Views, News and Cheers!
The Shell fuel station (petrol pump) near Saradhi Studios is very popular about a year ago, for its quality of fuel and for its service. However, a few months ago, they stopped selling regular unleaded petrol (87 octane) and sold only premium unleaded. So I stopped going there.
This week, I noticed a new signboard stating the reintroduction of regular unleaded petrol. Today I went to the fuel station again after a long time. It is back to a better premises after a long time. Back to Shell!
Spurthi, Surya and myself went to 23rd annual Hyderabad Book Fair on Wednesday (24th) evening. With a week and half in holidays ahead of them, we wanted to pick up a few books. We could find no great collection in the fair. All the stalls features more or less the same items we see in any of the book stores. However, searching through the used book collection was fun. Brought a few books and CDs during the evening. For snacks, we went to a Chaat place in the premises.
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The Hyderabad 10K Run & Half Marathon this morning is a huge success. I was a little tired during the previous week and wanted to skip the event, but Spurthi expressed strong interest on the previous night. So I did a last minute registration for Spurthi, Surya and myself. Surya opted out of the event though. Here is our gear check on the previous night.
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| From 10krun2008 |
The traditional Health & Fitness theme of Hyderabad 10K Runs of the past took a turn towards Patriotism this year. The Hyderabadis’ solidarity with Mumbaikars and rest of the country during the tough times is very evident in acts and words of the gathering. Such a good turnout to a public event within days of Mumbai attacks means people want to show their unity and they don’t get deterred by acts intended to induce fear. Here is an example:
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| From 10krun2008 |
With the streets full of people, the run turned out to be a walk rather. It took us a bit more than 2 hours to complete the 10K distance. A very pleasant and meaningful morning indeed!
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| 10krun2008 |
The last couple of days saw untimely rains in Hyderabad and rest of Andhra Pradesh. The coastal region of the state received huge rain fall due to this cyclone, which impacted the crops that are ripe for cutting. I am sure rice growers in coastal Andhra are going to face huge losses because of this cyclone.
The life in the city is not much impacted over the weekend, but today is for sure is going to be a messy day. Wet pavements, clogged water and potholes on certain roads are going to impact the commute. Hope the bad weather clears off soon.
Last week, I started full throttle on Seetaphal and Haleem. This year, I got haleem only from Hyderabad House. There is an outlest just about a mile from my home, so it is very easy to get a take away. So this good season is going to last just a few more days. Let me make the best out of it.
Today I saw full page color advertisements of newly launched BigTV in the newspapers. Later, during my commute to work, I listened to these old jokes (why men are like TV and why women are like TV) morphed into radio commercials for this service. Out of sheer curiosity, I visited their website and tried to check the details of their channel offers.
First of all, the website is very badly designed. It won’t render well in browsers other than IE. For example, the dynamic content won’t show up in Firefox, so you will keep on pressing some buttons to see nothing changing, and may be frustrated. Even in IE, it takes a bit to navigate to the packs and options. The channel choices are good in numbers, but not in the variety of channels you would get. For example, I couldn’t find any pack that offers me Maa TV in Telugu. The more I try, more I find the website to be down frequently.
This is not a good sign for a franchise that spent so much money on the hype and so less on providing the basic information on the service. Also, there are more choices and less content in the offerings. That makes it tough for this service to reach the masses, especially in South India (which has diverse set of TV channel options and needs).
I am out of town and looks like I am missing lot of fun. Here is the review of the new Adlabs multiplex on Idlebrain.com. This place is about a mile and half from my home. More movies, more fun.
There is a job fair in Hitex Convention Center in Hyderabad from 10.00am to 5.00pm today and tomorrow. Don’t forget to visit NetEnrich there and drop in your resume. If you are a Solaris/Unix/Linux/Windows/Network Administrator and/or worked in infrastructure management related areas, this company is for you.
Got hold of the first day edition of Sakshi, the new Telugu newspaper. For those who don’t know, the paper is owned by son of the Chief Minister of Congress party led State Government. Here is a picture of the first day’s edition.
The first day edition looks good, but the news is more like a summary than a snapshot. The kind of news you expect in a weekly or fortnightly rather than a daily. May be because this is the first day and the editors want to sum up things.