Indian consumer services market

Ok thats a flashy headline but my sis got her visa approved this time to come to the states and take her USMLE exam for being a resident.

The secret sauce - there are services in India that help you train for the visa interview. They assess your situation based on your logistics, of course - and how many times you have been rejected the visa before. They have a full list of questions that will be asked and how to answer them.

My sis took a 7 hour crash course to get trained on these Q&As. And 15 mins at the embassy and she has her visa. Exact same questions asked as she was trained on.

Finally, the fee - 100 dollars. wtf!

And really - you can get these training centers for almost everything - except adult education..I believe!

Surprise party by the kids!

It was 4pm yesterday, on May 2nd, when I fell asleep while browsing and watching TV. I had finished watching a mafia movie with a sad ending and was dreaming some crazy crap about it. Yes I always get dreams from things that happen thruout the day...

In any case..so it was my 29th birthday yesterday and my mom threw a surprise party for me with her friends - a group of around 10 kids 5 to 10 yrs old. These kids started banging on my door when I was dreaming and I almost felt that i am in middle of a fight. I woke up, opened the door and the kids shouted -- "SURPRISE!". It was a surprise - i had no idea what had been happening for last 2 hours. This is the second surprise party for me - the first one by Maryam and Aman was incredibly good.

So here are few pics below and the rest are here. It was a fun party and I had a great time celebrating my bday with these kiddos. Oh I sound like 29 yr old now...

Walking down the memory lane!

Supposedly photography wasnt as easy when I was growing up as it is now.. hard to believe in this age of digital cameras..anyhow..I finally dug out a few pics from some old family albums here at home. Goddamn - how cute we were - me and my sis! ok me - not that much..but still...



---YAY! me and my sis!




--- My sis 2 yrs old



--- My sis 9 months old!

I am pimpin'

So here is an email I wrote trying to get my sis an arranged marriage...goddamn! its a whole different world...but hey what it takes to find the mr. RIGHT for her! its sad that she doesnt know about it...

Respected Dr. Gupta,
I am writing to you with regards to your advertisement in TOI Apr 29th looking for a doctor girl for your son (I presume).

My sister, X Gupta, is a beautiful 27 years old, very fair, 5'4" tall, sensible, sweet and a wise girl. She has completed her MBBS from ZZZ and aims to pursue her residency in USA. She has completed USMLE Step 1 and 2 and is in the process of taking her USMLE Step 3. She was born and raised in Lucknow and is convent educated. She has a very charming personality and at least I would say she is the best sister in the world :)...

A little about our family background - My dad, AAA, is a well settled businessman in Lucknow. He is one of the leading dealrers of BBB in JJJ for the last 10 years. My mom is a housewife and has been our caretaker and a perfect mom. Both me and my sister have always respected and cherished the values we have attained from our parents. I myself am a Computer Engineer - B-Tech from MMM, MS from USA and have been working there for the last 4 years. Currently, I am settled in New York.

We are actively looking for a groom for Ruby - someone who comes from a good family and preferably is a doctor. As X aims to study in USA we would prefer the groom to be working or studying there. I am sorry that I dont have a soft copy of my sister's bio data, so I am writing as much details as possible in this email. Your advertisement in TOI seemed to us like a good match and we hope the details above would interest you.

We would love to talk to you over the phone sometime and it would be great if you can email us your phone number. In case if you would want to call us, our home phone number is - XXXXXXXXX and my dad's cell is YYYYYYYY. I am currently on vacation at home until May 7th and would be back in New York after that. I could be reached there at ZZZZZZZZZZZZ after May 8th.

Thanks a lot for your time and we hope to hear from you soon,
--Vineet

Good!

Good is a new upcoming magazine published every 2 months or so. they claim to be the magazine for "People who give a damn!"...not sure how accurate it is to what is in the magazine but maybe I dont give a damn...anyhow, I liked the last 2 editions a lot. I read the recent one in the flight on my trip back home...sweet home!




A little bit information about their editorial spirit - they are much more artsy than other newsie, corporate, glamour or sports magazine. here is a graphic statement from their recent issue - "Each issue, GOOD asks an artist or group to set the tone for the magazine with a visual interpretation of the theme." .. The images for the theme of this edition are pretty funny...esp the one with a road sign which says: "Ignore this sign"...

GOOD's story on north korea is pretty interesting - it almost felt like that the contemprary way of life there follows a very static thoughtline which is centered around the politics in the country. Even the religion is more like a political theory called Juche. Juche means achieving true chaju ("independence").

The article on Decongestion of streets in several European countries by encouraging people to use bikes is a great example of how in modern day life problems can be solved by masses adopting a simple solution.


Transperancy section exposes some interesting numbers like korea.com was sold in 5.5 million dollars by a a Korean-American Lee Hee-Joon to the ISP Thrune tin South Korea. Or sex.comwas sold in 14 million dollars to Escom.

** Daylife gave me this "Juche" idea center. Wiki does have a better picture of it.

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Products for The Man

I saw 2 advertisements today - which explicitly focuessed on being the products for the "Man"..Burger king commercial where guys left their hot dates in classy restaurants and went to burger king for the meat filled burgers for the Man..and then there was the Volvo commercial with the Volvo logo inside the male gender sign

I am surprised that marketing teams for these companies are ready to miss on attracting the female homo sapiens..oh well..whatever works..for the man!

Daylife at NYC tech meetup

Jon Harris presented daylife.com on Jan 9th 2007 at the New York Tech Meetup. Here is a video of it. Unfortunately, we lost internet connection during the demo, but Jon managed to get the idea of daylife.com across.

Mashing up Visual Search and Shopping

My friend Nikhil (alias:kholu) works for this startup company in visual search and face recognition called Riya. Pretty neat idea about maintaining and searching photos based on faces in the photo. I did not like the fact that face recognition works only within my riya album and does not work globally..but thats just too hard a problem to solve..

Necase, the reason I am writing this post is because of their new venture called like.com...pretty amazing how these guys mashed the idea of visual search and shopping. I think this is the killer in the next generation of online shopping. People love celebrities and people love buying what their celebrities are wearing...Check it out..its pretty sweet!

Also, amazon.com started a new venture to sell shoes, handbags etc..Endless.com. Its all coming down to online shopping for the girls!

Daylife APP3 goes live

Life comes to Daylife

Daylife.com went live today at 11:00 AM EST. Moment of truth has arrived...Traffic is being monitored...it was exciting..although people here at work just clapped..I was expecting Champagne..(i know its 11 AM but we launched)...

I think perfect way to start a new year! launch products! ... i think i am lucky that I am seeing this 3rd product being launched in 3.5 years of my career..pretty neat!

Dakota Fanning: the best kid actress ever

I am watching Dreamer starring Dakota Fanning and Kurt Russell. She is just an awesome actress. Oh my god! knows to act the best in every scene - comedy, emotion. I am definitely on her fan-list now..

Second Daylife APP goes live

Be a vegetarian or not

Meanings of the names as they know it

Wanted to capture the meaning of names of my friends as they know it:

South Asian names
Vineet - humble
Vikas - progress
Vivek - wisdom
Aman - peace
Amish -
Somil - 100 miles
Kedar - powerful

Asian
Fang - fragrance
Xinzhen - precious things born when sun rises
aka. Rosita Fresita - little rose and strawberry


Russian
Valeriy - valour and courage

Irish
Conor - "dog lover" or "wolf lover"

Greek
Thanos - the one who does not die

American?
Gregory - happy
Sally - a princess
Andrew - "a champion has come home"

Hungarian
Istvan - Sexy

Latin
Rafael - God has healed

Good Night, and Good Luck

Amazing Amazing movie...the storyline is precise, accurate and to the point..the actors fit the characters in the best possible manners. And its a Clooney movie - how can it go wrong...I think I am moving on to journalism..such a fantastic career - u r working everyday on something new and its just so intriguing and adventurous..

Miami escapade

Whatz wrong in my life?

Just wanted to make a checklist of the things that I need to fix....what could be better place than the blog.

Level 1
- I dont have a girlfriend.
- I lost my cellphone. The guy who found it wants to send it to me but everyday I forget his phone number at home, so cannot call him to send me my cell to my home. -- Done
- My car registration expired 3 months back. My car could be impounded and I might go to Jail. --- Done

Level 2
- I cannot get back-bay resident parking permit because my car registration expired. -- Done
- I got 2 parking tickets in June - 120 for handicapped area parking and 40 for invalid resident area parking.
- I cannot pay the 120 dollar parking ticket because the system does not recognize the ticket number and the customer service just keeps me on hold.
- I got 1 parking ticket in July - 25 bucks for being parked on street cleaning day. -- Done
- Someone knocked off my motorbike and so it is in the repair shop. Will cost 700 dollars in worst case.
- I moved and usps.com cannot recognize my old address for mail forwarding.
- Lost my credit card couple of weeks back. Did not get a new one probably because the new one went to the old address and there is no mail forwarding.
- The credit card I lost was used on almost all online transactions for bills - cellphone, EZPass, Calling Card for India and god knows what. All of them have started denying the service.
- The light bulb on my bedroom ceiling is fused. An extra light bulb is in my car but I forget everytime to bring it upstairs.
- Even if I have the bulb, the ladder is behind a closet which is blocked by my music system.
- My digital camera doesn't work anymore. The memory stick is also fubarred.
- I have 2 rental DVDs from Walmart which I have to return so that I can get 34 bucks. I need to call them before I can send it to them, so pending for 5 months now.
- I have 2 DVDs from Columbia house which I do not want. Need to return but don’t know the process.
- BMG Music is sending me stupid Audio CDs and charging my credit card, but I don’t know how to stop them.
- Don’t have a dresser or a bookshelf so my bedroom and closet are a mess.
- My PS2 is broken and does not play DVDs. I don’t have a DVD player.

Tribecca Film Festival

Short videos at this link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/film-festival/screening-room.html/002-5706380-0624825?%5Fencoding=UTF8&rate=0&moreFilmsTab=0&movieID=9995

The one named 'Street Therapy' is awesome. It just is amazing to see the everyday frustrations of people at one place.

Smoking is dangerous for health but hot for chicas!

Hmm..so what is better: smoke and meet some hot chicas coz i guess smoking does hold some fashion value outside the clubs or save your lungs!... i guess it depends at what stage in your life you are...if you are not going to the clubs and crazy parties you definitely dont need to smoke..else dont missing giving a smoking kiss (literallly) to the hotties!!!