College ramblings

Disclaimer: I didn't write any of this. It was all my evil twin's doing. And dont ask me, I dont know where he is to be found.


I am generally a very tolerant person.
Well, not very I guess, but tolerant enough. I can put up with many of the blatantly unfair things in life. Like the fact that I am saddled with Pokey for my lab partner. Or the fact that while so many people are dumb (literally) in the world, this guy can never quite keep his mouth shut (or his nose out of other people's business-you only have to look at it to see that its been in all kinds of places). And I dont see why people had to choose the word dumb to refer to a lack of intellect; more often than not, the truly dumb (read idiotic) people are the ones who talk when they should have kept their mouth shut. Witness Gubaldo: he is the perfect specimen of the group dumbus yetspeakalotus. If only he kept his mouth shut (that is remained quite literally dumb) during any one of the famous lightning strikes at college, there wouldn't be a bunch of people who now believe that the word dumb is synonymous with a certain half Tam, half Punjbi half alien creature who relishes belting himself (for more details, check out his blog. No one can belt him quite as well as he does it himself; and thats not because the rest of us haven't tried). "Lightning never strikes the same place twice right? And its always 300m! according to Gubaldo. So if we can get Gubaldo to stay in the same place, there would be no more lightning! So no more forest fires! Jagaran would absolutely love that!" concluded PonkIE displaying his well documented dasa brains and reasoning skills and running vaguely towards final block to convey his new brainstorm to some arbit final year members of the club (whose existence has still not been proved leading to speculation that they might be a figment of PonkIE's fertile imagination. Experts on PonkIE have ruled this out, however, on the grounds that PonkIE has no imagination, fertile or otherwise).
Coming back to the issue at hand, I always seem to end up with the most wierd people for lab partners. First it was Vattal, who, if you remeber was building a bot to give him proxy. His current project is to build another bot that can go on dates for him, leaving him with more time to, err..build bots. On hearing this, Vattal's bitch promptly dissolved into tears for a whole night, according to (highly un)reliable sources (who else? pokey, of course). After that, as a worthy successor to him, was Gubaldo, whose very name makes any further comment superfluous. Then, when I was labouring under the blissfully ignorant delusion that it couldn't get any worse, pokey decided to join the club.
People who haven't met pokey would hardly believe that he is real until they do meet him, and then they would harly believe what was happening to them was real. Reports have it that, in the late 15th century, the Spanish Inquisition practiced a very dreadful and potent torture method reserved for the most vehement heretics and blasphemers, that involved spending one full hour in the company of pokey. There is no documented evidence of any survivors. Some modern correction facility authorities maintain that nothing is more terrible than solitude and the best way to break a man is solitary confinement; they obviously haven't even heard of pokey. Anyone would prefer his own company (however bad that might be, like for instance, the case of thatha, which is like the lowest you can get. He is totally sick of himself, which is quite understandable. Which of us wouldn't get sick of a person you have to live with all the time when all the time is, according to the most accurate reports, in the region of a couple of millenia (give or take a decade), and the person is, according to the same reports, a fat, smelly maadu who keeps saying you know what kau said rey?) rather than put up with pokey. In fact, there are reports that claim that dodis, who is well known for his utter insensitivity to most things human (apart from several other, less pleasant subjects), when threatened with being locked up in the same room as pokey, started shivering and almost wet his pants. As opposed to ankit, who, because of the same reason, did indeed go ahead and wet his pants; only he had enough consideration for his room mate (and none for the rest of his wing mates, one of whom is, coincidentally, pokey) to go out and do it in the corridor.
Experts at the Definitely Useless Moronic Buffoons(DUMB) speculate that pokey's present condition might be the result of prolonged exposure to his current roomie sassymogan. Sassymogan (whose favorite movies are My Sassy Girl and The best little whorehouse in Texas) has been labelled as most hazardous by the scientists at DUMB who claim that the maximum time of exposure to sassy, while managing to escape, not quite unhurt, but atleast without suffering from irrepairable mental trauma is 12 mins (make that 2 mins, if the subject is discussing the virtues of Douglas Adams over Anakin's light saber). Famous local punk, 'hotshot' completely agreed and started mumbling and moving his hands in what he thought was a realistic imitation of sassymogan, and when the author didn't find it very humorous, he promptly erupted into the avatar state.
Kbax (making his first appearance on this blog) when asked for his views started off with "Illada, athu eppadi naa.......". The author fell asleep before he completed the sentence, let alone his views. Many have noticed the striking similarities between Kbax and kini, in the sense that both of them talk for an awful lot of time, while neither seems to have anything to say. However, unlike kini, Kbax doesnt say arre yaar every next sentence (though he does end every one of them with an ax), doesn't have hair the shade of metallic grey, and also has never been caught extolling the praises of linux over any other platform ( "Over platform 9 and 3/4 as well? Lewl...I am so phunny", interjected GCG spokesman Adi).
"Serves you right for making fun of me in the last post! Pokey is a go*d send! Oh my go*d! Did I just say Go*d again?..." said NV, as he tried to run away from a certain bespectacled comp science student who wanted to crucify him upside down for his 'ungodly' comments.
On a different note, I am amazed at the intense mood of denial that seems to have gripped the college. Most people seem to be in denial mode concerning something or the other. Some examples:
Adi, the past master of denials, tops the list, with his eternal favorites "I am not gay!" "I am not chinese!" "I am not fat!" "In fact, I am not." The New Darwinism school claims that Adi is the next step in human evolution. In anticipation of his getting into NITK, and eventually to make up for the absolute lack of hot chicks there, natural selection caused him to be he first human to be born gay. "Its a case of survival of the fattest! I am still so phunnnny!" said Adi, continuing to deny the complete unfuniness of his pseudo-jokes.
"Dude, I am not mind-fucked! And I didn't pee in the corridor", was Ankit's vehement denial of plain truth as spotted live by the local Gandhian Pom (another debutant here). "This is what the social degradation of modern society leads to. Btw, I totally deny that Gandhi is dead!", Pom said.
"Adi isn't gay and neither are my shirts!" exclaimed Abishek, sporting a violently violet shirt with a V neck and glittering glow-in-the-dark designs.
"Rajinikanth isn't 58 years old!" said an outraged Datta, who thinks the superstar has been 35 for the last two decades. "Ob" substantiated Sakthi, in his typical short but succinct style.
"I dont have any brains at all!" claimed BD, in his typical feverishly excited way...wait, that is quite truthful. Forget that one.
" I dont have any boobs at all!" claimed an as-usual-topless baazi, with his overdeveloped mammary glands bobbing up and down in vigorous agreement.
" I dont belong to GCG. In fact there is no such thing as GCG. Athu eppadi naa....." drones Kbax, occasionally taking a sip from a cup of coffee and interjecting his sentences with the customary ax.
"I do have a life outside of WoW, Fifa and Wheel of Time. And I also like other kinds of music apart from Avril Lavigne. And I dont always generate too much aggro and get everyone killed in raids" said Ari, as he took a moment off from Karazhan, while the shadowbolt he was channeling crit and promptly got him killed.
Pokey, fortunately, wasn't available for comment.

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.