I saw someone doing it, so here it is!

Your #1 Match: INTP

The Thinker You are analytical and logical - and on a quest to learn everything you can.Smart and complex, you always love a new intellectual challenge.Your biggest pet peeve is people who slow you down with trivial chit chat.A quiet maverick, you tend to ignore rules and authority whenever you feel like it. You would make an excellent mathematician, programmer, or professor.

Your #2 Match: INFP

The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world.Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships.It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close.But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist.

Your #3 Match: ENTP

The Visionary You are charming, outgoing, friendly. You make a good first impression.You possess good negotiating skills and can convince anyone of anything.Happy to be the center of attention, you love to tell stories and show off.You're very clever, but not disciplined enough to do well in structured environments. You would make a great entrpreneur, marketing executive, or actor.

Your #4 Match: ISTP

The Mechanic You are calm and collected, even in the most difficult of situations.A person of action and self-direction, you love being independent.To outsiders yous eem impulsive, surprising, and unpredictable.You are good at understanding how all things work, except for people. You would make an excellent pilot, forensic pathologist, or athlete.

Your #5 Match: ENFP

The Inspirer You love being around people, and you are deeply committed to your friends.You are also unconventional, irreverant, and unimpressed by authority and rules.Incredibly perceptive, you can usually sense if someone has hidden motives.You use lots of colorful language and expressions. You're qutie the storyteller! You would make an excellent entrepreneur, politician, or journalist.

What's" Your Personality Type?

Birthday

I started writing this on 26th May

Yesterday was my mothers birthday. Due to a number of reasons, this years birthday was different. Oh wait, I just read a blog entry by Farhan, where there was a conversation between him and some Tipu bhai, which emphasized on the fact that one should not get too personal in online blogs, which can be viewed by complete strangers and or random people. I wonder what'd happen if my boss read a blog entry where I complained against her.

Well, I don't care anyway. I planned to get out of office early. Infact, I promised to myself that I'll be out of office by 6 PM. But no, it didn't happen. At around 18:11, I realized that I broke another promise made to myself. Someone wanted to launch something today, so we all had to execute the wish.

Finally, I got out of office at 7:30. I went to the new book store in Gulshan 2, the same place from where I got a Beatles movie. I wanted to buy a recipe book for mom. I looked for a while, and couldn't make up my mind. Then came a helpful saleswoman. At first, it felt weird to get that type of service. I guess our mindset is still "us versus them". It's like a sales person will only think about selling stuff, he/she won't do any good. And maybe it's logical, too.

Anyways, I spent a lot of time browsing through the somewhat huge collection of recipe books, and I tried to find out books where there will be a lot of unfamiliar food; which my mom hasn't cooked, or even thought about cooking. So I bought a book on mediterranian foods, and another one for "quick and creative cooking". I went through most of the recipes of the books, and my filter mechanism had these rules:

1. No crab/oyster/food with wine

2. No foods with ingredients which I haven't heard of/are not available in BD

3. Foods which my mom can cook already

She was actually happy, when I gave her the books, and she was even happier to see the mini cake (500 grams). But she kept on asking "how much did it cost? It must've costed you a fortune. ...there was not need, etc. etc." Eventually I told her the price (which wasn't too much). She insisted I change the books and get something more "not mediterranian". I said keep these, I'll get you more books on other topics.

My mom and dad can't accept gifts from me! Dad always says that "I should save", and mom says "How could I spend so much?">

This is such a difficult situation.

In the evening, we went to a local Chinese Restaurant and had a nice family get together. My 3 year old cousin (dad's yonger brother's elder child) plus four of us, mom, dad, sis and me went there at around 10 PM. The meal was nice. Much better than what I expected from a local restaurant. I once again realized the importance of "Choto poribar". The 3 year old was trying to play drums with the soup boul and sppon, and he also wanted to go to "ammu", and he also complained about the chicken having only two legs(!). Thank God my sister is older now!

I don't feel like writing about the departure :\

Swallowing

While I was coming to the office today, I nearly fell asleep twice. This is getting dangerous. Dozing off during a CNG journey is in no way danger-free. But I just can't get to bed early, and I just can't eliminate the morning sleepyness. The long term slumber elimination campaign is showing its side effects, and I am not sure what I should be doing next.

I had two points in mind, which I am supposed to write about now. But Alas! I can't remember one point. The other day I had a conversation with two other colleagues of mine. I forgot the context (actually the memory cell that has that information is currently out of reach), but I brought out this issue that "never in my life I have used the word Alas during a conversation". It's one of those written English words.

I just saw the html code for the blogger template today. I think I'll paste it in Frontpage and try and make some modifications. It's been a while since I last played around with web designing. Once I was a devoted "easy way" web designer. lol....calling myself a webdesigner is like calling "Kapil Dev a great footballer". Okay, that was an outrageous analogy, but the point is clear! I am a telecomm research dude, not a webbie.

There's a proverb in Bangla.."Onurodhe dheki gela". It means, doing something really big just because someone else requested. It also means doing something which is quite difficult to do. Such things are usually done only for one's own benefits, but still the person is doing it for someone else. I once did that.

There's always a peril of bringing up new ideas. If you think of a new concept, chances are high that you will be the one selected to implement that idea. Does this harm creativity at work? Maybe yes, or maybe not. It's not the issue here. I was an AOP of the DALNet chat channel #Beatles. To the people who never ventured instant relay chatting, these might sound like gibberish (including the relay chatting word).

Anyways, Mirc is a software, through which you can chat with unknown people sitting in front of computers in random places. You put up a hash in front of a name to express it as a "room", or a "channel". #Beatles was a place for Beatlefans, and although the room remained empty for most of part of the day (not too many beatlefans, and fewer irc addict beatlefans), I'd stay there. This way I got to know some people who ran the channel, and eventually I became a part of the administration (after almost 3 years hanging out). So I was an "Auto Operator". I could be distinguished from a regular user via an @ sign in front of my precious nick, DeAd_MaN_RoLliN. Yeah that was how I wrote it in Dalnet, later on. By the way, DALNet is one of the many IRC servers that one can connect to, via mirc. I have this thing for details, and I don't often care whether too many details would drive any potential readers away. After all, this is blog, and the primary reason behind blogging is "self satisfaction". A great way to rationalize, aint' it? :p

So oneday I asked the owner of the channel "Hey man, your's is an old channel, why there's no homepage?". And bingo! After a few days, he asked me "I know you can do it. Why don't you make a site for us?". I was like "eeeek!". I barely knew anything about web designing at that time. I just knew a few tags, and had the experience of running Frontpage a few times (the one that came with Win 98).

So I swallowed the dheki, and started brushing up on my web designing skills(!). The rest was history (a pathetic one, though). I came up with a barebones html website, with a few gifs and vector images ,and some midi tunes. I wonder how many people would know about Midis unless they're using midi supported cellphones. But I love midi files.

I stopped visiting irc a long time ago, but I still keep in touch with some of the people I met through Irc. Infact some of the people I met through IRC are very good friends of mine. Pathetic, but IRC had a deep impact on my life, as it is today. Yesterday, it was IRC. Today it's forums, IMs and orkut! The media has changed, but the things didn't. Online buddies still meet up, and they still become friends.

One of the better things of today's world.

Can someone even believe that my first download speed was 200 bytes/sec?

I learnt to add flash buttons, using Dreamweaver. But I never got into java scripts and flash. I think 2 years have passed since the last update. Maybe I'll give the site an overhaul. I felt like doing it every now and then, but something prevented me from doing that. It remains as an emblem of a long gone past. Time is standing still there. Who am I to disturbe the peace of the images and texts that lie there?

By the way, I finally remember what I was supposed to write about. But I think I'll write about them later.

1. Birthday

2. Departure

Have A Break!

I have a headache. I just came across a multi-dimensional problem, and the whole scenario has succeeded in messign up my brain, totally. Like many others, I, too believe that there is at least one solution to any and every problem. When I'm forced to confront a complicated issue, I try harder and harder, to penetrate it, and to get out that cherished solution. This is something that I have learnt from my parents. My dad is the emblem of persistence. He never gives up. Infact, strangely enough, in my last almost 25 years of life, I haven't seen him giving up even for once. He may not pursue everything, but whatever he decides to pursue, gets done. I try to follow him, but I made room for customization.

I take breaks.

When things get over my nerve, I just take a break. Break from anything and everything that resembles the problem. When I'm stuck with a first person shooter, I give up playing shooters. I go for racing games, strategy games, etc.

So naturally, when I am stuck with a problem, and I don't have time for breaks, it kinda freaks me out. It is quite difficult, managing these "freak out" sessions. But due to my ego problems, I don't seek other's help unless I am really, really stumped. Getting things done on my own gives a unmatched feeling of satisfaction. I can't just let go off that feeling.

It'll definitely feel weird to change careers, or even go for studying, after being engrossed into prepaid mobile phones for almost 2 straight years.

You might have figured this out already. This blog was a break!

Market Visit

I just came back from the market. I'll skip the prelude, and go directly to the story. Today I was part of an interesting process. The process of pineapple procurement! I went to the person sitting outside the meat market, just to the left of the secondary entrance. Khilgaon Taltala market is divided in to 4 sub sections. The one I ventured is the famous "kacha bajar". Inside, the major portion of shops sell vegetables, and the smallest section remains populated by onion/turmeric/garlic vendors. There are about 6-8 meat shops, with one dedicated Mutton vendor. There are 10-12 fish shops, too. These shops are all arranged like any typical Dhaka "Kacha Bajar".

Anyways, the guy sitting beside the meat market entrance had an indifferent look. As if it doesn't really matter whether all his fruits get sold or not. His approach was interesting. I inquired about the price of Pineapples, and he said "Koyta niben?". Hehe...this is not a new approach, though. He kept the provision of charging high for single purchases, and a bit lower for multiple purchases. I have seen that before.

I could press on for knowing a single unit's price, but I know these pressures don't work too well. People often get annoyed, and ask unrealistic prices in such pestering occurences. This is another interesting fact. Bangladeshi shop keepers (especially those in Kacha Bajar) maintain a high level of self respect. They just don't do "anything" and "everything" for making a sell. On the contrary, the people at cosmetic shops act really pathetic. As if the apa passing by is the last potential customer on this earth! By the way, a small joke that we often share at office--what's a potential customer? He is a customer "jeye ekhono pote nai". :-D

So I said I'll get two, and he showed me a "tied together" pair of upper middle class...err...smaller than large, but bigger than medium sized pineapples, and asked for 30 taka. But before ending the sentence, he said "okay you can have them for 25". I had a reference. My dad bought 4 pineapples from that same person, a few days ago, and I brought in that incident. "Dad said I should ignore all other vendors, and get the pineapples only from you. The pineapples you sold a few days ago was really, really good". And hence the carrot policy worked well. Sigh, even a fruit vendor realizes the importance of repeat purchase, but many big, hyped up businesses don't realize that. I went to New Yorker once, but never went there again--cause the "well done" steak nearly broke my teeth.

I also said that dad bought them for 10 taka each. But he gave me a hesitating look. The hesitation was genuine. he said "I sell the smaller ones at Taka 10". I could be wrong in judging people, but it did appear to me that if he sold them for 20, he'll be in some sort of trouble (apart from making a "lesser" profit).

I said "Anarosh ta chile den". So he started peeling off the pineapple. I thought he'd first remove the tree like green portion, and then peel the rest. However, he trimmed the green portion, and gave it a handle like shape. He then held the trimmed pineapple strongly, and started peeling off the thorny portions. He managed to give the fruit a nice, tantalizing look within a few minutes.

By the way, I also bought a pair of chicken, weighing 3100 grams. They cost me 200 Taka, approximately Tk 65/kg.

25 minutes of my life has just been described :-)

Scattered Thoughts 4

I just received a scary image attachment from a colleague of mine. I did see it before, though. But it gave me another wake up call. Here it is:

.

If the image didn't show up for some reason, here's a brief--a person was discovered dead, 5 days after his death. He was the first to enter the office, and the last to leave, and nobody noticed that he wasn't moving for 5 whole days. He had a heart attack.

Well, I don't think that's going to happen to me. I don't work that much, I arrive a bit late (nowadays), and I am almost always playing something in winamp. Well, I could have a heart attack while playing the song, and the 3000 something songs will keep on playing for 5 days :S err...getting scary again.

3000 songs, with 4 minutes of average playtime, accounts for approximately straight 8.33 days of music!

Okay that was yesterday's rant up there. Instead of being topic centric, let me just write one of those "what I been up to" kind of entry.

The week was kinda expensive for me. I managed to sleep late almost everyday (1:30 AM at least), and the end result was me getting up late, and arriving at office via CNG/CAB at around 9:30-9:40. Well, the office starts from 8 AM, but nobody's there before 8:30. But as we have flexi-office hours, we are allowed to come late and leave later. Well, I'll have to leave late anyway! But that's not an excuse for being late. My bosses have been quite lenient with me this week, for unknown reasons.

Today I availed a local bus, after a long, long time. There was a time when I'd avail that vehicle every day. But as I just mentioned, nowadays I'm more off a CNG or a Cab availer.

I finished watching season 4 of Friends yesterday, and jumped to season 5. Hopefully by the next 2 months or so, I'll be done with watching the whole 10 seasons. I am really liking this. It's like a magnet. Last night, I watched friends up to 2:15 AM, and I think I'd watch a bit longer unless dad intervened. I simply lost track of time while I was watching. I felt an urge of going to bed at 1:30, but not a significant one. It totally sux being pestered by the parents at 2:15. I avoided arguments, and got to bed. My room was ajar, and dad came in without knocking. Now that's not okay at all. I'll never do that with my grown up children. I'll try knocking.

Is it only me, or everyone else? Well, most of the things that I thought to be "only me" turned out to be a common phenomenon for most boys and gals of my generation. That 79-81 bracket, again. Our parents raised us, and then they realized that they should give more privacy to children, and hence my sister can keep her room shut (despite of being 7 years yonger), and nobody bothers her. But each and every mortal human being, belonging to my joint-family shows their surprise/astonishment/anger/Alas!ness when they see my sliding doors closed.

Famous ironies:

• WWE is vulgar, but hindi movies aren't.
• Watching Friends is waste of time, but watching Jassi Jaissi Koi Nehin is enternainment(!)
• Watching TV is perfectly alright, but playing computer games isn't
• Talking on phone is okay, but msn conversations are suspicious

Head of department has left for abroad today, and things are quite quiet today. Hmm....I don't remember using the phrase "quite quiet"before. I just wrote it, but I know I'll have a tough time pronouncing it. It's kinda like saying "Baro hari rabri boro beshi barabari". No it ain't too tough if you can forget about the doye shunno ro and the boye shunno ro, but if you don't, hehe....go ahead and try.

Yesterday I wrote "Life Is A Mirror". Why did I say that? I'll be thinking about this.

Treachery of The Absent Mind

A long long time ago, one of my university friends described this incident. They were doing a group assignment, and pages after pages were being typed down. There were 3/4 people in the group, and one of them was a good for nothing fellow, who failed to contribute in any way. So as a last resort, he was given the typing job. But he declined to "not" live up to his fame. He turned out to be a very error prone and slow typist. However, after a long time, a volume of text became visible in the screen (with the usage of the scroll bar, of course). Now my friend decided to proof read the 12 something pages.

Then comes the interesting part. While reading, my friend and the other members indulged intop some interesting discussion, and absent mindedly, my friend pressed ctrl+A (select all) and delete. Still remaining in "absent mind" state, he clicked on the "close window" button, and got the prompt "do you want to save changes for blah blah blah file name?", he clicked on yes, and looked at the others with an innocent look. Some of them didn't realize anything, while some looked back with horro in the eyes. Seeing the horror, the dude quickly eralized that he did a terrible thing, absent mindedly(!). So there was no turning back, the file was blanked, erased and saved :-D

I wonder whether the subconscious mind motivated him to delete the "bullshit" 12 pages, or was it really an act of absent mind. Maybe some psychologist will be interested in this story.

So there was nothing to write about my life today....sigh.

Holiday on a Weekday

Does each and every lunatic have to walk around naked? It has become a stereotype; a terrible one. A person walking around naked, usuallay near traffic junctions, and delivering cryptic messages--the descrpition of a typical mad person. So this is the profile of Bangladeshi madmen?

Yesterday I couldn't/didn't go to office. I am still in a dilemma regarding this. Was it a couldn't or a didn't? It has to be a didn't, cause I did not go to office. But whether it was a deliberate decision or a forced choice, that is to decide. Well, I was feeling feverish, as I wrote in my last entry. The now boss turned colleague told me that if I couldn't make it the next day, it won't be that much hassle.

So in the morning, the slightest notion of sickness made me bunk the office. I did get up at 11 AM, though. But still my head was feeling heavy, and in today's sickness standards, I was sick(!)

I had breakfast and spent the next 2 hours reading a Sidney Sheldon book (Sands of Time). It's an interesting book; involving 4 nuns and a rebel group in Spain. The very moment I came to know about the 4 nun fact, a perverted thought crossed my mind, and not too surprisingly, all of them (except 1) experienced their share of sex by page 430.

No the book ain't that huge, it's the two book compilation I bought from Shillong. The other book was "Windmills of God", which went upto 300 something pages.

The electricity went off at around 2:15 PM. It was a hot day, and the heat was killing me. At office, I have an AC just beside my cubicle; albeit not in the same level where I sit. But still. I have lowered the blades, and I enjoy direct AC wind, throughout the day. But staying at home, without any sort of air conditioning was unbearable, and at 3:20, I was convinced that "Enough was enough". I had some pending stuff to do, and I thought that was the best time to go out and finish'em.

I nearly forgot how the streets of Dhaka looked like, on a weekday, and at 3:30 PM. I grabbed a 500 ml RC cola bottle, and headed off to Kakrail, my first stop. I went to the SCB ATM, and withdrew some cash for financing the plans ahead. Next stop, Nahar Plaza. Bought Cartridges for the USB printer I got. I looked for some games and DVDs, but didn't buy any. I made a promise to myself "today I'll buy only the stuff that I really need...no impulse purchases". This happens to me all the time. I grew myself a compulsive dvd/cd purchasing behavior. I have plenty of CD/DVDs which I haven't even inserted into my ROMs. This is pathetic, and money-losing!

I bought a scientific calculator for my "soon to be sitting for HSC" sister. Her exam is in 2006, and I often feel amazed in realizing that the once cry baby has grown up so fast! We have something common with Ross and Monica--the older we are getting, the closer we are getting.

Anyways, I think I've been watching too much of Friends, lately. The best thing about the serial is that it never feels isolated...one episode is almost always linked with the ones preceding it.

Eastern Plaza is losing it's charm. Rifles Square now has better collection, and it's still more of a CD market than a mobile one. The sight of people drooling over hansets sickens me, and that statement sounded like a huge example of hypocrisy to me, too. Cellphone earn me my dvds and cds, and the occasional eating out incidents as well. But still it sickens me, cause I want my life outside office to be totally "office-free". I see people hanging out with colleagues, going places with colleagues, and talking about office while in adda sessions. But those ideas don't tempt me. I have enough office @ office.

I realized that the rickshaw routes have been decreased significantly, and one has to use a lot of tricky shortcuts and "previously unseen" chipa golis for going from one place to another. It's quite amazing to visit a never seen before area after living in Dhaka for more than 16 years. I wouldn't be this much baffled if it were some obscure (for me) area in old Dhaka, or in Uttara or Mirpur. But this was Eskaton, the place which I passed so many times in my short life. I always used the main road...the road that goes from Moghbazar and upto Bangla Motor. But now rickshaws are apparently not allowed to venture over that road. So my rickshaw puller took the road that goes from Baily road to the road connecting Shahbag with Bangla motor, but instead to going there, he took a right turn, and I ended up in the heart of Eskaton. I saw some "Buddhijibi shongshod", where people where chanting "Joy Bangla, Joy Bongobondhu" and I also saw the Eskaton Shobuj Shongho club.

Good old busy Dhaka city in the afternoon! I missed the sights. I desperately tried to remember when I last spent a day like this. But it didn't happen within the last the last one and half years.

Soon the rickshaw surfaced beside the Huq good's shop, and I had to cross the dangerous Bangla motor crossing and walk upto Nahar plaza. Previously, walk like these would be as simple as eating a piece of cake. But this time around, I was panting and heavily sweating, which shows how obese, dumb and weak I have become. Once again, I realized--the trade off is expensive. The trade off between a secured job life and a "do what I wish living under parent's shadow student life".

Yeah this was Nahar plaza and Eastern plaza. I already described what I did there, so I'll move on to Nilkhet and Newmarket. I have thrown fists at imaginary people and shouted out curses at them as well (in my mind, obviously) for buyin the calculator already. Newmarket would give me more options, but at that moment, I wasn't planning for this visit. I thougt I'd go to Nilkhet only (what a short sighted judgement!). I bought a GMAT book from New Market, and on my way back, I suddenly remembered that it's a friend's B'day today.

Went there, saw'em play cards, went to the roof and had a moderately fun adda, had dinner and got back home. I saw WWE Raw on my PC (via TV Card) without being interrupted, after a long long time. Another childhood dream came true. My dad hates WWE, and we have only one TV. So you get the picture.

Small dreams, easily fulfilled. What about the bigger ones?

Random Thoughts, Again.

The day started in a gloomy manner. When I woke up at 6:55 AM, it was still dark outside. Mom told me that it'd be a good idea to avail the office bus, as it's going to be a rainy day. Infact it did started to rain shortly after. I got up, got ready, and I stepped inside the bus at 7:35 AM. A few drops of rain was falling at that time, and eventually there was no rain at all.

Now it's 1:15 PM, and there is virtually no sign of a rainy day, outside. Apparently, the phrase morning shows the day has been proved wrong another time. I just had my lunch, two and half sandwiches; totalling 5 pieces of medium sized breads, containing butter, meat, tomato sauce, and Jelly(!). No, jelly was not mixed with meat and sauce, it was a separate 1 piece of bread.

Anyways, right now, I am feeling a bit feverish. Infact, I am having this feeling since 11 AM. I felt feverish yesterday night as well. Actually I perilized my own self by staying awake upto 3 AM on Thursday. Moreover, I didn't take much rest on Friday as well. Looks like my long term plan of eliminating slumber needs is backfiring.

Oh, about that plan! One fine day, I realized that I've been wasting too much time in sleeping. The valuable 8 hours that I spend everyday, if accumulated, could have made me do a lot of things. So I thought I'd sleep lesser and lesser, and after a while, I'd get accustomed to sleeping less.

But Alas! I lost my sleep, but the the tradeoff costed me dearly. Now I can't sleep before 2 am in the night, but I feel sleepy in the morning, and I find it really difficult to get up early. Once again, I am being told that I should not defy the nature's laws, the laws that have been established long, long ago--and above all, the laws that are suggested by the parents!

Apparently, Parents are always right.

I know a lot of bloggers now. When I first opened this blog of mine, I only knew a few people who maintains a regular blog. Infact, I wasn't quite sure whether I'd be writing here at all. I had my AG blog, and that was apparently good enough for my needs. But no, the reality was different. People out there didn't want to read my personal blabberings. I became a person who was infamous(!) for writing lengthy blogs, and full of personal stuff. So I decided to bring all the "I Stuff' here.

I wanted to write my journey experiences here. But that didn't work out, either. I did write 3 parts of my netrkona journey, but I got too bored to end the story. And the memory is fading already. I haven't touched Shillong as well.

Oneday, I delivered this hypothesis: people who listen to too much music are prone to madness. Slowly, they become crazy. The world of music looks lot better than the real world. I dunno why, but I think that's kinda true for me.

Someone told me to get a girlfriend instead of going all crazy about 4 beetles. Whatta suggestion!

So the colleagues think that I have some serious problem. Otherwise, why shouldn't I be having a girl friend? I went to NSU, I am smart, I am good at talking, etc. , etc. Lol....do you need to have a girlfriend at all?

Anyways, my head is getting heavier every moment, and I think I should go home early today. Thine shall not ignore sickness again.