A London Christmas Miracle

Imagine that feeling you get when you think you are incredibly unlucky -- all those random incidents which when combined together makes you feel very unlucky indeed? 

I cannot even begin to voice my disappointment when I realized that my laptop had crashed on Dec 24, 2010. The bugger had been my best bud for the best part of three years. Vodka, Cider, Beer, Jamesons -- nothing could take him down -- and I do not even know why Windows is failing to start. I am sure it is not a hardware issue as my little champ has stood through the test of time and a LOT of alcohol that were accidentally poured. 

I put that behind me and started enjoying a nice Christmas dinner with a few friends and what started as 'would have been an early night' soon turned into a long night. Trouble was, a friend of mine had a flight to catch at 12:30 in the afternoon on Christmas day. It is well known fact that there is no public transport on Christmas day and so we had planned for another friend to drive us there. Problem was that he was also a part of the Looooong night.

MBA Survivor

I ask you.

Outwit. Outplay. Outlast.

Do those words mean anything to you? If you think 'Survivor', you are where I want you to be. If you have other takes on these words, please feel free to share them. It is amazing what you get to know when you hear from someone outside the box.

Anyway, my next question is this. Do you think doing an MBA course is Outwitting, Outlasting or  Outplaying your colleagues? Or does it have everything to do with making your employer think that you are the best candidate for the job? (It could mean establishing that the other candidates are not as good as you are.)

How NOT to audition for The Amazing Race!

This is my buddy and I trying to prepare the 3 minute video to send to The Amazing Race Asia 4. We ended up having an awesome time in a little boat that we had hired in the backwaters of Kerala.



Needless to say, the video was never sent. ;)

Peter Day at Middlesex University

Peter Day (born 1947) is a broadcaster on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. He attended Lincoln School, at the time a boys-only grammar school, from 1957-64 as a boarder. His father was a manager with Midland Bank (became HSBC in 1999) in Lincolnshire (Horncastle and Gainsborough). He studied English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was trained on the International Publishing Corporation (Daily Mirror Group) newspaper training scheme in south Devon. He worked at the Daily Record from 1970-4 in Glasgow.

Yesterday (November 16,2010), Peter Day was at Middlesex University  as part of distinguished lecture series and to be honest, it was really enjoyable. The name of the session was "The world turned upside down and he started the discussion with soundtrack of "World turned upside down". Peter went on to talk about the panoramic view at Ching Dao which was the source of epiphany. The view included crates of raw materials(iron ore) that were on one end of the visibility spectrum and on the other end, there were crates of finished goods. This woke him up to the fact that the China was on their way back to world dominance. He mentioned that it was 'painful' to see it. I hope it was a purely personal opinion because one billion Chinese people surely will not think that the resurgence of China is painful.

Before and after Microsoft!

How many of you have seen this wallpaper before?

Bliss wallpaper

Let me ask again. How many of you know the story of this wallpaper?

READ International charity fundraiser at Middlesex University

 

 

Read International Society

C/O Middlesex University

Students’ Union

 Hendon, London

 NW4 4BT

Coordinator: Karlis Albergs

07950974572

middlesex@readbookproject.org.uk

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

READ International is a multi-award winning charity dedicated to improving access to education across the globe. READ International coordinates groups of student volunteers in universities across the UK  to collect books and raise funds to help achieve this aim. We are proud to showcase that to date; 850 000 books were sent to Tanzania alone.

This year, we a team of Middlesex University students are organising a book collection and fundraising event, for which we need your valuable support. The activities are two fold:

Firstly, as Abraham Lincoln once said “The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read”. Everyone has books at home and perhaps some of them are gathering a bit of dust and are no longer needed. We are, therefore, appealing to you to give your books a second life. By doing so, you will bring joy, knowledge and a better future to a lot of students in East Africa.

Secondly, we are organising a chairty fundraising event in the second week of December at Middlesex University’s Hendon Campus. The main attraction of this event is an auction and we would appreciate your support with it. To make the event a success, we will need fun and quality products and this is where we hope you will contribute.

We believe that your benevolence will add to overall quality of the event.

Faithfully yours,

Read International Society

The magic of perspective

Do you think you are working too hard? Do you think you are unlucky?

Italian Job!

A woman goes to Italy to attend a 2-week, company training session. Her husband drives her to the airport and wishes her to have a good trip.

The wife answers: " Thank you honey, what would you like me to bring for you?" The husband laughs and says: " An Italian girl!!!"

The woman kept quiet and left. Two weeks later he picks her up at the airport and asks: "So, honey, how was the trip?"

"Very good, thank you."

"And, what happened to my present?"

"Which present?" She asked.

"The one I asked for - an Italian girl !!"

"Oh, that" she said "Well, I did what I could; now we have to wait for nine months to see if it is a girl" She breathed and walked towards the car with an evil grin playing on her lips.



Lesson learned? Anyone?

IT Analogy

Ever tried to related IT personnel to anything else? Here is an attempt.

1) Project Manager is a person who thinks nine women can deliver a baby in one month.
2) Developer is a person who thinks it will take 18 months to deliver a baby.
3) Onsite Coordinator is one who thinks single woman can deliver nine babies in one month.
4) Client is the one who doesn't know why he wants a baby.
5) Marketing Manager is a person who thinks he can deliver a baby even if no man and woman are available.
6) Resource Optimization Team thinks they don't need a man or woman; They'll produce a child with zero resources.
7) Documentation Team thinks they don't care whether the child is delivered, they'll just document 9 months.
8) Quality Auditor is the person who is never happy with the PROCESS to produce a baby.
9) Tester is a person who always tells his wife that this is not the right baby




Credits: A forwarded email.

Alternative thinking

How would you answer these questions? You will find suggestive answers as you read on but may I recommend that you give it a thought before looking for the answers.

1. How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it?
2. If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?
3. If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand and four apples and three oranges in the other hand, what would you have?
4. How can you lift an elephant with one hand?
5. How can a man go eight days without sleep?
6. If you throw a red stone into the blue sea what it will become?
7. What looks like half apple ?
8. What can you never eat for breakfast?
9. Bay of Bengal is in which state?