Phony tunes

Many moons have passed since I came this way, mostly because I've been both distracted and attracted to the new little toy in my life. A black 30GB ipod. Video. Decided that I had no need of human company. It listens to me. Sounds a lot better than most people I know, and even looks better. I am, like they say, back in business.
The mobile service providers have finally lost it. The past 24 hours have seen me get the same message(s) about 20 times. Though this can occasionally be fun when one can target the sender and cause obfuscation beyond compare. All entertaining but when it happens consistently it gets on everyone's nerves. But revenge is soon at hand. I've taken to forwarding service messages. "Do you want caller tunes?" or "Win an ipod?" (bwahahahaha) or "get hookers at discount..." whatever. The upside is as usual, entertainment, and the downside is confused replies, that thanks to the service providers iterating behavior I receive about 20 times.
Another rather significant thing I've noticed is how a cell phone is a major determinant of both sentimentality and social connectivity.
Take my cool, sleek 3315 for instance. Notice how it's still on the site and not in the museum, like my camera. Says a lot about the phone... or about Nokia but that's not the point, is it? Again, I digress. This little nifty gadget has a great feature that simply are must haves for the socially withdrawn - No phone memory. Everything is stored on the SIM card (subscriber identity module, by the way. Incidentally, there's also an antilipemic medication branded Simcard... had a good laugh, you can too). The result is I can know only 250 people. Or if some odd member of society whom I actually like has more than one number that I need to store, that's a person less. The corollary to this is simple. Since I don't remember numbers (I'm a doctor, duh!) and hence I'm marginally dependent on phone or paper to remember them, getting rid of anybody from the my spheres of influence essentially involves deleting them. Its a good thing. Except when they haven't reciprocated or have technologically advanced communicators that ingest and retain any number fed into them, thus causing a tendency to "keep in touch". A little embarrassing but when one has a phone that's close to being a museum relic, it can take the acceptable blame. The other downside is the one time I actually had 250 people (or less and multiple entries, vide supra) and some pretty lady gave me her phone number. Unfortunately she saw the error message that memory was full, assumed that it was my memory and not the phone's and turned away in a huff. Thus the 3315 is not just a device to avoid social contact, it can be a deterrent too.
The next fallout of not having phone memory is a lack of sentimentality. I have 25 messages. Two out of which are stored email ids which I have been too lazy to transfer to gmail's vast repository of addresses. I could do them even as I type this, but like I said, I'm too lazy. Turns out that any message that is angry, insulting, adoring, suggestive, sensuous or even plain filthy doesn't get stored for more than 20 messages later. They all vanish is a fell sweep of the erase all messages in folder button. Unlike the 3310 wherein each message had to be deleted individually, which still left room for sentimental non-deletion. Here it's gone without prejudice. Evolving technology is so cool! No sent messages so a Bart-esque "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, can't prove anything" is a valid alibi. And if someone shoves their phone with the offending message displayed in technicolor, blame Hutch. Oops, sorry I sneezed. That's not my service provider, though it sounds suspiciously the same.
Thus it has come to pass that technology is now determining another important aspect of our lives.
That's all folks!!

Elektra..

Didn't think I'd be writing again so soon but it turns out that there are ideas brimming. At least there's one. Some random channel surfing got me to watch Elektra - Assassin last night. Ok I'll confess I knew it was coming on star movies but I did look at all the other channels for something better, and there wasn't anything worth watching. In retrospect neither was this but that's giving away most of the post isn't it. Something about tv on saturday night. The programming is aimed at people who aren't out painting the town maroon and the programming aims to make them feel a tad more miserable that they're sitting around watching tv instead of doing the aforementioned painting.

Anyway I'm a sucker for comic book adaptations. Constantine, Hellboy, all the -men (x, bat, super, spider), fantastic 4 and now Elektra. The comics themselves are pretty good. Some neat artwork and a significantly convoluted storyline make them worthwhile. This movie, on the other hand, is disgusting.
I used to be under the impression that any woman in a catsuit doing freaky stunts with sais and equally freaky gymnastics would be cool. Sorry, hot. You get the drift. Jennifer Garner unfortunately is probably the only actress I know who fails that. She's pathetic in the movie. One reviewer has even said, "Whereas the comic book character was Angelina Jolie', the film character is very much 'Jennifer Aniston'!"
Tragic waste of energy it was.
Another interesting thought about the aforementioned Garner that's been plaguing my mind is the whole Ben Affleck connection. Ben was dubbed Bennifer after that whole JLo thing (bejewelled toilet seat what was he thinking... I know it's a rearend to be proud of but still), and strangely that blew over and he's still bennifer.
That could cause a problem... Imagine then in the throes of ecstasy screaming each other's names out and Ms Garner suddenly says, "Ben, I'd really appreciate it if you screamed my full name out when in the throes of ecstasy..." Thus "say my name" becomes a very unromantic "Say my last/full name..."
But Ben Affleck, he's smart (he co-wrote good will hunting and acted in dogma) can't see why he's do this to himself.
Love, I suppose, is blind... deaf, insensate and anosmic too.

Bugged? It's wan ley a blog, init?

And so it came to pass that a computer was tormented by moisture and decided to not work till it had dried off. Such is the tale of woe that a friend of mine (and a significant contributor to this blog) is currently playing a role in. Reminds me of the earliest transistor and vacuum tube run machines that crashed one day. The engineers (evil laugh track) took a week or so to check every wire and circuit and discovered that the culprit was a moth. Thus the term bug. Or so says Apocrypha.
Bone (dead) tired after some two instructors at the gym decided that today was Judgement Day and I hadn't been a good boy. All references to BDSM apart, it felt like that minus the dirty bits. So here I am back waiting for God to intervene and a benevolent MI to end the suffering.
Craving meat again. To eat, you filthy minds. Cooked, you filthier minds. Like Chicken, dope.
It doesn't help that a friend's been belting cheap food at some chinese joint called Wan Ley. How that name lends itself to poor humor... Dinner for two? wanley 200 roopees.
I wan ley you down in a bed of roses....
Ok that's it. But that Bed of Roses is another potential. Take out the down and there another kinky movie. I'm beginning to think I'm in the wrong line of work... Or perhaps its just that I haven't done my cutting bit in a while. Gross as it sounds, it's true. It doesn't even help that I'm in a vegetarian house (despite being an ardent supporter of the right to eat red meat) otherwise I'd have come up with some cheaper albeit denigrating alternative.
Like Carving meat. To eat, you filthy minds. Cooked, you filthier minds. Like Chicken, dope.
More new music. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. It's a really good jam band. Get on stage and noodle for a few hours on a banjo/mandolin, bass, horns/flute, percussion. Neat stuff. So they have this song called Chennai off the album The Hidden Land. It's called chennai so we assume, with valid reason that it's inspired (unlike annnnuuu malllick) by something Indian classical. So it is. But this is what a reviewer had to say. And this too. Middle eastern? Mongolian? You'll have to dig a bit for that Mongolian bit, but it's there. The world is doing it's I'm better off ending thing on me again.
The other new band/artist is Jack Johnson. Curious George's Singalong songs apart, he's pretty good. Nice john mayer/dave matthew-esque voice and acoustic guitar. Nice.
Notice ye evil being, who's moisture ridden calculator is now back to being high and dry, It's nice so go listen.

Quote of the day - Yes Prime Minister - A Bishop's Gambit
Dean of Oxford - "Isn't it awful in Qumran (random fictional middle eastern country) they cut off your hands for any offence and women who commit adultery are stoned..."
Sir Humphrey - "Unlike here where women get stoned and then commit adultery."

Peace be on ye.

Post Emergency thoughts

So the ban is lifted and all is back to normal except for that sick taste that the government has just proven its capacity to do whatever it wants and get away with it. And all we have left with is that old sickening taste in the mouth. I'm beginning to wonder if I need to throw that 3 day old milk...
But two days of finding innovative ways to read blogs has led to a ranking of the various methods.
Geekiest, most ironic, and the coolest. The nerds shall inherit the planet in any case. When all of us will be on the streets Tianmen-esque, some geeky bastard will be secure tunneling in some underground bunker diverting vast sums of Canadian money (loonies, incidentally) into some bank account in an island of Jamaica.
Did I mention I watched Shark Tale? Those Rasta jellyfish... And Don Leno with a mole, and "Sykes! My Brother from another mother!" Now Rastas are interesting.. Turns out in their cannabis induced convoluted state of mind, 'erb is rasta for weed, and kaya is rasta for 'erb... Go figure.
It's amazing how things that have taken time and patience to build, cultivate, achieve can all be destroyed in one swift, fell stroke. Kind of like virginity and a balloon... All it takes is a prick. But bad jokes aside... Spent two hours working out and treading mills, crossing trainers, basic and reverse crunching, sweated bullets, yada yada a couple of days ago. Walked out. Stood under a street light and thought for a while. Beelined to La Casa down the road and quaffed a cold chicken and salami and cheese and mayo. And shaved this morning after working on a beard that was initially french then just all over. Now it stings when the wind hits my chin. Kipling's when you've seen what you've given your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools aside, seems a tad unfair that it's so simple to break. Swavrovski is a good example.

The answer to what question is 35 cubic feet of dirt or 700 lbs?

Now my blue toe (mentioned earlier, the result of a 5kg plate) has persisted to be blue and all ye who conferred upon me sympathy, many thanks. The rest of you who didn't may ye rot in Davy Jones' Locker, Arrrrrrrr. Now our local paper is extremely excited, as most of us are, at the release of Pirates 2. The excitement unfortunately doesn't mean they can claim that Kidnapped by RL Stevenson is a pirate novel. I think they meant treasure island. After all it is the same author. But that's like saying Rikki-tiki-tavi instead of Sher Khan, after all they are by the same author. Ok the writer of the article is a little on the slow side, but the editor too? Oh there is this funny story about spell checks in newspaper editing that if I told you, I'd have to kill you.
But Pirates 2 should be worth the watch and so it shall be.
The realisation dawns that in ten days I'll be officially out of work, having completed three years of surgical training. Hot damn!

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Tyrants ahoy!

And so it would come to pass that a week after Mumbai was terrorised, the government decided that it was their turn to be a tyrannical outfit. For those of you who can read this without having to resort to clandestine tunneling through anonymous servers, here's the rub - blogspot, typepad and maybe a couple more blog hosting domains have been blocked by the Indian government to curb lines of communication of terrorists.
While I am profoundly shocked with what happened in Mumbai and deeply angered. I find it shocking and perhaps even stupid to block access to websites in the hope that whoever did the heinous acts would be unable to plan more. Why not cut off all telephone lines, television, radio, newspapers? Why not push us back into the time of the emergency? Most of us were born after that time and have often been told that things are so much better now and that having to stand in a queue for basic amenities is a thing of the past. Considering each passing generation takes a lot more for granted, perhaps it's our fault for believing we lived in a country that was sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic. Where we were given rights as long as we followed the law and did our duties.

I'm reminded strangely of the Matrix.

There is already enough angst on the net about this... And perhaps other forms of media might rise up in protest. But it was shocking when in the news a young girl said, "It's obvious that our government is incapable of doing anything about it. If that careless attitude to a few hundred people dying is there in the government itself, why should we care?" Or more or less.
It seems hard to still say this my home and I want to stay here and help when all that gets thrown my way is insane taxes, a corrupt government, reservation, and now censorship.
The papers say that the government had instructed that certain specific blogs/sites be banned. In it's usual ineptitude, all blogs were deemed restricted. And in only certain parts of the country. For example, I have been able to access blogs intermittently. Someone pointed out that that is probably because I live in the back of beyond and the Bangalore Rural district is yet to fall under the blogblock. Very Funny.
Strangely it doesn't make sense to write this. Outside of an angry vent. Hell. That's what it is.

The fake livestrongs will have to wait.

Dropped a 5kg plate on my foot yesterday at the gym. Sympathy is welcome.

Butch Amelie and the French connection

Someone told me today that this blog makes not just an interesting read but is the lightener of the day for that person. I'm intensely gratified and shall endeavour to make it as entertaining as possible. Thank you that person. The rest of you as Sapru (Shantanu for ye less informed) eloquently says, butt out.
The French it seems never can stay out of trouble. Or be put in significant quantities of it at any given point of time. Well what can one expect from a nation that has a phallic symbol (thank you Dan Brown, this is the only bit of interesting information I learnt from your works) as it's national treasure and also had its epitome of beauty for the year 2000 pose in nude a few months later. I'm not complaining Laetitia Casta is a beautiful woman and we (at risk of much flak) appreciate beauty. The French conservatives (an apparently small yet powerful bunch) didn't as much I'm afraid and thus Casta was stripped. Or she stripped and then was stripped.
After the Zidane controversy a little probing into French sport (no it's surprisingly not horsing around) threw up some interesting information on Amelie (like the movie) Mauresmo. Turns out that she's lesbian (or perhaps I just found out). It would have been obvious I thought. She's built like Nadal minus the steroids, plays a scary game and when she thrashed cute little Martina (Hingis, not Navratilova thought the thought of Mauresmo thrashing Navratilova could be the story line of a kinky movie beyond compare), little Martina went screaming to the press. Not fair to play me against a "half man" etc... And rumor has it that Amelie was suspected of being a-male-y and then proved innocent of the crime.
But she's cute. Amelie not Hingis. Actually Hingis too, but the truth, on which this post hinges, is that Mauresmo is a lesbian. And she came out shortly after that fateful tournament, and then went on in leaps and bounds to win Wimbledon. Interestingly unlike what happened with the elder Martina, the sports companies continued to sponsor the woman. The world is changing.
So much for Mauresmo, she's now broken up with her club owner girlfriend, life partner, whatchamacallit and is not quiet about her relationships. I wonder why. Considering there are semi-nude paparazzi shots of her and the significant other paddling (not each other) a canoe down some white water.
Jokes about the French continue... Somebody's written a song called Coup de Boule (French for head butt, apparently) and soon plans to have it translated in to Spanish and English. Not Italian, not till the wounds heal. Some Caribbean zouk influenced tune.

Have decided not to post any music reviews for sometime for fear of critics on the critique. Or vice versa as the case may be.

Next up, perhaps a take on fake livestrong bands.

And some shut your engines off and red lights advert has Dream Theater as the jingle.

And still wondering which movie keeps referring to Nina Simone...

Butt of course...

This isn't going to be an assortment of rear end jokes, on the lines of arse if... much arse I like it or this puzzle is going to be difficult to crack. It's going to be a dedication to the best footballer of the year, or of the past four as the case may be, the possessor of the golden ball alongside the normal one, from humble beginnings in the beach front on Marseilles (why the French can't write as they spell, I'll never know (oops shud I have said no instead)), none other than Zinedine Zidane (pronounced zizou in French).

Now despite the economists who after much deliberation over statistics and other such nefarious methods decided finally to settle for France mostly because zizou was so "hot". We now think they had inside information considering Baldy's heat is not just a reflection of how desirable he is. But economists and bookies (how they must have made a killing when Brazil lost) notwithstanding, here is zizou using his head...

Now there are a few other variations of the whole thing, go hunt for them on youtube. There are also apparently flash games that one can indulge in at times of ennui. This is just one of them. But zizou giving head and using his head, and heading in the wrong direction jokes apart, there are things to learn from here. No matter what amount of nipple pinching, jersey pulling, ma-behen-biwi abusing that would happen in any sport (wonder why they call it sport then?) especially contact sports (now we know why they call it contact sports...) I think when one reaches the pedestal of captaining one's country (born to algerians apart) in an international match the maximum allowable show of emotion is, apparently this.
But the Provider seems to think it's an italian conspiracy. Like the church, pizza, robert deniro and perhaps mussolini. Dismissed that with an account of sledging in Cricket. Sad isn't it, with cricket... No jersey pulling, family jewel stomping, or even head butting. The gentleman's game... All they did before and now, sadly even after bodyline was stare them down the pitch or occasionally mutter, "I say, he's daft don't you think?"
Still think reacting to insult is worse than insulting. Not turn the other cheek, just score the goal and win the match.
My take. You're welcome to yours.

not so quietly amused this time

Found this on public display. And For Sale. Notice the zoom on the insignia.






















Then realised during the course of the day that there exist people who don't get why this is funny.

Such is life... That's his wife. (Don't bother asking)

Jose joga +10 bonita. Capisce?

That should mean, with enough leeway for my broken spanish, "Jose, play a beautiful +10 game". I have no idea why the +10 is there but Adidas wants it there. Just to make sure that I infringe copyright. Football fever, at least temporarily, has a few days left. This weekend should see the end of the world cup with Italy and France battling it out. Am I the only one who's reminded of world war II?

Well Puma, Adidas and Nike on full swing to market some ridiculously expensive football boots but this is one of the nice ads that I've seen. Courtesy youtube.

The song you hear in the background is eanie meanie. By Jim Noir. That's Black Jim. And depending on which side of the nineties you were born that could remind you of either Treasure Island or Pirates of the Caribbean. That's a good thing either way.

But the ad also shows one thing we haven't seen in the million or so world cup finals (why do they call the league matches that too?) Frank Lampard scoring. Not weed or women, I'm guessing he gets enough of both, goals. I have half a mind to give him my toric lenses and maybe a new set of boots from some rival sports goods company (Puma or Nike, in his case) to perhaps do better than he has. How many times has he gone wide of the uprights or above the straight or in the unfortunate event that he's between those, there's a goalie waiting for the ball.

Correction. He kicks the ball to them. And not just Ricardo (who's the man, by the way) but everybody else too.

Which brings us to my take on some of the many (or few) players that caught my eye. Wayne Rooney. If I was 19 and 5 feet nothing, I'd run from trouble. Considering Rooney has the speed he should be too. Instead of throwing some adolescent tantrum.

Becks. Still the best dead ball kicker around. Funky hairdo, hot wife and multiple children notwithstanding. Lampard, need I say more. Crouch. Will someone take that giraffe back to the zoo please. You can't have tall guys around in football just because they're tall. Man that doesn't even work in basketball. (see: Shaq) Astley and Jim Cole (unrelated) and Terry and Ferdinand made watching England worth while.

Christiano Ronaldo. Good skills. Bad attitude. Just a christian Ronaldo - Fat but still has the magic. That step over and the pirouette were the best goals this world cup. Ronaldinho should just play midfield. He's not a striker, he sets up like no one can so let him do that. Barca does and look where it got them. His smile is infectious. Kaka the man. As is Dida. And Cafu. And will someone tell me which position Roberto Carlos is supposed to be playing.

Who's left? Japan, Angola, Trinidad and Tobago, Togo etc can go back to whatever agricultural produce was running their economy, with the exception of Japan, who can go back to running ours. The Socceroos I guess are hopping mad. The Germans should have known that after the second war no one's going to let them win anything. The Azzurri might just win. But Economists' opinions or otherwise, I have to humbly say that Zizou is playing the game of his life. They should win. Much as I can't stand the accent.

So much for footy, it's as much as I can take. But the english league apparently starts next month. Damn.

Random thoughts that are otherwise bugging me are gym related. Saw some bouncer type people redefining pumping iron. How did I know they were bouncers? Big, ugly, same clothes everytime I see them. Call me vain and I'll defy you to find me a Quasimodo with attitude. In a gym at that.

Does the name Quasimodo ring a bell?

Now the bouncers are doing their thing alongside some chom boys struggling with some puny weights. The thought is considering the propensity these runts have for drinking and causing mayhem what if they ended up being bounced by the guy pumping iron next to them...

Just a thought.

.Net

The internet, the web the vast repository of utterly useless and occasionally enlightening information is the worst thing that happened to mankind. True, I may not have been writing this and perhaps you wouldn't be reading this if it wasn't for the wonderful connectivity that we all share. Also true that many people with otherwise utterly meaningless existences who'd have otherwise been culled from the human race by ennui or invention, now have a platform to do what they do best.
For that past month or so or perhaps more I've been trailing autos all over the city with mouthshut.com painted boldly on the rear end of the canopy. Thought it was a polite way of saying the opposite of horny ok, please. Well this is Bangalore, the heart of the IT boom and the BPO escalation, which would explain the cool ".com" suffix to whatever the automan wanted to say.
Like iwantsocialjustice.com.
Or iwantunlimitedbeer.com.
You get the drift. It turns out that mouthshut is a product review site where all and sundry, essentially clones of the purpose-free man who started the site, can write in about which ever product they wish. Choice picks from there include reviews of Skyline (NEPC), the Sony w550i and almost every other product. They are looking for a review of Nostradamus-The Lost Manuscript by Ottavio Cesare Ramotti. Feel free to do the needful when you want to. I don't know if either the product or the site pays you for it. If you do get paid though, feel free to let me in on some of the moolah. Of course there are google ads on the side that continue to freak me out.
Then linked to some even more inane stuff. Blogthings.com. Cool stuff to put on your blog. Like a personalized monster, a tarot card, some normalcy indicator and enough weird stuff that you wouldn't want on your blog. Turns out, for the record that I'm 55% normal, have the Sun as my tarot and would've been Batman. Not bad for a start but refused to look through what mixed drink I'd be or how evil I was. I know the answer to one and couldn't care about the other. If you do go there, again feel free to let me know your results for the dating purity test and perhaps what is your japanese subculture.
A clock has been put up for those of you who didn't notice yet. It's black, digital and tells you the time in India. First thought it would be one of those smart things that would pick up the time from the system clock but that's apparently invasion of privacy. Google knowing everything you searched for since you discovered them is not. It's the way of the world.

Still lost in Zappa and Shankar.

And what is the basis behind all chinese philosophy?
To Confus-us.

Why they have this title space, I don't know.

A sudden onset bleah feeling is persistently irritating my life. It started off as a vague unsettling feeling and now it's a sense of impending doom that's settled in quite nicely, thank you. I'm hoping it's the result of an upcoming exam which has suddenly become all the more real since they've called for the payment of examination fees.

Not that it was ever a fantasy but till today it was a distant reality. All that's changed.
Was going through dibyo's blog where he's linked to this. Kevin Cornell has the meanest sense of humor I've seen in a while, as is exemplified below.
Vicious. I like it.
But back to the mood. Half an hour of killing random people with names like Barkooth, Blake, Rhea and Vanessa (I'm sorry kiddo, but that's how life is) on Unreal hasn't helped and neither has another half hour of arresting some drunk druggie on SWAT and getting half my team shot to hell in the process.
Before you start screaming morbid! Let me remind you that I am.
The torps have kicked up a minor storm with their rather misunderstood (tried spelling it like pink does but can't. It's not like I don't have people nit-picking on my spelling and grammar already. And like Prince it's P!nk now. Apparently.) post on the Limca book of records. Go there and figure out what's up with all that yourself, because I'm not launching on that. I'm in a bad enough mood and I don't need to dwell on thoughts that irk me some.
But when googling for pink or P!NK or whatever Alecia Beth Moore chooses to call herself, special characters or otherwise, I came up with the wikipedia entry on pink. No, I'm not linking that here. Interestingly, Shakespeare never used the word, simply because it didn't exist till the seventeenth century. Now I need to find that person who came up with it and kill him. Of course that doesn't mean that the colour won't exist. Bright Undersaturated Red. Often used to describe watered down socialists... (Red, Light-red, Pink. Get it? Just like soft porn can be referred to as a light-blue movie)
That and the entire range from lilac and lavender through mauve, violet and royal purple. And wikipedia gives red/green/blue, cyan/magenta/yellow/black, and hue/saturation/volume codes to create any one of these colours and the 16,000 more.
But there are things that cheer one up. A friend's mother is convalescing from surgery. No, you creeps that's not what's cheering me up. The story goes that mom snaps her fingers across the house whenever she needs something. How cool is that? Don't need any of my progenitors knowing this. It can be devastating.
And how can you yell at anyone who when questioned behind the motives of an apparently evil act says, "because I'm stupid and I don't know better..."
Need a beer. Toodles.

PS Will review an ancient Zappa and L Shankar Album in the near future. Still lost in it.

The year of the less favoured

Or maybe I just don't follow sport enough.

My initial prediction of an Argentina-Brazil final's been shot to hell with France pulling off a stunner. So the Samba Boys are out (Mas que nada, not withstanding) as are Argentina and England. No one outside of Kiev thought Ukraine was getting anywhere beyond where they'd gotten so that's moot.

Which makes it an all European semi-final. Some Nazi's sitting around going I told you so. And sadly after my take on indian sports I sometimes fear they're right. They seem to be swifter, higher, stronger than the rest of the world. But then it's not just the caucasians, hell no. It's anybody who lives there, breathes the air, drinks the water, injects the steroids, whatever. Take the french team for instance. Some residual colonial servitude feeling is still strongly apparent there. Half of africa speaks french and sends it's most promising young lads to the motherland to see a brighter light and live a nicer life and break a leg playing football for another country. The team's a bunch of africans sub saharan and saharan and a few in and around the Mediterranean. There's some 3 frenchmen on that team. Not that I don't like the French or anything but after Vinci Da Code I'm a little ticked off with the accent. Good food though. And white wine. The reds give me a headache.

Watched House MD last week. At the risk of getting flamed by the usual commenting bunch, I'd say I can see myself getting both the limp and the bad attitude. The medical knowledge should come with time. That apart Hugh Laurie the man. I think he's a good, intelligent actor and despite Stuart Eat-the-damn-rat-and-get-it-over-with Little I still like him. Something about the amount of trouble the west takes to make a show in terms of research and how real they like things to be. A patient looks like one, doesn't dance the bhangra when serious. Blood looks like blood and not ketchup, guns look like they're made of metal and not plastic. Cars explode, plastic doesn't burn instead. Made the mistake of watching some medical serial a while ago on one of the hindi channels. Saw two people lying on adjacent beds and "blood" being transfused from one to another. Found the nearest wall and did the needful. In the twenty first century, that's not how blood is transfused, damn it. But the TRPs are high. I know people who think "Sanjeevani" is an inspiring show and want to be doctors after watching it...

Beam me up Scotty, I gotta get out of here...