WTF moment of the day

One of those "Am I drunk or is she drunk" moments.

Miss Teen USA - South Carolina replying to the question, "Why are many Americans bad at reading maps".

Cutting chin

Hello razor blade manufacturer attempting to sell me your product on television,

If you are a man or a group of men, which I kind of doubt, you should know that we, men, are already quite apprehensive about applying sharp metal objects to our chins during the removal of facial hair. To take a particular case, namely mine, this is due to a constant awareness of the presence of my jugular vein somewhere in the vicinity of my neck. My lack of knowledge of its exact whereabouts doesn't help in dispelling the fear that I might somehow cause its destruction while shaving.

So keeping this in mind, I would like to tender some advice to you regarding your television spot. Your attempts to convince me to apply your particular brand of sharp metal to my skin would go a longer way if you were not to illustrate the sharpness of that very same metal by demonstrating the remarkable ease with which it slices through tin cans, bibles and a variety of assorted vegetables, the raw consumption of which would leave one with sore gums.

Since I am merely covered in skin and hair, I would not wish my razor to possess the ability to slice through metal and cardboard. Furthermore, I would even go so far as to suggest that I would like my razor to be as docile an organism as possible. In the event of a showdown between my razor and my skin, I would like my razor to back down. Instead, I would like to see my skin slice through my razor. I would want my razor to break in half and my skin to climb atop its prostrate body and bellow victoriously to the high heavens. That razor, show me that razor. I will buy that razor.

Look, men don't really care if hair gets trimmed during shaving or not. For us, the joy of shaving lies in the act of shaving itself. It is a ritual more symbolic than substantial, with very little utility value, kind of like sticking pins into an enemy doll or washing your hands after taking a whiz.

So anyways, quit wasting your time making sharper razors. Just give me what you already have.

Vegas

I am back from Vegas. This was my third trip there. We had lots of fun and frolic. Luckily we didn't have time to slot a lot of machines and that is why you are hearing the sounds of casino owners weeping. Another is outsourcing the gambling to Bangalore. I didn't win anything this time around. During our last trip we lost a lot of money and when we were waiting at the airport to catch our flight back, my wife decided to go for a final attempt at the airport slot machines. She won 330 dollars. They had to give the machine first aid. By the way, I discovered that they don't allow you to insert quarters inside slot machines nowadays. I guess slot machines developed some self-respect.

During this trip, we didn't spend a lot of time in the casinos. Instead, we visited the Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks. We rented a Chrysler 300 car which should have been better than my Volkswagen Jetta but wasn't. The speed limit in Nevada is 75 mph. It made me happy and I shed a tear for my own state's ubiquitous 55. But the highlight of our trip was our final night spent in Caesar's Palace. Something happened somewhere in somebody's brain and instead of an ordinary room, we were given a suite. It consisted of :
a.> 1 living room
b.> 2 bedrooms
c.> 4 bathrooms
d.> jacuzzi with massage jets
e.> 5 flat screen HD television sets.
f.> 3 different views of the Strip.
g.> Complimentary bag of cashews.

Okay I was exaggerating, I had to pay for the cashews. But everything else is true.

I think the reason behind this benevolence was the intense sentimentalization of the guy at the reception desk due to the fact that we were both from Pennsylvania. And luckily, when he said he was from Pittsburgh, I did not say oh, I thought you said you were from Pennsylvania ha ha. Also, when he said are you Indian, my mentor is Indian, I did not say really, what a coincidence, my mentor is American. Due to all these non-sayings of mine, we received the suite, thus proving once and for all, that if ever I feel like saying anything, it should be best left unsaid.

The Grand Canyon was quite windy. I offered her my Philadelphia Eagles cap and she accepted it with dignity and ferocity. The bus driver was probably a Republican because he kept taking pot shots at Hillary Clinton from the airport to the park. I gave him a gratuity of 5 dollars regardless. What better way to shame a Republican than to subject him to charity?

Zion National Park is amazing. We had to pass through three different time zones to get to it and we lost count. My watch kept showing different times as I passed from Nevada, through Arizona and into Utah. Finally, when we returned to Vegas, we realized that we had returned an hour earlier than planned. Inside, the park is breathtaking. You are surrounded by all these huge mountains which were formed as a result of erosion by the Virgin River, thus proving that even nature will tolerate all kinds of shit from a virgin. The majesty of the canyon monoliths makes you feel humble. You realize that no matter how great you think you are and how much you earn in US dollars, your body could never be sculpted into those massive peaks by a river. The weather in Zion reminded me of my Pune. Hot without being humid and you could feel all your bodily fluids slowly making their way into the atmosphere.

As a final note, hello Atlantic City NJ, you should quit trying to be like Vegas. It only makes you look foolish.

Off to Vegas

For a week. Or maybe not. Who the hell knows.

Dear

My friend zambezi does not like people calling him "dude". I am okay with that. I am also okay with people using the word "dude". My own nemesis is the word "dear". I don't like people using "dear" with all and sundry. Especially if those people happen to be male and are addressing other male people. For example, when a male friend emails you beginning with the line "How are you, dear", somehow you feel violated in a very intimate way.

I am okay with dude. At least when someone calls me a dude, I can pretend I am wearing a cowboy hat and riding a bull that is trying to throw me off and later that night I'm gonna have the same bull for dinner and then who's gonna try and throw off whom? But on the other hand if someone calls me a dear, I have a mental image of me simpering coyly and what makes it worse is that I still have on that same cowboy hat and I'm still riding the same bull but now I am also wearing a pink frock and oversized sunglasses with a color gradient going from brown to transparent and sipping on an appletini or some kind of cocktail with a miniature umbrella in it.

It's a very disturbing image so dude, quit calling me "dear".

Sitar

During my last visit to India, I purchased a miniature fake sitar souvenir in Bangalore for one of my office colleagues. I did this because whenever the topic of India comes up during our conversations, this colleague has a habit of raising his arms as if he were holding an imaginary sitar and uttering the phrase "tingalingaling". If you feel that the novelty value of this behavior would likely wear off after just a couple of performances, you haven't seen him impersonate 1.> an Indian flying carpet cab driver, 2.> a snake charmer having HR problems, or 3.> a snake charmer playing the sitar on a flying carpet.

So anyways, today my colleague informed me that he was pleased to report that yesterday his two year old daughter took her first baby steps towards becoming a sitar virtuoso by learning how to play the fake sitar souvenir. I guess Anoushka Shankar will be having some stiff foreign-born competition soon.

Regularity and the I-485

I need to keep blogging regularly. I feel that I am losing touch with the English language. I keep forgetting all these words that I use in my daily interaction with people and it is very frustrating. Lately, my conversations have been fraught with long pauses during which I try to remember the exact word I need to use on that occasion because I am such a perfectionist. Also because if I meant to say "user interface specifications", but actually said "Adolf Hitler" instead, it might remove a few rungs from my corporate ladder. But I think it's getting better with time because nowadays when people see me walking down the corridor in their general direction, they bring out Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy" to read during the forthcoming conversation. And that is fine with me. This way, America gets reacquainted with the printed word and I don't feel guilty for wasting a large chunk of her youth.

Some time ago there was this news article which said that regular blogging reduces the possibility of getting some disease. I wish I could remember what that disease was. Parkinson's, I think. Or was it Alzheimer's? I just went and google-checked and it turned out to be Alzheimer's. I think it is somewhat ironic that I forgot which disease can be prevented by blogging and that disease turned out to be Alzheimer's.

I finally sent out my I-485 application yesterday. It puts me in line for an American green card. It has been a long and frustrating journey which commenced in May this year when the US Senate decided to table this piece of legislation that they called the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill" just because the name "Turd Milkshake" was already taken. This bill intended to replace the current employment-based green card system with one that would be based upon merit. As you can imagine, merit-based systems are not very useful for people like me who are largely lacking in that department. Therefore, the period from May to June was a time of fearful apprehension and constant Senate-activity monitoring.

And then, just when all seemed to be lost, Republicans in the Senate rose to the occasion and defeated this bill. Twice. Man, I never thought I would say this, but Thank You, GOP, XOXOXOXO. But the respite was only temporary. The USCIS then piled on by coaxing all wanna-be immigrants into a state of quivering tumescence by making immigrant visa dates current for July and then applying danda to aforementioned KLs by rescinding the visa bulletin on July 2nd and disallowing anyone from filing for the final stage of the green card process.

This, of course, as history has documented, led to the Gandhigiri protests and the USCIS rescinding its previous rescindment and allowing everyone and their uncle to file for the final stage of the green card process, the highly-anticipated I-485.

In the meantime, immigration forums went wild. Clueless people began to ask other even more clueless people for help with complex I-485 filing details. "Birth certificate not have, family astrologer handwritten note will do?" "Medical certificate doctor asked to undress and touched in private portion, anyone else this happen to?" "Previously arrested for selling tobacco to minors, will this affect application or cause cancer?" "Filled out native script version of wife's name on her application, will USCIS find out it was me?" Correct answers turned out to be no, yes why God why, yes and are you fucking kidding me in that order.

And then there were those paranoid souls who dispatched their applications to the USCIS and then, for the next few days, sat in their darkened bedrooms surrounded by piles of their own hair, jumping at sudden sounds and wondering if their packages reached safely. "Who signed for your package at the USCIS Service Center? R. Williams? Mine was signed by C. Waterbury. Did I send it to the right place? Damn you, C. Waterbury!" How the fuck does it matter who signed for your goddamned package? Do you even know Senor Williams, I typed on my keyboard, pressed enter and watched my profile get flagged with a "rude commenter" tag.

I am not ashamed to say that I was an intrinsic part of this cowering fear-ridden pack until yesterday. But now that my package is well on its way to the USCIS, sitting inside a Fedex delivery truck the last time I checked, I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulder. Although I still wonder if I signed all my checks. Or if my 6 photographs will be acceptable. And that there are no distracting shadows on my face. And that the white background against which my face rests is milky enough to satisfy even the most hardcore dairy-connoisseur on the USCIS payroll.

Also, I hope Mr. R. Williams signs for my package. He appears to be more trustworthy than this C. Waterbury fellow, at least within the immigrant community.

Wax

I don't know if someone has already been through what I am about to narrate, or if someone has already pretended to have been through what I am about to narrate, just because what I am about to narrate is such an obvious thing to have happened and if it hasn't yet happened to anyone, I would be extremely surprised, but I will still narrate it regardless. So I was sitting on a bench in Madame Tussaud's wax museum in New York resting my back on which the weight of the world rests. And I saw this woman walk up to me and she stood there subjecting me to intense scrutiny for a while and then got startled out of her wits when I looked up at her and she said, "Wow, you had me fooled there".

If this story had not actually happened to me, I would have made it up anyways so basically, I don't know if other people have already made it up and recited it to other people, thus reducing the humor content of it, but in this case, it actually did happen to me so in my opinion, keeping that in mind, I feel that this episode certainly merits a few chuckles from you.

Thank you in advance.

Don't be surprised

I don't understand the people in all these commercials who still get surprised when they encounter an inanimate object equipped with the ability to speak. It's like, here is this guy, supposedly living in the twenty first century and yet, when his bedroom heater speaks to him in a sensual feminine voice (turns out that bedroom heaters are female), asking him to use her more often, he is like, "hey girl, how come you can speak", and "but you're a heater, heaters can't speak", and then, continuing in the same vein, "but you don't have a biological larynx like me, how is it that you can speak", until you feel like telling him, hey buddy, are you ever gonna let her get to her sales pitch? Are you? For God's sakes man, keep up with the times. Everybody knows that in the world of commercials, heaters and bedroom furniture and coffee mugs and even parts of your own body (except your mouth, which could already speak), have long since developed the capacity for intelligent conversation and impeccable social etiquette.

So act like a goddamned professional. Don't keep wasting the first two minutes of every commercial acting all amazed and requesting elaborate explanations from the kitchen faucet on the hows and whys of his ability to sermonize. Instead, get out more often. Watch more commercials. Do your homework on your own time and quit wasting ours with your unpreparedness when the rest of us just want to know what it is that the faucet has on his mind.

Thank you, Munnabhai

Thank you, Munnabhai. I take back every nasty thing I've said till now about Bollywood.

Also, thank you Mohandas. I think this thing definitively proved your continued relevance in today's world.

Finally, thank you lawyers and your class action lawsuits. I wish I could find a suitable way to repay you. What's that you say? Oh ok, cash it is then. Although personally, I would have gone with gratitude.

Beating people up

One reason I began to work out in the gym is because people took undue advantage of my frail physique and kept beating me up. For example, I had an acquaintance in high school who had a habit of picking on me for one reason or another. One day it would be for criticizing the peculiar walk of his lady friend, the next day it would be because he didn't like the peculiarity of my walk after being beaten up the previous day. It was always something with this guy.

When you are thin and weak as I was and your body is devoid of any substantial muscular tissue, your only recourse is to defend yourself using your wit. I did just that. Those days, the hot new craze in school was to slap the air with a wet handkerchief akin to cracking a whip. The point of this exercise was to derive pleasure from the loud sound it produced. Usually this slapping was not directed towards a human being because early on in the game, someone had come to realize through excruciating personal experience that in addition to the high decibels, this slap also produced a severe welt if applied to the human body.

So anyways, after having been beaten up by this acquaintance for a couple of days in a row, I decided to exact vengeance. I said to him, "I bet if I were to slap you with this wet handkerchief, you would cry like a newborn, notwithstanding the formidable bulge in your biceps". Now because this guy had an ego the size of Mt Kilimanjaro back when it was still covered in glaciers, and also an irresistible urge to disagree with everything I said, replied, "Ha, you think so? Here, take a crack at me, and I'll prove you wrong."

The ensuing moments were quite possibly the most exciting and enjoyable of my entire life. I lovingly bathed a handkerchief in ice cold tap water, positioned myself for the assault and then proceeded to inflict wave upon wave of violence on his forearm, the likes of which would have made Hannibal proud.

I whipped him. I whipped him good. The air was thick with loud cracking noises and flying skin. After the initial maniacal desire for retribution within me had subsided, I then relaxed enough to enjoy the experience and even took the opportunity to hone my handkerchief whipping technique on him. In order to prevent my subject from quitting midway, I kept speaking to him in a soothing manner, saying things like, "I see blood on your arm, are you sure it's not hurting?" And this only made him more determined to withstand the pain and he stiffened his lips some more and allowed me to keep going at him. Finally, I had to stop due to sheer physical exhaustion but by that time, I had inflicted enough mayhem on his arm to last me a lifetime.

Later on in life, I made some more violent friends, for example, zambezi, who, every time I met him, would always beat the crap out of me, although in a friendly manner. It was his way of expressing joy at the meeting. And even though with zambezi it was easier to ward off violence by threatening to do bad things to his face (he is someone who takes inordinate pride in the beauty of the contents of his face), I was still relatively vulnerable to assault. And as time went by, my brain eventually began to weary of this constant responsibility of defending the rest of my body from attack and pleaded with it to do something about it. Therefore, at some point, I began to work out and have been periodically doing so ever since.

Now my body is stronger and better equipped to launch a credible defense against bullies. But now I have a different problem and I don't know if this is a common one, but whenever I go out looking for trouble, I realize that if and when trouble arrives, my muscles will be so tired from today's workout or aching from the previous day's workout that there is no way they will rise up to the occasion. Thereby, defeating the very purpose of working out. Some days I can barely summon enough strength to lift even a mere grocery bag. This leads me to ask the question, how is it that those well-toned people you see kicking all that ass on-screen manage to do it?

My solution to this is the following. I have modified my schedule to work out on alternate days, lets say monday, wednesday and friday, leaving tuesday and thursday free to engage in street combat. I realize that the reduction of gym time will probably retard my muscular growth, but what use are muscles if they never get a chance to engage in battle?

Tagged

I was tagged here a few years ago, or so it seems after the green card fracas / fiasco / fuckfest. I will therefore present 8 random facts about myself.

0.> I cannot cook Indian food at all. I have no idea how to put those flavors into a curry. I have tried and failed miserably. Every time I cook anything, I get the distinct impression that the ingredients of my dish are unhappy about being used in my creation.

1.> If I am walking on a tiled pavement, I deliberately avoid stepping on the boundary between two consecutive tiles. If an uneven gait in the manner of a three-legged dog with an alcohol problem is required for the achievement of this objective, I have no qualms about doing so, amused onlooking be damned.

2.> There has been one time in my life when I was literally terrified for my life to such a degree that my brain was called upon to choose between two different forms of death, based on the relative terror caused by each. It happened while I was walking with a couple of friends in the Tadoba Tiger Reserve in India on the banks of the Tadoba lake. To our left were a bunch of Bison a hundred feet away in the jungle. To our right was the lake with a number of loitering crocodiles in the water (A sign on the lake proudly stated "Swimming is prohibited, survivors will be prosecuted"). We were standing and staring at the bison and every passing second of nothingness that followed was augmenting the nervous tension in the air and that was a good time for one of the bison to snort loudly and lunge towards us. That was when all hell broke loose and as my mind went blank and my youthful life flashed before my eyes, I actually remember thinking that I was going to die in the next few minutes. And then we were all running mindlessly towards the lake where the crocodiles lay and the few seconds that separated us from the crocodiles allowed my mind to estimate the amount of pain that would be caused by a raging bison as compared to that caused by a crocodile and I chose the latter. And so I continued running towards the lake. And just before I plunged into the water, I allowed myself the luxury of looking back to see how many seconds I had before I turned into mortal remains and I saw that the fucker had not moved from his previous position. Then I saw his neighbor say to him, "Bless you" and he replied, "Why, thank you kind sir", and the courteous exchange of pleasantries between the two bovines made me realize that the entire episode had been a mere sneeze.

3.> I am an extravagant tipper. I calculate the tip by dividing the bill by 4 and adding a dollar. I use this tip-calculation formula even if I receive exceptionally bad service or if the waiter throws a glass of water in my face after spitting into it. That's because I know how it is to be a college student living in the US on a meagre allowance and sometimes, you really need to spit into a glass and throw it at somebody's face.

4.> I love trains and railway tracks. If I see an abandoned railway line, I feel an urge to follow the tracks on foot just to see where they lead. Sometimes I pretend I am an engine and whistle at people. I possess the extraordinary ability to whistle continuously for long periods of time without having to pause for breath. The key is to alternately breath in and out through the whistle.

5.>The most fun thing I ever did in my life was during my engineering days when the entire mechanical department took an "educational" trip down to South India. During the train ride from Pune to Bangalore, me and a friend, we dressed up as beggars (torn banians and lungis), with myself as the musically (dis)inclined one and he as the blind one wearing black sunglasses. We roamed the entire length of the train at night, with me banging on an Indian drum I just happened to have with me and singing in a high octave as is the custom for Indian Railways alms-gatherers, requesting cash donations from our fellow passengers. We even managed to fool one of our professors into coughing up money. Some amount of blunt-fingered coat-tail scratching was required, fortunately, all of which was handled by the blind guy.

6.> I am a night person. There was a period of two months during the graduate winter of 1999 when I did not see the sun at all. I love how the night air smells. Sometimes I stand on my balcony at night, just sniffing the air for long periods of time. People accuse me of being deranged for doing this.

7.> I have not purchased a single new item of underclothing in the past five years. I am bewildered by the ability of the male undergarment manufacturing industry to stay financially solvent in spite of customers like me. I attribute this to most of them now having switched from male undergarments to feminine intimatewear as their main line of business (For example, Hanes, who now has television commercials showing women wearing their product with the tag line "look who we got our Hanes on now", where "who", stands for women.)

Apparently I have to tag 8 other people. I don't know is there anyone left who has not yet been tagged by this meme? Ok then, you're it. Go, have fun typing. Also, it appears to be incumbent upon me to add the following rules to this post.

Here are the rules:
1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

60

This guy, he will turn 60 next month. I called him up 11:30 PM my time. I needed my birth certificate for filing my I-485. I was worried because I believed that I had lost my birth certificate at birth. I was wondering if, by any chance, he had a copy.

I don't have it here with me in Bangalore, he said, where he currently lives with my mom, helping to take care of my baby nephew while my sister tries to make the world a better and more utilitarian place for cellphone users. But I am sure there's a copy lying around somewhere back in the old homestead in Pune, he said.

I see, I replied, do you know someone who would be willing to break into the old homestead, steal the damn thing and mail it to me? Do any of our neighbors back in Pune have a history of criminal behavior?

We don't need any criminals, son, said the old man, I will go get your birth certificate for you, when do you need it?

I have a month to file the I-485, I said. Anything within that time frame would be fine.

By the way, Pune is about 12 hours from Bangalore by road, I think. It could be more, depending upon how many farmers decide to thresh their crops by leaving them on the highway and waiting for vehicles to run them over.

You will have it within the next couple of weeks, said the old man. Don't worry. Do you want me to send you some money along with the birth certificate?

Dad, I don't need money, I am working now and have been working for the past seven years.

(By the way, thanks for sending me the 1500 dollars five years ago when I was laid off, they saved my life.)

Are you sure?

Yes, I was sure. This time.

Fast forward 18 hours. I got a call from my dad.

"Do you want the birth certificate, school leaving certificate, nationality certificate or domicile certificate or all of the above? I have them all in front of me."

What? How? Where are you?

I caught the next bus to Pune, said the old man. Do you want me to mail them to you, scan and email them to you or both? Wait, don't bother, I will do both.

Now bear in mind, it is 4:30 AM dad time and dad has just stepped off the Bangalore-Pune bus. At 4:30 AM dad time, dad is on the phone, describing to me the scannability of various 20 and 30 year old documents, based upon their relative raggedness.

Fast forward one hour. I have my birth certificate in my inbox. And it's not even been a day since the last hair was torn off my scalp in a fit of birth-certificateless frenzy.

When I am 60, I hope to have at least half the energy and vitality as does my dad.

Also dad, I love you. You are the man.

Still Friday photo-blogging

I was just foraging in my camera and I found this picture of the Montague Book Mill that I had snapped during my last visit to New England. I don't know man, I have a strong urge to go back there tomorrow, 6 hour drive through New York City be damned.

Don't go

Don't go anywhere. I am still here. I will be back. Life has been unfunny lately. Hopefully it will get better soon. Yesterday morning on the road I saw a long-haired guy sitting in a Mini-cooper, driving with one hand and lifting a dumbbell with the other. So as you can see, things are looking up. On the other hand, America is getting ready to kick out its Indian software engineers. So the scales of funny continue to rise and fall depending on whether you are watching long-haired guys exercising their biceps in a Mini-cooper or reading about comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

My friend slime is getting married in India. It's his second wedding. Luckily, to the same woman. He had one here in the US and now he will have one in India. He has decided to go against Indian orthodoxy and refused to wear a turban or ride on a horse during the wedding. Or brandish a sword like I did. He will, however, still have to smile all day when he is being photographed with you so there's still that. I wish him all the best.

We are thinking of going on a long drive for the next few days on the long weekend. Drive to where there are trees and grasses and lakes or similar other bodies of water. I forgot mountains. Mountains too. Maryland? New Hampshire? New York? I don't know. Maybe all. Maybe none. What about a tent? I'll have to buy one. Even though I already own a tent. It is lying at the bottom of the Delaware river. I bought it long ago when I was still in grad school and we decided to go camping in the Adirondacks. We all chipped in to buy a tent except I had not realized that the concept of chipping meant that I would be paying for it in full now and everyone would pay me later. Which they never did. So essentially, I bought a tent. I never used it after that. I never even had it in my possession. My friend S remained the custodian of my tent, loaning it out to everybody's uncle and every once in a while he would call me up and give me periodic briefings on its health and whereabouts. I am glad to say that my tent has seen more of the world than I have. One day he called me up and started telling me this tale about his voyage up the Delaware river on a canoe with his office friends. And how it became dark and his canoe began to fill with water and how they all had to carry their belongings through the river to the shore. And then I felt a tightness in my stomach and I anticipated his next words which were, "I am sorry but your tent didn't make it". And I said no way, it was made of waterproof material, how could it drown, and he said, well, skin is waterproof too and yet we dare not walk on water and then I resigned myself to its demise. Look at it this way : I now own a part of the Delaware river.

So anyways, I have to go buy a new tent and I will go have a vacation and I will be back. So don't go anywhere.

Here, pull

In the gym. Wife had just left the room to get a drink of water or admire the wallpaper in the ladies room or something of that nature. Strange old guy doing biceps next to me asked, "Is that your wife or girlfriend?"

"Wife", I replied.

"She's pretty".

"Thanks", I said, although I don't know why I thanked him, the correct response would have been to say wokay, I will go tell her you find her pretty and she may come thank you if she feels complimented.

"Does she wear glasses?", asked the admirer.

My wife was wearing contacts that day so I was impressed. Wow, I thought to myself, how did the fucker figure it out? Did he spot spectacle marks on her nose from this far? He must have awesome eyesight for a man his age. Or maybe it is that we glasses-wearers have a peculiar way of looking at things? Do we squint unintentionally? Are our eyes extra-large? Do our tired retinas give off some kind of bio-luminescence only visible to old people? Impressive.

"Why, yes, how did you figure that out man?", I asked, reverence dripping from my words.

"Well, she married you, didn't she?"

"You didn't see that coming?", asked strange guy number 2 on exercycle. "Thank you for the entertainment".

PS : By the way, I don't know if this was apparent enough because it wasn't to me at the time but what the old guy was saying was that the only possible reason behind my wife marrying me must be her bad eyesight, hence his guess. Also, the sky is blue and water is wet.

Please bear

Please bear with me as I sort out some changes happening in my life that continue to pose an obstacle to its unfettered contemplation and subsequent documenting.

Also, I decided to learn a new musical instrument and settled on a flute. When I went to buy one, it turned out that a Western flute costs about seven hundred dollars and looks like the cockpit of an Airbus A320. So instead of buying a new flute, I rented one on a trial basis. The fact that no matter how hard I blow into it, no matter from which direction, I still am not able to produce any sound is weighing on my nerves. And it doesn't help that the rental agreement says, "Thank you for giving your child the musical advantage", thereby implying that the activity of flute learning usually does not lie within an adult's domain.

So please bear with me.

Cutting down

On the occasion of Earth Day which was celebrated some time in the past few weeks I don't exactly recall when, I decided to be less of a parasite on the earth and its fragile planetary ecosystem. Towards that end, I decided to consume less non-biodegradable stuff. For starters, I am cutting back on plastic usage. The very first item on the agenda whose usage I decided to cut back on was plastic forks and spoons. Why I use plastic forks and spoons in the first place is a fair question. It is because in my household, we only run the dishwasher once a week. This was done to curtail the consumption of manual labor, also a non-biodegradable and non-renewable resource.

But as a result, every week, we used to find ourselves facing a severe shortage of silverware. That brought about the need for an alternative, namely, plasticware. But not any more. There was a moment in my life yesterday when I looked at the plastic spoon in my hand and bending down on one knee, said to it, "You are the one I will be spending the rest of my life with". And then I kissed it deliciously because it was covered in gravy, with the kitchen faucet presiding over our holy union, shedding tap water of joy. There comes a time in every man's life when he gets tired of eating around with every piece of cutlery he takes a fancy to and for me, this time was that time.

So now this spoon will remain on my person at all times and I have decided that I will use it repeatedly for every culinary assignment or emergency. Why plastic, why not a metal spoon? Again, a fair question. This is because most delicately structured external human organs are built to withstand puncturous pokings from plastic but not from metal. And since plastic requires a thousand years to degrade (a nice round number, thank you Mr Inventor), every plastic spoon I do not discard into the trash from now on will add a thousand more years to the life of my earth. And if you take into account all the times I eat pickles out of a jar with a spoon when I have little else to do, that is some solid anti-aging cream for the planet.

As far as I can see, the only major obstacle to my plan is Chinese take-out food. I am deeply fond of my Chinese brothers and sisters and I am a devoted disciple of St. MSG but sadly, I have to admit that I have found them to be quite indiscriminate in their use of plastic cutlery which they ruthlessly force upon all their clientèle along with the duck sauce which doesn't taste anything like duck. So every time I order Chinese food for take-out, I have to remember to check the package for any plasticware and give it back. Because if I specifically ask them not to add it to the package while ordering, they show an inordinate amount of surprise at my request for me to repeat it without feeling stupid.

Secondly, I have also begun to do volunteer work at the neighbourhood recycling bin and garbage dump. Sometimes when I am going through people's unshredded documents in the recycled paper container, I find that someone has mixed plastic cans along with the paper, yes I said plastic cans, can't you people fucking read, it clearly says "Paper Only" on the cover. Nevertheless, I do my part and remove these cans and restore them to the correct recycling bin. But I know who you are pal, I have your bank statement right here. Two more strikes and you will be getting yourself a new credit card with 0 % APR for the first six months, 14 % after that, and you will NOT have read the fine print.

Just take a few seconds and read what it says on the goddamn container, won't you?

The Onion

Even though I no longer follow an abbreviated online existence, ROTFLMFAO.

At the Party

If you don't see the comic strip, here's the link.

Link to Toondoo via Arunn at NonoScience.

If you didn't find it even the least bit funny, make sure you read the blurbs top to bottom. If that still didn't work, read again while tickling your underarms. Or get someone else to tickle you. Or read it while watching Seinfeld. Come on, surely there must be something that makes you giggle? Read this while doing that.