That 'resulty' feeling ...

Do you remember that feeling ?
When you go up to collect your result ?

The anxiety ... butterflies crawling in the stomach ...
Suicidal tendencies ???

Today were the SSC ( Std X ) results for the Pune Univ ... and were of importance coz by bro was due to get his results today ...
From morning onwards ... he was tensed, harrassed by people calling to ask the results which he hadn't got ( results come out at 3 pm )
Anyways ... basically, he was pissed ... it was his first big examination results ... and it was showing ...

All his crying and self loathing eventually rubbed off on me ... and I was taken back to my time, when I got my 10th standard report ...

For all those of you who don't know, std X is the first exam we people give at the University level ...
At that age, it is the 'grand poo-ba' of all exams ... the very feared class to be in ...

Anyways, my results were pathetic ... considering how much I had expected and how much I had gotten ...
I had come home, miserable ... and locked myself in ... hating myself ... for a couple of days, without any social contact ...

Now that I think of it ... it was pretty stupid ...
I had gotten some 81% ... and I was feeling miserable because I had expected marks in the upper echelons ... 88%

Anyways, the feeling stays ...
Just before you are handed your results ... you study the faces and expressions of people who have got their results ...
Trying to gauge how badly you are going to get slaughtered ...

There are only two feelings that one experiences when one peeks at the result at hand ...
One of utter disappointment ... the lowest you have felt of late ... or the sheer exuberance .. knowing that you didn't flunk out on that extremely dubious paper ... or maybe got the grade that had eluded you for the majority of your lifetime ...

Anyways ... the crux of this blog ... is 'the feeling before knowing'
Something, everyone should experience atleast once in their lifetime ...
( which we guys do twice every year now ... )

And after seeing so many summers, have wisely realised ... that in the end, marks don't mean a thing ...
They're just a crappy way of expanding the boundaries between people ... victims of a crappier education system ...

One of my favourite lines, which I sincerely trust in such situations ...
Everything will be alright in the End ...
If it's not ... it's not the end ...

And oh, by the way ... my bro got almost the same marks as me ... 80.66% ... ( I beat him by 2 marks ... hehehe :) )
That, after crying the entire day about getting 68% ... and he's not the scholarly type ... so we kinda believed him .... :p
Idiot !

When was the last time you enjoyed studying ?

And by studying, I don't mean members of the opposite sex ...
I mean, actual, practical, "hitting the books" kinda studying ...

And oh, by the way, I am back :D
( Encouraged by the fact that there are people actually out there who read the stuff I write about, I've decided to return ... )

Anyways, back to pressing issues ...
So, when was the last time you actually enjoyed studying ?
I can safely vouch for most of the people there, the answer will be never ...

Just gave the most pathetic exams of my life, just a couple of weeks ago ...
They weren't pathetic because I did not study for them ... but because, I did not, in the least bit, feel like studying ...

We had the worst subjects - ever !
And this made me think, why ... why are we tortured by the Ministry of Education into studying utter crap, which :
(a) : Has no significant use to us, in the least possible way
(b) : Is so outdated, that whatever use it had, has long passed its prime ...

The main reason, this happens is because, I think, we are made to study all this without understanding the application point of view of the entire thing ...

If we knew, where the stuff was applied, and where we could use it ... we would probably study with more interest ...

Instead, we get teachers who walk into the classroom - on the first day of college, and the first thing they do is, to scribble something on the board and speak in Greek and Latin.
This actually goes on for the entire semester ...

The practicals are mostly just copied ... and modified, and it is not until the last month before the exams, do we begin to understand all the stuff ... while hitting the books ...
But, it's too late till then ... the subject is dead ... and I don't think any person would even consider taking it up again in the future, just because of the initial fright - the entire thing gave him / her ...

This semester, we had some good subjects ... well atleast they 'sound' good.
We had databases, our first tryst with Visual Programming languages ( like VB / VC ), Microprocessors, System Programming ...
The syllabus of all these subjects were so bad ... that I don't think I want to databases again ... and I shudder at the thought of writing programs in VC++ with all the crappy MFCs and the like ...

We also had a subject called "Software Engineering" which was supposed to teach us how to 'design' software, before beginning to write it ...
This, I have realised, is a very, very important thing ...
But the way we were taught it, I squirm at the thought of drawing another UML diagram ...

The Ministry of Education is just doing the opposite of what it is supposed to - It is murdering 'Education'

Remember that famous T Shirt quote :
"I was born intelligent ... but Education ruined me ... "

Hanging up the boots

Honestly, I had seen it coming ...

Of late, I haven't been blogging nor have been having the time to read the blogs of other people whom I generally read ...

I could ... If I planned my time properly, but I don't see it happening ...

There is no point in blogging so infrequently ...

My last blog was on the 18th of April ...

Soo ... I've decided to call it quits ... atleast for now ...
Might decide to come back later ... but it all depends ...

I will be back writing reviews on Mouthshut ... which I can do as infrequently as I want ...
(http://www.mouthshut.com/userinfo.php?uid=sajain84)
So, until next time, this is adios and goodbye ...

Might start blogging again ...
Might be sooner than I think ...

Anyways, thanks for sticking around and going through the stuff I generally crap about.

Adios :)

To Blog or not to blog ...

Of late, blogging has been pretty much an off - on affair ...
My excuse being ... of no time ..

I guess thats what Engineering and Submissions does to you ...
And more often than not, its the teachers who create all the problems ..

So anyways ... now, that have completed with all the submission crap and stuff ... will try to blog more ...

The LAN partiee ...

Dreams do come true ...

On the 16th of this month, we had our last day at college - which was sort of an unnecessary extension due to the 'genius' of some stupid people from my class.
If life would be perfect, 13th would be the last day ... but anyways ...

Having a LAN party had been on our agenda for months ... we even almost had it 4 months ago ... but the stupid college got in the way and everything was washed off ...
So, this 16th, with a do or die attitude ... I left college at 10:30 and headed for the Comp Stores.

Most of the guys were already at my place and were setting up their comps ..
I had cleared the entire drawing room of its belongings and had put 3 large tables - edge to edge to house the 8 computers which were gonna come ...

Anyways ... so I went to the comp guy and purchased 30m of LAN cable and 20 crimps and headed home.
A friend of mine has a crimper and also a switch.

According to plan, we should have finished crimping the wires and setting up the Network by 12 and started playing by 12:30 .. but this was not to be ...
After a lot of loose connections and bad crimps and a lot of mess ... we finally got everything in order by 2pm

We then played CZ ( Condition Zero ) with a few bouts of Quake III thrown in till 7 - a good 5 hours of continuous gaming ...
The plan could have easily extended to an over-night affair .. but for a particular person who left early .. grr :@

Anyways ... we had lots of fun ... and if you would have walked alongside my house in between those 5 hours ... you would have heard all the expletives that have ever fallen on your ears in your lifetime ... and even more ... just in the span of 30 seconds !!!
Good times :)

Anyways, the thing is that its not amazing that we played for 5 hours and stuff .. but that we managed to pull it off ...
The first time - our first ever LAN party with a network of 8 different computers ...

Now that we have all the wires crimped and stuff ... next time shouldn't take more than 30 mins to set up.
For any help on how to set up a LAN gig ... feel free to contact me :)

Ambush at 32 Vidyanagar ...

Trickery, treachery, back stabbing even ...
I was ambushed today ...

Today, was supposed to be the festival of colours - Holi ...
A perfect day to get drenched, drench people ... be the very hated practical joker ...

I hadn't played holi for many years ...
Actually, I hate the dry colours ... the pain in removing them .. and the very chemical wet colours .. when, once your clothes are drenched with, you can use them as mops from the next day onwards ...

So, I hadn't played holi since many years ...
The joy that one derives from the festival has taken a quantum shift from drenching people to the good food that accompanies the special day ....

So, today, like the so many years before ... I went to my granny's place for the customary holi greetings and also to devour all the goodies ...
However, my uncle ( my mom's second brother ) is visting ... who is also a member of the Indian Army ... and is notorious from his childhood days for all the pranks he played ...

So, after all the greetings are done with ... I settle with a plate of food watching Sehwag clobber the Pakistanis ...
All the cousins were at my granny's place ...

So, my uncle comes in ... catches hold of my other cousin ( who is just 2 years younger to me ) and drags him outside ... with a lot of effort and pulling and resistance .. he finally ejects him out of the house ...
My cousin held on to dear life ... clinging onto 3 door frames on his way out ... before my uncle ... finally pulled him out after 5 minutes of resistance ...

Finally outside .. all my younger cousins pounced on him ... and gave him his worth ...
He finally came in sometime later ... drenched ... and his tail between his legs ... cursing me as I had my hearty share of fun ... at his expense ...

I was high and dry at this point of time ... though not for long ... read on ...

I had just finished with the food .. when another aunt of mine came to me and asked me to come out for a photograph ...
I smelt a rat ... ( my family members are pretty bad actors .. can't help smiling ... )
Anyways ... I thought what the heck ... she had a camera in her hand ...

Took off my watch and kept it on the table ... just in case ...
Peeped out and to my surprise, no one was in the vicinity ...

I couldn't believe that she actually wanted to only take a picture ...
No sooner I stepped out of the door ... I got it ...

It was an ambush ... I was trapped ...
All the kids who had been conveniently hiding in all the possible corners ... came rushing out with water guns, balloons, buckets of water ... all led by my uncle ...

In 20 seconds, I was drenched head to toe ... dripping with colour and with a face that would not have been recognized had I been on a coroner's table ...

I just stood there ... let the kids have their share of fun ...
Then, when the time was right, charged on my other two cousins who were in the range of my age group ... and had my share of fun ...

After getting one with a bucket of 'hard-to-remove' coloured water ... I got the other 'running' one with a carefully executed balloon lauch ...

Good times :)
Feels good to be back :)

An idea can change your life : Part 1

This blog comes in the wake of me having seen the movie : "Pirates of Silicon Valley"

I wouldn't say that the movie is brilliant, but I liked it just the same, for the entertaining manner in which it tries to teach us - from a chapter in History ...

The movie takes us from Steve Jobs' ( founder of Apple ) and Bill Gates' ( Microsoft ) college days to their current Industry Domination and how it all came to be ...

For those who don't know ... it was the researchers at Xerox who invented the Mouse and the Graphical User Interface ( GUI ) - which is the basis of any popular Operating system seen today ...

The Board of Directors at Xerox made a decision - which can easily be, the worst business decision ever made ...
They turned down the mouse and the GUI ... stating that - "No person in the right mind would want that ... "
They later, dug their own grave ... when they allowed Jobs and his team to take a peak at their non-feasable product and dissect their invention ...

The apple team goes back .. reproduces what they saw ... steals everything ... and releases the Macintosh ... with a mouse and a GUI ...
Then comes Bill Gates, convinces Jobs to let him have some Macintosh prototypes ... while they were still in development ... takes them home, dissects them ... and comes out with Windows ...

Apple steals from Xerox, Microsoft from Apple ... and today, both Jobs' and Gates are billionaires .. and Xerox is still there ... where it was a decade ago ... making Photo copying machines ...

Just makes you think ... if the Board of Directors at Xerox would have agreed to go ahead with the product, Apple wouldn't be where it is today ... and Microsoft would still be a 2 bit company in Albuquerque ...

How just one idea can change your life ... or ruin it for you ...
Being at the right place at the right time ...

Take the case of Sabeer Bhatia ... free email ...
The Ambanis, the Gulshan Kumars ... the perfect 'rags to riches' story ...

Was talking to my dad earlier today and narrated to him the story - about the Microsoft and Apple thing ...
At the end, I mentioned that ... it's all about being at the right place at the right time ...

To this my dad said that, the right time will come eventually ...
You just have to keep trying ...

I kinda agree with him ...

People don't fail ...
They just give up trying ...

Banner Banters ...

There is this thing going around in Pune ... which I had been wanting to blog about ... for quite some time now ...

Its about the amazing number of advertisement boards coming up ... all over Pune ... with guess what ... Birthday wishes for politicians ...

The board will be a pretty big one ...
And will be strategically placed at the corner of an intersection ... so that whatever view we got of the traffic coming from the left ... is blocked ...

The entire board will contain a huge picture of an ugly politician .. who looks like he's stepped out of Satya ...
The message will read something to the tune of "Heartiest wishes for so and so's birthday on such and such date ..."
The poster will then contain the photographs of the 3 to 4 people who are wishing him ... in bottom right ... which actually look like mug shots taken from the Tihar Jail ..

If the entire poster didn't look gooney enough ... the pictures of these 3 dumb-asses would complete the picture ...

Saw in the newspaper sometime ago ... about this dude from somewhere in the city ... who put up an equally sized poster with his Alsatian dog's picture on it ...
Below, he conveniently puts the pictures of a pom, a doberman and another dog ...

The caption reads ...
"Heartiest birthday wishes to my dog - Rocky ... from his fellow dog friends ..."

This deserves an applause :)
Bravo !

A new project ...

We're working on a new software project for this contest ... and have decided to keep an online blog for the same ...

Will be posting updates and whats new and progress made there ...
If you're interested, you can check it out at : http://citypulse.blogspot.com

Whats with the lights ???

Am actually pretty peeved right now ...
We didn't have lights for the entire day !!!

Ever since Congress has come to power ... we're having 3 hours of load shedding everyday ...
And ever so often, on top of that ... lights aren't there for complete days ...
Like today ... there was load shedding from 3pm - 6pm ... and then no lights from 6:10 - 8:00 and then again 8:10 - 11:30 !!!

I mean, whats wrong with these people ???
And on top of that, they are planning to give free power to the farmers !!!
From where is it going to come ?

Maybe, they should pick up some efficiency on the way and check out power thefts and do maintenance work more often ...
And whats with the street lights being on most of the time during the day ??

We people pay all our bills ... then why should we have power cuts ?
What we need is a system ... in which, our bill gets reduced by some amount every minute that MSEB is cutting power ... load shedding or otherwise ...

That way, either they will get efficient ... or bankrupt ... opening the doors to private players like TATA Power or similar ...
Either way, we should benefit ...

Bombay apparently never has power cuts ...
And the profit it generates, it will be suicidal for them to even cut power for a couple of hours ...

Pune on the other hand, also generates a lot of income ... but these really dumb politicians ... give away free power to farmers ... by cutting down on our power ...

Hows the country going to progress ?

Those darn spammers ...

Actually, the title should have been ... "Those spamming bastards ... " ... but I thought it'd draw a lot of attention ...

I don't really get it ...
I mean, what is with these people ?
How can anyone in their right mind, send millions of emails to people daily and expect to sell a product ?

I've been using email regularly since the time I knew Internet existed ... and still have my very first email address at yahoo ... which is n...

I get about 50 junk mails a day on that account ... which Yahoo mostly filters out ...
But, Yahoo's filtering rejection ratio is pretty high ... and sometimes, legitimate messages get thrashed out ...

I primarily use gmail now ... which is an awesome service ... with tonnes of free goodies ( which I hope stays that way ) and also another service called myrealbox ...
Both give me POP access ( which lets you download messages to your Outlook Express )

Sometime ago, when I had my own domain name ( tidesigns.com ), I would get about 170 spam messages a day ... that too in a mailbox which I was paying for ...
Had to use a filtering software and most of the time, was just deleting all the email ...

I cant believe, people still post their complete email addresses in posts or websites ...
If at all necessary ... put your email up like : abc_at_yahoo.com ...
This way, there are less chances for email reepers to get your mail and you to get spammed ...

Also, report spam if your mail service provider allows ... so that everyone is benefitted ...
And the best precaution is to use a completely different email address for signing up ...
Sigh ...

Some CD Flak ...

Have you ever wondered ... why the Principal is the dumbest guy in the college ?
He never seems to make a right decision ... atleast not from your POV ...

In my entire life, I've had exactly 3 principals ... 2 at school and 1 now ...
The problem with Principals is that they are very, very old ...

Talk about the generation gap !!!

I didnt have much problem with my school principals ... its the college one who is bothering me a bit ... mostly on the CD issue ...

Firstly, I was pretty much forced into making the CD Magazine ... which I knew from day one ... was going to be a pretty crappy job ...

Then the changes ... thousands of it ...
Actually, it took more time implementing the changes than making the actual CD ...

Throughout the entire process ... I always updated a few fellow companions with the CD .. how much it was done ... and they all gave me the ok tag ... just to make sure that I wasn't getting carried away ...

And, when we give the Princi to see the CD ... for one whole day ... he doesn't ... and then last minute ... more changes ...
And very, very stupid ones at that ...

And in my college ... the second you have to do something for the college ... you are completely screwed ...
You go to play for the college, take part in a contest ... even if you win ... no attendance ...
On top of that, they expect you to have completed all the assignments on time ...

The biggest burn was when we organised an Inter Collegiate Event ...
People who went to put up posters and announce the event in other colleges ( which is a necessity for any event ) were conveniently put up in the defaulters list ...

Too much restriction and the staff want to get involved in everything that we do ... even though it does not really concern them ...

When recently, we were at MIT-WEC for a game development contest ( which we won ... :) ) , the vice principal actually came, sat with the participants and asked us for suggestions as how the contest should have been and areas for improvement ...
Now, thats how staff should be ...

Story of my life ...

Phew ...

Finally the CD Magazine thing is over me ...
Now, have a race against time to finish up lots of college submissions in the coming 3 days ...

The CD Magazine took up a major chunk of my life, for the past month ... about 5 - 8 hours a day ...
Had to learn a totally new application - Director ... along with a bit of Lingo ...
Just crossing my fingers now ... that everything goes on well ...

Coz, most of the time, I really jinx myself pretty bad ... so ... I hope this time its all done properly ...

Also, noticed that it is better to blog smaller blogs ... more often, than larger ones rarely ...

So, from now on ... will write *try to write* smaller entries ... and now that all the CD crap is behind me, hopefully shall have more time ...

Woah ! Headrush ...

Phew ...
Finally ... some time to get back to blogging ...

The past few days had been over the head ... hectic ...
Race against time and all the yada yada ... to complete this CD Magazine that our college is coming out with ...
Shouldnt be counting the chickens before they hatch ... but have finished about 80 - 90% of the stuff ... demo-ed it to the teachers and a selected few friends and the reviews have been pretty good ... and best of all ... no changes whatsoever ...
The most difficult part about any project ( esp graphics designing ) is to get everybody to be happy ...

Also, was busy with this Inter Collegiate event, which, I am happy to announce went off much more smoothly than I had expected ...
So much, that our delighted H-O-D complied with our request and declared Monday to be a Holiday for the entire Comp Dept.
Woohoo :)

Today, caught the morning show of 'The Aviator' at INOX ...
This is the first movie in which ... I have felt nothing about the movie ... during the entire course of the film and even afterwards ...
Maybe it was the front - row seats that we ended up in ... or the very rare Housefull at INOX ... I don't know ...
But the movie just started, got over and I was there ... three hours later ... and felt nothing.

I will have to agree that the movie is awesome-ly made ... and that Caprio didnt even let me feel for one moment, that he was acting ...
The USA of 1930 - 1950 has been recreated nicely ... with all the aristocricies and the likes ... but the movie doesn't tell much about Howard Hughes, other than his strong liking for making expensive movies and planes.

"A Beautiful Mind", according to me, was a much better biography by far ... and was more satisfying ...

The Aviator just covers some 20 years of Howard Hughes' life ( from his twenties to his fourties ) which leaves us with no head or tail ... really ...
Its just a sequence of events one after the other ...

But at the same time, I must admit, that there isn't one boring moment during the entire three hours and I never felt the movie dragging ...

The movie has got a very impressive cast with Kate Blanchett and Kate Beckinsale and lots of other stars who have done justice to their character ...

I especially like Kate Blanchett's portrayal of Katharine Hepburn.

Ending this, want to make a strong protest against the cutting of film done at theatre - level ... where all these theatres cut around 10 - 20 minutes from each movie just so that they can get an extra show in ...
Damn SOBs ...

Anyways ... we were totally lost in seeing Beckinsale's character ... as she just appears abruptly out of no where in the film ... no introduction ... nothing ...
This, I feel was definitely cut in addition to 3 dialogues which were very very visible cut in the course of the film ...

Who is John Galt ?

The Fountainhead was a pretty good book ...

I was at Crosswords, the other day, and happened to notice that they had 'Atlas Shrugged' in stock for 275.
Didn't think twice ... bought it ...

"Atlas Shrugged" is also by Ayn Rand and is another of her best seller ...
This is the 35th year, the book is in production ...
From the time I had finished the Fountainhead, I had been trying to get my hands on this book, and here it was ... finally ...

The book, may be pretty intimidating to many ... its about 1100 pages, with a very small text...

I haven't read the entire thing, just started today ... read about 100 pages and thought of writing about the book.

The book, reads a lot like the Fountainhead, and reflects Ayn Rand's style of writing ...
She stresses a lot on emotions ... and the character build up ...

Unlike Fountainhead, this has a lot more characters and the story is quite interesting from the starting pages...
The manner in which she describes, each and every thought, emotion ... her manner of writing ... is simply superb ...

Just 100 pages into the book, and she's mapped out all the characters perfectly ... and with every other page, the detail gets more clearer ...

The book, like the Fountainhead, is based on her philosophies of life - namely Objectism ... Or the virtues of selfishness ...

The characters, are again, portrayed very strongly, and you can't help but feel attached to some, and hate the others ...
The book, is not a page turner ... as per se ...
Its no a mystery book ... and sometimes, it gets slow ... but at the same time, is very intense ...

I've thought about it a lot, and I don't think a movie might ever be possible on either of the books ... the character portrayal will be just too impossible ...

Anyways, if you have read and loved the Fountainhead ... I think you'll enjoy this book too ...
Am already doing so ...

More, after I have finished reading :)

Serendipity ...

If you haven't guessed it as yet ... it means "A Fortunate Accident"
Playing on my comp is "Moonlight Kiss" which is the OST of a movie by the same name ...
Brilliant, slow song ... and the movie is pretty good too ...

Stars John Cusack and the ever so gorgeous Kate Beckinsale :)

Though, that is not the main reason for key-ing in this blog ...
Its about destiny ...

Was talking about destiny the other day with a friend ... and my mind threw in a lot of stuff ...
Ranging from the Matrix thingy about choice to even Einstein's theory of relativity to the bizarre time travel ideology ...

So, what exactly is destiny ?

As of yet, haven't gone through a life changing, destiny dependent situation ... so I'll sit on the fence for this one ...
Remember seeing a movie, a long time ago, called Mr. Destiny which had an average star cast, but the concept was pretty cool ...

It delved into idea of how every little thing we do, alters our future ...
( Coupling this with Merovingian's belief that there is no choice ... and the stuff that choice is an illusion , created by those with power for those without ... we are actually living a pre-planned life )
How do you know, that a choice that you made, was pre-decided ... and that you wouldn't have made the other choice anyways ...
There is no turning back and trying the other path is it ? Time is a one way street ...

Anyways, getting back to the movie, the plotline was hence :
There is this guy, the protagonist of the film, who as a kid ( teenager ) was an amazing baseball batsman ...
So, in this one baseball match final, last innings, they need a home run and he's on 2 strikes ...
He has the capability to hit one .... but as you guessed it, he misses ...
Everyone boos him and clear out ... he just sits in the stadium alone ... crying ...

This incident, haunts him throughout his life, and is probably the thing which he regrets the most ...
So, back to when he is old again, he is an average, middle class guy, gets an average salary and is married to a normal, not so good looking, average girl ( Sigourney Weaver ) I think ...

Anyways, so one really shitty night, he gets into a bar and bumps into one guy, who calls himself Mr. Destiny ...
He agrees to change one thing in his life, and this fellow asks for the homerun and the wish is granted ...

So, when he steps out of the bar, his entire life is changed ...
Because, when he hit the home run, he became a hero, started dating the daughter of an Industrialist, and now is married to her ...

Thus, to cut a long story short, it shows how a sequence of events takes root from things that we do ...
The fellow's original wife, was the only person, who came and consoled him after he missed the homerun ...
That incident got nullified when he hit the home run, and he actually, never met her ...

A very good friend of mine, will come up and say, that every second of our lives, parallel universes get created, by our every action ...
So, according to him ... in one of the universes, Hitler won the war, and is alive, and is ruling again ...

In one of the universes, someone made a wrong choice, and Gandhi wasn't assasinated, because the assasin couldn't get to him ...
Maybe he got to the place late, because someone else blocked his approach, becase someone else pushed the fellow ...

Makes you kinda think ...

In another universe, I've taken over the world ! :)

For a lil' bit of sense ...

Its that time again ...
Kind of a been there, done that feeling ... deja vu' ...

The Maharashtra Government, on a High Court Order, is making Helmets compulsory from the 1st of Feb.
To cut a long story short, some college students from the Symbiosis college here, had long ago, filed a writ petition ... seeing the number of people losing their lives in road accidents ...

The High Court had ordered the Govt. to make the helmets compulsory ... and they even had done so ... for about a week ... before some stupid people got together, and got a stay order ...

This all happened sometime in 2000 - 2001 ... if I remember correctly ...

I, for one, am totally for the helmet issue ...
I do not take my bike out without a helmet ... has become some kind of a compulsion now ...

Pune, has the highest number of two wheelers in Asia ... and I'd reckon ... the whole of the world ...
Most of the two wheelers drive rashly ... and are prone to accidents ...
Its a well established fact, the outcome of studying hundreds of cases ... that having a helmet, could have saved a person in an accident from dying, or worse, turning into a vegetable ...

Then why do people do this ?
Why can't they just acknowledge the fact, that the Govt. for once, is doing something right, and they should let them do it ...

Every other country in the world, has helmets compulsory for two wheelers ...
Then why cannot we implement it here ?

This just shows how dumb can people get ...
They have formed an organisation ... a 6 word something - Marathi name ... which translates as : "The Pune Anti Helmet Order Group"
Everyday, you'll see a notice in the newspaper, saying that the PAHOG is having a meeting at such and such place ... to come up with reasons and protests, as to quash this evil Govt. scheme ...

Then there is this smart-ass, who writes to the Editor that ...
The helmet law should not be implemented due to the following reasons :
1. A person is responsible for his own safety ...
2. When this law is implemented, helmets will become expensive ... or cheaper, subsidized stuff will be available ...
3. This will be another way in which a policeman will harass people and take bribes ...
4. The roads in Pune are so bad that two wheelers do not travel at a speed of more than 20 km-hr ... so there will no use of a helmet in an accident ...

I mean, people have all the time, and brains in the world to come up with such fantastic excuses, that I feel, its no use protecting their heads with helmets, which is functioning so poorly anyways ...
How about doing something constructive for a change ?

When I first started going to college on a bike ( 12th std - Junior College ), I had a Bajaj Sunny ( the so un-dependable ) ... and I was forced to wear a helmet by my mom ... whom I later thanked profusely when I was involved in an accident ... and lived to tell about it ...

It was a funny sight ...
I was already finding it hard to fit on a Sunny, and on top of that, with a helmet, it must have been a sight to see ...
People would often ask me ... why did I wear a helmet on a "Sunny" ?
The answer was simple ... the guy hitting you from behind, won't care a damn if you're on a sunny or a mo-bike ...

They are also coming up with the "Pillion needs to wear a helmet law" which I am not totally for ... it seems pretty unpractical ...
But, if they impose it, I'd be following it happily ...
I'll have to lug an extra helmet ... but what the heck ?

On the other hand, it could turn out to be a boon ... refusing some not so interesting people a ride ... under the pretence of not having a helmet ...
But then it can turn both ways ...

Feb 1st is the day to watch ...
Just have to see whether stupidity again wins this time ...

Life's in a big mess ...

What can I say ... I guess I bring this on to myself ...
Just a couple of days into the next semester at college, and I am into so many things ...

Quite a few not of my choosing ...

My neck is on the guillotine ... and the blade is gonna fall any moment now ...
And people will be watching ... yes ...
And they will walk away after my death has been done ... nodding their heads ... and murmuring to each other ... "Classic case of biting more than you can chew ..."

Have you ever wondered ... why deadlines ... are called : Dead-lines ?
Precisely ...

Anyways ... have this submission on the 23rd of this month, and my planner shows 0% completed and not started ...
Then our teacher comes up with a damn cool fundu project of us having to make a full fledged ... 32 bit calculator ... with the GUI .. buttons and all ... in pure, simple assembly ...
Why not binary for crying out loud ?
We can do that ... right ?

I can easily give up ...
Chop off one of the tasks ... and concentrate on the others ...
But ... I cant ... it is most probably not for me to decide anyways ...
I have to go on ... till I can ...
This is what classic - Disaster, End of the World - movies are made up of ...

As Aragorn, in the Return of the King says, "I see in your eyes ... the same fear ... that would take the heart of me ... But it is not this day ... cause, this day ... we FIGHT ! "
I kinda love that dialogue ... and the part of the movie, kinda explains my situation also ...

But, mine will probably have a different ending ... I suppose ...
Anyways ... cant go into details of how I am going to die ... its a surprise ending ...

I just pray now ... that maybe, might get to see the green pastures again ... :p

On Installing "Licensed Software"

Now, how does that feel ?
Yup ... I installed Windows Xp Professional today on my comp ... Licensed ...
Now, most of the people might say that I am crazy ... having spend some thousands on procuring a licensed copy ... me still studying and all ... but I have my reasons ...

Planning to earn some moolah ... and thought that I'd better get legal software, if I am going to make any money ...

Anyways, that is beyond the topic for this discussion ...
This is my experience ... first hand ...

I have installed Windows Xp ... a million times ... so much so ... that I can guide you through the installation in my sleep ...
But this time, it was different ;)

So, in the morning, I backup all my important stuff and put it on another partition ... email and bookmarks and address books and stuff ...
And once, I am sure, everything will be alright, I go ahead and format my drive ...

I tear the Microsoft Packet and extract the CD ...
Its a nice, holographic CD ... shimmering ... nice :)

Anyways, they had already slipstreamed ( integrated ) Service Pack 2 in the installation, so I wouldnt need to install it later ...

So, I pop the CD in the tray and boot up ...
Somehow, I was expecting this to be different ... more cooler ... after all, its original you know ...
But no such luck ...

Anyways, after 45 mins or so, I had my system running ...
I also activated the OS ... and it wasn't such a pain, as so many people ( not in India ) have complained ... just connect to the internet, and click activate ...
Takes 2 seconds and it is done ...

Anyways, this was all the good part ... then the problems started to emerge ...
I installed some bad drivers ... and the PC booted about a million times in one minute ...

After a lot of installing and uninstalling, I finally managed to get my PC working ...
But somehow feel, that my earlier, non original copy was better :p

The problem with all this activation is that next time I need to reinstall, I'll probably have to call MS ... and tell them why I am installing it again ...
What these people dont realise is that they make life difficult for the people who buy the real thing ...
The earlier installation didnt have anything to do with activation ...

Whatever microsoft spends in time and skill, in trying to make their software non-pirate-able, there are thousands of people out there, smarter, who are doing just the opposite ...
I have yet to see a software, which cannot be cracked ...

There will always be a way ...

What I am trying to say with all this is that software companies should realise, that people, home users especially, will never SPEND more than a few hundreds ( in Rs ) on a software ... even if they DO spend any money ...

Spending 7000 bucks ... that too for an OEM license ... even for an operating system is very steep ...
And piracy in India is just too rampant ... so much, that when I asked my computer dealer to give me a licensed copy, it took him 5 mins to realise what I was saying ... and then he took the next ten minutes trying to convince me that the pirated copy which he was willing to sell me for 200, worked in exactly the same way ...

What software companies should do is this :
1. Any software should be free for non-commercial and home use.
Only when it is being used in an industry, or company which is making some money out of its products, should they pay ...
Most of the software that is installed on your comp is copied ... and hence free anyways ...

The more number of people using the software, the better is it for the manufacturer ...

Maya, which sells for lakhs, has a free PLE ( Personal Learning Edition ) which has all the features ... only you get a watermark on all the rendered images ... fair enough ...

2. The other thing they can do is charge a yearly licensing fee for the use of the software ...
Something like Rs. 300 - 500 for the OS and maybe Rs. 2000 for a software such as dreamweaver or photoshop which are the tools which are used directly ...
Photoshop sells for 38,000 bucks and Dreamweaver for around 16,000
Though their price justifies their products, most of the people who freelance like me, cannot afford these rates ...
I would not mind paying even 3000 bucks a year to be able to use Photoshop legally ...
In this way, atleast people who dont pay and still use the products for commercial purposes, will, I think, definitely pay ...

I settled for a cheaper alternative ... Ulead's Photoimpact ...
This sells for around 5,200 ... its no photoshop, but I think will get most of my work done ...

I think its about time, the software and gaming industry took the path of the Music industry and cut down their prices ...
This will allow more people to buy their software ... and hence will be easier to recover the costs ....

It is a typical "hen and egg" thing ... but they will be the ones who will need to do something ...
People will not just start buying software overnight ... no matter how much policing ...

Bill Gates and Steve Balmer Arrested !

Bill Gates and Steve Balmer behind bars

Delhi, 20 December 2004
By a staff reporter

According to information by our sources here, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft and Steve Balmer, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, were arrested today, by the Delhi Police in the MMS case.

Both, Bill Gates and Steve Balmer were deported from Redmond, USA, by the Delhi Police and were brought to India with regards to the pornographic MMS that was shot and circulated by a 17 year old DPS student here.

Both of them have been booked under Section 67 of the Indian Information and Technology Act for helping in the distribution of pornographic material.
Close sources revealed that the operating system used by the DPS student was Windows Xp which is developed and sold by Microsoft.
In addition to this, the browser used by the student for uploading the clip was Internet Explorer and also, Baazee.com on which the clip was sold is hosted on Windows 2003 servers ...
Due to all these factors, both, the chairman and CEO of Microsoft are pretty much stuck ... and they shall be booked three times under the same act.
This could mean a jail sentence of anywhere from 7 to 14 years in a minimum security prison ...

Later in the day, both the CEO and chairman were moved to the Tihar Jail and will be moved tomorrow to Jail number 3, where small time criminals and pickpockets are kept.
They shall there, give company to the CEO of baazee.com on whose site, the clip was being sold ...
The hearing is scheduled for tomorrow in this matter.

Meanwhile, Bill Gates is planning to sue the country for a gazillion dollars ... which will result in India going bankrupt ... but who cares ?
===============================================

This is just too funny ...
I mean ... you cannot criticize or abuse the Delhi Police ... you just have to laugh ..They have done it this time ... I mean there is no substitute for being stupid ...

I mean, what are these people thinking ?
How can you arrest a CEO of the company ... that too a website ... in this matter ?
Isn't everything automated ?

Do you expect Bajaj, to sit everyday in his office and go through all the stuff that is being sold on Bazee ?
Or for any staff for that matter ?
It is absurd ... and I have no more to say ...

Just that the Indians have done it this time ...
I know, that Bazzee is a pretty crappy site ... a lot of illegal and pirated stuff gets sold out there ...
But you must atleast give them credit for getting Online Shopping to India !
Its not the best, but atleast its a start ...

All this hungama stems from the fact, that the cyber cell divisions have no work in life ...
So, whenever some case comes like this, they just spring into action and go all out ...
Tomorrow, they will be releasing arrest warrants out for Bill Gates and Steve Balmer because someone wrote a threat email using Outlook Express or on hotmail !

Do you remember the first Cyber Criminal of India ?
He was an 18 year old guy who got booked for pornography for abusing a girl on a forum !
He was a national celebrity ... there were shows with his classmates discussing what kind of a boy he was and what not ...

Just goes to show ... what kind of jokers the government hires !
No wonder the country is going to the dogs...

If I do not write again in another weeks time, please assume that I have been booked for writing this piece ...

The Great Indian Massacre ...

All these television channels ... are just bastards ...
( phew ... had to get that out ... )

Just caught the last few minutes of the Indian Idol today ... on Sony today for the first time ...
There has been a recent spurt of all these reality shows on Indian television of late ... The Indian Idol, V Super Singer and there is one more ... can't remember ...

Anyways, what sickened me beyond belief was how these shows ... just to get their TRPs higher, a few more ads in, behave like scavengers ... vultures ... just flying above people who are gonna die ... so that they can rip off the flesh and feed on it ... even before he has breathed his last ...

The part on which they use people's emotions ... just sickens me ...
And I am not even getting started on how the judges ... Anu Malik, Farah Khan and Sonu Nigam behave with the participants ...
Well ... they are meant to do that .. so I wont delve into it ...

Here is what I saw ...
In this episode of Indian Idol ( I dont know how far it was coz I am not following it ) ... 3 finalists had to be chosen for the last round ...
So, just to stretch it for one episode more ... here is what they do ...
All the finalists were decided by what people ( the viewers voted )
Anyways ... they had to select 3 out of ( 10 ? )

So, they take each participant and they run them down on their previous day's / week's performance and remind them of how those 3 cartoons humiliated them ...
Here, they select 4 people ... ( I dont know for whatever reason )
And when the last guy has to get selected, they show ads ... and these might be the maximum ads I have seen in any TV serial ...
And mind you, this was a repeat telecast ...

So, finally, they select 4 ... they make them sit on 4 chairs ... away from the rest of the crowd ...
Out of these 4, they send one back again ... to select only the top 3 ... but wait ... before choosing the last one ... guess what ? ... again hundreds of ads ...

And when the hostess ( Mini Mathur ) announces the winner, she goes something like this :
And the third person is ... Mr. B ... you're not ... but Mr. A ...
Imagine what the guy ( Mr. B ) might be going through ...

And what was the whole point of getting 4 people on stage when you want to select only 3 ???
More ads ???
Get the participants' hopes high ... then screw them over ... then turn them around ... and screw them again ...
Just sickening ...

The other show which I caught a few glimpses of was the V Super Singer ...
This is a more subtle show ( on stage atleast ) with Adnan Sami playing the nice guy ...

Now, channel V people are the biggest haramis ...
They cant afford to compete with the bigger channels ... so they come up with their own, cheap, sidey rip offs ...
Remember V Dares you ?
In which they made people bathe, strip, and do what not on the streets for a paltry 2 grand ...
And this was mimicking Who Dares Wins ... which was a far superior show ... no comparisons can be made whatsoever ...

Anyways, getting back to the Channel V thingy ...
Of the stage, they take the cameras around all the frustrated participants, who have come from all over India ... probably, sitting on the floor of trains coz they might have not got reservations ... and probably who have not eaten for hours ...
They go ... and finger them ... and when they revolt, and abuse ... they catch it on camera and use it as an advertisement propaganda ...
Sick bastards ...

Then, there was this big thing about the Ambani brothers ...
It was blown out of proportions ...
Now, no news which we see is without hype ... but this was just mind boggling ...
Every news channel was screaming with the fight between the brothers ...
I mean ... whats your problem ?
There are fights in all the families ... even if it was Reliance ... they should just lay off ...
My respect for Anil Ambani rose ... when he decided to just keep quiet ... than giving the media more to chew on ...
Mukesh Ambani was an idiot by comparison ...

Anyways ... Zee News ... handled this entire thing in the most uncultured and gauche manner ...
It was like Laloo's Bihar compared to other states ... metaphorically speaking ...
They were covering news ... in which 8 brothers and sisters get married together in some village and they were comparing this to the entire Reliance episode ...
No words ...
Except just goes to show ... how these people are like vultures ... nothing else ...

A break ...

Hey !

Due to the advent of the oncoming exams ... I have not ( of late ) and will not be able to blog for sometime ...

Exams get over on 15th Dec .. hope to do from then on ... or maybe if I can find time and slip one in ...

Thanks ! :)

All for a lil bit of fat ...

3 inches ...
Thats the magic number ...
Thats the amount of length I have to get off my waist before ... oh ... what the hell ... I haven't set a date ... but I'd like to hazard ... 1 month ???

All my life, I have always been into sports ... basketball mostly ... and also, all my life, I had been thin ... a tall, thin stick like something ...
I first started to put on some body mass after moving out from the four walls of my junior college ( which came with an attached basketball court ) to my 'new & cool' college - Engineering college life ...

All sports took a backseat ... and the main crux of life was to get those 40 precious marks which would take me to the other side ...

Many times, during my school years, I would put on some weight during the Diwali and the Summer vacations .. which would just shed off within the first few weeks of playing the maddening 30 min basketball matches during the lunch break ... and I would be back to square one ...

In the beginning ( in college ) when I started putting on some weight, I started to look better ... my BMI ( Body Mass Index ) improved and I started feeling better about myself ...

But then, now, all those raids of the kitchen, with the ruthless plunder of sweets and all the good stuff there is in the world ... now started showing off late ...

I haven't touched a basketball in months ... and going to school is a pain ... having to lug myself a distance of 10 kms to get to a decent place to play ...

Of course, my college has a basketball court ...
Only, we don't play basketball there ...
We play a game called - 'Crater Ball' in which we have to dribble the ball, over all the craters on the court, keeping the ball in control ...
And if you are lucky enough to get to the other end, extra points are given for attempting a shot and double the points are given for actually being able to convert a shot ... through the ring, which would baffle Newton by its gravity defying feat of being stuck to the board with half of the nuts gone missing ...

Anyways, back to the point ...
I have to lose 3 inches .. and have to lose em' fast ....

Some years ago ( when we had the 'cable' ), I saw this one Oprah show which featured Fat people who managed to lose tonnes of weight ...
There was this guy Jarrod who wouldn't even fit in his Airplane seat ... and I think he lost something like 150 pounds just eating low fat Subway Sandwhiches for a year ...

I think I remember his name correctly cause Seinfield, later, took his case beautifully ;)

Anyways ... thats out of the question for me coz ... these Subway Sandwhiches start from 70 bucks here ... and actually, I'll end up starving 10 inches just having to pay for the sandwhiches ...

I have a friend who was quite 'big' himself when he was in school ...
He is one year junior to me ... and in his 10th std vacations, he would run to school everyday ( which is 10 kms one way from his place ) and then at the end of 2 months ... he was unbelievably thin ...
Well ... not very thin ... but I bet he must have lost 30 kgs atleast ...

We almost have a gym at my place ... My mom likes to collect stuff ... And all the gym things we purchase, miraculously metamorphose into other utility items within a period of 2 weeks ...
Like the excercise cycle we had bought, is now is helmet stand which also sometimes serves the purpose of drying clothes on a rainy day ...

We have a treadmill which is all nicely folded up and stays like that ...
A set of dumbells which are there for finding your feet when the lights go off ... and an Ab Cruncher ... which I have just started to use ... in my terrified state of reliasation ...

But you know what ?
In the end of it all, its not the jazzy gizmos or paying 5000 bucks per kilo lost at VLCC ... its plain old determination ...

And God, if you're reading this, please give me enough to last for 3 inches ;)

The Book Bug ...

Just finished with the all so dreaded pracs a few days ago ... which I am happy to report, were not all that bad ...

So, now with the theory exams about 20 days away .. I decided I needed a couple of days of break before I had to go back to the monotinity of it all ...

Yeah .. we do it every 6 months ... have done so for the past 2 years ... have still 2 more to go ...

Anyways ... generally I like to unwind ... take my mind off work by either playing a game ... or catching a couple of movies ... and stuff ...

I love to read ... but have been avoiding that for quite sometime now due to the "not so much time to spare factor", but I decided to hit the books this time ...

I had purchased a Wilbur Smith - 2 in one special some months ago ... but had been able to read only the first book - "The Dark of the Sun" which basically dealt with the adventures of this African Missionary ...

Wilbur Smith was born and brought up in Africa and most of his books reflect the beauty and the brutality of the wild country ...

I fell in love with his works ... when I first read through the very big quot;Monsoon" ... which dealt with the adventures of the Courtney family ... english sea captains and pirates to many ...

He has written many such books which span generations of a particular family ( The Courtneys ) in this case ... and the previous book dealt with the father of the heroes of this book and the next book will deal with the sons of the heroes of this book and so on ...

What struck me about this author was the amazing attention given to all details
... and the pictures he paints ...

Throughout the 1100 page or so book ... you are taken on an emotional roller coaster of joy, fear, disgust, anticipation, dismay ... and all so many feelings that you cannot experience within a week ...

The book which I am going through right now "Sunbird" is a tale of this African archaeologist and his quest to uncover these certain Phoenician ruins in a terror and war torn Botswana ...

Again, the attention to detail is impeccable ...

It does get boring at sometimes ... but its like watching a movie in your head at 80 mm.

I did read a couple of "Hardy Boys" when I was in the fifth grade or so ... but got extremely bored and was thankfully rescued by a friend who lent me his not so heard about "The Three Investigators" ... Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews kept me company for most of my high school and I must have read most of the 50 volume series ...

The series were written by Robert Arthur and later Hector
Sebastian and each book was introduced Alfred Hitchcock ...

Unlike the Hardy Boys which were sooo predictive, the three investigator books
were smart, slick and believeable ...

Later, I found "Agatha Christie" pretty slow ... esp the Miss Maple series ... the Hercule Poirot cases were interesting until too much french put me off ...

Then have jumped from "Robin Cook" ... who again gets repetitive after a while to "Sidney Sheldon" ... same complaint .... ( but Tell me Your Dreams was too awesome ) and now the "Wilbur Smith" series ...

In the middle ... after my HSC exams ... I happened to bump in to the "Perry Mason" series which were just awesome ...
The books were small enough to be completed with a part of the day and the steries were amazing ... If any of you are avid mystery readers ... I couldn't recommend a better book ...

I exhausted all the copies from my local library and was still not bored ...

But after all this, my favourite book is "The Fountainhead" by "Ayn Rand".

I started the book twice ... and was able to actually start reading only on my third attempt ...

My mom had given me her copy which was a small, 1980 paperback edition ... with small print, and very thin yellow pages ...

It took me a week to finish the book ... but it was one of the most amazing experiences ever ...

The characters in the books are ... agreed ... a little larger than life ... but I bet every person in the world will be able to identify with either one of them ...

Be it Howard Roark, Peter Keating, Dominique Frankon, Guy Frankon, Gail Wyand or Elseworth Toohey ... you can identify with atleast one or more of them ...

So much emotion and philosophy couldn't have been captured better ...

The book sort of changes your life around ... in so many ways ... It tells you that if you believe in yourself and your ideals ... then balls to everyone else ...

Thats how you should life your life ...

My most favourite part of the book ( one from the so many ) is the one in which Elseworth Toohey comes out to meet Roark from the Stoddard Temple ( which later is converted to his School for Subnormal Children ) ... after having screwed him over ... and tells to Roark :

"Why don't you tell me what you think of me ?quot;

"But I don't think of you" is what Roark replies ...

Just too amazing ...

Now to somehow get my hands on "Atlas Shrugged"

I'm baaack ....

A la Arnie in T2 ... I'll be bacc ... and I am ...

Have been wanting to write for quite sometime now ... but those blasted exams ...
I haven't finished with them yet ( or shall I say, they haven't finished with me yet ) ... but we have a week almost ... before the next practical ... and so I thought ... I'd write again ...

Past couple of weeks have been hectic ... as in, been very busy with exam prep ... and facing the first orals ... all for 50 marks !!!

These external examiners are a very peculiar lot ... and so here are a few thoughts on these species ...

Our orals was for the subject - CASP ... or Computer Algorithms in Signal Processing ... whatever that means ...

If you flip the text book and look on the reverse ... you will find pointers to get you to like CASP and try and study it ...
The pointers read as follows :

Seven good reasons for learning CASP

• Its the future
• CASP can snatch success from the jaws of failure.
• Excellent graphics ! Over 300 figures ...
• Step by Step approach in explaining concepts
• Simple Computer Programs
• Digital Filters : Simple to implement, incredible performance
• Your competition knows CASP

If this already doesn't have you in splits ... you should maybe read the last one again ...
Your competition knows CASP ...

Now of course they do ... they being as unfortunate as me and getting stuck up with this crappy syllabus ...

You know whats the best reason that they missed out ??
It comes for 100 marks in the exam you dumbass !!! Do you have any choice ?
Not to mention the 50 marks orals that we gave a couple of days ago ...

So, anyways ... we have our orals in CASP ... our first ever ... yay ! ( all the previous stuff which we did for kicks were pracs ... orals is the new 'in-thing' )

Anyways ... so I spent 5 days in their entirety studying for this subject ... and I realised ... that it is not that bad ... only I should have paid a lit-tle more attention with whats happening in class ... and maybe should get treatment for 'brain disorder'.

It always happens with me ... I get things only in the end ... throughout the semester, it was greek and latin ...
On the bright side ... better late than never ... but I feel like such a dud !

So I went for the orals ... having learnt all about Fourier series, Z Transformations, Digital Filters, Signals, DSPs and all the good stuff ...
I reached the college a one hour before schedule and begin the all so important last minute GD with other fellow mates destined to the same fate as me ...

I got all confused and tensed and entered the classroom ... where the two ... our teacher and the external were sitting behind the desk.
He looks at me with those "I don't give a damn about you look" and asks me ...

External : Have you studied difference equations ?
Me : Yes Sir ! ( Some chest thumping in order ... I did it today morning only ! )
External : Good. Tell me some properties of difference equations.
Me : Huh ???
External : Properties of difference equations.

( Now to the best of my knowledge, difference equations is just a measly one line equation ...
IT HAS NO PROPERTIES !!! )

Me : Sir, do you want me to write out the equation ?
External : No ... tell me the properties only ...

( I stare out into oblivion ... and even fake scratching my head ... trying hard to 'think' what to say ... )

Me : Sir ... which properties ?
External : Any properties ... your choice ...

( Deathly silence ...
He then turns to my compatriot sitting besides me ... who has enough presence of mind to rattle off the uses of Differential Equations ...
The external on the other hand ... shows no emotion or reaction whatsoever ... )

He asks me another question which I answer properly ...
And then a sum, which I flub big time ...
The good thing for me was that he didn't bother to see the answer ( hoping that he didn't see me botch it while solving )

Anyways, to my rescue, my teacher asks me a couple of questions ... which I CAN answer and which will hopefully save my ass ...

So much for studying for 5 days ...
Well, atleast I have sorta understood the subject ... never mind WHY and WHERE it is used ... but atleast I KNOW ...

Next stop, a PhD at Massachusetts :)

Quest for the Seal of Freedom ...

It was a cold, dark, starless night ...
The moon shone in its entirerity ... bathing the ground below ... in its cold ambient light ...
A bat flew off ... screeching ... announcing its departure to all those who cared to listen ...

The lone ranger, rode up to the edge of the cliff which looked down below at the monkey kingdom ...
This quest had to be completed tonight ... he thought ... it had been a very long and tiring journey ...

50 mighty warriors ... had set off on this quest a week ago ... and now only one hurdle remained ...
Many of them had crossed this hurdle ... those who had ridden earlier ... and had reached the kingdom early ...

The lone ranger was amongst the remainder ... there were only a handful left ...
They had battled difficult terrains, accomplished three other quests ... and were on the eve of their victory ... or so they thought ...

On their way here, they had braved the COrinthian challenges, solved the Cape Province Problems ... and managed to send Signals to their allies announcing of their approach, a 100 miles away ...

And now, with only the final quest remaining, they marched bravely to the Monkey King.

Now, the monkey king was a very peculiar creature ...
He was, like, a monkey of course ... but also has some form of human emotions ... that of egoism and self respect ...
Throughout the year, the monkey king entertained his audience ... like a clown in a circus ... and now that he knew, he had his chance, wanted to hike up his importance ... however little that it may be ... a notch higher ...

When the men approached the Monkey King for his prized seals ... he became suddenly happy at the fact that he was finally receiving some importance in his otherwise, sad and really disappointing life ...
He agreed to give the seal to the men ... if they agreed to do his bidding ...

Seeing no other alternative, the men agreed to his wishes and did his bidding ...
But now seeing that the men had become submissive, the monkey king's ego grew a bit more ... so when the men came back to him, he sent them off again ... disagreeing to recognize the mens' work ... and asked them to do it all over again ...

The men were exasperated ... but they needed the seal ... and so, did it all over again ... but yet, the monkey king was unhappy ... he found out useless flaws in their work ... and sent them again ...

The men unrelentlessly did the entire quest again ... but they were again sent back ...
They finally completed their quest again ... and this time decided ... that they would have the monkey king's head if he disagreed again ...

So, this time, when the Monkey King again refused to grant them the seal ... the lone ranger and his comrade trotted off the Monkey King ... and tried to negotiate with him ... which he did not .. of course ...
So the comrade of the lone ranger, drew out his sword ... and the lone ranger followed ...

The monkey king, seeing the swords, wetted his diapers ... and granted them and their comrades the seal ...

Now, all the quests were over ... and the mighty warriors were free to do whatever they pleased ...
So, they rode off to their kingdoms ... in the moonlight ... amongst the shadows of the dark branches ... devoid of leaves ... through the jungles and the plains ...

They all reached their destinations ... their kingdoms ... and lived happily ever after ... promising to each other ... that when their day comes, they would behead the Monkey King ... and put his head in their showcase ...

Perhaps the Monkey King had not heard the story of the Hippo princess ... who was eventually beheaded by the warriors for being haughty and arrogant ...
Dreaded stories are still told of their adventures with the Hippo Princess ...

Some further reading on traffic and roads ...

Just a quick thing ...

As we are on the topic of traffic jams, I would like to point you to a blog writted by a fellow puneite and a good friend ... who has, in so many words, enunciated the conditions of Pune roads and how things get done ... perfectly ...

Head to :
http://makscrazywoild.blogspot.com/2004/10/highs-and-lows-of-pune-city-city-roads.html

The anatomy of a Traffic Jam ...

Pune has the highest number of two wheelers in the whole of Asia .... I think ...
And this is very apparent to everyone ... for the fact that you just have to step outside your house and if you can see, you will know ...

Another reason that we can safely put to the equation is the utterly crappy public transportation system that exists ...

Unlike Mumbai, we have no such locals to speak off ... Most of them ply only between Pune, Nigdi side and towards Lonawala ...

Earlier, we had the six seater ... which were so much of a convenience ... you could get one from anywhere within 5 minutes and they stoppped anywhere ...
They were a pain on the road ... but their merits took care of their flaws ...

Anyways, the PMT ( Bus Transport ) people got cut off coz everyone preferred the six seaters ( tam tam ... tam as from 'tamatar ) and so, they got a court order and restricted these six seaters to certain routes ... ... and so, people suffered ... and hence, everyone buying bikes makes perfect sense coz its cheaper - spending money on fuel, than going by bus ( Pune buses are the most expensive in the whole of India ) ... even if your bike gives you a mileage of 40 kmpl ... and besides, who can argue with the added convenience of a bike ?

Anyways, getting back to the point ....
I happened to partake in the festivites of a traffic jam the other day ...
Now, I have been in jams ... and many of them had nothing to do with traffic ... but this jam was special ... because it took me 17 whole minutes to travel a distance of 600 mts on a 4 lane road ...

This is the maximum amount of time I have spent on any traffic jam ... and so, I spent my time, constructively, observing my fellow homo sapiens sweating it out there in the 10 o' clock sun.

Here is my thesis on traffic jams ...

Now, traffic jams are caused due to the following factors :
A. Bad roads
B. Failure of traffic signals
C. Truck / Bus / Car breaking down in the middle of the road
D. Alien invasion
E. Incompetent traffic policemen
F. Avalanche / flash floods / mud slides / earthquakes / volcanoes and other such related natural phenomenon
G. Closure of some important bridge / main connecting roads

In my case, it was due to reasons A, B, E and G.
Normally, if you end up in situations D or F, I'd recommend leaving your vehicle as it is and running for your life ...

In a traffic jam, there are the following different kinds of vehicles :

1. Buses / Trucks
These vehicles are the most well behaved ... and they maintain their line ... one behind another ...
These slow moving creatures are the cause of many such jams because of their slow movement ... and this causes tremendous heartache to two kinds of people ...
(i) The people who are smart enough to juxtapose themselves in such a manner as to be in direct line of sight of their exhaust.
(ii) The miserable souls who end up in buses with deficieny in seats.

2. Cars & Jeeps
These are second to buses & trucks in behaving good. Second due to some ambitious Tom Cruise who thinks that he can probably turn his car 75 degrees to the left and then squeeze it between a bike and a rickshaw ...
But mostly, these vehicles are well mannered ... travelling at .005 kms / hour ... listening to music and chilling out in the AC.
Even the auntys enjoy themselves as all they have to do is to follow the bus in front of them at speeds which they would otherwise be very comfortable in driving ...
The blessing in disguise comes in the form of a hot chick sitting in the passenger seat of a car to the right of you ... but these phenomenons are very rare and must not be counted upon.

3. The Cyclists
These people are the most confused lot. They are not able to comprehend what the hell they are doing in a traffic jam ...
The reason is mainly because they do not come under the traffic category ...
Objects coming under the traffic category, usually drive on the left side of the road and wait at traffic signals.
These people will wait for a while ... some will get off, put their cycles on their heads and walk out ... while the clever ones will get to the footpaths and fly ... mocking the other mortals who look enviously at them while they get away ...

4. The people on the bikes
Chaos theory has been discovered lately ... but what the scientists failed to notice that it has been in practice in Pune ever since the invention of 2 wheelers ...
People riding their two wheelers are masters at this form of art ...
Any nook, any corner, any small passage available ... and they are off ...
People on bikes will make different formations automatically ... as to move from point A to point B in a traffic jam ... and in the process, opening more avenues ...
All the members in this community are able to communicate using ESPs and can help each other out without saying a word or even looking at the other person ...

5. The Rickshawalas
These people are the biggest bas***** on the roads. This quality is more personified during the course of a traffic jam. Basically, these people have a wrong pre conceived notion that they inherited the roads from their fathers when they started driving the rickshaw ...
These are the most selfish and inconsiderate people on the road and will try to jam their big butted rickshaws into any crevice they can find ...
Caution is needed against such creatures and no feeling of guilt whatsoever is to be felt when you drive rashly against these creatures ...

Conclusion:
In conclusion, I would like to quote the wise old Murphy and remind you fellow human beings of the fundamental three laws of nature :

1. Nothing is as easy as it looks.
2. Everything takes longer than you think.
3. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

A babbling brook .. gives the final touches to this picture ...

The waterfall at 'Rung-dhab-dhaba' ... definitely a spot worth checking out ...

Another one of those ... hills and clouds pictures ...

And He said ... let there be light ... and there was light ... and it was good ...

Huts amongst the greenery ... a village scene

Clouds kissing the peaks ... picture perfect ...

More babbling brooks ...

The view of the lake from around the MTDC resort ...

Villagers in Bhandardara ... simple ... and friendly ...

Recharging the batteries ...

Well, ever since the contest got over, I have been having this race against time ... trying to catch up with life ... or more so the college assignments ... the 10 - 12 days that I missed out on completing assignments and stuff ...

Then immediately after the contest, I had basketball matches ...
During these matches ... on a Saturday, Sunday weekend ... when my dad had a holiday on Ganesh Chaturthi, he decided to take us all on a trip ...

Earlier, we decided to go to Raigad ... with the ropeway and all ... but the place got full ... and we were left stranded a day before we were to leave ...

So, anyways ... we just took the car ... packed in a pair of clothes, some food ... basic necessities ... and headed off towards Nashik side ... to Bhandardara ...

Bhandardara is supposed to be a hill station ... thats what my dad told me ...
I had never heard of it ... and so, wasn't looking forward to this trip that much ...

The only proof that such a place existed, was on the map ... with a symbol of a huge lake ...
I didn't know what to expect ...

It took us 5 hours of driving from Pune to reach this place ... I was in for a very pleasant surprise ...

The place was just beautiful ... greenery everywhere ... and not just green ... glowing light green ...
Everywhere you could see ... green :)
This small village - town is situated on the banks of the Bhandardara Lake ... which is one of the biggest lakes I have seen ...

I am sorry that I was not able to save the info pamplet ... but I'll recall and reproduce it to the best of my ability ...

Bhandardara
The place is at a height of about 800 mts or so ...
The peak season is from July to October end ... after which the greenery turns to yellow and then later brown ...
There is another peak period ... but I don't remember it right now ...
So, your best bet will be to get there during the rains ... its just heavenly there ...

Getting there
We travelled by car ( Indica ) from Pune.
Its around 190 - 200 odd kms. from here ... but it takes around 5 hours to reach there ...
This is due to some bad stretch of roads ... lots of ghats ... and also driving through a couple of towns having only 2 lane roads ...
But overall, the roads are good ... and the drive is pleasant ...
Also, the ghats are pretty easy ... only there are lots of them ...

Putting up tent
We were planning to stay at the MTDC place ... they have hogged the best location by far ...
But, because we hadn't pre-booked the rooms and also because it was a Saturday, and Ganesh Chaturthi, the place was full ...
MTDC has around 33 rooms ... with a 20 beds - room and a 12 beds - room incase you are coming with college or friends ...
We also found the MTDC rates a bit on the high side ...
A normal ( non AC ) room ... away from the good view goes for around 600 - 800 bucks ... for 3 people in a room
The AC ones go for around 1200 ... and if you want to stay at the lake side cottages, they go for about 2000 for 4 people ...

The MTDC manager told us that it was all full ... and directed us to an agent who showed us a couple of places around ...
They had rates comparable to MTDC ... but the rooms were very shitty ... damp and mold covered ...
This was due to the high rainfall this place receives ...
You could actually feel the damp room with a very heavy - airy feel to it ...

The MTDC person told us that if we didn't like the other places .. he would try to manage something ...
From this, we deduced ... that the manager gets some commission from the agent for refusing us ... So, if you want to stay at the MTDC place, you will HAVE to pre book the rooms ... preferably from an MTDC office in your town ... as we tried calling this place the previous day ... and never got connected ...

Anyways, so we finally crashed at this place ... which was walking distance from MTDC ... had decent rooms ... better than the earlier ones ... dry ... beds were decent ... and they also had TVs ...
The rates were half of what MTDC and the other places were offering ... and he got down more 100 bucks or so ... per room ... after bargaining ...

So, we got 2 rooms - 2 beds each for a total of 650 something ...
I don't remember the name of the lodge .. will ask my dad later and put up all the info later in the blog or the comment ...

Things to do
We stayed there for a night ...
So, we had an evening ... and the next morning ....

So, we basically drove a lot ... and I clicked many, many pictures ...

There is a large dam worth checking out ...

There is also a fort - Ratangad ... which you'll need 2 hours to go up ... and the same for coming down ....
Another nice place is Kalsubai ... its the highest peak in the Sahyadri range and is a hot trek-spot ... but again you'll require half a day for this ...

We skipped all the walking things :)
There is also a waterfall ... "Rung-dhab-dhaba" which was pretty amazing ( see picture ) ...
We caught it the other day ...

You can also go boating ... on a row boat ...
We did that too ... in the twilight .. the previous evening ...
It was a very nice experience ...

In the non-season period ... when the fish are not biting, the fishermen take you boating ...
We made good friends with the fishermen ... and also got invited to tea ...

The Weather
Well, I certainly feel ... that nature ... gave us the perfect weather ...
I can't stress more ... the weather, light, clouds, wind and everything else were so perfect ...
All through the drives, we were listening to a jugalbandi of flutes and tablas on the car stereo ... and it was heavenly ... just perfect ...
If you have seen "Lord of the Rings", picture the shire without the hobbits ... and you'll be very close ...
Just take a look at the pictures : http://sj-bhandardara.fotopic.net


Greenery everywhere .... cloud kissed peaks ... babbling brooks ... simple villagers ... away from town ... what else do you need ?

Getting life back on track ...

I need to turn the steering left ... until it gets back on the road ... let the steering go and let it auto rotate to center itself ... and then just push gently on the accelerator ... and let it cruise ...

Only, I am not driving a car ... its my life ... and there is no power steering ...

The past couple of weeks were just hectic ... as I had said before ... single minded, rodent like obsession ... about the ... game !
And it did pay dividends in the end ... If I may be allowed, a little chest thumping is in order ... "First in State"

Now, that does really sound good ...

Anyways, the entire journey wasn't very smooth going and us winning was very unexpected ...
Here is the rundown ...

We made this "Foosball" game for this "game development contest" held annually at the Sinhagad College of Engg. which is renowned for two things : One of the most picturesque campuses you will ever see ... and the ultimate, back wrenching, pot holed filled 20 km ride to get to the college ...

We were informed about the contest one week late by these Sinhagad College guys, and so, just had one week to come up with a working model of the game ...

After a lot of deliberation and killing a few of my fellow classmates, we decided to make the "Foosball" game of the "Friends" fame ...

So, after a week, we finished ... and submitted 70% of compiled code to these people for the elims ... only to have learnt we have been disqualified ... as more than 2 teams ( 3 according to them ) had participated from our college ...
This was very strange ... and I was to later realise that they had conveniently confused us with a Modern College ... whereas our college was Modern Education Society's College of Engg.

So, after killing a few more people at Sinhagad ... and explaining to the others ... that we were in no way related to the 'other' Modern College, we managed to get our entry cleared ...

We qualified for round 1 ...

During this period ... we coded a bit more ... type type type type ... and the code reached the magic figure of 2500 lines of code ...

We then took our copies and headed towards the beautiful and picturesque campuses of Sinhagad ...

Once there, after explaining our game to 3 judges ... who were least bothered ... and I believe, slept through our presentation, we underwent, one of the most grueling rounds of cross examination ....

These judges might have been taking out all the 'khun-nas' which their external examiners took out on them ... and really killed us ...

Here is a part of a conversation ...
( Seeing a game option : Ball speed )
Judge : What is this option for ?
We : Sir, this option controls the speed of the ball in the game ...
Judge : What is the default value ?
We : Sir, 6 ... gives you good game playability ...
Judge : What data type is it ?
We : ... umm ... Integer ...
Judge : Ok ... put 32,000 there ...
We : huh ? ( never expected that to come ... )
Judge : Lets see what happens in your game ...

( So we put 32,000 in the ball speed which had a default speed of 6 ... how were we supposed to expect a maniac entries ? ... and the game goes for a toss ... no collision detection ... all the players and the ball just vibrate on the screen )

Judge : What is this happening ?
We : Umm .... um ... huh ... hmm ... Sir, the ball is moving so fast ... that it is not coming in contact with the players ... and therefore there is no collision detection ...
Judge : Oh ... that way ...

Surprisingly, he bought that answer ...

But the other judges also took our case ... We were sure of not qualifying ...
Other teams had made Contra type shooter ( ripping all the bmps from the original game itself ) and another team had made a proper football game ...

Surprisingly, we came 2nd in the elims ...

We came home that night ... coded ... coded ... and coded ...
Implemented tonnes of new features ... including letting the player customize his own field ... select playback music track ... and put all the maniac error checking ...

Went again next day for the finals ...
The judges were different and two were actually from IBM ...

However, they didn't take our case .... but didn't show any interest in our program either ...
The IBM guys slept through our presentation ... and we predicted our doom ...

However, when the results were announced, we came first ... the Contra guys who had come first in Round 1 came third ... and the Football guys came second ...

I later heard .. that the judges were really impressed with the way we had made the game ...
Everything modular .. classes ...
We had thrown in some interrupts also ... were able to play music in the background ... along with foreground music ... and everything ...

The rest is all history ...
The trophy is in the showcase, money in the bank ... and I might have finally something to put on my resume ...

This entire incident has restored my faith in the saying "If you can dream it, you can do it"
Nothing seems impossible anymore ...

After 10 days of mad programming, 3000 lines of code ... and a very playable game ... just have to get my life back on track ... complete a few overdue assignments ... and study for some orals ...

The truth is out there ...

Hmm ...

Feeling very sleepy, but will go ahead and type a teeny weeny blog anyways ...

Tomorrow is Janmashtami ... Other than, we not getting a well deserved holiday, it would not make a difference to me ...
The entire day today, was dark and gloomy.
We had a good cloud cover throughout the day ... was just the perfect weather to slip away in the break, to the chai-wala across the street and grab a cuppa.
Did just that ...

Anyways, by the time I reached home, it started pouring ... in great quantities at that ...
I was just catching some grub and thanking the Almighty for getting the temperatures down ( which were rising of late ), when my mom exclaimed,
"It never fails !"
I looked up at her from my plate, at this sudden change of tone and inquired, with a raised eyebrow as to what she meant by that ...
She then enlightened me, to the fact, that it has to rain every Janmashtami ... and it has always rained ... It never fails !

Now, the Mahabharat is an epic ... and an epic is a story which never happened ... something like the Lord of the Rings ...
And in Mahabharath, if I remember my mythology correctly .... When Krishna was born and he was taken out of the prison, it was raining heavily ....
Something like today ...

Makes you kinda wonder ... if there is a supreme force out there which takes care of all these little details ...

Now, I do believe in God ... as in, there is some supreme being out there ( or atleast we all like to think of him that way ) which lets us have the human emotion of Hope ...

Most of us have never experienced him closely, and then most of us are happy that way ... but He does, sometimes, come out and prove His existence ...

I, very vividly remember the Ganesh drinking milk incident.
That took place all over the world didn't it ?
It was like in your face, and the scientists were baffled and none of the explanations they came up with ( the planets being in allignment and the crap ) seemed to satisfy the people ... ( me included )
I was totally blown away ...

So many times, painstakingly, I am working ... taking all precautions that nothing should go wrong ... then after a while, feel so supremely confident that nothing will go wrong ... and then bam ! Something happens ... so beyond my control and everything is ruined ...
Its His way of telling me ... "look who's boss ... now, don't try to act smart and don't start to think that I cannot alter your life ... "

So many things are there in this world, and so many things take place everyday, which have no possible explanation ...
And until, science becomes so advanced as to be able to explain everything, the truth will be out there ...

To infinity and beyond ...

Aaarrrrgh !!!
I want to scream out loud ...

Finally have some time and breathing space before the next 'big thing' comes my way ...
Me and a friend, signed up for this C++ game development contest after parting with 50 bucks per head as registration charges ...

Now, these dudes organising the contest, tell us about it a week late, and we have to submit our game ( atleast 60% of it ... compiled ), by tom ie Monday ...
We had about 6 days to do this in ... 1 day for research and other 5 days for the frantic coding ...
Now, after 5 days of rodent like, singly focussed behaviour, I can now smile benovelently as the game ticks on ...
I can proudly say, that we typed out 1200+ lines of code, in 5 days ... and still a lot has to be done ... more lines to be added ...
Now, the complexity and brilliance of any software can't really be measured with 'lines of code' but they make for good boasting rights anyways ...
That is until people realise that you are really an idiot and 80% of your code is repeated, because you haven't really learnt what a function actually is ... and the for(){} is uncharted territory ...
lol :)

We have to submit 60% of the code by this Monday, and if we are selected, will be summoned to show our masterpiece in an exhibition cum gaming contest at the end of the week.
Not to mention, take a shot at that, lip smacking, delicious prize of 5 grand flat ...

What has amazed me that I have been so focussed in these days ...
I never remember being so focussed ...
Everywhere I went, whatever I did ... I was constantly thinking about the G.A.M.E !!!
game, game, game, game, ga.....
The CO teacher was teaching us about memories ... and I was going ... game game game ...
It has turned into quite an obsession ... and I won't be resting until we have put our finishing touches to it ... and typed in the wacky "Winamp" style credits in it ...

Anyways, I learnt quite a lot in these last five days ...
Lots of research went into this ... as I had absolutely no idea how to go about making a game ...

For all those who want to get into writing games, I found out that the site, http://www.gamedev.com has excellent material ...
We ran into many difficulties ... we are using Turbo C 3, you see ....
However, most of them sites, have resources only on OpenGL, DirectX, etc ... which even if we were allowed to use, would be way out of our leagues as of now ...

All the teachers were supportive and granted me one week's extension to submit the various projects and assignments and I am very thankful for that ...

Have to push off now ...
Things to study for and bugs to iron out ...

As my good friend Buzz would exhalt ... "To infinity and beyond ... "