Mafia Wars!!!!

Weekend comes and Weekend Goes!!!!! Aaaahhh…this is the feeling which I guess everyone amongst us have on each Monday morning. Right?? Ok I will not waste any of your reading time in blabbering about how sad and irritating these Monday mornings are. I will straight away come to point and write about the Maniac Weekend I had.


This time weekend started for me on Friday itself. I left from office quite late at around 8 (considering it’s me and it was Friday it’s actually very late: P: P). On the way to home I planned for the late night show of "NewYork". I was quite excited about the movie as it was after a long time some "supposedly" good Hindi movie was to be screened. But all my excited went into vein after watching the movie. NewYork was an utter disappointment. Though initially I tried hard to appreciate at least something in the movie, (I am a movie aficionado, for me every movie has at least something to offer), but gradually my urge for finding "some-thing" worth in the movie was killed by the terrible performance of every actor. And above all the story line of the movie was even more catastrophic. There were many loop-holes in the script. Movie was just going and going - out of direction. All & All NewYork proved to be a fatal disaster and was way below expectations.

Rating: 2/5.

After coming back from the Movie we had this usual "Tea" session at our house with this masterpiece of comedy (people call it) "Angur". By the time movie got over I was totally submerged in my favorite time pass of browsing the net and chatting with my few selected pals who are awake at this late night hour. I was completing engrossed into FB, Orkut, Gmail stuff and then I saw this one hell of a thing called "Mafia-Wars". Though at that time I just explored this stupid dam thing and after giving a couple of hours to understand it I just kept it aside for a while and decided to doze off as it was already 5 A.M in the morning.

Next day started for me in the P.M. timelines only. I got up at 12 P.M. Then after having some breakfast stuff at lunch time I again headed towards Mafia-Wars. By this time I had understood that it’s all about doing some stupid jobs, having the best weapons & armors for your Mafia team, fighting with some random Mafia’s, gaining experience and reaching to the next higher level. And then the journey for achieving the excellence begins. I spent hours of my weekend in playing this hell of a game and reached to Level 13 from Level 1. Addiction was so high that I didn’t even moved out of my house for the entire Saturday and Sunday. I was eating as a Mafia; I was sleeping as a Mafia. In dreams too I was hallucinating and was fighting with the Gun in my hand and bullet proof shield on my vest. Man!!! After a long time I have found something which has made me crazy like this. At times I do felt what am I doing...just wasting my time sitting in front of my lappy ignoring everyone around. Butttt...Who cares!!! I was enjoying :) :)

Meanwhile, gladly though, I did managed to spare time for my primary obsession – Movies. I saw some 2-3 real good movies.

Page 3 – I know you will say…What!!!!!!!! You haven’t seen it yet. And the answer is Yes!! I somehow missed it. So saw it on television on Saturday. It’s yet another Madhur Bhandarkar typo. A certainly true depiction of glamour world. Focusing on how News is governed by these Big-shots and whatever we get to read-see is not exactly the truth. A good thought provoking movie.

Rating: 3.5/5

Longest Yard – A typical Adam Sandler movie with all the goodie goodie stuff. One man, frustrated out of himself, finally finds happiness after getting in to Jail with his fellow inmates. Slow comedy movie. Can be watched as a stress buster.

Rating: 3/5

The Prestige – Ohh Boy!!! This is one of the classics. When you are watching a Christopher Nolan movie you can definitely expect something out of the box. The movie is about 2 magicians who started their career together but with the cores of time turns in to rivals. Awesome acting by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. Fantastic script and direction of Nolan makes it simply the best. It’s rated as 8.5 on IMDB and no doubt it’s worth it.

Rating: 4/5

So this is it. Weekend Gone with a couple of achievement. One the great "Mafia Wars!!!!!" I really feel proud to be a Mafia. And second "The Prestige" Must watch!!!!

That was weekend and this is Monday. I am sitting here, after doing a couple of regular ticket related stuff + the monthly desktop audit for my team + uploading some review shits to the SharePoint (aaah...all sounds so boringgggg), waiting for my friend to call me for Lunch :( :( :(. "Change is inevitable: P: P: P""

P.S. – I am desperately looking for increasing my Mafia team size. Anyone who is reading this and plays Mafia please please give me your FB id...

Movie Review - "X-Men Origins: Wolvorins

Saw Wolverine yesterday...first reaction after coming out of theater - not up to the expectations!!!

If you are making a prequel to any movie series which has already been quite a big hit, then the expectations out of it is immense. Same happened here, Wolverine – though is a good watch but can’t really match the excellence of X-Men Series.

Hugh Jackman has done a descent job but somehow he could not create the same aura which he exhibited in the other movies, which was actually needed here…In all other movies he was just the part of League but here it was all about him. He was the solo lead for this flick. Also the story line of movie was a bit vague…things were going quite speedily and off the record.

Though it had some fantastic action sequence which were really breath taking but the charisma of "Mutant - Power" was somewhat missing.

I can remember a couple of really good dialogues from the movie which I liked a lot:

Victor: "No one kills you but me".

Logan: "We are over Victor"

Victor: "We are brothers Jimmy & Brothers look for each other".

All n all... a little disappointment (coz of expectations). But yeah anytime a good watch.

I would rate it as 6/10.


Mood: Pessimistic
Music: In the End (Linking Park)

Finally here she is !!!!!!

Aaah!!! After a lot of wait finally it rained in front of me in Pune. And to tell you it’s really a delight to witness this beautiful phenomenon of nature. It rained a couple of time before as well but at one occasion I was not in the city and the second was yesterday only when I was banging my head on my comp in office. While working I was just praying it should rain tomorrow as well. So in a way you can say that was one moment when “Saraswati ji” was with me & made my wish come true...I just wonder what if I would has asked for something else at that moment :D.

Coming back to the main point...As it was my eternal wait for her – The RAIN, I had all the plans set to welcome her and be a part of her. Once it started drizzling I gathered all my roomies for the bash and we all got ready for moving out open. Then it suddenly broke into the thunderous stormy Rain with loud thunder and eye crackling lighting. Without wasting any more time we went out with the plan of moving to the hill next to our place. Our initial plan was to go on Bikes but we had only one bike of mine and somehow we could not arrange for the second one so we started on legs only. I slowly left my building and was standing in the middle of road with the rain drops trying to engross me within. This is it...this is what I was waiting for. I am part of Rain now :)

We started walking towards the hill. As we were moving I observed a strange reaction on the face of every passing by person as if they are cribbing out aloud "WTH!! We are trying to hide and you morons are moving out with pleasure" he he...this is how it goes with the rain. If you don’t want to get wet you will complain like anything and if you don’t care you’ll enjoy it to the fullest. By the time we reached half of the distance we were all drenched and quite rightly it was time for a break – The Cigarette break :) unfortunately I don’t smoke but I very well understood the elated happiness of my friends by seeing the reactions on their faces. And why not...smoking in Rain is considered as one of THE thing :) Then we again started heading towards our destination and in few minutes we were there on the HILL. To my extreme surprise there was no one apart from we four. (I am not counting those love-birds who were just inspecting the place to call it a SAFE place: D) We spent some time there watching clouds drifting apart, rain droplets falling slowly on the grass, heavy vehicle moving rashly on the highway & dogs who were looking for any hiding place. In a while the cool breeze flowing on the hill started hitting us hard & we decided – we don’t have any girl with us, so there is no point in showing the hero giri, better move home :) We started moving....but this short stint of ours was incomplete without the tea on the tapari. So we searched for a tapari & had really amazing TEA there. It’s like icing on cake to have really hot tea when you are completely wet :) Then we reached home and cooked "Bhajiye by our self to end this really beautiful Rainy evening of ours.

And now here I am writing it out thinking....the wait was indeed worth waiting :)

P.S. – I have a some beautiful and ever-lasting memories associated with RAIN which makes me genuinely crazy for her :)

Negetive Inflation!!! :-o

When I opened the News paper today morning I was shocked by reading the headline on the cover page. It reads "India facing Negative Inflation after 30 years". Now WTH is this?? Though I totally understand the concept of Inflation which means the percentage difference between the rise in price of any commodity over a period of time but for a layman Inflation basically means – "Mahangai suchkank" or "Expense index" i.e. how much he can now buy with the same money....In last one year or so rates of every possible commodity has shoot up like anything. To be very particular if we consider the prices of edibles only we can see the huge difference....they have gone up by up to an extent of 50%. I will just quote the price of some pulses....if I remember correctly I kg of pulse cost me some 40 odd Rs one year back and now the same thing I get at around 60....now what the hell is this. And they are saying we are witnessing DEFLATION.

I don’t want to get in to the technical details...my only concern is - are these facts and figures which are communicated to US are really true?? I have a big doubt on this!!!!!

P.S. – I am not raising any finger against the credibility of our government, but this is the obvious reaction which came to my mind after reading this Deflation term.

P.P.S – (not on the same topic) Yesterday Federer posted his photograph in new Wimbledon stadium. And it looked awesome. Gosh!!! Don’t I love Wimbledon? :)

Wimbledon 2009

Yesterday night I was just browsing through FB and came across status update feed from Roger Federer which reads – "I am back to Wimbledon. Ahh!!! How great it feels to be on Grass". Oh Boy... He is here!!! Wimbledon is on the corner and the King FedEx is all set to set yet another record. After the last years longest Wimbledon Final (now don't discuss the results :() I am very much excited to see both the mammoth, One the Legend in itself - Federer and the other Legend in making - Rafa, fighting hard for the battle of becoming the best. Federer will definitely try to continue his winning streak after French Open & would be more then eager to make 1 on 1 with Nadal for the last years encounter. Nadal on the other hand will be looking forward to move on from the French open set back. One more man to keep an eye on -- Novak Djokovic. I like his attitude and aggression in the game. Hope the best Man wins...

It's my favorite Grand slam... I wait whole year for this couple of week. Hoping for some real good entertainment this year too. And yeah not to mention -- Millions of good luck and Billions of Good Wishes for Roger :)

P.S. -- Women tennis is getting disappointing day by day. I really miss the classy games of Justin Henin, Martina Hingis, Monica Seles and Steffy Graff. We need someone really charismatic for bringing back life to women’s game.

P.P.S -- A set of good luck to all the Indians as well who are playing real hard over there. Sania, Paes, Bhupati... Thumps Up to you :)

Egos between Amigos

Last week I got myself into a very strange but certainly not an uncommon situation. I was on a trip to my home town and was supposed to be with my family. Despite being with my family my people I was trying to be in constant contact with one of my friend through all the possible medium of communication technology has given us...don’t think much just the SMS and Mails ;) But my friend deliberately wanted me to be with my family and was quite apprehensive in replying to whatever conversation we were having. She literally debarred me for any further communication and asked to excuse her. Out of aggression I threw her a bad message...asking let me decide what I want to do, where I want to be and with whom I want to be. My friend reciprocated to it in the same rude manner, which was so expected. After that somehow I could not make myself to continue the communication and neither my friend tried to. That was Saturday, after 3 days on Tuesday I was back to my usual routine. In between there was no communication, though I thought about it quite a lot but simply could not make a move. Don’t know it was coz of my self-respect or was it my Ego that restricted me. Tuesday gone...no one took the initiative. Wednesday whole day no communication, finally at night I saw her online in green color, certainly she would have seen me too but I took the initiative and then we had this longggggg discussion.

My point here is, Is this kind of Ego justified between friends?? If I look at things from my side, I was the primary key in there and it should be left on me what to do and where to be. But I am very sure there would be the other face of coin too. Point here is if you are tied to a relation called as Friendship, it should not matter who is taking the first step or who is making efforts to soothe the situation. If at one point of time I am on odds my friend should try and understand the situation and try to bear me at that time...off course vice-versa is applicable as well. But why this EGO stuff between friends???

As per me in the current situation if she would have left her Ego aside just for once and would have taken my aggression positively, things wouldn’t have stretched so long. After that discussion we are definitely at talking terms but we are not on the same lines now. Something has changed. This is the first time I had an argument with her and may be now we are seeing the true nature of each other. We both are pretending at best that things are back to normal but we both know...it’s not. May be this is how it goes, it may take time. But I just wish it gets restored ASAP with a “capital A”. I am not enjoying it at all.

I am throwing an open question here.....Does this Egos between Amigos make any sense? I do understand it happens...but can’t it be avoided??Any tips any suggestions?

P.S. Lately I have been involved in lot of thinking and was wondering how to differentiate between self respect and EGO. Tough task isn’t it??

P.P.S If science allow us to be at more than one place at the same time (don’t read physically), then what’s the problem in it??

Implications of a computer-based CAT

Source: Pagalguy

Last month's announcement by the Indian Institutes of Management about the Common Admissions Test (CAT) going computer-based has left a lot of questions unanswered. While the July form notification will clear the air to a large extent, it will be interesting to see how the IIMs tackle certain issues that come packaged with an online test. Here are some aspects of the computer-based CAT that would make for good food for thought.

CAT 2009 will not exactly be an 'online' test

According to a high placed source at IIM Bangalore, “Test takers will not be required to be connected to the Internet at the time of the test. They will be attempting the test at terminals." The test will be already downloaded on the computer alloted to you and not administered via the Internet. Like the IIMs have said, it will be a 'computer-based test'. The testing environment therefore will not be hostage to slow Internet speeds or disconnections.

Increased cost of forms, applications completely managed by Prometric

The cost of taking the CAT 2009 is expected to be higher than that in earlier years. "The increase in examination fee is not expected to be in excess of 50 percent," says our source. Even if the CAT application form does cost 50 % more, it amounts to Rs 2,000 for the General category and about Rs 1,000 for the SC/ST category.

Not only are the IIMs outsourcing the CAT to the USA-based Prometric Services, they are also looking at laying the complete end-to-end responsibility of the CAT to the renowned testing agency that also administers the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) worldwide.
"In the first year the IIMs will be involved in processing of applications and once the model is established in the next two-three years, the only involvement of the IIMs will be in receiving final scores. Applications will be sent to Prometric and not to the IIMs as was the case in earlier years,” the source adds.

The IIMs also seem to be playing safe with the computer-based CAT in its first year.

“The results of the test will probably be declared after four-six weeks. It will not be possible for students to see test results immediately after attempting the test. We are being cautious as this is the first year of conducting the CAT as a computer based test,” says Prof Subhashish Gupta, Admissions Chairperson at IIM Bangalore.

"A decision has currently not been taken about whether CAT 2009 will be a computer adaptive test (that is, whether the difficulty of questions served by the computer will be adjusted according to accuracy of the test-taker). Students will in all probability be allowed to do rough calculations on paper provided at the test center and also go back and forth between different test sections while attempting the test," he further adds.

The computer-based test format

The bottleneck in a computer-based testing system is the rate of availability of infrastructure in the limited time in which the exam is going to be administered in. Since the IIMs have announced that the CAT 2009 is going to be held over a period of 10 days, it's a fair assumption to make that the questions are not going to be repeated beyond one testing session. Which means that the pool of questions is going to be very large and according to a few sources, the questions are going to be prepared by Prometric and not the IIMs?
However, the IIMs will have to put a very stringent procedure to make sure that every question paper administered in the 10 days of CAT 2009 is equal in difficulty level beyond doubt.

Prof Gupta says, “As is the case with the GRE, it will be statistically ensured that when the student attempts the test does not affect his test score. The experience of writing the test will be the same across the ten day period. We are trying to ensure that the computer based test is as similar as possible to the paper-pencil format.”

Infrastructure tightrope

In 2003, the Xavier's Admission Test (XAT, accepted by Xavier's Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur) made an abortive attempt at going computer-based. Barely 9 hours before the commencement of the test, the test was called off. The reasons for the cancellation were never well-known, though the official statement announcing return to the paper-pencil based test placed the blame on poor infrastructure.

Computer infrastructure in India has decidedly undergone a vast change since 2003, so has the number of trained computer network professionals. However, given that the interest in CAT amounts to over 2.5 lakh people across India, executing the CAT without any glitches is going to be a logistical challenge of gargantuan proportions, probably unheard of in India. If the IIMs and Prometric are indeed able to pull off a bug-free CAT, it would be an achievement to reckon with.
Assuming 2.5 lakh CAT takers over 10 days of testing, each day 25,000 MBA aspirants will take the CAT countrywide. Assuming 23 cities for test centers, it amounts to 1,086 tests per day per city. If the test duration remains 2.5 hours, then in a single day there would be three sessions of testing with 360 candidates in each. Which means, that each test center needs to have a working capacity of 360 working computers?

Of course, the unequal distribution of registered test-takers across small and large towns will make larger cities need higher capacities of computers.
We shall know in due course the kind of infrastructure Prometric is building, but will it be able to provide a uniform testing environment across the nation? Establishments housing desktop computers (computer training institutes, cyber cafes) have their own set of idiosyncrasies. Not everyone may get to take the test on a flicker-free flatscreen monitor that is not a strain on the eye. Likewise, computers might be slow at places or have partially malfunctioning mouse or keyboards. Even corporate establishments have to struggle to keep their computers virus and malware free. Technically speaking, even the most sporadic of cases of bad testing infrastructure would leave the CAT system vulnerable to litigation by test-takers.

It has been reported that the IIM-Prometric deal surrounding the CAT exam is worth $40 million. One expects Prometric to use the money to go on an overdrive putting a world-class computer testing facility across the country.

Too esoteric?

The CAT has traditionally been feared in smaller towns of India primarily because of the difficulty level of the English and Reading Comprehension sections. An unfamiliar testing format and increased form cost may discourage many to skip the CAT and instead concentrate on state-level management entrance exams or the Management Aptitude Test (MAT), thus resulting in only the more serious MBA aspirants taking the CAT 2009.
How MBA aspirants embrace the computer-based CAT on a large scale further depends on how easy the test preparation or coaching classes make it for them. Coaching class businesses in India are based on the franchisee structure, which puts a lot of the business expansion initiative on the local businessman who runs the city center of a test-prep agency. In smaller towns, franchisees will have to see enough business opportunity in training for an online CAT in order to make lakhs of rupees of investments in computer labs. The training courses also have to remain affordable for MBA aspirants.