Friday Rants
It’s been quite some time since I last recapped my week. Blogging started as a means to share my journal with a few of those who would care to read it. I do that very little these days. I wonder if I’m afraid to be openly honest about what goes on through my personal life in front of a larger audience than the few who cared to visit my journal when I first started.
Things aren’t the same anymore. What started as a reflection, rant, raving or highly opinionated takes of how I viewed things happening in and out of my life… has now turned more of a habit. Perhaps passion.
I admit my regular day job doesn’t excite me anymore. A job, which many would grab without any hesitation, if given the opportunity. I wonder if it’s the restlessness that makes me switch careers ever so often or that I subconsciously am realizing that writing gives me more satisfaction than a regular day job.
But writing in itself isn’t what brings in the satisfaction. It’s the approvals received from Desi Train’s readers. So if there wasn’t any approval, no visitors, no guests who dropped in to take a peek in this train… if none of this was there, would I still say writing gives me satisfaction? Would I still care less about my regular job?
To be honest I have no clue how bloggers give up their regular jobs and go blogging full time. They seem to be making quite a bunch of money. I have a hard time making a dollar a month via the ads! It beats me to see how bloggers can afford to go professional and be making millions.
Anyway there isn’t much about work to talk about. Except the new guy on my staff looks to be a freaky emotionally disturbed guy that I have to talk to a couple of times a day. Where is the recognition of value, of having a job in people today? It seems all those who value what they have find themselves out of the job, while those who have no care or value, have no problems… ever!
What else is new? MI : 3 is out and I may just go out and watch it this weekend. I didn’t like MI 2. I’m a fan of the first part. It was more cerebral mixed with just the right touch of sci-fi effects towards the end where the helicopter enters the tunnel. MI 2 turned out to be a huge disappointment for me. They had turned Ethan Hunt into a James Bond. The reviews so far suggest they may not have moved away from the damage done to Hunt’s character in MI 2.
Last two weeks were spent watching a whole load of movies on DVD. I was impressed by the talented actor Firdous Bamji in the movie The War Within. The movie is about a Pakistani (Ayad Akhtar) who is mistakenly kidnapped and put in a Pakistani jail on suspicion that he’s a terrorist. How the atrocities in jail turn him to become a terrorist, escape from jail, land in the US - is a brief outline of the story. Firdous Bamji, plays Akhtar’s friend in the US, completely unaware of Akhtar’s mission and quite content and happy living with his wife and kids in the US. The depth and sensitivity that Bamji brings to his character is remarkable and cannot be missed even by the sleepiest of eyes. It reminds me of Akash Khurana’s two minute role in Mahesh Bhatt’s Shashilal Nair’s Falak where Khurana performs the role so sensitively that it’s memory lingers on much after the movie ends. (Falak by the way is a way below average movie having way above average performances)
Anyway I hadn’t heard about Bamji before, and thanks to The War Within, it was a treat to see an actor I was watching for the first time, give a touching performance.
It’s my view that the pain in an artist’s life and the quality of his/her work are directly proportional to each other. I wonder why?
M is expected to call me this evening. He and I plan to go out to one of the newly opened clubs in the neighborhood. M can get wild. He also has the knack of starting a conversation without wasting a millisecond. In between two blinks he’s opened the lovely blonde bartender and is writing down her phone number. I wonder how he does that.
Saturday looks pretty much busy, except that I have to find time to complete a few more chapters on the MBA GANG. Planning to hit the beach on Sunday or just get lazy and read the 20 odd books that haven’t been flicked past page 2.
I had emailed the Inner Circle about two ideas I had for writing the next short fiction. Most of them have chosen the second idea, one that involves a doctor and his patient. I’ll give you guys a brief preview about the story once I’m done with the MBA GANG.
So until the next post, ya’ll be good or bad, be safe, and have a rocking weekend…. oh by the way Project FeelGood starts Saturday to Sunday from this week on…
May 5th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Would you mind explaining how this AdSense work? Do you get money just because someone clicks those google ads? Or are there other conditions like spending x minutes on their website, or vising n pages, or buying something? Would just clicking and closing will do? How much money per ad click will you get?
I realize that I may be asking personal information, specially the last question, but it would help me to patronize my favorite bloggers if I could feel how much I am helping him/her in doing so? Or is that thought to click for sake of click is nonsense in itself?
May 5th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
from now vi will be clicking all the ads!!…i didn’t know that you had to click them…
May 5th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Nice blog:) It’s good to know that there are people out there who feel the same way I do when it comes to work. Ever since I’ve left grad school I’ve tried to find what I want to do and it hasn’t happened yet (and of course I have felt like I am in a pressure cooker). I’ve switched jobs 3 times in the past year….and they’ve all been pretty clutch jobs. Granted with the restlessness there is a lot frustration but at the same time it’s better then becoming complacent. Life is too short to “settle.â€
May 5th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
- Ashish, Adsense works based on the click price set on Google ads on a website. The clicked ad may have a 2 cent value or may be higher say upto 1 dollar per click. It all depends on what the advertiser has agreed to pay Google for each click. I think you have to atleast visit the advertisers website for the click on the ad to formally register. - I would advise you to check the ad out only if it interests you, simply clicking ad to help your blogger friends may actually see their adsense account being terminated and closed.
- Vi, Please don’t do that!!! If an ad interests you then and only then go ahead and check it out. Google is quite strict in terminating accounts if it finds people simply clicking ads to earn money. Hell if I had to make money that way I would be clicking ads myself all day, but its just not right. :)
In general:
For people to make money out of ads - They need to have a lot of traffic. A million or so a month and you can take a year long vacation on one of the Islands off the Carribean. What I’ve observed so far is this - There is about a 0.3% conversion rate:- the total clicks on the ads verses the total number of pages that were viewed at the end of any given day. Sometimes there are better paying ads which fetch 10 cents and at other times its like 2 cents a click.
If a site doesn’t have atleast half a million hits each month then the money earned through click ads is simply chump change.
If there are any who make good money with a 100 K hits each month, then they are very smart people and I would love to talk to them! ;)
May 5th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
This is what I propose…
OZ will first do the following:
1) Collect the best of his posts
2) Read his “MBA Gang” in it’s entirity when it’s complete and edit it as needed.
Then Oz will make these items available as downloadable e-books - with standard T’s & C’s to protect the copyright - for a price, of course.
What his faithful flock will do is 1) help him pick the blog posts for compilation 2) help him design the books 3) buy the books when they are out.
How many DT travellers are with me on this?
May 6th, 2006 at 12:16 am
Oz, how abt a sabattical. I guess ur in a position in ur life where ur experience will help u call the shots. Take a break, 6 months, write all that you want, on everything that you want. Eventually u ll burn out of it too, get back to work.
I too have read abt quite a few people who have left main stream work to do what they like, but how many have actually made it big?
Take a brk bhai, you are at the peak of your creative writing streak, make the best out of it…
May 6th, 2006 at 4:36 am
Hey Oz,
All jobs are equally bad in any case… so doesnt matter. Also, don’t watch MI-3. I didnt like it… it cannot compare to MI-1 in any way. I guess, you will still see the movie… so did I even though I was told it would be disappointing :)
Kya kare… andar ke keede ko koun samjhaye
May 6th, 2006 at 8:56 am
- Ani, Life is too short to settle - well said :) 3 jobs in a year! Now that’s restlessness. For me, I don’t just change jobs. I end up switching the whole f-ing industry.
- WB, Kya kar rahe ho yaar… I am touched ;) Mere eyes inside ansoo coming :((
- Ravi, 6 months! The problem is one can’t. Specially in the US. Thanks for the encouragement & motivation dude! Hmm… I didn’t notice about the “peaking” aspect… hmm…
- Nirav, All jobs are bad? Dammit :) ho gaya apna kalyan. MI3’s insect zinda inside me too. So MI3 seeing today me too.
May 6th, 2006 at 9:07 am
nice bog you got up here :D
May 6th, 2006 at 11:29 am
Hey,
Falak was a Shashilal Nair movie. And it was a decent movie :)
May 6th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Tell me about it man. Have a job that many in my industry would grab at the blink of an eye, but I’m extremely frustrated with it. It’s literally killing my gray cells!
~Manoj~
May 7th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Arre Oz, maaf kar de bhai. kya kare, do botal *kaala chaap* (JW) ke baad … saala jubaan/bheja thoda phisal gaya yaar. aur, tum bhi - bohut *touch* kar diya - kya senti maara baap!
Anyways, I wanted to contain myself; but seems like I escaped. Mea culpa.
Now, pushing under the carpet all those primitive suggestions* that I’ve oh-so generously dispensed when I was pally-pally with JW - I still believe that the basic question remains unchanged: how to successfully mix the art of creativity with the pleasure of profitability?
There is no such thing as too much of a good thing. So let’s not argue about that - instead, let’s try to find the means to make sure that we are fit enough to do the race by the time we get to the start line.
Folks here with their MBA’s and double-MBA’s know that all this crap trickles down to finding the right business model.
I know for a fact that jobs slowly kill your grey cells (I am with you, Manoj, on this. Totally!!!). Experience has taught me that the executives who look good, sound good, and act good will get by in their corporate life…. even if they are stupid! For all I know, I could be one of those.
Bottomline - I haven’t made much progress in this thought process - all the creativity I have today is manifested as a bunch of lines I feed into my dictating machine from time to time, during my rides to work and back.
Everybody commits mistakes (of feeling creative, and otherwise). It’s how they deal with those mistakes is what makes them different and sets them apart. We all go full steam - known as the *peaking* or hot period - and then burn out. Few make a come back with twice the strength - Kishore, Pancham, Rakesh Roshan, Amitabh, and a few lucky ones - most of them though, even the titans like Gulzar and Hrishi da, just fizzle out and move on.
That’s exactly why we, I mean myself, still hold onto these so called jobs - for that sense of security, the stability, the terra firma. Please tell me, if given a chance, who wouldn’t love to do a Hemmingsway, or a Desmond Bagley, or a Sanjay Gupta. If I could write like this I would not be bothering with methodologies, models, meetings and mind maps.
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
I respect Oz because he is able to do some of those things that Emerson defined as success. Period. Exclamation mark!
*P.S: BTW, the business model I have doled out in my stupor seemed to be in motion already by a few others, and has actually worked for them. JoelOnSoftware is one of the guys.
May 8th, 2006 at 9:39 am
- Princess, thanks!
- Vivek, Thanks for the correction.
- Manoj, LOL! Yeah also the spirit… the spirit too. :)
- WB, Hey, no need for maafi dude. I liked the idea you put in, in your first comment. It kind of set me off thinking in a different direction I never had thought of before.
And I’m touched by your second comment. (though I had to read it about 14 times to let the entire in and out meaning to sink into this thick skull of mine)
WB - From today on I give you the license to drink your JWs and ride and comment on Desi Train. I’m pretty sure all other DT readers will agree that you mixed with JW is equal to fantastic philosphies and ideas!!!