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.

NITK's Top Five...

I have often wondered whether I made the right choice when I selected NITK as my undergrad college, especially when I arrived there for my first semester, and saw, for my own eyes, what it had to offer. I wondered whether it would have been wiser to have chosen trichy as half my class at school did; I wouldn't have been alone in my suffering then, if suffering it was to be. We had plenty of fun at school together and there was little doubt that college would be more entertaining in their company. Moreover, since NIT trichy seems to throw grades like ninju throws fast breaks (i.e plentiful but to the wrong ppl :P) and only the likes of ju end up with grades less than eight ..and dare I say it, even seven ;) , it might seem to be a better choice.
However, after four sems at surathkal, I dont regret my choice. Its been more eventful and fun than I'd dared to hope, thanks mainly to a select few people. I have long been planning to post about these guys and now is the right time for it.
Its impossible to be bored when you are in the same college (and class) as a certain person called Vikram Gulati. God made joshi to top my class, he made varun to try to top the class. He made hanni to play dota and kewl to think he could play dota. He made Gulati...and then wondered why he had. I am sure that no one acqainted with gulati is not familiar of the 'lightning bolt' comment. For those who haven't (fortnately for them) had the honor of meeting him... whenever you there is a lightning strike, gulati pauses whatever he was doing, for a few seconds, lost in deep thought...and then says (invariably) "300 metres!"(thats supposed to where the lightning struck with respect to where he was standing). I dont think need to comment :P
If gulati has been a major contributor to keep our days at coll boredom-free, then ponky is a close second. Dipankar, originally from Dubai, who now claims to be a native of Chennai (because he stayed here for a couple of weeks last december) has been the scourge of all dasas in our batch. A devout obama fan, who claims to have been his most staunch supporter since the beginning of time (I personally think he came to know of obama's existence only after the iowa caucus) , his political opinions are a source of mirth and entertainment to everyone but himself. He seldom knows what he is thinking and even more rarely knows what he's saying. When he and gulati start arguing about anything, you can rest assured of a really good laugh.
"What is huge, makes a lot of noise and always need to teleported everywhere?" If you have been in nitk the last couple of years, I am sure you know the answer. "yoyoyoyoyo" indeed. BK, of lokoko and mokoko fame, the most talented druid ever to play the world of warcraft, whose hands bring healing (to his enemies during duels), who never moves an inch in wow without tp, the plague of vineeth's life last semester, lickus maximus of ieee...I could go on and on but you can guess the rest. From genial gaint to jealous lover (the 'lick' episode..for more details, contact me personally) he has made his presence felt in nitk (mainly through his blaring yoyoyos though :P).
For those of you who are wondering who can match up to these three, let me assure you, there is one equal to that task. Adi...when you hear his name, the first words that pop up in your mind are gay, fat, chinky, bully. Undoubtedly the most laziest person in coll, adi has dozed his way to popularity(???:P) in coll. The most (in)famous of the njs gang(and thats quite a distinction) and a veteran of two semsters of survival of datta's close company ;) this colossal eater of ice cream has been the target of many a chinese joke (especially at cherry square ;)
I wouldn't be doing any justice to this post if I dont make a mention of the inimitable tata. Many long hours of tronix classes have been endurable only due to his elderly presence. No one in ece is likely to forget his "hey raaagi"s of first year and more lately, "how much you teeease da"s. He holds an irresistable attraction for all teachers..witness his encounters with msb and kini :P
So thanks to these guys and many more,we have survived two years of engineering at nitk with such extraodinary teachers like kini and john d, not to mention mess food, not quite unscathed but still having enjoyed most of the ride. This is my way of saying thanks guys :P

Why Set Max is the best channel ever

I just got back home yesterday for my summer vacations and since this is the time every year when I always (try to) revive my long inactive blog, here I go again.

This semester was the longest ever spanning an incredible five months, thanks to our crazy new director who just had to do something wierd to get noticed. An insecure kinda fellow..he keeps doing something eccentric once in a while to get himself in the limelight. I guess he's one of that lot who believe there is no such thing as bad publicity. A week before the exams when all of us were looking forward to the end of this seemingly never ending sem, he makes an announcement that the mandatory attendance will be increased to 85% from the next sem. This was just when we (the non nerds) were deciding whether it was worth it to even try to prepare for the exams and he comes up with this kind of a statement. I mean, here we are in bad need of some encouragement and the least he could do is keep that big fat mouth of his shut. Instead he decides to cheer us all up with this very exciting piece of news. Maybe he believes, somewhere in that hopelessly confused and screwed up head of his, that such news might 'motivate' us or something. If he does, I am afraid I cant put my sentiments into any words that would do them justice.

Enough cribbing about coll I guess. Why waste time discussing such dismal topics when there are much more entertaining subjects ripe for analysis? Like the movie that I (accidently) ended up watched on Set Max yesterday.

As I said earlier I had got home only yesterday evening and on discovering that there was an IPL match at 7 I decided to check it out. Because I hadn't followed any of the previous matches and wanted to see what the tournament was like. And also because I was colossally bored (hardly half a day into my hols). And I guess I switched on the TV a bit early because guess what, there was a hindi movie running on that channel. Now anyone even faintly acquainted with me knows of my passion for hindi movies (that doesn't quite mean what it seems to mean). But even after taking into account my prejudice, this movie was a stinker. In the first place, it was called "Good boy, Bad boy"(!!!!) and it also had Emraan Hashmi in it. Do I need to say any more? Actually I do because it was a lot worse than you can imagine even after those two very enlightening pieces of information. Thankfully the movie was in the climax scene when I tuned into the channel. I'll describe the scene briefly. There was some inter college quiz competition going on and our man Emraan was predictably losing. There was one more round to go and he needed around infinite points to win. No guesses for who won; the novelty was how he won. The round had some ten questions and it was a buzzer round. I actually tried to make a list of the inconsistancies in that scene. This is what the list looke like:

Inconsistent Fact Number 1: Emraan Hashmi was on a quiz show and not smooching some girl which is all that I guess he knows (or does he now?) to do.

Inconsistent Fact Number 2: After hitting the buzzer every candidate gets 30 seconds (on their timer) to think and answer the question. Clearly the director hasn't watched even BQC.

Inconsistent Fact Number 3: I said 30 seconds on their buzzer because after 10 seconds the buzzer counts once in every two seconds and after 20 seconds it counts once in every five seconds.

Inconsistent Fact Number 4: Given the above two points it would be fairly normal to expect all contestants to go for every answer. However that is where you err; this is bollywood, dude. Fairly normal doesn't apply here. So only Emraan goes for every question and voila!, he gets them all right. As a matter of fact, there is one question about the national anthem when he gets up to answer rebuking the quiz master for not doing the same. (that wierd noise BK makes to show disgust and disbelief would sum up my emotions at this point).

There is of course a tie breaker in the end and this is the best part of them all. The question is: "Albert Einstein kis year mae Third Law of Motion discover kiya tha?" (pardon my hindi grammar. Its next to non existent, much like my coll director's common sense) And thats not all. The options were "A) 1840 B)1850 C)1860 D) 1870". Our man takes all of his 30 seconds(real time:10+20+50=80 seconds) during which an entire recap of the whole movie was shown as a pseudo flashback sequence. This time I really dont need to say anymore. I mean, I agree that there are tamil movies especially those with 'Captain' in them where you can find a fight scene with more inconsistencies than this but this was incredibly more hilarious. I have to watch more of Set Max. Thats going to be my first resolution for this vacation. The second is the usual 'I wont let the blog die' resolution. Lets see how successful thats going to be this time.

Whats in a name? also as Names I wouldn't want to be found dead with

If you've read my prev post, you'd know i spoke at some length about a certain Leacock Stephen. I just wikied him and found that he was a canadian(not to be confused with kanadian) comedian; so i think he'll probably appreciate what i am going say about him now.

Now those who have been reading my blog regularly(which would b in the last two days) or in fact anyone i have spoken to recently will know that i have been bored to death these hols; others know now. I'll make that my excuse for the worthless crap that i am going to write now.
I was thinking about people's names(Mr.Leacock being responsible for this(ashwin, you were right; his name was stephen leacock and not that other thing(and no nishanth, i wont stop bracketing just coz u want me to))) and how wierd some of them are. Take Mr. Leacock, for instance. Suppose he's going give a press conf or something and instead of him Bruce Lee turns up. The reporter mistakes him for the peacock oops..leacock(not likely given their er..quite different(to say the least) ancestries..but lets just assume(for the sake of argument) a near blind reporter(like kaushik when he's driving..only he can mistake a chinky for a canadian)) As i was saying supposing this reporter(i am tired of saying reporter, so shall we say kaushik instead..is more convenient..adds more spice to the discussion too), this kaushik says "Hi Mr. Leacock", and Bruce Lee who(understandably) interprets it as leecock says "Whats that again?"(in a menacing tone(u'll know wat i mean if u have seen any of his movies(ofcourse in english..not the dubbed versions on vijay tv))) and kaushik, knowing somethings wrong and but not what(he's kaushik..you cant expect too much of him) says.."err..Mr Leacock?". What follows is all a blur with sounds like a cat fight(no references to pussy paddyman here..that part is reserved for later) and then the cow is a mishapen bulk on the floor(remember, bruce knows kung-fu..among other martial arts). Now, you can appreciate what its like to have a name like leacock and what unimaginable consequences it might provoke(cow's death for one..god(or gosh..whichever your prefer) bless stephen's ancestors..for picking up such a nice surname). Its also not so hard to see why the guy turned out to be a successful(so says wiki..personally i've never heard of him) comedian..i mean with a name like his, it'd be harder not to make people laugh(atleast while introducing oneself).
Speaking of funny names, i came to know last sem that eminem's real name is Marshall Mathers..thank goodness he didn't perform in north india.(dont get it? mathers you maaather..(still dont get it? then you never will)). I guess every country has its fair share of hopelessly funny names, but India has more than a fair share..its simply LOADED with names that seemed to have been aimed to sound hilarious. There are a couple sardars(mandae malle kundae, i mean) i know with names sukhdeep and hardick...seriously! i swear it. There's another guy in my coll..right here from tn..called puviventhan. Now if this guy lived in chnai,his name would merely have been funny; but in surathkal, among the hundreds of shettys and bhats(thats another one!), imagine going around with a name like puviventhan..hilarious, eh? One of my profs, after asking us all to introduce ourselves, finding us laughing(pardonably, coz he was laughing too) at puvi, asked him, to make him feel better, what his name meant. The reply, 'king of earth'. Now know what the king of earth is called at coll? ding dong bell,(puvi in the well). I am sure he must be cursing his parents.
If you've seen as many tamil movies as i have, you'd know this part where the hero/heroine asks the herione/hero what his/her name is and replies invariably, "nice name". Now imagine if puvi is cast in a movie(or for that matter paddyman..except that no producer in his right mind would even consider playing rushi in a movie in even a comedy role) and the heroine(cant think of anyone appropriate for puvi..or, in paddy's case, cant pick a single one) asks him for his name and he replies "puvi(or pussy paddyman, respectively)" and she says, "nice name"..imagine how puvi/rushi would feel..i think the next scene would b the movie climax..or rather, an anticlimax.
No post about wierd names would be complete without a reference to the mad names celebrities come up with nowadays for their kids. What with Sahara and Maddox Pitt-Jolie, Jigme Gere and Kafka Jones...and ofcourse Rushi Padhuman, a good-old ordinary Stephen Leacock comes as a refreshing change.

cant think of anything appropriate now...unless this'll do....on being bored (not) among other things?

I've moved on...
A chat conversation i had today:

srinivas balasubramaniam: jobless
Raghavan: wazzzzzuppppp?
very expressive stat message, btw
srinivas: nothing
thanks
Raghavan: thoo..i've progressed 2 a new level da...got bored of being bored
srinivas: ohhhhhhhhh that cannot happen to me
i envy u
Raghavan: i dont see why u do..infact i envy u if still arent bored of being bored..
srinivas: i told u no i like beiong bored
it is something that ammuses me
Raghavan: so u'll doubly like it if u get bored of being bored?
srinivas: i cant
its like impossible
Raghavan: hmm...well, never mind..as long as i dont get bored of getting bored of being bored..
srinivas: dai enough
u should learn no enjoy it
Raghavan: i enjoy not enjoying things..like in i enjoy cribbing..so..
srinivas: ya i get it
Raghavan: :)
srinivas: i got a book frm landmark
some shortstories but i liked it
Raghavan: who?
author?
srinivas: leacock stephen
Raghavan: cum again..leacock?
this isn a joke?
srinivas: ya heard his name no
Raghavan: nope..ppl seriously call themselves leacock?
as in a cousin 2 the peacock or sumthing?
srinivas: ya da canadian i think
Raghavan: god help canada
i jus thank my stars he isn kanada
srinivas: he writes decently i think u will like his style
Raghavan: okie
:)
srinivas: why what does it mean in kannada
Raghavan: nuthing..chumma jus coz kanada was rhymed..lol..
*rhyming
srinivas: kk
Sent at 7:26 PM on Sunday



And you thought you were the one who was bored...