what i did in KC

no matter... its fast!

2008-11-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

Cheti would always have his hands into the latest applications (atleast when in college), Shiv would always have his hands into the latest games. I did neither. All I had was my Windows 98 on my Intel P3, and since that combo could hardly run either of the two, I'd usually end up at Shekar's place playing games n tryin out new apps.

And he called once, all excited, saying, "Dude, I got a brand new AGP card. GeForce! "

I was like, "Whoa! When?"

"Today, evening, from lammy. Its awesome dude! Its 8X, AGP2.0, GeForce (and all the specs, which went on for like a minute)"

"Nicccccce", dragging that 'nice' along felt good since I hardly got what he said.

"Err... but there's a problem dude.."

"Yea?", most likely, I knew what the problem would be: something like, he couldn't fix it, couldn't install the drivers, or some technical difficulty which would typically require me to go over and install it.

"I don't have an AGP slot"

Bwahahahahahahahaha! :D

remote control

2007-08-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

MSN Messenger's got lots of features, and the best ones let you shutdown someone else's computer!

Like this one time, I was just kinda bored and was screwing around with Messenger's features. So after trying all other things I invited Shekhar to start NetMeeting. And without a word he accepted.
So I started the Share a Desktop Service. Now he could see my Desktop and everything. He browsed through My Computer, went into a drive, renamed a folder from 'Shivo proj' to 'Lamer proj'. (hehehe..)
Then after he had his fill, I asked him to share his desktop to me. Now I could see his desktop, his My Computer etc. etc.. So now I went through his folders, files.. etc. etc..
After getting majorly bored, I went in his Start Menu. And due to my then dial-up connection it took a long time to display. All I could see was the 'Shut Down...' menu item.
So I clicked it! :D
And he jumped up from his seat, "Hey!", and quicky pressed Esc to relinquish control!
Damn, I was so close! I should have shut down his PC!
Never again has he accepted my NetMeeting invites! :D

"Hmm.., let me run it again.. maybe it's command line based."
I wrote a really silly program once.
mdm.exe
Not the real Machine Debug Manager, a fake, which looked just like Microsoft's Machine Debug Manager. Complete with all the details like, Company name, Description, Version etc etc.
Except the Version was slightly higher than the mdm version available at that time. Oh and also that this mdm.exe would quickly eat up free disk space by making junk files. It was just for fun, and actually had started as a way to test my drive's speed by filling it up with 25-50 mb worthless files. It worked great on my PC.
Then I modified it, renamed it to mdm.exe, changed everything to make it look like Microsoft's MDM (even the default icon) and sent it to Prashant, telling him its a new version of mdm and works better.
He promptly run it.
And it didn't show him any interface, or any dialog, but it started its work. Quickly filling up his C: drive.
But what was funnier is that, he thought it was command prompt based (and hence he didn't get any dialog) so he started it one more time via command prompt!
Unfortunately, my dial-up connection disconnected. So after various attempts, when I finally got through, the first message to greet me from Prashant was something like:
"MY DISK SPACE IS OVER!! MY DISK SPACE IS OVER!! HELP!!"

He's never again gonna accept exe files from me! :D
(I then told him which files to delete and which process to stop.)

'This is computer speaking...'
But the best remote control incident was in college.
We used to use GoverLAN to govern all the different PC's in the Lab. And one of its best features was a much better version of NetMeeting's Desktop Sharing. Here you could pre-configure it to not even ask the remote computer's confirmation, as admin rights allowed us to take control of PCs anytime.
So this one time, we had lectures in the Lab, and Web maam was trying hard to erase 'Freinds' from her Powerpoint presentation (on the projector), with a duster/eraser on the board.
So after our fill of laughs, I spotted Shailesh and Mobin fiddling around with a PC. They had just logged in and were bumbling around. Now since Maam had asked to shut down all PC's, Shiv started GoverLAN on the server to shut it down from the server.
But I had an even better idea: I took control of the PC, started command prompt and typed thus:

Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195](C) Copyright
1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

C:\>This is computer speaking...
'This' is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file.

C:\>what are you doing on this PC? pay attention to maam!
'what' is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file.

C:\>Now shut down this PC!
'Now' is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file.

C:\>exit

And the best part is, it actually showed it type slowly. One letter at a time. And the first reaction by Shailesh was to look down at the keyboard.
I bet he expected to see the keys on they keyboard slowly getting pressed on their own!
Then Mobin started laughing. Shailesh was still confused, but he too started laughing. He didn't actually shut down the PC, so I did it for him.
Once the monitor went blank, they both looked at each other!
Then maam started teaching again, so they let it go.
But the three of us (admins) burst out laughing...
Ofcourse.. since class was still on, we couldn't really laugh...
so it was a very very difficult wait till the end of the lecture!

i'm just this kid who studies in KC

2007-05-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

I know my name ain't that easy to remember. Really! infact i've had the rare honour of having my name turned and twisted into a wide range of 'nicks'
[ Suresh a.k.a. Shuosh a.k.a. Suriyash a.k.a. Suyansh a.k.a. Zaosh a.k.a. Shushu a.k.a. Suyi a.k.a. Shushupal Singh ]
So what do you do when you want to call me up, but don't know what my name is?!

First Year!!
very very first few days of college!
It's a given not many know my name, let alone know it properly!
Jay wanted had some help with his PC and had taken my phone number at college.
Then he calls... and my dad answered.

Dad: Hello!
Jay: Hello?.. uh..
Jay thinking: "Shit! i forgot his name!!"
Jay: Uh hello.. woh ladka hai?
Dad: kaun?
Jay: uh.. uncle, aapka beta hai, joh KC mein padta hai?
Dad (comes up to me): Tu KC me padhta hai na?
Me: What??
Dad: Someone seems to have forgot your name! Here...
Hands me the phone.
Me: Hello?
Jay: Hello, Jay here. Sorry yaar, i forgot your name!!
Dad (to me): Tell him there's another one who studies in Jai Hind also, but he's not home.

Hahahahahaha

Its ok that he forgot my name, but it was just ingenious the way he asked for me anyway!! :D

the sympathy cut

2007-03-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

In around SY, this guy Aditya, from Bio tech, had some serious accident. Poor guy had to get his head shaved for the operation and everything! (Never mind the fact that he was operated upon, I was more concerned that he had his head shaved!)

But I soon realized it was no big deal! Two days later Shekhar got his head shaved too!
Me: "What's this? Sympathy cut?"
Him: "Huh? No dude! Football!"
(What the..., I thought. Sympathy cut for a football? He does realize that footballs don't have hair!)
Him: "Its easier to shoot a header in football this way"
Me: "Oh!... Okay!"
(pause)
Him: "...and also I'm hoping this will get rid of my dandruff"
Me: "Umm... I thought you're just making Aditya feel better, getting a haircut just like his. "
Me: "We should tell his entire class to get a shaved head. That way he won't feel left out."
Him: "Yeah! That'd be great! Then they can concentrate their shine on the head on the teacher and distract her in the class!"

Hahahaha :D

(I don't know why all of a sudden I was reminded of this!)

divya says hi

2006-10-03T05:14:00.000-07:00

I met Godfrey in FY, and instantly I detected a rapidly increasing brainwave pattern. He had that aura on him. Hes the kind of guy who picked up from where you left off.

Case in point.

Shekhar: "Want beer! (or more Pepsi! or India will lose the worldcup)" [Some of the mumbo jumbo Shekhar said that provoked a reaction]
Me: "You should be dead..."
Godfrey (picking up where I left): "And then some!"

And then one day...

Just a bit before KIRAN 2003 fest, I went searching for Shekhar. Along came Divya, (who didn't know that I knew Godfrey probably better than she'd have imagined), and tried to introduce me to him. I played along.
Divya: "Hey, meet Godfrey."
(this was gonna be fun!)
Me: "Hi, Godfrey. Suyash!"
Godfrey: "Hey Suyash."
Both of us trying to suppress a smile.
Me (@ Divya): "Have you seen Shekhar anywhere?"
Godfrey: "Oh I think he's in the Audi"
Me (thinking): "Damn you Godfrey!!! We just met! You weren't supposed to know who Shekhar is! But wait! I can fix this! Hope you catch up here"
Me (@ Godfrey): "Oh! You know Shekhar, do you?"
Divya (oblivious): "Oh yaa! He's Shekhar's good friend!"
Me: "Ah, I suppose you met him in KIRAN eh?"
Godfrey: "He's quite a character. Isn't he?"
Me: "Don't ask!"
Both supress bigger smile - look at each other.
(silence)
Me: "If by any chance you meet him, tell him to go to the lab."
Divya: "OK"
Godfrey: "Sure. Suyash right?"
Me: "Yup. Tell him Suyash was looking for him."
Divya: "Sure"
(funny pause)
Me: "Nice meeting you Godfrey"
Godfrey: "My pleasure."
Me: "Oh and Godfrey..."
Godfrey: "Yea..?"
Me: "Finally got that haircut you were gonna get eh?"
Divya: "WHAT!??"

Oh these freaks!

2006-06-26T03:29:00.000-07:00

I saw Shekar on MTV!
On Worldchart express, VJ Ramona was going round the premises of MTV offices and she was interviewing all the folks who work there. I knew she was bound to bump into Shekar eventually.
And how! He was wearing a bike helmet to work! Reason? - "Well, as you know, editing can be dangerous business".
(But actually, with Shekar, it's dangerous business for those around him!)
And Ramona's reaction? - "You can see, here at MTV we hire wierdos from different planets."
(Different planet reminds me of Gagan always calling Henal from Mars! I never really knew why.)
I never really knew what Shekar works as in MTV, and I'm sure they must have spent quite a lot of time figuring out what exactly it is that Shekar does there! Ultimately they just wrote - Shekar Pathak: Intern.

Weirdo indeed!

In SY, when Shekar came back from Delhi, he got with him a genuine Rs. 100 counterfeit note! It was a genuine counterfeit! Complete with a blotchy silver lining. The paper quality and no watermarks proved it being a fake.
Shekar probably never planned to use it. Although once, when he didn't have money for a sandwich here's what he did.
He orders the sandwich, eats it, and then asks me, "Dude, what do you call a utensil in Marathi?"
"A 'bartan'. Why?"
He then asks the sandwichwala (in his eloquent hindi): "Haan, kitna hua?"
Sandwichwala: "Dus"
Shekar: "Accha, paisa toh nahin hai... bartan kidhar hai?..."
Both the sandwichwalas looks wide-eyed at us and burst out laughing.
Then he bring out his fake 100 and says, "Khota paisa hai lekin!!"

I think later, Shekar's ma tore up that fake into two halves. She probably didn't trust him to not use it. I had the silver half for quite some time, and he had the other half.
I remember we once briefly planned to plant it in college somewhere and get someone in trouble. :D

The lift home

2006-05-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

After an entire day at college (KIRAN 2003 as volunteers of the Comps. Dept.), we set off home. And on my usual path back I bumped into Khushboo.
"Chal, I'll drop you off home.", she insisted.
"Actually I prefer to walk, but sure.", I agreed.

"Cool! Free ride", I thought.

We set off, and her not knowing the way to my home, I was telling her to take a right, a left and such.
Now KC is not that far from my home. Its 10 mins walking distance (max). So by car it just took a minute to get there.
"Thanks a lot Boo. Now you know where I stay", I said.
But no reply from her. So I turned round and she had this fearful look in her eyes.
"You do know how to get back home don't you?"
"Howwww?", she really dragged that 'w'.
Then I spent some 5 minutes vainly trying to describe the way back to her place. (which wasn't more than a minute from there). But she didn't understand a bit.
So I sat back in the car and we set off. Not to her house. Back to college!
"You know the way to your home from here right?"
"Yaa!" (very cheerfully). She had the way back home down pat from college.
"Thanks for the lift home", I said with a huge smile on my face, standing right back where I had started.
And she gave me a sheepish little smile back, "Anytime!"

exam fever

2006-04-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

What do you get if you put together:

New syllabus.
New teachers.
New students.

No. Not new records set.

Wierd question paper patterns.
Blank answer papers.
Students fainting in examination halls.

It seems TY finals this year were quite ass-kickin! Most left lots of questions unanswered. Some argued that the questions were unexpected. The new syllabus was not taught properly. But fainting in exam halls!! C'mon! We never did that. And we hardly studied. (and thats putting it lightly). Whatever we studied (or skipped). We always showed up for exams atleast. Except maybe, if say, we're sleeping. Yeah! Er.. Uh.. We're quite shameless like that there.

SY finals:

A typical exam schedule always meant studying late at night for us. So getting up early in the morning is difficult if not impossible. And sometimes you tend to pull an all-nighter and sleep in the wee hours of the morning. And once in SY, during the annual exams, one such Maths paper, Shekar, Shiv and I, (among others) were up studying late. And math as you all know, can never really be studied last minute, But try telling us that!

Next day: discussions in the library, of how much everyone skipped (instead of how much you've studied). Only we forget to notice that Shekar is not there with us. Later we figure he's probably already in class. Paper begins. He's not in sight anywhere. Where is he?

He's still in la la land (probably dreaming of being a goalie in Bayern Munich). After the paper, he promptly shows up at college though. All smiling.
Why? Cuz for once, he slept so soundly, that he got beauty sleep.
"Dude!", he tells me, "No blackmarks under my eyes! Thats so cool!"
"Oh yeah?! And what about the black-n-blue it's gonna turn when ma finds out?"

We never took any risks after that. Whenever anyone was unaccounted for before exams,(esp. Shekar) we called up to make sure they weren't gettin beauty sleep.
And it helped too!

TY prelims:

I almost pulled a Shekar too. (So to speak)

Since the paper was at 11 AM I had gone off to sleep at 5 AM thinking I'd get up by 10 atleast.

But I slept and I slept. And I slept a little more.

It was a saturday, and my parents thought exams would begin on a monday. (And more importantly: I'd be studying if I had a paper the next day!). They had gone out and I was left alone at home, sleeping. (A dangerous combination)

But acute as my friends are about these things, Girish calls to check up on me, "Where are you? Are you still sleeping?".
Even just out of sleep I am able to put up a 'I've-woken-up-long-back' voice to avoid total embarrasment and tell him, "Oh I'm up. I was just packing stuff".
So I'm off. Not to college, to sleep again!
And as well as he knows me, he calls me up again, this time, just a minute before the paper starts, yelling: "Tu abhitak ghar pe hai! Abbey jaldi aa! Kya kar raha hai!"
"Abbey aa raha hoon na! Bas das minute mein aya...tu jaa, late mat kar."
"Haan mein toh jaa raha hoon. Lekin tu aa! Phirse so mat ja ab saale!"
And I'm up. This time for good! Totally racing through the house, and to the college. I reach a good 10 minutes late for the paper. (Not that I ran out of time for the paper anyway!).

april fools

2006-04-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

I should have put this one up 6 days ago.
Raj's Ba-de (Birthday) is on the 1st of April.
And what day is that? :)
April Fools!!
Hahahaha!
So each year this day, I used to come up to her, shake hands, and wish, "Hey Raj, Happy... (eager anticipation) ...APRIL FOOLS!!"
"Hahahahahaha"
And she used get so mad! :D (Not seriously mad, just mad mad)

weapons of class destruction

2006-03-19T11:16:00.000-08:00

What Mrs. Jayaraman Ma'am used to call our batch:

"This is by far the worst batch we must have come across"
"I have never had such wild behavior from such students"
"In all the years we have taught in the college, we have never come across such a rowdy and rude batch"
"I don't understand how this batch managed to get to the SY level!"
"All of you keep quiet!"
"Stop talking!"
"Roll Number 214! Stop talking! Or get out of class!"

Wow! Complements straight from the HOD of Mathematics!
We were undoubtedly the most mischievous class ever!
We were the weapons of class destruction in SYBSc.

Once Girish and I were caught talking in class. After the lecture, she called us out of the room to reprimand us. There we stood, faces hung in shame, trying not to look.
Why?
Well... Payal was standing right behind Ma'am and making funny faces at us. We were trying very very hard not to laugh. Girish's burst out laughing ultimately, got even more reprimanded. Me? I didn't laugh. I was too awestruck to laugh. I didn't even realize that Payal could make such funny faces. I mean C'mon. Raj I can understand... its natural for her. rofl :) (no hard feeling haan Raj!).

And in TY, as the budding software programmers that we were, we upgraded to:
weapons of class distraction

What we used to do was this:
Shekar and I, used to sit on the second last benches near the window. And as soon as a lecture started getting boring (which as you might have guessed, was almost immediately), we used to start humming. Hmmmmmmm....
And hmmmmmm.....
Hmmmmmmmmm.......
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..........
(you get the point...no rhythm or tune... just hmmmmmmmmm)

And here's the fun part.
When I said 'we', I didn't mean just Shekar and me. We used to start all right... Yes. But in a true computer virus fashion, it used to infect and multiply at an exponential rate. Everybody then used to pitch in. And then it becomes harder to pinpoint and eradicate the source of the hmmm...
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm......
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........
(ok. Lets not get carried away again)

And if ever you get caught.
"What? We're just playing close attention!"

Hah!
Of course these weren't the only methods with which we kept busy!

myspacebarisbroken

2006-01-23T02:21:00.000-08:00

Y'know whats the best part about being a lab admin?
(Okay. Even if I've already told you just shush! ok?)
So, as I was saying, the best part about being a lab admin is that you can get away with things. Lots of things. Lots.

For instance:

If you've just had a mentos, and can't seem to find any place to dispose off the plastic wraper. Quick! Shove it down an empty floppy drive! You can get them out later on! If anyone wanted to use it; what the heck! Most of the floppy drives wouldn't work anyway (which, by the way, had nothing to do with my liking for mentos! So there!). Of course, this used to be more so convenient when the PC didn't have a floppy drive inside. Just an empty slot. This used to make it even more difficult to work a floppy disk, because there was no drive. Still it didn't stop some students from trying to make it work anyway. I once found 3 floppy disks inside different cabinets with hollow floppy drive slots. Sujeet used them later to make bootables. (Over which i wrote stuff like: Lab cha floppy. Choru naka!)

After a grueling day of format-n-install-week, Chetan, Shiv and I just wanted to leave, but Santosh suddenly starts making a lot of noise. (And its always just noise: incoherent, nonsensical, maybe hillarious even, noise). So as he's off to wash his hands, we pile up the chairs. Not one on top of another.
One on top of another on top of another on top of another on top of another...(N)
;where N is the total number of chairs in the lab.
Halfway through, the pile of chairs actually reached the ceiling! So we had to make another pile. Then we waited for him outside the lab. As soon as he came we split! I mean we were in splits! Haha! We were laughing all the way. I tried to control my mirth, but that sinister smile just crept back on! He ultimately caught up with Shiv and Chetan at the station: "Mein madam ko bolega!" (quiktrans: "I'll tell your name to madam"). Haha! Now I can't help but laugh even more! Haha!

While setting up the projector, I changed the language to Chinese, in front of the entire class. Sneha's honest opinion: "SQL maam is definately going to think thats because of a virus!"

And then there's this time when CeeTee's came up with one. We took an ordinary keyboard and made it extraordinary. We shuffled the keys around. I wanted to make a word, but he wasn't in a mood for scrabble. Unfortunately Sujeet wouldn't let us connect it to the server. Darn! How else were the teachers going to report a virus?!
Here's the snap CeeTee'd taken :)

What I liked to do best, was this:
I used to shutdown any terminals, and leave the monitors switched on. (suspend state)
Arrange the cabinets so that their Power Buttons used to be facing front.
Then.
Run through the inner lab to the outer lab, hands stretched, switching on pairs of PC, (left - right), one after another, till all the PCs in both labs are on!
Man! That was loads of fun.
Main objective? Nothing. Just for fun.
Then wait till each and every PC reaches idle state.
And in the end run from the outer lab to the inner lab, switching off the mains.
Haha. I've managed to pull this off only 5-6 times when nobody's around. But it was fun each and every time. Did it usually before the format-n-install, so there's no harm done, and sometimes when I just wanted to vent some steam. Gagan saw me do one of these once! ;-) Boy was he baffled!

what i ate in KC

2005-12-30T04:29:00.000-08:00

Goodness gracious me! I just got tagged! Never really played that game a lot... Oh well, now I'm it.

This means I'll have to dish out all out my fav food. 'course I cant do that right away! Nobody can. Its inane! If I say one particular dish, the others dishes will feel bad. Can't afford that to happen. Plus this is not a personal blog. Its kccollg blog: what I did in KC.

So in keeping with the theme of this blog I'll have this post named:

what i ate in KC
(apart from most of the teachers' heads!)

(other names would include:

the butterfly cafe,
how we pigged out in KC,
"OMG! It tastes amazing man! Amazing food!! You just gotta have some" (usually said by CeeTee)

and "God, I'm stuffed!"
My 10 are evenly distributed, and marked in red and with an * at the end which actually means me going mmmmghhhhhhhh!!!

Advisory: Please report invalid names, dishes, places etc. asap. I will try to rectify asap. Only suggestions from valid KCCites will be used.

Butterfly café:
(right outside the KC comp lab)

Schezwan noodles with gravy and manchurian balls on top. *
A classic combination of noodles and gravy. But don't go without the manchurian balls. Its the topper. How we used to wait patiently for Raju to top it off with balls.
Chilly chicken in gravy. *
Delicious chicken (pieces) in bowlfull of gravy. Also get manchurian balls for the same. (You can actually guess the color of the alive chicken.)

Also watch out for:

Fried rice with gravy, schezwan sauce and more manchurian balls on top.
Dry fried noodles in plain gravy.
Watermelon juice, which Boo used to make me have a lot. (and which I miss a lot too.)
Shekar: he'll finish off the food. Though its always too late for that. Plus we love to see him eat right off the table. Trust Shekar to finish everything thats leftover!
HR babes. :)

Sandwichwala:
(right behind college)

Chilly cheese toast. *
Capsicum chillies, cheese, butter, toast. That's a full recipe!. Surprisingly tasty, quick to make. But lots of customers. So takes time to place order. Surprising since its an informal stall on the footpath. Heck they're so successfull that by the end of the 3rd year, Shashi got his own business card! No point for us though we know him well enough. Enough to get a library issued book and forget it on the footpath. He picked it up and returned it the next day!!
I'll show you his card too. Never mind if he forgot to mention that the Free Home Delivery is only in India. Try it.

Also watch out for:
Plain veg. sandwich.
Jain toast.
Bhaji toast.
Cheese toast.
Any other book you left behind.

Xeroxwala:
(right opposite HR gate)

Paneer roll with grated cheese & extra chutney. *
A must have between lectures or after college. The paneer is exquisite! Its not really the xeroxwala who runs it. He's just near the xeroxwala. But I don't really know his name. He's right between the Xeroxwala and the Aarey stall.

Also watch out for:

Veg roll.
Plain cheese sandwich.
A Xerox of the above items.
Xeroxwala: to check if the xeroxes are done yet. Where else will we study from?

Vihar:
(just round the corner, right opp. 210°)

Cheese paw bhaji. *
Pav Bhaji which is simply rich with grated cheese on top. And the aroma! Oh God!

Aarey stall:
(right opp. HR gate)

Energy - soft drink. *
Always a refreshing drink. And a backup if you had a bit too much chutney at the xeroxwala. Pineapple flavor's still the best.

Also watch out for:

Lassi.
Masala doodh.

Churchgate station subway:
(where d'ya think it is!)

Bread butter.
Not just any bread butter. According to CeeTee, "The best damn bread butter you can ever have at 7 in the morning!" But I can't say its my personal favorite. I've never had it. (Who will go there at such an ungodly hour?) CeeTee would certainly mark this one!

Also watch out for:

The 7:20 Borivli local...

Chaiwala & Idliwala:
(right opp. KC gate. near Javed's)

Chai, coffee. *
With extra sugar for me please! This used to be the best part of rainy days in college. After Wani's first lecture we used to hang out here. Not that we'd have an off. But either the next lecture's teacher used to turn up late, or we'd simply bunk. And boy was it worth it! Not just our class alone at that. Lots of people used to turn up to have that simple chai.
Tea, rain and friends. Thats it!
Idli. *
Right on the road. This guy used to get a huge basket full of it. Idlies, vadas and dosas. With some home made chutney and sambar.
With tea, rain and friends, just add idli above.

Also watch out for:

VD. If he spots you outside, you've had it! Not that he'd do anything to you, but you don't want to spoil the rest of your day.

210°:
(right opp. Vihar!)

Cheese cakes. *
God! Those pastries are heavenly! Especially if you have a friend to share it with. (Money, i mean!)

Also watch out for:

Patties
More cheese cakes. You can never have enough of those!

Gaylords:
(Next to Asiatic, off Churchgate Station)

Pattise. *
I think thats what they were!

Shivsagar:
(next to Eros theatre)

Idli
Pav Bhaji
Uttapa - and lots of more stuff.

Sugercane Stall:
(not near college, near Kala Ghoda, opp. Rhythm House)

Sugarcane juice - full glass.
Boy that glass used to be full! Its a tall tall tumbler of sugercane juice. Its just the thing you need after a day of cricket at the oval: Sucrose - disintegrated into Glucose and Fructose (ready sugar).

So this it the way we used to pig out. Not everyday of course. But almost everyday anyway! Apart from this we also used to sneak food in class. For instance, once in a while Shekar and I used to bring a bottle of Pepsi in class. What else can wet your throat after going "Hmmm..." in class? But thats a different post. Yet to come.

Anyway, now its my turn to tag 'em.

Not sure how they're going to post it. They can always email me and i'll post it for them here. But it would be wonderful if they started their own blog too! :)

I tag: CeeTee, Qu][cKSiLv3R, SpruceGoose, Boo, and Greece.
And they can go for not just college food. Its their own favorites. From anywhere now.

code zero

2005-12-19T03:13:00.000-08:00

A typical forward.

hey guys this it gr8!! it really works! try it out yourself!!
I tried it out, and it gave me this wierd site!
This must be some sort of bug in Microsoft that they haven't discovered yet!!!

1. Goto www.Google.com
2. Enter: kccollg
3. Click on I'm Feeling Lucky!

Enjoy!

I know what you're thinking. And yes.

That has nothing to do with Microsoft. But wouldn't you rather blame them?

See our project in TY was... (too long to explain actually).
Put in a nutshell, there were 11 different projects, with our project combining all of those together.
So we (Greece and me) had the worst job a programmer could ever have. Go through somebody else's code. And the way we were taught programming in college wasn't helping a lot either. I mean if a teacher writes 'freinds' instead of 'friends' in a presentation and shows it on a projector to the entire class, somebody will notice, and somebody will laugh! Except here, that somebody turned out to be the entire class who noticed and laughed and laughed and laughed! (and still laughs when we remember it!)

It works here:

why doesn't it work there?!

Ever notice how everyone wants to blame Microsoft for any errors or bugs in their code? Even in my college it used to happen. People can't use VB properly. So forget the fact that you're an uptight, ah-hoc programmer who doesn't even know how to use proper naming conventions, commenting techniques, or simple code indentation, but the bugs were because of 'Stupid Microsoft!'. (Naming conventions and stuff might not be required for small programs, agreed. But these folks are writing group projects without it!)
When we had to show the projects to our guide, people would face problems because the resources they used at home were not copied over. Now I can understand they didn't copy an image or something, but, Ravi once came without the database! Then he started telling me that VB is not working properly and it must be corrupt! So I told him that next time copy your MSAccess database also. And he says, "But Access is already installed here! It's still not working!"

Great!

No code, No bugs, No problem!

We required projects from 10 other groups.

One such group was Shahid and Sushil working on Student Mgt. When we got their initial copy we were surprised that it compiled without a single error! Wow, we thought. No breaking our heads on their code this time. And as all good things are, it was too good to last. Once we generated a dll file for their module and tested it via our project, the forms opened and nothing worked. There were no buttons to click anyway, and the menu items didn't work either. Only thing that did work was the Exit command from the File menu. So to check what went wrong we went through their code and... wait, what code?? There was no code. Just the forms. No code. They had probably reasoned it like this: you can't have errors in your code if there is no code!

I guess thats proper logic!

~~And they were not the only ones.~~

...Highly Censored Content!...

~~Yea rite! I can see that!!~~

Anyway, we never had to worry about that anymore. Because we had a few good modules from a few good groups which we used to demonstrate our project, TimeTable, Library and Student. Rest all of them: well I removed all code and compiled them.

After all: you can't have errors in your code if there is no code! :)

bhatt obvious!

2005-11-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

Before we had a co-ordinator for the department of Computer Science, we had an HOD. But he was only there for one year. And thank God for just one year!

Here's something interesting:

~~Lab~~ Class one day, the HOD was asking Saroj what she wanted to do (careerwise), and Gagan was in ~~the lab~~ class too (not intentionally of course)

HOD: Aage jaake kya banogi? Kya socha hai?

Saroj (all enthu): Sir. Air-hostess banoongi!

HOD (probably after checking her out): Air-hostess!! Baapre!. Arrey air-hostess banne ke liye boddy hona chahiye, figgure hona chahiye. Khudko dekho!

No need to say what Saroj must have thought after that! It was obvious.

Saroj (thinking- she probably tries to think in english too): Oh damn! He doesn't like me at all! Maybe if I turn on my 'charm'. But I'll have to get rid of all the cockroaches in my hair and arm-pits then! Darn.

(translated)

HOD: What are you going to be? What have you thought of?
Saroj (all enthu): Sir. I'm going to be an Air-hostess!
HOD (probably after checking her out): Air-hostess!! Oh my God!. To be an air-hostess you need a body, you need a figure. Look at youself!
No need to say what Saroj must have thought after that! It was obvious.
Saroj (thinking- she probably tries to think in english too): Oh damn! He doesn't like me at all! Maybe if I turn on my 'charm'. But I'll have to get rid of all the cockroaches in my hair and arm-pits then! Darn.

For those who are still wondering what this was supposed to remind you of. If you don't know...

Shiv once saw a cockroach crawl out of her hair and saw it go to the hideous comfort of her arm-pits!.

Poor Shiv, he's never been the same again.

Brrrr!!! I'm getting nightmares for sure tonight.

eof!

any more late and i'd be coming tomorrow

2005-11-01T00:06:00.000-08:00

Attendance was a big issue in this college. In any college. Even school. It always is. Has to be too. But especially this college, for this batch - our batch - what with V.D. bugging us and making a big fuss about not giving us our hall tickets and all. Oh, but that never stopped me from turning in late. Heck! It didn't even stop the rest of the class from their periodical bunks.

But I should have been early.

Of course I should have. After all I didn't stay at Dahisar then. Almost everyone knew I was going to shift soon. I still remember the first thing Vijeta said once she found out that I was shifting. Now considering that its all the way to the other end of the city (almost 35kms away!), you would have expected something like: "Hey! Nice yaar! Now we can come together by train." Or something like that... Oh, but no. This isn't any ordinary batch. So there won't be any ordinary reply. So she said, "Hey! Sahi yaar! College saath mein bunk karenge!"
(quik trans: "Hey! Cool! Now we can bunk college together")
But the best part was when and how I used to give my attendance.

Oh! I was never on time

And this was not much of a problem earlier at least. But even after V.D. had spooked us, and despite the fact that I used to stay closest to college, I was still never on time. You can ask any of my classmates. They will agree wholeheartedly. Infact, they used to actually wait for me to turn up late. And as soon as I used to enter - encore. But now this would have been a problem, since attendance used to be the first thing in class. Of course, sometimes if you're too late you're not let in anyway (depends on the teacher's mood), and sometimes two consecutive lectures would have attendance halfway through the two lectures.

So one fine day...

When I was terribly late, albeit as usual, I arrived in the middle of the such two WEB/OS lectures. And attendance was in session. (She never left the room in between so no way to sneak in). But instead of knocking, entering, apologizing and attending the remaining half of the lecture, I went around to the window where my gang and I used to sit. (Q. Why sit there? A. Partly to watch butterfly babes, partly to blame 'weird noises' to be coming from outside the window). Jumping up and down, I first called out for Shiv, (whispering loudly), and asked him the status. Which basically meant what mood was she in. He told me that the attendance taking ceremony was going on, so I could just knock and enter for the second lecture. Instead a devilishly better idea struck me. Shiv's roll number was right after mine and since we both usually sat nearby, those two "present ma'am"s used to be heard either in chorus or one right after another. So I told Shiv to just tell me when my number comes.

And he did. And I yelled.

It all happened so fast.
"228... 229... 230"
"Present ma'am! Present!", I yelled from out the window, (I had to jump a little to make it sound closer). And Shiv quickly followed suit, which helped. Because he didn't let there be a break in the flow of attendance. She must have thought I was inside the class because I was marked present for sure. Mukesh was prompt to check on it in the lab. And as for me, my lecture was spent in Oxford, reading Far Side by Gary Larson.

My body in Oxford, my mind in the Far Side, my heart in comics, my sole in my shoes but most importantly, my attendance in the register!

Always on time?

2005-10-31T12:11:00.000-08:00

I wasn't exactly the most punctual boy in class.
heck i was one late cookie!

I'm gonna write about that next.

But till i do that, here's something i always wished i had said when late.

Wani's lecture used to begin at 7:00 am, i used to perpetually reach college by 7:20

Wani: Why are you late?
Me (sarcastically): Because its past 7 ?

Poor kids, they're screwed.

2005-10-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

So it goes this way. When you plan on doing something specific (not necessarily terrific). You end up doing something else instead (so don't eat my head). Which works out great!

I was going to write about some college stuff we did, and I will soon too.
But this just had to go up immediately.
You see, Shivprakash and I had gone to college on the way back home from some work. So we met up with Sujeet, the lab assistant and of course, where there's a Sujeet, there's always a Santosh. And boy, did Sujeet tell us a really cool incident or what!

You see after our batch left, lots of teachers also left, one after another. Too bad. Because some of them were good. Some. And now only a couple of the old teachers are there with the usual staff. So they are managing it all. And all that our batch can think is "Poor kids (TY now!). They're screwed", and all that the TY kids are saying now are, "Damn! We're screwed!". Plus now SQL Ma'am is the coordinator. Which was quite a logical decision as she is the next best thing. Well. Close enough.

But best at what?!

Ever since day one, (which I can't really remember) we have been fascinated by her fascination for food. She is undoubtedly the Jughead of our class. Of course, she's a teacher. So you can say she's a Jughead meets Ms. Grundy. :)
And now that she's the coordinator, Umesh simply suggested to put up the canteen's menu on the Computer Department's Notice Board. (It WILL save a lot of time y'know). And she is just the coordinator, not yet an HOD. (brrrr! How i shudder at that 'yet')

So Sujeet and Santosh are having a tough time with the new 'HOD' because she probably wants to put things back in order again.
Oh wait.
Correction:
...because she probably wants to place an order. Again! "Hello canteen? Vada Paw bhejo."

So it would be Santosh's fault if it doesn't reach on time or if its cold by the time. (No matter the fact that its kept right under the A/C). Of course it would be his fault! Wouldn't it? He can keep it hot for sure. After all he is the most hot tempered person there anyway! So acting on that, now he gets mad and vanishes off everytime he is needed in the lab. (which is surprisingly a lot now that HODs changed, and he has become indispensible now - brrrr! again)

What then?

This is what, according to me, is going to be a typical lab scene now:

Umesh is an ordinary kid in TY now, waiting for the HOD to be free so she can sign his journal.

Umesh: "Ma'am?..."
HOD: "Arrey Umesh, zara Santosh ko dhoond ke lao!"
Umesh: "Ma'am woh toh pata nahin kahan gaayab hogaya."
HOD: "Zaara, dekho na. Baahar hi hoga."
So Umesh goes outside.
Umesh: "Arrey, Sujeet sir, ye Santosh kahan hai?"
Sujeet: "Kya kaam hai"
Umesh (upset): "Arrey mujhe kuch kaam nahin hai re! Yeh Ma'am ne bola dhoondne ko. Ma'am ko kuch kaam hoga."
Sujeet (taking him aside): "Woh actually abhi aur kya kaam hoga! Lunch time hua na!"
Umesh (upset): "Arrey, ek kaam karo na! Canteen ka menu yahan notice board pe chaapva do na! Yeh kya ho raha hai yaar!"

(Translated)
This is what, according to me, is going to be a typical lab scene now:
Umesh is an ordinary kid in TY now, waiting for HOD to be free so she can sign his journal.
Umesh: "Ma'am?..."
HOD: "Ah, Umesh, just find Santosh."
Umesh: "Ma'am, I don't know where he vanished."
HOD: "Just check, He ought to be outside."
So Umesh goes outside.
Umesh: "Hey, Sujeet Sir, where's Santosh?"
Sujeet: "What work do you have?"
Umesh (upset): "I don't have any work! That Ma'am asked for him. She must be having some work!"
Sujeet (taking him aside): "Well actually what else now! Its lunch time!"
Umesh (upset): "Argh! Do one thing! Put up the canteen's menu on the notice board! What's going on here!"

Of course, the college carefully scrutinized and recruited new teachers.
(minutes of hysterical laughter)
Hee Hee. There's no end to that! Hee Hee.
I mean, the college is making sure the kids say, "Damn! We're screwed", more often!
So there's this new teacher - Ska Ma'am. Teaches java i think... That's besides the point. She's a good teacher. Heck! Even someone like Suhail - a nasty kid (a proverbial Gagan's follower) was quietly attending her lecture. But she's got a strabismus.

And that is a problem.

So one day in class:
Lecture begins and she asks the class to take notes. Everybody starts. Except Shabri. (that's Shabri! Oh do remind me to tell a cool Shabri joke later on). So Ma'am looks at her and says, "You! Why aren't you writing?". But Shabri doesn't say a word. Why? because before she could, the boy sitting next to her gets up and innocently says, "But Ma'am, I am writing!". Ma'am now points right in between the two and says, "I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to you!" (Still pointing right in between the two)

When Sujeet told this to us, we burst out laughing! I'm pretty sure the class must have also at that time. I'm sure my class would have. Infact, if it was my class, Gagan would have not let her off so easily.

Consider same scenario in my class, with Gagan sitting in one corner of the class and Shabri sitting in the opposite (far end) of the class. If ma'am would have said, "You! Why aren't you writing?". Before Shabri could have had time to say anything, Gagan would have had got up and said oh-so-innocently, "But ma'am, I'm writing!".
All the way across the class. Wicked!

Best Shabri joke ever:
Q. What would you call her if she was a news
reporter?
A. Shabri the Khabri!
Courtesy: Chetan

Coming soon

2005-10-09T02:22:00.000-07:00

I know a few of you are waiting for the next blog to come up here. And its due also. Its just that I have been shuffling between two different scenarios and can't really decide which one to put up. One's too huge. So if I do put that one up please don't crib thats its really huge because once you start reading that you're going to read it till the end. The others short and cranky but I still have to spill my beans on that.
Rest assured. There are plenty more blogs to come here.
Heh!

If Shekar's gross, thats Shiv's loss!

2005-10-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

S.Y.Bsc. - Early morning practicals in the lab one day...

Shekar was sitting on a lone terminal doing some programs, (and as usual you can assume that its not the program thats been told to do). Shivprakash comes up. (or probably sits right next to him... I only remember vaguely.) He casually puts his hand on Shekar's shoulder, just checking what he's doing.

"What's that?!", Shiv says.
"Get your hand off", glancing at the hand on his shoulder.
"Why!"
"There's snot on my shoulder."
"So? Put it in your folder!"

Big pause. Shekar probably stops typing and looks quizically at Shiv. And NOT because it rhymed. Shekar is confused, but he patiently repeats. (Something not really expected from Shekar... but it was a lousy, lazy, lethargic 7 O' Clock in the morning! Like every other 7 O' Clock in the morning in the lab.)

"Dude! There's snot on my shoulder!"
"So? Put it in your folder!"

And this time from the expression Shiv put forward, its pretty clear that Shiv probably doesn't know what snot means. (Or he probably thinks that, gross as he usually is, Shekar still can't be THAT gross... can he??)

[ Wait... Wait... TIME OUT! ]

See here now, in Shekar's defence, (and I really don't know why I'm defending him), it was a cold early morning, air conditioned lab, and he plays a lot of football in the rains, gets wet, and takes a bath only when his ma starts fainting near him. So snot is the only place from where his brain can make a desperate lunge to escape.

And Shiv, well, he says this it not the way it happened at all!. He said he took his hand off as soon as Shekar told him there's snot on it. Now thats more likely to have happened. Because Shiv is the kind of guy who knows what snot is. (Now whether he looked it up under 'S' in the dictionary or not is a different matter entirely.) But in anycase. This is what Shekar told me and Godfrey.

[ Ok. Press any key to continue... ]

"Dude! I'm telling you, there's snot on my shoulder!"
Nothing from Shiv.
"I've got a cold dude, and a runny nose.", "So I used my t-shirt to wipe off!"
"Eeeew!! GROSS MAN!", and wipes it off Shekar's back.
But Shekar really doesn't care.

Of course, I wasn't there when it really happened. I was in the other batch, in the 'inside lab'. Damn! Missed it! But not to worry. Shekar was telling me and Godfrey what had happened. And if you think that was funny, you should have seen the way Shekar was telling Godfrey.
Nose all blocked.

Shekar's plan

2005-09-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

One of the important things of being an Administrator for the entire lab for Kaisi College was to install all the softwares and make sure they run smoothly. (or well, roughly enough to work anyway).
Now typically all the software used to get installed via the server, which was basically just one of the faster PCs connected on LAN. And we also had to install the Operating System - Win2k Pro. Chetan had got it on a CD as the copies in the lab were far too scratched up. So we made multiple copies of this CD and started off installing Win2k. Only what we did'nt realize was that they were pirated.
Now if you're thinking - "What's the big deal? I get pirated stuff all the time." Well it is a big deal. See this ain't just any other house. This is an educational institution, (sindhi nonetheless), which didn't have a valid license for like... say.. 27 Computers. (not to mention the IT lab seperately and all the PC's in the Office and other staff areas)
And apart from the OS itself, most of the softwares were pirated too! Norton AntiVirus 2003, MS Office XP, Visual Basic 6.0, MS SQL2000, (except for stuff like Redhat Linux, Java). Now that is something really amazing.
My brother's reaction - shocked and laughing. Because there, stuff was not only legit, they had a customized version of Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition for the wisc.edu. Amazing!! And here we are.
Now the teachers said that they had the original CD's when Prof. Bhatt was in charge. So? Where'd they go? I guess when Bhatt respectfully left (everybody laughs hysterically here!). I mean when Bhatt was removed, the originals vanished the way of our Hardware Workshop Certificates!
Anyways, we were able to convince our teachers and the Head of the Department to get proper licenses from Microsoft and other companies. Which they did eventually and now things are proper.
But you should have seen Shekar's reaction to all this. Not only was he smiling, but a devilish smile crept on his face. "Nice", i thought.
"You know what this means?", he said to me. And i knew, this usually means fun!
"What?"
"It means we can get rid of the teachers. And not just for a day or two. For a long loooong time dude!"
"Yea right!" Heh! I have to admit. I liked the way he dragged the 'loooong'. But still.
"No dude seriously. All we have to do is to tell someone like Microsoft or Mumbai cyberPolice. So if they have a raid. They get caught."
"Shekar, don't be so naive! If by any freakish chance there IS a raid only the princi will get in trouble and only a little bit at that. So much for that!"
"And what will she do to the teacher's a$$ when this happens?"
"Ha Ha Ha Ha!"
"Muahahahaha!"

what i did in KC

2005-09-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

i have 9 knobs which adorn my computer desk.
anyone else got some?
where did i get them from?
ah.. y'know how the comp lab has those drawers where the keyboard is kept?
remember how they started gradually vanishing...
well there was no magic at work.:)
nice work suyi