Cheers Mr. W and Mr. J

One of the things I love about my work is that it provides every now and then the opportunity to visit nice places and meet nice people. Find myself in New Jersey these days, on business, and its been a livening experience so far. Finally got an opportunity to meet RW in person, and he introduced me to a Japanese restaurant in town yesterday. Delicious cuisine that, but the highlight was the conversation more than the food.

RW is a staggeringly senior techie, who’s been around in this industry for over two decades now, and has lived through three generations of computing evolution. Stuff that most people have read about and revered in college textbooks is just the kind of stuff that RW has worked on – punch cards, first generation telex, you name it. The fact that his know-how makes him an engaging conversationalist is perhaps obvious. But what was so livening about talking to him was that it reminded me of conversations I typically have with HJ back home. RW and HJ are very different people with very different professional style and inclinations, but have one thing in common – in spite of their obviously high degree of expertise in their areas of choice, personally you find that both are rooted firmly to the ground, something that perhaps makes them pragmatic and effective mentors.

So, it has been a nice trip thus far – especially the last day. Nice lunch (the salmon was absolute ambrosia), followed by a nice drive to Newark, and finally flew to Boston for a much belated get-to with limbu, tattu and blemiph. Well, plenty more that I could write about, but we plan to go sailing now, and the river with some red winds beckon in earnest…

Murumookan Rajave, Mooku Pokki Nadakalle

Came into office after a nice week-long onam vacation. The good food and payasam hangover is going to last a few days… but, the hangover does not account for what happened today.

Turned up at office at around 1130 hours, grabbed a dose of caffeine, settled my tashreef on the cold seat, stretched my legs, faced the hibernating PC and brought it back to life with a tap on the power button. A few whirs and hiccups later, the agitated machine roared to life and greeted me with a cold hello in the form of the login screen. Remembering the password after a week-long binge hiatus was tough, but a few attempts later the machine relented and offered me passage into its subconscious. Here, I was supposed to be connected not just to the entity of the machine itself, but also to its mother switch attached at the other end of an RJ45 umbilical cord, and thereon to a world of millions of equally frigid bit crunchers.

And then the problem… misunderstanding the week’s absence to be a notice to refrain from paying rents in future, the DHCP landlord had terminated my machine’s lease, and erased all traces of its existence by taking away its christian name – its IP address. With no valid name, and hence no acceptable identity, the PC was immediately rejected by its peers, who would not communicate with it anymore. The machine had to be re-baptized, and alas, the customary offering of an ‘ipconfig /renew’ was not accepted by the authorities.

Thankfully, Bell’s talking machine was still around, and I picked it up and punched the few keys that led to the IT Helpdesk, where I was greeted by a phlegmatic lady, who didn’t seem very impressed with people calling up on a Monday morning to say hello. Here’s how the conversation went:

Helpdesk Lady: HELL-o

Me: Er, I’m so-n-so… have a problem with my network connection. Not getting a valid IP from DHCP.

HL: You need to raise a Helpdesk ticket (grrr… what do these nerds think? Did we put up our web-portal just for aesthetic amusement??!!)

Me: Er, can’t do that… remember, I don’t have a network connection (grrr… she should realize that she’s talking to a geek, who would’ve exhausted all other options before resorting to the phone)

HL: Oh, right! (thanks for being so rude, wise guy…). I’ll send someone over.

Now, while I’m waiting for the good Samaritan IT rescuer to show up, I take another swig at the caffeine, let out a feeble yawn and stretch my limbs once again… and then, almost instantly spot the problem. During the first of my stretching exercises, I’d managed to kick the RJ45 out of its socket, thereby cutting off my poor machine’s umbilical cord. The poor baby was now lost in an isolated world of its own, trying to figure out why the idiot sitting up front insisted that it tried to call mother switch, after sewing its lips shut. Well, anyway, quickly plugged the cable back in, and the world was a happier place again… the circuits were chirping, and my PC almost seemed to be humming a happy tune…

So I quickly called up IT again…

Me: (sheepishly)… Sorry about the earlier call. My lan cable was plugged out… hee hee… You don’t need to send anyone over now…

HL: (Grrr… ) Thanks (for nothing!)

Well, don’t be surprised if you don’t see me in office for a couple of days… I don’t plan to exhibit my face around for sometime.

Dubya Dubya Dubya dot Hitler’s Cross dot kaun?

A new restaurant opened up recently a furlong or so away from where my folks stay in Navi Mumbai. Almost instantaneously it was a top feature on prime time news for all the wrong reasons. The promoter chose to name his eat-house “Hitler’s Cross”. Not surprisingly, the local Jewish community was up in protest, and the eatery was quickly rechristened.

 

But this post is not really about this cavalier means of advertising, but about something a lot more subtle that not many people seem to have noticed. The portrait of Hitler that the eatery used during this ad campaign was not picked out from history books. The portrait was constructed by digitally imprinting a Hitler-style moustache over the face of a powerful world leader of contemporary times. Who? The title of this post gives it away!

 

Was there a more subtle message in this ad campaign… the thought is rather uncanny… the resemblance, even more so…!

Lage Raho Munna Bhai!

Caught the movie yesterday and here’s my review…

 

Solid fillum hai waap… bole to ekdum jhakkas!!!