I supported earth hour today...

Well partially... I am composing this blog during earth hour. I remembered about earth hour when my mom reminded me of it at 8.20PM on March 29, 2008. I am proud to support earth hour and I wish this would bring more awareness to people around the world of the impending effects of global warming. I am hoping to set a reminder next year so I could support it fully..

Finally, One stop flight to Chennai, India from SFO...

Three cheers to Cathay pacific for introducing a direct flight from Hong Kong to Chennai starting June 2nd 2008. Today, there is no way to get to Chennai, India from San Francisco in less than 2 stopovers. With the introduction of this direct flight from Hong Kong to Chennai, Cathay Pacific has finally won the hearts of thousands of Chennai going folks like me. Even though I have to wait at Hong Kong for about 4 hours to catch my connecting flight to Chennai, this is a boon to travelers like me who had to go through multiple airports before reaching our final destination. Initially, the Hong Kong-Chennai flight runs only 4 days a week but I am sure this will be made a daily flight given the traffic to this buzzing Indian metropolis.

A Tamil stage play by "The Avatars"...

I recently came to know about this very talented group called "The Avatars" who are gearing up to an upcoming production of a comedy stage show in tamil called "Ninaithale Nadakkum"(Think and it will happen). This is the first time I will be watching their stage show but I am very much acquainted with the crew behind this show. "The Avatars" is a brainchild of Mani Ram who is a multi-talented personality with a passion for dance, acting, story writing, screenplay and direction. In this latest venture, Mani is writing the script and directing a cast of very talented individuals who are making sure that the audience should come watch the show for their talent and creativity and not because they were driven by guilt to buy the tickets with a promise of their contribution going to a non-profit organization.
The acting crew consists of multi-faceted individuals who have already been part of many such theatrical shows in the past. They have gained the respect and admiration of many such audiences with their amazing talent and timing which I believe is a key requirement in such comedy productions.
This upcoming show not only has a talented crew of actors, it also has a highly skilled veteran backstage production crew that has produced the backdrop and sets for a variety of dance and drama stage shows around the country. So the audience can be guaranteed to be awed by not only by the content of the show but also by its very professional theatrical production. This show seems to have a single motive to entertain the audience from start to finish. From the bits and pieces I have heard so far about this show, it is surely creating a lot of interest in me to go watch the show. I will have to be honest and say that I am not a big theater person. I am hoping that this show turns me around and lives up to its expectations.
For "Ninaithale Nadakkum", Mani seems to have come up with a brilliant script with some surprising climax. I was even advised that this will probably be the first time, I would see such an ending for a comedy show. From what I have seen and heard in the past few weeks, I am eagerly looking forward for the show on March 29th and 30th. Details on the timings and venue of the show can be found here.

Google Reader enhancements...

I love it when they make enhancements to Google Reader. This is my primary source for tech news and blogs and use the keyboard shortcuts quite a bit to browse through the feeds. One of my gripe was not being able to "tab" to the "Send" button when sending out an email from the Google Reader. I use this feature quite a bit and I was relieved to see that they fixed this in their latest enhancement release. They also have a "Show Details" link for each feed where we can get the details on the number of feeds published per week and the number of subscribers for the feed. Looking for some more cool feature enhancements in the near future.

When did an iPhone sell for $599?

This is a screen shot from the online Apple store taken today. I am wondering when did the original price of an 8GB iPhone was $599 ever? The website also claims that we get a 42% off original price for this refurbished item. A new 8GB iPhone today costs $399. So I am wondering how can one save 42% when the refurbished cost for the same 8GB iPhone is $349.
Here is a screen shot for a new 8GB iPhone on the Apple store website for today. Now I am not sure what kind of a marketing technique is this.