R T G L S S

All in a day's work

2008-07-11T01:27:00.002+08:00

2 AM : Set alarms for 7:35AM, 7:40AM, 7:45AM,7:50AM, 7:55AM and also set reminders in phone diary for 8AM and 8:15AM.

8:20AM: Wake up.

8:35AM: Search for a cab which will accept Nets payment(the alternative being accepting 4 dollars 60 cents in 20 cent coins)

8:45AM: Find the cab.

9:10AM: Enter office in a rush, pretending to have climbed up all 34 floors in a bid to reach on time.

9:12AM: Realise that no one actually cares.

9:16AM: Turn on office computer. Open mail box.

9:17AM: Receive mail from HR department extolling the virtues of a Pear, the choice fruit of the week.

9:19AM: Search for last week's Fruit of the day mail and perform Change Management analysis. Figure out how a Pear is more efficient than a Lychee.

9:22AM: Keep hitting refresh button on mail box in hope of receiving a new mail.

9:35AM: Give up.

9:45AM: Walk over to pantry, make self a nice cup of Lipton Yellow label tea, with 2 tea-spoons of sugar and some amount of 60%fat free milk, along with hot water.

9:55AM: Walk back over to desk.

10AM: Drink tea. Appreciate how everyone seems to be so eager to work on this fine morning.

10:20AM: Message every person in a 600m radius asking if they are free for lunch. Every person with a double digit IQ. Which usually left out most of my comrades from NUS.

10:45AM: Keep spamming till one of them replies.

10:50AM: Start thinking about a second cup of tea. Decide on Milo instead.

11:00AM: Walk over to pantry and make self a cup of hot Milo.

11:10AM: Drink Milo, once again appreciating the dedication and commitment flowing through the surroundings.

11:30AM: Wonder if Watch has stopped. Attempt to synchronise Watch with the clock on the computer.

11:40AM: Attempts fail, as Watch apparently has not stopped and needs no synchronization. Watch doesn't realise that that wasn't quite the point.

12:00PM: Be the first one out of the door, beat the crowd to the food court and lunch in peace.

1:00PM: Having finished milking every minute of the hour, slowly make way back to desk.

1:05PM: Realise that another mail has been received. Again from the HR department, but this time explaining the benefits of the Employee Shareholder Program. A big N.A.

1:15PM: Analyse mailbox and realise that 60% of the mails received are from HR. The rest being from the IT Support team informing everyone which system wasn't functioning that day.

1:30PM: Congratulate self on getting through half the work-day. Decide to drink a celebratory cup of Cappuccino.

1:45PM: Go through the rituals. Enjoy the taste of instant coffee while a few billion dollars changes hands in the background.

2:00PM: Start pondering about meaning of life.

: Try to come up with name for third kid.

5:00PM: Complete pondering. The meaning, found, seems to be 42. Or 6x9, for the daft.

5:30PM: Last half hour.

5:45PM: Observe with some curiosity as a couple Corporate Services amble over to a nearby desk. Congratulate self on identifying the breed so accurately. Steve Irwin would be proud.

5:46PM: Curiosity fast vanishing, watch with no little trepidation as the topic at aforementioned desk turns towards "some Sheep Song".

5:47PM: Wonder, "Baa baa black sheep"?

5:48PM: Shut ears tight and begin praying in a vain attempt to save self as notes of "This is the song that never ends. Why dont you wait for it to begin.." or some such thing is heard.

5:52PM: Thank lucky stars as Janitor shoos away the flock. Admire his quick thinking and intelligence. Sing his praises for a while.

5:58PM: Log out of computer. Get ready to make a dash for it.

6:00PM: To quote Mel Gibson, FREEEEDOOOOOOOM

Why?

2008-06-24T01:48:00.003+08:00

"No seriously, give me 5 reasons why Uttar Pradesh should still be a part of India".

That is actually a very thought-provoking question.

Have you ever wondered why there are somethings so obviously wrong with the world, which can be easily remedied, but somehow no one seems to want to correct it? Its a strange phenomenon. You are sitting at Subway and are talking about Khalistan and Operation Bluestar while at the next table, the most intellectually stimulating observation your colleague from the other end of the country(albeit not from the region in question, but close enough) can make to his friends is "Abey, this phone doesn't have a camera!". The least he could have done was think about why his home state is called the "Rice bowl of India", that is if there were schools in his township and they actually teach things there. Or he could atleast wonder why he and his compatriots are the only people in the whole freaking country(be it a small one) who still say "iskool".

There is something about watching 30,000 fanatical Croats singing "Deutschland, Deutschland Auf Wiedersehen" while Ballack and co. are getting their asses kicked. And it makes going to office half an hour late worthwhile.

Ah, the joys of Euro2008. The world finally realised that wunderboy can only be wunderboy against Newcastle Utd and Bolton Wanderers. And R.Mad still want to pay a few billion pounds for him. Oh well, boys will be boys and fools will be fools.

Quote of the day : "Amitabh Bachchan has a bad boy image in Sarkar Raj".

Murthy somehow never fails to amuse us.

Incidentally, I think Portugal was suffering from the "Dasavatharam-disease". It fell for its own hype. I thought it was a decent movie though.

I am ofcourse talking about c.ron diving around like a little girl.

Points to Ponder?

2008-06-11T23:57:00.003+08:00

I am amazed at the number of people who aren't aware of the existence of the word "oppress". They all seem to think it was something TR made up while giving this passionate speech. Kinda sad when you think that TR apparently knows more English than most of the people I know.

Another thing I dont get is the purpose of fire alarms. I was sitting in the YIH the study room a few hours before exam. Its usually a very very quiet place, people frown at you if you as much as sneeze loudly. Suddenly the fire alarm started ringing, but no one paid it the least bit attention. They just took out their headphones and tried to drown out the noise of the alarm with webcasts. It was apparently obvious to everyone in the room except me that the alarm was tripped by accident and that there was no fire. It turned out that it finally was a mistake but I wonder what the point of alarm is, if it cant even "alarm" anyone into not studying for a couple of minutes. How do you tell the difference between a real fire and bobby smoking under the Smoke detectors by just listening to the alarm anyway?

As all of the three of you know, Im working these days. One good thing about work is the flexible lunch hours. Working in Raffles Place has its own advantages, like the numerous overpriced foodcourt and fastfood joints that surround each building. When I get sick of the overcrowded foodcourt(where people reserve seats with PAPER NAPKINS ), I walk over to the starbucks(there are 4 very close to my office, I walk to the furthest) because its usually quite empty during lunch hours, and I can also read the newspaper while eating. For those who dont stay in Singapore, there are two kinds of news.

1) Singaporean "news", which usually goes like this :

Headlines : Minister Mentor Lee's message to the nation and/or "JC Girl wins 100m race in Singapore Invitational International JC Athletics event!"

National News : Minister Mentor Lee's views on the nation today

Financial News : Minister Mentor Lee's views on finance

International News : Minister Mentor Lee's thoughts on why and how China uberpwns the West.

3 pages are now dedicated to NTUC's latest bargain offerings.

Weather Forecast : ~~Minister Mentor Lee's views on the weather~~ Its sunny, and will remain sunny for the next 3 days!

Sports news : Uzbekistan 7 Singapore 3

Editorial : Everything is pleasant and wonderful! The rest of the world has problems, but lets not worry about all that! There is a beach party at Sentosa this weekend!

2) The second type of news is, of course, real news.

Let me give you an example. I was reading the Straits Times one day, because some scum bag had beaten me to the Herald Tribune. There was an editorial on why China is uberawesome because it has as many nuclear missiles as Japan or something. He was arguing that China having nuclear missiles and continuing to make them was for the greater good. All this was fine, it is his opinion after all, but suddenly in the middle of the editorial I read this statement "China follows United's strategy, a strong defense automatically translates into a powerful offense". I spent two minutes wondering if he was talking about United Airlines or United Arab Emirates or maybe the United Nations. After reading the next line, which I cant recollect right now, I realised he was actually talking about Manchester United. It was unbelievable the way he referred to a football club in a cavalier fashion in an article on world security, where most journalists wouldn't take the liberty of mentioning "Bush" without suffixing "President of the United States", if only to confirm. Everyone knows most of manUre's fanbase is in Southasia (after all, there has to be SOME reason why Park Ji Sung is still playing) but show some class man. Maybe it says something that the editor of the national newspaper mentions football clubs and expects all his readers to immediately understand what they have to do with China's nuclear weapons. It means that Mancs are commies. Kill them all.

Well there is still a lot to rant about but no time right now. I shall be bach.

Insights

2008-04-20T03:45:00.005+08:00

Someone mentioned to me a while ago that it was amusing that I had a separate tag for "Stupid People". Thinking about that, Ive come to realise now that I didnt write about them because they got on my nerves. I wrote about them because it was endlessly amusing and entertaining. And besides, ranting was always more of my style. So in keeping with a time honoured tradition, here I go again :)

Some people might say that if you get annoyed by what someone is doing/saying/making videos of, just ignore them. Sure, thats what the whole world did when Hitler started expressing his opinion on the size of Germany on the world map.

Dont get me wrong, I am all for freedom of expression. I dont hold anything against people who claim that Eragon is a real book, I might just point out to them that they are douche bags. It is their opinion after all. But when you make a video of a bunch of people, all of whom rave about the writing talent of Christopher Paolini, and then label the video "Greatest Books of the Twentieth Century" and put it up on YouTube, thats when you start to piss people off. There is general silliness, there is stupidity and then there are affronts to public decency. Videos of people speaking about how they would rather be good at many things than be great at one thing, because thats what the cue card reads, falls under the third category. If you want to make videos about Valentines day, or "Accommodation fiasco@NUS", go right ahead. But please, dont take up intellectual topics, make Miss.Teen South Carolina's descendants speak about it and make a complete mockery of the issue, if I can call it that. Thats all I wish to express on this topic.

Oh, and it is not cool to make your videos "Video responses" to random videos which have no relation to your topic. Just some food for thought.

Moving on, I was looking at Singapore GP circuit map the other day, and I saw that there was a Esplanade Steps "Grandstand". And a "General Walkabout Area". Wow, I cant think of many other places which would charge you $200 to sit on steps from where it usually evicts you 363 days of the year. But it shouldnt be too hard to find some 30 storey building within a few miles of the track to watch the race from, which the organisers havent spotted and ticketed yet. Then again, you never know.

Apologies if this post is very contextual, that cannot be helped.

A game plan?

2008-01-04T01:32:00.000+08:00

As the keen-minded among you might have realised, it takes something drastic these days to get me blogging. And "A Game Plan" was exactly that. It was a truly horrible movie, with terrible acting and a conspicuous lack of a meaningful storyline. For one, I didnt know if the movie was about American Football or Ballet. Maybe it was about American Foolet. Or BalBall. Or maybe it was about Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's complete lack of acting skills. Whatever it was about, the only thing worse than the movie was Dwayne Johnson trying to do the ballet. The only thing worse than THAT was Dwayne Johnson trying to play American Football. Which was probably why the "football"ing scenes were cut mercifully short to "The Rock" scoring the winning touchdown in all the games he played, except ofcourse the Championship game in which he selflessly passes the ball thingy to some other dude who scores with a zillionth of a second remaining. I wont accuse Dwayne Johnson of trying too hard in this film. In fact, it didn't look like he was trying to act at all. There could be no other explanation.

On a different note, I went to the barber's today. When my barber saw my hair, he first accused me of trying to cut my own hair, and then threatened me with crew cuts and oil treatments. He seemed to take my hair as a personal insult. I did manage to escape eventually, but not before he felled most of my curly locks with a pair of unforgiving and apparently very starved scissors. I was bruised but thankfully still in one piece.

It is a dangerous world we live in.

To Varsha, and her dead blog

2007-11-27T23:09:00.001+08:00

Quite a few people(~~two at last count~~ well, half my readership) have asked me why Im letting my blog rot. As I type this I realised that the word "blog" doesnt exist in Mozilla's dictionary. As doesn't "realised". Its a funny language, Americanish.

So getting back to why I havent been posting, well the reasons are many. With a hectic, i.e., non-existent life to and staying up till 6:45 AM to watch El'pool lose to Besiktas, my blog changed from an adorable girlfriend to a pesky little sister you just couldn't get rid off. If your little sister is adorable too, you need to get rid of those rose coloured glasses. "coloured". Americanish. Sigh.

Speaking of "Sigh", our resident english expert came up with a new pronunciation for it. "Sig", apparently. But thats a long, irrelevant, and possibly unamusing story to which most of the two of you wont be able to relate to.

Getting to more important matters, Arsenal is pwning n00bs and wannabes, in the PL and abroad. They proved everyone from the pundit brigade at ESPN to the FIFA08 game designers at EA wrong(85 for Bent? 71 for Walcott?? 78 for Clichy????). They actually thought we'd be fighting with Top4Tottenham for 4th place. Die bitches. And meanwhile, Rafa wants another 40million pounds to buy more players. He has no brains. Arsenal are going to go all the way, and I'm loving it!

Getting back to the title, this post is dedicated to Varsha, and her blog which she cowardly deleted. Be a man varsha, do the right thing!

There and back again

2007-08-10T03:27:00.000+08:00

Its nearly two weeks since I came back to NUS. Eusoff hall rocks! Nothing has changed. Besides the new arts canteen. And the new Alumni Complex. Eusoff hall rocks! And the new SoC. And no more Law School(and soon Biz too, NUS is becoming pollution free) on campus. Eusoff hall rocks! And the canteens at PGP. And the Burger king which is coming on campus. Eusoff hall rocks! And about 95 new juniors. Eusoff hall rocks or what?

The juniors are an interesting lot, the "orientation sessions" have been a lot of fun. Atleast for us. This time, there are only some 20 million people from DAV Gopalpuram, Chennai, compared to about 8 of them last year. Its like if you are from chennai, you are either from DAV or you are smart. But assuming that all non-DAVians are smart is fatal too, as I found out yesterday. Here is an excerpt, which I am lifting from Vbk's facebook profile, from yesterday's orientation session:

Me (to jr): Speak for 2 minutes on this topic- "My birth certificate was a letter of apology from a condom factory". Do you understand the topic?

Jr: Yes it means birth certificate is a reason for not providing condoms.

I swear, I couldnt have made up some thing this funny even if I had tried. And then of course, we held special orientation sessions for ManU fans, to help them see the Light. Ragha made one of them act out and sing "Im a little piggy. Heres my snout. Oink oink oink.", which bore an uncanny resemblance to Eric Cartman. And the other two.. Id rather not mention here what their cleansing rituals were. I can only hope that they worked.

Oh, and Eusoff hall rocks.

Who da Boss B-)

2007-07-09T02:59:00.000+08:00

Awesome movie ! It aint pure cinema but it is entertainment at its best. If you didnt like it, you are probably taking yourself too seriously. It wont change your life, it wont make you think about the purpose of our existence. But it will entertain you for every minute of those three hours. Besides, you got your social message ! Pay your taxes, ~~bitch. Or else.~~ be responsible citizens!

Enna style, enna style :)

Mid Script : If you have no idea about what Im talking about, how was the ride from Mars? Dont they have TVs there though?

And speaking of social messages, you might have heard of the "Live Earth" concerts which were organised all over the world, for some vague reason which no one seems sure of. It might have been to tell you to stop buying $50,000 mink coats. Or to not travel in a cavalcade of SUVs. Or to stop flying around in your private jets. Or maybe it was to show you how retarded you are if you need people like Madonna(the "material" girl) and Metallica to preach about the environment. Maybe they should have renamed the show "Hypocrite Show fest 2007 - Whos the biggest of em all?". What bullshit.

So long and thanks for all the goals, TiTi

2007-06-26T17:33:00.000+08:00

Thierry Henry is moving to Barca next season. He is arguably one of the most talented strikers of this generation and will be celebrated as one of the greatest legends of Arsenal. We will miss you TH14, and will never be able to replace you adequately. There is no question about that.

When I read articles like this by ~~retarded~~ ManUre fans, it really irks. Henry dives? Omgwtf. What do you call C.Ronaldo, with his evergreen Step over-Step over-Dive-Roll-Weep in agony-Get player sent off-Wink routine ? Yeesh. Losers. And the author claims that Henry is "notorious for under-performing with any manager who isn't Arsene Wenger". I dont know what his point is but he doesnt realise that Henry played exactly 16 matches, 8 years ago, for Juventus which was the only time he wasnt playing under Wenger. And Arsenal is going to become a mid-table team next season because Henry is leaving? We kicked your ass at Old Trafford without Henry, Mr.Football critic. Get your facts straight. Ugh. Stupid people.

This isn't the end of Arsenal, ye retarded glory hunters. Not by a long shot. Just wait and see.

Btw, anyone curious about Cristiano Ronaldo or trying out for the Olympic Diving Team, check out this video for tips. He is truly a master at what he does.

On linguistics

2007-06-21T23:39:00.000+08:00

English, if you think about it, is a very beautiful language. Even if most of the words are derived from Latin, Greek, French, Japanese and Polish(and thats as far as my knowledge gleaned from Scripps National Spelling Bee 2007 extends), any language which has words like "pwn" ("YOu gt pwned n00bzz!!") and which has books like LotR written in it cannot be not cool. And once we have agreed that it is cool, we can also rationalise that the people who created the language should have been pretty smart. In other words, they must have been some sassy froods^. In other words, we mustn't be questioning their judgement. And so, you can imagine my surprise when I learnt that the word "actress" had become persona non grata in the Oxford English Dictionary, apparently because it was "sexually discriminating". What I dont get is, when in German even tables, chairs, notebooks, erasers and washing machines are assigned sexes, why cant we call an obviously macho Kiera Knightley an "actor" and a positively feminine Orlando Bloom an "actress" ? Feminist Bullshit. Snort.

And so, you can imagine my absolute horror when I heard that there are some out there who actually want to "indianise english". Please, NO.

The Times Now...

2007-05-26T00:41:00.000+08:00

(not) News
Chel$ki and ManUre sign new deal to play the most boring matches in football history.

Liverpool remain uncrowned kings of longball, inspite of losing to AC Milan whose team's average age was 38. Rafa admits 2005 was a fluke and promises to change his team's 2-2-6 formation by buying 2 more strikers. Oh what the hell, liverpool just suck.

Life is fun, life is good, holidays rock ! Chennai ain't hot people, get a life and go out. Stop moaning. I was told results come out tomorrow, I dont know when exactly though. Ill check it on sunday, I cant waste all day hitting refresh button. I did it once, and never again.

Its not like im expecting great results anyway. I stayed up all night before my 1104 exam and watched the Milan-Manu match at 2 in the morning. Exam was major flop but what the hell, I hadnt studied anything anyway. But hey, how many times do you get to watch a Champions league semi final in a year? Once. How many times do you get to write end sem exams in a year? Twice. Its all about getting your priorities right.

I also stayed up all night before my math exam, but that was basically to finish packing. Though I spent more time packing than studying for all the exams put together, I still managed to forget my SIM, among other things. Sigh, I should have started packing earlier. Packing sucks. Like studying for exams. I also watched Eragon during the gap we got for EE2006. Sucky things, like misery, seek company. I hate the last week of semester.

Are you watching closely?

2007-05-16T18:53:00.000+08:00

If you listen to Raghavan, "Life in a metro" is one truly horrible movie. In fact, he said, it was one of the worst he had ever seen. But I found out that Eragon hadn't released in India yet and he said that before we entered the theatre to watch Spiderman3 so I could forgive him for making bold statements.

*Read this if you want to save yourself a 100 bucks. 200, if you were planning on watching Eragon too*

What could possibly be more interesting than watching Spiderman 3?

Eating popcorn, one corn at a time and comparing the salt content of each corn with the previous one. Trust me, that is experience talking.

Spiderman3 sucked.

Thats putting it mildly.

Tobey Maguire is of the Keanu Reaves/Elijah Wood or Abhishek Bachchan in dhoom2 (if you want to be desi(Thats the only hindi movie Iv watched so forgive me if Im generalising)) mould. He emotes best with the spider costume on. I actually thought he was smiling when MJ told him to take a hike. And his er.. "transformation" into villain spidey was so comical, it almost seemed intentional. If he had a nice moustache I thought he would have made a great Hitler, with his hair combed down. That way, the mossad might have done him in and we might have had a Peter Parker who didnt have a dead pan for a face and doesnt make you go "WHY IS HE F***ING GRINNING ALL THE F***ING TIME??". But I would be doing grave injustice to the film if I said Tobey Maguire was the only thing wrong with it.

The movie had absolutely no character development. There seemed to be so much going on in the movie but you could find solace in the fact that Mary Jane didnt have too much of a clue about what was happening either. Peter Parker's screen time should have been cut in half. It looked as if the villains were thrown only to let the director add lots of special effects. The portrayal of the "struggle within" almost made me weep in agony.

Horrible movie. Please dont watch it at home, or anywhere else for that matter.

But I have to admit, Spiderman 3 doesnt hold a candle to Eragon when it comes to sucking.

How do you make a bad book into a movie which is worse? Take all 3 Lord of the Rings movies, merge them and cut off random scenes, ad lib random lines from the book and when that gets boring, make up gay jokes and add them. Take the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings movie posters and photoshop the faces of your actors onto them. Paint the whole thing blue and voila, you have Eragon (I also have a feeling the book was created in a similar fashion) .

A random scene from Eragon :

*Eragon is hunting in ~~Fangorn forest~~ ~~the forbidden forest~~ some random misty forest*

Eragon : Why hello there, thats a nice big blue stone. I think I will take it home and trade it for some food.

*Eragon goes to shop keeper*

Shopkeeper : Take that away, bad boy.

Eragon *takes it away*

*Later, in Eragon's house*

Eragon : I think I will put you down here, big blue stone.

*Big blue stone starts cracking*

Eragon *grins at it*

*Big blue stone breaks*

Eragon *grins at it*

*A mini blue ~~Hungarian Horntail~~ random dragon pops out*

Eragon *grins at it*

*Blue dragon dives after a rat and gobbles it up*

Eragon : Ah so that takes care of our rat problem. LOLZ, IM SO FUNNY!!!

Blue Dragon : My hero !

I am not making this up, this actually happened in the movie. But really, if you have seen Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or Star wars or any other fantasy movie, half of Eragon would evoke a strange sense of deja vu. I slept through the other half of the movie so I cant comment on that. The movie sucks. Big time. Avoid it at all costs. I wonder why they are releasing it so late in India though.

"The Prestige", however, rocks. So I wont try to write a review about it.

Cartographically me

2007-04-27T04:49:00.000+08:00

The end of semester exams for my second semester began a couple of days ago. While for most people here it is going to end this saturday, I still have 3 more exams. In fact, I have an exam on the last day of all exams. Sigh, life is sad.

One of my friends had his "EAP" exam(I dont know what it stands for), a module you have to do if you flunk the "QET"(Qualifying English Test) which we all have to write when we join. Though I must say, your english knowledge has nothing to you passing or failing the module, their method of evaluation is apparently totally random. As a side fact, 7 of the 10 people from DAV flunked QET. This is just a side fact, I am not implying anything. So anyway, he had his english exam today(incidentally, hes from DAV too) and after the exam, his gtalk status message(more on status messages later) was "And so it beings...". I thought he was making sarcastic references to having learnt english in the EAP module etc etc but I wanted to make sure anyway. This is a short piece of conversation that followed. The italicised part is him changing his status message.

Rushi so it beings?you are showing that now that eap is over, you have forgotten english already?

aku: And so it begins...

Rushi LOLLOLOLOLOLOLOL

aku awrite awrite... screw u... am gonna study MA1506

Rushi lol

Seems he HAD forgotten english already. Lesson : Never overestimate people ~~from DAV~~.

I am doing a module called EE2006(Digital Design) this semester. I basically learn stupid things I will probably forget as soon as the exam ends, if I manage to learn it before. While this is true for most modules I am doing, it is particularly true for EE2006 because even after writing tests and attending labs worth 40% my grade, I still have no clue about the module. But my point is actually about how they decide to release the results of the CAs. Now, most of the other professors release the grades in the lectures, in the tutorials, send them as emails, put them up on the WorkBin or the course webpage. But for some reason, the people in charge of EE2006 decide that it is enough if they put up the marks on a stupid notice board which is on the other side of campus. To get an idea about exactly how stupid it is, look at this map :

I, who am too lazy to walk to the canteen which is located in my residence(refer picture below), am expected to catch a bus all the way to the other side of campus to check my grades for a subject which I dont even want to read :

But next year, I am going to live at Eusoff hall, which is not a bad thing at all considering my faculty is also shifting pretty close to there. So now, distance will not be an issue if I decide to attend classes.

Another good thing is that now, when I wake up at 745 and find out I have an exam at 8, I wont have to rush to the busstop without taking anything and borrow a pen from the invigilator. I actually went 15 minutes late for my cs1102 midterm. But now, I can wake up at 745, grab a pen and start running at 750 and still make it there by 8. Now that is not bad at all, considering Ive managed to arrive exactly on time for an exam only three times and all the other times, I was *almost* on time or *slightly* late. It would have taken me atleast half an hour to run from PGP to the exam halls btw. That sucks.

Oh well thats enough maps, now I have to get some sleep. Sayanora.

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, MAPS DRAW YOU!!!

Heartbreak

2007-04-11T08:46:00.002+08:00

What was supposed to be a closely contested second leg between Roma and ManU turned out to be one of Aswin's super-easy mode FIFA '07 matches. 7 - 1 ? OMG. Even aswin wouldnt have managed that.

Its 9 am now, I have a CS1104 exam in 3 hours and I havent slept all night. I am vetti blogging, after drinking my 4th cup of coffee for the *night*. Sigh, I need a life.

:|

2007-04-04T04:14:00.000+08:00

Disclaimer : All quotations/references made in the following rant are *purely that of the author's creation*. Any similarity to any comment you/anyone you know might have made to me in the near past, especially in orkut or gtalk, is purely coincidental. Please convince yourself that no one can be that dumb. My god, its been a long time since I wrote one of these.

Air heads piss me off . Kill them all. Stupid people should be sent to concentration camps. For instance, if you didn't know that after arranging a bunch of numbers in ascending order, the first number will be the smallest, you should have been a jew at Auschwitz. And, if I have my gtalk status message as "I found a girl friend in Cuba" and then remove it one week later, and if someone makes a reference to it and I say "hmmm....u blind or sumthin.....???y not have a luk again??rather dan crappin away to glory? ", I should be gassed right now. And I mean right now.

And how hard is it, really, to type complete words? Does "dat" takes lesser time to type than "that" ? And what are you going to do by saving that 1/20th of a second? And "luk" (refer disclaimer) ?? What on earth is that? If anything, it is positively homosexual. You cant script your own language. You are too dumb for that. Get a life. Leave English alone.

Now, if you are

a) Confused : Never mind. Be glad that your imagination isn't as active as mine.

b) Pissed off/annoyed and think my disclaimer was full of lies : Now why would you think that?

c) Wondering if this post is about you : Nope. Refer disclaimer.

Shades of deja vu

2007-03-26T03:52:00.000+08:00

Zizou got sent off in the last ten minutes of the WC final. Schumi had an engine failure in the penultimate race, and we all know what happened because of that. Now, in probably what will be his last world cup innings, Sachin gets out for a duck.

I am not angry at India for losing. Thoroughly disappointed yes, and angry at those "fans" who are going around burning posters and attacking houses. I feel sorry, sorry that Dravid Ganguly and Sachin can never lift a World Cup now. We should not be cursing their names or attacking their houses. We should realise that these players have sacrificed more than what most of us can imagine doing. The years of work they put in comes to naught in a day and what right have we, we who recline on the sofa and watch the match, we who have no clue what it feels like to have to guess in half a second which way a ball travelling at 140 kph will swing while a billion pairs of eyes are watching, in short we the arm-chair generals, to scoff at and insult those men who have dedicated their lives for the sport?

If cricket were my religion, Sachin would be my god. Just for Sharjah, just for WC2003. I need no better reasons.

Zidane showed Ronaldinho who was still boss. Schumi didnt let the world forget that F1 was not all about who had the fastest cars. And Sachin... it just pains me to see him suffering like other mortals.

I hope Bermuda thrash Bangladesh.

It just sunk in..

2007-03-19T02:21:00.000+08:00

The Italian anthem shall keep sounding.

But who now will conduct it for the thousands flowing on to the Start-Finish line and the millions watching at home?

The world will realise now what has passed, and what will never be again.

No more words. Just two, in fact.

Hail Schumacher.

Hmm

2007-03-14T01:21:00.000+08:00

I just realised today that it has been more than one and a half months since I last posted That sucks huh. The reasons for this rather long hiatus? Hmm I dont really know. Oh well who gives a damn.

I also realised that I have more CCA points than a lot of people who actually need them (CCA points are required if we want accommodation on campus and the number of points decides where we get to live). Or to paraphrase it, with the little work I did without ever thinking about the points I was going to get for them, I have more points than those who consciously worked all year for points. Just shows what a farce this whole system is eh.

I bought some tea bags the other day to keep myself from starving when I woke up too late for breakfast/lunch or dinner. Since the package didnt mention anything about what we should put the tea bags in, I assumed it was water because, after all, water is the universal solvent and all that. For the first time, I did try with water and what I ended up with was some particularly bad black tea which I couldn't sip twice.
After asking around, I found out that people had started using milk these days and that I would be well advised to use it too. So I went to the mart and found out that there were 5 different types of plain milk available. Since no one had told me what protein content of the milk makes the best tea, I didnt know which to choose so I just bought the carton which had pictures of cows on it because...well, for obvious reasons.
So I poured out some milk in a cup and put a tea bag in it and kept stirring. 5 minutes later I realised something was not right because, as little as I might be aware of of the art of tea making, I still knew that when I put a tea bag in milk, it should turn brown. But for some reason, the milk stayed white and the tea bag remained a tea bag. Hot milk. Damn it. So I put the cup, tea bag and all, inside the microwave and heated it for 2 minutes. Milk took on slight brown tinge, enough to satisfy me, so I drank the whole thing up. It still sucked. They should put some sugar in those things.

Making tea shouldn't be so complicated :

Ask me no questions..

2007-01-28T02:34:00.000+08:00

Holding on to beliefs, while they slip through your fingers is painful. It hurts more when you still want to believe, but cant. Maybe this is a phase, or maybe it just passed. If there is one thing I cant be, its comfortably numb.

A thousand days. And poof, like that, its gone.

Confused. Annoyed. Losing hope, for myself.

On a saner note, we won 'Rang' today. Its this mini culturals thing. A smaller version of Saarang if you will. After all, every saarang has a rang but every rang doesnt have a saarang :P

ManYou got gunned .

(I shall not elaborate for lame ManU fans)

That was our teamname fyi.

Tidbits and taxi rides

2007-01-11T04:20:00.000+08:00

I saw a few construction workers at the construction site of the MRT station near college. They were holding nokia phones, complete with bluetooth headsets. You know, those things abhishek bachchan and bipasha basu wore in Dhoom2 when trying to amaze us with advancements in thief catching technology.

If you thought listening to auto drivers complain about rising petrol prices and new government policies from the moment you stopped hassling about the fare to the moment you actually paid up was payment enough for the journey, you are a comrade of mine. But believe me when I tell you, singaporean taxi drivers make their indian counterparts seem as loquacious as a lamp post struck by a silencio spell. The thing is, the fare is metered so you dont hear much about the "naasama pona government raising the petrol prices", or about the traffic or even the next India-West Indies cricket match. The taxi drivers here take on the role of the high school guidance counsellor you are now thankful you never had. This is an actual conversation I had with a taxi driver while returning from the airport.

(I should mention that there is no way I will be able to capture the *singaporean* accent and without that, I must admit it doesnt have quite the same effect)

Td : So what are you doing in singapore lah ?

Me : Im student..in NUS

Td : Ah NUS..good university..which country are you from ?

Me : India..

Td : India..In India there are no universities?

Me : No no there are lots..I just decided to come to singapore..

Td : Are universities good?

Me : Universities are very good..

Td : Then why did you come to singapore ?

Me : Uh..international exposure and all that..

Td : Yes yes very important. You stay in hostel lah? How many people in one unit?

Me : Unit ? Well..around 300 ppl I thnk..

Td : No no unit, house, unit, not block

Me : Oh room..well one person per room..

Td : Oh ok..what course are you doing ?

Me : Computer engineering..

Td : How long you stay in singapore?

Me : Well course is for 4 years..so another 3 and a half years i guess..

Td : 4 year course lah? What you going to do after college ?

Me : Uh I dont know... I havent decided yet..

Td : You should keep studying lah, study for as long as you can. Look at uncle now, uncle too old
to study. Cant study any more lah. Do you have a girlfriend???

Me : Uh no.....

Td : Dont listen to girlfriend. Study first, most important, girlfriend come after that lah. Make
lots of money for your children. Thats what every father wants lah, he wants his children to do
well. That is why we earn money.

Me : Um ok....

And then thankfully we reached my hostel. So after my parents, teachers, tuition teachers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, neighbours and my sister's stuffed lion, it was the taxi driver's turn to tell me what I should do in life.

Hoo boy, give me an over charging autodriver any day. Even when he rips my wallet, he has considerations for my soul which has always believed in "start thinking about tomorrow when today gets over", "plan not and have feelings about not sticking to your plans, not" and "If the taxi driver is actually asking for the right price, he probably has a wrong destination in mind".

It is now 3:42 AM. I was about to publish this post and sleep when I got a phone call from another nocturnal friend who, unfortunately for me, lives in the same block. He wanted me to come and take a look at his new hairdo.

Ladies and gentlemen, Karthik Balasubramanian. If you were dragged out of your room to be asked to take this picture when you had an 8 o clock Digital Design lecture, you would be outraged. But then, that was if you were planning on attending the lecture.

And while I am at posting pictures, here is one I took just outside the typing room at school. Most of you can guess who wrote that. I prefer "not to talk". Get ittcch ?

And a picture I took at the NUS library bookstore

And my wonderful friends at it again...(They have a thing for bonking stuff)

Notice red circle. But that didnt stop her from trying to shoot the eyelashes off that poor mongoose. (Click to enlarge)

And dd with our prize

And no this is not the elec engineering lecture, though the scene wont be much different(if he actually managed to wake up in time for the lecture that is). Aswin aka M*tter(rhymes with batter) B*tch(rhymes with pitch) doing what he does best.

And our resident VHP activist..free....

ZOMGWTFBBQPWNSAUCE GIVE MY PHONE BACK!!!

Of lack of creativity...

2007-01-04T01:00:00.000+08:00

Its been a long time since I posted. The reasons for that are plenty but the essence of it all is 1) I cant think of anyone to insult 2) My classes are over 3) I lost my nubbin. But us paddymen are resilient creatures, we dont give up easily. I shall write about my toenails if I have to but luckily, it hasn't come to that yet. Its a new year and I can get away with writing one of those "the year that was.." posts.

2006 was a very eventful year, to say the least. I graduated from school, decided on my college(which wasn't easy or simple) and finally, joined one. If I were given a chance to go back and live the year again, would I do anything different? Probably, but then, wouldn't we all ? But I guess whats more important is that I dont regret not getting that chance. This is, after all, not a "bad deal". Things dont happen for a reason, they happen only because I made them happen. Not being in control of my life is a very scary thought, though I dont know why. Wouldn't it just be easier to assume everything will be taken care off and nothing is really up to me? I dont know, for some reason it isn't. Should I analyze everything that happens around me ? Or just take things for their face value ? Is there always more to things and people than what meets the eye? Is it worth finding out, even if its at a cost ? Isn't it easier to just live in ignorance? But who will I be fooling, besides myself ? Is it even worth it? I dont know. I just confused myself.

5 days, I will be back in college.

Do I want to go back ? Not really.

A pity, it could have been so much different. And better, maybe.

Oh well, if it wasn't to be. I know who to blame.

Reflections and Reverberations...

2006-12-05T07:50:00.000+08:00

This post bears no relation to two little known cultural festivals organised by two little known schools called VM and PSBB. They are not very scintillating, if you know what I mean.

First semester at NUS is over, just seven more to go. Hmm time sure flies. Heres something I found out while preparing for my Statistics finals : There are 215 girls and 82 guys doing the module. There are around 40 computer engineering students in the course, the rest being Life Sciences students. Most of the 40 are guys. Now, if you, like me, had been wondering WHO would be willing to waste their life by reading life sciences, the "dumber sex" anyone ?

Pardon the chauvinist remarks and just concentrate on the issue at hand, WHY ?! Biology should be abolished.

Hmm end of semester doesnt seem to be such a bad thing actually. From now on, every time I go past lt32(where my stats classes are held), I dont have to think about all the lectures I should have attended and start feeling guilty. I dont have to set 5 alarms every night before I sleep. I dont have to wake up everyday thinking "Oh fish did I sleep through the alarms again..? ". I dont have to start preparing for discrete structures tests 2 hours before the test. And I dont have to wonder if chling lives in the slow dimension too (refer previous posts on the HideouslyStreakedD).

I saw dhoom2 today. Yes, my hindi vocabulary consists of 4 words all of which will never appear in any movie but I still managed to sit through it and was able to follow in bits and pieces. The tune was very catchy but the film looked as if the director had ripped off from every english movie he had ever seen starting from oceans 11, mission impossible II and ending with johnny english. Abhishek bachchan(or however many ch's his astrologer has told him to add) displayed a wide range of emotions in the flim ranging from gloomy face 1 to gloomy face 3, taking up gloomy face 2 during song sequences. Oh and he would have lasted about 10 seconds in a CounterStrike game. And he also gives Vijaykanth a run for his money when it comes to dancing.

Though quite a few people I know liked the movie, I found it kinda predictable most of the time. The only surprise was during the last scenes when hrithik falls down and doesnt have a spare parachute or a hidden water ski somewhere. But they dont show us how he gets away so I might even be right. We already figured out the plot of dhoom3 so mark this post, ill sue Vijay Krishna Acharya for plagiarism when the next movie comes out.

Warning : Plot details follow. Dont read if you actually got surprised when you watched that movie.

Theres a new thief who pulls some far fetched stunt. Little B thinks its Arya 6-fingers and goes after him. Forces him to go after new thief. Arya goes after new thief. Anticipates what he is going to pull and steals that stuff before him. Final showdown, they try to steal the crown jewels and Arya uses some incredibly advanced super crows to pick it up for him so get ready to be amazed. Plot point : Lots of master strokes. Expect to see oceans 12 all over again, with a dash of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and Eragon. Oh and new thief is John Abraham.

There, I just saved you a hundred bucks.

Of a full circle

2006-11-26T04:39:00.000+08:00

My end sem exams began ~~today~~ ~~yesterday~~ well sometime in the past 24 hours. Electrical engineering was never one of my favourite subjects. That it came under physics and that I had endured 2 years of chitra did little to help matters. But when compared to my eg1108 lectures, physics class actually seems very interesting now. Ok maybe more of entertaining than interesting but the point is it had a positive side too. For the purpose of this rant, lets label my(very much fictional) eg1108 professor "chilling" without the first 'i' and 'l' which makes it "chling" which I repeat is not the name of a real person, just a random character I have come up with.

Disclaimer : The following events are merely figments of the author's overactive imagination and have no relation at all to any real life incidents or people. Lawyers and Singapore Secret Police, stay away. You got nothing on me.

Every lecture, "chling" enters the lecture theatre and starts giving us lessons on how to read word by word from the text book and make it so boring that the author starts turning in his grave. Actually, I am not sure if this happens every lecture, I attended only 2 before I found better ways of spending 2 hours every monday evening. CounterStrike is just so much more interesting. Chling makes physics class feel like a Metallica concert, with his soporific voice which puts the Overhead projector to sleep. He doesnt care if the lecture theatre is only half full. Or even if its half full only because wifi in lt7A (the lecture theatre) is really good. Or even if you get up and proclaim your undying love for Biology (just WHY anyone would want to do that subject is beyond me). He just goes on and on about why the current phasor is lagging behind the voltage phasor by 67.52 degrees. He is happy, as long as there are pages to read and an empty hall to bore.

Oh well, no more electrical engineering for me for another year, no more chlings and transformers that dont transform properly. No more rushing to eg lab 15 minutes late, no more writing stories for a question for which you are supposed to draw a graph. Woot !

Oh and garlic bread and molten chocolate, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. The noodles with oreos were honestly better.

To be or not to be...

2006-11-10T04:27:00.000+08:00

Here are a few things I learnt in NUS...

1) If somethings wrong with your yahoo messenger, reformat your computer

2) The most effective way of pushing someone over the edge after irritating them is by saying "free..."

3) Come to think of it, I actually learnt #2 from BK in school

4) Kvkk was right, not listening in class, bunking lab sessions and asking if the compiler supports TIME.H IS college life after all. Ofcourse, the reasons why i asked the TIME.H question were different.

5) It doesnt matter how many graded tutorials you bunk. What matters is whether you can convince your tutor that you were better off not sitting in class.

6) "I am mentally frustrated and feel claustrophobic" might not work for everyone

7) When your cs tutor says the practicals is going to be fun, you know you have to read up recursion.

8) Listening to people argue about why "Dan detective school" is better than "Captain Tsubasa" is a really sad way of spending your time.

9) And then you realize that it was either that or talk about PSBB culturals. And suddenly, Captain Tsubasa doesnt sound so bad after all.

More later, feeling extremely sleepy now.

and that is the question...

CAs, PE and acronyms overkill

2006-11-04T01:26:00.000+08:00

So as the end of the semester is nearing, we are having exam more frequently. Assignment papers, practical exams(or PE) and quizzes (all of which constitute the "CAs" or continual assessments) really take the fun out of life. sigh how I miss school with the million assignments which I never studied for(and flunked, but it didnt matter back then), the practicals which might be difficult if you werent fortunate enough to have a nice person at the same table to draw your diode circuits for you. And connect the wires and take your readings for you too. Only, it wasnt so nice when I had no idea about her potentiometer experiment. Bah she was still nice enough to draw the circuit again for me during the half yearlies. And connect the wires and take the readings too. Sigh school...

Everything in singapore has an acronym. Buildings, banks, roads and even people. Isnt "Kent Ridge" a nice name for a road? (Its actually the name of 3 roads - Kentridge drive, kentridge crescent and kentridge avenue, all of which are inside campus). Now why would anyone want to call it "kr" ? The banks here have cool names like POSB and DBS. When expanded, they read "Post office savings bank" and "Development bank of singapore". Then again, thats why we need acronyms. Maybe we should start calling singapore ROSE for "Republic Of SingaporE" ? hyuk hyuk I wonder why you guys still come and read this blog.

Sometimes, its just so hard to say everything you really want to. Like now. Whats not easy might not always be whats right. Whats not easy is figuring out whats actually right.

Sigh to be in 12th again....I would give a great deal...Atleast for ross, it was an honest mistake...

Shoot, practicals in 8 hours. Got to go sleep.

Of a nubbinectomy and death to the rastrapharians

2006-10-24T01:57:00.000+08:00

I am unable to think up new titles any more. I am losing my creativity. I didnt even have a nubbin to begin with. Aaargh.

I met up with boubou, minku, datch and ramya today. Minku and I had decided to go to satyam early and book tickets for the movie. But everything except vettaiyadu villaiyadu was sold out. I had already wasted 10 dollars on that dumb movie, I wont watch it again even if it were for free. So we decided to go to coffee day but before we reached the place we were soaking wet. The tropical icebergs didnt really warm us out.

I also realised how sadly out of touch minku and I are with dumbC. We were almost beaten by the "(we are) dumb c (!) team". Death to the rastrapharians. And to minku who didnt know what jerusalem was famous for. And to minku again for saying "coffee bar", "coffee lounge", "coffee place" "coffee day", "coffee shop" but not "cafe". For those curious souls and the dumC team, rastrapharians is a word we just made up.

The dumC team dont have a life. They suck. Sigh I should stop missing them even before I leave chennai :

Minku and datch, goes without saying. Stinker, for all the times hes beaten me up. And for all the "youuu thinkk you are a funnny pannii aaa". Nabil for making firstbench life fun. KR for all the manU rub-ins. I should really stop now.

I have a 2500 word essay to write on how the cold war affected relations between India and singapore. I have done about 110 words now. I need to submit it on thursday.

The lecturer said we could add pictures. I asked him if each picture couted as a 1000 words.

I am just glad he found it amusing.

I dont like writing essays. The last english assignment I did was writing directions from the railway station to my school. LS was so amused by my answer that she read it out to the whole class, shouted at me and then made me write the thing 10 times.

Making jokes about one's ears is fine. Not everyone's left ear is slightly longer than the right. Or even one's hair. After all, not everyone has wavy hair.

But umbrellas, I feel, are above such things. They should not be commented upon, or made fun of. They shouldnt be broken in half either. Flirting with disaster is a dangerous passtime. As is making unfunny comments which are better kept secret.

I need to stop typing for the sake of moving my fingers. This is yet another nonsensical post written when the author is half drunk, half sleepy, and half wondering why USSR had to break up. The author also comes to the conclusion that three halfs make up a very weird post and a half baked essay. I guess by now most of you want to give me a half, right ...

Life in a fishbowl, midterms and some weirdness

2006-10-18T06:25:00.000+08:00

Ok maybe Singapore is slightly larger than a fishbowl. Never mind the technicalities..

Hostel life has its own ups and downs. You learn to live by GMT, you get used to having noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When you wake up 10 minutes late for a class that began at 11, you learn to say "Oh what the hell" and get back to sleep. When you wake up after the class ends, you decide to go to YIH to play pool. When you do manage to make it to the lecture, you learn sleep there. Or if really bored, chat on yahoo messenger. Or if REALLY bored, play virtualtennis over the wireless network with your friend who is supposed to be in the same class but for some reason is in the TV room. When you get bored of subway you go to McDonalds. When you get bored of McDonalds, you go to KFC. When you get bored of KFC you go to Rangoli(an Indian restaurant not far from campus).

My midterms got over last week. The Elec engineering one was o....k..... It made me wish I had paid more attention to Chitra. For about 10 minutes after the exam. The statistics exam was ultimate comedy. Firstly, I dont know why I am taking that stupid module. We learn to calculate the probability of some totally random crap like

"What is the chance that grandchildren of a man who has 14.64 % chance of having a cardiopulmonary disability when a) The parents of the children smoke b) The mother alone smokes c) Neither smoke if i) the children are identical twins ii) they are nonidentical twins iii) They are not twins given that the model follows a Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium".

One tutorial question was

In the semester I, 2006/2007, 304 students are taking ST1232.
Find the probability that all of them will survive in the next 3 months. Justify your
answers.

Wait, some of this sounds kind of cool. I should be finding this interesting right? Oh wait, I just realised, I dont give a damn what is the probability that there occurs exactly 31 road accidents a week or whether whether light smokers are more likely to get anigma than heavy smokers. I would much rather sit back and read about it in the newspapers. That is ofcourse if there is no cover story about Alonso dying due to a malfunctioning toilet seat.

I am going to India this weekend for diwali. I was also given "subtle" hints that I needed to get gifts for my friends celebrating their birthdays soon. And "half-birthdays". WTF are half birthdays anyway ? And how come I didnt get a halfbirthday gift all these years ?

Cant think of anything else, more later. Got to wrap up the gifts, pack all the stuff, start on the SS essay, do the cs lab assignment and study for the discrete structures test.

Ah yes, discrete structures.

CS1231 is another weird module. Its been 5 weeks since I attended the last lecture. We have weekly tests each of which contribute 5% to the final marks. This is too little to "motivate" me to prepare for it while this is also a little too high for me to ignore. This results in a lot of friday afternoons being spent in cramming for the test. We basically learn about everything RP almost taught us but never got around to it because Swarun bunked that monday.

Well back to discrete, cant wait till friday afternoon this time. Flights at 830 while exam gets over only at 6. Going to be cutting it fine...half birthday presents are on the line here :

Painted red

2006-10-12T05:32:00.000+08:00

A ferrari engine failed after 5 years...

A sad end to what was one of the most brilliant comebacks in F1...

Memories of Zizou and WC2006 return to haunt...the parallels are overwhelming... and unnerving...

So near and yet so far, yet again...

I still retain hope, hope for a miracle. Hope for a fitting end, thoroughly deserved.

As a side note, I hear FIA are looking for a new lawn mower, now that Montoya has left. Anyone help them can lah?

The super supper and everything else

2006-09-28T03:54:00.000+08:00

I woke up at 4 15 today and...one sec, 415 in the evening, it was 7 by the time I slept. So anyway, I woke up at 415 and didnt want to go to the canteen for lunch coz by this time I would only get "pratas" at the Indian stall or mongolian chicken at asian. I was getting sick of both so I decided to make my own lunch. I "cooked" two packets of noodles and brought them to my room and sat in front of my comp. By the time I was done irritating varatha and enquiring about two little kids N and N, the noodles had become soggy. To spice it up a bit I added some crumbled oreo cookies, and just for kicks, added some pringles too. Oh well whats life without a bit of adventure...

I just found out my friends' friend's friend is my friend. Its a small world after all.

I miss home...St.Mary's ground...the 5 rupees lime juice...making fun of froggie and bk...hand tennis...compsci labs and dumbc...beach football...planetYumm...trying to finagle treats out of random people for no reason...kabab factory...scotland and oompha loompha...plotting world domination with minku...sigh life moves fast.

Its 4 AM now, just for the record. Some things, atleast, dont change.

What IS an EQ ??

2006-09-22T01:53:00.000+08:00

Your EQ is 133

50 or less: Thanks for answering honestly. Now get yourself a shrink, quick!

51-70: When it comes to understanding human emotions, you'd have better luck understanding Chinese.

71-90: You've got more emotional intelligence than the average frat boy. Barely.

91-110: You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that.

111-130: You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt.

131-150: You are remarkable when it comes to relating with others. Only the biggest losers get under your skin.

150+: Two possibilities - you've either out "Dr. Phil-ed" Dr. Phil... or you're a dirty liar.

What's Your EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient)?

Hmm its been a long time since I did one of these tests. Im sure a few of you, starting with my pessimistic and very sadistic guardian angel, disagree with the accuracy of the test but I think its bang on. I only just realised though that I seem to know quite a few big losers. Well ok make that two...

Oh and Kreeda football starts day after tomorrow. We have to play the toughest team in the competition. More on kreeda and my team name later, its already 230 and I have a class at 9, which I "plan" to attend. Doing laundry is a drag. Especially when the driers dont work. I tried drying my clothes using the washing machine, I set the thing to just "Spin", hoping it wouldnt go through wash and rinse. But I didnt realize that it would pour water onto my already washed clothes. fark.....

Gun them red devils !!!

2006-09-18T02:33:00.000+08:00

I just found out how it feels to be a gunners fan at Old Trafford.

I went to Temasek hall at 11 to watch the ManU Arsenal match. They telecast the matches live in the halls while at PGP(which is a residence and theres a whole world of difference between halls and residences) we hardly watch tv coz we get nothing but Channel5 and Channel 5 sucks. Raghavendra, Varun and I headed over to the Temasek lounge where they were showing the match on a giant screen. There were us 3 arsenal fans and about 40 manU diehards. When Gilberto(@%#%#) missed that penalty, the roof came down. When Ronaldo kicked the ball straight into Lehmann's face( I still hate him), the walls shook. When Adebayor sneaked the ball through whatshisname's legs and into the goal, the room was silent but for the three of us shouting ourselves hoarse.

Ah life is too good to be true.

Except for the statistics class this morning. Actually, its in 5 hours. I need to get more sleep.

My home...my rules...

2006-09-13T14:36:00.000+08:00

I promised some pictures of my room sometime ago and tada here they are.

Well, this is my room. its kinda small but I took three pictures from different angles to make it appear slightly larger.

My bed...(and my bag too)...

And ..hem hem..the rest of my room...dont mind the mess.

The cluster kitchen where we can make noodles in the middle of the night. We are at it often coz the PGP dinner sucks(PGP is the place where I stay)

The residence 6 lounge or "common room". This is where we play CounterStrike or watch movies or pretend to study. If you are lucky, you can also find some seniors you can "re-orient"(observe varun nagu, middle left of picture). What goes around comes around.

I took more pictures of PGP but the card reader stopped working suddenly and I am not able to load them onto my computer. Wait for a bit more, patient reader(s?).

Also, I am proud to say that my organization skills have improved greatly. I refuse to elaborate though.

It comes down to this at last

2006-09-11T17:54:00.000+08:00

The saga draws to a close. The grand finale awaits. Its just two points now. And more than enough time. The conclusion is all but inevitable. The heir apparent is peeing in his pants right now. The bang is growing louder. This is the way to go Schumi.

Adieu Steve

2006-09-05T03:16:00.000+08:00

Steve Irwin, the famous croc hunter, died today after getting stung by a string-ray.

I feel very sad that such a thing had to happen...I used to like his programmes a lot. His enthusiasm, if not the charming crocs themselves, kept me glued to "Croc hunter". But then, I guess, if given a choice Steve would have chosen this way to die after all.

Life is short, you never know around which corner your sting ray is. Get a grip, do what you love. Enjoy life, there is no other meaning to it. Dont hesitate, you might lose what you have forever. Speak out, there is no right moment. Things change, so do people.

Rest in peace Steve.

Tag, Rag and a Mag

2006-08-19T02:50:00.000+08:00

The tag first.

Once you've been tagged, you have to write a blog entry with five complete lies about yourself. That is, five things about you that are completely not true. Not even slightly. THEN hide in the entry a 6th line, something that is absolutely TRUE and the first person to guess which one is true wins (though they get nothing but the satisfaction of guessing right). Then tag upto five people you want to turn into compulsive liars too.

1. I love doing tags.
2. I did not sleep through my first 3 lectures here.
3. I go to bed at 10 and wake up at 6.(lets ignore the fact that its 3 am right now)
4. I am addicted to coke...the drinking variety i mean
5. I DONOT have a baby face.
6. I would have given Bryan Adams a run for his money.

Hint : The answer is #5. Done. End of tag. No further comments about this please.

I went to the bank yesterday to encash some travellers cheques. The cashier lady took my passport, saw the picture which was taken some 5 years ago, looked at me and said "You havent changed at all la!!". Collateral damage.

The rag then.

We had our "orientation sessions" nearly every night during our first two weeks here. Our seniors seemed to assume we were some circus troupe and they would make us stand before them, say "entertain us", sit back and expect us to do cartwheels. There was one particularly over creative senior, whom I will not name, who came up with this.

Lets call the senior VN and my poor batchmate, SB.

VN : dei inga vada. *shows him a 10cent coin* idhu ennadhu da ?

SB : 10 cents ?

VN : tamil la ennadhu da ?

SB : 10 kasu ?

VN : Seri adha sine a mathu da.

SB : huh ??

VN : nee maths genius dhanae. cos a sine a mathu da.

Well, you can imagine how bad it was.

Ill stop this section here because I cant think of anything else particularly amusing or interesting that happened.

I had started writing this post a couple of weeks ago but after that day, I didnt really feel like continuing until now. Ill write another post when I am feeling more creative, the standards just took a great dip with this one...

There...and still there...

2006-08-16T21:42:00.000+08:00

Hello hello hello long time no post. I was quite busy over the past few days getting settled down in my college and all so couldn't post. But now I finally found some free time and a vacant lounge (without either of which, I find it extremely difficult to write anything) and am now going to bore you with my 107th post which, for the record, will be my first one from singapore.

So, I landed in singapore on august the 1st and reached NUS(which is where im going to spend the next 4 years of my life). My room is kinda small but when I think of those poor souls in trichy who are cramped 4 in a room, I thank the building constructor for providing such spacious rooms. My room looked a bit dull but after I was done with the decorations, it looks pretty cool. I took a few pictures but due to a non-existent Comp-camera cable, I am unable to upload them.

During the first two weeks here, we underwent a lot of "orientation sessions" or, as some of you may know it, "Personality Development Programs". They basically meant going to a residence lounge and listen to seniors crack seriously witty jokes about you. Most of the time, there would be around 30 seniors but only 4 or 5 of us and so...well, I reserve comments. But they are all really friendly and very helpful though !

Another thing about coming to singapore is the language problem. Learning to speak singlish, which is the official language here, is not hard. Trying to understand what another singaporean is saying, though, is next to impossible. To speak, all you have to do is add "la" to the end of every sentence, like for example la, when you go to a supermarket la, ask for a table lamp la and the shopping assistant will reply "I bring you there la". But oo la la, it doesn't end there. You also need to omit words like "will", "can" etc from your sentences and should insert "the" whenever you feel like it. Like when you the go to canteen, you find bad food la. I wont write about understanding singlish because so far, I haven't managed it myself.

While we are talking about languages, there are a lot of people who speak hindi here. And since my hindi knowledge is restricted "mujae hindi nahi malum hai", I tried to learn how to speak. Then I realised that all I had to do was add "abey" every two minutes and voila, abey mujae hindi malum hai now yaar. Anyone who speaks hindi is referred to as an "abey" and its mandatory to add the word whenever speaking to one. We aim to blend in.

My first class started last monday and it was at 8 in the morning. I went to bed at 3 AM woke up at 7 40 AM turned on my computer found out that the lecture was at lt34, realised that I didnt know where it was, ran to the bus stop and checked the map and reached class by 8 20. It was a two hour class and for the first hour the professor was giving an introduction. Then he gave us a break for 5 minutes and then started teaching. I fell asleep right then and woke up 5 minutes before class was supposed to end. Well atleast I wasnt playing mortal kombat like the two guys sitting next to me.

Oh heck I have the same class ~~today~~ ~~tomorrow~~ well ... 6 hours from now. damn I need to sleep.

Why do I still keep blogging at 2 AM ?

Old habits die hard...

PS ill do the tag later

2006-07-31T15:36:00.000+08:00

Well, this is probably my last post from chennai for quite a bit of time. Im off to singapore today, off to college and umm to face the challenges of life. Packing is usually a drag, but since I havent done any of it, its not all that bad. blah who cares. I dont have to be at the airport for another 7 hours !

Deciding what I want to take is hard, and I dont refer to clothes. I have to choose between Age of Mythology and Quake4 and Total Club Manager and WarCraft and the decision is made harder because my father has decreed that I should not take any game there. Well every law has a loophole and I still have 7 hours to find one in this.

So to cut a short post shorter, Ill miss everything about chennai and my school and all my "old" and "older" friends and the idgits who wont be reading this for another two weeks because they either dont know how to turn on a computer or how to find one. ( :-) aimed at two of you in particular !)

Adios !

NATO and autos

2006-07-28T00:58:00.000+08:00

Bargaining with auto fellows is an art. Some have mastered it, some are fine tuning it while yet others have to learn who is an auto man and who is a policeman. There are various techniques of bargaining. Read on and be amazed as consumer awareness takes on new meanings.

BK is considered our resident bargaining expert. He has a standard policy of offering rs 20 below what the auto fellow asks for. Now this works fine in most cases except when, say, the auto guy asks for 25 bucks. Once, spidey bk and ninju were trying to come to the beasant nagar beach from mylapore. The normal fare would be around 35 and the auto guy asked them for 40. Now bk being a man of principles tried to bargain for 20. No sane automan would let bk inside the auto for anything less than 30 and ninju wasnt feathers and leaves either. They finally ended
up walking half the way and still paying 35.

There was this friend of mine from CV(to whom we shall refer to as SP) who redefined the word "bargaining" (and along with it, "mathematics" and "logic" but you shall understand as you keep reading). There were three of us and we were trying to get to his house which was somewhere in T.Nagar. We hailed an auto and this is what ensued.

*the conversation happened mostly in tamil, translate for appropriate effect*

SP : Anna, T.Nagar *some place* poonum.

Auto guy : 45 ruppees.

SP : for 3 people 45 aa?

Auto guy : amam...

SP : Appo, for one person how much?

Auto guy : ??

SP : Ille, 3 people 45 na, 1 person rs 15 dhanae ?

Auto guy : ???????????????????

SP : Adhu dhanae maths. logicala paarungo.

Auto guy *looks totally bewlidered*

SP : Ippo, 15 na, then for 3 people only petrol will be extra...so 25 ruppees ok a?

I decline to mention the conversation which followed. The auto man displayed a colourful vocabulary and we had to find another auto. Well no harm in trying I guess.

And some of you maybe wondering where NATO comes into this post. It actually doesnt. I rhyme for the heck of it.

The prince and the papers

2006-07-26T17:07:00.000+08:00

A few days ago, a small boy in rural Haryana fell down a...big hole in the ground. The media were over him like vultures and special teams from the army were called him to rescue the boy. The Haryana CM spent an entire day at the spot, directing rescue efforts one would presume. The minister promised free medical treatment but the boy luckily had escaped unhurt.

First thing that struck me about this incident was the amount of media attention it received. The news channels were flashing streaming videos of the boy every 5 minutes and Headlines Today went further by inviting people to send SMS wishes and get-rescued-soon messages, which was so totally stupid. This kind of sensationalist, mass-appeal news reporting, which I thought exclusive to the Times of India and Deccan Chronicle, is beginning to sink in everywhere. The media is going to the dogs.

But it cannot also be denied that the boy wouldn't have even been noticed if not for all the attention he received. After all, these kind of incidents happen quite frequently and how many times do we have Chief Ministers gracing the occassion ? The CM also spent an entire day there. Well so who said ruling the state was hard work ?

The boy ,besides the free medical treatment, was also awarded Rs. 2 lakh in "compensation". Now, it is the government's fault that the ditch remained uncovered, but why are the tax payers being punished instead? Shouldn't the 2 lakhs come from the CM's salary ?

This country is really on its way to houndsville...

Alles Gute !

2006-07-22T01:35:00.000+08:00

My german class got over today ! yay !! I have now officially cleared the A1 level of german and boy am I proud of myself ! My german class had many interesting people and very few, nicht so interessant.

My teacher, Jerome Rajan was awesome. He made some very boring lessons seem interesting and I would probably have slept through half the course if it had been any one else. Then there is Mukund, the software professional who was always lost in translation. And then Sathappan who is searching for a sundal saleslady on the marina beach. And Kyle who spoke everything with his american accent(he is american). And Sunil who spoke everything with his Hindi accent(he is Hindi. er well he is from north india). There was Guru, the rockstar of the class. There was Karan the schlafenman(sleeperman) who I think I mentioned in an earlier post. There was Satish who turned up at class only to attend the breaks we got. There was danny boy who was the lead singer of the aforementioned rock band. There was Bhavana who actually liked *gasp* Klose. There was Arun who had no comment about anything.

So after class today, we all decided to go to Mocha which was about two buildings away. That place would have given the Auschwitz a good run for its money. The whole place was floating in smoke and there was hardly anyone there without a cigarette. There was this group of guys smoking from a couple of hookahs in front of us and there were a couple of girls who probably went through whatever Marlboro produced the pervious day. I was gassed even before I touched the menu card. I think I should be able to sue anyone who smokes around me. I mean, if people want to kill themselves I am perfectly fine with that but why should I get caught in the cross fire ? I think I lost a couple of years of my life there, and that is a conservative estimate.

Mocha sucks. I hate you.

Well german class is over, I guess I will certainly miss some parts of it. NOT, though, the lessons on seperable verbs and the other nonsense.

ich habe Deutsch gelernt !!

Deutsch is super....

2006-07-17T01:38:00.000+08:00

At one point during these 2 months, I had decided to attend a german university(those plans were scrubbed recently though). And for that, my mom decided that I needed to learn german and she enrolled me in a 6 week crash course. I am one of those many Indians who put "multilingual" to shame. I can hardly read anything in Hindi and what I read, I dont understand. I take time to read and write tamil and what I write would burn out spell checkers. My vocabulary was, according to my tamil teacher, unforgivable bordering on blasphemous. Only my english has attained certain levels of decency.

I thought learning a new language would be fun. It would also give me something to do during the latter part of the 4 month vacation. Before I entered the class, my knowledge of germany was limited to Klose, Kahn, Ballack, hot dogs, Michael Schumacher and "Jawohl mein Fuhrer". Now I know how to say "I need a mug of beer", "You are very beautiful" and "German class is boring".

My german sir used brainwashing techniques to make us think that german was easy. We were made to sing songs which went "German is very good, its not complicated. Listen to this, please " or something like that.

The main thing about german is, everything has a sex attached to it. A table is masculine, spectacles are feminine and a book is "neither". Remembering the articles to be used when talking about these objects is hard and the grammar is horribly complicated too. My sir came up with this funky rule that everything "good" is masculine and everything "bad" is feminine. This rule worked out in most cases but it is hard to figure out why "tests" were good but "exams" were bad. Marks are always bad though. The one good thing about german though is that you read things as you write them. There are no "silent" letters or extra sounds attached.

But german class is also providing a lot of all round education though. I found out what TASMAC is, I learnt the difference between "I'm free" and "I'm available". I found out how the word "dollar" came into existence, I also realised that my theory on why most girls root for germany was Klose enough to the truth. There is also the schlafenman(sleeping man) in class who demonstrated how to sleep with your eyes closed/open/looking at the teacher/while reading something from the text book. Valuable skills I am glad to have learnt.

Deutsch is super, Internazionale

Memoirs of a rush(i)a - True lies

2006-07-16T00:40:00.001+08:00

Once upon a time in a far away kingdom, there lived a young man, who was perfectly happy with his life. He had all he wanted, a good place to live, nice clothes and plenty of entertainment. Though he courted disaster by slandering the Heads of states, ministers and the occassional lab attender who visited the kingdom periodically, he always managed to steer clear of the gallows. He also had a companion called Ninjalot who aided him during these courtships but then he does not come into this story.

Life was serene, with the frequent summons dealt out by the court jester, B.A.B. Abr Ham, doing little to disturb the tranquility that had settled around the young man's life. This was when the evil witch lady entered the scene. When he had first met the witch lady, which was about a year ago, she seemed quite nice. The fault was not his, the entire kingdom had thought so. It was only as time progressed that everyone realised that her magical skills(among a lot of other things) were not what she made them out to be. She was an attention seeking braggart who got into trouble very frequently with the Minister of Commerce, R.Paramasivan. That in itself should speak volumes about her mental capabilities.

They say that birds of a feather flock together and it was not long before the evil witch lady had acquired a lackey, a wonderkid (he made you wonder how anyone could be so dumb) who lived in another dimension. When he and the witch lady got together, they made a better pair than Dumb and Dumber, the only question being who was dumber(it was a close run thing).

And one day, the evil witch lady started hatching plots to malign the young man. With the help of her brainless lackey, she started spinning malicious lies which in essence indicated that the young man had *gasp* smiled at her */gasp*. She sent out her trusted lieutenant to spread the tale that would surely have spelt doom for the young man had people decided to believe the lackey. Is this it ? Is this the end of the career of an honest young man(well honest looking but lets not split hairs) who wanted nothing but to have fun in life?

Well no not really. There were just 17 major things wrong with the plot which the witch lady doesn't seem to have considered. A few of them being

* The young man did not remotely resemble a male aquafina transport vehicle

* In fact he had never shown any signs of attraction towards things that were the then main cause of the depletion of the ozone layer

* The lackey wasn't the smartest person around, the first two people he told came and informed the young man about what was being said of him

When the whole story came out, the witch lady denied everything, the wonderkid was left looking stupid(well stupider than usual) and the young man, out of his philanthropic nature, decided not to press charges against either of them. It was after all, all in a days work. Normalcy returned to the kingdom in the matter of a week.

And (most of them) lived happily ever after.

Author's note : This is based on a real life story of a fictional character.

And the 100th post...

2006-07-11T01:55:00.001+08:00

I wrote three posts after my last one, two of which I decided not to post and the third which I deleted. I wanted my 100th post to be about something special and reviews of Superman Returns did not qualify. I knew clearly what I would write about though I might have written this post differently had not an overgrown orangutan by the name Materazzi replaced Nesta in the Italian team.

Sunday's match was supposed to be a glittering end to a glittering career, regardless of who lifted the trophy later on.

Zinedine Zidane didn't do that for no reason, any sane person would realise that.

Zidane is the greatest footballer of this age, one incident will take none of his accomplishments or his greatness away from him.

This post was going to be a tribute to Zidane and thats what it will be.

We love you Zizou

There... and back again !

2006-07-03T00:43:00.000+08:00

All that is gold does not glitter...

Not all who wander are lost...

The old that is strong does not wither...

Deep roots are not touched by frost

Its France '98 all over again !

It seems ridiculous that two weeks ago there were people who thought France wouldn't qualify to the round of 16.

Form is temporary but then, class is permanent !

What the heck.....

2006-07-01T02:07:00.000+08:00

Argentina just got eliminated, by a penalty shootout. Crespo and Riquelme were taken out ten minutes too early. Klinsmann is an absolute jerk, I just hate him. Argentina deserved to win, the Ayala goal should have been enough. Some one should cut off Klose's head. Germany didnt look all that invincible, they could hardly maintain possession for a minute before giving it away. There should be no penalty shoot outs, we should have just kept on playing till Ballack dropped dead and then declare Argentina as winners. I hope they get slaughtered by Italy (dont think Ukraine have much of a chance, will find out in two hours though)

:(

There is still France though, but they have a very tough match against Brazil. But cometh kaka or kuruvi, I am always behind you Zizou.

Viva les Bleus

Of scissors and randomness

2006-06-23T01:27:00.000+08:00

Its funny how whenever you havent posted something in your blog for 10 days, you start accusing others of letting their blogs rot. Trying to come up with something to post about is hard. Writing the post is harder, especially when you have nothing to post about. So it is with all these difficulties that I sit down to write this now. Well its not exactly true that not having anything to post about has stopped me from posting before. Well heres to hoping that my 96th post doesnt turn out like the 95 others.

"We" the people ?

I have noticed that there are some concerned citizens among us who take up all the issues we feel strongly about but never had enough time to feel enough. I am indeed referring to those enlightened men who are preventing the showing of "fanaa" because they claim Aamir khan insulted the their state. While they may have saved some money for those 4 people who would have actually decided to watch the movie, they took up valuable printspace where otherwise Sridhar Rao could have written about how Lionel Messi is going to win the golden boot and Luca Toni the golden ball ( Yeah, fiction is the In thing these days) .

The Da Vinci code movie, which was all set to release sometime in June was banned in various states. I say to you, if you think a movie is insulting your sentiments then dont go buy the damn tickets. No one is forcing you to watch the movie. But then I am probably making generalisations here. The ones who are protesting about the movie are probably those who dont even know who Da Vinci is.

The point I am trying to make here is, why should we allow a bunch of misguided individuals to dictate our tastes and our likes and dislikes ? Wouldnt I be knowing better whether I think Aamir Khan insulted me or not? Wouldnt I know better what I feel about two people holding hands in public ? (Death to the moral police) (Now you know what I feel too)

Viva Les Bleus

(Pardon the totally unrelated title. This post was supposed to be about something else but I got derailed halfway. Now Im too lazy to go change it)

The banian and the bird brain

2006-06-11T03:28:00.000+08:00

Author's note: This factual piece is entirely fictitious . Any resemblances to real life “characters” and incidents are purely coincidental

Story 1 : If you can’t practice what you preach, just shut up.

Once upon a time, there lived a group of kids whose relation to each other was that they had studied in the same class. All of them had also just passed out of school and were spending their "well deserved" holiday as fruitfully as possible. They played basketball and cricket everyday and football at the beach once a week. Among them was a certain character called N.VinVin. This VinVin had once injured his "pinky" while trying to catch a tennis ball and was supposedly not allowed to play games for a week. And so he didnt turn up for the cricket games but when the class played football, he made a not-very-dramatic appearance. I guess he came because he heard kadalai at the beach was very good.(Hey, I mean the eatable variety ! honest !). And so, since he could not play, he took up the post of Sven Moron Eriksson. As fate would have it, he took it upon himself to reposition my entire team and finally, the only people standing anywhere near the goal keeper(me) were the two forwards of the opposite team. Needless to say, we lost badly and it wasnt too hard to find a ~~scapecow~~ scapegoat. But it really was his fault.

This story doesnt end with the preaching though. The next week, Mr.VinVin's fingers had become alright and he wanted to prove to us that he wasnt all talk. But sadly, or maybe unsurprisingly, Wayne Loony couldnt score a goal. And whats more, he managed to miss from 3 feet in front of the goal. He then decided to be the goal keeper and who can get past the great Buffoon ? Seemingly everyone. And he blamed it on the north wind.

The following is based on another one of those "characters" in the above mentioned fictitious class.

Story 2 : You should give up on cricket when...

Rameez hits you out of the ground. Or when Deepan's kid brother(who is about as tall as the bat) hits you for 6 runs in 3 balls. Or when the opposing team has scored 22 runs in 7 overs and 10 of those came in your first over. Or when you take 15 deliveries to complete one over. Or when the only person who thinks you can bowl is you.

Some valuable lessons in life he needs to learn...

Common sense 101

Repeating the same joke 10 times doesnt make it funny.

Saying "fp"(feel pannadhae) everytime someone says something you dont understand is not really a smart thing to do.

But then, you wouldnt be doing that if you were smart.

When you make a joke, run it through a spell checker first. That way, you will prevent people from laughing at the wrong things. But then, that might be the only way you can get anyone to laugh at your jokes. Decisions decisions....

When you are called a bashibazouk, dont start with "As if..." and stop there.

And they lived happily ever after.

(The names in the title are interchanged. Pardon the artistic liberties)

Memoirs of a rush(i)a - Chapter 3

2006-06-02T02:42:00.000+08:00

I just realised that I have never really talked about what went on during phsyics classes, the most "happening" periods of school. This means a lot of things (other than physics) happened during these classes. General scene during a physics period :

1st bench : Swarun(anon2) avidly listening to every word the teacher utters

2nd bench : Sriram prasath bugging kaushik, needless to say neither of them listening to a word

3rd bench : Ashwin messaging siva who is messaging vinod(might be worthwhile to mention that
the 3 of them sit a few feet away from each other).

4th bench : Man and pointerram thinking up complex problems, somewhat related to whatever chitra is talking about.

5th bench : Nabil furiously copying english answers

last bench : me and ninju playing bingo(we always use our physics classworks)

and suddenly

Chitra : At about Niranjan, what are you doing ?

Ninju : 23

Me : 14

Ninju : 5

Pointerram : dei ninju she is calling you da...

Ninju : uh ? oh..er writing notes ma'am

Chitra : ok...nabil..can you please get up and answer this question ? You seem to be copying
something from that time...

Nabil *gets up, grins at everyone who is sitting in front of him* : I dont konw ma'am

Chitra then goes on to ask sriram prasath, kaushik, brainpraveen, tb and datch, none of whom seem to know the answer.

Vinod *after suddenly waking up from a cell-phone induced slumber blabbers something*

Chitra : Adhu ille ma. I think rushi knows the answer to the question. pleasssse get up

Me : Eh ? oh that..oh yeah... i remember...wait wait....

Ninju *turns to me and grins like a fool*

Me *thinks for a couple of more minutes* : Um..ma'am can you repeat the question ?

Chitra : sit down, sit down
*and promptly goes on with the lessons. nothing wrong with the class today*

Once in 11th, we had csc as the last period. Kvkk didnt notice the bell ringing and was still standing inside class and talking to swarun(anon2), not letting us leave. It was already 3:20 and we were trying to find ways of politely letting kvkk know how late it was. I came up with this wonderful idea. Only, it wasnt very effective. This is what happened :

Me : Sir, is TIME.h supported by a gcc compiler ?

Kvkk : yes, it is supported..why do you ask ?

Me : We are using TIME.h in our project sir and we were wondering if we would be able to SEE
the TIME in a gcc compiler.

Kvkk : yes yes you can see the time

*and promptly continues talking to swarun(anon2)*

Finally, swarun got the hint and told kvkk that it was really late and he let us go.

And we played football again today. This time, my team had the non existent defence but we still managed to hold them to 11-6. Some weirdo joined our team halfway, I dont think anyone knew who he was. His vision seemed to be restricted to members of the opposite sex and no one else was getting the ball. But Aatha(frog) was our hat-trick hero though if you ask datch, he would tell you that frog should have scored atleast 5 more goals with the number of chances he got. I agree with him.

Nothingness.

2006-05-31T02:40:00.001+08:00

It began with the first exam of the first revision sometime during december. Life was a rollercoaster going downhill and before we knew it, we had written three revisions and the APSC in 30 days. The whole of february was like the calm before a storm. And in march, the board exams rushed past like one of Ramesh Powar's quicker deliveries. And then,

Nothingness.

These past two months were part of an eagerly awaited holiday. I spent most of the 6 days "study" holidays we got for C.Sc boards planning how I would spend my time. And this one time, I actually managed to keep to my plans as much as possible, though I dont remember them including "Help mom clean house every saturday" or "Call the TataIndicom guy every alternate day and ask him why the connection isnt working". But still things went quite smoothly and life trudged along comfortably.

But now, an unsettling monotony has crept in. There are only so many times you can ooru suthify this ooru where there isnt much to suthify. Also, most of the specimens who lend a meaning to ooru suthifying seem to have outsourced themselves to bangalore. Everyday, I talk to the same people, fight with the same people and make fun of the same people. I play the same game, delete group mails all from the same person and read the same blogs for the zillionth time.

Atleast back while I was in school, I had something to look forward to each day. I couldnt wait to see if RP would stick to her word of not correcting the assignment notebooks of those who hadnt finished their holiday homework. I would wonder if LS would remember to check our classworks. I would wait and see whether Chitra would remember to conduct the "surprise" test she had told us about, last week. I couldnt wait to see if my project would crash the school computer again. I would wonder when I was going to get the next blackmark.

Some times, I looked back at things too. Most of the time when I woke up, I would wish that I had completed the math or chem homework the previous day instead of doodling all over my math classwork. Sometimes, I would remember about the homework only after I woke up and I would try to come early to school to copy it from some idiot who has finished it already. I would wake up at 7 45 and wish that school didnt start at 8 15. I would come to school at 8 30 and wish that I didnt have to go through the princi's office to get to my classroom. When kvkk starts giving me lectures about "stupid idiots who come late to school", I would wish that RaviShankar got a life and stopped putting jaalra to kvkk.

Without all this, life seems very dull. Now I have to look for new peaks to scale, new realms to conquer and new oceans to sail.

Oh well, until then.

Motocross madness and Life in an 8 inch diameter

2006-05-27T01:15:00.000+08:00

All due respect/credit/thanks/apologies to Microsoft and Star Sports

It all began ~~with the forging of the great rings, three were given to the elves, immorta..~~ that day when we were playing cricket at St.Mary's ground. I didnt have a ride home and was looking for a lift. I didnt want to walk home coz it takes 49 minutes and frog (er..navneet) would probably be my only companion. I already had the unfortunate experience of walking home with him once and apart from bugging me about how he was walking so that he could correct his figure and correct figures in college, he also dumped me when we reached his house. I had to walk the rest of the way alone, I wasnt really complaining though.

Well so ~~holy cow~~ Vinod offered me a ride and I gladly accepted. So, to say vinod drives like ..or shall we say wants to drive like Valentino Rossi is an understatement. As we overtook Splendours and even Honda Citys(mind you, we were riding on a tvs scooty(i think)) on the Adyar bridge(or the "Thiru vi ka bridge for the wise), he reassured me with the words "when you ride with me, you have to risk certain things. like your life..." and we nearly avoided buying an old lady on a tvs 50 a premature ticket to heaven. As we were coming down the adyar flyover at what I would put at 65kph(and passing a nearby skoda octavia), the bike started wobbling a bit. And this is what happened :

Vinod : Dei stop shaking da..
Me : I cant help it..its the way you drive !
Then, Bang
Me : What was that ??
Bike starts shaking madly
We roll to a halt
Vinod : Er... I think the rear wheel is punctured
Me : Oh.. um... so what am I supposed to do ?
Vinod : You can get off the bike for starters and help me push it off the road

We got stranded in the middle of the road, aptly, right in front of the tvs service station. But we pushed the bike over to a nearby puncture shop and the guy gave us a bill of 85 bucks. Vinod unfortunately didnt have a single paisa and I paid for the whole thing. Quite an adventure huh.

And today, at the ~~Stadt de france~~ Beasant nagar beach, the greatest football match with the goal 15 size 11 adidas shoe steps wide took place. We were 8 on each team and well it didnt take too long to figure out who were the better team.

In my team, there were two strikers, kvt and vinod, zero mid fielders and 3 defenders, stinku, pointer and shaik, and Js who was running around not really doing anything. Soumi was on our team too but Im still not sure what position she was playing(not to say that she was bad ofcourse). And me was goalkie. The other team had 2 defenders ninju and sridhu(some may argue that this amounts to more than two but I will let the debate continue), 1 midfielder, the mystic(who was a bit rusty today I think, I didnt see her kick the ball farther than 3 feet) and the rest of the team playing forwards.

It turned out to be a slaughter and by the time we had the first drinks break, the score was 8-3, our team on 8. But no one bothered to get the poor goalkeeper(me) any water and I was dying of thirst when the second half began. Anand and Ajit joined us, Anand on our team. The slaughter stopped. It turned out to be a massacre. The final score was 16-8 or somethinglike that, I lost count after 12. Kvt scored most of our goals, though this was due to a non existent defence. They would have scored quite a few goals too, with kr and dd kicking free kicks from everywhere towards the goal but the great goalkie was there to stop them(most of the time). Some of you might now be wondering with concern, what happened to the poor goalkeeper who was dying of thirst? Well the rusty mystic took pity on him and got him some water. But most of it was finished off by stinku and siva. sigh....life...

Next time, we should probably have a wider goal on one side and lesser number of frogs who cant even spell "offside", let alone know what it means, playing to even things out. Maybe it will do the trick. Maybe.

There never was much hope, just a fool's hope.

(All apologies to Gandalf)

There and back again

2006-05-19T04:14:00.000+08:00

I just returned from a short trip to Germany(yes I went alone :) ). The trip was for um business purposes(sounds more interesting this way ;-) ) and well was a success shall we say. For all the talk about being part of the Eurpoean Union, nearly everything in Germany is written in *surprise surprise* German ! My knowledge of the German language starts with "Guten Tag"(which means hello) and ends there. But somehow I "Guten tag"ed my way through two airports(in germany), 3 railway stations and a tram without ending up at Madrid. Germany is a beautiful place and you really dont need to know much german if you can point ~~and grunt~~ ...well if you can get the meaning across.

Well so I was travelling on a lufthansa aeroplane and if there is one thing I hate about them, its their sucky choices of inflight entertainment. I had slept through the flight toward frankfurt so no.."problems" there. On the way back though, there were complications. Due to lack of availability of hot specimens of the fairer sex(note the operative word "hot"), I had to look for other forms of entertainment. The movie being screened was "Kanda naal mudhal" and since I had nothing better to do, I decided to watch it.

To begin with, the hero was ugly bordering on hideous. And if you want to dance half naked, go ahead but SHAVE YOUR ARMPITS FOR GODS SAKE. THIS IS A CINEMA. The plotline itself was very confusing. So there was this girl and guy who have been fighting ever since they were little kids. So this girl doesnt like this guy. So she gets betrothed to his best friend. But this guy likes this girl so he..wants the marriage to go ahead(??). But after the engagement ceremony, his best friend decides to break up. So this girl feels sad. This guy feels sad. They fight some more. Then she likes him. But he doesnt like her. Then he likes her. But she doesnt like him. Then they both like each other so he calls up his best friend and convinces him to marry her. And then I fell asleep. This is probably why people who are on a high should refrain from writing movie scripts. This is also why I like Singapore Airlines a lot. You get your own screen and if you dont like the movies they have chosen(which are good most of the times), you can watch sex and the city or something.

And also on returning, I find that I have 78 new mails. Life of a busy man is tough.

Oh and I was also tagged but I take the Fifth Amendment (;-) )

Sigh, it refers to the right to remain silent under US law.

Memoirs of a rush(i)a - Chapter 2

2006-05-10T00:20:00.000+08:00

Physics period is one of the most fun or most boring periods of school. Ofcourse, the amount of fun you have is inversely proportional to your proximity to the teacher. Which basically means that while those sitting in the last benches can do just about what they want, the first benchers suffer badly. But if you know how to ask ridiculous questions and start meaningless arguments, life in the first bench aint so bad either. And while the teacher looks on trying to comprehend if you are talking about physics, you can happily argue with Swarun(anon2) on why the graph she has drawn on the board is wrong because the "i" looks like a "j" when seen from this angle. He, ofcourse, always supports the teacher. But hey, you cannot have a disagreement with someone who agrees with you !

Life in the last benches is even more fun. I cannot count the numerous classes ninju and I spent coming up with blade jokes and spreading the wisdom or playing bingo or sometimes dumbC. There is always the danger of a "At about rushi will answer this question" or "niranjan, what are you writing?". The experienced campaigner knows how to dodge these death blows and always uses his "physics" "classwork" (which occassionally doubles up as a rough notebook and in times of desperation, an eg classwork).

The ever elusive eg classwork is another story. As mentioned earlier, I always turned in my rough notebook as my eg classwork. During the second term of XIIth standard, babu finally decided to check the label on the notebook and promptly marched me off to kvkk. kvkk opened my notebook and saw diagrams of ..erm something I drew while making the sincere leader wait before rubbing off the essay topic "My Daddy is the Best" during 11th standard. And kvkk found it absolutely hilarious and started guffawing as he always does. Babu felt he had the wrong attitude about the whole thing and tried to take me to LS because I had once tried to pass the notebook off as my english classwork and "English CW" was still visible. But I smooth talked and "sorry sir"ed him out of it and he finally returned my physics cw/english cw/rough notebook.

There was once a time when I tried to pass off Sriram Prasath's physics classwork as my eg notebook. It almost worked but thats again another story.

Why would I...

2006-05-08T03:01:00.000+08:00

..not want Lok Paritran to rule this time

Well for quite obvious reasons - They are new, they dont know much about the common man(a quick read of their website would show that you need a degree in philosophy to understand what they are trying to say) and are completely out of touch with reality. Their manifesto contains nothing concrete and castles in the air need to be brought down lower to make any connection. They need more experience(to basically remove the "Reality is a continuum..." bit from their website). This isnt Bihar. Corruption is there but the state still runs and is progressing at an enviable pace. Lok Paritran ask us to vote for them because they promise to remove corruption. Scary thing is they dont have much else to say. 5 years later, if they are still around, they might be a viable option. Ofcourse I do hope they get their election deposits back this time.

..want either of the dravidian parties to come to power again?
(there seems to be no point in differentiating them, they arent really different in many ways)

Actually, I wouldnt. But for the time being, they would have to do.

..vote for BJP ?
(are we forgetting they are contesting alone this time?)

Well, if I wanted to get arrested for looking at my girlfriend, sure why not ? These culture vultures seriously need to go.

Actually, I cant even vote this time. I just like saying all this and trying to sound important ! ;-)

Yes I know..

2006-05-08T02:12:00.000+08:00

my posts are getting repetitive....

But I cant help it !

If it has to be, it has to be. No one can do anything about it.

It takes an intelligent man to realise when he has been beaten.

And beaten thoroughly.

It takes an even more intelligent man to quit then.

Fighting with fate isnt going to get you anywhere.

You actually look foolish..everyone knows you have the better equipment but you still manage to lose.

Go home Alonso, its over.

VIVA LA SCHUMI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you want to search for evidence of ET...

2006-05-05T19:25:00.000+08:00

..hack into NASA, the US army, the US navy and the US airforce !

That is exactly what this guy did.

I saw this interview on BBC/click of the guy who hacked into the aforementioned networks and was searching for evidence of contact with ET and some super power generator devices which he believed the US government was hiding. He was accessing the networks for over 2 years before he was finally arrested in 2002. He now faces upto 60 years in prison if convicted.

Those of you @#$%@!% s with free internet/broadband can watch the interview at that site.

He claims though that he found pictures showing some "cigar shaped spacecraft"(I am quoting from the interview I saw) floating about the Earth's hemisphere.

There was something he said in the interview though. He said many of the computers had "blank passwords" i.e. the passwords were set to default. Funny, with so much sensitive information you would think they would atleast have a password protecting it.

I guess this is a lesson for all of us. Nothing is worth searching for two years for.

Memoirs of a rush(i)a - Chapter 1

2006-05-05T02:15:00.000+08:00

RP for the first(and the penultimate) time, decided to give us homework in 11th. She gave us about 10 sums to do over the weekend I think. Needless to say, there were 7 people(out of 46) who had actually done the homework. So she made the entire class(without the 7) stand outside and gave us all blackmarks. As a means to redeem ourselves, she gave us 10 more sums that week and asked us to complete it. This time, there were actually 8 people who had completed it. The whole excercise was repeated. The only thing that happened out of this was RP decided not to give us homeworks again.

And then there was typing class. There is a guy in class who we shall call ASK. So this ASK suddenly wanted to make paper rockets and let them fly inside the typing room. But only problem was he didnt know how to make paper rockets. So he asked me and I made one for him. Well, genius can always be imitated and he made some 20 rockets and started a rocket fight with two other idiots who were sitting opposite to us. I think these two idiots should have known better seeing one of the idiots was the class leader. So the next day, typing sir promptly reports the matter to RP . She comes to class and this is what happened.

RP : So , who were the ones responsible for throwing rockets in class ? Was it Niranjan ?

*He was on her goodbooks even then*

* Ninju immediately protested his innocence and claims that he wasnt even in our batch(which is why he escaped I guess)*

*RP turns to ASK who was the assistant leader*

RP : So ASK, who threw the rockets ?

ASK *gets up and acts as if he is in a great dilema*: "Rushi Padhuman threw them. And......*he names the two idiots very fast hoping RP wont hear their names*...

Me : HUH ??? WHAT??? I THREW THEM ?? WHY YOU #%&@^*&$

RP *Turns to the idiot who was the leader* : I am very disappointed in you. Please go apologise to your typing sir*sends both of them off*

RP *turns to me* : I should have known. Well ?

Me : I didnt throw the rockets !! I just made them, I didnt throw even one !

RP : So they flew by themselves ?*grins*

Me : Ahem...*Looks menacingly at ASK who grins back stupidly at me*

RP : Go, go apologise to him(she meant typing sir).

We go to typing sir who says he didnt even complain to RP. He says babu did it.( I actually dont know who threw rockets in babu's class even now). But he made me take all those @#$%@# rockets with me for some strange reason. So I carry them along and on the corridor meet who else but LS.

LS : Rushi Padhuman, what are you carrying in your hand ?

Me : Ah er..uhm....paper rockets ?

LS : Yes I can see that. What are you doing with them ?

Me : Uhm...typing sir asked me to throw them away ..so im er..taking them to the trash can..

LS : Hmm...were they used in class ?

Me : Uh..no no *looks like ahem lost sheep*

LS*actually believes me* : Hmm...ok go.

Later in class, she complimented the class leader for being so skillful in papercraft ;-) Sigh there was a time when teachers were actually taken in by my innocent looks...

Blast from the past

2006-05-02T19:22:00.000+08:00

As I was trying to think up a new title for my blog, I suddenly felt the urgent desire to rant about what happened exactly half a year ago.

November 1

It was a cloudy day and there was a threat of rain. It was also the day of the culturals organised by the Computer Science society of Anna university(or whatever they call themselves). Ashwin, NR and I had registered for the quiz and the first event was the prelims. The questions werent too hard but they certainly held a surprise. None of them had anything to do with computers or computer science(except maybe "Expand GPRS" to which Ratha( one of my classmates who was also in the quiz, though in the other team) had answered "Global positioning Random Systems"). We thought that maybe this was just for the prelims and the finals would be different.

(At this point, the historian would like to mention that as much as he would like to write about everything that happened, he will have to digress and his editors have politely requested him to refrain from doing so)

Well so there was also dumbC for which we hadn't registered. dd, kr and I decided to give it a whirl and while we got "absent minded professor" in 44 seconds(the cutoff being 45), we failed to get "Akbar". Then we went to a spin-a-yarn competition. We did a nice job of bringing together RP, south african jails and jailers, parking tickets and and partial differentiation in the 2 odd minutes he let us speak. But we didnt even get selected for the finals :-( (Not that we expected to though). The judge told us we didnt get points because we didnt stick to the topic(which was "Math teachers always multiply something something.."). Forgive me, I thought this was spin a yarn.

There was also a written adzap kinda thing(I dont know what they called it), we had to design posters for a theme. We picked airlines and actually came up with a smashing poster. We had an awesome tagline ("One wing to rule them all, one wing to fly them. One wing to bring them all ..."), it was beautifully symbolic(we named it WTC - Wright Through the Ccenter). We had amazing illustrations(by dd) showing our plane go (w)right through the World Trade Center(think WTC) buildings. The plane was, ofcourse, un(h)armed. We had cool stats showing how much beer we had on each plane. Or champagne if thats your poison. We had stats to show how many of our planes crashe in a year. We also had a cool logo showing The One Wing.

And then there was the Sacred Heart team which painted their poster in shocking pink and fluttered their eyelashes demurely while turning that abomination in.

Guess who won and who didnt even get a mention.......

The judge was this stupid looking guy who wore a violet designer jacket(so lets call him VJ). He acts like some Slim Shady clone(or tries to talk like one) and makes jokes, 9 out of 10 of which fall flat. We couldnt hear the tenth due to some problem with the speaker. So we are all sitting in the auditorium and this VJ dude calls up the Sacred Heart girls and gives them the first prize. And then he asked them if they wanted to take a photo with him. But sadly, he recieved a nose job(read cut), they said they had to leave and...left. With the prize though. We would have gladly taken a picture with him if thats what he wanted...sigh. Hey come on, it was 500 bucks !

After this outrage, we were all standing near some building where we are asked to stand for some reason which I still am not aware of when we heard that the dumbC finals and after that, the quiz finals would be starting at the main auditorium. This place was at a considerable distance from where we were staking out and suddenly it started to rain. Actually, it was more as if the sky was falling on our heads. ~~Holy co..~~ Vinod got his bike and gave me and dd a lift to that place but all three of us were soaked to the bone. When we entered the auditorium, there stood a smarty pants(to whose blog I shall not link here) who said "Hey rushi, your hair is finally flat now!". Ha ha.

Both the teams had qualified for the quiz finals. And surprise number 2 : None of the questions in the finals were about computer science either. Apart from being woefully underprepared, my team also had the advantage of having some brainiacs in it.

There was one question in particular.

"This gadget is known as the untiring soldier, ever faithful, ever accurate and never misses.".

Most of the teams were going on about heat seeking missiles and nuclear bombs when the question passed on to us.

Me : Dude landmines.

Ash : You think so ? I dont know...

NR : I think it is cell phones.

Me : Cell Phones ??? What are you talking about??

NR : Yeah, never misses, always accurate...

Me : What kinda weapon is a cell phone ?? What do you do, shine the light into your enemy's eyes?????

Ash : I kinda agree with nr here...

Me : Dude no dont do this

Quiz master : So team 4, do you know the answer ?

Ash : Cell phones.

Quiz master : ??? *thinks he has not heard him right* Come again ?

(Well I dont blame him, he was hearing lots of "Panzer tanks" and "F-15s" so cell phones were kinda new to him)

Ash *decides to elaborate* : Cellular phones you konw..mobile phones ?

Quiz master : Uhm no..thats not the right answer.

And guess what the correct answer was.

Landmines.

That question was worth 5 points.

We came 4th.

The third place team was 5 points ahead of us.

This is called rubbing salt into the wounds.

Of empty vessels and a ray of hope

2006-05-02T01:39:00.000+08:00

Its that time of the year again and the politicians are once again roaming around hounding the people for votes. Ofcourse, everyone knows that the entire excercise is a sham but still, there is still the entertainment value. This time, things are more amusing because nearly everyone out there is promising the moon and more if they get elected. What with free rice, free TV, free computers and free *anything else you ask for* being promised, a visitor from Andromeda might actually be fooled into thinking he came to the wrong planet. Some of the common man try to make hay while the sun shines(no pun intended) and try to voice their concerns and hope to get noticed. They even get valuable newspaper space which would normally be devoted to Aishwarrya Rai's broken fingernails. (Refer # )

Political parties in Tamil Nadu are two a penny. Whats more, you wouldnt be able to tell one from the other as they are all named (insert random letter(s) here)MK and all their flags are different combinations of black and red. Forming parties seems to have become something of a passtime. Alliances are formed for no reason at all, or for purely "political reasons", whatever that might refer to. One great man actually said "I have entered into a electoral alliance and not an ideological alliance with the AIADMK". What words of wisdom. This is the sad state of affairs.

There is a new party called Lok Paritran which is also entering the elections this year. As has been highlighted many times by the media, it was set up by a bunch of IIT graduates. TN politics was in a state of absolute despair. Maybe we should give these guys a chance. Not just because they are from IIT, that would actually be no reason to vote for someone. But because they sound sincere and are making an attempt. Vote for them because they promise a change and not Inter-galactic superhighways(which ofcourse^* need to be built ;) ). Oh did I mention for free ?

^* Go read Hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy

Home sweet home

2006-04-27T01:32:00.000+08:00

I just returned from a sojourn at Bangalore where I had to write the NTU entrance exam. Well Bangalore would seem a lot like Chennai (only) if you have never been here. There were quite a few things I observed while at Bangalore.

Author's Note : Most of these observations were made while the author was en route to/haunting McDonald's, Cafe coffee day, my hotel, NPS(the exam center). Thus, they could be slightly skewed.

1) Most architects in Bangalore are squint eyed. Either that or gravity has been particularly unkind to the city. Particularly, the Infosys buildings put the Leaning tower of Pisa to shame.

2) The traffic signals at Bangalore go "green-orange-red-orange-green" as opposed to "green-orange-red-green" system followed by the Chennai signals(Earth shattering I know, sometimes I amaze myself)

3) The traffic police are dressed like boy scouts.

4) There is a coffee day on every street. Some streets though, have two.

5) Girls in Bangalore are hot as a rule while in ~~Chennai~~ er..*other places* they are more of an exception. This is not entirely due to the more liberal clothing but I wont deny that it doesnt help.

Also, thanks to the million hoardings, I now know one sentence in kannada. "Radio mirchi 93.3 FM sakkath hot magaa". (You can guess what it means I presume).

And now on returning home, I find that unfair insinuations are being levelled against me. Its not true. I didn't do it. You can prove nothing. The evidence is purely circumstantial. You have got nothing on me. I didnt tear the blackmark chart. It was the er..icy sinister black hand of death. I didnt throw chalks at Babu(or I didnt mean to). It was the wind, I was trying to hit Swarun. I am a mafia lord now. I will send Ninju after anyone who decides to investigate into these matters. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

YES!

2006-04-24T00:51:00.000+08:00

The 1000 words !

Rs.500 for a kiss ?

2006-04-23T02:08:00.000+08:00

No, no one is going to pay you money for a kiss. This new law in New Delhi seeks to increase the already existing(did anyone know about this?) fine from Rs.50 to Rs.500. Oh and kissing is "illegal use of public space". I never felt littering/pissing/spitting/smoking added much to the decor. Ye Gads !

Well moving on...

2006-04-21T02:18:00.000+08:00

Here is my attempt at writing junk poetry.

On second thoughts, I'd rather not share it here due to..er..liability issues.

Its a beautiful day though(its about 3 minutes past now) and I won't waste the entire post talking about nothing.

So hm...I think I'll waste more space here by mentioning for how much time I have been staring at the previous sentence. Actually, blogging ethics and conventions demand that I should do so everytime I find nothing to talk about. But as some of you may have noticed, I haven't done anything of the like in the 77 posts(this being the 78th) where I found nothing meaningful to say. So for the record, I stared at the aforementioned line for exactly 2 seconds and 73 milliseconds. Any longer would generally indicate the presence of a fused cerebellum. Of course, there are always exceptions made for certain mobile containers on 6 wheels so none of my readership need be alarmed. There is no need for a brain transplant, yet.

While I was scavenging for ideas for this post, there was something suggested to me which I think i'll take up.

On second thoughts, a frappe over my head doesn't sound very pleasant. But still, I have always asked what is life without a bit of risk and some frappe ?

There are often times, when you feel like 30 cents. When life deals a few low blows and its already strike 2, you are pretty close to a knockout. At such times, its understandable if you dont feel very zestful and lose a bit of your enthusiasm for life. At such times, its also good to know someone who isnt as close to the panic button as you are. Preferrably someone who is warm and understanding and who's zest for life hasn't waned yet. Someone who can speak a few words of wisdom and kick you back on to the right path.(It is an added bonus if the person doesn't call you "monkeybum" but you learn to make sacrifices). You just have to realise that life is bigger than one exam or one college or one raised finger. (though sometimes, its hard to believe the last. For those you dont get what I am talking about, watch the latest airtel ad)(incidentally, I really like that ad)

This post may appear severly disconnected and there might appear no relation between the first and second parts. Just bear in mind that the post was written as the poster thought up ideas.

But then again, I am sure most of you are used to it.

Oh joke joke :

Why did the uncreative painter get arrested for driving a car ?

He had no artistic license !

I'm sure you are used to this too ! :D

Did you guys see..

2006-04-17T02:19:00.000+08:00

..the promo for the new "Ju""Man"ji movie ? Heard it is sci-fi horror. One of the lead characters acted in "Neal and NIKKI". Anyway, here it is.

source : The Hindu(now you know who you can blame the bad quality of image on)

PS : Dont know what possessed the photographer who took this.

PPS : Ninju remember, violence begets violence !

Well ok..

2006-04-16T02:13:00.000+08:00

its been a long time since I posted.

So what ?

;-)

Well its majorly because I am connecting on dialup these days and its the most unreliable connection around. Its incredibly slow(4kbps i ask you) and gets disconnected whenever I get a call(which, even though not that often, is annoying when it happens). God I miss dishnet. Its also minorly because my life is so boring these days that I am too bored to do anything.

Well for the past week(or 10 days), there has been a lot of argument about the reservations the government is trying to introduce into the IITs and the IIMs. Reservations will get in the way of development of any country and is (widely perceived as) evil. But in some cases, it might be necessary too.

It is a well known that a section of the society was oppressed for long periods of time in India. Most of them are still downtrodden and struggle to survive. A responsible government has to try to serve the entire spectra of the society and when a huge number of the population live below the povery line, it resorts to reservations to help uplift them. While this might affect some others, we should remember that its not easy(if not impossible) to please everyone.

While its true that most of the downtrodden belong to the supposed "SC ST and OBC", its also true that some of them are not so badly off. But compared to the number who are, it seems insignificant. Reservations based on caste is certainly not foolproof and there will be individuals who will benefit from it for whom its not meant. Reservations based on economic status might be a slight improvement but where there is a will there is a way(meaning a person who intends to cheat will cheat no matter the system).

There is also a proposed increase in the number of seats at IIT so that the number of General seats remain unchanged. For those who are worried about reservations affecting their chances, this should quench their fears.

No developing country can leave half its population behind. In no sense will it be truly developed then. Even in the USA, probably the most developed country on earth, there is a form of reservation called "Affirmative Action" for African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities(it might be worth mentioning that there is discriminatin against Asians and Asian americans there but no one complains).

I would just like to say that reservation is not something which was introduced in India on the whims of a minister. It is very much prevalent throughout the world and though it might impede progress(this is actually debatable), it is necessary in some cases.

A nation can be a complete meritocracy when the entire population attains equal oppurtunity in education. This, not for a day or two but, for atleast a generation. No one can claim that such is the scenario now.

The case of the dress that slipped

2006-04-05T02:54:00.000+08:00

A malfunctioning wardrobe at the Mumbai Fashion week is causing much hullabaloo. A police inquiry has also been ordered into this. Ok so a dress slipped and somethings which were better kept hidden were revealed. Why is there so much hue and cry about this ? I wouldnt have even heard about this if it hadnt been on the news for an entire day(this happened yesterday) and even if it was a publicity stunt, who is giving it all the publicity now? And most alarmingly, why is there a police inquiry into this ?? Dont the police have enough to do already ? Or is Mumbai such a crime free city that the police have time to find out why a zip broke ?

I am also surprised the UPA wasnt blamed for it(or is it too early to say this?).

LTNP..yet again..

2006-04-04T03:42:00.000+08:00

I had thought that when the boards got over, I would have nothing to do and I could laze around all day, watch everything that comes on TV and play on the computer whenever I feel like it. And right now, I am doing exactly that.

Before I go further, I would like to warn my readers that this might be a very provocative post. After reading this, some of you may feel like killing me. To you I say, be warned of dire consequences. Remember, the pen is mightier than the sword and when it comes to that, none of you are any match for Paddy van Gogh.

Normally, my life is fraught with with peril, whether it comes out of bunking the morning assembly or not bringing the EG classwork to school for 3 months in a row or telling my first standard teacher she was stupid(When I was in first standard ofcourse. Now, I would use politer words). Some times, not bringing math classwork to school and trying to come up with convincing excuses enriched my life. I shared most of these moments of peril with Niranjan(Though I might add here that while RP mostly believed me, ninju had to stand out half the time. Hey what can I say, I just have charm!).

But right now, my life is BORING. I am having to court a very reluctant disaster(in the form of phone bills) but nothing seems to be happening("seems" may be the operative word here. Time will tell). I almost envy those who are attending classes and are finding ways to occupy themselves.

On second thoughts, I dont.

If the alternative is attending 6 hours classes everyday with tests on alternate days, I prefer my lifestyle. It may be boring yes, but its atleast a life.

Oh wait I forgot, Dr.Dolittle is on soon. Cya Kids !

Anyone who is having malicious intentions, just leave a comment. Paddy van gogh will do the rest.

What is plaguing the Indian team ?

2006-03-29T02:22:00.000+08:00

Well, todays match was all surprise surprise. Sehwag managed to score more than 5 runs. Gambhir hit a 6. Dhoni played 20 balls without it needing repairs. The few things which didnt shock were Harbhajjan scoring the highest number of runs(or second highest, not sure) and the last 5 wickets contributing more than the first 5 wickets. While this might be some cause for concern for any other half baked team, it is not so for us Indians with our flexible batting order.
England looked like they would finish the match in 40 overs with Pietersen and Flintoff beating the shit out of R P Singh and Sree Santh. But finally, inspite of the efforts of our batsmen, we managed to win the match. Anyone who watched the Indian batting would agree that we shouldnt have won this match. Ofcourse, no one who watched the English batting would claim that England deserved to win either.

I think India should go in with 7 bowlers next time. They are the ones who are doing everything anyway. I think theres a conspiracy between the commentators and the Indian batsmen. Arun lal and the rest of his kind do a great job of scaring youngsters away from the game with their analysis and professional views so that we are stuck with the likes of Tendulkar and Sehwag for another decade. Hey, everyone was good in their own time and if reputation is what it takes to stay in the team, why isnt Kapil Dev still playing ?

What..

2006-03-25T21:43:00.000+08:00

..ever

Is it so hard to keep a freaking promise ?

I didnt ask for a ferrari for gods sake.

Whatever

Dont ask me what I am talking about. Its too painful.

The wheat, the stone and the bridge.

2006-03-24T02:42:00.000+08:00

Ze boards got over today. I guess today would be the last day I'll wear my school uniform. Its kinda sad to think that 12 years of schooling came to an end today. No more school. No more class tennis. No more sleeping in physics class. No more "Guess what she is going to wear" before math class. No more "STUPID IDIOT STUPID IDIOT" during compsci class. No more snide remarks about me and Ninju from sundari. No more "linesman, TNEB". And best/worst of all, no more "write ich" or blackmarks. No more blackmark charts to tear. No more physics practs to waste. No more compsci practs to play dumbC. No more "youu thinkkk youuu aree aa funnnnny pannnnnii aaaa? ". No more math block period to write chemistry homework. No more "Why is a current carrying conductor expensive ?"(it comes with a Bil for those who have forgotten). No more "You may conduct your morning prayers inside your own classroom". I could go on and on. There are just too many things to say. So much has happened these past two years, though not all for the good.

Life seems to be running on fastforward. I wish it had a Stop/Rewind too.

PS : As to what the title means, think physics. It has absolutely nothing to do with the post though. I just couldnt think of anything appropriate.

Of some old wine and an older bottle

2006-03-21T01:08:00.000+08:00

The recent varanasi blasts evoked much noise and hullabaloo. While the prime minister was appealing for calm, the opposition wasted no time in blaming everything on the government. This probably left people who exactly, if anyone, cared for them. Mr.Advani was the loudest of the lot and, as the responsible leader of the opposition, immediately announced plans for a "Bharath unification yathra". His current war cry seems to be "minority appeasement" and "divisive politics" of the UPA government. I still fail to see the logic behind the connection between the blasts and the supposed soft stand on terror of the government. The POTA didnt stop the attacks on the parliament. The POTA didnt prevent the Godhra incident(if it was not accidental). The POTA didnt prevent the Gujrat riots. In fact, even today the main culprits are walking freely.

Talking about terrorists, I noticed that most of the terrorist outfits have lame names like Lashkar-X or Hizb-Y. I think it is high time they hired a PR person who would tell them to get creative. I can suggest new names like "The Doomsday dudes" or "The RAW did it" or "The border shifter organization ". Continuing along the same lines, it was amusing to see the pakistani president's reaction to the nuclear deal between US and India. He first assured everyone that he had friends in China and they would give him a similar deal. It looks like his commie pals told him that he was talking through his kakhi cap because suddenly, Pakistan is claiming that the deal would lead to an arms race in the region and that it too would require a similar deal to maintain a balance. Stealing technology must be getting hard...

Talking about creativity, tamil politics is the heights of it. There are about a billion parties all of which have names 'X'MK or 'XY'MK. They all promise the same things and they all do nothing. Tamil Nadu is becoming a circus of seriously unfunny clowns..sigh..

Ludricious !

2006-03-20T13:07:00.000+08:00

This is something I was asked to read by a friend #.

So, post-mortem :
To start with the "About Me" column, is it really surprising if a "15 year old" is able to describe himself or herself in 150 odd words ?(I personally couldn't think of anything to say but lets just consider the majority). No one is expecting a graduate thesis for gods sake and does it really matter if the "15 year old" hasnt done/wont be able to do an in-depth self psycho analysis ? And finally, in a community network, not having an About me column would kinda make no sense dont you think ? You aren't going to add people because " third letter in our second names is the same..." and an About me column would help you figure out what kind of person he or she is. I agree, "I am Chandler Bing" would be a bit misleading.

Orkut is just another medium through which the "15year olds" of today choose to communicate. If it was cell phones 2 years ago, its Orkut now. As to asking how your friend has done in the boards, I would have thought that was natural.

Raising kids does not mean forcing them to do anything. A "15 year old" has to be given his or her freedom. A word of advice : Nazism has lost its appeal. Long live the revolution!

Taking breaks is absolutely necessary and I am glad the author agrees to that. Books can get very distracting and its not easy to put them down. And uhm I admit its a long time since I read a Tinkle book(More evidence of "Times are changing" ?). Most of us dont have STBs and I would prefer orkut to watching "Midday News" or "Oswald the pink penguin" or whatever. Ofcourse when the match is on, I doubt if anyone wastes time on orkut. And...do you really blame us if we dont feel like watching Titanic in tamil ?

And uh, to the last statement, I cant find words which capture what exactly I felt when I read it. This is what my friend said : "Utter bullshit". That captures it fine I guess !

Orkut is a necessary evil(much like chemistry). It maybe a waste of time but well we consider it a better waste than the alternatives. And as a side note, we are 17 years old now. Well, most of us. And surely, there are other more important social issues to write about than how a 17 yearold supposedly isn't studying for the boards ?

So near and yet 5 days away

2006-03-18T02:55:00.000+08:00

Well chemistry got over today and um I will reserve my comments till after I recieve my marks.

But I do hope that my paper goes to a kindhearted examiner.

Who has had a good breakfast with lots of vada.

And lots of hot tea (or coffee if that is their poison).

I wouldn't mind if they win a lottery the previous day either !

Well back to reality. While I was wading through p block and organic chemistry, some sudden bolts of illumination struck me. I will share them with you now.

Name a chemical test to detect emotions.

Fe(h)lings test

Why is it destructive to convert benzene to aniline ?

It requires Annilation

And finally, Give reasons why BK will cause holes in the ozone layer(besides the obvious ofcourse)

He is a FreeOn (for the ignorant and the unenlightened and, if you ask me, the incredibly luck(believe me, if you havent heard him, you are lucky), he keeps saying freea vidu)

And Paddy Van Gogh is back with yet another masterpiece. This one is going to the Louvre. So get your autographs now before it is too late.

I call it the "Ze lady with ze Bajaj(Think sunny) smile".

Thank you thank you !

PS : Some of you have been asking me why I havent posted "in a long while". Please note that I last posted on March 13th which was 4 days ago. And we ALL have/had board exams so kindly bear with me if I am not posting everyday. It will soon change though !

The glory that was 11 A

2006-03-14T02:05:00.000+08:00

This piece was written more than a year ago by one of my classmates for a newspaper project we were all supposed to be doing. It was the victim of some editorial cuts didn't end up on the newspaper. Well, the said editor was the incompetent assistant of mine so not really surprising (:D kidding! ). Most of you would be able to follow whats being said but for the few who don't, sadness and sorrow. I don't know why I am putting this up now..maybe because I am too lazy to think of something to write myself..well anyways, I found it quite amusing though.

LONG LIVE OUR BIG HEAD!!!!

It was the most unforgettable day in the history of our class. Our leader Mr. SS Longfellow had been overthrown. Considering the fact that we were but a small city in the big empire, there had been an all round development and innumerable improvements especially in the fields of science and technology, arts and communication. But the most prominent of them all had been the installation of the two-way intercom!!! It has been one of the most advanced systems that has been included in the history of not only our city but the whole empire. It connected the empress with her subordinates all over the empire. But why the sudden concern, we mused.

Then the truth dawned upon us- a tactical ploy! The intercom had been designed in such a way that the empress would be allowed to use it any time she desired while our leader had absolutely no control over it. But at the end of it all, lack of improvement in the field of moral sciences was cited as the most important reason that our leader had been asked to resign by the higher authorities.

Thus started the era of the “big head”. Ever since the day he had been crowned (or was supposed to be crowned but had been given a badge instead because the crown was too small for his highness’s head) he has been a role model in the lives of countless subjects (47 to be precise). No doubt he has influenced the lifestyle of his subjects (including yours sincerely) as a leader he has improved by leaps and bounds over the period of his tenure and a paragraph about his highness would be incomplete without mentioning a few instances of his laurels. A living example of how responsibility could change every man for the better - we witnessed the transformation of an irresponsible youth to an exemplary leader, a big mouth who now used his conversational skills to keep others disciplined and who taught his subjects that being extremely late for an appointment was wrong but that to be just late was all right!
His extraordinary abilities to maintain an innocent face when the onus is on him and solely on him and to crash computers reminded us about the supremacy he reigned over the rest of us. His leadership qualities have indeed taken him to new heights (from a 5ft 2 to a whopping 6ft 1 in just a year!!). To write about his highness is an honor by itself. I sincerely thank god for having given me this privilege to be part of his city. Let us all hail “THE BIG HEAD” and pray to the almighty that he may live long!!!

Narayani.N

PS : For those wannabe grammar Nazis out there, this passage wasn't edited by me, I just put up what was sent to me. So if you do manage to find some earth-shattering typo, keep it to yourself.

The title has some greek roots to it. My 9th standard history textbook had labelled the fall of the greek empire, "The glory that was greece". So I just lifted the idea.

Return of the king GOD

2006-03-11T20:51:00.000+08:00

GUESS WHOS BACK ! GUESS WHOS BACK ! GUESS WHOS BACK ! GUESS WHOS BACK !

HAHAHAHAHA ! Take that you morons !

Hope he keeps it up tomorrow !

VIVA LA SCHUMI !

Sad state of affairs ? Read this

2006-03-07T18:16:00.000+08:00

I have entered into an electoral alliance and not an ideological alliance with the AIADMK

This must rank right up there with

God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq" And I did.

I must say, I first thought that he was just another oppurtunist. Now, I know he is also a stupid oppurtunist.

DeFreeze - random thoughts

2006-03-06T03:12:00.000+08:00

I wasnt planning on posting before the end of boards but intense boredom and maths coupled together have driven me here.

Well to begin with, the match...as V rightly says, the third umpire is a jack ass. He had watched the damn replay in fast motion, slow motion, from in front of the stumps, behind the stumps, using ultrasound(or whatever they call that slowmotion thingy) etc etc. AND he ruled that Kevin whatshisname was not out. Every tom dick harry and kris srikhanth could see that the ball hit the ground first and bat second. Dont we have a third umpire just to avoid screwups like this? The first umpire or the leg umpire could have given the same decision and we would have saved the hours that he took to come up with a not out. Well besides that, I think it is time for Sehwag to retire...and Laxman should be kicked out, not Kaif...and Chappell is a moron.

And I also noticed, most of the Indian batsmen look like school boys when facing the English fast bowlers (Im not talking about their skill alone). Those guys are so HUGE !

And, Javagal Srinath should stay away from the commentary box. Though not as bad as arun lal, he still SUCKS. And he sucks BIG TIME. I really think I can do better match analysis than him...like yesterday, when Cook was on 80something and there was 15 overs to go, he was talking about Cook needed to get his century but England needed to score quick runs so the interests of the team would clash with his interests....I guess the runs Cook scores dont count for England ? Isnt there something under POTA to make him shut up ? :(

Also, I think what this country needs is a secular right wing government...but right now that combination seems hard to find. We should pack all those bloody communists off to china. Effing terrorists and backstabbers.

And about the Godhra train accident thing, why does the Sangh parivar and the BJP feel so sure that it was not an accident ? To justify what happened later ?

And in my next life, I hope to be born a blackbuck. Atleast someone avenges my death. Life as it is certainly looks very scary. We had an essay in english about death penalty. But dont we need convicts first before awarding them death penalty ? Why do we have to debate and waste time over it when everyone is walking away scot free thanks to "for-sale" policemen and co-operative, conscientious witnesses ?(one of them actually said "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Leave me alone and let me get on with my life". I may agree with the first bit but...does it say anywhere in the law that you are given the privilege of choosing whether or not to testify against a murderer if he happens to be your friend ?)

Watching the news, I sometimes wonder how our country is still running.

Blog shall be in suspended animation

2006-03-02T03:08:00.000+08:00

Will be hibernating till march 23rd. Bear with me. (:-) )

Come to think of it, most of you are writing the boards too.

So if you are reading this

GO STUDY !

GOD !

2006-02-25T20:48:00.000+08:00

That picture I had DID NOT mean I am/was taking marriage vows. Guess I shouldnt have expected any of you dunderheads to have read fountainhead eh..dumasses.

And please note.

I am now "The giant koala bear" (I hope koalas are bears). Please dont refer to me as paddyman anymore. I find that term highly antiquated. Hope it is not too much to bear(hyuk hyuk get it ?!).

And also

I will write about whoever I want, whenever I want, however I want. Please dont jump to stupid conclusions.

Thankyou

The Giant Koala bear

la política de este blog

2006-02-25T12:26:00.000+08:00

("the policy of this blog" for the linguistically challenged)

This blog shall henceforth follow the following policy. I call it "The one point procedure". I know, it is the hand-tennis style followed by a certain poor Sou(l) but hey I am sure she has no copyright to the name(WE came up with the name in the first place).

Incidentally, she has started hitting the ball back now.

She even got ninju out once !

Well ok back to the policy

koff koff

This blog will have no policy. The blogger will blog on any subject he feels is blog-worthy. But, on some very rare occassions, he may decide to moderate a bit when talking about his fellow beings.

Well so that is my policy. I hmph at anyone who has anything else to say on this.

Oh I forgot to add, it is entirely up to me to decide who I classify under "fellow beings". (They will be humans for any smart ass who might think otherwise).

PS: Classifications are subject to moodswings.

A tribute to a great DANE

2006-02-24T00:48:00.000+08:00

Sigh ok. This post doesnt stay.

Some interesting thoughts

2006-02-21T02:07:00.000+08:00

Posting at 12 AM screws up all notions of "yesterday", "today" and "tomorrow". Sometimes I write a post today but I tend to post it tomorrow. But then I should have written it yesterday and should be posting it today because...well er thats how it should be.

So if I DO write a post today and say I post it today too. And when I view my blog 10 seconds later, today becomes tomorrow and tomorrow, when I view my blog, the post would have been written yesterday. But since today is yesterday tomorrow and yesterday, tomorrow will be today, today technically can be yesterday or tomorrow but it cant be today.

SO, today does not exist. Since since it was already today yesterday in Australia, yesterday doesnt exist either. And since today is tomorrow in California, tomorrow doesnt exist either.

Thus it follows logically that the board exams should not be conducted because of ..er..bad lights.

Where ARE the posts that were flowing ?

2006-02-20T02:47:00.000+08:00

This blog has been stagnating for the past few days. Let me assure you that its is not due to any fault of the blogger. Let us just say the bloger realised that he has his board exams in 8 days. (Infact, he was told today to "GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND STUDY". As you can see, he is doing just that).

Either that or the blogger cant find anything to blog about.

Or maybe there is just too much going on right now.

I was quite cheerful when I started writing this post. 5 minutes later, I am wondering what exactly I was cheerful about.

Sigh moodswings(Comments WILL BE moderated)

Well India won the match. Go Dhoni !

Ethers(along with the rest of organic) suck. I have to read so much for two bloody marks.

Sigh I am counting the days till march 23. Why cant I get lost in some eddies in space time ?

The end..

2006-02-16T17:24:00.000+08:00

12 long years of school came to an end today. We said goodbye to all our teachers and took a lot of pics(I didnt but most others did). Life seems short but sometimes I wonder at the pointless complexity of it all. Is it really worth it all ? Is this how I wanted everything to end? certainly not...sigh...why...? why me...?

My tea's gone cold, I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all
the morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all
And even if I could it'd all be grey, but your picture on my wall
it reminds me that it's not so bad, it's not so bad
Dido

Im Bach

2006-02-16T00:40:00.000+08:00

yet again with another master piece. This one created during physics class.

Artist's Note : The names here are purely fictional. They donot refer to the actual people having those names. They actually refer to others who go by the same name. And all resemblances are purely conincidental. Or maybe I am that good.

MS(Mid Script) : You can zoom into the picture by clicking on it...if you didnt know...

What is the difference between Ninju and a mountain gorilla ?

Other mountain gorillas will be able to understand this mountain gorilla most of the time. And also, the mountain gorilla is weaker. More brains, less brawns. And I hope the mountain gorilla I know doesnt read this.

TheHideouslyStreakedD, the Dodo. What can you infer ?

Not all dumb animals are extinct.

Crossroads

2006-02-13T20:04:00.001+08:00

Life is full of tough decisions.

Should we choose what is right ? or what is easy ?

Should we stick up for our beliefs ? or should we play it safe?

Should we do what we think is right ?

Is it our fault if we bow under pressure ?

Is it worth risking our lives to do our duty ? especially when no one is going to appreciate us for it ?

Now, should I write that post about tennis ? Or should I pass ?

Yay !

2006-02-13T18:19:00.000+08:00

er..This is my 50th post ! thank you ! thank you !

I doubt if anyone else has been jobless enough to keep track of number of posts(ok, blogger does it for you) but I am sure no one has actually written a post about it ! Hey, someone has to do it !

Ok, Most of you have already told me I post just for the heck of posting and that most of the posts arent posts at all and I say to you, you are all right ! But just keep in mind that this is MY blog :-)

The UnRaveller saga - A journey through the errors and the climatic climax

2006-02-12T02:28:00.000+08:00

We had our computerscience practs today and it went pretty well if you leave out the viva. The external examiner was...like any other computerscience teacher and I will leave it at that.

Kvkk told stories in class about people who had been disrespectful to the external examiner (EE from now on) and had argued with her and consequently lost marks. He kept looking at me when he said this and I kinda got the hint. So when it was my turn, I actually said goodmorning and waited patiently for her to ask me to sit down ( :-) ).
This is how the viva started

EE : So, your project is an interpreter ?
Me : Yes maam
EE : But it is not an interpreter
Me : Its not ? No, it IS an interpreter !
EE : No. It is a COMMAND LINE Interpreter
Me : Uh...isnt it still an interpreter ?

And I gave her lots of 70mm about what our great UnRaveller was supposed to do. And then came the general viva.

EE : *Asked the output for some program which had a bunch of pointers*
Me : I think it is 5
EE : Are you sure ? Think about it...
Me : Uh....well er..I think the program will flag an error
EE : Ok, next question. *Shows me another program and asks if it will flag an error*
Me : Hmm yeah I think so
EE : Really ? What makes you say that ? Think again.
Me : Umm....well Im not sure
EE : Ok, third question *Shows me a statement and asks me if it is right*
Me : Well I think it is wrong
EE : Are you sure ? Is it wrong only for classes or for both classes and structures ?
Me : er..both classes and structures
EE : You think it is wrong ?
Me : Thats what I thought...well maybe it is not..I dont know...

EE : *announces with a flourish* All three of your answers are wrong !
EE : The answer to the first program is 5. The second program WILL flag an error and the third statement is wrong.
Me : uh....o..k....but thats what I said...
EE : Nope sorry.

And our project was supposed to be evaluated for the best project award. Well actually, it wasnt working the previous night and nor was it working when kvkk asked us to load it onto the computer at school. Well part of it wasnt working. And that part was kinda the main part.
We tried to talk kvkk into letting us leave coz our program wasnt working anyway but he made us sit and debug it there. And voila ! what we hadnt managed to do in two months, we accomplished in the half hour before the project was due to be checked ! We rule !

We arent going to get the award or anything but hey we are glad it works !

PS : I have also been asked for an encore of my post about class tennis and never fear dear readers(hey it rhymes !), I will come up with one soon !

Sigh

2006-02-08T06:17:00.000+08:00

It is 3:48AM now...

I didnt wake up early

I just havent slept yet

Sigh I hate organic analysis

More cribbing on this ~~tomorrow~~ later today

Me got a tagboard !

2006-02-07T14:01:00.000+08:00

After lots of experimenting and time wasting, I finally got myself a tag board. I actually put a different one first but when I tried to change something er..something else happened..and..er.. well I decided that I didnt like that tagboard. I have put this one up without making any mods and will customize it later. Right now, Solder beckons

Happy Farewell !

:D

Presenting...

2006-02-05T16:03:00.000+08:00

Paddy Van Gogh !

I call it "Ze Class". Yes yes thank you !

Fine Print :
The below picture may give some of you neatfreaks a heartattack. So parental advisory, alarming content.

No, you are not looking at PoK. This is actually my room or uh..the more presentable part of my room. I am putting this up in hopes of attracting some NGOs to help me clear up that mess and also to motivate me to study for the board practs...something I must say "malola" failed spectacularly in doing.

Sing for the moment

2006-02-04T02:11:00.000+08:00

I have a 1000 visitors ! yay !

Of the suckiness of it all

2006-02-03T01:48:00.000+08:00

Before I start off, I will provide a little background for this post. There are two clowns in my class called kaushik and navneet. They are project partners for compsci and they started their project 3 days after the "final deadline". That is, they started it day before yesterday. I was online at 12 30am and kaushik was there too. This is how the conv went.

kowsdontmew : Hey can you do me a favour??????
rushirules : What ?
kowsdontmew : Can you write me a program for kmap ?(Kmap is their project)
rushirules : Isnt it due in like 8 hours ?
kowsdontmew : Yeah, thats why im asking you now....im desperate for help da
rushirules : ok..send me what you have done and ill see what i can do
kowsdontmew : er...you can create an empty file for yourself cant you ?
rushirules : wait.......are you telling me you havent even started ???
kowsdontmew : um...
rushirules : im still waiting for the punch line............
kowsdontmew : Forget it....ill think of something to tell kvkk

And they didnt submit their project that day. Kaushik fed kvkk some cockand bull story about his computer melting and kvkk gave them a new deadline of Feb 3.

Feb 1, 5 30 PM. Froggie was there in this conf too

kowsdontmew : Hey we chose a new topic..we are doing bank
rushirules : ok...are you guys done ?
froggie : well yeah, kaushik downloaded this program from somewhere
rushirules: great...so your project is over?
kowsdontmew :well not really.. this thing uses graphics.h and I want to remove it
rushirules : ok...
froggie : But he doesnt know how
rushirules : ok...why am I not surprised ?
kowsdontmew : can you do it for us ?
rushirules : @#!%$@!%

Feb 1 11 PM
kowsdontmew : Hey we decided to dump bank. We are doing minesweeper now
rushirules : ok, where did you lift that from ?
kowsdontmew : Some guy in srm wrote it.
rushirules: So, is this your final project ?
kowsdontmew : Yes..but just one small problem
rushirules : this has a familiar ring to it.....
kowsdontmew : The guy has used stuff like bool. I have no idea what they are. Can you change it for us ?
rushirules : ......ok....send it.....

Today at school
froggie : We decided to dump minesweeper...there are some things we dont understand..
me : like..everything ?
froggie : Hey no, just some. Our new project is space impact
me : Cool..I wrote a program for space impact long ago actually....
froggie : Yeah I know...can you send it to us ?
me : Wait just a darn minute. You want me to send you my program so you can use it as YOUR project ???
froggie : erm yeah..hey we tried everthing..we dont know what else to do
me : yeah i guess writing your own program would be out of the question....

Space impact was this program I wrote more than a year ago to simulate this cell phone game. It works beautifully and I thought it was better than the actual space impact coz my villains were funkier(even if I do say so myself). And I had also used character graphics for the whole thing. I am very proud of it actually and I was not at all happy to let those idiots have it.

I made both of them promise to include me in their acknowledgement because I didnt want to let them escape like...certain others.

Now, two of the programs I wrote last year seemingly for timepass( we knew we werent going to do sourcecode generator as our project 2 days after we took it in 11th) are now being used as board projects. With very few modifications, if any at all. Am I supposed to be flattered? Or disgusted ?

Farewell contd

2006-02-02T01:28:00.000+08:00

Oh oh oh I forgot this one !

Charlie's Angels........in Saris !!!

Hyuk hyuk hyuk hyuk hyuk !!!!

The farewell

2006-02-01T01:10:00.000+08:00

We had our farewell party today ...it was pretty cool (but no way can it be compared to the one we hosted). Me wore a suit(the only one there) and since me not good at blowing my own trumpet(no wise cracks please), you can read a review of it here ! ;-)

Some pictures I took/made someone else take :

-> TB showing his "pearly whites"

--> The Thinker

-->Ribbbitt

--> Ninju thinking hard - Ghee roast or masala dosa

(Keep all your smart comments to yourselves)

--> Anyone still wondering why he tries to refer to himself as "anonymous" ?

--> Holy Cow ! What is that ?!

At planetyumm

PlanetYumm - II

--> (most of) Gods Own Class

What the hell ?

2006-01-31T03:45:00.000+08:00

Abu Salem is complaining about recieving electrical shocks ? If you ask me, he deserves a lot worse. What about the 150 odd people he blew up in one go ? Who even gave him the right to complain about anything ? He should have been shot and thrown into the sea the moment he was extradited to India. Ofcourse it could have been done by "unidentified gunmen" and the Indian Government could keep its promise to the portuguese. And who the hell are the portuguese anyway to tell us that we shouldnt hang a gangster who murdered hundreds ? Abu Salem shouldnt have a lawyer in the first place. We know he is guilty. He knows he is guilty. The whole world knows he is guilty. Why is he still alive then ??? I think his lawyer should be hanged along with him when the time comes. After all, an accomplice aids a criminal before a crime is committed and a lawyer aids him after. All of them deserve to die.

Also from the same article :
The lawyer claimed the Crime Branch were not allowing Salem to read religious books in jail.

I am truly lost for words...
well no I am not.

BURN THEM ALL

Project->FinallyDone("Ha Ha ");

2006-01-31T01:18:00.000+08:00

We finally finished our compsci project ! yay ! Now that it is done, I sit back and think why I was panicking so much. And I realize that I was totally justified because everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Some things which we thought cant go wrong also went wrong. Some things we were sure were screwed up were screwed up. In short, Murphy is a moron.

One of my classmates wondered if we had bit off more than we could chew. 2 weeks ago, I would have vehemently denied it. Day before yesterday I almost agreed with her. But today, I will haughtily inform her that she was talking through her hat. Ha.

The project is around 1500 lines without all the comments and the help module. And it works beautifully ! We were trying to come up with a name for our interpretter. I suggested SaRI (Siddharth's and Rushi's Interpreter) but both of us felt kvkk would be a bit too amused by that name so we dumped it. We then thought of RaSI but neither of us thought much of it. I suggested COMPLEX (for BASIC) or Castletron (for fortran) or even Nicke(l) (for COBOL(t)) but both of us realised that no one would get it unless we made it very clear. We thought of reverting back to the names we gave when we versioned our project like A1231012314.cpp (A -12 31/01 11:14pm) but it was a wee bit too long to squeeze it everywhere. And so we settled on UNRAVELLER. Watch out all you phony interpreter manufacturers(and line editor creators and fake "bit"-cryptographers) the UnRaveller is going to put all of you out of business muhahahaha.
hehe

Well I better go back and put the finishing touches on Ze UnRaveller
Adios !

Motivated Me

2006-01-30T18:56:00.000+08:00

We had a "motivation lecture" today organized by our school. It lasted for 3 hours and it was right after our APSC compsci(for my class) which was a bloody boring exam in itself because I finished the damn paper in 2 hours and was sleeping for the rest of the time. There was a question about something called baud rate. I wrote it was the rate of change of "bauds" coz I actually had no idea what they were. Turns out I was quite far away from the answer.

Well back to the motivation lecture thingy, it was conducted by a lady from some company called Malola Learning. During the course of the lecture, she kept telling us that we should always substitute "failure" with "learning" because that was the proper attitude. And consequently, we found out how they came up with "Malola Learning".

The lecture, needless to say, was boring to the core. They say adversity brings out the best in anyone. But I think boredom brings out the best in me and Ninju.

Here is something we made up :
*koff koff*
She airs her views
and tells us it is news
but we dont find any use
and tell her it is a bunch of refuse
but she is so obtuse
that she tends to confuse
all our abuse
as excuse

Yes yes thank you !

And she was talking about our memory and what not..
The lady : You have TRILLIONS of neurons in your brain
Me : And they tell us there is a moron in front of us

She made us write "its amazing" with our right hand first and then with our left hands. She then said there was considerable difference in handwriting because we dont practice with our left hands. But what was actually amazing was that when I looked at Ninju's notebook, I couldnt figure out which of the "its amazing"s he had written with his left hand.

Then she went on about thinking in present continuous. She was walking toward us (we were in the lastest possible bench) and kept saying "doinggg beinggg thinkinggg inggg inggg inggg" and Ninju said "and you are very boringggg" and both of us burst out laughing. Sad thing was she saw us.

The whole thing was totally pointless. I felt no more motivated than I did when I entered the hall. It was a waste of 3 hours of my time which I could have otherwise wasted playing tennis or something. Sigh.

Do you have "pleasure" ?

2006-01-29T01:27:00.000+08:00

I saw an ad on tv for a bike called "pleasure". It is supposed to be a scooter only for girls.(Talk about being sexist. Hey no one ever said Harleys were only for guys). I wonder how they came up with that name though. What are they going to call their next one ? "Happiness" ?

Imagine a conversation going like this :
Friend 1 : "Hey I just bought pleasure !"
Friend 2 *And they said money cant buy you happiness* : Cool ! Can I take it out ?"
Friend 1: pleasures MINE.
Friend 2: Thank you !
Didnt quite get the effect did it ?

Or even better,
"Hey guess what ! He just gave me pleasure! "

Uhmm.....

Well I actually wanted to talk about the ad. It shows a girl standing on a sidewalk. And, as any gallant and chivalrous man would do, a guy drives up in what looks like a ferrari and asks her if she wants a lift. And then her friend drives up in a "pleasure" and picks her up. And looks at the guy and says "Why should boys have all the fun?"

Were they implying what I thought they were trying to imply??
Hmmm...interesting....

(Hey I am talking about pleasure being better than a ferrari ! Honest !)

Some utter randomness

2006-01-27T15:17:00.000+08:00

Life is very cruel. How would you feel if this happened to you ?

That was the LAST mine. waaaaaaaah
(for the record, my best time in expert level is 143 seconds)

Of joblessness and sucky internet connections
For the past two days, I couldnt get connected to the internet. My already bad connection finally decided to conk out. I couldnt do my compsci project because man could not send me the part which he had done. I couldnt come and waste time on my blog either. Sigh.

Of a pathetic projct
Speaking of my compsci project, it is turning out to be a major headache...whenever we think we finished something, a million other things go wrong again. I hate interpretters. And I hate those who managed to submit their projects by the deadline. Even more so, those bit-cryptography morons. DD used our last year project and hardly changed anything in it. We didnt even get an acknowledgement. And those bit-ography morons are just that...morons. Pity there are no books which list out a 80 line code for interpretters. Not that I would copy it though. I sound angry ? guess why...

Of exams, among other things
APSC exams are ending soon...the next exams I will write will be my boards. The 3 revisions and apsc seem to have gotten over in a flash. We have our farewell party sometime during feb..feb 1 I think. Wonder how it is going to be...because general consensus is that it is not going to be half as good as the one we hosted last year(even if we do say so ourselves). The music deserves a special mention though.(Hey we managed to play SOMETHING with uv and shivku sitting in front of the speakers. Why dont one of you try that?)

Oh incidentally, varatha got the "Auggie doggie award" in 10th farewell for being the most obedient ~~doggy~~ girl(a.k.a teachers' pet) in school. :-D

Oh and I have more than 800 visitors now ! yay !

Dont do this, Mr Chappell

2006-01-23T01:46:00.000+08:00

Let me start out by saying that I am no Ganguly fan. I thought that Ganguly getting sacked as captain was the best thing that had happened to Indian cricket. I, along with the rest of the one billion people here, wanted Ganguly to leave. So why am I complaining now ?

Ganguly was a great player, in his time. But all "good" things have to come to an end and as I saw it, Ganguly's end had come 3 years ago. But we let him play as a "non playing captain" and that is our fault alone. After the Zimbabwe series, Ganguly was dropped and I thought he would go the way of Robin Singh and the rest of them. It was sad but inevitable. But he was picked again for the Srilanka test, where he managed to bat relatively well. And he was dropped for the South Africa series. And now he is on the team again. But he is not playing. What are those selectors ~~thinking~~ smoking anyway ?

There are two ways he could have been sent off. One would have been a "farewell(?) series" where we could have let him play and then make him pack his bags(God knows, we have been playing matches with a 10 man team for a long time). The second way could have been for the selectors to go "Ganguly who?" after he was dropped(God again knows they have done this to enough players). But what is happening to him now is really pitiful. He certainly deserves better. Both the options I mentioned would certainly be better than this. Dont make arguably one of the most successful captains of the country a water boy. No one wants to spend his last test matches carrying drinks for his teammates. Especially not one who has done "so much" for the game(?).

What is happening to Tendulkar then ? Why is HE still playing ? There are two things that happen in a match he plays in. He hits big runs, India loses, everyones happy. He flops, India wins and everyone remains happy. Tendulkar needs to go too.

If form and talent are the sole criterion for staying on the team, what on earth is Laxman doing there ?? The last time I saw him doing anything useful was way back in 2001.

Ashish nehra went the way of the dodo and I think thats the second best thing that has happened to Indian cricket. I couldnt, for the life of me, figure out what he was doing there.

Right now you may be wondering who exactly I support. I say to you, BURN THEM ALL.

When I become Supreme Earth Potentate, I will burn every cricket bat, ball and stump(?) in existence. I will ship every sane cricket fan off to Pluto. Yep, all three of them.

I will also ship off every insane cricket fan to Alpha Centauri. Sadly, as I see it, my kingdom will now have 2 subjects. Sigh.

Well until then, I have to keep complaining in my blog.

Stay cool