Monday, December 24, 2007

So...that's that.

It's been ages since I wrote anything that did not end with a semi-colon. Excepting, of course, the e-mails that were follow-ups to things that ended with a semi-colon.

Life has been pretty mundane and normal - not something that goes down well with me, but then most of us don't have a choice. If we had our way we would probably want something radically different from what our respective lives are at the moment. I for one would like to have lots of fast cars, fancy sleek laptops (both the electronic variety and the other) and cocktails at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then again, I am not James Bond or Vijay Mallaya. And, Mallaya has an airline and a yatch to boot.

Somethings are scary. And sometimes they screw up the head. I was at this party drinking beer and thinking about bootloaders and memory management looking and feeling totally lost and at home, like I normally do at any party. Then suddenly this cute woman whom I have been seeing walk in and out of my field of vision come to me.

[Afraid]

After getting done with the usual introductions and pointless things she proceeds to park herself next to me. By which time the people hanging around have vanished. At this point, I would like to make a point which is I don't know to handle women. Especially ones that are tipsy. Very tipsy. It was as this instant, I would at least like to believe, that a couple of nice ideas in my heads about how to optimize memory accesses and improve computing were forever lost to mankind.

[Scared]

" ______ has left you all alone and wandered off, eh?"

"Umm...yeah! But, that is normal. He does that very often but I am used to it."

"He is so frustrating. I just can't understand him! Argh...!"

"Umm... yeah. I write code for a living. I know how it feels."

That line did not have the required effect. The required effect being the are-you-completely-mad-or-hard-of-hearing-look.

"I dated him until last week. It was so frustrating..."

[Minor heart attack]

And she starts to sniffle and then cry. Now, mind you, I can't stand crying women. They are like Fermat's Last theorem - it is believed that a proof existed but it took a really clever guy to come up with a 200 page proof to actually prove it. And even then, someone found a couple of mistakes in it.

The enterprising and clever witted fellow that I am, I had a line for the occasion. Bang out of Pulp Fiction.

"It's ok. You can't really help it. Shit happens!"

She said something else which I didn't really catch, but it is something that I don't think was very nice. And then she went to get another beer for herself.

Now, this woman is really cute, intelligent and will be an investment banker someday. As they say, a bomb. I would have asked her out if I was someone else and wasn't furiously hunting for my little nitro-glycerine tablets.

My cousin, when I told her, thinks that I should have risen to the occasion and offered a shoulder to cry on. Been a gentleman and prised away the beer from her. Offered her comforting words and all. At least offered her a tissue. I was a fool, she said from her apartment in the USA. But in my defence, they did not teach me all this in college.

"When things go the way you want in Linux you kill the processes and start all over again. If you are using Windows, " my professor gave an evil laugh, " you are pretty much dead. You should switch off and switch on your machine and pray to God that you won't have to reformat and re-install Windows."


P.S: I am waiting for my electric mandolin. In a couple of weeks.







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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

2-L


Notice the cool Joe Satriani poster and the ultra-L cubicle number.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Umm...


Who says religion cannot be fun?

Dinner

There's a nice sparkling red-wine to go with the pasta - lasagna. Soft music plays in the background. The lighting is a little dim but just right - it doesn't intrude. The soup was magnificent, but what was worth remembering was her trying to blow on it to cool it down. She picks up the wine glass and swishes the wine inside. Her voice is music. Specially, when she tell me how much she is enjoying this. The wind brings with it the tangy smell of the sea. Dinner on a balcony, thirteen floors up facing the ocean isn't great. It's heaven. The waiter clears the plates unobtrusively and gets rich chocolate cake for desert. The chocolate cream sticks to her lips and her trying to get it off makes her look sexy as hell.









WTF? Stop dreaming.

"Swami, ondu masale!!!"


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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Screw the chocolates

When Tom Hanks stuttered, "Life is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you are going to get next" it became something of a cool thing to say in a totally random situation. Cheesy maybe, but still it made others aware of the fact that you watched movies out of Hollywood. Heck, I've used it myself in interview when asked what life was about. The interviewer wasn't really kicked about this one and I did not get the job thankfully.

Right now, I could say my life is like a box of chocolates. Not Lindt or even Cadbury's but probably, a box of Campco or some other random local brand. The difference is that I know, one hundred percent, what I am going to get next - a lousy piece of sweetened and slightly gooey cocoa. And frankly, after twenty two years of eating sweetened and slightly gooey cocoa it stops being fun anymore. Even if it contained copious quantities of liquor.

A techie's life, I have realized of late, does not make interesting blogging fodder. If you think that a techie in Bangalore spends his time after office pub-hopping or partying, you would be wrong six times out of ten. And I, for your information, fall into the six.

The most interesting thing in my life usually involves successfully compiling code, making software images and making sure that they do not crash.
Then there is the occasional installation of a DVD writer or a new phone. This is is the part in self-help books where the author strongly suggests that you go out and meet new people. Socialize. Get a life.

Back in college I used to crib about life to anyone and everyone who would listen about how life sucked. Surprise surprise! LIFE DID NOT SUCK. Yeah, there generally wasn't enough water to clean up, proper clothes to wear and a hundred bucks was a princely sum. But, as is with everything in life, in retrospect, drinking cheap rum with colored water with a chemical taste that was passed off as cola while chewing on peanuts fried in oil of a very questionable nature and origin was a hell of a lot more fun. Walking in the dark along a beach with a raggedy bunch of friends that reeked of rotting fish beats walking around in a mall filled with very very pretty and possibly single women. Cribbing about not having air-conditioned labs in college is a damn sight better than being stuck in an air-conditioned lab at work where it just a shade above freezing.

I guess it is the company that matters. Colleagues are nowhere close to a substitute for hostelmates, classmates, batchmates and collegemates in that order. Right now, I am counting the hours to the night of 29th when I shall hopefully leave for a weekend to Suratkal. A weekend of simple pleasures that will put in perspective this highly materialistic life that I have started living. No doubt, it will make me feel like shit, but then like Tarantino constantly hammered it into his fans in Pulp Fiction - "Shit happens..."

This is dedicated to all that we had back then in college. I sorely miss them and you guys. This is to you wherever you are. It fuckin' rocked. Thank you so much for all the good times. Let's do it again one more time, all of us together!


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