Valentine's Day Shenoy

I was getting worried during the last semester of my Masters. It was November and the only job offer that I had was to be a system administrator at Microsoft, and that too, at Redmond. I kept asking myself what I will do there? Having trained and evangelised for the *nix (Unix, Linux, Solaris and their ilk, and recently the Apple intel boxes) systems for most of my life, I would be mocked and insulted by my friends and foes alike (Oh! yeah, I have a lot of foes, thanks to me running expect scripts on their terminals and getting their passwords [ an inside reference to http://www.facebook.com/harishjp ] ). I was frantically hoping that Stallman or Linus would come and save me...

That was when lady luck smiled to me. There was this startup in Mountain View, California, who wanted a programmer with proven Unix skills. I immediately applied. And got in, I did (balls to you Yoda, I can do this too). Thus began my affair with the Macbook pro, 17'' glass screen, black keyboard and multitouch trackpad goodness. I spent the first 2 days playing on it, you know, writing shell scripts, setting up aliases, setting up my vimrc, my bashrc, my cron jobs - it was so awesome.

But it all came down last week, like a pack of cards. Some asshole on the caltrain stole my bag. And with that, I lost my baby. I was listening to music and must've dozed off a bit, y'know. I never really thought that anybody would bother to take my rather shambolic bag with the logos of possibly every major software company in the world. Bloody bastard. There were so many ugly PCs lying right there. Why did he not steal them?

I immediately went and ordered a new box. And Apple said that it will take me 3 weeks to get it! 3 effing weeks! I was wondering how I was going to get through these 3 weeks?

And at work, the only other laptops they have are the old PowerPC Mac boxes or Windows PC boxes. And I have to get some work done urgently. So, I decided to bite the bullet and connect to the linux boxes through ssh. Everybody has access to our CM cluster, they are like prostitute machines. Everyone has fun with them.

All this happened yesterday, and I am already done with this horrible box. I cannot take it any more. And I definitely cannot do this for 3 more weeks...

That was what was going on my mind when the phone rang. I picked it up feeling more depressed than ever. It was a policeman. He said that they had found a bag marked DD with a computer in it and a visiting card with my name. They asked me whether I had lost something in the train yesterday. I could not believe my ears. I deliriously muttered out a yes and said that I will get there right away...

I reached the police station in my pajamas. The policeman asked me to identify myself. Thrusting my driving licence in his hands, I asked him where my computer was. He pointed to a black bag lying on the table. He said that they had recovered it from a stolen goods' market where the thief was selling the whole thing off for 300 dollars! He asked me to go through the bag and check whether anything had changed.

I quickly pulled the laptop out, and booted it. What I saw left me flummoxed. Windows 7 was booting up. The scoundrel had installed Windows on it. The machine was useless for me now.

After that, I just went through the motions. I signed on the letter that the policeman gave me, but I was crestfallen.

I just got back home. In my urge to get my work done, I had even run scripts on the Chandramukhi cluster. And now, I have this worthless Macbook Paro, my true love right in front of me. And in front of you, my beloved, I now lay down my *nix life. As a *nix programmer, I am dead.

-- /dev/das

The Shenoy is a reference to Narendra Shenoy.

Moral Science Story 2, continued.

Before you start reading this, read. this: http://priyananda.blogspot.com/2010/02/moral-science-story-2.html

Shulyaka was depressed when he heard that all three of the people whom he wanted to unite through their sorrows had perished at the hands of an evil dog. He said "O Shiva, please give me another chance, and bring those poor souls back to life. Let me go back, and I promise, I will remedy it".

Shiva was not convinced. He refused to let Shulyaka go back. However, his consort, the goddess Parvati was around, and overheard this conversation. She was moved. She came into Shiva's chamber and said "My lord, I know that it is none of my business to tell you what to do, but if you don't let Shulyaka go back, I will fucking poke your third eye with your trident, albeit on facebook".

Non sequitur.

Apple release iYo

San Francisco, California: Apple CEO Steve Jobs today revealed what must have been the worst kept secret in the world of gadgetry in the recent past, the Apple iYo. "Today, we are going to show you the most unbelievable, the completely extraordinary, the absolutely stupendous and the totally marvellous iYo".

"The iYo represents the cutting edge in modern technology", Mr Jobs added. "It is the ultimate tool for keeping up with the times, since it is designed to be perpetually cool", he said, to the sound of rapturous applause and whistling by the gathered journalists.

"The Apple iYo comes in 3 versions, the iYo 16 GB priced at $499, the iYaYo 32 GB at $649 and the iYaYaYaYo 64 GB at $799. There is also a Hindu religious version, the Apple iAppa which is would be made available only to men", Mr Jobs concluded.

At the end of the presentation, Mr Priyananda Shenoy, who was already taller than everybody else, and thus had no problem grabbing the attention of Mr Jobs, asked "But what the hell does this iYo do?"; to which Mr Jobs replied "How does it even matter, it will always be cool. It is yo man". That is when Dingri Nagaraj N S Rao jumped from behind the curtain and said 'ayyayyappo kila kila" and ran away.

PS: The iAppa reference is thanks to Priya.

PPS: Anand did this ages ago: http://www.bosey.co.in/2008/09/apple-launches-ithing-nobody-knows-what.html and the onion did this: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary and many more such.

India changes national flag.

In a shock announcement by the Congress led UPA government today, it was revealed that India is going to adopt a new national flag. Announcing this in a press gathering today, the home minister Sri P Chidambaram announced that the government will table a motion in the lower house to this end today. He also announced that a committee will be constituted jointly chaired by inspirationalists Sri Anu Malik and Sri Pritam.

Later in the day, speaking to mediapersons, Sri Anu Malik announced that the template for the new flag will be inspired by the flag of the USA. When asked for the rationale behind this move, he said that since we are anyway getting towards 50 states, and the nation's youth strongly identifies with everything that USA does, this would minimise effort while maximising return on investment. When a curious Priyananda Shenoy, who has been strongly agitating since the dawn of time for Mulki to be made into a union, intersection and symmetric difference territory, asked him what investment he was referring to, Anu Malik gave him his DEMAT details.

Wen Jiabao celebrates Karva Chauth

In keeping with the tradition of heads of random governments celebrating Indian festivals, Wen Jiabao, the Premier of the People's Republic of China today celebrated Karva Chauth in all grandeur. The official release also mentioned that Wen fasted through the day to see the moon at night; but since it was a new moon day, the moon never rose, and he died.


In response to this sudden development of heads of major countries across the world celebrating random Indian festivals, Dr Manmohan Singh announced in his NDTV interview today that the Indian government would sponsor the celebration of one new festival every year. "This year, we will celebrate labor day", he said. "But we already celebrate that, sODa nann magane", shouted an irate Priyananda Shenoy from the audience. "Also, it is labour", he added, demonstrating his long association with a grammar Nazi.

Norway renamed to Nigeria

Oslo, 9th Oct 2009: Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, the prime minister of Norway, announced to the media earlier today that President Barack Obama of the United States of America has won the Nobel Peace Prize for being the most promising person to deliver the promise of everlasting peace to this planet. In addition, he also mentioned that President Obama could redeem his prize by making a cheque of $10000 to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Nigeria.

In other news, President Mugabe of Zimbabwe is said to have applied for a permanent citizenship of the USA since his advisers have advised him (haha!) that the easiest way to win the Peace Prize these days is to be a Black American Citizen. In addition $10000 Zimbabwean is rather easy to transfer, since all you need to do is print a new note and send it across.

Man arrested for accepting dowry.

In what has to be a case of gruesome sexist crime, Mr Priyananda Shenoy of Dasarahalli area was arrested by the Vijayanagar police today for ordering copious amounts of Sambar to be made for his wedding ceremony. The police claimed that at the present price of Toor dal, this amounted to dowry and hence Mr Shenoy had to be arrested. But, hilarity ensued when the police jeep was not big enough to accommodate Mr Shenoy, who at 6' 2'' is the tallest Konkani vegetarian to get married in all of history. The police had to temporarily borrow one of the mini vans that had ferried unrelated people to his wedding, since Mr Shenoy himself could not get enough people interested in the ceremony.