I am stupidly :( happy :)

I was smiling and elated, just like winning some kind of competition. The thing is I managed to get fuel worth Rs.500 for my bike. Really it was a competition that costed me one and half hour. I was awarded finally. There had been cases when I got knocked out of the competition even after queuing for hours - making me gloomy as if I lost the race.

Doesn't that sound stupid? Really we are stupid bunch of people - not in a position to do anything despite such perpetuating problems. If I am not mistaken, it's been almost 6 months that we are having fuel shortage. People have to take leave from their work to queue up for fuel, have to get up at midnight....

Celebration for Prashant Tamang

Prashant Tamang just won the Indian Idol 3. Now at 1AM I can hear people celebrating here in Kathmandu; I just saw some people dancing on their rooftops, firecrackers can be heard, whistles from far way, people cheering, shouting. The city suddenly goes lively. It seems that people are rallying in the street at this hour.

Prashant Tamang, an Indian but from Nepali origin, suddenly seems to be a very important figure for us and has created nationalism among Nepalese people. I think many of us are still furious with the fact that Nepal had to lose almost 1/3 of its land to India in Sugauli Treaty in 1816. Lots of Nepalese are now living in our used-to-be land holding Indian passport; Prashant being one of them.

Updates:
I can't believe I actually went out to take photographs at 1:30AM. People, mostly youths, were chanting slogans like "Yo jit kasko, Prashant ko (whose win is this, it's Prashant)", there were even girls, women in the crowd. People were also shouting from taxis. Finally the crowd moved towards the Maharajgung from Narayangopal Chowk. People are certainly overwhelmed and excited but how valid is such excitement.

really concerned about Nepal?

I had to walk all the way to Lagankhel from Patan Dhoka because of blockade by cabbies. That was no wonder... I was expecting it sooner or later. I would say this is the test of tolerance of Nepalese people.

Now this PM officer is concerned not about the citizens of Nepal and their rights to live but Nepal's image before the international community. Gosh! There are already lots of other things that has done enough for our notoriety.

[..]the Prime Minister’s Officer raised concern over the serpentine queue in front of the Singha Durbar stating such queue could present a bad image before the international community[...]

Govt decision fuels ire, cabbies disrupt traffic

Nepal Engineering Association election: a mess

I queued up in a line for more than 2 hours to cast a vote. There were lots of engineers lining up and herding - just to vote for an association - the purpose of which is unknown to me and lots of other engineers I approached. I realized that most of them were there for the sake of their boss, friends, relatives, some good and useful contacts. If you ask me, I am there for my friend's father. If it were not for him, I would have left or most possibly wouldn't have come at all. It was a total waste of time - atleast to me. I was really frustrated to see the unmanaged and disorganized engineers of Nepal (Remember I stood in that heated low-ceiling hall for two hours plus with god knows how much CO2). What else shall we expect from others?

And I met this water guy around mid 40s and a PhD, who boasted that he was there for the sake of his voting rights and nothing else. Then he bragged that he won't never do anything dishonest to earn money, he had no greeds for money, fame, position and blah blah.. At first I was kind of impressed with him. Later he sounded more extravagant with his words - the thing I hated most about him is he mentioned about some design, some new technology and he would whisper in my ear "That was my design" and that was not just once. Crazy? Later I just hinted him that I was not interested - guess what... I looked outside the window :). Then he went and sat a little ahead of me. Then another person who's standing infront of me, said sarcastically "You had a good talk with him. I know this guy.". I felt that maybe that PhD was trying to convey his message to someone else through me.

I was wondering how much money our country lost in that election - if we analyze from hour-rate calculation and again for engineers. But that hardly matters. The good news is we don't have such hour-rate system. We can definitely afford hours of mess.

FOSS: How much difference can it make?

foss solidarity candle illumination at Maitighar to mark SFD tomorrow
Illuminated FOSS indeed looked exotic. But can it exotic to other people besides those involved and those aware of FOSS. I myself am a sort of fan and user of FOSS and look for FOSS softwares whenever possible. I use GIMP occasionally but again happen to use photoshop. I use Firefox excessively but again test applications in IE to make sure that the firefox-ignorants can also use the web-apps. I use Microsoft office though I have installed Open-office. I am still using Winamp; I am happy with pidgin (IM replacement of gtalk, msn, yahoo and lot others), VLC Player or MPlayer. Despite all these love-hate for FOSS-proprietary softwares, I am still using Windows XP at home as well as office. I could have used different distributions of Linux but I can't at office and my home computer doesn't support so far - the screen goes berserk. I remember finally having suse installed but resulting in much slower pace compared to XP - it seemed to be hardware problem. I have no choice than to continue with XP :(

Long time.... who cares anyway?

Well it's been more than a month. I wonder why do people write post like this after taking breaks for long time - including me. I have noticed several of my friends who posted after a long time apologizing, promising to write again and blah blah... Who cares anyway?

But my problem is i am supposed to be busy; though I don't get busy reading my to-be-read stuffs for Social Science Baha Immersion Course; but rather busy with surfing internet. Really there have been so many happenings within the last month that I would definitely not want to forget.

Just listing for my own memory.
--
Met Ross , a developer from Italy, who contacted me through my blog just for some developers' talk. He also gave presentation on Ruby on Rails at FKK (FOSS ka Kura at Yala Maya Kendra)

Met Lawrence, an old man :) from US and my pal, who is here to help the street children, yet to be started. He is working on it.

Took a session on GIMP and Audacity on FOSS training organized by Bellasap.

Had an interesting talk with journalist from Pokhara at Bellasap Party at Hotel Radison.

Went to Nala at Banepa from Ason Baja Guthi. Well i can also play the traditional baja (drums).

Played dare or truth with friends at Hots and really made fool out of ourselves. Enjoyed anyway.

Lots of late-nights with friends.

Still going to Social science baha for Immersion course on Contemporary Social Issues.

Watched few movies at Cinema hall, which I normally don't do. That doesn't mean I am abnormal ;)

Still waking up at 5:30 in the morning 5 days a week. Really something not to be forgotten.

Well my supposed-to-go yet still-unconfirmed trip:( I am still waiting.

Created a profile in Facebook and met lots of friends.


That's all I can remember so far.