When I sign into blogger, on the right side of the dashboard, there is a panel with links that those in power deem interesting. One of those, today, was "Learn how to start mobile blogging" and "blogging was in the next line. I wasn't looking too carefully and it initially looked like "Learn how to muddle". I already know that.

I come to Chennai way too often. I wanted to go to Kerala with the sis and a cousin and an uncle and an aunt but I thought I'd have work this weekend. I do. But I decided, 2 days ago, that I was bored and didn't want to spend a weekend at work AND I wanted to come for an Ayush Homam. I couldn't come in time for that but... Well, I'm in Chennai again. Chennai is bored of me.

My cousin is taking her son, the one whose had the Ayush Homam that I missed, to Thirupathi to get him a mottai. I remember when his sister came back from Thirupathi, all her gleaming, messy hair gone, she was hardly recognisable. She was very proud of her bald pate and told everyone, pointing to her head, "mottai". Yeah, we can see.

But why shave the heads of kids? India, and Thirupathi in particular, is the biggest provider of human hair to the west for making wigs. I think it was economics which made the people of places like Thirupathi publicize this tradition so much. Why does god care about your hair? Shouldn't he have bigger things to worry about, like World Peace?

In related news, I was mottai'd twice. I have no idea why. There is a picture of me, about 2 years old, freshly shorn and holding a baby deer. Apparently they showed me the deer to stop my crying or something like that. Seems to me that they just waited for my hair to grow back and bang, shaved it off. 2 times! Sadists. I have always had problems with my hair. Maybe that was why. I'm almost 24; I shouldn't be holding something that happened 20 years ago against them. For a very long time, I was very proud that I was mottai'd twice. I have no idea why.

Just spoke to my parents. Apparently first time was normal mottai that they did when I was a year old in Thirupathi. Then after about 6 months or something, I had trouble breathing and my grand father prayed over me and I became okay and he said I was to have another mottai in Uppiliappan Kovil in Kumbakonam. So I did. Because god (my grandfather) said so. I think this was the time the deer was around. I hope they did more than just pray for me.

D bought a car. Maruti Suzuki Estilo. I think that is how it is spelt. We come even later to work, now that we don't have to worry about bus scedules.

Wouldn't it be nice if I just knew what I had to do. Just like that. A flash of understanding.

Wouldn't happen, though. Too easy.

With great power...

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 80% Green Lantern 75% Robin 70% Hulk 70% Catwoman 65% Iron Man 60% Superman 55% Batman 45% Supergirl 45% Wonder Woman 20% The Flash 20%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

I saw Dodge Ball last night with D. She was very amused. Maybe it is not as bad as I remembered it. I still maintain that Ben Stiller is gross, very cringe inducing. Less said about him the better.

Why would somebody call himself Rip Torn. It boggles the mind.

Charlie's Angels was next. I fell asleep 15 mins into the movie. Apparently the power went out. D was very sorry that she couldn't finish the movie. Does Drew Barrymore look like Preity Zinta?

Have you noticed that some people (naming no names) stand too close to you during a conversation? There is this really short woman. She stands so close to me, she is looking more at my boobs than at me. Weird. I move back, she moves forward, till I am against the wall (of the cubicle). Then I end the conversation and leave, mumbling something about a meeting or a phone call. Uncomfortable, Very.

Vain? Me? Huh.

Your results:
You are Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom 83% Lex Luthor 78% Venom 76% The Joker 73% Magneto 73% Apocalypse 73% Two-Face 65% Kingpin 59% Mr. Freeze 58% Riddler 55% Green Goblin 53% Dark Phoenix 52% Poison Ivy 46% Juggernaut 45% Catwoman 42% Mystique 41%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

Click here to take the "Which Super Villain are you?" quiz...

I found this saved as a draft. I think I posted it and then removed it. I don't remember why.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. - Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

Why does the word "fuck" generate so much anger? Why is it bleeped out on TV? i can understand "nigger" seeming offensive or "parayan", given the long history of discrimination, but why "fuck"? Say it to yourself people - fuck me, fuck you, fuck the world, fuck off... how is it any worse than go hang, go to hell, piss off, jump off a cliff, or anything else that people so regularly come up with to yell at others??

Yesterday on a rerun of Inside the Actors Studio, Drew Barrymore said that her favorite curse word was bleep. And then she tried it out a few times - bleep bleep bleep bleep. She might have meant fuck. James Lipton is weird. Like an alien behaving how he was told most people behave. Maybe not so weird.

What is your favorite curse?

Check out en.wikipedi.org/wiki/fuck if you ever feel the urge to know more about fuck (the word).

308! Whodathunk?

I went to an uncle's office last night. It was 8 pm. The offices weren't completely ready. Assembled cubicles were lying around and electrical cables and chairs were all over the place; Cardboard and paint everywhere. The 3rd floor was partially done. Most of the cubicles were up and there was a semblance of order, the sort of order you would find in my sister's bedroom. My uncle was in the conference room, so I sat down to wait. There were 4 men, early to mid twenties, neatly dressed, a few feet away from me, playing tennis on Wii, on a large flat screen TV rather scarily perched on a desk. I waited for about 45 minutes and they played tennis twice, bowling once and golf rest of the time. I also heard Age of Empires sounds coming from the far end of the room and other sounds that I didn't recognise, but they were definitely video game sounds. They had that tinny effect.

My uncle came by later and said that those guys were "testing" and "doing research" and "comparisons". I want that job. He said it doesn't pay very well though.

Work work work.

My work is weird. Most of it, right now, seems to be sitting in meetings or making calls to people in different time zones; the time in between these meeting, I set up the other meetings. When do I do, you know, actual work? It's lunch time now, so don't be snide.

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, addressing a convention, saying that his company estimates that a new blog is created every second of every day, and that the average readership of the average blog, according to Google, is now one.

So, would you say I'm average or above average? You are not allowed to say below average.

The only Indian serial killer/rapist I had ever heard of was Auto Shankar, who claimed that tamil movies made him want to kill/rape defenceless young girls. (I must admit, some tamil movies can provoke sheer rage/anger/vomit because of the bad/non-existant story lines/wardrobe changes/dancing around trees/annoying cast.) In the past 4 days, I have learnt, from our completely vapid/imagination free news channels (NDTV, CNN-IBN, Times Now, Headlines Today, Aaj tak, blah blah) that there have been quite a few serial killers in India. Even now, there is a guy who has killed 4 people in Mumbai in the past 2 months and leaves a beer can at the scene.

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Also, Barkha Dutt is very annoying when she goes all judgemental and her moralizing seriously pisses me off. She gets so strident and loud and looks like she's going to have an aneurysm on screen. What happened to journalists reporting the news and not making the news? And in her interview thingy with Kiran Bedi a few days ago, all she seemed to want was a confirmation of her view (Police bad, nasty, hate poor, want money) and she kept badgering Dr.Bedi till that woman too started getting pissed and started ranting (Police badly trained in small towns, villages; procedures not followed; politicization of system, blah blah). Dutt wasn't happy and moved on to someone else - Mohinder Singh's school friend who hadn't seen him in 30 years or something. The guy who, 2 days later, said he was going to be defending Singh, and said that he (Singh) was a good guy in school and he dosen't think he could have changed all that much in the gazillion years that followed. Okay.

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And yeah, Nick Leeson, the guy who single handedly brought down Barings Bank (Book - All the Glitters, Movie - Rogue Trader??), is giving lectures on why you should not hire rogue traders or something.

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I'm so hungry.