Door Talk.

My room’s door had the following things stuck on it.

• A poster of the Backstreet Boys.(It was free)
• Some motorbike cut-outs from some magazine
• Some car cut-outs from some magazine
• A copy of a cartoon I saw in India Today’s 20th anniversary issue
• An Ubuntu sticker

Now changes have been made.

• Backstreet Boys out, Charlie Chaplin in
• I’ve also stuck some of my old school ID cards on the door

I have no idea why I stuck those ID cards. But they look a bit cool, I must say.

Oh well, I’ve also gone and stuck a poster of Satch on my room’s wall.

Next to come up on the wall will be Iron Maiden.

I just realised…

Since I came back home, I have not read anything except for two Agatha Christies and Two Asterix comics. Surprising. Most of my time has been spent watching VH1,Animal Planet, THC,Nat Geo and Discovery and on the internet.

Bizarre.

Music and Myself.

Saturday I came home.

Today was Monday.

For past two days, I’ve been listening to music and watching TV.

It’s now that I appreciate my PMP. It is really great.

And also VH1.

VH1 has a couple of great programmes now. There’s one called Sunday Brunch on Sunday from 11:00 AM. It features a different artist every week. So far they’ve had Sting, Steven Tyler, Jim Morrison, Freddie Mercury, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson. This Sunday it’s gonna be Madonna so I’m happy to miss it. They talk about the artist, to the artist and show concerts and videos. Quite cool

They’re having a series called “Gods of Guitar” this month. They talk about great guitarists and play videos and concerts. They’ve had David Gilmour, Pink Floyd, John mayer and Eric Clapton. The Pink Floyd episode was cool because they showed a documentary on the making of The Dark Side of the Moon. They showed how they used synthesizers, multi-tracking, adt, flanging and other sound effects on it. I wish Big Al had set that in our course instead of Quadrophenia.

Quadrophenia is good, no denying that but still, The Dark Side of the Moon was released in March 1973 and Quadrophenia in October 1973. The Dark Side of the Moon was recorded at Abbey Road Studios just like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Dark Side of the Moon would have been perfect to show the progression of sonic experimentation that he showed us with The Beatles. The lyrics of both are cool, but The Dark Side of the Moon is a shade better in my opinion.

This week they’re going to show Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Mark Knopfler and someone else whose name I forget. The whole of this week, I think plus Saturday the whole show.

CNN has a show on Iron Maiden on Saturday at 2:00 PM, I think.Check your local listings. It’s called Behind the scenes with Iron Maiden and features backstage footage, concert videos and interviews.

Nat Geo’s Air Crash Investigations are great. The way they examine everything is so professional.

Animal Planet still rocks and so does Discovery.

The History Channel has this cool series called Biography. Today they showed Al Gore. Their Jumbo Movies are also nice.

Meow FM(104.08 FM) may call itself “India’s first just-for-women radio station” but Friday to Tuesday, after 10:00 PM they play cool english songs. Friday they play Old Classics, Saturday Hip-Hop Monday Soft rock and Tuesday Pop. Sunday, they play listener requests. Friday nights they also have a band playing unplugged. One of these played a song by Susheela Raman. Nice songs. A little bird(which is big and bald) informs me that her albums are there on rapidshare and other such sites. I did not tell you anything about where to get them, understand?

Coldplay released their latest single “Violet Hill” from their new album Vida la Vida or Death and All His Friends for free. It was free till May 6th. I have the song. I’ll pass it on, if you want it.

I have to read the Iliad, The Orestia, Book Six of the Aenid, A bunch of Horace’s Odes and two books(Genesis and The Gospel of St.Matthew) and a chapter(Chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel) from The Bible. I’m leaving out The Aenid.

I wonder if I would get marks if I handed in a CD with Manowar’s song Achilles,Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts, Blind Guardian’s song And then there was Silence and Led Zeppelin’s song Achilles’ Last Stand. Probably not. BTW, listen to the songs. Quite cool, if you like that sort of thing.

Also managed to find a video of Avial’s Nada Nada

That’s all for now. Chow

Update: Google search informs me that this week, the fourth is Led Zeppelin. Hendrix and Led Zep are going to be Video Shuffle shows. Knopfler and Deep Purple are gonna be Concerts(A Night in London - Knopler, Live in California ‘74 - Deep Purple). Saturday 11:00 AM onwards.

Blender Time Again.

Okay, I should be studying for my end-sems. But then I wanted to play around with Blender again. Damn it, that thing’s addictive.
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Anyway, I decided to start off simple. No fancy organic modelling or complex Ferraris. Just a plain scene of some apples on a plate. The plate is on a glass-top table, which is on a floor.

The apples were easy — SpinDup (Blender’s Lathe tool) a set of vertices.

Follow same method for plate.

Table was a bit of a difficulty. I decided to have two different cubes for the glass-top and the rims.

Floor– just a textured plane.
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Then I decided to add lights. Lighting was not coming off right. I went to Blender’s Wiki for help on Lighting rigs. And then… I realised that my workflow was screwed. I was adding lights after materials, basically screwing up all my shaders. *Sigh*

I’ll have to rework the scene. Models will stay, I’ll have to create a spare material, assign it to the models and then read up on lighting. Then create a proper rig, and most probably ray-trace it.

Let’s see.

God knows…

I need a new nose.

For the past couple of days my routine has been.

Step 1:: Sneeze.
Step 2:: Wipe Nose.
Step 3:: Curse.

Repeat from top.

And now I’m irritated. I’m also bored. I have to study. I also have to collect my exam roll no. Damn It.

Waste of time.

Thees is the soometheeng zat Zi seed on mandy,rukmini and sohini’s blogs. I have time. I shall ze do it.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
Went to College.
Braved the SBSTC alone.
Did “Stuff” (hush)

2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn’t make any. And I shall continue my tradition of not making any.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nope.

5. What places did you visit?
Does Calcutta count?

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Ah, I have a list, a little list…

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Any date after 9th July. When I stepped into a department full of loony buns…

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting into JUDE. (How did I manage that?)

9. What was your biggest failure?
I do not remember any thing that might count as a failure.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nope.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
The JUDE form.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Certainly not mine.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and/or depressed?
Why would someone’s behavior depress me? :O

14. Where did most of your money go?
Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee. (Food can wait, Coffee can’t)

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
JUDE.
“Stuff”
Hem Hem

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
I don’t know.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Way happier.

18. Thinner or fatter?
Thinner. (if that’s possible)

19. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Laughing.

20. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Nothing. I wanted to do everything I did.

21. How will you be spending Christmas?
At home on the internet I suppose.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
There are some things man was not meant to know…

23. How many one night stands?
Eh? What be those?

24. What was your favourite TV programme?
Fate/Stay Night, VH1 Rock Rules and of course Premiership matches.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I do not hate anyone. Irritated by people maybe. Hate never.

26. What was the best book you read?
American Psycho, Biographia Literaria…

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Cake, Leonard Cohen and Asher Lane.

28. What did you want and get?
A portable media player.

29. What did you want and not get?
I haven’t tried to get what I want. Since I haven’t tried I haven’t failed yet.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
300. This is Spartaaaaa!!!!

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went to Uni. Bunch of crazy freaks celebrated my birthday. Thanks guys. 18 years old. I’m an adult. Oh No. How did this happen?

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Gak. You expect me to answer?

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
You wouldn’t even notice me.

34. What kept you sane?
Excuse me? Sane? I don’t want to be sane.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I have better ways to waste my time. Like sucking on my Lightsaber.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The stupid CPM blackmailing the centre.

37. Who did you miss?
No one.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Ah, a bunch of totally random freaks. You know who you are.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
If one door closes, another door opens….
and Mess food is always crappy.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
“Riders on the storm/ Into this house were born/ Into this world were thrown…”

People who wantz to doo zees are ze mozt bhelcom. Pliss to let me knose. I is liking to reed.

Why studying literature can be funny…

in unexpected ways.

I won’t say anything about how we get to broaden our horizons and stuff. Just a small sample

From Emma by Jane Austen

Mr. Elton returned, a very happy man. He had gone away rejected
and mortified–disappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series
of what appeared to him strong encouragement; and not only losing
the right lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very
wrong one. He had gone away deeply offended–he came back engaged
to another–and to another as superior, of course, to the first,
as under such circumstances what is gained always is to what is lost.
He came back gay and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing
for Miss Woodhouse, and defying Miss Smith.

Now this is after Mr. Elton has declared his love for Emma and has been rejected. He goes away mortified. Emma had in fact been trying to get him to like her friend Harriet, a girl of little money and inferior social standing. Mr. Elton goes away and returns engaged to someone else.

Nothing new so far. But let’s read it like this.

He had gone away rejected and mortified. He had gone away deeply offended .He came back gay.

When you read it like this, it suddenly become so much more entertaining.

Heheh I leave it to you to find other such entertaining meanings.

Random, nonsensical post.

Winamp:: It really whips the Llama’s ass.

Yes, I am a Winamp user. I do not like WMP. It’s good but nothing compared to Winamp. Especially after v5.5 The plugins available for Winamp are just too cool. And the new Bento skin is just uber. But the feature that I really adore in Winamp is “Global Hotkeys”. You can control Winamp with the Keyboard, no matter which software you’re using. Add to the fact that it sits nicely in the System Tray….

Check out the Bento Skin

The pictures of the mouse have unfortunately not come out well. In fact, they have come out awful. So no pics of mouse.

However…..

We do have pictures of a calotes in the Bougainvillea.

Mouse in the house

My latest pastime… trying to catch a mouse. No, I have not become insane. No, I am not a cat.

This mouse has been in the house for a few days now, well weeks actually. We bought a mousetrap. It hasn’t worked so far. We’ve cleaned up all the junk on the floor. ( This process usually involves moving all the junk to a higher level ) The mouse just moves to another room. It started out with the kitchen, moved on to my room, and then moved to my sister’s room. So today I decided, Enough is enough, Time to catch it with my bare hands. I started taking all the shelves apart. It ran up the Electric Iron’s power cord onto the window sill. I caught it, it slipped out of my hands and hid under the bookcase. I poked it with a scale, it ran up the Electric Iron’s power cord onto the window sill. I caught it, it slipped out of my hands and hid under the bookcase.Repeat performance twice. Then it climbs up the leg of the cot, and jumps towards the door. I had locked it so it couldn’t run away. It hid behind some plastic bags, I flushed it out. I caught it again, It slipped out of my hands again. Then it finally managed to squeeze under the door and get out. My sister’s room looks like it’s been demolished by a monster truck.

The mouse is actually pretty cute. It has pink ears, and is small and goes around the place sniffing at everything. It’s also very soft. I wonder if I could keep it as a pet.

Beware of the K.M.R.

Okay, this will be quite a substantial post. Why? Because I went and submitted my End-Sem exam forms to the K.M.R. a.k.a The place that drives you mad (ref. The Twelve Tasks of Asterix) a.k.a Bureaucratic Hell. But let’s start at the beginning shall we?

On Monday, 8th Oct, A notice comes up on the Dep notice board that Tuesday, 9th Oct was the last date to submit End-Sem exam forms without fine and Thursday, 11th Oct was the last date to submit forms with a Rs.5 fine. They would accept only fines picked up from the K.M.R. and forms DLoaded from the Uni website. So I got a form printed and photocopied it. Went to K.M.R. at 10:00 A.M. on Tuesday to submit forms. Went and stood in the shorted line along with two other friends. Some other friends had gone and stood in the longer line( coz they didn’t know the shorter line existed…until we told them, by which time it was too late to switch lines) Stood there for FIVE frikkin hours and then those @#$%#$ wouldn’t accept my form coz it was a photocopy. The little @$$#o|35. Then went on Friday, Stood in line for three hours and submitted a fresh form. Bloody freaks. Stuck in the administrative processes of 1943. And there were these geniuses in line who were paying their sem fees at the same time. And some Einstiens who filled their forms incorrectly. Stupid buggers.

Helped Sandy pick up and organize the JUDE dept T-Shirts. Poor Sandy has gone quite bald with this task. Also the T-Shirt guy has made some quite entertaining mistakes. He’s put “L” tags on size “Small” T-Shirts. Some people are going to get a shock when they pick up their Tees. Also he’s messed up some orders. But on the whole he’s done stuff properly. So that’s cool.

Met Karma Mingyur Yonzone a.k.a Kong a.k.a The Beast from the North-East. This man has to be seen to be believed.

Went out to eat quite a bit.

Exams from Nov 26th.

See quite a big post.

Chill.