This is not how it was meant to be..

Day by day, I seem to be losing touch with myself. For one thing, just like the old man on the back of Sindbad, like Vetal on the back of Vikram, Murphy's law seems to be riding on my back. And not just the things that go wrong in a spectacular way (though there is no dearth of them), I mean the subtle happenings, things taking unexpected (and unwanted) turns, one after another. My ability to concentrate has taken a nosedive, as has my patience. The reason there is nothing on my blog is, well, I am doing nothing. Forever running, forever playing catch up. This is not how it was meant to be.

Time to roll up my sleeves and break out, I guess.

My Crazy Friday

It starts with something simple. I try to background a shell script. Apparently it can't bear this small span of inattention, so decides to commit suicide. My intervention is too late to be of any use, need to restart the whole (long running) process again. I try to do it, at which point I discover that my test hardware has corrupted itself, so I need to fix it first, at which point I discover that my Desktop has crashed too, and I need to restart it first, so I press the reboot button, but my Desktop is in no mood to boot and is now showing me an error message with zero information content. Murphy Maharaj ki jai ho.. (I am now blabbering about 'Rationality' and want to build my own MONTE (reference: TBBT S02E12 ;-)). [It does not help that all this is happening after I have had more than my fair share of Hyderabadi Biryani at CPK],

Some time later..
With some help, I am able to sort all the problems out, one by one. Thank You Guys. As I still have some time, I decide to do cleanup of my machine (I keep receiving (well deserved) banter for it). Unread papers, long forgotten software, documents that won't see the light of day again, stuff from old projects, home directories of friends who've moved on, everything has a meaning. But can't keep it all. Some of it (and with it, a part of me, inevitably) must go. On the brighter side, I now have more to offer to the new stuff.

Some time later..
The clock says 00:02. I can't believe it. So I confirm. Saturday has indeed begun. Maybe I should leave. And with that thought I realize that I don't have my bike today. Now I enjoy long, night walks taken alone, so I decide to make the journey on foot. I notice a surprising number of people talking on phones. One bike, there autos and two cars try to run me over. Many thoughts cloud up my mind. I remind myself to reread Pula's 'Raste' after reaching home. And I keep walking..

Chasing Ghosts

I was a huge fan of the cartoon show Ghostbusters as a kid. Especially Egon was my hero. Between you and me, I can tell you that I wanted to be one. But that was ages ago.

Fast forward to the present. I am investigating a bug. First, it appeared out of nowhere. Second, it appeared at the most inconvenient time, I am very close to a deadline. Third, its behavior is very inconsistent. It worked something like first thousand times, then it just stopped. Fourth, I can not come up with a rational explanation for what it is. In other words, I have no clue. Fifth, the procedure to reproduce it is lengthy and painful. I come up with one theory or another, and one by one my assumptions shatter. Here I am, stuck in the metaphorical tar pit with no idea.

I had never imagined the software profession helping me realize my childhood dream of chasing ghosts.

P.S.
The stuff above was written a while ago. The good thing is, we solved the bug. To be more precise (and a little bit honest), Manish solved the bug, while I watched on. It was the most vivid example a schroedinbug I have ever seen. May I add it was a good learning experience (I certainly hope such learning experiences to be rarer though ;-).

Enjoy!!

18th Job

Interesting stuff..
(Especially the Job descriptions).

Back on Twitter

When I first heard about Twitter, I was not sure I'll ever use it. I wondered how anybody can be interested in knowing if somebody is 'Drinking Coffee with his ACM Turing mug' or 'Listening to Pushes me away' (Things between the quotes seen on real Twitter site).

A few days later I received a mail saying, so and so wants to follow you on Twitter. Now with a plethora of online accounts which were already unmanageable, how bad one more could be? Opened an account. Added a few people too. Having achieved this much, I quickly forgot everything about it. Even that I had an account.

After a period of a few months, received another mail saying so and so wants to follow you on Twitter. And I thought, with a plethora of online accounts which are already unmanageable, how bad one more can be? So went ahead and opened a new account. Had to opt for a crazy username (surprise, surprise!!) coz I could not get my regular one ;-). Started adding people. I truth dawned upon me only when I discovered a user with my name already following someone I was presently adding to my list. Bwahahaha!!!

I will skip over the cleanup activities, like choosing which account to delete. So what's my point? There are two actually. One, I am on Twitter presently. Second, I can generalize this a little. I keep forgetting, forgetting dates, forgetting to call and so on. My current solution is making notes (this is intentionally old fashioned) on the back of my old cards with a pencil [My phone has a TODO list feature, but I somehow like this way better]. Now just need to keep that in mind :-).

Enjoy!!

What an Idea..

The Crackpot Index.

My New Year Party

New Year Parties are supposed to happen in a particular time frame. Going by that definition, I did not have a New Year Party. But hey, we had a wonderful party yesterday and I believe it's still new year. That gives me enough reason to call it My New Year Party (and write a post about it).

The occasion was Prasad Musale aka Musa's Pune visit. L&T had locked up the poor fella in Philippines for over a year. Now after a stay that long, I don't think he's poor any longer ;-). But that's enough reason for a little get together. DJ's Ford Ikon was the first pleasant surprise. The deal he got was simply Superb. [Side note: Bikes were quickly abandoned at this point in time :)]. Another pleasant surprise was the presence of some not-so-regular faces, was meeting them after a gap of two and a half years. It felt wonderful. From our regular group, Galli, Dhaval, Panku and Tapan were present. Missing were Chine (MBA), Sunil (B'lore), Raja (Onsite), Sharma and Anna. After having our lunch at Garden Court (believe me, it's not the same place in daytime), we just wandered on the empty streets. Perfect ambiance for sharing our ups and downs. Even stories that have been told and heard literally hundreds of times didn't fail to delight. (Just for the record, heard an extremely depressing news too, but I'll leave it at that). Ended our little get together with ice creams at a hotel near Kothrud depot, whose name I do not recall. Bigger plans are in the making though, Konkan or DJ's village. Let's see how that pans out (I hope it does).

Enjoy!!

A Note

You know you are spending too much time in office when you try to open your apartment door with your access card.

Yet another remake

It seems I am watching too many remakes these days. After Ghajini, it's The day the Earth stood still today. First, Thanks to the unknown soul who put it where I can find it ;-). Thanks Buddy. A comparison to the original is inevitable. To be honest, it's not as great as the original one. The original had a strong message and focused on it, here the storyline feels a bit weaker. But this one has got special effects and all (one of the advantages of living in the Information Age), which means you might enjoy it even if you are too tired for the message. Overall I enjoyed it. And here's a personal note, I was not in that great a mood when I started watching it, if not for the movie, you might have been reading a post spilling my frustration [I am assuming this is not one of those], a type I am not particularly fond of. I mean, everybody's got enough problems of his/her own. It feels good that I stumbled upon the movie, which took the frustration away.

So go ahead, give it a try. You never know what you'll find.

Enjoy!!

Ice Cream 101

I recently discovered that I don't know why 'Sundae' is called 'Sundae'. Here's the result of my googling, The history of Ice Cream. [Note for the impatient: 'Sundae' is covered on page 4].
You might also wanna browse this.

Enjoy!!