Nirenjan’s Space

I was volunteered for showing a group of tsunami relief volunteers from somewhere in the north around the city. Their train leaves at only 10 pm tonight. So I found myself at 3 pm inside the Mahindra van with Nisant, Sunil, Anil, Kamal and Shyam, heading for Sangeetha’s in R. A. Puram to grab some grub. The only problem I had was communicating with them. They knew only Hindi, and my fluency in Hindi leaves much to be desired. But somehow I managed without dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.

After lunch, we headed for the Universal Temple of Peace on R. K. Mutt Road and spent a silent half hour there, after which, we proceeded to the Kapaleeshwarar Temple in Mylapore. I could go on and on and on about the temple but I’m sure that more justice would be done by somebody else who has already written about it. Anyway, by the time we left the temple, it was just 4.50. So much time, so little to do.

So, we went over to the Sai Baba temple nearby. A quick trip round the temple and back into the van, this time heading for the Parthasarathy temple in Triplicane. After another trip around the temple, we boarded the van and headed towards MAC Stadium. Didn’t actually stop there though, and just told them the name of the place. We also went past Ritchie Street, wearing an absolutely dead look (being a Sunday). From the blank expressions on their faces, I’m sure my Hinglish was found wanting.

Finally I dropped them off at Central at about 6 and while I was trying to thank them for coming so far and doing so much help, they were trying to thank me! Now I’m back home, where the van has dropped me and back to my version of “Battle Control Online”

Just back from the Light Music show at Saarang 2005, IIT Madras. Although KK was singing mostly Hindi songs, it started to get more interesting towards the end. My favourite was his rendering of Uyirin Uyire from Khaaka Khaaka

I was working on the project when all of a sudden, my project manager comes and asks me, “Nirenjan, wasn’t it your birthday yesterday?”. I simply nodded yes, and was surprised to see the entire project team waiting there with a bouquet of roses and a card. Very nice…

Bad cold and mild fever.

Phone calls and SMSes, even from the US…

Skipped office

Lunch and dinner at home, to rest an ailing body

Birthday cake with the family

Not my best birthday, but had fun, nevertheless…

The act by Army personnel, throwing innocent passengers out of the bogey, is absolutely shocking. From what I read in the papers, the passengers had a legitimate ticket for that bogey and that most of the bogey was unoccupied. The Army men said that they could not board since they (the Army personnel) had weapons and sensitive documents. When the passengers objected, the Army men threw them out in the path of an oncoming train and were overrun and killed. If the Army can perform outrageous acts like this, then what will become of the country?

The Hindu carried a nice article yesterday on the nature of software testing. The title perfectly reflects my own take on testing - the necessary evil.

I’m one of those guys who’s just crazy about ringtones. I like so many tones that I’ve grouped my different contacts together and assigned a different tone to each contact. Just have a look at the groups…

007 Theme music for my colleagues, Mission: Impossible for my friends, Baby Elephant Walk (from the movie Hatari) for my family, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly tune for VIPs, Lone Ranger theme for fellow Bloggers, Pink panther theme music for others, and Star Wars: Imperial March for the boss…

After a couple of days of downtime, my internet is finally back online - BSNL Broadband, quite fast and dirt cheap - comparitively.

One good thing about these holidays like Pongal and Deepavali, the TV networks put on superb movies all through the weekend. Yesterday, I was enjoying Kamalahassan in Thenali, and Sun also telecast Kadhal Konden, and today evening, I enjoyed one of my favourite Rajnikanth movies - Padayappa. Too bad there’s no interesting movie tomorrow.

One good thing is that I’ve got my mom to use Linux, even if it is only for the games. Last night, she was bent on getting a high score in one of those games, I forget which.

After 5 hours, I’ve finally managed to get the damned OS installed, however, although Linux detects both my soundcard and ethernet card, neither of them work. I’m considering replacing the ethernet atleast for now, and later I’ll worry about the soundcard.

I’ve started installing Red Hat Linux 9 on my old computer. The config is Pentium II 233 MHz, 128 MB SD RAM, 10 GB Hard Disk, 8x 4x 32x CD Writer, Not Working Floppy Drive, etc. An ancient machine by any standards, it’s already been over 4 hours and the install shows no sign of finishing any time soon.

I’ve been putting on quite a bit of weight over the past few months and came to the shocking realization that I am slowly, but surely, getting overweight. I’d better start my morning walks…

This came as a bit of a shock to me. When I got back home from office, my mom asked me, “When did you lose your mobile?” I was a little puzzled until I remembered. The bigger surprise was that my mom never read my blog, Ram, chief of Samanvaya, read it and told her. Goody, more readers for my blog.

In 1993, the Delhi police apprehended a crook selling pirated software on those old archaic 5.25″ floppy disks. The entire department was jubilated since this was the first time that a cyber crime had been cracked. The floppies were sent to the archives for preserving the evidence. The archivers, ever helpful, punched a hole through the floppies, tied a thick green string around them, and pushed them into an old paper file!!!

Note:This actually came in the editorial of this month’s Digit. I just had to share it with the world.