Vim rants...

This is the height of procrastination. A post due from Nov 2006!!!
Bhailog went for trip to Pondy on the long weekend in November last year.

On the beach we had picked up a sea shell that looked beautiful and different from the others.
Since we were unable to capture it on Subho's 35mm Film, due to some unavoidable technical problems, we decided to carry it back to Bangalore. For 2 whole months it lay in my cupboard, forgotten and to be re-discovered sometime in January while cleaning up the cupboards!
I felt like crying when I saw the shell, it had lost color and no longer looked special .



Redirecting you to Subho's Brainbit on the trip:
Subhadip Purakayastha - Brainbit: Courte voyage sur Pondicherry...

Halo 2 is a ver popular game among us guys in office.
War cries fill the atmosphere during off production hours.
I can remember those early days in SP&Belk, you could hear people cry "Dont kill me, I am on a call". Gone are those days, we rarely play now, a lot of work and people are too busy for a game. Of all the players, Muggy and Dev were the first to leave the team. We missed them, but Terrorist and Demolish soon bridged the gap.
Over 18 months as a part of the Sp-Belk Team, Terminator seen many members come and a many go...and most of them loved playing Halo.

I tried introducing other network games as well, UT, NFS, F.I.R.E, etc.
However, Halo has always been the most played and most popular among them.
The facts, that it can be played on a number of machines from a single installation and that it runs well on both new and old PCs are the advantages over the rest.

Now, Stardust is leaving, he has found a new job elsewhere.

Here is the Goodbye note from the Terminator's desk.

From the Desk of Terminator

Dear Stardust,

Wipe your bloody Visor,
Put down your weapons,
Ease your flexed muscles.
Let our armours clash one last time,
I want to say Goodbye Mate.

No more Double Kill.
No more Killing spree!
Never again, a "Back me up!"
I wouldn't hear you say, "All right, mate, I'm right behind you!"
Stardust wouldn't grunt again.

My rockets wouldn't find you in camouflage again.
My grenades wouldn't stick to your torso, no more blue flames to devour you.
I wouldn't fly a Banshee over Stardust, nor would my Warthog pump fire into your chest.
Our snipers would never again spot a hidden Stardust and knock life out of his brain.
No more suicide penalty for you, no seconds countdown.

We will miss killing you Stardust.
We will miss your war cry and seeing our blood at your hands.
Covenants would be happy that a great soldier has left Halo,
But Bhailog would continue to be strong and hold the base...in your name.

Fight every battle, win every game...like you won last night!
Wish you success in the game called LIFE!
Bhailog, lets bid adieu to Stardust.
Long live Stardust, the Great Warrior of our times!
Miss Terrorist, Demolish, Maverick, Terminator, Yo!Man, Chunnibaba, Hacker, New001 and all the other warriors!

Alternate link: click here to download the pic

Folks, apologies for not being around for long.

I had to visit my home-town, and was gone for a few days. Ask why? Haha, that's what's my next post is gonna be all about!

Hey, howz my new template?

This one quite impressed me. Simple yet attractive, that is what I felt. I thought of giving my blog a new look, on new year! Oh yeah, and a new title and name, "Chaayakada" ! -the Tea shop - a place were mallus love hang around. They can gossip, rave and rant, discuss international politics or household affairs and what not, all over a cup of tea and pazham pori!

http://chaayakada.blogspot.com/
-----------that would be the new URL for this blog(in a few weeks).

Well, that goes with the kinda talk I do on this blog :) , what do you feel?

Cucek-ians from the 2004 IT batch wouldn't forget our MSN Chat room, Kelappan's Chaayakada.

The template, I got this one from http://www.oinam.com/ . They call it the KISS template.

Their version of KISS for blogger had some bugs and didn't go quite well with my blog layout, hence had to modify it. I had to fix a few tags, and added some scripts and modified the CSS.
I would appreciate, if you could scribble a comment and let me know how this one looks.
My version of the code is available, click here.

Merry Christmas to all you folks out there!

Pic courtesy : Deviant Art

From the time I could remember I did not like the idea of getting to know her. I always felt she is something beyond my reach.
People said she was tough, and that she was the best. Somewhere in my mind I got this feeling, I wanted to know her. As I grew up, that feeling got buried somewhere in my mind, I never got to meet her, lack of oppurtunity and I was too busy with other things.

Now I have grown up, i was reluctant, but I wanted to give a try. "Am I ready" was the question that lurked in my mind. I told myself I am ready...I should be, com'on I am a grown up and a comp tech, I would be able to tackle any unpleasant situation that might arise. I wanted to give it a try.

It took me 5 months to arrange a rendevous. When I started, I had no hope that I would make it to her...i had to face a lotta hurdles!
Eventually it happened... I got a email briefing me on the date, time and venue.
06/11/2006...I started early from my home, I didnt want to be late...it was gonna be a new day, a new begining, and I had made up my mind : if she turns out to be interesting, she is gonna be with me for long! The traffic was heavy, as anticipated and I was late. My heart pounding hard as I neared the venue. I opened the door, and there... She was in all her glory, I loved her at the first sight. I found myself whispering "Been waiting for this day babe"

A couple of days went by and I got to know more about her. I was starting to like her. She wasn't that tough..."Oh babe!"

Wednesday... I thought I should sit next to her, it might help me get to know her more. I dont know if I was lucky, but this was going to be a rather eventful day.

About 2 hrs later, i realised we were alone. I moved closer....my heart was beating faster... I found she her top wasn't fastened... I was feeling lucky! i looked around... and undressed her! I loved what I saw... I was enjoying every bit of it.. beautiful, awsome! I was left dumbstruck... did not utter a word...

Did I stay away for years...to like her like hell ?

I regained my senses after a while, brought out my cell and clicked a few snaps!
I didn't know where to start clicking...i could not find the processor, all I could see were arrays of boards and cables. But I did make out a few parts. AIX! Unix for the RS/6000 machines...IBM eServer...the architecture... extremely beautiful, atleast I felt so!

One sunday evening @ SBZ Blore.

As usual, the four of us sat for a round of Twenty-Eight after dinner.
Umach and Sasi vs Kannan n me. The opposition was in full form...u can c Unmach wearing a make-shift kunukku(earings for the loser)

The stars didn't seem to favour Unmach, as the game proceeded the number of kunnuks increased. Like the song bird awaiting the rains, Unmach sat there trying hard to win a game n remove atleast one of the umpteen kunnuks. While we were preparing to crown Macho (as a rule, we crown the loser after a number of kunnuks)there comes an SMS from Aswin :

"whose number is 09388338388. She called me and asked your fone# i didnt give it.
I told her that I will ask you to call her. "

Aswin is in Hyd, he calls us once in a while, but never smses. With national sms@ Rs.2 and A2A std calls @ Re.1, he prefers a call over sms. So, this sms did make me feel uneasy.
I called him up,
" Dey, wutz dis sms all abt? "
" Da, a gal had called, talked in typical trissur accent, asked for you. "
" And? "
" I told her, u are in b'lore but she wudnt listen, she says someone told her that you wer wid me. Orupadu paranju noki(tried to convince her), but she wudnt litsen. Then I told her I would ask you to call her. I didnt give your number. Neways try calling, aru anennu ariyallo (we cud kno who that is). "

My uneasiness doubled.

"Da Sasi, wat to do"
"Try calling da, wats in it?"
"Ennalum, ee rathri evidunnu vilikana, mobilil ninnu vilikenda" (But, its too late to go out n call, dont call from our mobile)
"OK, let me try, wats the number"
"093...."
"Haa, that's a prank, I have seen that number before"

Well, I won't spoil the fun of that by writing the whole script here. Haha! u need to call that number...its funny.

Ah! Now since this was a prank, I thought of fooling other friends as well (how could I resist that feeling, )

I knew Aswin would have forwarded this sms to many of our friends, so I had to choose intelligently. I picked Philin, Vargheese and Dinu. The responses were terrific!

We didn't get a response until 10PM. At 10, Vargheese calls, seeing his name flash on my fone, i couldn't control my laughter, so Sasi had to pick the call. Sasi puts the fone on loud speaker...

" Hello enthada?"
"Vimal chettai enthiye?"
"He is in the washroom, wassup?"
"Eda Sasi, did he talk about a call for me?"
"Ah! A gal had called, Vareesutti inda, enna chodiche, I guess she is from Trissur"
"Eda thats a big racket, my friend also gave me that number, he says thats of a pro"
"Poda, its nuffin of dat sort"
"Allada I 'm serious, He said dat gurl wud reply to watever u ask? Well, did u guys give her my number"
"Hey, dont be scared, Vimal has handled it well, she asked if you weren't around, He said you are not in Bangalore. She was very stuborn and said we are liers. He convinced her that he would get you to call back."
"Eda, dont give any details, I am sure they wanna trap us."
"Why dont you try to find out who that is, dont be scared da"
"Hey, dont be silly, I dont wanna get into trouble, it'll be a big disgrace if d police finds out"
*Everyone is Giggling, I rush out of the room unable to control my laughter *
"Ok, call from Ernakulam"
"Ok, tomorrow morning I'll call. If possible ask Vimal chettai to call me" *Click*

*All four of us are rolling on the floor laughing *

10 minutes later, Dinesh calls :

"Edo I called that number twice, I was shocked. That gurl's voice is amazing! hahaha! I took sometime to realize that was a prank"

@ 11 , An anxious ASN calls... Again Sasi picks the fone, on loud speaker.

"Eda wers Vimal"
"Sleeping" *Giggles*
"Da I had sent him an sms about a fone call, did he find out who that was"
"No, he was told us he wud call tomorrow"

We didn' want Aswin to sleep in peace either. Hehehe

Next day,

Philin : "Eda, ithentha sambhavam...I am going crazy, who the hell is she?"

Poor fella, I releaved the truth! veruthe adi vangenda ennu karuthi!

In the afternoon we called ASN, dats wen we came to know about the perfect prey!

Suj had called ASN thrice about this sms, the first time he called was to ask wut this sms was abt, ASN told him the same story, "aa trissur kari penne".

The second time Suj called, was to tell him that he was confused.
"Eda, who is this, she is not giving any clues, i asked if she is Reshma or Karthika, etc. I cant make out the sound, she disconnected telling me to call her wen I find out who she is"
"Da, dont worry you try again, u myt get some clue"

Suj called a third time, he was still confused, he was tensed and shivering.
"Hey, she disconnected again and the same dialogue. wtf, who is she"
Again Aswin's re-assuring tone, "Eda she myt be trying to fool you. Call her once more and shout at her"

I am sure Suj tried a forth time. As soon as Aswin disconnected, we got an sms from Suj...

"whose number is 09388338388. She called me and asked your fone# i didnt give it. I told her that I will ask you to call her. "

Hi Blogger! I am back after the vacation!
I was in God's own country for 9 days! There is a lot to write.
These 9 days away from work has made be a lazy bum ! Moreover, today is Sunday, I am not in a mood to type in a looooong story. Heehee. Sorry to disappoint you buddy, but I promise to come up with a good post asap.

Honestly, its not about the mood, its just that I partied whole night yesterday and through the morning today, now feeling tired, and my poisoned muscles can't seem to lift these lazy bones.

Here, this is an old creation...

http://www.geocities.com/vimalandbuddies/Onam2.swf


Going home. Catch u guys sooon!

Hey people! I am back!
This is just a temporary template. The new one is still under construction.

The last weekend was pretty eventful.
Saturday I spent a hell lot of time on the new template for this blog.
An extra </div> somewhere in the code was driving me crazy, I could not fix it and had to start again from scrap.
That night, the Empeeror met with an accident and managed to get two ligaments in his right arm torn and lost a few finger nails.
I did not get a chance to see him, I spoke to him over fone.
Palas met him, and I am sure we can expect a good narrative from him.

Sunday, Ganesha Chathurthi.

Unmesh had gone to Kerala for the weekend, so we guys @ #63 decided to pay a visit to Dinu's house. Dinesh, Alex and Saji stay together near Banaswadi, half an hour drive from our place. Since there are no direct buses to Banaswadi from our place, we decided to take an auto-rickshaw.

At Dinu's house, we cooked rice, prepared chicken curry and egg burji.
While Alex was preparing chicken, we sat for a round of twenty-eight.
By 3PM, lunch was ready and we sat to feast. The curry was too spicy(little did we know we would suffer...) but yummy.

Around 4PM we decided to go to the playground nearby and catch up with some cricket.
There are 3 colleges in this locality, including a nursing college , and we had hell lotta fun walking down the road to the playground.
Two hours of cricket, we were dead tired. Managed to reach home somehow, took bath and went to bed.

Looking forward to read Palas Bhai's narrative..."the BMW tractor"

I am back , after a busy week !!!

Feeling refreshed after 4 days of extreme brain activity!
I am talking about my interview with IBM ISL. It all began with the development discussion with my managers in IBM. Following the discussions, I started to look around for internal job postings... my eyes always on ISL , been drooling abt it for long.

After an exhaustive search I was able to find contacts in ISL. *thats secret * . Heehee, I am not gonna publish it.

Discussed the movement with ze contacts and forwarded my profile. I never expected such a quick response, people I am in India! Hmm, things happened pretty quick, on Friday I got a call from one of the Managers in ISL ,"when can you appear for an interview on c/c++/os/testing ?"
Dis tym I was knocked outta my senses!

Since the excitement would kill me, i decided to take it at the earliest, got the appointment for Monday @ 1700 IST!

Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning were like, I dont know how to describe it, my dormant brain cells sprang to action, helping me read any c/cpp/os stuff that came my way and trying hard to retrieve loads of stuff I had read 5 yrs back...it was painful to clean up the dusted memory and establish proper neural connections. After hours of hardwork I could feel connections falling into place somewhere in my head.

Terror!st and Demolish kept a check on me during the preparation, heehee...they know me too well! Bhailog, hope I'll be able to live upto your expectations
Kickasso sent me some c/cpp faqs and Terros!st helped me a great deal with OS.

Well, after all the excersises, the time came for the interview *sigh* My body temp dropped, I was freezing!

I walked into the meeting room to face 3 panelists - people with 8+ years of experience in IBM!

After a quick intro we entered a tech round, we started with Java, first a Helloworld program! Hey, thats nothing to laugh at, in the last 28 months I have rarely written a line of code! That makes me a fresher
The Shelling lasted for almost 90 minutes and I think I got away with more than 60%!
After the first 90 minutes, there was another 30 minutes with the Manager.
They were looking for a 2yr+ experienced guy, that was another heartbreak.
Hmm, now their concern was whether could pick up the project in a couple of months.
I tried to convince them with my PBC Ratings and "thirst-for-knowledge".
Hmm, if they recognise it, I would be selected...it all depends on the result of the tech round. I am optimistic, lets hope for the best .

I forgot to mention, me blog was honoured, ze Manager peeped in and bookmarked me!

Well, that was my first interview on developement skills!

I still remember my interview with Ashish, for GSDC. The first question shot to me was "How good are you at N/W and OS?", next "Whats a DHCP?", "Lease? Explain how the lease is obtained", "Good, ....." a series of bombs followed, and finally "How much do you earn, and how much do you expect ?", " OK, I'll offer you...., glad?" . Remote Administration! that's the word that made me take the offer and join! lolz

I really wish this one was like that! Taking up this interview was a li'l step, if selected, it would be a giant leap! A dream come true!

Varghese had also come to B'lore. He was here for a few weeks. After a series of misfortunate events, he decided to go back.

Last month also saw me getting into a day shift. Whew! me having breakfast, lunch and dinner on time! Believe me, more than 3 meals a day, and on time! lol... guess I am putting on weight. I am quite enjoying this shift, more time with friends @ home, less of lonliness, more productive time, etc.

August might see me less and less on Orkut and Y!M, got a lot of work, honestly...pending work.

Yeah, I have decided to try and avoid procrastination... so you can expect regular updates blogger!

Being a procrastinator, it took me long to blog this.

Date: 10th June 2006

8th July, Bangalore

Kumaran Jagdeeshan : Male, 23 years, 5’11”
Palas Panja : Male, 31 years, 5’11”

Destination : Kolar Gold Fields, Kolar, Karnataka. 98 kms towards East of Bangalore

The Emperor was planning this trip for a week. Now, don't ask me why the name Emperor, I know its absurd, but Kumaran calls himself “The Emperor”, and me being a person who respects everyone’s individuality, I address him not as His Majesty, but as Mr. Emperor.
Last weekend, he rode his Pulsar from from Bangalore to Chennai and back(750+ kms), something that he claims to be adventurous. The side effects of this adventure included a sore throat, painful shoulders and blood red eyes (you might wanna call him Dracula). But that didn't stop him; he really wanted to get away from the hustle of the city.

I had no plans for the weekend and Mr. Emperor invited me to join him. 200 kms on his mobike wasn’t an attractive offer, but a trip is something I would never wanna turn down, I accepted it on one condition, we go by car, or me not going.

12:30 PM, Saturday.
Me calls up Palas Bhai, the Emperor’s Advisor(don’t askkk y, that's how the Emperor calls him, ).
“Palas bhai, wats plans for today? Hey, isn’t today the 8th? We got the Premier League and GSDC TownHall tonight ”
“Yaar, I asked the others, seems like no one in our team is going for the event”. Hmm, I know that's bad, but we have to accept facts.
“Ok, so wat do u think Bhai, we’ll go?”
“Yeah, I am free. But Vimal, how will we go?”
“Emperor might be coming, let me c if I could get one more bike.” Man, it’s a weekend, no chance, every damn guy with a bike would go out with his (girl) friend(s).
“Bhai, lemme try calling Yumperor, will call u back soon. I’ll also check with Mervin, he's gotta car.”
“Ok bhai.”

The IBM GSDC TownHall was to take place that evening, a mega event at Palace grounds, a great evening with a lot of fun and KK’s concert. Now, that was the sexy option. We could have some real fun, meet up with friends, listen to some good music, feast, dance till we were dead tired and of course not to count out the possibility of pairing up with nice chicks .

12:35 PM, Saturday. Emperor calls me up, asks “wat’s ya plan ?”.
Briefed him about my conversation with Palas. We tried calling Mervin but he was not picking up his cell. Since we couldn't find a car, I decided to quit.
Asked the Emperor to contact Palas and fix up something.

12: 45 PM. The plan was finalized, if we could get hold of Mervin, 4 of us going to Kolar, else Kumar and Palas to make the trip on the Pulsar.

3:30 PM. The Yumperor and his Advisor set off on the Gold Hunt.

Kolar Mines are the world's deepest gold mines. They are 2,400 meters below surface, and are also the oldest and largest in the country. The mines extend over 98 kms.
The mines are open on Saturdays, and I expected the Emperor to go into one of them and dig up gold ore.

On their way to KGF, Yump almost met with an accident.
Folks, we have heard of storm chasers, our heroes turned “Rain Chasers”! They chased rain, got wet and to add spice to the whole thing, they were at 100 kmph that they had to stop when they were in the rain. Palas was shouting, “Needles piercing, bhai! Stop, stop!”

NH – 4, the route is through Hoskote to Kolar. Either side of the road is a feast for the eyes, fields, water bodies and trees. Emperor couldn’t wait to click a snap of the blossoming trees, that the main motive behind this trip.

The NH at Kolar is a straight road, and you can clearly see vehicles more than 3 kms away. This is where the Emperor wanted to stop, and click some snaps. To his disappointment, before he could click the 7th snap, his cam went dead. Our heroes d didn't carry spare cells ; we missed some good snaps people.

Now, since they had nothing better to do, our heroes decided to drive towards KGF, 38 kms ahead. Now we have lost track of time, Palas and Kumar, u got to input these in the comments, I would appreciate that, it would help us. Yeah, really !



Our heroes roam around KGF, trying to find a mine that looked inviting. They wanted to go down one of them digging for gold. There were a zillion thoughts in the Emperor’s mind…."which mine would be the best one", "where could I find easy gold", "Me don't wanna get dirty…how to dig without getting dirty", "is the deepest mine the better one? Or does smaller means a less used one?"

These mines were closed in 2001, coz the government couldn't make enough profit and the cost of production was rising tremendously.

Hmmm, I guess you guys now know how challenging this Gold hunt is.
Before he could go down one of those shafts, Emperor and his Advisor decide to pee.
Our heroes, become naughty li’l boys for a while ;) wanna read ahead? [If you would prefer this censored, please proceed to the next paragraph]. Our li’l hero boys, they got into a pee- war. OMG!

To their surprise, the tiny rock that they were peeing on sparkled!
Emperor orders a halt, produces a polythene cover, lifts the rock and washes it in a stream of water (hmm, our kiddies are royal enough not to pick it up with bare hands. heehee)
Mr. Advisor scrubbed the glittering rock, to reveal more yellow shine!!!

5:30 PM. “Hello Vimal Bhai, guess wat, we got Gold!”

In minutes the word was around, Emperor and his Advisor found gold!

8:00 PM. Our Heroes met me in front of Krishna Bakery, shows me the Gold. Man, I was surprised, couldn't belive my eyes! It was a bluish piece of rock with multicolored strips, prolly metal ores, and there was this vien of gold, about 5mm thick, broader towards the edges. Bhai showed me another one, thinner, about 2mm thick.

So people, that's the story of a gold hunt. How the Emperor and his Advisor went on a trip, got pissed and found Gold.

There was one more question that came to the Emperor’s mind, "Am I gifted?" .

Do we have somebody here, who turns whatever he pees on to Gold? A Golden Pee?

Click here to view Palas Bhai's version of the story.