How about quitting coffee??

I wonder if even God has bothered to keep track of how many times I’ve quit coffee and gotten back to it! My cousins have started laughing at me when I tell them that I’ve quit coffee! And even though I tell her I am quitting chai-coffee, my cousin prepares that one cup of coffee for me and starts giving me those “I know you love coffee” kind of looks and tries her best to tempt me to it!

The last time she did that.. I took the mug from her and held it for some time.. staring at the yummy looking coffee and stopping myself from having it and when it had become cold, heated it up and then gave it to this very cousin of mine (God knows what I was thinking when I was doing that!).. She looked at me for some time and burst out laughing which clearly meant “Wait till I see you having coffee the next time!”

The bottom line is I love coffee and I’ve tried quitting it for n number of times in my life and still end up having it for some or the other reason. I thought I’d stop coffee before I left for the States and guess what!? There was a Starbucks next door to my hotel… A stone’s throw away.. If I was not doing anything else, I was having one amazingly big small Starbucks cappuccino.

Then I came back and decided NO MORE COFFEE… and I know how much I resist my temptation every time I walk into the pantry to pick up a water bottle or some snacks… Its just impossible but I know once I start it thoda thoda I end up getting terribly addicted and hence have nothing less than 5-6 cups of coffee per day which is bad… so its good if I stay away from it and instead have juices which will in turn help my skin glow!

What say people???

And here comes the informative post!!!

Right to information - A Right to every human being… And every individual has the right to know things be it anything. Every indvidual needs to know what is what and where things come from and where they go to and what happens to them.

It includes the right to - inspect works, documents, records. take notes, extracts or certified copies of documents or records. take certified samples of material. obtain information in form of printouts, diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode or through printouts.

(taken from Right to Information Act(India))

To know more about Right to Information, click here.

I decided everyone has to know everything and of course Google helps people know everythin g under the Sun!

OK Now! I’ve blabbered enough… Lets get down to business! The information I wanted to share is that…

I Got a Promotion!!! The first promotion of my life and my career and of course it will hold a special position in my life forever! I am now an AdWords Senior Representative. Well for many people, it might not sound like the perfect designation.. look at it through my eyes and you’ll know how important it is! Well I guess half oh Hyderabad already knows about it! How could I not share it with my blog!???

And now the obvious Thank you words…. ” I want to Thank my parents, my brother, him, my friends, my colleagues, my neighbours, my doodh wala, my paper wala, my cab drivers until today, my internet service provider (I know I crib abt them on and off but still!), my blog and all those who are directly and indirectly responsible for my success.. Last but not the least, I want to thank God for everything he has given to me… Thank you thank you!!!

Exactly 2 weeks back…

I was in San Jose.. back from a day of loong drives and beautiful views and was fast asleep with a bright smile on my face! I did not realize that he had hired a convertible for that day until Sunday morning.. Well.. he’d told me the previous day on our way to the hotel from the airport, but I am not sure if I remembered anything.. (I know I deserve to be kicked for this!) Anyway… we headed towards the 17 mile drive… drove 80 miles to reach that place I guess! Well.. it was worth the drive… the 17-mile drive or the Pebble Beach is one helluva location! With 21 exotic points spread around the area (ah well 5 of them are Golf courses and Golf makes no sense to me at all!) so sans the Golf courses, the other locations were mind blowing… The convertible was a cool Sebring and I was stunned to see sooo many of them on the roads… The car’s just awesome… we had the blue one… and loved every minute of the drive… After driving on and on.. we decided we move out of there and headed another 120 miles towards San Francisco.. I managed to click some great pics on the way and I am proud of myself for them (not sure if there’d be anyone else who is!)

Golden Gate was great! Took sometime to figure out how to get there… and in the end we landed at an incorrect location.. but I was so cold that we decided to move back… got back to the hotel and had pizza at Pizza my heart near the hotel. Next morning was colder than ever! We had to wait an entire 40 minutes to catch a shuttle and then another 20 mins to reach the office.. Only to find that breakfast was over!

Moreover I was too scared to eat any of that.. Was not sure what was veggie and what was not! So I decided to manage with a bowl of fruit. And the next thing to do was call up my senior UK who works in the MV office to find out if I can get Indian food somewhere.. He was kind enof to offer to take me and my friends there for lunch…We got the laptops we were supposed to get and then we sat and worked under an umbrella outside in the Sun! It was more like a holiday than a workplace!

had some food at Charlie’s cafe where they served Indian food and I could see more than half of India Googlers there! Well.. The Google MV office is where one ought to be!!! It was truly an experience of a lifetime.. After getting back to work and rushing to finish as much as I could ASAP, I took the shuttle and slept on my way back to the hotel… then went out shopping and had a good time….

Basssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dont want to write any more posts about the trip! Makes me feel sad and nostalgic!

Thats it! The trip was great! Mind Blowing and I had loads and loads of fun… Now that I am back to Google Hyderabad… which is reality.. lets sit back and enjoy life the way it is here! ciao!

P.S. The next post will be terribly informative… keep waiting…

Not about the Trip

I decided trip details can wait until weekend. I don’t want ppl to get bored coz of my repetitive kind of posts and since the post would be a long one, I thought its best to wait… so this post is yet another Friday post… Its TGIF ppl!!! Biryani for lunch… pack of Khatta Meetha for snack(did I ever mention that I loooove Haldiram’s Khatta Meetha?) diet Pepsi at ‘Room Temperature,’ thoda bohat work..Perfect Friday!

Life’s picking up pace after I came back… btw.. My best friend PD is in town! And the other one SV is coming to India from Chicago.. can’t wait to see them! Will probably meet up with PD this weekend… all the chocs i bought are almost over… Gosh!! I can’t believe! I’d bought so many of them and I am left with just a few.. even the liquor chocs I’d bought for some ppl… all almost khali… we’re preparing expense reports and we have to submit our bills blah blah… so Now I can formally announce that the trip hangover is over! I am back to ground reality now.

Google Hyd… the latest one is tickets for IPL matches… They sure know how to keep us moving and rocking! The are giving away 100 tickets for each of the 2 IPL matches in Hyderabad this month!! 500 ppl get to sign up and we get to GUEST with us!!! PD and me are going on the 25th April… Well… for those who don’t know - I AM NOT A CRICKET FREAK AT ALL! This is just for PD… she loves cricket and am sure will love being there… Thats all with life so far… Its TGIF!!! Freak out and live life ppl!!!

Singapore to San Francisco

Well.. Ideally I shud have written about the journey from S’pre to Hong Kong… but its just 4 hrs and we spent just an hour in transit there at Hong Kong.. so there’s not much to be penned… i slept on the flight, was woken up by the stewardess again to eat food and I ate coz I was hungry and good I did that! Coz the food was yum!!! We spent an hour loitering around in Hong Kong and got into a cleaned and refueled aircraft to start a 11 and a half hour journey to San Francisco… I was at the window seat.. 48A! all i cud see was the wing.. but then it was ok! it was night and most of our flight would be in the night and darkness… Funny thing… we moved from night to night… as in we started at 22:30 hrs from HK and reached SFO at 19:45 hrs! ek raat se dusri raat! it was interesting.. we had 2 meals in the flight and both were bad! The funny thing was the stewardess woke me up in the evening saying “good morning ma’am…have ur breakfast!” And we landed in broad daylight at 19:45 hrs! it was so bright and sunny as if it was 17:00 hrs! and the view was the most breathtaking view… even behind the wings, the earth looked soooo damn pretty! and to top it up.. i was hyper excited!!

From up above the World So High

From the aircraft

we landed! we finally did!! and descended right over the ocean… it was the most beautiful sight of my life and I can never forget it! we landed finished the tedious process of customs.. the officer there got tired of seeing Googlers and asked me if Google sends ppl who are less than a year old in the company to the US! hehe.. I told him no! he was like I am surprised coz most of the ppl until now have told me they’ve been in the company some 9-10-11 months! he was a cute man.. and very patient when I fiddled and searched through my belongings for the port of entry letter…

baggage took ages to appear… the more you are in a hurry to get out of a place, the more it gets delayed… hurriedly we came out and after excusing myself from the group, I rushed to the nearest phone booth and called (whom??? ‘Him’ ofcourse! ) and then informed my lead and moved out of the airport! The others were going in the shuttle arranged by the company… and I was waiting for him.. It was chilly.. I was tired and nervous… We put my baggage in the car’s trunk and headed towards the hotel.. The Hilton, 300 Almaden Blvd, San Jose. On the way, I saw some of the most beautifully lit roads and buildings… Passed Mountain View.. San Jose is an almost 40-45 min drive from SFO Intl Airport.

Reached the hotel, checked in, put the luggage in the room and set out hunting for dinner.. The hotel’s restaurant was closed… but they were serving food at the bar… so ordered for Cesarean Salad and Onion Rings…. The onion rings had enof oil for a middle class family in India to survive on for a month! and The Salad was tasteless! I wonder how ppl can have that food.. with no salt and no spices… Well.. again its my Indian Vegetarian Taste buds which do not let me have anything else! I noticed even the Non Veggies were having a tough time… This was when I missed mom soooooo terribly!!! She’s always been ready with delicious food whenever I’ve needed it!

Finally at 12, I returned to my room. After a quick shower, I called home, spoke to dad… (had already spoken to Mom on the way to SJ from SF)… They were getting ready to attend a wedding… And within minutes after I spoke to him, I was fast asleep…

Fotooos of Singaapoooor….

Sunrise @ s'pore captured from the flight

The weird design of the buildings

The greenery at the airport

A visitor attraction @ the airport...

Shamshabad to Singapore

I slept 3 hrs that night… woke up every half hour to confirm its gonna be morning soon… to make sure if the clocks were working fine… hardly worked in office that day… could not get myself to work… started nfor home early… to make sure my packing’s fine… felt lost in thoughts all day… and finally when the cab came to pick me up… i was hyper excited… opened my bag a couple of dozen times to check if everything is in order… and felt like I was walking on clouds…

finally reached the airport and saw all Googlers looked equally thrilled excited… boarding passes were ready for us… we did not have to stand in the que for them! and we waited for 3 hrs to board the flight… clicked pics all around the place… in front of every possible store and poster…(why because ppl wanted to know what the new airport looks like!)

Then…. boarded the flight and hurriedly exchanged places to sit with our friends the flight was good… we all felt a strange kind of excitement and thrill to go out of India on an official trip with sooo many of our friends… i slept well on the flight and suddenly the stewardess came to wake me up to eat food! and gimme some coffee… had that tasteless kind of food.. an loathed the coffee…and then forgot everything when I saw the most beautiful sunrise of my life! (not that i see a lot of sunrises but this was the BEST of all I’d seen) The Sun was rising from one end with its rays on the clouds and I don’t have words to describe the view!

Well we landed and headed towards the city in groups… took the free city shuttle to get to Little India.. and found Anand Bhavan veggie restaurant… had a perfect filter coffee and it felt like life’s been injected into me thru that coffee… had onion dosa and felt better than ever in life! My Indian Vegetarian taste buds did not let me like anything else under the Sun! got into Mustafa shopping centre and shopped till I dropped… I knew my bags were full and still I shopped… then moved ahead to Suntec City… it is a structure with 5 buildings joined together… and is a marvel… but the stores there cost u a bomb!!! So.. if u are a heir or heiress or earn too many dollars or pounds or dinars, you can feel free to splash them around and spend them as and how you want to… we were getting late for our next shuttle to the airport and we lost our way! asking everybody on the way, we found the location and ran to board the shuttle to the airport.. on the way the escort told us some interesting stories about the culture of Singapore… it seems there are some government flats in S’pore which are not sold to single men… so when a man proposes to a woman, he asks her “Shall we buy a house?” How sweet isn’t it?? and they have so many legal procedures to those houses blah blah… the city is nothing but vertical… huge buildings standing tall and proud next to each other…

Then coz of some misunderstanding and confusion in the airport, we ran around and managed to get to the boarding terminal and gate right on time and hardly got to see anything there in the airport! just managed to check my mails at FREE! FREE!! FREE!!! internet terminals! wanted to drop in a few words in my blog.. just to say I am fine… (Yes I am truly terribly addicted to my blog!) but could not coz I was getting late…

again swapped seats to be seated with friends… and headed towards Hong Kong…. in an almost 4 hr journey…

Phoren Returned! :P

Hmmm!!! I am finally back from a week long trip…and it was a trip of a lifetime!! I loved every moment of it… and i miss it too!!

Visited places, met ppl, chatted for hours, managed to stay awake at odd timings, and so deeply wished i had eyes which act like a camera and I could just click pics of all those beautiful things which i could not capture with my camera due to various reasons!

I have soooo much to write but no words… some of the most beautiful views on earth were captured by my eyes… some of the best conversations have been recorded in my system and I am playing them over and over and smiling to myself… rather giggling to myself… Its so good.. the human system does not corrupt audio, video and image files even though you replay them a thousand times… It only gets better and better…

God!! Am i becoming a poet or something?? I get such nice nice words and thoughts! Its sooo wonderful… the feeling itself is sooo good… I love it! I am smiling more than ever, am glowing (my mom says so!) , am, giggling to myself, am getting lost in thoughts, and sleeping with a big smile on my face… nothing seems to upset me these days… even my brother’s attitude does not irritate me.. I cant help but smile!

have work to finish… the trip details with specifications will follow in later posts… am still in the hangover of the trip… so its taking me time!

Bheja Fry!!!

PEOPLE WONDER WHY CALL CENTER GUYS ARE PAID SO MUCH……FOR JUST BEING ON THE PHONE. TAKE A LOOK:

1) Tech Support : “I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.”

Customer : “Ok.”

Tech Support : “Did you get a pop-up menu?”

Customer : “No.”

Tech Support : “Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?”

Customer : “No.”

Tech Support : “Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?”

Customer : “Sure, you told me to write ‘click’ and I wrote ‘click’.”

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2) Customer : “I received the software update you sent, but I am still getting the same error message.”

Tech : “Did you install the update?”

Customer : “No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?”

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3)Customer : “I’m having trouble installing Microsoft Word.”

Tech : “Tell me what you’ve done.”

Customer : “I typed ‘A: SETUP’.”

Tech : “Ma’am, remove the disk and tell me what it says.”

Customer : “It says ‘[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk’.”

Tech : “Insert the MS Word setup disk.”

Customer : “What?”

Tech : “Did you buy MS word?”

Customer : “No…”

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4) Customer : “Do I need a computer to use your software?”

Tech : ?!%#$ (welll pretend to smile)

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5) Tech : “Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you see the ‘OK’ button displayed?”

Customer : “Wow. How can you see my screen from there?”

Tech : ##### ***

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6) Tech : “What type of computer do you have?”

Customer : “A white one.”

Tech : ******_____####

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7) Tech : “What operating system are you running?”

Customer : “Pentium.”

Tech : ////—–+++

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8). Customer : “My computer’s telling me I performed an illegal abortion.”

Tech : ??????

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9).Cus tomer : “I have Microsoft Exploder.”

Tech : ?!%#$

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10).Customer : “How do I print my voicemail?”

Tech : ??????

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11). Customer : “You’ve got to fix my computer. I urgently need to print document, but the computer won’t boot properly.”

Tech : “What does it say?”

Customer : “Something about an error and non-system disk.”

Tech : “Look at your machine. Is there a floppy inside?”

Customer : “No, but there’s a sticker saying there’s an Intel inside.”

Tech : @@@@@

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12). Tech : “Just call us back if there’s a problem. We’re open 24 hours.”

Customer : “Is that Eastern time?”

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13). Tech : “What does the screen say now?”

Customer : “It says, ‘Hit ENTER when ready’.”

Tech : “Well?”

Customer : “How do I know when it’s ready?”

Tech : *** —- ++++

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The best of the lot

14) A plain computer illiterate guy rings Tech Support to report that his computer is faulty.

Tech : What’s the problem?

User : There is smoke coming out of the power supply.

Tech : (keep quite)

Tech : You’ll need a new power supply.

User : No, I don’t! I just need to change the startup files.

Tech : Sir, the power supply is faulty. You’ll need to replace it.

User : No way! Someone told me that I just needed to change the startup and it will fix the problem! All I need is for you to tell me the command.

Tech :

10 minutes later, the User is still adamant that he is right. The tech is frustrated and fed up.

Tech : (hush hush)

Tech : Sorry, Sir. We don’t normally tell our customers this, but there is an undocumented DOS command that will fix the problem.

User : I knew it!

Tech : Just add the line LOAD NOSMOKE.COM<http://nosmoke.com/> at the end of the CONFIG.SYS . Let me know how it goes.

10 minutes later.

User : It didn’t work. The power supply is still smoking.

Tech : Well, what version of DOS are you using?

User : MS-DOS 6.22.

Tech : That’s your problem there. That version of DOS didn’t come with NOSMOKE. Contact Microsoft and ask them for a patch that will give you the file. Let me know how it goes.

1 hour later.

User : I need a new power supply.

Tech : How did you come to that conclusion?

Tech : (hush hush)

User : Well, I rang Microsoft and told him about what you said, and he started asking questions about the make of power supply.

Tech : Then what did he say?

User : He told me that my power supply isn’t compatible with NOSMOKE.

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Heights Of all (Too Good)

15) Customer care officer : I need a product identification number right now and may I help u in finding it out?

Cust : sure

CCO : could u left click on start and do u find ‘My Computer’?

Cust : I did left click but how the hell do I find your computer?

Dil Chahta Hai

What’s with this terrible sleepiness every afternoon??? I am struggling to keep my eyes open… Playing the most rockiest and jazziest possible numbers on iTunes and still can’t stay awake… Is this the heavy lunch I had?! Ohh btw.. we had yummy aloo parathas today…

I am just typing on to stay awake.. I can’t concentrate… 3 sticks of Spearmint has not helped… 3 glasses of water hasn’t helped either… I have been staring at my system for over 20 mins now… I am assuming I was staring and did not doze away…

At this point in time, my dil wants a nice bed where I can sleep… I can’t keep my eyes open any more… I can also manage with a small couch…

I wanna watch a movie… any movie… but I am here in office trying to learn AdWords..just saw an article  which tells us what all is prohibited on Singapore Airlines.. explosives(yea right! we are planning to carry a huge set of lakshmi bombs!) , paints and adhesives (did I tell you I was planning to paint the aircraft??) , insecticides (hehe what if there are insects or mosquitoes in the flight?? will they have All Outs?? :P)  crazy ppl can get… why the hell will someone carry insecticides into an aircraft?? or does some sane person on earth actually do that?? I have no clue and I am not bothered…. I am just trying to bring up wacky looking comments on each one (not sure if they look wacky! This is just an attempt to manage and stay awake..)

Listening to Love Me Do by The Beatles… I decided there’s no point trying to listening to dhoom dhadaka type numbers coz doesn’t make any difference to my sleepiness..

Not sleepy any more… just got my forex after standing in the queue for more than an hour…

have work to finish… so… bye for now!! I have to rush!!!