Brown Motion

There are many things we think we know. We have theories and postulates and fact and fiction. There is belief and faith and hope and a prayer. And then there is the unthinkable. Unbelievable. Like the rape of young women amidst the society we live in. Children wiped out with gunfire that comes from a weapon we created. Immense tragedies that are done in the name of religion, faith, beliefs, chemically induced fantasia or extreme circumstance. What is that? Unknown Unknowns is how I would like to qualify these. We are good at labeling. Genocides, homicides, suicides, degrees of manslaughter (even if the perp is a woman), infanticides, pesticides, his side, my side and so on. Then there are the hazards - fire, flood, poison, moral and other intangible kinds. Yet events happen with increasing frequency that baffle even the most astute amongst us. We as a species continue to surprise ourselves daily. I mean look at - for example we are still around when a civilization thou...

Ever heard a guy that just came off a boat (or airship) from the south of India ask a question? As an example - Waat is the time wrrite nau? I think it butchers the language entirely as the words leave the mouth of this individual who has honed his diction and accents in the deep south. To many on the American shores too its a strange sound and does not elicit much reaction let alone admiration or swooning by the recipient of the inquiry? Now imagine that same question asked as - Wat eese de tyeme hier? Perhaps from a native of Sicily that came on the same conveyance. Perhaps its an Alitalia flight making its way from Mumbai to Roma to JFK. This time depending on the sex and cultural makeup of the native who gets asked this question there is a certain feeling of being charmed that exudes with the response. Oh how I like your accent - why its 2 o clock. The actual time has nothing to do with the feeling of being charmed as much as a fantasy that everything Italian or southern E...

This year was no different in many respects in that it introduced me to whole host of new events and places along with interactions with people from various ethnic and cultural and financial backgrounds. It is indeed amazing to witness all this diversity and feel lucky to live without facing severe hardship as I once did. Here is a quick summary of things I remember and people I met.. A chance encounter with a native of Kurdistan one day in San Francisco was interesting as it told of the human spirit and ingenuity in face of decades of war. This person happened to trade in heavy earth moving equipment sales from San Diego to his native region in war torn Iraq. He explained that his culture strongly believed that they have their own place although it's viewed as Iraq by the rest of the world. Then there was the hour long chat with the descendant of Royalty that ruled the islands of Hawaii a century ago. This on public transit that I was riding with a grandmother heading home ...

This morning I am thinking of how we deal with available information that bombards us in petabytes on a daily basis and how we have to make sense of it all for ourselves and for our children. This from a semi avid blogger who contributes in kilos to the petas. What got me thinking was an off hand remark from an acquaintance recently. When asked if he had heard about a recent large scale, headline item, power outage in India he remarked that he did not pay much attention to the news - in fact he did NOT listen to them as a rule. That got me thinking. Was he serious or delusional or somehow had more sense than most of us walking around? Recent tragedies including the one in Connecticut just yesterday which had our president step out and say 'Our Hearts Are Broken Today' was headline news. Whether that is something you can ignore or take in stride and move on is what I am trying to determine. For all its achievements humanity stuns us yet again. Media plays an important r...

I cannot believe the jargon that spews out of the variety of mouths occupying space on this planet. Not only do they occupy and then highlight it as such but they also contribute dramatically to the issue of global warming. If they all kept quiet I think Antarctic penguins might continue to have a home? Perhaps more people could at some point move to Iceland? Getting back to jargon - enough has not been said about the notion of SAME SEX marriages - make that marriages in general. I mean first it was the quintessential question from the uninformed to any Indian that showed up with a spouse on American shores - Was your marriage arranged? Now how to answer this loaded one depends on your mindset. I for one chose to go the route of - It was certainly not Disarranged. Whatever that informs the questioner is left to the intellect of the questioner - not my problem. Then we move onto the more arcane world of SAME SEX. First of all the notion of sex in a marriage is so vague and ...

Used to be that 'Genie in a Bottle' was a billboard hit. Now an incarnation of 'Eat Shit' or 'Coffee in the Poop' baby is somewhat indirectly top of the charts. As in coffee extracted from the poop of certain wild mammals - it appears is THE ELIXIR to have. How did the coffee bean get in the poop in the first place. You feed said animal said beans. From civets to elephants, coffee consumption is on the rise since the humans it seems are weaning off and resorting to Tea. Someone came up with the idea to stop the trend reversal (guess who?) and encourage the idiotic human race to try a new idea. Turd 'o' matic range of coffee makers is now soon hitting store shelves from Bangkok to Burundi to Baton Rouge and everywhere in between. Special manufacturing instructions will be shipped with each personally engraved stinking pot for the true connoisseur. Each comes with 20 servings of beans. The most exclusive collection will feature the actual turds s...

At the outset I will confirm that this write up will piss a whole bunch of people off but then again that is the added pleasure of writing my own blog. So all the stupid surveys as surveys go now show that half the kids want an iPad for Christmas while 40% (littler) kids want an ipad mini. Not sure what defines a kid these days either so the whole survey is suspect. Regardless what I wish for said kids would be two tight slaps, same for the kid looking to get u-verse tv or a newest pair of $300 Nike shoes. Then there is more to share with us losers that have nothing better to do than watch our daily dose of news. Kate is about to deliver something. William is considered the co conspirator and the promise of dumping more princess or princesses on this planet will soon be fulfilled. Royal 'pain' I tell you. At least Kate agrees for the time being. As for Christmas I also wish for news devoid of any reference to royal shenanigans as well as how much rain we are going to g...

I like some things cooked and some raw. Most foods are better off cooked in some way or the other. Some are delicious raw. Like Watermelons. I think the same applies to Video of an event, specifically a news event. That which is supposed to show the action as it unravels. Media outlets make a big deal when they show RAW VIDEO ... since we know what obviously is shown all the time to the awed public is COOKED. Also on that subject there is always a lot of 'footage' of a particular juicy disaster or a not so epic rain shower, never any 'handage'. Wonder why? I would think that the camera shooting the said video is artistically held in the hands of the holder thence handage would seem apropo but no. Aside from documentation of such travails I now turn my attention to the subject of cooking. Auditors of large and small businesses are supposed to check if a company has cooked its books so to speak. They want to see raw data and draw their conclusions. These dr...

American newscasts are made up of a lot of nothing including redundant and meaningless weather forecasts. I personally think they are used to showcase some apparently up and coming talent in the form of the female variety of our species that dress up and perhaps find other job opportunities on bigger screens later. Some are worthy of a second look - a random poll confirms that indeed it is their presence and not that of the threatening clouds or thunder that attracts viewership which sells all the more meaningless advertising (But Wait!). I mean seriously do you need another coffee maker or a knife or an address to a salon? Look out and you will see one. There are more of each than green trees in all of California by now. But getting back to my fave subject of weather related news. A gimmick often used by these idiots involves the use of the term Hi Def Doppler. First of all a newsflash - everyone has one so quit yamming about it. You yam when you are being different not when ...

Described as a tragicomedy this is a film about life in Poland's Jewish ghetto's during Hitler's occupation. It is also a film about creating something from nothing. It is about survival in the face of the harshest odds. Robin Williams as Jakob in the lead is supported by other interesting characters like Liev Schriber, Alan Arkin et al. What begins as an accident in Jakob wandering out after dark and getting confronted by the Gestapo turns out to be the trigger for the plot. He is summoned to the HQ for a false reason of being out after curfew hours and while in the HQ he hears the German radio broadcast of the Soviet Armies approaching close to the border. He is sent back to camp but gets locked out and has to sneak back through the rail yard in order to avoid being shot. Here he stumbles into a 10 year old girl that has been made to jump the train by her family who is going to the gas chamber. Together they now squat in a bombed out building. Jakob has to now fe...

A new Bond movie you say? I was there. Newest installment of the Bond franchise is called 'Skyfall' and it was amusing. Was it worth every penny? May be not. But hey its all relative. What I found particularly amusing is that most Bond flicks these days are titled incoherent. Like the only connection (not a spoiler) I could find to the title was this old house in the English country. What? Getting back to why I think the sky is falling though has to do with the preponderence of stuff that mankind is churning out and the manufacturers having a hard time making you buy theirs. Its getting too crowded out there. Customers are confused and marketers are trying very hard to get their attention by announcing its their Last Chance to get IT or Else! If our Thanksgiving sales are an indication people go out there every year as if this is their final opportunity to experience what shopping and spending borrowed money would look like. So marketing experts use gimmicks like p...

In a satirical piece an American magazine had once quoted “New Starbucks Opens in Rest Room of Existing Starbucks”. That is almost reality for us hopped up (save this term for beer drinkers) or should I say Caffienated public. See I am so stoned I used the wrong spelling (thinking i before e but alas caffEIne is the other way round). We are so overdosed we cannot remember when we had a shot, so like a junkie we seek it out and get another one.. just in case. Alcohol has some serious competition. Starbucks partnered with the Tatas and went and opened its first store in Mumbai. They have big plans to sell coffee to a natively tea drinking public. Just making a statement - lifestyle is what they want to sell - in some retarded marketing lingo - not the coffee. Anyone can sell coffee. Used to be a time when the Japanese used the idea of caffeine intake and developed a whole Zen lifestyle around it - called it the Tea Ceremony. Spent hours preparing and serving and enjoying it. N...

Used to be you could get traumatized. Although the exact meaning of that is unclear one can sort of begin to understand if one were to say witness a shoot out at your local pizza parlor leaving everyone including the cook bleeding or dead. More sauce than you care for. That can leave one traumatized I think. These days I am betting that people are feeling tabletized. Not in any small part due to consumption of all manners of tablets (or pills or gels or capsules or berries or the next wonder drug) but because of all these pieces of glass that suddenly everyone's uncle from Haiti to Vietnam is manufacturing. I mean have you seen the crop lately? From the quintessential iPad and its various incarnations with or without lightning striking your fancy there is simply way too many jolts from the all the advertising surrounding these fancy new screens. On the Surface it would appear to be good old fashioned competition but by the time you actually understand the Playbook its quite...

These days matters pertaining to the edge are aplenty. What with the Fiscal Cliff being numero uno on US news channels? I mean a cliff has an edge would you say? Then again there is the discussion of the EU on the 'brink' of collapse. Somewhere else we see institutions on the 'verge' of a cataclysmic failure (this can relate to variety of automobiles and their failing components to monetary morass amidst large scale governments and institutions). With all this 'on the edge' conversation its hard not to feel lightheaded. Hence I try to replenish myself with all manners of food and beverages every chance I get. Most recently having imbibed some very sweet and spicy Musact produced in the south of Australia, I uncorked a Mead Wine (I have had these before given my propensity for anything sweet). This one is made from honey as the sugar providing ingredient. This too met the expectations in these days of exp being largely missed. Wall Street has some as do...

I went. To the Mission. Its a neighborhood undergoing gentrification if you ask the politicians to describe it. I found the ambience borderline unpleasant but with some distinct and interesting latin artwork on the local homes - there was no latin just some paitings and murals typifying the style of Latin America. Some blocks I crossed seemed rife with its share of street hoodlums and shady individuals with the decay that comes of being a neglected part of town. The reason I embarked on the trip was to sample what is called Goan /coastal Maharashtra cuisine. Goa is a portuguese establishment on the west central coast of India and today one of its state. Logistically and culturally a food scene defined by the bounty of the ocean along with rice and coconut as well as with tropical fruit constitues the meal and the preparations. The place I went to was called Gajalee (I am told they have sister or parent - being the original - concerns in Bombay too). The word signifies infor...

As titles go I must admit I am clueless with those that adorn the folks of the armed forces. First what's with the armed bit - why not leggy forces? First thing you do when in danger is run (to fight another day) - for that you need strong legs. Flight is often a better way to end a problem. If you must fight you might need arms. That can have variety of consequences. Depends on the arms. Ideally you do not want to get into a situation involving fights. But its hard to explain to someone obsessed with arming their forces. You mostly need cunning. That does not need arms it actually just needs a head. A good one at that. Speaking of forces - these are beyond me since I spent my childhood mostly learning about silly ones like gravity, nuclear and some others that I cannot remember. Armed was not one of them. If push comes to shove and their is a fight we get into the whole discussion around who's fighting and who is administering the fight. Much like a boxer fights...

For Want of a Nail so goes the old rhyme - For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. In today's bizzaro world the NAIL can be replaced by WOODY. That part of the male anatomy that inevitably seems to get into a hot tub (ahem) - Nailing another individual so to speak! The 'Kingdom' in this rebranded metaphor would be Human Civilization in general. In the latest installment of power wielder shenanigans we were greeted with everything from the venerable British Broadcasting Corp and its erstwhile popular showman to Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (the 'I' is now seriously in doubt) to a Chief Executive of a Defense Supplier called Lockheed Martin - all falling prey to their vulnerability around not bei...

Americans by their very nature do not like long lines. You will thence not find one to get a train ticket (train what?) or an airplane reservation or a ghaslet (a crude form of crude used in developing nations) line or a burger line either. There is one exception however. Tis called Black Friday. Here all rules are out the window and even the most advanced and apparently affluent society resorts to primitive hunting tactics. First there is lines - like the ones that would make an Apple eventee proud (oh - of course the apple product launch related lines are merely a passing fad so not included for purposes of comparing true cultural hoopla). Now here the commonest of common man along with so called Affluent deal seekers (hey who does not like a good one - or so one would think) will arrive at wee hours to mob a store and even go to the extent of camping overnight if the store somehow decides to open at a realistic hour of say 5 AM. This is then followed at times by a rush to see...

I have been doing so since 20 years ago - each year to give my time. Pro Bono as Grisham would say but I am not fighting in the court of opinion. Rather I simply give my time. To plant flower beds or clean a sidewalk; to fix a house (rather than destroy it with limited knowledge of tools) or to sort an errant computer problem or two or sit and chat with errant kids that need diserranting. Foster kids or kids with no money - things like that. That is by far most rewarding than any job I have done in corporate America. Or any corporate for that matter. It does not pay but that is not expected. The joys of sharing an intangible and to see the outcome that is very tangible does wonders to one's morale I say. Through these events I have also met and developed some friendships with like minded yokels - at least in the giving arena (don't really know what their thoughts about corporates are). As far as the last weekend (where in I was still recovering from an arduous trip to...

Ah to be in Hawaii again. The ups and downs I refer to jokingly are or were experiential as I spent a week on the sunny isle of Oahu or the Gathering Place. Ironically a rolling stone gathers no moss and so it was with moi. With all that walking along the shores and ridges and high mounts I did indeed not gather any moss but certainly gathered a fresh set of wonderful memories. The missing ingredients being the better 90 percents (as in wife and daughter) but oh well. They were traipsing through some scenery in Asia. Beginning with a Monday arrival I was able to get the rear limbs wet on Ala Moana beach, our former stomping grounds when we lived on this isle a couple decades ago. Then it was a quick bus ride and a half to a famous Malasada joint called Leonard's on Kapahulu for some amazing doughy goodness - Malasada being a portuguese invention and precursor to the donut. Its simply fun to stroll along the streets and see the Hawaiian language spelled out on s...

I am not given to sentimental chit chat perhaps or maybe there is something more sinister afoot but I don't get this cliche in modern journalism. What the heck does the phrase or the three words really mean? Our planet is struck by variety of natural and man made disasters with fair regularity that would make Metamucil proud. Once an event like that occurs there is some serious reduction in force - literally where mortals lose their lives. Now how the sudden outpouring of thoughts and prayers begins is beyond me. Could it be one of the reasons why we are getting dumber by the day? Our thoughts and prayers are focused on too many distractions. So I say mind your own and go forth and things will actually work out alright. Thoughts and prayers don't actually mean anything and just sort of sound cute in the news I suppose. That is why radio and TV including the NPR recently resorted to one of their own sending his thoughts over the radio waves (without asking me esp as I am...

It would appear on close inspection that although the calendar says fall the weather in Northern California around the first week of November is downright summery. It happened twice in a row. Last year this time it was equally beautiful - I know because we were here. And so on in the past few. It was quite the Twain's Quip (About the Coldest Winter) altering weekend this one! This Saturday was 72 degrees in the City by the Bay and the skies were a perfect azure. Since the remainder of the family is out of town traveling I decided to satiate my hiking bug by suiting up and traversing some trails I had in mind to trample. So I started out on the northern tip of the San Francisco peninsula and hiked along its north - NW edge up and down (both in distance and elevation). After coming up from the beaches of Crissy Field (named after a WWI Major and the fact that it was an airfield in the day) I hiked up the hills to reach the 75 year anniversary celebrating Golden Gate Bridge. ...

There is something to celebrate in Mumbai, India as of yesterday. A multinational has just opened a clean toilet in the heart of downtown. For a few hundred rupees you can avail of the facilities, provided there is not much of a queue to begin with and your business cannot wait. There are some implied guarantees where the facility will be functioning for you to conduct your business and perhaps loiter a while but it is encouraged that you do not do the latter - at least in the confines of the toilet. There is a queue after all. As an aside loitering can be done outside the WC where there will be a cup of coffee that you can partake or not, for those few hundred rupees you shelled out earlier. The location is the new Starbucks aka house of Schultz in collaboration with the esteemed house of Tatas. Pricing should be focused on toilet use rather than the size of the cup. Small would translate to 10 min, 20 for the med and 30 for the large (Venti). I think the best order for the b...

Most of the world is obsessed with some sort of balls. Many times its personal. Not being much of a fan of any activity involving a single ball (even Highballs I do not stop at just one - you dirty minds) I did indulge myself by watching some baseball this weekend. You see the local bay area team is in the World Series (another misnomer for what constitutes Americans playing in America, although I am told they have bought and sold foreign born players). Amazing to see the players get rock star treatment for use of their ball and socket, which is to say they make millions playing ball. And get paraded on the street if they pick up the World Series Trophy. Now that is one way to make your millions. Or you can play ball a different way - figuratively and be the executive of a major corporation in America or some other country. In America you at least are morally and legally obliged to disclose that you made millions. Whether you pay tax on that is another matter entirely. Here y...

We in the United States have many dilemmas. Some are around gas (as in gasoline for most part) and some around tax (the one that the government can levy) but off late we have seen a deadly combination of both in the form of gas tax. They come in two varieties. One is imposed on the gas that is used to pump your car and the other is on the gas that you use to pump yourself. While we (in most states) pump our own gas it is not that activity that is drawing scrutiny. Rather the tax on soda or carbonated beverages that is item du jour. Hence the tax on gas. It is therefore obvious to believe that we have two forms of gas tanks and both are being taxed. One for being too obese and the other for polluting the other gas that we like to breathe. Breathable gas is free and not taxable by law partly because they have not figured out how to do it. Some folks with more money than they can count use it to buy oxygen bottles so they can claim they spent on something most of us did not - b...

You want to hire me? You need what? Of course my Viralstatistics. I mean Vitalstatistix.. ahem too much Obelix - you meant Curriculum Vitae? First of all I do not know Latin - I am not sure if it is something that one should know about - no one speaks it for starters and Apple does not even offer it as a Language Option on any of its devices. Except for some doofuses who want to prove that they went to school and use an occasional word, I am not sure why we bother. But that is veering too far from the purpose of this blog which is to clean up my image for those that will behold it in the future. I say clean because some might say its tarnished..well partly because the paper they give me in Sing Sing is not the best and this 2B pencil keeps breaking. 'Bobby the Snob' was also found cleaning his orifices with the point y'day. Pardon the smudge on my CV. Why I am in and not out is because this one acquisition we did was based on my hot dudette spilling the beans over...

These days it would seem leaking is good for business. Not the roof or someone in the corner office with a malfunctioning diaper. But more the kind that makes the news. A story. Free publicity type of leaks. More and more companies now rely on leaks rather than formal product or leadership change or financial disaster announcements. These leaks it would seem are designed to produce results and therefore intentional. Perhaps management schools need to add it their curriculum as a core requirement / credit. Science of Leak Management or call it Leakologics. Without them we would not have known what Apples were cooking on the tree or how Yahoo was going to turn its ship around. Rajat would still be scott free and Wiki would be less popular (more on what Scott has to do with people's freedom in some other mentally challenging blog). From the days of Julius to the ancient Indian battles to Egypt and other prominent reigns I suspect leaks drove things to a large extent. Its...

Might be a good name for a butler..but I have to give that some thought - whether I will need butling. More importanty I observed a not so knotty phenomenon that perhaps the readership did too. While people in ties abound the universe these days - what from the newscasters and weathermen to all consultants and politicos and the local bank teller wearing one, there is also a renewed resurgence of Jeans. Every major tech company CEO now favors Jeans over the suit and tie. Major product launches and testimonials are shared with and by the chief-in-jeans. Jobs to Cook to Ballmer to Bookface to Bezos to Brin - everyone has one besides their grin. What I am waiting to hear is Marissa Mayer (who herself not in jeans) announcing a free 'Jeans of your choice' employee benefit to all Yahoos after recently bestowing them with an Apple smartphone earlier this year. Perhaps this Christmas? I say this is good news for slobs like me - while I have not launched anything remotely (or i...

OOO messages can be written with a certain flair and show the creative side of the outstanding (As in out) candidates. Most are boring with recommendation to contact other less unfortunate sods to deal with the mess the Outbound person left behind. But what if this person was Rajat Gupta? Or Bernie or Rajaratnam? Or someone in their advanced age that is checking out for a while? How would those messages look like? This grave question boggles my mind as I read of the shenanigans of the unfortunate top 1% that inhabit the Wall and surrounding floors. There is just no ceiling to what a man can do you see. So here is a creative outburst that someone who gets thrown in the slammer might want to pilfer - they are sometimes good at that. Hi All - You know the damndest thing happened yesterday. I was not ready for it by any means. I have to be Out of the Office for the next couple of years. That's right - TWO years give or take. Lots of you gave and I took but that is beside t...

There are enough jokes about why size still matters. As a Matter of Fact the whole idea of sizing things has been sized up you would think. You think wrong. We as a species keep oscillating between what we want. First their was Mad Max. Had a cult following. So much so that they had to dish out I think three versions of it till they maxed out or went mad. Hollywoodies can do that. Then there was Max Factor - in some countries anyway - it was a talcum powder. What it was aimed at was a Max Heat climate where the Min was the Max you get in some countries. Hence the talc was a huge factor in addressing the Max. Then came BigMacs. Big and Macs (by any other spelling) together. That showed our appetite for all things Max for Minimum cash. That became the mantra for many a brand - from Walmart to Kmart to Taco Bell to Dollar Stores where you got Max for a Min. Then came the iPad for Maximum enjoyment but with a Maximum price tag. But our tastes had changed. We were ready to ...

Honda has designed their FIT to fit the women. So it seems if you believe everything you read. Women need to appear Fit all the time what with so much going ON to make them look UNFIT these days. Honda has decided to tailor their peitite car for this demographic. Never mind the FITS they have outside the car. I certainly would not want to be in their shoes. They will not fit for one (the car I mean) and besides who knows how they smell (the shoes I mean). Perhaps the FIT will help with their Work Life Balance as that too has become a cliche that gives me Fits. I wonder if the FIT then comes with oversized Vanity mirrors and a few of them (in case one gets cracked during that minor fender bender)? Plus extra storage to put 50 shades of grey (lipsticks and mascara I mean). Perhaps the entire front windshield is a mirror with driving optional. The windshield wiper fluid tank will be designed to hold Vitamin water or other electrolytes. In a pinch a special tubing will allow t...

Now that title itself is a Yossarian oxymoron. If you are an idiot a guide is not going to help. Idiocy is innate. Be that as it may, millions of these books claiming to help people from running a computer to putting up a dry wall are purchased every year. Perhaps by the idiots being they are ignorant of what they might find in it. If they really knew what they were looking for they would not be idiots and hence would not need the book. So there. On the subject of being an idiot they come in all colors, races, from varying geographies (hey CIA you should compile a compendium of most idiotic denizens per sq mile by country in your next ranking of terror prone cities) and exhibit their symptoms in daily life. Here then are a few possible reactions you might see on the road - lets take a metropolis in California for example. If you clock an hour's worth of traffic you will see 30% Caucasian Americans, 30% Chinese (Americans) and 30% Indian (Americans - the newly minted not th...

Here we go again. Lawsuit by a parent of a 14 year old that apparently was killed by consuming too much caffiene. While its sad that the kid died, now the parent sues caffiene provider. This happens to be a drink in a can called Monster. Now first of all if the product is labeled Monster do you actually need additional warnings on the can? Monster keeps advertising and kids keep buying. Although this is not the first example of Bull being sold in a can. Sometimes even if they call it Red it can be shit. If its on TV people amazingly will buy! On a separate note plastic bags used for packaging will continue to provide adequate warnings for those that can read. We have to warn consumers to not eat the plastic bag that the toys came in. You are called consumers but do not consume our plastic. As yet no one has successfully ingested and passed copious quantities of plastic bags. That if possible would give a whole new meaning to recyclable bags. We are not there yet. Please ...

Since thinking is a rare commodity these days I thought I would go ahead and list things that are anyway not what people might think they are - 1. Bargain - is not a bet you win at a bar 2. Chagrin - is not a type of grin 3. Comatose is not a vegetable although it has a lot of similarities 4. Bombay was not explosive although its debatable today (name change notwithstanding) 5. Notwithstanding has nothing to do with standing (nor sitting) 6. Sleeves rolled up is not an actual job (although makes an appearance in the job requisition) 7. Octomom is not a female octopus and finally .. 8. Kim Kardashian turned 32 - actually the earth went and did 32 turns round the sun while Kim partied

It is easy to imagine whatever shape your heart desires or your eyes see (esp with spiritual guidance) amidst the vapor or the cumulus in the sky aka clouds. Not that there is anything wrong with that but I really want to discuss the perils of not being tech savvy in a generation where many of your online activities too are based in the cloud. The virtual one. It happened to a teacher in a classroom where her students apparently recently discovered what her mammaries look like. Cause of said 'R' rated material being available on the school iPad was the fact that she had them on her own idevice and had synced it to the cloud (the icloud) where the school iPad ended up getting synced. Ergo private anatomy was now publicly visible. Lesson here to all those untrained teens and middle or advanced aged demographics - careful what you say and how you say; what you view and what you do; because you are now on Candid Camera all the time. So whether you decide to Yelp out on th...

Now follow me carefully here. I will explain the Causality between the casualty of the faculty. I am expanding on a recent troublesome experience of visiting an Indian food serving establishment in Northern California. Specifically in a suburb of San Francisco. And while I shall not name names, suffice to say that 90% of the Indian food serving establishments ought to be unsettled. Esp if they lead to an unsettled abdomen. Before the abdomen became a casualty we roll the clock back a few hours. Friday night the family wants a casual eat out experience and not wanting to tax the noggin settles for a local Indian food making operation run by an Andhra expat. Most of them are. The mood was one of a bustling place but depicted many candidates visiting the facilities that greet you as soon as you step in and a cacophony from children that appear to have recently lost their parent (their shreiking was unusually loud). Now typically that should be a warning but we forged ahead and fo...

In old India circa 1980s we had to actually interact with a species known as a binder. Why you ask? Well for one we could not afford a new college textbook. By we I mean a certain set of the demographic that was assiduously trying to align with an Engineering Degree with a preconceived notion that this would set them up in orbit. Back to the binder. This gent in a decrepit part of town essentially xeroxed pages (aka photocopies of the real deal - whether Material Science tomes or the Bhagvad Gita - not that there were any takers for the latter in our demog) and slapped them in a cloth strip with a glue (that would make the OSHA keel over) to provide the output to us for a fraction of the original tome. In his case it also helped give him the needed high to keep slapping irrelevant drivel in the binding. This warm off the machines glue bound book (hence binder) was supposed to double as a pillow in a pinch but in more sober times serve to educate the green behind the ear fraterni...

Let us discuss the state of the bands. Not the ones that hit the stage and make noise or music respectively defined by your otitic makeup. Rather those that are available in myriad hues and sizes and shapes and are designed to advertise your allegiance to a non profit, collective euphoria over capitalism or are just plain non sensical latex extrusions that had to find a place other than the local garbage dump. Of course I refer to the mass hysetria over wearing colored affiliation defining bands around your wrists. There seems to be a craze going on in America (not sure I have seen it around the world yet, although there are metallic and other fabric based incarnations galore on the Indian subcontinent wandering wrists - materials for another blog) that leads otherwise sensible minded folk to don or adorn themselves with these plug ugly rubber bands. Silly bands brought the craze to an all time capitalistic high where people ranging from new borns to those of advanced age found th...

IS there anyone in class? Are you paying attention? I am talking about the fixation with classification of the classes. Whether in a teastall in Dehradun or a pecan farm in Decatur, the 'middle class' is now the hot topic du jour. Lets call this obsession by a new moniker - Classifixation. Take that Merriam. Or Webster or Oxford or whoever is keeping count. I am in the meantime completely nonplussed by the turn of events in where the use of the word 'class' has gone beyond the classrooms into the mainstream and into the deep waters, as in Akula Class vs. Typhoon class (types of submarines to the untrained yokels). Add to that the working class now can be seen boarding First Class and Coach Class is full of the immigrant class which makes for a quagmire in the flying class. No one knows which color is their carpet so to speak (as in the dirty scrap of cloth lying in front of boarding gates in all manners of hues and shades). It used to require a first class in ...

Whether the election fever has abated can be debated. What with the second of third presidential debates just concluding amidst a gaggle of shortlisted countrymen and women asking away prescreened questions to the incumbent and the wannabe. What have we learned from this recent spectacle? That all television channels dedicate 90 minutes of their air time to top two contenders for the top job and pass on an opportunity to earn monies from Mcdonalds, Honda, Mattress Discounters and Franklin Templeton Funds? How many rational people actually get up and drop everything that they would have done like pick up groceries and fill gasoline in their guzzlers and instead watch the broadcast about someone that can forecast the future of the entire broadcasting business with its burgers and pillows and tires and its likelihood of success? What does this get us? Frankly it looks like two errant school kids called to the principal's office to confess their sins. Nothing wrong in calling th...

If you think of how many things can happen to the mind using the English language as a tool, if you don't mind think this - It can be boggled, as in mindboggling; It can be blown, as in mindblowing; It can be lessened, or can be lessnessed, as in mindless (act of writing this) or mindlessness (as in without purpose as this blog); It can be altered, as in through use of certain prohibited or non prohibited substance use in mindnumbing proportions; It can be used to 'mind the gap' (between available faculty and reality); It can be used to 'mind the language' itself (this very language that can twist something beyond recognition); Ultimately coercing you to ask not what you can do to rid yourself of this mindless nonsense but how you can make matters better if you think of it as matter over mind? Does it matter? Do you mind?

Silicon Valley is known for this cliche every time you turn and look at what made so and so successful. I have a confession to make. There are more stupid people on the planet than smart people, present company included. To accomplish said surroundings you have to know what constitutes surroundable smartness. This is no easy task esp if majority of the surroundings include the sound of dumbness. It is like trying to break out of the earth's gravitational pull to find a true vacuum. Or perhaps that is mixing the metaphors, but hey I did not say I was smart. No one seems to acknowledge (mostly) that it was dumb luck that got someone to where they were starting with their birth. Accidents happen and sometimes they are great. No downplaying the use of elbow grease (another condiment available in the USofA) or perseverance. Yet, another category of surroundings that can help one's chance at success is the influential variety. So there is something genetic about a person...

Sounds like a magical Chia pet. Its not. Its a crime - at least that is what lawmakers will have you believe. I think to say that we humans are a confused hypocritical bunch would be below an understatement in a Wodehousy way. We know not what we want yet would stand and argue about pros and cons of one over another. Frankly my best thinking comes on the Pot without recourse to the use of Pot. If that is not confusing I know not what is. Pot to some provides the ultimate escape when pain takes on surreal dimensions not felt by mortals that have no way to experience it. Cancer patients and certain individuals that are caught in the wicked grasp can relate. Growing the weed (it is what it is) though is frowned on. More than frown is punishable by law. Funds are actually allocated to track said farmers small and big and much is made of the news when it breaks. To say that there is an underground market for all things illegit is stating the obvious and obtaining an above ground...

Humanity surprises us yet again. This past week we saw a few things to awe us. Both awesome and awful. Inspiration and desparation. Lets start with the fantastic sight of the 'Endeavour' space shuttle rolling along the streets of Los Angeles to reach a Science Museum so the generations coming along can gape at what the human endeavor achieved. Visiting space is perhaps our desire for curiosity and to solve the mysteries of our existence. Lot of funding sure is dedicated to this endeavor. Perhaps we will be better for it in the very long run. On the flip side of this spectrum is a drastic and heinous act where a teenage girl in Pakistan was shot in the brain so that it would cease and desist its march against tyranny. The propogator of the crime are fanatics whose brain function may have already stopped. Why such cruelty exists and manifests in reality but does not getting enough funding to study? Time will indeed document our passage for the viewing pleasure of an as...

The ever changing world of fashion aka human vanity has hit a new high or low depending on the observers point of view. The common man's; make that rural Indian bumpkin's garb of choice the Lungi, has become a fashion statement if you were to believe the editors of the Wall Street Journal. The Lungi is essentially a cotton cloth wrapped around a farming gent's waist and privates with ample opportunity to allow for air circulation amidst the humid Indian rice paddy muck and the former. It is quintessential to letting the back breaking work seem that much lighter. Now why a wall street type might want to frock himself in it is beyond me, but if one were to guess it must be all that 'hot behind the collar' stuff what with their investments going in the muck. A sombre mood on wall street is perhaps missing the bagpipe esp if the lungis happen to be printed with a quilt like checker pattern on them to appear more appetizing. Coming to a Macy's near you - Loonge...

Could be a nice title for a new Anglo Chinese comedy show or something but it is not. I got to thinking about two opposite concepts or facts as it were in life, or something I recently saw or read - 1. Vice Presidential debate - my daughter had to write a summary on this and so I watched with her. It was a hilarious (Ryan looked like Al Neuman and the other a wax statue that a ventroloquist might use) and faked out attempt at trying to win the American public with hollow sounding conviction about how to fix the economy and save your ass. First of all why the people want their elected officials to save theirs is beyond me. Get your own ideas and deal with it. Compare this school boy fight with a session of Jeopardy and you get a dramatically different outcome. The latter is more spirited and requires a quick buzzer reaction from the participant. Now that is fun and more educational to the average American than moronic statistics and points of view about Iran (thank the wiki its ...

Not the title of a new action movie but the new opportunity for the Indian desert farmer. Worldwide gas exploration is now relying on a technique involving use of high pressure fluids to crack the rock strata and extract valuable natural gas. This fluid is pushed in to the cracks using an agent called Guar Gum. The source of this Guar - Rajasthan, India. So now the Ganwar Gharwalas of the Kings State (or Raja's sthan) can count their Guar blessings as they sow and reap this unassuming bean. They can truly say 'Bean There Done That' and mean it, when it comes to the latest energy exploration techniques. While the south of the border Maharshtrians will just have to go without having the Gavar (aka Guar) on their dinner plate (less profitable) instead relying on the cheaper gas (as a result of fracking) to heat up another competitive bean.

Take an economy - any economy - not the one you fly on but the state of a country. Their buying and selling - their humming and hawing (how exactly does one haw?) - their extravagance and their austerities. If Economy was a sluggish person it could look up to Lance Armstrong as a role model - how to dope and get ahead - be number one. Who better to teach that than someone who knows the ins and outs so to speak? Bernanke could then take a back seat and go back to writing obscure papers that his students could read. If the Fiscal Cliff was a male it could look up to Kim Kardashian as a role model. Take one long look at her and boing - you are at the top of the mount. No more looking down in to the chasm. The President could then go back to identifying what a real wealthy person looks like so that he can tax the heck out of them. If Swing Vote was a real person then he could look up to Tiger Woods - you can swing whatever you want in your life on the green and off and still get...

Got thinking about the end. As in what happens to all that food we just ate in the end, kind of end. Well I want to expand on the idea with India's example. With a land mass a third of the continental United States and a population over 1 Billion (by some measures) we can deduce the following - An average human produces about 1 pound of excreta a day. That is approx 1B pounds of excreta in the whole nation. Since 75% of it is water the dry bacteria loaded content is only about 250 million pounds which is about 100 million kilos in the desi system. Now think what 100 million kilos or 114 thousand tons of shit per day looks like. That is the equivalent of six thousand semi tractor trailers full of hard turd lined up per day. Now you may say I am full of it - but lets not joke here. Of this about 50% conservatively speaking is not processesed successfully due to poor infrastrcture etc. That means around 3000 truck loads of crap is being channeled into the local ecosystems da...

SNR - Simply not right. What you ask? A bunch of things about our way of life. The time we spend chasing the next promotion so we can get to our next purchase. The time we spend obsessing over our child's grades. The time we lose squabbling over ideology and criticism (like the one here). It is also called Signal-to-Noise Ratio. A fancy term to define true worth or value of all the data compared to the actual amount of data available. Also signal-to-noise ratio is sometimes used informally to refer to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange. All this to highlight that we as a species have not really obtained more intellect over time since that is a function of the capacity of humankind to develop a part of its anatomy but rather have seen more irrelevant data being generated by a lot of sources that previously did not exist. For starters there are more of us now and by the simple bell curve theory we generate more useless ...