Yaawn

I'm in a very bored frame of mind right now. All because it is 3.24 pm in the afternoon. To me, the afternoon is the dullest time of the day. The morning brings along with it a freshness, and that nice feeling (unless of course you have knowledge of some impending doom) about a brand new day. And of course, there's breakfast time. Similarly, noon is the next stop for the stomach. Evening's can be pretty pleasant, and to me, the night is the most exciting part, that time of the day when my brain works at its peak. Afternoons I hate the most.

Just so that I should not fall asleep, I am plodding with my fingers through this post, wondering what I should write. Well, the idea came to me to write about the songs that I like the most - songs that I can hear again and again. Songs, where the holy troika of music, voice and lyrics come together in a perfect blend. Such songs are rare creations, and a band is lucky if it is able to create such a song even once in its career.

Off the top of my head and the tip of my tongue, here goes -

Iris - Goo Goo Dolls

The Reason - Hoobastank

Imagine - John Lennon

Baba O'Riley - The Who

Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

Californication - RHCP

King of Pain, Every Breath You Take - The Police

We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister

I Wanna Break Free, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Radio Ga Ga, Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Tub Thumping - Chumba Wumba

Karma Chameleon - Boy George / Culture Club

Jump - Van Halen

American Pie - Don McLean

Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams

It's My Life, Living in Sin, You Give Love a Bad Name - Bon Jovi

Wake Me Up Before You Go Go - Wham

Safety Dance - Men Without Hats

Islands in the Stream - Dolly Parton / Kenny Rogers

Never Say Die - Cliff Richard

Stay, Just a Little Bit Longer - George & Co. ('83)

Saw Theme, POTC Theme

I'm Shipping of to Boston - Dropkick Murphy (The Departed OST)

The Godfather love theme - Speak Softly ..

Footloose - Kenny Loggins

Baby, I'd Love You to Want Me - Lobo

I Just Called to Say I Love You - Stevie Wonder

Aerials - System of a Down

Angel, It Wasn't Me - Shaggy

Livin a La Vida Loca - Ricky Martin

Hip's Don't Lie - Shakira

A Thousand Miles - Vanessa Carlton

November Rain, Sweet Child of Mine - Guns N Roses

Porcelain - Moby

Gloria - Laura Branigan

Summer Nights - John Travolta / Olivia Newton-John

Bang Your Head - Quiet Riot

Sacrifice - Elton John

Truly Madly Deeply - Savage Garden

Dancing in the Dark - Bruce Springsteen

Portable Hard Disks – mmmmwwwaahh !

Just thought of giving all you people who intend to buy large portable hard disks some advice.

You have two options.

Buy a regular SATA/ATA hard disk, and enclose it in a casing that protects it from dust and basic damage, and also attaches an IDE-to-USB convertor to the hard disk, thus adding that crucial ‘ease-of-data-transfer’ feature. This option is cheaper, and you can buy HDs of humongous capacity, and carry them around. The disadvantage is that since this HD is really a normal HD enclosed in a casing, it is not really ‘portable’. Yes, you can carry it around. But you will need an extra power source, and the chances of the HD getting corrupted over time, especially if subjected to jerks while on power, are really high. For example, at the beginning of this year, I purchased a 232 GB (standard 250 GB) Seagate SATA HD for Rs. 3900. I also purchased a Transcend casing for 1600 bucks. (This is among the higher end ones – you can get a cheaper Chinese equivalent for around 600 bucks.) Thus I got a pseudo-portable 232 GB HD for Rs. 5500. In mid-2005, I had purchased another such HD + casing, for 2900 + 700 = 3600 bucks. Such HDs are very useful for people who have access to lot of data (movies, sitcoms, music, e-books, software, etc.).

The second option, obviously, is to go for an actually portable HD (let me call it pHD), which is of the same type of the HDs used in laptops. These pHDs do not require any extra power as they source their power from the USB port. You can carry these pHDs in you pockets, thus taking all your data with you, without worrying too much about the pHD getting corrupted. Until recently, these didn’t come cheap – what with an 80 GB Toshiba pHD costing Rs. 4000+. However, just last month, a friend of mine managed to buy such a pHD of size of 120 GB at a meager (by pHD standards) Rs. 3000. How cool is that ! Ofcourse, this was in Singapore, but if you do know someone who is going there, this is what you should be telling that person to buy. This implies that two 120 Gb pHDs (= 240 Gb) will cost just Rs. 6000, a wee Rs. 500 more than Rs. 5500 I paid 4 months back for a HD of the same size which wasn’t really portable, which was as heavy as big book and which required external power.

My next HD purchase, which won’t be until atleast 2-3 years later, is definitely going to be a large capacity pHD. I have a feeling that I might just be able to afford it then !

Posted @ 11.05 pm, July 05, 2007

The Fatal Inversion

Just now, as I was walking along the corridor outside my room, towards the bathroom area in my hostel, I saw one of those creepy-crawly insects crawling on the floor towards me. It could have gone into my room, so I raised my leg, and flicked it away with the sole of my slippers in one football-kick style swing. The insect got thrown around 2-3 metres away, and in the process landed on its back. As I passed it, I could see that it was desperately trying to turn itself, all its legs flailing wildly in the air in a futile attempt to get back on its feet. I thought nothing about it, and proceeded to go and brush my teeth. Around 15 minutes later, as I was on my way back, I saw a lot of ants on the floor surrounding that same insect. Basically, they were taking apart that insect. I don’t why, but I suddenly felt very sorry for that insect. I mean, on most other day’s, I wouldn’t have cared a rat’s hind as to what happened to it, and I would certainly have crushed it to death had it dared to enter my room. But just now, I was in a benevolent mood, feeling nothing but love for all fellow creatures, and the thought that this great creature, who otherwise was stronger than the ants, and could probably outrun, crush or eat them, had been eaten alive just because I had flipped it over onto its back, somehow made me sad. I guess it was a combination of the rainy weather, and the choral sounds I was hearing in the background which were being played by a boy practicing on his synthesizer for the Sunday choir. For want of a softer back, the life of the insect was lost ! Amen.

Posted @ 10.45 pm, July 05, 2007

Confessions of a Gluttonous Mind

I got the idea for this post when a friend of mine, who had not dined with me much, happened to glance over the amount of food I was blasting my way through. (I was bulldozing my way through a pile of Atta Parathas and Gobi Manchurian and Butter Paneer Masala - this btw, is about one-third of the menu offered at our NIT Canteen.)

A : “What ! You mean to say that you have ordered all this food and you intend to polish it all off in the next few minutes ?”
I : “Well, yes. C’mon, look at my size, I need to eat this much.”
A : “Still… tell me how many pizza slices can finish off in one sitting ?”
I : “You mean, how many pizzas, don’t you ? Let’s see, just last week, before I came to college, I was feeling hungry at around 3.30 in the afternoon. I’d had a pretty sumptuous lunch, but you know how it is with this rainy weather - makes you really hungry. So I ordered and ate all by myself two medium size pizzas. Smoking Joe’s, I think.”
A : (with dilated pupils) “!?”
I : “Anyway, the answer to your question would be, 2 x-large pizzas. Quite easily, provided the weather is right. Hot weather just kills my apetite.”
A : “!?” (Then starts laughing loudly.) “Man ! You must be spending at least 4 times as much on food as I do. Man !”

That’s probably true. Still nowadays, especially over the last year, I’ve really put tabs on my food intake. I have to – I don’t want to end up like Adnan Sami, nor do I want juvenile diabetes and a premature cardiac arrest. So, you can imagine my dietary spendings during my ‘growing-up’ years. Reminds me of that article I read which mentioned that Elvis’s daily intake of calories in the last few years before he died matched that of an adult African elephant !

I used to finish off 13 gulab jamuns in about 2 minutes flat in my mess; now I avoid gulab jamun altogether. I used to be able to eat a kilo and half of ‘bakarwadi’ in one sitting; now I don’t eat more than 10. I could finish one large packet of cashew nuts (defined as one-eighth the size of your standard pillow) and yet not need to go to the toilet the following morning; today I dare not take that risk. I have once eaten 21 slices of Brittania Cheese Slices, just like that; I shudder at that thought today.

As a result of my tendency to eat so much, I’ve been through some mentionable experiences over the years. Here’s a sampling :

* Quite a few times when I go to restaurants, the smart waiter, after taking down my/our order, automatically prepares the table for another guest. (For e.g., by turning the glass at some empty seat and pouring water in it.)

* I’ve had a fight with the guys of every mess and canteen in my college campus over the amount of puris I was eating, and on the amount of bhaji I should be getting per puri.

* My mother rarely had to clear up any food to put in the fridge throughout my school and junior college years – Non-veg dishes, dal, chapattis – I used to finish them all off the way a hungry pack of wolves would tear through a juicy moose in the snowy expanses of Alaska.

* There was a period during my school years where I don’t remember not having a stomachache after any meal I had liked.

* I was the favourite friend-of-their-son of all the mothers of my school friends. Whenever there was a birthday party, while the others used to be more interested in playing games, I used to focus all my energies on the food. Actions speak louder than words, and all these mothers used to be delighted that, finally, someone was appreciating their culinary skills ! And how !

* Once, a cousin sister of mine, knowing no doubt how much I loved eating, offered to give me a ‘treat’ in McDonald’s. (This was in those days when McDonald’s had just come to India, and going there was still an occasion.) My mother, who was standing nearby enquired of her as to the monetary size of the treat she had in mind. When she said, “100 – 200 bucks”, my mother burst out laughing.

* Whenever my mother used to get anything in the house that was tasty and edible, I used to finish it off in a couple days. She used to hide such food in various places, but I had become such an expert at ferreting out food, that I actually could find the correct tin by just picking it up. If it felt heavier than the day before, voila ! My trademark has always been that I finish off all the edible contents in the tins, and leave behind only the empty plastic / paper bag – much like the robbers who put a signature on every crime they commit. This way my mom didn’t have to spend too much time wondering where all the food she had just got, had vanished. A side effect of this has been that until recently, I’ve been the source of great embarrassment at home, whenever guests used to pay an impromptu visit. My mom would be like, ‘Okay, I’ve got this and this and that to give to them.’ She would then offer something to them, and they would acquiesce, and she would open the concerned jar and take out the plastic bag with a flourish, only to find it empty ! No problems, she would say, I’ve something else hidden there – ofcourse I’d been there too ! So on, until, well, you know !

Posted @ 11 pm, July 03, 2007

A Romantic Manifestation – By Randy Ian

Today evening I had gone to the campus canteen with some friends of mine. We dictated our order to the curly-haired rabbit-toothed ‘cheyta’ sitting at the cash counter who scribbled out something on square yellow pieces of paper in handwriting not dissimilar to that of most doctors I’ve gone to. We then handed our coupons to the black-googles wearing ‘cheyta’ behind the food counter, and went and sat at some table.

It so happened that the girl-friend of one of these friends of mine was also with him, and she was about to go back home for a few days. So, both of them were pretty sentimental and in a “cho-chweet” mood. You know how it is with couples whose ages are around 20-21 years.

She : ‘Okay, I’m gooiinngg…’.
He (after a long sigh) : ‘Hmmm. I feel like coming with you…’.
She giggles and pokes him.
She : ‘Then come naa…’.
He holds her hand and looks at her with a sad smile, ‘I wish.’.
They both play with their hands and fingers, at the same time swinging their hands, as if they are playing in some sort of a creative competition of producing different types of handshakes. Then she says, now in serious final sort of way, ‘Okay haan, now bye.’
Now he says, all serious too, ‘Baaye.’

By this point however, I was staring intently, with great concentration, at onion and chilli pieces in my Gobi Manchurian (a very popular dish in Kerala, introduced here by one the earliest of the throngs of Nepalis working all over Kerala, and a dish which now bears no resemblance whatsoever to either Gobi or Manchurian), and chomping on the morsel in my mouth with a regular rhythm !

Posted @ 10 pm, July 03, 2007

Lacuna Kyon

I've not written a post for quite some time by my usual standards. There are quite a few reasons for this - I was down for about a week with a sickening and resilient viral infection; I had no convenient internet access for some time since I wasn't at home; I was caught up in some important activities. Now, as I sit here, in the lab in my college, I do not have anything to write. And even if I did, I am not in the mood and I do not have the time. I suppose, a few days later when I do get the mood, the time, the energy and the right sort of idea to add another post, I shall delete this post. Till then this will have to do.