Random Thought Processes

Ay hairathe

2012-01-01T12:26:00.001+05:30

The Ay Hairathe song is one of my all time favourites. The music is well, mellifluous, and the lyrics, lilting. But, what does it mean? Well, here are the lyrics with translation from hindilyrics.net. Sit back and enjoy.

dam dara dam dara, chashm chashme nam - 2
sun mere hum dum

listen, my soulmate

hamesha ishq mein hi jeena

always live in love

ay hairathe aashiqui jagaa math

oh wonderous love, don't ever wake up

pairon se zameen zameen lagaa math

don't let your feet touch the ground

ay hairathe aashqui

kyon urdu faarsi bolthe ho

why do you talk urdu and farsi

das kehthe ho do tolthe ho

you say ten when you mean two

jhooton ke shehenshah bolo na

you king of liars, don't talk!

kabhi jhaankhon meri aankhen

look into my eyes sometimes

sunaaye ek daastaan jo honton se kholona

they tell a story which cannot be put into words

do char maheen se lamhon mein

sometimes, in a few months

umron ke hisaab bhi hothe hain

a lifetime can be gauged

jinhen dekha nahin kal tak kahin bhi

one who has never been seen before

ab kok mein woh chahre bothe hain

is now forming a face in my womb

You have a good run rate guys

2011-10-20T05:29:00.001+05:30

There is this India club in the university where I study. All ABCDs[1] meet up every now and then and indulge in dubious activities like dancing the bhangra, throwing coloured water on each other, chatting-up female undergrads and in general making a fool out of themselves. They also indulge in the occasional game of cricket with our friendly cricketing cousins - the Pakistanis. So, at 8 PM one Friday, Prashanth and I made our way to the Campus Recreation Center. There, all cricket enthusiasts[2] had turned up and were warming up[3]. Eventually, a couple of people managed to get hold of a bat each. The people who'd managed to get a ball stood some 60 feet away from the batsmen and were giving suave impressions of Shane Warne spinning the ball from one hand to another across their face.

The ball was a tape ball. This was the first time I'd ever seen one, let alone play with one. It was no more squishy like a tennis ball. It was no more furry like a tennis ball. It was the end of cricket as we knew it. There also was a mongoose bat[5] lying around and I picked it up. Someone bowled and it was pretty nice to get bat on ball. We swung around for a while and suddenly it was time for us to start the match. Our captain won the toss and elected to field in a fitting imitation of Sourav Ganguly at Johannesburg circa 2003.

The match started with captain sir asking the host team for a pair of gloves because he was the wicket keeper. The opposing captain stared him down with such viciousness that our man retreated into the uncharted backwaters of deep long stop. Play began. Our strike bowler bowled the first ball. A peach of a delivery. Swung in, pitched on off, and cut away. I could almost hear Ravi Shastri chant the previous two sentences. I could almost hear Gavaskar go on about how the weight of the batsman was not forward, how the elbow wasn't high and how the maker of the said bat wasn't shown to the bowler. I could really hear Arun Lal go on about the local flora and fauna.

Things pretty much started going down hill from then. The second ball was a wide down the leg side. The umpire stretched out both his arms and shouted "Wide". He then counted the score - One for no loss. Oh-oh. Wides and no balls were counted as runs. This wasn't acceptable under the rules of street cricket. Anyway, we rolled with the punches. At the end of ten overs, they'd managed a meagre score of 117. This included one over where yours truly restricted them to a mere 22 runs.

Now it was our turn to bat. Our openers hit a couple of boundaries in the very first over. Things were looking up. We were rejoicing. Then one of the openers got out. Then the other opener got out. So did the following batsmen. Presently it was my turn to bat. I stood at the crease and squinted down the pitch. The bowler, a midget wearing a Pakistani shirt walked out to the outskirts of Dubai where the top of his run-up was. I stood and waited. Suddenly he appeared out of the gloom and bowled a ripper. The ball was coming at the off-stump, swung late and went past my bat. Is it in their genes? Pretty soon it was down to the last wicket. Prashanth and I were batting.

Prashanth played the sheet anchor role while I played the - sheet anchor role. We essayed perfect forward defensive strokes, closely watched the ball as it went past the stumps and weaved away from the occasional bouncer. Our captain demonstrated the perfect pose of the head-in-hands-asana. We were generally having a good time out there and laughing and joking about everything, when one the fielder at silly point said, "Guys, they still have a good run rate. Get them out!" We doubled up with laughter. Eventually a Shane Warne wannabe actually managed to turn the ball a bit and I nicked it to the keeper. The Pakistanis vociferously appealed while the umpire turned it down. I however, had enough. So, in the spirit of cricket and in the interest of friendly relations with our neighbours, I walked[6].

Thus it came to pass that one of the greatest games of cricket played passed into the murky depths of history with neither ICC nor Sharad Pawar noticing.

Glossary:1. ABCD - American Born Confused Desi
2. Cricket Enthusiast - All men who're currently not at the bar drinking
3. Warming up - making a beeline for the two available bats, calling up friends and begging them to come so as to reach a strength of 11, making jokes not generally made in the company of women or children
4. Tape ball - Tennis ball covered in a layer of adhesive tape so that it swings more in the air
5. Mongoose Bat - Stop bugging me. Go google it
6. Walking - The act of getting the hell out of the ground when you don't want to make a fool out of yourself anymore.

How I am bored of windows and other stories

2011-08-19T08:54:00.000+05:30

I landed in Atlanta, Georgia, the USA on the tenth of this month. The world's "best" nation is turning out to be a bit of an anti-climax. It's 32 C outside and as humid as Chennai. There's garbage flying around, homeless people lounging about and asking you for money, and thugs out to mug you. So, there you are, I am living the American dream.

Al-right, it's not bad. Most people are really nice and helpful, they're always smiling, polite and greet you whenever they make eye contact with you. I've been here for a week, and here's what I have observed:

Culture shock is overrated. I've seen a lot of westerners walking around in each other's arms, wearing extremely short shorts and talking loudly about sex, but that doesn't bother me one bit. It's only when I see the Indians do that, that it becomes a bit of a shock. It's sad really. It doesn't suit them.

Jet lag is underrated. All this nonsense of sleeping it off one good night is humbug. I'm still finding myself drifting off at 3 in the afternoon for no reason.

The Indians who are joining with you suddenly spout fake accents. They start speaking like they've lived here all their life. Of course, they aren't as bad as the ABCDs (American Born Confused Desis). These are the ones who deliberately ignore other desis and make desperately dumb attempts to integrate themselves into American society properly. You might think they'd have given up by now, given that they've not managed to do that for more than twenty years. However, they insist on persisting.

All the dumbest desi girls invariably end up in your college. They are either idiots, or vetthu scene parties. Or both. And anal-retentive to moot. I know one that said: I want to go for a mac because I am bored of windows. $1500 is not costly!

Of bikes and bikers

2011-02-13T22:37:00.001+05:30

You see, I've always wanted a bike. It's presence in arbitrary definitions of adolescent masculinity not withstanding, it also had the added advantage of being able to get you from point A to point B without all this tedious mucking around waiting in bus-stops and hanging off foot-boards.

So, one fine day, I decided that I'd buy myself a bike. And I figured that while I was at it, I might as well go for the full monty and buy the best I could afford. That's how, last April, I brought home a brand new Yamaha FZ-16 that appeared to have all the bells and whistles of a modern race-bike. ('appeared' of course, being the operative word here. But that's a different story altogether). As soon as I came home, I started typing a blog entry about it, but then my interest tapered away after a para or so. A month later, and a service later, I started with another entry, but then my interest tapered away again. This happened a couple of times more too. And that is how I now find quite a few perfectly worded first paragraphs about my bike lying around on my desktop.

Anyway, all that's history, and it's close to one year since I bought it. Now people ask me why I bought this mammoth of a bike that operates on terms of liters per kilometer instead of the other way around. My answer is, this bike looks cool. Like this:

However, what I really wanted to achieve with my bike was this:

I reckon I have come close. Like this:

;)

Java Forever

2011-02-13T17:11:00.000+05:30

My dear faithful followers, all three of you, here's a long awaited blog update from my end. Although it'd give me immense pleasure to bore you all to death as usual with a long winded post about nothing in particular, today I will have to settle for the usual blog-update stand by used by all bloggers when they have nothing particular to post: A youtube video.

Found this on facebook:

This is a blog update

2010-11-23T20:05:00.002+05:30

You are reading this blog-post. This blog now stands updated.

My tryst with scrabble

2010-08-25T23:30:00.000+05:30

There's this scrabble club here where I work. They meet up every Monday and play into the late hours of the night. Then they send out e-mails to every one on the DL proclaiming how great their last session was - how one girl managed to score a full 50 by coming up with 'urinates', and how another managed to place four swear words in a row and all that. Naturally, my attention was piqued. And when my attention is piqued, Hari's the fall guy. So, last Monday, away we went, Hari and I, to the uncharted back-waters that make up third floor, Building-1.

We meet up with this Karthik guy who's the typical nerd. Plays scrabble, is a quizzer, and can also tell you the color of Darth Vader's light-sabre. (That yours truly can do all that too is a completely different story). Anyway, Govind (I do not know much about him), Rajeshwari (female version of the typical nerd), Hari and I start a game. Hari plays first, and comes up with a spectacularly imaginative 'TO' for a first word. Rajeshwari then plays out some 5 tiles and comes up with a strange word no one's heard. Hari challenges, loses, and straightaway sends his score plunging into the negative. Govind then comes up with another whopping 6 letter word, and enters a huge number into under his name. I do better than Hari - 'AND'. :D

So, we're well and truly into the game - no one opening up anything for anyone, and everyone except Hari and me making double digit scores on every word they put down. Hari's never played the game before, so he's a real mess. I put up an inspired performance and gradually catch up on Govind - more of a fluke though. I just managed to keep three tiles and make many words and send my score rocketing while Govind had to exchange his tiles twice after being blessed with a bevy of Zs, Qs, Js, Xs, and no U to go with the Q.

Suddenly I see an opening. I have a blank and the letters T, O, N, E, D. Right, I think - The blank can be S, and if I can fit these letters down somewhere, I might shoot my score to an unassailable lead. And then I see it - Two Os with a blank space between them - And the column along the blank begins with a Triple word score. So, I put my tiles out. Down STONED, Across ODO. (Ok, some 20 odd points only, but a good start nonetheless) The only snag was that I wasn't sure ODO was a word. I'd made vague plans of bluffing my way through how ODO was a widely accepted shortening of Odometer, but Rajeshwari would have none of it. So, she challenges, and bloody ZYZZYVA, yes, that's the name of the dictionary they use, says the word is unacceptable. In red. Well, that's me stumped. Rajeshwari grins, and for an encore, goes on to add 60 points to her tally by the strategic placement of a single Q. She then declares she's bored off this game and goes on to start a parallel timed game with Karthik.

We wind up the game - I am the first player to finish off all the tiles, which means everyone's remaining tiles are minused off their scores and added into mine. Whoppee!! And by sheer dint of this strange rule, I manage to over take Govind and come in second. Rajeshwari is in first place with a good 90 point lead over me. All in all a delightful experience. Looking forward to more such games in the future.

Inception reviews...

2010-07-22T20:55:00.001+05:30

I loved the movie inception. Quite a lot of people I know have also seen the movie and have given me reviews about it (Here be some spoilers) -

Doctor, aka Vinod - Awesome movie da...

Raja Deepak - it ws da mozzt amzn muvie iv evr seen, itz smply awsum i luvd evry bit f t ghj bbc cnn axn ftv..

Arun M - You see, according to the movie, the mind is like the CLR dude. It's awesome da!! If you dream inside a dream, it's ok. But if you dream inside a dream inside a dream inside a dream, a stack overflow occurs. This is called as going into Limbo.

Marc - Inception was clever but not awesome. I give it 4 out of 7. I was expecting them to rebuild the dream world in real time to escape projections and for the Ariadne character to have some work and not be completely useless. I simply have standards and don't go around declaring everything amazing.

Polur Sunil Chandra - I watched it in Telugu.

Paambist - Line

Shanku bai - Jacques!!

At this point, the interviewer committed suicide.

Vichu goes a-dancing!!

2010-07-21T21:22:00.000+05:30

Visu is busy correcting figures by dancing in his company's gala events: Here's the video.

Enjoy!!

A really old photo

2010-06-29T22:37:00.001+05:30

Well, I'm second from the left on the third row. Who would have thought this boy would one day grow up to become so tall and handsome? :P

Blog update

2010-06-02T23:34:00.000+05:30

Not much has happened in the recent past. Therefore no blog updates. Oh, I might have won an award in between, fallen in and out of love, gotten myself a new bike, and a pay hike, but they don't really count. Now, Marc has got something to say on his blog, so go and bug him there!

Jhanjariya

2010-04-04T22:53:00.000+05:30

I couldn't get the full lyrics for this song anywhere, so I listened to the song and wrote them down myself.

jhanjhariya uski chanak gai
chunri bhi sar se sarak gai
meri nazar usse mili to
uski nazar sharma ke jhuk gai

Somebody playing around with a bugle

Usse nazar mile beach bazar mein (2)
Dil gaya loot nazaronki takarar mein
mud mudke wo dekhe mujhe
jaise ki wo kudh bhi machal gayi

jhanjhariya... (2)

some weird 8 bit video game music
some female humming

Gussa ajeeb ka pehle mulaqat ka (2)
Alam Gazab hua mere dil ke haal ka
ik pal mujhe aisa laga
jaise meri dadkan rukh gayi

jhanjhariya... (2)

Suniel & Karishma rock ;)

Slouching Tigers, Mumbling Dragons - II

2010-03-28T21:00:00.000+05:30

I'd earlier posted on how some authors make for some really tough reading.Today, I was reading Robert Faggen's introduction to Ken Kesey's One flew over the cuckoo's nest, and he managed to come up with this:

Nature may be cruel but it allows mode latitude than the monotony of a system that discards everything that cannot be made to conform to its monolithic dream of success. Kesey battles against monotony and against those who attempt to schematize and subordinate the wildness and unpredictability of the human spirit.

Why, oh why? That too in the introduction itself? :(

Layla - Eric Clapton

2010-03-28T12:49:00.000+05:30

What'll you do when you get lonely
And nobody's waiting by your side?
You've been running and hiding much too long.
You know it's just your foolish pride.

Layla, you've got me on my knees.
Layla, I'm begging, darling please.
Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind.

I tried to give you consolation
When your old man had let you down.
Like a fool, I fell in love with you,
Turned my whole world upside down.

Let's make the best of the situation
Before I finally go insane.
Please don't say we'll never find a way
And tell me all my love's in vain.

Layla by Eric Clapton. Pure genius.

Lyrics lifted from lyrics007.com

Sundar in blunder-land

2010-02-27T01:20:00.000+05:30

Of buses
I woke up this morning on the wrong side of my bed. I wake up every morning on the wrong side of my bed because the other side is shoved against a brick wall. Having racked my brains to find one reason why I shouldn't go, and having failed, I started getting ready for work. Forty bleary minutes later, I find myself settling into the push back seat of a Kumbakonam bound ultra-deluxe-super-fast-bye-pass-rider-bug-infested-video-coach-lean-mean-transport-machine having convinced the conductor to drop me off at Mahindra city by promising that I'd take the ticket to Chenglepet, and that I'd tender the exact fare, and line up near the entrance when we'd passed a certain lion-god temple. All my attempts to sleep are completely dashed by 1:58 minutes of Baasha (sad) .mp3, 1.19 minutes of Baasha (wild) .mp3, and a whopping 6.31 minutes of 8 kulla ulagam irukku.mp3 played over speakers with about as much bass as S Janaki's voice.

Of work
Nine hours of breaking my head over radio buttons that refuse to get selected, drop downs that fail to drop down, and scroll bars that, well, apart from failing to scroll, also practice the five-point-palm-exploding-heart-technique on you. Oh, and Raja Deepak, of all people calls you and asks if you would like to go to a certain Gautam Vasudev Menon movie on Sunday. You think, oh well, what the heck, yeah, let's do it! Then the blighter calls you back and asks you to transfer no less than 220 rupees to his account. Great.

Of interactions with Hari
At around 6 in the evening, you start winding up whatever it is that requires winding up, packing up whatever it is that needs packing up, and call Hari up. The bloke's really got no clue what's going on. The queries he's trying to run, well, are making him query his own sanity, the reports that he's supposed to generate plainly never report back, the spread sheets he's working on wrap themselves around his non-reporting reports, and the stack traces magically vanish from the spread sheets that're wrapping around the non reporting reports that are generated by the queries that query his sanity. And so, I meet up with Hari and we decide to go to the book store. We browse through the books and somehow manage to end up in the self-motivation/management/cheese-moving ferrari-selling flat-world-winning kinda books section when I spot a title that's a sight for sore eyes. "Hari, would you like to buy Indecent Exposure?" I ask and turn around. The only snag was that where I'd expected a snickering Hari, I see this affronted young woman. She makes this weird face that plainly conveyed the I-know-all-about-your-types-coming-into-bookstores-to-hit-upon-innocent-young-girls expression. I manage to extricate myself with a smile and a pointed comment about what a great novel the Linda Goodman book she was holding was. That bad. I spot Hari staring fixedly at a few pink dolls, and manage to drag him outta the store and into the adjacent one, which sold clothes with your corporation's insignia at prices just below your salary. Then we manage to miss the next bus home, and are forced to walk nearly three kilometers to the main road. Pretty soon we find ourselves tramping around West Tambaram. And Hari says he's got to do some necessary shopping.. and off he ducks under a tent. I follow, and am shocked to see a farm of vegetable markets. Vegetable markets as far as you could see, and in all directions.

Of vegetable markets
With a flippant comment about having to buy vegetables for home, Hari picks up a banana branch lying about, and asks for the price. He then proceeds to accost a passing by gentleman, obviously a seasoned vegetable market gamesman, and asks him, "Anna, I do not know how to buy this vegetable, how do you do it?" The guy shoots a strange look, then proceeds to scratch the top of it out with a finger. "Thanks", says Hari and saunters down to the next shop. Here a few middle aged women are haggling with a harried vendor over the price of onions. The women are in their element; apparently they're winning. Hari jumps right in, points to some ginger and asks, "What's this?" Instant silence. The women are shocked. How dare two vegetable market noobs not only interrupt a first class game of onion price haggling, but also ask what a ginger was? Hari, uncharacteristically, is right on top of his game, and wins the women's hearts right back, "I mean, is this this-and-this type of ginger, or so-and-so type of ginger"? Having seen his ability with being able to identify the taxon, genus, latin name, vascular bundle or whatever, they suddenly realise they're dealing with a serious student of the art, and instantly welcome us into the club. "These are just ordinary gingers, m'dear, they smile".

Soon, we're standing erect outside the tent of doom. I'd survived. Hari is positively beaming. He's bought spinach, carrots, ginger, pudina, ladies-finger, beans, and a whole lot of the other green vaudeville stuff you generally push around on your plate. Me was carrying the majority of it. Oh, the shame! Anyway, Hari dropped me back on his excel super, and I came home and blogged about buying vegetables.

An interesting photo for you

2010-02-20T23:09:00.000+05:30

A few days ago, I swore that I'd update my blog everyday. That rule, however, has long since been relaxed to an update every week. It's hard to keep track of stuff when you're brain's all muddled up from trying to read Carl Sagan and PG Wodehouse at the same time, all the while pretending to be working.

Here's an interesting photo for you. This happens to be my cousin. He's previously been featured in this blog as the proud owner of an iguana that later ran away. This time around, he's been playing musical chairs with royalty.

Two birds in a bush

2010-02-15T22:28:00.000+05:30

Tamil Nadu's two most often mentioned birds are the kaka and the kuruvi. Now, let me sit back and enjoy watching you retch to death.

Slouching Tigers, Mumbling Dragons.

2010-02-14T13:20:00.000+05:30

I had managed to muddle through 195 pages of Carl Sagan's Dragons of Eden which I'd picked up in a cheap second hand book store to come across this: However, an algebraic equation is an archetypical left-hemisphere construction, while a regular geometric curve, the pattern in an array of related points, is a characteristic right-hemisphere production. In a certain sense, analytical geometry is the corpus callosum of mathematics. Every now and then authors I read do this and put my comprehension of all that I'd read so far completely off track. Of course, this wasn't as bad as Umberto Eco, who barely seven pages into Foucault's Pendulum managed to come up with this: ...you first cross an eighteenth century courtyard and step into an old abbey church, now part of a later complex, but originally part of a priory. You enter and are stunned by a conspiracy in which the sublime universe of heavenly ogives and the chthonian world of gas guzzlers are juxtaposed. Wow. Whoever's heard of a word starting with chth?

The above two instances are nothing when compared to the sheer brilliance of William S Burroughs, who barely 4 pages into The Naked Lunch shovels this at you: "'Get her!'
"'Get the Paregoric Kid giving that mark the build up!'
"'Eager Beaver wooing him too fast.'
"'The Shoe Store Kid say: 'Give it to a mark with K.Y. and he will come back moaning for more.'
The reader, I assure you, has no idea of the situation, the scene, and who is speaking to whom.

The more the merrier?

2010-02-13T11:13:00.000+05:30

I fire up Visual Web Developer and am instantly presented with a terrible choice. Do I code in VB or C# or VB or C#? So terrorizing that I closed Web developer and went back to orkut.

Cosmetic changes

2010-02-07T20:02:00.000+05:30

For a long time, my blog sported the colors of the "Learn Kannada in 30 days" book. And was equally useless. Now I have changed it to look a little like The Hindu because I figured my blog is more boring than useless.

My morning of extreme eco-friendliness

2010-01-10T22:16:00.000+05:30

On one hand you have global warming because of all this CO2 in the atmosphere. And then someone went and put an hole in the ozone layer. On the other hand you have people felling trees to make paper for something as stupid as vodafone itemized bills. Oh, and the giant panda's almost gone, as is the Siberian tiger. Now, as any self respecting earthling, I've always been deeply concerned about this sorry state of affairs here on mother earth. And so, I've always done my bit towards protecting the environment - I send at least three chain-mails everyday imploring people to stop using plastic, and watch animal planet till my eyes water. Of course, having seen no measurable difference out of my actions, it was but natural that I volunteered to help the eco-club at my work place to plant trees at a near-by village.

The volunteering part as always, happened in a spate of eco-extremism sometime on Thursday afternoon, when you are in a state of heightened soporificity after a heavy lunch and a morning of analyzing some VB6 code written by some dim wit in 1999. When today morning dawned, I woke up regretting my decision to the core. I mean, who wants to spend a perfectly fine Sunday planting tree saplings in the middle of nowhere? Moreover, what's more eco-friendly than the India Sri Lanka match? And that's how things would have been had it not been for Kirthana. At around 9 AM, she calls me and gives me a long lecture, the long and short of it being: Where the fuck are you? Turns out that Kirthana, who had agreed to accompany me to the treeless village in question, had already travelled the distance to Tambaram from Anna Nagar, and was now tramping around in front of MEPZ. Yet another SNAFU, Sundar, you forgot to tell her!

Sundar then went and rescued her from the leering lorry drivers that hang out in front of MEPZ. Experts however suggest that I'd have been better off leaving her there, but that's an altogether different story. Figuring that I'd better plant a few trees just to humor her, we came home, and I quickly changed, and off we went - to office - on a pleasant, perfect Sunday morning. This was my first time on the bike since my accident, so I drove at a safe 70. That way, I was able to beat the drunk taxi drivers trying to occupy the same volume of space as me. Half an hour later, we ended up in our campus, and no one was in sight. We called up the organizers who told us that the group had already split into three, and were launching a systematic three-pronged attack on the village armed with an assortment of saplings.

Right. Kirthana and I looked at each other, and unanimously agreed it was a complete waste of time gate crashing their little party. Now what do we do? Kirthana blamed me for being a lazy slouch, and I blamed her for being completely unable to read people's minds. After doing the blaming bit for a while, Kirthana suggests that I teach her to ride the bike and then we'll go home.

Now, all my masculine/macho senses are screaming at me to not teach a girl to ride a bike, but then I really want to go home, and say, "Fine". She learns surprisingly fast, (OK, there's nothing much to it) and I let her do a few rounds on it. Then we go off to the canteen and Kirthana paid her tuition fees in full by getting her teacher a couple of burgers, some potato fries and a few cans of pepsi. We make a quick detour to some unattended cubicles, and check for mails from our on-site coordinators (surprise, surprise, I'd gotten one! On a Saturday night)! Then we start. This time I do 80, as I really wanted to get home to watch the match, and we reach Tambaram in almost no time. I drop Kirthana off at the bus terminus, and race home to reach just in time to catch the first over. Half an hour or so later, I receive a text message: It's the chairman of the eco-club. He praises me for being part of an admirable, select few who are awake to the environmental needs of the hour, and thanks me profusely for helping plant over 300 saplings in the little village of Anjur.

Now that's the way you help the environment. Watch and learn!

What not to do on the NH

2009-12-12T22:28:00.000+05:30

Greetings. I know I haven't updated my blog properly in a while, and there are a lot of things that've happened that are worth mentioning, like the trip to Delhi and Manali, and the project party etc, but I guess, we'll save the lighter ones for later and plunge head first into the darker news on my personal front.

Friday evening found me slogging away at work. Whatever I was trying to build wasn't working and whatever had already been working was breaking. At about 9.30 PM, which is when you reach your wit's end, I fired off an email to everyone saying that whatever has come to pass is what has come to pass, and left for the day. I traipsed down to the food court, and met KK. After a quick bite, we started. On my trusty steed, and faithful stallion, my motor-cycle.

The ride back was good because traffic was sparse, visibility was good, there were no annoying cross winds. And so we breezed down all the way from Paranur till Irumbuliyur. We'd gone about half a kilometer past the Perungalathur bridge when we reached a small gap in the median strip. And this taxi zoomed out of nowhere, came in through it and parked itself perpendicularly in my path. With hardly 15 feet to go, and me doing about 40kmph, I stomped on my brakes with all my vigor, knowing full well it was an exercise in futility. The bike slowed a bit, and the brakes locked, but I made sure I kept the bike straight till the end.

We crashed straight into the side of the taxi. The front wheel, the fender, and the headlights took most of the impact. I guess I managed to turn my head to the side at the last minute, and the forward right side of my helmet took the impact with the car. I remember feeling a dull thud as we crashed.

The next thing I know, we're lying smack in the middle of the National Highway, between a car and a shattered bike, with blinding headlights all around. My bike was still running, the engine whining sickeningly. 3-4 people came running in. Two helped us off the asphalt, one put the bike in neutral, turned it off and pushed it out onto the embankment. Yet another grabbed my bike, helmet and spectacles. Good Samaritans. They vanished into the inky blankness of the night. Doubt I'll ever see them again.

I was in one piece, was able to move all parts of my body, so was KK.

The taxi driver stayed back to help too. He gave us water, and offered us shelter from the drizzle that'd now started in his vehicle. I'd meanwhile called my dad and asked him to come over. We put the bike in the taxi-driver's house itself, and made our way to the Hindu Mission Hospital. The driver didn't start any arguments about who was right and wrong, Humdullilah.

I needed to stitch up my forehead because the helmet managed to absorb only so much of the shock, which I got done. We also got an x-ray each of KK's right hand, which probably banged against the car, we're not sure, and my right leg, which started swelling up suddenly right on the operation table. Nothing broken!

All in all a purely miraculous escape!

I remember the moments before the impact vividly. As I braked, I heard my own engine revving, and KK's grip on my shoulder tightening. KK remembers me calling to him to watch out. And then a crunch followed by a thump. Amazing how vivid it is!

Reached home at 1.30 in the morning.

Mr. Taxi driver, although you did manage to redeem yourself a bit with all the help you rendered, I wish in future, you'd look both sides before putting your car across an highway, I wish you'd use the indicator lights, and I hope you wouldn't be drunk, which is what you appeared to be. (You probably were only tired, I'm willing to concede that though).

Right now on a myriad of tablets for the next week. Moral of the story: Never work late :)

Over and out.

The hunter's war chant

2009-12-06T22:44:00.000+05:30

At last I managed to do it. I ruined my weekend in the process, but at last I have managed to do it! I managed to figure out the strange mumblings at the start of the puli urumudhu song in vettaikaran!

Sambalabala Sibbate Siddhi salabala ganta
Nimba swapana sindha hamsa halala ganda
Viddhi shalala gumba shobbi shalalaga bette
Om shanti shanti he.

Over and out.

My epiphany

2009-10-08T23:50:00.001+05:30

I had an epiphany riding into work this morning. Getting into hell is easy, but you've to work hard to get into heaven, because there is an highway to hell, but only a stairway to heaven.

More Earworms!

2009-09-02T14:23:00.001+05:30

I managed to hit upon the basic tune of the Panivizhum malarvanam song from some old Karthik movie while playing around with my bro's guitar.

And I was hooked. I downloaded the song, and now its on a loop both in winamp, and in my head.

Here you go:

Panivizhum malarvanam un paarvai oru varam
inivarum munivarum thadumaarum kanimaram

saelai moodum ilanjoalai maalai soodum malarmaalai(2).
irubadhu nilavugal nagamengum olividum
hey hey ilamaiyin kanavugal vizhiyoaram thulirvidum
kaigal idaigalil neligayil, idaiveli kuraigayil, eriyum vilakku sirithu kangal moodum

(panivizhum)

kaaman kovil siraivaasam, kaalai ezhunthal parigasam(2)
thazuvidum pozithile, idam maarum idhayame
hey hey viyarviyin mazhailae payiraagum paruvamae
aadum idaigalil vazhigira nilavoli iruvizhi
mazhaiyil nanaindhu magizhum vaanambaadi

(panivizhum)

Shamelessly copy pasted from some place on the net.

I especially like the part where the singer goes kaigal idaigalil neligayil, idaiveli kuraigayil, eriyum vilakku sirithu kangal moodum

LINQ

2009-08-16T18:28:00.002+05:30

I was bored, and I realized that this blog was desperately in need of resuscitation (once again) and so I decided to post on whatever I was doing right now, which happened to be experimenting with LINQ. Now, I've only just started, so I think I'll put up some basic commands here.

List list = new List();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
list.Add(i);

IEnumerable oddIntegers = from inte in list where inte % 2 != 0 select inte;
foreach (int integer in oddIntegers)
MessageBox.Show(integer.ToString());

On second thoughts, I am not going to be putting up anything here. You can do a better job looking it up somewhere :)

Sundar.

Sundar's Guide to Corporate E-Mail Writing

2009-06-06T12:13:00.005+05:30

This article will give you an heads up on how best to write emails in any corporate culture, and live to tell the tale.

1. Open any email client
Usually this is Microsoft Outlook, and therefore this discussion assumes Outlook as the software being used.

2. Type in the subject
In the Sub: field, type in the subject of your email. Experts say this should not be more than three words. However, it should be bombastic enough to capture the attention of the folks lazing it out onsite, so it doesn't really matter if it doesn't make any sense. Suppose you were writing to the Electricity Board regarding frequent power outages, do not say "Frequent Power Cuts" in the subject line because they'd have gotten a million mails with the same subject, and probably would have automatically forwarded them to their junk folder. Therefore, go in for something that'd keep them sufficiently confused, like "Electron Flow Deficiency". You could of course, try something innovative, like "Brazilian Bikini Girls", but that really is your call.

3.Salutation
Gone are the days when we wrote long winding leave letters beginning with "Respected Sir/Madam, As I was suffering from...".
These days all you do is start off with a simple 'Hi'. Then, you type in the first name of the addressee. Even if he/she happens to be the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces. Something like "Hi Darth" should do fine!

4. Type in the message
You had it easy so far. All you did was type in three random words. Now comes the tough part. You have to compose a KISS email. Hang on! Before you go into rhapsodies, you have to know that KISS is an acronym for Keep It Short and Simple. That is really hard, because till last year you were writing 44 page long epics on obscure quality practices in Total Quality Management. There is also the added problem of making the email sound like you've been working your ass off when in reality you've been experimenting with ways to make the coffee dispenser churn out more milk.
Don't worry! There is a simple trick to get around this conundrum: Throw in as many acronyms as possible. Masters of email writing usually start with a simple 'FYI', which stands for 'For Your Information'. (I think. No one's really sure) Alternative beginnings include PFB (Please Find Below), (Yeah, like I didn't know I'd find the message below), and PFA (Please Find Attached). The usage of the last one is highly not recommended unless you have a spreadsheet full of random numbers and column headers like "Net planned/unplanned task efforts ratio" to send in.
Now, think hard on what productive work you've done since morning. It's not much, I know, but every little bit counts.
Right, you spent the morning reading Harry Potter erotica. Here's what you say:
Analyzed the FSD (Functional Specification Document) and the existing code to enumerate the list of changes to be made to include said enhancement into the product. Documented the dependencies and regression defects likely to be injected and have checked the file into the network. Then, rename the said Harry Potter book as "Dependencies and likely Regression Defects Injected by Enhancement No 4.3.72" and check it in. Trust me, no-one's ever going to open that document.
There, you've accounted for the morning. Of course, you then went and took your two hour lunch break.
What next?
You created an empty class at 2 P.M in a fit of workaholism. You typed out the name of the class, opened a curly bracket, pressed the carriage return down a couple of times, and closed it. How do you describe that? Suppose the class was called UserInteractionMonitor, this is what you type in: Created a concrete wrapper class called UserInteractionMonitor that implements the IUserInteractionMonitor interface and implemented the methods exposed by the interface.
Although you've made a couple of striking points, you still run the risk of being accused of shirking work (not without reason), so you need something that really clinches the deal. It's easy. Open all available documentation. Some Star Trek obsessed geek in the client's IT team is bound to have created a method called FutileResistance() whose sole function would be to display the message "This is the Borg. You'll be assimilated. Resistance is futile." All you have to do is to put an issue in the issue tracker saying that this method couldn't be used by you and that you were not able to figure out its purpose, and that it wasn't part of the design, and that it was stopping you from your work.
There you've said what you did today. But what do you plan to do tomorrow? Continuing in the previous vein, this is what you say:
"Going forward, (this phrase is absolutely essential in any email. More important than the subject), we'll be working on the User Interaction Monitor pending clarification on the functionality of the FutileResistance() method.
Presto! Your message is ready!

5. Sign
Yours truly, yours sincerely, faithfully, obediently, and all that jazz are a little dated. Damn those English classes that drilled such stuff into my head. All you have to put in is "thanks", or perhaps "thanks and regards", and type in half your first name, or whatever it is everyone calls you.

6. To
Put in the email ids of all the people you think should read this mail.

7. Cc
The email ids of all those people who do not need to look at this email, but must be given the pretense of respect.

8. Bcc
Your girlfriend. You don't have one I know, but still :)

Here is a sample email...

From Sundar.sarang.07@gempire.com
To Dart.Vader@gempire.com
cc Palpatine@gempire.com; Sate@gempire.com

Sub Jedi Invasion

Msg
Hi Darth,
PFB updates for today.
An old Jedi Master, Obi Wan Kenobi has boarded the Ship.
FYI, he wields a colorful tubelight which he thinks will slay random robots.
Going forward, you'll feel him in the Force.
So far, he has damaged three relay conduits and beheaded a robot. We have raised an issue with the damage control team who'll be replacing the said components before EOD. PFA the damage assessment report.
We fired three support staff today because we found their lack of faith disturbing.
We are also facing slow connectivity with the engineering division. Please look into it and do the needful.

Thanks & regards,
Sundar
Chief Commander, Vetti Timepass Division.

I was bored

2009-05-22T22:35:00.000+05:30

So, I posted this. Die, all ye evil fiends who behold this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ZOanmYJMM&feature=related

Autofellows galore!

2009-05-17T11:34:00.001+05:30

This is the mail that is making rounds in my office for the past two days.

Superstar's song for those who do not understand English:

I am autofellow autofellow
Four knowing route fellow
Justice having rate fellow
Good people mix fellow
Nice singing song fellow
Gandhi borning country fellow
Stick take means hunter fellow
Big people's relation fellow
Mercy having mind fellow da
I am all poor's relative fellow da
I am always poor people's relative fellow da
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only

Town become big, population become big
Bus expecting, half age over
Life become hectic in time, exist in corner of street
Ada eye beat means love coming they telling
You hand clap means auto coming I telling
Front coming look, this three-wheel chariot
Good come and arrive, you trust and climb up
Mercy having mind fellow da
I am always poor people's relative fellow da
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only
Achak means achak only; Gumuk means gumuk only

Mummy motherfolk, danger not leave
Heat or cyclone, never I never tell
There there hunger take means, many savoury
Measurement food is one time
For pregnancy I come free mummy
Your child also name one I keep mummy
Letter lacking person ada trusting us and coming
Address lacking street ada auto fellow knowing
Achak means achak only ; Gumuk means gumuk only
Achak means achak only ; Gumuk means gumuk only

I found it extremely funny.

Achak means achak only, gumuk means gumuk only, that takes the cake!

Edit: Listen to the original song if you wanna.

Define Triboluminescence

2009-04-21T19:41:00.000+05:30

Richard Feynman, in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, narrates the following in a chapter called O Americano, Outra Vez!, where he talks about his experiences teaching in Brazil:

...Then they asked, "When light comes at an angle through a sheet of material with a certain thickness, and a certain index N, what happens to the light?"

"It comes out parallel to itself, sir -displaced."

"And how much is it displaced?"

"I don't know sir, but I can figure it out." So he figured it out. He was very good, but by this time, I had my suspicions.

After the exam, I went up to this bright young man, and explained to him that I was from the United States, and that I wanted to ask him some questions that would not affect the results of his exam in any way. The first question I ask is, "Can you give me some example of a diamagnetic substance?"

"No."

Then I asked, "If this book was made of glass, and I was looking at something on the table through it, what would happen to the image if I tilted the glass?"

"It would be deflected sir, by twice the angle that you've turned the book."

I said, "You haven't got it mixed up with a mirror, have you?"

"No, sir!"

He had just told me in the examination that the light would be displaced, parallel to itself, and therefore the image would move over to one side, but would not be turned by any angle. He had even figured out how much it would be displaced, but he didn't realize that a piece of glass is a material with an index, and that his calculation had applied to my question...

Another excerpt:

...One other thing that I could never get them to do was to ask questions. Finally a student explained it to me: "If I ask you a question during the lecture, afterwards, everybody will be telling me, 'What are you wasting our time for in the class? We're trying to learn something. And you're stopping him by asking a question.'"

It was a kind of one-upmanship, where nobody knows what's going on, and they'd out the other one down as if they did know. They all fake that they know, and if one student admits that something is confusing for a moment by asking a question, the others take a high-handed attitude, acting as if it's not confusing at all, telling him that he's wasting their time...

Yet another excerpt:

...So, I came in, carrying the elementary physics textbook that they used in the first year of college. They thought this book was especially good because it had different kinds of typeface-bold black for the most important things to remember and so on...

..."I have discovered something else," I continued, "By flipping the pages at random, and putting my finger in and reading the sentences on that page, I can show you what's the matter-how it's not science, but memorizing, in every circumstance. Therefore, I am brave enough to flip through the pages now, in front of this audience, to put my finger in, to read, and to show you."

So I did it. Brrrrrrrup -I stuck my finger in, and I started to read: "Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed..."

I said, "And there, have you got science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven't told anything about nature -what crystals produce light when you crush them, why they produce light. Did you see any student go home and try it? He can't.

"But if, instead, you were to write, 'When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called "triboluminescence."' Then someone will go home and try it... "

Now, in my humble opinion, the education system in India is definitely better than this (Brazil in the 50s or 60s I think), but not too far ahead. I was able to relate to a lot of what was said above, from my own experiences in school. A lot of education here is still rote learning based, and no one knows exactly what they are learning.

Pity, don't you think?

Random Blog Update

2009-03-21T11:08:00.000+05:30

Training got over at last and I was posted (un)fortunately to my home town. Problem is, my work place is some 30 kilometers from my home and in the middle of nowhere. I'm one of the lucky fellows. A few people have to travel 60 kms just to get to work. It's a bit of a bore trying to get at 8 AM to some place that was formerly where untreatable lepers were banished to. More so because I have no work to do there. As yet. I'll get a system and a cubicle allocated to me by monday hopefully. No one's chuffed spending nine hours in the food court.

Things will get better from next week. Hopefully.

Bye for now!

I was tagged!

2009-01-23T19:55:00.001+05:30

Karthik was completely vetti, and he tagged me. Which means I have to write answers to some of the questions he was forced to answer, and then force 6 other people to answer them too. And generally make a bad name for myself, which happens to be one of my few proficiencies. So, here goes.

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
Leave.

2. If you can have a dream to come true, what would it be?
Eternal holiday in some island, great music, cute girls.. -The works.

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?
Anyone's that presents itself ideally... Kicking other people's butts is quite entertaining. So, never miss opportunities.

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Spend it. I always end up spending all my money without having a clue as to where it went. So, I am confident in my capability of spending a billion dollars without ever noticing it. Charity might just about feature somewhere in there.

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
Usually I'd pretend not to notice when someone asks such questions. Anyway, why not? (I'm assuming my best friend is a girl here)

6. Original Q: Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?
I'm ok with either one, as long as there is sex involved. :) Um, ok, bad joke. Being loved is cool no?

7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love?
Rest of my (short miserable) life, and all that jazz. But I'll be having fun doing the things I love to do.

8. If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
Get attached to someone else. It only was a secret no? So, no major slagging to be endured :)

9. If you like to act with someone, who will it be? Your gf/bf or an actress/actor?
Bips, Namita, etc etc.

10. What takes you down the fastest?
Gravity is the first answer that comes to my mind. Well, I'm sure thats not the answer you want to hear, so, lemme take a shot at something more cheesy: An idle mind is the devil's workshop. I become terribly irritated, depressed, bored, and generally extremely pissed off with the world whenever I'm idle. That's what takes me down the fastest. I'm ok as long as I have something on my hands.

11. How would you see yourself in ten years time?
Hopefully, having fun.

12. What’s your fear?
Physical violence. Being the runt that I have always been, I've had quite a few fights where I've come off second best. It isn't a great feeling, I assure you.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
He tagged me, and not only that, asked such lame, miserable questions. So, I do have a few opinions, which I'd like not to air, because, his mummy paavam, and his daddy paavam too.

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married but poor?
Rich. Single, or married, I don't care.

15. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
Snooze the alarm clock a couple of times. Then drag myself out of bed. Make critical decisions as to whether there's time for a bath. :) There, anyone reading this isn't going to stray within 10 metres of me now. Then have breakfast. (Never skip that one though) and make the most crucial decision of the day: Should I go back to bed anyway?

16. Would you give all in a relationship?
All? No. Some here and there. Never all.

17. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously, who would you pick?
Inky pinky ponky, father had a donkey, someone died, somebody cried, inky pinky ponky. Then pick the one with the bigger boobs. Um, there's got to be some criteria no? Ok, scratch that last sentence out. I'll pick the one with better common sense.

18. Would you forgive and forget no matter how horrible a thing that special someone has done?
Wish I could, but I know I can't. So, I won't. (I mean, if I can't, I won't either, will I?)

19. If its your last day and you have one call to make, whom would you call? Dont tell me your mom. Someone else. (Original qn:What are your three most important expectations in love )
I'd call my mobile service provider, and say: You can't trouble me anymore with offers of bank loans, and extended call timings, and slashed rates, and free sex etc... nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah. What else? You put out the mom option.

Three most important expectations in love:
1. No conditions. Unconditional love.. You know? That most cliched saying of all time.
2. Follow expectation 1 sincerely.
3. Follow expectation 1 sincerely. (redundancy included just in case you skipped to the 3 expectation directly. It tends to happen when people are reading boring blog posts. Especially the ones that result from tagging)

20. List 6 people to tag:
1. Raja Deepak (He probably wont notice this anyway)
2. Dickie (Less commonly known as Arun M)
3. Visu
4. Pilps (Yeah, that's you vatsala. :))
5. Bujji (Sumalatha)
6. Janani

Phew. That's over then.

It's a tough game

2008-12-17T21:53:00.000+05:30

I've been going to tennis class for the past three weeks. And have made absolutely no headway. I can play the rally and the volley with some semblance of competence, but when it comes to receiving a fast serve, I come up a cropper. This is because when playing otherwise, the ball bounces and sort of sits up to be hit and all you have to do is to sprint and position yourself and roll the racket over the ball. Running is not a problem. Run Forrest, run! is the sort of running that I do. However, when it comes to receiving a serve, the ball sort of tends to skid on towards you. The exact sort of delivery that you'd love to receive while opening the batting. This however, is not cricket, but a far more profound game with much deeper ramifications. For a change, it is nice to play a game without having to dress up like an astronaut. Cricket still is my favourite game, but it does have it's limitations. I must learn to control the ball and place it over the net when receiving the serve. And also learn to stop charging towards the net at the start of the serve. It does you no good, especially if you don't want to be carried away on a stretcher.

Um, I've so far been avoiding the subject of the actual service. No one knows how to make the perfect serve. In fact no one knows what the perfect serve in the first place really is! People are divided in their opinion. Perfectly sane people make completely insane remarks when asked to describe the perfect serve. Why, my own good friend Raja Deepak once launched into deep reminiscences about tackling a thrashing alligator in the course of serving an ace.

In essence, it is simple. You throw the ball up, hit it as hard as you can, score the point, walk over to the other corner and serve again till you get the game. However, when our coach first started explaining the dynamics behind the serve, most people left the court as a quivering mass of transparent green jelly. I mean, who can all at once stand with the feet spread apart so that it traces the top and bottom strokes of the number 1 (Who knew it had so many strokes in the first place?), hold the ball lightly in your non-throwing arm, bring it around in a semi-circle, throw it straight up so that you can point at it with your left hand, throw your shoulder backwards, ensure the ball travels at least above the height of the tip of your racket held straight up while standing upright, wait for the ball to come down, and then smack it hard, aiming at that small piece of real-estate so far away? In any case, my coach reckons we'd be good to go if we can put in 5 out of every ten serves because we're allowed two attempts to get each serve right. I can only do three or four at the most.

I've realised a lot also depends on who you are playing the game with. You don't want to play with copper mandaiyan because all he does is to make desperate attempts to take out his own eye. It does absolutely no good for your game. You should also avoid playing with the huge guy with tattooed arms not because he is a great player, but because he has the tendency to hit the ball out of the court and into the marshes, and given that the muscular tattooed ones have the tendency to boss over the puny, non-muscular, un-tattooed ones, you know on whom the onus of retrieving the astray ball falls.

Road Rash!

2008-10-27T12:03:00.000+05:30

Sunday, October 12, 2008. My dad and his friend were barreling down GST road at above a 100 kmph in a Toyota corolla. In an attempt to overtake a slow vehicle, my dad's friend cut to the right a bit to change lanes. But the problem was that it'd been raining for a bit, and the front right wheel skid on the water, locked up, and veered down the road and into a ditch. It then proceeded on a rendezvous with a fallen tree, which it met head on.

The car now went through a short period of self doubt as to whether to keep the rubber side downwards or not, and consequently did a triple somersault and ultimately did end up right way up.

My dad and his friend both opened the doors and walked out. My dad came home with a stiff neck, and his friend scraped his fingers on bramble while getting out. That was the extent of their injuries.

The seat-belts saved them. The air-bags, however, failed to deploy. The car's body was damaged beyond recognition. However, internally, the only damage was to the air-conditioning. Someone managed to actually drive the car back to Chennai. My dad got a few photos of the car on his camera mobile.

Both my dad and his friend agree that the process of filing an FIR was more traumatic than the actual accident.

Nice

2008-10-16T22:20:00.000+05:30

Nice. She tells me 4 whole days after the incident. Very nice.

Hey!

2008-10-07T17:18:00.000+05:30

Hi. After some 18 years in existence (going by my blog's post dates :) ), two years actually, my blog at last reached a hit count of 10000. Of course, if you were to discount all the hits that I myself gave it, it'd be hard pressed to cross 3. And one of them was forced by me, so I have a statistical readership of exactly two people. Great! Yippee!

Technology always increases in leaps and bounds!

2008-09-05T22:48:00.000+05:30

Yeah, it does. Increase in leaps and bounds. New stuff are always on the way out! I mean, all these years I had heard of earphones. You could listen to music through them everyone said. That was fantastic. But now, suddenly, everyone's started talking about an eyephone! They say eyephone three-g! Now what is that? Some form of street cricket? I mean, when you hit the ball at the leg side wall, you were granted two runs. That was called two-g. Now you have this three-g that you score using an eyephone! So, talking about this eyephone, what does it do? Given that the earphone played sounds into your ear, the eyephone must do what? Flash lights into your eye or something? Help you look without spectacles? Display maps of the areas you are in? Scroll news? Flash addresses and telephone numbers of members of the opposite sex? Possible that all this and more can be done! Technology really is increasing in leaps and bounds no? After all, till a few years ago, you could only write with pens. These days everyone seems to be going on about how beautifully their pen drives!

The door-bell rings...

2008-07-12T22:17:00.000+05:30

As the title suggested, the door bell rang. The compound gate had earlier creaked open and I knew people were coming in. But then I was hoping that they'd go right around the side of the house to visit the tenants that lived upstairs. But then the doorbell rang here, logic dictated that they were guests for us. I drearily raise myself from somewhere in the deep recesses of the sofa that from ages of having people plonk themselves on it ended up having deep recesses in the first place.

You open the door to find a twice removed cousin and his family grinning at you. Forcing the muscles of your face into a semblance of a smile, you beckon them in with words of (what you hope are) welcome. You frantically phone your mom who has gone out to gossip with the local maamis about the price of the potato and tell her to rush back home ASAP. Then you wade through a stream of curses to wake up your dad, who once awake, gets the point soon enough and rushes out to greet them.

In such encounters, it is advisable to always leave the TV on. However, the volume is turned down to a ultra-low level so as to not disturb the conversation, which proceeds like so:
"So, you are a mechanical engineer now? Why didn't you take Computer Science or IT, which has better scope?"
"I am a Computer Science Engineer (technically of course)".
"You must be hunting for a job now I suppose".
"No, I already got one. Am waiting for their call".
"Oh Software company ah?"
"Yes."
"Very good", says the wife.
"Software is an unstable job. These days they fire without reason. It will all end in a few years, why did you take computer science?", says the husband.
I smile, but I am internally banging my head.

Experts in the art of small talk all expound on the importance of the muted TV. When the conversation becomes too tough to maintain, you gracefully withdraw yourself from it and abstractedly gaze at the TV screen. You pretend you have a mild interest in watching Federer thrash some player whose name is full of adjacent Ds, Js, Ys, Ks, and an apostrophe thrown in for good measure. Imagine going around with an apostrophe in your name. Anyway, you gracefully watch the tennis match on the screen and let others develop the conversation.

However, you soon realize your opinion is expected because conversation has swung around to the tennis match. Too many people have withdrawn 'gracefully' from the lead converser's extempore on the political situation in Zimbabwe. Not to be outdone, he swings matters from Robert Mugabe to Mahesh Bhupathi in the same breath and asks me about whether so-and-so seeded so-and-so will make a wild card entry to so-and-so round in the so-and-yawn. You realize you need to say something to avoid embarrassing yourself, because you've been so graceful in withdrawing from the conversation that everyone's assumed you're an ardent fan of lawn tennis. I start to mumble something about so-and-so's back-hand not coming good about which I thought I heard someone say... Federer serves a particularly vicious ace to which the apostrophe exhibits all the reactions of a cement pillar. You take the opportunity to look at the screen and let your answer trail into thinness.

The man then jumps through a warp hole from Wimbledon to whether the 3G system for mobile phones will get implemented in India or not. You look up in surprise. Thank god you listened to pilpa expound on 3G when she did. For the first time conversing about a known subject, you realize the guy's barking his head off. You go on to say a bit about mobile phone portability and everyone looks at you with wonder. Wow, this boy knows so much they think.

Federer wins the match to accompanying celebrations and the conversation swings back to tennis. Wanting to grab back the he-knows-a-lot position from me, he asks me a strategic question designed to put wonder into people's minds. "Do you know when the final of Wimbledon is held?"
"It is held after all the other matches are over", I reply.
With a you-can't-get-away-with-that-young-man smirk, he asks, "No, tell me what date is the final held on?"
Put off, I say I don't know. Who the hell knows what date the coming Sunday is?
With a triumphant smile he announces that all Wimbledon matches are held on July 7th. "Always! He cries with a thump on the table for effect. That is the culture of Wimbledon. The final is always held on the 7th of July regardless of whatever happens in the other matches!". He sits back with a triumphant smile. I don't have the heart to tell him that Wimbledon is always scheduled to end on the first Sunday of July.

Small talk having been completed to heart's content, the true purpose of the visit reveals itself. After a little few No, no, not at all neededs and Please, please, you shouldn't say nos and some secretive husband-wife gesturings (among both parties), the process ends. Everyone is relieved and they drink up their now cold coffee. Having no further need to make small talk, the visitors decide to bid farewell. The bread-winner kick-starts the bike, and the sincere wife gets on behind him. The three-year-old son gets in front of his dad, proudly holding one of my (or my brother's) old abandoned toys. With one last snippet about the political situation in west bank, they speed off.

Zenni Opticals

2008-07-09T21:46:00.000+05:30

I wear spectacles. Very often, I find that I am unable to find the exact frame, or size or specification for the glasses that I think will suit my face-cut. So, I wondered if there was any online website that would help me out in ordering the best choice from home, and wonder of wonders, there is a website! zennioptical.com is a website that does precisely this.

Memory Deal

2008-07-03T20:28:00.000+05:30

In many businesses and households, computers, as they tend to do, rapidly become obsolete. One can put off buying new ones by upgrading the memory, a.k.a. RAM. Many computer retailers will recommend compatible memory upgrades, but only by using the same exact memory as that originally installed can optimal performance be assured. It is said that Memory Deal is the first and only online store offering customers genuine factory original memory modules for each and every memory upgrade. In Memory Deal you can find some good products like DDR PC2700 Memory, that makes a huge difference to your computer, and the Add IMAC Memory. Agreed, Adding Computer Ram makes a computer faster, but, one has to be careful while adding RAM to not exceed compatibility. For example, if Dell builds a computer, it uses a particular brand, size and level of RAM. By making sure it provides customers with the very same RAM module, Memory Deal can rightfully claim to be striving for the very same quality assurance Dell intended when it built the computer. Memory Deal is a new online memory product provider with a single unique focus - to provide customers the exact same RAM modules computer OEMs install at the factory. Doubling the memory of most computers can often be done for less than $100 per machine, staving off for another year or so the need to purchase the newest computer models. But adding memory can lead to problems if the wrong kind of RAM or size of memory module is used, and there are numerous options. These problems can be compounded, and become very expensive, when purchasing memory upgrades for entire IT departments, government offices, schools and corporate offices.

Of Economics and Economists

2008-06-24T00:29:00.000+05:30

Arun M: Where does the bloody money in the world come from? Trade?.. ..What is the source of all money?

Prashanth: Countries like India have a fiscal deficit, wherein the value of internal reform measures goes over the total income. In that case, some kind of cess has to be established.

Gandhi the IT Professional

2008-06-22T20:43:00.000+05:30

Have you heard of the Hogwarts Express? You probably have read about it. But have you heard about the Infy Express? Now you will.

I went to send off Vinod who was going to join Infosys at Mysore for work last night. Along with me came seven other people. Nice show of friendship and solidarity that seven people go to send off one bugger, I thought. As things turned out, most of the people who were going on that train were to go to Infosys. The whole platform was a swarming mass of young people smiling, giggling, guffawing, slapping each other on the backs, introducing parents, grand-parents, uncles, aunts, twice removed cousins, and couples retreating into shadowy corners. Vinod being the popular person that he is, drew a large crowd of people (mostly female) from his college, and everyone was vying to get his attention. I also saw Marc, who was supposed to go, but wasn't, Karthik, who didn't want to go, but was, and a few other people who wanted to go, and were.

After the name lists were put up, we saw much to our amusement and Vinod's enthusiasm that his seat was surrounded by a gang of young girls. It was squashed however, when it turned out to be a large family, one of whom called to her brother and said, "Bhayya, ek ladka..". Then someone told someone else something, to which someone else responded with something else, and ran away. Ah, such are the vagaries in the course of life. We went up and down the compartments looking around, and Vinod V.N nearly fell over one female who was bending over, and later regretted actually not falling. Bunch of perverts hitting on females.

When the train started, everyone screamed their heads off, and Vinod leaned out of the train and waved and smiled in an awesome imitation of Gandhi embarking on one of his satyagrahas (or whatever). And then, we went back home.

Bah

2008-06-15T21:40:00.000+05:30

Nothing has happened in the past few days. Absolutely nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nil. Nothing, except for the fact that I went and dropped a cup of coffee all over my brand new copy of Inheritance of Loss, which I had shelled out hard earned money to get. Ah, damn.

Indie

2008-06-10T02:49:00.000+05:30

Now that there is the new Indiana Jones movie out and everyone is raving about the brilliant performance of 64 year old Harrison Ford, I thought I might watch the older Indiana Jones films first. I've seen Raiders of the Lost Ark already, and I caught up with Temple of Doom just now.

As usual Harrison Ford was brilliant. Also good were the heroine (Kate Capshaw) and Shorty, the kid (Jonathan Ke Quan). And Amrish Puri was spectacular too. In his introduction he was wearing a piece of massive head-gear and was unrecognizable, but in later scenes when he removes it, I realized who it was.

The whole film is set in India, and for most part talks about Hindu religious rituals. Of course, they got it all wrong, but then it's only a movie. Don't watch it if you are a Hindu and are offended by portrayals of your religion *yawn* in the wrong sense.

And the movie came out in 1984. So don't expect stunts matching Die Hard 4.0 or something. They are bound to be a little silly looking in this age of high class CG. A good movie, but somehow I thought I liked the previous one better.

Do watch. Tata.

Season's Greetings

2008-05-30T01:55:00.000+05:30

I went to college yesterday to get the course completion certificate. Of course, I got Raja to give me company. Typically, we had to get through layers of bureaucratic red-tape, and were delayed for three hours and ended up sitting on the stone benches under the trees. We found Arun there, who was trying to find a marksheet which was lost by our department.

The stone benches below the trees were our favourite haunts in college. Especially the first couple of ones when you come into college, go left, and take the first right. This is because these stone benches afford an uninterrupted view of the both the routes that one might take to the canteen and the mess, the way to the first-year block, the CSE classrooms, the ECE classrooms, the EEE classrooms, and was suitably hidden from anyone moving around the principal's office, the vice principal's office, and anyone important coming and going. Moreover, it afforded an excellent breeze, and one would always encounter a cool breeze blowing in from the sea.

Having spent the majority of college-hours on these benches and ogling at all female passersby (Praveen and Raja Deepak whistling and catcalling shamelessly) the stone bench became an irrevocable part of our lives. Sitting there now, we suddenly realised this might possibly be the last time we were sitting there, and we were suddenly gripped by a slight emotion. We were never going to sit there again! I never thought I would feel emotions of separation on leaving college, but here I was, almost feeling sad. Raja Deepak of course noticed none of this, and soon was stretched out fast asleep. Ah well, turns out there is one aspect of my college that I really am going to miss.

One a side note, Vinod and Marc from AIHT got their call letters from Infosys. They've got to join on June 23. Looks like I might get them soon too. This is way too early! I want more holidays. Don't call me before Independence Day this year! And jeez, looks like I'll be adding a new label called 'work' starting this post. My God! I am going to work!

My Take

2008-05-27T20:54:00.000+05:30

A lot has been said about the dress (or lack of it) of the cheerleaders of various teams in the IPL, but here's my take on the whole issue.

I personally think these cheerleaders are some of the most fittest women around. (I arrived at this decision after careful observation of course :D ). Our women should take a leaf out their books and exercise. This will reduce chances of osteoporosis and other related diseases later in life.

One doesn't want to end up dependent on calcium sandoz.

The End is Near

2008-05-05T01:03:00.000+05:30

Engineering is almost over. I only have 1 exam left, and a whole 20 days between now and then. I know that the whole 20 days are going to hurry past in a blurred frenzy of frenetic cricket, movie watching, and orkut-profile-surfing. So I thought I might as well make use of the time I had better use to study to blog about some of the things that happened in Engineering.

It all began with the announcement of the twelfth standard results. I was pretty happy with my score, but my mum and dad weren't impressed (A rather not unforeseen situation given that my total was a whole digit lesser than some of my friends). Anyway, we decided to start applying to colleges around the country. (It was at this time that my vague dreams of opening the batting for India at Lords', or becoming a fighter pilot, or becoming one of those black-suited gun waving womanizing secret agents you see so much of in the movies went phut). We ended up applying to a whole lot of colleges, and I ended up joining in the only college that bothered to reply. Anyway, having no idea what I wanted to do in life, I went and took up an engineering course in computer science because I had always 'liked' computers. The admission process was funny. The supremo looked up and down my application, my marksheet, and my (for the fast and last time) neatly polished shoes and said I was in.

And so it came to pass that on September 27, 2004, that I got into my college bus without a clue as to what lay in store. The day went by uneventfully, what with everyone making friends with everyone else (a few making enemies with everyone as well), and I went and got into the college bus that evening. Now, being a thin bespectacled runt runs the natural risk of attracting bullies, and before you could spell Gaston Leroux I was surrounded by no less than 14 seniors. Before long, I found myself happily gunning down passersby, driving scooters and pole dancing with the rest of my batchmates. After sometime, a big hulking final year decided that I'd done enough of the 'light' stuff, and called me in or personal questioning, and everyone (including 1st years) crowded around. Now since most of the questions tended to involve the sexual practices of the average human being, I wasn't taken out of my comfort zone too much. ;) Little did I realize at that time that I'd end up making some of my best friends among those seniors. It was also on the first day of college that I met one Mr. A. Raja Deepak, who immediately regaled me with a story of how he'd just seen his dream girl on the bus that morning (Little knowing he'd not progress one step ahead in the ensuing four years).

First half of first year went in a blurry haze, what with my grand-dad dying halfway through it, and me getting bad marks in all the exams that I'd done well in, and vice versa. The later part of the first year also went in a haze, of which I remember nothing except that I must have read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy at least 42 times. Oh, and there was the tsunami too, that left everyone spell-bound.

Second year came, and with it, new found light-headedness. We went to a few symposiums (Raja would disappear behind some foliage with some female as soon as we set foot in a college) and we'd happily fool around. I ended up gradually bubbling up to the last bench of class where people would be pursuing a plethora of activities (ranging from reading books to playing TT. Yes Table Tennis). The down-side was that we'd be called to the HOD's office every now and then. Fourth semester was the most boring.

Third year, and we were seasoned warriors now. A few of us decided we'd had enough of attending college and we started attending every symposium in town (There are 250 Engineering colleges in TN, so not a tough ask) and I found that I always had a little luck when it came to quiz competitions (especially when it came to usurping Krishna's team when qualifying) and I won a few prizes for that. Having gone off to attend so many symposiums, my attendance was somewhere in the low forties and at the end of 5th and 6th semesters I spent many long hours haggling with the HOD for attendance. I also seriously considered (still am considering) asking out Raja's 'dream girl' because he didn't seem to want to do anything about it. We went on a tour too. It went in a different sort of haze. Oh, and I got a job offer too.

Final year came, and we were war veterans. Went on another tour, which was hazier still. There was a symposium which our department conducted, towards which I channeled none of my energies. Seventh semester went in a blink of an eye, and eighth semester came, and with it a new HOD. He ended up being my project guide too! I must not have gone to class more than ten days in the eighth semester. Then suddenly project review happened, and we barked our heads off. Then exams were on us, and we barked our heads off even more in the answer sheets. Anna University am sure, will bark their heads off while posting results. And I bark my head of in my blog.

Edit: All exams over. This was typed quite a few days ago.

Of Hooligans and Gentlemen

2008-04-18T12:16:00.000+05:30

I was looking at Harish's orkut profile and was surprised to see a photo proclaiming the glories of Man U. Now, that surprised me. I didn't know Harish followed football. Coming to think of it, a lot of people seem to follow football. It's OK if it was international football, but to the best of my understanding, these are clubs representing individual cities, so, what's the big deal? Do you follow Ranji Trophy?

To be fair though, I'll concede it's individual taste, and its up to you what you follow. I suppose it's only my bad memories involving sports at school that blocks me from watching sports like football. People always eagerly awaited sports hour. So did I, initially. But then our sports master always seemed to want us to play football, or basketball, or if he was in a really bad mood, kabbadi. Now, being the muscle-man that I am, I always cringed at being asked to play these sports, because it invariably ended up in me lying sprawled on the ground. It was either that, or Drill, which everyone despised. So, one had no other go, but to grin and bear the travails of the not-so-endearing sport.

So, he would blow the whistle, and I'd try not to appear like I wanted to cross the border. The two most hulking brutes of the class would slap each other's hands in an ardent endeavour of choosing the best players for themselves (no prizes for guessing who got chosen last) and we'd enter the field. It was in these occasions, that I'd display some remarkable athleticism and make a bee-line for the goal posts and become the goal-keeper, little knowing that it was the worst place one would want to be in. I'd stand around watching, because the ball mostly stayed in the mid-field (or rather, the surrounding gutters) and never came within ear-shot of the goal posts. However, one of our defenders would chose the exact wrong moment to miss a lolly-pop pass and suddenly I'd have three huge mountainous fellows charging towards me. My team mates would shout "Charge!", while my heart would scream, "Run!" from somewhere near my belly-button. I'd bravely plough in anyway, and be ruthlessly steamrollered over, and, I'd be searching for my spectacles (invariably broken by now) when the three fellows would have a fall-out between themselves as to who would do the actual process of scoring, have a wild tussle, one would escape, and with the goal posts in his face, aim and miss miserably. Now, I'd have the ball placed on the ground in-front of me. I'd clench my teeth, run in with the intention of unleashing a malevolent blow on the ball, which is when I'd slip, and flop on the ball itself. The first defender, by no stretch of imagination an able footballer, would come in with the bright intention of saving the situation, aim a kick at the ball, and send it soaring over my head, and into our own goal.

I've encountered similar (if not worse) situations with basketball and hockey. Kabbadi gives me the nightmares. It invariably ended up in a huge fist-fight at the centre of the court, guess who gets caught smack in the middle of it? So, what do I do? Like the rest of most of my countrymen, I support cricket. It's a simple game really. You can stand at fine leg and ogle at passers-by for whole hours and not be missed. You will get a chance to bat, because no-one in your team can muscle his way out. And when you do get out, you can always blame the pitch, the bat, the umpire, the ball, and the speck of dust that always gets into your eye at the wrong time. No hassles in this game.

So, no wonder, billions of like minded people in my country support the game.

Oh, and what happened to the football match you ask? It ended up in penalty shoot-outs.

Darth, the dude

2008-03-28T11:44:00.000+05:30

Darth Vader joins rock band!!

Stairway to death-star then, I suppose.

Wounded Hands

2008-03-14T22:32:00.000+05:30

Take time with the wounded hand, cause it wants to heal.
Take time with the wounded hand cause I like to steal.

Take time with the wounded hand, cause it likes to heal, there's a lot to steal.

I was wondering what to post about on, so here are some of the lyrics I am listening to right now.

The next superstar

2008-02-20T21:51:00.000+05:30

Sam Anderson is the next superstar in the Tamil film industry. His acting, dancing, dialogue delivery, dress sense, and virtually everything is simply brilliant. The movie, Yaaruku yaaro, is most probably going to get an Oscar.

Now don't go and search for Sam Anderson on wikipedia or google. Rather, look at the following video to get an idea of his dancing.

And for a sense of his acting skills, look at how remarkably he blushes in the following video.

And watch the following climax scene for a taste of his remarkable dialogue delivery. WARNING: Contains Spoilers.

Millions are already going gaga over the new phenomenon. He has become so popular that he has a great fan following in the US, and it was Bragey, from Ithaca, who introduced me to this phenomenon! Many thousands are converting into his fans everyday. I got the bug today, and so shall you.

Cheers.

Billet-Doux Bumblings

2008-02-17T12:41:00.000+05:30

Another Valentine's day has come and gone, and as is my usual wont, I have realized it three days late. Of course I wouldn't have done anything spectacular on the day in question, but you do feel a bit left out of the loop after days come and go without warning.

So, I thought about what I could have done this Valentine's day, and there is when you hit the snag of first finding a girl to be your Valentine. I think back to the girl way back in the 9th standard with whom I always shared the English non-detail text book, but then suddenly remember that I'm supposed to not like her because she laughed at me when I flunked Hindi in the quarterly exams by two marks (She scraped through with 42, but oh no, my mark was meant to be laughed at, but not hers. Darn Hindi). Oh, there was this girl who came in in tenth, and whom you later get into contact with through orkut, but then her relationship status progresses from single to open relationship to committed to married, and this kind of tends to leave a smoking hole in your heart.

There is the girl in the green sari you saw at a symposium somewhere, but the same evening she zooms away on the back seat of a roaring racing bike. You then think that you could always settle for the second year girl that wears the thick glasses and braces who always keeps staring at you, but then she stares at everyone, and in all probability she sees nothing.

Two days after Valentine's day is my best friend's girlfriend's birthday, and I send her a long stemmed rose online -{---{--{--@ through orkut, and come back home from college the next day with two blackened eyes, one from my best friend and another from my now no longer best friend's arch rival.

Namitha, Bipasha, Priyanka, Mallika, and Deepika all have the problem of being inaccessible.

So, what do I do? I sit at home and blog about the whole thing. And the rest of them nerds type comments pretending they had great outings with their girlfriends.

Anyway, I have other much more important things to think of, like taking over the world. No, seriously, it's not sour grapes.

Just Heard: Vinod went and crashed into some old man and fell off his bike. Poor fellow. He is having a really bad time. Moral: There's always someone worse off than you.

Techofes Schedule

2008-02-12T23:41:00.000+05:30

Techofes came out with an astounding schedule. It has two cine quiz finals. Probably the quizzes have two changed endings like those old films did. Different ones for different audiences. Hm, now this leads us to an interesting theory about events being pre-determined, but let's not dwell on that. Everyone knows they are all rigged. If you are from AU, I'm kidding.

I cant help it anymore

2008-02-03T17:45:00.000+05:30

Khwajaji, khwaja
Khwajaji, khwaja, khwaja ji
Ya gharib nawaz (3)
Ya moinuddin, (2)
ya khwaja ji (Many times)

Khwaja mere khwaja
Dil mein sama ja
Shaho ka shah tu
Ali ka dulara (2)

Khwaja mere khwaja
dil mein sama ja (2)

Beqaso ki taqdeer,
tune hai sawari (2)

Khwaja mere khwaja

Tere darbar mein khwaja
Door toh hai dekha

Sar jhuka te hai auliya
Tu hai unalwali khwaja
Rutba hai pyara
Chahne se tujhko khwaja ji mustafa ko paya

Khwaja mere khwaja
Dil mein sama ja
Shaho ka shah tu
Ali ka dulara

Mere peer ka sadka (2)

Hai mere peer ka sadka
Tera daaman hai thama
Khawajaji
Tali har bala humari
Chaya hai khumar tera
Jitna bhi rashk kare beshak
Toh kam hai ae mere khwaja
Tere kadmo ko mere rehnuma nahi chodna gawara

Khwaja mere khwaja
Dil mein sama ja
Shaho ka shah tu
Ali ka dulara (2)

Khwaja mere khwaja dil mein sama ja
Beqaso ki taqdeer, tune hai sawari

Ignore those numbers on the side. They are the result of my attempts to come to grips with ARR's layering techniques.

Edit: The lyrics are courtesy of Mahesh. He very kindly sent it to me when I was zoned out to the music one evening. Of course he downloaded it from somewhere too.

Jodha Akbar

2008-02-02T23:26:00.000+05:30

The other day I went to Kicha's house after a long time to find him fiddling with the sound settings of his speakers and Winamp as usual. He finally managed to get it to his satisfaction. Don't ask me, they all sound the same to me and my idea of fiddling with the sound settings involves turning the volume up and down. Then he slapped in his playlist and there was this song which I think was in Urdu. It sounded average at first, but then the song never went the way you expected it to go, and I was hooked.

So, I managed to get my copy of the Jodha Akbar sound-track and from then on its been a marathon of swaying to Khawaja mere Khawaja, thumping feet to Azeem O Shah Shehenshah, whistling to Jashn E-Baharaa, and deleting the Man Mohanna track. Not that it's bad, but it has the lead female singer crooning at really high pitch, and it sounds awful on my run-down speakers (I listened to it anyway, and at one point it sounds like Aahista from Swades, and at another it sounds like some other song of Rahman himself, which escapes me just now).

Rahman has done a wonderful job indeed. Kicha says that there may be traces of Warriors of Heaven and Earth, and this idea does have some merit. All said and done, all songs are brilliant, and me loves it. Hats off to ARR.

Sometimes...

2008-01-31T21:36:00.000+05:30

Sometimes one wishes he knew the five point palm exploding heart technique or something. Might come in handy one of these days.

Hotel Reservations

2008-01-28T20:40:00.000+05:30

Like the name suggests, Hotel Reservations is a website that one can use to reserve rooms at hotels around the world. Their website is a beautifully designed site and is very intuitive, and one knows where to go at first sight. Hotel Reservations not only gets you rooms at hotels, but also reservations for rental cars, air tickets, and vacations too. The site can be viewed in one of the many languages that they offer, thereby catering to their global clientèle. They also can get you discounts of up to 70% on all deals that they do for you. Their pricing really gives other competitors a run for their money.

Searching for hotels at cities is really simple. All you have to do is to select a destination. Then select one from the various resorts that are listed. Then select the number of days, the number of rooms, number of adults, children etc. The interface is so designed so that you also get to select something from surrounding cities too. For example, I searched for hotels in Las Vegas, and turned up with good stuff like Tropicana, MGM, Stratosphere, which were perfect given my search filters and financial limits. Then I went and further refined my search filters and searched for hotels with restaurants, fitness centers, swimming pools, and the website still turned up admirable results. This is far better stuff than anyone could have done by searching by one's own self. The site also lists all the numbers that one might need, says whether they are toll free, or if someone has to pay for the calls.

The hotel discounts" available are also listed where applicable, and if not available, a plain black text stating the price appears. There does not seem to be any catch anywhere.

Traveling is the passion of most of the people in this world in comparison to other activities. During tours and travels, it is the hotel stays which makes the tour a good one or the other way out. Hotel Reservations can be done online and though there are many websites and web services available for it, hotelreservations.com proves to be the best in terms of both customer satisfaction and in terms of experience. So do check this service and make best use of it. There are many websites available in the internet which provide the users with all the information that they need at the right time. But when it comes to choosing a service, the users look for a quality service. Travel has always been the buzz word of the internet users. Though there may be many travel websites, hotelreservations.com provides the most dedicated service as far as i have witnessed.

So, pack your bags, and get going.

Day of revelations

2008-01-27T10:40:00.000+05:30

Saturday's been a day of mixed feelings for me. All the good things that happened have been completely offset by all the bad things that have happened. I woke up at the crack of dawn (10 A.M.) and managed to rush off to Krishna's place by around twenty past twelve. We traipsed off to meet Visu and Vinod in front of Palimar, the restaurant in front of the MCC, and together we made our way down to Tambaram Bus Stand. From there we caught the 21G and because the bus didn't stop at the Luz signal we had to get down at Yellow Pages and walk a long way to the Music Academy. We managed to get hold of seats near the front, and a few minutes later awe turned to disgust, of which I shall say no more. The Odyssey quiz started, and we made 7 out of 35, which by my standards, was admirable. Before the finals started, the quiz master announced the best school team, the best this team, the best that team, and finally it came to the best team name. Pravin Goday (the quiz master) read the interesting ones on various that spoofed current events. Pravin Goday (the quiz master) read the various ones that spoofed movies. Pravin Goday (the quiz master) read the various ones that had something to say about odyssey. Pravin Goday (the quiz master) did not read the various ones that had swear ones in them. Finally Pravin Goday (You know who he was by now, surely?) read his favourite of the evening, and that was our team name! We stood up, screamed, shook hands, hi-fived and then sat down as they didn't call us up on stage. The finals started, and the regular teams were up on stage. The quiz was interesting, though anyone who wasn't a hard-core quizzing enthusiast wouldn't have answered jack shit. It finally got over, with the regular teams winning, and we went back stage to collect the 6k voucher for the best team name. The guy asked our team name, looked at us up and down, and then handed them over with a smile.

And so it came to pass that we were skipping along R.K. road when Raja Deepak called me up, and said the results were out. As things turned out, I had flunked one subject, but not the one I had done badly! WTF is going on? Something's afoot. I'd be seriously disappointed if I don't clear that in re-evaluation. So much for skipping along R.K. Road. Ended up dragging my feet home. Dinner at Bhats didn't do too much to up our spirits too. Under the shade now.

I found this

2008-01-24T19:57:00.000+05:30

Row, row, row the boat
Gently down the stream
Throw your teachers overboard
And listen to them scream!

on wikipedia. Of course!

Sloterix

2008-01-19T23:21:00.000+05:30

Sloterix is a website where people can log in to play slots online. They claim to be one of the oldest sites on the net where one can play online slots, and they probably are true. Their goal is to provide one with the best experience playing slots, and aim to satisfy the needs of people looking for features, tips, techniques, and strategies. It is also reputed to be a very safe venture, and funds are not accessible to anyone except the players themselves. So, sloterix is the place to be if you are thinking of playing casino slots.

Audio Ads

2008-01-15T22:30:00.000+05:30

Do you have a website? Or a blog? Or even an online social networking account where you can play music to your visitors? And do you want to earn money through it? If you answered yes to the last of the many questions and any one of the questions above it, then you have to perfect solution. Here is a perfect solution for you to earn from every visitor.

How it works, is elementary. Whenever someone arrives on your page, a five second advertisement of some third party advertiser will play. Since you are the host, you are entitled to a 25% commission on the profits derived thereby. Therefore you stand to gain money each time someone visits your site. So, higher the traffic to your web page, the more you stand to gain. (So, watch out all you cute girls with profiles on myspace, facebook et al! You'll definitely have a great fan following with dozens of people visiting your profiles each day!) The best thing is that you'll get paid even if people don't hear the advertisement because their speakers were off, because no one can detect if someone's speakers are on or not!

Not only can you earn from every visitor, but you also stand to gain by referring other people's sites as affiliates and receive commissions on visits to their pages as well!

The only negative side to this is that in a country like India, where bandwidth is still not as good as it could have been, an audio ad might take up a lot of virtual real estate. One other disadvantage could have been that people might not exactly be chuffed with personal spaces blaring out ads, but an average human being is bombarded with advertisements everywhere he/she turns to, and any opposition to this scheme will disappear as the concept catches on I am sure. So, what are you waiting for? Start earning money!

Cashadvance1500.com

2008-01-15T22:20:00.000+05:30

As a college student, I know how hard it sometimes can be whenever one runs out of cash. One always feels that extra few bucks would be very helpful, especially during the month end pinch. That is why one always is on the look out for means to prevent that check from bouncing, or borrowing money from family and friends, or even selling off your possessions.

payday loans are small short term loans that can be acquired during a financial crisis with the minimum of effort or formalities. A cash advance maybe applied for even over the internet, from the comfort of your home (No one even need to know of your problem. Face-saver isn't it?). One can also apply for short term loans in one of the many cash advance stores that are distributed throughout the USA, if you are a US resident. The loan amount may range up to a maximum of $1500, and is wired to the client over night. Swiftness of service is what has made this feature popular.

So, the next time you face a financial crunch, or find that your wallet consists of nothing but change, consider one of the services listed out here, and you never again need to worry about settling your bills, or getting your daughter a birthday present.

Taare Zameen Par

2008-01-13T17:55:00.000+05:30

We went and watched Taare Zameen Par today. It's a nice movie. Do watch. My personal highlight of the film was that Abishek Bachan was proclaimed a retard. So, Aish, you stil... can... think of... others... me! Ok, jokes apart, very nice movie, and the good thing was that Ameer Khan didn't go overboard with a romantic sub-story, which I thought would have messed it up, but rather hinted at it and left it there. Nice confident direction. The young guy acted really brilliantly.

A Must Watch Movie.

Sundar.

Magicholdem

2008-01-10T22:21:00.000+05:30

Do you play poker online? Do you ever want to beat all those anonymous professional-looking people who make mince-meat of those who stray in their way? Well, maybe you should try this online poker calculator to calculate your poker odds. You can now dominate all online games by using this Holdem Calculator to calculate the odds you have, and win every game you ever play online. Who knows all those pros who accuse you of being a noob probably use the same thing.

To err is human, to forgive is divine

2008-01-06T14:12:00.000+05:30

The title of this post and cricket umpiring are however mutually exclusive. Bucknor has been a good umpire, but I think he is on the decline now. Probably he's deaf as a bat now. So, what I'd like to say to him is: Dude, you might want to consider retiring, with dignity.

Sunil does it again

2008-01-05T20:39:00.000+05:30

This evening we were returning home after playing cricket at the ground. I was sitting behind Sunil on his ubiquitous Pulsar, and I had three cricket bats and four stumps on me. We said bye to everyone and set off. Sunil drove far enough to get out of earshot of everyone and that's when the bike stalled, which isn't exactly unprecedented, knowing Sunil's exacting maintenance standards. After some pumping of the bike, tilting of the bike, kneeling and praying, we still weren't able to get it to start again. So, we opened the petrol tank and peered inside, only to find that half of it was water. Bloody rain. So we took turns to push the bike and hold the cricketing paraphernalia, which weighs around a ton, and walked back to my place in the gathering gloom. I was sitting at home relaxing when Sunil called me and said the balls were still with him, and since one can't play cricket without balls the next morning which Sunil would not come to, I went to get them from him at his place. It was there that he broke the news that the problem with his bike was that someone had tampered with some wire that was supposed to come out of the carburettor, and was hanging lose.

Trust Sunil's bike to get into trouble.

And there was this girl walking near Sunil's house who I stared at, and she stared back, for nearly 30 seconds, as I slowly drove by. Sunil, I'm dropping you home everyday man.

College

2008-01-01T21:38:00.000+05:30

College is starting tomorrow. Mega Bore. I'll as usual start from home at only 8:15. College starts for me at 8:30 A.M. I guess we'll just be intimated about the review dates for the project and left alone. Classes are on Monday and Tuesday only you see. So, we'll go to college only next week I presume. And now we can also walk out of college any time, now that we are in the final semester. And moreover I think we've got holidays coming up for final sem students only so as to enable them to work on their projects better.

So, I'm having mixed feelings about going tomorrow.
Wiyoats.

Shopping Cart Software

2007-12-27T19:21:00.001+05:30

Ashop Commerce is an ecommerce software that can be used by webmasters to integrate their online transaction stores with a shopping cart. It is based in the US, and provides hosted shopping cart software. Ashop's shopping cart software is an award winning software, and many American online merchants manage their businesses through this one shopping software.

The website has prominent links which you can follow to try out a demo with an online store, or check out the features of the shopping cart software, and also view the pricing plans and choose as per the need of the online store owner. The software is flexible as one can manage it easily, customize the design, update content, accept credit cards, etc. Ashop's software is now regarded as America's most intuitive software. The home page provides a list of six reasons why you should chose Ashop's software, and they are very compelling indeed. It is also very search engine friendly.

Highway to hell

2007-12-25T23:01:00.000+05:30

At last I managed to pester my dad to allow me to drive the car on the highway on the way back from Vellore today. It was a few kilometers past Rathnagiri and I took hold of the wheel, and depressed the accelerator and roared down the road, and was nearly doing eighty in the third gear. Dad screamed at me to stop and drive more slowly, and I accelerated slower. Then he gained confidence in me and let me progress up to a 100 kmph. He kept up with a running commentary which was a little irritating, but then one can't have the best of everything. It was just short of Sriperumbudur when he took over from me again.

Please always wear seat-belts while travelling in a car if it is available. People just don't know how useful it is.

Wiyoats.

Boat Angel

2007-12-22T11:39:00.000+05:30

Boat Angel is an organisation that works towards providing charity to those who need it in a very unique way. What you have to do is to donate boat. Yes. Donate your boat. It can be in any condition, and they make a serious effort towards picking it up without any hassles to you. They are serious about their charity work, and know that charitable people in this world are few and far in between and so they no enough to treat them with respect. Angel Ministries tries to change the world through innovative partnerships and vehicle processing. It works really simple. All you have to do is to call their toll free number or fill out a form online. They make out a receipt and send it to you via email, and also send a disposable camera so that you can snap pictures of your boat and send it back to them. Then they list it at charityboatsales.org and if your boat does not sell within six to eight business days, they pay to have your boat stored! You even get to chose the charity you wish to be served by the proceeds from the sale of your boat. They also have created a set of Children's Animation DVDS that they distribute absolutely free of charge, shipping included. So, if you wake up at night with an impulse thinking, "I must donate my boat, I really am not a good sailor", you know where to look.

I found this today

2007-12-13T13:42:00.000+05:30

http://www.amigamccc.org/journal/0709cour.htm

What's wrong?

2007-12-12T00:39:00.001+05:30

Having completed three and a half years of study at my college, I have come to my own conclusions about where we go wrong. It's always been a great place to study in, and it will always be a great place to study in, but there are a few essential points where my college went wrong when they began, and a few points where the affiliating university itself went wrong.

I read somewhere (I think it was in the Hindu Education Plus) that our model of affiliation is based on the affiliation system that was adopted by universities in the UK in the 1880s, and abandoned three years later. However, why we insist on following that model even now, remains to be seen.

My college has a no capitation fee policy. They are very strict about this, they absolutely do NOT charge anyone any extra fees regardless of whether they came in through the single window system or by separate application, they have huge boards proclaiming this policy on the campus, have it running on marquees on websites and stuff. Now such a policy is great if you are a parent wanting to admit your child to a "reputed" engineering college and do not want to end up paying through your nose. Therefore, this policy would have been a great attraction to people whose kids did not have too good marks, but needed to get into an engineering college, when the college was started, some thirteen years ago. However, what they did not realize is the consequent cash loss they'd have to incur.

Since they do not charge capitation fees, they cannot boast of the funds that some other engineering colleges can boast of. This lack of funds results in lower salaries to members of the staff compared to other colleges, and especially in departments like computer science, where the man power fight is against software companies, and colleges, frankly are no match against their lures. Now, to bring about the quality education that engineering colleges boast about in their advertising material, there must be an incentive for people who are knowledgeable in required fields to come and teach. Money is the bet incentive, and in not getting capitation fees and making extra money, my college loses out on gaining that edge. And so, "for greater good" colleges should make accepting capitation fees part of their admission criteria. Of course, it shouldn't be exorbitant, and this is where the government could step in set up a regulatory mechanism.

I would now like to dwell on the affiliation system of our beloved university. All though I am no economics/current affairs/whatever expert, I can tell you for sure that it was globalisation of the Indian economy that has led to the current situation of more than 250 engineering colleges in a single state in the country. When India opened her economy to the world in the 1990s, more and more foreign players realized India's worth as a nation with huge human resources, and many foreign corporations decided to let this huge mass of humanity do their dirty work, leading to the phenomenon we all have come to call outsourcing. Now Indian labour was cheap, skillful, and Indians as a rule spoke better English than did their neighbours the Chinese, which too was a huge manpower reservoir. This lead to a huge demand for technically trained staff to actually sit and do the work. Faced with the problem of losing out on foreign investment to other countries, we hit upon a simple solution. Open a large number of institutions that offer technical training.

Now that you've allowed a quadrillion different engineering colleges to spring up like mushrooms, how do you keep control of all of them, and how do you preserve some semblance of sanity? You bring all those colleges under the control of one university. Now where universities all over the world were autonomous, and worked independently towards achieving their aims, here we had 250 replicas of the same system, each churning out a prescribed amount of graduates every year. Once you have managed to bring about a system where 250 different colleges are pitted against each other, each starts to vie with the other for the cream of the student community, and each college tries to achieve better results, and gain better ranks over and above their counterparts. Once results become primary in importance, out goes other factors such as student life. Students are once again forced to mug up and write exams, with no emphasis whatsoever on the actual learning process. The education system now becomes a knowledge based system, where it is desperately imperative that it be inquiry based. Students are not encouraged to indulge in co-curricular or extra-curricular activities because such activities are perceived by college managements to be a diversion from studies. That education comprises co-curricular and extra-curricular activities too seems to be lost on them. To make students study even better, college managements narrow-mindedly choose to impose a variety of other rules that allegedly free the student mind from distractions. These include unreasonable rules like restricting attire to formals, banning the use of mobile phones, disallowing motor-bikes on campus, not allowing students to go out during class hours, and a whole lot of other quixotic rules.

They have done all that with the sole aim of improving student results, but has it really improved? Are the engineers that are turned out really competent? Are they employable? Sadly that leaves much to be desired. Creative human beings cannot be fostered by stamping out their individuality.

This is the state of affairs that has come about from the primary trigger of globalisation. Globalisation of course has its positive effects, but here I have restricted my scope of discussion to the state of engineering colleges in India. It however is my personal opinion that this is only the first wave, and that things will be a lot better in subsequent waves, which maybe in the 2010s and the 2020s. In the second wave people will collectively come to realize the follies of the preceding wave, and things will turn out to be much better than it is now. (Pardon me if I have started sounding a bit like Hari Seldon)

I have addressed (ranted about on) as many issues as I could think of for now. If I do come up with a lot of concurrent ideas/opinions on any of the issues discussed above, which I will, I shall follow them up on another post. To summarize, this is what in my opinion needs to be done.
* Allow colleges to collect capitation fees. They do need the money for development.
* Get rid of the affiliation system. It has too many responsibilities and has become an unwieldy empire.
* Grade students not on their performance in exams, but on their performance in class rooms. Let the course instructor decide.
* Ensure you have quality course instructors in the first place.
* Realize that you cannot bring about a change for the positive by implementing authoritarian rules.

All this has already been said in a lot literature. I just felt the need to post them and thats what I've done. There are a few opinions that are my personal ones. I am also not sure of most of the facts that I've mentioned. Errors are of course not regretted, because I don't give a damn.

Ashop Commerce

2007-12-11T19:19:00.000+05:30

Have you ever seen an online shopping cart? Chances are, you have. If not, just take a look at any online shop and you are bound to find a piece of software that lets you add items you bought to a virtual shopping cart, keep count of your expenditure, lets you remove items, and might even remember the contents of your shopping cart over multiple log in sessions.

Ashop Commerce is one such service that lets you as a webmaster provide a shopping cart feature for your store. Their software is intuitive, easy to use, and has won many awards. They provide the shopping cart feature for thousands of webmasters around the globe, regardless of whether they are professionals, or part timers. Ashop's service is said to be very secure. Ashop Shopping Cart Software accepts payments from many credit cards and also have full integration with third party processors such as paypal.

Their home page provides a list of six options why one should choose Ashop. Check that out. It's cool!

Funny

2007-12-10T20:28:00.001+05:30

College is going to become infinitely hilarious. Given recent incidents.

I'm gonna love it.

The Fortnightly News

2007-12-07T01:41:00.000+05:30

The Fortnightly news is back once again! In up-keeping our age old tradition of putting out an issue once every six months, we present you with the latest news and happenings of the past fortnight in a concise digest.

November 16

Macrohard wins award

Multinational company Macrohard receives an award for the best shop floor practices in following the Japanese philosophy of the 5S, namely Stupidity, Soporificity, Serendipity, Somnambulism, and Psoriasis. (The last one doesn't start with S, but that's OK. How many of the three Rs of Education actually start with R anyway?)

November 20

Stock Markets Crash

Stock Markets around the world crashed because all of them ran Cascading Style Sheets with the parameter background-repeat: "no-repeat", reminiscent of the Y2K fiasco. Of course this had nothing to with the stock markets actually crashing, but this served as an appropriate scape goat. The crash was extensively covered on all news channels, which actually helped the stock markets recover as everyone lapped up the now cheap stock prices. The real reason for the crash was suspected to be the Tamil Nadu Agricultural board's light green text on a dark green background, but such evidence is only circumstantial, and was dismissed by news channels in favour of yet another wardrobe malfunction of some skinny anorexic super-model.

November 23

Riots in Engineering Colleges.

Riots broke out in Engineering colleges with students demanding that French be introduced as a compulsory subject after reading one Mr. Ali Bahrami expound on how one should speak English for business, German for Engineering, Persian for poetry, and French for seduction. Of course, why they didn't ask for German is anyone's guess. A small faction also demanded that Seduction be included in the 5S philosophy, but no one listened to a demand as outrageous as that. The rioters indulged in the usual disobedient activities of turning up in Jeans pants and fasting between break-fast and lunch.

November 27

Eminent academicians arrested

Eminent academicians Butterworth, Chebychev, and a few others were arrested on charges of conducting an orgy on the streets of the Vatican. Butterworth had this to say to our reporters as he was bundled into the police-car, "The input to the Radix-2 Decimation In Time Fast-Fourier Transform is an 8-Point sequence in Bit-Reversed Order". This was when the charges were amended to "Drunken Orgy".

November 30

Mozart Remembered

Yesteryear's musician of note, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was honoured by displaying one of his most famous sayings in hoardings and billboards worldwide at the stroke of midnight: Hear ye, hear ye, ze fundamental key to masthery over ze grand piano zis thu remember zat ze keys C# and D^b are ze zame. Rumours abound that he might have had a hand in the drunken orgy of two days before.

December 4

History reveals itself at last

A surprising new insight into the life of the great Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was gained when archaeologists unearthed his personal diary. An extract:

It is raining outside. Having nothing to do, I invented an ingenious new technique of hiding important secret romantic messages to Cleopatra from the prying eyes of my courtiers. It involves writing down the letters horizontally first. Then all you have to do is to write them back vertically, thereby making it impossible to decipher!

This is an extract from Brutus' diary:

Its raining outside. That eternal fool Caesar thinks he can fool me by writing his letters to Cleopatra vertically rather than horizontally.

A few days later:

Its raining outside. Today, when I went and showed Caesar that I'd managed to decipher all of his messages to that female, all he could manage was a pseudo-grandiloquent "Et tu Brute" before clutching his heart and dying.

A few days later:

Its raining outside. Damn it. That Cleopatra bitch turned out to be a lame-fuck after all!

Thank you for turning into this edition of the fortnightly news. Stay tuned till the next edition. Bye, and take care.

Pro360

2007-11-28T12:11:00.000+05:30

The internet has made everyone lazy. Now, with a PC and a modem you can shop from home, book tickets from home, and even work from home. The same goes for gambling. You can even gamble from home, over the anonymity of the internet, and you don't even have to go to the nearest casino to gamble! The most popular gambling pastime on the net I think would be online poker.

A plethora of online gambling sites have sprung up to cash in on people's gambling interests, and we encounter them whenever we log on to the internet, and one often wonders if the site one is clicking on is not a duplicate one. This is where pro360.com comes in. This website has been reviewing online casinos since 1997 and lists out the best online casinos available on the internet.

In the home page itself one can find a list of online casinos, each given a comprehensive rating. Each online casino that makes the list has a screen shot of the home page, the maximum bonus one could receive on the site, the authority that issued their certificate, editor's ratings, and players' ratings. Each site listed is also accompanied by a link to a full review, which lays them all down on the table. Nothing is hidden in these reviews, and every quality, whether good or bad is mentioned.

Don't gamble. But if you are a compulsive online gambler, at least check this site out first.

Yay!

2007-11-20T23:26:00.000+05:30

Visitors from every continent!!!

Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery

2007-11-20T20:04:00.000+05:30

"We built our offices and surgery center with one goal in mind: superb care for our plastic surgery patients", says the first line of Beverly Hills Plastic surgery website. This speaks loads about their commitment to their patients. So, your search for a plastic surgeon terminates here.

The staff who form the core of the facility are well educated and well-trained, and they know what they are doing. The Plastic Surgeon Medical Director was trained at Stanford and UCLA Medical Center for general surgery as well as plastic surgery. The facilities here have been approved by the Federal Government after careful inspection and testing of equipment, verification on staff credentials and anything else any self-respecting government ought to do before giving away certifications.

The new and innovative way in which The Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery team approaches its problems has come under scrutiny and has gained very good peer reviews, and many have appeared on magazines and newsletters of international repute. The way patients turn up in droves and leave, all feeling satisfied have been covered in great detail and have featured in magazines as well as on television channels across the globe.

They specialize in cosmetic plastic surgery, and provide expert treatment for procedures such as ethnic plastic surgery, Beverly Hills liposuction, Beverly Hills rhinoplasty (sometimes called Beverly Hills nose job), and many other cosmetic surgery procedures.

The home page of their website gives you their phone number as well as their email address in case you want to contact them for clarifications. This is where your search for information about a qualified, experienced cosmetic surgeon ends!

What better way to wrap up your holiday season with some shopping, sight-seeing, and a little face-lift to make permanent that look of joy on your face! This is where Beverly Hills Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery can come in handy. This is what has now come to be called Plastic Surgery Travel. The advantages of this include a recuperation far away from the pressures that surround home and the work place and a few days of holidaying away from the kids. It also helps speed up the recovery process according to the founder, because healing is sub-consciously linked to positive experiences during the healing period. So, pack your bags and head off for a holiday, and come back feeling younger, healthier, and more refreshed.

Smorty

2007-11-16T19:25:00.000+05:30

Smorty is an online service that tries to bridge the gap between advertisers and bloggers who are willing to write reviews of the advertisers' products for payment. This is a good technique to use your blog for money. All you have to do is to review advertisers' products, services, or website, or whatever, and provide links back to their site. How many of us get to earn doing what we enjoy? Get paid to blog!

Blog advertising is now being seen as the next new means of reaching out to the masses, especially since the popularity of opinionated blogs on the internet has risen rapidly. Advertise on blogs if you want your new start-up to get known and achieve quick brand recognition. Blog advertising is not only cheaper and reaches a wider audience than conventional means, it is also an effective feedback technique, as blogs are the first places where products' reviews will get posted and advertisers can always keep track of this to get to know what is being talked about their product.

Smorty is not only an advertisers' haven, but also a resource for bloggers who would like to get paid for blogging. Friends, blog away!

The best forward I've received from orkut

2007-11-13T19:41:00.000+05:30

I received this on orkut. Its the "bestest" forward I've gotten on it.

Things to do in an exam when you know you're going to fail it anyway..

1. Get a copy of the exam, run out screaming "Andre, Andre, I've got the secret documents!!"

2. Talk the entire way through the exam. Read questions aloud, debate your answers with yourself out loud. If asked to stop, yell out, "I'm SOOO sure that you can hear me thinking." Then start talking about what a jerk the instructor is.

3. Bring a Game Boy. Play with the volume at max level.

4. On the answer sheet find a new, interesting way to refuse to answer every question. For example: I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it conflicts with my religious beliefs. Be creative.

5. Run into the exam room looking about frantically. Breathe a sigh of relief. Go to the instructor, say "They've found me, I have to leave the country" and run off.

6. 15 min. into the exam, stand up, rip up all the papers into very small pieces, throw them into the air and yell out "Merry Christmas." If you're really daring, ask for another copy of the exam. Say you lost the first one. Repeat this process every 15 min.

7. Come into the exam wearing slippers, a bathrobe, a towel on your head, and nothing else.

8. Come down with a BAD case of Tourette's Syndrome during the exam. Be as vulgar as possible.

9. Bring things to throw at the instructor when s/he's not looking. Blame it on the person nearest to you.

10. As soon as the instructor hands you the exam, eat it.

11. Every 5 min. stand up, collect all your things, move to another seat, continue with the exam.

12. Turn in the exam approx. 30 min. into it. As you walk out, start commenting on how easy it was.

13. Get the exam. 20 min into it, throw your papers down violently, scream out "Fuck this!" and walk out triumphantly.

14. Arrange a protest before the exam starts (ie. Threaten the instructor that whether or not everyone's done, they are all leaving after one hour to go drink.)

15. Show up completely drunk (completely drunk means at some point during the exam, you should start crying for mommy).

16. Comment on how sexy the... {I didn't get this point beyond this. You fill it up yourself. You know how to}.

17. Come to the exam wearing a black cloak. After about 30 min, put on a white mask and start yelling "I'm here, the phantom of the opera" until they drag you away.

18. If the exam is math/sciences related, make up the longest proofs you could possible think of. Get pi and imaginary numbers into most equations. If it is a written exam, relate everything to your own life story.

19. Try to get people in the room to do a wave.

20. Bring some large, cumbersome, ugly idol. Put it right next to you. Pray to it often. Consider a small sacrifice.

21. During the exam, take apart everything around you. Desks, chairs, anything you can reach.

22. Puke into your exam booklet. Hand it in. Leave.

23. Take 6 packages of rice cakes to the exam. Stuff at least 2 rice cakes into your mouth at once. Chew, then cough. Repeat if necessary.

24. Masturbate.

25. Walk in, get the exam, sit down. About 5 min into it, loudly say to the instructor, "I don't understand ANY of this. I've been to every lecture all semester long! What's the deal? And who the hell are you? Where's the regular guy?"

26. Do the entire exam in another language. If you don't know one, make one up!

27. Bring a black marker. Return the exam with all questions and answers completely blacked out.

28. Every now and then, clap twice rapidly. If the instructor asks why, tell him/her in a very derogatory tone, "the light bulb that goes on above my head when I get an idea is hooked up to a clapper. DUH!"

29. From the moment the exam begins, hum the theme to Jeopardy. Ignore the instructor's requests for you to stop. When they finally get you to leave one way or another, begin whistling the theme to the Bridge on the River Kwai.

30. After you get the exam, call the instructor over, point to any question, ask for the answer. Try to work it out of him/her.

Cash Advance and Payday Loans

2007-11-13T19:22:00.001+05:30

I am a college student. I know how hard it sometimes can be whenever one runs out of cash. One always feels that extra few bucks would be very helpful, especially during the month end pinch. That is why one always is on the look out for means to prevent that check from bouncing, or borrowing money from family and friends, or even selling off your possessions.

Payday loans are small short term loans that can be acquired during a financial crisis with the minimum of effort or formalities. A cash advance maybe applied for even over the internet, from the comfort of your home (No one even need to know of your problem. Face-saver isn't it?). One can also apply for short term loans in one of the many cash advance stores that are distributed throughout the USA, if you are a US resident. The loan amount may range up to a maximum of $1500, and is wired to the client over night. Swiftness of service is what has made this feature popular.

So, the next time you face a financial crunch, or find that your wallet consists of nothing but change, consider one of the services listed out here, and you never again need to worry about settling your bills, or getting your daughter a birthday present.

TrustSource.org

2007-11-13T18:47:00.000+05:30

TrustSource.org is a website that posts reviews from people who have bought products that have hit the market and used them. The website lists all the reviews for all products under a particular category in order of customer preference. Users can rate products on the site out of a maximum of 5, and this results in a comprehensive online guide of all new products that you might consider using. When I went to the site, I found a list of the best stop smoking products that are making rounds in the general market, ranging from the absolutely fantastic products with no side effects to those that everyone could afford.

Provillus is the product that has gained the best currency among people looking to prevent hair loss. Cash advance is a category that lists and rates services that give you quick online cash advances, and payday loans. In essence, TrustSource.org lets you read reviews from people about the products you might be interested in. So you never have to fret about whether or not you should buy that article you've always wanted. Just log on to TrustSource.org and find out for yourself. Take the wise decision. Never again go wrong in your choice of products.

Sem

2007-11-12T14:42:00.000+05:30

Semester 7 exams are around the corner. As usual, I shall not take an hiatus to concentrate on my academics. Rather, as usual, I shall intensify my blogging activities during this time, and so people, brace yourselves.

Wiyoats!

The Plunge

2007-11-10T13:05:00.001+05:30

Why did I take the plunge? I do not know.

WireClub.com

2007-11-10T12:41:00.000+05:30

WireClub.com is a website that provides free online chat rooms where you can make new acquaintances, get back in touch with old ones, and in general have loads of fun meeting new people over the internet. The home page is simple, intuitive, and loads fast. The available activities one could pursue on this website are grouped into categories such as Free Chat Rooms, Dating Site, Online Friends, Interest Clubs, Blogs, and Share Photos. The Sign-up process is quick and simple, and within seconds you are ready to go. Your nickname, region and birth date (You have to be above 18) are all necessary, while you don't have to give out your real name or sexual orientation or anything. You might also want to enter an opening line, and a few lines of personal introduction. Once you arrive at your home page, you could go ahead and chat with people at random, who are grouped in the "People to Meet" area, or you could make your profile look snazzier by putting up a photo, create a blog, configure your clubs based on your interests, or send messages out to people. You also can specify what you are looking for in prospective friends, be it just friendship, or activity partners, potential dates, or business networking. There also is an option wherein you can specify which countries you want to meet people from. You can also search for friends if you have a hunch they've already joined up. Sign up and have fun!!

All boats lead to Apraphul

2007-10-26T23:28:00.000+05:30

I was reading random wikipedia articles, and soon wandered off a trail of hyperlinks and ended up here.

http://www.huyton.net/rope.html

This is an article that was published in the Scientific American as an April fools joke once.
Tip: Select the text in the page to read it properly.

Tech Yoga

2007-10-24T17:23:00.000+05:30

A day of catastrophes

2007-09-30T11:45:00.000+05:30

The day before yesterday, at 11 PM, Visu, Vinod, Sunil and I at last reached at a consensus and decided to go to Hindustan Engineering college to attend their CSE symposium. The next morning we had two bikes amongst ourselves, and we were four in number, so off we went. Vinod went off on his bike taking Sunil along with him, while I drove Visu on Sunil's bike. This rather complicated arrangement came into being because Sunil does not have a license, and had lost his LLR. Bravo!

And so it was that I found myself on a Pulsar, barreling down the Medavakkam-Sholinganallur connecting road at a 100kmph, when suddenly the machine started making funny noises, Thwack, thwack, thump, clump, kwoing, vrooooom, dzzzz..., pitched back and forth and stalled. Presto, we were left in the middle of nowhere with a bike without petrol, 7kms from any civilization, and 11kms from the nearest petrol bunk. So much for Sunil's promises claiming that the bike had enough petrol to last the distance despite being in reserve. And so, Visu and I started pushing the bike, while Vinod and Sunil went off in search of a petrol bunk ahead. We'd trudged along for nearly three kilometers and the Mohammed Sathak College buildings were just peeping up above the horizon, when Vinod and Sunil returned with a bottle of (life-saving) petrol. We poured it in using our hands as a funnel, and at last the bike started up. Phew.

Again we started off, and the rest of the drive was uneventful, and we managed to reach the place in one piece. There we found that the opening ceremony was only now winding to a close despite a major part of the day having gotten over. We registered, waited out the boring speeches to end, and made our way to the auditorium where the quiz was being held. The prelims involved a powerpoint presentation with 30 questions, and many of the questions had options and stuff like that. Not only that, the prelims were conducted in batches, all of them having the same sets of questions. Brilliant. A couple of teams wrote the prelims twice, and yet only one of them managed to qualify. The other team managed to get into the finals by replacing another team that'd gone off to do the debugging finals. We got into the finals pretty much legally, having written the prelims only once. The finals were crappier than the prelims because we were needed to debug programs, write code, answer questions from documentaries on operating systems, and asnwer rapidfire technical questions. Well, they are perfectly justified in asking questions of their choice, its their show. But there shouldn't have been so much disparity between the type of questions asked in the prelims, and the finals. If we'd known, we'd have forfeited the quiz and walked out, and would have attended the other events, for whose finals we'd qualified without any hassles.

Ultimately the quiz involved a tie for the first place between the Sairam team and the Loyola team, and things nearly broke out into fistfights, what with the Loyola team not understanding the tie-breaker's rules that were being held, and when at last a tie-breaker was held that was acceptable to all parties was held, the Sairam fellow won it, and we had a clear winner, with the Loyola team leaving in a huff. Earlier Visu and I had lost in the finals of the networking challenge, and while I was in the quiz finals with Sunil, he and Vinod lost the debugging. They managed to salvage a third place in the web-designing, for which they received 300Rs worth gift voucher giving you treatment at some beauty salon, and no certificate.

And so we screamed back into Tambaram and gate-crashed into Krishna's home and bugged him till it was pretty late, and then we all went home.

Yours catastrophically,
Sundar.

I conducted a quiz!!

2007-09-20T22:44:00.000+05:30

I just returned home after conducting a quiz at college. It was um... not a success, but an average performance...

17 teams had registered, out of which only 5 turned up. Our college showed its brilliance by sending two classes to an IV on the day of an intra college cultural. Meanwhile we received news that each event should definitely have 6 finalists. We were at a loss as to what to do. We tried going and calling those buggers from their respective classes, but the guys had all common sense and had stayed at home, while an all girls team claimed to be working for the symposium, while all they were doing was staring at the windows desktop.

So, ultimately we ended up calling a few of them furtive second years who'd cut class and were roaming around, gave them answer sheets, and started off with the damn prelims thing. I think I set it a little too easy, having underestimated my college.

We selected six of them buggers and conducted the finals. Raja Deepak and Navneeth and Rafi were among the finalists. Finals went well, except for that part were we forgot to call the staff incharge to the event, and actually called him only halfway through. Luckily he happens to be a really nice and easy going person, and he didnt hold anything against us. This man is an example of a really educated person...

The Mech guys came first, IT second, Raja and Co. third.
A few people said the quiz was good with a grimace. Most others averted their faces.
Not bad for the first time eh?

Credit for my quiz must be given to Krishna, Vinod, Visu, Hari, Harish, Sriram, Seshu, Mahesh, and Vijay, from whose quizzes I stole questions. Well, ordinary artists copy, great artists steal.

Credit must also be given to Prashanth, who was invaluable in his support he rendered to me. We both sat and finished off the quiz without even meeting up once. Hail internet! Sathish also deserves mention for being my faithful powerpoint operator.

May the Force be with you.

Sundar.

Next Stop!!

2007-08-21T11:40:00.000+05:30

I found this poem in a blog called Futility Closet that Marc recently posted on.

The Busman's Lord's Prayer, allegedly recited by British bus drivers:

Our Farnham, who art in Hendon
Harrow be Thy name.
Thy Kingston come; thy Wimbledon,
In Erith as it is in Hendon.
Give us this day our daily Brent
And forgive us our Westminster
As we forgive those who Westminster against us.
And lead us not into Thames Ditton
But deliver us from Yeovil.
For Thine is the Kingston, the Purley and the Crawley,
For Esher and Esher.
Crouch End.

Haha...

Wiyoats
Sundar.

Fatal Beating

2007-08-04T22:57:00.000+05:30

Krishna introduced me to this series. They are really funny. Here is one of them.

Sundar
Wiyoats.

New Earworm

2007-08-02T22:23:00.000+05:30

Here is my latest earworm. It absolutely sucks. Its downright weird, and completely annoying.

She is crazy like a fool
What about it Daddy cool
She is crazy like a fool. What about it Daddy cool?
I'm crazy like a fool. What about it Daddy Cool?
Daddy Daddy Cool
Daddy Daddy Cool

Daddy Daddy Cool
Daddy Daddy Cool.
She is crazy like a fool. What about it Daddy cool?
Daddy Daddy Cool
Daddy Daddy Cool
. . .

She is crazy about her Daddy
Oh
she believes in him
She loves her Daddy

She is crazy like a fool. What about it Daddy cool?
Daddy Daddy Cool
Daddy Daddy Cool
. . .

I only listened to this old Boney M song a couple of times! Not fair.

Sundar.
Wiyoats.

Is that only me?

2007-07-28T23:34:00.000+05:30

I was watching this film called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and I felt that one of the characters looked remarkably alike a very popular actor. Wonder whether it was only me or can everyone see it? Of course, a lot depends on hairstyle, facial hair frame etc, and could be coincidental, but yet one can't help but wonder if it wasn't an inspiration. The pictures I have put up here are those screenshots that especially caught my fancy. Oh uploading the images was in itself painstaking. I havent bothered with the alignment or the looks or whatever too much.

At last I have updated my blog. Cool. Back to hibernation.

Sundar
Wiyoats.

Sharp Edges?

2007-07-12T13:36:00.000+05:30

Imagine driving along at high speed and encountering this sign on the highway.

Second Life

2007-07-07T21:54:00.000+05:30

I heard about this thing called Second Life, an online Role Playing sort of thing, but without winners or losers (apparently). The things you could do on this virtual world included walking around, making friends with total strangers, squish rats, buy and sell virtual land, and even fly (naked if you wanted to), and generally "have fun".

Well, it didn't grab my attention, as I have never felt these games to be of any worth whatsoever. However, I read somewhere else that one could watch online Wimbledon, and that grabbed my attention. Of course there are other places where one can watch Wimbledon, but on a sudden whim I went and signed up. It asked me to download and install a 30 MB file, which I did, configure my avatar, which too I did, and something of this and something of that, accepted the terms and conditions without giving it a second glance, and clicked on "Yes", "OK", "I Accept", and anything that sounded positive and uplifting, and hey presto, I was standing on the orientation island.

They had all super-boring tutorials such as how to walk, run, click, strip, and heaven knows what. I went into one of the tutorial areas at random and was walking around, when suddenly a girl appeared out of nowhere and asked me how to fly, and I spent a happy few minutes putting the proverbial groundnut. She became my friend and later disappeared. After similarly chatting with another person, I became bored and logged off.

I only remembered later that night that my original motivation for joining up was to try and watch Wimbledon. So, next day I found a link to Wimbledon's live streaming second life link, and clicked on it (IBM has sponsored this). It teleported me to the place. Unfortunately, they needed a 786 kbps connection for that, and had to disable the feature. So, I ended watching a live simulation of some Anna Kournikova match from the centre of the court, hanging on to the nets, and watched the virtual ball whizz past my virtual ears with no relish at all.

Today I also saw a reference being made to Second Life as part of a BBC program that talked about the happiness quotient of people. The host set up the usual argument of whether the internet would bring people together on a happy foundation, or would lead people apart from any form of social relations and left it at that, as usual.

So, if you want to play, then play. But I assure you, its downright boring, and horribly slow (256 kbps being the minimum internet configuration needed to play second life), and not worth the effort. But who knows, maybe the mature sections might be better, have yet to try that out.

Wikipedia says this about Second Life. People have also parodied the whole thing at www.getafirstlife.com.

Wiyoats?
Sundar.

What was that again?

2007-07-07T21:13:00.000+05:30

Q: What happens when you polymerize wool?
A: You get woolmer.

My brother came up with this recently, and we are all still retching.

Sundar.

And this is my Friend Bragey

2007-06-30T22:59:00.001+05:30

Bragey uploaded his photo to the site and sent it to me.
Sean Connery, Zidane, Michael Owen? My God!
I dont know why this bugger's off to pursue his post graduation at Cornell when he should have been running around with Bond girls in bikinis or eloped with a spice girl or something...

The site is www.myheritage.com. Have fun.

wiyoats
Sundar.

At Last

2007-06-30T22:29:00.001+05:30

At Last, I found a photo of myself that the site did not have qualms about. However, are the people around my face even celebrities? Never heard of them. Oh this is so very depressing.

wiyoats
Sundar.

What?

2007-06-30T22:10:00.000+05:30

Well, I found this site called myheritage.com with which one can upload a photo of oneself and find out which celebrities he most looks like. I uploaded a few of mine, but was rebuffed with an embarassing "Face not found" error message. So, I uploaded this fellow's, and here goes.

wiyoats.
Sundar.

What say you?

2007-06-20T14:40:00.000+05:30

By my deep philosophical excursions, I have found that nature, or the universe, does not go about its usual business of increasing the entropy of itself in a brute-force fashion. Rather, it goes about this in a highly intelligent manner. The universe seems to have realized that in the long run it could increase its entropy better by restraining small packets, or volumes of itself, from decaying themselves into states of higher entropy. These small packets of retarded entropy incrementation then try to bring about a comprehensive deceleration in the entropy accretion of its surrounding matter, but fail miserably, and end up being counter productive, and actually increase the entropy of all immediately surrounding matter. This inadvertent increase in the entropy of the immediate surrounding universe has empirically shown to be more in magnitude than that would have been achieved by a brute-force technique without involving small packets of restrained entropy incrementation. These small packets, by generic parlance, are called human beings.

wiyoats
Sundar.