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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

 

Put me out of my misery, please!