Just like that

Sar Pass

2010-02-13T02:27:00.001-08:00

River Parvathy .Photo courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ks2d85

I finally got myself to write about the longest trek that i have ever done so far. Thanks to YHAI I was able to have a taste of the mighty Himalayas.The trek is pretty famous and happens throughout April-May every year. I came to know about YHAI through a hardcore trekker colleague of mine.Before deciding to go on trek there were lot of information to be gathered (most of which doesn’t seem that important now). I will try and jot down my experiences about trek in a series of posts.

About the Trek

This is a 9 day trek that happens around May every year starting from a place called Kasol , which is about 4 hours drive from Manali. Manikaran a religious place for Sikhs is just 5 kms from Kasol.The first three days there is pretty much no trek and from fourth day onwards till 11th day you are made to trek for few hours a day surviving on diet which is mainly potato and some more potato after that.Apart from potato diet,crowded tents,first attempts by risk taking trekkers on singing,dancing or almost anything that can be called a performance by the enthusiastic audience and organizers with unimaginable free time , there is breathtaking views of Himalayas and an opportunity to test your endurance a little bit.Booking starts pretty early , I did mine atleast 2 months beforehand.The website has minimal functionality but pretty decent and gets the job done.The charges are nominal (actually dirt cheap ,about 3k) . YHAI site has maps , items to carry and everything else that anybody would care to bother. And there are orkut groups where past trekkers try to impress new ones of fairer sex with information overload.

View Larger Map

Reaching and Surviving the Base Camp – Kasol

I took a flight to delhi followed by a bus to Manali.Delhi-Manali route gets spectacular after about 6 in the morning , we get to see first glimpses of the hills.After spending a day at places where nobody apart from honeymoon couples and shop keepers who were chasing them could be seen we took a cab to YHAI base camp at Kasol. It is a 4 hour hour drive towards Kulu, take a diversion after 3 hours when you see ‘Malana Power plant’.

Kasol is an interesting place. Some say foreigners outnumber desis here . Most of the restaurants serve Israeli food , I don’t know how foreigners happen to find all lovely places in India. I couldn’t find any ultra commercial hotels or restaurants .The ones present is reasonably priced decent guest houses which is good. I heard somewhere Israelis have the perfect blend of eastern and western looks ,I can’t deny it.

More on other interesting aspects of Kasol in future posts.

Kasol. Photo Courtesy:http://www.flickr.com/photos/ks2d85

Tipping Point

2009-11-08T09:28:00.001-08:00

Amongst the endless list of books which I start but never complete or take really long time to complete ,Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is an exception. The book is very cohesive .There is just one theme which is the book’s title itself and the entire book is about convincing you that the Tipping Point is more exponential then you ever imagined.

The examples chosen in the book and the way he describes it is really good . The chapters are lengthy and some times gets boring with lots of statistics and everything , but most of it serves the purpose.The things discussed in this book are applicable in day-to-day life for almost every body. Whether it is ‘The power of Context’ ,’Stickiness Factor’ , ‘Law of few’ , you immediately can relate to something /someone that you know. (Btw I consider myself to be in the mavern category).

Some of the things in the book seems subtle but are really ,Tipping Points .Last chapter is what I liked the most.

It seems you have to smoke atleast 4-5 cigarettes a day to get addicted and certain people will just not get addicted because of the way their genes are designed. They are less tolerant to nicotine than normal people. And for majority of people who get addicted (or continues the habit without getting addicted for a prolonged period aka the occasional social smokers ) the first few experiences of smoking was pleasant, And for majority of non smokers or smoke haters it wasn’t .

When anti-Smoking campaign was at its all time high in America , smoking also increased dramatically . It is not hard to figure out why , most of us agree that teenagers and even young adults are likely to disobey specifically when there is a strong advice.The main reason why people was attracted to smoking was not mainly the after effects of smoking itself but the coolness attached to it.Teenagers smoke because the coolest guy , the one doesn’t care about anyone , the one who takes life easily smokes. The anti-Campaign ought to break this association of smoking with the coolness factor rather than preaching the ill effects of smoking which are appealing to may be parent of two , but at that stage its already too late.

Evergreen!

2009-10-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the
selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity
and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is
truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike
down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to
poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay
my vengeance upon thee. "

sripuram

2009-08-20T01:57:00.001-07:00

Priceless :- French Movie

2009-05-25T01:46:00.000-07:00

"I would like to .... I would love to..." . unfinished sentences , they make people go crazy.

Nice movie about how someone who doesn't take love seriously finally falls for attraction for a change. World movies channel never fails to provide variety . This one is different than the regular romantic comedy types. Good watch

Search,chat and marry

2008-12-02T21:14:00.000-08:00

A google ad seen in orkut, Bharat matrimony is really context driven to put this in orkut !

Hyderabad 10K

2008-11-30T22:50:00.000-08:00

I did it again!

Married But Available

2008-11-30T22:35:00.001-08:00

This 200+ pages book by Abhijit Bhaduri(HR director in Microsoft India) is a very good read.As the press says it is a good material for a bollywood movie. Lots of twists , handful of heroines and just enough stuff to add spice. The story as such is simple , first 10 years of a MBAs work life , the personal and professional tragedies that he faces and all that stuff. But only god knows how this guy managed to get nearly 4+ girls to like him so much.May be thats why this is a bollywood material.It also doesn't fail to give a few management fundas like 'Problems can never be solved , it can only be absolved,resolved or dissolved' .
I can't wait to get the other book in the M.B.A series 'Mediocre But Arrogant'

மதமும் மழலையும்

2008-11-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

இமை திறந்து தலை நிமிர்ந்து இடைவிடாமல் நீ போடும் கூச்சல் அது
இல்லத்தவற்கு இனிமையான அமுதெனும் நீர் பாய்ச்சல்
இவன் யாரோ அம்மை எங்கே அப்பன் எங்கே அச்சச்சசோ என நீ தேடும் போது
இனியவளாம் உன் தாய்க்கு எங்கிருந்தோ போகும் துரிதமாய் ஒரு தூது
இவன் யாருமில்லை நம்மவன்தான் நம்பலாம் நல்லவன்தான் என சொன்ன பின்னும்
இருக்கலாமா இவனிடம் போகலாமா பிறவிடம் என உன் கால்கள் துள்ளும்

பார்வையிலே பாதி சொல்லும் பாஷையிலே மீதி சொல்லும் கலந்து நீ கேட்கும் கேள்வி
பாவமவன் புத்திக்கும் பாரை வெல்லும் யுத்திக்கும் எட்டாத வேள்வி
பறவைபோலே பறக்க செய்வேன் பம்பரமாய் சுற்ற வேய்பேன் பற்பல பண்டம் தருவேன் என பேரம் பேச
பால்பற்கள் பத்துகட்டி பகட்டில்லா புன்னகையை நீ அள்ளி வீச
பாக்கியமோ பாக்கியம்தான் அதுகிட்ட,சைவமோ வைணவமோ புத்தமோ ஜைனமோ
பல கடவுள் உண்டெனில் எக்கடுவுள் அருளினாலும் கவலையில்லை எனக்கு

இதில் சொற்போரும் விற்போரும் , தினந்தோறும் எதற்கு ?

Does anyone know what song this is?

2008-10-08T04:33:00.000-07:00

There is a song that plays in the background in a scene in Subramaniapuram that starts with 'Siruponmoni asayum athil therikkum puthu isayum ....'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYuQeeS9a8o

Is this a old song ?If someone knows please ping me back.

Kurnool Trip

2008-10-05T23:30:00.000-07:00

The route taken

Day 1 : Hyderabad -> MahboobNagar-> Raichur -> Mantralayam
Day 2 : Mantralayam -> Alampur -> Banaganapalle -> Yaganti -> Belum Caves -> Ahobilam
Day 3 : Ahobilam -> Mahanandi -> Srisailam
Day 4 :Srisailam -> Hyderabad

View Larger Map

Some photos

Rock on

2008-09-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

Some spoilers ahead.

It is a feel good movie. But what differentiates it from your normal run-of-the-mill-happily-ever-after kinds is the aberration . A rock band fails to make a big break that it deserved , the group splits , everyone goes their own way , achieves what is considered a good social status barring one whose wife sells fish . When rejoined 10 years later , thanks to the sensible and caring wife of lead singer , they didn't make a blockbuster hit. If they achieved anything by the reunion its only happiness , a fulfillment in life , a deviation from boredom .
The movie is not without defects though, killing a member of the band had no purpose although the dramaticed importance of the final performance is debatable.

Overall a good watch.

The Kite Runner

2008-08-01T02:43:00.000-07:00

Not every kid gets a wink

Nor does it make anyone think

Not everyone is a winner

There's none in Kite Runner

Kite Runner - A book that you can read , anytime, whatever the mood be.

Monsoon starts

2008-06-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

I am not feeling lucky

2008-05-23T07:13:00.000-07:00

Luck is something everyone should have , I have always considered myself luckier , but lately i seem too have lost it.It all started with me deciding to start a more active lifestyle . To start with I decided to wake up early , and to aid that i joined swimming which also promised other exciting features. Greatly disappointed on day one , swimming pool was crowded as expected, except for what i expected :-( . But my determination (and also the face that i have paid 500 Rs membership fee) kept me continue my swimming sessions in the morning , till the day when had this accident. I always used to drive safely , indeed very safely. Like the sincere student who gets caught on his first attempt to copy in exam , i got hit as soon i started to drive fast.My first ever accident had to be with a shared auto , atleast it could have been some high end SUV , bad luck. The person who took X-Ray said , 99% its not fracture , if i was unlucky there is a rare chance that something is broken, I WAS unlucky .It seems only 1 in 55,127 people have the kind of fracture that I had.Everyone kept asking me 'What happened?' , I barely knew what happened , if I knew I could have avoided the accident , or atleast the fracture ,for all i know , there was no chick around to help me :-( .

This thing called Tagging

2008-05-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

Most of the time tags are very boring , i never bother to read them at all let alone respond, But this one by Alagu was good and interesting.

Last movie seen in a theatre:Jalsa
What book are you reading?Thuravi by Sandilyan, Man In Brown Suit,It happened in India
Favourite board game:None
Favourite magazine:Vikatan (Tamil)
Favourite smells:The smell of rain, Freshly steamed groundnut
Favourite sound:Sounds a kid that hasn't started talking yet makes
Worst feeling in the world:Being angry at something and not able to do anything about it
What is the first thing you think of when you wake up? Check the time to see if I can sleep longer
Favourite fast food place:Not much of a fast food fan
Future child’s name: What?I am just 22
Finish this statement, “If I had a lot of money I’d…” go on a long holiday ,visit the places in 'Into The Wild' movie
Do you drive fast? If i feel safe
Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? No.
Storms - Cool or Scary? Scary
Do you eat the stems on broccoli? Yes
If you could dye your hair any colour, what would be your choice? I won't
Name all the different cities/towns you have lived in:Trichy , Salem, Hyderabad
Favourite sports to watch:T20 cricket if the cheerleaders are good
One nice thing about the person who sent this to you:Openness
What’s under your bed?Floor
Would you like to be born as yourself again?Yes
Morning person or night owl?More of a evening person
Over easy or sunny side up?First one
Favourite place to relax: Recently office balcony with the view of lake
Favourite ice cream flavour: kulfi
You pass this tag to – krishnan,abhijith,kicha
Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond first?abhijith , if he doesn't have anything against tagging.

Goa Trip

2008-05-11T09:55:00.001-07:00

We made good use of the three day extended weekend . Took Tuesday off and headed off to Goa!. Four days is just enough time to cover Goa , of course you can spend much more than that.We took Paulo travels from Hyderabad to Goa , seems this is the only cheap (Rs1000) travels , the bus was less than average , seats were of OK kind ,there was no movie and they didn't even given give shawls but it was available at a dead cheap rate of Rs60 .None of this mattered as we were very much excited about the trip and had a great entertainer with us.The bus started at around 6pm from Gachibowli junction. We stopped at a Dhaba and had a nice filling dinner , it tasted too good as all of us were very hungry. I slept for major part of the journey as usual , when I woke up we were traveling on some ghat roads , the scenery was good. We reached Mapusa at around 8am much earlier than we thought, got a local bus from there to Calangute.We got rooms at the Calangute tourist residency annexe at Rs 230 per person per day , thanks to the Siddhesh and Suhas , best negotiators amongst us.We headed straight to the beach after freshening up at room.The beach was just 5 minutes walk from our room . This was off season , but still there was crowd , both Indian and foreign , but ofcourse this is Calangute.There was shops on road side selling all sorts of random things ,smoking pipes of different shapes, indian handicrafts(or so they said) ,steel containers in which Clint Eastwood drinks booze (this was cheap , for Rs 200 it looked very classy) etc.I don't know what is so special about Calangute beach ,the view is not that great,but this place is always full of tourists , availability of easy accommodation might be a reason ,nonetheless the shore side view were Greaat! :-) .

Water Sports at Calangute

We wanted to do some(actually a lot) water sports after playing some time in water , waited for a long time and finally could do some para gliding and water scooter. Para gliding was not that great for Rs400 that we gave , but if have never done it before , its worth a try. It seems the rates depends on the crowd each day. We headed off to a beach side shack and had awesome food ,Goan sea specialities is something you will never get bored of .If you are a vegetarian , the choices are pretty much the same and if you are a non boozer too , you are already not making the most out of the trip.

Sunset at Anjuna

After lunch we got bikes for rent near our hotel itself.The rates are again dependant on crowd . Honda Activa is Rs 175 per day and a bullet will cost Rs 450 per day . You will be asked to deposit some original documents and cash , almost all shops have bikes for rent , so getting one will not be that difficult.Next we headed off to Anjuna beach , the hippies hangout. It was already 6 when we got there , anyways Anjuna is not a recommended beach for swimming , the shore is kind of rocky.The sunset was very scenic .This beach has a lot of shacks overlooking the sea and playing soft music . The place was very soothing , almost all shacks were empty , this is an ideal place to spend a lazy evening sipping your favorite drink . We had some snacks at this place which was at a slight elevation and had an awesome view of sea , this place even had beds , almost everyone there was smoking joints. We had italian food in some restaurant there which was again empty , it was decent.

Anjuna

Saturday Night Bazaar

You can find everything from indian traditional dresses to crazy whips here.Cost was exorbitant , but we weren't planning to buy anything.There was a magic show which you can find in any village festival , traditional konkani dance , and lots of cocktail shops. Very few indians there leaving the shop keepers , some of foreigners seemed to be living their fantasy out here , dressing as crazy as they want . We stopped by a store selling 'trance music' , the caption of the store was ' We are a fair trade organisation , we can give trance music tailor made to suit your vibration' anyways the music was really trance , i have never seen the kind of instruments they were using before. There was one big plate like thing , a hug pipe which made a 'boom' sound and a woman substituting her thighs for drums thats it . They were selling a CD for 300 , and they had a facebook profile too.This bazaar is again a must see , you will realise when have actually been there.

A shop at Siolim

Next day we went Aralom beach , I would say this is the best beach amongst the one that we visited , we spent a long time there.If possible you should try breakfast at some village shops , on the way to Aralom we had breakfast at Siolim , in a shop opposite to a church . I forgot the names of the items we had , all of them were good . The people here were Portuguese speaking Christians.Aralom beach wasn't that crowded , there were very few shacks ,it was dotted with sun bathers .Had a great there playing in beach.After lunch we trekked to a small hill near the beach , there were a lot of hippie's houses on the way . In some of these , they were singing and practicing some kind of trance music with the same instruments as last night. I wonder what the life style of these people would be , they looked very weird though , some with tatoos all over , some with dried long hair which hasn't seen a comb for months. If there is any book about this culture in Goa , I guess it would be very interesting.

Other than these we visited Japora fort , few other beaches and Panaji. One thing we missed is the snorkeling at Vasco.Over all the trip was great.

Vagator from Japora fort

Tamil Novels

2008-04-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

I just finished Raja Muthirai (ராஜ முத்திரை) part 1 by Sandilyan . This will be my third tamil historic novel, first ofcourse being Ponniyin Selvan. Raja Muthirai kind of starts slow , moves slower,but towards the end it is very gripping . The way Sandilyan builds up the events is nice.Sandilyan's novels have much more romance factor than Kalki's and that is good, he does a great job without sounding obscene. He is also good in describing the war scenes ,bringing it alive in our imagination. I have always wondered why tamil historic novels , however grand they are , how much ever successful they are never became equally grand and successful in big screen. Atleast now with the kind of animation expertise , it is possible. Ponniyin Selvan is being filmed as tele serial for kalaignar TV now ,see link. I don't know how grand that can be , there are hell lot of discussions about who will suit which role in orkut community. I am not sure how well a movie or serial can live upto the expectation of the readers , but 3D animation can be good. How about a 3D strategy game based on these novels?Well thats kind of asking too much .

yaaradi Nee Mohini

2008-04-20T23:25:00.000-07:00

This is easily the best movie for Dhanush.I have seen both telugu(forgot the name) and tamil versions ,unlike the normal telugu-to-tamil remakes ,in this one, the tamil version is better.More logical,more apt screenplay and lively actors .Specially Nayantara's younger sister,as far as i know everyone just loved the character, it was a big low light in telugu. Atleast I have watched the scene where she says 'I think in love with Vasu akka' thousand times(Btw what is her name ? and has she acted in anything else?) .Both Dhanush and Nayantara have done a good job, somehow trisha didn't gel well with the role in telugu.There is nothing great about the story though , the movie starts like anyother Selvaraghavan movie, with good-for-nothing hero falling in love with heroin at first sight , as expected heroine have absolutely no feeling at all(atleast thats what the hero thinks) and gradually she too falls in love with him .The only difference is that this one has a happy ending. Few songs are good, but reminds of some other old songs , i am no expert in figuring these things out, i can hardly remember a line of lyrics unless I 'see' the lyrics.

P.S : I am posting this just to see how windows live writer is, and it is as everyone says Awesome.

Into the Wild

2008-03-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

"What are you gonna do when you go into the wild?

You just be there man, live there ."

Movie is about a lonely traveller .The underlying sadness and his love for nature is beautifully portrayed.The narrative nature makes the film more interesting.The experiences he get , the people he meet during his travel, are just awesome.The locations are breathtaking ,makes you want to travel, beaches , water streams , desert ,snow the film has got it all.

Good movie to watch irrespective of your mood.

How to make a movie

2008-03-10T00:41:00.000-07:00

Step 1 : Select the kind of movie you want to make , this can broadly be classified into typical hollywood,bollywood,tollywood,chinese kung fu movies,others

Step 2 : Follow the guide for appropriate section

Hollywood

Find a bunch of hot chicks.Get lots of weird looking youngsters , you will need this for the inevitable party scene.Find one cute girl with girl next door image ,but still above the minumum required hotness level, deciding this level is really crucial for success of the film.Decide a storyline which is as close as possible to this one

"Cute girl loves cute guy , guy wants to have fun with hot chicks , but in climax realises that cute girl is THE ONE and they live happily ever after.Guy's friends take up weirdest possible professions this btw comes only after you show 'THE END' "

Build a series of parties ,hot scenes around this storyline such that the audience doesn't get bored ,select some title like say 'Amerian Cake 1' and there you go with your next blockbuster.
If you are really creative and have thought a lot more than you can possible stuff in to one movie,make different movies ,end each one with some twist and name the next movie as 'American Cake 2' this way you don't have to strain yourself searching for a cool name each time.

Tollywood

Rent a lot white Tata Sumos ,different kinds of knives,hundreds of body builders and yes, bright colored garments which withstood even the best discount sale ever.From there its just a matter of finding the right songs to copy ,mostly from tollywood and being innovative in choreographing cool dance steps and colorful fight sequences.You should not worry about storyline till you have enough of fight and dance sequences.
Another simple and time tested way to make a successful tollywood flick is to find a kollywood movie which has most of these characteristics ,make the dialogues more aggressive and rhyming and release it !

Bollywood

Get the dates of as many stars as possible , the more you get the better.Create a lot of hype and controversies about the film.Shoot a club song and rest is upto you.

Chinese

Find an old guy who will play the kung fu master's role , villains will kill this guy and then some of his students will get undergo some really difficult training like standing on noodles cup for about an hour , hanging upside down and fighting and drinking and blinking at heroine, all the same time etc.
They will make many attempts and finally in the climax will kill the villain.Invent as many different forms of kung fu as possible ,the more creative they are the better .You can also give some super cool powers like invisibility, high frequency voice which can break things, etc to spice up the movie.

Evolution of Nick Names

2008-03-08T02:23:00.000-08:00

Nick names are cool , well they are cool most of the times.You have to be really creative to find a suitable,funny,apt,compelling nick name that lasts.Its not necessary that they mean something , it is actually better if they don't and mind you they are not just for fun ,never.Like every other creature in this world , nick names too have a birth,life,history and rarely death.

There is this guy who is fondly called as di(t)ch , not sure why he got this name but when people call him dich ,it just feels right.There is even a orkut fan group for this.The funny thing about nick names is , like in this case people start responding to it readily , so much so that they slowly forget their actual name.
Then there are universal nick names like mama,thayir etc.In any college you will find more than one responding to these.
Sometimes people are not all that good when nick-naming , for instance people who tend to do everything in easiest and most efficient way possible get names like vetti, which means jobless or one who avoids/escapes from doing tiny chores.Come on getting work done the easiest way is one of the six sigma management principles, No?

The Unofficial Nittian

2008-02-11T23:07:00.001-08:00

When people get bored

2008-01-27T06:38:00.000-08:00

Every year 'College day' used to be the last event.This is when they gave awards like 'Best outgoing student' , 'Best sports person' and would be another senti event for final years . Some of these awards were really stupid , there was this award , i don't remember the exact name , lets call it 'The dumbest award' , this award is given to the person who gets 10th rank in a particular department , seems some were pretty serious about this award and to get the Exact rank, they even tried to reduce their GPA, which is said to be extremely difficult in their dept.No wonder if in future awards like 'Longest staying Student Award' , 'Maximum number of arrears Award' etc are introduced.

Come on its not that bad , people do these kind of stuff all the time.Take some of the researches for instance.There is one scientist who spent 5 years,surveyed 1000s of men and women of varios age groups,social status and found that people who have larger social circle have 0.1% less probability of being obese , another guy studied rats and found that 'Rats in city are 0.05% smarter than the ones in country side' how useful is that? . May be surveys like 'Women are safer in Delhi than in Mumbai' ,'If you drink tea instead of coffee one time a day, you will live 10 days longer' are marginally useful.I think news channels with really good long term vision anticipate that they will be jobless(newsless) atleast half of the time and hire people to do these kind of researches and surveys,in a way they accomplish their mission.

Japanese are really good at these stuffs.They work hard and invent these technologically advanced,incredibly small,never seen before , not-useful-at-all things like 'Chin holder for sleepers' - useful if you sleep in train while standing, a Robo which can jump and walk like a dog ,Robo which can teach numbers to kids and what not ?They are particularly crazy about robots.With a large fan following for rajnikant , their next mega project will most probably be 'Robo which will blink eyes like Sultan the warrior'

A new experience

2008-01-21T00:51:00.000-08:00

I didn't know what to do, for a moment i even thought that i was cheated.Noone will ever be able to take it easily ,if after having spent so much , you don't get what you want.I was going up, she didn't seem to cooperate at all.If anyone had seen ,they would have thought that I was trying too hard , finally she gave in.The happiness didn't last long though, it stopped just a few moments before starting the downward journey.Shit! if only it has lasted for a few minutes more...Ok , my bad luck.I didn't lose hope ,but still was not sure how to proceed,even thought of calling someone else, but then whom will i get at 10:30 on a weekday? Waited for sometime and decided i will be the only one to help myself at this time.Luckily it was not a tough job.There was one petrol bunk right after the flyover.

Lesson Learnt:Never forget to fill up well in advance.

That was the day two experience with my Apache.Totally forgot the fact that the showrooom guy has only put just more than a litre and i have used most of it the previous day itself.After pooja at a nearby temple, which was a test for my understanding of sign language i was going to the showroom again to collect few documents, the bike just stopped in the middle of a fly over.Thank god it didn't stop before sometime , it would have been more difficult.

The year that was

2008-01-19T03:39:00.000-08:00

- Change of occupation from student.Now, I have to be more responsible , more careful , cannot watch a bunch of Friends episodes all night and sleep through the day ,plan to have something to do over every weekend ,should understand what 80C,80D,80E etc means and should start worrying about public holidays.Hyderabad is a nice place , but it is about 18 hours away from my home , so can't go home whenever i want to go.

-Completed a 10k marathon run.I was sure that i will be able to finish without much difficulty , but was really really happy when i actually did. 'Hyderabad 10k Run', the event was grand , the circuit(Necklace Road) was perfect and first few kilometers were entertaining and encouraging :-) .If nothing goes wrong , I will participate next year too and if i am lucky might try the half marathon as well :-) .More on our participation here.

-New year Celebrations. Two weeks before new year , classifieds was filled with new year party ads.Most of these parties were nothing more than the regular saturday night ones with food,drinks and music except that they give the clubs an oppurtunity to suck more money.Friends kept saying 'we should do something' during new year , i decided to go home.There was a small celebration in our apartment at salem, with kindergarden kids singing rhymes , school kids dancing , doing standup comedies and others doing something on stage which is supposed to be considered as dancing.It was good , first time for me seeing such a celebration.

-I am not big on new year resolutions , not that i never had a real one.What i feel is if you are keen on doing something , you don't have to wait till new year to do that.
Tip: If your resolution list becomes too complex to manage or even to remember,try http://www.43things.com/tour.

What counts?

2007-12-23T02:34:00.000-08:00

"Reaching the lobby doesn't count , because nobody gets tickets to get to the lobby.It doesn't count if you don't get to the top"

Is this for real?

2007-12-21T03:43:00.000-08:00

Is there such a thing like this?

kathalikka neram illai

2007-12-18T02:17:00.000-08:00

First lyrics that i typed myself ever..

Haven't seen the serial though , does anyone know of any link where i can watch this?

என்னை தேடி காதல் என்னும் வார்த்தை அனுப்பு
உன்னை தேடி வாழ்வின் மொத்தம் அர்த்தம் தருவேன்
செல்லரிக்கும் தனிமையில் செத்துவிடும் முன்
செய்தி அனுப்பு

என்னிடத்தில் தேக்கி வைத்த காதல் முழுதும்
உன்னிடத்தில் கொண்டு வர தெரியவில்லை
காதலனே சொல்லுகின்ற வழி தெரிந்தால்
சொல்லி அனுப்பு ....

பூக்கள் உதிரும் சாலை வழியே பேசி செல்கிறேன்
மரங்கள் கூட நடப்பது போலே நினைத்து கொள்கிறேன்
கடிதம் ஒன்றில் கப்பல் செய்து மழையில் விடுகிறேன்
கனவில் மட்டும் காதல் செய்து இரவை கொல்கிறேன்

என்னை தேடி காதல் என்னும் வார்த்தை அனுப்பு
உன்னை தேடி வாழ்வின் மொத்தம் அர்த்தம் தருவேன்
செல்லரிக்கும் தனிமையில் செத்துவிடும் முன்
செய்தி அனுப்பு

யாரோ உன் காதலில் வாழ்வது யாரோ
உன் கனவினில் இரைவது யாரோ
என் சலனங்கள் தீர்த்திட வாராயோ

ஏனோ என் இரவுகள் நீள்வது ஏனோ
ஒரு பகலென சுடுவது ஏனோ
என் தனிமையின் அவஸ்தைகள் தீராதோ

காதல் தர நெஞ்சம் காத்து இருக்கு
காதலிக்க அங்கு நேரம் இல்லையா
இழையை போல் என் இதயம் தவறி விழுதே

என்னை தேடி காதல் என்னும் வார்த்தை அனுப்பு
உன்னை தேடி வாழ்வின் மொத்தம் அர்த்தம் தருவேன்
செல்லரிக்கும் தனிமையில் செத்துவிடும் முன்
செய்தி அனுப்பு

Watch It!

2007-11-30T05:06:00.000-08:00

http://icl.msncricket.com

2007-10-28T01:49:00.001-07:00

"The thing about future is that everytime you see it, it changes and that, changes everything"

The ultimate pro

2007-10-16T21:55:00.000-07:00

Two guys doing final year project under a prof . They have sent some sample xml for deciding on format etc. Prof is pretty disappointed and wants to meet them .

Prof(P) : Hey its not fun , you guys are already behind schedule and you are sending me link to a game when I ask you for the format huh? What did you think I would do ?

Guy 1 (G1) : Sir , I didn't get you . We didn't send any such link , did you (turning to guy 2 ) ?
Guy2 (G2) : No , why would I ? I sent the format we discussed about last night.

P : Then what is ? The file that you sent , whenever I open its opening a game . That too is not working.

G2 : Sir, this is the xml file .Its not a game. May be some problem in your system.

G1 : Let me see (Opens the file with IE) . Sir, its working properly right ? May be some game associated itself with xml ….oh yes , see this is the one .

P : Oh you mean there is some virus in my system? Why didn't you guys scan the file before sending it to me ? See what you have got into my Computer.

G2:(@!$#@%$#)Sir , this has nothing to do with the file that we sent , its just plain text . Some game….

P: But this is happening only when I open your file , don’t give lame excuses. Now fix this .

G1: No problem we will fix this Sir , but we have to search , we would need one or two days more.

G2: What???( inside his mind)

P:Ok, but your format should be ready by that time . You two take care of that , I will be back in few minutes.

(P leaves)

G2:Hey man ,that wont even take a minute ?

G1:I know , but see now we can happily go home without bothering to make whatever changes he might say. Come on grow up kid.

THE END

P.S : This incident may not be a fiction .

Love Today

2007-09-17T04:02:00.000-07:00

Happened to see Neeya Naana in Vijay TV when we were flipping through the channels on a lazy Sunday , not sure what the topic of discussion was , it was something like "Love - present and past" .

An average looking girl's (G) view on boyfriend(s)/lover(s)

G: "Sir , Even when you buy a sandal you will try a few before deciding on something , so when it comes to life partner what is wrong in going for a trial ? You wont know a guy from just his looks , pazhalagi patha thana theriyum . Moreover you wont know whether you have got the best if you don’t try quite a few."

Well certain things doesn't translate well , so gist in tamil "Trial patha thana sir theriyum?" ( not sure what all features the trial version includes)

Host of program (H) : "Oh, you are saying there is nothing wrong in having many boyfriends .So How long will this go on ?"

G: "Till we find the right one sir."

H: "Oh Evanachum oru illichavayan mattuvanrenga . So what kind of guys are in demand among today's girls? Romeo types who also might have/had multiple gfs or the god fearing goody goods ?"

G:"Definetely Romeo types . Because…"

H: "Oh you want a guy who was in love before ,so that you r sure that he is capable ?"

G: "Exactly sir."

Well my roomies didn't have the patience to continue , so switched to Sony Pix for a horror movie.

Disclaimer : These are not necessarily the exact statements and doesn't directly /indirectly represents the author's views. The term average looking is based on a survey taken among four .

This is nice

2007-09-17T02:43:00.001-07:00

http://play.blogger.com/

Last Few Days of college

2007-04-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

Comprehensive viva got over today , and we attended the last function in barn , the Institute day as UG students.
And E-Rem was released today , it was good ,and compact.Thanks to everyone who has their spent time on this.The video was about 15-20 minutes I guess, it could have been a bit longer , one thing that was missing according to me was videos from various department trips , may be it wasn't aligned with the theme of video.

Our classes are also over , very few days of college life left with only project viva and semester exams till next month mid.

I was browsing my blog , and found these posts (chronological order)

Rose Day
The unfortunate(or actually fortunate??) trip
Reminiscence
A love story that hasn't yet started
War of The Bots

Digital

2007-04-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

Took this picture at 6 (am :-) )

Another random pic i took in kitchen

Vortex 07

2007-03-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

Yet another vortex was over last weekend.Comparing the standards of the previous ones and symposiums of our college in general , it was a successful one.There was a workshop on Soft Skills, although there was very little that you can gain from the actual workshop , the session went without boring(unlike some others) .
Talk on IBM's Blue Gene was good.
Apart from the symposium itself, there was the usual senti session and lots of photos and Vortex'07 proved to be REALY useful for a few in many ways.

Some of the things I noted about the organisation

1.If you dont assign the responsibilities clearly, someone will end up doing a lot of work(if you are lucky enough to get that 'someone' ) and there will be a lot of bitter feelings when someone rejects to work ( for which he is not responsible at all )

2.Always keep every member informed and let the information be with ones who really NEED it and no more .Otherwise it is going to create a lot of unexpected problems.

3.It is not good to ORDER people especially the ones who dont care(or dont have to care) much about your authority(or the lack of it) .A friendly request works most of the time.

googlec0d6ebc6bd930c8c.html

2007-02-07T21:49:00.001-08:00

Trying out google webmaster

War of The Bots

2007-01-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

Ever played a multi player game alone and not felt the difference?? All thanks to human like bots that are imbibed into the game. Now you have the opportunity of building your own bots that can take on anyone and anything that comes in their way and victory in the chosen game.

A different kind of programming event ,where the contestants are required to program a bot which will compete with bots of other contestants and accomplish some tasks like getting maximum number of different kinds of objects without hitting with anything. All it takes is a little programming skills, problem solving and a lot of imagination.

For More Details check http://pragyan.org/cms/?page=/events/software/warofbots

The Game Engine can be downloaded from the same page.

A love story that hasn't yet started

2006-11-26T02:14:00.000-08:00

A Guest post by S (with some editing),

Hero : K
Heroine : D

Story
K was told dat smbdy proposd to D and D accepted dat ,on an auspicious
occasion like Diwali . Then K went mad abt the incident thinking , cud it b true...who s that guy who wud dare propose 2 her wen he has been there in waiting list for such a long time.K was not ready to accept d truth but as confirmation came frm a source as reliable as the author of this note....K believed him , then disbelief in himself..

This was goin on 4 sum 2 hrs , with K becoming more and more restless.

The Source(lets call him S) and K met in Egmore rail stn...then direc enquiry by K..but S told K dat " Idhu thaan unmai , unmai ennaikum kasakkum da dich :-( "

Our hero took a oath 2 demystify d mystery soon...went upto d range of asking
our heroine..
if anything spcl happened 2 her on dat auspicious occasion.....
K was wondering if he cudnt even know dis.
becoz D was smsing him ,all the time ,even on that auspicious and suspicious diwali occasion,
almost as many messages as the Airtel server cud handle .......

K finally got 2 no d truth(not from D ofcourse . S, unable to withstand his continuous whining told him the truth) that this is an "attempted rumor" executed very well by an expert group with success and was very relieved .......

Bottom line : K and D are both pakka KD's

After word :

1.K came to college next day and personally tortured the ones who created this rumor with his famous lines like Ko******

2.K never discussed this with D ,though the number of smss exchanged daily easily exceeds the Airtel limit of 100.

3.K started trying to spend more and more time with D ,like writing a 4 page assignment for a full day in class , having lunch in canteen for more than a hour while he wont spend than 5 minutes in mess,goes to the xerox shop(and returns after an hour probably) to collect everyone's xerox .

to be continued....

Psych you /Psych Me

2006-11-25T01:58:00.000-08:00

Took this personality test today, its funny and interesting and mostly true .
Worth a try.
check out http://personaldna.com/

Casino Royale

2006-11-17T22:09:00.000-08:00

Finally the exams are over.This time its a six day marathon, its nice in many ways although at the end of the sixth day you are totally exhausted.
I came home day before yesterday after our three trip starting from hari's house, will blog about that later.
Yesterday went to the film "Casino Royale" with Murali.

This being the first for the new bond ,is not upto the mark as other bond films.The initial stunts in Madagascar where Daniel Craig(James Bond) chases a prisoner reminds us of Jackie Chan movies.The movie somehow doesn't have the usual 007 charm.
The story deals with how bond wins over a Banker/Investor who protects terrorist's money.
The slow Casiono Royale game sequences tests your patience.

At one point towards the end, when you feel that the movie is over, it stretches for another 20 minutes, which is supposed to be an interesting twist where Eva betrays him as expected.

The bottomline is if you dont have anything else to do , and is getting bored,Casino Royale is worth a watch.

A conversation

2006-08-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

This conversation took place during one of the many breaks in our room .
M and N wants to play Table Tennis , so first N goes to check if its free and returns back.

N : Abey,There are no balls there.What shall we do ?
M : We will call the reception and ask.

(Not wanting to miss a chance , N calls the receptionist (R) )

N : Hi, calling from xth floor, there are no balls in the TT place.

R : Oh ,Really?there should be altleast two, today morning we sent boys with balls and asked them to put it in place.Did you check properly.

N : I checked it well ,there are no balls.

R : May be you should ask the boys in the lobby,they will help you.Did you check the lobby?

N : Yes, i checked it well.There are no boys and no balls in the lobby.

R : Ok ,I will send boys with balls to help you.

N : Thanks.

How is this?!!

2006-06-22T05:26:00.000-07:00

Click to follow link

Mostly True

2006-06-18T02:25:00.000-07:00

Saw this in Mando's blog ,
Mostly True

Your Birthdate: December 29

You have the mind of an artist, even if you haven't developed the talent yet.Expressive and aware, you enjoy finding new ways to share your feelings.You often feel like you don't fit in - especially in traditional environments.You have big dreams. The problem is putting those dreams into action.
Your strength: Your vivid imagination
Your weakness: Fear of failure
Your power color: Coral
Your power symbol: Oval
Your power month: November

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

offline

2006-06-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

Its nearly one month ,we are in hyderabad.Since me and karthik were here last summer also,we have visited most of the places.But what can we do in weekends?So last weekend set out to see Birla Mandir ,Planetorium and Lumbini Park.
The visit to Lumbini Park was nice , its a very good sight. We went for boating in hussain sagar lake , to the buddha statue .Wow the place is good, and we were lucky to have a lot of sight seeing .Me,karthi and ankur took a photo there , i will put it up once i scan it.

Got this forward from kasi,our 'sincere sigamani' friend
nice na.

Marketing Basics

2006-05-17T02:19:00.000-07:00

1. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" - That's Direct Marketing

2. You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says: "He's very rich. Marry him." - That's Advertising

3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day, you call and say: "Hi, I'm very rich. Marry me." - That's Telemarketing

4. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie, you walk up to her and pour her a drink, you open the door (of the car)for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her ride and then say: "By the way, I'm rich. Will you marry me?" - That's Public Relations

5. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says: "You are very rich! Can you marry ! me?" - That's Brand Recognition

6. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" She gives you a nice hard slap on your face. - That's Customer Feedback

7. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" And she introduces you to her husband. - That's demand and supply gap

8. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say anything, another person come and tell her: "I'm rich. Will you marry me?" and she goes with him - That's competition eating into your market share

9. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say: "I'm rich, Marry me!" your wife arrives. - That's restriction for entering new markets

domain names

2006-05-15T05:09:00.000-07:00

Went to the Movie "Poseidon" .Nothing much to say about the movie , leave the ship to float for a little long its Titanic , otherwise Poseidon (though Poseidon doesn't score anywhere near the other) . The only good thing about the outing was , Hyderbad Central . PVR is good . And the Complex was colorful.
Sunday , went to IMAX not as colorful as expected .

Both the places reminded me of a Quote

Girls are like Domain names , the ones you want and the good ones are already occupied

Reminiscence

2006-04-29T03:17:00.000-07:00

Just one more exam to go and we will be final years ,(though the results come a month later, we are right) .

Today ,
In my bed
I was travelling to the past ,
till a message broke at last,
which said

"Today is special day, its 1000th day since we joined the college."

May be its a coincedence .
Ya indeed ,it is .
I remember the first day well , very well
or may be it seems so,i dont know ,

Its my first step to outside home , believing what they show in cinemas is the real college life, making my first big mistake ,like a lot others with wild imaginations . Gokul and muthu were the first ones i talked to.This time the reminiscence video(e-rem) is great ,its a movie made by final years showcasing the events of past four year year(and a lot of artificial stuff,made specially for the video) .

First things in life are always special ,like our first year .

Had a lot of thoughts when i saw the reminiscence video,
like ,
the dress code ,
the mess food ,
the sleepless nights ,
the tv fights ,
the B2 batch,(will blog about this later)
a perfect match .

Time passed by ,
days were short ,
nights were shorter ,
doing nothing ,but still doing something .

And here we are , in pre-final year , in a month there will be lot of things happening , with written tests , interviews ,offers , disappointments , happiness and others .

Trust

2006-04-09T05:03:00.000-07:00

What is Trust ?Its a feeling that a one year child has when you throw him up in the air and catch him,and he enjoys it with smile!

felt this sms is very nice.

2006-04-02T05:08:00.003-07:00

e
Classes are almost over , and even our model practicals are over ,only semester pracs and exams are left . We are on study holidays informally .Went for a treat on friday and had a great time. The bus travel was boring and seemed to be very long (the downward journey which was actually long seemed so short ) ,may be because i was sitting alone . The restaurant was crowded and we almost had to wait to get a place.She was taking pride of making me believe whatever she says ,though i said its not entirely true .Then i thought 'Why trichy has so less place to go except the cinema halls which are not so good ' .Anyway we had a nice time.

Today I completed "Ponniyen Selvan -Part 1 ".Wow ,its gripping and better than a lot of usual thrillers . This is the first time i have read a historical novel in Tamil (thanks to sridhar).The language,character depiction and the flow is different and great.Longing to get the next book ..

Its election time in our college ,we have the president,vice-president and secretary election tommorrow and a lot of strange things are happening... anyways all the best for eveybody.

Opal day

2006-02-28T21:58:00.000-08:00

Went to home ,then to bangalore and to home again this weekend.The journey from bangalore to dharmapuri was horrible , we didn't reserve any tickets ,thought we can manage .Majestic was ok,but the place alloted for TN buses were pathetic .(the buses too compared to KSRTC) .We waited for long ,but still managed only 'get' into the bus.First time journey ,standing for more than 3 hours . Any way there's one big lesson to learn this .."Never Assume things ,always plan beforhand "

Yesterday was Opal day .(Opal is our college's girls hostel) . The girls came in sarees. The first lecture was not going well..nobody was answering ,then madam said "What happened to you all today?? because the girls have dressed up well uhh?? " May be..Some look a lot better in sarees.Opal day comes only once a year though..

Rose Day

2006-02-18T03:31:00.000-08:00

Another valentine's day has gone by.This time though the rotaracts didn't have a good rose day i feel(atleast in pearl) due to the cycle tests .Btw rose day is a function organised by rotaract club of rock city during valentine's day .They sell 6 types of card Red-love , Pink - Friendship , Yellow - Brother/sister , White -peace , black - hate each having some points with black having negatives.And after a week or so there will be a the function for announcing the Rose king and Queen ,the ones who got most points .

Not that a lot of people get sentimental and sends loads of poem's to their loved ones .Most of the cards sent are what you call 'proxies ',ie sent by somebody else on someone's name.But for the cycle test, a lot of people ( including me may be ) would have went wild with their pens sending proxies with 'out of the box' verses (T.Rajendar types are very famous - the ones which are incredibly rhyming and clearly meaningless) . We remember (me, alagu , manju ,karthi ) helping somebody creating one such verse last year ,it was funny . Manju has an extradinary interest in these things.
Thanks for the one who sent me a pink rose this time and thanks for everything you have mentioned .

update :

I wore green on 14th .So...

2006-02-01T02:15:00.000-08:00

Day 1(28th jan)

Got up after 11:30 when karthik banged my door and said we have C ' Debbuging contest at 12.Went straight (after getting ready ) to the contest hall and waited for some 30 minutes ,the participation was not so great as to say . The paper was easy and i knew i could make it to the finals .This time one more addition to pragyan is the Pragyan Newsletter.Evening at 6 after inauguration was this workshop "HACKED!" by Ankit Fadia .The starting lines of his talk were "How many of you use google? stop using it ,they collect a lot of information about you.how many of you use mobile phones?stop using them.they are so vulnerable.how many of you use XYZ?and many similar XYZs followed . To say simply he summarised (with a lot of masala ) the general stuff you would get when you google for "hacking".I dont know how much money was spent towards bringing him here.However ,it was a huge public attraction .Alagu has a post on this line .

Day2

Went to listen HPs talk on "HP and next Gen IT" .A2 hall was jam packed . The session was nice , and interactive .Shagan got a T-Shirt for his question "Why is HP not doing more for the open source community ".Was occupied in the evening with arrangements for Turing Machine .

Day 3

Before Turing machine we had Microsoft' s talk on "Microsoft and next generation IT "( yes same topic as HP ) .The talk was about .Net ,platform independence ,.Net's popularity among developers ,application mobility ,integrity and others.He gave a live demonstration (?) devolping a small application for his pocket pc cum mobile phone using .Net C# .
Dhaneel won the first prize in Turing Machine , and Vishal& Nikhil won third prize for Dallal street.They have used Ajax this time for page updates which we struggled a lot last year.

Evening we had a talk show with The Director of the movie "Stumble" ,2 actors and the representative of the Media .It didn't go very well ,with the junta waiting to see the movie.I will post about the movie later ,it was really nice .

Day 4

I spent most of the time in MAD zone(Make A Difference - promoting eye donation) stall today .
As usual we had laser show in the night ,i think this shouldn't repeat next year.Not as interesting as it was last year ..

Pragyan

2006-01-27T05:17:00.000-08:00

Pragyan '06 starts tommorrow. Its a lot better than last year ,thing are more organised.There are some movies screened this time by a new club in college 'The Cinema Paradise ' .They are screening a documentary film " Stumble " and after that there is a talk show (i dont know what it will be like ) with the director.(This is his first film) .

Last year Me,Saraf, Vishal,Nikhil together designed and coded The Dallal Street ,stock market game .It went very well and was the major attraction with more than 500 participants, but the thing is we (the organisers) were tied up for atleast 4 hrs on all the three days(during the event and after that also for some time) ,whatever we had a good time.This year nikhil and vishal are managing it ,they have made a lot of changes in look and feel.There is this 'mobile alert' option which will sms you (if u opt) when the condition set by you is met.(like some price change or availability ) .They have submitted the software for Turing Machine , the software presentation contest which i am coordinating this year .I hope them to win(so that i can get a treat) .

One more new entry this year is Pragyan Newsletter .

Efficiency

2006-01-23T22:11:00.000-08:00

Vortex '06 was nice if not great . We qualified for finals in Tech Quiz and Cleuths( Debugging ) ,unfortunately both got cancelled . I didn't attend much of first day's lecture . But second day , talks on Soft Skills by Jayendran of Amazon was really good . Presenting a story narrated by him about efficiency .

A Japenese Soap company came up with the idea of marketing their soap packed inside attractive soap box.Everything went well until one day a consumer complained about getting the box alone . The engineering team was hunting for a solution and they modeled a system with weight sensors which detects the boxes with less weight and robotic arms to remove them. A senior person was asked to review the model . He said " I dont know much about weight sensors and robots .But why such a complicated solution ? What if i keep a heavy duty fan in front of the final assembly line? All those boxes without soaps will fall down due to less weight ,right ? "

Moral : Think of a simple solution first always .

2006-01-17T21:25:00.000-08:00

Its Symposium season again .

2006-01-15T03:23:00.000-08:00

There are only a very few in our hostel , everybody has gone home for Pongal . This is only the second time i am staying in hostel in such occasions . And my first Pongal away from home.
Couldn't get sugarcane here :-( . CPC are back after the cycle test . And we have to complete our project too .Life is so busy (or so it seems ) . Now the CS fever in our hostel has finally subsided . It just 'exists' .AOE is picking up and i love that , now i can play with other people in lan . I am fairly successful in my resolution of not playing for more than 2 times a week .
Watched the film 'SAW' -very bad .

Finally completed shortlisting for Turing machine.

Pragyan

2005-12-19T20:47:00.000-08:00

Hi all,There is a software presentation contest(Turing Machine ) as a part of pragyan ,the technical fest of Nit, Trichy .

From http://pragyan.org/turing_machine/ Have a software you designed and think can evolve the world? Think its good enough to make a difference? Bring it on, and let's see how you churn your way out of Turing Machine.

This contest has seen a desktop search assistant, first person shooter, a multipurpose c, c++ compiler, image manipulator as submissions, and we expect more this time. The software could be in Networking, Databases, Operating Systems, Simulations or any other utility based software. Important DatesLast date of registration and submission of entries: 5th January, 2006Shortlist will be announced by 10th January, 2006

visit http://pragyan.org/turing_machine/ for more details

2005-11-22T04:50:00.000-08:00

Exams are over finally.I came home today morning.And was virtually locked up in home with nothing to do except sleep.There was a power cut from morning 9 till now and it was raining outside so i was left with no other choice , i slept ,slept and slept finally i got up at 4 had my lunch and could wait any more so got out and came to this browsing center (thank god they didn't have power cut) .When i had exams , i was so tempted to play AOE ,but couldn't (though i played once in a while after the exams) now i have all the time but dont have system at home .Its bad , i think i should either quit AOE or play it less often . So i made a resolution to play twice every week. AOE and movies are the reason for which i log on to windows for everything else (including reading books ) i use Fedora Core 3 and for the past one month i haven't logged on to fedora .
I think i will going back to college early for project. Dont know what i will do till then.

Read about this ,"Women in computer Science " by a google woman and that made me think about our college , and the scarcity of girls here

The Male / Female Ratio in Computer Science I believe Computer Science is
currently around 15% female. That figure alone doesn't worry me (hey, times
change, it'll grow, right?). The problem is that the number has actually
declined since 1980. Yikes. Furthermore, I've been told by several people that
parts of asia actually have very close to a 50/50 ratio. Why does the US lag so
much?
read more

2005-10-28T04:26:00.000-07:00

I am in a hurry to go home ..just dropped in to check mail and stuff.The semester practicals are over .I did well in one and average in other.Anyway the performance in the 'lab exam' doesn't actually reflect in your grades.Everyone is heading towards home.Tamilnadu is experiencing the highest rainfall in the recent times.Due to the heavy downpour in trichy , some motor got submerged in water , so we are not getting water for three days in a row. I mean we have to rely upon the water lorries,Strange..Water elsewhere but here..
Read the book Unscrutable Americans (halfway through), its nice ..The narration is different.

Happy Diwali for all.

Of Semester,Pearl Lan

2005-10-22T00:51:00.000-07:00

Semester exams are fast approaching ..We have practicals next week and after a weeks break ,the semester starts..First year was nice the exams got over in just 6 days,its very difficult for those 6 days but then it gets over soon.While in first year thought it would be nice if we have holidays in between,but now the reverse..Anyway the total time you fully concentrate remains the same whether you have hols or not.

Now that almost all the systems in pearl(our hostel) are connected and we boast a phpBB notice board, a wiki and soon the complete wikipedia also, organising contents and getting what we want becomes really difficult.For everyone shares a different things , though the folder names gives some context to the content, searching is painful and some apps like lansearch takes a lot of time.So wont it be nice if we have a single nice portal , which is really organised and searchable , i mean searches really fast.. and gets updated itself i mean a simple smb crawler and indexer...?Is there any such application..?Here simple search (like google desktop)alone is not enough for most of the time we dont know we are looking for,i mean when we are free and trying to see something interesting and not specific about what it is, we tend to browse all the comps for some valid (and new) content..And if user rating and comments is enabled it would be even great to rank the contents..

And Krishna (mechanical engg) has started his blog kichaspeaks.blogspot.com

2005-10-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

Last week has been full of tragedies and part of reason for it goes to the week before.We (me,karthik,krishnan,lokesh,dhaneel,pankaj and lot others) went to shaastra,IITM tech fest.The fest was very nice and luckily we(me,karthik and krishnan - tristar team) got shortlisted to the final round of Programming contest and unfortunately the schedule for finals was shifted from friday to sunday changing our plan totally.I have Principle's of programming languages model lab on monday and sunday also is a working day adding my bunk count..After that me and karthik balaji got shortlisted for the finals of Swat the Bug ,also on sunday..Ok..I decided to skip the model test on monday , i can do with thurday batch.And the finals was very bad for us..Didn't far well..But we are happy that we could make it to finals..

And coming to last week.I missed the microprocessor lab on thursday (i attended the ppl model lab 'exam') and that created all the problem..The faculty in-charge got angry with all of us(two others also did the same) .He said "With whose permission you got the permission to write model test on thursday ?" and only 'that' again and again whenever we asked excuse.I thought if i dont go to the lab they will just mark me absent .We should have informed them before,ya thats true but somehow we didn't ,we reached college on thursday morning and in some hurry we missed that.Then they allows us only after getting an apology letter.I never thought something like this will happen..People are different..And some are very different.

About the programming contest, this is our first ever finals(for all three of us) , the questions were really nice .. (and tough though) .

Burning the midnight(?) oil

2005-09-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Its 5 in the morning and i am still trying hard to destroy my enemy to roots , thinking the possible ways ,no i am not talking about anything other than AOE. I played too much of aoe this week.Too much i had to miss all the morning classes wednesday ( and wed is a half-Day ) .Cyber games are highly addictive.Ya i am seeing it live. (i am not talking about me, i play once in a while,but then i play till get exhausted) .People entering pearl (III yr hostel) will be invited by the sounds of roaring guns from hi-fi speakers .The most favorite game (even the only game played you can say ) is counter-strike .I tried it once or twice and never liked it ( may be because i will be killed in first few seconds) .I dont know how people go on shooting their enemies .AOE is better , you have a lot to do , there is strategy, your speed, luck and more.

Last week we had our diagnosis cpc( campus placement thingy) test. I couldn't even 'read' all the questions . Its really nice to have it at this time .
The talk of college is the cic-rep - the placement representative selection(or election?) for each department.Every department is busy about it .Especially muthu's special interest and curiosity and the way how he describes everything as if he's responsible for the world is actually very funny.

We are planning to go to shastra , the IITM techfest. Thankgod its right after our cycle test. Ya now i remember i have cycles this friday .The exam preparation time is inversely propositional to the year you are in (with a large constant) ..

2005-09-18T04:13:00.000-07:00

After setting up lan in pearl (our hostel) , the only thing i do in my comp is 'movies' (all kind ) . And that has increased significantly after i installed XP . This week alone i saw around five movies .That made me think of the uses of having lan in hostel . The most used application is "Counter Strike" (well i am not into it 'yet') . I cant imagine how people just keep on killing enemies , planting enemies for hours together ..I get headache after 10 minutes . May be you should get used to it . The next major thing in pearl lan is SHARING , songs , videos , class notes , books and a lot more . There is even a proposal for getting a private net connection . Thats why i joined lan . And the most shared things are 'por'[removethis]'nos' ( well i have to do this way or else dansguardian will not allow my blog through the net lab firewall )
Last friday we (me , karthik , kodu, alagu , mani and vicky(ice) ) went to "Thotti Jaya " - the worst movie i have ever seen i theatre (as far as i could remember) .

One thing in googleblog was particulary interesting , when you search for "failure" , the top result turns out to be the Biography of George W Bush . -the offical whitehouse site . Google says this is due to googlebombing . And yes yahoo , msn all gives the same result .

after a long time

2005-09-07T23:42:00.000-07:00

Its looongg since i hit the new post button.Cycle tests is one among the reasons.I had my first ever written test for internship on september 1st(Last thursday) and the test was easy.I missed a simple puzzle and found at 2 in the night that i wasn't shortlisted as expected,next day there was a group interview (the guy gave some coding question and examined all of them together) finally saraf and ankur got selected.Congrats guys..I went home on friday and on saturday me and murali went to "Oru kaluriyan Kathai" (The Story of a college ) . A 'decent' film (come on i have watched it fully) with no logic , no comedy (not according to the director,there were a lot of attempts ) .The storyline is "Old students recreate their college after 5 years (yes they 'actually' recreate ,removing the new paints ,trees,principal,students and they call all the old students) to save the hero from a post traumatic mental stress due to unproposed or unrevealed love .They make him believe that he is studying in college("Fifty first dates" ) and all ends well with sonia hugging arya.

Yesterday we all(yes atleast 70 of us) went to Bala's brother's marriage ( http://higopi.blogspot.com/ ).Bala arranged a bus from the college , we all had a great time .Me,aalu,kaly and alagu slept in karthik's house .

Tommorrow is festember day 1.

what to do when you get three days off?

2005-08-15T04:33:00.000-07:00

Well,we had three days leave..Sat-Mon ..Thanks for independence day falling on monday..Everyone have gone home..Its just me,varun,manju and karthik in hostel..Saturday as i said we went to watch Kana Kanden..The film is nice..Gopika is excellent..(i am not talking about acting)..She reminds me of someone else i have seen..Prithviraj is stunning,his cool attitude and mannerism is good,srikanth alone have bored us..
Luckily there's not much crowd in the swimming pool also.Sunday surprisingly i woke up at nine (morning only)..Didn't know what to do,was just killing time and after lunch made a small program Anagram solver with 26nary tree structure for the dictionary..
Today we have presentation for event co-ordinators of pragyan.
Happy Independence Day for all.

2005-08-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

Last saturday we went to ARRS multiplex hoping to see "Ullam Ketkume" , but were forced to see "Priyasaki" (good among the evils) as "Ull......" was changed to someother theature.The film is,.....decent...Sada is nice..After i brought my system from home to pearl,the frequency of my visit to octa reduced drastically and so did my blogging.After a loongg time we (me,karthik,varun and muralishankar) went to chataram today and i recharged my mob finally..Had a good dinner at vasantha bavan.Life's getting busy..Pragyan,Evolution,Swimming pool(yeah! its open after such a long wait),and added to that MunPani(Tamil mandram's mini NitFest).Whatever be there,but i dont think i had progressed in any of them remarkably nor do i feel spending a good deal of time on them but still life seems to be .....My brother have college from 17th.In tamil mandram mini NitFest,we chose Anniyan for Movie spoof .(content and creation by Vijay and Prathap Raja) and i became Shari(Vivek) .The script was nice,and the response was decent(though the girls weren't getting it,ok they wont,most of the times ) but there was a lot of double meanings (like desianniyan.com) we didn't get any place,anyway we didn't have much hope before either. Chemical department is the winner of mini fest and they won in movie spoof also.(Sundar's dance for Cheena Thana was particularly remarkable) .Many have gone home for these three days..Approximately there are just four per wing in Pearl(our hostel).Saturday EEE audi movie is Kana Kanden.I wanted to see this movie (for gopika) but couldn't,now i have a chance.

Weekend in chennai

2005-08-01T04:21:00.000-07:00

I went to chennai on Friday,for my brother's TNEA counselling .(This TNEA has attracted a lot of traffic to my blog,but i am sure all those who bothered to click the link in google would be blaming me,for there isn't anything here that would help them ).The train journey was fine.My brother's friend Gowtham and his coaching-center-mate Rajesh were in the same compartment.We reached chennai at 2:30 ,venkatesh was waiting there.(Venkatesh is my close friend in school,doing B.Sc(CSE) in Loyola). I told him we can manage,but still he came to station bunking two classes) . Dad has reserved a room in the employees-society-run hotel.Evening we went to Rangannathan street.Saturday after my brother's counselling (he took anna cse) we went (me,venkatesh and my brother) to Spencer .Wow its much better and bigger than IMAX,but it doesn't have the entertainment features that IMAX has.Had a 'nice' time there till 9 .
Sunday we went to Vadapalani temple and again to spencer(we have to spend the whole day,our train is after 10 pm,we should have reserved a different train sometime in the afternoon ).Evening we went to the marina beach (the bus was toooooo crowded and packed) after that to Partharasarathy temple.I was very tired and wanted to sleep immediately

A week of tragedies

2005-08-01T03:22:00.001-07:00

Tuesday
The cycles got over and we are free again.Thought i could see one or two movies stored in karthi's comp and relax after a refreshing and a most wanted bath,i was the last one to know that there was no water supply after Thiruverumbur(problem due to a broken pipe line). :-( .

And this is Mumbai,water everywhere.

Wednesday
We didn't have water supply even on wednesday.Not even drinking water.It was unusual to see people running after the waterlorries with their bucket to save water for some urgent needs.(The girls stayed comfortably in Opal,they have borewell there).And people had to rely on the mess for drinking water.The classes were cancelled due to this.(but not our OR class,:-( the announcement came after 9 ).

Thursday
I had exactly Rs 49.50 with me and i had to go home at 4.I went to the ATM during the morning break to find that the ATM wasn't working (not this one alone , all SBI ATM's in trichy).So borrowed 30 from manju(thank god,unlike others who had same the problem as me manju luckily had some money), packed up quickly and started off.When i got the ticket to salem,i had just Rs 1:50 (I should have skipped my visit to Vasantha bavan or atleast i should have had a coffee alone) . I reached the salem bus stand and called home carefully,very carefully dialling the numbers and i was relieved only when my dad came .One thing i learned is "Always have contigency plans,never expect everything to go as you plan" .

2005-07-23T02:20:00.000-07:00

Today is the first convocation of our college after it has become NITT.Around thousand people (our seniors) came i suppose.There was a rumor in pearl that P.Chidambaram is coming as a chief for the function,but it was nothing more that a rumor.The first principal of RECT is the chief guest.I wanted to attend the function,but couldn't,as i was still rolling under my bed sheet when it was 11.I met some of the seniors after the convocation.Its was a wonderful time getting together again for many...
Here is a photo from the function

Yesterday's test was not bad.But i dont know what i will do for monday's and tuesday's.This OR fellow has a feeling that everyone is a human computer i think,he takes one complete hour to teach a problem,but in the exam ,he asks 5 problems which we are expected to solve in one hour.Its impossible,i heard the best is four so far. Yesterday i started to prepare for "File Structures",but couldn't move beyond the first few pages.Just wasted time till midnight,(usual things that happen every friday night),had a refreshing TEA in Nescafe thinking i could start OR.But slept off leaving the book open..

Tommorrow we glugt , are organising a lecture on CVS and language bindigings for octave-gtk. B.Vijayakumar is taking CVS and Muthaiya Annamalai talks on language bindings.
Alagu has a nice post on our NSS trip to the Srirangam temple.The lin is here.It brings back those pleasant days.
There is a post on silver phpBB2 about enabling mobile access to dallal street,a event which attracted over 500 participants.Dallal street is a virtual stock market game,a part of Arthasastra,Pragyan.The idea is the player should be able to make transactions through sms.Lets see how realisable it is .But it would be great if it becomes a reality.

Retrospect

2005-07-17T04:34:00.000-07:00

After a week i hit the new post button,without knowing what i would blog on.This whole week we have been hitting evolution at all possible ways we could think of and all the time we end up with some unknown error and the whole process stops.Karthik has a nice photo in his blog taken by alagu.Today we are trying some alternate ways and hoping that it would end successfully.Saw this inspiring picture...

This friday we have our I cycle tests.One month has passed by very rapidly.And the Xerox shops will be crowded,people will become serious,Night outs,Nescafe Tea will be a daily-visit and all these will last till next tuesday,then everytthing will get normal.This cycle test changes the "sleeping pattern" (and even the life pattern)of almost all the people.Just today i remembered that i have left "The Alchemist" unfinished after first week,i dont know what make me forget these simple things.Anyway i wouldn't be able complete it this week also,with the cycle test round the corner(i too is a victim of the above said disorder :-) ) . Saturday hari gave us treat for a aggrement we three made.(The aggrement is "Whoever gets the highest GPA among me,gokul and hari he has to treat the other two" and i have been the receiver two times :-( ) .Saturday night movie at EEE-audi is "Attagasam".I didn't feel like watching the film,i already have(I wouldn't have even i hadn't seen the film,its toooo normal and usual).So instead,just browsed till midnight,read some blogs and slept off.Today i opened Algorithms notes and read two ,three pages,after that i couldn't resist,went to the TV room and after some time went to octa.

nerd

2005-07-12T00:05:00.000-07:00

Madras basha

2005-07-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

Happened to see this wiki page.Its very funny :-)
It discusses about the madras bashai,even the grammar

some excerpts from the above site

OC - From OCS, Indian Railways abbreviation meaning "On Company Service". Parcels marked OCS travel free.
OB is pronounced as the individual letters O and B. Etymology not known for certain. Possibly from "Off Beat", old British military term meaning "off duty". Also possibly from "Out of Business" or from "O'l Bhajanai" (local slang for "doing nothing").
Pronounced "sulphate aa". Uncertain origins. Asking someone if they've had sulphata implies that you think that they are severely uncoordinated.
Tamil kadalai, verkadalai (nut, groundnut). Possibly from the consumption of groundnuts on Chennai suburban trains, known as "timepass". Connotes flirting without serious intentions.
Yaru theaterla yaru padam ootra...keenjidum screenu....bemani!. It is used to indicate that other person is trying to show off at a place he does not belongs to.

And this

steps for dappankuthu (from wikipedia)

Take one step with your footfadsfd.
If you just brought your left foot forward, point your left fist to the sky and your right fist directly ahead, otherwise do the opposite.
If you bring your left fist skyward, look straight ahead or slightly upwards, otherwise look down at your feet.
The above three steps must be done simultaneously.
Bob your torso up and down once.
Repeat with the other foot and continue doing so.
Maintain a pace of one step every second, with a bob equidistant between every two steps.
Pelvic thrusts between steps can also be introduced to provide some variation.

blogthings

2005-07-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

You are sexy, powerful, and bold.
You're full of passion and energy...
Sometimes this passion has a dark side.

You feel most alive when you're seducing someone.
You never fail to get someone's attention.
Quick minded, you're also quick to lose your temper!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Weekend

2005-07-09T10:06:00.000-07:00

And finally the meet linux course is over.The course was fantastic.Expecially today,may be because it is a special session and only interested have turned up.This is the first time i am taking a class like this and it was really a nice experience.Next wednesday we (glugt) have a meeting.The topics are still not decided.And many people joined the glugt mailing list today.And a person from JJ college(trichy) commented that glugt now has only nittians and wanted it to be glugT actually.Alagu has revamped the glugt website,using mambo .The work is still not complete.I made a step by step tutorial for gcc,gdb yesterday .I wanted to learn latex after alagu's talk about it,and thought instead of typing some arbit text while practicing latex,this would be useful,after all i already have most of the text in the slides i prepare for my second day class.The confusion that prevailed over the TNEA has finally come to an end with the governments statement .

About this Nosip project,still feel like lost in the middle of the forest,without knowing where to start hacking Evolution.The folder is so huge and whenever i browse through it,i feel lost.Lets see ,i will have to wait till the mentor says something about it.

Check this.
Anyone can just drop in a blog there.

Bye,I am going to watch Oceans Twelve film in EEE-audi .

Casual Friday

2005-07-07T22:41:00.000-07:00

I was trying to build evolution from source yesterday night and it was 10 past 2 when i finally slept ,finally after convincing myself that i am too tired to do anything.But still managed to go to the first class today.We waited in the class for some time and finally this class rep comes and says that the third and fourth hour is cancelled so we have only this hour and after that we are free.We were happy.After sometime he came with the news that we dont have even that class.I would have have slept will till atleast 11 if i knew before.

Check this http://publicview.blogspot.com .The post mailID is given in the site itself,so anyone can post.

2005-07-06T09:40:00.000-07:00

Friday i went home,didn't do much there, didn't even went to friends house.Our new home is far away from all of my friends' .Supreme court has rejected the appeal of state government against the high court decision quasing the GO which cancelled the CET and improvement.So this year also the TNEA will go on as usual hopefully.
nosip CD's arrived this monday.This week have been too busy with the Meet Linux course going on.I took gcc,gdb,ddd,anjuta on tuesday.It will went well I suppose.Karthik took shell script the same day.

360°

2005-06-29T04:20:00.000-07:00

Yahoo has come up with 360°.
It has many features like photos,reviews,friends,groups and yes blog.It has clubbed many features together and allows you to use them with a single yahoo ID.Just like gmail is doing now for its searchhistory,mail,answers and other services.Unlike yahoo's user mail home page,this has relatively ads.I checked out the blog facility by yahoo.You can set your page as private i.e only you can view,i think this is not available in blogger now but not many wants this facility i suppose.I wasn't much impressed by it.Its doesn't have the simplicity of blogger.But having photo sharing,blog and other web services from a single provider is nice in some way.For you dont have to have different accounts for photo sharing,blog,mail,search, and other things though many might want to try the best in each.Still 360° is in its beta stage.
Today being half-D ,I started(tried) to progress in my Nosip evolution project and preparation of slides for the "Meet Linux" course.Always the initial stages are difficult.Lets see..

Of survey,glugt and my resolution

2005-06-28T03:25:00.000-07:00

Today I took part in the MIT survey about blogs and thought some questions were nice.
I think everyone feels the same way as me,that is ,everyone is interested in knowing the survey results but not all are as much interested in taking part,may i am wrong).But didn't know why they have kept a section in which they asks you "Do you personally know a doctor,engineer,worker,and more." May be we should wait for the survey results.the link is here.

And about my resolution of not missing the 8:30 class ,i am successful in it so far.Monday i got up as early at 6.Me and Hari went to gym.It was fun having him in the gym for the first time.I couldn't control myself laughing as he wanted to do the easiest workout and get the maximum benifit and his comment on the various equipments. The sports centre gets filled up for the first few weeks,as the second years out of the initial curiousity or whatever it is ,appear everywhere(like we did) .

We had the first meeting of glug-t for this semester in shagan's room today.The objective was to organise and fix up the Begineer's course in Linux(which includes python,gimp and much more).Parijat came up with the title "Meet Linux" and was agreed upon.Now i have a big task, taking gcc,gdb,ddd and anjuta section of this course and i have to prepare slides for them.All this within this friday as the course starts on monday and i am going home this friday.

First Week

2005-06-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

Its one week since the college has started.Many haven't turned up yet,some busy with their projects and some relaxing in their home.The rooms of our choice have been alotted after a long struggle.Mine is next to the TV room,should learn to sleep when the TV goes at its full decibels(not that i couldn't now).Karthik is next to me.One thing i hate about single room is that,there is no one to wake you up when its 8:20 atleast and you have class at 8:30,though this week i got up as early as 7:00 due to the initial curiousity.One resolution that i made this semester is 'not missing any 8:30 class(without skipping the breakfast)'.Algu came today morning,after his one month training at IISC.I am half way through "The Alchemist".

MPD?

2005-06-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

I saw Anniyan on saturday.Shankar have read "Tell me your dreams" and "The DaVinci Code" and has liked them too much i suppose.The picturisation of the songs are excellent.The first half moves at snail's pace,but for Vivek's presence it would have been boring.

MPD- Multiple Personality Disordered people.In the film,it goes like Anniyan and Remo knows about Ambi,but not the other way(like Tell me your dreams).But they both know what is said to Ambi.If they are different personalities that exist within the same mind,then how is that what is said to one personality is known to the other? Vikram scores in climax.The instant change of expressions were really excellent.

This one or that one

2005-06-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

Who takes more time to select a dress?Men or women?

Day before Yesterday me and my friend went to purchase a jean for him.After some 45 minutes of selection-rejection process,he still wasn't convinced.Whichever i say excellent,was not appealing to him.When the color has been selected,he asked them to show soft material in the same color.After a trip to the go-down,the salesman got one,which in one way or other matched the previous one's color and was soft.My friend still wasn't convinced.He wanted the shade to be little darker.After I said,it would be excellent for him(yes i wanted to leave the shop soon) and a lot of recommendation from the salesman,we came out.
I have had similar experience with my mother too.But then atleast I wouldn't get bored,selecting the saree alone..If I remember correctly what I read in a magazine long before, actually men takes more time than women.

(It seems the next day,my friend went to the shop again and exchanged the one he purchased previous day saying he doesn't like the boot-cut)

2005-06-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

And finally,a week after the connection(physical) had been given,
we got the phone number and yeah the internet.But a dial-up
connection is irritating after getting used to the broad-band
for over a month that too full time.Today I went to charle's
house and we talked to Aswin and Senthil(samy) over phone.
Samy is doing visual comm and went to mumbai to have some hands-on
experience it seems.I checked the college site five times(not ar once)
today,expecting results.

2005-06-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

Today me,my mom and vinoth went to our old house in gajjalnaikanpatti.I am going there after approximately i think one month.Actually we had some work in the SBI there and some work in home too.After about 1 1/2 hours ,transferring money from the fixed deposit to my mom's account and then to my account had been done.All this would have been done in any bank in city within 30 minutes...May be thats why SBI selected this branch.?? But this is the nearest SBI which is fully computerised and comes under core banking network,so we have no other choice.

The GO stating removal of TNPCEE and improvement has come and it seems there are more 300 cases filed today demanding the cancellation of the order as the government made this announcement after everything has been over peacefully and even after the students got their mark sheets.
http://visher.blogspot.com/2005/06/tnpcee-oh-my-dear-tnpcee.html says the consequences among the other things.

Just a week more.Next week by this time we will in college.

A Story

2005-06-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

kangal parthu konduthan irunthana..idayam thedi konduthan irunthathu... palla mugangal parthagivitahu..kaneudan aval...

(with her eyes seeing..her heart searching...many faces has passed by.she with her tears rolling down her eyes..)

Their son Parthiban has graduated last month.Kumarasamy would talk proudly with his collegue about him.Parthiban and Kumarasamy are like friends.Kumarasamy had a strong belief that his son,parthiban would achieve.Now he has got a job also.Meenakshi was already planning about the marriage of their daughter Selvi.Selva though not brilliant like her brother is a homely girl and has been helpful to her mother,a working woman.Has completed teacher training and waiting for a job like many others.They were not dependent on Parthiban,but they were so happy about his getting a job,like they have achieved something too great for their prayers.Meenakshi is 3 years older than parthiban.She was more like a teacher for him ,though they shared many things like friends and was too close to her.Parthiban would occasionally say about a girl called Priya to her.Priya was his classmate since first year and a very close friend.He would often share her noon meal.And when they were in third year,his father got transferred and they shifted to coimbatore,he dont have to be a hosteler anymore.But still he insisted to.Priya was very helpful while shifting and arranging the house and on her advice or order whatever it is, parthiban decided to stay in home.

Parthiban and Priya are now working in Bangalore.Parthiban has now has decided to do MBA after his four years as a successful Network Security Professional.Meenakshi keeps saying that her son looks quite like parthiban.

The first lines are supposed to be the theme of the story,I happened to see this 'partially finished' story
by someone during a college competition,....
I dont know how he would have arrived at the theme finally,do you?

Stay at Hyderabad

2005-06-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

We showed the final version of our summer project to madam.Actually we were supposed to come today at morning 9:30 but we got up late ,so weren't able to meet her.So we showed it when she came in the evening and hmmm the project is over.
This one month had been nice.We had broadband always-on net connection (9 am to 1am).
Actually this is my first stay outside tamilnadu for more than a month.Got deep into the blogging(thanks to the broadband)...Managed not to get lost without knowing the language...though i knew a little telugu(make that very little) it doesn't help better, than the little hindi i knew, luckily karthik's(my project mate) hindi was better than me.We went to quite a few places in sundays..and did a lot of 'internal sightseeing'...I think this is the last post from the cITe ,our project center we are going back home...

To be or not to be - Decision Making

2005-06-03T12:50:00.001-07:00

Decision making is an important skill.Everyone at some point of time has made/will make decisions that may change their life.Often these in these situations it required to make 'quick' decision rather a well thinked off one.

Have a look at this.

A Japanese soldier,decided to (blindly) strictly obey his higher official's order and spent more than 15 years in the forest without even knowing that the war is over. In 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda was sent by the Japanese army to the remote Philippine island of Lubang. He has to conduct guerilla war against attack and he was never informed that the war was over,so spent 20 years there feeding on coconuts and the cows of the villagers.

And this

The decision of this person has saved the entire world from a nuclear war.The extraordinary incident leading to his heroism occurred near Moscow, in the former Soviet Union, just past midnight, Sept. 26, 1983. Because of time-zone differences, it was still Sept. 25 in America, a Sunday afternoon.He choose to believe his intution and ignored the alarm indicating the lauch of nuclear attack on Russia by USA.

Deep Blog -Why I blog?

2005-06-02T02:57:00.000-07:00

My post on Why I Blog got published on http://deepblog.com/whyiblog.0.html.
yeah..

How I started blogging?

During summer Holidays, I wrote about our family tour and when I completed, I thought, well we have spent quite some time on this why not blog this so ...

Why I Blog?

Though I started of like, ok .. lets give a try, now I find it to be a way to express myself. I have read many blogs and read some of them regularly..

Education

2005-06-01T04:29:00.000-07:00

In Tamilnadu,With the TNPCEE entrance results and the HSE public results out,this is difficult time for many and merry time for some of the students.The most 'hot' are engineering and medicine.Here's a report on the number of seats in each branch(its one year old) in TN.

http://prayatna.typepad.com/education/datastatistics/index.html

(This is an expansion of the report by Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2004/06/27/stories/2004062706030400.htm .)

It is expected that the engineering cut-off would go down.Here's a report by Hindu on it.

The information regarding 'the last cut-off' alloted (for the year 2004) is available at
http://www.annauniv.edu/tnea2005/lastrank.html
How it be if we were able to access the entire database of admission last year?
Also, is the information about all the 'Anna University Affiliated colleges',their rank(or Grade whatever..),location,performance,placement records or atleast the location and number of seats branchwise alone is available online ? At a single point,in some searchable format ?
May be Anna University will provide such information on its website soon..

I came across a blog that hosts information about the educational oppurtunities in India.Hope it would be useful if you still dont know what to do.

http://prayatna.typepad.com/courses/

Destination for Self Discovery

2005-05-31T10:06:00.000-07:00

I always have a interest in spirituality , 'The Real you',the meaning of life and things like that,though i haven't done anything beyond reading a few articles about them.Yesterday i happened to check the site http://web.tickle.com/ .
It claims to be the #1 Destination for Self Discovery. I Decided to experiment and took a few tests.
Some of the tests are really interesting and creative , like the InkBlotTest,Your sub consious self,Career Interest Inventory and some more.And it says i am a visual mathematician(thanks dude),I am most afraid of Moving Forward(I dont think so),Career Interest is Engineering(yeahh)... personality is Politician (what??? 'NO' )..and i my subconsious self likes peace... OM Shanti..

Well Who cares for the results..?

The Search For Beauty

2005-05-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

Read the blog by a final year compsci...Whether it works r not ..that comes after..

Arranged Marriage-The Search For Beauty..

FAQ in Chat..

2005-05-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Questions that people ask generally in the so called PM's or IM's

What are you doing?
Are you alone?
What is you favourite time pass?
What do you like?
Have you seen the film _______?
How is the weather there?
How long u will be up?
Howz the day?
Howz life?
say something..
what do u think of me?
what have you been doing?
u?
what u mean by that?
Is it?
When shall we meet again?

2005-05-26T02:20:00.000-07:00

We are on our summer project..Have almost completed it i think..We had to learn openGL and VC++ ..Somehow we managed to..
Last week we went to IMAX..wow its fantastic ..Centralised a.c the crowd there...rock climbing..scary house..its nice..
Saw a site thedailypick.blogspot.com Its worth visiting..run by a teacher and a amateur photographer as it claims has interesting stuff on it..

Hyderabad Times

2005-05-14T00:36:00.000-07:00

We are in hyderabad now.Reached here at off-office hours,so weren't able
to meet our project head today(friday,this post is supposed to be on that day,but wasn't able to..).Saturday again saw some demo of the old project and we are free for 1.5 days..
We Deceided to rome around tommorow..

The college(IIIT Hyd) is nice.The Environment,greenery(?),and the other things.. are all nice,and the mess is a common one(yes for boys and girls),i think this is not leading to anywhere so see you later with some more stuff

2005-05-03T00:57:00.000-07:00

Ohh the semester exams got over finally.These exams brings a lot of change in
most of the people.For instance some become unusually spiritual,some thinks having
lunch is a waste of time, and many other kind of unusual changes take place usually...
This time the exams dragged on a little long(wont you say 20 days so)..
Everyone is back to game now.Its holiday time..Me and my friend Karthik(superman)
are going to hyderabad for semester project,,guess it will be great fun and interesting.
Two more from our class, Mithu and Monica are expected to come..

Superman(kb) has won

2005-03-15T22:04:00.000-08:00

Yes,our superman has won the game.
The show was nice and different from the others,
the short scenes added advantage to the continuity...
We came second in the moviespoof.
Overall we came second with ece before us.
competition is competition...

Previous blog on this thread

http://blogviki.blogspot.com/2005/03/my-roommate-is-superman.html

A Tour of Vishak-Arraku Valley

2005-03-11T03:52:00.000-08:00

THE ARRAKU VALLEY

The arraku valley is a lovely hill station located nearby Vizhak.We can go there by train or by bus.Better if we chose one for the onward journey and the other for return trip.The only train is the 'Kirundal Express', that goes to the state chattisgarh,the rail route is almost completely on the hill range.
We go through several pitch black tunnels.The view of the valley below,the water streams here and there,and the rail route itself with the tunnels will look exotic for one from busy city life.
The highest railway station in India 'Shimiliguda station' is in this route.
The rail route is laid with collaboration of Japanese government in the year 1962.Of course it's a tough task.I spent the entire journey enjoying the natural beauty from the door.Once you reach the Shimiliguda station,the ground is not steep here,it's almost level ground.You can't see the land(I mean the sea level)from there.
Calm surrounding, comforting atmosphere ,evergreen landmarks this is the arraku valley.The temperature is as low as 8 degree Celsius in winter and as high as 36 degrees in summer.But well,the temperature soars down at night.
There are a few resorts with the view of the valley.It's relaxing to stay there and have a walk in the woods in the evening. Some places to visit are,

Padmavati gardens .
Tribal museum.
Tribal dance in the hotel.
Anantagiri coffee plantations.
Borra caves.
Chaparai.(perrenial water flow).
Tyda Jungle Bell. Padmavati Gardens

This is a small botanical garden in Arakku valley.This has the 'leech' plant has special thing(these trees grow in north alone)It has rose gardens also.This is a good place to have a leisurely evening walk.There is a small shop selling locally made handicrafts,candles and some more products prepared in the valley.Nothing more to say about this botanical garden,I am no naturalist. Tribal Museum
This museum reflects the life style of the various tribes living around in the valley. There are their houses, musical instruments, hunting instruments, dresses and ornaments, translations of tribal songs sung during various occasions. But this is rather a small museum.
As a part of this tour package they show you tribal Bhimsa dance.Women dressed in sarees of different colours in a rather different style .Their dance is different obviously and towards the end the audience also joined them and had fun.
Chapparai is a natural water slider you enjoy some time there.This place is about 15kms from the central.
Our next place will be 'The Borra Caves'.The journey takes about one hour from the Tourism Valley Resort.They show You the 'Anantagiri coffee plantations' on the way.(You don't get down there).Then you stop for in the highest spot of Arakku valley(Where you can reach by road).

A Tour of Vishak-VUDA Park,Submarine Museum

2005-03-11T03:50:00.000-08:00

VUDA PARK or MGM

This is a park developed by the VUDA(Vishakapattinam urban development authority).This one is like all usual amusement parks with rides,junk food and all those stuffs. We or at least I had a good time hear.I wanted to try almost every ride although missed some due to the time factor.There are some water rides also.There's not much to say about this park.That's all.

Submarine Museum

This is not a museum first of all.It is a old submarine put out of use and made a public attraction.The entrance ticket is Twenty five Rupees,they take You through the different sections of the submarine explaining their functions. (We did not go here.)
This is the last one in our Vizhak city tour .We are on our way back to the AP tourism office.We saw VITEC city(like TIDAL park in Chennai,a software complex)
The places we saw here are all within 7kms from the railway station and can be seen within a day although it would be nice to have one more to spare for The beaches and shopping.(There is a big shopping complex - 'CMR' ).AP tourism is good,but you can also visit all these places by city bus(except errada beach).
Vizhak is city with so many places within a few kilometers.But you can't say the city is neat,the temperature is quite high and you sweat a lot due the humidity factor.Don't miss the 'Avaka pickle' try typical Andra meals. They use a lot of red chilli powder The Tourism development corporation has done a good job.It seems the importance given to tourism raised considerably during TDP's regime .

A Tour of Vishak-Errada Beach.

2005-03-11T03:49:00.000-08:00

Errada Beach.
The errada beach again is at the outskirts of the city.There are many important places to know about on the way to errada beach from Shimachalam.We go through the National highway 5 (for a little while).
The Indian Ship yard,the eastern navy base,command headquarters,a Coromondal fertilizers,HPCL,navy quarters everything is on the way. This place is full of navy quarters almost entirely cut out from the Vishak city.It has schools,parks,markets everything.The quarters extend upto the top of the Errada hill. The way is narrow and steep. .They have a separated road,a better one for the navy use.There we have the light house.It can be seen upto 65 kilometers and is closed for public.We first climb up the hill from there we get down to the other side of the hill, there Errada village is there. The place is nice with a spread of palm trees allover.From the top of the hill we can see the ship building place,Ships near the port,the HPCL(Hindustan Petroleum).It's a nice view.
The beach is owned by AGRI-GOLD.It's is situated at the back of the dolphin's nose hill(The hill has an appearance of a Dolphin's nose).'Enjoy the thrill' the banner says.The entrance ticket for the beach is Rs.10(yes you have to get).The beach is quite small with rocks at one end and the other side the errada hill.The view of the sea water splashing on the rocks is nice.