Sleep like a baby...

Sleep like a baby thats what i did yesterday. Ever observed a baby sleep with no worries about job, releases, testing or coding. All they worried is when they went the pants. Jokes apart I Slept for over 12 hours without any worries or hassles. I was dead tired from my trip to Chicago and Indianapolis and driving around for 10 hrs. It was the best sleep that i have had in over a year and half. I feel now that i have missed it for long time and its time i do it more often and thats what i am going to do.

QOTD

Quote of the day..

"When on Titanic, you love the life boats, you don't wait to scream at the Iceberg."

I heard this quote somewhere and it absolutely made sense. It was funny and so real.

Pink Floyd

I have been a Pink Floyd fan for a long time. I cannot sing or i do not remeber the lyrics like others except for a line or two here and there. But off late i have been listening to them day in day out. So i decided that i should make a small compilation on the bands story. So i started researching them on net and compiled this.

One of the most popular and successful rock bands of all time, linking three different eras in history. The '60s Floyd, led by singer/songwriter Syd Barrett, was a pioneering psychedelic band from Cambridge, England. The '70s Floyd, led by bassist Roger Waters and guitarist David Gilmour, recorded the high-tech art-rock classics Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall. Since Waters split bitterly in the early '80s, Pink Floyd has carried on as an oldies act, occasionally releasing new albums that nobody listens to.

Origin
The band originated in 1965 in Cambridge, England. Originally the band was formed by Roger Waters, Richard Wrights and Nick Mason. The band was originally named "Sigma 6". Not making any progress or success the band changed the name to "T-Sets". A few others joined the band on in 1965 and the band again re-branded itself as The "Abdads" and then again to "The Screaming abdads" and "The architectural abdads". Later the "Abdads" band split and it was again the "Sigma 6". Then Roger Syd Barret joined the band in 1966 and the band was christened "The Pink Floyd Sound" and later changed to "Pink Floyd".

Origin of the Name
The name Pink Floyd was coined from the combination of the names of American blues musicians Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

Original Members
The band’s original members were

Syd Barrett - guitar, vocals
Roger Waters - bass, guitar, vocals
Bob Close - guitar
Rick Wright - keyboards, wind instruments
Nick Mason - drums

In the year 1966 Bob Close left the band. The band recorded their first single "Arnold Layne", song about a transvestite who steals women’s cloths. The first album released was the "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn". They were scheduled for the tour of U.S.A., but Syd got very sick from being blasted on LSD (better know as acid). His LSD addiction helped his imagination to write songs, but around the time of "A Saucerful Of Secrets", his drug habits were out of control. By the end of 1967, They got a replacement for Syd in David Gilmour, an old friend of Roger and Syd's. David was recruited to cover for Syd on stage. If Syd were to make a mistake, David would fill the gap, and fix it which didn't work out well. They tried as hard as they could to keep Syd in the band, but his acid addiction took control of him and he went crazy. The band part syd and he was institutionalized for drug abuse in 1974. In 1968, the band continued on without Syd. During the time that Floyd was making Obscured By Clouds, they had written over 45-minute of songs that they played live, This was called Eclipse. It was mainly focused on society and how it alienates, controls, and destroys daily life. They turned it into an album in 1973, called Dark Side Of The Moon. It is the second highest selling rock record in history. To follow up the success of Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd released "Wish You Were Here" which was dedicated to original lyricist and guitar player Syd Barret.
During the recording of the album, Syd actually came to congratulate them on their success with Dark Side Of The Moon. At first they didn't recognize him because he had gained a lot of weight. After the success of Wish You Were Here, their new album Animals was release almost a year and half later. The album was based on the aristocratic and communist lifestyles in the world. Each type of person was loosely based on an animal. Dogs were the creepy rulers of industry, Pigs were the communist tyrants, Sheep were the common folk, always being brainlessly led by the Dogs and Pigs, and Pigs On The Wing was a love song that Roger wrote to his new wife, Carolyn, the niece of the Duke of York. In late 1978, a new project was released The Wall. November 30, 1979, The Wall is released in the UK, and the fans love it. December 5, 1979, The Wall is released in the US, and again, the fans love it. In 1982, Rick Wright left the band for good. Roger had plans to tour for the new album in November 1983, but because of tensions between each member, those plans were cancelled, and changed the name of the album to The Final Cut. In 1984, the band went their own seperate ways. In 1986, David Gilmour talked to Nick Mason about getting the band back together. This caused a major law suit. Roger Waters, sued David and Nick for the rights to the music, and the band name itself. Roger lost the case because Pink Floyd was never anything put into writing, but Roger was given the rights to perform Pink Floyd music at his concerts and was given ownership of The Wall and The Final Cut. In later 1986, Dave and Nick set made the new album, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason. Pink Floyd started recording in 1993 for their new album, The Division Bell. Richard Wright was finally back fully with the band. The band toured for 6 months. Pink Floyd released a live album and video on their Division Bell tour, both featured with live Dark Side Of The Moon. The band was successful once more.In 1996, Pink Floyd was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. Gilmour, Wright, and Mason performed Wish You Were Here with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins. Floyd has done no concerts since then, but made a new live album in 2000. The band made this live album from many different recordings from The Wall Shows of 1980 and 1981 in London's Earls Court and Los Angeles, with Roger Waters. In Late 2001, Pink Floyd including Roger Waters and Syd Barrett, with producer James Guthrie, made a new compilation album called Echoes. Although Floyd never did well with Compilations or greatest hits albums, this album was remastered as one continuous song like Dark Side Of The Moon, and did well in the charts.

Chronologically
September 6, 1944:	Roger Waters of Pink Floyd is born.
January 27, 1945:	Nick Mason of Pink Floyd is born.
July 28, 1945:	Rick Wright of Pink Floyd is born.
January 6, 1946:	Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd is born.
March 6, 1946:	Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour is born.
February 27, 1967:	Pink Floyd record their first single, "Arnold Layne" at Sound Techniques Studio in London. It reaches #20 on the British singles chart.
April 5, 1967:	"Piper at the Gates of Dawn," the debut album by "Pink Floyd" and the only one to feature Syd Barrett as bandleader—is released.
May 23, 1967:	"See Emily Play," Pink Floyd"s enchanting second single, is recorded. It reaches #6 on the British charts.
January 7, 1968:	David Gilmour is asked to join Pink Floyd, briefly making them a five-piece band.
April 6, 1968:	Syd Barrett"s departure from Pink Floyd is announced via press release.
October 24, 1970:	Pink Floyd"s "Atom Heart Mother" tops the UK chart. It reaches #55 in America and sets the stage for the breakthrough album "Meddle, Obscured by Clouds" and, of course, "Dark Side of the Moon."
February 17, 1972:	Pink Floyd premieres a new piece of music entitled "Eclipse" at London"s Rainbow Theater. It will evolve into the album "Dark Side of the Moon."
March 13, 1973:	"Dark Side of the Moon," by Pink Floyd, is released. It will reach #1 on April 28, log a record-breaking 741 weeks on Billboard"s Top 200 album chart, and sell more than 15 million copies in the US alone.
April 28, 1973:	Pink Floyd"s "Dark Side of the Moon" hits #1 in the US during a record-breaking 741-week US chart stretch.
September 12, 1975:	"Wish You Were Here," Pink Floyd"s long-awaited follow-up to "Dark Side of the Moon," is released. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," a side-long epic about their troubled ex-leader Syd Barrett, is its centerpiece.
January 23, 1977:	Pink Floyd releases "Animals," a bleak concept album that appears to have drawn on author George Orwell"s "Animal Farm" for inspiration.
December 15, 1979:	Pink Floyd releases their double-album epic, "The Wall." It stays at #1 for 15 weeks and has to date been certified 23 times platinum (signifying one million copies) in the US, making it the third best-selling album of all time.
March 22, 1980:	"Another Brick in the Wall," by Pink Floyd, tops the singles charts for the first of four weeks. It is their second and final Top Forty single in the US.
December 12, 1985:	Roger Waters formally notify Columbia and EMI Records that he is no longer a member of Pink Floyd.
October 31, 1986:	Roger Waters files suit to formally dissolve Pink Floyd, a legal battle that will drag on for years without deterring David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright from recording as Pink Floyd.
September 19, 1987:	A reunited Pink Floyd, minus Roger Waters, releases "A Momentary Lapse of Reason," their first studio album since 1984"s "The Final Cut."
April 23, 1994:	Pink Floyd release "The Division Bell," the fourth #1 album of their career. The ensuing live album "Pulse," which appears a year later, will become the fifth.
January 16, 1996:	Pink Floyd is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the eleventh annual induction dinner.
April 18, 2000:	The Wall Live: 1980-81," culled from Pink Floyd"s London performances of their all-time favorite work, is released.
July 7, 2006:	Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd passes away.

Compiled from :
http://classicrock.about.com
http://www.pinkfloydonline.com

Cheers,
Aj.

Office Space

Have you seen the movie Office Space?

The question is for each and every professional who sits in a 3x3 ft cubicles staring at the monitor 24hrs and 7 days a week. If you haven’t then you have missed a stunning and eye opener movie. The plot is hilarious, the characters are hysterical, and it's just a fun movie. If you hate your job want to feel at least a little better about it, this film is for you.

The movie was released in 1999, Second year in college. Movie was about a bunch of software engineers who hate their jobs, a manager, and couple of consultants the Bob's. It’s about life in a cubicle. The movie made a big buzz with the Y2K changes going on and the reviews were too good, didn’t hesitate to watch it. But then in second year of college, the only thing that hit me or was funny to me, was how they manipulate the banking software to steal money, screws up and the money ending up in hands of the dumb guy Milton Waddams played by Stephen Root. In college movie didn’t make any sense, not more than a bunch of guys trying to steal some money.

Then I watched it after joining an IT company. I watched it in the first year at work. All the cribbing and IT crap still didn’t make any sense, because I was thrilled of the first job. But a year later it all started making sense when I watched it again. Like when

Peter Gibbon Played by Ron Livingston says
“So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.”
Or like when the manager Bill Lumbergh played by Gary Cole says
“Yeah, um.. If you would just go ahead and come down to work on Saturday that would be great. Oh, oh, and I almost forgot. Ahh, I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too...”

You can correlate or assimilate each and every incident, each and every dialogue in the movie on a day to day basis in office.Even when Peter is flirting with the coffee joint lady Joanna played by Jennifer Aniston, where he tries to explain what he does
“Well see, they wrote all this bank software, and, uh, to save space, they used two digits for the date instead of four. So, like, 98 instead of 1998? Uh, so I go through these thousands of lines of code and, uh... it doesn't really matter.”.

“Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.”
Where he explains how many people he has to report to and how many are there to point finger.

The person who doesn’t do any work at all gets promoted and the others get fired, this correlates to when Bob gives his assessment report about Peter “I'd like to move us right along to a Peter Gibbons. Now we had a chance to meet this young man, and boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.”

Every day the thought comes to the mind to be like Peter to not go to work at all and go fishing, driving, drinking tequila, like the dialogue in the movie when one of the Bob’s (the consultants) says “Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately.” And Peter replies “I wouldn't say I've been *missing* it, Bob”. This would be a dream answer for me to say to any manager without losing Job.

If you love Dilbert comics, Office jokes, if you hate your job, feel stressed out from work, then take a break watch this movie. It’s a must watch for all professionals who work in a cubicle, staring the monitor 24x7.