I don’t believe this. This is going to be the third weekend i am out of town….

Been working hard. The new office timing is messing up my Biological Clock.
But what the heck? I am getting paid, and I am learning new stuff, and that’s that.

I desperately want the keyboard back, even though I know I am not going to do anything much when it is around. That’s the way it always is, you want something desperately, and when you finally get it, the need – that sheer necessity wears off.

But yes, I have finally given it to be repaired.

Factoid of the day: The word “blog” is a compressed form of “web log“.
I didn’t know that before!!!!!

Would like to sign off with something witty/catchy/funny, but am too tired to think.

There’s this book I read recently, one of the stuff I refer to as filler material…something from Talonx’s reading list, depending on the author and whatever interest I can self-instill from reading the back cover review. This one was a sci-fi novel about Time Travel, about this guy who goes back in time and falls for his great-multi-great-grandmother in ancient Byzantium…and the consequences. “Up The Line” by Robert Silverberg. Humourously written, and extremely engaging. What got my eye was this chapter….just before the protagonist manages to consummate his…ahem….desires, and basically throws hajaar fundae about love and sex and stuff. ( yeah, i just got back from IIT, i remember.) Semi-R rated content follows. Parental discretion advised.

(begin quote)

Also you say, here is my naked body with all its flaws, which I expose trustingly to you, knowing that you will not mock it. Also you say, I accept this intimate contact with you knowing that you might transmit to me a loathsome disease. I am willing to take this risk, because you are you. And also the woman used to say – at least up to the early nineteenth or twentieth century – I will open myself to you even though there may be all sorts of biological consequences nine months from now.
…..
There you have the heart of my philosophy. I stand revealed as a naked romantic. This is the profundity I have distilled from all my experience: sex with love is better than sex without love. Q.E.D. I can also show, if you like, that to be healthy is better than to be ill, and that having money is superior to being poor. My capacity for abstract thought is limitless.

(end quote)
My sentiments exactly. :-)
Rishi, you the man, Man! Didn’t think I would get a book that would actually make me sit up typing part of a chapter.
Another good read by Robert Silverberg – Nightwings.

Yesterday night I found something unheard-of in Odyssey – My first Heavy Metal magazine. Will buy it today. For those who have no idea what Heavy Metal magazine is….well, we gotta do something about that.

Coming back to the office after a hiatus, however brief it might be, is ….ummm, i am always bad with analogies….it’s kind of a Rip-Van-Winkle-ish experience. You know, the guy who slept for 20 years and came back to his native village and found his infant daughter a married woman, and his friends dead and stuff. This feeling is kind of like that.

No dead people around HERE of course. And yes, I do realise that part of it is my paranoia up in arms, and the other part is my guilty conscience…but still.

The worst thing is when people don’t ask where you had been. It’s kind of like “Oh, we already know what you’ve been. Welcome back. Oh, and guess what? You’ve been fired. ” I know this sounds funny, but it’s just the way I react.

Part of this goes back to my school-days. People might beg to disagree, but history notes that Beatzophreniac, in his pre-beatzo days, was a sincere, diligent, hardworking, conscientious individual. He did not bunk school. He did not read comics in class ( actually, he did, but history can be altered to suit one’s point of view) And he most definitely didn’t bunk work to go to quiz fests.
( I don’t think my Science teacher from the Tenth is reading this )
Anyway, in those oddball situations when I bunked classes…horror of horrors, the day would usually be a major one, with something like a Class Test being over, or a major reshuffling of seating spaces, with the absentee ( ME! ) being relegated to sharing a bench with the smelliest guy in class. ( no, that wasn’t me )

Enough history. We were talking about the office.

Right, so I was late today. Was supposed to be back in town on Saturday…of course that was a barefaced lie for leave’s sake. So skulked into the office at noon, and decided to have lunch before starting off with work.

Major shock to my biological rhythm: seems we have to be in our office by 8 AM. EIGHT AM!!! Jeez!!! Seems the boss wants more afternoon time….and we’ll be having breakfast in the office. Jeez!!!! So, everybody, take note. I will be available in my office between 8 and 4 everyday.

The inhumanity!!!!

Another bombshell: The load-balancer design meeting got over in the morning without me! Aaaaaaaargh!

Seems somebody made a resolution: No Yahoo Messenger for a week!!!

Skeetered around the office trying to figure out exactly how many people know I went to Saarang and how many don’t. The reason being, my official excuse is that I had gone to Chennai to meet this uncle who had come over for an operation…yada yada yada….Turns out The Boss doesn’t know anything about it. Inspite of people shouting “How much did you win?” at inopportune moments. Dunno how long that will last.

One more resolution. I will be honest with myself. Will work properly!!!!!!!!!

Load Balancer, here I come.

(For those who wonder what a Load Balancer is, check out http://www.zeus.com for details )

This took a lot of soul-searching. This trip, I mean.

Saarang has been one thing I have been coming to for ALL the years I was in college. Never thought I would be here even after passing out ( “passing out” is a funny phrase ).

First things first. I shouldn’t BE here. I am a responsible adult, with a job to take care of, for Gossakes! I nearly got refused leave on 22nd, and missed the train ( the guys, my KC partners had booked tickets for me) at 3:30. Decide not to go after all. At 5, my leave gets approved, and I run to the station; reach it at 5:45, the last train to Wgal had left 5 minutes ago. Did some quick calculations, ,Cmnr express was leaving at 8, ,and I would have reached Chennai by 10, but the Main Quiz was supposed to start at 9. Plus, Mohan was the QM for the quiz….
Decided to ditch the Main Quiz. Chilled out until the next day, and boarded a GC on Chennai Exp.

Another first after getting a job. Was pretty sure I wouldn’t be travelling by General Compartment after May 2002. Boy, was I wrong.

But really, travelling in a GC when you have a berth is FUN! You are alone. You are Master of your surroundings. The berth, ,that is. There is this continuous flow of humanity you can stare down at,and be at peace with yourself. A discman is good to shut out the world completely. Slept for 12 hours straight on MY berth. :-)

Good that I missed out the Main Quiz. It was a HORROR SHOW!!! 55 questions, each of them essay-like, and vague as hell!!! Mohan must have been dopedwhen he did this. Anyway, people were referring to it as “The Pain Quiz”….and the cutoff was 5.5. I checked out paper. Convinced myself (and others) that I could have easily scored 7.

Made it to the finals of the A/V and the Sports Quiz. lucked out. Didn’t break even after all.

The Downward Spiral Syndrome strikes again.

Anyway, I am glad I came. The trip brought back a lot of memories…good ones at that. Saarang ’01 is always gonna be one of THE highpoints of my life.
My team-name this time was a homage to the guy who passed a question he knew just so I could beat Mohan and win the Lone Wolf. :-) ( ‘rage rage against the dying of the light….’ )

Last year and this year, the coords of the Lone Wolf seem hellbent on screwing up one’s biological rhythm.

At some points of time, was actually helping out the Hospi-desk guys with tips garnered from previous Saarangs. :-)

The Odyssey quiz is on in the afternoon. Hope I chill out there.

Another highpoint: Met some guys who were there at Trivium. Seems the quizzes have attained cult status in Q-circles…especially the marathon Don Quizzote with the fag-breaks and The Cimmerian’s 10-q theme….fond remembrance of times past….anybody know that the only petition to postpone an exam in RVCE was in 2001 because 35 people wanted to attend a Quiz Festival in distant Warangal ??
The petition nearly got approved, but for a veto by the Vice Chancellor.

Feel kinda crappy now…lots of things to do once I get home –
1) Design a load balancer.
2) Code a load balancer.
3) Listen to a lot of stuff.
4) Finish writing the National Geographic Series cds.
5) Read a lot of design documents.
6) Think of ways of making some extra money. (Tax
evasion is a crime, I know.)

One resolution I have GOT to be serious about is – no more Quiz Fests. No more bunking office. No more wasting my leave privileges.

Life is good.
A word about the music I am listening to. I say this with a complete lack of self-consciousness: I am a Rahman Freak! Nothing in the world comes close to explaining this feeling I have right now…I am listening to one of His songs ( and it’s not even one of the best works). I am at peace. The music flows. it really does. The instruments seem to shimmer over the general body of the song…half of the instruments I can’t even figure out…starts off with a voice and a sample of a female hum. handclaps. tinkles. a percussion beat ( some indian instrument at intervals, the way he uses it with the handclaps is ….oh my god, i am gushing and i can’t help it)
What wouldn’t I give to be able to reproduce the song in any form….
but no, NOBODY can do that…..
You don’t reproduce a Rahman song.
My God, it’s all SO complicated. How does he know that the tablas come here? And the trumpet should only play on the left channel for this much time, and the flute should go by with a few notes at this time? This is crazy! I lose heart trying to create a simple drum-sample, and this guy actually does it with ALL his songs!

I guess I am repeating myself. Can’t help it. His music does this to me. And it does this everytime.

Isn’t it great fighting with someone and making up? The fighting part may not be too great, but it sure is fun! :-) And the making-up part of course, makes you feel all gooshy inside.
(NB: gooshy: warm, like molten chocolate trickling slowly through your tongue…)

I have missed three ive concerts in a row, and all three being good artistes. Colonial cousins, inspite of the fact that I got VIP tickets for free. Trilok Gurtu, again free. And Taufiq Qureshi/Shankar Mahadevan/Louis Banks, at IIM-B. Ditched all three because I was quizzing. Am I sane or not?

I decided not to go to Guwahati after all. Not in February. Maybe after April, after her exams get over.

I have a feeling I am gonna ditch the ARR concert too. Especially if it’s held at a place like Gachibowli – really, the whole fuss about spending money on an auto and geting there, and wading through morons who are there to listen to phillum music makes things bad. Plus, the dreaded “post-live-concert-blues”….i still can’t listen to Pachhai Nirame without mentally kicking myself for not doing it on stage when I could have.
Shit, man…
But, no, we normally screwed songs anyway, so better thinking about how good it might have been, rather than actually having done it. :-)

But I miss my keyboard, and I miss the Club, so there.

But I am happy. :-)