misfire

I recently overheard a girl saying something to the effect of the person on the other end (a girl I presume) is being too available and it would help if she wouldn't notice him for a while.

Then having been fed on many many stereotypical sitcoms and rom-coms, the following resulted:

Wanna Voice?

"Hey, it's on that this is a pool of. So with you regarding the place cos so whenever you get a chance, please give me a call about all I would take a look at it next often, although maybe water, so give me a call back at 2(wrongly transcribed phonenumber with more than usual number of digits). Thank you"

This probably doesn't make sense to you. It doesn't make sense to me either and this was the output from my Google Voice account (by invite only, if you must know)- the transcribed voice mail. Oh where oh where do I begin to explain how very wrong this above message is in comparison to the actual voicemail? The transcription (though valiantly attempted) was less than 10% correct to the actual message. What is 'on that'? There is no 'pool of', no 'the place' regarding which I could expect a message, 'next often' is never seen together and what exactly is 'maybe water'?

Text-to-speech is a feature I have used in my eBook reader software for the purposes of laughing at toneless renderings of very high action or emotional passages in books, that provided me brief hours of merriment until my vacillating nature took over and I wanted other sources of irreverent humor for my personal amusement.

What passages, you ask? The proposal scene from Gone with the Wind was fun and the bombing chapters of Patriot Games (Jack Ryan rocks!). In fact I urge you to try anything at all as long as its in .lit eBook version. Oooh wait. Exception - the text to speech feature literally hara-kiried itself over The Fellowship of the Ring. That was not fun and in hind sight I should not have attempted to have elvish read out to me. L

Ah...Microsoft Sam, you are so cold and alien that you're forever associated in my nightmare visions of Skynet like rise of the machines...they could have just called you a 'Dalek' and not taken the pains to name you.

[irrelevant train of thought: Anyone else loved the Doctor Who scene where the Daleks face off with the Cybermen, shouting 'Exterminate' to their chants of 'Delete'? Common programming language syntaxes, get it? No? Never mind. A shout out to the TARDIS, the most funky looking space/time ship ever! Wooo hooo! J]

Anyone would prefer a homicidally logic driven yet human sounding HAL...or is it just me? Also...seems to me that ship's AIs that have female voices rarely try to kill of the human crew. If I am wrong, please feel free to quote the example. Say I am right (yaay me), then the philosophical question arises (ala sound made by a tree that falls with no witnesses in uninhabited forest) - Is it the gender of the voice of the hypothetical AI that determine its penchant for extermination of the humans?

Not only can’t systems speak like us, they don’t get our speech. Anyone who has struggled with a voice activated dialing in a supposedly hands free mobile or user of automated voice service in any customer service dept of telephone provider, bank etc (random institution/corporation) knows how frustrating and steadfastly unhelpful it is to deal with an entity that needs coding to 'listen & understand' your speech.

Familiar scenario - commands of 'Call Mom' [fervently repeated] results in 'Dialing Ron' (aka your boss who thinks you're hospitalized for the last week largely due to the email you had sent to him earlier) and ends in raged epithets that further urges the phone to Dial Tuck, Fitch and Lestrade. Or consider this - how very often do you come across people walking with their bluetooth headsets on screaming ' NO!' when a calm voice on the other side says 'You've selected to check-in 8 pieces of luggage. Please confirm by saying Yes or No' when all that the customer person wanted to do, was track schedule of the flight they were to take?

My current source of mirth is the speech to text or Automatic Transcribe feature and going by Voice, I would say it’s not very successful. Speech is very individual (like finger, toe and nose prints). That is why de-individualized people are often shown robot like in speech (not going to loop back to sci-fi references, I promise. Mainly because there are far too many for my exploding brain to rationally pick from). You can have a bunch of people that speak similarly but never exactly the same. Intonations, Accents and physical irregularities of the speaker can cause the same words to sound different. It would be very unsettling to have uniform speech because that would intend standardization of tone, verbiage and other parameters like speed, pitch and pauses which usually give us the depth/meaning to the actual content as harbingers of the non-verbal part of the communication. But I digress, the point central here is that current system cannot even correctly identify the verbiage of what is being said, let alone comprehend the meaning or information in the words.

This probably is why voice activated security systems are limited to very few words because any more and the speaker cannot render them the same way every time. Imagine being locked out of your own secure place by a system that doesn’t think your current repeat of Mark Anthony’s 'I've not come to praise Caesar' speech from Julius Caesar matches with the recording you made when you set up the security lock in the first place. Conversely, mimics can definitely say a few words to match a voice printed password...so this means of security is not good enough (yet).

One could argue that writing is as individual as well but it adapts better to the world dominated by the internet because it doesn't involve translation by a soulless entity (not talking about non-english languages here because that warrants a entire post) and increasingly more so because written language is shrinking rapidly due to the unchallenged invasion of pre-pubescents/teens on the internet and in mobile communications. They hate long drawn out sentences, grammar and any semblance to actual spelling. After all they are so very busy that it’s not reasonable for them to not brutally mutate the English language. BTW (and not withstanding acronyms) the youth have yet to corrupt the spoken language nearly as much. A teenaged relative may have her fbk status as 'waz siked bffs cud cum 2 da party!' but on the phone she verbalizes the content with the same sounds associated with the words - 'was','psyched', 'the', 'could', 'to' and 'come' [soft sigh of relief].

Let’s switch back from teens to machines because I would rather deal with Cylons any day than the erratic, hormone powered roller coasters, spawned by humans, in their intermediate growth states. Associative memory helps to interpret speech correct when we are just talking about words here (thus taking away non content parameters from current scenario or simplifying the scenario) in humans, so the best way to build the system to work that way would be neural networks with artificial intelligence programming constructs that 'learns' each word from all possible variations of how that word can be spoken. This database will be nearly infinite and will add to its rosters on a daily basis but the system itself will have to 'grow' to be able to transcribe and will still be susceptible to breaks.

You cant make a machine version of the human ear+audio processing of brain+memories/learning...but you can strive to make something close and the current stages of this feature are below even the most basic, infantile standards that can be set by the world's kindest judge (which I am not even close to by a infinitely long shot).

Piece of gyan related to non-human systems & human voices - Don't argue with the GPS Lady when you are driving-1. she is programmed to always be right & 2. You look like (and probably are) a crazy person.

We speak therefore we exist,

Rain

My so called names

Having just read a fluff piece in Telegraph UK about having a drab forgettable name which people tend to substitute with another drab name when in conversation; I suddenly recalled a couple of times when I was named on the go.

These were two most worth remembering among the countless other times that I have been called other names (most often by my sister's name).

First incident was when I was talking to a friend who I was supposed to meet at church for the midnight mass (first time), that we were going to as a group, more than a year ago.

When I expressed concern at being the first to arrive, not knowing if I would be let in, being hindu and also not a parishioner of that church, he said "If someone asks, introduce yourself as Lilly"

I was transfixed by this and questioned, albeit inanely "Why Lilly?" to which he replied "Well, you seem like a Lilly."

A short time after that, while still basking in the glow of understanding that I had been compared to a serene flower, I found out that Lilly is usually the short form of Lilith who happens to be Adam's first wife who left him because she refused to let even God dictate that he was better than her in anyway and (or perhaps therefore called) a demoness to boot.

Additionally, she is known to be a succubus and a very prolific mother. Now I really liked that I seem like a Lilly. Pretty sure P (my feckless friend and Lilly Namer) had no inkling of all this but I like to think I naturally inspire people to acknowledge my independence and female power.

The second anecdote is from last fall when I was exploring the cramped, confusing stair cases in the USS Intrepid very close to lock up time when a guy from a separate group asked me to not go away alone to places that seem deserted.

In his defence it was days to Halloween and he seemed high as a kite - potent combination for paranoia.

"Because if we were the last to see you", he explained, "and they would say", then assuming what I think was his idea of a cop voice he continued with, " what did you see..."

He reverted abruptly to his normal voice with the inquiry of, "what is your name?".

Then just as suddenly, without a pause, he replied to his own question with an utterance"..Isabella ".

I had not said anything at all and to this day I wonder how and why he pulled 'Isabella' from what appeared to be thin air.

Going back the story, the guy proceeded unimpeded by anyone present,"So cops would ask -what did you last see Isabella do and we would say she was climbing down some creepy stairs to a dark room, all alone...we told her but noooo...Isabella just smiled".

That unceremonious end of the sentence was our clue that some slasher movie bimbo blonde's fate befalls this Isabella girl who dared to walk down to an exhibit of the first officers room on a New York landmark at 6 PM in the evening of a busy weekend.

I laughed merrily with all of them and the group moved away with their parting wishes of "Bye, Isabella!", "Isabella, Take Care now" and "don't go anywhere I wouldn't go, Iz" [which I guess means I can go anywhere else except where I was currently headed]

It is really interesting to me that an average melatonin challenged american group would find me to be a 'Isabella'. Surely that seems so very classic italian or spanish?

Very often people speak to me in spanish, mistaking me for a fellow Mexican, near the Mexican embassy, which is on my walking route to work. But that the extent of my international look.

Did those people think I was mexican, one called 'Isabella'? The likelihood they would've called me 'Maria' is more. Sad but true. All of us stereotype.

Where they so sloshed off their minds that I looked like a white Isabella to them? Possibly but only if they had spent quite a lot of time and effort getting to a physically ambulatory yet mentally LSD-ized state.

Did I remind that guy of someone he knew named Isabella? Far more likely. And it even seemed like the whole group knew this Isabella and were okay with her. even friendly.

I wonder what you (that is basically anyone) would call me if you didn't already know my name.

This would give a huge insight into what the namer thinks of the namee. If you thought someone was a Jane or Jim you probably think they are boring or conventional while someone you think is distinguished and interesting looking you would pick Portia or Adrian.

I should probably trademark this idea for a psychological profile or test. Anyway, I hereby state that I (not Lilly, not Isabella) came up with this idea right here and you read it in my blog first so if anyone uses this idea better find me and buy the idea from me or face my wrath.

Abstract-

A sample set of strangers are flashed on screen, the photo of the subject and asked to associate a name with that. they will additionally be asked on what factors did they think the subject qualified to that name like - cultural context, personal association, stereotype, stoned (therefore no f*king idea why)

As a control to those findings, a group of equal number of acquaintances (not too close) should be repeating the same activity with the subject's photo.

There should also be multiple subjects in each session so that any extreme variances in the findings can be compared to the readings of the non-main subjects.

The interpretation of the results will be a separate project in itself to ensure that each picked name is taken in consideration with all factors concerning the name picker and the country/ethnic background.

For example, I wouldn't pick Priya or Divya to be very exotic but everyone in this country (not of east asian descent) would look at a mysterious beauty (without any Anglo Saxon features) and associate her with that option.

Who knows? It may even have applications in understanding race relations in mixed demographics that our world is increasingly becoming.

inventor of WhatNameCanPeopleSpeculateYouHave(a mere placeholder for future cool name) psych profile,

Rain

Future Gen-e-us ?

Ever since I read about the life cycle of the stars I imagine this scenario in my mind a lot.

The idea of using genome to separate the grain from the chaff, which is the leading moral question about genetics lends itself to such a future situation...

if this is the present, I would like to return it please!

Rain

What the Frac (tal)

I have recently begun reading a column about maths in the NY Times.

Considering my love of physics and space and the contradictory dislike of maths...I realize I am softening my stand on the number side of things with this advancing in age!

Strange but true,

Rain

Pretender

Its that time of the year again when I announce my latest crush, although mid life is hardly an appropriate time for this, I am exceptional. Ta Da! The Pretender was a cool series that I used to watch when I was in middle school (very early teens) and immediately liked the premise and the leads enough to never have forgotten it.
Fast forward to a few years later (ok...quite a few) and Hulu was hosting the entire first season of this Show expiring by New year eve. So I did the marathon watching and it was a joy.

For one thing, Jarod (the hero, pretender, genius) suddenly struck me as being amazingly attractive in my rewatch. Surprise gave way to reason when I considered that I had had my puberty this time around and hence noticed.

Come 2010, Hulu put up season 2 and I was hooked all the way until the season finale. Then I couldn't bear to wait till Apr & Aug 2010 for seasons 3 & 4. I needed immediate gratification. So I plunged into research and found out that there were 2 movies out after season 4 (which had only raised more questions and wasn't a logical endpoint to the story).
Age and erosion of story line was apparent (as was bad hairstyling advice) in the 2 movies which I was able to get my hands on but I watched anyway until the 2nd movie (which came out in 2001) concluded with a LOTR/Matrix melange with Jarod as the Neo/One.
Sigh...great expectations crashed and burned.

But yes the end result is that, Michael T Weiss from 1994-2000 (when he was in early 30s) is my new crush (note how specific I am of which timeframe in the life of the guy I have a crush on) and a testimony to the shallowness of my character that I don't nearly encourage or feed enough.
As a result of the strong interest in this very hunky person (did I mention the deep bass voice, dimples accompanying smiles with eye crinkling and cheekbone and jaw structure of a superhero? No? How remiss of me!), I have watched a made for TV movie(Mary Higgins Clark's 'Remember Me' where he is not the hero),2 episodes of Justice League (voice of Etrigan/Jason Blood) and Disney's Tarzan & Jane (animated, voice of Tarzan). All in the last 18 hours.
I'm dreading 'Jeffrey',the movie I have ordered that is in transit to me, where he played the romantic lead of the protagonist after whom the movie was named (yes, its 'that' kind of movie).
Like a car crash, I dont like it but I can't look away. Also the DVD of a cheesy looking detective movie 'Written in blood' (he is the lead) is also expected any day now...I am gamely going to get through it despite the worst hairstyle of all time on an otherwise striking man.

Phew...lets have some substance after all that fluff, shall we?
I loved the titles to the science articles in today's papers (not the wrap your groceries kind of newspapers) -
Y chromosome not stagnating, men not idiots
As shameful as it may seem and being a self confessed quisling to my gender, I have to admit that the smartest people (offputting academic successes are not considered; just the cool ones) I have met and liked are predominantly male. So I didnt think there was never any danger of men being idiots.
One track minded (a track that is fated to disappear?), for sure, but not idiots.
Rather than stagnation, I was worried more about complete vanishing of the 2 sexes biology of human kind which is not discounted with the new discovery that Y chromosomes are rapidly evolving. Also, if they evolve too fast for us (the women) to parallel, we may even reach a point where men and women differentiate as a species; Which will bring us back to parthenogenesis as the only way to foster survival (so sad!)
No immediate danger, I think. But then, change is the only constant [I hate that phrase. HATE IT.]

Doomsday Clock to be reset 10am EST today
This wonderful device has been at 11.55 PM since 2007 (maybe even from cold war era) for fear of nuclear annihilation of the planet and they are resetting it to 10 AM. Rejoice, world. Me...I will live each day as if it were the last (by over eating and copious escapist media) because too many nations are "Nuclear" without sharing a responsible outlook.
The official survivor of 2 atom bombings died in japan last week and SNL joked that he coined the phrase - Oh no! Not Again. [ROTFL]
But its quite likely that in my lifetime I may have to survive some sort of inter continental, high heat war/attacks regardless of which part of the world I live in. Anti missile missiles are being announced by the nations of the world (our desh & China...which I guess means NKorea, Iran and Pak also to state the obvious) on an almost daily basis and I think...this is an infinite loop isnt it?
Some enterprising soul will definitely have thought of creating the Anti- Anti missile missiles and pretty soon we will be seeing the positive x axis increase of N plotting where N is the power to which Anti is repeated. So I say- Be Afraid. Be very afraid.
Make it 11.56 PM on the Doomsday clock, ye fools. Start kissing people goodbye as many times as you can (or shake hands...up to you)

Half A Million Bathe In India's Ganges
Kumbh Mela is here again and I am too far away to even get a sprinkle of the gangajal on me...its all Hudson all the way with me. Makara Sankranthi is upon us, my people. Happy Pongal.
Even otherwise I encourage everyone to bathe. Its a good practice that keep man from being an anti-social animal.

TGIF!
Rain

Inevitability of Ugly Singleton Invisibility

As an amateur social theorist, a watcher of human relations and with my experiences of being myself...I've had certain consistent results come through, over a period of time, based on which I have come to the conclusion that under some specific conditions a person can become invisible or even completely disappear.

Here's my pseudocode for this condition:

IF

(AGE >= x) &

(STATUS = 'SINGLE') &

(LOOKS IN ('UGLY','FAT','NOT CUTE'))

THEN

{

DISAPPEAR_FLAG = 'Y' WHERE GROUP = 'ALL_FRIENDS';

OVERRIDE_DISAPPEAR = 'Y' WHERE GROUP IN ('FAMILY','TROUBLE@WORK','BILL_PAYMENTS')

}

ELSE

{

DISAPPEAR_FLAG = 'N';--FOR ALL GROUP

OVERRIDE_DISAPPEAR = 'Y'; --FOR ALL GROUP

}

The silver lining for this is that the blurring of existence is only on the physical plane.

In cyberspace you are as alive as the frequency of your social networking/microblogging site updates.

That way you can have friends who'll know what you are up to without them actually having to be with you (or care in the very least).

And that works great for them.

Here's my semi-autobiographical panel-

King George of Acerbitude

For your information, the title is contradictory because George Carlin hated the English [he's Irish American so go figure].

While trying to return my George Carlin books I found out that I couldn't. Not that there was any operational issue in the actual returning of the library books- The library was open, I had the books with me, all I had to do would be to drop them in an ubiquitous little collection box and NYPL would accept the prodigal.

It was also not as if the hesitation sprung from not having read the books. I read all 3 (Brain Droppings, Napalm & Silly Putty and When will Jesus bring the Pork Chops) fully and the 'Short Takes' repeatedly. It wasn't the first time I didn't want to send back a book on its merry way; the other books with which I had a similar reaction were - Lord of the Rings, Pride & Prejudice and The Shining.

What I was feeling was a sense of loss if I were to send the books back into circulation. As if the smart alecky, angry and very brutally honest voice would stop inducing me from bursting into a fit of giggles at mere recollection.

Such incidents had been occurring as a pattern especially in mandatory meetings where I had nothing to do but lend an air of glamor to the proceedings with my charismatic presence.

Also while typical the erstwhile commonplace work emails when I would suddenly note that I say 'respond' instead of answer and 'review' instead of 'read'; He saw all and through the clinical eyes of an anthropologist.

That is beyond awesome.

Truth is that it takes very little to amuse me, like today I was so diverted to discover a fluroscent yellow splotch (blend of tumeric and olive oil) on my shirt at the location where I wouldn't want attention (in office & by these people)

But that is neither here nor there.(which would tick old Georgey to no end because he is against the ambigous use of terms to indicate location - here, there)

I probably felt lonely to consider life without sayings like - My motto: F*%K Hope, I finally found out the meaning of Life but then they changed it or I am repelled by Wholesomeness.

As a believer in the almighty and someone who turns to goo at the sight of a slobbery little baby (however cute/un-cute), I know I am the kind of person who Mr.Carlin found so despicably stupid and quite masochistically I enjoy laughing at my ridiculousness.

I loved the parts of the books which dealt with Men & Women and how we got the short end of the stick which led me to infer that maybe the dear author was at some intrinsic level a (dare I say it) Feminist.

But best of all I worship the commentary on Language - the unnecessary doublespeak, the softening of the meanings for political correctness and sharp criticism of the abuse of English.

If it were up to me, I would take some of these excerpts into textbooks for students of English and they would certainly remember these lessons (with glee).

Coming back to my issues of letting go, I have pacified my possessiveness with a temporary extension of return and plan to be the proud owner of the complete bibliography of George Carlin for quenching my long term need to laugh at humanity despite being such a conformed little part of it.

Its true that I am a big Jon Stewart fan and follow Stephen Colbert's tweets but having dug back to source of their style of social/political commentary I realize that the real thing had been here and was now dead (he'd have hated it if I said 'passed on')

Amusing part is, no one else I know seems to be aware of this man's ever having existed or is affected by that information to the degree that I am (besides just one person who signalled '...likes this' on facebook)

Feels like being the solitary keeper of a delicious secret but with the kind of company offered to me, I prize my solitary joys.

My humble thanks to the man who started with 'Is everyone doing good today?' and after hearing a chorus on the affirmative followed up with 'Well, F*%K you!'

Rain.

Since

This was written a week back but not posted in a gesture that is very characteristically me.

So its my duty to update on the matters that occurred since relating to the subject matter of above post.

Daily Show with Jon Stewart mailed me saying that they have no tickets for me. I returned the George Carlin books this morning (had done max extensions).

If any of my friends are reading this then here's a clue as to what would make a great gift for me (whatever be the occasion)- all or some of George Carlin's books.

Subtlity is also my characteristic.

"Always do whatever's next."-George Carlin

Rain

Change Resistant

Sword of Honor or How my DVD drive ate the DVD

Today I found some Brit Miniseries in the Library and on the cover was a very familiar pair of piercing blue eyes gazing into my very soul. It was the Vol 2 but I didnt give a damn.

So as I watched, I began to jolt down the thoughts that popped into my head-

• If a man in loose khaki knee length shorts with a name like Guy can still appear macho in a movie, he should get an award for ' Standing Straight despite overwhelming Gayness being heaped upon the person'.
• Anyone using the word 'Indubitably' in a sentence when circumstances are dire is a giant ass.
• Its impossible to maintain a deep crush on an actor once you've seen him de-objectified. Once that happens you just feel like a shallow flake for having liked someone for his appearance. Then the guilt triples when you see him onscreen all good looking again and go 'Hubba Hubba' (involuntarily, of course). Then you think of every lech in every street corner and bus who tried to paw you when you were barely 12 and think - I am just like that in concept (not implementation) only additionally hypocritical.
• Second stage of self-loathing sets in when you realize after nearly 60 years of independance when your ideal of manhood is a golden haired blue eyed englishman. So much for reverse racial discrimination.
• How did the hero find the time and implements to remain clean shaven all through the British Troop withdrawal from Crete in WWII?
• Was his role in the army to set female hearts aflutter?
• His eyes are the color of the water in the shores of Crete. I'm a smitten kitten.
• Just when I think I'm too old to be petty, my revulsion for slate thin, conventionally attractive, icy blonde women goes up a notch.
• You're never too old to be petty; just too old to be pretty.
• Being drawn to troubled, angry, forceful men of power and hoping to marry a gentle, stable man shows deep inner conflict; Or conditioning a la Pavlov. Both prospects are highly unsettling.
• There is something worth noticing about a man who writes in longhand with a fountain pen, even if its in a period movie.
• Its important to belong somewhere.
• why can't there be a British war movie without everyone smoking in all scenes?
• Guys with thin mustaches in WWII movies are either cowardly villians or treacherous scum. That is how you know and will aid you when you scream "Dont trust him, he has a pencil thin mustache!" at the screen when the hero goes to the forest with the creep.

Things were reaching drool point (a threshold of how much pathetic mooning bearable by machinery) when Sri Krishna (my sentinent laptop) shut off my DVD drive and now the 'Sword of Honor' Volume Two is stuck inside. My Computer doesnt show evidence of there ever having been a DVD drive. I have done things that will make my engineering background very proud, restarted my laptop 3 times and drummed on top of the drive. The damn thing won't even light up. That is the problem with a sentinent electronic device, it gets temperamental.

When the System sulking stops and hopefully that is soon, I will be able to rescue the enabling cupid from Sri Krishna's stranglehold.

I long for a chance to call somebody a 'Crentin',

Rain

PS: Just realized I never mentioned the name of the actor being referenced in the post above. If you didnt guess/know already- Daniel Craig.

Obvious Science

My current visceral malreactions are towards people who state the blindingly obvious condescendingly or as if it were a revelation to the listener (me).

It happens with unfortunately unerring regularity in my place of stay (which I will not call my apt because I am still looking for a place to call - my apt) and to a more amusing extent during my perusal of the Google News.

So focussing on the less bile invoking option, here are some headlines in the Health and Lifestyle sections over the past few weeks which I thought was just common knowledge but it took a team of scientists years to research and come to the exact same conclusions in some corner of the world (only to be debunked by a small variation of the same in a microsecond?)

Junk food is manufactured to get you hooked - I am so shocked. You mean to tell me the good people at McD, BK, Wendy's are only behind my money and don't care about my behind?

Study Says There No Such Thing as Empty Nest Syndrome - For generations, Indian parents have been happily getting rid of their daughter accompanied by music and gaiety; so yeah this one, I saw coming.

Women show grace under pressure, while men are likely to take risks in the same high stress situations - Which is probably why we don't work on combat duty and only serve drinks at high stakes poker.

Daily sex improves chances of conception for couples where the men have low sperm count - D'uh...try try try again till you succeed works on all levels

Modern men prefer skinny women: Study - This one's right out of the blue! With all those celebrated stars and models who eat bi-annually, I would've never figured its because the men would prefer them, I just thought they were good at what they did. [No, I didnt]

Women more likely than men to hit nail on the head when there is light - Why would that be relevant to anything ever? Its not like 'hitting the nail on the head' was a metaphor...these guys actually mean taking a hammer and hitting a nail with it.

Migraine pain more common in women - that is because we are supposed to be skinny, keep trying to get pregnant and show grace under pressure. try living with that on your head always!

Heavy women have low quality relationships - or the corollary of the previous headline 'Modern men prefer skinny women'

Men, women use Facebook differently - wow...that is so difficult to determine, how did they manage to find out? Next related discovery could probably be that men and women select different options in the signup sheet which asks for gender.

Being careful about the future is in our genes - Mind boggling! Really?! That does explain Life Insurance policies and Wills. So those werent random inventions as previously held by scholars!

Boys 'have sweeter tooth' than girls - that is why girls are sweet and made of "sugar and spice and everything nice". And I extend this great finding with my addendum - Guys have sweeter everything than girls and present for evidence the Daniel Craig in swim suit shaped, grape flavored popsicle. Or was that my evidence for how easily we can cross lines from eye candy to actual candy in a very wrong way? I forget. [I may think he is yummy but eating one of the above mentioned popsicles would take a bite out of the object of my affections...the puns end here]

Men set for 'extinction' - poor things. You became redundant with co-existence of the concepts 'Being Gay' and 'Cloning'. New nail in your coffin human parthenogensis becoming possible.

‘Taller people get fatter pay packet’ - All I needed to get to come to the same conclusion was look at the depressing pay stub of my hobbit sized self.

Macho guys don't always get the girls - Depends on how you define 'get', I would say Guys in general dont 'get' girls.

Care for elderly, be blessed with longer life - its called good karma

Anger 'is down to genes' - Dammit Parents! See what you gave me?! and all I wanted was travel scrabble.

Second-born kids are more rebellious: Research - that's because their spirit is not surgically wrenched from them at an early age with the litany - you are the eldest, you have to adjust and give up for your sister.

'Night owls cleverer, richer than early birds' - oh yeah, where is my money and IQ then? This is so dimwitted it could only be written by a poverty stricken day lark!

'Milky Way's heart tastes of raspberry, smells of rum' - And we wonder why obesity is becoming an epidemic while we blissfully think of the entire universe in terms of food and drink.

World over, rivers are drying up - which is what we should expect in days of 'Global Warming'

Old smiling snaps predict marital bliss - happy people divorce less. This did need some of the best minds working with zillions of dollars to realize.

Coming soon to the Blindingly Obvious section - The Pope's catholic, Sun rises in the east and I need to move.

Rain

A thousand words

As expected of anyone prone to routoundness, I appear even more spherical in photographs. So I tend to not prefer being in photos unless its of a bunch of us friends frolicking or standing around grinning like some runner up sports team, thereby dispering the focus from yours truly. Single shots of me are so rare that you can possibly speculate a huge auction value (but then Sotheby's is at hard ends with the recession so you never know). Besides decent photographers (almost always guys of the group) usually click away the cuter, more glam and stylish girls (i.e. any other girl but me).

If at all I suddenly develop aversion to being ignored so (happens once in a rare while) and insist on being photographed after defeating the photographer in argument, it angers me so much that I had to convince someone to focus on me that I cannot elicit a smile or any semblance of a pleasant expression anymore. I only end up with photos of me grimacing or looking belligerent which does not paint a pretty picture.

So its sufficient to say, I have no good photographs of me.

This lack of pictorial representation didn't figure even for a second in my mind until the dismal response to my matrimony site profile spurred my parents into requiring photos of me to upload. Assumption of the site was that adding my photo would increase the attraction of the profile. I think it panders to the lazy and shallow minded types who'd rather just look at the photo and move on, instead of having to actually read through the content or the junta who browse matrimony sites when they are bored. Nevertheless I bowed to this filial demand, I began the excruciatingly soul wrenching search of all my digital photos featuring me to crop out my visage and send to them.

The ones I selected were no good to the mater and sister who felt either my hair wasn't good in the pic or that I looked chubby in it or both. The astonishing part of the matter is that I do not have good hair and I am chubby, so one would logically assume that any photo of mine would (and should) indicate the same attributes. There was some debate and certain compromises (on their part) was reached as the only alternate was hair weaving, liposuction and hiring the photography team of National Geographic.

Next was the contention on the dress worn in the photograph. My mother insisted on saree photos of me even though I pointed out to her certain facts that didn't seem to mesh with her demand:

1. I have worn a saree all of 7 times in my entire life (first 3 times in high school)

2. I am not comfortable in a saree and do not know how to wear one on my own

3. A certain unspoken image of a person is presented when the prospective groom is shown a photo of her wearing saree (a black and white tamil movie heroine) and I am nothing like that.

But I had to give her this (my mother is a formidable woman) in exchange for her agreeing to let me also put in photos of me in churidhar and casual wear. I call these my what you see is what you get photos.

Last hurdle was of course the space age technology of the site itself. The first 100 attempts at uploads failed once we selected the file from the local disk. This would've frustrated a saint but my mother persevered and reported success at last. Unfortunately, in their attempts to render my photos in the size acceptable to the site they had mangled one photo to completely distorting resolution and I appeared in the second photo to be someone who'd never been exposed to the concept of grooming. My mother was so triumphant in her victory at the upload that I hadnt taken it upon myself to see the results until today.

Having seen me in such unflattering light, the mystery of why the effectiveness of my profile had dropped further became crystal clear (Astrologers had put it down to unfavorable planetary influences). So I personally took charge of uploading my photos this time around.

This activity only made me further marvel the excellent design and user friendliness of the site.

Once the server in all its wisdom had loaded your image from your system, you would be taken to a page where you would be asked to crop your photo and save it so that this can be used as a thumbnail picture which when clicked would show the actual photograph. Except and this was added just for kicks no doubt, the square given to select the part of the photo was not click and dragable. There was nothing that one could do considering the save photo button that one should click after satisfactorily selecting the area to crop was hidden by the photo itself.

In the end, the thumbnail pics of my photos look like reflections from a circus mirror - one elongated, one widened and one just right (that one was the least good of the lot).

Atleast this convinces me that any guy who sees these and still expresses interest in pursuing the possibility of a marriage alliance with me is not doing it from being overwhelmed by my striking physical appearance. Silver lining, I am so good at finding those! Hey, maybe I should add that to my profile :)

I am beautiful no matter what they say 
Words can't bring me down 
I am beautiful in every single way 
Yes, words can't bring me down 
So don't you bring me down today 

Rain

Late to office

because of oversleeping....

:p

Rain

Count Onsite Co-ord ula

From my fascinations with all things vamp :)

Get Smart whether you know it or not

Two weekends have passed since I moved and I am still yet to spend both saturday-sunday nights at my new house. Last weekend was the American Independance Day long weekend and we were in a trip to Virginia and DC. Arunabh has already blogged about it but I am definitely going to have to suppliment that account with a post right here to ensure everyone's perspective is covered. Consider the above a trailer, if you will, for a soon to be released post. How about this past weekend, you may ask, so the story unfolds...


Yesterday was Aneesh's birthday and he is the baby of the group so I came from my new place, back to where I used to stay as the boys' neighbour until a forthnight ago, for his birthday celebration. And what a lovely celebration it was, consisting of Music, Dance, Violence, Comedy and some Romance (ever present if you put so many 23-28 yr olds together in a room). Some Comedy/Violence parts were even captured on tape and posted in a popular video site (courtesy Dinesh who seems to have a penchant for shooting people at their most unfortunate time - being beaten, getting ragged .etc.) I had a brilliant time and spent most of the night/early morning in hysterical fits of laughter.


Celebrations were planned to continue in the afternoon with 'Journey to the center of the Earth' [3D] but exactly 15 mins before the actual start of the showtime planned, it was found out that our friendly neighbourhood movie theatre only offered the 2D version thus draining the very reason why anyone would choose to go to the movie in the first place. By a curious twist of fate, we decided to go to the city to watch movie instead. Yuvaraj and the boys thought we were going to the city theatres to catch 'Journey..' in 3D while us girls were of the firm opinion that we were going to 'Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Naa'. Needless to say there was a bloodless coup ensuring that we ended up going for the latter, much to the chargin of a certain someone. Only, we were an hour and a half early for the next show!


This was highly disorienting for all of us since none of us had previously ever committed the faux paus of being over-early to anyplace. So we stood outside wondering how to kill time when someone said we should go to another movie if only to stay cool for the next hour and a half, so after a quick show of hands we voted to go in for 'Get Smart' and that was a serendiptously wonderful happening. Although he may be a part of the 'Frat Pack' (an astronomical no-no) I am a huge fan of Steve Carell. He simply cracks me up and comes across as a very intelligent, sweet and genuine guy in every character he plays (from The Office to Evan Almighty and to a very teeny-tiny extent 40yr old virgin) and Get Smart movie is such a feel good action comedy/ parody that it plays right into his strengths.



Anne Hathway is a nice surprise; otherwise known for her sugary sweet roles in Princess Diaries duology (is that what they call 2 movies in a series?) and Devil Wears Prada, she really makes you believe she is a badass field agent of C.O.N.T.R.O.L and her chemistry with a much older Steve Carell is really worth mentioning and definitely can't be missed. Rest of the cast also fit their roles so well that its a summer delight as the movie scampers at a brisk pace; a special shout out to Alan Arkin, The Rock and James Caan (a very funny President).
I may not have seen the serial that this movie is based on or the 60s original Get Smart movie but this movie is worth watching by itself (although some insider jokes may have been lost on me) and I sincerely hope the sequel (which are sure to follow) don't butcher all the positivity created here.


I was the last to leave the theatre of Get Smart as the rest were already in the one playing 'Jaane...' or in various stages of getting there. So the price I paid for watching Max Smart mini-harpoon himself yet again was the wonderful melody song that plays endlessly in my iPod this past week - 'Kabhi Kabhi, Aditi...'


When I breathlessly made it in, the young group in the movie were already graduating from college luckily that is when the story really picks up. So Aditi (from the eponymous song, aka Meow) and Jai (Singh Rathore or Rats) are really close among the group of 2 other boys and equal number of girls. As is true in most mixed groups there are mutliple love triangles- Rotlu has a one sided undeclared yet widely known feelings for Aditi (who along with jai is oblivous to it) and Bombs (Sandhya) has a crush on Jai (again...oblivious). And as a consequent resolution the two bond over their unrequited feeings. Jignesh (Jiggy) is a happy person who invites everyone to his own surprise birthday party, who's hair is a highlight (pun intended) and Shaleen is the cool guitar wielding punk dresser who sees what is going on all too clearly., i
The parents, in the film, are a bunch of excellent performancers from the best of yesteryear theatre and telly- Nasiruddin Shah keeps you in splits although he never even exceeds the confines of a frame, Ratna Pathak is the activist lawyer brainwashing her son into non-violence, Kitu Gidwani and Rajat Kapoor are the dark antithesis of the endearing couple of Jayanth Kriplani and Anuradha Patel (the beauty from Shilpa Kumkum covers!!!).
The young cast members have done neat jobs themselves. Good launch pad for the lead pair, aptly used by Imran, but I for one wasnt too impressed by Genelia, who according to my humble opinion has to work on her acting skills because cutie pie looks are transient.
The movie is refreshing, cute and many may connect with the storyline of friendship, how love seems to creep in somewhere unnoticed until its threatened by jealousy. Anyway, here is the spoiler - It ends on a happy note. [what a shocker!]

On the whole, a lovely entertainer with wholesome appeal to the whole family, another winner for Aamir Khan who already wowed yours truely with 'Taare Zameen Pe...' [which is in a whole different level of wonderful]


Doubly plied with feel-good so feeling good-good,
Rain

A Holi day!

It probably wouldn't be very far fetched if I were to state that I practically live in India. The demography of the locality of my residence is such that humans of other races are a rarity. I guess there are more firangs in some part of Bangalore [say] than this place!

Today dawned like any other saturday [and here I stop about my rising habits] and my wonderful friends decided at 2 that we are leaving at 3 to go to the New York International Auto Show [how typical really...Men!]. Then at 3.20, I was still at my house looking for something to hold up my recently loose pants [by way of my circumference reducing....Thanks to hectic project!] and made a frantic call to my girl pal who was also coming to ask if I can borrow hers when she informed me that there are people in the corridor waiting to ambush any desi that crosses the vicinity and that she was lulled into opening up the door by one of the guys in our gang [or "The Family" as its being called now on account of the supposed pairings that are rumored to exist]. Next thing she knew, she was colored bright pink by 10 strangers and one grinning turncoat, who she assumed was there to get her since we are going out.

Having listened to this moving story of triumph of human spirit ['Yaam petra sugam, peruga iv vaiyagam' - Let the joy I got be propagated to the rest of the universe], I still reiterated the importance of holding up of my pants for the rest of the day and she agreed to come over.
As I opened the door for her, she told me that "the people" were "attacking" the apt of the guys.

Naturally, I had to look in that direction! [As if anyone could have ever not looked]
Unsurprisingly, I was immediately spotted by the Holi Gang for the crime of still sporting my skin color and they made a turn to my house.
I pulled my friend in with my lightening quick, superhero reflexes and turned the lock of the door with almost suave yet rapid moves before the fastest of the predatory gang could even bring a toe into my threshold. Then I proceeded to calmly announce to the guests of my roommate about the dangers lurking outside, jerking them off from the comfortable states of relaxation that they were indulging in, in our living room. Meanwhile, outside there was a curious silence after some rapid shuffling of footsteps and I posed the question of whether anyone was outside [to no one in particular]...pat came a reply of my other friend from the other side of the firmly locked door [one of the guys who was 'attacked']
"They are here", he said [Poltergeist theme music plays].

Immediately there were thundering knocks that broke the spell of uneasy silence which had settled by then. Indistinct cries were heard which I assumed were encouraging me to open the door and introduce some color into my house and my rather terrified guests. I yelled to my unseen door knockers and asked them to not proceed with their plans as I had guests; an attempt which even I knew was nothing more than a grand gesture [Like when Moses marched up to a mighty Pharaoh and said - Let my people GO!...except, not as great as that]

Then, at that very nick between consecutive subdivisions of time, I knew what needed to be done. I marched out and firmly locked the door behind me. My state of readiness to go out be damned!
"Happy Holi" I said to the lively enthusiastic group of my countrymen [and I include women here] and they greeted me with a non-uniform and out of sync version of the same celebratory wish and proceed to turn me green and yellow. They were also kind enough to have me partake the Holi sweets and made my day even more wonderful!


Happy Holi, all...Spring is Welcome regardless of the name of the actual festival.
Go out and hug your neighbour, develop that feeling of community and make someone's day!

cannot take an Indian out of India ;)
Rain

Jaggery fusion & character search

Worked this weekend. Made Kozhukattais.

First batch came out well, second batch came fused and melted out of shape. My reviewers give it high rating for taste...I still think they are just being nice.

My office Bimbo status has spread into my social life with my rapid blinking at the midnight-early morning card marathon on sunday featuring me at my worst, slowest, uncomprehending version. The rest of the assembly had a good time ragging me for my alleged search for a 'junk character'...they intercepted a 3 AM call from my offshore and chose bits from my side of the conversation to concoct some racy story bearing no semblance to my sub par life.

Havent shot pool in a while and think that my amateur status may have undergone further demotion to novice yet again. As such, when anyone says 'ball in hand' everyone surreptitiously steals glances at me.

Someone, I greatly admire responded to my birthday wishes for him and asked if I read anything interesting lately. [Hollow mirthless laugh]

Migrations almost everyday and UAT client meetings at noon. My application stubbornly refuses to get any better and my boss isnt the 'cup half full' kinda guy so all around there is raining in the parade.[not a good rain]

Winds of change are blowing this way...nothing will remain the same again.

Change-resistant,
Rain

Keys to organization

As a part of the training team headed by a tremendous spirit, I pretty much contribute nothing to the content of the sessions taken by him. He is a really highly placed executive with awesome energy and enthusiasm and its really inspiring to see how he works.

His last session was on "Organization". As part of the training team which supposedly compiles the content for the session, [100% the efforts of Big Boss all by his very brilliant lonesome], I get previews to the ppts and things he mentioned there struck a vein.

Read somewhere that if you can, at any point of time be able to locate as many of the following articles belonging to you without having to search for it, then it means you are not as hopelessly indisciplined as you would imagine [because, after all we always think the worst of ourselves]-
Your wallet, Your keys, Your office Ids, Your mobile phone[its charger], Your commute cards/change.

Me and Keys have "no love lost" relationship. This means that they have no love for me since I lose them a lot. Same goes with the rest of the articles above, but being stranded without house keys is a very poignant situation and I wonder why there were no major tragedies written on the subject. What is more utterly horrifying than sudden homelessness?

When I was living in my previous location in the States [part of my new drive to not reveal much...lets see how long that lasts] I locked myself and my roommate out, twice. Both times we were happy at Aafi's house and slept over to get the keys next morning [excuse to go late to office and wake up at 9 AM]. The one time that I left my house keys at office and came home to pick up a critical document that would lead to my getting repaid a significant amount, in my new place of residence, I had my friend come home early and went over to his house until my roommates arrived.
The fiscal loss however was a major motivation for me to keep my keys safe and I have had them since.

Today was entirely a different matter. I was in the audience section for this and a couple of nice girls are locked out. Dont worry for them because there is a whole gang of boys out to help them [as expected in any classic damsels in distress situations] and of course, there is always me [saving the world before bed time]
Not the time to gloat in what Roop calls "Relative Feel-Badness" but at least to note that Organized people are a minority and probably an endangered species. The movie "Idiocracy" expresses this not so secret message that we [Homo Sapien Sapiens] are evolving into morons.. The point of organization or remembering where you left your keys becomes moot if you are a drooling simpleton [my attempt at "Reframing a situation" :P]

Keying in,
Rain