for the lack of a better word ....

It’s been a while since things have gone my way so overwhelmingly that I haven’t had a chance to bitch. I could always go and watch the President of USA for a while and for a while I’m the luckiest, most intelligent being in the world. But I reserve that kind of self-appreciation to once a day, usually 11 in the night during a certain show called the Jon Stewart show. Other times I compare myself with people of at least some intelligence and hence the bitching. Where’d that term come from I wonder though.

What term you ask?

Bitching, that’s what!!

Of course, in another sense of the word, your day could be bitchin' and you could still be bitching. But I digress. Why relate a word to a female dog you wonder? Let me tell you then….so do I!!! And I have no answer so let’s move on without further bitching about it.

I do find things to grumble (see I moved off, your turn) all the time though. My car, ah, now there’s an entity that could drive (pun intended) my whole life into a maze of nitpicking. Have you noticed that nothing’s right when your car’s wrong? Have you noticed also that your car is never right? See I love my car for that fact that it’s been with me two years and it takes me everywhere. But I have this weird feeling sometimes that if I’d had a real girl instead of her and spent the fortune I have on her, she’d probably be giving me shoulder rides to wherever I wanted anyways.

Which begs another question?

Why don’t I?

Why don’t I what?...

Why don’t I have a girl, ahhh that silly question…

Hmm, you like my complaining don’t you. Brave of you to tackle that topic. Well lemme get into the most detailed explanation possible for that question you put up. I don’t know yet again?...

There you have it. I have no clue why girls are so, well, different. Of course it doesn’t help that my social flamboyance is what you would call…ummm..non-existant. You should see me stammer when talking to a, what some would call, hot chic. It’s magnificent really. You wouldn’t ever see a more brilliant display of it. I have a sync problem with my mind then, which is desperately trying to think of topics to talk about, while my mouth being momentarily free of its master goes into weird convulsions making absurd noises. But you see, me with my incredible intelligence, I’ve figured a way out. The next time I meet and talk to a new girl I intend to remain silent. The whole freakin' conversation!!! Eh?? Beat that!!!

Genius you say? And I accept you compliment. That’s very polite of you.

Speaking of polite, have you ever noticed people go to such extreme lengths to be polite nowadays?

What lengths? Aww come on, it’s even hard to decide where to draw the line, sometimes literally.

Literally?? Yes!!!

Let me be more approximately specific (:-)). Allow me an instance, an example, a quad erat demonstrandum if you will. Have you ever gone through a door, that automagically swings shut behind you …

…hold your horses there...I know you have!! Let me get to the end of it…

Have you ever gone through such a door and out of the corner of your eye seen this other person coming up behind you? Have you held the door open for that person out of the, lets call it, politeness-factor now? Of course you have, and I’m still not done with my point. So how far does the person coming behind you have to be, before you decide you are going to let the door swing shut and let the person open it again. The person’s looking right at you, that approaching specimen of mankind (by the way if it’s just one specimen is it a speci-MAN I wonder, but I digress yet again). So anyways, this person is coming right at you!!! An expectant gaze upon its mug, imploring you to hold the door open. Besides how long do you actually have to make a decision anyways? You have to admit, it would look tremendously asinine, if you actually held the door open for a few seconds and then let it go.

See what I meant about the literal line now?? There should be one at each “swing-close” door. If the approaching human (and we have to be specific here) is beyond that line, you let the door go free. How about that for a solution eh?

See I think, therefore I am. Although if I go by intelligent design, someone else thought and therefore I am…right?

What’s that, I think a lot? You say that like it’s a bad thing?

Overanalyze? How can you say that really?

Oh ok…I admit. I do it!! Overanalyze I mean. Have you ever talked to a person, and then two seconds after the conversation ends you think if it could have gone better? Then you are rehearsing a conversation you have already had , when you know that the exact same conversation would never ever happen again. Not on this universe, not in this dimension, not in your existence.

What you …ummm…haven’t done that?? Yeah...well neither have I!!! I was just testing you. Now don’t be bitching about it!!!

Illuminated thoughts ...

alright here we go. I've written a bit offline. Haven't posted anything here. This is one I wrote in Starbucks again, a while back. I'm posting it because I sometimes can't make head or tail of it myself. Yet it's from the heart...go figure.. I'm not sure if you'll get it either.

========================================================

Illuminated thoughts of a feeble mind,
The temerity of thought,
Faith and trust blind.
The jagged path,
A hopeless life,
The curtain call,
An end to strife.
The last resort,
A danger unseen,
The final ascent,
A thought between.
The final countdown,
A shining end.
The mindless slumber,
An eternal friend.
The needless war,
An inevitable fact.
The lasting peace,
A broken pact.
The holy spirit,
An unmistakable sign.
The father and son,
A desecrated shrine.
The living hell,
A deadly silence.
The empty shell,
A tribute to violence.

...proud to be an a**hole??

I read this in one of the mailing lists I'm subscribed to. A perfect example of the misdirected, misinterpreted, shoddy and shameful display of patriotism that I mentioned a couple of posts back. I'm not even sure if the figures and facts are right here, it's just the intent and emotion behind the post below that scares me.

I couldnt' stop making this comparison..

inches of rain in new orleans due to hurricane katrina... 18
inches of rain in mumbai (July 27th).... 37.1

population of new orleans... 484,674
population of mumbai.... 12,622,500

deaths in new orleans within 48 hours of katrina...100
deaths in mumbai within 48hours of rain.. 37

number of people to be evacuated in new orleans... entire city..wohh
number of people evacuated in mumbai...10,000

Cases of shooting and violence in new orleans...Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in mumbai.. NONE

Time taken for US army to reach new orleans... 48hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach mumbai...12hours

status 48hours later...new orleans is still waiting for relief, army and electricty
status 48hours later..mumbai is back on its feet and is business is as usual

USA...world's most developed nation

India...third world country..

oopss...did i get the last fact wrong???

Jai Maharashtra !

I said in that post and I'll say it today, patriotism has always been an emotion based on delusions and malice.

As an Indian, this post does not make me proud. It shames me to think that people with thoughts like these exist in the country that some people tell me is the beacon of compassion, hospitality and good will in this world. Delusions galore my fellow patriots...we are all but an inch away from being the people we hate...

Sarah

Alright, another Starbucks inspiration. This time 'cause I was bored of studying and was just looking around. A rather simple and silly one...but hey it's my blog...i can post crap here of all places...

Besides it's dedicated to the cutest girl in Starbucks...well in the the Starbucks near my place anyways.

=======================

She walks about,
She floats in time,
She radiates charm,
Like a beautiful rhyme.

I watch her furtively,
Sitting in the coffee shop chair.
I stare at her openly now,
Without a worldly care.

She skips about,
Working around,
Our eyes meet for a second,
And I pass away without a sound.

She's beautiful, did I say,
They call her Sarah,
She's looks an angel to me,
As she starts to come over.

In a raspy smooth voice,
She asks me if I'm done,
I look up at her,
And think, I'll have some fun.

'No', I say
'I'm just getting started.'
She wrinkles up her nose,
As if I just farted.

'Started with what',
She says tossing her hair,
'This is a coffee shop dude,
By Eleven you have to clear.'

Well then I ignore her,
Being so funny you see.
And she stood there,
Shaking her head at me.

She frowned at me,
Then frowned some more.
And then walked away,
Leaving me slightly unsure.

I stared at her back,
Open mouth and all,
Kicking myself for the bad joke,
But now I had to make the call.

I call out her name,
It's time I know
To make my coolest move,
So I go with my flow.

'Hey, I'm just teasing',
I say with some glee,
She turns around unsure,
With a small smile for me.

And then my dear friends,
I make my final move and say,
'Can I take you out someplace,
Maybe coffee, this Sunday?'

Needless to say,
Those were my final words to her,
Not just for the day,
That goodbye was probably forever.

...to kill a human being...

When is it right to kill a person?

I'm sorry, my mind wanders. Did I say something?

Oh yes, that one!! The conundrum faced by "humanity" (if you will) everyday, somewhere in the world. But now that we have started down the treacherous road let’s continue then, shall we?

When can you justify taking a life? I was watching a show by George Carlin recently and this guy has a wandering mind too. He thinks of questions that make “humanity” squirm like a child, caught stealing candies. One of his comments struck me in this particular show though. We say life is sacred but do we believe it? Do you think before swatting that fly, killing that roach or hunting down that deer? If you believe what you say, you are hell bound my friend for destroying so many things so sacred. So really, that brings me back…when is it right to kill another person?? If the Americans caught Bin Laden today, killing him would be like swatting a fly. Right?? Surely, his life can’t be sacred? Well, not to Jesus anyways. Allah might have different thoughts, but hey let them fight their own battle up there.

Now, I’m not saying that Bin Laden should not be caught. Far from it, catch the bastard. So many lives are being lost (debatably at the wrong places) for one man. But I’m just wondering, what happens when (if?) he is captured? I am just trying to decipher the sacred aspect of life here that makes killing one person more of a sin than killing another person.

Who defines this mysterious sacredness of life? Is there a counter where we can measure it? You fall below 100 and ding…ding…ding…you are the weakest link…you can be executed by anyone without the slightest amount of sin being added to the killer’s counter. How did America compute the “sacredness” of 80,000 lives in Hiroshima? How did Hitler quantify it on his end? Was there a difference in their calculations? Maybe the Americans applied the double integration of human lives over the limits sin to sacredness and Hitler merely did a partial differentiation. It would be so much easier to elucidate things using mathematics, wouldn’t it?

The fact remains though, life was never inherently sacred. Nope, no counter exists, no sacredness exists. It’s merely the people you love and care about that makes things “sacred”, for the lack of a better term. If somebody harms your beliefs, and the people you care about, that bastard has had it. His “sacredness” just went down to zero for all you care. Swat him!!!

You know what probably drove Bin Laden to do the things he does? No, he did not wake up one fine day saying, “Hmm, I’m bored. What should I do that should keep me occupied for the rest of my life?” No, he was never struck by divine prophecy, enlightening him to murder any idiot who does not agree with Allah. Well, actually that’s something that he decided. Allah probably does not represent God to him. It represents a belief that he is right and the world should be destroyed for not agreeing with him. At some point in his life the beliefs he cared about and the people he cared about were deliberately or inadvertently harmed. And so he turned to Allah and was enlightened forever. And now he kills to protect his beliefs and the people who care for him and about him. Now here’s the interesting part…hold your breath…come on…so does any and every other country that can.

Two philosophies and sentiments in this world have caused more killing and bloodshed than any other. Religion and patriotism!!! Both have so many misguided connotations that they no longer remain the virtuous beliefs as claimed by their proponents.

Let me start with the lesser (only slightly) of two evils. Patriotism is essentially the reason every war has been fought over since the dawn of a coherent civilization. In its purest form, it is supposed to instill in you the pride for who you are, what your virtues are and knowledge of what your shortcomings are. People from India are kind and generous and intelligent, people from America are brave and fearless and innovative, people from Britain are noble, the French are refined and….well you get the point. Patriotism however has been this misguided missile of hatred for a long time now. It is cited as a reason for wars and more importantly accepted without any debate as a reason for war. Today, it is not so much a matter of pride in one’s virtues as a hatred for other people’s shortcomings. You mention you are doing something for patriotic reasons and you can justify anything. Anyone who opposes is “unpatriotic” and faces the wrath and the scorn of society. Patriotism is probably the philosophy filled with most hypocrisy…well…probably second only to this next one.

Religion!! The granddaddy of all philosophies. A philosophy that preaches peace and spreads violence. A philosophy meant to explain the origins of humans and probably one that would spell its doom. A philosophy, ladies and gentlemen that can make people do crazy things for crazy reasons. Now, the existence of God being a non-issue here, the fact remains that religions, just like patriotism, were scripted to bring about self-respect and peaceful living within societies. A noble cause, if any. Fact also remains, that history has scripted religion as an instrument of loathing and destruction. Closely knit with patriotism, and probably the origin of the former in many cases, it has probably been that all elusive weapon of mass destruction, some posing Texas cowboy went looking for (or at least that’s what he said).

We have songs and speeches filled with the delusions of patriotism…our country is the most beautiful in the world, we live in harmony, nothing can separate us, united we stand, these colors don’t run, we built this country with our blood and all sorts of crap really. Most of which we know are not true, and we don’t even have to look into our hearts to realize that. We just to have to look out of our shells of hypocrisy. The same goes for religion, only the delusion is magnified there. It doesn’t make things easier that religion is a philosophy seemingly, mostly based on delusions.

What’s funny to me though is that people are not just willing to kill but even die for these two philosophies. And even if you believe in the hallucinations presented by them, isn’t that a tad bit wrong. I read this or heard this someplace long time back, it said, to die for love is the easy way out, it’s living for love that’s tough and that justifies it. If you believe on something, don’t you think that life justifies it more than death? If you believe in religion or patriotism, doesn’t life justify those things more that the kill or be killed for it line of thought?

So, taking the long ranting road back, when is it right to kill a human, to take life, to go to war, to launch an atomic strike, to become a suicide bomber, to kill a murderer, to execute a rapist….never!! That would just be the easy way out. It is easy to kill a man, it is harder to kill an ideology. Nazism faded away to its minimal existence not because the allies killed Hitler, but because Hitler committed suicide. It was him who took the easy way out, he died for himself. If the allies had caught and executed Hitler, we might have seen his supporters multiply. Hitler would then have died for them. It is a thought to keep in mind when dealing out punishment.

If a person is wrong, to think in terms of killing that someone would justify their existence, to think in terms of life would justify ours.

Imagine this !!!

People always ask me why I love science fiction. To them science fiction and fantasy (did I forget to mention that in the first sentence?) means kid's stuff. Child's play. Immature indulgences of a feeble mind which is entertained by incredulous concoctions of someone else's imaginations.

Science fiction and fantasy to me bring about the limits of human imagination. They of course are NOT the limits of human imagination. Nothing in the world today can be the limit of human imagination. The world today is not that...Utopian...for the lack of a better - and non debatable - word.

Why DO I love sci-fi and fantasy then? For one thing, I find reading about things that are real and have happenned already, only mildly amusing and that too for a certain amount of time. I mean, news is fine. It's what keeps you aware as to what's happenning to your world. But history and biographies and how things happenned a hundred years ago???...Well..ummmm..only sometimes. Most of the times, I hate reading biographies and the histories of things. People love reading about things that have happenned, and things that are and have been....and so on. I love reading about things that COULD be or could NEVER be...at least not now...at least not what those other people can imagine.

It has been a passion since I was very young and inspite of that the realization struck me late. Pretty late.

Why do I love fantastical stuff?? Why do I love things, things that people scoff at when I read them...or watch them...or hear about them or discuss them? Well, simply put, I love to see where the mind can take one person when he's imaginative enough. And, sadly (not to mention modestly) I'm nowhere near as imaginative as the worst of those.

People say it's kid's stuff...I say that is the best compliment people can give you. A child's mind is undoubtedly the most imaginative thing in the living world. And an imaginative mind is the most precious entity as human existence has shown us. A child can imagine things, for better or for worse, that adults can only laugh and snicker and scoff at.

As I said, and as people don't realize often, imagination is the gift existence gave us when humans evolved. I hate bringing God into this, because I am at a place in my life where I am stuck between wanting to believe in god and doubting his existence. But I know this much...whatever or whoever brought us to this place, we currently inhabit..wanted us to have imagination. Imagination was never phased out by evolution or by the (debatable) God.

Imagination is what gave birth to the greatest theories and inventions of human civilization, remember (by the way, talk about imagination...beat that!!! Civilization!!!) ??

Imagination is what brought us from four legged monkeys to two legged humans for all we know!!!

But I've digressed enough. Why do you think kid's shiyat like those fantasy and sci-fi books and stories have been around and flourishing?? Imagination is the key, isn't it? It's the imagination of a child. Only a child's imagination can bring you to these realms of wonder. And when an adult does it and writes it down, or narrates it or puts it forth to the rest of us..it stays on for ages.

I've seen adults engrossed in Harry Potter books in recent times (sometimes when looking in a mirror actually!!!). Does it make them snicker and snigger on every page? Does it make them feel proud that they can't stoop to that level of thinking?? Or is it something a bit more...umm simpler?? Maybe they see a world they have all but lost when their childhood waved a reluctant sad goodbye to them.

I'm not saying magic exists...but I'm saying why can't it!!!

I'm not saying people would be able to reach out to the galaxies in a spoon shaped starship to meet and fight other people (aliens?)..but I'm saying why not!!

Why do humans as a rule have to discount things that they can't fathom? It has happenned scores of times since the times of a supposedly flat earth, to date. And humans don't seem to embrace the concept of incredulous imagination and giving the unbelievable a chance.

There are limits as always. I am not suggesting that people abandon sanity and start living incredibly eccentric lives. I am merely suggesting people keep their minds open. I am suggesting people believe that the unbelievable can and sometimes WILL happen.

I am not suggesting people live Star Trek or Harry Potter, or any other "kiddy fodder"...I am saying people love the spirit behind them..(not the marketing but the spirit...big difference by the way...whole another blog for that one).

I am saying people learn to listen to the ever present, if often subdued, children in themselves...

Anyone can live the life someone else has already lived...very few people can even imagine a life no one has ever lived.

Life, or something like **it ...

Living in a one room studio is an experience requisite for bringing out that aura of richness and fullness in ones life. It is a deeply philosophical and adventurous situation, at various levels. The mind balks at the thought of comprehending and processing the plethora of information being thrown at you constantly. But things start to dawn upon you with regular flashes of “eurekas” every now and then.

Many of you, I realize, will never go through an experience like this all your life. I debate myself whether to be sorry for your cause or curse you for being a lucky SOB. I have been living through this curious ‘twilight zone’ of heaven and hell for the past 10 months now. And it teaches you things, and skills, and tricks. Things you would never have thought, or imagined, in a regular life.

Skills, my friends!!! Skills!!!

How to keep the smell of food out of your clothes when everything from cutting of stuff, to cooking of stuff, to spilling, eating, burning of stuff is happening in the same room is the most basic one. How to let your roommate watch television while you listen to music and try to read for that certification test is another big one. Oh, and another very important one is about having stuff that flies out of the pan while cooking (in the general area you have labeled as kitchen), and not have it touch the carpet (in the general area you decided to call living room, but you roommate calls the shoe rack). The carpet, with which your heels would make contact if you did not stand on your toes. Another good one is how to go to the restroom in an urgent pressure situation, with the room full of people, and try to ‘depressurize’. How to do this without making sounds heard by the crowd 2 feet away, separated by a door so thin that it would break if you pass gas in the general direction is the utterly elusive and …ahem…well, I guess I’ll move on. …How to arrange your kitchen, computer, television, bed, luggage, clothes, books, refrigerator and the junk of the whole universe in a fifteen by fifteen foot room is an art that Da Vinci would have been blessed to learn. Believe me there, that would have blown the wretched code of his out of significance. People would have rather been amazed at the skill of the person for an entirely different cause.

The problem really begins if you decide to downgrade. So, if you have lived in a one room hole forever, things might just be fine. If, however, you lived in a five room house with restrooms and closets in every corner, and all of a sudden you want to move into this enticing, empty looking, single room studio, you are screwed and you don’t know it. The reasons could range from financial to locale related to the general availability of good looking opposite sex organisms around you. The results are nearly always the same blend of buoyant desperation.

There are days believe me when it all seems worth it. Days when you see a beautiful girl pass by the steps looking at you in what seems like utter disgust (your heart knows its love at first sight). Days when you pay the rent and still have enough money left to eat all month (if you eat every alternate day of course). Days when your car splutters and splatters but you know your office is around the corner, and you could always miss the gym and jog over to your work instead.

But days like those are interspersed with days that would drive any sentient, civilized being insane. Days when you go to take a bath in an area so small and low that you have to almost squat to take a bath. Not to mention, holding the shower faucet in your hand and moving it over your body, trying to reach those creases that the hunkered down position has now created in your body. And then you step out of the shower and before reaching for the towel you find half your body is dry as if you never friggin’ took a bath. Although, to counter that, did you know you can just buy one toilet mat and have wall-to-wall carpeting in your restroom….if that excites you of course.

By the way, makeshift studios also tend to have weird things at weird places. We, for example, have a skylight, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, a skylight in our bathroom, right on top of my throne of thoughtful reading and epiphany (or as other people call it, the toilet seat). The problem with that being that, of course, it’s not watertight. Therefore, when you sit on the grand seat in the morning, and unbeknownst to you, it has snowed or rained the previous night, you would get a rude shock in half-slumber when a wet and cold drop of water drips off the fancy skylight to land on your back. And then all you can concentrate on is when the next drop will fall, hence nullifying any chance of you ‘completing the job’ that you came there to do.

And so our life unfolds, one enthralling moment followed by another deep, dark sense of doom. It is a life that teaches you many things as I said. It teaches you how to bitch about anything, anywhere…because everything is rotten and crappy. It also teaches you that when everything is rotten and crappy, there’s always the girl living below you with her brother (yeah, yeah it’s definitely a sibling and shut up), and you can always go see her. You’d have to sit on the steps downstairs for a while of course. 2-3 hours maybe…waiting until she comes down to get in her car and drive away. But hey, you did see her and of course the weather might good while you are out there!!!

love letter ...

Went to starbucks this morning to study. Saw this piece of paper flying around on the street across from the place. Watched it from time to time, lifting my head...and before I knew I was writing this down on a Starbucks napkin. Been a while since I've been this spontaneous. :)

=================================================================

Where did it come from,
that paper flying through the wind.

Was it a lover's dream,
filled with his longing.
Fluttering with the wind now,
riding high across the morning.

Did she read it I wonder.
Was it a success or a major blunder.

Was there a sweet kiss that followed,
in one eternal moment,
away from time, borrowed.

Did he pick her up,
and sweep her off her feet.
Or was he yelling silently in his heart,
being just barely discreet.

Did they walk out from here then,
hand in hand, a complete story.
Into the beautiful new world,
waiting for them in it's glory.

It comes my way fluttering again.
A lovers dream dwells on it.
I see it remains blank.
But filled now,
with a tiny bit of imagination.

=================================================================

Hmmm..could have gone on writing a bit longer..but I WAS there to study you know.

the choice

He stood by the pool. Gazed in through the layers of his life and saw the reflection that never lied. It was never about this. It was never meant to be like this. He himself was never meant to be like this.

The dreams were still there weren't they? Veiled by the thin curtain of reality, they held their own through the life that mocked them now. Yes, they were still there. And yet, should he reach out to them. He stood here...reflecting.

He was supposed to be happy today. He was living a dream alright. Problem was it wasn't his dream. It was the most magnificent dream. It wasn't the most beautiful dream. He was at the top today, but why then did it seem to him that he had hit rock bottom.

Life, it seemed, had dealt him a hand, a winning hand. It was the worst hand he could have gotten. It wasn't his hand. Poker faced he stood there and stared into the pool.

He had his future laid out before him, he had the most magnificent and decadent future to look forward to. He would rot in the brilliance of that future. He would have everything and be broke for it. He would never get above it. He would never ever look beyond the paper they put in his many accounts. He would never look beyond the paper and see the blank sheet he had left behind.

Money, they told him was everything. And it had sounded cheesy to his mind when his heart said otherwise. The world was spinning around it wasn't it. What good was imagination when you could have all that paper. Everyone he knew had dreams. They dreamt of paper. He just wanted to put his imagination on it. He just wanted to make world out of his words.

He measured his choices today. He measured David and Goliath today. He measured himself today, and he measured his worth, for it was about to be challenged.

How could he give up on those pleasures that paper bought? And how could he give up on the pleasures that the paper brought? It was a tough one ladies and gentleman!!! The trapeze artist was swinging one way and then the other. The audience watched open jawed. Where would he jump off to. Would he make it through . Oh, that way looked so much easier!!! And yet....

Today he stood here at the edge of it all. He could walk down that glittering path and embrace those glowing lights. OR he could turn around. He could take a deep breath, gather his deepest thoughts, hold them in a bundle of exhilerance, tie them up with the knot of uncertainty and jump into that dark abyss. He would land hard or he would float forever. The choice was his.

He could today become the president of this corporation and give up. And he could walk in now and give in his resignation on the first of many sheets he would write. Only this would not come from his imagination. This one would lead to it.

He bit his lip, shook his head slowly, smiled and turned around ...

the hunt ...

A light now formed to the left. He had to sidestep his way through the jumbled mess of furniture as he made his way, staying in darkness. Always in darkness...the darkness protected him, caressed him, cradled him...

The darkness hid him from his enemy, the only thing between him and his target in this house.

Hiding behind couches and doors, he crawled on. The pounding of his heart could have been the declaration of armageddon and everyone in this world would have heard it. But the power of the urge was at its peak and could not be denied now.

He waited near the doorway, listening with intent.

A slight rustle, a mighty long sigh and then the creaks followed.

He buried himself in the thoughts of what was to follow. Thoughts might drown the yearning that had him teetering on the precipice of sanity here. Think ...think about it...just don't yearn it. Not now... But his palms were sweating at the very thought too. It was impossible for him to stand still here and wait, when he knew how he could ravish....

The squeaks stopped. He stopped breathing. He would not have known if he had died for the lack of breath then. The squeaks started up again. Echoing through the house just as before. Louder now in his mind !!!

And suddenly, a long shrill scream. Before his heart betrayed him his brain came sweeping to the rescue. Bedroom door!!! It squeaked like every other door in the house, his all pompus "saving the moment" brain told him. Needed some oiling. The doors, not his brain. Not to him.

He was breathing shallow, as had been for the last few minutes, for an eternity now. His mouth was parched and dry, partly with excitement, partly because he held it closed so tight. Alright then, a fifteen count should do the trick. He made it to seven....

Rushing out towards his target he crouched to pounce on it and.... Stopped !!

She had casually come up from behind the refrigerator and stood there now.
"Alright back to bed, you have a mathematics test tomorrow"

Foiled once again !! But the hunt never ends ...

where's Ripley when you need him..

hahahaha...somebody please kill me...now!!! I've seen all the stupidity I could for one life.

No...no no... it's not the fact that someone is selling this...it's the fact that someone is bidding on it.

Reminds me of that dialogue from "Bunty aur Babli"

The holy crap link click here

[Cool Article] Viva Tequila! - Forbes.com

Nice article if you're into spirits. Check link below :-)

Viva Tequila! - Forbes.com

Electricity simplified ...

Funny little article I read someplace
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Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity and where does it go after it leaves the toaster?

Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: On a cool dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet,then reach your hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This teaches one that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important lesson about electricity.

It also illustrates how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpet so that they will attract dirt. The electrons travel through your blood stream and collect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your friend's filling, then travel down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the circuit.

AMAZING ELECTRONIC FACT: If you scuffed your feet long enough without touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you have carpeting.

Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, etc. for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer,Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lightning storm and received a serious electrical shock. This proved that lightning was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as, "A penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office.

After Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important electrical experiments. Among them, Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today, skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond -- almost.

But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877 was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879 when he invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again.

This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely.In fact, the last year any new electricity was generated was 1937.

Today, thanks to men like Edison and Franklin, and frogs like Galvani's, we receive almost unlimited benefits from electricity. For example, in the past decade scientists have developed the laser, an electronic appliance so powerful that it can vaporize a bulldozer 2000 yards away, yet so precise that doctors can use it to perform delicate operations to the human eyeball, provided they remember to change the power setting from "Bulldozer" to "Eyeball."

entropy

The world should by all logical conclusions be ending in about half a century!!! Way to get you attention huh??

It's not just a theory I have. Oh no!! The sun won't expand to engulf us nor will a comet come in to hit us before Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck manage to dig into it and shatter it to pieces. I'm just talking logic here. Humans are bound to destroy something big in the next half a century...and it might just be Earth, or at least life as we know it on Earth.

Think about it. We have all studied science during our time. I'm sure most of us don't remember the concepts of entropy. Well, simply put entropy is the measure of chaos or disorder in a system. And what the basic theory of science postulates is that left alone any system would see increase in the levels of entropy. Human race has been moving towards entropy ever since it resided in caves. Oh yeah, some would counter that civilization evolved and that is a sign of order, but is it....really!!! I'm not talking about law and order systems and constitutions and societies. That happenned when the human race system was NOT left alone. Humans were actually thinking in terms of humans then not groups.

But then civilization brought about societies, which brought about countries and religions and sects and races and all the good shit. And we have reached a point now where we don't talk in terms of humans anymore, we talk in terms of groups. We don't talk in terms of the survival of the individual, we talk in terms of the survival of the society or the race or the country. And that leads to conflicts. Now I heard this someplace, probably in a movie, that a person is wise and intelligent, people on the other hand are complete utter idiots. And so when we turn ourselves into idiots and start fighting, what we get in simple terms is the chaos we have today...entropy.

So the original question, can the human race survive this chaos? Lets see, we have possibilities of nuclear wars between countries like N. Korea, Iran, Isreal, India, China, Pakistan, Russia and the biggest baddest war veteran US. Not to mention those damned elusive biological and chemical WMDs. We have terrorists in so many places that you could count the places WITHOUT them on one hand. You have rogue nations (which in itself needs such a huge definition) spread throughout the world from the far east to Africa to the Americas. On a smaller level have religious wars, race hate crimes, caste conflicts, sects fighting amongst themselves. Any of these instances escalated enough could destroy most of the human race, at least as we know it. But thats not all is it.

Forget the fighting groups and countries at war. We have deforestation, ozone troubles, greenhouse warming, ice caps melting, resulting man-made tsunamis, pollution, toxic waste, energy troubles, depletion of resources, new uncurable diseases....holy shit the human race seems to be doomed eh??

Well, it does!!! Humans for all we know are one of the youngest races in the universe. Humans are mere infants in terms of the age of the universe. But seeing that few planets actually support life, earth is a very special cradle. It would be a shame then, if the infant burnt down it's own cradle wouldn't it? And for all we know, the infant's already got the damn thing doused in kerosene with a lighter in its hand. Entropy is on display ladies and gentlemen...

Chalk ...

The chalk dust fell around, swirling through the thick summer air. It was settling without much bias. It clung to everything it had in it's reach. Floating up until the last moment when finally, hesitantly, gently it would kiss a chosen surface before embracing it.

Once in a while he would take off an eternity to be intrigued by it, absently, always going back to his black-board. The odd screech coming off it not bothering him really. The low murmur behind him was another case.

Then he felt it again, the chalk stick wasn't as long anymore. Pieces of it were leaving and floating away. Bits of it were now knowledge on that black eternity stretching in front of it. Infact a lot had been taken away from it. It was dying. He could hear the gasps right now. But he wouldn't let go. He had to go on...IT had to go on.

His fingers were aching holding the stub that he was scribbling with now. He would not let this happen again, he would not let this one go. The thumb was now pressing the final pieces of it against the board. He could feel the rough blackness of it against his finger, he could hear it scratch against his nails. It made him wince, finally. He was grinding the nothingness in his hands against the dark rock now.

Holding his palms up, he looked at the white bits of the chalk that was gone. He looked at the nail he had scratched trying to keep it going. Glancing at the board full of white gems, he turned around and looked at the seats. Some vacant, some filled with curious, hopeful eyes.

Smiling, snickering, laughing in his heart, at the secret jest, he blew the chalk dust off his hands. Then dusted his trousers and picked up another stick of chalk.

It was a blue one this time.

The trek series that could have been ...

While Revenge of the Sith hogged most of the limelight as the great sci-fi story coming full circle, there was another story for some fans that was coming full circle. Another great sci-fi franchise recently torn to pieces by critics and fans that attempted to circle back to the present. Yep Star Trek Enterprise ended it's troubled four year run with a 2 hour long Friday showing.

I think fans of cult series like these are overly critical of the shows/movies. I know the new Star wars or the Enterprise did not live up to expectations of many but I think there were times when fans of these franchises would bitch about things without rhyme or reason. I think both, Star Trek-Enterprise and Star Wars I-III, were decent stories told nicely and I enjoyed of them. But I've already been to the galaxy far far away in one of my earlier posts. Lets come back to the alpha quadrant and to the United Federation of Planets.

I know Enterprise DID get boring for a while in between. They did not develop any major arc or storyline and the writers were going along with the "crisis of the week" thing. But to be very fair, every Trek series has done that. There are some very mediocre episodes in every series and on the flip-side some absolutely smashing ones. To the credit of Enterprise, it's final season (much like the final installment of Star Wars) was a pleasure to behold. It was one of the best seasons seen by the Trek franchise. And maybe the finale did notlive up to it, maybe it could have been made better by NOT including old characters and focusing on the story at hand, maybe even making it a two-parter. But the season on the whole was a thing of beauty and as I read someplace else, "a love song dedicated to the trekkies/trekkers" of the world. Every character showed a depth that is usually reserved for one or two in a series like this. The stories were nicely written and beautifully filmed. The actors too seemed to be having more fun than they had in previous seasons.

I know people are sad that Star wars ended. I also know there are people like me who are equally and maybe slightly more sad that Trek has come to a grinding halt for a while now. The last movie was not a success and this series did not live it's full life. Time for changes and reassessment. I do however hope that this crew of Enterprise gets a chance at a movie. I think they deserve it. I know Trek movies are generally not as big hits in theatres as Star Wars but they have an audience and some of it needs to be shown the way back to a theatre playing a good Trek movie.

Adios Enterprise, for now. You did not live long nor prosper, but you did go out with a silent flourish.

Oh Sith !!!

Star Wars ended on a good note last Wednesday night. Tied up the ends as neatly as it could and was filled with some nice goosebumpy moments, not the least of them being the "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away" screen right at the beginning.

What made this movie better than it was, was the fact the everyone knew where it was going. And it wasn't going somewhere pretty was it? Everyone knows that made it even more fun. You knew this love story, this friendship, this good world was going to turn sour very soon. I think people love when they can connect with things too. They could feel a lot of dialogues from the movie. Granted, the romatic dialogues were not great but how can they ever really fit into a story like this. There were certain utterances however that fit in, not only with the movie but with the general state of the world, prompting comparisions with Iraq and Bush-bashing and stuff. The declaration of Palpatine to set up an empire to bring peace, the talking of absolutes and taking sides in a war and the now oft reported "If you are not with me you are my enemy", all brought forward connotations galore.

As pure entertainment the movie was much better than Clones. And although some people absolutely despise Phantom Menace, it's one movie I kinda like. This one beat both of them hands down though. The fights were awesome and I think the Obi Wan - Anakin fight lived up. Ewan McGregor was good enough in Phantom Menace, surprisingly bland in Clones and pretty much brilliant here. I think he kinda thrives when there's a bit of mischief thrown into his character (for reference see Trainspotting). Hayden Christensen was pretty bland in Clones too, to put it mildly. Just did not seem interested in acting there. This time though he beautifully acted out Anakin's desparation, confusion and ultimate fall. The Emperor was brilliant and Yoda was....well Yoda he was yes??

The only disappointing bit in the movie...so little of Natalie Portman..but then she is one of my favorite actresses and even if she took up 90 percent of screen time, i'd still say she could have had more. :)All in all..a nice completion to a much-maligned (and often undeservedly) trilogy. I think Lucas did manage to redeem it to a large extent even in face of mindless, belittle-all critics.Nice work...as I say this was some good sith.

Of some stupid bride and the morons who follow her

I am perturbed by this country and utterly fascinated at the same time. Today the headlines in every major newspaper and every major site including the almighty google scream out in bold letters about a bride who decided at the last moment to ditch her wedding. Yes, yes we know Julia Roberts did it a few years back in a movie and people seemed to love it for some inexplicable reason but today - ding - reality check, and voila we have a runaway bride.

But what perturbs me and fascinates me at the same time is how taken up people are by this story. Does it even warrant more than a small paragraph on the local newspaper? Obviously you have made out by now that I do not think so. I was a bit confused by the whole country reacting to a certain Peterson murder or some carpet/mattress sale guy and his wife thing a few months back. That, was still a murder case. But to get so worked up over a bride who did not want to be one, this is beyond my realm of uderstanding.

Why?? That one word sums up all my question. Why focus on this incident?? Why not focus on all the other divorces and husband/wife spats then? Why not focus on all jilted brides, grooms, husbands, wives, partners? Why not be taken up by any person going through anything tragic? Why not talk about one of your dying soldiers in Iraq, who is leaving behind a wife who's sadness and plight far outweighs some jilted groom? Why not shower attention on a person heading your country sending out people to die all over the world for no reason at all? Why not headline in a major major way the genocides, mass murders and terrorist activities that may define this era in the history books? Why not devote time to thinking about millions dying just because they have nothing to eat, drink, live in, clothe in or even live for? And hey while you are at it why not think about yourself and the people you love?

On second thoughts, I am just perturbed. My fascination just went flying out of the window. Wonder where it's headed? New Mexico maybe !!!