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!

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                             y                    m
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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!

"Inane musical melodrama" vs. "heartwarming fairy-tale"

"The music is all around us; all you have to do is listen." 

That has to be one of the loveliest movie quotes ever. Watched August Rush today and wondered why I didn't do it years ago. The story may be extremely implausible and filled with coincidences, especially at the end, but like I always say, what's the point of making films if they aren't sometimes a little different from real life? Sure, it's predictable, but there's got to be something good there if it keeps you watching when you know how it's going to end.

Freddie Highmore plays protagonist - a musical prodigy who won't stop believing that following the music will somehow lead him to his parents - and looks absolutely adorable. The film has some beautiful shots, cute Jonathan Rhys Meyers, cute other-guy-who-was-in-The-Back-up-Plan-whose-name-I-don't-remember, cute little black girl whose name I don't know, and Robin Williams. Then of course, there's the glorious uplifting music and the general feel good factor.

Surprisingly, from what I've seen of the reviews, most people hated it! This is more true of critics than of general audiences, though. Most of them simply have a problem with it being too sweet, like this one

You'll have to swallow this gooey confection whole or spit it out after the first couple of bites.

Lawrence Toppman, Charlotte Observer

Yeah. There are several reviews like this one. Come on, it's supposed to be that way! I've never seen anyone give Inglourious Basterds a bad rating for being too gory. IG was a good movie, so I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it; I just think it's a little disturbing that people find an excess of gore more appealing than excessive sweetness. Here's one that sounds both grand and unflattering at the same time.

Feels like the cinematic equivalent of being stuffed with fruitcake and doused with a gallon of egg nog, so if that's the sort of thing you go in for  around the holidays...

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times 

I applaud the creative description, but there's nothing else I can say in response to that. I like this one:

If you approach it with the right attitude, it's impossible not to be moved by this tale of music, loss, and passion.

 Brian Tallerico, The Deadbolt 

That's what I'm talking about! Here's a similar one which sums it up perfectly (and in beautiful words):

Will not be for everyone, but it works if you surrender to its lilting and unabashedly sentimental tale of evocative music and visual poetry. 

Claudia Puig, USA Today

To me, the film was, simply put, beautiful and inspiring. Time to wipe the dust off my keyboard and violin case, and see what I can do.   

As for the people who hated the film for flimsy reasons, all I can say is, they're clearly not listening. 

New Quill + Palindromic Poem

Okay, I shall quickly type out the second page for those of you who can't decipher my handwriting.

Bird poop. *DRIB*

O part of underside, emit waste.

Yo, took le debris? Use it, okay?

Yak?

O, Tie, S.U.

Sir, bed-elk?

Oo, toy! E.T., Saw time.

Ed is red, 'n' UFO: trap.

O, bird poop! *DRIB*

[Note: S.U.= shut up]

Explanation: Ed is a horrible bird who has tricked Tie the E.T. into becoming his slave and cleaning his poop. Ed poops all the time. He also thinks using random French words makes him sound smart. 

Tie tries to placate Ed with stuffed toys, but instead of going to sleep, Ed says it is Saw time (Saw: the series of horror films) and Tie realizes he has been trapped in the 'UFO', as Ed poops some more.

I might draw pictures, if I feel like it and don't forget.

Update: I just did (scribble out draw a picture)

Evil pooping bird, and alien cleaning poop in fake UFO.

This is so much fun! I really ought to do this kind of thing more often.

Abstract pictures

It's one of those times when I really want to post something new, but am too tired to draw anything or think of what to write. So I put up photos instead. They're not the best photos I've taken, but they're interesting (to me, at least). See if you can figure out what they are.

Highly magnified spider web

Monkey butt

Funky cheese

Ghost corridor

Lots of string

Miniature beach

If you comment here with what you think they are, I might give you some pseudo-analytic explanation of your personality and all that jazz. You can take that as an offer or a threat. 

My Terrifying Bus Ride

Now that I spend about four hours a day on the road in city buses, I see several strange things happening, but I'll compile all that and put it in a separate post. This is about one of my scariest bus rides ever. It ended in an anti-climax, but that didn't make it any better.

It was just another morning at the terminus, except that I had to wait longer than usual for the bus. Of course, once it arrived, it turned out that that was the one half the people on the platform were waiting for. I stood frozen for a moment, trying to choose between getting crushed while trying to enter and waiting goodness-knows-how-long for another bus. I decided to go for it, because how could I be sure that the crowd awaiting the next bus wouldn't be the same, or worse?

I took a deep breath and ran to the door in the centre for two reasons:
1) Double doors let people enter more quickly, even though the crowd there is bigger.
2) Men push women less than women push women. Maybe it's because they feel we're less competent, but whatever - it works to my advantage. Women scratch and hit and do nasty things. True story.

That little red spot is me. See it? I won't be surprised if you don't...

I made it to the only vacant seat in the bus. I secretly congratulated myself, and then noticed the guy sitting next to me. This is what he looked like, roughly: skinny with a stubble, looking very disturbed, and reeking of alcohol (which I didn't bother trying to show in this picture)

He looked so awkward that I initially thought he was mentally challenged, but when I realized he wasn't, I started getting a little worried. He had something like a toy cassette player which he kept holding up to his ear.

Worrier that I am, I thought up half a dozen things he might be doing. As you may guess, none of the hypothetical situations was exactly reassuring. Then it got even creepier. He sat there and started to violently pull at his eyelashes!!!!

By this point, I was completely convinced that I was sitting next to a serial killer. I didn't think he was going to blow up the bus right then or do any such thing, but I was really, really scared. However, if I got up from my seat, I'd be squished between several other people. At least this way I was somewhat comfortable physically, and to be fair to the guy, he was keeping to himself, and yes, my imagination runs wild sometimes. So I sat there, hoping he would get off the bus soon. But he didn't.

And after many minutes of terror (for me), he cranked up the volume on his toy-ish music player. Yes, it turned out to be a real music player after all. It just played music

Break-up songs! He was listening to break-up songs! Everything made sense now. He was just some guy who recently broke up with his girlfriend or something. I silently thanked my stars for giving me a less scary explanation about the guy. Not that it ruled out the possibility of him being a serial killer, but still, less scary.

Three-fourths into the journey, I found a vacant seat up ahead and sat there. I don't know what happened to the guy. I suppose it doesn't matter, as long as he didn't/doesn't actually kill anyone.

Bad Day

If you looked at the title and thought of the Daniel Powter song, please get it out of your head. It doesn't help someone who really has had a bad day. Not one bit. Thank you.

First off, today is Monday. Anyone who doesn't instinctively hate Mondays is not normal (and if someone like me can describe a person as "not normal", well, that's saying something). I'm one of those people who has to wake up at around six to be at the office by half past eight. I'm not saying I have a hard life; I just happen to have had enough today, with the building up of little annoyances.

First off, I sit in the bus and get my white tights dirty. Then I get told off by a conductor for not having some ID I've never heard of before and was apparently supposed to have. Next, the bus reaches one of the last few stops before the one I get off at, and then turns away in the opposite direction. I hurriedly get off, wait for another bus, get onto that, get off at my stop, and walk to office. End of part 1.

Minor dirt marks on white tights - manageable. But of course it wouldn't stop at that. Oh no. Mid-morning, I start eating oranges, and:

Orange juice meets white stole. Perfect. NOT.

Then I do something that would leave the most accident-prone people in this world impressed: I run over my own toe with the chair I'm sitting on. How does something like that happen to someone whose feet hardly touch the ground while sitting? It was not all that very different from Dick Casablancas here (00:30 onwards), although what happened to him is more amusing than what happened to me.

The rest of my time in office goes relatively smoothly. I shut down my computer and gather my things as soon as the clock strikes five (read: as soon as the computer says "17:00", but that sounds less dramatic). Two minutes before I step out, it starts to rain!

Now I'm someone who loves the rain, even when I'm not "sheltered" from it. I love getting wet, jumping into dirty puddles, and being happy when everyone else is looking worried. But come on, does it have to happen on the one day I decide to wear white? I can be as careful as is humanly possible, but it's not going to be of much use, because dirt and the colour white are unnaturally attracted to each other.

Seriously, guys, it's not healthy.

Some other boring stuff happened along the way, and I know you won't care to hear about it. In short, cramped bus, cramped roads, and two and a half hours, and I was back home, just in time to shower, eat dinner, post this, go to bed, and wake up early to hit the road once again tomorrow morning.

It's Sunday. Yay! Or not.

I'm about to goof off again, because I'm tired and therefore not exactly inclined to use enough grey matter for a proper post, so I'm sorry that... wait, why am I apologizing? It's MY blog. You read whatever I write, or don't. Besides, I'm about to placate you with pictures of food. Can't go wrong with good food, right? Here we go:

A few weeks old, so many have seen this already, but I love my brownies, okay? They deserve a place on my blog.

(Read above description, replacing "brownies" with "mushroom tarts")

Here are a couple of other interesting photos from last month:

This looks manageable when complete, but trust me, it's one of the most mind-boggling jigsaw puzzles ever! It's bad enough that the pieces all look pretty much the same in terms of the picture, but that's not all. Notice the odd shape of many of the pieces? Okay, you'll understand if you're someone who likes jigsaw puzzles. If not, you don't care either way, so let's move on.

Went to the Mysore zoo, and it was great! Lots of different animals there, and they have enough space to move around outside their cages, but here's what made it remarkable for me:

Can't get much cuter than this little meerkat!

I also started driving class. More on that later. I'll probably have a separate post on that.

Now we come to the last part of my scrambled post - yesterday's dinner:

Homemade pizza with jalapenos, olives, and pineapple. Mom made the base and everything from scratch, while I watched and ate some cheese and jalapenos. Needless to say, the pizza was awesome!

I'll have to resize these photos later. Now I'm off to bed. Have to go to work early in the morning. Over and out. Thank you for reading.

Every New Beginning Is Some Beginning's End

No more sleeping in until 10:30 in the morning. No more going back to bed after realizing that for a holiday, you’re up shamefully early. No more rummaging through the fridge and eating at odd times. No more chatting with friends for hours. No more spending all day listening to music and lounging around in nightclothes doing practically nothing.

I start work today, in a few hours, and I’m as nervous as could be. Why else would I wake up at this unearthly hour? I can stay up this late without too much trouble, but I am NOT a morning person. Never been this jittery except on the days we had basketball matches in middle school and high school. (Yes, I used to play basketball, and for someone of my height and general level of laziness I was quite good.)

It’s not so different, come to think of it – wake up early in the morning, pace up and down, do some warm-ups in an attempt to calm down, and prove yourself by putting on the best show that you can. Except that now I get to drink coffee instead of/ in addition to milk. And of course, I won’t be running around the office in bicycle shorts.

See? Not cool.

I’d rather not sleep another hour now because I have so much to worry about – what if I wake up late on the first day? How do I handle the possibility of a smelly person sitting next to me on the bus? What happens if I get to the office too early? What if I leave behind something important at home? Do employees get good coffee? Will the lunch break be long enough for me to quickly get some coffee from Gloria Jean’s? How many times a month can I buy coffee from there without going almost broke? What if they moved? (Hey Gloria Jean’s, do I get some coffee on the house in return for the free advertising?)

I know, I know, I write about coffee way too much. It threw me off track. What was I talking about? Ah yes, I was listing out deep, pensive questions that pave the way to finding a quick solution, should the problem arise. It’s a little distressing, dreading all the things that could go wrong. Excuse me while I think of something to cheer myself up a little. Maybe I’ll watch the last few minutes of Surf’s Up.

I’m back. (Why am I pretending this is a live chat? Maybe it’s because I’ve personified this window, so it’s like a dramatic monologue to a patient – if passive – audience.) Anyway, I have to mention how watching the last ten minutes of Surf’s Up before the credits roll – from the beginning of the contest to the beautiful final scene that ends with the awesome song – actually calmed me down. I recommend it to anyone with the jitters, because hey, how can you not be happy when you have cool penguins, an exciting surfing contest, brilliant animation, comic relief, an awesome funky chicken, that New Radicals song, and a perfectly splendid happy ending?

Now that I feel a little better, I’m thinking: They chose me through legitimate selection, so I shouldn’t be worried sick. My only real worry is that I may get thrown out due to the non-surfacing of blinding awesomeness, but I’ll try and make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m good as long as I make it through the probation period, do at least equally well after, and don’t (either during or after this stage) act delinquent.

Here’s to the beginning of my life as a working woman! (Ew, that makes me sound old.) Wish me luck!