Bump!

Long time no post! Whaddup, my starved, raving fans? If y'all have been as busy as I have since my last post, I'm pretty sure I haven't been missed all that much X-)

In a nutshell.... with bullets:

- What kind of nut has a shell like that, I wonder? -

- Me, probably. Oh well, continuing... -

* I scored a 7.54 last sem! New personal record, woot!

* We've moved to Bombay! Yay Bombay! Real chicks, at last! Not to mention, food!

* Met up with old friends, made new ones, had a ball...

* Industrial Training -> After a lot of running around last sem, I finally managed to land one! MazDock was great, and the big bad General Electric LM2500 gas turbines were every engineer's dream. Too bad they didn't fire the thing while I was there.

* Returned to college a month early, in hungry anticipation of a job. IOCL and SJVNL shortlisted candidates, not that I'd have sat in either, my anti-PSU thing is still on. Ashok Leyland ditched us, as did Telconn, with the latter popping up a month later only to drop a bomb on our headds and call just four students. And AshLey's still playing truant.

* Passion, Passion, what is life without Passion? Specifically, football. Something went fzzt in my head over the summer, and when I came back to horrorpur all I could think about was football. All those memories of countless evenings spent chasing leather in rain-blessed wellington came flooding back, and it was like a dam had burst inside me - Armed (or rather, footed) with a new pair of VectorX "Terrors", I made my return to The Beautiful Game after nearly nine years. Inter-Branch was a revelation, my feet found their song, and even that one horrific moment - an own goal in the final match - couldn't extinguish the flames. I feel like I've been born again, and woken up to the world with a song in my heart and studs on my feet. When I'm on the field, I feel faster, stronger and more alive than I've ever been, and its like a world's been opened to me, something that I was ignoring for all these years. I'm free, and I'm flying. Even if its on grass.

* Oh, The Big News -> The Man got placed! Now who'd have thought that an overfed, long-haired, leaping gnome, would get placed in Tata Motors, hmmm?


*Gymmed hard for two months, before placement season started. Put on six kilos, after scaling down my routine to 3 sets of four exercises (Military Press, Deadlift, Squat, Bench)

* Again, took part in Inter-Branch football, in September. Fullback/Halfback. Played a mean game, with hard tackles and long clearances. Reached the finals, and then I went and scored an own goal. No, dont want to talk about it. Match went to penalties, we lost 4-3, life's a bitch.

* Been allotted singlets this year. Fancy hostel, big rooms, etc etc. And BORING! Singlets for undergrads should be banned, especially for the gregarious like me! More doors than friends, it feels like.

* Eric's internal speaker went kpft, after five years of stellar service. Keypad's started jamming as well, and the display's gone pretty hazy, so I decided it was time for a replacement. Picked up a Nokia 5130 XpressMusic. 1GB card included. Great sound, feature-packed for a budget phone, vibrant display, responsive keypad. ATROCIOUS BATTERY! The darn thing needs charging every frikkin day! 5 year old Eric still lasts for three! What a let down!

* After last sem's fabulous project, the VAWT, was shot down (yes, by my own comrades!) in august, we started work on a funnel-shaped solar cooker, as described by the people over at Bringham Young University.

http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/funnel.htm

Simple enough. We've made ours out of GI and aluminium foil, with a black-painted tin formerly containing twenty-five (25) delicious rasgullas, courtesy Pranay. Took us around four hours in the workshop, and trials are underway this week. Water's reached finger-blistering-ow-ow-ow temperature within half an hour, and we're gonna try cooking some rice tomorrow. Pics to follow.

All for now. Oh, and Hill 'Ffair starts on friday, and although I'm not participating (bball tourney a week after), I *am* thrilled, 'coz Ivan's coming here for the fest. Pics over the weekend.

The Man

That time of year again...

Exams are on! Automobile was yesterday, and for the first time in six semesters, I actually sat through the whole three hours (serious!) and wrote stuff in the answer booklet! Gave more than a few heart-attacks all around, people were getting worried looking at my pen. I'm probably gonna try it again, got three more papers. ;-)

Well, maybe not in Machine Design (too'sday).

Erm, played tennis after ages yesterday, surprisingly I wasn't as rusty as I had feared. I guess all those years of coaching (not to mention dad and uncle's version of tennis - dodgeball!) came in handy after all. Probably go again today, though a few of our faculty have started coming too, and I have to answer uncomfortable questions about the exams - "Why are you even here???" being the first.

What else? Oh, yeah, new wallpaper, new theme! Not really different, I think I'll revert back to the previous one next week. Finally got around to downloading Amarok, just added it to Awn a minute ago. Firefox has been updating on almost a daily basis for the last three days, and making me Ctrl+Alt+Backspace every time, even though it says that only ffox needs to be restarted. Probably got a couple of background services running regardless, thats why it needs the log-out-log-in. Was a little wary of upgrading to Firefox-3.0, it crashed my PulseAudio on 8.04, took a week of buggering before I sorted 'em both out. Running 8.10 on ALSA, just in case. Thankfully ffox din't mess with that!

All for now. Gotta run to the mess. Saturday morning, best brekka of the week! Chhole-Bathure, woot!

B-)

Final Fantasy XXX(?) - The Geek Within

Wide-Eyed, Red-Haired Anime Babes aside, its time I stopped being a closet-geek, and publicly embraced my Inner Penguin (Quack!). So, where do we stand? Ah yes, I'm typing this on Deep-Thought (Who, besides being the All-Powerful Fourteen-Dimensional GodZillion-Byte-Crunching Mechanical Marvel of the Ring-World Zorg, also happens to occasionally double up as my sleek black Compaq V3749AU lap-warmer. AMD Turion X2 procy, nVidia MoBo, 7150m Graphics, bla-bla-blah, details here) Apart from the OEM installation of Windoze Vista, which I use solely for gaming, DT's played host to Fedora 8 (Werewolf), Mandriva Spring 2008 (With KDE Goodness!), and as of now, Ubuntu 8.10. I fancied the 2.1 Ultimate Edition for a bit, but Ibex's load times (and hardware detection! beer!) wowed me right away, and its been 8.10 since Feb '09.

And since a picture speaks a thousand words, here's the rest of my essay:




More on what keeps DT beautiful as I keep learning! :)

The Man


Oh, and it turns out Penguins DONT quack!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081219154311AAxN8ZE

Fsckin' with linux...

Need A Reason To Upgrade To Linux? How About This: Double Your Money Back Lifetime Guarantee!

Your eyes did not deceive you! Install Linux today and you’ll receive these great features:

* Free Upgrades For Life!
* Exclusive, Free Source Code Subscription!
* Secure, Standards-Compliant, Wicked Fast Browsing with Firefox!
* Free Support As Long As You Live!
* No Extra Software Needed - Antivirus not needed, and Firewall Included!
* Free, Easy, Background Updates!
* Fast & Stable Computing Enviroment!
* Over 20,000 Software Packages FREE OF CHARGE!

You’d probably expect to pay over $199 for a single upgrade from Microsoft, but we wont nickel and dime you to death - pay nothing - EVER!

But wait! Try out Linux today, and we’ll cut 100% off the asking price, and give away free installation CDs of the most user-friendly distribution of Linux around - Ubuntu - sent right to your home!

And if that weren’t enough, there are over 100 other distributions of Linux you can also use, 100% free to you, guaranteed! All you need is an internet connection!

And if you aren’t satisfied, you can try Linux risk-free for an average of 24,464 days - THAT’S 67 YEARS, INCLUDING 16 LEAP YEAR DAYS - our gift to you.

And there’s more: We’re so confident you’ll enjoy Linux, I will personally write you a check for double your money back if you aren’t satisfied!

For one easy payment of zero dollars and zero cents, Linux can be yours today! Don’t wait, download it now!

source - http://www.fsckin.com/2007/12/05/need-a-reason-to-upgrade-to-linux-how-about-this-double-your-money-back-lifetime-guarantee/


>;-D

What An Athlete Lives For...

People don't play sports because its fun. Ask any athlete, most of them hate it, but they couldn't imagine their life without it. Its part of them, the hate/love relationship. It's what they live for. They live for the practices, parties, cheers, long bus rides, invitationals, countless pairs of different types of shoes, water, Gatorade, & coaches you hate, but appreciate.

They live for the way it feels when you beat the team next to you by 1 point in overtime & you know those 2 extra sprints you ran in practice were worth it. They live for the way you become a family with your team, they live for the countless songs you sing in your head when your running ALL those suicides. They live for the competition, they live for the friends, the practices, the memories, the pain, its who they are. It's who we are....



- Rob Blundred, Ohio


The man said it!

Talkin' 'bout Women!

Women behind bars,
Women in fast cars,
Women in distress,
Women with no dress!
Women in aeroplanes,
Women who play games,
Women in uniform,
See that woman with her clothes torn!

Women who satisfy,
Women you can't buy,
Like women in magazines,
And women in a limousine!
Women who sip champagne,
Women who feel no pain,
Women in a disco,
And women who don't wanna know, know, know!

Oh, women wanting sympathy,
Women feeling ecstasy!
Women who live in fantasies,
Bringing man to his knees!

Women who fall in love,
Women who need a shove,
Women who can't be beat,
Get that woman in the back seat, yeah, yeah!
Women in the U.S.A.
Those women steal your heart away!
Women into rock 'n' roll
Women who steal the show, go, go, go!

Women that you write songs about,
Women that turn around and kick you out!
Women you dream about all your life,
Women that stab you in the back with a switchblade kniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!



Women FTW!!! Feb 14th, see you next year! :D

Do That Twist Thing, Da-Da-Da-DaDa-Da-Da!

Not a great start to the year! Jan 26th was my first day on the court, and not less than twenty minutes into the session, The Man was down with a sprain. And the real bummer -> Inter-Year BBall just started yesterday!!! Had to sit out the first game, and in all probability the next two as well. I hope to recover by the finals, if we make it to them.

ANOTHER fallout! Today's the inaugural match of this year's edition of NPL, and I'll have to watch from the stands as the Hornets take on the Harriers. Both naga and I are out, though his loss hopefully should trouble the Harriers more than my absence affects the Hornets' defensive line.

On a good note, 3rd years beat (whipped would be more apt) the 2nd years in the opening game of inter-year bball. 30-6 by the third quarter, after which I lost count. 'Atta-boys!!! Hope my Awe-Inspiring Presence won't be required on-court till the finals. Any further injuries and I'll be out of the squad for Jaipur...

4th vs 1st starting in thirty. My turn to referee.
Adios, amigos!


*RC-1138 "Boss" voice* Need.....Bacta....