I have noticed that as soon as a couple plans to have a baby they start thinking of buying an SUV. Out of the three couples I know who are expecting a baby soon, two already have SUV’s (Honda Pilot and Toyota 4Runner) and the third is looking at Subaru Wagons.
 
I don’t understand though, what the reasoning is to buy an SUV, if you have a decent-sized sedan. I understand that once the baby grows older, and has friends who will need to be picked up and dropped off, having an SUV is fine.
 
But for a new born?

Now that there are three friends who are expecting babies, I decided to run a pool and have everyone guess two things about each baby:
 
1. Weight
2. Time of birth
 
Everyone is chipping in with some $$ and their guesses, and there will be 6 winners.
 
Cool, eh?

I went to the ATM today when I realized that there was a new Indian restaurant called Tiffins right next to it. I noted it and after doing my bank work, I decided to try it out.

After all, they served Naans, Paneer, etc. and they mentioned Tandoor too.

It is a small place that can seat maybe 15 people. There is a mini buffet where you can order 2 or 3 items and you get 2 tandoori rotis or rice or 1 Naan. I chose Naan, along with Malai Kofta and Matar Paneer.

The Naan was awesome - with butter shimerring on its top surface. I have not had butter naan in a while, so this was quite a good deal. As I was eating, I noticed a gentleman who looked like the owner, talking to the person who was taking the orders. They were talking business, I suppose.

Then he started walking towards me and asked me how the food tasted. I replied that it tasted good. Then, immediately, even without waiting to hear what I had to say, he turned away and started talking to a white boy who was waiting for his to-go order.

He talked and talked and talked. He in fact, gave him the menu for him to take and give it to friends. He also told him what other stuff they have to offer to him. A lot of things were discussed.

My problem is that why did he not choose to talk like that to me, or another Indian fellow who was sitting there? Why did he choose to talk so much in detail with the white boy?

And trust me, this is not the first time I have seen something like this happening. I have seen it all over the place, and a lot of times. Amber India in Mountain View is one place that jumps out for such behavior.

It is sad, but true. Why do Indians not like other Indians? Is there some bad precedent that Indian consumers in general have set? Do business people not want to bond too much with Indians? What is the reason?

Days are flying by. It is already Thursday. Day 11. I sometimes wonder if there will be a day when I look back and say, why the hell did I do the things I did. Wasn’t there a better way to spend the life?

Maybe it is just a philosophical thought, as very powerfully said in Pink Floyd’s song Time:

“And you run and you run

Racing around, to come up behind you again

The sun is the same in the relative way

But you’re older

Shorter of breath,

One day closer to death”

Just keep running.

Wow. What and eventful Wednesday evening it was. We were all talking about a friend whose wife (also a friend) is pregnant in her 6th month.

Then, as we were getting ready to go eat, another friend stopped us and said that they have an announcement to make. And boom, they said they were expecting their child in Jan! And we had not even let that thought sink when another friend casually said that they were also expecting their kid in Jan!

Wow!

Wow! Wow!

Suddenly, we are in a minority here, in the ‘non expecting’ couple category.

Wow! Still shaken up a bit from the news.

First it was my roommate from LA, though it’s been a long long time (2 years?).

Then it was my roommate from DC. Their kid is about 2-3 months old.

Then it was my cousin. Their kid is about 2 weeks old.

The other day I met a friend who was visiting from India. His kid is 22 months old!

We met this friend at a common friend’s place. Their kid is 4 months old!

Then the other friend in the 6th month.

And now, add these two to the list.

Suddenly, the talk was about morning sickness, exercises, OB-GYN, common doctors, hospitals, stroller valet, etc.

Things are changing so fast around me. Need to come to grips with reality. :-)

Finally, yesterday, my blog became ad-free. The look-and-feel is much better now, with that extra space at the top devoted to the page style.

Now, I want to see how I can put a picture within a post, rather than have only the picture in a posting.

How does one get on the inside track of someone else they know? To get the scoop. To be the buddy.

Does it involve give-and-take? I tell you something first and then you tell me? Or is it mostly the warmth, the charm, etc.? There are people who are instantly within the inner circle, but there are others who just don’t get through that sphere.

And the issue can get more complex if you involve not just person A to person B, but also person A, person B and person C. You see it all the time - friends, family, work, everywhere. Everyone trying to get into everyone else’s circles/spheres. Not all make it.

And when these persons interact on a regular basis, it could become critical for all to be in each other’s spheres or none to be. Or else…..

There is one more thing I forgot to mention - profile and sharing profile.

Another thing you can do is create your own profile (so others with similar interests may find you) and also, share it. Sharing a profile makes it visible if someone clicks on your Display Name.

When you log into blogger, you see the Dashboard. On there, you will see a link to Edit Profile.

Uncheck ‘Show my real name’ if you don’t want others to see your real name. They will only be able to see the Display Name.

Uncheck ‘Show my email address’ to make it invisible to others.

Show my blogs. This one is used to hide your blogs from others who see your profile. Of course, your blogs are always visible to users if they know the address. But let’s say you don’t want someone to see one of your blogs, if you have more than one. In that case, you can decide to ‘show’ only the ones that you want to show.

For example, you can have a personal blog for jotting down your thoughts and not make it public. In that case, just show the public blog and keep this personal blog hidden.

Photograph and Audio Clip will be empty for now. Once you move to advanced stage, you can start experimenting with those things.

From ‘General’ onwards, the more you put, the more you will match with others. I personally did not put the year of birth, so my age is not known.

Also, in the interests, movies, music, etc. sections, make sure you put the name of the movie, band, singer, etc. correctly and separated with commas. What this will enable is clicking on the name, so that you can find people with similar interests.

Hope this helps!

Came across an excellent article by Rohit Brijnath about brilliance and domination and how that is never boring.

Let me tell you my take on it. There is a certain part of me as a sports fan that wants to see some team dominate their opponents. There is another part of me though, that wants to create a contendor, and hopefully a rivalry. Two or three people (or teams) who are equally good in skills and talent and who could win on any given day, would be much better for me to follow, than one individual/team completely dominating all the time.

That’s why I did not like (and still don’t) Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.

That’s why I am not liking the current state of Formula 1.

That’s why I truly did not like Steve Waugh’s Australian cricket team, and I do not like the Ricky Ponting’s current team.

That’s why I would not watch Sampras playing at Wimbledon.

In fact, in all of these cases, I would actually hope that a rank outsider would beat them.

I don’t follow much of football, so I will pass on Arsenal.

Mind you, it is not like I did not like them at all at any given point. I liked Jordan, Tiger and Schumacher as athletes. I loved to watch the Australian team playing awesome cricket, redefinig a lot of philosophies prevalent in cricket at the time. But once they start dominating for a while, they do make it less and less exciting for a lay sports follower like me.

True, the purists would say, like Brijnath says and like it is aruged on a blog, brilliance and domination is actually perfection on display. If you really really love the sport, you won’t mind domination as displayed my Schumacher, as displayed by Jordan and Tiger and the Aussie team.

But I don’t agree. I have seen enough of pure cricket. I have seen enough of pure driving. I have seen enough of buzzer-beater shots by Jordan. It is more exciting to see rivalries.

John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors.

Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker.

Schumacher and Hakkinen.

Senna and Prost. Add Mansell, Lauda to the list.

Lakers and Celtics of the 80’s.

Yankees and Red Sox.

Michigan and Ohio State.

and so on.

Its rivalries that make the game more exciting from spectators' long term point of view.

Yes, it is cool to see a team or a players completely dominate the opponents once in a while. It has to happen otherwise we are encouraging mediocrity. But for the long term, it is good to see a change. Dynasties are good, but complete domination by a team in creating a dynasty is very bad for the sport.

At least that is my point. What’s yours?

Here is a copy of instructions I sent to my niece about how to start blogging. Useful for anyone starting off :-)

1. Go to www.blogger.com

2. Click on ‘create a blog’. If you have already created a blog, skip to step #1 in the next section

3. Create a username for your login to blogger. This username is something that will never be displayed anywhere. It is only for login purposes.

4. Choose a password

5. Display name is the name which will show up when you post a thought on your blog (posted by RPM, for example). It is also what shows up when you make a comment on someone else’s or your own blog.

6. Click next and choose a title for your blog.

7. Next, choose how your blog address will look like. Make it simple so people can remember the address. Once you choose the address, it will become your blog’s address as something.blogspot.com. If the address you want is not available you may have to try a few alternatives.

8. Clicking on next will show you a list of templates you can choose for your blog. Click on the magnifying glass next to the template to expand the view. There you’ll see how the template looks like. Once you like the template, choose it and click continue.

9. That’s it!

Of course, then you can go into the settings of your blog and customize it.

1. Go to www.blogger.com

2. Login with the username and password selected in #3 above.

3. Click on settings tab at the top.

4. You can enter a description for your blog.

5. You can also add your blog to the directory listings. What this does is makes the blog visible to a lot more people than it would normally. It is kind of putting an ad in the paper for your shop or something. If you want to stay low-profile, you can choose no. If you want to create a splash and have more and more unknown people read your thoughts, then choose yes.

6. Always keep pressing ‘Save settings’

7. Click on ‘publishing’ under ‘settings’. Ping weblogs.com is similar to #5, where it announces to a lot of people that your blog has been updated, when you do update it. Choose yes if you want the world to know that you have updated your blog, and no if you want to keep it subtle.

8. Choose ‘formatting’ under ‘settings’. It would be best to leave it at default.

9. Choose ‘comments’ under ‘settings’. If you want others to be able to comment on your thoughts, choose ‘show’.

10. Under ‘who can comment’, you can choose to let only registered users of blogger make comments. This means, when people want to make a comment, they will have to login to blogger. Anonymous comments will not be allowed. And that is not usually a good thing. So I would say ‘Anyone’. Of course, if you want to make it a truly closed blog, you can choose ‘only members of this blog’ in that option. This means, that you have to set up a list of members who can post to this blog. Only they can make comments to the blog. I had originally tried this but it was not a good option, because I wanted to make a splash and let others/unknowns also make comments. :-)

11. It would be nice to put an email address for notifications as and when someone posts a comment for you.

12. Leave the other tabs on default settings and go to the ‘members’ area. Here you can invite members if you want to make it a closed blog. Only people on this list will be able to make comments and even write posts.

That’s it. It’s that simple.

Last night we went to dinner with a friend who is moving back to Bombay on Tuesday. It is not going to be the same again. It was a given that if there is something good to do, that he and his wife would be included.

Cricket, parties, functions, picnics, vacations, everything would have him as one of the participants. The commenting in the cricket games would be the part that I would sorely miss.

I wish him all the luck in whatever he ends up doing, including possibly coming back here. Of course, that would just rock!

Is it the end, or merely the beginning of something new?

I feel that I am finally a part of the new blog-enabled world. I consider myself well-connected with technology, but for some reason I did not get hooked on to blogging. Finally, after much procrastination, here I am.

I am a University of Southern California Trojan. Yes, your 2003 National Football Champions! Go Trojans! Fight On! I still believe we should have been in the BCS Championship game, but what the heck!

Anyway, did not want to ramble on too much. Hopefully you will get to know me more and more as time passes. Be on the lookout for my thoughts on my favorite pastimes - college football, NFL, Formula 1 racing, Cricket, movies, and more!