Lets go Clubbing da...

Ok, all city folk know that you aint no cool until you go clubbing.

When I landed in madras a while ago, some old friends of mine also flew down, and we really did not have much to do except meet up at the beach, eat someplace, talk for a while and and then go home. Thats when somebody came up with the 'lets go clubbing' idea.

Apparently, there are a large number of pubs and discos in madras, and clubbing is a major activity of the hip and cool. It usually involves payment of some kind of fee to enter the pub or disco, and inside theres some really loud music and other stuff going around.

Confession - I havent been to one of these places since my awesome experience in the second year of college. I wasnt blogging then, so heres the summary of that event - I went in, couldnt see much cos the lights were bad, couldnt hear much cos the music was loud, friends got completely sloshed and had a real bad headache after I got back home.

Realisation - nothings changed. The lights have gotten a bit worse, but apart from that, nothing. A friend i knew knew someone who knew someone else, so our entry was 'taken care of'. We went down some wierd looking catacomb like thing and entered a predominantly green looking room, with smoke and rays of light going thru the air. It was like something out of a bad LSD commercial, if they were allowed to make one.

So we got around to catching a place to sit, and ordered some snacks, but never got to talk. So much for catching up. We quit the joint asap, and headed straight down to the beach. My impression of the clubbing activity has sort of gone down this week. Doesn't appear as cool as it used to in college.

I went back home and hit the urban dictionary, and looked up clubbing :

1.	clubbing	380 up, 115 down
	A favourite activity of the moronic majority, this involves being shunted like cattle into a converted warehouse... sadly not to be slaughtered, but to wear ridiculous trendy clothes, listen to crap eardrum-shattering music, try to pick up brainless members of the opposite sex, and generally stand around aimlessly in a desperate but pointless attempt to show how cool you are. "Wanna go clubbing tonight?"

Looks like I'm not the only one.

What’s Life without Risk, Da??

The last term at IIM Indore, is as expected – loads of free time, mind numbing boredom.
Sajeev has brainwaves sometimes. At one such instance, he decided to buy a board game called ‘Risk’. It wasn’t like any game I had played before.

The board is essentially the world map, split up into 42 nations. Players first roll the die to determine the highest number rolled, and choose territories to occupy in a clockwise fashion from the highest caster. To indicate occupation, they place a unit on that territory. Risk essentially has 3 army pieces.

1. Infantry – Worth 1 unit
2. Cavalry – Worth 5 units
3. Artillery – Worth 10 units

The pieces themselves only serve to reduce the ‘traffic’ on the map as the game progresses. Once the countries are chosen, the players have a set number of units (20 in the case of a 4 player game) to distribute across their territory. They may choose to concentrate forces at key locations, or chose to spread out and converge at a later point in time.
After the distribution, battle begins. Traditional die roll is used to determine outcomes, with each round consisting of a max of 3 invaders and 2 defenders. Each player uses one die per unit attacking/defending. The highest 2 dice for each are compared, and then the next 2, to determine the winner for each attacker/defender unit pair. The goal is global domination, baby.
Yeah, I felt bored while going thru the rule book too. Anyways, the computer version is much faster and a lot more fun, especially since others can join in over the LAN. As is with all new things, I got Addicted.
I realized when playing with the computer that some major connections on the world map had to be taken. With these junctions defended from atleast one side, there was no stopping me in long run. On the whole, an awesome game to play, and a big waste of time. I take about 20 mins per game, and play for about 4 hours before i'm bored.

Heres the link to the computer version (WARNING : Uber Addictive) :

http://www.janbuurstrasoftware.com/EmpireXP52.msi

Machan, Whaaaat is thisss Da ???

Note - Da : Tamil equivalent of 'yaar', with slightly different usage

Team Leads and other individuals with significant responsibilities need to discipline the ranks. Authoritarian bosses spare no one. Others favour more personal approaches, taking the 'im your friend' route to inspire the workforce.

An interesting thing to study is how friends in a B school study group, where there is no formal authority endowed upon anyone, discipline each other/respond to 'im lagging behind'. It is logical to assume that the studious assign work and make sure that its done, and the ones with diversified interests (read: free riders) struggle to complete their portions.

Heres a list of who and what they say when asked "dude, i havent done my part, when is the deadline??"

Ajay - "Machan, Whaaaaaaat is thisss da??? whyyyy cant you finish on time da??"

Arun - "Boss, this is not happening..."

Maheswari - "cho$#@^$! saala, i wont do this work..."

Alok - "We have a submission??"

Asha - "(after a painfully long silence on gtalk) ok................"

Robin - "hahahahahahahaha, u have work to do?? hahahahahahahahaha"

Sajeev - "Huh?? what?? I dont know da... i just woke up... (all while stretching in 4 directions)"

There also come times when groups need to make powerpoint presentations. Theres one everyday. Undergrad presentations were the stuff nightmares were made of; stagefright, cold feet, etc. These are nothing of that sort, but are a pain to make(powerpoint) and getting people to present.

Heres how a typical pep talk goes :

Ajay - "Machaan, I donno...... you are going to present..." - Ordering
Protagonist - "Ur kidding me right?? no chance in hell..." - dint work

Ajay - "Machaaan... Whyyyyyyy da?? Its only a ppt daa..." - pleading
Prt - "Dude, i gotta shave and stuff, no way man. no can do" - dint work

Ajay - "See da, only u can do this da" - Appeal to the ego
Prt - "yeah right, podaaa ^$!@#^$" - sarcasm, followed by expletive; dint work

Ajay - "Dude, You either present or make the ppt. Il give you the 75 page report, get started" - (Appeal to reason/threat)
Prt - "fine da, u make the ppt, il present" - (sees gain in meeting the terms of the negotiator)

Ajay - "Thats better..... hang on, i have to talk to kodi now...(on the phone)"Kodi, whaaaaaaat is thiss da???"