Ajay - On the Road called Life!

Add to Feed is a WordPress feed enhancement plugin.

As of now, Add to Feed allows you to add a copyright notice to your feed. Besides this, you can also add custom text / HTML to your feed. This can be added before and / or after your post content.

Add to Feed is still a major work in progress and I plan on adding features to the plugin to help enhance your feed still further.

What features would you like to see? Comment below.

Read more about Add to Feed or download it from WordPress Plugin Repository.

Considering the “cheery” spirit this year, top financial consultants have composed a new Christmas carol below.

To be sung to the tune of “Santa Claus is coming to Town”

You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better keep cash
I’m telling you why:
Recession is coming to town.

It’s hitting you once,
It’s hitting you twice
It doesn’t care if you’ve been careful and wise
Recession is coming to town

It’s worthless if you’ve got shares
It’s worthless if you’ve got bonds
It’s safe when you’ve got cash in hand
So keep cash for goodness sake, HEY

You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better keep cash
I’m telling you why:
Recession is coming to town!

Finance products are confusing
Finance products are so vague
The banks make you bear the cost of risk
So keep out for goodness sake, OH

You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better keep cash
I’m telling you why:
Recession is coming to town.

I’ve released a minor upgrade to WP-Niceforms that fixes a few bugs. I’ve also modified the stylesheet for better compatibility with WordPress themes.

I’ve pleased to note that the last two days has already seen over a 100 downloads.

Are you using WP-Niceforms on your blog? Tell me about it?

Read more about WP-Niceforms or download the plugin from WP Extend.

Niceforms is a script that will replace the most commonly used form elements with custom designed ones. You can either use the default theme that is provided or you can even develop your own look with minimal effort.

WP-Niceforms provides a one-click installation of Niceforms on your WordPress blog. The default theme has been optimized for usage with WordPress.

Read more about WP-Niceforms or download the plugin from WP Extend.

The last time we had a major terror incident in Mumbai was when the bombs rocked the train in Mumbai in 2006. Mumbai is no stranger to violence when in 1993, we were hit by a series of blasts all across the city.

However, this time things are different. I reached home at around 10.30 last night after having dinner at Dynasty with Marise. She informed me off a shooting incident at Leopold in Colaba. I switched on the news to read about the incident and within the next hour realized that it wasn’t just a stray firing but what would turn out to be a full fledged terror attack.

It started off with Cafe Leopold at about 9.30pm and then the Taj Mahal hotel, Hotel Trident, CST Station, Vile Parle, Mazegoan, Cama Hospital and Jewish Headquarters. Read the Terror Roundup on IBNLive.

Incidently, I passed Vile Parle about an hour, if not less, before the blast hit. The taxi blew up below the flyover I had passed over.

The terrorists have taken people hostage at Taj Mahal Hotel, Hotel Trident as well as at Nariman House. Reports currently state that the hostage situation at Taj is resolved, though there are still several persons trapped in the building and it is believed that six terrorists are at large.

The last time we saw such an hostage situation was on Indian Airlines Flight 814 on Christmas Eve 1999.

Reported casualties are 101 killed and several hundred injured, including Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare, Additional Commissioner Ashok Kamte, encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and several police officials. However, I’m sure this is not the final count as police are continuing to find bodies in the hotels.

You can check out some photos of the attack on IBNLive.com or view their Live Streaming.

A young boy had just gotten his driver’s permit and enquired of his father, if they could discuss his use of the car. His father said, “I’ll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up from a C to a B average, study your Bible a little, get your hair cut and we’ll talk about the car.”

Well, the boy thought about that for a moment, and settle for the offer, and they agreed on it. After about six weeks they went in to the study, where his father said, “Son, I’ve been real proud. You’ve brought your grades up, and I’ve observed that you have been studying your Bible, and participating a lot more in the Bible study groups. But, I’m real disappointed, since you haven’t gotten your hair cut.”

The young man paused a moment, and then said, “You know, Dad, I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve noticed in my studies of the Bible that Samson had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, Moses had long hair and there’s even a strong argument that Jesus had long hair also.”

To this his father replied, “Did you also notice they all walked everywhere they went?”

The current financial crisis has definitely all of us worried irrespective of our specializations. We had HSBC CIBM, Bangalore on campus.

They came in early and gave us a presentation detailing the job profile and compensation. They had openings for Equity Research and Investment Banking. The first part of their process was conducting the aptitude test. We had 30 questions of finance, five of quant, five synonymns and ten of data interpretation type questions.

Gave the test my best shot and it paid out when I made it through to the next round of group discussions.

If there is one thing I think that should be eliminated from a selection process is the group discussion round, however the folks from HSBC made it extremely clear that they were looking for a discussion not a debate. Yours truly was able to put in one statement during the entire GD. The statement did make an impact because, to my surprise, I made it to the Interview round, along with twelve others.

My interview was conducted by two persons from the Investment Banking division and it was the last of all the interviews, which meant a slow patient wait.

The results were out rather quickly and hey! Surprise! I was selected for the Investment Banking division

For truly, nothing is impossible with God! Reminded me of my Larsen and Toubro Interview where I got placed in the first company that I applied to.

Akshat had got placed on Sunday, or more like early Monday morning and so the two of us took Aditya, Namrata and Sneha out for dinner to Kiva, The Lounge. Here are some photos from the dinner.

Will get the remaining photos soon. We got back post 11.30 and after finishing my regular blog posts dropped off to bed.

Woke up early this morning to catch the Volvo back to Mumbai. I caught a Dadar Volvo (the first one there0 from Wakad itself, followed by a train to Andheri and a bus back home. Ordered pizzas from Garcia’s for lunch. Hadn’t got much sleep the previous night and so crashed peacefully for a few hours.

I plan on going back to Pune on Monday.

This site has retained this template for a long long time now. Well, it’s time for a change and I’m keen to do so asap.

And, who best to ask that all my loyal readers. So, what would you like to see. What color combination would you prefer? A dark font on light background or a light font on dark background?

What about colors? Greys, blues, greens or…?

Do you have any themes in mind that I may use as a base?

What features would you like to see on this blog?

Am open to all kinds of suggestions. So please keep them coming. I hope to get the changes in place over the course of the next month.

Fourth semester at SCMHRD is one of the most relaxed semesters. We have Neev just around the corner and so I am relatively free. Decided to go to church today. Maria was pleased since she has been after me to do so for a long long time! Am sure my Mom too was pleased.

Today was the feast of Christ the King as well as it happens to be my brother’s birthday. The feast of Christ the King marks the end of the liturgical year. This is usually a big event in my church back in Mumbai. Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. I can finally start playing some Christmas carols

We took the 5.05pm bus to Atur Center and then went to the Food Bazaar at Pune Central to pick up some eatables and other essentials.

Mass at St. Anthony’s in Model Colony was over an hour. However, it was filled with singing, something that I haven’t indulged in a long time.

Met quite a few other Catholics of SCMHRD of both the juniors and senior batch who landed up for mass today.

Caught the 8pm bus back to the campus and grabbed a simple dinner of double full fried eggs in the cafeteria.

We have a company on campus tomorrow morning. Have to attend the pre-placement talks before I decide if I should signup with them or not.

Wish me the best of luck. Will provide details tomorrow or day after. I plan on going home on Tuesday since the rest of the week is relatively free. Also have to pickup my final installment demand draft.

A few years back I registered www.isenthis.com with the intention of creating a greetings site. Well, since the past few years it has existed as that.

It’s time for an update and I’m looking for any kind of suggestions about what I should do with that domain.

I’m open to all kinds of suggestions. This should be something that I can work on myself with my limited programing knowledge

So, what do you think?