I never intended to take this big a break. At home and catching up with friends for 2 weeks. A long travel to Indore and getting swamped with work immediately slowed down my intentions to blog. Laziness brought a complete stop. From Indore a shuttle trip to Chennai within two weeks of coming from there, made January a travel month. A full month without any post in the 20 months I've been blogging, is a first. So without bothering to take the effort to transmit the posts from my mind to my blog, I just blog about not blogging. Nurturing my blog is first. I'll bring it back to life, then I'll nourish it.
Blogging to continue..........
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Thoughts as I leave
I am gonna miss this place! Chicago!
I came with a different opinion. I am going back with some of them changed, and some of them strengthened.
Could understand many things better now, like the addiction on oil. This country is beautiful. And the people too!! ;-)
The one aspect which confounds me still, is politics.
I am still unable to understand the reasoning behind the wars. In my opinion the military is highly spreadout. At one point in time, when the draft gets implemented, public opinion will turn against it forcing a retreat in the many theatres of war. But that will come at a time after lots of enemies have been made and ironically when the troops should be in the battle field. One has to pick the battle to win.
In India, we appear so conservative. One family's black sheep becomes the talking point of the entire neighbourhood. And to become a blacksheep one doesn't have to stray much. If it's not a metro city, just marrying out of caste is enough. But we tolerate public leadership who are no paragons of virtue in their personal life. I bet no member of public would like to prefer the personal life of the leaders, but would still prefer the personalities to lead the society. Bigamy, shady relationships, everything goes. But in US it's just the opposite. The public tolerates anything among them. But for leaders they expect characters straight out of the scriptures. No extra-marital affairs, sorry! This in a country where the bonds of marriage are very flimsy. The country's leader may have boosted the economy, increased minimum wages, pursued peace instead of war, but still gets his knuckles so hard for a private deviance from values. You can't call what happens between consenting adults illegal. But still he can be besmirched for that. Hmm...
Anyway, I am leaving the place I like, to the place I love!
I came with a different opinion. I am going back with some of them changed, and some of them strengthened.
Could understand many things better now, like the addiction on oil. This country is beautiful. And the people too!! ;-)
The one aspect which confounds me still, is politics.
I am still unable to understand the reasoning behind the wars. In my opinion the military is highly spreadout. At one point in time, when the draft gets implemented, public opinion will turn against it forcing a retreat in the many theatres of war. But that will come at a time after lots of enemies have been made and ironically when the troops should be in the battle field. One has to pick the battle to win.
In India, we appear so conservative. One family's black sheep becomes the talking point of the entire neighbourhood. And to become a blacksheep one doesn't have to stray much. If it's not a metro city, just marrying out of caste is enough. But we tolerate public leadership who are no paragons of virtue in their personal life. I bet no member of public would like to prefer the personal life of the leaders, but would still prefer the personalities to lead the society. Bigamy, shady relationships, everything goes. But in US it's just the opposite. The public tolerates anything among them. But for leaders they expect characters straight out of the scriptures. No extra-marital affairs, sorry! This in a country where the bonds of marriage are very flimsy. The country's leader may have boosted the economy, increased minimum wages, pursued peace instead of war, but still gets his knuckles so hard for a private deviance from values. You can't call what happens between consenting adults illegal. But still he can be besmirched for that. Hmm...
Anyway, I am leaving the place I like, to the place I love!
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
You say goodbye and I say hello*
This month has been pretty hectic for me. I try to absorb the imagery that flies past in space-time (whoa!).
Yes, I am getting ready to return home and it's causing lots of work. It's also seeing me trying to capture the year that was.
And I tell you, trying to pack things that were with you for a year in 2 suitcases is no joke. So as I pack as much I can, I also leave things that can be easily replaced. Not all things are material, and some things have to be replaced. A snapshot from my list:
Things to leave/pickup:
Fake accent/Inglish
Yes, I'll have to soon get out of the forced habit of rolling over my words. I'll have to soon unleash my natural inclination to sit and do a squat on every R in each word.
Disciplined driving/Driving on the other side with the right amount of indiscipline:
Initially felt like a moron waiting at the red light with no one on any side. Now have to get out of the moronic habit. Back home, that thing is for the ads.
Hugging/Nodding
Going about hugging females indiscriminately gonna be a strict no-no {First this gonna should be replaced with a strict "is going to be"}. And yeah, I don't belong to the Indian P3 elite where hugging females is cool normal and hugging males is cool gay! Back to backslapping my buddies and nodding at others.
Hi! How are you?/ ???
Barking a "How are you?" at persons known and unknown has to cease promptly on landing at India. Studious indifference to people who stare, walk-by, travel with, is gonna (dammit) be the norm.
Starbucks coffee/tea in a glAAs
It took only a day or two to get used to watery decoction in a high collins like container with very little milk (Half & Half to boot). No more dodging the low fat milk and trying to get real healthy milk. But ofcourse Starbucks will be sorely missed. It's pretty much high-end back there. Moi part of hoi-polloi.
My cop-magnet car/My ruddy old bike
It has been definitely proved that my car is a cop magnet. Last week a cop pulled me over (as in several weeks before that) and asked to show my insurance for the Honda I drive. I politely told him that it's a Mercury upon which he left. They have to stop me even before deciding the offence! :-( But I have to leave this here and get on to my old love, my bike.
So if any of you find a bag trashed at the O'Hare containing words rolling over each other hugging other known words, spitting a "How are you?" from themselves while soggy with Starbucks coffee, you'd know who left that, won't ya?
* From the Beatles' song "Hello Goodbye" by Lennon/McCartney
Yes, I am getting ready to return home and it's causing lots of work. It's also seeing me trying to capture the year that was.
And I tell you, trying to pack things that were with you for a year in 2 suitcases is no joke. So as I pack as much I can, I also leave things that can be easily replaced. Not all things are material, and some things have to be replaced. A snapshot from my list:
Things to leave/pickup:
Fake accent/Inglish
Yes, I'll have to soon get out of the forced habit of rolling over my words. I'll have to soon unleash my natural inclination to sit and do a squat on every R in each word.
Disciplined driving/Driving on the other side with the right amount of indiscipline:
Initially felt like a moron waiting at the red light with no one on any side. Now have to get out of the moronic habit. Back home, that thing is for the ads.
Hugging/Nodding
Going about hugging females indiscriminately gonna be a strict no-no {First this gonna should be replaced with a strict "is going to be"}. And yeah, I don't belong to the Indian P3 elite where hugging females is cool normal and hugging males is cool gay! Back to backslapping my buddies and nodding at others.
Hi! How are you?/ ???
Barking a "How are you?" at persons known and unknown has to cease promptly on landing at India. Studious indifference to people who stare, walk-by, travel with, is gonna (dammit) be the norm.
Starbucks coffee/tea in a glAAs
It took only a day or two to get used to watery decoction in a high collins like container with very little milk (Half & Half to boot). No more dodging the low fat milk and trying to get real healthy milk. But ofcourse Starbucks will be sorely missed. It's pretty much high-end back there. Moi part of hoi-polloi.
My cop-magnet car/My ruddy old bike
It has been definitely proved that my car is a cop magnet. Last week a cop pulled me over (as in several weeks before that) and asked to show my insurance for the Honda I drive. I politely told him that it's a Mercury upon which he left. They have to stop me even before deciding the offence! :-( But I have to leave this here and get on to my old love, my bike.
So if any of you find a bag trashed at the O'Hare containing words rolling over each other hugging other known words, spitting a "How are you?" from themselves while soggy with Starbucks coffee, you'd know who left that, won't ya?
* From the Beatles' song "Hello Goodbye" by Lennon/McCartney
Saturday, December 02, 2006
The Pain of Birth!
That's my room mate almost getting to experience the pain he caused his mom at birth.
I am in the first pic camouflaging him with the cake!
:-)
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Thanks a lot!
Last weekend was the first long weekend I didn't go anywhere out of state. With an eye on optimal spending and another on possible shopping I decided to spend 4 days at home. Come Thanksgiving and there was a buzz among all my friends here. Everyone started planning for shopping on Black Friday. They checked out the deals, identified the shops and mapped out the strategies. I had only one item in mind, an external harddrive for my laptop. So I didn't bother at first. Then the enthusiam caught on and by 9 o'clock at night, I was cruising from shop to shop, checking out the queues. All my friends were dispersed in various shops. Best Buy offered laptops at $ 249 and $379, a steal! My friend who went at 2 in the afternoon was not the first in the queue. One of our brethren beat him to it. The time I went, it had swollen into a 70 + strong queue with still 7 cold hours to go.
To cut the long story short, I took position at another store and joined the fun of waiting. What started out as a plan for an external harddrive ended up with me getting that, a thumb drive, SD card, camera, surgeguard, Ferrari toy car with remote, Microsoft Flight simulator, some more toys, some jewellery (silver chain and strands of pearls), blank DVDs and some more! By evening, I was driving like a zombie checking out shops. I got some things for my friends who stood at other stores and they got me some other things which I couldn't get. Quite a bit of shopping! :-)
This led to me thinking what if this happens in India. With Walmart about to open shops in India with a tie up with Bharti, this looks very much possible. But things will be pretty much different.
1. Queue will start 100 hours before, not a mere 20 hours.
2. Queue positions will be sold.
3. The store will get calls from bureaucratic highups asking those deep discount items be allocated to them.
4. All tenous connections with the store employees will be recalled and friendships emphasized.
5. Fistfights will be common. In US too, this occurs at places.
6. Political TV channels will blame each other for the possible riots that will happen. They will shove a mike at some bleeding loser and let him have his 10 seconds of fame.
Thank God we don't have this Black Friday concept. As it is, the Deepavali shopping spread over 2,3 weeks makes everyone crazy. A special sale concentrated on a single day will bring the nation to a boil.
To cut the long story short, I took position at another store and joined the fun of waiting. What started out as a plan for an external harddrive ended up with me getting that, a thumb drive, SD card, camera, surgeguard, Ferrari toy car with remote, Microsoft Flight simulator, some more toys, some jewellery (silver chain and strands of pearls), blank DVDs and some more! By evening, I was driving like a zombie checking out shops. I got some things for my friends who stood at other stores and they got me some other things which I couldn't get. Quite a bit of shopping! :-)
This led to me thinking what if this happens in India. With Walmart about to open shops in India with a tie up with Bharti, this looks very much possible. But things will be pretty much different.
1. Queue will start 100 hours before, not a mere 20 hours.
2. Queue positions will be sold.
3. The store will get calls from bureaucratic highups asking those deep discount items be allocated to them.
4. All tenous connections with the store employees will be recalled and friendships emphasized.
5. Fistfights will be common. In US too, this occurs at places.
6. Political TV channels will blame each other for the possible riots that will happen. They will shove a mike at some bleeding loser and let him have his 10 seconds of fame.
Thank God we don't have this Black Friday concept. As it is, the Deepavali shopping spread over 2,3 weeks makes everyone crazy. A special sale concentrated on a single day will bring the nation to a boil.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Nonsensical niceties
Last week I caught a cold. By Thursday it became acute, setting off concerns from colleagues with my incessant sneezing, coughing and sniffing. I left early and on my way home stopped at Walgreens, the pharmacy chain.
I slid a box of Tylenol across the counter for payment.
The cashier emitted a cheery "Hi! How are you today?", while scanning the medicine barcode.
I, tired looking and reddish faced, replied with "Obviously I am not doing well".
The cashier's jaw dropped at the unexpected reply.
She looked at me, a bit perplexed.
I repeated myself while pointing at my purchase.
She then sheepishly said, " We never look at what people buy."
She must have rolled her eyes after I left.
Sometimes when you are already down and out, saccharine polite conversation kills you.
I slid a box of Tylenol across the counter for payment.
The cashier emitted a cheery "Hi! How are you today?", while scanning the medicine barcode.
I, tired looking and reddish faced, replied with "Obviously I am not doing well".
The cashier's jaw dropped at the unexpected reply.
She looked at me, a bit perplexed.
I repeated myself while pointing at my purchase.
She then sheepishly said, " We never look at what people buy."
She must have rolled her eyes after I left.
Sometimes when you are already down and out, saccharine polite conversation kills you.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Green is the colour of Greed!
In the past 30 days, I finished 2 books. Normally this would be a shock as I'd go through a tome in hardly 2,3 days. Not these days. Maybe it's that I've almost stopped reading pulp. I find that non-fiction is as racy and rivetting as well.
The two books I read, both of them, are about the rarefied worlds of finance. The first one, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, is a quite old one. It is a cult classic now and a prescribed reading for many business schools. It is about the sale of the tobacco and food giant, RJR Nabisco. Then in the 80s the sale was for a record 24 odd billion dollars. The peculiar thing is that the buyers, a consortium led by KKR group, put a fraction of the sale amount from their own pockets. Rest was borrowed money to be repaid from the company's cashflow itself. The borrowed part was made up of different flavours of junk bonds. After the bidding war starts, the management group led by chairman Ross Johnson tries to buy the company for its own. The advantage was they knew exactly how much the company was worth and hence how high they can bid. Still they fail in their bid and the tale is taut and spell binding given the fact that everyone knows the end. Poker play with nail-biting finish.
The other book, "When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management " is a much recent one. It is about the late 1990's boom and implosion of a firm called, Long Term Capital Management. The name might be dreary, but not the people behind it. The option pricing gurus, Myron Scholes (of Black Scholes equation fame) and Robert Merton lead the think tank. All the trades (derivative contracts) are made by using the formula they devise and fine tune. They indulge in global arbitraging and shrewdly build up their portfolio. The unique thing is it is very little of their money as in derivative contracts only the margin is required to be paid upfront. So entire cash available need not be allocated to a single investment and multiple "trades" can be done by small investing margins in each. So compared to the investment amount, the returns are huge (leveraging), even obscene.It is a sort of a gamble, no matter how educated their guess is. The downside is when the contract is out of the money, they have to pay, and how! But the traders of Long Term Capital Management are sure about their formulae and bell curves and calculate that the tail of the bell curve will occur only once in a million years! Ofcourse, it doesn't happen that way and there the story begins. While they are part of the firm, both Scholes and Merton are awarded the economics Nobel (Fischer Black is dead by then) and their prestige increases. Way to go before a fall! The story makes rivetting reading. Only problem is while the Barbarians at the gate was constructed from interviews with all the persons involved, "When Genius Failed.." author Roger Lowenstein was given no official interviews. He has constructed the book purely based on hearsay and painstaking research work.
The authors of both the books give cursory treatment to the finance theory which is the bedrock of the dealings, almost afraid of scaring off the lay readers. Maybe they should have explained a little bit more even though it would've meant less drama and action. For example, the spine of "When Genius Failed" is the premise that the present discounted value of a bond will converge to its face value plus interest, over time; And how it didn't work out that way. The LTCM bets on the convergence. They pick out the tiny divergent "wrinkles" that exist in the market making money when the "wrinkles" are ironed out. When the two values (traded and guaranteed) diverge, the bottom falls out of the firm. I couldn't understand how such a scenario will happen naturally. Ofcourse artificial bear "hugs" of the stock market are possible but they last for a very short time. The LTCM geniuses too failed to understand such a thing will happen and thus they went bust. Atleast here I am in exalted company!
I'd recommend both the books to anyone. And to my friends I'd insist they buy them so that I can borrow for a second reading and subsequently decorate my bookshelf!
:-)
The two books I read, both of them, are about the rarefied worlds of finance. The first one, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, is a quite old one. It is a cult classic now and a prescribed reading for many business schools. It is about the sale of the tobacco and food giant, RJR Nabisco. Then in the 80s the sale was for a record 24 odd billion dollars. The peculiar thing is that the buyers, a consortium led by KKR group, put a fraction of the sale amount from their own pockets. Rest was borrowed money to be repaid from the company's cashflow itself. The borrowed part was made up of different flavours of junk bonds. After the bidding war starts, the management group led by chairman Ross Johnson tries to buy the company for its own. The advantage was they knew exactly how much the company was worth and hence how high they can bid. Still they fail in their bid and the tale is taut and spell binding given the fact that everyone knows the end. Poker play with nail-biting finish.
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The other book, "When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management " is a much recent one. It is about the late 1990's boom and implosion of a firm called, Long Term Capital Management. The name might be dreary, but not the people behind it. The option pricing gurus, Myron Scholes (of Black Scholes equation fame) and Robert Merton lead the think tank. All the trades (derivative contracts) are made by using the formula they devise and fine tune. They indulge in global arbitraging and shrewdly build up their portfolio. The unique thing is it is very little of their money as in derivative contracts only the margin is required to be paid upfront. So entire cash available need not be allocated to a single investment and multiple "trades" can be done by small investing margins in each. So compared to the investment amount, the returns are huge (leveraging), even obscene.It is a sort of a gamble, no matter how educated their guess is. The downside is when the contract is out of the money, they have to pay, and how! But the traders of Long Term Capital Management are sure about their formulae and bell curves and calculate that the tail of the bell curve will occur only once in a million years! Ofcourse, it doesn't happen that way and there the story begins. While they are part of the firm, both Scholes and Merton are awarded the economics Nobel (Fischer Black is dead by then) and their prestige increases. Way to go before a fall! The story makes rivetting reading. Only problem is while the Barbarians at the gate was constructed from interviews with all the persons involved, "When Genius Failed.." author Roger Lowenstein was given no official interviews. He has constructed the book purely based on hearsay and painstaking research work.
.jpg)
The authors of both the books give cursory treatment to the finance theory which is the bedrock of the dealings, almost afraid of scaring off the lay readers. Maybe they should have explained a little bit more even though it would've meant less drama and action. For example, the spine of "When Genius Failed" is the premise that the present discounted value of a bond will converge to its face value plus interest, over time; And how it didn't work out that way. The LTCM bets on the convergence. They pick out the tiny divergent "wrinkles" that exist in the market making money when the "wrinkles" are ironed out. When the two values (traded and guaranteed) diverge, the bottom falls out of the firm. I couldn't understand how such a scenario will happen naturally. Ofcourse artificial bear "hugs" of the stock market are possible but they last for a very short time. The LTCM geniuses too failed to understand such a thing will happen and thus they went bust. Atleast here I am in exalted company!
I'd recommend both the books to anyone. And to my friends I'd insist they buy them so that I can borrow for a second reading and subsequently decorate my bookshelf!
:-)
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Whose life is it anyway?
Whom does one's life belong to? To self? If you think you own your life, think again.
When a child, mere some days old, smiles, who takes pride in it?
When a child starts babbling, who goes ga-ga over it?
When a child starts standing and walking who goes crazy over it?
When a kid starts for school, who drives all others crazy over how the kid scribbles something that in an abstract art form looks like an alphabet?
If a person is x, x's life is owned by x's mom.
x can also be a mom herself. Still x's life will be owned by x's mom.
If x is a male, whatever the age is, this theory holds good.
If x is married x's ownership, at times, is transferred to x's wife. But not always.
Bachelor xes sometimes blog about it, still owned by their moms however.
The typical mom has an obsessive pride and possessiveness in her creation.
My mom has evangelized ad infinitum about my brilliance and genius, eventhough in my one score and some (that's some some! ) years, I've never exhibited even a modicum of proof of that. She is an one woman church spreading her word (ofcourse no believers!) about how brilliant her son is.
She never even allowed her son to ride as much as a bicycle on the highway, fearing that her precious gem would be lost in an acccident. Ofcourse even motor cycle accidents went unreported. Chennai's Mount road aka Anna Salai has seen me up close, countless times. Quite dashing was I. :-)
Men can never feel that way about their offspring, I think. The closest a male comes to experience that feeling would be when he customizes his bike/car. Yeah, I'm possessive about my motorcycle still, eventhough someone is driving it now! :-(
Coming back to moms and stuff, I thought by now, my mom would've relinquished her feeling of ownership. I recently discovered I was wrong.
When a friend of mine went back for a visit to India, I gave him a DVD of me skydiving, to scare my mom. I half-expected a call from my mom berating me for risking the handsome life she gave me. That kind of call never came. I forgot about that. On this Deepavali, I called up every friend and relative I could reach, to wish them. Every single one of them mentioned about seeing the DVD! To my horror, I came to know that it was even lent to people who could not come to our place! Continous shows of me skydiving is on, courtesy my mom advertising my "daring" to all who care and a few who do not. I guess she is hardpressed for my achievements.
- Written by a dumbass son who is not with his mom on her 60th birthday. 60 years of weathering countless severe storms and still steady. Wishing the mother ship countless number of smooth years in future before riding onto the sunset.
When a child, mere some days old, smiles, who takes pride in it?
When a child starts babbling, who goes ga-ga over it?
When a child starts standing and walking who goes crazy over it?
When a kid starts for school, who drives all others crazy over how the kid scribbles something that in an abstract art form looks like an alphabet?
If a person is x, x's life is owned by x's mom.
x can also be a mom herself. Still x's life will be owned by x's mom.
If x is a male, whatever the age is, this theory holds good.
If x is married x's ownership, at times, is transferred to x's wife. But not always.
Bachelor xes sometimes blog about it, still owned by their moms however.
The typical mom has an obsessive pride and possessiveness in her creation.
My mom has evangelized ad infinitum about my brilliance and genius, eventhough in my one score and some (that's some some! ) years, I've never exhibited even a modicum of proof of that. She is an one woman church spreading her word (ofcourse no believers!) about how brilliant her son is.
She never even allowed her son to ride as much as a bicycle on the highway, fearing that her precious gem would be lost in an acccident. Ofcourse even motor cycle accidents went unreported. Chennai's Mount road aka Anna Salai has seen me up close, countless times. Quite dashing was I. :-)
Men can never feel that way about their offspring, I think. The closest a male comes to experience that feeling would be when he customizes his bike/car. Yeah, I'm possessive about my motorcycle still, eventhough someone is driving it now! :-(
Coming back to moms and stuff, I thought by now, my mom would've relinquished her feeling of ownership. I recently discovered I was wrong.
When a friend of mine went back for a visit to India, I gave him a DVD of me skydiving, to scare my mom. I half-expected a call from my mom berating me for risking the handsome life she gave me. That kind of call never came. I forgot about that. On this Deepavali, I called up every friend and relative I could reach, to wish them. Every single one of them mentioned about seeing the DVD! To my horror, I came to know that it was even lent to people who could not come to our place! Continous shows of me skydiving is on, courtesy my mom advertising my "daring" to all who care and a few who do not. I guess she is hardpressed for my achievements.
- Written by a dumbass son who is not with his mom on her 60th birthday. 60 years of weathering countless severe storms and still steady. Wishing the mother ship countless number of smooth years in future before riding onto the sunset.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Cuckooland, here I come!
Me: I have been tagged to write 6 weird things about me by mitr_bayarea.
My pal: Only 6? {sniggering} She doesn't know about you.
Me: Ofcourse, she doesn't know me. But how to get 6 weird things to write about?
My pal: Yeah, You are all things weirdo. Which 6 to pick? {guffaw} A difficult decision to make.
Me: Shut up.
My room mate passing by: Dude, Whom are you talking to? I see no phone. *
Me: I am singing, man! {hurriedly starting...."ta ra ra ta ta na na..."}
My room mate: {more hurriedly} okay, okay....whatever!
Seriously, I am baffled by this tag. What to write about?
And how is the weirdness factor measured? For me, many things are normal which are truly bizarre for some people somewhere in this world. Likewise I balk at many things that many people do effortlessly.
I am tempted to write things that go, "1. I am obsessive about cleanliness 2. I am perfection personified 3. I am fanatically punctual". But who am I kidding? I am not attending a job interview here. Has anyone observed how these interviews are conducted? There, one is always asked the standard question to list out one's weaknesses or failings. The interviewee should always come up with things like, "My weakness is I cannot stop working till I drop dead". Imagine an interview where after being asked this inevitable question, the interviewee answers, "Post lunch I cannot stop breaking wind all afternoon in office". Never happens, right? It may be the thing that he always does, but still it is impolite to brag of your real achievements. {No, It's not mine}
So I am gonna refrain from mentioning truly oddball things that I do. This is no confessional. Just my blog. I'll start now.
1. I like to brush my teeth daily. Not weird? Just ask all those animals. For this post, I approached a cow and said to her, " I brush my teeth daily, you know?". She remarked, "That's weird! Mooooo (that's boo in their language)". There you go.
Okay, okay, I will try to think weirdo stuff like a human being.
2. I like to have my tea with a chikki (peanut candy/kadalai mittai).
3. I dislike ties and suits and such formal stuff. I am more comfortable in what is comfortable for the human body. Sandals to smelly socks inside shoes, anytime.
Hmm....I've managed 3 points. 3 more to go. I have a doubt about the tag here. Weird things about me. Weird in whose perspective? Me or other fellow human beings? After my first point, I decided to stick to humans but now I am a little bit concerned on which human's perspective I should be referring to.
I've seen enough to say that nothing is weird to me anymore, eventhough I have not done most of them. If I were to base it on my perspective I cannot complete this post at all.
So I will continue to approach this tag from my fellow beings' assumed perspective.
4. I hate shaving on weekends. Does this count as a weird thing? I mean, even if I have to go out of my home, I don't shave.
Two more to go. Why 6 points? Why not, 4,5 or 7? Mitr_bayarea doesn't seem to be my mitr now.
5. I am never able to hold on to money. I don't know, but whatever money that I come across, I lose as fast as I get. I cannot save for the life of me. My friends regularly offer to save for me. But before I could hand it over to them, it seems to vanish! :-( It's becoming a serious problem. No, I neither drink nor smoke. And NO, NO, this is not my matrimonial ad. :-)
6. I hate those "realistic" movies depicting life as hard as it is. Weird, I can enjoy films as long they are funny and depict happier things in life. But once they get into real tragedies, I'm out. This doesn't mean I enjoy actors cavorting around trees singing. Positively revolting, they are.
I rest my case.
I'd love to pass on this tag, wanting to see how others tackle it. But I observe that writing as per a tag and then passing it on is not a fad anymore. Infact denouncing tags seems to be the in thing.Blogging is all about one's own thoughts and if one were to write on a given topic reduces it to a school essay, doesn't it? Or maybe with everyone tagging each other, defying tags is a way of standing out.
Whatever, I'd like to tag two persons whose blog personae are diametrically opposite. One is the King of abstract posts. Even his normal(?) posts being sort of weird, I'd love to see what he writes on things weird about him. The other blogger is as normal as anyone can be. Remniscing his motherland, yearning about long past childhood, poems and stories dominate his blog. He seems so normal, everything as they should be, so much so, that I'd like to see him revealing his quirkier facet, if any. But this being a weird post, I shall stop short of declaring a tag on them.
* just my imagination, this too! Go figure!
My pal: Only 6? {sniggering} She doesn't know about you.
Me: Ofcourse, she doesn't know me. But how to get 6 weird things to write about?
My pal: Yeah, You are all things weirdo. Which 6 to pick? {guffaw} A difficult decision to make.
Me: Shut up.
My room mate passing by: Dude, Whom are you talking to? I see no phone. *
Me: I am singing, man! {hurriedly starting...."ta ra ra ta ta na na..."}
My room mate: {more hurriedly} okay, okay....whatever!
Seriously, I am baffled by this tag. What to write about?
And how is the weirdness factor measured? For me, many things are normal which are truly bizarre for some people somewhere in this world. Likewise I balk at many things that many people do effortlessly.
I am tempted to write things that go, "1. I am obsessive about cleanliness 2. I am perfection personified 3. I am fanatically punctual". But who am I kidding? I am not attending a job interview here. Has anyone observed how these interviews are conducted? There, one is always asked the standard question to list out one's weaknesses or failings. The interviewee should always come up with things like, "My weakness is I cannot stop working till I drop dead". Imagine an interview where after being asked this inevitable question, the interviewee answers, "Post lunch I cannot stop breaking wind all afternoon in office". Never happens, right? It may be the thing that he always does, but still it is impolite to brag of your real achievements. {No, It's not mine}
So I am gonna refrain from mentioning truly oddball things that I do. This is no confessional. Just my blog. I'll start now.
1. I like to brush my teeth daily. Not weird? Just ask all those animals. For this post, I approached a cow and said to her, " I brush my teeth daily, you know?". She remarked, "That's weird! Mooooo (that's boo in their language)". There you go.
Okay, okay, I will try to think weirdo stuff like a human being.
2. I like to have my tea with a chikki (peanut candy/kadalai mittai).
3. I dislike ties and suits and such formal stuff. I am more comfortable in what is comfortable for the human body. Sandals to smelly socks inside shoes, anytime.
Hmm....I've managed 3 points. 3 more to go. I have a doubt about the tag here. Weird things about me. Weird in whose perspective? Me or other fellow human beings? After my first point, I decided to stick to humans but now I am a little bit concerned on which human's perspective I should be referring to.
I've seen enough to say that nothing is weird to me anymore, eventhough I have not done most of them. If I were to base it on my perspective I cannot complete this post at all.
So I will continue to approach this tag from my fellow beings' assumed perspective.
4. I hate shaving on weekends. Does this count as a weird thing? I mean, even if I have to go out of my home, I don't shave.
Two more to go. Why 6 points? Why not, 4,5 or 7? Mitr_bayarea doesn't seem to be my mitr now.
5. I am never able to hold on to money. I don't know, but whatever money that I come across, I lose as fast as I get. I cannot save for the life of me. My friends regularly offer to save for me. But before I could hand it over to them, it seems to vanish! :-( It's becoming a serious problem. No, I neither drink nor smoke. And NO, NO, this is not my matrimonial ad. :-)
6. I hate those "realistic" movies depicting life as hard as it is. Weird, I can enjoy films as long they are funny and depict happier things in life. But once they get into real tragedies, I'm out. This doesn't mean I enjoy actors cavorting around trees singing. Positively revolting, they are.
I rest my case.
I'd love to pass on this tag, wanting to see how others tackle it. But I observe that writing as per a tag and then passing it on is not a fad anymore. Infact denouncing tags seems to be the in thing.Blogging is all about one's own thoughts and if one were to write on a given topic reduces it to a school essay, doesn't it? Or maybe with everyone tagging each other, defying tags is a way of standing out.
Whatever, I'd like to tag two persons whose blog personae are diametrically opposite. One is the King of abstract posts. Even his normal(?) posts being sort of weird, I'd love to see what he writes on things weird about him. The other blogger is as normal as anyone can be. Remniscing his motherland, yearning about long past childhood, poems and stories dominate his blog. He seems so normal, everything as they should be, so much so, that I'd like to see him revealing his quirkier facet, if any. But this being a weird post, I shall stop short of declaring a tag on them.
* just my imagination, this too! Go figure!
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Will the real funny comic please standup?
Recently I have developed a fondness for standup comedies.
I have seen Jeff Foxworthy (read his book too), Larry the Cable guy, Adam Sandler, Seinfeld, Ellen Degeneres, Maragaret Cho (God forbid!), etc, etc.
And I arrived at the following conclusions:
1. An essential item for a standup comedy is sex. The more vulgar, the raunchier it is, the better.
2. Family is fair game, the more dysfunctional the more funnier.
3. The audience always have the mental maturity of a juvenile. So one should keep the comedy level always low, pretty low.
4. If you are not married, the more difficult and the more contrived will be your performance. Ellen, for example. She has a great voice but the topics are not always hilarious and she also seems to deliver the punch line with a reluctance.
But I have to agree on one thing, whatever their perceived drawbacks, standup comics provide much needed relief. I cannot but help comparing this to India where humour as a general doesn't exist in the society. We take ourselves too seriously, I think. If I am mistaken, please forgive me. Do not send an auto.
Ofcourse after seeing these American comics,even the British seem staid and tepid in their humour.
What is required to become a successful stand-up comic?
Self-deprecatory humour is a must, I think.
Sarcasm.
Then abilty to build up to a punch line.
Whatever! The ability to make a whole bunch of people laugh at one's jokes must give a huge high for so many people to go into that profession.
I have seen Jeff Foxworthy (read his book too), Larry the Cable guy, Adam Sandler, Seinfeld, Ellen Degeneres, Maragaret Cho (God forbid!), etc, etc.
And I arrived at the following conclusions:
1. An essential item for a standup comedy is sex. The more vulgar, the raunchier it is, the better.
2. Family is fair game, the more dysfunctional the more funnier.
3. The audience always have the mental maturity of a juvenile. So one should keep the comedy level always low, pretty low.
4. If you are not married, the more difficult and the more contrived will be your performance. Ellen, for example. She has a great voice but the topics are not always hilarious and she also seems to deliver the punch line with a reluctance.
But I have to agree on one thing, whatever their perceived drawbacks, standup comics provide much needed relief. I cannot but help comparing this to India where humour as a general doesn't exist in the society. We take ourselves too seriously, I think. If I am mistaken, please forgive me. Do not send an auto.
Ofcourse after seeing these American comics,even the British seem staid and tepid in their humour.
What is required to become a successful stand-up comic?
Self-deprecatory humour is a must, I think.
Sarcasm.
Then abilty to build up to a punch line.
Whatever! The ability to make a whole bunch of people laugh at one's jokes must give a huge high for so many people to go into that profession.
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