Bloody Mary...

To finally put an end to a seemingly endless day, one that began at seven in the morning and involved a failed attempt at getting my driver's license due to all the license-makers being out on election duty, which went on to a hassle-wrought shoot involving three guys cheering up their newly-single buddy by taking him out in the car for a 'singing-therapy' session, our final project for our sound unit that kept me in college until 6,and which will undoubtedly keep me there tomorrow too, for the edit...
Oh, except for the fact that three out of the four of us had upset stomachs and didn't have the inclination to do the last two shots, which would undoubtedly have kept us in college for another hour or so, so we have to carry the shirts we wore the previous day to ensure continuity in the shoot... but what about Sweaty? The big, salt-patch guy among us... is there continuity in the previous day's sweat-salt patches? and what about us... having to bear that... Yeach...
Now Sweaty's an annoying bitch... he causes the bottoms of cars to scrape the sainik farms speed breakers, a particular breed of speed breakers that are of abnormal height and refrain from any markings to distinguish them from the rest of the road. Speaking from experience, when I flew a foot off my other buddy's motorcycle gliding over one of those... luckily I landed back on the motorcycle... the same one... But I digress, I shouldn't bitch about Sweaty, I'm sure he hates me just as much, for not bringing a fourth spoon with my gelato the other day...
Now I'm a picky picky little bastard... I want each of my shots to look good, so bearing a bedroom in mind, I'll try to convert my classroon into one by moving around tables and tv trolleys, keeping random doors slightly ajar to resemble bathrooms, and fiddling with the tripod incessantly to get both the phone which my newly-single friend isn't allowed to make the call with, despite repeated attempts to pick it up and dial, oh and to avoid MEDIA written on the edge of the table.
Couple this with the fact that they decided to hand me the college's new hdv camera. Now this is a slightly complicated piece of equipment. Not only does the little whore have a wider screen, ensuring that even using a tele lens gives us much more of a frame to worry about, such as a lapel mic taped to the edge of the table, the fact that it's hdv means higher quality, so even if we could've ignored the lapel mic taped to the edge of the table before, this camera has to display it perfectly with all it's individual pixels and make it look beautiful... and so wrong placed on the edge of the table... well taped to the edge...
Don't get me wrong, I like the hdv... it's lighter than the pd 170 which runs dv/mini dv tapes(which the hdv does too, along with the nicer, sharper hdv tapes), has a wider perspective, something considered to be a good thing by most cameramen, well at least the ones who aren't still going to college and worried about how every inch of the frame in a 22 second clip looks, and it's got more options for playing with light, or well, a lack of light. This basically means we can throw open a window and not get the frame washed out, and we don't even need to make use of a light porta-kit, something our college's too damn cheap to afford. Unless they have one and don't want to give it to me... bastards...
To put the icing on the cake, our professor's this insane dude who used to handle sound for an independent film company, who hoots and screeches at random intervals for reasons unknown. Well to maintain sanity I tell myself he does it to keep us on our toes. This guy can't walk in a straight line, and will keep turning 60 degrees in a random direction while talking, expecting the person he's talking to to anticipate his choice of direction and keep up. The first time this happened, I was listening to him harp on about the benefits of final cut pro for editing over adobe premier, through an interesting analogy involving touching your nose. I noticed his voice to be getting softer and more distant for some reason as I walked straight out of the cafeteria, and upon turning around, noticed him to be walking towards the college parking lot, still talking to the space next to him he expected me to be taking up at the time. Of course the guy's brilliant. He might not know what each mic's called, but he knows everything there is to know about sound, and how to get certain sounds you want and how to cut out others you don't want. Of course he won't just tell you how to do it. He'll hint about it, and say oh you know, this mic cuts out ambient noise, but it also picks up engine sounds, and expect you to figure out that it's not a good mic for the cafeteria because of the motor attached to the water purifier. I like him for that. He gives us a whole lot of independence to work and figure stuff out for ourselves.
All in all, a good shoot. I can't wait to see the scene where we were all sitting in the crv with our camera mounted on a tripod in the boot of the car, with each of us singing an atif aslam number horrendously. Of course since we used both the singing mic and the lapel, something went wrong. Something I'll only find out tomorrow.
To bed I go, perhaps I'll drench my shirt in some deo overnight. Harping on about Sweaty, I might be there on a minor scale myself. Hell I don't leave salt patches, but it is really really hot...

Oh and Mary's our professor's ex-wife... he hates her... so he keeps calling the 'fucking ass computer, work' as he puts it so politely, a Bloody Mary. The man actually told me to change the mouse so he could work the 'Bloody Mary'. I didn't ask, and it took me a while to get it...

Guys' nights out...

This is the first time I'll be sleeping in my bed in three days, but the second night out, the one that almost was, just wasn't quite, that's what we'll talk about...

So the plan was to crash at the german butter chicken buddy's, after spending a little time at hookah sans women... Not meant to be. I went down to priya after my driving class, with the guys sitting in the back, bitching every time I let go of the clutch too fast. Got to hookah, met a lady friend of his there, and we got sick of the fumes and left for coffee, and walked around priya for the rest of the night, post coffee of course... Now somehow, this wasn't bad, even though it broke the rules of guys' night out... oh and he was with his girlfriend anyway, so technically, we hadn't quite started...
At some obscure point, we finally got to his place, post a disappointing call to dominos where they refused to deliver after 11, so it was time to take matters into our own hands...
Raiding the fridge and storage, we found a leek soup, which we heated up, and stole huge chunks off a loaf of multi-grain bread his dad had whipped together at some point during the day. After leaving the coffee to brew, we then proceeded to make an omelette. Now cooking is a great way to get your mind off things. This seven egg omelette was accompanied by onions, strips of cheese, and cold slices of ham tossed into the mess after it had started bubbling. Unfortunately, I was fated to not make one of my prize omelettes, considering the skillet we found was made of iron and weighed a few tons, so we ended up with scrambled omelette-thing... This of course wasn't enough, so we purloined some chips, cookies, granola bars, coke, and the rest of the cold ham, and found our way to his room.
Dipping the bread in the soup, we found the soup excessively salty, so we poured liberal amounts of water, only to find the soup absolutely bland by this point, so we abandoned it, and got down to the omelette-thing. Once these primary sources of nourishment were put aside, my buddy fired up his laptop and played a round of tiberian sun from the cd I'd brought along, giving me a good ten minutes to spend with myself. This time was well utilized in goatee twirling. Due to some gloaty goading on the part of Dude and Hobo, I pulled out Serenity and gave it a watch. Rather good movie I'd say, probably made better by the Burnout revenge we punctuated it with. Nothing straightens a well twirled goatee like a session of on-road/off-road car-ramming. We then watched the Last Samurai, and midway through, around 6:30, went out to his lawn to catch the sunrise. I had a huge sense of great day ahead and new day et cetera on my mind, so this sun rise wasn't to be missed. Took some great pictures, and proceeded to finish the movie, chasing it with a good session of making rappers beat each other to a bloody pulp on some game whose name I failed to catch. Granted my rapper got beaten to a bloody pulp more often, considering I was incapable of doing the thing that's supposed to hit harder, but, bleah.
At coffee with his folks, we discovered that it was in fact the bread which was salty. We then proceeded to escape to priya for some counter strike and butter chicken at krips. Due to a phone call, I was rather ape-shit during the counter strike, though I was nice enough to let my buddy get a few kills in a row until I gave him 8 headshots in quick succession. Such was my ape-shit-ness, I was still able to toy with my poor german buddy wholly lacking in reflexes.
We then proceeded to said lady friend's place, and tried to emulate professional couch jumper Tom Cruise and Katsumoto with some bamboo sticks, though splinters prevented us from taking this course of action.
The rest of the day wasn't much, just driving class, a concert and saaaalsaaaaa...

Note to self: Next time those assholes come along for driving class, if they make too much noise, ram the car backwards. Or hit the brake, hard. Bitches.

How about...

...when you say you don't feel like talking, that you want to be alone, when in truth you want to talk, meet, and be with her so bad that it hurts, that you plan trips out of town without your phone just so that you're not tempted to call her each moment...

On brooding, male bonding, and butter chicken...

Now I've been out of the 'blogsphere' for a couple of days due to a second accident, exactly a week after the first one. This time it was a dtc that came and hit my auto from behind, screwing my back. Apparently tall people have a natural tendency to slouch, and so over the years their backs get screwy. Either way, mine is now... the bottom of it looks like an upside down narrow question mark. But excluding the medicinal (nu)patch I've got on, which I'll remember tomorrow morning as I pull it off along with some hair and skin, I'm still kind of content. But only on the outside. Inside, I've got the Badger Song going on in my head. Thankfully, I'll be gone for the rest of the week, but more on that ahead.
This will be a long, but hopefully enjoyable read, so bear with me.

Let me make a very brave statement. Men don't get women. At all. No matter how much time they spend living with one (or more), they'll never get them. Women like to be in control, and they think they are. They probably are too, but I don't know how effective their control is when us men couldn't be bothered in the first place, considering we have our escape, the holy Brood.
Let's be honest. Women don't get men either. If they did, they'd know that two men locking horns the first time they meet is not attitude, but male bonding. There are several topics that men bond over. Sports is not one of them. Women think it is, but the biggest, is in fact homosexuality. Men bond over a shared distaste for gay men, and failing that, and (or well, in the rare case that they haven't been hit upon by gay men), an even more shared fascination for lesbians. Men also bond without knowing a thing about each other. They can look at a group of men indulging in our holy Brood, and strong brotherly sentiments flow across. Some chauvinists claim the world goes around because of men. They're both right as well as wrong. Behind each successful man is a woman, twisting his arm, and behind each successful woman is another woman, her bosom buddy, telling her she doesn't need the man getting the arm-twisting. Women don't get along like men do. Women don't connect to other women deep down. They have to examine each other, look for flaws, convince themselves there's something wrong with the other, even if the other is a best friend. But the strong connection each man has to his fellow man balances this negative energy and ensures the world keeps spinning.
Let me give an example. A man is upset. He meets four men for a Brood at say, barista. While women would discuss what's upsetting them, these five men will avoid that topic like the plague. Unwritten instructions stand, instructions as deeply etched in all men as the rule that states that in a group of six urinals, if one is occupied on the left side, the one on the far right must be taken, that the moment the upset one mentions the topic, he is to receive a smack. Often enough, he gets the smack(s) from men smaller than himself, men who would never get away with it in the first place. Now a woman on another table looking at this spectacle has those same thoughts. "What the fuck are they hitting him for? I mean he could easily hit them back, but he isn't. Hell, he actually looks grateful." A man on the same table looks and knows exactly what's going on. He smiles to himself and sends some positive energy their way. Now suddenly, the one being bruised flicks one of them in the face. This leaves the woman watching even more confused. She's thinking, "Why the hell didn't he just do that earlier? Oh wait, the little one hit him again. What the hell's going on?" But the man with her nods to himself and thinks "He shouldn't have hit him on the nose with the menu. That's going too far." Along the same lines, the woman probably doesn't even know that they're brooding.

Let me get on to the most important topic- The holy Brood. It's a faith that men the world over, regardless of race, religion, color or creed, share. Each man is born knowing how to brood. Each man knows the various ways, styles, locations and positions, but for the sake of my female audience, I'll disclose that their are many. In fact, there are as many unique ways for men to brood as women have bags or pairs of shoes. Men with long hair can brood sitting behind their hair. Men standing next to a bookshelf can lean on it and concentrate on the space between Gone With the Wind and Life on the Mississippi. Men can brood in the middle of an argument. Men can even brood while playing video games, something that doubles up as a male bonding technique. Finally, men can brood over food. Hand a woman a can of pressurized whipped cream or a tub of ice cream, and she'll sit through Jerry Maguire obsessing over what she misses. The munchies men get while brooding exceed anything women can come up with. Two men brooding over things upsetting them, but with the company of butter chicken can get through anything. I don't remember what mixed bag munchies I had in my vegetarian days, but ever since I've known butter chicken, my own brooding has definitely improved.
I have a dear butter chicken buddy. He's german, and nearly as tall as me, but when push comes to shove, and its time to brood, we head down to krips, and consume over two and a half chickens between the two of us. The brooding metabolism is apart from the normal metabolism, so anything consumed over the course of a brood will not contribute in any way to our size. In fact, within fifteen minutes, a brooding male will be ready to eat again post a butter chicken, half a tandoori chicken, a dal makhani(his own), and four naans. Not to mention those little pickled onions. Can't forget those pickled onions.
Another aspect of brooding. Men can brood on command. When a fellow man needs a brooding session, his comrades will give him just the brood he needs. Group brooding can happen with alcohol, food and video games, or even singing. Put four men with deep voices in a car outfitted with a 'thumper', and throw in a tape of aerosmith and james blunt and you've got some serious brooding. They'll have those windows down, singing in their horrid falsettos and put any punju boy with his dhinchak tunes to shame. Not only will they be sharing the brood with the one who needs it, deep down, they'll all be brooding from the heart. That's the beauty of male bonding and our holy Brood.
Another great group brood style is the 3 am testosterone movie with a few laptops on wireless with counter strike on them. I had one of the best group broods on new year's. I was at a rather large party with a ton of old friends who I met after ages, and once all the drunk stumbled out, we went back up to my buddy's room where we'd been playing some counter strike. Now there's something about running behind your buddies with a gun, shooting them in the face (virtually of course), and screaming "GOTCHA MOTHERFUCKER!" that brings you closer to your fellow man. It enables you to share a single bed with two other equally large men and watch the dullest actor in hollywood in blade trinity up until 4 in the morning. True, I made many script changes, none of which I can remember at this time, other than the fact that they could've swapped Wesley Snipes for someone else, and Ryan Reynolds was not to be taken seriously with a sixpack after watching him in Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place, that greatly upset one of the guys, my butter chicken buddy incidentally, but it was an excellent brood, and a great beginning to the new year.
Actually, come to think of it, the time I was brooding with a buddy over forgetting the last date to apply for the hutch marathon, we were armed at 3 in the morning with omelettes and Lion King 1 1/2. Okay, so any movie will do...

Tomorrow morning, I head out of town with some of the guys for an intense Brood that will last until the end of the week. This is a brood I've called. We still have no clue where we're going to go, but that's part of the magic that is our Brood. No phone, so no calls from college, asking us why the hell we aren't in class, no calls from work, asking me to come in and do the last voice over, and no calls from any of the women in my life outside of the 'once a day, or maybe less' quota I've given myself. Just three CDs especially prepared for the occasion with one full of James Blunt, Live and Dave Matthews for singing to, one of Santana and Nirvana for 'whinging' to, and a third mixed one with lots of Apocalyptica for quietening the badgers, an assortment of liquor for the alcoholics, and ingredients for butter chicken we aren't likely to find in Mussoorie or Nimrana if we end up going there.
I bid you all a fine week ahead, and I know all you men will brood in your hearts for me, and perhaps you women have gained a greater understanding of us men, and why we brood.

EDIT: Our out of town Brood plans got scrapped last minute... I'm trying to make up for it myself at the moment...