Morrrrrrrrrrrtalll Kommmmmmbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

Yeah, aside from the long, drawn out title, I took a break from maths today, and went for Kombat, the open quiz at IIT.
The quiz was conducted by two chaps, one of whom was Amon, but, I'm not sure which one that was , considering I've never seen a photo of the chap. I however do hope that it wasn't the first one, as he had an unhealthy obsession with Madonna, and Gay Porn, asking multiple questions on both. Howsoever, it was a good quiz. Me along with Shreyas and Aranyaka qualified for the finals, but got damn unlucky with seating, and ended up getting jacked. We finished fifth, and failed to qualify for the final four battle. As our team name proudly stated, Blah!

Continuing on this entire break funda, after the quiz, mesa went for lunch at new greek place that has opened up in the Deer Park Market. It was, in fact, the restraunt's second day, and I think we were their first lunchtime customers.
Any, before Myriam Reshi or Sabina Saikal(both of whom I respect and admire, for they have the perfect job) decide to pay a visit, here's the official review from Blah!

It's Greek to Me,

Yes, that's the name of the place. How should I start? Well, you walk in, and you notice the decor. The decor is excellent, and Papa who is far better travelled than I, promises that it is in fact designed like most of the houses of the region. The lighting is good, and they've got nice, greekish music playing in the background. The kitchen counter is live, and along with the music, you get to hear the nice sizzle of oil and water on a grill. All in all, a good effect.
To the food now. Now, I've never been to a speciality greek restraunt before, so I have nothing to compare the authenticity of the food to, so I shant bother. With that out of the way, I will go on to say that the food was excellent. IT was cooked mostly in very nice olive oil, which has wonderful flavour, and the food in general is fresh, and not fried at all.
I had the Lamb Stew, and shared other things with my parents. The lamb stew was brilliant. The flavour of the stew was nice and subtle, and had a swig of wine in it. The lamb itself was tender, which is a pleasant change from the usual tough stuff you get at most places. The rice was the best done thing. It tasted good, and was cooked in olive oil and parsley. Just the rice would be good enough to eat.
The starter was a very sharp Spinach and Mushroom salad. We also had pita and feta bread, with dips, and both were quite classy. I must say their quality of ingredients is exceptional, everything was fresh, and succelent.
This is definitely a place I'd reccomend to Vegitarians, and mushroom lovers. We ordered a Mushroom and Sundried Tomotoes Meze, and it was exceptionally good. I would go as far as to say some of the best mushrooms I've ever had. The other veggie dish, chargrilled vegetables, was also very nice.
When going to a new place, you should give everything a shot, so I indulged in dessert as well. "Chocolate of Troy" was my chosen sin, and it may have been more beautiful than Helen, well, definitely the Helen in the recent Troy movie. It was four very generous pieces of Fudge, with almonds, with a big blog of ice cream in the center. A definite must for chocaholics, who aren't particularly interested in minding calories.
The pricing was, well, on the steeper side, and I'd say a good filling meal would go up to Rs. 300 a head, though if you really want to pig out, hike it up a little more. However, for the quality provided, it is worth it. As my father said, it's a good place to take the Goras when they visit, rather than pay five star prices.

All in all, four stars to the place. I'm sure it'll do good business, even though it's in a pretty desolate locality.

Mini and Me!

For one of the few times in my life, things did work out according to a plan. I'm selling my TV in Mohan Singh Market, and for my birthday's final gift, I got
drumrolls please....
My very own iPod Mini!
Papa returned from his around-the-world-in-fifteen-days trip yesterday, and brought along with him this beeyootiful little thing.
Honestly, this has to be one of the sweetest things ever designed by Apple Corp, and they're probably the best at designing sweet gizmo's in the whole world. While everyone else tries to glam up whatever they do, these guys go for beauty in simplicity, and thus you have a rectangular slab of an MP3 player, no bigger than my palm(which is as it is, very small), which can store all of 4 GB of music, and other things. The thing's design is brilliant. The clickwheel is the easiest thing to use, and you can properly navigate through currently 700 songs, with no hitch whatsoever.
I took it for a test run today, on my way back from tooshan. After 4 hours of maths, walking home with music in my mind is the best thing I can think of, and this accentuated any previous experience of walkman/mp3 player I've ever had. This was incredible. It was like having Winamp, or well, iTunes in my pocket, or more appropriately, on my belt clip.

A funny thing, though, is that to change the volume, you have to swirl around the click wheel, so if you've got it around your belt, and you're walking down the road, it really looks like you're scratching your balls.

So the next time you see a vulgar, crude short guy, bouncing along with headphones in his ear, with a smile on his face, be assured, he's just adjusting the volume, and not his crotch.

That time of the year

Redezvous, the bigass cultural fest at IIT Delhi begins tomorrow.
You know that something is up in IIT when you can see a guy holding one stratocaster in each hand, nonchalantly walk up to the IIT Hostel Gate Bus Stand.
Damn, I wish I had my camera along, to take a snap of that.

e-Spice

Getting bored with all the studying, and with serious guilt complexes about not doing enough for Exun, and becoming a useless member, and with a couple of other hidden motives, Mesa decided to go for the Group Discussion at e-Spice 2004, DPS Noida's computer fest.

First, about the event.
Going for any computer symposium has its own charms.
Firstly, you get to sit in egurucool lab indefinitely, till someone decides that it is about time to move out of school. Invariably, this is the only branch of inter-school competition where we are actually late, and not five hours early for an event. This terminal lateness syndrome of the Exun Clan was compounded by the fact that the bus broke down, and decided to return to school, thus delaying us even further. Well, it worked out for the best, as this event also had terminal lateness syndrome, with nothing in particular starting on time, and everything in general going on too long.
Secondly, you have acess to Rrrrungta's iPod, on which you get to play Parachute. Parachute is a great fun game, you have this little Anti-Aircract gun, which has unlimited ammo, and you're supposed to shoot down helicopters, and the parachuter's they decide to drop by.
Thirdly, like quizzes, its perfectly acceptable to be a little insane in a computer symposium, in fact, it's even encouraged, so I feel at home.
Ah, so we arrived, and I got to carry out hidden motive number one. I talked to the MIS quizzers, who were there, and we have formed super-team for IIT Rendezvous, as rest of my DPS team is not vela enough like me to go for quiz two days before a maths paper. It is fixed, and I shall be going to Kombat with Melange-Man and Shreyas.
Anyhow, back to my event. I went for Group Discussion, (GD), where I was up against some known faces, including Melange Boy. Our first topic, in qualifying round was "Can India become and IT Hub?", and was, well, quite boring. Anyhow, I did manage to qualify, so all was well. So far so good, and other such things.
Then, after the second round of qualifying, the six finalists, including moi, went up for the next GD. This time, the topic was "Open Source-Threat to Microsoft Supremacy", and mesa had great fun. This was of course helped by the fact that I was the only person on stage, for some reason, who had any real idea what Open Source was all about, and the only one at all to have used any open source software. As a result, this is how the discussion would go.
Moderator would put up a point for discussion. I would elaborate, state my opinion, and usually rave about how great Firefox is, and how crappy Internet Exploder is. Following this, five other people would try to latch onto some information I provided, and somehow coerce a point of out that. One of them openly claimed to not know a single thing about the topic, and her summarisation included something about "grey areas". She wanted to unite Microsoft and Linux, into some whacko middle ground. I wish the poor girl well.
Anyhow, so me winning was a pretty much forgone conclusion, and well, I did. Alls well that ends well, as Mr. Mukesh had requested me to win, as I had not been for event in long time. Goody.
Now, on to quiz. Karan and Abhishyk qualified, and got on stage, where they massacred the opposition, in a cruel and undignified manner. Compounding the competitions problems, we decided to set up huge and loud cheering squad, and made a lot of noise in support, and even attempted starting a Mexican Wave. That, however, didn't work out too well.
Unfortunately, we didn't win any other event, and thus ended up missing the winners trophy by a point, and picked up overall runners up, instead.

Why did we win these two, you ask? Were we good? Yes. Were we capable? Yes. Did this have anything to do with us winning? NO! We won these two events, for one reason alone.

Maria!

Our new lucky pen, Maria, also known as "The-pen-with-girl-who's-ass-lights-up" did it all for us. For a long time, we heathen have gone without a lucky pen by our side, and now we have found one with far greater power than our first. Along with the power of luck, it also has the amazing power of distraction. Fellow quizzers/GD members cannot concentrate on the task ahead, as they are mesmerized by the brilliance of Maria.
Thus, further events hold good prospects for us. With Maria by our side, all things look possible again. Our terrible quizzing season will soon change course.
Ah, few believed at first, but now Exun has succumbed to the lure of a lucky pen. Karan has gone to the extent to request a picture, to post on his blog.
All will view the splendour, the might, the sheer insanity of our lucky pen. Be in awe, ladies and gentlemen, you will never see such things that come with warnings, that they contain small parts.

Extraaaneous Crap

I love watching cricket, as do many people all over our country. Its a national pastime, perhaps one of our only ones. There's not much you need to do to boost the ratings of cricket viewership in India, however, there are of course things you can do to reduce it. Viewers want quality broadcasting, and when you're used to the wonderful team of ESPN STAR, which includes the likes of Geoff Boycott, Sunil Ghavaskar, and Harsha Bhogle, so most of the other crap that is dished out by other channels pretty much turns you off.
One of these is Extraa Innings, the pre-game show of Set Max, which unfortunately has the rights to the big events, such as the current ICC world cup.
Now, today is India Pakistan, so I thought I'd catch a bit of the pre-game. I shouldn't have. Such inhuman torture has never been presented to cricket lovers. This is one of my pet grouses, and I am going to rant about it.

Firstly, you have the commentry team, which makes you cry. Anyone, and I mean anyone could do a better job. Lets start with the presentation team. Leading the pack is Charu Sharma, who is the only person on the team who can string together a group of sentences without screwing up, which is a really great thing, because he knows nothing about cricket. He, of course, thinks he knows a lot about cricket, so he continuously interrupts anyone else who wants to give an opinion, and when he's not doing this, he's busy flirting with:
Mandira Bedi: Look, if I want to see a broad in noodlestraps, I'll turn on FTV, they're far more revealing, and they don't talk. What I do NOT want is some broad who knows nothing at all about the game giving her two bits on how brilliant things are going to happen in todays game. If that broad happens to be an annoying one like Mandira Bedi, I am forced to chuck things in disgust at my TV screen. Can somone pleaase get her off?
Next, we have Kapil Dev, who cannot speak cohenrantly in either English, Hindi, or in fact Punjabi. He's just not a public speaker, so I don't know why he's asked to speak so much. For gods sake, there are better ways for him to serve the game than speak about it!
Next, they've turned it into some great Tamasha, to bring in god knows what demographic that enjoys crap. Why is there a tarot card and numerologist on a cricket match??? Aren't our newspapers enough for some nonsense? But no, today some Ma Maa Di comes up with her brilliant observation, that as today is the 19th, and 9+1 equals ten, and ten is Sehwag's number, he's going to do damn well today. I kid you not, this is pretty much exactly what she said.

Maybe we should just change our batsmen's numbers according to the sum of the dates of the match, THAT'll make us win for sure!
Then, you have the actual commentry team. With the sole exception of Tony Grieg, and some West Indian woman, they are all terrible. The West Indian woman unfortunately never does commentry on a decent game, thus you pretty much only have Tony Greig. The rest of them can't talk, or in the case of Kris Srikkant, make you feel like torturing them verrrry sllowly, and preferably do so by tearing our their Vocal Chords, or something of the like.

As I write, two wickets have fallen, strangely enough, Sehwag's not one of them. Maybe the numbers are all for him. Looks like its going to be a Pakistan Victory, and you know what? I blame it all on Exxtraa Innings. They've probably made the team think they're in a soap opera, rather than a cricket match, and that it'll all work out in the end.

Casablanca

After a hard days work(Yeah, right, I studied Microeconomics), I sat down, and enjoyed yet another one of my birthday presents; Casablanca, which was the second thing gifted to me by Vrinda.

This movie is supposed to be a classic, and to be frank, I'm suspicious of most things that are supposed to be classic. They usually dissapoint, in fact, they usually fail to even have a point. I am reminded of classics like Charles Dickens(Ugh), Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the biggest sham of them all, Titanic.

This was an exception. Casablanca was a brilliant movie, something that I do not think could ever be remade. Like The Godfather, it has elements that cannot be redone, or recaptured. Plus, it's in Black and White, which adds a special dimension. You know how black and white photos can look really arty? Well, this whole movie looks like an artistic black and white photo.
Anyhow, lets get down to it, what makes this movie so special.
Firstly, there is this incredible tension between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, the kind I've never seen before on film. You can see the pain in both their eyes, and for every spoken line in this movie, there are a couple of unsaid ones. Its really brilliant.
Secondly, the definition of Smooth and Suave simply must stem from Bogie, seriously, he puts James Bond and other later acolytes to shame. His line delivery is also brilliant, there is this great clipped voice he uses, and there is a lot of dry, sarcastic humour in this movie. Its very strangely British, for an American production, and cast.
Thirdly, great soundtrack, you really do want Sam to play it "just one more time". I'm downloading "As Time Goes By", as I type.
Fourthly, why is it that you don't get beauties like Ingrid Bergman any more? Its not fair, we have a deprived generation, if you can look gorgeous in a heavy trenchcoat, in black and white, with nothing much to show but your face, you've really got something there.
All in all, it was a great movie. Good, sharp script, out of the world performances, and great direction. Yeah, this un makes it to being a classic.
As usual, I shall tell you absolutely nothing about the story, for in case you're a twit like me, and still haven't seen it, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.

Poetry

For my birthday (God, this is sounding repetitive, but forgive me, I recieved so much), I got a really lovely poem from Sonali, which she has allowed me to share. In fact, she said she would be honoured, and all that.
So here it is, it's really beautiful, if you know why. And no, I'm not going to explain even one line of it.

The Stranger

He comes from another age
with the night sky in his eye
with laughter echoing in his ears
and breakfast on his mind
By day he prowls the streets alone
until the dust of the city bus has cleared
When evenening falls is when
His thoughts decide to take flight
With his purple pink coat of mystery
He tucks me in each night

Minnie mouse with her AK 47
Tap dances her way through life with
mismatched socks for comfort
But someone took her gun away
and how she smiles instead
And every time she falls through
a hole in the road, she
lands in a lively tea party that never stops
With, the Mad Hatter and the Stranger
and a pair of strangely affectionate socks

Part II

While reaching high, and staying thin
Keep the Cheshire smile on your face
And although you may know nothing
of the people marching past
A Nehru Cap will always fix
the too small head(which you do not realise
is your saving grace)
For no one is perfect, and your old man's mind
may be belied by the face and smile of a child
Black hole in your tummy
Juke box in my mind
Singing our weird(but melodic) duet
And through the darkness of the corners of your mind
which I'm sure lurks in the oblivion of our blank screens
waiting to ambush us-
Past the nymphomania of the hapless sock
As Cristina and I lie in an incomprehensible field,
Gazing at an obscure, Impressionist house
While you fly with your purple wings
And instruct the raindrops
On the best way to butter toast

Ouch

Last night, I injured my arm in a way that only those with my quality genetic lineage can.
Let me explain this. As human beings have evolved, its been found that the forehead ridges recede back, (I have none, now), and the chin grows outwards, and larger. Running on this logic, I am probably the highest evolved subspecies of Human Being availible, and shall henceforth refer to me and my family as Homo Superior.
This is because I, along with my family, have one hell of a chin. It's very, very large. It could, in the words of Vinay Eapen, sink the Titanic.
This, however, is not always a blessing, as I realised last night.
See, I sleep with my head on top of my pillow (duhh...), and my arm under the pillow. This usually works out fine, and I get a good night's sleep.
Unfortunately, what happened last night was that my arm slipped out of under my pillow, and slipped under my chin. As a result, I must have slept a good couple of hours with my head and chin pushing down on my arm.
This, by the way, hurts. If any of you have experienced being chin-butted by me, you'll know how extremely painfull this pointed gorging spear can be. To keep it for a period of hours on one's arm is going to do it no good.
As a result, my left arm has been in spasm pretty much all day, which isn't a really great thing when you're left handed.
I now share great empathy with everyone who's ever been hurt by my chin, and would like to apologise sincerely for all the pain I might have caused them, or the amount I might have softened their already terminally pained heads.

Conservation of Happiness

I read somewhere, actually, I didn't, (hell I don't even know at this point how this idea came in to my head, but I'm sure its not mine, anyway, back to it),that the total happiness in this world is constant, and remains conserved, so if I'm happy as hell most of the time, there's pretty much someone out there who's permamently depressed, because of me.
Also, I'm pretty sure that this person knows exactly who I am, and this ticks him off to no end.
To him, I'd just like to say, Yaah Boo, sucks to you.

The Way of the Damned

Here's how exam time works in DPS, and quite frankly, in most schools.
One month before the exams, teachers start making noises about how the exams are coming, and how we should all diligently prepare, by doing small amounts of work everyday. Exactly 3 people decide that this is actually a prudent course of action, and go ahead and do it. These three shall henceforth be known as Smartass Class Toppers.
So, for the next two weeks, the rest of us make noises about how the exams are coming, and thus social engagements start getting cancelled, and the great art of procrastination begins. For majority of populace, nothing significant will happen for a while.
Three weeks before the exams start, a few desparate people like me, who really need decent marks for a change, decide that there's something to this little-bit-study thing after all, especially since the datesheet has come out, and you realise that there is no way you can study for the Chemistry paper in a day and a half, and thus rush to finish of your course. The rest of the populace's procrastination now reaches epic proportions, and social engagements and competitions are now pretty much non-existent.
Two weeks before d-day, desparate people like me realise that more than little bit a day is now needed, and start bunking things like tuition to study(Ironic, isn't it?). Studying is now serious, and takes place for upto 3 hours after school.
The Smartass Class Toppers now study upto 4-5 hours a day, to ensure that there's no way they're getting less than 86 aggregate in the papers.
Now, the procrastinators realise that they've got to get to work, and since little bits of studying didn't really do it for them, they now bunk school in an effort to study. I find this really silly, quite frankly, because you've got to be stark raving mad to study more than 6 hours a day at home. Its not right, unless you've got a paper in two days.
One week before, and school attendance dwindles to minimum, all you get are Smartass Class Toppers, and Vela People like me, who need to complete syllabus, notes, and generally get topics cleared, because they spent most of the last two months out of class, in competition.
4 days before, prep leave starts, and even vela blogs such as this will die. Okay, they won't, but when you've done studying all that you can for the day, or all that you've planned out for the day, and there's no one to talk to, you gotta do something.

So if anyone else shares my Vela tendancies during exam time, you know where to get your daily dose of Blah!

The Senti Stuff

Hey, do any of you know how truly remarkable my friends are? After complaining to no end about how exceedingly hard it was to find a decent birthday present for me, most of them managed to get it pretty much right.
Manav, for instance, got me Wish You Were Here, which I fell in love with.
Karan got me Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown. This is a book which, though not as much fun as Da Vinci Code, I feel is better written, as its twists and turns are a lot less predictable, because you keep thinking the other guy did it. Its the prelude to Da Vinci, and the book where Robert Langdon first appears. I'd really reccomend it, its a great read, for a lazy sunday morning. (Did I mention I finished it on a lazy sunday morning?)
Additionally, while reading Angels and Demons I came across a word, called Seraphim.
Now, a seraphim is literally translated as "The Fiery One", and is a kind of male angel. This particular angel made, umm...vistitations to St. Teresa, for which in fact she was sainted.
She described these visitations as having sent her into throes of ecstacy, and the descriptions were decidedly not spirutual in nature. This entire lengend is captured in a Statue by Bernini, entitled, "The Ecstacy of St. Teresa", and was banned from the Vatican for being too sexually explicit, and thus had to go outside a church in Rome.
Why I bring this up is that this was the second time I came across this word.
The first time was a couple of weeks ago, when Copal insisted on calling me one, even though at the time I had no idea what it meant.
What dreams may come to the girl...
Anyhow, back to the point. I have really exceptional friends. Along with this, I have been gifted a pair of electric pink socks, that do not only clash with my entire wadrobe, but in fact clash with my entire room and house. They're luminous.
Also, I got a Pen-with-A-Girl-In-A-Flowing-Skirt-On Top-Who's-Ass-Lights-Up-Red-When-you push-down-to-write. Needless to say, its our new quizzing pen, and will be carried with us for all events. We don't expect to have any problems with buzzer rounds from now on. Hehe.
Noted exceptions to this exceptional friend thing must be Damini, who ditched us to go study physics, on a class she apparently arranged specifically so that she could have an excuse for not coming. Blah!
Lastly, not one, but two people gifted me "Eats Shoots and Leaves", which means people are really upset by my total lack of spelling, grammar and other related english oddities in my blogs. To them, I'd just like to say, "Go Stick Your Head in a Pig", but that's just me.
Oh, one more thing, someone gifted me a Vase(why???), and I have no idea who it is. Will the Vase-Gifter please claim his/her identity?
Oh, then back to the senti stuff. This is what happens when you do major Chem studying for most of the afternoon, you go a little batty.
Anyhow, I'd just like to send out a whole lot of love to all my buddis and palsh.
And I've crossed my sentipan limit now, so I'll shut up.
Hey, me got a lot of gifts! WooHoo!

Not Quite Eleventhie Chicks

Me and my lovely ladies, on my birthday celebrations.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy

This is minorly for everyone who hasn't read the book, and I must insult you roundedly for not doing so, and majorly for those who have. Its not a review, per se, so much as an appreciation, for such a wonderful, wonderful piece of work.

The Hitchhiker's Guide, by Douglas Adams, is a remarkable book. While it starts slowly, and meanders for a couple of chapters, right after that, it really lays it in, right after the world is destroyed. Imagine a book with the climax right at the beggining. This is followed by more plot twists than Dan Brown's collected writings, more unpredictable plot twists than the chap could possibly imagine. Most of the time, you aren't really aware this is a plot, but about 4 chapters before the end, things start to fall into place. Of course, in the last chapter of each book, things go remarkably wrong again, and you're back to not knowning whats going on. Thats the beauty of the whole thing if you're reading it for the first time.
I, however, haven't read it for the first time since I was 10.
So, what keeps me coming back to it? Well, the writing style, the pure atistry, and the philosophical absurdities disguised in the gags and punchlines. Besides, its a work of the most brilliant imagination of our time. Sample some of these lines, and ask yourself, could you EVER come up with any of these?

"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?", Asked Arthur.
"Go ask a glass of water", replied Ford.
Or the poetry,

Now I lay me down to bed
darkness won't engulf my head
I can see in infrared
Oh how I hate the night

Or even, the sheer brilliance of ideas. Take for example, the infinite improbably drive, or the total perspective vortex, or perhaps the most celebrated of them all, the Babelfish.
The remarkable thing is, instances that I've described above, they happen pretty much continuously during the book.
There are many people who will say he's not as good as wodehouse. Me says he's better. Far, far better. He's created a world of his own, while Wodehouse merely exxagerated a world that the aristrocracy of england lived in.

In short, READ IT! Watch the TV series. Listen to the radio show. Watch the movie coming out next year. And do it all over again, because there's a whelks chance in a a supernova that you won't love it.

What chance does a whelk have in a supernova?
None, that's the point.
But why a whelk?
Why not a whelk?

Winding down the road

Have you ever had one of those days when you feel like there's not much to say, so you gotta invent things to do? Well, I've had pretty much two or three of those days, and when you're reading about Douglas Adams in the meanwhile, your mind tends to wander, and get a lot more distracted than usual. Especially when you've spent three straight hours doing a practical file, which was hazaar incomplete. You find new, strange, and quite frankly stupid ideas to pass the time, and when you're me, this happens much to the discontent of some of my friends.

This is going to happen quite regularly now, with no competitions, and nothing to do but listen to music while studying for exams, and take protracted breaks to procrastinate about how much you're studying. I like words beginning with P.

The lastest fallout of my boredom is a protracted(I really like this word!) campaign to get Karan seduced.
Why? Well, it'll be fun. He's such an ickle shy type, it would be a wonderful experience for him. And god knows, wonderful things might result. For me, personally, it'll be great fun to watch, and all around, its a great project. Sure beats finding a quizmaster for quiz.
Unfortunately, I haven't been all to successful so for, so to help me out, can some of my female readers help me out? Or one of them, at least. I'll be ever so pleased.
I'm sorry about the clear heterosexual bias, but I'm sure Karan would want it this way.

My review/trubute of hitchhikers stands delayed to tomorrow, because I'm too tired and sleepy to find the words today.

Wish You Were Here

Thanks to Manav, I've just almost finished Douglas Adams' official biography, Wish You Were Here, by Nick Webb.
Its beautiful. I've never laughed out loud reading a biography, or an autobiography, but when the life concerned is that of Douglas Adams, how can you help it?
He was larger than life. Literally. At six foot five, and quite a few pounds, you have to be.
Now, I could spend pretty much the rest of my day rambling on about how much I love his work, so I won't, and instead just tell you why you should read the autobiography.

Its an insight, and a really good one, into the workings of one of the finest comedic minds of our era, and perhaps, in most eras. If any of you love writing, and most of you who blog do, it'll give you exactly how not to go about it. Adams was the biggest shirker of deadlines the writing world has ever seen. He himself quipped that he loved deadlines, he loved the sound they made when they whooshed by him.
It gives an insight into just how insecure anyone who loves writing is about their work, and why he, and so many of us, seek approval of our work, in the widest medium possible. If he'd been alive right now, I'm sure he'd have loved the idea of keeping a blog, so that 5 million people around the world could tell him how amazingly well written his last blog entry was.

And if you aren't a hitchhikers fan, read it just for the entertainment of anecdotes his life provides. Be warned, you will have the unnerving desire to read hitchhikers soon after.

Anyhow, its inspired me to give a book review for Hitchhikers, the whole series. I've read all of them upwards of 25 times since I was 10 years old, and each year found new and wonderful jokes and insights that I didn't understand earlier.
How can I not review this book? Its a part of my life, its a part of how I write, and how I would like to write. Its shaped my sense of humour.
Full review tomorrow, or day after. I must do this justice.

I've seen this before

Colored Lights!

I'm sure some of you have too. Hehe. This was the userfriendly cartoon on my birthday. Who'd have thunk it.

Happy Teachers day, and all that.

17!

Seventeen years ago, to this day, me came into this world, a healthy, okay, fine, quite obese, 4 kilo baby. Since then, I've distingushed myself with some of the greatest achievements that teenagers have ever accomplished, for instance, and 88 game winning streak in freecell, and, of course, writing down on a single A4 sheet, the entire lyrics to "ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall".
Oh, yeah, and I've done some regular stuff to, but who gives a damn about that.
Strangely enough, I have learned a few things along the way. As I have promised, I shall narrate the :::
17 great wisdoms of The Badshah of Blah!

1. You wan't something done right, don't ask anyone involved in any official position to help. It's a sure shot path to failure.
   
2. The Pick Up Line, Tch Tch, Rrrrrrrrrr..... works for all of two people on this planet. You're not one of them.
   
3. Everything you say, in every way, will come back to bite you in the ass. Most important lesson of them all.
   
4. There's nothing you can do about it, so just go ahead and say whatever the hell you like.
   
5. Girls are nuts. They're a lot smarter than guys, but they're still nuts.
   
6. Your mother is always right. Even if she's not, she'll prove to you that she is. Deal with it.
7. Fortunately, it's also always your mother's fault.
   
8. If it itches, scratch it.
   
9. Any effort you make to save and enjoy your chocolates will translate into someone else eating them all at one go.
   
10. Breakfast is very important.
    
11. Lunch is very important. It should be had at a nice place, in accordance with the views of Douglas Noel Adams.
    
12. Dinner is not as important, but you should sit down and have a nice talk while having it. That is very important. Also, under no circumstances should you recieve phone calls during dinner. Especially from upset, PMSee singers who just broke up with you.
    
13. Some of the best ideas you'll ever get, you'll get while walking and listening to music. Do all that you can to maximise the time you're walking, and listening to music.
    
14. I hate to say it, hey fine, I don't, but a little arrogance pays rich dividents. Especially in RKP.
    
15. The right kind of daddy pays even more.
    
16. I'll never enter politics, or journalism. You gotta keep a little integrity in this world, lets not lose it all.
    
17. I'm not all that I'm cracked up to be, but then, neither are you.

Don't take half of this seriously. Follow the other half religiously. I won't tell you which, though, so pick and choose, and see what happens.
Worst comes to worst, you'll turn into me. Hehe. And wouldn't that be a tragedy.
Happy Birthday to me! Didums.

Sasta!

Hey, a reminder to all of you to go read my story on the post below, even if you think its too long.

Secondly, before I forget to write this

Happy Budday, Beta Manau!

Yes, Manny turns 17 today. 17 years ago, he started a trend by coming two months early, into the world, that is, and its a legacy that he's never left behind.
But I kid. Hehe.
Anyhoo, I got to hear one of the most wonderful jokes I've heard in a long time, today, from Sud. Its probably a result of all his FIITJEE classes, but hey, this one was hilarious.
Non-science students, please go away, you're not going to get it.

Who does Scroedinger(he of the cat) pray to?
Ans. P(sai) Baba!

Wonderful, wonderful.

Today was also our big old teachers day celebrations. For some reason, our head girls and assorted sashy company decided to interrgogate teachers, by asking them intensely boring questions. So, I decided to have a little of my won fun, by interrogating the sashes, on stage, that is, but that got...aborted. I could only question Damini, and she's a bit sore about that. Ah, well such is life. Its my birthday tomorrow, and its illegal in 23 states to be upset with me.

Delhi's one of them, by the way.

Writer's Blog

Yeah, so I've written a short story after donkeys ages. Its the first draft, so rip it to shreds, why don't you. Its a product of my twisted sense of...humour? I don't think I'd call it that. Anyhow, see how you like it. Its also got a tribute to one of my favorite people, ever. Figure out whom, its pretty obvious.

Mindsmith

Art had come a long way in the twenty-first century; whereas earlier, artists had to use a medium to convey their emotions, or indeed, to provoke emotion amongst their patrons, today, that simply was not needed. The creativity of an artist earlier was annulled if he had not the talent to transfer that creative thought onto a medium, be it a canvas, an instrument, the written word, or even the great expanse offered by the Cinema. The twenty-first century offered all those creative minds, with no talent whatsoever to give art to the world, in its purest form possible. Sometime during the early 20’s came a brilliant new technology, which allowed people to directly experience another human’s emotions, thoughts, and ideas through a wonderful new technology called Mindstorm. Brain scanning technologies had been around for a long time, what Mindstorm had accomplished was interpretation. It allowed full access into the thoughts of whoever was plugged in, and thus allowed a completely new medium of expression: The Human Mind.

Earlier, art itself was restricted to directly stimulating a maximum of a couple of the human senses, be it visual, audio, or, tactile. Mindstorm allowed artists to express themselves in every single sense simultaneously, as long as they managed to conjure up the required thoughts. Thus, the newest, highest profile artist of all became the Mindsmith. A good Mindsmith had the ability to control his thoughts, his ideas to such an extent, that while conveying one single story, one idea, he could supply his audience with a complete sensory experience, stimulating all five senses in tandem, and thus going further than any artist before.

<>Now, this was an exceptionally tough art to master, because, while it required only creativity, it required a hell of a lot of it. Most people didn’t want to see staid, old images of knights in shining armor, or walks in the rain, or the taste of a pinacoloda. Originality had become a premium good, and the few Smiths who could pull it off consistently were some of the richest men on the planet. With the widespread usage of the internet, and the obvious computer connection of Mindstorm, it had become the most popular art form of the time, and the top artists had audiences that could extend into the billions.

Of these artists, the greatest was Noel Damas. He had realized one of life’s great truths that it is harder, and more rewarding to make man laugh, than to make him cry. Tearjerkers were easy in Mindstorm, but it took a true genius to create comedies, and to create an experience that left one with that warm fuzzy feeling inside. He was a man who loved nature, and drew heavily from the works of art present in his garden. His reputation for excellence had grown over the last ten years, and when he decided to publish a new Storm, pretty much the whole world logged on to check it out. They were brilliant, vividly imaginative, and a product of his permanently cheery, exuberant personality. Well, he had reason to be, he had pretty much the perfect life, in a very disturbed world.

He was materially well off, he was healthy, loved good food, had a bounty of friends, and of course, had the perfect relationship with his wife, and greatest source of strength.

Anyhow, back to the point. Noel had decided to broadcast after nearly half a year, and his webmasters had spent the last month publicizing the event. The world was primed for a great new Damas Mindstorm, and from the previews, it promised to be a humdinger. This was one of his great wild adventures, which seemed to end with no relation to where they started from, and yet had a twisted, roundabout way of saying how wonderful life was. This was just the thing people wanted, as people had just got a lot more upset over the last 30 years. Everyone blamed the Lawyers and Politicians, and quite frankly, they were right. It was their entire fault. But that’s another story.

The day before the broadcast, Trehan, Damas’ webmaster and best friend, got the news that Mrs. Damas had been hospitalized, following a car accident, and was currently in coma. Damas had locked himself in seclusion in preparation of his broadcast, and could not have been reached at that time. Trehan was instructed to inform Damas immediately the next day.

Trehan decided not to. There was too much at stake. The broadcast was going live to over two billion homes, and even though it was next to free, with only one dollar per view being charged, that was still a whole lot of money, which he was not willing to risk. He decided to tell Damas after he finished, ensuring that his mood wouldn’t get spoilt.

Did I mention that Trehan had a law degree? But let us not tarry with such matters, and get on with the story. The lure of money changes the best of us, and had blinded our webmaster for that moment. At any rate, he had rationalized that worrying about Mrs. Damas would get him nowhere, as she was in a coma, and unlikely to come out of it anytime soon.

Damas reappeared from his room later that day, after fully preparing himself. He was in a jovial, bouncy mood, and had the perfect story ready to share with the world. Flashing Trehan a million dollar smile, he entered the Mindstorm Machine, and began hooking himself up. At that moment, Trehan’s phone rang, with a grim voice at the other end informing him that Mrs. Damas had just passed away, due to severe head injuries suffered during the crash.

Looking across at Damas, who seemed to be like the only kid in a candy store, Trehan could bear it no longer. Just before they went live, Trehan broke the news to him.

Ten seconds later, they went live, and half the world cried.

Liked it? Hated it? I liked it.
Could do with a good few improvements, though.

Aww...Delay

Ah, today was a holiday that came for free, out of nowhere. It was the 400rth anniversary of the Guru Granth Sahib, and as one of our teachers wisely quoted, when the top job in Delhi is with a Sikh, that's pretty much definitely going to be a holiday.
Anyhow, I had to write a big boring debate, for a debate I'm really not interested in going, but such is life. I hate prepared speech, with no interjection, it takes all the fun out life.
So I did a lot of writing today. One boring debate speech, half of my short story, which is coming along very nicely, and, oh, I also had to make a presentation for papa. Busy day all around.
Hey, thanks to Arjun and Aranyaka, I found this great p2p software, called "ares", with no ads, no spyware, and no unnatural crashing of your computer. This has allowed me to download several songs I've wanted, but didn't have. These include Faith of the Heart, which is the "Enterprise" starting song. Its a really nice song, and I'd reccomend it to one and all.

Hey, Bhavya's Law is really going strong. It's even started to be quoted by my friends on instances, to prove points. Just goes to show how sound a statement it is.

Though Bhavya's second law for mathematics, as always, remains as Two Times of Componendo Dividendo gives you back what you started with.
I'm a genius.

Aaargh! Shreyas Curse

The Shreyas Curse bit back, with a vengance at C.C.S, that's Carmel Convent School for the rest of the world, and "Conti Caregi Saali" for Don Boscans. MIS pulled one over us, came first, and left us at second, at what was quite an okay quiz. Participation could have been a lot better, but hey, MIS were there, Columbas were there, we were there, Springdales were there, so who gives a damn about the rest, right?
Its just as well, I guess, the poor chaps from MIS were about to be excomminicated from school for not even qualifying in most quizzes after their Columban win, so they managed to salvage some prize.
Anyhow, we walked out of there Rs.500 richer, so all Kharcha Paani is starting to get taken care of. Coffers are now up to Rs. 2200, a book voucher I already spent, plus a TV and bike, and other random nonsense. Not bad for a months activity.
Scaran was loudly complaining about the lack of decent computer quizzes, and the complete apathy of prizes in Computer events. Well, hey, the dot com bubble burst, and no one seems to want to fund that kind of stuff anymore. Its kinda sad, I guess, but then, its a niche event.

I'm reading a great book right now, it's called "The Agony and the Ecstacy", by Irving Stone, and is a biographical novel about the life of Michealangelo, the painter/sculptor. I must thank Sonali (Bhasin) for reccomending it, he was quite an intense chap, and the book is a riveting read. Plus, its quite stimulating, and I've come up with a couple of short story concepts while reading it, one of which I plan to flesh out today or tomorrow, and I will have written and posted it by fridays.

Time Ravages my Teens Away

As most of you will have forgotten, or chose not to know, a much blessed event occurs in less than a weeks time. Truly, on the 4th of September, 1987 I did come into this world, and its almost been a good seventeen years since then.
Yeah, so I'm turning seventeen soon, and, shit, I'm not going to be a teenager for much longer. Two more years, thats all, if you count 19 as a teen, and hey, thats really not much. Where did they go, and all that stuff.
You know how everyone tells you about how teenage is the most emotionally draining, hormonally charged, confusing time of your life? Don't believe them, they're a bunch of wussies who can't control their feelings. I'm about to finish my teens, and I've never been in serious depression, and have never had erratic mood swings.
Teens are great fun, even if you're not smoking or drinking the rest of your life away. Its being a kid that really bites.

I wish I could offer some more wisdom of my age, but hey, I'm turning 17, not 70. Thats all I have.
Only one more thing. Under no circumstances should any of you read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Hundred Years Of Solitude", unless you have exactly that amount of free time.

Hey, this is fun. Tell you what, on my birthday, I shall present the 17 great learnings of The Badshah of Blah!, over the last one year. Till then, adoo.

Backlog Writing

Ah, me finished an hour and a half of physics, and now feel like writing. I will no proceed to elaborate on a few topics of my choice, since no one in particular voted.

My Return to Shri Ram School

Last week, I went back to my old school, for Shri Debate, and cambridge rules debate they organise. Admittedly, I was quite excited to return after such a long time, and got all reminiscent when I saw DLF Building That Gives You The Finger on the way there. My teammates were Sonali Punhani, Arjun Agarwala, and Aditi Misra, and as we approached the school, they commented about how wonderful it looked. Yeah, its great infrastructure, but hey, students make a school.
Yeah, so my first words on entering, as have been reported on Sinha's blog, were indeed "Give me food", but hey, I was damn hungry, and had been promised a decent lunch by Eaps.
The lunch, by the way, was not very decent, and was in fact a very insipid Kadi Chawal. Blah!
Anyhow, to the point. I walk into school, and a lots changed, as far as the school goes. Half of it was cut out to make room for some apartment complex, which seemed quite funny.
But then, a lot remains the same. Same old people, first of all. Same bunch of idiots who, seeing me after maybe three years, decide they want to pick a fight again. This group, by the way, is the often mentioned "Hey, we think we're African Americans from the Bronx" group, otherwise known as the "Hey, how do we keep our pants from falling down" group. Then there was old...dunno what you call them, peoples like Harsh, and Sahil, that still acted and assumed themselves to be way cool.
Then, of course, there was the class 11 batch. I'm much heartened to know that after three years of abscence, they still harbour a grudge against me.
I soon realised that I just don't belong here, I never did. The second day,the day of our debates, I was actually missing home, DPS. Shri Ram was terrible during seventh and eighth for me, its the last place I'd ask a teenager to be while trying to form his identity, because I can still see that individuals just don't seem to survive there. Everyone's the same, in a really sick way.
How was the debate? Well, our first prelim was against DPS Vasant Kunj, and we won that very very comfortably, which was more due to the fact that our team was on the right side of a very skewed motion. Our second debate was against host team, and hey, everyone knows how that goes, so I won't elaborate.
See, a lot of Dipsites, the purebred type, who've been there since Vasant Vihar and East of Kailash simply don't know what its like to be in any other school, so they can't really appreciate what a difference it is, being in DPS, or being in any other school, and especially a school like my old one. When I went back to what I had left, I really knew the difference, and I'm happier than ever that I joined RKP.

Why Derek O'Brien should go stick his head in a pig

On the 23rd, I went for the NIE Fundamentals quiz, conducted by Derek O'Brien. Now, earlier, I had told you all the it doesn't get worse than Sid Basu. Well, guess what, it actually does. He actually asked MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS in qualifying! The rest of the questions, the ones that were not multi choice, were BQC level, and this is really damn bad when you've asked seniors to show up. On top of that, there were 4 or 5 questions in qualifying that were quite simply, incorrect. We only just managed to qualify. MIS and St. Columbas, the other two top teams in Delhi, didn't.
Then, during the quiz, Derek spends his time asking us the time, and trying to speed things along. His questions remain terrible, the standard was simply pathetic. Plus, there was the stupid buzzer again, and a lot, a lot a lot of theme rounds, which quite frankly, ruin quizzes. He conducted the whole quiz in some weird ass olympic style, and we got medals instead of trophies as prizes.
We came second, by the way, losing out to Sanskriti in the end, as we couldn't get anything in the Anagrams round, and they got pretty much all of them. Why anagrams? Don't ask me. I went there thinking it was a quiz.
Anyhow, some good came out of it. I got footage on front page of the school edition of Times of India, and footage in the school section of the regular paper. Knowing that I'd have my mug in the papers, I ensured that I looked as ridiculous as possible. Along with a school tie worn over the T-Shirts they provide, I had my cap on backwards. My economics teacher reached the conclusion that I was a rebellious child, probably smoking, and drinking, after seeing the pic. Needless to say, I think certain madcap so-and-so's will seriously reconsider their general opinions as to me. Haha! The CSBG scores!

New Methods of Breaking Up, and Why Alanis is a Bitch

If you've heard a song by Alanis Morrisitte, called "You Oughta Know", you'd realise why. Well this particular matter is subject of a longstanding, and I think, my only argument with Vrinda, over the fact that Alanis is a bitch. Vrinda insists the Alanis is infact dude-like, for socking it to the chap who broke up with her. Hey, no problems with that, but you gotta have limits.
I quote you this line.
"Did you forget about me, Mr. Duplicity
I hate to bug you in the middle of Dinner"

OK, fine, you're upset, he's dumped you, life sucks, you want to kill him, BUT DON"T DISTURB A CHAP DURING DINNER! Its a cardinal rule, for crissakes, why in gods name would you disturb someone while they were having their meals. Its not right. She should be shot.

Anyhow, this discussion lead me to suggest better and alternate ways to break up, to ensure that Alanis Like Actions never took place. You remember your old kiddie birthday parties, where you used to give return presents to everyone who came? You know, a pencil box, or some toffees, or the like?
Well, me thought, why not give return presents while breaking up. This would be an unexpected and umm...pleasantish surprise, and would distract the Alanis-Type long enough for you to make a quick and decent escape.
It would work something like this.

"I'm sorry, I don't think this is working out very well anymore, and I don't think I want to see you again. But hey, Here's a Pencil Box for you, see ya."

Alanis Type: "Cool! Pencil Box! Umm...Why a Pencil Box? Umm...Where are you? Damn! You just broke up with me!
Cool,Pencil Box!"

Its brilliant! I don't know why anyone hasn't thought of this before. I should open student advisory centers, in the mould of one Richard Branson.

#@!!!**##*Touchtel!

For all of you who've had doubts, this blog is not dead. It simply ran out of juice. And before all you girls start going, "Oh, whats the use of living anymore", I mean my DSL line was dead.

Now, after that shamless ripoff of Lord Flashheart, of Blackadder, lets get onto more important things.

Firstly, I would like to roundly abuse touchtel, my DSL providers, for having the worst customer care service on the planet earth. After first deciding that I wanted my line shifted to Papa's office, they then decided that there was, in fact, absolutely nothing wrong with my line. After taking much of my time and sanity over the last week and a half, I finally got them to send a chap to fix the damn thing.
Their technicians, however, are very sincere chaps, who get the problem sorted out sharpish. They also had the genius of coming at 5 15, which meant that with no one else in the house, I had to cut tuition to ensure that they got the job done.
Blah!

So, basically, my blog has been dead for about a week and a half, which is seriously unfortunate, because I've had loads to write about. So I'm just going to list of a few things, and again borrowinging shamelessly from my brother, will expand on whatever you guys want me to, by dropping the appropriate comment. I'll cover probably the four most popular choices.

1. Mundane Musings on Independance
2. My Return to Shri Ram, and why I'm so glad I left in the first place
3. Why Derek O'Brian should go stick his head in a pig
4. Morals, Jayalalitha, and Don Bosco(they are, by the way, connected)
5. Class Dynamics, and the Saga of Shravan's Parenthood
   
6. Major Footage on the Front Page, and how I hope it solved a few problems
7. A review of Losing my Virginity, Richard Bransons Autobiography
8. New Methods of Breaking Up, and why Alanis is a bitch
   

If you comment quickly enough, I might just get it up by tonight. Me feel like writing a lot, and in the absence of blog, I wrote short story which I shouldn't have. And no, none of you can read.

Advancement of Theories

Madam, to celebrate the wonderful occasion of no longer being sweet, or sixteen, decided to provide a lot of us lunch today, at a place called Delhi o Delhi.

Let me first tell you, that aside from Gol Gappas, there wasn't particularly much Delhi about the place. The food, though was quite decent, though I was much dissapointed with the dessert selection. Its simply not decent, if there isn't anything Chocolate provided.

Lunch, as Douglas Adams has pointed out, provides a window where time stands still, and all great thinking can take place. As I recall, the Great Lunching Friars of some planet were exceptionally adept at having lunch at nice places, and the Editors of The Hitchhikers Guide were famed for their long extensive lunch breaks.
Anyhow, back to the point. Here are some of the great theories that were propogated, by me or others.

1. The Final Urinal Theory: When in a mens rest room, and when alone, or with one/two other people, you will naturally gravitate towards the last urinal, that is, the one next to the wall. Why? So far no logical conclusion has been found for this common phenomenon.
   Also, please note, that this is not an infallible theory. There always exists exceptions to this rule.
   
2. The Decent Guy Theory: This theory, stated by Saudamini(No, she's not as fat or large as a hundred Damini's, that's just her name), states that if there exists a sweet and decent guy, he is either a)Gay or b) Taken. This great thought was used to prove that Karan cannot be a sweet and decent guy, as he is neither Gay, nor taken. Strangely enough, there were no other sweet and/or decent guys present at the table. Such is life...
3. The Seventeen Year Old Axiom: When you are seventeen, there are few other topics that are as interesting as Sex. It doesn't matter who you are, what you think of yourself, but in a group of a people, you will talk/joke/bitch about topics relating to sex.This is an axiom, it has no exceptions. If you think it does, jaaaaaaaast.

Its also incredible the number of terrible stories we guys have to tell. Honestly, its a good thing this blog doesn't resort to gossiping.
Oh, we saw the return the The Mini, on DaMini, herself. Would admittedly have been a sight, if it was on someone with decent legs, but, such is the nature of things.

Independance Day tomorrow, and all that. I shall, as the expression goes, Go Fly A Kite.(Or attempt to, atleast)

Happy Birthday Damini!

DPS Dopieta, and Friday the Thirteenth

For the uninformed, a Dopieta is a Ferrari 1-2. A DPS Dopieta is a DPS RKP 1-2, which happened todays, at The Father Agnels Jubilee Quiz. The 1 was us, Me PC and Manny, or as we style ourselves, The Factory Products. The 2 was Anurag, Akash and Avik, or as they styled themselves, V.O.D.K.A(Vengance of Dada Ki Army).
The quizmaster was Joy Bhattacharya, and we were really looking foward to the quiz, as he in, In my Humble Opinion, one of the best quizmasters around. His questions are excellent, quite workable, and occasionally very very fun.
It was a wonderful quiz, where we overcame terrible luck on the directs, by picking up hazaar passes. We won on second last question types, on last round, in what was a very exciting, very close quiz, in a three way fight between us, V.O.D.K.A, and St. Columbas. St. Columbas team name was "Return of the Goat", which they explained was because they, umm... loved goats. Yeah, I know its an all boys school, but jeez guys, keep some standards!
Oh, yeah, did I fail to mention that MIS were somewhere 30 points behind?
Anyhows, to make you feel jealous, and hate me, allow me to gloat about my winnings.

1. Rs. 1500 in the shiniest, most crisp note availible. You gotta love the smell of new money
2. A pair of hideous sunglasses, which, the kindest have said makes me look like Keanu Reeves, from matrix, the biased have said make me look Jazzy, and the downright honest have said make me look like a joke. Regardless, we had great fun parading around the school in our new aquissitions, and pretending to be all dude like. The most brilliant moment must have been walking into Prema Pandey's 11-C english class, the three of us in disgusting Goggles, with big winners grins on our faces. The bio section was suitably amused.
3. An Allen Solly T-Shirt, which is a wee bit too big for me. Lets just say XL is not my size. PC was happy though, first time he got a shirt his size, XXL.
   
4. A packet of Crayons(Why??), a classic book(haaai...) and a Pen Type Thing.
5. Glory and Prestige, and general confidence.
   
6. We broke the Shreyas Curse, i.e, whenever up against an MIS team, that contains Shreyas K. Reddy, whether or not he answers questions, we enevitably lose.
   

Anyhow, that is all I have to say about that. But hey, this post isn't nearly over.
Today's friday the thirteenth, and Madam's Birthday. Lets all wish her happy budday, and I hope she reads the lovely card I've made for her, which I've posted here for her and you to see.
Today, I've been told, is also World Left-Handers Day, so wish me, please. Pip Pip to all the other Southpaws out there, too.
Khabbon ki Jai Ho.

Back with a Bang

Right, so I've been ranting about my poor showing at pretty much everything this year, and how I had to go fix that, before I got passed off for a useless bum.
Basically, I pretty much did.

I went for The Mothers International School Extempore Speaking competition todays, along with Aditi Misra, a non-deranged-eleventhie. It was quite a wonderful event, 17 schools, a good number, and more to note, 17 noteworthy schools, none of the riff raff. The event was the conclusion to their Birth Centenary of their Founder's(I forget the poor chaps name) celebration, so it might get, to borrow a term, more footage in the papers sometime.

Anyhow, like Karan has mentioned, MIS is quite a wonderful school. They're organised, the events are on time, and there is no bakwas speechofying, that is the bane of most events. In addition, they get major bonus points for not yelling "DPS Sucks", as is common custom in most of Delhi's schools. This is probably because they know they're a damn good school too, and don't have such an inferiority complex, that most other schools hand over to their students. Eaps was there, and so were a couple of very good speakers from Springdales, though one of them, Ashish, kinda got way way too dramatic. He sure had the audience with him, but in retrospect, I don't think singing "Kya Aap Close Up Kartein Hain" in an extemp is the best way to go about things. There was also weird, emotionally disturbed woman from Sanskriti, who kept yelling at the top of her lungs about how all men were bastards, and had done bad things to Women. I don't think anyone in their right minds would dare do bad things to her, they might end up suffering from loss of hearing, as a result.

Anyhow, to the event. Half an hour for preparation, after topics were given, which was basically 20 minutes, but good enough. Topics were decided by a draw of lots, and there were plenty of topics to go around, so no two speakers got the same topic, as has happened in previous extemp events I've been for.
My topic was, "Peer Pressure: To Do, or not to Do". Initially a little flummoxed(yeah, I know I've spelled it wrong, so jaast) with the grammar of the topic, I just wrote what came to my mind. Ten minutes later, I had something resembling a draft, which I then extended, put in a few fancy shmancy quotes, like "Burn your own Demons", and concluded. It was a nice, well written thing, and I got down to practicing it for time. Good thing I did that, because when speaking, I knew exactly how long I was going to take.
Fine, I'll get to the point at long last. I spoke damn well today, modulation was right, no stuttering, and it was well written(which is always the least of my worries). As a result, and boy I've taken a long time in getting to this, I Won! Woo Hoo! Best speaker: Me, and Best Team, DPS, R.K.Puram. I picked up a Midlands Gift Voucher for Rs. 400, which means Damini is getting a nice birthday present after all, and very nice looking trophy cup too, all big and shiny, and laters, I found out, it's returned to DPS after a sabbatical of a year. Apparently, my...ahem, predecessor wasn't able to pick it up last year.

So I'm back, and I've earned back my tie again(long story), and all is well under the wide good sun. I might even end up enjoying a dinner at my house tonight, well, I'd always enjoy the dinner, the company, rather.
Ah, its good to be back in the winning ways. Lets hope it carries on to tomorrows, at the Fragnels Quiz.

EDIT:

Well, today's just been getting better and better. After school, I went for my tuition class, which passed by quite puickly, for a change. I step outside, and its nice and drizzly, the perfect kind of rain for taking a long walk in, as nothing gets exceptionally wet. Plus, the sun was out a bit, so there was the wonderful contrast.
So, from class, I walked to Sonali's, picked her up(not literally, this time), and dragged her along to midlands with me, where I shopped for budday present for Madam, and picked up a nice short story collection of Ray Bradbury for myself. Only, this is midlands, so I got two books, one of them giftwrapped, gave a voucher for 400, and still got 25 bucks back.
You know, talking and meeting friends after a long time is a really great mood upper. First Eaps, and then Sonali, its been a perfect day.
So, then I drop her back home, and proceed to GPM for my haircut. After which, I decide to treat myself with remaining 25 bucks to Gol Gappas at evergreen, and a AAA battery.(My rechargables had run out of juice)

You know how they say "In short measures life may perfect be"? Well, I've just had a whole day, that was pretty close to perfect. So up his, whoever the poet was, he doesn't know what the ruddy hell he was talking about.

Just a little Patience

Every family carries a few sayings, wise saws that you hear enough times to get ingrained into your psyche, though not heard often enough to make you resent them. My family has enough, but a particular favourite of mine, and my father's, is this 'un.

"The Vulture is a Patient Bird"

While this doesn't sound exceedinly profound, its one of the best lessons I've learnt. What is basically means is that, like the vulture, if you're patient, and stick around, you can pick off things that hastier creatures of habit will definitely miss.
Basically, when you feel that people around you are getting ahead really fast, and that you should jump into the fray, to grab that quick advantage, just remember the value of patience. Plan ahead, way ahead, and be ready to pick off the scraps.

I was asked today, if it ever gets one down that the rats in the rat race seem to be getting ahead, and that a lot of times, a lot of fakers and Peter Keatings(Go read Fountainhead) get all the glory. Who cares? The Vulture is a patient bird, and whatever goes around, without any fail, comes around. Its the whole circle of life type thing, central to Buddhist Philosophy, and Disney Animated Movies.
I talk too much, me sign off now. Besides, its nice and raining. Should go for a stroll.

Ugh

Yeah, we came fifth in the finals. Me don't really want to write about it, majorly bummed right now, and probably will be for a day, at least. Luck, it simply ran out, questions, they simply didn't come our way, and all our directs got passed out. Blah!
Attempts at cheering me up will not be appreciated. Efforts to abuse me will also not be appreciated.
I'm going to study now, I haven't done that for some time. Also, my marks, like I had said, have indeed picked up, with a current 90% aggregate in my second Monday Test Series, so lets go with what works when this clearly is not.
Who knows, I've got a couple of extempore's and debates coming up...somethings gotta start going my way.

Columban Open, Day 1

What a day. What a terribly screwed up day. Wheras yesterday showed how luck tells in a quiz, today showed what happens when you're having a really really bad day. My team, Hum Do Hamare Do completely zonked out after a solid written prelim round, and answered very very few things. A prefixed "S" is all that separated us from Rape at the Columban, but through some miracle of nature, we just managed to qualify. It didn't help that we were in the group of death, and the day of death at Columban, with pretty much every single established team,(aside from Saint Columbas) having their draw today.

I'd love to write more about this, I'll give a decent edited report tomorrow, but buh bye for now.

History Repeats Itself

I went for HT Pace today, and like the title suggests, I came third for the second year in a row. I really hate this quiz, its too easy, its even easier than University Challenge, and its too gimmicky, but what more can you expect from Siddharth Basu.
Congratulations, firstly, to Shakey, for getting Delhi Runner up, and of course, National Winner of the quiz.
I also have got yet another flat screen TV, 15 incher, this time, so if anyone wants to but it, please drop a line. I'm willing to go under MRP for the thinggumy, its Samsung CTV and all that. Me want to sell, and buy myself and iPod with the proceeds.

Anyhow, back to the point. Let me Describe the HT PACE Inquizsitive quiz.
We show up, obviously early, so walk around Talkatora Audi, waiting for teams to show up. Only, this isn't a quiz, its a "Mega Event", so not only do 5000 participants from schools as vague as Little Flower Sr. Secondary School show up, they also bring 1000 person cheering squads, so they have a shot at winning the Best Cheering Squad prize. Someone needs to remind the organisers, that this is, in fact, a quiz.
So, the whole audi is packed with huge cheering squads, some with drums, and usual riff raff nonsense, who are shouting at the top of their lungs, so us poor quizzers can't really hear a thing. Next, for the next one hour, before his hairlessness Sid Basu decides to arrive, we have to listen to Ma Tujhe Salaam, by A.R Rahman continously, OVER AND OVER AGAIN! For crissake, you'd think they'd change the song, maybe, but no, for two years, and probably all the years we didn't take part, its been the same damn thing.

Finally, after ages of waiting, the prelims begin. Sheets are distrubuted, and we find that the Prelims are all of 15 minutes long, with 25 questions. That, of course, is not the worst of it. The quality of the questions was so shabby, they actually asked who the columnist of Rude Food was. Qualifying score was, get this, 21 on 25. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how terribly simple the questions were, so the first miracle of the day was that we actually qualified, as several quizzing stalwarts, such as MIS, and Saint Francis De Sales failed to do so.

The main round, to make things worse, was almost all on the buzzer, with negatives. This made guessing a virtual impossibility, as no one wanted to risk points. Not that it was really important, what it came down to was fastest finger first for a majority of the questions, as pretty much all teams on stage knew the answers.

Well, we had the fastest fingers for the first 5 rounds, and were leading, but lost our touch in the final buzzer round, and hit a couple of negatives, and end result, came third.
Blah! St. Columba's came first, and Springdales DK came second, and qualified for the national finals.
Now, don't begin to think that National means representative of our great nation. National means whichever town HT has a prescence in, which includes Lucknow, Jaipur, Bhopal, and that true bastion of quizzing genius, Chandigarh. If the Delhi teams did not beat them, they should have felt ashamed of themselves, these were terrible terrible teams. Thus, St. Columba's deserves a kick in the groin for coming 5th, and not taking second place. Kudos to Shakey, and Springdales for taking advantage of the situation, and picking up a nice DVD home theatre as the first prize.

Well, all done with the quiz, we return to the debacle in the auditorium. They had a chief guest, of course, Veeru had showed up, and this drove paagal vela audience even more into a frenzy, and they begged and pleaded with us quizzers, who were close to him, to get them autographs, and the like. He's a sweet chap, Sehwag, doesn't say much, though, kinda overawed with everything. At any rate, he signed the T Shirts we got for the quiz, so we were nice and pleased.
The highlight of the quiz came right at the end, when they were announcing the prize for "best cheering squad". Now, there is this silly ass girls convent, called St. Thomas School, who send a 3000 girl cheering squad for each one of these big show events. They have huge banners, and shout themselves silly, which is really stupid, as their teams have never once managed to qualify for any quiz in Delhi. But they pride themselves on their amazing cheering capabilities, and get very hyper about it. So, the announcer dude(who Basu's wife was flirting majorly with), calls out the winners, as Saint (and at hearing St. 3000 girls of STS start squealing their heads of, and start of in insane victory dance) George's School! St. George's now go wild with excitement, while the girls from STS finally realise they haven't actually one, and the collective look on their faces was priceless. Imagine having the one thing you thought you were good at taken away from you. They looked like a boy who's puppy had died. Hehe.

Right, enough of that. There are more important things to move onto.

Happy Birthday Eaps!

Vinay Eapen, or the Mad Mallu Maniac, or the Government Servant Lackey, or simply one of my best buddies, celebrates his heppy budday today. Gawd bless him, spending it in school with a bunch of Shriramites, but hey, it'll be the last of its kind, so all the best to ya, Eaps.

Right, must now prep for Columban. Clash of the Titans begins tomorrow, DPS vs MIS, for the umpteenth time. Lets see who comes out tops in the Quaters and Semis.

My friends get up to the strangest things...
Can someone please explain what Manav is...doing to Shravan?

It is Such Lovely Weather

There is rain today.
There is no sun today.
It is such lovely weather, we will have fun together.
There is rain today, there is no sun today,
It is such lovely weather.
So come, come, come to me my Love
Come to me my Love
It is such lovely weather, we will have fun together.

Finally got to sing that song after around 11 months of waiting.
It is such lovely weather! And its going to rain tomorrow as well, if these big bad clouds are anything to go by. WooHoo!
I might add to this post laters...just might.

August the First

Hey, guess what? Its friendship day, or so my newspapers say. By complete coincidence, two of me best mates are coming for dinner tonights, Manav and PC, along with respective family.
Other good things happen too, India actually giving Lanka a good pasting. Methinks Sachin should just take up legspin now, what, with 28 hundreds and all, he should aim for 200 weekats. Needless to say, he is playing the good creekat.
Yeah, enough making fun of Ranjit Fernando.
Yesterday, I saw the most amazing thing on the telly, Crocodile Hunter, the movie.
If you are not familiar with Croc Hunter, his name is Steve Irwin, and he is as mad a nutter as ever existed in this fine world. This is a man who named his daughter after his favourite dog and crocodile, this is a man who met his wife in a zoo.
But he crossed all sane limits in this movie(which, by the way, also had a really really insane plot, something about the FBI tracking down a satellite beacon that had been swallowed by a crocodile on re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, kudos to the chap who came up with that).
Sample this. He sits, and literally plays, with world's deadliest snake for five minutes, all the while explaining how you should definitely not try this at home, because the venom from one bite could kill 150000 rats. The snake, meanwhile, is desparately trying to bite the chap, so it can go on its merry way. He is, of course, taking this as an opportunity to sing love songs to the snake, complimenting its beauty and grace.
You simply have to admire the man.

Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man 2

Yeah, yeah, I got around to seeing Spidey 2 todays. Want a review? There are better ones availible on The Movie Blog, so I'll just shut up, and say that I enjoyed the movie, even though others thought it was too senti, and not enough kickass action. It was more of a movie about Peter Parker than Spidey, and how he has to come to terms with his own life.
The ending, however, is kinda corny, and we were as a result making lots of sarky comments to the same. We first confused it with Kal Ho Na Ho, and later realised it was actually more of a Dil Chahta Hai.

Anyhow, thanks to Copal for somehow managing to get us together for movie, and providing us very decent lunch afterwords. If I can procure some of the nicer diggie photo's of the event, including very...suggestive ones, I might put them on blog. Only time will tell.

Karan, meanwhile, has been reading and blogging on one of my fav things in science, quantum physics, and more particularly, Schroedinger's Cat. Do check out his blog, the link is on the sidebar. I also reccomend you all read Carl Sagan's Cosmos, and a couple of other books by the same.
Also reminded me of a good joke. Unfortunately, those of you using internet explorer, and not mozilla, will not get it.
In fact, those of you who do not know about Schroedinger's cat will also not get it, so go read Karan's blog first.
Anyhow...
Schroedinger's cat is not dead.

March finally Passed

Yeah, so we had our big fat DPS investiture today, over halfway through our term. Its basically a big old excuse to get Salman Khurshid and Narender Kumar over, for some odd reason, because, quite frankly, we're a little sick of them. Fine, President and Chairman, DPS society and all, but for crissake! They're here all the time!

Anyhow, it lead me to make quite a few discoveries. Lets list them out.

1. Doing things I despise hurts my essense. Meaning: I got acidity the night before, and the day of march past, and it went away right after the whole rigmarole.
   
2. When a hell of a lot of people are made to dress up in a manner that reaches the broader limits of audacity, the whole looks a lot better than the individual. Meaning: 100 twits marching looking like a bunch of deranged politicians look a lot better than just me dressed up like deranged politician.
3. Minus the tiranga sash, and Nehru (may he live a thousand lives as a Chinese Massuese in one of their industrial hamlets) Topi, I look quite decent in simple kurta pyjama.
   
4. I still have the amazing gift of saying the wrong thing, very loudly, at the wrong time.
   
5. Oh, unrelated, but at tuition today, I formulated my great law of mathematics. "Two rights will eventually lead you back to the same thing". This law was first postulated for Componendo-Dividendo, which, by the way, if you do twice to the same expression ,you end up with the original expression. Now, this is just a one step deal. In integration, you can go five six steps, do a lot of work, and still end up with what you started with. Its incredible.

I'm pretty sure I made a few more, but I can't recall right now. All in all, after the conclusion of horridness in the morning, it ended up being quite a nice day.

That is all.

IQuiz, bey!

Todays, we organised, conducted, generally had good time at the very first standalone interschool quiz at DPS, R.K. Puram, IQuiz, 2004.
The event, itself, could not have gone off better. Everything just clicked. More schools turned up that had confirmed with us, people who said they wouldn't did, and we got 24 schools, which is really impressive.
First and foremost, me would take opportunity to thank Bongo, and Jayant, for their excellent and high quality of questions, which were appreciated by everyone present. Next, one would thank Beta Manau, and Sud, for working damn hard over last few days, when disaster struck, with invitatations, and everyone who worked their butts off today, whether at regdesk, food, scoring, whatever. Brilliantly organised event, and kudos all around.

The winners, of course ,were MIS, who were on really good form today, and made us realise tha we're going to have to do a lot of work if we're to win Columban. Also found out that we are in the same pool as them, so its going to be competition right from the quaters.

On related MIS story, yesterday I was randomly told by Aditya Syag, and Chuhi that some random person in MIS, who's elder brother was an ex-dipsite, randomly now wants to beat me up. This all seemed to random, and methinks he has the wrong guy. Still, me will keep wary and watchful glances next time I enter MIS....
hehe.
This is a very arbit world we live in.

Happy Birthday Copal!

Copal Dahling turns 17 todays. Thats Kilograms, not years, by the way. She's putting on a bit of weight. Might have something to do with the 6 pieces of cake we force fed her todays.
Anyhow, she got nice budday present from Vrinda, which brings me to more interesting topic than this staid, and oft repeated one, which will continue time and time again. Well, once a year, at any rates.
You see, the budday present in question was wrapped in this wonderful thing called

Bubble Wrap!

Bubble wrap is one of mankinds greatest inventions. Besides being a great cushioning agent, it's also one of the most fun things on the planet, ranking right up there with Shiny Stuff, and elephant jokes. There is just this overwhelming desire to pop the damn things, and me and PC's enthusiasm for the same even spread to those who would like to believe themselves to be mature young adults, who do not indulge in childish activities.
(Oh, we also fought for Bubble Wrap, with usual loud grunting, but I won this time)
Back to the point. Popping the bubbles besides from being hypnotically fun, is also therapetic, and I had a wonderful day as a result, with big old smile on my face.
They should keep huge sheets of bubble wrap in classrooms, so whenever you've had a bit of a rough time, you can tear off a piece, and pop away.

No need to go down...Stairs!

Ah, what a wonderful day it was. Aside from the joke of rainfall that we recieved, which is, quite frankly, Indradev's way of saying "Nyah Nyah, suckers", and the horrendous march past practice, it was everything Mondays generally aren't.
First, I had a decent Physics Monday test, in which I may get 23, if I'm lucky. Thats on 25, so me understandably happy.
Then, during end of MT, one finds out that our class has finally been shifted to first floor of F Block, ending our days of misery on the third floor.
Now, it used to be fine and all when we were in 11th, and had lots of company up on third floor, but in 12th, all other sections are posted either on first, or second floors of E or F block. We've been up all alone, and its been terrible. Aside from the ignominity of having the climb three goddamn flights of stairs just to reach ones class, and various trips up and down for reaching any other class, the third floor is amazingly hot, compared to closer to ground level classes. Also now poor Copal dear no longer has to go down...stairs.

I've got into a good bit of trouble, apparently, with some Bewnis from Humanities, as they have taken some strange offence to being called the Dregs. Firstly, I cannot take credit for coining the phrase, "Dregs of Humanities"(though I wish I could). The phrase itself was coined by one Manav Kapur, and has merely been adopted by us for describing the general breed of a DPS humanities student. One must say that it is quite a clever pun. Anyhow, the Bewnis have responded with an even cleverer come back of their own. They're calling us, (dramatic pause) The Dregs of Science!
Well, creative they are not, but hey, lets give them five on five for effort. They've even made noises about setting up a hate blog dedicated to flaming me. Wow. I feel honoured.

Switch topic.
Our class has outdone itself, for our class assembly, we have chosen the topic "Monsoon", and me expected to deliver speech on the same. Gaah. Methinks I shall narrate story of Indra's thousand eyes, just to smite the bugger, and prevent getting Tamatars thrown at me.

School Love Part Deux

You absolutely have to love our school. This is typo on English Monday test, of all things. Hehe.

Top Dog

Ah, being male brings with it great struggles for power and dominance. Sure, it helps if you're six foot something, and 90 kilos, but even us little folk indulge in the fight for being Top Dog.

See picture below, on previous post. This is whom my fight for Top Dog position usually occurs with, PC. What do we fight for? Sadly, the cool things aren't really acceptable in our society anymore. We can't go at each other for the right to mate with the most desired female, because then most desired female would turn her nose at both of us, and go off with the sweet sensitive underdog. We can't fight for territory, because we don't really have any, and we can't fight for status and respect, because we already have that. Well, we did, that is, before you started reading this post.

Because this is what we fight for. The right to play with assorted objects, ranging from stress-busters (the things you sqeeze in your hand), to assorted soft toys/shiny things/generally Archies Gallery Nonsense brought by our female friends to school.
The fights themselves are spectucular displays. We both grab onto required object, get a decent grip, and then start yelling Nyah! Nyah! at each other, till one of us gives up, or looses grip. Winner gets the spoils for all of five minutes, after which, this process will repeat, and the chap who lost the last time will inevitably win the next. This will be followed by further Nyahing, and will end up in more simple grunts.

See what we poor menfolk of the 21st century have to resort to. Ah, for the times where you could bonk each other on the heads with large battering clubs. Where have those golden days gone?

DPS is a funny funny place. Now, I ask you, could the two gents above ever be considered even moderately attractice(two gents being me and PC)?

Lets face it, PC looks like an overgrown kid, and I just look fast asleep. In any other school of Delhi, we'd be cast aside as evil gargoyles, not fit to be included in decent conversation. Except we're in DPS, and in DPS, people, and more specifically, members of the opposite sex, are insane.

This is why PC has a couple of Dregs (of Humanities) staring and following his ass around, and loudly commenting on it. This is why stranger, nuttier eleventhies seem to think I'm an acceptable pass for someone you can have a crush on.

This is why I love my school. There's hope for the least of us. Well, almost, hehe.

Constants

Me and Vrinda(Vrinda and I, for the pedants) were looking for constants in life, to cheer us up, as well, things aren't that constant right now. You know how they say everything changes, and the only constant is change? Well, they're mostly right, because we came up with pretty much squat. The only few constants we could find weren't anything to take much light from. Examples of this include Abhishek Raman's stupidity, which is a constant value close to the speed of light(3X10^8), and the fact that Manav will inevitably do something at the wrong time.
Other examples were far more depressing, and included Safdarjung Enclave's staid and boring Central Market, whose most remarkable development in 16 years of my life has been the change of the major provision store's name from Machanda's, to Citi-Store(Yay...).

On the other hand , there are these insane amounts of constants in physics and chemistry, which are highly bugging, as they have large decimal place multipliers accompaning them. Ten raised to the power of nineteen is a bit much for life.

But then, change can be good too, I would pretty much like change right now, rather than continue with current scenario types. Its a constant fight, me thinks.

Did they get you to trade, cold comfort for change?

Sums it up pretty well, I think. Except that our constants aren't much comfort right now.
So I think I'll take change this once. May interesting things start happening to me.

Writing is quite thereputic in times like these, though, so there are probably going to be a profusion of blog entries over the next two weeks, at least till the Columban, where I'm doing pretty much jack all aside from hitting my books(in frustration, of course).

Ah, I think I have found in this keyboard a vent for all pent up frustapa, and thingummys.

Good, good.

Captain Stupidity and Unstereotypical Quizzers

Firstly, on Captain Stupidity, Sourav Ganguly. This man loves to experiment. Now, experimenting when the chips are down is a great thing, and I approve, but what in gods name is the point of sending in Parthiv Patel to open the innings when you have not one, not two, but THREE of the worlds top openers in your squad.
Then, of course, there was his dismissal, you have to love that.
Ganguly is the only player in our team who doesn't perform consistently, and the only reason he has a place in the side is because he's captain, and we kind of keep winning, no ruddy thanks to him.
Secondly, me all braced for maths monday test, and pray for no silly mistakes come tomorrow.

Ah, thirdly, a topic that my brother was going to take on, but didn't, so I thought I'd offer my two cents on the matter.
See, here's the thing. Quizzers in our fair country, and specifically, in a very Punjabi Dominated Delhi, are almost exclusively Bangaali, South Indian(specifically Tams, but not always), and occasionally, Biharis. One thing quizzer's are not, is Punjabi. (Another thing quizzers are not is girls, but that is a completely separate and unfortunate story in itself)
So this is the strange bit, DPS's school team, which I am a part of, is completely Punjabi, if one includes Anurag, who is pretty much Punjabi, owing to the abscence of a great Multani community. And like my brother, we also get quite lost in a group dominated by Bangaali quizzers, and Bangaali quizmasters. There are all sorts of questions in there that simply cannot be answered unless you are Bangaali, or in love with Bengal.
Along with this, we get pretty funny stares a lot of the time, well I do, because quizzers generally aren't used to the kind of brashness and lack of social decorum that Punjabiyat provides you. Quizmasters, especially, are quite taken aback, but hey, thats my fault.
On top of this, Punjabis are openly perverted, and this gives us an edge. As a team, we can answer every single dirty question that comes our way, to the surprise of the quizmasters who set them in thinking no acche bacche kids are going to be able to answer this. A typical example of this happened at Kanpur, where the QM was very very surprised that a bunch of school kids knew that J'Lo and Brad Pitt's asses in Madame Tussade's had been made sqeezable(don't ask me why).

Hehe, so such is the nature of things in our little world.

Match is looking in doom like situation right now, and me needs good nights sleep types. If miracles happen, I shall know in the morn.

Point of Minima

Yesterday has been officially identified by me as the point of local
minima in my existential curve(Oh, by the way, I've been doing a lot of
maths today). From here on, things can only pretty much look up, and
guess what? They did.

I had a wonderful day. Fine, it wansn't wonderful in my happy happy joy
joy sense, but when you've been having a hard time, you take what you
get. Firstly, after ages, I got all of 7 and a half hours of sleep, and
woke up at a reasonably decent 5 30(as opposed to 4 AM). At this bright
and early hour, I discovered that Karate Kid was showing, and watched
it after ages. Reminded me what I needed to know, baby, "Must have
Balance"!

Around sevenish, I sat down to study, and finished tangents and
normals. Then I had a wonderful breakfast, with eggs, sesame toasted
bread, Gouda Cheese, and of course my favorite juicy, luscious pears.

After breakfast, me sent off application for Correspondance course for
Law Entrance. Then got down to doing Increasing/decreasing functions.
Finished that too. Then had tuition class, where did more work. For the
first time in months, I have actually been motivated to work, and have
thus done a good job of it. One hopes rich dividends will result, will
wait and see.

Then the most amazing thing happened. After a seemingly neverending
drought, Lord Indra finally decided enough was enough, and bestowed us
with some rain, right when my class ended. This gave me wonderful
opportunity to get drenched, while Abeer Chuha ranted and complained
about how his mobile phone was going to get zonked.

Returned home, and did YET MORE MATHS!(Maxima/Minima, by the way) I
don't think I've ever done this much work for monday test. Well, enough of this, I tell you another fun story.

Lord of the Flies

This season is also a time when flies abound all over the place, and
are wont to buzz around and irritate you. Last year, I discovered my
hidden superpower. I am, in addition to a lot of other titles, Lord of
the Flies!

Flies don't bother me once I tell them the buzz off. When I tell them
to bugger off, they go fly up other guys pants. They generally don't
bother me, once I tell them so, and will seemingly buzz around anyone
or anything else, to others irritation.
Now, people didn't believe me last year, but since it has continued
this year, they're starting to think there's something to it. Jezebels
such as Copal, and Damini now admit that it seems to work. Let that be
a point to all disbelievers, beware the awesome might of The Lord of
the Flies!