Buzz ain't bad for a bumblebee like me..

Ok, there is a lot of negativity these days around anything Google.

Since I am not employed by google, am a self proclaimed techno nerd (not the software type though), and have had an open love-hate relationship when it comes to the products they dish out, here is an open heartfelt feedback of why this is actually a good thing..

1. Now that they fixed this contact business, it is no different from facebook. You can share all info to all public or choose to share your info with select people. You do have to invest some time and effort to set up the group lists for friends, family, etc. etc.. then what you share gets viewed by different people. Have checked it out and it works nicely. (it also tells you which items you shared with the world and which ones with family).

see the example shot below..




2. if all your buddies put their accounts and share it in the buzz stream, you get to see their feeds, tweets etc. just like you see blogposts on reader. the look and feel of a reader is maintained.

3. You don't have spam on this yet with stuff like "so and so took the How much do you know Shah Rukh Khan quiz and scored 13%. would you like to take the quiz?", in a quiz where even Shah Rukh would score only 5%.

4. the picture viewing is great!

5. It is almost a blogger and reader combined into one.

Now, if google makes you selectively embed links and images into the text box.. in other words, integrate the blog editor into buzz status updater, and have the ability to selectively show only my posts in the buzz stream, then will I even use blogger? highly unlikely.

So when people say Buzz is trying to replace facebook, twitter etc.. it also seems to be trying to replace blogger and blogreader as well!

They should have done this two years ago!

Just look at who are on your facebook list. Friends from school, college, work, friends you make thanks to who your kids go to school with, friends you make because of your hobbies and that is pretty much it.

It is usually the same bunch of people you email the most. I fundamentally had an issue with Facebook calling everyone a "friend", be it an acquaintance or a thick pal and almost stopped using it because of how it had security issues. Facebook fixed those issues and have a way to send your status updates to select folks only and have a way for you to say "NO" when it comes to information on your profile going out.

Buzz is doing the same thing.. It does surprise me that they didn't learn from the mistakes of Facebook before launching Buzz! The good thing with Google is that the react fast when you point out things to them.

Looks like someone heard my plea for a one stop shop with one login!

The second impression on this one is "I could get used to this!"




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Security...

Security is a double edged sword!

Take for example the full body scanners that are going to be at most major airports in the near future. You pretty much get an x-ray picture of everyone's nakedness (be it man, woman or child) and the airport security people get to watch you and your dear ones naked on the x-ray machine.

1. This is a violation of privacy in the name of security

2. Reminds you of those Holocaust movies where the Jews get paraded naked past a checkpost and they have that bleak resigned look on their faces and their biggest concern is not the nudity but the fear of losing their life. (except the irony here is you are being stripped bare on a machine by the supposed good guys!)

3. Apparently this doesn't work as intended.

4. These machines are made by companies which have a connection to the officials who is responsible for putting these machines in the airports. . . (this is like politicians who are on the boards of weapons manufacturers pushing for the Iraq war). Looks like somethings never change)

Someone posts an inappropriate comment and we think of turning on comment moderation. Then we realize the hazzle it becomes and turn it off. (Wish google would publish stats of how many people turned off comment moderation after turning it on for the first time).

People start violating my openness in facebook and I stop using facebook! There are only so many things where you can go into a shell.. you choose your options based on the bandwidth you have to handle all these security vs. freedom compromises!

Have pretty much stopped using facebook, twitter etc. and this blog is the only online thing I do. So imagine my surprise when I was presented with this security thing to read...




and I failed!




On a sidebar note, why should all these different sites have different logins, userids, passwords etc.

The way the world is going, the best thing would be to ask for the dad and mom to request a userid for the kid the day it is born, along with the birth certificate, social security number etc.

That way the kids birth certificate will arrive in 2 days.

The Social Security number in a week

Passport in 6 weeks

UUID (Universal User ID- I am patenting this concept if it hasn't been patented already) will arrive same day with premade google, yahoo, hotmail, twitter, facebook, myspace, etc. etc. accounts...

The kid will be able to use this ID on his/her 10th birthday?!

In any case, back to the topic of security, I think if we take the first family, and the top 10 Homeland security officials and post their full body scan pictures on the internet, this thing will go away real soon!

What do you think?



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The one that always gets away

As most of you have seen in every form of news media, there was another plane bombing attempt over the Christmas break, which thankfully was not successful.

Now, the agencies which should focus more on "how the hell did this guy get the explosives on the plane" have instead focused on "how can we harass regular folk more" after this incident..

The latest reports read(this is from Times)

"In the final hour before landing in the US, plane passengers are now banned from standing up, using toilets, opening lockers and covering themselves with blankets."

What next?

In the final hour before landing in the US, plane passengers will have to get naked and freeze on their seats when the pilot says "freeze". They will not be allowed to move till the plane lands and the pilot says "unfreeze"?

Unfreakingbelievable!

One stupid dude gets through and now every airline passenger will suffer for it the next three years or so. Especially pity those who now have to travel with the elderly or small kids.

I still remember,

a. having to throw away my baby's milk at a security counter only to find that the plane carried no milk

b. my wife's 75 year old grandmother having to remove her mangalsutra(thali) at the check point and her refusal ending up in extra searches

c. so many shaving gels, toothpastes, etc. being tossed for their size (I still think if you are really a bomber, you would figure out a way to do the damage within 100ml of volume!) and the fact that the toothpaste clearly smelled like kids gum, had Dora on it and my little one was ready to even eat and show it was indeed toothpaste all falling on the deaf years of the security inspectors whose only qualification seemed to be a healthy hatred for humanity..

d. the extra long double, triple safety checks at international airports, for US bound flights only

e. my relative who was standing in his undies in front of everyone because his pant was not able to hold on its own when he removed his belt at the security checkpoint (come on now... if you have a big tummy which expands and contracts with every meal, you have have one of those wide belts and you try holding a boarding pass, a wallet and your pants all at the same time and trying to have your hands flat so the security dude can do his metal detector thingy on you!)

More security measures will be underway over the next few months they tell us.

If I cannot be part of the solution, would like to be part of the problem.. not the terror problem, but the airport security problem!

Going forward they should make a new rule that all passengers will be given a plastic poncho/jump suit kind of thing before the flight. It will come with a "built in undie" and that will be the only thing they will be allowed to wear on the flight. The jump suits will be color coded by airlines and will have advertisement logos on them from sponsors.

All other things like poonals, aranaikayars, thalis, etc. etc. will have to be packed with the clothes and jewelry and put in the suitcase. No carry on baggage of any kind will be allowed.

You will be weighed before and after you come out of any restroom and MRI'ed to verify that there are only expected changes in your body after your restroom session. As an added bonus, airport doctors who watch your MRI will give you a free prescription for your problems they find during the scan. They might even reassign your seat with respect to the bathroom location, based on what they find in the scan.

This way no need to search anyone.

Time to start "airclothing.com" and start getting those sponsors for the jumpsuits and make some money.

Oh wait, isn't that how they transfer prisoners on airplanes in the movies?

Next time maybe if our entire family takes swimming lessons and starts rowing fast enough, we could go visit relatives in India by boat?

Seriously, flying is going to be soooo overrated!

On another note, what was this guy thinking? Blowing up a few people on air and a lot more on the ground is going to do what? (other than make those TSA inspectors snap on new gloves and smile their evil smile). Also, even with all the convoluted logic of 70 virgins waiting for this dude after he kills himself and everyone around him (all media tells us that the number 70 is accurate, although no one seems to have come back from the dead to verify the headcount of the virgins), what use are 70 virgins if you have blown your groins to smithereens?

More than a quarter of a million people perished in a Tsunami five years ago and the world keeps turning.

Now what can we do to stop more of these "undrawer" bombers from getting on planes? How can an average airline passenger dude like me help? ( No, I will not stop complaining about how airline travel has become a crappy experience..)

Please tell us how to make things normal again or at least go in the right direction?




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Tough Girls in pink

Now that a whole week has gone by, after coming back from India, the house has returned to a routine, especially with Grandmas arrival today. It is a full house again, with Daddy and the four women who shape his daily life.

To celebrate, we decided to get matching fake tattoos! A friend of mine had given me these Harley Davidson stick on's, just the day before we left for India. We had promised the kids that we will put the tattoos in the airport and have some fun while waiting for the plane. Although we spent more than half a day at the airport (more on that later), we did not use the tattoo because daddy forgot to take them and put them in his pocket!

So, we did the tattoo thing on our return, and took pictures. The girls look all tough and giggly, now that we have matching eagles!




Considering that daddy does not even know how to ride a motorbike (having graduated from bicycle directly to the four wheelers) and his only experience on a two wheeler being limited to four sessions of scooter coaching class in the desolate Boat Club road, from his Chitappa almost two decades ago, this is as close to a Harley as he gets!

Now, we talked about the girls, and being tough! What has pink got to do with it? The answer lies in the next picture! Behold, the tough girl, wrapped in pink...




In case you are wondering "Why the happiness radiating from her face?", it is because she has been given a new "blankie" aka security blanket. After our bitter "blankie" or "thuni" experiences with Jr. growing up, we decided to get not one but two blankets for the little one. On second thought, we should have gotten a dozen!

I do not know if as a child, I had a security blanket which had to be within 2 feet of me at all times, which was a necessity for me to smell and touch before I could go to sleep. I vividly remember some of my mom's sarees and was probably holding her saree while sleeping, but nothing like this phenomena we see in the US of A.

People who are used to seeing me, probably think I have started some political party which goes by a "Pink" thundu! PTMK, that's me, Pink Thundu munetra katchi! Look at every photograph of me taken anywhere from Disneyland to weddings to just around the house and you can spot me with the pink blanket on my shoulder, irrespective of wheather the kid also happens to be on my shoulder or not!

In short, daddy is nothing but a blanket depot of sorts for the little girls. Jr. graduated from the little pink blanket to a larger full size "poobie" (Pooh Bear blanket shortened to poobie by her!). Although she doesn't go with it everywhere, she still sleeps with it at home and takes it on long trips in the van, if she plans to sleep on the ride!

The little one is still dependent on "thuni" for her every breath! As fate would have it, there was a typhoon in HongKong the day we were supposed to leave for India and our flight got cancelled, rerouted etc. etc. Long story short, in all the hoopla we forgot to take both "thunis"to India. One was still drying at home. That left us with one blanket for the entire 13 days.

"Madras is hot. I can wash the thing and dry it on the terrace while she is playing! Don't worry!", I told a worried San., and kept that promise too! Although smeared with kumkum, turmeric, coffee, boost, etc. from the wedding and the ranganathan street floor, mylapore tank bus stop, etc. from our local trips, the blanket was holding up rather well till day 10 of the trip. Then it happened!

Within thirty seconds after reaching the Meenambakkam airport, there was so much activity because some guy had parked his car at a 18 degree angle to the pavement, as opposed to the customary 17 and this had jammed traffic all the way to the entrance. There was a frantic search for the second car following us and while my brother and me went in different directions, the sleepy little one, had dropped her "thuni" from my shoulders. We were glad to get inside the airport and just as we were about to wave goodbye to my brother, the little one chipped in "my thuni?!".

The whole airport whizzed past me and San in slow motion. I could see her lips moving, but could not hear the words! They might have said something like "All you have to do was guard that stupid blanket and you failed! Where did you drop it? In the car? or at home? Where?". I muttered something like "It was there on me when I got in the car". She either dropped it outside or in the car!". The rest of the conversations were immaterial.

We knew our return trip was going to be to rerouted to San Franciso, via Hellkong!

And it was! We were so happy to come home to the backup blankie. We will spare you the details of the return. The story does not end there! Considering that there is no immediate plan to graduate her from the little thuni to something like "poobie" and also considering we don't have the energy to go through a "blankie weening" process, we decided to search and get two additional blankies.

One has to remember that any two feet by four piece of cloth can be purchased as a "receiving blanket" from the local Toys'r'us, Walmart or Target, but they cannot become a "thuni"! There is a careful ageing process that goes with transforming an ordinary cloth into a security blanket.

In what would put the making of Jason Bourne to shame, this 2x4 cloth goes through 3 washes in a washer/ dryer per week over a couple of years, gets spit on, mothers milk/formula/whole milk/chocolate milk/ovaltine leaked on, peed on in the car seat at times during a rare scientific phenomena called the "midway diaper shift", extensively vomited on, dragged and dropped in places that range from normal parking lots in local shops and malls, to exotic locations like National parks, village temples, paddy fields, australian beaches, not to mention trampled on by the adults feet, elder sisters bicyle, tricycle etc. It has even occasionally been run over by the minivan!

It aquires a unique smell, faded color and texture over time. It also aquires some superpowers. The little one can "possibly" hold one end of the blankie while being perched on daddys hip, drop the other end on the floor, swirl it around, then pick it up and get some kind of idea of the nuances of the floor. It is like that Johnsons bud with fluid which tells the CSI investigator, "This is blood, alright!". Such are the qualities of the "thuni"!

Although she posed happily with the new blanket, she disowned it after 20 minutes!

One has to come up with a rapid ageing process now that matches the performance of the natural process. This is something along the lines of making artificial diamonds that match the color, carat, cut and clarity of a natural diamond.

Even the scientist in me is not ready to take up that challenge, because I know the little one can detect that the % Ranganathan Street platform is off by 0.001% on the new blankie compared to the old one! So why bother?

I can only dream of having a crowd chanting, "Pink Thalapathi Mandaveli Sundar...."



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Back to the routine..

Back in the US and back to the daily routine. Almost forgot that we were in India for a month!

Some travel tips for other folks who might be traveling with kids to the US.

1. Carry on Baggage : Throughout the journey from here to India, we had one carry on bag per person (even the baby who has a 75% ticket gets a carry on bag) and a laptop bag (San, me, her brother all had laptop bags!) and baby had her diaper bag. This is allowed per Cathay Pacific and almost all the other airlines. When we checked our suitcases in Chennai and got our boarding pass, the person at the counter gave us two tags each and said the laptop bags and diaper/ milk bag were allowed. After going through customs and immigration, there is a security check point just in front of the gate manned by some police like uniformed guys. Do not know if they are government or private security. They said "one bag only!! either your carry bag or laptop bag.. choose !!". There were a lot of guys ahead of me who were shouting and yelling in protest, but the security guys said "idhar lika hai" (it is written here) and pointed to some fine print on a board which was put only at this security gate! They asked all the people to wait for the various airline representatives to show up. I was wondering what to do, when the guy in front of me (Tamizh guy flying in Air France flight) walked out of the line, opened his little suitcase removed all the neatly ironed pants and shirts. He proceeded to put them over his left arm, then covered them with his Leather Jacket. He had put his laptop bag inside the bigger carry on in the space he had created. He gave me a wink and went through the security check. Insipired by this, I saw that I could actually expand my carry on bag by opening a zipper that goes all around the bag. It made the bag look really heavy, but these guards were just obsessed with the one bag only policy. I quickly shoved my laptop bag inside (Couldnt even pull the zipper over completely, so I put on a thick shirt and Jacket which I was going to take out once we reached SFO!). I got through thanks to some expert cooperation from baby, who silently watched the proceedings. After I went to the gate, we sat next to the Air France dude and he said "Govt. rules! You just have to find a workaround. Arguing is not going to solve anything. That guy who is yelling over there is sooo screwed!". I thanked him with all my heart for getting me through that checkpoint..

2. Security : We came to Hongkong at 3:20. Our next flight out to San Francisco was 4:30 and boarding was to start at 4:10. That gave us 50 minutes to leave one gate and go to another gate in the same terminal. They made all the passengers go through an X-ray checkpoint and by the time we made it near the other gate it was 4:15 !! That is when we got the big shock. We were diverted to another security check. Apparently the policy is that people boarding flights to the US have to go through an additional manual security check. There were 40 dudes in four rows holding up green signs to say they are ready to check. A security guy diverts everyone coming in the line to one of the 40 chekers. So San ends up in one corner, me in another corner and we all carry the extra kids bags. The guys go through everything.. EVERYTHING ! I was asked about the "rasam saadam" (rice with gravy) that was packed for Jr.'s in-flight food..Was even asked to taste it. I just smiled and did it. One chinese guy remarked "they really take it out on the US bound passengers here!" He was right. I was questioned about the milk flask, the bottled Gerber baby foods, etc. etc.

3. Got Milk ? After we boarded the flight (we were one of the last ones to board), San asks the hostess to get some warm milk for the baby and she replies "we don't have milk on the flight maam. only dairy creamer!" We paid 900 odd dollars for that 75% ticket for baby and we don't get milk ?! Then another hostess came and said "you guys should get your own milk for the baby". I explained to her that someohow the milk in our flask got spoilt (and showed her the flask), and also told her that this was a long 14 hour flight and we definitely were given milk in the many times we travelled with a baby on this leg. Finally a senior air hostess said "let me check if we have any in Business class" and got us some milk!!! It was pretty obvious that they had the milk but for some reason, wanted to hold on to it. Later a different air hostess said "if we give you milk, then everyone just asks for milk to drink!".. I was thinking "if you serve food that is not easy on the stomach, then obviously the older people and kids are going to ask for a banana and milk".. Incidentally, there were no bananas either on the flight!

So folks coming on the pacific route via Hongkong, please:

1. make sure your carry on bag is expandable or put your laptop inside one bag
2. run to the next gate in Hongkong. That X-ray check does not get you in the next flight!
3. Take a huge flask of milk! and be ready to taste it in HongKong in front of the security guy.. Incidentally, you might find out that the milk is spoilt!! and if you are worried about the food, BYOB (bring your own banana - that is!).

It was a refreshing trip on a lot of fronts. Will post soon with pictures..