A nice surprise

I got a nice surprise with my credit card bill today. ICICI Bank has a money back offer, where you get a certain percentage of your bill back based on the sum of the digits in your authorization number. I had always taken it with a bag of salt. I mean, who would give up to 100% off on your bill? True to form, I've only been getting 1-2% off on all my transactions these past few months. Not that I mind, atleast it takes care of the extra 2% that many people add to your bill if you pay by credit card.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, to find a 20% off on one of my transactions. Best of all, it was a big bill (16000) for the hotel stay during Mahesh’s marriage. And I get almost 3200 back! Now, when I buy that LCD TV that I've been eyeing for many months, I'll surely pay by credit card and hope for a similar gift.

Seventymm

Online video rental sites are sprouting up everywhere in India. Seventymm was the first out of the blocks and now it has been joined by another company, Madhouse. I recently learnt of another one, Catchflix. I’ve been a customer of Seventymm for the last 4 months now. Below is my impressions of the service

Website Design
Their site is fast and loads quickly and is designed well. I like the fact that a complete summary of the movie is shown when you move the mouse over the title, saving you a few mouseclicks.
Overall, the site is very professional looking and on par with the major sites. It definitely gives the impression that these are serious players and not any aira-gaira site.

Signup Process
They charged me a deposit (999) + a joining fee (around 500). With increased competition, they may do away with the joining fee. Even the deposit should be replaced by a credit card guarantee.

Plans
They have two plans, an unlimited one for 600 rupees a month and another for 200 rupees, where you can rent up to 4 movies. In both plans, you can have two movies with you at any time.

Movie Selection Process
If you know the movie you are looking for, it works well. But, if you want to browse their catalog, it is painful to use. I’m not sure if their language option works as a filter and where it is applicable. They’ve added a new additions link recently that atleast simplifies the process a little bit. A glaring omission is a powerful search tool that allows for search by criteria like movie, actor, language, genre, date ranges etc. Once you find a movie you like, you add it to your movie queue. They will deliver movies to you from your queue, depending on the priority in the queue and its availability. I’ve seen reports on the Net of services like Netflix that emply sophisticated algorithms to manage the queue and smoothen out the spikes in demand. I've not seen much evidence of that with Seventymm. That said, it is expected that newer releases are in much higher demand that the older ones, and if I have older and newer movies in the queue, I have got the older movie before the newer one.

Movie Quality
This is one of their USP’s and where it scores over the neighbourhood video libraries. They claim to only stock original prints. The quality of the print has always been top notch. But, I’ve received a few discs (mainly English movies) that were meant for Malaysia/Thailand (i.e. Region 3 discs with a choice of Malay/Thai subtitles). Also, I’ve noticed that the DVD cover is not the original in some cases (without the artwork) and have holders for two discs when the movie was obviously shipped in only one disc. I’m not sure of the legality of these discs, whether these are original discs bought in SE Asia due to their non-availability in India or the pirated stuff from KL. These haven't occurred often, so I'll give them the benefit of doubt here.

Older movies may not be available on DVD, so you would have to settle for VCD.

Movie Choice
My interest is restricted to English, Hindi and Tamil. Here’s how I would rate the choice of movies offered

Old Hindi movies : very good, choice is extensive and even obscure movies are available
New Hindi movies : good, they get the discs around a month or two after release. This is for blockbusters, the lower budget movies are available sooner.
New English : bad, choice is very minimal
Old English : average
Tamil : below average

Delivery Method
I can request for a pickup/delivery very easily by SMS, web or phone. They have a delivery person who comes to the house for this. Delivery and pick up happen at the same time, unlike with services like Netflix where there is a postal delay. I would like a postal/drop off option as well, but its not very feasible in our country.

To sum up, I've been very satisfied with their service. I think they have a bright future, as Indian consumers are looking beyond cost nowadays and are ready to choose quality even if it is more expensive. While competition in this space is likely to increase with other companies also coming up, they would also need to wathc out for companies like Moser Baer, which plans to sell VCD/DVD at 28 and 34 rupees. If that takes off in a big way, it could totally kill their business model.

Two Photos - 31 years apart

Nisha has a competition in her school where she has to dress up as a policewoman. Here is a photo of her

From Two generations

Incidentally, here's a photo of me dressed as a policeman in my junior years

From Two generations

My thoughts on Michael Schumacher

I had been wanting to put this down in words for a few months now, but
didn't know where. Now that I have this blog...

My interest in F1 started in the late 80s. There were a bunch of us at
school who got hooked into F1, Prost, Senna etc. We didn't really have
much exposure beyond the odd report of races in Sportstar. Unbelievable,
as it may sound to all those of you who know me, I had totally lost
touch with F1 through my college years. Remember, that but this was
before the Internet, and newspapers/magazines were the only option for
news. There was no TV even (this was the pre-cable era). This didn't
mean that I wasn't interested, it just was that there was no way for me
to know what was going on. But, when Star TV started showing the F1
races from 1993 (from the Monaco GP), I was instantly hooked. Since
then, I think I have missed less than 5 races over 14 seasons. I've
planned onsite trips, vacations, holidays around the F1 calendar. My
wife even joked that I planned my wedding and honeymoon to fall on a
non-F1 weekend.

Pre Star Sports, my idol was Prost. There was just something so cool
about his style, his smoothness, his no-fuss approach to racing.
Somehow, I never really liked Senna. To my young (but still logical)
mind, I could see myself driving like Prost, but never like Senna. I
still can't understand why, though. When I started watching F1 in 1993,
obviously Prost was winning, a lot, the Williams that year was just so
much better. I was happy, because my favourite driver was winning. But,
watching Senna drive, in an under-powered Mclaren, I slowly became his
fan and he replaced Prost as my favourite driver. I was thrilled when he
moved to Williams, as he would get a world championship that he so
richly deserved.

His start to the 1994 season was not good. He was on pole for the fist
two races, but spun off in Brazil and was taken out at the first corner
at Aida. That fateful day at Imola, I still remember the date, May 1,
1994 happened. I had been rooting so much for Senna that his death left
me searching for someone else. A void that Schumacher would go on to
fill.

I can't really say that I noticed Schumacher too much in hi early
career. I totally missed his arrival in F1. Even in 1993, I didn't
really notice him too much. He won the race at Portugal , all right, but
then I was so focused on Prost and Senna. And remember, in those days,
it was just the two hours on TV every alternate weekend. No Internet, F1
didn't feature in the newspapers at all. Even when he won the first two
races in 1994, I was more distraught that Senna lost. The turning point
was the fifth race, at Barcelona , I think. Schumacher had a problem
that resulted in him being stuck in 5th gear. Yet, he adjusted
brilliantly and came home 2nd. I still remember that due to senna's
accident, they had put temporary chicanes with tyres. The way that he
changed his line of entry was truly amazing and made converted me into
his #1 fan. I went through the highs and lows of the 1994 season and
felt that justice was done when he won the championships that year
despite all the controversies.

When he moved to Ferrari, I became a Ferrari supporter. I really enjoyed
his brilliant drives (Barcelona 96, Spa 98, Malaysia 99, Suzuka 2000,
France 2004 really stand out). To me, he was a man who could make the
impossible possible. You felt that he was always a threat for the win,
even if his car was incapable of challenging for it. His commitment,
passion, the ability to give it a 100% every single time, these are
qualities that I wished I had in the same measure.

He's retired from F1, now I need someone to take his place. I guess as
you grow older, and the sporting heroes are younger than you are, you
tend to look at them differently. You become a fan, you root for them to
win, but somehow it is never the same as before. Schumi was probably the
last of my sporting idols.

Last weekend movie: Guru

We are on a movie watching spree, it seems. Dhoom 2 last weekend and this weekend, we went to see Guru.

We saw it at the Innovative Multiplex.. I went to book tickets on Friday afternoon and expected to go away disappointed. But, there were plenty available. Which, I discovered later, was because they were running it on all 4 screens. And all of them were sold out.

The movie was average. It was technically brilliant, and the cinematography was really good. The sets were just how you'd expect, not a thing out of place. Just what you would expect from Mani Rathnam. The story wasn't really new, but interesting. There were similarities to Dhirubhai Ambani's life , the early years in the Gulf, the cult of the shareholder, the manipulation of the government etc. Some of the scenes were a bit hard to swallow, how Guru comes out of many months of paralysis and starts defending himself in the courtroom, likening his struggle to Gandhiji, the songs that did not fit in at all (how many CEO's would gyrate to a song like Yamma Yamma). The performances were just average. I still don’t think Abhishek is that great an actor. He’s ok for roles like Bluffmaster, Dhoom etc, where you just have to show up and look cool, something he does well. But, he’s just not cut out for roles like Guru, which require a lot more depth and range. Maybe, he’ll develop it over time. The rest of the characters were bit players, including Aishwarya, who played her usual wooden self. That said, news of their engagement today is sure to lead to a surge of interest at the box office.

Movies this weekend

We saw two movies this last weekend, one at the theatre and another on DVD. Both were very similar, action flicks with spectacular special effects and storylines with holes big enough to fly a 747 through them.

We finally caught Dhoom 2. It’s run for 50 days and after watching it, one wonders how. Just like how a room full of cops fails to notice the mini car waltz across the room, climb up the pedestal, remove the diamond and deliver it to Hritik? What were the people monitoring the cameras doing? Eating vada-pav? It was the same for the other movie, Mission Impossible 3. How is it that you can plug any wire into any socket and they work just like that? Haven’t they heard of protocols? Wish it was just as easy in real life.

They belong to the genre where its best to not ask any questions, and just enjoy the action on the screen. And on the entertainment quotient, both delivered. I felt MI-3 was more paisa-vasool, as we paid only 50 bucks for it!!!

My Google Reader Link blog

I experimented with a number of RSS aggregators (My Yahoo, a couple of Windows based ones, one that plugs in to Outlook, can't recall the name, Sage a Firefox plug-in). The biggest problem that I had was synchronizing the read items across the computer at home and my laptop. I started with Google Reader right after it was released. I guess the thing that really attracted me to it were the keyboard shortcuts, which made an old vi hand like me feel right at home.

I now spend atleast an hour a day on Google Reader, going through the various feeds that I subscribe to. My interests are mainly in the area of computers, sports and news/economy. I also subscribe to a few Indian feeds as well.

The point of this post is the ability in Google Reader to share items with the world. It is truly awesome, just a single keystroke and the item is flagged for sharing. My shared items page is here at Jaggu's shared items.

I'll be sharing items that are funny, interesting, inspiring, cool or just simply plain timepass.
Enjoy!!!

My Exercise saga

I have been engaging in some form of exercise (jogging, walking, cycling) from 1997. However, I was never really consistent in my exercise.

This changed towards the end of 2004. The trigger was a complete health check up that I underwent. The message was clear, shape up or else… I started out in earnest as soon as I came back to Bangalore in March 2005 to join my new job. I would get on to the exercise cycle for around 15-20 minutes everyday. I did this regularly for 4-5 months. But, due to my work schedule, my diet went totally haywire. I was returning home late and having my dinner at around 10:30 or 11:00 pm, just before I went to sleep. Add to this, the frequent dinners with my team where we would totally freak out on tandoori chicken and the like, the net result was no real change in my fitness or weight through to the end of 2005.

My statistics at the end of 2005:

Weight : 86-87 kg

Clearly, I had to do something. My resolution for 2006 was to lose 10% of my weight and make changes to my lifestyle, both in terms of exercise and also in my diet, so that I can keep my weight at that level.

I’m very happy to report that I achieved most of these goals. I started keeping track of when I exercised. At the end of the year, I found that I had worked out on 237 days out of 365. That’s around 4 days every single week. Actually, if you take out March, where due to an extended holiday and some pressures at work, I barely managed 10 days at the gym, it almost comes down to 5 days a week. My weight now hovers between 78-79 kg. I am easily able to run at around 8 to 9 km/h for 30 minutes without a break. I now run around 23-25 km per week and have been doing that for the past 7-8 weeks. I can feel my fitness levels on the rise, I am able to climb up the 6 floors to my house or at the office without even breaking a sweat. The biggest change is in my mindset. Earlier, I was looking for a way to get out of working out. Nowadays, I feel lousy on days that I don’t do any exercise.

I still haven’t been able to make the changes to my diet as I had hoped. For a brief period in May, I gave up non-vegetarian food. I stuck to that for around 3 months, but then started again, though in moderation. This year, I hope to cut back even on my diet and switch to healthier diet. I want to do this gradually, as I think any sudden change is going to be difficult to maintain.

My goals are also modest. My target is the low 70s (70-72 kg) by the end of 2007. I want to increase my running to 30-35 km a week. Once the weather warms up, I want to run on the road and do a 10-12 km run atleast once a week. My aim is to compete in the half marathon at the Bangalore Marathon in 2007. I also want to participate in the Chennai and Pune half Marathon in 2007.

Impressions from Pune trip

Some Impressions from my recent trip to Pune/Nasik

Train Journey
It was my first long journey (i.e. greater than an overnighter) in 8 years. Incidentally, the last time was also to Nasik , for my cousin Savita’s wedding. We got a compartment that was in the final stages of its working life. The cushioning was non-existent, the lighting was bad. To boot, we had day-trippers coming into the reserved compartment from early in the morning, so seating space was quite limited. Overall, not a very pleasurable experience.

The thing that really irritated me was how people continue to throw things out of the window. We had a Gujarati family sitting with us. Food, paper plates, plastic bags, water bottles, everything was fair game for chucking out of the window. There was a funny incident, where I had put our coffee cups under my seat for disposing at one of the stations. When they saw it, they immediately picked it up and chucked it out of the window. When will we learn not to litter? Not in my lifetime at least.

Pune
I had this memory of Pune being this charming small city, one of the best in India . No longer. It is as crowded as Bangalore and the roads are narrower still. Naturally, traffic is a problem, though the jams are not as bad as Bangalore . We managed to make it across the city (from Mundhwa to Kothrud) by car in around 40 minutes. This was at peak time, and could have been faster had the roads been better. That’s one area where Bangalore scores, the roads are much much better here.

Trip to Nasik
We took the Asiad bus to Nashik. The road to Nasik is not that bad, but because of the traffic and the frequent stoppages, it took us 5.5 hours to cover the 200 kilometers. We stopped at this really nice place called Daulat, midway to Nasik . It was a food mall, with a lot of variety, in clean surroundings and all at a reasonable price.

One more thing that I noticed were the many Reliance petrol bunks that were totally deserted. The reason is that prices at Reliance outlets are 3-4 rupees higher than the PSU outlets. Reliance being a public limited company cannot subsidise the way the government can. I’m sure that they would have invested crores of rupees that have now gone down the drain due to foolish government policies.

We spent most of the trip checking out the coverage of various mobile networks and ribbing my uncle (who works for Hutch) about the lack of coverage of Hutch at various points enroute. The coverage is almost continous all the way to Nasik . Further evidence of how much of a difference mobile telephony has made to life in India .

Ashram stay
Panchavati is one of the places where Rama, Lakshmana and Sita stayed during their exile from Ayodhya. It would have been an idyllic spot in those days, full of trees and kissed by the mighty Godavari . Today, the Godavari is dammed and is little more than a gutter as it flows through. There are thousands of people everywhere, litter abounds and it is not a very pleasant experience.

We stayed at an ashram in Panchavati, called the Sankaracharya mutt. Though it was showing its age, the mutt was neat and well maintained. Since our stay was only a couple of nights, we didn’t mind the sleeping quarters or the toilets, but a longer stay would have left us yearning for the comforts of modern life. I’m all for traditions, but evolution is inevitable and I feel that we must embrace technological advances that make our lives better.

Function
The function that we attended was a very simple one. It was to celebrate my uncle’s 60th birthday as well as the engagement of his son. His fiancé is from Ireland . She was noticeably overwhelmed by India , traffic, the number of family members who wanted to know everything about her etc, but was very nice about it.

In the evening, we went to a new temple that came up near Nasik on the banks of the Godavari . It was a very nice spot, with a mini waterfall.

Food
One of the highlight of the trip. In Pune, my cousins took me to this roadside vendor in Koregaon Park , who makes chocolate sandwiches. It is basically chocolate and cheese toasted between two slices of bread. Over that, he puts Hershey’s syrup, more chocolate and finishes it off with chocolate gratings. The end product is truly worth traveling to Pune (My mouth waters as I write about it). My expectations of South Indian food in Nasik were minimal, but the cooks (from Dombivili) did full justice to the wonderful traditions of South Indian cuisine. Net result of all the eating (and no exercise): 1.5 kgs. I have to work extra hard over the next few days.

Check out some of the photos from the trip at my album site

Overall, it was a wonderful trip. It was very helpful for me to get some time away, which gave me an opportunity to do a lot of thinking about life in general. I am much more clearer in my priorities now and hope for a truly wonderful 2007!!!