Archive for May, 2009
IPL In, Thesis Out!
by Rahul on May.10, 2009, under Passing Time
*9th of May, 2009 and T minus 5 hours left for the match to start. Two people who really should be working on their respective theses, start their day by watching some music videos, movies and continue gossiping about life, hits to their respective blogs and finally cricket.*
“Do we really have to watch the match? You know they will lose!”
“Yeah right! Just because we lost 3 matches in a row does not mean we will lose another one!”
“Win the first 4 matches, lose the following 3, win the next one and lose the rest. LOL!”
“We WILL enter the semifinals!”
“Not with the rate at which you are losing games. Umm… what was that wonderful score with CSK? 1 for 3 – how about that?”
“Kabhi Kabhi Jeetne Ke Liye Haarna Bhi Padta Hai!. We will win this one today, just watch!”
“How about a bet?”
“Terms?”
“Tuesday, Billa @ Cinemax, GOLD seats.”
*This will be the the 2nd time that these great minds at work will watch Namitha dance in a 2 piece bikini as serious competition to Anushka.*
“Bet!”
*After the strategic timeout : Venu and Symonds make a test match out of the T20 game.*
“Hey, how about this. Instead of betting on the outcome, let us do the following…”
“So you know you will lose this match huh?”
“Oh please! I know DC will win this – a piece of cake! This is just to make the game interesting.”
“Fine, what is it?”
“Before any delivery, both of us guess the number of runs the batsman scores off it. The guesses will not clash because the guessing will be turn based. This means that if I make the first guess for the current delivery, you make the first guess for the next delivery.
As we are still researchers and living off our parents and stipends, we shall gamble with money in the multiples of ONE RUPEE ONLY and not 10s and 100s.
Value of DOT ball = Re. 1
Value of i runs scored = Rs. i, i ≠ 0
Value of Wicket = Rs. 10
You can see that monetary values of events are inversely proportional to their respective frequencies. So greater the risk, more the money you win.
Let us say I bet that Symonds will hit a sixer and you say he will get out. If Symonds hits a 6, then you pay me Rs. 6. If he gets out, then I pay you Rs. 10. But suppose he scores 2 runs. Then I pay you (|6-2| = Rs. 4) and you pay me (|10-2| = Rs. 8).
As simple as that!”
“Okay, sounds good to me. Let us start!”
*Just before Yuvraj’s wicket fell,*
“Well you just lost your last Rupee. See? I told you your team would lose! Your team seriously has a knack for losing freebies eh?”
“Blame it on the fisherman…”
*Found out today that Billa will no longer be shown in Cinemax*
RoboCup 2008 Day Five, Six
by Rahul on May.09, 2009, under Blasphemy, Food, Fun, Life, Passing Time, Work
- Skipped the breakfast on purpose, I could not take anymore of that pungent smell in the dining hall. Harith somehow managed to go and have some eggs, et cetera.
- Having missed out on the Great Wall of China trip, we decided to take a city tour (pronounced ‘Sheety Toor!!!’, exclamation is a must – Watch Russel Peters’ episode in which he narrates his trip to China) being offered to participants for a ‘discounted’ rate. The tour included,
- Chinese Gardens (summer houses) for the then Chinese administrative officers. Of the 3-4 gardens we visited, the one with Bonsai plants looked pretty cute. At almost every way point in the guided tour of any garden, there was a lady dressed in kimono playing very sweet soothing music using Chinese musical instruments like some-chinese-words-come-here.
- Grand Canal, Suzhou is also known as the Venice of the East – thanks to the wonderful editing by Harith, the video tells you why.
- China is apparently very well known for its silk. We were taken to one of the silk industries where we were shown the entire process starting from feeding the silkworms to killing them and finally getting the world famous quilts, clothes and yes, scarves (for the ladies). Harith and I bought a quilt each and Harith bought a very nice silk shirt for his father. The guide by then picked up courage to ask me a question – “Is he (point to Harith) your son?” – and when I said we were not related she asked me another one – “Is he your student?” – to which I of course said a no and explained to her that we were ‘co-researchers’ and ‘just friends’. Do we really look like that?
- We asked the guide to drop us off in Downtown (pronounced ‘DaawnThaawn!!!’). It was a funny experience, once again thanks to Harith’s captures. After an exhaustive search, we finally located KFC – not one, but 5 KFCs at 4 corners of a big market. Real food after 4 days!
- During the stay we never noticed any stray dogs, cows roaming aimlessly on the streets. We all know why!
- However, the absence of birds sent chills down our spines. The reason for absence became clear to us almost immediately – barbeque joints displaying roasted birds and other animals (looked like rodents) on sticks.
- Went about looking for Olympics merchandise for ourselves and friends but could not find anything. Shopping in the downtown reminded me of Koti.
It was my first trip to Koti with Kirthi and he stopped to ask a hawker the price of some item X (or maybe the hawker simply did not let go of him). The guy asked 200 to which Kirthi offered 20. The guy groaned and came down to 50! I think Kirthi then went down to 10-15. I do not remember what the final price was but I am pretty sure Kirthi did not buy that item X after all that haggling – ‘Just for the heck of it’ apparently.
- Harith and I had a similar experience in almost every shop (high class hawkers) while on the lookout for Olympics merchandise.
- Unfortunately we could not find any official stuff and so we returned, having decided that we would come back to the same place the next day and finish shopping.
- Wrong move. We should have had something to eat instead of putting all our hopes on the banquet dinner. Let me recount what I had during that dinner – about 4 glasses of coke, 2 bread rolls and few spoons of chicken popcorn (they ran out of this in 5 minutes!). My first banquet turned out be my worst dinner experience till date.
- The next day we took our luggage to the Convention Center (flight scheduled early next day) and from there, hired a direct taxi to Daawnthaawn.
- We started asking everyone on the street for places selling the Olympics goods. Those people had a Chinese equivalent for Olympics too and could not understand the word ‘OLYMPICS’! We found an Olympics banner, took a photo of it and starting showing it to people. Finally we got redirected to a mall. Phew!
- There were no T-shirts but we got our hands full with keychains and couple of bags. So much so that I overcharged my ICICI credit card – which took about 20 minutes to get verified.
- Had good lunch at McDonalds and KFC (preparation for the worst) and went back to the Convention Center.
- The awards ceremony was uninteresting probably because we did not win the prize. We were so close! And we lost it because of the stupid patriotic feelings.
- The 3 hour drive to Shanghai (pronouced ‘Shãwhãi!’) Airport cost us around 500 RMB and left us (including Prof. Kamal) penniless – seriously. I mean we did have USD and INR, but another foreign exchange was going to be a PITA.
- Prof. Kamal had to go to Singapore. He suggested we explore the Shanghai downtown in the evening and then we parted ways (yippieeeeee).
- We decided to try out the MagLev and stuffed our luggage in the lockers (damn the foreign exchange!). The MagLev experience was phenomenal, breathtaking, and all those words one uses to describe the state of ecstasy. One look at the video below shot by Harith is enough!
- We then took the subway (neat!) to the heart of Shanghai, had some really good ice cream at Häagen-Dazs, got offered
good
cheap
quick
‘MASSAGES’ (had to decline due to shortage of time and money – kidding), spotted a Ferrari drag on a very jam packed street and returned to the airport with a hope to find free wireless Internet to while away 10 hours.
- We met a fellow Spanish RoboCupper from Rome – a fan of Real Madrid – , watched a movie of Chaplin (he seemed to be a really big fan of Chaplin) on his laptop and spent the rest of the time – well, chatting of course. During this time we also gave him an opportunity to feed us, for we had run out of money thanks to the stupid MagLev ride and ice cream). He probably went back to Spain and boasted how he saved the lives of two Indians. Nevertheless, thanks a lot for the gesture mate!
- We also promised to pay him back at the next RoboCup to be held in Graz (pronounced ‘Grats’), Austria (which we unfortunately will not be attending) and looking at the receipt he replied, “This is nothing. In Graz I have to pay twice or thrice this amount for just myself!”
- Well, a few Euros do not matter much to them Europeans!
- At last! We found a shop selling original Olympics merchandise. Without second thought, both of us bought a T-shirt each (costed 100RMB).
- Finally boarded our plane and slept till we reached Hyderabad (stopping at Bangkok for a 10km walk in the airport).
I have all the pictures somewhere, will post them ASAP.
Get Ready For Summer
by Rahul on May.07, 2009, under Blasphemy, Fun, Life, Passing Time
Students staying over during summer have to pay Rs. 1200 per month as room rent. With an average stipend for students coming to around Rs. 3000, life will be very difficult. For the sake of such students, Yaso has generously given few pointers on Food and Hygiene which, he claims, have helped him right from first year!
Food:
- The cheapest mess in campus is Yuktahaar. It is okay, just a matter of 3 months. Later you can have tasty food in other messes when you get enough money. Go early for breakfast and stuff yourself with fruits and milk. Wear loose clothes to conceal bananas underneath. If you do a good job of this, then you need not have lunch and in some rare cases, dinner also!
- Be on the lookout for mails on important talks, seminars, guest lectures, local conferences and western classical music concerts. Our college generally gives a couple of samosas and tea/coffee after talks and seminars. But in the case of these concerts, there is 5 star food served for free. Make sure you go at least an hour before such events though, for you are not the only one with such ideas!
- Well eating in college for 3 months straight is not at all healthy. So you should go out once in a while which is pretty costly given the constraints on your budget. Who better than your friends with jobs outside? Milk them into giving you treats at least once a month.
BEWARE: DO NOT send any papers with a high chance of selection to good conferences. Else it will be your turn to throw party to your friends!
Hygiene:
Well it is not like you have taken a bath everyday ever since you came to IIIT. I personally take a shower twice a week, for it takes about 3 days for people to you-kn0w-what.
- Spend most of your time in your air conditioned lab doing *ahem* research. This will reduce your rate of perspiration and you can increase your bathing frequency to 7 days per bath!
- I prefer branded clothes for one simple reason, the quality. I wore a Levis cargo for 60 days straight, including 4 train journeys to and fro Tirupathi. Finally the fabric could not take it anymore and disintegrated. Now if I had spent those 60 days in lab, then those trousers would have lasted me for another month or even longer!
- Newspaper costs Rs. 100 per month. Every night, after they switch off the ACs in the lab due to cost cutting measures, return to your room, wrap yourself in that day’s newspaper and sleep tight. This will increase the life of your clothes to say another year! Do not be extra cheap and steal newspapers from library and TV rooms. You never know who touched them with what. Trust me, it is NOT a good idea!
DO NOT participate in any sort of physical activities (walking to lab and the like are not counted). It will only result in you taking more baths and hence spending more money on soaps and shampoo, and of course the washer man.
I picked up many useful suggestions from the movie, ‘Aha Naa Pellanta‘. Do watch it. It helped me, it will help you too!
Well this covers most of the things. Do you have any mind boggling ideas? Suggestions are always welcome. We are after all a family, the IIIT family, and so we should look after each other no?
