Windy Days

Pirates of the Mediterranean

danvirion — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:58:18 +0000

They swooped aboard like vengeful vultures upon ships sailing in international waters – killed a few, kidnapped the rest and appropriated the cargo. Somailian Pirates, you would’ve thought, or maybe Francis Drake, Blackbeard et al? Actually, much worse – Israeli Defense forces.

Now, now… I’m no expert on Middle-east politics or diplomacy. Neither am I a Hamas supporter, or someone who is convinced that the democratically elected governing body on the Gaza strip are a bunch of angels. But there is something so vile, disgusting and inhuman about the economic blockade of human beings trapped in the strip, that the incident with the Turkish flotilla has simply outraged me enough to break blog silence.

Big deal, you might say! True, tis no big deal indeed… a million inconsequential bloggers ranting out their views would perhaps make no difference. On the other hand a few power-wielding hands rested comfortably on mahogany tables across the world, who wield the writ force of apparently humane governments and leagues of righteous nations could make a difference, and could certainly do more than say- “Regret the unfortunate loss of lives”.

P.S. The nine individuals slayed atop the flotilla may be proven to be terrorists yet, through might of evidence, or simply evidence of might. I am sure the humane governments and leagues of righteous nations equally “Regret the unfortunate loss of lives” – the lives lost daily of children and other hapless ‘collateral’, being gradually bled to death in the friendly neighbourhood open-air prison.

On the comeback trail…

danvirion — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:40:05 +0000

Much water has flown under the bridge since the last post I made here, and much of my writing skills have flown along too, which is why I decided to start with plagiarising from Karram’s post.

I think I mite have changed things too… the life in Bangalore, family and friends, the fun times seem an almost distant memory now. D would say “What life in Bangalore! you had no life in Bangalore, except your work life!”. D would be right, and so I guess change does bring in some niceties too.

Before any of the thousands of readers of this space (a one too many in that figure) start wondering where this rambling is going, well I just moved to Newbury, Berkshire. For those of you who flunked regular on geography, tis a small hamlet about 50 miles from London, polishing itself up a bit these days and trying to pass for a town. Life here so far, is well, boring… the way D puts it, now that i’ve left my hectic schedules in Bangalore behind, I probably do no know what I should do with all the spare time.

Well, D isn’t here yet, and thats a shame, cos this place seems inviting for a nice walk or two, and we do love to walk. So I guess, for now, i’ll try and make a quick dive down that bridge, and check if there’s some splinters that can be retrieved…

Off to Ladakh

danvirion — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:38:42 +0000

K and I are off to Ladakh this weekend… we’ve been planning this trip for ages now, and it finally seems to be happening

Now, for various reasons, including lethargy, I’ve not been writing in this space for a while now… but there’s hopefully a lengthy travelogue of happy adventures coming quite soon.

er, if that doesn’t happen in a cpl of week’s time, could someone pls send a plea to the President informing the esteemed dignitary that two innocent civilians might inadvertantly be languishing in a POW camp somewhere in Pakistan or China. Come to think of it, pls wait till the next President is elected… we don’t want that plea to be lost in the packing boxes when the incumbent at Rashtrapati Bhavan moves out.

Tu-u Khwab’ Saja

danvirion — Mon, 14 May 2007 08:56:08 +0000

Saw “Life in a Metro” yesterday - a nice, though not exceptional movie. I loved it because of the beautiful songs, the locations, some of which reminded me deeply of life back in Mumbai, and because of the Irrfan-Konkona plot, which was fascinating and hilarious (though a bit melodramatic towards the climax).

The other characters/plots did provide food for thought, but then the darkness was a little overstretched, and one had trouble identifying with them as real people. Cos honestly, no one, espc no one living in a crowded, time-killing metro has the patience or stamina to be dishonest all the time.

Some of the locations and moments in the movie were fabulous – the BEST buses, the tricky issues if your date accompanies you in a general compartment, walking in cats-n-dogs rain – those were nostalgia kick-starters for sure.

The songs have a haunting effect, and not going to stop running in my head for a week or two at least… In Dino, Dil Mera… hm hm hm hm…

In a Voodoo Hex

danvirion — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:21:39 +0000

Someone cursed me yesterday! The person who cursed me, had plenty of reason to do so, cos i’d done or said somethings that weren’t very kind. In my only defence, I was being pretty honest… not a very good defense though, since things were so muddled in my head, that everything that spilled out must have been vague.

Anyway, the curse had an immediate effect, and in the course of a couple of hours the foll. things happened:

1. On the volleyball court, one of the spikers, in the grip of a parallax error spiked my fingers instead of the ball, leaving two swollen fingers and a badly jarred elbow.

2. At work, one of our IBM servers crashed… under the influence of Murphy of course, just one day prior to a critical delivery.

3. On my way home, the rubber catch around my car’s stick shift broke off.

4. Got home pretty tired and beat, only to realise that I’d missed paying the electricity bill, and the electricity board had decided to snap my connection and plunge me into greater darkness.

5. And to top it all, my cellphone’s display conked off.

Well, suffice to say that its been a day that I will not be singing epilogues about for any time to come.

ps. Actually, its pretty mean to think of all the above to be a result of C’s curses… xept, if it were really that, it would be very typical of C, in that, none of these things hurt me in any significant way. Almost like a few ant bites

Superheroes

danvirion — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 19:24:53 +0000

Some superheroes i’ll always remain a big fan of:

Sabu – For those of you who remember Chacha Chowdhary’s sidekick, each time this goliath lost his temper, a volcano would erupt on Jupiter. How cool is that!

Cohen the Barbarian – As barbaric as his hollywood alter-ego, but also loaded with sarcasm, thanks to Prachett’s genius. Now, a barbarian who can kill with sarcasm is a true menace.

Jayan – What? Don’t agree that he was a superhero? All I can say is “pathu-iruvadu truck tyresum, oru valiya parambum, naalu pottu-kinarum kittiyurengil, carommmsss kalikyamayirunnu!”

Wonderwoman – drool :-p

Snoopy - Now he’s the real superhero. A sportstar, lawyer, poet, world war II ace pilot, all rolled into one.

And last, but certainly not the least, a superhero with a really great sense of humour – Captain Super Swift of the Boston Duck Tours… if you haven’t had the chance to run into him, definitely recommend that you do sometime.

Sour Grapes, continued…

danvirion — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 05:47:41 +0000

Cheenti mailed in a sequel to that story… as always, love ur perspective cheenti!

————————————————————-

The story continues…

….the dear fox one fine day was passing by the same
vineyard…surprised to see another fox relishing away the bunch of
grapes…quite astonished he interrogated…hey buddy aren’t they sour? No
they are the best answered the oth fox…The best? That’s
surprising…cause I found them very sour….

Well buddy…answered the oth fox…the first time I had them found them
sour too…but I sat below the vine and thought to myself…Grapes are
my favourite..cant do without them…should do something to make them
sweet! Then I started caring for it…protected it..made it feel
secure…gave it my heart… then realized all this CAN make a
difference…n see today I am enjoying on the sweetest of grapes I’v
ever had….u give in and you get is what I believe in…

But why did you give up soon?…was it jus a temporary temptation?…

Well..all the best with chasing the rabbits…

Sour Grapes

danvirion — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 19:54:01 +0000

“Sour Grapes!”, shrugged the Fox, as he made its way out of the vineyard…

But he wasn’t convinced. As he trotted through the edge of the woods, he knew deep within that what he had left behind were the sweetest grapes he would ever find. Pangs of anguish gripped his heart, and he found himself wandering aimlessly through the woods. All he could think of were those sweet grapes, the sweetest of grapes! These woods that were his home, and had been his home for years now seemed alien, hostile even – he felt that in losing the grapes, he had lost the very meaning of his existence.

The Fox did not sleep that night. All attempts to lose himself to torpidity were disturbed by troubling dreams. By the break of dawn, the Fox knew that he must have those grapes, or peace as he knew it was lost forever. With a sense of renewed determination, desperation some would say, the Fox made his way back to the vineyard, and found himself standing in the verisame hallowed ground, right under the luscious bunch of heavenly grapes. It was then, that the Fox felt the smile of God fall upon him. It fell in the shape of tiny dew drops, which had been falling all morning, and in the process weighed down upon the vines, so that the grapes now drooped a few inches lower than they had the previous night. This was just the kind of luck the Fox needed. With the vine a few inches lower, and with his own determination spurring him a few inches higher, the Fox, in one mighty leap snapped the entire bunch off the vine. And, then as he bit into the bunch with one greedy snap, it was like a moment of Nirvana! It was indeed a true moment of enlightenment, as the Fox realized – the damn grapes were sour!!

Foxes since date have pretty much stuck to rabbits and such…

Disaster Recovery

danvirion — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 10:55:54 +0000

Far far away, and a few thousand light beers ago, there lived a novice System Administrator named Baja Dey. Baja was in the process of being initated to the world of System Administratorgiri by Dr. Root, his guru and mentor, and an expert from the world of Kyu-nix systems. One fine autumn afternoon, a not-so-innocent bystander evesdropping upon our Kyu-nix expert and wannabe, would have observed Dr. Root educating Baja on the intricacies of Disaster Recovery.

Dr. Root: So Baja, I’ve run you through the works. Now you tell me… how do we setup a DR plan for this critical development server?

Baja: Guruji, first we’ll do a weekly tape backup of the server, followed by daily incremental backups. Then we ship the weekly tapes offsite, and the daily tapes to a remote lab onsite… blah blah blah…

Well, don’t have to bore you will all the details. You probably are aware of how a Disaster Recovery plan works.

Anyway, Dr. Root liked Baja’s plan. Even though a rookie, this boy showed promise, Dr. Root thought to himself. Satisfied that the Disaster Recovery Plan was in good hands, Dr. Root walked away and buried himself into the world of core dumps and kernels that needed a debugging.

Things were peaceful in System Administrator world until one day, when the development server finally crashed after months of abuse. This was it… this was the moment when the Rookie’s Disaster Recovery Plan would be put to test!

Dr. Root: Baja! This is your day of reckoning! Out with those tapes my son. Show them your magic.

Baja: Roger that Guruji! Should I call for the offsite tapes right away?

Dr. Root: Absolutely! And, while we are waiting for them tapes, let’s backup all the disks that are still accessible and send them offsite. Just so we have redundant backup.

Baja: Aye Aye Sir!

One hour later… A petrified Baja is seen running to Dr. Root’s desk.

Baja: Er, Guruji, we have a problem.

Dr. Root: Out with it my boy!

Baja: Er, the van carrying today’s backup offsite crashed with the van that was shipping the offsite tapes back!

Dr. Root: Oops… we seem to have got ourselves in a bit of a tangle.

Baja: er, yes sir… to be precise, two magnetic tape lengths of a tangle…

—————————————————————-

p.s. While this is not relevant to the story, a conversation that Dr. Root had with the lead developer later that day went like this:

Dr. Root: Er, we lost the backups. Can’t restore your code.

Lead Developer: Thanks!

Dr. Root: Yeah sure! Be sarcastic!

Lead Developer: No Really! I mean it! Did you really think we wanted all those disasters we’d coded in recovered! Thank god for small mercies! Phew!

Poor Mr. Retail Invester

danvirion — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:40:02 +0000

The Board of Directors of Beating-Arose Ltd, of which I am a share holder informed me today by means of postal correspondence of their intention to appoint Mr. Sun-naiyo Khoobayyashi as a Damaging Director. Further, they politely averred to a side-effect this would have on my dividend in the forthcoming years, since this appointment would entail redirecting a fraction of profits (a figure with lots of zeroes) towards Mr. SK’s remuneration. Now, why pray did this Goliath corporation take pains to inform a non-entity like me… well, apparently, as a share holder my consent is sought for the appointment.

Now, my comments/grievances to Beating-Arose Ltd are as follows:

1. My consent?? Hah! Really! Wait, let me get this straight… given the fact that I own 0.000000000000001% of the equity, how much voting prowess does that convert into? Er, does it give me say a right to veto??

2. I’m a share-holder dammit! (albeit a microscopically tiny share-holder)…. you are supposed to make me feel good. And honestly, don’t know what your market analysts have been telling you… but, informing me of this Big-Wig chap who’s Professional Tax contribution is greater than my gross annual income does NOT boost my morale.

3. Er, all those expenses you incur buying paper, toner cartridges, envelopes, not to mention boosting the profits of DheereChal Courier company trying to get this information to the homes of “significant” share holders like me… would it be too much to ask you NOT to do that, and divert the same to my annual dividend?

4. Suggestion… er, can we NOT recruit Mr. Big-Wig and outsource this position to a person from a fifth-world nation at one-zillionth the cost??

5. No wait… thats all for now!

ps. If you’ve recognized the true identity of Beating-Arose Ltd or Mr. Sun-naiyo Khoobayyashi, pls don’t do my chugli… I honestly want to retain my Share-Holdership. BA or Mr. SK, if you happen to read this (yeah right!)… but if you do, no Hard Feelings meant, cross my heart!

Heck, if one can’t register a winning vote, one must atleast crib!