kvrlogs

If you are a runner you obsess over your accessories. You will understand. If you are not a runner - let me explain to you, why we runners obsess over the accessories. Even when you are lacing your shoes - the devil part in your brain will keep shouting - Do you really want to run? - it is cold outside, or why not take a break today or it is already 8:30 - sun is out in full force... blah blah - the chatter keeps going on and on - asking you to stop and relax in your sofa. The devil should be quietened. Unless you are a Buddha for us ordinary mortals it is not possible. We need tools. A Smartphone is perfect for this. There are podcasts, music, audiobooks. The devil needs to be fed with these - so you can run at peace. My first smartphone was Samsung Galaxy S in 2010. My running took off with this. Used the stock wired headphones but it will hurt my ears. And it will keep slipping once sweat builds up. Had to keep adjusting it and never got into a good rhythm. Second proble...

Memories fade fast. Capturing it while it is in my memory. I lost a dear friend. It is about him.  My friends will know his identity - not revealing his full name.  Hardwork and some amount of luck brought 60 of us to this Electrical Department in CEG. Half from Chennai rest from other parts of Tamil Nadu, and a handful from rest of the country.  Among them was this handsome young man with a cheerful personality who was an instant hit among all of us. He was in the same hostel floor as mine - 2 rooms apart.   In the English class we had to speak something in English ( duh ) - and based on how we spoke we were to be kept in A section or moved to B to be improved. SS said he is from this Great City called Pollachi near Coimbatore. We all had a laugh and he went on to sell his Pollachi. I was put in B section and missed similar entertainment from SS in English class. However, SS entertained us almost daily in the bathrooms - with his songs as we wait...

Yesterday happened to see Rocket Singh Salesman of the year movie. Let me get the good out of the way. There is corruption everywhere. Wrong decisions, inflated bills are accepted with a bribe to get the sale. Bad for the company, bad for the industry, bad for the end consumers. This segment is the only good part of the movie. Other than this - I was squirming while watching the movie. Bad 1 Misusing company's (AYS corporation) resources while building his company ( Rocket ). They do justify in the movie that our hero is insulted as zero by AYS's boss. Rocket's employees will use AYS's van for transporting equipments, they will work during the night and sleep during the day in the office - while drawing salary from AYS. Bad 2 Rocket team had the honour not to divert existing leads that come to AYS. However, they dug out the old leads which have declined AYS. AYS would have spent lot of marketing dollars, WoM to generate leads. Also the reasons for declinin...

I ran 10K last on 06th August 2017. After that the maximum I touched was 8k - rarely. Most of my runs were 4 5 or 6 kms. Partly because I did not find any good audio book. I fondly remember the days when I used to run with Three Body Problem, Ender's world - all kept me on my toes ( literally ). Summer heat, difficult audio books ( Ubik, Diamond Age ) - weren't helping. Today my running friend - Akshay - joined me. This is how usually runners talk He : How much today? Me : Trying 10. 2 down. How about you? He : 21 yesterday, planning 10 today. Me : Wow. Lets do it. I switch off my audio book. I know Akshay tells Ohm while he runs. When I dont listen I keep telling Om Ma Nee Pad Me Hum. I think about these mantras. They are powerful and slowly chip into your soul. 2 or 3 rounds around the lake, we run across his son. 14 year old - he comes with us for a full round as we talk about cricket. He is a fast bowler. We egg his ego. But he drops off after a round....

BBMP - The corporate body in charge of Bangalore - which keeps roads pot hole free, streets free of trash, lakes without foam, keeps underpasses dry during monsoon - was able to carve out free time to brainstorm and come up with a new law - to regularize pets. BBMP has put up a list of allowed breeds in Apartment Complexes. Sufi who happens to be a Beagle is now an illegal immigrant as of today. Sufi, Trump also hates you now. And it is not over - there is a new rule now - only one pet per apartment is allowed. And Indies are not in the list either. Good luck Carbon ( Sufi's friend living in a nearby Apartment ). To tackle pet breeders they justify. I tell this to Sufi and she does a face palm with her cute paws. Instead of punishing all pet lovers - why can't they legalize and regularize pet breeding. Right now it is done illegally and the poor animals are exploited. The mothers are made to give birth every 6 months for 14 years at a stretch and are reduced to machi...

My last post was in January 2018 and it was an effortless post - just a book round up of 2017 books I read. From then to now lots have happened. Rajinikanth has announced his entry into politics. Flipkart got acquired by Walmart. CSK won the IPL tournament. BJP struggles to win Trump is not yet impeached. Spectre Bug Bitcoin went up and down and out of news now. And yet it all went unobserved by me. So my future self on a rebirth who somehow discovers this blog - or an alien race researching on why the Earth imploded - a big part of history will be missing. My future Self and aliens - I am resuming my blogging. Unblocking the Bloggers Block - let my ideas flow and live in the ether.

My first blog post of every new year is on the books I crunched in the past 1 year. Here is the list for previous years -  2010 ,  2011 ,  2012 ,  2013 ,  2014 ,   2015  and 2016 Compared to other years, this year I had shunned Social Media - zero posts in FB. Few marketing retweets in Twitter. TV was shunned already.  I had more time to read books than previous years - inspite of a hectic 2017  Here are the books I crunched - classified by Genres : Science Fiction 1. Death's End - Cixin Liu This is the 3rd and final part of the Three Body Problem. Science Fiction from China. In the earlier part Earth Civilization is preparing for an attack. In this part they are attacked. There is one funny piece where a scientist falls into a Black hole. However his wife does not get insurance, because he can never be declared dead - he is still falling into the black hole and is never dead theoretically!  2. Dark...