Funny quote of the day

I read this quote by Alfred Hitchcock today morning,

"The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder."

I completely agree (from my own experiences and really bad ones at times :( ), specially with the theatres being air-conditioned and them providing huge glasses of cokes.

RU Stressed?

I got a mail today by that subject which was addressed to all the graduate students at Rutgers. I ignored it the first time (of course coz I am not stressed) but then my department secretary forward the same mail to every one in the department. Seeing the same mail again pushed my stress levels over the edge and I decided to read the mail. Here is what it read,

"listen to music, kick box, and learn about healthy ways to manage your stress."

I didn't know kick boxing was a healthy way to manage stress. Beware people I might just kick box next time you stress me out.

"Stand up for something otherwise you'll end up falling for everything" - Steve Waugh

This what Steve Waugh said when asked about his motto in life. I have always been a great admirer of Steve Waugh. He is by far my favorite sportsman (even though I am not particularly fond of cricket as a game), Aggasi comes a close second.

This post is not about Steve Waugh's achievements in the cricketing or non-cricketing world. Its about his attitude. He made a carrier out of proving people wrong and getting through the hard times so he could enjoy the good times. In his own words, "I played my best cricket when it was backs against the wall, when someone said I couldn't do it". For all his arrogance on the field, he is very humble and honest man off the field and is the first one to raise his hand and say my bad.

I for one love this person and his never say die spirit. He is my sporting idol.

Bitching about teachers and grades - on the wrong side today

I walked in to my lab with a bunch of loud students walking behind me. I could not have cared the least bit and that's what I did. But as it turns out, they had come to collect the graded homework that I put outside my lab for the students to pick it up. They start looking for their assignments and here are some of the comments

- "STAPLE in bold letters, dude he cut points for no staples, he is f%^&ing gay man" (for those of you interested I did not cut points for staples and I am not gay and for those who were more concerned about the second part of the clarification - hey, how you doin' ;).

-" two 16's in a row, dude this guy is tough, the son of a b&*%$h"

-"you better not say that, I put a 75"

These are the only ones that I distinctly remember among all the "what the f$%^k this" and "f$%^*&g shit" and "look at this dude" and all other bitching.

I don't know if they didn't know I was inside or they just didn't care but it was very amusing to hear the same things I used to say about all the ba$%^^&d profs back in IIT when ever I got my grades back.

Puskas on sale

I read this article on soccernet about how Ferenc Puskas, the great Hungarian footballer, (in fact one of the greatest to have ever played the game) has to sell the mementos he earned over his career to pay for his medical expenses. The website reads "Ferenc Puskas is to sell more than 100 personal mementos of his illustrious soccer career at a British auction next month". He is an Alzheimer patient. I am appalled at the handling of this whole thing by the Hungarian government who have not done anything to help him out, despite of the fact that Puskas is by far the most celebrated sports person from the country. The FIFA is putting some bureaucratic crap about the whole issue. The FIFA president Blatter said: "We have already taken the decision to make a donation to Ferenc and Elizabeth Puskas. The only matter that is yet to be finalized is the amount". When are they going to finalize the amount? After he has sold all his medals? Some of the items mentioned include the Golden Boot awarded to him for his world record goals tally, his 1954 World Cup runners-up medal and a shirt signed by Pele. Anyone who plays any sport would know how much all of them meant to him, its a different thing all together that because of his condition he probably does not appreciate or even recognize them as his.

I believe there was a charity game organized by the Football Association of Hungary between Puskas XI and Real Madrid (a club he played for while he was still at his best) at Budapest to raise money for him. Here are some of the figures from that match -

The money raised and given to Puskas' family - 7000 pounds
The money Real Madrid charged to make an appearance for that game - 892,000 pounds.

I can't believe Real Madrid actually charged for appearing in a charity game for one of their former players. It disgusts me, I hate them more than ever now. The most (it would still be shameful and disgusting considering the amount of money they have) they could ask for was a travel expense. They made money out of it - disgusting!!!

I hope someone steps forward to aid him and his family. I don't know what all the rich clubs are doing? I am not willing to believe the only way a once reverred football star can save himself is by selling his mementos, where is the humanity people? I tried looking for some links where donations could be made, I couldn't find one. If someone else finds one, please let me know.

Mac power

I am working on my lab's Mac iBook today since my advisor is running my experiment on the PC that I normally use. This thing is one of the sleekest babies I have seen around. I just love the look and feel of it, if I were all comfortable with the OS I would have bought one myself. I have no idea why Macs are so popular among the faculty members and not so popular among students who prefer a PC or some geeks might want linux. Would anyone care to tell me?

In other news

I had to teach my first class as a TA last week. The prof. was away to some conference and he told me to take the class and of course told me what was I supposed to teach. I was to solve a couple of numericals and teach them some basic fundamentals chemical thermodynamics. The numericals were pretty straight forward, defining a system boundary and determining flow rates.

The night before I was a bit nervous, understandably, coz for one my oratory skills are not something I am very proud of (at times they have been appalling) and two the class strength is about 112. I am sure even a reasonably good orator would be bit nervous if he had to talk to a large audience like this. Luckily for me, it was an early morning class and more than half the students would decide to skip the class so once that part was out of the way and given the fact that subject matter was fairly simple I was gaining confidence. I walked into the class early with a customary coffee cup and The Daily Targum (Rutger's newspaper) with the comic's page open. The liquid kid classics was really funny, I remember (for the uneducated, liquid kid classics is one of the comic strip popular in Rutgers and it's dark humor at its very best). I took the seat by the front desk, for the first time on the other side of it and waited for my students to walk in. I think it was the chair, the feeling of responsibility as a teacher (though very irrelevant in this case), the student who walked up to me and asked a doubt before the class, the maintenance guy who arranged for the visual aid equipments for me (though I did not need one, I used the chalk board), the whole feeling of being on the other side of the front desk that made it all seem so easy now. I wasn't worried or nervous a bit. I just went about the lecture as if it were the most natural thing for me to do. I tried a few things like getting the students involved, make them laugh, at times it worked, other times it didn't. Over all I felt nice about it.

I want to teach in a school sometime and now I am more certain I will do it.

There is a neuron in my brain that fires just for you.

No, this is NOT some geek's way of getting all mushy with his babe. This is actually what happens in human brain. Last week at my lab meeting I came across a very interesting article published in nature (courtesy, my advisor who happen to discuss it ). Here is a news article that talks about it. The title of the article reads "Jennifer Anniston strikes a nerve", she can strike a lot more things though, I have to say :).

The article is about how a few scientist at UCLA, MIT and a couple of other places got together conducted this research on some of the epileptic patients. The reason for choosing epileptic patients being none other than the fact that these patients already had electrodes planted in their brain as part of their treatment and they could use these electrodes for their single neuron recording. Ok I realize this is getting too technical, so I will cut the long story short.

They found that high up (in the hippocampus, for those interested) in the brain's hierarchical structure there are neurons that fire (that is to say that they recognize) every time they are shown pictures of famous personalities or places. In fact, the very same neurons fire even when you are just shown the name of the person/place and not the picture. Essentially, these neurons recognize the concept of a person/place. I am not educated enough to know all the implications of this, but I was totally amused at the way the concept of a person is laid out in your brain, the way memory is laid out and coded. I know for sure there are different areas for language and face processing or recognition which contain millions of neurons, but as you go higher up in the hierarchy, the information is integrated and all it takes is one firing neuron to conceptualize a personality. Intriguing, ain't it?

The National Anthem

I found this video of the National Anthem a couple of months ago on the Government of India website. I really liked it, thought I will share it with you.

The weirdest dream

Disclaimer: People with weak heart or the ones who think I am from this earth, please do not read beyond this line.

Still reading aren't you ... I knew it, it always works. This is what I call reverse psychology.

So I had a dream last night, a weird one at that. Here is how it goes, I am walking around in my house (back in Udaipur) near the main entrance when one corpse with a bald head walks up to me. He must be about 12 years when he died. He starts making some small talk and since I hate any small talk I start beating him up. Of course as expected nothing happens, so pick up a stick and hit him hard on his head. The next thing I know is his head comes off (No blood, I don't see gory stuff in my dreams I am sane guy). The corpse doesn't seem to get the idea and continues making small talk. I get even more angry and start hitting him harder, of course not to bleed him (No gory stuff, remember!!). After a while I give up and get involved in a conversation with him. I pick the head up in my hand we continue talking as I walk. I ask him so how did you die and what are you doing here. It turns out, I had thrown some vague party some time and there was a jaggery dish in it. That jaggery was poisoned and that is how he died. I am like, dude I never threw such a party and he is like I am telling you there was such a party. All the while I am calmly walking down the road with a corpse head in my hand. If this was weird, wait till you listen to what happened next. In my dream I realize that I am watching a dream but the feeling is so bloody real that I end up thinking may be in my past life I must have done it and how I should wake up and go google, yes GOOGLE for all the jaggery poison cases in Udaipur. As I am contemplating getting up and turning on my computer and all in my dream, the usual happens, my alarm goes off.

Now that I have been bold enough to put this psycho side of me on my blog, I might as well take your opinion on it. What do you think was the weirdest part,

a) Me talking the corpse head and walking around calmly.

b) Jaggery poisoning

c) Me dreaming of googling jaggery poisoning

d) Me actually putting this up on the blog - which is another way of telling me "you psycho bitch take this off the blog right now or I am calling the docs/cops (whom ever you trust more, I don't like to influence people's belief).

The Month that was ...

Its been a really long time since I have come to this side of the world. There were a lot of times when I felt like writing, like after I attended the worst of them all concert, the one by Coldplay. I still feel guilty about taking a couple of my friends there. It was their first concert and they must sure be hating me for it. Though the one thing that I knew for sure about them has been proved without a shadow of a doubt now, which is that, they are very forgiving and kind hearted - proof: I am still alive with all my bones intact.

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Second occasion when I felt like writing was when I was following a England - Wales world cup qualifying game on soccernet. The guy who writes that thing has got a really wild and totally happening sense of humor. On that day I actually did write something, but for some stupid reason everything was deleted before I could publish it. I wont go into the details but I will just tell you that I use windows, I guess that explains everything.

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Before I go ahead and give the most shocking news to most of my friends I want to just bow down to Agassi. I think he is just amazing, at age 35 he is totally rocking the tennis arena. I agree with Federer being the best and all, but Agassi is not about being the best player on the court or about winning. He is about being the epitome of sportsmanship, as I read somewhere "He does not deny his age, he just defies it". He is a true legend and my favorite tennis player of all time and pretty close to being the best sports person, though I still rate Steve Waugh as the best. I felt sad that he lost (though it was expected), but I am just happy he is still playing.

Now to the shocking news. Yesterday I was at a close to five hour long carnatic concert by none other than Dr. K. Yesudas. Yes, you read it right. I was at a Carnatic Music Concert. A month ago Dalal told me about this concert and I was like let me just go there and see what's it all about, its only 10$. Yes I agree that was cheap, but that was indeed my thought process since I have almost next to nothing knowledge of Carnatic music. I listen to a few instrumental pieces here and there, that's it. There was a lot of drama there though, with flight delays, lost instruments, fire alarm before the concert got on the way. Almost an hour and half late, and for the impatient me I took it pretty well. But once it got started, it was just out of the world experience. I don't know the intricacies of the raagas and even though I got some gyaan from mostly Dalal and bit from Nithya, I would say I was ignorant. In spite of my ignorance the music was just mind blowing, that guy (no offense to Dr. Yesudas) has amazing control over his voice box, what range and what modulation. I was just awe struck for 5 hours, the time just flew. Total bliss and when he played the Raagam Thanam Pallavi it was ecstatic. As Dalal rightly put, it was like Floyd playing Shine on you Crazy Diamond live. Those of you who follow Floyd would know the feeling. I could just go on and on, but I would end it with one other thing that I was amused by apart from his music. For his age and fame, Yesudas has a very simple almost child like sense of humor and I was really impressed with that. Hopefully, I will get to see some more carnatic concerts, a kacheri (I don't know if that's how its spelt) at chennai would be amazing. Its like the Woodstock of carnatic music.

Simple pleasures of Life

A chilled starbucks coffee mint mocha on a hot summer day after lunch. The mint and the coffee ...mmm ecstasy is the only word.

Chelsea Vs AC Milan

Last Sunday I was at the Giant Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ watching a game between two of the bigger European clubs, Chelsea and AC Milan. We (Dandekar and me) got amazing seats right behind the goal on the lower tier and we could see some great near the goal action.

AC Milan is an awesome Italian side with even more awesome striker Shevchenko (I proudly own and wore his jersey that day, thanks Challa) and the greatest of them all defenders Paolo Maldini. Sadly enough they decided to leave Sheva out of the tour and not to play Maldini in that game. Though I saw him preparing for the game and then signing some autographs for the fans. To make it worse they did not play Kaka in the midfield. But more than just a saving grace was Pirlo, amazing throughout the game in the midfield and so was Cafu at the back with his deceptive but incisive runs. Later on in the second half, Rui Costa came in and showed some tricks and scored an awesome goal. A delicate chip/shot on the turn looping over the goalie and dipping into the far post. Vieri, their latest signing, on the other hand was completely out of sorts and ineffective.

For Chelsea, they were nice and played almost all their big stars including their latest signing SWP. Jose Mourhino was dressed like a joker in some clumsy tracks and a T-shirt instead of his usual formal suit. Drogba was the only one who provided some spark in the game which was otherwise played with very little competitive spirit what so ever. He scored an impressive solo though he was lucky to have the ball bounce of Nesta onto him and then straight in his path past Nesta with only the goalie to beat. The burst of pace after he collected the long ball from Tiago (I think) to beat Gattuso was impressive to say the least.

The Highs:

1. Some really cool and fast passing moves by AC Milan in front of the goal. The only reason they did not score was because they delayed the shot trying to be too cute in front of the goal.
2. An amazing run by Joe Cole on the break. Though it came to nothing as Damien Duff (or was it Goodjhonson) goofed up a simple pass.
3. The warm up session for Chelsea between Joe Cole, Duff, Lampard, Crespo, Goodjhonson. They played some amazing fakes and one touch passes to warm for the game, even though they were all pre-decided moves, they looked really amazing, particularly because of the pace at which they were doing it.

It was a dream come true. The whole atmosphere at the start was amazing as they played the anthem for the clubs before the game and how they all came out of the tunnel (well it was hardly a tunnel) with the kids from the local soccer clubs leading the way and how they all lined up for the photograph, the exchange of flags, the shake of hands, the feeling is just amazing. Would like to see a Champions League and a Premier League game at least once in my life. I wonder what the players feel as they come out of the tunnel.

On a similar note, I will be doing something similar things though at a very small level. I will be playing football at a semi-professional level this season. The first game being on the 16th of September, though we are playing a practice game this Sunday against the German-American Kickers. I am really excited about it. Its been a long cherished dream.

I, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe

"I stand at the seashore alone and start to think. There are rushing waves, mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business, trillions apart yet forming white surf in unison. Ages on ages before any eyes could see, year after year thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom for what on a dead planet with no life to entertain. Never at rest, tortured by energy; wasted prodigiously by the Sun, poured into space, its might makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are found. They make others like themselves and a new dance starts. Growing in size and complexity, living things, masses of atoms, DNA, proteins dancing a pattern ever more intricate. Out of the cradle onto the dry land, here it is standing, atoms with consciousness, matter with curiosity, stands at the sea, wonders at wondering, I , a universe of atoms an atom in the universe."

RICHARD FEYNMAN

Recommended reading - The Emerging Mind by V. S. Ramachandran

The art of writing a testimonial or the lack of it

Most of us have at least read if not written a testimonial (as orkut calls it or "describe me" or "lines about me" or "words about me" ... you get the picture right?) on at least one person. It is usually eulogic which is understandable, no one likes to be criticized in public. It is witty at times or about good moments you had with the person blah blah. So far so good, but wait, what I fail to understand is how most of them sounds exactly the same. Here is how a typical testimonial would go,

"He/She is a very sweet (sweeeeet , if a girl is writing it) person. Very understanding, smart, independent, has a good sense of humor, kind hearted. You would always see a smile on his/her face, makes the people around him feel comfortable" and other such cliched adjectives/adjective phrases. These adjectives seem to find their way in to the testimonials specially if one is writing about someone of the opposite sex, with the adjectives chosen depending on the sex. So you will have "She is a very sweet girl" changed to "He is a very simple guy" or something to that effect. Its like a prof. writing a recommendation where he has to say that such and such has excellent communication skills, out of the world analytical abilities (like all of Einstein's brain was transferred to him) etc etc.

I don't know about when you write it, but when some one reads it, the whole thing sounds so bloody made up. So cloyingly sweet that its repulsive. I hate it, I am sure you could write something better that does not sound made up. But then its just my opinion, may be others like it that way.

General Updates

This will not be an update to most of the people who read this blog. They already know what has been happening; none the less I will write it here for the sake of writing.

- now I am certified to run experiments that involve human subjects and now that my stimuli is almost ready I shall be conducting my first experiment soon

- I was just offered a TA by my department. phew!!! that takes off a lot of tension. Actually on second thoughts, it should be a good experience. Some day (when I am rich enough), I would like to teach in a school.

- I might be going to California for Rakhi (Aug, 19) to meet all my cousins, looking forward to that.

- I am being tried for a football team that is gonna play in a semi-professional league. If I make it in to this team, it will be like a dream come true.

The rise, the fall and the twist and turns

Yesterday, I was at the six flags, an amusement park known for its amazing roller-coasters. It was an out of the world experience, if you are a roller-coaster freak than this is the place to be. The feeling when you are going down is just amazing. The first ride (nitro is the name) had an amazing fall and a speed of 80 miles an hour. Ain't that amazing, I won't go into the details of each one, but let me just say that I was here, here, here, here, here and here.

Another ride that I really liked was the free fall. It was only a 2.5-3 second free fall, but its worth it. I want to try sky diving sometime, hopefully my chance will come soon.

Ingenious swear phrases and words

Swear phrases and words are part of everyone's vocabulary. Some use mild ones (specially girls) and other's use really offensive ones. Based on the world survey conducted by the ACB magazine on swearing (no ACB is not the Australian Cricket Board, they would be surveying sledging) in 1999, the swearing rate (measured in Beeps, SI unit, defined as number of beep sounds you would hear in a minute in case the sentence were played to your folks) is highest among student community typically high school or upwards students. It is a whopping 5 words compared to the world average of .5 words. Interestingly on an average a student knows atleast one swear phrase or word in atleast 3 more languages other than the ones he understands. Even more surprising is the fact that he (or she in some cases) will get the exact pronounciation.

I have been part of this so called all swearing student community for the last 6 years (with a one year break of course) and needless to say that the naive me has been exposed to a lot of swear words and phrases during this time. Below is a rather incomplete list of amusing swear words, please feel free to add ingenious not so offensive swears.

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f$%^tard = f#$%ing retard

bitch born bastard = poetic way of calling some one son of a bitch, note the alliteration

mother bitch - doesn't make sense but sounds pretty cool

constipated asshole (my current fav)

you gonna die of constipation

you unwashed unwiped asshole since dark ages

pansy gay ass m$%^er f^&*er or pansy gay ass or pansy ass or gay ass or any other combination you can think of

P.S. - I just realized that Beeps is a very subjective unit since some parents would mind even the word "shit" in their children's dictionary while others would be fine even with a lot more offensive words.

Camping at White Mountains, New Hampshire

Last weekend I went for camping at the White Mountains in New Hampshire. It was an amazing experience. Something I would like to do more often. Here are the highlights of the trip.

Highs:
1. The drive from Boston to White Mountains once we entered the White Mountains Forest Area. It was really pretty.

2. The first day hike to the Arethusa Falls. The hike till there wasn't great, but the trek up to the top of the falls was really cool. The feeling when we sat on the edge of the rock was really amazing. Staring down the cliff, with a 200ft straight fall was out of world.

3. The campfire and the smirnoff with everyone generally talking. Learned some cool fundaes on a spider like creature from Stephan.

4. This was best part of the whole camping trip. A 4.2 mile hike to the top of the Mt. Washington, the highest peak in the north eastern part of US. It is arnd 6,400 ft high. Took us 4.5 hrs to get up and the whole day for the complete trip. It was the first time I had hiked so much and it was out of world. As dalal would put it "Its the most amazing thing, man".

5. Relatively not so great, but the fireworks on the eve of 4th July in the little town called Littleton. There was a kid (4 yrs old) who was diving around every time a fire cracker burst as if it was a bomb next to him was really cute. He would actually do a half-squat and wait in anticipation for the fire cracker to burst.

Lows:
1. Some people getting senti over nothing

2. The cold with only a bedsheet on me. It made me sleep in the car on the second night; to make matters worse dandekar also decided to sleep in the car.

3. Reaching the top of Mt. Washington only to see a railway line and a road leading till there and thousands of people all over the place. The commercialization of the place really put me off.

Over all, I had a great time, one of the trips I have enjoyed the most. Last time I enjoyed a trip like this was when I went to Kodai with my wingmates. Those were the days!!! I shall be uploading the pictures of this trip soon.

I was open minded but the doctor stapled it up

cntd ...

walking towards Sonny Werblin wiping the blood with the kerchief, asking people if it has stopped bleeding.

junta: its still bleeding man, just press it. Hold it tight.

we reach Sonny Werblin,

kane: aa!! aa!! (ogling at the girl at reception desk) excuse me, he is got injured. Do you have a first aid kit.
Hot Girl or may be semi hot (I don't remember, I had a head injury): James (I don't exactly remember the name) we need you at the front desk, medical emergency (speaking in to the micro phone).
me: I will go wash up and come, there is blood all over.
HG: no no, you go sit there, they will come here.

James comes and starts following some basket ball hunk (I don't know for what)
junta: excuse me, the injured guy is here.
James: Hey, you have got a big one.

lots of people around me, looking at me like I am some freak of nature

Senior Medical in-charge: Call the bloody EMS,
me: Will I need the stitches?
everyone in chorus: yes, you have got a nice one.
Senior Medical in-charge: May be you can get some sympathy points with girls
James: No, his hair will cover it. May be you can shave it off.
me (always proud of my hair): NO!! It's not worth it. I will score any ways.

Some one: The EMS will be here soon.

EMS comes,

EMS1: woah!! its a nice deep one. Asks me all the cliched questions, did you faint?, Do you feel dizzy? How many fingers? What is today's date, day? Name of the president? Why do you go to school (ooh, that's a tricky question)?

EMS2 along with me is working on wiping the blood off my face. Then puts a bandage around my head and we are ready to go to the hospital.


junta(in big doubt over medical insurance): Never mind, a friend of our is coming and then we will take him to the hospital.
EMS: When will he come, there is a small window of time within you have to get the stitches. If you leave it open too long, then you cant do anything.

Thats the most ridiculous thing I have heard. As it turned out, it was about three hours before I could get the stitches. Small window of time indeed.

SMI: No matter how much it costs you have to get stitches done, its too big a gash.
me: k, lets go then.

first time in the ambulance, kane proudly sits in front
reach the St. Peter's Hospital. EMS guy almost yells at me and makes me sit in the wheel chair.

I take a nice ride to the emergency and get done with all the formalities.

Sitting in the wait room to be called by the doc. After sitting for about 20 mins, I hear my name. By then dandekar and dalal had arrived. Dandekar told me dalal was all psyched up, but he refused and refuses to give me that psyched up look. I would give anything to see that look on dalal's face.

Author's note: I am getting bored writing this, I am just gonna finish it up.

I reach the place where doc is going to treat me, she comes there after another half an hour asks me the same cliched questions and then she plays a funny game to check my hand to eye coordination. Then she asked me if I would like a local anesthesia or would just take three metal staples and get done with it. I gave her a perplexed look, so she explained that at times anesthesia can me more painful. The way she described it, I wasn't left with much of a choice. I chose to be stapled. When she first mentioned the word stapler with the action and sound, I couldn't quite believe it. She described it more like a paper stapler. I thought she was trying to be funny. But, my worst fears were realized when the thing actually came. It was pretty much like a paper stapler. "Ok, it can't possibly have metal pins" was the thought that crossed my mind. I didn't find out the truth till she actually stapled my scalp and kane took a picture (the one he is very proud of). They were indeed three metal pins.

On our way back we decided to go to the desi store, while I was still blood stained. I was scared people will get all psyched and I will get all sorts of weird looks, but all went smooth but for one small kid who noticed it and pointed it out to his mom.

A gash in the head and three stitches later - an account of things as they happened

tring tring!!!
me: haan, bhai bol
bhai: cricket khelne ko aa raha hai kya, 5:30 baje?
me: kitne log hein?
bhai: 8 log aa rahe hein
me: theek hai bhai, mein bhi aata hai, bye.
bhai: bye

Dire Straits playing on launch cast, oh!! its 5:30 pm, set the comp. to hibernate. Pack my bag, and leave the lab. Where is dandekar, call him. Oh!! There he is ...

me: chal lab jaate hein, i have to put my bag
dandekar: why man? (in his usual crying baby way)
kane(without thinking): shut up!! (now after thinking), why do you want to go to his lab
me: i want to put this laptop there, its not mine, don't want to take any risk
kane(without thinking again): shut up man!!! You are gonna be right there and its not even yours.
me: that's why i wanna be extra careful, don't want it around when we are playing cricket
dandekar: i have to go back to my lab again bitch!!! (as usual doesn't make sense but cries as usual)

n voices along with mine, split the team man. dandekar and varun start picking.

me and raghu trying to show off some non existent soccer skills, by kicking a tennis ball on the wall (this wont me the last thing I hit on the wall for the day, but little did I know then), trying to take some volleys.

raghu(after missing a volley): shit man!!! (in total disappointment, like this was the first time he ever miss a volley)

teams are split, I am on the fielding side.

me: who all are in my team, rather whose time am I on
dandekar(making a worst attempt at humor): that's much better.

Would you believe if I said, he actually thinks the "game" of cricket is an art form. :-))

kirit: its you, varun, VT and me.
me: k

start fielding at my usual cover + point position (why did I ever move from there). First over kirit bowling, nothing to do. Not even one ball came to me ... so far so good.

next over varun bowling, I take his place in fielding. its too sunny, sun straight in my eye. Don't like it, envious of VT's place in the shade. Next over, the ball tossed to me, I ball my stupid off spinners though not without putting the pseude of going cross round the wicket. Next VT is gonna bowl, cool I can take his place in the shade without looking cheap (big grin).

VT first ball, kane moves away, gives himself room, hits a ugly cross batted hoick over long off.

Here is what went through my mind then

Fruit ball, its going all the way, take a few steps in front just to show I was looking to catch it.
oh no!! The ball is dying, I can actually catch it, hop hop ... THUD!!!! a sound of my skull hitting the wall.

me: woah!! How did that happen
junta: you ok?

everyone concerned but for kane who was still standing proud of his ugly slog (later he claimed he didn't realize I hit the wall, I can bet the guy on the 5th floor of the building thought it was an earthquake (Richter scale ), with the building shaking)

me: yeah i am good (still ruffling my hair)
me: oh no wait!! its bleeding, its bleeding.
junta: oh shit that's bad
me: how bad is it
kane(now over his ugly slog): lets go to sonny werblin
me: does any one have a kerchief or something
dandekar: yeah take this (first act of kindness from the baby, I feel proud)
me(wiping a lot of blood): am sorry about this boy (referring to the kerchief)
dandekar: that's k man (like he had donated a kidney to me or something)
me: hey we left our cells and key chains there
dandekar: I will get it, oh bhai already got it, cool

wiping the blood as we walk towards the rec center .....

****************** This is long enough******************
Will continue the account of Sonny Werblin and the hospital in the next post along with pictures, till then adios amigos.

P.S. The accounts is of course not verbatim, but as I remember it.

Its in the voice

I went to my lab the other day, strangely the door was closed. I walked in to find my lab mate on the phone. She was talking in chinese, but the way she was speaking I knew she was talking some one she had a lot of love for, some one she looked up to. I didn't understand a word of it, but it was so obvious from her voice. Later she told me it was her boy friend.

I gave it a thought and realized that not only emotions but our internal image of the person, how much we respect him as a person, how we rate him intellectually, emotionally are all very very evident from the way we speak to him. If you hear two people talking its very easy to find out how comfortable they are with each other without even knowing the language they are speaking or looking at their expressions. The voice in fact depicts the emotions of the person speaking just as well as his expressions apart from all these.

But for some strange reason, the emotions et. al. in the voice always seem to play the second fiddle, when we speak ... what an irony.

Next time I meet a girl, I will say "I heard it in your voice" instead of "I saw it in your eyes" :-). It will probably be the last time I see that girl though. Such is life, not a fair place I say!!!

Murder by Numbers

I was listening to my station on launch cast as usual and I heard this song which sounds like a Police song (Sting's voice to be precise). So, I checked out the title of the song (I was right about the artiste) and listened to the lyrics more carefully. They took me by surprise, so I looked for lyrics on the net and indeed for a Police song they were quite surprising. I know the Police are known to have weird themes for their songs, but this one is way off even for a Police song. Here is what the song says,


Once that you've decided on a killing
First you make a stone of your heart
And if you find that your hands are still willing
Then you can turn a murder into art

There really isn't any need for bloodshed
You just do it with a little more finesse
If you can slip a tablet into someone's coffee
Then it avoids an awful lot of mess

It's murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC

Now if you have a taste for this experience
And you're flushed with your very first success
Then you must try a twosome or a threesome
And you'll find your conscience bothers you much less

Because murder is like anything you take to
It's a habit-forming need for more and more
You can bump off every member of your family
And anybody else you find a bore

Because it's murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC

Now you can join the ranks of the illustrious
In history's great dark hall of fame
All our greatest killers were industrious
At least the ones that we all know by name

But you can reach the top of your profession
If you become the leader of the land
For murder is the sport of the elected
And you don't need to lift a finger of your hand

Because it's murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your A, B, C, D, E

Incidentally, there is a movie by the same title released in 2002, starring Sandra Bullock, Ben Chaplin, Ryan Gosling. Its about two high school students planning a perfect murder and then playing mind games with a seasoned homicide detective. This song is not part of the soundtrack for the movie, weird ain't it? Just to add to all this trivia (if I may call it), number of the beast by Iron Maiden is part of the soundtrack.

East is not where I see

I was sitting in my lab yesterday, when one of my colleagues called me and asked me if I would be one of the subjects for her experiment. For those unfamiliar with what I do, let me tell you, I aspire to become a human vision scientist. That's what my colleague called me as she was telling me about her experiment, need less to say I liked the term, so henceforth I shall use it when ever I can :-).

Getting back to the experiment, it was a simple one, I was to detect motion in different directions. To my utter surprise, the results showed that I am really bad at detecting motion towards east (towards the right) compared to other directions. Usually humans are better at detecting motion in the four major directions (i.e. north (up), south, east, west) and not so good with motion in the intermediate directions (north-east etc.). I am worst in the east direction, I don't know for what reasons, though. One week into my research in this lab and I found out this, I don't know what all I will find out as I finish my PhD. I have my fingers crossed.