The above was the catchline of a poor joke that was doing the rounds among our group. Infact, the history behind this is as follows:
Once again, purely at random, DJ cracked a joke, which was not even funny, but only contextual. It was basically an attempt to construct a joke out of something innocent that someone just said.. Frustrated at all of this, we started saying that lets come up with a catchline, and wait for DJ and/or Sridhar to construct a joke about it.
I don't know what came to my mind, but the first line that came to my mind was the line "The tap went dry". (I think what was in my mind then was the ages old ad, "Kaha tha na Rahul, paaani chala jaayega" (for non-hindi readers :-P "I told you Rahul, the water supply will get cut off!!"))
It is better for the reputation of my blog that I don't repeat the jokes that came up after that.
But this happenned ages ago. The reason that I mentioned all of this on the post today is that today, the catch line struck back at me.
Today in the morning, the tap went dry.
Basically, it was some problem with the motor in our apartment. The strange part is that out of the three Bathrooms in our house, only my bathroom was without water. Actually the tap was spluttering with air, as if it was trying very hard to give out water, but was unsuccessful.. I waited for a long, really long time for it to start up again, but without success. As a result, I was late to office again, inspite of having got up early for a change. I guess I just deserved it for starting off with such a sad catchline, to hopefully convert it into a reasonable joke.
Do catchlines have a way of getting back at you and taking revenge? I guess this one did. :(
Friday, November 26, 2004
Thursday, October 28, 2004
The bike strikes back
Finally at 5 am last night.. er.. today morning.. I had resolved all issues and left with Shailendra and Vandana, for home.
As soon as I started riding out on my bike, I realized that something was wrong.. And when I looked back, my suspicions were confirmed.. I HAD A FLAT TYRE!
How it happenned was a great mystery, because it was fine when I had reached office in the morning. It was probably my bike's way of repaying me for all the torture that I put it through by riding on the Bannerghatta Road(?) on the way from and to home.
I rode it for a while, in hopes of getting some place open. (It was five am so this was stupid!, but if you have been awake till five am, then sometimes its ok. to be stupid... ) Finally I parked off the bike at some petrol pump and started to walk towards home (only because there were no autos in the vicinity..). Just as I was contemplating my deplorable condition after the 6 km walk to home, I spotted an auto coming towards me, and caught it promptly.
The fact that I had to skip lunch because I was getting my bike fixed is only a sideline. Ofcourse, since its not the first time I'm skipping a major meal in the last few days, this does not count as a major disaster.
As soon as I started riding out on my bike, I realized that something was wrong.. And when I looked back, my suspicions were confirmed.. I HAD A FLAT TYRE!
How it happenned was a great mystery, because it was fine when I had reached office in the morning. It was probably my bike's way of repaying me for all the torture that I put it through by riding on the Bannerghatta Road(?) on the way from and to home.
I rode it for a while, in hopes of getting some place open. (It was five am so this was stupid!, but if you have been awake till five am, then sometimes its ok. to be stupid... ) Finally I parked off the bike at some petrol pump and started to walk towards home (only because there were no autos in the vicinity..). Just as I was contemplating my deplorable condition after the 6 km walk to home, I spotted an auto coming towards me, and caught it promptly.
The fact that I had to skip lunch because I was getting my bike fixed is only a sideline. Ofcourse, since its not the first time I'm skipping a major meal in the last few days, this does not count as a major disaster.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
No Dinner for me!
Well, so it was a rare occassion. Really rare that I should ever give hunger a lower priority than anything else. But I did.
I had loads of work to do, so I asked DJ to get some food for me from wherever he was going, instead of going along with him, as I usually do.
After waiting till nearly midnight, hunger finally overtook my concentration on the work to be done, and I called up DJ to find out what exactly was holding him up??
As soon as I greeted him, he realised what he had been forgetting all through dinner, and his silence was kind of enough to make things obvious. He had come back to office, and had forgotten all about my dinner!!!!!
Even the office pantry had run out of most edible supplies, and I had to have Cereals + Milk (which is usually breakfast for me) as a poor substitute for dinner.
Reminds me of the golden rule in life, "Pehle pet puja, phir kaam duja!" (translated from hindi: "First worship your stomach, then go on to other work!")
I had loads of work to do, so I asked DJ to get some food for me from wherever he was going, instead of going along with him, as I usually do.
After waiting till nearly midnight, hunger finally overtook my concentration on the work to be done, and I called up DJ to find out what exactly was holding him up??
As soon as I greeted him, he realised what he had been forgetting all through dinner, and his silence was kind of enough to make things obvious. He had come back to office, and had forgotten all about my dinner!!!!!
Even the office pantry had run out of most edible supplies, and I had to have Cereals + Milk (which is usually breakfast for me) as a poor substitute for dinner.
Reminds me of the golden rule in life, "Pehle pet puja, phir kaam duja!" (translated from hindi: "First worship your stomach, then go on to other work!")
Thursday, October 21, 2004
ICQ
Amit's ICQ crashes when he tries to add me to his buddy list... This happens only with my ICQ UIN!! Now is that wierd or what??
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Disaster Aura
Seems like the disaster zone around me is growing in size... or maybe I am developing a disaster aura..
The following incidents are why I'm saying this:
(1) New Office, busy with setting up a server : Housekeeping dude is collecting cups.. while passing in front of me.. he almost drops his tray.
(2) Asif, Mrinal, Bill, Joe, Jason, etc. sitting and talking.. Asif is leaning on the separating glass pane, and I'm standing with my back to it but not touching it..
Suddenly, I hear glass breaking behind me, and shards of glass touching my back.. Apparently asif, lightweight as he is, was a bit too much for that poor piece of glass.. Phew.. this one really scared me...
(3) I enter cafeteria, Jyothi drops glass. As usual, I get to carry the blame on my broad shoulders... 8-)
(4) Ooops.. forgot to add this... A couple of us were heading to Corner House, and Gaurav was riding his bike alongside me. Suddenly at an intersection, another bike came and crashed into Gaurav's bike. It wasn't even Gaurav's fault at that, but people kept throwing slanting glances at me, when they heard about this.. :P
The following incidents are why I'm saying this:
(1) New Office, busy with setting up a server : Housekeeping dude is collecting cups.. while passing in front of me.. he almost drops his tray.
(2) Asif, Mrinal, Bill, Joe, Jason, etc. sitting and talking.. Asif is leaning on the separating glass pane, and I'm standing with my back to it but not touching it..
Suddenly, I hear glass breaking behind me, and shards of glass touching my back.. Apparently asif, lightweight as he is, was a bit too much for that poor piece of glass.. Phew.. this one really scared me...
(3) I enter cafeteria, Jyothi drops glass. As usual, I get to carry the blame on my broad shoulders... 8-)
(4) Ooops.. forgot to add this... A couple of us were heading to Corner House, and Gaurav was riding his bike alongside me. Suddenly at an intersection, another bike came and crashed into Gaurav's bike. It wasn't even Gaurav's fault at that, but people kept throwing slanting glances at me, when they heard about this.. :P
Disastourous Update
Long time no disasters?? Or more like, long time no disasters reported!!!
I guess an update here is long pending.. But adding a separate post for each disaster is overkill..
So, I'll just list out the most notable disasters so that we are back on track and I can get back to periodic reporting.
(1) Crashed Mrinal's car:
Poor Mrinal :( . He developed some sort of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, or something, which basically rendered his wrist useless due to pain. Since he was on his dad's Fiat Uno, which basically steers as easily as a truck, I offerred to drive for him.... Barely had we come out of the new office building, that an auto sverved and hit the front of the car.. Sahana was around and handled the situation, and one of the turn signal indicators of the Uno was damaged.. I want to get them fixed but mrinal doesn't seem to be interested in that... :(
(2) Jinxed journey:
It seems that my journey to meet my parents in Lucknow is jinxed. There hasn't been a single occasion when I have completed the journey from Bangalore - Lucknow - Bangalore easily and without any glitches..
Like this time (yup I was on vacation recently), I was determined to have a comfortable and flexible journey. So I booked flight tickets for Bangalore - Delhi, Delhi - Lucknow, Delhi - Bangalore, left out the Lucknow - Delhi tickets for flexibility.
After reaching Lucknow, I got train tickets for the most ideal train which would give a 6 hour window in Delhi, having enough margin for the possibility of the train getting delayed.
On reaching Lucknow station at 5 am (yes thats when the train was scheduled to leave..) I found that the train had not yet arrived from Delhi. The right time for it to have arrived was the previous night, 10 pm and it was late by over 8 hrs. Also, it would take about 4 hours to depart once it had actually arrived, which means that my 6 hr window was basically worthless.
I tried to get a bus to Delhi, but apparently there is only one a/c bus, and that too leaving at night, which meant that option was meaningless again.
Ofcourse, I finally did get to Delhi (took a flight, the most expensive option), but it just goes to show that basically trying to plan life is meaningless...
I guess an update here is long pending.. But adding a separate post for each disaster is overkill..
So, I'll just list out the most notable disasters so that we are back on track and I can get back to periodic reporting.
(1) Crashed Mrinal's car:
Poor Mrinal :( . He developed some sort of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, or something, which basically rendered his wrist useless due to pain. Since he was on his dad's Fiat Uno, which basically steers as easily as a truck, I offerred to drive for him.... Barely had we come out of the new office building, that an auto sverved and hit the front of the car.. Sahana was around and handled the situation, and one of the turn signal indicators of the Uno was damaged.. I want to get them fixed but mrinal doesn't seem to be interested in that... :(
(2) Jinxed journey:
It seems that my journey to meet my parents in Lucknow is jinxed. There hasn't been a single occasion when I have completed the journey from Bangalore - Lucknow - Bangalore easily and without any glitches..
Like this time (yup I was on vacation recently), I was determined to have a comfortable and flexible journey. So I booked flight tickets for Bangalore - Delhi, Delhi - Lucknow, Delhi - Bangalore, left out the Lucknow - Delhi tickets for flexibility.
After reaching Lucknow, I got train tickets for the most ideal train which would give a 6 hour window in Delhi, having enough margin for the possibility of the train getting delayed.
On reaching Lucknow station at 5 am (yes thats when the train was scheduled to leave..) I found that the train had not yet arrived from Delhi. The right time for it to have arrived was the previous night, 10 pm and it was late by over 8 hrs. Also, it would take about 4 hours to depart once it had actually arrived, which means that my 6 hr window was basically worthless.
I tried to get a bus to Delhi, but apparently there is only one a/c bus, and that too leaving at night, which meant that option was meaningless again.
Ofcourse, I finally did get to Delhi (took a flight, the most expensive option), but it just goes to show that basically trying to plan life is meaningless...
Friday, September 17, 2004
Thursday, September 16, 2004
So much for contact lens
So, a month ago, I decided to go in for Contact Lenses to replace my spectacles... Actually I wanted to do this for a long time, but got the nod from the doc only in July.
Finally, after weeks of procrastination, I stepped in to an optician's store two days back.
For some wierd reason, that dude was hell bent on convincing me to go for ordinary soft contact lenses, when I was more interested in Torrik or semi-soft, because I have significant cylindrical power in my prescription. After arguing it out with him for nearly an hour, I agreed with his proposal of getting a trial pair of ordinary soft-lens for a week.
Within a day of wearing those lenses, I was convinced that my original conviction was right, and those lenses would not work for me, and I would have to get Torrik lenses.
I mentioned this problem to Joe, but he didn't really count this one as a disaster. He said that its pretty common for people to have some problems before they can find the right pair of lenses.
It would seem that being the disaster zone, I had to convert this into a disaster somehow...
So anyways, I decided that I would use this pair of lens to get comfortable with the procedure of wearing and removing the lens, so last night after going home, I decided to try them on a couple of times.
On my second attempt, I dropped the right eye-lens. Strangely, this time (yes it had happened a couple of times before as well) I couldn't find it at all!!
I spent around an hour looking high and low for the lens, but just couldn't find them. Its unbelieveable how that lens could have simply vanished from the face of the earth like that, but it just happened. Actually it might not be so unbelievable when you consider that it happened to me..
So, I now have only one lens. God knows what I should do with it. But anyways, I'm definitely not going for ordinary lenses next time. I guess I should practise little bit with the one lens that I have, before moving on to the more expensive Torrik lens...
Small things like the fact that I spilled 'Real Mango Nectar' on my desk don't even deserve a mention nowadays.
Finally, after weeks of procrastination, I stepped in to an optician's store two days back.
For some wierd reason, that dude was hell bent on convincing me to go for ordinary soft contact lenses, when I was more interested in Torrik or semi-soft, because I have significant cylindrical power in my prescription. After arguing it out with him for nearly an hour, I agreed with his proposal of getting a trial pair of ordinary soft-lens for a week.
Within a day of wearing those lenses, I was convinced that my original conviction was right, and those lenses would not work for me, and I would have to get Torrik lenses.
I mentioned this problem to Joe, but he didn't really count this one as a disaster. He said that its pretty common for people to have some problems before they can find the right pair of lenses.
It would seem that being the disaster zone, I had to convert this into a disaster somehow...
So anyways, I decided that I would use this pair of lens to get comfortable with the procedure of wearing and removing the lens, so last night after going home, I decided to try them on a couple of times.
On my second attempt, I dropped the right eye-lens. Strangely, this time (yes it had happened a couple of times before as well) I couldn't find it at all!!
I spent around an hour looking high and low for the lens, but just couldn't find them. Its unbelieveable how that lens could have simply vanished from the face of the earth like that, but it just happened. Actually it might not be so unbelievable when you consider that it happened to me..
So, I now have only one lens. God knows what I should do with it. But anyways, I'm definitely not going for ordinary lenses next time. I guess I should practise little bit with the one lens that I have, before moving on to the more expensive Torrik lens...
Small things like the fact that I spilled 'Real Mango Nectar' on my desk don't even deserve a mention nowadays.
Archive from my TWiki
List of disasters : to give you a hang of what to expect on this blog!
- 24 Jul 2004
Spilled milk on the breakfast table, also on mobile, at home.
Got wet in the rain. - 25 Jul 2004
Spilled coffee on self in pantry. - 27 Jul 2004
Spilled Real mixed fruit juice on cell-phone. (My cell-phone is taking a real beating these days. )- 3 Aug 2004
Broke Chair. Simply by sitting on it. - 3 Aug 2004
- 22 Aug 2004
Spilled Soft Drink on Bill in Kabab Corner, while trying to be good and move the table - 25 Aug 2004 & 26 Aug 2004
Who says Linux is a secure OS? I feel that someone is running a malicious script on my system, and periodically deletes exactly the stuff that I'm working on!!!! Webmin slimily upgrades itself to version 1.150-5 from 1.150-1 (Which by the way is THE latest release on www.webmin.com) and deletes all its own files. All this happens without even a warning to the user, and is discovered only when I go to the directory to look at the files. All the linux gurus(read Mrinal and Sridhar) can suggest, is upgrade to SuSE Linux 9.1 Could someone please enlighten me on how this is different from Windows? - 30 Aug 2004
Decided to take the plunge and upgrade my system to SuSE 9.1 overnight. After setting up my stuff in a way that I would better like, I decide to go in and resync my sandbox. For some reason, it failed, and I decided that I would be better off dropping the sandbox, and creating a new one. As soon as the sandbox is dropped and all items deleted, I realized that I made a big mistake. The sandbox I just dropped had approximately 15(fifteen) files checked out, and that basically consisted of all of my weeks work, which I hadn't checked in, so as not to break the build. So much for source control acting as backup for code. Thankfully I found a way to recover deleted files from reiserfs by using rebuild-tree, and salvaged all my work. - 3 Sep 2004
Had recommended Inchara for dinner last night, after meeting with Joe (Liemandt), inspite of resistance from Mrinal. Found that the others didn't like the place, and Bill actually got stomach trouble because of the food that he had there. Mid-day, he left for a visit to the hospital and didn't come back for the day. I mean, he wasn't even there the week-end.... All because of me... One disaster that I possibly couldn't forgive myself for. More importantly, I don't think that Bill is ever going to forgive me. Even more importantly, I don't think that my recommendation would ever be taken seriously again. - 4 Sep 2004
One disaster which was not my fault at all. I just arrived at office around afternoon. I find Anshu & Unni panicky over something. Apparently, all our files had been dropped out from Source Integrity. No idea how it happened or who did it, although some suspected Unni, because he had dropped the sandbox. Somehow, we were able to recover it from the latest copies of the sources present with Unni. I'm beginning to get disillusioned in source control. - 4 Sep 2004
Talking with Praveen & Sridhar, we realize that we will not be able to use CUPS under SaMBa? after all. It seems that the SaMBa? server has to hold Windows printer drivers for the client, and has to pass the print request directly to the printer, because it will be in raw format, rendering CUPS redundant. In less geek terms, this basically means that all my work over the past three weeks was meaningless, and that we should have waited for the printer API to proceed after all. - 6 Sep 2004
Dinner at Casa Picola. A glass broke. Again, it wasn't my fault, it was the waiters. My instinctive standard disclaimer humoured everyone, but the waiter, who sheepishly admitted to his fault. Everyone was laughing for quiet some time. - 6 Sep 2004
After the printers debacle, I moved on to VPN. After reading up on VPN for a while, I decided to set up a small VPN server of my own. So I got a fresh NT tarball from Sridhar, and installed PPTP on that. Guess what Windows greets me with!!! The Blue Screen of Death, what else!! - 8 Sep 2004
Bike keys fell off the bike, when coming to office from home. Wasted around half an hour looking for them, and finally had to give bike in service station to get entire lock set replaced. The fact that the keyring also contained the helmet-lock keys and my office drawer keys is only a minor detail....
Finally down to blogging
Famous last words:
* Finally getting down and starting a blog of my own.
* Had to revive my blog after a long time.
* This blog is there to tell the world about my thoughts.
A few real life instances like these, and watching the inconsistent life cycle of the blogging world, combined with the Ultimate Question (no not that one...), "What do I write in my blog???" had kept me away from blogging so long.
However I have maintained a TWiki page on my company LAN for around two months now, with a list of the regular disasters befalling me. This page has a small audience now, and most of them recommended that I move this stuff to more public areas like a website.
While I'm too damn lazy to actually do a website for myself, I did concede to the idea of blogging about my disasters. (only after a lot of philosophical discussions: Would I want to reveal my thoughts? Would anyone be interested? Do I have the time? Does it really matter? What is the purpose? Is there a spoon? How many roads must a man walk down in his lifetime? Where do we go for lunch?)
So, after the preamble, I need to get down to why this area is called Disaster Area.
First of all it is inspired by Disaster Area of H2G2 fame. Second, I'm something of a Disaster-prone zone myself. I mean, usually if there is a glass to be broken somewhere, my presence is enough.
Like they say in many diet-courses, if you write down what you eat everyday, then you eat less. In the same theme, I'm hoping that if I write down whatever disasters occur to me, there might be less of them.
I guess thats enough for an introduction without even mentioning a disaster!!! I'll put my page from the TWiki as soon as I can... meanwhile...
This blog is published in the hope that it will be entertaining, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of HUMOUR or READABILITY FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the MOO Specific Private License for more details.
* Finally getting down and starting a blog of my own.
* Had to revive my blog after a long time.
* This blog is there to tell the world about my thoughts.
A few real life instances like these, and watching the inconsistent life cycle of the blogging world, combined with the Ultimate Question (no not that one...), "What do I write in my blog???" had kept me away from blogging so long.
However I have maintained a TWiki page on my company LAN for around two months now, with a list of the regular disasters befalling me. This page has a small audience now, and most of them recommended that I move this stuff to more public areas like a website.
While I'm too damn lazy to actually do a website for myself, I did concede to the idea of blogging about my disasters. (only after a lot of philosophical discussions: Would I want to reveal my thoughts? Would anyone be interested? Do I have the time? Does it really matter? What is the purpose? Is there a spoon? How many roads must a man walk down in his lifetime? Where do we go for lunch?)
So, after the preamble, I need to get down to why this area is called Disaster Area.
First of all it is inspired by Disaster Area of H2G2 fame. Second, I'm something of a Disaster-prone zone myself. I mean, usually if there is a glass to be broken somewhere, my presence is enough.
Like they say in many diet-courses, if you write down what you eat everyday, then you eat less. In the same theme, I'm hoping that if I write down whatever disasters occur to me, there might be less of them.
I guess thats enough for an introduction without even mentioning a disaster!!! I'll put my page from the TWiki as soon as I can... meanwhile...
This blog is published in the hope that it will be entertaining, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of HUMOUR or READABILITY FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the MOO Specific Private License for more details.
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