Family Soap

I belong to a generation of soap users in India that believed that 1 Soap was enough for the entire body and the entire family. We fondly loved the one green soap-bar that was purchased along with the family grocery once a month.

This was before the time that there were Aeroplanes, digital telephones and Satellite television (or at least I didn’t know of their existence). My naive self believed that this one soap could miraculously clean my hair, my face and my body and that is all that I needed for my morning bathing routine that lasted about 5 minutes (yeah, just to make myself clear – I was small then).

Hamam Soap Commercial

Somewhere along the way, there came TV (or rather I started watching and believing it). Marketers convinced us that we need a guy soap, that is different from a gal soap. Then they convinced us that we need different kinds of soaps from head to toe. I am amazed why they never taught me that I need a different soap depending on the day of the week. (Marketing 101 says – if you can’t increase your customer base, then sell more products to the same hapless customer).

Anyway, the gullible consumer I am, over the period of several years ended up buying so many soaps for so many things that at one point in time my soaps were the most expensive component of my grooming routine (I guess they are even now!).

Then I guess marketers figured that to make their shareholders happy they need to come up with more soap options. So they started consolidating the soaps back again. Now slowly and steadily we have reached a state where we get – a 3-in-1 Body + Hair + Face soap. Viola an innovation so intense that they charge me close to 10 SGD for this one (mind you the green bar was like a few cents back then!)

Of course, being the staunch believer in anything that gets marketed to me, I have been using this soap “After sport” (as if I am an athlete) and feeling good about it. Only yesterday did I realize that I have just gone back to my good old days of the Hamam.

So this is an appeal to all my marketer friends. I have got more hard earned money yearning for your attention. Please senselessly advertise more banal stuff to me. I promise, I won’t disappoint you.

Take this Metalheads!

Accidentally figured out last week that the symbol in the picture below actually stands for - “I Love You” in sign language. I was flabbergasted. Generations of heavy metal fans like me grew up believing it was the symbol of the devil or just plan 666. It was the sign of the horns all the while. It stood for anti-establishment and our rebellion against the system – till now.

And now I know. It just means – I love you.

Imagine drunk men with long hair and beard wearing t-shirts that signify they are horrible creatures and are against everything nice, cute and sweet in this world. Then they shout and scream at the top of their voice and head-bang to loud music while the guitar solo guy plays the riff from his best anti-establishment song. And then the collective crowd of burly men raise their hands high up in the air and say “I love you”. Haha, heavy metal concerts will never be the same for me again!

And just to further offend all my metal-head friends – here is Britney crooning to “I love Rock ‘N’ Roll”

I love Rock ‘N’ Roll

The Experiment

When I say Justin Bieber is the greatest entertainer in the world, I am not being sarcastic. At the tender age of 19 he has achieved more in his life than most other artists do in their entire lifetime. He is the most popular celebrity on twitter (and internet) and he has the capacity to cause widespread sorrow and joy for millions of people around the world by his actions.

But (yeah there had to be a but there!). His clientele (fan-following to be precise) seems to be uniformly distributed across the teenage girls age-group. I am sure there are middle-aged men who swing to his grooves, but I am also sure that they are statistically insignificant.

 

While Formula 1 as a sport is wholly uniformly distributed across men in the older age group and the category of men listening to Justin and seeing Formula 1 should (I am presuming) be a significantly low number.

I am not exactly sure about what was going on through the Singapore Grand Prix organizer’s mind when they decided to bring in Justin for the closing concert for the F1 Grand Prix. I mean, men my age, don’t particularly mind *seeing* Rihana, Shakira or Katy Perry in concert after an exciting F1 race. But seeing Justin would not exactly be a manly thing to do.

As someone pointed out to me, this could very well be the organizer’s last ditch effort to get teenage girls to come see F1 (cause I have heard that generation can do anything to see Justin and also loves to spend a lot – any marketer’s dream). So to see him live, a 3 hour race with cars roaring and zipping by is not really a discomfort. And after these gals see the race, they love the excitement and become avid F1 fans.

This probably will be the most significant marketing experiment of the century and business schools all around the world will study this event as an amazing  showcase of appealing to a new segment altogether by just bringing in their most favorite celebrity to perform. Or, I guess, I am really missing something really really big here.

Metallica

Managed to attend a concert of a lifetime yesterday. Yup, I got to hear Metallica live on stage. In the flesh right before my eyes for 2.5 hours while I shouted, jumped and head-banged like there is no tomorrow.

Realized that at this age, things that were seemingly cool at 20 can cause severe headache, dizziness and neck pain the next day. Anyway, now I am happy, satisfied and have got that contended smile on my face and pain everywhere else. I managed to just fulfil one of my very long dreams. To listen to one of my favourite artists of all times – live!

Have been running this list through my head for several years – Artists that I would love to hear live. Unfortunately 1 of them is already no more amongst us now (yeah euphemism for Michael Jackson is dead!)

1. U2
2. Yanni
3. Metallica
4. Air Supply
5. Black Sabbath
6. Michael Jackson

I know my list shows my weird taste in music (or rather it makes me look like a guy who has no real taste). But well, grew up with Michael Jackson, Air Supply, U2 and Yanni and then Metallica and Black Sabbath happened during my confused Engineering years. So that’s the list. And I really hope I can see the rest of the 3 someday, very soon!

Laptop Workhorse

Its ironic. The week I was celebrating a decade of working my a$$ off, my company decided to reward me with a new work-laptop. Well, not really a reward. We have these hand-me-down laptops that are passed from ex-employees to current ones or from seniors to juniors. Depending on where you sit on the pecking order you get an extremely old one and sometimes if you are lucky enough they get replaced. And I happened to get lucky.

So for the last 2 weeks now I have been using a shiny new laptop. Its funny that in my entire career, all work laptops that I have ever had are – ThinkPads. Yeah I have used the pre-Lenovo IBM era ThinkPads as well as the Lenovo ThinkPads.

I am consistently impressed by their build quality and sturdiness. I know they look un-aesthetic and not pleasing to your senses. But they do what they are supposed to do, and can withstand a fair bit of abuse. I literally am on the road most of the time and the laptop is almost always with me – many a times running around across meeting rooms.

The ThinkPad brand has been around for more than 21 years. IBM launched the first ThinkPad way back in 1992 (apparently late 1991). Its hard to imagine something related to computers to have lasted so long with even the current designs where much following the aesthetics of the first one.

First 10 years of ThinkPad

I hope they continue making these amazing pieces of hardware with the same build quality for many years to come.

Workplace Decade

Have been overcome with a bout of nostalgia since today morning. Just happened to have completed a decade in corp-hell. I still distinctly remember 10 years ago this starry eyed college graduate walking into a big organization with big dreams in his heart. He wanted to be like his idols – Bruce Schneier and Linus Trovalds. (Now that I look back, I find it funny that I never idolized corporate tycoons like Bill Gates, Larry Ellison or Steve Jobs – though now I have a different opinion about them). As naive he was, he was completely unawares of the long thankless nights, the headaches, the customer complaints, the bosses, the menial work, the backaches and the big hidden beast called – corporate politics.

A decade from then the starry eyed graduate has now turned into a grumpy, cynical uncle. He has learnt to be a part of the big system. The system that makes sure that you perform to your complete ability while dangling the right kinds of carrots in front of you. The system that is like an addiction that you can’t get rid of.

Anyway, luckily or unluckily I am still completed related to software and data warehouses. At least, I love what I am doing irrespective of how the system treats me and what I have achieved. So here is wishing all my batch mates a happy decade and a many more happy ones to come. Amen.

Wearable Tech

Every Tom, Dick, Harry and his cousin Lily is making a smart-watch. The more I read about it the more it becomes evident that a watch revolution is coming. A multi-functional thing that sits on your hand and does wonders! As of this writing I know of Sony, Apple, Dell, Motorola, LG, Qualcomm, Samsung and a host of other companies planning to make watches (or wearable-tech)

Now, now! Wake-up CASIO. You guys are the pioneers of cool and sturdy watches. Back in the days, you guys defined wearable-tech for starry eyed kids like me.

I know, I know you have a smart-watch in the market already. The Smart-watch with Bluetooth however is amazingly 19th century for what the general public is expecting from Smart-watches or (wearable-tech) in general now.

So what would I expect in a CASIO G-shock branded wearable-tech watch?

1. Step Counter
2. Altimeter
3. Thermometer 
4. Floor Counter
5. Heart beat meter
6. Sleep monitor
7. Vibrating Alarm
8. Atomic timekeeping
9. Solar Power
10. Tough
11. An amazing app that syncs all this data and lets me download it for my own further analysis

I know this would take some iterations to get to ultimate reality. And we (I am shamelessly representing all wanna-be pseudo-health conscious geeks like me) are ready to wait and purchase through all those iterations. But its already late, and if you have not already started, I think you guys are mighty late to the game!

I know most competitors are going the Android way – pluck some apps into your watch, make it read your SMS, Caller ID etc. I don’t find a reason to pour 200$ down the drain to read SMS On my watch. What I need is way cooler and geeky. And I really really hope that its a G-shock!

What I am

Sometimes I wonder, is Sesame street really for kids? I mean considering that even I (the man!) have written about them two times already on this blog here and here and then significant part of most of my weekends even now is spent video-surfing Sesame street on YouTube!

For some of you who don’t know, there is this small segment in Sesame street where a celebrity comes over and either teaches the viewers (presuming they are kids) a word or if the celebrity is a singer, then they actually sing one of their famous compositions with lyrics converted to appeal kids. Over the past several years there have been numerous celebrities and even I am catching up on them every weekend.

However, I discovered a gem of a song that Will.i.am sung on Sesame street and its titled – What I am. Though it’s a kid’s song, it is amazingly inspiring and has a very catchy tune.

Hear it here … and be inspired!

Will.i.am–What I am

And if you are particularly bored, here is a compiled list of some of my favourite songs on Sesame street by celebrity singers:

• Outdoors – Jason Mraz
• Don’t give up – Bruno Mars
• 1,2,3,4 – Feist
• A Song About Elmo – Adam Sandler
• Hot N Cold – Katy Perry
• Lullaby - Andrea Bocelli
• Lullaby – Ricky Gervais
• I Don’t Know Y – Norah Jones

Yeah, why should only kids get to have all the fun?

Ramen

One Japanese food item that gets undue attention amongst Indians (at least the ones that I know) is Sushi (and to a certain degree – Sashimi). May be it has got to do with the colourful way that Sushi is presented or may be that we can’t digest the fact that the sashimi on sushi is raw.

Anyway, like any other person determined to explore culture, I learned to eat sushi (yeah with chopsticks and wasabi) while in MBA. Later I graduated to liking it and have had a lot of sushi sojourns ever since.

Sometime last year, however I ventured out to one of the lesser known items (at least to me) of the Japanese culinary experience. The Ramen. Ramen is a huge bowl of soup with noodles, meat, flavoured egg, spring onions, bean sprouts and a broth that is amazingly flavourful. Slowly and steadily, Ramen has now climbed up to the spot of being amongst my most favourite foods of all times. Yeah right up there sitting close to the butter chicken and my mom’s dried fish chutney.

All my friends who wanna try Japanese cuisine, I strongly implore you to go treat yourself to a bowl of Ramen. The broth is amazingly flavoured and with all the herbs and spices, it is a culinary delight. And the thin piece of meat literally melts in your mouth (Sorry Vegetarians – I haven’t had veg-Ramen) Btw, if you are a calorie conscious eater – Ramen is on the heavier side and you may wish to treat yourself only occasionally.

And what do you guess, I am gonna do after posting this? You guessed right – I am going for a sumptuous meal of Ramen.

Be cool Honey Bunny

Just finished a marathon few evenings of watching movies by Quentin Tarantino. To be precise these are the movies I saw:

• Kill Bill Vol. 1
• Kill Bill Vol. 2
• Reservoir Dogs
• Inglourious Basterds
• Pulp Fiction
• Django Unchained

Now most of the people I know share a love-hate relationship with all of Quentin’s movies. Everyone agrees that the storylines are good, but many people also complain of his use of excessive violence in all of his movies.

Frankly, I don’t understand his rationale behind making his movies so gory, but probably that makes them look – “I don’t give a damn” – cool. The kinds in which you can identify the lead character as a super bad a$$.

I didn’t exactly grow up seeing his movies. I mean my conservative middle class Indian upbringing would have definitely forbade me from seeing anything of this sorts. But, over the last few years I stole a glance of a scene from here and there (mostly from YouTube I guess) till I finally succumbed to watching the whole movies. Quentin’s movies tend to grow on you and the more you see, the more you love them. I got hooked and I guess I have managed to see Pulp Fiction at least 4 times.

Pulp Fiction–Dancing Scene

Now, I have become a self confessed Quentin fan. I like his style of “cool” and I can pretend to like his gut wrenching goriness. After all, I have to live up to be a man. Anyway, just in case you are interested – What do you think is my favourite Quentin movie of all times? Well – its Inglourious Basterds. Its cool, and in his own style, Quentin manages to rewrite history in less than 3 hours.

Inglourious Basterds–Trailer

And before I end, I know I still have to watch Death Proof and Jackie Brown. I shall do that real soon.