Longcat is loooong and ppl are stupid

Some random guy I don't want to know about, sees a picture of cat who is abnormally long (The picture may even be fake...) He then creates a so called "artist's impression" of that cat which happens to be looooooooooooooooooooong.

Half the world goes crazy for that. And then these crazy people try to drive others who are not yet out of their minds, insane by constantly bugging and buddy-pouncing them.

Someone please explain...................................

Never use a Visa-card operated payphone

The other day I was stuck at the Detroit airport and wanted to let my friend know that I will be late. So I decided to use the pay-phone to call him. Unfortunately I did not have any quarters so I used my card instead. The call went fine. But the bill gave me the shock of my life. First they had charged me $5 for the call which is 10 times ordinary call charge of $0.5. After a couple of days the $5 charge was replaced by $19.41 :-O. The that offered this "service" was ILD Teleservices.

WTH ...... I called up their customer service (luckily this number appears in the credit card statement). First, they made me on wait and I had to listen to crappy ads for 20 minutes. After an almost endless waiting time finally the customer service executive answered my call. I was told that the $5 charge was just to check my account balance and $19.41 is the actual call charge. This is written nowhere on the pay phone box. $19.41 for 3 minutes??? I can call mars at a cheaper rate. I just googled for this so called ILD teleservices and realized that I am not the first one, they have been charging people for unknown or hidden services for quite a some time( check this and this and this). So NEVER NEVER NEVER do any business with ILD.

The lesson I learnt (the hard way) from this is : Never use your credit card for a pay phone. Always carry a few quarters. If you don't have them buy a McDonalds burger for about $4.2, Pay the cashier $5 and get the quarters. Even if you throw the burger in the trash you still save more than $14.

staying.crap

This is what I call misuse of technology. Fooling the innocent machines and trying to act smart.

P.S.
Some may say thats creativity. I disagree ...

Spring break is over !!!!!!! :-O

How did this happen ? We were supposed to have a break for five days... I don't remember more than three days :-O..... This cannot be true.

But it is. Spring break is over before I even realized it. I had made a long list of things-to-do in the spring break. But most of those remained only in the list. It's funny how time just passes by... Even funnier is the fact that while I have realized it finally, I still ain't doing anything productive. Instead, I am sitting on my bed, with my laptop on my lap, typing this almost pointless post.

Procrastinating is fun !!!!

The eternal quest

चलने ही चलने में कितना जीवन, हाय, बिता डाला!
'दूर अभी है', पर, कहता है हर पथ बतलानेवाला,
हिम्मत है न बढूँ आगे को साहस है न फिरुँ पीछे,
किंकर्तव्यविमूढ़ मुझे कर दूर खड़ी है मधुशाला।।७।

किसी ओर मैं आँखें फेरूँ, दिखलाई देती हाला
किसी ओर मैं आँखें फेरूँ, दिखलाई देता प्याला,
किसी ओर मैं देखूं, मुझको दिखलाई देता साकी
किसी ओर देखूं, दिखलाई पड़ती मुझको मधुशाला।।३९।

दो दिन ही मधु मुझे पिलाकर ऊब उठी साकीबाला,
भरकर अब खिसका देती है वह मेरे आगे प्याला,
नाज़, अदा, अंदाजों से अब, हाय पिलाना दूर हुआ,
अब तो कर देती है केवल फ़र्ज़ -अदाई मधुशाला।।६५।

छोटे-से जीवन में कितना प्यार करुँ, पी लूँ हाला,
आने के ही साथ जगत में कहलाया 'जानेवाला',
स्वागत के ही साथ विदा की होती देखी तैयारी,
बंद लगी होने खुलते ही मेरी जीवन-मधुशाला।।६६।

यम आयेगा साकी बनकर साथ लिए काली हाला,
पी न होश में फिर आएगा सुरा-विसुध यह मतवाला,
यह अंितम बेहोशी, अंतिम साकी, अंतिम प्याला है,
पथिक, प्यार से पीना इसको फिर न मिलेगी मधुशाला।८०।

From "Madhushala" (मधुशाला) By Harivanshrai Bachchan

The world is still the same at 25...... but I have changed

I turned 25 today. Unlike my last birthday, this one was a quiet birthday. No midnight parties, no bumps, no cakes and a day full of same ol' work. 25 looks like a big landmark. It's the at which people around you consider you "mature". Your parents expect you to take responsibilities. People consult you for "serious" opinions. Older females in the family start looking for your match :-)

It may be a big day for me. But look around. How many people even bother. Things are still the same as they were yesterday. And thats the way they will continue tomorrow. This makes me realize how small I am in this world. I should have been someone. But I am not....I should have done something. But I haven't...Ahhhh I must do something with my life.

I can't stop myself retrospecting my life so far. I don't really have anything to complain about. Though I may never have had a car to drive me to places, I always had enough money in my pocket to take the bus wherever I wanted to go. I may not have had dinners at five stars but never in my life did I sleep hungry. I will say I got all the basic comforts, millions of people in the world are denied. And yet somehow I never thought about it all this time. I never thanked my parents for everything they did for me. Sitting here, 10000 miles away from them, I realize what I am missing all this time.

Mom, Dad, you may never read this...but I just want you to know that I love you and I just want to say "thanks" for the wonderful life you have given me........

laloo rocks!!!

The annual Rail-budget was presented today. I just went through the main points of the budget. In the days when oil prices are sky-high, inflation is crossing all the limits, Laloo actually is cutting all the fares. People may argue that he is ensuring his second term by a Junta-Budget, but he also claims that Railways has cash surplus of 25000 Crores. Thats a quite a surprise.

I should confess that I never liked Laloo as a leader. But the things he has been doing with the Indian Railways have left me spell bound. May be he is one of the best Management Gurus in the country. Or may be he is not interfering with the railway officials. and letting the professionals do there job. But as long as it is working in common man's favor (and railways' favor in general) whats wrong in it. At least he has been consistently achieving what his predecessors could not even imagine in their dreams.

Hats off to Laloo Prasad Yadav !!!!

I dont want to give title to this

Abraham Lincoln's letter to his son's head master is the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen. If it was in the headmaster's hands to teach all those things to even ONE earthling, he wouldn't have been a headmaster of a school.
I think the letter was written just to waste few precious hours of generations of students that followed........
(Am I sounding like Calvin ?)

Oops.......I did it again..

and I forgot one more meeting today...strike four!!
I must stop getting used to this.
I am sorry for what I did but more than that I feel sorry for the people whose time I have wasted.... I deserve a kick on my a** for this

Research papers

As a doctoral student and a wanna be researcher, research papers are part and parcel of my life. But somehow, I find it virtually impossible read them. One of the famous professors at IIT Kharagpur had once said that a good way to get your paper published is to make it look very easy if it is difficult and make it look difficult if it is easy. I believe this is exactly what is being followed in the research world (I am exposed to...). Many of the papers I go through have relatively easy idea unnecessary made complex by putting fancy symbols and equations and stuff like that. And thats exactly what makes them difficult to read (difficult ones are unreadable anyways). Let me accept here that I am not an avid reader when it comes to reading such works (actually reading anything). But when I gather enough enthu to go though the papers, just because of the cryptic presentation, it becomes hard to concentrate after first few minutes. In fact most of the times when I "read" a paper all I do is go through the initial sections and get the gist. Other than my own (which again follow the rule mentioned above, unfortunately) I don't think I have read any paper A to Z. I've talked to few friends about this, and it looks to me that I am not the only one doing this. May be a general survey of the research fraternity may reveal some disappointing truths.. I don't know.
you may wonder why am I writing all this.... Well the reason is that I am supposed to read about 8 papers as a part of my course and I have started the first one just few minutes back...:-D