Wednesday, May 31, 2006
aveek called me yesterday.... long distance... and it wasn't even my birthday...
sigh... "people" are now going to say he's in love with me...
poor poor mouli
> 3 comments
8:12 AM
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
I don't get what the deal is with comment moderation. Or disabling comments altogether. Seriously... comments are probably the only reason people blog... they blog because they know someone out there is reading it... there are some people you want to read your blog.. and some people you don't. But you can't want ANYBODY to read your blog? What's the point then... ever been on a blog with a ton of posts... but not a single comment.. don't you feel a little sorry for them?
But yeah... blog security... the word verification I can understand... nobody wants their blog comments to be filled up with online casino ads... but wht the whole comment moderation thing...
I don't know... there's probably a perfectly sensible reason... but I don't understand it...
I actually have a problem with the term "moderation"... that's the problem... authority, censorship, intellectual policing... somehow it really upsets me.... the fact that someone else controls how I express myself... I am responsible person... I won't say anything THAT objectionable... but either way.. nobody else should have the right to control that.
Used to be on this online community once... the "moderator" was this neo-fascist pig... big on moderation.... like the guys who tried to ban a play called the "sextet" because it sounded lewd. That kind of moderation... RSS type... man he got my goose! Very few people have managed to irritate me as much as he has... and the emails that we sent back and forth...
I wonder what he is up to these days? Hopefully drowned in a pool of his own vomit.
yeah.. pretty sure he did...
think it was in the papers..
> 0 comments
8:51 AM
Friday, May 26, 2006
"joke of the century"
Manmohan Singh to Bush - " We are sending Indians to the moon next year......"
Bush - "Wow! How Many? "
Manmohan Singh - 100
25 - OBC
25 - SC
20 - ST
5 - Handicapped
5 - Sports Persons
5 - Terrorist Affected
5 - Kashmiri Migrants
9 - Politicians
and if possible
1 - Astronaut
This email was sent to me by my friend who was in James's im class 11&12 and is currently doing chem eng. in JU.
His father is a fair;y high ranked government official with a decent amount of extra income.
In his admission forms he always ticks the ST box.
How could he in his right mind send this out to everybody? Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?
> 2 comments
10:46 PM
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
In my experience... you can classify almost everybody into a few well defined boxes...
This hold true for bloggers... than most other people out there...
hmmmm
nah... Ill finish this some other time... wanted to make a post about the categories of bloggers..
but it's late... so some other time...
> 1 comments
9:43 AM
Monday, May 22, 2006
Me: "Yeah... yeah... like when I used to work at clubX..."
everybody else in the room: "You what?"
Yeah... I did work at clubX. Briefly. It's a chain of adult stores. I worked at the smaller vic park branch. Not the city branch where they have peep shows, with reams of paper towels in the booths. But this was JUST a store. Like any store. Like a lottery ticket agency. Same sort of customers. 40+ losers in flannel.
Pay was good. Traffic was low. Hours were highly suitable (5pm - 11pm).
People sometimes tell me "you have done some pretty weird junk in your life"... and you wouldn't think I did... by looking at me.. or even by knowing me really well. It seems fairly uncharactristic that I have done some of the stuff I claim to have done. But I really have. And it's usually as a result of circumstances than any real choice. Or concious decision.
Take for example, jobs I have held down. And these are real jobs. I have been payed for these. Not monopoly money either.
1: ClubX counter attendant.
2: Funeral hearse driver.
3: Security attendant at private party.
4: IT support person.
5: Call centre operator for Cancer Council
6: 1st level helpdesk support attendant for ISP.
7: Casual research assistant.
8: Book cover designer.
9: Light & Sound technician/ Stage manager.
10: Demonstrator for Intel Centrino.
11: Demonstrator for "The Cheese Barrell"
12: Playwrighting/Direction consultant.
13: Computer parts reseller/repairer.
14: Mystery shopper.
Yeah...that's all I can think of at the moment.
It would be one weird resume if I put it all in....
> 3 comments
9:35 AM
Sunday, May 21, 2006
radio blog needs changing..
possible themes:
1. Jazz
2. Songs that changed the world.
3. Rock with classical influences
4. My favourite female vocalists
5. The best lyrics ever
6. My favorite bengali songs (this is gonna work...)
Need to change the template.. the horror show things isn't doing it for me anymore
possible themes:
1. Impressionism
2. Noir
3. Pre-raphaelite
4. Pre-1950 sex symbols
5. Graffiti
6. cubism
> 1 comments
7:49 PM
my India trip has received entirely too much publicity. I think I know who's at the bottom of this. But he's my best friend so can't do anything about it... All sorts of people, I haven't met since the farewell, and wasn't really very keen on meeting, are suddenly wanting to "meet up".
Besides I am being scheduled to meet new people I haven't seen before.
Some people have even assumed that I am "coming back for good"...
I think I should make like U2 and call the whole tour off right about now...
> 4 comments
7:37 PM
Thursday, May 18, 2006
seriously... how gay is this guy..
check out his photo album while you are there..
http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=5565111555208967957
And that's my nemesis... the bastard's in orkut as well.. finally... that's one guy I wouldn't mind decapitating... really I wouldn't... I don't completely understand why.. I am not even the hateful type. But something about his bug like evil eyes makes me feel like squishing them under my thumbs.
http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=12563526664378169377
I should start a section... weirdo of the week or something... pick one from orkut/blogger/Hi5/ctta/cafekolkata... the works... do like a profile.... kinda like playmate of the month.... except not nude (or maybe nude... depends on how weird they are...)
yeah....
> 4 comments
9:17 AM
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Is Orkut fun or what?
Normally I am a little put off by the whole digital community thing. Rarely does anythign good come out of it. Sometimes it's fun in a perverse way because you get to mess with people and do role playing and set up little mad scientist social experiments... but Orkut is not good for that... so I wasn't really interested...
But people forced me to sign up. Every third day I would get an invite.. so what the hell... signed up... didn't check my account for weeks... then people would SMS me from different continents asking me to check my "scrapbook"
But now I have gotten into it somewhat...It's fascinating... like one MASSIVe collection of weirdos. That's why it's so different from other online communties. There you only get a relatively small selection of weirdos...talking back and forth and reconfirming their weirdoness.... but in Orkut... you have almost EVERY single weirdo there is in the world... flying scraps all over the place. It's stunning to watch.
Couple of things I have learned from Orkut.
1. That six degrees of separation thing I saw in a Will Smith movie once is actualy true. You pick out any profile at random. And just look at the collection of names on top. There are usually less than 6 links between and them. Amazing! Never actually thought it worked.
2. When you lose track of some people... from childhood... you know... they go away... and somehow you think they fell off the planet and died... they didn't actually. Imagine that. They're all still here! It's amazing the kind of people I have reconnected with. A kid that used to carpool with me in the second grade. Showed up at my birthday and bodhi smeared red cake icing on his cheeks. This guy who was with us for 2 years in school. Used to be fascinating with WWII and would bring an entire tiffin carrier (you know.. the ones with 5 bowls linked together... the stainless steel ones) in a orange basket... to eat during recess. They're all still alive!
3. Don't post pictures of yourself with topless women on Orkut. Your relatives are on it too (What kind of a weirdo collection would it be.. if it didn't have MY relatives on it)..
4. Thou shalt scrap everybody constantly.... otherwise they take it very personally.
5. Thou shalt not scrap in their own book.... but open up other people's books... tediously one by one... and scrap there...
6. As much as we denounce labels, as soon as we join Orkut we attach about 50 of them to ourselves. The whole communities thing. We just have them. We never post in most of them (coz they are all in friggin brazilian anyway), and we don't read the messages (same reason), but we still keep joining them rapidly. Just for the little pictures.
7. Reet knows almost EVERY single person I know...
Things I haven't learnt:
1. What do the little numbers next to the names mean? Is a bigger number better or worse. How can I get the numbers up (or down)? It's a competition thing isn't it?
2. Why guys have pictures of male celebrities as their profile pics. That has to be the single most gayest thing to do. What? You are trying to fool people into believing you are John Abraham? Does anybody fall for that? If you are just trying to chat with hot brazilian females, atleast make an effort to have a real looking fake picture. Find a friend who is good looking, take snaps of him and put them up. And if you are NOT trying to get hottie Brazlian chicks to talk to you... and you have Bikram Saluja as your display pic.. well.. have to break it you.. but you are a poof..
> 9 comments
9:19 PM
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Had a 15 minute presentation today... for the business studies thing...the longest I have done so far probably...
Went smashingly well I think. Considering... I'm a lab rat. They said I should be a used car salesman. I'm not taking it as a compliment.
Dress-up's always fun. Put on a blazer, striped shirt, ironed black trousers, clean handkerchief... the works.
Quite a change from my usual full sleeved t-shirt... jeans with strategically placed holes... and the famous denim cap to hide my bald patch.
No cap tpday!
Infact took extra moisturiser to the shaved dome... polished it up to a nice shine... If I got stranded on an island today, I could probably send SOS signals to a distant ship by just nodding my head.
Went carried away and let one of the girl's put a face mask thing on me. Must admit it's kinda soothing. Don't know what the hell it does for the skin though. But it does relieve stress and tension. Must do more of them. Or maybe not. Don't want people to say "wow.. you're glowing... how many months are you?"
People were quite stunned when I came out of the restrooms, five minutes before the show. Ever seen this movie abt Steve Allen & Bill Gates? Where Allen, all bearded and hippie, goes into a toilet at a trade show, comes out all yuppie and sells a million Apples. Well... that's what it was like. And people were all... "is that still you in there ?"
I like doing that. Shocking people. Like when I shave my head every 6 months and keep a beard and walk around in dark sunglasses and observe people's reactions behind them.
Anyway. This post is too self obsessed to be any good. Self obsessed posts suck. They offer the reader absolutely no food for thought.
So here this one ends....
> 0 comments
6:14 AM
Monday, May 08, 2006
It's a little funny when you forget your own birthday... and so does most people around you...
I woke up at 6:30... got dressed and went for lung scoopings.... too early for any interaction with the family... (one of the few bonuses of this job)... and it wasn't until much later in the day... somebody completely unexpected rang me up to wish me Happy Birthday... and then it hit me... yup.. things had gotten pretty bad.... it's not like I totally forgot... I knew it was in the region.. just didn't know it was that day....
And then we had the whole charade of cutting the choc-chip cake(which we have every two weeks anyway... but today it's suddenly special) and mumbling lyrics to the song and pretending to be excited about receiving pants and thanking my dad for a greasy meal at the same chinese restaurant we eat at every month anyway (SURPRIIIIIIISE you thought we were going to eat at home!) ... they say that the thought counts... but I think the thoughts pretty much gone out of it too... it's more like "can we get this done so that we can go back to what we were doing"
And frankly who can blame them... birthdays are bloody stupid anyway... it's probably the most meaningless cause for celebration possible... yay! you lived another year! we're so proud of you.....
And don't mistake me for one of those birthday blues I am getting older type cliches... I am not... I actually look forward to getting older.. I'd be perfectly happy with being 32 right now... that way my appearance would actually reflect my age more closely.... so it's not that...
But it's just a little weird actually... a little window into the future maybe... happened for a couple of years now... the whole birthday thing... more of a drudgery than anything... they used to be fun... your friends used to know.... and they would celebrate with you... but you're not with your friends anymore.... you make new friends... and don't really tell your new friends when your birthday is do you? why would you? Even if you did... they don't remember... And the only people who DO know... and DO remember... are the people you want to have absolutely nothing to do with... who buy you cheap pants and greasy chinese food... neither of which you would ever buy for yourself....
But you know something... I am a little glad they remembered and they were around.... in a couple of years they probably won't be... and then I would have just woken up and gone to scoop out lungs and come back and wokred out and written reports and watched scrubs... and then think to myself a week or two later... shit... Happy Belated Birthday to me....
> 6 comments
9:29 AM
Friday, May 05, 2006
Some bloggers have been asking to see what I look like....
Here you go... I'm the one in the middle
> 7 comments
7:48 PM
Thursday, May 04, 2006
There are movies...
And then there is the CI-NE-MA
Streer Patra is the latter.... watch it if u haven't...
and u thought Ray was as good as it got... ha!
> 5 comments
10:02 AM
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Sometimes we say things to people... without realising how much it affects them.... i mean... there is no reason why it should. But it does.
I saw one example of this... myself. There is this person... who was having a torrid breakup... and I barely knew her.... and we were talking... and I said..."I barely know you. But from what little I do know. You are one of the kindest, selfless people I have met. Only a really really lucky guy deserves to have you. And only a fool would give you up. This guy was the second one. Let it go."
Why did I say it? I.... don't know. It was just probably the corniest thing I could think of at the moment which didn't sound corny enough. Something to say without thinking too much.
A year later we are back in touch again. And she tells me "remember what you said?" No I didn't honestly.... until she repeats it back to me word for word. And tells me that it completely changed her outlook on life. Instead of running after relationships, she realised the importance of self worth. And soon enough.... the ideal relationship found her. When she wasn't looking at all. And they've been great ever since.
Works the other way too...
Somebody told me they find talking to me "unsettling".... (please... I am not holding it against you... just making a point)... It shouldn't bother me... it's fairly insignificant person making a comment that is fairly insignificant to me life in general. But it's affected me. Quite strangely. Every time these days that I make acquintance with someone of the opposite sex... that comes into my head... and sits on my shoulder like a tine winged Imp... "what's you doing wrong?, what're you doing wrong?"
And just when we get to the point that she says "You're heaps fun to talk to ... we should do this more often"... I panic... and I tell her.... "be careful what you ask for. There are people out there who'll never talk to me again."
"why?"
"I dunno. But one of them told me I am too 'unsettling'. So I am letting you know now. I can be .... 'unsettling' apparently. So please don't hate me later on.... just know this now.. don't say I didn't warn you... coz I did."
And then I watch. Their salad fork stops in mid-air and the olive falls off... the sudden exhalation blows off the foam from her capuccino.... the chat window freezes a little longer.... some don't blink... some squint... Some give nervous laugh thinking I am joking only to realise I am not... they don't know what to say.. neither do I.
I have to get over this.... It's unnecessary and trivial. I am sure it is. But you know what. Sometimes at night... you lie in bed and sleep doesn't come... and you think... and you drift... and you think about these things.... and not matter how much you tell yourself that it's trivial and stupid and the other person's deranged... some part of you always wonders.... "what if it's true?"
What if it is...
> 3 comments
7:13 AM
see.. this is the problem...
Too many people who know me personally are reading this blog. I have tons of REALLY interesting, sordid and melodramatic stuff happening in my life right now. Stuff you pathetic curiousity hogs would lap up like last nights lasgna. But I can't post about any of them. Because there is atleast one person reading this who I wouldn't want to know abt it.
So in the immortal words of madame Golda Meyer.. "tough titties people"
Now I must actually think up something interesting to post...
> 0 comments
6:19 AM
Monday, May 01, 2006
Met someone last Tuesday... had the best time.. spoke for 5 hours.. just talked. haven't had such conversations in a long time. Felt good. Thought we could be friends.
Met again today. She told me that she believed in astrology and palmistry. Asked me my star sign and read my palm. And not in a flirty way. Then told me that she was studying neuroscience because she wanted to start a business involving neuroscience, yoga, and parapsychology. Then met her mother who explained to me how Kali was so great and Hinduism was the only worthwhile religion around and how Muslims should be shot.
Hmm... knew this was too good to last. Too bad... too bad
> 2 comments
4:58 AM
