Home stretch && 15*2 minutes of fame && 69 && End of the wandering swordsman ( Not necessarily in that order )

Less than week to go before the CAT and even lesser number of days to go for the biggest academic farce ever envisaged – the Anna University exams. It also happens to be the largest money making racket since they charge you Rs 400 for re-evaluation and Rs 300 for a photocopy for your answer booklet when it costs 100 rupees a paper to write an exam and get that paper corrected and 40 paisa per page at the local 'Canon Xerox' shop which actually uses a Toshiba machine. That makes me wonder why they charge so much. Are they using industrial money printing machines to give the photocopies or do they get them photocopied at the local counterfeiter's. Some of my friend tell me they charge so much becoz they need to find your paper. WTF, if Google can find me a web page from 8 billion others for free why the f$%^ should the guys at the Univ. charge so much.

The 69^th Acharya got arrested a few days back on charges of murder. I have always wondered how people can claim to be messengers and incarnations of Gods and how other people actually believe that. I remember the time in first year of college, one fine day the Sankarachrya came a visiting with his deputy and entourage. In college whenever somebody famous comes they have to come only after college hours. So I was not surprised to find lots of people cribbing when they found out that the buses would leave late. Of course after the function was over I thought to myself that at last i could go home but they announced that people could take 'blessings' from the seer so to my surprise, amusement and consternation lots of guys who were cribbing about going home late queued up to fall at his feet and the queue took longer to clear than the function itself. Just when I thought things could get worse they actually did. See I have only one paternal uncle whom I see as rarely as Haley's comet sees the Earth and by some miracle of the Gods he was in Madras on that fateful day and came to visit but by the time I got home he was leaving. He was coming down the lift when I was waiting for it. So I got to meet him only for a minute instead of the hour and more I would have. I wanted to scream. I am not complaining about the seer's visit but about the attitude of the people who feel at his feet. For some reason lots believe in him but others... well. I should have expected it considering most of those people realise there is a temple in the college campus only during exams and the day the results come. You can tell something important is there in college by looking at the crowd near the temple. People's attitudes amaze me.

My favourite animé series Rourini Kenshin (Samurai X) got over last week on Animax. I am hoping they'll restart it quickly like they did with Get Backers so that I can watch the 1^st few episodes that I missed. Animax has done a good job of replacing RK with a with what seems to be a good show Area 88. Should be fun. Lot of my friends just don't get the point about animé. They think it should be like cartoons. The point is animé is not like a cartoon. Just because it is animated doesn't mean it has to be the same. Its different and that's the best part. I love cartoons and I don't see why somebody who loves cartoons should not like animé. Don't expect a cartoon and you'll love animé. Some others don't like the look of the characters with their big eyes. That missing the point completely. The eyes give the animé characters their emotions. The eyes shape and look changes according to the emotion. Without the eyes the characters would not have any way of showing what they feel. I'll write more about the joys of animé some other time

Can't wait for CAT to get over; then I can watch Animax for much more time, at least till next June/July. After that I will have to do one of 2 things. Start preparing for CAT 2005 or figure out how to survive 2 years in a place that'll let me sleep only 4 hours a day. I wish some one could tell me what's gonna happen on Sunday right now. Maybe the seer can help me.

Ps1: The telecast of 2^nd round of UC is on 18^th Nov at 10:00pm on BCC World. This bit of info is for anyone who wants to see me on TV. (I know its a shameless ad)

PS2: Hope the title makes sense now

Xbox: I couldn't resist the ps2 Xbox pj. Really sorry