Trouble With Presents

I'm back after a couple of weeks without internet! It's Christmas, which is the season for presents, whether you like it or not. I won't go into that now, though, because this post is not really about Christmas presents. This is one of those stories I've heard enough times from my mom to imagine the situation, though I don't actually remember it happening.

My cousin and I were partners in crime when we were little, but we also fought a lot with each other. Whenever one of us got something new, the other would be given something almost identical, but different enough for us to fight over them.

That may not have been the exact scene, but you probably know what I mean.

Once my aunt decided that she should give us both the exact same thing so there would be no reason for us to fight. We both got necklaces and, sure enough, found no reason to fight over them.

It made us rather unhappy, and we came up with an ingenious plot to solve the problem.

All we had to do was break one of the necklaces...

...so that we could fight over the other.

The good thing about having your own blog is that you don't always have to make a valid point. However, if there's any message this post is supposed to be giving, since it's Christmas and everything, it's probably this: don't damage your presents or fight over them, unless it makes you happy. Bazinga! 

Merry Christmas, everybody! May you get great presents, have fun, eat as well as I did, and be happy. Also, happy holidays to those of you who are lucky enough to get long vacations.  

Sugar Sugar

Over the last couple of weeks, I've eaten huge amounts of cake, mainly because of the number of people I know who've had their birthdays then. It's made me think of all the birthday parties I've been to, especially the ones that really stood out. Most have been reasonably good.

A couple of them were plain confusing.

One was remarkably terrible.

Then suddenly, last month I went to one of the best birthday parties I've ever been to. Everything about it was great: wonderful people, beautiful place, delicious food, and surprisingly cute and lovable kids.

The birthday girl

 Well, she didn't exactly look like this, and she was way cuter. I think I got the bow on the hairband right, though.

Here are the things that made the party seriously awesome:

Yes, the cake really was that green. Normally I'd think, "Green cake? Eww!" but this one was pretty, and absolutely delicious. Again, my picture doesn't resemble the actual thing that well, but I had to try. The rest of the food was great too, but a good cake makes a good birthday party even better.

Helium balloons! I'd been looking for those for a long time, and I actually took a couple of them home. Whee!

And I think this is what made it perfect for me:

I was probably the only person above the age of 7 standing in line for candy floss (or cotton candy, if that's what you must call it) but standing there, and then eating with bits of pink sugar sticking to my hair, glasses, and clothes, I felt truly happy, like I was right where I belonged.

I guess some of us never grow up.

Five Lies

Sometimes people try and make you believe the most bizarre things ever. You know that stuff isn’t true, but they make you think you’re stupid for not believing. And by “they”, I don’t mean advertisements or politicians, but people in general, maybe even ones we go to for good advice.

·         Water has no taste
Something we all learnt in school, right? We did in my school, and in many other places too, I’m sure. Wonder who came up with the idea, and how he/she managed to convince a whole lot of people. All I can say is, they didn’t have very sophisticated palates.
(By the way, “sophisticated palate” has become one of my favourite phrases after I discovered my affinity for mildly flavoured food.)

·         Ab crunches don’t help flatten your stomach
Two out of three times that you look at the fitness section of a magazine or newspaper, you’re sure to see some lines on why ab crunches are completely pointless. Hmph! They’re probably doing it wrong. 

      
Okay, maybe it’s true for some people, but not for everyone. I know I may not seem like a trustworthy source now, but I had great ab muscles way back when I used to do crunches. Also, that was around the time I pretty much lived on ice cream.

·         Coffee is bad for you
Now that’s just a terrible thing to say! People who believe this are usually green tea drinkers who most likely can’t imagine coffee without milk, cream, and sugar. So yeah, I sort of see their point and can’t help feeling sorry for them, because they don’t know what they’re missing.

Also, coffee speeds up metabolism (unless of course you’re dunking cream and sugar into it) and is a good source of antioxidants. Coffee drinkers are apparently less likely to have certain cancers, heart rhythm problems, strokes, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and dementia, and a whole lot of other conditions you do not want to have. I certainly don’t need to describe that euphoric feeling it gives you.
So if you’ve never had coffee the way it’s supposed to be drunk, start now.

I don't like Nescafe, but I really like this ad.

By the way, George Washington invented instant coffee. Don’t believe me? Look it up *snigger* No, seriously.

·         Kids are SO cute 
Kids are manipulative, wailing things, and these days, most of them are super spoilt and helpless without TV, laptops, cellphones, and all that jazz. Being small doesn’t necessarily make you delightful.

All right, I must admit I’m biased here. I’ll also admit that I’ve seen some wonderful kids who’ve rather surprised me (by making me love them so much) but I don’t love kids as a rule.

·         Cockroaches are harmless 
Oh, no, no, no, no, no! You couldn't be more wrong. They're creepy, some of them fly and stink, and I've even been bitten by one. Most scary thing of all: they're practically invincible. Something like this:

They don't care. They know they'll survive.

Bottomline: coffee - gorgeous, cockroaches - gross, and kids - well, who knows?

Nothing To Say

Look what I found:

That's what I just did.

Actually, I do have something to say, but it'll have to wait until I'm a little less sick. Until then,

Thank you, http://iwastesomuchtime.com/

Stereo Hearts

Inspired by this song, of course

Oh, now I don't like how my stereo up there looks. Well, I'll just have to draw a better one later.

Watching TV on TV

First of all, thank you to everyone who’s still reading and/or following this blog despite my recent negligence and laziness to post anything new, even after my vow to post at least every Sunday, if not more often. I’ve hardly been online recently because the easiest thing to do after getting back from work late in the evening is lie in bed, turn on the telly, and doze off at some point.

Secondly, about the title: I'm talking about watching The Voice on television. After several shows with mostly average contestants, mean judges, intense melodrama, and bitchiness in the air, it’s nice to have one with great contestants and judges, healthy competition, and a positive approach.

The concept of blind auditions is wonderful, and the talent was amazing. I don’t know if it’s because all the singers were people who were selected for callbacks, or also because the show was well edited, but either way, the lack of terrible singers was a nice change (although terrible ones also have the potential to be the most amusing and entertaining).

Then there were the coaches. Ah, Adam Levine!

I think there were three others too.

Okay, I'm not that enamored by him. I loved all the judges. I was most excited about Christina Aguilera being one of them because she’s been one of my favourite artists ever since I first heard her. I’ve always loved her, and I always will, no matter what people may say about her unnecessary runs and slutty make-up and all that jazz.

Cee Lo is someone I liked as an artist, but I was pleasantly surprised at how nice he seemed as a person. I didn’t expect much depth from someone as blingy as him, but I was wrong. Blake, to be honest, is someone I hadn’t heard of before the show, but I loved him too, the main reason being the Papa Bear kind of pride and love he had for his contestants (although I did find it really strange when he said “Dia reminds me of my wife”. And Adam, well… HOT!

I’ll skip to the final four contestants, because I’ll have way too much in here if I have to rewind even one step back. Javier and Beverly I loved right from the blind audition stage. Dia is someone I liked to a point but then started to find slightly annoying, although I can’t deny that she really knows how to make a song fabulous. Vicci Martinez is someone I noticed in the blind audition because when she started singing, I thought, “Oh no, yet another person singing Rolling in the Deep!” Then she sang a couple more songs and quickly became my favourite contestant. Here’s one reason why:

Gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.

  

Too bad the show wound up so soon! Now The X Factor has begun, and I do enjoy it, complete with all the drama, but it’s just not the same. And I swear I’m not saying that only because Adam Levine is way hotter than Simon. 

You've Got Mail. Or Have You?

Letter writing was such a huge deal in school! I wonder if the teachers and other authorities realized that in the real world, we would hardly ever write letters, leave alone use any of those formats we were taught.
English grammar exams demanded that we knew the format of both formal and informal letters. Here's what I remember:

FORMAL LETTER

INFORMAL LETTER

I'm not sure how many people write actual letters any more. Written communication seems more like this:

FORMAL

 INFORMAL

(This is based on the assumption that the writer uses spacing at all)

Or more commonly seen...

You know, people are right when they say that you learn all the important things in life when you're in kindergarten, or elementary school at the most.                              

Stages of Reception

Since the new telly has been one of the major hindrances to my blogging recently, I felt the need to change that by making it the topic of a decent sized post.

Stage 0: Basically the background to make everyone understand what a big deal this is to me.
For over 21 years of my life, I’ve had just two TV channels: DD (Doordarshan) National, which had (and still has) vague shows and never bothered trying to look the least bit appealing, and DD Metro, which I used to watch for the daily half hour (or 1 to 1 ½ hours, at some stage) of cartoons. That was fine, because I had other things to do and one cartoon a day was enough to keep me happy.

Then DD Metro was suddenly replaced by the redundant DD News which consistently seemed to give one news from the previous day. Suddenly, the quality of the weekend movies on the National channel dipped, and my frequency of viewing them increased since they were the most watchable things at that time. Every time I went to a friend’s house and the telly was on, I’d be glued to the screen, no matter what was showing.

Kind of like these guys:

When I got my laptop, I started watching shows and movies on it thanks to friends who downloaded regularly—I never download any of that stuff because I like letting other people do the dirty work—and sites that allow free streaming.

At this point, not having watchable channels on the telly was something of an advantage. I could watch new episodes of shows airing in other countries almost as soon as they came out, unlike everyone else who had to wait for them to be aired here (if they ever were aired here, that is).

Stage 1 
And then, a couple of weeks ago, after a few years of debate, we got a new TV set. The deal was that if we bought a new telly, we’d get all those channels to go with them. The dish connection came only about a week after the telly, so the first week was kind of like this:

Stage 2
I returned home after being away for the weekend, and found hundreds of channels to flip through (although I didn’t bother previewing most of them), accompanied by mixed feelings of joy (“Oh, so many channels! I don’t have to wait for stuff to stream online and watch off a small monitor any more”) and cynicism (“Now I can watch shows at specific times dictated by the TV. With ad breaks. After they’re at least a couple of seasons old”).

Stage 3 
Despite the cynicism, after not switching on your telly for months because you knew it was pointless, you’re more excited than anything else, and so you decide to see what the channels have to offer. Initially, everything is awesome. Even the advertisements are refreshing, simply because they’re more aesthetically pleasing than the ones on the DD channels. So you're kind of going back to part one of stage 0, where you’ll watch pretty much anything.

Stage 4
After the initial excitement wears off, you fall into a routine. There are certain shows you watch regularly, and others that you watch while waiting for the regular shows to begin or return after the ad break. Not so much magic any more, but it’s nice to have a couple of good shows to watch and not be obsessed with simply any colourful show on the telly.

PS - Looking at this post makes me realize that I really should get back to my real drawing materials.

Where Was I?

Hello there!
Wow, it's been a while since my last post. Guess I took the procrastination really seriously. But that's not the only thing; I've been distracted by other stuff. Couldn't put up anything last Sunday because I went on a trip to a place where I didn't have access to the internet and didn't miss it one bit.  
The bigger distraction, however, is the new television set and the hundreds of channels. I try not to talk about it too much.

I've suddenly realized how much I miss college. I love work, but I really miss college. I actually went three times this week and talked to random juniors and other people I've never seen before. There are so many great things about going back after you've graduated, especially when people remember you and look happy to see you. Teachers treat you like old pals they're meeting after years, and students who don't even know you seem to treat you with utmost respect.
You can also wave your phone around and not care about it getting confiscated. Oh wait, I don't think we ever bothered to be discreet about our cellphones. But you know what I mean, right? You can walk around the campus when everyone else is in class.

There are those few awkward moments, though. I keep introducing myself to several juniors I don't remember having seen before, and when they say they know me, it surprises me so much that I can't help blurting out, "Really? I've never seen you before. (Oh damn, why did I have to say that?)" People remember you. Even when you don’t remember them. Then again, since you're the senior, you can get away with it.

It's also a little saddening when you see strangers in your classrooms and realize you can’t just walk into class and take a nap.

The most awkward thing of all is when people ask you what you do and you blank out for a moment because you're about to say "I'm in college", and then realize that's not true any more.

You can expect a nostalgic post about college some time soon, but this is it for now. The TV is distracting me. 

Freedom to Procrastinate

Two more hours to go until it's Independence Day, but I've already started making use of my freedom to procrastinate.

Speaking of procrastination, here, this should help:  http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php

You're welcome :)

Coffee and Crappy Cafés

Until a few years ago, fancy coffee shops in this city were places of magic. I'd see the lovely lighting, the bright colours and the comfy looking chairs, and think while passing by, "I have to go there some day". Going to a cafe was a special treat, and it only happened once in a blue moon.

I'd look at the menu and marvel at the wide range of things to choose from. After reading through the menu carefully, I'd choose something with lots of (then fascinating) fluff like ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, sprinkles, etc. Ice was a bonus. The more ice a coffee drink had, the happier I would be.

Then I woke up.

When you're little, being allowed to drink even a small amount of coffee is a privilege. What the fancy cafes do is take that little spoon of coffee, dunk it into watery milk where it gets completely lost but manages to remind you of its existence through a hint of brown, and maybe throw in some ice and trimmings, depending on what you want. For a novice coffee drinker, this is great: so much coffee plus other stuff.

But (hopefully) you soon grow out of that stage. These days, when I go to coffee shops, the only thing I order is espresso (though I still can't help reading the whole menu before ordering) because one can't go wrong with plain coffee decoction, right?
Wrong.
Thankfully, this doesn't happen as often as it used to, but I still have such conversations with waiters:
"One espresso please"
"Expresso??"
"Er... yes."
"It's black!"
"I know."
"No milk and sugar."
"I know!!!!"
*Waiter gives me a strange look and walks off*

So of course my coffee has to arrive after everyone else is almost halfway through those sweet milky concoctions (so it's obviously not expresso). My coffee shows up... or does it?

My coffee cup is already small, yet I need to peer into it to find some watery liquid floating at the bottom. How is that fair? Do I even need to mention that it's not espresso but its weaker sibling instead?

Since I'm already on the subject, here's another thing about coffee shops that annoy me: the microwaving. Now I don't care what people say about harmful radiation and everything, but I do care about ordering a chocolatey cake and getting this:

Yes, it has actually happened to me. Shame!

For me, most coffee shops have simply turned into convenient meeting spots, or places where one can aimlessly hang around if one has nothing better to do. One good thing is that many of these places now have free WiFi, so if they're cheating you on the coffee, exploit their bandwidth as much as you can! If they take too long to bring you your order, just make sure you download lots of stuff while waiting (and until you leave).

Someday I shall open an awesome cafe (nah, I won't, but I like thinking I will) where one can get actual espresso and fresh non-soggy food at reasonable prices, and where the coffees with milk and other unnecessary things will be so good that even I will like them. Maybe. Either way, I'm happy I saw some sense and went back to black (coffee, I mean).

Writer's Block

Five more hours on the clock

It still goes tick-tock tick-tock

But my hands are numb

And I feel so dumb

Because I have writer’s block.

I bet all of you could tell

Coz those five lines were bad as hell

But here are five more

Okay... make that four.

(Aha, that worked pretty well.)

It plagued many a lord and lady,

And right from Shakespeare to Slim Shady,

People said “Aw fish!

I really do wish

That I could be more like Wayne Brady.”

So instead of getting all sore,

I'll get back in my bed and pour

Hot coffee for me

(For it’s cold, you see.)

And then I shall just sleep some more.

If you're going to be a smart-ass and say they didn't write during the Stone Age, I say to you: EXACTLY!

Somebody To Love

Yeah, Queen!
Ha ha, no, I'm not talking about the Queen song, even though I've already said "Queen" three times now.
On second thoughts, maybe I will talk about the Queen song too, although this was originally supposed to be only about the Justin Bieber song.
Yes.
I'm sure most of the people reading this would have switched off by now, so I'll do a comparative analysis. Not of the two songs, because that's a personal choice (and not because I'm going to get cursed for blasphemy, comparing Bieber to Queen, because goodness knows I'm used to that).

How most people rate the two songs:

(*People seem to find sad songs more mature, or some such weird thing...)

With that realization, things take a drastic turn:

Suddenly that's the only thing that matters any more, making a rational debate quite impossible.

Don't you roll your eyes at me for pasting this video here! I happen to like Justin Bieber, and the Queen song may be a classic, but it's also annoyingly overplayed.

Malls: An Analysis

Total satisfaction provided by a mall -> negative. 

(I'm not calculating the numerical value. You can do that if you really want to.)

PS - Haven't been able to blog in ages thanks to problems like bad and/or altogether non-existent internet connection. Thus no post last Sunday, but I'm back, much to my own delight.

Sunday Evening Blues

Today I don't feel like doing anything...
Oh dear me, I'm actually quoting Bruno Mars. And not just ANY song of his, but the most annoying one ever. Or at least the most annoying one I've heard.

It's not like I didn't have something worthwhile planned for today's post. I swear I did. But it'll have to wait. You know how on some days you get lots of blog views without doing anything? Today is one of those days. It makes one think, "Eh, people are reading anyway, so do I really have to bother putting up something new?" I suppose I don't, but you know, Sunday = new post. So I always end up writing sometimes write junk like this. Does that make me a junkie? Okay, never mind. Please forget that I said that. Erase from memory. Say, I really like this Strikethrough option. Convenient. Yes, very. It makes me look like I've at least tried to write. If I just removed sentences, people would think I was just being lazy. Lazier than usual, I mean.

Okay, now I'm running out of random things to say. So move along. Do whatever you were doing, even if it was nothing.
Oh, or go here: http://www.roalddahl.com/. Because you just can't not love Roald Dahl.

Happy Sunday, everyone! Or what's left of it. Thank you for reading.

Working On Saturday

Yesterday was my most fun working Saturday so far. In fact, it was the best Saturday I've had in a while. Went out to lunch with a bunch of people from office for the first time (at short notice, which meant I had to borrow money from my friend and eat my pasta later, but that was hardly a problem at all.)

Lunch was fun despite the restaurant's sheer pinkness. (Wow, "pinkness" is actually a word? I was quite sure it would get underlined in red.) Came back to office completely satisfied after the outing and the food. Since I didn't have much work to do and found that one of the graphic designers wasn't in office, I asked if I could use his graphic tablet. The GD head said that would involve a long installation process, so he actually asked around and found me one which wasn't currently in use and could just be plugged into the system! :)

I spent the rest of the afternoon playing around with it (and distracting other people by drawing them to use it too.) I had the time of my life!     

 

I used it (the tablet) to draw a picture of us at lunch (and Shruti drew the flower):

I know it doesn't look too different from things I draw on Paint without a tablet, but it's the first time I used one, and it took me some time to figure it out.

So yeah, I enjoy my usual day at work, but days like these make it special :) 

Why I Dislike Twitter (or Why Twitter Sucks)

Google+ seems to be making lots of people extremely excited! I'm just wondering how it'll work out after Google Wave died a natural death. I'm not wishing it won't work well; I'm just a little skeptical.

However, with regard to social networking sites, the one thing that I still find completely incredible is the popularity of Twitter. Really, what does it do? It's like a facebook (thanks to the logo, I always end up spelling it without a capital "F") where you can't do much except update your status message, once every hour if you're a compulsive, er, Tweeter, and about once a month if you're like me.

I agreed to give it a shot because some of my best friends gnawed at my brains until I did told me to, and I thought, why not? I was told I would get used to it, but that hasn't happened so far, and I don't think it ever will. There are several things about that site which annoy me no end, but I'll stick with just a few main things.

Character limit: 140
Why? If you don't have much to say, you won't say much, whatever the limit may be. And if someone does have a lot to say, isn't it better to let one say it in one message instead of four consecutive messages? (Oh, so sorry, I meant tweets. Meh.)
For some strange reason, when I do tweet (I still cringe at that word being used in this context) I always have exactly 140 characters, but I don't think anyone cares.

Too many irrelevant "tweets"
Like I mentioned earlier, small character limit = more tweets. And so you open up your home page and keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep scrolling down until you realize it's not worth it. There's nothing there to see. Come back next month.
Of course, this also makes anything your tweet less important, so what do you do? Tweet some more. Vicious cycle, see?

Time for an example:

 

Had to have separate pictures because when I made it one long picture (like the actual webpage you have to scroll down) it took FOREVER to load, and refused to be a readable size.

I don't like Twitter, Twitter makes life hard for me. Fair enough, I suppose.

Anyway, getting back to the point, like I said, blah blah blah... and where is my beloved Markus Feehily? Shame! (Because he’s the one and only reason I’m still on Twitter)

By the way, this is how it is when I’m following just 12 people, which, as many of you would realize, is really, really low by Twitter standards. I don’t see everything those 12 people write, so how do you see what the 100-1000-[insert number] people are saying? Oh wait, you don’t. Do you even care? I guess not.

I wonder how long it’ll be before people turn to something else, but until then, for whatever inscrutable reason, Twitter works for a lot of people (or that’s what they claim), so if they’re satisfied with the pointlessness, who am I to complain, right? I’ll just stay away and visit about once a month, as usual. I can’t promise that I won’t write similar posts, though. 

PS - Hey Twitter, you're welcome for all the free publicity.

I write, therefore I am. (Okay, not really)

Sometimes you just have to write
A few words which, like dynamite,
Will blow all your readers' brains out
BECAUSE IN THEIR HEADS YOU WILL SHOUT!

A
f
t             b
e            e
r             c              t
              a              o
t             u
h            s              m                  a
a            e              a                   n
t                            k                   d
                             e
y            i                                    t
o            t               t                   h
u                            h                  e
              g              e                  s
t             i               m                 e
y            v                                
p            e              h                   t
e            s              a                   w
                             v                    o
l             y              e
i             o                                   l
k            u              t                    i
e                            o                  n
              a                                  e
t                            r                    s
h             k            e
i              i             a                    d  
s             c            d                    o
               k    
                             t                     n
                             h                    o
                             i                      t
                             s
                                                   r
                             w                   h
                             a                    y
                             y                    m
                                                   e
                                 
                                                  a
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                                                   a
                                                   l
                                                   l

Then you realize that writing from top to bottom is harder than reading from top to bottom, and so you decide to find a more effective way of torturing people with bad writing in the near future.

Yes, that's a minute of your life you will never get back. Be happy it's a short post.

Jeavenly jalapeños

Yes, a whole post on jalapeños. Because I love them, and because my blog is random like that. I've always loved pickled jalapeños, but have become addicted recently, ever since mom bought a jar. We've been eating pizza more often, like this amazing one which mom made from scratch. The jalapeños also taste great in cheese sandwiches, with some hot Tabasco sauce drizzled on top. And if you're like me, you'll just eat them straight from the jar.
Remember how Remy from Ratatouille describes food? If you don't, here, refresh your memory:

  

If I had to do that with pickled jalapeños, it would probably look like this:

Er, kind of. It would be clearer with animation.

Look at all the different things you can use them in:

Doesn't it look pretty? I'm sure it tastes great too.

Jalapeños stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. How can it NOT be great?

(It's okay to use pictures from other sites, right?)

I actually looked for nutritional information. This is what nutritiondata.self.com has to say:

I think this is about the fruit when raw, not pickled. Not sure. 

Here you see a whole bunch, sliced and pickled in all their fiery glory:

And some more...

This is more or less what my jalapeño jar looks like looked like when it was new. Now it's empty. But I have nothing to worry about, because...

...this is what I have now

Yes, the can is really that big!