We need some new clichés

****This post was written last week or may be few days before that.****

I do have a few things to write about today and it is not the sort of typing hogwash that is normally present on this page. Tabulating it will not be such a bad idea it seems.

a) I got a call from CNBC Awaaz in the morning that they wanted to do an interview regarding some change in placement policy of my college. The best representative that they could come up for my college was me. That says a lot about their standards. The interviewer told me that she got couple of other comments from a few other students and she got their contacts through Orkut. I thought the Big Bad Television Networks had big databases and huge sources but if their source for policy in my ex-college is me then I do not think I will ever trust the so called experts on TV anymore while making investment decisions.

b) When the interview was about to start I noticed that the girl doing the interview was wearing a really fancy watch. I always thought that people in this business did not make a lot of money. She seemed like someone who should be at the bottom of the pecking order otherwise she would not have come down to my office to do the interview. The hypocrisy of the whole thing was very evident when she asked one of the MBA-Aspirants to give his viewpoint on how an IIT-Aspirant feels thanks to the policy change.

c) I have been watching CNBC Awaaz for quite some time now. One of my friends did tell me that it aired sometime back but I missed it. I hope that they repeat this piece of crap as they do the rest.

d) I called up one of the three females I know last night only to find out that she had couple of exams today. I hope they went well. She had promised to call me once she was free. I had messaged her as well about the whole interview thing which is a big deal for someone like me. I have been waiting for quite some time now. I think I will give her a call right now. I do understand that it is 12:30 in the night but I don’t think it would be a problem. She was returning from a night show and said that she would call me once she is back in her room. Her excuse for not calling – “I have a life man.” Am I being too much of a sissy or that would have hurt anyone? Should I reduce the number of females I know by 33.33 %?

e) Female No. 2’s birthday is coming up on the 11^th or 12^th, I am not very sure. Orkut will help me with that also. Female No. 3, my current girlfriend, has persuaded me enough to go and buy her gift tomorrow itself and courier it so that she gets it on time. I do not think that is a good idea. I would like to get the gift a couple of days later so that the surprise factor is there. I do not remember for sure, but I think I met her through a Leo Community on Orkut. That makes it around 3 years or is it 4.

f) SHIT!!! That means that I have been dating Female no. 3 for 3 years!!! …. or is it 4?

g) I realized today that I have also developed a “Takiya-kalaam” which became evident when I was about to leave the class today, when one of the students said, “We will call it a day here”.

h) The best comment that I received about the interview was from a techie friend who called to congratulate me. I had sent him the SMS which I had sent to many others, “Watch my interview on CNBC at 2000 hrs today”. He thought that the interview had something to do with stock markets and investments. He has seen the couple of investing books lying around in my room but that just shows how much people think the experts on TV know. I made my first investment in February this year and thanks to the sub-prime jitters in the US, my mutual funds have overtaken my performance in the stock market.

i) I finally found out how HRA is taxed and plan to make a post on that in couple of days or so. The funda of Bonus Stripping is also very interesting and I have figured out how to do it. Just making a list of the pros and the cons. That should be covered in the next post.

j) And finally, a brilliant and slightly chauvinistic advertisement from WonderBra.

Chalo Then, we will call it a day here.

You're Killing Independent George

People are crazy and times are strange,

I used to care…. But things have changed.

And boy…. have they changed for the worse. At least that was my knee jerk reaction when I got to know that my parents will be moving in with me for a period of 2-3 months. This does put in my bohemian lifestyle (some people like to use other adjectives like shabby, dirty, shitty) in a jeopardy. I have moved into a new flat which is costing me double of what my old flat used to cost. I got a decent enough raise this year but all that money has been drained out thanks to this new change. The other pressure that it has put on me is having a controlled life-style of getting up and hence sleeping on time. I do not know for how long I will be able to keep up with this but it has been going fine for the past couple of days. The solution that I have worked out is that I will be spending a lot more time at my friend’s place but that is definitely not a long term solution.

The work pressure has started to reduce as I am down to 5 batches now from 7 and will be finishing two more in the next two weeks. It does mean that I will be bored a lot more in office and hence will have a little more time to blog. I think blogging lost its charm when I stopped reading blogs of other people. It was a great method to communicate and to know more people. As of know, I do not have the need to know anymore. Considering I do what I do, I get enough ego boosters in my job and I do not need to turn to the virtual world for that. However, it would be nice to meet new people but I do not think that anyone who already doesn’t know me visits this blog because of the simple reason that I have not put any effort into publicizing this one. The latest addition to the ‘perils’ of blogging has been a friend who met another female blogger and liked her instantly. What I find fishy about the whole deal is the fact that the female, from her blog and also from what my friend has told me sounds like a reasonable, normal, human being. That is a surprise considering his ex and ex’s friends use phrases like, “She is an evil WITCH”. His love life has been less romantic and more like an episode of Swabhimaan. In case you kids don’t remember Swabhimaan used to be a day time soap opera on Indian Television during the late 90s. Note from past self: Kitu Gidwaani is hot.

The quizzing season seems to be kicking again with Tata Crucible just around the corner. We have calendar years and financial years but I think Quizzing years should be defined from Tata Crucible to Tata Crucible. At least that is how I look at it. My first working day was on 3^rd July 2006 and guess what I did that day. I represented my company in the Crucible. Overall this year has been more than satisfactory. I did have some beginners luck and won a few quizzes but since then it has been a real sad story. I think Crucible might just start the good run again. An interesting funda that I gathered today surfing around the net:

Q. What is a blook?

Ans. A book which is written on a blog. Either partially or completely. I know one which I followed quite sincerely, “Girl with a one track mind” ;)

For those who are even remotely considering as to what should they gift me on my birthday, here are a couple of pointers:

1. A decent helmet with front-cover and all that jazz.
2. An ash-tray.
   
3. Any book if you are buying it from college street or any second hand market i.e. not to waste more than 100 bucks on it.
4. If you are considering buying a proper book then please give me:
   (a) "Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham
   (b) "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits " by Phil Fisher
   (c) "Introduction to Technical Analysis" by Martin Pring.
   (d) Any book by Orhan Pamuk.
   

If you are planning to get me any of the above mentioned objects do call me on my birthday and tell me so that I do not buy them myself.