Saturday, July 29, 2006

Hooked on Pandora

Ashlight introduced me to Pandora some time back, and although I was intrigued by it, I felt it was just too slow then.

Recently I gave it another try, and was instantly hooked, creating station after station based on songs from my all time fav playlists.

Its still slow (not sure whether this is Streamyx or Pandora's fault, I switched off my BT client and got no improvement), but finding unheard songs that you actually like was both exciting and addictive.

Hats off to whoever thought of this idea!

For those of you who are from the 80's generation - trying creating a station based on Kyrie (by Mr Mister). Just sit back and enjoy :)

Love At First Bite

After much bugging from my wife, I finally took her to Chiang Mai for a holiday two weeks ago. My good friend Matt was also in town, but I'll talk more about our adventures together later.

Some of you may know that I worked in Chiang Mai for a while two years ago. Back then, our Thai partner took a few lucky colleagues to this cake shop called Love At First Bite. Unfortunately, I was not one of them.

So, this time, with plenty of time on our hands, we departed from Suriwongse Hotel on foot in search of this holy grail of cheese cakes.

How was it? Well, have a look :)


What we didn't know was that not only do they make the most heavenly cheesecakes, they make excellent chicken pie as well. We went back for more two days later:-


For those of you planning to go to Chiang Mai and would like to find the place, just head to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) office across the Mae Ping River (5 minutes walk from Night Bazaar), then head north until you see a small lane just before a Christian school, turn right and its 50 metres down the road on your right.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

iCon

My good friend Simon bought me this book about the rise and fall, and rise again, of Steve Jobs last year as a birthday gift (thanks Simon!)

I started off reading the Ipod chapters, and its only lately that I backtracked to the earlier chapters about Steve's years in Apple. What I read brought back a lot of memories about how computers used to quicken my pulse and how I spent all my pocket money buying up computer magazines.

A lot of the stuff that we take for granted now did not exist in those days, and Steve, despite his flaws made the computer industry a better place by his sheer vision and energy.

However, till today I never owned an Apple product (althogh I did use the Mac a lot during my uni days). Maybe the time will come one day when I go for an Ipod.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Goodbye, Mr Sven

While watching the England-Ecuador match the other night, I remarked to a friend that one of the reasons I love to watch football are the parallels I could draw between it and the corporate world.

At the time of writing this, I suppose a lot of people are still in mourning over England's exit. But really, no one should be surprised that they have gone out. In fact, from the way they played, they should have left a round earlier.

And all this was due to the English FA's mistaken belief in a Swede. Sure, the players didn't play well. But those who follow the EPL would know what John Terry, Frank Lampard, et al are capable of. Those who have seen what Steven Gerard and Wayne Rooney have achieved know their true powers.

In Sven Eriksson, there has never been a more stark example of a manager who has negated his staff, who has in fact, brought them backwards rather than forward. Mr. Sven did not make full use of the resources at his disposal. He did not give them a clear goal and instructions on how to achieve that goal. On the field in Germany, the bewilderment of the players, the look of confusion on the players faces as they try to carry out their manager's half baked plan was almost painful to watch.

Contrast that with the arrogant Mourinho, who, despite having to deal with big egos at Chelsea, have managed to build a team that functions as a team. Week in, week out, the players know what is expected of them and they duly produced the goods.

Ditto for Wenger. Prior to his move Arsenal, Thierry Henry was an unappreciated player in Italy. But under the careful mentoring of Wenger he blossomed into one of the most feared forwards in the world.

If all these sounds familiar to you, that's because we probably have a Sven or a Wenger in our office, too :)

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