Thursday, April 12, 2007

Ho Hum

Busy busy couple of days. Travelling up and down fuelled only on vada pav, kothimbir vadi and fish and cilantro clear soup. Was in Pune for a bit. (And Arpit before you go ballistic I tried asking around for your number and could not find it on dbabble either.)

Recently I spent a good day checking out wordpress and wondering if I should just migrate the whole thing there. Then I decided I would be creating maha pain for the thousands of blogs that link to the 14 blogs that link here.

So that idea got ditched.

So now I am just trying to get blogger to do unheard of fancy things with CSS, AJAX, HTML, XHTML, IUML, PMK and so on. (Though I think I will go for one of those Wordpress layouts with the tabs on top and all. Want to create multiple channels: blogs, links, news, pictures and videos of myself. Relevant stuff.)

Not ruling out a move to an exclusive domain sometime in the future though.

Book Update: Tons of people have been asking me what happened to my book. Well I had to stash that away during that small distraction of getting married. And then subsequently I got caught up in the vaccuming, laundry, roti making. gobi plucking and things like that. But I am glad to say that things are back on track. And I should be able to rake in the moolah in another six months or so.

But in the meantime I want a few of you fresh, young just-post-MBA recruit type guys to send me some of your stories from the workplace. Not the usual Dilbert type nincompoopery. I want those stories which have a typical Indian angle to them. Things involving Human Resources, Interviews, Annual Apprasials, PSUs, the Underworld etc. are particularly welcome. You will be suitably rewarded. Bhai guarantees it.

Hafta Magazine Update: Thousands of people on a daily basis read articles posted on Hafta Magazine and Rediff.com combined. But we have had our fair share of problems. Upload issues. RSS feeds went bad. Formatting. Etc. etc.

A lot of you came in with feedback. And we are now trying to implement all of them. We are working on the format a bit. Then there's the text editors and upload system. And the entire value proposition in general. In the hurry to put out articles we sort of lost our way in terms of keeping the audience interested. So give us a little time to do that. A couple of weeks at best.

We are therefore trying to now get onboard a fresh group of writers to support our existing bunch. I know a LOT of you mailed me last year. But this time it would be great if some of you could send across pieces of writing as well. Or links to your best blog posts. Mail them to sidinsv@haftamag.com. (Yes we have upgraded the email system as well. Works on Google Apps now. Lost hajaar emails on the old domain-supported one.)

Pitch in. There is a nice bunch of people on board already. And besides we need the help.

NOW QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Somewhere in Navi Mumbai. Just before a Siemens office. (Maybe in Vashi.) There is a hotel by the name of "Hotel Threestar". That's the actual name. And it looks decent too.

What would they do if, god forbid, one day they became an actual four-star hotel?

"Hello Hotel Threestar. How can I help you?"
"Hello is this Threestar?"
"No sir we are now four-star..."
"Oh. Sorry wrong number."

I was just wondering.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

so how abt non-mba scum in the corporate cesspool?? like me, for example :D did my grad in eco 2 yrs ago from LSR (DU) and have been slogging away for peanuts at a financial firm. i have interesting stories too :D

Unknown said...

You can also migrate this to a custom domain and Google will do all the backend work. And you can download new templates too!

Now that u hv upgraded to wife 1.0, hope your sparkling writing ability does not get affected.

Looking fwd to the book.

titto said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
titto said...

Jus mailed u a content in mail id
This is the content url
http://tscribble.blogspot.com
/2007/04/where-is-my-coffeeday.html

Rebelzz said...

Probably they just want to remain three star! .. Just a possibility...

Shaan said...

hehe...that reminds me of a place in alleppy called "Hotel Restaurant"

Sidin said...

@catfished: Absolutely. When I say MBA what I really mean is grads in eco from LSR working in financial firms for peanuts. Tell tell!

@ranjan: That is one option. But then that also mean forking out cash for the domain. Hmm...

@s: possibly. possibly. what stunning lack of ambition.

@shaan: lets not even start on mallu tradenames :)

@comment deleted: very profound. thank you.

Rebelzz said...

sidin,

well, they want to remain consistent.. Corporate lingo..

And looks like you are not interested in s/w engg stories for your book.. Hmmm...

Star of the Masquerade said...

Given that they're not expecting the upgrade, how about "Threestartled"

Anonymous said...

u interested in software industry ki kahaniyan? i can tell some!
n btw,.me a big fan of ur blog :D

FifthBeatle said...

Shouldn't a simple change of name do it for the hotel?

titto said...

U commented on deleted comment,wonderful :)
Thanks..

titto said...

And can u pls point which one you meant by profound. Pls don't say it's last :( :(

jus kidding...

pro·found(pr-found, pr-)
adj. pro·found·er, pro·found·est
1. Situated at, extending to, or coming from a great depth; deep.
2. Coming as if from the depths of one's being: profound contempt.
3. Thoroughgoing; far-reaching: profound social changes.
4. Penetrating beyond what is superficial or obvious: a profound insight.
5. Unqualified; absolute: a profound silence.

Anonymous said...

love your blogs..:)

Velcro said...

Simple. They'll change the name of the hotel to "fourstar hotel" and whoever calls them...they'll say something like this "Good evning. Your favourite hotel Threestar hotel has changed to Fourstar Hotel with imported waiters and Belgian Belly dancers. Thank you."

Anonymous said...

Ur blog is gettin boring!

Anonymous said...

yes..nice blog..visit me by blog also

Wanderlust said...

Thanks to your link in desipundit,one of my posts got quite an audience.
Thanks a lot for that.
Just gave me the audacity to write a second part to it
http://absoluteshambles.blogspot.com/2007/04/felis-silvestris-catus-ii.html
I would surely like to be involved in HaftaMag in some non-sensical way.

titto said...

Jus finished reading your satire labe
It's ROFLMAO, too good
pls write more satires...!!!
compsci and cricketer's stuff kidu vanishtaaaa....oru rakshayumilla

Eastmancolour said...

man!
Sleeping you are.

happened what?
Block of writers hitting you?

dude! make haste while sun blinds.

and yeah..while there - do write!

Anonymous said...

Hi Sid,

There is a motley crowd of Bombay Quiz Group, usually meeting every alternate Sunday at Pinstrom Office, Santacruz West. The directions to reach the place is given in this link

http://bombayquiz.blogspot.com/2007/03/come-along-for-mahesh-murthy-quiz.html

This Sunday ( 22nd April), the Quiz is slated at 2.30 pm

Anonymous said...

You are hilarious at times!
I love reading Sid Says :-)

Random Reader.

Rohit said...

hi SId!
i tried to access your HINDU "sidin says" column resources of 2006 and before but they arn't opening!

So i thought if you could gimme a link to them that would be nice cause i really liked those titillating articles:)

Truely Indian by Heart and Soul said...

To know about honesty, Simplicity and humanity.

You need to know about Indian Culture at

http://indiankulture.blogspot.com/

Love you....

Anonymous said...

Hi Mathew here....I am an iim aspirant.just started blogging at http://mymindgoes.blogspot.com/.Read your article in business line.I dont want to say a comment on your articles as they reflect the true facts of life atleast in many cases.I would appreciate if you can give some tips for cracking CAT 2007.you can mail me at mathewirene@yahoo.co.in

Nirav Kanodra said...

many happy returns of the day sidin

Unknown said...

Nahin yaar, I think they ought to keep the name as "Threestar". That would make it the only three star / four star hotel in the world. We're talking about a whole new category here boss... :)

Anonymous said...

Didn't have the patience to check the comments to see if anybody suggested you this, but you can just put a two line redirection code in your blogger template so that when anyone visits this place it will automatically be redirected to your wordpress blog even without them realizing.

That way you won't have to ask those 14 peeps to change their blogroll.