alien nation

Pint after? No Thanks..

2006-04-23T08:33:00.001-07:00

I've been a sports fan all my life..Well most of it anyways ... I just wish I had the talent too..damn, but thats for another rant ... So what you do after a match? I mean a post-match pint is the custom right... So we finished at the symposium SCISS'06 and when Steve suggested we head to a cafe thats what I thought he had in mind ,.. I mean I'm not a daytime guzzler, but then if a great man says, you do... Now all of a sudden we're at Black Walnut Cafe and since we're the last ones to come in, by the time I walk in they're done with the aimless looking at the menus and are at the point where they're forcing you to decide within the next 10 seconds like you're the one they're waiting for to set Titanic asail or something.. So when Matt says "How hard is it to decide a drink?" pointing to the beer crate, I pick a Corona up thinking that was the idea of the outing anyways.. thats that right ... So suddenly ten minutes later I'm sitting around a table with 10 others strawing their iced Mocha, while I have a longneck and they're talking about how I hardly attend class. Not Good..not good,... and to think that it was my first taste of alcohol this semester, just the fact that i'll be associating it with not-so-good feeling is ..umm..not-so-good....So take my advice, keep sports separate from acads...they have their own rules .. they have their own allowable fuckups... What I ended up doing was not one of them ... but heck, what can you do ... maybe I'll just drown it in a pint or something...

Scouser thighs!

2005-10-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

This happened way back in May, but was just visiting the BBC site, and more importantly had a deadline, so took this escape route...

Well I didn't have a TV and didn't know a bar open at that time around here considering I was new at the place.. to be honest I had kinda forgotten about the finals since, like so many of the earlier rounds, I expected Liverpool to lose. Sure, they'd beaten Chelsea, but then I thought they'd used up their luck for the rest of the century-apparently not. I reached the gym as usual in the afternoon and got on the treadmill on which I dont last for more than 20 minutes usually. While surfing channels caught the game on one. The gym was pretty filled with chics in hot pants scrambling to find an unoccupied treadmill. I was the misfit in there. I started watching with Liverpool just having scored the first and sure enough didn't have to wait long for the rest of the two. A Champions League final with teams tied 3-3 is a novelty-theres just too much on the line to afford that kind of attacking adventure. So I was hooked. I clung on to the treadmill for the rest of the half, 2 halves of extra time, penalties and the celebrations. I left reluctantly when the screen said "An ESPN Production". I was half-dead by the time I got off the treadmill, with pissed off girls all around having watched the drama, through my groans, half shouts-how did Shevchenko miss that goal in extra time!!, my laughs-that was the best "pole-dance" I'd ever seen...It was a game to savour- Soccer was the winner, my thighs and calves however, were not. That day everyone became a scouser! We've had a few laughs over how I clung on to the machine just to see best CL finals since Man U won it, just dont tell my legs about it-they just wont hear anything about it, at least not till u talk about a couch and some beer too!

That what doesn't kill you......

2005-02-15T19:37:00.000-08:00

People go on coffee breaks, I'm on what I call a "Coffee Sem" .... ya Columbia n all those South American countries rock ... Net-Sec is one the courses for the sem ....I had submitted assignment-2 late and was working on it over the weekend, so i decided that while i was at it , i might as well get done with the 3rd assignment as well, so i finished reading the 3rd chapter and got to work ...3.15,3.16,3.17 out of the way and it had been just about an hour since I started working on it , not bad huh! maybe Dr.Wright had lost his canines , maybe he found a heart, maybe he fell for a pretty lady professor at UTA(empty set by the way) ....or wait, better still maybe I had got my touch back or somethin, maybe I had done the hard yards and things were gettin easier now ...especially since noone in class was finding this alarmingly easy or anything .... i think the class was shining through finally...anyways i was beginning to glow ...so i started working on my Operating System exam and Net-Sec presentation slated for the same day knowing that at least one of the hurdles was crossed, n that too in style ...so while I was at Central Library working on the exam, short on sleep, but filled with coffee and a swagger that told you who the king of the jungle was, I met a classmate-Sowmya and was going on about how she was needlessly worried and that it was really pretty straightforward... so she wondered as to what was the answer on problem 5.4 or somethin...i was like "problem?!?! u must be tripping!" then she showed it to me, there it was !! then wat was the stuff i had sailed through? I looked at Sowmya open-mouthed...I had done the review questions!!! ....wow!! now soumya isn't one you can get much of a reaction from, so you got to goad her to some kind of a reaction, hell that must have been another Soumya, this chic was rolling on the floor laughing! (sigh).... the swagger's gone...theres a beet-red touch to the cheeks... but life goes on, now the idea is to salvage some pride.... i had heard that if things are too good to be true they probably aren't, now you'll be hearing that from me ... Well, anyways , the wise Irish would say "That what doesn't kill you only gives you something to laugh your ass off about over beer!" ... pearls of wisdom gained from acts of acute stupidity-thats the story of this weekend ....whats that they say about waiting for weekends?!? count me out...

Weight n Watch

2004-12-13T03:02:00.000-08:00

Has anyone met people after ages n been told that they looked different? I'm not talkin beauty , I'm talking weight!Has anyone ever wondered as to why we never seem to be the same weight between 2 visits to a place. Has anyone returned home after a while and had their parents say that they look the same weight as when they left? not here! We always seem to lose or gain weight depending on whether you're fat or thin. If you're fat you'd have grown fatter and if thin, thinner. Its always where it hurts most. Its almost like they feel like the subjects watching the parade in "The Emperors new clothes" if they don't say anything.I know i guess its the most convenient way to start a converstaion, but just that the person may not wanna make a conversation if thats whats on your mind!

Shrek shreik

2004-11-08T23:37:00.000-08:00

I saw Shrek and the sequel back-to-back yesterday.. again! I love it. The animation as always was awesome and I thought Mike Myers's work in it was absolutely brilliant. The voice he produced for the ogre was a piece of art I thought. Anyways this isn't meant to be a film review, dont have the time, patience nor sense of fairness to pull that off.
Something struck me during the movie and was wondering if anyone else thought the same. I mean we all enjoyed it n shit like that, some of the repartes were brilliant and it makes for a cute love story, but what about the hero of the story. Being picked up from the swamp to star in a Dreamworks bonanza is the stuff of dreams, isn't it!
Now the ogre thought he was part of a fairy tale. What, by the way, is the point of a fairy tale? A happy ending rite? But the dude got an ugly-as-hell ass chick at the end of it. How the hell is that happy by any stretch of imagination. Sure some of the girls seeing the movie, ready-to-get-fooled by the idea of love as they are, would have gone "awwwww" n shit. But I'm telling you as a guy, all through the movie Shrek was just thankful he didn't have to do a nude scene with her, for his sake and hers.
At first the guy was just happy he got a girl in the movie for all the hardwork he did riding for days through deserts n snow n all that. Then go to the castle and escape the fire-breathing dragon and reach the highest room of the tallest tower, rescue the chic, who by the way the fool could easily have kissed if he kept his helmet on. At the end of it, first of all u return the chic to a limpdick guy who's half a king ..literally..not good!
Of course a girl making eggs for breakfast for u in bed is the stuff of fairy tales! Then he sees some chemistry finally, not with a swamp fish, not a donkey,but, a princess. He must have finally been a lill thrilled to have been cast in the movie, then he acts like an ass, she acts like its a bad time of the month and we have Dreamworks-created drama before the ogre is stuck with her. Listen Shrek, if you can read this n have not been eaten by your better half already,of course you'll had great chemistry n shit during the journey from the dragons place to the wimp king, but thats whom u make friends of, not girlfriends dude... cos you may get carried away n go marry it but u still have to wake up to it in the morning, rite? You got played for a sucker man!
Somewhere in the middle of all the drama, the ogre realises he dint score on a babe, but the she-ogre scored on him, but then love n all that mush means he doesnt get time to reflect on the loss. Part 2 has the honeymoon n stuff which is all good fun n all, noone can complain abt sex. I bet they tried blindfolds n all, each one must've tried to act like they were wild, but really they were just blocking the sight. Now don't act like I'm cynical, I'd like to think I'm brutally honest. OK i hear someone asking for proof? Theres no proof more than him not wanting to go meet the parents. Dont kid me guys, we may feed the girls a lot of crap, but we know that when u don't wanna meet the parents, you're not thinking too far. Then the rest of the movie follows and its pretty regular except for the pieces of brilliance from Murphy and Myers.
Of course the marriage parties at the end of both of the movies are brilliant. The part with Pinnochio wearing girls underwear rocked, so much so that I'm convinced it had to have been thought of under the influence of alcohol at some Irish pub.
Anyways coming back to our poor ogre, from the start where the mirror crashes during credits to the point where he gets the she-ogre at the end, he really seems to get a raw deal from the movie makers. I know a lot of girls wont believe me, sure they called it love n all , but on lonely nites when he is all alone n doesnt have the donkey talkin in his ears , if you tune into the swamp n listen closely he's wondering as to how he ended with the only other chic who's as ugly as him. Well as for me I just hate them calling it a fairy tale after what they did to the ogre.

2004-09-27T21:04:00.000-07:00

I call this Trucks Humping

Wazzzzzaaaappppppp!!

2004-09-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

My first real experience in the “land of opportunities” might be the same for most “desis” as we are colloquially called. I was enrolled at University of Texas in Arlington in the fall of 2002 to go to graduate school. This fresh graduate from India came here expecting to see a “Friends” type setting during the week and an MTv Grind during the weekends. I couldn’t have been further from the truth. The difference in cultures between the two places however, is so marked, and it never came across better to me than in a short span of time spent crossing a small bridge over Cooper Street. “Nice bridge, great construction, what a country!” I found myself saying. I was looking around pretty much wide-eyed and open mouthed when suddenly a guy passed by me.
“What’s up?!?” My immediate response was to wonder as to how bored or lonely he must be to talk to any stranger passing by. They teach you back home that “you don’t speak unless you’re spoken to!”. I mean I’m the type who wouldn’t probably say “how are you” unless I really cared as to how the person was. Doing something like that felt like being dishonest in a way, or maybe even fake. I’d only do things I wanted to do, no courtesies. But I still hadn’t made myself comfortable enough to make a judgment on someone here and immediately modified my reaction to give him an assurance that I was in good health and other related information, which, much to my irritation, the guy didn’t care about. Well, he had asked me a question and he was damn well going to listen to what I had to say.
“Well who cares!” he mutted and walked away. That guy was probably a one-off freak, I said to myself. The second guy passing did the same.
“What’s up?” he mumbled with a tilt of his head. This was a full scale freak show that I was passing by here. Hold on! Maybe they weren’t the exception, but the rule. Well, could it be that the entire country was loony. “Probably so!”- the small town boy in me declared. That probably burst my bubble-this wasn’t a perfect world after all. This was a normal country- all and the people were just like us. Probably a little weirder, this one said nothing just looked at me in shock when I tried to talk about what was up. “There was more to this country than just the huge roads n Silicon Valley and the flyovers” I said to myself as he rushed away. I felt comfortable that this my new country men weren’t at all superior- a notion we in India were made to believe earlier. However this one which is turning into more of a myth than anthing for my generation.
We hold America in respect , not awe. Each country has its positives and negatives and it really depends on the media of that country to project that responsibly. While the American movies are always showing us how they save the world, Indian movies still harp on the comedy of errors that take place in our society-which happens only as much as it does in others , with the effect that we were brought up believing that this country is the origin to solutions of all problems and most Americans brought up with the notion that snake charmers and mahouts roam the streets in India as much as cars. Indians by nature are self-deprecatory , not because we lack self confidence or anything , but just because we are used to living in moderate living conditions and we learn to take that on the chin, we learn to see the humour in the situation, more than the consequence of it. The reason we are immune to most diseases is that we’ve lived in the perfect breeding ground for most of those , and our bodies have adapted. Show a bypass surgeon a scene of an injection and he won’t even flinch. Well we are the bypass surgeons of the world. We’ve seen it all. We learn to see the lighter side of things and not take things too personally. Nevertheless I had to spend a few years here and I wasn’t going to be embarrassed by every tom,dick n harry who passed me. I was going to learn my way around here. “I was going to walk the walk” And it started today.
Now the third guy is where my learning curve would start.
“How ya doing?” he asked.
“I’m confused and have a slight headache, but I hope…” I said but he rolled his eyes and walked past.
“Damn!”.
Now there would have to be a fourth guy to teach me. As soon as I saw him I flashed a “what’s up” in pure “curry” style, albeit pretty coolly I thought. The guy looks up, smiles and gives me “What’s up!” smiled and walked past a still expectant ME. It then struck me! “Get real! Is that it?!? It couldn’t be”. It went against everything I had learned all my life.. “You reply to a question with an answer-not another question”. Well, not in America supposedly. What is considered pushing into other’s comfort zone back home is called “being nice” over here. It has taken me a couple of years to just relax and go with the flow, to learn that not all questions demand answers ,some are probably ,well, just to acknowledge your presence and one of the most important things I’ve learned is that a question isn’t always a question. It can also be an answer. So if you see me across the street, don’t look surprised if I say “Whats up!”.

Language no bar!

2004-09-25T01:56:00.000-07:00

India is a scam artist’s paradise. You can climb up the ladder of success so long as you have ideas. People on the street know as much about marketing, as, I suppose, an MBA-Marketing from Harvard, just that they learn it for free and are still called illiterate. Some of the stunts they pull off are downright brilliant. What follows does not fall in that category. Outside the Nerul railway station, a 6’X 10’ Xerox centre had the following sign. “Hi Quality Cannon Xerox in all LANGUAGES”

What is Life if full of care......

2004-09-25T01:41:00.000-07:00

One deal with the fast paced world is that hardly anyone nowadays is a good listener. As chuck Palahniuk said in Fight Club, “it seems like no one is listening, like they’re just waiting for their turn to speak”. But in these ages where hearing is the norm and listening is a forgotten art, we cover up our trail well enough so as not to have the other take offence. While the following episode with my friend Prajakta didn’t offend me, it brought me a wry smile. She was on her way to San Francisco and thought that I should join her. I told her that it would be kind of hard with me having to trash my car after a huge accident on the interstate. What followed was a piece of absent-minded genius. She squealed “car!! u lucky pig! I didn’t know you had a car. What car is it?” with that she got disconnected and I wondered if I’d ever encounter a better case in point about “missing the point”. I guess not.