Quantum of Shoelace

xkcd.. you crack me up.

to shoebite.... Respect.

Everything that has a beginning...

Newly folded clothes and three new sets of clothes hanging neatly in the wardrobe with tags still attached just in case the climate changes back too soon or I decide to go on a binging spree. A clean carpet, antique chairs, immensely comfortable beds , a bathroom stand neatly boasting toiletries of many varieties. Is it okay to embrace a new perspective on life at the end of the year? Seemed more like a usher-in-your-new-year-resolution kind of occupation.

Books will line shelves like untidy troopers who have only just learning to march. Eventually some will lie on top of one another, with the odd one that has long been forgotten to be returned to. Some in language that was too tedious to demand turning the page. Nearly-free books about the world at war that Delhi just loves to sell to the most unassuming of customers on the street walks, because the publishers went out of business and the author wanted the privilege of burning them for himself, books with superfluous tales to be forgotten and some verdant with divine comedy that will never disappear.

In a few months this would all be packed again into the same suitcases and moved hours away. Pack up the memories and the books worth keeping, the articles and the old gifts that aid remembering the memories. All packed into the same suitcases and moved somewhere else, or maybe someday just left behind – who needs memories when you can make more? Running away or procuring freedom, the answer to that will only be found when I come out of it struggling for breath.

A fast paced lonely lifestyle I can’t help but imagine. As I travel there, suitcases under each arm, I’ll wave to all the cities that have a memories and people attached to them. Chennai, Calcutta, Bombay, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Noida – I miss you all. Maybe I’ll stay for a while, mull over the memories with the people in them remembering the times we spent together, and then I’ll continue on my own journey where no one else is invited. This I have to do for myself and you can’t be involved.

When I decide to unpack my bags, nobody will know my name. It’s a big new city that does not care for names, everyone can remain unnamed there. In the suburbs everything looks the same but in the midst of the metropolis everything stands out. An anomaly I can’t wait to be a part of.

Lists, Resplendent Lists

To read, I have had:

An Englishman looks at the World - H.G. Wells

The Colour of a Dog Running Away - Richard Gwyn

Anahuac - Edward Tylor

The Kitty Killer Cult - Nick Smith

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (severely advise against)

Watchmen - Alan Moore and David Gibbons

The Outsider - Albert Camus

The Dune Series - Frank Herbert (most of it - need to find Hunters and Sandworms)

Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton

Nine Stories - J.D.Salinger

100 Bullets - DC Comics

The Ape, The Idiot & Other People - W.C.Morrow (I only read it because I liked the title)

Of Mice and Men - John Steinback

Brisngr - Christopher Paolini

The Princess & The Raider - Jude Devaraux (Girly, but then why shouldn't I have fun too)

Insomnia - Stephen King

The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch (came highly recommended. lives up every bit to it)

From Hell - Alan Moore

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Down and Out in Shoreditch and Horton - Stewart Home (you might want to give that one a miss)

Today has Never Happened - Catherine Smith

Ghost in the Shell (1, 1.5 and 2) - Shirow Masamune

I Can’t Wait on God - Albert French

Bleach - somewhere from 290 to 335

To watch, I have had:

City of Men

Cidade de Deus

Tim Burton's - Nightmare Before Christmas

Coffee and Cigarettes

SA-RO-JA

Forbidden Planet

Quantum of Solace

Vanishing Point

How to lose friends & alienate people (again... the title)

Dexter - Season 1,2

The Duchess

Man on Wire

Kaadhalil Vilunthen

My Father, My Lord

Kyles - Season 1,2

Dostana

Cowboy Bebop (I’ve seen it too many times but I just can’t stop)

To do, I have had:

Meet with friends old and new

Survive the mind numbing search for a house

Wake up on time

Not smoke all my cigarettes before dawn (dammit)

Wrench someones heart out

Survive financial crippling

Send letters to various companies to get my money back

To write, I have:

Everything.

I should start.

Lazy Saturday afternoons. You were made for these.

Beauty in the eyes of the Heuristic Algorithm

Tech Republic had this interesting article about some new software that automatically tunes pics of human faces to make them more attractive by reducing the concept of facial beauty to simple vector-based algorithms. In any case, the before and after samples that are provided are stunning; each one does appear more attractive (or handsome as the case may be) after being modified by the algorithm. Well, I have no idea if most of us determine beauty based upon this formula, some formula, or any set of equations at all? I would really like to see this software tackle entertainment superstars. In particular I'd be curious about taking stars that are often lusted after but are not conventionally thought of as attractive.

I am also intrigued by this comment left on the site: "It seems inevitable that software like this will end up on digital cameras, or maybe even social networking websites. Every image of a person could be tweaked. There's even the possibility of digital mirrors that could do it in real time!"

What would the world be like if this kind of technology were placed in real-time devices? Movies would be filmed using this technology to enhance the beauty of the stars. And then for the premieres all fans would just have to get some 'rose colored glasses' that they could wear like sun-glasses to digitally enhance the beauty of the stars as they get on to the red carpet. You wouldnt want the magic to end so abruptly now.

Personally I'm still ambivalent about tech like that... but hell, I had the brighness and contrasts adjusted on my passport photos. So this may not even be a big step. But that can't stop it from seeming like a low-cost Matrix to me-- sure you know people are less attractive then they're being presented but maybe then you don't care.

In Another World

Another marraiage.... Another set of people that are overtly exuberant... Makes me wish for the remote controls to my life.

I'm haunted by this photograph
Don't know why
Everytime I look, I get shivers down my spine
You're such a beautiful face
I know those eyes
They take me back in time

She could be you
I wouldn't even know
She could be you
But that was long ago
She could be you

I wish that i could tell you
What you don't know
I dream about that day
But it's impossible
In another world,
I'll be yours tonight
But i can't break free from this life

She could be you
I wouldn't even know
She could be you
But that was long ago
She could be you

- Shawn Hlookoff

The Group Dynamic

Shoebite makes smoking cool

I make drinking cool

Tripod makes long distance romance cool

Sandy makes abstinence look cool

Mandy makes the workplace cool

Haryal makes breakfast cereal seem cool

And Roger makes the rest of us look cool by comparison. Of course one day he will be cooler and richer than all of us, the reward for all the work he could put in (so lets not hear you complain)

A Lifetime measured in units of Alcohol

The old man walked down the street at night. He felt cold. Part of being old seemed to be feeling cold. There was, after all only one letter separating them. And being old and feeling cold meant being and feeling tired. This would explain to a silent observer why his progress down the Sector 11 Street was painfully slow to behold, though the only other set of eyes that did so were the bright dark ones of an urban cat, staring from the shadows. Pain was another part of age as well. The young felt pain in great flares that could tear them apart. But there were also great intervals between this pain, to the point where they couldn't remember what it was like until it happened again. His pain was a slow dull burning kind, constant to the point where he himself had forgotten what its absence felt like. Still, that’s what happened when you didn’t have successful children to take care of you he guesssed.

After progressing in this painfully slow fashion for some 20 minutes, he finally reached his destination, a late night liquor shop. It was lit up like a fluorescent island in the dull street lamp lit darkness. He pushed the heavy door open, wheezing with effort. The twine attached to it jangled and the man behind the counter looked up from his paper.

The old man walked up to the muslim man behind the counter. In fairness he had no way of knowing whether he was muslim or not. It didn't really matter. Old men seemed to be given a little more leeway than most when it came to political correctness.
He ordered his bottle of not so cheap whiskey in clipped perfect english.

“640” the possible mohammedan replied.

He fumbled in his pocket for the money. His hands seemed to be working better today, and it was with a shameful pride that he took out the right amount and handed it over without dropping any.

“Thank you sir. Goodnight. And a goodnight to you too.”

"Darwaza band karna."

“ummm.. 'night.” I replied.

He hefted the heavy door open and slowly walked home, his progress charted by the tiny glow of a lit cigarette held in his mouth.

A long time ago

(Since I have so much more time on my hands now, I have since taken to reminiscing about obscure figments of memory that seem to crop up with no warning or implication.)

He shivered and muttered as the icy water went into the gap between his neck and his shirt. It slid down his neck mixing with sweat and grime. It felt horrible, all slimy and cold and sticky and wet. And he was too tightly bundled up to take off any of his many layers. Thick and heavy and slow he was. That was why he had been hit by the ball. Too big and too slow.

He wanted to cry. His nose was running and his eyes were wet from the cold anyway. Instead he bent down and scooped the ball from the stagnant water. Cupping it close he packed it with dirt to face his punishers. His shirt was sodden from previous attempts, hands wet and wrinkling, growing number. He breathed hot air onto them and tried to blow out some of the wetness.

He looked around for a target. Everyone was running and screaming and skidding and falling. Most had formed into gangs, temporary alliances in the heat of battle. But he had only been at school a few days. He didn’t know anyone and so he didn’t know who he should throw the dirt ball at. Not a girl obviously.

Most of them had stayed inside anyway. Not anyone much bigger than him either, or much smaller. He stood dumbly with his hand growing wetter and colder in steadily pouring rain, wondering what to do.

Smack! This time a lump hit him on the ear that was poking through his closely held raincoat. It burned cold pain into him. He burned too, angry and furious red. He saw who threw it, a big kid with a stupid grin. I hated you I hate you I hate you. He threw his missile with all the strength the cold cold day hadn’t sapped from him. It sailed towards the big stupid kid and his big stupid face.

But the kid was fast. He ducked, still grinning and laughing. The ball sailed past and smacked someone else right in the face. They fell to the ground in a heap and let up a wail. It was a little girl, small and pretty and crying. She was so loud that the playground monitor quickly ran over and scooped her up. She shot him a disgusted look as the monitor carried her inside.

That day he got hit by a lot more dirt balls.