On Bench

The first week on bench was really a bliss. No more waking up early in the morning, no more getting stuck in the traffic, no more managers to report to, and the best part, no WORK!!!!

And the second week, I got the news of my promotion. Though I did not get a substantial hike in my pay, but it was more than what I was expecting. So I was happy, and spent the whole week restructuring my finances, as to where should I spent that little extra amount.

I applied for leave for the whole of the third week, and getting it approved was not much of a problem. Any lame excuse would have worked, since I was basically not doing anything. The whole week, I slept and slept and slept, and did some studying, which was the basic purpose for which I had planned this 5-day off. Studying 10 hours a day is not a child's play.

And now, its the fourth week, and I am writing this. It is Tuesday, and I don't know what I will be doing for the rest of the week. 15th (Friday) is a national holiday, great!!!! Some more hours of sleep will not harm anyone. I just have to see off these 2 and a half days, and then the Weekend will finally wake me up.

Great Election Campaigns

What kind of an advertisement is this? Is the Government doing favours when it devises policies for the welfare of people? This ad appeared in The Times of India. I was really shocked as to how the Government is portraying and publicizing their work. Is this their "Gift" to us?

I am not a supporter of any specific political party, but it really pains me to see such ads appearing everywhere. Every party has the right to do bring out campaigns for the upcoming elections, but don't they need to be careful. In another article published in a well known newspaper, there was a photograph of yet another leader distrbuting food to children, and a long write-up mentioning how kind the Government is. Is this how the Government wants its votes?

Yahoo Chat's BOTs

I don't remember when was the last time I had logged into Yahoo Messenger.

Recently, I deleted my Orkut account. Duh....Feel so bad about it, but anyway, had to do what I had to do. I can feel the difference in my life without Orkut.
"When I open up my browser, I now always have to think for 2 minutes, which site I should go for. LOL....It had always been Orkut, but now, I don't want to give the Googlers, no more "Ad-Revenues". "

Well, isn't "Blogger", a trap by Google to earn more money just from "Ads". And what about "Gmail", "iGoogle", etc, everything associated with Google also has those unwanted and un-friendly ads coming up before you.

But Google is flourishing, and so is its "Ads" business. And I am not against Google's strategies or its sources of income. What I wanted to talk about actually was about "Yahoo Chat Rooms". All these things about Google just surfaced inside my brain, and I thought I would club these thoughts with this post, thus reducing the number of blogs I write, and thus reducing Google's revenue. LOL

Ok...Now about Yahoo Chat Rooms. Today, each and every chat room is contaminated with "BOTS" and only "BOTS". What a place it used to be some 5 years ago. A perfect place for "Netizens" for perfect Time Pass.

A perfect place of anonymity: for youngsters who wanted to make new friends, video chat, voice chat and so on. I also tried all these for a few days, but it didn't interest me much. But, there were lots of my friends who were completely addicted to these things. But when I logged into one of the rooms, I was horrified at what I was looking at. BOTs everywhere!!!.....It took me around one hour and lots of different rooms to find just 1 real person there....What a pity....Yahoo has lost this unique place on the NET to these damn BOTs.

With the “captcha” stunt also, Yahoo still hasn’t been able to fend off even a single BOT.

Please don’t log onto Yahoo chat rooms. If you ever happen to enter those rooms, just for a break, I would suggest you should stop looking for real people there. Rather, I found it quite funny and interesting to have a chat with BOTs. And if you want to make it a playground, just try separating the BOTs from the REALs based on your chat conversations with them. And if you happen to find a REAL one at-last, you will definitely feel ecstatic.

But what about Google? Google doesn’t have a chat room. Well, that is one of the things which Google doesn’t have and Yahoo does. Shouldn’t Yahoo try to make these chat rooms more “REAL” and keep its users before Google comes up something like this. Please Yahoo, try hard, before Google reads this post.

And it RAINED!!!!!

It has been a long and tiresome summer in Bangalore. And at-last, the rain Gods had waken up. The heat and the sweat had become unbearable for me. Though I have seen much severe summers than this in the north, Kurukshetra, the heat just doesn't suit me.

As I walked out of the AC encloser of my office, it was still hot outside. But suddenly, everything changed as I descended down the last stairs of the office building. The sweat dried up in seconds. Chilling winds, lightening, and the dark sky belittled all the tension and exhaustion that had gathered in me after 10 long hours of monotonous and futile work. I wished the rains to come down with full vigour and not stop for days. I wished I had a bike and go back up home riding, getting wet. I wished I would stop somewhere, all drenched up, to have a hot cup of tea. I wished when I reach home, someone would open the door, and shout at me for getting wet. I wished, wished and wished for 5 minutes. But, I had to return back to the reality.

I had a phone in my pocket which should be protected from the rain. I had some important official documents(not so important) that would have been destroyed if I had to ride back on my bike. And then, there will be nobody at my PG to open the door for me and shout at me for getting wet. Though I was happy that it was about to rain and I wished I would stand under the rains and embrace the rain drops, simultaneously, I was thinking about the consequences of getting wet. I also had a minor cold which would have aggravated if my wishes would have come true. I had to come to office the next day in any case for some important work(not so important).

And then I realized, they all were wishes. None of them could have come true today. Even if I wanted to get wet, I couldn't have, since I had to board my office shuttle to go back home (13kms), I couldn't have walked that distance. I didn't have a bike and I was in Bangalore, away from home, nobody waiting for me at home.

When I boarded the shuttle, it started raining heavily. And inside the shuttle, it was hot and humid. Everyone had closed the windows. They obviously didn't want the rain, at-least not before they reach their safe homes. And in minutes, I was completely drenched in sweat.


Weren't my wishes very simple? Would anyone have lost anything, if my wishes were to be fulfilled? Would anyone have felt good, if my wishes were fulfilled? Would anyone have felt bad about it? I can think of only one answer to all these questions, "NO".

My Valentine's Lost Forever

Wow, one more year gone by, and Destiny has been able to fend off the feminine gender from encroaching into my heart and mind. I am blaming Destiny, because all my life, I have been trying to beat Destiny in this little duel; it has always been victorious. So this Valentine's Day for me would be again; as normal, usual and ordinary as any other day of the year.

I made my last move against Destiny today which again was so deftly counter-attacked; I was awe-struck at the Destiny's might. How can a meagre human match the permanence and mercilessness of one's Destiny. All these days, I thought someday I will be able to change my Destiny, but it now seems an impossible task. I didn't believe in Destiny till today, but from now on, I have changed my perception.

Let’s talk about my last move.

Third Last Move -

Many people know about my first crush from school. Last year, after so much orkutting, I was able to find her yahoo id. I sent her a friend request which she accepted. We started chatting;talking about school, lost friends, old days, school teachers, couples who still speak to each other, couples who broke up, friends who got married, friends who were divorced already, jobs, life etc. And then finally when the topic gradually shifted from her and me, she seemed to be less responsive while I was abnormally typing in more characters than usual.

Then suddenly she stopped responding. Destiny won here. But I was still determined.

Second Last Move -

I frequently left offline messages on yahoo for her, but she never replied. Orkut helped me again. Rather, Destiny was devising another move to beat me again. I found her gtalk id. I sent her a friend request which again was accepted. But every time she came online, her status was set to "Busy". I thought it would be very impolite on my part to disturb her. Perhaps, this was a trap that would have given Destiny one more point. I avoided falling into it. I was trying to make a counter move. I got her number. On diwali, I sent her a message; signing off with my name (I was sure that she won't have my number). But she didn't reply. On gtalk, I stopped seeing her online. I thought she was too busy. Destiny won again. Still determined, I waited for 13th February to make my last move.

Last Move -

Today, I searched for her name on gtalk, and to my surprise, didn't find her. Destiny was playing dirty. She had removed me from her friend's list. I was a little disappointed, but wasn't heartbroken; to give up before executing my last move. I sent her a friend request again, when I found out from a third party resource that she was online. This time also, Destiny made her accept my request.
I could now she her online, but again her status was “Busy". This time around, since I thought this would be the deciding move for both of us, I walked into Destiny's trap happily and perhaps aware of the result. I pinged her "Hi".

I waited eagerly for almost 5 minutes, waiting for her reply, staring at the chat window, without even blinking; I could hear my heart pumping that extra cc of blood for each passing second and finally, Destiny struck its final blow and she went offline. The battle was won and lost.

And now, I am convinced that I can't ever beat Destiny. My Valentine's Lost forever.