The bulbs are fusing out.... is there a ghost in the house?

First, the two incandescent bulbs in the common kitchen went out. As we were wondering how to fix them, Sriram, luckily had about 4 already, 'not mine' he said. Who cares, atleast we get some the bulbs. So I fixed them up.

Then, one bulb in my room fused out. I didn't actually notice it, but something told me everytime I entered the room that the lighting was different. It was then that I saw that only one was glowing. Yesterday, I flicked the switch up, and, with a tiny flash, the remaining bulb fused out. Great, I thought. There was one remaining bulb of Sriram's. I took it out(saw that the price was $.99 for 4, which is ok, compared to India prices), went to my room, stood on an old newspaper spread on a chair, struggled to screw the bulb out, and began to really struggle putting the new bulb in. I screwed, and screwed, and screwed(that's not funny). The problem was compounded by the fact that the chair wasn't tall enough to look over the shade attached to the bulbs. So I climbed on to the table, with the old newspaper protecting it from my big boots of course, and with the extra inch of sight, was able to screw the bulb in. I got down, crumpled the newspaper, threw it into my dustbin(I have improvised a cereals box into my dustbin), and with an air of pride flicked the switch back up. Nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing.

What I had done was I had screwed the fused bulb back, with the new one lying on my table. Gosh, I have to climb onto the table again. So there I was, back on the table screwing(yeah, screwing). And this time it was a success.

The day my Professor scared the wits out of me

One fine day, friday, evening, I was in the lab doing the experiments, and this particular one wasn't coming along well. I clicked the buttons to start, and was really concentrating on the figures on the screen, ready to note the break point(bubble point actually), when out of nowhere I heard this voice saying "Hi so how're things going". I nearly jumped out of my seat, and was so annoyed that ignoring his words I said to my prof,who had come down to check on me,
"You scared me, Doc"
"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
"It's ok."(stopping the experiment in its tracks)
"So how're things going"
"Blah blah blah look at these readings blah blah blah blah"
"That's kind of funny.. That never happened blah blah blah blah "
"So what to you say I do?"
"What you can do is blah blah blah blah ."
"Oh.. Ok.. You heading home early Doc?"(It was only around 5)
"Yeah, I'm going to meet my daughter, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah .... so we planned to meet her this week."
"Oh ok.. have a nice weekend.. See you..."
"Bye.."

And off he went.

The internet at your feet

Hmmm... Just imagine.. the whole of the internet at your feet.. serving you... fun, isn't it?

Google maps works so well here in US.. Give any two continental locations, specific to street, and you will get traffic routes, alternative routes, approx distance and time.. Great! And, of course, there are a whole lot of websites where you can just feed in your area code and get specific information, like, for example, weather. You can get a week's forecast. Or a 10 day forecast. Or a month's forecast. Down to details such as when it'll rain, the specific temperature at the time, just cool.

A lot of things are bought on the internet, which is really convenient, because you don't have to pay the commission charges usually paid to the dealer, meaning things are considerably cheaper. There was an interesting analysis some time back - most people were predicting the end of the US Postal Service, because most were now using e-mail, but in fact, since most people were buying online, they would have to be shipped by land ultimately, so even if the number of envelopes decreased, the number of parcels would definitely be higher, thus ensuring the survival if not a roaring comeback by the USPS. Almost everything can be done online.. Shopping, paying cable bills, power bills, credit card bills, insurance... Anything!