one way space warp

i've been commuting to and from work by rickshaw for almost every single day of the past few weeks at my new job. it's not exactly cheap, but it saves me the pain of train travel, and cuts my travel time to half, if not less. i've noticed one very weird thing though: the rickshaw fare invariably is higher on my way to work in the morning, than on my way home in the evening. surprisingly, that's despite there being much less traffic in the morning (it takes me 20-25 minutes to work, but 35-45 minutes to get back home). there are no one-way diversions or anything else of the sort either. in fact, it's a perfectly straight road from about 200 metres from my office to about 200 metres away from my home, and the difference is about 5rs on an average (about half a kilometre, by rule of thumb). absolutely inexplicable. i still haven't the slightest clue on how i can explain it.

i guess it's just another one of life's mysteries :D

While I Was Sleeping - Part 2

as a sequel to the last time i freaked myself out in bed (no puns intended ;)), i woke up yesterday morning, with the pillowcase off my second pillow, and neatly folded and kept at the side of my bed.

i think i see a pattern here. i wonder where it's headed though :P

south park!!!

just read this interview...it happened quite a while ago, but it's still real interesting.

trey parker and matt stone rock!!!

http://www.reason.com/news/show/116787.html

i guess it's pretty obvious i'm a *big* south park fan :D

dozing on the first bench

i have always had problems staying awake during lectures. my friends can vouch for the endless occasions when they've had to literally cover for me because i was dozing away during the HOD's lecture (thankfully i don't snore too much :P)

still, those were college days. i could always come early and catch a place on the last bench (highly unlikely, but it has happened :D), or come late and make an emotional appeal to my less sleepy friends that they don't need the last bench as much as i do (much more likely :P). these days it's training at work. we get assigned positions. i've been assigned the instructor's nose (give or take a few inches :D)

i hope the instructor didn't hear me snore. he definitely saw me doze away (he doesn't seem farsighted :P). i tried to make up for it by asking questions every minute i was awake. i hope he takes it as a sign that i was not sleeping, but just thinking with my eyes closed. unfortunately, asking too many questions when i'm awake also means that he and the rest of the batch is acutely aware of my 20 minutes of eyes-closed-thought.

i wonder what they think i'm thinking :P

360 degrees

The time it took for my life to seemingly turn upside down and then right itself completely: 94 hours.

The time it took for me to go from almost giving up on life to embracing it yet again: 36 hours.

The time it took for the end of the line to turn into the start of a new one: 24 hours.

The time it took for me to realise nothing can break my spirit if god is in my heart: 8 hours.

The time it took to start a new life, in the middle of an old one: an instant.

Soundtrack: why by joe satriani (album: the extremist)

life is unfair!

Life isn't fair. Some people seem to have much more problems than others. I know many such people. I used to feel sorry for them.

Then one day i thought i turned into one of them. I never questioned god's hand or his will. I know i didn't land up where i did by accident. I thought it would be a long drawn, bitter battle. Little did i know i had such an overpowering weapon with me.

I don't pity people with problems anymore. I only pity people who haven't truly discovered god yet.

24...and counting...

It feels great to be 24. It feels great to be alive. And very inexplicably, it feels that i could not be in a better place than right here, right now. After 23 birthdays that just went by with a quickly forgotten celebration, this is one that i never thought i would even celebrate. Little did i know that it was to be much better than the ones when i thought i would.

passwords (some things never change)

i hate changing my passwords. which is very ironic, because having personally seen friends' accounts (and pcs) being hacked to bits, i know exactly how much havoc can be wreaked with them :D

unfortunately, i have a very limited memory for passwords. i also decide on pretty complicated passwords, and given the number of times in a day i need to use them, i end up remembering them mechanically (i actually instinctively move my fingers in the right pattern, without even thinking). end result: every time i change my password, i end up typing my old password atleast a few times before realising why i can't log in. to add to the inertia, i've now lost track of the number of places i have an account. thankfully, i can remember my last 2 passwords with some effort (and a lot of thought). sadly though, the number of accounts i have created since my last global password change has more than tripled (i've actually lost count, so i can't even arrive at a multiple anymore). i guess i'm now a victim of what i used to scoff at other people for: "website loginitis" :P

anyway, i'm planning to change my password next week. if i stop posting/mailing/chatting/orkutting/facebooking/whatevering for some time after that, it's probably because i'm trying to figure out which password works where :P

come to think about it, the time has definitely come for biometric authentication or atleast globally accepted smartcards. the bait seems enticing. now when will the big fish bite???

our amazing world of friends

i was very bored today, and coincidentally, random clicking around on the 'net turned into systematic clicking through my orkut testimonials list, and reading the testimonials written for each of my orkut friends. it definitely served to get rid of my boredom, but it also gave rise to this wonderful feeling: the feeling of being surrounded by friends who love each other so much.

it's a truly awesome feeling, that so many people who have spent so little time with each other (a few years of being in college together, in most cases), can be so deeply attached to each other. i don't know if i'm being oversensitive or something, but when i read my friend's testimonials for each other, the affection and care was almost tangible...like a rope binding us together. it reminded me that friendship isn't just about the many hours we spent together, or the awesome conversations we had, but also the moments we spent silently with each other, just being there, doing our own thing. i feel the true mark of a great friendship is when the silence is no longer uncomfortable, but golden. i'm glad i have so many friends who really fit that definition. i miss many of them too, but i know that we have crossed the point when we could possibly drift apart due to distance or even lack of communication. the only thing left is the wait till we meet again.

it's the same feeling that i get when i'm with my family - no matter how long i'm away from home, it doesn't take even a second to adjust back to being with them. i guess i'm just gonna call my friends my extended family from now on :)

it's awesome having such great friends. you make life worth living. seriously.

happy friendship day :)

to all my friends who didn't get my orkut message (i'm too lazy to pick them out from my address book :D)

"the best thing about friendship is realising how many friends you have and how many people love you...and if you haven't thought about it yet, you can start counting with me...cos i'm gonna be your friend forever...HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY!!!!"

they got it all wrong!

yesterday, there was an advertisement on the front page of one of the newspapers i subscribe to. it was an ad for for jewelery pieces/showpieces modeled after the different zodiac signs. the caption caught my attention:

you cannot change your life.
but you can change your luck.

hmmm. my first reaction was that they were probably being sarcastic. however, the statement (if sarcastic) would be trying to convince people *not* to buy that thing. also, from personal experience, over 80% of the people i know don't get sarcasm. and i've not seen any sarcastic indian advertisements yet. it's probably a chicken and egg thing. :D

anyway, since when can i *not* change my life? am i a preprogrammed moist robot or something? and if i can improve my luck, but my luck doesn't change my life, then what kind of crappy luck is that? besides, if i can't change my life, then i should not be able to improve it by getting the zodiac crap they were selling, right?

what an advert. and on the first page of one the leading national dailies, no less. either the person responsible started thinking 5 minutes before his deadline, or the advertiser is truly dumb.

<sarcasm>either way, it makes an immense sales pitch for the zodiac showpieces...anyone taking bets on me buying one of them???</sarcasm> :D

what's dutt???!!!

these days, sanjay dutt has been all over the newspapers, with his conviction and 6 year sentence and all. dunno whether it's just my common revulsion for all things famous (harry potter being another recent example), but that guy's behaviour just makes me sick. and the statements made by his fans make me even sicker.

i'm not really in a position to justify or cry foul over the duration of his jail term, but i really think he has been pushing his luck way too far. how very stupidly cocksure does he have to be to not be prepared for a sentence at the end of a freaking 13 year long trial??? what was he expecting, another year of dilly dallying so that he could make calls to his daughter in the US? and HTF can he possibly expect to get off scot free, when people who *he* convinced to commit the crime got a jail term? what kind of fairness would that be?

he made a statement after the sentence was handed out: "i know what i am. nothing else matters."

yeah. you got that right. you're a common criminal. a rich and powerful common criminal. nothing else matters. now go eat your damn prison breakfast before you die of starvation and other similarly pea-brained people blame the prison authorities.

which brings me to my other peeve: the fans.

granted, this guy is an actor/filmmaker. some of his films have done well. atleast one of them ("lagey raho munnabhai") was quite patriotic and all. so what? is doing good some kind of atonement for the crimes he's done? if so, what about the other convicts? don't they get the same kind of treatment?

let's make it personal. if (hypothetically) mr. dutt was personally responsible for ordering the murder of someone from their family, would they still consider his film making a reason for letting him get off scot free? i'm ready to bet that they'll be pushing for life, or better still, death.

thankfully people are beginning to see sense now. i've noticed the pro-pardon commenters have been declining compared to the pro-equality-of-law commenters. i hope the proportion of people who feel that way is also following the same trend. if they're not, we're setting the stage for rich and influential people getting away with anything (i guess that happens anyway, but atleast its not publicly approved...yet)

oh and something mysteriously missing from the comments: mr dutt himself, in "lagey raho..." had spoken about following gandhiji's footsteps and going to jail, as that would increase the respect his opponents would have for him.

it's respect building time, mr. dutt!!! let's see if you can practise what you preached. it's the least you can do for your fans who love you so dearly :D