First

Got my first paycheck. A grand amount of $88.17. Feels nice to see the bank account go up for once. :D

First ever paycheck, and it's not in the currency I am so familiar with. It's a start.

Tech Cheers- III

This cheer is reserved when we play against the bulldogs of the University of Georgia. As you can see, there's not much love lost between us! Someone really put a lot of work into this cheer!

To Hell with Georgia
(to the tune of Glory, Glory Hallelujah)

Don't send my boy to MIT
The dying mother said,
Don't send my boy to Emory
I'd rather see him dead,
But send my boy to Georgia Tech
'Tis better than Cornell.
And as for the University of Georgia
I'd rather see him in hell!

To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
The cesspool of the South!

Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the stomping of the Dogs
We will teach the poor dumb farmboys
They should stick to sloppin' hogs
When the Jackets are triumphant
There will be a mighty cheer
We'll do the same next year!

To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
The cesspool of the South!

On the Field between the hedges
There arose a mighty stench,
In the Dogs' machine the engineers
Had thrown a monkey wrench.
When the Jackets are triumphant
We will raise a mighty yell,
Them Dogs can GO TO HELL!!

To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
The cesspool of the South!

Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the N.C. Double-A
They're investigating GA players
To see how much they're paid
After counting all the cars
And the loans Alumni made,
They out pay the NBA.

To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
To Hell, to Hell, to Hell with Georgia,
The cesspool of the South!

Tech Cheers - II

This is an actual cheer that we do. The most popular cheer by far.

Ramblin' Wreck

I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer,
A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, hell of an engineer,
Like all the jolly good fellows, I drink my whiskey clear.
I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.

Oh, If I had a daughter sir, I'd dress her in white and gold.
And put her on the campus, to cheer the brave and bold.
But if I had a son sir, I'll tell you what he'd do:
He would yell, "To Hell With Georgia!" like his daddy used to do.

Oh I wish I had a barrel of rum, and sugar three thousand pounds,
A college bell to put it in, and the clapper to stir it 'round,
I'd drink to all the good fellows who'd come from far and near,
I'm a rambling, gambling, Hell Of An Engineer! Hey!

Tech Cheers - I

These are some of the cheers which we do at Tech games. The product of generations upon generations of frustrated engineers:

The oldest cheer (circa 1892)

"Differential Y,
Differential X,
To hell with differentials,
We want sex!

Engineers touchdown,
Engineers yell,
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Fight like hell! "

R.I.P.

R.I.P. Ginny

:'(

Salt

If there's one item that I am not confident about while cooking - its the amount of salt I have to put. Somehow, it's more complex than rocket science to me!
"How much do I put?"
"Did I put too much?"
"Will I have dinner today?"

It's a nightmare! I always end up puting less, and then compensating for it at the end. Its better than putting too much, I guess!

Imagine how embarrassing it must have been for the great scientists of the past.
Their wives probably went - "Oh sure! You can figure out exactly how much Plutonium to put in your stupid bomb - but can you get the right amount of salt in the food? And you say you're smarter? Bah!"

"But.....I'm sorry.....how much.....how do you figure this......damn!"

When you cook as a bachelor, you are very much like a sales guy - you look for volume. "What can I possibly add to this so that the amount of food increases? Water? puree? onion?" Anything so that I can extend the time for which I do not have to cook. Its all about volume. volume, volume, volume!

Algorithms for Aloos!

Cooking is perhaps a domestic chore that has the most potential application in any field in life - be it science, engineering or anything else. Today, while cutting potatoes, I discovered two separate algorithms for completing the task.

Algorithm 1
This is the less efficient algorithm. I call it the power of two algorithm. It goes like this:

1. cut the potato in half.
2. take each half and cut it in half.
repeat the above two steps until required size is achieved.

It seems simple to describe, yet, it takes a lot of time to get down to a manageable size.

Algorithm 2
This is a lot more parallel processing. It is highly efficient and achieves results faster.

1. Cut the potato into 4 quarters.
2. Take one quarter,make it lie on its flat side and cut it perpendiclar to its lon axis, making several parallel cuts.
3. Now gather these parallel slices together and cut them perpendicular to the previous direction.

The small sizes are achieved much faster!

Perhaps this is where our formal education fails us. Maybe household chores should be part of the curriculum. A lot of new ideas strike you when you are trying to do these as fast as possible. Perhaps the future of this planet lies in the hands of the humble household chore-doer, rather than the rocket scientist!

Marriage

I am currently living with a roommate. Therefore, for the first time in ages, I have had to share a room with someone, and, believe me, it gets on your nerves! This is why marriage is such a tough thing.

What is marriage after all, if not a legal agreement saying that you agree to be roommates for the rest of your life? No wonder people are so hesitant about marriage. The priest might as well say: "I now pronounce you - roommates for life."

This brings to a close one of the weirdest cycles in a human beings history. During childhood, a person is told to sleep alone in their room, while the supposedly "brave" adults are busy sharing a room. After a lot of tantrums and pleadings, the child learns to live alone in a room. In fact, they start to enjoy it! They continue to do this till they reach marriageable age.

Then, suddenly, the very same parents do a volte face and say - "Right, we now want you to get a roommate for life." And its not just the parents, every person they've ever known is insisting on it. No wonder married people are always confused.

Then comes along a child, (who is basically a roommate who never pays the rent, eats all your food and demands that you clean up after him/her.) and the entire cycle begins again!

Polyandrists and Polygamists sought to remedy the roommate for life concept with a novel idea - have more then one roommate for life, and force them to share rooms while you have one to yourself. While they were patting themselves on the back for their moment of inspiration, some lawyer came along and decided that it wasn't right!

Disclaimer: The author in no way endorses, approves or supports Polyandry/ Polygamy. The author only supports Poly - gone

Why Men are slobs

Men are not born slobs. In fact, till around the age of 12-13, men and women are equally clean. Then, unfortunately, puberty hits. No matter how hard men try to be clean, its like someone planted a weed on their body. You shave in the morning, and at 5 o'clock - its back again!
After months of struggle, men realize that resistance is futile. Nature intended them to be this way. There's simply no fighting it! They give in.

You may be wondering - doesn't puberty hit women too? Then why is it that they aren't slobs?
The answer to this lies in the sheer ingenuity of women. A long time ago, they held a secret conference to solve this very problem. The result - the beauty parlour.

The sheer simplicity and beauty [pun intended] of this invention is to be marvelled at. It allows a woman to be clean, and also allows them a private haven where they can discuss future courses of action.

Men, however, never came up with such an invention (for explanations, read the previous post.)
Of late, however, some men have managed to create a pseudo beauty parlour concept of their own. However, these are a minority group and are generally regarded as androgynous by the male community.

If food was the reason marriage was created, beauty parlours are the reason why they fail.
This development of pseudo beauty parlours is more common in developed countries rather than developing countries. Unfortunately, when men invade this female bastion, they see things that they should not see. This aggrieves the female of the species to such an extent, that they are forced to break the food contra......sorry, "marriage".

It is now obvious why the divorce rates are much higher in developed countries rather than developing countries.

QED.

So, the reality we have to live with, is this. If food is the raison d'etre of marriage, then the slobiness of man is what keeps it going. The moment men enter beauty parlours, they risk losing their source of edible food. Hence, if society as we know it has to survive, men need to continue remaining slobbish, or learn how to cook (yeah, right!).

Men Can't Cook

Men can't cook. This is a simple fact of life. Let's face it - the only thing men can't burn is water (although this may be because it is physically impossible to do so). A man realizes this when he is forced to live alone. However, there is another fact of life - women can cook! This is the driving force behind the human species.

No matter how badly a woman cooks (or thinks she cooks), she cannot match male incompetency in cooking.

Men realized this back in the stone age. After 3 months of eating his own "food", some cavewoman waltzed into a caveman's house and made a meal which tasted like a meal. This earth shattering discovery led man to establish the institution of marriage. The bedrock of marriage is food. That is also its raison d'etre. Procreation , Love etc. are just side effects.

At the same time, there did exist a sub species of men who could cook - but they died out as they did not marry.

The proof of this caveman realization is very much evident today. Ever wonder why the only food you enjoy is home cooked food? Why is it that food outside - from a sandwich waala to a five star restaurant tastes bad? Simple - ever notice who the chefs are? Men! Some poor idiot did try to solve this problem by inventing refridgeration - but that's another story.

Women, you may be led to believe that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach - WRONG! A man's heart is his stomach. In fact a man has no heart. There is just one massive hole where the heart should be (the stomach expands to fill this void as nature abhors a vacuum).

Next: Women can't drive!

Multi- cultural

Our Group for the project in the Principles of Management for Engineers Course has a rather interesting mix of people - 2 Indians, 1 West Indian, a Pakistani and a Chinese. So it seems that cricket talk might be the order of the day!

The industry we are analyzing - silicon (no, unfortunately, not the kind that involves reading Playboy and Penthouse for, ahem..."research" purposes )

If there is an accent worth picking up, I would say it is the Carribbean accent. It has a lazy elegance about it.

On the sporting front, with the Red Devils Screwing things up in the derby, and the lack of cricketing news here - I guess it'll have to be gridiron for me!

Go Yellow Jackets!

Went to watch my first football game today - live at the stadium. As luck would have it - I got a place right next to the opposing team's supporters. More importantly, however, it was right next to the cheerleaders! ;)

This is the way fans should be treated! Decent seats, good food,(better than a stale overpriced samosa at Wankhede) water in a cup (and not a packet), and good restrooms (trust me, never go for a one dayer at Wankhede if its not the pavilion)

The atmosphere was electric! Cheerleaders, Bands, Instant replays, announcers pumping up the crowd - it's worth going even if you understand zilch about this game.

On the flipside, there's not the same satisfaction as cheering in the North Stand at Wankhede! Something in the language, I guess.

Really wish we could have the same back home - sport would be really awesome then!

And, by the way - Tech won their second straight in a row!
Go Yellow Jackets!

SpanX

Sounds like a XXX rated movie name, doesn't it? Well, that's the name of a women's undergarments brand that was the brainchild of one Sara Blakley - an entrepreneur. Starting with just $5,000 of her savings in 2000 and a crazy idea about legless stockings; this sales trainer by day/stand-up comedian by night took a huge slice out of the male dominated(we will do ANYTHING to meet women) hosiery industry. Today, her company is worth $10,000,000.

Why am I suddenly sermonising on ladies lingerie? 'Cos yesterday, we had a thoroughly entertaining seminar by this lady (counting for extra credit on a course). Pretty awesome! No management fundamentals, no legal training (she wrote the patent herself) and limited marketing skills - and in 5 years she's a gazillionaire - and its been fun! Now that's something worth aiming for. Tremendous sense of humour too. Check out some of the label names she came up with:

Power panties, All the Way, Bra-llelujah and Bod-a-bing.

Now that's creativity! ;)

Her next product: something for the male beer belly.

The G-word

One realizes the real power of Google when one is here. When someone calls you up to ask for directions (and this person might be in another corner of this country), and you open google maps so you can direct them every step of the way, the power of google really hits you!

These guys have the country mapped down to every street and lane!

Google seems to be the answer to most things here. Want to order out, but don't know where to find a Chinese place? No problem! Just Google it!

In the future, one can imagine these scenarios as commonplace:

A typical test announcement: "Today's test will be open book and open google"

A popular sequel: "Why women can't read Google maps and men won't ever bother to Google for directions"

Sign outside a now defunct hermitage: "Want to find the Path to Enlightenment? Just Google!"

There will probably be temples dedicated to Google.

The G-word may come to mean - Google, not God.

To paraphrase a friend of mine - Is this Omniscia?

a PANTastic record

It has just occured to me that I have achieved a unique record, which I'm pretty much sure no one outside the Arctic or Antarctic Circle must have achieved. I just realized today, that ever since my arrival in the U.S. of A. on August 1st, I have never worn anything but full pants!
Yes - that's a grand total of 37 straight days of eating, sleeping and generally spending all time (outside of the can, of course) in my jeans.

Probably the longest time I've done this since the day I was born!

Which effectively means that my knees have never seen anything in America outside the John!

a LABOURious Weekend

It was the Labour Day Weekend here - Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Over here, except for Independence Day and Christmas, all holidays are arranged to be on Fridays or Mondays. (great idea!)

Saw my first "football" game here - Grorgia tech vs Auburn Univ. Although we were less fancied, we managed to win. It's a pretty exciting game - gotta get used to it.

Also, was awaiting the Sania-Maria match with drooling tongue. I went to the Bathroom - and missed it.

Aside from that, when you really don't have much to do in a new city, a weekend can get pretty labourious! At one point, I was so bored, I got bored of being bored.

For the first time I really missed all the people back home like crazy.

My First Post

Let me entertain you.

That's what this blog's for. And guess what? just at the exact same time that I decided this blog - i've been struck with a severe case of writer's block! :D