They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Been doing some research on that and assuming it's a maxim (this is where I catch Sapru's attention) that involves a little lateral thinking before one starts hunting for some old St. Bernard to teach 'play-dead', I find that the older the dog is perhaps it's easier to get the occasional new trick in.
It so happened that due to a lack of a job and intermittent boredom from too many subway-esque sandwiches (bread, mayo, mustard, cheese, lettuce and assorted veggies, cold cuts, jalapenos, gherkins and olives) I've been feeding off my grandparents for some regular run-of-the-mill pulling-at-the genetic-roots food. In the course (usually the main one) of the meal I learn some classical music from grandmom, some stock market and investment gyan from granddad and I also learnt that you can teach an old dog yada yada.
Before we continue I have to mention here that grandmom solved the easy and medium sudokus with panache. Under twenty minutes and she solved them on a separate piece of paper and then enters the answers in so there is no overwriting invovled. Granddad thinks it's too easy so he bought a Sudoku book and solved the 16x16 grids with letters instead of numbers. Now he's on the crossword.
That brings you and I gentle reader to the main course of this post (all the preceding bit was hors d'ovueres. That one was for Mr. D and his obsession with saying that). First taught granddad the nuances of the Hindu Crossword. He now leaves some two and a half words for me to do when I go there, four if he's made a spelling mistake.
Then he decided one day that he wanted to learn how to SMS on his cool new phone. It's that 1100 made for India thing. Which brings us to an aside where he spent a week doing market research to find the cheapest and best service provider. He thinks it's BSNL. But the signal's not too strong where they live. So the SMS. Considered telling him to do it the old fashioned way but sheer boredom got me teaching him the nuances of T9. In the course of which we discovered that the first option for my mom's name 'Viji', is 'Ugli'. Don't worry I've already been disinherited. But he's the king of texting now. Just a step short from discovering smileys and that's when the world is sure to end.
Compare and contrast this with my Dad, fifteen years younger and thinks T9 is a mind control conspiracy.
Gave grandmom an mp3 cd player for her birthday. Took ten minutes to hook it up to her music system and five to point out the buttons and their function. She was skipping albums and reading into the id3 tags before I ran away.
Old people rock.
And make the best vathukozhambu in the world and are the best companions for a long walk. This one's for you thatha and pati. Happy anniversary (albeit a bit delayed...)
It so happened that due to a lack of a job and intermittent boredom from too many subway-esque sandwiches (bread, mayo, mustard, cheese, lettuce and assorted veggies, cold cuts, jalapenos, gherkins and olives) I've been feeding off my grandparents for some regular run-of-the-mill pulling-at-the genetic-roots food. In the course (usually the main one) of the meal I learn some classical music from grandmom, some stock market and investment gyan from granddad and I also learnt that you can teach an old dog yada yada.
Before we continue I have to mention here that grandmom solved the easy and medium sudokus with panache. Under twenty minutes and she solved them on a separate piece of paper and then enters the answers in so there is no overwriting invovled. Granddad thinks it's too easy so he bought a Sudoku book and solved the 16x16 grids with letters instead of numbers. Now he's on the crossword.
That brings you and I gentle reader to the main course of this post (all the preceding bit was hors d'ovueres. That one was for Mr. D and his obsession with saying that). First taught granddad the nuances of the Hindu Crossword. He now leaves some two and a half words for me to do when I go there, four if he's made a spelling mistake.
Then he decided one day that he wanted to learn how to SMS on his cool new phone. It's that 1100 made for India thing. Which brings us to an aside where he spent a week doing market research to find the cheapest and best service provider. He thinks it's BSNL. But the signal's not too strong where they live. So the SMS. Considered telling him to do it the old fashioned way but sheer boredom got me teaching him the nuances of T9. In the course of which we discovered that the first option for my mom's name 'Viji', is 'Ugli'. Don't worry I've already been disinherited. But he's the king of texting now. Just a step short from discovering smileys and that's when the world is sure to end.
Compare and contrast this with my Dad, fifteen years younger and thinks T9 is a mind control conspiracy.
Gave grandmom an mp3 cd player for her birthday. Took ten minutes to hook it up to her music system and five to point out the buttons and their function. She was skipping albums and reading into the id3 tags before I ran away.
Old people rock.
And make the best vathukozhambu in the world and are the best companions for a long walk. This one's for you thatha and pati. Happy anniversary (albeit a bit delayed...)
