Sunday, October 30, 2005

Its the festive season, but......

Its that time of the year again! Diwali is coming up in about 24 hours and so is Id/ramzan later this week! So, its celebration time for a lot of people all over the country and to those desis living outside India.

However, this year in itself has been characterized by quite a few calamities resulting in a lot of people losing their lives. It started of with the Tsunami (techincally, it was in 2004 but still.. ), then there were the hurricanes Katrina and Wilma (nice names for hurricanes!!!), the POK quake, the floods in Mumbai (Bombay), rains in Chennai. There have also been other terrorist attacks both in London and in New Delhi. Not to forget the train accident a couple of days ago in Andhra due to the rains!

So, while we celebrate, it is only fitting that we take a moment to remember the poor and innocent souls who lost their lives for no fault of theirs.

If you're planning to celebrate and have fun, please remember that there are so many people out there who have been deprived of their near and dear ones and who can't celebrate!

Happy Diwali and have a wonderful time this festive season!

Cheers,

Monday, October 24, 2005

Egpytian Hieroglyphs

My name in Egyptian!!!
Cheers,

My name using Egyptian Hieroglyphs!

A B H I SH E K  G O P A L


Try your name

Script by

Sunday, October 16, 2005

The brain test

Another one of those online tests!!





Abhi, you are Left-brained

Most left-brained people like you feel at ease in situations requiring verbal ability, attention to detail, and linear, analytical ability. Whether you know it or not, you are a much stronger written communicator than many, able to get your ideas across better than others.

It's also likely that you are methodical and efficient at many things that you do. You could also be good at math, particularly algebra, which is based on very strict rules that make sense to your logical mind.

Taken at around 11 pm. Courtesy Sanjeev.
You can barely see the mechanic in the background.
For details, refer previous post Here.

Cheers,

A Tiring day, I must say!!

Yeah, Saturday was a pretty tiring day and I was totally gone when I came back home. Hence the delay in the post.

I had to go to college inspite of the fact that it was a saturday. To make things worse, I had slept only at 4 am on Fri night, wait, scratch that, make it Saturday morning. Hence woke up feeling all groggy and was still in a somnolent state as I trudged into college. I had two tests, part of the Continuous Assessment Tests (CAT) as the SVCE junta call it. And in between these two, we had a gap of about 2 hours. I had to run around to pick up a few photocopies, get records signed, meet my recommenders and a whole lot of other work. And even though I had 2 hours in the morning before the first exam, yours truly hadn't touched his books and hence had to spend the time sleeping/studying/looking around, not necessarily in that order.

First exam done and I had given a reasonably good paper. Started work on the aforementioned photocopies, records and recommendations et al.. Yeah, I had to have lunch also in the middle since I was starving. I had gotten up late and had hence missed breakfast. Another task at hand was to prepare for the second exam. Anyway, I got around to doing most of these things and gave a good paper much to my surprise.

Boarded the bus and got some much needed shuteye. Sleep is the most refreshing thing! The level by which one's concentration improves after a nap is amazing. Ok, Enough digressing. Back to where I was. Yes, I am back home and eat something and settle down on the couch to watch a football match. A friend of mine calls and says lets go to Landmark. (Btw, for the uninformed, Landmark is a huge bookstore in Chennai). But before that he said, he needed to go to the ATM for withdrawing some cash. Since he didn't have a bike at that moment, it was decided that I pick him up and we first visit the ATM and then make pur way to Landmark. Mind you, the time was 7.35 pm already. I leave asap and reach RK's place (the friend is RK, Btw) and we head towards Pondy Bazaar. This ATM was somewhere close to Maya's plaza and it was on the right hand side of the road. RK suggested that I take a right some 100 metres before and just park and wait while he goes to the ATM. This is beacuse there was no place to turn opposite the ATM. Being the wise guy that I am, I rode along slowly on the bike on the wrong side of the road looking around for a place to park. I had completely forgotten that there was a police station next to the ATM.

Well, a plainclothes cop caught me and demanded to see my license. I demanded to see his Identity Card and he produced one. Likewise, I returned the favor producing the Driver's license. He was drunk and high and was talking as if he was the head of the police force. All I could do was humor him and by this time, RK had also joined in. He demanded 110 bucks and told us to go into the station, get a challan(or whatever he called it.. don't really remember) and pay at a mobile court on monday. We were getting late as it was past 8 already and we din't know when Landmark would close. Our man then launched into a long story about he finishing B.A in 1971 (Congratulations, Mr. Head Constable) and that he had a son who was about our age pursuing Engineering in Jeppiar College. ( Well done, Mr.Son of Mr. Head Constable, you make your papa proud!!). RK found this bit funny , I must say. I wisecracked saying, "We are also like your son, can't you let us go this one," for which both Mr.Head Constable and RK launch into vociferous laughter. Anyway, we humored him and then paid him 50 bucks by which he probably would have gone to the nearest wine shop and gotten himself another "quarter". I know people, its encouraging corruption but then, it was getting late and we din't want to go through a whole bunch of paperwork.

This done, we finally made our way to Landmark and reached there by 8.28. Went in and we were done with our work in 5 mins. Both me and RK were browsing through the books section till the landmark people decided to shut up shop and switched off all the lights. Time for us to leave. By this time, we were both reasonably hungry as well. Made our way to Sweet Chariot, just across the road from Landmark at the Ispahani Center. Had something to eat, and finally I dropped RK off at about 10 pm.

Did i say finally?? Well, that was what I thought as well. Was looking forward to going home and watch the highlights of Man Utd playing Sunderland. But alas! It was not to be. My vehicle developed a flat rear tire near little mount and the time was about 10.15. I had to wheel the bike for about a kilometre and half till a petrol bunk. Unfortunately, the shop there was closed, (why blame the poor shop owner, it was saturday night, he probably would have gone off for a nice booze or a movie with his lovely wife) and I decided to call Sanjeev whose house was quite near. Sanjeev came and we decided to park the bike at his place and then come and take it the next day. As luck would have it, at about a distance of 300 metres from the petrol bunk, there was one puncture shop that was still open, mind you, the time was about 10.45 now. On removing the tube, this chap said that there are 4 punctures, one fresh one and three at places where the stickers from earlier puncture mendings was peeling off! He said that I would be better of buying a new tube. Logical, yes! Except for the fact that I would not be able to buy a tube at that unearthly hour. This man offered to buy me one from a house of some mysterious person who will not talk to customers. The deal was that both me and him go to the guy' place but I stay out of sight. Sounded maha shady to me. I refused telling him to mend the punctures and that I would have the tube changed at my convenience. Sanjeev, thanks for giving me company dude! I owe you one.

Got the bike mended at 11.30 and drove back home all tired and irritated. I wanted to post this yesterday but was just not upto it.
Phew! This has ended up being a long post, though I din't intend to make it one!
If you are still here, thanks for being patient.
Cheers,

Friday, October 14, 2005

I am an easy rider!!??

Got this from some blog when I was randomly blog-hopping. Why don't you guys take the test as well!



Cheers,

Friday, October 07, 2005

Untitled

I couldn't come up with a title:-D.
Anyways, been pretty busy with a lot of stuff lately, mainly applying stuff. This thing just takes up so much of your time!! Will post soon!!
have a great weekend
Cheers,

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Chappell vs Ganguly : Is the saga over??? - Part 2 of a two part post

To continue from where I left off in Part 1, there were other allegations levelled against Ganguly. One of them was that Ganguly spread tall tales about stuff that Chappell supposedly told him but Chappell denied these things by saying that Sourav only targeted middle order batsmen as they were the people most likely to replace the skipper in the Indian Line-up.

Chappell concludes by saying
"As I said to you during our meeting in Colombo, I have serious reservations about the attitude of some players and about Sourav and his ability to take this team to a new high, and none of the things he has done since his reappointment has caused me to change my view. In
fact, it has only served to confirm that it is time for him to move on and let someone else build their team toward the 2007 World Cup.

This team has been made to be fearful and distrusting by the rumour mongering and deceit that is Sourav's modus operandi of divide and rule. Certain players have been treated with favour, all of them bowlers, while others have been shunted up and down the order or left out of the team to suit Sourav's whims.


Ladies and Gentlemen ( and third sex too!!), the jury is out on this issue. And I guess, time is the best judge on all these matters.

**Updates**

Freddie Flintoff has spoken against Ganguly by calling him arrogant and terming him "Lord Snooty". Read the full story here.

Sunil Gavaskar on the other hand has spoken in favour of Ganguly but as he himslef admits, he has seen very little of Ganguly.

**End Updates**
And I am sure this is not the last we are hearing about this!
Cheers,