10 Learnings

On the eve of my birthday I thought I treat my readers with a blog. So here I go summarizing 10 things that I have learnt since I landed on this planet.

1. Never ask a women if she is pregnant, till you see a baby popping out of her.
2. Writing funny without being offensive is difficult. Its much easy to be funny by teasing someone!
   
3. People will like you the most when you keep your mouth shut. Your good friends are those who listen to you!
4. Not everyone wants to read what you write. If you find yourself expressing your thoughts on a e-group and no one responds, its time you start a blog :) !!
5. Not all left handed people are talented. (Yupp, you got it right, I am a lefty!)
6. Girls don't like my kinda guys. (Statistically, I am the only one of my kind :P) You should be able to talk about more things in life than cars and computers.
7. Money does not buy you happiness (accepted!), but happiness does not give you food, shelter, clothing, gas and that good looking car that you keep on eying all the time.
8. Cake in your hair is much difficult to get rid of, than the one on your face. So on your birthdays, do not resist the cake smearing routine, unless you are bald.
9. Singing in front of a crowd of 20 with a voice like mine needs GUTS. Period.
10. Lists are always made of numbers divisible by 5. So your list can't have 9 points, the 10th one has to be made up :) !!

Undying love..

Okay Okay!! Thanks for your concern. I know that you guys are really worried about what has happened to my dear car!! Hmm, thought I write a blog and make it clear!! Whoosh, please don't express thy sympathies any longer :) !! When I said "I do" ;) (I mean when I signed the title in DMV), I made it clear that I shall accept her as my car "In sickness and in health, in poverty or in wealth...."

It all started almost a month ago when I went to Pepboys for a regular oil change (that mundane lowly thing that everyone does once in three months!). The friendly Pepboys mechanic advised me that I need a tire change cause the tread was wearing out. Being the gullible ideal customer that I am (I hate to call myself stupid, but I guess you get the idea :) !!), I succumbed to his innocuous suggestion, and then the ordeal started.

When he raised my car to change the tires he told me that there was a leak somewhere (and the stupid me fell for it too!). Looking at my "I am an idiot" expression, he thought he could trick me into buying a service. But, you guys know how spendthrift ;) I am, I refused.

Huh... I drove away my beauty in new tires, only to realize that she was somehow getting attracted to the oh-so-well-built Hummer in my left lane. I passed it off as just another fling (for her ;)!!), only to notice that she did that even when there was no car in the left lane.

Back, I went again to Pepboys, and the friendly mechanic advised me that I get a Wheel Alignment done. Huh, and then I had to go three more times to their place for them to just fix my alignment! I did some research on the Internet and figured out that wheel alignment is done by computers (no wonder they messed it up thrice then ;) !!). Being a computer programmer myself, I decided I forgive them.

Though I had declined service from Pepboys for the "leak" that they spotted (I had heard horrid stories of how car mechanics trick you into buying multiple services from them!)., I did my own research and went to an *exclusive* transmission specialist, Aamco. I thought, they are the experts, they will really let me know if there is a leak.

Off I went to Aamco, and lo-behold they could not find a leak at all!! If this is not enough, they told me that my transmission is in serious trouble and I need to change the fluid. I remember having done that before, but the mechanic is the God, and I decided to do that again.

All said and done, now my car has new tires, got her wheels aligned and now has new transmission fluid. Not that she gave me any trouble, but I thought I spend some hard earned money on some car mechanics around my area :) !!

That's about it. Now you know, don't ever go to a mechanic if you have no problem, cause they will create one for you.....

Protect thyself!

This is a social service blog, and if you are reading this for entertainment, this one is not for you :) !! Also if you do not stay in Uncle Sam's land (US of A), then this ain't your stuff. The two of you who are left, read on :) !!

A few days back (7th March 2007 to be precise!), I applied for a new credit card and got it approved in a shopping mall ( you know those tempting offers which give you instant cash discount and stuff just for applying!). Now, I know that owning too many credit cards would harm my credit score, but I thought that applying for just one more wont do any bad.

The card was supposed to arrive in 5-7 business days. I patiently waited for the card for 8 business days, and called up the credit card's toll free number today. And lo-behold, they had already mailed me the credit card on the 12th of March. Under ordinary circumstances, I should have received it latest by the 15th. They have cancelled my credit card now, and will dispatch a new one in 5-7 more business days :) !! The error was that my address contains a '6' and they had mistyped it to be 'G'.

I was searching for articles on Identity and Credit Card thefts online, and I have come across couple of tips for my fellow naive readers :) !! First of all, I bet everyone of you must be getting those "Pre-screened" credit card offers which promise 60 second approval and a new credit card at your door step. Under ordinary circumstances you not only ignore them, but also throw them away in your dustbin or waste paper bin.

There is this interesting blog by a person who tried to obtain a credit card by sending a torn application. Its an interesting read, and you need to give it a look.

Torn Credit Application


Also, if you do not need Pre-screened offers of credit cards, you can opt-out of receiving them by going to the following address:

https://www.optoutprescreen.com/opt_form.cgi

This is particularly important for people like me who live in the US for a short duration and are most of the time stationed in India. You do not want strangers to receieve your pre-approved credit cards once you are in India. Also you will do your bit for saving the environment by reducing the paper used for sending those applications which you anyways don't use.

And finally, sorry guys for the serious blog, I thought I help a few people by posting this message on my blog.

And now, some nostalgia for my aged friends .. a Doordarshan video...

Happy Days

Two weeks past and nothing new to write. Blogging is much more difficult than I thought it to be. The typical life of a programmer is way too sad to write blogs...

As most of you have observed recently, I have been acting like a melodramatic Hindi movie hero with a over grown beard and a droopy look in my eyes (sans the pain relieving *intoxicant* of course ;) ), a complete social recluse!

I did a little bit of soul searching yesterday and I figured out that I am going through a *feel low* phase in my life! This made me wonder about the various moods that I go through, and here I have come up with a *catch all* listing of my moods.. This will help you to figure out when to approach me and when not to :) !!!

Happiest day of the week:
As you guessed right, it has to be a Friday. No questions asked :) ... Even if I have work over the weekend, this day for sure makes me happy. The last hour in the office on a Friday is the best time of my life :) !!

Happiest day of the month:
It has to be the day my salary gets credited in my bank account. It makes me feel as if I have been rewarded for spending soo much over the previous month, that I have been given some more to spend over the next month :) !!!

Happiest day of the year:
Well this is a difficult one to pinpoint on. But this year, I can tell for sure that it was the day I landed in India, and saw my mom, dad and sis patiently waiting for me at the airport. One look, and my fictitious jet lag was gone :) !!

And for everything happy in life, there has to be something sad. The concept of yin-yang you see ;) ...

Saddest day of the week:
Monday morning. Can you imagine my state of mind when I hear the sound of my alarm at 5:20 AM on Mondays?

Saddest day in the month:
Hmm, its the day after my salary. I mean, ok, I got this salary, and they expect me to last on this for a month?! Gimme a break...

Saddest day in the year:
Undoubtedly my birthday! How can someone celebrate getting old? I mean its okay to celebrate till you are 18 (you are actually growing into an adult till then!). After that its just getting older and older... I dread my birthdays :) !!

Now I understand why I am gloomy! Its just cause my birthday is fast approaching :( !! Somebody save me!

Tales of an Indian Barber

I am in the mood to write today, and so I decided to post a quick blog to thank and reward all my readers for sticking to my rantings for more than 6 months now :)!

2 days back I had my hair cut, and have been feeling low ever since. Every month when I get my hair cut, its soo terribly done that I spend the next few days repenting my look. By the time that I get used to my *new* look the dreaded day approaches when I go to my *hairstylist * again!

I analyzed my feelings and I realized I never had these depressing feelings when I was in India. Indian barbers are world class! You don't tell them numbers, and esoteric style names. Even before you go to a hairdresser in Uncle Sam's land, you need to learn their numbering convention!

I soo vividly remember the first time that I went to a hairdresser out here, and she asked me which number do I want. I thought it was *pick -a-number* kinda game that I was playing, and I chose zero (After all, am from the country that invented it ;) !!). Without blinking an eye lid she took out a mean looking machine from her toolbox and in no time did my head look like a barren land. I mean, before I could shout stop, she was done with her job and was expecting me to pay her 15$ with a tip for her stupendous work. I still have night mares about that lady with the machine and I wake up in the middle of the night pulling my hair (pun intended ;) !).

Your experience with an Indian barber is otherwise (I don't feel like calling my barber, an hairdresser, somehow it makes him wear a tie and jacket in my mind, and it doesn't quite go well with his trademark dhoti :) !!). You go in and you are greeted by your name. The fun part about barbers is that they not only know you, but they also know your entire family tree (the male ascendants only!). He will tell you about the latest movie gossips, and cricket stories by the time you comfortably settle in the chair. Then he just gives a quick look at you, and gets down to his business. I bet there is a software built into his head which he uses to decide what style will suit me the best. I can imagine him visualizing a bald me, and dragging and dropping various hairstlyes onto my head to decide what suits me best :) !!

After the awesome haircut is done he gives a pleased look, and without asking, pours a gallon of hair oil on your head. Thereafter he starts a ritual fondly called *head massage* in which he starts playing the beats of the latest Bollywood movie on your head. Then he holds your head and moves it in so many directions that for a moment you feel that you are sitting in a roller coaster. After everything is done, you give him a dollar (tips included!) and you walk out happy for another month before you return!!

This blog is dedicated in its entirety to all the barbers who have cut my hair. I bow down in respect to thee :) !!!

That reminds me, statistically, I have spent almost 25*12*0.5 = 150 hours (almost a week!) in the barber's chair and have had my hair cut at least 300 times!! Wow!!

Celebrity through notoriety

This is a funny example of "what you sow is what you reap!".

To proclaim my blatant love for cars, I have purchased 4 toy cars and have kept them in my office cubicle for everyone to admire. Earlier I had kept them on top of a cabinet so that everyone who passed by my cube could see them. One fine day, I saw that one of them was missing, only to find out three days later that it was hidden by a friend of mine who tried to play a prank on me.

However, he isn't aware that over the three days, I did a lot of frantic searching for the car, before I declared that it was "stolen". Also just to take care of the rest of my cars, I moved them from their original location. Doing all this attracted a lot of attention of my regular visitors and a few of my colleagues.

Finally, now that I have my car back, every now and then whenever an old visitor comes back, the conversation naturally drifts towards my stolen car, and then I have to explain how my friend had hid it as a practical joke and how he gave it back to me. And the result is, ahem, everyone wants to know who he is :) !!!

I never imagined I would give so much negative publicity to someone without intending to do so. But this is just another example of how negative gets highlighted in our society whereas the good things go unnoticed.

Heavy duty

Belated Valentine's day wishes to all my readers! I actually forgot to wish everyone of you yesterday so I thought I do that today. I pity the guy who has to buy expensive gifts for his girlfriend/fiance, I have no such expenses :) !! (Yaa, I know I am that "glass is half full" guy :P)

Today I read a news about a very heavy baby born somewhere in Brazil. Lucky guy (got press coverage)!! For those of you who don't know, I too came close to competing for the title of India's heaviest baby (when I was born ofcourse :P)!! But the media in India when I was a kid was soo bad that they did not bother to report me. Else today you all would have been proud to have known me :)!!

I was actually the heaviest baby to be ever born in the hospital that I was born. And the doctor who delivered me was ecstatic to see my weight on the weighing scale (infact he couldn't believe my weight so he checked it on a couple of machines before telling my weight to my mom :P). Finally I was kept as a specimen for every nurse/doctor in the hospital to come and admire. So, many pretty nurses came and kissed me that day, that I was thinking to myself "If I am soo popular on the first day of my life, what am I gonna do later?!" (If someone wants to still admire one of the most heavy babies in the world, am still available :P). However all that kissing and hugging took its toll on me, and the fifth day of my life I was down with skin infection :) !! Luckily for me, I recovered before I could lose any weight and continued gaining it everyday of my life from then on.

Rumour has it that my parents developed their forearm muscles thanks to lifting me everyday. My dad was the intercontinental arm wrestling champion 2 times in a row (Hah .. I know you fell for that one :P)...

Actually speaking its a Thursday evening and my sense of humor has gone for a toss. So if you did not find this article funny, go see this video and turn on your speakers, cause you need to listen...

For Feed readers only!

Hi guys!

This blog post is only for those of you who subscribe to my feed using a RSS/Atom Feed reader.

When I started blogging there were hardly a couple (read 2) of people reading my blog. But now I guess the count has increased to a number which I cannot count with one hand (read more than 5) :) !! So, I decided I change my feeds to a more professionally managed site (Feedburner)!

What this means to you?

If you are subscribed to my blog using an RSS/Atom Aggregator (eg Google Homepage/ Bloglines etc), the feed will go dead within a week. You will have to resubscribe to my feed using the following url:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/gmuz

If you were tracking my blog by visiting the site http://gmuz.blogspot.com, then there is no change for you.

I am sorry for the trouble! And thanks for reading and keep commenting :) !!

Airline travel

Okay, so the procrastinating me didn't stick to my own deadline of writing two blogs before Feb end :) !! Right now, I am in the Heathrow airport waiting to catch my connecting flight. Its 2 hours from now, and 2 hours for me is too short a time to do anything... You can't sleep because if you do so, there's a chance you might oversleep .. you can't sit and chit chat with strangers (I don't need to explain why :P !!). So I decided to utilize this time to write something. I bet this is a lot better way to spend my time..

Have already had a 10 hour flight before and my entire body is aching. Airline travel is an interesting experience. First you say goodbye to your family and feel low about it... Then comes the security check and you are scanned left right top bottom with no concerns for your privacy. Your bags are probed to the last pocket, innocent looks meet no concern. Then comes the cramped airline seat. The seats are designed soo good that if they were made any smaller, people like me would prefer go standing in the flight :) !! I believe 5 years from now, all airlines will have one big floor and every passenger will have to get his/her own sleeping bag and find a spot on the floor and sleep. Business and first class passengers will be treated with respect by giving them complimentary pillows along with their bags :) !!

Then comes the nutritious airline food. The less said about it the better.... I bet most of us have no idea what we are eating. I once ended up eating up the container ...

If there is one thing that has always intrigued me, its the airline Toilet. Each time I visit it, I feel like bowing down to the person who designed it. How could some one soo efficiently squeeze in sooo many things in a tiny space of 1x1 foot? Next time you board a plane, get up in the middle of the night (when everyone else is sleeping and there is no queue to visit the heavenly abode!) and study this place. There are shampoos, creams, tooth pastes, brushes, hot/cold water dispensers, towels and any other toiletries you can think of! I bet there is a Playstation somewhere inside too, I just couldn't find it out yet.

Then come the duty free shops. I bet all duty free shop owners consider airline travellers jet-lagged idiots who have no idea of the correct price of an item. Imagine a serial shopaholic like me finds the prices on some of the things ridiculously expensive (not that I refrain from buying anyways .. there comes the idiot part in me :) !!)

Lastly comes your co-passenger. If you take a window seat, you will get a co-passenger who is horizontally challenged (read obese) and sleeps for the entire time of the flight. So you have no chance to move out. Then, if you take an aisle seat then you get hyperactive neighbours who want to get out every 15 minutes, and the friendly air hostess steps on your foot each time that she passes by you :)!!

Well all said and done, I love airline travel, cause it makes me realize I am just a population statistic in this big bad world. I am just a boarding pass holding airline cargo who is given a seat and carries with me tonnes of other mundane stuff from one corner of the world to another.

Sigh.. how depressing :( !!

The Great Indian Art of Car driving

My apologies for getting lost for a while now. I have no lame excuses this time. My sister's wedding is less than 4 days from now. My computer at home is dead, and the net which is delivered by the infamous *cable walla* is not working because of an earthquake in Indonesia 1 week back. I have never felt more cut off from the (cyber) world, the way am feeling now!

Finally I landed up in a friendly neighbourhood cybercafe, and typing this blog cost me Rs.20 :) !! Hehe, so this one is an *expensive* blog, so you better appreciate!!

Most of you already know my undying attraction towards anything on 4 wheels (read cars!) and minutes after landing in India, I wanted to get behind the wheels of my stick shift (Santro..). However driving in US for more than 6 months made me realize that I had actually forgotten the *Great Indian art of car driving*.

Driving in India is an art. Period. No wonder not everyone in India can drive. Any monkey can learn to operate a car, but driving requires different skills. For the last week or so, I have been trying to understand this art again, and here are a few of my observations:

1. When you drive, you are the king of the road, and everyone else must understand and follow your will.
2. The bigger the vehicle you drive, the more respect you command on the road.
3. You can either drive on the right or the left of the road, as long as you yield to bigger vehicles coming in the opposite direction (vehicles smaller to your's must take care of themselves).
4. You yield to only those drivers who are more aggressive than you are. But the moment you yield, you let the other driver know your displeasure by honking loudly.
5. Pedestrians, cattle, stray dogs, and bicyclists do not exist. As long as they do not directly come in your path, they are an illusion and they should watch out for you for their own good.
6. Red traffic signals are used to decorate the road, they do not serve any purpose.
7. You should honk every 15 seconds for everyone around you to know that you are coming.

If you understand these basic rules and you know the geometry of your car to the last millimeter, then nothing can go wrong. You can squeeze your car in to the last millimeter and cause traffic jams and be proud about it.

Once I started following these rules, I figured that I was back to my roots, now I can comfortably drive in India. I guess I will have to go through the "California Driver's Handbook" once I am back in Uncle Sam's land :) !!!