Musings of a Mumbai bloke

8 p.m.. saturday with nothing better to do i am watching "Remember the Titans" on ABC, an interesting Denzel Washington movie about how an African American football coach leads a high school team to victory amidst racial tensions with inspirational leadership and lessons for team effort. Having watched this movie before i was not sure i was going to enjoy it as much. Especially the thought of the stupid commercials in between made me all skeptical. But, i was wrong. The movie is so inspirational.It may sound cliched at times but its a very humane and moving story. Isn't entertainment supposed to make you feel good too? just silly mindless humor is rarely so much an entertainment. given a choice would i not watch titans rather than american pie?

so there i plonked on my futon with my dinner plate to catch the movie. it was touted by ABC as a season premier movie. So i suspect there was even greater load of commericials. So every little while i get interrupted with commercials... well, Walmart, Accord, Chevy, Verizon etc ... i think those ads make sense. These are big companies with millions and millions in revenue ...but i started wondering about ads like drano gel, electro sol gel detergent and dentyne fire! Dentyne fire what is that doing here??? The pack of $1 dentyne which i may add to my cart while waiting in the check out counter line without giving it a penny of thought, this company spent about a million-dollars to sell me the idea that i do need a dentyne to " fire" up my dinner date ?????

as they say if you can't beat them join them so during the commercials i started writing this blog. few minutes of google search and it turns out that this Dentyne fire commercial was the "big launch attempt by the manufacturer Cadbury Adams, US division of the giant Cadbury Scweeps based in UK. when i read about Dentyne on this webpage it all started to make sense. This new sugar free gum launched with a mega commercial with a latest latino hot star Chayene .... all started to make sense. about 2 million pieces will be produced at the plant every day. no wonder the company can afford all this .... all for that $1 gum.... next time i am in the grocery store or gas station .....

The Lowest Price isn't Always Best, writes Jim Ostroff in an article advsing marketing and sales managers in a recent article on Kiplinger forecasts.com.

he says that Companies should price new goods based on their value to buyers, not according to handy formulas such as the cost of production plus a fixed markup. The sticker price should reflect the added value that buyers feel the product provides in helping them do something better, faster or cheaper or that offers a unique style or look.

i guess this explains why some times new products introduced in the market carry such a ridiculous high price. i belive one strategy to sell the latest “super duper NASA technology idgy midgy gadet or home appliance is to simply put an exorbitnat high priced for the first few weeks/ months. this just helps to “test the waters” . Then they monitor the sales data (no matter what the price, there is always someone who will buy the product) then later with some data mining and other staistical juglery i belive this big corporations decide the right price to market the product.

so next time you see a NEW NEW design of scotch tape $5 ,,, you know whats going on!!

the Dalai Lama was recently at MIT hosting a conference on “Investigating the Mind” at the neurobiology lab at this institute. he was reported to have said that “if i had had not been a monk i would have been an engineer”.

the article in "The Wall Street Journal", Scinece and Faith, describes how scientist are studying the meditation techniques followed by buddhist monks and they have found neural basis for the states of “compassion” .

i believe deep down science and faith are deeply interconnected. i do not think its a question whether you believe in GOD? its a question if you are ready to make the effort to know and experience that either Science or Faith, both paths eventually lead to the same destination....

comments anyone?

Sunday evening with nothing much to do ... i was whiling away my time listening to NPR program - On Point . I was listening to a show aired on Monday Sept. 1st. : Boys Backslide described on the NPR web page , this show was about the new gender gap. The introduction said : “From kindergarten to grad school, boys are becoming the second sex. What's at stake is more than academics. The tide is turning. Girls are tearing through the education system, leaving many boys behind in the dust. Now, girls are the big men on campus. Business Week magazine explores the phenomenon in its May 26th cover story "The New Gender Gap." It describes a new school order where girls rule and boys are becoming the second sex. And raises questions about the long-term societal impact when boys take a backrest to girls.”

I was logged on the On Point web page via the WiFi using my iBook . Just for kicks, I had it connected to the tv and so i was using the 27” TV screen as my interface. While saddened about the the gloomy news for “mankind”, my mind wandered off to another observation. Staring at the TV it suddenly dawns on me that i had a interesting little contraption here. I was listening to the RADIO using a COMPUTER with the audio coming thru TV

it's cool dude!!” , sssssweeeeeet , i shouted out trying to imitate Andrew Stanton the Finding Nemo director who has provided the voice for Crush the Turtle.
:) :)

Later in the evening i decide to go check out the new B&N store in the nearby mall. Yes, a book store is coming up in the mall!!! With the iBook under my arms i leave home excited about the new store. i thought i would sit down in the cafe to flaunt my iBook . Finally after years of envying the cool dudes in the cafe typing away to glory on their laptops i was going to finally get a chance to do the same.I was already making plans to write about the Radio-computer-Tv story for this blog. I get into the car and luckily CAR TALK is on, another of my NPR favorites. I have fun driving and listening to the program as usual.

It turns out that the B&N store is to open this coming wednesday so two more days to wait still. I finish my other chores and by the time i return back home its about nine at night. I walk up the stairs , reach my apt door and slide the key into the lock to open. The key won’t turn . “That’s weird” i tell myself. after a couple of tries i look up to check if i was at the right door. “201?, yes! ” awright ! ...... try again. No. The door , it just won’t budge... i tried for about 10 minutes and then finally gave up... i tried to look up the apt number on my cell phone to call the maintenance guys but the number is not in my list. so there i go ..i fish out the iBook form my bag... sitting outside the door , i log on to the net ...the wireless connection worked fine enough :) I googled the apt phone number and contacted the service. Then I sat down there out in the lobby, and started typing this crazy experiencefor this blog.

after 45 minutes and an additional call to the Maintaince service, the guy finally arrived.

its a bit embarrassing to revel that Joe, the maintenance guy came opened the door with a single turn of the same key that i was using, in exactly 2 seconds :). He said the lock had lost the alignment and he will come back to fix it next morning.

:) :) :)

this was my mundane sunday. ordinary and odd. or would you rather call it insane??

NPR has on its web site refers to something called as "driveway moments" it is explained as follows:

What is a Driveway Moment ?
“Maybe it's happened to you as it has to countless others...
You're driving home, listening to a story on NPR. Suddenly, you find yourself in your driveway (or parking space or parking garage). Rather than turn the radio off, you stay in your car to hear the piece to the end. It's a Driveway Moment.”

while i was driving back from work today, listening to NPR as usual... i began musing about what i was reading the day before.....

In school i was taught atom is the smallest ‘indivisible’ part of matter and it is made of electrons, protons and neutrons ....that was 1980’s .....well it seems we have now advanced in our understanding of the world we live in...
Michael S. Turner, professor of astrophysics at the University of Chicago writes in world book encyclopedia that physicists have learned by peering ever deeper into the structure of atoms that the subatomic world does not end with protons, neutrons, and electrons. The fundamental building blocks of matter are six types of quarks, six types of leptons, and all of their antiparticles, governed by four known fundamental forces of nature. These are the electromagnetic force, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity. Thus, a complex universe of its own exists within each atom--a universe that is still revealing its mysteries.

when you really think about it seems to me that eventually in its deepest sense everything around us, i.e. matter is nothing but a bundle of energy. energy all pervading and all encompassing... extrapolate on this chain of thought and you jump out of realm of physics and astrophysics into that of theology.


in the end Professor Turner concludes " When we view the galaxies, wheeling in their majesty amid the blackness of space, it seems incredible that they are made of the same basic stuff that we are. But such is the beauty and wonder of our universe that fewer than 100 kinds of atoms, together with four forces, can be used to construct a sea shell, a human being, or a spiral galaxy of 200 billion stars "

lost in thought while driving i kept on wondering - when Professor
Turner talks about beauty and wonder of our universe is he not really referring to GOD ???

lost in thought suddenly i realise i was in my driveway....


I think i exactly know what that is ... driveway moments.... i believe my entire driving is spent on such moments. Driving home listening to radio or lost in thoughts....i sometimes fail to conciously register my entire driving trip. as i reluctantly reached to turn out the radio and pick up my bag i realized i had forgotten to stop and buy milk ..... lost in profound non-essential thoughts of this universe ..i :) :) goofed on the petty essential needs of daily life.....


that’s me !

apple

e4 :

I am a big apple computer fan! switched to apple when the "switch" campaign was in full steam. I was one of the converts. I guess the visit to the apple store in one of the malls and then touching those awesome machines on display just sold me to the idea.
Its been about a year now. I have not yet come accross another friend, acquaintace or colleague who uses an apple computer. Kaput. Zero. No one i know. What more in proof would you need to call me an odd ball?

WELCOME to my world.

mus·ing (my???z?ng)
adj. Deep in thought; contemplative.
n. 1. Contemplation; meditation.
2. A product of contemplation; a thought. “an elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections” (James Atlas).

p.s. i love my apple computer. to celebrate the 1st aniv. i brought home a little ibook to accompany my 17"iMac. which i had bought last year.

# posted by vivek @ Sunday, September 07, 2003