. : : Marc Sez : : .

I Didn’t Have Rs. 2, So I Spent Rs. 110

I gave LN a Rs. 2 coin since he wanted some change for the train ticket home and when I got to my bus stop I realised that I now had no change for the bus. I had two Rs. 100 notes and I wasn’t going to invite abuse from the conductor for tendering that for a Rs. 3 ticket. It wasn’t far so I decided to walk home. I stopped at Odyssey on the way just to walk around a bit and see if they had Battlefield 2. I wasn’t going to buy it, just see if it was there. Well maybe if it was really cheap I would.

After Odyssey I went to the nearby Nuts & Spices shop. Found a cool looking tin of Swiss Navy Mints. Apparently the Swiss Navy licences the use of their name for the mints, for some reason. Anyway it costs me Rs. 100 and it looks like this:

The mints are way too strong and I can’t say I like them all that much. HappyDent is what I like. I bought a packet of that too.

Wandered back home later, backing up now and then to avoid flooded streets.

Half Life 2 Episode 2 Screenshot

The Half Life 2 engine is really good. It looks really good, performs well even on my slightly out of date hardware. The game engine is called Source and it is a modified version of the Havok engine. The main strength of the game is the realistic physics in the game. Most objects can be moved and thrown including really heavy objects like cars and metal rods and they interact with other objects realistically.

The story is not very strong (it is a FPS after all) but the game play is really good. The developers did not shy away from using vehicles in the game so you’ll find something to drive around in HL2 and successive instalments.

I just finished HL2EP2 recently and here’s a screenshot of one of the opening areas.

Unify the ATMs

Why does each bank set up a separate ATM? This is India, where space comes at a premium. Sure, they can colour the ATM and the surrounding area in the company colours and put all sorts of brochures near the terminal hoping people will read them.

But let’s be practical. Why don’t we unify the ATMs of all banks into one generic ATM? We already know that all the banks’ credit networks are interlinked so implementing it is not a problem. Money is saved since banks can share the cost of setting up the infrastructure. It is convenient for customers since they can all get their money at one place.

Holidays Rule!

Holidays are freakin’ awesome. Mostly because I don’t have to wake up early in the morning. Who created this practice of waking up at sunrise? Sadistic bastards! It is such an amazing feeling to wake up yourself without an alarm and lying in bed until you feel like getting up. Why can’t every start working beyond 10 AM?

And then you can do whatever you want. Eat whatever you want whenever you want. Spend two hours reading all the newspapers and the supplements. Go back to sleep if you feel like it. All the days blur into one and you can’t remember what day it is. Dreams and reality merge and sometimes you’re not sure if something really did happen or if it was just in a dream. It’s a nice unsettling feeling.

All you people who find the holidays boring, there is something seriously wrong with you. You must be a dull engineering student whose only hobbies are cricket and Tamil movies. I’m so glad I’m not you.

Where’s The Paperless Office?

I was talking to my father and he said that the clients he met from developed countries such as Germany and Australia still used printed out copies of notes and other documentation. He says that even though they have digital copies of this data they prefer to use the paper version for reference, to mark corrections and omissions.

Now I have a hard time believing this. I thought companies dropped the concept of lugging around large files some 5 years ago. If you know anyone working in software development, ask them how things work and leave a comment here. I’d really like to know.

Blog Theme, Widgets and Feed Updated

You must have noticed the new look. I liked the old theme a lot but it needed a lot of modifications and I never got around to doing it. It was quite cluttered with excess text everywhere.

This new theme is much cleaner. The text size is smaller and makes huge passages of text neater. I’ve also made some changes to my standard blog components based on feedback earlier. Here’s a changelog:

• Changed blog name to just Marc Sez. This was also the name for my very first blog on Blogspot some two years ago.
• Feeds will now display the full article instead of a summary.
• Edited the name of the feeds to match the name change of the blog. If you don’t see any changes you can try unsubscribing and resubscribing.
• Rearranged the sidebar widgets and removed some unnecessary ones.
• Removed some line breaks and changed formatting for Recent Comments.
• Recoloured sidebar elements to match new theme.
• Added a new photo of mine cut from a larger photo. (My image editing skills are equivalent to Vinny with both arms cut off.

This theme is narrower than the old one and some large images are cut off. I will post all images as 400 pixels wide thumbnails from now. Later I will work on the blog header. Anything else you’d like added or removed?

Money Matters

I really need a bank account to manage my money (what little I have) so I’m planning to create a standard savings account with ICICI bank. My father has used it and likes their service so he recommends that. I would like to have internet banking facilities, a debit card and customer care that doesn’t treat me like BSNL treats their customers. So I’m sure I should stay away from the nationalised banks.

Technically I have an account with Canara Bank that my parents created for me when I was little. So obviously I’m not going to use that.

Do you recommend any specific banks? Now don’t go and recommend Corporation Bank. Even though their debit cards can be used to verify Paypal accounts I can’t find a single branch or ATM of theirs around where I live.

Yes. Corporation Bank debit cards can be used for Paypal verification. Possibly the only debit card issued in India with this feature. Hariharan confirms this.

Exams Suck

Studying for the last exam is horrible. I’m thinking about a hundred other things. My mind is wandering around in a whole new world, blissfully lost… it’s nice. My brain feels like it’s working at peak efficiency. Except I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Exams suck.

WordPress Updated

I’ve just finished upgrading WordPress to the latest version. It went without any problems. I simply deactivated all plugins, upgraded and then put them all back in the new plugins directory. Then WordPress notified me which ones were out of date so I got newer versions and activated those.

I’m been at this for hours and I’m too tired to change the theme. The only other major change is the name of my blog.

Even Vinod upgraded successfully from some 1.x version of WordPress. Good work, man.

I Blame It On The Tea

I woke up at 2.30 PM on Monday afternoon.

It is now 2 AM on Wednesday.

I haven’t slept in the past 36 hours and I’m not sleepy now. (I mentioned that cursed tea in my previous post.) What is happening to me?