Re-configure

I've moved..

2006-01-11T10:02:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the inconvenience.

No more slouching

2005-10-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Got myself one of those chairs with back support; No more back aches.

Having said that color vision test are done usually using patterns made of minor color variation in disks of spots I approached google to make sure.

And I got this shit. Try it if you dont mind being scared with those scary/faces that pop up in those find the 3 difference kinda scary stuff. It checks for color vision but it does check a bit more of some thing else
in the last plate.

Trying to shake it off. I guess too much blood in those gory/scary faces that appear in that is the thing that scares me. There are some which just look like mutated beings; I am kinda used to them from the games. But blood, nope.

Rain.

2005-10-25T10:21:00.000-07:00

I almost got stuck at office today. Non stop rain all day. Out of office at 6:00 but the road goes down into water both ways. Got my bike half deep in water. Pulled over before the engine's gurgling becomes silence. Took a left turn to get out of the mess. Got out of the mess and around 1.5 hours later got home. Found some greenery on the silencer and foot rest from the 'pulling over 'that I did.

Rains are scary. Check this out:

Mouth Shut

2005-10-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

Under the influence of ESR's statement about shutting up if one does not have anything to say. Can't dare to look at a couple of blogs down.

Got my hcoop account. Yay !

Randi's challnge

2005-10-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

Its been a week since I checked my yahoo mail. Prasad had mailed me on ideas of putting in someone to prove that homeopathy is indeed a practice medicin.. er.. um.. (I feel like the hobbits when Bilbo said "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."). Anyways here is his mail:

We all know that the government of India is patronizing alternative systems of medicne like homeopathy. But do you know that if one could scientifically prove the efficacy of a homeopathic drug he could win Rupees 44 crores (One Million US Dollar). The Million Dollar Challenge by JREF includes homeopathy as paranormal. If you know any person who you think could prove that homeopathy is indeed a system of medicne please inform him about this challenge. Even if he is not interested in crores of rupees it will atleast keep the anti-homeopaths mouth shut. I've tried in consulting a few 'well known' homeopaths at our area, but they said they had no time to spare for the test :)) They all say that hundreds of people consult us daily and it is the proof that the system works!!!

For details about the challenge visit http://randi.org/research/index.html

The Challenge started in 1964. Though there were thousands of applicants none of them could succeed even the priliminary test.

One Mr. Vanshi from India is into the fray now. The JREF would accept a protocol that simply demonstrated that Mr. Vanshi can tell the difference between a homeopathic solution and a non-Homeopathic solution. If he can do this, he would be the first person EVER to pass the JREF Paranormal Challenge preliminary test.

Regards
Prasad

I did not really get the claim that JREF has in its logs. But I almost figure out that its enough to prove that a solution is homepathic (WTF?). I think I lost it (the actual claim involved here).

Raju ? He appears in my head again.

Scrupulosity

2005-10-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

This has gotten things going.

Robot's Soapbox and Railway scare.

2005-10-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Just read the entry on 'when to leave the job' (mirrored here) by Cristopher wilson. Been there done that ? A handful of my ex-colleagues would agree. I guess the cubicle part needs to be scaled down a bit here (in India) considering the idea behind the usual software-coolie jobs here.

Finally this is in the news. It sure gave me lot of un-comfortable minutes (well actually more than that). I am really bad with the 'gray*' part of life. I guess I've gotta learn it. Gray as opposed to black and white and not gray hair part of life. In malayalam 'Vett onnu thundam randu alla karyangal' a.k.a things don't necessarily follow logic a.k.a one would be required to drop ones philosophy for survival.

I can (Almost) hear Raju telling me that its again the extent yourself you are willing to compromise for the philosphy you live for ('live' for). When one lives for more than one thing things are complicated.

I suggest you not think of asking me what my philosphy is. I think you might not like the
answer. Perhaps you want to know about it more now. Actually I dont have the head to have
any firm philosophical (blogger: oxy[moron] detected) standing ground. But then is that not
an indication that eye (well, *ahem* really wanted to avoid using... you know... the .... letter before J) can really think.

Just skimmed and found like 8 lines with 'I' in them, high time I (*bummer*) got married, eh ?

So what do chr(0x49) do about the whole 'mugging-software-eng^H^H^Hcoolie' thingamajig aroudn in bangalore ? Perhaps I should stop using cell-phones, atm cards, stop carrying money.
Just thought of finger print thingy for everything... Goodnes. The muggers would then be after
your fingers ! Finger print ID ? No thanks. You must be thinking I am a scared cat. chr(0x49) think chr(0x49) am.

You must be thinking chr(0x49) must be doing something better than thinking about what you must be thinking. chr(0x49) think you are right. Bye.

Foo Bar

2005-10-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

Did not have any subject, so, guess what, fu-bar.

Had one of my colleages 'comment-in-person' about the description of the blog. He opines that 'being afraid of change' is a bad thing to say about myself in the context of applying for any position in the current /watchamaycallit/ industry. Frankly I've been afraid of frankly talking but then its classically/by birth something to be afraid of. Quite frankly again, I have seen things work for me when I am truthful than when I try to twist things. I guess I am sticking with it. This reminds me of getting caught the first day I skipped my homework in primary school.

I got a gift from Anil - an OCC t-shirt. [I think its mine. any ways its nice and there is no turning back]. Also met Raju (and had one of those sessions - a small one though, I kinda relish it - It puts my head in trace mode ? debug mode or something) and of-course Pavinsh Joseph who is in charge of the situation of the old application (I was working in) at IBM.

Whatever.
[FYI, that 'whatever' wasn't really one of those 'whatever's that you hear while people ease themselves off the burden of thought/guilt/whatever. I mean its quite heavy].

Trackers.. more nostalgia

2005-09-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday one of my emacs friends at work tried to introduce me to the .s3m file (Scream Tracker module). I dont know what I felt (coziness, warmth, envy... kinda wierd). I remember using those trackers to make an X-Files .s3m (unsuccessfully, coz it needs more than the software to make music you see) I had tried out most of the tracker programs (Impulse, Fast tracker/XM, Protracker, even the linux program sound-tracker which kinda creates most of the tracker mods). These files are a cross between midi and pcm files in that they have musical notes in them and pcm samples corresponding to instruments. The player streches and shrinks the samples depending on the note.

I remember Thomas K. John (one of my college mates and a good hand at the keyboard) telling me that just one sample is not enough for wave table synthesis. He also explained that for every fourth note you need a fresh sample otherwise the music would start becoming unrealistic (wonder why). Any ways I had a certain pride in kinda having known about the olden days cool thing. Most games used it for game music. There are songs with claps, cries (in general many things being said/sung) as samples and notes referring to them. I had once come across a small executable (dos) which plays a tracker module wired into it over the PC speaker (using the speaker old inertia trick).

Talking of old time music, if you are an old PC person check out Old School (for some nostalgic moments). Was just going throug these pages. I am not a true old PC guy but I've seen a couple of
games and programs from that era (thanks to PC quest magazine) and have written a few programs in GW-BASIC as well ;) Some times you wish to say a lot (the way I felt when JP introduced s3m to me) and just cant say a word or just start blabberring about all the stuff (with your brain pushing too much out of your mouth).

[Screeeeeeeeeeeeech]

Phew.. I broke the chain of thought. It rained heavily this morning and my pants were all wet.

The second half of the power post/tower

2005-09-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

The second half of the power post is done. a.k.a a beautiful daytime worth of doing stuff on squarehead blown. I had mentioned the first half in an early July post. Had gotten drenched on that day and the freak cold still gives me headache (read sinusitis).

Just the same thing happened : I wake up looking at a stopping ceiling fan. I spent the day reading the 5-point-someone. It was nice to read about engineering college life and all. I sense that he has a bit of Douglas Adams (H2G2) style (the line "... the rodent had other ideas on his own demise .."). I am not able to describe it (I am sure a couple of my friends can). Guess its mostly like using a similie or metaphor based on something that is like orthogonal (a.k.a average-of(exculsive, un-related, complementary, perpendicular)) to the thing you are writing about (Gee.. correct me) and yet have a similar number of dimensions and have same set of functions (yeah.. I am feeling outrageously analytic).

I think I've wandered off in the analysis.. I'll try to understand and put the thing on paper/page (I envy Raju for his skills on this one) (later). Wonder why I get tired easily these days (the sinusitis is getting the better of me). Back to steaming (and regular this time). This reminds me about getting a better chair for working/playing on my machine. The one I use now is a dining chair (rest is obvious).

Goodness - Look at my train of thoughts: Analysis -> Stopping it -> Tired -> Chair -> Comfort -> Going out for dinner -> Cooking -> Gas connection -> fuel shortage - [Stop evaluation]. I guess I am the laziest person in my circles (Mom is right).

MAGiC

2005-09-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

It becomes clearer on why one feels throttled using windows. Today I was after some programming that involved using dynamic linking in set-top-box. Its more like trying to make a (messy, by external standards) program have one of its components dynamically linked. I am comfortable with the code I can see but not the one I cannot. Chasing the flow I find there is nothing apparently visible in two consecutive statements that could probably cause a memory protection fault. The scare I get from imagining the probable situation where the underlying layer ([Not so] opentv) might be guilty is pretty ugly. What I am trying to say is this : Open systems - breathe easy.. I don't like magic in computer software (and believing that its magical - though it appears that way often).

New interest in a peculiar kind of painting by Tim and Greg brothers. Found it in a WindowMaker theme called StormWatch that I recently got.

Trying to shake off the uneasiness of not having fixed or found the problem.

It came and its over.

2005-09-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

Hardly a week and I've exhausted my 1Gig bandwidth quota. The dist-upgrade is to blame. Apart from crossing 1Gig it gave me a few hours of sweating with broken libc.

Notes on game scripting: I know its quite generic a statement, but the article was nice. Something reminds me of what went wrong (years ago) when my prof asked me about whats good : game performing differently on varying power of hardware or remaining same. I got the question wrong and said that its to stay the same thinking of just the simluation clock (on my test bed things were so slow that my simulation clock was hitting (or was hit by) the system badly - which I realized a year ago running the program on faster system). [Regret] [.]

DSL speeds, feeling bad and ssh tunnelling.u

2005-09-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

Who requires fast connection anyway ? (I had to ask that). Just after the first day of my shiny new ADSL connection one of my friends at IBM (Vasu) sez the office network has improved and is giving him 200kBps on weekdays and upto 1.5MBps on weekends. Back home/room my bro calls up and says hes got a 54MBps connection at his place in the US (with a giggle when I told him about my new link). Looks like people are bent on making me feel bad.

How do I get to freenode at office ? The nincompoops have blocked irc. I've gotta get somebody to tunnel my request through. Somebody help me !!

Just got a fix for the blogger problem with styles. Try adding the style div {clear:none !important} somewhere in your style section.. Got the fix here.

Broadband ! Load us up..

2005-09-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

The much awaited ADSL connection comes... And I am banned from freenode.net :( boooohooooo mummmmieeeeee. Not bad a speed (but not close to the AT&T stuff I used to see at IBM). But then you have UDP (I guess so - from the advertisement with online games being mentioned). What more when you have your bed close to you ? You can drop asleep whenever you want (dont have to ride back home before that).

Am pretty much excited about all the configuration to be done. I've already put up a small firewall with IP tables... the rules need a lot more of work. It was simpler at office (IBM I meant) with a couple of servers to be put as proxies.. Let us see..

Got Google talk working. If you are wondering what to 'get working' in g-talk well actually it did not work with gaim. Had to use bitlbee login to port 5222, fail, login using 5223 work and then back with Gaim and it works.. funny.

Distupgrade ? Well its going to have to wait... "Operational readiness testing" (tm) to be done before the ceremony.

Sanitarium, Sanity and stuff

2005-09-05T04:29:00.000-07:00

It was great to play that 1998 game again. Sanitarium has a setting similar to Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and (vaguely) Vanilla sky. All portrayal of dreams and the way they are affected by the surroundings never fail to impress me.

Finishing un-finished games of the mid 1990's is my latest job for the weekends.

Déjà Vu

2005-07-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

A senior team member is leaving... I am supposed to be almost her replacement. Sounds familiar eh ? Yeah... The difference: when I was on the other side my training session was extreeme - 15 days... Here I have 3 days of 4 days of stuff. How does that work out ?

Too much has happened since I last came here. I have a team lead who is suspiciously kind to me. Wonder what well is that I am walking to... But then it is one of the most comfortable progamming language that you can use at work.. It is really a relief to have come back to C programs in full form.

Of my new acquaintances at my work place is Sajeesh. A nice fella. Most of my time is spent with him around. It is interesting that he has not come across de-ja vu ever. One day on the way home he was telling me that he has had visions of things that happened to hime. When he gave me an example - I knew exactly what he meant.

Interesting.

2005-07-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

1. Airtel customer care: There is no menu item which says hit so-so
to talk to cust care guy. But the number 9 still works.

2. MS word 2003: You need a 'plain text' plugin to read plain text.

3. My almighty machine wimpers with Delta force... Novalogic's own
voxel landscape sux on GeForce 6600. They have problem with hidden
face clipping and culling while on hardware rendering.

New

2005-07-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

Alright here we are:

1. I am into my new job.
2. I've got my new pc (squarehead redeemed).

It was a bad sunday. For I was all set to do some re-configuration of my new box
on which I got linux working pretty fine (well with geForce drivers and all). I
woke up watching my fan stop. The power went out and did not come till like 9 in
the night. KPTCL (The power company) had some big power posts popping up near
me masion. This reminds me of what the H2G2 sez about planning out a recipe and
the shopping mall trolley deciding what you cook.

Well, I did not mention my playing Doom 3 shareware. Did I ? That is another
piece of droolware (well atleast for me). Its a neat piece with all those
nice depth they've given to the corridors and the detail on the characters.
Was wondering how they did the walls - could you do that with just anisotropic
filters ? or some kinda mock displacement trick whatever. But on the down side
space is never enough. The share ware levels (2-3 maps I guess) takes up like
700+MB ? and I was thinking 80G would be enough. Hmph. On linux I tried out
torcs and it ran at 120-160 FPS (which did not do as much as start on the
i845 at IBM). As for Flight gear (You might think I'd have tried that
first, eh?)
it ran at 45FPS + (was expecting 60+) but then I dont see those artifacts on
buildings and neither is a drop when I take off on KSFO (the default one).

Who ? Me ? What ? When ?

2005-05-26T07:41:00.000-07:00

The current setup sux because:

1. Bad work timing
2. I'll soon become a manager
   a.k.a Losing chance to work on whatever software
   development is left in the project
3, Whatever software development is left is Enterprise
   application development and maintenance.
4. Specifically very little brain working and more brain heating up.

The new setup would be OK b'coz:

1. The current setup sux.
2. A wee bit more juice.
3. Old fashioned development.

If you don't have a clue of what I've written about.. hold on. I'll
probably explain it later.

Boss Blues.

2005-04-19T03:25:00.000-07:00

My attempt at a little song based (as in changed some lines) on the Kill Bill title song by Nancy Sinatra.

My boss shot me down.

I was 3 and he was 11.
We worked on stuff which made me sick.
He worked late and my work, a bore.
He would always win the fight.

Bang Bang, He shot me down.
Bang Bang. I got stuck alone.
Bang Bang, those awful meetings.
Bang Bang, my braindead boss shot me down.

People came and changed the time.
When I grew old, I thought he'd help.
He always smiles and says.
"Remember, the plans we have for you ?".

Bang Bang, I shot you down
Bang Bang, you stay for now.
Bang Bang, the work you do.
Bang Bang, I used to talk you down.

People worked, and people cried
Just for him, I was special.

Now he's still there, I don't know why
And till this day, sometimes I swear
I couldn't even utter a word.
His carrots did let me speak.

Bang Bang, He shot me down.
Bang Bang. I got stuck alone.
Bang Bang, those awful meetings.
Bang Bang, my braindead boss shot me down.

BTW, I dont know if it is illegal to make stuff like the one above (is it a (c) infringement?).. If you think so let me know.

More OMF.

2005-04-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

Spent sunday afternoon at Jiju's place. I had hoped to see some Radeon or GeForce cards to try OMF, on his new pc. No luck there. But had a nice time talking about his Europe tour. Ruined his afternoon and got home drenched ((almost)unexpected rain).

More OMF today afternoon.. Beat Raven (tough guy). But I guess he stood there waiting for me to hit home, doing some combos once in a while (yes.. he does only combos, atleast he appears that way). I am starting to get a hang of it. The right and left block and attack is cool.. Had always worried about how to go around turning every now and then (not that I can stop doing that). Also learned the Jaguar's overhead-throw. After the tourney there is a little tourney where Raven invites people to challenge him and we get to play Raven.

Dream, Wiki, OMF.

2005-04-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

Woke up from crazy dream. It was set in my primary school (Coimbatore). I am visiting it (for I dont know what)... lots of teachers acknowledge my presense, talk to me asking me about my whereabouts.. I dont know where that thread went. Later my room mates are moving out (still in my dream).. Then I wake up. Wonder if I am sleep deprived.

Spent some time trying to decide whether to upgrade a wiki I just put up at work from usemod to oddmuse (which is the improved version used at emacswiki.org). When I needed some changes in appearance (like letting on one set of wiki controls, at the bottom) I had to change the script. Oddmuse appears to have shifted a lot to outside the script (better), but am still to see if I should switch.

Felt like playing OMF:BG, but dont have the box to do (see prev.post). Wanted to see if I can get some idea on the beautiful moves from the net : I ended up reading this: Violence in games by Rob Elam (lead dev. for OMF:2097 and OMF:BG). Yike !

There is a kick start for learning PostScript here:
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/docproject/programming/postscript/postscript.html
Yay ! Now I can type into our laser printer and tell it to draw a box :)

OMF:BG

2005-04-06T09:28:00.000-07:00

I loved the title One must fall : 2097 and always wanted to try the
game (http://omf.com) OMF:BG. The fight with a new feel.

OMF:BG has 3rd person view (first thing I noticed is that it robs
Jaguar of the beauty of its leap). There was a warm feeling when I
turned the volume up and heard the familiar music (at the game menu
screens).

Just got the feel of the game.. Lot more of exploring to be done.
Could not get to try it till today (it blows on all those Intel i8XX
cards and had to run it on my chum's T42 which had a radeon 7500).

Changes... I hate them.

2005-03-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

The Lord of the rings episode is over... (too soon for me). Saw all the movies, read the book... I wish Tolkien had shelled out some more stuff for me to devour. Yesterday evening felt like one of those sunday evenings during school when the sun goes down and thought of monday eats in.

Return of the king is a cool movie.. But this time I felt the lack of detail in the movie (the movie is too short to depict the story vividly, even with its 3 hour duration - Probably Peter should make a mini series or something that goes on for like 10s of hours).

I wish I could write all those things I felt about the characters (more than the last post) only that I cant with that feeling that there isn't anything better to be read.

[Sigh]

People around me are changing moving for better stuff and I am here without any... Well not entirely the google competition was something for a change.. Made it to the online but not any further... I learned of people who probably eat, sleep and sh** C++ and Java. Hope to be like them som time.

One book to rule me.

2005-02-06T23:38:00.000-08:00

After 3 years of waiting I see it. When it came out I had decided that
I would read it then see it. The reading 'oppertunity' never
came. Spent 2 years of library membership expecting to get a
hard-bound version of the book (which never came). There is a certain
fun in reading off hard-bound book (dont ask me what). Its LOTR that I
am talking about. The TV channel folks force me into reading
this... They say they would be showing the movie this month on TV
(which I know I can't miss.. but what about reading the book first).

Shyam (almost my chum) lended me the book and read I did. No amount of
praise can describe my feeling for the book.. It is the grand pappy of
all medieval fantasy fiction.

The movie was very good.. I would like to believe that it was the best
movie I've ever seen (perhaps due to ma praise for it.. Too much of
anticipation.. makes it appear the best). It was amazing how people
could push the book with so much detail to life. The opening in Shire
was b.. e.. a.. utiful..

Although a slow reader (hopefully a good reader) and it was really
rewarding to me to see all those things I imagined on the screen. Call
it my imagination, Tolkiens vivid and detailed writing skills or
Peter's direction skills. I felt these particularly with the Shire
scenes (with its music that is), Balrog and Gandalf at the Kazad Dum
(the only difference from my imagination was the size and the kind of
whip it used... mine was smaller 1.5 times Gandalf and whip was not
glowing), Galadriel's mirror and the things that the ring bearer
experiences when he puts on the . Another thing about the movie
were the subtleties which are not really 'talked/spoken' about in the
movie like the lightness of all elf-things (including Legolas -
walking on the snow), Sam's character (the list goes on).

There were minor (or so I wish to believe) let-downs like.. Elrond
still has a bit of Agent smith in his voice (may be it myself spoiling
it) and some scenes like the gifts of Galadriel and some deviations
from the book that I dont wish to speak of here.

Ring of power or no ring of power.. Tolkien has neat which has
me under its power. I am looking forward to enjoying the 2nd and 3rd
parts..

SYNCMYSITE HTTP/1.0

2004-12-04T05:30:00.000-08:00

Late on a saturday - It is supposed to be a normal phenomenon - just that I wasn't expecting that. Woke up at 10:30 am (Cough!). Had my break fast and headed for office armed with some Gelusil tablets (to combat acidity when I get drowned in what I am doing). Wanted to pep up my web-site - added multiple style sheets - cool stuff, uploaded some photos. The CVS version I had (after the crash last march) does not have any of the heavy files - just the web-pages. Now I have allthe more a reason to keep yahoo from nipping my site off.

Dunno whats wrong - Yesterday Melvin called, today Nileesh and Jimson (my high school chums) whos going to call tomorrow ?

Yet another friday.

2004-12-03T06:08:00.000-08:00

Some kinda flu or something. May be simple sleep deprivation. The whole body is phreaknig
out. Helping the other team fillout some stuff regarding estimation (I am making it appear too
difficult). Late for lunch (as usuall ?) - it was 4:45 when I had the lunch - survived on a few
biscuits till that time.

Pulled all 62 issues of phrack magazine from the site with - small things that can make you feel
better. My little new team mate is going phuttt with the new interesting work he had been given -
update some statuses in some kinda tracking tool - what a stuff to be given to a fresher. Actually
I've heard of wierder assignments given to freshers and those being justified by the people who give
them the stuff using the crazy idea that they are freshers and dont have an option
(!@#!!@##!@). There seem to be an ever growing population of this kinda nut-crates/ brain-dead
daMaGERS aka managers.

Had a call from Melvin antony - aka class mate - aka the tall guy who I kicked right on face in my
fifth sem (unknowingly, of course). Had to make a concious attempt to switch the context
and talk to him as I used to do in our college.

Among the good things that happened today is browsing the photos by Arun U-R from his recent Goa-Mangalore
trip on his Thunderbird.

.. The cautious dont live at all.

2004-12-02T05:24:00.000-08:00

I've never been a risk taker in the usual sense. Recently in the movie 'Princess Diaries' i heard someone say -

The brave live short. The cautious wont live at all.

I am still to understand the difference between risk taking and foolishness(tm). Being pissed off by the "productivity concerns" for quite some while I got a boost when one of my US counter parts asked me why I had cut down the estiamate to do a certain work. That was all that was needed. The whole idea of cutting down the estimate came from my management who were the new-generation productivity concious people.

Frankly, I am bit scared of the probable out comes of mailing a (poor joke) technique to them based on my experience with the Ultima game. I suggested casting the 'Kal vas corp' spell to get some folks to do the work so that it wont cost the customer any (Hu)man hours.

I flee, therefore I am. Catch ya.

.... Vas Sanct Lor ! ... (pooof !)

Black & White, bullet, blackout

2004-11-29T07:34:00.000-08:00

I played Black and White for the first time (last Saturday). I
remember discussing the stuff in this game with Daniel. It was
considered a paradigm in RTS gameplay. Truly the whole stuff is neat.
I liked the movie like stuff in the beginning and all (though it kinda
makes the game tend more towards a lesser user configurability). The
game does not have the conventional UI elements like buttons - minimap
etc. The creature training stuff is a cool idea. Just read about Black
and White 2 - sounds like the whole stuff goes into war - more war
(noooo. Not another of the sloppy expansion sorta second part).

Another thing I did for the first time in my life is ride an bullet
class motorcycle (thanks to Arun UR) - amazing (addictive) stuff.

Recently had a dream about some kinda nuclear/something explosion. Had
this dream before as well (Deja vu in dream - man I think my head is
real mess) - all fast growing cloud (also glowing a bit yellow) in the
dark (it was kinda dusk), before sunset it was more like dark rain
storm. Cant believe- it gave me real scare and amusement.

Blender there and back again.

2004-11-26T04:43:00.000-08:00

Today was one of the days I felt confused (all day long). Did some tinkering with blender (it has been a long time). So much has changed in blender since I last used it - I could not move around the display easily. Then again lot has bettered as well - better user base, documentation etc. It did not take long before I was/am on track again.

Was late to be up today also: watched the second-show 'Chill factor' on TV - some sorta highly explosive material - supposedly comparable to nuclear bomb - was featured in the movie.

Carottes et tomates

2004-11-25T03:04:00.000-08:00

Just got the payment ($900) for the lousy life last few months. I guess the need for retention is making them do this. My manager (technically I am really not the kind who would like to be managed, though unknowingly fit into the well managed class) without warning called me and handed me this bone-ass letter.

Had woke up late today as I had slept late yesterday. Lost some sleep over the 35 km/Litre which by motorcycle appeared to deliver. Thats how 100 kilo of metal and plastic can make you lose your sleep. I guess the service 'technician' might have 'tuned' it out of norm. Last time was the first time I have had my motorcycle serviced by another center than the place I bought it from (does that really matter). This has always been a concern - I dont have enough know-how and the equipment required for engine tuning and dont trust these service folks either (this has been the case with computers in the beginning also I am comfortable tinkering with stuff in the machine these days). Hopefully I would be able to tune my bike to perfection some day (myself, that is).

Spent some time talking about the whole milage thing yesternight with Rajiv - he gave me lots of examples to _make me feel good_. He talked about a guy with a Hero Honda Splendor with the performance of a car (milage). Also did he hint that there is a possibility of all those guys claiming their perfectly tuned 2 wheelers giving them factory perfect performance hiding their facts.

Let me see whats really wrong. Got a litre or more of gas and am monitoring how long is my machine going to take me. Strongly motivated to get my hands greasy on this (First should pop the pair of shiniy style stuff on the cylinder).

Escape from EGL

2004-11-23T04:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had mustered enough courage to bail out early from office. Though it was not all that comfortable to watch a movie with background music that gives a jump when it sounds close to one's cell-phone ring.

Diwali Fireworks.

2004-11-13T00:28:00.000-08:00

This is about last Thursday. The day started late. Spent some time on Richard Stevens and Maurice J. Bach. Touched office after lunch and spent some time checking mail and some kinda problem with the project. Followed by a trip to a friend's (call him JVD) place. At JVD's, watched the movie Omen (Part 2) and half way through Part 3 had a call from the dreaded female on the other side (Bad Omen). Then it was nice Diwali pataka from 8:30 pm to 2:30 am at office.

Chill.

2004-09-27T02:32:00.000-07:00

It is realllly scary when I realize that I am becoming more of a cyber-coolie with time. There aren't anymore of thinking in these 'out-source' projects. I meet souls with heavy brain damage due to this leet(5417). They have been rendered !@#$!!@$ by the lame stuff they are made to do.

Help me !

I just went silver

2004-08-31T06:23:00.000-07:00

Today makes it 25. I would now go beyond the 18-25 range and am supposed to take things in a more responsible manner. Today for the first time I touched 70 kmph (thats too much speed for me, talking of reality(tm), ofcourse).

I stand alone

2004-06-20T04:13:00.000-07:00

.. kicking at the starter of my new bike, bringing it from the shop to my office.

Tuesday night I watched 'I stand alone' (Godsmack). Next day I had my usual breakfast with my room chum. On the way I saw that kinda bike and thought no more of which one to buy.

The day before yesterday.

2004-05-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

First of the reviews coming in. Vijay (my PL) checked 'The day after tomorrow' the day before yesterday. 'Like Hindi movie' was his comment. Well quit frankly 'Independence Day' did not have much juice when I watched it the second time - I had this 'worry' about this movie as well. The scare of running out of things that fascinates me remains.

I dipped my sunday in washing fluid. It went white. Yesterday was one of those sundays when I feel tired to get out of house. Though surprisingly I dragged my lazy ass out for lunch and really had some rice for lunch (last time I did was .. well.. less than a week ago... naah thats not too far.). What I wanted to tell is that I usually dont have rice for lunch (or for any of my regular eating times).

After 9 hours of sleep I still sleep feely.

Where do we stand ?

2004-05-17T01:22:00.000-07:00

That St. Anger fella looks cool. Morning in the mirror I was impressed - my eyes were red like a freakin' strawberry or something (close enough). Dunno why this cold does not let me go.

Had a phone call and the voice axed -
"Where do we stand".

Man - had completely missed out on updating the freaking test status. Last friday I had a bit of time to breathe (and breathe
I did). The whole of weekend went up on bed (again with my eyes red - the St. Anger style). I had Bhodia axing me about taking some rest. I thought of it, I thought of it and I thought of the time after I get better, then I thought, then I knew
I should work.

In paranthesis - put the filter module which I had left out earlier on my workstation. That is needed to get the iptables
thingy working (security compliance). This machine needs a lot more work.

Had another freak talk with Rajubala (nothing without reason please).

The way the shot goes.

2004-05-12T01:14:00.000-07:00

There is some kinda inflamation in my freakin' throat (well.. let me see.. it is kinda behind the ears).

Another surprise, I never believed I would ever enjoy heavy metal music. My friend had proved me wrong. "St. Anger" (c) Metallica is the newest thing in my free time (which I dont find these days, well I try to kinda squeeze some out). This
evening I managed to get some midi music from the classic FPS game Doom (Id s/w) - n...t..gia.

For the doom thingy try http://www.theparticle.com/midi/doommidi.html.

Throttling.

2004-05-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sh!@# there is something stuck in my throat.

Spent time trying to figure out how to make new priv messages pop up in different buffers in the erc. Last time I wanted to do this fast my first time (one of the good souls on #emacs helped me out). Well the trick is to set some erc-blah-blah variable (which nowhere gives an idea about what it does, but that actually helped me find the variables).

Two conference calls - today. Reminds me should have my dinner. Missing timely input can cause disruptions in your common sense database (That was what Kallesh help me understand).

8:30 pm. 'Tis happening again, man. I get hungry and lose my wits.