(This post is directly inspired by Big K's criticism about the recent fundraiser, Rock on for humanity.)

This is perhaps, a very cynical and obtuse view of high profile fundraisers. But after you are through with this article, (assuming you are patient enough to bear with my crap), if you feel that there is an iota of sense in what I've put down, I would consider myself successful.

Let us consider an example. Suppose you have a big event organized for raising funds for homeless children. Let me list the beneficiaries:

1. The Event Management Company - Does a contract worth lakhs, if not crores. At a sizeable profit, needless to say.

2. The Politician - He gets some money(under the table, of course) to allow the event in his area. Also, gets the opportunity to campaign for free and a few front page Ads showcasing his generosity. I'm not considering the nominal five star lunch and drinks.

3. The big Bollywood star - Performs at the event at a "reduced" fee. Means more of tax free "under the table" income. Also gets to popularize his newest movie and it's music. And also gets to brag about his social awareness.

4. The Revelers - Have fun @ Dad's cash - Now that hardly hurts. Also get to go high on booze, sex and drugs after the gala. All in the name of homeless children.

5. The wannabes - Get to rub shoulders with the bigwigs and free publicity before the biggies come on stage.

6. The socialites - Get to look for their next boyfriend / girlfriend. Am I stretching this too far? Come on, every cricketer meets the sexy starlet at some fundraiser. At least that's what they all say.

7. The NGO - Whatever little money is left after all this economics has been considered, goes to an NGO. Half of them are corrupt and almost another half are grossly incapable.

Now come the homeless children. Don't worry, the rest does go for their upliftment.

We do care about homeless children, don't we?

Love nerds, hate nerds - You can't deny that nerds are everywhere. Nerds aren't normal guys - So it's better that you learn to identify a nerd when you see one.

Here's a checklist of what you need to look for to know that you are looking at a nerd.

• Glasses - Look for those spects. A nerd is incomplete without them and a nerd without them is not a pure nerd.

• Nerds can't stand people fumbling with technology. Just try fumbling with a gadget! If he doesn't say," Lemme show you how to do that", he isn't a nerd. Moreover, nerds despise people who do not respect technology.
  

• Gamers - Nerds are avid gamers. And they are very appreciative of skilled gamers.

• Try saying a bit of bullshit about Albert Einstein - (Caution) A nerd might knock out your teeth. At least he's bound to raise a big hue and cry over this.

• Nerds don't like being called nerds. *wink*. But they like to think of themselves as nerds. Nerds are complicated people after all.
  

• Nerds prefer beautiful technology to beautiful women any day. However, no nerd will ever accept this.

• Nerds are the among the few genres of homo sapiens who do not want to trade genres for something else. They are very satisfied and happy being nerds.
  

• Nerds are poor at paragraphs. They work better with bullets and minutes.

How do I know?
Because, I'm a big time NERD! *grin*

98.53??

Yep, that's my CAT percentile.
How do I feel?

To appreciate my feelings at this, I need to take you through a bit of history.

It all started in November, 2007 when I took one of the worst decisions of my life. The decision was to appear for CAT, 08. So I enrolled myself for a course by paying a ridiculously hefty amount to an institute. Classes started by mid-January.

By mid-February, the bubble had burst. I had lost steam. I felt I was better as a technical guy than a manager. However I continued till april when I finally decided to stop.

By stopping, I mean I stopped going for classes, stopped taking the mock tests and lost all the booklets that they gave me. Within a month I had leased away the main material to some guy. Nice bit of social work, eh?
What were my expectations from CAT' 08? Frankly judging by the amount of labor put in, I was expecting a 70 something percentile. So, I hardly thought twice when a friend told me this morning that the D day was here.

And then I got the shock of my life. 98.53? The first and only reaction was- Only if I had put in some labor. Not much, maybe 30 hours in all? At least appear for the mock tests! It's so frustrating. Messing up my career just because of this abnormal laziness. And that this isn't been the first time is even more heartbreaking.

And guess what, I haven't applied for any college. If you don't believe my score, you are welcome to check the results at results.catiim.in. The Tr No is 6610076 and the form No is 109007.

Well, sigh....

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR (all belated) to all my readers.

For the past few days, I've been frustrated with the way things have shaped up. My work on the search program and the IC tester is stuck. To add to that, the final year project on 3D IC testing algorithms has still not taken off. My singleton status prevails and I continually keep switching between ready to mingle and not ready to mingle *grin*. I'm still trying to beat that time posted on that NFS Most Wanted track by that guy on the internet. And I'm yet to start getting used to with JAVA.

In short life isn't that rosy now.

Now, people continually keep switching in and out of states of frustration like these. We all have our own strategies to keep stress and frustration at bay. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes things get better by themselves and we credit that to the stress buster algorithms. But we never stop trying, do we?

So I decided to post my stress buster algorithms in the hope that you will give me an insight into yours. (In case you haven't noticed, there's a comment link at the bottom of this post).

This is what I do.

• Stop sleeping all day - The more frustrated you get, the more you sleep. The more you sleep, the more frustrated you get. Vicious cycle.

• Shave - If you are a guy who doesn't shave regularly. If you do, grow a big stubble and then shave *wink*.

• Sport - Indulge in your favorite sport. But mind you, if you lose, things can get worse.

• Don't chat - Stop chatting on the net. It increases my frustration levels.

• Stay away from the Internet - If you have a slow connection, this is a must. Even if you don't, it might still help.

• Indulge in something creative - This can be very very tough. But if you are successful in doing this, the battle is over.

• If you are a foodie, get a big heavy delicious dinner. Don't, if you want a size zero.
  

• Splurge, go shopping - What the mags say. Probably valid only for women. One of the main reasons why men get frustrated in the first place.
  

• Get up earlier than you ever have and stroll a mile - Works wonders!

But remember, the most important stress buster is that you try one of these stress busters! Waiting for your tips.