Life as it is

Sportskeeda: A sports website venture by a friend of mine

2009-11-17T08:15:00.000-08:00

Writing this post to draw the attention of a few people who drop by this blog by mistake :) to have a look at the website www.sportskeeda.com

This is a sports website (as is evident by the name) venture started by my friend with stress on many non conventional sports which do not draw such big headlines in sports pages of our dailies. Hope this blog entry makes atleast a person to be redirected to that website :)

How not to go to GOA!!!!

2009-10-17T14:52:00.001-07:00

I should have posted this 2 weeks back when I cut my trip short to GOA before it even started and got back to Pune from Mumbai without catching my connecting train to Madgaon from there, but still as these blogspace is used just by me its better to make an entry into the pensieve atleast now.

And these points I make are not only for the trip to GOA which I did not go through but for trips in future to other places as well....

To make it short entering into a bulleted format.
=>Do not wait until the last moment to confirm your trip. It may be fun sometimes but not always.

=>Do not expect other people to join you at the last moment.

=>Even if the trip can not be confirmed for some reasons atleast book a ticket in advance because it is almost impossible to match an itinerary to match your pocket, comfort and timings at the last moment.

=>After getting a booking even though of your disliking do not try to change it again and again confusing others as well as yourself.

=>Office work will always be there. Do not change your plans at last moment because of that unless and until it creates any dire consequences for the business. (And at the moment the position I am in it will not)

=>When you know you will have to travel alone for a considerable amount of time and you can not sleep it off, either get a flight ticket or be ready for the journey. (Remember during college you have always made a journey of 40 hrs in sleeper class almost every semester and at that point of time it never felt tiresome or boring)

=>Brace yourself up for other options if the train/flight/bus is late and if you feel time is important be ready to spend. (You are earning money to spend and enjoy)

These are the major points I wanted to cover and even though this post did not come out as I wanted to write it but I think it is done.

May be will extend it later on with the actual events that transpired and why I think in the hindersight that it was better I did not go.

But adieu for now!!!!!!!!!

Finally Laptopmore :D

2009-07-19T00:22:00.000-07:00

Finally got a new laptop (ACER 5738G) on 04-07-2009 and also inspired my brother in law to get exactly the same one a week after :)

The config is awesome and the price was good too. The specification for the laptop are:
Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 2.0 GHz Processor
4 GB DDR3 RAM
512 MB NVidia dedicated Graphics Card
320 GB HDD
15.6" screen
Good battery backup (Easily gives me a running time of 3 hours on battery even while watching a movie on good brightness and using laptop speakers)

As many people may be searching for the review of this laptop my experience so far about the laptop is extremely good. Its been 2 weeks since I have been using this laptop and I have had no problems at all. Have installed Ubuntu 9.04 as well and apart from minor bugs reported there are no major problems with Ubuntu as well.

Have not tested the graphics capability of the laptop as I have not been able to lay my hand on any decent graphics PC game but I am very much satisfied with its overall performance. The booting time to vista is less than 15 secs and that says a lot about its performance I guess.

So final verdict from my side is that I would recommend this laptop to everybody who is looking for a good value for money on their purchase and this comes with a very good performance.

Adieu for now.

P.S. Will revive this dead blog soon....

Musings of a Laptopless Idiot

2007-03-28T00:39:00.000-07:00

This post is inspired by the title given to one of the chit chats I was having with my friends while I am here in China and he is sitting all comfy in India.

For the unknown first the background. I had been planning to buy a laptop since the 5th semester of my graduate study. To go more into details, the thing was I had initially planned to get a desktop for myself so that i could do some programming and stuff (this is the original intended purpose of buying one by every engineering grad student in India, but it is mainly used to watch graphics of all kinds - games, movies etc. and generally never programming)But my dad had a better idea why not get a laptop. It will be less of a burden and it could sit at home once my grads were over because the PC at home was getting old and was just counting its days (it somehow managed to survive for two more years was a miracle btw). But then I had another brilliant flash of mind why not get two desktops one at home and another at college. It would cost the same as a single laptop and I could get better configurations at both the places. t so happened that I bought one for home but never got around to buying another one at college because in both the years my room mates had a desktop and my yearning for the laptop had gotten stronger after the initial relunctance. Anyways soon after my grads I joined the company for which I was campus selected. Have a small post about that. As I was not happy with the BU I was put into I again started pursuing my dream of finally owning a laptop and doing some wonderful programming stuff so that I could move away to development from testing. Many inquiries were made to know the least price for the best performing machines of different vendors so one could be chosen. But the newer technology just kept coming in and decision to buy one getting postponed. My friend had started ridculing me and had predicted that I will never be buying and owning any laptop. My owning a laptop bought by my own salary was as distant a dream for me as him getting a girl friend :-)
So I had by now given up all my yearnings for the laptop and anyways two of my room mates had it and another one a desktop, so a need was never felt in the coming months after that. Add to it that the project kept me involved (prior to me having these room mates (ones owning the laptops) or my room mate buying the desktop) with little time for something else (had forgone my habbit of reading too at that time). So I was all happy and not thinking of buying one until the next millenium, when my company presented me with an onsite opporyunity. Since I was the lone person from the team going and none for company with me in a foreign place my yearnings for laptop had returned. Thought that if no one in the alien land then atleas my laptop will give me company. Again made inquiries to get the least price for the best performing machines of different vendors so one could be chosen. But again none was bought. So here I sit in my office cubicle, typing away using the office PC, using the internet bandwidth allocated for better purposes writing the MUSINGS OF A LAPOTOPLESS IDIOT.

But you never know when the less can become more. Although the LAPTOPMORE term will be downright stupid.

Bus Stand se Airport tak

2007-02-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

How to start the post thats the biggest hurdle I always face while blogging about anything...

Anyways a lots have been happening around me and since its two days since I got net connection in my room I hope to be regular around here... I have shifted to a new house now and its real good... had been living in a pigeon hole kinda house for the past few months since I joined and this house is at least double the size of the previous one... But the best part about the house I like is its proximity to the airport (many people's reaction to this would be are u nuts.... how can u live besides airport and be happy with the noise from planes driving u nuts wen u try to sleep or study for that matter).... but i like it here because airport is the only place in this city which is open 24*7 and i can go for tea or sutta(this thing hadn't been included in the draft version i wrote, but i think its high time that i stopped worrying about others and live the life my way) anytime in the night as i used to in the final year of college...

The life has changed a lot in the past 8 months since i passed out and i have changed myself too in many ways.... But a human being I think can't change himself come whatever may be the situation. He remains the same inside... and that does reflect at the talks I have at airport with the best pal of mine... thank god he lives close by ..

We still talk about the good looking babes that come to airport (this being one of the reason we go there and this was the thing that wouldn't have been possible at the thanjavur bus stand).... about our career paths... how confused I still am about me, my life my relations and what not.... I have made many good friends in the past 8 months, lost touch with so many of them, discussed many things with people who are just there (not total strangers, I won't be able to do that in this lifetime) that I would not have discussed with anybody in this world.... I still get excited about little things in life which give me pleasure and I still get offended at many little things.... I have changed I know, at least exteriorly but i have stopped giving myself the time I deserve , many things hogging my mind....

This post is going nowhere and I look very confused about what I want to write but I just want to write today to get everything out of my system... There is one thing in my life that I really can not face and that is rejection. In the past 4 days I have had two and from completely different spheres of life and it has shattered me too much... the confidence level is low... I have not been able to concentrate on my work and my life is going no where... The decisions I have taken has screwed up my life and I am running some three months late on my plans and since I am not doing anything life is getting screwed up all the more... I have to stop people taking advantage of me, my naivety, my generous nature... I high time I became different( I need to defy my own words that a person doesn't change because I want to... Its really tough for me to say no to people, almost next to impossible but I have to start doing it.... I think the two rejections I have had will influence my life in a very positive manner and I'll make sure that happens....

There is a new chapter opening up in my life... my first on site trip is beckoning me and since I would have nobody for company I can spend some quality time with myself, discuss the my life, my career, my relationships... because when it comes to real things that are close to my heart I can't talk about them with anybody else in the whole wide world... just me... at least I can give some time to myself to understand me....

One more thing is that I would be very regular with my blogs now... It is very good that i am writing today all these stuff... at least the thought process I would have devoted to the trivial matters in my life can be discussed here...

this post turned out to be entirely different then what I intended it to be and I am real glad that I have written down this stuff... anyways i don't want people to be judgmental on this and even if they are i have stopped caring... and if people read it or not I don't give a damn because this blog is for me and not for others.....

Exam midnight belongs to Midnight Club - II

2007-01-13T14:07:00.000-08:00

Claimer/Disclaimer: This post has been waiting for a lot of time. Had been thinking of putting it up for quite some time and there's no reason for its delay because I have been sitting idle at home for past 15 days with no work at all and hogging all of my mom's laad... as his laadla had been back to home first time after earning (More on that in the next post maybe!!!!!)

And for the disclaimer u can read the previous post :)

So getting onto the post now.... Finally (Ppl will be seeing phew!!!)

Ok so in the final year after the escapades of our third year in coll (yeah all of us managed to pass)... We moved out of coll campus... took up our own residence in the city and bid the hostel and all its rules adieu... the place was great and i liked it instatntly (the story of finding it during our peak placement season i think i'll put on hold for now)

In the final sem our own dear HAG joined the bakchod apartments of ours as the next room neighbours (but it was kinda joined place for us 11)... So again started our new obsession with newer game... We had given up the gud ol midnight club coz of the disintegration of our grp in the final year location wise... HAG had given hostel life a chance for one more sem... Two or three of the side artists had shifted to apartments relatively far away from ours and also the game had been completed once during the end of our third year so our obsession had come down with the game....

Ok the newer game we chose to try our hands at was the fav gully game of Indian subcontinent which had been bought to the computer screen by EA SPORTS.... Cricket 2005. With the newer game came newer player in the group... there was VKT(the dept topper, but he had a very minor role.. kinda guest's guest appearence), our beloved BABA(his entire dealings will demand a new blog, me and VKT plan to do that sometime in the future), SHS (another dept topper... but he was involved with us). And the older(not in the sense of age) players involved were yours truly, HAG and GG (the guy with the name synonymous with the father of our nation and yeah u better read and comment).... and once I really missed out on one of my sessional exam because I was up all night playing the game for the first time in my life (In Munnabhai's language bole to mamu life main kuch na kuch kabhi to pahli baar hi hota hai)

Ok so now onto the game.... there were 6 of us but generally the 3 or 4 us played it at a time and no there was no multiplayer option... we used to take our turns with the batting with each one of us allowed to bat till the fall of two wickets which used to happen very quickly and the match nvr used to last till the allotted quota of 10 overs that we used to keep the match length and we did end up on the loosing side most of the time but what the heck.... wat we really enjoyed more was not the game and winning (well it wud hv helped had we won atleast those but we are used to seeing INDIA loosing always) but the constant fights about the turn whos gonna take the batting control next, to put the blame on the others for loosing the game, the GG's irritaion if we wanted to play and he wanted to study or watch a movie (it was his comp and his room btw) and the passion it used to arouse with every four or a six (its not a difficult game after some initial learning phase and whether it be a real game or a virtual one cricket does arouse passion in the Indian crowd generally)... we really used to be such a children back then and its not even a 8 month old story and I really loved it infact we all did.... the grp kind of broke of after the clg... two are in US... one in mumbai, one in chennai and myself in blore.... so 4get abt palying a game of Cric2005 we dont even get to meet each other and hang out... yaar i wish those days were back... with the carefree attitude tht even the exam were not able to deter... ghosh professional life does take out so many things out of yr life... anyways we ppl plan to meet next year at new year maybe and relive those golden days....

MAYBE!!!!!!!!!!

Adieu.... by GARRETT

ps: hey i got a DVD of Midnight Club-II from our very own HAG before he parted his ways with the country to US as a farewell gift from his side due to my previous post... thnx man 4 tht

Life gets up f***ed sometimes

2006-10-08T09:59:00.000-07:00

This post was written a week back but was not able to post it cozof some browser problems
Now there was no use giving the stars there... everybody understands wat i was trying to say with that word and if somebody claims they don't they are some piece of shit about whom I dont care.
Now life gets fu**ed up sometimes... and it especially does when you join an industry which my friend Ba3 so well defined. But even with those instructions the life is sometimes not the way you wish it to be. Ok the fault for this may lie with me also but then that has been the case with me all the time. I fcuk up with the scenarios so well in control of me that the life ends up fcuking me. There may have been thousands of blogs about this and this may be another shit on the same topic but this is my blog and this is what I feel like writing about it at present. I think the expensive coffee at a posh cafe (which another of my fellow blogger Rahul has beautifully written about) does that to you sometimes. After coming so long into the blog I don't understand myself what picture I want to present with the blog. But mainly I am continuing writing this now is for the heck of it. So let me think of a INCIDENT WHICH IS WORTH PUBLISHING....
Deja Vu. The god really has a way out for you everytime you are in trouble. As I was struck with the writer's blog ( the copyright for that goes to Sayesha which I am using without permission, so plese do not sue me) my friend rang me up and told that another friend of mine who is some 10 cubicles away had left his cell at the posh cafe which we had just been to. Now the expedition to get the damn mobile mobile started which is the most expensive one I have got the chance to lay my eyes on, ya gals he is really a rich guy looking for someone:-). He was very much anxious to get his mobile back and the damn lift started playing its petty tricks. Waise BTW why is it that whenever you are in an emergency of like reaching the office on time(which regularly happens) the lift is at its best of ignoring your needs. The lift was stopping at all the floors, even moving to the upper floors which it was not supposed to. Anyways, the lift somehow went back to its normal behaviour and went to the ground floor which we were so anxious to get to. Boy did we have an entertainment there. Now I tell you its very bad to be at the right place at the right time with all the good reasons. There was too much eye candies to be keep track of. The damn mobile saga interrupted the NSP(nain sukh prapti) I was having and we were on our way to the coffee shop to rescue the fellow's mobile from the evil clutches of the maitre d'cafe. It was an uneventful journey ( and you thought that it would end up into a big story hitting the headlines of all the major dailies tomorrow, sorry to disappoint you folks) after that as we ended up inside the cafe with barely 5 minutes of walk and even the maitre d'cafe was not too reluctant to part away with the mobile. So we walked our way back to the lifts. As all the lifts were desserted and at our disposal at the unearthly hour, we decided to take different lifts just to race and we found out that both the lifts operate at the same speed almost (can't be exact as we forgot to compare our timings). So thus ended the mobile chase and I got back and completed this entry.To sign off now folks
Adieu until next time

Exam midnight belongs to Midnight Club

2006-09-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: All the events or opinions belong to the author and in no way has any intention of defaming a or popularizing any organization, title etc etc....

For the unknown midnight club is a game by Rockstar Games, the famous game company which has loads of A rated gaming titles which were the centre of my college life for most part of it and we had a midnight club of our which usually used to put away all the activities like talking about different stuffs ranging from college politics, which guy or gal is goint out with whom, the latest rumours, the college management policies to how some of the people are getting question papers for the exams(this used to be a hot topic for discussion during the exam weeks, which was forgotten soon after the exams were over) to concentrate our energy, mind and life to complete the game.... And since we considered that sleeping during the exam will really effect the grades which we so rightly deserved with the brain GOD had so magnanimously bestowed to us and since we were the people whose grades looked like the college management had done a mistake by halving it directly(okay that was too much, but they were bad).... so we needed a break during the all night study sessions to refresh our minds and get back to books with fervour....

But the reverse always happened.... we used to get back to books as soon as our turn for the play was over and there was a long break to get back to the game coz of the queue people used to line up in front of room number 346 AVto get the chance to play the game coz of the limited number of hardware resource at our disposal

Hey I forgot to introduce the characters that formed our midnight club. To start urs truly GARRETT was always there.... any bakchodi session was not to be missed... How cud it be bcoz that was the thing which defined the existence of life in the moronic city where we survived somehow. Then there was the ever magnanimous HAG whose belongings really belonged literally to everybody except himself... He was a true character in the characteristic sense. Anybody who has met him can have his or her share of explanations and many blog pages can be filled for that so I leave the readers to figure out the things about him somehow thru my writings ( I kno he's gonna kill me after reading the blog and he'll be here next week). The next club member can be more defined as the proud owner of room no 343, AV where people used to break of for their study breaks in between the midnight club runs... now this room had seen a fair share of technical discussion that I think we did... more about the room later though... the room343owner is a short guy with a head which can think and a lazy ass which barely moved in response to the brains query... there was also this guy whose surname was same as our father of nation but idealogies were????(debatable), like me this guy also planned a perfect gpa at the start of the sem but the sam old story was repeated(he's laughed his way to america is another matter though).... and like the bollywood movies there were some side artists and guest appearences too...

To be continued......

Song playing: Dil hum hum kare.... from Rudali

Joined kya????

2006-07-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

so i hv finally joined my first job.... n i hv been answering numerous ppl ki joinin ho gayi kya... kaisi lag rahi company aur uska environment.... kya kaam hai.... job profile kaisa hai.... koi ladki hai ki nahin..... n it seems now tht wat r these ppl asking abt... its only a week tht i hv been in this place n how cud i kno all these things wen i hv been sitting in the conference room n listenin to the blabber of hr ppl abt the change we hv to incorporate within us to move from good ol campus life to the bad shit of corporate life.... n it was just a week b4 tht i had been posing all these ques to my frnds who had joined b4.... life indeed takes a full circle....
anyways i hv been finding the place gud n d ppl i hv met are frndly.... seems like i may be hving a gud time over here.... my only concern being that i hv been put in a different BU then i had wanted... but ill manage wid dat... hv to really start working hard... hv to do the job assigned and learn as well to get my BU changed... lets see where ill be 1 year down d line... hope 2 write gre n hv prepare 4 tht... really my 4 years vaation are over n as my frnd said dat i may hv to cut down on this socializing a bit and concentrate on my career to achive my goals...
so thts it 4 now.... more experiences later

GARRET

Life goes on.....

2006-06-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

ya everybody knows tht life goes on.... so wats new m i gonna write in this post....
this post is all abt how life has been going on wid me 4 some 8 years now,.... the time i hv been in delhi.... but was i really in delhi for the 8 years.... cant say for sure... may be not by body( which was rotting in a hell kinda place called Thanjavur in TN, mostly tht blame goes to it because of the mess food i had to endeavour) but by mind always yes!!!!

Now when ppl move from a small city like benaras to a place lik delhi it takes some time for adjustment... and boy it did take some 3 years for an introvert like me.... and when i m fully adjusted to that place happillly settled working yr way up to a gud engg coll(which by the way only i thought tht my working ways were gud enough) u get bombed knowing that u have not even qualified the initial stage leave abt visiting the coll gate to get admission....

Now after all these things I finally resolve if not the best second best will do and as always I absolve this decion of mine by various factors of life whose blame lays entirely upon me and as always was the case I m grounded.

After this I had two choices, one was to take admission in the course for which I had secured an admission by some miracle of GOD's(even he must have thought why torture the poor souls who goes by the identity GARRETT's parents or who defines the identity which GARRETT has never been able to define for himself) or to sit for one year fooling everyone into thinking that I am gonna make up for the time somehow which I lost himself previously all my life. But no, GARRETT has other plans for himself of studying both and proving himself(his ego kicking him) and alas he proved himself by not getting even closer to the target he had set himself.

Thus starts my nightmarish life in the tiny, remote town called Thanjavur(not entirely true, but u see the Delhi effect comes in), which resembles to me like the MALGUDI of RK NARAYAN.....
Now my resolve making habbit stirs me up again and again the decision to prove myself wherever I am is made...But story is no differrent(the details are left for some other time)...

Now the question arises that when I m back to the silicon city after 9 long years will things change or better still will I try to make them change and this my friends is a million dollar question for me(Nope u ppl dont get anything answering this)

Signing off with hope in heart because hope is a gud thing to have and with Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" in my ears!!!

Until next time

A nice game

2006-06-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

just now finished watching the match argentina vs ivory coast n that really was a very good game.... came as a whiff of fresh air after watching the match between england and paraguay....
didnt see the first half of argentina match but that was surely made up in the 2nd half wid gr8 display from the ivory coast which everybody did expect 2 go down easily.... in the end they did go down 2-1 but they really made argentina work very hard the win...... i dunno who is gonna qualify from this grp of death. With ivory coast showing such gr8 display of futball it can be any of the three argentina, holland or the ivory coast... it really has become the grp of death now.... let us see if ivory coast can continue their gud show in the coming matches...
Also hoping 4 a better performance from england the next time....

And by the way hv got my joinin dt on 17th july... finally intezaar khatam...
aakhiri mahina hai ghar main.... don kno wen again i'll be free 4 such a long time... make most of it

Pappu paas ho gaya

2006-06-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

The final sem results are out and i hv passed al the subjects.... in the topper list is baar... don kno how.... par jab khuda deta hai to chappar phaad ke deta hai....
ab bas joinin dt ka intezaar hai.... del ki garmi se jaldi nikalana hai....
now 2 day was the 2nd day of my drvng class.... was handed the clutch n gear control 4 the first time.... n i feel ki agar i describe my drvng skills it'll be exactly like my dear adrian mole....
got the due treat frm sirjee.... ab to meri baari hai...
aaj bahut purane doston se online mila.... nice feeling yaar..... lets see ki if i m able 2 meet them b4 i go.....
Now i think is the time 2 end the post.... so thats alll

Finally a post

2006-05-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

So finally i am posting my first blog... this comes after some 6 months of thinking that i'll be starting my blog.... i knew it wan't gonna be easy.... but somehow this boredome of not having anything to do has made me 2 start posting.....
Finally coll life's over... outta the place called SASTRA... dunno how those 4 years passed by......
will start working in a month i hope... with all those rumours abt my company i may hv 2 soon start looking 4 a job.... but m positive... need just ayears xp n then maybe do a switch...
and if all goes well a year afterwards go 4 the higher education...
hv loads of work to do b4 joinin.... maybe and hopefully will start learnin 2 drive after postponing it 4 almost 6 years..... hv 2 do the shoppin also... and then the most imp thing hv 2 go 2 vaishno devi... and also study abit... both 4 my job or in case i hv 2 search 4 a job(GOD forbid it)....
Chalo i think the entry's too big 4 the first entry's standard... also hv 2 make this ppt 4 my sis....
signing off with no music 2 give me company!!!!