I was recently educated about the expansion and the profound meaning of a term I've heard before. Also happens to be the name of a popular pub in Soho.

fubar.
Fu-Bar, the pub.

I thought that was quite clever.

Damn, I should write a book.
With, like, chapters and everything...

Mars and Venus

Men and Women are very, very different. Get used to it, it ain't gonna change anytime soon.

I recently read an entry on another blog about changing perceptions, the sexual revolution, and how they've affected women. It got me thinking. I did agree with a lot that lady said, and I really liked her perspective. I have a lot of respect for women who realise that men and women should not be compared on certain levels and that the whole "equality" thing is just a pile of crap.

I hope I can put all my ideas in a clear, logical manner (it all seemed so damn clear last night, in the 10 minutes before I fell asleep). Let's start with the women's lib movement. Its basic claim is that women are as good or better than men in any/all field(s). Am I the only one who feels this is an absolutely ridiculous notion? If it were the case, why have 2 sexes in the first place? Why wouldn't evolution have made us all equal, and capable of reproducing asexually? Because males and females are basically designed for different functions.

Neither sex is 'smarter' in an absolute sense. Men and women are equally intelligent and adept - just at different things. For example, women are basically not as good drivers as men(please don't bother arguing, it's a scientific fact). This is because women are not as good at judging spatial distances as men. Males developed this skill as a survival mechanism during the hunting-gathering stage. Males are better equipped genetically for things like driving. Yes, there are very good women drivers. But they are a sufficiently small percentage of driving women, and an even smaller percentage of women as a whole, to not be taken into account here.

Men are not as good cooks, home makers, or instinctual parents as women. Maternal instinct is such a bloody powerful thing. Mothers today still have it genetically, because the ancestral females had no other way of communication with the young offspring. That instinct is something men can never hope to develop. Do you see men looking at a baby and going 'Awwww..I want one of thooooseee!" No. But a woman might, because the instinct is already there and aroused at the presence of a young, helpless child. Cooking and home making come in the package deal. Now, some of the best chefs in the world are men, but by the same argument as earlier, they can be discounted.

There are many, many other things where this theory applies but I won't go into them - they just go into loop arguments. Let's just say that at an individual level, men and women are equal and deserve the same things. Happiness or satisfaction with one's life, for example.

For the survival and continuation of our species, we need families. Two parents works just fine for us - we have thousands of years of history as evidence. Social evolution has brought the concept of marriage. Fine. Now, purely on a happiness scale, how do you think the East and the 'developed' West compare in marital happiness (in urban populations)? Not too well. It's very well known that divorce, broken homes, traumatised childhoods leading to deviant/disfunctional adulthoods are far more common in the West. Why? Because the East has more or less stuck to the basics.

Sex.

As the great man said, it's finally basically fundamentally ultimately in the end all about sex. And however much we try to hide from it, it's very, very logical. Males need sex. Males want sex. Sex is designed to be pleasurable for males (alright, MORE pleasurable). Males are designed to procreate. DESIGNED. In the evolutionary years, if you were a male and you were still alive, you musta done SOMEthing goddamn right. You were probably better suited for survival because your genes were better than the next chump's. So kindly fuck around as much as possible to give your progeny the best chance of surviving, and propagating a stronger, hopefully genetically superior generation. Males have polygamy ingrained in their genes. It's like driving.

To the women, sex is not the greatest thing since sliced bread. A little thought, and it becomes a little clearer that the basic act of intercourse is not designed to be pleasurable to females, Remember, I said BASIC. That's right. Missionary. Wham bam, look Ma, I'm done types. Basic. The genetic drive of the female is stability. For her progeny. For herself. The father has good genes ('cos he was ALIVE) and she was picked because though the male is designed to want to hump anything that moves, given a choice, the male's mating instinct leads him to the best bearer of his progeny. Factor also that males produce sperm all their lives while females lose reproductive capacity at a certain age, you might begin to see why males always look for younger, better, models. But the female always wants stability. It's genetic. Like the maternal instinct.

Now, factor society, marriage and it's concepts of monogamy, emotion and love...and it gets a whole world more complicated. Not to say that's bad. Hey, we've survived thus far, head of the food chain, brought the planet to its knees...we have a lot to be proud of.

Picture this. Within our social settings, the man still wants sex most of the time. There's a primary need that needs satisfying. The woman is not too keen, but gives it to him. Whenever, wherever, whatever. The man's thrilled. That's all he wants, really. So he doesn't feel the need to 'stray'. Has his progeny, supports them (after all, they ARE the way to ensure the perpetuation of his genes), keeps the family happy. The woman has the children, and satisfies the burning maternal instinct. She's safe, children safe and decent future assured - stability. That's all she wants, really.

Man: not too keen on stability, but will stay if sex is good.
Woman: not too keen on sex, but will give if stability is assured.

Since men and women are EQUAL in all areas except those based on instinct and physical capabilities, a compromise is made on the fundamental issues. With our modern outlook, both men and women are free to do whatever else they want. As long as nothing affects the family unit. Family safe. Both parties more or less happy and satisfied (isn't that what we all want, ultimately?). Good/best chances of progeny survival and procreation.

Think it'll work??

Marry me!

...and then, there's me - The Man who didn't see too much because he didn't look too hard for things that weren't there in the first place...

I'm not called The Non-Sensei for nothing.

Desire

The more of these dumbass tests I take, and the more questions about myself I answer, the more I'm hit by the sad realisation that I'm just not what I used to be anymore.

The fire's gone. The passion's on holiday. The zest is on leave. And the spark...I have no idea what's happened to the spark.
Yeah yeah, the tests are stupid and don't necessarily reflect on anything. But I look at the choices, see what I might have ticked just 3 years ago, and what I'm ticking now.

I feel old.
And I don't like it.

Is this what happens as we age? I want to feel a passion for some things. But it must be an all-encompassing passion, not a passing phase. I want to fight for something, to defend my belief. Sitting here all day, working for some company, getting paid, going home, watching TV, watching movies, playing the guitar, talking to friends, reading some book, listening to the same music...all this just doesn't do it for me anymore.

Ennui.

Give me back those days of thunder. Give me back that burning desire for tomorrow. Give me back that unpredictability, that heady feeling of not being in control yet willing to do ANYthing. Give me back the thrill of not knowing what I, myself, am going to do in the next five minutes.

Give me back the chaos of love. Give me back the risk of not eating tomorrow because I spent all my money on a movie today. Give me back the joy of risking it all, losing, and still thinking it was a damn good ride. Give me back the exhilaration of righteous defiance. Give me back the fearlessness. Give me back the illogicity. Give me back the wonder. Give me new rules so I can remember what it felt like to break them with impunity.

Bring back the wild child, the maverick.

Give ME back.

You are guided by light. While all can be bad
around you, you still stay calm and make things
better. There aren't a lot of people in the
world like you. (Rate my test)


What force is your soul?
brought to you by Quizilla

Is that right...

My inner child is sixteen years old!

Life's not fair! It's never been fair, but while
adults might just accept that, I know
something's gotta change. And it's gonna
change, just as soon as I become an adult and
get some power of my own.


How Old is Your Inner Child?
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Am I sweet or am I sweet...

I'm bored and I have nothing better to do...
As if you didn't already know.


Dark shadow. Something has drawn you into darkness
in the past, and you're now trying to get out
of it. The darkness is already inside you, and
getting it out will be hard, but if you try,
maybe one day you can be who you want to be
again. Don't give in!!!

Please rate ^^


What kind of dark person are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Oh, brother.

Normally, if you see a person you know or a friend on the front page of the newspaper, you'd feel happy.

But if it's for murder, with a term of imprisonment involved, things are a little different. Damn! is the first thing that came to my mind. I mean, I knew he'd gotten into some shit, I'd even heard about it all the way in London, but I didn't know it was this serious. Holy Crap.

A few years ago, there was this other guy who used to hit majorly on my friend and my then girlfriend. It seemed to be all in good fun - he picked them up from college, took them around, went to parties...fun. He was rich, former model, fancy car - the works. My girlfriend was beginning to get somewhat wary of his advances and I was deciding on a good time to sort of confront him and tell him to back off.
BAM!
A week later, he's arrested for rape, blackmail, extortion and godknowswhat.

Hoo boy. I seem to be well on my way to achieving my childhood ambition of being a rich and powerful gangster. I've now got connections.

Mom will be so happy. She always did want a bhai.

Women.
Bah!

Wrote an 800 word post. Put it up for one hour. Deleted on second thought.
Second thought. An alien concept to her - she's still working on her first.
Man, I thought we were low. Turns out women know of depths we cannot begin to comprehend.

She wanted to play mindfuck ping-pong. I complied.
I won. She cried.
Bah.
Head, this is Wall. Wall, meet Head.

What do you do, Jack? What do you do...
Aargh.

What's all this about a bloody Hyderabad Bloggers Meet? I was not apprised of this development.
And how dare someone call MY friend 'Creative'??? I will not stand for it, I say.

This is an outrage! I object!
*slap, slap*

Pistols at dawn, Sah!

If looks could kill

I just saw the picture of a very pretty girl in the paper. She was really cute, but not an out-n-out hottie or sexbomb or anything. And I thought, the guys must be lining up to marry HER (lot of ppl around me getting married, so it's on my mind).

If a guy was looking for a match and he saw this girl's pic, he might take all of, oh I don't know, 30 seconds to say yes. And he'd be perfectly willing to spend the rest of his life with this woman, if he could wake up to that face every morning. All of 30 seconds to make this decision. Based on a face.

If I were to put up my picture tomorrow, and some girl were to look at it and go 'Wow, he's handsome', is she likely to want to marry me there and then? Granted women usually need a li'l more time and a few more reasons to decide that this guy is the ONE. So, discounting arranged marriages, and saying a woman is free to choose whoever she wants to marry, no family pressure at all, how likely is she to decide on the spur of the moment that she'd marry this guy because he looks really attractive to her?

Genetics?

So...the rumours are true then...

My outercourse activity is french kissing!


Which Sexual Outercourse Act Are You? (with pictures)
brought to you by Quizilla

How true, how true...
I hope YOU are paying attention...! ;-)

Words in Time.

A: Goodnight, Aunty!
D, Me : *slapping foreheads* woraai!!

A: I want to rotaaaaate..!
CRASH!
(crushes the last bottle of gin bought with money painstakingly scraped together)

Me chasing P chasing A running with the bottle of vodka. P catches A, holding A by the waist.
A : *topples slowly, head first into the ground* Man, I'm so drunk!
P, Me : *laughing*
Then we light huge bonfires of hay.

At R's house,
V : Betaaaaaa...!!
R, A, Me : *rolling on the floor, laughing uncontrollably*

My Dad: What's all this?
A, V : Nothing Uncle...just having lunch Uncle...
All seems very bloody funny now, though. Ha ha ha!
(A, thanks again for what you did for me in the aftermath :-))

K: Hunger is the driving force!
A, T, Me: *rolling eyes* We're leaving, man.

Taking K's trip again and again and again under the shed.

T : Don't worry man. I cleaned it and sprayed some deo.
D : *flabbergasted* woraaaaii!!!
The next day...
D: daridhruda! I had to clean the floor with phenyl man...

New year's Eve, 1999; V's house
P,T,V,A, Me : *huddle* See you in the US, maaaannn!!!

Highly efficient, streamlined, purposeful trips to the Rock.

Me : *looking at V*
V : *looking at A*
A : *looking at Me*
Me : Anthe na malla?
V : *grins* Anthe!
A: *sighs* Ok, chalo...

At the Rock, after Expressions (?)
K: *after ONE glass of rum n coke* I don't feel anything man! I don't feel anything! *proceeds to do pushups*

Abandoned railway station off Necklace Road
A: I don't think this is strong enough. Maybe we should add some of these...
Me: Are you sure?
A: Yeah, yeah.
Me: Want a Rola Cola?
Serendipity.

A's many fabulous 'bloopers', which gave us so many hours of joy. Remind me of a few.

A: Let's go to Erudite today.
Me: Yeah, we really should.

5 minutes later...
Me: You know, I'm thinking...
A: Yeah, fuck it.

25 minutes later...
A: Fuck. I don't believe we're here again...
Me: Cheers, man!
Clink.

Yup. Cheers to good ol' times.
Clink.

Internal Jukebox : "The End", The Doors

Was watching Apocalypse Now Redux on telly last night. Remembered going to Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, alone, practically rubbing my hands in glee and anticipation for this one. The best part was - alone. No pesky, talkative friends. No thronging crowds. Just 3 and a half hours of me and the movie. Not even an interval to break the spell.

And I remember being blown away...what a mother of a movie.

"..Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain,
and all the children are insane..."

Why it's called Pub 'craaawwwll'

So I was invited to go on a pub crawl with my PhD seniors.

Harry explained the concept. You pick a Tube line, stop at every station, go to the nearest pub and up-end a pint. Repeat ad infinitum, or till pass outum (just puking doesn't count). Oh yeah, or till the line ends. Of course, you can't really just stay wherever you end up (yeah, cos THAT would be stupid, right?). So lines must be picked carefully. The best ones have friends who live at the end of the line. If not, you reach the end and do the same thing on the way back, if you can make out the difference by then, that is. At some point, it gets a little fuzzy whether you're coming or going.

So Harry tells me how he and his friends once picked the circle line. They did the whole line once and then a half. 36 stations. They were smashed by about 15. Sheer determination and single minded devotion to the goal kept them going. Yeah, right. Sheer blinkin' stupidity and the Jackass mentality, more like. And what a perfect line to pick - the Circle line. Because, you guessed it, technically, it never ends. Plus the fact that they had no clue what was going on.

You get so drunk that pretty soon, a pub crawl becomes simply a game of Follow the Leader. The first challenge in this game in this situation is to identify the leader. Then comes walking (that thing where you put one foot in front of the other), THEN following. It's not easy. And matters are not helped when 'leaders' begin changing at every station/pub. Pretty soon, all 'leader' means to you is the guy immediately in front of you. You can't really see much beyond him and this person in the jacket you've never seen before is the only person you really trust.

After the first 15, the boys were on a strict regimen consisting of the following :

1. Get into Tube.
2. Try to make out the difference between 'moving' and 'not moving'. Not moving just might mean 'stop/station'. Get out of Tube.
3. Try to focus on area with bright lights and fast music. Go in. Shit, not pub. Lots of pink stuff. Shit, adult store. Get out of adult store.
4. Try and focus on area with dim lights and loud voices.
5. Go to such area.
6. Drink.
7. Piss.
8. Puke.
9. Drink.
10. Get out of pub. Walk.
11. Try and focus to see where lots of people are headed.
12. Follow.
13. Shit, back at the pub. This is NOT right! The rules MUST be followed! Only ONE drink per stop! Feel rather righteous.
14. Get out of pub.
15. Try and locate Tube station (with the same line as the one you got off from - there are RULES!)
16. Go back to step 1.

It's called a 'crawl' because 30,000 years of evolution will be worth exactly an arse's bollocks after 30 pints of lager. You obviously cannot walk and make about as much sense as a demented sloth.

Harry paid (maybe not dearly enough) for his lovely experience. He was so dehydrated and his stomach had shrunk so much he couldn't keep down food or drink for 2 days. He vaguely remembers a police station but he's not sure why. It took him 4 days to realise he was 2 days late for work. Oh yes, Harry paid.

And I was about to.

Movie Trivia II answers

Well, I guess the purpose was achieved. I found a coupla smart people who've watched and enjoyed Snatch!
The answers for Movie Trivia II put up last Thursday.

1) Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai
2) Bill Pullman, Independence Day
3) Julia Roberts, Notting Hill (slightly misquoted, but hey, the memory aint what it used to be)
4) Dennis Hopper, Speed
5) Sylvester Stallone, Judge Dredd
6) Chris Tucker, Rush Hour
7) George Clooney, Ocean's Eleven
8) Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park
9) Brad Pitt, Meet Joe Black (mwahahaha..gotcha!)
10) Dennis Farina, Snatch

The 'winner' would be Anil, with 9/10. Good goin'! *clap clap*

Of course, the whole exercise could have been made a lot tougher, but then it might have just been a little less fun. The idea is to tickle the memory just enough, not blast it by asking it stuff it probably never bothered to register in the first place. That's why the lines are quite contemporary.
Hope you had fun.

That's it for now. Thank you and goodnight!

She's a great gal.
She really is.
Now, if only...

American Idol - may the pigeons bless your statue

I catch myself watching that show with some rather silly fascination.

They do the initial screening process at huge stadiums. With thousands of wannabes. Yet they send in a LARGE number of clowns for the second stage of auditions. The only conceivable reason being to caricature, ridicule and generally entertain the public, who derive some morbid pleasure from watching people making fools out of themselves.

But, I swear, some are absolute MORONS. It's a wonder they find their way out the front door in the morning. And talk about disillusioned. "I'm gonna be the next American Idol!!!". Yeah right. That would be the day I have a 100 million dollars in my account and permanent, free, all-entry access to the Playboy mansion. Some of them are are head-slappingly bad. Yeah yeah, I know it's all a show - Randy Jackson is the intermediate, Paula Abdul softens the blows and Simon is there just so viewers are on their edge of their seats to see if he can get any ruder. And it IS fun, sometimes, to watch these folks truly believe they are IT and that the judges have made a terrible mistake by rejecting them.

There was this really good looking girl. Two things struck me about her - she was just 17, and she already had a 8-month old son! Of course, my first thoughts went out to the guy who shagged her (she mustve been 15/16 when she got pregnant?). But she actually believed that the judges, and eventually America, would see her as an idol! I mean, how stupid do you have to be to believe that?? And she had her mother handling the baby and consoling her...man...only in America..*slaps forehead*. By the way, she couldn't sing either.

Another one came in a miniskirt, shook her thingie a bit and sang a little. The judges told her that just shakin' it with a below average voice is not good enough. She comes out and talks to the camera saying indignantly "I don't know why THEY didn't like it. Boys at parties LOVE it!".

No shit.

I wonder why so-horny-their-brains-might-pop teenage boys would agree with you and say you sing great, if you didn't really have a fabulous voice, huh? Im sure it had nothing to with them wanting to jump your bones till they're practically fossilised; or with you bumpin' n grindin' your candy-ass till their men down below were ready to repopulate the friggin planet if necessary.

No, no. I'm sure it was your voice.

But, for all that, some really good voices do turn up. Voices that can make you drop whatever you're doing to just listen. Voices that can raise the hairs on the back of your neck. For all the right reasons, too. I don't really care if they become the next idol or whatever, but somehow I seem to get a bigger kick out of listening to ordinary people with extraordinary voices. The singer in the Tube station is good enough for me. My friend who sings with all her heart is all I ask. Once any of this lot become famous, they seem to lose their talent, use all electronic stuff to simulate seconds and harmonics, or become/declare themselves gay.

I remember a conversation in the TV room.
somebody: hey, Britney Spears is on.
Adi: (looking elsewhere, drawling) Is she naked?
Somebody: uh, no...
Adi: Then there's no point. If she ain't naked, I ain't watching.

Heh heh.

The worst effect? I find myself singing, rather loudly and rather moronically, trying to prove I can sing better than most of those jokers, and that I'm probably good enough to be on that show. Who's listening? Nobody, that's who.
Damn. They've suckered me into the Great American Dream too, haven't they??

Damn.

Oooohh!!

You have a dominant kiss- you take charge and make
sure your partner can feel it! Done artfully,
it can be very satisfactory if he/she is into
you playing the dominant role MEORW!


What kind of kiss are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

ahh, really?? Ah, well...the only one of them quizilla thingies that seemed worth remembering!

Movie Trivia II

So I heard from a few people who thought they'd like me to go to the trouble of putting up another movie trivia post. Here's the second one. Works exactly like the first one.
Here's the line. The challenge is to identify the actor/actress, and the movie.
Ex: "I'm king of the world!" - Leonardo DiCaprio, Titanic.

These are a lil bit tougher than the first series. The toughest are towards the end.

1) “ We are both students of war”.
2) “ We won’t go silently into the night! We will not give up without a fight! We’re gonna live on’ we’re gonna survive…”
3) “I’m just a girl... asking a boy... to love her”.
4) “…What do you do, Jack? What do you do?”
5) “I AM the law!”.
6) “Don’t you EVER touch a black man’s radio, boy!”
7) “Ten oughta do it, don't you think? Do you think we need one more? You think we need one more. Alright, we'll get one more”
8) “No, I am merely stating that uhh... life finds a way”.
9) “Thank you for loving me”.

and the toughest in this lot, (the film name should be good enough to call yourself a movie buff)

10) “Yes, London. You know: fish, chips, cup 'o tea, bad food, worse weather, Mary fucking Poppins... LONDON”.

(no movie has ever made me laugh as much as this one did. No buff who's seen it would forget this line).

Oh, btw, the winner of the last one was probably M. Though Im not sure if Anil got more than M, cos he didn't tell me his score.

Have fun. Answers on Monday.

One tit wonder

Alright, I know enough and more has been said about this. But I just wanted to add my one bit.

Honestly, the one real 'hit' of Janet Jackson I can remember would be 'That's the way love goes'. Well, there wasn't much else coming on the 10 channels of Star TV in those days. It was still a passable song. The mood the video evoked was fair enough too.

What was the next one called? The one where she's jumping thru various countries. 'Together again' was it? I think that was about it really. If you take away her onstage humpathon antics, there really isn't much else to Janet Jackson.

Until now, that is.

Holy crap! What the hell was she thinking? She's pushing Michael hard for 'Freak of the Year'. And even if you just HAD to do it, at least give us both of 'em, innit? Instead, now, we just have this horrible nightmarish image of a yucky female with something very, very wrong with her body. Damn. And I was just beginning to get over the 3-titted one from 'Total Recall'.

As if the family Jackson wasn't getting jacked enough.

I bought a new car stereo. It's absolutely top of the line. I sit in my car and it plays me whatever I ask it to. I say 'Rock' and it plays rock. I say 'jazz' and it gives me jazz. I took my car and my new stereo for a spin and some stupid kids suddenly ran across the front of it. I braked, screeched to a halt and yelled 'Fucking kids!!'.

And it played Michael Jackson.

Change

Change.
But start slowly, because direction is more important than speed.
Sit in another chair, on the other side of the table.
Later on, change tables.
When you go out, try to walk on the other side of the street. Then change your route, walk calmly down other streets, observing closely the places you pass by.
Take other buses. Change your wardrobe for a while; give away your old shoes and try to walk barefoot for a few days - even if only at home.
Take off a whole afternoon to stroll about freely, listening to the birds or the noise of the cars.
Open and shut the drawers and doors with your left hand.
Sleep on the other side of the bed. Then try sleeping in other beds.
Watch other TV programs, read other books, live other romances - even of only in your imagination.
Sleep until later. Go to bed earlier.
Learn a new word a day.
Eat a little less, eat a little more, eat differently; choose new seasonings, new colors, things you have never dared to experiment.
Lunch in other places, go to other restaurants, order another kind of drink and buy bread at another bakery.
Lunch earlier, have dinner later, or vice-versa.
Try something new every day: a new side, a new method, a new flavor, a new way, a new pleasure, a new position.
Pick another market, another make of soap, another toothpaste.
Take a bath at different times of the day.
Use pens with different colors.
Go and visit other places.
Love more and more and in different ways. Even when you think that the other will be frightened, suggest what you have always dreamed about doing when you make love.
Change your bag, your wallet, your suitcases, buy new glasses, write other poems.
Open an account in another bank, go to other cinemas, other hairdressers, other theaters, visit new museums.
Change. And think seriously of finding another job, another activity, work that is more like what you expect from life, more dignified, more human.
If you cannot find reasons to be free, invent them: be creative.
And grab the chance to take a long, enjoyable trip - preferably without any destination.
Try new things. Change again. Make another change. Experiment something else.
You will certainly know better things and worse things than those you already know, but that does not matter. What matters most is change, movement, dynamism, energy.
Only what is dead does not change - and you are alive.

Internal jukebox : 'So Long', Everlast

Think I'm gonna die today
Everyone who hurt me's gonna pay
How could such a short time feel so long?
How could such a young life go so wrong?

Mama don't cry, Mama don't cry
Mama don't cry, you did nothing wrong...

Internal jukebox: 'Love Thing', Joe Satriani.

This song takes me, almost instantly, to some really nice places...

This is bluddy hilarious. Kinda morbid in a way too...guess that puts it in Quentin Tarantino's worryingly wide radius...

hey! whatever TF happened to 'Whatever'?? The link's taking me to some cheesy-ass goil talking abt love and heartbreak and other such alien stuff.

CS!Where art thou???

Lobotomy - condition caused by excessive wearing of guns around the waist.

The Romans of being a storyteller.

Just going thru some Greek/Roman mythology. Damn those buggers had a bloody ball of it!

I remember always being fascinated by that whole bunch of Gods and heroes. Guess it started with my man Ulysses. My mom handed me that book when I was about 3 years old. My kindergarten teacher still recounts how I stunned the socks off my school assembly one morning.

Apparently, I happily trundled onstage (3/4 years old, mind you) and spent 10 minutes rattling off the first chapter (or the whole story in brief, I forget which) of The Adventures of Ulysses. I guess that's where I got my reputation of a storyteller. For the next 8 years, ANY time there was a free period, I was PUSHED to the front of the class (me, the chronic back-bencher), and was required to basically regale. I used to recount in perfect detail a movie I saw last week, or even last month. It got so bad, I sometimes had to recount my dreams! By the way, I have, or at least used to have, the weirdest dreams you ever heard. Anyway, I remember I used to enjoy it and I guess I told the stories well, because I was always asked for more. What a memory i had.

Now, I can barely remember where I was and what exactly I did (that I probably shouldn't have) last night! Last week, for all practical purposes, did not exist.

I guess as we grow older, only the most important or cherished stuff stays with us. But, occasionally, the filter malfunctions and you seem to remember utterly useless crap. For example, I was on a bus to B'lore abt 6-7 yrs ago. At one point, I suddenly wanted to test my memory and decided to take a mental picture. I 'clicked'. I still remember that guy in the striped cream shirt and mottled green pants walking and wondering why some city idiot is hanging his head out of the window and staring.

See? Utterly useless.

Anyway, coming back to that incestuous Greco-Roman bunch. I remember walking thru the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and looking at the busts of all these Gods, Goddesses and heroes. Have you SEEN those women? No wonder they all had such a ball. Plus, this is where we get the current meaning of nymphomania from. All those horny nymphs lying around with nothing else to do. I don't get it. Our/their Gods and Goddesses can get it on as much as they want, yet WE'VE got 'dirty minds' if we as much as THINK about it. Bloody unfair, I say.

Damn, they had it good back then.

Movie Trivia answers

Awrite..for those who really wanted to know.
Here are the answers for the movie trivia quiz posted last Thursday.

1) Mel Gibson, Braveheart (This would have to be THE easiest!)
2) Sylvester Stallone, Rocky
3) Marlon Brando, The Godfather

4) Russell Crowe, Gladiator
5) Robert De Niro (to Ben Stiller), Meet The Parents
6) Nicholas Cage (to John Cusack), ConAir

7) Ethan Hawke, Gattaca
8) Morgan Freeman (to Gwyneth Paltrow), Seven
9) Gene Hackman (to Denzel Washington), Crimson Tide

10) Sophie Marceau, Braveheart. For some reason, this is my favourite. There was just something about the scene itself and the utter simplicity and truth in the statement.

I've gotten such a kick out of this trivia thing, I'm gonna do it again soon. Let me know if you liked it.

Why did the nymphomaniac take to the Zen philosophy?
He liked the idea of 'Here and Now, Here and Now..."

Why did the constipated guy take up Buddhism?
Because he wanted to believe that this, too, shall pass.

More in your line, Aus, but what the hey...can't always control whose head they strike first, eh?

I'm sure you already know why the monk refused Novocaine during his tooth extraction...

Movie Trivia

This is a sheer trivia trip. I wonder if YOU are as crazy about movies as I am. This is just for kicks. Answers, with names of 'winners' on Monday.
This edition works like so. A dialogue (more like single line) from a movie is given. You have to identify the actor and the movie.
Ex: "I'll be back" - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator II Judgement Day.
You can leave answers in the comments section or mail me at: theprocrastinator@rediffmail.com.
Aight?

Easies:

1) "Freeedooooom!!!"
2) "Adriaaaannn!!!"
3) "Stelllaaaaaaa!!"

So-so:

4) "At my command, unleash hell"
5) "I have nipples, Greg. Do you think you could milk me?"
6) "There's only two people I trust. One's me, and the other's not you"

Toughies:

7) "You wanna know how I did it? I never saved anything for the swim back.."
8) "I was in a relationship once. And we got pregnant. And I thought 'How can I bring a child into such a world?"
9) "..you were right. About the stallions - they are from Spain, not Portugal..."

and the toughest of the lot,
10) "Death comes to us all..."

Sometimes, I can SO identify with the seemingly silly, childish joy of knowing some obscure and probably utterly useless bit of information.
Sometimes, I'm such a geek.

What's in a name?

I've been asked an interesting question - what does my name (here), Non-Sensei, mean?
When I came up with it, I saw two meanings. But on closer examination, I see there could be more. I am now curious to know if it actually made sense to anyone, or what others made of it.

Any takers?

I've said this before, and it's something I use to jolt myself into action; to get off my sorry ass and DO something productive.

"One cannot consent to crawl when one feels an impulse to soar" - Helen Keller.

Hell, if it's good enough for her, it's damn well good enough for me. I'd feel I let a whole bunch of people down, not least of all myself, if I didn't 'soar'. And that's one feeling I'd rather do without.

Neurocide in instalments

I'm slowly going brain dead.

Coining a new term like 'neurocide' shows that there just might still be some worthwhile activity happening in there, but my neurons are like a species dying out. Leaving aside all the various chemical challenges I put them through, they are probably beginning to feel more and more redundant. Like an appendix. Somewhere in the book of my life, "...and he used his brains (see appendix), which became a rare event thereafter..."

I mean, I need challenges. Mental stimulation. Not that my job is bad as such, but it doesn't really offer much of this. I know hardly anyone has a 'perfect' job, heck some might even think I have a great job. 9-6, 5 day week, not much work really, p4 comp with broadband, and paying pretty fair...might constitute many people's idea of 'wow'. I've even been told so.

But the biggest kick I get is putting my brain to work, and getting the job done better, faster, easier, or cheaper than someone else could. Just because I have good reasoning/analytical/strategising skills and I use them. Last night, I was wondering if I should just go to Business Development or Strategic Acquisitions or some other such department and ask them to hire me. Just so I wouldn't feel so dull, slow and useless. Just so I could be interacting with young, intelligent, hyperactive (hell, ACTIVE will do!) minds.

Spent a month doing nothing. NOTHING. And now, when I'm given work, the boys upstairs refuse to budge. Inertia. Ennui. Jumpstarting, shock therapy, physical/chemical stimulation, electrodes...nothing seems to be working. Ernst and Young was bloody brilliant that way. I was learning every single day I was there. My ability to think fast, analyse quickly, and ideate and articulate was appreciated. And it was exciting just to be able to do that. A conducive environment. I HAD to be thinking constantly, be on top of my game, stay sharp. Now, the grindstone is worn and my knife grows duller by the day.

I remember lunch on my first day here. I sat quietly, listening to the discussion around me. I found myself thinking 'Oh my GOD! What the F**K am I doing here??'. So used was I to discussions, even lunchtime ones, of a completely different nature, that I found these so inane. Now, I find myself listening and actually contributing. Damn.

My biggest fear is that I'm going to become like everyone else around here.

I was hoping moving out would give me the time I need to relearn all those things I've all but forgotten how to do. Read. Listen to music. Live without television. Read. Converse. Spend time by myself. Read. Practise my guitaring and finish my compositions. Write. Read.
I'm not sure how much of that I'll be able to do now.

December wasn't too bad. There was the movie, DD News, house planning, band planning. Enough to keep me going. I've always known about my humongous starting trouble. With anything. My breaks are always longer than my productive periods. But enough. It's high time I did something about this situation. My brain needs to go back to its roots (ha ha). I want to put it on one of them transporters on the Starship Enterprise and say 'Energise!'

There must be some kind of way out of here...

Internal jukebox : 'Keys to Imagination', Yanni, Live at the Acropolis

I remember that album helping me thru many an exam night. Every break...10 minutes...and return, uplifted. Night after night.
I owe a lot to that now ghisa - pita tape.