http://worldwidehelp.blogspot.com Stravinsky's Sizzlin' Shack

Stravinsky's Sizzlin' Shack

emotional, eccentric & exciting ...




When words fail.. pictures don't..


Is it blogger's bloc, or life's love getting in the way? Not quite figured that one out yet, but moods vary just like the weather does. Been raining over here for the past week, usual traffic jams, an orchestra of award-winning horns. and the rush of it all. Getting away can be nice, so i point and shoot what i see. Moods, storms, the moments afterwards...








Loved the natural patter of rain drops teasing the glass gently, constant probes of tickling vibes trickling down the panes.



The incomplete world trade center and it's twin towers standing abreast after the storm has passed and beauty in the sky.


The HSBC sinage messed up the picture of the sunset and the rays peeping out.

But i enjoyed taking in the sights of motivation (land) sailing along with depression (clouds) while meeting up with self-actualization, a point one would always dream about, but is it just a dream?



rejection rocks at times... and sometimes desperation sets in, what W/we do in non-existience is pure emotional bliss. Getting lost in the crowd is all too easy and getting out doesn't make much sense..


Something so beautiful, yet so sad


Life! Have been spending some time with a couple lately, a husband and wife, very loving, down to earth folks with generous souls.. always wanting to give. The other day i was over at their appartment, just getting ready to get out for dinner and we just got around to talking about opportunities. They come, they go, some are exciting, some aren't.

And then the wifey got irked a bit because her hubby kept trusting everyone way too much than they really deserved that he kept getting taken advantage of, the hubby just shrugged it off for it was his way of life. So this lady would do anything to meet ends, but her love didn't want her to, two extremes as some have it in their book, from Forbes to Google, but here was soemthing very touching, trying to make ends meet by doing whatever it takes from killing one's self to selling your artisitic concepts away to predators while another misunderstood her motives.... so innocent, so heart-warming, yet all they both wanted to do was to keep each other happy in whatever way they could. Moments of bliss that they would spend together, a loving peck on her cheek, a tight squeeze of his hand and the times their eyes would wash away the pain in this world.

Life is so sad, yet so beautiful.

Dependance is easy to grow into, escaping into something like another state or sub space is all too great an emotional mind fuck, now i wonder whether they both are the same in their own disguises...


Our Journey...


she never intended to make such a journey in the beginning. They met purely by accident, and she became familiar with Her ways, becoming interested as a moth to a flame so she tagged along. To maybe be lucky enough to find friendship and acceptance for being who she were, but the longer she followed Her things began to change, She showed her a world he had never been part of, one of darkness, acceptance and the ability to be human and to feel as individual as she needed to be. she believes in the darkness of human nature where she has found a small flicker of light that she wants to kindle into a fire.


... it has been some time since i blogged here. i've not left here to die out but a break that was really needed while time took it's course. Life is just so beautiful when W/we let go.


Thank You Dina, Nancy & Neha!


Unoffical Kosmix Plugins for New Verticals


Kosmix which is an up and coming search engine focused on niche markets, is an interesting player to keep watching because they keep releasing nifty search verticals based on some reliable algorithms. They started out with Travel, U.S Politics & Health and quite recently they've silently expanded last month to include Video Games and Finance. The smart kookies behind Kosmix are Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaram who are graduates (PhD gaga!) of Stanford University and they're the same guys who were considering on buying Google when it first appeared in the late 90's. If you're interested in getting to know the juice behind Kosmix and it's freshness, you should definintely listen to Kamla Bhatt's podcast show with Venky done a few months ago and get to know Kosmix straight from the horse's mouth!




According to a blog posting at Silicon Beat, the dazzling folks at Kosmix have raised $7.4 million (USD) in funding thanks to Accel and Lightspeed Venture Partners, increasing the total amount of funding for Kosmix to $25.7 million, nearing the same mark by Google way back then. It's also interesting to note that Accel have pumped $11.5 million into Kayak who's seems a likely Kosmix competitor and the best travel search engine according to Mark Johnson who's a product manager at Kosmix. But despite all the glitz and glamour, Kosmix still haven't launched the new plugins at their labs for the new verticals, Video Games and Finance. So I've taken the opportunity to do a bit of tweaking this morning and have come up with unoffical plugins for the new verticals over here. And as this press release rightly states, Kosmix is now powering Gazerk which is the new game site launched by the Ziff Davis Media Game Group.




Being an early fan of Kosmix, I'm disappointed that they don't put more power into pushing out related plugins and extensions at their labs, and it's high time that they get their official blog kicked off! Anyone listening at Kosmix? (hope so :-) Your fan base is waiting ... All your Kosmix belong to us!


Google Opening a Middle East Regional Office!


Most of us Google fans in the Middle East and much of the Arab world always thought that Google would be launching their regional office in Dubai, but the leader in the search engine industry worldwide has looked way past the hyped-gorgeous city of buildings and have decided to base their Middle East regional office in Egypt. Google Israel already has a RnD lab for the region in Haifa and it looks like their marketing and sales operations for the rest of the Middle East will be located in Cairo.




According to some sources, a few months ago, Google Egypt hired a Country Manager (Sherif Iskander -- mentioned here) who also serves as a regional manager and is now looking around for suitable candidates to fill the posts of Associate Product Marketing Manager and Product Marketing Manager. An unofficial Google page at Wikia.com details why Google should choose Egypt as their Middle Eastern base for regional operations and at the Wiki's talk page, someone also notes the hiring of the regional manager for the Middle East and points to the vaccant positions. BrandRepublic's latest take on Google selling their stake in China's leader in the Search Engine Industry -- Baidu, also confirms that Google is expanding their operations in the Middle East and North Africa while another tagline in the same article states that:

"Google is set to challenge any government approach to censor its search results in the Middle East and Africa"

It seems that although the official Google jobs site lists the vacancy for a product marketing manager for their office in Egypt, the listing fails to mention that posting may require travel between London and Cairo, the same job posted on monster.com states that the job is located in London although it is for Google Egypt. I'm guessing here, but I think that Google is planning on pushing Arabized/localized versions of their enterprise solutions like the OneBox & Google Earth. One of the reasons as to why Google might have chosen Egypt for their Middle Eastern regional office over Dubai, is since Yahoo already has a footing in terms of advertising sales & marketing operations for the region over at Dubai's Internet City.

And it's also fascinating to note that, Egypt were recently the center of a Google Bombing campaign initiated by the Eqyptian blogosphere and supported by many editors and authors at Global Voices Online in a move to free a detained Egyptian Blogger -- Alaa Ahmed Seif al-Islam, Alaa was released from prison late last night after being held for 46 days by Egyptian Authorities for taking part in a protest.


These are no doubt some interesting times where Google decides to launch themsleves in the Middle East :-)



 
 



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