Nicotine, a rather strange strain of insomnia and a really bad psycho thriller kept me awake till two past midnight.

But that's not the point.

The point is that there are way too few psycho killers in India, and I see a whole lot of potential to make an industry out of it. Here's the plan in all its concise beauty - Abduct kids and torture them for a few years. After making sure that they'd become psychotic killers, ask them to sign an exclusive contract and release them on the world. Record their stories, write a best-seller, make a movie and become rich.

All in a life's delusion

world
Originally uploaded by Kapil Karekar.

Not long ago
I used to think that I'd like to think that I didn't like jazz
And then you happened

My Dronacharya
In tie-dyed indigo wraparound, you were
My private little phenomenon

Or so I'd love to believe
For then the delusion is complete
True though it is

Close on Goldilocks' heels

Curtsy to the Queen and her fancy cohorts
Curtsy to the arguments of design and teleology
Curtsy duly to corporates, conglomerates and their confounded rationale

Curtsy verily to family, kinship and society
Curtsy sometimes to all those things that make us unhappy
And curtsy eventually to the fell virtuous human mind.

P.S: Go figure!

You and I

We exist, you and I, as inexorable experience collectors, sometimes individually, often collectively; intertwined in our quest for experiences.

We're a rare breed, you and I, for we believe in gathering experiences sans judgements, sans pain, sans hatred. We wish to be like a sandstorm, indifferent to the dust we gather, yet growing strong with the same dust; atleast we wish to be, for sometimes, the storm falls in love with the grains, not willing to let go. We begin to love the grains, hate them, wish they'd be less abrasive, or more. The grains are what gives us strength, will and reason to sustain the storm. Without the storm, the grains needn't exist, and without the grains there'd be no storm. What matters - the grain or the storm?

We're funny, you and I, for in the course of our quest, we forget that the course is short, that the course didn't have a past before it started, and no future after where it stops abruptly. Millions and millions of paths had the million quests taken, strengthening each other, bitching, groveling, snarling, smiling, existing.

We're wise, you and I, for we realise that the course is ephemeral, and in a cosmic scale, is hobbesian.

Soon, HIV will be an assimilated parasite.

Location: A conf room
Occasion: An engineering meeting to discuss architecture for the next generation of our product.

Person 1: yada, yada, ...
Person 2: So, yada, yada ...
Person 3: Re-architecture is costly. So, when we do re-architecture, we must make sure that we don't need to do another one for at least five to ten years. Let's design our schema in such a way.

Person[4-6] nod their head vigorously in agreement. Person 2 had a hearty laugh, excused himself and walked out.

Random crib

You indhi boy, listen up. Transliteration rules aren't sacrosanct. There're no universal rules driving the shining path of transliteration. They're driven by local inculcations, and yours is as funny(and illogical) as the other one that you find funny.

After much soul-searching, I realised what made my life fall short of quintessential completeness - a farewell kiss.

It all makes sense now.

Yes, I consider Mr. and Mrs. Iyer as one of the most inanely overacted movies of the millennium. Do you have a problem?

Apocalypto reeks of racism

Opening quote: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." — W. Durant

Need I say more? The opening line stopped short of swearing by "White man's burden".

Michael Crichton has something to say on why politicised science is dangerous.

What is he advocating - Separation of the lab and the state?

Order of the day: Institutionalised spirit.

I deserve nostalgia in full measure.

Remember the nostalgia of the old - gramaphone records and stained glass, fondly clearing layers of dust from the gramaphone record, each layer of dust signifying an excess of happiness, one ember of happiness for each track; running your hand over each track igniting the memories?

Listening to Geeta Dutt singing Meri Jaan on xmms is not the nostalgia I wanted.

An obituary and another one

Two deaths in a day - one very real, of existence; eighty nine years of it, of it, eighty years of a marriage; another very real too, this one of a relationship - a year of it, but of one that feels a lot longer, one that gave me much more than I could ever give back to it.

I can only wish it all works out for the best. Thanks for everything.

Geek talk.

Two physics geeks talking in the cafeteria:

Physicist 1: Dude, did you see the interference patterns that I produced from Cherenkov radiation? T'was cool man.
Physicist 2: Whoa dude, seriously? How did you do that?
Physicist 1: Simple dude. I redirected the cherenkov radiation from the nuclear reactor, passed it through the Young's double slit experiment.
Physicist 2: Awesome dude. You rock! Now, let's listen to some daler mehndi.

A solemn plea

Sirs, madams, eunuchs, dolphins, assorted intelligent dromeosaurids and corvids out there, here's a plea; one that manifests a deep longing.

Somebody please ship me, a poor man of meagre means, a couple of XKCD t-shirts.

I was told this in jovial earnesty: 'You're not into anything. Had it not been for software, you would've been a total bum'.

I take it as a compliment.

The miracle of senility

As seen on television:

Present condition: Couple growing old.

Woman woos man: She buys an anti-aging cream, and gets her yesterday's husband back.

Man woos woman: He gets a can of low-fat oil, gives it to her and tells her to cook.

Bastard!

An appeal to women

High heels are humanity's only hope for digitigrade locomotion. Go girl,go!

Women, you gave humanity language and the boneless penis. Now, give us the new cool - digitigrade locomotion.

Wisdom

All I need is a CFG for a mail from a desperate spammer. That's next on my todo list, right between regex for English language and a push-down automata for an internal combustion engine.