A Tonsured head and a bag full of Ideas

Well, the term in the title means clean shaven. I could have used that, but again, a new term I confused with ‘tarnished’, I got to use. I learnt this word at the centre where I saw Dhoni look alikes going in and coming out looking like Viru. And yes, I got my head tonsured at tirupati (though I must admit I would have done it at the saloon if this didn’t come along).

Right from the minute I got it done, I could have easily started a new hobby – collecting wise-ass comments from my jackass buddies(?). Ranging from ridiculous comparisons to plain indifference (ouch), people have been really forthcoming with their opinions. And me, I generally beat them to the punch with my own comments.

However what I can’t quite understand is the questions framed by those who are just acquainted. I mean why would people ask “What happened?!” What do they expect me to say? Lets say I beat nature to it (not by as big a margin as I would have liked though). My friend suggested I answer with “Its autumn!!”

Anyhow, the fact is I’ve been quite enjoying the new look. Not to mention the time saved in front of the mirror trying to solve the problems of surface area coverage with data insufficiency constraints (cough). Plus the best part has been things I can do and the immense pleasure I draw in irritating people.

The following is the list of things I’ve done / plan to do to unsuspecting people. Given it SOME thought haven’t I?!) :D

-> Start searching frantically around the place when people are around. When asked what I’m searching for, say “I seem to have lost my comb”

->In meetings or discussion make eye contact with the person who is speaking and blow off my imaginary wisp of hair falling over my eyes. This usually gets them to start stuttering.

->Whenever in elevators with mirrored doors or passing parked vehicles with people you know, stop to adjust my hair.

->Interrupt a really busy coworker and with all seriousness ask for a favor. When they grudgingly ask what, ask if they can suggest a good conditioner for my hair

->In all general conversations make references to old sayings and aphorisms that involve hair. My favorite is a tamil one which when translated into English goes something like – “Its like dragging the mountain, tying it to your hair. If you succeed it’s the mountain you’ve got else you’ve just lost a hair” (spoilt it with the translation)

->Take along a friend for shopping and spend long time in buying a comb or choosing hair oil and shampoo.

->Suddenly register a horrified expression on the face and ask people “What happened to my hair?!?!”

->In shampoo brand webpages or forums, post my new pic and say ‘xyz’ shampoo is responsible for my awesome hair.

->Use a hair dryer for long time and when people get bugged and ask me to stop, look really offended.

Now the list is not exhaustive mind you, but covers my immediate list from which I’ve tried around 60% with varying levels of success.

Here I’m signing off to get back to what I should be doing. Adios.

Random Musing

I’m bored. Not the I-Have-nothing-better-to-do bored nor is it the am-watching-jodha-akbar-the-2nd-time bored. I simply feel “Why the heck am I doing what I’m doing and why the hell is something better so not fun” feeling.

So I think I’ll kind of update a few minor highlights in my life and give my opinion on a few irrelevant topics to cheer myself up.

I conducted 3 telephonic interviews in one day! It probably doesn’t seem a big deal, but to me, I was all grins when I was asked if I could. All 3, more experienced than me and I had to do a screening on skill set which for some odd reason, they believe I have. When my TL asked me if I can, I managed a “ok, I’ll see if I am free” while inside I was all like “Buwahahaha”! I did my homework – Roadies auditions on youtube and a whole lot of Dilbert [:D]! They say power corrupts - but hey, I’m above that!! (Buwahahaha)

Attended a time management training. Sounds lame? I thought so too. But it was surprisingly good. Had a few takeaways from it and now I find myself having time for work amidst reading blogs and donating rice for the needy at freerice.com :D. But ya, kind of resonated with the sentiments on work life balance and resolved to take time off to bridge ties and save bonds across.

Which brings me to my Public relations part. Not that I’m competing for any popularity contest, but if I were, I would have been screamed at by really rude judges which would have got media coverage on Times now for 2 whole days! I’ve been quite preoccupied lately. Meaning my social life is akin to E-Coli – in deep shit. The realization came when I pinged a real good friend of mine on gchat [After some 3 weeks of seeing her online, I pinged her in invisible mode] and realised she was in US and about to be married! Vaguely remembered a call while I was in a telecon that I cut and a mail asking for my current number that i didn't reply to [Am really sorry re. Congratulations]. After that harsh awakening, [where i was virtually screamed at after the initial pleasantaries] I’ve decided to take the initiative and call people once in a while.

I got a dog back home. Binny – a cross of spitz. He kind is of the opinion its fun to lick me awake at ungodly hours and get screamed at. Blame it partly on the pampering he gets around the house. Amazing distraction. Too bad I get to spend time with him only every second weekend. But nice to know someone gets all happy to see you and can’t wait to jump on you and welcome you. I mean, of course, I wouldn’t want people jumping on me to welcome me and definitely no licking!!! A smile is sufficient :)

Watched a couple of good movies recently. Wednesday was too good and the tamil movie Saroja was fun. In addition rewatched the Dark Knight some 4 times [it’s the best movie of all times in my opinion].

I have some 3 unfinished blogs still on my system. [one of which is pretty damaging to a friend(??) of mine :P] Am one of those strange people who gets writer’s block in the middle of a piece! That’s why shelved anything subjective and just randomly musing.

That’s it for now. Feeling better already and actually a report I’m supposed to be working on beckons.

Adios! Have fun and God bless.

Slaves of Time

Note: This post is yet another attempt at variety.

Late into the night. The waning moon hides her disfigured face behind the clueless clouds. The nomadic clouds drift away doing their business of being oblivious to the moon’s sadness or for that matter the entire cosmos.

A new blade of grass, that came into the world with so much expectation, now unable to stand the stillness lazily stoops over to make small talk with the other blades. Out of nowhere he feels himself being lifted by the winter breeze. Breeze, laden with moisture, carrying the fragrance of the distant buds that will bloom in a few hours and the cricks of the noisy crickets. The sudden bout of freshness lifts his spirits and he lets himself be swayed and caressed surrendering to the gentle breeze. Minutes of pure bliss pass and the breeze moves on to rouse the spirits elsewhere. The blade of grass recovering from the intoxication, realizes the presence that had not been there before.

A small droplet of moisture has been carelessly dropped onto his arm and there she was coy and demure, balled up in the presence of a stranger. The moon seems to have come out to wail out her loneliness in the vast expanse, and a few rays from the moon seemed to glisten through the new dew drop. He is fascinated. It feels so fresh, so exhilarating. He watches in bemusement as she lies there still scared and not wanting to know him further like in her own bubble.

He decides to make the first move. He closes the blade just a tad so he could encompass her on all sides. Startled, she moves down leaving a small trail that catches up with her and she ends up as a trembling drop away from his closing lamina. He recoils and immediately withdraws his closure move and spreads out to give her all the space she wanted. He feels like an idiot and is too embarrassed by his actions. Let her be he says to himself and tries to ignore her presence while all the while making sure he doesn’t sway so much to lose his visitor.

An hour passes. The breeze revisits and this time the grass is not excited but scared that he might lose possession. He could feel her shiver and this time she lets him encompass when he tried to cover her. He holds on to her against the breeze. The breeze seemed to hold no interest, none whatsoever in his possession and passes after dutifully gathering a few dust particles.

In the ensuing stillness he can feel the change in his visitor. She seems to relax and in doing so leans over him. He’s tickled with excitement. The other blades seemed to grow greener with envy. He is elated. Love is in the air. She smiles and after her initial inhibitions snuggles up into his arms. All world seems to grow insignificant for the pair and there they are drenched in peals of laughter sharing unadulterated love. In what seems to them like seconds passes hours. The dawn creeps up at the horizon.

The new lovers seemed to feel a bit uneasy at the brightness that shrouded them from the darkness that strangely felt like bliss. The sun comes over the horizon dutifully spreading his glow. The dew drop shivers and glistens at the same time. Her lover tries to protect her by drawing her closer. Its just a matter of minutes before the clinically efficient sun reaches for her. The blade of grass feels impotent. He could feel her clinging to him more trying to fight off the rays of sun, refracting the white light into the rainbow colors. Unperturbed, the rays keep soaking them and soon the inevitability of the fate strikes the lovers. Far in the distance a cuckoo bird sings in joy thanking the sun for his presence.

Minutes and seconds seemed much more significant than the eternity that they pledged their love for. The pair plead, try to reason all to a deaf agent of time. A slave who does his work loyally and clinically before he’s sent drowning into the ocean. In an hour she evaporates into thin air. The grass unable to bear the loss shies away and with a droop gathers dust. As the sun shines on through the rest of the day the grass weakens and tans and gets trampled and in pain does its duty of existence hoping that the same agents of time would bring him back her love.

A new day. Few broken dreams. A hundred new promises. And thus continues the cycle of life. Driven by time - the master.

Spitsville!

I’m not exactly the type of person who stands nose to nose with someone I don’t agree with, with veins throbbing in my neck and make threatening statements.(What with the blubber accumulated, the nurses use me as pincushion before they can find a vein during blood donation camps) For such a peaceful person, something that can make me want to thrash the living daylights out of someone – I have discovered.

Now, when we were taught biology in 9th standard, most attention was spent on the Life process 2 chapter (expectedly). Somewhere in the chapter they were talking of the endocrine glands and stuff which I can’t remember exactly. But I’m sure nowhere was it mentioned secretions by a gland can obfuscate something as trivial as common sense! I mean, what factor in the www can make some [unprintable profanity] to spit from a vehicle in a traffic signal (moving bus even worse)?!

This is NOT a sad story of being painted and then me cribbing here. Cos I have no doubts had that ever happened I would have been currently in a police station pleading guilty to manslaughter. This post is a product of utter disgust at the thought that some have such an urge to spread their work as if its their purpose of existence.

I know people like that are almost everywhere. It even includes a few relatives and friends of mine. When I asked a friend of mine, why the F did he keep doing that, he was a bit embarrassed and after mutually exchanging sorries, it didn’t happen in my presence. He still does that I hear. Now this made me wonder how this habit(?) must have even come into existence or how do they convince themselves its not disgusting.

Come on people, a sense of civic hygiene can’t be acquired on being told. And its not a question of being taught in classrooms or at home. You just need to think if you would like to be at the other end of your actions. Its not rocket science!

In the end, this is not something I can do much about but express my concern and anger. If probably we put a fine for these people, it might reduce it a bit (and result in the class of Mercedes drivers who open the window to do the same.). Maybe trips to foreign localities might bring in some amount of shame. But ya that’s a maybe again.

Even if we get inspired by Titanic and get spitting into the Olympics (Cos we have chance for a few more golds), still a big no to spitting on the roads or in public places.

I could have spoken about related civic evils, but then I think this will be a sample candidate of that set.

Other than that, all the best to India in SL. And congratulations to our Olympic heroes who have done our country proud.
Adios!

Care for Droppings?

Probably there’s nothing new with your professional jargon seeping into your day to day vocabulary. I mean it’s the most natural thing. So if you are gonna list taking bath as an ‘action item’ I’m not going to mock you. But engineers, they are a bit different from the rest of the lot. No I’m not saying we terms drop (which we do), but even the intended audience won’t figure out what in the www are we talking about. For the sake of saving time on analogies I’d like to call these technical ramblings – ‘Droppings’.

Now let me tell you I’m not talking about the nerdy type portrayed in sitcoms like the big bang theory. I’m talking about the weasels (Read Dilbert) who thoroughly enjoy your expression of bewilderment that is brought about by a flurry of technical terms that have as much relevance with each other as Himesh has with acting. I confess I’m heavily influenced by the Dilbert books I’ve been reading, but that has only made me put the obvious truth into words.

Now, as someone who has a reputation of doing just the same (sample here), I think I’ll let you in on the secrets of effective Droppings. First lets identify the scenarios wherein you might need to resort to dropping.

Scenario 1: Status reports

Any status report meeting, simplicity is a vice. When it’s a question of explaining your screw up or in the rare case of exaggerating your accomplishments, it always serves well to make it complex. Remember, there are people who might see through your bluff and hence never commit yourself.
Eg:
U: “We are 2 days behind schedule. The modules on interoperability of the interface and making the tool vendor independent would require more analysis”
Him: “The what? Where did that even come into the picture?”
U: “I made it a point of analysis to ensure the power ratings and latency related problems of the vendors do not hamper the performance of our tool. For this we need to collect the tech specification from the diff vendors and ensure there’s no anamoly”
If you thought any of it is supposed to make sense – think again! By the time the other person recovers from the shock, you are free to get back to your browsing.

Scenario 2: Project documentation (Applicable to college students as well)

Well this is one lesson that is taught in college. A project report is something everyone demands but no one reads. But keep it in mind that everyone wants to pretend they are going through and hence point out some spelling mistake or the other.
Droppings here must comprise of abbreviations and if engineering project, a lot of greek alphabets. You might as well add telugu and tamil alphabets to emphasize it’s a genuine work. They always look nice in reports.
Abbreviations – make them up as much as you can and you can always say you’ve listed it in the look up table. In fact this works in status reports as well. You can always christen stuff like “That Icky Gooey Stuff” as TIGS and expand it later as some Thermally Insulated Gallium Silicide. (a 50-50 chance that something of that name actually exists!) Mathematically, 26P4 + 26P3 possibilities for conjuring your own 4 letter and 3 letter Abbreviations!
Next year some lazy junior is gonna take up your project work for reuse and by the time he figures out he’s been heavily loaded with droppings, his project reports would be spiral bound and hence your legacy will be carried on.
(Ya Its ok, you can mention me in acknowledgement and this blog in your bibliography)

Scenario 3: Code Red Scenarios

Ok, this is when you are in deep shit like having to explain what caused the system to crash. What’s different from the earlier scenarios is that here you better pray you can get away with it.
In such scenarios try to be highly generic. Use words like ‘possibly’, ‘probably’, ‘may’ every sentence and then use not more than 3 technical words a sentence. Preferably, try to get it right.
Eg: If your application had crashed while you were playing online Halo on your laptop, truth can crucify you. But for any chance of salvation you need to report accurate data. “While testing for performance of the tool when running a graphic intensive application over the web server, the system performance possibly deteriorated due to memory constrains of the processor”
Hurts no one, but talk about the weather if you are asked to repeat this [;)]

Scenario 4: Blip in the Radar

If you find two guys in an animated discussion of something too technical with grins and lols between each statement, the chances are high that they are talking about something so trivial. If you look around, you might find the triviality not too far from them.
This topic I can’t explain with too many details, but I can tell you this works like a charm. If you actually got what point I’m driving at, the chances are you don’t need any more explanation [:D]
If you don’t, ignore them as jackasses and get on with your work.

Scenario 5: For the heck of it

This is the ultimate human nature. Men (and women) play for reactions. And nothing more gratifying than a “Oh Shit!” expression for a performer. I mean you can’t get expression of awe and appreciation without working and hell, like someone wants to do that! Easier way out. Doesn’t it explain the hordes of PJ cracking smart asses that you find at every nook and corner?

So, the next time you are subjected to droppings from an engineer, stop trying to make sense out of it. If you were to get it, they’ll put it in simpler words :) On the contrary if you are an engineer and practicing the philo, cheers to us!

After reading Dilbert and of course seeing a few of my friends struggle, I realized things could have been worse. So here’s a word of thanks to my team and my TL here for making a life lot easier. (Touchwood)