Another year goes by.....

So here comes the end of another year. Sometimes it seems that it was just yesterday when we were talking about 2004 going by and 2005 being a few days away. Now in the blink of an eye, it is one year hence. And sometimes, as I look back al all that happened in 2005, it seems as if it has been eons since we celebrated the last new year's eve.

Taking a look back at the year gone by, there were a lot of new things. I started blogging for instance, and amongst KGPians, there was a huge explosion of blog culture. This has helped keep in touch with those who are now scattered across the globe, thus keeping people in the frozen Alberta, in the civilisation, and those still in the village just a click away. Yo Blogging!

Moving to more important things, 2005 was also the year that changed me perhaps more than any previous year, more so in its latter half. Maybe it was the begining of my final year of college or the thought of the future and what it held for me, but it caught me off guard. While I am still trying to figure out some loose ends, 22nd December had laid rest to most of these thoughts.

2005 was also the year when I spent all of my summer vacations in KGP. It was a mixed experience. While there was a lot of free time, the weather was so hostile that it was folly to try to get any significant work done in the day time. And on top of that, the restaurants were of no help. Anyway, that is now behind me now and perhaps was the first and the last time I ever did anything like that.

Thinking of some lighter moments, I often get reminded that it is now almost six years since the world was supposed to end. All that dawn of the new millennia and the doomsday hoopla is more than gone now. Maybe a thousand years hence...

One thing which has always been same all these years is that whenever I sit down to recollect past experiences and events, my mind always blanks out. And it is the same today. 2005 was a year full of wonderful times, sad times and O.K. times, but right now, I cannot remember any of them.

In about eight hours, 2005 will be long gone, and it will be 2006. And a year later, I will be thinking about what 2006 did for me, and perhaps will blank out again. Whatever...

Anyway, here is me wishing that all those who read this piece, and all those who don't that 2005 was really good for them. And also that 2006 be even better.

Psycho's Day Out!!!

While this is a story of December 8th, 2005, I never got the time to write it before, hence it is being posted after later events.

This particular day, we four people had decided to buy some computer hardware and stuff, so it is off to Kolkata (Calcutta, or Fort William for the nostalgic minded), the only place nearby where it is possible to buy such stuff at half decent prices. Anyway, we take breakfast and then leave for the station. While two of us got a decent rickshaw, the one we got was very slow, thus we were quite late reaching the station. It was sheer luck that we were able to catch the express train, otherwise it would have been a woeful passenger train ride lasting close to three hours.

We reach Howrah station in decent time and then the question was how to reach the next destination, and here one friend suggested that we take the ferry across the river and then the metro. So that's what we did, and the ferry ride was awesome.

After the ferry ride, we asked for the nearest metro station and Esplanade was supposed to be a five minute walking distance, but fifteen later we found out that the five minutes info should be taken with a pinch of salt. Or under a fast walking competetion. Anyway, we did reach the metro station and catch the ride to Park Street, but not before the metro ticket automated gates trying to keep us out of Esplanade platform (or in the Park Street one).

At Park Street, we visit the Oxford bookstore but find only one book of interest, and then we go off to have some lunch. The rolls we had were really great, and also pretty much sufficient for a long day.

Then it was to Chandani Market for the work we had actually come for, computer hardware shopping. There, we surprise the shop attendent who expecting a 40GB HDD customer had to deal with us who wanted two of 250GB HDD's. Because this shop was not able to provide us with what we wanted, it was off to another one, and luckily there we got all the HDD's, the DVD-RW and the blank Disks.

After this, it was another metro ride to the Forum Inox, and the Crossword bookstore a block away. Two good hours spent there, getting books, having coffee, pizza and sodas. Nobody wanted to stay to watch a movie so it was time to get back. A breezy taxi ride and we are back at Howrah station. A light dinner at FoodPlaza and then an empty passenger train ride back to Kharagpur, we finally reached back to the hostel at 1 AM. Long day, but a really good one.

PS. There was another "Psycho's Day Out" Version 2.0 about a fortnight later, we'll see about that later.

Psycho gets a Job :)

Campus recruitments: The Saga Begins
This year, the powers-that-be decided that campus placements will take place not yearlong as they usually do, but only in the final semester of the year. Apparently, this will result in improved attendence in classes. Little do they know we have more reasons to stay away from classes than just placement interviews. :wink:. Anyhow, I don't think we will ever know that wether this step made attendence any better in the autumn semester, but what I do know is that this did created a lot of panic in our minds about the actual placements. Compressing a yearlong process into a semester is like a little more than we bargained for. But whatever....

So the campus placements began finally on 21st of December.

Day 1
The Indian Tobacco Company Limited, Hindustan Lever Limited and Fair Isaac visit on the first day. Lady luck smiles (ironically) on 13 people, nine go to ITC and four to FI. HLL as always delays its decision till final interviews which will be held at its head office back in Mumbai.

Day 2
Maruti Udyog Limited, Lehman Brothers, and McKinsey are scheduled for the second day.
Lehman Brothers takes 10, after a lot of confusion and resume resubmittals that I will never know about completely. McKinsey creates a fiasco with the senior associates not showing up and delaying the interviews by a day. As for Maruti Udyog Limited, that's where I was, and the story goes on like this....

Maruti Udyog Limited
The Pre Placement Talk takes place in SN Bose auditorium, and after that, it is straight to the interviews. Thirty-two applicants, nervous and dressed up sit in the TnP section waiting for their turns, and somewhere midway is my turn. Interview is taken by a panel of three senior management members of Maruti Udyog Limited, and I come out after the interview with a lot of apprehension. The interview went well but who knows, how many people might have done even better than me...

Then the Oracle calls. Not any seer, but the Oracle Inc. test is scheduled for 4:00PM and it is already quarter past three. So i rush off to the hostel, change and go back for the test. Luckily the test is delyed, and before it can start, the final list of selected candidates is put up infront of the TnP section. And my name is on the list :).

A coffee later, I come back to the hostel to get a good GPL at the "legs" of BFM residents, curse them, it was a really cold day. Anyway, who cares about the GPL when you have a job in the field that you are sure you will enjoy immensely.

End Sems Chale Gaye!!! Registration Aa Gaya!!!

So the end semester exams finally ended on the 28th. of November. I.C. Engines examination completed at full throttle. Out of the examination hall at 3:20PM and off to Harry's.

Anyway, that was it and then it was two days of relative peace before the registration for the last time ever at IIT Kharagpur. But it was the worst registration ever. The worst managed fees payment counters, only one line for all the dual degree students and that too shared with post grads... and on top of that bank employees having snacks when we are getting frustated of standing in the line for two hours. Thank god this was the last one.

To make things worse, the academic part of the registration was to be done online and the system seems to be broken, so God save us. As my next door neighbour would say, "Whtever....".

Tag: Se7en

Got tagged. And that too a day after a looong blog. Anyway, three of my four exams are done now and the fourth one is four days away. So here I am, back to my blog.

What is this tagging business anyway? Tag used to be great out in the grounds. Now that we have computers and internet, we are playing tag with blogs. Guess there is a nerd in everyone. Makes me happy :).

Anyway, here goes....

Seven things I want to do in my life:

1. Do anything and everytihng for my parents.
2. Fall in love.
3. Build a holiday retreat at a secluded place.
4. Make a positive difference to a few lives, in any possible way.
5. Learn to play any one music instrument well.
6. Take a country-wide mobike ride.
7. Build myself an awesome gaming rig.

Seven things I can do:

1. Assemble Computers.
2. Watch an endless stream of movies.
3. Read long books and novels in one sitting.
4. Listen to all kinda music (including languages I don't understand).
5. Sleep - all day long and then all night long.
6. Follow hobbies in an obsessively paranoid manner.
7. Stay up all night bhaating with friends.

Seven things I say the most:

1. Mar gaya!
2. Lunch anyone/Dinner anyone.
3. Abe kal ki class ke liye utha dena be!!
4. Hmmmmmm...
5. Abe mote uth jaa (courtesy Sudu whom I have to wake up all too often :P).
6. Thanks.
7. Chal cya...

Seven things I can't do:

1. Stop being a geek.
2. Stay away from forums.
3. Sleep at an earthly hour.
4. Keep my table uncluttered.
5. Take a short nap. If I sleep, I'll be down for hours.
6. Cheat/copy on tests and exams.
7. Break traffic rules. (I wear a helmet while riding in campus).

Seven things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. Looks.
2. A sense of understanding.
3. Practicality
4. A sweet smile.
5. A fun attitude.
6. Simplicity.
7. Respect for others.

Seven celebrity crushes:

1. Jeon Ji Hyun (My Sassy Girl)
2. Preity Zinta
3. Amrita Rao
4. Avril Lavigne
5. Meg Ryan
6. Julia Stiles
7. Anna Kournikova

Seven people I tag:

1. Nitin Dhawan (Nitzee), get back to blogging man.
2. Abhishek Agarwal (Recca Kun)
3. Arvin Deep
4. Indrava Roy
5. Apratim Dhar
6. Vivek Malewar (MatterLogic), start a blog yaar :)
7. Gaurav Sahni (Ravemz)

Takes too much thought this thing. Good thing it came in between exams, the mind is perfectly devoid of everything and free to think. :).

End Sems, F.E.A.R., looooong blogging breaks, F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Banks, Winter, FUBAR, Nerdcore, Graphics Cards, Goblets of Fire and the like...

It has been such a long time since I last wrote something here, that I have to look up font faces and sizes again. This is like the worst thing that could happen. Anyway, should now get back to the point. Been a really long time, almost three months, and in the meanwhile, I have been doing things that range from NULL (simply doing nothing) to actually studying seriously (imagine that!!!). Lets take things one at a time shall we?

So End Sems are upon us KGPians now. I am actually halfway through the penultimate end semester examinations of my undergraduate/graduate (Dual Degree!) life. Two done, two more to go and the toughest one is gone. But, for a change, the toughest one was not so tough. It was actually much better than expected and was in a long long time a technical examination that I attempted completely. I am now actually fearing for the two easier ones, what if they are unexpected!!. BTW, this "tougher" one was the thing that caused me to "study seriously". Worked out well in the end.

That was the serious part of the blog, now lets get to the extreme opposite. Like I was saying, I have also spent time doing ABSOLUTELY nothing. Trust me, it is BLISS. Nothing better than lying down on a lazy couch/bed in moderate weather watching the day(s) go by. Try it sometime, but yeah, don't overdo it. I almost did.

And that is how we reach up to F.R.I.E.N.D.S. The next thing to lying around all day is to put up your headphones and watch episode after episode of some sitcom. In my case, it was the ever-popular show F.R.I.E.N.D.S, and this was a second watching. Often, friends would come up behind me in my room and I wouldn't notice because I was too engrossed and also, because with the headphones on, I couldn't hear them come in.

As long as we are putting full stops between capitalised letters of a word, lets talk about F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault and Recon). This is supposed to be one of the really good games to have come out in recent times, and perhaps is the best since Half Life 2 stole our hearts. The sad part is that the game is so demanding on graphics hardware, that I don't have the heart to even install it on my computer. (Neither do I have that HDD space).

Talking of HDD's, I gotta get two of 'em soon. And that's where the banks come in. I have to have a savings account at the State Bank of India, IIT Kharagpur branch to receive my stipend, and because I didn't, I haven't received a single dime of it yet. Hopefully tomorrow (or today as it is past midnight), I will give my SBI account number in the Accounts department and get the accumulated amount of the stipend in December. Ahoy HDD's, here I come (soon).

December did I say. That's a winter month. So yeah, winter is here, and this time it descended upon us suddenly. One day all was fine and dandy and the next day it was pretty cold outside. Forced us to wear jackets and what-not. Anyway, what's another winter after 21 already, and that too a KGP winter when I have seen Himalayan ones.

OK, leave the winter aside and lets get back to games, and more importantly, something indispensable while gaming. A good Graphics card. A lot of activity has been going on in the graphics card market for the last six months. First nVidia pulls off an amazing launch day in stores for the 7800 series graphics cards, and ATi pulls off another woefully late paper launch four months later. And then again nVidia pulls of the King Killer move, launch of the 512MB 7800GTX video card, the fastest ever to hit the consumer market. Too bad it costs US$700 minimum and is out of stock at most stores. While the top end of the market has been as hot as a rocket's exhaust, the mainstream has also had reasons to cheer. Cuts in 6xxx series cards' prices, launch on ATi's X800GTO that could be easily made into a x800XT/x850XT, and then the 6800GS that redefined value for money, and now the impending launch of the 7800GS that should make the market more crowded then ever. Too bad that the prices the cards are available at in India are way way more than their market prices in the US. Do you know someone who could get me a good card from the US???

Enough of the Graphics cards and stuff. Lets talk something more geeky. Here comes the NerdCore. It is one of the newer genre of music, and is becoming really popular among nerds and geeks. Combine Gangsta Rap and Geek terms and you get the Holy Grail. Monzy's got a good Drama in the PhD going on. Check it out.

Well, this is about time that I start running out of things to write in this blog (and remember the countless things I missed about an hour later). So here are the last two things that come to mind.

Petrol : Prices have been shooting up like bamboo grows, and looks like I should get back to my bicycle instead of riding my bike.

FUBAR : While I was writing this blog, I noticed the yahoo messenger status message of a wingoo. Upon asking him what it meant, I was enlightened with some World War II lingo, F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition. I'll leave the rest to you all.

Oh! By the way, the new Harry Potter movie "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" is out and it is off to the talkies as soon as eaxms end.

The "Tux"edo

Linux. This word alone may give some people reason enough to never visit this page ever again. On the other hand, some may visit this page again and again to see when the word is repeated here.

Linux has existed with us for fourteen years now. I have known about it for the last seven perhaps, and tinkered with it on an irregular basis for the last four. It has not become something of a "cannot live without it", but yeah, given the option, I would always like to have the Tux around.

Linux is not for everyone, however much they would like you to believe. It is still tougher to configure compared to the other, more prevalent operating system that I need not name. For the average user, who browses the internet for an hour a day, checks his e-mail and writes a few documents, an introduction to Linux might even seem like a boat ride in stormy seas if the system is not preconfigured, which is really unlikely. Linux does come with a lot of preinstalled applications if one chooses a default workstation installation, but these overwhelming numbers and names sometimes might even scare away the new user.

But for those who know what they are doing, Linux can be a very efficient tool to test and boost skills. Configuration to get everything working takes some time, but not all. It is the endless customization that gives the real joy of using Linux. And if you are not able to customise something to your liking, why not recode the system into submission. This is the absolute power of Open Source Softwares. If you don't like it, recode it.

I do not have the time or the knowledge required to recode the whole operating system, or even any small part of it, but i'll happily live with the fact that some people can and do this. And i'll enjoy the freedom.

The Chronologer

While this blog is an irregular collection of posts, another, a more regular one can be made. A simple chronology of events. The Psychronology. A psycho's chrolology. No details, no elaborate stories. Just a simple chronology full of comments on the day's happennings.

./announcing with a heavy heart the demise of the Psychronology, because of shortage of time on my part/.

Holy Freeze! A four frame Zeal!!

To most, the title won't make any sense, but to whom it does, they would be really interested in knowing much more. But my purpose is to bore everyone, so this post will explain the title in detail.

It is related to the game Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Expansion, patch version 1.10. More specifically, to the "Frost Zealot" build of the Paladin. Now before the uninformed ask, I will explain. The Frost Zealot uses the Holy Freeze aura as his primary aura, and Zeal as his main attack. However, I threw in some more interesting things to make the game more enjoyable. To some(who understood the title in the first place), the word "Beast" will suffice. For others, lemee explain. "Beast" is a Runeword that provides an active Fanaticism aura, and this really helps attain the four frame zeal. What, u still didn't understand what a four frame zeal is? Too Bad, looks like I'm cursed to bore you some more. Each attack in the game has multiple speeds, and increased attack speed items help attack faster, i.e. take more weapon swings at enemies in a given time. But, the game being restricted to 25 frames per second, the real benefit comes when an attack speed is increased to such an extent that the number of frames needed to render a particular attack swing is reduced. And a four frame zeal swing is the best that can be achieved.

Other things like Holy Freeze boosted to collosal skill levels and synergised to insane cold damage per attack hit are insignificant details.

For those who are frustated by now, please hit the reset button on your computer. For those, who are interested to know more, I'd suggest you spend some time on The Arreat Summit and the Diablo II Strategy Compendium.

Music to the ears

"Music. A magic beyond all what we do here" - Prof. Albus Dumbledore

From heavy metal, industrial, alternative, rock, nu-metal, punk, fusion, pop, hip-hop to rhythm, ballads, reggae, soft, classical and certain things that we cannot even classify. Music is a part of everyone's life, however small the part may be. And to some it is everything.

For me, music is not an obsession, but life would not be the same without the music. I do not have any particular preference of a genre, but listen to whatever I like, and it can be anything. Sometimes, the way my playlist goes from heavy rock to boy-band pop is enough to throw others off their tracks. I really wish they never listen to my playlist switch from "Parental Advisory - Explicit Lyrics" hip-hop to Simon and Garfunkel.

I do not play any musical instrument, but sometimes I do try. Have tinkered around with mouth organs, keyboards (not of the computer variety), and even spent a few moments with acoustic guitars. But never could devote enough time to really learn to play one of these even half decently. Maybe someday...

However, till then, let the music play...

Rebooting KGP

KGP gets into a kind of suspended sleep state in the summer months. The summer vacations to be more precise. However, now the time has come when KGP wakes up from its slumber to its usual hustle and bustle. The Autumn semester is approaching.

Come 19th July and the all the senior KGPians will get back to their usual lives. And on 20th we will welcome the new members of the KGP family. And its back to the classrooms immediately. For most of us atleast. Some of us can wait a few more days before the classes actually begin.

The signs of activity are already trickling. Familiar names are reappearing on muTTer and DC mainchat. The omnipresent demands for CS and AOE servers are ever more persistent. And yeah, people are also returning to their hostel rooms.

Now, lets see what this new year (and my last) at KGP holds for me...

Of Restaurants

So when you stay the summer in KGP, the first and foremost thing you do is to plan for the restaurants you are going to visit for meals. The "Mess" in the hall of residence is shut down for the summer, the official "Mess" supposed to run for the summer closes before opening. The unofficial "Mess" closes down a fortnight before the end of the summer vacations, and you are at the mercy of the hopeless restaurants.

There are four (and a half) restaurants on-campus, perhaps tolerable for a meal a fortnight. However, when you have to plan for two a day, you seriously run out of options.

Two of them are pretty far away to be a feasible option for daily visits, once a week might be fine. The other two and a half are more accessible, but the "Under Construction" signs on the road force you to take a path to the "half" one about three times longer than usual. And then there are the restaurants themselves.

When you go for meals in a group, there are personal preferences and hate factors. It's pretty hard to come up with a unanimous choice, but you gotta do what you gotta do. So everytime, we do reach somewhere. And this is exactly when the reality hits us. There is simply no choice of what to eat (when attempting to keep the summer budget under check), so you fall back to the same thing you ate last time you visited this particular restaurant. And life goes on...

And yeah, if a waiter tries to slip u an unclean wet plate, and glares at you when u ask him to clean it, glare back. Works for me.

A flood of movies

Over the last few weeks, I have watched a lot of movies. Some OK, some real good and some beyond comparison. Here is a list of as many as I can remember, with a small description.

Charlie's Angles 2: Full Throttle - Three tough babes battling against someone trying to steal details of the "witness protection program", while the past catches up with one of them.

Garden State - The Directorial debut of the multitalented Zach Braff, more famous as Dr. Jack "JD" Dorian on the TV sitcom Scrubs. Movie inspired by real events of his life. A wonderful Drama.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - Arnold's back. Decent movie with well explained reason of the actual takeover by the machines.

Seven Years in Tibet - An Austrian mountaineer ends up in Lhasa, Tibet after a series of events at the peak of the second world war. There he befriends His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is a young person at that time, and rediscovers himself.

What Dreams May Come - You gotta see this movie to even begin to comprehend it. Really great movie about how love can even overcome death.

Wild Things 3: Diamonds in the Rough - A typical wild things sequel, with inherited diamonds and all the usual twists and turns. But I seriously didn't see the last one coming.

Pulp Fiction - A Tarantino masterpiece, about two hitmen, their boss, a boxer and some more people. Non-chronological presentation and extreme violence make it a must watch.

Reservoir Dogs - Another Tarantino Masterpiece. A Diamond store robbery gone wrong, an undercover cop, an empty warehouse and tempers running high.

From Dusk to Dawn - Tarantino Screenplay, Rodriguez Direction. George Clooney and Tarantino himself as performers. There is nothing more to say.

Sleepless in Seattle
You've Got Mail
Two romantic comedies, both featuring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Both deal with finding true love and are really watchable. The internet "connections" make the second one more enjoyable for us geeks.

xXx
xXx2: State of the Nation
Two non-stop action movies, the first one featuring Vin Diesel, the second one Ice Cube, as a part of the xXx Extreme Special Agent program.

Elektra - A spinoff from Daredevil, and based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, the movie shows her fighting a group of supernatural ninjas to save a father and her daughter, whom she was initially ordered to kill.

Strange Days - A futuristic movie set at the turn of the century, with a police ruled LA (or was it NY), where "Playback" is an illegal black market hot commodity and one particular playback can make things go really wrong for others.

K-Pax - A man in a psychiatric institution claims to be an alien for the planet K-Pax. When his psychiatrist tries to counsel him, he shows certain traits which really make the doctor wonder.

Osmosis Jones - A white blood cell and a cold pill take on a deadly virus that has entered Frank's body. Light hearted comedy with a good mix of live action and animation.

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Need I say anything about these??

Some of these movies deserve much more than the two lines I have written here, and that's what's up next.

Modifying the Template

As usual, I have to do something or the other to be different. Standard things just don't appeal to me. So i go ahead and try modifying the predefined template of the blog. However, I am only partially successful. The lower part of the page does not render properly. In firefox atleast. So here I am, still trying to figure out a way to clean it up. Perhaps i will change the whole code of the blog, writing it my way and making it easier to modify - but that'll take time. So as of now, trying to tweak it is what i do.

EDIT: Looks like fixed for the time being. As long as the content part is longer than the sidebar, the page is rendered fine. Otherwise, well try to find a page where the content is shorter and u'll know.

EDIT2: Well, seems like in all pages, the content is longer than the sidebar, so I am done for the time being. As for writing my own code, i'll do that if this minor edit doesn't hold well due to some reason or the other.

And so it begins

And so it begins. This was also the title and begining lines of the previous blog that I had hosted on my own computer on the LAN. Never got to add much to that one, and don't really know how much will I ever add to this one. But even then, a start is a start and an attempt is an attempt. And because i had to manually edit HTML for my previous one, this will be easier to manage. :hails: blogspot.

So now, lets decide on what all am I going to put here. We can start with movie reviews/rants. There can be video/computer game related posts. Computer hardware. Exams, studies and projects. Music. And perhaps most importantly, friends. This kinda sums up my life as I know it.

So, let it begin