Motor problem

My mom and dad had to go to some alumni function organized by my mom's college. I mean where my mom teaches and not where she went to study. 5 minutes after they left, I hear the door bell ring. It was our fridge mechanic. He promptly came in and went straight for the fridge, opened up the freezer and started checking stuff. Now lately the fridge was producing more sound than usual. I thought my parents had called him to fix it. I usually dont know stuff like these. In fact, in the past, it has happened that there was something to be fixed but I did not allow the repairman to come inside, since I did not know that something had to be fixed. This obviously has resulted in loads of unwanted screaming targeted towards me. Hence, I usually act as if I know and let the guy come in. Anyways I recognized the fridge mechanic and allowed him to come in. In fact he was soo eager that he came in even before the door was fully open. I wanted to double check and called my dad about this. He told me that he hadn't called anyone. I came back and this guy goes like.."There seems to be a problem in the motor." I go like "Thanks but we dint call the shop." He was like .. really??..isnt this flat number 120? Thats when I realized the confusion and told him that its 119. Not believing in me!..he continued to ask..isnt this 2275 (some number)?? I was like .. No..really..this is not the flat you are looking for. Anyways, we had a good laugh, he went away and I figured out that there is some problem with the motor in the fridge. All's good.

Foundation Day Celebrations - The award, the songs and the booze

Well..it happened a week ago. I was too lazy to write about it then. The Foundation Day celebration is one of the major events in my office. Its a day of boring presentations, awards, cultural events and the most important part - a booze-filled evening. Its fun. We dont have to work the whole day since we leave the premises at 1:00 pm .. and the time before that we discuss what would our drinking strategy be. This is important because the bar opens at 7:40 and closes at 10:00 (sometimes before if ppl get out of control). Hence, me and my friends decide on how to go about it to make the most of it. As Sumit puts it...increase our CTC. The day began with me getting late to the office since I had to come on my own. I took the metro for the first time to Noida...and damn it was really crowded. There was some space left by the time we reached Sec. 16..but before that, it was jam packed. I met up with Viral and Rajesh at Sec. 18 and we took an auto to the office from there. The office was in a festive mood..not many ppl were glued to their seats working on the machines like usual. We had an elongated coffee time and soon it was time for me to leave for the venue since I was performing with my band Segfault. Segfault is basically just me and Alesh and bunch of volunteer singers. Come to think of it, its just the volunteer singers with me and Alesh playing for them. The set list consisted of the folksy song "Country Road", some other "popular" Hindi songs - Wake up Sid, Hai Junoon and a "remixed" version of We will Rock you. Remixed because it had hindi songs bits in the middle of We will rock you. Although it sounds bad but it wasnt that bad. Anyways we practised with the sound at the conference room and we were pretty happy with it. However the cultural event was outside and hence there was this feeling that there would be last minute glitches...and trust me what happened with me and Alesh was a more than a glitch. Anyways, the conference began...there were presentations from the top management, some ppl from NEC and stuff. There was a break for tea where I ate a lot of cakes. Back inside, the award ceremony went underway. I managed to get two awards - one for the L3Switch team - the project which literally made me spent my days and nights in the office and the other for a category known as a Team Player. Happy with all of this, it was soon time for the cultural events. We were up last. First up were the Japanese interpreter/translation team with their trademark Japanese songs. Thats when I realized we would suck since the sound was terrible. We took the stage after 20 minutes..and started off with Country roads. Barely into the song.. my vocalist forgot to sing into the mic and she was singing with her mic in her hands beside her waist!!. I kept shouting "Sing into the mic...sing into the mic". She finally heard me and started singing again (all out of tune)..but by that time, the chorus who were singing into the mic had messed up the song. Hence there wasnt much that could have been done! It was soo bad! Next up was Hai Junoon. The singer went into fast forward. The song ended up being twice as fast as the original....and to make matters worst, my mic suddenly went off. So it was just the vocalist who started singing the same stanzas again and again!! Next up was Wake up sid. It was going well..till again my mic went off midway into the song. It was hell...we finished up We will rock you without my guitar because nobody actually waited for me to plug in. They started without my go ahead! One can hear ppl shouting "Ruk jaao..ruk jaoo..Rakesh ka guitar kharaab ho gaya!!" in one of the videos. Nevertheless it was all over in about 20 minutes. I had had enough..and was dying for a drink. I spent the rest of the night boozing and dancing with my friends, colleagues, managers..basically everyone there. As expected, the bar was about to close early since some ppl had some pent up frustrations within themselves which they couldn't hold and vented it publicly. We had our dinner and the cab ride back home was bad. The cab guy was drunk and out. There was a lot of mismanagement and there were cabs which were empty and there were cabs which had 12 ppl in them. I, sadly, was in the 12 ppl category. I finally got back at about 11:30 and straightaway went to sleep. It was kinda sucky this year..I couldn't enjoy much because my mood was off thanks to the sucky performance on stage..although really happy with those 2 awards..it was kinda cool.

The Demosquitonator

My dad bought this "racket" from the local market which electrocutes mosquitoes which come in contact with it. Its really fun to use...and apparently a nice workout too. Its like playing badminton..instead of hitting the shuttle, you hit mosquitoes. Its more fun though, because in badminton, the shuttle doesn't burn up, but here, the mosquito does. Hell you can smell the protein burning when a mosquito gets electrocuted. Sometimes they die a real tragic death..they get electrocuted first and upon receiving the electric jolt, they bounce back into the electric mesh again to receive another shock and this repeats till they BURN in totality (*evil laugh*)! Its like a fatality in Mortal Kombat for the mosquitoes! Me and dad have taken the battle back to the mosquitoes. We spend close to half an hour finishing each one of them in the evening. Most of them stick to the ceiling away from our reach. Hence, we have to make use of le old desi household broom and poke them. This makes them fly to some other place which buys us some time to jump and finish them off. You can also "play" doubles..in the sense that one guy can use the broom and the other can strike the racket. I dont care how cruel or evil I sound .. but these days me and dad are trying out new skills like the backhand, the jump shot and the sneak attack. The sneak attack is when you slowly place the racket on top of the mosquito without it realizing it. Its not showy but its classy. Its definitely a healthier way to ward off mosquitoes...it takes effort..but its better than inhaling the fumes of those mosquito sprays.

Xbox's alive

I finally got the time to get my Xbox repaired and buy some new games as well. I am now a proud owner of Batman - Arkham Asylum and Fifa 2K10. I spent hours last night playing 'em both. Fifa has come a long way. The new controls actually remove the need for a separate buttons for tricks..the joystick is soo responsive that the dribble-stop is effortless. Batman - Arkham Asylum is really pretty with its comic-like artwork and animation. The Detective mode is awesome..wherein you can interact with the environment in a much better way since it shows you important information about the objects you might be interested in like grapple points and vital stats of your enemies. The stealth is awesome..you can do tricks like hang down from Gargoyles and take out enemies silently. At any point of time when you are falling down you can fire the grapple gun and climb to safety. It gets your adrenaline going...since you need to act fast and everything happens in seconds..its really cool. The AI too is awesome.
I had got the RROD on my Xbox while playing Gears 2 a few months back. It is a heat sink problem which is pretty common for an Xbox 360 owner considering so much information on the net!! Hell..there's a RROD fix pack on sale which can be bought by those suffering from it! The processor overheats and the thermal fluid actually leaks onto the processor. I hope it does re-occur again since the repair guys dint promise me that the fix is permanent. I am always nervous while using it..atleast for the time being. Anyways hope it lasts long or atleast till there's something cooler than the 360 in the market.

Funny Story

It was a nice family evening yesterday..everyone was home, sipping their drinks and mom started off with some really funny anecdotes about hilarious answer sheets. There was this one time in some economics numerical, her student wrote the most hilarious statement known to man. Apparently he might have been cheating from the guy in front. An intermediate step in the numerical involved calculating factorial of 3, the result of which was used subsequently in the next step. Anyways but the guy who was solving it, wrote 31 = 6 instead of 3! = 6 i.e. he forgot to write the "." in the factorial sign. Hence the guy who was copying it wrote 31 = 6 and suddenly started wondering..how the hell can 31 be equal to 6??!! And obviously the guy who solved the problem did not see a reason to explain why 3! (remember..without the ".") is 6. Hence, he did not write anything. The guy who was copying it, thought..he should supplement this step with some explanation and hence wrote

31 = 6 (Because, sometimes 31 = 6)

Damn! I wanna be a teacher!

All hail the metro

Wow..the metro is here! I woke up to the sweet (?) sound of chuga-chuga-chuga-chuga sharp at 6:30 am in the morning. I am pretty much sure that I would hate it in a few months time ...nevertheless..public transport is never gonna be the same again. No rush hour traffic jams..or the merciless heat..I plan to find a way to go to the office (and subsequently to Superstars) via the brand new metro which was inaugurated yesterday. It goes up till Noida Sec-31 after passing Sec-16 and Sec-18..the more popular stops. Its the first time it leaves the capital and enters another state. And the U.P. wallahs celebrated in style by mobbing the stations..breaking some railings and getting down right on the tracks and dancing and "welcoming" the metro. It was soo funny...and also a bit disturbing. No other country would have seen the scenes I saw on TV yesterday. A huge mob rushing...pushing their way through to catch a glimpse of the metro train. Screw the yellow line..they wanted to see it up close..and hence came down to the rail tracks..much to the helplessness of the poor police wallah wondering what the hell is wrong with them! Anyways I just hope the metro lasts long cuz one of my friends said that people were soo "happy" with the metro that they broke one of the railings on one of the stations! Jeez..the things people do sometimes makes me feel we dont deserve all this. Anyways but its here..and I hope it stays!

Why are we like the way we are!

Episode 1
This happened on Thursday. My office timings had changed to 8:30 am. Since I go to the gym at the office itself, I usually start at 7:30 from my house. The roads at these times are generally empty. Its a nice time to ride a bike. Anyways, there's a red light as soon as we enter Noida. Normally during rush hours its pretty common to ride on when the signal has just turned red and stuff since you are in a hurry and there's loads of traffic honking and sh*t. I usually "try" and follow traffic rules as much as I can. I was about to cross the signal, when it turned red. I stopped. There was this car behind who didnt like the idea. He kept honking and honking...I tried to ignore him as much as I can. There was plenty of space on both the sides...I mean how much space can a bike take on the road. Anyways I heard him calling out to "me" from his window. I looked back to see a scowl on his face.. really angry and asked me to move on. I politely showed him the signal...to which he even more politely showed me the finger!!! I was like .. whats the problem with you man..and with my hands I directed that he could go around me and turned around. He honked a bit more but I did not relent. He finally went dangerously close to me ..hair length away..and showed me more of his fingers. Damn he really loved that middle finger of his. I gave him a smile when he went by. I was really upset on the inside though. Soon the signal turned green and I was on my way again really thinking what did I do to deserve his wrath.

Episode 2
Same night, it was about 11 I guess, when I was in the lift. I got a call on my cellphone. I thought it must be from my home but it was from Viral. I picked up and the first words I heard was "Rakesh!......Me and Abhijeet met with an accident!" I was scared sh*t. Both of them left together on Viral's bike some time before us. Bike accidents are really ugly. He said that the Sec-18 flyover was being repaired and there were these li'l pebbles strewn around the road. He skidded on this and fell down really bad. Thankfully there wasn't any traffic...they could have been crushed under some other vehicle. Anyways they were waiting for my other friend Jain to come. They were sitting on the footpath in pain. Myself, Partha and Heera rushed to the spot with our bikes and I thought of giving him a lecture to drive slowly! However when I reached the spot I saw soo many of these pebbles covering the entire road. I myself was about to skid..had I not known about this earlier. It was scary...hell..while waiting for Jain, we ourselves saw other cars skidding!! However Viral and Abhijeet were safe. Abhijeet had got some nasty bruises on his legs..and Viral had pain on his butts ( :D ). We could afford to have a li'l laugh at him about this since they weren't hurt that much. But we came to know from other ppl on the road that there were about 5 more accidents. To top it all Viral said that they put the "Work in progress" sign board AFTER their accident!! Damn..it took 6 accidents for the repairmen to realize that they should post their f*ckin signboard!!

Back home after going to the hospital to get them checked up, I couldn't help thinking about the day I had as I lay down on my bed. Why are we like this? Its time we grow up! We have a long way to go..screw economic development...we should improve ourselves first!

Getting better

I ran a 5K for the first time after my injury. As of now, there seems to be no problem. I covered the distance without any pain..except for my left ankle..but it went away a few minutes after I stopped..so I dont think thats a problem. I was a bit slow..running at 8.5 kmph since I did not wanted to strain that much. Hopefully tomorrow's gonna be good as well. My office timings changed to 8:30 am till 5:30 pm which is kinda good. In case I miss running in the morning..I have an extra hour in the evening as a backup. Nothing more to add..hopefully I would be doing my 10K next week.