Feisty rantings...

An update from the burgh.

2010-11-12T19:01:00.003+05:30

Everytime I open this page and set about typing, something turns up or I lose heart all of a sudden. I've never been a frequent blogger but then I did blog atleast twice a month at my peak. But, I hardly blog, once a year now.
Then, I realise that I'm actually paying for the domain, so why not make use of it. The thought of losing 10$ a year seems daunting at first but then heck, its only 10 bucks. Forget it. Thats how I end up losing motivation to put something out.
I have no idea if this post is gonna make it, and if it does, when is it gonna make it.

Well, I figure I might as well post once in a while and if its some random stuff, who cares. Maybe, I can look back after a couple of years and remind myself of how bored and jobless I got at CMU. I got back onto facebook after deactivating my profile for quite sometime. What made me go back? What made me deactivate the account at first?
The site was pretty addictive and I figured it was eating up a bit of my time, especially when I sat and browsed through random profiles just for the heck of it. But, then one really cant stay away from it. A couple of contacts I needed were nowhere to be found except on my facebook list, so I had no option but to get back. I guess I'll be staying there now but I'm gonna tone down on visiting it.

In other news, I've accepted my offer from Amazon. Will move to Seattle once I graduate and hopefully, I'm gonna have as much fun as I did during the internship. That basically puts paid to my plans of jet setting around the country for interviews. I was hoping to interview with companies just for the sake of seeing new places, but I guess its not really worth being so desperate. I hardly have any courses this sem, that make me sweat, and a couple of free trips out to the west coast would have been cool but then that was effectively going to be unfair to a lot of others who do not have an offer. So, here I am taking the moral high ground and staying away.

I did travel around a bit though. I did one interview in Portland, OR with Intel. It was a fun trip, especially since I've got an uncle down there. I used it more as an opportunity to visit him than to actually interview. Mean me :P
And then I did travel to San Francisco and the Bay area. Nice place. Went hiking up a hill near my uncle's place in Fremont and visited the usual San Francisco touristy spots. It was a nice trip. Met them after a long time and it was fun, especially the drive along the Pacific Coast on CA-1.

Oh yeah, I ended up getting my driver's licence here in Pennsylvania finally. Started out to get it as soon as I got here in August, 2009 but took me nearly a year and a half to get one. Boy, am I relieved. The test was easy and anyone who's driven around a bit previously ought to pass with a little caution with respect to the rule book.

Have been hacking the android kernel a bit for a class project and am beginning to fall in love with Linux all over again. Have been trying to get to grips with the memory management subsystem but haven't really succeeded. Will have to devote some more time to it. As I understood Linux and its many flavors, I've just gotten a Nokia N900. The only reason I've bought it and not one of the Android based HTC phones is because it lets me triple boot with Android, meego and maemo :D How much more cool can you get? Well I can also overclock the ARM A8 Cortex proccy upto 1 Ghz from the stock 600 Mhz. Thats way more cooler :D But it just adds to the glamor of owning a tech gadget.

Sleep cycle all messed up. Sleep at 3 PM in the afternoon and wake up at 10PM. what a life? And that reminds, I have to finish some of the stuff for the lab, that I've been stuck with for a day now.
Until next time, signing off.....

I know what i did this summer!

2010-09-25T11:22:00.002+05:30

Been sometime since my last post.

Its been a wild ride and a fun filled last few months. Life's looking up too!
Chuck New York. Spent the summer in Seattle. Had a great time. Especially with family close by in Portland, OR. And an awesome bunch of friends who were ready to share the craziness with me.

Finally, earned some money of my own and managed to buy myself a long desired DSLR. A Nikon D90. Spent quite a hefty sum on it but then its something that I've been looking to get for almost 5 years now. Love the camera :D

Spent a lot of time clicking away to glory with her. Work was good. Did procrastinate a bit but ended up finishing it in time. Actually took much more time to finish it than originally planned, but then no one really complained :P.
The weekends were the fun part. Explored quite a few places around Seattle, and enjoyed the sunshine which was a much welcomed relief from the cold and damp Pittsburgh weather.

Also, went out bungee jumping and skydiving. Jumping off an airplane is so much fun. Envy all those guys who get to do it day in and day out. But then jumping out at the same location over and over again, might get boring. Also, learnt swimming in Seattle!! Then, went kayaking and ended up in the water too :P. Extremely embarrasing experience but then it was fun taking a dip in Lake Washington :) Went Canoeing too, but that wasnt as much fun as taking a dip in Lake Washington :P

Spent some time tasting some weird creatures that I never knew existed! Squids, Octopuses-name it and I've tasted them all :) I liked the squid. Great taste!

And yes, if anyone's interested - http://maranellored.smugmug.com. Check that out!

The green and the rain

2010-04-19T04:37:00.003+05:30

Its a beautiful evening out there.
Pittsburgh in the rain is quite a sight. Especially in the spring, when you see the empty blank trees turning green and the last patches of snow melting away. They say you can never know what the weather is like in this city. One moment it rains, and the next its sunny. But its the rain that brings out a special charm in this place.

I have always loved the rain. I've enjoyed stepping out and getting wet completely. It is something that brings out the child in me and makes me feel super happy and excited. If I feel down, I'd go step out in the rain and voila, it seems to wash away all my troubles and sorrows. I have a special relationship with the rain and I love it.

Coming back, today as I walk around these quiet neighbourhoods, the slight drizzle and the chilly winds seem to make it the perfect evening. Lazing around in bed for almost the whole day with a horrible headache, this was something that I really needed. The sight of lush green grass, ancient buildings with lawns, a couple of huge great danes and hardly any motor vehicles at all, seem to be the perfect recipe for my recurring boredom. This city is beautiful and as they say 'Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder'. As I walk and appreciate the sights of this place, I'm lost in the wilderness of the trail.
Familiar thoughts seem to be coming back. Another month, and I'll be away in the bustling environs of New York city. 3 months there and I really have no clue how thats gonna turn out to be. In a way, I'm dreading it, as I've always dreaded change. But then I know it has to be done and 3 months there is gonna make me a much different person than I am. But the thought I dread the most is, the scores of people I'm going to be surrounded by. Last week, I spent an hour walking around Manhatten and the sheer numbers of people seem to overwhelm me. I know I'm gonna long for these quiet, serene surroundings. On any given day, I'd take these to the concrete skyscraper world of Manhatten.

Loads of work to do but really have no inclination for it. Just want to sit here and watch the time fly by. Hoping for more moments like this.

Words...

2010-02-23T05:03:00.000+05:30

Those words dont mean anything.
When those words dont translate to actions.
With those words, you could promise the world
The very words, which you could crash my whole world.

Meaningless words, uttered for someones temporary comfort,
meaningful words uttered at the expense of someone's emotions.

Friends we are, your words say
but enemies we are, speak your actions
Farther than distance could actually separate us
Why do I wanna believe your words.

Ignorance is bliss, but at the other end,
its no more than hell. Hell revisited.

There's more to friendship than just taking. Expectations are natural but reciprocation is even more important.

Rambling.....

Following the heart...

2009-11-17T15:32:00.004+05:30

Its 5AM in the morning. I had slept for 6 hours and I cant sleep anymore.
For the first time in more than a month, I find myself a little less loaded. Nothing much to do. Can afford to relax for a day. Take it easy. But then, before I know, I'm gonna be mired up in that mess to meet deadlines and getting the right work done.

Its a crazy life out here.
I finished registering courses for the next sem. As I sit and ponder, about the courses, I wonder. Am i here just because this degree is gonna make my resume look flashier and gimme a high paying job that'd probably require me to work 20 hours a day? Is that what I really want?

I remember making lofty statements in my applications about how I wanted to do this and that, but then I realise I'm doing the complete opposite of what I wrote about in my application. I have to follow the herd in a way, because the job is important to me. I need a job here. No two minds about it, but am I really going to enjoy it?
I have no idea. But something tells me, I might not.
I wanna do stuff that I feel comfortable doing but then there is this strong fear of not being able to land a job. Thats a strong driving factor in my choice of courses for the next semester.

I wanna follow the heart but the mind is a pretty strong influence too. I'm probably being ruled by the mind at the moment, but then am I gonna end up regretting my choice? I have no idea. Probably the idea is about finding the right balance. The first semester here is an eye opener. It did show me, how bad I am at stuff that I thought I was good at. I realise I have to unlearn stuff and start from scratch. That is the toughest part. Unlearning is very difficult. There is always a little left that is going to trouble you.
I hope at the end of this sem, which is 3 weeks away, I would be able to unlearn and relearn it all.

Waiting to complete this semester. Waiting to get back home.
Waiting for a lot of things.

As I write this, I just received a mail from I dunno who, supposedly an old classmate who I dont remember at all. He's planning on applying and is asking for suggestions. What do I tell him ? Come here and get lost in the multitude of dreamy eyed students, or come down here and make your own mark. How do I tell him that?
I'm not even sure, if I should be replying to his mail. I dont even know if I'm worthy of making suggestions to him. Do I ignore the mail? I dont know what to do. I'm lost.

Follow the heart, not the mind...

Those were the days..

2009-10-27T12:52:00.003+05:30

Those were the days.
The days when I woke up at 8:30 in the morning and waited for harsha to come pick me up.
The days when, we ended up at college at 10:30.
The days when, we used to run around, hiding from the princi.
The days when we walked into class at random.
The days when we begged and pleaded for attendance.

Those were the days...
The days when we came up with fancy excuses to bunk class.
The days when we tried to forge signatures to get out of college.
The days when we enjoyed the grand lunches at the placement office.
The days when we won those basketball matches.

Those were the days...
How i miss those days! The days when we tried all kinda fancy gimmicks. The days when we ran around for Carpe Diem. The days when we lost all that money. The days when we shot that movie. The days when we worked night and day for the VLSI conference.
Those were the days...

The days when we sat studying together late at nights.
The days when I had to go back home in the chilly night.
Those were the days....

How I wish they were back! How i wish we could do it all over again. How I wish, we were never separated.
But life moves on.
Just reminiscing...

Thanks for the great times guys.

Home..

2009-10-26T13:17:00.002+05:30

Its been a long time since i wrote here.
A lot has happened since i bought that domain name. With lofty dreams, i came here hoping to fulfill them.
And now as time moves on, they are on the verge of being shattered. Flew across 8000 miles, almost 18 countries, 3 continents, one big ocean and now what. To have them all being blown to smithereens, as I watch.Its not been easy.
For the first time, I come out from home. Away from the shell that surrounded me and protected me from the big bad world. Here I am, out in the open, vulnerable to all the challenges and the perils out there in the open. And its not a nice feeling, I tell you. Every time, I have a couple of hours to waste, my thoughts invariable drift back to college days and the stuff that I enjoyed doing so much. Its all coming back and makes me feel horrible. I wanna go back. But then once engrossed in work, I hardly seem to notice it.

Today, as I write this, I have an exam lined up for this week and a bunch of assignments and an horrible lab. The workload is sometimes unbearable. They always spoke of the light at the end of the tunnel, but funnily, I dont seem to be able to find it. Its a long way away and they tell me, I'm gonna enjoy it once this is over, but why cant I enjoy it while I'm doing it?

I wanna go back home. Back to my shell, where no one cared of what I did, or how I did it.
I wanna go back home now.

Domain name!

2009-04-25T20:59:00.002+05:30

Its been a long time since i've posted here.
A lot has happened since then. I'm now almost outta college. And I guess I'll be off to the US just like those millions of guys who keep running away.

But yesterday, i found a coupon for www.godaddy.com
It let me buy my own .com domain for $0.99. Kewl! aint it! Anywayz, including the extra ICANN registration fee, it cost me Rs.60.41 Pretty cheap i say!
The coupon is valid on most top level domains. Heres the coupon for the interested souls

99BUYCOM

And yeah, my blog can now be accessed from www.maranellored.com
This purchase also means that now I've gotta start posting regularly and try to manage my blog more effectively.It'll prolly be revamped completely once i find the time :D

Thats all folks!

The 49-O Rule

2008-12-02T19:41:00.003+05:30

Ever walked into a polling booth and looked at the list of candidates and felt, "Oh crap. All these morons suck" ?

Ha, I did feel that way last time. I'm sure many of you do feel that way many a time. Did you know you can choose not to vote ?

There has always been an option for the voter to reject the candidates. If ever you feel none of the candidates in the election are worthy of your vote, you can choose to cast a Null Vote.

This is provided under the 49-O Rule of the Electoral Commission.
This makes sure that your vote is registered and also conveys to the Electoral Officials, that the guys are completely unworthy of the cause. This also prevents voter fraud and misuse.

The sad part is, this rule has always existed since 1960 but no one is ever educated about it. It was by pure co incidence that I came across it. Its time we make people aware of this.
Heres the wiki link 49-O Wiki

Imagine if we all exercise this option, next time.

I for sure am gonna exercise it, come next election time. What about you ?

Politician or terrorist.....

2008-11-29T14:24:00.007+05:30

Mr. Raj Thackeray, where the heck were your so-called loyal workers when Mumbai was being held hostage?

Do you realise Mr. Thackeray, Mumbai was saved by your so called enemies- the Non Maharashtrians ?
Do you realise that your so-called MNS wimps were nowhere to be seen ?
Do you realise that Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, NSG guard Gajendra Singh who laid down their lives for the sake of 'your' city were non Maharashtrians ?
Do you realise that its Non Maharashtrians who have lost more than you could ever lose in your entire lifetime, for the sake of protecting Maharashtra ?
Do you realise that Mr. Karambir Kang, a non Maharashtrian is still working with the burden of losing his family in his heart ?

Mr. Thackeray, you are a hardcore politician. You know bloody well, no one is ever gonna believe you again. What the fuck were you doing at the funeral of Officer Hemant Karkare ?
I wonder whatever happened to your stance of a couple of days ago, when you categorically alleged that Officer Karkare was an anti-national element.
Why are you attending the funeral of an anti-national element ?

The answer Mr. Thackeray is that, you were wrong. You were always wrong. Every single time, when you led the agitations against the non-Maharashtrians, when you beat the railway board examinees black and blue, every single time you flashed a grin while walking out of a police station, every single time you spoke about anti-national forces, you were always wrong.

Its hard for you to admit it, but you should realise that it takes balls to admit one's mistakes. Its amply evident that you are nothing but bullshit. You are sick, and you make me puke at the very sight of you.

Its such a shame that I'm supposed to call you, my countryman. I'm sorry, but I really dont see a difference between you and those terrorists who attacked Mumbai.
You are the political terrorist. You are the scum of this nation. You ought to be flogged and fed to the sharks.

I hope you and your ilk are kicked out of the country. You are a disgrace.

Mr. Prime 'Wimp' Minister

2008-11-28T23:03:00.004+05:30

It is such a travesty that we are stuck with a wimp of a Prime Minister to lead us. With such an uninspiring and soporific speech, dude, who do you think will ever listen to you ? You think you can lead a country of a billion and many more people ?
I'm sorry Mr. Prime Minister, but you suck. When will you learn to call a spade a spade ? Its high time you've stepped out of the cosy comforts of your home, surrounded by tens of the most highly trained commandos in the country. Its time you have admitted that you have failed us.

You have failed each and every victim.
You have failed the numerous tourists who chose to spend a holiday in the nation of a million dreams.
You have failed those people who are anxiously waiting for news about their loved ones.
You have failed all those people who unfortunately chose to dine at a fancy plush restaurant one night.
You have failed the brave and fearless police officers who've laid their lives saving innocent civilians.
You have failed Hemant Karkare, Vijay Saluskar, Ashok Kamte, Major Unnikrishnan and the tens of other brave officers.

Mr. Advani, the leader of the opposition. What the hell do you think you were doing ?
Walking into the scene of action accompanied by a battalion of bodyguards, and interrupting the forces handling the terror scene, do you think you were reassuring ?
Far from it, all you've managed to do is distract the forces.
Why should we pay thousands of rupees to protect you ?
What makes you or the Prime Minister different from the common man on the street ?
What is it that is different about you from me that you deserve the so Z-category security ?
Why do you need those guys risking their lives for your sake ?

I have questions and the answers are sadly absent. Questions that boggle the mind of every Indian who is glued to the television set. Questions that haunt the thousands who've lost a brother, a sister, a son or a wife, or a parent to the crazy mayhem.

Scary that a couple of guys not much older than me can actually bring the whole country down on its knees. Its time we revamped the whole system. I'm sure I would have been happier if each and everyone of our politicians were actually shot instead of the innocent civilians.

Mr. Prime Minister, why dont you do me and a million heads a favor ? Just resign and please stop meddling with the operations of the nation's forces.They've done more for us in the past 48 hours than you morons could ever do in an entire lifetime. Please, please, please Shut up and never show us your face again.

The Mumbai Tragedy.

2008-11-28T22:11:00.004+05:30

Terrible, Terrible Situation - Amitabh Bachchan

Enough has been said and the events that have unfolded over the past 48 hours have been described in vivid detail by the numerous news channels. Condolences pouring in from different corners of the world.

News coverages have been littered with faces of tearful friends and family members, relieved hostages who have been rescued, the masked faces of the hundreds of the Marine and the NSG Commandos... The sight has been overwhelming. It still is.

Everytime i switch on the news channels, I am confronted with conflicting reports on the many channels. One tells me Nariman House is cleared and another quotes the NSG head saying the place is still being swept. Why cant everyone give us consistent information. Why create havoc ? Why create false hopes ?

Where is the Home Minister?
Why cant I hear a word of assurance from those sitting in the upper echelons of power ?
Why cant I sleep without any fear of it happening again in my city ?
Why cant you tell me, its over ?
Where is everyone when we need you the most ?

You call yourself leaders, and you are the first one to cower down. The bloody cowards who hardly care about anything else once you have your way. Selfish leeches. I wonder what happens to those grandiose speeches and promise the heavens to the commoners during the times of elections. Have you suddenly lost your tongues ? Have you lost your loquaciousness ?

The disheartening part is that each and every one of you who dons the Neta cap is equally bad. I have lost hope in you. I dont think i can ever trust you with my safety. You guys suck.
Its time you've come out of your hiding. Cowards.

Fuck up..

2008-08-16T22:37:00.003+05:30

Why does it have to be me ?
Everytime i start out to do something, i end up inevitably screwing it. Why am i the one subjected to this mega mess up torture?

People trust me to do something and i inevitably end up letting them down. No matter what, its one of the worst feelings to sit and brood over a major screw up. Every time i wanted to do something good for her, i end up screwing it. She is understanding and highly supportive of what i do, but it hurts at the bottom. Somewhere something tells me, you suck.

But then there have been better times. Times spent in joy are easily forgotten but the bad ones linger around for more longer than can be deemed within the bounds of comfort. The uneasiness when u face someone u messed up for and the accompanying guilt is something that will never leave me. No matter how nice the she can be, no matter what she does to make u feel comfortable, somewhere down there i have this feeling that she deserves better.

Someone said keeping your head while everyone else around u is losing it, is something one should strive to achieve, but then what if u cant ? what if the impulse to follow the masses is so strong that u cannot resist it ? what if the urge to do it overshadows everything else in ur head at that moment ?
I know every single time, it was me who fucked up. There was always the better way to go about it but i never bothered to take the pains to find out and she never cared. But this time i knw it pricks everywhere and it was the worst thing i could ever have done, but sadly some part of me says it was something i couldnt help. Well i dunno if i could have done it all differently but its my fault. The worst part is shes accomodating about it and u knw that u are allowed to get away with it. Thats the part that makes this experience even more horrendous.

I apologize to everyone concerned. Its something thats been weighing on me throughout the evening, and yeah the apologies may not correct what has happened but i sure as hell would wanna tell them i am genuinely sorry.

Bus ride !

2008-06-16T20:29:00.012+05:30

Its 7:15 in the morning and i am scurrying down the stairs. The exigency of the situation entails that i make it to the bus-stop in another 15 seconds. The bus cannot be missed. School starts at 7:30 and its a 15 min ride in the bus from home to school. Thus with only, Rs.10 in the pocket, this is a do or die situation. Forget formalities, i jump across the wall and rush to the end of the lane to see the bus just arriving at the bus stop. I stare for a couple of seconds and then realization dawns, and i sprint across to the bus-stop. With curious onlookers, i have only one destination in mind at the moment, the back door of that bus. And as i put on a burst of speed trying to reach the bus in time, it starts moving, accelerating slowly and then gathering speed as it moves.but as luck would have it, an auto,the blessed soul, wheels right into its path, and the bus screeches to a halt. That's enough time for me, as i scamper up the stairs of the bus. Panting and out of wind like a dog sticking his tongue out, i give the conductor the weirdest smile i could ever muster and tell her, "Pass" and pull out a weird looking piece of paper that's been through a million incinerators but is still together due to some weird attractive forces of nature. Shes puzzled and scrutinizes it delicately albeit thoroughly. With a stupefied look on her face and an incessant muttering about how these kids never learn, she reluctantly hands back the pass to me and allows me to travel in the bus. The look on her face tells me, "Next time, I'll catch u, buster!"

Again its 1:45 in the afternoon and the schools finished for the day. Its going-home-time! A bunch of us take the walk to the famous bus station near school. At 2:00 everyday, there is a direct bus to my place. So we hurry up. Its 1:57 by the time we reach the bus station and we look around. There are a couple of buses waiting to leave. Ah ! We did make it in time after all. Phew.
Being the lazy bums we are, we stand at the exit of the bus station hoping to get into the bus, ala Cheetah style or 'running bus' as its called here. As the buses start, i realize its not the one I want. Oh shit ! my bus has left ! Crap, why was i late again. Cursing myself and feeling the pit of my stomach fall down a ravenous cliff, I start to walk back to the bus-stand. As I'm halfway down I hear a couple of mates shouting. My bus,the one i wanted to get into,was actually hidden behind the trees! It hadn't left after all without its most valuable asset ;) Its a 100m walk to the exit and before I know the bus is already there, and I again start sprinting towards it. This time, i have my classmates to egg me on as the bus starts moving and unfortunately no auto guy wants to help me out this time :( So as I run harder, I can barely reach the handle inside the rear door of the bus, and then my friend offers his hand to me, but no, i grab the handle in a perilous move, which could have led to disastrous consequences but luckily doesn't, and I heave myself aboard the bus. Phew ! What an effort !!

That was the daily routine of my life in high school. Travelling to school was fun. Getting into buses carrying those loaded backpacks and running behind them. Trying to get into the bus acrobatically and getting off with an equally elaborate stunt are memories that will remain etched forever.

And thinking thus, i boarded an RTC bus after a looooong time today. The sights and sounds of it are inimitable. Last time i boarded one was waaay back, maybe 2 years ago. Nothing has changed. The seats are the same, the noises,the tickets, the costs, the jostling and shoving for seats-not a single thing has changed. The drivers of the 'Metro Express' buses are as arrogant as ever and dont bother stopping near my house. Incidents where my pleas have fallen on deaf ears are still fresh in memory. I always thought these drivers to be heartless and today nothing has changed this ( they are highly sexist though. all it takes is a female to request them and the brakes are automatically depressed as a reflex action. Wonder who makes vehicles like that )

Thus with that in mind, i climb into a bus and make sure i get a seat. Theres one seat left in the mens section and i am lucky to beat this ruffian to it. He glares at me and if eyes could shoot, then his eyes would have blown me to smithereens. Then starts off the rickety old ride which is more tickety than rickety. The next stop i see this old man with a walking stick climb into the bus and search for a seat but alas theres none. And me being selfish, sit there waiting for someone to be the good samaritan. But morons, none ever bothers, they are all immersed in their own world of comfort inside the bus and none wants to sacrifice his place. So reluctantly, i give up my place to this person and the look on his face told me, i did the right thing :) His thank you interlaced with the toothless smile made my day ! He sat down while i stood all the way to my stop.
As i got off and walked to my destination, i was left with this joyous feeling of accomplishing something remarkable.

And then the clouds opened up, and as i find my car in the garage, the trip is forgotten.

ps. Now playing.... Ronan Keating :)

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
theres a truth in your eyes saying you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all

Playing in my head...

2008-06-15T20:31:00.002+05:30

Flying without wings- Westlife

Everybody's looking for that something
One thing that makes it all complete
You find it in the strangest places
Places you never knew it could be

Some find it in the face of their children
Some find it in their lover's eyes
Who can deny the joy it brings
When you found that special thing
You're flying without wings

Some find it sharing every morning
Some in their solitary lives
You find it in the words of others
A simple line can make you laugh or cry

You find it in the deepest friendship
The kind you cherish all your life
And when you know how much that means
You've found that special thing
You're flying without wings

So impossible as they may seem
You've got to fight for every dream
'Cause who's to know
Which one you let go
Would have made you complete

Well, for me it's waking up beside you
To watch the sunrise on your face
To know that I can say I love you
In any given time or place
It's little things that only I know
Those are the things that make you mine

And it's like flying without wings
'Cause you're my special thing
I'm flying without wings

And you're the place my life begins
And you'll be where it ends
I'm flying without wings
And that's the joy you bring
I'm flying without wings

2008-05-29T19:34:00.000+05:30

yay!
i voted today !!!

Change....

2008-05-26T22:13:00.007+05:30

Change
How does one define change ?
Is it something that happens gradually over time without you ever noticing it or can it be brought about by deliberately forcing yourself to ?
Is it really necessary in the scheme of things that define life ?
What if one never changed at all ? Would that even be possible ?

Well when someone says, u aren't receptive to change, well then i guess thats time to get your introspection shoes on. Someone did tell me that and that got me into denial mode. I was arguing that i can be as open to change as anyone on the planet. But then, am i really putting my money where my mouth is?

When i think about it, there are a million times when i didn't want change. I hated change. There were times when my neighbors changed, i hated it. I always preferred the previous ones even if they were the most hideous and devilish people, i ever knew. But then as time passes on, every things forgotten and its all pally.
Last time, i hated leaving school because i was scared of the change where i might meet new people, unknown ones. The fear of the unknown is something that i am riddled with, every time there is a need for change

I hate it when i have new teachers teaching me at the beginning of a semester. I guess i've always found comfort in things i know and am used to. Is that bad ?
Is it bad because i prefer the same thing over and over again ?
Well, honestly i dunno. I never thought its a big deal, but once when i look into it deeply i guess it does matter a lot.
Does that mean, my psyche is flawed ? or is something fundamentally wrong with me ?
Why am i so scared of it ? Why do i have to hide myself under a veil ? Why do i have to take pleasures in false securities ?
Those are questions to which, i would love answers to. But then something that u really want is always the hardest to get.

Maybe a reason for this is fact that i was never exposed to change throughout the early part of life. I studied in the same school for 13 years, then i had the same friends for over 10 years etc. I have always lived at the same place, then i have always done the same things, i have always had the same room and yeah i have always had the same parents :P
Is that something that defined my fear of change ?

There was one post of mine, where i did point out something about someone telling me how much I've changed etc. Then i did realize that i am quite different from what i was in my first year. I still hate those shoes i put on in my first year. I acted nerdy and geeky and shitty. I can still see the look on the faces of those production guys when they realize that i am a completely different person today then what i was then. Gosh! How i would hate being there again. It surely had to be one of the lows.
But then people who know me from then are appalled. Two hoots! I'd say.

I have always been the carefree one. Never gave a shit about anything and i know i never will. But then sometimes the sudden urge to do something is irresistible. It does scare me that even the small things can profoundly impact my attitude. But then I know tomorrow morning, I'll be all normal and would be laughing at this reaction of mine to that statement. Maybe that is what is wrong with me. I'd never take someone seriously enough till it ends with a monkey on my back.

Thats me.

The Bubbles' Ad-venture

2008-05-22T18:53:00.004+05:30

It was 3:40 AM when i left the place. I realise that my fuel tank says its almost close to zero. I decide to fill it up and get the tyre pressures checked, after all its almost a 40km ride to the place one way. So i start.

I am already feeling adventurous ! I decide to push my luck and fill the tank at Bubbles' place. She lives 25km away and i was sure i would make that distance easily with the fuel i had, but after that i wasnt sure. So push i did, driving leisurely, rather cruising along pretty nicely, i reach her place at about 4:20. Man, this girl never ceases to amaze me ! She sneaks outta the house and cool-ly scales her compound wall with consummate ease and joins me. Wow ! proud of u girl. i cld never do that !

Then we start off on our little odyssey. But then i suddenly realise i'm running short of fuel soon and this wunnerful adventure of ours might end up a dampener. The petrol bunk near her place was closed :( Lazy bozos! So there we start off and then i tell her, that we might end up pushing the car :P The look on her face conveyed a million emotions ! The shock and the disgust at me were so clearly evident. Priceless :p We keep moving on while she wants to go back to the city and find a place. But i was hoping to find one on the highway. I was secretly nervous as hell, i was literally shitting in my pants but then i was supposed to keep cool in front of the lady, so i put up a bravado show. Thus we keep going with her almost falling short of getting hysterical.

Just when i thought bubbles was gonna blow her top, i find a petrol bunk. But the damned place was closed ! It was 5 in the morning, but still he didnt open up. So after some begging and pleading, and running around, the guy finally agrees and fills up petrol. I survived 42 kms on a near empty tank. Now when i think of it, i could prolly have done another 40 kms easily but i'm sure she would have murdered me before that :p.
So with one burden outta our head and after umpteen abuses and wiser about the next time, we head off towards the destination.
We reach the place at about 5:15. Its amazing. The hordes of Eucalyptus trees are mesmerizing. We follow and existing path and start trekking. Guess what! For the first time in my life, i see a flying peacock !
Amazing sight it is... We walk for about 20 mins and then she notices a rock, So now we decide its rock climbing time. Its a small one and the view from the top is amazing ! The sights and sounds of the jungle are hypnotizing. The we decide to explore the place and follow the calls of the peacocks.But alas! we were unlucky and could not find any more. But i was treated to a biology lesson about the various plants and creatures that we found. Man, a walking encyclopedia, she is! A walk in her company, and one would surely be left craving for more !

Finally its time we headed back, after our little adventure. It was the most amazing feeling ever. Now i know, when i wanna get rid of those disappointments and when i am down, these are the times I'll remember. The adventure is something i wanna do again. Best part, we were back home by 7 AM.
Not to mention the fact that, the drive was absolutely mind blowing! The roads are a dream and are very well maintained all throughout.

Waiting to do this again soon and will surely post ! Adios !

Whatta Nighta

2008-05-22T17:26:00.004+05:30

There are times when one does realise that no matter the shit thats thrown at you, the little moments are whats its all about. The times when you realise that living is truly worth it, times when those disappointments and failures are pushed back down into the distant past and all that matters is the joy and ecstasy of the current moment.
I am proud to say that today, 22 May, 2008 is one such moment filled day which will remain etched in memory forever.I know, when i look back at the madness of the events, i will no doubt be appalled but then whats fun without a little recklessness :p

It all started on the 21st of May at about 11 PM. It was Champions League(CL) final night. What a better setting than Manchester United taking on the Chelshits in the land of the Kremlin- Moscow. Last time, United played in the CL final, i hardly understood what football was except that it was a round projectile propelled by the energy one generated from the muscles of ones lower body!
So the fact that this was my first ever CL final with my favorite club playing meant that,this was the night for my little outing too(later on this :) )
So at 11 PM i started off on a 15km long journey to a collegemate's place. I reached the place, and we United supporters were left teeth chattering as the build-up to the most important match of our United career, started.
At 00:15 IST, the match kicked off and it was United all the way. The icing on the cake was the 26th min goal by the wunderkid, Cristiano Ronaldo. We were on cloud 9. But then in the injury time, almost as the ref blew for half time, Chelshits scored :( Thus, game on it was in the 2nd half.
After another 45 mins in the second half and 30 mins in the extra time, it was penalty shootout time. It made me all the more jittery, cos never before did a team supported by me, ever win a penalty shootout. But when, VDS made that save of Anelka, we knew we reached the promised land. It was jubiliation and we were speechless. I was in wunderland with United written all over me. It was the best feeling that i have ever experienced in my short period as a United fan !
Glory Glory Man United !!!

Whats supposed to be here ?

2008-04-09T23:53:00.003+05:30

Funny, how my posts seem to turn up mostly during exams.
This urge to blog strikes me when i realise i'm down on confidence. Need to ponder on that.

'Life is a rollercoaster, gotta ride it'
That line from the song by Ronan Keating beautifully sums up life. Yeah i know i'm treading the forbidden aka boring line, but as i said, these days my confidence levels have decided to take a sub-zero refuge, especially with exams down the lane.

I've been reading way too many blogs this week and now i realise that mine truly sucks.
Actually, i wanna find a superlative to sucks but then my Etymology skills are kinda ancient. Coming back to that song, i was listening to it today and then realised how i could both be good and bad at the same time. One moment, i'm this genius with too many brains and the next, i'm Satan with no brains so as to say.

Well, that was what i was supposed to post about a couple of weeks ago. but then i didnt have the patience to complete it (Fact that i'm posting the incomplete part of it is evidence enough of the level of boredom i'm witnessing at the moment)
Now that exams are finished, i'm trying to find innovative ways of killing time. What better than the good ol' trusted methodology of blogging ( it sure aint innovative, but its a time killer nonetheless ).

Now with me researching the various degrees of boredom, i'm nearly on the verge of presenting a thesis on the same to any university that wld accept it :p Any suggestions here ?
Holidays used to be fun. There were days when holidays meant endless matches of cricket in the morning, Cartoons in the afternoon, cricket/football in the evenings and hide n seek in the night.
Gosh ! i sure do miss those days. Today my holidays are filled with crap. Internships and projects and loads of other meaningless forms of crap are what fill the bulk of my holidays now.

But then there are some things that do make me long for holidays. The morning walks are so much fun. Finally something thats fun and also good for the health :) Then holiday time means unlimited movie watching time, so these days, a movie a day is passe. Nothin less than 3 movies a day will do. Also, i can get back to reading books peacefully. In the past week, i managed a couple of Ludlums, thats some pace considering the fact that i hardly ever touch them during college time.

How can i forget, theres IPL too ! the cricket is fun. i went and watched 2 matches so far. Deccan Chargers are languishing at the bottom of the table but that aint no reason to not watch the matches.First i saw the Kolkata Knightriders v/s DC ka match, which was boring. I was half asleep during the match. Fact that i went to it bang before my final exam added more gloom to the sadness. Then yesterday, i was watching the Mumbai indians in action here at hyderabad. Golly, was that fun !
It was amazing. A complete contrast to the Kolkata match. The cheerleaders were hot but then some of the girls watching the match were oooh la la. Man, the matches are sure worth attending for the sake of the chicks :D How come Hyderabad has such cute and hot ones ?

Manchester United are champions of England again for the 17th time in their history. Only one behind the liverfools. Next season will be time to party.

p.s. Chelshits against united in the champions league final this wednesday. fingers crossed !

The Cartoonist :)

2008-03-30T01:25:00.002+05:30

Technopreneurship @ CBIT

2008-03-11T17:59:00.004+05:30

Thus the curtains come down on t-summit.

The event was construed in the hope that it would be the one-stop event showcasing the best entrepreneurship talent in the state, but sadly the event hardly took off this year. Last year it had modest beginnings, with quite a few teams and participants from outside the city turning up and trying to showcase their skills. It was a success in more ways than one for a first time event.

But this year, the event besotted with problems(as someone mentioned it) could hardly manage anything more than a couple of brickbats for the overall event management. An event that is supposed to showcase the best in entrepreneurship and management has not a single guy from the MBA school taking active part(not that MBA @ CBIT is something to boast of).

Most, actually all of the events had the freshies and the 2nd years joining in the fun. Most bunked classes for the event and ended up getting screwed, thanks to the pathetic organizers. Some events were bad and some worse. Overall the general impression that i could gather is that the event was kinda mediocre(I'm being very generous here).
My contribution was to an event called E-challenge which had this innovative round on buying and selling. People bought items in an auction and then ran around the entire breadth and width of the college to sell them in a virtual market. I made the initial questionnaire that helped filter out the 'unworthy' junta. The event was a success(i have to be good to this event else i wont be given my certi:( ). And i guess i have to congratulate all the guys involved in it(means me :) )
The good part was i was allowed to take part in the same event(this is CBIT man. anything goes :P ) the selling part was fun with us flirting with the girls(who were the buyers) big time(i was amazed at the heights i could reach). But it did help and i sold quite a few items big. Thats quite a brief overview of the event :)

The previous post pretty much summed up my impression of t-summit but this event was kinda a make up party, i would say. So i guess i had to write something good about them for my own selfish needs :p

Yeah, guys, decent screw up! Could have been much worse ;)

p.s. if its of any use, heres the link to the dumbest site ever www.tsummmit.org

Of douchebags and screwups

2008-03-10T19:01:00.005+05:30

This year has been kind to me atleast when quizzes are concerned.
Especially when i consider the fact that i made it to the Tata Crucible finals beating umpteen b-schools. The prizes were good too. Then i also made it to the finals at the Pre-spring spree quiz hosted by NIT-warangal. Not bad at all. Then at the Cognizant thingy, i missed out on my offer letter by a question :( i always do that, dont i :(

But then came this campus quiz at my place.
trust my luck to land me in the worst place.

It was supposed to be a business quiz, which sucked in ways that are alien to any sane quizzer. To say that it was a major fuckup wld be complementing the moron (i have to be nice on my blog, shldnt i :) ) who hosted it. actually a douchebag wld be a more apt description of the guy (or was he a gal :-?? i dont want to knw)
It was an utter waste of 200 bucks :( i cld have watched 2 movies or atleast hogged a couple of subs, which makes it all the more painful.

The moron thinks a quiz needs a case study round and then he doesnt inform us beforehand. His gang of gutless wimps were informed of the round before and thus they had time to prepare themselves for this round. Come on what kinda quiz actually has case studies and crap. I'm sure any quizzer would be dumbfounded at what the levels of quizzing in campuses are now falling to (atleast at my place)
Then after 10 minutes of arguing with the guy, about the nuances of holding a quiz, i had to concede because the rest of them were all ganged up against me. Then starts the round. I straightaway copy the concept of a Rocket powered Hand Glider which won a couple of mates an offer letter from Cognizant. The point was we didnt know the absolute technical details of the thing and so we were kinda screwed but in the end we did defend ourselves very well. The 'gang of gutless wimps' headed by the moron then started questioning me, about all kinds of crap completely unrelated to the concept and thus i stage a minor walkout.
Then the next group presents something, which has me laughing my ass off. i start to question the guy when the moron steps in and starts defending the poor gutless wimps.

And thus disgusted i have no option but walk out on the guys(or gals) and at the end i made sure the guy overheard the choicest of expletives i could gather from the corners of my mind.

Well i am not the best loser but losing out in an event which called itself a 'quiz' and was just a complete hogwash and an utterly disgusting plot aimed at making money is repulsive. Should have demanded a bloody refund from the sluts >:P

Disgusting pieces of slutty character, wimps,lacking any sense of sanity! u guys do deserve the cake for the organisation of a bloody spineless sucky "quiz".
Adios asswipes. yuck !

p.s i think i might after all be kind to u. i'll ensure u guys (aka wimps/sluts/douchebags etc.) are given ur 15 seconds of fame in the newsletter :)

2008-02-22T23:04:00.003+05:30

it hurts and it hurts bad.
there have been times when things havent gone my way. i have to admit, i'm not the best loser in the world, but never before did it hurt so bad. There have been dozens of instances, when i havent been upto the mark, be it in my efforts or dedication, but then i knew i deserved what i got most of the times if not all.

This time was the one time, i wanted it so bad, and i know i put in a lot of effort. Effort that i wouldn't have normally thought myself capable of. It was one whole week, i fucked up everything, that week, and little did i know then that was the week of fuck ups. It pains me when i think of it.
The worst part is i still cant put a finger at what went wrong. It could have been much easier, had i been able to decipher the mistake. I spend nearly a couple of hours brooding on this, and i'm lost for answers. they elude me.

There were times before engg. when i thought this was the wrong line to be in, and most times i console myself on that, but deep down i knw the fault is with me. Its me i guess, who needs an introspection. Times when i've blamed the whole world for every one of my failures are now a distant memory.
Never before, did failure hurt me so bad and i have no idea why this hurts so much. I am at a loss for words to describe the lows after this. Its pathetic and i'm surprised, that i let it matter to me so much. I wish i cld forget everything, but it aint gonna happen and i have to live with it.

Not once, not even, when i got that rejection letter from NUS or when i lost at ESPN, did i ever do this. But this time, it hurts and i hate admitting this.
But as i sit in the balcony still pondering, i cant hold back my tears any longer

Retarded mongrels >:P

2008-01-15T15:54:00.000+05:30

life is full of surprises, aint it ?
never ceases to amaze me.
Actually more than life its prolly Osmania University(read OU) that stores all these surprises. The story is the usual. Results are out and i manage to pass again(wow)

But the twist in the tale is that a few guys now have a backlog. the surprising, rather the funny side is that these guys are ur usual nerds ala geeks who have never seen any other side of life other than books. Its amazing how the University can screw u.
Now its kinda obvious, how OU manages to evaluate answer sheets. OU ensures the examiners are stoned/drunk before they get to lay their stinking hands on the papers. Pathetic system, i tell ya.
Theres no other way one cld explain 227 out of 300 guys failing in a single subject.

The other extreme, the exams i screw left,right and center, are the ones that i always end up scoring the highest in.

when i realise that the freakin system is all screwed up and i might be the next victim, i'm frightened :(. Its scary to imagine a backlog at this stage.
I've been counting my lucky stars ever since i stepped into engineering and i hope i can cling onto them till i get through. Dont wanna waste time, with another subject.

This system has fcuked me enough. I wanna sue the shitheads !
Make them pay for all the emotional trauma they cause.
if i had my way, i wld make sure they fund me a new Beemer ;)for all the agony they cause me. A$$wipes!

I then realised my chances of being placed, are prolly getting all the way closer to nil. My mark sheets show a 60 degree decreasing line. Kinda hard pressed to explain it. Never gave a damn about these marks and crap and i never will but the whole world never seems to concur :(
Unfair !

yeah i guess, thats how the world runs >:P

Thank You junta

2008-01-08T21:16:00.000+05:30

its done and over with.

after 3 weeks of hectic running around and burning loads of calories, normalcy has been restored. Never did i imagine spending less than 3 hours a day sleeping and sometimes no sleep at all. It was H.E.C.T.I.C

The conference was a super hit opines everyone. But me being my pessimistic self, never thought so. To me, the conference was alright and cld have been much better if it wasnt for a faulty audio system and a moron sleeping right through it without realising anything. Jobless Joker!!
The best part about it was the interaction with most of the elite profs from all over the world and industry leaders. There was this prof from MIT, Chandrakasan, who was exemplary to say the least. To listen to him personally explain the nuances of the importance of power in designing IC's was mind boggling. The guy was amazing. Then there was 'Chak' from Princeton who was so enthusiastic and contaminated us with it.
GD uncle was awesome and his constant pep talks were extremely motivating.

One person who was really amazing and impressive was Babu Gogineni. Hes an amazing orator and his humor is absolutely humorous. He was top notch and was offering tips on public speaking which were very very helpful.
u cld look him up on google. Some impressive CV hes got.

Then how can i forget the team i worked with. The normal guys i meet everyday are fine. But the new acquaintances i made- Sandeep anna, Soujanya and Bindu 'aunties', KK, Ravi, Hemanth and everybody else, ensured we were all a close knit family for the 5 days. They were simply amazing.
Some of the best days of my life.

I really enjoyed being chased around by Souji aunty and irritating her to the core. I think i did my bit in helping u burn ur calories ;) Waiting for the good news :)
Bindu aunty was jovial and helpful. Loved teasing u. I'm still waiting for his name :D
Hemanth got stoned almost every other day. He defined sun rise at 3 PM.
Harsha was irritating and was tried his best to get on my nerves and almost succeeded but alas, i have more patience than he assumed :p
Sandeep anna ! Never knew one cld swear so profusely in Telugu. All the talk about ur fraternity days is making me jealous. I hope to use one of ur pick up lines the next time
Akshay! Sorry for scratching ur car mate :( was drowsy then. I knw what Reddy boy is thinking. My fault mate.

The team was amazing. thank you guys.
the guys i missed out on. Wait up please. u'll get ur due ;)

p.s. pics might be posted soon :)

International VLSI Conference '08

2007-12-28T22:08:00.000+05:30

its been a loong time since i've been blogging.
the vacation was unintentional and is a result of me being 'uber' busy for the past 3 weeks. Those times were hectic. and the sad part is theres more to come,the crucial part.

Theres this International Conference on VLSI design and Embedded Systems, www.vlsiconference.com. Its basically an industry level conference thats been held for the past 20 years in various parts of India, right from Bangalore to Delhi.
This year its being held at Hyderabad and we have the first ever students conference as a part of this biggie. The students track aims at exploring student avenues and exposing students to the latest in the world of Chip designing and the like.
Hell, its got all the big name organisations sponsoring the event. AMD, Intel, nVidia... name them and they are all here.

If that ain't incentive enough to attend, then there are profs from places like MIT, Boston, Princeton, New Jersey etc. delivering lectures and taking u on a ride down the subject lane.
To top it all, theres the certificate which would be invaluable to any engineering student.

Anyone who's reading this, avail this once in a lifetime opportunity. U've got no clue about the next conference. For all u care it cld be somewhere outside India and before u realise, poof goes ur chance to attend this :p

p.s. lunch included in the registration fees. Trust me, it will arouse the foodie in u ;)

to be contd..

Luck-in' my exams

2007-11-24T07:54:00.000+05:30

Superstitions !
Yeah right. Arent they the stuff for the deeply spiritual and religious souls ?

Well thats exactly what i thought before i realised my exam life is mired in superstitions too.
I'm surprised, actually very surprised that i could turn out to be so superstitious when normally all i do is laugh away at them.

Its now turned into a regular habit, every exam morning, i try to wake up at the same time, finish my chores in the same order, eat the same breakfast and then to top it all, wear the same clothes to college :D
Sheeesh. What a loser !

Eh. No wayz. I realised that when i end up doing it all similarly, i end up doing well in the exam or atleast, i can rest easy after the exams. The marks arent very good though but given my preparations, its atleast a bonus that i pass :)

when the folks at my place started noticing my weirdness, i was kinda tongue tied to explain it all. Embarassing as hell !
Mom thinks i'm possessed by some weird demons from Planet Zorks ;)
Dad thinks its his excuse for a bout of laughter therapy. Atleast, i'm making someone's day :p

During my last exam i realised i'm not the only one. I do have company. Couple of my mates were in the same clothes, for all the exams. See its not weird anymore ;)

I keep reading a lot about sportmen being highly superstitious and all. At first glance, all it warrants is a flick of the paper, but then when i realise i'm no different, its suddenly kewl.

I know most people who see me everyday, must be wondering about my sudden fetish for a particular set of clothes but then they must have realised. But still i have to make do with my fair share of weird glances most times.

btw during the course of my last exam, which happens to be my best so far, i found out that using a particular pen with the same ink, might turn out to be really lucky for me ;) So its 'ink-saving' time now :D

Madness

2007-11-17T22:48:00.000+05:30

Justice at last ?
McLaren's appeal against the F1 stewards decision to let BMW and Williams keep their points at the season ending Brazilian GP has been deemed 'inadmissible' by the puppets in London.

All the hype surrounding the appeal and the consequences that could have succeeded it, had McLaren been successful, would have done nothing more than prove that Max Mosley and his bunch of loons at the FIA are absolute suckers at best.
The fact that the FIA spent money and actually convened the hearing, only to later dismiss it as farce speaks volumes of the brains that reside in Mr.Mosley's cranium.

As a tifoso, i'm no doubt delighted that Kimi is still champion.
But as a F1 fan, i'm disgusted. Well anyone who follows the sport ought to be. McLaren may not have been altogether fair in their dealings this season, but they are a good team. I mean how many teams have constantly challenged the Scuderia's domination for such a prolonged period. Its another story that McLaren seem to get their a$$ whipped each season, either by a Prancing Horse or the FIA :P

Well McLaren have every right to feel betrayed. FIA have always shown a bias towards Ferrari (not that i'm complaining) but they ought to have atleast admitted that the two teams-BMW and Williams- werent complying with the rules. Had McLaren been the offender and Ferrari the questioner, then i'm sure we would have seen an altogether different ruling.
When the FIA pass the buck, it bodes ill for the sport. This sport is now as Ferrari-centric as it can ever get. Ferrari have dominated on track, but off it too. Thats pushing it a little too far.
I'm not of the opinion that Ferrari are the culprits in this, but its Max Mosley and his bunch of loons, including a certain Ecclestone. If Bernie had brains as his daughter has beauty, Formula 1 would have been devoid of all the crap we've had to endure this season.

I wish someone wld get all half wits outta the echelons of power in every sport. We have a prime example here in India, where m0r0ns who can hardly devote any time to the running of the country are trusted with the top offices for sports in the country.
The day we rid these half hearted lunatics outta the sporting world, we will witness the true spirit of the game.

Waiting for the day, Mosley and his breed are confined to the annals of history.

Yeah !!

2007-11-11T10:48:00.000+05:30

Now, we are talking, Mr.Gates :P

Cine time

2007-11-02T18:38:00.000+05:30

end sem time again.
this time i've vowed to walk into the exams absolutely unprepared and then face the paper.
screw them.

for the past 2 days, all i've been doing is watch movies. So with nothing to do at the moment, i decide to review them :)

Fast Times at Ridgemont High- Highly recommended for all teens :P
Private School- Watch it at ur own discretion
Last American Virgin- An OK movie worth watching once
The Girl Next door- I never get bored of this flick. Man, is Elisha Cuthbert hot!!!
What Women want- Hilarious is the word
Boat Trip- How the f*** did i miss this one for so long ???
Hotfuzz- Unfortunately, the copy i have doesnt have an ending :(( so now opinion
I think I love my wife- Gosh, never knew such super bad movies existed. yuck
Equilibrium- For super imaginary special effects
Little Manhatten- Cute flick! Watchable by all means
Love Actually- Mediocre but at times brilliant
Chain Kulli ki Main Kulli- Nice one !! Watch it once.
Thank You for Smoking- Watch this and trust me u'll never lose an argument ever again

2007-10-21T23:19:00.000+05:30

A special day no doubt.

Kimi Raikkonen is WORLD CHAMPION!!! yipee !!!!
double celebrations today!!!!

Best birthday gift ever!!

Nirvana !

2007-10-20T20:12:00.000+05:30

I have been driving for more than an year now. Tonight on my way back home, i realised how much driving meant to me.
Its my channel to vent out my frustrations, THE way to destress, relax and have fun.
It completely cuts me off from the world and i'm deriving this heavenly pleasure, whenever i floor the pedal.

I went down to eat street in the evening and discussed stuff about T-summit. Then i came back home and did nothing worthwhile. then this terrible headache overwhelmed me. Sleep would prolly have done me some good, but i decided to drive especially since no ones at home. I went down to NH-7 and drove till Medchal. It was so refreshing and kaput went my headache. Then on the way back, it was about 10, i discovered Rock. Never before did i think Rock was so diverse. All that i thought of rock was the head banging stuff(i knw i've been ignorant), but the RJ opened up my perception of the genre. The RJ had a very sexy voice i must admit. She also introduced me to Nirvana. I never listened to them before, but now Rape me is so good. I cant seem to get it off my mind.

I love the fact that i decided to drive rather than sleep. It opened Rock to me. Mebbe i'll now try listening to Iron Maiden on a rainy day. I may start liking that too.

and thus i attained Nirvana :p

2007-10-19T23:43:00.000+05:30

Cruelty isnt confined to humans alone.
I realise that there are members of the animal community who sure do believe killing is a pleasure.

One fine morning i found three really cute kittens who could have hardly been a week old on my porch. They were beautiful. I so wanted to kiss them and stroke them. They remind u that alls not bad with this mad planet. The next thing i do is try to pick em up but they were prolly terrified by my appearance and they went into hiding. I went back inside and poured them my daily share of milk (mom has no idea :)). They did drink but only after they realised that i was far away. One of them was kind enough to let me handle her :) How she purred in my hands !
i had to rush to coll that morning, so decided to do something for them in the evening.

In the evening, the first thing i did after college was to rush up and check on them.
What i saw disgusted me. It was gross, gruesome, grotesque, horrible. Words fail me. One of the cuties was lying with one leg torn and an another a good 10 feet away from it. Its neck was severed. Cannibalistic sight.
Horror struck i tried finding the other two kittens and luckily they had found refuge beneath an old shelf rotting on my terrace. They were unscathed and alive. I tried reaching out to them but they wldn't venture out of the saftey of the cupboard.
I went back and tried cleaning up the mess myself. My mom would have freaked out and to compound it, shes allergic to cats. I was so unsuccessful. My mom caught me cleaning the remains of the kitten and she totally freaked out as expected. She made the servant maid clean up.
I tried persuading her to take the other two kittens into the house but she was having none of it. She did give me milk to give the poor guys and some fish too.
In the night just as i was about to hit the sack, i heard the kittens crying out. Horrified i rushed and found that there was this Big bad cat who was trying to reach the kittens and thats when i realised that he was the murderer. Bloody feline b1atch.

I managed to scare it away and fearing for the safety of the kittens, tried bringing them inside but they wldnt come out to me. So i did the next best thing. Gave them more milk and blocked them from coming out and ensured that the feline murderer cldnt reach them as well.

Next morning they were gone. No kittens, no Big Cat. i have no clue how they cld escape,but i sure do hope they are alive and well. I cant digest the fact that they might be dead too.
Please dont let them be !!

never thought i was capable of crying so much.

Animals are beautiful.
Please dont mistreat them. Please help animals in distress.

Canine love

2007-10-19T23:21:00.000+05:30

Dogs are wonderful creatures. For that matter all animals are.
The innocence and their playful nature are something worth emulating. I had this dog for almost an year now. He was called Rocky. Every moment i looked at him, all i felt was the happiness that exists in this world. He was a fine buddy. Spent hours playing with him and stroking him. He was absolutely amazing.

Mom found him on the road abandoned. He was crying and was hardly a month old. I think its been an year exactly since my mom found him. He was brought home and at that moment i think i found one of my best buddies. He was amazing. He was the first guy who obeyed my commands. He was family and more. There were days when he used to cuddle up to me and all that occupied my mind at those times was the companionship and the fact that i had someone to lean onto. He was privy to my deepest secrets. If ever i had a heavy heart, all i had to do was take him out on a walk and share my grievances with him. I doubt if he understood me, but my heart was lighter. I still remember the stares from people who would certainly certify me retarded for speaking to a dog.
But nothing did matter. He was the best friend i never had.

He lived with me for 9 months and that time was probably the best i've ever had. Home was never dull with him around. He did wet my sheets often but that was a small price to pay for the company he bestowed upon me.

Finally mom gave him away after months of threatening to do so.
It feels very lonely without him. I realise why people crave for companionship. Its exactly a year since u were found.
I hope ur doing great.
Tears roll down my face as i recollect these memories.
Love ya buddy. Please come back

Of morons and more

2007-10-19T16:46:00.000+05:30

its been almost 2 weeks since i've returned from Chennai.
and the last week was H.E.C.T.I.C

Deadlines galore.
cant believe i was such an ignoramus. there were umpteen assignments and then lab records to complete. Not to forget the lab exams and my mid sessionals that i had to contend with, and not to mention the fear of attendance.

i was sure i wldnt be detained but the fact that i may have to shell out 500 bucks, for no reason worthwhile, pinched me. i dint wanna go beg lecturers, so i did the best thing possible. Showed my Shaastra certificate to ppl and there, no one minded marking me present for one week. kewl. there one woe hopefully sorted out.

assignments were a different ball game altogether. I had a few lecturers threatening me with a zero and some promising to screw my lab marks. That caused a mad rush to find stuff to copy from and finally i manged to complete 2 out of the 5 assigned. wow. i have no clue whats gonna happen in the rest.
then i had my lab exam, thankfully of which one was postponed :)
the other was mediocre.

Then i had the Mini Project to submit, which was a total farce in more ways than one.
My mini project incharge is a dumb witted, ignorant, cockeyed, drunk piece of trash. She was completely oblivious to the fact that i spent the better part of 3 days trying to develop an OS. She thought my project was a complete rip off the college Linux install >:P
bollocks i say !
How completely moronic can one be ?? i think i'll forever be searching for that answer.
she made a complete mockery of my effort ! sob !
what a b1atch
Screw the ignoramus queen.

then i had this request to make a video for T-summit. It seems trivial right now but later, i'm sure gonna regret agreeing :p
and then the mid sessionals to battle with.
and my exam theory has gained further ground.

The lesser u study for an exam, the better u fare

lol.

What an overwhelming week.
This break is a welcome respite before i'm gonna have to start fighting with the end sems.

my attendance was 82% at the end :) lol

ReDboX is here !

2007-10-01T12:13:00.001+05:30

its official now

my internet connection sucks and how.
uploading those pics took urs truly 2 hours and then the power went bonkers in between implying that i need to start again. thus i've decided to chuck my plans of uploading those pics. newayz i managed to savage 2 pics and posted those :)
i wish i had better upload speeds. i still long for those days when i had a 4mbps upload speed and a 128kbps download :p
those were the days when none cared about upload and talk of ADSL was light years away.

another reason that kept me away from posting the pics sooner, actually THE reason, was i started to work on my project.
Finally after spending 57 hours and about 38 minutes, i can now boast about creating my own linux distribution. yipee !!!
though the thing is minimal and provides basic command line editing only, its a start nonetheless and a platform for me to build my own distro.
Now the only problem , i have left is to get that thing to college. I'm now trying real hard to create a live CD but my ubuntu install is history :((

p.s. i christened my distro ReDboX ;)

Shaastra 07 at IIT-M is this week, and i'll have to leave soon. I've got to win something this time, its been too long since i've won anything major :(
Heres wishing me the best of luck :)

hopefully i can bear Chennai this time, last time was ..........

btw i used LFS to create the linux install :p

savor these !

2007-09-24T11:11:00.000+05:30

i present :

DELL VOSTRO 1400

Specs:
Intel Core2duo T7300 2.0ghz,4mb cache, 800Mhz FSB
2 GB DDR2 667Mhz Dual channel DIMM
Nvidia 8400GS
120gb SATA 5400rpm hdd
8x DVD/CD burner
Intel 965PM chipset mobo
9 cell 85Whr battery
14.1" Wide screen
awesome styling & config :)

this thing is dwarfed by my dad's compaq. That thing is a hippopotamus and this ones an ant :p

at last !

2007-09-22T23:55:00.000+05:30

at last shes here. my darling! the one i've fantasized upon for days. she landed yesterday night. now i get to fondle and caress her to my heart's content.

i love u babe.

Coming soon :Pics

No idea what to put here

2007-08-30T20:22:00.000+05:30

these days i have a lotta things occupying my head and have always felt like writing something about them but my old nemesis (friend??), laziness seems to catch up with me very frequently. One sec theres this urge to put thoughts on screen and next i'm like 'This is so tedious' :p
I wanna try one last time if i can get myself to post again.

25th August 2007:
It was dreadful and to consider the fact that i was lazing and joking around at the very moment so many destinies were rewritten gives me the shudders. It was horrible. The true consequences are always felt later. When a friend passed the news, we dismissed it as a freak accident but once i got to watch TV, i realised the brutality and the horrific side of human nature. The very fact that someone thinks life is to be taken for granted is disgusting. I cant find words without stepping beyond the limits of decency to describe the feeling in the pit of my stomach(my vocalbulary fails me big time)
TV channels have decided that decency is the last thing to consider when u wanna outdo ur competition. Some of the pictures shown on TV made for such gruesome viewing and would have hardly qualified even as Adult only material. None even spelled out a warning about the pics being displayed. Horrific is too mild a word.
41 innocent citizens will never walk again. thats sending shivers through my spine
I've never felt so scared before. Never once did i feel so vulnerable. Those were places i had visited atleast once and even if i didnt have good memories of them, i atleast never despised them. Its blasphemous. I wish this would stop.
The fact that i was oblivious to the tragedy when it struck gives me the jeepers though i knw it aint my fault.That aint no consolation to me.

Its such a waste of human life that the utter disregard for it makes me wonder, if these people ever have hearts of their own. Would they kill their own brethren and let them die such torturous deaths ?
Maybe they would and thats the scary part. I suppose they never will have a conscience to answer to.

may all the souls rest in peace.
and to the injured, i fervently hope u have the strength to overcome this tragedy and resume life

Easier said than done but i pray life gets back to normal for all those hapless victims.

26th August 2007:
Just as i was reeling from the shock of previous night's tragedy comes the news that a friend's dad had expired due to a massive cardiac arrest. It took them nearly 2 hours to find a doctor qualified enough and he pronounces him dead on arrival. Most of the local hospitals were oblivious to the fact that he was being brought in and hardly cared.Their reason was its a sunday. The pathetic morons. Hope they rot in hell.
Its disgusting and when i realise that the guy doesnt have his dad to lean onto, i'm left helpless. His bro was remarkably composed and went through it all bravely.

May ur soul rest in peace sir.
My condolences to everyone there.

These two days did teach me never to take life for granted.

I have no idea what made me write this post. maybe i want to get rid of these feelings but i only hope everyone realises the importance of life for the harmony of all concerned.

Ads Galore

2007-07-22T00:16:00.001+05:30

the first ad i understood while watching tv. was really an amazing experience especially with my dad explaining all the technicalities of the ad :)

This was prolly the first ad i ever saw on Doordarshan. The new Bajaj ad has this real good music on the electric guitar(???), which made me dig this one out. The ads really good. worth a watch :)

Its prolly one of the most comical and effective ads i've ever come across. Heres to the ad community b-)

Beryl continued

2007-06-10T20:01:00.001+05:30

The Burn Effect-my fav :)

BERYL UNLEASHED !!!!

Beryl!! Hurray !!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-06-10T18:28:00.000+05:30

Its taken me a week of relentless browsing, compiling, messaging and what not to get Beryl working in full flow(almost, only the cube's left out :) ).

My AMD rig was almost in tatters. I use an integrated graphics chipset, the ATI xpress 200G. With 2 giggers of RAM, and 128 MB of shared video memory, Beryl should work like a breeze.
But all good things come at the cost of painstaking effort and i found that out the hard way.

The problem is ATI is so screwed a company (i cant believe i'm saying this but yeah). They dont support AIGLX, the most commonly used rendering platform for Open GL on most linux machines.
Now since AIGLX doesnt work, i need to use the FGLRX driver with the XGL platform.
To accomplish this formidable task, i had to compile my own FGLRX module since my kernel hates supporting it. I use Ubuntu Feisty and kernel 2.6.20 something.
Then started all the trouble,
First the module refused to build due to lack of adequate compiler resources.
Second the ATI driver i was using didnt support my version of XORG i.e 7.2.

So whats the first thing i do ?? Try to downgrade my XORG to 7.1 which is supported by ATI.
Doing so, i realise the easiest way would be to perform a complete distro downgrade :D from the command line. Normally one would upgrade by editing the sources.list file, so i presumed the same editing would result in a downgrade. The catch here was that no one with a sane mind had ever attempted that :P
So finally when i do that, my system booted normally but all i was left with was a broken X server (the display protocol). The good thing with linux is that even though theres no GUI, the CUI provides a definite way out. The CUI is in fact much more powerful than the GUI and thus was a hope to recover my system.

Normally, when such a thing happens, my first instinct is to format the whole disk and reload the OS. This time i was close to doing that, the only factor that held me back was the presence of 34 movies and 50 GB worth of music, not to forget all my projects and custom files.
The very thought of losing all that devastated me. So i resolved for the first time, i was not gonna take the easy way out and would fix the OS.
Heres where i have stress on the importance of forums and the umpteen how-tos and the guides splattered all over the web and not to forget Shashank :) the best advice was to change the sources.list and upgrade back to Feisty.
That i did and then, realised that i messed up big time cos though i had upgraded, none of the desktop environments had been installed. So i start installing XFCE first. I like XFCE- i seem to like its cleanliness unlike KDE and GNOME which seem messy.

Then i realise that my original XFCE install was screwed so this was the same story. So finally i do something worthwhile and install ubuntu-desktop a.k.a.GNOME.
To do that this is what i had to do

Add the edgy main repos to the sources.list

sudo apt-get update

and then

sudo apt-get install -f libdrm2/edgy libdrm-dev/edgy libgl1-mesa-dev/edgy libgl1-mesa-dri/edgy libgl1-mesa-glx/edgy libgl1-mesa-swx11/edgy libgl1-mesa-swx11-dbg/edgy libgl1-mesa-swx11-dev/edgy libglu1-mesa/edgy libglu1-mesa-dev/edgy libosmesa6/edgy libosmesa6-dev/edgy mesa-common-dev/edgy mesa-swx11-source/edgy mesa-utils/edgy x11-common/edgy x11proto-damage-dev/edgy x11proto-gl-dev/edgy x11proto-input-dev/edgy x11proto-randr-dev/edgy xbase-clients/edgy xdmx/edgy xdmx-tools/edgy xkb-data/edgy xkeyboard-config/edgy xlibmesa-dri/edgy xlibmesa-gl/edgy xlibmesa-glu/edgy xlibs-dev/edgy xlibs-static-dev/edgy xnest/edgy xorg/edgy xserver-xephyr/edgy xserver-xorg/edgy xserver-xorg-core/edgy xserver-xorg-dev/edgy xserver-xorg-input-acecad/edgy xserver-xorg-input-aiptek/edgy xserver-xorg-input-all/edgy xserver-xorg-input-digitaledge/edgy xserver-xorg-input-elographics/edgy xserver-xorg-input-fpit/edgy xserver-xorg-input-hyperpen/edgy xserver-xorg-input-kbd/edgy xserver-xorg-input-magellan/edgy xserver-xorg-input-mouse/edgy xserver-xorg-input-mutouch/edgy xserver-xorg-input-palmax/edgy xserver-xorg-input-spaceorb/edgy xserver-xorg-input-summa/edgy xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/edgy xserver-xorg-input-tek4957/edgy xserver-xorg-input-void/edgy xserver-xorg-input-wacom/edgy xserver-xorg-video-all/edgy xserver-xorg-video-apm/edgy xserver-xorg-video-ark/edgy xserver-xorg-video-ati/edgy xserver-xorg-video-ati/edgy xserver-xorg-video-chips/edgy xserver-xorg-video-cirrus/edgy xserver-xorg-video-cyrix/edgy xserver-xorg-video-dummy/edgy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev/edgy xserver-xorg-video-glint/edgy xserver-xorg-video-i128/edgy xserver-xorg-video-i740/edgy xserver-xorg-video-i810/edgy xserver-xorg-video-imstt/edgy xserver-xorg-video-mga/edgy xserver-xorg-video-neomagic/edgy xserver-xorg-video-newport/edgy xserver-xorg-video-nv/edgy xserver-xorg-video-rendition/edgy xserver-xorg-video-s3/edgy xserver-xorg-video-s3virge/edgy xserver-xorg-video-savage/edgy xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion/edgy xserver-xorg-video-sis/edgy xserver-xorg-video-sisusb/edgy xserver-xorg-video-tdfx/edgy xserver-xorg-video-tga/edgy xserver-xorg-video-trident/edgy xserver-xorg-video-tseng/edgy xserver-xorg-video-v4l/edgy xserver-xorg-video-vesa/edgy xserver-xorg-video-vga/edgy xserver-xorg-video-vmware/edgy xserver-xorg-video-voodoo/edgy xutils/edgy xvfb/edgy x-window-system/edgy x-window-system-core/edgy

that should normally do the trick. In case of any problems, refer to the forums :)

Then came installing the driver. For that i had to struggle real hard.

i followed parts of various guides. One command from and another from another guide. It was painful to say the least.

First time i tried

glxgears

on the 7.1 Xorg, it gave me values in the region of 55k. Even an 8800GTX struggles to score 40k. What the heck ??? Mebbe my video card is better than the 8800 :p

Then i tried building the FGLRX module again to no avail. Kept trying real hard, was reading almost every available wiki on Beryl then i realised that Direct rendering was actually enabled.
Was pleasantly surprised for once.
All that was left now was to install Beryl and get it to work.
this time glxgears gave me sane numbers around 3k.

Good. So a simple

sudo aptitude install beryl emerald-themes

was all that was left and was accomplished in no time.

Now Beryl's installed and all thats left is to configure it and enjoy it in its full fledged glory.

Hopefully i can get the Cube to work and then it'll surely be worth all the effort.

Soporofic Tediums

2007-05-28T00:08:00.000+05:30

at last the demon's off my back :p

now that i've got loads of time to waste, i need to think up of innovative ways to waste time. A second seems like an eternity now. Wonder when was the last time, i felt this way about vacations.

The Monaco grand prix,2007 has to be a historic event.
It marked the first time, i mean first time ever i had slept through a Formula One race. omg.
Ever since i've been watching F1, ( its a looong time, 12 years to be precise and 169 races to be exactly right) i've NEVER slept through a Formula One race. Maybe it was because i was relieved at holidays finally but that aint reason enough.
The race was nice, from the Mclaren point of view, so boring for me. I could not bear to see the Ferrari's losing time hand over fist as the McLarens set fastest lap after fastest lap.

Yeah, i've seen that umpteen times with the McLarens at the receiving end but this time was inexplicable. Ferrari were outclassed or thats what the news is ( i slept after the 30th lap and never saw Monaco again :( )

Maybe i can take consolation that monaco is a one of a kind circuit with real high downforce levels and when we go back to sane circuits in the form of Montreal and Indianapolis, i hope the prancing horses can dish out some McLarenesque treatment to the others.

btw Man United won the premier league :D for the 9th time and the top division title for the 16th time. Giggsy now has 9 medals in 16 seasons. Wow thats some longevity in a sport where 10 years is a premium.
They lost the FA cup though to Chelshits. yuck.

Federer beat Nadal at long last at the Hamburg masters. It was on the cards but it did take a long time coming. Now i hope Federer realises his dream of THE Grand Slam.
He has a silken touch thats its a pleasure watching the ball off his racquet. The grace and beauty of his shots are profoundly heart warming

need to crash. later

Exams- for the last time....

2007-05-10T21:04:00.000+05:30

The general opinion(read Shashank) floating around about this blog is that i crib a lot about exams :P
when one is a part of a system where exams are basically the be-all and end-all of life, one cannot help but complain about the highly ridiculous values attached to exams.
Today, all that one looks at is ur marks.

This was a conversation with a dad's colleague(AB) and me

AB: Hi! Hows it going ?
Me: Fine. The usual nothing new.

AB: So hows college ? Did u know that my nephew achieved a whopping 94% last year. U know thats no mean feat. Lotta companies are actually queuing up to get his signature. I hear he has an offer for 50k +
Me: Wow.Thats so amazing.

AB: Wow ??? thats an amazing achievement which is unparalleled so far in his college. so how are ur academics shaping up ?
Me: They are alright. I've managed a decent 84% aggregate so far and hope to keep it hovering around that figure.

AB: 84 ???? (hes shocked) thats nothing in today's world. no one is gonna offer u a penny more than what they offer those backlog riddled canditates. U need atleast a 90% if u wanna get into a decent company.

This irked me and i was nearly losing it now. First he makes a saint outta his nephew, who does nothing but mug all day and then he makes a mockery of the marks i so struggled to score.
Thats the way people treat u. ur marks either make u or break u.

But this trend is highly prevalent only in the southern states as it is with a professional degree. Only in the southern part of India will u find a person who scored 95% and gets into a commerce course being ridiculed.
When i gave my class 12 boards, to get into St.Stephens, Delhi for a B.Com(hons) course, one needed an absolutely mindboggling 94%. here in hyderabad, at nizams college for a similar course, a 80% would have sufficed. Thats quite evident of the demand for professional degrees and the lack of it for traditional commerce and arts degrees in the south.

Today if you arent an engineer or doctor or if u arent studying to be one, ur a misfit in the society. Thats the craze and i must admit that even i've been caught up in this mad race for minting greenbacks.
i would have loved to take up history as a major but reasons and circumstances not to be disclosed have ensured that i too have jumped into this pool of to-be engineers.

wow. i've sure come a long way. So as i was saying, i am justified in complaining about my exams cos they serve no purpose atleast in my case. they are just another waste of time which i could have spent a little more constructively.
But life aint a bed of roses and yeah these are some of the thorns u do encounter. I only hope to get rid of them without injuring myself too much.

P.S. i've decided this is the last time i'm talking about exams on this platform. ;)

P.P.S. i'm very bad at making resolutions :D

"I don't love studying. I hate studying. I like learning. Learning is beautiful.”--- Natalie Portman

Jobless exams

2007-05-01T17:54:00.000+05:30

the jobless community now witnesses the return of its most honored member. Well all i have in my defence is that now is exam time and thus i am jobless :D

newayz endsem time and as usual these end sems suck. they are going down the same lane as all end sems are meant to- the drain. i cant seem to comprehend the fact that my attention span is no longer what it used to be. Cant even seem to sit for a couple a minutes with any book be it text or otherwise. After some detailed analysis, the conclusion points to one fact- my ubuntu box :((
Improbable is the word when i realise that i'm still running Ubuntu. Fesity Fawn rocks \:D/
God bless Ubuntu :)

and then i've found my long lost love- Mine sweeper- that pic beside this post, says something about my minesweeping ability :p HAIL Robert Donner and Curt Johnson. and i hate admitting this but need to give credit where its due and that is the case with Microsoft. Thank you for introducing me to the best game in this big bad world.

Talking of games, i realise that computer gaming is big time in India today. A multi million dollar industry, sure tempts me with all the moolah involved. But what would i create- maybe a franchise like Warcraft or FIFA. Would go a long way in making me uber rich :)

and yeah end sems are here to stay for another 3 weeks or so and i realise that i need to buck up and start else i may end up with a backlog-the ultimate deterrent in my quest to get rid of engineering in one go. and yeah i think i gotta jump the bandwagon again in terms of the GRE and crap like that. some people never listen :(

found this quote in the papers and realise how true it is
"A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction."

thats male chauvinism i suppose :p

geeky me !!!!!

2007-04-05T23:29:00.000+05:30

thats some revelation !!!!!!!!!!

Now i'm the SUPREME COMPUTER GEEK GOD !!!! >:) >:) >:) >:)
muahahaha :p

Mutterings..

2007-04-04T01:38:00.000+05:30

i've realised that the ubuntu way of naming distros is very appeasing to hear. some of them are
hoary hedgehog, breezy badger, dapper drake, edgy eft and the latest in the ranks Feisty Fawn.

A wild guess behind this naming convention maybe that the first word prolly describes the features of the distro while the second word is the animal that resembles the distro at best :O :O
wow thats some logic :)

But the real reason behind this post is that i wanna tell Microsoft to go take a hike. I no longer endorse Microsoft or any of its products. I am 24x7 dependant on Linux and all thanks to ubuntu.
But my spare hard drive does run Vista for the benefit of others who might want to use my comp.

Now that, the latest edition of ubuntu i.e Feisty has a stable release, i plan to upgrade.
i am now stuck in two minds whether to use a sudo upgrade or do a complete reformat. A few months ago, i wld surely have chosen a reformat but now a sudo aptitude seems more fun and seems like the way to tinker with Linux.

But i do have some issues with Linux where the easy solution wld be to use lame Windows, but the trouble shooting of the problem and the ecstasy of striking the jack pot is a feeling to be experienced especially for Linux newbies like me.

The worst issue with Linux is that, no matter what i do, i cant seem to get Beryl running. Sometimes, the drivers arent installed properly and sometimes the Beryl-manager keeps crashing. I knw that hardware wise, my PC is more than capable of handling Beryl. But i havent been able to get it up and running. That does rise my frustration levels to an extremity.

And something else i miss on linux are Games. I really miss FIFA '07 and NFS big time. I wish i can find some replacements for those and yeah i also miss Yahoo :((
Gaim is very useful in a lotta ways but the Yahoo games are a really nice way to fight boredom.
but with gaim, i can use multiple accounts at once, and thats really kewl b-)

On a lighter note, Zee sports is gonna launch a breakaway cricket league on the lines of the Kerry Packer one. The BCCI reaction is to be seen

i'm bored and i think i'm gonna start blabbering nonsense, i.e. if ur kind enough to treat the above matter as non-nonsensical :O

A tragedy called CRICKET

2007-03-27T13:51:00.000+05:30

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery and today is the present – a gift make the most of it"

R.I.P
Robert Andrew Woolmer
(1948-2007)

The Cricket world cup is on and the less i talk about it, the better.

It really couldn't have gotten off to a worse start, what with the revelations that the Legendary Bob Woolmer was murdered in cold-blood. Thats some news and some incident.

The fact that the murder was immediately after Pakistan lost to rank outsiders Ireland and theories of match fixing doing the rounds, gives the story a Bollywood feel ( i haven't seen a bollywood movie for a good part of a decade now :) )
But the conspiracy theorists and the rumor mongers are having a field by shooting away their mouths to glory :p Some say captain Inzamam was highly infuriated by Bob's attitude and wanted to kill him while some say the others in the team silenced him cos they were scared outta their wits that he might reveal their roles in match fixing.
What ever be the motive behind the grotesque murder and who ever be the cold-blooded, heartless killer, the biggest loser is the sport. Cricket has now lost a man of immense stature who could mould a world beating side from a pretty ordinary one.
The success of the South African team during the 1990's bears ample testimony to Woolmer's abilities as a coach and a man-manager. i think he was prolly the unluckiest ( along with SA) to have not won the world cup.

But the other news is that the defeat to Ireland virtually knocked Pakistan outta the world cup. But they can take consolation from the fact that their eternal rivals, India too have been knocked out.

Being an Indian ( dont think i call myself that very often ), it gives me immense satisfaction that the most despised sport in the country has lived upto its reputation. Now its only gonna get more dearer to the people :p (thats my sarcasm at its best :) )

but on a serious note, the fact is, the world's best batting line-up is a thing of the past when referred to the Indian cricket team. These guys suck and how they sucked is another story to be told. No one wld have expected them to lose to minnows Bangladesh, well the Bangladeshis did give sufficient warning about the outcome of the match during the build-up to it.
But even,then these guys are bad and they really are bad.
Now everyone is gunning for Chappell's head, but i dont think its fair. The guy needs a free reign over the team and only then can he be expected to deliver the goods.

P.S i think Chappell might be terrified to continue after Woolmer's death lest he become the next victim of the Sub continental Cricketing maniacs

But the people i pity the most are the sponsors. The whole of the World Cup is basically driven by Indian greenbacks, so the Indian exit doesn't bode well with the advertiser's plans. All their campaigns need to be stopped or atleast cut short cos no more will India be a lucrative ad market.

I hear, their losses are to the tune of about 500 crores. Man thats some money. Why cant they just gimme some of that, morons >:P
they dont support educational institutions but support losers. I refer to the time when i ran behind a few companies for my tech fest sponsorship. They gave me all sorts of petty reasons but now they pump in crores and crores to support a bunch of good for nothing, money crazy, and a group of lazy so called professional cricketers

sheeesh this is India, no wonder

btw this post reflects me at my digressing best :p

KIMI

2007-03-24T23:02:00.000+05:30

i'm back and this unhealthy rate of blogging has surely been forcing me to abandon this crap but i dunno why i'm still here

newayz i think i found something to write about.

P.S when i read other blogs, i realise i'm a narcissist in the true sense of the word, so readers u better be prepared to accept my view else u can take a hike :p

ITS PARTY TIME \:D/
Reason 1: the F1 season is back

Reason 2: Ferrari are winning and winning Big

Reason 3: kimi is back to winning form

Reason 4: hmm. i think i've run outta reasons. i'll come back to this when i have more reasons

but the fact is this seasons opener at Melbourne had a funny feeling about it. no Michael Schumacher for the first time in 15 years. and thats some feeling. i'm sadddened when i realise that GOD isnt gonna scorch the tracks nemore but the fact that Kimi is his suitor to his Ferrari legacy is of some consolation.

Well the season's opener was a mixed bag of emotions for me. Kimi won the race sleeping while Massa had to work up his way from 20 to 6th at the chequered flag.

the fact that the Finnish anthem sounds so nice had never dawned upon me. mebbe i was too caught up in Michael GOD schumacher and his exploits :p

neways i think i gotta get used to the Finnish anthem, cos its prolly my only hope of never hearing the Spanish one ever again.

btw i hope Lewis Hamilton is given a free reign and shows lamer Alonso his rightful place at the back of the grid

:p :p :p

Tech..........

2007-02-15T15:17:00.000+05:30

its been long since i last posted something, and i cant seem to help the fact that this blog is pretty boring.

this month ,a computer magazine had a separate booklet on blogging. Reading that made me feel sorry for myself. i had no clue that people can make millions through blogging. An indian guy has this blog about technology reviews and so and makes around a cool million rupees a month. WOW :o

www.labnol.blogspot.com

thats some serious shit.

and the worlds most popular blog www.perezhilton.com, makes a lot of greenbacks which are practically uncountable.

but these guys are all serious bloggers, spending about 16-20 hrs a day on blogging alone. thats some job
well i guess if ur really into a job and that job actually rewards u with loads of moneybags, then u really shouldn't mind spending even 24 hrs a day.

i knw i wouldn't.

well all this money talk about bloggers is getting into me and who knows maybe in the next few months u might see me in their ranks and raking in all the moolah ;)

Dapper Drake ROX !!!!!

2006-12-14T10:12:00.000+05:30

well in the last post, i did mention about the ManU-Chelsea match. Well it was a tame draw ( not that it was boring). Anyways ManU have beaten Benfica and have qualified top of their group in the CL. And they lead Chelsea by 5 pts in the EPL.

so not bad huh :D

At last, i've got dapper drake(read Ubuntu 6.06) up and running on my 20 gigger hdd. Its A.W.E.S.O.M.E to say the least. i mean where the hell was i all along, missing all the fun with Linux. I've used it for 2 days now and Windows is sooooo boring. The only problems i have is with the commands in Linux but no sweat, you always have the GUI to help u. and not to forget, the millions of forums that cater to various open source softwares.

Any problem under the sun can be googled and presto, there u have the solution

Now i can watch movies and do everything i could under Windows. When i used FC for a few days, i hardly could figure out anything about it but ubuntu seems so friendly.

Well, other than that i have nothing better to do these days. I now possess a movie collection that boasts of nearly 300 movies. Thats kewl but i haven't watched even 10 of those. i'll prolly keep on collecting these until i'm bored.
And hols are really boring. i'm surprised that i can hardly read any books these days. i'm so immersed in the comp that i forget everything else.

sheeesh

try this www.ubuntu.org

2006-11-24T14:57:00.000+05:30

yeah it seems my template is all screwed up now.
so had to delete a few posts that suddenly turned up in Webdings (i dunno how :O)

back again

2006-11-24T13:59:00.000+05:30

this has been a long time coming.
i dont know whos reading this stuff but maybe i'll write just for myself being the narcissist i am.

Well for starters, i was reading my previous post and realise that Schumacher is no longer in F1. he's bid adieu and its very depressing that he left without that 8th star on his cap.

Well i dont wanna talk about F1 anymore. Its boring and when u have drivers like Lamer and Fisico who can put their foot on the pedal only if the pedal exists ;)
There are a few good ones still like Kimi etc. whos prolly the single most unluckiest driver in F1 and bright new talents like Vettel and Kubisca. But F1 now is all about luck. Talent no longer is the key to winning world titles.
Sheeesh i'm digressing again.

ok to hell with F1. My endsems are going on and i'm lazing around hopelessly. Everyone i speak to is mugging tonnes of books, while here i am browsing the net for that next DVD RIP thats available.

These days i've been able to utilise the true potential of torrents. Heil Bram Cohen and Bit torrent inc.
I've been able to obtain access to literally anything under the sun (And this has compounded my laziness). Now i download anything, i mean anything off the net. Actually i've become so hopeless that i prolly can't live without the internet anymore :(
Private trackers to Torrents are absolutely awesome. I found this site
www.midnight-torrents.com and it provides me with almost everything i need and at blazing speeds that fully utilise the complete potential of my broadband connection.

the only regret i have is, I'm prolly torturing my Comp to death. The thing hasn't been switched off even for a second since 12 days, 16 hours and 52 minutes to be precise :D
the thing is so slow that i'm sure even a 486 would be faster. ;)

now i've got an exam to mug for but that doesn't seem to deter me from leaving this thing. This has gotten me addicted and i have no idea how i'm gonna live without a comp if ever such a situation arises.

i'm digressing again lol.

So where was i ?? Yeah Torrents. Torrents seem to be the best gift that the internet could have ever been given. i also now understand the necessity of sharing and helping others and how much that really benefits me.

I actually have a dumb ADSL connection that on paper gives me 256kbps download capabilities and 64kbps upload capabilities. Thats grossly misbalanced and yet i end up seeding more than that i leech(for n00bs, seeding==uploading and leeching==downloading :D lol )
hey i also realise that a few small tweaks and mods on the software can actually improve ur bandwidth by a HUGE margin.

so even though i'm stuck with that gross unbalance in the upload and download speeds, i get speeds of around 100KBps for download and 20KBps for upload.
BSNL rox ;)

maybe this blog is soporofic, i'm really drowsy after writing so much.
i'll be back sooner rather than later (hopefully :) )

and..................................................

2006-09-23T21:43:00.000+05:30

well i'm back.

i spent nearly an hour trying to figure out the HTML tags. That really put my limited number of gray cells to some real agony ;) Hope the new links to the various sites are much better than the previous ones. Even the blogs that link to from this one need to be updated. i will do it now if i do get the time.

But on an entirely different note, i've begun to admire (worship is a much more appropriate term) open source software. I first experienced open source on my iPod. I used Rockbox which was actually suggested to me.

Well since i've got nothing better to do, maybe i'll share my experience on installing Rockbox on my nano.

INSTALATION:
well the installation was pretty much straight forward actually. All i had to do was download the latest build for the iPod Nano. Once that was done, i just had to unzip the package and copy the boot loader files using DOS. other than that u also have to copy the original files to make sure that the player does not end up as a paperweight.

that was how simple the installation actually was.
i was surprised too.........

then came heartbreak

BOOTING :
well when i first tried to boot Rockbox, all i ended up with was a blank screen. That really baffled me. I tried every possible combination of buttons on the nano but to no avail. Being the ever pessimist that i am, i thought i had bid my last farewell to my nano.

but........

then i realised the power of Open Source. The various forums that exist really helped me.
Some of the threads there specifically addressed my problem and i was heartened :)
that gave me hope. Finally realised that all i had to do was to keep the Menu+Select buttons pressed for about 5 seconds and VOILA my Rockbox booted on the nano.

that started a whole new Apple :D experience for me(rather a Rockbox experience).

Now i can actually play Doom on the nano and also a host of other really exciting games and that isn't all. Now the nano has its own graphic EQ with custom settings that can really spice up that Guns and Roses classic and play it as i want it :)

"Heil OPEN SOURCE, Heil ROCKBOX "

Boredom

2006-09-13T18:44:00.000+05:30

long time.
i've been very busy(that is an understatement) during the past couple of weeks. Firstly i had my mid sessionals to contest with( i say contest b'cos they were really a challenge). Then after that, my daily workload is being multiplied with tonnes of assignments being handed out everyday and to top things off there was Carpediem '06 which was a pretty big fiasco in my words.

I realise that i seem to have the knack of attending to chores that really are worthless. I went to Carpediem when i could have been doing better things at home ;).
then the other day i wasted a day for my driving test when everybody else i knw didn't even step out to get one.

But the most depressing moment turned out to be on 10th. Schumacher was awesome as usual in the race and the icing on the cake at the Italian GP was that Alonso retired after an engine failure. But i received a rude jolt when Michael announced he was gonna retire after this season.
that was really saddening to hear. he's the best and will always be the best.
But the silver lining that i can see now is that he can probably win a record 8th drivers title and then retire (he's now only 2 pts behind Alonso). Also next year Raikkonen is gonna don the scarlet colors, so another bright spot :)

i've now received almost all my marks for the mid sessionals and they are nothing to boast about. the less that is said about them, the better.

I've finally managed to download Fedora and installed it last week. i haven't yet been able to figure out the nitty-gritties of Linux. The main reason has been the lack of time.
I hope to spare some time next week and sit for some time and meddle around with the thingy.

CBIT seems to be getting boring as each day passes on. Nothing interesting goes on. Its all the same everyday. I really wanna take a break and have phun in the proper sense of the word. A vacation of sorts would really do me a world of good but my timetable does not permit me such luxuries right now :(

Shaastra is around the corner and i'm hoping to go there. Maybe that would really be helpful. But me going there alone is boring, so hopefully someone will tag along with me.

"Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism."

Independence Day.

2006-08-16T11:10:00.000+05:30

Independence Day.

Hmmm. That’s a real fancy term to use. How independent are we in reality ? This question has been hounding me since yesterday when I realized that today was the 15^th of August. Well for starters what has freedom achieved for our nation ? I could actually go mentioning points that I actually read in the newspapers today morning.

Most of them mentioned how our freedom fighters toiled day and night to ensure that we achieved freedom. Some of them (rather most) even sacrificed their lives in the battle for independence. But has their martyrdom been realized for a broken cause ?

I would certainly think so. I have never been anti-India ( though I always support Pakistan in sports ) but the bureaucracy and the political system here has surely left me exasperated. Things have degraded to such an extent that a return to normalcy seems like eternity.

Two months ago when I went to collect my Voter ID, I was asked by the election officer at the polling booth about my choice of vote in the elections. I was frankly taken aback by the question. I replied that my vote would depend on the circumstances and the performance of the individual parties. He turned down my answer and replied that I would have to collect my ID the next time, because this time, the IDs were being issued only to voters of a particular party. He refused to give me my ID though my name was clearly endorsed on his list. That was disgusting. My mom who was with me then, told me to forget it ( She hasn’t been allowed to vote for the last 2 elections though she has a valid voter ID ). She asked me to come again next time and if I don’t get it even then, maybe I could think of pursuing the matter further.

But I am still reeling from the shock of being denied my fundamental right to vote because I may not vote for a particular party.

This shucks. There have been many other incidents that completely rid me of any feelings I might have towards the political system in this country.

Today, I was watching the news on TV when a few MPs were quizzed about the Indian country as a whole. It was shocking to know how ignorant our so called “leaders” could be. One of them didn’t know what the colors of the national tricolor are. Another thought that the national song (Vande Matram ) was written by Rabindranath Tagore. Another said that the chakra in the flag is white in color; another said the topmost color in the Flag is Green. Not even one of about 4 Congress MPs didn’t know what Gandhi’s actual name was. Some guy even had the audacity to mention that he frankly didn’t care about someone who is long dead. That’s how high our leaders’ IQ actually is.

People do not know about the so called stalwarts of their own parties. Man this country is really going to the dogs.

Such incidents and the knowledge that we are actually governed by a bunch of clowns, with no sort of resemblance to sanity actually makes me wonder if it really was worth sacrificing so many lives and ridding ourselves of the British.

I have always been anti Gandhi and I think this is my best time to criticize his policies.

I really think, he wasted his time roaming around the country half naked and preaching non violence for nothing. He rid us of the most efficient disciplinarians in the history of the sub continent only to set us up to be ruled by a herd of inefficient and incompetent morons.

But maybe my generalization of politicians as a whole is wrong, and I know I do respect a few of them but once a politician, always a politician.

Today as we enter the 60^th year of independence, I am really overwhelmed by the thoughts that the British were actually good for us.

Hey I too love my freedom, which we may not have had under the British but I rather prefer the British than a group of jokers framing policies for me.

“God save the queen , nay, God save India”

Big SIR

2006-08-14T23:31:00.000+05:30

Well I had been thinking of this post for a long time and even now, I can't decide what to write.
I always thought I must write some sort of a post on Big sir (a.k.a Mr. T.V.R. Murthy). I don't know what I want to write but I know that the man had a profound in my life.

I spent 13 years at his school and my memories of him r still very fresh. He is unforgettable.
But the reason I wanted to write this post was because, on the Harvard community on Orkut, there were pretty derogatory remarks about him which made fun of him. I would be lying if I said that I didn't laugh on reading them. But my conscience will not allow me to rest without me portraying my true feelings about him.

I vividly remember the first time I actually encountered him. It was in my Lower kindergarten, when some older guys (volunteers) asked me to step out for the morning assembly. I remember telling them that I won't and also cried, when one of them went and fetched Big sir. He asked me to get out and I was terrified to see him. He was so huge, and big I was scared (I still am). I remember his angry face, and I told him I wanted to pee and he said ok. I really had to pee cos he frightened me so much that day.
That day is etched in my memory and served as the foundation for the fear that has been instilled in me about him.

The next meeting that I remember, is when I was in class 1. That day I wrote my exam and was coming back to class, when I saw him standing there near the office. I wished him and to my surprise, he actually caught hold of my ears and took me to the library and told me to behave properly especially at home. Later that day, at home I realized that my mom actually complained to him about me being very naughty and disobeying her at home.

There have been many incidents when I was actually reprimanded and also sometimes caned for not behaving or for some misdoing of mine. There have also been incidents where he scolded me for no fault of mine.
Then, maybe I hated him. Maybe till class 9 I totally despised him.
I remember my school excursion to Goa where he treated me like a nobody most of the time.
Some times he was very good, explaining all about the customs and traditions of the Goans while for most times he was in that unforgiving mood of his.

But in class 9, when I was writing my annual exams, he actually gifted me a pen. I kept hold of that pen till my class 10 and when I lost it, believe me I cried.
In class 9, when he was taking us for a Harry Potter movie on occasion of his birthday, I didn't want to go so he came and shouted at me for not reciprocating his feelings towards students. In the evening, he told me that I had no option but to go the movie. Next day I went and apologized to him and he shrugged it off by saying that I acted like a typical moron and he knew that I would surely go to the movie with him. I was very happy that day.

Also another thing is that I went to quizzes only at his behest.
He was the one who really encouraged me to participate in quizzes. Whenever I lost, he was disappointed, but he always gave me one very valuable piece of advice which was to never give up. He always used to tell me, try and try again till u succeed. Those words I think have always held me in good stead.
To me that also revealed how valuable his lessons were.

One incident that could never be erased from my mind is when he hugged me when I won the Group Quiz at Harvard. He wanted me to win, but after the first round, when we were trailing, he left to his room. And to his surprise when, we won he just hugged me and that meant a whole lot to me. That was the most memorable moment of my 13 yrs. in school
Also when I wanted to participate in the TCS quiz, he actually convinced my Principal, to allow us to take part in it. I was really happy to repay his faith by coming in 4th out of 600 odd teams.

All these incidents surely make me feel nostalgic, but I can't bear to see his face since I haven't met him in 3 yrs. now. I don't know what he would say. He might actually shout at me. Well I'm ready to face that. But will he feel hurt that I haven't visited him even once in 3 yrs.
well I really want to go but my brain says no. I always thought I would only follow my heart and not my brain. But my feelings r really mixed. Maybe I will go but I'm scared that it is now too late to actually repair the broken relationship but am I distancing myself even further, I can't decide.

Whatever, I may meet him in the future or not, but I will always have a special place for him. He was the one and only person, who could change my day with one lecture of his.
Many people have told me that he actually misbehaved with them, but I want to tell them "horse shit". I know what sort of a person he was or at least I knew him much better than them. I know that he was special and the best teacher I ever had.
I don't think I would be wrong in saying that, I wouldn't be the person I am today, if it wasn't for him.

Sir, you were special and hope that u will continue to mold lives as you molded mine.
And lastly I would like to say a big Thank You for all that you have done for me.

introspection

2006-08-03T22:16:00.000+05:30

Today, in college someone told me that i actually changed since my first year. i was taken aback. Me changed ? huh that sounds really interesting. The first thought that struck my head was to ask the guy to go jump.But then on further thought, i realised maybe that guy did make some sense.
Maybe what the guy was telling me was true. maybe i had changed. So i decided to do some introspection.

Well for starters, in my first year in Prod. i stood out like a sore thumb ( my height was also a reason ) ' cos i never bunked classes. Everyone went out to either play or return back home while i played the spoilsport and religiously attended classes. I even remember a day when i actually went to my Chem prof, when nobody was there and requested her to take a class. She said no,'cos i was the only one. That did upset me a bit but what cheered me up was the fact that i had actually earned some brownie points with her [;)]. Since that day she a mighty good impression on me and actually gave me my lab marks though i did nothing.

Then on another occasion (this is my fav.), the day of my fresher party, i actually attended college [>:)]. I went to my engg. drawing prof and told him, no one's actually attending 'cos they planned a mass bunk. The prof was so impressed with me that he immediately gave me attendance and made sure my attendance touched 96%. Great huh. later that day i was off to meet friends and party.
People might find my behavior disgusting, and they have every right to feel that that way (especially my prod. classmates) but what i did was selfish,no doubt, but then i didn't give a damn.

Also never in my first year did i ever step into the parking lot ( 'cos i was raggingphobic ). People thought of me as a serious misfit in the college. I actually escaped the ritual of ragging, by confronting some of those seniors and telling them to go to hell.
They didn't go to hell but they were surely pissed off to hell. But i don't give a damn now, ' cos i'm now in a different branch and the seniors here are different.

But coming back to that guy today, he noticed that now my attendance is actually only 56% (a drop of 42% from last year, whoa, i need to buck up ) and i'm actually spending more time in the BBC (basketball court) than in my classes.
He also thought the rest of the time ( when i'm not in the BBC) ,i'm found in the Parking lot. Then how come my attendance is 56% ??
Well whatever he says, i think its true that i've changed. I actually tease him in the bus (which i wldn't have dared to do in my 1st year ), and he didn't like that. Maybe i was wrong i teasing him but he did tell me some crucial info. that does make me realise that i've got to mend my ways.
I wldn't be as extremist as i was in my 1st yr. but now i've got to balance the good and the bad and also ensure that in the process i also have fun and enjoy myself.

Dude, i seriously owe u one.
btw the guy's name is Sandeep from C-1 2nd year.

Hurrah!!!!!

2006-07-31T19:19:00.000+05:30

I’ve been too lazy to post (also too excited). Well lemme tell u ‘bout the good news first.

I’ve shifted to IT from Production and life is so much better now that I can never explain.

I’ve finally rid myself of math (though I’ve discrete math this sem, its much better than conventional math). On the flip side, I’ve got to use my brains a helluva lot more than in prod.

The bad news is that, I’ve got to submit a project on something by the end of the 1^st mids and that shuccs. Now I hope to have better classmates (not that all of them in prod were bad). I now have funny but interesting (by the sound of it) subjects like micro electronic ckts., Signals and systems, fundas of IT etc. hope they don’t turn out to be a waste of time like drawing or Mechanics.

There’s a Kcircle quiz this Sat and Karry’s going with me. We have no idea how we’re gonna do ‘cos the last time we scored a meager 7 on 25. The quiz is seriously tough and hopefully we’ll do better this time. I feel like doing nothing right now though I’ve got to finish that dumb project.

BTW Shilpa’s my classmate again for another 3 yrs atleast.The girl seems to be my only hope of salvaging something from the first 3 weeks of classes. Anyway, I tht. of a project when she asked me for one. Maybe I’ll do the same one.

So now that the summer hols are almost over, everyone’s going back to their places. Shashank’s already left. Hemanth’s leaving 2moro and Rahul the day after. So life’s gonna shrink back to that same old shell again.

My brain does not want to work on anything right now. It seems that its gonna switch off any second now. So maybe I gotta take a break and recharge the dumb thing.

Life and Israel ......................................

2006-07-23T20:53:00.000+05:30

Tht I wld write ‘bout a lot of things but can’t remember any of them right now. Life sucks as usual. Today being a Sunday, tht of hanging out someplace but cldn’t seem to find any place worth it. Bari suggested McD but turned it down, then tht of alleyg8or and KFC but turned down both and we were stuck plucking guavas and gobbling them. The tour de France is gonna end and am happy to see that Landis is at last winning one

Just found a comm on Orkut regarding Harvard (thanks to Aparna ). Met yashraj there and found quite a lot of my seniors and juniors there( can’t believe nobody told me ). I’m wasting my time doing nothing. I have to finish 5 drawing sheets and haven’t yet bought a TB. Luckily no Math HW and I’m lazing around. Can’t seem to find anyone online (very surprising).

I’ve just remembered that Israel sucks big time. Bombing Beirut and Lebanon (whatever the reasons) is SICK. ppl losing lives is BAD and nobody gives a damn. Not the US, the UK or even the UN. UN passes a resolution which is nothing more than a hogwash.

I think this is how ppl like Laden ( a.k.a the best) are born or groomed. Autocrats like Bush and Blair seriously need a smack on their bottoms for unleashing AlQaeda , LeT et al on us.

Just realized that I hope that the allegations showered on Bush bu Mr.Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11 are absolutely true and Bush is kicked into Oblivion.

Enuf of world politics (I suck at them but anyway ). Theres a Kcircle quiz on the 5^th of Aug and Karrys hopefuuly gonna turn up with me. I’m actually fed up of college and think its not worthy of me gracing the classes. Letsee tomorrow’s another day and hopefully, better than last Monday.

I'm CALVIN!! ha ha ha!!!!!

2006-07-20T19:14:00.000+05:30

Calvin

100%

Hobbes

68%

Mrs. Wormwood

50%

Susie

21%

Mom and Dad

14%

What Calvin & Hobbes character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

College and life in general.......

2006-07-18T18:16:00.000+05:30

On a completely different note,

My college has started and I bunked 5 days (that’s 6% of attendance. Horrifying isn’t it. I’ve decided to bunk at least 20 days so that I can just scrape thru the attendance. Last year’s 98% didn’t help anyone so time to bunk) already. The first few classes I’ve been to have reinforced my belief that engg. is not for morons like me. I can’t believe I’ve another sem of boring Mechanics and Math’s. I just seem to hate math. The subject is for gr8 brains and not mud brains like mine. I seriously thnk I’ve committed the gravest mistake of my life by agreeing to study engg. I now know that Archaeology is my subject and what I wouldn’t’ do to swap courses. This is BORING, college especially. No proper connection at college and I’m regretting this dumb decision.

My luck sucks big time these days (not that it ever shone upon me). Yesterday noon session was off and I decided to come back home and that started off all my troubles. First the 7-seater(7-seater !!!no way they must be called 15 seaters) guy didn’t budge till he filled the vehicle to the brim with ppl. He was finally satisfied when there were 11 of them in the auto excluding the driver and his assistant. Then we started crawling and finally near Vasavi, the guy realizes that his tyre is deflated( no wonder with 15 ppl in the auto, it was obvious). He tried replacing it, and the other one too is out of precious air. So he robbed me of 6 bucks and left us to the fate of finding buses or autos. I didn’t find either for 20 mins and luckily, I got a normal auto and hired him till my place. The meter actually stopped running on the way (the fare actually far exceeded the max 99 bucks) and the guy was a pretty dumb guy. He took 105 bucks and went away.

Cool day and now my bus seems to have given up on the driver. Everyday, it stops for at least 20 min( I think its actually programmed to reach college at 10:15) and the driver wracks his brains out trying to figure out the prob (it actually varies with each day, today it was a failed gear box) and actually manages to push the bush till college without actually rectifying the prob. Gr8 guy.

I have Homework everyday. Dumb actually and that too its math. I hate math( i think Mrs. Santhanam had a very big role to play in compounding my fears ‘bout the subject , though ppl like certain VVHGR and CHS may disagree , its actually true) Santhanam was a “beep” and KV was a dumb mistake before this engg. one. (I am making too many mistakes. dumb ones and can’t help it). Gotta go .

Na math can wait. It can actually wait forever. I’ll pbbly never do my math HW. Hmmmm maybe I’ll do it if things turn out to be real bad. Anyway lets see that’s in the future and not now. So lets procrastinate.

What else is there to talk about, yeah I know Schumi wins 8^th time at Nevers, Magny Cours. The guy is staging a comeback and I hope he doesn’t fizz out like some of the others maybe the Ferrari dominance is here to stay. Fine now I’m bored of this post, lets get out and get some air. Maybe next time I can write about something better

Minesweeper

2006-07-18T18:14:00.000+05:30

Well I guess being a minesweeper aficionado, a post on the beautiful game was inevitable.

But what makes me write this post is my achievement of a 1 second time in beginner. I know it isn’t a big deal for some of those Gods of the game but for ppl like me that gives me the bragging rights and the fact that I can get actually beat the 2 second barrier (even Bari wasn’t able to break it) gives me renewed confidence that I can also beat the 70 second barrier in Expert. Also I think my long term goal with regard to this ever addicting game is to break that 15 second barrier in Intermediate, though I know its not possible at this juncture.

Another thing I was wondering about is the effect of music when I play the game. Almost always when I play the game, Abba is playing in the background. Maybe even the music had its role to play.

2006-07-02T13:20:00.000+05:30

Zinedine Zidane- the master of Trickery

'Zizou' the best ?The best footballer of the modern era

The world cup has reached the SF stage and for the first time for i don't know how many years, no south american team in the last 4. Surprised, be very. Again Zizou proves to be Brazil's nemesis with an awe inspiring performance against the current world champions, well they won't be in a weeks time. So my bets are now all on Germany, i think Klinsmann has moulded a terrific side whose progress to the SF included terrible bad luck for Argentina. Even England lost out on the shoot out. the Penalty shootout sucks (though i love it).

The refereeing has been going from worse to worst as the world cup enters its last phase. My personal fav, the Dutch lost out b'cos of that dumb Russian Ivanov or whatever he is. I hope the KGB or the GRU actually torture him in those camps in Siberia. Let him rot in hell. The dutch were easily the better side against Portugal and didn' deserve to lose.

Now that Zizou has eliminated Brazil, i hope Portugal eliminates France and lose to Germany in the final. That wld be the icing on the cake. nah, maybe i wanna see more of zizou, so let them go to the final and lose there, thats much better. I hate Luiz Felipe Scolari though. He sucks big time. The grumpy a$$hole.

life goes on

2006-07-01T18:59:00.000+05:30

My results are out and I scored around 85-90%. Lousy marks especially when compared to some of the others like Shilpa or some of the others. I’m pretty pissed at the evaluators ‘cos I scored just 54 on 75 in CP. That’s a shock considering the fact that I did that paper the best. Shilpa scored 94% and maybe is the college topper or even the varsity too. Well all the best to her and her sister. Maybe they will break all records. NERDS nah Boogerbrains

Any semblance of insanity in me seems to be lost ‘cos of that dreadful day. Karry scored 80%. The guy scores and actually doesn’t open books at all. Another NERD. Wish I was like him. I got this bband connexion and life seems to have taken off.

I now download everything off the net and i mean literally everything, including Windows. I wanna stop this but my speeds of ‘bout 60 KB/sec don’t help either. These days I’m maybe burning the midnight oil a bit too literally. I sleep not before 5:00 in the morning. I’ve always been a late sleeper but my mom’s absence seems to have worsened this condition, not that sleeping late is bad.

Bari actually screwed EM and hopes to clear it soon. Me too. Been in touch with Aparna a lot these days. Almost everyday in fact. She only hardens my beliefs that girls are impossible. She needs something, well she actually goes to any extent to get it even undergoing drastic mood swings. Girls can be a real annoyance and l’ll pbbly never understand them.

As Calvin says, girls are the most mysterious beings, and I do agree with him (never remember the last time I disagreed with Calvin). The guys just 6 yrs old and his philosophy of life is just awesome man. Well I feel really lazy typing this and will try to fill up the other details the next time.

2006-06-21T17:53:00.000+05:30

The soccer world cup has started and so did my late night stands with the TV. I can’t believe that most of my favorite players are actually watching the WC on the sidelines. Well if not most, at least 4 of them. The Dutch win have to carry the tag of my favorites but realistically speaking, other teams like Argentina and England look to be better equipped to go all the way. I hate admitting this, but I think Brazil really do have the class and the resources to lift their 6th title. I have been a perennial hater of Brazil and no amount of football from them can change this view of mine.
Well the first rounds of matches have been pretty exciting so far, with Holland winning both their matches so far. They face the Argentines today, who have done likewise. The match can be exciting but the fact that Robben, van Bommel et al are gonna be rested, dampens my enthusiasm for the match.
England drew Sweden yesterday and will now face Ecuador in the second round. Rooney’s first start of the WC must have rekindled the memories of ’66 for the English fans. The guy’s a phenomenon. I mean I watch him week after week for ManU and he fails to disappoint me. The guy can play.

The fact that Nistelrooy may be leaving ManU after the WC really breaks my heart. The guy is an incomparable striker. He is a goal poacher par excellence. I hope somebody kicks Sir Alex out and not Ruud. I was hoping that the Glazers would try to cut Alex to his size but they seem to be more interested in monetary matters than football. They really suck. I hope sir Alex compensates at least by getting someone like Torres or Van der Vaart

Man U need to buck up and the time is now. The world’s best are in Germany, and this is the time to spot and scoop talent from all corners of the globe. U know what I’m hoping for is that Roman Abrahamovic gets rid of Chelsea and Chelsea go to the gutters. The team sucks and they SUCK big time!

Dhoni: The best????

2006-02-22T19:16:00.000+05:30

The whole country's going ga ga over M.S.(Master Slogger) Dhoni and i'm not at all surprised cos we Indians do have very short memory spans. Well aren't we jumping the gun by calling Dhoni, the Adam Gilchrist of India. I mean look at Gilly, he's achieved so much and Dhoni has just started. Ok the guy is pretty good at making the bowlers dance to his tunes but has anyone ever realised that the 30 odd matches that he's played, he's played them only on the placid sub continental pitches where the bowlers get no help worth the name.

Gilly had an average of 32 in his first 30 odd games and a strike rate of 97, while Dhoni has an average of 51 and a strike rate of about 108. Well the figures are certainly impressive but also remember that he's never got to face quality pace or spin for that matter on pitches where bowlers rule the roost.

He's first gotta prove himself in places like SA, down under,England etc. and only then can only one tag him India's gilly. Lets not count our chickens before they hatch.

The beginning

2006-02-14T19:21:00.000+05:30

Well its a very modest beginning i guess. Will try to expand on this topic later. Have my tests from tom and gotta study. will be back soon