Life In a Cubicle

A phone to look at, a computer to stare at and a desk with drawers to stuff up , How can I miss the most comfortable seat. This is the Alcatraz of thousands of employees like me. People never realize that they spend almost 3/4th of their lifetime here. It’s sober in color and has a soothing effect. It has only a single opening and you can’t jump over your desk. It is not in the least comparable to the college desks. Every now and then people walk around this and it’s the only source of outer world enjoyment you get, to see them move. Here are a series of policies (I call them policies not because the post is an acronym of LIC) which may appear as cliché but then what else? Truth by itself is cliché. These policies are actually myths that surround our office culture and as a newbie I find them more glaring. It’s in no way the usual bias with which people hate their office routines and crib about it. It’s just a subtle observation of things in and around me.

Policy Section 1.0
Reach office early:
Nobody has the habit of reaching office on time. It’s actually a myth for the rule makers as to set the official hours over a range. It’s not obviously possible for the entire strength of the company to punch their cards exactly on time. If that had been possible then obviously the forefathers of the company would have provided enough doors and enough access card points in the premises. They dint do it because some super intelligent Management guy showed them a graph of the peoples mentality of reaching the office and ended up with a peak hour analysis and brought down the maximum number of access points required. But everybody is serious about one point you are not to leave on time, it’s a crime. As a golden rule to impress the boss always leave just after him. It may work out for your early promotion (That’s another myth which shall be broken in the due course!).
So people end up reaching office either damn early (there are still a few over-enthusiastic!) or properly late. It takes time to bust this myth since it’s hard for people to accept reality.

A-SS!

Staring on the glaring walls of the bare-faced room, i get to see nothing more than struck up tombstones.. i had never bought anything in my life...myself. Every time i had needed something was bought by someone for me. I hardly bought bread or butter, sometimes even that was bought for me. this had been my biggest transition in my life , now that i start to buy everything i need; by myself. Its not that I'm trying to be all the very calculative and create a good saving out of my skilled budgeting, its just that i still have the feeling that somebody will still get me my things... I want to break this syndrome, rather i had even named it one. i call it the A-Shopaholic Syndrome...
I do go out to socialize,and on the process i do fall upon good shops to look for.. shops where in i can buy my needs..but then the moment i step near it, even before i glare at the price tag, i get to adhere to this feeling that, okay let me buy the next time i come here..
Let me define its symptoms in detail. You would start with a wish list. You will draw outlines and commit yourself that you totally need it.. in the next phase you just start on a spree to go out and have fun in any of the local malls. During this period you would unknowingly forget about the fact that you had stepped out of your house just to buy things from the list. But then its your subconscious that had worked out a plan behind your brain to make you go out.(naturally you wouldn't have seen it, since it was at your back..)
The moment you enter the mall you find a shop, you enter it without any knowledge. It would as if look like the shop had just attracted you, and it had been the shop's exquisite beauty that stung on you instantaneously.. You end going inside and in the end you even land on that one thing you had wanted.

This is where the syndrome starts, Its poisonous ingredients sniffs with the object on scrutiny and fumes its extra- sensory-deregulation perfume which on contact with you makes you lose interest on it. It breaks into your wish-list table and postpones the entry to future archives and makes you believe yet again that there had never in the world been a choice for it.

Indeed its a vicious conundrum,this disease is quite contagious, at least for you after reading about it, an awareness has been created.. beware.

Sense

It made all sense then. NASA is the only space agency highly vigilant. If needed they can prepare shuttle launch in less than a week. Meteors have TOMTOM to help them strike America United. Americans have no grudge on japanese after the ww. But then meteors dont. They strike only japan after it strikes US. Offcourse i should have decrypted the connection, who else built the TOMTOM. Russians always gets stranded in the space station, not to forget that they even get drunk in the space and are always insane on the other hand americans are always heroic, even a oil dredger believes he can save the world. Unless the president believes the entire earth is in mortal peril, he never adresses the world as a member of humanity. If all these make a no sense fact then let me give you just the connection. Armegeddon. You got it. Its that pathetic movie which was so inspiration in the early days of my movie watching hobby, made absolutely real sense only now after me completing nearly a century of movies. Omg why should it always be the americans who face the imminent danger and why it always be them who save us altimately. When we say our captain prepares himself on a mission to save just a country we mock at him but when a bunch of hookies say they are gonna save this world we dont even raise a finger to mock at them...pity you!

Hel-Met

Helmet is the basic necessity fer any two wheel driver. The police has become very particular about this law in the recent time and have started to increase their white collar cost esp for this rule. The vexed youth unable to pay so much for just not wearing a helmet have opted for wearing the helmet. Well my story is just about one helmet. It goes like this. On a gud sultry day(the usual whether of my country) i and a couple my college mates were on our routine trip for the fruit juice shop. About the fruit shop, its in the corner of a dilapidated hotel whose maximum customer count on any part of the year has never reached a double digit. It's positioned perctly just below a flyover making my fact even more apparent. But still this fruit shop is quite popular. Whatever we go there quite regular. By regular i mean atleast 5 times in 4 days! Asusual we started they ceremonial journey and were about to cross the 3rd traffic signal and we had 3 more to cross. Its was a halt signal and we were eagerly eyeing the trffic policeman,eagerly waiting for him to change the signal(well since almost all signals in my country are manual we need to wait for the policeman only to change!) it was then that one of my friend had a great hilarious laugh. Highly intruiged we demanded the reason for his idiosyncracy. My story is this reason behind his idiosyncracy.
' nothing dude. . 6 months back this policeman caught me. Not once but actually twice. On the first catch the reason was me not wearing the helmet! The worst part of the catch was that the signal was green and thought of hitting the road as quick as possible and evade this guy. But then fate gave me a twist and signal went red by the time i reached near him. Even then i desperately tried the zigzag trick to dodge him unlikely it wasnt PES and apparently this guy was a top player i guess. He just cornered me exactly anticipating my turns and within a flash of a sevond got me stranded and removed the key from my bike. When i approached him he asked me for my documents. Unfortunately i dint have them. It was then my simple brain worked out a trick. Listen to my reasoning'' sir im a student from andra pradesh. I had come for a conference in anna university and im already 10 mins late sir. If you think you really wanna punish me have my bike. I shall come back after the conference and complete my procedures. Please dont hinder my intellectual career because of this trivial mistake. Please help me achieve something in my life'' catch point. Hearing these two- andra and anna university the policeman had fallen on the trap. He became sympathetic right on and left him go. the unanticipated happened a week later when my pity friend had come to this fruitshop and had been waiting for his juice. He had placed his helmet on top of a chair and a guy in plain clothes jus took it to sit there.when my friend got near to him he recogonised the guy to be the policeman, in return the policeman to recogonised him and called out for him. It took jus few secs for my friend to get back from the shock and run his life out of the shop. He hasnt ventured to the shop till now. This is the next time he is attempting after a long break. Bottomline: he missed his 'oldboy' juice the other day for a mere policewala, cheap of him!

last update to the castle

I know im going crazy with this castle thing.. but i like it a lot.. the joy i get in making a structure though being simple.. its my creation right...this will be my last update tot he castle.

Castle Cntd..

Atlast the Castle has been completed....
The images are shown below...







It can also be viewed here

another picture

Castle

This is my castle under construction. i have been working on this for the past 10 hours. i hope i will finish designing my first castle by this weekend.

This is actually a 3D image rendered 2D for viewing purpose. I shall show the completed castle in 3D.

What a Firefox?

This article got published in The Nxg newspaper on july 16th 2009.
It can be viewd in the newspaper's site here
One thing that has made Firefox, the best open source web browser, a popular choice among the common internet users is its add-ons. Apparently Firefox has become a driving force for Mozilla to create a strong brand name. Its impact has been so huge that Microsoft, prior to its congenital disorder inducted a few of the men who worked under Firefox to help them build their latest internet explorer, the IE8. Talking about add-ons, for every aspect of the browser viz. Appearance, extensions, downloads, toolbars, rss feeds, there is an add-on specifically available. There is even an add-on available even for Facebook. For instance, for somebody who downloads quite often, there is this add-on of the popular software, Down Them All! to make their downloads faster. There is an add-on called Firefox persona which allows one to customize his header and footer image of the browser, this add-on is creating a real stir in the Firefox users and a heavy toll of personas have come out giving your browser a trendy look. Other useful add-ons like Foxclocks-which provides accurate time across the globe , foxmarks- a helpful bookmark toolbar, foxytunes- a much useful media player toolbar which allows you to manage media files while using the browser without the need to toggle around windows. Apart from these there is a highly useful tab called cooliris- this tab provides a graphically superior environment to view your entire image search in any given search engine. This concept makes your image search eye refreshing rather than a dull scroll down page of a Google search. Another latest product of the same company is the coolpreview which has gained much popularity in short time span. This option helps you view the content of your Google search or any kind of link appearing in the browser, in a temporary screen without your need to actually browse into the site or link. It's a highly useful add-on while searching for the right content from a Google search when a large list of sites is available. Every Firefox thus becomes unique and special and provides a comfortable arena to have your needs fulfilled. All the add-ons mentioned here can be downloaded from https://addons.mozilla.org. The latest Firefox browser can be downloaded from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/.All these options definitely redefine the very meaning of a browser and in future more quality utilities are expected to be launched. Thanks to Mozilla to bring out such a wonderful product that caters exactly to the needs of its user.

 

What an idea sirji?

Golden Ganesh if at all it sounded like some villain's tag in a Tamil commercial flick, Guys come on its off course not. This is a new venture by a few of my friends. Indeed it's a novel idea as in contemporary with age. There had been radio plays over the years but since the dawn of internet and its by-product the charm of radio listening and more similar hobbies have disappeared. There had been days when most of the drama artists have made more money by selling audio cassettes of all their dramas. It's time we started exploring the same avenues in the internet also. Congrats to the guys who have taken up the initiative. With regards to the story, I can only say the script writer is one hell of a guy highly motivated by many serious English movies involving the CIA, FBI and other secret services across the globe(off course pink panther included). Nothing much can be commented about the story since they have just launched 5 episodes of this series. Hope the coming episodes have the exact quotient of suspense and surprise to grasp their audience. If you had liked prison break, heroes and a few more of the series that are making chart busters, I'm sure you are going to like this one too.

The series can be listened to at http://xdell.blogspot.com/

One can even add the widget of this series in your blog so that it gets updated as and when the episodes get launched. The widget is available here http://sxjthefirst.blogspot.com/

Lesser Mortals

People say God created man and then man created his fellow beings and thus the vicious cycle followed. Indeed the cycle part of it is true but for God created not one but two of his kind, one the less intellectual, the other his compatriot the supremo, the intellectual. Over years due to false accusation and even harder criticism by the mean mortals, the former of the Gods creation have be tormented to hell as a third rate piece of mockery and treated as a mere clown. It has apparently led to an irrevocable demarcation between the mean mortals and the popular cult the GEEKS.

As we approached the 21^st century, the easiest way to portray a geek was to put him in a dungeon with a computer kiosk. Not to forget his full moon spectacles and super fast accent that none understands. Do they deserve this harangue, Why not a a geek appear cool with a sunglass and a chopper for his wheels. Indeed the all powerful entertainment media has biased all the minds of its viewers saying a Geek is what we show you? Better believe it. Maybe in future a day may arise where the high brainy shall mock at the mean mortals and remove the stain battered on them over the ages! That day is not so far…

My name has a funny expansion

 
my robot name is:

B.H.A.R.A.D.W.A.J.: Biomechanical Handcrafted Android Responsible for Assassination, Dangerous Warfare and Accurate Judo

 

This is an application in Facebook named 'Decode your ROBOT name'. I found this one really comical and thought of sharing it in my blog.

Is It Prejudice? Or Am I being Realistic?

Every road has a lamp post. Every lamppost has a bulb which glows. May be not everyone glows in my country. But there is yet another certainty with this lamppost. During the wee hours of the night, this lamppost which is positioned in all the major roads of my city shall bore the weight of a vigilant (at the least for being awake he deserves this adjective) policeman. He may put his weight all over it or park his siren fitted bike or the car below this lamp. His duty is to check over the movement of vehicles and to spot if at all any illegal transport coming in to the city. They are indeed the best suited for the job. Their vigilance is always a steep exponentially rising curve which reaches its peak over the last few days of the month. This strong culture cultivated by a few ambitious men had made a very bad impression on the hearts of every common man, at least those who travel the city in a vehicle. Every now and then the rule breakers are caught and made to bear a sum which is based on his position in the society and which is off course lesser than the penalty he is indebted to. It's not something new that I'm trying to publicize here but this is a age old practice which could better be left as such otherwise this could stir quite a huge angry mob. But then my intention is not to stir that anger.

Once I took over certain responsibilities in my college I started to stay back late in the night in the college and leave very early in the morning. For nearly one month I had been doing this without being questioned by any lamppost authority over the entire stretch of my ride back to home. On one such early winter morning I was sleepily driving my bike with some music in the earphone when the silhouette in the lamppost moved and came over to the road. The entire stretch was calm with no vehicles passing and off course I was accelerating to the maximum of my bikes capability. Seeing this human figure advancing my immediate reaction was to cut him through and advance forward. Then a serious thought occurred what if this guy was so desperate that he might chase me till the end. I just recollected my actions and was confident that I had made no mistakes in my ride and was not going to be charged for law breaking. Just then an even more intimidating reality struck me. "Do these people need reason to brand someone?" This painful thought brought me back to senses and just had the time stop my bike just In front of the figure which had advanced in front of the vehicle. He dint remove my key from the bike immediately after I stopped which really puzzled me because it was the formal procedure of these guys. He just turned over to another guy in civilian clothes and asked him to come forward. All these actions brought in much more fear and made me sweet even in that cool weather. "How much are they going to charge?" was the only thought running in me. The guy who had stopped my vehicle began to speak "hey boy, May I know where are you heading towards in this time of the night?" I replied" to my house Sir, I just had some work in my college" "very well then, which way is your house" I replied his question for which he stroked back turning to his friend" that's exactly the place where you were heading right my friend?" I indeed got h shocked. I wasn't able to make what where his intentions. This very insecurity burnt me to the core and I was still sweating. He just turned over to me and asked "would you be kind enough to allow my friend travel with you, he shall get down near your house." Was all these build up just for requesting a ride? Why hasn't he charged me? Is there something seriously wrong happening here? Maybe he is gone out of his mind. Or maybe he is being kind ad good. But then isn't it out of context for a guy like him to be kind and good.

On the outset this may appear to be a not so great post but then there is a serious note to it. The very intentions of mine thinking that if at all any lamppost guy stops a vehicle he is definitely intending to book somebody itself shows that the cruel actions of a few unjust men have made a strong scar in the hearts of countless men like me. But then there has to be exceptions in any area and even here there had to be one. Maybe this guy whom I met that day could have been that exception. At least for the common crowd to spot such spotless personalities a complete overhaul of every human mind has to be done by these men and has to create a positive impact on us. May be I'm becoming pretty ambitious now for every one of us know that this is beyond the realms of our universe for these men of cruel attitude to change themselves.

My Imagination!

A recent advertisement in the national daily intrigued me to propose a new concept for the future. It asked for entries from participants to provide ones own fantasized future. To be precise one thing that you think would appear in the future. in response to it I sent in this entry of mine:

My idea is to have a robot which can shed its inefficient mobile parts and generate a mini robot out of its now-available minimal parts which can function to the maximum of its potent. It's a simple futuristic resemblance of the phoenix. All the future bots should possess a central memory system which gets directed from a control center whenever the bot performs below its efficiency. The learning algorithm can be embedded into this newly generated bot which can learn to build itself to reach its prescribed efficiency of its parent bot. Thus the future bots doesn't depreciate over time. They shall evolve into newer and better ones as and when they come below the par efficiency. These bots will be called E-volv.

 

The Riot

It's quite canonical for a boy of 15 to get a bicycle in my neighborhood. The nuances involved in maintaining your CoG was a great pride of my age. The usual practice was to return from school, head to the bicycle shop, rent it for an hour (which was worth a rupee), and go on a wild trip around your local. My family had been living in this local for nearly 6 years now. I, by this time have learnt every available street here. The joy of riding a cycle was indeed a treat; finding new routes using it were a double treat.

I somehow managed to coax my father to allow me drive to my school which was just a few streets away. There came my first basic need, a bicycle. I failed to convince my father to buy me a new one, he still wasn't sure of my driving skills and dint want to invest on a new one. But then my uncle sprang from nowhere and generously offered his not-so-sure-of-the-year bicycle to satisfy my need. In his phone conversation he assured me that it was still in good condition and that I was surely going to like it. On my first sight of this great cycle which was absolutely covered with rags and grease, only one thing amazed me rather bothered me, can this roll on the road. Unbelievably when my father and I took it from his house, the seat came out. Seeing this father mocked me saying "ah this machine does need some alterations! It's been through year's right?!" I nodded" maybe ya, saga would be a better word for this one!" It was taken in an auto rickshaw to my place and we drove it to a repair shop and spent a couple of 100s on it. After twelve hours of rigorous work the mechanic delivered my vehicle all glossy and clean. Probably it would have been one of my brightest smile over my childhood, I felt like I got the one most important thing in my life and I need no more anything. My future indeed proved me wrong here. My mother made sure I dint drive my bike to school. She somehow fooled my father into this saying the bicycle was way too bigger for me and coincidently I had my sister fall from it just after I got the hang of this machine. I had no voice over this argument and indeed accepted for my mother's concern. By this time I had my cousin come over to my place and it was October.

My locality's geography has a striking religious touch. On the four corners of my place there were four Muslim masques. On the geographical centre of these was a Hindu temple. Over the inner circle there was one church. I always felt whether this geography was a highly intended planning in order to neutralize every community throughout this region or was it highly unintentional. I had always believed that religion was just your trademark, as long as you don't bother with it much you are not going to be disturbed. I'm never an atheist too. Maybe to go by the current vogue, I shall say I'm agnostic. October is the month of Ganesh Chaturti and on the end of this Hindu festival it's a tradition to take the ganesh idols in a procession to be submerged in the Bay of Bengal. Yet another was traditional. Since the mosques were in all corners of my locale, it was unavoidable for the procession to skip all of them. It had to cross over one important mosque. The procession was so badly timed in the past that exactly when the mosque calls for the prayer the procession had to cross over it. This indeed stirred the minds of few fanatics and there always was trouble during this time. I had never actually seen these so called riots till then but had heard enough rumors. This time my cousin a couple years elder to me urged my father to go and witness the procession. I too accompanied them. The beautifully plastered idols shined in the setting sun. Almost every artist's imagination of different forms of Ganesha was seen there. Unbelievable sizes and inexplicable beauty was all this procession until we came over to that turning.

The mosque authorities warned the pedestrians to switch off the bajan songs being played till they crossed the mosque. Apparently no one listened to this threat and walked as if there was no mosque there. A heated argument broke out with the clergies from both sides and suddenly the atmosphere around the place started appearing gloomy as more people rushed forward shouting unintelligible slanders. People started grumbling saying someone hit someone. But neither of them was sure who hit first. This agitation was more than enough for a conglomeration of thousands of men to pounce on each other, one forgetting his prayer, the other his duty to submerge the idol. Thus the tradition continued yet again. The vigilant cops came to the scene just after the fight and instantly ordered for the release of smoke bombs to clear the crowds. All this was happening around the three of us and we somehow got placed exactly in between the wranglers and the police. The moment we saw some stones being thrown over the sky, we decided to flee from these to a side street when the police dropped the first smoke bomb. Had I experienced anything worse than this itching and pain over my eyes, I would say none. It was white smoke everywhere and the next thing I remember was my mother shouting at my father in the doorstep of my house. Seeing all of us with our eyes gone red as chilly, she was all irritated and shouted on my father's irresponsibility in taking us to the procession. We then took a shower and spent the whole evening without a word between each other. The whole silence over the house showed the intense anger my mother had. The very next day we saw the headlines of our daily and once looking at the cover story, my father and I laughed. We pointed our finger over the picture covered in white smoke and said "We were here."

The Clan!

I had always weighed less. My first ten years was spent much with a doc's prescription. Had I been a bit healthy for a quite a stretch, I was sure to catch at least a cold and get bed ridden. I was given birth in neyveli and my skin color is attributed to the mine polluted water of this place. I always reasoned well. It was my natural flick. It was my father who got the maximum brunt of this talent. He could never win a battle of not taking me outside along with him. It's too much of self boasting, I guess! Never mind, one thing is for certain I used to speak proper Tamil even at the age of 6 and used to use those words which only elders used in the language. My school was the place where my dominance flagged high. Like a don with his capo régimes, I had my own gang. It included the brave studs of my class and a few female agents. I never used to carry my bag to my class, it was a ritual that somebody shall be there waiting in the gate to carry mine. I had my dealings in catching the see-saw, control on a few of the swings and my most coveted slide ( the biggest one in the school). People used to say when I was seen playing the slide none dared to compete my gang. I was their protection; in return they did me some favors. I never wrote my home work nor and assignment, there was always people to help me in that. It was like a mallya style for me every day I used to walk in with a band of girls chatting and giggling all the time. My first 5 years of schooling thus ended in building my empire one that I'm still proud of! It was in my 3^rd grade that I started taking up cricket as my serious pastime. Apparently it became the only reason for me to go to school. I developed good friendships with a quite a few classmates and the girls started behaving odd. They started crowding among themselves and started behaving less manly. We were at our best, there were a few crushes going on in the class and in the meantime my friends and I took the initiative to build a Disneyland inside the class. For one complete month we stealthily amassed a huge collection of furniture. We designed a high class castle with a dangerous passage for it. Eventually we got caught when our ambitions surpassed the limits and we unknowingly picked up the teachers chair to be made the crown chair of the castle. When our class teacher found her chair missing she noticed the castle in the corner of the class and realized it was not a mere heap of unused furniture but a completely stealthily made architecture. She made us confess the truth and asked us to break it open. With a broken heart we the six men broke open the castle and restored back the crown chair for her majesty! It was indeed a mournful day. People from all over the school used to visit the castle during the break, everyone considered it a wonder but for now it's a broken monument. The matter finally ended up in front of the principal office we had to kneel down in the hot sun for an hour after which we were warned and sent home... after all a petty punishment for what we had achieved. The last two years of my primary schooling involved a series of drama. I joined the student cop thing what they call the prefects in some book. I started conducting the prayer in the school. Our most prestigious act which was carried by me and a friend of mine during these days was that on every Monday we used to hoist our national flag. It was my duty to fold the flag in the proper manner with flowers filled in it and pulled up properly. I used to consider this a honor and always made sure I did it on all Mondays. The count of my girl friends never got down my clan used to survive for ever. By that time we had become a legacy and it was a routine for us to exploit the grounds throughout. By the time we had our farewell, I could not believe that I'm going to miss the one place where I started my life. It was my pride forever. It was my clan! On the day of farewell, I had few of my dear and loyal friends come over to me personally to bid adios, I never could forget that. That was the last time I saw any of those females so simple and easy to approach and always my friend. I entered high school!

Listen!

I wish I don't do this. I actually hated this whole concept of blogging, but now I have reached a point where I'm writing my own blog. It all started with this community blog which my classmates along with me started and it was really fun making fun of the other fellow mates in the class. I sort of started liking it. The worst part is I have quite a lot of friends who reminded me every time to read their blog, but I kept refusing them. I hope I start reading them at least now.

This being my first post, I wanted it to be a bit formal and I seriously don't know what my first post should contain. But then I have decided on what shall the successive post shall be. To start with I shall write about my life. What all have I experience throughout my college life and so on.

So as an introduction to all these, I live in Chennai and I'm about to graduate as an engineer in the coming months. I read quite some books and spend most of the time browsing and roaming around with friends. I'm yet another teenager willing to spend some time blogging for I have got as of now some time to spare for it…..

I hope this shall interest a few people to continue reading my forth coming posts.