Follow Fridays!!!!

Hello Tweeple! Welcome to my blog.

This is a post, kind of a one-stop shop for 'Follow Friday' on Twitter.

A 'Follow Friday' contains follow suggestions for Twitter. It is precisely the list of people (or shud I say 'Tweeple') you follow and think that others should follow them too. For the simple reason that they are cool in one-way or the other. :)

So here goes my FF list. (attaching links to the Twitter handles so that you can directly visit their profiles)

Note: The tweeple I mention here are based on the chronological order of which I started following them. One preceding the other does not mean that the later ones are any less fun to follow than the previous ones. :)

- @WordOfMohit - Mohit is an avid blogger and a writer. He has an interesting blog. Follow him to read his blog.

- @Kal_Penn I am a huge fan of Kal Penn. Follow him if you are one too. :D

- @CocaCola (Verified Account) Always Coca-Cola!

- @buffalax - Follow Mike for his hilarious videos.... They are good. Guaranteed!

- @SahilRiz - Sahil is a writer. Follow him and also visit his blog for amazing Movie Review comic strips.

- @lolacronyms - Funny Acronyms. To add a bit of humor to your day!

- @kunalnayyar - If you are a fan of Big Bang Theory and Rajesh Koothrapalli. ;)

- @DavidRoads - For inspirational quotes.

- @omkars - Omkar is a writer and tweep. I recommend you to follow him and also read his book "Welcome to Advertising! Now get lost!" if you wanna tickle your funny bone. :)

- @ZsofiTapasBar - SG Tweeps. Here's a cool hangout place with some good Tapas and drinks.

- @sashreddy1 - For nice tweets on Quotes, Internet, Technology and News.

- @Help0thers - For the amazing quotes and quotations that bring smile on your face at least once in a day.

- @OddeeBlog - For the oddest and the weirdest things in the world. In short, the things that would make you go "Hmmm...."

- @sachin_rt - The 'God' of Cricket has a verified account on Twitter. Go, follow! :)

- @JeykiGee - For inspiring thoughts.

- @Flipbooks - For amazing, inspiring thoughts and bites from the biz and the tech worlds.

- @QuakerQuotes - For amazing quotes and quotations.

- @xanpearson - For inspirational thoughts and interesting news articles from around the planet.

- [@FalkEbert, @Gefahrgut_Blog, @chris_faller] - For great articles on Advertising and their wonderful blog.

- @desireekoh13 - Johnny Cash is her hero. Do I need to say anything more?

- @airplanetalk - For his passion on social issues in India, and his tweet-opinions of cricket, politics and news in India. Ohh yeah, he's a Pilot. That makes him uber-cool!

- @wilfredphua - For he is a chilled out Singaporean who loves to tweet almost about everything.

- @omgzam - Another chilled out Singaporean dude. He tweets about weird trivia and facts that make you go OMG!

- [@Sarah_Chong, @williswee @PennOlson] - For their amazing blog and cool infographics on Social Media, Marketing and Advertising.

- @Katie_North - For amazing stuff on Social Media and Marketing.

- @BrewerkzSG - For their amazing beer. You should follow them offline as well. :P Also for their amazing promotions and games for Social Media users.

- @NeverTheTwains - For their wonderful and inspirational quotes from Mark Twain.

- @dtcav - Donna writes incredibly good. Follow her for inspirational and motivational thoughts and poetry.

- @InspiredRobin - For their tweets on motivation and inspiration.

- @unmarketing - Scott's the coolest Marketing dude ever! You heard me right!

- @LovnLite - Follow Kathy for her inspirational quotes and articles.

- @Sherbrukka - Follow John for amazing Henry David Thoreau sayings.

- @xavlur - Follow Xavier for his cool tech-world tweets!

- @charlesyeo - Charles tweets about anything and everything. Right from Social media to OMG Facts to general trivia to politics to entertainment.

- @AskAaronLee - Aaron tweets about tech-news, quotations, marketing/advertising tweets.

That's about it! If anybody is still remaining, my sincerest apologies.

You can still visit My Twitter Page and browse thru my 'Following' list for more follows.

Over and Out!
*Boink*

Ex-Quiz Me please!

And here I am .... Had been off hibernating for the Ice Age to pass by!

Now that we are all warm and cozy and tucked up in our seats, let's begin.

The title of this post, as suggests is about the worst torture in the history of Social Networking, 'If I see one more of these, Ima piss myself off' thing. The Quizzes. And a 'quiz'master called Face Book.

What is it with these quizzes!? No, seriously!? I have been observing these quizzes for a long time, and the utter devotion with which Socially (menacingly) 'active' participants attempt them.

For the ease of your understanding.... hell, for the ease of my understanding, I have categorized these 'quizzes' and 'applications'.

1.) Celebrity quiz: This category contains all those quizzes which have some relation (if at all) with the celebrities. (I swear to God, I even saw Rakhi Sawant as one of the results for one of my FB friends.) The most common form of this quiz is "Which Celebrity are you?" And the results vary from all the A-listers from Hollywood right to historical figures such as Thoreau and Gandhi (Yeah Right! They had a horde of paparazzi following them and made it to the Page 3 of every tabloid.) What amuses me more is "How in the Hell's name did FB think of you (quiz-taker) being the celebrity!?" What amuses me further, is when you tend to "Like" your own results and your equally dumb friends comment on the result with "Wow"s and "Autograph Please!"s. Tell you one thing, there's something which you might have probably heard of before. It's called a MIRROR. Go figure!
Another awesomely stupid version of this quiz is "Which Celebrity is most likely to date you?" (Variation: "Which celebrity are you most likely to date?") The results are an insanely large number of celebrities ranging from Robert Pattinson (for girls.... in some cases for boys too) to Lady Gaga (for boys.... in some cases for girls too). Yeah right! Like the celebs have no better thing to do. Wake Up! Life's is real. FB's not.

2.) TV/Movie Quizzes: Ohh man! These are of an endless variety. For the simple reason that there are endless number of TV Shows and movies you can juggle on with these quizzes. These are quite generic, in the sense that it takes no grey cells to replace one TV Show/Movie with another .... and YET come up with a brand new quiz. The generic of these types is "What character are you?" Be it F.R.I.E.N.D.S. or be it the Twilight Series. Let's face the facts, shall we? You? Really? A character from a TV Show/Movie? *No More Comments*
Another version of these is "What TV Show/Movie is your life?" I am sure that whatever result you get, I would still vote for Joey/Son of the Mask as a better TV Show/Movie than the result that you'd get from your quiz. Simply because, I don't give a damn.
I would LOVE to delve much deeper in this category, but that would require tremendous stamina to endure the uncharted heights of stupidity, which frankly I don't have.

3.) Art Quizzes: I haven't seen much of these lately. However they deserve a mention because they are equally irritating. These come in the form of "What painting describes you?" OR "What music resembles your character?" And so on and so forth. The results vary from The Mona Lisa to the Monet and Picasso masterpieces to genres such as Jazz, Rock n' Roll and Hip Hop. If you're a Mona Lisa does that mean that you are painted on Poplar wood and you are around 600-odd years old?

4.) Flora/Fauna Quizzes: These are the type of quizzes that generally occur as describing a person (quiz-taker) as a member of the Plant or Animal kingdoms (Last I heard was that they are shortly launching a world-wide protest march against humans for degrading their species). These quizzes generally come in the forms of  "What kind of a flower are you?" OR "What animal best describes your personality?" I wouldn't brag about myself but I guess the most accurate answers would be:

Q: What kind of a flower are you?
A: A "Cauliflower"?

OR

Q: What animal best describes your personality?
A: A "Dodo"? (Don't be mad. Look at the brighter side. The 'real' Dodos are extinct and that saves you the trouble of facing a protest as mentioned earlier.)

Here's where my patience ends. And so, Ima describing only one more category.

5.) Self-Help Quizzes: I have titled this category as Self-Help because I could not think of any other title. (Other options were 'Agony Aunt', 'Dear Diary' and so on and so forth) This category contains all the quizzes that know more about you, your friends, the next-door aunty/uncle, your cousin's pet dog's front right paw, your relationship (very frequently pseudo-relationships and very rarely real relationships), your lovers.... more than you know about them. Some of the examples are "What does your name say about your personality?" OR "How creative are you?" OR "Who is your best friend for today?" OR "Which of your friends are you mostly likely to date?" OR "How lucky are you today?" OR "What does your Fortune Cookie say?" ... Ohh gawd! the list is virtually endless!

Who is your best friend for today???? If you forget to wear the left sock but somehow never forget to religiously take this quiz, I would say it would be the Shrink who'd treat you for mental illnesses.

How lucky are you today???? Yeah right. FB decides your fate. Spare me! And to add to the excruciating pain equivalent to a kick to the shin, the results are in percentages!!!! "You are 65% lucky today." Yeah right, the 35% unluckiness for you would be if you'd meet me and ramble about the quizzes you take.


THAT'S IT! I can't take it no more. I must, however, remind all my dear quiz-takers .... I have no problem whatsoever if you like these quizzes. Go ahead. While away your time. It only shows that while your Facebook status messages say things like "OMG! No time today. So much work." OR "So Much Work! I need a vacation!", we now really know what kind of work you guys do.

I do not have a problem with you attempting those quizzes. My problems begin when you start randomly publishing your results (your reasons may vary from "a hope of impressing that one boy/girl in your friend list with your results" to "look-at-me-whiling-away-time-while-my-boss-thinks-I-work-hard" fun) Now I know I have an option of hiding that quiz result if I got a problem with it. But the argument here is How Many Times!? I hide one quiz, you crop up with another one. I hide that, another one comes up. It's like never-ending. My only humblest of the requests to you (because I still see that small tiny ray of hope in you that would make this sense to you) is that, while you can have an enormous gratification in getting 'quizzed', please do make sure that you do not publish the results. At least find a way in which I am spared. Ex-Quiz Me Please!

HOLY S**T!!!! It's been almost a year!

In a nerdy world, I might have committed suicide .... twice .... by now, for being absent from the blog for such a long time. However, as much thankful I am, I am relieved that I am still alive.

Alive and kicking!

The past 10 odd months were not exactly the best ones of my life. Simple reason. No job. No money. No independence.

I searched and searched and searched.......

.... and searched yet some more. I came across people who gave me strength to carry on, I met people who empathized with my predicament and then I came across people who simply wrote me off!

All these experiences have been, to say the least, very enlightening.

After a 10-month long ordeal, I finally managed to bag a 2-month freelance assignment. It's come as quite a SHOCKER, considering that almost for the past 2 years, I had forgotten what was 'work' .....

But now, I am getting used to it again and am glad to be back on the circuit... :D

Ohh, and while we are hovering around the topic of blogs, I hope I do enter random ramblings here more often.

Take care,
A

A Miracle called Boredom

Ever heard of a miracle called 'boredom' ? I am sure most of us have....

Well, I tried my hand at this miracle, and decided to use it.

I have decided to jot down in this post, all my Google Chat status messages, every time I change one. Now, don't judge me. How else can boredom be utilized!? :-P

So, here it goes...

- Laudate omnes gentes laudate, Magnificat en secula, Et anima mea laudate, Magnificat en secula....

- User Command: open database curse_vocab
curse_vocab opening. please wait....
System Message: system overload ... are you sure you want to continue? (Y/N)
User Command: HELL YEAH!

- Advertising ..... Theoretically Managed .... Proven Chaos!

- Ice Cold .... the common preference in Attitude and a Glass of Water

- Alphonso Mangoes ..... Good Times with Good Fruits!

- The Magic of Magic is Magic

- It's Movie Time!

- A Kick called Death Metal!

- I been to the edge, an' there I stood an' looked down. You know I lost a lot of friends there baby, I got no time to mess around....

- If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. - Earl Wilson

- Und die Welt zählt laut bis zehn.... (Roughly Translated as "And the world counts loudly till ten....)

More to come.. stay tuned!

Pappu Pass Ho Gaya!

Got my Semester 1 Results today ...... Can't believe I am actually half way through the course! Phew!

Got 3.50 as my TGPA (Term Grade Point Average), out of 5.0

This is quite a decent score, considering that I have had devoured 5 out of 10 courses already! Days were quite hectic, Nights were even more drastic! Assignments, Submission, Powerpoint Slides, Quizzes ... All this managed between the Dinner times, movies, chatting, surfing, partying, sight seeing, and of course, being with my beloved ... 'Sleep'!

I am constantly hammering this on my mind, that at this age and at this stage of my 'academic' career, grades do not matter! Yet, somehow the sense of greed and remorse surrounds me at the same time, when I look at my marks. Phrases such as "I could have done better", "If only... I had studied a bit more", "Next sem I'll try to score more" and alike; keep on hovering in my mind! I say WHY?

It is then I realize, that, we, as Indian students, are constantly bred within our education system, to race against each other on a benchmark of 'marks', 'grades', 'scores', whatever! Why is it that the first thought that crosses our mind (pre-exams, during the exams, and post-exams) that, I should score this much..... anything less than this is something to be ashamed of! We, intrinsically, have been developed in such a way, that we unconciously (or even sub-conciously!) try to be merely qualified than being thoroughly educated?

I do know that grades are a measure of feedback on how much the student has 'understood' of what is being 'taught' to him/her, but why such a tremendous emphasis as if it were to be a matter of life or death!

From now on, of whatever is left of my student life, I refuse to be dragged into this grindmill! I would not be bogged down or flattered by any grades of any magnitude, and the sole purpose of my academics will be to be educated and not just qualified!

If Only.....

Aditya

P.S.: This is from personal experiences, observations, trials and tribulations! The reader has it in the free will to disagree with any of the opinions, thoughts, and ideas.

Ganpati Bappa Morya!

Dear Ganpati Bappa,

This is my first time in past 10 years that I am away from home, a home called Pune, where Ganeshotsav, truly lives by its meaning! In the past 10 years of me being a 'Puneiite', without fail, I have seen the fervour and the zest with which the Puneiites celebrate the festival, and have loved every single moment of it!!!

This year, however, due to my personal as well as professional pursuits, I am not around the scene. I am at a place, where people are really indifferent, and consider 2nd September 2008, as any other normal day in their lives! I miss the enthusiasm and the colours of joy all around me. They are so infectious! It is at this time, I realise the power and importance of the Divine One such as you. They say, you truly miss someone/something when you are not around! Well, I hate to admit it, but it's the truth!
And when I realise that, I really have tears in my eyes, for the grief of missing something so truly pure and amazing is overwhelming!

There are so many things that I miss of this festival of life! The decorations, The Idols, The bhajans and aartis, the 'modaks', the fragrance of agarbattis and flowers everywhere, the electrifying energy in the people, but mostly importantly, I miss my family and friends, who have been around with me during this time of my life, every year! And, I miss you!

So, all this said, with my humblest self and I pray to you Lord Almighty, that it is my most sincerest wish to celebrate the next Ganesh Chaturthi being with all the people that I love to be with! People that I can identify myself with! Hope you grant me my wish!

Forever a Believer,

Aditya

Thank You, Mr. Abhinav Bhindra

Dear Mr. Abhinav Bhindra,

Thank you , you have truly made me proud..... and I'm sure that when I speak about my feelings, I would be one of the echoing crowd that says the same!

The first time I heard it, a tear rolled out of my eyes..... a tear that was composed of every feeling of happiness, pride, glory, grit, determination.

The feeling is truly amazing and I feel myself proud to be one of that country which produces a True Hero like you.

I, and We, hope that your exemplary achievement leads us to some introspect on what can we do for our great nation!

Hats off to you Sir! May the Divine Force be with you always, and lead you to many more moments of glory.

All I can assure you is that me and our fellow countrymen will try and bring glory to our great Motherland in every field that we venture into!

One in a Billion .... Yes! I am an Indian,

Aditya.

Just The Facts.....

This is India's first ever Olympian Gold in an Individual Event and 9th in Total!