My Growing Pains

Ahh i miss Blogging...
There used to be a time when i couldn't go a week without posting some garbage on this thing....but these days i can't seem to write anything...donno why...

Things have changed in the past few months, for the better or worse i'm not yet sure. Theres this speech by Steve Jobs i keep going back to...something about connecting the dots..wait i'll get the excerpt: "...you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward..." So i'll get back to you in about 10 years or so and let you know :D

All of my friends are employed now...trainees at major software firms. For them, free time has become a luxury...as for me, time is all i have. I'm in this state of eternal "whateverness". Its pretty daunting to hear them talk about their work and lifestyles...projects, requirement gathering, client meetings, code review, time sheets and of course pay-days...
They've all "grown up". They contribute to society, pay taxes and talk about stocks and mutual funds. All i know about Mutual Funds is that "they are subject to market risk, we have to read the offer document carefully before investing". I'm happy for my friends and i want them to know it that i am.

I'm a kind of person who stands by his convictions...i never regret my actions or decisions. That being said...I wish i was better at planning things better...and have a bit of that thing they call "foresight". My situation right now, if viewed from a strictly objective point of view, is not that bad. I've gotten decent scores in my proficiency exams and applied to universities of my choice. I'm almost certain to get into a good university and pursue my Master's. But emotionally i'm just a train wreck! I'm not sure of anything and everything...a decision between tea and coffee perturbs me. I've been reading 4 books simultaneously because i can't seem to read 3 pages of one of them and not get utterly bored. My sleep patterns are ghastly and i oscillate between chronic insomnia and binge sleeping. Worst part is that i know all this has no external cause...i'm doing it all to myself.

Time to grow up. Start worrying about the future....acting blase' and nonchalant is over. Grow Up Idiot! Accept certain inalienable truths. Learn to Live, Live to Learn.

Pe@ce!

Barney once said..."When I get sad, i stop being sad and be AWESOME instead..True Story"
Amen

My 28/10/2007

Then there are Sundays when you just KNOW that your Test of English as a Foreign Language will be rescheduled...TODAY was NOT one of those Sundays...

Consummatum est....

and Maximas tibi gratias ago for the lunch and chocolate shake ; ) ....ab imo pectore...

interesting quote...

"Understand that friends come and go,but to the precious few, you should hold on to.... Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young...."

--- Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free( to wear Sunscreen)
check this out: complete lyrics to this song http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php?hid=T60Oxd6GhCw%3D

My Kinda People

Its too naive to assume that you are "unique" and "individual" in your own special way...even if your mom/girlfriend tells you that constantly. Unless you have an IQ of above 200 and you have missed calls from Stephen Hawking on your cell-phone...you probably have other people out there who are sometimes similar, and some other times exactly like you.

::Genesis::

We are among you. I dont quite know what we can be classified as...but I know we are in a class of our own. In the later years of my Degree education, thanks to Internet and Local Area Networks...we found one another...my kinda people. Bound by character traits noted as "flaws" by the others....

Here are some of those traits...

• We're most likely to have seen most of the movies on the imdb's top 200 movies of all time.
• We know what 'Sundance' is.
• We can chat endlessly on seemingly irrelevant topics pertaining to films/sports/tv series.
• We all have an "American Dream"
• We listen to what Steve Jobs has to say....and will most likely end up buying what he tells us to buy :D
  
• We KNOW who Steve Jobs/Larry Page/Sergey Brin are....seriously.
• Some of us hate Bill Gates. Not me personally though....*Rich bastard!*
  
• We're into 'Alternate' everything....popular culture is boring.
  
• We may see/listen to something awesome and think aloud "This is totally going on my Blog"
• Most of us HAVE a blog.
• We care what the fall/spring line up of shows on US television will be like.
• We've seen Garden State...and we LIKE it...oh yeah we DO.
• We Love to Hate Himesss...or is it Hate to LOve him...i'll get back to you on that :D
• Google is the epitome of everything sacred for us.
• We would probably die without the internet...literally...curl up in a corner and die.
• We would NOT, unlike some other people, classify a night spent watching movies/tv series as 'a waste of time that could be utilized to study for that term test'
• We despise "Social Networking" sites and yet cant stay away from them.
• We have started HATING Harry Potter books ever since Rowling sold out to 'The Man'(book 4 onwards)
  
• We are bored now....no wait let me end this list....

OK....I am bored now...
Laterzz "."

My Catching Up

I cant believe the last time i posted here was exactly a month back. Mind you, it wasn't as if i was super busy and just couldn't find the time to post the usual garbage that hardly anyone ever reads...it was pure unadulterated laziness. I must have clicked the "Add New Post button" almost a half a dozen times in the last month. The text field opened and the cursor beckoned...but nothing...absolutely nothing! And always i had something in mind before i clicked that link for creating a new post...but i couldn't post anything. The closest i came was to writing a review for The Bourne Ultimatum...but Munshi beat me to it...and that just pissed me off! :D
By the way...everyone that is a fan of action films MUST watch this one. Damn! that film is BITCHIN'!!!

This past month i got a semi-decent internet connection which never fails to disconnect every time i want to chat on gtalk. It only seems to support scrapping scraps orkut style...and thats about fine by me...i mean Net is Net...right?
Oh yeah and i finally read The Catcher in the Rye. You know those books/films that have great reviews and all your mates say that you HAVE to read/watch this...and when you finally do..it doesn't impress you as much?? Well this book was NOT one of those. Short and powerful...it had a nice pace and brilliant characterization. I'm sure a lot of us identify with Holden Caulfield at least to some extent.
Also i finished reading Atlas Shrugged. Man thats some heavy shyte! And i couldn't have read it at a better time! You get self-empowered and then some! Brilliant ideology this objectivism...
You really wanna get your adrenaline pumping?? Then finish this book in oh about 3 months or so and then watch V for Vendetta immediately after that...Legendary!

hmmm..what else..oh yeah i saw the first season of this tv series called How i Met your Mother. The guy who came up with that title should be bashed to death in my opinion...what a lame ass title for such an AWESOME series. One character in particular is my favorite...Barney played by Neil Patrick Harris of the Doogie Howser M.D. fame. Barney Rules! Watch some epis of this series and you'll be hooked! trust me...

Well thats it for now...nothing more left to type actually.
Laterzzz!

My Exodus

Results were declared a few days back....final results.I'm done with engineering...or rather its done with me. I put off collecting the mark sheet long enough and finally got off my lazy ass to collect the same. In the process of coercing my self to go do something productive, I managed to rope in Munshi as well...who like me is also a lazy ass or perhaps a lazier one!(who knows such things). Some"formalities" were pending in The RAIT...some "NO DUES" form had to be submitted i was informed.


digression
/*
When I left Apeejay School, Nerul after 14 years of useful education and wonderful memories, there was Rajaraam Bhaiyya who handed me my 12th mark sheet and then i had to go to meet Benji Sir in the office to collect my LC. The whole deal took about 20 minutes after which my friends and i went to the station and ate vada-pav to celebrate.
*/

As I entered the office, it seemed like the whole population of the college had decided to collect their mark sheets, railway concession, Journal papers on this very day. Although i was surprised to see the new and improved counters( there are 3 of them now!). We paid the convocation fees and collected the receipt for the same. This was then supposed to be give to some uncle sitting opposite to the counters. But wait, the convocation form had to be filled too. When I saw the form i felt like this was the most useless form i would ever fill in my life*. The details we were supposed to supply were the SAME details that we had been supplying over and over for the past 8 semesters..Name,Address,Roll no.,date of birth, mumma's name, pappa's name....
This form, along with the receipt would procure me the venerable 8th semester mark sheet.
Now came the time to fill the "No Dues" form. The star i've marked a few lines above.....thats for this line....the No Dues Form is THE MOST WORTHLESS, USELESS FORM EVER!!!
All it has is the list of all the labs in our college and we have to go to each and every one of them to get the lab-ass that sits there to write "No Dues" in front of his lab and sign it. Its OK for the library and maybe also for the IT center, because people generally default on payment of library dues and steal mouse balls, but we had to span the whole freaking college and take signs from labs that we haven't even set foot for the duration of the 4 years we "attended" college.
The last sign remaining was the Accounts Section one...and as luck would have it that asshole that sits at the counter told us to come after one and a quarter hours. For ONE sign???
Munshi had something to eat at Shivam, perhaps for the last time...i too had a thumps up for the first time in that popular "restaurant". We did time pass till 2 p.m. and went back to office to get that final sign...but that guy was nowhere to be seen! After cursing that idiot for half an hour, we snuck a peek inside the accounts office and found a clerk who would do the honors in that asshole's place. Oh yeah i forgot to mention that we surrendered our RAIT iDs as well, the only purpose of which had been to get into Horizon, the college festival. Coming back to the No Dues form. After ALL of this had transpired, we went to submit this useless piece of paper to the uncle who had issued the mark sheet. All he did was to collect the soiled and sweat soaked papers from our hands and neatly stack them on his desk...and that was it! All this time waste for nothing! We didn't or rather couldn't get our LC unless we were going for higher studies..so all we ended up after 3-4 hours of labor was nothing! But there was this feeling of calm that engulfed us...a sense of accomplishment.
Consummatum est....It is Done. Now were are free from RAIT or is it the other way round?

My No. 18

A while ago, I made a list of things that i wanted to get done in the near future. Watching Aap ka Suroooor was no. 18 on that list. Today i have successfully managed to watch that film and lived to post on this blog.
:
:
16. Find good friends. Done that too...i think
17. Do no. 11 again
18. Watch 'Aap ka Surooooor'...seriously! Survived!
19. Enlist the services of a lawyer...for whatever reason ;D
20. Make a list of atleast 20 things to do in the near future. Done!

The film is simply unbelievable...i mean SERIOUSLY!! You really cant BELIEVE that someone other than HR himself will make this film...most of the time i was watching the film i just felt like smacking HR on his cap and saying "SHUT UP!!! PLEASE!"..the dialogues are sooo cheesy you can barely stand it. And please someone tell me what the hell was the deal with that little girl who has the heart condition?? who was she? why is she there in the film? Actually that last part applies to ALL the people in the film except HR. Were they SO low on cash/publicity that they had to work in the MUVIEE?? Enough now...i'm just gonna BACKOFF!!



GOD SAVE US ALL!!! THERES GONNA BE AN 'AAP KA SUROOR 2'

My Chuck Day

This was the second film i saw on 11th August after a horrible Rush Hour 3. The FIRST thing i'd like to say about Chak De India is that we weren't disappointed..at all. Its a film about the Indian womens' hockey team and their travails in the world cup.
Very well directed film and well edited as well...which is a rare luxury in SRK or Yashraj films. No confrontation between any characters lasts more than 30-40 seconds...points are made directly or with actions and NOT through solemn testimonies about what someones "dil" feels like doing. I think they haven't even used the D word in this film at all...i'm not sure though. Coming back to the review...I do tend to wander off into my own cynical world most of the times dont i?? here i go again...in 1988 when i started talking...
*shakes himself off...changes paragraph*
The film was much hyped and had received rave reviews from the media and also from a few of our friends. Now, i'm all for patriotism...not being THAT patriotic myself, but i'm pretty tolerant of the hordes of Indians that are. What i cannot stand is pseudo-patriotism. The plot was based on a true story of Mir Ranjan Negi. Some liberties have been taken with the script as to make it commerce worthy....but thats all fine, i mean who wants to make a movie that no-one except SRK fans will watch! My mention of non-tolerance towards pseudo patriotism wasnt at all a shot at this film...it just toes the line as far as patriotism is concerned. But this film will induce some pseudo-patriotism i'm certain of it...especially after what i experienced in the cinema hall.
There are of course the stereotypes like the "cool" seniors and the hot-headed jattni and the child prodigy...kudos on the casting as well. Preeti Sabarwal - Captain of Chandigarh(whoever she was essayed by) was the saving grace as far as the marketability to adolescent boys was concerned....they tapped a HUGE market there..hehehe. And the title was sort of a misnomer...at least for me..i mean what does it even convey?? Worth a watch...over and out.

Post-Epilogue
What provoked my thoughts though...was the kind of society the film portrayed. Till what extent was it true i'm yet to discover. Idealist i'm surely not, but the 'guilty until proven otherwise' vibe that "news" channels proliferate is really un-nerving. I mean I, even in my hugely cynical psyche, have always believed that the innocent shouldn't need to have to redeem themselves against the lies or misrepresentation of their actions. The universe will balance itself out...is a little far-fetched, coz shit happens. But do we all have to win out metaphorical 'Women's Hockey World Cups' to show that the other were fucking idiots?? It takes me back to "Clearly or Darkly"...for i find myself asking yet again: What does the Scanner see...

My 9,10,11th August

These three days have been really good. GRE on 9th morning was a breeze and the score was a pleasant surprise...600 verbal and 780 quant is pretty decent by my standards, especially considering how little i had studied. I had some great advice for giving the exam though...thank you Jeet for the suggestion to skip the third RC...that really saved me some valuable time and good advice regarding the word lists too. It was the BEST feeling ever to know that the hellish nightmare that was the preparation had a proper coda. The congratulations from my friends felt really good.
That night i started reading Animal Farm by George Orwell. Its a very small book but the language and the message is too good. Its very well written and the metaphors are really apt. The next day was one of my favorites in a very long time. I got up, had some tea and biscuits and then basically did nothing all day. Talked to friends and discussed "plans" which surprisingly materialized at least the very very near future ones! It was the most free and vulnerable even i'd felt in a very long time.
Eleventh was an eventful day to say the least. Complete opposite of its predecessor. The aforementioned "plans" had to be executed and so i dragged my "tired" self outta bed and lazed around until it was almost time to leave. Bathed and headed out for a "day-out" with RAIT guys :D. And guess what! there were more than 5 of us..in fact there were 7 of us. We ambled over to Eros and booked tickets for Rush Hour 3...Rs 40, lower stall. Did the usual C-giri outside the theatre...details of which are too sordid to divulge *nudge-nudge*.
The movie itself was a HUGE let-down. I mean we weren't expecting Schindler's List but the plot was so derivative and cliche that we got a headache after the first quarter of the film. We(read I) figured out the villain in the first 5 mins of the film...but the films wasnt a complete waste. We had some decent conversation in the second half about novelty cell phones and cars...and ATLEAST it wasn't CASH.
After the film, we decided on something so brave and perverse that it took a heart of titanium to even propose such mad idea. OK that was very dramatic...but we decided we'll watch Chak De India at the Regal. After much discussion we took a vote of confidence and 6 out of the 7 of us agreed to watch it. We bought the tickets and made our way towards Gateway to kill the two hours before screening time. After a while...the photo session outside the Taj was getting too tacky thanks to a certain gay gujju and the Sony-Ericsson corporation. One and a half hours later we were back at Regal to watch Chak De. After the film we had pav-bhaji at Cannon and caught the dus-solah ki panvel local from CST. Reached home at 11.30...orkut at 11.35(loser right?). That was pretty much it. Stand by for Chak De review...

My Abase to Zephyr

abase v. lower; degrade; humiliate. Anna expected to have a curtsy to the King of Siam; when told to cast herself down of the ground before him, however, she refused to abase herself.
abasement, N.
.
.
.
zephyr N. gentle breeze; west wind. When these zephyrs blow, it is good to be in an open boat under a full sail

And that is the aim...to get to zephyr and NOT forget what abase meant in the first place. There are about three thousand four hundred ninety eight other words that you are supposed to have seen at least once and about million others in the English language that you just hope NOT to have the wretched luck to encounter for the FIRST time during the actual exam. I am of course talking about the Graduate Record Exam.

There are ofcourse a few upshots to reading the somber and soporific scriptures that are the word lists...your vocabulary goes up a few notches and you pretty much figure out the plot of Les Miserables. Plus you come to know the whacky secondary meanings of some of the most commonly used words. For example. Husband also means to economize...who knew! and even wanted to know for that matter...

You also realize that some of the words in the lexicon are just NOT meant to be uttered as casually and presumptuously as are done by us. You just KNOW that people will throw rocks at you if you describe yourself as altruistic and fatalistic...and you praise the pulchritude of a lady's visage.

Based of my own experience studying for the GRE and the "wisdom" of others that have appeared for this venerable test...i've discovered that theres no sure fire way of going about remembering or even familiarizing yourself with the words that are expected by ETS...it just comes down to giving it your best shot and hoping for the best....
One thing I'm sure of though..you get SICK and FUCKING TIRED of the FUCKING WORDS...

I'm stuck at this point...in this blog post that is...nothing comes to mind as to how i can wrap up this vichyssoise of verbiage...heck with it.
"Take care" and wish me luck :D

My Mouthshut / My Deadly Hellos

THIS IS THE REPLICA OF A REVIEW THAT I'VE POSTED ON MOUTHSHUT.COM

I just got the invitation to join this site from a "dear" friend of mine..hes gotten pretty popular on this site, so i'll not reveal his name..atleast for now. I read the other revies for the same book and i was totally taken aback....this is gonna make me seem so damn cynical...but what the heck..

What follows is actually from a letter that i was writing to my friend...she hasnt read th book yet, so absolutely NO spoilers in this review....
Here goes nothing

...So tell me about your BIG test?? BTW I finished harry potter and the deathly hallows today morning at 6.00 Am...was up all night reading it off the lappy thirteen hours straight, my eyes are blood red when i finally got to sleep...now the color has gone down a bit. About the book..well without revealing too much..or heck..i wont reveal anything to you now...i didn't enjoy the book as much i had the first four...It reads too much like a movie script...too Hollywood for my taste. The plot and all is pretty well weaved and all the characters have ample presence...JK madam didn't want to dissapoint any Ron, Hermione fans..so she wrote chunky bits for them as well....a lot of things about Dumbledore have been revealed too..I'll not say anything further at this point..for the fear of my death at your hands..hehe.
There was a theory i had come up with after the sixth(and the most boring) book of the series had ended...and that little theory was exactly what Mrs MoneyPants Filthyrich Rowling or MFR had in her conniving little mind too. Like all series finales this book had special appearances by all the seemingly forgotten characters..which i wont name, and also all the magical places that were described in the previous books. MFR has also sprinkled in a dose of her new-agey social messages..that are supposed to be relevant even in the "real" world. Some bits of this book are down-right gay...The second last chapter of the book is THE most annoying piece of literature i've come across in recent times. I'm sure hard-core potter fans will hate me for saying this..but i'm pretty confident MFR got stuck towards the end and came up with the lamest way out possible...even if i was the biggest jerk in the world i would be able to describe how lame i thought that chapter was..you really have to read it for yourself...

I think thats enough Potter bashing for now..and if it wasn't for my mild OCD to finish any series i have started no matter how bad or annoying it gets towards the end..i wouldn't have touched the book or the previous one as well for that matter.

My Return...

A mildly important event took place this evening, I got my Google account back from the hacker who had hijacked it. I dont even feel pissed at him for doing it now....i'm just relieved to have recovered some very important mails that were in the inbox of that account.

>Some mails that i truly cherished from my closest friend(s)
>My old contact list..which wasnt THAt important but ehh
>My confirmation mail from ETS for the GRE examination.(I was getting pretty worried actually..i just realized the importance of that mail a few days back and decided to take quick action)
>Subscriptions to useless job portals who havent helped me one bit..but their mails were still appreciated.....(pause)...NOT!
>SATYAM Offer letter...which again, not as important, but appreciated none the less...

Well thats it really...
I'll be using the salvaged(so to speak) account sparingly from now on...seeing that its been "tainted" and all..but i'll keep checking the inbox frequently.

This will also be "My Last Post" on http://insaneinso.blogspot.com and all further posts will be on http://insomniaprevails.blogspot.com...not that you give a flying rats ass...

Munshi you bitch! what you did after i lost my "preccccciousss" account was totally uncalled for...but i wouldn't have expected any less of you...same goes for Manas too...you Je#!

"Sticks and stones may break my bones...but words will hurt forever" - JD said it on Scrubs..but i think someone a lot less gay came up with that..

So long old blog...you have been good to me..in times of happiness and sorrow as well...
[This will be posted on both blogs...just because...]

My List

Its just a list of things i wanna do in the near future. Now forgive me if it isnt all dramatic and shit, and some of the items dont mean anything to you...but its MY list..so sod off

1. Go to the Sundance Film Festival.
2. Watch the Godfather movies...I still havent watched them yet!
3. Bungee Jump.
4. Watch the original Star Wars films...episode 4,5,6 ie.
5. Get in Shape...round is excluded as a shape to be in.
6. Drive and possibly own a '67 Ford Mustang.
7. Have the Best Time of My Life..ever! Done that, 3rd and 4th year of college
   
8. Grow my hair to shoulder length.
9. Direct a film.
10. Go to California, NYC.
11. Spend a whole week in Goa.
    
12. Learn a foreign language.
13. Sit on the grass and do nothing.
14. Watch atleast 200 of the imdb.com's top 250 films of all time
15. Meet Sachin Tendulkar
16. Find good friends. Done that too...i think
    
17. Do no. 11 again
18. Watch 'Aap ka Surooooor'...seriously!
19. Enlist the services of a lawyer...for whatever reason ;D
20. Make a list of atleast 20 things to do in the near future. Done!
    

Ok see you!
"take care"

The double quotes gives it that sarcastic zing doesnt it?

My Second First Post

#1 After you've hit rock-bottom...theres no place left to go but back up again...

#2 That which does not kill us makes us stronger

Eternal cynic that i am...as one of my closest friends pointed out to me...I think that these statements(which i live by these days) are very optimistic, dont you think?
My orkut account got hacked on June 27th...just about a week ago. Thanks to the geniuses at google...i lost my gmail and blogger account as well...they're all the same actually, if you didnt know that by now.
My old blog http://insaneinso.blogspot.com/ lies idle now....inaccessible to me. I created a gmail and orkut account within a few hours of losing the old one. But the blog...well it was special and dear to me. There was this hope...the smallest of hope that i would once again have access to it...its totally irrational i know, but thats what i felt.
Anywhoo i got to my senses and decided to create a new blog.
Its damn hard to find a good url for these things...the idiot who owns charudatta.blogspot.com hasnt updated it since 2004!!! I was "checking availability" for almost an hour before i could come up with this one....still havent figured out the title of the blog though...
enough of my rambling....end of post. Peace out.


ps. All the posts in this blog may begin with 'My' and you'll have to be OK with that...Okay?.