Orkut Friends

Initially when I subscibed to Orkut a year back, I had to satisfy my ego of having more than 100 friends. Today I have more than 250 but my ego is totally crushed. Why?
I cannot talk/scrap to more than 30 people in my friends list.

This is a big disadvantage of Orkut. If u know a person, u add him as ur friend. If u don't relate with him then he lies in the hidden depths of ur Friend list. When time comes to actually talk to the person, one feels ashamed of being "Kama purta Mama". U haven't scrapped that guy in ages and hence u cannot scrap him now.

I have found a simple solution for this problem. Delete the guy from ur friend list and then readd him saying ur friend list got corrupted. He is happy as u added him again and makes ur life easy as u can scrap him now. A good solution isn't it !!

My grudge

Recently I watched the movie Grudge II with much anitcipation...but alas !!...it was a big disappointment. I had become a fan of Sam Raini after watching Grudge I but in the second part, he has bent down to the Hollywood style horror and produced a chaotic movie which leaves us clueless rather than terrified.

Older the better..like the ghosts

I have always found older horror movies more frightening than the newer ones. This can be attributed to the fact that a lot of props and special effects are used in today's movies. In older times all the horror and fear had to be acted out. Also the older movies concentrated more on psychological aaspects rather than loud sounds and blood.

Here is a list of all the old and new horror movies I have enjoyed.

OLD

1)Exorcist
2)The Shining
3)Changeling
4)Halloween I
5)Poltergeist I
6)Nightmare on elm street
7)Jaws
8)Clockwork orange

NEW

1)Grudge I
2)Descent
3)Texas Chainsaw Massacre
4)Saw I

What is about this 'Dr.' tag

I was recently going through a couple of profiles on 'Orkut' when I came across the 'Dr' (doctor) tag before their names. Now why only 'Doctors' and 'Phds' have to attach this tag before their names. Why isn't there a tag for simple engineers like us?

It makes me feel less important if I don't have a tag in front of my name. I say..."What after studying for 23 screwing years, I don't even get a simple tag". Not a suffix tag like like B.Tech or B.E but a prefix tag like 'Dr'.

I am currently thinking of tags like
Er. Saurabh Chobe - it feels like someone is stammering
Br. Saurabh Chobe - it makes me a bachelor for rest of my life.
Mr. Saurabh Chobe - anyone can have this tag so its useless
Eng. Saurabh Chobe - makes me feel like an engine
Zr. Saurabh Chobe - ahah here is a powerful tag...makes me feel important

From now on I am not a plain engineer anymore but a 'Zr.'

Mail me what u think would be a good tag and we will incorporate this tag in the society.

Throw the jew down the well !!

Eventhough Hitler and the Nazi Party were prosecuted for crimes against the Jews, you can still find instances of anti-semitism out everywhere...especially USA.

Comedian Sasha Baron Cohen has created the character of "Borat" who is from Kazakstan and is anti-jew and anti-gypsies. Borat appeared regularly on Da Ali G Show, for Channel 4, with sketches featuring him often relying on outrageous behaviour and actions, and the reactions of uninformed individuals around him. In some cases, Borat's guests embrace his anti-Semitism and misogyny by agreeing with him, while other guests attempt to explain Western values to him.

Watch it at BORAT

My favourite is "Throw the jew down the well !!"

Tip of the iceberg

I am always worried of availing any service such as taking a taxi service to the airport, having a waiter bring my food etc. Its not only the quality of service I am worried about...but its also the TIP I have to pay later. (For those unaware few, it is a culture in USA to tip a person after being serviced)

Its hard to figure out sometimes whether to tip a person or not. Do u tip a cashier or person checking baggage at the airport curb? Its also a nightmare to estimate how much tip to pay a person. Is 10% ok or does he deserve 15%. It becomes worse when you live in a 5 star hotel and have to look around to see what amount people give as a tip. If someone gives a 10$ then you are doomed as the person expects the same tip from you.

I can tell you from my experience that people will give u all sorts of looks when not tipped properly. If you get a constipated face after you tip...bingo the tip was wrong. Here in USA I have observed that if you are an Indian then most of the times they provide you with a grouchy service due to their belief that we are not going to tip them. So we end up tipping more to improve our image. (Now get the reason why USA wants more Indians !!)

Like a modern day Shakesphere I have the dilemma..."To Tip of not to Tip". I am going to take this small step to stop the menance...I am not going to tip you for reading this blog...and stop giving me those stares.

(p.s: OK OK ... when I come back to India I will tip you all...the only thing you have to do is comment on this blog entry and earn ur tip)

My trip to New York

I recently had gone to New York for 2 days on a business trip. Here is a short trivia of it.

Manhattan(in New York) reminds you a lot of Mumbai or Laxmi Road in Pune. All the streets are crowded and there is a splurge of colors everywhere. Like our 'bhel' and 'panipuri' stalls, you can find hot dog stands and hawkers all along the street. All along in Manhattan, you will find smartly dressed people most of whom are wearing suits. One may feel the odd man out if you are not wearing formals.



The world is a very small place. I found a person who had stayed previously in Kothrud and now had shifted to New York. He was working at the airport and helped me with changing the flights. Its great to meet such a person as he has tons of advice for you. One can find lots of Indian taxi drivers in New york. They are very friendly and have to talk about affairs of the whole world in the short ride time.

What can I say more...I LOVE NEW YORK

My writer's block

I am currently suffering from a writer's block....just kidding. I have specifically made this post to inform the readers that I won't be blogging till 27th of this month due to personal reasons.

So check out my blog after 7 days...till then take care and live a full life

Cheers

Ek...dow...teen..(One...two....three)

No no no I haven't gone crazy and started counting nos like a first grader. This title is a 'dialogue' from most of the hindi movies we come across. Popular examples are bank robbers threating to shoot people after counting to 3 or 'Gabbar Singh' threatening to kill Veeru after a count of 10 if 'basanti' won't dance.

Why do people do a countdown before taking a decision? Is it for the benefit of the victim or to give oneself time to think. I don't see any reason making a countdown before shooting a person if you have pre-planned it. Maybe its for producing a dramatic effect or for increasing the length of a movie (like in the case of Mangal Pandey where the countdown takes whole 5 min...such a bore). I have never seen military personnel doing a countdown before killing enemies in a war.

Some of you might reason that the countdown gives the victim a second chance. Even in this case why count till 10. We can get along by counting down to 1 and not hurt the conscience. Maybe the sound of '3' produces a better threating effect than '1' or '2'.

My point is that if you have a misfortune of facing a gun barrel and the person starts a countdown, you can be assured that you have a high chance to live as the person is unsure whether to shoot you or not.

The ultimate goal of humanity ... DEATH

I was recently thinking about goal setting. What should my goal be? Should it be earning millions of dollars, or getting a decent paying job etc.. As I was not able to finalize my goal, I started thinking about the ultimate goal of all humanity. I figured out that my goal must be a part of that "Big Goal" as it is always being said that - Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land.

Let us think for a moment where humanity is heading. What is the ultimate aim of humanity? From my perspective the ultimate of humanity would be "Instant gratification of ones thought". This means that if I think about being hungry, I would instantly be fed magically and feel full or if I feel like communicating with a particular person, I should be able to do that just by thought. A person cannot go further than that because everything originates from thought.

So what will happen further...there will be no evolution as there is nothing left to evolve and as there is nothing further to do, the species would die as "Death of human species would be the only thing left to do (Death would be the only thought remaining to be tried)". So the whole goal of humanity is to "DIE". So dont feel bad if u havent set any goals as they would only be helping humanity to perish.

I am against water conservation....

Hold on..Hold on...don't start cursing me just by reading the title...just hear out my side. I am currently living in USA. Here all the people are water conservationalists(those who save water). They use paper towels(tissues) to replace water everywhere. So they use tissues to clean after cooking, to wipe tables and also to wipe out the "stalactites" left after answering the nature's call.

So here comes my problem. As being born and brought up in India, I am habituated with using water to clean my b**t every morning. So after 20 years, a neural binary switch has been created in my brain which tells me whether I am : clean / not-clean. As this switch gets triggered only by the use of water, a continious alarm goes off in my mind reminding me of being dirty whenever I use tissues. In order to repair this switch, I started researching to find out the value of x in this equation:

Cleaning effect of x*(tissue) = Cleaning effect by water

Concluding from the same reasons for which we use water for bathing, the value of x must be very large. So to have the same 'cleaning effect', we have to use large quantities of paper everyday. This implies that the Americans are against 'forrest conservation' as paper comes indirectly from forrests. Hence logically speaking, u are either against 'water conservation' or against 'forrest conservation'. Take ur pick !!

As to me, I always believe in the Indian TV commercial "Dho Dala" !!!

My face value = Cheat

We have observed that people have a habit of passing judgements by looking at a person's face. They think they are able to tell whether he/she is a rich, egoistic or a plain stupid (having a big question mark on his face). In this aspect, I have reasons to believe that the value associated with my face is that of a prankster or a cheat.(photo in my profile for reference)

1) At the 10th Board Exams I was the only person to be checked for 'chits/hidden notes' in the whole class.
2) Every year during my BE, I was to be checked for hidden chits.
3) Even during my MS, people come up to me for putting in proxies even though I don't know them.

What makes a person's face the way it is? Are they really the reflection of his genes and intentions? How are people able to identify these characteristics in a person? Are these face patterns stored in a person's brain when he is born (filtered through evolution) or get created depending upon his life experiences. If we can get a statistical survey of various parameters of a face then a real cheat can create an 'honest face' through plastic surgery and become the con man of the century (maybe like " Mhamta Gnahdi "....u definately must have read it as Mahatma Gandhi...why do people hate that man so much?)

Neways as most of u would know, I am above average in terms of getting grades. So it hurts evertime I am checked for cheating. I think its high time for me to start wearing 'shades/goggles' to hide my real face and bring out the cool one...like many of the Bollywood actors do. As the saying goes.."Who says life is fair" !!

Why the world doesn't need 'Shaadi.com'

I recently had the misfortune of encountering 'Shaadi.com' website when I was checking my mail. As I too am of marriageable age, I decided to checkout the site in detail. I entered my 'ideal girl' parameters and guess what I found out...utter crap. All the girls there were bad looking and had utterly boring preferences for a husband.

This set me thinking about the site. Why do they show such crap to the 'guests' browsing through and expect them to pay money to register to this site. Atleast they should try to bluff us in this way:
They can create dummy profiles of good looking people and put them on display for us. Later when we register and try to contact these people, the can send dummy messages saying these people are not interested in ur profile. Atleast people won't repent spending their money on this site.

From looking at 'Shaadi.com', I have now come up with an idea for making money on the internet. You all the the very popular site 'Orkut.com' which hosts millions of profiles of people. All I have to do is make an interface that looks like Shaadi.com' and the search through 'orkut' database for the perfect girl/boy. Plus we Indians search for a suitable match through friends and relatives...and BINGO
we can seach through friends -> friends -> friends.. on orkut. I am already dreaming about $$$

Drunken guilt

What happens when u are drunk? Simple-You don't remember what you have done in that supremely unconscious period. You could have abused someone, pranced about naked or just slept throughout. All ur endeavours are fed to u later by ur friends (who were and weren't there when u got drunk).

Next morning your 'Drunken Guilt' also comes to senses along with you and you start to feel it. You don't know whom to apologize and for what. So you try to rack ur brains trying to remember the past night which gives u a better headache. So you start feeling guilty about the endless list of things you could have done during that heavenly period.

I have many solutions for this.
1)Try to get drunk in a room which has a video camera recording in it. Atleast you can see what u did and not feel guilty about the things u didn't do.
2)Always have a drunken guilt (like our politicians).

What say?

"The best way to find a terrorist award" goes to...US

Many of u have given ur GRE/GMAT/SAT and have applied for american universities. The lucky few went to the next hurdle of actually applying for a visa at the US consulate. What did u notice on the forms there?

The one thing that stood out for me were the question:
1)Are you a terrorist?
2)Are you planning to engage in terrorist activities in US like blowing up bridges, making bombs etc.?

Any half-witted terrorist would say no to these questions. Those whom are even more stupid would actually go through the options mentioned in the second questions and say no eventually as those are the outdated methods of terrorism.

So what is the point in asing these questions? To show the the world that they care for people or to make the application procedure more difficult by increasing the questions?

Neways I think it would have made more sense if they made u fill out the questionnaire with a lie detector attached so that they couls atlteast tell the difference.

(Anyone trying to use this method will be charged for copyright violation !!)

I...the backbencher

Who says there is no class discrimination in India...what about these 3 castes
1)the backbenchers (the lower class/caste)
2)the front benchers (the upper class/caste)
3)the middle rows (who cares about them anyway).

I belong to the backbencher caste (though not being born into it). I have heard a lot of criticism throughout my life for being a backbencher but being a selfish person, I prefer to belong to that caste.Here are the reasons why ::

1) U can see all the hot chicks without getting noticed.
2) U can earn the title of the 'Class Gossiper' as all the events happening in the class are registered by u.
3) U are always noticed by the teacher as she knows u are a potential candidate for making mischief.
4) As the many classrooms are not stepped in India, it is in ur hand when to be in focus of the teacher's attention and when to hide away from her.
5) U could always eat ur tiffin there.
6) If u perform well, the teacher gets doubly impressed as I was a backbencher.

Even in USA after paying 10,000$ I didn't feel like changing my caste because:

1) All the above mentioned advantages.
2) U can play chess games on ur laptop and make the Prof. beieve that u are taking notes.
3) U can escape from the class without getting noticed.

So why does one want to belong to that upper caste when u have these advantages by being a backward caste??

(For the ignorant few, in HBS the last 2 rows are the most powerful rows name the Powerdeck and the Skydeck resp.)

The Colbert (Kolber) Report

I have recently been watching the clips of 'The Stephen Colbert show' and have to admit that they are witty and sarcastic. The topics are mostly political and the people on the show are mostly those who won't survive his barrage of questions.

The show is very entertaining for a couple of days but then starts getting on ur nerves as the ideas turn out to be repetative and dull.

Still worth giving a shot...

Abhi says

This is abhishek. first of all i would like to mention that saurabh is a real genious.
about how i managed to score... u just have to have a tactic, a method to do a certain thing. saurabh helped me out and i succeeded, thnx to him. one more thing, nothing is impossible and also, impossible is nothing.

A friend's story....

I have a friend named Abhishek/Nulls (Ya just like a Null in C++). A simple down to earth guy with a big laugh and a huge appetite for movies, girls and Vodka. One would think why am I mentioning this guy in my blog ?? The answer is simple...He did something which even he didn't feel possible before.

A year back I remember him as a YD(year down) in Mech Engg. But today he has scored a whooping 72% in BE exams. Hats off to you Nulls !!!

Now the questions in ur mind would be--
1) How did he do that ?
2) Can I do the same ?

Please be patient as I have told him to write the answers in the next post !!!

Motivation (cont...)

I was thinking regarding motivation in one's life. What motivates a person ??
I found that even though I said a person can have different motivations, there is a common underlying logic behind all of them. " Its one's competition against oneself ".

I feel that a person has 2 different images. One is the internal image and the second is the external image(or the real image). The internal/virtual image is what a person believes he can be like a Superman or a Beggar. The external image on the other hand is what the person actually is in real life.

Real image <= Virtual image -> since -> consciouusmind <= subconscious mind.

I feel that a person feels the lack of motivation when his perceived image matches is real image or that there is a tremendous difference between the two.

In short my lack of motivation can either be due to my inferior complex or due to the fullfillment of my dreams...What can it be??

Motivation in life..

I am currently feeling very bored...I don't feel like getting up, eating breakfast or atending classes.
Why is this occuring ?
maybe I am not finding my 'MOTIVATION' ...so now is my task to find it
What can be one's motivation in life ... would it be parents,money, hot girls blah blah blah ...
I can safetly say that my motivation changes from day to day. One day its a girl I see in college...the other day its the money incentive after completing MS.
So to be motivated throughout life, one needs to be constantly searching for new motivations or for lazy people like me, it should be a one that lasts my lifetime.
That means it should last till (death - 1 ) sec...what can be such a motivation?

Why do courses clash ?

There seems to be some 'mangal' in my 'patrika/kundli'...everytime I try to register for courses which interest me, they clash with my other courses. Thus by simple calculation I end up taking only one course of my interest and the rest (3 courses) act as fillers.
e.g I was interested in taking 'Corporate finance' but it clashed with 'Computer Architecture' which clashed with 'DBMS'. So now I am forced to take up 'AI' , 'Real time systems' in which I have no interest.

Anyone has any solution for removing this 'dosh' in my patrika ??

Why I selected "hmmmm......" as the name

Well as is the ritual I must say "This is my first post...YIPPEEE !!!".... I would have been more happy if it would have been my last one.....

Well as this is my first post, I must clarify to my potential blog readers of why I chose the name "hmmmmm...." as the name. Many times in life, u must have encountered the situation where u wanted to say something but had to curtail the urge at the last moment. e.g Your Boss is blabbering away on some stupid topic in a meeting, ur relatives are irritating you on ur Birthday etc. etc. got the point ??
Well in these situations I just say "hmmmm..." All these 'hmmmm...' which I say in my day would be posted on this blog

Sounds interesting ??? (I am hearing many hmmmm's....run run)