A holiday review

Number of good books read- 0, number of old books reread- several, Movies watched- few, Internships completed- one, really painful internships completed- still one, blogs posted- a couple, new blog resolution-dont belt bk.

For the benefit of the utterly dumb who didn't realise this from the previous paragraph, my internship is finally over. However the wounds are still too raw and the pains fresh that I wont speak about it during this post. I have been looking forward to and dreading this week basically because it would mean the end of my internship as well as the end of my hols. I am getting back to college this weekend so I guess its good bye to the blog again for atleast the next four months (this semester, in total contrast to the last one, is ridiculously short..and so I am guessing would be the holidays in November). I have been trying to find out if I have done anything even remotely useful this summer. I dont think I need to tell you my conclusions. But anyway, again for the benefit of the utterly dumb (if you are still with me), I will.

I tried quite a few new books this summer, mostly fanatsy. Its a general rule in fantsay fiction that you have to get through loads and loads of useless drivel (that reads worse than shashi's musings scribbled in class) to actually find a decent author. I read a series called Belgariad trilogy (fantasy authors have no imagination..they always think in terms of threes) which came with good recommendations. Wait a minute, it was recommended by gulati who said some friend of his had liked it. A friend of gulati's...hmm...let me rephrase, dubious recommendations then. It sucked. Big time. I am sure only the utterly dumb would have liked it. And maybe my ex-boss (it feels soooo imba to say ex-boss, instead of boss :P ). One of his many wierd theories was that kid's books are enjoyed more when you read them as adults. Totally true..if you are an utterly dumb adult who still hasn't grown up (thats a contadiction right? anyways I dont want to scare away the utterly dumb ppl who are reading this post. It might reduce my readership by half).
It was the story of a Hero, a Quest, an Item and an Enemy. Not to mention the old Wizard who guides the Hero. And the really-trustworthy-friend-who-turns-out-to-be-a-doublecrossing-traitor. And the hero-triumphs-over-evil-though-he-sucks-coz-he's-so-(relevent emoticon)-goooooood. Sounds familiar? No? Bugger off, BK and shag wowwiki.

I reread A song of Ice and Fire and thought it was really good, and replaced WoT with this series in my top fantasy books. George Martin sure can write epic fantasy that is also realistic and his middle ages europe reconstruction in ASoIaF is splendidly done. But then, I read WoT again (The Wheel of Time, for the uninitiated) and put it right back at the top of my favs list (next to ofcourse LoTR..that goes without saying). For those who enjoy heroic fantasy even if its a wee little too predicatble, David Gemmell is a great option. Especially his Draenai saga. Inspite of being able to guess how most of the stories are going to end, he could still keep me interested enough to finish the books. I realised that this genre is actually one of the most toughest to write in. Apart from requiring loads of creativity and imagination, you need to do a colossal amount of research about a great host of topics. And possess a good bit of writing skills too. But authors of fantasy are often dismissed easily and are not even taken seriously by most 'book-lovers' who always seem to prefer more 'mature' books (which somehow always have won either the Booker or some other equally boring prize) which cater to people with better 'taste'. Taste, my arse. I read books for entertainment. Ofcourse I like authors who have a good writing style but a good plot (have you guys heard of that word??) is also often a requisit. And one that is sadly lacking in all those 'better taste' books.

If any of you guys enjoy comedy in fantasy I suggets you give Samit Basu a try. He's written an extarodinary comedy series that parodies...well, pretty much everything :P. His sense of humor is excellent and his digs at popular Indian culture apart form his natural flair for comedy writing make his books an unforgettable treat. If you bought your copy of HP7 at Odyssey in Chennai you would hav probably got his book free with it. I thought this series was so bad they couldn't get it off their shelves any other way and so had decided to give it free. But I was far from right. So if this copy is gathering dust somewhere on your bookshelf my advise to you is to get hold of it and read it right now. Trust me, you wont regret it.

The only good movie I watched this hols was Get Smart. Since the only other movies that Igot to watch were Dasavatharam and 21, there wasnt much competition. But the movie was pretty good and Steve Carell was brilliant, as ever. When I was comparing my what-did-I-do-this-holidays notes with other friends from college, I found that the one main thing that was lacking in my list was wow-shagging. Not because I am against it. I'll explain why in detail. There are three kinds of people who play wow. Those who think that all there is to the game is hand-eye coordination and click their way to lvl 70 (gulati doesnt seem to be aware of the existence of the next two categories). Then the group who realise that there is some room for strategy in the game and develop their talent trees in a planned manner (and not based on the click-on-the-talent-where-your-mouse-points system popularised by BK or the i-dont-give-a-damn-i-need-to-call-my-girlfriend-up which is vicky's fav) and try to put some thought (and not just time) into their games. In the middle of playing if you look up wowwiki for tips and info, its a good, healthy practice. However (the third type) if you spend all your holidays memorising all the spells and auras used by all classes and try to mug the names of all items dropped (dont believe that it can be done? you obviously haven't met BK then) then the only thing you would be doing while playing is the same as the first group: hand-eye coordination. Everyone gets bored of every game sooner or later (everyone except Ari that is. A fundamental assumption while talking about getting bored is that you are human, and more importantly, you have a life. Goodbye, Ari). It seems like these guys are trying to bore themselves of wow sooner rather than later.
I am beginning to see double on the screen. Always a good reason to shut down the comp and sleep. I'll complete this later. So good bye, half-my-readership and the utterly dumb. Damn, I'll have to try harder to keep my resolution next time.

Valar morghulis

Last saturday was the longest day of the year, it seems, on account of it being the summer equinox. It certainky felt like the longest day. I was at work from 10 to 8 (and yes, I have to go to work on satutrdays as well, thank you for your sympathies). And i didn't get anything done. Not that I normally manage to get much work done (on account of the work being very boring and beneath my intelligence level..obvoiusly..definitely not because I totally suck at concentrating on one task for more than 1 hour. I can do it if I want to. Its just that I dont. Want to, that is). But this time, I really didn't do anything all day. Except doze in front of the computer.
So it was that in the afternoon, my boss came and found out what I had been upto (or rather, what I hadn't been upto) and told me that I better finish something before I leave or else. I wont bother you with the details but at the end of a very painful two hours I ended up getting debug messages in scripts that haven't been seen by human eyes since the last pharoah got bitten by a scorpion when he stepped on it. Seriously. It was heiroglyphics for sure or I am bk. However my boss wasn't impressed by the novelty of the results and made me sit till I had got the code to print stuff in boring old queen's english. And it was 8 by then.
Yesterday, over lunch, I was having a discussion with him about fantasy books. I told him I liked lotr (who doesn't) and he laughed at me(apparently, he doesn't). He said lotr is a fat boring (sounds like someone we all know..cough..bk) book filled with characters that work like clockwork and dont seem real. I grew red in the face(from anger and started to retaliate). He interrupted me saying that he preffered c.s.lewis. I got redder in the face. He prefers a girl opening a cupboard and walking into a half man half goat thingy(you know, that tumnus guy always used to remind me of gulati..though he looks more like rushi..perplexing) to lotr..which he doesn't like for its lack of realism. I was about to remind him that his pal, c s lewis was a room mate of tolkien at oxford and managed to steal some of his notes for a bedtime story that he was writing..and the result is more popolarly known as the chronicles of narnia. But then I remembered that my work progress that day wasn't much better than it had been on saturday and decided I didn't need to provoke him anymore and held my peace. And then, he said that last month he had come across a fantasy series that he liked better than lotr..I hope rushi now blows up in righteous wrath..it was called eragon. It took me two full minutes to recover sufficiently to gather my wits. Unlike people like rushi I dont have a vehement hatred for paolini and actually was quite amused while reading the eldest when he thought he was going to surprise everyone at the end with the murtagh=the other rider 'bombshell'. But to even mention him in the same breath as tolkien is blasphemy. I tried to patiently explain that paolini had, ever since he had learned how to read (which I am guessing wasn't very long ago) had merely lifted the plots of all bestselling fantsay writers he could find and the result now adorns his bookshelf as the Inheritance Trilogy (If I were going to plagiarise, I'd atleast do it from the best books..apparently star wars was the best he could do..which says much about his judgement). Which he casually dismissed.."After all, all fantasy books have more or less the same plots. Its not a big deal if there was nothing novel in his plotline". There are three kinds of people when it comes to explaining things to: the ones to whom you cant explain anything because you cant even get a word in as they shout you down (like bk), the ones who are rational and listen to reason (like me..yes, I've always been this modest) and the third kind who listen to you (much like a wall does) and dont hear a word (like..several people come to mind..but most prominently, ponky). I am sure you've realised what I was dealing with this time. There are very few animate beings that are endowed with lesser judgement than gulati, but my list just grew longer by one.

I saw dasavatharam last thursday. I had bunked internhsip for just that and I was sorely disappointed by the movie. It was so disappointing that I cant find the inspiration to criticise it now. I'll save it up for a later post. It'll suffice to say now that kamal hassan, the artist, who made movies like nayagan, devar magan and anbe sivam, who proved that it is possible to make quality entertainment movies, which actually have more than a semblance of a plot (unlike other entertainers like sivaji and the latest vijay movie..I have forgotten which one, but that doesn't make a big difference; if you have seen one, you have see them all), who played some of the most versatile roles to flawless perfection, is no more. First, the comedy called vetaiyadu velaiyadu (could have been an abhishek bachchan movie for all the acting effort involved in it) and then..this. Valar morghulis. All men must die.

Internship woes

Some things are just the way they are. We do not question why the sky is blue(or white when cloudy, or whatever), why sugar is sweet or why bk is fat. Its just in their nature to be what they are. You're probably wondering why i'm talking so much crap now..well, so am i; so join the club.

Everyone in my coll seem to think its trendy to do internships and/or (yes, there are some psychos out there who are doing both..kareemangya for one (dont ask me, I dont know what kareemangya means)) projects during the summer vacations. When everyone at coll agree on something, it'll probably turn out that there is something disastrously wrong about it. I should have realised this and not forced myself to join them in the mad scramble to land up interns, but well one cant always be wise and imba (nope, not even me). Hindsight sees the farthest; I now realise that there are very few useful things that come out of an internship; well actually only one thing, and thats the pay cheque. Shashi would say that I was too institutionalised and was in bad need of disillusionment..he would have quite a few other things to say too, but no one really cares for anything he says, least of all himself. So I wont bore you with that stuff.
What I will bore you with is an account of my internship experience, that is (unfortunately) still two weeks away from conclusion. My daily schedule for this 'vacation' looks something like this:
Morning: 7.00 ninju messages 'come to the court quickly da dog'
Morning: 7.30 go to basketball court (quickly da dog)
Morning: 9.00 come back exhausted (after starring in the day's play as most imba player)
Morning(still??): 10.00 arrive for work
Several millenia later: 8.00 pm still at work
Here's one important requisit to be part of an embedded systems startup: do not, by any means, have a life (if you want to know what a person without a life would look like, stop by at NITK hostels 3rd block room no:%& and take a look at arindham). I am forced to work for about 8-10 hrs a day at this place. So you can very well imagine what the guys who run this company are like. I come back every evening totally exhausted, eat and crash. Period. And they call this a holiday.
I have been enduring six bloody weeks of this and am at my wits end now (if you want to know what a person at his wits end looks like, this is what you do. If you are a ps-ite, try to imagine bk answering a question put to him by sundari ma'am. If you are a nitkian, imagine
adi trying to explain that he is not gay. If you are ponky, look in the mirror. If you are anyone else, use your god damned imagination and bugger off..btw you cannnot be part of my readership if you are in this category, anyway)
If you still doubt that I am crazy, where are you interning this summer?
To the rest, dont blame me. Blame it on the internship.