Thursday, July 30, 2009

Trainspotting

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

The lines above are the reason this post came into existence. (But in that post.. there was nothing sarcastic.. only the idea of itemization of everyday things was borrowed)

By the way, I never knew there was a second half to the above thing.

So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers, all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person, but that's going to change, I'm going to change. This is the last of this sort of thing. I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm going to be just like you: the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisurewear, luggage, three-piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing the gutters, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die.

If this was there in the original movie, I don't remember it at all.
Just one of those things that are really huge to tweet.
Random post. Real heavy lines though.
Hail John Hodge.

Gmail: Set status here [Part 2]

After having seriously considered putting up a blank post tagged Life is still like that, for about 10 minutes, I thought since all the gchat status message space is being occupied these days... I would just put up random lines here that probably might have been put up there:

These follow no particular order. They make no particular sense too.
  • Been to Hyderabad. Attended cousin sister's wedding. Came back. That's about all that happened.
  • Read the Watchmen comics. The only non-manga comics till now. Liked them better than the movie. The movie wasn't that bad to be fair too.
  • Read Ender's Game. Best science fiction I have read till now. Though the only others I remember reading are Asimov's 'A Child of Time' and Arthur Clarke's '3001, The Final Odyssey'. I do remember reading a book about sci-fi short stories, but its too far into the past and all too vague.
  • Saw Harry Potter -and the Half Blood Prince in Inox, Forum. Liked Ron and Luna's acting. Liked the scene with the fire and Inferi in the end. The rest of the movie was trash. Re-reading the book to get over it.
  • One Piece and Bleach manga are reaching amazing heights these days. And if you in any way like anime or manga, I would really recommend that you start on these. Naruto Shippuden is not too bad too. But the first two over shadow this.
  • Been watching a lot of Joe Odagiri's movies. Yet to see one movie of his which was not downright brilliant. Saw Dream last. New respect for the dude.
  • Watched the second season of Black Lagoon. Hate that they stopped at that. It was really good.
  • Started watching Samurai Deeper Kyo. Seems better than Buso Renkin. But still don't feel it measures in any way up to most other anime series that I have seen
  • Read A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follet. The last paper back I read. Again, since I mostly used to read bits of it on the bus, and it was not all in one sitting, it didn't feel all that great.
  • Have a Wilbur Smith(Wild Justice) and a Arthur Hailey (In High Places) now. Yet to start either. Miss reading books in one sitting.
  • Saw the trailer for Dexter 4. Hate that no decent serials restart in the near future.
  • Listening to Tool after a long time. Sounds good.
  • And from 11:10 pm to 11:17 pm these are the only things that came into the mind.
  • Life goes on.
  • Sigh!
PS: Gmail: Set Status Here was posted April 16th,2008. Thus the [Part 2] in the title.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Evacuation Drill - Advance Notification

And there was a mail titled: "Evacuation Drill - Advance Notification" about a couple of days ago.

Since this has been about the most `happening' thing here for a while now; and since this usually involves some movement away from the well set route from the main building to the cubicle; and since it has been a long time since the last post and waiting for some divine inspiration seems like a waste of time; and since this is compilation time plus since this monitor is a CRT, and also since there is no decent room among the aisles to follow this advice... [The alt-text in the original strip reads: "'Are you stealing those LCDs?' 'Yeah, but I'm doing it while my code compiles.'"]
... I created a new virtual desktop, named it Arbits, invoked MS Word from Linux and started from - "And there was a mail...".

As the story goes, It was just another Thursday yesterday. For all practical purposes, it could have been a Tuesday, and none the wiser. This would be the direct result of all the working days mashing into one entity called the Weekday. And then there is the Weekend entity. And thus the week is constituted.
I digress. For good reason though.

As stated, it was just another Thursday yesterday. It was the compilation time again. I had decided to use it to return a library book that I had borrowed. The only purpose the book had served, for about three months, was to add about 138 gms to my bag, but since I had got a much thicker Ken Follet novel - 'A Dangerous Fortune', after serious thought, decided to let this one go.

Along the way from the library, I met with a few people who were on the way to play table tennis, and I decided to go along. We went all the way there, through the drizzle that was falling from the heavens all around us, and just as we managed to find some rackets that could be remotely identified, from a few angles, as being used to play table tennis at some point of time in their lifetimes; this guard runs up to us and says that the centre needs to be closed down as there is a Fire Drill in the main building - which is a five minutes walk away. I go that place to play after more than a month, and I get shooed away because of the fear of a fake fire spreading to an unconnected building, two furlongs way, through the now steadily falling downpour.

The best part was when, moments before we were ushered out, another guard ran into the changing rooms, and together both guards started banging on the door of this dude who was having a bath inside. It's a pity that I couldn't stay to watch the person's expression, as he was kicked off half way through his shower.

I spent the evacuated time sitting near the parking lot, under a sheet roof, watching the rain fall on the parked cars, and waiting for some guard to call me off from there, as evacuation protocol dictates, in no unclear terms, that all personnel should gather only at the front of the building. Mostly, since they were all too busy fighting invisible flames, or pasting post-it notes, all of which were scribbled with the grim message "Evacuation - Fire Alarm. Do Not Enter" on everything that can be called as doors or windows, I was left undisturbed.

Anyway.. the story ends with the guys coming back to play fifteen minutes later, under one huge umbrella, and me joining them... But that would be tagged 'digression' again.

Guess this is enough build-up to copy paste the mail that I had sent to the new hire email group, about a year ago, after a very similar fire drill exercise. The compilation should be done in another few minutes anyway.

The mail follows:
________________________________________
Subject: Re: Rescue Operations - Part 2
From: "P N, Aniruddha"
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 21:29:47 +0530
To: [all new hires]

Things learned:

0. In case of a real fire - DO NOT use the stairs immediately.
a. Sleepwalking snails cover the same distance in a shorter time period.
b. It is just a stampede waiting to happen
c. The fire alarms are really loud, and most of those seem to be concentrated near the stairs
d. The surrounding people are good conductors of fire

So, this is what you do:
Relax in your cubicle and think of a good status message along the lines of 'brb.. building in flames'; check the latest news; random xkcd, or whatever else makes you happy - till the smoke gets so thick that you can no longer see the monitor -

Then:
1. Take the lift. Feel real happy because for once at least you can look at something else except your shoes or your mobile
2. If 1 is not an option, get to the terrace and wait for a fireman with a makeshift ladder - it is way cooler to get down that way.
3. None of the above + no other creative ideas - like using ropes and imitating Tarzan, using Sharingan imitating Sasuke etc. + then give up, put on some music to shut out the sound of alarms, sigh and go to 0.
[But by now a., b., and d. are taken care off - so it's a 75% better situation]

:P

Happy weekend ya'all,

Kampai,
Aniruddha P N

Statutory Warning: All described actions to be carried out at your own risk

PS: I thought of putting a J at the end of the mail, but I figured a warning would serve a better purpose.
___________________________________________________________
In response to:
________________________________________
From:
[undisclosed sender]
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 4:39 AM
To: [all new hires]
Subject: Rescue Operations

Can some one summarize how many people got affected due to the emergency? How many got rescued with no injuries etc
________________________________________