In Phase

Mishaps

2011-02-18T16:33:00.001+05:30

What seemed like a normal day turned out to be a series of mishaps.

It was a friday night. And I was on my way to Kozhikode to spend the weekend. The Chennai Central Railway Station seemed nominally crowded. Got here with ample time to verify which coach my berth was, but I didn't do that right away. I just had small dinner after which it became around 8 pm. I went to the coach and checked for my name against my berth; to my horror, it wasn't my name. It was only then I looked at the date in the ticket print out; it was for a future date.

So then I decided I must get the correct ticket printed out immediately, and rushed to the internet cafe inside the railway station. I informed the guy (the cashier cum cafe-employee) out there I just wanted a printout. I couldn't believe what he told me next: "The printout would cost you Rs. 30. Is it ok?". The train was scheduled to leave @ 8.25 pm. I had to say "Yes". He said that the printer wasn't free for the moment; so I had to wait. The printer was at the cashier's desk too. The cashier looked at me and told me that I can browse using anyone of their free machines. He elaborated that the browsing rate was Rs. 30. So I confirmed that this was inclusive of the printout charges. He confirmed that too. There was a little, if negligible, sigh after he said that.

So I gladly did. I assumed that the computers there were networked somehow so I could adapt the ticket to a word document, and then give that for printing. I quickly browsed to the IRCTC website, logged-in, and found the correct ticket. I selected the option to print. Normally on Internet Explorer you'd be prompted with a Print Dialog box. But the dialog box showed that there were no printers installed. I canceled the dialog, and selected all the text in the page which showed me my ticket, opened up Microsoft Word, pasted the whole thing out there, and was about to hit Ctrl+S to save, when all of a sudden, POOF!

All the UPSs were whining like "I want my power supply". But they didn't have enough backup to power the computer. And it was already 8.10 pm.

Okay do I have to pay Rs. 30 to the cashier or not. Maybe he will ask for it. Maybe he will not. For some strange luck the cashier told me to go to the next building to see if I could get the printout. I ran.

I gave up looking for a cafe, at the other building. In fact I don't think there is one. This was when I decided to go die-hard and board the train. I did make note of my berth for the train I was supposed to be travelling in. So I went to my coach, looked out for my name, and made note of my PNR number. There was a TTR standing behind me. He was answering queries in Malayalam. I went up to him and told him about my problem. He replied that I can occupy my berth, but I'd have to pay a fine of Rs. 50 for not presenting the ticket. And therefore I went and sat in my berth.

After 1.5 hours of traveling the TTR comes. Assuming that the TTR would have forgotten the problem, and, not even caring to see who the TTR was I spoke in Malayalam, I explained my problem. At the end of the explanation, the TTR said that he'd have to write a charge sheet, in tamil. That was the only time I noticed the TTR's face. He wasn't the same person I spoke to before.

Next morning, while still in the train, and only few hours remaining to where I had to get down, I came to realize that without getting the charge sheet I might face a problem if I'm caught in the platform. So I resolved to find a TTR, and get the charge sheet. There were two TTRs I met in the process. The first one was quite alarmed when I told him I didn't have a ticket. But after explaining the whole situation, he told me to meet the second TTR.

The second TTR was even more dramatic. For starts, he wasn't usually in his seat. I had to check every half-hour if he was there or not. Finally I found him in his place and approached him. When I told the person that I needed a charge sheet, he too was surprised. He moved from his berth to the coach entrance door. I told him I had taken the wrong printout; took the printout for the next month instead of the current month. He looked at me and asked: You've reserved a ticket the next month also?!

I was stumped. I mean why was that question even called for? There are probably millions like me who reserve at least one ticket every month. That TTR's astonishment was like he had discovered that I had stolen his favourite berth or something. I didn't was to react to his question. I simply told him "Yes I did".

That TTR then started to red tape the whole affair. He wasn't informed by the previous TTR (the one who came to my berth) that there was someone traveling without a ticket. From what was actually said, I gathered, all the TTRs who board from chennai, get down at Palakkad. That is their end-of-shift. TTRs belonging to a different shift aren't supposed to fine people who have boarded the train before that shift. The TTR admitted that he cannot issue the charge sheet.

This wasn't good news to me. I had to pay a fine of Rs. 250 plus the whole train fare. I only had a debit card at that moment. I accepted the fact that there was no use talking to this TTR. And I was on my way back to my seat. The TTR humbly iterated that he can't do anything about it. And he also told me to try not to get caught by the platform checker.

I sighed again.

I got down at my station. Took the foot bridge which lead to the exit on platform 1. And as i descended the last flight of stairs, the checker was present. I was too frustrated to look scared. I walked normally. He was taking a call on his mobile phone. A few feet from the exit, and his hand was pointed at me. And then all of a sudden, he turned away. I was never checked! I fled the scene as fast as I could.

I am still choked up with the hangover of what happened that cruel day. But then what can one do about it:

Every dog has his day.

The surreal status update

2011-01-12T23:56:00.001+05:30

The most strangest thing happened.

I had visitors. They kept on asking me if I knew them or not. And finally they said that we are related! All of a sudden, a funny feeling like, I have known them before, comes up. This usually happens when people say that they are related, in front of people I know; like my parents or close family. So either, I pretend that I know them, or, I am usually encompassed by that strange feeling of being acquainted earlier.

But the fact is, I get this a lot; especially when meeting distant relatives. That brief episode left me in a state of mild embarrassment. These were people close to me, yet I couldn't place them! However, I wasn't so bogged about it. In fact, I was so determined to "share" this experience via a facebook status update. I began thinking what to write. Perhaps I should say something like "...Must update database; can't place my own family relatives. Now searching for the photo album..."

I really liked the stuff I quipped up for the status update. To me it seemed witty, and humourous. Hence I was determined to post it right away. But I wasn't near a computer; and my phone was out of reach too. And as I made a start for it, I quickly seemed to take note of the environment I was "actually" in: the room was dark except for the light coming from the window. I was staring at the ceiling fan, lying on the floor, only to realize I had been dreaming while asleep.

I might have sighed, or, I did not. Its hard to say: I was relieved all of that was a dream. I was equally ashamed of the fact that I was about to update my facebook status, in the same dream.

Leaving your word docs open too long...

2010-11-09T12:41:00.001+05:30

When I was a kid I remember my mother used to scold me if I left my textbook open and went to bed. She explained that if you keep your textbooks open for too long Lady Saraswathi would punish you for this.

For the curious lot: Lord Saraswathi is the Goddess of Wealth and Knowledge in the Hindu religion. So those days I figured She might not like it if I left the books open. Although I never really understood the actual reason behind it, I used to think this and dutifully close my books and go to bed.

Nowadays I have to say that the times have changed a lot. Today when I logged-in to my onsite machine and upon noticing so many open applications in the taskbar (pending work) I also seemed to notice a few RQSDs (Requirement Specification Documents) opened in MS Word and went...OMG!!!

The bar stupefaction

2010-10-28T12:18:00.001+05:30

I’ve been in and out of bars several times before with friends. However don’t mistake me for an alcoholic. I don’t frequent to bars that much. And frankly people won’t ask me to booze because, well, lets face it, I look like someone who gets stoned easily. And if that happens that’s half their fun-time wasted on me!

But one fine evening an old school friend who had been to Chennai suddenly asks me over the phone:

dude where is a good bar in town?

The feeling was like googling. You typed in a query and got entries. This is analogous to the fact that I have visited several public bars before. But the search results I’d clicked on led me to only blank pages – this is analogous to me, after all these years in Chennai, and having been in and out of bars, didn’t know where to find one!

Well, this was a bit embarrassing. Not knowing how to find a bar, but acknowledging the fact that I’ve been to many bars, the best thing that hit my mind was: to call a friend who took me to a bar for the first time.

I don’t mean to purposefully allude to this but the ‘first-time at anything’ can be useful to get you through very peculiar situations sometimes.

R.A Puram

2010-09-18T00:42:00.001+05:30

For those who have lived far away from home, trying to make a life out in another city, there is always the very first time you've ever done so. Getting used to the town, the people, what they speak, the names of various places, etc are all part of the package of being young, & 'lost' in another town. And thats how my first few months in Allsec went about.

I heard of a place called R.A Puram for the first time, when I was in training in Allsec. They have another branch in R.A Puram. Sometimes a new batch of trainees go there to attend training. There were a couple of mallu folks I was friends with. Most of the then were comfortable speaking & understanding Tamil and had been in Chennai more than I have. But as the evaluation day just got over, some of them didn't have enough scores to make it through. Some people I know left the job because of better opportunities else where. The others went to re-training to R.A Puram.

So one in that small group (of people I knew) was trying to keep in touch one day. That person was not in Allsec at the time. He was enquiring about another friend who was in re-training. I texted him something in the lines of: yeah he is in R.A Puram for retraining.

But what I actually typed was:

yeah he is in aaraepuram for retraining

The friend I was texting to never bothered to correct me. I am guessing he figured out where exactly that place was, or he must have thought it was a new town in Chennai.

And I later learn about this mistake, in the most astonishing fashion ever. I was probably on a 21L bus heading to Guindy/Velachery (don't remember). I was probably travelling through Adayar. I just took my nokia 6021 out of my pocket, just to know which locality I was in, and read:

R.A PURAM

Those stupid 1st time things

2010-09-12T03:54:00.001+05:30

Ever since tht bus trip bck 2 chen frm calicut (last dec - t 1st f the unofficial lonely wandrer.com series) things hve changed. At least I keep chanting, no matter wht happens: "Life is a celebration; a bizzare inspiration"
Last nyt i ws watching t movie "resident evil - afterlife 3d". Somewher in t mov i just realized tht my ph ws in outdoor mode. I happily took t ph out f my pocket, set it 2 silent, n then slid it bck into my pocket, n went bck 2 watch t movie.
Then i realized tht i ws lukin @ my ph wearin 3d glasses!
I took my ph out and took a gud luk @ it again.

Turtles

2010-07-23T23:13:00.002+05:30

A fun episode I recall in my life was those initial training days at Allsec. We were doing accent training. And you've probably already heard how these things go. Everything thing is 'American'. You've to learn something about their culture everyday. We were doing a fun session one day - dumb charades - on American movie title's. Its usually played with two teams. A team thinks of a movie title, and picks a target from the opponent team. The person from the other team has to enact it in front of his/her team until they figure the movie.

This activity is really fun. The only sad part was, that day most people were only getting to know what dumb charades were - they were being 'trained'. (Sigh). So, my trainer was the one who enacted a movie she thought of. There were several teams in this case; and I belonged to a team way back in the last seat.

Most of the people there were not exposed to this 'american movie culture'. Hence they were slow at figuring out movie names. But there were a few who were quick at it too. The trainer, took a bit of a pause trying to figure out what to enact next. She began; she hinted the title contains 4 words. She was going to enact the 4th one. She put her hands one above the other, and started moving her thumbs. She was trying to convey its a fish; she was hoping people would figure out the word 'turtle' eventually.

I began to think:

Fish?...Do I know a movie with a "fish" in it?

Then someone accidentally spurted 'turtle'. By now, I thought, damn, any one could have guessed this by now. The excitement in the trainer's eyes was proof enough.

I laid back. The trainer was actually enacting it to some other team if I remember correctly. It seemed to me that they'd pass.

And they did.

Still no one could figure.

She started doing the "fish" again. She couldn't speak; it was how the game had to be played.

I finally did it. I shouted TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

Dead silence in the room. Everyone turned their heads towards my direction. Everyone was probably thinking how can he guess that movie from a "fish"? Someone posted a doubt quietly: did he go to college or the cinema theatre for graduation?

I on the other hand wondered how was she going to enact the word 'mutant'? - She was still standing there, surprised, doing the fish...

Damn, I could have had more fun! :)

A Trip to Hill Top

2010-07-18T20:47:00.000+05:30

I did my 9th & 10th std frm hill top public school, puthiyara, calicut. V were on our way bck 2day frm our classmate jamshad's marriage; en route to my plc, i suddenly thot, 'hey y don't give our school a visit?'
V went up the small 'hill' tht leads 2 t school's entrance. Found tht ther ws no lock on t gates. Opened it, took our car inside. Got out of t car n headed straight to t basket ball court.
At t bck f our head v knew all f this ws illegal n v cud hve gt sacked big time fr this...but tis ws a common activity v used to do while v were doing school ther - barge in2 t school on sundays!!!
All v evr wanted 2 do ws taken some pics w/ t cam, visit n then leave.
V were just getting started w/ our photo session vn t security guard appeared. V politely told him hu v were n wht we intended to do. He ws adamnt. Told us v r nt supposed to do such things her. After several retries v thot it ws best v let him do his job.
V had already taken sum photos. Aftr he told us nt to v bluntly said 'oh no v hve 2 delete those photos immediately'.
V decided v close the gates b4 we went down. So 1 of my frnds went to the gate. We kinda started t car, n approached him.
Our frnd started yelling at us...'don't u knw 2 day is sunday, n no 1 is supposed to take photos here. DELETE ALL THOSE PHOTOS I SAY'. Don't knw wht t guard felt. Mayb t nxt time v c him v'll send him a sorry card, probably even a bottle f rum.
Altho v knw its illegal, if he hadn't shown up, v wud hve had an awesome nostalgic evening.

center of attention

2010-07-05T00:57:00.001+05:30

Last evening I was walking through crowded streets for some shopping. It was sometime long after sunset. I was getting tired of carrying my helmet with my hands. So I just put it over my head such that it exposed my face. So picture this - me in black jeans, black round neck shirt, and a black helmet sitting on top of my head. The only thing not black were my shoes. (Even my socks were black)! I removed my glasses and let it hang on the neck of my shirt. It was kind of disturbing me because of how I wore my helmet. My friend didn't notice me wearing the helmet at first; and then, when he saw it he couldn't help smiling. It won't be difficult to find you in this crowd he said.

I didn't mind the occasional stare I got from people. What was important at the moment was they noticed me and let me pass. They noticed my head and sometimes even stopped to take a good look at it. But people who enjoyed it the most were the women. I noticed a woman was walking through the crowd speaking on the mobile. Her eye sockets weren't so distant. She had a huge head. I could notice from the distant her pupils were transfixed onto my helmet, and she carried a smile. She was probably on her way back home after work. And, when she passed me, she gave a light, playful, knock on the helmet.

I noticed a lot of smiles from a lot of woman that day. Most of the smiles I got made me assume that they thought I was young and crazy. Kinda realized, what the heck, its not something they see everyday. However I remember the last smile I got. This woman was probably 30-something. She looked kinda in a hurry. I was just ascending up the stairs and almost jumped into her path. She looked at me, smiled and bobbed her head in approval. Yeah! She realized what I was up to...and so I smiled at her back.

I was just celebrating life...

The Con-Call Excitement

2010-04-23T08:51:00.001+05:30

I participate in a lot of conference calls as part of our work. Coming from a BPO where I had actually been an agent talking to customers in the US, I know there are some etiquettes you have to follow on call. Because its a telephone conversation, and the other person is more probable to cut you off if you break those etiquettes, I tend to stick to them like they are my ten commandments or something. And American people (not to sound racial in anyway) are 'hard' to keep engaged in a telephone conversation.

Well, this post definitely ain't about America or its people. We have a project manager (Indian) who works abroad interacts with the client, gathers requirements, clarifies our queries to those requirements, etc. This person stays with his wife and child in US and has been doing so for the past 3 years. One day we were trying to reach this person. My team mate (a female around my age and my senior) and our team leader who sits in the adjacent bay to where my team mate sits were involved in this conversation. The project manager lives on a different time zone. So when we call it'd be usually be 9 or 10 pm their time.

My team leader wasn't exactly with us when we were about to make the call. He was busy sitting in his bay and doing his work. My team mate called the reception and asked them to dial our project manager in the US. The call went through. The phone rang. A lady's voice went "Hello". This was our manager's wife. Now look at this conversation from his wife's perspective. Its almost 11pm in the night. Her husband has gone out for getting some medicines (I believe) for their son. The phone rings. She attends and says "Hello"...a lady's voice from the other end says "Hello...uh...Subbu??!"

Subbu is our manager's nickname. We don't even know if his wife calls him by this name. (Perhaps she might refer to her husband as someone more elderly and call him with respect). She was silent for a while. My team mate and I were staring at the phone. Suddenly even my team leader joined in to experience the telephonic drama about to unfold. I guess my team leader and I was excited about Subbu's wife going to explode and give my team mate a nice lesson. But the wife didn't do that. She said her husband has gone out to get medicines. Team mate asked when can we callback; the wife replied, after half-an-hour. And then that conversation ended.

I looked at my team mate, and said 'Thank God she was Indian. She was kind and at least she understands!!! But if the wife was an American woman, she would have given you nicely over the phone". To this we all ended up laughing.

Yet another indian railway passenger reservation enquiry site...

2010-04-11T01:23:00.000+05:30

This sounds "usual". There are probably many sites out there which do the same thing...hence no surprise. However I couldn't find one that was designed for mobile phones; so I went and built one!

And it ain't all that great. In fact it shares a very simple relationship with the actual site. When the actual site is down, my application might be down too :(

Sure as glad that I didn't get the opportunity to go ahead and design the actual Indian Railways Passenger Reservation Enquiry site. Else for every "network connectivity failure" I don't know from which direction I might get incoming...

This application will not run on all mobile browsers. It should work on those phone browsers that has some special capabilities . But I am thinking of extending support to those unprivileged phones.

The url to the application is:
http://deostroll.appspot.com/pnr

Clicking on the title of this post should directly take you there directly. (Yes, it will run in your ordinary browser, but I'll warn you it won't look all that good). I'll pray it looks good on your phone though. I encourage comments if you've got ideas to make it look better.

I enjoyed the exercise though. It did fascinate me to think like a mobile web developer for a while

In order to prevent spam I've decided to moderate comments. Commenting won't be the same...but this shouldn't discourage you in anyway I hope. Please do comment till your hearts content! Just don't spam. I hate to say this, but Google isn't the only thing the Chinese annoy these days. :) (Wasn't sounding racial there). Take care.

The unofficial lonelywanderer.com adventures: the kid, professor and me

2010-02-08T01:38:00.000+05:30

Well the last journey I had back to chennai was a sort-of planned one; so there wasn't a lot of things happening. Just the usual stuff, and the usual “small” things. Else this post would have had to run into an even bigger mega series again. But I guess the length of this post kind of compensates the need for running this into a series. Like before this post is again not related to the actual site. The characters in this post are real, just like any ordinary passengers you'd meet while on a long journey. I don't know the names of the passengers involved in this narration, nor do I have that strange policy of just getting to know all the passengers in the train just for the heck of it. Reality check: I was a passenger too!

By writing this post I don't mean to mock what other people (I am familiar with or otherwise) firmly believe in. I also want to let my readers know that I don't usually judge other people this way.

Train No. 2696. The most arduous thing I recall about the last journey was the chilly night. I just wore a tshirt. Somewhere in the night I had to wake up, pull out a used shirt out of my bag, and wear it over my tshirt. And in spite of doing so I have contracted an elegant cold.

The next morning I was quite lazy to wake up. But I did anyway. Couldn't go back to sleep anyhow. So I sat with my legs crossed in the upper berth and began to read. Below in the side berth a cute girl, probably in her early twenties or something, was playing with what seemed like her nephew; or it could even have been her little cousin. I didn't care. There was a slightly elder looking woman sitting opposite to her and the kid; this would have to obviously be the kid's mother. After reading for some time, I decided to brush my teeth and opened my bag to take the brush and paste out. I noticed a lean woman wearing a blue churidar, again probably in her twenties, reading a book. She looked as though she was of some late Maharashtrian descent. I was searching for the damn tooth brush and looked into my bag. And on finding it, I looked below again; this time she was reading another smaller book. It probably had something written in sanskrith or hindi. But from the upper berth it looked like chinese. It really didn't matter.

After freshening up a bit, I returned to my place. I decided I'd sit in the berth like how passengers normally do on a day-time journey. On the lower berth, below which I had rested for the prev night, were seated three men. One looked slightly elderly than the other two. The other two were probably in their mid 30s. There was a fair & slightly plump bespectacled lady wearing a yellow churidar; she sat in the same berth the lean lady had, on the opposite berth; so the men and these two ladies were facing each other. The stout lady was sitting at the edge of the seat; the lean lady was seated next to the window. There was space for one person to sit in between. I reached for my bag, put the brush back into it, and kinda expected the stout lady to huddle close to the lean one - you know the saying birds of the same feather huddle together. The stout one looked stone cold. She didn't budge. I thought: Well, this one must have evolved. And so I had to occupy the space in between.

I looked over to the side berth to catch the cute girl and the kid playing. Was even expecting the girl to be even more naughtier than the kid. But she was quiet, calm, cute, yet playful, and damn good looking! I envied the kid for a while. That little chap was so lucky I guess. But I thought she'd probably already be in a relationship. Why else should she be so radiant and good looking?! And even if I were in some strange fantasy relationship with the girl I can't imagine the length of horror scenes I'd have to face. And if God directed a movie based on this relationship he'd probably want to give it another silly lunar title: Black Moon. And then the makers of the Scary Movie series would eventually mock it and probably even call it Funny Moon.

Then I seemed to notice a conversation was going on beside me. Eaves dropping would not be the technical term to call it; I was being subjected to listen to it. Each time I look the other way the conversation goes another way. Apparently the first book the lean one was reading was written by Sri Mata Amritananadamayi (aka Amma). I noticed her photo on the book. The person the lean lady was having conversation with was the old man, eldest of the three men seated opposite beside the window. He spoke highly of the book and what was written in it. What caught my attention was the topic: these people were discussing about farming. I didn't get the connection.

The old man went on to explain how modern methods of agriculture actually degrade the quality of our fruits and vegetables. The lean lady seemed to be intently engrossed with this topic. I was wondering why would Amma write about farming; I thought she was a spiritual leader. She should talk more about spirituality. Then the old man went on to explain that the use of pesticides and fertilizers destroys the natural order of things; the earth is bound to react one day to this. The lady seemed to concord; she even tried giving a corroboration. She said, the earth is already reacting! Every month you can see some calamity somewhere on earth. This conversation was getting highly illogical to follow.

The lean one was a conversationist. The old man had told her that he owned a piece of land and cultivates some crops there. He only uses cow dung and bone powder for manure. No pesticides. No artificial fertilizers. The poor man's flow of English was broken, but his points were coercive; convincing. The lady beside me asked him about crops the old man cultivated on his stretch of land. He said a lot of things. His dialog suddenly changed into fruits he cultivated. The lady also intently joined in saying she always had problems eating fruits like mangoes or pineapples which she purchased from the shops because of the pesticides. The conversation went on and on. I was getting a little tired; the allergy pangs were rising and falling. I was holding the hanky to my nose and trying to breathe through it.

I noticed the kid was playing quietly now. He was totally external to this conversation. The people next to me also showed gestures at times as they found parts of the conversation interesting. Suddenly as the old man was talking about his cultivation he said loudly and defiantly, I don't sell my crops to any one. If they want my crops they'd have to pay me high. I cannot give you quantity, but I'll give you quality, but at no point I'd give you poison!

Everyone's attention was focused at him for a while. Even the cute girl who was shuffling in her seat and who was totally disengaged from this conversation looked at him. The two other men sitting in front of me looked at each other. Their eyes kept rolling around in their sockets as if the part of their berth in which the old man was seated was about to get violently torn off or something. I noticed the stout lady beside me was holding her mobile phone; she kept staring at it from time to time. Wanted to ask the stout lady if she had some music in her phone, and headsets to accompany with it. For me, it didn't even matter the choice of music she might have had. I would have listened to Carnatic music too if that was the only go.

It was quiet for a little while. The lean lady offered to ask the publishers to send the old man a copy in his regional language. It seems she had connections with many swamijis and all. The lean lady and the man got to know each other better. This was when I learned that the old man was a professor. The lean lady worked in Citi Bank. Her name was Minu, I think. She claims she was settled in Chennai. But her lineage doesn't seem to suggest it however. The old man talks about his wife and son. He says the wife is staying in Idukki. She always had health problems because of eating fish and meat. The son too followed his mother's suit. However this old man kept to his ways; he was a staunch vegetarian who got his vegetables from his own land. He kept saying all these things about our teeth, intestines, etc were not designed to eat meat. He later went on to saying that we don't need Veterinary hospitals. We domesticate the animals. Had they been in the wild they'd know what to do if they fell sick. Now they don't know what to do. Time and again he had some valid points we could all debate about. But time and again he'd conclude it with some stupid pompous remark.

The train was nearing the Chennai central railway station. I think at the time we halted at basin bridge junction. And now the train slowly started to move forward. The kid grew more active all of a sudden. His entertainer was on the phone. He happily and boisterously kept repeating whatever she said over the phone. She was probably talking to her uncle. She couldn't stop with her laughter, and the kid's antics. The little kid stood on the seat, stooped near to her face and shouted everything the girl said into the phone. She was trying to shield the kid, but he stood pretty strong and shouted happily. And then finally she hung up on the call, and started to fight with the kid.

The train was a few kilometers away from the Central Station. The lean lady beside me started getting ready for the arrival. She took out her only bag from underneath. The old man asks, only one bag?! This woman was travelling alone. It was as if the old man was expecting a whole family of baggages, and instead found only one. He then pats his own baggage. It was a linen bag (we traditionally call sanji), and it was packed. He said, do you know whats in my bag? He seemed to be very excited about telling this. I am carrying 1 kg pepper, and 3 kg of green tea!

I instantly looked at the kid dispassionately. I envied him deeply now. The professor has 1 kg of pepper, and 3 kgs of green tea; you are lucky kid, 'cause you don't even give a damn and finally happen to listen to this.

I don't want to dampen the old man's spirit. In fact I respect his ideologies. I would have even chipped in a few points had there been a few more people who willingly sort to participate in this conversation. It was not just farming they talked about. They talked about history, the Spice Route, how pepper was discovered, how the egyptians actually built the pyramids; they touched a lot of things like this. At one point of time I did want to relate to all of this. Heck, imagine if everyone were talking, and then the kid suddenly spoke about global warming, wouldn't you want to say something too?!

My roomate, corn flakes & the min swipe amt comedy

2010-02-01T23:41:00.000+05:30

One evening me and my room mate (Libin) stopped by at Spencer's Daily, Velachery. He wanted to buy Cornflakes! He never knew what Cornflakes was until about a few weeks back. That was when I decided to have Cornflakes for breakfast before going to work. This wasn't my idea of an ultimate breakfast however, so when the pack of Cornflakes I bought got exhausted I never bothered buy one again...

But my roomy was convinced that this was an ultimate breakfast solution. After my pack of cornflakes got over he brought a new one; and started having it for breakfast each morning after he'd come back from work. I thought well, nice that he actually loves it. He'd pour half litre milk in a 1 litre mug; saturate it with the flakes to give you the illusion that there aint no milk at all! And then he'd spoon into it as if he's literally trying to fish the cornflakes out. Everthing until this point is watchable, until the spoon goes into his mouth; its like a sad nirvana, you don't want to know! But at least he enjoys it.

Today was the day he decided he replenish his stock of cornflakes. So we were at spencers to buy the only thing - Kellog's Cornflakes. It was probably about 7.30 pm in the evening. People were listlessly waiting for their turn to pay in the queue. My roomate also joined this queue. I went and stood afar. It was when I observed the queue from that position that I remembered a strange quote: if you think God doesn't have fun, just look at people waiting...

I wasn't actually laughing out loud per se. I was thinking to myself: we are such a mess and sometimes we don't even know we actually enjoy all of it.

My roomate reached the end of the queue. He waved out to me. Seemed like it was a matter of having no money. He wasn't sure he could purchase the pack of cornflakes with just the debit card: your purchases should total a min of Rs. 150/- if you want to swipe your card. He looked clueless. I went behind the cashier and politely enquired about the min amount to swipe in. She confirmed it was Rs. 150/-.

The cornflakes costed around Rs. 125/-. Damn, he thought. I just gave him a gesture of confusion out of realizing something, and told him that was what the two ice creams were for...He forgot about them. Before I broke off from the queue, I thought, why not an ice cream; picked up two moderately expensive cone ice creams, and gave it to my roomate. He happily received it and kept it in the basket beside the cornflakes.

He scanned the price on one of the ice creams and looked amused. Hell, even I was amused; I never thought about the minimum amount you had to swipe for...I just thought about having an ice cream. And incidentally this was what saved him from the immediate embarassment that was to come.

Class Notes on the History of Accounting - MS Word

2010-01-27T18:37:00.000+05:30

Class One

Class Two

Class Three

Why he fainted...

2010-01-08T10:29:00.004+05:30

Firstly I would like to openly congratulate my friend and colleague, thalaivar, R.Karthikeyan and his wife; his wife just gave birth to a healthy baby boy last week.

Now here is a small drama I am writing to probe my writing skills. The main character (or protagonist) in this story is real. Though the whole story ain't true, parts of it are actually fact. So here goes:

Prelude: 8.30 am. Our Hero is hurridely going to the hospital...

Scene 1: Trichy. Hospital. 9.05 am. Nurse's station. R.k is roaming about tensed. Nurse enter's the scene and occupies the desk.

R.K: Is the baby out yet?
Nurse: No.

The poor nurse began to recall how his wife was struggling earlier with the contractions two minutes apart and all. The nurse looked at R.k.

Nurse: Is this her first child?
R.K: NO this is her HUSBAND!

The hospital Mother enters the scene. She was on her daily rounds. Today she just happens to pass the maternity ward where R.K was roaming about impatiently.

R.K looked up through the window nearby into the heavens.

R.K: Lord. Please I hope you can launch the baby soon.

The holy Mother stops in front of him.

Mother: The Lord aint like you my son who has launched 35 RBI outbound campaings...

On listening to his our hero's face looks perplexed (confused). The holy Mother exits the scene.

Scene 2. The same hospital scene. 9.30 am. Nurse's desk.

There was a cry of a new born infant from outside the scene. The nurse enter's the scene with the new born in hand who is crying. There is a little, just a little, excitement on our hero's face. But he is still tensed. He walks towards the nurse to hold his first child.

Nurse: This one is a healthy baby boy. 3.5 kgs!!!

A loud crash. Our hero falls unconscious. All the othe nurses enter the scene to make our hero stand up right. And finally he sits on a chair with his apparent unconsciousness clearing. The nurse who held our hero's son shifted the child a bit to hold him tight.

Nurse: What happened? Why did you faint?
R.K: I thought...I thought, the child weighed 35 kgs. He weighs more than me. I didn't know how to carry...

And thats the end of the scene. We all hope our hero can feed his son properly, and hopefully himself too.

ROTFL

2010-01-08T02:04:00.003+05:30

Got this while searching for some pregnancy jokes. Disclaimer: by publishing this here I do not want to disgrace pregnant women, or women expecting to get pregnant, or the whole phenomenon of pregnancy.

Just thought this joke was too good.

A lady from a foreign country who could not understand much English wasn't feeling well and went to see her doctor. After examining her he said, "You are pregnant. Please understand that you have an insufficient passage and if you have a baby it will be a miracle."

The lady rushed home crying and told her husband, "The doctor says I'm pregnant and I have a fish in the passage and if I have a baby it will be a mackerel!"

Ps: more related jokes if you google or click the title of this post...

3 idiots is awesome

2010-01-04T22:17:00.002+05:30

Went to watch 3 idiots yesterday. The movie aptly captures the frustration of the Indian Education system from all angles. It also teaches us to follow something very importantly - your heart. Be what you wanna be. Even though you've come this far, its never 2 late 2 change...if you want to change...

How we decided to go for the movie was more fun. Couldn't get any matinee or post-matinee show tickets. They were all reserved 4 sun. But then thats how life goes in chennai. But there was a 7.30 am show on Sathyam.

At 1st we were kind of thinking...dude...7.30 am?!...and then we had our hands on the head. Then we heard good reviews and finally decided...wtf...breakfast or no breakfast; 7.30 am...3 idiots it is...

I booked for 5 idiots. (Me inclusive). Even I wasn't that crazy about the fact that I was going for the movie until Jerry told Suresh Rao (team manager - development) that we were actually going for the 7.30 am show. Suresh had his right hand to his forehead at the very mention. It was not that I had imagined how he would have made through the Sathyam gates with his wife and daughter, shouting, honey, baago, hum late ho gayae; that too at 7.30 am on a sun morn...we made him think it was so crazy that we actually enjoyed the apparent Schadenfreude – we enjoyed his feeling of disappointment. Guess it made us feel youthful.

Ah, the times are always still young! :D

Twitter turnkey turkey

2010-01-01T12:57:00.008+05:30

The ads which appear on facebook towards the right side are cool; they luk neat. But sometimes it does inspire you to think of some really weird and crazy things...like for e.g. this is how I misread the following ad.

This ad was about some Twitter Turnkey Scripts...think its some customizable scripts which enhance your twitter experience. (But I don't think its free though). Never really bothered to look what the product was at the time...I misread turnkey as turkey and started thinking:

What? Turkey twitter scripts?!!! Is twitter going to change its logo soon from the twitter bird to a turkey?

Hmm, then this must be their plans for next year thanks giving probably...

When I read it again, found out my error, I was psyched. But twitter changing it logo to a turkey seemed to hit my sense of humour. But the twitter turkey ain't all that a new idea. If you google for it you'd probably find this:

There are probably a lot of ideas you can get looking at ads sometimes. There is another one I haven't given that much publicity earlier though. The final result of this ad was a mock song. The ad which initiated it was none other than Google Chrome. Lets say these are times of several browser wars, and what do people do admist these wars...browse a very popular four-letter-word which their parents might even now probably cringe to hear...

The song which I mocked actually comes in the movie City Of Angels (Meg Ryan, Nicholas Cage); sung by - Sarah McLachlan (an extra-ordinary woman). The original song is titled "angel", and its a lovely song - don't mean to pun it though by all means. I've titled my song as "as the page loads in ur browser"...wanted to do a solo video of this song. Truly thought this would be a stunt which would celebrate the spirit of life. But then as I shot the video I thought I looked stupid, and dropped the idea altogether. But I think the song is really funny; I've posted it on my google notebook.

So enjoy the song, and happy new year you all...

Level 4 – the unofficial lonelywanderer.com adventures – El Finalé

2009-12-30T00:15:00.001+05:30

[This entry is the last of a 3-part series. Click here to read the 1st part. Click here to read the 2nd part]

Coimbatore railway station. 10.05 pm. Obtained a ticket for general travel on board the Cheran Express. I rushed to platform 2 where the train stood for departure. Found the general compartment coaches. They were full. Still I did not give up hope. Kept searching the coaches one general coach after the other, until I noticed a coach with only women seated inside of it. Oops, wrong coach! Retraced my path to the previous coach; got in. There was hardly space to stand.

I stood beside a woman seated on the floor. She looked all braced for the journey, wearing a scarf over her ears, and all. She kept a small green bag beside her. I was standing beside her in the small space I could afford. Even in this pathetic condition people were trying to move about from one end to the other either checking out if there was place or returning to their seats. I asked another person where he was getting down, and he said Chennai. Damn, all these people must be alighting there…Getting a seat was hopeless.

At the woman seated beside me I lend out my hand and offered to keep her bag on the top rack for the luggage. There was a fellow neatly squeezed up on that rack, but he wasn’t so much of a bother. Just wanted to keep the bag up so that people can pass about. Are you going to sit here? the woman asked. I didn’t reply, but thought to my self: No, but seriously what made you think I’d actually do that…?

Then all of a sudden there was quarrel. Somebody’s luggage landed on somebody’s head. They were quarrelling and quarrelling, until the owner of the bag protested: this is what to expect in the general compartment…I felt like this journey is definitely going to be a sour one. It was not the quarrel, or the lady who was about to offer me a seat on the floor, or the fact that almost everyone on that coach was headed for Chennai. I felt may be if I left, it just be one less trouble for all of them.

So I went and asked the owner who hurled his luggage at a fellow passenger: Can we refund a general ticket? He said that we could, but they’d deduct Rs.20 or so. I was a little happy on hearing this. I turned the other way, grabbed my bag, and made for the exit. The owner noticing my relative absence beside him called out to me and said,

Enna boss, dedinu plan maathithingala?
(Why boss, this sudden change of plan?)

I shrugged. Wanted to say something: God bless India. But I quietly got out of the train.

10.30pm. The moment I stepped out of the train it felt like as if a strange divine relief dawned over me. May be getting out of that coach must have been one of the best services I ever did for the Indian Railways.

Level 4 complete!

Getting back to chennai wasn’t that hard after this point. I went to the Kanthipuram bus stand. (Thats the same bus stand I got down earlier). I had to find a bus that goes to Salem. Instead, on reaching the bus stand I asked around for direct Chennai buses. Fortunately there were private bus services. But they cost a little more. What the hell, I’ve come this close to a direct bus to Chennai, I thought, and took the 1st bus I could find. It was a non-ac semi-sleeper video coach. There was a movie going on when I boarded the bus. Dhoom 2. Looking at Aishwarya Rai on the tv screen I felt a little repulsed; I saw Pink Panter 2 the night before on Star Movies. I had enough of Ms Rai for one whole month already…They played Dhoom 2 half way, and then switched on to one of Surya’s old hits – Kaka Kaka.

Don’t remember anything that happened after the 3rd song in the movie. Then I knew the bus halted somewhere; I woke up and got my self a new bottle of water. Activated the Google Maps app on my phone; it showed Thorapur. Heck haven’t heard of this place before. Who cared anyway. Got back into the bus. The next thing I knew, it was morning 7.30 am, and I was in Chennai.

Perhaps the holidays thought me a valuable lesson. Always book your return tickets. But this ride, though it seems like a crazy thing to do, was enjoyable. I don’t regret not booking the tickets. This was truly an experience – another small step towards celebrating the spirit of life.

Level 4 – the unofficial lonelywanderer.com adventures – Part Deux

2009-12-28T23:34:00.002+05:30

[This entry is a continuation of another post with a similar title. Click here if you haven't read the 1st part]

The queue for the Coimbatore bus looked ordinary. I knew it was long. But I didn’t know where it ended, or how long would I have to stand in the queue. I passed the line of people, one by one, from the point just before where the bus stopped for boarding the passengers; followed it to the inside. The building would have been 10-15m in width. Standing on one end you can see the back entrance. I thought that was the end. But as I went closer, the line shifted to my right; the queue stretched down to the main road. When I reached the main road, again, the queue shifted right. It followed the building and back to the main entrance only just a few meters from where I had initially noticed the queue’s start.

While waiting in the queue my sister calls. She thought I boarded the train to chennai from calicut (whose departure was @ 5.40 pm, she imagined I’d be sitting in the general compartment of course). She was a little surprised when I corrected her saying that I took the bus instead. I told her that there are many options from Coimbatore to reach chennai. She specifically enquired about the train timings. I told her that I had no idea. Then she began to give me advice on what I should eat for dinner. Have only vegetarian…! she told. I said, I already gobbled up 3 porattas and a bowl of pepper chicken curry. For a moment there I felt like she had the doubt whether I was actually her brother! I had to console her saying don’t worry, everything will get digested as I come to the end of the queue. I’ll let you know 1ce I reach chennai, and wished her goodnight.

I enquired about the train timings and bus timings with a fellow co-worker via phone. By the time I got all information I was nearing to get into the bus. So my options stood as follows:
a) heard that the last state transport bus to chennai to was at 10 pm. But if I had to miss this bus, I’d have to get to take a bus to Salem, and then catch a bus to Chennai from there.
b) if I were to reach there before 10 pm, I’d could catch the Cheran express train which starts from Coimbatore. It departs @ 10.20 pm.

On reaching Coimbatore, I asked around for the state transport bus stand. Crud! People didn’t know what ‘state transport bus stand’ meant…I told them I wanted to go to chennai! All of a sudden their faces kind of animated with the joy of having understood what I initially meant to ask…There were 2 bus stands from where you could get buses to chennai. I wasn’t sure where to go. The guy I asked suddenly called out to an auto driver and asked me to take him to some place I never heard of before. And the auto driver again asked me where I wanted to go. Even he repeated the fact that there are two places you can get a bus from, and offered me a ride for about Rs. 60.

Didn’t really like the offer. Someone told me earlier, that all the important places (bus stand, train stations, etc are all nearby. Therefore I told the auto driver I can’t pay him that much. He was straight faced; didn’t even come to negotiate. It was about 9.45 pm. I asked him how to get to the railway station. He pointed to the main road via the terminal’s exit.

I was expecting the station to be somewhat at a walkable distance. But as I stepped out, there was no sign of a railway station. I asked around again, and learned that I had to take a bus. So I got into some bus. Fortunately all the buses that stopped there would eventually go to the station. So I took the bus, got down at the railway station, and made my way to the ticket counter.

[This post is intentionally a series…to be continued…as I cannot write everything in one stretch]
[Edit: Click here to read the last part]

Level 4 – the unofficial lonelywanderer.com adventures

2009-12-28T09:46:00.003+05:30

I am not affiliated with the actual site. But I guess there are some good photography available there to publicly view, albeit a little old.

The usage of lonelywanderer.com this (unofficial) way kind of hit my mind when I realized that it was absolutely pathetic travelling via train to chennai (from calicut) especially during the holiday season with no reservation. Of course I should have done the reservation first a long time ago, but I somehow didn’t. Therefore I was rampantly finding out other means of getting to Chennai. Finally I chose to take the bus. And as most of you may know there are no direct bus services to chennai from calicut.

So yesterday after a bit of asking around learned that the best way to reach chennai was to somehow reach Coimbatore, and from there take either the train/bus. (Again, the former choice was a bad one). But unfortunately the frequency of buses to Coimbatore from Calicut is very rare. If I remember correctly theres only 2 services - in the morning and night. It was somewhere around 2.00 pm when I learned this…

Okay so how do I reach Coimbatore?

One of the state transport drivers told me to take the private bus to Palakkad. There are services to Coimbatore from there regularly from there. So I boarded one such bus. And this was my first journey to that place. Feel asleep most of the way though. I for some reason kept thinking that this bus had to go via Thrissur, Ernakulam, etc. Calicut to Ernakulam is a 5 hr journey. But after a late realization, I figured out that these buses fork at Ramanaatukara; it takes the road from there which goes to the Kozhikkode airport, Malappuram, Perintalmanna, etc.

And thus I finally reached Palakkad at around 7pm. To make it to coimbatore however you had to find the state public transport bus stand. No idea of the frequency of buses to coimbatore from there. Heck, no idea where the state transport bus stand was either…! After a little asking & walking around I finally found the state transport bus stand.

It was around 7.15 pm. The 1st thing I saw when I entered the station was a bus to coimbatore completely packed with people. Okay now when is the next bus? Is it the last one? If not when is the last one?! I went and enquired for the station master. Noticed that even the buses for Tiruvananthapuram (or Trivandrum) were packed, and people waited in queue hoping to catch the next bus for a seat. Looking at the passengers inside I told my self ‘God bless India’. (Even though I know I’ve not seen the worst – God bless India).

The station master was a patient fellow. He answered my queries patiently. So the last bus was at 10pm; buses were frequent – 1 every 10 min; it takes hardly 1h 15m to reach coimbatore. It was only 7.30 pm. So I thought it was best I dine. Had a very quick dinner; quickly visited the public urinal, and then headed towards the queue where people waited for the coimbatore bus.

[This post is intentionally a series…to be continued…as I cannot write everything in one stretch]
[Edit: Click here to read the next]

Pulicat and Tada Trip

2009-12-21T22:18:00.002+05:30

Went on a trip 2 pulicat lake n tada falls last sun (13th Dec). Rented out a car n made our journey. 5 different paths converged that day. 4 of them repressed with the corporate life. (me, sitaram, jerry & ashwin). The last 1 was prob sick of eating too much sea food - ganesh, sita's cousin, the marine engineer.

Our 1st stop was Pulicat which is about 50kms from chennai. Initially we thought we'd take our bikes for a ride, but then due to uncertain weather forecasts we ended up hiring the car just to be safe. The pulicat lake is 1 which adjoins the sea (the bay of bengal). Its a huge lake. There are many islands streching the mouth of the lake. We rented out a boat, and parked near on one of these secluded spots. All of us brought clothes esp 4 swimming, but nev had 2 use it. We were just happy 2 mke it in2 the waves with just our jockeys, frenchies, vips, n other unpopular brand of underwear.

Sita made me taste the bay of bengal; I think this was first time too! Ashwin collected a lot of shells. (He also made some pretty decent credit card debt collection calls from his cell phone). Even I had some shells stuck 2 my body; they must have thot I was a coral reef or sumthing! I and Jerry did wht we do best everyday in the office...wrote SQL queries...on the beach! Well he wrote SELECT * FROM TABLE. I as usual, compiled that statement and wrote Syntax wrong. Screw u!

All of us were exhausted after a dip in the bay of bengal. On the boat ride back, we took photos of the scenery, the lake, and the birds. The pulicat lake is known as a place of rest various migratory birds. You'd see all sort of these birds during the month of May which is touted to be the actual season to visit the place.

We did take some explicit photography of ourselves there while on the boat. These photos are available online. We have branded certain pages appropriately (as lite and full versions) (pun intended).

After the ride back to land we visited some Dutch tombstones. (This place was once a Dutch settlement too). There is a grave yard; its entrance gate leads you through an arch. There are sculptures of 2 skeletons there, adorned with some Dutch writings. One of the skeletons is ready to welcome you to the cemetery. I wanted to take a picture. But the scene was probably too scary for the camera film.

We were totally exhausted after the dip in the ocean. And...as if all that wasn't enough we headed straight to tada falls. The tada falls is again about 40kms from pulicat; somewhere after the Andra border. This was my first experience trekking. You have to do about 3kms of trekking to witness the actual falls. When we reached the place it was almost evening. We couldn't make it upstream as it required too much climbing. But fortunately there was a place downstream where we could take a bath.

Warning: unless you want to bang your head, and consequently suffer from amnesia, please do not take a dive head first into the stream. The bed is rocky, and the water is freaking cold! But it was damn refreshing; we were all so energized after the dip in the stream.

We were exhausted again after the trek back to our ride. And then we slowly returned to chennai. On our way back we were famished. We spotted a punjabi dhaba on our way back. (some 40 kms from chennai). The five of us feasted around 47 chappathis in total. Dinner there was exquisite, and lovely. We occupied those traditional cots they'd provided. This was my first and best experience eating from a dhaba.

After having dinner Ashwin, was seriously thinking of a change in profession. He wanted to take a 2-day internship from this place; come back to chennai, and start a dhaba on his own. I wonder if you are lost & stuck with this guy in a forest, he probably setup a dhaba there too...

When we reached Thirumanglam, our car gave off. The front tyre punctured. Hey something bad had to happen. It was a 2007 alto we rented. Guess when we returned it became a 1997 maruthi...Fortunately we were in a busy town area. We approached a nearby cycle repair shop and asked if they'd fix a punctured car tyre; thus the car was fixed soon.

Overall, this trip was fun; it was a celebration of life. And we all look forward to having more adventures like this...

PS: more photos to be uploaded soon. Keep checking the feeds for the same link

New horizons & concerns

2009-10-10T02:06:00.001+05:30

2 posts on the same day!!! Someone must be thinking that I am making up for my relative absence in the blogsphere.

Well I am not so absent! I am on twitter most of the time. And might continue to remain so if twitter doesn’t get blocked in my office anytime soon. Recently I find that I cannot be on twitter as frequently as I used to.

The reason: caught up with some work, away from my pc most of the time, and my mobile internet sucks. But mainly its work. It is researching new stuff, doing some web sites, etc. All of this because I have become a full-time developer in the ofc. Got recently designated as a sr. programmer.

I’ve done a couple of projects that has got me thinking about what is required to keep the show running from a continued production standpoint. You just can’t do the development and cut the ribbon for production to commence. You have to virtually be there all the time, even if it annoys those who have higher stakes in running the show. This is just another facet of the call center life – one that is not bragged about mostly.

But life is not without its share of criticisms and prejudices. I don’t know whats the road ahead. But who does? Life is still going to be like a coconut that fell into the river stream. It can only go where the currents take it to.

PS: borrowed those words from an education seminar I attended way back while I was in school. Still true today wrt students who do engg/medicine counseling.

Router Consequence

2009-10-10T01:16:00.001+05:30

Got a new credit card and all. They said that I had to spend something above Rs. 1000 to activate that crap. And I was looking forward it. I figured I wasn’t so indulged into the world of credit cards; so why not venture into it.

So my thoughts were instilled with what to buy for myself that would cost around that much? I thought of buying a titan watch. So I visited ebay.in, checked out on the prices, fixed a budget, and was prepared to make the purchase. Had a model and an appropriate price in mind too.

I shouldn’t have done that

I went to the titan showroom in velachery, and was disappointed to know that the model I had in mind was not there and the price was not what I expected it to be. ebay sells things cheaper! And then I was focused on buying a watch from ebay itself. Then as I saw all the models; titan was not really my style. I mean it wasn’t what I liked. There were cheaper watches that looked even better! Classic! May be prosaic, but classic.

The only dilemma was how am I supposed to spend Rs. 1000 with a watch which costs much lesser than that…?

At around that time (i.e. the same week), my room mate was demanding that we somehow share the internet connection we had. He had a modem splitter in mind. But I wasn’t too sure of it. We asked the broadband customer service if this was a good solution; they said it could cause network problems. It looked like a small device almost like a telephone socket. My room mate was suggesting we don’t buy anything too costly. But my mind was somehow fixed on buying the router. It would save us the headache.

So I went on ebay again, looked up at the prices. I was going to buy it from some shop in velachery itself. I was hoping to achieve a good bargain. And again the prices were dismally too high. Damn, ebay sells better and cheap! Out here most wireless routers start from Rs 2000. The non-wireless routers were priced around Rs. 1600. On ebay the same wireless router I looked at cost only Rs. 1500. Plus, shipping and that came up around to Rs. 1600.

I thought to my self, ebay it is… Thus I have ended up with a wireless router. And I used my credit card to pay for it too. Lets see how the bill haunts me though…

Because of my routers wireless capabilities I used my broadband connection to connect to the internet via the browser in my mobile phone. Gmail, and twitter mobile sites downloaded in a swish! It is awesome. I had downloaded some cool apps from the nokia ovi store for my mob (nokia 5800). It would have taken eternity if I had connected to the site and downloaded with the internet connection provided by my mobile network (aircel). Plus, now my room mate can sit and do his research for online stock trading and stuff and I can do my research and blogging at the same time.

This wasn’t my first purchase from ebay though. I purchased a clipper for my dad. In the end, I don’t know, a simple credit card ended up making me buy everything off ebay.

Clumsy Gadget

2009-08-20T02:12:00.002+05:30

Well, one night I was sitting and doing something on my comp when suddenly my room mate calls and says, there was an earthquake in our office! At first I blurted wha?!!! His ofc is on the taramani rd; not really that far if you go on a bike. I never noticed anything, and I didn't believe it was an earthquake at first.

Well some tweeters from chennai did post about experiencing mild tremors and the sorts. Thats when I confirmed there had been a tremor. I live on the ground floor so I couldn't feel anything. Mostly people living in high-rise buildings would have felt the vibrations. And if I am correct it was because of an earthquake in Andaman or somewhere near the coast of Japan.

That twitter search page came in handy for this particular event. The neat thing about it is the real-time info - the minute I post something, if you search for it, its there. However this was not the first time I've used twitter search. Remember the time when the news channels & papers announced there were about 7 deaths in chennai due to swine flu; I did actually think if finding out if people going to work were wearing masks!

Nevertheless, I found the thing useful to a certain degree. Then I wanted to keep track of such trends. In order to make this task easier I thought I get a iGoogle gadget designed to do so. I couldn't find the perfect one. So I built one. It is not so perfect, but it is more or less real-time. At least the posts will keep updating.

If you looking to add this gadget in your igoogle page there are a couple of things to do. First go to the page where you usually go to add stuff (click on the Add stuff link in your igoogle page). If you look closely there is a link which says Add feed or gadget. If you click just paste the url given below, and click on the Add button

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/115976558690780681327/the-twitter-search.xml

If you are lucky this should work else you'd get a message saying not found. I don't have a solution to that as of yet. But if that happens I can suggest some workarounds.

PS: anyone is welcomed to change the look & feel of that app. If you ever decide to do so just preserve the 'by deostroll' part.

Facebook presence

2009-07-30T02:31:00.002+05:30

Hi, I am able to post to my status line on facebook via twitter. All you need to have is a twitter account, a facebook application by the same name, and any one of the various twitter clients via which you can post your tweets to twitter. This may not be such an exciting news right now to some of you, but it saves the effort; I can just keep posting at one place, and both my twitter & facebook pages gets updated. Well, not that people are dying to know 'what I am doing' or 'what's on my mind' you can still keep in touch.

I was kind of researching if this particular feature is available in the other social sites like orkut & myspace. Thats when I learned about opensocial. Opensocial is very vast. And all I can say at this point is that applications such as orkut & myspace use opensocial to manage their social data - i.e. your friends in your friend list, and data pertaining to each one of them. Facebook uses (I don't know what to call it) facebook's own way to fetch social data!

I did get pondering sometime back about how my tweets actually possess the ability of creeping into my facebook, and I came to this: there is probably a middle man which communicates with my facebook profile and my twitter profile; something which is not part of facebook or twitter to be exact. It is a server running outside of twitter and facebook, and it is probably owned by some generous person. So is my theory. I really don't know how it actually works!!!

If the previous oara has struck you curious, you are probably en route to becoming a geek like me. :)

I'm also searching for blog service providers who are friendly to programmers. I mean I am not expecting a greeting card from them on friendship day or something; I am looking for a service which allows you to post code directly (you know without having to tweak the html and stuff manually) into your post while composing. Thinking of shifting my programming blogs...

20090723

2009-07-23T09:57:00.001+05:30

My life was like a documentary these past few days. :)

Parents at home are not doing their best in terms of health these past few weeks. I had to go home and be back a few times to take care of things. Presently they are staying in my sister's house. My father is suffering from diabetes, and it has passed a stage where he shows symptoms of damaged nerves and foot problems. He cannot walk these days without support. My mother on the other hand requested to have a home nurse around as she finds it difficult to manage my father alone. I am not all that happy with the way parents are suffering but I have to acquiesce with the fact that life is not without its slew of problems; we just have to keep moving on.

I on the other hand had an idea to shift to calicut in search of a job. But that is not a very good idea since the economy everywhere is somewhat down. But I've dropped that idea since my sister had given me assurance that she would take care our parents. Thank god I have a compassionate sister and a brother-in-law. And even so, I am still not happy, but I think this too will pass like everything usually does.

Although I am not desperate to settle down, I have told my sister and parents to arrange for a bride. But I don't think the TAT for that is going to be very soon. (Meanwhile I do have an MBA to finish). :) It seems my sister is also arranging for my cousin, Ajesh, who is currently in IIT, Chennai, doing his M.Tech. Perhaps I can expect to get married after he ties the knot. But I do hope that this will bring my parents to action and good health.

Yesterday on the way back to chennai, in the train, I was kind of thinking about all the stuff on the internet designed to make people interact with each other, and all; you know blogs, facebook, orkut, etc; I just kind of realised that you cannot simply take your entire life to the web. There is always a catch - a level of insecurity with most of our thoughts - and if you really look at them, they don't really last that long in a person's life. Our insecurities change, from time to time. If I did blog about them and people read it, they would react to it in different ways which could later on disrupt your peace of mind. But if you act on it wisely it is always healthy. This message goes out to all those who have recently found all/any of the above internet phenomenae interesting... And those who still want to let out what they feel they are perennially insecure about I suggest taking a book and a pen, and start writing...

http://twitter-trends-only.appspot.com (for mobile phones only)

2009-06-16T09:46:00.007+05:30

Built an app for tweeters. Nothing great to look at, and it doesn't tweet to be specific. In fact I just built it for viewing it from my phone web browser.

You've two options when tweeting. Do it from the main web page (i.e. the standard version) you have a list or trends in the sidebar. You can catch the current vibe on twitter (real-time!). On the light-weight mobile web version you can only view tweets that would appear on your profile, no trends!

So even though my phone can browse to the standard page, it is heavy, and you'd have to scroll a lot to get to the trending topics part. I've designed a page that just returns the trending topics only. (Notice the url in the title of this post)

Now when you are with your phone, and you feel like tweeting, and you don't have something to tweet about, you know where to find what is the most tweeted on twitter.

Happy tweeting.

My Phone & Twitter

2009-06-13T09:15:00.001+05:30

For those who didn't catch the news...I got a nokia 5800 phone somewhere in April. And, embarrassingly enough, I thought I blew the set on the 1st day itself!

You'd truly appreciate this product if there are certain services available in your area. Like for e.g. I have a Maps application on the phone. It has a 90 day trial period, after which you need to acquire license to use it; and this license is only valid for certain places, mostly metropolitan cities. (Or so I guess).

Initially I couldn't use the maps and all since my GPRS settings were screwed. I couldn't use a lot of apps. My boss had installed Google Maps on my phone with the hope of locating me, but he was turned off. No matter what he did that application would not work. He bluffed about being able to track me and all through that app. I don't know yet if this is possible, but I still sort of believe it. I was relieved when he concluded that Google Maps doesn't work! I mean, the last thing I'd want is to walk into a resturant and find my boss sitting next to me!

Nowadays if you happen to spot a lonely guy holding out a black-colored device that looks like a mobile phone high up and facing the sky it would most probably be me!

Yesterday at around 12am, I was standing outside Allsec's gate trying to get the GPS co-ordinates of Allsec. And then after I got them, on my way back into the office, some of my co-workers saw me, stopped me, interviewed, and started to get curious if I had an affair with someone outside the office.

I explored more about this gps stuff today. Its not only locations you can get; it can help you with navigation. Yes, I went to a mess near suterland, and "navigated" my way back to Allsec. For someone who has never witnessed this feature, it rocks! It even shows the speed at which you are travelling.

Well, theres more to come I guess. Currently I am researching on ways to share the co-ordinates I have. If I can upload it online ppl can download it onto their phones and "navigate" to my place if they'd like.

Lately I've just downloaded a twitter client app for my phone. Now my phone is officially a twitter client. You'd see more frequent updates on the sidebar. I was longing for this app for a long time. And now I have it. How I found it was even more interesting. I just searched twitter. Just keyed in nokia5800 in the search box; it listed posts related to the query, and I happned to see a tweet about an application called Tweets60. When I browsed to the link mentioned there...Eureka!

Plus there were a lot of new cool things I found about Twitter trends. If you really want to dig into the twitter vibe try tweeting trendy topics which appear on page. Here are some popular ones as of this moment:

#11thcommandment
#geekpickuplines
#Twitpocalypse (it about twitter going to die or something, it has everybody tweeting & re-tweeting)
and there is something about NHL (hockey) going on right now I guess

A tip: if you want to see your tweets appear on those searches remeber to include that topic in your tweet with a '#' as prefix like i've shown above

Well I'm just too proud of my phone today, and feeling hyped about digging into the twitter vibe.

Just taking a break...

2009-06-04T04:01:00.002+05:30

Researching ways to take break amidst a busy schedule...

I am not doing it for my self, so to speak. We are supposed to put up slides or articles on the subject for the weekend's jam session. If I go ahead and explain what that is all over again, I think it would be the most boring-est thing ever to be doing on a saturday. But what other interesting things do I do on a saturday anyway...

Moving on...Sometimes you know when you are in front of the keyboard doing something really serious, and you know you are done with a part of the entire job, being elated and all, you just can't help your poking your finger into your neighbour. You know, just stir up the other person. I don't reckon its a man/boy-thing. Even girls do it. Its actually part of a bigger thing called bonding at work. Here is aim is to make the work group cohesive. It is actually a stress reliever but however not an acclaimed one.

Why?

Because if your neighbour, without your knowledge, happens to be a good looking female from a conservative family who has four elder brothers, one of which happens to be your boss, you are literally in for taking a break amidst hectic schedules...

Argument against vegetarianism

2009-05-10T20:09:00.003+05:30

I've been blogging about why I don't think a vegetarian lifestyle is the apt lifestyle. Because one does not often realize how we became what we are now. But I am not saying that a totally meaty diet is the apt lifestyle either. I say that a balanced diet is the best. :)

Check out this post. Beware it is a long post, but I'd say, you'd find it interesting.

Tweet tweet, tweet tweet

2009-05-06T11:43:00.007+05:30

I have finally got my twitter feeds to appear on this blog (check the sidebar). I was obsessed with this for the past two days. Phew! Now you can see my tweets refresh every two minutes. I’ve added an ajax-like capability which should hopefully avoid stalling your page when the twitter servers are busy. I acknowledge there are better implementations of the same exercise, but I feel as though this is going to be one of my (short-lived) feats. I mean, it is not something I am going to enjoy it for the better part of my life, and that’s a good thing. :)

Anyway I did stumble upon some painful discoveries about the internet and stuff. Plus well, I know you’d be sort of interested in trying to implement the same exercise for your blog too. Check out the two posts on my programming blogs (Show tweets on your blog & Thoughts on the Twitter Exercise ). Or if you can’t wait, just view the source code for this page and dive in… :)

In case people were wondering where the link to the rss feeds for this blog is…it is still where it is :) ; you’d have to scroll to the end of this page. Alternatively, (and if you do wish to keep in touch)(no sarcasm intended), there are two things you can do:

Get a blog account at http://blogger.com. Once you have that you can come back to this page and simple click on the Follow with Google Friend Connect feature. After you enroll you can start following my blogs and keep updated with happenings. Remember you'd only know of my new posts; and you can see this on your blogger dashboard, as well as on google reader.
The other way (if you are not fond of google reader), there is a Subscribe To section. There you have the option to subscribe to my posts as well as comments on my posts. You'd be automatically redirected to online rss readers, don't worry.

So...nothing more to say. Just keep in touch. :)

Grown up or overconfident

2009-05-04T12:16:00.001+05:30

I've got an exam today – principles of management. Well, I've completely mismanaged to study it! I was too dug up with other things in spite of planning. I guess I never took it as a priority. I kept promising my self I'd study, but instead I got hooked up with some new discovery over the internet or with my pc. When I sit to study I cannot concentrate.

Okay, now with the above phenomenon running in parallel, and, as the zero hour approaches, I usually get irritated. Once (during college exams) this went to the degree that I actually decided not to write a paper. Those days people, whether they prepared for the exam or not, simply sat and wrote the paper. I guess if they didn't do that they'd be under the stress of writing it again, and stuff. (A majority of the people I know had backlogs). Even otherwise, the thought of bunking an exam would have been suicidal for some. But for me it was a small relief!

Today I am not under any compulsion or stress. I can bunk the exam if I want to or not. I have decided to write it, in spite of the fact that, I still have 6 chapters pending. Coz I have faith – I attempted two online assignments and passed both of them!

This doesn't solve the moral issue here, but who cares!!!

Bangalore visit

2009-04-26T12:42:00.006+05:30

I had been to Bangalore to attend the Great Indian Developer Summit 2009. But don't worry, I wasn't a “great Indian developer” before nor I have become one after attending the event. :)

Apart from the jokes it was a well organized event. We only attended the first day of the conference. This is the first time my company sent me for such a thing. This was an event any aspiring/professional developer would not want to miss.

There were two souls living in Bangalore I couldn't visit. I remember studying with them in college. But I never realized they were put up there. It seems like I was “out of touch”. My apologies to Jaba and Ravi. And Ravi, if you are reading this I think I was roaming inside your campus while attending the event. And I am sorry, it never crossed my mind that you'd probably be roaming there too! Will make it up next time if there is one...

Thanx to Anoop (Jango), (my batch mate in college), who reminded of the two souls (Sandeep & Ravi – my college batch mates) living up there. I appreciate your effort. Hope you'd have the patience to do this again, and again... I have the opposite of an elephant's memory. :)

Friends, consider blogging like this (by keeping it short), to update about yourselves. Grab the rss feed (look of the link that says Posts (Atom)) of this blog, and put it in your rss reader. It will give you updates of new post I've made out here. I'd suggest google reader to do this job. But you have to remember it exists and visit it constantly. Or you can download an application to do the same. Or if you are too lazy to blog consider twittering (check out the intro video out there). In fact you can check out my tweets here. I usually twitter using TwitterFox. I guess this is the ultimate lazy way of posting your tweets...

My obsession with cloud programming

2009-04-25T22:59:00.004+05:30

Ever since ubuntu has come in I've been obsessed with cloud computing. But I assure you it has nothing to do with me having ubuntu. I've blogged about this obsession here.

Ubuntu-ing all again...

2009-04-17T03:01:00.002+05:30

Hey I got an ubuntu cd (intrepid ibex v8.10). I ordered it online, and it was shipped to me free of cost. Previously I had Ubuntu 5.10. It was quite unstable. I couldn't install most apps on it, like the new version of FF, or have the browser play flash objects. Now, in this release, its all simple.

Today I've downloaded some codecs for my Totem (similar to wmplayer in windows) to play mp3 files. These things don't get shipped default. You have to download them.

Overall I feel this is better than 5.10. Plus I hear they are working on a new release 9.04. Its time to prep my debian skills again...

Recession

2009-04-07T05:17:00.004+05:30

You know I kind of want to make this post really long, but I feel too lazy to type. So instead I'll dive right through it.

I never really understood the actual cause of this recession. I wanted to visualize the economic drama that lead to the current situation. But behold! I haven't analyzed facts on a deep scale. I asked my self whats are the two things that you'd blame for the occurrence of this recession - I thought over production & outsourcing. It turns out that you simply can't say that's it! There is oil prices, food grains, etc all coming into the picture. I did refer a couple of sites for that:

http://useconomy.about.com/od/grossdomesticproduct/a/cause_recession.htm - Causes of economic recession
www.pennyjobs.com/pp/public/Articles.aspx?aid=156 - Article about recession & outsourcing. (You can't scapegoat outsourcing as a root cause).

The first visualization I got however was a forwarded email I got. Its still in my inbox; those who want it can privately message me.

Yes Man (movie)

2009-04-06T15:20:00.002+05:30

I’ve heard about this movie through a review on the Chicks on Flicks tv show aired on Sony Pix. The verdict was “Catch it”. Yeah, and, I liked those chicks too… Anyway, the movie according to me was an effort towards grasping a positive attitude. It actually informs the audience that this is one way you can achieve positivism in your life and, please I don’t really want to go to the degree to say that they do actually advocate it. You know that is actually being fanatical about a movie, when it's reason, purpose or ethos is clearly not…

Well, I really hope you watch this movie for yourself and come out with your own opinions (and comment about them here :) ). I really found the momentum, plot, screenplay, etc all practical. This could happen in real life to some person. This story is mainly Jim Carry’s character, Carl’s, story about how he transforms from a person who always said “no” to someone who said “yes”. Along with this transformation you see the hitches he gets into and how he deals with them. The conclusion I’ve derived from the movie, there is no point in living life not being open to anything. There is no point in living without discovering what’s out there for yourself. But to do that you need to first adopt a positive attitude to everything. Say “yes” to everything for a start, and you’ll learn the rest.

But watch the movie first. ;)

Purposefully mysterious comments

2009-04-02T01:36:00.004+05:30

This post may kill your blogging enthusiasm, but it is not really meant to. Ever wondered why strange and mysterious people comment on your blog? If they ever do it?

clark said...
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Joannah

http://2gbmemory.net

This is a sample of a mysterious comment I got in my last blog. (Note I've removed the links and stuff, and I've removed the comment temporarily from the last post too!). There are similar comments by people in some of my blogs. I never really paid attention to what those comments were doing there. They usually have a link to a website you've probably never heard of.

I've recently been to Technorati.com. To tell you the truth, I was trying to make my blog more visible. Technorati is a sort of a blog search engine. If you have a blog you can claim it. The site actively lists all popular blogs. So how does your blog become popular? They have a ranking algorithm. Their spiders go about indexing the occurances of links within blogs they search. Your blog becomes popular when more number of (other) blogs link to your blog; it is not the number of links within that, rather, it is the number of blogs that link to your blog. The website measures this by an index/scale they call Technorati Authority. The more the number of blogs link to your blog, the more your authority. Hence your blog would probably get listed on their web pages too, i.e. if it had a high authority.

So what's my authority? Nah, I don't want to talk about it. :)

Ever heard of PageRank? Google uses an algorithm by this name to rank web pages on the World Wide Web. PageRank is licensed to the Stanford University. Ever since this patent got licensed, people have been actively spamming websites linking them to their web pages. The effect of this, well, you can probably write an essay on it now.

But you know what I should have actually done...? I should have gone to the other person's blog and commented the following:

Hey,
Thanx for your comments on my post [link to that blog]. Y don't u comment on my other blogs too. They are
1. [link 1]
2. [link 2]
3. [link 3]
Have a nice day!

I don't know, perhaps I may even do it! ;)

Exercising

2009-03-31T12:32:00.003+05:30

Honestly, I don't like exercising. But if you've seen the animated movie Wall-E where in all the humans living in space are bloated, I can't help think otherwise. Actually I don't mind being a little "bloated" either, as long as my pants fit. Even the opposite is a concern to me: what if my pants fell?!! ;)

Every once a while, whether you like it or not, you are faced with a physical activity. For me the case is, even to fetch a pale of water, I'd have to pull a few strings, if you know what I mean. I wasn't always like this. So I've decided things have got to change. And thats when I decided jogging.

Why jogging? Because its risk free.

I usually do this activity on my own. I could have easily gone to the gym and started working out but the instructor over there says its a risk taking something more than what you are calibered for. Well, thats only relative. And if you have faltered, you probably need someone to take you home. I used to like running before, and now I am jogging.

But why exercise at all?

Well, its is better than not to exercise. It keeps your metabolism up, regulates blood flow to various parts of your body, increases oxygen supply, etc. The main reason I am in it is to build strong bones.

An unusual case of dementia and its after math

2009-02-23T18:29:00.010+05:30

Written on 31st March 09,

Last month my MBA exams were up. They are usually online exams, but you'd have to book your seats well in advance if you choose to appear. I only opted for 3 (out of 5 total) subjects that time. The other two were pure management papers; so I thought I might need more time with it - Accounting & Principles of Management.

So I did my seat booking for those 3 subjects. I had lavishly placed a weeks time between papers. A week before the 1st exam I started preparing. That week I was involved with a lot of things (settings "standards" & stuff); but I still managed to learn a few chapters too. The exam was on a Sunday. So for a Saturday, I had to walk in first shift, get some sleep, and then attend the exam. And I did all that.

But there were a few more chapters to go. The thing is if you just read the book 1 time, you could easily sail through the exams. And my attitude towards exams in general is, if you leave something, the probability of screwing up is more. So on that Sunday, (probably towards the end of Feb), I woke up early and rummaged the books. In between, I felt so hungry, I had to go out to eat. I didn't notice how time flew, but it soon became 11.30 AM, and I was still lagging. Exam was at 2.30 PM. I need to lunch before I start, and I am still a few chapters behind. And to top it all I wasn't sure where my centre was located!

Ah heck, it seemed like those old college days again. And I sang a song I usually do for such occasions. Those who have probably studied with me in Bhavans would immediately recognize it. [Hint: it starts with the word "screw...", and it is a parody of a popular Michael Jackson song]. Yup, you've probably guessed it right!

Then I had to get ready, and stuff. When the time came to leave, I had to collect my hall ticket and stuff. So there I was checking to see if I took the correct hall ticket, all dressed up, and ready to go. I was still basically prepared for 'something worse' which was because of the thought of a few more chapters 'still lagging'... I got out of the room; locked my door; took the hall ticket to cross check, and then my jaw dropped, and I still couldn't help smiling at my own egregiousness. The exam was scheduled for the next day. *embarrassed with severe damages*

The funny thing is I booked the seats conveniently on a Monday, and for a purpos: usually Mondays are more like Sundays for me! But I still don't know what happened that week to make me think "it was on a Sunday".

How the software industry runs...

2009-02-23T18:29:00.005+05:30

This is just one view. My manager educated me about this a few weeks ago.

My manager tells me that here is where the MBA graduates and IITians (who work in the software industry) all come to play. They will go the requirements and say "Well from understanding your requirements as stated in the tender, this is your product (Product A). But if we give you Product B, (which basically covers all Product-A), you get these [attractive] features, plus you don't need any support for the next three years. Else you can take Product-C, which is blah blah blah; it has more [attractive] blah blah blah". This is not intended to pun the software industry. In fact I don't know if firms actually function this way; I've never verified it.

I still can't figure where the MBA graduate plays in all this. How does his/her expertise actually help? I am only dying to know because I am currently undergoing a correspondence course on MBA - Post Graduate Diploma in Information Technology. There are IT related subjects as well as management subjects. Its the latter causing all the fuzz. I am not able to relate to them. The question is still open, and I am all ears.

There are no facts

2009-01-15T22:13:00.003+05:30

There are no facts, only interpretations - Friedrich Nietzsche

I have never done a biography on this guy, but this statement amuses me. This quote is starkingly true and I wonder what made Nietzsche to think about it.

There was a time I was pondering how to make sense of it, and I took the analogy of a rock:

A rock is for fact, not a rock. We really don't know what "it" is...however we
still have to call it something. And hence we stuck to the name "rock".

I am suggesting we could have called a rock anything we wanted to, but it still wouldn't be that for fact. ;)

Function pointers and delegates, arrgh

2008-12-30T19:40:00.003+05:30

Those who have gone through a priliminary c/c++ course might find this concept in most of the modern programming languages painful to understand. However, I believe you'd appreciate it better if you understood the scenario where this idea plays well. And thats what I think I've done in this post.

Oh, its actually about delegates (in the .net programming framework). The idea was to actually make one understand why use delegates even though they are essentially function pointers? Happy reading.

Are you hungry?

2008-12-22T20:13:00.003+05:30

Today I was researching hunger. I was not actually feeling hungry at the time! I was attempting to complete the post for my blog on evolution. The topic I am really dealing with is drug addiction. But its strange! How did I go from that to hunger?

Drug addiction is kind of a very complicated subject to explain. Hunger does not actually fit in, but I thought of taking hunger as an example and then progressing with the article. But then I concluded it is not hunger. I should actually be talking of reward.

But hunger is an interesting subject to think about. The lack of hunger leads to a condition called anorexia. There are a hell lot problems related with hunger. But I am still trying to understand why we feel hungry.

Well, thats food for though ;)

The 2nd post

2008-12-14T02:51:00.000+05:30

There is a post I am trying to finish. But it won't be listed on the space I've created for it; instead I've decided to relegate that post to my geocities website, which btw needs renovation. It deals with intoxication. But I was only interested in the evolutionary aspect of it. I was so pulled into this theory of rewards that I had decided to blog about it. I felt like I didn't do justice for the 1st blog, so I decided I write another one. It turned out to be em, slightly huge. I guess out on my website it won't look too bad. Or even if it looks bad it is because the website looks bad. But the article I believe is good. ;P

The 1st post

2008-12-13T13:46:00.001+05:30

I am a blog maniac. The reason being I think a lot. You can criticize me for that but thank the lord that I don't think aloud.

I think about different subjects, at different times; sometimes in different languages (computer programming inclusive). But I blog in English only. I don't actually make appointments to think. These thoughts just happen randomly. I guess you can charge me guilty of a curiosity syndrome.

Well I do have a lot of blogs apart from this. And I thought I needed another one to somehow link all the other blogs through this one. If I have counted properly I have around 8 blogs (2 defunct). Each of these blogs are deal with a different area of my interest. Sometimes its programming. Sometimes its free software. Sometimes its evolution, etc. Sometimes its something totally different. However the main idea is not linking, but rather blogging what is occupying my mind currently. So this is somewhere I can blog just about 'anything'.

Anything? Eh, well it depends on whether my motivation calls for it. (At this point there are a lot of disturbing topics in my mind, but I don't know yet how open my readers are; else I would have posted about those too).

Right now it is actually a mix of things occupying my mind. My boss complains about not being there on shift timings. I guess he is annoyed, but he is actively trying to placate this issue. He has warned me that I must apply for half day leave if I am 1+ hr late. I, on the other hand, don't mind getting a few LOPs (Loss of pay). This year I am trying to save tax on my income.

Jokes apart my boss does have a valid reason for allotting me the current slot (1.30 AM - 10.30AM). He says I should be there in case an issue arises. There are only two people handling the shift when the 1st shift ppl are relieved. It will be too much pressure for the 2nd shift ppl. This is what a manager would do. No offence. But its not just me and my boss. Our team is adequately staffed. They had tried to get an extra head into the department, but its seems the management resents it. We don't do any work, they say. But there is still yet another side, but I am stopping here.

Another thing I am trying to get over, is applying the singleton design pattern in asp.net. Well, you need to know about design patterns, and, asp.net for that. While I was trying to research this I also wanted to know how the asp.net engine assigns a session object to a request. Somehow I feel if I do find the link then it would be easy to implement the singleton pattern. As of present, if you are novice, and you are trying to implement this pattern, I stop you and say, yo this is web programming, not windows forms...