My Personal Digital Computizer

My Rig
Specs

• Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 - 2.2 GHz, 8 MB L2 Cache, 1 GHz FSB
  
• 2 GB DDR2 Transcend RAM
  
• 512 MB XFX GEForce 8400 Graphics Card
  
• 22" Wide screen Acer LCD Monitor
  
• Circle Cabinet
  
  ( old 160 GB IDE HDD, DVD Writer, Keyboard & Mouse, Artis 2.1 speaker set with speakers from my old Sony Music System )
  
  All this for 33 Grand ones
  
  Side effects include:
  
  The 15" Office PC Looking like a Pocket Calculator
  Laughing at people with Core2 Duos, and 19" Wide screen LCD Monitors
  Not finding a cloth large enough to cover the damn thing from dust
  Spending too much time on the machine (as if my older config wouldn't have made me do that)
  Laughing at people with Core2 Duos, and 19" Wide screen LCD Monitors
  Movies playing on just 1/3rd of the screen (at full resolution)
  Unfair advantage in CS/CZ
  ...and finally, Laughing at people with Core2 Duos, and 19" Wide screen LCD Monitors
  
  
  
  
  Now Playing:

  
  Track:Aeon
  Artist:Lacuna Coil
  Album:Comalies
  Vaidu’s classification:Gothic Rock with bits of Prog thrown in between

Stench of Evil

My pants stinks of dead rat...

Must be because of the dead rat floating around in the overflowing drain outside the office building (along with a whole lot of other things you don't wanna know and I don't wanna remember).

Not just the work, everything else about this place stinks...
As XVaXsuX (Sorry for not using the algo to encrypt your name in the earlier posts) rightly said, "If they had been paying us hard cash, probably even that would stink."

Curse this organization!

Now Playing:

Track:Sleeping Dogs And Dead Lions
Artist:Oceansize
Album:Frames
Vaidu’s classification: Post-Rock/Post-Metal/Progressive Rock (Probably one of the best bands around. Super complicated time signatures.)

Valuable Team Player etc.

I have been given the "Valuable Team Player" award in office.

It's actually a "Now-you-don't-get-onsite-for-a-long-long-time" thingy.

But hey, as long as I am getting a piece of paper with Valuable Team Player written on it along with a TechM stamp, who's complaining...

...but the glass is half full of air

Long long ago, there was a short message doing the rounds which went something like this:

"GODISNOWHERE. What did you read?
If you read it as 'God Is Nowhere', then you're a pessimist. The optimist would have read it as 'God Is Now Here'."

...or something to that effect (I have mostly butchered it beyond recognition)

I showed this message to XKarXtikX (Vasu's algo 2.0 - still working on it) and he goes...

"God I Snow Here!?!?! What's that mean"

The gastric spasms have still not subsided completely...

Now Playing:

Track: Souvenirs
Artist: The Gathering
Album: Souvenirs
Vaidu’s classification: Progressive Rock/Gothic Rock

Ever wondered how much 'Aspire' rhymes with 'Despair'?
Glad to know there is indeed some order to the universe.

Yes, i have grown enough to not make poetry out of it and instead make this cold heartless post.

What's in a name...

Some people I know:

Pattu
Putta
Puttu
Putti
Pootie

Gothic Chic

The Gothic Mumbai which we didn't know of till now...

( Shot with my pharasht digittall kaimera )

Now Playing:

Track:Tied In Bronze Chains
Artist: Satyricon
Album: Rebel Extravaganza
Vaidu’s classification: New Wave of Old School Black Metal

The whole friggin arena could be seen...

...and then he shouted "3, 2, 1, jump..."

It gets worse...

I didn't know it could...
Careful people...

Details for sometime later.

Now Playing:

Track:Not Unlike The Waves
Artist: Agalloch
Album: Ashes Against The Grain
Vaidu’s classification: Progressive/Ambient/Grey Metal/Doom Metal

For the Directionally Challenged

Now to bring some cheer into my blog. I don't think even an inanimate entity like a blog can stand so much negativity.

This post is dedicated to my friend... well, I don't want to straight away reveal his identity in case he gets offended. So, building on Vasu's ingeniously obfuscating algorithm, we have XsantoshX.

There are 3,417 types of people in this world. One of them is the Directionally Challenged. The ones that can't tell their right hand from their left. And I have been blessed to be surrounded by a few of them. (blessed because I take a kind of sadistic pleasure in making fun of them). The epitome of these being XanshuX (Vasu's algo strikes again, thank you Vasu). But since I fear that my fingers might get sore from typing out all of his mis-endeavours, I'll settle for one little one on XsantoshX.

This anecdote is of a time when we (obnoxious five, etc.) used to have frequent night outs. Not the inebriated puke-fests, just good old clean fun - watch a movie or two, stuff ourselves with junk food... ok, this is getting gay, but you get the point.

This particular time, some of them, (again using that stupendous algorithm) XsantoshX, XanshuX, XramaX (I think), decided to go for a stroll early at daybreak. How they got up so early, let us not try to decipher in this post. (and you call me Photosyntiesis... hmmph...)
And so they set about walking, as far away as, for desperate need of an amusing epithet and lack of a good one, their hairy legs could carry them, due north.
After about an hour or so the lethargy bug inside XsantoshX (also lovingly called Lethargica) begins to gnaw its way towards his brain. His legs fail to respond, he starts to sweat, his bladder starts to fill up with that brine-y fluid. "That's it! I am going back. I am taking the bus.", he manages to grumble. But his companions aren't done yet. They want to go all the way. Leh, if possible...

Ok, now just try to be a little imaginative. Picture this... You're walking away from home, on the right side of the main road. You want to turn and go back home. Which side of the road would you go to, to catch a bus?

The bug had done it's job. The Acquired Direction Deficiency Syndrome was working in overdrive mode. Looking towards both sides of the road, XsantoshX makes a mad dash to the other side, to the bus-stop.

I rest my case.

I prefer calling these damned souls, rejects of God's great plan to produce human compasses, the Differently Disabled.

Now Playing:

Track: You Were But A Ghost In My Arm
Artist: Agalloch
Album: The Mantle
Vaidu’s classification: Progressive/Ambient/Grey Metal/Doom Metal

Burn those buds!

What's the deal with drinking HOT coffee/tea!!!
I don't get it! Why the hell do you want to burn those poor taste buds of your's?
That's how most people seem to get their sick kicks! It's not the Caffeine or Tannin. Its the Masochistic pleasure they get from the piping hot fluid incinerating the raw skin of their tongues...
Yes that makes me mad...!!!

We don't need no water let the mazar-fazar burn...

Now Playing:

Track: To Myself I Turned
Artist: Lacuna Coil
Album: In A Reverie
Vaidu’s classification: Gothic Rock

Meaning of Life

Life is but a series of unfortunate events, interspersed with brief periods of inactivity of the obviously malignant forces deciding our fates - that momentary feeling of happiness that touches our lives once in a while, till your rewarded for your endurance, with death.
And I am not talking about any of my experience here...
(Forgive me for the melancholic mood...)

Now Playing:

Track: Anesthetize
Artist: Porcupine Tree
Album: Fear of a Blank Planet
Vaidu’s classification: Progressive/Ambient

Some Inconspicuous Malice

Someone up there, or elsewhere doesn't like me.
I don't believe in supernatural occurences, but my mp3 player refusing to start up immediately a day after my post(A Momentary Oasis walla) is too queer a coincidence to simply brush off...
The radio in our cab tried its best, but just wasn't good enough...

Now Playing:

Track: Amity
Artist: The Gathering
Album: If_Then_Else
Vaidu’s classification: Progressive/Ambient

Frown Please...

They (don't know who) say that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile.
They obviously never had to flaunt a fake smile.
I prefer wearing a frown than a plastic smile... And that's exactly what I have been doing lately, ...a lot.

Will be Playing Shortly:

Track: All Tracks
Artist: Agalloch
Album: The Mantle
Vaidu’s classification: Progressive/Ambient/Grey Metal/Doom Metal

A Momentary Oasis

Going through really low phases in life makes you philosophical. So here I go...
Have taken quite a few bad decisions in life. But I wouldn't wholly blame them for my current plight. That's where that loathsome thing called luck (or is it bad) luck? Are these two, separate entities?) comes in. To trample upon whatever is left after that wrong decision of yours ruins what could have been less harrowing an experience. Its a sadistic contest between the two of them - decisions you take, or are forced to take, and luck(or the lack of it).
But with the right (or wrong) combination of the two, you can be sure that you will be banished to eternal damnation. Well, I think I am almost there.
But then again, when things get so badly fcuked up, there comes a phase when you loosen up. The things you had come to despise so much, suddenly stop bothering you. And its a fun feeling. At least I am having fun...

After a more than hectic depressing week, it felt so good. Had been preparing scrolls and scrolls of documents, staying back in office till midnight, sometimes skipping dinner, and then continuing early the next day, something I had begun to abhor from the time I got into my first project (Damn you, CMM 5Certification!). So when I found out that I'd be going to TCS alone, I was already elated (I have seriously begun to fall in love with solitude).

Was listening to Kryptos while simultaneously trying to read "The Ground Beneath Her Feet", on my way to TCS today. And all of a sudden something just came over me, a brief spell of pure euphoria. Don't know what did the trick, the music or the book, or maybe even to an extent, the bus ride. And as I walked down that dusty path, the sun scorching down my neck, towards that hideous structure of glass and Steel, I couldn't help but let that faint hint of a smile creep up my lips. The music/book or both, did it's part well.

Just wanted to speak out.

Well, by this time that feeling of bliss is beginning to fade, so I think I'll stop for now, till my next dose of the same.

Now Playing:

Track: Way Out Of Here
Artist: Porcupine Tree
Album: Fear Of A Blank Planet
Vaidu’s classification: Progressive/Ambient/Experimental

Pune - A Retrospection

(Dramatic title, no...?)
Had been to Pune recently, recently being a good 3-4 months back. Considering the procrastinator that I am, this post coming 3-4 months late ain't that bad.

It had been more than a year since I had left Pune now. And I had run out of excuses for not coming back to meet my friends. And so began my nostalgia tour, on a hot mumbai morning, to the city where the number of two wheelers is matched only by the number of potholes on the roads, or even beaten.

After 12 long months I would be reunited with Neeta. How would she react to my ignoring her for so long, would she have lured some other guy with that thing that she did on the curves, with that sound she made in the tunnels, on the Expressway, did she still have those racks where I put my stuff if there wasn't enough space below, would she still charge only 200 bucks for that 4 hour long titillating ride she took you on, would those seats of hers still recline all the way back, did she still stop at Foodmall for petrol (Rama you won't understand what I feel for her). How else could I have reminisced. Part of my memories attached with Pune revolved around the round trips to Mumbai and back. Those movies you had no intention of watching otherwise (), the paneer franky at Food Mall, listening to The Gathering's 'How to measure a planet' (which coincidentally I was listening to for most of the time I was writing this ), the Expressway itself, during the rains, that chic with the tattoos and piercings who used to sit next to me most of the times (I made that up, ...not to fool you, but myself). I have always fantasized about a chic next to me on those innumerable trips. And when finally that did happen, I was so fcuked up that I was having trouble just trying to keep my teeth from chattering, forget talking to the female. You see on one of my earlier trips I had chosen to wear shorts and sit on that very seat just below the A/C duct which was broken and was now a gaping hole through which flowed the frostiest of air. Still I did manage to blurt out things like, "so... You work in Pune?", "which college you from?", "oh! You're in HSBC, I have friends there" and other such small talk...

No such luck this time. That remake of the Amitabh starrer mafia flick, ironically starring his arch nemesis of the day, was playing.
The bus stopped at a different place this time, one I hadn't been to earlier, and I thought that by now I would know Pune in and out... Met up with my friends, had a bit of the ol' KFS.
Then in the evening met up with friends from Mumbai and went to Apache. This is an amazing place. Had been wanting to go there for a long time. It's this pub where they play Heavy Metal. Metalica, Megadeth, Maiden, Cradle Of Filth, Children Of Bodom, et al... And the usuals - SOAD, LP. Imagine any place in Bombay playing such music! Had some more KFS... Ok, a lot more... Chandni Chowk rocks! Had dinner and came back home (Anshu's place). Paid 3 times the normal rickshaw fare. You would have guessed that by now I assume, if you had not slept through my earlier posts. By the way, No Man's Land (the road outside Anshu's house) has been much improved. Almost one third of the stretch has tar now. And traveling through it doesn't give you that feeling of a thousand bulldozers ravaging your guts anymore.
Finally home, we tried to get some sleep in that nasty Pune cold, wrapping ourselves in curtains and old newspapers. Thats all there was left in his house since Anshu's brother left for B'lore.
Next day had breakfast at Satvik, where I had had 93.07% of my meals when I was staying there. For lunch, had a Cheesy Veg Burger With Cheese (deja vu?) and a Green Apple Fram at Pune's own Burger King. Hmm... Burger King... You need guts of steel and a stomach as big as the Serengeti crater, which sadly I am endowed with, to finish off a single burger there.

After that spleen-splitting, gut-busting lunch, the 3 of us (those friends from Bombay) combined had 55 bucks with us. Decided that I had reminisced enough and came back home in the good ol' ST (Service for Travellers or Tourists whatever, don't rack your brains, it’s a chhedanagar joke).

Not very eventful, but to me, quite nostalgic.

All my earlier rants about Pune notwithstanding there were quite a few things I did like or found out that I actually liked. Which brings me to the Retrospection part ;)
Some of the things I'll remember and some changes that staying there brought about:

• Staying alone for so long taught me how to enjoy absolute solitude (I had also started reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "100 Years of Solitude" :P ).


• Experienced Pune's rain. The air is so moist that fish could swim through it (where have I heard this before? Seriously if you have heard this earlier let me know where).


• I had food in a roadside Dhabba in the middle of nowhere on a National Highway at midnight, something I could never do in Bombay.


• Tasted German Bakery's "Herbal" *wink wink* Chai (Choi as a friend corrected).


• Paid a fortune each time for traveling.


• Celebrated my birthday with 20-30 total strangers.


• Found out that Pune surpasses Bombay by a huge margin in the number of good looking woman (a Pune friend argues that even though there quantity in Pune, for quality you have to come to Bombay... Hmm... I don't think any girl would be reading this, if you are, here's something for you... :P ).


• Was asked by a Rickshaw driver, why do I travel by rick and don't own a bike.


• Discovered the beauty of Anneke Von Giersbergen's voice.


• Made some good friends.


• Ate Continental food for the first time, and probably the last.


• Paid a fortune each time for traveling.


• Lost my virginity. Now that I have your attention, I'll continue...


• Learned to derive immense pleasure from staring at blank walls (when you'r living alone in an empty home with no TV or computer, definition of what's fun and what's normal takes a back seat).


• Went on long drives to distant Dams in the rain.


• Discovered the beauty of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.


• Discovered the beauty of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway during the rains.


• Found out I am pretty good at bowling (I am not talking about cricket).


• Lived through Siddharth's and Neeraj's rash driving.


• Made a Tang flavoured Hukkah out of a Mc Ds milkshake cup.


• Mastered Sudoku, Kakuro and Loop the loop.


• Paid a fortune each time for traveling.


• Did'nt visit the Osho Ashram.


• Still didn't learn to ride a bike (I can't).


• Still didn't learn to speak in Marathi. Though I now know JAVA, UNIX, PL/SQL.


• And finally, paid a fortune each time for traveling.

Wasn't much of a Retrospection, but I just remembered the words of some wise old man : "Its not the destination that matters, its the journey that counts". True... (or is it... *single raised eyebrow*)

Part 1: Pune... the Beginning

Part 2: A Tale of two cities

Now Playing:

Track: All Tracks
Artist: The Gathering
Album: How to Measure a Planet?
Vaidu’s classification: Progressive/Ambient

Offshore On site

Moving to Chennai this weekend...
Well, what do I do? Have to be happy with this for the time being...
Every dog has his day...

Will be working from TechM office as well as TCS :)
Will have to miss Iron Maiden, probably even Office Bash (What! only for the booze...).
Expect even fewer posts from now (If that's possible, that is...)
I guess you can call me a Madrasi when I am back :P

Now Playing:

Track: Amante
Artist: Pagan (Sandy)
Album: I Am One
Vaidu’s classification: Progressive/Ambient

Moment of Clarity

Just figured out the root cause of all human misery since time began...

Its me...
(Just think about all the unfortunate events that have happened in your life, I’d be involved in them somehow, I just know...)

Now Playing:

Track: In Motion #1
Artist: The Gathering
Album: Mandylion
Vaidu’s classification: Gothic Metal

... and some more

Whoa! 2 posts in 3 days... That’s a first!

Just as the gremlins wrecking havoc on my brain cells were settling down, another jhatka (Ya, I have to improve my vocalubary [sic. See, vasu I used it too... :P ]). Just been shifted to a different project, something I have been fantasizing for as long as I have been in my current project. But knowing me you’d know, things aren’t that fine...

I have always been fond of coding. But if the recent developments are anything of an indication, I’ll be far away from any development activity in no time.

It all started with me having to get back to Mumbai after my training in Pune. So I just jumped into the first project that I was getting in Mumbai. (actually second, I was rejected in another project... the disgrace...). And that’s how I was stuck in my current project in this sad excuse of a Development team.

Then came the announcement that there’s an opening in the E2E team, meaning onsite. 2 of my friends were in that team, one onsite, the other packing his bags for onsite. Blindly I jumped into that too.

And while my knowledge sharing sessions for E2E were going on, I was made to work on the testing automation process of the Testing team. I must agree that part of it was fun. Something I could proudly tell I was involved in.

And now to complete the vile quartet of the IT industry, I have been put into the Support Team of a different project. Fu©k! What the hell am I doing?!?!? But what am I going to do about it? Zilch! Ya, just that! Anger building up... Pulse rising... Frothing at my mouth... Ok now I am really pissed off... Am going to stop now...

Now Playing:

Track: Pandemonic Hyperblast
Artist: Anaal Nathrakh
Album: The Codex Necro
Vaidu’s classification: Brutal Black Metal

(hits the right notes... aaahh...)

Things...

I was thinking of finishing off the Pune series before posting anything else. As of now its lying half done on my cell phone. So just blogging for the sake of blogging right now.

Where do I start... hmm... Ok, am not putting much into this post... Too many things happening in the last 1 week...

Started coming to office in second shift (2 pm to 10 pm). This timing suits me very well.
I get time in the morning for my musical pursuits (blah... I am trying to record some songs. Long time overdue...). have lunch and leave home at 1pm.
Nothing much to do in this team I jumped into. Vinod taking care of things from the UK for the time being (I’ll never forgive myself for not bumping you off, “Vinnie”).
After about 8 pm there are hardly any people on the floor. Planning on watching movies every night, in office.
Then get a rick back home and just hit the bed. Nice... :)

Apart from this, other things I am not mentioning here, have been going through my mind... Too much to digest in such a short time... Many of my beliefs, shattered. Feel like a fool thinking about it.

Well that’s it... I know, it aint much of a read, but aren’t blogs supposed to be this way, just random thoughts going through your mind?

Expect more posts now onwards.