Aimed Kills

It’s the end of the world. A giant brainwash is set to take place. Since the intelligent ones have killed each other over property rights feuds, the responsibility fell upon the mediocre ones to perfect this weapon of mass deletion. Presenting Aimed Kills*, the world’s first brainwasher!

Now, what shall we erase? It’s too much of a cliché to erase memory completely but erasing just the cerebral regions would create a whole bunch of morons. How about erasing all memory of food? A consensus was reached and it was hailed as a phenomenal idea given that food is what sustains life as we know it. The brainwasher was programmed accordingly but, given the mediocrity associated at different levels, the final product was, what can I say, not quite perfect. You see, it left some leftovers, if you will, of what it set out to delete. To add to the confusion, the one food item that remained unscathed after the process was the sober Idli.

It almost seemed as though Idli had been crowned hero of the day and it was on a double-sided mission to set things right once and for all, albeit in an oddly selfish way. What were those crunchy finger shaped snacks called? I don’t remember; let’s make them out of Idlis! And thus, Idli Finger Chips was formed. What was that saucy thing you had at a Chinese restaurant long back? Never mind; let’s make them out of Idlis. Voila! Idli Manchurian! Wasn’t Biriyani the most elaborate and spicy of them all? Who cares! Let’s make them out of Idlis. And there you have Idli Biriyani. If you don’t mind, kindly extrapolate the aforementioned line of thought to Rasam idli, Idli Gulab Jamun, Idli Ussili and Idli Curd Rice. Thank you.

Did you think that was a lame figment of a writer’s imagination? SK Mess Saturday dinner as on 24th October was exactly that.

*Aimed Kills is an anagram of SK Idli Mela.

Of friends and family

Of friends...
...and family.


Freaky!
Did this happen to any of you?

Hallucinations

When a '1/T' written on the blackboard looks like a capacitor to you, you know that you are having hallucinations!

I am...

...not going to do anything as insanely selfless as waking up just to wake you up. Ever.

Dancing Desktop

It was just another eve-of-the-fortnightly-quiz. I was going through the list of songs in my Music folder and I was surprised when I saw that there were videos of a couple of songs. I don’t usually download videos of songs; hence, the surprise. I played them in VLC player and gave up on seeing the video a little into the song. For the record, it was Speed of Sound by Coldplay. I minimized it and guess what I found?

At first I thought my monitor was going to go kaboom! Or maybe it was interfering with interstellar signals and was trying to contact some intergalactic spaceship. Ok, I am not that eccentric. But, it didn’t. Instead, it was sparkling. A few select regions on the wallpaper seemed to be dancing to the tune of the music. Red, purple, blue, yellow, orange and white glitters were strewn, surprisingly in an orderly fashion, on the wallpaper in a way that actually complimented the image.

I paused the song and the dancing paused. The song got over and so did the dancing. I changed the wallpaper to pitch black so that it would be more clearly visible and there was no sparkling. I changed the wallpaper to another arbitrary image and there was no sparkling. Had it gone for good? No, it came back once I reverted back to the original image. I tried taking a screenshot of the desktop but the sparkling continued on what we would expect to be a static image. It would cease dancing and become normal once the song was over.

I must add, however, that I liked seeing the dancing desktop more than the video. So, I played the song and watched the desktop dance to it. :)

PS: For those of you who think that I might have hallucinated the whole thing, here’s a picture I took of the desktop. Can you see little red sparkers on the bridge and the trees? I told you so! :P

Keybored

After a long, long time, I decided to use my laptop, just to see if it was still in working condition. And what do you think I saw? Pressing j produced a ‘k’, k produced a ‘;’, and l did not show anything. The keys were all mixed up!

I wouldn’t stop until I knew exactly what was going on. So I opened Word and decided to try out each character on the keyboard. Suspense and excitement filled up as I pressed each key. Click! Click! Click!

‘8’ didn’t turn up anything; ‘=’ donned a shift to left function while ‘\’ donned the shift to right function. It was all a total mess. But how? I haven’t heard of anything remotely close to this before. The on-screen keyboard came to the rescue but it was not even close to charming. I, naturally, gave up on the laptop.

But what do you know? It was all right the very next day. Weird. Very weird. Maybe the keys wanted change. Maybe dust had messed everything up. Maybe a ghost was playing tricks. Maybe they just got bored of having to do the same old function every single time. No wonder they call it the “keybored”.

R-Ant

We all know ants, right? Yes, those tiny creatures that cannot possibly do any harm to any fellow living being. Think again keeping in mind a situation where they become regular visitors to your laptop keyboard. If that doesn’t impress you too much, how about ants living in your keyboard? Note the use of the preposition ‘in’.

Welcome to my world.

It feels very awkward at first but then, you get used it with time. Of course I am no Buddhist towards these gypsy-ants. Clearly, I exhibit no qualms about squishing or flinging them away whenever I get the chance.

Tip: repetitive pressing of keys is known to flush them out and has to be followed by quick reflexes.

You can even hear them marching if you keep your ears close to the keyboard. Well, there was hearing the march-past, key pressing and hurling them into the air and this process went on. The era of the ant-infested-keyboard lasted a few days only to be followed by the ant-infested-cell phone era which lasted only a few hours probably due to the inaccessibility of enclosed spaces.

Now, after all these days, the ant-infested-insert appropriate word era is back and this time it’s my office desk. Meh!

PS: I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a much-needed vacation.

Bang! Not again!

24/06/07: 19 30 hrs.

The short version:
I banged again just like this and this. Ouch!

The long version:
I was at this sleepover at Plucky’s place. Hmpf! More publicity. I had to choose between this queen-size bed with an intricately carved wooden railing but a not-so-soft mattress and a study table chair for a seat. As is obvious from my description, I chose the bed and began digging the laptop for useful stuff to send to my pen-drive when I noticed the beautiful pattern on the wall in front of me. Glow-in-the-dark stickers. I am a total freak when it comes to them. I have dozens of them in my room too, mainly dolphins. However, this was different. Stars of different sizes! I was gaping with my mouth wide open.
Me: Wow! they look wonderful.
Plucky: Yeah! I know. Wait till you see the ceiling.
I looked up and saw the ceiling. Wow! Double Wow! There were so many of them and I realized I was gaping again.

Plucky: Wait I’ll turn off the lights. It will look much better then.
The arrogant voice in my head: Duh! Where did your brains go?
Me: Ok. Good idea. Should have thought about it earlier!
Switches off the lights.
A bunch of crystalline stars frozen in mid-air while falling down onto the Earth, yet, seem to fall infinitesimally slowly.
Plucky: Hey, why are you straining yourself so much? Lie down, na?
Me: Ok.
Felt like she had hypnotized me! I was obeying her.
Update: She pushes me down.
Bang!
Not again! That was when I stopped gaping. I no longer like that intricately carved wooden railing. After it had come in the way of your stargazing, who would?

I don’t know if she had planned the entire sequence of events ;) but well, I had banged again and that’s all there is to know.

The Marathon

It’s not like I’m worried about it. It’s just that it’s there. It doesn’t bother me or anything but what if? What if it starts bothering me? What will I do then?

I have been trying to figure this out for quite some time now. An intriguing sensation that numbs me all over. Neither does it explain itself to me nor have I made a conscious attempt at understanding it. I have been running away from it and will continue the marathon. Yes, it’s a never-ending marathon. Now, out of the blue, (or shall I blame it on this endless vacation that is driving me insane?) I feel interested in this issue.

Where do I begin? It is, after all, difficult to think about something you never wanted to think about.

Here’s an incident from the recent past. I got hold of this song from Plucky recently. Summer of ’69 by Bryan Adams and here’s how it went.
Me: Hmm. Bryan Adams… should be a good song.
Plucky: Yeah, its really good.
Me: ok, lets hear it then.
Plucky: k
Plays the song.
Whoa! That was loud.
Hmm, sounds good.
After just two lines of the song, she had to leave to perform some chores. So its just me and the song now.
Foot tapping and head nodding.
Damn! here it comes.. he sings, “ oh when I look back now”
And it had arrived. That irritating torturous feeling swells up within me. The line, “those were the best days of my life” served as the Grand Finale. That was it. I paused the song then and there.
Plucky is back.
Me: why does he have to sing like that?
Plucky: seems to understand my situation perfectly. Hehe I know.
I have the song on my Lappy but I never play it. I just don’t feel like it. I do play it once or twice these days but I still haven’t crossed that 50 sec mark. But you know what? That doesn’t bother me.

Oh yeah, here’s another one. A few days back, I was chatting on Gtalk with CL. Just another day, just another chat, just gen stuffs. She was about to sign off and that’s when it happened. She said bye and added, “missing you guys.” Damn! Though I instinctively reply with a conventional “missing you too”, my thoughts are elsewhere, busy trying to run away as usual. And this particular incident has happened twice on chat and twice on sms. Damn! Double damn! I just don’t understand it. “Miss u a lot”, “miss kar raha hun”, “missing u”; every single time, it’s the same old story. But you know what? That doesn’t bother me.

The other night, this friend of mine, came into my room all excited. I was in no mood to listen to anybody. It was time to crash and I wanted to crash. She, however, had other plans. She had just come back from this amazing date with her boyfriend. Bah! I was definitely in no mood for that. I played some arbit playlist and hoped she would cut the narration short and let me crash in peace. I don’t remember what she said (coz if I did remember and wrote it on this blogpost, well, I would get kicked. ;) ) but there was something about that date, that was unforgettable for her and affected me to the extent that tears welled up in my eyes. Damn! A sudden gush of something flows through my system culminating in an involuntary smile. Was I happy for her? Or sad for myself? Or was it time to run away from whatever it is that I have been running away from? Time to chase her out of my room. I did chase her out and crashed on my pillow with such high approach velocity that my nose pained all night. Ouch! But you know what? That doesn’t bother me.

“Hey, listen to this song. He sent it to me this morning.”
Oh! Great! Just what I wanted to hear. “Ok. Send it down.”
I hardly listened to the song the first time I played it. I was preoccupied with many other things. She seemed excited about the song but I was least bothered. I played it a second time to actually listen to it, and man, was it good. Damn! It was too good. Why does he have to sing it like that? And why does he have to say things like that? Oh, by the way, the song under question is Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden. But you know what? That doesn’t bother me.

In other news, I just banged my knee against the sofa. Ouch!

Sometimes its just an involuntary smile and at other times it’s a surge of feelings. Its hard to keep yourself from smiling when you see an STD sms that reads just a “goodnight :)” or to hear your phone vibrate on your bedside window sill just a few minutes after you sent a goodnight message.

But you know what? All of this... just doesn’t bother me.

The 8RF Game...

Yay! I’ve been Tagged by Crazy gal and the game continues.

Here are the rules:

1.Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2.Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3.Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

Eight random facts about myself:

1. As a child, I realized that the Earth was spherical but believed that we lived inside the Earth and that its inner surface was the sky.
2. Table tennis, ball-badminton, tennis, volleyball; you name it; I play all these with the one opponent who never loses – The Wall.
3. I never have and never will ride the Giant-wheel. I have, however, been on fiercer rides than that.
4. I have a huge weakness for chocolates and I find it very difficult to share them with anybody.
5. In case my scooter goes out of control, I throw myself off, land safely on my legs and let the vehicle meet its doom.
6. In a batch of 29 guys and 3 girls, I, the puny little girl, was the first to finish the Fitting Workshop piece and I was asked to help out a guy.
7. I had not cried at all for a few months, so I cried once just to clean my eyes.
8. I took a small brown rock from the backyard, placed it in an air-tight bag and claimed it to be a meteor.

Ok. Now that was Random max! Here are the 8 lucky ppl i get to Tag...
1. Neethu
2. Kaushik
3. Rid3r
4. Abhishek
5. Pranesh
6. Akila
7. Grinch
8. Saboo

Bang! again

The title won’t make any sense to you unless you have read Bang! Now that you have read that, gear up for this.

16/06/07 12:00 hrs
It seemed like just another usual day. I was busy living my boring and monotonous life while the Earth revolved around the sun, spinning happily. Everything was fine. I was checking scraps and other such crap…

I take a detour from the original topic to bore you with something I learnt in my Biology textbook but never believed. We possess quite a few reflex actions most of which are vital to our survival but there’s this one reflex action that is just plain weird - The Patellar Reflex. In simple words, if you give a light tap on a particular point on the knee, your leg involuntarily kicks. Is that weird or what? What the hell is the use? Some kind of self defense? I just think it is highly improbable. Do let me know if any of you have experienced this first hand.

As I was telling, it was just another day. I was listening to songs on Real Player. Just then, I clicked on Eject instead of Play and Bang! The CD platform pushed itself out of the CPU and smashed into my knee. Damn those computer-table manufacturers! Thanks to the countless racks they designed on the table, my leg had no room to kick and ended up colliding with the bottommost rack. Ouch!

The pain dominated the enlightenment. The swelling didn’t make things any better. Swellings always freak me out and this was no exception. I was in too much pain to realize what had happened. The reflex action I was just telling you about; it really does happen and it happened to me.

Bang!

There I was sleeping peacefully on my bed. Ten hours into slumber and no plans of waking up. No surprise there! When was the last time I had plans of waking up anyway? I generally sleep with my face down and today was no exception. I lifted my face up, albeit half awake, just to check up if the world around me was still the same as when I left it. It was. That means I can afford to continue my sleep. I would probably have continued anyway. Fair enough! So I brought my head down on the pillow or so I thought.

Sometime between the point when I woke up and now, something eerie occurred. The iron railing of the bed shifted by some finite distance towards me. I came to know of this the hard way though. My forehead met the railing instead of the pillow. Bang! That ought to have hurt and you bet it did. My roommate got jolted in spite of the fact that she was watching a movie on her computer with headphones. She must have got freaked out and more so when I gave a weird dorky smile in return for the confused look on her face. I mean, what else did you expect? The fact that you are going to continue with that well deserved sleep increases your approach velocity towards the pillow and it is far from bliss to end up on the hard iron railing instead of the soft pillow.

That, I would say, is the worst possible way to wake up.