Running Commentary

in Prague

2010-08-11T11:33:00.000+05:30

Most of the people I came here with are still upstairs. Haven't heard a peep from the yet. We are planning on meeting for bfast at 9 and then we are going on a bus+walking tour of the city and the prague castle today, in the morning. Then Lunch, hopefully not pizza or pasta, and then no plans till 8pm, when we are going to a Marrionette theatre thingy called the Magic Flute by mozart. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday was great fun. Morning till 10am was an excercise in breakfast hunting. our hotel breakfast wass too expensive - 25 eur per person; so we decded to get to the city centre. only how to get to the city centre? the receptionist said take a tram to the national museum and you'll find lots of food. so we went to the tram station, and then we found out that we had to get tickets before we got on, not after. so we went back to the shopkeeper we passed on the way there and with a lot of gesturing and finger pointing and calculater typing we for 9 adult and 1 child tickets, with 2 going free. yay. we got there with peripa talking about how the place needed to have fruits. and the fiirst three didn't pass muster for the fruit reason or the cost reason or whatever but we finally had breakfast. eggs and toast and honey and muesli and yogurt and fruits and coffee and tea and chocolate. and the we walked.

we walked down to wenceslas square, past beautiful buildings and and many many tourists. we walked some more and reached a great mass of humanity, all standing around andwaiting for the clock to strike 12. and it struck twelve and kept ringing for a while. we all aaahed and oohed and pointed a the girl with blonde hair in the large window next to the clock tower looking much like the princess of legend, locked in a tower, waiting for her prince to rescue her. or waiting for the clock to finishing ringing so she could continue on the tour, i guess.

we went on to the river Vltava after some beer and margarita and tequila and waltermelon juice. the children were fed and we walked around somemore. and we took the metro back to the mall near the hotel where some of us split from the rest of us for sandwiches and icecream and then slept for a couple of hours.

the evening's entertainment was pretty boring - a musical fountain, though the bus ride around the city was nice. we came back to the hotel after another italian meal and crashed.

stuff happened the day before yesterday. mostly we just walked a lot before finding that the restaurant we were going to had closed and had dinner at what would be the first of many many italian restaurants we would grace with our presence in the trip, i'm sure.

i'm going to see if i can scare up some coffee from these people.

On packing

2010-08-07T11:19:00.002+05:30

I packed for my trip to Prague & Budapest last night. I will be gone for 10 days and then back home for a couple of days and then I'm off on another family trip to Nanguneri. That one is going to be one for the records. More about that after it happens. I don't have all the details yet. But I do know that about 30 -35 members of the extended family are going to Nanguneri to visit the temple there. I tried to get out of it. But no can do. Something big is happening apparently. Not entirely sure what.

So, back to packing. I am a terrible packer. I always pack more than I need and don't always take everything I need. Like raincoats and spare specs. So this time, I made a list a week ago. Now I can't find that list. So I started making another list - it became less of a list of things to take and more of a list of things to get/do before I left. It sort of goes like this:

Clothes for 10 days
Raincoat
Cap
Medicines - listed
Plane tickets
Hotel confirmation
Train to Budapest - tell the damn agent to BOOK!
Airport pick up!
Tour vouchers - printout - Tell tour operators to pick us up at hotel
Vegetarian restaurants!!
Ready to eat food - check with the aunts
Cash
Spare specs
Shoe
Socks
Phone - intl roaming? Do or do not?
Guide books
Laptop - to take or not?
Chargers - phone, ipod, camera
toothbrush, shampoo et all

I know I am going to end up with a suitcase that weighs as much as me and still find that I didn't take some very basic stuff. Happens every damn time. Joy. What's the worst that could happen? The airline could end up loosing my baggage. Or my bottle of Betadiene could break and spill and make everything smell like medicine. Or, like in my visit to London last month, my trousers could tear (on the side of the leg, not the crotch, thank you god) in a public place and embarrass the hell out of me. I'll let you know.

on stuff

2010-08-06T14:04:00.002+05:30

I like kottke.org very much. Where else would I find out about Dinosaurs that were shapeshifters or the typographical mustache?

I'm going on an Eastern European vacation this weekend, for 10 days, with assorted members of the family. 9 adults, 3 children. 4 over 60, 4 in the between 35 and 45 group, me and a 2 yr old, 5 yr old and 6 yr old. I promise pictures. We are going to Prague and Budapest. Somehow, I got volunteered to organise this thing. It is terribly stressful. And of course somebody wants a first class ticket, somebody wants to go to Italy on work, somebody want to go to London after the trip and they all tell me only after the tickets are already done. And we are going to places with names with so many vowels and weird marks over the letters - I have no idea if I have booked a tour to the same place twice. I am going to need a vacation to recover from my vacation. All of this while using a travel agent. Who annoys me. Anyway. Prague & Budapest. This is working out to be a fairly expensive holiday. About Rs.1,20,000 per person, including plane fare - a little less than it could have been as we are getting senior discounts on all our rooms.

Next time I'm take a long vacation, I'm staying at home and sending everybody away. Everybody except the cook and the maid. Just me and some pot boilers and ice cream. A girl can wish.

I'm watching season two of MI-5 currently. I like Mattew Macfayden in this role. He is so much better as Tom Quinn - Lead Spook than he was as The Hon'bl Fitzwilliam Darcy, of Pemberly. His range of wooden expressions goes better with this role. Season 3 and 4 to go. And then I will go back to Hustle, Season 2.

Did they make all of the Adam Dagleish books into TV movies? I saw the one with the murders in a seminary with the guy who comes in Dr.House. In Dr.House, he was supposed to have spent time in a seminary and decided against becoming a priest, I think. Was good. Want more. And the Inspector Lynley series as well. They come on and off on BBC, but I want more. I like watching all of it together, rather than 1 or 2 a week.

I also have the first season of Merlin, which I haven't seen. And the first 3 seasons of Mad Men, also which I haven't seen. So much to see, so little time.

And in this section we shall review my current aches and pains as if I am an old lady and not just 27 years old. Why? Because I said so.

I have a sore throat. I have had it for about 45 days. The first doc prescribed whatever they prescribe for the common cold, because at that time I had a cold as well and he told me to gargle. The second doc, a week ago, made me say aaah, took some blood, said I didn't have an infection, that there was no problem and that I was a little anemic and maybe I was spending a little too much time in air-conditioning, so why don't I have an anti-histamine and some iron. The anti-histamine makes me so sleepy I can hardly get up in the morning. The third doc, who I saw earlier today, said that I had ulcers in my throat and pharynx and I should have vitamin C and a germicidal gargle and eat bland, soothing food for a while. So I went home and the cook promptly gave me molagu rasam. I had it with lots of thair. That's bland right? How the hell did the second doc miss ulcers when I did aaah?

I've been buying so much Strepsils this past month they should gift me some stock. Who knew it came in so many flavours - of regular, orange, lemon & honey, ginger and lemon, my favorite is ginger and lemon. Which is weird, because I don't like ginger otherwise.

2009-04-28T16:16:00.003+05:30

Stuff:

According to Google News the craigslist killer is Entertainment.

Susan Boyle sung a seriously sucky song. Supremely soporific.

Fareed Zakaria looks constipated - also apparently America is suddenly almost 50% liberal.

Ahmedinejad (?) sounds fairly rational when he says, "I have posed two questions over the Holocaust. My first question was, if the Holocaust happened, where did it take place? In Europe. Why should they make amends in Palestine? The Palestinian people had no role to play in the Holocaust. They had no role, for that matter, in the Second World War. Racism happened in Europe, but amends are made in Palestine?" - I don't like the Holocaust denying, but I do think that the Palestinians got screwed over by everybody.

A bio-degradable, racing car. If you get hungry, eat the steering wheel. "No gingerbread or jelly beans were harmed in the making of the car."

I don't get why criminal prosecution of the guys who framed the torture memos is a controversial topic. If there is a law against torture, and if that law was broken, then where is the controversy in making sure the people who broke the laws are prosecuted? How is it a left vs. right, Donkey vs. Elephant issue? Especially since there is precedent. Didn't the Americans prosecute the Japs and the Germans for torturing American/Allied POWs during WW2?

In the UK, people who take pictures of the police are reported to the police as potential terrorists? Hello 1984, goodbye 2009.

2009-02-12T09:42:00.003+05:30

I have an ache near the base of my palm, where the fleshy part of my palm below my thumb meets the end of my life line. I also have an ache at (in? on? near?) my shoulder and my neck is sprained. All of these are apparently because of bad posture and too much time at the computer. And all of these, on and off, for the past 3 days. It gets better or worse depending on how I slept. Better today.

There is a guy on the other side of the room who blinks a lot. He closes his eyes really tightly every time. Close eyes, clench, release. Repeat. It looks really weird. I keep looking at him, wondering if I'll catch him doing it again and wondering if he'll catch me staring.

2009-02-02T19:19:00.002+05:30

In Bruges, really good.

Sleep, also good.

Over excited consultants who don't seem to need sleep, not all that great.

Food. Bye.

2009-01-29T12:25:00.002+05:30

Saw Frost/Nixon last week. Tried to see blah blah Benjamin Button. Also saw The Changeling.

F/N was good. The guy who played Nixon was fantastic. Oliver Platt and Sam Rockwell were also great. The interplay between actual Watergate era recordings and the movie was also really good.

Benjamin Button was awful. Terrible. Boring. It should come with a self-strangulation warning. Caution: The contents of this DVD may cause you to choke yourself to death. Bleh.

The Changeling met expectations. Not more, not less. In a few scenes, Jolie wore hats whose brims cast shadows over her eyes and all you could see were her lips. Appa was very impressed with her. She acts! Apparently, he was biased by the constant presence of Brad Pitt by her side in all her photographs and everybody knows that Pitt can't act. She plays pretty much the same role she did in the Daniel Pearl movie. Different costumes, much different hair. Jewish wife missing husband in Muslim country in one, Single mom missing bastard child in conservative and crooked country in the other. Pedophile serial killer in one, Islamic terrorists in the other. Supported by Pakistani cop and Wall Street Journal Editor in one and Priest and Cop in the other. The crooked cops and psychotic psychologists were extra in this movie. Anyway, Go Malkovich!

weddings.

2009-01-23T14:22:00.003+05:30

3 people I know are getting married on february 15.

2 people I know are getting married on february 6.

1 person I know is getting married on january 23.

There seems to be a rash of weddings.

Definitions of rash on the Web:

any red eruption of the skin
imprudently incurring risk; "do something rash that he will forever repent"- George Meredith
a series of unexpected and unpleasant occurrences; "a rash of bank robberies"; "a blizzard of lawsuits"
foolhardy: marked by defiant disregard for danger or consequences; "foolhardy enough to try to seize the gun from the hijacker"; "became the fiercest and most reckless of partisans"-Macaulay; "a reckless driver"; "a rash attempt to climb Mount Everest"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

I don't have a problem with my friends or family tying the knot. But I am not a fan of weddings. Not even because of my dislike for dressing up, my hatred of crowds or the pain associated with awkward conversations with people I'm supposed to know.

These days, much of my disdain for weddings stems from inquiries made by well-meaning but annoying family members whom I barely know as to when I plan on getting married. "Never", "I have no such plans", "Not in this life" and "Are you fucking kidding me?" don't seem to be considered serious answers. They scoff, and then they say, "That is what they all say, but everybody gets married in the end." The End.

I don't want to get married. I don't want to have children. Unfortunately, I am a vadagala iyengar girl, of "good family". This means that at 26 (in less than a month, feb 17, mark your calendars) I am almost on the shelf (if I may borrow a term much used in Regency novels).

My mother has an theory. Marry at 24, have 2 children by 30 and the children will be old enough and financially able to take care of you when you are in your sixties, retired and infirm. Theoretically sound, practically, I DON'T WANT CHILDREN. At which point, the discussion veers off to voodoo science of maternal urges and body clocks. Exit stage left.

Maybe.

2009-01-23T09:59:00.003+05:30

348 Posts, last published on Mar 25, 2008

How hard can it be to start again.
What will I write about.
Why now.
Should I first figure out why I stopped writing.
Or should I just stop thinking and start writing.

I have a problem. They say that recognizing that I have a problem is half the solution. I don't know what to write. I am writing for me, and yet there is a mythical you. That, I think, is half the problem. I want to write and be acknowledged, but some people know me, and some people know of me and I an worried about opinions and comments, said and unsaid, and more worried about the unsaid than the said. Shudder. I sound neurotic. I am spending way too much time with my mother.

Other than that, I am on twitter and facebook since a couple of days ago. With my real name. I have not used my real name here and I'm hoping that that will keep the people who don't know about my blog from finding out about my blog.

I don't know why I have decided to become cyber-social suddenly (or whatever it is called when one starts to use all these online social networking sites). Or maybe I do. I don't know many people outside of work in Rpt and this is going to be my post-work entertainment. Yay.

I'll be touch, dear blog. I hope you didn't miss me too much. I won't be gone so long this time.

2008-03-25T19:24:00.002+05:30

I am 2 days old in my new job. And aching all over. I don't know if that is because of standing and walking all day or because of my cold and fever. Anyway. It has been an interesting 2 days. And so completely different from what I am used to.

So. What's up?

I'm tired, dirty and hungry at the end of work. Tired and hungry is normal at the end of work, but dirty is new for me. I have a factory job. Much fun. I'm learning chemistry and manufacturing and pretty soon I'm going to come in contact with labour laws, I think. I'm going to have periodic reviews, too soon and too close to each other for comfort.

When I come home and have to bathe and I ache all over, I feel like I have done something. Which is weird. I haven't really done much. I'm toting a notepad and following people, asking questions and eavesdropping on conversations.

Lets see how it goes.

2008-03-08T21:58:00.002+05:30

So.

Saw Micheal Clayton, American Gangster and No Country for Old Men. Will see Juno when I get to Ranipet. Is 10000 b.c as bad the reviews say it is?

I'm watching Jurassic Park 3. The part where he says, "It is a bird cage", and the little boy goes whooosh. I can't decide who is more annoying - William H. Macy or Tea Leoni. (I don't know know how to make those accents). Billy just jumped off with the parachute that shouldn't work and is currently out flying pterodactyls. If they had pterodactyls, would some of them have gone off the island and onto Mexico or somewhere? This suspension-of-disbelief thingy does a lot of work in this movie. Don't raptor eggs break? There is always a shot in these movies where they show this wide pasture with a lot of herbivores just before something terrible happens. And another shot with someone with their arm inside a pile of shit. Bleah.

Ok. Enough.

Read anything interesting lately? I read Snow. Very so so.

A tiny bug flew into my eye, under my specs. It feels like there are still bits of it inside. Itch. Itch. Rub. Rub.

Did you know that there is a channel called Topper where they go over school stuff? Math and Science for classes 9 to 12. Monotonous and uninteresting. It is almost as if they are reading out the textbooks. I'm sure that there is a market for this stuff but can't it be made more interesting? The woman who does 11th Physics reminds of the woman who taught me geography.

2008-02-23T17:33:00.003+05:30

Read - H.I.V.E, By Mark Walden - Artemis Fowl-ish
Reading - From Russia with love
Have, not read - In Her Majesty's Secret Service
Don't ask.

Going to watch - Jumper
Have, not seen - Micheal Clayton, No Country for Old Men, Juno - Will see tonight and tomorrow.
Yes, I know I should watch these and not stupid Jumper, but, I have tickets for Jumper and I have these at home and can see them any time. Social interaction. Yay me.

Amma is having a meeting in the living room (which is a very stupid name for a room, by the way). I was in the meeting. For a while. Made some very valuable suggestions, even if I say so myself. Now, I am in bed, it is hard to type when my elbows are resting on a pillow. Would be easier if I sat up. But then I would have to sit up.

I saw a manga version of Ramayana in the bookshop today. It was beautiful. Rs.1500. No thank you. I went through the whole thing there. Very nice. Very abridged, though. Totally unlike anything I have seen or read before. Take that Uncle Pai.

Yello.

2008-02-18T09:13:00.005+05:30

Back. Don't know for how long. I've missed you all terribly.

Happy belated birthday to me.

I quit my job. They haven't let me go yet. I will be joining my new non-IT job sometime in march.

I saw Taare Zameen Par last night. I liked the kid. Aamir Khan was in tears in every consecutive shot. He would not make a very effective special needs teacher if he was the one in need of a hug all the time, would he? I loved the fact that the kid also had his hair standing up in the middle like Aamir Khan, in the last scene.

Also saw The Kingdom last week. It didn't have subtitles when the dialogues were in arabic. Idiots.

I bunked work today. Nothing in particular. My legs and my stomach hurt - like it does before I get stomach cramps. So I decided to stay at home. Just in case. Pre-emptive measures.I really have nothing much going on at work right now.

Anyway, new job is going to be 6 days a week. Torture. I hope I don't go nuts. And, intial training is going to be in my home town. You know what that means? I'm going to be living with my parents for a few months. Lovely. And my grandmother. I love them, I hope I survive. Death by overdose of family. Will send interesting conversation snippets. I hope to ban the M word as soon as I get there.

What else is new? What is going on in your lives?

2007-07-11T11:28:00.001+05:30

I have a bunch of word docs on my office comp. Stuff I had written a long time ago. I was reading them now and one doc had just one line - "My pee is not ver yellow because I drink a lot of water". What was I thinking?

2007-06-25T18:05:00.001+05:30

I haven't written in a long time. Have a major case of work and writer's block.

It is still not over.

Don't know if I will write. Might start over. Chronicling books and movies and food. Don't really want to write.

Blah.

2007-05-30T09:30:00.001+05:30

I am back. 2 weeks in the US. Lots and lots to drink. The first 3 days I had red wine, white wine, red, white, red... Then it varied. Margaritas, mohitos, honey wine, german beer, italian beer, american beer. You would think I was a real tippler.

Yesterday, I hurt all over. Then I had a huge lunch and about an hour later, life was ok. Then I went home and watched LOTR 1 and 2 on my new laptp in my newly air conditioned room. Hmm. Then I played scrabble with D and lost by a few points. I really suck at it. The only reason I didn't totally embarass myself was because I got Q and Z and X and managed to make triple word/letter scores on them. Phew.

Anyway, I like the US. Whatever little I saw. Elbow space (except on airplanes), buses that have time tables (gasp!) and come on time, wide open spaces, clothes that fit me, awesome food (but way too large servings) and maps! I have discovered a new love for maps. I love maps. Can you imagine navigating chennai with a map? Crazy.

Anyway, food. I had italian a couple of times (it tastes pretty much like it does in India. I was surprised.), mexican (ditto), lebanese (not so much), ethiopean (first time!) and american. Yum. I liked everything I had. One good reason not to live in the US. You'd need a crane to lift me out of the house.

My cousin asked me which place I liked better - Dallas or San Francisco. I told him I'd have to think. He was very offended. Apparenlty Dallas doesn't have any personality, being all flat and brown and dusty. Ok.

I found one thing weird. So many people whom I asked directions didn't speak english. So, I got into a lot of buses and trains that were going in the wrong direction. Not fun at all.

More later. Going to watch Cheeni Kum today.

Somebody, get me another job.

2007-05-11T15:12:00.001+05:30

On the way to work today, I saw guy wearing a T Shirt with this - "I'm with Stuped ->"

Last night, we went to a restaurant we hadn't yet been to. Food was good, as usual, we all ate too much. I learnt that zafran meant saffron and had a very sweet Zafran lassi. But the food was good. Definite visit again.

I was going to say something else. I had it all written in my head and when I started typing this out - poof, all gone.

More later.

2007-05-08T15:36:00.000+05:30

First post in a week.

My brain hurts.

There is an elevator here that scares the shit out of me. It is very slow, creeeeeeeaaaaaks and sometimes randomly stops between floors. Everybody panic. I still don't take the stairs - I'm lazy. Big surprise.

The funny thing is, the other 2 elevators have been shut down "for repairs" for the past 2 months. This one hasn't been "repaired" even once since it started getting weird. I wonder what it takes. A plunge from the 3rd floor (which is as high as this building gets)? Ok, maybe not funny.

There is a Cocaine energy drink? Seriously? Also, does cocaine give energy? Why call an energy drink Cocaine? Coke and Crack were already taken? How did they not see this coming? And, what did it taste like?

"Of course, we intended for Cocaine energy drink to be a legal alternative the same way that celibacy is an alternative to premarital sex..."

Anyway, our yucky vending machine is broken. So no coffee all day. No coffee sucks. Give me coffee. Coffee. Coffee.

Some random guy talking on the phone just walked ast my cubile and gave me this huge, all teeth gleaming, grin. I was sitting. He looked down and grinnnnnned. Scary. He had Beatles hair.
Some guy sent me a forward. FYI & A apparently means For your information and attention/action. I HATE ACRONYMS. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE
Ugh.

The water suddenly tastes like paint.

The Power of Suggestion

2007-04-30T15:25:00.001+05:30

Shrek 2 on TV last night.

Green poop this morning.

2007-04-27T12:11:00.001+05:30

2 false fire alarms in the past week.

I don't think anybody would even get up from their seats the next time; then there would really be a fire. Boy, meet wolf.

2007-04-24T14:58:00.001+05:30

The world is going to the dogs. Among other things.

I turned on the TV before leaving for work and I saw that Boris Yeltsin had died, First thing that came to my ming was Birthmark! That was Gorbachev, wasn't it?

Life sux. Hyderabad is hot.

Still blocked.

So much work. Drowning.

Anybody reading the new Tolkein? Did you know that they called Silmarillion Sellamillion when it first came out? I wonder if Children of Hurin will be good. Reviews haven't been great.

My Co.'s annual results came out. Everything was great. Everybody is very happy. Everybody did great. Everybody is on the top of the world. Everybody but me. I think I am biologically inclined to be morose when people around me are happy.

I want to do something. Anything. Help.

The only thing I look forward to is sleep. It is very depressing.

2007-04-20T16:48:00.001+05:30

Weekend!

My work PC is super tempramental. It crashed 3 times in one week, 2 months ago. And today, it was stuttering and blinking. Painful. It is so bad that of the 15 numbers that I have scribbled on the whiteboard in my cubicle, 8 are helpdesk numbers. 8. Ofcourse, 4 of them never pick up the phone or are always busy and a couple have no idea what to do, whatever the problem is, but I can generally get someone to a) tell me what to do when the comp gives up or b)come and fix it.

One of these days, it is going to die. And I will not miss it. To hell with it.

We have to fill out this thing every week. About what we did all week and submit it to the project manager. Ideally, we keep the program running and add a line whenever we "change tasks". I have 3 months pending. The last time I filled it out, I did 5 months in 2 hours. It is really tiring. Speaking of tiring, Tired.com is apparently a very popular website, or so Slate.com says. I dont have the link, but they have an interesting article. Go check it out.

I lost my funny.

2007-04-20T13:01:00.001+05:30

I am bored. Not a new state of affairs for me.

Vish - that's why I haven't been writing. Nothing to write AND a major case of writer's block.

Will write when the block goes away. If.

I have to cut my toe nails. Thought you might like to know.

Need to wax my arms. Immediately. I look like a close relative of the Indian Black Bear. So.

2007-04-16T15:07:00.001+05:30

A lot of billboards in town have nothing on them. They are bare, metal skeletons of their former colourful glory. Seriously. Awesome winds last week, blew a lot of stuff away. And since I have a graveyard outside my windows, I get it all, unobstructed by buildings. "Open the windows and let the air force come in." Indeed.

Not so awesome, one was toppled. It fell on an icecream kiosk and (the rumour is) it killed the guy in the kiosk. It has been a week since that happened, and all the metal is yet to be removed.

I saw Bheja Fry yesterday. A lot of fun, if you are in the mood for some leave-your-brain-at-home silly comedy. There is no real story and everything happens in two rooms and in one evening. But still, great time pass. Of the 5 of us who went for the movie, only two of us liked it.

I also saw Eragon, about two weeks ago. What a sad, terrible movie. The dragon was awesome, though.

The rains are here and the evenings are awesome, as long as you don't get caught in the rain. I lost my umbrella today. Last year, I lost 3 umbrellas. Apparenlty, the rains will stop sometime next week and we will have another month of horrible summer and then the rains will start again. Not looking forward to the heat. Heard that Delhi is 40 degrees already. Shudder.

2007-04-10T09:46:00.001+05:30

I lost my phone again. I have no idea where I lost it. I think I left it in the auto on the way to the airport. Maybe I left it in the airport. Or on the plane. Or in the auto on the way home, from the airport. I just know that when I got home, I didn't have the phone.

Airtel is surprisingly efficient. I gave them my old phone number and a copy of my driver's license and I got my old number back!

So, if I had your number, send it to me again.

I told amma that I lost the phone and she went, "you keep losing it. be more careful." Keep losing it? Twice in one year is not "keep losing it." Twice a month, maybe.

It drizzled last night. We had high hopes for rain. No such luck. It is a bit early for rain, but there was a cool breeze after that. Awesome.

How is the weather where you are?

Go work.

2007-04-04T12:17:00.001+05:30

I like phdcomics.com. And Doonesbury.

I read somewhere that people who read a lot of fiction tend to lie more, and more convincingly. Soph also told me that when she was here. Apparently she lies really well. Maybe she does. Maybe it is because she reads a lot of fiction. But I can't lie worth a damn. I read a lot too. I really, really suck at lying. (Also, Lie=Lying. Why?) I, a)don't like to lie, b) am not very convincing when I lie. Am I not convincing because I don't like to lie? And why do I not like to lie? It is not a "it is wrong to lie, and thus I won't lie" feeling. It is more of a why bother? and who gives a shit? feeling.

My point is this - I am worried. If I am in a situation where I absolutely HAVE to lie to, I don't know, save my life or something, what if I totally blow it? What if I suck so much that the villains just laugh and shoot in me in the head, all in the same breath? This could be a huge personality flaw. Also, is my unimpressive lie-ability because I am *gasp* unimaginative? Seriously, folks, I could be in deep shit and unable to dig my way out because I blushed or stammered or looked at my feet or up or stared too much at the other guy or said a load of crap.

I need help.

2007-04-04T10:25:00.001+05:30

State wide bandh today. Called by "BC Parties" and supported by Congress. What do you imagine a bandh would be like? Empty streets, shops closed, people standing in crowds yelling for whatever they called the damn bandh for, offices, schools closed? Nope. The streets were just as chaotic, shops hadn't opened when I left for work, but they anyway open only at 10, and offices were open. Only public transport and schools were off.

Respect the bandh. Give me a day off.

2007-04-03T12:21:00.001+05:30

It is only Tuesday. I have friday off!! Awesome. I love 4 day weeks.

I saw bits of Tremors a couple of days ago. It is, without a doubt, the worst monster movie I have ever seen. They took the worm from Dune and turned it into an underground Anaconda (the movie with Jennifer Lopez and John Voigt wading through some swamp and getting chewed up and spit out by a monster snake was Anaconda, right?)

My love for Sean Bean has been well documented on this blog. I have whined a lot about how he never gets good, fleshy, yummy roles. He plays Sharpe (awesome) in a mini (?) series that comes on History Channel (yummy) and I religiously turn on the TV only to turn it off again because IT IS IN HINDI. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. I like watching crap dubbed in hindi. Like Jurassic Park 3. I can even watch Harry Potter in Hindi or Tamil. But Come On. I beg the cable guy everytime he comes to get paid. But no. Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel and History will continue in hindi. It could be worse. It could be telugu. Yikes. (No offense, Al.) I want. I'll stop whining when somebody buy the DVDs for me.

Speaking of Bean, Rowan Atkinson has apparently retired the Mr.Bean character. No more Mr.Bean. Thank god.

2007-03-30T08:21:00.000+05:30

Post-concerned? I didn't know it was a word. It is used in this article many many times. What else can it be used for, other than "not bothered by gay people"?

2007-03-29T15:45:00.001+05:30

Diarrhoea. Don't know why.

Soph sent a message on Gtalk when I was in a meeting. I had my monitor projected on the wall (what is the right way to say this?). The message popped up. "Butter Cookies! Lemon Icing!" Everybody laughed.

I have some mandatory training stuff to do. I had to do 1 day of training before the end of this quarter. There is a list of stuff I can do online. Most of it is completely dumb. I did "Questioning Skills". I passed. I wonder what the person who makes these stupid multiple choice questions is told about the target audience. IQ of a 3 year old and attention span of a toad? Mandatory. Gah!

Anyway, diarrhoea. Hate. It.

2007-03-28T17:00:00.001+05:30

I have a backache.

I had really sweet tea. With 3 teabags. And hot. I am not a tea person, but the coffee from the Nescafe vending machine sucks.

I have 15 phone numbers scribbled on the white board in my cubicle. 10 of those are of the computer maintenance guys. My comp crashes a lot. They recognise me by my voice these days.

I didn't recognise a guy in my department - he was away for 3 months. We came up in the lift together. Somebody told me later that it was him. I still didn't recognise him.

I leave at 5.30pm almost everyday, these days. Unless I have something that absolutely has to be done that day.

X-Men last night. I like Ian McKellen more than Patrick Stewart. And Halle Berry not at all, at least in that movie.

Food. Sleep. Air Conditioning.

2007-03-20T09:29:00.001+05:30

The Soph was here for the weekend. She is still here but I'm at work. I was supposed to have a long call this morning, so I came early. As it always happens, always, the thing I was supposed to be here early for was no longer going to happen. My life. It. Sucks.

The Sis was pissed that I did not ply her with alcohol. And that I was such a lazy bum. She has known me for 21 years, how did that come as a surprise? She got me brownies pretending to be fudge, so I'm not going to say another word. Yummy.

Anyway, we saw Pursuit of Happyness and 300. Pursuit - very good. I liked it a lot. The kid was cute, Will Smith was good. Nuff said.

Spoilers -

300 - what were they thinking? I had no expectations for the movie and fully expected it to suck, Gladiator style. Then I saw it. I had totally overestimated it. Everything I expected was there - the burnished bodies, the stilted conversations, the beautiful women, the horrible monsters, the poncy persians, all that I had heard and read about.

It was much much more than that. There were the charging rhinos and elephants, the 10 ft tall god-king, the hunchback, the gleaming eyes of the wolf, the corrupt politician, the faithful soldiers, the dying "It was an honour to die by your side", "it was an honour to have lived by yours", Faramir! the narrator, the "council", the gorgeous oracle, the lecharous priests, african persians, whipped slaves, trolls, giant, twisted men, the 10 ft tall king, the jewellery, the thrones, the rhino and the elephants ... I could go on and on.

//I wrote a load of stuff here but Blogger lost it. Damn you Blogger.//

Overwhelming East versus West crap - West good, East bad. We got it. Move on. East - fat men, dark men, slaves, pompous, arrogant, delusions of divinity. West - strong, fearless, honorable (except the politicians, but seriously, does that surprise you?), free, victorious even in death, blah blah.

If they had to make a movie about the Battle of Thermopylae, why did they not use The Gates of Fire instead of a half assed, unresearched, uninteresting, comic book. Sorry, Graphic Novel. I felt like I was watching a video game on the big screen. I was more emotionally involved during Monster House. It was very blah. Not even the cute kid getting his head chopped off made me wince. How terribly sad is that?

Watch the movie. Enjoy the popcorn.

2007-03-16T15:45:00.000+05:30

Keith - I googled my full name and to my horror, this damn thing was on the first page! Last link, but still, Holy crap, Batman! So I went through a bunch of my old posts and deleted my name. That's why your RSS thingy is throwing up my old posts. Also, you are not helping. You wrote my name! In caps! So.. Yeah, about the poop, sorry about that. Can't help it. It comes naturally to me.

Ugadi on Monday. That is the Telugu New Year, for those of you who don't know. Seriously, we are a weird people. Each state has a different new year? Or is this confined to the south?

We were supposed to have Tuesday off and Monday working, so most of the people here took Monday also off - 4 day weekend! Much fun. Airports cried. Then earlier this week, the HR boss man here sent a mail.

Just this morning, the Government of AP has changed their holiday from the 20th of March (Tuesday) to the 19th of March (Monday) based on what they have heard from the experts on this.

Who are these experts? I think these new years are based on the lunar calendar. Does that mean that the moon speeded up a little? Or did they do their math wrong?

The Soph is coming for the weekend.

Did I tell you that I have a temporary roommate? A friend of D's is staying till she finds a place. She has really long hair. And she lisps, which I found funny earlier. Now, I don't notice it anymore.

I went to a restaurant I had not been to before, a couple of days ago. D's treat. I don't remember why. Anyway, it was fashioned after the first train that ran in India (and Asia, I think) between Bombay and Thane. Food was good; a bit bland, but still good. They had this really weird thing though. They played this recorded "train arriving at platform 1" sort of thing over and over again. It arrives, it departs, it arrives again and departs again and keeps arriving and departing. Horrible.

Happy Ugadi.

2007-03-12T16:55:00.000+05:30

Have you ever been constipated that your legs hurt and you could hardly sit without wincing? And then, when you finally shit, your asshole burns but you have this overwhelming feeling of relief that that this pain, this agony is finally over and you can stop drinking water by the gallon?

I get that feeling after ~~meetings~~ some calls.

2007-03-01T17:31:00.001+05:30

I found this website called Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics and it is brilliant. It explains why some things in movies could have never happened. Most of the stuff they have is obvious and you'd have figured it out when you saw the movie but it had some stuff I didn't know. Much fun. I have spent most of today reading it. Did you know that if all the icebergs in the North Sea melted, there would be no change in sea levels? It is obvious, but I never thought about it. And how did the mother ship still hang in the sky after it was destroyed, in Independance Day?

Also, National Geographic's website is pretty cool. Check out the articles about the Collosal Squid and the giant sinkhole that swallowed houses and people in Guatemala. Unbelievable. And Mud Volcanos! Reality is way freakier than fiction.

I had a big thing at work that went off well today. Phew, that's one down, many more to go.

Saw Gosford Park last night. Brilliant movie. I have never seen the whole thing before. Clive Owen! Helen Mirren! Stephen Fry! Maggie Smith! So awesome.

Has anybody seen Eragon? Is it any good? I want it to be good, but I saw a trailer and the dragon doesn't look all that great. You know what was a cool dragon? The one in The Goblet of Fire. And Reign of Fire. Don't get me started on dragons.

I saw a bit of the BAFTAs and the a bit of the Oscars earlier this week. The Brits were so much funnier than the Yanks. Or maybe I just like their brand of humour more.

2007-02-21T21:25:00.000+05:30

It snowed. I took the bus to work, not trusting the traitorous, icy sidewalks and winds blowing in from Sweden. Work over, my colleague decided he wanted to walk back. In the freaking snow. It was still snowing and the wind was heavy. The forecast was for a snow storm. But the guy wanted to walk. So walk, we did. The cold was cold and wind was windy. My clothes were heavy and my backpack felt like a small person. And we walked on. Conversations died down as we concentrated on not slipping. Cars whizzed by; people safe in the warmth of the car looking out at the two fools braving the elements. It was a short walk, maybe 2 kms, but it felt like many many miles. The last bit was the worst. The road was open to the sea, there were no buildings shielding us from the wind and the snow was slushy, slippery and scary. Then we were there. One apple later, I feel human again.

And they all said, this morning, "This is nothing, you should have been here in December." Thanks but no thanks.

2007-02-18T22:35:00.000+05:30

I had a lot of fun today. Walked a lot, had good food. Now I have so much work to do.

K, S just pointed to where the red light area was. We didn't actually go there. But now I know where it is if I ever want to go. So.

S was sure we'd get lost but we didn't. He was so embarrassed to be seen with a map. But nooo, he won't ask for directions. We walked a lot. Anyway, now I have seen the Little Mermaid and what is the big deal about it? It was tiny and had bird shit on it. S warned me. I should have listened. But did I? Of course not. Other than Tivoli, it was the only thing that I had heard about Copenhagen and I am not a big amusement park fan, so off to the little mermaid it was. But the walk was nice. Now I can say I have seen the Queen's Palace, NyHavn(?), the outside of Tivoli and the little, little mermaid. Check it off my non-existing list.

A paper clip is holding the glass in my frame. A screw came off. I was going to bring my spare, but then I thought, "it is just a week, what is the worst that could happen?" Always. Always. I should have known.

It was really cold yesterday evening. Today was so much better. Sunny and not very cold. A sweater was all that I needed.

Now off to do some work. Wish me luck.

2007-02-17T23:08:00.000+05:30

I'm here. It is cold.

Happy birthday to me. 24 is bloody old.

I had a very uncomfortable flight from Bombay to Frankfurt. There was a guy sitting next to who was fast asleep even before the plane took off and his head was on my shoulder pretty much all the time. I tried shrugging him off, I woke him and told him to lean away and elbowed him half a dozen times. Nothing worked. I think I slept for about an hour.

I'm bored. It is cold and I'll probably eat alone tonight. Because the guy I have come here with bought a loaf of bread and a bunch of spreads and wants to have that for dinner. No way. I'll take my new P.G.W and go eat at the restaurant here. When he bought bread and cheese and shrimp salad and stuff like that, I bought a six pack of beer, chips and some wafers. Go me.

We were walking on the road that runs along the sea here and the wind was biting cold. It is going to take a couple of days to get used to this weather. But it is beautiful here.

On the way from the station to the hotel, we met a Iranian woman who showed us the way. She was damn cute. All praises for Denmark and Hindi movies. She said she could understand the movies even though there were no subtitles and she didn't know the language.

I saw Lage Raho Muna Bhai on the plane. I was listening to some german music and reading the subtitles. It was hilarious. Almost as funny as Jurassic Park in tamil. And speaking of JP, I saw JP 3 for the first time last week. What an unbelievably terrible movie! It was horrendous. And the main dinosaur looked like a clay model. What the hell were they thinking? I wanted Tea Leoni's character to be ripped to bits. I was very sad that she survived. Hellfire and damnation!

I met a Swiss woman at the Mumbai airport. She said that she was standing in a queue at the Goa airport when a couple of Europeans cut the queue and went ahead of her. A guy standing behind her said that they were probably Germans, because Germans can't queue. She was a little put off by the stereotype and a little amused that such a stereotype even existed. Those guys were sitting next to her on the plane and what do you know? (is this to be follwoed by a ? or a !) They were German! Anyway, she had seen more of India than I had. It was a little sad. The only places she hadn't been to was the North-East and J&K. I was very J.

What plans for the weekend?

2007-02-15T16:15:00.000+05:30

I apologise for the lack of capitals.

yesterday, post lunch, i got off at the wrong floor, went to where my cubicle in the right floor would have been and sat down. At somebody else's desk. I wondered why my desk was so clean and why i didn't recognise anybody. then i wondered where all my papers were and was close to freaking out when i realised that my comp was suddenly different. everybody looked at me weirdly. i was wondering why strange people were sitting in the cubicles next to mine and were the hell were all the people that i knew?

then i went to my project manager's cubicle to ask her if anything drastic had changed while i was at lunch. then it struck me that the giant hole in the ceiling, opening up to the floor above, was not there in my floor since i sit on the top floor. Aha! Now it all became clear.

for a few minutes, i was totally creeped out. knowing that something was wrong and didn't belong in that place, not realising that the only thing that didn't belong was me.they should really do something to make these places look a little different. colour schemes, maybe?

last week it got really warm. now it is pleasant again. i like this weather. i know that the rest of the world is getting screwed up with rain in shrinagar and snow and hail in shimla and floods in rajasthan but this weather suits me. i am not looking forward to april. my skin will burn off, my eyes will beg for moisture and head burst.

the comp i use at work is screwed up. again. 3rd time in 2 weeks. we have people to take of such things here, being WFII and all that. but getting to actually come and do something is such a bloody pain. they probably do have a lot of work and they have to move between buildings to fix stuff but still.. wouldn't it be nice if there was a "Fix my comp" genie. It bet it would be the most overworked genie in the world, next only to the "make me skinny" genie.

have you seen those new ponds "age defying" cream ads? they have women who look like they are in their 20s talking about wrinkles and how their husband/boyfriend pay more attention to them now and more of that crap. my roommate goes "yuck" everytime those ads come up.

visa, tickets, hotel done.

2007-02-07T15:34:00.001+05:30

I crib a lot about the place I work in and the people I work with but it has to be said - in some cases, these people are horribly efficient. Case in point, Visas. I had to file my visa application today and when I came in to work today, I had nothing, just my passport. By noon, I had filled out the forms, taken copies, got addresses, got everything checked, got invite letters, printed out salary slips and bank statements and got them verified, stuck my photos on a bunch of stuff, stapled it all together, removed the staples, stapled them in bunches, put them in a folder, clipped a few more photos in the folder, just in case, stuck my passport in the folder and handed it over to the visa guy on the ground floor who gave me another form to sign and then, Done!

No, wait. I am the horribly efficient one here!

Anyway, visa application - done.

2007-02-06T12:57:00.001+05:30

There was a competition a while ago on SmithMag.com - submit a six word memoir and some telecom company (I think AT&T) users could win a bunch of stuff. So I wrote a few six word things (in spite of not having anything to do with said telecom people) and forgot all about it.

3 days ago, I received an email from them saying "We got a book deal! And you know what, so did you! In 2008, HarperCollins will publish NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS PLANNING: And Other Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. I'm writing to about 400 memoirists out of over 5,000 who submitted in hopes of including you guys in our book."

Heh. And I don't even remember what I wrote. They covered that: " If you don't remember what you submitted, that's fine too. Just ask and I'll remind you." How nice of them. I have sent them a mail; I'm really curious. "If you're getting this email, it means that your six-word memoir was hand-selected by the editors of SMITH Magazine as one of our very favorites."

Like my cousin said, I'm going to be published! Nice.

Among other things, I might be going to Copenhagen in 2 weeks. On work. Oh, I feel so important. I am going only because the guy who was supposed to go doesn't want to go or is not able to go or something like that, but still... So Sid? I'll be there for 4 or 5 days.

What do you do when people piss you off but you can't tell them off? Do you have a frustration-relieving techniques? I think bad thoughts about them; mostly involving fire or bullets or high buildings or knives. What can I say? My levels of frustration go high very easily. Sometimes they get mauled by werewolves.

2007-02-01T12:32:00.001+05:30

Ass-coverers, back-stabbers, rabid, deranged morons, the whole lot of them.

Put me out of my misery, please!

2007-01-26T08:50:00.000+05:30

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.

2007-01-23T09:35:00.000+05:30

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.

2007-01-19T15:56:00.000+05:30

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

2007-01-16T11:14:00.000+05:30

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.

2007-01-15T08:38:00.000+05:30

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...

2007-01-15T08:31:00.000+05:30

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).

2007-01-10T13:02:00.000+05:30

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.

2007-01-04T11:53:00.000+05:30

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.

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.

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.

I'm so hungry.

2006-12-28T18:30:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-12-25T19:27:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-12-21T19:19:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-12-21T10:06:00.000+05:30

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.”

2006-12-18T09:43:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-12-15T08:24:00.000+05:30

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!

2006-12-13T12:38:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-12-08T08:38:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-12-04T12:53:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-12-04T11:06:00.000+05:30

Some guy was expelled for being an atheist.

2006-12-01T13:44:00.000+05:30

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.

2006-11-29T08:39:00.000+05:30

It has been a while.

I get too much crap in my inbox. Yesterday, I got a really horrible mail with pictures of a guy crushed by a truck. And when I told someone that I got this horrible mail, he sent me videos - one of an elephant killing a guy, one of a croc hurting a handler and one of a lion being all liony. Why? When I told him that I got this mail, I specifically said that I found it very disturbing and then he sends me videos! Asshole.

2006-11-24T08:25:00.000+05:30

Idly and Vadai dunked in sambar with thenga chutney on the side. Mmmm. Coffee. Double mmmm. What did you have for breakfast?

I saw a guy who looked just like Stanley Tucci near the water dispenser thingy. Serious double take stuff.

I was walking behind a couple of girls - one large and one tiny. The large one said that hyderabad water was horrible and that she was going bald. The tiny one laughed. But here's the thing, the large one had long, think hair, almost till her butt. The tiny one had very short hair and really was going bald; atleast, it looked like that from where I was standing/walking. So if the large one was being sarcastic/making fun of the tiny one, not very nice of her. If she was serious, sheesh. Take a look at who you are talking to, dumbass!

The sister was going to see Casino Royale yesterday. I wonder what she thought of it. Hey, Soph?

2006-11-21T16:39:00.000+05:30

How great is DailyLit.com! For those of you who don't know - you can sign up to receive a chapter a day of one of the 500+ titles that they have. They have only classics but with Alexandre Dumas and Lewis Carrol and Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare and O.Henry and Oscar Wilde, I don't think I'll ever run out of things to read. I have signed up for G.B.Shaw's Major Barbara. They even have Sophocles and Von Clausewitz! I don't know how long I'll be excited about this, but for now, I am. Whoo.

2006-11-20T09:16:00.000+05:30

And more hilarity - Only the telugu version of Casino Royale has been released in this city. The english version releases only on Dec 1. People are pissed. I really don't care. It's James Bond. How interesting could it be?

Update:
I went here from a link somewhere. A 90-something man who quotes from Alice In Wonderland and writes about cannibalism. From there, I went here, a 66 year old woman who has been blogging for more than a year. They both write so well.

Anyway, I got this poem from dontoearth.

I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I’m introduced to one,
I wish I thought "What Jolly Fun!"

2006-11-17T15:50:00.000+05:30

Do you like your job?

I don't. What is worse is that I don't know what I would like to do.

Anyway, somebody explain Live Aid to me. Why do people think that they can get rid of poverty by having pop concerts?

A friend recently told me that she thought I was 'lost'. I am not sure what she meant. I am not sure that I am not.

Did MJ sing at some award show recently? No, I don't really care.

What exactly is Funk?

Too many questions. I'll see you all on Monday.

Ugh. I am unbelievably depressed. I use that word loosely. I am tired, for no reason; pissed off, again, for no reason; anti- social, as I have always been; and sad, and I don't know why. I could just say that 'life' has gotten to me but I haven't done much living lately. Barely existing. I just want to lie in bed all day. And get up only to go to the bathroom. And sleep. How long is forever?

I'm going nuts.

6 people I know are getting married before March.

I read somewhere that America is more religious than Asia and in 10 years, Europe will be too. Yay for Asia.

If you are mad, would you know?

Give me something interesting to read. I have bought a book on India but I am not able to make myself read it. I want something light, funny, interesting. I don't know what happened to my ability to read anything, anytime. I miss it. I bought
a couple of Lee Child's books a while ago. I want something like that. Mindless entertainment.

I am watching United 93 this weekend. I don't know why I am going to a see a movie I have seen before and didn't particularly like. Maybe it is part of my talk to actual people and not just people who live in my head thing. I don't know if it will work. I don't think it will. There aren't actual people in my head. Imaginary people? Lots. I'm going now.

Bye. Have a good weekend.

2006-11-16T13:11:00.000+05:30

D and I were waiting for the bus. It came. We got on. I tripped, my shoe fell off the bus. The bus started moving. With my shoe on the road. I yelled. The bus stopped. I walked, one foot bare, to my shoe which had barely escaped being run over. The bus took off without me. Atlast I no longer had one bare foot. Just a dirty sole.

Everything noteworthy that happens to me, seems to happen in the vicinity of a bus. Atleast this did not involve shattered glass and run away bus drivers and angry mobs.

2006-11-15T13:04:00.000+05:30

Over at the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, there is a hilarious post in the Hate Mail section.

Excerpt: ‘you fucking fuck of a fucking fucker fucky fuck fuck fucker fucky fucker fucky fucker fucky fuck fuck!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!’

I almost spewed the coffee on the screen when I read that.

2006-11-13T09:25:00.000+05:30

So.

Coconut Chutney with Aloo Parathas? Ugh. People say such terrible things to me when I have curd rice with ketchup but this is ok? I object. I strenuously object. The 3 others sitting with this guy didn't blink when he sat down at their table. They just included him in the conversation as if all was well in their world! That freaked me out. Do people really have coconut chutney with aloo parathas? Do other people think it is ok? What sort of world am I living in?

Anyway, there is an article/video in Wired.com/YouTube about a guy who saw the Flying Spaghetti Monster in Germany.

2006-11-10T17:06:00.000+05:30

sweeping in Kalamazoo...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmflint/292685189/

I don't know why I'm on the Micheal Moore mailing list, but I am. I followed a link and it took me to this picture..

Americans are weird.

2006-11-10T16:24:00.000+05:30

I don't know what Logo Gazzag. com is or what it does but I have received about 50 invites for it. My guess is that it is yet another social networking site.

A rickshaw and a bus fought and the bus won. I was there after the fight and saw the battlefield. It was a mess. Mangled steel and shards of glass all over the place. I don't know what happened to the people. It couldn't have been pretty.

My first ever appraisal is coming up in some time. Bleh.

2006-11-10T14:01:00.000+05:30

- A chap I know sent me an email now with "anyone(s)" in it.

- People have a lot of trouble with 'its' and 'it's'

- Too many people treat "the" with no respect at all. It has a purpose. Don't diss it.

- "Myself (insert name here)" is a terrible way to introduce oneself. Too many people seem to be doing it.

- Why is Simi Garewal famous? What did she do before her god awful talk show? Aishwariya Rai is creepy. Simi Garewal is creepy. Both of them together in one frame freak me out. Kill the TV.

- Somebody on my Google Chat list has a "Tryst with Destiny".

- "Wat r u dng n ofc?" STOP IT. STOP IT. DON'T DO THIS TO ME.

2006-11-09T10:47:00.000+05:30

I generally email my posts, but the last two times, it didn't work. I don't know if Gmail is screwing up or Blogger is.

My first pimple in 2 years showed itself this morning. All in all, not a happy day.

Who is finally Senator of Virginia? Porno Webb or Macaca Allen?

2006-11-08T09:38:00.000+05:30

I posted this yesterday evening and again, blogger fucked up.

- A chap I know sent me an email now with "anyone(s)" in it.
- People have a lot of trouble with 'its' and 'it's'
- Too many people treat "the" with no respect at all. It has a purpose. Don't diss it.
- "Myself (insert name here)" is a terrible way to introduce oneself. Too many people seem to be doing it.
- Why is Simi Garewal famous? What did she do before her god awful talk show? Aishwariya Rai is creepy. Simi Garewal is creepy. Both of them together in one frame freak me out. Kill the TV.
- Somebody on my Google Chat list has a "Tryst with Destiny".
- "Wat r u dng n ofc?" STOP IT. STOP IT. DON'T DO THIS TO ME.

2006-11-07T15:18:00.000+05:30

I posted this at 10 am but it didn't post. Don't know why. Bad Blogger.

I don't know what Logo Gazzag. com is or what it does but I have received about 50 invites for it. My guess is that it is yet another social networking site.

A rickshaw and a bus fought and the bus won. I was there after the fight and saw the battlefield. It was a mess. Mangled steel and shards of glass all over the place. I don't know what happened to the people. It couldn't have been pretty.

I'm sitting right below the airconditioning vent and it is bloody cold. In training today. The trainers are surprisingly good. Not sleepy today.

My first ever appraisal is coming up in some time. Bleh.
Update: I take back what I said about not feeling sleepy. So sleepy.

Update: Hot Hot vadai.

2006-11-06T12:50:00.000+05:30

Somebody's status message says "Always put yourself in others' shoes. If it hurts you, it probably hurts the other person, too".

Wouldn't it depend on shoe size?

2006-11-02T16:03:00.000+05:30

I am the stupidest person on this planet. We have certifications tests at work that we need to take. I have to get one of those by this December. So I took it today. And I FLUNKED! It was one of the easiest tests and I flunked. A bloody multiple choice test and I failed. Failed by 2 points. Failed by 1 question. I am so ready to kill myself. Not because I particularly care about failure, but because I have to take the damn thing again. In two weeks. A bloody waste of my time.

2006-11-02T08:52:00.000+05:30

I was faced with a difficult choice last night. I wanted to watch TV for a while before going to sleep. I was in no mood for news and I really didn't want to see Friends reruns or JAG. So I had a choice between watching New Zealand get thrashed by Australia or some movie. I watched NZ get thrashed (36/6!!). It was terrible. I watched until they were 45/6 and got bored. So, then I watched a really bad bunch of tamil movie songs on Adithya TV. Bleh. They were all sooo bad. They were playing 80's songs. The garish clothes and hiding behing flowers became too much to handle and so I checked out what english movies were on. Oh the choices. I had to choose between Sheena, Goldfinger (There was a character in it called Pussy Galore!! How Austin Powers), Blade Trinity, and a bunch of other crap. I went to bed.

Bed was good. Sleep never disappoints.

2006-10-30T14:07:00.000+05:30

I find religion and God fascinating. Weird, incomprehensible, irrational, and at times unbelievably annoying but still, facinating. I don't understand it and I don't want it. Nobody has been able to give me a convincing reason for either religion or god. Religion as tradition, religion as support, religion as don't-as-questions-it-just-is, and religion as a-way-of-life - I don't get it. I also don't get why people don't recycle religions. Most religions that are around today have been around for hundreds and sometimes, thousands of years - how are they still relevant. This generally provokes the response that people are more moral (what ever that means) and socially conscious when they think that the crow is going to poke their eyes out if they lie, for instance. (Here is another thing I don't get. Why does the crow poke my eye out when I lie? I'm not lying with my eyes, am I?) Does this mean that aethists lie, steal, cheat and murder their way through life? Not making sense.

Richard Dawkins' latest book ' The God Delusion' sounds interesting.

In a conversation with a scientist who believed in God and who said, "Science can't disprove the existance of God", "There's an infinite number of things that we can't disprove," Dawkins said. "You might say that because science can explain just about everything but not quite, it's wrong to say therefore we don't need God. It is also, I suppose, wrong to say we don't need the Flying Spaghetti Monster, unicorns, Thor, Wotan, Jupiter, or fairies at the bottom of the garden. There's an infinite number of things that some people at one time or another have believed in, and an infinite number of things that nobody has believed in. If there's not the slightest reason to believe in any of those things, why bother? The onus is on somebody who says, I want to believe in God, Flying Spaghetti Monster, fairies, or whatever it is. It is not up to us to disprove it."

Do you believe in God? Why?

And the next question is, why do you, when you disbelieve in all Gods but your God, give respect to other Gods? Why is it not permissible to disrespect another chap's God when it is ok to make fun/disrespect just about everything else? Does that stem from a fear that maybe the other guy got it right and his is the real God after all and you don't want to piss off the chap who is going to let you in at the Pearly Gates or Paradise with 72 virgins? Or is it 76?

I don't have much to do today. I'm looking busy at the computer right now. So all's well in my world.

2006-10-27T13:31:00.000+05:30

Do you have any superstitions? Lucky tie, Lucky shoes, unlucky hankies, pens, make up? I know a guy who has a lucky red shirt and has worn it on all important occasions since high school. I know a girl who has a lucky hanky. There are people who do things in only one way if something important is coming up. Apparently there are some people who won't say some things - and invite bad luck. Like emergency room doctors/nurses - I read somewhere that quiet and slow were bad words to use when there wasn't a crowd in the ER.

And then there is "Break a leg".

What are your weird rituals, superstitions? I don't have any. I feel like I am missing out on something.

2006-10-26T16:39:00.000+05:30

Hilarious bloopers and typos - http://www.xcom2002.com/doh/

I went home yesterday and DIDN'T watch 24 because D wanted to watch it too and she came back from work only at eleven. So, I saw Ocean's Eleven (for the gazillionth time). Then I read some Jack Reacher and went to bed.

Today has been predictable so far. No work followed by some work followed by no work. Let's see what the rest of the working day (30 minutes) brings. Lunch - 2 paratas, buttermilk, palak panner. What did you have?

Vish - Don't hate me.

Ta.

2006-10-25T09:12:00.000+05:30

Thank You for Smoking was hilarious. Brilliant movie.

I saw bits of The Departed but the mom and uncle and various aunts objected to the language, so we turned it off and watched some Sarah Jessica Parker movie. I forgot the name. It was bland. Watchable.

Diwali was fun. I was in Ranipet after a long time. The dog looks the same. He hasn't changed a bit since he was 2 years old. Or maybe I'm just not seeing it. Great food, great people, good movies, fire crackers, and a cute neice and a baby nephew. Good Diwali.

The dog freaked out at all the noise from the crackers, the neice freaked when the dog started barking, the baby started crying and we all paused, looked at each other and paused the DVD to attend to the kids. They were ok in a couple of minutes and we turned the TV back on. This happened both evenings.

We are a family of nerds. We (father, mother, uncle, 2 aunts, cousin, cousin's husband, grandmother, great aunt, sister and I) watched the National Spelling Bee on TV. For about 45 minutes. Until amma said it was time for lunch; then we dutifully turned the TV off and pigged out. I think we had sambar sadham, rasam sadam, veggies, parathas, banana chips, curd rice, pickles, thayir vadai and payasam for lunch that day. Yum. Have you had curd rice, mango pickle and banana chips? Mmm. I brought soan papdi back to hyd. The roomie brought Peda back from Mumbai. And the first season of 24. So I know what I'm going to be doing after work for the next couple of weeks.

I am so sleepy now. Have to go work. Have to.

2006-10-16T11:38:00.000+05:30

A friend of mine is getting married in 114 days. How do I know? He has the number next to his name on Google Talk. The countdown started at 140 or some number in the vicinity. He actually has a countdown!

Another guy has "I believe in death, destruction, chaos, filth and greed" as his status message. Quotable quotes from American History X. Earlier his line was, "And somehow, life goes on" or something like that. He went from that to death and destruction.

Another guy has "are you sure??? do you really want to talk to me???" - punctuation, his.

Mine reads "Not Here". I am now, but I am not generally available for chat. You know, working. Or talking. Or reading. Or doing stuff that requires my full attention. Or not.

2006-10-13T12:09:00.000+05:30

I had a very weird time last night. I went to bed at around midnight. Not tired or very sleepy but I need my sleep or I get very cranky and I needed to get up at 6 in the morning. Switched off the lights, drew the curtains, cursed the traffic, took clothes, books and other stuff off my bed and dumped them in various places around the room, changed and went to bed.

About 20 minutes later, I heard a weird singing. Some woman going 'aaaaaaaaa'. I opened my eyes, the singing stopped. I closed them, it started again. I wasn't freaked out. When I was a kid, I saw a movie where there was this ghost that wore clanging anklets that a guy would hear and for a very long time after that, I heard anklets at night. And I didn't sleep that night, the first time I saw Godzilla. The black and white one.

Anyway, the singing continued for a while and I dozed off. I got up some hours later and I heard voices. Outside my room. On the wrong side. On the side of the cemetary. I was very disoriented, and a little creeped out. I looked out of the window, there was no one there. I looked out of the other window, there were a couple of people talking loudly. Real People. Not just ectoplasm. (?)

2006-10-11T16:33:00.000+05:30

I have a very bad cold and my ears seem to be blocked. Sounds seem muffled and I keep asking people if I am too loud. I can't tell. I am so careful about not shouting that everything I say comes out in a whisper. There has to be an easier way to do this.

I read Eoin (Sp?) Colfer's "The Wish List" and Soph, I liked it. I didn't expect to. It is about a 15 year old girl, a slightly older guy and a dog who die during a robbery. The guy ends up in hell but the girl has equal amounts of good and bad so she is sent back to earth as a ghost to fulfill the wishes of the old man they were in the process of robbing when they died. Throw in a silly St. Peter, a Game Boy obsessed Satan, a freaked out Beezelbub, a snarky old man, a sarcastic hologram and a boy-dog morph thingy, and it is all quite entertaining. Silly, yes, but a half hour well spent.

2006-10-06T12:43:00.000+05:30

I just burnt my tongue with too-hot chocolate. You know why they gave it to me hotter than usually? Because I asked them to. And then I burnt my tongue. It is usually luke warm or very close to room tempareture. So I had this huge discussion with them and told them that it shouldn't be called "hot" chocolate if it isn't actually hot. It was more of a monologue. Anyway, my tongue hurts.

I have a sore throat. That hurts too. My lunch tasted weird. The others said their food was ok. So it was just me. Being weird.

2006-10-05T10:42:00.000+05:30

I have been staring at the screen and trying to think of something to write for 30 minutes. I hate it when this happens. My mind went blank. 30 minutes of my life that I am not getting back. Sigh.

There is a singer called Nedelle. She has a nice voice. Nancy Sinatra-ish.

Ever wonder what makes a star a star? If you take away the cone bras and the slightly controversial songs, Madonna is not all that great a singer. So why is she famous? And why did the whole Kaballah (sp?) thing become newsworthy? Curious, I am. I saw True Blue on VH1 last night. It is such a bad song.

3 people I know are getting married on November 27th. Why that particular date, I wonder. Curiouser and Curiouser.

2006-10-02T08:47:00.000+05:30

Dor was good. I was a little weirded out initially.. but it was good. Sreyas Talpade was amazing. Hilarious. Ayesha Takia didn't look old enough to be married. But Kukunoor himself.. How do I even start? I don't know what to say. I was squirming in all his scenes. It was embarrasing to watch him massacre his lines. Wasn't he a decent actor in his earlier movies? Anyway, what is with directors witing a role for themselves in their spories? IF he had to do that it should have been Clive Cussler style one scene rather than M. Night style through the movie. No speaking parts please. Couldn't he get someone who could act for the role? Someone who wasn't him? Sheesh. He was stone faced throughout the movie. Maybe the role asked for it but over kill in that case.

The Iqbal chap was really really good.

Now I have to go have coffee (mmmm) and breakfast.

2006-09-28T14:25:00.000+05:30

Restless, bored out of my wits, listening to some band called Rubyhorse and waiting for 4 o' clock to leave. I am leaving early today. My flight to Chennai is at 6. I have one bag, not very heavy. It has 4 books and around 15 DVDs and some clothes. Why am I telling you this? Why do I tell you anything at all? Some questions have no answers. I'm rambling.

I saw Alien Vs. Predator 2 days ago. I liked it. What is wrong with me?

I like Keane.

Read 1984 again. Big Brother is Watching.

Apparently condom sales are the highest during Navratri in Surat.

2006-09-27T15:33:00.000+05:30

I want to see School Ties. Don't ask me why. I just do.

2006-09-26T17:18:00.000+05:30

31 out of 100; you?

Time Magazine's Top 100 movies

A - C

Aguirre: the Wrath of God (1972)

The Apu Trilogy (1955, 1956, 1959)

The Awful Truth (1937)

Baby Face (1933)

Bande à part (1964)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)

Blade Runner (1982) (Seen)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) (Seen)

Brazil (1985)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) (Seen)

Camille (1936)

Casablanca (1942) (Seen)

Charade (1963)

Children of Paradise (1945)

Chinatown (1974) (Seen)

Chungking Express (1994)

Citizen Kane (1941) (Seen)

City Lights (1931)

City of God (2002) (Seen)

Closely Watched Trains (1966)

The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936)

The Crowd (1928)

D - F
Day for Night (1973)

The Decalogue (1989)

Detour (1945)

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

Dodsworth (1936)

Double Indemnity (1944)

Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Drunken Master II (1994) (Seen)

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (Seen)

8 1/2 (1963)

The 400 Blows (1959)

Farewell My Concubine (1993)

Finding Nemo (2003) (Seen)

The Fly (1986) (Seen)

G - J
The Godfather, Parts I and II (1972, 1974) (Seen)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) (Seen)

Goodfellas (1990) (Seen)

A Hard Day's Night (1964) (Seen)

His Girl Friday (1940)

Ikiru (1952)

In A Lonely Place (1950)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) (Seen)

It's A Gift (1934)

It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

K - M
Kandahar (2001)

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

King Kong (1933) (Seen)

The Lady Eve (1941)

The Last Command (1928)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (Seen)

Léolo (1992)

The Lord of the Rings (2001-03) (Seen)

The Man With a Camera (1929)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) (Seen)

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Metropolis (1927)

Miller's Crossing (1990)

Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980)

Mouchette (1967)

N - P
Nayakan (1987) (Seen)

Ninotchka (1939)

Notorious (1946)

Olympia, Parts 1 and 2 (1938)

On the Waterfront (1954) (Seen)

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) (Seen)

Out of the Past (1947)

Persona (1966)

Pinocchio (1940) (Seen)

Psycho (1960) (Seen)

Pulp Fiction (1994) (Seen)

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Pyaasa (1957)

Q - S
Raging Bull (1980) (Seen)

Schindler's List (1993) (Seen)

The Searchers (1956)

Sherlock, Jr. (1924)

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Singin' in the Rain (1952) (Seen)

The Singing Detective (1986)

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Star Wars (1977) (Seen)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) (Seen)

Sunrise (1927)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Swing Time (1936)

T - Z
Talk to Her (2002)

Taxi Driver (1976) (Seen)

Tokyo Story (1953)

A Touch of Zen (1971)

Ugetsu (1953)

Ulysses' Gaze (1995)

Umberto D (1952)

Unforgiven (1992)

White Heat (1949)

Wings of Desire (1987)

Yojimbo (1961)

2006-09-26T17:02:00.000+05:30

I have marked those that I have read. I have read only 30 out of this 100. How many have you read?

Time Magazines 100 best English Language Novel from 1923 to the present

The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow

All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren

American Pastoral
Philip Roth

An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser

Animal Farm (Read)
George Orwell

Appointment in Samarra
John O'Hara

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Judy Blume

The Assistant
Bernard Malamud

At Swim-Two-Birds
Flann O'Brien

Atonement
Ian McEwan

Beloved
Toni Morrison

The Berlin Stories (Read)
Christopher Isherwood

The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler

The Blind Assassin (Read)
Margaret Atwood

Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy

Brideshead Revisited (Read)
Evelyn Waugh

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder

C - D
Call It Sleep
Henry Roth

Catch-22 (Read)
Joseph Heller

The Catcher in the Rye (Read)
J.D. Salinger

A Clockwork Orange (Read)
Anthony Burgess

The Confessions of Nat Turner
William Styron

The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen

The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchon

A Dance to the Music of Time
Anthony Powell

The Day of the Locust
Nathanael West

Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather

A Death in the Family
James Agee

The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen

Deliverance
James Dickey

Dog Soldiers
Robert Stone

F - G
Falconer
John Cheever

The French Lieutenant's Woman (Read)
John Fowles

The Golden Notebook
Doris Lessing

Go Tell it on the Mountain
James Baldwin

Gone With the Wind (Read)
Margaret Mitchell

The Grapes of Wrath (Read)
John Steinbeck

Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon

The Great Gatsby (Read)
F. Scott Fitzgerald

H - I
A Handful of Dust
Evelyn Waugh

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers

The Heart of the Matter
Graham Greene

Herzog
Saul Bellow

Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson

A House for Mr. Biswas (Read)
V.S. Naipaul

I, Claudius (Read)
Robert Graves

Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace

Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison

L - N
Light in August
William Faulkner

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (Read)
C.S. Lewis

Lolita (Read)
Vladimir Nabokov

Lord of the Flies (Read)
William Golding

The Lord of the Rings (Read)
J.R.R. Tolkien

Loving
Henry Green

Lucky Jim (Read)
Kingsley Amis

The Man Who Loved Children
Christina Stead

Midnight's Children (Read)
Salman Rushdie

Money
Martin Amis

The Moviegoer
Walker Percy

Mrs. Dalloway (Read)
Virginia Woolf

Naked Lunch
William Burroughs

Native Son
Richard Wright

Neuromancer (Read)
William Gibson

Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro

1984 (Read)
George Orwell

O - R
On the Road (Read)
Jack Kerouac

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Read)
Ken Kesey

The Painted Bird
Jerzy Kosinski

Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov

A Passage to India (Read)
E.M. Forster

Play It As It Lays
Joan Didion

Portnoy's Complaint
Philip Roth

Possession
A.S. Byatt

The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark

Rabbit, Run
John Updike

Ragtime (Read)
E.L. Doctorow

The Recognitions
William Gaddis

Red Harvest
Dashiell Hammett

Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates

S - T
The Sheltering Sky
Paul Bowles

Slaughterhouse-Five (Read)
Kurt Vonnegut

Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson

The Sot-Weed Factor
John Barth

The Sound and the Fury (Read)
William Faulkner

The Sportswriter
Richard Ford

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (Read)
John le Carre

The Sun Also Rises (Read)
Ernest Hemingway

Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html

2006-09-26T11:01:00.000+05:30

I don't like people who laugh for nothing. There is this guy I met a few days ago who did "Hi, How are you? How do you like Hyderabad? Ha ha ha ha". Why? Why force yourself to laugh when nothing funny happens? Ugh. And then I have to politely smile.

Then there are these people who are always smiling. Oh god I hate them. Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman.. that kind of smiling all the damn time.. I don't know if I am expected to be my normal self or if I am also expected to be smiling all the time? My face hurts, people!

So, is Bin Laden dead or not? He has become like Elvis.

I want coffee.

3 days to home.

2006-09-25T08:56:00.000+05:30

Brilliant weekend. As usual, I didn't do much of what I had to do - like grocery shopping and throwing out the milk and taking out the garbage and calling people and stuff. And I did a lot of TV and books - I finished Winds of War - 3 hours on Friday and all of my waking hours of Saturday and 6 DVDs of amazing stuff. I saw this almost 10 years ago and I remember so much of it differently - or maybe I am mixing up two different 2nd world war movies/series. Didn't Natalie go to concentration camp? Didn't Warren die? Wasn't Byron part of the French resistance? How many movies am I mixing up?

And then on Sunday, I finished Young Hornblower and Admiral Hornblower omnibuses (Is the plural of Omnibus, Omnibi?). Again, brilliant stuff; though I didn't get why he married Maria. That brought me to Sunday evening and I finished up the day with Enemy of the State and I, Robot. I saw the end of I, Robot for the first time. I sort of liked it better this time, than when I saw it earlier. Maybe the print makes a difference - and the end wasn't cut off, so that is a huge plus. I got confused between Jack Nicholson and John Voigt in Enemy of the State. that ever happen to anybody? If J.N hadn't been wearing glasses with yellow lenses through the movie, it would have gotten very weird.

My eyes hurt.

How was your weekend?

2006-09-22T09:04:00.000+05:30

I was in an accident last week. My bus hit an auto and it toppled over. The bus driver ran out of the back door and didn't come back. The people in the auto were ok and we, in the bus, were just annoyed that it had to happen when it was raining so hard.

And today, another accident.

Is there a patron saint of accidents?? Anyway, this time I was on my way to work and we were about 10 mins to destination. A truck tries to overtake us, my driver swerves for some reason and the truck hit/scraped a window. I was fast asleep and woke to the sound of shattering glass. Glass showered over 4 girls sitting on those seats and Squeal! Shriek! The bus stopped, the truck stopped and both the drivers proceeded to yell at each other for the next 15 minutes. Then we finally went to work. Why do people smile so much after an accident in which nobody was hurt? Adrenalin rush? Oh we live again, so let us be happy? Anyway, in the 10 minutes that it took to go back home, everybody was big grins and loudly talking of all the other accidents they/their family/their hairdresser's third cousin's great aunt had been in. Much fun.

This would be the third bus accident I have been in without getting hurt. I am going to run out of luck one of these days.

What plans for the weekend?

2006-09-20T14:40:00.000+05:30

Don't you just hate people whose feet/shoes/socks stink? I was that person today. I really really need to buy foot wear that don't collapse with the first rains. Horrible. Nobody is coming within 10 feet of me. Rooms empty when I go in and the queue at the bathroom mysteriously vanished.

2006-09-19T15:15:00.000+05:30

Have you ever wanted to fart very badly but couldn't because there were other people in the small, closed, air conditioned room with you? If you can't run out of the room, and don't think that you would be able to fart silently and blame the guy next to you, what do you do? Let it rip and say "Better out than in"? or "Who me?" or "What smell? What noise?" or "Is the toilet leaking again?"...

Not that this has ever happened to me.

2006-09-15T11:11:00.000+05:30

Notice anything different here?

2006-09-15T10:41:00.000+05:30

I just love listening to Staind, reading comics, checking out Go Fug Yourself, planning my next trip to Chennai and the one after that, and making appointments at 10.30am on a Friday.

What should I do next?

2006-09-15T09:29:00.000+05:30

Chronicles of Riddick - I didn't remember most of the movie though I had seen it twice before. I totally did not remember that Judie Dench was in the movie. And was that Eomir?

My bus was in an accident yesterday evening. He was going way to fast and took a corner on slope at around 80kmph on a busy road. An auto was crossing the road and BAM! The auto fell on it's side. Tires squealing, brakes screeching, yelling, cursing, honking - the works. The bus driver got out of his seat, walked down the bus to door at the back, got out and was never seen again. He vanished. In a few seconds, a crowd gathered, bleating for the blood of the vanished driver. They righted the auto and fortunately the two guys inside were ok. Rattled but otherwise fine. I hung around for a few more minutes, got bored and took an auto home. How jaded am I?