Sourabh’s blog

It is not everyday that I feel like making a blog entry, so I plan to make the most of this attempt. What follows next are serious views and true happenings posted in an extremely modest, visually unappealing with no sarcastic undertones whatsoever. You have been warned.

It would be customary for me to mention what I have been doing all this while. Frankly nothing. In other things I have successfully managed to stay away from computers for major parts of the last couple of weeks. I considered myself fortunate if I managed to get more than 3 hours of internet and my laptop each day. Power cuts and frequent internet disconnections have helped me in more ways than one for all of this and then some.

My laptop won’t last more than a few months now. So it’s TIME.

I have lost track of all the TV shows that I so loved watching. But the good thing with tv-shows is that, watching them in a heap - back2back - uninterrupted manner is the best way to watch them.

I have set aside some money to get me a nice gadget. In all probability, it would be a decent digicam. Speaking of gadgets, my dad will soon get an iPod with a voice recorder or an iPod along with a dictaphone. How cool is that?

Cricket World Cup 2007 - Nothing seems to be right with it. May be it’s just me, but this has to be one of the most lackluster cricketing events in the recent past. In my opinion, West Indies was a big mistake for the venue. A crowd of 2k in an India game? I seriously think I am right this time. I don’t really care if India makes it to Super Eights or not. I cannot see them winning six in a row matches with the top teams from other groups. That would really be asking for a lot, if you ask me. If they have to go down in the pre-semifinal stages, might as well go down being sorry from the round matches.

Reliance cellphone network is just pathetic. I don’t get half the phone calls due to prevalent network problems. It reports out of coverage area, even when it shows the maximum 5 bars in network strength. Ditching the old 99000 number is the only alternative. But a major part of me doesn’t want to go through the tough ordeal of informing everyone about the number change.

Well to add more, I really appreciate how ASUS goes about with their notebooks. They have been working closely with both the hardware and software industry to incorporate the latest technologies in their notebooks and the result is more than visible. Head over here Affordable Gaming Notebooks competing with the Alienwares and likes, Ultimate ultra-portables giving Thinkpads a run for their money, Desktop Replacements with all the HD DVD and Blu-Ray Jazz, The SideShow W5Fe and ofcourse the ASUS Lamborghini notebooks. Too bad that ASUS has got their act all wrong for their notebook pricing in India.

It is 3:30 AM, Good night.

Wow. All paragraphs would make good individual blog posts. Nice work, Sourabh.

Check out this amazing work done in Photoshop. I can only appreciate the skills of the guy who did this. Fantastic stuff done in less than 3 hours. This has to be one of the better things I have seen on youtube. Enough of the BS, here is the real deal:

Really awesome, 10/10!

If you are wondering who that is in the video, he is John Locke from Lost. Great character in the show played by Terry O’Quinn. I really wonder what Terry would have to say after watching such a freakin fantastic thing dedicated to him.

Oh boy, I am so screwed!

After a month long fling with Windows Vista exploring what the next generation of Windows has in store for me and the bumpy, yet gratifying experience of backing up my data and uninstalling the darn OS somehow - I feel quite happy. The satisfaction and pleasure has nothing to do with the fact that how beautiful, brilliant and innovative Vista was but more from the fact that my laptop ran it just about fine(minus Aero). I couldn’t have asked for anything more from it (the laptop). Although the appreciation should be given to the scalability of Microsoft’s OS on old, aging and dying hardware but I find it easier and a lot soothing to give the credit to this two year old piece of mobile computing device with a 110 seconds battery life. During the uninstallation, my poor luck continued as I lost/damaged/misplaced the XP’s installation CDs. That meant running Ubuntu again, resorting to Automatix2, downloading all the packages to run you through the next couple of days without compromising anything - you know the drill.

It also means now I am back to Genuine Windows XP Professional, its classic theme, minimalistic looks and my beloved list of software applications that I so love to use. Title anyone?

Ladies and Gentlemen, Best Actor in a Television Drama Series 2007 – Hugh Laurie for House. Second time in a row! Congratulations to Hugh Laurie for getting the Golden Globe again. I was probably more nervous than he was till the final results were declared. Now that he has won, I am glad because he deserved every bit of it. There must have been some serious competition between him and Kiefer Sutherland for 24. But in the end, Hugh earned it.

There can be a good show, there can be some great dialogues, there can even be a great story line but to carry off a show like House you need a class act like Hugh Laurie. He is just too good in whatever he does on House. He is just the right guy for the character of House. No one and I mean no one could pull off a better dialogue delivery for his lame, sarcastic, witty, arrogant lines which are unquestionably true every single time. The guy just never fails to impress.

So here’s hoping for another half-a-dozen seasons of House and a million Houseism’s in the future. I would love to see his acceptance speech for the same. People say that it was really funny but sadly it’s not on You Tube yet. It goes something like this,

“I know everyone says they have a wonderful crew and certainly that can’t be the case. We can’t all be wonderful. Somebody somewhere is working with a crew of drunken thieves. But it’s not me. They smell of newly mown grass.”

Life is a bitch. The last few weeks have been really messy. From the post Christmas holidays till date, a lot of things have happened. Sadly, none of them have been pleasant. To ruin my online life, the internet connection has been miserable from the third week of December and it continues to be the same. I have reason to believe the power jack in my laptop has become faulty. The laptop switches to run on battery even when connected to AC power. So, currently I cannot use my laptop for more than 4 hours at a stretch. I get really annoyed and frustrated when anything happens to my laptop. This is the worst time to get a new laptop, so an upgrade is no longer an option. Whether I like it or not, I will have to wait till late May before I could start making plans of my next laptop. SantaRosa and Yokohama are still far, far away.

To add insult to injury, the ASUS CEO (Campus Elite Organisation) interview turned out to be a mere presentation given by them. The whole CEO thing has nothing to do with Computers, Hardware, Technology as you would associate with ASUS. Being a CEO, is what they claim to be MBA of the IT world - minus the degree. But, that is not something which I had in mind when I first appeared for the test. So, frankly speaking I don’t know what to do with it. I feel it would have been a lot better had I not cleared the test.

And well, it doesn’t stop there. To make things worse and cripple my mind with added tension, I received a series of legal notices from Tata Indicom Broadband for alleged non-payment of broadband bills. Although I have everything under the sun to prove the bills raised are completely BS, getting into a legal battle with Tata is something I don’t want to venture in. Although, they are have been ‘generous’ enough so far to accept there has been some error, I would prefer that things get solved out of the court.

As for academics, another semester passed by. So did the vacations. Its time to get back to college.

On brighter side of things, I enjoyed 24. I take this opportunity to thank Raj Anand for sending me the DVDs of all the seasons of 24, without which my holidays would have been very dull to say the least. I really thought I had seen them all - the action/adventure TV shows currently on air. But I was wrong. 24 is the most thrilling, action-adventure television series I have come across over the past 12 months or so. It beats the hell out of Prison Break, Lost, and other similar TV shows. 24 is all about Jack Bauer, a federal agent played by Kiefer Sutherland, saving the country from terrorist attacks. 24 takes continuous heart pounding action, plot twists, no filler, cliff hangers to the next level where you can always expect the unexpected. Really, not even once could I say for sure what the end would be. 24 follows a unique format where an entire season consists of 24 episodes, each episode comprising of a 1 hour of real time action. 5 Seasons, 120 Episodes, 43 minutes each, one after another, all with in a span of less than 10 days! Incidentally the day I finished Season 5 of 24, a few episodes of season 6 have been leaked on the internet. Co-incidence? May be. Nice show. Long live Kiefer Sutherland.

This post is dedicated to all those who have been bugging me for the dead blog. I hope this long post makes up for everything. You really have a lot of patience, if you have made it so far. Thanks and good bye.

Away from home, the only thing I enjoy is sleeping. It had been something which I kept myself aloof from in the past few years until now. A four or max five hours sleep was enough to keep my alive the next day.

Over the past few days, I have been lucky enough to sleep for nearly 10-11 hours a day. And I must admit, sleeping is just awesome. It recharges your system and keeps you interesting in things.. as in a newer, fresher you.

Another couple of days, and home-sweet-home!

Exam fever is on. The past week or so has been completely hopeless to say the least. I have lost all my hopes of a good preparation before an exam. So, I just end up studying a few hours on the examination day. Nothing gives me enough inspiration to start studying for the exams early. I am miserable and I know that.

The question papers are fun. I have been very lucky with them. The joy of seeing you know enough to clear the exam is next to none. Everything above it is a bonus. The only thing I hate about these question papers is:

Assume suitable data if necessary.

When professors who set the exam papers decide to fiddle with that firepower in their armory - there is nothing worse. I have had a hard time with this fact lately. It has probably to do with my study habits to work things out from what is given in problems.

I get a nice month long break after tomorrow’s test. Looking forward to it, as in how to waste it. Good bye.

I must admit this day was an adventurous day of sorts. It is not always that you get to visit the construction site of the tallest building in Mumbai and quite possibly this part of Asia. Being on the edge of the 40 odd floor under contruction wasn’t thrilling enough, the birds eye view of the entire Mumbai was just awesome! You have to see it to believe it. Despite some heavy smog(Mumbai’s pollution!), we could clearly see distant places - like Nehru Planetarium from Mumbai Central!

The project for S.D. Towers, consists of two twin towers, each around 62 odd storeys by S.D. Corporation. (If you think like me, there is no connecting bridge! ‘It is a resendial building’ - I was answered. Our batch of 30 students were well instructed with the project details, construction fundas and the structural design of the same from the contractors - Shapurji Palanji (or is it Shapurji & Pallonji & Co.). The other prominent names with the project include Hafeez Contractor for the Architecture and the Pune based Y.S.Sane for the Structural Design.

That is pretty much it. When I returned home, I was happy to see the Dish TV package getting upgraded. While I was still trying to come to terms with the slew of channels on the full package, I had fallen asleep. When I woke up, it was late evenings and the rain Gods were at it again. The window just behind my desk was left open, and my laptop enjoyed a nice bath. I had to let it dry off for a few hours before I could gather the courage to power it on.

I am done with demonoid. Their so called private trackers no longer excite my download speeds anyway.

All the ongoing torrent from Demonoid trackers are messed up coz of these hash fails. It took me nearly four days to realize this. Shame on me.