Copy-paste from Dreamcatcher's blog.


If I were a beginning, I would be: The dawn
If I were a month, I would be: December
If I were a day of the week, I would be:Saturday
If I were a time of day, I would be:Three am
If I were a planet, I would be: Uranus(A planet which rotates with its axis on the side-Punster's keep away)
If I were a season, I would be:summer
If I were a sea animal, I would be: a Great White Shark
If I were a direction, I would be: East
If I were a piece of furniture, I would be: a couch
If I were a sin, I would be: lust
If I were a liquid, I would be: Petrol
If I were a fraud/scare, I would be: making headlines by now
If I were a gem, I would be: a Lapis-Lazuli
If I were a tree, I would be: a Banyan
If I were a tool, I would be: a Swiss Knife.
If I were a flower/plant, I would be: an Aloe Vera
If I were a kind of weather, I would be: a bright blue sky on a winter morning.
If I were a musical instrument, I would be: a tabla
If I were an animal, I would be: a tiger
If I were an emotion, I would be: joy
If I were a vegetable, I would be: spinach
If I were a sound, I would be: the sound of a didgeridoo
If I were an element, I would be: Calcium
If I were a car, I would be: a Ferarri
If I were a song, I would be: The end by The Doors
If I were a food, I would be: apple pie
If I were a place, I would be: Goa
If I were a material, I would be: Velcro
If I were a taste, I would be: sweet-sour
If I were a scent, I would be: scent of Pulao
If I were a religion, I would be: Hinduism
If I were a sentence, I would be: All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players
If I were a body part, I would be: the shoulders
If I were a facial expression, I would be: a grin
If I were a subject in college, I would be: Algorithm design and analysis
If I were a shape, I would be: a spiral
If I were a quantity, I would be: a carat
If I were a colour, I would be: black
If I were a thing, I would be: a garden
If I were a landmass, I would be: a mountain
If I were a book, I would be: Ulysses
If I were a monument, I would be: The Colosseum
If I were an artist, I would be: Dali
If I were a landscape, I would be: a valley
If I were a watch, I would be: showing EST
If I were God, I would be: laughing
If I were a vowel, I would be: u
If I were a consonant, I would be: r
If I were a formula, I would be: The Fourier-series expansion formula
If I were a Science, I would be: Organic Chemistry
If I were a theory, I would be: Post-modernism
If I were a famous person, I would be: Salman Rushdie
If I were an electronic equipment, I would be: a super-computer
If I were sport, I would be: tennis
If I were a movie, I would be:the Casino
If I were a cartoon, I would be: The Simpsons
If I were an explorer, I would be: Magellan
If I were a scientist, I would be: Alan Turing
If I were a relation, I would be: elder brother
If I were a river, I would be: The Amazon
If I were intoxication, I would be: marijuana
If I were alone, I would be: content
If I were a question, then I would be: why don't I have enough time?
If I were a hobby, I would be: reading
If I were a habit, I would be: being generous
If I were in an atom, I would be: U-235
If I were an end, I would be: the end of the solar system.
If I were you, I would be: laughing by now.

A random conversation at work:

Female 1:but the J2EE trainer was good.
Male1:No,was bad.I did not understand much.
Me: Me neither!
Female1:but he was very helpful.
Me:You have been afflicted by the Stockholm syndrome.
Male1:but thats when........
Me:Yeah but it's similar to that.analogous.
Female1:what's what syndrome?
Male1 and Me:you wouldn't understand-you need level for that! bwahahahahaha!!
*Female1 grimaces*

And this featured in our conversations too. Wikipedia fascinates always.


Also innumerable Homer Simpson conversations......... with Male1 being a Springfield resident-almost but Male1 has been sufficently irradiated.(I will have names for my co-workers soon)


D'oh!!!!-just look at his expression here!!.LMAO :D

I love my job.

Feeling fidgety.revolted with myself.lost.lonely.bored.fatigued.nerves on edge.blue-black vs turquoise blue,in an eternal dance of wits.

Has been a while

Its has been a while since I did a decent post.Life's been pretty busy,hectic would not be the apt word.Wake up-go to work-come back and sleep and then wake up on Saturday around 7 and think-oh, no going to work today- and then promptly dozing off for a couple of more hours.It is a strange feeling,I never actually imagined how life would be working and so far this life has been good to me.My routine in the office usually involves-reaching there by 9:30,coffee break of 10-15 min around 11:00,lunch around 12:45,loitering in the campus for about three quarters of an hour,another coffee/tea break around 3:15 and the office crowd starts thinning around 5:45-6 and everything is quiet around 6:45-and yeah around 6 ,some head to the cafeteria for snacks while some go to the gym-I head back home,cursing and breaking furiously in the maddening MG Road traffic and in between I also do some coding desperately trying to come to grips with unfamiliar programming concepts/vocab "requirements"-"analysis"-"design" all mean different things in different contexts and the most scariest word of them all-static............
I dream of red lines and yellow lines and light bulbs and red crosses and cntrl-x,cntrl-v,cntrl-c all running in wild maniacal circles around me- taunting me to confront them till I hear the sweet purring of the CPU acknowledging my almost perfect resizeable-resistant -pesky user defying-UI.

it's almost Asok-in-Dilbert ian this love for my workplace is but I cant help it if my manager is a very co-operative man and that my team members do not actually suck but the honeymoon is gonna end soon- I have a vague premonition.Sometimes I do have that instinctive urge to bunk-to run away form work and cool my heels but then as a friend of mine pointed out-'you get paid to do this' so I curb the desire and get along with the job at hand.Finally read HP-7 and the last duel between Voldermort and Harry is almost anti-climactic- Expelliarmus?against the most feared wizard?The last chapter is such BS but it was unavoidable 'coz this would be the only way of ending the saga.I couldn't help feeling a bit sad at the end of it all-no more waiting for the next book ,no more Hogwarts ,no more Hagrid's creatures or Hogsmeade....

In other shocking news,Carlos Tevez moved to ManU(was hoping he would move to Chelsea-the presence of Crespo in the Blues starting line up two years ago being my sole reason for supporting them) on a two year loan from WestHam and Alonso continues to behave like a spoilt child.Kumble scored a century(I just love Test cricket!).Amidst all the sporting upheavals ,I decide to start another blog.So I present before you Bourgeoisie Armchair Philosophy- a blog solely dedicated to discussing things other than my personal life,sports,music, random musings -in short everything that I do not talk about on ICISIF.I am co-hosting this blog with Niksworth. No, I could not think of a better name and it just came to me. Bourgeoisie 'coz of my earlier Communist leanings,Armchair 'coz I am not the kind of person who actually does something about what he says and Philosophy is just to validate any post that I might do under the garb of that word though Niksworth might disagree.happy reading.

October, 2001-Life was uncomplicated and a thousand cupids were at work.The Patronus shone across the lake and I was moved by the firebolt of a gift from Sirius to Harry.

June,2003-school came to an end and college was still a few months away:Sirius died and James was cruel to Severus in a pensieve.

July 2005-gave the dreadful C.O. paper and was relieved to have managed to write enough to scrape through.To celebrate me,Akhi and A walked into Crosswords and were offended by the high prices but still managed to learn in the ensuing holidays that Ginny and Harry were no longer a couple and Gwrap didn't prove to be so important after all.

July 2007-Life's pretty smooth sailing right now and hope that Hagrid,Hermoine and Harry are still alive.

good things have always happened to me when ever a book has released.keeping my fingers crossed this time around.

I got tagged by Deepika here.The rules.
1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

OK don't the 1. and 2. points mean the same thing?since the people I wanted to tag have already been tagged,If you are reading this consider yourself tagged.

Eight random things about me:

1.One of the greatest pleasures that I indulge in is laughing at my own jokes.I laugh in such a way that the audience laughs at my laughter rather than the actual joke.So I get away with the most inane PJ's.

2.I get claustrophobic in the AC compartment of trains and have difficulty sleeping in that climate controlled rickety thing.

3.I prefer eating salads,soups and all things 'healthy'.If you want to torture me,just get me a meal of fries,cola and burger.You would rather see me at a SUBWAY than a McDonalds.In spite of this I am not really in good shape.

4.My idea of heaven is a place where you could play tennis to your heart's content and never get tired.preferably clay and under the lights.Also one of my childhood dreams was to win the French Open.

5.oh! and I have a very short attention span.I have only seen about 100 movies in my 22 years of existence.even when I do watch ,I see it in sittings.I saw Bheja Fry in 3 sittings and saw the two seasons of Prison Break over a period of 1.5 months.

6.I like girls with beautiful hair,long hair,coloured hair,highlighted hair-really in love with the Gothic look :D ;I hate girls who gossip,the 'I have to be home before dark' types,the unread/dumb/bimbo types,the typical Bangalore engineering female.

7.I am very immune to weather and my mood does not depend on whether its cold,hot,rainy,windy etc. and I usually can brave it all.One of the reasons why Bangalore's much vaulted great weather has not made any impression on me.

8.I usually do not complain at all and can be a very adjusting person and get along with almost anyone.In case this is sounding like an entry in a matrimonial website,let me tell you that I suffer from multiple Dr.Jekyl and Mr.Hyde syndrome and am different things to different people.That's why all my Orkut testimonials are very different from each other.

PS:have not been able to blog much even though there is no dearth of topics.There have been tectonic shifts in life.College got over and have started work-which is proving to be a strange experience,more about it later I promise.

Thats school:DAV,Jawahar Vidya Mandir,Ranchi.its a bad photograph I know.Well the point is these are the 'hallowed portals'(as my senior in college so often used to say to refer to our dept. corridor and has made this phrase sound so horribly cliched) through which I first entered school life.This used to be the primary section's gate and there was just that door on the right(just beside the right shutter) which used to lead to it.Now instead of the staid and simple entrance we have this giant Greek acropolis-esque thing hanging above the gate.Not that I am complaining,makes the entrance seem imposing but most of my kindergarten playground and the swings and all are gone.The reason for this is that the three storey building we see here was not there before.The classrooms whose windows we see on the left now house the senior section(11th-12th).I wanted to go inside and have a look around and meet my teachers but the school was closed 'coz it had not yet re-opened after the summer hols.

OK all this was just to put the photo of my school up on my blog.bear with it. :P

general joblessness

At home and horribly jobless.Somehow the whole anticipation of holidays is the only thing worth experiencing.I have learned in this period of 1 week that it is very important to plan your fun too otherwise you end up regretting what all you could have done but didn't end up doing.So yesterday I made up a list of all the things I wanted to do and could cover almost 90% of the list.Since I have been sleeping late into the day....I get these nightmares....of having an exam and having not studied anything.....I mean five times in a row...is that a sign?Today I had the weirdest dream.I boarded a bus which was mostly empty except for my grandpa's brother and who else on the wheel but my grandma...who is not even five feet in height (she would have to stand to get to the foot pedals) and I see her expertly maneuvering the bus in narrow Market area by lanes (Bangalore) and then I end up in class where everyone is preparing for the OR paper and I am dazed as I have not studied a word.So I try to read through what everybody else is reading and then I wake up.Thank god.I have a very fishy feeling about the OR paper though.

Last weekend was fun,saw the Nadal-Federer French open final and it was great.The top-spin on the forehand just destroyed Federer and there was no way he would have triumphed even after he won the second set.Now I am pretty sure Federer is just another Sampras and there is nothing special about him :P.This was followed immediately by the Canadian Grand Prix which was thoroughly enjoying what with Hamilton pulling off a clinical win.The guy to cheer for.As I was telling a friend of mine,its no use supporting teams as you just don't have any control on who is going to drive your cars,so its better to support drivers and now with Alonso and Hamilton,Mc Laren is the team .The gap between Alonso+Hamilton and Massa+Kimi is widening with each race and it just gets to show that all of Ferrari's Dominance was just because of Schumi's brilliance as a driver and not because Ferrari was ahead of the field in terms of superiority of the car.As I write this,Hamilton has already taken pole in the Indianapolis race.yay!

The absolutely best show on TV is Scrips National Spelling Bee championship-ESPN,where 10-14 year kids spell words like Videlicet and Coryx and Ferresine. Its a very prestigious competition in the US and the surprising thing is the presence of so many Indian-American and Asian origin among the finalists.It is really tougher than what I initially expected it to be.These kids have to know how each syllable is spelt in each of the the countless languages that English borrows words from like French,Latin,German,Greek,Polish,Scandinavian languages to really make some headway. website here.

I am very sleepy and have nothing else to say.so ciao.

The pelting rain made it extremely hard to see out the window.She was already half an hour late and the weather made it even more depressing.Slowly sipping his tea,he reached out to wipe the frost so that he could look into the street more clearly.For some reason all he could hear at that moment was Beethoven's 9th,it kept going in his head in cycles,like a river flooding,overflowing and then..... dying down into a trickle.He kept going into the past....but strangely grimaced at the futility of looking for things to cheer about there, not because it was painful but because he did not trust the past.The past with its tinkling laughter and the rosy sheen and the joys which seemed so hollow from afar.He loathed the way his memory twisted the past making it more cheerful than it really was,obliterating the little niggling discomforts and the background of chaotic cacophony and just presenting him with the visual, no sounds nor smells.

He was always more of a nose-person.He had his phases in which he indulged in a variety of smells.....gasoline,varnish,coffee,freshly ironed clothes.for weeks on end he would confide in these smells and escape from the reality of the situation.His current weird favorite was the smell of metal, iron especially with the sharpness of its reach.

His musings were interrupted by a sharp rap at the door telling him that the lawyer had finally arrived.Moving steadily to the door he opened it and let the grim looking woman of around thirty-five in, accepting her apologies with a nod.The lawyer opened her briefcase and took out the required papers.
'All the papers are in order and only some issues need to be dealt with.'
'Yes,We shall do the needful.'

Three quarters of an hour later,the sheets were in his hands and everything was indeed in order.The lawyer had left some ten minutes ago .The old Mahagony bookshelf was to go to his son who had shown a great inclination in caring for his book-collection,replacing the covers of many dog-eared classics and carefully dusting the shelf with his faithful duster.His space age retro furniture was to go to Sam,what with him pestering him repeatedly to turn it in as it had long outlived its practicality and aesthetic value.He had already had his confidential and classified material shipped to the department of defense.Better keep things uncontroversial.A major portion of his savings would go to ICBL-International Society to Ban Landmines.He was not one of those ungrateful types.

He woke up with a start with the loud buzzing of the door bell.Quickly he stuffed the papers under the couch and felt his robe to make sure everything was in proper order.He grabbed his crutches and made it to the door.it was still pouring heavily outside.
'hi honey,how was your day' he heard her say.
'great'
'well,I am pretty tired today...so am gonna grab a bite and going straight to bed.You had your dinner I hope.'
'Well yes I did.How was your day?'
She turned around caught unaware at the sudden unexpected question.The only conversation that they really ever had was monosyllabic grunts.
'Well...same old...had to take the overseas call today y'know'
He could almost smell the fear in the air.Also the very faint smell of Chrome,a cologne he hated for the tangy citrus smell that made him sick.He did not think it was masculine at all.Before this it was Davidoff.

'I am fixing myself a sandwich... you want something?'
'No I am fine'.

He saw her enter the kitchen and listened to the clatter.He thanked his rubber soled crutches and for a brief moment remembered the good 'ol days when his fellow officers called him 'The cat'.

He moved stealthily towards the kitchen and positioned himself in the dark corner.He could feel the sweat at the back of his neck accumulate around the tiny vial on the locket.At once he could feel his entire being, even the cold metallic outline underneath his robe and he shivered in the coolness of his sweat.but then he smiled, he knew he will be rewarded with smell of sharp tangy hemoglobin.Warm iron on hard iron.The rain had stopped.

The Five

I saw it in Debu's room once.The writing on the wall(apparently a senior's tribute to our Very Terrifying University(VTU)):'18 horrific Labs-62 subjects-168 internals-768 hours in lab,this isn't a f****n' B.E ,this is War and only the bravest make it'..Throughout this 4 year period we are bombarded with so much informtion and are kept so insanely occupied with exam prep that it is difficult to actually appreciate the subtlety and the profoundness of some of these absolutely brilliant subjects.Concepts which can make you go 'eureka' in the middle of the night and lead to frantic smses to friends of the :read pg139, Roth....amazing! kind. Appreciating engineering subjects is a very difficult thing as it is mostly concerned with mundane- how to do X or how to obtain Y from Z or with- this is how such and such a thing happens. But some of these subjects have such creativity in the way they arrive at results that you tend to wish fervently that you could be coffee wielding, bearded jeans-and-T-shirt grad student changing the way the world uses technology a La Bob Metcalfe /Jack Kilby/Richard Stallman/Kekule(OK Kekule is not quite engineering...we shall let it pass shaking the head silently at the demise of a once good Organic chemistry semi-expert) I have been waiting for a long time to do this post.I know my list doesn't contain the standard ECE gems-Digital Signal Processing,Electronic Circuits even Logic design....but the subjects that I have mentioned are the ones which I had most fun studying irrespective of their importance in the bigger scheme of things.Here in countdown format are my five most fav subjects :

5. Telecommunication&Switching-This subject mainly deals with the whole of the telephone network dealing right from the set at home to trunk offices and switching stations.It also deals with telecommunication traffic which ultimately leads to the usage of queuing theory.A very interesting thing to learn for people who want to go :you know.. this telephone network that you are so dependent on actually consists of twisted pairs connected to big Strowgers and sophisticated exchanges.....basically boast about their knowledge in front of their hapless non-engineering friends(never mind the fact that most electrical/electronics engineers are absolutely at sea when it comes to normal households appliances). I came across this in fifth sem and according to many this is a very strange/vague subject, the fact being that the textbook by J.E Flood is very cryptic ,brief and leaves much to imagination. My interest was especially piqued after seeing The History of Hacking documentary which deals also with 'phone phreaking' or hacking phones.


4.Microprocessors-8085.
Absolutely the only subject which I can safely say that I know in its entirety.The subject which,if you are an electronics engineer will never ever forget.The subject which changed the way I looked at technology in many many ways and exposed me to the sheer genius of this small little chip which runs each and every electronic device ever invented.microprocessors in layman terms are the very hearts of computers.It is the component in your computer which understands the 1's and 0's which everybody keeps talking about.I studied this in 4th sem and suddenly a lot of gaps in the knowledge of how things work in a computer were cleared.The invention of the microprocessor must surely go down as one of the most original and stunning creations of the 20th century.The prescribed textbook-RS Gaonkar is an absolute gem when it comes to lucid explanations,especially the parts about interfacing.really enjoyed reading it.

3.VHDL-It stands for VHSIC Hardware Description Language.VHSIC-Very High Speed Integrated Circuits.A programming language which describes hardware.It was a 6th sem subject and one of the only subjects that sem which were palatable (what with such heavyweights such as Microwave communication and Antenna & wave theory....subjects which merit a post all of their own) VHDL was an eye-opener of sorts 'coz it is one of those subjects which actually lets you think in terms of components such as Multiplexers,buffers,registers etc.So that you can actually envision a hardware design.I fondly remember cracking the logic of signed binary divider and some other tough-ies while solving some of the most beautiful design problems.bliss.

2.Computer Organization-A subject which is close to heart.One of the most diciest subjects in all of four years just because of the sheer amount of syllabus to be covered for the exam.The subject deals with the innards of a computer system...everything from memory,I/O,processor architecture,computer arithmetic.This was the defining turning point for me in engineering-opened doors of insights and I was truly a electronics engineering student after this.Loved reading about microcoded instructions,cache replacement algorithms and certain gate delays in carry-lookahead adders.*droooooooooool*.The textbook is one of the best I have ever come across...Hamacher,Vranesic,Zaky...apparently the cover of the book is a doodle by Vranesic's son.

and finally the Numero Uno:

1.Computer networks- The book-Tanenbaum.What do you call a book which is untouchable in terms of technical brilliance,has the capability of staying informal in tone always and is side -splittingly funny? I would call it:The Bible of computer engineering.You are seriously missing out on life if you are a CS/ECE/EEE student and have not come across this book.I suggest you shoot yourself in the head.Twice.Our university has this tendency to prescribe some amazingly boring and drab textbooks which suck the life out of you but strangely, we were prescribed Tanenbaum when it came to networks in 7th sem.I had a torrid affair with this book,who wouldn't... considering the fact that almost every page is filled with anecdotes of technical gaffes and Tanenbaum actually goes on to discuss the politics of technology and the serious problems that internet faces or is going to face in the future.The tone is always tongue in cheek.How can I ever forget...The apocalypse of two elephants,the history of the internet...countless stories about how people came up with ideas to make a world wide communication network,about the many versions of the Ethernet and the various internal squabbling between the various 802. IEEE groups.I especially admire the way he goes about talking about the various collision avoidance algorithms in local networks,also the politics of the ISO/OSI vs TCP/IP.Did you know that the person who invented frequency hopping spread spectrum is none other than -Hedy Lamarr-the first woman to appear nude in a motion picture(the 1933 Czech film-Extase)?People in my class had such fun reading the book that many of them read more than what was expected and on the day of the exam,were pretty relaxed.I leave you with the unforgettable Tanenbaum quote:
'never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway!!'

Reload

Its been long ...almost a month and a lot has happened....A somewhat memorable b'day followed by an amazing trip to Goa and a hectic period of seminars and back-breaking project work(my project-mates will most probably say that all I did was recite inane stories,take 'power' naps and generally fiddle around with the laptop).A lot of trips to CCD's and random restaurants happened.The sem so far has been pretty roller-coaster.Also finally began reading Ulysses and am absolutely loving it.

Also, thanks to Uatu I finally could lay my hands on Sandman.Most amazing stuff and I am already head over heels in love with Death :-D.What a character!Actually I would place Death along with Dagny Taggart as my favorite female characters in any form of literature(for clarification, I hate Ayn Rand's philosophy but love her characters,Hank Rearden being my fav).My Orkut profile pic has dream and death sitting together and gives my profile a slick look me thinks.My roomie is worried 'coz just today I listened to Beethoven's 9th some 7 times...somehow I am finally coming to terms with some of the addictions that I have: currently Beethoven's 9th,coffee, Orkut...the most dangerous being Orkut.I am on auto-pilot most of the times on Orkut and would have scrapped people without knowing and have joined communities without actually being interested in that particular topic.I am seriously addicted,suggestions for de-addiction anyone?

College has almost come to an end and I might just have attended my last classes without realizing it......and can't help feeling extremely nostalgic about our dept. who have been extremely sweet this sem without harassing us too much about attendance and internals and stuff...compared to CSE,we have teachers who 'understand' our 'problems' and give us extensions on deadlines.Just in case somebody from any other branch is reading this...my friend Avinash has attended only about 10% classes in all of engineering..thats like he has attended only about a semester out of eight.So there... that I guess would put all arguments about superiority of branches to an end.I would follow this post with a few posts on the various characters that inhabit our dept. and college in general and another one on my fav subjects throughout engineering...so geeky technical post alert on subsequent posts. Maybe I will do a Goa post too.....

PS:The pic-Miramir beach,Goa...the greatest holiday destination in India and if you have not been there yet, you are seriously seriously missing out on something.