ENGINEER 2009 - The Annual Technical Festival of NITK Surathkal

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Keys

I don't get it when locks aren't numbered in order. People like to number their locks according to their keys, with little itty bits of paper stuck underneath the keyhole to indicate the number of the key. All this is very well, when you're taking the pain to stick paper at the keyhole you might as well stick paper on the key to give them uniform numbers.

I mean, ten locks in a row of cupboards(which are, by the way, built specifically with 3-feet tall people in mind and to give anyone over five feet acute lumbar spondylosis). It would be nice if you had one, two, three... ten. Drawer one, key one, lock one. Drawer two, key two, lock two. Nice and orderly and symmetrical. Common sense. But no, drawer one has key AB9980, and lock 437. Drawer two has key UN8894, and lock 789. No method in the madness whatsoever.

So when you're searching for a key, you're kneeling by the drawer, squinting at the miniscule numbers printed in bad handwriting on the lock.

Damn, I think this is 843. Does anyone have key number 843?

Random moron in the vicinity: That's the lock number. What's the key number? Look up the corresponding key number on the chart.

(I struggle up, find chart, match 843 to key number.)

Does someone have key number AB6682?

Random moron 2: Nope, I have GR9983.

Moron 3: GH1121 here.

Gah.

(I kneel again, to squint at the number correctly)

Crap. It's 834, not 843. Fuck this shit, man.

Absolutely random moron that should be burnt and killed: I think AB6682 is for the next drawer, check the lock number???

(I lean all the way to the next drawer to see the lock there, getting dangerously off-balance and fall midway)

(after brushing dirt off) Lock number 325.

Same dipshit: No, I don't think it's right. You'll have to check with the chart.


SOME common sense, you silly dipshits. I mean, what's the idea? 325, 834, 879, 526, 429? And don't even get me started on the key numbers. I mean, you do want people to find the keys and use the damn shelves right? or have you got potfuls of gold inside?

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

*yawn*

<thoughts floating around a random cross-section of people in little bitty bubbles over their little heads>
A: I wish I could earn a little more tomorrow than I did today.

B: I wish I could look a little more beautiful tomorrow than I looked today.

C: I wish he'd smile at me a little more tomorrow than he did today.

D: Is she going to eat that last fry?

E: (blank)

Me: I wish I could sleep a little more tomorrow than I did today.

The only thing i really want to do in my life is sleep. As long, as comfortably, as soundlessly, as undisturbed, as cozily, as warmly as possible.

I'm not lazy, I say. Sleeping is my one true passion in life.

Like right now. There is nothing I will not do to be able to curl up with a cover and a pillow. My eyes are barely open because it's too much of an effort to keep the lids fully open. I prefer to let a bare minimum of light come in and disturb the sanguine sleep-suspended nerves in my eyes. Besides, keeping them thus positioned lends a blurry image wherever you look, thus not taxing your brain or your eyes too much, letting them stew in intoxicating indolence.

My brain is one-track, it feels like tapioca someone put in a bowl out in the sun to cook. there are dull echoes all around of "sleep". Like someone came and bellowed about a month ago in the Silent Valley and it's still doing rounds. It's not "sleep!" or "sleep?" or "sleep." It's just "sleep". Distant, but persistent, dull. Like an incantation right at the back of my head to induce it, as if it needed any urging. Sleep comes, at all times, at all places, in all situations. It needs no external influence, and meets with no internal resistance.

Frost was an ass when he wrote "the woods are.... miles to go before I sleep." Needless torture, IMHO. Why postpone pure eternal undisturbed sleep for walking miles when you can have it here and now? I mean, bliss and paradise and utopia are all of what man's looking for in life, right? Why fight so much, catch so many flights and run around all over the place sweating and breathless and altogether so BUSY when you can quite comfortably turn off the lights, pull the covers over your head, a hand over that extra pillow and pull it under your chin and go to sleep NOW?

People, they are stupid. They have sex, do business, drive cars, play guitars, drink beer, smoke weed, play chess, poke hypodermics into their ugly arms, watch television, reflect light off their heads, do whatever the shit it is they do to keep themselves happy. I'm not blaming them, hey, they do what they know, the chess players, they're as stupid as the fornicating machines, to me.

The problem is, this, good man, is a fucked up world. There is starvation and exploitation and torture and madness and evil and fundamentalism and capitalism and conservatism and pollution and the big hole and every where you look there's another problem right around the corner, waiting to screw you over just when you thought you managed to get away from it for a little while.

But come, friend. Rest your head and go to sleep.
Herein lies the truth. Look no further, paradise is possible here and now.
Because once you're asleep, you're in BLISS. You've got sunshine in a bag. You're away from all the shit, and it feels SO good. You've got a small cozy world of your own once your eyelids close and it becomes dark outside. This string quartet starts playing inside and you can do whatever you want.



Stop searching forever, happiness is a nap away.