Disastrous fuck up last night. Bikram and I picked up Mom from the station, and while driving back she told me about how every tom-dick-and-harry in A.P is going abroad for an MS. I don't what I was thinking; I opened my loud gob and started ranting about these useless engineering colleges and how these guys go for an MS to the useless universities of North America. And after that I don't know how I went on about my MBA, and how I will do it from a good U.S B-school, and my grand plans and how successful I will be and what not. Basically it was a session of pan-IIT-gloating and non-IIT-bashing, which was totally uncalled for, especially in the presence of Bikram, who all throughout, maintained a studied and matured silence. Fact of the matter is, Bikram is from a non-IIT engineering college, and must have obviously felt hurt at the non-IIT-engineering bashing I was engaging myself in. Disastrous. Appalling.

Facts:
1) I am an asshole.
2) IIT != great
3) non-IIT != useless

Lessons learned:
1) Must remember to be more discreet; gotta keep my loud mouth shut.
2) Humility and respect for others.

timorous - full of fear
palpable - obvious/perceptible by touch
surreptitious - the act of doing something clandestinely
languor - dreamy lazy mood
impassive - without emotion
filial piety - Confucian thought encompassing love for ones parents/ancestry
catechism - summary/exposition of a religious doctrine (catholic)
banal - lacking originality/freshness
lassitude - weariness of mind/body from strain

- Got from The life and times of Michael K - J.M Coetzee.

"Find the cost of freedom ... buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down."
-CSNY

adroit - showing skill in performing/doing
accede - consent/approval
perambulator - pram

|X--X---X--X--X--|-X----X--X---X--|X--X---X----X--X|---X--X--X---X--|
|--------S-------|--------S-------|--------S-------|--------S-------|
|B--B---B--B--B--|-B----B--B---B--|B--B---B----B--B|---B--B--B---B--|
|HoHoHoHoHoHoHoHo|HoHoHoHoHoHoHoHo|HoHoHoHoHoHoHoHo|HoHoHoHoHoHoHoHo|

- Meshuggah Stengah chorus. Got from http://www.tandjent.com/meshtabs/

"Bulls make money, bears make money, but pigs just get slaughtered!"
- Popular trading quote.

The death of the Aral Sea

dessication - loss of water

One hour by the concrete lake ...

"Lake Karachay is definitely not a place to spend your next holidays at. Located in the southern Ural mountains in eastern Russia, it is considered to be the most polluted spot on Earth, after being used as a dumping site for radioactive waste for decades.

Spending only 5 minutes at the shore of lake Karachay is enough to receive a deadly radioactive dosis, spending an entire hour near the lake will probably kill you within the next few hours and in most cases you even won't make it to the next hospital."

- Got from krips.com. Curiosity aroused by Pain of Salvation's - One hour by the concrete lake.

androgynous - nether masculine nor feminine in characteristics
reticent - not speaking freely/openly
growth investment - investing in stocks which are deemed to grow in value
value investment - investing in stocks that are currently undervalued in the market

First two thanks to Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. Latter two thanks to investopedia.com.

Accomplishment: Finally replaced my trashy speaker-phone Motopebble with a very dignified Nokia 3110 classic. I think this new mobile suits my personality very well. Not showy and flashy, yet very dignified and suave in appearance.

"I must say, I'm getting a bit fed up with all this feminist crap. Nowadays, if you so much as compliment a woman on her appearance, you're told you are a sexist. This dreadful lesbian lobby is getting everywhere."
- Jim Hacker, Yes Minister - Equal opportunities

"Yes, I do think there is a real dilemma here, in that while it has been government policy to regard policy as the responsibility of Ministers and administration as the responsibility of officials, questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the administration of policy and policy of administration, especially when responsibility for the administration of th policy of administration conflicts or overlaps with the responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy."
- Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister - A question of loyalty

"A corny little heavy-pop-rock-latin-world-jazz-avant-garde-metal-blues-record"
-Freak Kitchen's description of their latest album, Land of the Freaks.

Highpoint: Figured out intro drum sequence for Freak Kitchen's - Jerk on the practice pad. Good left/right hand work involved. Will be very challenging to master on actual kit. Cheers to Joakim Sjoberg!

junket - a festive social affair
untenable - not able to defend/justify
bollocking - bullshitting
calamitous - devastatingly bad
precocious - exhibiting mature qualities at an unusually early age
nonplus - a state of bafflement/perplexity
pedant - a scholarly person
pole-axe - medieval weapon; to stun a person

"Sleep well my so called friend, a virus in your heart
She bends my so called friend and rips my life apart"
- Porcupine Tree "So called friend" lyrics

What is this song about? I wish I could meet a Porcupine Tree expert.

Be smarter asshole!

Yesterday in my haste to get my PAN card made I got in touch with the first person I knew who could get it made, and that was Mr. Kailesh Chand, my parents' crafty, cunning income tax agent. He charged me the moon, i.e, 400/- for the process, and I in my ignorant haste, meekly agreed to his extremely fishy and exorbitantly high charges. Fact of the matter was that, asshole that I was, I was totally clueless about the process.

Today morning I find out that the same process can be done for 67/- ONLY by downloading and filling the form online, and then submitting it at a office ~7 kms from home. Thats ~1/7th the price. And all this because I failed to do any finding out before I plunged myself into this deal. Bad decision making, poor preparation, crippling under-confidence and needless haste.

Lessons learned:
1) I am still an asshole.
2) Always make balanced decisions, with sufficient preparation beforehand, so that you can choose the most appropriate and optimal alternative among the given options.
3)Note to self: Kailesh Chand is a smart guy. Possible candidate for hiring as my IT agent.

deadpan - impassive matter of fact manner
parochial - restricted to the confines of a parish
duplicitous - deliberate deceiving manner
verbal diarrhoea - screwing up while talking
gravy train - lucrative endeavour
acquiesce - to comply with
tacit - implied or indicated but not actually expressed
repudiate- to refuse
irrevocable - cannot be revoked

"Suppression is the instrument of totalitarian dictatorships. You can't do that in a free country. We would merely take a democratic decision not to publish it."
-Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister- The greasy pole