Murphy Bhai said, "If a thing can go wrong, it does"!! But there is more to this bitter truth, "If a thing goes wrong, it does it with panache". The enlightenment happened, albeit the halo missing, almost ten hours ago (the time of writing this is 13:30GMT on September 18, 2009 - do the maths - the subsequent time/date are in Indian Standard Time)!!
Flashback !! Woke up around 6 in the morning and trust me, i can count on fingers the number of times I have woken up at such hours in my life !! It was payback time for the last night euphoria !! To cut long story short, I had a mid-term exam starting at 08:45 and last night booze was flowing through my veins, aortas, nerves and what not !! The eyes were heavy, head - the heaviest, feet - the lightest. Standing up on those light limbs was turning out to be lot more than what I had bargained for, but somehow managed to do it. The other thing with booze is that it sucks out even the last molecules of water from your body, and it does not matter whether you drink 10 litres or 15, you still feel to have one more gulp, but thy stomach gives up !!
So, I reached the exam hall by 8:30, i guess. People were arranging themselves according to their plans of convenience and level of preparation. I just sat somewhere randomly and was still trying to cope with the banging in my head, but to no avail.
My eyes were getting heavier and sleepier with each passing second. Finally, the question paper was distributed and I immediately started with the 1st question, without even giving a proper glance to the paper and going through other questions superficially (which I usually do). The working was to be done on Microsoft Excel.
I don't know how many of you have heard this, but this is how it went:
"Bill Gates, in an auto expo, once commented, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon". In response to which General Motors (GM - for morons who are wondering) issued a press release stating, "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off."
The damn Excel was in no mood to work !! Beat me !! It started giving error message, which said something like, "memory not available" !!! 120GB of hard disk left to fill and "no memory" !! Hail Microsoft !!
Being a "trial and always error" expert, i tried endlessly for 15 minutes in an one hour exam but, boy, do Microsoft people make stable software, the damn error was in mood to go away !! But there is one golden rule which never fails to fail you, like tilting of scooters at 45degrees to get them started, RESTART the damn system !!
I don't know how many of you noticed this, when you want windows to start immediately, it takes its own sweet time, especially VISTA (I would like to know who at Microsoft thought that VISTA would be a revolutionary product ???!!!!) !!
After zillions of second, the system was up and running, and so was Microsoft Excel !! There was no time to celebrate thy smartness and ingenuity, the damn sand was running out too fast !! So, I started working on the questions. Now, somehow (well not exactly somehow :) ), it skipped my mind that I also needed to write the answers on the answer sheet, and I took my own sweet time in solving the questions (though two out of four questions were solved wrongly which i found out later). Suddenly, it was announced that I had got 9 more minutes to finish my paper and that's when it stuck me, "Who will write the damn answers!!"
But then there was no pen to be found !! "So, I have come to a mid-term exam without a pen or a pencil ?? WOW !!", I marveled and could not help to slip out a smile. So, it was time to borrow a pen. But, this is the season of austerity, you see, no one in the damn class was carrying an extra pen and only one of the invigilators was carrying pen which he was using to sign the answer sheets !! Told him my predicament, and "bun of a stitch" actually thought for two minutes before passing me his pen !! Five minutes left and a blank answer sheet !!" :) ", Yeah! I was not able to help it again!! One sick mind, I am !!
After that followed a five minute fury, of which I don't remember much!! What I remember is that somehow I was able to walk back to my hostel room, bunked the classes and slept like a pig for four hours !! You know, when you wake up after a nice and truly deserving sleep, the world seems at peace !! I felt something similar and then thought that it was time to improve upon the work of Murphy Bhai. Then what followed is what you have just read !!
Feliz Lectura!
Flashback !! Woke up around 6 in the morning and trust me, i can count on fingers the number of times I have woken up at such hours in my life !! It was payback time for the last night euphoria !! To cut long story short, I had a mid-term exam starting at 08:45 and last night booze was flowing through my veins, aortas, nerves and what not !! The eyes were heavy, head - the heaviest, feet - the lightest. Standing up on those light limbs was turning out to be lot more than what I had bargained for, but somehow managed to do it. The other thing with booze is that it sucks out even the last molecules of water from your body, and it does not matter whether you drink 10 litres or 15, you still feel to have one more gulp, but thy stomach gives up !!
So, I reached the exam hall by 8:30, i guess. People were arranging themselves according to their plans of convenience and level of preparation. I just sat somewhere randomly and was still trying to cope with the banging in my head, but to no avail.
My eyes were getting heavier and sleepier with each passing second. Finally, the question paper was distributed and I immediately started with the 1st question, without even giving a proper glance to the paper and going through other questions superficially (which I usually do). The working was to be done on Microsoft Excel.
I don't know how many of you have heard this, but this is how it went:
"Bill Gates, in an auto expo, once commented, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon". In response to which General Motors (GM - for morons who are wondering) issued a press release stating, "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off."
The damn Excel was in no mood to work !! Beat me !! It started giving error message, which said something like, "memory not available" !!! 120GB of hard disk left to fill and "no memory" !! Hail Microsoft !!
Being a "trial and always error" expert, i tried endlessly for 15 minutes in an one hour exam but, boy, do Microsoft people make stable software, the damn error was in mood to go away !! But there is one golden rule which never fails to fail you, like tilting of scooters at 45degrees to get them started, RESTART the damn system !!
I don't know how many of you noticed this, when you want windows to start immediately, it takes its own sweet time, especially VISTA (I would like to know who at Microsoft thought that VISTA would be a revolutionary product ???!!!!) !!
After zillions of second, the system was up and running, and so was Microsoft Excel !! There was no time to celebrate thy smartness and ingenuity, the damn sand was running out too fast !! So, I started working on the questions. Now, somehow (well not exactly somehow :) ), it skipped my mind that I also needed to write the answers on the answer sheet, and I took my own sweet time in solving the questions (though two out of four questions were solved wrongly which i found out later). Suddenly, it was announced that I had got 9 more minutes to finish my paper and that's when it stuck me, "Who will write the damn answers!!"
But then there was no pen to be found !! "So, I have come to a mid-term exam without a pen or a pencil ?? WOW !!", I marveled and could not help to slip out a smile. So, it was time to borrow a pen. But, this is the season of austerity, you see, no one in the damn class was carrying an extra pen and only one of the invigilators was carrying pen which he was using to sign the answer sheets !! Told him my predicament, and "bun of a stitch" actually thought for two minutes before passing me his pen !! Five minutes left and a blank answer sheet !!" :) ", Yeah! I was not able to help it again!! One sick mind, I am !!
After that followed a five minute fury, of which I don't remember much!! What I remember is that somehow I was able to walk back to my hostel room, bunked the classes and slept like a pig for four hours !! You know, when you wake up after a nice and truly deserving sleep, the world seems at peace !! I felt something similar and then thought that it was time to improve upon the work of Murphy Bhai. Then what followed is what you have just read !!
Feliz Lectura!
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