Father of Man

Why is it that whenever I travel by train alone that there has to be a small kid on the seat across?!?

It is just so irritating that I have to put up with the atrocities of an infant that has no care of what he is doing why he is doing it or where he is!

Children can be so illogical at times that I just can’t stand them sometimes which is where my philosophy takes root that everyone should be born an adult.

Of course it does mean a lot more to the ladies and I am sure they would have already started making plans to kill me but coming to think of it, it does not have to be so bad after all!

What could have been a quite good (I assume) replacement for the current life cycle is something like this -

Once the female egg is fertilized, it could be passed out after the zygote is formed. The zygote at this stage would not be fully formed and the necessary nutrition would be provided by the lining in which the zygote would presumably be placed for protection as well as for perseverance.
Once the baby is fully developed, it can tear open the lining. The initial 2 months of the baby’s life should be in complete hyper drive where the baby spends most of its time sleeping or hibernating and the body growth is accelerated due to the deceleration of all other bodily functions.

In the next 2 months therefore, the physical growth would be accelerated and after 2 months, the body would be completely grown as a teenager.

Since the child had been sleeping for the most of these months, it would not have experienced any of the living worlds. Thus the brain - which is nothing but a learning computer - would infact still be of a just born child.

To overcome this problem, there should be one chromosome which would carry experience from generations to generations. Thus things like the mother tongue would be known to the child inherently. Other things like the logical analysis of life threatening situations, perception of danger, etc would also be already known to the child.

Now wouldn’t that be a better world to live in!

Maybe not :) but I still hate kids! And there is one more hour to go until I alight this train and rid myself of this torture! Hopefully my better half - if and when that happens - is better with kids or my kid would have it!

Fade

A short poem from LOTR - The return of the King -
Home is behind
The world ahead
And there are many paths to tread

Through shadows
Through the edge of night
Until the stars are all alight

Mist and shadows
Cloud and shade
All shall fade
All shall fade...

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I saw X-Men Origins last Thursday. Long time since i saw a good movie. The last movie i had seen was 99 and it was not the kind that i would remember. But X-Men was a pleasent change.



Very few movies out there for which you can use the words "trilogy" and "great" in the same sentence! The action sequences were great. And what you can easily notice is that they were very good even when they didnt involve Wolverine. So Agent Zero, Gambit, Victor all had their special moments and Wolverine did not always steal the show.

The cinematography was great. With a very strong story-line to support. The story almost perfectly fit the X-Men Plot with a very few and unimportant "mistakes" in this plot that were actually contrary to what was present in the previous two X-Men movies.

All in all a very good movie. Must watch for all X-Men fans.

Just A Thought

...contd from http://www.saifee.net/2005_10_01_archive.html

“Well, it does not matter now does it?” George continued; “Although in this particular instance, I wish the world agreed with you” George smiled.

It was amazing, John thought, how a man could smile in the face of destruction! He always respected George for this. In the 5 years John had worked with him, he never saw George loose his cool. “So what now?” he asked George.

“Well, we can’t sit idle! The government has ordered every software company specialising in computer security to act on it. Every company has to form an independent team and submit a plan within the next hour. “

This sounds interesting, John thought. Being one of the brighter and promising employees of the organization, he was sure he would be on the team. It was time to save the day – John to the rescue! And finally a way to impress Suzanne – The one girl he was trying to impress the most and the one girl who didn’t seem to care.
John was generally good with girls. He never had problems managing friendships with them – But not with Suzanne. The more he tried, the more he made a fool of himself. The more he made a fool of himself, the harder he tried the next time. This went on for some time until one day he realised it was never going to happen. He gave it up as a lost cause although he never lost his interest for her.

John met Suzanne when she joined his team. He was to mentor her. At that time he was already seeing someone – Geeta – a girl from India. Geeta and John were going strong until one day she had to go back home to get married to a guy her family had chosen for her. John was shattered.

In all his mentoring days, he never took much notice of Suzanne. He generally kept friends – or interests for that matter – separate from his work team. Even when John was single again, he did not break this rule.

One day John was explaining Suzanne the heuristic rule based engine used by primitive virus scanners. John was overly preoccupied that day. It was Geeta’s first birthday after she left and images of her previous birthday just kept flashing before him. Hardly able to concentrate, he was making a lot of mistakes while explaining and frequently missing links. Suzanne noticed this.

“Let’s get some coffee. I am exhausted”, she said.

John did not particularly like the thought. In all the past six or so months, he had hardly talked to Suzanne over non-work related issues. He always felt awkward going for coffee with people like Suzanne. They would just keep staring at each other thinking what else to say when they had finished discussing the weather.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t say no especially since she had already mentioned that she was exhausted and more so because they were the only two people left there late as it was.

“Okay.”, he found himself saying.

In the next couple of minutes, they had locked their workstations and had already reached the pantry. John took tea. Suzanne had the coffee that she wanted.

Like John expected, they discussed the weather. He was just about to ask her to join him back at the workstation and finish the rest of the coffee while discussing work but that’s when something happened he did not expect.

“So...tea huh?” Suzanne asked.

“Yeah”, he said, ” I am not a fan of coffee. Besides, tea keeps me awake.”

“But why do you want to stay awake? I thought we were almost done.”

“Yes. But i am not in a mood to sleep as soon as i reach home. I would prefer to stay awake for some time.”

“And why is that?”

“Just.”

“Just what?...I mean i understand if you don’t want to talk. But i just noticed that you made a hell lot of mistakes back there. You are obviously lost or distracted and you hardly seem to notice the time!”

“Shit! I am so sorry. I should have noticed! It’s late and you should already be on your way home! The last cab already left 15mins back. The next cab is now only after 2 hrs! You should have reminded me!”

“No, it’s fine. Besides, i thought you shouldn’t be left alone. You obviously need to talk to someone.”

“No! Nothing like that. I am just thinking too many things. That’s all. Nothing much to it.”

“Hmmm...so it means you don’t want to talk about it. Makes sense. We know each other for only –how long? – 6 months.”

“No that’s not it. It’s just that...it’s Geeta. My ex-girlfriend. We broke up some time back. She went back home to marry. Today is her birthday and i seem to be missing her an awful lot!”

“Ohh...i am sorry! But why did she marry someone else?”

“Well, firstly we are not the same religion. She was an Indian. Her parents would never allow her to marry outside her religion. They are too orthodox. And secondly, they have this notion that the girl’s groom is selected by the parents and the girl has to simple marry him!”

“That’s harsh!”

“Yes it is. But this is their tradition. Anyway, i hope she is happy today. She enjoys having her birthday celebrated.”

For the first time that evening, Suzanne saw John smile. She smiled back.

“Let’s leave. We will continue tomorrow. But wait. How will you go back? I can drop you if you want. No use staying back for 2 hours for the cab!”

“Hmmm...okay. if it is not a problem for you”

“Sure not!”

So John and Suzanne left office in John’s car. Suzanne’s house was not too far from the office but the road was deserted. Especially at this time of the night.

When they reached Suzanne’s apartment, she asked him to come up.

“No. I need to get going.” John replied.

“C’mon. You shouldn’t be left alone or you will get lost in your thoughts again! Besides, i would prefer company for dinner.”

John succumbed. As much as he had refused, he knew how much he would like company to talk to someone.

They had dinner and then they sat down to talk near the window. Suzanne’s house was not too big but had a very comfortable feeling to it. Things were messed up in a good sort of way giving the house that warm feeling. The hall had large French windows through which you could see the far off highway with cars going up and down, a few buildings which were as high as this one and some rooftops. There was also a restaurant at a crossroad which had a huge blue neon light. The light from it was falling straight on Suzanne’s face.

This was when John realised how pretty she was. Just about 5 feet tall with a slender but firm body she didn’t exactly have super-model looks but she had big almost dove shaped eyes which were very arresting. And dark black hair which was very slightly curly with the curls sometimes falling on her face which she instinctively pulled back. Her nose was small – almost precarious. And it used to twitch when she talked about something she did not like. John found this very distracting but in a funny kind of way.

It was amazing he thought, that he had been working with Suzanne for such a long time but had hardly noticed her the way he had today.

They talked through the night and when the first rays of the sun filtered through the window glass and fell on them, they realised how late it had been.

John left for home but that day changed a lot for him.

He soon realised how much he admired and liked her. They became good friends after that. John never showed his true feelings though. He just kept guessing what her next move would be and whether in fact, she too liked him.

However, he found that after that day, Suzanne and he never came so close. Either of them was busy in their work at any given point of time and no more magic moments happened between them. John tried a few times to get some time alone with her but every time he tried, he ended up embarrassing himself. Sometime after that Suzanne shifted to another team and they started seeing even less of each other until after a few weeks, they hardly even got a chance to talk to each other.

However, John never forgot that night. He used to keep track, from common friends and colleagues, about what Suzanne was up to and how she was going.

Getting selected in the team to kill Necsoft and winning would for sure increase his chances of impressing her to a point where they could at least start meeting each other more frequently. If it happened of course!

“John! You with me?” John’s thought were suddenly interrupted by George.

“Of course!” replied John, coming back to reality.

“I know what you are thinking John. But i am sorry. You are not on the team.” George said with as straight a face as he could make.

“What!” John replied trying in no way to hide his surprise. After all, he was one of the best they had!

“Yes. It was a management decision. They think we need experienced people on this team. It is a big opportunity for the company to prove something. They don’t want to take a risk. Apparently, 5 years is not a long enough time for them. I tried talking them into taking you but they did not agree.”

“How can they not? Didn’t Mr. Covey say something?”

“He did ask for you.”

“So? Doesn’t the word of the CEO mean anything?”

“It does, but you were not traceable. We tried calling your cellfone. But you were unreachable! They couldn’t wait any longer. The list of names had to reach the government office in 15mins.”

“This is insane! They could have just added my name in there! What do i have anything better to do than saving the world?”

“I know. But they couldn’t take a chance. What if you were sick!”

“Nonsense!”

“John, its over. The list is already sitting on the PM’s desk right now. No matter what you and i think, you are not on the team and that is final!”

“So now what am i supposed to do? Sit down and enjoy the show?”

“I have some popcorn if you need!”
...to be cont'd

Just A Thought

I was going through some of my old posts just now simply because i have nothing better to do right now waiting for an idiotic SQL query to finish which, by the way, should have ended an hour back!

Anyways coming back to the point, i was particularly going through these two blogs - http://www.saifee.net/2005_10_01_archive.html and i have decided to continue the story from where i had left. A lot of people told me to complete it and a lot asked me to keep it like this.
Well, i have listened to both seemingly by keeping it incomplete for 4 long years which i shall now try to complete :)

Stay tuned for this one. Although be advised that my writing style would have definitely changed a lot in the past 4 years and so you might find the story discontinuous. Please bear with me.

Something i forgot to mention earlier - all characters, names in the story are fictitious and purely a figment of my imagination :)

Did you know?

On an average a healthy human being tends to loose 50-100 hair strands per day!