Brown Motion

I think after a long time I watched a Sholayisque 2.5 hour western melodrama that was more than mildly humorous as well as a classic Tarantino. With its depiction of slavery circa civil war period, the western touch was evident in the music and the horse riding gangsta with the fastest draw but the story meandered in the plantations of the deep south. Christoph Waltz picked up his second Oscar for his supporting role, which in my opinion is a travesty since he seemed to have a more prominent role without having to mess with a lady love and therefore become the protagonist. As Dr. Schultz he pretends to be a German dentist traveling through the south when in fact he is looking to score by killing his next target as a bounty hunter. Some of the funny touches include a spring loaded molar (with a cavity which we see later on in the film to store cash) that bobs on his horse drawn carriage. A fascination with the use of the proper English language which many of the thugs (he encounter...

One of the events that irks me most these days is that of Registering. I have a school going child and it is obvious we are registering for something or the other every other day. I mean a lot does not register for me every day what with so much registering every other. From registering for the new school year in the middle of the year - that will throw you for a time loop what with added Daylight Spending Time (or was it savings - does not seem likely what with our penchant for the former than latter) and what not added to the mix - to the registration for after school enrichment programs there seems to be a lot of onus on the entire family to ensure that education keeps dripping into your offspring. Outside of educating they also want you to be extra curricular and register for walk or bike to school day to participate in tile paintings to register to feed the hungry. Then there is the registration for the Archery Camp which will also accept registration for the field trips. I ...

I thunk this weekend as I lazed away on a corn on the cob. This itself made me ponder the use of the phrase. Now I was not exactly lazing on the corn which was on the cob. I was lazing and enjoying the corn on the cob. Corn when consumed many years back from a road side vendor in India was simply that Bhutta or a delicate yet crisp, grilled to prefection snack. What is this cob? Turns out the pole in the middle around which the kernels are hanging has the dubious distinction of being known as the COB. Then again it gets more confusing when some certain individuals in the Midwest of America keep calling it Ears of Corn. So now its ears of corn on the cob? What about the other parts then? Why waste time on the ears when there is a whole abdomen somewhere? Who knows. So moving to more erudite observations - 1. If a person saw another getting pecked to death by a chick (which can happen if the pun was applied) should we suspect fowl play? 2. Did the Malaysians get influenced ...

Its been said that a fool is defined as one who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. Philosophical minutae aside it is indeed fascinating to see what people will pay for certain product or service in context of their circumstance. Clearly circumstances at time of purchase are a key determining factor in transaction completion. They can be attributed to - 1. Net worth of an individual 2. Disposable funds available at time of decision making 3. Competitive standing within society (Jones or Li or Phadke or Gupta phenom depending on your continent) 4. Ignorance (of the buyer that is about to transact about the product or the actual transaction in question) 5. Influence (of the very society that he or she wants to transact in) Lets focus on items 4 and 5. We know that there is no point in discussing 1 or 2 since there is a debate on whether anyone is worth anything these days and besides the government is giving it away at 0% so go forth and froth. 3 is for another d...

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...

Got to recently experience this newest incarnation of automotive variant. Fully electric and therefore quiet with no tail pipe it is produced in a factory that ironically was used by former General Motors to crank out some mediocre sedans that did have tail pipes. The factory is in Northern California suburb and does everything an average car company does not do today. It gets labor from a non unionized workforce and is the brain child of an inventor who made millions in the e-commerce business. The car hopes to provide no hassle pricing and some government subsidies for being green. I am not sold on the green narrative since the gas if not emmitted by the car has to emit somewhere (perhaps a coal fired electric utility thousand miles away). The migration to solar panels in the desert and other renewables for sustainable and reliable electric power across the country is still a mirage. The car also will liekly be marketed and sold by the company's own showrooms much like...

In 2D without any special rays blu or otherwise 'Life of Pi' was quite enjoyable. Very engaging from the start and told in a manner of Malgudi days with computer imagery to enhance the story telling was watchable with our 10 year old. That it comes from a Taiwanese director is I think key to how certain aspects of the story are handled. It has also become a financial success with multiple awards including some Oscars and over half billion dollars at the box office in worldwide sales. I am not sure if it was rated by the MPAA as child friendly but is clearly a cross between The Black Stallion and Castaway (of Tom Hanks fame) or more recently Canadian born Survivorman-isque narrative. That it has a message for the masses of the mature variety towards the end is perhaps its departure from merely being a tale of animals and survival. A variety of individuals from different backgrounds made up the cast from Gerard Depardieu (Frenchman) to an Englishman who interviews Pi about ...

I know you can guess what P C stands for. Well, I recently watched the Finance Minister of India on American Public Television. His initials are P C for P Chidambaram. And yes the whole interview with Charlie Rose was an awesome display on Political Correctness. He is visiting the States this Spring of 2012 to garner foreign investments for his country. While steeped in money matters from a historic (grandparents founded banks and father was a successful businessman) context he went on to study law and was a corporate lawyer representing the likes of Enron in India. Not sure of his true alignment with the Indian politic but clearly he is a man that comes across as very shrewd and highly intelligent to navigate the world stage. I have been away from India for the most part (at least during my thinking years) so have no direct context on how if any of his policies have helped or hurt the growth in India but if some of the media were to be believed it is apparent that he has had an...

As opposed to the end of the earth. Many a times people will react in vigor trying to make a point in saying we will go to the ends of the earth to find so and so or identify a cause of some issue or cure a disease. I was wondering why Google had not put some effort into once and for all (of humanity) finding these so called ends and tying them in a bow. Too many loose ends don't you think? That way when anyone dramatizes again we just tell them to use a GPS and voila. You are at the ends before getting to your wits end. For that matter we the people should also decide where these so called Wits Ends are so that we know to avoid them. Getting there is not going to help so why go there? If you are religious you are thinking that perhaps the end is near. I say it is. I just proved it. Google will soon have it right on your dashboard and all you have to do is ask for it. You will have found it. Destination - 1100 miles away. Or some such. Plenty of rest areas along the...

Everything will be live all the time. Including the dead ones (death can be seen live if one so chooses - a family member dying in a remote part of the world will be visible as dying through two way cameras etc); Everything will be viral. Including the healthy (families, plant growth etc); Everything will be therefore digital (sensory perceptions can also be simulated by altering the chemistry in the brains) and not much of anything material will exist. The whole notion of a job will disappear. Planet will always be on all the time. Yet no one will really need anything anytime. In matter of time the organic matter will decay and erode to a state of what is called death. As such people will simply occupy space and time in whatever coordinate they choose to be but will not have an incentive to actually leave. It will always be on all the time. Just change the channel and you are in Swaziland looking at the zebras on the Savanna. Or switch another channel and watch your kid le...

Frankly if more people actually slept instead of doing everything else the world would be a better place. So much for my formula for world happiness on a Friday evening. What I am getting at are these inane comments people make whilst in company (pun intended). They oft ask to sit down - lets sit down and discuss this. Heck I was hoping to run that Dakar marathon and bring it up for debate... no? Why not? Then some prefer to sleep over it. Hmm.. I am not sure what sort of BO people have to let them sleep on it.. of course it also depends on what 'it' is as our former Prez said. Then there is that why don't we give it a rest? Frankly that is what I have been proposing from the beginning - we should have more rest and the rest will follow. You follow?

That was the mission. I had to meet some advertising folks over drinks. Directions provided said the event was at the B. B Bar. Could it be owned by a new celebrity that goes by that sound? Who cares. At least it was not called Bar B (that would be gross). I entrusted my little hand held gadget to guide me from A (BART) to B. Bart is not my child but rather the mode of transport. I followed it diligently making a number 1 pit stop on the way which was all very Bourne like - no wasting time - do what you can as you head to the B (in this case go to the head). This way the tank was ready to accept more liquids - all very strategic. Only gotcha - when the maps app said I had arrived - I actually found myself staring at traffic with no sign of said place. What had happened was due to a spectacularly crazy limitation of the current app / map = only 2 dimensional navigation I was (as I later discover) at a different level entirely (perhaps 'spiritually' too). The Bar ha...

America has a portion of its population that believes in something called Second Amendment. I think it had to do with living in jungles and defending yourself from poachers and predators. Aka Right to Bear Arms. Today Bare Arms are more in vogue and competing with the rights to bear arms. Bears are nowhere to be seen so we are not sure if they have arms or can use arms. Best left at arms length I say. So when little children get killed they announce that we should not mess with gun control laws and that since our forefathers have decided it was okay to bear arms we must continue to follow the idealogy. But wait! When Korea or Iran asks to make nukes we decide that they cannot have it since that would be stupid. You see you cannot have everyone decide to have their own arms. That would be outright dangerous to our well being. We do not know if they can use these arms. What if they set one off? Well - actually if you gave everyone the know how on making it then perhaps they...

As I observe the desks of my colleagues over the years I notice that people bring a lot of their home to work, in the form of aunt Agatha's recipe book, the kid doodles and legos and latest birthday necklaces. Cute but please keep it by your bedside. Unless you also sleep at work (like Castanza then you are excused). Perhaps because they also bring work to their homes in the form of their crackberries, iphones or laptop computers and keep fingering it even on weekends. I subscribe to neither. I do work out of my home at times and that is business hours. I do not take my home life to work either. I have no other living material growing in the office space or showcase family pictures or any other knick knacks that people seem to accumulate over time including some wine their former boss passed them three Xmases ago. I make an effort to also ditch all paper since theoretically we are living in the land of paperless offices. I am not a fan of any organized sport or religion ei...

What is the purpose of asking for someone's race? From job applications to media coverage of an individual, references to what apparently are their ancestral geographic origins are a distinctly used adjective. As an example the president of the USA is described as an African American male. Really? At what point do the origins not matter? I mean can I describe my grocery shopping experience as visiting a predominantly Anglo European owned (shareholders) and operated (management) enterprise in suburban San Francisco? Which happens to be a community made up of Asians (which make up half the planet today), Latinos, minor African American residences and about 50% caucasian of European origins? Bagged by a community made of largely African American and Latino populations who may or may not speak English? Distinctly missing are Finnish and residents of Vanuatuu as well as folks from the fine island of Tasmania. What purpose does elaborating on this nonsense serve? On the one han...

There are pundits in every field. These so called druids are capable of telling what is next - whether its technology or the stock market or the medical inventions or the state of the economy or that of the Euro Zone. One thing that tends to be consistent is that people assume age affords wisdom and thence the pundit tend to be of advanced age. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think that any of the forecasters including the weatherman are merely taking a chance on what appears to be the most obvious and some deciding to be a contrarian take the opposite view. What then is consistent many times is that these all tend to be people of advanced age. If they are wrong they are never going to be around to see the consequences. So what the heck go ahead and forecast. Or they are themselves so well off that their actual decision making is of no material consequence to their own security. Take Ron Johnson's foray to change the face of JCPenney - an ancient retail institut...

Like peeling an onion one can give an opinion and watch what happens. Sometimes it will bring tears too. OR there may be another layer to peel in the form of public opinion of your opinion. This weekend when Roger Ebert (famous Chicago native and film critic) passed there was no one left to give thumbs up or down so Prez Obama took upon himself (during his trip to the Silicons) to opine his thoughts on California Attorney General who happens to be an Indian African (or is it African Indian?) woman. He gave her his thumbs up and called her a strong, smart and good looking AG. That led to the press having a field day with the apparent violation of the propriety of the office of the POTUS. Really? That was national news. Also in the news locally was the fact that gas prices according to AAA had dropped by 1.5 cents per gallon. Whoopee do da - lets go have a party in Seattle - and lets all drive there from San Francisco. Another item of fancy to some was about two other famous p...

Ever since I read my first Ian Fleming novel I have been hooked on to the whole espionage (as they say now) genre and have consumed several stories in print and film. James Bond has some sort of aura that is goofy at times yet hard to resist. I am convinced the marketing genius behind the franchise has me sold on this one. So much so that I have also amassed the movie collections on DVD format so I can watch it over and over. That is addiction. Trying to see what I might have missed the last time so I can regale in the sequences of exotic girls swooning and trying to say something clever at the same time; to the humanly impossible stunt that transports this modern superman to battle his nemesis. The reincarnations of the role have occured in film by changing who plays that role - from my memory its Roger Moore, Sean Connery, a rat faced Timothy somebody to the suave Pierce Brosnan to the current hunky Daniel Craig. Its funny and I am sure I would not get too many agreements on t...

What the Dickens? I got to think that to every cloud there is some wind. So what of the recent Financial Tsunami that hit continents in its wake. It came close to shutting down the global monetary pipes just a few years ago. Yet its after shocks continue. With all this turmoil there are some bright spots ... 1. Americans discovered there is a place on the planet called Greece. Not the one in their car or a type of yogurt but an actual country. 2. Then they discovered there is another island country called Cyprus. Not like the tree but again a community of oligarchs and fishermen who went bankrupt just like Americans do time to time. Hey look we have cousins. 3. Kids learned new vocabulary words like 'Bailout', 'Sequester', 'Fiscal and Monetary policy', aside from simply learning about bankruptcy. 4. A lot of new movies showcasing the financial disaster got made - more jobs created - some bad guys even went to jail. 5. Some inflated egos went bust while ...

There are many scales to measure weight, pressure, wealth, poverty, obesity and others. I want to invent one that can measure a being's mental state. I am calling it the Yum Yum scale (to be phonetically sensitive). It will run from feeling chirpy on the far left to sheer boredom to outright panic on the far right. Now why would you want to do that? For one it is a good use of an otherwise futile Friday (which is neither a weekend nor feel like a workday conundrum). Secondly as I was sitting in the dentist chair today waiting for Godot (aka Dentist) I could not help think of how I would measure my present spiritual condition. Godot because it always feels like there is an endless wait. Not sure why they make appointments when they know they are always running late. Besides you are always debating the whole value prop of being there in the first place. One more minute and I am out of here... at which point he shows up and escorts me to his inner sanctums to look at my inne...

Another whimsical attempt to dawdle on the pointless by yours faithfully. This time we will together explore use of the word BUS. Also called bottom of the barrel fishing. As in its phonetic presentation in English and couple of Indian languages. Therefore the readers with non multi language skillset should quit here. So on to the Bus. As in boarding the conveyance. You guessed right. I thought of this insanity while traveling on such a device. A Marathi local bus rider offering a seat to me would say 'ye bus'. Whence a Hindi bhai would say 'baas kya?' Whence I would suspect that the episode is about to become a busketcase with all of the bus ye bus wo bakwas. So to bypass the oncoming insanity I would suggest to my fellow ridership - bas rehne do yaro kuch aur baatein karo. So we move on to less basi items. When my Hindi friend pipes up - bas ek baat bataa - ye baas tujhe bhi aa rahi hai? As I contemplate this sudden turn of events I spot an old Bong ac...