Jumping off

Every once in a while I take crazy-ass decisions in my life. Yesterday happens to be one of them. Without going into the specifics. Here is a gist of what has happened - 

• I got promoted (sorta) and I quit my current job
• I will be taking up a new job with:
• Reduced scope of work
• Lower title
• Reduced geographical coverage
• Different business model
• New Technology
• New Industry
  

So basically, I am sort of restarting my career after 16+ years of doing more or less the same stuff (pre and post MBA). I am excited (the kind of excitement when you are standing on the ledge of a 40 floored building and looking down at the street).

Coming from an eastern religious mindset (Hinduism/ Buddhism), I believe I have several lifetimes to correct the mess. If my life was a Hollywood movie, this is the time when the protagonist does something absolutely crazy. My favorite scene for this would be Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr, doing the "Show me the money bit" in Jerry Maguire (Disclaimer - I no way think that I am Tom Cruise, nor do I think I am taking the kind of risk that Jerry Maguire was taking in the movie at this point).

However, aren't we all the main characters/ protagonists/ heroes of our own life stories? So associating with Tom is fine at this time!

 

 

And why do I want to blog about this? Well, this blog is turning out to be my life story and some milestones are best left documented.

I wear Speedos

As a few of you know, I enjoy swimming. I have been practicing it for more than a decade now. While I don't swim any better than before, over the years, I have spent a lot on swimming accessories and this blog post is my experience speaking.

First of all, my typical swimming gear is - Cap, Ear Plugs, Goggles, Swimming Shirt and Jammers. I have tried a few brands for each one of them and more or less settled on specific choices for each one. Today, I shall talk only about the Swimming Jammers. They look something like the picture below:

Over the years, I have tried a lot of brands like - Arena, TYR etc. Somehow none of them have lasted me more than a year with an average of 1-2 times a week swimming frequency. Maybe it was just my bad luck. The 2 times that I bought a Speedo Jammer, it sort of outlasted my expectations. My last one gave way after at least 220 km of swimming over a period of 4+ years. Mind you, I started tracking on my Garmin, at least a year after I bought the jammers.

I am amazed that they lasted so long. Chlorinated water is corrosive, and I don't expect anything to last that long. Hence this post commemorating them! I also notice that over the years, there has been significant progress in the material used and they seem to repel water better and last longer.

Anyway, since this has been a boring post, here are 2 videos for you to enjoy. First - a song named "Despacito" which was a viral sensation and has had more than 6.9B views (as of this writing).

And its parody by Mikey Bustos titled "I wear Speedos" which I think is a very nice and funny parody though slightly on the PG13+ side. Every time I say "Speedo" now, I can't help but thinking about this song.

P.S. - He ain't wearing jammers in the parody video. Jammers are longer and look more like cycling shorts than swimming attire.

 

The Korean Tourism Commercial

 If you are an advertiser showing videos on YouTube in the 6-10 seconds before the actual video starts, your life is tough. First of all, you are interrupting someone's binge watching and that someone is more interested in looking at the countdown to "skip" your advertisement, than looking at it. If you are able to attract attention when the odds are against you, then I really think you are awesome at your game. I came across this random video about Korean tourism while binge watching YouTube and for some reason, I find it so addictive that I never skipped the commercial.

The ultimate compliment though is that, I actively searched for the commercial and also the song, the artist, the lyrics etc. etc. Now before I proceed, I want you to experience the commercial:

Now that the commercial is out of the way, I did some research on the song it is called "Tiger is coming". It is sung by this Korean band called "Leenalchi". The lyrics translated by a YouTube comment go like this:

A tiger is coming down, a tiger is coming
A beast is coming down
through the deep valley in the pine woods

His body is freckled,
His tail is stuffed
which is longer than a grown man's fathom.

Making the high hills shiver,
his front leg is like a quiver,
his hind paw is like a jar,
Both ears are ripped ajar.

Brandishing his sickle claws,
'Charrrr!'

He splashes grass roots and pebbles.
Opening his crimson jaws,
'Worirung!' he rumbles.

Like the sky falls and
the ground settles down,
The turtle hides his head and
on the ground bows down. 

Of-course I am no Korean, and I have not "verified" this from any Korean. It's just a random YouTube comment by this person.

If you wish to see their live performance of the same song, you should check this video out:

The dance is performed by this group called "Ambiguous Dance Company". You can see a lot of their videos on YouTube. Finally to top it off, I find another commercial by the same group quite nice and catchy as well:

Anyway, hats-off to the complete campaign! Everything is amazingly choreographed (literally and figuratively).

Philanthropy and the wisdom of Bill Gates

Growing up (especially during my Engineering days and the early part of my career), I was a big believer in the Open Source Software philosophy. In the late 90s and early 2000s the biggest perceived enemy of Open Source was Microsoft and by association Bill Gates. I was not very fond of him as a starry eyed under-graduate student.

Post my MBA, I wanted to work for an Open Source software company and change the world. Given the circumstances, that never happened and I went into (or rather continued) in commercial closed-source software.

Anyway, over the last decade, I have been passively following (online), listening and reading about Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation and my opinion about him has changed leaps and bounds. I have come to respect and admire him for the work he is doing globally on things that most Governments and Corporations are turning a blind eye towards. I feel like, he stepped away from the corporate world at the right time, and decided to change the world.

He has shot to prominence in this pandemic. One of the reasons being - his ominous TED talk in April 2015 where he spoke about such a pandemic coming in our lifetime and the deadly consequences of it.

Flash forward to 2020, with all the negativity and uncertainty around us it's refreshing to hear Bill Gates' views on the potentially positive outcomes we might have "after" this pandemic, on the world order.

If we stop being so toxic with each other on social media and so divisive about all our ideas (us vs. them thinking) we can sit back and look at the last 100 years of human progress and see that humanity has stepped up to any challenge always and worked to solve it together. For e.g. we have not had a catastrophic world war after 1945, we managed to not annihilate the planet through a nuclear war, we almost eradicated a lot of common diseases and infant mortality has been all time low. Now, if we put all our creative brains together and work towards solving problems of today - climate change, COVID-19 etc. we can leave this world a better place for future generations.

Jump Rope Workout

Another interesting and effective cardio workout that I discovered in this pandemic is - Jump Rope Skipping. It has a very low learning curve (I picked up in matter of a few weeks) and it is quite fast to do. You can get an extremely great cardio workout in 5 minutes or less anytime of the day with almost no equipment other than the rope and no large space required.

I learnt my jump rope skills from the video below, and while there are a lot of tricks that you can do, I am still at the basic "bounce" and working on my endurance. I will highly recommend stretching and warming up before you actually start jumping to prevent any injuries.

The more I am stuck at home, the more I realize that staying fit or working out is just a matter of discipline! I can imagine skipping late in the night or early in the morning) in a hotel room on a business trip. All you really need is a rope, and it is very light and compact to carry around. So all those excuses are just my lazy brain speaking all this while!

Surya namaskar

Since I already wrote about Burpees, I also thought of writing about Surya-namaskars (Sun-salutations) as a wonderful full-body exercise to be done everyday in the morning.

Rather than randomly stretching my body and being lethargic till I get my first shot of caffeine, I find the sun-salutations as a very good form of stretching that wakes me up and recharges me. I typically target to do 12. Why 12? Well, I don't know - I just associate 12 with the Sun and doing anything less seems too little and any more, I get too tired and sweaty. 12 sun-salutations takes me approximately 6 minutes or less, just enough to not procrastinate and get my stretching done.

Now, it is an ancient yogic exercise. That means there are several variations and if you search for videos on YouTube, you can get lost in the wonder world of sun-salutations. I personally follow the method shown in the video below, but if you have a yoga instructor, I suppose it's best you follow that method.

And if you adopt the fast method of doing salutations as demonstrated by Baba Ramdev below, I am sure you can squeeze in 100 over (108?) Surya Namaskars like Burpees and get your cardio exercise done right in the morning!

Taming your wandering mind

Since the lock-down I have been trying to discipline myself by better using my time. Things haven't been as rosy as I expected them to be, but well, at least I am trying.

So for the last 4 weeks I have been trying to make way for 8-10 minutes everyday for meditation (baby steps). Coming from India, meditation is something that everyone talks about and a lot of people practice it regularly. I know of at least a dozen of my friends who meditate regularly, so I thought I should follow their footsteps and experience the miracle of meditation.

So far, my meditation has been going the same way as my yoga. I have been sitting there pretending to focus on my breath while all sorts of thoughts wander through my mind. Reminds me of this video about the monkey mind by Mingyur Rinpoche. I try to focus on my breath but in a matter of few moments I lose my focus.

I don't think I am getting anywhere yet. But I think 4 weeks is too short a timeline to see any tangible benefits. So I shall continue and see if I can progress. I am intrigued by people who can pull it off so regularly!

U2 - The Joshua Tree Tour

And it finally happened. I managed to see my most favorite band of all times live in concert. Two hours of absolutely electrifying music with amazing performances by Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. They did what they do best!

I was so looking forward to this concert and so afraid that I might not be able to attend that when it actually happened, it was so surreal for me. Getting concert tickets in Singapore for hot bands is not easy. Tickets get sold out within a matter of minutes once they are open for booking online. And since U2 is the highest grossing band of all times, I had my doubts that I would be even able to book the tickets. To err on the side of caution, I actually became a paid member of the U2 fan-club just because they were offering ticket booking a day early for the fan-club members.

So here I am, a day later, reliving the experience of a lifetime! Grew up with U2, so the band has been the biggest influence on my musical taste. It's amazing that they have been around for 40+ years and still have such a massive fan following. I am glad that they finally decided to come to Asia to perform live. I know that they will also perform in India, in Mumbai, on the grounds of my Engineering college, the place where I sort of heard them first and fell in love with.

Handpan Music

My office is a noisy place. We have open sitting, with everyone constantly talking to each other or on the phone almost all the time. This creates a very difficult environment for me to concentrate and do my work (when I myself am not talking or presenting). I tried experimenting with various kind of background music over the years to cut off the noise without causing more distraction. (Like I discovered you can't listen to songs with words in it and work - you end up listening to the words!).

A few months ago while we were in Tokyo, we heard this guy - Takao Minemoto busking at the train station in Shibuya. We were instantly mesmerized and fell in love with the instrument (and purchased his album then and there! (something I rarely have done with buskers). Since then, I have been exploring the wonder world of Handpan music on YouTube.

My current understanding of Handpan (mostly derived from Wikipedia) is - it is a derivative of an instrument called Hang made by a German company. Its sound is a mixture of sounds that some of the following instruments produce -  Trinidadian steelpan, Indian ghatam, Thai gong and Indonesian Gamelan.

Anyway for the musical bumpkin that I am handpan music is extremely soothing and something that I can listen to anytime to calm my nerves and focus on whatever task I am doing then. If you have never experienced, I would highly recommend you to go listen to it on YouTube now.

Collapsible hydration

I am on the road a lot. Not every customer/ prospect treats you like a human being and extends basic courtesy like offering drinking water. Also my job involves me talking a lot. This means that many a times I speak for 3-4 hours continuously, parched, desperately looking for drinking water.

While I have written about a water bottle before, I thought I let you guys know about another bottle that I discovered more than a year ago, has saved me a lot of times and is now my go-to bottle on the road.

So let me define my requirement first - I needed a light weight bottle that I could carry with me everywhere I go. It needed to be small and light. I should be able to stash it away in my laptop bag when there is no water inside it. It had to be leak proof and convenient to carry. The Hydrapack Stash happens to be the best bottle that met my requirements. It is collapsible, leak-proof and is just the right size for me to carry around.

And being the forgetful me, I have actually forgotten it in a few meeting rooms (in different countries) and luckily it has still come back to me! So if you are like me (on the road and don't get water offered to you by prospects), I guess this is your perfect companion for water.

The K-pop Uncle

If you haven't figured out by now, let me repeat, I do crazy amounts of business trips. This naturally means I live in crazy number of hotel rooms. Now like every other business traveler, I have  a routine that I follow.

For example, the moment I enter the hotel room, I put all menus, notepads, pens, advertisements, letters etc in a drawer and keep them away till I checkout. I hate clutter. The best hotels are minimalists and do not provide any of this crap. Then I empty my bag and hang up all my clothes. I like to have the false sense of getting "settled".

Anyway, this blog post ain't about that. It's about my new found understanding of East Asian Music. Yeah, one of my morning routines in hotel rooms involves searching for a Music channel on the TV and playing it while I am getting ready for work. Typically, it is either MTV or Channel V. I grew up with MTV. It was "the" music channel for my generation to get to hear the latest music. However, these days I find it more of a reality TV channel and less of a music channel. Maybe because whenever I switch it on, some reality show is going on, and lately I hardly ever have heard music on it.

Channel V still seems to play a bit of music. Anyway for some reason the morning hours (07:00 - 08:00) in most time-zones in Asia seems to have East Asian Music playing. For the ignorant me, East Asian Music mainly consists of these 3 types (don't chide me for inaccuracy and/or ignorance)

K-pop (Korean)
J-pop (Japanese)
C-pop/ Mando-pop/ Canto-pop (Chinese mainly Mandarin or Cantonese)

Of course I don't understand any of the languages. If I try hard enough (sometimes) I can just figure out the language based on their accent/ tones. However almost every music video consists of extremely good looking and overly athletic bunch of girls or guys dancing around and crooning about (what I believe) is - heartache or love (depending on if they are smiling or crying). Being an uncle, of-course I think music when I was growing up was much better. But well that's not the point, every generation thinks so.

Naturally, the curious me, read quite extensively about this East-Asian music phenomenon (strictly for education purposes only). It looks like it's a crazy competitive industry (at-least in Korea) and people compete fiercely and sign away their lives to get those coveted K-pop contracts.

Now just to get you ignorant souls introduced to K-pop, let me show-off my knowledge here. As of now, I know (I can't recognize the band members yet) the following bands:

• BTS
• Blackpink
• Twice
• Girls Generation
• Super Junior

Anyway, a blog written by me, about K-pop can't be complete unless I show you guys a video of Conan doing his trademark string dance and pretending to be a K-pop artist. So here it is:

Unfortunately, I can't name any big J-pop or C-pop bands yet. I am working on it. So next time when you meet me, if I happen to be humming a K-pop number, give me an A for trying (to blend in and be cool and young).

Trains and Toilets

So I am just back from a business trip to Tokyo. Just like many of you, I am generally mesmerized by the Japanese way of life. From their beautiful shrines, temples, zen gardens all the way to their food, electronics, umbrellas, pens, shoes, advertisements and culture, everything seems to be so extraordinary.

Anyway, after several trips to Tokyo, I have narrowed down on 2 Japanese things that I really adore - their train systems and their toilets (T&T).

Let me start with Trains. Disclaimer - I love public transit. I think it's the best means of transportation in an urban jungle and nothing can be more efficient. Every city that I go to, I always make it a point to "figure out" their public transit and use it extensively. It gives me a false sense of being a local. When I was younger in Singapore, I would always make it a point to be amongst the first ones to go visit a newly opened train station. In all the countries that I have been to, Tokyo by far, is the most complex train system that I have ever experienced. If the train system is not complex enough, their underground exits are even crazier. While I am generally proud of my sense of direction and my ability to understand complex metro systems, I still get easily lost on Japanese train stations just "looking" for the right exit.

Tokyo Subway Route Map

But, the more I have used it, I realize there are so many small things that are provided to aid commuters, that it's just amazing (For e.g. do you know that it is possible to walk underground all the way from Tokyo station to Ginza if you take the right exits!). And while most Japanese people are stoic, if you ask them for directions they go out of their way to help a random stranger? We could do a treasure hunt on the Tokyo Train system and never get bored.

Breakfast observing people

One of my favorite thing to do in Tokyo is to sit in a random small coffee shop inside a train station, sip on my coffee in the morning and see the world pass by. Every Japanese "salary man" in a suit making his way to his place of work, in a hurry, hassled by the crowd, but determined to reach his destination on time (yeah also the ladies, but if I say I observe them to - I sound like a creep - so yeah, I hardly notice them). Occasionally a cleaner or a police man making sure everything is in order would also pass by. While everyone will give you their own list of top 10 things to do in Tokyo, I would say that my list starts at "experience and assimilate the railway system".

Now let's talk about the Toilets. I think I have already dedicated a blog post to this one before. Now that I am repeating it, you can already imagine how in love I am with these works of art. I guess no where else in the world am I so fascinated to enter a public toilet just to see how amazing the toilet is. Forget about cleanliness, almost all toilets in Tokyo are amazingly clean. Depending on how old or new the toilet is you will get to experience a toilet that can do everything from bringing the seat down for you, cleaning it for you, making a loud musical tone so that you can do your business in peace without being embarrassed, to sophisticated nozzles, water jets and air driers that make sure that every bit of your backside is first cleaned with water and then dried so that you can confidently wear your pants later without any worry. Attention to detail and personal hygiene is way beyond my imagination. This is probably the only country in the world that "I look forward to" going to the toilet.

This my friends was a short summary of an otherwise tiring and uneventful trip to Tokyo. While I love the trains and toilets, I dread their work culture, the long work hours and the absolute crazy level of hard work.

My Movie Choices

Long term readers of my blog know that I am heavily inclined towards minimalism. The philosophical me thinks that this endeavor to constantly reduce things in my life is what has kept me sane (so far). Reducing things also boils down to constantly downsizing options. I like my life where I don't have to choose much. This however is much difficult than what it seems.

Everyday (for me) is a constant struggle amongst numerous choices. Whether it is choosing what to eat, which movie to see, which series to start watching, which clothes to wear, where to go, the average consumer has a plethora of choices. Anyway, over a period of time, I have learnt how to restrict my choices, and limit the decision making process that I have to go through.

This blog however is specifically about - how I chose which movies to watch. Well, before I start, I need to give you some context. The only place I watch movies these days is either on a long haul flight or on Netflix. We don't have channel-subscribed television at home anymore. After struggling several years on making movie choices, I boiled down to choosing my entertainment based on the actors I like. As of this writing, here are my favorite Hollywood actors (in no particular order):

• Tom Hanks
• Jake Gyllenhall
• Christian Bale
• Keanu Reeves

This is besides the fact that I watch all Quentin Tarantino movies. But he doesn't make that many movies for me to go choose to watch them on a flight (I guess, I have already watched most of them, and the ones I haven't, aren't available on Netflix or on flights!). So if I have to see a movie, I just go through the list and search for the ones in which one of these actors are present. This has led to me seeing a bunch of weird, dark and psychological thrillers. I won't say I particularly liked them, but I feel like I have already had my fair share of demented movies. I think other than Tom Hanks, all the other actors listed above, have made some serious "art" films. The list of weird movies that I saw in the last few months because of these actors (again in no particular order):

• Siberia (Keanu) - Can't believe I saw it - if not for Keanu!
• John Wick (Keanu) - The only senseless action movie I ever liked - I am waiting for part 3
• Night Crawler (Jake) - Creepy, Jake is awesome!
• Demolition (Jake) - Weird, emotional - Jake is awesome!
• Nocturnal Animals (Jake) - Dark, emotional - Jake is awesome!
• American Psycho (Christian) - Weird, Psycho - Can't believe I saw it!
• Vice (Christian) - Awesome, loved it!
• American Hustle (Christian) - Awesome, loved it!

I have thus concluded that either my choice of actors are artsy or they just happen to be the choice for artsy films! Anyway for the superhero lovers out there, Jake is entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe as "Mysterio". So now you gonna get a taste of him too :) !!

Live Aid 1985

I managed to see Bohemian Rhapsody (movie) in the theater a few weeks ago. I loved it. I know they have taken some artistic freedom to re-interpret Freddie's life story and make it more dramatic. Well, it's not a documentary, so I guess I am fine with it.

Highlight of the movie (for me) was the Live Aid concert that they did in 1985. The actor's performance is amazing at impersonating Freddie. Live Aid happened when I was very young (toddler+) and though I have occasionally seen songs here and there from the concert, this is the first time I made an effort to watch most of Live Aid (Thank you YouTube).

If you are from my generation, you will love (understatement) the Live Aid concert. It features some of the biggest names in music that we grew up with. If you have a year end break and have nothing to do, stop surfing the internet and go see the Live Aid concert now. It's well worth the watch.

Being a big fan of U2, Dire Straits, Eric Clapton and Queen I would like to share some videos here if you are too lazy to click and go to YouTube.

 

U2 - Bad (Live Aid)

 

Dire Straits/ Sting - Money for Nothing (Live Aid)

 

Eric Clapton - Layla (Live Aid)

And the ultimate ....

 

Queen

26 reasons why we procrastinate and how to solve it

So, I am the self-proclaimed God of procrastination. I have progressively struggled with disciplining myself. When I say I procrastinate, I do it habitually, constantly and consistently. From simple things like - sleeping on time, to complex things like working on assignments at the last minute or trying to lose weight and giving up, I have mostly never ever been able to achieve my long term or abstract goals.

So I was pleasantly surprised a few days ago when I came across this article on the "Psychology and causes of procrastination". It's a long read, but definitely worth your time if you are bothered by procrastination like I am. To provide a gist (and for my own benefit) the article provides 26 reasons why we procrastinate:

1. Abstract Goals
2. Goals that are too distant
3. A focus on future options
4. Overestimating future abilities
5. Being disconnected from the future-self
6. Indecisiveness
7. Feeling overwhelmed
8. Anxiety
9. Task aversion
10. Perfectionism
11. Fear of evaluation and negative feedback
12. Fear of failure
13. Self-handicapping
14. Self-sabotage
15. A perceived lack of control
16. Depression
17. Lack of motivation
18. Lack of energy
19. Low conscientiousness
20. Lack of perseverance
21. Laziness
22. Impulsivity
23. Preference for appealing tasks
24. Distractability
25. Sensation seeking
26. Rebellion

The same website, followed up with another long article on "How to stop procrastination". I think that's an equally interesting and useful read.

The super short version (again reproduced verbatim from the article):

1. Write down your goals, and make sure that they’re clearly defined, possible to accomplish, and significant enough to allow you to achieve meaningful progress.
2. Figure out when, how, and why you procrastinate, by examining situations where your tendency to postpone things is preventing you from achieving your goals.
3. Create a plan of action based on relevant anti-procrastination techniques, while taking into account both your goals as well as the nature of your procrastination.
4. Implement your plan and monitor your progress, while making sure to refine your approach by figuring out which techniques work for you and how you can implement them most effectively.

And finally, before I end, I also came across this video of a graduating Harvard Law Student - Pete Davis about "the defining characteristic of our (his) generation" which brilliantly sums up some of the reasons we procrastinate ( I believe this video is a summation of 6. Indecisiveness and 24. Distractability - based on my new understanding of procrastination :) ).

The Hoi An Mystery

Last month I happened to be in Hoi An. It's an ancient sleepy touristy town with a beach nearby and lot of great food in Vietnam. One particular place that is quite popular is "Banh Mi Phuong". Banh Mi is a Vietnamese burger (of sorts) and this store rose to crazy popularity because of Anthony Bourdain calling it the "best Banh Mi in Vietnam". You can enjoy the video of him eating there ...

Anyway, this blog post is neither about Banh Mi nor about the restaurant. I ain't no food critic. I loved the Banh Mi, but I have not eaten at enough places around Vietnam to be able to judge. It does qualify as the best Banh Mi I have had yet. However, this blog post is specifically about Gaurav Kapur. The famous Mr. Gaurav Kapur.

The Restaurant

Now, I do see a lot of random Indians and sometimes celebrities on my sojourns. Had I seen Gaurav in Hoi An, it would have been a non-event. But this gets even weirder. The restaurant that I just mentioned has this crazy tradition of random people putting their passport size photos in the table. I don't know why they do that, but well that's the way it is.

Photos on the Table!

So as I was enjoying my Banh Mi, I looked at all the photos on my side of the table. People from all over the world smiling at you with their best smile. And amongst all of them, I think I saw a passport size photo of Gaurav. Now, I have no clue whether it is really him or not. So I put it here for you to see and judge.

Gaurav Kapur?

I wonder why he did that (if indeed it is him!). I have no Facebook/ Twitter or other social media to reach out to him and ask him why. So this shall always remain a mystery for me in Hoi An. This takes Celebrity spotting to a weirder level for me!

God of Car

Growing up in (religious) India, I am very used to having a God staring down at the passengers from the dashboard of a car. It's an extremely common sight in India, and just by looking at the God, you can pretty much guess from which part of India the driver (or the owner of the car is).

For a while in USA, I didn't see many Gods staring down at the passengers other than when an Indian was driving a car. So I pretty much assumed that it was a totally Indian thing till I came to East Asia. Here I occasionally find Gods of different religions sitting above the Dash. But these Gods tend to focus on the road (look out) rather than look at passengers.

So I guess, Indian Gods need to keep an eye on the driver to make sure that he is driving safe. While the rest of the East Asian Gods need to keep an eye outside to make sure that everyone else is driving their cars properly.

I came across this video of a driver in UK (I am assuming he is of Indian origin) who put his Tesla in auto-pilot and moved to the passenger seat. Of course he was fined for reckless driving and his license has been revoked for a period of time. But what I found most interesting in the video is that there is an idol of a God looking at him while he is in the passenger seat and the car is driving itself! Now the reason I felt the driver was of Indian origin is because the God seems to be looking into the car than onto the road.

Now I think I have changed my theory about Gods in car. We (Indians) need the God to look at us so that we don't misbehave (put the car in auto-pilot and do something crazy like moving into the passenger seat!).

Binge Watching

Today will go down in my life history (in Google) as the day I binge watched Conan videos all day! I have binge watched only once before. That one time when we discovered House of Cards and completed Season 1 in one day. But today was different. I was not watching episodes (they have continuity, and that's a reason why we can't stop at the end of an episode cause you are curious to know what happens next!). Today I was just randomly watching Conan videos all day, with my YouTube on auto-play.

Now, I am a big fan of a lot of talk shows. My daily dose of YouTube videos (in no particular order) consists of:

• The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
• The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon
• Jimmy Kimmel Live
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

While all of the talk show hosts are funny and interesting, I guess most of them are very driven by political opinions and current affairs. Conan on the other hand is pretty random, and I love his sense of humor. He has all these random videos of him traveling, learning self-defense, being mean to his staff and generally being silly. I would highly recommend you binge watching him.

Wise Men Dancing

In my quest to stay abreast with the latest music that the current generation is listening to, I still try to listen to the top tracks every week from YouTube. Most of the music is hit and miss for me now. Reflects my age.

I realize that you somehow can only associate with the songs that you heard as a teenager. Songs before that are too old for your taste and the songs after that are just not cool enough. I think every generation thus has a decade of music and musicians that they really like and then everyone else is just okay.

Anyway, while listening to the latest generation, I chanced across this video by Carly Rae Jepsen featuring Tom Hanks (my generation). It is tastefully done, and for some reason I think I really love videos which get popular old male actors to dance in them.

So without further adieu I need to link you guys to the other cool song that I know of an old male actor featuring - Christopher Walken (again) and his amazing dance in the Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim.

So I guess, I can safely conclude that - to get a lot of views for your video, you don't necessarily need a lot of cute girls (read K-pop) but you can do it by getting a wise old actor dance for you!

Thank you Fitbit

Yeah this sounds like a commercially motivated post. And if I think hard enough, well, it is!

I have been using Fitbit(s) for over 3.5 years now. They have been practically tracking my every move ever since I bought my first one. And I am sure they are doing tonnes of longitudinal research to analyze how "people like me" live.

The innocently sounding "Every breath you take" song from Police has taken a completely different meaning these days. With everyone from Google, to the agency that shall not be named, to fitness tracking devices have been diligently "watching" us.

Anyway, the intention of this post is not to scare you. But I have been growing increasing dependent on Fitbit for my "fitness goals". The company on its end has been diligently helping me track my habits. In the recent couple of months I have had some major troubles with my devices and they have been always sweet enough to give me replacements without any complains. I believe they realize my longitudinal value as a "happy customer" as much as I rely on them for my everyday tracking!

So thank you Fitbit. You are helping me a lot.