RG770

I just bought an Ibanez '93 RG770 off ebay, these are prized beauties that are very underrated. Mine comes with the original Ibanez/USA pups, the oh so buttery smooth Lo Pro Edge and with the original wizard edge. Can't wait till it gets here, but I already know that I won't be disappointed.

Cheers.

Starting today.

Illustrations and lettering by SlipperyReflections

Headrush!

First, the boring bit:

On day three (and a half) of my program, my blood is being cleansed of the carbon monoxide (CO) and other impurities improving its ability to carry oxygen, this is making me feel lightheaded and dizzy every time I get up. I am fighting off very strong cravings and experiencing fever like symptoms as my body gets accustomed to no nicotine. Well, they said that the more you smoke, the harder it will be when you quit, and for someone who just quit a 2 pack a day routine since the last 2 years, I think I am in for a long ride. Hope it gets easier as time progresses.

Now,

I went to sleep drunk last night, I had a normal dreamless sleep until I found myself in one. I was with two other people-people whom I think I was familiar with, within the dream. I don't know who they were though. I am in a crowded part of some city purportedly somewhere in the US. Suddenly, I look to the sky and see the ominous shape of a mushroom cloud in the distance, it is brief and lights up the night like the way lightning usually does.

I immediately think to myself; "They did it, there is nothing I can do now, a few more seconds" I feel angry, like I know who did it, angry at their stupidity, angry at the fact that I had no choice in this matter. I also felt like I had some premonition of this happening. But I never thought it would actually happen, nuclear war? The destruction of humanity? That was the stuff the people at r/conspiracy like to talk about.

I am going to die! You know... when you are young, you never really think about dying, right? It's a long way away, no need to worry about it now. I, however, am paranoid about it and think about it a lot and quite frankly I am terrified of it. I am getting scared and I go and hug these two people, because I suddenly feel like their company will give me some courage, and wait. I can't call my parents because it is too late, there isn't enough time.

And I close my eyes as I feel the shock wave getting closer. And strangely, I am suddenly curious, I want to know what it feels like to die. Maybe my subconscious mind knows and will accordingly make this dream play out. I feel the wave hit, and my mind suddenly feels light and I feel like I am stoned, very strongly stoned, and then... I open my eyes. Sunlight. Blue blanket. 2011. MBA. GPA. Right.

pira?

It's been so long, does it even matter?  Let's just say that equinoxes have changed and the poles have traded places. Ah, vodka, how I love your soul! she is the culprit, like I told you so. Maybe, I see a diversion, a scenic route! but we will end up at the same place. That's plagiarized.


Anyway, enough with that cryptic crap, I have embarked on, what is ostensibly, a long journey towards quitting smoking. I have been nicotine free since the past 2 days, and boy can I tell you it is hard! I have no one else to turn to and so I turn to you, while I try to survive through what is, at least in my mind, one of the hardest things I will ever do.


The cravings are strong and the ever increasing stress is making it so much tougher to carry on. But I promise to submit updates regarding my 'smoking cessation endeavor' :D


In other news, I will be moving to Detroit in May as an intern at a company there. I think that a big depression is around the corner and that you should purchase canned/dried food as Inflation is going to fuck the middle class in the ass, if you know what I mean ;)


Just to fuck with you, here is a short story:




Aaaaaaaaaa... Maybe some other day ;D

ONOZ, Teh internetz is scareee and doesn't afraid of anything!!!

So, I used to be a very patriotic kid, I remember standing up regardless of my surroundings whenever the national anthem used to be played/sung.

I grew out of that phase pretty soon, realizing that the fact that I was born in India was just random chance, a bit like I felt when I realized that I was born into my religion by pure chance. Now both religion and patriotism are ghosts of the past.

But today, I chanced upon some videos on youtube of my first language (In India we call it the 'mother tongue') - Tulu. It is a Dravidian language spoken by a mere 2 million people in the world. And, after years of shunning any other language other than English, it actually felt good to watch a video with my mother tongue being spoken in it. At first I couldn't catch what was being said, but in a while, my ears got used to it, and I understood what was going on.

And then I did a google search for 'learn tulu' and guess what, there was even an ehow article that gave URLs where you could go and learn it.

The internet is truly scary!

surprise repost

Repost from last year, why? because I still think it is pertinent and accurately portrays my opinion. (and also, I find it funny)

--------------------------

India.

My Great Country!

4000 3000 7000 heck I don't know lets just say 6000 years old!

'invented' the zero

Future Economic power

Largest Democracy

Friendly People

Bullshit!

India, the 'bulund bharat' the land of peace and prosperity. The one that people like Max Mueller and Francois Gautier fell in love with. The land of non-violence, where kids respect their elders and women are treated like gods, where the gods are merciful and the water; clear. Let us see what people have done to it.

Now, it will be impossible to have a comprehensive list of all the things that I want to talk about so I will focus on the ones that come to mind and will add the rest as they arrive. I don't get paid to write this, but I want you to read it. I want it to enter the collective conscious.

1) Athiti devo Bhava

Which is in sanskrit, that almost meta-physical language, the devbhash: the language of the gods, an almost purely synthetic language with an astonishingly modern structure to its grammar, it translates to this: "The Guest is equivalent to God" or something similar. My high school Sanskrit is quite weak as I studied it for just two years in Mangalore.

This saying is a part of the national identity, we are proud of this fact and realize that it is an uncommon sentiment, one that merits admiration from the rest of the peoples of the world. Heck, we even welcomed the Central Asian hoards who basically pillaged the entire subcontinent for a few hundred years.

That we still follow this tenet is remarkable, I have placed a map below to illustrate how we put this ancient, nay! over 6000 year old principle to practical use, thereby cementing our nation's place as one of the leaders of the future:



This is a map which shows the states that have the tourist police stationed there. Tourist police who? I don't really know, I had never heard of them, apparently they do exist. All of these states reported Cases of Rape and Molestation of Tourists in 2008, this does not mean that the other states did not. The article that I 'borrowed' it from states that the 'tourist police' is quite impotent or shall I say 'spunkless?'

Remember Bittu Mohanty? the rapist son of a DGP of police who raped a German Woman and then skipped bail? Whatever happened to him? I guess he must be stalking some other tourist to have his way with. A cursory search on google gives the following results:


No less than the Supreme Court of our country moved to stay his father's arrest, even though he was the one who posted his son's bail and I assume that he would have given some sort of surety. So there, fuck you OJ, we can do the same here in India.

Interesting to note is the result at the bottom which tries to make it look like the case was blown out of proportion just because of the victim's skin color, because you see, otherwise, getting raped is no big deal. Try telling that to the families of the victims.


Awww... Don't call it rape, it is not rape, we here in the department like to call it 'surprise sex' It is harmless, really and besides those white women were asking for it. Also, see this train? do you know why its windows are shut? * wink* * wink*


Perhaps the ultimate clincher for the police is the peculiarly Indian; experience, wherein the second one sees a policeman, one starts to feel guilty. And if you are involved in an incident when one decides to arrive, then god help you.

Amusing Anecdote #1: The other day, a drunk man entered our garden to lie down. After repeated attempts to evict him proved futile and instead made him belligerent, I called the police number 100. The guy picked up after 2 minutes and upon my explanation, said that he would send the police and cut the call before I had a chance to tell him my address. And that was it. They never came. Or they went to someone else's home.

bored

I originally wanted to draw a small comic strip, but since I couldn't draw a decent line to save my skin, I decided instead to turn it into a written piece, now bear in mind that I came up with this when I was in NY recently with my Student run equity Fund with whom I am an analyst, so it might not be funny to you because we are in the business of predicting stock movements blah blah blah...

So here goes...

Cast

Investment Banking Guy who is full of himself referred to as Prima

Old Gypsy Woman who runs a psychic cart on a NY street referred to as Secunda

----------------

Prime: (Walks up to Secunda's cart) I have a question for you, tell me whether I will pay you

Secunda: (Takes out a gun and points it at him) Yes.

Prima: You're good!, here, have my wallet.

FIN

yaw yaw yaw

Will be back to regular blogging from next week onwards. Lots of things have happened since I last wrote. Till then... take care.

Hiatus much?

Well, I am sorry about my lack of posts this week, I had a very bad case of viral fever that prevented me from even switching on my laptop. I should get back to regular posting from this Sunday onwards.

Hope you all have a good weekend, I know mine is going to be shitty.

Dream

The waves have now subsided.

The tempest is long gone;

consigned to the lanes of history,

and the flame burns no more.

A critiquALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!!!

A conversation I had with a classmate recently went somewhat like this...

Me: So there I was looking at the official website of the interpol, and I saw their wanted list, where they have pictures of the criminals. And they had the same chick twice with the same name and only the d.o.b was different. One stated 4 March and the other one 3 April, so you see what went on there, it's because you Americans use such a funny date format.

Him: Wait, what were you doing on the interpol website?

Me: Oh, uh... I was looking to see if I was in it.

Him: What?

Me: Yeah, I once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

Him: WTF?

Me: Yeah, you know... Johnny Cash? No? Dammit, no one gets it.

Him: You were just trying to see if there were any attractive women on the wanted list huh?

Me: Yeah :| what can I say? I don't know how to justify it. Fuck you man!

Him; haha!

----------------------------------------------------

In other news, Futurama is back with Season 6 and I like the first two episodes very much. I am so glad they bought it back. Futurama is my all time favorite show, nothing can compare to its meta-humor, physics references and general nerdiness. Nothing! And I think the reason I like it so much is because my humor resembles its the most. So which show do you think your humor most closely matches?

And people... That was not a rhetorical question. Spend a minute or two and reply you lazy ass bums!

Also, you can see my mood has considerably improved the last few hours, I think this time it will last for a while. Until someone comes along and messes it up again that is.

Baby Me

When I was younger and I mean like 9-10 I used to live in Saudi Arabia where I attended the Indian Embassy School in Dhahran. My Dad used to work there as a Radiologist and my mom used to teach at my school.

I was a good student even then, the days spent reading books from the library instead of out playing with the other kids meant that often, I would already know more about a topic than the rest of the class. I remember now, they used to call me 'scientist' which is funny considering how I am studying Finance right now.

Anyway, they would have these yearly meetings where the parents would come and meet the teachers and could get an update as to how their child was faring at school. And every year they would say the same thing about me; "Oh yes, he is very bright, and does well in school, but he is always day dreaming in class" Now because of this, my parents eventually stopped going because there was nothing new they'd ever say.

A consequence of this was that my parents would always ask why I would day dream in class, and I never could answer them. They eventually started asking me whether I was worried about my wife and kids that I had left back in India. Needless to say the thought of marrying a girl and having kids is not a great one for a 10 year old boy who still hasn't developed an interest in women. I mean this was still the 'girls have cooties' days.

this is what I looked like back then, a far cry from now :)

As I have grown up, this day dreaming has somewhat gone away and in its stead I have a new hobby. When I like something, I concentrate totally on it, its like I get a single minded devotion toward achieving what I want, and this is good when it means I study well or end up doing something worthwhile. The problem is that when I am like this, I obsess over my goal, trying to make sure that everything goes according to plan. And I don't use that word 'obsess' lightly, I seriously over-think like crazy to a point where I start annoying people.

They still ask me this question(about my still non-existent wife and kids) and I laugh. This tells me that they still think of me as their little awkward kid. I love them for this :)

Anyway, this obsessing is apparently a form of OCD (self-diagnosed)

And this is all that I wanted to say.

Critique in College Park

I am currently reading Joe Sacco's 'Footnotes in Gaza' a sort of follow up to his previous book 'Palestine' This is more centered around a particular incident when the Israelis killed a few hundred young men in Gaza in the mid-fifties. Like in his previous book, Sacco is a little biased against the Israelis but he has acknowledged this, so I think I can let that slide.

The art is in his usual style, and is very impressive, and he has the talents of a good writer, making this a great book to read, especially if you want to know how life in the Gaza strip is. It's got the same horror/sob stories meant for you to be able to sympathize with the plight of the refugees. This is a bit sensationalist but then again, maybe all he is doing is telling it like it is.

Just to give you a taste of his meticulously drawn art.

I like reading this stuff because it makes me feel like I am there, and since the possibility of my actually going to Gaza is pretty slim, this is the best I can do. I feel like a voyeur :)

I think it speaks to my desire to experience the world and see the myriad cultures that inhabit it. It's a crying shame that I will never get to do it. Oops there I go again, trying to turn this post into another one of my existential rants. Which is funny because I remember back in my engineering undergrad days when I would anonymously post stuff on our online message board and people would ask me why I keep turning everything into an existential soliloquy.

There is nothing more 'intelligent' that I can say about this so I will leave it at that.

don't go away, and come again another day

I am still reading the essay that I am going to write a synopsis for, it is more like a novel than an essay, and add to the fact that it is a philosophical essay, means that each sentence needs to be dissected and thought about before I can move on, hence, it is not going to be done for some time at the least and this is especially so because I am back on an anime binge right now, just started watching bleach after having finished Basilisk, which I would recommend to you if are into this sort of a thing.

I am in Herndon, VA right now, at my uncle's place, and there's a thunder storm brewing here, just the perfect weather for a night out watching some good anime on a nice comfy bed under a warm duvet. But the unfortunate part is that unlike in India when such weather usually means loud thunder and the pitter patter of the rain on the roof and the whirring of the fan and the sweet sweet smell of moist soil, here it usually means a slight smell of gasoline, muffled thunder and maybe the quiet wheezing of the air conditioning. Because most American houses are so well insulated and the windows are usually so thick, you cant hear anything :(

Indian houses on the other hand are usually very well ventilated, we never keep our windows closed except in the summer when we use the AC, and the roofs are usually flat and we invariably have terraces (where we as kids often play cricket), and this is unlike here where the roofs are mostly sloping in order to accommodate the snow and rain. So, in India, such weather usually means a respite from the heat in the form of a cool, and crisp but fiery draft of wind that smells like a piece of heaven, and the noise of street dogs howling in the distance, add to this the smell of wood burning in make shift fires and you have your very own dream.

And you could attribute this view of mine to bias, but ask anybody and many will call me a self hating Indian because I criticize my country so much, but this is one aspect where I have to admit that living in India is clearly more romantic than living in the US

Here is a shot from my terrace in India:

My Terrace:

Heavy rain on a cold September morning.

And my favorite; rain clouds gather over my house.