Beer blues !!!!

..... I came ....... I stared ........ I left...... After staring long and hard at the screen for 15 minutes, I realized I had absolutely nothing to write about......
Guess that's what happens when you have not set foot on land for almost 2 months. Sigh !!!

In case you haven't guessed yet, i am back on high seas and am having a classic case of the blues (pun?aw shucks who cares if it was intended or not)
the yonder Indonesian islands tease me seductively with their blue hued mist covered mountains , the waves playfully tumbling on rocks like a bunch of puppies. And the trees gently swaying like in a trance. While I am stuck on a ship anchored miles away..... I am not sure if all this melancholic demeanor has something to do with the fact that I have been sober for way too long.

The last can of beer was last seen on the horizon 3 weeks back , and its been a dry and thirsty existence. I have fond memories of it as I lovingly pulled the tab back, heard the crisp click and watched the froth rush out like a well behaved wave on a beach, the pleasant numbing of my lips as they touched the edge of the ice cold can, the gurgling in my throat as the sunlight colored liquid rushed down , triggering a chain reaction in my body.
The epiglottis hurriedly shuts down the airway like a spanish official just before the running with bulls in Pamplona .The tongue yells out "yo Liver, incoming" the Liver who until now was introvertishly sulking in a corner contemplating the meaning of life and other heavy stuff is suddenly galvanized into action he enthusiastically rolls up his sleeves and with a song on his lips gets down to work. The stomach turns into one big water park party, everybody from pancreas to gall bladder is jumping in with hoops of joy, even the shy little appendicities jumps into a swim suit and heads out to party.
the heart churns out a mean beat on His turn table and the lungs are getting jiggly with it ala will smith style , the kidneys are slapping each other on the back and heading to the bar. The only organ which seems to be working now is the bladder who does not mind working overtime for a good cause. Even the reclusive esophagus decides to make an appearance, and looking at all this the brain has a contended smile on his face and looks on with a satisfied expression and decides to throw on a bright blue Hawaiian shirt and join the party.

.ahhhhh I miss those days, back when beer was bountiful and was just a stretch of the arm away ......... I am going to go and sulk for a little while now.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 

Is There a Googler In The House??!!

You know you are getting old when you start feeling pains in parts of your body you cant reach anymore.

I am a compulsive googler, i google everything from Sunny Leones earlier works in her movie carrer ( oh come on!! dont get all holier than thou on me, i am sure you did too, i am just honest enough to admit it) to how many stars are in the galaxy (100 Billion incase you were wondering, your welcome ) 

The older I get the wiser I have become, I don't click on the first suggestion Google churns out for my symptoms and start panicking, I am wiser now and open four or five different pages weigh my options and finally select the best diagnosis. Now that I am wiser I don't settle for the most convineant sounding ailment , I now have a few category's to be met, like fancy sounding names filed with medical terminologies with a glamorous background or cool sounding names "Achilles heal" , or even "tennis elbow". Why tennis elbow you ask ? , it's simple, when you tell somebody you have tennis elbow you are implying that you play tennis , which implies that you are athletic. It does not matter that you gave yourself tennis elbow by doing some chronic ear wax digging.

I blame Google for all the ailments that ail me.it has unfortunately gotten too easy for one to become a self proclaimed Google certified doctor. connecting the dots from symptom to disease is but now a few click away( a few painful clicks if you have carpal tunnel syndrome.where did I learn about carpal tunnel syndrome you ask ? i gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome while i was frantically  trying to find out how to give myself a back massage  ).

I have always wondered why doctors felt the need to display their degree certificate on the walls of their clinic. Now I understand , it is their way of saying " I went to medical school for 5 bloody years. I know more about your problem than what you can research on Google or Wikipedia so please keep your mouth shut and allow me to do my job".

Doctors initially had to deal with patients sneaking away from the prescribed treatment and trying home remedies. And then returning sheepishly in a worse off condition than they began with . Today doctors have to deal with google-fueled-smartarsess .not only do these guys steer away from their prescribed treatment and dosage half the time, they arrive at the doctors door after having unsuccessfully tried to cure a whole different non existing disease. Now the doctor has to deal with the problem in hand and the problems caused by the self medication.

Patient- doctor I have been noticing a abnormal growth on my forehead which is growing at an alarming rate could it be malignant poly tumor ?
Doctor - no Einstein,it is a pimple and if you stop touching it every 3 minutes it will stop growing.

Back home in India ,medical help comes in all shapes , sizes, budgets and even religion . From witch doctors to neurotic surgeon we have them all. here in the US medical help is sinfully expensive if you do not have an insurance. i was speaking to a friend of mine visiting on a tourist visa, and he happened to mention that he has been sick for a few days and is considering going to a doctor but didn't have a insurance coverage, i asked him to suck it up and cure it by swigging a bottle of whisky and sleeping for 36 hours, else he would have to sell a kidney to pay for the treatment of a common cold.

 I have spent more time researching the different pains radiating from my legs than actually running.

I now know that i can get Runners knee( Ilio Tibial Band Syndrome or Pattelofemoral Syndrome) ,Shin Splints( Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome) ,Plantar Fasciitis , Achilles Tendinopathy , Plica syndrome, Hip Burstis or Excercise Induced Compartment Syndrome and  almost scared myself into never running again.

Ilio Tibial Syndrome or Plantar Fasciitis sounds like something you would catch from recreational visits to the  shadier parts of the city but i assure you it is not.

I twisted my ankle a month back while running and while my wife was fussing all over me , I told her in my best Indiana jones voice, "don't sweat it luv,all I need is R.I.C.E" ... " Rest,Ice,Compression and Elevation" as she looked at me with admiration in her brown eyes , I didn't have the heart to tell her I learnt it from google while I was limping painfully back home. So google to the rescue I guess .

Makes you look smarter than you really are. 

 Its not long before the legendry sentence " is there a doctor in the house? there has been an emergency!!" will soon be replaced by "is there a googler in the house??!!". Don't be surprised if you see some smug idiot with smart phone step up and say " I know CPR, I just googled it." 

Sure google has that annoying habit of trying to guess what your looking for, keeps trying to tell you what you want before you finish your sentence(all you men,if you just had a sense of deja vu then you must be a married),But honestly speaking i really dont mind,you never know what you might find.its like sticking your hand into box of assorted cookies and not knowing what you might pick. i asked google four most elementry questions Who,How,When,Where and What google had a couple of interesting suggestions to make...

How to Boil an EGG??!! seriously??

 Google must be  high on Weed!!
excellent questions for a Pothead.

This is what i mean by intersting new finds i could
have been typing " what is quantum physics" but
now i going to discover what
Harlem Shake is !! win win if you ask me

Where is the Love indeed.
and off course where is Chuck Norris!!
Wouldn't you want to know ?

  

Google is the new age Jeeves.

In case you were wondering what a Harlem Shake is :)

http://www.youtube.com/embed/4hpEnLtqUDg?autoplay=1

War Pigs!!

The Pigs look like they are glutton for punishment dont they?(pun intended) first the wolf huffed and puffed and blew their houses down , and now birds with anger management issues are hell bent on knocking the stuffing out of them, time for a new war plan. they should try reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War ,or Patton's biography for that matter.

Da Vampire saga !!!

These are for my wife , who can't seem to get enough of vampires.she is a huge (bad puns ahead alert !!) sucker for these aliiumphobic pain in the necks. this ones for you Luv!! :) yeenzooyy.....

Running For My Life !!!!!!

I run 3 miles everyday, that is if you call red faced,gasping breathed ,desperate hopping meets frantic plodding as running.

I run on a nature trail which for most parts is away from the road, but is intersected by a few traffic lights, to save me the embarrassment i have learnt to pace myself, my running for most parts is as graceful as a giraffe with asthma running a three legged race.when i approach a cross walk(zebra crossing),my legs are so stiff that i waddle across like a penguin. I now time my self in such a way that 200 yards approach to and 200 yards after the cross walk  i am Usain bolt and a cheetah rolled into one, i leave the motorist waiting for their signal spell bound at how graceful and athletic i am. they see me whizz by head held proudly high, my legs taking long graceful leaps with amazing in air hang time(Michael Jordan would be proud of), nonchalantly slowing down at the signal, arrogantly looking on either side with a eagle like narrow eyes and cross the road with fluid momentum. if i were my own admirer i would swoon.
what they don't realize is that, exactly 2 minutes later this gazelle turns into a sloth and shuffles all the way to the next cross walk where he magically turns into a gazelle again. what they don't know is that arrogant look they see while i scope the road is nothing but blurred vision caused due to low oxygen supply and the sharp narrow eye is so that the sweat which is pouring out of my scalp does not enter my eye and set it on fire.

Why all the showmanship you ask?? I can't help it !!! its a involuntary action, i have no control over my brain!! its like fat men sucking in their stomach when a pretty lass walks by. or short men standing on their toes while talking to a taller person.

I started running while i was in Chennai a few years back at Railway Officers club where my dad is a member, i used to haunt its health club . you would generally find me breathlessly hanging on to a runaway treadmill or sulking underwater in the deep end of the pool. hanging out here was a big ego boost for me, as i was generally surrounded by middle aged women discussing the latest soap operas or men with globe shaped midriff walking languidly on the treadmill, the tennis courts had geriatrics playing a game of if-my-serve-makes-it-over-the-net-I-win. the more athletic sorts were shielded away from less athletic sorts by being enclosed in indoor badminton courts so as to not upset anyone or bruise any egos. so i was generally the toast of the joint with my laborious 5K exploits being considered the most effort anybodies ever put in and being skinny was enough to be called fit. i reveled in my skinniness until......

I landed here with the same brimming confidence and walked into the health club in the apartment complex i live in, only to find to my utter dismay it was filled with Greek gods and Godessess, the place seemed to be crawling with statues from some pillaged Greek temple. It was filled with people who hadno business being there.
 I found people twice my age pumping weights and running distances twice what i could even consider physically or for that matter remotely possible.everybody looked like they had just stepped out of the cover of a magazine.i kept looking around me to see if there were cameras around shooting a hip hop music video or holding the annual Mr. Universe competition. my entire workout regime was just a warm up for most people.
In my 3 mile run, the last mile is the hardest, i turn into a regular monica selles (in the grunting department) and the sweat is streaming down my face as if in a hurry to flow down to Somalia and solve the drought situation there. i am staggering all over the treadmill , my legs are protesting and threatening to give up any minute, my knees are turning into jelly. and my eyes are fixed to the distance meter pleading it desperately to go faster. by the end of it, i am a breathless mass of quivering flesh who feels like the test dummy of an juvenile acupuncture student.
On the other hand the sons and daughters of Apollo,Hercules and Athena in the gym barely seem to break a sweat.they in their fancy sports wear and even fancier sports drinks they saunter through their extensive and rigorous workout like they were taking a lazy walk on a beach even their hair didn't seemed to get disheveled , while i on the other hand looked like i just climbed up Mount Everest and came down on the other side using my face as the break.

If that wasn't bad enough the Gym overlooks the pool which is crawling with people who didn't look like they had ever lifted a dumbell in their life, but had a body which could be used to chisel diamonds with. they had cuts in parts of bodies where i have bumps and their Abs were stretched across their stomach as taught as a trampoline.this was too much for my fragile ego, crushed and mutilated i sneaked out when nobody was looking and decided to taking my running outdoors henceforth.

I am all for health clubs banning fit people from entering them.Now i understand why most Greek and Roman statues have been vandalized. . it was done by people with bodies like mine.

I took to running outdoors, i tell people that i did it because that is where the joy of running is and there are many beautiful nature trails here i can run on. but the truth is that i was driven outdoors in the heat and potential public embarrassment by the Da vinci's specimens of the perfect race infesting my Gym.

The View from on top of the hill was worth the effort!

Running outdoors was great, the trails were well marked and very scenic, some of the trails lead you through a forested area,and one beautiful trail takes you right up to the top of a hill giving a panoramic view of the entire countryside,there were few fellow runners, but ( if you have read my blogs before, you will have come to realize there is always going to be a "but" :) )  along came summer. The damn sun refuses to set till 8 at night,the heat wasn't a problem, for some one coming from between the tropic of cancer and equator a little heat never hurt, its the damn snakes.

I wonder if the Snakes
know about these rules?!

Summer seems to bring out the snakes from their cosy abodes, and lucky me to live in the area infested and famous for its RATTLE SNAKES!!!.
It takes a lot of will power to maintain an exercise regime, and believe me it does not help when you hear so many horror stories of snake siteings and bitings. fitness be damned, self preservation comes first.


My once de-stressing run slowly started turning stressful, while running these trails i am no longer focusing on my breathing , listening to music and reveling in the adrenalin rush. i am now searching furtively with darting eyes for snakes, i am constantly scanning the long grass on either side of the trail for reptiles. every time i hear a rustling noise , my heart leaps out of its place between my ribs and lodges itself in my throat  i have to swallow hard to send it back down. every time i see the grass move, i jump three feet in the air, the hair on the back of my head are at constant attention. i keep forgetting to breathe leaving my gasping for air every 20 yards.i would arrive home at the end of the run looking and feeling like messenger boy who just ran through a war zone and is in need of medical and psychiatric help.

enough sssssaid !!

 It was almost always rabbits,squirrels, wild turkeys or other smaller birds who would trigger the panic attack in me on these trails and the one time i did see a snake on the trail turned out to be a California King snake which Google informed me later was non venomous and make for great pets. i didn't know all that when i stumbled upon him, but didn't stay long enough to acquaint myself to him either, saw the snake , had a mini heart attack , turned and ran for my life in the opposite direction, venomous or non venomous i ain't trusting a snake. i did stay long enough to take a picture though. :) you have got to admit it makes for excellent Facebook posting material.




So driven outdoors by people, and driven back indoors by reptiles..... i suppose none of these Greek gods bite, so i am back safely on a treadmill running like a racehorse, no no not as fast as a racehorse, i run like a racehorse wearing blinders,looking straight ahead, so as not to be distracted by somebody bench pressing a 150 pounds or doing 200 squats or 250 crunches. volume on full high i run in my own world, a world where i am the center of the universe and there are statues of me in Greek temples.

Pretty much how i feel at the end of my run - ;) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES32UFlPOUA

Life iz A Beach !!!

The missus decided that it was about time i visited San Francisco, after the obligatory visit to the golden gate bridge she Whisked me off to this cosy Little nook of a beach called china beach. She told me it was a hidden beach and that not many people knew about it. Once we got there, judging from the number of cars in the parking lot, I realized it was one of the worst kept secrets, like Osama being in Pakistan ( too political an analogy you think).

Decided to leave a message for the aliens to read. :)

The best kicks in life are for free !!

Who does not love a good head rush ? The same after effects of 6 hours of drinking condensed into 3 seconds of sublime joy, minus the hangover , potential DUIs, and regretful drunken dials. And not to forget its ...FREEEEE and perfectly legal :) .

The best part is that it can never be induced, it's gotta hit you when you least expect it , the sudden wobbly knees, the total disorientation , frantic but slow motion clutching about for something to hold on to , the wave like rush of euphoria , and then gradually the room stops spinning and the legs regain their strength leaving no traces of a mini roller coaster ride save for a sheepish grin and a twinkle in ones eye..... Orgasm anyone ?!?

Dracula with dentures

how would you like it if Hitler and his band of Nazi hit squad (SS) were to be portrayed as Santa Claus and his merry elves? what if Hitler was portrayed as a funny,lovable and charming middle aged bachelor who loved nothing better to than curl up with a good book and a glass of wine after a busy day at the office, his 9-6 everyday (weekends included) consisted of ordering death squads, invading countries and systematically wiping out an entire race ( its a hard job, but hey!! somebodies gotta do it ) . yes the question still stands. how would you like it? i am guessing not very much.(if you do agree, then your folks did a very good job of smuggling you out of the bunker before the Russians invaded ) so do you consider this very inaccurate imagery an abomination? ..... yup!! guessed as much !! that's the exact same feeling i get when i see movies like the underworld, the twilight saga  and the vampire diaries series.

if i see a zombie i know what i need to do, i shoot it in the head and move on, nothing personal but that's the way it is. if i see a vampire i throw some holy water on it, and drive a wooden stake through its heart , what i don't do is  fall in love with it .

five years back i knew where to find a book on vampires in a library, it was in the horror section, today it has crawled its way into the romance and young adults section. is it just me or does that really suck (no pun intended) a few years back a vampire shows up on screen the background music would be haunting and spine chillingly spooky, today it is romantic and melodious. vampires stayed in creepy castles, and stayed indoors till sundown and then roamed the country side looking for a quick bite.(pun intended) what they didn't do is attend public school and worry about their prom dates or dresses.

since when did the vampires turn into the good guys!!! if Dracula were to see today's television shows or movies believe me he would be twisting and turning in his coffin(pun unintended), and i wouldn't be surprised if he downed a shot of holy water, chomped on garlic bread and drove a wooden stake through his own heart. my heart bleeds(pun?) for Dracula, centuries of working on the fear factor and his tireless pursuit of building a aura of fear around himself and his legacy all flushed down the drain by a bunch of pretty boys. poor count Dracula is now drowning his sorrows over bloody marys (one pun too many).

i blame Hollywood for this farce , what happened to the good old heroes, start the day fighting the Russians, cross the Sahara desert by lunch,rescue a impoverished Latin american country from an evil dictator by tea time and be back to sweep away a distressing damsel for dinner, dance and beyond (nothing like bed,bath and beyond, though the beyond might include a bed and a bath). what we need are less conflicting good guys, sure the hero was a bad arse in some movies, a total jerk, but by the middle of the movie it is proved that he has a heart of gold.these days the hero has no heart!!!
i wonder how much longer our senses are going to be inflicted with vampires masquerading as the good guys and us humans as the hapless extras and . the exact moment when i realized we hit rock bottom was when the eyesore of a movie " Abraham Lincoln: vampire hunter" made its appearance.

as if corrupting the vampires wasn't enough, they have gone and destroyed the enigma of werewolves too.
what could be better than a vampire movie you ask? how about a movie with both vampires and werewolves reply the producers!!. add to that a love triangle and its a movie you will cough up good money to see they exclaim. its a dogs life for the werewolf (pun intended) in the movie as the girl picks the cold hearted blood sucker over him. i suppose it was love at first bite (pun intended) for her.

what happened to the good 'ol witches Macbeth stumbled upon, when did they suddenly step out of the Victoria secrets catalog??!!! hey, if someone were to tell me there are witches in the forest i imagine crooked nosed old women with a hyena laugh bunched around a cauldron, not playboy bunnies in a slumber party.

there are now three kinds of vampires,werewolves or witches and they are....the Good ,the Bad and the Ugly.

Clint Eastwood didn't have to deal with all this confusion!!!





alien movies are fine, they come, they see, they destroy a few wonders of the world, zap a few hundred people and they diligently got their butts booted back to which ever planet/galaxy they came from at the end of the movie, even the ones that were human friendly couldn't wait to get back home, ask E.T., all he said since he learnt to speak was .." E.T. go home!!".

the future looks bleak for Van helsing and Buffy the vampire slayer, its not long before you will find Buffy working in Starbucks and mr Helsing putting his vampire killing skills to good use in the pest control industry.

i have one lingering question though...... if a vampire bites a zombie.... will the zombie turn into a vampire or will the vampire turn into a zombie??........................... uh oh !!! did i just give the Hollywood folks another movie making idea!!! hold it right there!! i am calling dibs on this idea!!!!..... i better see some deposits in my bank (the regular kind, not the blood bank) else somebody is gonna hear from my lawyer... he can be a pretty nasty pain in the neck...... (last vampire pun..... i swear!!)

PS- Fact not Fiction- "in march 2007, self proclaimed vampire hunters vandalized the grave of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and staked his body into the ground by driving a stake into the grave. although the group involved claimed this act was to prevent Milosevic from returning as a vampire , it is not known wether those involved actually believed this could happen or if the crime was simply politically motivated"
Go Figure...................

Flyp Sided Thoughts!!

The wife was watching an episode of "the vampire diaries " ( not to be confused with the Bridget jones diaries,the only similarity both diaries have is that they are both a pain in the neck{pun intended}) and mentioned "these vampires have such high Fi phones , I have never seen them charge it!!" And suddenly it hit me ...... What's the gig with phones in movies and television. I have never EVER seen a single phone on charge!!. There has never been a single accurate representation of a phone!!!. One scene I have never seen is a character frantically rushing home to charge his phone or for that matter unplugging his phone from a charger on his way out!!.

I seem to see only two kinds of phone these days on television or movies , an iPhone or a flip phone.even Hollywood seems to have forsaken the good old NOKIA.
 I personally owned a flip phone for a very long time , the world moved on and switched to smart phones which could do everything except for lighting a cigarette (they should call them Swiss army phone knives), But I stubbornly stayed true to my beloved flip phone. i have now flipped, i mean switched to an iPhone , thanks to the generosity of the better half.
i have come to realize that owning an iPhone is pretty much the same thing as owning a dog..... you can not leave home without a charger(leash) and as soon as you arrive at your destination, the first thing you do is to find a plug point to charge the phone ( tie up the dog and feed it ), its smart, loyal and in case it is giving you too much trouble switch it off and then on again(chuck the dog out into the backyard) it's as good as new .and if it keeps freezing (falling sick) take it to a tech, ( vet).
after wiping the phone memory clean after a couple of unsuccessful attempts at adding a ring tone via i tunes. i decided to stick to the default ring tones in the phone. this worked out fine till i realized that every time a phone rings or a message is received by a character in the television, i dutifully check my phone.

There is something extremely melodramatic about the operation of a flip phone , lets take a tense scene in a movie, the scene is in a deserted shipyard , there is an eerie silence hanging in the air interrupted only by the squawking of sea gulls, there are two people framed by the graying sky, one of them is lying bruised and battered and the other protagonist is holding a gun with professional nonchalance to his head(not to his own head you fools). A phone rings , the gunman extracts a phone from his clothing with pin point accuracy and effortlessly flips it open , grunts in greeting, has a monosyllabic conversation , flips the phone shut with out as much as a goodbye , fires of the gun and walks away into the sunset.
Ok now if it was you are me in this exact same scenario , this is how the whole thing would have played out..... Lets start from the ringing of the phone shall we , cos in 9 out of 10 cases it would be us lying bruised and battered on the ground staring at the business end of a gun.
 So with out getting too technical lets jump directly to the point where I (us) am the gunman. The phone would ring, I would start groping around with my left hand first, then transfer the gun to my left hand and start frantically stabbing away into various pockets , the phone would continue ringing , getting louder by the minute ( Cos I was stupid enough to choose the ascending mode and also a embarrassing ringtone) finally I would stick the gun between my knees , stand in this weird half crouching half reverse bow legged stance and systematically but frantically start patting all my pockets starting from the top, finally the errant phone would be located,the phone would promptly try to escape when tried to be flipped with one hand and after a unimpressive desperate juggling session with one hand the slippery phone would finally be coerced to remain still, opened with both hands, and answered with a desperate sounding "hulloo".... This would be the proceeding conversation - "sorry!! Sorry couldn't find the phone .....hello? hullo?? can you hear me?? ....... yes yes i can hear you,can you hear me?............ damn network is bad.... sorry come again........ suit him? ...... loot him???.....ohhh!! shoot him !! ok ok i got it....S as in Singapore,  shoot him.... ok i'll call you back........ yes i do have a gun.......... off course it is loaded!!!......... yes yes the safety is off...... hang up goddamnit so i can shoot him now....... NO NO i am not going to hang him!!! i am asking you to hang up so i can shoot him.... bye........ yes bye...... you want what???!!!......sighh.... regular or non fat?........"

it is most definitely asking for too much off the gentleman to patiently lie still while this conversation goes on, if he hadn't already scooted like a rabbit while i was looking for the phone , he would most definitely propel himself like a human battering ram and knock me off my feet while i am walking around in errant circles trying to get a better signal,with a finger stuck in my other ear . it would definitely not be me walking into the sunset.

lesson learnt so far....... use a hands free for gods sake, flip phones are not best used when palms are sweaty!!! either that or use a carrier pigeon.

Sony Ericsson Z550i

i miss my flip phone though, a sony ericsson Z550i . it was of the generation when the phones weren't smarter than its owners. where all forms of problems were solved by simply removing the battery and putting it back. they came from a generation where phones weren't feather light , they stayed in your pockets as snug as a brick would feel in your pocket, so you would know exactly where your phone was. and in case you stepped out feeling light footed and as if the weight of the world wasn't on your shoulders anymore, it only means you have forgotten to carry your brick... i mean phone.
but the most important functional use of it was..... if you were attacked by someone you could hurl it at them, and the damn thing could do some serious physical damage such as dent the skull or give the attacker a bleeding nose, distracting them long enough for you make your escape.

but on the flip side (pun unintended) now that i have been bit by the smart phone bug, i don't think i want to go back, that would be like trading a machine gun for a blunt wooden club.
 i like it that my phone is smarter than me, i feel almost cavemanish without it.
 if you were to ask Sashi kapoor today "theree paas kya hai? haaiin ??", he would have replied .............
 "mere pass iPhone hai !! "..........








   

The Best Time Saving Invention Of Today is TOMMORW !!!

Video may have killed the Radio Star...... but Television killed everybody else!!! 

The Creeping Left Foot !!!

(part 2 of a two part blog, i recommend you read the previous blog "driving in indiyeah for dummies" before you read this)

my migration from India to the land of Bush legacy (not to be confused with Bourne legacy) has been something similar to the age old adage " From the frying Pan ,and into the Fire!!! "

I was bold and fearless back home, here...... i am scared shitless!!!!!
I was knight rider and street hawk rolled into one, here..... i am barney from the Flintstones!!

i was prepared for the left hand drive, i was introduced to the concept of the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car on one drunken night in greece, after pulling a all night session of liver bashing, we decided to take a cab back to the ship, after negotiating with the driver i walked to the cab and opened the front passenger side door, only to be greeted with a steering wheel. the cabbie walked up to me , put his hands arms around my shoulder and said " no,no I'll drive, your paying me for it,remember?" and led a very surprised yours truly to the other side.

the wife and me went out for a drive a week back, the weather was beautiful, the streets were empty, she pulled into a secluded  road,stopped the car and looked at me and said the four most beautiful words i wanted to hear " do you wanna drive?" i jumped out of the car,leapfrogged over the hood and was hammering at her door even before she could say "auto transmission".
once i deposited myself behind the wheels, adjusted the car seat and popped the clutch, but all my left feet met was thin air. i stabbed around a few more times and stared at the empty space, did a mental reverse A B C checklist, A- accelerator...B- brake and C- .....??!!?? my jaw dropped, then i remembered she drives an auto. (not an auto rickshaw you fools,an auto transmission). i panicked !! to hide it from her i adjusted my eyebrows in the rear view mirror, and swallowed the urge of screaming " somebody stole your clutch !!!!!!"

after regaining my composure, i took a deep breath and prepared myself to be further shocked at the gear shift department, and was greeted with P, D, N and R. looked simple enough to me. so feeling a lot more confident and having partially regained my uber cool demeanor , i floored the break and reached to the ignition to give the key a tweak. my fingers splayed on the dashboard stupidly.... my lower jaw dropped (again). i was greeted with a smug looking orange start/stop button!!! push buttons are no fun!!! its as satisfying as  firing a cannon with a remote control !!! the hiss of the torch,the fizz of the fuse and finally the KABBOOMMM of the cannon. a car needs to be started with a key, tweaking the key gives one the physical satisfaction of being mechanically involved with the process. i gingerly touched the button and the car purred to life. and i pulled my fingers back very unsatisfied.

the wife gave me a run down on lanes , stop signs and speed limits. so a nervous but happy me slid the gear shift into drive and pulled away from the curb and rolled on down the road, i decided to test the brakes and almost sent my wife through the windshield, i have got to add here that my last car had brakes which needed a 5 seconds notice  period to bring the car to a stop and you have to stand on top of the pedal with every bit of you body weight, so out of force of habit, i did the same and my wife did a very good impersonation of a crash test dummy.

things were going fine, but my left foot, who feeling very left out in the driving process decided to get in on the action and decided to plant itself on the brake pedal, so every time i approached a stop sign the wife would do her impersonation of a crash test dummies, which was a lot more dramatic cos she has long hair and a well developed vocal chords. i had to make a physical effort to extract my creeping left foot away from the brake pedal , but that evil bunch of bones and tendons would creep his way back. it was going to take a lot more than sending brain impulses to the left foot to stop this diabolical creeping, so i made a mental note to self to bring a rope next time and securely tie my left foot to the side rear view mirror.

i thought i was doing a fairly good job of it and was allowing myself a bit of cockiness by driving with one hand, and the wife exclaims " you are too slow " i stare at her with my jaws open (again) and exclaimed " but i am doing 55 mph!!! thats like 90 kmph !!!!" and she says "you are in a 65 mph speed zone, you need to go faster else you are going to get hauled up by the cops".
when my mom was learning to drive a car i used to keep telling her "mom, there is one simple rule to driving - when in doubt,go slow,you can't do any damage when your slow" ..... so much for that rule!!!

then my poor wife , as if she hadn't already had enough with my braking and snail like pace, had to keep reminding me to stay in a single lane, i would yell desperately "but i am in the lane" she would reply "no you are not, your in two lanes at the same time"  i scientifically inferred it as a case of the refraction caused by the curvature of the windscreen but my wife did not share my opinion and said it was caused due to bad driving skills. from the passenger seat of the car, the lanes look like wide parallel lines guiding you, but from the drivers seat they look like two converging lines rushing at you.
I then proceeded to have  my fast attack of claustrophobia between two white lines on a 6 lane wide, open and deserted road.
who ever thought driving in a straight line was going to be so difficult!!!!!!.

i finally gave up, and sheepishly went back to the safe and cosy confines of the passenger seat , while my wife drove at 70 mph, perfectly between lanes checking her facebook,gmail and instagram on her phone every second minute,fiddling with her navigation device and talking all the while looking straight at me, while i stared at her wondrously with my mouth open (again).

mind you i have been driving since i was 17 years old, and a have more than a fair bit of tar time under my belt. but i wasn't prepared for this.
i now have to unlearn 16 years of driving and relearn everything from scratch. !!!

" sweetheart.... what is that thingy near the door?" ...." the hand brake?!!!!!!!!" ............ i give up !!!!!!!!!

Driving In INDiyeah For DUMMIES!!

(This  first started off as an introduction for my main content, but then i got a tad carried away,so i am turning this into a prequel for my next blog)


let me start off with giving you a little background information on how one drives where i am from ,
first you approach the car from the side and never from the back so as to not startle all that horsepower under the hood.  (OK, OK that was a bad joke, give me a break will you, its Monday morning)

The walk towards the car is as important as driving itself, there are two versions of it, both of which you will be thrilled to know, i will touch upon now.

the first approach is the "on-the-way-to-work-outta-my-way-else-recession-will-set-in", in this one has to walk briskly with long strides, never ever run cos then it will be perceived as the "shit-shit-shit-I-am-LATE" approach, so long jaunty steps. a laptop bag slung casually to the point of slipping off,on one shoulder, a bunch of papers in one hand (neatly stacked) the head tilted to one side with a phone wedged between the ear and shoulder.and the other hand snugly in the pocket. always speak in monosyllables.

the next approach is the "worked-hard-will-party-harder-smugly-full-of-myself", in this the stride has to be more of a shuffle, slow and unhurried , both hands snugly tucked away in to the pockets. the head to be held at a cocky angle, pursing of the lips is allowed, but chewing on the lower lip to peal away layers of dry skin is frowned upon.

you can also customize or tweak the approach but provided you retain the salient features of it, my personal signature style being the " BRUCE  LEE NOSE FLICK" before i open the car door. if you don't know what that means then you have never entered the dragon or faced a fist of fury. Hiiyyyaaa !!!

once you have arrived at the car, do a 5 second external inspection of the car, it should look like you know what your are looking for, but in reality check to see if the neighbors dog peed on your tires or a crow was attempting a post modern monochrome work of art on your windshield.
enter the car , adjust the rear view mirror and take a good look at yourself ( please refrain from saying things like "today is my day!!" or "you hunk you!!")

after you have adjusted all three mirrors to face you, so you have a 3D view of yourself (i personally recommend a side profile view its far more flattering). pop the clutch, shift the car into first gear, start up the engine. mind you at this point , keep the clutch pressed and rev up the car to a thundering crescendo of screaming pistons a few times. to the uninitiated this practice may pass off as warming up of the engines, in truth it is just that we drivers love to hear the sound of our engines and when you stay in a tropical climate where it never drops below 30' C warming up of the engine is a moot point. There is also the off chance that one of these days you might manage to startle your neighbor into dropping his pipping hot coffee all over himself with your revving :).

after a satisfying session of sound checks. floor the accelerator and release the clutch, hurling your car into the road, if you hear a SCREECH of tires and a CRASH!, don't bother looking its just one of those slow drivers who you just cut off. the changing of the gears from the 1st to the 5th is left to ones personal choice which could vary from "need for speed" style to "driving miss daisy" style.

when approaching a intersection feel free to use either of the indicators in any direction, the indicator need not match the direction of the turn,cos nobody is watching your indicators they are all to busy trying very hard not to run over any pedestrians and trying even harder not to get blindsided by a government bus.
one IMPORTANT tip here would definitely be ..." in case the car in front of you suddenly vanishes out of sight, do not panic (irrespective of what you saw on X-Files) do not panic, slow down, turn sharply in either direction and drive past the sink hole masquerading as a pot hole"

 For personal convenience don't be too bothered by LANE DISCIPLINE ,lanes are painted on the roads so you can use it as a scale of measurement when you are trying to judge if you can squeeze in between two buses or three auto rickshaws.
 do not be surprised if somebody decides to take a U-turn from the left extreme lane of the road from under your nose, don't let this upset you, simply stand on your brake which is sure to cause to a chain reaction of breaks in the vehicles behind you, let him pass and politely wish him a pleasant stay in hell.

NEVER ever TALK ON THE PHONE while driving, cos it will distract you from yelling at other drivers,pedestrians and auto rickshaw drivers. which is an integral part of driving on Indian roads. A drive on Indian roads is incomplete if you haven't questioned the parentage of a few fellow motorists and had a few similar query's thrust on you, accompanied with musical cacophony of your horn
 ( paaan...paaan...paaaaaaaaaaaaaannn!! being the popular melody).

ALWAYS LOOK INTO THE REAR VIEW MIRRORS while making a turn, cos the change in direction of the car might change the wind direction thus upsetting your hair style.

speed limit you ask ? whats that? i ask in return, it can range anywhere between -15 kmph to 130 kmph depending on whether your choice of transportation is a auto rickshaw or a shiny new Merc. the speed limts are only a technicality not to be taken too seriously.
so basically what you have learnt so far is to drive like your father owns the road.

oohhh how i miss the chaos and madness of it all !!!  siiighhhhhhhhh !!
 there was so much order in all that chaos, it was like, bad drivers of the world unite' !! it was the Utopia for bad drivers !! I belong there..... sighhhhhhh.


PS- you will notice that i haven't touched upon the subject of two wheeler's(deep breaths, deep breaths), they are a necessary evil, like snakes , locusts , house flies and ..... wait a minute !!! none of them are necessary,......they are all pure EVIL!!!damn those 2 wheeled menaces !!!  

HoRRorScope !!!

Astrologers and meteorologists are a lot alike , nobody takes them seriously , if they predict wrong nobody cares cos u never believed in them anyways , and if they predicted correct then they don't get due credit cos fate walks away with it.

But that does not stop us from checking our horoscope in the newspaper everyday for the kicks of it. I mean which single guy (single for lack of opportunity and not by choice) does not like to read "prospects of finding love" ( read as - finally get laid) ) first thing in the morning ?!
The fact that the horoscopes are placed in the same page as the funnies escapes most people!!

Tarot card readers have it much easier , they can at least play a game of solitaire or five card draw poker with their fellow tarot card readers while waiting for clients. and if there were psychic then they could play between cities. though there would be no point in playing cos , they would know who would win in the end. so i am guessing each player draws his own cards and on finding who would triumph at the end, hand over all the money to him, thus setting a speed record for the fastest marathon session of poker ever played.
lady gaga can keep her poker face.

so lemme give you a scenario. alright? you pick a card , and it turns out to be a morbid looking grim reaper with a sardonic grin on its face (skull) , it scares the beejeezeess out of you !!! it looks like death, feels like death and in case u had any doubt it says in bold Gothic font "DEATH".
 your head swims with images of crying relatives, serious looking friends , laughing neighbor (that bastard!!) and the pretty girl across the street who does not acknowledge your existence ( but for whom u had the hots for since u discovered the science of birds and bees) crying inconsolably at your funeral. your eyes well up with self pity , you bite your lip at how unjust it is for the untimely demise of a bright young soul, just when you have given up all hope and are making a mental evaluation of all your worldly belongings(that hyena of a neighbor gets your unwashed jockeys), the tarot card reader rudely interrupts your personal mourning to inform you that , "death is a good card to draw!! it means the ending of a cycle, a transition into a new state, a psychological transformation !!!"
You stopped listening after ending of a cycle...... the gloomy room suddenly brightens up, the once sinister looking reader starts looking more and more angelic by the minute.you feel euphoric and light headed, you nod profusely to everything the reader tells you and hand over how much ever pieces of silver the reader demands and step out into the world a reborn man with new found faith in tarot cards.

That folks is the tried and tested method of " SHOCK and AWE!!" ..... shock them out of their comfort zone and then hit them with all that they wanted to hear..... simpler to buy a magic 9 ball don't you think ?

though if you step out of the tarot card readers office and get run over by a bus!!.... thats FATE!

(cartoon by yours truly) 

These Boots Were Made For Walking....

If you are reading this, then i am going to presume that u have not heeded my warning and have chosen to continue torturing your self.
though i must admit reading the blog is much safer than actually having to hear me out, so if you are overcome with a blinding rage caused by frustation after reading this then i suggest the following simple steps to regain your composure.

1) open the closest window.
2) fling your laptop out of it.
3) take a deep breath and count to ten.
4) take a brisk walk to the closest Internet cafe and order a new laptop on eBay.

some people might also recommend tai chi , but i strongly advise against it cos i don't want you falling asleep while going about its painfully slow and exaggeratedly freeze frame motions and falling on your posterior. watching people doing tai chi is like watching people taking a bath in ultra slow mo . so can't have you folks doing bodily harm to yourself when i could derive the satisfaction of being one inflicting it.


yes now getting back to my title. "These boots were made for walkin" crooned by miss Jessica Simpson, who introduced  miss Nancy Sinatra to the concept of imitation being the best form of flattery, by lifting her song verbatim. thankfully though miss Simpson was inspired only by the lyrics and not by miss Sinatra's dressing of the 60's and made the song and boots her own.

why am i going on and on about boots, you ask me ? i'll tell you why. these boots may have been made for walking but were never sold in the united states!!! cos NOBODY WALKS HERE!!!

NOW I know why people make a big hoo haa of babies taking their first steps, its a very short phase after that they just jump into cars and drive away !!! off course people walk here , but if u pay close attention, u will infer that they are either walking towards or away from a car.

why walk you ask? why not i ask. the place is beautiful, lush green rolling hills with twisty windy roads, the air is clean. though the main reason being i haven't passed my wife's driving test yet :) .

the only ones whom i share the footpath with (if i find one that is,i have had to use google maps to search them out ) seem to be the homeless or raccoons  i decided to walk on a jogging trail but soon got tired of people vaulting over me, after fifteen minutes of being treated as a mobile steeple chase hurdle i finally gave up and crawled my way back home through the bushes and drains.

if i were to tell my wife "i am going to go and wrestle a bear with my bare hands luv!!!" she would casually say " sure honey, will you please buy some cilantro on your way home please! ". but if i were to say " i am gonna walk home from the library luv! ", i would send the poor girl into a panic and have her visiting the temple to pray for my safe return. because she is scared i would Look left when i should be looking right (pun unintended) and find myself splattered across somebodies windshield like a bug on a highway. kind of reminds me of the traffic sign i saw in India which read " if everything is coming your way, you are in the wrong lane". touche'
 
don't get me started with the signal thingamgic at pedestrian crossing, you punch it and you wait.... nothing happens then an element of doubt creeps in if u used the right amount of pressure, so you punch it again and then three more times for added measures, finally the cross the road signal lights up... and lo behold it is not green but  hyperspace silver, the first time i saw one i did a double take and looked at the drivers half expecting them to cheerily wave me along.
A week in, i have finally figured it out, in America "pedestrian is king".... "pedestrians have right of way" but on the downside, as you are the king, they don't expect you to walk (royalties don't walk they glide along in horse driven carriages).

i dread to think of what would happen to good 'ol Archimedes if he were to run on the streets here in his birthday suit shouting EUREKA......EUREKA!!!. he would be promptly run over by a few cars a station wagon and a prius . then he would have two charges of indecent exposure slapped on him and one charge of obstructing traffic, he would find him self in jail faster than he could say buoyancy, where i  believe there are no bath tubs and dropping of the soap can be injurious to ones posterior.

if you still haven't decided to quit reading this blog , here's something that might help seal the deal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYj9-96HYPk

Megadeath in their not so finest !!! :O

(pictures politely stolen from wikipedia.) 

The Story This Far.................

So here I am , in the land of milk and honey, unfortunately for me I am lactose intolerant , I am not referring to the medical condition, I am just referring to my habit of not drinking milk. Before I ramble on my views on bees and their products, lemme start from the beginning.

There I stood in the immigration line at the Delhi airport, waiting for a grim faced middle aged man to stamp a “good bye, will u come again” seal on my passport. I handed my immigration form and passport, he asked me with a bored expression, “Are u travelling to the United states to board a vessel?”

“No sir I am travelling to the united states to meet my wife!!” replied I in serious earnestness. His somber face broke into huge smile, “then we definitely have to send you there!! “said the good man and stamped my passport with a resounding thump, and waved me along with a friendly wave of his hands and generous nods of approval. I wondered if the crusaders got the same sendoff at the immigration lines?.

I had decided to fly in to the land of Arnold Schwarzenegger with the Germans , as the Britt’s had done a fairly good job of dispatching most of the aircraft's owned by the Luftwaffe 6 decades back I was forced to fly Lufthansa.

Five beers, four sitcoms, three movies, two documentaries and one stop over at Munich later I was safely deposited in San Francisco.

The customs didn't care, the immigration was bored and the sniffer dog wasn't bothered about neither me nor my luggage. So undisturbed and unmolested (so much for all the horror stories of cavity searches) I proceeded to the exit and looked for my wife so I could squeeze her till her eyeballs popped.

The wife breezed in and after a little bit of the husband wife reunion acts of affection whisked me off to the golden gate bridge for a “welcome to California” treat.

So here I am in the land of milk and honey (those of you who are having a sense of déjà vu, I direct your attention to the first line of the blog.)  For the last week and it’s been an interesting journey so far.

This is the exact precise moment where u choose to continue reading or bail out, sell the farm and move to mars ( Venus if you have two X chromosomes) cos this blog will be filled with my raves, rants with melodramatic undertones !! so treat this as a disclaimer, check your horoscope in the paper or call your tarot card reader before you decide to jump into this quicksand of bad grammar worse spellings and atrocious punctuation!!  

                                                             YOU are being WARNED !! ............