The FIFA World Cup 2010.... A dream come true!!!

It was in 2006 that I first went to onsite. To South Africa to be precise. It was the same year that South Africa was chosen to host the FIFA World Cup 2010. I never thought I would get to see a World Cup football match live; that too on my compay's expense :-).
And here I am now in South Africa; just for 3 weeks which align with the World Cup, writing this blog after the Finals. There was Paul the Octopus, which is making 100% accurate predictions & here was I always making the wrong predictions.
Japan vs. Paraguay, saw it live after much effort to get hold of tickets. And then the final in 3D at a local theatre. Bought an original Spain jersey dirt cheap before the Final match & Spain won. It cant get any better than this.
And I almost forgot. I got to hold the original FIFA trophy in my hands & I got myself photographed with it. (see my facebook profile) :-)
Enough of making people jealous. I will have to end this blog here.

Motorola Milestone... my first smartphone

Since long, i had a wish to own a smart phone. All along, these phones keep on coming in the market & I always said "They are too expensive". Let them be on the display shelf.
But 2 weeks back it all changed. I was roaming on F.C Road & entered a mobile shop. Was just having a look and noticed that Motorola had just launched a new smart phone, which promised to have everything in it that one may desire. Took a brochure of the phone & exited the shop as I always do :-)
For the next one week, the brochure just lied in front of me. The same thought in my mind "Its too expensive".
A week later I met my friend Heramb aka. The Devil :-) He had been thinking of replacing his current cell, which was now nothing more than a small hammer that one could use to hit someone.
I just mentioned to him about this Motorola phone & in the next one hour he convinced me that we both should buy it. Don't ask me how he convinced me.
Next day, voila... I had spent Rs. 26,600/- for Motorola Milestone... My first smart phone.
A week after using it, I have no regrets of spending so much money. In fact paisa vasool in just one week. :-)

The first hand review of this cell coming soon...

Cheese Omelet

Just recently, I managed to prepare a cheese omelet at my home, which to my surprise did not ooze the cheese out & stick it to the pan. It was just perfect to be transferred from the pan to the plate & ready to eat.

Hence, thought of sharing the recipe & the cooking procedure with you cheese omelet guys. So here goes:

Ingredients:

1. 2 eggs

2. Salt to taste

3. Pepper to taste

4. 1 Green Chilly

5. ¼ little finely chopped onion

6. Chopped coriander

7. 1 tbl spoon oil

Procedure:

1. Beat the 2 eggs in a bowl.

2. Add salt & pepper to the bowl & beat well.

3. Chop the green chilly & add it to the eggs.

4. Add the chopped onion & coriander. Finally beat the mixture well.

5. Break the cheddar cheese into small pieces. Crush each piece of the cheese between your fingers & add them to the beaten eggs.

6. Heat a flat pan (a Tava preferably) on medium heat. Add 1 tbl spoon of oil to the pan & then lower the heat to minimum (This is important, a cheese omelet cooks well only on minimum heat).

7. Pour the beaten eggs on the pan. Now cover the pan with a lid for a minute (If left covered for more than a minute, the cheese will completely melt & ooze out & then stick to the pan after you flip it. Bad luck thenJ).

8. Remove the lid & then flip the omelet. Let it turn brown on the other side. Make sure that the cheese does not leak out. If it does it means, you haven’t kept the heat to a minimum.

9. Once done, serve the omelet with toast, butter & ketchup. A perfectly unhealthy but the most tasteful breakfast is ready. Include orange juice with it if you can.

TIP: If done properly, you will never think of ever going again to Vahuman Café (in Pune ) for a cheese omelet.

The curious case of HP\Compaq Laptops & their Drivers

Just a few hours back I completed a mission which since the last few days was turning out to be a lost cause.
A dear friend of mine has a Compaq (owned by HP) laptop which did not come with any OS installed. He got Windows XP installed on it & started facing the problem of the hardware drivers not working. When I got an opportunity to try fixing this problem, I realized how big a cheat HP is.
It seems like every laptop model of HP is designed for a specific OS. It turns out this one was designed for Vista. The term "Designed for Vista" simply means HP gives driver support only for Vista OS. They don't have any drivers that's work for XP, and neither do they care to provide any. Lazy asses. Its left to the internal hardware manufacturers to have pity on the HP laptop owners & provide them with drivers.
Bottom-line:

• Every HP/Compaq laptop user has to actually google for every single driver needed to make the laptop running & then break his head over the sequence of driver installations.
• I had to format the laptop twice to get the sequence running. :-(
• Still the WiFi driver is not working :-(
  

To all those poor chaps who are facing such problems, contact me & may be able to give you the proper instructions on how to get around this problem.

Co-incidence or What!!

The Champions League T20 final; what an awesome event it has been so for. But no Indian team in the final. The only thing left to do was to hate the Australian team New South Wales Blues and naturally start supporting Trinidad & Tobago. What flair & style have we seen from them! Kieron Pollard, what a player!!

We missed the first innings when NSW was batting since we were in office. Only getting updates over the internet. How pleased we were to see NSW Blues being restricted to a modest total of 159 on the Hyderabad wicket.

We came home expecting it to be an easy going for T & T. Switched on the TV set & started encouraging T & T. Except for one person, my dear friend Neeraj. He seemed to be in different mood altogether.

Cut to the scene where Daren Ganga is on strike. Out of no where Neeraj declares that Ganga would be out the next ball. Ganga square cuts & gets caught!! As expected we curse Neeraj.

Few minutes later, Denesh Ramdin is on strike. Suddenly, there comes another announcement from Neeraj; Ramdin will be caught the next ball. And horror of horrors!! That’s what happens. We literally pounce on Neeraj & beat him up. We just enjoy the moment & dismiss this by saying; “What co-incidences. Neeraj should have bet on the betting sites.”

But things get real weird after this. A few balls after Ramdin is out, another announcement from Neeraj, “The batsman would hit a boundary.” And a straight drive for 4 it is. Now we are shocked. What’s happening? 3 out of 3 predictions correct!!

We try to forget and start enjoying Pollard’s batting. The match is nearing its end. Looks like the only hope for T & T is Pollard. And lo behold!! Another announcement from Neeraj that Pollard will be caught. No prizes to guess what happened. Pollard is caught at the boundary by Bret Lee.

We literally take off our chappals and throw it at Neeraj. We are now really angry at Neeraj & shocked at what is happening right now. But it does not end here. T & T are 9 down. Practically speaking there are no hopes they will win. They still need 41 to avoid defeat. Neeraj again speaks; “NSW Blues will win by 41 runs”.

The very next ball the batsman is caught out. NSW Blues do win by 41 runs!!!

We are all speechless!! Neeraj baba ki jai ho….

Motivation to Blog

Its been quite a while that I have not visited my blog. And this was pointed out by none other than the person who motivated me to start blogging; Mr. Pratik Beri.
This as you all might realize is really embarrassing. So while I am chatting with Pratik, I had to write something on my blog & try to prove Pratik that my blog is worth keeping on his reading list. :-)
So here's one post to suffice the need. I am now out of ideas on what to write. Till I can think of a topic, this is it.
Pratik, is this enough for you to keep my blog on your reading list?

Insight On Bookmyshow.com’s Revenue and Biz Model

This is something i read on www.watblog.com and was really impressed.
Thought this would be an interesting read for all.

Bookmyshow is growing at a 40% CAGR

Per month stats

• 7.5 million page views
• 1.5 million unique visitors
• 2 lakh transactions
• 6.5 lakh tickets sold

Avg transaction per person is about 3.4 tickets.

Now lets analyze the above numbers given the fact that bookmyshow can book to 200 multiplexes with about 800 screens across India.

Even if we take the average ticket amount to be 150 rupees (remember its a multiplex). Then the rough monthly transaction value if you calculate it comes up to about 10 crore or so a month (6.5 lakh x 150 per ticket).

But they obviously isn’t their revenues as most of it goes to the theatre owner. But bookmyshow charges a convenience charge of 15 rupees per ticket which is their revenue so in effect they make about 1 crore a month in gross revenue.

Now besides for the people expenses the other direct expense to this is the transaction fee charged by payment gateways which comes up to about 3 rupees. Hence one can say that their net revenue would be about 75 lakhs a month. That's about 9 crores a year.

Bookmyshow is one of the successes of e-commerce in India (besides for the obvious irctc). Even though the numbers are low they have gained huge market share as an aggregator and also because of the fact that they had pre-existing relationships with theatre owners due to their ERP solutions for movie tickets as Bigtree entertainment.

All in all this does suggest that there is immense scope in e-commerce provided you have the right business model and execution strategy in place.