It's All about the Pentiums

First and foremost...WooHOOO! No more exams, for a couple of months, and just a couple of SAT 2 subject tests to give tomorrow. This makes me very very happy. I think I've started hating exams a lot now, because I'm really sick of giving them. We have to give em way too often in class 12, and its not right. For crissakes, when the hell are we supposed to learn anything when we're always studying for some exam? Its wrong, its inhuman, and it gets me in a horrid mood, where for just a magic moment, when I'm done studying and done listening to the beatles, and done with the day's daily chores, and put my head to rest, and oft upon my couch I lie, in vacant or in pensive mood

Okay, that was getting to be a bit too much, but basically I end of thinking gaaah, what the hell is the point of it all, I don't want to do this anymore.
But then, you realise, hey, its a matter of two three months, and its going to be a wonderful two three months, and its the last few days you have left of school.
At this point I get horrendously senti (as per my disgustingly enemotional standards), so decide that there are better things to do than this, fall asleep, get up early in the morn, and do stomach crunches to get rid of disgusting flab that sitting on your ass all day doing nothing has a habit of putting on you.
Again, this is flab by my very exacting standards.

But anyhow, all this is over.
Right, now on to main topic of discussion, before I dilly dally any more. Today, after exam, was the Senior Exun meeting, where, as a record, we not only managed to decide events, schedules, food, and what not, but also got invitations made and sent, AVH booked(more on that later), ate pizza, chatted a lot, and basically organised in one afternoon what should have taken half a week. In fact, for all you wannabe participants, the info should be up on the site by late tonight, which just shows you how incredibly efficient Exun is.
Here's a breakup of how things went at this meeting. I arrive, along with Skaran at the Egurucool Lab, I tell him, sorry for being late, for I arrived at 10 35, as I pointed out to him it was physically impossible to arrive on time at 10 30. To prove me right, all other members show up 15 mins later, why I get hot and bothered about the complete lack of punctuality in an otherwise well organised set up. Following this, we man the iMac and HCl Beanstalk, and start preparing everything from invitations, to letters to the principal, to event shedules. Then, me and Karan decide to do mounting, and mount our iPods on the Mac, to exchange music. Then, Mukesh Sir gets upset, because we aren't working any more, so starts yelling at us for listening to music. Thus, we must work a little more. Soon after, the Pizza arrives(oh, yes, we ordered Pizza), and six of us polish of 4 large pizzas. This is quite understandable, as of the six included likes of me, Nisheeth, and Maanick, otherwise known as the Dheet Punjabi Squad.
Then, we got back to fluid exchange between mounted iPods, and I've now got more new stuff from Skaran's iPod, and he will now enjoy such wonders as the Hitchhiker's radio series.
I am, of course, telling you all this simply as an excuse to make very bad intended mounting puns while writing. But this is not the extent of my depravity.
The true depth of my depravity, I discovered last night, when much to my wonder and amazement, I managed to braid my leg hair.
This is what happens during exam season. What to do, we are like that only.
Will my life turn out to be as terrible as its been for the last two weeks?
Will October be the most disastrous month of my life?
What is the Porcupine cure, and why shouldn't anyone be allowed to see it?
Will you ever find out the answers to these questions?
Find out, on the next, now more regular, and generally more interesting Daily Dose of Blah!
Oh, and in the words of Lowly Exun Members
I'm back.

A little Less Conversation

Yay, I'm almost done with my exams, and tomorrow is a piece of cake paper, or well, at least it should be. After the paper will begin the busiest month of my short life(I'm starting to dread the day when I'm not allowed to say short life anymore).
Anyhow, it gives me the opportunity to write at leisure today. Anyhow, all is good practice for writing and thinking fast for Saturday's SAT 2 writing paper. Ugh. It's like the examinations never end.
Right, back to the point. Actually, that is pretty much the point. Why is it that most teenage conversations, hell, most conversations of any age group, in my opinion are generally about nothing at all? Why must we talk, chat, communicate incessantly, even when we have nothing serious or important to talk about? Why can I spend an hour and a half discussing implications of Beatles songs, and which ones are the nicest, when it clearly will not so much as change the ones I am going to listen to, nor my enjoyment of them?
Well, it's simple, really.
See, human nature, which is so incredibly screwed up, realised that if we did intend to communicate only very important, very critical information all the time, strange things would start to happen to us. If our conversations revolved around the great problems of the world, how to solve them, or indeed, the great philisophical questions of life, even stranger things would happen to us. If this is all we could talk about, the worst possible thing on the planet would happen to us. We'd turn into Commie Pseuds, with long hair, jholas, and a prediliction for entering colleges like St. Stephens. We'd become pompous and pretentious bastichs, and spend the rest of our lives as economists, or journalists. We'd probably end up working/appearing on NDTV a lot, and become everything the world generally despises.

There is, however, another extreme. We could spend our entire lives discussing the implications of Beatles Songs, or the plot lines of sad soap operas, or the benefits of the new T 5000 K44 mobile phone, that has super zoom flashy thingie facility, and can arm India's Nuclear Arsenal if you press a few buttons the wrong way.
This would also be a bad thing. That is, talking incessantly of such things, not arming India's Nuclear Arsenal. If we did indulge, or do indulge in this, we'd risk turning into people who will spend their entire adulthood involved with Soap Operas. This is not a bright future.
Thus, there is a middle ground. I suggest you find someone with hoom you can have a decent enough intellectual conversation every so often, and spend the rest of the time telling Horrendously Bad Jokes(Who all read the sciencie jokes, or were unfortunate enough to listen to me tell em?), or the like.
Did I mention I've been listening to a lot of Beatles Songs lately? I think it's starting to tell, I'll have to change my "current obsession" soon.

Relief

The worst is over. Physics, Chem, Maths, they're done?
How did I fare? Terribly. Maths, as previously stated, was a disaster. Physics, an even bigger one. Chem, redeemed me in some ways, but that by no means means(Haha, Karan, suck on that, double word usage, and it's still grammatically correct) that I am getting 90% in it. Should be between 80 to 90, depending on how kind the checking teacher is. Basically, I'm losing marks in these disgusting things called chemistry numericals, which require you to multiply, take logs, and generally maneuver 6 digit numbers in a multitude of different ways. Why are we not allowed Calcs? Does actually taking out the values of insane computations test our concepts at all? Is it really a decent way to torture otherwise innocent, masoom bacche? Isn't Mandira Bedi enough???
Answers to these questions and more will never be provided to the likes of us, so why bother.
On a tangential note, thanks to brother dearest, I have received seven CD's worth of music, and of course, The COMPLETE hitchhiker's guide radio series.
It is, by the way, brilliant. Simon Jones is perfect as the book, and it has that whole 70's feel to it, the kind absolutely missing in our decade.
You make say that that( See, I did it again, nyah nyah) is because this isn't the 70's. Well, that's a load of crap, the spirit of a decade doesn't die as soon as it ends.

In simple, and uncomplicated terms, to sum up my last week and a half, quite a terrible one I might add, I'd just like to say
BLAH!

The Mouse Bought It, and Other Stories

For the last god knows how long, a small, very fast, very annoying mouse has been running all around our house, and generally making its prescence felt. Mice aren't a good household's favorite thing in the whole wide world, so it was decided that it would have to go.
Unfortunately, the mouse had other plans.
First, we set non-invasive traps, the kind where you put a bait of something revolting, and expect the mouse to bite, and get trapped inside, so we could politely eject him out of our humble abode, and back onto the city streets. Nobody likes an uninvited guest. This, however, did not work. Even after I suggested we load the traps with something more appetizing than cold bread, it did not work. I'm sure if we baited it with a piece of chocolate, something would have happened, but hey, I'm not giving up my chocs for a two bit rodent.
Next, we got nasty, and put out rat poison. The poison promised that the mouse would eat it, run around a bit for a couple of days, and then decide to politely leave the house, and die outside. Why it would want to do this is beyond me, and well, the mouse seemed to have other plans too. After a week of waiting, Mr. Mouse was still around.
I had of course, suggested getting a cat, but Mother hates cats, for some odd reason. She says there are already too many self-centered attention starved things in the house, without bringing in another one.
Anyhow, we had pretty much given up all hope, and accepted this mouse as a part of our home, when yesterday, out of the blue, it decided to kick the bucket; it rolled over and died just outside my room's door. This is strange, because till now, my room was the one place the damn thing hadn't frequented, and it seemingly didn't get the opportunity, as it died on entry point. Go figure.
No it did not die of the noxious fumes, if any of you are planning to comment so. My room smells perfectly fine, thank you very much.
Well, the mouse bought it, and society was pleased in general.

Other Stories

Yesterday, I had fun in the evenings. We were invited to a anniversary dinner of family friends, so I finally got to try out Punjabi By Nature.
There's only one thing i can say about the place. It lives up to its name. Everything is very Punjabi, the servings are huge, the meat is meaty, and the veggie stuff generally doesn't match up. You'd think its some poncy restraunt charging the usual high price for the tiny bit of food, but no, this place's servings are king size. You could feed a family of four on one item.
Now, it rained a decent amount yesterday, and I'm really considering carrying my camera around everywhere I go. There are some moments that really need to be captured.
For instance, after a good six hours of rainfall, at one at night, after I exited the Movie theare (did I mention I went for The Terminal after dinner? Brilliant movie), most of Vasant Lok Market was flooded. The awnings outside the store had been taken over by a bunch of cows, and one was convinently blocking all exit points, access denied. That would have made a classy picture, because, well, it says a thousand words, and all that. I can't exactly describe how the damn thing was placed, just take my word for it, it was hilarious.

The Terminal is a really good movie, one of Speilberg's best. Tom Hanks acts brilliantly. The story...well, I can't really describe it without giving away a lot, and I guess you've read the trailiers. Let me just say that it captures moments really well, something like a cinematic Shutterbug.

I've discovered that I'm getting Shutterbug Syndrome. Its all my depraved minds fault. I'm going to go yell at it a bit.
This is what happens when you finish most of your physics course, and have a day left to cover one topic.
Blah!

Writing Skills

I have an english paper tomorrow, which explains why I have a lot of free time on my hands. Anyhow, I took the opportunity to practice SAT 2 math and thought I'd do essay practice for the SAT 2 writing test. However, I soon realised that I really hate writing essays, and thought of a short story instead, on the way to the market to get a haircut.

This is a monumental achievement in my writing career. This is the first story with Human characters that I have ever written where they don't end up dead, or greviously injured in the end. No people at all, in fact, were harmed in the writing of this story. I'm very proud of myself.
Anyhow, no more trailers as to what it's about. I give you:

Shutterbug

“How did you know!” she exclaimed.

“Basically”, he replied, “I’ve been stalking you for the last three weeks. I’ve hacked your computer, found out whatever you’ve been searching for over the last few weeks, gone through your personal files, and pretty much done everything I could to get to know you inside out, all so I could get you this.”

She rolled her eyes disbelievingly. “Well, a job well done, it’s perfect. How on earth you managed to get an autographed Beatles LP cover is beyond me, but…this is just so perfect. Tell me again why you did this?”

He stood blank for a second, and then broke out into a broad grin.

“Why did I do it? Just for the look on your face, why else?”

And then he saw it again, that big lopsided Madhubala smile of pure joy, that kind that only the perfect gift can bring to someone’s face. From seemingly nowhere, she heard a click sound, which vanished just as fast as it was heard.

“You”, She exclaimed, “are the sweetest chap in the whole wide world, you know that?” She leant forward and gave him a big hug. He smiled to himself, and added bonus, he thought.

“Well, I’ll be off, now. I’m leaving for Mumbai; you may not see me for a while. Consider it a return present, okay? Catch you later”

And with that, he disappeared from her life for good, with mission accomplished. He had to move on to bigger quarry in Mumbai. He was meeting and old school friend, whom he had recently caught up with, after some six or seven years. They had chatted over the net, and in just a few conversations, he had begun to share some of his personal problems. It’s amazing what you’ll tell someone you know when you can’t see their face. Anyhow, life wasn’t going exceptionally well, or according to plan for Hari. Things had, in fact, gone remarkably wrong. The rigors of Mumbai life had got to him. His health was shot; he had high blood pressure at 23, we was having major problems with his job, and was in danger of being fired, and he had an eviction notice from is landlord, for falling back on his rent. Things could not get much worse, and yet, they did. His girlfriend had also walked out on him, for not having enough time for her. Like Murphy stated, everything goes wrong all at once. When life hands you lemons, you gripe about them to the nearest chap you can find, and that magically happened to be our man in question.

Before meeting with Hari for a cup of coffee, he had made a few arrangements. Doing random favors for people did have certain advantages, and even in an uncommon city, he could pull a few strings. Firstly, he called one of his friends in McKinsey Consultancy, to ask them if they were hiring. Seeing as they were, he promised his contact that he had the perfect man for the job. With blind generosity often comes faith of purpose, and his contact immediately set up an interview for one Mr. Hari Sharma, for what was probably the job of his dream. Besides, rent would hardly be an issue with a six figure salary.

Next, he stopped his taxi at the nearest flower shop, bought a dozen roses, and spent the next fifteen minutes of the taxi-ride on the way to one Shalini Puri’s residence, coming up with an appropriate poem for a woman he knew nothing about. The girl in question was, of course, Hari’s neglected girlfriend, and he felt certain that she needed to feel a bit special.

Shalini, of course, was thrilled with her roses, as well as the charming courier-man that Hari had sent for her. Suddenly, he didn’t seem such a bad chap after all, and she would definitely give him a call at two in the afternoon, just as the pleasant courier-man had asked her to. The smile on her face was priceless, and was momentarily disrupted by a strange clicking noise.

Soon after, he rendezvoused with Hari at a Café Coffee day. He hadn’t changed a bit in seven years. He still had the most photogenic face in his school, and cheeks so chubby he looked like some kind of deranged teddy bear. Of course, he was quite worried at the moment, but that would soon be taken care of. He had a couple of pleasant surprises coming up. Anyhow, they ordered a couple of Vegan Shakes, both of them being Lactose Intolerant. Ah, back to the point. Conversation began.

“You know, I’m really glad you’re visiting Mumbai on business, I haven’t had a decent chat with anyone for a long time. Though I seriously doubt you can help, as you promised. Things are kind of out of control, I don’t really think there’s much you can do.”

He smiled. “Well, I’ll be the judge of that. I had a friend working in McKenzie, and he had a job opening. You said you were having a few problems at work, so I thought I’d get you an interview.”

Hari’s jaw dropped. Before it could pick up again, his mobile phone rang, sharp at two-o-clock.

“Oh, I also paid a visit to Shalini; Sweet girl, she is.”

The ensuing phone conversation was riddled with exalted screeches, and random words of kindness. It lasted a good ten minutes, before they decided to call it an afternoon. It wasn’t their decision to make; truly, Hari’s incoming was unfortunately not free. As he cut the phone, his face seemed to be exploding like a cracker-full Diwali.

“Thank you, thank you so very much. I have no idea why you did this, or why, or…How, how can I ever repay you?”

“Repay me? Hmm…the smile on your face is payment enough.”

There were two or three clicks this time, but they didn’t particularly distract Hari.

“Anyhow, I must fly. Big important business meeting and all, and then I have to fly right back to Delhi. See you around.”

Hari was too happy to be particularly disappointed in the sudden departure.

“Again, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I don’t know…what prompted your generosity, it’s just incredible, just, wonderful…What do you do, by the way?”

“Oh, I’m an artist.” He said, and departed before Hari could get a word in.

With that, two years of work was done. He returned to his studio, booted up his beautiful Apple iMac, and opened up Photoshop. He took of his glasses, plugged a fire-wire port into them, and downloaded the last three photographs of his series. A neat little gadget he had picked up from a London intelligence store, the spectacle cam was not, in fact, limited to use for Mission Impossible wannabes.

Well, he put the final touches onto his last three photographs, edited them, spruced them up, generally made them look really nice, and then hit the magic print button. An album of fifty quality photographs came out.

Later that month, his exhibition opened. It was simply titled “Joy”, and consisted of some of the brightest, purest, most wonderful expressions of Men, women, children, teenagers that had ever been captured by a hidden camera.

The exhibition was a hit, and many art collectors bid for his work, proving once and for all that there is such a thing as a million dollar smile.

The End.

There, told ya no one dies. Cheerio.

Limit tends to being Fucked

How disastrous must a maths paper be, to qualify as a national calamity?

Anyhow, let us talk of nicer things. Better yet, for anyone who needs cheering up (and believe me, plenty of people do), I offer you distraction.

Firstly, I send you to My Cruel Dictotorship, which is just starting up. I was feeling upset today, so I changed it from a benevolent oligarchy, where few were allowed to vote, to a blatant dictatorship, where I rule supreme. I just legislated to outlaw Gambling, so Haha! Lets see you play dice with my universe.

Secondly, those closer to me will know that I've been telling some of the worst jokes(or the best, depending on your state of mind) ever told. This is because I've found this wonderful wonderful site full of Sciencie Puns which will truely send you into splits. Dregs of Humanities please beware, you will not understand these, so go away, shoo!
If you don't believe me, here's a sample.
Question: What do mermaid mathemeticians wear?
Answer: Algeabras!

Muhahahahahha.
In the words of one Doggiebert, I feel it my duty to share my gift of mirth with those around me. Anyhow, pip pip for the next one, I hope its not an equivalent disaster.

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.