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.