OTG is back! Yet again! And etc.

Today in class OTG happened to sit to my left, and Timor to my right. We had an especially boring lecture, and thus were reduced to having to talk to each other. The following conversation was duly recorded.

OTG: So what do you do?
Me: I am in Computer Science.
OTG: Ok, the computer stuff. Ah so you write that..whats that called..
Me: *Wow! With new found respect....* Code. We design the different programs that you use.
OTG: So, can I call you the next time something goes wrong with my computer?
Me: *Ahem* Not, really. I might know what to do, but we aren't really taught that stuff. You will probably need to go to Best Buy.
OTG: Can you help me recover data from my crashed hard disk?
Me: *Ahem ahem* Not really. *Very cleverly.."* Its like asking the guy who designed your car to check your brakes.
OTG: Something.

Things might not have been great, but they weren't bad either. Then, attention shifted to Timor. The magic stroke came. (The word stroke here refers to wishing you would drop down dead.)

OTG : So, where are you from ?
Timor : Belarus
OTG : Which country is that in ?

I was tempted to say - 'Asia', but I just shut up.

Randomly associating, this reminds me of another time, when I had to speak about my country in, yes, French. I had just joined the exchange program, and there was a 2 week intensive French course to bring us all up to speed. So, towards the end of the course, when our vocabulary had kind of built up, we had to draw a map of our country and describe it. My friend Amit and I went on and on. Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs. Ganga, Yamuna, Sutlej, Cauvery. Himalayas, Eastern Ghats, Aravallis, Vindhyas. Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali. We had succeeded in putting everyone to sleep. Except for this very unhibited Brasilian couple that decided that they really couldn't wait till they got of class (the US is kind of stuck up that way). As someone or the other might have famously said, one never knows when inspiration strikes. There was a flash right there. What is India without the Kama Sutra! 'Poof', the entire class revived from the dead. Like water soaking up a dry sponge. Like oil sliding over, encompassing and lubricating a rusty metal joint. Questions were asked. References were requested. Dates and locations were demanded. Looking at this enthusiastic response, from a sense of public duty, we felt it responsible upon ourselves to offer some live demos, but *sigh* there were no takers :(.

Continuing this random association business, do you remember as a child when your mother used to buy you clothes that were a couple of sizes too big. You had to fold them up around your ankles so that the cloth didn't scrape against the floor. They used to look awkward, and like you couldn't afford decent clothes. You couldn't wait till you got taller and the clothes fit you properly. Do you also remember as a child when your uncle from the USA didn't get you that Columbia backpack that you always wanted? So, most embarrasingly, you were reduced to carting around your books stuffed in your paati's shopping bag. Well people, you need to be embarrased no more. Its all good. Its all high fashion. I don't know what the first trend is called. The second thing is the Man bag. Much of my inadvertant interest in this topic was spurred by this guy I hung out in Chicago with. I shall call him Jean the Jean Man. (The first Jean should be prononced in French, and the second in English. All for a purpose.) From a distance of 25 metres he could identify the brand name, styling and cost of any pair of jeans. Based on this data, further identification of individuals was made as 'cheapo', 'just pass' and 'high maintanence'.

On a more serious note. How many of you know about the Kaavya Viswanathan scandal?

• She is a 19 year old sophomore at Harvard who published her own book at 18.
• Now, she is in hot water because a number of paragraphs in her book have been found to be suspiciouly similar to the writing of Megan McCafferty, an ex editor of Cosmopolitan.

I feel pretty bad for her. Firstly, at 19, she is hardly old enough to handle the kind of publicity that she has been getting. Putting it in a manner that many of my co-bloggers can identify with, she is being 'trolled' by the entire nation. For the next how many ever years she has to live with being 'that' person. Secondly, if she is smart enough to get into Harvard, she is definitely smart enough to realize that copying material will get her into trouble. More generiously, I am sure she is talented enough to not have to rip off other people. I can imagine how it might have happened though. If I were a 19 year old guitarist, I would try to imitate the chords of say Eric Clapton or Steve Vai or whoever. I wouldn't think twice before incorporating them into a song of my own. How could I even imagine that its going to be playing on the radio, and Clapton is going to hear it and sue me? Also, the insane competitiveness of her existence probably pushes her to do such things. Thirdly, she is of Indian origin and Tam Brahm :). I support all people of Indian origin who are doing well for themselves. Further, I doubly support Tam Brahms of Indian origin who are doing well for themselves :).

On a happier note, Pramod Mahajan was shot by his own brother. As they say, weeding out corruption starts at home, and what could be a better way to go about it. If only all the kith and kin of politicians would take the inititative and pump some lead between their misguided relative's heads. Misa Bharati do you hear me? Sudhakaran can you hear me? All you people out there who have politicians for relatives, you know what to do.

Reality Sucks

Now, if you have come looking for a whiney self-piteous rant about how life sucks and so on, you have come to the right place. However, my dear friend, you have come at the wrong time. What I am talking about is reality tv. It’s the new form of popular entertainment that has given us The Apprentice and Surreal Life, filling our lives with the images of attention needy people like Donald Trump and Ice T. I had earlier given a description on how to create your own reality tv show. Now, I am going to focus on one or two specific shows.

I don’t know how many of you watch MTV. There is this show called Date My Mom (DMM).The basic structure of the show is as follows -

• 1 hot guy
• 3 girls and their moms
• The guy cannot talk directly to the girls. He speaks to the moms and decides which girl is likely to have got the best genetic material.
• Or 1 hot girl, 3 guys, 3 moms….you know.

It is exhibitionist, crass and has plenty of eye candy – so everyone watches it. It’s like drinking – continued intake might cause brain damage, but short doses do lead to instant gratification. Anyway, I was watching DMM the other day. There was something that I feel took their (lack of) creative process to a new high.

So, I saw this girly looking guy as the ‘hot catch’. 'Ok', I thought, 'Maybe he is one of those metropolitan or whatever type guys'. Then, I see his arms flailing all over the place, and his eyelashes started doing the batting thang. That got the alarm bells going bring bring. Then there was the final straw, the guy got all giggly and went ‘Ohhhh I luhveee Britney Spears. She is soo cool!!!’. As I suspected, the producers had decided that the only way they could attract viewer ship was by hooking gay guys up. Don’t get me wrong here. I am all for freedom, and believe its your personal right to decide upon whether you want to engage in intimate relations with guys / girls / donkeys / rabbits / cockroaches / eels / snakes / crows / frogs. I mean, if you aren't going to let your sex hold you back, why should your position on the tree of life? Think about it. Aren't we all the same? Aren't we all just bags of protein and DNA? If, you knock off some of my genes, won't I become a weird mutated creature? Aren't all our DNA subject transcription? Aren't all our RNA subject to translation? You get the picture. I am all for non-discrimination. However, a guy professing love for Britney Spears on a music channel is a strict no no.

There is another variation of this called ‘Check out all the trash in my room, and decide if you want to marry me’. I forget what its called. Yes, Room Raiders. Replace mom by rooms. Instead of checking out the mom, you check out the room and decide whether you should pledge your troth to the owner of the room. That got me thinking - where are things going from here? What would be the next big thing in reality dating? Eureka! It struck me! Like a flash of lightning! Like Date my Mom, why not, Date My Iguana. However, the thought made me feel guilty as Iguanas are classy animals, a little endangered, and would be quite averse to besmirching their reputation through such shameless displays. Also, PETA might complain. We would just have to settle for Date the Cockroach in My Sink. These are pretty decadent creatures anyway, hanging around the sink and all that. How can you judge if he/she is 'the one'? Simple! If the cockroach is emaciated you know that I have a clean sink and am worth marrying.

Travail

I wonder why 'travail', which in French means 'work', means 'difficulty' in English ? A strange co-incidence, or is it not? Just a random thought. Actually not such a random thought. Why is it not such a random thought? Well, you need to read on to find that on. Yes, read on.

So I just spent a most fun weekend in Chicago. It was a new hire gathering party by this company I am joining in July. As most of you might have noticed, I usually avoid going into the sordid details of activities that I must perform to keep arm and leg together. Also, I am most wary about disclosing work related information, as knowing myself I am likely to shoot my mouth off, which just might result in me getting shot off in turn (fired :)). However, in sum, they do have large sums of money, and seem to be ok partaking some of it on their new hires. I have no objection to that. Who doesn't ? Isn't my rhetoric business getting on your nerves? Or is it not?

So, I got put up in this most heavenly hotel. Earlier they had put me up here. I would have prefered cold cash instead, for the following reasons -

• I am not really into the watching tv while soaking in the bath tub.
• I don't care if the soup has minerals from the "cold reaches of the andes". I just wan't to be clean without smelling like a florist.
• More importantly, I am having serious issues breaking even with my rent. Thats 6 months right there handsome.
• Also, seeing Bentley GTs and Porshe Carreras parked at the entrance is most self deluding. Though I do love to travel, this is an ego-trip I just cannot afford. I have to keep reminding 'Bugger %$**#^&**$*(*#& you DONT have that kind of money. So, don't get any bright ideas!'. (However, I must admit that I have been most tempted to filch one of those things. It's quite easy. The keys are with the valet. You just need to act really smooth and suave, pretend you have lost your slip, and get him to fetch it for you. Just to get the image all together, give him a 100$ tip. He needs it, because he just lost his job. He he.)
  

However, I must admit that I do like this most alluring voice that calls me at 7 in the morning and says, "This is your wake up call sir. Is there something you would like have for breakfast?". You feel all important and like half a sneeze from you can push the Nasdaq 100 points. Also, you are reluctant to disappoint such an enchanting voice - you wake you.

Now, with all this staying in fancy-pancy hotels, there is this most frightening increase in expectations. There was a time, when I would been overjoyed if my room had a stainfree bed and a flushed toilet. Now, I very carefully scrutinize how the foyer is done up and reach a most irrevocable judgement. I guess J-Lo notices if her bed linen isn't made from the finest French satin. See, how much ever you have, you still succeed in feeling miserable! Cool! Yay!

The other thing that goes with such lifestyles is this tendency to delude oneself. Looking at gold bars doesn't make you rich. You need to rob a bank or two. I was with some kids who already work there, and some of the conversation snippets went like this -

Him : Dude, the penthouse costs 4.
Me: 400,000? *gulp*
Him: No dude, 4 millon.
Me : Okkkk. * $%^$%$^% - insert your choiciest string of expletives*

Jokes apart, I found my 25 or so co-hires to be most smart and impressive. Almost all of them were FOBs (Fresh Off the Boats) or 2nd generation Americans. Also, most were of Asian or Eastern European origin. That scares me a bit. Though I would think that I am a pretty competent type person, this competition business is most emotionally straining. I spent 4 of my undergraduate years in a class where over performance was the norm.Its not so much fun I tell you.

*Begin Digression*
To give you an idea of what happens, if asked to write a program that adds 2 numbers, half the class will come up with simulators that can calculate the trajectories of inter continental ballistic missiles. There was once, when they found out that a couple of guys in the class had managed to sneak through a couple of research publications. Such publications are very prized, because they validate that you can do 'research', and are looked on very favorably by all Amrikan Universities. So, since nobody wanted to feel left out, before the end of the year, there were about 15 publications between the class! Consider this with the fact that, yours truly after 2 years in graduate school has managed a grand total of zero publications. In my defense, a couple of publications are in the pipeline. Don't say mean things about me ok?
*End Digression*

Anyway, coming back, there was this one person from the group whose mother used to change linen in hotels. Another, whose dad is a big investment banker in China. One is from Harvard the other from MIT. One could possibly have funded half her class through college, the other possibly not. Its all about what you can do, not who you are (or more correctly what your daddy did). Fair. If only our Indian politicians can learn. Whats with this 50% reservation for the IITs? You cannot have the cake and eat it no. Either you can favor those you like or those who are good. You cannot favor those you like and expect them to change the world.

Someone gonna get a very very famous

Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced today (April 11, 2006) the precision measurement of extremely rapid transitions between matter and antimatter. As amazing as it may seem, it has been known for 50 years that very special species of subatomic particles can make spontaneous transitions between matter and antimatter. In this exciting new result, CDF physicists measured the rate of the matter-antimatter transitions for the B_s (pronounced "B sub s") meson, which consists of the heavy bottom quark bound by the strong nuclear interaction to a strange anti-quark, a staggering rate that challenges the imagination - 3 trillion times per second.

Read the press release here. If you are a little smart you can read this. If you are really stupid or really really smart, you could read this. I am actually crazy enough to sit on in the Physics department after class to listen to random talks on topics I really don't know jackshit about. I wandered into a special seminar convened to announce the result. It was a talk by Kevin Pitts. That guy was so excited and totally wired during the talk. You could see it. Like you have just won the lottery or ..the Nobel Prize. The only problem is that there have been about 700 scientists from 27 institutions involved in the project.

PS: Regular programming will commence very shortly :).

OTG Returns

I am so happy I took that psych course, simply for the sake of our dear lady OTG (overly tanned girl or hither leather). After having entertained us earlier, she has most kindly agreed to give us some more delectable blogable material. With every passing moment, I grow more confident that she has some kind of fetish, because her foot seems to have found a permanent home in her mouth.

Firstly, some background - you are emotionally intelligent if you are resilient and regenerative. Resilience is when you face life for what it is. Regeneration is when you make an about face, and get drunk. Its important to know when to do what. So, the teacher asked us for personal examples of how we deal with stress.

Q : How do you regenerate physically?

X : I go to the gym.
Y : I do yoga.
Me : I play squash or tennis sometimes.
She : I like to get a tan.

Q : How do you regenerate spiritually?

X: I take some time out for myself and think.
Y: I go to the church.
Me: I blog when I can.
She: I like to go shopping. I also like to contemplate about life when I tan - like if I should grab dinner and go for the group meeting, or go for the meeting and then grab dinner.

Q : What do you think will make you happy?

X: Blah
Y: Blee
Me: Bluu
She: I don't mind being one of those sit at home wives with 2 kids, as long as I have lots (editor's correction - pots) of money and can go shopping everyday.

Audience Q: However, won't you get bored shopping?

She: No it's not like that. You can keep going on to buying more and more expensive things. You just need to keep going to the next level. It really is very satisfying.

This merits a song.

You better watch out,
Or you will go dry,
You keep your eyes peeled,
I'm telling you why:
OTG is coming to town.
She's making a list,
And checking it twice;
Shes gonna find out
Whos loaded and iced.
OTG is going to town
She sees you when you're sleeping.
She knows when you're playing quake.
She knows if you have money for the taking,
So watch out for goodness sake!
Or, you will go dry,
I'm telling you why:
OTG is coming to town.
OTG is going to town!

Apart from putting me in the hallowed prescence of people like OTG, the course has also given me access to an abstruse and highly literary skill called obfuscative fillibusteration.

"I had a nightmare and died." =>

"Serious doubts might be raised on the validity of the interpretation of my experience in a non-negative light. A more careful analysis will reveal that I suffered from serious soporific hallucinations which ultimately hastened my demise."

In less higher society its called 2 pages for 20 marks or simply gas for marks.