Arbit strings concatenated

Testi-moan-ial

2009-11-20T11:20:00.000-08:00

I do not know what is the actual purpose of an Orkut testimonial but people around the world have found innovative methods to make use of it. Here are some images:

Last but not the least!

Image courtesy: Arbit screenshots from arbit friends' Orkut profiles.

Of teas and old times

2009-11-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

A tea or a couple of teas a day keeps laziness away- okay, this statement may qualify for one of the most corniest statements of the millenium and without digressing let me get to the point. Today happens to be the birthday of one of our pals, known popularly as PVD or Patvardhan etc.

He was previously introduced in the blog in this post and this time I have decided to use a snap which I stole from VP's Orkut Album.

In the image, Chandru(Left) and PVD (right)

Having said all this, Happy birthday PVD from all of us and keep rocking!

- The (un)official PVD fan club, Bangalore.

P.S: Unlike last time, PVD has not bribed me to write this post.

:)

Project SadiSaath - The beginning!

2009-09-20T00:43:00.000-07:00

Recently there has been a lot of GSB Konkani comedy videos on the web and my favourites are the ones by 420Prash which still keep on tickling my ribs after watching them for maybe fifty times or so. Konkani is a great language for comedy and this comedy can be broadly classified into two forms - the healthy "veg" comedy which is aimed towards people of all age groups or the "non-veg" bhand comedy for the mature people. :)

Inspired by creative people like 420Prash, we decided to make some videos and this led to the "formation" of SadiSaath ( meaning 7 and half in Konkani, a reference to the infamous number 7 that has been attributed to us GSBs from time immemorial).

As of now, three of us friends form this group and share the credits for the voicing over and script writing.

The three of us:

Myself as Gondu Poru
Chandru as Savai Budonthu
AND
Jagga as Mukkala Mharaga

We aim to write and enact healthy comedy intended towards audiences of all ages. The first video we released yesterday has been recieved by the audience quite positively and it seems to be a good start for us. We will be needing your support to improve the quality and content of the videos as well as to help these videos reach out to a lot of people.

This is our debut video titled - "Returning from Kodial Teru"

Non-Konkani viewers may not be able to make out most of the dialogues and here is a brief summary of the video:

After a heavy meal at the Car festival in Mangalore, three people - Maamu(voiced by Gondu Poru), Charko (Voiced by Savai Budonthu) and the Chelli (presumably Maamu's daughter) are on their way home back by car. Maamu supposedly has hogged a lot of food, especially the Dalithoi (Dal) which has resulted in a state of massive flatulence. As he keeps on talking, he relieves himself of all the rectal gases, while the other two can only wonder from where the odor has been emanating from.

Watch the video and let us know the feedback!

The timeline of Autoraja

2009-09-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

Autoraja in 1982

Autoraja in 2005 (Autoshankar)

Autoraja in 2009 (Yezdi Pai)

Send him a message if u need a ride!

Power of the Pentatonic Scale

2009-07-29T01:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Logik for sharing this link - Music lovers or otherwise, a must watch!!

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Me, my(our) brain and Ghajini

2009-07-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

The human brain is a very interesting entity. I am really intrigued by some of the things that happen to me regarding my memory. While I can remember some incidents that took place when I was in the kindergarten, All the electronics theory (h-parameters etc)I learnt as a part of being an engineer seems to be completey wiped off without a trace within a year of my graduation.

Technical literature can be a pain in the neck many times due to its extreme jargonish content but recently I happened to come across a series called HeadFirst, thanks to my friend-colleague-Java mentor KBK. Let me paraphrase what the HeadFirst has to say about the human brain and its memory power:

"If you really want to learn, and you want to learn more quickly and more deeply, pay attention to how you pay attention. Think about how you think. Learn how you learn. Most of us did not take courses on metacognition or learning theory when we were growing up. We were expected to learn, but rarely taught to learn.

To learn a concept quickly, all that we need to do is to "trick" our brain to tell it that this particular concept is really important. Otherwise, we are in for a constant battle. with our brain doing its best to keep the new content from sticking."

Its a wonderful series and I am currently reading HeadFirst Java in which Java is made to look so easier by the wonderful "user-friendly" presentation of the material.

Well, if you people were wondering what Ghajini has to do with all this:

Today morning I decided to get some grub, locked the door and went out into the street. Then I realized I had forgotten my wallet in the room and so I came back to my house and unlocked the door. After going inside, I was not sure for what reason I had come back. After a futile attempt to "recollect" the reason of coming back, I locked up the door again and went to Sneha Sagar, the wonderful eatery near my house. It was only when I finished my Idli-Vada that I came to know that the reason I had gone back was for my wallet.

Maybe this is the effect of being in the IT industry for sometime.

P.S: Tamil version of Ghajini is a zillion times better than A Khan's version.

Just for laughs: Check this out - My mood of Ghajini by Krishashok

The CET Counselling Experience!

2009-06-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

I had avoided going through the CET counselling process five years ago as I managed to somehow sneak into NITK Surathkal by bagging a decent rank in AIEEE. But today I had to partake in that "rigorous" process as I accompanied my brother for his counselling.

On the way in the bus my brother met his friend who had bagged a rank of about 700 or 800. Normally such a rank would let him gain admission into the top colleges of the state but he had in turn chosen a not-so-great college in his hometown. The reason was the college was at a walkable distance from his residence. Somewhat seems to be a good reason but wait; I also came to know that he had spent a hell lot of money for "IIT Coaching" and something called as a "5-in-1" coaching (God only knows what that means). My question is why spend unnecessary on all these extra coachings when you are choosing a college that does not need a very good rank to get in? This guy had finished his counselling formalities 2 days back but he told me that he liked the city and had put up in his relatives place and was roaming around the city randomly by making use of the thirty bucks BMTC daily pass.

18th Cross, Sampige Road is where the CET Cell is located and to be on the safer side we arrived there well in advance. The road was littered with representatives of a few engineering colleges who were handing out cool multicolored pamphlets describing how great their college was and how great their labs were. Some of them are really funny - one image involves two people standing awkwardly in front of what looks like an circuit board and some wires sticking out of it and one wire from it is connected to an oscilloscope which apparenly shows nothing on the screen!! It must have been switched off. Those two guys spent a lot of time and energy trying to give a cool pose and must have forgotten to switch the poor oscilloscope on. If you people have seen photos of hunters posing with their kill - yeah, this one looks like that.

After wading through hordes of these people, I entered the building. A huge gathering had assembled in front of the hall. There was a huge screen displaying the seats available in the different colleges for the different categories - 1G, 3G, GMK, GMR, KKR etc. There is a
tall fence that encloses the building and there is a small gate at the far corner where 2 heavily armed guards stand watch. A loudspeaker which is not loud enough thanks to all the candidates and their parents chattering incessantly, keeps on announcing the "range" of ranks and if our ranks happen to fall in that number space, we are supposed to authenticate to the armed guards who open the gates so that we can get into the other side of the fence. Our turn arrived and we got in.

Here we are supposed to wait in another hall. A form was handed out to us which we were supposed to fill. There was a loudspeaker here too that announced the rank ranges and when our turn arrived, we were shifted to yet another hall where we had to wait for our turn to get our documents verified. It took quite some time to get over this process and when it was finally over, we were again moved to another waiting hall (thankfully this was the last one) where we were called by the counsellor after some time and luckily my brother happened to get the seat which he wanted.

Only one parent or guardian is supposed to accompany the candidate and somehow both the parents of a few candidates had managed to sneak in. The officials quickly found out this breach of rule and when the "extra" people were asked to leave, some did not like it, some thought that it was impolite and rude and some verbal exchanges happened. After paying the admission fees and recieving the admission order, we escaped out of the building.

All the students coming out of the CET cell after the formalities bore a happy and "energetic" expression on their face cuts unaware of what lay ahead and more than the students it was the parents who were proudly walking alongside. Because soon they can say -

"Ree, namm huduga Yanjineering madthavne. E yaand C. Hoon. Yelectraaniks yaand....Marthoythu. Aeno idhe aamele.."

My congratulations to all the candidates and also to their parents for providing them with guidance and support.

P.S: I have been extremely tired due to this long ordeal and I havent bothered to proof read and check for errors. Please forgive me if there are any errors.

And see this wonderful video by mindryin about CET counselling. 5 stars!!

Redundancy

2009-06-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

Long time no post. This is about a small observation that I made on a plastic tub that was recently purchased in my house.

Close up pic of the label is below!

P.S: No comments.

She

2009-03-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

Living alone, all by yourself has got its own plus points. First and foremost advantage is the privacy that you get. Then come many others, for example, if there is no one around to converse with, we tend to think and contemplate, which in turn enhances our cognitive skills. It is an effective method to appreciate the beauty of solipsism and to re-discover oneself.

Without further ado, let me tell you a small story. There is a hotel at the end of the street where I live which goes by the name "Sneha Sagar" (which means Ocean of Friendship in Kannada). Me and Chandru were daily customers to this hotlu when we were staying together for sometime. This hotel is very small by dimensions, maybe as big as the hall of my tiny 1BHK apartment, but nevertheless, it caters to a large number of people ranging from IT professionals (like me!) to people of other walks of life like the ubiquitous real-estate dons of the locality, the head-constable and his subordinate, the hot-chips store guy etc. There aren't much items in the menu but the taste and quality is decent when compared to the other choices that are available.

I have my daily breakfast here at sharp 8:45 AM and I always ensure that I am present at the hotel at this time. Its not that I am a punctuality freak but it is because of an attractive young lady who comes there to have breakfast. Sometimes she is accompanied by her roommate(my guess) but generally she comes there alone. She usually dresses up is in a tee-shirt with her hair tied neatly into a bun. She will either order a set-dosa or idli-vada.I have garnered quite a lot of information regarding her eating habits. If she ordered set-dosa , then she orders coffee along with it and it is tea that she chooses to drink after having idli-vada. It is interesting the way she eats the dosa. What i do is pick a chunk of the dosa, dip it in chutney followed by a dip in sambar and then eat. But she first dips the dosa chunk into the chutney and takes a bite. Then she eats some sambar with a spoon. This ensures that sambar and the chutney do not mix on the plate. How smart!

As it is a very small hotel, I always happen to be seated in her vicinity. Our first acquaintance began with a very interesting incident. One day, she ordered a idli-vada and when the hotel guy turned to me asking for my order, I told "Same!".

"What?" he asked a bit confused and I replied "Whatever she ordered, Idli-vada.".

She turned towards me and there was a faint smile on her lips. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second. My heart was racing.

The hotel guy always utters some funny statements when he takes the order from the customers. A few examples:

"Ondu Plain dose. Olle paper.. paper iddhange irbeku.." (One plain dosa, should be like paper) ,

"Sir. Bere Aenbeku? Tea, coffee, badami haalu, whisky, brandy.." (Sir, what else do u need? Tea, Coffee, Badam Milk, Whisky, Brandy...) ,

"Ondu full bisi coffee.. Benki, benki iddhange" (One full hot coffee. Should be like fire).

She smiles to herself when he says all this and I infer from this that she must be a Kannadithi. But till date, I have not heard her speak in Kannada. Whenever she gets a phone call, she speaks in either English or Hindi. Sometimes, the chutney is a bit salty or the sambar is watery but all these not matter much as long as she is around.

A few days back I had been to the Pizza hut near my place and found a surprise waiting for me there. She was there along with a guy. By the way things looked, I guess that guy was her boyfriend. My appetite seemed to have vanished suddenly. She saw me and smiled as if saying hi. I tried to smile too but in a state of mixed emotions, feeling happy for she having recognized me and feeling sorrowful for the reason that she may already be having a boyfriend, So what? What if she was single? Would I have said hi to her someday in Sneha Sagar, get acquainted, go on a date, propose to her and marry - aargh, I guess thats just too much.

Nowadays,she never comes to Sneha Sagar. I feel like asking the hotel guy whether she comes at some other time but have decided against it as I dont want him to get any ideas. I guess some people like me are better off being single. Let me reiterate that catchy phrase which was once my Gtalk status message - solitude is bliss.

Grapes are sour? Whatever dude whatever.

P.S:

A Conversation between two famished software engineers whose 5 day wait for a weekend has finally ended. (Overheard in our canteen)

Engineer 1: Man what plans for weekends?
Engineer 2: Recession right? Therefore no plans.

Thanks to Facebook, people are coming up with some cool status messages. Here is one by Sheldon : "And on the seventh day, God gave his greatest gift to man - Weekends."

Smorgasbord

2009-02-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

It has been a long period of more than two months since i updated this blog of mine and on this auspicious day of February 14, I have finally decided to write something here. And for the sake of avoiding any redundancy I have decided not to crib for my being single as I did last year on this day.

Our college convocation happened and finally I am a graduate. The ceremony was preceded by a wonderful lunch with those Ideal's slab ice-creams as the dessert (reminded me of the hostel mess). Stifled in that highly uncomfortable formal clothes, add to that the characteristic humid weather of the city, all of us successfully transitioned form graduands to graduates.

I was in Mangalore for some ten days and it was Car Festival time. For those who need to know more about the festival, please read this post which I wrote last year in my earlier blogging days. The Venkataramana Temple is located in a locality called Car Street in Mangalore and the street is named so because it is on this street where the procession of the deity in the car (ratha) happens. The famous Tajmahal hotel of Mangalore, Balli's Podi shop etc are based on this street.

Me and my friend walked all along this street towards the Bunder area (The old Mangalore port) and decided to have some cool drinks at a small shop there. We ordered for two 'JOY' cola drinks and were conversing in Konkani. The shop owner handed us our colas. Our conversation aroused his curiosity and he asked: "Aapka Gaanv kya hai?"

We were a bit puzzled by his query and I replied - "Mangloor"

He shook his head and said - "Nahin Nahin. Aapka Gaanv. Gaanv. Native place. Kidhar hai?"

By listening to our conversation in Konkani he must have assumed that we are from some other state. And that shop is a stone's throw away from Car Street which is the Konkani stronghold of Mangalore. My friend got irritated and he retorted in Tulu - "Enchinaye? Ora panda artha aapujja?" (What the hell. Can't you understand if told once?)

The shop keeper did not utter a word.

P.S:
Yesterday, when I was returning home after work, I happened to overhear this conversation:

X: Man, what plans for tomorrow?
Y: What plans?
X: Man! Tomorrow is Valentine's day. So planned anything?
Y: Dude, I am married!
X: So what? Can't you celebrate Valentine's with your wife?

No reply from Y.

Anyways, Happy Valentine's day to all.

Rediscovering amplification

2008-12-01T18:54:00.001-08:00

I am the proud owner of a Marshall MG10CD 10W guitar amplifier. It is just the kind of amplifier for practice at home or jamming backstage and packs in quite a punch. One interesting feature of this is the distortion channel whose gain can be varied and not all amplifiers have this wonderful feature. And the most important thing is that it would fit into anyone's budget as you can own one for about 3.3 k.

For those who would like to know some technical specifications, here is some data:

Output(RMS): 10 W
Channels: 2
Footswitchable Channels: No
CD Input: Yes
Emulated Line Out: Yes
Emulated Line In: Yes
Spring Reverb: No
Digital FX: No
FDD( Frequency Dependent Damping) : Yes
Speaker: 1 X 6 1/2"
Dimensions(mm) : 256 X 310 X 190
Weight (kg) : 5

Check out more information about the amp at the Marshall homepage.

This is how the amp looks like:

As I mentioned in the technical specifications before, the amp has a CD Input which lets you connect to an external sound source in addition to the input from the guitar. This is perfect in case one needs to play along with some music track. The speakers on my laptop are bad and the I-ball headphones are not that great. So using a guitar cable and a jack, I directed my laptop's sound output to the CD Input of the Marshall Amplifier just to see how things would work and Voila! What brilliant sound! In addition to being loud enough, the sound was rich and clear.

So using this new setup, I began to play all my favorite songs in succession. Some of the songs that were played were: [ The list includes English, Kannada and Telugu numbers. ]

Lazarus - Porcupine Tree
Arriving somewhere but not here - Porcupine Tree
1000 People - Blackfield
Time Traveller - Vinnie Moore
Nee Amruthadhare - Amruthadhare
Baa Maleye Baa - Accident
Naa Pedavulu Nuvvaithey - Ready
Nenani Neevani - Kotha Bangaru Lokam

So far so good. I then played the Kannada song from the movie Aramane - [ "Kolle Nannane......" which translates to "Kill Meeeeeeee!" ]. Gurukiran began to wail in his high pitched voice - "Kolle Nannane..,," and within a few minutes someone was continuosly banging on my door. I opened my door apprehensively. An old person who lived in the adjacent building was standing there. He looked majorly pissed off and his droopy red eyes and disheveled hair clearly showed me that Mr. Marshall had wrecked his precious sleep.

He began to yell at me - "Are you out of your mind? At this time of the hour! Why the hell...."

He suddenly stopped and looked at the the amplifier and all the cables running from it and my sweet KORG AX3000G and the Ibanez axe lying nearby. With a puzzled expression on his face, he slowly walked away without a word.

E-mails in Chains

2008-11-16T10:34:00.000-08:00

Off late some of our esteemed batchmates have been feeling extremely nostalgic and have been desperately trying to get in touch by resorting to all sorts of extreme activities. One of these people, a smart and shrewd wannabe entrepreneur decided to do something and he picked up his copy of Smriti, typed out the mail-IDs in a spreadsheet and supposedly created a database. Then he copy-pasted these names into the 'TO' field in Gmail. After this, he composed an e-mail embedded with emotions, hit the 'SEND' button and waited.

Lots of us who were fed up of leading a monotonous work life felt this as a welcome change but before we began to reply, interesting things happened. Unfortunately not all of us wanted to be a part of this "great" idea and so a few wanted to be off the list. I never even bothered to reply to the mail even though I did not miss reading each and every new addition to the chain.

Some nice dialogues from the chain are worthy to be noted. Most of them have been edited for brevity and none of the names have been mentioned here. Only the person responsible to initiate the chain has been referred here by the pseudonym "entrepreneur" as a token of respect for his splendid efforts.

This is just a refresher course to those who already have read the mails.

"I dunno anyone in this list. Please take me off!"

"I am not the person you want. Please take me off!" - Ha ha, the entrepreneur really "took it" big time.

"Its fun to watch the dynamics of this thread." - I guess there were a lot of people like me who enjoyed this free entertainment.

This particular conversation is one of my favourites:
X: I hate chain mails. This thing sucks.
Y: I second X. Please take me off the list.
Z: We are not here by choice man! (Z sounded as if he was stranded on some remote Pacific island)

The best one was Aadi's reply praising the entrepreneur for his great social networking skills. Then someone suggested the "Mute Conversation" feature of Gmail and some debate went on about it pros and cons.

But there were a lot who actually replied with a lot of warmth and hearily thanked the entrepreneur.

For example -

"Great work man. Keep it up. Let the thread continue , great to have the feel generated again of being from NITK..." - Unfortunately for him, not all liked to have that "feel generated" again.

All this has somehow made us revisit those good old memories and so I guess the entrepreneur deserves some credit for making an honest attempt for getting in touch again. At least people will now remember him for two reasons- one of them is of course, this chain mail and the other one is... Guess? Yeah right - its Eeeebiz.

:)

Tamizh Azhagi

2008-11-02T10:36:00.000-08:00

One of my friends mentioned me a funny and weird incident which I would like to share with all you readers. This friend of mine (who prefers to stay anonymous) works for a prestigious MNC and the company has provided cabs to the employees for the daily commuting. So, one fine evening he finishes work , walks to the taxi and gets into the front seat. Two of his colleagues occupy the back seat and as soon as one more person enters, the cab is ready to leave.

A lady dressed in a red saree walks to the cab and checks out the scenario. Apparently the only seat she can occupy is along with the two people in the back seat. The calm and serene expression on her beautiful face suddenly vanishes. She makes an abrupt above turn and walks toward the cab driver who was enjoying a nice smoke just outside the company gates.

"Sir!" She screams and the poor cab driver drops the beedi , obviously startled by the shrill noise.

"Enna Sir Idh? ... " She begins to yell at the cab driver endlessly in Tamil who was actually not given a chance to utter even a single word.

People around are gathering to check out the issue but a few of them are warded off by the angry look on the lady's facecut. She then stares at the remaining onlookers, her eyes burning like coal embers and these people realise that they better escape from the scene rather than face the same fate as the poor cab driver.

The cab driver then tells something to her in Tamil and escorts her back to the car. The two people in the back seat who happened to be male are looking totaly perplexed without any idea of what is going on, and I am sure even you readers would not be aware of what was the reason the Tamizh Azhagi ( translates to English as Tamil Beauty ) was so pissed off. All this time my friend who was in the front seat of the cab was dozing off after a hard day's work . The cab driver gives him a slight shove that brings him back to reality.

He looks around and sees an angry tamil beauty, a cab driver smiling sheepishly and two confused colleagues.

"What's the matter?" He asks the cab driver.

"Can u move to the back seat please? She would like to sit in the front seat." The cab driver requests looking at the Tamil lady.

"Why can't she sit in the back seat?" My friend retorts who is now majorly pissed off .

The Tamil lady intervenes and says - "I come from an orthodox family and I dont like sitting along with men in the cars. So move to the back seat so that I can sit alone here."

"What about the driver who will be driving here? Are you going to ask him to move to the back seat as well and drive the cab all "alone" by yourself?" My friend asks trying to stifle a smile.

"I don't want to waste my time arguing with you." She says and turns away.

My friend did not want to make a big issue out of this and so he calmly joined his two colleagues in the back seat. The lady entered the cab and slammed the door shut with a tremendous amount of force that the cab literally shook a bit. The cab driver promptly took his seat and gunned the engine. It seems not even a single soul uttered a word in the whole trip.

P.S: Tamil is a wonderful language and I am an ardent watcher of Tamil movies. The post is only a narration of a funny incident and it should not be misunderstood as a racist remark on the Tamil community.

Lawrence Of Arabia

2008-10-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

I dont need to explain how ubiqutous outsourcing has become today. Without any digressions, let me explain the matter straight away.

An Arab recently pinged me on Gtalk. He had read my blog and supposedly wanted to write one too. But being busy with all his activities in the oil fields there, he wants me to write posts for him and he was offering 1k per month for my troubles.

WTF!!

I declined and he is now in search of someone else who will launch him into this hallowed blogosphere. Anyone reading this is free to help him out. :)

I also managed to get a pic of our Lawrence of Arabia. Here it is!

I think I have seen him somewhere! What do you people think? :)

P.S: Link to the Arab's Orkut profile

Image courtesy: The Arab's Orkut album

Ladies are smart?

2008-10-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

A lot can happen over Gtalk? This is an excerpt of a chat which shows how smart these ladies are. Without much further ado, here it is:

Ms. X: Never criticise a gal's liking especially if the relation is a bit naughty, u know what i mean. ;)

Myself: No i dont :)

Ms. X: Awww u a nerd..?

Myself: why? Nerds dont understand all this? :)

Ms.X: All what..? :)

Myself: (Speechless) [After a few seconds] Can i blog this?

Ms.X: Hmmmm but dont mention my name ok. :D

P.S: Inspired by this post by White Noise. Long live vijaydreamz ! :)

A lot can happen over a coffee

2008-10-06T02:26:00.000-07:00

It was about quarter past ten in the morning yesterday. I was preparing coffee and suddenly my cell phone began to beep. The screen read "1 message recieved" when I picked it up. Upon clicking the 'Show' button, the following text displayed on the screen:

[Exactly the same text. No editing has been done to retain the "flavor" of the scenario. All the smileys are also part of the text message]

Arbit phone number: Hey, hw u bn? Hws work? Sorry cudn reply 2 u d oder day.. 2 much work :( me taken an off on mon :) yippee.. Gt a lonnnng weekend.. Hehee :) coll was so much fun.

A very beautiful example of SMS English. Microsoft Word's spell check would crash if by chance this text was fed as input to it.

Just see how the change in emotions has been superbly illustrated in the string - 2 much work :( me taken an off on mon :) yippee.. Gt a lonnnng weekend.. Hehee :).

Lonnnng weekend- whoa! Surely he/she means it. It should definitely be a long weekend.

Okay cool. I thought this was one of my college mates who was feeling nostalgic and had changed his number as the number was not present in my contacts list.

So I replied:
Myself: May I know who is this?

Arbit phone number: Huh? Who are you?

What the..!

I replied back:
Myself: You are the one who messaged me about your long weekends and college days. I think it is better if you disclose yourself first.

I did not know what I actually meant by that but sometimes arbit dialogues work well. I got a reply.

Arbit phone number: Oh crap!! M really sorry.. Dis is Katrina.. Twas by mis.. Btw u don hv 2 b so rude.. Nyway sorry.

[I would not like to disclose the actual name of the lady because of the fear of any unwanted repercussions. So, when I was thinking of an alternative arbit name, Katrina was the first one that struck me. Well…]

I am about to reply back and suddenly a new message arrives:

Katrina: Why? U feeling sorry now?

What the… again!

I replied:
Myself: I was not trying to be rude. I am not feeling sorry either. Suppose someone messages you and asks "who are you" what would you say? And can you please tell me who you "really" are?

I thought that someone was trying to play a prank on me and thats why I suspected something fishy. So i wanted to confirm. And also there is a philosophical angle to this. We all do not know who we "really" are and what is the real "purpose" of life. Anyways, let me not delve on that now.

Katrina replies back:
Katrina: I asked u hu u r coz i din knw dat i sent u d msg.. Nt my mis either.. N wot do u mean, hu i realy m.. I told u my name.. Din i? N m also sorry.. U cud put across in a betta manner.. Nyway, chill scene.. M Katrina.

It would take some effort to understand the above dialogue but anyways, I called the number. No answer. This confirmed me that it was some jobless friend of mine who wanted to bug me. So I sent a message:

Myself: Is it that hard to recieve my call?

Then suddenly, my phone is ringing and it is Katrina who is calling!

I answer the phone and ask - "Hello, who is this?"

A lady in a 'yo' Bangalore accent (The typical accent that the ladies sauntering around in Brigade Road use) replies - "Dude. I told you. I am Katrina. Please do not make a big deal out of this. I sent that message to you by mistake. Sorry. Ok?"

I replied - "Ok. I thought someone was trying to play a prank on me. Cool. Bye."

By this time, my coffee was ready and I before I could take a sip, my phone beeps indicating a new SMS. Its her.

Katrina: It isn 2 hard 2 pick ur cal.. Jus dat i din c.. Or may b i wantd 2 save ur currency.. Lol ;) D hv a great day :)

I typed quickly and hit the 'SEND' button:

Myself: Hi lady. One rupee is not going to make me bankrupt. Anyways thanks for showing so much concern. :)

Katrina: You are welcome :)

Game over. I pick up the cup of hot coffee and take a sip.

It is rightly said, a lot can happen over a coffee. :)

P.S: I hate 'SMS English'.

P.P.S: A survey which I did recently among a few of my friends reveals that ladies use SMS English more than the men.

P.P.P.S: I hope the Cafe Coffee Day guys will not sue me for using their slogan as the title of the post.

P.P.P.P.S: Thanks to her anyways. I wanted something to write about and her message arrived like a silver lining.

'Phinal' P.S: Maybe I should call her back again? ;)

Froop!

2008-09-23T22:59:00.000-07:00

Had been to Mangalore in the weekend. The city buses in Mangalore have this concessional rate for students (popularly known as C or CEE or C.R ) and generally the bus charge will be three rupees for any trip. I boarded a bus and handed three rupees to the conductor.
"State bank" I uttered. Its the last stop and it costs five rupees normally without any concessions.

The conductor eyed me from top to bottom and asked me with a smile: "Are you kidding me?"

"No. Seriously! I am a student, " I retaliated.

"Show me the froop man. Show me the damned froop that you are a student."
(Some of the people in my hometown pronounce proof as 'froop')

I always carry my outdated NITK college ID in my wallet and that proved to be of some assistance in this situation. I handed over it to him and he walked away without even bothering to read it. Victory!!

I was sitting in the seat at the back and there were two other 'genuine' students sitting near me. There were a lot of AIEEE and CET mock question papers spread out on their laps and by the looks of it, it seemed as if they were on the way to attend some CET mock test. I think one of them had read the name of the college on my ID when I showed it to the conductor.

"Sir, which branch are you from?. How many hours did you study per day?" he asked me.

I always wanted to masquerade as a mining engineer and wanted to know how it feels. (Honestly, no pun intended)

So, I told him - "Department of Mining Engineering. Well, you know. I used to read for about....."

The guy gave me a condescending look and turned away.

Damn.

P.S: Seriously I believe that its time all the pre-university students are given detailed knowledge about engineering education. Most of them have this preconceived notion that only an electronics or computer science B.Tech degree can help you to attain enlightenment which is clearly not the truth.

The 'PHinal' factor

2008-09-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

Its either Incident or cRRescendo time. SAC is barricaded in all possible directions and the only possible way in is by parachuting into it or by using the main entrance after the identification cards are scrutinized by the law enforcers aptly named the 'force' - Inci force or cRRess force respectively.

The force squad are proudly flagging down each and every person, frisking each and every one of them in case the guy happened to carry some WMDs. An PHinal year guy cooly walks towards the main entrance only to be stopped by an arbit force executive member.

Arbit force exec member: ID please..
PHinal year guy( In a stern voice) : PHINAL YEAR..
Arbit force exec member: (Now sporting a meek smile): Oh.. Sir. No problem Sir. Please come in!!

Anyone heard of father of Bodom?

2008-09-10T07:23:00.001-07:00

We all know Children of Bodom a.k.a COB. Thanks to Varun for letting us know about father of bodom. (Check out the bottom of the image!)

Creativity

2008-09-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

Check out this dialog box. Innovation and creativity in its purest form!

Wolf is the real jizo!

2008-08-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

A few more excerpts from Koike's Lone Wolf and Cub manga. Just cannot stop praising Gojima for his brilliant artwork.

Previous post on LWC

What it takes to win an Olympics Gold

2008-08-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

At last. We have done it. It has taken this long for our country to procure its first individual olympics gold, thanks to Bindra. Winning the top medal in the biggest sporting event in the world is definitely not every sportsman's cup of tea. I really pity these sports people when the media starts cribbing that we not winning enough medals in proportion to our country's gargantuan population count. Seriously, all of us know, contributing to the olympic medal count is much more tougher than contributing to the people count.

Winning an olympics medal requires sheer talent and incessant practice of course, but to win that coveted gold medal, what it takes is perseverance and endurance. We can see the winners breaking up when they win the event or when they are recieving the medal. We can see the emotions flowing out in a rush. Only, the coach and the player himself would know how much he had to sweat to be eligible for the laurels. I personally see at least the highlights of most of the events as possible just to get a glimpse of what authentic sporting talent means. Watching their moments of rejoicing gives me some kind of immense pleasure, dont know why actually.

Actually, i never planned to write all this but just by watching a few videos of the previous Athens '04 Olympics, I was inspired to pen down this post. I am embedding the video of the Gold medal match for Badminton singles, where Taufiq Hidayat of Indonesia emerged as the winner.The other guy, Shon Seung Mo from Korea would have won silver at the worst case. But what is interesting and amazing is that the difference in skill level that separated the two. I consider it to be one of the best sporting videos I have ever watched in my life. Just click on the YouTube link below below and let it stream completely to the system. Then watch it. You will literally bow down to Taufiq's prowess. These are the guys who set standards and benchmarks and Indian sportsmen have a long long way to go so that they can catch up with the likes of these. Whether we will catch up or not is entirely left to us. Bindra has definitely given us a very good start and it would definitely be wonderful if the others start to follow his footsteps.

Well, here are the YouTube links to the video of the Badminton Singles Final. Will promise you, its definitely worth a watch!!

Final Set - Part 1
Final Set - Part 2

And, Lin Dan from China is another hell of a badminton player. Here is a video where he tells Denmark's Peter Gade that he means business.

Dan Vs Gade

And, a bonus! Dan Vs Hidayat

Thats all folks, will try to put up more links if I come across something nice.

Dalithoi

2008-08-01T06:04:00.000-07:00

There is probably no one in the GSB community who does not like to consume this wonderful Dalithoi. There was a thread about Konkani food in the Orkut GSB community and the topic of Dalithoi came up. So, this post is for those who would like to know more about Dalithoi. Also, I would like to thank Rammohan , Girish and Avinash for providing this valuable and enlightening information.

Here we go.....

Karishma: hey can sme one tell me what is dis dalithoy????is it sum manglorean cuisine???

(Enter Girish..)
Girish: @ Karishma
hey can sme one tell me what is dis dalithoy????is it sum manglorean cuisine???

It's a dish which prepared by using thori daali (thuvar daal). the dish is very similiar to daal (daal roti) prepared by north Indians, as from my knowledge manglore is not the origin for dalithoy, In kerala my grandma used to prepare this.but mangloreans are very much fond of daalithoy.

(Enter Rammohan..)
Rammohan: There is nothing exotic about Dalitoy.

"Toy" is derived from Toyam (=Water) in Sanskrit. Equivalent in Kannada is "Tave" with the same Sanskrit Root.

Dalitoy is simply Dali-che Uddak. That's all.

From Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 9.26)

patram puspam phalam toyam
yo me bhaktya prayacchati
tad aham bhakty-upahrtam
asnami prayatatmanah

If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it

As you can see there is nothing about Mangalore in Dalitoy. [ Too much!! ]

(Enter Avinash..)
Avinash: You forgot.... DDT and PDT
Daat dali toy and pattal dali toy (depending on the quantity of water) he he

Rammohan: Avinash, Thankfully you clarified - diluted with Water. We now in live in an age where Soda consumption is not too insignificant [ LOL]

(Karishma is now enlightened by all this gyan!)

Karishma: hey thanx fr d info!!!

References:

[1] The actual Orkut thread

[2] For the GSB junta, the link to the community.

[3] And, a bonus link, Check this out. (Thanks Guru for sending me this one! )

Family Pack

2008-07-07T06:48:00.000-07:00

It has been a month since I landed in Bangalore and to those who do not already know, I live in a seedy area called Murugeshpalyam (near the old airport) where Tamil and Telugu are the primary spoken languages. [Genuine cosmopolitian ambience. Good thing that I know Tamil and a bit of Telugu :) ].

There have been a lot of superb experiences in the Garden City and the past month has been an eventful one. Wanted to write a post on that but the work pressure had gotten the better of me. Ok, this small post is an excerpt from the Sunday Times.

Puneeth Rajkumar a.k.a Powerstar ( ROTFL !), the great actor of Sandalwood [Kannada Film Industry, for those who are not aware of the term ] met a reporter of TOI when he was jogging near his residence. Supposedly, the 'powerstar' told the reporter about his workout routines and stuff. And today as all the filmstars are dying for sixpack abs, the reporter asked him:

"Okay, you are working out really hard. Aiming for a six pack?"

Our great powerstar replies - "Six pack? I would rather have a family pack!!"

LOL!

This is where I work

2008-06-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

Yamamoto at his best!

2008-05-30T22:35:00.001-07:00

Homunculus is a great example for Yamamoto Hideo's brilliant artwork. The images that follow are from Homunculus Tankobon 2. Just check out how the change in facial expression of the protagonist is illustrated. Simply brilliant.

Guidelines : Read right to left. :)

Lone Wolf

2008-05-30T22:28:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from Kazuo Koike's Lone Wolf and Cub manga...

Err.. I am back!

2008-05-29T02:22:00.000-07:00

Quite some time has elapsed since the last post was published. The enthu seems to have dwindled exponentially since the culmination of college. And, of course, Ashish is not around to encourage ( and also bug) me to write. :) Thanks to NR. His comment was the one which prompted me to terminate this lengthy hibernation.

Have been spending time these days reading Manga. Happened to read a few classics like Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike , Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue . Also, Hideo Yamamoto's Koroshiya Ichi( Ichi the killer), Nozokiya ( Voyeur), Shin Nozokiya (Voyeur Inc.) are a must read for all Manga buffs. Will be posting a few images from these tomorrow. Have collected around thirty gigabytes of comics (including some ten gigabytes of manga) in the past month. If you happen to need something, just mail me or meet me next month in Bangalore.

If u need something for time pass, check this out...

Koroshiya Ichi (Ichi the killer) - Warning: Very graphic content.

Brief summary: In Shinjuku Kabuki-Cho, the biggest sin town in Japan, there are two crazy guys. Ichi is a coward and a wimp, but once he breaks into tears, he turns into a human weapon. With great martial arts skill and a blade hidden in his boots, he butchers a bunch of enemies into mincemeat in the blink of an eye. His arch enemy is Kakihara, a yakuza boss who's tired of everything, including himself. Only when he pierces, cuts, and burns his own and other people's bodies does he feel that he is alive. ( summary picked from mangaupdates.com )

Download Link- need to register. Will take only a minute.

Over the 'fields' we go!

2008-04-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

Groups. Fields. Rings. Domains. Conjugates. Primitives. One word describes it all - ECC a.k.a Error Control Coding! . Felt like putting a bullet in my head to end that painful ordeal of reading the whole semester's worth of syllabus in a day's time. It is all finished now and at least I will score enough to pass. Yay!

A tryst with that elusive lady

2008-03-28T22:33:00.000-07:00

I belong to a certain class of people who switch onto a contemplative mood when being in a state of total joblessness. The day was hectic and tiresome which involved writing the final project report , getting it approved and finally getting it printed and bound. Breathing a sigh of relief right now while trying to scribble a post that will terminate my short term hibernation.

I was returning back home in a bus aptly named as the 'Flying Bird' which once upon a time lived up to its name by literally flying on the road, thanks to those myriad potholes that pockmarked the highway all the way from Surathkal to Kuloor. But luckily this time, the bus did not take the aerial route as it was treading on a newly paved four-lane highway. Good for us.

Radio Mirchi was blaring on the speakers as usual. For the umpteenth time, the RJ was playing 'Minchagi Neenu Baralu' from the recent Sandalwood flick 'Gaalipata'. I tuned up to enjoy that awesome number, penned by the lyricist and writer Jayanth Kaikini ( who became an overnight sensation for the songs from 'Mungaru Male') and sung by Sonu Nigam. This post is not to publicize the song nor flaunt my penchant for such brilliant poetry. I am just awed by the lyricist's imagination. End of digression.

Naturally I had nothing else to do on the bus and thus I began to contemplate and retrospect. I believe that memories are stored in the brain as a linked list. If you ask me why I am making such an arbit statement or why I am suddenly acting nerdy by quoting Data Structures fundax - it is just a small experience on this trip which prompted me to hypothesize such a theory.

I happened to see an attractive lady who boarded the bus somewhere near Kulai or so. This action of mine amplified the depth of my retrospection and I began to recollect all those attractive ladies who had come into my life. This is why the linked list analogy comes into the picture! :)

Quite recently, before a month or so to be precise, there was one lady to whom I got attracted at the very first sight. I had entirely forgotten about her and suddenly a good friend of mine mentions her in an arbit discussion. I could feel the rush of all the memories of her filling my 'instantaneous memory' from the archives of my brain. She might have been someone's girlfriend. Or maybe she was single like me. Why did I hesitate to speak to her? Why do not things 'click' or 'work out' in my case?

'Hi...!' - A feminine voice calls out from the seat behind mine. Voice sounds familiar?

I turn back. Whoa! Its her.

I manage to put up a smile. There is that awkward prolongued pause which makes me uneasy. Speak something man! - the 'inner voice' urges. What to speak? Ah, I can see a paperback novel in her hands. Paul Coelho 's The Alchemist. Good. At least I can talk to her about the book.

'Nice novel, isn't it?" - I ask meekly.

One second elapses. No reply.
Two. And three and four.

Aaargh! Please say something!

Crash! My forehead hits hard against the seat in front of mine. The driver had to floor the brakes all of a sudden to avoid some freako getting mashed under the wheels.

Quickly I turn back to see whether she is allright.

I see void. I see nothing, no one to be precise.

Bloody hell. Was daydreaming again as usual.

P.S : Updated the pic on the profile. Lets see whether it makes a difference. :)

Inci 2008 - Join the beat!

2008-03-04T20:49:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to all those worked for Inci 08 - convenors, co-ordinators, executive members, juniors etc etc!

Incident 2008! My last Incident at NITK has culminated. Quite a lot of enthu NITKian bloggers will be writing about this fest with full vigour and as I had not partaken in organising the various events, there is nothing much to write about. Nevertheless, I was an executive member of the prestigious Inci Force Committee - exclusively created for maintaining "law - order - peace" during the fest but due to some sour 'incident' s , I decided to bail out and enjoy the fest without any 'commitee -commitments' unlike those committee junta who used to stroll around with a sense of pride sporting their flashy badges. Gah, lame.

Quizzes and concerts were the only events that I attended. About the former, wemanaged to qualify for the main round in India Quiz and Kannada Quiz (Jagga was my teammate for this one - LOL!), missed by a hairline one point in Arul Mani's General Quiz and by a friggin one-and-a-half points for the Biz-tech Quiz. Tough luck it was. Most of the prizes for the literary events were bagged by the MSRIT and KMC teams leaving out only a few ones to the home teams. Congrats guys.

Eastern musicals was a decent one with the BIT band being the highlight of the whole show. The vocalist of this band did a superb fusion number based on the Raag Keeravani that culminated with a jugalbandi between himself and the tabla player. Superb. He basically steered his team to the first place and the entire crowd was enchanted by their scintillating performance. I am sure the judges did not have much of a problem in declaring them the winners. (One of them being our good old Physics teacher from Canara College - Mr Sadashiv - taking up the responsibility for the eighth consecutive year I think! ).

As per tradition, our college eastern band ended up with the hallowed 'third' position! But some credit will have to given to that third year vocalist Shravan who really did a great job. Not to forget my classmate Anupama who did a very beautiful and melodious rendition of 'Kehna hai kya' from Roja. One interesting fact to note was that all the numbers performed by the home band were compositions of A.R.Rahman. Hell of a musician, isn't he?

Pulse featured a hell lot of death-metal bands performing to a highly sparse number of metal heads, an unusual sight because all these years I have never seen such a bad turnout for a western musicals concert. The bands were playing their own compositions most of the time and this could have been one reason that repelled most of the junta from the SAC. Some of the songs were simply brilliant. There were quite a few female vocalists as well!! But because of the poor turnout, disappointment clearly showed on the band members' faces but even then ,they did not forget to utter the clichéd statement - "NIT! You guys were amazing!", "You people were the best audience that we have ever performed!" etc etc.

Informalz, purported to be one of the flagship events of the fest had not managed to attract much junta due to some sloppy event management but it was good old Sunil Pai who came to the rescue!! My dratted cell phone was conked out and by the time I came to know of Pi's presence and rushed to the special stage, he had gone elsewhere. Alas!

The magic show - Gili Gili Magic performed by Prof. Shankar and Junior Shankar was this year's highlight. Junior Shanks pulled off some really cool illusions. That illusion of him freeing himself after being bounded tightly by Tiwari and SJA Committee convenor VP was utterly mindblowing and people just could not stop applauding. Junior Shanks got mighty pissed off when the desperate junta were whistling and screaming whenever the two lovely ladies appeared on stage. Junior indignantly told that one of them was his wife and the other being his sister but even then the despos did not give up. Finally, Shanks was forced to make use of the ultimate weapon - he threatened that he would cancel the show and then at last the despos decided to call it quits. Such a world famous magician was insulted by some barbarians that live amidst us in such an esteemed institution. Hey despos, you have disgraced the name of our institution infront of all the spectators which included some eminent dignitaries and professors. Whoever , whatever or wherever you are, F*** YOU!

Now for my favourite event of Inci 2008 - undoubtedly, it was Encore – featuring K.K. , the playback singer who has delivered quite a lot of Bollywood hits in the recent times. What a vocalist! I had never seen SAC jam-packed like that before. K.K performed almost all of his hits and almost each and every person there were singing along with him. This concert is one reason for which I will remember Inci '08 for quite some time to come. Thanks to Team Incident for making such a concert possible. It was IndianOil that actually made things 'possible' by funding the concert! High standards have now been set for the next year and it will definitely take a hell lot of effort to out-perform this Inci. My heartly thanks to all those people of Team Incident who made such a colourful and eventful fest possible.

Inci Quotes: - A few worthy ones ....

Dean Prof. V.R. Sastry @ the inauguration ceremony: "Our convenor Chetan, always cool. I always used to bang him and he never used to utter a word!".

Again! Dean : "It is very easy to organise a fest like Engineer but when it comes to Inci, it takes a hell lot of organisational skills." (I could imagine Vaibhav Kabra, the Engi con, swearing under his breath!).

Mr. A.G.Pai, COO, Mangalore SEZ @ the inauguration ceremony : I would like to work forIndia and only India, even though if I am being payed a salary of Rs 100. ( It was a nice motivational talk).

Junior Shankar @ the Giligili Magic show : "I thought engineering students had a bit more manners" .

P.S (at last!) : @Ashish: Looking forward for your post that will outshine this one. :)

The answers!

2008-03-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

I thought I had made a fool out of myself by posting the questions and asking for answers ( which was actually a pretext to garner a few comments! ;) ). Ah, at least ChaosMonger showed some interest and asked for the questions. (Phew!). Thanks a lot buddy. Will mail you the questions and the ppt files shortly.

So, here are the answers!!
1) IRC
2) Dutch treat or "Going Dutch".
3) Slapstick
4) Avada Kedavra - the Harry Potter killing spell! :)
5) Ninja

The Inci 2008 chronicles will follow this one.

Ruckus Tangdi - Our quiz!

2008-02-22T00:23:00.000-08:00

After a gruesome research for two months, we finally managed to pull off a quiz entitled 'The Ruckus Tangdi Quiz'. The posters read out - "Dmellogikittashish and LSD society proudly present....". For all those who have not yet figured it out, 'Dmellogik...' actually is a portmanteau of D'mello (Roy(d)an), Logik (ENT), Kitta (Myself!!) and Ashish (The bond!). Atul a.k.a Tul, our LSD society con ,was the man behind this Ruckus Tangdi scheme - in which teams of three are randomly made where one of them will be a seeded LSD member. A nice method to ensure that all the teams are more or less balanced. The damned LCD projector that had projected hundreds of quizzes and seminars refused to work and Ashish had to actually read out the questions, a few of them being quite enormous. Nevertheless, there was a superb response and lot of people turned up. Tul's team came first place followed by Gudur's team and Guru's team. I guess the Ruckus experiment fared well and LSD society can cook up more of such in the future.

I am posting a few of my questions in this post. People who missed the quiz can answer them as
comments. Maybe if u mention your email ID s, I can mail u the whole set of questions.

Here are a few to start with:

1) X was created by Jarkko Oikarinen in late August 1988 to replace a program called MUT on a BBS called OuluBox in Finland. X gained prominence when it was used to report on the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 throughout a media blackout. It was previously used in a similar fashion by Kuwaitis during the Iraqi invasion. X is available for virtually every computer operating system. X?

2) There is a delicate etiquette surrounding X. It may be accepted in some situations, such as between non-intimate friends or less affluent people, but considered stingy in other circumstances. The Italian expression “pagare alla romana” has the same meaning as X. X was supported widely by the feminists during the advent of second wave feminism in the late 1960s and 1970s which encouraged women to understand aspects of their own personal lives as deeply politicized for bringing about equality of the sexes, not just legally, but socially and sexually!! X?

3) X is an acoustic device consisting of two paddles hinged together; used by an actor to make a loud noise without inflicting injury when striking someone. Also, more commonly X is used to indicate a boisterous comedy with chases and collisions and practical jokes. X?

4) During an audience interview at Edinburgh in August 2004 , X said:

"Does anyone know where Y came from? It is an ancient spell in Aramaic, which means 'let the thing be destroyed.' Originally, it was used to cure illness and the 'thing' was the illness, but I decided to make it the 'thing' as in the person standing in front of me. I take a lot of liberties with things like that. I twist them round and make them mine."

X and Y?

5) There is no evidence that X limited themselves to all-black suits. In modern times, camouflage based upon dark colors such as dark red and dark blue can be used to give better concealment at night. Some cloaks may have been reversible: dark colored on the outside for concealment during the night, and white colored on the inside for concealment in the snow. In their history, their groups were small and structured around families and villages, later developing a more martial hierarchy.

These were some of my prelims questions. More will follow in the next post.

Of cars and lasses...

2008-02-14T06:53:00.000-08:00

Car festival is one event which every member of the GSB community longs for. It is more of a feeling than an event. It is a gathering with people of all ages meet together at the famous Sri Venkatramana Temple of Car Street, Mangalore. The pious venerable junta gather for the sake of devotion to the deity and of course the mass feeding which includes the famous Dalitoi(Dal). The youngsters along with the devotion have some thing extra in mind!. The lasses adorned in mindboggling attire loitering around gracefully just make your senses go haywire. A few of them just leave us stupefied with awe that it takes quite a while for one to get the bearings right!

This festival has been celebrated from quite a lot of decades down the line, maybe from two to three hundred years. I did a bit of research and consulted some old timers about the significance of the festival.I discovered that one of the objectives of this gathering is for youngsters of opposite sexes to exchange glances and sneak peeks, a few of which end up in marriages in the near future! Quite sensible people, our ancestors. What else can be a better method for rounding up most of the members of the community! In addition to the sumptuous meals that are served in an elaborate and systematic manner, there are a huge number of food stalls that vend Konkani delicacies - Gulla Podi, Jeevkadgi Podi, Charmuri Upkari etc etc. This year's special attraction were those who sold heart-shaped balloons and the elusive 'balloons in a balloon'. (The latter looks interesting as it sounds and is an engineering marvel for the reason that it consists of a huge fully blown balloon that encloses two smaller fully blown balloons inside). These people kept on roaming the whole place and bugged almost each and every soul there to buy their goods. ( Including me of course! But I feel a bit old to dabble around with these balloon thingys).

The festival culminated today with the Okkul or the Holi. Colours fly everywhere. People dance with electrifying moves in sync to the music that blares out from the DJ's who play some famous disco numbers. And not to forget the Bhang which mainly sources the current that drives the junta. Each and every car festival has been special to me - new feelings, new people and new happenings. Will be eagerly waiting for the next year to partake in such a wonderful event once again.

Would like to quote from Ruskin Bond's The Eyes Are Not Here :
"Throw away the roses from the vase if you will, but the scent of the roses will linger still"

The wonderful feeling still lingers. Will cherish it for some time. :)

Yet another Valentine's and I still remain single. BAWL!

2008-02-14T06:26:00.000-08:00

There was a time when I used to fall in love with any attractive lady that I happened to see. Not anymore. Feeling a bit wiser now. :)

Blame Canada!

2008-02-06T20:55:00.000-08:00

Could not resist posting this. A still from Southpark: bigger , longer, uncut. The Canadian ambassador at the UN meeting shows this pi-chart and demands the release of Terrence and Philipp. He stresses on how the Canadian economy depends on the revenue earned from the T & P movies. Yeah , a whopping 40 percent approximately. God only can save Canada from Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Discovering new horizons of Metal

2008-02-06T00:16:00.000-08:00

If any one of you call yourself a metalhead and if u have not listened to Quo Vadis - Well, its hightime now u checked it out! Ass whooping technical death metal band from Canada they are! With mindblowing riffs and progressive solos, they will fascinate you and enlighten you for sure. Defiant Imagination, their recent album is wonderful and there is also a live performance DVD promoting that album and it is titled Defiant Indoctrination. Do not miss it.

Coming to the local independent scenes, Black Earth, the band from PESIT Bangalore is another hell of a phenomenon. The title song of their band's demo EP, Hallucination Theory released in 2006 is a must listen.

Thanks to Zulla and Guru for sharing their collections.

The 'S(R)ith' Code

2008-02-02T22:51:00.000-08:00

The last midsem exams of my eventful B.Tech pursuit are finished for good. Ah, thats a relief. Stochastic processes - thanks to V P Prakash, was a breeze. Too much bragging,but nevertheless, my hopes of a nine pointer has till now stayed alive. And, the title of this post speaks of Siths and Jedis. Star Wars kicks ass definitely but this post about Rith P, who has been writing superb stuff on his blog off late. His posts are really enlightening because of his non-arbit, non-rant, non-crap approach which a very few people follow! [ Definitely not me! :)].

Go check it out.

http://riteshp.blogspot.com

Gnawing against the chains that bind me - Markov Chains!

2008-01-31T03:43:00.000-08:00

Quite a lot of time since the last post - the "maiden" post to be precise! Nothing fires up my imagination these days. I mentioned about posting those snaps from Hitman 2 in my last post. It will have to wait. Good Old Markov has been on my ass - tomorrow is the big day - Stochastic Processes Mid-sem exam. I keep on seeing Markov chains everywhere - this life of mine itself has become some kind of a Markov process. My actions and thoughts these days are equally arbit like this post. Heated debates with my atheist friend about spirituality keeps on going through Gtalk, SMS and phone. No consensus reached yet. This world seems like a screwed up Markov chain with a gamut of independent mechanical processes , but somehow there is an illusion of dependence. Or is it the vice versa?

One of my best friends cursed me that I am going to remain a virgin for 40 years! Well, my dear friend - screw u! Man,Got to fall in love soon. And yeah, before that have to finish reading Stochastic processes. :)

Ooh, the maiden post...

2008-01-13T04:46:00.000-08:00

I have been fascinated by this blogging stuff after perusing through the blogs of our good old senior Pi and our vivacious spicmacay hotshot - Logik ,a.k.a Enthu , a.a.k.a Enthupadhyas, a.a.a.k.a ENT [Aarrgh! There must be still quite a few derived forms but these are the most commonly used ones..]. Being an extremely lethargic being, I admit that I lack the patience required to pen down text in any form,but nevertheless, I have decided to give it a try. I am sure that there are quite a few enlightened souls around in cyberspace who will point out things like grammatical errors etc etc and offer "constructive criticism" for further improvement. :)

Enough arbit talk - Gotta write about the concert. Spicmacay chapter @NITK with dynamic leaders like Abkari and Logik at its helm has been doing some extraordinary stuff these days - the recent Bansuri recital by Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasiyaji was a total blast - with SJA literally jam packed with audience. Well, I myself had done some uncredited publicity work by messaging some music enthusiasts in Mangalore who had promptly turned up before myself at SJA. The publicity committee experience of Inci '07 was of some help I guess! ;)

Well about the concert - it was totally awesome. It was the first time I was listening to the maestro's music live and yeah, once in a blue moon one gets such an opportunity. The show kicked offed with a splendid improvisation of the Raag Bhoopali(a.k.a Mohana Raga in Carnatic nomenclature). The music had lulled most of the audience into some trance kinda state - many of them were drowsy because of the soothing effect the music had on their minds. Superb percussion by Pt. Ravindra Yavagal also was also another impressive thing which immaculately amalgamated with the Bansuri's tone. I also came to know of that difference between a flute and Bansuri that evening. The final piece - upon the audience's request was a Raag Pahaadi Dhun , which I personally felt the most enthralling pieces in the whole concert. Logik enlightened me by mentioning that The Raag is similar to the Major Pentatonic scale in its ascension or Avarohana. But the way Chaurasiyaji improvised it made it sound much more brilliant and ethereal. Hats off to Spicmacay for the efforts they have put - keep up the good work and let the other technical clubs in our college learn from u ppl!

I got stabbed yesterday- well not literally though. The reason being my comp croaking when i tried to play Hitman: Blood Money despite having a 512mb RAM and 128mb Nvidia Geforce FX5200 card. Its hightime for an upgrade and as usual my coffers are empty. Hopefully in a few months I can use my paycheck to fund some of these exorbitant desires of mine like buying a gaming rig and that deadly KORG Toneworks AX3000G.

Man, one thing. The Hitman series really does whoop ass! It almost drove me crazy as I stayed glued to my comp blasting out Hitman 2: Silent Assassin's's 20 kickass levels in just 3 days time earning Silent Assassin ratings for all of them! Muhahahaha! I am such an evil and deranged murderer! Hitman : Contracts was the one which instigated my Hitman mania. Hell of a masterpiece by IO Interactive.

The next post features stuff about the Hitman series and a few interesting screenshots.

Till then, Adios.

P.S. For mentioning his notorious pseudonyms, Logik will be ready to jump me!

@Logik: Maga, I asked ur permission remember!! :) and, we got to work on that quiz.