Priorities?

Although most SEO tips out there need to be taken with a pinch of salt, most search engines (and people) think of your page title as a one line summary of your page. It's amusing to see our "national" dailies scrambling over to primarily associate themselves with cricket, Bollywood, and suchlike. Sample it for yourself...

Hindustan Times wants to associate itself with the "Latest news on India,Cricket,Bollywood & Business"

Times of India wants to associate itself with "Breaking news, views, reviews, cricket from across India."

View the source and look at the meta tags...

Hindustan Times has "Vir Sanghvi" up there in the list of it's meta tags! WTF?

And, as expected: "ht,hindustan times, aaj tak, rediff, indian express, zee, ndtv, indya, star tv" in the meta tags of the Times of India!

Actually this is not something new -- lots of companies bid for it's competitor's AdWords. Till some time back, a Google search on MakeMyTrip would give a Yatra ad on the top, a search on Yatra would give a Cleartrip ad on top, and a search on Cleartrip would give a Yatra ad on top (or some other combination like that)!

Runaway Alarm Clocks

It seems my long lost "mad scientist" twin brother has been inventing gadgets that I desperately need. He also seems to be getting a lot of Slashdot coverage, somethingh which I can only dream of. What a pity!

With alarm clocks running all over the place they would soon need "toll" booths for them. Heh!

Btw -- is there a patent for this thing?

Crossword-Ware

Last night I was solving day before yesterday's crossword (can't wait for a day to see the solution!) and figured out a 7 letter uber cool "across" word. The next 60 minutes were spent trying to force fit a whole bunch of "down" clues to the 7 letters I had already put in there.

Frustrated, I picked up yesterday's newspaper (I was solving day before yesterday's crossword, remember?) to glance through the solution, only to realize how completely wrong I was with my uber cool word.

It just reminded me how often we do this in software. Get one big module/component of the entire solution working and try to force fit all the other pieces around it. Gleefully ignoring the fact that the central piece, though ostensibly correct, may be the culprit holding up the entire process.

Thus, I coin a new term "Crossword-Ware". You heard it here, first.

Review: Bheja Fry

I was going to write a glowing review about Bheja Fry, but then I read Rashmi's post , and came to know that it's been copied from a French film - "Le Dîner de cons"

Now, I'm a sucker for originality. When people were raving about Chachi 420 (Kamal Hasan's take on Mrs. Doubtfire), I was pissed that it was "inspired" from a Hollywood flick.

And after laughing my ass off for two hours last night, I don't like the fact that Bheja Fry is a "remake."

Anyways, that doesn't take away the fact that everyone's acted amazingly well. Vinay Pathak steals the show, but Rajat Kapoor also rocks. However, Ranveer Shorey was a tad wasted with that forced look on his face. What was the director thinking?

I'm sure no one will be able to pull off such a good comic character in the coming year. If Vinay Pathak doesn't get an award for this role, film awards pe jo thoda vishwaas hai, woh bhi uth jaayega!

"Dauda Dauda Bhaga Bhaga Sa" by Juhi Babbar

Went to see this play yesterday at Prithvi Theater. Hilarious! And the most interesting part was, even when I was laughing to the comic stuff going on in front of me, I was well aware of the fact that had this been in a movie, I would be pulling my hair out in sheer frustration. But the spontaneity and "liveness" (just invented this for the want of a better word) -- was keeping the audience in splits.

And not to forget a freak incident at the beginning of the play. A lively Juhi Babbar comes hopping (literally) on to the stage and greets the people with an irritably lively hello, and all. She repeatedly asks the audience to switch off their mobile phones and leaves. Suddenly a phone whimpers a stupid ring tone from somewhere. Juhi comes stomping back shouting

Juhi: Who was that?
The lights are switched back on rudely. She points out a lady who's trying to switch off her cellphone.
Lady: I'm putting it on vibration.
Juhi: No ma'am. Please switch it off.
Lady (visibly irritated): I'm putting it on vibration!
Juhi: Can you guarantee that when it vibrates inside your bag and makes a buzzing sound it won't disturb others in my audience?
Lady (shouting now): What do you mean? You want me to write it on a stamp paper or something?
Her friends start getting up with murmurs of "how rude" and "what the fuck" and related stuff.
Juhi: Yes. If you can do that.
Lady: This is shit! (etc.etc.)
Juhi: Please leave the hall RIGHT NOW!
Lady (now leaving the hall): I don't want to watch your play. I want my money back.
Juhi (shouting out to the staff): Ramu Kaka (that's not what she said -- but what the heck!) Inke paise abhi waapas kar do!

And the lady with her two friends leave the hall only to appear on the stage! One of the best April Fool jokes I've seen in the recent past! And what a way to liven up the audience and start a laugh riot of a play!

And talking of April Fool pranks, GMail Paper from the gods! The "it's not even funny" part is that Google is a company which can actually pull off something like that! Rock on!