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.

Time Changes Everything

Sometimes I wonder if life wouldn't be simpler without different time zones all over the world. What if we all just followed GMT, or some other universally fixed time, throughout the earth? How much easier it would be to keep track of days, dates, and important times!

Think about it. We wouldn't have to make confusing calculations. The only possible downside is that almost everyone around the world would be asleep during the same hours, but we know that'll never happen. It doesn't even happen in the same city. People will sleep when they want to. 

Sure, some people might have to sleep with the sun shining and do daytime stuff when it's dark, but there are folks who already live in places with six months of sun and six months of darkness, and I bet they survive just fine. Those unhappy with their schedules can move somewhere else. Maybe if that happened, all call centres could be re-located to one section of the planet. Oh wait, they probably wouldn't work different timings then. See, problem solved! 

Television shows and such things could air at the same time everywhere. Live telecasts of events like World Cup football matches or even the Royal Wedding would be more easily watchable if it wasn't time for about half the world to be sleeping.

No time calculations also means absolutely no miscalculations. So even if you live in a place that is (/was?) a little behind the times, so to speak, you'll no longer, say, wish someone a happy birthday on the following day thinking it's still (the night of) his/her birthday.    

Take a hypothetical situation: let's say you know that the world really is ending on December 21, 2012 at 11:11 GMT. You'd want to do everything you possibly can before that happens, right? Suppose you don't know how far behind GMT you are (and I'm sure a lot of you don't) or, in some extreme cases of ignorance, think GMT is the standard time followed by your country when it's definitely not (I tell you, it's quite possible) you could end up very, very disappointed. Like this:

You make all these plans for the last day of your life...

...but what's that? 

Whoops, Earth exploded before you could do any of those things. Awkward, eh? 

Here's something for the people who came up with those ridiculous high school math problems where one had to find out how long it would take for the two trains to crash into each other, or something like that:

Two spaceships (or whatever you want them to be) weighing two tonnes each are at equal distances (400,000,000 miles) away from the surface of the earth at sea level, on opposite sides of the planet. They both start moving at exactly the same time and travel at a constant speed of 2296.3 kilometres per hour.

1) At what time will they hit the earth's surface? 

(Logically, it would be at the same time, but thanks to different time zones, you'll find them hours apart. So it'll be at the same time, but also at different times.)

2) How long will it take for each to reach the core of the earth (and crash into the other)? 

(You'll find that, naturally, both spaceships get to the core at the same time, except I'm not sure how they keep track of time there)

Note: This is a math problem. Weird things happen in math problems. I mention this so that you understand it's taken for granted that the spaceships can pass through different materials without changing speed and are completely heat resistant, because it's a hypothetical situation.

Well, that's how the world goes round. I mean, look at this - something else related to math (and religion) which I came across on dearblankpleaseblank.com 

Dear math teachers,

If Jesus had two loaves of bread and five fish, how many people could he feed?

Sincerely, good luck with that.

The Bible's answer makes no logical sense, right? But people go with it anyway.

So I guess that in the end, there's no point in me complaining about time zones, except that it makes me feel good to get it out. Also, I have successfully written one more article (if you can call it that) for my blog, with colourful pictures! I may not be ruling the world (yet) but for now, I'd say this is good enough.

Chronicles of a Death Foretold - Best Synopsis Ever - Part II (The Incident)

Now here's where all the confusion happens. Santiago Nasar wakes up at 05:30 to get ready and greet the Bishop. After being grossed out by the dead rabbits, he leaves the house. It's 06:00, maybe five minutes past, and Pablo and Pedro see him walk out of the main door and get up to kill him.

However, they are dissuaded by Clotilde Armenta who tells them to "leave him for later, if only out of respect for his grace the bishop". So they simply sit around and wait again.

The bishop, not surprisingly, yet to everyone's disappointment, doesn't get off his boat. Just the customary blessing and he's gone.

People disperse. At 06:25, Margot, the narrator's sister, invites Nasar over for breakfast, and he promises to be there in fifteen minutes. He walks purposelessly with Cristo for a little distance and then bids him farewell.

Seconds later, Yamil Shaium tells Cristo about the twins' plan.

Cristo runs off to find his friend, but he has already disappeared. He goes to his house, but Divina Flor, the young maid, tells him Nasar has not come back yet.

The man in demand is, meanwhile, at his fiance Flora Miguel's place, at 06:45. Miguel's family usually sleeps till noon (lucky people, huh?) but woke up really early on this day because of the noise made by the bishop's boat. Flora is upset with Nasar, blah blah blah. Not important. What IS important is that Flora's father, Nahir Miguel (who is a wise old man - the one who orders everyone in the house to sleep until noon) tells Nasar to either stay in the house or exit with a revolver unless he wants to be killed. Nasar who has been blissfully unaware of everything, is shocked to the core.

In the meantime, Cristo feels he should be a good friend and at least prepare Nasar for what might happen. He goes up to his bedroom at 06:56 and a couple of minutes later (at 06:58, since they've mentioned it in the book) he takes Nasar's revolver to hand over to him whenever he is found.

He the heads out and passes by Armenta's shop where Pedro yells out to him to tell Nasar that they're waiting to kill him. Cristo also runs into Colonel Lazaro Aponte again and informs him about the recent developments. Aponte says he'll look into it but isn't too worried as he doubts that the twins will be back with weapons so soon after he took away their knives and told them to go home.

ADD/ADHD much?

Cristo Bedoya is still looking for his friend. He spends some time helping to move Prospero Arango's ailing dad who can't quite walk. Then he goes to Santiago's house again, and this time Divina Flor says she saw him going up to his room from the entrance facing the square.

Incorrect information. Hallucination? Sneaky plot?

Santiago has just received the news of the plot to kill him, and he stumbles out of Miguel's house, unarmed and still dazed. People all around him are shouting instructions and he doesn't know who to listen to.

He sees the twins running towards him and suddenly realizes what is happening. From her angle, his mother Placida Linero looks out the window and sees the twins running to the main door, but doesn't see her son in front of them. After Divina's reassurance that he is in his room upstairs, Linero runs to the door and bolts it so the twins can't go up to her son's room to kill him.

Isn't it ironic?

Linero has locked out her own son, and he is now trapped. Unarmed, he turns around to face his killers. They stab him over and over again, but the knives keep coming out clean and bloodless. That's the beauty of magical realism and supernatural elements...

...but not for long, because after all, they're all human. Poor Nasar is stabbed for what seems like forever, and finally he falls. 

Now comes the creepy part. The "dead" dude stands up and picks up his intestines (which are totally spilling out. Don't even ask about the blood). Then, carrying them in his hands, he walks around the house, goes through the house of his neighbours (weirdos who think he is glowing), walks into his house through the kitchen.   

Then he falls to the floor. Dead. Definitely so this time. And that, my friends, is how the story ends.

Part III is where less important things happen, but it's because of what happens then that the important stuff that happens until now is recorded.  

My Very Ambitious Plan Gone *POOF*

Even that title sounds not quite right. Just another example to show that today is not my best day for new blog posting. But it's Sunday. Something has to be up, right?


Darn my whole Sunday-is-the-day-I-have-to-put-up-an-above-average-post policy! That is the reason why I don't have a good post today. Ironic, huh? (Well, at least I managed to use "ironic" in a fitting context, unlike many people I know.


Basically, I had a great idea, but I need more time to work on it. I did try, though. I started off all psyched about it and got things in (some) order.

If you can see what I've written, good for you (maybe). If you can't, good for me, I suppose. 

Then I did some more organizing:

I swear I flipped it before inserting. This is just how much my blog posts hate me today.

All of that took longer than I expected, but it was after that that things started going really wrong. Discovered I had about 40 pictures to draw even without including the less important stuff. Still annoyingly optimistic, I started making a rough plan for what would go into each picture. 


It got boring after the first eight scribbles.


Change in plan: draw a few pictures at a time, then do the outline for the next few, then draw those, and so on.

My very first drawing went horribly wonky

Stupid doors and angles and perspective and all that junk!

My second attempt at the same drawing

Slightly more progress with that one, but it also led to decreasing enthusiasm and a heightened level of frustration.

And so I ditched it (my attempt at finishing and posting something remotely remarkable by today). However, I've spent too much time thinking about it to give up completely. I'll try again later. It will be up some time next week, even if I have to do it in parts.

Okay, I'm done whining now.
Hey, save me a couple of Easter eggs, someone?