Friday, August 24, 2007

I am not always right, but am never wrong..

This is it. I've reached the pinnacle of laziness... How depressing. There's no place to go after you've reached the top.
Eat, sleep, be lazy, derive pleasure out of doing nothing. That's Garfield for you..

I think I was born to be like him. This world has changed me in many ways, I work for a living and like challenges, I have multitude of interests but all said and done, I like being lazy and love sleeping. No matter how many hours I sleep, I simply can't wake up in the mornings I have to force myself every single day to wake up. On a weekend , "Oh no! I overslept ! I'm late ! For my nap". I realized its easier to have an inspiration who is so already like you, so that you don't have to work towards anything.. yes Garfield is my inspiration..

His Philosophy is my belief.

  • Odie, let's talk effort versus return here. You know, you can still lead a pointless life without all that running around.
  • If you want to appear smarter, hang around someone stupider.
  • If you are patient...and wait long enough...Nothing will happen !
  • I'm not messy. I'm organizationally challenged !
  • Good times are ahead ! Or behind. Because they sure aren't here.
  • Anybody can exercise... But this kind of lethargy takes real discipline.
  • Avoid fruits and nuts: after all, you are what you eat.
  • Eat every meal as though it were your last
  • All I do is eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. There must be more to a cat's life than that. But I hope not.
  • You can bet it wasn't an exercise freak who invented power steering.
  • You know it's Monday when you wake up, and it's Tuesday
  • Diet is die with a 't.
  • I'll rise, but I won't shine.
  • I look back on my life with regrets. All those wasted years. All that time spent awake

Oh, I Love this cat, its zimply purr-fect !!

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Of Garbage trucks and 200 $$$$...

Just another normal day. 8 A.M we set out to work.I-55. Same way. Same lane. Music wasn't playing in the car, courtesy Miss A who was sitting in the passenger seat taking her offshore call. I was driving, M was sitting right behind me.

I hate driving in the mornings as I am usually grumpy and half asleep, but I still fight my mood and sleep and drive sometimes(mostly Miss A likes to drive in the mornings), its been a routine for more than a year now.. Gossip, insane conversations (courtesy M and me, Miss A tries to maintain sanity but in vain.. we tried to change her but that did not work either), Complaining (whats life if we have nothing to complain about), or sometimes just plain silent, this is how we travel to work everyday. Most days we do have floating members in the car. People who want to get to work earlier than their usual time or people who cudnt wake up in time to go in their regular car pool, new people who come in in.. when most of you who work in the same company stay in the same apartment complex invariably everyone would have travelled with everybody else at some point of time.


We were two exits close to work, I was driving, Miss A was still talking, M reacts to the sound of a shattering glass, well the only thing I knew at that point was that there was a really huge garbage truck to our right, and following instructions to move to the shoulder, I overtook the garbage track and moved over to the shoulder. I later found out that something flew from the garbage truck and hit the window pane on the rear right hand side, and the window pane cracked and shattered. There was no sign of anything else except for a polythene bag with a paper inside the car which flew into the car. There goes the garbage truck well past us.. and 200$ for a new window pane .. Thankfully there was nobody sitting on that side of the car today considering that there are usually more than 3 of us in the car. We drove back home( thank god for it wasn't raining nor was it winter, we only had to survive the wind blowing hard into our ears), gave our car for service, M drove her car and we were back to work to start what was another usual day at work, just an hour late than usual though... !!

Friday, August 17, 2007

The Wrong side of 24 years and 365 days..

I thought and then thought all over again, What was I thinking? Is it cool to be 25 ? Being 25 certainly has one benefit in the US, your car insurance is a lot cheaper (the only logic behind this and I could think of is that they think you are responsible if you are older and perhaps even more responsible if you are married... ahem), someone asked me the other day about how it actually felt to be 25 (somehow this seems to be a landmark year for very many reasons) and for a minute I actually felt old.. somehow being 23 was so much more fun, and being 18 was lot more fun. Is it human nature to always think that life in the past was always better than what it is now or always hope that the best is yet to come. As a kid, I always wanted to be older and working, earn my own money and feel responsible and independent and now I feel being a child and those innocent years could probably be the best years of your life. May be that is why Costanza's theory of life is so relevant, he believes that you should be born old with all the knowledge and experience and as you live your life, you unlearn and grow young and probably live the best part of your life towards the end. Firstly the miseries of old age, golden age of retirement, then the midlife crisis and then the twenties where you live the time of your life and before you get bored, you are almost reaching the end of your life, happy and with pleasure and no burden of unwanted knowledge. The typical 25 going on 30 scene - You are going thru a phase, you are not sure about your work (if that’s exactly what you want to do in life), marriage becomes an integral subject of discussion, you either know who you want to get married too but there are a million hurdles before you could even think of walking the aisle or you don’t know who are going to get married, the fear of whether you will meet anyone you would ever think of spending the rest of your life with, you are scared if you will be able to pull off the responsibilities that marriage tags along, you are having fun with the way life is at the moment, but scared about what the future has in store for you. Well the best part is that you are not alone, every other person of your age is going thru the same emotions and same feelings as you, if that’s some consolation :) and before you realize, you turn 30 and you will look back and say somehow being 25 was so much more fun.. And that’s life..

These lines from the "Wear Sunscreen" by Baz Luhraman

"Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday "


So there!

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Life is a roller coaster..

Monday morning,woke up with my neck hurting beyond my tolerance levels and before you draw any conclusion ,I did not get involved in a physical brawl or neither was someone trying to strangle me, it was just that I did not manage to keep my head( "If" only I managed to keep my head :) and remembered Rudyard Kipling) on one of those crazy roller coaster rides.. yay finally managed to go to six flags over the weekend. Temperatures soaring and crossing the already uncomfortable 100F and feeling uncomfortable after eating a lot of cashews(I just got greedy, I love cashews) and just minimal sleep the previous night (after watching a late night show of bourne ultimatum- Matt Damon looked like he was born to play Jason Bourne), it wasnt a perfect setting for a theme park outing but neverthless we set out on a mission: to have fun and the destination was six flags St.Louis. It was an all girls outing, all the guys decided that heat was just too much for them to handle.

Temperature - 110F
Wait time for all the rides : 400 minutes
Actual Ride time: 1000 seconds
Thrills : Priceless.

This isn't the first time am going to six flags, but with every trip it only reaffirms my belief that I love roller coasters. I probably still havent been on the worlds most scariest roller coasters and may be I won't and all this considering that while I was in school/college , I was scared to ride on the only roller coaster in town in MGM at that point of time, I sure have come a long way. My personal favorite was the super man tower of terror. Its takes you to a height of probably a 38 (some random number there) storey building, and you are left hanging in there for a few seconds, as you get a glimpse of the whole park and surrounding and you hear the cars next to you drop, you await your turn, and there you go.. those 20 seconds of absolute thrill, there is no time to react or feel when you actually come down and before you realize you are back.. all excited :) and for the speed thrill, Mr.Freeze, the catchline is that its the coolest coaster in town, and for me it sure is, 0-70 mph in like less than 4 seconds, it is a ride that takes you through some great turns and twists and then vertically up, and before you realise you get to relive the entire ride, only this time its backwards and you are back to the start, 100 seconds of pure thrill.
Well there is nothing in the world that is 100% safe, there was a freak accident a month ago on the same superman tower of terror, a teen age girl lost her leg as one of the cables snapped and she came down the ride without her legs, hopefully the doctors will be able to help her walk. But then again the chances that we might get killed in a road accident are more, We still go the beach after the tsunami.

This line from the movie Troy as Achilles points out - " I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again "

Life is a rollercoaster, Just gotta ride it !!

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Will Klusener ever forget this or Will we??

Will SA or Lance Klusener ever forget this?? What a series it was for Lance Klusener, he was single handedly responsible for getting SA to the semis and well so near yet so far.. What a player, Klusener.. under pressure. If only Gibbs did not drop the catch, if only better sense prevailed for the last run.. things would have been so different.. I was never so upset as I was after this match.. well some moments go down in history.. this one surely will in cricketing history.. Klusener may have lost his flair but he was a treat to watch in that series :):)

Gandhigiri....

After spending many 10 dollars , many friday nights of watching movies from the world of bollywood and some self introspection, I believed - "Like a physicists search for the "Higgs Boson", the hindi film industry's attempt at making movies that can entertain or leave you thinking is only futile". But then again rules or resolutions are meant to be broken. I decided to go and watch Gandhi, my father. "Only one show" they advertised, but yet half the theatre was empty .Jhoom Babarar Jhoom, had people scrambling for seats for the first show. Doesnt it say too much about the audience of the biggest movie industry. I really think the tamil movie industry totally rocks. So many movies in recent times, some masala movies, some youthful, some with a message, but they have been different (Maybe am just biased, but hell do I care, I pay 10$ to watch a movie, I do expect to see something.. yes I paid 20$ to watch Sivaji but I was entertained to its worth and maybe more, ok am a rajni fan ) ok.. back on track. Gandhi, the father of our nation. Reading "My experiments with truth" will make you feel that, he is yet another mortal with his own flaws and limitations and maybe you will get cynical about Gandhi and his principles. This movie takes you thru the life of Gandhi as he is with his elder son Harilal.. There are many things you still dont understand after watching the movie, why is Gandhi upset about his son getting married to a girl he had chosen for him, was he being selfish, did he need his son to be a part of his struggle,sacrificing his life ? but well then he was married too.. at the age of 13 (talk about marriages in those days) and the reason as to why he did not want his son to pursue his dream of studying in London. Barring a few glitches, this movie is a perfect example of a well translated tagline "“One family’s tragedy was the price of a nation’s freedom” onto the big screen. I think Akshaye Khanna as Harilal and Shefali Shah as Kasturba played their role to perfection. Akshaye Khanna has played his role with great conviction and for many people who might criticise this movie saying, a lot of the freedom struggle was thrown in unnecessarily, but isnt Gandhi all about that and that is the exact reason why he did not give the needed attention to his son, when he needed it the most. The film has its moments, you feel the patriotism rise in you.. Whether it is a footage of Panditji delivering his famous "Freedom at Midnight" speech or the scenes in South Africa, the Indian in you will certainly take over. You will be misty eyed everytime you listen to "mile sur" or the soulful rendition of vande mataram or rahman's passionate rendition of the same, so will you be, after watching some scenes in this movie. I did not regret it one bit. A little heavy for a friday evening as it may not be a perfect setting to start the weekend party.. oh yes, sometimes bollywood can make movies which are heart rendering.. A Black and now this one... maybe we should wait for eons before the next one is churned out.. till then.. enjoy some tamil movies and some great movies that hollywood has to offer.. :)

P.S : I love Physics, I tend to read and discover some fascinating things, and today I learnt abt the "Higgs Boson" and it had to find a place in my write up, well what it means is "The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the only Standard Model particle not yet observed, but plays a key role in explaining the origins of the mass of other elementary particles"..