Bloggers

On Valentine’s Day, you can determine if you have “true romance and poetry” in your soul. Ready? Look at the Google logo on the left. Do you see the L?

According to Google’s Doodle creator, he didn’t forget the letter, the stem is supposed to be the L. If you don’t see it, don’t worry – most of the world is with you. If you do see it, congratulations.

And to all – I hope you helped the economy with cards, flowers and chocolate. Happy V-Day folks!

And thanks for the mid-day entertainment, Googe!

There are quite a few eBayers who are blogging. Some still work there, some are happily enjoying retirement and some others still (ahem) are figuring out new avatars.

eBay was a phenomenal experience for all of us who were there. It would be great to stay connected with other bloggers from eBay.

So I put together a quick “eBay Blogs” wiki. If you are a current or former eBayer (eBay, PayPal or Skype) from any of our the global offices, please feel free to add your name to the list.

Would be great to see you all there!

Two very dear, wonderful former colleagues recently started blogging.

Michael is one the smartest folks around. And he’s funny and eclectic and I love to hear his thoughts. Now I can. This post on the big consumer tech trends he foresees is a must read. It is a touch weighted towards ecommerce, but that’s the world we know! But it’s not just tech – there tons of thoughts on reality TV, the state of the world and of course, the bizarre.

Michael had a great trip blog when he went off to Italy in 2005 and he’s imported those posts, but he’s basically been blogging under the radar for a few months. I don’t know whether to be mad that he didn’t tell me or just be thankful he’s started blogging… Okay, I’ll opt for the latter! 🙂

Lynn, besides also being one of the smartest folks around, is definitely the most driven person on the planet. After years of consuming Cheetos and Coke and working twenty hours a day, she’s decided to run a triathlon! Her training update posts are the most hilarious things you’ll ever read. Here’s a sample:

Kevin and I have an exercise bike in our house, so 2 to 3 times a week I try to do what is called spinning for an hour. It is where the resistance is fairly light, but you try and keep the RPM�s in the high 90�s and low 100�s. Well I have my first funny story. The first time I did this I of course wanted to excel. So I�m peddling extremely hard getting my entire body into the exercise. When I got done, both my left foot and back were hurting. Well it turned out that my back was bleeding from what would amount to a �rug burn�. I had been moving my back so vigorously back and forth across the back of the bike that I scrapped off the skin. Then on my foot, I hadn�t worn socks or shoes and the black plastic strap, dug into my skin and split the top of my foot. Since then I wear shoes and socks J

Welcome Lynn and MD – life is more fun with both of you blogging!

My buddy Om Malik (of GigaOm fame) was featured in Geek Sugar as a really cool geek bachelor. I can attest that Om is a great guy – funny, kind and smart. So, if there are any ladies out there who are interested, let me know .

Here’s the article.

Hmm… I wonder when my blog became a pimping service… Oh well, all for a good cause! Who knows, maybe this could become a regular feature 🙂

GS: What you are looking for in a significant other?

Om: Intelligence, kindness and humor. Someone who I can look at from the corner of my eye and be pleased as punch that I am her guy! Virginia Madsen, except for real!

I had the fright of my life earlier this evening. I was migrating the Tatvam blog to a new host. That went smoothly. But then, all of a sudden, this blog was gone! All the posts were Tatvam posts. Huh? What? What’s going on? Where’s Almost As Good As Chocolate??

I panic. Check if there are any backups. Backups? Yes, those things you should do for your data. Data on your computer, data on your blog. Did I ever backed up this blog? NO!!!

All my posts, all my comments, everything – GONE! More panic. Any options? Not really. Sadness.

Then my techie-blog-guru friend, who I called frantically, had a brilliant idea. Call up the host. What? The host – Bluehost. Called up Bluehost. Let’s see… Let’s see… They have a backup from last night. Restore? Heck, yeah!

The entire thing is back. Amazing. Bluehost is amazing. Kudos and thank you!

And I? I’ve learned my lesson. A little bit of stress, a little panic, a big lesson. Don’t wait to learn this lesson yourself. Please benefit from my experience.

And to my techie-blog-guru friend – a huge thank you!!!

Got tagged by TGFI. So here goes… and I now have one more person I can tag the next time around!

Three things that scare me:

1. Scary movies/ads/stories/anything – especially when I am alone

2. Where our crazy world is headed

3. Mean dogs

Three people who make me laugh:

1. R

2. My Mom with her PJs (poor jokes, not pajamas!)

3. Jay Leno

Three things I love:

1. The moment you wake up and realize that you can sleep some more

2. Movies that make me cry

3. Summer

Three things I hate:

1. Double standards

2. Feeling I accomplished nothing in a day

3. People who have no lives and therefore discuss the lives of others

Three things I don’t understand:

1. Valuing things over people

2. Physics (wish I’d had a better teacher)

3. Why people who have no lives discuss the lives of others – especially in a mean, petty way

Three things on my desk:

1. Little Ganesha

2. My wonderful Mac Book Pro

3. Stack of blank DVDs

Three things I’m doing right now:

1. Freezing

2. Telling myself that I will be very structured tomorrow

3. Er… it should be obvious

Three things I want to do before I die:

1. Make a difference

2. Make a movie that makes a difference

3. Decide whether to share the third bullet point with all you lovely imaginary readers

Three things I can do: 1. Make paneer from scratch (I thought it was tough till very recently)

2. Listen

3. Procrastinate

Three things you should listen to:

1. Bhaja Govindam by M.S.

2. People who give you objective input

3. The rain

Three things you should never listen to:

1. Those who tell you you can’t

2. The little voice in your head that causes you to doubt

3. Infomercials

Three things I’d like to learn:

1. The violin. Again. (Yes, me too!)

2. Yoga

3. The equanimity that my grandmother possesses

Three favourite foods:

1. Puliyodarai

2. Chaat

3. Elai vadam

(Clearly I just came back from Madras and am craving the foods I was blessed with when I was there!)

Three beverages I drink regularly:

1. Chamomile tea

2. Tall, skim, no-whip hot chocolate

3. Water (unfortunately only when absolutely need it – need to fix that!)

Three TV shows/Books I watched/read as a kid:

1. Amar Chitra Katha

2. Mr. Men

3. Ranger Rick

(mine are all books – we weren’t allowed to watch TV!)

Three people I would like to tag:

1. Lulu (Since your cool new blog is live and you didn’t respond to my last tag!)

2. MumbaiGirl (Because I want to see the answers)

3. Dave McClure (Since I was good 🙂 and replied to your tag)

Charlie is running a Superbown Charity Wiki – for $10 (ok, $10.59 including PayPal fees, to be exact), you can sign up to a box in his 100 Bloggers, 100 Boxes wiki.

The winner gets to give all the winnings to the charity of his/her choice. I am #99, right ahead of Josh. I signed up with my Tatvam blog and my charity is, of course, Magic Bus.

Join in! It is certainly worth a couple of Starbucks drinks…

My super-connected friend Dave McClure tagged me — “The basic idea of this game is to tell people 5 things about yourself that they didn’t likely know, then tag 5 other people (or in this case, 5 bloggers) and see how far the meme progresses.”

Ok then, here you go.

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Me

1. I was incredibly shy as a child. I was so shy, I was scared to perform with other classmates. One day, when I was about seven, I proudly told my mother that I had joined the dance class and every day from then on, I would show her what I learned. She was very pleased that her shy child had emerged from her shell. When she came in to speak to the teachers on Parent-Teacher day, she discovered that I did not actually participate in the class, but instead peeked at the students from outside the door. All of the teacher’s pleading could not get me to actually dance, but by clinging to the door frame and observing the entire class, I was learning just fine by watching!
2. I sent my first email in 1993 using CompuServe. The only way to connect was to a dialup number in the UK. Because an international call was so expensive, I’d write all my emails, dial up, send and receive and then disconnect immediately. The process usually lasted about a minute and a half, at most once a week.
3. I have a black belt in Karate (Shito-Ryu) and won a national championship in 1994 in India.
4. I almost died in 1997. I was in Singapore and had an infection that affected my kidneys. I had a 105 temperature, and at the time, I thought I was drifting off to sleep as people spoke to me, but I was going in and out of consciousness. I was taken to hospital in an ambulance. When I got there, the doctor said I had to go on intravenous antibiotics immediately. Being afraid of needles, I said I’d prefer not to. His pithy reply “Intravenous antibiotics now or you will die” pretty much cured me of my fear of needles.
5. I cry at movies. I even cry when watching some ads. Kind of ridiculous, but there it is.

My turn, my turn, my turn (this is the best part) — I tag:

• Charlie O’Donnell
• Lulu (are you at LuluLovesBombay yet?)

• Confused

• Oz

• Thalia Chantziara

Can’t wait to hear your stuff!

I think the RIAA and music companies remain clueless years after Napster has come and gone. This post by Om has my full support. Hence the badge.

When CDs were invented, the price of music was supposed to drop substantially. That never happened. Why? Because the record companies got very greedy. They need to restructure (read: reduce) their pricing model to continue to expand their sales. I guess that is too hard for them to understand.

They probably have a few more years, but they should acquaint themselves with their buddies the dinosaurs.

(Hat tip: Eteraz)