tremensdelirious

the readers of Astrerix comic series are very much aware of the hilarious naming conventions followed there.Last night i was reading (should I say revising for umpteenth time) "Asterix and the Caeser's gift" where an old drunkard legionary called Tremensdelirious who, as a punishment to use swear words against Caeser, is given the indomitable village of Gauls as a gift. I particularly liked the way they depicted his drunkardness and delirious speech. First of all the very picture of his face ... I really like the way in which his nose is all notched up and one can almost feel the trench of his breath ... here is a pic where he is *talking* to his mate in the arms ... (after he is totally drunk ofcourse ... )Absolutely hats off to Gosciny and Underzo for their illustrations and choice of names, dialogues, songs and everything else ... IMHO, one of the best comic series ever ...
To give a good idea about the naming skills of these two chaps just consider the name ...
"Squaronthehypotenus" for an architect. Basic high school goemetry that we study cosily in our classrooms today came from the romans and greeks. The very idea of keeping such a name for an architect in the story reflects on the ingenuity of their minds... I especially liked their depiction of tremensdelirious offering his to give his opinion on Julius Caesar.

for what the shuttle is worth

been to Yahoo yesterday to attend a BLUG talk given by Mark Shuttleworth
(those wondering who he is ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth)
Jaya and Rp were with me.
thanx to jaya for his invitation .. i just know Mark as a founder of Ubuntu Linux
but the fact about his being the first african space tourist ... was news to me ..
(I hardly read news papers or see news channels .. so no surprises there ...)
Supposedly he paid some 20 million dollars for being part of a Russian space craft's
crew.
I realised that i was in my T-shirt and track pants as I got ready to leave office
and confirmed from Jaya that i wont be an eye sore there as many people do come
even more crazily.
First he talked abt his plans for Ubuntu linux .. the details of which i'll not get into here.
More interestingly (atleast for most of us there) he spoke abt his space journey
with such a passion that i started to appreciate that money was immaterial for him
to follow his dreams ... the talk was full of anectodes silly and serious that kept the
audience spellbound. (except ofcourse one or two of those occasional freaks we meet
whose main aim in life is to talk over the cell phone everywhere possible)
I was happy to be there, shake hands with him and get an autograph
("Follow your dreams _ Mark Shuttleworth") on the free Ubuntu Linux CD pack i got.

Had some very good snacks in Yahoo cafeteria and went outside with Rp and Jaya to
CoffeeDay and had some snacks there as well. In my hurry to get back home, made a
few kotlus while in the coffee day that need not be mentioned here ..if u get my drift ...

anyway, it was worth the time i spent in presence of ShuttleWorth and double its worth
the time I spent with my friends..

human relations

yesterday evening as i was getting back home in the bus and it happened to
stop at a signal. To pass time i looked out and saw that there was an young woman
and her cute kid behind her waiting on scooty. I would put her at not more than 30
and the kid could be 3,4 years old.
She wore her hair, braided into a typical interwoven fashion that you find commonly in Bangalore.
But what the kid was doing caught my attention. He was pulling at her hair, brushing the last
bunch of unwoven part on his cheeks, occasionally trying his best to cut some of it with his teeth,
pulling it hither thither and so on . With all that traffic around .. and frustation caused due to waiting
i was expecting the mother to at least glare at him. But what did she do ?
She looked back, smiled at her kid, lifted him and put him in the front. The kid ofcourse enjoyed
his new position too as it seemed to him that he was riding the scooty. I forgot all my tensions for
a few minutes and smiled indulgently.
It made me nostalgic about the days when i was that kid's age and my life at home.
It is unlike me to be too expressive (if u ask anyone very close to me they'll say i'm too
silent and hide whats going on in my mind ) but i felt that i should do this ...
I love my parents, my brother and rest of my family so much.

Swami is in Bangalore

Got the news yesterday that Swami came to Bangalore.
hopefully i'll go to Brindavan on the weekend.

laughter in uniform

at last yesterday i faced an incident that's worth publishing in
in "laughter in uniform" series in Readers Digest magazine ..

i was having lunch with my team mates ... (as is common I suppose
in any organization ... ) and i get a call to my cell phone ... I picked it up
and a booming voice on the other end asked if it was 9xxxxxxxxx ?? ...
It being so ... i confirmed that much .. and then the same voice
congratulated me profusely for winning a lucky draw of a gift worth
7000 Rs ... (u can imagine my eyebrows raising and twiching vigorously..)
... then fell the axe ... he asked me politely if it is possible to get my
wife and come to such 'n such a place for collecting the same ...
(i untwitched and unraised my eyebrows ... if i may use the expression ..)
and i answered him sternly that i was not married and was not interested in
what he was saying ... and i hung up...
wait ... the fun part is all my team mates over the table heard just this much
from my side of the discussion ... "I'm not married and i'm not interested in you"
(i actually said "your offer" .. but u know how sometimes we hear only what we
want to and not what is actually said .. )
there was laughter for next 1 minute on the table and i unwillingly joined in ...
u know these things do happen occasionally ... it is fun to be part and enjoy it ...

the usual gyaan

i frequently remind myself of Einstein's quote, when some one praised him thoroughly.
He said ".. i'm not great ... i'm just passionately curious ... "
I tried to emulate his "passionaltely curiousness" in my work and found it
very useful. bug fixing started to grow on me for sometime now and i'm afraid if i will
like to handle any other kind of work. Hopefully yes .
it's a delight to catch a bug and be able to fix it ... it is like ... what now ... hmm. ....
yeah .... some kind of crime investigation. Suddenly you are like this famous detective .
in novels who weighs premises and produces a conclusion.
and BTW i realise that i'm blogging after a looooong time unlike some of my friends
who blog almost everyday ... i sincerely admire their patience .. especially pv, saka and
jagpa ... hats off ... really ... come on ... for writing this piece i waited for like ... 2 months ..
now whats that when compared to blogging everyday...
things are fine at office and home ... and i'm buying a worldspace radio tommorrow .. YAY !!