waiting-p1

waiting-p1
Originally uploaded by ck^2.

A bunch of chairs loosely set, waiting to play host.

The year that was

A whole three hundred and sixty five days have almost gone by. There is just a few hours before we start another one. It at these moments, that people normally sit back and think of the many things that they have done and the many that havent. Better still, about things that they could have done better than how they did, or how they shouldnt have done something they did.

Why talk about people, when i can talk about me ? Lets start with resolutions, i have given up on new year resolutions, because, in my experience, these resolutions are meant to be broken. The sooner the better. Usually new year resolutions are taken by weak people, who have to wait for a specific day to start a good or perceived good activity, and i am not weak. For me, any day of the year is a good time to take a resolution. This allows me greater flexibility in breaking them, and not worrying about the time of the taking or breaking the resolution.

Clothes and shopping are another thing associated with ending of the year and beginning of the new one. In the west or christian families, it happens before the year is out, to coincide with their biggest festival of the year. Here in India, Jan 1st has been a day to shop and die. I too fell prey to this culture and greed, and did my shopping, albeit just once. I soon gave up, when i figured out, deals can be had through the year, and i am going to get ripped off anyway. So, why jostle with the crowd, chase the lone appliance on the counter, run after coupons and from store to store to be ripped off. Its worth relishing such a feeling at other times during the year too.

Years come and go, actually it is calendars that come and go. Old ones wear out and new ones will replace these. But in this age of electronic calendar, there is no replacement, it just rolls over. When i go into work this coming tuesday, i will have a fresh new calendar on my computer's organizer (outlook), without me having done anything. And then i start the work day, without any change of the week or year before. There is of course the painful part of writing the correct year on checks you write, if you write any these days.

I think every friday is a day of celebration, if you dont have to work that weekend. And every monday is the perpetual hang-over day, whether you drink or not. What New Year, lets live life a week at a time. It makes life even more exciting, 'cause a new one comes every 7 days.

My Ambition

Who ever said, you need an ambition ?
Well, my teacher did, in class 6. She wanted to know about it, then and there. During a mid-afternoon class period, which was supposed to be free. Free period is for playing book cricket, talking movies, tic-tac-toe, and anything else. Not for jogging your mind and wasting time writing literary articles.

But what should have been written in history books a few decades later, was put to way-side, because someone developed chicken feet. So read on and find out how history was not changed one day.

Ambition ? Not !!

What's your footprint ?

The ecofoot.org website has a cool calculator to determine what your footprint or consumption level is.

Here is my revised one. I did one earlier that resulted footprint calculation of 12+
CATEGORY GLOBAL HECTARES
FOOD 0.4
MOBILITY 1.6
SHELTER 0.8
GOODS/SERVICES 1.1

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 3.9

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 0.8 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.
WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.
IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 2.2 PLANETS.

Whats your footprint ?

Islam and Peace - a discourse ?

Here are my thoughts on the day of Eid. My recent reading on the concept of Eid, and also the recent court battle in UK on wearing of the burkha, prompted me to write this blog.
Islam = Peace

Flickr Slideshow

Fotos from Flickr

Diwali - a retrospection

Diwali has had a different effect on me, over the past many years. Unlike many festivals, this one festival has brought out the most about of thought in its partaking. I have tried to throw out some reasons here. Or have i ?

Here is the post: Diwali - a retrospection

Blog spot

I hate to do this, i have to use the link. I was hoping to maintain and write a different blog here at blogspot.

But then the title is the same. It had to be, cause i had originally started writing here, but then quickly scooted to Yahoo, thanks to the better features offered there. But then it was easy to give up, because the yahoo 360 was under trial. It still is supposed to be under beta, but with over 300+ blogs of mine floating in cyberspace, i do hope they treat it with more caution.

So for the moment, instead of cut/paste the same blog here into blogspot, i figured i would link to 360. And then write something original here, whenever.
I mean, if ever.
Well, you know, what i mean.

hello is anyone there ? hello.
Hello !!!
HelloOOOOOOOOOOOO !!

damn, i chased the last one away.

Cooking Chinese food

Last couple of days, there has been an overload of chinese food. Its been a while actually that i had chinese food. And so when i got back late one night, and didnt feel like throwing the pre-cooked-packaged food into the microwave, i decided order delivery. After a few moments of indecisions between pizza and chinese, i decided on my favourite nearby chinese food restaurant.

Talking about indecisions, what is it about food and making decisions ? I could keep that up for about an hour, deciding between cuisines. I could spend quite a bit of time salivating about chinese, while i really feel like bread, or may be something deep fried. If i am able to quickly narrow down a cuisine, then it becomes an issue of what to order of the menu.

There is one good thing about chinese food, it can be dished out faster than you say kung pao chicken. The chinese invented the concept of fast food. It seems like a formula, all worked out, even down right to the number of peanuts in the kung pao.

But for me, things are not that simple. I rarely, order stuff from a menu, without adding or taking stuff out from the dish i ordered. Like ordering, kung pao without the celery, but add carrots and green pepers or onions or something. I even tried once to order kung pao, made with shredded chicken instead of diced chicken. After a few moments of confusion and bewilderment for the person taking the order, i had to say, 'you know what, i will have the curry chicken instead'. But for all this, all she did was add two strokes to the character she had already drawn on the order form.

This process actually creates a bigger spectacle at a Burger King or McDonalds. The person taking the order, usually a student at the local college, after listening to my 'chicken sandwich add tomatoes and onions', would confirm it back,

'so you dont want the mayo and the lettuce'
'no, i want the mayo and lettuce'
'how about the tomatoes and onions'
'yes that too'
now, the person is even more clueless, because they cant find all the buttons to press on the machine to punch in the order. But they know that i have to pay a price for this indiscretion.

'sir, that will cost you extra'
'ok'

At this point it could get very confusing, because now the issue is how much to charge for this. And so i could be charged a meagre 25 cents, to upto a dollar for a slice of tomato and few strands of onions.

Well, back to the chinese, i dont want to digress and dilute their moment of glory. So i started the mid-week with Mongolian chicken (not on the menu) and Schezwan chicken from the delivery. Followed by Kung Pao on thursday afternoon, and spicy orange chicken for dinner the same night. Friday offered a break. Only to land up in another not-so-nearby chinese place tonight for a dose of curry chicken.

Why so much chicken? Well thats the only meat i eat in the US. I could easily give it up, but then i am not a great fan of veggies either, specially the chinese kind. For some reason, brocolli, snow peas, bamboo shoots, celery and water chestnuts are not my kind of food. But why the hell, so much of chinese. I have no answer, except that i was a guest sometimes and a host sometimes.

But, no complains, except that i wish i had my own chinese restaurant. I could then have kung pao chicken, made with sliced chicken (big flat pieces), with spicy kung pao sauce, peanuts with a choice of onions and green peppers, or spinach and carrots. If only i could teach the chinese to cook chinese food.

When the Levees Broke

Happened to come across this when i was channel surfing this afternoon. As soon as i saw it, i was glued to it, and was recounting the days last year. NO,LA was special to me, having spend almost a year there in '92. And watching and enduring the images from Katrina last year as they were happening, was painful. This documentary, helped to relive some of those moments.

I used the words helped, because having been far away from NOLA, and except for a few reminders from PC and few news stories recently, i had managed to bury those images deep inside somewhere. This documentary, drew a tear or two, not because nothing has changed, but i couldnt simply fathom again, how a few blokes could allow this to happen at all.

Adding this ... i just managed to get this clip.. on the White House site. Nice place to keep it. Here is the now infamous quote "and, Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" by our president Mr. Bush.