Boat of Life - Quotes

Amazing lines from the first few chapters of the book "Three Men In a Boat"

• Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat, enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing!

• It is not that I object to work; I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

• Everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for funeral expenses.

"Up up and away in IX 661 to Chennai shortly"

Assorted Flavors

Useless Funda No. 1

Relationships and ropes are complements of each other. If the two ends of a rope are pulled too far apart, there is great tension and high chances that the rope might break.If the two entities in a relationship are too far apart, there is too much slack and high chances of a failed relationship.If the two ends of a rope are very close to each other there is too much slack and no harmonic vibrations. If the two entities of a relationship are too close to each other, there is very high tension and no harmony in the relationship. The key is the right distance, right space!

Scott Adams Advise for Atheists (modified version)

In his books Scott adams postulates an interesting theory as to why atheists should reconsider their position.

• Assume atheists believe that God does not exist with a 99.9999999999 % confidence level.
• Probability that Christianity is "THE TRUE" religion of the world = 1/6 (Set : Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Paganism, Hinduism and offshoots, Rest of religions)
• Calculating expectations of atheists spending eternity in hell (since non-believers go to hell for eternity):
  1/6 * (1 - 99.9999999999%) * Eternity = Eternity = Infinity

Mathematically atheists are in a losing position.

At work

Rapunzel: You know "Adams Apple" is getting married on 07/07/07 (7/7/2007)

Thumbelina: Ah! Nice. It is the Jackpot day of this millenium!

Peter Pan: It is quite funny isn't it. In gambling you spend money on the Slot machine. When you win a Jackpot 777 you get a hell a lot of more money. Whereas when you spend a lot of money and get married on a 777 date, you are eventually going to blow even more money.I would rather gamble.
Wendy: You are so mean!!

sulk sulk! I am going out with Hulk!

Little Red Riding Hood: Jokes apart, are you superstitious?

Jack on the Bean-Stalk: I don't believe in superstitions because I believe they bring bad luck to me ;)

Pinnochio: You are a twisted man. Paradoxtor we should call you!

Taking off to Jakarta

Itz one of the flight blogs again. Flying to Jakarta for the weekend today. Just had my breakfast at Kaveri in Terminal 2 Changi. "3 Mini onion and tomato Oothapams with Strong coffee". Impressive food, though a bit expensive.

Everytime I fly Changi re-asserts itself as a "Kick-Ass" airport. They now have a High Definition Lounge with a number of HD-TVs showing different channels. It has a mammoth high definition tv screen (approx 4m X 3m). They also have provided couches to rest and enjoy. To add to this, each of the couches are fitted with personal speakers to listen to the audio.

Just adjoining this is the gaming area where one can play FIFA 2007 on XBox. Adjacent to this is the Free Internet area with "Panasonic Toughbook" laptops from where I am posting this blog.

Time to board.

Rain in my Room

Summers in Pilani are extremely and unbearably hot. It is pretty much dry and you don't sweat. Hence the heat really gets to your head. Post-lunch sessions and afternoon classes have considerably low attendance. The Redi-Wallah's (Small mobile shops) make good profits in their sales of "Shikhanjis" (Lemon Juice).

In the hostels, people who had rooms on the ground floors were quite lucky and they didn't experience that much heat. But the students in the first floor, who had the terrace above their rooms, had to bear the extreme heat.

The old stained fans in the rooms used to run 24x7 circulating hot air. But people did have ways of improving situations. There were people who sprinkled water and slept on the floor while it was cool.

I did have my own ways to cool off. I had a clothes line going across inside my room. I used to hang a porous wet dripping towel on it and tie it to the wall.
The hot air from the fan used to pass through this curtain of wet cloth and be cooled before it reached me.

Given my luck, I got a really ancient good-for-nothing fan in my room. The poor fan too used to feel the heat too, and used to stop when it got over-heated. One could make nice omlettes or dosas if the fan had rotated upside-down.
(you dont even have to spread the dough as they will automatically take shape due to the rotation of the fan).

To cope with this situation, I tried the "Sama" (Mild way) approach first.
I registered a complaint with the hostel chowki (watchman) to no avail.
When it did not help I devised my own way to cool myself and the fan. When the fan used to stop, I had a bucket of water ready. I used to splash water on the ceiling fan with a mug. The fan would slowly start rotating again, and I would enjoy the sensation of "Rain within my own room".

Pouring my 'Art Out

Taare Zameen Par

Painted it the day after watching the movie. Hence the name

Raktha-akshi - Bloody Eyes

Rabbit Dreams

I seldom have dreams and am quite a deep sleeper. Last night however I had a weird dream which I have narrated below. This being the first dream of the year (probably after a long long time) definitely deserves a blog entry.


The dream was as follows:
It was quite late in the night. Someone (I think my uncle) was trying to close the door of the loft. It did not close in spite of repeated trials.We decided that it must be a rat. (Don't ask me how.) A rat-trap adorned with some food item is summoned and placed in the gap between the wall and the loft-door.We hear the trap shutting almost immediately, and a big squeal. When we open the door, we see a huge grey - rabbit stuck in the trap with half its body outside the trap.The rabbit resembles a huge rat or a bandicoot (grey fur color)and is quite ugly. I have never seen a rabbit of such size and color in real life. Hiding behind the rear of the huge rabbit is its small frightened child.We planned to get rid of the rabbits from the house. I suggested quite rashly that we just throw the rabbits down from the balcony.This is immediately executed. Later I get this huge pang of guilt and am quite concerned about the child rabbit. I stare at the dark expanse below. The rabbits seem to have disappeared into thin air.I have a sleepless night in my dream, with a prolonged sense of guilt.


There my dream ended as I woke up to drink some water and made a mental note to follow up on this later. I subsequently did some research on Rabbits in dreams this morning. Apparently they appearing in your dreams are meant to signify something.(source:http://www.dierinbeeld.nl/animal_files/mammals/rabbit/index.html)



Rabbits in dreams

Rabbits in dreams can be symbols of luck, quickness, fertility or pregnancy. Fertility can, in dreams, also be seen as personal growth. Some say that to dream of a rabbit means you will experience faithfulness in love and a great friendship, or good business ventures. Rabbits can also symbolize the dreamer's lack of consciousness orawareness. Seeing a rabbit in your dream may signify that you sometimesreact too quickly to life's situations. More thought and planning may be needed.

Hmm.. tried interepreting the above with respect to myself.

• Luck (maybe itz time after all to buy that one winning toto ticket meant for me at Singapore Pools)
• Quickness (N.A.): Interesting that a Hare (rabbit all the same) should signify quickness when it lost the race to the tortoise.
• Fertility or Pregnancy (reserved for later use ;)

I sort of agree with the last part with respect to reacting quickly to life's situations. I had been thinking all this while that reacting quickly would be a positive thing. But sometimes taking such rash and hasty decisions as throwing rabbits out of balconies in the middle of the night, could give you sleepless nights. Hence more thought and planning is definitely required.

Anyways Happy New Year to All and blogging days are back!!!!