Yesterday was booze day.
A german colleague of mine along with three other french colleagues went out for dinner. It was a typical bavarian place. The thing to note about the place's entrance was the fact that it would pass you by if you didnt know it was there already. Not like the neon lit entrances common in bangalore....
i may told you of my scandalous affair with weisewurst ( white sausages) , but what i haven't told you about is my even-more demanding relationship with weisebier...made from wheat and totally delicious... its sweet without any hint of alcohol....so I drank 1.5 litres of these awesome stuff....and dinner was equally great...pork chops in bavarian beer sauce and potato dumplings!!! Then we had a shot of schnapps each,..this is a loaded mixture of fruit alcohol, brewed in house....very very strong stuff...as much as 30-40 % alcohol...
Later, we headed to the center of town for a couple of rounds more...some strong cocktails followed, and my tiny body was saturated with alcohol...
On my way home I forgot to get off at my stop , much to the amusement of my french colleagues, and spent fifteen minutes and a completely deserted s-bahn stop. what was not funny was that the litres of alcohol were strongly impressing their will on my bladder....
well , I did manage to wake up today...
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Tales from Germania - Episode "Walk the Walk"
Its 7:30 in the morning...The chill in the air soaks through my jacket and sweats. The 10 below wind freezes portions of my anatomy, the thawing is a rather delicate process which I shall presently not go into.
I am being swept on by the crowd that just came out of the S5 train at Fasanenpark. The Campeon campus, some half a mile away, stands out in a field of snow. I am told that there are lakes and green grass in the spring. But for now , there is just bleak white stretching in every direction that you look.
What strikes you at such a time is the effort youu have to put to keep up with these germans when they are walking. Is it there natural stride to move this fast, and where do they get this awesome sense of urgency? Is it simply the cold, or some form of implicit discipline which requires them to be at their desks at a certain time of the day ( give or take a few picoseconds - Yes! Yes! i am a VLSI engineer).
But I am not alright with being outdone by these obviously larger, stronger, and atheletic race of people. So I start keeping pace...huff puff... As I am put into 5th gear of walking ( we are talking some severe overdrive here), I am still outpaced by the more determined of these people. As i walk into the office, I realize the level of my general fitness pales in comparison to the average german's.
I was told by quite a few of my colleagues, in a "matter of fact" fashion, that they often run 10 kms a day ( or was it 10 miles). Well I'd like to see myself complete half that distance. By the way these are people in their 30's. Some cycle to work, and obesity is almost absent here. Most people have great posture while they walk , and somehow reflect great health just by the way they walk.
I am being swept on by the crowd that just came out of the S5 train at Fasanenpark. The Campeon campus, some half a mile away, stands out in a field of snow. I am told that there are lakes and green grass in the spring. But for now , there is just bleak white stretching in every direction that you look.
What strikes you at such a time is the effort youu have to put to keep up with these germans when they are walking. Is it there natural stride to move this fast, and where do they get this awesome sense of urgency? Is it simply the cold, or some form of implicit discipline which requires them to be at their desks at a certain time of the day ( give or take a few picoseconds - Yes! Yes! i am a VLSI engineer).
But I am not alright with being outdone by these obviously larger, stronger, and atheletic race of people. So I start keeping pace...huff puff... As I am put into 5th gear of walking ( we are talking some severe overdrive here), I am still outpaced by the more determined of these people. As i walk into the office, I realize the level of my general fitness pales in comparison to the average german's.
I was told by quite a few of my colleagues, in a "matter of fact" fashion, that they often run 10 kms a day ( or was it 10 miles). Well I'd like to see myself complete half that distance. By the way these are people in their 30's. Some cycle to work, and obesity is almost absent here. Most people have great posture while they walk , and somehow reflect great health just by the way they walk.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Tales from germania - Episode "i-Pot"
I am going to reveal a great mystery to you. Not the run-of-the-mill mystery that you would see agatha christie tinkering with. This is a mystery in the class of "why did the chicken cross the road" or "What do them scots wear under those kilts?".
The mystery that we are going to reveal is:
"How the hell do those europeans keep their shit-pot so clean?"
Working at ITPL, I have often wondered if it would do us a great benefit , if we were to potty-train all our engineers. Well, if you ever plan to take a dump in our established company, then bring along your own tissue paper, a brand of industrial strength disinfectanct, rubber gloves, etc etc.
So there I was , Looking at the next innovation at Infineon's new site CAMPEON. Everything here is supposedly state-of-the-art , we have iPrint, iE-mail, iScan , in addition to the mundane iPod. But what I beheld was far more sophisticated. Yes!! IT WAS THE i-POT. Some innovative engineer in our organization had christened, what is otherwise called a loo (where I come from), the iPOT.
It was 2 minutes to noon, there it stood, unperturbed by my presence, it almost twinkled in contempt. The scene for this western was set. I stood at the other end of the booth, with my hands on my waist.
When it comes to performing in such a situation, I suffer from severe stage fright. Playing metal on stage, thats easy. Taking a shit in the pin-drop quiet of a german bathroom , that takes courage.
There was not a single trace of water anywhere....And then it dawned on me like a understanding usually dawns on people of mediocre intellect. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my memory, a voice was remarking about european ways of cleaning, it was saying " European methods are dry methods, these are efficient methods where water is scarce"
Well the mystery was solved, no water, no splashing, clean loo .
In the begining there was darkness, then there was light, the heavens, the earth and the paraphenalia, and finally there was tissue paper
The mystery that we are going to reveal is:
"How the hell do those europeans keep their shit-pot so clean?"
Working at ITPL, I have often wondered if it would do us a great benefit , if we were to potty-train all our engineers. Well, if you ever plan to take a dump in our established company, then bring along your own tissue paper, a brand of industrial strength disinfectanct, rubber gloves, etc etc.
So there I was , Looking at the next innovation at Infineon's new site CAMPEON. Everything here is supposedly state-of-the-art , we have iPrint, iE-mail, iScan , in addition to the mundane iPod. But what I beheld was far more sophisticated. Yes!! IT WAS THE i-POT. Some innovative engineer in our organization had christened, what is otherwise called a loo (where I come from), the iPOT.
It was 2 minutes to noon, there it stood, unperturbed by my presence, it almost twinkled in contempt. The scene for this western was set. I stood at the other end of the booth, with my hands on my waist.
When it comes to performing in such a situation, I suffer from severe stage fright. Playing metal on stage, thats easy. Taking a shit in the pin-drop quiet of a german bathroom , that takes courage.
There was not a single trace of water anywhere....And then it dawned on me like a understanding usually dawns on people of mediocre intellect. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my memory, a voice was remarking about european ways of cleaning, it was saying " European methods are dry methods, these are efficient methods where water is scarce"
Well the mystery was solved, no water, no splashing, clean loo .
In the begining there was darkness, then there was light, the heavens, the earth and the paraphenalia, and finally there was tissue paper
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