Baaanglaaaaa Bandh . <- fullstop

Oh Glorious Joy ! Trinamul has declared a Bangla Bandh tomorrow, and consequently, college is off! Whatever their cause is, I support the Bandh wholeheartedly ! From what I make of it, it seems that Mamata Banerjee was on her way to Singur, for a meeting of some sort - and was stopped by the Police in the Maitipara area (who, according to Biman Bose, were merely following Section 141 (which he misread 114)), and escorted back in A Police car to Kolkata. Mamata Bannerjee, it seems, did not take kindly to being thwarted (also, the Police car which took her back reportedly had an engine which had been stolen from the Indian Museum three and a half years ago - or, at least that's what it sounded like ) and rushed to the Bidhan Sabha, where Trinamul ..well.. wreaked havoc, and (^_^) declared a 12 hour Bangla Bandh tomorrow. I love it.

To Insure Promtness

College ? Well, we had two people taking about doing laundry in Germany, and the aforementioned actions importance to getting a (Most Esteemed) degree, which the (Most Esteemed) non profit organization they was part of would help us with. In honours, well... after covering file manipulation and compression algorithms in C, our (Most Esteemed) teacher decided to enter the (Most Esteemed) world of the (Most Esteemed) Micro Hard Word. After exploring the incredibly engaging area of changing font colours, and italicizing, we swept through to document merging, and finally into Clip Art. And then the bell rang.
Phew.
I spent some time reading old forwards.. well, it turns out that the Great Wall cannot be seen from the Moon, and neither did Mars come unreasonably close to the Earth this August.
"How stupid can people get ?", I asked,
well.. I thought .. "not much, I suppose".. and then I saw this -

BAN DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE!

Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.
Dihydrogen monoxide:

• is also known as hydroxl acid, and is the major component of acid rain. contributes to the "greenhouse effect."
• may cause severe burns.
• contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
• accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
• may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
• has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
• Contamination is reaching epidemic proportions!

Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage in the midwest, and recently California.
Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

• as an industrial solvent and coolant.
• in nuclear power plants.
• in the production of styrofoam.
• as a fire retardant.
• in many forms of cruel animal research.
• in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
• as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.

Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer! The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation." In fact, the navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive tons of it through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later use.

What else was there for me to do but cry ?

Vot ?

Saw this kid dance, as well as a cut from Cabaret; this clip - As one of the comments read, " Their tomorrow ended in 1945, and thank God." - even saw these donkeys singing (a click to start , another to stop the donkeys - I tried to make a nice tune... the results were ... unsatisfactory. Oh well.).
As for College; had two of the longest periods since Maggie - The teacher was in his element, the room, as Bijon would say, resonated with the force of his stupidity. We learnt that 'Other than operating systems, another common example of Systems Software would be Linux" , and the differences betweenand that linked list programs had been written as long as five thousand years in the past.
I have a chem (Do NOT ask) presentation to do, as well as a load of odds and ends to pick up.
Oh well.

I'll blog of it tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day,

Wednesday Thursday Friday

Winter winter, when will you be here ? Its the end of November, and I am still comfortable in half sleeves... its not even cold enough to deter my neighbours from playing badminton in the evening.. and when I say bad, I mean bad.
Foolish winter.. touching and teasing, but refusing completion. The weather is most uncomfortable - I feel far too warm with the fan off, and frozen, with it on.

Honours internal practical examinations are over, and I am free ! At least, I insist that it should be so. I will update contact lists, make quiz questions.. anything non academic will do. I'm boooorred. Watched Numb3rs but it turned out to be a rerun.. There's nothing on TV other than those-evil-soaps-that-start-with-k (I used to think of her as an old lady.. y'know, grey hair, on a rocking chair, weaving stories out of reflections from old mirrors). Books to read, but nothing new... hmm.. perhaps
We were force fed UNIX shell script today.. urrgh. Not only does it taste bad, it doesn't even look nice. Mathematics class saw the advent of envelopes, while the Bengali (when, oh when will I be free of the dreaded subject `_`) teacher spoke about what Rabindranath Tagore could have written.. but didn't.

Went to CCD and had Chocolate Fantasy again.. ooohhhhhh... ridiculously overpriced, but when you start salivating within sight of it, it's worth whatever you paid for it. Had a discussion about Bollywood, and its inability to turn out anything worth watching that cannot be measured in flesh inches. Where is the next Sholay ? Films like Dhoom : 2, are of the come and go variety.. you watch them once, and its over. All 'timeless classics', it seems, were completed at least two decades ago.

Mbleh. Have far too many weddings to attend in the next few days.. 't seems everybody's getting married.. presents to buy, relatives to tolerate, oh, the things I do for society !

Also,... Watched the Indian team play cricket. Regretted it. Four hours, three bottles of coke, two packs of chips, and my national pride, all went down the drain.. and a very unwholesome gutter at that. Pitiful play, absolutely miserable tactics, and alas (!) , no rain. The most irritaing thing was that Kemp was not even playing well !! As they say, "Its not getting beaten that hurts.. but when you lose to a loser..." - not to say that the South African team is anything to scoff at, but when you have a team at 76 for six, well.. Excuse my anger, but this performance, if one can call it that, made me miss something rather important - At the end of the day, it seems the Indian team is.. unable to climax, as they say.

When you gaotta gah, you gotta gah.

Banking Woes

Ouch.
Went to UBI today to get an account renewed, and to transfer some stuff from a matured FD.... It took THREE HOURS of their, and what is infinitely worse, MY time, just to change a minor account to a major. The software they were using crashed in the process of scanning my signature (What ? It wasn't my fault ! So I have a ... complicated signature. Big deal.), and then, the teller forgot his password, and the manager was in the bathroom... you get the general gist. The form was obviously designed by someone who loves to state the obvious.. four times over. There were separate fields for Phone Number, Contact Number, Home Number, Mobile Number. By the end of it, I was bored, irritated, and fourteen signatures weaker for my labours (you cannot truly appreciate the amount of energy and control my signature requires unless you see it - a video of myself signing a document can, and has been mistaken for a badly choreographed fight in a cheap Kung Fu movie). After ALL of this, I find, that my new account contains.. guess... oh I insist, go ahead and guess... nope. Wrong. My new account contains the Great, Grand and Glorious amount of seven hundred and fifty three rupees . The car parking fees for parking in front of the bank for three hours, amounted to a nice round twenty.
I come home, and what do I find ? What, but those deceivers-most-dreadful, those creatures-most-cunning, those who give new meaning to the phrase caveat emptor - salesmen. No less then four were crowded in front of the door, and I was besieged. I, sadly, did not emerge unscathed from the battle, being forty rupees lighter, and holding a bottle of floor cleaner as proof of my experiences.
Mbleh. Oh well. Let me see.. what news do I have ? Hmmmm...

Fresh fresher freshest

Well.. we finally had our freshers' welcome party on Monday... which was admittedly good.. kudos to Asad, and his "dynamic personality", as Dr. Nath put it.
The entertainment consisted of everything from songs to dances to jokes by Gurpreet, to altdressing (I am avoiding the term 'cross'), to Somark(self-explanatory). There were some excellently sung pieces.. and others which were.. not so excellent.. oh, &$R% it - some were pathetic. Gurpreet was hilarious.. the man himself, more than his jokes (which Tommy, aptly, classified as complex - p+ij, where the joke was.. well.. imaginary.), the violinist was quite good, and of course, the star attraction... the Mr. and Ms. fresher awards.... Ritesh aaaaannnd Stuti !
Surprise, surprise.
Please note : "We are only very good friends." - Ritesh.

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.