Books

In lieu of a getting a substantial free time with no great plans (and possibility thereof in absence of company) recently, I managed to set aside some time for reading.

I read a book called "11 minutes". Call me shallow or whatever, but only thing I remember about this book is that it is excruciatingly boring. I finished it only for one reason. To punish myself, for starting it.

I read "Its not about the bike"; the autobiography of Lance Armstrong. Have nothing but respect, for the man. I have been feeling this utter need to buy my own bike for some time since then. Sometimes during the night I sit on my doorsteps having tea or just staring in oblivion, when this red light flickering on one of the mountains invariably catches my attention. I appears to beckon me [:)]. Anyways, it is often as easy to distract me, as to distract me to something else. Hence, lately, I've been thinking less about it.

Currently, I am reading the 'Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy' series by Douglas Adams. I've completed the first two parts, out of the four. I like the sense of humor used in the novel. At the same time, it gives me a feeling of strange indifference, about things happening on earth. With all we know, its such a huge place. But for a hitchhiker, its just another station. And in the scheme of universe, just a dot* ! (Plus, while earlier I had never given a thought to it, I feel now that its pretty plausible that life may exist on other planets.**). Apart from that, my status message, for quite sometime now, has been 'DON'T PANIC' written in large friendly letters. Weirdly enough, I've tried to remove it a few times; and each time I have done that, the universe adapted itself in such a way that it actually seemed to fit more than anything else.


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* Well don't blame me, thats what the book does to you.
** And this too.

Infinity

An interesting observation. Perhaps things that are 'infinite' don't give a perceptible feel of infinity. Things that are very huge but finite do. Of course, infinity is a well researched topic and with all due respect, getting into confrontation with the mathematicians over it would be the last thing I want to do. But I am just comparing here two feelings: the one of watching the sky; and the one of watching an ocean. Sky/space being supposedly 'infinite', one seems to take its infinity forgranted, and simply credits it less for being infinite. An ocean, on the other hand, being finite, but so huge, tanatalizes us with the curiosity about its actual size. The very knowledge that it is finite and hence fathomable, but the desperate inability to actually fathom it, leads us to believe, that well, this thing is literally infinite !

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[:)]

Cake

Well, all of us have heard the quote "To eat your cake and have it too". And whilst I have an idea what it is supposed to mean, there seems to be a pit fall in logic. I think whoever phrased it seems to have assumed that having the cake is as important as eating it; which is not really always the case. If you don't eat it, don't you think having it is useless in the first place [:)] . Secondly, with its limited life, you can't hold it long either; whether you eat it or not. So you might not have the cake even if you don't eat it. And if you ate the cake, it seems irrelevant whether you had it or not [;)]. Hence, since eating the cake seems to carry more weight, the two actions should not be dealt in unison.

And while I was writing this trash, I made a quick check on what Wikipedia has to say about the phrase. Some exerpts from it:

The phrase's earliest recording is from 1546 as "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?" (John Heywood's 'A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue') alluding to the impossibility of eating your cake and still having it afterwards; the modern version (where the clauses are reversed) is a corruption which was first signalled in 1812.

Comedian George Carlin once critiqued this idiom by saying, "When people say, 'Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too.' What good is a cake you can't eat? What should I eat, someone else's cake instead?".

Paul Brians, Professor of English at Washington State University, points out that the original and only sensible version of this saying is “You can’t eat your cake and have it too,” meaning that if you eat your cake you won’t have it any more. People get confused because we use the expression “have some cake” to mean “eat some cake,” and they therefore misunderstand what “have” means in this expression.^[1] Alternatively, people understand that "have" and "eat" represent a sequence of actions, so one can indeed "have" one's cake and then "eat" it. Consequently, the literal meaning of the reversed idiom doesn't match the metaphorical meaning.

To sum up, I should go home now.

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[:)]

Shopping tip.

A handy shopping tip: Do not shop in a food store when you're hungry. Before you know it, you'll end up buying the entire store. (Someone from inside would keep crying out aloud: I need that.. that too.. oh common, what would I do with just two .. five pack is cheaper......).

Eat something, and then shop. And whenever you come across something that you shouldn't buy, you'll blissfully say .. "No thanks, I am full "..

Always works.

[:)]

Long time !

Well... so as it turns out ... circumstantial evidences point to the fact that this seems to be another one of those blogs .. started with a lot of enthusiasm ... and dying out exponentially..

Not really. There have been some worldy issues, that have kept me from writing all these days, which is a bad excuse, but anyways, I was never good at making them up.

Though at this juncture, I can not help but laugh, at the fact that the current situation reminds me of one of Joey's hilarious dialogues in Friends :

"... You know, when I moved to my new house, I felt it would be great, that I would be able to spend time with my thoughts. But you know .. as it turns out .. I don't have as many thoughts as you think! .. "


[:)]

Hemant

H-E-M-A-N-T.

My flatmate, a Couple of weeks after I moved in :
-Hey Hemant ... Here is a mail for you.
-Let me see. Oh no, its for Ahmed, the other guy. My name is spelt H-E-M-A-N-T.
-Oh, sorry, I couldn't make out from the spelling. I thought both the names are same ??
-(Yeah right !)

At bus ticket counter, while leaving for Sydney :
-Can I have two concession tickets for Sydney in the 8 am bus please.
-Yep, whats your last name?
- Singh; S-I-N-G-H.
-And first name ?
-Its H-E-M-A-N-T.
-Ok, here you go, two tickets.
-Ohh, its written HemanD on the ticket instead of Hemant.
-Ohh, I am sorry. But its ok, they won't give you any problems. They'll just see the last name.
-(Ok, watever.)

At Australian Institute of Sports, while registering for swimming classes :
-Which class do you want to enroll for ?
-Adult beginners.
-Ok, whats your name ?
-Hemant Kumar Singh.
-Okk, Let me just print out your ID card, I'll be back in a moment.
(A couple of minutes later)
-Here's your ID, whenever you come for the class, just swipe it here and proceed.
-Thank you. Ohh.. It should be Hemant instead of Hement. Thats H-E-M-A-N-T.
-Ohh, I m so sorry.I'll be back with new one.
-(Yeah, run along please.)

A few days back, while registering for an internet account :
-What name should I put the account on?
-Hemant Singh. That would be H-E-M-A-N-T S-I-N-G-H.
-Ok, what should I put the username as ?
-Put it as hemant, same as my first name.
-Fine.
-When would it be activated?
-Should not take long.
The next day on phone, talking to technical support:
-Hi, its Hemant here, I had registered with your company yesterday but I am not able to connect to the internet yet. Can you please let me know if the account has been activated yet?
-Ok, tell me your username please.
-That would be hemant. H-E-M-A-N-T.
-Cann't find it on records, sir.
-Ohh, But I had registered yesterday. Can you please check again ? Its H-E-M-A-N-T.
-H-E-M-A-N-D ?
-No, H-E-M-A-N-T, T for Tom.
-Ok, Cann't find it still, sir. Can I put you through to the admin to check with the account.
-Yes, thank you.
(Admin)
-Hi, this is Hemant, I registered with you yesterday, wanted to know if my account has been activated yet.
-Let me check. Yes, it has been activated yesterday itself.
-Oh, But the technical support people say they cannt find the name in their data base.
-Ohhk, let me check.
(A minute later).
-Ohh, I am so sorry, your username has been spelt as h-a-m-a-n-t in our records.
-Duh. (You crazy b**** !!)

The lease holder of my apartment, on a visit yesterday to pick some of her stuff :
-Hey Hemant, there is a parcel for you kept in the kitchen.
-Let me see... Ohh no... thats AHMED, the guy who used to live here few months back..
-Ohh, sorry, couldn't make out from the spelling.
-(Fair enough. Not surprised at all.)


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For god's sake..!!!!

My name is not even French !!!!

@*%#*^%@#*Australians%&%@#*&@%@$@&%#&

A funny night

For those who're not sure of the title of the last post, I guess I owe an explanation. I wrote the epilogue first because I think that was the most beautiful part. And I wanted to capture it before it slipped away. Also, since we generally tend to read top to bottom(unless we are more obsessed with chronological consistency), this post after being published would anyways precede the epilogue, which sounds about right.

So lets move on to what happened really. Well, for as far as I could remember, I've been mostly sleeping pretty late in the night, without much of a reason. Often, I sleep only when crisis limit based on next day's activities/plans is crossed. For reaching office next day theoretically around 9 am , it could be anything between 2 am to 6 am. What saves me though, is fact that the timings are not really strict and as long as you've not committed any sins, nobody really asks when you come or go. To those who ask me why I don't sleep well at night, I casually answer 'so that I could see more of this world and miss out on less.' Well, many a times, that is, in fact true, but at others, the reasons are not really as involved; or, as I mentioned earlier in the paragraph, they're no reasons at all.

But with all good and honest intentions, I tried to sleep early last night. So that I can have a good start to Monday after a good night's sleep as they say. Early would mean sometime around 10:45 pm.

At 1:00 am, I found my eyes were open. I was still not sure though if I were awake. In due time, I realized that I had been dreaming. About... wait for it ..... lions !!! Lions barging into human territory and taking away kids creating horror all around. But then the camera zooms in and whoaaa!! they're not human kids, they were little cubs. The lions were just kiddin [;)].

Neways, I had a good laugh for myself and moved on with my sincere efforts of sleeping well. But alas, the insomnia had got me yet again. As I lay there, awake, suddenly something struck me. Where is that blue t-shirt of mine which was so expensive and which I liked so much? And I realized I cann't remember seeing or wearing it for a long long time !.. In a matter of seconds, I was ransacking through my cupboards. There aren't many, but sometimes, you wish there were more so that you could just have more places to search. Well, my suspicions were true. The t-shirt was no longer there ! I searched wherever it could be; but didn't find it. Earlier in the day, I had been so happy because I had bought a t-shirt for a mere 5$. Turned out it wasn't that cheap now! Disappointed, I folded all the clothes and put them back again from wherever they were taken off. [Inside track: How dumb can you get ?? What sort of a guy loses a t-shirt?? That too when you're not traveling. AND not sleeping around with women either!! Travel.... ohh I went to Gold Coast. May be I lost it there. Well, I went there about .. two and half months ago. Ok, forget it. I am not losing sleep over a stupid t-shirt. ] . Didn't mean I was going back to sleep though.

I went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea. Now, cann't just sit there drinking tea and do nothing. Some of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. won't hurt. One episode finished. Well, what the heck, just two more to go for this season. Bring 'em on !. Towards the end of the third episode, planning to get some sleep finally, some lines started ringing in my head. Well, yeah, those were a couple of starters, some discontinuous bits and pieces from the poem that I wrote in the previous post. It took me somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes to fill up the missing links. They just, came to me. Don't know, why, sleepless and with no prior intentions, I was still able to get those reasonably in place.

I finally slept at 4:05 am.

In the morning, I got a feeling that I had been drunk all night. But I wasn't !!. It felt ... well .. funny !


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PS: That poem has nothing to do with the t-shirt. Or the lions.