Tuesday, June 05, 2007

On the Lot

Sometimes I'm glad I check out random shows on TV. I started following the latest reality show called On The Lot. This show pits a bunch of wanna-be film directors against each other for the opportunity to make a movie with Steven Speilberg.

I had been planning to write this post for a few days, but I only now figured out what I want to write about it. So what do I like about the show?

The contestants seem to be obsessed not with being personalities and beating everyone else, but they're obsessed with showing their talent and winning on their merits. There are a lot of reality shows out there which purport to put people against each other and find te winner best suited to the job. Shows like The Apprentice are supposed to be about finding the best business talent, but in the end, that show is just about Trump, his personality, his personality, his personality, and the cattiness of all the contestants.

People may have a lot of bad things to say about American Idol, but I think the reason the show is so popular is because people like to see everyone trying their darnedest to show their talent and win on their merits. Granted, with that show talent comes down to basic pop, but all the same, the show isn't about pitting people against each other, it's about talent.

On The Lot is very similar in that sense. These budding film makers don't spend much time talking about themselves. They talk about their films and the challenges or cool things they faced while making them. What's more, every contestant obviously has some level of talent they bring to the table, so while you may not like the contestant's submission, you've gotta admit they know a little bit about film making.

A couple of things to note...even though I don't watch too many movies, I've found that I really like the concept and process of film making (discovered while zoned out in front of Final Cut). And this type of contest is right up my alley.

Another thing to note? There's a Indian-American girl on the show and she actually seems to try at making a statement. Her submission tonight was a mockumentary about a South Asian Gay comic. Regardless of the subject, it was definitely very different than the other submissions. Her previous week's submission wasn't all that great, but the fact that she made a little bit risky film is pretty cool. Check out her film right here:
http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=6&vd=66

This week's show just passed but if you want to check out the submissions, you can still check them all out here:
http://www.thelot.com/episodes/

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Saving the day with Customer Service

I came to the Infiniti dealership this morning for the first regular service on our G35. I am usually wary of taking our cars to the dealership since they always seem to overcharge for basic things and make you feel guilty for not getting every recommended bit of work done on the car.

From the beginning with our G35 though, the Infiniti dealer has made me feel a lot better about bringing the car in here.

First of all, their prices are not through the roof. That, in the end, is the biggest thing. I don't need to pay a million dollars for an oil change no matter how expert the service techs are. Secondly, they have found some ways to make life a lot simpler. They actually called me about setting up my appointment. Granted, that was just a way for them to get more business from me, but if I'm already okay with bringing in the car, having them give me a call to quickly set up an appointment (less than 5 mins from beginning to end) is that much better.

So I brought my car in and when checking in at reception, I realized that they didn't have me in their list of service appointments for today. I say "realized" because they tried their hardest to not let on about that. I'm guessing that the appointment I made via Infiniti customer service somehow didn't end up making its way into the local dealership's schedule. I'm not sure of that, but I'm guessing that's the case since the receptionist asked if my appt could be under any other name.

But upon (probably) not finding my name in the schedule, the receptionist just proceeded to get my info in and act as if everything was completely normal. And within 2 mins, the specific service agent talked me through everything they would be doing and if there was anything else I wanted checked out. He even noticed a couple of things which I was about to mention to him.

And my ETA? About an hour.

Very different from my previous experiences with luxury car dealers that always seemed to make it different. To expensive. Too much hassle. Just too much of a pain to deal with.

Granted, I brought my car in for some really simple stuff, but it's encouraging that I'm able to blog about my good experience while I'm actually at the dealer (free wi-fi!)

Thursday, May 24, 2007

No Fault

This is fucking ridiculous.

If you recall, a Major League Baseball pitcher killed himself by driving while drunk and talking on his cell phone at the same time. Now, the pitcher's dad is suing OTHER people basically saying that they contributed to his death.

What the FUCK!?

He's suing the restaurant that served him drinks all night long. Okay, so I can potentially see some negligence there. But on the flip side, if they had not served him, he'd probably be a bitch ass about it and complaining that they're not serving him drinks.

He's also suing a tow truck driver for being on the roadside helping another driver in a stalled car. Huh?! The dad claims the tow truck driver was negligent for not getting the car out of the way faster and for not putting down flares etc.

He's also suing the driver of the stalled car! Why? For being negligent and letting his car stall in the first place.

Now, I'm the first to complain about people who don't pay attention and get into accidents, but seriously....this dude drank himself stupid, got in his car, proceeded to speed down the freeway while on his cell and drunk off his ass. And he unsurprisingly got into an accident and killed himself.

And now his dad's suing everyone else for killing his son?

Everyone's fault but his own.

The American way.

I can just see this asshat throughout his life. When his son was in little league, he was probably the most annoying dad making sure his son won at all costs, even if it meant the other boys got hurt while his son looked good. I'm sure he was never happy with the disrespect his son was shown in the majors for making less money than he should have. And now, he can't live with the fact that his son was an idiot who had drove dunk multiple times and finally got himself killed for being the idiot son that he was raised to be.

Fuck that.

[By the way, I'm personally trying to make Asshat the latest derogatory term. Please feel encouraged to us it as much as possible.]

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Immigration

So immigration has been back in the news since a bill proposal was put forth outlining a wide variety of things. In this case, the bill is supposed to allow for skilled workers to basically earn their way to a greencard and eventual citizenship. Everyone seems to have problems with the bill, which isn't a surprise since it's a compromise. Regardless of the bill itself, let's just admit right up front that the only reason this is even a topic is because people don't want to deal with things are causing much more strife: Iraq and Healthcare. That's what always happens when people don't want to deal with real problems....they bring up immigration. People love to fight about it.

But something just came to my mind while reading a post on Sepia Mutiny regarding the term FOB and a comment about previous immigrants eventually "pulling up the ladder" and hating on more recent immigrants. What I actually thought of is how futile the idea of this all is. If the bill enables skilled workers to come into the country, there's a group of Americans who will say "Man, those damn immigrants just want to take our high paying jobs". If the bill enables lower skilled workers to come in, there's a group of Americans who will say "Man, those damn immigrants just want to undercut us and bring down everyone's wages"

The point being, that regardless of the arguments, people just don't seem to like immigrants. And it gets back to the age-old argument that America is a country of immigrants, etc, etc. I think it's obvious that most Americans don't give a crap about that. Oh well. Sad.

Oh, and my thoughts on the bill? Well, it's so broad it's tough to say anything really succint about it. My main concern on the bill and the discussion around it is the construct of *workers* versus *families*. I'm not saying it's pro or against families, but the reality of most people is that they are part of some family unit. Most long term immigration is associated with families, not with individual workers. And if they are individual workers, they eventually make families for themselves by either finding someone already here or going back to their homeland and bringing back a spouse.

Regardless of whether you think this is bad or good, I think you have to acknowledge that for any type of immigration to work in the long run, it has to take that into account. I haven't read through every last detail on this bill, but it seems to do everything possible to discourage someone with a family to go through this new hassle. You apparently have to work here 2 yrs, then go back to your homeland for a yr, then you can come back for 2 yrs, then you can apply for a greencard. If I have a wife and kids, I just don't think I'd bother going that route, regardless of the expense of it. It's just too disruptive. So I'd either:
a) Come here alone legally and be a worker drone saving up until the day I can either return home as a rich man or import my wife and kids after my 5 yr wait. I'd also potentially be accused of taking away a skilled American programmer's job.
b) Stay home legally and be accussed to taking away American jobs through outsourcing
c) Come with my family illegally and be accused of stealing good jobs from every uneducated American.
d) Or just apply for the greencard lottery from home and wait 10 yrs with thoughts of sugar plum fairies dancing in my head.

So how's that any different from what we have now?

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Snap! Crackle! Found! The Image is Found

There's so much interesting stuff I find on the web and just get pulled into. Sometimes I hate myself for wasting time. Other times I just smile the whole time I've browsing. I'm smiling now and it's because of a photographer's blog. Or shall I more grammatically state it as..due to the blog of two photographers?

the image is found photography makes me smile for various reasons. They've obviously got a great eye (err...two great eyes...um four great eyes!), but I see lots of great photography all the time since I'm always looking for it. What kept me going about their work?

The fun.

Not just in the photos or in the way they write their own blog. But in everything they do. Wedding photography can be taken way to seriously sometimes just because love is supposed to be romantic and all that jazz.

Okay, no, I'm not jaded. Just because I see weddings all year long doesn't mean I find weddings to be boring. Quite the opposite.

But as I was saying to one of my brides last week, they've gotta have fun with it. It'll show on their faces, their guests' faces, and ultimately in the photos. And the bride I was talking to definitely agreed with me, but sometimes I feel like our couples don't really believe it when they hear it. Nate and Jaclyn from the image is found seem to be getting across to their clients.

And it leads to great shots that are not only beautiful, but they're romantic, fun, and memorable. So have a look at their galleries, but also take a look at their blog. Just great stuff all around.

[By The Way, just like I use "Snap! Crackle! Click!" for posts about my own photos, I'll use "Snap! Crackle! Found!" for posts about wonderful photography that I find on the web.]

Snap! Crackle! Click! Shy, but Not

My latest fave from photos which I took while in Kerala:

Getting It

I like to think of myself as an early adopter, but in reality, I'm probably far from an early adopter in Silicon Valley.

Perfect example? Twitter. It's actually a very simple idea - you can post IM like things via their website, IM, phone, etc. In Web 2.0 speak, it's Social Messaging. And it's mashable so people have made crazy AJAX apps where the Twitter posts pop up on a map and lots of other random things. People basically use it to raise their global hand and say "Hello!". It's so popular that even the New York Times has written about it: From Many Tweets, One Loud Voice on the Internet

Problem is...I just don't get it.

I suppose it's just me since I just don't get it. Maybe it comes down to the current world of everyone wanting to say something. Anything. And in a way, that's what Web 2.0 is about, isn't it?

But I just don't get it. I can't imagine sitting on a web page watching people post their random thoughts. I can't imagine getting a Growl pop-up everytime someone says "Hello World!". Heck, I can stand sitting in a chat room watching people talk amongst themselves.

I could say that I don't have time, but that's not the point. I could make time if I really wanted to. But I don't. I just don't get it.

And that applies/applied to a lot of other things in one way or the other. RSS Feeds and Google Reader? I totally understand the potential with that, but until a month or two ago, I could care less. I was fine with loading up individual web pages. But now I use GReader everytime I have spare time. Podcasts? It was less than a year ago that I fell in love with podcasts. Now I subscribe to a couple of dozen and listen to things when I want. Flickr? I got the idea behind Flickr, and I definitely use it now to post photos of mine, but I don't think I get as much out of it as so many other people do, namely the community aspects of it.

So maybe that's it? I don't get the community part of Web 2.0? Actually, I get it, but that's the part that I don't make time for. So if there's something that JUST about community, then I just won't get it. Twitter is one of those things. If you go to the site and read the tweets, they're all pretty dumb. But if are engrossed by reading other people's random one line thoughts, then sure, you'll be on that site all of the time. Me? Heck no. I've got better things to do.

The parts of Web2.0 I've really gotten are the ones that let me do what I want, when I want, in small or large chunks. Google Reader? Perfect way to keep track of news, blog posts, etc, etc on my own schedule and easily keep track of what I've read, what I've liked, and tell other people about interesting stuff. Podcasts? Perfect way to let me listen to my stuff when I want. Whether it's in the car, at the bedside or while walking the dogs. Flickr? I began using it because I love exploring other people's photos when I want.

So I'm fine with getting my info, my photos, my audio when I want. The rest, I just don't get it.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Stand Up For What's Right

I've been maligned John McCain on and off since he's been pandering a lot to the GOP "Base" with comments about the Bush admin and the Iraq War, but deep down, I've always known that he's still a stand up guy who would do what's best for the nation (rather than what's best for the GOP and "the base")

Yesterday's lame-o GOP debate was an example of where my confidence in McCain grew by the way he answered a question basically asking if the candidates would okay torture.

Before I get into his answer let me first say something about how ridiculous public discourse has become when a question like this is considered legitimate. Since when has the question of torture even been a topic of discussion? I'll tell you since when: Since we got an admin so intent on maintaining its grip on power and expanding it's control in any way possible. Thank You Dick Cheney.

So moving on to the question itself, here's the summary of the question from Fox News
(which ran the debate):
The candidates also were asked to respond to a hypothetical scenario — homicide bombings at three shopping centers near major U.S. cities. With hundreds dead and thousands injured, a fourth attack is averted when the attackers are captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay to be questioned. U.S. intelligence believes another, larger attack is planned and could come at any time. How aggressively should the detainees be interrogated about the where the next attack might be?


The question is obviously talking about torture and how tough these candidates would be in this ridiculous hypothetical pulled from "24". The funniest answer definitely came from Congressman Tom Tancredo who said he'd be looking for Jack Bauer. His answer just referred back to how ridiculous it is to offer up these scenarios and being so possible that we need to know the answer to it.

But it was John McCain who stepped up to the plate and hit a homer in terms of providing a meaningful answer, but also standing up for all that is right and just about the concept of America. In short:
When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us, as we went — underwent torture ourselves — is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them,” Mr. McCain said. “It’s not about the terrorists, it’s about us. It’s about what kind of country we are.


I'm offended that this ridiculous question is brought up. I'm worried that stupid responses like Rudy Guiliani's "every method short of torture" are even in the dialouge. But I'm happy to see McCain getting back to saying what needs to be said.

This "War of Terror", when it comes down to it, is a test of the American character. As far as the Bush admin's activities go, they have basically showed their character in their willingness to stoop to any means to support their end goal of supreme GOP power concentrated in the Executive Branch. There has never been any concern about what it means to be American, or even a human being....unless it's been as a snarky comment to make a Dem. look bad. Doesn't matter if it's torture, firing attorneys, or skirting every law imaginable; they've made it all too clear that character for them, means winning. At any expense.

I've said it before and I'll say it here....If I were ever vote for a Republican, the only person I could see doing the right thing for this nation now and in the future is John McCain. Let's hope GOP voters see to it that he's the GOP nominee coming out of this morass of GOP candidates.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Sheer Joy

Wedding season is warming up again so I was covering a wedding reception this past weekend. As I've said to friends, most weddings tend to be very similar to each other, but there http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifare usually one or two elements which set each event apart.

In this case, the unique thing was the last 5 minutes of the night and it really made me smile. The DJ had stopped playing music for the night and, as usual, the crowd wanted just one more song. This DJ stuck to hus guns and didn't start things up again, but the dhol players were happy to oblige. So they started to hammer away and everyone started dancing again.

Something about the crowd's attitude just had a different feel than the rest of the night and a different feel than most dancing and other parties. People are usually just into the music and enjoy it for what's it worth. However, with the lights on and the DJ packing up I think everyone realized just why they were on the dance floor. They were celebrating the bride and groom!

The smiles on everyone's faces. Everyone hugging the bride and groom one more time. Everyone picking up the children on the floor. It just made me smile.

And once again, I knew I'm in this for the right reasons.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Web 2 point Ohhhhh

Check me out...posting two days in a row!

So I mentioned Google Reader in my exceedingly long rant from yesterday. I actually wanted to talk more about it, but since I was mainly focusing on ranting, I left out some cool things I've finally come to realize about this whole Web 2.0 thing.

So I've only been using Google Reader regularly for a couple of weeks now. As I mentioned yesterday, the main thing for me is finding an easy way to keep up with the multitude of blogs that I like. Generally, each has at least one thing a day which is interesting and so I like to go to each one on a daily basis. Having everything in one place with an easy way to mark each as read or unread (just like email) means I spend less time scrolling and more time reading interesting things.

So up until now, it was really just a way for me to speed read through blogs. The interface was fine to help me through that, but the Web 2.0 nature of it didn't really hit me until today. And what exactly is the Web 2.0 nature of it?

The collaboration & sharing aspects. Until now, whenever I read something cool or interesting, I email friends as one-offs. Or if a blog is consistently interesting, I tell people about the URL. And that was the extent of it.

But today I just shared my first set of blogs. Check it out:
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/17433403963146537835/label/02-photo

So this is obviously a photo related set of blogs, but the cool thing about it is that I can quickly share out this stuff to my business partner so he can read things and keep up with the same type of things as me without having to do anything more than bookmark the link above. Or better yet, just add it as a feed into his own news reader.

Okay, okay, I know that sounds pretty lame and pretty geeky, but the whole idea of spreading information like this is so cool. Ya, the stuff I've shared above is all about photography, but what if it was about "green" technology? What if it was about the elections. The idea is that I can quickly share a base of knowledge with people. Not just so they can read the same things I read, but so we can all be informed as a community. And assuming they trust my intellect, they'll find utility in reading (or skimming through) the things I keep track of.

As John Chambers just said yesterday...
"...our communications and collaboration technologies are enabling the second phase of the Internet, or Web 2.0, which is redefining how people, companies and countries collaborate in ways never before realized."


What really excites me is the power of this all. Sure, what I've shared is limited and pretty specific, but as I mentioned above, simple things like this can really take us places. It's beyond a list of links, it's spreading knowledge around so that everyone can benefit and improve society as a whole.

As with that, I'll leave you with a visual on the power of what we're dealing with...


Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Back with some rants

Not bad...less then 3 months of laying low. And I'm back with some rants. So let's get into it...

Before my trip to India, I set up Google Reader as an easy way to go to a single page and catch up on news and interesting sites which I like. I used it a bit while vacationing, but in reality, I don't really care about news & blogs when I'm chillin' on a river in Kerala. Know what I'm sayin'?

By the way, if you're not familiar with Google Reader, it's an online service that lets you aggregate RSS feeds and read them in a single view. Read up on RSS here. The basic idea is that websites can publish their content in a standard format which is understandable by a RSS reader.

So last week I finally got back into G.Reader (as I have named the bookmark in Firefox) and I'm addicted to it. I save so much time by not having to go to multiple sites to read up on the latest blog posts. But there's one big drawback: News sites. They publish their headlines via RSS so they show up in my reader, but that's it. If I want to read the story, I still have to go to the site. That's understandable since they want to ensure you're getting the full experience they have to offer and they make money off the ads they place on their site. But the major news sites don't seem to get it with RSS...they publish ONLY the headline. Nothing more. And the headlines are such that you can't really tell if the story is anything interesting until you read the first few sentences. Why not just publish the first paragraph of the story along with the headline? That'll pull me in so I know it's something I want to read, and if it's interesting, I'll go right to your site to read the story and potentially even read more on the site directly rather than jump back to my RSS reader. But instead I just get a lame headline. NYTimes, CNN, ESPN, Yahoo, Slate, blah blah blah. You're all guilty of this and because of that I've taken them ALL off my subscribed RSS feeds. In fact, I actually go to those sites LESS now since it's more of a pain to click onto their website. Rather than visiting the sites every couple of hours, I head over to them just once or twice a day. Your loss, not mine.

Just more examples of big companies not trusting their users or readers and thereby alienating them.

Okay, so the next annoyance I have is with a subset of Mac users. Nothing new there. Mac-o-philes tend to be a little crazy to begin with. Most of it is due to simply being accustomed to certain ways of doing things. But sometimes I really wonder about them when they do things which just seem to make life harder.

So recently, Adobe came out with a huge update to all of their main software apps. Photoshop, Illustrator, etc, etc. Among all of the changes, they also changed the icons which the Mac uses to represent the applications. The old icons used to be a variety of colorful natural objects like feathers, leaves, flowers, etc bound within white boxes. I was used to them, but I always found myself trying to remember if the feather was the icon for Photoshop or for Bridge. I got it wrong about half the time and ended up waiting for the wrong app to open. Nice looking icons are cool and all, but when similar applications have similar icons, it's just a waste of time trying to remember which icon is which. So with the version of the apps, I think the Adobe people realized this and decided to simplify everything. So they made icons with two letter abbreviations for each icon. Nice and simple. More importantly, meaningful. Photoshop's icon says "Ps" on it. Bridge's icon says "Br" on it. At a glance, I quickly know which icon is which. They're not exactly beautiful, but they make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons.

Okay so Adobe did a good thing. Meanwhile, Mac-o-philes obsessed with cool looking things, decided they still needed icons which look good on their docks. So they created replacement icons which have no tie-ins to the apps at all. Why? They look cool?

This is the subset of mac users which I find really annoying. They do things JUST BECAUSE they look or feel cool. They like a disc-burning app called Disco because it has black smoke coming out when you're burning a disc. Cool? I suppose. But seriously...smoking apps? In the time it took that developer to add in the smoke, I'm sure something more functional could have been built into the tool.

And these Adobe icons? I'm thankful of the genius that figured out the utility of putting an application abbreviation on the iconset. SO useful. And yet, we have people who dislike them so much for reasons of beauty that they have to replace them.

Go figure.

Monday, February 19, 2007

You Know You're in Orange County When...

[FYI, I'm in Southern California this week and I'll be working from our Irvine office several days]

This is nothing new for me, but I can't help but make a mental list every time I'm down here. Keep in mind that I grew up in SoCal so I have special fun making light of this. Without further ado...a mix of good, bad, and funny things from my first 24 hours back....

You Know You're in Orange County When...
- You see more BMW 6 series coupes than Toyota Corolla's
- The corner mini mall with lunch eateries has lunchtime valet parking
- Otherwise normal looking men walk around with "Man Purses"
- The adults look like they belong on a daytime soap, the kids look like they belong on MTV. Take that for both the good and the bad :)
- Besides the guys behind the counter, I'm the only non-white person in Quiznos
- Besides my wife, I haven't seen another Indian person all day
- Going with the flow of non-rush hour traffic, my speedometer says 80 instead of 50. Yay!

Web 2.0 - Do you GET it?

You may have already seen this video. As of this posting, 1.2 million other people have already seen it.



Just a great visual representation of the potential Web 2.0. I'm not totally sold on the utility of video for most purposes, but in this case, a 4 min 31 sec video goes MUCH farther in explaining this than most text ever could. Obviously a much better use of video than stupid human tricks.



Thursday, February 15, 2007

Abhishwarya

That's the cheesy celeb couple nickname for Abhishek Bachchan & Aishwarya Rai. And if you've followed either of those links, you'll notice that people are gaga over their recent engagement. If you haven't bothered to follow the links here's the summary: Abhishek is the Prodigal Son of Bollywood, son of Amitabh Bachchan, who is the hands-down fave Bollywood actor of all time. Aishwarya is apparently TMBWITW (The Most Beautiful Woman in the World) who is at or near the top of the heap of Bollywood actresses.

I was just emailing with a friend yesterday on this topic and an interesting sub-text to this engagement. Before the official engagement, Indian news was filled with daily updates of their rumored pairing. Whereas US celeb news is filled with grainy photos of the couple running around on the beach or shopping together, the Indian news was filled with photos of the couple and the Bachchan family (or their cars) entering or leaving temple.

Huh?!

Temple?

That's right, the most telling news to confirm that these two were together was that they were going to temple for specific prayers. And the newscaster informed us that the prayers were specifically for Aishwarya.

Why?

Well, she's a working girl. No not a prostitute. But she works. For a living. And the Bachchan family apparently wasn't very happy with this situation and needed to address the situation before marriage so that the gods (and their forefather and all of India apparently) would be pleased.

So here's the interesting thing...Aish is obviously strong woman. She's gotten pretty far in her young life. Sure, she's a really bad actress and immensely annoying in interviews, especially in English, but heck, she started off as a wannabe model and is now a top actress earning millions. That's nothing to sneeze at.

But it is apparently something to spit at if you're a traditionally minded, conservative Indian. And that sort of surprised me. Even one of my cousins who I consider to be pretty liberal (she's divorced, remarried, and living in Bombay) had bad things to say about Aish and her working status.

What gives?

It could just be that people are tired of her. Or that they're jealous.

But after thinking about it some more I saw a true dichtomy (as with everything related to India, there's a dichtomy going on). In this case, it's basically two ways of thought on Aish's status and her actions. And I realized this situation is really an easy way of determining how liberated & emancipated an Indian is. Just ask what they're most annoyed about in this situation:

A) The fact that Aish would put herself through this religious nonsense just to marry Abhishek.

B) The fact that Aish is a working girl who doesn't plan to quit acting once she's married.

If you answered A, you're truly liberated and can't stand the thought of subjugating your very soul. Even though Aish talked the talk, she clearly can't walk the talk. Fuck her and this was her last chance. She's just another traditional Indian girl.

If you answered B, you're truly traditional and it just makes sense that Aish would agree to these religious things since it'll lead to a happier life. Hopefully she eventually realizes that her continued acting will look bad on the Bachchan family and she'll quit the biz. The interesting backstory to this is that when Amitabh got married to Jaya Badhuri, she quit acting, presumably to be a good housewife (and look on as her husband had a years-long affair with Rekha)

My friend? She's clearly in the A camp. This was Aish's last chance and she blew it.

Me? Well, I'm just a narrator, telling the story :) And I found it really interesting that the reaction to a single coupling could tell you all you need to know about an Indian...

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

On the iPod, DRM, and His Steve-ness

[This post started off as a comment on my friend's blog, but it got so long, I just decided to make it a post here rather than a long-ass comment over there]

I too have wondered about Jobs' DRM thoughts; mainly why he wrote it other than to seem like he's leading the charge for a DRM-less world, rather than the biggest purveyor of DRMed content (music, video, games). In a way, it's good that Jobs states the obvious since it seems like if anyone can make this happen, it would be him. The record companies have clearly been blind and/or wrong since digital music began. They've dug themselves a hole which is hard to get out of.

Here's an interesting point to note: 90%+ of music sold is DRM-free. Just about every CD we buy has no form of DRM. And CDs continue to be sold left and right. Of course that model is on its way out, but I think it's silly of any exec to pretend that the music biz would collapse without DRM. In fact, it's quite healthy. Even when people can easily download pirated music.

Spin Mag has a short piece on what record companies should do to keep the industry going. Some of them are obvious like letting us decide which player & software app to use and not worry about interchangeability (I still worry about this simply because I've got 3 different computers where I might want to play one of my purchased iTunes songs!) Unfortunately, the piece isn't online, but it's just such obvious stuff.

On that note, it's just idiotic for Jobs to pretend like he's onto something here and that he's trying to convince the record companies of this. We've known this for a long time and nobody should feign ignorance here.

On the note about people buying more iPods vs perhaps buying phone/player combos, I can't help but think of the walkman. Sony revolutionized the usage of music. The iPod and other high capacity MP3 players evolved this by allowing up to carry most (or all) of our collections in our pocket. But what happened with the walkman? Why didn't people keep buying them left and right?

Well, partially, I'm sure because walkmans seeemed to work FOREVER. I had one for 5+ yrs!. But more importantly, the newness just wore off and people realized that they really didn't need a walkman every moment of their lives. They were happy enough with little radios to use while at the gym or [ARGH!] a moment of silence!

Similarly, I think people are beginning to realize that they don't really need every song at every moment of every day. What's more important is having something conveniently avaiable. So when the old iPod dies, rather than immediately replacing it with another iPod, a lot of people are more logical with their choice and buy something that works, but doesn't necessarily have the panache or storage of an iPod. Sure, it's nice to have the coolness, but if $250 can be spent to get BOTH a phone and a player, why not? It may not be perfect, but it works.

Of course, this all comes from someone who has had a quite capable PDA phone that can play music but still went out and bought his first iPod a few months ago. :)

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Rehab Party

Rehab used to be a serious thing where the person was in seriously bad shape and really just needed to get away and concentrate on healing their addiction. The person would be gone for months and you'd even forget that the person went into rehab since they've been there for so long.

But now? Well, it's the in thing.

You heard about Lindsay Lohan go into rehab after she finally admitted that she had an alcohol problem. Then there was the Miss America who got exposed with some photos of her partying and after about a week she entered rehab. Well, both of these woman seemingly healed themselves in a matter a days! Heck, Miss America is already going interviews about it.

Doesn't getting over an addiction or a serious problem actually take more than a week or two? Nowadays these people check themselves in and are better all of sudden and can't help talking about how much they've changed. Heck, the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, just said he's going to go into alcohol rehab. Is he gonna be done with that by the end of the week?

So here's the possible explanations for this quick turnaround rehab deal:
1) These highly stressed out people are really teetering on the edge and all it takes is a quick sanity check to get them back on track. Checking into rehab gives them a few moments to think things through and the healing is fast and furious just like they say.

2) The relaxing environment and the assistance of trained professionals puts these people back on track and once the pros recognize a certain level has been reached, they check them out of rehab. The rest is up to the individual to completely heal. When these celebs get out, the healing they're talking about is still underway, but they're so happy with the progress they've made that they can't help but gush about it.

3) It's just the in thing to do. A nice way to have a couple of weeks of vacation. These people never really get anything out of rehab, but they're in the public eye so they've gotta talk about the healing they've gone through. In reality, they're still druggies or hard partying alcoholics.

You know which one I think it is.....since when do celebs buck the trend? They're all sheep. They'll smear shit on their torsos if some fitness guru convinces a few of them that it'll keep them tones and "centered"

I call bullshit on this rehab phenomenom. Let's not allow these idiots to pretend like they're doing any healing. They'll say what they want to say, but in the end, they're still doing what they want to do. Whether that's snorting lines of coke, cheating on their wives, or just partying like rockstars, don't for a second believe that a week in a rehab spa makes them the next Gandhi.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Deja Vu

Okay, we lots of love to harp on Bush and his seeming love for war. The jokes about invading Iran began even before we got into Iraq. Remember those "he just got one letter wrong" jokes about why Bush went into Iraq instead of Iran?

Anyways, comments about action against Iran used to be pretty hush hush and very speculative in the mainstream. Now, however, it's a daily topic. In fact, the admin doesn't shy away from saying that actions will be taken against any Iranian supported terrorist activities inside Iraq. Bush said that just the other day during his NPR interview.

Of course this is all eerily similar. Crooks and Liars even has a post about it with video comparisons.

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if we start bombing or even invading Iran before Bush is out of office. I'm scared about that possibility, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

But I've been thinking about this from the angle of the admin saving its ass. Beginning in late 2006, we keep hearing from the admin about how Iraq and Maliki need to stand up since it's their responsibility to get things back on track and stop the violence. No doubt, it's, in the end, their responsibility since it's their country. But nary a word is said about the details of the US's involvement in cleaning up the mess. We're obviously involved up to our eyeballs, but the way the admin makes it sound is that we're just tagging along.

My guess is that these conjectures are made because if things go wrong (which they likely will before they go right), the admin can say it's not our fault. It's the the Iraqis fault. Why? Well, because it's their responsibility! And we tried to help them! So if things aren't working out, well, heck we did our best, but they blew it!

As usual, the admin will twist situations around to suit their purposes.

So why am I alluding to this in reference to Iran? Because I get the feeling that th admin is setting up the pieces to add a "blame Iran" corollary to the "blame Iraq" thesis. So assuming Iraq isn't the safe haven of Arab democracy that Bush claimed he wanted to create, it's all the fault of the Iraqis themselves along with the Iranian thugs. None of it is the fault of the admin, since well, they were just trying to help the whole time. They can't help it if the crazy Arabs keeping spitting in the batter before it's baked.

Look, we may not invade Iran, but it's just a matter of time before there are a couple of airstrikes inside Iranian borders. And we're already getting the hint of the "blame Iran" strategy.

We want a strategy for getting out of Iraq. Apparently, the admin already has a strategy for covering their sorry asses.



Wednesday, January 31, 2007

To the Phones!

I think this might be my week of complaining. I spent way too many words talking about cell phone etiquette when in line. Now I'm annoyed by the fact that telemarketers are already all over my new phone number!

This phone line has only been around for 10 days and I'm already getting 4-6 calls a day. Glory be the invention of caller ID since I can tell how many random calls I get while I'm away (I wonder if the dogs get annoyed by all the calls when they're home alone). What I don't understand is that Comcast says they keep all numbers private. How is possible for the Chronicle, the local Police Department, and every telemarketer around already have my number?

When I got the line I figured I would add it to the Do Not Call database but I wasn't in any rush since I figured it would take some time (and me sharing the number) for telemarketers to find out I got a phone line. Lo and behold, just 2 days after the line was installed, I got the first call! One business day! That's all it took!

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Niceities

Okay, so maybe I'll sound like a rube who should get with the times. Afterall, everyone's busy so we gotta do as much as possible in as little time as possible. It's called multi-tasking right?!

But there's one thing that I really try to avoid whenever possible: Talking on the cell phone while being assisted by someone.

You know the story. You're in a checkout line and your phone rings. So you answer it and in the meantime you've gotten to the front of the line and need to checkout. What do you do? Here's the options which I think most people likely consider:
  1. Give a smile to the checker and act like you feel guilty that you're on the phone, but you remain on the phone. You may talk to the checker if absolutely needed, but your focus is on the other end of the phone line, not the other side of the check-out counter.
  2. Give a smile to the checker, tell the person on the phone to hold on a second and finish your business with the checker. The whole time the phone is still on and you resume your conversation as soon as you're done with the checker.
  3. When you get to the front of the line, tell the person on the phone that you'll have to call them back and hang up.
  4. You get out of line while you finish up your conversation and get back in line when you're done.
  5. You don't take the call, finish up with the check-out, then check your voicemail and/or call the person back.

I'm sure that you can guess which option I usually take? Number 3. I used to take option 1 or 2, but at some point I realized that I was being inconsiderate to both the checker and the person on the phone with either of those options. Now, if I was being totally considerate of the entire situation, I'd just let the call go through to VM and call the person back. I only do that if I'm about to start my checkout, but normally, I'll pick up the phone and tell the person I have to hang up when it comes time.

What's my main reason for doing this? Honestly, the first thing I think of when I see someone take option 1 is that they're treating the checker like a servant. Yes, obviously, the checker is there to serve you the customer. But do you have to treat him or her like a man-servant?

I just saw this in the cafeteria this afternoon. What drove me to finally blog about this is the attitude the customer had with the checker. Not only did she continue with her phone conversation, but when the checker asked her what she had (a salad and chicken), she looks dismayed at having to tell the checker a second time. And in between telling the checker what to ring up, she's apologizing to the person on the phone for asking him/her to repeat what was just said.

Seeing that just makes me feel bad for the checker. She's doing her job and you can barely give her the 30 seconds it takes to complete a transaction? I personally feel guilty if I do this to someone and rather than make a stupid face to the checker, make the checker dislike me, and still feel bad about it, I just slow down and give each person the time and respect they deserve.

I've expanded this to regular situations when I'm with a friend. I'll usually not answer my phone unless I know it's going to be short or if the person has called me a couple of times. Even then, I still try to tell the person I'm with that I need to take the call and why I need to take it. It's the least I can do.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Snap! Crackle! Click! India Wedding Photos

The excuse for us to go to India was a relative's wedding. And being a wedding photographer, I obviously took photos during the events. It was actually more difficult getting shots that are different than I usually take during a wedding gig. While I'm always trying to be creative on any job, I usually take some stuff which is standard across the board since the clients are looking for certain things at a minimum. So I tried to stay away from those typical shots this time. And since I wasn't a lead photographer I had the chance to roam around and not capture every little thing. Even then, I kept thinking about all the different shots I could get of the ceremony details. So I had to stop myself from falling into that "rut".

What I tried to do is thinking about the wedding from the perspective of a guest, which I rarely do. Even when I attend a friend's wedding here, I'm always looking over at the photographer or videographer. I annoy myself sometimes with not being able to take my mind off that stuff...I'm sure I annoy my wife much more offten :)

Anyways, so I tried to stay in the crowd as much as possible and stayed away from taking photos of the bride, groom, and their parents. And here's a few of the shots I took....click through to see more about each on Flickr.

Mandap Mandwo...with a little zoom action. No Photoshop!

Trying to get the feel of the rush through in an image. Touch is such low light.

More baraati rush.

Onlookers

Captured Photographers. Notice the second guy talking on his phone even when events are going on.

There are more in Flickr so head over there to see the rest.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

After every trip to India I get questions such as "so are things really different in India?" It's a basic question that I'm sure every person gets when they return. The obvious answer is "Yes" since India's a developing country. And there's usually an undercurrent of woe when talking about how fast India is developing like "Man, I can't be-LIEVE that people are doing XYZ there now!"

[On a quick side note, if you think about visitng ANY place after 5 years, you're bound to see changes varying from subtle to significant. Heck, in the last 5 years, even Milpitas has changed a boatload!]

So usually, when answering this question I focus on the visual changes to the country either in terms of buildings and fashion or things that you find on TV. This time however, the biggest change I noticed was much more subtle.

And that is the the onslaught of credit cards and loans. First off, I'll say that I'm a happy consumer who greatly appreciates credit cards and home loans. But while I'm a heavy user of credit cards, I NEVER rollover a balance on my credit card from month-to-month. Also, even though we have a HUGE mortgage to pay off, before wading up to our knees in loan debt, we carefully thought about our long term plan for housing since carrying this size loan is not a fun thing to do permanently.

That being said, my description about the coming of a credit-based lifestyle in India does indeed have an undercurrent of woe. The main reason for that is the likelihood that many middle-class people are going to get caught in the web of too much credit card debt. Not to say that Indians don't have a good financial sense, but until very recently, India really ran on current accounts. Basically, whether payment was made with cash, check, or some sort of draft, the money being exchanged by lay people has heretofore been real money that already belongs to them.

That obviously isn't the case with credit cards and loans. And that's what scares me. The easy availability of credit cards is a real problem here in the US where such things have been very common for at least 25 years. I've known a few people who just couldn't control themselves with a credit card in hand. Even if they may know that the money is not actually their's, they get this feeling that regardless of how much they spend, they'll figure out a way to pay it off eventually. It's this capitalist can-do attitude that can be great most of the time, but can also get you in trouble if you can't follow through.

And trust me, Indians are masters of can-do. And with easy access to credit, my gut feel is that people will get a few credit cards and buy the nice clothes they really want. They'll get a car loan so they can quickly have their own car. And when they acquire this debt, the feeling will be that even if they can't pay it off now, they'll l be making more money in the future so they'll be able to pay it off in the near future once they're earning more from the higher paying job they're going to get in six months.

There's obviously a big chance these people will get caught in a downward spiral. I haven't heard many anecdotes about people actually getting caught up in this, but I've seen the signs from various companies looking to offer credit to anyone who wants it. It could be the Citibank hawkers outside the Bombay airport offering a credit card to anyone who can show them a boarding pass (as in, hey if you can afford a plane ticket, you can afford a mountain of debt!). It could be the car ad with a big starred section offering up credit to people who need it.

And so that's the biggest change in India I've been mentioning to people. The development of a credit based economy is certainly good and will help the Indian economy grow by leaps and bounds. I just hope that the users of this credit don't forget that it's just credit, not cash in their pocket.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Snap! Crackle! Click! A few shots from Mumbai/Bombay

I'm a bit lacking on words right now, so I'll just mention a few photos I took while in Mumbai...click on each photo to go to the Flickr page for more description and to leave comments




The Taj Hotel in Mumbai on a sunny day. I wish I had my wide angle lens. Given that it was my first day in India, I really regretted not bringing it and thought that I'd really miss it. But in the end, I rarely thought about lens selection the entire trip since I had a good all round lens on me.

Silver Plaza shopping for jewelry. Mind blowing how efficient they are here with showing you the exact selection you're thinking about. It's almost like they're reading your mind. December is NRI (Non-Resident Indian) season since Indians from all over the world take their vacations at that time of year and so many are doing wedding shopping.


Dark magazine stand on the streets of Santa Cruz (Mumbai). In reality it wasn't this dark and creepy (the sun was just setting), but I love what's possible when you can control your camera well. The only photoshopping I've done to this is cropping and adding a bit of brightness to the light bulb.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Snap! Crackle! Click! Let the image parade begin...

Rather than work through all of my photos and then post a final gallery, I've decided to post photos little by little. I've already edited about 1/2-2/3 of the photos I took while in India so I'm going to pick out specific ones...either just because I love the photos or because there's a story to tell.

For all these photos, I'm posting them up at Flickr so click on the image to go there and leave comments if you want. Also, since I'm posting more photos to Flickr than I'm actually including in my blog, check over there to see a broader selection.

And with that...let's begin with some village children...



As I mentioned on Flickr, there's just something about this girl that catches my eye. She's obviously a very pretty girl, as are so many of these village children. But her attitude was really what made me think twice after I took the photos. And while this isn't my favorite photo from my trip, I knew I'd want to post it first just because it left an impression.

And what else left and impression?


"Want Pen!"

I'm not sure why pens are such valued items in India, but ever since I was little, my cousins over there would always want my pens. While we've all grown up, these kids are still having a blast hamming it up and asking me for any pens. In fact, I took extra pens with me to India since I just knew there would be an occasion to hand them out.

So enjoy, and come back soon.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

HFL = High Flood Level

Well, Happy New Year!

After a long vacation related hiatus, I'm back. Before I left for India I wasn't sure I would want to blog while on vacation, but I figured I would probably find something to write about. And while I certainly had things to relate, I really had no desire to do so. And so a month and a half passes by like *that!*

Anyways, I start off the new year with photos. And the first photo is the simplest of them all:



My hometown in India is in Surat, Gujarat (well, it's technically Bardoli which is 30km away, but let's not nitpick since I was actually born in Surat and the majority of my relatives live there too). Over the years, Surat has had its share of problems, like riots, the plague, and flooding. Last August Surat saw the flood to end all floods. Days and days of water up to 30 feet deep.


And yet, you can't tell anything of the sort happened just 5 months ago. Except for these crude markers all over the city. They're marks of history and resilience. This specific marker was about 15 feet off the ground, but they range from just 2 feet off the ground all the way up to 30 feet. And where ever you go, the City has painted reminders of what happened in early August. What's more is that people are proud of what they've overcome. So much so that even if they re-paint the outside of their buildings to erase the marks of rain, flooding, and wear and tear, they still leave an untouched box around the marker to ensure everyone remembers just how high the water came.

It's still a bit difficult to pin down exactly what happened to cause such severe flooding, but the basics are clear. Torrential monsoon rains were much heavier last summer than usual. The Ukai dam upriver from Surat was way over it's normal limits. Dam workers waited and waited to release water from the dam. And when they finally released the water, they did so in fell swoop, rather than staggering the release over time. The water reached Surat six hours later and didn't subside for at least 8 days.

Here's an editorial about how the floods could have been avoided:
http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/portal/2006/10/600

This person has compiled a good set of photos from that time:
http://news.webshots.com/album/555111753wseoID

So this man-made disaster really got the best of people for while. The funny thing is that even though people were stranded without power or fresh water, they still managed to drink whiskey from rooftops every day.

Immediately after the floods, we had heard stories of mud and filth throughout the entire city of 4 million people. But arriving in town just 3 months after things dried up, I was surprised at how little seemed affected. Sure, there are still junked cars in specific areas, but life seems amazingly back to normal. The loom industry which Surat is so famous for is still running like mad. I would have figured that many looms would have been destroyed by so much water and mud, but going through the streets, you can still hear them running 24 hours a day. I heard many stories from friends & relatives about what they did during the floods. Thankfully, none of them lost anything besides some ruined property, but there were some 200 accounted deaths and likely many more uncounted deaths of those swept straight into the nearby Indian Ocean.

From the stories I had heard prior to leaving for India, I wasn't sure what to expect. Certainly some devasation would still be visible...but not a single sign except for these painted markers? Amazing. I hope to see the same reminders when I return to Surat in the future.

And so a simple photo to represent something amazing and to start 2007.

Many more photos to comes.