SSN EDC Cup 09

The EDC team of my college conducted a mega fest known as E-Week last week from February 14 to 19. The event went well though I didn’t witness any of the events. I heard that the event had very good response from my fellow college mates. Though it had many events such as Blog design, slogan writing, EPL bidding, interesting seminars and lots more, one event got my attention – that was the EDC Cup, the first ever intra college Cricket tournament conducted at SSN College of Engineering.

I thought it was a very good move. Having seen many cricket matches played by college mates in front of the hostel, I always thought it would be a good move to introduce a cricket tournament, especially a T20 tournament would’ve been great. But only one committee thought it to be a nice move to introduce it – the EDC student team i.e the Entrepreneurship Development Cell of my college.

The 12 teams knock-out tournament was a very good move but one flaw gathered too much of attention into my mind. The flaw is the imposition of too many rules to test the players of the tournament. Some of the rules are:

1. – 5 for every wicket lost.
2. If not all out in the entire play, +20 runs bonus.
3. Two powerplays of one over each in which every scored run doubles and -10 for every wicket lost.
4. Every dot ball in the powerplay over costs 1 run.

Clearly analysing some of the rules mentioned above, one would say that the team batting second has higher chances of winning (not unless the captain is too dumb). The team batting first would have to put up an exceedingly massive total so as to really challenge the team batting second.

For example, if the team batting first gets all out for a negative score, then according to the rules, the team batting second instantly wins without playing a ball. It is totally unfair! If the team batting second has to chase a target of 50, and if he does it in 5 overs with 5 wickets in hand, then he has won! But if fair play is considered into play, then the team batting second should play the entire innings to decide the match.

So in whatever way the match progresses, the team batting second would always win if the captain can use his brain. Anyway, its a very good effort by the EDC team. It was a successful week for them and I heard that the seminars were great. Also the movie this time was “Inconvenient Truth”. Couldn’t see that movie! This move by EDC could be a great encouragement for the juniors.

Dogs and me!

Not only humans have varying characteristics. So do dogs. Each one is different. Here are some of the dogs I have petted and their characteristics.

Jimmy (Male): Pride, Jealous, Extremely grateful, Dominant, role model :p

Ricky (Male): The most gentle dog I have ever seen. Emotional. Extremely loving and grateful.

Milo (Female) : Beautiful, introvert, playful.

Joe (Male): Extremely silent, introvert.

Max (Male) : Cute, smart, playful, extrovert.

Tiger (Female) : Silent, sensitive, possessive.

Rosie (Female) : Smart, Extrovert, playful.

Pepper (Male) : Scared, possessive, cute, playful, sensitive.

Ginger (Male) : Dominant, Pride, Greedy (in case of food), smart, obedient.

TAGS hits the NEWS stands!

TAGS hits the NEWS stands. The article on TAGS appeared last wednesday (11th February-09) in the Pet Pals column in the Metro Plus of The Hindu. The TAGS team is extremely happy and with this encouragement, it will work better. You can read the article here.

A special thanks to ArunBalachandran and Pramod for making this possible and special thanks to the editor who made sure that the article got published.

Congratulations to the TAGS team!!! TAGS has gone to the next level.

I would also like to thank the people who helped TAGS in some way or indirectly. Kudos!

Meeting THE BOSS!

Speaking of stars in the previous post, its time to speak about the Superstar.

Last Wednesday, I happened to miss the college bus and reached college late by 9 am along with my friend Hemnath. I found several vans which I immediately recognized as Film service vehicles. I asked my friend Hemnath what shooting is going on. He said it is the much hyped Enthiran (Robot) starring the superstar Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai and directed by Shankar. I thought the film shooting held at my college premises ended during the pongal holidays but Hemnath confirmed that it did not and it was postponed to that day.

After attending the next two classes, several of my classmates left after the lunch to catch a glimpse of the superstar. I didn’t want to miss the extended afternoon class that day but only when I read message from one of my classmate Lokesh that he has already got autograph from the Superstar himself, I got frustrated. Almost the entire class started to the auditorium, where the shooting was held, after the class got over.

The superstar had come out for lunch and he was inside the caravan. A small crowd of final years were there as the other batches had classes going on. It was said that the superstar would come out by 2:30. The time was still 1:45. I decided to wait rather than going home. I didn’t know what the crowd was doing as I was speaking to my friends over the phone. At that time, one of my classmates came and asked for any paper or notebook to get autograph. I lended my notebook to get autograph for her and for me too.

Then suddenly the tension in the crowd arose and only then I came to know that the Superstar had signed yet another set of autographs for the eagerly awaiting fans from inside of the caravan. Mine had still not gone inside the caravan. We waited for few more minutes when the security asked us all to move away. We all went back when I heard a loud cheering sound from the surrounding college mates. I immediately knew the reason and turned around to see the Superstar himself.

To describe his character style in one word, it was COOL. He looked as young as a thirty year old guy and he smiled and waved at us as he moved towards the auditorium through the back door. My friend ABC tried to take a snapshot of the superstar but the security found the camera mobile in his hands before he could even think of the word ‘click’. He snatched the mobile and examined it before giving it back to him.

The entire students galloped in joy and headed to the main entrance to catch yet another glimpse of the Superstar. One of the few foreigners, who had possibly come for the shoot, was taking a video shoot of the craze of the students when they moved up and down at every chance they could get to see what is happening inside the auditorium. But luck didn’t favour them as many of them left in vain. Luck didn’t favour me too as my classmate didn’t manage to get autograph as it had got late for the superstar for the shoot.

Although the security was tight and strict about the camera rules, someone had managed to take a photo of the superstar and it was even leaked and published in a recent edition of a newspaper. It shows how people are well and good to get into others’ privacy and also news agencies’ desperation to get a copy of a hot news.

(Un)Identified Flying Objects

Day before yesterday, I was working with my system when I got a call from Vivek. The avenger boy seemed to be in a hurry.

Vivek : Go upstairs and look at the sky.
Myself : Where?
Vivek : In the west

As if he is Gandalf telling me “Look into the east” (Vivek has mentioned the same dialogue in one of his posts )

Myself : Ok. Whats special?
Vivek : Go and watch.

After hanging up the phone, I went to the terrace to watch the night sky. It was a clear sky except for some patches of clouds here and there. “Look into the west”, Vivek had said.

Part of the west sky was hidden behind a building and in the remaining visible sky, there was nothing special. The sky looked normal. I turned around to see the sky in all the directions. When I turned back to west, I noticed a bright star. “Must be Venus”, I thought. But it was moving. I thought I was imagining things and concentrated on the bright object. Yes it was moving and it was flying towards east.

It must be an aeroplane. It had blue and red colour lights flashing now and then. Something weird about the flying object was it made no noise. It was flying silently and it was close enough to trouble my ears. But the thing never made any sound and it was moving at a high speed that made it look like it is going to conquer something.

It was flying towards farther east when it suddenly turned its direction and moved towards the north. It was at that time I realized that I have my mobile with me. I took out my mobile and tried to take a shot. It was still in the east when I tried. The result was worthless. I tried to take a video which was also not good. It flew towards the north and even as it travelled in the distant sky, I saw its light flash for the next two minutes.

I turned east again when another flying object appeared from the east. This must definitely be an aeroplane. It was pretty close and I don’t remember seeing it much as I turned towards the North west to see another flying object. This one was flying too high. The plane below was flying low. In Chennai, one doesn’t normally see Planes flying at high altitudes as the airport is located close to the city. “Must be an aeroplane from the easter part of Asia”,I thought.

I watched both planes fly towards the west. The plane flying at higher altitude was interesting to watch as it emitted light that seemed to rotate around it (atleast I imagined it) and it looked like a flyiing saucer in the distance. Ha ha.

When it went out of sight, I remembered the reason why I came upstairs. There was still nothing special in the sky. “Look into the west”. I thought again. He is in the east of my place. So his western sky could be the sky above me. I looked above and noticed few stars. I saw the Orion constellation. The Orion belt was clearly visible, only this time it wasn’t bright. Planet Venus was missing. The Aphrodite which was seen in the sky for the past two or three months was either hidden behind some building or it is missing.

Nothing much was there and I still wonder why Vivek asked me to go upstairs. I decided to leave the sky in peace and continue the battle with my computer.