So many babies!

Another cousin of mine had a baby on Tuesday. And I was there when she had the baby. I promised her I wouldn't write about the process, so I won't. If only I could write about it...

It was a 'normal' delivery. Only, there was nothing normal about it. I was actually in the labour room with her and trust me, 'labour' is a good word for what she went through. A better word would be 'absolute horror'. Ok, 2 words.

Anyway, the baby, once it was finally out, was absolutely beautiful. Her body was all wrinkly but her face was very clear. And pink. And man, what a pair of lungs this one has. I was 'burping' her and she was constantly bawling her head off. My ears are still ringing.

This keyboard is really very dirty.

I have been spending the better part of the past 2 days in the hospital with the cuz and the baby, alternately burping her and cleaning her butt. The baby's, not the cousin's. They are coming bck home today and the cousin's first kid is up in arms already. Constant shrieks of 'This is MINE' and 'I want this' and 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'. God help us. The next couple of days are going to be fun. Baby screaming for milk, kid screaming for attention, mother screaming for sleep, aunt screaming for help, me screaming for silence. Much fun.

Last night, we had dinner at an aunt's place. There were about 9 full sized people amd 2 kids.

Going to pick up a cousin at the airport. More later.

In Chennai. The weather is surprisingly pleasant.

I was at a punyajanam today. My thus far anonymous niece finally got named - Shriya. A 10 day old baby is tiny, wrinkly and like a little monkey. I'm sure she'll grow up to just as pretty as her mom, if she takes after her, or as pretty as her dad's sister, who, while being very pretty, is a wee bit annoying. Don't ask me why; these reactions of mine don't always have reasons.

The day after I came to Chennai, I went to see my other cousin who recently had a baby boy. Her sisters in law were there and when I was introduced to them, one of them commented that she had met me just last week. Nope, not me. 'Twas my sister. Apparently we look identical. She kept insisting that I was not me and I kept insisting that I was, in fact, me. The conversation was hilarious. And then went I went out for lunch with a couple of friends, one of them commented that I look a lot like my sister. Yeah, I get that a lot these days.

I'm going to Ranipet tomorrow to meet patti. I'm back in a day. Not much to do in Ranipet. I'm quite sure I'll stay at home all day. And I'm equally sure that patti will grumble that her grandchildren hardly ever talk to her anymore and that she never knows what we are up to. How much do you talk to your grandparents? How much do you tell them? Every time she says something to the effect of "I never know what you are up to", I feel like I'm living a wild and reckless life in the wild city of Hyd. I wish.

For this New Year, I want to lose weight, travel some and figure out what I want to do. This keyboard needs to be cleaned. It is disgustingly dirty.

What plans for the New Year? What resolutions? What wishes?

My commas are all mixed up.

Lots of work done today; I have mostly been listening to people talk. Damn tiring. Now I want to finish some stuff before I go home, so I am making a guy stay back. He's not very happy.

I generally don't gossip. And people don't gossip with me. I don't know why. There is always, always a gap of a few days between when everybody know Something and when I get to know It. Sometimes that pisses me off. Mostly, I don't care. Here's what I don't get. When I was in Engineering college, I never told anybody that I don't gossip. But nobody ever told me stuff. Inevitably, someone would take pity on me and let me know what the rest of the world was talking about. In Bhub, I made the terrible mistake of telling someone to stop bitching about someone else. I never heard anything after that. I have the same problem now, at work.

I am also, apparently, a little difficult to get to know. And people think I am either a snob or a jerk or stuck up or arrogant when they first meet me. Some people. I have heard this first hand from a few. You know who you are. And then when (if) they actually get to know me, they treat me like a damn push over. Hmph.

I have also been told that I am scary. I get it. I am very yeti-like but I'm mostly harmless (like the Earth). I'm also rude and opinionated. Sucks to be me.

Then there are those who tell me that I'm sweet. Huh?

Hey internet, I started out writing someting totally different, about work and people who talk in languages I can't understand when I'm right in front of them and about people who smile too much. I got side tracked.

I hate people who look like the Joker all the time. Too much cheer. Stop smiling. It hurts to have a conversation with them. I don't want to stereotype, but there are 3 short women I know who smile a lot. By a lot, I mean all the time. And while talking. It seems rude not to smile back but try talking to them! My face hurts. It feels pulled and stretched unnaturally. I have a frown on my face the rest of the day, to compensate for all the freaky smiling. I hate being polite. Too much work.

I read an interview of Mrs.Kennedy on LeahPeah and this quote cracked me up.

“Windows is like the computer equivalent of a straight guy who’s afraid that spending any time on his appearance will make people think he’s gay.”

I thought I was the Person of the Year. Then I read more, and it was obvious that Time was talking about The Great American (Web 2.0) Citizen. Dammit. I wanted it to be me. All is lost, because of geography. Why shouldn't I be Person of the Year? Why shouldn't "Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world." apply to me? Why, oh why? This is why everybody hates America. They are so caught up in their Super-Power, Big Bully, Big Brother, I-Am-God status that even their media does not realise that "You" could be a loner in India. Why is a loner in India any less important than a loner in the all-holy US of bloody A? Hmph. All I ever wanted, ever since I knew of the Time Magazine's Person of Year popularity contest, was to be It. My picture on the cover. If not mine, then at least me as part of the collective. And the year that they name a collective "You", I still don't make the cut. This is so unfair.

According to MSNBC,

Time has been naming its person of the year since 1927 and the tradition has become the source of speculation every year, as well as controversy over unpopular choices such as Adolf Hitler in 1938 and Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.

Am I a more unpopular choice than Hitler?! Khomeni? George W. Bush (2004)? Come on. I can understand being less popular than Bono or Bill and Melinda Gates (2005) but still, they pick 300 million people and they still don't pick me. I voted for Stephen Colbert, but that was only because they didn't have a "Me" to vote for. I blog. I waste time on other blogs. I watch youtube; hell, I even comment on youtube. I think it was because I don't have a MySpace account. News Corp got mad that I don't have a MySpace account. They spent $580 million on MySpace and I don't have an account on it. That's why. I knew it.

300 million people are Person of the Year. Keep it. I don't need a MySpace account.

I came to work at 8 this morning. That's about 30 minutes ago. My floor was empty, the lights were off. It was great.

How is The Prestige? Whenever I say Christian Bale, people go "Ewww. Remember his horribly wooden acting in Batman Begins?"; that's not fair. It wasn't horribly wooden, it was amazingly wooden. Does nobody remember his amazing non-acting in Reign of Fire? Was I the only person who liked that movie? (Other than my cousin, G, who loved the movie for the other non-acting actor.) I like dragon movies. I think it started with Dragonheart. Even with Sean Connery's voice and Dennis Quaid in tights. The movie sucked, but dragons are brilliant. Last weekend, there was a 2 part movie on Star Movies called Ring of the Nibelungs. It was horrible. But it had a dragon. So I saw the movie till the dragon died. And the Dungeons and Dragons movies - brilliant. Goblet of Fire - yummy.

Anyway, I like Christian Bale solely because of Newsies. Singing, dancing newspaper delivery boys. Yay.

So how is The Prestige? Forget Christian Bale. Hugh Jackman!!! Magic!!!!!! Exclamation marks!

I always felt that religious people were weird. This proves it. Jesus Christ has BO, and it is in the Pentagon.

Whenever he sees another fellowship member, he says, "I immediately feel like I am being held accountable, because we are the aroma of Jesus Christ."

And we won't be able walk across the North Pole, 30 years from now. Damn.

We seem to be living in Day After Tomorrow. What next? Snow storm in New Delhi? Maybe that's not too far off, considering what happened a year ago. Woohoo, .

Time Magazine has a poll out for Person of the Year and my vote is for Global Warming. Or rather, my vote would be for Global Warming if that was one of the choices. Mahmood Ahmedinejad is leading right now. Did I get his name right? I used to think Parthasarathy was a painful surname to have. Not anymore. Not after Ahmedinejad or better still, Agadahshloo. I have no idea if I spelt that right. That would be the woman who plays the Iranian wife of Ben Kingsley in House of Sand and Fog and she plays somebody in Nativity. I like her first name - Soreh, I think. Or Shoreh.

I get about 45 junk mails in my Gmail account. They are of these categories:
1. Medical - Penis elongation! Viagra! Cialis!
2. Nigerian Minister asking for my account - Please send me 20000 US Dollars and your account number, and I will give you 1 million dollars.
3. Sick people - My sister/cousin/aunt/friend/niece is suffering from cancer/AIDS/flu and if I pass this message on, Yahoo/Google/AOL will give them 10 cents for email forwarded message.
4. Christ - Accept the Lord as your saviour and you will go to heaven. Or you will roast in hell. Yada yada yada.
5. Accout Notification - Since when do I have account in Bali and the US and Sierra Leone?
6. Stock Market - Buy this today and sell it tomorrow and be a billionaire!

and other weird stuff. Apparently, I am not the only one bothered by so much spam.

I generally delete everything without even looking at it; today I was bored. Never again.

I saw Casino Royale on Saturday. Hilarious movie. I loved it. Especially the moments between Vesper and James. When Bond said I love you, blah blah blah, I was waiting for the punch line. Really. And I thought it would end up like Guns of Navarone, where he has to kill her but he can't coz he loves her and she ends up dying anyway. It was, almost. The rest of the movie was great. Many parts of the movie seemed to have pissed of the indian censors; some scenes ended abruptly and seemed jerky - not at all in synch with the rest of the movie. Still, awesome fun. Especially the chase scene that ended in the Nigerian embassy blow up. It was not at all like a Bond movie though. Except the cell phone GPS and tracker and the defibrillator and how did they know he would be poisoned with Digitalis? It was as if Jerry Brukheimer and Ridley Scott made the movie together.

Some guy was expelled for being an atheist.

More gross pictures today, not from the same people though. This time, the pictures showed a huge dead crocodile being cut open and people pulling hands and legs out of its stomach. Some of the stuff they pulled out was partially digested and really gross.

Yeah, I know some weird people.