Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Thought Collage: Season 1, Episode 5

(From SouthPark)
Mr. Garrison: Let's start the day with a few new math problems -- what is five times two? Yes...Clyde?
Clyde: Twelve.
Mr. Garrison: Okay. Now let's try and get an answer from somebody who is not a complete retard.
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So as of now I feel a little stupid as I am in waist-deep academic shit and am in the process of the trying hard to stay afloat. That being said, don’t be fooled into thinking that I am working day in and day out......unless of course you are my advisor (in which case...I AM working day in and day out professor!)

In order to do some damage control to my dwindling readership I managed to salvage some thoughts and a simple video in the hopes that this will bring some credibility to my site-meter statistics. Please feel free to come back and reread this post as many times as you want to :P
Lets see what have we got this time...

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The World Cup: Some paragraphs
1) First of all...I am very glad the WC is over. No more guilt-filled escapades from work in the mornings and afternoons to watch the games. This just means I can attain my peace of mind again and get back to doing all the work that I’ve been avoiding and procrastinating. (All lies...Professor…all lies...don’t believe any of them)

2) Then there’s the usual stuff that I file into the category of ‘highly-subjective-and-evanescent-topics’...stuff which everyone feels like talking about from his/her POV and feels is right but after a week or two nobody gives a damn...stuff like Did Italy deserve to win?...Was Zidane’s head-butt unwarranted?...Shud Materazzi have been fined too?...so on. I am no expert in football so I won’t even bother indulging in these things...except maybe say..."Oh...the places I would have gone If I looked like Ballack :P ”!!!!

3) Finally, I see the reports everywhere as 'Italy beats France on penalty shoot outs (5-3)' and I feel like yelling...”Duuuuuuuuuuuuudes, France didn’t even get to take its final penalty...so its inaccurate to say 5-3.” I know these things don’t go on record and moreover, France wouldn’t care if it lost 5-3 or 5-4 but still, there is a certain inaccuracy in such a report and it bothers me a little!

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The Bible preacher: And how I pissed him off
Now I live in Mississippi...which is in the so called ‘Bible-belt’ of the USA. And it is not at all uncommon to sometimes find yourself trapped in a conversation with people (who I won’t be surprised to find, target unsuspecting internationals) who talk about the virtues of following Jesus etc etc. I’ve had quite a few friends who’ve been in such situations. It’s not like I want to convert or anything but I’ve always wanted to talk to these preachers only to see what they have to say and piss them off with my religious arrogance. And for some reason such an experience always eluded me...until last Friday. I was sitting on a bench outside when this middle-aged guy walked up to me and said, “I am very happy today”. I kid you not, my first thought was, “WTF...Did he have an orgy last night or what?...Even so, why does he have to show off to random people...Oh wait, I would brag about such a thing too to random people :P” But the next thing he said was “That’s cuz I have Jesus in me”.
“Bingo!”...I thought!
He then proceeded to inquire about my religion and if I believed in heaven and hell and if I wanted to feel the love of God et cetera et cetera. I listened to him carefully and started pointing out with a pragmatic line of reasoning as to why I didn’t want to do whatever he wanted me to do. His every sentence had ‘lord’ and ‘God’ in it and my every response started with “But...” and had words like ‘common sense’ and ‘sanity’. I know this makes me sound conceited but I really believe in everything I said that day. Anyway, the result of the conversation was that I successfully pissed him off.
Strike one was when at one point he called me ignorant for not knowing the right ways of God. I retaliated by calling him an extremist who lets religion control his life too much. This ticked him off a lot.
Then later, he offered to pray for a blessing for my successful graduation and I politely declined it. (I really was polite :)). To make a point or save face or whatever he asked me how I would feel if he prayed for a curse for me. I told him it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to me and he could do as he pleased. That was strike two.
Strike three was when he offered to give me his phone number in case I was interested in getting together for one of his group meetings with other students. I again politely told him that I did not want his phone number because there wasn’t the slightest chance that I would be interested in such a thing at all. At this point he simply bid me goodbye and left.

In retrospect, I now have a slight amount of ‘winner’s guilt’. Maybe there wasn’t any need to engage him in conversation in the first place if I had made up my mind to be hostile. Whatever it is, I can never fathom the need to proselytize and in my opinion it is the one of the shadiest things people can do!

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Movie Reviews: You know you want it
I realized I really went a little overboard with my last post reviewing RHCP and all...so Ill try and compensate here with as little info as possible...

1) Superman Returns
Brandon Routh...surprisingly good.
Kevin Spacey...pretty good.
Kate Bosworth...both good and cute.
Movie...watchable once!

2) Pirates Part 2
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!
Movie...who cares? Keira Knightley...Yummmmy!

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Fractal Collage: Cuz only blog-ninjas can pull off such stunts
-->Did you know that Debra Messing (Grace from ‘Will and Grace’) named her son Roman. Cool eh? Ok...maybe not so much but at least it’s better than some other weird ass ones!! I mean its one thing to publicly acknowledge the fact that you are a superman fan but naming your son Kal-El is taking it too far Mr.Cage. Imagine how his friends will rip him apart when he grows older.
-->Starbucks wont make my hot chocolate any hotter that their set temperature. They fear being sued apparently. So I have to make do with lukewarm chocolate probably because of some fucker who was stupid enough to not know how to sip on a hot beverage and got his tongue burnt and then decided to sue Starbucks to make a quick buck!!
--> If you think you don’t have to stop completely at the stop signs only because you are riding a slow moving bicycle then you are wrong. If a cop catches you doing it he will definitely pull up right alongside you and give a stern warning making you feel like an idiot. I just know.

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The video: Straight from Roman Entertainment Inc. HQs
This is a video of me (on the left playing the rhythm on acoustic) along with my friend Avinash (on the right playing the leads on the electric) trying to capture the essence of the hindi song “Kya Maloom” by this awesome Indian band called ‘Indian Ocean’. We only play the first 3 or 4 minutes…the actual song speeds up immensely after that. I strongly recommend listening to the original song. I screwed up (as usual :() in a few places but hopefully that doesn’t ruin the song much.




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Right......I know this post does not and will not have the same magnetic effect on the blog’s readership that Mandira Bedi had on the Indian viewership when she wore ‘that’ outfit during the cricket world cup in ‘03. But hey...I don’t cross-dress and I have to try!
So until later...keep it complex! :P