One piece less- The soupy situation

Are you a deal freak or a budget conscious big spender? Do you get daily SMS alerts from Snapdeal, Groupon etc.? Do you brighten up on seeing the 'unlimited Biriyani' offers online? Here is a soupy experience of mine which can tickle your funny bone and make you think twice about your choice of the 'unlimited biriyani' cook.

A few days back, I had heeded to a long-pending request (read murder threats) for a treat from my friends to celebrate a happy personal moment. Around 8 friends were invited to the list and I zeroed in on a hitherto unheard restaurant in T Nagar based on a 50% off deal through one of the above sites. One coupon will give us a 50% discount on a minimum bill of Rs 400. I had three coupons and had planned to satiate eight hungry men within Rs 600 (which is double without discount). As luck would have it, 5 of my friends withdrew citing various reasons at the last minutes. Two were stuck by a flu and the rest packed up on unavoidable last minute trips out of Chennai due to their girlfriend, alma mater and employer respectively.

On the D-day, the 3 of us who were match-fit reached the restaurant around dinner time. We appeared like the Indian team that toured England recently - depleted by injuries and absences - and in half-strength. At least team India manages some substitutes. However we were determined to make the missing men repent the lapsed treat. Fate had other plans!

The unusual Vijay fan and the leap of faith

People-watching is a term I used to refer to observing interesting characters who cross you in your daily routine. To read my earlier post on people watching, please click here. This post is a quick bite extension of people-watching adventures. For convenience sake and for some commercial sake, let me call such posts "Anthronicles" from now on...I plan to write a bit more frequently about Anthronicle experiences in here under a separate label..

This particular episode is that of an unusual Vijay fan. For starters who do not know Mr. Vijay (well, I want to write actor Vijay or at least Dr. Vijay but my conscience pricks. However hard I try, that leap of faith seems tough to me. Watch this leap and you will know why) Until yesterday, whenever I think of Vijay and local trains together, I immediately go to an elite feeling of pure innocent joy caused by unadulterated humour (Ok I accept.. not unadulterated ! heroism 20 % humour 80%)

Harley Davidson and the two underwear stories

Out of sheer boredom on a sleepy sunday, I went to the Chennai Elliotts beach alone for some people watching today. (People watching  is a term different from sight-seeing/figure watching/bird watching which is a far vaster terminology inclusive of the latter too). In those four hours, I met some very interesting people who crossed my life. They were only passing clouds and I did not even speak to any of them nor did I see them for more than 2 minutes but these were clouds that formed vivid interesting shapes that stuck to my memory. One by one, here they come!

Raindrop's moment of truth

First raindrop
falls on the glass.
The sky shrinks!

- GS

Read the Tamil version of this haiku here. 

Why you should not browse too much on Bahamas before your Bahamas honeymoon

Enough has already been said about the scary amount of information about us that others know through social networks. Admittedly, being the social animals that we are, we tend to take this scare with a pinch of salt and probably think hard to write a witty one-liner and post it as a status message aiming to get 20 'like's. Hence this article does not in any way force you to forbid social networking. All it tried to do is to make us aware of how the information we let loose can be used (read sold). I, being one of the so-called social animals myself, start this article with my witty one-liner. 

Social network indulgence is subject to privacy risks. Please read data mining carefully before updating status !

Social networks strive to influence and arrange contact and information sharing of many people. Meanwhile they also develop statistical tools to eavesdrop and sell information to the giant ears of the businessmen who eternally want that elusive root cause. This is normal statistical analysis. These sites also sell information to another set of giant business ears which want fodder to run their predictive machines. Fed by information input about us through social networks, marketers decide what to say to whom and whom to say what. 

Let us look at five ways in which social networks can mint money through predictive analytics. 

Humour under the hammer - IPL auction day 1

Today is the day 1 of the much followed IPL player auction 2011. As we have one more day to go, there is no denying that the auctions have been more interesting to watch than IPL itself. Meanwhile, sources very close to the players auctioned (an altered form of the Wikileaks, calling itself the Whacky leaks) reveal never-before published and never-ever-to-be-published reactions. Excerpts of the reactions as follows...