All Doom and Gloom

The human race is headed for big problems! Why? 

 - Because we don't realize we are going over-board across the board. 

 - Because we don't recognize that sometimes going back to how things were can actually be a good thing. 

 - Because we have shown that we definitely never learn the right things from history.

Like the wise one keeps saying, "Common sense is not all that common!"

:) Have a good day!

The new normal

I was reading the newspaper recently ... that in itself could very well be my subject, given that in this era of the interwebs I am actually still reading a printed-on-paper-the-previous-night newspaper. I can imagine reactions like "how quaint", "Luddite alert!!!" and "are they still making those?". That being the case, I think that there is still space for the good old newspaper in our gadgetified and caught-in-the-wwweb world. Or maybe I am already at that age where I am too stubborn to give up my old ways for something new.  

That is however not my subject, so let me move along. I was reading about a zoo in the Philippines which is offering a free massage to any visitor willing to take it. There are 4 masseurs - Michelle, EJ, Daniel and Walter - who will all work on you for about 15 mins. So why is this news? Ah yes! The 4 masseurs are 5m long Burmese pythons. That, I bet you agree, is newsworthy. "Relaxing with Pythons" as they put it! I finished reading the article, my eyebrows came back down to their regular position and I was ready to file this away under the "We are weird in that way" section and move on. But I couldn't. I kept thinking about it through the day, especially the part of human nature which makes us do seemingly illogical things like this and decided that I have come across enough stories over the years that it shouldn't actually be considered weird any longer. As I mentioned earlier, I guess it is that "I-am-already-at-that-age-where-I-am-too-stubborn-to-give-up-my-old-ways-for-something-new" mentality I am stuck with. 

So here are the other stories that prove that "we are weird in that way"! (This is where the interwebs come in handy. You can easily search for old stuff here)

Swimming/Diving with Sharks - Really? People want to do this? Hasn't anyone seen Jaws!

Running with the Bulls - Again, really? This proves what exactly? Please remember, the bulls are better endowed in every physical aspect!

Living with Tigers - Mind = Blown! fo shizzle (I had to look that up!! ;) )

Pet Crocodile - Dude, what were you thinking?! Oh, sorry for assuming you were! SMH! 

These are a few that have stuck around in my head long enough for me to recall and decide that being weird is the new normal for us. I am now looking forward to headlines along the lines of "Picnic with the Piranhas" or "Run Rhino, Run". That is, if they haven't been published already.

nom de plume

So what do I remember of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn? First up, I read Huckleberry Finn before Tom Sawyer. It was part of school syllabus. I caught up with Tom Sawyer a little later in a pocket sized book. Anyway the thing is I don't really remember much beyond the names of the two protagonists (I think there was also slave called Jim though I am not really sure about this. I am trying hard not to turn to Google to fill me in. "Google dependency" is probably a separate post on its own. Or not!!). I do however remember the author - one Mr. Mark Twain.

I recently learnt that Mark Twain is not the real name of Mark Twain! Confusing? No? It was for me. Apparently the great "Mark Twain" is a just a pseudonym - also known in literary circles as a 'pen name'. Not to be confused with 'pen pal' which apparently doesn't mean a pen is your pal. Alright, back to Mark Twain who was actually not Mark Twain. That's because he was actually one Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Who wrote under the pseudonym Mark Twain.

PS - I wonder. Wonder if Samuel Langhorne Clemens was related to the Longhorn or the Greenhorn!! ;)

PPS - By the way if 'pen name' seems too bland and 'pseudonym' sounds too mainstream, try 'nom de plume' for size. I don't know which language that is or which century it was prevalent in but it definitely has a ring to it. Plus, saying 'nom de plume' makes you seem cool and knowledgeable. :)

PPPS - I promise this will be the last! Mark Twain has also been a constant in my reading over the years because of all the quotes attributed to him. My favorite? This one - "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." I am looking to buy a T-shirt with this on it.

PPPPS - This is fo' sure the lastest one. I mean it! Two words - Robert Galbraith. :)

All the best

I know that the world's largest democracy has finally seen the end of the most massive elections in its history a few days back. But I have to confess that I am still on an election high. I voted. The BJP won. 

To be clear, the party I voted for didn't win and I didn't vote for BJP because my gut says they haven't let go of their hindutva radicalism. Another reason for not being positive about BJP is Modi, the current PM designate who is apparently an astute administrator but seeing how belligerent (and in my opinion, arrogant) he comes across on TV, I look at him only as a full fledged politician. Whether he has the administration chops required or not will be found out over the next five years. Given that we regressed during the tenure of an intellectual, maybe it is time for a politician to take over! Everything said and done, the democratic process has handed victory to BJP and Modi and I have no problem accepting that the next five years will be theirs to run the government and do something about the mess we find ourselves in.

So the pertinent question now is: what can we look forward to? Broadly speaking, Modi won by saying and promising the right things - Development, Growth, End of corruption. Hopefully he can deliver on those. And hopefully without any accompanying hindutva related nonsense being shoved down our throats.

Wishing all of us the best of luck for the next 5 years.

Pop Quiz

Quick, what is common between the occupy <fill-in-your-favorite-cause-here> movement and the parties sitting in opposition in the new Indian government? 

A. They don't have a leader & are capable of a whole lot of noise for no outcome

Twigger

Was wondering why I cant do 140 characters in my blog. Turns out, I can. Who'd have thunk it!! :O So here it is. I am calling it Twigger!!

Bachao!

So yet another 14th of Feb has come and gone. There was the usual hype about it and with the amount of Valentine's Day crap put out by the various TV channels including the news channels - breaking V Day related news was that a whole lot of people came together to celebrate their "pets" getting officially married!! - there was an 'overdose' of love in the air, literally. Of course we rolled our eyes at the whole thing because we think of ourselves as being the non-demonstrative types (Ahem!!) and specifically because we are averse to the celebrate-love-on-V-Day kind of celebrations. So me and the smart one marked the day by having "Phirni" with hot milk, after our work day had turned into work night before it took pity on us and called it a day.

Thus being laid to rest, the 14th gave way to the 15th, the smart one reached office as usual and then made my day by sending in the below pic of the scene on her desk.

Mc D provided figurines of Fiona and Shrek having a sweet 'Valentine Day'esque dialog!! Had me rolling. :D

P.S. In case its not obvious enough, here's the (rough) translation. It loses quite a bit though!

Fiona: Shall I give you a punch?

Shrek: HELP!!!

I have a dream ... always

There is one specific reason why man kind is supposedly at the top of the food chain (Apart from the moot point that we made up the whole food-chain-pyramid-thing and put ourselves on the top). We are the only life form we know of that can dream. The amoeba might want to correct me on this but until it can establish meaningful two-way communication with us and then convince us that it does dream, I don't think we need to change our stand. I am discounting the various scientists who say that animals dream. Why? Because ... well because animals haven't told us that they dream (Duh!). Come on, are you saying you are going to believe it if some lab-coat says that your pet gold fish was dreaming about being a great white!?! Using their so-pis-ticated brain equipment and monitors, the lab-coats have only proved that the animals have a brain. While they are sleeping.

So we are better than all other life forms on earth because we can dream. What we still haven't figured out is the 'why we dream' part? We all know of the 'dreams' we have when wide awake. Those are the ones where we believe we are better than we actually are in life. And its obvious why we have them. We dream those dreams exactly because they provide an escape from reality and the mediocrity of it all. What we haven't figured out is why we dream while we are sleeping. (Going-off-on-a-Tangent-alert: Are we actually sleeping when we are dreaming?) Once we answer that question, I guess we can start working on the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. We could, potentially, also easily figure out the mysteries of the Higgs boson though it would mean that the guys running the LHC should stop running it and sleep in it. Anyway, all that is just a guess at this point. Coming back to dreams, once we have established the answer for 'why do we dream' we can move on to the more vexing 'why do we dream whatever it is that we dream'. I mean, if there is a formula for dreaming stuff up like a Kekule or an Einstein or a Mendeleyev or a Martin L. King did wouldn't you want to know it too? I definitely would pay top dollar for it (Actually I won’t. I am more likely to try and pirate it off the net or at least wait a few years for it to become more widely available at a fairly reduced price. I am cheap that way but that’s beside the point. It’s the thought that counts, right?). Especially if it helps me get rid of this recurring nightmare.

Like it says, it has been more than a decade since school and I still wake up with a cold sweat. I want to know why. I want closure.

PS: Just so there are no doubts, Chimps and Orangutans are not animals. They are just hairy man-kind. Extremely hairy.

Unlikely Home

Back in time when I was half my current age, I remember when almost every house had something called a 'ventilator' built into each room of the house. Not the hospital variety but nonetheless for the purpose of ensuring continuous airflow in the room. These were usually holes in the wall - about 6 inches high and about a foot and half long - right where the wall meets the ceiling. They used to come in different flavours too; everything from plain holes punched through the wall to ones which were covered with wire mesh to ones which had intricate masonry grills within them. Depending on your taste (or lack of it) and your purse you could choose your ventilator. I do not see them in houses and I wonder what happened since none of the new constructions I come across these days have these things. We sleep with the windows and doors of our room closed and the air conditioner switched off and I often wake up feeling the air has gone stale by the morning. I for one miss the presence of a 'ventilator' in the room which could help with this situation.

This however is not about me missing the ventilator though I think I did a fine job of giving that impression. I bloody well did say so in so many words. But this is actually about birds. If that has thrown you, don't fret. It was meant to. If it hasn't thrown you, then you are lying. To yourself and to whomever else you told that it didn't throw you. Please pick yourself up now and let me explain. You see, one of the advantages of having these ventilators was that the birds in the urban jungle actually had a cozy nook to go back to (I am actually referring to the birds of the avian variety which, fortunately for us, can still be found in our cities and towns albeit in rapidly dwindling numbers). Especially the smaller ones like sparrows. These birds saw the ventilators as the perfect spot for resting, getting out of the rain, building their nest, breeding and the whole related nine yards. It was a common sight to see a big mess of sticks and twigs right up there near the roof of a house. I do not know if the birds would have used the same nest year after year if they had been left undisturbed because usually the households tended to clean the place up and get rid of the nest. Even the most bird-friendly households would do it, after waiting for the young ones to leave. And I think, one of the reasons why these ventilators have disappeared from buildings slowly could be because people didn't want to handle birds and their nests along with the rest of their household. A pity, though, because it’s a loss to both of us.

Well all this reminiscing has come about because we have a bird take up residence in our house recently. Not in a ventilator though because a. the bird is not so old-fashioned and b. we don't have ventilators. It has found acceptable accommodations on our tread mill instead!!! We have one which spends all its time covered and unused and this must have been noticed because the pigeons have gone ahead and made themselves comfortable on it.

Oh yes. That’s an egg!!!

21-Dec-2012

Reporting live from somewhere in the south of the north pole and north of the equator from the eastern part of the world map. This is breaking news, though we are not sure what it is breaking.

We don't have to worry about the world ending today since it is already tomorrow in Australia!! This is coming in live from our correspondent Charles M Schulz. Early, unsubstantiated reports are also coming in that New Zealand might actually be further ahead into tomorrow than Australia is. On the ground in Australia, our field reporter Peanuts is reporting that Australia's tomorrow looks much too similar to the rest-of-the-world's today. Australia has strongly urged its brethren in the international community to learn from it's mistakes and work harder in the remainder of their 'today' to make sure that atleast they can enjoy a more spectacular and easily discernible end to the world. Australia is not able to pin-point what has to be learnt and improved upon though. We will be keeping track of the developments Down Under and will bring them to you as they might or might not develop. 

However, these initial reports have thrown a big-sized monkey wrench into the plans of various networks which were primed to bring the 'end-of-the-world' action live to our living rooms as it happened. The media - parked in their mobile units and packed in with their changing vans, make-up kits, boom mikes and cameras of all sizes - is currently cooling its collective heals on the beaches of Australia and doing its bit to improve the shore-side economy. With an eye on grabbing the mind-share, eye-balls, ear-space, head-space - and any other thing they can grab - of the global audience, many of these networks have plans for airing exclusive and in-depth 5 minute interviews with the harbingers of the end. The names of Jesus, God, Satan and Kalki are doing the not-on-the-record rounds but the general feeling is that they are ready to grab whoever makes an appearance. We are currently receiving reactions to these plans by the leaders of the major religions of the world from their private bunkers. They have criticized the networks of pandering to the global audience in these dire times and have accused the networks of being secular and not believing in their true God.

Our resident doomsday expert Maya feels that this overwhelming presence of recording, mixing, transmitting and manipulating equipment might have scared away the Gods of Doom which is why Australia is experiencing a 'To be continued' instead of 'The End'. There is however no doubt that our interpretation of and hype around the message from the ancient calendar is correct. In our studios we have an expert panel of eminent public personalities picked from the field of Commercial Cinema, Business, Politics, Reality TV, Sports and other prime time TV regulars on stand by to explain why the world has not ended, if it doesn't end.

Elsewhere, life continues as usual. More on this, after the break.