Chp 347. 10 must have apps for GoaFest 2011

Ah. GoaFest. It’s that time of the year again when hundreds of Indian ad agencies’ who’s who and wannabes mingle and vie for a coveted Abby’s, be it gold, silver or bronze. The Emmy’s of Indian Advertising.

Advertising is not just about creativity. It’s about innovation. And this is uber important especially for those in digital ad agencies. Last year’s GoaFest saw a fair amount of people using Foursquare and other mobile applications during the award ceremony. But sadly, GPRS coverage at the venue (Cavelossim) was extremely bad, which in itself was an irony – It’s like going to a nudist colony that prohibits members from removing their clothes.

This year, GoaFest will be held at Zuri White Sands. It’s around 4-5 km away from the nearest beach (I checked on Google Map) unlike other years when the function was held right next to a beach. So hopefully there will be better gprs coverage this time (No 3G yet in Goa).

As we all know, mobile innovations have increased by multifold during the past one year, mainly thanks to Android’s astounding growth. Hence here are our top 10 apps that will prove to be most useful during the upcoming GoaFest 2011. Although the apps are mainly Android specific, most of them are available for other OS too.

Here’s our list:

1. FourSquare

Yeah I know. You’re grinning. Ok we know 4sq was a big hype and never made it big here in India due to so many reasons and bugs – sometimes you can check-in at a place or become a mayor without even being there. I should know. I became the Mayor of GoaFest 2010 last year even before I landed in Goa. But still, it is better than Facebook Places (so far) and it looks like it is still the only popular GPS based social network app us tech nerds can play around with. And who knows? Maybe you can finally earn your “Player Please!” badge if you check in with three other women from your friend list at the award ceremony!


2. Google Maps / Latitude / Hotpot

Alright, Latitude promised to be the 4sq killer, but still needs time to catch on. Google Maps is useful, especially if you use it to search for the venue of GoaFest 2011. All those mouth-watering ads we see about 3D google maps and street view are not available here in India yet, so the best we can do is check-in where we are allowed to. At least we will know where our colleagues are in the midst of hundreds of admen (and adwomen) at the venue.


3. Twitter

Twitter apps. I will not get into which mobile phone twitter app is the best because everyone thinks what they’re using is the best. Just make sure you have at least one of the popular twitter apps installed on your handset, and set an alert notification for #GoaFest. Because that is what everyone at the venue will be tweeting about. Last year I was invited to participate at a TweetUp, during the award ceremony! This year too, I am sure there will be such an event, so if you are an active twitterati, make sure you don’t miss the hashtag #GoaFest.


4. Twitpic/Twitvid

An easy to use app that uploads your pictures and videos via twitter. Need I say more?


5. PicPlz

Here’s an amazing app that will upload any pic you take directly to your twitter, facebook, flickr, tumblr, posterous, dropbox and foursquare accounts all at once! [hat tip: giddyja] The best part about this app is its geo-tagging feature. Hence if you take any pic at any location and sync with your foursquare account, it will not just upload the pic on your foursquare destination but check you in there automatically too!


6. Phone tracker/security

Last year, a friend of mine lost his phone during GoaFest. Not surprising considering the amount of alcohol he drank. Make sure you have one of those phone tracker apps installed. McAfee WaveSecure (Free 7 day trial) lets you track your phone via GPS, informs your friends if it is switched off or sim removed, remotely locks your phone and erases sensitive data etc. MobileDefense informs you when somebody who “has” your mobile has inserted his sim – you can know that person’s network, battery life remaining, etc. and even send him a message like “B@stard, I know you have my phone!” You can also make your phone play a loud irritating sound remotely, in case you have dropped it somewhere near the beach after dark.


7. Ustream

This little app is amazing. It lets you broadcast live events on your ustream channel directly from your phone. You can embed that live stream video anywhere – Facebook, Blog, etc. Only downside is, it works well with wifi and 3G. Since there is no 3G at the venue, our only hope is that the organizers give us free wifi. After that, you can video live stream anything you want from your phone.



8. Shazam

Another useful app for GoaFest. What is an advertising award ceremony without the wild after-party till the break of dawn? Dance till you can drink no more is our philosophy. And with the DJs churning out various hit numbers on the dance floor, you can easily note down the artist and track name using this wonderful app. Plus it can prove useful if you are trying to impress that cute client servicing chick from a competing agency with your knowledge on music.


9. Drunk apps

Make sure you have installed at least one of those drunk apps that prevents you from posting inebriated tweets and status updates on facebook, so that you don’t regret it the next morning amidst a pounding hangover. Yeah, GoaFest means lots of free booze. At the same time, be careful about what you say online once you start Bboying on the dance floor for the first time in your life. Other apps like AlcoMeter, DrunkMeter, AlcoDroid etc. measure your blood alcohol level. DrunkBlocker prevents you from dialing once you’re drunk. Another good app is the DrunkTracker that tracks all your movement using GPS and records them so that the next day you can know where all you went in your drunken stupor.



10. Google Translate (Russian)

Last but not the least, make sure you have a shortcut to “translate.google.com” on your mobile browser, whether you are using Opera Mini, Dolphin browser etc. And put the default settings to “Russian to English”. Or download a Russian-English dictionary app from the Android Market. You’ll never know when you need it. Trust me.


--------------------------

Compiled by Kima (Samsung Galaxy S I-90000) and Vishnu Menon (HTC), @ Webchuntney.

Disclaimer: All these apps drain your battery life really fast.

Chp 346. Mumbai: Hike in liquor prices!

This morning, I woke up in such a good mood – I’ll be leaving for GoaFest 2011 tomorrow, which means beaches, fenny, a well deserved break, Ad fests, nominations for The Abby’s, creative awards, beaches, shacks, fenny, beaches, all-night parties, etc..

And then I read this morning’s paper and became depressed immediately. Borderline Personality Disorder? Blame it on the news.

Party pooper: Liquor prices to go up by 40-60% in Mumbai

Talk of high spirits — beer and hard liquor will cost 40-60% more in Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra. The alcoholic beverage industry is reworking costs steeply following the excise duty increase in the latest state budget.

The price rise will be steeper for popular or regular priced brands. A nip (180 ml pack) of Bagpiper and Officer's Choice whisky will move up from Rs 65 to Rs 105, jumping over 60%. McDowell's No. 1 whisky is expected to see an at least 50% hike with nips moving up from Rs 100 to Rs 150. A quart (750 ml pack) of Royal Stag whisky will jump from Rs 425 to Rs 615, while Blender's Pride will soar from Rs 650 to Rs 870.

Totally sucks.

It’s not like I’m an alcoholic and I will die if there’s no alcohol. I don’t drink to get drunk (errmmm…) But we work hard, from 9 in the morning to usually 1-2 in the morning almost every day. That’s like 16 hours a day. And after five such days of continuous hard work, it is indeed good to relax during the weekend with a bottle of sweet intoxicant… keeps my mind refreshed and my engines running for the next upcoming week.

Call me an old fart, but that’s how I spend my weekends now – Away from the digital world. No emails. No Facebook. No blogs. Just me and my sweet bottle of rum, watching a complete season of the latest something, either alone or with my ahemz. Complete relaxation.

And of course, being in Mumbai, there’s always the occasional party for some occasion or the other. Birthdays. Promos. Reunions. Farewells. Kitty parties.

Considering all that, and clubbing it with the high cost of living in Mumbai, life is definitely not going to be easy with such steep rise in liquor price. Vijay Rekhi, MD of United Spirits Ltd. whose Signature whisky jumped from Rs 650 to well over Rs 850 admitted that this is the biggest price hike he has seen in his career.

I’m a BLASINK – Bachelor Living Alone, Single Income, No Kids. With this 40-60% increase, my social life will definitely hit a sink hole.

I guess my lifestyle is definitely going to change in the next few weeks/months. With the only two options – either consume less of my regular brand, or shift to a cheaper brand, seem to be my main dilemma now. Well, at least thinking about Mizoram makes this pain less hurtful. The costs of illicit liquor and smuggled booze in Mizoram are still way more expensive than any other places in India.

This steep rise in liquor price is definitely going to affect the common man. But the worst affected will not be the consumers, but rather the small liquor business owners. I wonder how this will change the economy in the long run.

As for now, I’m training my thoughts on Goa. Letting this unhappy news slip by. Reach Goa. Have as much fun as possible. Drink, drink, drink. Cheap liquor. Cheap liquor. Cheap liquor. How I wish I’m a camel so that I can store some of the cheap booze in my body and re-consume them much later in Mumbai.

Ah…

Chp 345. April Fooled!

Every time you see an ad about a really good offer, the first thing that comes to your mind is, “Damn, this is too good to be true.” Because you know very damn well there’s always a hidden clause somewhere. The dreaded disclaimer. Always.

For example: An apparel shop that advertises – Buy 2, Get 5 Free! Good offer? Well, if you go to such a shop, you’ll discover that either the two items you have to buy (in order to get 5 free) are extremely expensive, or they are cheap but none of them fit you properly (factory defects).

Or a merchant that offers you Rs. 2000 gift voucher - Only drawback is you have to spend that within the next 2 days at the same store, and that too on selected items only. Or a free pitcher of beer coupon on your next visit, which sadly can be utilized only during the time of a day and week when no one, including you, would be visiting the pub. The list is endless.

I’ve written earlier about how a lot of showrooms and brands give huge discounts at this time of the year, and that one of the main reasons for such discounts is not because of their “end of season clearance” but rather because this is the end of the financial year, hence many of us do not have that much moolah due to tax and investments.

You’ll be really lucky if you can find a deal that gratifies you, you know, that feeling you get when, after shopping the entire day you reach home dead tired dying for a foot rub and you look at all the branded plastic bags lying on your bed and you think of all the money and energy you’ve just spent, but even then you have this large satisfying grin all across your face and you sigh “oh that was one hell of a an amazing shopping session! The deals I got were fantabulous!!! Now lemme put on my new “Ursula” Jimmy Choo spring collection and show off in front of my friends.”



Anyway I stopped being a victim of such discounts a long time ago, but last Saturday I was once again suckered into it.

An early April Fools Day for me.

So last Saturday, me and my *ahemz* decided to check out this full page “Big Bazaar” advertisement we saw on TOI.



Cool right?

I mean, how great was this campaign? Instead of offering just discounts, they were offering great deals - You could sell them your old newspapers, books, clothes electronics etc. and that too at attractive rates! Awesome!

Living in a city like Mumbai, newspapers (and “bottles”) accumulate faster in your house than “performers” running out through the back door when cops raid a dance bar. And I sell my old newspapers at 7 bucks per kg, while Big Bazaar was offering me 30 bucks per kg!

And that’s not all. The other exchange rates:

Old utensils – Rs. 150 per kg
Old shoes – Rs. 100 per kg
Old luggage – Rs. 100 per kg
Old clothes – Rs. 200 per kg
Old electronics – Up to Rs. 10,000 (depending on the quality)

FTW! Not only were we getting amazing exchange rates, we could get rid of all the junk that we didn’t need. Of course the catch was that we had to spend whatever money we received from our “sale” at Big Bazaar itself, which we really didn’t mind. Big Bazaar had a lot of household items we needed, especially when it was almost as if we were paying nothing.

And so, last Sunday we went to Big Bazaar with four heavy bags full of “stuff”.

Oh what fools we were…

Initially, everything went fine. I was a little bit embarrassed carrying all those heavy bags through a Sunday crowd in a renowned Mall (felt a bit cheap, hihihi).

But there were others there too, and an attendant started weighing our things. She noted down all our items category-wise along with their respective weights. I grew a little bit suspicious when she didn’t even bother to check the quality of some of the old clothes we sold, but I quickly brushed the thought aside.





Finally she gave us a receipt and we went inside Big Bazaar.

We submitted our receipt to another employee and she sat in front of her big computer while we waited in great anticipation. She kept referring to her notes here and there, and finally gave us our coupons. The total amount of items we sold was worth a whooping Rs. 3000! Bingo, Jack Pot!

Right then, it really felt good. Right then, I started believing in all those discounts offers again.



But sadly… our joys were short-lived.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out, there was indeed a clause. A fucking clause.

In the midst of our excitement, we failed to notice one very simple (and small) line in the newspaper ad: “Shop for 4-10 times the value of exchange coupons to avail the discounts.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrggghhhhhhhhhh!

On the coupons (worth Rs. 3000) that we received, the disclaimer was printed there more clearly. We had to freaking shop for a certain amount in order to use the coupons. For example, if an item costs Rs. 40, I could use Rs. 10 from my coupons and pay the rest using cash. Hence for a 40 bucks item, I just had to spend 30 bucks + 10 bucks from the coupons.

Hence in order to spend the Rs. 3000 coupon we got, we had to buy goods worth Rs. 12,000 from Big Bazaar. From the Rs. 12,000 total cost, we had to pay only Rs. 9000 and the remaining Rs. 3000 could be paid by the coupons value.

And this was only for categories where we had to spend 4 times the amount (fruits, sweets, toiletries etc). For new electronic items, we had to spend 10 times the freaking coupon value. Hence if I wanted to buy electronics and utilize my Rs. 3000 coupon, we had to buy electronics worth Rs. 30,000 and pay only 27,000 while the remaining 3000 could be covered by the coupons.

What a screwed up deal! It was then that we realized, it was much more profitable (for us) had we sold the newspapers for Rs. 7 per kg to our regular scrap dealer. At least his 7 bucks meant 7 bucks. No strings attached.

Yeah yeah, Big Bazaar, you got me this time. BB 1 – Kima 0.

But I will never forget this moment, BB. Nevaaaa! Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Anybody wants extra Big Bazaar coupons? They will expire this coming Sunday only. Feel free to ask me.

Chp 344. Why I don’t like cricket - II

India’s QF match was amazing. We won a thriller against Australia and there were celebrations all over India. Well done India! I’m so looking forward to Wednesday’s “Finals before the Finals” match against Pakistan. Comon Indiaaaaa!

Ok now on to part 2 of why I don’t like cricket

Like I said before, I will cheer for my country during the World Cup, but other than that I do not watch cricket anymore.

I did pour out a lot of emotions on my previous post. I’m sorry if that sounded harsh to some [which even evoked a response post], but that’s just the way I feel. I see things as they are and I don’t try to justify it with counter-reasoning or fervent mediocrity.

The next (and final) point is purely about the way we get to see the game, and not about the game or the fans.


Reason #2 – Why I don’t like cricket - Advertisements Over-Dose!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, my main game was basketball. School and College basketball captain, University team member, played for various successful clubs in Mizoram and Tamilnadu, and even managed to qualify for an International level club tournament (where we got hammered by Mercantile Bank, Sri Lanka).

I was addicted to NBA back then. Never used to miss the Playoffs on TV as it usually took place during my summer vacations. I was a hardcore Jazz fan during the Jazz-Bulls rivalry of ’97, ’98. I hated the Bulls. Don’t get me wrong, Jordan was God, and the others like Pippen, Rodman, Kukoc, Longley were all good too. But John Stockton was my idol. I loved the Jazz team combo of Stockton, Malone, Hornacek, Ostertag, and Anderson. Simple yet effective, whereas the Bulls were more of a stylish one-man show.

I could relate myself to Stockton really well because he did none of the fancy superman stuff that Jordan did (which was awesome, but didn’t help me in my career at all as I’d never be able to do those stuff). Stockton was down to earth simple, yet lead the league when it came to assists and steals. I learnt a lot from him as I too was a play maker (ball-controller). Maybe that was why all my NBA idols those days were all point guards –Stockton, Allen Iverson, Gary Payton, Damon Stoudamire, Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Avery Johnson, Penny Hardaway, Tim Hardaway etc. Short guys who could dribble, pass, steal, assist and shoot over big guys.

After the Bulls era came the Lakers and Spurs, and the Finals started becoming boring because whoever won the Western conference (either Lakers or Spurs) would usually go on to win the conference Finals.

But the main reason why I stopped watching the NBA playoffs was because I discovered football. I became an ardent fan of Arsenal during the early 2000s, and it struck me – watching football was wayyyyyy more exciting and interesting than basketball because of one very simple reason – lack of advertisements!

With football, I get 45 minutes + another 45 minutes of pure uninterrupted continuous joy. No advertisements except during half time.

With basketball, especially towards the end when there is just one minute left and the score is almost tied, expect the game to drag on for at least another 10 minutes or so with either coach calling a time out every 5 seconds, followed by yet another bombardment of advertisements.

That’s the same case with cricket. Too many advertisements. A couple of ads after every freaking over. And that’s not all - If an important wicket is taken during a match, instead of a slow motion replay or commentary from the experts – advertisements fill our TV screens. By the time the ad is over, the excitement about that wicket has all but fizzled down.

Imagine the same thing happening for football! An ad appearing every time the ball goes out or there is an injury or even during a substitution! Dayymmm. That would be the end of football for me.

You might find it a bit ironic that I am bitching about ads so much, considering I work in an ad agency. Well, a prostitute who sells her body for money does it for the money, and not because she enjoys having sex with different strangers. I roll out ads because it is my line of work, but watching football is my passion, and I wouldn’t like any ads interfering with my pleasure - my moment of solace.

Making ads is fun. Watching them while you’re in the middle of something else? Not so much fun. For the more mature audience out there, I’m sure you wouldn’t wanna be interrupted every 3-4 minutes during sex, would ya? Same thing with cricket - Why the interruption?

In cricket, just imagine a complete innings taking place without a single ad! After every over, instead of ads, imagine if they show replays of important shots or wickets, or stats of the players, strategy etc. by an expert commentary panel. Wouldn’t that be freaking awesome?

But then again, that will never happen. Cricket is an Advertising Heaven. That’s the reason why the media gives it so much attention – because of its huge potential as a cash cow. By giving the game more prominence compared to any other sports, more people are hooked to this game, ergo more money churning in. If you think this game is for the common man, do you even know how many tickets are actually available this World Cup for the common man? And the few tickets available are being sold in the black market at prices as high as 50,000 bucks! Yes, the perfect venue to mint cash while you are I lose out obliviously, like sheep to the slaughter.

One may argue with the chicken and egg theory – what came first - The cricket fan or the media buzz? But at the end of the day, what we get are ads after ads interrupting us incessantly during an exciting innings or over. It’s like hitting a speed breaker every time your adrenalin is just about to take off. But like it or not, that is what we get – more ads, less cricket. And nothing we say or do will stop certain people from getting richer even at the cost of our entertainment. Clearly at the end of this World Cup, the team that wins will not be the only winner.

Chp 343. Why I don’t like cricket - I

Well if you’re thinking this is just a rant by somebody who is crazy about football and doesn't understand the game of cricket, you’re mistaken. I was never born with a grudge against cricket – my dislike for the game grew through the years.

Here are the main reasons why I don’t like cricket -


1. The association of cricket with patriotism


Many of my friends do not know this, but back in school (Tamilnadu) I used to play cricket and was even a pretty good fast bowler! Surprised? Yeah its confession time I guess. Today I act like I do not understand the game at all, and even irritate my colleagues with moronic questions like “Which team is batting first? Ok. And which team is batting second?”

I stopped playing cricket in college as I concentrated on my main game – basketball. From school BB captain to college BB captain, I’ve never known a more satisfying pleasure than sweating it out on court every evening and converting a fade-away 3-pointer with a swiiiish. After college, I moved to Hyderabad where my good friend Pawan would come over during the cricket Asia Cup (2004) and we would cheer our asses out for our national team.

But it was there that I started meeting certain type of people who associated cricket with jingoism – the fanatics. Sure, when India is playing, I will cheer for my country. But why the eff should I watch a boring test match? And how does watching India play a test match make anyone more “Indian” than the other???

At first, I thought that was just the mentality of some people, but as I started traveling more around India, from Lucknow to Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai, back to B’lore etc, this disturbing cricket fever (or should I say plague) has infected far more people than I feared. If you ever say you don’t like to watch cricket, expect people to stare at you in disbelief, some even going to the extent of calling you a traitor! And most of them even assume cricket is our National Sport! Lolz.

Sure our Indian cricket team has won more laurels than other Indian sports (if we don’t count the 8 Olympic gold and 1 World Cup title won by our hockey team of past), but nobody has the right to force anybody to like any sports. And I have never even hated this game in the first place – it was such people with their more-patriotic-than-thou bullshit attitude who kept spewing out their fucked-up ideology at me that made me dislike this game today.

Now, if India plays, I just lock myself up in my room and watch the game on my own, cheering for every six and four we hit or every wicket we take. But I will not become one of those obnoxious blockheads who are quick to judge anybody as unpatriotic just because the game of cricket doesn’t appeal to them.

If you don’t believe me, try writing a blog post about cricket and criticize it, maybe even calling it a stupid game – you will see lots of angry abusive comments about how you have no right to say such horrible things about cricket and your country, even though you have not mentioned India anywhere in your post, and that you should be lynched or thrown out of India for such a blasphemous post.

Such is the fanaticism. And such is the reason why I distance myself from this game today. It’s not the game. It’s the people. And the media just loves adding fuel to this fire, don’t they?

When our Indian football team plays against other countries in the AFC, or when our hockey team plays in international matches (there’s the upcoming Sultan Azlan Shah cup tournament in Malaysia), or when Paes, Mirza, Somdev etc play a tennis match, I never accuse any of my friends who don’t follow such tournaments of “betraying India”, because interest in a particular sports has nothing to do with patriotism.

Yet, many people believe you either love cricket or you don’t love India. Just cricket, cricket, cricket. No other sports. Even when India is not playing! - WTF, I’ve been asked why I wasn’t watching the Bangladesh – South Africa match because every Indian should be watching it! I’ve faced similar questions last year during the IPL tournament too when my loyalty to India was questioned because I’d rather watch an EPL match than an IPL match. For fuck’s sake, an IPL team consists of many foreigners. Where’s the patriotism in that?

If you and I join this unruly crowd of delusional cricket lovers not interested in any other sports, then the day when India will not excel in any other sports approaches closer and closer. No viewers = No buzz = No sponsors = No tournament = No players. The death of all the dreams and hopes of every other Indian sportsperson whose only fault is because he or she was excelling in some sports other than cricket.

Now what is so patriotic about THAT?

I’m not saying stop watching cricket this World Cup. If India plays, I wish them all the best and will definitely be there cheering for my country. But if somebody shows no interest in the game, don’t assume it’s because that person doesn’t love this country – he or she just finds the game boring. Simple as that. I love physical sports but chess bores me to death. If there’s a World Cup for chess and India is playing in the “Finals” against, say, Russia, I will definitely NOT be watching the “match”. Doesn’t mean I’m unpatriotic. I’m just bored.

Why can’t some of you see it this way?


[To be continued - Reason #2. Advertisements and over-exposure]

Chp 342. Whatever happened to… Alizée?

Last night, completely out of the blue, I thought of Alizée! Remember Alizée? That cute young French chick so many of us had a crush on almost ten years ago? What the hell happened to her?



Flashback circa 2003. Some juniors from our college hostel campus managed to download the music video (live performance version) of Alizée’s J’en ai marre, and that immediately spread like wildfire in the hostel with everybody carrying their large IDE hard disks to various hostel blocks to copy the file, and every time we had to shut down and open up our CPU cabinet and attach the IDE cable and power cable, while rearranging the jumper if necessary, and doing the same thing again once we had transferred the file… ah those golden years. Lolz.

But it was worth it!

So I googled today and here is one of her songs we all loved those days – J’en ai marre. It’s in French. I studied French as a second language for six years in school. So I didn’t understand anything.



What’s so special about her? I dunno… She’s not the Megan Fox hot kind. She’s extremely cute and pretty, and yet has a slight charm of sexiness in her which she teasingly flaunts, but not very obviously. I think she was famous during the same era as the girl band M2M and in the same cuteness category, but they definitely didn’t come under “sexy” like her.

Trust me, I wasn’t into this kinda music. I was a death-metal loving hardcore grunger with tattoos all over my arm and ready to rebel about anything. I even made a “Kill Boyband” website on geocities those days. But one look at her (music video) and I was completely smitten. That doesn’t happen much, you know.

Her cover of Madonna’s La Isla Bonita isn’t bad either –



Here are the other music videos of J’en ai marre.

[French version]


[English version]



Listening to the English version, you suddenly realize, this song is not exactly “innocent” as you thought it was… bubbles and water, legs up for hours… I’m fed up… lolz!

Today I spent some time on Google researching about her, and looks like she is pretty much still around! But then her next two albums didn’t make much of a ripple at all in the music industry. Her two new albums Psychédélices [2007] and Une Enfant Du Siècle [2010] didn’t get as many hits as her pre-2003 days on last.fm, or on the global chart position. In fact she’s been written off by many critics as a cutie desperately trying to be sexy. Too bad…

I’m not interested in knowing how her two new albums sound like. I’m just posting this frivolous post to talk about a crush I once had.

Chp 341. Carling Cup Final

Testing "Cover It Live".

Carling Cup Final
Arsenal vs Birmingham
Venue: Wembley


Ok today is the day - The much awaited Carling Cup Final. Ever since "The Invincibles" days of longest unbeaten run record and total domination of the EPL, Arsenal has been going without a trophy for 6 years now. So many times we have come sooo close to winning a trophy, but eventually lose out in the end. This Carling Cup will be our first silverware in 6 years if we win tonight.

The AMSC (Arsenal Mumbai Supporters Club) are screening the match at Big Daddy's, Khar. 300 bucks entry, which includes two beer or two redbulls, and one starter.

Red + White jersey compulsory.

Apart from knowing a few members of the AMSC, I am going with Shruti, our new Art Director, and Nirav and his wife. All of us are hardcore Arsenal fans.

Fabregas and Theo will not be playing due to injury, but we have pretty good hope about winning. More than 150 gooners have already confirmed to show up at the AMSC screening, and that is excluding those who confirmed via emails and phones, so my friends and I are planning to reach the venue at least an hour early so that we'll have a good place to sit, lolz. But then again, I'm sure we'll be at our feet most of the time.

Meanwhile, I am just trying out this "Coveritlive" feature, embedded below. It may not even work, but in case it does, I'll try to update as much as I can from the venue. I don't even know how long I am allowed to cover the event. Anyway, let's see...

Cheers!

Chp 340. Testing Blogger Android App

Hello world...Update: Nice! Not bad at all. Editing post is also quite easy!Update 2: Ok linebreaks not happening. The Android editor is not WYSIWYG editor... :(

Update 3: Ok linebreaks and para happening only if I enter the HTML codes directly... Sad :(

Update 4: Testing image upload... ok no feature to upload pic in existing post. If I want to upload a pic, looks like it will become a new (separate) post...

Update 5: Testing comment... working well. simple and direct.

Conclusion- Overall, this app may be good for micro-bloggers or those blogging from a place abt breaking news etc... but definitely not recommended as a substitute for normal web version of blogger.

Even if I am going to blog from my phone, I'll still use the built-in Android browser or Opera browser to access and creat/edit a blog post rather using this Blogger-Android app. Sorry Blogger.

.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.2

Chp 339. Practical Facebook relationship statuses

Today, Facebook launched two new relationship status options - “In a domestic partnership” and “In a civil union” so as to make the world’s largest social networking site more LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender) friendly.

Mashable: Facebook Adds LGBT-Friendly Relationship Status Options

These two new options should be rolled out to residents of other countries soon. In countries where same-sex marriages are already legal, these options will not appear. A Facebook rep told us in an e-mail, “This has been a highly requested feature from users. We want to provide options for people to genuinely and authentically reflect their relationships on Facebook.”

Facebook already has the following relationship statuses:

• Single
  
• In a relationship
  
• Engaged
  
• Married
  
• It’s complicated
  
• In an open relationship
  
• Widowed
  
• Separated
  
• Divorced

Nowadays, it is no longer considered strange or awkward to shout out to the whole wide world whether we are in a committed relationship or have just broken up with somebody. Just yesterday alone, a man was arrested because he changed his Facebook relationship status! [Link] That’s the crazy world we live in today.

So if Facebook is trying to make the site more practical and provide options for people to genuinely and authentically reflect their relationships, I was thinking, why not add a few more relationship statuses, you know, stuff that actually happen in real life.

Here is my list of 20 Facebook relationship statuses that are totally practical today. Feel free to add yours at the comment section. I’ll include them in this post later.

1. Married, but ready to mingle.


2. Sugar daddy to …


3. Sugar momma of …


4. in a one-night-stand relationship


5. is currently cheating on …


6. is sleeping around with everybody. MYOFB.


7. in a Ménage-à-trois relationship with … and …


8. in a complicated love triangle with … and …


9. secretly fantasizes about …


10. is currently leading on …


11. is currently stalking …


12. is currently being stalked by …


13. answers …'s booty calls.
    


14. Open to wife/husband swapping.


15. concubine of … along with … and … and … and [limit: 300 people]


16. is faking a relationship


17. charges 1000 bucks for a good relationship, hourly.


18. virgin.


19. virgin, but not by choice.


20. in a relationship with my right hand.

Your turn :)

-----------------------------

• Live-in
  
• Friends with benefits

[Puia Hmar via Facebook]

• Born-again virgin
  
• Single parent
  
• Just playing around

[Aduhi via blogger]

• Cheating on my right hand with my left hand

[Samuel via Facebook]

• Cheated on by … currently rebounding on …

[Stephanie via Twitter]