Kshitij @ RoboCup 2005

Am supposed to finish this soon... and i just started. Can write about a lot of things. But also have to make it all relevant, coherent and interesting, and yeah small too. Another major question was, where should i write it. Vim is too drab. Tried openoffice, but it produced the death sentence on my pc (called hanging :P). So i can as well start here. Lets start!!

Multi-Agents is a very interesting field and is particularly useful for simulations and Distributed Intelligence. An Agent is defined as an autonomous entity which senses the environment, analyses its percepts, takes decisions and then acts in that environment. A Multi-Agent System contains many such agents which may cooperate, collaborate or even compete depending on the environment. RoboCup is an international joint venture which promotes research in robotics, AI and multi-agents etc using the two domains called RoboSoccer and RoboRescue (both simulations and involving robots). In RoboSoccer, the team of agents play soccer against another team while in RoboRescue the team of agents need to perform search and rescue operations. The RoboCup competitions are held every year. RoboCup 2005 was held in Osaka, Japan.

The RoboCup Rescue simulation simulates a city which has just suffered an earthquake. Therefore, many buildings would have collapsed, civlians buried under rubble, roads blocked due to the rubble and fires would be raging in many places. This forms the environment for the agents which connect to the server. The agents form the rescue crew who will need to extinguish the fires, clear the roads by removing the blockades and ofcourse rescue the buried civilians. There are three types of agents - Fire Brigade Agents, Ambulance Agents and Police Agents. There also exist three centers i.e Police Station, Fire Station and Ambulance Center which act like communication hubs for the agents. The specified number of each type of agent connect to the server and start acting in the environment. The best way to understand this is to imagine a real city facing the aftermath of an earthquake and the tasks expected of the fire brigades, ambulances and the police of that city. Robocup Rescue is as realistic as that. Each agent can only 'see' or 'hear' upto some limited distance from its position. It has limited speed and can only move on unblocked roads. Hence it wont know where a civilian is buried unless it either hears the cries for help or recieves messages from some other agent conveying the information. The Fire agents can extinguish buildings but they cannot rescue civilians or clear roads. Similarly, ambulances can only unbury and carry civilians to refuges and police can only clear roads. The agents can communicate with each other (like telecommunication in real-life scenario) but the bandwidth is limited and undependable. The job for the teams participating in the Rescue simulation competition is to develop the AI of the agents so that they perform the rescue operations better than other teams. That was precisely my job too. I had to program our Rescue team 'Kshitij' to perform the rescue operations as well as possible.

So, how did the process start? And how did i know about this thing in the first place? Well, I decide to take up honours at the begining of my third year (exactly a year ago :) ) and was interested in AI of the non-linguistics kind. So, the most likely area that was available then in the institute related to Ai other than Ltrc was Multi-Agents of Cde. Found out about Rescue from the official sites, liked it and ended up taking the project. And then did the work go in a planned and effective manner? Nope, not at all. Faced a helluva lot of problems. The 'most major' problem was the lack of documentation of any kind. Rarely was there any way of obtaining some information about the server or the API without actually testing it out by running the simulation. Initially we (then i had two other members also) had some ideas and tried coding the agents from scratch. This went on till dec'04. Being new, i had to find out about every small thing regarding the API by studying the code of the API. A code which had no comments. Most other teams had been participating from 3-4 years and already had a well developed system. However, i finally got the hang of it but then the submission time for the preliminary qualification was dangerously close. And by this time, i was alone in the project. This was when Ravi Jampani came to the rescue (pun intended :P). His immense experience and intelligence helped. Most important was his suggestion to use the basic code of the previous year's winners (a German team). He also wrote the Team Description Paper which was critical for qualification to RoboCup2005. This was in feb'05. We qualified and again I was alone in the project. I was now using the basecode of the previous years winners. Though this meant that i wouldnt have to implement everything, it added the difficulty of understanding their code which was commented in german! Then, it was summer holidays. Now, my whole time was devoted to Rescue. This was also when the server started getting upgraded. The protocols were changed. The fire simulation was greatly modified. The civilian information was made tougher to obtain. Hence, besides implementing the various improvements, i also had to rehaul the whole fire selection mechanism, civilian gathering information etc. Newer versions of the server were being released by them with alacrity. And it was tough keeping up with the pace. Thankful to Yasovardhan who took away the testing burden from me, i managed. And by the end of Jun, we were ready. Then i went to Osaka to participate along with Ravi Sankar and Karteek who were involved with RoboSoccer.

Now, the focus of the story shifts from IIIT, Hyderabad India to Intex, Osaka Japan :D. The RoboCup venue was huge one. Moreover, it was surrounded by the tallest skyscrapers of Osaka. Just imagine :P. RoboCup Rescue consisted of the preliminary round of 3 days (13-15th Jul), semis on 16th and finals on 17th i.e the fifth day. 21 teams qualified for prelims out of which 8 would advance to semis and then four among those would enter the finals.

13th: We had decided to go to the venue a good two hours before the start of the competition. But, we did not have any alarm clock with us! Miraculously, by a quirk of fate, i had my cell with me. So, i set the alarm and we slept peacefully. But it didnt ring. And we reached the venue just in time before the start of the competition! But why didnt it ring? Because - though we were in Japan, my cell still followed IST!! :D. So, I had no time to test my agents on their server. Mine was scheduled as the second team to run. And my agents failed to start!! It was gave some weird errors. So, Kshitij got 0 score in the first map. There were 9 maps in total in the preliminary round. Thankfully, I solved the incompatibility issue before the start of the second map. But i had no time to test on their server. So, time came to run for the second map. The agents connected and started. A sigh of relief. Midway through the run, the fire agents crashed due to paucity of Ram. I hadnt equally distributed the load on both the client computers. I learnt all my lessons by the start of the third round and we ended up 3rd in that map :) (An omen?) We were overall 13th at the end of the day.
14th: Went there on time. Tried to start the agents for the 4th map. But they didnt connect!! I have no idea why. Kshitij again got 0. I became so frustrated. Felt anger towards myself, the server guy, the other teams, robocup organisers, the german team, our institute, everyone!! It was sort of intimidating to find the other teams having like 2-3 laptops and team strengths of some 4-6 while we had one laptop for two teams (rescue and soccer3D). Thankfully, a few teams like that of the chairman of RoboCupRescue Simulation were also represented by a single member. At the end of that round however, they called a meeting of all the team leaders and announced that they had run the server of wrong version for this round, hence this map would be rerun again! Wow, I got a reprieve! The ranking of Kshitij on that day for the three maps were - 6th, 4th, 4th. Yeah, it ran on that fourth map and it ran pretty well. Overall ranking: 7
15th: Now, I was pretty confident. Unless, our agents fail to start, we can easily sail through to the semis. Thats what exactly happened. Rankings for the three maps on that day: 3rd, 3rd, 2nd. Overall ranking: 5. Qualified for Semis.
16th: Semi finals. 5 maps were run on this day. Our ranking in each were: 1, 3, 4, 7, 3. Our fireagents were just vacillating on the 4th map, which explains the bad position. Therefore ranking in the semis: 3. Qualified to the finals!
17th: Finals. Whopping 9 maps were used. But the relative rankings of the four teams remained pretty much constant. Anyway the individual ranking on each map: 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, 3, 2, 3. Overall Ranking: obviously 3.
Hence Kshitij (IIIT India) were Third in RoboCup 2005 Rescue Simulation League. click .
^:)^

Is a Title required??

It wont be conveying anything about the subject matter anyway. So, the unique concept of No-computers day was held. Am not sure about its success though. Yeah quite a few people did shut down their computer, headed out of rooms etc. But it has not been the success that would have been liked by the people behind the idea. Yeah, its just 2 now and i have started my computer again, 2 and half hours before schedule :D. I had plans of sleeping in the evening, preparing for gre and many such things but what i did was totally away from these lines. Well, anyhow ...
Coming back to the special day, if some big event or atleast many small events had been organised then maybe it would have made more people move away from the intelligent box. Yeah something called cultural night was organised, but i dont think it can qualify as a grand event, atleast not if it is organised in the Old-library seminar hall.... I seriously think the rooms require some unique names. What ever happened to the name-the-hostels drive .... What ever happened to DF !! Whatever will happen to the servers ... with smr quitting and ./nir contemplating the same action ...
By the way, one cool thing was that they did not try to enforce the speciality of the day by say shutting down the servers, closing the labs etc. Leaving the choice to the students means that they assume the students to be mature enough. Which is great ... hope that someday they also remove the compulsory 25 day meal system ... :)

Just saw a pic of mine in the first year ... and i just couldnt believe it. I looked like a school kid literally !! Then i used to think it was an exageration when people remarked that i looked like a kid, but now i know it was true .... Hopefully not anymore :D

As a drooping flower,
soon to wither away,
you were a solitary weeper
your whole world was grey ( this line stolen oops inspired from mltr :D)

Your life was pointless,
with nothing to hope for.
you couldnt care less
you wanted nothing more.

Just then, as a light ray
piercing the grey clouds,
i walked your way
And then walked away

Sleepless in Seat.. :P

What a really busy day it has been. Started in the morning after very little sleep and i had been busy until like late evening. Thankfully, the rest of day has been peaceful and relaxing.

Sometime in the afternoon, i was talking with the VJ of SSMusic, His cameraman and other crew were around, we were the only people in the delab, and then this happens:
HE barges in, pushing doors making noise. We (I n VJ ) look up.
HE: There is a seminar going downstairs, you all go and attend. (he barks at us).
I and VJ look at each other bewildered. I wonder why would he want the music channel crew to attend the seminar!!. Vj grasps the situation and replies
VJ: Sir, I am not a student here.
I lol in my heart. HE doesnt seem to understand.
HE: Go to seminar.. (this time his focus is the guy beside the camera)
I: Sir, these people are from SS Music, they have come here to interview.
HE: Oh, YOU are student right!! GO to seminar.
I go to the seminar and they will what film the empty lab?? With that, thankfully, he goes away with the same buzz that he came in and we resume the conversation. You have to imagine it with the actual accent to understand what i felt then. =))

The template of more than 10 mails i recieved today:
"sir,
i deleted the mail with my password that you sent me.
please send me the login id and pass word"
Yeah, i have diligently solved all problems :)

Having to think about what next to write!! Thats against my blogging ethics. So this post ends here.

Long night ...

Yeah, i am back to form i guess, being awake until so late at night that it actually merges into the morning rays.
Have a lot to convey, but do not understand what it means. Feel something but cannot place what it is... Had a long discussion with Pranav, but i remember it as a monologue. Am listening to a song but not hearing the lyrics. am shivering but enjoying the cold wind.
Am writing a post, but dont know what it is about.
I took the first C-programming lab class today. Yeah, am a TA again ... though it was the first tute, it didnt feel anything new. I guessed i really got used to taking lab classes now especially after the rigorous training provided by the previous sem's TAship.
Who thought of 'ship' as a way of converting objects into the nouns which depict the abstract notions that the objects are based on. In short, who thought of creating the word 'friendship' from friend ??
Its four, time for bed :D

Yet Another Tag post

Yeah she tagged me again .... and i thought this tagging series was over long back .. Anyways, lets start .. by the way, i m back on home turf now :).

Three names i go by:
rama (i have been named so), mythalez(i named myself so), other names are not for public consumption.

three screen-names:
mythalez ( theres no other mythalez in the world ), mythalez, spacer (i almost forgot!!)

things i like about myself:
- outlook towards life
- coolness :D
- inner confidence


things i don't like about myself:
- hesitancy to speak out (when not among close friends)
- inability to stay awake in classes :D
- my weak body :(

things that scare me:
- getting embarrassed
- others trying to console me for any disappointment
- loosing my spects :D


three things i like in the opposite sex:
- intelligence
- taking everything coolly without much ado
- cute with japanese style haircut (hangover i guess :D)

three essentials:
- Spects!!
- friends or family around
- air, water, food etc etc


three things i want to do badly now:
- sleep (tired and drowsy)
- chat with someone good
- go on a vacation

three careers i'm considering:
- computer science researcher??
- enterpreneur (the spelling's right??)
- some sort of consultant travelling around the world :D

Three places i want to go on vacation:
- Some hill station which is not well-known hence not crowded
- Swiss Alps or even Himalayas
- Paris

Three kids' names i like:
- this is a really stupid question. I refuse to answer it. :D

To do before dying:
- Make sure i enjoyed all pleasures of life.
- Invent a potion that would make me immortal and healthy for ever >:) (elixir??)
- third option is unnecessary

three people to take this quiz:
persephone (as usual)
su_cooldude (alas he is not a regular blogger)
the sage (his views would be interesting :D)

This post took a lot of time and effort ... since my mental faculties have been dulled due to the constant enticement of the soft mattress behind me. And i know i have to blog about the Japan trip ... will blog about it soon, need to get my energies back after two weeks of famished survival.

1st Day - 10th Jul - Malaysian Airlines

Today is 16th and a lot of things have happened in between. But i couldnt blog for the following reasons:
1. No time to blog.
2. No access to net.
3. No privacy to blog (i cant type if some one is looking over my shoulder... *turns around to check once more*)
4. No patience to blog ...
5. Overwhelmed by the amount that i have to blog about.
6. Unfamiliar with Japanese keyboards.
etc etc.

Anyways, since i have started now .. with the semis going on .. i guess i will continue. I just cant figure out how to start. what with my mind filled to the brim with experiences of the different kind. Another major problem is that the recent ones are overshadowing the older ones. But i want to list all of them here ... So to make matters simpler .. i ll start from the begining :D. And i shall tell it in present tense as if it all just happened.

10th-Jul:
Its near 7 pm. And i am still packing my bag. The plane is at 10 and we are supposed to be at airport by 7. But everything was being delayed on this trip. We got visas on 9th evening, with the envelope torn and the passports wet. Immediately had to withdraw money and rush over to get it converted into Travellers's cheques (in really heavy rain if the hyderabadi readers can remember :d). And guess when we got the tickets ? On Sunday afternoon that is 10July!! It was then that i called my non-iiit friends and informed them of the impending adventure. Anyway, lets get back to airport.
Met K and Sha at the airport (My two companions on this trip). (K and Sha is how i called them). Finally entered the airport. It wasnt any great. The baggage passed through that Xray machine with the officials not even concerned. Then we head over to the malaysian airlines officials. Actually we had a big 14 hour stop at KL airport. i wasnt sure what the system was. The travel agent (a bad one at that) had assured that we will be provided a hotel for our stay there (wow!! we had been ready to spend that much time at the airport itself.) But as usual with this agent, a hitch remained. We had to get a voucher. But since that was sunday, he couldnt get it for us. So he asked me contact a person at that malaysian counter. And so i did. That guy assured me that if i go and ask at the visitor's desk in the airport we would be sent to the hotel. I hoped so. Then we went to Immigration check. Our passports had been wet, so the stamp etc had spread over and defaced some pages. Mine was the least affected and K's the most. The immigration guy saw K's passport, refused to accept it and ask K to meet the senior official. That guy was convinced when we showed Sha's and my passport with their varying degrees of pudgings. So we cleared immigration and proceeded to customs. There we inquired about the amount of goods that we can bring back etc etc. After the security check, we ended up at the waiting area with more than an hour to spare for the depature. I was continually getting calls from home and also from K's home (Since he wasnt taking his cell.) I dont know why i was taking mine either, though my brother gave an so-called international sim card i was doubtful whether it would work. Finally at 9:40 they announced that our plane was ready for boarding. So off we went. After walking through a twisted tunnel sort of path, we stepped onto the aircraft. A malaysian airhostess welcomed us in and told us to proceed to our seats. All the cabin crew were malaysian anyway.
Before boarding the flight, Sha was telling that if there was any seat beside a gal, he would take it. I stated my preference as an window seat. K was silent. We entered. Mine was a window seat. Sha's was beside me. And K's was at the other end. And guess who was sitting in the seat beside him! So K could enjoy both our preferences. Poor Sha.
Soon i will blog about the plane trip.

Keep waiting :P

Today will be a first for me in many ways...

This week has been really hectic for me though i didnt have any academic work as such. And today is the day. The first time i would be boarding an aeroplane. The first time i would be going out of the country.
This week i had lots of unique experiences. A hurried trip to Chennai that wasnt planned at all. No, Chennai isnt new for me. The hurried one day trip was. A visit to the Consulate for Visa. The whole process of going to another country even for a small time is so complicated. Got the visa today in speed post after frantic efforts. Fought with time to extract money from the atms and convert it into traveler's cheques.
Not to forget installing OSs in that laptop, taking printouts of the required documents etc ...
So, now we are all set to go. Except a small hitch, the tickets. Need to get them from the agent tomorrow.
Also, i shifted my room. Now i will be enjoying 100Mbps lan. More importantly my pc can go back to linux. But i would sure miss the old wing....
The rain today has been the heaviest since a long long time...

I will be flying away to Japan soon. Wish me luck. And hope that i return well and sound :D

For the nonplussed readers who may ask why I am going to Japan, refer to the post on March 1st 2005, 7:45am. All my work in this summer culminates in the next week.

All this is going to happen only if i get the proper tickets today morning. Otherwise...

Kshitij Rescue would act in Robocup Osaka in a few days.

The next post would be from somewhere outside the country .... :)

Felt like blogging ...

so i am here. At 3 am. In a few hours i will be home again. And after a few days i will be back here again. The vicious cycle will never end. Or maybe it will end after an year? I certainly hope so.
Life of Pi. A book that has been inhabiting my room for more than a month. A book that wont take more than a few hours to read. A book that is a well known Booker winner. A book that already half a dozen people have borrowed, read and returned to me. A book that has already been reissued from the library for four times. A book i am yet to read.
Attended a FSIS session today. Am quite skeptical of their new hostel-as-house policy. I consider their idea of cramming two boys in a single room outrageous. So do i consider their Masterplan (which has been put up on site in quite an indecipherable pdf).
Suddenly, i stopped writing this post and started reading a blog which i used to consider interesting. But the sarcasm in the latest post was so obnoxious that it totally drove me off. It will be quite some time before i return to that one (if ever)
Sarcasm, one of my favorite forms of dialogue. No, it is favourite. You know what is the best thing to have happened to American-English? The internet. And ofcourse, M$Word. These are annihilating the poor original British english. Read an article by Thomas Friedman who was talking about the rise of the Irish Economy. Ireland now has the second largest per capita income in Europe after .... Luxemborg!
One of the reasons of success other than 'free education', 'embracing globalisation' etc is 'using English'
I am going home in a couple of hours. Oh, did i mention that already??
I hope the rescue is complete for now.
I am signing off.

Confused yet fine ...

Thats how my state of being seems to be. Confused about what? No idea. Just that the whole day i have been doing nothing, seemed capable to do nothing. Lazed around trying to figure what was wrong. The result.. nothing. Why is it that sometimes everything is fine, no troubles, no problems, no tensions, yet you do not feel good. You are surrounded by people, but you seem to be lonely. But no one can tell that anything is wrong because there is no change in your behaviour. Everything is fine but you arent.
The playlist comprises of the whole hindi songs directory. Hence, listened to a lot of songs which are actually good that i forgot ever existed that too on my pc.
What else ( thats the title of the song currently being played, in hindi ofcourse)
Lost into oblivion.
Life is good but can be better :)

June 16, 2005 AD

This is the third time tonight, that i logged off, with thoughts of going to the hostel, only to return to the lab and sit in front of this pc again. Once it was because, i thought i got an idea to solve the problem. The second time it was because my mind was assaulted with thoughts coercing it to try another trick on that program. The third time had nothing to do with my mind or thoughts, it is the rain which has pushed me back to the lab. But yeah, the weather is awesome, especially after the horrible summer that we had to suffer. So, after a long time, i am blogging in the lab.
I actually felt like blogging in the evening, but then it struck me that the blog anniversary must be somewhere around this time. I checked and it turned out to be the next day, i.e today :D.
So, thats it, 365 days have passed since i first blogged.
Thanks Akshay for introducing me to the Blog-world.
Thanks Simeen for giving me various tips.
Thanks Pati for popularising my blog.
Thanks Rastogi for idolising my blog :D.
Ofcourse, thanks all readers for wasting your time reading my ramblings.
Hey, wait a minute, why should i thank the readers ?? Shouldnt it be the other way round?? Shouldnt they thank me for maintaining this wonderful blog that provided them with that most useful way to waste time when they were too bored to do anything else??
After all the thanks are exchanged, ... lets continue.
Thats where this post was saved as draft. This is the first time that a post was not finished in one sitting. The break came because Su was good enough to come to lab to pick me up and take me to the hostel on a bike. Hence, Thanks Su :)
More than required grtitude for one year; this post ends here.

PS: This is the 117 Post. :)

horrorscope ... painistry

First time when it was suggested, i brushed it off as a joke. But then the nagging began. "how will it make any difference to you?", "Just want to know about your health." blah blah yak yak. Finally i gave in. Thought that i would just enjoy the experience. And so we went to a city-renowned palmist. Yes, a Palmist. I often felt that the theory of how-the-lines-on-your-palm-tell-your-future is much better than how-the-stars-in-the-heavens-predict-your-future. And this particular exponent of the former theory is apparently quite popular going by the queue that was waiting for his audience. Since, his place was quite near our house, we took our token, rested at home and came back to that 'palm-house' at just the right time.

My turn came, we entered after 'removing our footwear'. He was around 50, corpulent and domineering.
(All the conversation has been translated from telugu to english)
He: Are you studying?
Me: Yes, Engineering.
I tenderly offered my right palm, he just glanced at it before he started off on his list of insinuations.
He: Why are you losing interest in your studies ??
Me: (bewildered!! what!! wanted to reply(WTR): i havent the faintest clue what the hell you are talking. True, i havent been studying much, but i am managing pretty well) Reply: erm...cough
He: You are depressed and have lost interest in studies.
Me: (depressed!! I havent been more jollier in my life!! WTR: dude, get ur facts right) Reply: cough... no (a squeak)
He: I am asking you
All this while, he has been scratching on my palm with his reynolds pen, highlighting the lines and curves on my beautiful palm. He ended up making it look ghastly.
And then, relief came in the form of a courier service, who came to deliver a credit card. He wanted a signature and the Pan number or passport number etc. Our man did not even bother to get up. He signed, wrote his telephone number and asked the courier guy to be content with it. The courier guy persisted saying that telephone number wont do, Pan number, Pan number. Our guy joked saying, "Do you people really need the proof of my existence, dont you know me?". Our man brusquely brushed away the poor courier guy and resumed the study of my palm. By this time, i had got back my senses, and wanted to get the hell out of there. He continued...
He: Health is totally fine.
Me: (WTR: If there is any problem with me, that comes under health. Shall i show my medical report and prove it to you?? Get something right dude!! ) Reply: /:) (raised eyebrow.)
My escort: But, will his health be all right??
He: Its totally fine. The problem is his depressed mind.
Me: (WTR: Now, you accuse me of being a psychosomatic!!!) Reply: Stoic Silence
He: You have chances of going abroad in the near future.
Me: (gloating. well, he is bound to get something right afterall.) Reply: Straight Face
He: You may fall into troubles relating to love.
Me: (WTR: Come on, get real. I dont even have a love-life.. is that the trouble you are talking about?) Reply: /:)
He magically produced a ring from nowhere, and put it on my finger. I wanted to snatch it off immediately, but i waited till i was out of his sight.
I finally left shaking my head in disbelief at this strange ordeal.

Supposed to sleep, so i blog ...

blogging has been quite infrequent in these holidays. Just four posts in the month of may :o. But, how does it matter :)
My mind is quite alert and happy to be awake. My eyes pain as if some thorns have replaced those cones in the retina. Eyes, that reminds me of spectacles. 12 years, from the time they opened in this world (hindi filmy??) my eyes had been sharp and great. Many times, i had been summoned to search for that fallen minute thing on the floor, an earring, a screw etc etc. Then, i found the world around me getting blurred gradually. In that unlucky 13th year of my life, i got my spectacles, with powerful lens, -3. Yeah, in my case the eye-lens-power saga started from -3. Many people may strive for years yet not reach this coveted figure. But i kick-started from there, and now have doubled it, almost. These 8 years, the spects have become an inherent part of me. Travelled through all those shapes, huge rectagles, oval, large rectangles, squarish, thin rectangular, plastic lens ... never tried those darkening ones though.
Well, the thorns, i mean the cones are intensifying their protest, i better heed their cries. Keep the spectacles on the table, jump into the bed and sleep another fitful sleep.

This tagging business ...

With ref to this post
Am supposed to answer a few questions. So lets start.

1. Total number of films I own on dvd/video:
A. Me!! Owning stuff?? Must be kidding. Btw, i think there are some cds/videos at home, i dont remember of what :D

2. The last film I bought:
A. Refer to the answer above.

3. The last film I watched:
A. Star Wars - Episode 3 - Revenge ... in theatre, Fight Club on pc (couldnt finish due to 'unforseen circumstances'), Mass on Tv (yeah, I survived #:-S)

4. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:
A. Shrek
    Sixth Sense
    Life is Beautiful
    Forrest Gump
    Dil Chahta hai
    Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (:D oops, this makes it six)

5. Tag five people and have them put this in their blog:
A. Now this is tough. I can tag them, but will they even consider it? Also, can we tag people who are already tagged (though it wont serve any purpose) ?? Anyway, here go the five people -
persephone
my friendly sage
M$ guy
and so on and so forth :D

ps - why is this tag-thing related to movies only ????

No idea what is going to follow :)

Because. i am extremely bored. Just spent half an hour doing nothing at all, just staring at the wall. With no thought occupying my mind, atleast none survived for any considerable length of time. So, thought why not let the fingers do the thinking.
Something regarding the blogger.com has been bothering me for a long time. Why arent they updating the stats? It still stays that i have 48 posts, am pretty sure reaching 100 now. The last post that is shown in a person's profile is one written around Dec04!
I wish for another thunderstorm.

Faint, faint, just a little whisper
slowly, slowly, it is getting richer
forever, forever, the pitch increasing
but i wonder, wonder who is singing

Long time, so here's a post

Am back from home after another brief sojourn. Unlike many priveleged, i dont have a pc at home. And going to an internet cafe is one of the worst tortures you can inflict upon yourself. They with their cramped surroundings, windows 98 with a 800x600 resolution and no browser other than iexplorer. They remind me of my early lab-1 days here. Yeah, the pcs arent much different. And so so slow! And the pc which had the ip 172.16.1.2 was somewhat a special one. Yeah it belonged to me and another guy. The only pc in that lab to have a 4GB harddisk. All others had 2GB. :D Now, now dont get envious, you dont know the full story yet. That was a pc in which windows must have been installed almost on a weekly basis. Forget linux. It was an achievement to get windows running on it. Many a time, once the os was succesfully installed and the pc seemed to be sort of working, my dear pc-partner used to discover some viruses in some files and duly delete them. Many a time, it happened that those files were critical for the os to run. And the unwary me, would come to lab, switch on the cpu, wait for an hour for it to boot, diligently stare at those welcome screens, and just when it is supposed to show the task bar, the whole screen would go blank, and i am presented with this message - "Its now safe to turn your computer off" :-s.

Well before going home, i had these visions of relaxing for four days, regroup my energies and come back with a refreshed soul. Now that, those four days have passed and i am back here, i wonder what happened. I dont feel a lil bit of difference between me-'four days back' and me-now. Spent all the time at home either sleeping or watching movies on tv.

One night, was reading some magazine sitting in front of the tv when i heard the words lion and cheetah in the same sentence. Looked up to see a programme on animal planet. A cheetah was trying to distract a lion, (according to the narrator) and it seemed so. But why? The cheetah could only go that much near the lion and the lion would just roar it away. The lion was searching for something and the cheetah was trying to hinder the search. Nope, not for prey, lion was searching for the cheetah cubs, and the cheetah mother trying to lead the lion in the wrong way. Finally the lion found one cub, killed it, and went in search for another. The cheetah was helplessly standing a little away. Another cub becomes a victim and finally the lion goes away. The cheetah then goes to check if any of her litter survived the lion-onslaught. Yep, two did. two died. And why did the lion kill the cubs? Strangling the competition before it became real. It didnt want too many cheetah eating into the available prey in the area. Now we know whom to blame for the decreasing cheetah population.
Saw another similar programme which was about a group of lion cubs trying their claw at hunting. It was pretty funny. In one incident, the cubs some 5-6 of them chance upon a bunch of monkeys walking on the ground. And the hunt starts. One particular cub chased a monkey, which climbed the first available tree. The cub thought it was a kitten and followed the monkey. But it only went up half the distance that it started sliding and fell in an haphazard way on the ground. Now the monkey was the boss. It started throwing twigs and stuff at the cub, who had to retreat unable to bear the onslaught from above. In another incident, the group of cubs tried to attack a herd of buffaloes. But they really regretted their choice. A buffalo with its large horns turned around and started chasing the lions-cubs. It was so funny, the buffalo coming after the cubs. It really frightened them, finally the mother had to come to drive the buffalo away.

Facing the imminent danger that i may keep blabbering, i publish-post and logout.

Lack .. lack .. lacking

Now, why am i writing this ??

I noticed, as i looked around
ants crawling up the sand mound
one tiny guy falls back
energy, does he lack?

a step away from the line
yet walking up the incline
in his pursuit for something
but does his pace, lack the zing?

with the food, yet to bear
is the burden, which he fear?
does he lack the enthusiasm?
ponder why, his life's in chasm?

Is he a rebel, breaking away
to live life, one's own way?
searching for a new destiny
will rise, another mussolini?

No, he is not going away
maybe he just lost his way
he has joined the ranks again
and is back to being insane

But all my questions still remain

05/05/05

A rare date. A rare day. A day when i finally started doing something useful. Had spent a month with the intention of doing it, finally found the right auspicious day to start. Hope it doesnt fetter out. :)
After a long time, i am blogging in windows. Forced to do it. Wlan no longer works in my Fc3 :((. They have implemented Wep keys, and now my card doesnt associate with the ap. Someday, i will regroup my energy and try afresh to make it work. But as of now, its Windows time for fame. Californication is starting to play again now, repeating for the 15th time. Got to add to the playlist.
Quite a boring post this is turning out to be. Bear with it, O' dedicated readers. :P