Friday, June 15, 2007

The Wishing syndrome .... !!

Wishing ... Aaah, nowdays its like an achievement if you wish someone on time, given the so called hectic schedule that drives people nuts. Over the years, I have stumbled upon an interesting, yet weird, pattern about wishing people. Instead of classifying your friends as good, bad, best, bitch (ahem .. !!), you can group them according to the way you wish them.

There are many sophisticated ways to wish people in the modern era. So what exactly are the categories ? To sample a few, there is the good old fashioned greeting card (hard copy of course) which can be used to wish a friend who is marginally better than another friend for whom the soft copy version of the card may suffice. Mind you, BETTER over here is in terms of friendship ... ;)

Then you have electronic mail, a telephone call, an SMS or Orkut that can double up as a birthday alarm too. What a pity that you need a birthday alarm to remind you about the special days of your friends. In this case, not wishing someone can mean lots of things too ... ;)

Of course, meeting the person in person (confusing ?) takes the cake as well as the bakery it seems. There is no better feeling than to wish a person by meeting him/her. FEELING over here means the feeling of the person being wished ... ;)

Here is my prioroty list for wishing, in descending order of FRIENDSHIP.

Wish in person
Post a greeting card
Call the person
SMS
Email a greeting card
Plain simple Email
Orkut scrap
Dont wish

So how do you categorize the friendship (or the lack of it) of your friends ?

Cheers .... !!

Friday, June 08, 2007

Cows and Bulls .... !!

You never know what would make you nostalgic. During the week, I experienced one instance of NOSTALGIA when I drove my friend's scooter for a while. Memories of Wadias came storming back when I used to have immense pride in going to college on my Dad's Bajaj Super every Saturday. The pride originated from the fact that on other days I had to be content in driving my sister's Sunny which isnt the most "pridey" bike you can ever ride. But after reminiscing about this piece of History, I thought I wont feel nostalgic for quite some time but I was pleasantly mistaken. After a hectic schedule at office for over 5 months, I found myself idle. Coinciding with my leisure was another interesting occurence. My wife found a way to be online on Yahoo which hadn't happened for the last 3 years. Since she was also idle, we decided to play a game. The game goes by the weird name of COWS AND BULLS.

I remember playing this game in all the periods (since I am talking about School, I am calling it periods instead of lectures) in School that were either boring or I was occupying one of the last 2 benches. The primary pre requisite of the game is that you should have an equally enthusiastic opponent. Here are the rules.

Its predominantly a 2 player game though nothing stops you from making it 1 vs n. Lets assume that its a 1 vs 1 game. Lets call them Player 1 and Player 2. Now Player 1 thinks of a 4 digit number. There are some constraints on this number. Firstly, it should not start with a zero. Secondly, no digit in the number should repeat.

Now, Player 2 starts guessing the number. Suppose Player 1 thought of 2758 and Player 2 guessed 1786 in his first attempt. Player 1 would compare the guessed number (1786) with his own number (2758). Player 1 will find that 7 and 8 are the digits that are present in his number (2758) whereas 1 and 6 aren't. Now he will compare the positions of 7 and 8 in his number. 7 is the second digit in the guessed number as well as his own number. All such digits that are present and also in the correct position are called BULLS. But 8 is not at the correct position since it is the 3rd digit in the guessed number as 4th in the actual number thought of by Player 1. All such digits that are present but at the wrong position are called COWS.

So Player 1's response to the guess of 1786 by Player 2 would be 1 BULL and 1 COW. Player 2 will then know that out of 1786, two digits are correct and 2 are wrong. Out of the 2 correct, 1 is at the correct position and 1 is at the wrong position. Of course, Player 1 doesnt mention which 2 digits are BULLS AND COWS. Player 2 takes note of this and proceeds with his second guess and so on until Player 2 guesses the number correctly. Both players keep track of the number of attempts to guess the number.

Now, Player 2 thinks of a number and Player 1 guesses. If Player 1 guesses the number in lesser attempts as compared to Player 2, Player 1 wins and vice-versa.

I find it tough to imagine this as a game since it can be an extremely challenging exercise to hone your Logical Reasoning skills.

Its interesting thinking that I spent 3 years (Grade 8 to Grade 10) playing this game in school but only hit upon it 9 years later.

Happy Playing .... !!

Cheers .. !!

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Half baked movies .... !!

It feels great to return to Blogging. The last six months have been the most gruelling in my life. Getting my house in order post marriage, running errands on weekends, meeting up with my millions of in-laws and top it all, the work schedule at office are some of the things that have kept me busy. The inspiration to write again arose from one of the movies I caught up on TV over the weekend.

The movie made me think about the number of movies having contrasting halves. Either the movie is great before the interval or picks up in the second half. The movie in question is Hera Pheri. Yes, I know most of the people rave about it a lot but personally I feel it loses its charm in the second half.

Other such first half masterpieces according to me (I am sorry I have to use "according to me" to avoid being blasted) are Ishq, Satte pe Satta, Aankhen, Ram Lakhan, DDLJ, Khuda Gawah, Khalnayak etc. Of late, Cheeni Kum is being criticised to follow the same trend but I feel it is a bit harsh. Even the legendary Sholay wanes in the second half.

There are movies that follow an opposite trend of a lacklustre first half brightening up post interval like Satya, Company, Mr. India, Karma, etc.

But there are some that keep you hooked for their entire length like Trishul, DON (old one), Maqbool, Sarfarosh, Andaz Apna Apna, Ardh Satya, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Amar Akbar Anthony, Bheja Fry, Sarkar, etc.

I wont go into the details of movies that are pathetic in all respects.

Happy patchy viewing.

Cheers ... !!