Yyyyeeooowwwwww !

Brom Wilderhart, snarling barbarian of the northern wastelands, clad only in a loincloth lurches forth from a battlefield haphazardly strewn with the corpses of his enemies.

That's just how they strew their enemies in the northern wastes. Haphazardly.

As he wipes the blood and entails of his enemies from his wicked blade, Brom wonders idly about how they do things in other wastes. Frankly, the northern wastes are really cold and Brom's loincloth isn't really doing the trick.

Perhaps, Brom considers, his mighty brow furrowing, there might be some temperate wastes he could relocate to. Or perhaps, even an equatorial waste on a nice island somewhere, with a gentle offshore breeze. And poolside beverage service.

Brom could really strew some corpses in an environment like that.

~ I really shouldn't be left to my own devices...... edgar allen poe i am not.

All the Secrets and No One to tell

A little death

Without mourning

No call

And no warning

Baby.... A dangerous idea

That almost makes sense

- - Bono

Having died, and blossomed ... and died, and blossomed ...

I am sorry, mostly to myself.

I have never meant to sound bitter or cold or cruel, but I am, so that's how it turns out. I have turned so cynical, so angry, so caustic, and so inured. Every thing seems too good to be true.

My reaction to every nicety is fast becoming, ‘how could it happen to me? Something must be wrong.’

Why did I become this insipid, cheerless version of myself?

Sitting upon a barren webpage, meting out unjust rules

I like public admission of misdeeds. That’s why I write. And tell personal stuff when I do.

I fancied myself as a Bolshevik. Then I went to business school. I became more analytical, less skilled, abandoned the labor theory of value, lost my commitment, and became someone who no longer identified with either political economy. I can’t say that I’m reformed now. But this morning I was reading "Toward a Rational Society" and began to think along those lines again.

During a recent chat the flatmate said to me, “I think what we need is class warfare.” I can’t say I vehemently disagreed. We have been close to this before.

I've seen loiterers and beggars picked up off the streets of Poes Garden for simply wandering in there. The sweepers do a better job in the newer parts of the city than the old. Roads being laid, people being evicted to create space for a mall, restaurants with separate dining areas for the nannies of little children, traffic tickers being waived for cars with fancy number plates. The oligopoly is definitely in control. If it's not, then it's well on it's way becoming the new normal, not necessarily the greatest good for the greatest number.

Now I’m not saying I am done with my list of places to bring my handy box of matches to (I’d have to through my office pretty early on in the revolution). But I have gotten down to writing about it. And, that's a start.

That’s what the economy has done to me. What’s it done to you?

Momentary Relapse of Reason

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

~Kurt Vonnegut

So... They call you the bard.

**** Adapted up from random blogs ****

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. This is what they'd have me do.

"Look at the list and bold those you have read.

Mark in blue those you intend to read.

Mark in RED the books you LOVE.

Reprint this list in your own blog.

Having seen the movie/cartoon/TV series is not the same as having read the book.

This is my list."

** My own categories

Green - books started, never finished.

Amber - book names that I was better off not converting to Bold

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling

23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling

24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling

25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

27. Middlemarch, George Eliot

28. Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving

29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck

30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson

32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett

34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

37. Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute

38. Persuasion, Jane Austen

39. Dune, Frank Herbert

40. Emma, Jane Austen

41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

42. Watership Down, Richard Adams

43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

46. Animal Farm, George Orwell

47. Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck

53. The Stand, Stephen King

54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

55. Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

56. The BFG, Roald Dahl

57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome

58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell

59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer

60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman

62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden

63. Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough

65. Mort, Terry Pratchett

66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

67. The Magus, John Fowles

68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding

71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind

72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell

73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

74. Matilda, Roald Dahl

75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding

76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt

77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins

78. Ulysses, James Joyce

79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson

81. The Twits, Roald Dahl

82. Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith

83. Holes, Louis Sachar

84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson

87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

89. Magician, Raymond E Feist

90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac

91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo

92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel

93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett

94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

95. Katherine, Anya Seton

96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer

97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez

98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson

99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Yeah, I suck big time. But I'm better than the average adult..... That's new.

The blunder Down Under

Love ain't enough.

Hehe... Most certainly not.

Roads to Safe Places

"Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.

First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.

Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.

Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told."

— Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind)

Why

I feel like this old notepad with a single scribbled page torn out of it.

I remember tearing it out, but I cant seem to figure out why it had to be done.

Mission accomplished I guess.

There and Back Again

The last week was mostly spent being spontaneously and getting together and with friends making plans so vague its unbelievable, and still pulling off some of the best nights we've had in a long time. Its been a great shift from my normal self as my mates laid back enough it took a load of pressure off for some reason I'm no sure i can explain properly.

In the last few days I've been in a 6 am party, a quiz show, the queer parade and the front row of the smallest movie theater for nights out. Granted, some of that was just because the damned Delhi government decides to load shed from 9-11 every night around where I live, but that's besides the point.

Anyways, here's to a more laid back tomorrow!!

Writing a new Homeland

Why does everyone keep telling me that time heals all wounds. I cannot agree.

The wounds will remain. All the defects and gaps that the mind has are like the bruises on the body. After all imaginable care has been taken, a scar would still be left behind.

In time, the mind protecting its sanity covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens.

But it is never gone.

The first day of the rest of my life.

As we grow older, we acquire the desire to be taken seriously. Happens around the age of 25. Almost certainly at the age of 25 every starlet wants to do a character role, every theater artist wants to do a comedy, and every long haired punk wants to cut his hair and get a job. That's the way we are built. So as I see my birthday approaching on the horizon, I am thinking - maybe, I should do something important in my life. Start my company, see the world, make some money.

Aha. Except on my 25th birthday I get to know that I am being promoted and sent to a new city heading a set of people, lots of responsibility, yadda yadda yadda. So my new job takes me all the way from Madras, TN to Hyderabad, AP where I am to fight the last battle for a completely decimated soft drinks company. And I thought to myself - fuck it ! This is brilliant. I can have fun doing this. And I carried on for another year of my life. And then the 26th birthday loomed ahead - It hit me like a train. I thought to myself, I am a grown-up now. An adult even. I want to get serious. I want to start a company. And since the only companies that seem to get started around me have things to do with computers, I thought, I should start by changing my job.

So I rang up my friends and apprised them of this epic decision. These friends however, were not bright. They took me seriously. They immediately set up these meetings for me. They rang me back a week later telling me, warning me, lauding me for the plunge I hadn't yet taken.

Somewhere along the line my dad's friend S gets in to the fray too. S works for a Staffing company, one of the largest in South Asia or so. S set me up for a meeting with R who was some hotshot head hunter for a software company H. That man again was not very bright. He also took the idea of me changing industries seriously.

So I am in a meeting with R and S, both having taken the idea of me being responsible seriously. In some weird way, it appealed to me. I was going to be 26. I wanted to be taken seriously. It was good. And R who was quite old yet quite sprightly, looks at me in that "I understand exactly how difficult it is to be doing what you are" as he shakes my hand.

And that's when R tells me the magic words. "X, this is very hard work. It is just you, your imagination and a computer. Are you really sure you can put the hours in?". And I gush eloquence. I was going to be 26 after all. And as my eyes bored in to R's cherubic little face, he crumbled. He made me an offer. And at that point of time I didn't even think it was a bad one.

The best part of the entire deal was that these people at H gave me money upfront. And I was like wow, this won't get me working. The bright lights in my head are now doing a musical. These people were willing to pay me money for doing something I have no idea about even before I had done any of the doing of it. The best I have ever been able to come up with to explain that was:

R wasn't very bright. Or that S was very good.

So two months later, I was in yet another new city, stars in my eyes, money in the bank and in front of a computer trying to figure it all out. And man, it was hard work. I had no idea.

I have never been the most motivated man in the world. Whenever, there has been work at hand to do, all the things I have to do in life seem so much more important. Its all very distracting. But this time around it was far worse. It was supposed to be just me, myself and the computer. But that was not strictly speaking true. My computer is attached to the Internet. And the Internet contains everything in the whole wide world ever. And I have always found everything in the whole wide a tad distracting.

This is where I probably tell you that I didn't get much work done that day, or the next, or the next after that.

Thrice-Removed from Reality: Blogging ... With the XBox

360voice.gamerdna.com is the portal that sets up a blog based on your XBox GamerTag - and posts a daily blog as the voice of your Xbox 360. You don't have to do anything other than register your tag, but the results are really really good.

Every night, 360voice would check your GamerTag for new achievements or games played, and write a little post from its perspective. Let me tell you why this beats sliced bread... Other Xboxes would leave comments on your posts, ridiculing you, praising you, loving you, hating you. So there is this whole ecosystem of computers talking about you - and you don't even have to worry about spellings anymore... Yaayy.

The funniest part was that right after I registered, about two weeks ago -- I couldn't play for several days. So, every day that I was gone, my Xbox whined and moaned that nobody played any games. If you want a short geeky laugh, check it out. And your Xbox is not alone. Other machines are blogging too.

So, if you have an Xbox 360 (and why wouldn't you?) -- you should register your tag, and let the chuckles begin.

---------------------- Excerpts from some chap called Fshguy ----------------------

(Yeah, like I am going to ever give my nick away. )

Fshguy's Xbox - Jun 1 2009

Fshguy decided to game yesterday and we rocked out like the three musketeers, except there were only two of us... 131,011 points of total gamerscore and counting... That is a boost of 100 points over last time! Welcome to 131,000!! He played Burnout Paradise acquiring 3 achievements, Madagascar 2, FIFA 09, and I thought Fshguy injured himself in the process... but I was wrong... he lives to fight another day!

Oh BTW, did you know that Fshguy is competing in a gamerscore challenge? Follow every up and down over here. There are 202 other people rocking out on this thing which keeps it fun. Currently Fshguy is hanging on to the number 83 spot. But, there are still 4 long days left! We need to keep heading for the top!

Fshguy's Weekly Recap - May 25 2009

Ok, here it is... your weekly recap of gaming: Not two, not five, but SEVEN days of gaming in a row! Last week was as solid as it gets when it comes to Fshguy throwing down with the games. We added 525 points of gamerscore. Good stuff! Who knew 26 achievements could be worth that much? Ok I knew that...

I could go on and on with the stats, but that is enough.

Fshguy's Xbox - May 23 2009

Fshguy needed a friend like me yesterday... I could see it in his eyes. I am there for you brother. Remember that. Gamer score is 130,671. That is an increase of 20 points over last time! He rocked out to Prince of Persia winning 1 achievement, Burnout Paradise, and that was that.

Fshguy's Xbox - May 18 2009

You would think I had died and gone to heaven when Fshguy showed up to play. Another day, another barrier shattered. The 130,000 mark has been crossed! He opened up Disney Sing It HSM3 finishing 4 achievements to finish the game, NFS Undercover finishing an amazing 14 achievements, and I thought Fshguy injured himself in the process... but I was wrong... he lives to fight another day! Also of note, Fshguy and I have now played 240 days in a row! Are we rock stars or what? No one feels more loved than me right now... no one!

---------------------- ************************************ ----------------------

Xbox360's of the world, you now have a voice !!!

My work here is done.

How do you creep under my skin so easily?

I was tired to the bone. After some barefooted squash. That was a day earlier and I still could hardly keep my eyes open. But I listened and laughed anyway... Hell, she could have been reading the telephone directory aloud and I would have been enthralled. Looking. Trying to keep up. Eventually, she laid down and fell asleep, and I just laid there and stared for a while.

She has this tiny little scar on her face and a light frown as she lay there, and I remember her sleeping all curled up with her head resting on her shoulder and her hand nuzzled under her. I just sat there as quiet as I could be while she slept.

After about two hours, she woke up, and opened her eyes and asked me something about the world we live in, along the lines of what I learnt sometime in geography 7th grade. She did impulsive things like that all the time... She made me want to run out and learn all the secrets of the universe just so I could come back and answer all her questions. I however ended up sputtering my way through "I don't know, but I guess something blah blah ummm ... blah.". Then I remember she looked up at the ceiling for a minute, like she was thinking about something, then she turned back to me again, smiled, and said "Do you want to kiss me?".

Do I ?

I couldn't manage to say a "yes", but I think I was able to manage a nod, then I reached over & pulled her to me and I kissed her. It was amazing;

Then, all of a sudden, she stopped. She looked up at me and amidst this torrent of thoughts running in my head, one stood out.

"I have a girlfriend".

Close Encounters of the Mundane Kind

I hate cleaning you house.

Why the hell do you get so dirty? And more so, damn you kitchen. I hardly cook in there, I simply store food, thaw food, break the occasional egg. What is that stain on the bottom shelf? Do the little creatures have parties in here when I'm sleeping or something? Nasty little critters. And, for some reason, I feel really, really vulnerable when I'm bent over, scrubbing your gross shelves. Don't know why. So thank you for keeping my beer cold, but damn you for making a mess of it.

Damn you, paying bills. Every god damned month? I barely even watched TV this month, I still gotta shell out all that cash? And, while I'm at it phone companies - damn your pathetic little late fees. They're small enough for me to easily ignore them but they add up over time. So thank you for the electricity, credit and Internet, but fuck you for your constant demands.

Damn you, light bulbs. It's 2009. I was irritated when I wasn't issued my jetpack in 2000 (where's my bloody raygun ?!? ), but I figured by now technology would've at least advanced to the point where I don't have to stand on my wobbly chair and deal with this. Bonus damn yous for scaring the crap out of me when I walk into a darkened room, innocently flick the switch and get momentarily blinded by that huge flash and terrifying pop! Also, for somehow convincing your light bulb brethren to join you, causing a chain reaction that means I'm filled with fear whenever I turn on a light. Smash! Smash! Smash! What, did you all join in a suicide pact? Bastards.

Damn you, washing dishes. Yes, I know, you smell funny, and I know the longer I wait, the slimy stuff is just gonna get weirder as they accumulate on you. That's why I've pretty much switched to just eating off the dishes and eating with my hands. I'm a caveman in an apartment.

Maybe I should just get off trying to work and watch mindless television. Life goes on.

Daughters of Hades

The swampy, marshy southernmost regions of The Ncr are year-round breeding grounds for these damned mosquitoes.

There might be a few weeks of sweet reprieve from the vicious, bloodsucking pests in December or January, when temperatures occasionally dip low enough to kill off the state bird of Uttar Pradesh. Other than that, you've got no choice but to cover up every patch of skin before stepping outside and invest in SC Johnson products by the dozens when you're hosting a gathering at home. Fending off mosquito attacks is a part of daily life.

Office is particularly bad today. Some not-quite-bright support staff must have left a window open. The place is teeming with hordes of vermin. Stepping outside into the muggy air this morning, I lit my cigarette and joined a small group of fellow workers congregating in the designated area. A guy who reminds me of Silvio Berlusconi used his to motion toward a mammoth mosquito hovering near me. That's a big one. A big male. Won't bite you. The males don't bite. That's his statement.

Another guy, one of the young and bright from Solutions, chimed in. But it has a stinger. So it still bites, right? Otherwise, it wouldn't have it. His know-it-all grin drips with rhetoric.

The smoke-wielding Berlusconi again said that only female mosquitoes suck blood, using it to nourish their eggs.

I exhaled, crushed my cigarette out on the filthy bin, and nodded farewell to my smoking buddies.

Age before beauty, isn't that how the saying goes? Berlusconi, even surrounded by his cheap smelling smoke, was right.

From Wiki:

Both male and female mosquitoes are nectar feeders, but the females of many species are also capable of hematophagy (drinking blood). Females do not require blood for their own survival, but they do need supplemental substances such as protein and iron to develop eggs. Mosquitoes are crepuscular (dawn or dusk) feeders. During the heat of the day most mosquitoes rest in a cool place and wait for the evenings. They may still bite if disturbed. Mosquitoes are adept at infiltration and have been known to find their way into residences via deactivated air conditioning units.

And...

Males live for about a week, feeding on nectar and other sources of sugar. Females will also feed on sugar sources for energy but usually require a blood meal for the development of eggs. After obtaining a full blood meal, the female will rest for a few days while the blood is digested and eggs are developed. This process depends on the temperature but usually takes 2–3 days in tropical conditions. Once the eggs are fully developed, the female lays them and resumes host seeking.

Damnation! All those times I was covered from head to toe with the small, misshapen welts from the devil mosquito - Every single one of them was from a female ?

Those bloodsucking, traitorous bitches.

Currently Listening to - Fuel - Hemmorhage (In my hands)

How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?

Four.

Currently Listening to - Naah... you already know now.

Jazz is Gay

Overheard at last week's party. I was waiting in line for refilling my drink, clutching neon coloured cups, and discussing setting one up of our friends up with someone else. And the following conversation ensued.

Slightly drunk guy: Why don't we set him up with Jazz?

Pretty-but-smashed Girl: JAZZ IS GAY!

SDG: Oh right

Irate Guy Who Just Heard the Tail End of Conversation: How dare you say that? Everyone can appreciate jazz. Not just gay people and for you to say that jazz is gay is so small minded. What is your problem.

PBSUG: We meant our friend NAMED Jazz is gay.

IGWJHTTEOC: Oh.....

In any case while Jazz is gay, our friend's sexuality remains to be seen though.

Currently Listening to - Black Sabbath - N.I.B. (Hence all the acronyming)

Acting my age, not my shoe size

Why are these the only thoughts going through my head as I sit through what ought to be a busy day at work.

1. Should I work with chemicals and hot liquids so much that i could be like that guy from the once popular video game Thief (who is a thief, gosh, surprise!)

2. Shouldn't I sleep on my arm so it goes numb and then upon awakening, i can pretend that someone else is holding me, as it lies dead across my chest.

3. Yesterday i learnt to balance an egg on its tip. One of those life skills that you need to know.

4. That's one damn ugly mirror I'm looking at. Not been a good week for sleep.

5. Think carefully for something impulsive to do.

6. If Androids someday do decide to dream of Electric Sheep, don't forget to declare SheepCount as a LongInt. (XKCD - I hate you for putting that in my head)

7. How do I clone yesterday and call it tomorrow.

8. On a lazy drive to work, why do the clouds mock the way of a perfect view to a perfect day.

9. I could be a millionaire, if i could only stream my consciousness.

10. Where did i put my keys.

I'd have to be acting between almost 26 instead of in between of a ten and eleven...... that's probably where my mentality and my feet sizes are right now. Well, not right now. I don't know what just happened, but i feel my age. Everyone worries about ageing..... About leaving the teen years behind them, then apparently life started at 21. And the variations of the same that come to pass.

I read this somewhere once.

When your young you don't care what the world thinks of you. Then you grow up and start to worry a bit what it thinks. Finally you realise that in fact, it just doesn't think about you.

It was probably more eloquently written originally, and my bastardisation has watered it down.

Currently Listening to - M.I.A - Paper Planes (should probably explain the entropy above)

I broke the Set, There are now only Singles

Either I got too tired, had a presentation to make or I just wasn't doing the right things and so these will never develop. Abstract modern literature or a chance to organise my writings. These may never be anything so I thought I'd give some of them a little hope by putting them up here.

The night was mildly pleasant and the waves crashing on to the stones were vaguely calming. She didn't think too much as she sat down on the bench next to him. The man, who had been staring at the ground willing the grass to grow, turned to see if he knew her. He met her quizzical eyes halfway and held her gaze. They had stared too long now, to not say anything.

“Hi” she starts.

“Hey”

She leaned forward and further scrutinized him. He was quite visibly unnerved.

“Your eyes. They're are watering” she pointed out. She really didnt want to say that.

“Its warm” he replied as he turned away.

“It’s December”. She said it before she could stop herself.

“Yeah well, global warming and all that.”

She laughed quite pleasantly surprised. “Well, as long as you’re okay”

He nodded and gives her a thin wan smile, before promptly returning to his staring contest with the intangible.

Fair enough, she thought.

Presently a jogger came by, illuminated intermittently as he passed each streetlight. He paused when he saw her. He walked up to the bench and spoke. “Hey D, hows it going?” he said, breathing heavily.

“I’m pretty good K, thanks. You?”

“Good, good. But look, I’m sorry, I have to keep on track with my regime. I’ll speak to you in a while. Ok?” he turned and walked off.

“I haven't finsihed reading your book yet” she called to his retreating back. K waved back with a chuckle.

She turned and saw the man who had been watching this exchange. “Jealous?” she asked

“Envious actually. That was one fit chap.”

“Did you see his chiselled jaw?”

“I was too busy noticing the sweat that he spilt on the pavement, but he is certainly quite the Adonis.”

“I could introduce you two…”

“I’m a poor swimmer. I’d drown in those eyes of his”

They paused in their verbal jousting to assess the situation. Two people carefully weighing the other up. A pause, poignantly pregnant enough to demand it be cut short. It was him that spoke first.

“So, D is it?”

“It is. Plain old D”

“So, what brings you out to this corner of the beach, plain old D?”

“Well, the fact that it is a fine day for one thing” she said airily. Then she gave him a serious look “And I think I can guess why you’re here”

“Ummm.”

You’re dressed smartly wearing all black, even a coat, with your eyes watering”

“From the heat”

“I think it a safe bet that it might have bee a wedding you were at. Were you close?”

“We…were”. He fumbled.

She launched in with admonishment brandishing from her lips. “It’s always hard to lose somebody close to you. Ummm, I have. And felt… broken, for a long, long time. There’s no real advice to give or words to help. Just try and distract yourself with your favourite things”

He gave her an incredibly wry look “Unfortunately my favourite thing involves a woman”. His attempt to cut her off.

She returned his look non-plussed “And dare I ask the specifics.”

“It has a stupid name that does it no justice at all. The only way you could understand is if I show you.” He wanted her to stop. Why wouldn't she just let him be.

“Does it involve your hands, or mouth or ... midsection?”

“No, no and no.” He couldn't help but smile.

She took a deep breath and said “Fine, at the risk of disappointing feminists everywhere.... Show me.”

He reached over. Moved a step closer. He slowly and carefully lowered his head to hers and rested it against her forehead. The bridges of their noses touched and formed a link between them and their eyes, inches apart, stared long and deep. His watering but never quite tearing. Hers staring steadfast. Then he lowered his head still further so it rested on her short hair and their cheeks met. She felt him breath slow and steady and hot into her ear.

And just like that he pulled away, fresh stubble scratching her face in the retreat.

“Sorry.”

“That’s ok,” she said presently.

“I was thinking about K’s bulging abs at the time”

She smiled “That would explain the other bulge then” she said, pointing down.

He looked confused but then his eyes went wide as he realised the implication. “Hey, that’s just Paranoid Android” he said hurriedly.

She gave him a stern look. In response he tried to pull it out. Her look turned sterner. But he persevered and held before her eyes an old clunky IPod.

“Paranoid Android” he said.

“You named your IPod Paranoid Android?”

“Yup”

“Why?”

“Well, I guess I could make some techie crack about apple designers, but mainly because like the track it helps me stop the noise from the voices in my head when I'm trying to get some rest.”

“Ahhhh” Another look followed. A much warmer one.

She stooped to pick something from her bag and turned to the side for discretion. Then she turned back to him and presented it to him. It was a used ticket. Perplexed he went to take it, but she closed her hand into a fist “You know my name, only fair if I learn yours” she said.

“J”

“Like the actor J*?”

“Like him” he said, putting P.Android away.

“Well J like the actor J*, I’m afraid I have to be somewhere right now, but I will take a chance here and give you this” she handed him the ticket. Then she got up and said “Goodbye”.

“Bye”.

She walked away. Didn't look back.

J opened his hand and examined the bus ticket. It had her number on it. He looked at it for a long time. Then he held his palm open in the air and let the sea wind take it from him. He went back to staring at the grass. It hadn't changed a lot.

A long time later J arrived back at his friends flat, four streets away. The walk home had done nothing to disprove his theory that P.Android had achieved sentience. On shuffle it had played RHCP's Under the Bridge, Incubus' I miss you and Radiohead’s How to Disappear Completely. He fumbled at the door, patted his pants and the coat for his keys when something small blew up against the door. It looked like a ticket. In fact it was a ticket, with a phone number on it.

He was cynical enough to assume it could be anyone’s, but still you did not argue with shit like this. He pulled out his phone and saved the number. When saw that he had also received a text. "J, why aren't you at the wedding anymore???” It said.

And just like that, P.A. started with Tal Bachman's She's so High.

It’s a nice day. Maybe there is hope.

A 100 random things about me.... Thats four times 25... Ha!

Enough people have asked me to make mine. So here it is - Four times the vengeance. Half the fun.

1. I share my birthday with Monica Bellucci, Pope Nicholas IV and The International Translation Day.

2. One day I would like to be next to a glacier on my birthday.

3. I have no dogs and cats tend to creep me out.

4. I have darling sisters though.

5. I am the oldest.

6. Two of my great grandmothers lived to 90.

7. I am right-handed. I have so wished otherwise.

8. I hate being tickled - it’s torture.

9. My favourite colours are silver & blue.

10. I once wrote a screenplay.

11. It was, of course, semi-autographical.

12. I used to write for a magazine before there were blogs.

13. I have black hair and eyes.

14. I watch far too many TV shows on the computer.

15. I have created the empirically proven mathematical formula:

me + distracted = bad

16. I wore glasses since I was 6.

17. I will not give up my anime or my comics.

18. The much larger percentage of what I write is never read by anyone else.

19. I have a hard time admitting when I’m wrong, especially to those that matter.

20. My energy level is never very predictable. I never know how productive I’m going to be. I work in very efficient spurts, but then I’m quite disproportionately fatigued.

21. The first thing I notice about people’s faces is the angle that they keep their heads.

22. My favorite drink, besides chocolate drinks (especially Boost) is American Bourbon - Jim Beam Black Label, if you insist.

23. While in Hyd, a friend owned this classy restaurant, which appeared in some movie starring Kangana Ranaut (I was there when they filmed it.) This was also the friend who used to be a systems analyst for a stock broker at the World Trade Center, on one of the upper floors. He had called in sick on September 11, 2001.

24. Surprisingly I won a handwriting competition in the 3rd grade.

25. My favorite color is green, though I don’t wear anything that color.

26. I am a ray of sunshine (to some people)

27. I can recite one poem.

28. I have one tattoo. Long story.

29. I wounded a cat with a bow and arrow once (mostly the arrow). Was quite unintentional.

30. I have never been to a strip club.

31. I have been invited to a gay party. Short story.

32. I hate wearing jewelry, now i am forced to wear a chain.

33. My first job was to teach innocent kids, to get them to pass a test.

34. My last year of high school I wanted to be a researcher or an architect.

35. I am neither. Am getting there.

36. I have been arrested.

37. I was born with my tongue stuck to my lower palette. Yup, I had surgery for that when I was two. I can't help but still slur sometimes.

38. I have always wanted a photographic memory.

39. As a child I played with matches and burnt most of somebody's garden.

40. I have always loved British parodies and I don’t know why.

41. I seem to get younger as I get older. I was a little old as a child.

42. When I was in kindergarten, I had this huge crush on a girl. She loved the attention, but her best friend at the time took a dislike to me, and kicked me in the balls during recess once. (Talk about a “crush”)

43. I love it when I am able to play different roles with different people to finally make things fall in place.

44. I was a Scout for a short time. The NCC never was actually for me.

45. I used to love climbing trees. I once fell from a tree about 20 feet high when I was seven years old. Was largely unhurt. The mangoes that we had piled below broke the fall.

46. Alcohol is the answer for most other problems (thank you Homer Simpson)

47. I fired several people when I was a manager.

48. I once hitched a ride in the back of a milk truck.

49. I love things that glow in the dark.

50. I have a certified black belt in Karate. Been fractured twice. Returned the favour five times. At least.

51. I am half pure tam, other half pseudo tam-mal. I still wont touch seafood.

52. I own land of my own. All by myself. Ha.

53. I love to be bored.

54. I have played in real, natural snow only twice.

55. The first real concert I ever saw was Diana King, and I had won the tickets from a quiz on the All India Radio. A neighbor took me for the show.

56. My seventh-grade Hindi teacher taught me that if there was anyone who has a direct pipeline to hell, it’s her.

57. I have known my closest friend since I was 11.

58. When they disagree, I tend to side with my mom, but I actually think my dad is right most of the time.

59. I have never had a stay in the hospital or broken a bone in the last 14 years.

60. I have not had any body parts removed, except for wisdom teeth. Ow!

61. I was very disappointed with the x-ray glasses I sent for from the back of a comic book.

62. I tend to listen to male singers.

63. I talk to myself.

64. I don’t do well talking about myself.

65. I was a damned good student till school.

66. I am the king at constructing scenarios.

67. I'm still dreaming of writing my own book where I can inspire, touch and influence lives,

68. I sometimes wonder if the world will ever get my weird set of ethics.

69. I’m obsessive-compulsive about the useless little things, but completely clueless about really big things. Think it's some coping mechanism.

70. A former babysitter of mine got a bit of a crush on me when I came of age, but I was still living at in my old home with my parents in a flat. She'd throw pebbles at my bedroom window so I'd meet her outside. It didn't really work.

71. I’m better at expressing my true feelings and opinions in writing than in person.

72. I can talk a lot or not at all, depending on how interesting I find the company.

73. I used to have a sacred blanket.

74. For a long, long time my default ringtone was The Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil".

75. I still own the silver pulsar. It sports alloy wheels, wider tyres and a two piece handle bar. I am never selling.

76. I hate people who are jealous or complain all the time.

77. I think the internet is a truly brillaint place to learn anything. I now know more on most topics that I ever thought existed. I dream of being self-sufficient.

78. I love to sing, but I wish I was any good at it, and I’d love to learn to play an instrument. A sax maybe. Yeah.

79. I am constantly writing lists.

80. My best friend in elementary school from the 2nd through the 5th grade moved away and I have never seen him since.

81. I still see my mom making dosas on the same pan after 25 years.

82. I feel the most comfortable in formal clothes.

83. I am against children having to study long hours so early in life.

84. I truly believe the world lost one of its greatest actors when Heath overdosed.

85. I am a little bit paranoid about who's looking at me right now.

86. I have driven cross country by myself. (1400 kms on a bike)

87. I have to return quite a few books.

88. Since the time I could remember, I did not fly on a commercial airline until after I graduated from college and had to go for a b school interview.

89. I love my xbox.

90. I like where I live.

91. I have very strange dreams.

92. I am working on my million dollar idea. I wish it'd work for me.

93. I have had more crushes than I can count.

94. I cannot mimic a soul. My impersonations of myself aren't quite convincing.

95. I think myself to be a good person but I haven’t always done what’s right.

96. I’m a ridiculous procrastinator. Instance, I actually meant to post this last week.

97. Bhaskar is to blame for setting me on this list.

98. It was so hard to think up all of these things about myself. I have managed to kill a sunday.

99. I have secrets that I'm not telling here.

100. Though there was a time I never thought it was going to be possible, I'm happy with my life.

Packing things away, Life should go on - Pt iii

Jan 31,2009

The Acoustics

Sometimes I swear I can hear you, in the wrinkles of clothes, in the hum of radios, in the mold slowly forming on unused t-shirts. I swear it. It’s there in my battered, torn shoes left to dry. It’s in my phone and my computer. It’s in the musty pages of old books and in empty deodorant cans. I hear you most when I climb into an unmade bed and feel the hairs on the sheets.

It’s there when I sort the clothes into the right position and in the soft, sagging folds I can hear “It’s wrong! It’s all wrong!” in that naturally cute voice of distress. It’s in the cigarettes over coffee and in the mirror where your grumpy face lingers in a shadow before realising your feelings and casting aside all maladies in a damp hug against the door.

It’s in the songs on the pod and in the sheets upon sheets of paper folded neatly in their envelopes hidden in my drawers. The chirrup of a phone. The pixels of an image. I hear it everywhere and nowhere. I can hear your voice in all these things but what I want is to hear your voice in my ear as I fall asleep and come home from work and sit hunched over this keyboard with fingers whirring at useless, random thoughts and in my bed telling me that it’s wrong, it’s all wrong until I make it right again and you fall asleep and grind your teeth at dreams to come.

January 17, 2009

The life and adventures of Bourbon

I was in a terrible place for a while. Lets not get into the details on that, lets just say that it was a low point. The past two months have been shaky to say the least, but they’re over. Now I am back. Hello.

I made a conscious decision on Tuesday. It happened when I woke up at six-thirty instead of eight and I had almost two hours to do nothing. I decided that I don’t really want to be doing the same anymore. It’s a good image I’ll admit; sitting in bars with friends having drink after drink and looking all the more haggard because you did the same the night before. And then the night before. But image isn’t everything. Last weekend I had so little sleep and so much alcohol that most of my memories of it are gone. I can pick bits and pieces, but they’re hazy at best. I felt like I was destroying myself a little bit.

Maybe I did, I don’t know, but I decided to stop.

And that’s what Tuesday was about. Tuesday was about setting things right, with everything. And it worked to an extent. Of course not everything was fixed and who knows maybe more problems have arisen, but things felt a hell of a lot better.

Anyway, I thought I’d break with the tradition of my usual veiled entries and just come out and say it; I am alright. I’m not overly ecstatic and I’m not down and out. I’m doing fine. This means that people can leave me alone in a room without showering me with protection, but it doesn’t mean you can abandon me or stifle me with affection. I am OK.

So there we go, lets resume regular programming.

Jan 11, 2009

Mancold Martyr

I’ve been sitting it out far too long at home sick as hell for the past few days so I thought I’d recount some of the titles I’ve watched. And other things.

First up is the much too short Afro Samurai which I will thrust down people throats. The only problem that I’d bring to figure would be the appalling lip-syncing. It’s as if Samuel Jackson looked at his characters and said “Fuck it, there shouldn't be no mother fuckin’ restrictions on my mother fuckin’ lines”. So there’s the occasional weird scene when the anime character is shouting and good old Samuel is whispering something. Other than that everything was seamless. I watched it over two days with the flatmate (God bless his soul for recommending it in the first place) and I really wished I could’ve watched it in one. The animation was seamless, the action perfect. And the teddy bear samurai- I liked him better when he didn’t take off his mask but he was yet brilliant.

Another on the anime list would be the Samurai Champloo series which I’ve laughed at so many times just because it’s slang for orgasm. It’s a classic series, made by the same people and (roughly) at the same time as Cowboy Bebop, and it’s occasionally quite ridiculous. The series is a cross-genre work of media, blending the action and samurai genres with elements of non-slapstick comedy. It is also a period piece, taking place during Japan's Edo period. The series is interwoven with revisionist historical facts and anachronistic elements of mise-en-scene, dialogue and soundtrack. The series' most frequent anachronism is its use of elements of hip hop culture, particularly rap and the music it has influenced, break dancing, turntablism, hip hop slang, and graffiti. The show also contains anachronistic elements from the punk subculture and modernism, but less prominently.

Took another run at Donnie Darko the other day. I forget how much I love that flick. I think it’s not just the amazing cast, but also the overall art nouveau style and noire-ish sentiment with whip cracking dialogue that makes it worthwhile.

January 4, 2009

Untitled

Lets take a second here. Just a second.

I had a good day yesterday (if you take away the sole reason which made it not a good day, but we won’t go into that)

December 30, 2008

A Long December

A long December, and there's reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better than the last

I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin'

Now the days go by so fast

- Counting Crows

Dec 7, 2008

The Dopes of Haphhazzard

I’m gonna pull you in close,

Gonna wrap you up tight,

Gonna play with the tips

that you came in here with tonight.

I’m gonna light your face,

blow circles as things fall back in place.

I can’t remember the last time I got high. I just have this one memory of one fantastic time. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe from laughing. I danced and the footage is still doing the rounds. I woke up with cotton mouth and a cut on my forehead.

Dec 6, 2008

Blot out the light and the world drops away

Morning. Slivers of light descry around the edges of the blinds and assault my eyelids. I roll away onto my right, away from the clock on the phone that digitally chips away at my remaining time. Probing fingers count the bruises on my legs, pressing each one gently until I wince. I find three new ones and one new dent where my leg had yielded against the jutting keys in the filing cabinet. Absently I pick the skin off my fingertips and count the hours to work.

I'm safe at three.

Packing things away, Life should go on - Pt ii

November 27, 2008

Untitled

So you see there’s this guy, and he’s with his girlfriend on the bus (where I seem to encounter a few interesting people these days) and they’re having an argument or a discussion or something. I can’t tell from where I’m sitting. What I can tell, right, is that the girl’s mad at the guy or concerned at the guy or something. Basically she’s the one that’s in some form of distress. Now, this damsel is giving him the works; concerned frown, short, quick gestures with her hands and a little bit of hope lingering on her lips.

The guy though - this swooping knight in shining armour that’s supposed to rescue her or something - he’s just like sitting there confused. He’s got a little frown too, but it’s a frown like he doesn’t know what to do.

I can sympathise.

November 22, 2008

The Short Life

I swallowed this little flying piece of pestilence this morning. The vermin wasn't a particularly large bug, perhaps the size of a fly or a gnat, but I'm pretty sure it was neither. The consistency was far more chewy than that of either the gnat or the fly. I suspect that a gnat would crunch under the pressure of my carnivorous jaws.

However, I know for certain that a fly would merely dissolve in my mouth, that I would barely be able to recognize that a living fly had entered my mouth and begun the long digestive trek that ends quite definitively in the digestive tracts. I've swallowed flies before, and the bug I swallowed this morning was not a fly.

I'm guessing that the thing I swallowed this morning was a hybrid of sorts, a bastard child. I don't think it could have been any other type, because this one fought like hell to survive the involuntary retchings of my throat. It probably had issues - huge, emotionally crippling issues in order to put up a fight as long as this one did. No ordinary fly would have known such coping techniques.

If the thing I swallowed this morning was in fact not this special bastard bug, but one of those unremarkable pure breds from a stable home with two supportive parents, I sincerely hope that the father doesn't come looking for me.

Note - None of the above was wanton... I have since been washing my mouth with soap, detergent, toothpaste, kitchen surface cleaners. Its a good thing I don't have to talk.

November 18, 2008

Untitled

So, I’m a room. It’s a big room, a little too big for my ..........

Oct 26, 2008

Keeping Pace

Every day the day gets brighter for those couple of minutes. Getting home from work now in the evenings is a little bit like being blind, and the only thing saving me is the high sidewalk keeping vehicles at bay. And after walking for 10 minutes, suddenly the bright light is slowly touching me - and I don’t have to be afraid for being hit by a share-rick or something.

“Hello”. It was the girl I tended to see whenever I cross the stadium. She jogs past me everyday, and for just a nanosecond our eyes meet each time and then she’s gone. But today she had stopped. And I’m standing still as well.

“Hello?” I said without really knowing why. “Um… I know this might sound strange but…. I was wondering what you are doing?” She looked so shy and afraid when she asked, almost like she’d been practising all day. “What I’m doing?” I asked shocked. Walking back to sector 21!

“It’s just that I see you on so often that I’ve starting to wonder where you’re on your way….”

All of a sudden I had the opportunity to say things like:

“There’s just so many girls in the city so I tend to use this as my area to get the work done. Selling myself here is so much safer than other places. Are you interested by the way?”

“I’m undercover. Please go away.”

“I'm trying out a new exercise regimen. It’s very secret.”

But since my mouth tends to run around faster than my brain, all I had was “Er…. I’m walking back home to Sector 21.” I said like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“But the sector is over there…” she pointed. Quite obviously, I had missed the turn. “Yeah I know…. I’m just ummm .... taking this route so that there is a little bit more light. I don’t like walking in the dark.”

And I found myself talking to a complete stranger who refuses to stop jogging even though I am walking really slowly.

September 30, 2008

When I write to haunt

Love and pithy verses you hear, say what you can't say.

All I shall have to say is, move on, and I'll stand by anyway.

From your changing contentments, what will you choose to share?

Someday drawing you different, may love be weaved into your hair.

Packing things away, Life should go on - Pt i

Narrator: The man with all the pretty words is Bourbon, known throughout the civilized world for his charm and quick wit. A smile is ready on his lips and lady fortune seems to smile back, along with countless other ladies. In the uncivilized, he is only known for the ladies.

Thankfully we all know that’s not true.

Hopefully by now we also all know that he posts ridiculous things on his blog - because it’s the Internet, and it’s not real. Everything sounds worse on the Internet. Times New Roman has always been a terrible way to communicate.

His blog however seems to have a lot of drafts. His blog is quite a drafty place. Here they are.

September 24, 2008

Here’s what happens when left to my Own Mechanised Devices

The days;

Read all my bookmarked google reader pages

Read all my comics

Watch tv for a bit

Contemplate watching a dvd

Read all my bookmarked google reader pages

Read all my comics

Read the blogs of those comic artists

Surf Wikipedia

Maybe make something to eat

But just maybe (omelette toast sandwich x1, yesterday's roti & subji x1 - if supplies grant it)

Smoke with my mp3 player on

Smoke with my mp3 player off

Do a sniff test

Maybe shower

Go to work

The nights;

Turn the geyser on

Forget that it’s on

Take out my list of things to do

Not be bothered to do anything on the list

Read all my bookmarked google reader pages

Read all my comics

Heat food

Wonder where I spent all my money

Tv surf

Read all my bookmarked google reader pages

Take laptop outside and experiment with music tastes

Smoke the rest (cigarettes 2 and 3 go over the lawn wall)

Try to blog

Maybe

Open notepad and write but get too bored

Watch songs on 9XM. Sometimes just so that I listen to "We are the Beaatle Nuts.... Meaning Paan Supaari"

Contemplate watching one of Roger's dvds

Don’t go to bed until i cant stand to stay awake

Brush teeth

Rinse face

Look in mirror

Read a few pages of a book before becoming bored

Sleep

Dream

Maybe

Sep 11, 2008

Weariness Kills

And cripples and hurts and maims. But mainly it kills. It kills a lot of good people.

It’s worse than alcohol really. Alcohol is not too good, I know, but it’s not as bad as being tired. Atleast being drunk lets you be loud and obnoxious and you do things you wouldn’t usually do, but when you’re tired your mind shuts down. Completely. The biggest regrets I can list in my life are things I’ve said or done when I’m tired.

But let me throw light on this weariness. It isn’t the eyes-burning-sluggish-red weary. It’s a whole different weariness altogether. It’s a weariness that takes hold when you’re about to fall asleep, or when you’ve just fallen asleep, and someone disturbs you. You say and do so many things because you are so bone-tired.

You can’t think. Images blur in lust.

August 30, 2008

Untitled

I have a new bus now. It’s better than the old one, in that it’s ten minutes faster and doesn’t go through those areas that makes me ashamed to be human.

The part I like the most about this new bus route though would be the walk I get when I step off it. My old bus deposited me in the centre of Noida, right beside a little shop that sold my brand and an ATM machine if I was low on change. And a bakery. Man, how I miss the bakeries from the South. That was nice too I guess.

But this new bus deposits me a good five minutes away from my old stop, right next to this quaint little momo shop.

Score.

For a long, long time . . . .

I was enraptured by books. I’d be lost in the lines and find myself in a place that even the writer couldn’t have imagined. Characters half formed creating universes in the sleepy shadows of my mind and sceneries melting into landscapes of watercolours in my eyes.

But then I started reading for sport. I’d read a page as fast as I could and test myself on its content. (Due to this I have the innate ability to see only a mere flash of a road sign and know every which direction it was pointing to, but let me not digress.)

(Back in school, I read the entirety of Lord of the rings (The Hobbit in toe) in under one week and received full marks on a quiz a good friend (Bala). I even picked up the names of sub-characters that were only restricted to a few paragraphs of text and the underlying prejudices and borderline Celtic references.)

But now it’s not quite the same. A lot different actually. I read solely for pleasure. I see a good book or I hear about a good book, and I read it. But I’m so utterly selective in my readings that coming across a truly unique book is a rare occurrence. I’m extremely judgmental about what I read, damning it to the three categories of Worthwhile, Easy, and I-should-finish-them-laters.

Whenever I see a book displayed in the window of a bookstore, I automatically assume that it is generic, available, ordinary, simple… Shit. It’s mainstream and I don’t do mainstream. This may eventually be one of my greatest downfalls as a wannabe-writer/hack/human being, but I don’t do mainstream. Sure, I’ll listen to a popular band, I’ll watch the latest block-buster, but you most definitely will not find a chick-lit or serial crime thriller on my bookshelf. The books I like are obscure, random, maybe even hard to find, possibly no longer in print; anything but mainstream.

And yeah the classic pieces of literature, cult-mainstream, and books studied at schools do not count as mainstream.

The whole idea of mainstream annoys me. Sure, there’s the chance of picking up a book that says things that no other mainstream book has touched on, that says something different compared to the endless lines of racism, sexism, terrorism, love, relationships or historically accurate characters. Maybe there’s a gem somewhere out there in the front row along with all the other colourfully decorated front covers where the name of the author is bigger than the title itself.

And it’s not just because of my self-serving, pompous attitude when I regale you with the stories of an obscure Canadian/African/Russian/Czech author, there’s a wholly deeper level to this altogether. You see, when it comes to reading books, I have a nasty habit of becoming the book. The florid writing and intriguing characters are absorbed into my mind and ebb out through my skin as the story unfolds. This is why when I read a depressing book, I feel depressed. Or when I read an anarchistic book, I want to create anarchy. Some of it passes, true, and I return to normal, but some of it stays with me and lingers in the cavity of my chest where it very well becomes a part of me.

And, as such, I don’t want some middle aged woman polluting what may very well be my soul with musings over boyfriends. I don’t want some little story that works itself out in the end with charming, happy little coincidences. I want tragedy. I want epiphanies. I want intriguing characters that develop in my mind and become me as much as I become them. I want to feel the world from under my covers. I’m too cowardly to have these feelings for myself, so I read books to grasp every nurturing drop of emotion that inflames my senses to a feeling I never knew I could experience.

So please, I beg you, if you recommend a book for God’s sake make it memorable. Otherwise there is a very good chance that I will move myself away from you for your poor taste in life.

(Also, on a completely separate note, when the hell will I write a post that goes on to say what the title does?)

A delicate tear in the fabric of . . . .

My heart plummets with my eyes as I spy a glimmer of white on a thing that should be nothing but blue. Confusion, shock, horror, desolation. Emotions ran wildly through my face, manipulating the muscles to convey the car wreck of thoughts I was experiencing. Cotton strands sprouted from the tear in the denims and I fingered it gently to see how bad the damage was. I wish I could say i got it by defending some poor old lady from a gang of knife wielding youths, or even grabbing someone out of the way of a speeding car and pulling them away in the process, but no; i snagged it on the nail that I have been promising myself to fix for the last three weeks. And so I held my pair of jeans, my prized possession of a six year and a half, and sobbed.

On the bright side of things, I am finding new uses for electrical tape.

"Where are all the Nice Guys?"

You must understand that I have spent the last week with far too many sisters and since then a couple of friends who seem to insist on popping the question with alarming regularity, so I thought I'd take a minute to explain things to the ladies out there that haven't figured it out.

The answer is simple: The likes of you happened to them.

Let me take you back in time, you just might vaguely remember that platonic guy pal who always seemed to want to spend time with you. He'd just stick around you when you went shopping, stop by your place for a movie when you were lonely but didn't feel like going out, or even sit there and hear you out while you sobbed and told him about how horribly the (other) guy that you were with treated you.

All this time, you are quite definitely joking with the girlfriends about how he is such a little puppy dog, always following you around, trying to do things to get you to pay attention to him. Then they most definitely did the entire teasing routine because they know he has this crush on you, and it was their god given right to let the world know. Given that his behavior was, admittedly, a little pathetic, you vehemently denied having any romantic feelings for him, and buttressed your position by claiming that you were "just friends." Besides, what else could he be? He was totally not your type - a little too short, or too bald, or too fat, or too poor, or couldn't retaliate well enough to scathing jokes at his expense or didn't know how to dress himself, or basically be or do any of the things that your tall, good-looking, fit, rich, stylish friends at the time pulled off with such ease.

Eventually, the platonic buddy drifted away, as your relationship with your new set of friend/ friends got more serious and spending time with him was a little chore that you endured. More time passed, and the rich, good looking friend eventually cheated on you, or became boring, or you realized that the things that attracted you to them weren't the kinds of things that made for a good, long-term relationship. So, now, you're single again, and after having tried variations of the same chaps for several testing months and having only encountered players or the ones that start to bore in time, you wonder, "Where are all the nice guys?"

Well, once again..... Let me just pass on this one.

You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind at least . You laughed at his consideration and resented his devotion. You valued the aloof boyfriend more than the attentive "just-a-" friend. Eventually, he took the hint and moved on with his life. He probably came to realize, one day, that women aren't really attracted to guys who hold doors open; or make dinners just because; or buy you a gift that you mentioned, in passing, that you really wanted five months ago; or listen when you're upset; or hold you when you cry. He came to realize that, if he wanted a woman like you, he'd have to act more like the boyfriend that you had. He probably cleaned up his look, started making some money, and generally acted like more of an asshole than he ever wanted to be.

Fact is, now, he's probably that suave thing you were looking for, and in some way, your ultimate rejection of him is to thank for that. But yeah, change isn't easy and the nice guy tends to shed his nice guy mantle and is out there looking to unleash his cynicism and resentment onto someone just like you.

Formerly The Nice Guy

(but I must say there is also the odd couple with those roles reversed... But then thats a wholly different rant and an actual peek in to my life)

Chivvy along, gentlemen.

(I love this chap - Andy Zaltzman. His zest for the game is only matched by my sheer ineptitude for it. Its probably a good thing to get a political satrist to come in and write up about the plaid-slow game that cricket is.

Go Wisden. )

	'No slower human movement has ever been officially recorded than that of two umpires sludging towards each other to confer over the light'

The Ricky Ponting over-rate controversy has been one of the more baffling episodes of recent times, but is something of a breakthrough for those who see slow play as one of the most inexcusable and avoidable blights on the game, a tedious tactic indulged for too long by the authorities.

Cricket has found some spectacular means of worsening its own product in recent times – the current craze for building stadiums which are inaccessible to those unable to paraglide, for example, or pitches as dead as WG Grace, or the rebranding of Bad Light to Mild Murk. Slow over-rates are proud members of this hall of shame, and it is curious that the fitter and more athletic players have become, the less able they have been to average one delivery every 40 seconds.

In my next blog, I will suggest some means of ensuring that over rates are crisp enough to prevent Gubby Allen spinning too dizzyingly in his grave. In the meantime, is it too much to ask for umpires to start setting a brisker example?

No slower human movement has ever been officially recorded than that of two umpires sludging towards each other to confer over the light, like a pair of amorous teenage tortoises unsure of whether to make the first move, or two unhappy commuters trying to miss the same train.

This is sometimes equalled by the funereal dawdle to co-examine the roundness of an allegedly-misshapen ball, as if this responsibility is a holy, god-given ritual as old as time itself, and the ball is a precious relic whose molecules must not be woken.

Such sloth might have been understandable in the olden days of cricket, when umpires were only allowed to stand when they had attained a sufficient age to guarantee that their eyesight had failed. Now, however, the game is officiated by primed, thrusting superathletes (or at least by fit and mostly youngish men who probably have gym memberships). And yet, at stages of matches when they might be expected to scurry urgently in the hope of providing an expectant crowd with maximum value for their considerable money, they seem to move as if they are adjusting tentatively to a brand new spinal cord.