haze

Choices

2009-02-04T20:20:05Z

Fun fact for the day - M.I.A's (of Paper Planes/Slumdog Millionaire fame) real name is Mathangi Arulpragasam^[1]. Rolls off one's tongue like poetry or dark chocolate syrup or some such goodness appropriate in this simile. M.I.A in comparison sounds like steamed cabbage.

Talk about the choices people make to fit in.

[1] Wikipedia

smokediceman @ 2008-08-12T01:28:00

2008-08-12T05:36:25Z

Invasion of a sovereign country?
iz mah xclusiv rite

Overflowing cup of travel woes - Part 2

2008-06-04T10:12:03Z

Continued from Part 1

Day 2 - Sunday - 1130 hrs
----------------------------

We are now careful people and reach Dulles airport 4.5 hrs before our slated take off time. The Lufthansa checkin desk which is a mess and definitely NOT an example of Immaculate German Efficiency tells us that we are on standby since we are lowly United passengers palmed off to Lufthansa. They take our bags though. We run to the United counter and wait for 45 mins to talk to the lady there and explain how it's unacceptable to be on standby after all that we've been through. She pecks at her keyboard and tells me that Real Nice United Agent from Pittsburgh went beyond what was necessary by rebooking us on a new route and we should be eternally grateful to United. I don't want to antagonise her and proclaim that United was indeed greater than Kanye West who is in turn bigger than Jesus. The United Lady then gets us boarding passes for a United flight from Dulles to Pittsburgh. I am however told to go back to Lufthansa and tell them to retag the bags and send it to United. I trudge back to the Lufthansa line and am near my wits end having spent close to 2.5 hrs in queues since morning. Lufthansa woman believes all United personnel are incompetent Americans and tells me that it isn't their job to retag bags. I tell her all I want is a decent chance of having my bags reach Bangalore. After a few more trips to both the United and Lufthansa counters I finally talk to a Lufthansa supervisor who is sweet and tells us that she'll send the bags along on Lufthansa. We're bushed and nod our heads in a state that can only be described as whateverdom.

After a horrid United flight we finally reach Frankfurt with a significant chance that we were breaking immigration rules by not possessing boarding passes to travel out of Frankfurt.

Day 3 - Monday - 0730 hrs in Frankfurt
-----------------------------------------

Not surprisingly, the line at the Frankfurt Lufthansa transfer check in counter is long. After 90 mins of waiting, we reach the head of the queue where the Lufthansa Lady tells us that we need to contact United because she "can't open" the reservation. I have no idea what that means and head over to the United counter which is manned (or womanned) by a Lufthansa agent (probably because it's against the law for incompetent United employees to do anything beyond exist in the Fatherland) who tells us to go right back to the Lufthansa counter. Going from counter to counter is second nature to us now and we head back cattle-like. The line at the Lufthansa counter is now even longer. I'm in no mood to wait another 90 mins so I grab an agent and explain our situation. He takes our passports and returns after 20 mins with 2 boarding passes. Finally we are done, I think. We head towards a cafe to down our irritation in pilsener. I then glance at the boarding passes and realise that my boarding pass doesn't have my name. I head back to the Lufthansa line and glare at the agent who glares back at me. I accusingly tell him about the incorrect names and he tries to send me away to another counter. The lady at the counter points me right back at Rude Boy who finally gives me the right boarding passes. I definitely have earned my pilsener.

The flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore is great with the Super Sweet Stewardess being very nice to us.

Day 4 - Tuesday - 0100 hrs in Bangalore
-----------------------------------------
We land in the new airport in Bangalore which is gleaming and looks like a modern intl airport as opposed to the cattle shed that passed for an airport earlier. We have no hope of getting our luggage so we hit the duty free store before heading to the Lufthansa counter to file our missing luggage claims. One of our suitcases manages to sneak in much to our surprise. The lost luggage queue takes up another 45 mins. The Lufthansa folks hand us a handy chunk of change "for our troubles". We are pleased. We head out into the terminal and marvel at the magnificient new airport complete with a 45 feet gigantic Louis Vuitton bag sculpture. Just when we think it's all done and we are home free, the cab driver who's pushing the luggage cart doesn't notice that the duty free bag is precariously placed and a bottle of tequila hits the floor and shatters. We mourn our loss and climb into the cab reeking of tequila which splashed onto our pants. The 45 min ride home is great.
We finally reach home albeit sans 3 bags. We are bruised, battered, exhausted, relieved.
The bags reach us 2 days later. I have never thought I'd be so glad to see my old pair of shorts. It's a wonder what two days of stewing in a dirty pair of jeans in Bangalore's muggy weather can do to you.

We vow that long scenic routes are really not for us. We also agree that United is to be intensely disliked.

Overflowing cup of travel woes - Part 1

2008-06-04T07:50:21Z

Day 1 - Saturday

floopilot and I are all set to start on our long scenic route to Bangalore from Pittsburgh. The highly cost optimized itinerary booked for us by a shadowy travel agent supposedly based in Virginia involves 3 layovers and 2 airlines.

Pittsburgh - Washington DC on United
Hang around at Dulles for 1 hour

Washington DC - London on United
Hang around at Heathrow for 2.5 hrs

London - Mumbai on Jet
Battle immigration and customs for 4 hours

Mumbai - Bangalore on Jet
Phew!

We try to check in to our flights a day earlier only to learn that Jet airways does not have online checkin for international flights. We fail to realise it is an indicator of what's to come. We reach the airport with a comfortable 2.5 hrs left before take off (Thanks Dan!). After a scintillating 25 mins in the dismally long United line, we reach the head of the queue to learn our flight to Washington has been delayed by 25 mins. A sinking realisation tells us that the newly-reduced-to-35 mins layover in Dulles puts our bags in serious jeopardy of not making it to the flight across the Atlantic. The harried agent listens to me politely request her to check us in all the way to Bangalore and tells us that she can't help us today because she is busy. Busy being unhelpful to everyone?. floopilot is seriously annoyed and proceeds to give Harried United Agent a piece of her mind. United Agent wisely decides not to irk her further and checks our bags all the way to Bangalore but informs us that the System can't print out boarding passes for the Jet legs. We shrug it off and decide to deal with Jet at London. We go through the usual jigmarole of convincing TSA that we don't have any exploding Gatorade and that our shoes don't infact explode and make our way to the gate. The departure board now informs us that the flight is now further delayed by another 1 hour. Making it to the London flight is no longer mathematically possible. The ordeal has begun.

I eye the mile long queue to talk to the gate agent and decide to hasten the rescheduling by calling United. The United phone agent helpfully informs me that our tickets are of "Jet stock" and United's responsibility is only to get us to London. I call Jet who are equally useless and tell me that they won't reschedule my ticket since it was United's fault. It's Indian bureaucracy deja vu time. I hang up (ok, hit the End button which is much less satisfying) on the blame game players and decide to try my luck with the real life agent at the end of the painfully long line. I finally get to her and put on my saddest face. With a rare stroke of luck, the United gate agent turns out to be a Really Sweet Gate Agent. She pecks away at her computer for 45 mins while the other irate passengers behind me silently hex me. She tries to route us through myriad European cities in attempts to get us to Bangalore. She finally says the best she can do is put us on a Chicago flight. We are then to spend the night in Chicago and travel on Lufthansa the next day to Frankfurt and Bangalore. With one less layover, I'm not complaining. I thank the Real Sweet Gate Agent profusely. floopilot and I are ravenous at this point. The airport is however shut down since it's Stanley Cup Game 5 night with the Penguins on the brink of elimination. We find the lone open fine dining establishment, McDonald's and scarf down a small order of Obnoxious Fries. Sated such, we head back to the gate and what do you know, the Chicago flight has been delayed. We are not worried, we are simply trading time in a hotel in Chicago with time at the airport here. The flight gets delayed twice more and then gets cancelled. I am now not sure if we'll be in Bangalore anytime this fortnight. We then hear a United boarding announcement for Washington and persuade the Real Sweet Agent to put us on that flight. We are now off to Washington with a connection the next day to Frankfurt and then Bangalore.

Washington
-----------
The bags are here. We are here. We are tired but relieved that we'll be in Bangalore soon albeit 18 hrs later than we had originally planned. There are no United people here to help us get a hotel room. We suck it up and get a room. The wait for the hotel shuttle lasts 90 mins. We swear like angry people are wont to, we'll never evah travel on United again.

To be continued ...

Physics, you lied to me!

2008-01-21T17:57:06Z

For the most part I believed in you. Yeah, sure I didn't understand you sometimes, but people much smarter than me told me you were infallible and I trusted them and I trusted you. I did hear rumours that you broke down when it came down to quantum physics and strings and witch-craft like that, but hey, what does a simple minded computer science guy like me know about stuff like that.

But yesterday, my belief in you came crashing down. The weather channels were incessantly droning on about how it was the coldest day of the year. -12C, they told me it was. So, with the enthusiasm of a five year old, I filled up a glass with water and ran out (in shorts and flip flops mind you, thus ensuring a complete loss of sensation in my toes) and placed it outside my apartment building hoping it would freeze instantly, with a clink hopefully that you often hear in Tom and Jerry cartoons. When that didn't happen, a tiny bulb went off in my head and I remembered the agonizing wait that I often endured in my childhood while I egged on the Rasna in the ice tray to freeze quickly and turn into delicious ice candy. So, it wasn't always instantaneous, this freezing thing. Fine, I decided to wait it out for an hour and finally, it was judgement time. I went back out again into the unholy tundra like coldness and there it was, the red plastic cup looking forlorn and still filled with something that looked suspiciously liquid aka not ice. What the hell was up with that? You lied to me physics and now I have to question everything that I've been told. Thanks.

smokediceman @ 2007-12-01T13:47:00

2007-12-01T19:17:47Z

Shiver me timbers! My journal isn't quite dead yet.
I have been an unabashed LJ stalker for a long time and I guess now is as good a time as any to correct that imbalance.

When I lived in California, many of my friends frequently poked fun at my dislike for sunny weather and what do you know, the only school that wanted me when I wanted to go back to school was in Pittsburgh. The first few months however seemed like a cruel joke with blistering humidity and temperatures in the 80's and 90's (And no, this doesn't mean I'm losing my Centigrade roots :) ). However, things have started to go back to normal during the past few weeks and that meant that I was finally living in a place that had snowfall. It started off as a bout of flurries one day which I might have missed had I not strained hard not to blink, and then on Thanksgiving day, when in true Yankee tradition, we went shopping at midnight, it really ~~poured~~ (no, that's the word for rain isn't it), wafted(?) down. Being the snow-virgin that I was, I had to beg a stranger in the parking lot for a ice scraper to get rid of the ice off of my windshield.

Pittsburgh in addition to being bone chillingly cold, has a strong sport culture. It probably has to do with the fact that their NFL and NHL teams are pretty good. Every third person on the street has some sort of Steelers' (dominates the fan base the most) or Penguins' (not so much, but still popular) gear on. So when I could lay my grubby hands on discounted tickets (a continuation in a series of tiny perks that college life provides, which knocks a little bit of the edge off of my new found poverty) to go see the Penguins in action, I gleefully grabbed them. Ice hockey, or hockey as it is annoyingly called here (Just hockey should only refer to the kind Dhanraj Pillay played), being the fast paced game that it is makes for a great spectator sport. Then there's the frequent fighting which floopilot claims is the main reason why I wanted to see a hockey game, which only makes things more fun :). The NHL's much more saner policy about physical aggression is a refreshing contrast to the NBA with it's incessant foul calling for almost imaginary body contact, but that's a gripe for another day. Coming back to the game, the Penguins beat the Dallas Stars 4-1. For a moment I contemplated getting a Sidney Crosby jersey. But I guess I'll hold off on that idea for a while. I see a slippery slope that'll lead to swilling more of the foul tasting abomination that has the gall to call itself beer, Coors light, packing on a hundred pounds and yelling at my non existent TV.

I'm only semi-lame

2007-02-16T19:35:02Z

The jury's back. I'm only semi-lame.
Barack Obama's flickr page (note the id)

All you people who may have sniggered at my Yahoo id in the past (shamefully/schizophrenically, I'm on that list); If Barack Obama thinks a 'dotcom' suffix in an userid isn't lame, it really isn't and should be accepted as such. After all, Presidents and wannabe-Presidents never lie and deserve everyone's unflinching support.

smokediceman @ 2007-01-03T19:47:00

2007-01-04T02:47:01Z

I'll pretend that I haven't been absconding for the last six months. Not that my three loyal readers would really care. They likely are masochistic anyway. Ok, so I was flattering myself. Make that one and a half loyal readers. No, stop it already. I really do have one and a half loyal readers. I count, don't I? So what if it's strange that I am my number one fan. It doesn't mean I'm self obsessed. No, Narcissus I don't worship. That would make me a heathen and God knows I don't like hot places. Unless hell freezes over, I want to end up in a cool place (preferably with temperature ranging from 8 to 14 C and partially cloudy conditions) when I go postal, speaking of which all 1.5 of you would do well to invest in Kevlar vests.
In all seriousness, the past few months have been a bit of a rush. I faintly remember exams and courses and memorizing meaningless big words none of which I can remember now to make this post look grand. What I remember most are forms and assignments. I don't remember forms as much as they *haunt* me. Every night I don't wake with a nightmare with an image of a text box with "Permanent address" before it stamped all over my brain, is another step towards normalcy. And everyone knows I'm not given to exaggeration. Then there were assignments that were impossibly hard for me yet child's play for them pesky annoying overachievers at class. (Also, be warned that telling your friends that you can't go out with them because there's homework to be done is supremely embarrassing when you're twenty five). Officially into Q2 of my life, I console myself knowing that retirement is a scant 40 or 50 years away.
In other rather more cheery news from the past few months, I saw the coolest dog and the coolest cat I've ever seen in my now extensive life. The dog in question looked like an Alaskan huskie, stood proudly as tall as a goat, and was happily trotting down Haight Street in San Francisco towards the Haight-Ashbury intersection. Probably a hippie dog, it was missing a psychedelic tee shirt. The cat on the other hand was a tabby cat in dingy Stanley market in Hong Kong. She had the most brilliant arrogant-and-bored look. I've spent considerable time trying to replicate that look on my face, with no success of course.
I'll come back another time and talk about my trip to China but for now I have to play with the coolest set of wheels I got in Shanghai. These wheels are the kind you can strap on to your shoes and roll, or attempt to roll and fall down hard.

smokediceman @ 2006-06-12T12:36:00

2006-06-12T19:39:12Z

As a followup to my previous post, here's an addition to the list of disorders that cracks me up - Seasonal Affective Disorder

Road rage

2006-06-08T02:12:33Z

Road rage - a disorder?
You must be freaking kidding me! Like we didn't have our collective senses pummeled with enough bogus disorders already. "Intermittent Explosive Disorder" is what they're calling this.
What I have a major problem is with the flipping of cause and result. The people behind the study contend that the lack of serotonin is the cause behind road rage. I'm not entirely convinced that the lack of serotonin isn't the result of poor judgement and inadequate impulse control. Relieving people from taking responsibility for their behavioral shortcomings and palming it off onto fancy sounding disorders seems to have become awfully popular. I shouldn't be too surprised in a society where "temporary insanity" is a valid legal defense strategy for murder.
The next time I flip you off on the freeway, don't blame me, it's my "disorder". Shame on you for angering a diseased person.

smokediceman @ 2006-04-11T13:36:00

2006-04-11T20:35:52Z

There are very few things that annoy me as much as small talk. And it's not like I disapprove of it on lofty principles such as it being a waste of time. The truth is I suck at it. Real bad. Naturally, being a bury-head-in-sand ostrich-type person, I elect to hate it rather than make attempts at fixing the problem. Why such an unwise choice, one might wonder. The answer lies in the rather cute squirrel that once told me that making conscious efforts to improve social functioning makes one teter on the edge of the slippery slope that ends in Dr. Phil and SelfHelpBooksVille. I might be lying about the squirrel, FYI.

Anyway, this particular problem has been painfully evident in the past few weeks. Visitng home after a while has its host of obvious advantages, but what I hadn't signed up for was the subtle form of selfesteem ebbing torture that's small talk. Damn yin and damn yang. Relatives and other obscure people with whom the sum total of all my conversations till date consisted of little more than "Hello ... " followed by an awkward silence in a group setting, suddenly feel obligated to ask a never ending string of inconsequential questions in thoroughly frightening one-on-one sessions. Deer freezing in headlights images pop up in my head while I desperately try to reciprocate with equally insipid questions. Since normal societal functioning is beyond me I'm invariably left floundering after "How's it going?" and "Hot weather huh?". I might throw in a few other questions in there, but my brain goes into a tizzy and the only thing I usually recall is some obviously offended people walking away.
The scariest part in the whole interaction is the very real possibility of causing unobvious(atleast to me) faux pas. These seemingly simple conversations are minefields littered with traps such as failures to enquire about the torturer's immediate family and failures to remember significant events in their lives. The very thought that I might commit a faux pas inevitably makes me do it much like the Giggle Loop

The squirrel then screamed "Get away, you socially dysfunctional nut" which was ironic in a way.

Wow!

2006-03-31T18:28:56Z

I've never been super impressed with technology in the past. I appreciate its usefulness and am ocassionally amazed at the ease with which we can do certain things with its help. But, it has never had the "wow" effect on me, like a Sehwag slash sixer or a Mark Philipoussis ace might have on one for instance. This probably explains why I never understood the maniacal gadget ~~fascination~~ obsession that some of my friends possess. The kind that urges one to get the latest greatest phone that also doubles and triples up as a camera, Geiget counter and bunsen burner. You know that sort of thing comes in very handy if you want to cook radioactive material while on-the-go.
However, I half take the scepticism and general feeling of disbelief back today. What prompted the change, you wonder. I'm posting this entry while on a flight and this totally blows me away. That one can connect to the net and listen to streaming to music at that, while flying over the Bering Sea at 30,000 feet is truly spectacular. Siddy and Deep, you have my semi sincere apologies for the endless barrage of gadget addiction jokes.
Ofcourse, the cynic in me wonders about the reduction in the sense of adventure in travel. With GPS devices and now this, one is very rarely off the radar and that is sad in a way.

smokediceman @ 2006-02-08T15:10:00

2006-02-08T23:12:31Z

Nothing made much sense anymore. Up was down, down was up. Strawberries were funny. He dreamed a scorpion crawled up his right nostril, bloodied his sinus and took a sharp left turn towards the right brain lobe. Lobster in scrambled eggs were a delicacy, he remembered reading somewhere. And he remembered thinking it was ironic that lobsters were scrambling his brain. Scorpions, lobsters, who the hell cared.
It was funny how he remembered odd snippets of trivia at the unlikeliest times. Not just funny, it was immensely hilarious. His left lobe told him to shut the heck up. These observations weren't smart. "Go back and eat your cheeseballs till your fingers are orange and you want to kill yourself for being an idiot", it screamed. Blah, blah, blah. He heard another voice "Stick your head in the microwave. Help the scorpions. Or was it lobsters? "Cook the cook, scramble the scrambler. Who's the tormentor now?"
Nuclear holocaust, that he looked forward to. The mushroom cloud would make his scrambled brain gourmet. Could the cloud be portabello? Teheran, he should definitely visit, but then again, portabello wasn't likely to be found there. Tokyo was an option too. Irradiated shiitake would be a perfectly acceptable alternative. The steaming Colombian coffee wakened him. He'd make his travel plans later

smokediceman @ 2005-12-01T09:30:00

2005-12-01T17:29:33Z

Increasingly it's been tough to dismiss astrology as a scam as I used to in the past. Is it inconceivable that our lives can be modeled? Arriving at the parameters and the exact form of the model might be a challenge but nevertheless, with robust testing of candidate models possible using the unconditioned probability of the past as a measure of interest, we shouldn't and needn't be wary of proposing near approximations. For the longest time, traditional astrologers have maintained that the movement and position of the stars and the planets control our lives. While I have trouble believing that, it is possible that the position of the stars and planets and our lives have a strong correlation allowing it's use as an indirect indicator. At this point, I even question why it's inconceivable to me that the stars rule our lives. While there isn't direct evidence which proves it, I haven't been show evidence otherwise neither. In such a situation, my rational side should've told me to undecided and not rabidly disbelieving. But such a stance being quite unpopular ...

Any debate on this often times degenerates into presentation of anecdotal evidence for both sides of the argument. All it does is point out flaws in
a) the correlation between the variables or
b) the approximation of the model to the perfect model or
c) application of the model
if one allows for the existence of said model.

All this is one more reason why I have stopped believing that each and every one's life is controlled independently of each other. That would be too simplistic a model, and if life were that simple, the model would have been cracked by now.

More for later.

smokediceman @ 2005-11-03T16:34:00

2005-11-04T00:35:45Z

I know, it's been a long while. But a lot has happened in the interim. For starters, I'm now an excessively proud member of the wheeled population. That means that I now have the ability to buy grocery from places other than the 7-11 next block where the cops regularly harass the Paki manager to clean up gang graffiti from the walls. That I still choose to go back there is moderately puzzling. For a wuss who passionately hates video games, this I guess is as close as I can get to pretending that I don't live in generic suburbia.

My ride was born a few years ago in Bavaria where she was christened BMW 325Ci. This is a pic of her younger sister.

I have a lot to thank this sweet ride for. For one, I'm no longer run the risk of turning into a Mormon and living in Utah. Before you convince yourselves that my brain has finally melted with the excessive intake of ranch dressing, let me explain. The other day I was cycling back from work and had stopped at a traffic light waiting for the light to turn green, which by the way never happens because unless you're the size of a Ford Suburban that takes up more space than Nicaragua, the sensors don't detect anything and I wait for roughly the time needed for a new constellation to be born before the traffic light gods take pity. During this staggeringly boring wait, two kids rode up to me and proceeded to totally hassle me about considering joining the Mormon faith. Since I happen to be a reasonable person, I gave it some thought and finally politely told them to run along and tempt someone else into moving to the freaking desert and enjoying a polygamous lifestyle. No more shall I be subjected to such drivel. Instead I'll contribute to punching bigger holes in the ozone layer.

I'm so toast

2005-07-23T01:27:54Z

So it's been 7 weeks since I left home and decided to explore a new life in a new continent. Alright, calling moving to Silicon Valley, "a new life in a new continent" might be a little rich. There are more Indians here than all the little kids in Neverland and all the Catholic churches in the Midwest put together, but one day, when I'm writing my biography, this *will* be an exciting adventure, so screw you guys. Heck, I think I'll throw in a few trolls and midgets in there too to spicen things up. And nuclear fission accidents. Ok, I'll stop now before I pass out with giddy anticipation. "Poetic licence", they call it. Sounds like "Outright Lying" to me, but whatever.

The upside of having so many Indians here is that vegetarianism is no longer a weird thing that only tree hugging hippies indulge in. There was a party of sorts the other day at work and the hot dog stand was serving up, hold on to your seats here, tofu freaking dogs! And tasty as hell it was too which wasn't surprising because generally the food at work has been pretty good. With stuff like quiche (which by the way, rocks beyond belief, and you all know I'm not given to hyperbole), gnocchi and falafels for lunch, I truly can't understand the people who whine about bad food in the cafeteria. Coming back to the vegetarian friendliness, it is almost too much to take. If I were a regular meat loving American, I'd be mighty pissed. It's like Bangalore deciding to go kosher suddenly to please the dozen odd Jewish people there. I know I'd turn raving mad if my favorite darshini started serving kosher dosas with no yeast in the batter during Passover. But I'm not complaining or anything. Just sayin'.

I've been told that reaching the ripe old age of 23 and living all alone in a new place causes deep introspection and self-realisation. Well, none of that happened with me but I did realise that inspite of living through 33C (that's ~91F for you Centigrade challenged people) summers playing cricket on 50C asphalt roads with once-spherical-now-ovoid rubber balls, I still get sunburnt like a little English girl. Embarrassing as hell and a gigantic blow to my misplaced sense of bravado. So a few weeks ago, a couple of us decided to head to San Francisco to catch a concert in the middle of the day. Hootie and the Blowfish (who were ok), Better than Ezra (who sucked) and Jem (who kicked so much butt with her very Dido-like vocals) were doing their thing on stage and we were lounging about in the grass in the middle of the Golden Gate park smirking at people all around us squeezing out globs of sunscreen. The next thing you know, it was 4pm and I notice a burning sensation in my skin which in my semi-sleepy state I dismissed as someone gently blowtorching my face, arms and legs. In the days that followed, peeling of skin and other events that will almost definitely cause all of you to lose your lunches happened and I realised the ultimate truth that was evading me all my life. No-ozone-layer + high latitude + no-sunscreen = Very Bad, unless you dig the pale-feet-but-calves-that-are-toasted look.

I did learn from this life-changing realisation though. A few weeks later, I was on a hiking trip with a few coworkers in Yosemite and I dutifully carried my tube of sunscreen with the appropriate PF rating and everything. However, what I didn't realise was you had to cover every square inch of your exposed skin. The net result is that I now look like a burnt bagel, except I'm not pastry.

The most popular hiking trail at Yosemite is a breathtaking hike up the mountain by the side of the Merced river which plunges down a few waterfalls along the way. Totally worth the body aches associated with a 15 mile hike.

The sweet lady in the recorded message who was excessively bragging about Yosemite's natural beauty and charm for 10+ mins, when I called the hotel to reserve rooms had informed me that "Yosemite's splendid isolation would melt my stress away". I was obviously excited because, having to wait for 10mins to talk to a human while listening to recorded messages is such a treat.

Eventually when I was on the hike a week later, I saw that nearly half the civilized world was on the hiking trail and I began to question if this was really "splendid isolation". Maybe I'm just being too picky, but my trust in recorded message lady came crashing down. Someone should teach the recorded message lady to not lie. She has made me so cynical. The other day I was watching an infomercial and I was very disturbingly sceptical when the nice man selling a diet plan said "Eat all the pizza and Krispy Kreme donuts you want and still have 6 pack abs". A mere month ago and I'd have sold my flatmate's Audi to buy that knowledge from the nice man.
And while we are at it, some other people need to be taught not to lie too.

1) Lady at the Social Security Office - "Please take a seat sir, we'll call out your name in a short while" does not equate to a 2 hour wait during which I contemplate snatching the gun from the equally bored security guard and pumping bullets through my mouth. But later I did notice that by using an ambiguous "short while" quantifier, the lady had allowed herself crazy amounts of wiggle room. Two hours *is* a short while when compared to say, the time taken for a new constellation to be formed. Cunning strategy to hoodwink me. I'll get you next time, lady.

2) Bored man at the DMV - Click. "That's a good picture". So there I was, glad that my pic in atleast one official document won't scare little kids. A few weeks later I get my state ID and hell no, that was no "good picture". It ws more like the mug shot of the last drug dealer arrested by Detective Sorenson in NYPD Blue. Correction, sunburnt drug dealer.

(Appearance in the above list was in no particular order, so DMV man, if you're reading and want to be #1 on the list, send me your request on Form DS-123 in triplicate and attach a sliver of your pancreas and I'll respond in 2-4 weeks)

Well, I guess some things never change. Government agencies will make you want to pull out clumps of hair off your own head irrespective of where you are.

an update after a long while …

2005-06-21T03:07:38Z

“How do you like your quasi futuristic suit, Mr Powers” - Dr Evil

I haven’t updated my blog for quite some time now and while it can partially be attributed to laziness and sloth like behavior, for once I do have a series of semi-legitimate reasons. For starters, after spending my entire life in Bangalore, I was preparing the groundwork to uproot my lazy ass from there and move to the other side of the planet.
In one of those moments of sheer stupidity (or hilarity, for them mean folks) which I’ve christened “The cleansing of the Passport”, I had dropped my passport into the washing machine where it dutifully underwent 15 mins of a Regular Cotton cycle before my blood turned ice cold and I fished it out. While the damage wasn’t enough to arouse more than a few “WTF have you been doing with your passport?” looks from airport authorities at San Francisco, Houston, Newark and Bangalore, I didn’t particularly want to test the boundaries of my new found luck and decided to get a dupe issued instead. This involved positively fun activities like getting affidavits notarized, trudging back and forth from the passport office and a visit to the local police station. A swift 6 weeks and 3 visits to the post office later, I scored a smart new passport with a dorky pic.

Just when I thought my fun was ending, 3 gazillion forms that attorneys and HR people go giddy designing, needed to be filled. I hadn’t really thought about this before, but my home address is freaking long. Funny how you realise shit like this when you have to write/type B-a-s-a-v-e-s-h-w-a-r-a-n-a-g-a-r 3 gazillion * 3 times, which brings me to why forms ask for addresses multiple times ON THE SAME FREAKING FORM! Go back and read it already, for Pete’s sakes!
I do love to whine (a lot!) but there were some fun moments like when I went to Kolkata to get my visa stamped, where I got to see the house my mom’s family lived in ages ago. I won’t be a “cup half empty” person now and go on about the 4 hours I had to spend sitting at the Consulate …
My flight to San Francisco had a 10 hour stopover at Singapore where I pissed off a cabbie who had probably waited at the airport for 3 hours in the hopes of landing a long expensive ride into the city, only to find me hopping on for a 3 min ride to an uncle’s apartment near the airport, where I proceeded to sleep (as usual) before the monstrous 14 hr leg to SFO. At Bangalore, I had sweet talked a ground agent into giving me seats at the front of the cabin where the leg space wouldn’t give me guaranteed leg cramps and deep vein thrombosis. So there I was at Singapore, reasonably impressed with myself for having scored cool seats and remembering the marvelous (read: non leg cramping) time on the BLR-SFO ride infront of the emergency door. I strolled into the cabin to find some dude at my seat. I do the usual “Err … I think you’re in my seat” bit whilst in my mind, it was thinking “Dude, get the fuck out of my seat (with the leg space) before I whoop your ass”. Then this guy launches into an elaborate emotional blackmail attempt very remniscent of the sort commonly seen on Indian Railways “I’m traveling with my wife, mother-in-law and kid. Could you sit in my seat?” Well, this guy’s seat was in the second row and a freaking MIDDLE seat at that. The hypocritically nice guy that I was, I smiled and said “Sure”, whilst steaming on the inside. A kid has to be with his/her mom I can understand, but mother-in-law and wife? Sitting on different rows won’t exactly kill you or them, you know! Jackass. I can rage all I want but there was no choice really was there? I don’t agree to swap seats and I’m the jerk who won’t let a dad and mom travel with their infant. So I swapped seats and got stuck with a crummy seat with incessant chatter from a Filipino chick called “Pebbles”. Gaawd!
After landing at SFO, I waited while people dragged and heaved their suitcases and other odd shaped packages (what kind of weird crap luggage do people carry? Honest to God, I saw a garbage bag, 1 plastic sack with a red ribbon and 3 large cardboxes amongst other bizzare crap) off the conveyor belt. All the while I waited with only the hyper excited drug sniffer beagle providing amusement. Finally after an hour or so, only the now subdued beagle, it’s handler and I were left at the arrival hall when my luggage finally emerged from the hole in the ground, driving the dog into utter glee. Roger was his name, I think. He was one happy doggie.

Coming Attractions: More boring details about my first few weeks in the Bay Area.

I’m finally “normal”

2005-05-22T19:14:19Z

No one has accused me of being "normal" in my life . Ever.
The CDC did just that last week when my BMI finally dropped below the 25 mark.
The challenge now is to stay normal. If ever there were words I never thought I'd say...

Who’d have thunk that!

2005-05-15T19:24:00Z

Strap me to a hog and roll me in the mud, I’m buzzed!
My pair of Reeboks which has been faithfully serving as my gym/running shoes for close to 2 years now, had its swansong today.
Its been more than 12 hours since it carried me across the finish line after running the half marathon in the Lipton Bangalore Marathon and I can’t still believe it. For the statistically inclined, it took me all of 2 hours and 25 mins to do the 21.07 kms.
Pushing my body to its limit and beyond has taken its toll. I’m sore all over and my feet has more blisters than J Lo has husbands, but I;m certainly not complaining. Even while training for the run in the past 6-7 weeks, I was never completely confident that I’d last the distance and to actually go ahead and do it is as much a relief as it is exhilirating.
The day started off quite cloudy and that made for some beautiful running weather. Running through the heart of Bangalore with no traffic on the roads was quite surreal. It really did provide an unique opportunity to appreciate how beautiful our city really is. It’s a pity that the powers that be seem hell bent on destroying it.
Getting back to the marathon, watching the Ethiopians blow past us was like watching the Ferraris and the Renaults lap the Minardis. You know they’re operating on a plane that’s light years away when they finish the full marathon in lesser time that it takes you to do the half. Scary stuff. Even imagining sustaining 20 km/h for over 2 hours makes me dizzy.

My sights are now set on completing a full marathon. Lets see how that goes …

american idol

2005-05-05T07:03:20Z

Ashamed as I am to admit I watch the show, I can't help but admire the ability of some of the remaining few.
Bo Bice's cover of the Los (correction: ~~Lobos~~) Lonely Boys (duh!) song was outstanding and Carrie's "God Blessed the Broken Road" was better than Rascal Flatt's even IMO. I only wish they'd stop the drivel about Bo being a rocker. Yeah, I get the point. I don't need that pummeled into my head every 3 secs.

Whoops!

2005-05-02T06:36:39Z

Your brain: 20% interpersonal, 40% visual, 80% verbal, and 260% mathematical!

Congratulations on being 400% smart! Actually, on my test, everyone is. The above score breaks down what kind of thinking you most enjoy
doing. A score above 100% means you use that kind of thinking more than
average, and a score below 100% means you use it less. It says nothing
about how good you are at any one, just how interested you are in each, relatively. A substantial difference in scores between two people means, conclusively, that they are different kinds of thinkers.

Matching Summary: Each of us has different tastes. Still, I offer the following advice, which I think is obvious:

Don't date someone if your interpersonal percentages differ by more than 80%.
Don't be friends with someone if your verbal percentages differ by more than 100%.
Don't have sex with someone if their math percentage is over 200%.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 23% on interpersonal
You scored higher than 50% on visual
You scored higher than 74% on verbal
You scored higher than 98% on mathematical

Link: The 4-Variable IQ Test written by chriscoyne on Ok Cupid

Curiously confused

2005-05-01T14:25:16Z

Last week, I had been to Palakkad, which is a town in Kerala right on the border with Tamil Nadu. My family apparently has its roots there. The implication of its proximity to Tamil Nadu and the migration of people to there from TN many a generation ago is that Palakkad has quite an identity crisis. The language is the first thing to be assaulted and it ends up being a goulash of Tamil with Malayalam generously sprinkled all over.
Ofcourse this means that whenever I’m asked what I speak at home, I’m left stuttering “Tamil, err no, Malayalam, no not that either …”. One might think that I could simply claim to speak one or the other, but that ploy has come back to bite me, in the past. Responding to a blue blooded Tamilian (Malayalee) in my mongrel tongue after unabashedly claiming to be a Tamil (Malayalee) is a rather traumatic experience. Reactions range from polite knowing smiles to expressions that all but say “Man, are you retarded!”. Being unable to read or write either of the two languages does not help my case either.

To complicate matters further my mother grew up in Calcutta where her family spent quite a lot of time, which naturally means that like all Bongs (and I use the term in an affectionate way… oh wait, I don’t *have* to be politically correct do I?), my relatives from my mom’s side have a medical condition that makes them chatter like monkeys incessantly. In all fairness I have been told that they are actually speaking in a real language called Bengali. Hogwash is my response to that.
The net result of this right ol’ mess is that yours truly who was born and raised in Bangalore has a very warped sense of cultural identity. The only languages I’m truly comfortable talking in with people outside of my family are English and the bastardized version of Kannada spoken on the streets of Bangalore, which by the way (and I can’t stress this enough) is the *BEST* language to swear in.
However, I digress. The trip begain with an awful train journey. Whoever designed the coaches for the Indian Railways must’ve been schooled in the Auschwitz school of design. Claustrophobic compartments with berth that couldn’t be enough for bulimic 13 year olds, throw in roaches and rude co-passengers …
Getting back to my visit to Palakkad, the first thing that hit me, apart from the unsettling language problems and by that I mean the severe lack of ability to communicate with anyone, was the heat that could melt the flesh off of your body. War strategists talk of shock and awe tactics to stun the enemy. I’m convinced that the Palakkad is the battleground where the weather gods are waging war on us. I of the “Oh-Bangalore-is-getting-so-freaking-hot” fame, was in utter shock and suitably awestruck. Give me the heat of Bangalore anyday please. The heat notwithstanding, the natural beauty of the place is breathtaking. The rains that pound the place bear nothing in similarity with the weak drizzle that passes for rain in Bangalore. I was walking along a highway near where I lived and the ferocity of the thunderstorm, with lightningbolts going off all over and thunder that probably has left me unable to distinguish frequencies in the 10Khz+ frequency range, was downright scary. I later learnt that three people had lost their lives due to lightning strikes that past week. Talk about sobering realizations, foolish bravery is a very real affliction indeed.
However, the chief purpose of the trip was to do stuff of a personal matter (translates to “things I’m not comfortable talking about”) and that went on great. The other inconveniences are insanely trivial looking at the importance of this.
God, I love to crib.

New books!

2005-04-16T17:22:53Z

As I had predicted in an earlier post, the entry of DSL in my apartment has meant the end of “couch potato Ramnath” and has been seen the emergence of “net-addict Ramnath”. As a pre-emptive move to avoid being in a situation where a surgical removal from the monitor might be necessary, I went book shopping today and got a few books that I’m very excited about.
“Genome” is the first that caught my eye. It promises to clear up the very hazy picture I have of the whole DNA/genome/chromosome world.
“The Art of War” was something I simply had to get, the sucker that I am for Chinese philosophy. Add the promise of war strategy …
“The Tao of Physics” is the 3rd book I got. The back cover claims that the book puts forth a framework which ties Western physics and Eastern spirituality. I’m very very curious about how this is done.
But the book that I simply *have* to read first is from the Just William series. Richmal Crompton has a seriously wicked sense of humor that totally appeals to me.

So boys and girls, expect mediocre and questionable book reviews from me in the near future

An extremely boring day gets better

2005-04-13T16:12:57Z

Today was one of those days, those on which I wish I hadn't gotten out of bed. A bunch of semi-minor annoyances and a general feeling of apathy had made me want to dig a hole and hide there forever.
Towards the evening, I took a friend's advice and decided to hit the gym earlier than usual where I jumped onto the treadmill and ran for 10, yes 10 kms, which might evoke a "So what? I could do 10 kms hopping on my fractured left foot whilst fighting off Rottweilers" from many. But ladies and gentleman, to a person who is the quintessential couch potato, this was enough to generate more excitement than a moonshine barrel would in an AA meeting. High off that buzz, I returned to my desk where I was reading random mails on an office mailing list devoted to what can safely be termed crap, albeit extremely entertaining crap. There I found a link to this hilarious site. Check this gem that the script generated. Hence what began as a crummy day turned into a moderately acceptable day.

PS: I apologise for wasting your time with what I realise is utterly useless information to most people. Writing is cathartic they say and I'm checking that theory out.

my new site/blog

2005-04-04T19:41:58Z

After years of wanting to do it, I finally got myself a domain and hosting space. Having gotten myself a new toy, I just *had* to play with it and so I installed WordPress there. Ergo,my blog now continues its existence here. I'm still trying to see if I should install/write plugins that'll automatically sync WordPress and LiveJournal.