holiday

Tomorrow I return my laptop. And on Saturday , my broadband will be disconnected.
And then to Kottayam where the net connection is terribly slow..

So I'm not going to be blogging or bloghopping for a while.

Just the thought, and my hands are trembling and my legs feel weak.

Take care everyone !

Tavern - Wednesday night

If any of you ladies are in Bangalore on a Wednesday, then please do go to in Museum Inn (before 9:00 PM).
It's Ladies' Night which means you can drink 3 taps of beer FOR FREE !
Imagine... Its not even a buy-one-get-one-free.. Its 3 free taps of beer. As simple as that.
So basically, you can walk in on a Wednesday evening, have 3 taps of beer and then walk out.. No bill, no nothing. Well, maybe a tip, but that's it !
I couldn't believe it and I actually confirmed it thrice with the waiter...

The restroom in Tavern is a tiny tiny little place. There's a little common area with a washbasin. And the loo is usually occupied so most of the time, you end up cramped in that tiny space with another woman who's also waiting. And the beer high, being away from the loud music and the sudden quiet...something...something makes these group of women not feel like strangers to each other. There's some kind of connection and somehow someone initiates a conversation. Once I was waiting with 2 other girls and I remember coming back to my seat and telling my friends that if we'd had to wait any longer , cramped together in that tiny space, then some really interesting stuff would have happened ! :)
Last night, there was another woman who was waiting, a slightly older, probably married woman. And somehow, we got onto talking about the Ladies Night and then she said 'Men are losers, the things they do to have us around, ha ha ha '!
And me, the drunk fool, readily agreed and we both bitched some more about men.
Later the lady inside joined us as well. It was all a lot of fun ! It was fun, doing all that male bashing though I didn't mean any of what I said ! Atleast not most of it!

Anyway, if not for the Ladies Night , then pay a visit to Tavern for the Ladies Room !

Post 101

THAT , down there, was my 100th post...

Thank you , thank you, thank you and you and you !

I wish now was last night...

Things in my butt and Zimbabwean economy ???

I was reading an article about a dentist in Zimbabwe where it mentioned that the country has an inflation rate more than 3700 % .

I got pretty curious when I read that so I googled Zimbabwe + economy and was directed to a Wikipedia page.

And I was scrolling through the Wiki page when I came across one line under the section on Rhodesia era .... 'small dick in your butt'

Eh ?


EDIT : So I checked the page later , after about half an hour. And it was gone.. The "dick in your butt". The line, I mean.. I guess I was just at the right place at the right time...

Work icks

Suppose you were explaining something to someone at work. Preparing some figures, graphs, trying to show a trend, explain it. And pointing out some numbers/graphs on the screen. And then that someone says, " You have such long fingers" ...

Does that ick you out ? Me, it totally did. And pissed me off as well.
And I'm wondering if I'm just being paranoid.

Sunday Pork curry

This is what I made on Sunday afternoon. Its a tad too spicy, but tastes good, all the same, if I may say so myself.

I found the recipe here

bye-nocs.. (sorry, I just had to)

Have binoculars been phased out ? I've been trying to get Appa a good pair of binocs for the last 2 months, but despite all my efforts, I am yet to even SEE binocs in any shop.

A couple of day's back I met my mom's father's cousin's granddaughter's husband (hee hee, I mugged that up before going to their place) who works with Carl Zeiss. He told me about a shop that deals with optical lenses, where Carl Zeiss did keep a few binoculars as well, for sale. So today evening, I dropped by at the shop and asked the sales girl if they had Carl Zeiss binoculars.

"bifocals? Yes, we have bifocals"

"No, no, binoculars"

"Yes, we have. Bifocals"

"No No. BI-NO-CULARS. Carl Zeiss Binoculars"

"Ma'am, they're called bifocals. We have Carl Zeiss bifocals, yes"

OKAY..
I think I'll have to order it off Amazon or something.

Yenjoy !

Rajnikanth's new movie, Sivaji hit the screens yesterday. And its been chaos in the theatres since. There's so much hype and fanfare about this guy, it never ceases to amuse and amaze me !

Anyway, these are some hilarious Sivaji inspired lines that I heard from a friend.

" After six, there's seven, after sivaji there's heaven. "

" If sachin hits it's sixer, if sivaji hits it's stretcher. "

And here's the killer:

"If you cross chittor there's katpadi, if you cross sivaji there's dead body "

Happy Birthday Ms Independence!

The three of us, (A, L and me), we've known each other since College. That makes it a little more than 7 years. And we've seen each other through a lot and put each other through a lot as well. These women have seen me cry, (one of them has MADE me cry but I still love you, L), made me laugh, they've held my hand (literally and otherwise) through some tough times, stood up for me. So basically, I am truly truly grateful that I have the two of you, anon1 and anon2.

Today is A's birthday. She is Ms.Independence, the Wild Child, the free spirit. The pretty one with many many questions and a very strong sense of justice. She's the only brave one who's touched a snake and she's also eaten dog/cat food. (all this information, thanks to a have-you-ever-quiz that we did).

A Self Portrait of 'A'




We've had our share of fights, A and me, and I don't think that's going to change much. In any case, I am really really glad AND proud to have her as a friend and I hope that even if we fight (hopefully, with decreasing frequency), we can always get over that and move on.

Happy Birthday A! Mmmmwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaah !!

snooping around

Appa was having trouble accessing his Rediffmail and so he asked me to check it for him and forward any mails from AA. Of course, I did all that. And a littlebittle more. BUT OBVIOUSLY.. COME ON, I JUST HAD TO. ALL THOSE MAILS JUST STARING AT ME...

And this is what AA had written to Appa in one of his mails, around the time I had decided to quit.

"Im praying for her. Im glad that she has made a decision and is still
sane. Normally she goes into depression before and after any decision."

I was really amused when I read this. Depression? Me ? Bright-eyed-bushy-tailed me?

Well, yeah , he is right about the before part. I go into severe depression and moodiness and self-doubt and general existential angst before every decision.
After the decision, I don't really think about it much. The only reason I would get depressed is the thought of all the decisions that await.

Anyway, its very comforting that AA knows me so well. I sometimes wonder if I know him as well. All I know is, he's the bestest brother I could ever have asked for.

If this (what I'm reading now) were a movie, I'd put it on fast forward and probably doze off in five minutes.

I hate abandoning a book. I think sooner or later, things will pick up , and it gets better and better as you get into the story and its all good from there.

But this... this is really testing my patience. And the last book by Eggers I read was so brilliant , that I cannot imagine that the same person wrote this...

Here, feel my pain..

"The path was now dotted with large flat rocks, like overturned dinner plates, and we were jumping from rock to rock, and doing so at a speed that I should have found alarming but somehow didn't, and we were barefoot, which might have increased the alarm but instead made it easier, because the rocks were smooth, and cool, and my bare feet would land on the rock and kind of wrap around it, simian-like, in a way that a shoe or sneaker or sandal couldn't. [that is one sentence] I swear my toes were grabbing for me, and that my skin was attaching to the rock surface in a way that only meant collusion between natural things - in this case, feet and smooth green-grey rocks. [oh puhlees, you're just a walking barefoot on rocks, don't get all back-to-nature about it] There was no time to think, which was plenty of time - I had a few fractions of a second in mid air, between rocks, to calculate the location of the next rock-landing options, the stability of each, the flattest surface among them.My brain and legs and feet all working at top speed, at the height of their respective games - it was thrilling and I was proud for them, for us. [now comes the longest sentence ever] I had the thought, while running, without breaking stride, that I would like to be doing this forever, that thought occuring while I almost landed on a very sharp rock but adjusted quickly enough to avoid it in favor of a nearby and more rounded rock , and while I was congratulating myself on having made such a perfect rock-landing choice, I was also rethinking my thought about jumping on rocks forever, because that would probably not be all that fun after a while, involving as it did a certain amount of stress, probably too much - and then, I thought , how odd it was to be thinking about running forever along the rounded gray rocks of this corner of Senegal - was this Popenguine? Mbour? - while I was in fact running along them, and how strange it was that not only could I be calculating the placement of my feet in midrun, but also be thinking of my future as a career or eternal rock-runner, and noting the thinking about that at the same time."

That was four sentences from the book.. Four painful sentences. Well okay, the thoughts are nice and all that, but its just all too self conciously casual and trying too hard to be all natural and stuff. I think there is some serious editing missing...

I oh-so want to put this book away...

Bangalore bangalore....

In another three weeks , I'm no longer going to be Mind Blogging from Bangalore.

I'm going to miss Bangalore. I'm going to miss the life I had here. I remember when I was a kid how I've always longed to stay on my own and do my own stuff.. And I've got that chance and I've absolutely loved it. Yes there were days of loneliness, moments of "awful sinking feelings", Sunday evening blues. But I think it was mostly good.

I'll miss Bangalore weather. Especially considering that I'm headed to Chennai. And Bangalore is such a pretty city, if you can just forget the traffic and pollution and billboards. Some of the roads and little lanes are so incredibly pretty and quaint that a walk down those lanes does wonders to my mood !

I want to visit Cubbon park one last time before I leave, spend the evening there, like I did with J (and maybe get up close and personal with the "grass", like we did last time). I want to go for one more Bangalore walk and visit the Planetarium as well (something which has been in the list for ages now). One last meal at Sunny's
and one last book-binge at Blossom's

Sigh...

Edit : DW's comment made me realise I hadn't really told you my plans after quitting. I'm shifting back to Madras where I will be working with one of my profs as an RA/TA while I work on my applications.So I should be in Madras for a year or so.

Slurp slurp

Join me in some drooling..

PMS, R.I.P ????

I sent Amma this article to read 'coz I couldn't really make sense of most of it and it didn't really sound all true..
And this is what she had to say
"So they say in early days people got pregnant to avoid menses. It must be a man who wrote this, I'd rather have nine months of periods than nine months of pregnancy not to mention the puking, nausea, the gas and the weight and finally and not the least the labour pains that follows it. No wonder those days females popped of so early. Must read that piece once more. "

"must be a man who wrote this..." ha ha ha ! Bang on !

It's all very good now... One wrong move and I'll lose it and it'll all get messed up and complicated.
But how I'd love a wrong move now...

XKCD

I feel sorry for the lift operator who has to spend his day inside a box, press buttons now and then, be in a box with people and feel completely alone.

I feel sorry for the XYZ credit-card company representative, who sits in the cafetaria the whole day, gets up when someone comes to get coffee and asks them if they'd be interested in a credit card, only to get a brusque NoThankYOu.

I feel sorry for the coffee machine operator. Its an automated machine, so he really has nothing to do. Once I saw him sitting alone in the cafeteria, staring into space, with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

They probably feel sorry for me, staring into a computer screen the whole day.