily the process of electoral registration was going on. Even then, I faced an uphill task getting my name added to the voter's list. In the hills, for reasons I am not clearly able to attribute, the process of doing any work is very slow. And last year, for most part of the year, offices were closed and government related work had come to a screeching halt. Therefore, I am very cynical about deregistration.

Voting is also about personal choices. I have been staying in two different constituencies in Bangalore in the last two years but have never been able to clearly identify with the leader. And my opinion about issues is that all issues are personal. For e.g) A person whose doesnt have leaky walls in an appartment will not complain for a person who has one. That is a fact in life!
For me, at the moment, the criteria is the situation there. I love Bangalore and I wish to settle here but as of now, I believe there are issues in my hometown that has greater significance. Now, am I voting there? No, because I had taken a long leave in November and to take leave again is a matter of financial and official contemplation.

Like me, I am sure hundreds of "Bangaloreans" had the same thought.Things would have been simpler for everyone if an alternative virtual ballot was in place. For those who can afford to, why don't we have a secure online voting system?

First, the government can save a lot of money instead of investing time(on preparation and counting) and money(100 bn) on the election. The corporate houses can save as well, beat me, instead of having a day's off! Some of us have already seen villagers booking tickets through IRCTC online so technology is IN!! Rural India will change as it is already.

Over years, online voting will be very hard to be rigged and will definitely be more popular than the current system.

BEST FREEWARE WINDOWS SOFTWARE- TOP MUST HAVE'S!

Listed below is my list of amazing free software for Windows.

1. Foobar2000 : Low resource highly customizable media player for Windows. Searching for plugins and the installation might be some work but it is worth the time.

2. Windows Defender*: Great software for online spyware protection.

Read this article if you have problems in installing Windows Defender

3. Mozilla Firefox and extensions: Amazing, Superb....and all synonyms of these two words.

Mmm...I simply adore it!!!

Must have's for Firefox:

Theme::-

"Blue Ice" theme and "Vista-Aero", BlackX(My best)

Addons::-

a) AdBlock plus with AdBlock Filterset.G Updater
Blocks all ads.

b) Customize Google
Make google pages(gmail etc) ad-free.

c) FlashGot to use with FlashGet
Excellent utility for image download. Flashget needs to be installed though.

d) FoxClocks
Have multiple clocks on your browser

e) QTL Language translator
Translate from one language to another. Select a text and it opens up reference from Wikipedia. Great for online browsing

f) ForecastFox
Weather report plugin

g) Go to Selection
Convert text into URL and open in different tab or window

h) Fasterfox
Enhances speed of Firefox

i) Password Exporter
Excellent utility to export/import your saved passwords.

j) Leechblock
Anti-Procrastination. Use this, while at work.

k)Nuke Anything Enhanced 0.68.1
Allows hiding of almost anything via context menu 'Remove Object

l) Greasemonkey
Runs user customized scripts for browser capability enhancement like having an auto-player mode for Facebook's Mafia Wars!

4. FlashGet : Amazing software for multiple picture downloads especially if you love downloading pictures.

5. Videolan VLC Player: Great movie player with subtitle features.

6. 7-zip: Great .zip, .rar software if you are tired of Winzip or WinRar.

7. flv player: Must have for flv files.

8. Pidgin: All in one chat messenger

9. GIMP2 : Alternative to Adobe Photoshop, a great tool.

10. Virtual Box: Alternative to VMWare.



More on "Technical resources".

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE, GAME WEEK 34- PREVIEW VIS-A-VIS FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE.

Game Week 33 of English Premier League got over yesterday with mixed results. And now, we have just a couple of days to decide on our final team in Fantasy Premier League's GW 34.




The most important selection for Game Week 33 was Arsenal's Arshavin. We were handsomely rewarded for selecting Arshavin- a whopping 21 points. And for those who selected Arshavin as "Captain", it was like hitting a big jackpot.

My personal disappointment was the unfortunate injury of Kranjcar midway through the game-week. He couldn't play against Manchester United and therefore, my reasoning for his selection was fruitless.

This week, instead of predicting exact scores, let me concentrate on players who could make a difference. For the record, I entered "Himalayan Soccer" league from Game Week 7 and hit the 20's for the first time this week.



Listed below are the players who I believe can make a difference to your overall score this Game Week. It is apparent that the list may not look new to you .

Milner, Davies, Baines, Ireland, Schwarzer, Howard, Arbeloa,Gerrard(doubtful), Benayoun, Lampard, Vidic, O Shea, Aaron Lennon, Arshavin, Bendtner

Gerrard is likely to miss the game against Hull because he is still recovering from injury.


My conscience says:-

• Avoid using defenders of Hull City this game week.
• Use maximum players from Arsenal, Liverpool and Fulham.
• Use three defenders, five midfielders and two forwards.
• Retain Frank Lampard as "Captain".
  

True Celebration of Earth Day 22nd April 2009 in Bangalore

Today, 22nd April 2009 is celebrated worldwide as "Earth Day"- a day to remember the greatness of this planet and pledge our ethical responsibilities to protect it.


A snapshot from BGWA website.

On Feb 24th, 2007, I had written an article about how "Charity should begin at home". I still believe in that reasoning. But somewhere, my thought manifestation has diversified.

In order to cherish our existence and celebrate "Earth", we should first learn to cherish humanity. This morning, I received an SMS informing me about the tragic and untimely death of a man from the hills. He had come to Bangalore in search of a job with his 13 year old son. Imagine the mental plight and condition of this 13 year old kid in an unknown city.

I wanted to visit the hospital and provide necessary help but was caught up with some unavoidable personal committments. Therefore, I SMS'ed Arnav Subba and shot a mail to the youth wing of BGWA. Trusted BGWA Youth wing leaders Bishal Chhetri and Dr. Sailendra Dewan quickly acted on the little information we all had and demonstrated what true leadership is all about- selfless leadership by setting epitomic examples themselves!

Dr. Dewan, I believe, was there right from the start to the end of the day, sacrificing his day at work, skipping meals and without thought for his personal well-being.

This is the second instance in less than a week, when youth leaders (including Mr. Praveen Subba) of BGWA have been active in helping people, under similar circumstances.

I agree that we are bounded by the vicious circle of time management but we aren't, by what "little" we can contribute to humanity. Often, people have hesitation in joining an organization or openly supporting an ideology, but it is worth giving a try to see if that works.

I believe organizations such as the BGWA is working. And, today, it showed what was the perfect way to celebrate "Earth's Day"! Needless to say, I have stopped believing in switching off all electrical applicances for an hour.

"Boiling Pots": Now Susan Boyle after Paul Potts!

Series 3 of Britain's Got Talent got off on 11 April 2009 and it started on a big note!
After Paul Potts who stormed the world with his tenor in the first season, Susan Boyle, a 47 year old Scottish woman is now making news. She sang "I Dreamed a Dream" from the musical 'Les Misérables' and at the end of her performance had the crowd on their feet.


This YouTube Video of Susan Boyle's performance has already received 36,513,263 views

It is amazing to see how we falter in prefering visual perception with inept talent over "raw" gems.

People like Potts and Boyle are epitomes of such thought raising reality!