Tu

Back home in Pune when I was still "studying" engineering, there used to be an intercollegiate orchestra competition called "Kalyani". One of the items in the competition was that a couple of days before the actual competition, the organizers would give each college band that was participating a poem written by some random guy. This poem was in marathi. The band had to set this poem to music and play it on stage during the competition, along with every other song they had practiced.

During the second year (in a row) that my band won the Kalyani Cup for our college, the poem that they gave us was called "tu astas tar". It basically means "If you were here...". The poem outlines a series of environmental changes that would transpire, were the object of the poet's affection to suddenly appear in the immediate vicinity. For example, it goes on to say that he / she would immediately have converted the harsh sunlight into gentle starlight and silence into sweet song and so on and so forth. We Maharashtrians hate sunlight with a passion that is rivaled only by our hatred for silence. I don't know what we're gonna do if this global warming thing turns out to be true. Or if those Bose sound-canceling headphones actually turn out to work.

But getting back to the point, for the second year in a row, it was up to me to set this poem to music. And now, about ten years later, I have finally managed to reconstitute that sophomore effort on my home synthesizer and make it available to the music industry executives who frequent my blog. Now although the original musical performance included a drummer, a guitarist, a bass guitarist, a tabla player, two keyboardists and a dedicated sound mixer, unfortunately I did not have any of these in my apartment and so I had to play every instrument myself on the synth. Also, since I have a hideous voice, please imagine that the trumpety thing playing throughout the song is actually the voice of a marathi lass singing marathi lyrics.

So, here's the song :



(link)

Seinfeld

Some day I hope to elevate myself to that highest of existential levels where every thought, desire or complaint I have will be expressed purely through the usage of appropriate Seinfeldian quotes. That day is not too far.

sick

Well, my immune system, she fell asleep at the wheel and no doubt lately she's had a few sleepless nights of overwork due to battling other people's sweat from the gym but I still think she could've done more than just handed me over to the virii (viruses?). Which she did. Didn't even put up a fight. So no more soup for you. Come back...one year.

Oscars

Review in short :

Bare bones show, refreshingly low-key and devoid of its usual self-indulgent pomp and pageantry which allowed the peasant class to watch it without becoming aware of our own grime and unworthiness.

Glowing women. Glowing Daniel Day Lewis. Somewhere inside that painstakingly crafted sculpture lies a man, or so the story goes.

Javier Bardem. You are not as scary in person. In fact, you look like you could be trusted with a newborn puppy.

The Coen Brothers. Joel Coen, least interested multiple-Oscar winner. Ethan Coen, achiever of highest laughter to words ratio.

Walkway to the podium : problematic.

Helen Mirren's deliberate invocation of the word "cojones" : priceless.

Jon Stewart : extremely funny but more importantly, classy and kind.

3

When I came to the US, these are the three music cds I purchased with the first paycheck of my graduate assistantship. And they continue to be the top three favorites in my collection.

Antichrist Superstar
Aenima
Mezzanine

Roo

I went to this bar today, the Silver Ostrich Pub, just to see what people looked like since I haven't seen people for a while. I was just gonna get a beer and fuck off since the Weather Channel told me that everything that was made of water was supposedly going to turn into ice by 10:00 pm including the road and the rodentia. So I quickly ordered a beer and they asked me, Sir, do you need a menu, and I said sure, because, hey why not look at the menu while I was drinking. So I looked at the menu for a while and the waitress came over and asked me if I was ready to order and I was about to say no, I did not wish for food, but that is when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this phrase on the menu that said, "Sauted Kangaroo in Dijon sauce" and I said to myself, listen Mac, let's be honest, with your fast fading age and the relatively low life expectancy of people who drink and drive on PA highway 309, do you really think you're gonna find yourself down under at any point in the future?

And predictably, the answer was no. So, I grabbed this opportunity to taste the roo. Yes yes, I am ready to order, said I, I want the roo, the roo with the dijon. However, I have a question : Is this actually the roo or just imitation roo, you know, like the flesh of the muskrat infused with roo pheromones? No, I was assured, it was indeed authentic roo. Bring it on, I said. Let us feast.

Eventually the roo came out smothered in brown dijon and shredded lettuce. I severed one of the roo pieces with the aid of a steak knife that I was provided and hauled into it. Let me say this right off the bat. The roo did not guide me to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The roo was okay. It was deftly cooked and was bereft of gut and gristle. However, that was the only kind thing that could be said about it. It had a gamy fishy taste that was more smell than taste. Perhaps it was the culinary crew of the Silver Ostrich pub that was more to blame than the deliciousness of the roo. But basically what I am saying is this : If you have a choice between tasting the roo on PA 309 or traveling to Australia, please choose the latter. I am sure the roo is tastier down under.

Answers

Namrata Shirodkar, the 1993 Miss India winner and sixth place Miss Universe had the following statement to make during the 1993 Miss India contest:

"I would not want to live forever because I don't believe that one can live forever. And so, I don't think I would want to live forever."

It is indeed, a small world.

Although to be fair, Namrata's quote was only the 21st dumbest in VH1's list of dumb celebrity quotes. Dumber than Al Gore's "A zebra does not change its spots" and less dumb than Brooke Shield's "Smoking kills. If you"re killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." So it's not too bad.

Anyways, the point is, apparently me and Namrata, we are related by blood, semen, pollen dust or suchlike. That explains quite a bit about what's happening on this blog.

Update : Bonus dumb quote by Jason Kidd of the NJ Nets : "We're gonna turn this team around 360 degrees"

Snowed in

The backyard.

Dear Mitt Romney

If I were you, I would delete this photo from my album.

Also, whatever it is that you are planning, count me in. My talents include squeezing through barbed wire fences and unlocking toilet doors from the outside.

via Raw.

Results of poll#1

The question was "Would you like this blog to poll you with regard to stuff?"

87% of you asked if you would get paid.

Only 12% said "yes". That 12% was one person.

I seem to be hosting a very materialistic crowd here.

Somehow the poll lost track of the remaining 1% of voters which, if you calculate it correctly, would make it somebody's little finger or maybe part of an earlobe. I am sorry for your loss sir and assure you that the next poll will be better equipped with finger and earlobe protecting safety devices.

Routes

I have come across a new law of nature and I will call it gawker's law, assuming that no one else has had the free time on their hands to postulate it yet. It goes as follows :

"No matter how many different routes you take to work, they will all consume approximately equal amounts of time, all of which exceed the amount of time that you think they ideally should."

I have tried 4 different ways of going to work and they all cost me 30 minutes. Having performed all kinds of complex traffic, speed and school-zone restricted speed limit-based calculations, I believe that it should rightfully take me a mere 25 minutes to go to work. Therefore, the search for that elusive 25 minute work-route continues. Some day when it is a government holiday, I shall find it.

TDS

Jon Stewart is killing on Larry King right now. If you're not watching it, you're missing something beautiful and delicious. Watch it again at 12:00 am EST in case you're too busy right now having dinner or wiping dust off the fake plastic tree in your bedroom.

Onion headline of the day

Onion headline of the day.

And while we are there, this is pretty much an accurate description of me.

Lunar dried shrimp noodles with oyster mushrooms eclipse

Today at 8:45 pm, I went outside on my deck. I was afraid it would be cloudy, but it wasn't. I bundled up in my UMass jacket, the only thing that can keep me warm at the bottom of the ocean. I took plastic garbage bags with me because it had rained. I placed those garbage bags carefully on my deck chair. I took a bottle of Smirnoff vodka to accompany me because it was cold. I made myself comfortable. I cleaned my binoculars, adjusted their focus and called up zambezi to find out if he was also on his deck. Oh I forgot, he doesn't have a deck haha. Zambezi didn't answer the phone. He probably has caller ID. I sat on my chair and waited. The moon was bright and full.

At 9:00 pm, the moon was still bright and full. I went inside and logged on to my computer. I reread this blogpost. Alright, it was on Wednesday and not tonight. So, instead of stabbing myself in the chest with the vodka bottle, I went and cooked dinner. I made dried shrimp and oyster mushroom noodles.

Ingredients:
1/2 bag of dried shrimp
1 pack of oyster mushrooms
Chinese chilli paste, 2 tablespoons
4 green chillies
1 pack of one minute Chinese egg noodles
1 cup chopped cilantro
2 cups chopped scallions, hold the rap
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 cloves garlic

Heat a cup of water in the microwave till it boils. Pour it in a bowl. Add dried shrimp to the bowl. Soak for ten minutes.

Put some water on the boil in a pasta pot. Let's say 4 cups. Let's also say that I am probably guessing because who the hell measures water?

Chop garlic. Chop scallions. Chop cilantro. Chop green chillies. Quick. Chop chop.

Heat sesame oil in a wok on medium heat. Try to keep yourself from repeating the word "wok" just because you are intrigued by how it sounds.

Add garlic, one cup of scallions, oyster mushrooms, green chillies to the oil. Stir fry for a couple of minutes. Add dried shrimp. Stir fry for about 5 more minutes, give or take 10.

Add soy sauce and two tablespoons of red chilli paste. Stir it into the mix.

If the pasta pot is boiling, pour Chinese noodles into it. Wait for a couple of minutes, then drain them. Pour them into the wok.

Stir everything together so intimately that the mushrooms and shrimp have a baby with the noodles and call it Ling. Top everything off with the remaining cup of scallions and cilantro.

Delicious noodles for two are ready for consumption by one because it is only me here. Enjoy with Tsingtao beer.

Watch the eclipse on Wednesday.

Fire

I remember when I was a little boy in India, we used to regularly set our neighborhood garbage bin on fire. I don't know what prompted us to do it, perhaps it was just the sight of humongous quantities of flammable material in the bin that were currently not aflame. So whenever the garbage in this bin rose up above eye level, which was always because no one ever came to pick up this garbage, we applied matches to it and hey ho, a great fire was had by all. It was very enjoyable.

Enjoyable only to us kids, of course. This fire resulted in a lot of foul-smelling smoke. Especially in the evenings after the cool air set in and the smoke refused to move to a higher altitude. Practically every dwelling in the neighborhood turned into a smokehouse and everybody's dad and mom cursed at us for setting off the fire. But we didn't give a fuck. Matches were freely available. And in our youthful wisdom, it was God's will to set shit alight otherwise He wouldn't have bestowed upon us so much pleasure in the aftermath.

But the point of this flashback is, today my fucking neighbor across the woods decided to start a fire in his backyard. Gathering twigs and leaves and what not. I saw the industrious bastard spend all his afternoon walking all over the woods gathering stuff and putting it on his fire. The smoke drove away all the birds and it blew right into my home and onto my deck where I was trying to watch some birds. How times have changed for me. This is what it must mean to be an adult. To have all the goddamn senseless acts you did in your childhood to be perpetrated on you in return. Being an adult sucks big time. But not just because somebody started a fire and blew smoke into my house. It sucks because I totally lost the ability to enjoy that fire.

Amazing photograph

I just took an amazing photograph. It is of my grilling thermometer lying inside a flower pot on my deck. The flower pot is full of ice and half the thermometer is embedded inside the ice and half outside. I didn't actually take the photograph because my camera battery is dead and even if it weren't, my camera cannot take night pictures. But imagine the magnificence of the photograph, were I to have taken it. Imagine it conceptually : a thermometer lying inside ice. It is irony worth a Nobel photography prize. I trust you understand. Fuck it's cold tonight.

What is this ya

When I left my India, we were saying stuff like "what's up yaar" and "I don't know yaar" and "Come on yaar" and etc statements such like. Yaar, of course, standing for "friend" in Hindi. Now when I turn on Indian MTV, I see Indians and especially women, saying the same sentences, except using the word "ya" instead. "Come on ya" and "I don't know ya" and so on and so forth. What is this "ya", my fellow Indians? Sometimes I even catch Indian men doing it, although not very often and only when they are in the company of women. It is as if Indian women need to be spoken to in their own special "ya" language. So again, I ask you, my fellow Indians on television, what the fuck is this "ya" business and when did it take over the Indian language? Much obliged. Thank you please.

Rebicycling

Just so you know, I am still carrying 3 plastic trash bags full of plastic grocery bags from my previous apartment that I accumulated over the past three years and was too lazy to recycle but too conscientious to throw in the trash. Carrying in my car which I drive to work everyday. I drive 3 trash bags full of plastic bags to work everyday because I don't know what the fuck to do with them. Just so you know. Hello plastics industry, are you in need of bags please?

Secondly, watch this movie.

Thirdly, it is beginning to feel like home instead of some house I am living in as a guest. I am no longer afraid that my closets contain a dead body that I haven't discovered yet. And today when I used my toilet, it didn't feel like I was using the previous owners' toilet. At that moment, I would have gone down on my knees and embraced the toilet bowl. I will do that this weekend after I clean the toilet bowl.

Fourthly, dear SnowGod, I asked for snow and not ice. The difference is in texture. Please consult your handbook.

My hood

The very same evening of the day we moved, we were sitting in the Iron Hill Brewery, a neighborhood bar, having a couple of beers to celebrate our move and also because why can't a guy just have a beer if he wants to? We weren't sitting per se because there were no seats available at the bar so we did the next best thing, which is standing. As we were standing, we were waiting for someone at the bar to leave. We scouted out all the people sitting at the bar and sorted them in descending order of probabilities of imminent departure. People who had the table buzzer and were just sitting at the bar waiting to be buzzed when their table would become available were the highest on the list. Then came those who were eating but had a nearly empty plate. So after a quick discussion, we decided to choose a couple who had a table buzzer and kept gazing frequently in the direction of the foyer as if they were expecting to be called soon because it meant that they had been waiting for a while. And so, as is the protocol, we planted ourselves behind the couple and I began humming to myself, a low irritating hum in order to hasten their departure. I also ordered a beer, a light lager if you must know.

About five minutes later, another couple entered the bar area. They observed the lack of bar seats. Then, they looked around, walked over to our couple, tapped them on their shoulder and spoke to them. I wasn't worried. They probably knew each other, were probably double dating and would be sharing the same table after they left the bar area.

But my wife, with her keener powers of observation and hearing, believed otherwise.

"The woman just asked the guy to place his hand on the barstool", hissed my wife.

It was then that I realized what had just happened. In a display of nonchalant brazenness, the newer couple had calmly walked in, asked the sitting couple if they were leaving and on being told yes, were preparing to assume control of the barstools.

Now usually, I am not a very pro-confrontation kind of guy. If challenged, my favorite response, like that of the armadillo, is to curl up in a ball, pretend I am dead and let the threat pass me by, relying on my hard overlapping epidermal scales called "scutes" to protect me from predators. These scutes are mainly composed of bone with a covering of horn.

But that day was different. I had just moved into my new home. I was a home owner. And I was hanging out in my own fucking brand new hood which I had taken a vow to serve and to protect. I would be damned if I let somebody push me around in my own hood. It wouldn't be a good start to a new citizenship.

"Apun ke ilake mein aake apun se hi panga?", I asked my wife with puzzled amusement. "Why are you speaking in Hindi", she asked me. I don't know, it just felt like Hindi time.

Soon, the couple who were seated began to make preparations to leave. The new arrival's grasp on the barstool became tighter. He must have become aware of my intentions. This guy was tall, well-muscled and wearing a cap, which is always a reliable forbearer of an aggressive demeanor. And he was with a girl. Again, not a good sign. And to make matters worse, I was Indian. If you're a white dude with a chick and you lose a philosophical battle with an Indian guy wearing glasses, chances of you getting some tonight would probably be slim to none. Just too emasculating.

But I wasn't daunted. I had already decided. I wasn't gonna go quietly into the night. I wasn't gonna vanish without a fight. I was going to live on. I was going to survive. Today, I would be celebrating my independence day.

As the seated couple got up to leave, two things happened. One, they got up from my opponent's side. And two, this forced him to release his grip on the barstool to give them the right of way. Grabbing my opportunity, I pushed my wife into the vacated area in the form of an initial invasion.

The guy looked dumbfounded.

"What are you doing", he asked me.

I replied, "Taking our seats. Why?"

"What? What are you talking about? These are our seats", he said.

"Sorry buddy, I was here before you. These are our seats", I responded.

"Well, those guys gave us their seats before they left", he said.

"Well, they can't do that. These aren't their seats to give". The balls on this guy.

"Well, whose seats are they then?", he asked me, confident that he had trapped me in a corner.

"These seats belong to the restaurant", I said. Also, fire is hot and water is wet.

"Buddy, these seats belonged to those people. Then, when they left, they gave them to us". He was certainly making a good attempt at an argument.

In order to calm down and keep myself from jumping up and down screaming "Goddamnit are you a fucking idiot", I tried to imagine that I was explaining this to a little child. "Okay, when those people left their seats, they returned those seats that they had temporarily borrowed back to restaurant ownership. Once that happens, the next person in line gets those seats. Which is us."

"Well, how do I know that you were next in line? Maybe you just came in."

"Well, how about we ask the guy who's been serving me beer for the past 15 minutes?" I was bluffing because I doubted that the bartender serving me beer for the past 15 minutes would recognize me. Also, I had only been there for 5 minutes. But the bluff succeeded nevertheless. The guy looked at the glass of beer in my hand and conceded defeat.

"Alright, how about we let each of the ladies have a seat?" I couldn't believe it. I had won. I had actually confronted someone and won. Well, maybe it wasn't a complete victory but at least I hadn't lost.

So we sat there some more and I drank some more beer and my wife drank tea and then just as we were getting up to leave, a guy who had just entered the bar asked me, "Hey are you guys leaving?" Yeah, I said. "What amazing luck", said the guy. "Thanks for the seats".

Giants no more

Ever since I first entered this world, they used to periodically measure my height by making me stand up against a wall and placing a ruler on my head. Later on, when I grew taller, they gave up this method of height measurement because placing a ruler on top of a tall person is demeaning both to the tall person as well as the ruler. Instead, a new measure of height was invented, namely, how much taller I was than my dad, through approximate visual inspection.

Now my dad knew for a fact that he was six feet tall. So consequently, I became six feet half an inch, then one inch and finally, six feet two, where I've been ever since. It has been a pleasure and a luxury to be six feet two because my exceptional height allows me to reach and grab things that even six feet one people cannot, as long as that thing is no more than an inch above where they can reach. Do the math, it is simple.

But then yesterday I went to the doctor and being doctors, they assume that they have the license to do all kinds of demeaning things to you and one of those was to put me against a wall and place a ruler on my head. I told the doctor, you know, you don't have to put me up against the wall and place a ruler on my head because I can tell you myself what my height is. But no, they wouldn't listen because apparently it is against the Hippocratic oath to trust your patients. And so they put and placed.

And surprise, surprise, I was only five feet ten inches and 3/4ths. What? How could this happen? Have I really been this short all my life?

And then I began to wonder whether my dad had padded on to his own height when he passed the mantle of six footer on to me. And then I wondered some more about whether he himself had been a victim of his own father's padding. And then, I went and wondered even more about how deep inside my family tree this web of deception went. Someone at the beginning of time, perhaps my great-great-great-grand ape must have thought to himself, fuck and goddamn, I am so short and people have been making fun of me all my life, but maybe I can help my son not go through all the hardships I myself had to endure. So may the sacred banana tree forgive me, but my son, he will be taller. And so it began, this line of fake giants, each one wandering around this world thinking he was taller than he actually was.

But it is time to end this deception now. Instead of being a seven footer and perhaps getting into his school's basketball team, my son will be his true height. He will have to be content with possessing the ability to wipe the top of the refrigerator and no more. Because in my opinion, what is more important than passing on the gift of height to your offspring is the gift of honesty.

Patch

So I finally determined the origin of the David Letterman-shaped patch on my living room ceiling. Turns out that the pipe connecting my drier to the vent that transports steam from the drier to the outside world had come off. This led to my laundry room filling up with steam whenever the drier was operated. This steam then condensed on the pipes inside the dry-wall that bring cold water into my washer. The condensate then dripped off the pipes and onto my ceiling. How did I discover this? Through the creation of another patch. So basically I am now on step two of the homeowner experience, namely, I'm finding out all the things I shouldn't do by doing them.

Search

To the person who came here through the Google search phrase "why does microsoft word capitalize mohamed and not jesus", great find. Applause. Now go get a fucking life.

Sadeness

This one takes me back to the age of school friends and engineering exams and all-night-outs, ostentatiously for the purpose of studying, that were actually spent listening to music, scrambling eggs, drinking out of friend's dad's whiskey bottle and replacing consumed whiskey with tapwater, getting acquainted with the writings of Ms. Nancy Friday, manufacturing a home-made Ouija board for the purpose of carrying out a seance, carrying out the seance and getting convinced that a spirit had actually been summoned because everyone swore that they hadn't touched the triangle, seriously, they weren't kidding, it had moved and they had not touched it. Basically spending time doing everything, literally everything in the entire fucking world except studying. And ultimately, concluding with the breaking of the dawn to be enjoyed on the terrace with a steaming hot cup of tea in the hand. Goddamn I hated tea but in that situation, it had to be tea or the entire thing would have been meaningless. Good times. Life needs a rewind button.

Alone

Yesterday I spent my first night alone in this house. It feels strange and I don't know how people in the US can be single and live alone in a house. The woods were calling from outside but they couldn't get in because my windows were closed and drapes drawn. As my friend zambezi explained when he purchased his condo, it is a novel experience to familiarize yourself and get used to the night sounds of your new home.

The fact of the matter is, American houses tend to be somewhat noisier than Indian ones at night. This is mainly due to their wooden construction but also perhaps because of the greater amount of sexual activity occurring within. All that wood and sex causes these houses to creak a lot during nighttime. Hence the popular proverb that goes, "If the house is a-rocking, don't come a-knocking". As opposed to a similar Indian proverb which goes, "If the house is a-rocking, you're probably in the middle of an earthquake and it would be best if you found a safe place to hide".

In the case of my house, it is not so much a noisy house as it is an abruptly noisy house. It will stay quiet for prolonged periods of time and you will be like, "ah what a wonderful quiet peaceful poltergeist-free place this is" and then one of the water pipes will clang for no apparent reason and after you pick yourself up off the floor where the floor meets the bed, it will quit clanging and go back to its dormant state.

Yesterday I had fallen asleep in the living room and at 4:00 am, I woke up to discover that there was a party going on in my kitchen and somebody had forgotten to invite me. As I became a little more awake and a little more aware, I realized that it was less of a party and more of something falling over something else. As I grew awaker, I concluded that I had purchased a house with a rodent problem because that could be the only possible source of those tap-tapping sounds emanating from the kitchen.

I fleet-footed to the kitchen, assuming that fleet-footed means walking silently like a fleet of cats. There was no one in there. I checked the sink and it was empty. The tapping had ceased. I checked the cabinets which were also empty. Then the tapping started again. It appeared to be coming from the fridge. I opened the fridge compassionately, expecting to find a frozen mouse signaling for help. However, there was nothing inside. The sound appeared to be coming from the freezer. I knelt down to check what the fuck was happening. This is what I found.

My freezer appears to have a rectangular opening in its back. This opening was periodically emitting a tapping sound. At the same time, water was falling from above the rectangular opening into the bottom of the rectangular opening. I confess, I am not as well-versed in refrigeration technology as I am with blogging technology and so I must request you to tell me what the fuck is with this tapping and falling water? Is that water? Is it going somewhere it shouldn't? Is my basement turning into a swimming pool? Where is the water coming from anyways? And why the tapping? Because it's tap-water? How many more years till we run out of Middle-Eastern oil? Answers to these questions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Book Shelf

Yesterday, at the Berwyn train station, I saw an empty shelf on the wall with a sign saying, "Take a book, Keep a book".

When I see a book on it, I will let you know.

R

Football is officially over. What to do with sundays now? Sure, there's the pro-bowl this sunday but who the heck watches the pro-bowl except people in Hawaii hoping to see their relatives in the stadium? My sundays are open now. I need to come up with a plan. Plus, the wife has left me for another guy called India.

You know what I realized recently is that having nature and woods behind your home is all well and good in theory but these things get kinda scary at night. The other day I thought I heard a whistling sound coming from outside. I was concerned that it was coming from my gas heater so I walked down to my basement, out onto my patio and inspected my steam vent. In the distance, something howled. It was a very short distance, somewhere near my right elbow. I jumped back into my basement, ran back up and walked out onto my deck which is above ground level and luckily, way way above ground level. I peered into the dark. The howling was strange. It was a combination of a dog with tuberculosis, a baby choking on sand and a cat drowning in a well. This cat-dog-baby thing appeared to be loose in the woods and was probably hunting for mouse-bone-toy things which are its natural prey. Occasional splashing sounds in the creek appeared to confirm my hypothesis. To this day, namely, the day after that day, I do not know what that thing was. Maybe the nature of teeth-marks on that corpse will confirm its identity.

But during the day these woods are great. They are a bird-watcher's wet dream. By the time this article went to press, I had already seen a family of cardinals, a group of blue jays, a happily married purple finch couple, a nuthatch, a red bellied woodpecker, a hairy woodpecker and something that looked like a hawk with a yellow chest. Deer yes, they've been around too and they appear to be well fed and healthy. The only thing I haven't seen yet is a fox and by God, those things are awesome. I still remember the sight of a red fox running around in the snow as I watched it from my bedroom window in New Hampshire. Foxes, whew, they are beautiful creatures.

By the way, for anyone who was feeling sympathetic towards me for living next door to a band, that issue has been solved. I had a talk with the guy the other day and I asked him, hey man, are you in a band, and he said, yeah, sorry about all that noise, and I said, oh come on, it wasn't that bad, in fact I worry more that my television might be disturbing you, and he said, okay then. Uh, I said, okay then, keep playing. Did I just tell him to continue playing? Sure I did. So to recap, I am okay with people who live next door to me and play loud music in their basement as long as they come to me and apologize for it. I would make a bad president.

Hey Iran, I heard you were making nuclear weapons.

Oh yes, Mr President we were meaning to tell you about it, we apologize.

Oh okay then Iran, I guess I will see you around.

So basically don't bother voting for me in the primary.

Indian television

We took this opportunity of our move to switch to DirecTV. Not just because Comcast was stealing my pants and was asking for my shirt after I ran out of pants, but also because my wife wished to partake of Indian programming. So now we have two satellite dishes on our roof which allows the aliens to transmit their mind-controlling signals into our brains in 1080i high definition. Apart from alien mind-controlling signals, we now also receive Star Plus, Star One, Doordarshan, NDTV, Star Nyuz (which is how they write it in Hindi) and something called Cricket Plus which allows me the luxury of watching live cricket matches between the Dominican Republic and The British Virgin Islands, yes, I said live. I don't know about you but I don't think I could wait till tomorrow to find out the Dominican Republic - British Virgin Islands score, hell no.

It's been a while since I watched Indian television and everything feels very different. For one, I could not help but be surprised at how young everybody on Indian airwaves is. Here in the US, most television anchors, reporters, etc are on an average, about forty - fifty years old and the only people who are younger are on Comedy Central. On the other hand, the average age on Indian television has to be about eighteen. It's amazing. It's like someone threw all those broadcasting jobs up in the air and said okay, whoever catches 'em can keep 'em. And while the old veteran broadcasters were looking around searching for their canes and eyeglasses, the young people, being nimble of ankle, supple of thigh and perky of breast, and who could jump higher and faster than those older guys, were successful in capturing all those broadcasting positions.

It is very disconcerting to watch a news channel where everybody appears to be younger than you, especially when you're not that old. How can that little girl know more about weather than I, you think. After all, you've been surfing weather.com from before she was born. It feels like a media being run by children. Which is actually not a bad thing when you come to think of it. Hopefully these kids still have the baby fat of idealism under their lovely smooth skins. And although I am fairly positive that someday they will grow up and sell their souls to whatever evil force it is that controls Rupert Murdoch's cortex, today is hopefully not that day.

It is also strange the way India does reality TV. Now by definition, reality TV needs to be real and devoid of any kind of outside interference. But Indian producers do not appear to be aware of that fact. Let me give you an example. On Star Voice of India (the twentieth different Indian offshoot of American Idol), whenever a singer falters or loses his or her voice or forgets the lyrics, the producer behind the scene adds the sound of explosive thunder to the proceedings. It's as if we viewers cannot be adequately trusted to grasp the drama of the situation due to our feeble intellect and therefore, have to be made aware of it and guided to it through the use of external audio stimulii like explosive thunder.

I am also concerned by the widespread abuse of slow motion imagery in Indian television. It so happened that somebody in the industry came upon a button, a magical button that could play video back at a slower frame-rate. And then in no time, this button became the hot technology of our generation. It made a lot of sense to utilize this technology to the hilt in reality TV, even though reality does not actually move in slow motion. After carrying out a considerable amount of research on this topic, it was concluded that the image of a person clapping his hands in slow motion is infinitely more dramatic than that of the same person clapping his hands in real time. And the act of someone walking to the podium to accept an award needs to be savored more fully by reducing the speed of that person's gait through the use of this button. Even the simple nondescript act of someone blinking in order to hydrate their eyeball, it was discovered, could be made acutely electrifying by chronicling the travel of the eyelid in minute detail as it descended towards who knows what fate, perhaps a collision with the upper cheek?

I think that the problem here is that we Indians, through regular doses of Bollywood slapstick and over-acting administered to us throughout our lifetimes, have become so inured and desensitized to drama that we literally need someone to slap us with a stick before we can grasp any kind of subtlety in a situation. Or, at least, that is the opinion Indian television bigwigs have of us. And I guess it's probably accurate.

Garbage

This was the first garbage truck visitation in my new home. I stood there while the guy emptied my trash can. I had a lot of cardboard I wanted to recycle. I would like to save those trees. I asked him hello sir can I recycle all this cardboard? Sure, the garbage guy said. He took the cardboard from my hands and threw it into the back of the truck along with the rest of the trash.

This anecdote has been offered unaccompanied by additional commentary.

Not good

Not good, not good at all. The guy living next door to me, it turns out that he is in a band. And not only that, he likes to indulge in jamming sessions with his fellow band members in his basement. Sadly, they aren't one of those boy bands because a bunch of pretty men doing aerobics and lip syncing to a boom box, that wouldn't have been so bad, in fact, it would have been kinda relaxing for no particular reason. But these guys that I have here, man, they are the real deal. They have drums and they use guitars, one of which is the bass guitar. Anyone who has played a bass guitar in a confined space is probably aware that when a bass guitar is played in a confined space, it does not remain confined within that space but also leaks into and fills up the space adjacent to it. That space would be my space.

And so it went down sunday afternoon. It started out with a dull thud thudding. At first, I thought that my neighbor was banging on my wall to ask me to turn my television down because historically, that is what that thud thudding sound has usually meant wherever I have lived. So I turned down the volume on my tv. But the thudding got worse and it turned out to be drumming and not just drumming but actual arrhythmic drumming on a drum and I would know, being a pretty arrhythmic drummer myself. It was then that the bass guitar began its introductory riff and I don't remember the rest of what I was thinking because I couldn't hear my thoughts. I had a hushed conference with my wife. We were actually yelling, but it was hushed compared to the bass guitar. I asked my wife for confirmation. "Can you hear me think?", I asked her. She couldn't, so obviously it wasn't just me. Those fuckers were really very loud.

Thing is, the previous owners told me that my next door neighbor was a carpenter and if I ever had any issues with wood, of which I have a lot because let's just say, me and fucking wood, we have a lot of unresolved animosities to work out, to go ask him for help. No one said anything about heavy metal. Well maybe this would be a good time to request him to build me some wooden earmuffs. And a wooden hammer to hit myself on the head with when the bass guitar starts to riff. And a wooden plow would be nice too because I am planning to grow tomatoes in the spring. And someday maybe he could chop me up some wood for my fireplace. Ah a warm crackling fireplace. Just the thing you need to get drunk with when a bass guitar is wiping the floor with your brain.

But hopefully it's just a sunday thing and and maybe, with that arrhythmic drummer that they have, they won't be tasting any major commercial success anytime soon. Or maybe, on the other hand, I could join their band as a backup drummer and help them achieve stardom. I have a choice to make here.

PSA

Just so you don't panic this weekend, there will be no football on sunday. I repeat, if you turn on your television set on sunday and you do not see any football players playing football, please do not bang on the side of your tv because there is no football this sunday. There are trees outside and if you are in Miami or San Diego, avail yourself of this opportunity to sit underneath them and read books and such. If you are in the northeastern part of the US, drink.

Count to ten and if that doesn't help, count to twenty. Keep counting till you run out of numbers.

But bear in mind that there is no football this sunday.

This is a public service announcement. Brought to you by Barnes & Noble and Stolichnaya.

Making fun of women the right way

I have observed this in many men. If they wish to make fun of a woman they know by impersonating her, instinctively, the very first thing they do is pretend they have breasts by cupping their hands around their chest and strutting around with chest held high. Speaking as a man and also as a connoisseur of comedy, I've gotta ask this, come on man, is this the best you could come up with? Are we men suffering from such a severe bankruptcy of comical talent? Go ahead, make fun of the lady's mannerisms, gait, chewing habits, educational qualifications, choice of spouse, quality of offspring and if you are that adventurous, perhaps even her taste in clothes. But if the very first thing you do when called upon to caricaturize her in her absence is to try and match her physical appearance, well, that just makes it obvious to your audience that you've pretty much run out of ideas.

Not to mention the fact that there aren't many women that you see nowadays walking around cupping their breasts in their hands. Yes, ever since the brassiere was invented, the need for women to physically carry the burden of their own bosom has vanished entirely. I am guessing many men are not yet aware of that fact. Mama fell short in the education of her little boy.

I think the real problem here is breast envy. After all, thou wilst make fun of that which thou desires the most. Men still can't get over the fact that they have one of something which women don't while women have two of something that men don't. And this only covers everything neck down because neck up, that puts women another point ahead. And unlike a big screen television or a BMW, it is not something that can be acquired by simply shelling out money. And so, when it is the right time, breast envy comes out in full force. When men make fun of a woman by walking around with with an elevated chest, they are actually grabbing the opportunity to pretend to have breasts. Just like those men who wear women's clothes in secret. Or like in that one extreme case, the guy who liked to wear women's skins.

Oh yes, we are a conflicted, creepy gender. Best stay away from us.

Name

I hate introducing myself to Americans. I have a weird name, quite normal by Indian standards but weird by American standards.

Let's say my name is Amit which it is not but let's just say it is. The problem arises when I am introducing myself to someone and I shake their hand and say, "I'm Amit". Ten times out of eleven, the other guy responds with "How you doing Amamit?" They think the "I'm" is a part of my name. How could it not be? The rest of my name is weird so what the hell, the I'm doesn't add much weirdness to it. It's got to be a part of my name. It's all Chinese to them anyways.

Does this happen to anyone else? It's become quite irritating. I have come to loathe having to introduce myself to people. I have to prepare myself before every introduction. I tell myself to quit prefacing my name with "I'm" but sometimes, if my guard is down, someone will quickly take advantage by walking up to me and holding out their hand and because I am not mentally prepared and concentrating more on having a good strong handshake, I forget about not adding "I'm" and then the other guy says, "Hey how you doing, Amamit", and I reply, "No goddamnit I'm Amit you fucking jackass" and then the other guy says, "How you doing goddamnitamamityoufuckingjackass. By the way, you have a weird name." and then I go home and apply something cold to my head.

I really love my refrigerator.

Homeowner

Now that I have a home, I am beginning to get a good understanding of how a home owner's life is different from, say, an apartment renter's. Most of it is good in that you have your own place which allows you to stomp around upstairs and the person downstairs will not yell at you. And for all the useless crap that you acquired but never had any use for and had to stuff below your bed for want of space, you now have a garage. You no longer have to rent out closet space from your wife. Instead, you can use the closet in the guest bedroom after filling out all the necessary paperwork. And also, now you are free to increase the volume on your television and stereo to a certain extent, that extent being more than the previous extent you could have raised it to, when you were living in an apartment.

But most importantly, each time you slide the rent check into the box, the thought that you might as well have sauted it with onions, stuffed it between two slices of bread and eaten it for lunch doesn't cross your mind anymore. So that's all good stuff. Good stuff.

But here comes the bad stuff. You go down to the basement, you know, just to check out your water heater and furnace and what not and you see all the plumbing and cables and all those pipes and levers and you think to yourself, oh heck, what do I care, I don't have to worry about all that nonsense, the apartment people will handle it for me if something goes wrong. But then you realize, what apartment people man, you're the apartment people, it's all yours now, so go on, touch it, don't be afraid. And then you touch it but you are, in fact, afraid and you don't really know what the heck you are touching and if it deserves to be touched like that and whether it even likes being touched. So you panic and pull your hand back and hope you didn't break anything and hope that nothing ever breaks or goes wrong with the water heater and the furnace and the water main and basically everything in the house that has a lever or a pipe or a switch attached to it. Yeah, you wish, buddy. That's like saying you hope your newborn's never gonna soil his diaper.

Then there's the lawn. I don't know what the mowable height for grass is. I guess if it transpires that one moment you're standing on your back patio watching the sunset and the next moment you're on the ground wrestling with a tiger because you didn't see him creeping up on you through the grass, that's when it is time to mow your lawn. That's my guess and I could be wrong.

A patch has miraculously appeared on my living room ceiling. I say miraculously because it kinda looks like David Letterman. I am not sure if it is really David Letterman communicating to me from beyond, commanding me to let people into my living room and worship his image for a small fee, but I think it is more likely that somewhere in this house, there is a leaky something. The mystery is that the patch doesn't appear to be wet. But nevertheless it is there and it happens to be right below my laundry room. So no more clean clothes for us. And no mother, it's not just an excuse to live like a slob.

It is currently the height of winter and it is so goddamn cold outside that apparently even the cold air from outside wants to come inside for the warmth. It is a wind so cunning that it has managed to discover the tiny gap between the window pane and the window. So in order to fix this, yesterday I planned and completed my first ever home-improvement project. I went to Home Depot and purchased caulk. This caulk stuff, where the "l" isn't silent contrary to what you might believe and which could possibly land you in trouble were you to tender a request for it unequipped with that knowledge, is a white paste you apply to something in order to seal it. I purchased the pull-off variety which, as the name suggests, allows you to pull it off once the need for sealage is over. I applied it to my windows and what do you know, no more cold draughts. I think I'm beginning to get the hang of this home owner business. Before you know it, I'll be pulling down dry-walls, installing breakfast bars with granite top counters and constructing in-home waterfalls, please do not feed the fish.

But before I do all that, let me first start out with all the easy stuff. Curtains, picture frames, everything that goes on a wall. Let me mow the lawn. Perhaps even clean and water-treat the deck. Paint this. Polish that.

And in the meantime, please join your hands in prayer for the continued well-being of my pipes, switches and levers. Thank you.

Moving

I hired movers to move. I have a bad back, no friends either able-bodied or disable-bodied and way too much furniture for someone living in a 2 bedroom apartment. The moving company says it will cost about 112 dollars an hour with a minimum of 4 hours for a 3 man crew. Alright, I says, and what is this flat travel rate business? Oh that, they say, we attach an additional flat hour's rate for travel time. Wokay, says I, come, move.

Now these three guys comprised of the following three guys : One large hardworking guy, one equally large guy but less hardworking who not only happened to be prone to gastro-intestinal attacks that resulted in him spending about an hour in my bathroom but was also in his free time, hopelessly addicted to cellphone use. So you would ask, wokay, but did the third guy not make up for the lack of performance of the second guy, come on, did he not? and I would reply, yes, maybe in a perfect world that would have been the case. Maybe in a world where more than half of America wouldn't have voted for George W. Bush, sure, why not. But not in this world. In this world, the third guy would be an old guy barely able to get up and walk about without assistance. Yes, that would be the third guy in this world.

So to recap, I am paying 112 bucks an hour for three guys where at any given point of time only one guy is working while the second guy is either resting in my restroom or speaking on the cellphone and the third guy is resting in the truck. My calculations had gone the following way : 112 * 4 hours + 112 for travel time = $560. And as much as it pained me to give anyone $560 of my money for using my restroom, it had to be done.

It turns out that we own a lot of crap. I mean, material possessions were appearing out of thin air. Closets turned out to contain blankets which were covering pillows which were hiding lamps sitting on top of suitcases containing rocks. Blankets, pillows and lamps were all stuffed into garbage bags and loaded in the truck. It took 3 hours just to load the truck. And then we were off to the new home.

It took the movers two hours to cover the distance a one-legged walrus with a pebble in his shoe would have covered in an hour at the most. I don't know, maybe they stopped for a burger, took a nap, caught a Broadway play, read Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy" cover to cover, who the hell knows. But I didn't really care because of the flat hourly travel rate.

So when they showed up at my home to unpack, I was of a mild temperament. I even helped them unpack. I laughed at their jokes and when the dresser fell on their feet. The air was full of positive energy. As a result, it took them only two hours to unload the truck. Okay, so it would be six hours of moving = 6 * 112 = 672. Well, nope. Turned out that the flat rate thing which I should have checked out more thoroughly, was just the flat rate for the travel of the empty truck and did not include the two fucking hours spent in traveling from the old apartment to the new home. So that added about 2 hours more to the moving time. Plus the tip. So in all, it cost us a thousand dollars, or what the kids like to call it nowadays, "a cool grand" to move. That got me to thinking, man, I really got to get me some more able-bodied friends.

So anyways, I still have to move some leftover crap. We'll move that this weekend. Bye Bye Exton, PA, you were a good host for the past three years. Especially you, you, you and you. And you. And although you did try to kill me numerous times through your ridiculously blazing hot Schezuan pepper-laced food, goddamn, I would have died with a smile on my tortured lips. Hopefully we will meet again on the battlefield sans any hard feelings. Only stomach ulcers.

Go Giants

That is all.

Cigarette Smoke Filter

The other day I was watching the Jaguars Patriots divisional playoff game in a smoky little bar near my new home, called the Silver Ostrich Pub, color and phylum class changed to protect privacy. I was watching this very important game in a smoky little bar and not in my new home because I did not have a television connection in my new home yet. And although it is possible to view the game on the big screen television in my neighbour's house if I use binoculars, the view is partially obstructed by my neighbour waving at me through his window to quit watching him through binoculars and I am someone who likes a crystal clear picture for his football games.

So I was in this bar and it was a hell of a lot of smoky for such a tiny bar. And then a guy came and sat beside me and he began to add a generous contribution to the smokiness that had already existed before his arrival. His uninhaled smoke began to enter my nostrils, and I don't know if cigarette smoke has some brainstorming properties, but I suddenly had a brainstorm. I came up with a cool gadget that would filter cigarette smoke out of the air you breathe when you are in a smoky little bar sitting beside a chain smoker.

This gadget consists of a funnel with a strap-on which straps on to your nose. It is kind of large but not big enough to obscure your vision of the football game. The gadget is painted a bright red with large legible fluorescent yellow letters on it which say "cigarette smoke filter". There are also a skull and crossbones painted on it with flashing LEDs for the eyes of the skull.

Finally, we jump into the technical nitty gritty of the contraption. Now I don't want to overwhelm you with all the complex architectural and operational details, but let's just say it is empty. The way it works is this :

Step 1 : Cigarette smoke emanating from the smoker next to you enters the outer end of the funnel, pausing just enough to admire the flashing LEDs in the skull eye which were a nice touch by the inventor.

Step 2 : Cigarette smoke exits out of the inner end of the funnel unmolested (due to the emptiness inside the funnel) and into your nose, proceeding to your lungs where it deposits a large amount of carcinogens on your lung linings where they will remain till the day you die, assisting you therein.

Step 3 : Those flashing LEDs on that grotesque thing you have attached to your face capture the attention of the smoker sitting next to you who then reads the words on the funnel that say "cigarette smoke filter".

Step 4 : The smoker experiences multiple twinges of guilt and after experiencing one twinge too many, retires to a position in the bar that is not adjacent to someone with a grotesque funnel shaped thing attached to his face.

Step 5 : Air containing considerably less cigarette smoke by volume enters the funnel and proceeds to your lungs where it deposits less cancer than it would have if it weren't for the flashing LEDs and the humongous funnel shape.

So that was my invention. I am filing a patent for it and will soon be rich. If I were you and if you had lots of idle cash and knew something about stocks such as how the fuck do you buy stocks and what the fuck are stocks anyways, I would go out and buy my stock right now.

But thank God I am not you. You probably don't work out and smoke two packs a day.

Since I have been asked to furnish a story about the Liberty Bell, here it is.

We went to visit the Liberty Bell in his / her / its home in Old City Philadelphia. So as we were standing in front of it along with fifty other Liberty Bell admirers, one Taco Bell admirer who was kind of lost and one KFC admirer who was completely lost, I heard the guide say, "So here is the famous crack in the Liberty Bell which is", and he paused dramatically, "pretty hard to find". And the crowd around me roared in laughter. I also roared somewhat but after roaring for a couple of seconds, I stopped roaring and said to my wife, "I don't get the joke. The crack is really hard to find. In fact, to be honest, I can't see a single crack anywhere on the bell". Here is what the Liberty Bell looked like :

(via)

Then, after trying hard to find a crack on the Liberty Bell for some more time, I gave it up. I then probed the guide's comment for any hidden humorous connotations but all I could come up with were a number of connotations which, due to their vulgar implication, couldn't possibly be what he was referring to. So basically I gave up and then we left and went to do something else.

Now it appears that the Liberty Bell actually looked like this from the side opposite from where I was standing.

(via)

I get the joke now.

And so I bought a house, or as they call it in the US, a condo.

On the day of the closing, there was a walk-through. We walked through the condo to check if everything was where we had left it. The taps were fine and so were the toilet flushes. Our realtor had asked us to check on the taps and toilet flushes because apparently previous owners of condos are known to sabotage taps and toilet flushes before abandoning their properties. The taps and flushes were fine, I checked them myself after using them. The carpet was also okay. One place on the carpet showcased a yellow stain but it was far to the north to be urine-based so I was not worried. Oxy-something would solve it and urine is better than semen anyways.

But I had more important fish to fry. I walked outside to the woods and the stream for which I would be paying most of my money. I spotted a tree hanging halfway down to the ground. The wood had only a few trees so naturally, I was concerned. The last time I was here, the tree had been proudly erect. Hey, what's with that tree, I asked the owner of the property. She replied that the tree had submitted to the last winter storm. I said okay, but I also warned her that she was treading on thin ice. Very thin ice in a warmish winter. No more halfway trees, warned I. Please rectify the situation. The owner went and tried to push the tree back up, up towards the sky, in an upright position. She tried her best and I appreciated her efforts.

But apart from that, everything else was fine. Maybe the tree would grow back up. Plus the owner had given me a lawnmower and a grill free of charge. Plus a lawn to mow with the lawnmower. Okay, I approved the walk-through.

It was on to the closing. The closing took place in a dark conference room. We were all there. Me, my wife, the seller, her husband, my realtor, their realtor, my realtor's husband, my mortgage agent, the title lady, the title lady's imaginary friend, it was about ten people and it didn't take me long to realize that I was paying all their salaries. And so I did, I gave them a check for half a hundred thousand dollars. It was weird because I did not know that I possessed half a hundred thousand dollars and I celebrated on that knowledge before grieving on the loss. The closing went well and I was the only person from whose pocket money was departing. Therefore I was the star. I had to sign twenty thousand documents. My wife had to sign ten thousand documents. We had to memorize the dates because we also had to date the documents. The problem was that it was 2008 and I was still in 2007 mode. Hopefully I signed something as 2007 and I will get back my half a hundred thousand. No? Okay then.

I tried to make the most of my stardom from being the person who was paying the ten people's salary. I asked questions. What is this two dollars beside the half a hundred thousand dollars, asked I. Oh, that, why do you care, you have already given us half a hundred thousand dollars, was the answer. Okay, forget it, said I, just give me the keys.

I was given the keys to the house. 5 copies. Why the heck 5, asked I. We locked ourselves out, said the husband. Multiple times. Thus the copies. Empty your pockets please, said I in a stern manner. Out came a garage door opener. Thank you, said I. I was wondering what that garage shaped thing beside the condo was.

Finally we were done. I had signed a lot of papers. I had my keys. I was broke. I was ecstatic. I owned a home. Home prices were falling. What could be better? My realtor had a Christmas present for us. It was a packet of gift cards. Please tell everyone about us, said my realtor. Sure I will, said I. After all, you gave us a home.

A home is what we have now. We will move completely in a couple of weeks. I am a history buff and I already know the history of this place. The Liberty Bell passed by our doorstep about 200 years ago as it made the journey back to Philadelphia. It's a historical place. Every road here was laid down in the 1700s. We have an Indian store, a Chinese restaurant, a mall, a pub, a biking trail and a creek. Everything you need to live in harmony with the world and nature. I think we will be fine.

Maybe you were watching Comedy Central on Christmas day, maybe you weren't because you aren't a loser. But if you are not a loser and you weren't watching Comedy Central on the weekend, then you missed Demetri Martin make a very profound point. It was about how we keep asking people in glass houses to refrain from throwing stones at others. Demetri Martin wanted people to quit throwing stones, period. Society's disapproval of stone throwing should be independent of the stone thrower's housing situation, was Demetri Martin's opinion. Unless, added Demetri Martin as a caveat, someone were to be trapped in a glass house. And this someone had a stone handy. In such a situation, Demetri Martin was prepared to concede that stone-throwing would be something to be encouraged. But not otherwise.

Demetri Martin had these words of wisdom and more. You should check your television schedule for when Demetri Martin is on next.

50 most loathsome people in America, the life is funnier (and sadder) than fiction edition (via PZ). You are on it too.

Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism -- it's nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears' children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you're going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques." You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can't spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don't want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy's doing well. You're an idiot.

Exhibit A: You couldn't get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn't cover. You deserve it, chump.

Wrong house, Santa

Considering the vastness of India's juvenile population, it would appear to be a statistical improbability for Santa Claus to manage to drop presents into an Indian house that is guaranteed not to have any children living there, but manage it he did. From MSNBC, who is apparently stalking the old philanthropist on Christmas Eve:

Dec. 24: Agra, India — With no flat rooftop to land on at the Taj Mahal, Santa was seen tonight lowering himself down into the palace via a red rope while his reindeer hovered in formation. “You wouldn’t think a man with such a big jelly belly could be so agile,” said a Taj Mahal security guard, “but this just shows that when it comes to delivering Christmas presents Santa will do whatever it takes. I wonder if he practices yoga.

Apparently someone forgot to tell Santa that the Taj Mahal, ever since its inauguration, has served no purpose other than that of being a tomb. I guess it also follows to reason that somewhere within the cavernous interior of the Taj Mahal lies a huge pile of unclaimed Christmas presents delivered through the years by an ill-informed, albeit well-intentioned Westerner whose reliance on Hollywood disaster flicks for his knowledge of world culture has been a tad bit too heavy.

I am also fairly confident that in the next few hours, Santa Claus will be observed trying to lower himself (and his presents) onto the Eiffel Tower of France, the Sydney Opera House of Australia, the Tower of England, The Great Wall of China and other worldly landmarks that are familiar to MSNBC subscribers but sadly, equally devoid of children as the Taj Mahal.

But enough of Santa-bashing. Have a great holiday, people.

Another one bites the dust

John Harvard's at Wayne, gone. Consigned to the unwashed glasses of history. All that I am left with now is Iron Hill and McKenzie's.

RPM's Leverett

Once upon a time, I was still studying in UMass and I was sitting in the passenger's seat of my friend's car while we were driving along MA state highway 63 north towards New Hampshire. See, Massachusetts doesn't sell beer on sundays and if you live in Massachusetts and you run out of beer on a sad sunday, you have to drive north to New Hampshire where they sell beer on sundays just to piss Massachusetts off. Middle finger. So basically, we had run out of beer on a sunday and that is what we were doing and the guy who was sitting in the back seat of the car said, "Hello my name is RPM". Actually he didn't really say that, it's how I am introducing him. I called him RPM. He was the first guy I came in contact with after I landed here in the US.

When I was in India and I found out that UMass would be paying for my graduate education, I rummaged through the tubes of the internet and found my man RPM in the UMass directory. Immediately I emailed him and told him that I was arriving in UMass this fall and would it be alright if I stayed with him until I found a permanent home for the next two years. He said what, who, where, what, who the heck are you? I replied that I was an alumnus of his engineering college in Pune and that I used to be in his batch and the reason he didn't know me was because I hadn't attended college all that much, instead preferring to spend most of my time in the college auditorium practicing with my band.

But RPM was ultimately fine with it because of the code of the Indians which specifies that a fresh off the boat (FOB) Desi graduate student may take up temporary residence with a pre-existing Indian graduate student with or without his approval and so RPM said yes, and that he would pick me up at the Amherst train station when I arrived after determining if Amherst had a train station. For some reason, no one in Amherst, MA is aware of the fact that Amherst, MA has a train station.

RPM took me under his wing. For the first few days, until I found my own apartment, I stayed with RPM and he taught me a number of important things. For example, why it is a bad idea to run after the little striped creatures called "skunks" that wander around Puffton Village like it is their dad's goods. When I asked him why, RPM invited me to his closet and the moment he opened the door, I collapsed and died and when I woke up, he told me that one of those striped creatures had sprayed its scent all over one of his pants and the reason I had died was that this skunk spray was funky and when I say funky, I mean Jesus Christ, foul foul odour. Foul.The moral of the story was do not run behind skunks, people, they will fuck you up for good and even bathing once a week won't get rid of that evil stench.

So anyways, back to RPM. He did not have a vacancy in his apartment because he was already staying with a firang (a white roommate whose guitar RPM pretended to be a master of) and since they did not possess a television set, he hooked me up with someone in his apartment complex who had a television set, thus allowing himself access to it. Smart move RPM. Okay, now why RPM? RPM was a pornographic movie connoisseur. Every friday and saturday night, the moment the clock struck 10:59, RPM was knocking at our door, ready to enjoy late night cinemax.

Thus the name, RPM : "R", the "P"ondy "M"an. This man RPM, he was on a first name basis with all the leading ladies of late night cinemax. Make-up and clothing did not fool his astute sensibilities. Hey, this babe, she was in that one movie that played that night, wow, she really looks old in this one. Oh, I know this one, this is the movie where she keeps weeping every time she has sex because even though she enjoys it, she feels guilty because she is doing it for money and that's a great example of the clash in our culture between morality and fiscal responsibility. Man, I hate this one, I'm off. On second thoughts, I'll stay. RPM always stayed.

So that, in a nutshell, was RPM. The guy in the back seat during the drive to New Hampshire. He was reading the road signs and then he read this one aloud, "Leverett Center". "You know, I went to Leverett once and it was the prettiest town I have ever been to in the US", said RPM. And he sighed in order to support his statement. A prolonged, emotional sigh. And I was impressed by his sigh and I said "Really?" and I decided then and there that I would visit Leverett someday soon.

That day would not arrive soon. I left Amherst to make my own life. I went to New Hampshire, where I could buy beer on a sunday, and lived there for a couple of years. After that, I went to Pennsylvania where I earned enough money to be able to afford to buy beer all week so I would never run out of beer on a sunday.

But my dream of visiting Leverett remained what it was, just a dream. Till last year when I revisited Amherst on a whim. What the hell, just to see how it was doing. I visited all the usual places, the Montague Book Mill, the Amherst Brewing Company, Mt Sugarloaf. And then I decided, once and for all, to check out the fabulous town of Leverett which RPM had so enthusiastically endorsed. I took Leverett Ctr Road 1 and followed it to the end. Unfortunately, I did not find a town. I discovered a couple of houses by the side of a lake. Maybe it was a town, maybe it wasn't. What the fuck, RPM? I write this entire humongous post based on you and you make up a town that does not exist? Were you talking about Montague? Because I've been there and it is a very pretty town, yes. But was that the one you were talking about? Was it?

RPM, by the way, is now a very accomplished person who will probably win a Nobel prize very soon as long as he stays off the porn. In fact, even as we speak, he is employed at the very company that is allowing you to read the shit that I type unless you're a Mac user, in which case you owe another friend of mine called GSB. But that story isn't quite as interesting.

goog

Google stopped paying me. I don't know how that happened. Suddenly all my ads are public service ads for a hurricane and I don't get squat. I guess that's fine because I have yet to collect the money I earned till now. To collect it, I would have to give Google my SSN and it would go on my tax records and I don't know if I can earn such funds without the IRS pinching my buttocks and the USCIS inserting pointy things inside it. So I never gave Google my SSN and so Google has about 90 dollars worth of my money which it will give me when I become a permanent resident of this country which will probably be my son and not me. But anyways, so click on the hurricane thing even though you know you won't be paying me. It is for a good cause and I might be caught in a hurricane too so I shall click on it as well.

Boxes

You get all excited about moving to a new house and while you are in the throes of that excitement, you tell all your colleagues about the move. And then what happens? You begin to receive moving boxes from everybody and their uncle. Everyone's like, hey, Amazon sent me these books, they came in this box, should I throw this box in a dumpster, nah it's too cold outside, oh I know what I'll do, I'll just give it to that Indian guy who's moving, that will probably make him so happy he'll need another box just to hold his tears of gratitude. Here, I have a box for that too.

It doesn't seem to matter that sometimes, the box they are giving you is so small that the only thing it could be used for is the transportation of your toothbrush, and that too, only after stripping it of its gum-massaging bristles.

But still, people continue to visit you in your cubicle day in and day out and when they leave, there is an additional box in your cubicle. Or two. This ritual begins from the time you tell them about your impending move and continues right upto the time of the actual move, a period that could be as long as a couple of months. In the meantime, your cubicle turns into an office supply warehouse and you have to look for bigger boxes to help you move these boxes to your home.

Now there is the possibility that it is just goodness of nature that makes people bestow upon each other a plethora of unsolicited moving boxes. Because, obviously, cardboard boxes are not something you can find in just any moving supplies store that sells cardboard boxes. But to my jaded and cynical mind, when a person gives me a box, I feel like he is telling me, dear gawker, the box that I am giving you at this moment, a moment so far removed from the actual moment of your move, does not merely represent my benevolence towards you, but also the fact that when you will be lifting it up, I won't be around to give you the box then or assist you in the lifting of the same.

Nah, I guess I'm just being a prick. It's probably just goodness of heart. Thank you for all the boxes. Really.

Search

Looking through my sitemeter today, I was struck by how many people appear to be interested in sexual congress between a human and a car stick shift. Unfortunately they land up here because at some point I happened to pen a screed about the stick shift of my car and its disadvantages in the event of a traffic jam, also using some invective to spice up the narrative. Although to be honest, I am not really that surprised. When I bought my car seven years ago, one of my friends was extraordinarily drawn to its stick shift. In fact, I remember him saying to me, "Boy, your stick shift sure is sexy". And although he didn't explicitly say it, I could see in his eyes that he was just itching to ask it out on a date. To this day my front seat is off limits to him.

I guess it's also a good thing that I have yet to reference the exhaust pipe of my car on this blog.

Secondly, I have also observed that many people, while googling, allow their emotions to seep through into the search phrase, thereby reducing the efficacy of their search. For example, a visitor to this blog reached here via the Google search phrase "Oh God, capitalization!". Now sir, wouldn't it make your task easier if you just held your frustrations in check for that brief period of time it takes you to enter "capitalization", or maybe even "capitalization sucks" into Google's search field? After that, you could curse and rant as much as you wish. Just a humble suggestion.

Tires

Fall is over and done with. Most people like the peak fall season when the leaves are all red, yellow and orange. I like late fall when most leaves have fallen and ball-freeze has begun. Somehow leaves look better on the ground. Plus, during this time, the sun is mostly invisible, it is misty, rainy and the rural Pennsylvanian countryside looks like something out of a Sherlock Holmes movie with the big dog.

We had a minor ice-storm the other day. I had to go change the tires on my car. I don't believe the car people when they tell me it's time to change my tires. I always feel like they are trying to fool me. That's because tire-changing time is so vague. Theoretically, any time could be tire changing time, or rather, tire-non-changing time, because the tire never runs out of rubber. Of course, there exists some rule of thumb, involving the insertion of a coin inside your tire treads and checking to see if Lincoln's face can be seen or some such nonsense. I don't follow that protocol because I think using Lincoln's face as a car maintenance tool is disrespectful to his head on the mountain. Instead, I change my tires when my car begins to hydroplane on a dry road, which I call aeroplaning because I am so clever.

So I drove to the car dealership, deposited the car and walked back home. I realized then that I have totally forgotten how to cross a road as a pedestrian (someone who walks, in case you live in America and have forgotten what it means). I kept looking in the wrong direction, kept hitting the wrong traffic buttons and the wrong vehicles kept stopping for me which wasn't even me, it was the wrong person. Finally, someone in a Honda took pity on me and waited for me, allowing me to cross the road. He probably thought that I was walking in the ice because I was a homeless person without a car and because he was a Honda owner, he had probably been a homeless person too at some point in his life, and I felt guilty that I was taking undeserved advantage of his kindness because I did actually own a car. I had a similar feeling of guilt the other day during my eye doctor's appointment when I went there to get fitted for contact lenses. The doctor was all like "Oh, you are so smart, usually people take a long time to learn how to wear and remove contacts" and I was all like yeah, thanks, but what I didn't mention to her was that I already knew how to wear contacts because years ago, I used to wear contacts. I felt like I was a bad person and I am pretty sure that Santa's gonna be shoving charred monkey corpses down my chimney this year.

But the reason I went to buy new tires is because they had a tire sale (4 tires for the price of 3) and it was the final day of the sale. Since I am an avid environmentalist, I like to conserve money just like I conserve electricity and I try not to burn it. So even though it was snowing jagged little pellets of ice, I went to change my tires, even though I knew I would have to walk back and forth from the store. When I went back to retrieve my car, I received a bill for more than 4 tires. Now I don't like to be rude to the car guys because that would probably result in someone spitting in my radiator, so I didn't gape in an amazed way at the bill in front of them. Instead, I walked out into the snow and spent the next five minutes gaping amazedly at my bill there. And through all the snow and ice, I saw something called "road hazard warranty" that had been tacked on to the bill, which was equal to the cost of one tire and a higher end Russian bride.

So then I went back inside and asked them what the hell this "road hazard warranty" business was and they replied in a nonchalant manner, Oh that, yes, if you want that 4 for 3 tires deal you also have to purchase this warranty. And so I took my notebook out and added another star to the galaxy of times that I have been conned. Seriously, I am so easy to fool that if you came up to me, walked up to me right this very minute and put a finger on my chest, telling me I have a spot on my shirt, I guarantee you that I would immediately look below and then you could smack me on my chin and steal my wallet. Yes, I am that stupid.

Patriots

I hate those goddamn Patriots so fucking much. More than I hate the Giants. And, to my shock, even more than the Cowboys. In fact, when the Cowboys and the Patriots meet in the Superbowl, I will be rooting for TO and Romo. It makes me ashamed to admit it, but that is the truth.

Lazy post

It turns out that Christmas trees will be more expensive this year because of rising gas prices. I decided to comment on this news in cartoon form by drawing a Christmas tree with another Christmas tree lying under it instead of a gift-wrapped present. This would satirically depict the wish of cash-strapped Americans to receive a Christmas tree as a holiday present.

Sadly, I turned out to be too lazy and I did not create such a cartoon. So since I know you have a vivid imagination, please try and visualize the existence of such a picture attached to this post.

Back

But I'm still keeping an eye on you Sudan.

Mohammed

In support of the British teacher who has been arrested (and might be sentenced to death) in the Sudan for letting her students name their teddy bear "Mohammed", both my blogs will be named Mohammed. And just so that there are no misunderstandings, they will be named after the prophet Mohammed and not the pakoda vendor.

I'm also drinking a cup of Mohammed as I type on my Mohammed, temporarily disregarding the compiler error : "error C2065: 'Mohammed' : undeclared identifier" in my code.

So basically what I'm saying is, fuck you, Sudan.

Funnies of the day

Funny number one :

While driving around with a couple of colleagues, one of them spots a newly installed traffic signal at an intersection which is temporarily disabled and merely flashing yellow.

Colleague 1 : "It's only flashing yellow now, but soon it will flash all three colors."
Colleague 2, feigning amazement : "Really, you think so? You're so bright your father calls you son."

That was nice. I hadn't heard that one before. Bright like the so(u)n.

Funny number two : The Times of India, in a news article about the unfortunate British teacher who was arrested for allowing her little students to name their teddy bears "Mohammed", inserts the following journalistic masterpiece :

On Thursday, four days after her arrest, photographs of her round, pudding-like face continued to be plastered across the British press, alongside anguished reports of her plight “locked in a cell in a police station…her toilet is a hole in the ground, her window a small, barred opening high in the wall.

(via Patrix)

Lest you mistake what just happened for something else, a reporter for one of the leading Indian daily newspapers just called someone pudding-faced in an article.

That is all.

This saddens me

Apparently this is the level of education required to understand this blog.

Cash Advance Loans

I guess it means that all this time while I was laughing at my own jokes, I wasn't really getting them. Someone please tell me what I missed.

Home. This is it.

Woods, streams, deer, tigers, a noticeable absence of maximum security prison facilities, it's all there. This is home.


By popular demand, here's the full frontal.

Home

Thank you for all the comments asking me to write. And thank you for continuing to check my feed. It made me feel guilty that I haven't reciprocated your feelings by checking my sitemeter in return. But there is a very good reason for that. Now that we have applied for adjustment of status and have a fairly good chance of staying on in this country for a longish period of time, we decided to finally put down some roots in this community. Maybe even extend a branch here and a shoot there. Sprout a couple of leaves. Perhaps develop some kind of pitcher-like contraption designed to attract insects, which would then fall into an enzyme pool at the bottom, get digested and assimilated into our fibrous stems. Those pitcher plants are fucking awesome.

Anyways what I am saying is this. We are buying a home. And we've been looking at homes for the past month or so. It is a hard business, but totally worth it. I've been in this country for over ten years now and I still do not have a place here that I can call home and which will, in turn, call me homeowner. For the past ten years, we've been following education and employment wherever they would take us. One Christmas I remember being asked by a colleague what I would be doing for the holidays and I replied, "I'm going home". He looked confused. And then I had to explain that when I said home, I did not mean the apartment I was living in at the time but back home to India.

But this exchange led me to wonder if there was something wrong with my mentality of apartmented homelessness. I went to another colleague, a British guy who's been here for about ten years now and asked him, "Brian, if you were to use the word "home", would you be referring to Philadelphia or England?" He replied "What?". It turns out he wasn't British after all. But if he had been British, I am sure he would have replied "England".

So we've been looking at a number of potential dwellings. We have not had a lot of luck so far. The problem might be that we are far too specific in our requirements. For example, my primary requirement is that the home be multiple-storied and have a back patio or deck facing woods that are densely populated with a variety of animals such as deer, bears, tigers and dolphins. There do not appear to be many homes in this area that pass this test so I will probably have to be satisfied with a back patio facing a tree clearly visible through binoculars.

My wife, on the other hand, has her own requirements. She wants her home to be spacious and well-lighted. As we go through the process of home-buying, we are adding other requirements as we come across them. For example, there's this radon gas that appears to make its home in American basements and causes lung cancer. We have decided to buy a home that is not full of this radon gas that causes lung cancer. It was a tough call but we made it. Then, the other day, it appeared that we had found our perfect home. It had a huge wooden deck facing a meadow full of trees with a stream flowing through it. The home was newly refurbished with a huge basement without any radon and it had hardwood floors in every room. It was the perfect home. In fact, it was all I could do to keep from writing a check then and there and the only thing stopping me was the fact that I did not have a check book with me, or a pen, or any money in my bank account, also there wasn't really a table in the house that I could use to support the checkbook while I signed my name.

So we decided to return the next day with a checkbook and a pen and a table. And then, on a whim, I decided to go to my trusty friend Google Earth (as well as Microsoft Live Maps who is still just an acquaintance, but is fast climbing the buddyship ladder) and survey the countryside that surrounded the home. Nice, it looked beautiful and green and leafy and beyond the green there were fields and beyond the fields there was a pretty little nine-sided structure that looked like a castle. I made a note to myself to go visit this castle after we moved in.

And then I zoomed into the castle and the castle turned into a number of squat fortified buildings surrounded by barbed wire with guard towers at all its nine corners and I had the curious feeling that I was parachuting into the Graterford Correctional Facility. For that is what it was. A maximum security prison, a place that is apparently home to the cream of Pennsylvania's criminal community, the best of the worst. Bye bye perfect home. I hope you get a good owner and I hope he buys a gun and I hope he keeps it loaded.

So that, I guess, was that. This weekend we will go see some more houses. Hopefully we shall find one and call it home.

Very nice recipe

Here in the US we have a cute custom prevalent among grocery store products of an edible nature. Every such product features, on its packaging, a recipe in which that product can be used. This makes a lot of sense in case of foodstuffs such as canned tomatoes or sausages or mushrooms because I am sure there are a number of people who buy these things when they are still unsure of what to do with them. I am one of those people. Once I bought something called polenta and it was only when I read the recipe on the back of the polenta that I realized that I would rather be dead in a ditch than eat polenta. They even have recipes on the back of a box of biscuits where they let you know about various ways of eating biscuits without having to endure all that biscuity taste, for example, crushing them and stuffing the powder inside a thanksgiving turkey and so on and so forth.

Less sense is made, however, in other cases. For example, pepper. Do we really need a box of pepper to tell us what to do with that pepper? Or bread? I envy the person whose job it is to come up with recipes involving bread. Now that is a profession I would gladly adopt even if it were not to include any medical benefits or restroom breaks.

But then the other day I was reading the back of a packet of artificial sweetener and howdy ho, what do I see but a recipe. Okay, let me check out what I can do with this packet of sweetener, I said to myself, temporarily discarding my plan to empty it into my mug of coffee. Here is what the recipe advised me to do :

Tea

Ingredients:
1 cup strongly brewed tea
1 cup warm milk
3 packets sweetener

Mix all three ingredients together and pour into a mug.

So there you have it, folks. That is how you make tea. Go on now, dazzle your in-laws.

Spot

Can you spot the glaring fallacy in this CNN article?

(via CNN)