Small town me

So, I have this uncle who is Ret.Major General in the Indian Army. Its nice to hear from someone that experienced. Someone who has commanded so many people under him and someone who has won the Victoria Cross for his bravery in World War II. It felt good to sit with him and take his “aashirwaad”.

Among other things, its always nice to enjoy birthday. Especially when you have people from everywhere calling you. There were a few surprise calls too. (not mentioning the female fan following)
1. Lohia: Its nice to hear from him from US of A.
2. Siddu: My first captain. Rather the only real captain I ever had. It was sooo nice to hear from him.
3. Su: Finally, he sounded like someone I knew in college. He was getting a little different till now.

Also, the “big” small town that I live in, has this mall. Commonly known as “maal” (like golmaal) in the local language. Its something like a collection of around 3-4 showrooms and a multiplex. Multiplex is also using the word “Multi” to the levels that Queen would be embarrassed. It has … wait a minute … TWO screens. The smaller of the TWO finishes before you can start noticing the screen. And on top of all this, my experience is always accompanied by some Priyadarshini movie. You know, where there is sick comedy and “actors” always shouting their heads out for the “comic” part. And the last scene always has every possible character from the movie in one shot for the “climax” to unfold. Didnt get me? Phir Hera Pheri, Bhagam Bhag, got me now?

Another thing about the “maal” was this signboard. I took a pic, which you can find at the bottom of this post. Read what it says.

“Happy Christmas Day.”

(click to enlarge)

And this is another pic that I have, of me, on my brothers bike. I thought I was looking good enough to be clicked. So, this pic.

(click to enlarge)

Seeing the pic above, you might think as to WHY my parents love me. The reason is this.

I guess this would increase the female fan following a little more :p

PS: Happy New Year to everyone

PS: Met this school time major Crush. It was an awesome experience. Man, she is beautiful

The small town computer shop story

I live in a city, yeah, you can call it a City. Its not that developed. Or for that matter developed. I went to one of the local computer shop to get my hard-disk fixed. Good thing about being in a smalll city is you get to know where exactly you can get things done. So, as I was sitting, a guy came in asking for the price of a configuration that he wanted. In other things he asked for a graphics Card. The conversation went on, and I was left with nothing but surprise. What all did surprise me was:
1. “Whats the price of a 256/512 mb card?”
2. “Which one do you want? for p3 ? p4? Their connectors are different”
3. “There is no difference between ATI and nVidia, just two different companies.”
FInally upon me saying that AMD and Intel are also different companies, how can you say that the cards are same?
4.”Lets do one thing, I will come over and sit at your side of the table, and you come here, on this side.”

How pathetic. I guess thats how the business is done. All over the country. I remember such a similar thing happening at one of the leading computer hardware shop in Hyderabad also. So, if ATI and nVidia want to have a good business strategy, they better do some real hardcore ground work.

Anyway, sadly I didnt have my visiting card in my pocket at that time else would have giving him that and that would have shut his mouth for sure.

I also went to this workshop to get some minor things done in my car. The normal stuff, Batter checkup and all. I clicked this pic there.

The mechanical things have always been a major “crush” in my life. Though, so have been the electronic, electrical and biological things. The biological is mainly limited to the Female species of Homo Sapiens.

PS: one good read http://theobliviouswisdom.blogspot.com/

Misc Stories.

This is what a friend sent to me sometime back.

The total d/l speed that used to come to my college, when I was there, was the same! Man, he IIIT net speed has to get some major boost. And with the current system admins, I doubt if even the boost from the ISP will help that much.

(Showoff) I had some other “adventures” lately. When I was coming back this time around, I was playing Need For Speed Carbon at the airport :p. Well, thats still not the show off part, as a big dumbass that I am, I left the headphones still plugged in and locked the laptop in the bag. What was the result was, due to all the bumps and what not, the headphone jack in the laptop got screwed. I had to open up the laptop and fix it with all the temporary things i could lay my hands on. (this was the showoff part) found thta the laptops major weight comes from 1. Battery, 2. LCD screen, 3. HardDrive.
Anyway, it was fun. And I got to see the inside of the laptop!

Birthday Season. The last week of December and the first week of December has some 7-8 birthdays lined up. And by that I mean, in my friends circle. It used to be a nice time when we were in college, as there used to be some Really Really nice treats after the winter vacation. So, anyway, I played billiards with Alice Cooper in the background to give tribute to my friend on his birthday. Though, he was some 190Kms away from me at that time.

I could never really understand girls. I mean, why do they read books, just to show that they are “cool” and “up-to-date”? No matter where you go, on a bus, in a train, on the airport, you can always locate females having books in their hands. And I really mean it. They would have the books in their Hands. Thats it. They will be looking somewhere else. They will be thinking about something else. Or the best one, they will be sleeping. Girls have some major “advance technolgy” when it comes to sleeping too. You cant really deduce that they are sleeping and not reading. Recently on an airport, I found that the girl was sleeping because she was looking at the book and the same page was open for about 3 NFS races! Either she was TOO slow a reader or I was right at guessing that she was sleeping. Try it out sometime. When you are in a class, look at some girl, she would be sitting still, looking at the notebook and sleeping. Now look at some random guy, he will be sleeping and you would know that! We guys ought to learn this art from the females.

There are other airport stories, but dont want to increase the length the post.

PS: CSI is awesome. Its good that Sara got with Grisham. Sara is Hot.

PS: A friend of mine expired in an accident. Please pray for him, his dad, his mom and his cousin who died along in the accident. And pray more for the only brother of his who is left alive in the family after the accident.

TOW many things.

There have been many things that have been going through my/my flat mates mind/s. I shall name a few here.

1. T-Shirt sayings: No, we totally love them. We agree that they are funny. But there should at least be a suitable place to write them! Certainly a girls T-Shirt is NOT the right place. I mean, you can not stare and read what valuable piece of literature is printed there. If you at all dare, bam! you are a sick bastard. I guess, I can say here, or rather speak here for the entire male-kind, “Girls, if you wear T-Shirts with stuff printed on it, please dont mind the stares. They are not at your “lovelies”, but at the thing covering them. You have been warned.”

2. The Pee-thing. Well, trust me, this one is one of the “productive” discussions that J(ust)A(void)T(hem) and I had in the past few days. So, the topic was, then you have to pee, is it the nature call that makes you go and get a little lighter, or is it the fact that your get reminded that you have to go pee. I was “arguing” in favour of the second one. Isnt it right that you dont rush out to pee the first time your “nature” calls you? You “miss” a call or two, and then later, your “missed call reminder” says “Damn you! Go Pee”. Isnt that the case? Or is it that you get first and “Last boarding call” for “all the passengers” who dont want to pee in their pants? Deep thinking man .. DEEP thinking.

3. Sex: Then again, all you desperate bastards reading this, sex also means gender!! So, there was this news on TV and paper yesterday about this “woman” who didnt clear the “sex” test. The good thing about this is, “she” is from India, or rather, “she” is representing India in the Doha Games. Us Indians are awesome at “QA (quality assurance/testing)” man, we can find faults in everything. And we go to great levels to exploit them. That “female” got a silver medal! I guess the Indian Selectors are taking the Foetus Sex Determination a little too far. Way too many years too far. “whadda guy man”

There have been some other recent developments in the world too. To name a few.
1. 6 point someone’s: I used to be the Idle Ideal for many in the college. I was idle the entire college life (ref. to acads) and got a job at nvidia to become an Ideal. Well, the crown has been passed on to my dear friend, Mr Fresher 2002, Arpan Patel. Great work man. Remember long time back, you felt sad that I didnt mention your name in one of my posts? This ones for you man, you Raock . To others, this is another proof that CGPA doesnt matter all that.

2. InterHouse events.: I heard Patke-GoGo-KTN house won the Basketball and the Cricket cup this time. And who would have been better person to give the news than the captain of those teams. Even better were his words “Wanted to call someone, Ruchir didnt pick up his phone, so called you. Thanks man, you have been a very good support. I think I am gonna cry.” (No points for guessing who this cry baby is). Oh yeah, love you too!

3. Physics talk: There was this problem given in HC Verma (12th class, physics thing). The statement was, “If a beam balance has equal weights on both the sides and you displace one of the baskets to x distance, why does the beam come back to the 0 position?”. My physics teacher said, its something to do with the fulcrum. I wasnt satisfied. Today Tejo again explained it to me, kind of still not satisfied. If any one knows the answer, please do tell me.

Picture things.

1. Emran Hashmi: We have our very own Emran Hashmi. Girls of Pune, Beware!

2. This hill challenges me everyday and I never find time to beat it. Bad time management I will say

PS: The topic means “The One With” many things.

PS: “lovelies” taken from Scrubs.

PS: Just Avoid Them is the definition give by the JAT himself. Please dont shout at me.

PS: “whadda guy man” Tribute the the Great Arunabh Singh.

PS: Patke-GoGo-KTN house also known to some as Aakash House.

PS: The guy in other pic is GJ(48) and he is not the one I plan to beat. Look whats there in the background. Its a HILL

PS: I know you want to say “nVidia Rocks!” so just ahead and say it. Because It Does

PS: I love Bastketball. Will write some interesting basketball stories sometime.

 

Dreams coming true!

When I was in college I had many dreams. Some have been completed (thank god!).

A. Basketball related:

1. Play for college. Got completed in second year. When I wore “IIIT” on my back.

2. Win the Interhouse trophy. In third year, then we defeated Aakash in the finals. It was an awesome day. The entire Agni team went to Pizzahut in short and jersey number still pinned on our backs.

3. Dunk : Thanks to the shitty ring at IIIT, got to do that also. The ring was around 6 inches below the usual height and it was a lucky day for me. Got a perfect dunk once, and could never repeat it.

4. Sexy shoes : Basketball is all about show off. If you play normally, people probably wont like you that much. But if you add some turns and twists and shines, you will be a god. I didnt get the turns and twists but my new shoes gave me the shine. Thanks to Adidas for buying Reebok and hence resulting in the 50% off sale.

5. Play on a wooden court: Thanks to some arbit guy who had a basketball camp at the Gachibowli stadium, we had our chance to play there. It was an awesome experience. The feeling of being -on-the-court- is amazing.

6. Play internationally! : This is the most recent one. I finally had a chance to play with some foreigners. To be exact, people from South Korea, Malaysia, Bahrain and, the best one, Nigeria and Kenya. Man, the africans are fast and full of energy. And they are as showy as they show in movies.

B. Others

a. To play guitar on stage: Thanks to “out of No where” I can mark this as done too . It was a nice and scary thing. I do hope I get a chance to play on stage, but the fact that i havent touched me “six string” for around 2 years now, chances are slim.

b. To play games on a huge screen : Didnt exactly play, but saw a guy do that. He offered me to try it out, but I decided to leave that for the next visit to the place. What place? The QA Lab at nVidia Pune. Which brings me to the next dream come true, and probably the most important one.

c. To work at some games/graphics related company : Thanks to the TCS people who didnt take me and gave me a chance to sit for each and every company that came on campus. Thanks to all the people behind me. nVidia Rocks.

There are a lot of dreams that are still left to be accomplished. Hope I can get “done with” them as soon as possible. A few of them are.

1. To have a really fast remote control car like the kid in Home Alone 3.

2. To have a remote control plane that has a petrol/methanol engine (as it was there in an edition of Autocar India some years back).

(Hope to complete the second one with in next 6 months.)

3. Projector with awesome resolution, true surround sound, some NFS, Dark room, a really comfortable sofa/chair/beanbag. MY room. (Parital Success in this.)

4. Fridge full of beer. (no hopes as of now)

5. skateboarding/snowboarding. (not possible in Mother India)

6. sports bike. (I guess some dreams are better left as dreams)

Anyway, couple of seniors are getting married.

1. sanyam

2. Sushant Pandey

3. Rocky

4. Tin Tin

and some girls too.

If the list is wrong, do tell me.

[ edit ] PS: I have played with three 6 foot 4 inch people till now, and  I will say I could take them. I played with two more today. THe words that come out are .. .. .. .. …(nothing comes out ). When you see people dunk, take the pass that you assume will just fly off from above everyone else and throw it in the basket right over your head, its … … … (no words again.  One guy even showed the behind the back dunk. WITH two hands. Makes me want to go to gym and kill my legs with workout!

Blacks ARE gold!