SKORG

Well DINK stands for Double Income No Kids. It is not a new word by any means, and has been discussed in lengths in the west. But for bangalore and an urban India on a roll, it sure is a new phenomenon. It is about couples who are married (live together) earn and don't want a kid.

They just don't feel like bringing up a kid. Either they are too busy working and are afraid that a kid might cut short their otherwise brilliant career or they are of the opinion that a kid is a hinderance to their blissful world.<break>

Without a kid and with two, mostly high incomes they are all set to enjoy every conceivable happiness the world is to offer. But is this right? Atleast in India we are not too worried about it as we are one of the leaders in human production and no one can rightly estimate the rate at which this production is bound to increase. We beat all analyst estimation every year, year after year. As usual some stupid christian organisation is bound to pop up shouting at the top of their voice that 'God asked us to fill this world and we are not going to stop till it is done' They might even come up with a law that couples not having kid on purpose might be depromoted to 'non-christians' or they might not get their weekly feed of repentance. 

How does it affect the people involved. Are they happy together and interested in life. A kid in most cases binds the parents together as now they have another criteria to be ticked off before they can depart. In that way it helps keep marriages intact - sort of a stamp on an agreement. Also there is some sort of a pride and happiness associated with bringing up a kid that many accept. Also when older, it is nice to wall back on someone atleast for emotional reasons. But those who are part of the DINK are there after understanding what they are upto and are pretty happy about it.

An issue for more concerning is the DINS. It stands for 'Double Income No Sex'. Now that is something of a bother. It is about couples who work hard to move up the career and end up drying their sex life. It is also because of the misfit in their work hours. Stress both physical and mental drains them off their sexual energy and they end up just sharing their bed and not using it. It is a pathetic thing and when you have the career you had always dreamed and a wealth so huge and you are already 50, sex may not be the first thing in your mind, with all those ailments waiting to attack you. So if anyone out there is into DINS, stop now, take some time off and jump right back where you belong to.

The last one, SINS is what I came up with. It is meant to stand for 'Single Income No Spouse'. It might seem a joke for now, but this is soon to catch up, especially with the guys. Having a wife at home and having to answer her, and more importantly not having the freedom to move around with other girls FREELY might push a few guys into SINS. Another factor that works in favor of SINS is the fear-factor attached with marriage and the nuances of running a family. Girls are not to be left behind, as the more independent they become the more their choice of delaying their marriage or god-forbid calling it OFF.

I have updated the very popular expense organizer and taken it to Version 2. Please report your bugs/queries as comments to this post. I will highlight the major changes done

1. Made it viewable in one shot (without having to scroll) on a screen resolution of atleast 1024 x 768  

2. Added a separate settings page so that users can customize their expense and income items as per their need.

3. Separated Graphs and reports. Each now has a separate page and many new reports and graphs have been added.

4. And finally I have made the password public so that anyone wishing to alter the design or further customize it can do so easily. The password is <b>skorg</b> for all the pages 

<Click any image below to go to the Expense Organizer page>

I started laughing aloud in my cubicle as I read this from Rediff. This man Sidhu has some sense of humour

Former India batsman Navjot Singh Sidhu says former Pakistan wicketkeeper Moin Khan should be sent to a mental asylum in Amritsar so that he can go and meet him there.

Speaking to rediff.com on Monday after Sachin Tendulkar hit his 39^th one-day hundred as India posted 328 in the first One-Day International against Pakistan in Peshawar, the cricketer-turned-Member of Parliament from Amritsar said, "Mad dogs keep barking at the elephant, but the king elephant does not bother about them at all."

Sidhu was obviously hitting out at Moin, who criticized Tendulkar, after India lost the three-Test series to Pakistan 0-1, saying the decline of the little master has begun.

"Sachin has scored a big hundred and this would be enough to silence his critics in the media as well as those like Moin Khan, who had started writing off the master batsman.

"The man who has scored over 70 hundreds in both forms of the game does not need to be reminded about his class and stature.

"Sachin did the right thing by not responding to such mindless criticism. Instead, he let his bat do the talking. Such comments are made by foolish people only," Sidhu added.

This has remained our dream for a long time. Even having been in Pondicherry for more than 20 years we had not visited all the places. So we decided to go around our native city.

Click the picture for more

I don't know why a match of cricket should affect me so much as it does. I have wowed a lot of times not to be disturbed by it but neverthless feel extremely dissapointed whenever our Team India loses and they did so often a few months back.

Things were really good after Dravid took over, but till this happened. The 3rd test match between India and Pakistan and the first day I turned on the T.V to see Pakistan reeling at 13/4 and I told my wife "See these pakistanis were playing it safe for the first 2 tests and now they are not able to play against india once the pitch becomes favorouble to bowling"

But what followed was a total dismal performance from India. Pakistan made 250+ and we made 7 short, not even one of the batsmen making it to 50. The pakistani 2nd innings saw a world record. For the first time in 1800+ tests all 7 batsmen have scored 50+. We were set a target for 606 and we are crumbling right now with only 1 of our batsmen reaching 50+.

What a show? Well just wait. See how the Indians are going to bounce back in the ODIs. Hmm.. How stupid can a cricket lover in India become? 

From the director of 'Samy'
Starring any-role-suits-him 'Surya'

Aaru is a local-gansters-of-chennai film. But with the crisp touch of the director and excellent dialogues it becomes a good entertainer. In fact it keeps you on it grips from the start till end. No sloppy works done to slow the pace down. Surya is a 'adiyal' of a famous Nathan & Co goonda group. He has been there even as a child. As you would expect he doesn't kill anyone and reasons outs on his own. Nathan & Co, though a bit pissed off with him have to keep him as he is unbeatable and all that.

Trisha is the only daughter of a wealthy, not-so-caring father (of course her mother is dead). She falls for Surya, helps him and in the end well rewarded. What I liked personally about the film was that there was no case of the villans raping Hero's sister or killing Hero's parents and stuff like that. Though there is some revenge from Nathan and Co stable, it is not heart-breaking.

What happens when a group of talented actors meet. We get a great performance. Meera Jasmine is a lively and great actress and she has proven it in 'Run' and 'Ayutha Ezhuthu'. She confirms it in 'Kasthoori Maan'. Presanna, the lovable and realistic boy, stamps his authority and once more proves he is the master in his own way.
Presanna and Meera study in the same college. Meera jasmine is a chubby and lively girl, lighting the place wherever she goes, while Presanna is a quiet boy who is trying to keep the family's pride up after his producer father gets caught in a swirl of debt due to some betting habits. Meera mocks and makes fun of him incurring his wrath. But presanna learns that Meera is not from a rich family but works as home nurse to finance her study and support her family.
The story revolves around Meera's Sister's Hubby who has a crush on Meera and want to have her. He has also done exceedingly well. Meera does her best to save herself and also protect her Sister's life. The romantic moments and emotions are well handled by Presanna and Meera. This film is a must watch.

Presanna has done it again. After his 'Azaghiya theeyae', he has done very well in Kandha Naal muthal.

The story is fairy simple. Presanna and Laila are enemies from their childhood (You do have a scene depicting why so). Presanna is taken care of by Lakshmi and his son, Arvind who is also presanna's friend is engaged with Laila. After a meet with Laila Arvind decides she is not suitable for him and flies back to US giving a 6 month delay to the marriage, and informs laila too about it. Laila suspects Presanna to be the culprit for Arvind's decision. Laila's sister meanwhile elops with her boy-friend which puts her mother in a heart-attack. Presanna comes to help them. They start liking each other and the climax is inevitable.
Presanna is a huge positive for the film. Even his eyes speaks romance. The way of story telling resembles 'Hyderabad blues' by Nagesh kukunoor. The big minus is the feeble screenplay especially in emotinaly binding scenes and Laila who seems to speak rather than act in serious scenes, though the same Laila does exceedingly well in the scenes that suit her style.
All in all the film could have been far better than what it is, but kudos to the budding directory and a producer who is keen on giving good films, Prakash Raj.

Think of water purification and the first and probably the only name that comes to our mind is 'Aqua Guard' from Eureka Forbes. The reason is simple. They are so good at marketing with terms like UV radiation, e-boiling+ etc and their products too are not very ordinary. But is it the end of our search. No is what I felt and went ahead and got the unknown and unheard 'Pureflo' from "Permionics".[break=Read More]



Of course, this does not mean that Aqua Guard is inherently flawed or useless, I just wanted to make that extra step and get the best for me and my family. Permionics is a simple filter technique, just that the filter is not that simple. It filters out bacteria and virus and is based on a technique called 'Ultra filtration membrane'. It even removed turbidity and colloids. It also has a 4 litre capacity storage facility and so there is no need to search for a vessel to hold the pure water.

The Process (taken from permionics.com)
When impure water is passed through the raw water inlet, first the pre-filter with activated carbon removes particulate matter, odour and free chlorine. The water then reaches the membrane module where all colloidal particles, harmful micro-organisms, which cause diseases like Giardiasis, Amoebiasis, Cholera, Typhoid, Gastroenteritis, Diarrhoea etc. are removed. What you get now is pure and safe water, free from all impurities, which collects in the sealed water storage tank made of food grade plastic having a capacity of 4 litres. Just open the outlet tap and draw pure and safe drinking water.

The Advantages (taken from permionics.com)
* Based on unique UltraFiltration Membrane Technology
* Only Water Purifier that protects you from Amoebiasis and Giardiasis besides other harmful water borne diseases.
* Removes turbidity and colloidal matter.
* Spores Cysts and Floating dead bodies of bacteria removed, so no chance of bacteria growing.
* Fail-safe : will never give impure water.
* No electricity or chemicals required.
* Inbuilt, sealed 4 litres storage tank.
* Minimal maintenance.
* Tested and certified by leading laboratories in India.
* No need to boil water.

Stop the Losses (When to Sell - Part 1)

In lesson 3 we just learnt that the whole idea behind investing in Stock Market is to take care of the losses. Make sure your losses are minimum and how do we do that. One technique that we learned was not to make big bets. The rule that you are going to learn is the most important and should be adhered with a lot of discipline.

Let us take the same example of the previous lesson. You got 1 lakh to invest in stocks and 5% of that you use to get 14 shares of Wipro at 371 Rs per share. So you have now invested 14 * 371 = 5194 Rs (i.e around 5% of 1 lakh). The next day you look at the price and Oh my God !! Wipro is quoted at 300 Rs, a fall of 71Rs per share taking your paper loss to 994 Rs. Not bad you think , after all it is WIPRO, it has posted great profits so it will come up. The week after that Wipro is at 200 Rs. Now your paper loss stands at (371-200) * 14 = 2394 Rs. What do you do? Many people hold on to their stock with the belief that it will come good one day. It might, but there is a possiblity that ' THE DAY MIGHT NEVER COME'. So what is the best you can do?

Stop Loss Orders are the answer. When you buy Wipro or any Stock for that matter, make sure you place a stop loss order at some fixed % below the purchase price. The % depends on your choice but make sure that it is not more that 25%. (Ideally 10-15%). What will happen is that when Wipro's share price falls below the indicated stop loss price, the stop loss order gets executed and your shares are sold ensuring minimum loss to you. Should I place the order for all the shares I bought? No.. Don't do that too. Sell half or 2/3 of the shares (7 shares or 10 shares of Wipro in our example). Place another stop loss a bit further down from the earlier one where you will sell another % of shares. But the final level at which you sell all the shares should not be greater that 25% of the initial value. Too Confusing !! Right? Let me explain it in simple terms.

• I go and buy 14 shares of Wipro at 371 Rs. Fine.
• At the same time I place a stop loss order to sell 7 shares of Wipro if the price falls to 316 Rs.  [7 shares is 50% of 14 shares. Rs 316 is 15% less that Rs 371]
• I place another stop loss order to sell 4 shares of Wipro if the price falls to 297 Rs [4 shares of Wipro is close to 25%. 297 Rs is 20% less than that of of Rs 371]
• I place yet another stop loss order to sell the remaining 3 shares of Wipro if the price falls to Rs 278 [3 share of Wipro is close to 25% and 278 Rs is 25% lesser of Rs 371]

What I have done is ensured that my loss at the maximum will be 7 * (371-316) + 4 * (371-297) + 3 * (371-278) = 960 Rs (i.e 7*55 + 4 * 74 + 3 * 93 = 385+296+279). Great. At the worst scenario our total loss in the trade would be 960 Rs + Agent's comission. That is just fine. But how does the entire process of stop loss order takes place.
We place the stop loss order using our broker (person, by phone or through internet). Once the price of the stock for which we placed the stop loss order reaches or falls below the price that we indicated in the order then the order gets executed and the shares mentioned in the order or sold to the market at the current rate. This is known by the term that we have been stopped out. The same happens for the subsequent orders. It might also happen that Wipro might fall to 316, stopping us out of the first order and continue to fall till 300, but then it might climb back to 450 (who knows what might happen), in that case we would have sold 7 shares at 316 but we still have 7 more shares and with the price at 450 it means that we now have a profit of (450-371)*7 = 553, just with the 7 shares left. But we have incurred a loss of 385 already in selling the other 7 shares by way of stop loss. Net effect is that we have a 553-385 = 168 profit at hand. Not bad. But you might ask, if Wipro is capable of coming back then why sell the 7 shares at 316, why not wait. That is where the danger lies. You might Wait.. Wait and Wait for ever and Wipro might never come back or worse still it might continue to go down and bite the dust.
So stop loss is just that 'Stop your loss - before it gets too bad'. The example we have taken is very trivial, but consider thousands of rupees at stake and you know its importance. To close this lesson let me tell you the funiest thing that people do when the price of their stock falls. Many people instead of stopping their loss, actually make it worse by buying more shares at the falling price. A few more think that long term investing means they can buy the shares and keep it with them without selling come what may. In the next lesson you will know why both of them are kicked out of the stock market as beggers.

Yet another Vijay film. But there is one thing surprising about him. He manages to create an interest in his films even though there is nothing much that changes between films except the heroines. Asin replaces Trisha for the 'Kuthu' dances and comedy. She has done very well., especially in the latter. There is quite some 'Mother & Sister' Sentiments, more so in the second half of the film.

But the film has many positives. For one thing there is a lot of comedy and it is like a happy-go-watch film. But you will have to bear with some sentimental touch. It also is a kind of comdy-revenge film and you will laugh for your money's worth. Another family entertainer from Vijay and will be a hit equal to 'Gilli'. In fact it is Perarasu who has directed the film and he has written some songs too like 'Vadumanga uroothungo'. 'Thayikku inga Maru vezhama' is another sad melody that will be popular.

Story: Nothing much. Vijay is a rowdy orphan or that is what he says to everyone. Asin is a daughter of a rich dad :)  They fall in love. In a misunderstanding between them, Asin says that you got to have family to know about love and then says Vijay 'I am no orphan. I have a family' and so on.. It is Vijay who makes the feeble story line stand tall and no doubt that the entire screenplay is tailor made for him. But he does very well.

Rating :: 68/100 (Same as Gilli) 

A very different story. If you had been expecting some College rowdies, useless songs and ragging, students threatening  lecturers in this 'College Movie' you will be in for a surprise. The film is very different from that.
It is quite serious and worth watching. Arya has done quite well in this movie and so has Sonia agarwal. All old classmates plan to meet after a few years at a single place. Arya one of them comes there buy is mentally challenged due to some incident. His friends try to revive him and on the advice of the doctor, they try to re-establish the same surroundings that they had when they had studied together. So they go to the college, repaint it, call the old students from all over and try to set up a stage for Arya to be cured. Their attempts are very interesting and that is what makes the film watchable. Though quite slow, the screenplay is worth it. I did not quite approve of the climax myself, but you that is just me. Overall a watchable film and quite different one too.

Rating :: 68/100 

It was one of the most anticipated movie by experts of the film industry and it did not fail to impress. The movie is a must see and you will not regret having seen it. The movie starts off at full speed and you start to long that the tempo should be maintained till the end of the film. The first half goes with the same tempo and you are now hoping and even praying that the second half does not slow down. It doesn't but at the middle of the second half the film slows down, rather it becomes very cinematic and that goes down till the climax.
Surya has done exceedingly well in his characterization of 'Sanjay Ramaswamy', as a high profile, rich businessman. Equally great has been the performance of 'Asin' in her role. The duo brighten every scene and set the film ablaze. Nayantara is ugly and has a terrible role and one much more terrible item number. Nayantara please stop this or else you will be exiting tamil film industry much sooner that you think. Songs are great especially 'Oru Maalai ila veyil neram' is excellent.
Jokes are not inserted into (patched) but integrated with the film. I am not even giving a hint of the story as it might shorten your excitement when you see the movie. Overall a through hit for Surya, Asin and director Murugadoss (Ramana Fame)

Rating :: 70/100 Changed from 77/100 after reading the comment from ga_woo

Another Fazil film. The good thing about the film is that it is very decent. You can sit with you family and enjoy an evening show of this film. The bad thing is that it is quite slow like other Fazil films, but fortunately Srikanth and Sonia Agarwal have done well. The film starts with the usual theme of a good active hero and a playful heroine. The heroine challenges the hero at one stage that she will make him love her. Hero accepts it wanting to teach her a lesson but ends up in love with her. For some unknown reason the hero and his mother feel that the hero should raise to a level in life before he marries her and the hero goes about doing it by cleaning his house and looking for old scribes containing information on ayurvedic treatment (What a hard work!!). The Fazil touch is present in the climax, though nothing like the 'Kathalukku Mariyathai' Fazil has tried his best to get atleast a part of the emotions. The film is more of an artwork than a commercial one but as I said, your family will love to watch it.

Rating :: 65/100