Merry Christmas everyone!! I want to inform you guys that I finally got myself my own domain name and start up a blog. It's a nostalgic farewell to Hadleystreet but, its time for bigger a better things. Do visit my new blog at http://www.myfray.com/. I thank everyone who helped Hadleystreet become a success and I hope you will patronize MyFray as well. Enjoy your holidays and have a great year ahead. Cheers!
I was recently browsing for some background information on the author of the self-help book 'How To get from where you are to where you want to be'. This book is written by Jack Canfield, that's right he's the co-author and founder of the popular 'Chicken Soup' series. When I finally landed up on his homepage I hit gold. On the homepage one could register for Jack Canfield's free Private Mentorship Program. The 21-day program is inclusive of
It's a good time to sign up for it personally because it's almost New Year. He is effective and Canfield says it's free but any advice that he gives is invaluable and it will ultimately help you get more organized. Anyone looking for success and needs direction Canfield can give a great start.
Welcome, to the new look of my blog. Yesterday, I woke up from my deep slumber and I realized that my blog was actually visited and approved by my visitors. But like serious writers/bloggers I too am no longer interested in writing blogs that are purely commercial in interest. As a notice to my regular visitors - I am more focussed on writing topics of more useful nature. The journey for hadleystreet has been a long one. This blog started on July 29, 2007. This makes it more than one year of blogging and yet my blog is not half a popular as the one's
that started maybe even two months back.
Trust me I am a very amatuer blogger and perhaps have an even longer road of learning in front of me.
However, I would like to share my advice to new bloggers yes, that is unsolicited but still it could help maybe reach my level faster than I reached it.
Harassed husbands? In an ego-shattering exercise, these husbands who suffer under the hands of their wives are finally speaking out against the injustice.One might think that men in a marriage are the party who mistreat the woman. Drunken men beating up bread-earning women others spitting out the tea given by their wives in the morning if it is out of taste are the images projected by the popular Indian media. Then there is one of India’s biggest evils yet to be eradicated-dowry. Just a few months back the news report claimed a woman with a NRI husband is paralyzed allegedly because her in-laws pushed her out of a moving car. The woman’s family was not told of the incident by the husband’s family. The woman remained in a hospital in North Carolina with life threatening injuries until a nurse finally called her family in India. The reason for such an action is supposed to be the unaccepted demand of dowry from the wife’s family.
He is generally almost unnoticed in a party or in the club. He will have is drink in one hand, when you look at him, he will generally avoid eye-contact. He simply lurks from one corner to another and hides in the crowd.
Then in contrast you will find another guy entertaining a group of men and women, laughing and talking loudly. His Rolex and Versace will advertise his success. This guy's got a slick hairstyle and his physique will show the months of training he has put in for it. He is the alpha-male.
Then there is the alpha-girl, who has done well in her professional front, gets her paid vacation to Paris, New York, Tokyo etc. She drives a gargantuan SUV and you know wrong words in front of her would land you in mess. The lady knows that she's beautiful and takes immense pleasure in keeping guys dangling.
But with success comes the insecurities, succesful woman are insecure and generally the guys who generally dare to approach her will be the men who have reached her level or more- The alpha male.
There was this time when the woman always wanted her man to be much better than herself and be the more succesful of the two. This trend has been showing a decline as woman are slowly no longer preferring alpha-males. These woman would rather be in a relationship with guys who are not as good as them. These guys are shy, have a mediocre profession and are great emotional cushions. They can be better controlled than the succesful men who are the top-honcho's of different MNC's.
When a woman becomes succesful she has more experience of life. She knows the ups and downs and has surely seen the ruthless way of operation of alpha-males. Alpha-males unfortunately, have the high tendency to be unfaithful, abruptly break-off relations. They are instable as they have a very hectic lifestyle.
Moreover, alpha-males tend to be more artificial and may not be too good at understanding the emotional aspects of the woman no matter how well he might know to treat the woman. And women these days with increasing independence know what they want exactly they want. These woman do not have any problem in taking the driver's seat.
But what about the men who finally, wind up with such women? That is a question to be answered by a seperate blog post after this one.
If you are smart, handsome, charming and can make great conversations. Maybe then there is a profession which can pay you a lot. And yes, this profession could be just a part-time job from the real job you may hold as an executive, manager, mechanic or whatever.
Gigolo's have never had it better in India. The IT sector seems to have starved women for some love- so much so that it does not matter if it is fake or real. Most of the men do not seem to have the time for their women, whom they had wooed after much struggle! So when the love is cut-off from the men in their lives, women turn to gigolos or more informally named species- call-boys.
Gigolos are a different species from normal men as they are patient, understanding to women and are great in bed. Their smartness adds to their marketability.
Women-married or committed, are now turning to gigolos for the extra affection that they long for. Apart from the extra-care that these men provide, they don't crib when women shop, take great interests in what their women say and are great eye-candy's. Most importantly, women find sex with them no strings attached.
While shopping these men are like what the woman's husband or boyfriend were at some point of time. They have an opinion and took interest in what she looked good on. Gigolos flirt well and are very interesting to converse with. They know to treat the woman well and like chocolate, satisfy the craving and make an impression which forces women to return to them again for another bite.
Women generally turn to gigolo's when they have husbands who are too busy to have time for them and boyfriends who are extra-emotional. Gigolos have also been utilized for causing envy to an ex or to a friend of the girl.
Males in this profession are all smiles, "Most of my clients are married women, they pay me well-about 30,000 to 40,000 bucks per night. Give me expensive gifts and we get along great in bed." says one.
These males get to go to great places, all on the womans credit card (or her hubbie's-who cares?) and all they have to do is to shower these women with affection.
Women even take these men abroad for holidaying to exclusive places and the man gets paid for the great holiday he gets with lady.
What gigolo's do is simple, give what the woman wants- make her feel special and beautiful. Its not difficult especially if you have over 20 such clients with whom you are making love overnight or on a boat in Venice in regular basis. Its just practise and practise makes Perfect.
Women, most of them, no longer believe in the ‘One-Man’ philosophy. A movie named “All about Anna”, the opening lines of the film were, “A woman needs three men- one for adventure, one for interesting conversations and one for good sex.”
This line is so emphasizing on the fact that women have finally realized the power they wrest on the incompetent male mind. They know what they need and have lost certain conscience relating to relationships. The liberated female is showing off now with posh, extravagant parties on her birthday. Lavish treats for her promotion and expensive gifts for her ‘men’, no longer man.
To be fair, these women would rather experience life as young as they can rather than garner instability after marriage. The ‘virginity as a gift of marriage concept’ has been thrown out of the window, “What a waste...” is what one hears.
Let us take the life of a 27-yeat old call center executive woman. She has a steady boyfriend in the city and she has frequent nocturnal flings with her foreign boss. However, she has no guilt about her habits. “It’s fun minus the baggage, it’s a normal working day the next morning”, she says. Does she think it degrades her character, “How can having sex degrade me, it’s a need like any other. I accept I need my boyfriend to support me but I also need sex and sex with him would entail a lot of emotions. It’s more complicated than one-night stands.” Guilt is hardly a factor on the cards; it’s been, done and forgotten before you know.
These words once came out of a guy’s lips; they had the sole right to flings with as many women he needed but always remained at a distance from the girl he actually loved. Though it is pretty much the same, the only difference is that the women have come neck to neck with men.
Then again there have been interesting stories which might seem slightly silly. In a recent incident, a friend- a woman came over to the guy’s house. When he was making tea in the kitchen, the woman apparently appeared naked at the kitchen doorway and was trying to intimidate the man. Generally, men would have been happy beyond control but a few men are still very reserved and are shocked at the over-whelming independence and power of women. Given the circumstances, there are still men who respect women and such incidents can shock them.
Women now know that at the end of the day it is all about loving yourself and doing what you enjoy rather than wasting a life loving and most importantly living for someone else.
The hybrid vehicle proposed in this abstract utilizes the large amount of heat that is developed in a conventional I.C. engine. The temperature in an I.C. engine reaches temperature up to 1500 degree Celsius. This temperature is largely due to friction acting between metal to metal contact and hydrodynamic stresses in oil films. The friction heat is eventually removed as waste heat by the engine cooling system.
However, this waste heat could be utilized to provide auxiliary power to the vehicle. Heat energy has been ignored as a source to generate power for the car.
IDEA-
The idea is to introduce a gas turbine system along with a conventional I.C. engine of the vehicle. The gas turbine will utilize the heat energy which otherwise is wasted into the atmosphere.
When the engine gets heated up, the coolant is run through the I.C. engine to keep it from very high temperatures. As the coolant cools the engine, it itself becomes very hot as it completes the movement through the engine. The gas turbine system introduced possesses a low boiling point working fluid (butane etc.) which gets vaporized under the influence of the hot coolant.
The high pressure gas is channeled into a pipe and outlet on to a small turbine through a nozzle. Thus, the high pressure gas hitting the turbine blades will rotate it and produce electricity for a D.C. motor. The electricity maybe used for the D.C. motor- which rotates the wheels. Also, it maybe used for storing in a battery.
In cities, when a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle runs, a lot of energy is wasted since the car is slowed and left idle a lot many times due to heavy traffic and other obstructions.
However, an I.C. engine continues to provide power constantly at all times even if that much of energy is not needed. Thus, a lot of the energy is lost to the braking. When we use the brake pedal to slow the vehicle, we are removing the kinetic energy which the car possesses as it moves at a speed. We can captures some of this energy and apply it usefully by a method called “Regenerative braking”.
Regenerative braking- The electric motor is placed in connection with the wheels of the vehicle. When a car is braked, the wheels still rotate due to the momentum. This rotation of the wheels since, attached to a motor can produce electricity in the D.C. motor and subsequently stored in the battery. When the car is again accelerated the stored electric energy from the battery can be utilized for the rotation of the wheels thereby reducing the load on the I.C. engine.
Thus the proposed vehicle utilizes a gas turbine engine to utilize the heat effectively which otherwise is released as waste energy into the atmosphere.
To be more marketable many of the vehicles manufactured today have powerful engines that guzzle fuel but are unremarkable in cities due to congestion. The continuous braking wastes a lot of the power that these engines produce. Regenerative braking makes use of this wasted power due to braking i.e. the loss of kinetic energy. Regenerative braking can produce a minimum of 7500 kg m/sec2 of energy to be stored into electric energy. Assuming the average vehicle weighs 500 kilograms.
Aerodynamic drag is the physical force which resists the motion of the vehicle through air, in turn, making the engine work harder to move forward. This affects the fuel mileage. Therefore, the body should be streamlined.
The side rear-view mirrors could be eliminated from vehicles.
Presently, the tires are manufactured considering comfort, which is for a quiet and smooth ride. However, if the tires are stiffer and inflated it has been practically proved to reduce the drag by half- which is by no means negligible.
Cumulatively, on integrating all the above features we will have the model of a highly efficient hybrid car.
Finally the frenzy fades as the golden boy’s glorious achievement takes a back seat and the public interest moves onto Pervez Musharaff resigning from his seat.
Abhinav Bindra won the gold for 10-metre air rifle event. As far as Indian media is concerned it is an opportunity to cash in on Bindra’s achievement. Brand managements are busy gauging Bindra’s marketability to the public. It is completely a different fact that at 25, Bindra owns land worth Rs 150 crores in Chandigarh and is the CEO of Abhinav Futuristics which generates annual revenue of Rs 25 crores. So as we discuss his brand value it is important we know that he really doesn’t need the endorsement money.
Bindra is reticent and is a self-confessed “recluse”, since age 13 his only passion has been shooting. When in college he hardly shared the same interests that his peers had. His classmates do not recall Bindra ever discussing or showing interests in girls. For shooting, Bindra had shut out every possible distraction, putting in grueling hours of shooting practice each day.
So this is the guy who went out and won the gold, he pretty much lived like a saint. It is tough to imagine this shy guy stepping up on the boob-tube and say things like, “Kurkure khao, mast ho jao!” Advertisements are all about non-sense and here we have Mr. Abhinav Bindra with a total no non-sense attitude. It will hit the audience at all the wrong places and hurt the brand image.
Moreover, shooting does not have the same glamour as Bollywood or cricket. It just does not appeal as much. Noted Adman Prahlad Kakkar, candidly admitted that he would give no more than Rs 5000 to Bindra for an endorsement deal. At the same time, Alyque Padamsee suggested that a celebrity like Katrina Kaif might give Bindra the extra needed factor for the advertisement industry.
Whatever the ad industry decides, one thing is for sure, Abhinav Bindra as we know is unruffled and might hardly be interested like other celebs to endorse products with their plastic smiles. Bindra is a genuine person and is a kind of personality to who believes in “Be Yourself.”, he definitely won’t change himself, let alone get a personality make-over for the ad-industry.
Chennai, as I see it is the only metropolitan city which has maintained its decade’s old British charm and conservative nature. The metro’s I have been to are loud and the people equally forthcoming. When I came out of Chennai Central the dusty heat filled my lungs and emptied my hearts hopes.
There were no pretty girls, people ate curd-rice with their hands, to which I am used to now and very few places where an outgoing youngster could freak out. Language was an unassailable barrier. Localites, especially the auto-drivers could talk in the tone of Tamil, communication had become a major problem. The tariffs they charge would leave you begging for an auto-driver from a metro like Mumbai. If you like dosa and idli’s and also you live in Chennai, you have got to be a very lucky person because you will not get a modest priced authentic north-indian food anywhere. Of course, with time I have found out even such places.
Then there were Chennai people, narrow-minded, stingy and no matter how big their bank balances stick to very minimal expenditure on clothes. In Chennai, people spend only on gold, steel vessels and rice. The rest of it goes to where it matters- the bank.
Then Chennai soon revealed its charming side that left me, let’s say, simple. I have switched from Pepsi to fruit juices for one change. People here don’t care how well you are dressed or so, they do however consider how much hard-work you put in and your punctuality. Yes, a little bit of loud dressing could raise a lot of eyebrows here. They are not showy and prefer to be quiet and non-intrusive to others-just minding their own business.
How can we forget Chennai for engineering education, it is country-wide renown and produces the best lot of engineers for India.
For a collegiate, the best places in Chennai is not, mind you not the Marina beach, in fact it is the Besant Nagar beach which is now in vogue. Also, we have the Golden beach which is slightly expensive with an entry fee of Rs 350. The most posh area within Chennai is Adyar, Nungambakkam etc. They have the expensive disc’s and pubs and also youngster hang-out’s like Mocha.
After a very long time I finally managed to wake up early morning around 5am with a very special purpose in my mind. It is my semester holidays after all and I reserved the right of being a sleepy head. However, my strong conscience pleaded me to do something about my huffing-puffing respiratory conditions. So today I woke up and unveiled my dad’s jogging shoes, which were shunned to obscurity by him. The condition of the pair of jogging shoes to say the least was, less than satisfactory. It had gathered the dust of a year or so and I coughed as I cleaned it just enough so that I could use it. In the process I ended up messing up my house with dust. Fortunately, my mom was asleep and had no idea about the dust storm that I was creating in her house. Truly, ignorance is bliss. So after all the adventure with the shoes I left my home for a jog.
What I found the best part of an early morning jog? The cool breeze, the dew laden grass, the golden silence or the empty, winding streets with scrawny street dogs yawning. To be frank what I really liked was the great effects my earplugs offered early in the morning. You won’t believe how many new beats I discovered in the songs that I had been listening regularly. You don’t hear them in the hustle and bustle of the day. I think early in the morning is the best time to listen to artists like Coldplay, Chris Rice and James Blunt. You really don’t hear their real music until you haven’t heard it in complete silence.
I almost forgot, be ready to direct a lot of goods vehicles and trucks to their destination. None of the drivers seem to know where to go, all they have is a piece of paper with an address on it and early morning joggers like me are left to feel like air traffic controllers with an amazing number of vehicles asking for direction, thanks to the thin pedestrian traffic at dawn.
Besides this one drawback I also enjoyed the prospect of meeting a jog-mate, preferably a female. No, nothing more than a jogging friend. But no such luck. So I went for a huge lap around my area before I returned home by six. My parents were still sleeping-I had forgotten the keys. They would be less than glad if I rang the bell and woke them up crashing their sleep. But standing outside the door sweating I did ring the bell. About five minutes later my dad opened the door with a haggard look on his face, “Sorry dad, good morning.” Then I handed him the morning newspaper which was put outside by the vendor.
The jog was great and I promised to be regular as I headed to the bathroom for a cold shower.
This entry is almost a year delayed. But I thought better late than never!
On Friday, July 13th around 3:01 I waited at Metropolitan Mall. I was supposed to catch a movie with a friend. As it turned out, unfortunately Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix had been released that day (I should’ve known its Friday the thirteenth.). I had no intention to watch Potter on screen- moreover on first day!
However I learnt the PVR cinemas were running 7 shows of Harry Potter in one day and the ticket price placed at a murderous 175 bucks!! The other films like Die Hard 4(bang on film people- a must watch, absolutely mind boggling material!) were having only two shows per day and the sadistic management had made sure that people like me looking forward for an action packed matinee had to settle for a emotional, demented, clichéd wizard. Its not that I abhor Harry Potter, its just that after you read the book, watching it in motion neither has the real substance nor the same passion within the tale.
DH4 was running at 11:30, which I had missed and then at 19:30 that would ensure I would not be back before midnight and just to remind you, I had left home to catch a matinee. The other remaining films were Apne(Aaaaaaagh!), Bombay to Goa(yaaagh!) etcetera.
So as you might have deduced I was sitting in audit 3 of PVR waiting for Harry to start his ‘Chosen One’ crap. I mean he says he is an ordinary student but moves around Hogwarts as if he were Daniel Radcliff (ha-ha, I know it’s a weak joke.).
Now one thing I noticed was that the before the cinema begins, generally there are a very limited number of ads but, surprise-surprise, the movie began fifteen minutes late considering the given show timing because of the torrential ad displays because of Potter hype.
The viewers seemed happy when finally the Censor certificate for Harry Potter was shown as they clapped and hooted. I sulked with every second leading to the first scene and remained unmoved, unfazed, indifferent as Harry cried, had nightmares, enjoyed hero worship and finally angry when Sirius Black is killed. Yeah, big deal!
Mind you, when I read the book and Sirius Black was killed, I reread the page to ensure I hadn’t misread it. But in this theatre with the air-conditioner in full blast I was busier wondering if PVR has heater facilities for winter.
Finally, the movie ended with Harry going back to muggle world. However, I did enjoy the snog between Harry and Cho and the succeeding scene in which Harry discusses the episode with Ron and Hermoine. The rest of it was very obscure, very Harry and very avoidable.
