Game over

Immense pressure and workload over the last couple of weeks led to me being decidedly workaholic and deliberately reticent.  I had to delve into my pools of reserve Force to be able to complete these tasks.  Said tasks being my Midterm exams and my project.  Pity they don’t grade you on the basis of blood-medichlorian content.  Stand first every single time, I would.( Greetings Master Yoda).  Studness only.

My project is my bane (very much similar to Isildur’s bane only his bane was a visible ring and WAY cooler).  Murphy’s law passed every single test case while my software didn’t.  Learning and putting a software platform to use isn’t as easy as it sounds.  Especially if it’s within 15 days.  Experience.

Total engrossment in software paradigms and error conditions and metadata lead to me looking at everything in terms of 1/0, yes/no, win/fail though I was visibly partial to the last of the three.  All my efforts seemed to be dedicated to the goal of achieving Pwnage.  In hindsight, I realise I over did it causing severe loss of cool to myself and marked increase in fool.  This is where I put words out of usage(yes. I not only introduce the general public to new words, but also put words out of vocabulary).  The P-word is no longer a part of the Explorer’s dictionary.

P.S: The Explorer still P-words all of you and and his blog still is the home of all W-word on the internet and I still live in the pursuit of  voiding the world of all F-word.

Aah, the sweet taste of W-word.

Brain-washers Inc.

Among the load of things I’m doing post the social not-working era, I add my short visit to my possibly future employers’ Development Center in Pune.  I have returned from a day long workshop, having witnessed first-hand, the effects of brainwashing.  And what I say is no exaggeration or Hyperbole.  It was brain-washing which we were oblivious to as long as we stayed within the confines of their sprawling IT park.

As a part of some new Spark thing which Infosys has apparently introduced to reach out to the potential IT future generation, all us new recruits were called over for a tour of our most probable working location at the Pune DC.  The day started off with an address by some Management level employee, whose former employers include some real big IT companies.  The way she presented the training programme and the work environment at the company was just the start of a long day of systematic brain-wash.

Soon after the boring stuff about some process method and profit demographic, we were herded to the food centre for lunch.  Needless to say, the damn place holds around 5-6 restaurants, 10-12 fast food joints and this without counting the branches of popular chains of restaurants.  Hunger #FAIL.  And lunch, as everything else there was fantastic given the choice at hand.  I did not have the fixed buffet thing that was free for all, instead I bought myself a host of other food I was comfortable with and YOU shall not brand me Lord Fuckland/Falkland/Fockland for this.

An intense activity where we were divided into groups and made to plan a project and then try and find pitfalls in others’ projects was pretty fun.  I successfully managed to Rob a bank and made sure a movie bombed at the B.O, a marriage failed and lame attempts to complete assignment work in lectures resulted in rustication.  WIN indeed.  Part of all these insane activities were a guy and a girl working for Infosys not much older than any of us.  And again, I believe they were particularly trained in Brain-washing young minds because they were successful.

Only when I was safely out of that park did I realise the amount of lure politics I encountered.  Safe to say, I am OK.  But I expect it won’t be long before I actually go work for Brain-washers Inc.  Fail was successfully averted all day.

Failbook

A long time ago, the world was different.  It was peaceful, harmonious and and delightfully uncluttered.  People would meet, socialise and when actual meeting failed, people resorted to writing letters and/or making phone calls.

January 22, 2004.  A wise guy, who went by the amazingly spectacular name Orkut Büyükkökten, came up with his idea of social NETWORKING.  It entailed meeting people online.  For the unaware, this is not the same as chatting which was already on the rise as people tried to make up for loss of personality and/or hygiene by creating stud avatars and logging into lame chatrooms.  His concept was a network which allowed people to remain in touch despite being logged on to the internet asynchronously.  Like public email if you like.  Vague and imaginative theories were put forward to explain why Orkut was started.  Stuff like how Orkut got separated from his girlfriend in a Kumbh Mela and started the website to find her or how Orkut was in love with this beautiful mermaid but didn’t know her name and created this website hoping she’d get a wi-fi signal in Atlantis and log on.  Digression apart.  Slowly but surely, the thing spread (not unlike a virus).  Each and every one of us has an Orkut account.  It’s like the initiation into the social networking world.

Here on, as you gain experience, you branch out to Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and so on and so forth.  We have reached a point on the timeline of the Internet where most people’s social lives are governed by their ISP.  Another passing phase in the long history of human evolution.  Now Facebook is another popular website which started off primarily as a means to connect and interact.  Soon Facebook underwent multiple stages of evolution.  Already extremely popular, they tried to increase their popularity by introducing quizzes, games, friend/enemy/loser/winner/weiner etc of the day and other endlessly irritating applications.

Facebook’s evolution can be charted as:

Facebook -> Quizbook -> Mafia Book -> Application Book -> Spam Book.

Now Facebook has embarked on it’s final and mortal transformation.  The process of combining all it’s  annoying attributes, rolling them into one gigantic Networking website and unleashing on thousands of walls.

In order to safeguard myself without losing the desirable portions like communication and social interaction, I have devised a method to stay free of the Facebook virus.  Simple rules I follow help me keep my walls un-cluttered and simple to follow.

1. If you post stupid shit, I hide the application that led to said shit.

2. If you repeat shit, I hide YOU.

3. If you again spam me through notifications and/or requests, I dunk you into my ignore/Mafia list.

4. You cross the line and ask me why I’m not responding to requests or if you PM me about aforementioned shit, Purgatory shall be unleashed, Unfriend shall occur.

Limited and easy rules to follow and keep track of, but hugely effective in limiting irritation.  Facebook’s next evolution has a name.  It’s Failbook.

Protect yourself from the transformation.  Do not network on Failbook.  Prevent Fail.  Inculcate these rules to promote Win.

Be wary.

-The Explorer.

Eye humped you

As always, the people around me are responsible for/inspire most of the stuff I write.  Little things often lead to monumental Fails or Wins. (If things don’t lead to either of the two, then they aren’t worth character space).

Edit having recently visited Goa, was describing his trip to me.  In the middle of describing the scenic beaches and the amazing sun, the conversation veered to an erstwhile discussion between the two of us which was primarily about the dearth of attractive women in his(our) life(lives).  This was when he suddenly launched into a graphic account of how he saw a large number of amazingly attractive(?) women in a street outside a night club in Goa.  As is protocol, I asked him the customary question

Explorer: Did you get laid?

Edit: No.

Explorer:  Atleast dry-humping?

Edit: No.  No dry-humping.  Only eye-humping.

These were his exact words.  My friend Edit did not realise that he came up with an apt term which accounts for the sex lives of millions of Indians.  ”Eye-humping” can be broadly defined as  stripping people naked with the “mind’s eye” and performing gross/obscene sexual acts with them within the said “mind’s eye”.

Stud-max terms now have fresh company. Eye-humping is here to stay, it will soon be as much a part of India’s sexual history as Kamasutra or Khajuraho.

Issued in public interest: Eye-humping is a severe lack of respect towards women and is in no way condoned by anyone. It is utterly derogatory and painful for subject of aforementioned eye-humping. Respect women, be civilised.
If not, UP yours.