Swimmin' in the Rain
They say that Gene Kelly had a temperature of 103 when he did his song and dance sequence. Singing in the rain is one of those pleasures that Life gives us for free. Today there is a really good rain that reminded me of the monsoon. I went swimming today and it occurred to me that there are no outdoor pools here so one of life's great pleasures cannot be enjoyed in the NCRB( Rec bldg).
Its great to have thunder overhead and it pouring. While you swim you cannot get wetter. Its fun being totally immune to what is really a great damper(haha) sometimes
Have you ever had this feeling of being in a huge bathtub with the shower also on. Also I forget to mention the water's cold. That's the real fun..
Hummus and Pita
Strangely this Friday's update column is too about food. This might give readers the wrong idea that I am mostly upto eating. Trust me that is not true. I rather talk about something else than the boring exam week.
I hopped(literally did) to Jerusalem Garden to have my hummus and pita. I ended up ordering a falafel plate. Of course the piece de resistance was eating the walnut baklava. The best description can be of a khari type layers soaked in sugar syrup with a filling of walnut and 'mava' in it. It is dee-licious. My aunt often made about a huge box of them each time she came. It's really great. Sinfully great! It cost a buck. What do you get these days for less than a buck?
Without my asking the waitress packed and made a nice little box for me to go. I wish she had asked, "For here or to go". Since I let her decide, I acquiesced with here wishes and left.
I wonder why people here cannot sit and eat? Why is food always on the move. Or atleast it has to always somewhere else than where you paid for it? Weird...
Thai food
Ann Arbor is famous for its great restaurants. Though it does not have too many Thai restaurants. Today I discovered the best of them all. Siam Cuisine is in a little back alley of Main tucked away in a corner. The service and the speed are excellent. What finally counts is the food though. Thai food is more about the aroma than anything. On this count this restaurant scores great. Two scents are predominant-coconut and chili which are then colored by the other exotic herbs and spices. I love the Tom Kha soup and I liked the kothmir sprinkled in it. The other two entrees I don't remember the names. Of late my taste in Thai food has exponenentially increased though my capacity for remembering the names of the dishes has not.
In a way that is good so I don't(cannot) order the same dish again.
What was great about this restaurant is that they offered a fixed dinner menu. This is good cause then you get the correct combination of dishes in the way they are supposed to be ordered rather than a hit-and-miss philosophy when you are in an exotic restaurant.
Only crib is that in Thai restaurants they dont give you a Fortune Cookie.
Daylight Saving (not Savings) Time
A few days ago this part of the world turned the clock ahead an hour to change from EST to EDT. The website below is amazing resource for what I think extremely peculiar. Thanks to that I lost one hour of sleep. Which IS A LOT OKAY? Also it is now dark at about only 8:30pm or so which actually should be 7:30 EST.
Link on Daylight Saving Time
Does it save energy?
Studies done by the U.S. Department of Transportation show that Daylight Saving Time trims the entire country's electricity usage by a significant, but small amount, of less than one percent each day with Daylight Saving Time. We save energy in both the evening and the morning because we use less electricity for lighting and appliances.
A rather sloppily written sentence. I dont think that it does save too much energy but the greatest advantage is the more daylight hours in the evening. More time to play ( if I were a schoolboy) and being up and about along with the sun. ( look who's talking?)
Let's bomb Texas they have oil too
The war in Iraq is not yet over. On TV they say that 67 % of Americans support the war now that it has begun. I dont trust the American media one bit. In this land of the free the big media is the least free and always a pawn in someone elses hand. I trust my nose and all the people that I met and spoke to seem dead against it and more against George W. Its a senseless war which will have big repercussions on Bush. Also I predict that he is not going to die in his bed an old man.
I really dont understand the US foreign policy vis a vis the people here. Here there is so much of protest and the freedom to protest. In fact today I missed seeing the most famous item on Ann Arbor's annual calender. "Hash Bash" where flower power junkies, college students, liberty activists gather to legalise 'grass'. The university seems to have clamped down on this in a big way. Most of the times its just more tourists than the actual protesters. Need to check up on this debate.
Rain
It rained yesterday. The rain in Ann Arbor is an excuse for what you call rain. They have this drizzly, light rain like as if someone had gently turned on a sprinkler.
Puneites dont have too much of respect for the Pune rain. It rains heavily and then clears. Atleast it rains heavily. It makes rivulets that carry the dust. It has always been fun to splotch home from school wearing gum-boots and with a raincoat not bothering to escape the splashes from rickshaws and cars passing by.
What is most unromantic about the rain here is that there is no scent of earth. This kills the fun. Too bad I wont be able to enjoy the monsoon. Running in the rain with your old walkman is so much fun. You dont feel the heat and the water kind of rejuvenates you. Of course what follows is the mildly sinful pleasure of a hot bath. Ahh!
From Somnabulism to Narcolepsy
Its 2:30 am and today i have no excuse why to why I am not sleepy. Last night I had these chocolates that have a coffee bean inside and I had three of them and was awake till 3. I just realised that my knowledge of sleep inducing methods is really poor. I tried eating rice and curds but that does not help. Anybody with some info on how this can be done please let me know.
What do I care what other people think?
Finally after a frustrating few days I got this commenting thing to work. It was just about sticking some code. Frustration is when something you know is childishly simple and you cant get it work. When you debug some error you realise one thing "You are an ass!" and another profound realisation that how could you forget a basic step. In this case it was RTFM. Anyway I did all but the obvious and the stuff did not work. Now it does. This is to impress on you gently reader that your opinon matters. Do bear lightly on me!
Classical Music
The Music Appreciation course is one courses that I have really enjoyed. It has been so much of fun and I learned so much of stuff. All those terms that looked daunting are now under my belt.Rondo, sonata, movement, allegro, andante. I have the whole Italian jingbang, the German lieder and what a fugue is.
One always feels that Classical music is stuffy and people who listen to it even stuffier. My original intention was to be that ultimate snob. This ultimate cultural snobbery and arty fartiness is a valuable asset to acquire?
Its a shock to know that Bach is Baroque not Classical. More than the shocks was the revelation. The spiritually uplifting Gregorian chants. I cannot believe that I would actually listen to the Hildegrand of Bingen. I have yet not come to terms with Beethoven's music. The Fifth Symphony's opening motive is still so unsettling.
The Romantic composers have caught my fancy. Especially Schumann. Now I really appreciate their mastery. Great credit to Prof. Albin Zak who could make pop crazy students equally crazy about Bach and Schubert.
My friends ask me how does this compare with rock music. For some time I was out cold. How I can compare songs with three chords with people who played three chords in quarter time. How can you explain the Tristan chord. The great revolutions of harmony and form over the years.
It reminds me of Bob Dylan "Don't condemn wha you can't understand.' All I know that if I had lived without knowing the beauty of Schumann's Eusebius or the tragic beauty of Chaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasty Overture I would have missed something.
Oscar Post Mortem
I am watching Jay Leno and they are dissecting the Oscars. The defining moments were Adrien Brody making the most of moment in terms of kissing Halle Berry and then making a really passionate speech. Of course the hero turned anti hero Michael Moore was booed by the audience for this anti-war and anti-Bush statments. I too agree that this is not the platform for making political statements. Nicole Kidman showed that she has no brains and spoke a bunch of crap in her acceptance speech. There was a comment on the show today when Polanski won the Oscar and Scorcese getting snubbed again. " Who do I have to rape in this town to get the Oscar ?". Another former bridesmaid got his honorary Oscar, Peter O' Toole.
Are the Oscars a sham? Does marketing or hysteria make the difference. Is it politically coloured?
Chicago won the Oscar for Best Picture with the Pianist taking the rest of the biggies. Pedro Almodovar looked like as if he had misplaced his hairdryer before he got here and then read out from a paper (how sad).
This was the 75th Oscar ceremony and was "..not too great except for the Oscar for Best Kiss for Adrien Brody.." as my friend Javed wrote.
Let Down Again
No one would be interested in putting me in prison. India got the biggest thrashing in what was supposed be their greatest moment.
There are too many Indian armchair will provide the post mortem on what Ganguly should have done and how the Indian bowlers threw the game away.
The hard truth is that mere will of a billion Indians would not win us the match. IT maybe made out 11 nervous of the onerous responsibility. Sachin too cracked under the pressure and despite his brilliance he never played the big match well.
With every ball that was sent down the Wanderers ground the match went further and further away. We were closest to the World Cup at the start.When we will not choke?
All Hope Not Lost
I decided not to slit any throats and found out that I could forge the tickets. Forging is now another in the growing list of crimes that I have managed to commit in this short but eventful life of mine. These ISA (not ISI!) guys made it ludicruously simple to forge the ticket with a couple of CRTL-C and CRTL-V. My roomate forged the signature of the ISA president or something (which should atleast give me more years in the slammer).
Technical note:The key to forging is having the correct kind of paper. That is of prime importance. Look it me i am justifying this from a educational standpoint.
There is another standpoint. Last time India made it to the finals I was three. Now I am almost a score (Yes it still is used this word i mean) years later we are again in the final. For something that happens once in twenty years I forged it.
India, dudes you guys better win atleast it will make my prison stay worthwhile.
Black Friday?
To my great anger the tickets to the finals have been sold out.The sort sightedness of the organisers prevented them from arranging a bigger hall. This I hope makes up for my own short sightedness that I should have gone to get the tickets an hours earlier. Its always easy to blame 'them' though.
Its India's greatest moment( any kind of moment for a nation) since Lords, 1983 ( when I was too young to remember) I shall not be able to watch it. This is punishment for my utter lack of faith in Indian cricket.
Part of my earlier spiel for not buying the tickets was Cricket has eaten into other sports in India. This may not be the politically best time to argue a case for other sports. The grapes are currently too sour to even talk about.
Though still being very much Indian and hence full of hope.. I hope that some juggad will get me tickets. Shall I slit a few throats?
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