Treat and eat

Have you guys ever wondered that the only way that we please someone, other than giving them gifts is by taking them out for a lunch or a dinner? This is what we term as a treat. The literal definition of "treat" on Wiktionary is "To entertain with food or drink"!!

Isn't it weird? If a person is already over weight and diet conscious how in the world are you going to entertain him/her by stuffing with loads of fat rich food? Or for that matter, if the host is fat and overweight how do you expect him to be happy treating you out to food and eating along with you? Its my honest opinion that depending on the physical wellbeing of the host or the person that you want to "entertain" you should call that person out for a healthy workout in the gym, or better still take him/her out for a walk. This way you will end up spending quality time with that person and at the same time, "entertain".

This blog post came out of my upset tummy which has been fed outside almost everyday for the entire last week, to "treat" other people :)!! Next time onwards I have decided to treat people by talking them out for a walk on the Iron Horse Trail

On a related note, the cuisines that are grumbling in my stomach right now are:
Indian, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, Italian and Mediterranean. Unity in diversity in my stomach. Reminds me of this song...

How to spot an Indian?

Hello readers!! Sorry for the barrage of emotionally charged blogs that I wrote for a couple of weeks. I am back again to being stupid like always :) !! Hmm, I bet many of you heaved a sigh of relief.

Well, well, 'nuff said. Lets get back to work. I have been studying fellow Indians in malls and gyms and else where, and here I have listed a few of my observations. Note that even I follow all of these things religiously :) !!

1. Drives around in a Honda or a Toyota. (That's not true, we also drive a Hyundai or a Nissan :))
2. Does not buy any electronics unless s/he finds them in a deal.
3. Stands outside Circuit City or Fry's at 3:00AM for the day after Thanksgiving Sale.
4. Talks with a heavy nasal accent which sounds as if s/he is down with a cold.
5. S/he puts more sugar and milk in the coffee, than the coffee itself!
6. Gives you a blank stare if you are an Indian, gives a cheek-to-cheek smile otherwise!
7. If an Indian approaches and smiles at another unknown Indian, then he is for sure in a Multi-level Marketing Scheme. Runnnn....
8. Pays off all the credit card bills on time and keeps zero credit exposure.
9. Refers to Wikipedia for anything s/he doesn't understand. It's our no nonsense survival guide in the US of A.

War and Peace

I couldn't stop myself from posting this particular blog.

I couldn't sleep over the last spate of comments that I got on my blog titled Worthless. Somebody actually proved to me that I am worthless, that I use a lot of smileys in my blog, make a lot of grammatical and spelling mistakes and generally I ain't good for anything.

But I guess, I know that already, and I don't think I am gonna change. So I decided to continue writing with a vengeance :) !! Also I am not gonna stop using smileys cause those cute little creatures make me happy. I know my writing is not gonna change the world, but this is the only hobby that I have.

So I wish myself, all the very best and move on. I guess my blog is facing some midlife crises.

And before I end , I have taken Siddharth's comment to heart which said " hey..write what u want to...not what people want to listen!! there r enough places in the world where u can't do ur own thing..let this be an exception!"

Thank you! For me, I am still the center of MY universe :) !!

Worthless

Had a pretty interesting week as far as my blog goes. I got two very constructive feedbacks, and I have taken them to heart :) !!

The first one requires a bit of a background, so read on. There is a particular Java API which calculates the worth of your blog using Trackbacks, links and your blogs ranking on Technorati.

Incidentally my blog is worth zero dollars :) !! Well, its predictable. To start with, mine is an absolutely ego centric blog and when I started off I had no illusions of grandeur whatsoever. I didn't even succumb to the temptation of making some quick bucks by using Google Adsense. All said and done you can check the worth of your blog over here.

The second criticism that I received was of the fact is that I try to write funny and with the poor frequency at which I write, it doesn't really make my blog worth reading :) !!

Hehe, I understand. So here is my mid year blog resolution.

1. I shall write more regularly and shall not wait for brain waves to come.
   
2. I will write what I feel like and not try to be funny.
3. I shall continue writing till I have at least 1 subscriber other than myself :) !!

I love to write, and when my emails to e-groups started falling on deaf ears, I started my own blog. So thanks to all of you for being with me till now :)

And finally ... comments are highly appreciated.

Iron Man

There goes the month of April 2007. Very forgettable indeed. I actually managed to do nothing in this month :) !! Hehe its Sunday evening on the 29th of this month (remember, the saddest day of the week is fast approaching? ;) ) and I am struggling to complete ironing my clothes. This is one art that I can never master and have no intentions of doing so. To take a break, I thought I google some articles on "efficient ironing".

I know many of you must be grinning at the fact that I actually tried to search something like that. But to tell you the truth, I have the firm belief that if something does not turn up on a google search then it does not exist :) !! Don't believe me? Check this out, I actually found one great article on it ..

I find ironing a complete waste of my precious time. And I try to minimize my work by buying wrinkle-free clothes and hanging my clothes on hangers when they are wet to minimize creases :) !! I am lazy with a capital L :)

Anyways after my barber if there is one noble soul that I truly miss in India is the guy who irons my clothes. I am short of words here, but as far as my English vocab goes, I couldn't figure out a word for him. In India we affectionately call him धोबिवाला (Dhobiwala :) !!). That benevolent soul comes every day evening takes away all the washed clothes that need ironing and returns them to you the next day. If you are in a hurry and need clothes immediately, you just walk up to him, and he does your clothes at high priority :) !! What a neat concept!! And all this for less than 5 cents a shirt!! Whew!!

The housing society in which I stay in India is named Sapna which is incidentally also a common name of girls in India. Now this dhobi of mine has marked all my clothes with a "Sapna 3" to indicate that they are my clothes. The funny part is that, he has strategically written this at places that aren't easily seen from the outside. Which means that every time that I grope my trouser's buckle to unzip it, I see "Sapna 3" written on it. I am lucky that I don't have a wife, else she would always suspect me to be having an affair with a certain Sapna :) !! And I would have a hard time convincing her that my dhobi actually likes to write my Apartment's name there!!

My Apologies

My dear readers!! Sorry for vanishing for more than 23 days without a post. My creative juices (as if there were any!) have completely dried up, and I had no idea what to scribble here for a long long time. Not that I have a topic to write about now, but I thought I just come and prove my existence.

These 20 odd days made me realize that quite a few of you read my blog. I am very happy, and though most of you never comment, in a crisis situation like this, you did let me know :) !! Comments are my post prized possessions and thanks for keeping them coming.

I was trying to analyze where I lost 23 days of my 26th year in life. Hmm, and the culprit is, Nintendo DS Lite. For those of you who do not know what Nintendo DS is, you are too old :) !! Its the hottest selling handheld gaming console, and it was gifted to me by my friends on my birthday. This little devil now eats away atleast 2 hours of my insane life everyday. I have a game called Brain Age installed on it and I am busy burning my midnight oil (I love that phrase :) !!) after it...

I always felt that Sudoku was a fad that will die down soon, but now I am hooked onto it. I was never fond of numbers ... considering that the only numbers that I come across in my life are .. my weight, my waist size, my age, my salary and my bank balance and somehow I am not happy with anyone of them :) !!

Anyways, I guess I need to control this addiction, so I shall be a lot more regular from now on .. and here is a great video of what you can do with cars...

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!