Smart Ads

How much can you attract a mass of people in a matter of just thirty seconds? Now is seconds ever counted as a time slot? Nevertheless, isn’t that the time they give for the ads? Well yes - thirty seconds is all that these guys need to capture our attention and then to fall in love and finally shell out dollars and cents to buy the product. Ads are becoming smarter and more enjoyable nowadays - Hmmm - there are those which you might have wished that you had never seen, but this blog is all about their opposites – the smart ads.

A man runs fast and his friends are somewhere behind and we know not from where they are yelling and they say 'Man he has not even got the card out of his pocket - he is not going to make it'. The guy who is running uses his card in the Chase ATM and gets some money and runs back and gets into the car where his other mates were booing at him - He just withdrew those money from the 'most efficient' chase ATM before the signal turned to green!

And here is this girl calling her mom from the City of Lights - er - rather the Sin City - Vegas and says 'Guess what mom - Me and Mark are in Vegas' and the mom says 'So you are not going to get married Jen?' and Jen replies something and her poor poor mom is not able to hear her - poor connection, you see and so she becomes hysterical and shouts 'Jennifer, don’t make the same mistake that I made!' - And here is her daughter saying that it’s just a fun trip - just that we all, including Jenni's mom never hears it - So if you want a reliable communication go for XYZ.

Well there is this Tahitian dream ad from Wells Fargo for smart savings and the list goes on. One of my aunt even went from Brand S to Brand A only because of its good advertising campaign. Yet another aspect of advertising that always attracted me was the advertising slogans - Philips - Lets make things better and better still is 'Gods own country' - Kerala. Now who could not be attracted?

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The Runaway Jury

It has been a long time - a considerably long time since I had read a novel with such ardent interest. Way back in the time when I was a Sidney Sheldon fanatic, I had read novels without the need of food or sleep. Quite recently I came across such a novel - a novel that was a page turner. Though I did eat and sleep in between, the two evenings that I happened to read this novel was not marked with any other activities. It was the evenings when I was reading 'Runaway Jury' by the lawyer turned author John Grisham.

A couple of days before I started this novel, I was loitering in the Valley Fair Mall with the sheer intention of window shopping. As always, just like most window shopping turns out to be an actual shopping for me, this proved to be far from making an exception. I entered this lone book store in the mall for the first time and I was browsing thru the interesting section of old collections they had had. And then I saw it - And it just occurred that I hit the jackpot - a cart full of books and each book was valued for just a dollar.

Readers Digest comes up with a special edition that has a collection of condensed books that are considered to be the best novels. Although condensed, the book gave an impression that I did not miss a single plot. So there were 4 wonderful gems packed under one roof - with glossy cover, it even had a book mark attached with the cover that can be torn and used! How thoughtful! The first gem was The Runaway Jury.

The most heart warming part of this novel was the rational behind which a man and a woman (Easter and Marlee) decides to turn sides in a judgment and when explained by this woman, it just hits you back emotionally. It is a thriller no doubt from the beginning (which is something that I earned for ever since I nailed completing Sheldons works) but the root cause with which the thrill came attached with, made this novel a must read. Now with a author on board, I am all tied up to complete his works.

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The Boot Camp

Vitamins, Anti Oxidants, Diet, Body Mass Index and Whey Proteins are no longer throttled to the vocabulary of medical students, doctors or dieticians - The time has come - The time when every Tom, Dick and Harry have started to know the importance and significance of these words in their life. The time when high calorie consumption have fallen into those verboten arenas and is looked up as sin. It’s the time when treadmills in combination with MP3 players have become one of the favorite electronic equipments and has been voted as Made for each other.

It has been almost a month now, since Sarah replaced Megan to take up the position of our new gym instructor. And from day one we knew the fun will continue and so it did - in the form of two different classes that I attend - one being the Core Strength Related Exercises and the other The Boot Camp. Both these classes have their uniqueness - one involves in strength, stretch, lesser cardio and more muscle toning, while the other involves hard core cardio and believe it or not, cardio had never been this much fun.
As I said, the Boot Camp deals with cardio and our instructor comes with a whole load of innovative ideas that keeps the heart pumping up! I have been in a class of four, six and even two and depending on the number of participants; our instructor on the fly comes up with the apt interesting segments - which is what makes Boot Camp special. The segment varies each week and since variety being the spice of life, these aberrations prove to be fun.

The relay is my most favorite segment, where say if there are four people - each person stands in the corner of the room. One person starts to sprint lengthwise, and as long as the person sprints, the other three do their activities - one might be skipping, one might be doing squats and one might be even jogging in the same place! Each one gets the chance to dash and by the time the cycle completes - you would be aching for some rest!

Such activity loaded team exercises are the best form of exercises. With comments passing by, the instructor boosting the spirits – there is nothing like a group exercise and you get to know a different group of people who have atleast one thing in common with us – Exercise and Fitness. Anyone would get bored to do a treadmill all alone day after day! With ‘Ice Ice Baby’ banging in the background, I am getting ready for my 3PM Boot Camp on Wednesdays.

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Dinner in Deutschland

Dinner together is a concept that many families would love to incorporate in their home sweet home. It’s probably the time the family can sit and talk and enjoy their togetherness. For me it was not the dinner together - rather it was the breakfast together concept in the weekends. This trend continued after my marriage and there we were - mom, dad, Mrs. and self - enjoying the food and chatting.

The concept of having food together is something that I really love. It should obviously be implemented without switching on the idiot box for sure. Weeknights are never suitable for this dinner together concept. We all land up coming at different time and it’s so amazing even if two out of four people in a house have dinner together during the weekdays.

The dinner together concepts are being advertised in the televisions here at the US of A and dinner discussion ideas are being published in the website http://www.togetherfordinner.com/ - Communicating and spending time with the people we love is vital - I have known kids who tell their dads never speak with them as he is out working all the time. Despite the fact that the dads work for the welfare of the kids, it is also essential for him to spend time with the family - and dinner time and post dinner walk are those apt time for those lively conversations.

Very recently by friends Shruthi and Ram celebrated their paper anniversary and Karthik and I invited them for lunch - So for the first time during my stay as a 'Bachelor Again' in the US of A, we had guests for lunch and this lunch together was fun. We had spread all the dishes around us and we passed them from one end to another and ate to our stomach's satisfaction. If such a small get together could bring so much fun, then dinner with near and dear would definitely be heaven.

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