Remember Kutchu????? and his glasses???

This is a very funny story about a friend who is quite absent minded...

The story as she narrated to me (of course modified to fit the style of this blog)....

She was doing her Post Graduation in some college in Delhi. She usually drives to the college as it was just 10 mins away from her home..... (dunno kaun sa galli wala college)

One day due to her extra-ordinary driving skills the car had to go to the service station as the gears were not responding. So her dad dropped her in the college and asked her to call him up in the evening when work would get over so that he'd come n pick her up....(seemingly her dad doesnt trust ND autowalahs)...

After the classes were over, she came out to the parking lot and started searching for her car. She went berserk trying to imagine what happened to her car and of course the dirty looks she is going to face from the family. She started thinking of all possibilities like the car got stolen, or got towed away...

She knows that she is absent minded so she even went to check the neighboring college's parking lot. And after checking for a couple of hours with tears in her eyes, she returned to her college.

The guard at the gate who saw her condition offered to help. He searched with her the whole parking lot two more times.

And then he said. "beti tumhara car ka insurance to hoga... tum apna ghar phone karke batado aur FIR darj karwaalena...."

So expecting a lecture from her dad she called him up. And her dad said "Should I come and pick you up?"

Thats when she realized that her car was at the mechanic and that she had not driven down to college that day.

So she slunk out of the back gate..and used it for the next 3 months...

One one day the guard caught her and asked...beti aapki gaadi ka kya hua...??

She smiled and said nothing.

You would imagine she wouldn't repeat the same thing again.

But she did it again some time the following year.

I was speechless but still asked, "How could you not remember such a thing?". She answered, "I usually recollect stuff after a year has passed, but in the span of one year I usually forget."

This time I really was speechless....

Third time lucky??????

So.... the tooth needed to be attended to....
Let me check if I have a good dental plan....
It seems like I have a decent dental plan... so find a dentist in the area....
Dr.Moon, well if he is going to make me dance using his fingertips (albeit with a drill in hand), I might as well not make any fun of his name....or else....
In any case I never had a bad expeience with a dentist.... so i am hoping that what people say about dentists doesnt come true...

First Visit......

Dent:Where are you from? Whats your ethnicity?????

Me (wondering if I didn't look Indian) India......

Ahhhhhhhh.... you eat a lot of spices.... Do you eat spicy food...

Me (not knowing what to answer): I would not eat them from today if you don't want me to....

No no no... these spices make your teeth acidic.... thats why you have these stains.... I will give you a light cleaning first.

Me (thinking in my mind) Dude.... cleaning can wait.... get me out of the pain....
Me: Ok... as you wish.....

after some moments of buzzing drill and constant repositioning of my head.... cleaning was done....

Dent: Whats the problem now
Me: (thanking God) I have this toothache and I do not want to be in pain anymore....

Dent: lemme take some x-rays....

that guy took x-rays of every possible angle of all my teeth......

all this while his beautiful assistant standing in front of me... I had to wonder if she was hired strategically....

Dent: I have faxed your treatment plan to the Insurance office. I shud get a go ahead in about a day... But I know that root canal is covered. So we will do the rootcanal now.

Me: okay..... as you wish... just get me outta this pain....

Asst: I will give you the anesthesia.

The doc starts drilling and even the beautiful assistant couldnt divert me away from the pain..

It was baddddddddddddddd
I held his hand and said no I cant take it....

Dent to his Asst: Did you give anesthesia?????
Asst: Yes Dr. Moon

Dent: I think you tooth are acidic..... I dont think you are getting numb.... you should take antibiotics for a week and then may be we can try....

Me (wondering why antibiotics, Cant I eat baking soda or something to reduce acidity) Ok.

That evening I was in PAIN cuz he drilled a part of the nerve and it was pain personified....

So I called the office for some prescription. She had faxed it to the pharmacy and I got it. Much to my despair it was Ibuprofen and this whole ordeal took about an hour. I was like.... Cant we just buy these without a prescription in India.....

Anyway that subsided the pain and I was getting ready for my second visit.....

Second Visit:

Dent: Did you take the antibiotics?

Me: Yes.. all 21 of them.... I dont know what will happen to my stomach....

Dent: Ahhh you will be okay.... Lets finish what we started

After anesthesia he tried to drill and got a lot of it out....

Dent: 2 roots down, I will have to kill the last nerve......

He didnt even finish the sentence, I was in hell.... Now I know why they are called gatekeepers of hell..... And all this while I was thinking why people get so scared of a dentist....

The Dent gave up and said "ok.... we will try again next time

Dent: Did you drink last weekend heavily?
Me: Last weekend? I havent had a single drink in 15 days....
Dent: Do you have any liver problems????
Me (obviously worried): None that I know of....
Dent: Then the infection may be too big to get it numb, so we will try next week.
Me (even more worried): Ok

Now that he had put this thought in my mind, I had to find out if I had any symptoms of a liver problem or so.... I browsed for four hours and finally figured out that I dont have any symptoms

Third Visit...

early in the morning 7'o clock appointment (cuz I dont think that taking half a day off for yet another dentist appointment would stretch it at the office....)

Me: Dr. Moon, just curious... what is the max sittings have you taken for a root canal?

Dent: 2 and I have seen a case like you for the first time....

Me (frowning): Do you think I will be done this time.....

Dent: Yes, cuz I have already done it.... just need to do the filling.

May be they are not that bad. Then again.... he made me browse for 4 hrs last week to figure out why I wasnt getting numb.....

After he killed the roots... he put in artificial ones....

I was intrigued as usual and asked him about those....

He says, " Well in third world countries the treatment is cheap, so they dont use these artificial ones. They just clean the roots and leave it like that. This makes the tooth very weak.... and a chance of nerve growing back."

At this instant I was a bit hurt and obviously retorted, "Well, I have had another root canal done in the US and they haven't done it here either." But realized that I needn't be so harsh cuz he still can make me dance do his drilling buzz.....

But Yessssss I was third time lucky....


However before leaving the dentists office I did ask him one question... the one that I wanted to be answered bad...

How bad is smoking for teeth?

Smoking stains and thats it.... It has other health problems, but not for teeth... Don't drink cuz it hurts your teeth more than smoking....

Well I have one less reason to quit smoking.... but then again.... he started making me think about drinkin toooo.... :(


So may be my policy of not going to a doctor till it is absolutely necessary works for me after all... I think :p

Is summer here yet?

Apr 23rd the first bona-fide summer day of the year (after spring officially started long ago)..... temperature in the 70s.... and a drastic change from a couple of days ago....

I do not know how the building support guys in those centrally air conditioned skyscrapers cope with these extremes... today they have to heat the whole building to 65 and then suddenly they have to stop the heat and start the AC to cool it off to 65 the next day..... and that too before people walk in to the building every morning.... I am glad I am not working there.

The tell-all sign of summer has arrived. Dangerously dropping neck lines and soaring hem lines, to the extent of becoming one is already evident all over the place. Not that everything is eye candy, but it is getting really hard not to hate it because no attention whatsoever is paid by the beholder. I work in the Fashion District...... no not on "fashion" but the support activities like web traffic analysis for fashion (does not sound too exciting, does it?).

And I already started feeling the heat. I drank five bottles of water, which is atypical of me, cuz I prefer aerated drinks to water and aerated drinks are just not cutting the thirst today.

I kept on wondering if the weather needed to change so drastically. But then again I realized that it is this drastic change that gives all the fall colors and beautiful springs that I enjoy so much. I just thought that nature needn't have used the "no pain no gain" policy at least here, but well who am I to think that way?

Two days and the grass is looking greener and the trees have young tender leaves and sprouts and amazing of all most of the plants have buds. What a change? and How in heaven's name is this change possible in two days. Cuz two days ago I was low with this stupid toothache and I STILL am low because I have the same freaking toothache.

Rain Rain Go away.........

Please come again another day.... anywhere but here....... please....

today is a Sunday..... i have been hit by Monday blues yet again. Well this happens practically every weekend, only the "torrential" rains made me even more gloomier....

Yesterday was good.... just as the day was supposed to be in spring... warm, not too hot, bright and as if full of life

Being in Calcutta, I never believed the weatherman. When they say it would rain, you will not, repeat , you will not see a single person carrying an umbrella.

I already noticed that the weatherman here is definitely more accurate, but somehow after seeing such a beautiful Saturday I decided to take the prediction with a pinch of salt.

So I decided to go meet a friend in Stamford, but needed to do laundry before I go there. However get the car to car wash while I do the laundry to remove the stubborn tar marks. Laundry was not on the list, but constant nagging by my soon to be better half made me add that to the list.

Last night when I went out for a "customary" smoke after dinner, I saw a few drops fall. Well it was predicted that the rain would start late evening and a heavy downpour is expected. So I am all set. It is just "drizzling".

I got up in the morning expecting a beautiful day, but faced a really ugly yucky day. It was raining, as the weatherman said it would. Downpour....

For anyone who is thinking that car wash could be taken off of the list, that's not because the rain would do the work of a car wash, but because the car wash is closed. The tar still remains.

Now I tried to convince my fiance innumerable times that doing laundry on such a day was stupidity of the biggest magnitude, but, as it turns out, she would have none of that.

Now to save the day and my plans, I decided that I would at least go and meet my friend as soon as the laundry is done.

.........


A day that started off bad has just become worse. In an attempt to finish laundry as quickly as possible so that I can be on my way to Stamford, I dumped all my clothes into the washer, put the coins in and started the machine, only to see a pack of cigarettes floating around in the water when it is being filled. Now I tried hard to open the door of the front loading machine, but the machine was one mean SOB, it would not open. I sent as SOS to the Hispanic lady who was overseeing the facility.

She came and looked at my predicament, and said "You are screwed." I was very kind and said "thank you for the reality check, Can you help me out?" She said "No. Once these machines start, the doors open only after it does its job". How is that possible? I wanted to lecture those makers of those machines on usability and what not. At this time after resigning to my fate, I started thinking of ways to reduce the smell of wet tobacco that would permeate my clothes. I have a feeling that my day could not be worse. Ok so I can get to a departmental store and get some fragrant sheets that are used while drying the clothes. I have around 40 minutes before that machine stops, so I should be easily back by that time.

So I went to the car and was checking my pockets for the keys. This, mind you in that incessant rain. Two pockets, down and two to go and I already started to have a feeling that the keys might actually be in the washer.

No I did not take off my jeans and put them in the washer, I had the keys in my hands when i was dumping my clothes into the washer. Checking my other pockets just confirmed my feeling.

Now, totally drenched, teeth chattering, (the wind speed was close to 30 mph), I went into the laundromat for some relief. By now I just wanted to have some technique of Bruce Lee so that I can freakin break open the washer. And I could hear my keys knocking themselves against the drum of the washer.

This lady saw me all drenched and came with a towel towards me. I was so touched by her gesture. I was about to thank her when she dropped the towel to the floor so that the puddle that I created does not expand any more. This time I thought that the skills of Jet Li would suffice.

The washer stopped, I frantically checked for tobacco strewn all over my shirts and I didn't find any. So I curiously took the packet out and noticed that it was empty. Now I cannot kick myself, can I?

Anyway, I was a bit dry, still shivering, put the clothes in a dryer, got my keys out and decided that I didn't need those fragrant sheets. I wanted to get into the dryer, but a notice which said "Not a toy, please do not let children climb into the dryer". So better sense prevailed and in an attempt not to make my day any worse, I refrained.

After 40 more minutes, I went back to the car, this time keys in my hand and opened the trunk, and I see my umbrella in there. But deciding that it's not time to be self deprecating, I loaded my clothes into the trunk and went back home

I got back and already felt that I might be running fever. But a shower made me feel better and I decided that I should continue on my plan of going to Stamford.

...........

Great..... roads are jammed and a few accidents have almost rendered the roads useless, so I came back after attempting to go to the highway. Not in a mood to let my Sunday go waste, I decided that I would go to the Desi bazaar to get some DVDs and eat some piping hot Indian food.

Glad that I am armed with my umbrella and not letting the rain dampen my spirits, I went to the Desi bazaar. I parked my car and went to dosa house. I got a Mysore masala dosa and started to eat it. One bite and hmmm its heaven......

Oh wait.... nooooooooooooo...... its freaking hell... what is this pain that shot out of my mouth and went all over the head and I felt I almost died.

I then realized that I have a very sensitive tooth and cannot eat anymore. I ran to the departmental store and got Orajel and used it after which the shooting pain subdued. I got wet once again.

I drove back with one hand on my cheek and decided that next time it rains, I am going to stay indoors and play mad gab.

What spelling?

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.


I raed it swoemhere on the web and it is not my own work

To beat or not to beat

I read this joke somewhere, I don't exactly remember where but it goes like this

A judge who is about to grant a divorce to a couple asks their eight year old girl

Judge: Beta, whom do you want to stay with? Do you want to stay with your mommy?

Girl: No mommy beats me.

Judge: Do you want to stay with you daddy then?

Girl: No daddy beats me too.

Judge (confused): Whom do you want to stay with?

Girl: Indian Cricket Team, they never beat anyone.

This pretty much explains the exasperation I went through after painfully watching the India Sri Lanka match, and hoping somewhere that Bermuda beats Bangladesh. But then again India didn't deserve to go to Super 8. If they cannot beat Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, I don't know how they would beat Australia or South Africa or for that point the 'Oram'juvenated New Zealand.

Though I never wanted to write something about cricket on my blog, the boys in blue forced me to do so.

But then again I am glad that I don't have to search for Rakhi Sawant's song or her item number on youtube cuz she said that she would do that at Mumbai Airport if India won the cup.

Paanch... paanch... paanch

Two days ago I was flipping through channels... when I was on a Japanese channel (curtsy DISH network, by far the worst blood sucking good for nothing network) I got a call, so I was talking on the phone and walks in a friend of mine and asks me what I was doing watching a Japanese channel. Not the one to give a straightforward simple answer, I asked him why should I not watch a Japanese channel and told him that language should not be a barrier and it is people like him who think that language was a barrier that actually hindered the concept of global village.

It felt very nice lecturing him that way, but it did pose a question if language was actually a barrier. Then suddenly I remembered something that my mother had done long back. For some time I was lost in memory of my mother. Although she is no more, she still is a very strong driving force in the decisions that I make in daily life.

This happened around ten years ago.

My mother's interaction with Hindi was minimal. The Hyderabadi hindi that my sister and I spoke sometimes at home was her introduction to hindi and anybody who speaks or knows hyderabadi know that it definitely is not hindi. And all the Raj Kapoor movies that were broadcasted when he died didn't teach her much either. And then a score of Telugu channels started and she never had to learn hindi.

During that time Naxalite movement was at full swing, so any industry which was earning "some" profit was provided protection by CRPF. It so happened that a few people were given quarters to live near our house. My dad was the happiest because he could buy liquor at the discounted prices of their canteen, he made a few friends in CRPF. Now there was this particular Rajasthani couple in those people. And quite odd as it sounds, they were the only people from North India and everyone else was a Malayali or a Gulti. So that Rajasthani lady who found my mother the most hospitable came to our house every now and then and stayed there talking to my mom for hours together.

Now this might happen anywhere and is not a big deal, except the non-tenable part is that my mother didn't know hindi and that lady didnt know anything except Rajasthani or hindi. So the two languages that my mom knew (Telugu and English) were out of question. So my mom wrestled with the little (which was very little) hindi that she knew.

I witnessed the fact that they talked for hours and hours together and when I asked my mother how she managed, she smiled and said that she understood pretty much everything that the lady tried to tell my mother and vice versa (I asked that lady about it and she told me).

I wasn't home much, but my sister narrated a very funny incident to me.

When a vegetable vendor passed by our houses, the lady screamed on top of her lungs,

"Oh sabjiwale bhaiyya, idhar aao".

The vegetable vendor who did not understand that it was intended for him just moved on selling his stuff. So this lady ran out and stopped him. Well my mother also had to buy some vegetables and she did just that.

My sister at this moment went next door to meet her friend. After my mother and the other lady bought the vegetables, the vendor asks her for fifteen rupees. Now the only problem being, he said it in telugu. Now the lady looked at my mother enquiringly.

My mother looked around for her escape route (my sister) and obviously didn't find her. Now that the onus was on her, she took an easier route. She paid for both of them. The lady took the vegetables home and came back with the money. She asked my mother

"kitne paise hue didi?"

Now my mom understood the word paise. She was about to say that it was okay because she didn't know how to say fifteen in hindi, but then she came up with the neatest thing that I have ever known.

She showed her five fingers and said paanch, she closed the fingers into a fist and opened them and again said paanch and finally for the third time she said paanch. Without blinking the lady gave my mother fifteen rupees.

After I heard this episode I never again asked my mother how she managed to talk to the lady for hours.

How much does a cigarette cost?

Well even with exorbitant state taxes as in NY or CA one pack of Marlboro Lights would not cost more than $10, that makes a cigarette not more than 50 cents.

But I know a guy who actually smoked a cigarette that cost him $230 + 15 cents.

The central character in this post is the same "oxymoron" guy. I think I should start a stereotype with his name, but was warned against it.

Now, this guy is a big Shahrukh Khan fan and fancies that he looks like the star. And he is always hell bent on making people say that he looks like Shahrukh. He still tries to convince me. I haven't succumbed to the torture yet. If it ended there, it would have been good but the problem arises when this guy even copies the star's mannerisms.

While driving his car which is barely "strung" together, which he drives with elan with his cellphone in one hand and cigarette in another. I don't know how he drives, but drives nonetheless. On the Interstate 95 where he is whizzing by all the lesser mortals who are driving within the speed limit, he suddenly thinks of Shahrukh and how he flicks the cigarette butt into the air. He flicks it the same way out of the window, into the air. This butt had a mind of its own and decided to go and crash against the cop's windshield. Well it is night, otherwise he would have noticed the cop behind him, I think.

Now cops in NJ are really not known for their forgiveness. So the cop turned his lights on. It took a few seconds for this guy to realize that those lights were for him. So he pulled over. He was rehearsing as what to say about the speed he was going at and he decided that he would say it was 74 on a 65 zone.

The cop asks him if he knew why he was pulled over. He said that he didn't (I wish he said that it was for speeding). The cop takes his license, registration, insurance tallies the database if he was a criminal then comes back saying that it was for throwing a cigarette butt on the highway. The cop gave him a ticket (amount not mentioned) for throwing the cigarette butt on the highway. He doesn't even mention about speeding. When I drive on the highway and I have driven a lot (more than 100,000 miles), I usually see at least one cigarette flying out of cars every other minute depending on the traffic, but have never seen anyone get a ticket for it.

Now he comes to my place the next day and tells me that he got a ticket for smoking a cigarette. I kind of understood what he said and told him that Highway Littering fine was $500 just to make him a bit more miserable. So he calls up the court and finds out that the amount was $230. He was happy that it was not 500.

Now the lady that talked to him on the phone had a hard time finding out the amount because she hadn't seen a case like this in her 10 years of service and was even thinking that it was the first case of its kind under that court.

And at the end she said (read in an African American accent) "How did yo get a ticket for this? If yo cannot dispose yor butt without getting caught, then yo should stop smoking..... and driving"

Just a small religion danger (dharam sankat)

A small conversation between me and my friend, some time ago after coming out of a night club.

Friend: Those black lights are great man. We should buy those when we party at home next. Just black lights.

Me: Yeah that would be cool. But after a few minutes of awe it really isn't that great. We can barely see and "black lights only" at home is NOT a good idea. By the way, think about it, "black light" ... oxymoron

Friend: (fuming, and visibly agitated) I am not a moron. You are a moron.

I just drove back in disbelief.

Writing good use cases.... what not to do.....

previous installment in this series is part 1

What I think as good use cases.

To be able to write a good use case, we should first know about what not to do. If we avoid these pitfalls, it should not be hard at all to write good use cases.

The TOP 5 use case killers according to Gary K. Evans and William F. Nazzaro are

1. CRUD based use case partitioning
2. Design by use case
3. Actor mis-classification
4. Use Cases for all requirements
5. Use Case normalization

I agree somewhat with the authors. I agree with the causes, but have some reservations about the reasons they present. I will explain what they mean (these points are from their presentation in 2002, but I would explain it in my own way) and then add my own points.

CRUD based use case partitioning

CRUD stands for Create Retrieve Update Delete. We can partition a use case using these database actions. This seems like a very efficient way. And congratulations, you have a technical document, not a use case. The moment you say CRUD, your use case probably has more use for a technical team rather than a business user. And automatically when you partition use cases using CRUD, interaction with database has to be outlined and it does not stop there.

Step back.... look at the big picture...

We are creating a use case for the business user to get an approval of our understanding of the requirements. We are also using the use case to get a very high level LOE (Level Of Effort) from the tech team. The LOE is not binding, at least not yet. This LOE and use cases allow the business user to calculate ROI and gives him a chance to evaluate the project. This also helps to manage the business user's expectations. This also gives the user a chance to call off the project which might reduce the number of failing software projects.

Trust me, when I say over 80% of the projects fail. I could probably give you a lot of references for it, but I will leave the burden to you. Just "googling" should give you some.

Why should we not use CRUD based partitioning

• Although we would achieve discrete partitioning of use cases, it is may not signify discrete business transactions.
• These use cases explain acquiring and processing of data but do not capture the business processes
• You end up with a huge number of use cases doing too little.

So while writing a use case, we need to think like business users and should put the technological background to the backseat. It will not stay in the backseat for long, because Business Requirements and Technical Specifications wouldn't let them stay there for too long. Use Cases ARE NOT technical documents.

I would discuss about the remaining use case killers in future installments.