Thursday, October 25, 2007

In Murphy, I trust.

Statement of Murphy's law : If something can go wrong, it will.

Some of my favourite corollaries :
- Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
- If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
- When a body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.
- Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.
- All the good ones will be taken.
- To err is human, but it feels divine.

Its actually quite scary that everything in nature follows this law, when you least expect (and want) it to. I laugh to myself daily while picking up my fathers cell, which rings, without fail, whenever his goes to the bathroom. You see that whenever you have a high influx of buses in the bus stop, auto-rickshaws will be going extra-slow near the bus stops trying to tempt the people to their cozy, empty autos. Whenever the buses are hard to come by, or worse, its raining and you don't have an umbrella, you will see that the autos are full, or they won't come where you want, or worse, charge double or triple the meter price and leave you in a dilemma.
Our BMTC buses could easily become the brand ambassadors of Murphyism.
Everyday morning, me, Chetan and many other friends wait for our buses to college or at least, to Vijaynagar (i.e., 401s, 236). The most common sight in the 1st block bus stand : 80s series. There are at least four 80 series buses a minute, and how we wish desperately that all the 80s to be magically converted to 236s. After [0, 30] minutes of anxious waiting, we get a bus.
One fine day, we want to goto Navrang to Vinay's house. Though we could have easily walked to Navrang in 20 minutes, we decided to goto 1st block and then catch and 80. That would take us only 17 minutes and we could wring out more use from our bus pass. And as you would have expected the climax, the infinite fountain of 80s had dried up. A bus which we could get every 20 seconds in the morning, we got it after 20 minutes. But the irony of it all is, we saw 5 empty 401s go past us in that twenty minutes! you may not appreciate it, but its a special type of 'hotte-uri' reserved for regular commuters.
One more instance :
I internal test in college. Physics and Basic Mech. Engg. on the same day. Deadly combo with lots of theory to mug (esp. me who hadn't studied a rat's tail before tests started). After physics exam we started studying BME. I saw that I had missed the diagram for GeoThermal energy source in my notes. I asked
Me : "Hey, someone give me diag for geothermal"
"Wait da. I'll give you after I finished. but I don't think it'll be given, compared to others, its a joke !"
Me : "OK. Chuck it." And I didn't study it.
Very, predictably, 1st question in the paper : Explain GeoThermal energy and give its advanteages and disadvantages. Shit.
But fortunately, we had choices and the rest of the exam went well. So, all is well that ends well.

To, have the best chances to minimize the effect of Murphy's laws I heard this advice somewhere :
" Hope for the best and prepare for the worst "

Murphy may strike anytime ;).




Murphyism for our DebSoc guys : Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.

14 comments:

Abhiram Kramadhati said...

This is Abhiram.The article is excellently done.Very well potrayed with a subtle sense of humour.Good debut in blogging.I am also a beginner :)

Boneywasawarriorwayayix said...

Bhaandammale[:D]
(Abhis new dialogue....)
Awesome article da....
I guess, I am suffering the worst, because of THE GREAT Murphy's law....

Akshatha Hegde said...

This blog goes to my 'links' lisht. :)

And you forgot one corollary -- When several things have to go wrong, they do so, together. :D :(

Chaitanya said...

... and at the worst possible time. yeah I forgot that.

@ Arjun
What the hell does that mean?
Bhaandammale

Boneywasawarriorwayayix said...

Let me explain.....
Bond ma le......
In our abhis's accent[:D]

Chaitanya said...

lol..

Abhishek said...

Nice one da macha...I too have experienced this during my Jain College days..(nostalgic).
Another eg. for this is--
You click on the send button, just when your eyes see the mistake on the email.
I wud also like to add 1 more corollary...
Anything that can go wrong already has, you're just not aware of it yet!

Boneywasawarriorwayayix said...

Waiting for the next one da!!.....[:D]

Voyager said...

hey man...nice presentation of the theory.... I bet Akhilesh couldn't make it any better!!! So simple these things are and so obviously we miss to notice 'em in our busy duel with everyday activities... TOO GOOD!!!

Ponzi said...

nice blog!
especially about the busses and geothermal!

Anonymous said...

Oh, how much I agree with the 401s dried up when the 80s are coming! And viceversa too. Murphy should have gotten a Nobel. Really. A philosophy Nobel.

Or has he already got one? :P

The Nostradamus of our daily lives, eh? :)

Regards,
Karthik R

http://resonant-thoughts.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

great article!! like i told u,everytime im at a bus stop n need a bus urgently n dont get it,i remember your blog! lol. written real well :)

idream said...

ello....this is the first blog i'm reading and i love it....to hell with the grammar and stuff!! god bless murphy!! great start.....waiting for more:)

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