Sammy's corner

Part 5 - I took my exams too seriously..obviously they didnt!LOL!

2009-02-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

Part 6- I took my exams too seriously..obviously they didnt!LOL!

2009-02-03T18:59:00.001-08:00

Poop for peace

2008-04-18T14:59:00.001-07:00

Just came across this on facebook..hilarious!LOL!...readon!

The east hates the west. The Christians hate the Muslims. The liberals hate the conservatives. The Sunnis hate the Shiites. All across the globe, the chasm dividing humanity is ever deeper. In all the world's wars against terror, the distinction of who is perpetrating which depends on what side you ask -- so divided are we as a species that we can't even agree why we're killing each other.

For there to be peace, there must be understanding. For there to be understanding, there must be a common ground. But the further the chasm deepens, the more fundamental to basic human nature the common ground has to be.

And so April 18 is Poop For Peace Day.

Poop is the one experience all human beings have in common. We may have varying ideas of God and politics, but the power of an impending poop is a higher calling to which every human must answer. Side by side in a public bathroom, any two human beings are stripped of their differences and reduced to their most basic essence: a pair of feet sticking out below the stall, and a pair of butt trumpets performing a greasy symphony to lament humanity's non-negotiable deference to the call of the vile.

Under the influence of Taco Bell, there is no Christian or Muslim or Jew. There are only human bodies, reacting to the complications of digestion in the same predictable and malodorous ways. Poop wields supreme power over our bodies -- when poop calls, you answer, or you face the consequences. Poop is our cruel tyrant, our fickle deity, our omnipotent oppressor -- it is a force to which every human being has no choice but to submit.

And recognizing this is the first step toward world peace.

Poop For Peace Day is not a day of protest. Pooping for peace is not a left-wing or right-wing activity. Pooping for peace is an act of unity. It's not about religion or politics. Rather, it's about the simple truth: underlying our religions and our politics are universal needs, wants and desires. To poop for peace is to transcend arbitrary divisions and embrace that which makes us human. Only from starting at such a fundamental truism can we hope to expand our understandings and solve our differences.

On April 18, take some time to think when you take your time to stink. Think of yourself on your toilet, and George W. Bush on his, and Osama and Ahmadinejad and Chavez on theirs. Think about the children of Iraq and the children of America, and realize that while their skins are different colors and their gods have different names, their daily ritual is exactly the same. We all poop, which means we're all human, which means we're all brothers and sisters. Any other differences are arbitrary -- we are all united in the daily struggle against the tyranny of the bowel.

Typing dehavu

2006-07-27T04:21:00.000-07:00

Ohkay I am gonna try a crazy thing here never attempted before i.e. typing whatever I am thinking while I am typing, so lets start :

_empty_nothought_absolutelynothing_ohkay_here_itgoes_i think_nups_still_nothing_wow_there_you go :

man.man what are you doin..get back to ytour thesis (audible guilt pang)..i think i should be able to get the literature review done in about 2 months or so..fuck what are they showin on MTV..this worlds gonna go the dogs..YO MAMMA..what kind of a show is that..fuck it(flip channel)phew..elisha cuthbert is hot..fuckin shit..holy cow..holy shit I am moving to canada..oh wait this is like a typing dejavu..i mean i wrote something even before i thought about it!holy cow..yawn, fuck someone must be real bored if they reached till here..holy cow..ohkay I am bored..typing dejavu..btw, why is dejavy not said like dehavu,...whatever whoda**** cares..atleast I discovered "typing dehavu" today..fuck, I am good!

2006-07-27T00:48:00.000-07:00

Tommorow I am gonna run as if there's no tommorow, tommorow I am gonna get up take a shower, put on my running shoes and run..its been a freaking one month since I did that and I feel bad to my bones..I am gonna get up early and run. Thats my anthem for the week to get me going. BTW, I shot a +43 in golf today playing 9-hole..man do I suck or wat..its the 2nd and the 3rd shot thats fucking me up..This game is tohtally difficult to have control..hats off Vijay singh, Tiger woods..dunno how you guys do it. The only saving grace was that I did better than I did last time, improved by 6 shots but hey i think it'd take me atleast 50 games to get to +10-15. My eyes are sleepy and the golf course has taken its toll..I am off to bed! tah tah

Of past and past tenses

2006-07-24T00:48:00.000-07:00

So, I've been reconnecting with lost friends this week..and I am amazed at how often one can suddenly forget about all the people they've come across in life..I did!! So after months, I got on to my MSN and Yahoo and all the other chatormanics..fished out phone numbers and gave them all a call or a ola..it sure was amazing listening to those voices and living some times in your life all over again..great to know that everybody's doing awesome...but sadly everybody in India seems to be almost always busy with life, or getting from one place to another..there's no fucking way in hell I am ever spending so much time in daily travel..I mean what'll happen to my music and all the silly things I do if I spend 2 hours stuck in traffic daily!

Lo, I digress, nyways..so I called up an old flame yesterday just to say hi, and ended up talking for more than an hour..Its been close to 4 years now since we went our ways and 2 since we talked..but well she seems just the same..glad that she's doing awesome! called up my best friend in bbay and she seems like she's finding her foothold too, getting the hang of the demon bbay can be. Talking to people back home reminds me of how much I've changed since I've come here, how I used to be and the things I used to do so very differently. My music's changed, my keyboard playing has been the greatest plus..something that I would'ntve been able to pick up in India. Though my effort to find myself still continues..I am really fucked up you know, so it takes time!:-)..nyways I think I;ll call it a night and write some more sometime later..maybe tommorow. I think I am gonna make it a habit to write something down everynight..helps when you go through them a year later..tah tah!

Geoffrey Keezer and onions

2006-05-01T23:24:00.000-07:00

here's funny as hell article(actually a letter Geoffrey wrote to a friend) after he told him that his recording had made his(the friends') grandma cry..read on..something interesting
btw, GK is one of the most amazing pianists out there, he's good..damn good

You think the people you work with are strange? Sometimes REALLY TALENTED musicians have a serious kink in their inner guitar strings. I've started musical experiments with Geoffrey Keezer, a brilliant Bay Area pianist. After he left my studio in Hawai'i, my mom came over for a visit and I played her some of the music we had been recording. My dear, sainted, 81 years young mother, (and revered Hawaiian kupuna) Nona Beamer, was so moved by what she heard, that she started crying.

I sent Geoffrey an email about this. Here is his response...

Aloha Keola,

I must admit the truth, the "crying" that your Mom experienced when she listened to the music is really the successful result of a new stealth technology (I got Justin to download the plug-in when you were out of the room) called "Onionlabs E-Motomatic", which secretly encodes an audio form of DNA corresponding to the mild sulfuric acid gas which is released when you cut into an onion, causing tearing. Here is a bit of the history of this technology, copied from a quick Google search this morning:

In the early 70's, two young Dutch scientists, Victor Van Hooversnooten and Hans Roostergouda were working the night shift at Windmill Studios in Rotterdam, a small but friendly recording facility which was famous for producing Dutch pop hits such as "I Love You So Much I'd Cut Off My Ear and Mail it To You" and "Let's Get Noodstop". One night while waiting through the tedious process of printing time code, the boys decided to cook some breakfast. They went to the small kitchen and began to prepare their usual stoner late-night fare of cheese, bread, pickled herring, fried potatoes and onions. It was while chopping the onions that Van Hooversnooten had an epiphany (as is often the case under the influence of "Dutch coffee"). "Hans", he coughed, "if WE could somehow put these ONIONS into the music itself, we could make people cry whenever they hear our songs. The more people cry, the better they will think our songs are, and the more records we'll sell! We'll be millionaires and can retire to Belgium, or even Luxembourg!"

So, the two boys set out to isolate the chemical reactions that cause us to cry when onions are cut. They discovered that it works something like this: After peeling some outside layers off, you slice right into the onion. The knife breaks open some onion cells. Inside some of these cells are enzymes called allinases. In the air, the allinases break down some of the other substances, like amino acid sulfoxides, released from the onion cells. The amino acid sulfoxides form sulfenic acids, which rearrange themselves in a flash into a volatile gas. This gas flows to your eyes and reacts with the water in them. A chemical reaction occurs, producing a mild form of sulfuric acid. The sensitive nerve endings in your eyes are irritated, and more water is produced in the form of tears. The tears are trying to neutralize the irritant. Sulfenic acids also form odorous thiosulfinates, which are responsible for the strong odor we smell from onions.

Quickly, they got to work. While tedious after-hours studio work fell behind schedule, the boys spent hours analyzing the chemical components of onions, trying yellow onions, red onions, white onions, green onions, chives, leeks, and even the unpopular Stink onion (not an officially recognized breed, but quite potent nonetheless). The first experiments were somewhat successful - they simply cut an onion if half and rubbed it directly onto the 2-inch tape, causing the gases to be released during playback. While it caused them to cry in the studio, they couldn't figure out how to transfer the onion juice onto vinyl for mass production. It would simply be too expensive and time consuming to rub onions directly onto thousands of LPs for the mass market. One idea was to distribute the records with "special packaging", simply stapling a small onion onto each record jacket, with instructions to the listener to apply the onion immediately before playing the record. While this worked OK for the first 2 or 3 spins, eventually the juice would dry and lose its effectiveness, thereby diminishing the ability of the music to cause crying. The main problem was with Radio. In those days, most people heard their favorite song on the radio before they rushed out to the store to buy the 45. Even if the DJ rubbed onions onto his own vinyl, and cried profusely, how would the thousands of listeners experience the same effect?

(Young Stoners, Van Hooversnooten and Hans Roostergouda, soon to be inventors of the E-Motomatic)

The answer came a year later, when Van Hooversnooten and Roostergouda met a Finnish computer engineer named Jaako Jarvinen, who was employed by IBM as a mainframe programmer. Jarvinen was working on an early version of computer voice technology, and was very knowledgeable in the area of converting electronic signals into audio. He also drank a lot of beer and was an expert snowboarder, which really had nothing to do with anything. The three young scientists hit if off immediately, and came up with a plan to encode the essential building blocks of sulfenic acids and thiosulfinates into a very high frequency, almost subliminal audio signal that would be undetectable by human ears but would piss off the hell out of dogs. When the human brain, through the little-understood process of synaesthesia (a mixing of the senses causing a person to experience such things as colored hearing, gustatory sights, and most importantly auditory smells), subliminally decoded the signal, it would interpret it as onion gas and cause immediate crying. And the crying, of course, would cause the listener to believe that he or she was being emotionally moved by the music. Eureka, they had found it!

(Finnish computer engineer; Jaako Jarvinen takes a moment for relaxation)

Of course their early trials were not without mishaps. One night, there was a big snowstorm and their nightly onion delivery truck didn't make it. Out of onions, but eager to press on, the boys decided to try chipotle peppers instead (don't ask me why there were chipotle peppers in Holland in the 1970's please). While the studio was infused with a delicious smoky flavor, it caused major eye irritation and sneezing. Pickled herring didn't work at all. Aged Gouda met with similarly disastrous results.

It wasn't until the early 80's that the three stoners finally perfected their protype E-motomatic technology, enhanced greatly by the digital revolution. The first major artist to utilize this technology was, oddly enough, the Pointer Sisters, whose hit "Neutron Dance" released an encoded onion signal every 30 seconds over the course of the 3 1/2 minute song. It was perhaps not the wisest choice, as the lyrics repeat over and over, "I'm so happy!" Women all over the world were crying to this song, and their boyfriends and husbands were consoling them, saying, "What's the matter, honey? Why are you crying?" to which they would answer, "I don't know! I'm so happy! I'm crying because I'm so happy I guess! Isn't this song wonderful?" Other markets caught on, and creatively tailored their audio smells to their demographic. For example, the Thai music industry began encoding scallions and lemongrass onto their records. The French actually figured out how to encode French onion soup. And a major pop record in Hawai'i, Keola Beamer's "Sweet Maui Moon" contained code for; you guessed it, sweet Maui onions.

So there you have it. With the advent of Protools and it's multitude of expensive plug-ins (don't worry, Justin only got the trial version, but we had to rummage through your wallet and provide your name, address, social security #, all of your credit cards, birth date, name of your high school, favorite pet (that was easy), blood type, fingerprints and stool sample - don't ask me how I got that) it's now easier than ever to make people cry with your own music. The Onionlabs E-Motomatic (tm) is the latest innovation in Emotion Automation Technology (EAT). The newest cross-platform version lets you choose the level of crying from a pull down menu, ranging from "Slight Moistness" to "Blubbering Idiot". I think Justin went for the middle of the road on this one.

Thought you might want to know.

Love,
Geoffrey Von Cheezerhoover

2006-04-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

So i stumbled on a song I used to listen frequently about 5-6 years ago and its just awesome, to get the whole essence of the song you've to know hindi, urdu and arabic..the songs about a lover singing about his love and consequences which he knows about but has no control over...this is a poem by the pakistani poet Hazrat Shah Niaz, sung by Sufi singer Abida Parveen..here are the lyrics..check it out!

Ishq Mein Tere, Abida Parveen

Ishq mein tere koh\'e gham,
Sar pe liya, jo ho so ho, (2X)
Aish o nishat\'e zindagi,
Chhor diya, jo ho so ho. (2X)
Ishq mein tere koh\'e gham.
Aqal ke madrase se uth,  (2X)
Ishq ke mae-kade mein aa,
Jam\'e fana o bekhudi,
Ab to piya, jo ho so ho. (2X)
Ishq mein tere koh\'e gham.
Hijr ki jo museebatein,
Arz ki uske rouh-barouh, (2X)
Naz o eda se muskura,
Kehne lega, jo ho so ho (2X)
Ishq mein tere koh\'e gham.
Hasti ke is saraab mein, (2X)
raat ke raat bass rahe,
Subhe adam huwa namood,
Paon utha, jo ho so ho. (2X)
Ishq mein tere koh\'e gham,
Jam\'e fana o bekhudi, (2X)
Ab to piya, jo ho so ho. (2X)

Thesis hesist esisth sisthe isthes sthesi thesis

2006-01-09T23:26:00.000-08:00

started writing my thesis this year with a goal of writing atleast every weekend, so that I have something substantial done by the time I really have to write it up. This year is gonna be pretty xciting, I've a lot on my plate but I think I can get it all done..all I need to do is put some good hard work over the summer and not let the sun distract me..learnin latex now..thanks to Param and Aru, have had a pretty good start and think I can make more sense outta it in a week or so..nyways 2:30 am and I am off to bed..i hope i fuckin wakeup at 7 in the morning coz I've put two alarms and I fuckin better waje up!@!!!!!

2005-12-10T03:57:00.000-08:00

When I first started college, the Dean came in and said "Good Morning" to all of us. When we echoed back to him, he responded "Ah, you're Freshmen."

He explained. "When you walk in and say good morning, and they say good morning back, it's Freshmen. When they put their newspapers down and open their books, it's Sophomores. When they look up so they can see the instructor over the tops of the newspapers, it's juniors. When they put their feet up on the desks and keep reading, it's seniors."

"When you walk in and say good morning, and they write it down, it's graduate students.

Bravo!!

2005-12-10T03:52:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Kevin Lim 15/01/04

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams.

His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof." Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter
hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell
breaks loose.
2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell,
then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true... Thus, hell is exothermic."

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

Student Bloopers caught by TA's

2005-12-10T03:41:00.000-08:00

This is a compilation of actual (ALLEGED) student bloopers collected by teachers. Grad students who TA will probably NOT be surprised by any of them.

Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.
The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked, "Am I my brother's son?"
Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.
Solomom had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.
The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.
Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.
In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java.
Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.
Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: "Tee hee, Brutus."
Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was cannonized by Bernard Shaw. Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.
Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah."
It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.
Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no loner had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand.". Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead. Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy.
Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.
Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.
Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't have any children.
The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West.
Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper,which did the work of a hundred men.
Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.
The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by an anahist, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

Top ten reasons why God never received tenure:

2005-12-10T03:40:00.000-08:00

He never got a Ph.D.
He had only one major publication.
It wasn't published in a refereed journal.
Some doubt that he wrote it Himself.
Sure, he created the world, but what has he done since?
The scientific community can't replicate his results.
He rarely came to class and just tells students, "Read the book."
His office hours are irregular and sometimes held on a mountaintop.
He doesn't present at conferences.
He spent too much time teaching and not enough time doing research

The truth about grad students, post-docs, and professors

2005-12-10T03:39:00.001-08:00

A grad student, a post-doc, and a professor are walking through a city park and they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out in a puff of smoke.

The Genie says, "I usually only grant three wishes, so I'll give each of you just one."

"Me first! Me first!" says the grad student. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat with a gorgeous woman who sunbathes topless." Poof! He's gone.

"Me next! Me next!" says the post-doc. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with a professional hula dancer on one side and a Mai Tai on the other." Poof! He's gone.

"You're next," the Genie says to the professor.

The professor says, "I want those guys back in the lab after lunch."

The Top Ten Lies Told by Graduate Students

2005-12-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

10. It doesn't bother me at all that my college roommate is making $80,000 a year on Wall Street.
9. I'd be delighted to proofread your book/chapter/article.
8. My work has a lot of practical importance.
7. I would never date an undergraduate.
6. Your latest article was so inspiring.
5. I turned down a lot of great job offers to come here.
4. I just have one more book to read and then I'll start writing.
3. The department is giving me so much support.
2. My job prospects look really good.
1. No really, I'll be out of here in only two more years.

got all the freakin weird piano chords!

2005-11-26T21:22:00.000-08:00

so after months of procrastinating, i finally decided to study music theory in detail and try to make sense of all the jibberish classical pianist write and all the 7ths, 9ths, 7(9ths), 7(#9th), 7(flat9), m7(9), m(7#9).....expert musicians keep talkin bout(which i think is a bunch of bull coz its just a matter of shifting a finger here or there!LOL!) If I could just find a music resource that could tell me that it would;'ve saved weeks of pain...but anyways I'mm feelin quite upbeat today coz I made 'my sense' outta all this non-sense and realized that someone can take the pain of writing 100 words to explain a key movement when there's a much easy way to do it all!LOL!

Thuis sure gonna help me hwn i start learnin jazz/blues..god knows when that will happen but surely before i turn 99!LOL! So now I can go ahead and create all the BS chords..without too much difficulty coz i know the concept now..yay!!..allright enuff of braggin..time to handle the sustains and the 13ths!LOL!..tahtah!

Got the bar!

2005-02-25T11:05:00.000-08:00

so after 2 weeks of excruciating practice, i finally got it!..i'd been trying on-and-off for bout 3-4 months, without much seriousness or practice..but then come February I decided to fight the demon nd lay the ghosts to rest...nah, I am not talkin bout research..am talkin bout gettin the bar chords on the guitar!LOL!..yeah now i can play all those wonderful chords..all i need is a little bit of practice goin from open to bar chords nd vice-versa...
mayb i can b good on the guitar in 2 years or so..great probably in 10-15..but who cares as lon as am havin fun nd creatin music!..I am usually not interested in percussion instruments, but recently I came across this celtic drum called the 'bodhran'..nd it just sounds amazin nd i was astonished at the skill level required 2 play it..if u've heard/seen the corrs in 'Dreams', u'd kno what i'm talkin bout, Caroline Corr plays it to perfection nd it almos sounds like a bass guitar if u dont pay attention...so mayb one day i'll pick this up, but i dont c it happenin for the next 2-3 years..for now its only gonna b my piano nd my guitar..nd thn letsc how it goes!

are we 'goin' old or 'growin'?

2004-12-06T18:55:00.000-08:00

Are we waiting for the inevitable to happen or are we making an effort to get there? Face it, every minute, every worthy second of our life we are reaching that stage, the stage they say is reminiscent of the calm of the river which has flowed a thousand miles. Yes, we’re going old but the question is, are we ‘growing’ old? or are we so caught up with the everyday mundane whirlpools, that growth has been mistaken for breathing.

Yes it’s a struggle, to stay alive, life sure is a struggle. Some ought to fight to be the people who put the food on the table while some get by, well, just shaking bon-bon’s! But amidst all the roar and uproar about making a living, providing a living, there are a few aspirations that are being put under the guillotine everyday. If you caught yourself (or catch yourself in the future) whispering ‘I wish I’d done that’ you’d know what I mean. There could be a thousand reasons why you didn’t do ‘that’ and quite possible that a few of them are worthy being termed ‘reasons’ in the first place but if you couldn’t do ‘that’, make sure you fill the void with something better not regrets.

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony this life Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to the money then you die
say ‘The verve’ and I’m afraid I’m gonna have to agree, this is what we do all our lives, our whole life has been epitomized by these very words. Unfortunately I don’t know if I’m capable of starting a change, forget about making a change. I’m sure many have recognized this well before me and few of them would’ve certainly marched out to do something about it. But I’m not sure if this is for me, you see I’m so caught up right now, maybe I’ll do something about it when I’m 45 and my kids are starting college.

The art of doing..duh..nothing

2004-10-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

yeah grad students are supposed to do something, create something, be somethin all the time..but have you felt the joys of doing nothing? If not, wake up and smell the coffee and please, puhleese 'do nothing!'.
After days and days of doing lots of things and everything, this sunday i had the opportunity of doing nothing..yeah i slept late..at about 4 in the morning but i got up at my own pace at 3 in the afternoon. And suddenly it all fell into place, I had nothing to do! for once in a long long time, i had no papers to read, no bugging emails in my inbox, no fone msg's about 'please be here at this nd this time'...i was free!
lying there watching TV was the best thing that i could figure out for today. And yes i did end up doin a little bit of things, but i guess its the closest you can get to doing nothing..my messy room was screaming at me but i didnt budge, alas, i had given myself the word of doing nothing today and for once i was gonna keep it.
So if u wonder how it feels after doin 18hrs of nothing..well..letsc..i feel like doing something, I really wanna go out and give my work my best shot this coming week! and that my dear friend is wat you get for doing nothing. 'nothing's' not all that bad, is it? atleast you get something outta it! LOL!
yeah! go ahead call me a crazy grad student! ohki if u've read the whole thing and are cursing me, i'll give you atleast a bit to think about..I've always wondered, there should be a better way to start your day than waking up....someone's just gotta find it, think you can do your grad studies in tht? l8r!

Sam's back!

2004-09-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

6 days out of this place and i feel good! real good..i guess it was due for a lon lon time..specially after the intense summer when i spent most of my time workin (not on my research, i regret it :-( )..but hey a man's gotta make a livin!..yeah i culd've gone to india but i would've lost out on something great..
summer's gone and am beginning to gel with the workload in this semester..kinda getting the hang of it..life's limited to studyin nd listening to symphony or radio nova chicago. I thought if i cant give time to practicing my music, might as well devote some time in training my ear!..not a bad idea, huh? I played my guitar after such a lon lon time during my time-off and it felt so good. I noticed one more thing, that if i leave it for sometime, like dont practice it everyday, and pick it up suddenly, am better at it!..now i cant find a rationale for this, coz, duh, well they say 'practice makes u purrfect. But the truth is, I've personally felt it!, i mean my fingers jump to the right chords faster, i can definitely feel it even tho the person who's listening might not b aware of it! never can figure out how the brain works!
and i did some photography after a lon lon time..finally found someone(thanks Parul!! I owe u one!) who could pose for me while I was happy clicking..and well the results are mind-blowing..much better than i culd've ever expected. Am gonna post it on my website soon, and yeah am excited bout it. Kudos to Parul again for holding still..most of the shots required being absolutely still and she did a spectacular job, i mus say!..u really gotta b interested in it to do it..don think everybody can! yeah i culd've posed but am much better behind the camera!and then again do I really wanna take pics of a lazy flabby bastard!
gotta go..my work's callin out..nd i've Mozart's symphony #25 playin in the background..wish i had a scotch! nd life wul've been purrfect..atleast till the scotch lasted!LOL! l8r!

PON's all done!

2004-09-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

Phew!..so after 12 hrs of straight cookin nd makin some good dough, the PON's all done..sudip nd biswas did a gr8 job with the float(yeah, ofcourse we won!)..nd all the samosa's sold out in just under 1 hr!..but i was so damn tired after cookin all tht stuff tht i spent 20hrs out of the next 24 sleepin(tht did wunders to me!)..now its manic monday next...tht aint b all tht tuff 2 handle, watsay?

Today's thots

2004-09-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

am i supposed to hav some? i guess so, all grad students do is think so it'd b criminal for me not to!..well i hope u read the title of my blog before attemptin 2 read this..coz am gonna bore u like hell!LOL! jus kiddin..was gettin bored, 'thot' i'd share it with ya all..2day's day was nothin special..i got a new subject for takin photos, but hey cant say names..its a hush hush project!LOL!..nyways..i don think i've got ny creativity left to write nythin else..so i guess i'd push off..hasan's made some good ol chicken biryani! ciao!

dum dara dum!

2004-09-12T23:50:00.000-07:00

so this is it, i uploaded my website nd its up thr rite now..breathin!..took me sometime 2 get it done but hey i wantd 2 make sure i got vrythin jus the way i wantd it 2 b..i guess bit by bit i've been workin on it from march..nyways..hope it goes down well with vrybody!

Whoa! I'm almost there!

2004-09-07T01:46:00.000-07:00

umpteen days of hardwork has paid off as far as my website's concerned..am giving final touches to it. Writing something about anything is far more time and energy consuming than everything around you...but now tht I'm done (read almost done) I can look back and take a bird eyes view of the whole thing...nyways, thanks to radio nova chicago..all those "dhak dhak" beats kept me alive and awake!

Happy b'day blogger!

2004-08-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

i just learned that blogspot turned 5 today!..just wanted to wish thm..HAPPY B"DAY!..The mighty mishra's have successfully turned me into a spammer, damn thm!....stay around and u'd learn more bout thm, "sexy" and "dadhiyal" are resposible for 90% of my frustation! :-)

- King SpAM

Sam comes to life

2004-08-30T23:52:00.000-07:00

so this is it, after spending two days in the dept., Sam is dying to go home to his music. But alas, he's got some work to do (yeah rite! who am I foolin!), so nyways, yesday was rakshabandhan and I got these beautiful rakhis from atima di and yes i've been selfish enuff to not give her a call even after that..! Gosh i gotta call her!..Fall semester's brought back lotsa memories, some good, some bad, but more than anything its brought lotsa work, experiments, pressure to produce results..blah blah and u guessed it, i still have some course work left..
I wish I could go to india, atleast to see pahel, i miss him oh so much!..and yes ofcourse i miss vrybody else but thn again, u c, Pahel's special! gotta work on a letter of recommendation..am gonna sign off, ciao!