Happy New Year!

Let me start this blog and the year with my status message on IM

History will remember 2009 as the year of slowdown... but lets forget it while we are marching into 2010... Happy New Year

I just closed the 67 open browsers in firefox, safari, and sea monkey and quit all of them before I opened this window to pen down this post.

The 30 minutes rain drive back home locked me at home for the remaining part of the day (not that I had plans otherwise). So decided to take a step back and plan on how I will welcome the New Year now that partying is ruled out.

Not a difficult task at all, looking at my room that was like the Xerox store - full of papers and the white marble floor self decorated with the dust that got accumulated for ages.
Definitely I needed to clear this mess before I plan of my welcome to the New Year.
But before that there are other things that I had to address in the list of my personal mess, like my hair (that falls more than it grows), that needed a haircut for more than a ... (don’t even remember for how long) and by the time I am done with these basic un- screwing up, I realized there is a little time left to plan or execute anything.

But then, when the clock stuck 12 and 2009 mentally departed from my mind I needed no more thinking or planning about this welcome party! I am not partying, not even watching TV exclusive New Year realty shows (that sucks anyways). But I liked this, conscious effort to clear the mess of the past and welcoming the future with a clean board to write upon. Closing these 67 tabs was one such effort.

And that in itself filled me with energy that was long concealed in the pretest of busy life!

For those of you, for whom occasions like New Year are just another day, try this – just try to complete something(s) that is (are) long pending and just wait for it to come. You are sure to make it a special day!

Stay tuned… a lot is to come into this space in 2010

Happy New Year!

eNjoy,

Morus

P.S: Just got myself a pen name – Morus (not sure how long it’ll stay though)

Only they didn’t

I am up to a lot of things these days, and to be frank all of them are quite urgent to handle and very important for me.
I would have been surprised if I managed all of them… even decently sound. But the present circumstance, I definitely am not surprising myself. Well… partly because I’ve been bought into the fact that I cannot handle all of them effectively.

One of them is my Guitar. This is my second attempt to learn Guitar, and I believe that I am far better this time than my first attempt. But that’s where I stopped. Not able to go any further I’ve stopped going to classes for almost a month. That is the equal amount of time that I have actually gone to the classes. One of my reasons was that I would get time to practice my entire backlog if I had time to practice. I am proving myself wrong till now.

Hmmm, this is not one of those confession stuffs. I am not even complaining, but this is what came to my mind when I read this today:
“The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in mind. Folks seem to have just landed in them. But I expect they had lot of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those that just went on” Sam Gamgee chatting with his master Frodo in The Lord Of The Rings. If a good sentence can change a life, I don’t need anything more inspiring than this.

How much of wisdom can these old tales give you? But only, if you care to open your ears and listen. Not everything is relevant to what I am. I definitely am not one of those who want to go out and try adventures. But surely all the people/characters in the famous stories are remembered because they didn’t turn back at lot of chances that would have come to them. And here we live as their legacy. And for those who did, they just never mattered… like many others.
Well… I don’t know what I really would do this time, but here I have a chance to turn back (as always).

Allz for good

A trip to my native was not a very rosy one this time. This post is certainly not to bother you with them, as those grievances are my private treasure. Weird ways to encourage children do dads’ possess- one such was the archaic tales that they tell us. This one particularly looked too simple to be interesting, but made a lot of sense when I think about it later.

Long ago when the world was relaxed, was a king who ruled not so prominent province. He has a minister whom he is very close to, and took his counsel for almost everything he does. Very encouraging he was to the king, and helped him keep his calm in the times of need. One sentence he used to advice too often that it almost became gibberish in that kingdom “allz for good”. Whenever the king was discontented with anything, the minster would tell this to console and encourage his king.

Like any other royal blood of his time, the king liked hunting a lot. He used to go on hunting very frequently. And he used to fancy the rare animals that fell for his arrow. The horns of the antlered deer that hung in his room were his souvenir of pride. In one of those hunting outings, he was upset that he could not fell any wild animal. The very few that he spotted also managed to escape successfully. Thanks to all the professional hunters, the animals in that forest either perished and the survived fittest are now too tactful for king's hunt. Suddenly the king gave a sudden shrill of agony. Blood was all on his chariot by the time he realized that an arrow stuck to his thumb, and removed it. Probably some hunter shot at him, attracted by the sound he made, or it could be one of his foes, no one ever knows.
The king rushed to his palace, where the imperial docs treated the hand and his pain. But the thumb has to be removed. The king was very upset that he can no longer hunt, and that in it qualifies the loss of thumb as the greatest disability. He was very much wretched, when he was telling his minster of the disaster.

The minister felt pity of the king, and advised him all the political stuff like asking the king to ban the professional hunters from entering the forest for a while. And about his hunting, he said, “don’t worry! Allz for good.” The king was expecting some exceptional advice from him, but he is very upset for his advice not just seemed useless, but also looked like ridicule. His frustration reached another highs, and shouted on his minister. He fired him and abandoned him from entering the kingdom for life. Insulting king and proving worthless in the hour of need is the greatest mistake for a minister, told the king to rest of his counsel.

His short province was seeing its king’s gloominess, and the minister's little sentence became a story rather than an advice in the empire. After a few years that looked like a lot more, the king went out wandering into the same forests just to revisit his golden days. The local cult there kidnapped the king and took him to their leader. They were performing some ritual as it appeared to the king. Few people are setting the fire, and he felt that it was made to burn him. May be this is a cannibal tribe thought the king. He being a king would not matter, as the tribe seems to be unaware of any king or kingdom. All his warnings, pleas proved in vain as they didn’t know his language. His death seemed inevitable, and even a king could not help himself. The priests started performing rituals on the king. Suddenly the priest stopped the ritual, took kings hand and spoke in a harsh voice to his men and the leader. And then astoundingly the king is left free.

Shocked at the unknown miracle that saved his life, he retuned to his palace. He summoned the scholars and asked them to enquire about the tribe and what happened to him that night. He then learnt that they were performing one of their sacred rituals and had to give a human sacrifice. But since the king lacked a finger, he was not eligible for the sacrifice, and hence they left him free. He immediately remembered his minister and his “allz for good” advice. Had he not lost his finger, he would have been dead – sacrificed to god. His repentance has no limits, and he could not have peace of mind till he met the minister and apologized.

Well a very short moral from this long story. The good advices can sometimes be boring. & . it doesn’t harm being optimistic. If you felt this post is too simple to be interesting, think about it later, you may find it make some real sense.

TeNseD

A small vacation should refresh me, as I would not be thinking of the office work for sometime was my excuse to go to my grand parents place last week. In more than one ways, taking a small vacation like that is a good thing- that I would love to write as a separate post (and hopefully, will do that too). BUT back to work after the vacation is in-fact horrible. I had to deal with the two repelling like poles. Coolness (the marketing term for laziness) that I had acquired during the vacation was setting me on back-foot, while the heavy swell in office work which was waiting for me like the tide in the 'Airtel impatience add' that levitated and would fall on me once the buffering is done. I wonder if I feel any better than the rope that is being used for the tug of war between two sumo wrestlers’ groups.

Amid all this, Wednesday was the day when the work dump won over the coolness, and my workstation got me as the prize of its victory. A phone call got me back to my senses and I looked at the top right corner of my Mac where the clock showed 11 PM, feeling the shrill that there is a lot of stuff pending while my energy reserves would be over soon. The dogs that would guard our colony for free; would be waiting to show the new Joinees how to bark at the people (strangers or not is immaterial), if I reach our lane escaping the rash traffic of the outer ring road. But the workbench is grinning at me flashing the 17 bold items on my to-do list and the 10 odd un-replied mails. The dinner that I missed would have been the last of my concerns if my stomach did not complain. But with a slight pain, it is warning me that it can go on a strike if I neglect it.
Replying to the urgent mails in the most important list, and wrapping the other things, I set to home and feeling bad about the unfinished work, and feeling good about breaking the inertia with respect to the office work, while 3 other colleagues of mine are still in The Matrix waiting for their phone call.

The security guy Khan who would always give me a good night smile is looking tensed too. Then I started wondering if I saw one face that wasn’t tensed from the morning. He was tensed that he forgot to do something, he was telling me about that as if the world is goanna end tomorrow. He forgot to get the evening newspaper and put it on table. With just 3 people left in office, those too waiting eagerly to call their day off, no one would even think of the evening paper. The thought of someone getting restless about things that wouldn’t matter brought a smile on my face. As I am sure that I also contribute my part to this pool like panicking when India is loosing a cricket match, or feeling embarrassed that others on road are watching me paying fine for breaking the signal. None of them would make any difference to what I am and what I do. But… that is how I am ☺. The only solace is, I am not the only one, and I have the world of people in my company.

Qualified Blogger ?

Answer any 3 of the following:

How do you add an image to the blog post?
How do you retweet your friend's tweet?
What is the wikipedia site in france named as?
What steps can you take to prevent spam commenting on your blog?


This can be one of the sections in the 5th Grade Examination paper soon.
Be prepared to teach your children about the social media, and for partime bloggers like me, watchout for a graduated batch of Bloggers who may come out some premium institutions soon.. to compete/subside us.

Okay, this may be a bit of exagitation, but the news has it that online communication and social media to be made a permanent part of the UK’s education system.

Experts from the article:

No, it is not April 1st yet. The British government is proposing that Twitter is to be taught in primary (elementary) schools as part of a wider push to make online communication and social media a permanent part of the UK’s education system. And that’s not all. Kids will be taught blogging, podcasting and how to use Wikipedia alongside Maths, English and Science.

Children will also learn “fluency” in handwriting and keyboard skills, and how to use a spellchecker. Luckily they will still be taught how to spell themselves, rather than rely on Mr Clippy.

Personally, i felt it a little funny.... But you know... the Britan way, everything has to be tought from a book... Who knows, we may soon follow that.. But one thing i wish i had in school was SPELL CHECKER. My teachers used to have a competetion in finding the maximum spelling mistakes in my paper. Every time each one of them would feel that they have definitely won after correcting my paper, as that would be the maximum spell mistakes in the history so far.
When i search google for SoAnadSo and it asks me do yo mean SoAndSo?, I used to wonder "How do u know that.. Are you Mr Brahmaiah (my english teacher in college)",

I wonder how my life would be without a spell checker.... Horibal (i mean.. a misspelt horrible)

Hope the next gen kids will not face any problems with spellings like me, if spell checker is made a part of the education system.

P.S: I am writing this post without a spell chekar, and leave the competetion of finding mistakes to you.

Accelarators: Welcome to Internet Explorer 8

Welcome to Internet Explorer 8: "Before you begin browsing, take a few seconds to discover two of our new time-saving features.
What's New
Get things done faster with Accelerators

Start searching, mapping, emailing, and translating from the page you're already on without navigating to other websites.
Watch a video to learn how to use Accelerators."

All that it took for me to post this blog, is a right-click on my internet explorer, and use the "Accelerator" to post it on to my blogger.
I am not a big fan of microsoft, but i liked this feature.. A very good use of the web services.

But could have been better, if it could copy the image I selected to the blogger.
Considering it is microsoft, you can't ask for more.

Waah !! even blogger !!! I cant add label to this post from the blogger webservice that IE opens up

Awesome Students

Refer to the ‘Wattha Hell Series: The introduction’


Long time since i've found something for my wattha hell series..
Not that I am finding the world perfect, its just that I am bored of these "how much is too much?" news... Pols, terrorism etc

My Yahoo mail today has a surprise mail

The mail is from some one who apparently wanted some help on the project that i have presented a paper on, some 3 years back in "Map India" conference.

Considering the fact that he wanted help on some project he has seen on internet, this mail of his definitely qualifies for the wattha hell series..
No more commentary on the mail, read it for yourself..



Now I am definitely not thinking about sending my project report to him, but thinking whether this Manglorean can sue me if I dont reply politely.

Back Then

On an otherwise boring weekend, setting up mail client for my gmail account on my Mac gave me something to think about. For some time I was irritated that the client is downloading mails from the time the account is born, which was in 2006. Those are the days when gmail was introduced and brought ‘.’ Into the legal mail id characters. I was too excited to see this and hence created an ID with as many of them as possible making m.s.a.sandeep my gmail account.

While the client is downloading the mails of its account’s sunup, I’ve been transported to the 2006 days, digesting with difficulty the fact that its been 3 years since my psenti sem (In BITS Pilani, we call the final semester as psenti sem). Those were days when a forward mail from friend with ‘Sardar Ji jokes’ makes me laugh full out. Not only would I forward that mail to all my wingees, but also go to each one of them to make sure that they get the joke. They surely used to laugh, if not at the joke, at my desperate attempt to make them laugh.

Those were days when the world (rather my world) was a lot younger. The gift that he would buy to his friend for their friendship anniversary was the top concern for one of my friends, not the financial concerns and the family responsibilities that he is now deep into. Meeting professor for project after an era of idle life used to be trouble of the time, not the present project deadlines and the job security, for the other. Those were also the days when a gate-call from or to girls’ hostel used to be an achievement, .01 raise is CGPA used to be a celebration. The biggest disappointment was when India looses the world cup (2003 world cup), not when share market collapses. In short, life was quite simple and lively (or livelier, if that word is not a myth).

And then there was this vast invisible world. When I repeated a course, or shed blood to see my friend as our assoc secretary, there was no reason. I used to like this picture a lot, for some reason that I am unaware of. For me this is the picture of a train that is traveling on high skies whose tracks are invisible. May be this is the picture that is close to my feelings when I was following my instincts, and not the morass. The ‘invisible rails’ in the picture is my invisible world, which I used to believe in.



Now I know too much to believe in all those. The invisible world is now a stroke of luck, or a coincidence. Now I know that I’ve to be concerned about my investment returns, but not calling home when promised. I know that forward mails are funny, not fun… and a lot more.

For sure, “Ignorance Is Bliss”