Racquet (almost) breaks modem. Causes Racket.

I found a badminton racquet, and decided to practice my smash. I momentarily forgot that racquet + my smash + modem = bad. It has something to do with the kinetic energy of a tall man through a light badminton racquet onto a stationary blinking modem.

Today's top story, an orgy was reported in the southern district of New Delhi. Images follow.



I don't know about you guys, but I'm really tempted to tuck into that voluptuous little tart on the left.

Although fairly new to the blogspace, and tending not to be particularly inclined (or maybe the chance hadn't arisen) to meet all you loving readers and perusers of my little slice of google's god's given cyberspace deigned blogger, we decided to meet the lovely Scoutypoo on her recent visit down to Delhi.
First of all, the girl isn't fond of sleep. She called me to see her at four in the afternoon the first day, pulling me out of an exhaustion-induced coma. I met her, wet hair and all, at a possible future location of my murderous belly dance scene for my latest planned fiction film along with her friend, a quiet, sadistic coffee-butcher(this one added milk AND sugar to the helpless java), and most endearing sister, who spared no time at all getting acquainted. Gun to my head, completely honest, the little sister-thing had me at 'bye freak'. Scoutypoo also texted me about Shahrukh uncle after I'd entered my sleep countdown. I did get back at her though, oh yes I did, I replied to it when I woke up at six the next morning before workout. :D
At this point I must mention that I love Scoutypoo to death for the sheer fact that she correctly types out and punctuates all her texts, so my inbox didn't get another bunch of useless messages 'dat luk lyk dis', the kind 'ppl' know not to send me, lest I refuse to reply. I only accept 'dose' messages in times of extreme emergency, and my boys know well that at those times, a simple 'fn kar' will suffice. I say my boys know that because excluding my dear sister (I think I'm number 4 on her speed dial), none of the other lovely ladies in my life type like punju boys.
Scoutypoo also loves to point out how very muskle-y I am, and sits very meekly and appreciatively(as regards my driving) by my side when Aurelia's getting us around town. She also smoked and drank nigh incessantly while in my company, and is exceptionally good at picking up on when I'm being sarcastic, to the point that I never have to tell her when I'm doing as much. No love, that wasn't sarcasm at all.
Our Scoutypoo's a pleasantly plump, TINY little punju lady, although she takes certain umbrage to being called so(the plump part). As far as I'm concerned, Curvy would just have to be the world's sexiest body type. In fact, all models need more curves, and so do you, dear. That's right, I mean you. Not you dude, that paunch isn't flattering, I mean the girl next to you. Bingo. Scoutypoo's also rather quick about dressing appropriately. Just shy of new year's, and the girl's walking about in a very large shirt which she cleverly turned into a dress, along with stockings she tells me her aunt's dog tore while hugging her leg. I still maintain the dog was humping her. Being as brave as she was, I didn't feel the need to hand her my trenchcoat (yes, I got my trenchcoat out of where it was hiding), for fear it would drag behind her about a foot and a half, giving Priya a spring cleaning. I also didn't pull my extra coat out of Aurelia's back seat, for similar reasons. I just wanted breakfast.
Which brings me to my final point. Scoutypoo has an abysmal appetite. Who ever heard of not finishing four pancakes? Why post-gym I had a banana, two oranges and an apple, my usual post-workout snack, which we'll deem 'former breakfast'. At college I had two cups of coffee and an aloo paratha, midbreakfasten, then at the bloody pretentious place we landed upon for what Scoutypoo called a late breakfast, which between you guys and me, we'll refer to as 'latter breakfast', I had this little concoction called 'Eggstravaganza', that involved two massive slices of (non sweet, thank you Jesus, our waiter, pronounced like Jose, mind you) french toast, topped with two poached eggs (Jesus was mighty reluctant to poach the poor eggs, he said something along the lines of poaching being illegal), two slices of bacon (cooked just right) and some (I'll assume two, since everything else was in pairs) chopped and something-ed potatoes, lots of poor potatoes put through some deranged bake/fry torture by a masochistic chef in the open kitchen behind me. I even had Scoutypoo's fourth pancake with very diluted maple syrup that refused to sink into the damn non-porous pancake, followed by coffee.
Ah now the coffee. Scoutypoo was barged in on while relieving her tiny bladder for the thirty-fourth time. This by a married man with a kid. I had a front row seat to that spectacle. He walked past the door, giving it a tiny nudge, finding it loose, pushed harder, to which an outraged, albeit not really visible Scoutypoo slammed the door crushing his hand in his face.
To conclude, I'll mention that the silly girl forgot to demand I cook something for her. Silly, silly girl.

The Big Pick

There comes a time in one's life when they're faced with a big decision. A decision that, for starters, would change a lot, and that would affect the outcome of future events. A decision that could change who you see looking back when you look into a mirror, and in effect, cause the taking of further decisions which would in turn lead you further into that direction.
Every now and then, that being very rarely over the passing years, we're all faced with such a decision, and we spend time thinking about it, mulling over the possibilities, weighing the consequences, dreading the results. The only answer is to look the decision square in the face, take a step in the right direction, and deal with the consequences as they come, no matter what varying degree of inconsolable.
When that time comes one day at the crack of a chilly dawn, the time to make a big, bad choice, a choice that could possibly change one's life altogether, all that is needed is the strength to pick.

Mushroom and Cheese Sandwich Spread, or Nutella?

My own blondi-ness

This was inspired by Keshi's latest post. I'm going to assume that you all know the Delhi area, and know what I'm talking about here. Also, beware the technical opinions thrown in, don't drift off too much when I get into my take on car modifying as I do return to the story on hand.

I'm quite crazy about driving, and driving fast at that, albeit maturely (all women in my life beg to differ). Upstanding Religious One started up this club for fellow car enthusiasts, with me a fairly administrative and public relations leaning co-founder, entitled 'Street Devils'. The members consist of 18-25 year olds, all of who've pimped out their cars with at least a giant exhaust and racing stripes, along with a few other engine and car body modifications. For the record, if you're looking to do something to your car, a two tone paint job looks absolutely horrid if you decide to add racing stripes to it. Don't do it. Really. The only color that goes well with black racing stripes is yellow on a sedan or hatchback, and red if you're driving a coupé. Also, gigantic exhausts are utterly punju if not coupled with a k&n (or equivalent) air filter, platinum spark plugs and exhaust tubing starting at the manifold to reduce the emissions and other crap the exhaust spews out. This also improves the mileage to about 16ish in Delhi traffic, up to a speculated 20 on highways.
My own beautiful Zen Aurelia being the only completely raw car, which still manages to keep up with the rest, is known by the other members, who sometimes misinterpret my decision to park her away from the others as aloofness, despite the fact that I always get out and join them, rather than the fact that I'm merely avoiding a worst case scenario of someone showing up and attempting to come coming to an abrupt stop in the midst of the rest, subsequently losing control and ramming one of the other cars. We usually meet up at a well known part of the city either at the crack of dawn or late night, and then drive down to the place we want to get to (often an empty strip of smooth road that can be used for drag racing, or 180s, by the more ambitious) in a long convoy of thirty or so cars with their hazards on and their engines screaming, a scene right out of the fast and the furious, or at the very least, the desi remake.

Last Sunday, we assembled outside the Moti Bag petrol pump around 6AM. We had acquired a gang of large surds in Civics and Santros, and while a large group of them attempted to get an Esteem with a weak battery and engine thingies too power-hungry for said battery going again(a vtec or something, I don't know anything about engines except how to disconnect and reconnect the acceleration), I grabbed a hold of one of the few fellows I knew by name, and decided to explore the immediate vicinity for food. Now being on a main road just shy of NH8, and a large Gurudwara nearby, there was no food to be found, except for the few Fererro Rocher I keep in my dash. Soon enough, we were off, to a cacophony of roaring engines and screechy tyres.
Now the rules state that everyone moves in a straight line, and I used to keep right at the back as I wasn't sure just how well my car would keep up with the rest, but our new members failed to pick up on this. As soon as we were off, they started overtaking each other, and the convoy became a jumble of cars, heading into highway traffic, albeit 6:45AM highway traffic. Not in a mood to get left behind or god forbid, lost, I bolted into the middle of the pack, and kept right behind a red Getz. At a red light, the Getz made it across, but this truck decided to cut the rest of us off. As soon as it turned green, I let two Esteems move on past as I wasn't entirely sure of the route to our final destination. Staying right behind those two, and with the remainder of the pack behind me, I spotted the red Getz a little ahead, and hit the gas to catch up with it, with the same two Esteems on my tail. For a few flyovers, the Esteems and some of the other cars were alternating my spot at the head of the pack, until at the end of a last flyover, the Getz took a left turn at the base of what I recognized as the 'Ship Building', in a wholly other region of NCR.
Taking a look in my rear-view, found the Getz I was initially following right behind me, along with the two Esteems, with a dozen other cars behind them, all distinguishable by blinking hazards and obnoxious carbon fiber skirting. Stopping on the side of the road, I inquired as to how we wound up in Gurgaon, when I was following the two Esteems. To my chagrin, the rest of the pack informed me that they had been following me, and had assumed I knew where I was going as I'm usually at the back of the pack. The newbies collectively turned tail and vanished without a word, leaving the rest of freezing our butts off, with the brilliance that is yours truly in naught but a white cotton shirt with three buttons open, and jeans.
A few phone calls later, a true 'Street Devils' convoy of eight cars set off, with the Beautiful Silver 2002 Zen that is known as Aurelia at the lead. The aforementioned Esteem with a weak battery broke off mid-way with a horrid green Matiz that was slowing down the pack in tow, wishing for the rest of us to fare well by cellphone, and four of the remainder took what they assumed was a shortcut. Reports claim they found themselves in Mayapuri, wherever the hell that is. One sole Esteem, blue and silver with horrid mismatched navy racing stripes remained behind me, true to my leadership, as I wound my way through a largely abandoned Dwarka, until I successfully reached the club's point of continuation, Sector 12. Upon arrival, we were to discover that the rest of the club had dispersed minutes before, as a bit of a tiff broke out when one of the Sardars attempted to wash the cars of some of the Street Devil vets as a sign of assumed goodwill, while the owners of said cars were doing the bhangra with our new members in the middle of a circle of cars in a bonding ceremony. It is assumed that one of the vets didn't take too kindly to said Sardar's kindness.
The esteemed Esteem owner that had remained under my leadership and I parked on the side of the road, and began our own bonding ceremony, one that involved a ceremonial driving of each others' cars, and much over appreciation of the handling and acceleration. We then sat in Aurelia's cockpit, chilling to the acoustic hits of Dave Matthews and Alanis and imbibing great quantities of banta we had managed to acquire off a fellow in a stall on one of our rounds in a foreign car. When we finally got the phone call marking the end of the meet, the two of us weaved through Dwarka-Dhaula Kuan-Ring Road-Saket traffic, very nearly avoiding accidents with the same cars in the process. Now that's bonding I say.
Finally, we made it to the 24-7 in PVR, where we, with the remainder of the Street Devils gang, attacked their hot dogs and freshly baked croissants with gusto. I also finally got my music system's rear speakers' bass and treble properly configured.

Now here's the fun part. Here's where you get to join in. I know there's more of you who just like me love a good, fast, smooth drive. Send me a mail at renovatio@streetdevils.co.in, and I'll let you in on the fun. I know Street Devils is a horrid name, but it is (slightly) better than the last club he founded. I'm in the club more out of support for my buddy than any true need to drag race. At the very least, you'll be able to get very lost with me, and we can bond over banta and Alanis Morisette.

Goal! (Dhun Dhuna Dhun)

Dear fucking lord. I don't know what possessed me to agree to go for the bloody film, in fact I was forced into it. The tickets were bought and I was informed I was going to be watching. The fact that the sister's boyfriend who on every visit to my house prompts intense flashes of rage, requiring much self control to not injure him, was at my house for dinner did contribute to my desire to not be home. My first movie in a considerably long time, and to sum up my feelings for the complete bullcrap I sat through for over three hours, I came up with a bit of a jingle.

It's the scripting it's the acting and the camerawork is bloody poo
The editing leaves you wondering what the fuck just happened dude
The story's so clee-shay, and the footballers, oh they can't play
and oh my god John Abraham just hug your dad it's not that gay.

Granted my skill with jingles isn't extraordinary, but you get the gist. Let's break it down to some of the key elements. Doctor Bipasha Basu's primary job is to stand around in every shot holding something arbitrary, alternating with extreme close ups of her face looking distressed, or in some cases, constipated. The one time she gets to play doctor, she spends flirting with our man John, and ends his nose reconstruction with hand cream and a piece of surgical tape. Granted that's gotta be one of the best acting jobs anyone's ever had, to just stand around and do nothing, and get paid a whole bunch.
Arshad Warsi, an excellent comedian's mostly dead serious in this movie, and treats his wife like a puppy when he finds her perched on the edge of their tub crying. It turns our that she's pregnant, and has the uncanny ability of making the kid in there alternate between being eight months into development, and four months, all in a span of a week of learning that she's actually pregnant.
There's this brilliant South Indian or Bangladeshi, I can't tell which, fellow, with an amazing 'one-pack', who manages to constantly and continuously break down in tears. Especially when he got the very necessary Bollywood slap, when the only Sardar I've ever seen unable to hold his drink consoles him. This Sardar who spends the majority of the movie flirting with women suddenly acquires a wife when John ditches the team, who spills all manner of state secrets involving sacrifice, which leave the team and John largely unaffected, for that scene at least. Though Arshad bhai manages to remember the sacrifice later in the changing room, before a crucial match that the team inevitably loses..
There was also the fact that they couldn't have any fight scenes in a sporty movie such as this, so at one point, when Arshad Warsi's running after Boman Irani to get him to coach the team, they play fight music anyway, to a very odd long wide shot, largely empty, with Boman Sahib standing in the middle in a position I see most men against walls peeing in. That isn't to say Boman Irani did a bad job. He's a brilliant actor, and the scenes with him were only slightly bearable.
Not to mention the big John-Bips kiss. She gives him a cute and rather endearing peck to his lips and runs, at which point he grabs her, brings her into a stranglehold, and proceeds to indulge in what I can only describe as a devouring of her face. She keeps her eyes tightly shut and her lips puckered, and he goes to town on her lips, which is to say he sucks on them like a freaking popsicle. It was the only time I've ever seen two people kiss and be unsure of whether to turn my head and retch, or else to step in and teach them how to do it right.
Then there were the team itself. The entire team somehow, a depressing bunch at large, went from a joint hatred of the Johnman to intense love and bonding. There was also the scene where John Abraham and Arshad Warsi were on the verge of spooning, when the effects of their alcohol had managed to wear off, even though I couldn't see an IV on either of them. While the scene and dialog was one of the few (read almost only) that inspired any sense of emotional depth to the characters, it was promptly forgotten the next day, when John got picked up by a superior club, with a Porsche dangled in front of him that he only knows how to drive in a straight line, constantly increasing the volume of the radio.
Finally, the technical. This movie was bad enough for the casual movie-goer, hell I've never seen an entire cinema hall in splits from non-tapori jokes. For a media student who's shot and edited a few short films and sequences, this movie was torture. The cameraman had some strange notions, and the editor(s) had me wanting to offer to re-edit the entire film, free of charge.
All shots of someone sitting in a car had the camera locked at some weird angle where the entire front pillar and a large chunk of the windshield were also visible, leading to an under/over/under/over-water effect, there were some strange empty shots with a football in the foreground and two exhausted characters tucked away in a corner far back with a lot of rainy empty space, shaky shots, which I suppose were intended to follow the actor's steps but only yielded a sense of vertigo, and a lot of shots that were completely off focus.
Message to the director: I can even understand trying out new spot boys and focus boys for your movie, thanks for giving the next generation of camera assistants jobs man, I appreciate it already, just please make sure you reshoot the scenes where the lighting's skewered, and where they didn't quite grasp the concept of aperture when it comes to depth of field.
The editor(s) decided the film needed endless quick cuts, and when the training montage came up, they decided to put a few random man-boobs lifting (and pulling) weights in the wrong way. They also seemed to feel that the audio tracks didn't need to match the video, as when Bipasha screamed out Sun-ny, rather than run out and check on him herself, being the team doctor, I could've sworn her lips were saying Dooood-man.

I would be really pissed right now if I had paid for the ticket, and I hadn't been consoled during the interval with three hot dogs and a giant tub of popcorn with extra butter. I'm also getting a butter chicken meal at my beloved Krips tomorrow to make up for this god damn abysmal movie.

Intermediate

In the intervening days since investing in the time to indulge in an inspection of this here blog-of-mine, I've become inexorably indisposed and inexcusably incapacitated.

Bear with me. Regular posting will resume shortly.

And in answer to Pri's latest comment which seemed to remind me that I actually have a blog:
"Not by the hair of my chin-ny chin chin." Which in my current unshaved state, is a lot.

A few points...

When attempting to teach a roomie how to cook for his new girlfriend, don't have too much faith in the guy to start him off on something like Smoked Sea Bass with a Khus Khus filling, and if it seems imperative that he must be started off on this variety of fish where jaw-stabbing bones don't pop up periodically, leave signs all over the kitchen regarding the importance of de-scaling the god damn fish. Hmm, not bad. (crunch) ah, another scale.

When spending the night at home, being woken up by the dog nibbling on one's toes to be taken for a walk is not a terrible thing. The answer to that is not to call said dog over to head level, and chomping down, hard on his snout. Regardless of how lazy sleepy one is.

Angels in my Kitchen, other than being unwelcome in my kitchen, will always choose to rip you off on their chocolate croissants. The chocolate will only be found in the innermost layer of the croissant, and constant microwaving of the croissant over the period of eating the massive thing will yield to lovely gooey goodness that will attempt to burn a hole in one's tongue and than proceed to do so to the esophagus and any other organs it encounters. A definite option is to heat it a bit, then tear open the sides and fill them with Nutella. This results in a most lovely hazelnut variety of croissant. Although too many hazelnut croissants could be bad along the lines of cholesterol and result in a mild case of deadness. Symptoms include immobility, an inability to respond to interesting events, and a pervasive, unpleasant odor. It is almost always fatal.

When a punju boy in his pimped lancer stops at a traffic light and regards one with a challenging look, revving his engine in an attempt to intimidate, have mercy on the guy's poor girlfriend sitting next to him, god bless the girl for putting up with said punju boy, and hold back on racing him. He will lose. His engine will start coughing, and wheezing, and start to release great gouts of smoke. He will then glare, blaming you for his predicament, while the soon to be non-girlfriend screams at him. Under no circumstances should you agree to drop the now non-girlfriend home if she so asks, lest punju boy fall to his knees as a big, sobby, spoiled brat of a mess.

When sharing your nice, clean blood with a 16.6 hemoglobin and 275k platelet count with a leukemia patient, feel free to begin to lose all faith in the nurse when she exclaims her inability to find your vein. Feel freer to do so when she molests your finger with a needle to re-re-re-confirm your blood group before the actual process of bleeding you dry. Finally, it is within your civil rights to rant and rave at the nurse and all her colleagues, and the world at large, and attempt to invoke the name of Sir Ganga Ram when incompetent nurse manages to pierce through the vein on the other side too, so that during aspheresis, platelet-free blood pumped back in ends up getting pumped directly into the skin, forming a bruise the size of a grapefruit. You also retain the right to scream and snap at the patient's hot niece who came in to check in on you, when she asks if your face is contorted into a veneer of fury out of fear, while said incompetent nurse is squeezing the crap out of your arm's grapefruit to try and get some of that extra blood out. It. Bloody. Hurts.

Heart and body, mind and soul... (part 2)

First off, I saw the Visa ad again, it's actually Mind and body, heart and soul. My bad.

We rejoin our motley crew sprawled across the mattresses in the other room, after having succumbed to paratha power. India Today Office Spotter had fired up some random tennis game and was losing to Federer, when he remembered cricket. This was the first sign. He replaced the tennis game with a cricket one, and started playing as India. Not so Hungry Sir Sleep-a lot called out play pakis, which we all silently acknowledged. At this point Ralph suddenly called out War! Huh!... Yeah... What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! It wasn't a number I had saved, so I handed it to the Upstanding Religious Individual. I wasn't sure why I'd kept Ralph with me that day, he just rang and rang and pissed me off all day. I had to remember to dump him on JD when I got home. Calling Ralph however, turned out to be the religious one's mamu, Mamu.
Mamu wanted to watch the match on a large screen in CP, with the company of alcohol, and all of us being of empty wallets were inclined to decline. When Mamu offered to foot the bill, we all screamed out We love Mamu! and got up. Sutta Break Caller and myself needed to answer vicious bowel movements, but couldn't do so at the residence of the office spotter, as there was no water, so we told the other idiots to get to TGIF and grab a table, while we went to my house. There was still a good hour and fifteen minutes before the match was to start, more than adequate time for them to get there, although my stomach was complaining a little more audibly.
I got home in record time. My beloved Silver Zen, Aurelia, made me proud.
My bowel buddy got a bit shy and clenched when we got to my place, as my mother had reached home by this point. As I attended to my woeful stomach, he managed to get himself and the office spotter an invite for a home cooked dinner after the match, which he was only too happy to oblige to. Having finally set out for CP, I stopped off at my beloved Pushpanjali gas station, the one next to The Grand, and while I filled my tank, the smoker went into the Acha lagta hai store and fetched me one of those canned Nescafe cold coffees I like to drink while driving. With a good forty-five minutes on our hands to get to CP, I of course, took fifty-five, having taken a wrong turn at some point and winding up at Gol Market, where I took another wrong turn and wound up at Karol Bag. At this point the religious one texted to check if we were near, and we replied back with our orders of Guiness and Kingfisher, with Mozerella Sticks. Having finally reached and deposited my beloved Aurelia in the Palika parking at a nice open spot, and memorizing that spot, we got lost two more times, once winding up near India Today, and the second time at India Today. Wait a second... We finally reached TGIF, getting ready to bypass the giant crowd as my reliable buddies would've got us a nice snug table fairly close to the screen, only to find them standing outside with Mamu.
Now Mamu's fairly fond of me, each of the last four times he's come down to Delhi to visit, I've gone along to pick him up from the airport, all the while singing the Mamu song with the religious one from Munnabhai.
Mamu rushed ahead to meet me before I could wring the religious one's neck and explained how they'd decided to check Ruby Tuesday instead, but managed to get lost in the giant expanse that is Inner Circle. What they quite wisely forgot to mention to me was that they could've written down their name at TGIF and gotten seated in a mere 15 minutes, but the religious one insisted that Ruby Tuesday would be empty, on the day of a world cup final.
We spent the next hour approaching every nice bar, every lousy bar, every shady bar, and eventually every coffee house to get to see the match. To calm Mamu down, I periodically checked the score on Ralph, who's capable of providing me with the internet. Finally, we relegated ourselves to watching the last few overs of India's batting at Wimpy's, surrounded by equally pissed off people picking at their shitty food which they had purchased just to get a seat at a place with the match on. My two (undeserving) dinner guests and I then left to catch the last couple of overs at home, and upon entering the Palika parking, promptly forgot where I'd left Aurelia, all alone, in the dark. For a few seconds an image of myself running around wildly pushing her buttons (not again!) the central locking's button yes, that joke got old last time until she called out to me flashed through my mind, but I quickly subdued the image and hopped over the barrier to where I hoped was sure I'd left her.
About forty five minutes, hour, many arguments about the music, and a few more cans of cold coffee later (the HP next to Khan has them too), we were speeding down the home stretch of Nelson Mandela and got in with enough time to spare to catch the last six frantic overs. There was much screaming, hissing, booing, and cursing, followed by abject depression, when Misbah quite arrogantly got on his knees to deliver a last pelvic thrust six and win the match, when our Mallu fielder got under there and won us our first world cup in over a quarter of a century. Much, much, much screaming and jumping and shrieking like little girls war crying in a manly, testosterone-filled way later, we sat back down to catch Dhoni a la paunch take off his shirt and put it on some kid, who I'll assume he knew, after which the camera shifted to a rather confused Shahrukh Khan a la scary abs fiddling with his own camera.
The rest of the evening (with JD suspiciously absent, even though I managed to leave Ralph behind for him, HA!) involved a mother-cooked dinner of khatti-meethi daal, bhindi, and pyaaj pulao, with much tattling-on-Renovatio. We then spent a little while making a CD for Adelina, Aurelia's music system, from office spotter's laptop, into which he quite slyly snuck in some Justin Timberlake, Mika and Akon, along with a few dozen Punjabi tracks. He did however, manage to put in at least one song I wanted, Chunbawamba's only known number, which provides much sing-along fodder. I do suspect he made that CD more for his own listening while on the road with me, but I will candidly admit I've been trying to sing along with Mika.