Fun Family time

Yesterday was a fun day.

We picked up Appa from the railway station around mid-morning and made plans to go to Cherai Beach in the evening.

And the Great Thor drove all the way. It was a challenging path filled with potholes, demons and insanely stupid drivers but in the end, no one could stand the might of Mjollnir and its expert wielder. And hence it was that after half an hour of driving, honking, swearing and idling on one-lane roads in the middle of flooded fields we finally reached our destination – The Mines of Moria Cherai Beach.

Once at the beach, no time was wasted in jumping into the warm where I was in for a shock. The water was warm. Very warm. So warm, that when I came out of the water for a few seconds, within that short period of time, the temperature differnce got me shivering.

Other than this factor, the beach was just like any other beach. Tonnes of fun, lots of froth, extremely salty and pretty crowded.

Amma as usual kept telling me to come back and not go into the deep waters. Amma definition of deep is ‘the depth at which your ankles are completely submerged in the water’.

It felt good.

We topped the beach trip with buffet at a classy and ridiculously costly hotel (The Renissance, Kochi).

Farewells

15^th May:

*alarm* – I look at my watch. It says 7:00. I can sleep for 5 more minutes, I have got time.

*alarm* – I look at my watch. It says 7:12. I can sleep for 5 more minutes, I have got time.

*alarm* – I look at my watch. It says 8:38. WTF!!!@#!@#!@^&#$%@$

I cancel the alarm and check my cell phone for any missed calls. Sure enough, I have one from Mots. First things first – I call up Mots. I cannot quote her words here because to tell you the truth, I am never in my best just after waking. So all I remember is the essence of what she told me.

She told me that the Bandh that had been called was not a major one and that all the vehicles were plying. I tell her that I will be at her place as soon as I can.

I take a bath, brush my teeth, dress up and leave for her place.

The jeep I boarded gets a flat tyre and I jump into the first auto that followed us. I don’t even know where exactly it is going in Ranchi. After about half an hour, at some place, almost all the travellers get down. So I get down with them. I look around and find that I am in some part of town I have never been before in all my 4 years in this town. So I whip out my phone and call up Mots.

“Hi Mots”

“Yes Boss”

“OK. Listen carefully. I am somewhere in town and I have no idea where. I am right now standing in front of this huge building that says ‘State Bank of India Zonal Office’. What do I do now”.

She laughed and continued, “OK relax. You are right now near Kachehari Chowk. Walk to the chowk and then from there you can get one of those big autos to my place”.

“K then. C ya.”

“K”.

When it comes to talking to others on my phone, I try to be concise and precise and brief coz I never know when the damn piece of shit will die on me.

Finally I managed to reach her place. She opens the door and wonder of wonders, I see Baba.

I never expected to see him there. But then Baba was unusually quiet and did not speak out much. The only thing he did was check out the photos Mots had in her laptop. Which left me and Dolly.

Dolly is Mots’ younger sister and hence, sort of my little sister. Together with her elder sister, Dolly sort of fills in the gap in my life of lack of any female relatives of my age.

Lemme tell you some things about my family.

• As my brother once put it very eloquently, my family doesn’t have a family tree. It has a family forest.
• My mother once counted and told us that she has a total of around 37 cousins and second cousins. And in typical mother fashion, she correctly remembers all their names, the names of their spouses, their children, where they work/study and everything.
• Among all my close relatives (close not just by blood but also by familiarity), I have NO female relatives of comparable age. In the close family, the female relative closest to my age is my aunt. She is about 7 years younger than my mother. If course, one can count my Akkachi (Mrs Bro) but then according to my mother, the elder brother’s wife is like a second mother, her age be damned.

In light of these truths, I here by proclaim that I was starved of any interaction with a close female relative. And the two girls I mentioned earlier filled in that gap. And the gave me a taste of all that I had missed.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, Mots then proceeded to make some sort of Appam for me. The initial ones turned out a little weird but the later ones, especially the culmination, was perfect.

One of Mots’ best friends, one called Tsunami (a.k.a D1) was leaving for home that day by the afternoon Dhanbad Alleppey exp. So Mots and me went to the railway station to see her off. Baba had to see off some friends of his own so he came along. On the way to the station we found some watermelon guys. So we filled our mangers and then packed some for the departing ones (bad choice of words, I know). The train was announced and we took our positions on the platform with all her luggage (Seven bags. SEVEN) and wonder of wonder, who turns up to see her off? None other than Mots’ dad. The Deadliest Dad ever, as I named him.

Mots’ father looks pretty senior. Possibly older than my own father. His hair is already almost completely cream white as is his mustache and beard. His hair is combed backwards and his mustache is thick and curled upwards. This coupled with his height and stout build and the black Bullet Enfield Electra he sits upon wearing his black helmet makes him deadlier than any Veerappan you have ever seen. And so I rightly named him the Deadliest Dad ever.

After we see D1 off, Mot’s father gave her boyfriend a lift to the bus stop en route to his office and the three of us said that we would meet him in his office.

Once in his office, the important things are finished first, i.e. Writing a couple of DVDs for Mots. She wanted some movies from me. We have some interesting conversations while the DVDs are being written. I find out that Mots’ father is a Robert Ludlum fan and has read every book of his at least thrice.

Outside his office is a huge mango tree with a lot of raw mangoes hanging. Baba tried his hand at a couple of them but couldn’t get them to leave the shelter of their mother tree. This spurred us and we began trying in earnest. The tree was a very branching one and it was like a dream come true for me. I quickly climbed the tree and walked along one of the thicker branches towards the desperately clinging mango when I walked into a swarm of fruit flies. They surrounded my whole face and threatened to enter my shirt. In my panic, I jumped of the tree. It was not a very high jump and as soon as I was on the ground, I squirmed his way and that to try and get rid of the flies. Once that threat was neutralised, I climbed the tree again but this time, chose a slightly different path. This time the bees were still there, but in a smaller number. Still, one of the managed to enter my ear before it was expelled by my furious head-banging. From my vantage position, I managed to pluck enough and more mangoes to satisfy us all. We collected the fallen bounty and then bid our farewells to Mots’ Dad and left for her home. But we didn’t have enough time and soon had to leave for our hostels. Baba and me told our farewells and left for the college.

Baba had to go back to the Railway station to see some other friend off so he told me how to get to the hostel. I don’t know if it was he who screwed up or if it was me but what I do know is that I got lost and instead of ending up at the bus stop, found myself at least 2 km away from it. I hurried and tried to catch the bus to college but when I reached the stop, there was no bus there. I whipped out my untrustworthy cell phone and rang up Mots to ask for a way to reach the college without spending 100 bucks on an auto.

She told me what to do. Then corrected herself and told me another way. And then corrected me AGAIN, this time, to give me the final definitive way to reach college. This time, the directions were perfect and I reached college without much hassle.

16^th May:

I woke up pretty early (around 7:30) and finished my packing. All my bags I deposited in Somar’s room and left for town. Apparently, there was no bus headed fr town at that time and o I availed the use of a trekker. Unfortunately it was so crowded that I had to hang from the back of the trekker with just one hand while the other hand called Mots on her phone.

“Hey Mots”

“Yes Boss. Where are you?”

“I am headed to Jail Chowk. What do I do once I get there?”

“You can get one of those small autos to my place from there”.

“K then. C ya.”

“K”.

Precise and concise instructions ensured that I reached her place without much trouble (unless you call sitting on top of the vehicle instead of inside it as trouble) where I find that she has made food for me (again!!!). This time it is Lemon Rice (or something like it). She also packed some for the seven of us train voyagers. Bless that princess.

Soon it was time for me to leave for the station. Dolly gave me a hug and we said our farewells. Mots accompanied me to the station and we had our fun seeing Thadu squirm and squeam in front of her.

And then it was time for the worst part of it all.

Farewells are disgusting, aren’t they?

Wheres the Firing Squad?

…The Shiv Sena is now all set to glorify the humble vada pao, a favourite snack of Mumbaikars. Calling it the patent of the party, Sena chief Bal Thackeray said in an editorial in Saamna on Monday that the snack would be renamed “Shiv vada pao”.

In a bid to consolidate its son-of-the-soil stand, the Sena is going all out to woo vada pao vendors and unionise them.

With the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena vying for Maharashtrian loyalty, members of the Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena went on the rampage here on Sunday, burning copies of Bombay Times and wrecking boards of Bombay Dyeing and the Bombay Scottish School. The Sena demanded that all names be changed to Mumbai…

…The patent for vada pao must rest with the Marathi manoos and the Sainiks should not rest until it has become a cultural movement, says the editorial…

…”Vada pao is the patent of the Shiv Sena. Mr. Thackeray had called on people to set up vada pao stalls way back in the 1970s. No one else can take it away from us,” Mr. Gurav said. …

I had my doubts earlier but now I am sure.

Shiv Sainiks are all NUTCASES. None more than their supremo.
Pride in your state is one thing. But this is a little too much. Already MNS has kicked up a storm with their loyalty-to-the-state crap. Next thing, they will be demanding that Maharashtra be a country in itself and the rest of India be damned.

There are times when I don’t mind dictatorships taking over for brief durations (like a day or so) and finish off these stinking piles of shit before restoring democracy. That would be extremely productive for the country.

(why does this seem like ethnic cleansing?)

Trust

Trust is easier to give away than anything but if it is not returned, it hurts more than if you lost all the wealth in the world.

Torrenting spree

Found a torrent in Pirate Bay which gave me some rare books that I had been searching for a loooong time. Warcraft ebooks are damned interesting. I was searching for the War of the Ancients trilogy and the World of Warcraft books for a really long time. Now finally, I have it. Along with it, I also got some Diablo and Starcraft books. Seems interesting.

The net administrator here somehow blocked torrent downloads. A guy I met on lan told me how to circumvent this. I established a connection using Ultrasurf and then changed the proxy address and port number in the torrent client so that it would use the Ultrasurf connection to download. It works like a charm. I downloaded Naruto Shippuuden Movie, episodes 57-58 from Dattebayo, the Japanese Animated movie “Grave of the Fireflies”, “The Last Emperor” and the above mentioned Blizzard books in the last 2 days. And am still going strong.

Yelakanti left today. So our coffee/juice/canteen/OC club has only Mots and me left.

These are the Blizzard books I torrented.

Diablo: Demonsbane (eBook) (2000)
Diablo: Legacy of Blood (2001)
Diablo: The Black Road (2002)
Diablo: The Kingdom of Shadow (2002)
Diablo: The Sin War #1: Birthright (2006)
Diablo: The Sin War #2: Scales of the Serpent (2007)

StarCraft: Uprising (eBook) (2000)
StarCraft: Liberty’s Crusade (2001)
StarCraft: Shadow of the Xel’Naga (2001)
StarCraft: Speed of Darkness (2002)

Warcraft: Of Blood and Honor (eBook) (2000)
Warcraft: Day of the Dragon (2001)
Warcraft: Lord of the Clans (2001)
Warcraft: The Last Guardian (2002)
Warcraft: War of the Ancients #1 The Well of Eternity (2004)
Warcraft: War of the Ancients #2 The Demon Soul (2004)
Warcraft: War of the Ancients #3 The Sundering (2005)
World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred (2006)
World of Warcraft: Tides of Darkness (2007)

Has this happened to you?

seems like u r busy. are u busy?

i need some attention here

am too lonely

no one here

fukin hostel feels like a fukin tomb

all r leavin

and my neighbour is playing shitty bullshit songs in full vol

if the window didnt have grills i wud have jumped off

long back

yes

i was right

u r bust

*busy

lemme then wallow in my misery

ping me ven u r not busy

i am not going anyvere….

novere to go in this hostel except the bathroom

and even that stinks

so i aint goin anyvere

and the new messages are probably irritatibng u like crazy

i will just wait here patiently staring at the screen waiting for your reply

Wikipedia is Accurate

1) Extremely hilarious message
2) Cute chick

Stuff I came across while trawling the web.

1.Hypermilling

… the method can double gas mileage, even in gas-guzzling vehicles that would normally get less than 20 mpg.

Promoted on a growing number of Web sites, hypermiling includes pumping up tires to the maximum rating on their sidewalls, which may be higher than levels recommended in car manuals; using engine oil of a low viscosity, and the controversial practice of drafting behind other vehicles on the highway to reduce aerodynamic drag — a practice begun a few years ago by truck drivers.

The “advanced” techniques of hypermiling are in addition to well-known approaches including keeping speed down, accelerating gently, avoiding excessive idling and removing cargo racks to also cut down on aerodynamic drag….

Try it out if you can people and tell me if it works as well as they claim.
2. Lok Sabha panel seeks to put brakes on RTI [Read]

…A Parliamentary panel, disfavouring uncontrolled access under RTI to information relating to proceedings of the House, has said that many legislatures across the world have no such provision.

The Lok Sabha Committee for Privileges, headed by senior Congress leader V Kishore Chandra Deo, wrote to the Parliaments of 35 countries out of which 22 replied.

The House of Lords, UK, has no recent record of a court or investigating agency requesting for a Parliamentary document and such documents are mostly protected by Parliamentary privilege from use in court.

In the Sri Lankan Parliament, if any document is requested, it can be obtained on written approval of the Speaker….

This is followed by a list of countries and their stand on revealing information regarding parliamentary proceedings. And with this reason, the committee is recommending amending the RTI. What I don’t understand is that why should we be acting in a certain way just because others are? Why the hell should an Indian care if the UK, Canada, South Africa and other countries have strict restrictions on revealing information regarding parliamentary proceedings?

In its report to the Speaker on Thursday, the Committee had disfavoured uncontrolled access under RTI to information related to proceedings in the House and advocated amendments in the RTI Act.

It said the amendment of the RTI Act was necessary to make an applicant declare why any particular information was being sought.

Noting that the Parliamentary proceedings involve ’sensitivity and confidentiality of the information’, it said. Parliament needs to know the reasons for which information is sought.

WTF?!?!?!?

Parliament involves proceedings of sensitivity and confidentiality?

The people sitting there have been sent there by us. We have a RIGHT to know what they are doing there. Unless it is a matter of Defence or Foreign Policy (which may reveal some embarrassing truths), why should a citizen be kept away from it all? What is there to hide? They are taking decisions on how to run the country which every single Indian has a right to know.

The Privileges Committee said that ‘notwithstanding the overriding effect’ with regard to applicability of the Right to Information Act, 2005 vis-à-vis other laws, the right to information accruing to a citizen under the RTI ‘cannot abrogate privileges conferred under Constitutional provisions’.

It said that irrespective of the fact as to what the citizens ask for under the RTI Act vis-à-vis matters under the jurisdiction of Parliament, it should be made mandatory for them to state the reasons for which the information or documents are being sought so that the Speaker of the House concerned can take a decision in the matter.

You want a reason? O.K. Here’s one. I need to know what is going on in the parliament because I don’t trust any single bastard sitting there and enjoying the benefits that his office bestows him with.

“If the Speaker, is of the view that the document sought for has the potential to call in question proceedings of the House, its committees, etc, he may refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges of the House for examination and report,” the panel said.

Fuking bastards. So basically the House decides if they have to release the documents or not? Fat chance of anything being revealed then.
3.GTA IV
This time, it is Liberty City, an alternate version of New York. The game has not got a single review below 9 and some critics have gone nuts trying to describe the feeling they get wen they play the game. Here are some experiences players have had.

… if you let go of the control stick and let Nico go idle right before a rainstorm, he will feel the first few faint rain drops. He’ll check his head, hold his palm out to see if it catches the drops, check the skies and swear under his breath. The citizens caught in the ensuing downpour will cover themselves with newspapers, briefcases, or just pull their jackets over their heads as they jog to sheltering alcoves…

*****

…I saw a businessman running past me, desperate to catch a bus. He was calling for the passengers to stop it as he jogged by, and so I impulsively kicked him in the leg, just once. He tripped over my foot, careened off of a newspaper stand and stumbled into traffic where a speeding firetruck came inches from sideswiping him. He turned around and raised his hands into the air, his body language showing distinct shock, and yelled “what the HELL, man?!” My knee jerk reaction was to mutter, “shit, sorry dude.”

It actually prompted a real life, reasonable response from me!

I was so amazed by this interaction that I almost didn’t beat him to half to death with a baseball bat, then wait around to run down the Paramedics that tried to revive him with their own ambulance…

*****

…I had stolen a motorcycle and jumped it off of a stair car over the fence of the airport. As I was drag racing beneath the landing planes looking for a helicopter in order to crash it into a group of obnoxious mallrats, I was thinking “man, if I drove onto the runway in real life the cops would be on me in seconds. The fucking swat team would shoot me in the face and call me a terrorist.” That’s when the swat team careened around the corner, shot me in the face and called me a terrorist…

*****

…I mean, it even goes as small as the NPCs around the game – driving around the city, you’ll see people holding hands, waiting for the bus/subway, on the phone, jogging in the park, watering the flowers, sweeping the floors… even, my most surprised find – a broken down car, the owner crouched over the open smoking hood, shaking his head, trying to figure out what was going on. The detail is simply staggering…

4. Rowling needs to visit Oz. [Read]

This is from an article written by Orson Scott Card, the author of the Ender series of books. He has pretty strong views on Rowling’s actions.

Can you believe that J.K. Rowling is suing a small publisher because she claims their 10,000-copy edition of The Harry Potter Lexicon, a book about Rowling’s hugely successful novel series, is just a “rearrangement” of her own material.

Rowling “feels like her words were stolen,” said lawyer Dan Shallman.

Well, heck, I feel like the plot of my novel Ender’s Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling.

A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.

This paragraph lists only the most prominent similarities between Ender’s Game and the Harry Potter series. My book was published in England many years before Rowling began writing about Harry Potter. Rowling was known to be reading widely in speculative fiction during the era after the publication of my book.

I can get on the stand and cry, too, Ms. Rowling, and talk about feeling “personally violated.”

The difference between us is that I actually make enough money from Ender’s Game to be content, without having to try to punish other people whose creativity might have been inspired by something I wrote.

At that time, Rowling’s lawyers called Stouffer’s claim “frivolous.”…

There is lots more where this came from.

In other news, Zog is on a blogging spree. Check out her blog here.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. All my exams have finished and now finally, after 4 years of shit, I am an engineer.

What gives two people the right to make a decision that should have been made by seven people in the first place? And then there are some other morons who say that the two did the right thing when they took that particular decision. The problem this world is facing right now is not one of obscenely high population. It is one of an obscenely high population of stupid people.

LSD

LSD: Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.

Takes you on a sensory enhanced journey which cannot be described in words. Gotta try this shit once before I die. Read this for more info on LSD.

Interesting Fact: Crick, the scientist who along with Watson proposed the DNA Double helical structure, was on an LSD 'trip' when the idea of the double helix struck him.

Interesting Observation: During exam time, any study related activity immediately induces sleep. You can resist all you can but The Lady of Sleep will never let go. And if you decide to let go and try to get some sleep, you will find that she ditched you. Take what happened yesterday. I drifted off every 5 minutes with the book in my hand. I gave up trying to study and decided to take and nap. And then I discovered that it was almost impossible to sleep. Every sound, every gust of wind, every scratch of the pen woke me up.

Waiting for the end of it all on the 3^rd.