Quotes to quote

Unforgettable, Utterly unbelievable,

How would you feel if a climax of a highly suspensful film has a comic ending?


Incredulous, anger and more importantly incredibly stupid. After working for three weeks, 6 resources and with a cancelled ticket train, finding out that port number is what has caused the whole problem, I felt like dousing myself with kerosene...


It all started with Manu asking for reports using Reporting Services. He was very adamant that he get it only with Reporting services and he also made a very interesting remark. He said he was planning to make sure all the Program Managers start using it. Whoa...this coming from none other than Asst. Vice President my mind was dizzying to great heights and immediately set the focus upon mastering Reporting Services (if only I knew what was in store for me).

Only the day before I was going through those video tutorials about the reporting services and I knew that the only thing left was to drag and drop the ReportViewer control and give the path of the reportserver where the reports are hosted. phataphat I prepared two reports, deployed to the server, opened http://localhost/reports and then came the deadliest error ever

The selected report is not ready for viewing. The report is still being rendered or a report snapshot is not available. (.rsReportNotReady)

I looked first into the Reporting Services Configuration manager and to my utter shock nothing was configured. Tension was mounting (and it was going to haunt me for another three weeks...) and I called up Azeet. He came in the evening (His Majesty has called him up..hear ...hear...) and we found that the entire reporting services components were deleted. By day end somehow he managed to uninstall and re-install Reporting Services components.

That should have done the trick but sadly it didn't. There are so many events that followed and to cut the REALLY REALLY Long story short, I would summarize it now

1. Reconfiguring the whole Reporting Services Configuration.
2. Disabling the snapshot isolation ( really the whole forums of MSDN couldn't show any other better results except 4 pages and there is a bug in GOOGLE that we found....if you want check out by googling rsReportNotReady and try clicking on the 6 th or 7th or any page after 5th ....)
3. Setting up new databases for the whole damn thing.
4. Various permission levels. This I have gone to the extent of setting up the permissions at DOM object level.
5. Most importantly clicking on the same pages again and again and again for something like 20 times.

On top of this we had following actors coming along : Anil (SSA,8 + exp), Azeet.. the man himself (SSA, 10+), Ramakanth (something more than the other two, 10), Krishna (2+, supposed to have aquainted with REporting Services), and two other guys. For each guy I had to tell them the problem we are facing. Invariably they would ask me to create a fresh report, deploy a fresh report, do all the things that I have done from google search ( what the heck...i just can't tell them I tried ALLL that ....). I also realized something new that this tool was entirely new to them. All to no avail and there was one real good outcome though:

the permission accorded to sa was not being accepted by reporting services.

the only outcome. There was one deadly option that we hadn't tried and that was re-installation of the entire SQL Server. This just was not acceptable to us. This whole episode lasted more than two and a half wretchful weeks. The icing on the cake was the last time we touched the task.

It was August 14th, tuesday and my train was at 7 p.m. Leave was applied and everything was fine. I was following hte same pattern of explaining every guy who had come to debug on how to deploy,delete and what I had done. Around 2 came the bombshell. She wanted me to cancel the ticket and make sure that the job is done and then only I could leave.

For a second I though she would bite back the words and let someone else take over the job left. But man, I was left with something I can never forget in my life, she plainly said cancel your leave, get the job done and then only you can go. Holy crap, it seemed so ridiculous and there was binding fury building within me for the simple fact that me staying a little while longer was in no way going to help us debug the problem as the guy who is supposedly goign to help me was out for lunch and he wasn't due by 4.

With traffic like Bangalore that wsa THE last chance of me catching hte train directly. Time passed by. Looking back that was a blessing in disguise. Earlieer it was decided I had to come back by Friday. But now she gave me the permission to take Friday leave because of the "sacrifice" I made. ( he..he..he.... if only she knew that that night only I packed and set to Hyderabad that same day....boy o boy...that's something...)

Anyways that was the final torment we had. After I came back on monday Ranjit and me had gone back to roots to diagnose the problem and yes my friends that was alll...Ain't no need debugging the rsReportNotReady crap...it was jsut that small mistake of port number and the sudden realisation that it was not http://localhost/reports that was needed for the report viewer control and reportserver was sufficient for enabling the reports as part of website.

As I said at the beginning I would love to have doused myself in a huge tank of kerosene and immolate myself....chee...so freaking stupid......Anyways that was not entirely the solution. But it did set us into thinking in other way of garnering the reports i.e. the hard way...the real hard way of doing them ourselves..

Anyways this is one such issue that plagued me so much that I am not to going to forget it for ages to come. Added to that is that our highly stubborn resolve and i-can't-defend-her-accusations kind of RM. A deadliest match...

Sardar strikes again...

The time I started this blog I made a mental note in my mind not to succumb to forwards or silly
cut-copy-paste thing but the recent sardar jokes are tooo tempting to break the rule this one time.....

So here is our Sardar....

Prince Charles & Sardarji were having dinner.
Prince said, "Pass the wine you divine".
Sardar thinks "how poetic"
Sardar says, "pass the custard you bastard".
***********************************************

Sardar at bar in New York.
Man on his right says "Johny Walker single"
Man on his left says "Peter Scotch single"
Sardar says - "Baljith Singh Married"
***********************************************

Boss : am giving u job as a driver. STARTING salary Rs.2000/-, is it o.k
Sardar : U R great sir! Starting salary is o.k.......but??
how much is DRIVING salary...?
***********************************************

Sardar's theory : Moon is more impt than Sun, coz it gives light at
night when light is needed & Sun gives light during the day when light
is not needed!!!
***********************************************

2 sardars are driving a Car, one puts on the indicator and asks the
other to check whether its working, he puts his head out and says
YES...NO...YES...NO...YES...NO...
***********************************************
Sardar shouting 2 his girl friend " u said v will do register marriage
and cheated me, I was waiting 4 u yesterday whole day in the post
office....
***********************************************

Sardar is in a dissection class of cockroach. He cuts its 1 leg, and
says, "chal", it walks.
He cuts 2nd and 3rd legs and said, "chal" , it walks.
He cuts all the legs and said, "chal...." Finally he wrote the conclusion......
...... "after all the legs of a cockroach are cut - it becomes deaf......"
***********************************************

A Tamilian call up sardar and asks " tamil therima??"
Sardar got mad, angrily replied.... "Hindi tera baap!!!"
***********************************************

2 sardarjis looking at Egyptian mummy.
Sar 1 : Look so many bandages, pakka lorry accident case.
Sar 2 : Aaho, lorry number is also written...BC 1760!!!....
***********************************************

A sardar on an interview 4 da post detective.
Interviewer : who killed Gandhi?
Sardar : Thank u sir 4 giving me d job, I will start investigating.......
***********************************************

Time of Appraisals and Appreshensions..

The time of appraisals has come. We are asked to rate ourselves in three departments i.e.  Organization, Project and Self on a scale
of 1 to 5 and the justification for the rating. (1 as highest...)

Here are some of the most senseless justifications for getting 5 rated

• I  made a point to fill my timesheets regularly and sincerely. (what a big favor mate...)
  
• Took Satyam Way certification exam and cleared it with 90 percent. (It's mandatory for
  
• Christ's Sake...)
  
• Attended training sessions for QMS (Quality blah-blah..) - so???
  
• Have always done my module on time...(i see..you get 5 rated because you have done
  
• something on time????)
  
• I am preparing for SQL as I am planning to do the SQL certification.
  

There are some valid ones though and some are plain stupid. For the past few days I hear some
one or the other talking about appresials and I must have heard "Are.. amit ko S rating aya re.."
at leat 5 times by now. And there are worried people wondering what would they get. Hrithik
(a.k.a Sultan) is very definite that he is going to get nothing but 'A' rating because Mitesh ain't
gonna give him anything more. Ranjit was wondering whether there is any remote chance that
we might cross the 'A' level mark.

Jash is somewhat tensed and forthright in thinking his appresials are going to be screwed
because of his dealings with his RM. He is one of those people who refuse to be put down by the
administrative bull-shit. He takes initiatives on his own and goes to lengths to solve other people
problems . One can easily mistake him for a nut-crack who gives a damn about rules with his stubborness, unwillingness to obey the rules and label him as a show-off, attention-mongerer etc. Partly you may be right but he is a person of immense fighting spirit and there is so much
rationale in his thinking and all the doubts he asks.

It is just that it is very difficult to calm him down because the persons who he seeks the answers
from are just uncomfortable to admit they don't know and accept his way of thinking. So they take the classic bossy attitude and brush him off...well it was at one of those 
confrontations he was warned "Be careful...your appresials are coming soon.." to which
our hero gallantly replied

" Give me a 'T' if you want to. Also if you are not satisified with my work, please release me...".

Damn mate.. I have to give it to you. It is "this" incident that is bothering him now and he doesn't even mince any words saying " Damn man.... I am not budha and idealist kind of shit..
I want "S" rating... if I don't I am going to screw them all.."

Well as per me I really don't care what I am rated at this point ( but nothing less than "A"...). I am sane and not a saint either as I see no point in working and slogging our ass off for the last six months in a project whose requirments kept changing and changing and are still...changing.....

Maybe tomorrow I will get done with my appresial thingy...

• 
  

Are we seeing an End of Piracy???

Before you even think of blowing my brains out by spilling 'LimeWire', e-donkey, u-Torrents and putting some gyaan in my innoncent mind I am talking about 'Tollywood' baby..yeah..tollywood..

Just as I was walking past Sangeet Music, Koti realising it is better to download than buy the songs there stood out 50*30 poster with Genelia and Vishnu in a cliched romantic pose facing each other and a huge circular stamp highlighting the rate 'Rs.25 CD/- , Rs.35 DVD/-'. Holy Cow!!!!! Hearing that it was a movie that was worth seeing from the beginning of the year with strings of flops I was bit disappointed to have missed seeing it. Now with 25 bucks as the tag price I just barged into the shop took the cd, made sure it was sealed (it seeemed not one of them had a seal anyway...)paid the bill and got out. Then again I got a glimpse of the the other movies like 'Bommarillu', 'Nuvvu Vastanante Nenoddantana','Munna','Pokiri' all within the price range of 30-70 (VCD's that is...).

It was after I came home I realized this might just mean the end of piracy in telugu. I mean who in rightful mind would want to rent a movie (2o), buy two cd's (20) and get a copy (40 in total) when the m.r.p is some 20 above. You must be crazy to do that sort of thing. The pirce surely plays a lot in this danda. I am sure vcd business in telugu must have multiplied by at least 2 times since 1 year.

I remember the time when I decided I would never buy a VCD after seeing price tags like 220, 250. Things have changed , so have I.

Long Live Tollywoood!!!

"The Hindu" commits unpardonable Blasphemy...

For once in my life I am very disappointed and shocked with "The Hindu", more than that I am also angered for what it has done. If an editor of paper like "New York Times" couldn't hold his mouth shut and control himself spoiling the fun of millions of fans around the world with his review, revealing all the major plotholes, I don't see why any idiotic reason for esteeemed paper like "The Hindu" to reproduce it a day before official release filling the whole back page. What the hell was the so-called Reader's Omnibus doing? What was going on in his mind when it went for his editing?? Has he gone nuts?? Was it not enough to understand that such reviews spoil the fun of the reader before he even has a chance to explore on it's own. These thing could have waited.

I only wished it would have been any other paper other than "The Hindu". To top it all the another disgraceful thing being revealilng the major plothole and the suspense. Will he or won't he survive? One of THE reasons for the hype sorrounding the book and the excitement that runs with in is out. Just like that. This time though, I can't understand on the front page??

What is wrong with "The Hindu" and has there not been any accusation letters? Is it trying to supress them by not printing? I am sure I am not the only one feeling the pain and the betrayal of one of the most prestigious papers in country. One good thing though like some of the foreign sickos it hasn't reproduced the leaked version editing out the details and getting the kick out it. Well I am grateful to it on that front...

Shame on "The Hindu"....

Was it worth the Wait???

"Am I really stupid? Is it really that necessary to go so early and get?" was my first thought as the alarm rang from the phone. Even after that gung-ho I made with my previous post the true reason for me to get the book and complete was becuase I didn't want Anyone telling me the spoiler. Else who the hell cares about being part of the crowd???

Brushing my teeth I set out to FORUM. The guard at the entrance guided me to the parking lot from where I was sent to second floor from stairs. I was in for a shock. There was such a huge queue I thought for a while I was imagining. From the look of it I didn't expect so much crowd to turn out. Starting from the entrance the lining went around the 'Firangi Pani' to the 'Sweet House' and all the way back till 'Pizza Hut'. More was in store. What really piqued me was the "children" section was not the most rather there were more of teenagers and tweenagers. Not to mention old people too. Standing there I saw more and more people coming, some alone, a boy or a girl accompanied by a parent. I desperately wanted a Cam with me to take in that moment. I saw many of them taking pictures .Words of SwamiNaidu rang back "You never know when they (moments) come, when they do you shouldn't be at loss and cursing yourself". A phone with a cam is worth...(if you can rhyme it ...do it on the comments... :) )

Sunaina of Radio Indigo was there to start the proceedings and everything there was on air. The crowd cheered along as the curtains closed down with a countdown. The crowd started milling in slowly and it was excruciating wait. Finally I rested my hands on the book and went straight to Jash's room and began reading. On the way I picked up a big packet of Lays that was over in an hour of my reading...

Without wasting much of your time further...it is worth it...I mean the book is worth the wait and is one heck of a book There are more than enough deaths in this one and not all at one time. The action starts right from the word go. Harry, Ron and Hermoine fill the book entirely so much so that Hogwarts, their professors are all cut off from the narrative. So if you are expecting to see detentions, quidditch, some bantering just forget it. This should have been obvious given the way the last book has ended they have much more important tasks at hand that is to find and destroy the Horcuxes.

We get to see a more mature Harry who is faced with so many responsiblites and difficulties. Without Dumbledore and his advices I was hoping against hope he would resurface in a dramatic fashion akin to Gandalf the White in Lord of the Rings. With that in mind my impatient was brewing with every chapter. Before I set on reading , I wondered may be there would be someone else who might have taken up Dumbledore's place and continue to guide him. But it turns out all he has is himself and his best friends. Through series of violent (as I said there is much too action in this book...)and miraculous escapades the task of destroying the Horcuxes goes on.

This saga is a very very well thought out one and it shows a lot. All must have been familiar by now the intricacies and the links that Rowling patches up between the previous ones. This too has some that takes you back as far as the first one. You see Ollivander, Gringotts guard surfacing and they play a part in this.

There is utter chaos on the streets. Ministry of Magic is overthrown. Both muggles and non-muggles are under dangere. Death eaters are let loose, and so is the HeadMaster. You will get to know the REAL Dumbledore and Snape's tales in this that changes everything you know so far. Like all the climatic showdowns of sagas the battle of good and evil takes place with Hogwarts as the battleground. Who wins? Who Survies? (If you haven't read the leaked ones and also the blasphemous New York Times Review) I suggest feel the heat yourself. Don't let anyone spoil the fun for you.

The only glitch in the book is the Epilogue: whcih it could have been done without. All in all an enjoyable saga. Years to come one truly will miss Harry and his adventures. I for one would be reading all the seven in near future. Let me see how my thoughts are then..

Enjoy Reading!!!!!!!!!!!

THE Day before the H-Day

If your first thought is : What is a H-Day? Forget it...no wonder there are some illegal aliens roaming around.

H for Harry mate..you see..that simple it is. Phew...After having played an hour of t.t (losing all the matches excepting one ...10 matches in total ) I just couldn't help myself running out to my ODC to blog my feelings. There is exactly 45 minutes before I can catch a bus. So you got the setting now I guess. Am freaking excited.

A thought struck me when I was about to sleep yesterday. This probably might be my first and last time ever to be part of World-Wide frenzy. Hysteria sorrounding iPhone is probably when the whole media sat up to catch up the shopper's lurking around the stores to get their hands on. I couldn't be part of it. There might be a time when something extraordinary comes up which puts the people out of bed past midnight but 100 to 1 chances are it happens not in India. Again there might be a chance I might be there at that moment part of That crowd. But again there are many 'mights'....

You might be wondering are they not people thronging for the first day, first show or the people coming in hordes for watching matches at stadia round the world say for the next Soccer World Cup. Try to notice the difference here...these events are not about buying a Thing...it's not a consumerist hysteria. It is a collective mass hysteria. So in that regard, there is hell of a time before some thing like that comes up.

So I feel kinda of special being part of it and I sure would relish the joy. Oppurtunity did present itself during the time of 6th book release but Campus recruitment were going on, so had to postpone. This time it's different. It's the last book and from the suspense sorrounding either Voldemort has to go or....who else... Harry... This adds a bit more suspense and aroma to the whole flavor.

Now coming to the things at hand, I was bullied around like no other day. I, Karthik, who I think can contain my emotions and not get carried off by bullying was for once helpless. Begging around not to torment, pleading for patience, warning for further intervention, and almost to the verge of breaking THE very bonds that is hurting me even now, I went on with the constant refrains:

Mild:

'Please dude...don't do this...don't say anything...no spoiler at all...I just can't take it man...Try to understand...'

Average:

'What the heck...arey...let's not talk about the book at all..period...Anything but the book..please...

Anything ...'

The Limit

'Look it's not funny anymore...I am not like this...but this time I want the suspense to be held. Things would be bad if this goes on mate...between us that is..'

Jash,Joy,Ganesh, Adarsh and thankfully not Ranjit, Ms.Ponnan did try hard you see. And goodness me what a stroke of luck I had. POP ..came the message down under the tray bar:

'Adarsh has sent a mail '..I just clicked it...

The first words were enough to close the message down and press delete. Soooooooo close...what an escape. Poor guy...he is clueless even now how did I manage to escape the spoiler and he thinks there is some third party involved in the rescue operation....He he he he ...if only he knew...

I don't want to bore anything with my work, so nothing on that regard. Anywas as I was saying the excitement has just begun.

Watch out for what happened next.....................

(Arrey baba... I mean tomorrow: the day after the H-Day....)

to be continued...

What A Day!!!!

Well..well...
"She said, she is not sure when she goes" said Swati and damn I thought someone just shot right through my heart. As Ms.Ponnan rightly put it THE only motivation for us to come and do what we are doing even though what we are doing have been doing again and again for the third time and the sole reason being She might go. What the HECK????

Damn, this comes along when we hear Bhav getting into some other team. It is amazing how fast the mind can travel and when time becomes a non-entity just as if it doesn't exist. I was struggling hard to try getting the Circle name, and the total into a list item and the sorting it out independently depending upon the total. Trying for a structure, then going for an array I was going on experimenting. A little more of time would have been fruitful. But then Ranjit comes along and we end up in the discussion room regarding db design for Workstation. Frankly I didn't want to go but had to. Anyway half-listening to what they are saying, half thinking how to do the sorting time moved on.

Bhav comes along carrying the news of requirement in Motorola Project. God..if only she didn't ask us if we could volounteer as they needed to resources. The work to be done is so fully loaded thanks to HER that we can't say YES to anything. I mean either we work our ass off night and day continously, wrap the thing up or just quit on it. The second choice is ruled out what with Manu asking ever so politely 'when can i start using??' ..do we bloody hell have a choice ??. Coming to the first one we are fed up with seeing the same things again and again and again ( Man.. i love this phrase...it just so perfectly sums up my feelings...) that there is no enthu, zeal, that urge, that whatever to get it finished. The initial excitement has waned. Suddenly we just weren't there in the room. Time flew by. Heads down, happy for Bhav but ruminating on the future time flew by and that is what I mean when I said what a beautiful thing time is....

The time when we were of the type sacrificing Saturdays and Sundays getting the things on time. It just ain't there. Again thanks to HER it's-not-change-it-is-requirement bull shit. The other reason being as I see, hearing news of anonymous calls to our mates started drifting our minds off and something else is occupied in our mind now "We have to get out of this project hook or by crook whatever be the case". We have lost it. We are so freaking exhausted that we just want this thing to get over and take rest.

Again thanks to HER this looked so remote. I mean with her brainwashing discussion of 4 hours which was a spectacle in itself trying to make HER understand what exactly happens when we alter DB and how the changes happen was like :Making a LKG student understand how to ride an Aeroplane? Simply put Mission Impossible INFINITY. So all these things are somehow interlinked and the zeal is just ain't there.

Thinking all this each one of us were in a different world altogether (a real damp, dull and gloomy one ...make no mistake...). Hardly talking and laughing out at our own miseries the day passed...

And that day was Y-e-s-t-e-r-d-a-y.

Boy..o..boy... Excepting the time I had during the Techfest prep, there never has been so many ups and downs ...that swelling of emotions is worth living for. So hearing that SHE indeed is going to go, our joy knew no bounds. We were ecstasic to put it mildly and in the words of Ranjit 'Asalu EAMCET Lo first rank vachina inta feeling undedi kademo...'

Let's see how long this joy of ours is going to last but as long as it does I am going to relish every moment of it...what with Harry Potter finale coming the day after....It's like Icing on the Cake....

YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Conflict in the Mind

Some things are better to forget and it is better to move on. But things that are bothering me now are way beyond. How long can I go on before I realize I haven't taken any steps to correct it? What will I be if things go on the same way?

Am I like Shantaram interested in everything, commited to nothing? For a while I thought enough is enough and let me move on. But it is not working. It just is not working. Weekends were torment for me but so are the weekdays now.For that matter any day. This won't stop till I put an end, come to desicion. Whom am I trying to fool but myself in believing there is nothing wrong with me when the ties I have made are temporary and when I commit to nothing? Am I as again from the book mapped to the co-ordinates around and breaking up all the existing ones? Will I be the same once I move out from here with new people,new atmosphere, past being past? Only time will tell.

Here I pen down hoping to read this post again and again to gather strength and divert my mind as much as possible with books and work and making my self a promise to stay focused. After all, you can't clap with a single hand. As I see it I was always was single and will be too in the future.

If only I can move to some other place and live alone can I find peace and for THAT to happen
---three months more...

Does this put me at ease....well a little...