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Deepak needs

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Back after a long time.. Unfortunately, I think this trend will continue till I graduate.

This one is an interesting tag. All you have to do is google for “<first_name> needs”, where you replace <first_name> with your first name, and list out 10 interesting and sensible sentences from the results that you get. Also add your commentary with each sentence, so that we know what your thoughts are about Google’s thoughts.

1. Deepak needs a girl
– Haha.. Some of my friends keep telling me this. But I can find one myself, thank you very much. I just don’t have time right now.

2. Deepak needs to comes to terms with the fact that he cannot dispassionately evaluate the hearts of conservatives or their paradigm [of] life.
– Although I don’t approve of the conservative theology, I wonder… Did I offend some conservatives recently? (BTW, This entire sentence did come up in the Google result! Do you think I’m capable of making up stuff like this? Okay.. well. I am, but I haven’t. )

3. Deepak needs to get his damn facts straight.
– Yeah right!

4. Deepak needs a good sponsorship deal.
– I wouldn’t say no to that!

5. Deepak needs to buy a biology book.
– For what? I already know all “important” stuff.

6. Deepak needs to stick to speaking which he does well.
– Opinions differ on my speaking ability.

7. Deepak needs to know that people love reality but that too in a fiction like manner.
– Hey. Don’t I do that already? Don’t I add bountiful amounts of bells and whistles (a.k.a masala in Indian circles) to all my stories.

8. Deepak needs to go. Now.
– The only result which makes some sense!

9. Deepak needs to take a bow.
– What about arrows then? A bow is useless without arrows.

10. Deepak needs no introduction at all.
– Hear! Hear!

The following people are tagged:

  • Rinchen Dorjee – Wake up, dear senior! (Although I don’t deserve to say this when I’m asleep myself!)
  • Rahul – Serious guy. But lets see if he has a funny side, and time to kill.
  • Kandy – Just to see if he gets 10 results at all with his uncommon name.
  • Lakshmi – Friend, GTalk comrade, and chatterbox.

Forty winks

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The Rain Tree tagged me with a wake up call, and expected me to be the first to respond. I’ll be a gentleman (Ahem!) and oblige her. Moreover, this will probably be the last post before I leave India on 23rd.

Last movie seen in a theater:
If you count sleeping in the theater as watching a movie, it was “Love Story 2050”

What book are you reading?
The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist by Richard Feynman

Favorite board game:
Monopoly

Favorite magazine:
It had been Reader’s Digest till around 2000.
I have the entire collection of RD from 1994 to 2000 in my personal library.
Nowadays I don’t read magazines.

Favorite smells:
Smell of fresh rain

Favorite sounds:
Sound of sea waves at a beach, Heavy wind blowing through the trees, the sound of music, saxophone

Worst feeling in the world:
Tension. I feel like my head will explode any moment.

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
I affirm that just for today, I won’t get angry, will work with integrity, will be kind to all and will be grateful for all the good things in my life.

Favorite fast food place:
Subway

Future child’s name:
That would be far-fetched because I haven’t even started thinking about my future wife.

Finish this statement, “If I had a lot of money I’d…”
I’ll roam around the world, and if there is still money left, I’ll set up a charity fund.

Do you drive fast?
Fast and Furious with a car. Bit lousy with a two-wheeler.

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
No. Never had a stuffed animal in my life.

Storms – Cool or Scary?
Cool. I love ’em, as long as trees are not uprooted.

Do you eat the stems on broccoli?
I hate broccoli

If you could dye your hair any color, what would be your choice?
Black. 😛

Name all the different cities/towns you have lived in:
Palakkad, Calicut, Pune, Trivandrum, Bangalore

Favorite sports to watch:
Formula 1, Football

One nice thing about the person who sent this to you:
Bubbly, Smiles heartily in all her pictures.

What’s under your bed?
Simple answer for a simple question. A cot!

Would you like to be born as yourself again?
Tough question to answer. I like the way I am, but if possible I would not like to have rebirth.

Morning person or night owl?
Night Owl

Over easy or sunny side up?
Over easy

Favorite place to relax:
Home, My best buddy’s home

Favorite pie:
Don’t like pie

Favorite ice cream flavor:
Hot Chocolate Fudge.

You pass this tag to:
It ought to be sleeping ones. So Miladysa, Vinay and Sanjuz

Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond first?
Honestly, no idea. I would bet on Miladysa though.

Superlatives of 2007

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I nicked this idea from one of the blogs that I read – Gypsy. But, what the hell…everyone can have their own list. I’m amazed why this didn’t become a tag though. So I’m gonna make this a tag. This, as the title says is a list of superlatives. You can add any list of superlatives of last year, but keep it to a maximum of 5 items per list. (For eg: Books I struggled to finish is my invention)

Top 5 moments of the year:

  1. I “apparently” hurt my right elbow while doing pull-ups and had to undergo a surgery, and the funniest part was that it was not for any injury.
  2. My hard disk crashed a week after Times of India wrote that whoever had 320 GB of hard disk space were terrorists, depriving me of a place in the coveted list.
  3. My cousin Kavita appearing out of thin air and getting in touch after about 10 years. I should thank Orkut for that.
  4. My car was hit by another car on the side, deforming the left rear door. This made me think that whoever buys new cars in Bangalore should be mentally tough enough to see their car turn into an ugly piece of metal. Ladies, sorry to say this. Guys, please keep some distance with vehicles driven by ladies. There may be some good drivers among the ladies, but the truth is that a majority of them don’t know what to do under stress while driving.
  5. Ahh..the marriage proposals…how can I forget that? It seems my relatives are more eager to see me caged than anybody else. Thank God that my parents are understanding. Let me count… I got 4 marriage proposals, all of which were rejected rather mercilessly even before the topic gathered heat.

Best 5 movies that I watched: (Released this year)

  1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (This might be highly biased)
  2. Ratatouille
  3. The Bourne Ultimatum (Except for the shaky camera at some places, which almost gave me a headache. The story was well paced and just good.)
  4. Die Hard 4.0 (A good action movie after “True Lies”)
  5. Chak De India (Need I say any more?)

Best 5 movies: (Released earlier and watched from home)

  1. The Departed (DiCaprio proved that he is not some chocolate boy who spits the farthest.)
  2. The Shawshank Redemption (Yeah.. I got around to watching it only last year)
  3. The Prestige (Another well-crafted movie from Christopher Nolan. Amazing performance from Christian Bale.)
  4. Rear Window (Hitchcock all the way! Believe it or not, all scenes except the climax were shot from a single room!)
  5. Sin City

There are more (Amelie, Run Lola Run, Das Boot, Nuovo Cinema Paradiso) but the list says only 5 🙁

Worst 5 movies:

  1. Ghostrider (Why, oh, why did I watch a movie with Nicholas Cage in it? He just sucks. Period.)
  2. Wild Hogs (Comedy which made me sick.)
  3. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
  4. Billa (But it was worth the money because of Nayantara *EVIL GRIN*)
  5. Om Shanti Om

Best 5 books:

  1. The picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
  2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – JK Rowling
  3. The Argumentative Indian – Amartya Sen
  4. Three Men on the Bummel – Jerome K Jerome (Not quite as good as it’s prequel, but still utterly hilarious)
  5. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson (This is an amazing book. Became a big fan of Stephenson after reading this book)

5 books which I struggled to finish (Because I fell asleep before completing a page)

  1. Crisis – Robin Cook (I think this will be my first and last Robin Cook book. I don’t like his writing style)
  2. Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier (A really sloth novel with too much detail about the surroundings than the characters.)
  3. Asterix and the Class Act (Class Act is not an Asterix story. It is rather a collection of Asterix short stories. This was not remotely as funny as the stories.)

I don’t think there are more 🙂

Top buys:

  1. My new T-shirt (okay I bought it this year, but I like to cheat) which reads:

    Alcohol and Calculus do not mix…Never drink and derive.

  2. The 160GB Seagate Barracuda hard disk which crashed.
  3. My personal web space.
  4. Rubik Cube from CMH Road while at the junction. Bought it for just 30 rupees (He started from 60 rupees and I started from 20 rupees. Quite a bargain, ain’t it?), but I am becoming increasingly addicted to it nowadays. My fastest time: 7 minutes 13 seconds. (Nowhere near Ajith‘s abilities, but I think it is good enough for an amateur with 1 month of Rubik Cube solving experience) Later, I went to Landmark in search of a better Rubik Cube, but I found the exact same make which was worth 90 rupees.

I now throw this tag open. I don’t like being partial. Anybody who likes can take it. Only condition is that you have to let me know by commenting here. :p

Weird… or something like that!

Tagged, Weird things,

This time, I got tagged twice separately with the same topic, in hope that I will get around my writer’s block. But little do they understand that it is not writer’s block, it is rather a blocked writer. (Courtesy: Sanjiv)

Now to the topic of the tag. No points for guessing what the tag is about. It is the one which is doing rounds in the world of blogs of late – 8 Weird things. Now I had already written another tag with 6 weird things. It really feels weird to write about more weird things. Can’t the guys who create these tags be a bit creative, rather than giving old wine in a new bottle?

Anyway, here are the rules:
1. Write 8 random/weird/habitual/crazy facts. (Why is it 8? Shouldn’t that be random too?)
2. Tag 8 other angels, and force them to stop doing productive work and start tagging in their blogs. In short, stop them from having the devil’s workshop. (I mean “an idle mind”)
3. Bully, Coax, Plead, Cry, Whine or Beat the pulp out of them so that they take up this tag.

Without much ado, here I go.

1. I encounter nail-biting moments way too often. I bite my nails when my hands are idle. It’s habitual, but I think it is getting better.
On a serious note, please don’t hesitate to shake hands whenever we meet. I really don’t bite nails as much as posted above. That was just for the effect.

2. I have attempted going to gym 3 times, and stopped within 2 weeks every time. Lack of determination! I’m sure it is! First in my college. Second in my company. The third time, I paid to go to a gym outside, thinking that spending some money for this will drive some sense into my skull. But I ended up wasting my money. Now I can’t pay 8 grand and go to Fitness One. What if I waste that also?

3. I have almost photographic memory of names (and faces, if they haven’t changed drastically from the time I last met them.) That means I can recall their name when I see a familiar face.
I am decent enough in remembering numbers (Telephone numbers and so on)
I am really bad in remembering dates. I scored my least amount of marks in History in my 10th when every one else was scoring cent percent. Two weeks back, my friend told me that we had completed 3 years of employment (we joined on the same day). I asked him, “Really?”

4. I had chats in GTalk with at least 6 people on 20th Friday, which consistently started with the following conversation. (It started to freak me out after the 4th person)

Person: for?
Me: Harry Potter
Person: ok!
Person: 🙂

The reason was that I had given my status message as “One more day!”

The freak show continued on 23rd Monday, when I had my status as “Falling into a state of depression 🙁”

At least 4 people asked me “why depression?” (I mean the exact same phrase). I replied, “Last HP book!”

5. I and my brother used to fight a lot over silly things when we were in school. Fights meaning fist fights. We had managed to hurt each other several times. I yanked his head once during a fight, resulting in a sprain on his neck which he carried for one week.
He has stabbed my palm with a pencil once and the lead got lodged into my palm. Had to go to the doctor to take it out. My right palm still carries the relic of that. The list goes on. My mom used to cry that none of her friends’ children were as violent as we were and that we had a lot to learn from them. We used to respond that they should come to us and learn how to fight properly. Mind you, the fights were always for the silliest of the reasons.
As time went by, it became wise for me not to engage in a duel with him, because he grew twice as big and strong as me.

6. I rarely wear shirts. I feel more comfortable in T-shirts and polo shirts. I normally wear only 2-3 shirts which I’m extremely fond of. That too will generally be on top of a T-shirt and unbuttoned. The last time I remember wearing a formal dress was 2 years back when I attended the interview for my current company.

7. I have this annoying (to the recipient) habit of correcting the pronunciation of words spoken by my friends/family at the most awkward moments. Some of my most favorite corrections are:
– tuition is pronounced “tooishun” not “tiushun”
– queen is pronounced “kween” not “kiun”
– coffee is pronounced “coffee”. The o should sound like “aw” and not like “ow” (Typical of Mallus)
– elite. It is not “elaite”..It is “eleet”

8. The proven method for me to fall asleep is read a book while lying in my bed. I will fall asleep within two pages of reading while I’m lying prone or on my back, no matter how interesting the book is. Even Harry Potter has not been able to be an exception to this.

Okay. That makes it 8. Now the tough part. Tagging 8 people.

– Upasna – I want a change for a change. Write something funny.
– Dev – He claims he doesn’t even log into Blogger for months. My attempt to break that claim.
– Kandy – Let’s see the dark side of the cool guy… my classmate in engineering.
– Sanjuz – Gathering dust now. I won’t let your irrational thoughts rest in peace so soon. GET UP!
– Max – Another one gathering dust. All wasted writing skills.
– Dharmu – Recent addition to my blogroll. Bindaas girl, from whatever little I know.
– 2 Open – All those who felt dejected that I let you down by not tagging you, grab your chance. (Pssst… I’m sure no one will take this 😀 )

Weird things about Weirdness

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Well!
This is a long pending tag (I almost wrote “pending CR”…CR for change request. Mind still at work place 🙁 ) from Ajith. 6 weird things about me. As several people have pointed out, I am a self proclaimed weirdo and chatterbox. So there should not be any trouble in writing 6 weird things about me. But actually, there is trouble. I see it now… Anyway here goes.

Weirdness #1
This is right at the top of my mom’s list of weird thing I’ve done in my life.

My mom was cleaning my room one day (not at all a mammoth effort as you may think. You’ll know why in this post itself) when she saw a list of endless names. At first she thought she had misplaced a marksheet of the students in her class. But actually that was a statistical study by yours truly. I was trying to study how many different people I can distinctly remember, i.e. relate the names to faces. So I had listed down the names of all people, friends, family, film actresses and so on. Anyway, this project was shortlived as I found out that the number people I knew was way too much that it crossed the limits of my hands endurance.

Weirdness #2
I am not afraid of snakes at all, unlike most people. I keep a distance, but I’m not afraid. I once was taking a shortcut which went behind my hostel block. I accidentally stepped on a snake. My friend who was with me was freaked out all day. I shoved it off as a trifle.
I don’t know why I’m not afraid of snakes when I’m afraid of lesser animals like frogs, mice, cockroaches etc.

Weirdness #3
I have a serious doubt that I have small amounts of short term memory loss. I sometimes forget things which I remembered about 30 seconds ago. Then I will have to come to my starting place (where I originally thought of that) and pull my hair for a minute to remember what I had thought of. This is a tested protocol. I almost never remember it if I don’t come to the starting place.

Weirdness #4
My mom says I’m far too outspoken.
My brother says I talk continously about unrelated things. (Called “Incoherent speech”)
My grandma says that my spirituality exceeds my age.
My friends say that I am a studious moron.

My dad says…well…nothing. He just enjoys all the fun from a safe distance.

Weirdness #5
I had problem of sleepwalking when I was a child. Later it reduced to talking while in sleep. Now it is almost gone. Some of the weirdest monologues which I uttered while I was asleep were:

  • Respected teachers, elders and my dear friends.
  • This is the plane and the force is applied perpendicular to it.
  • You really cannot understand my friend, but I know he is a jerk.

My mom has told me that I never spoke in language other than English while I was asleep.

Weirdness #6
I am kind of obsessed with cleanliness of some things. You can call it Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I don’t like my room in any condition other than spick-and-span. I don’t buy used books from roadside, because they look dirty. I ask my friends to wash their hands before touching my books, because they may make it dirty. I don’t like utensils thrown around in the kitchen sink and will wash them myself sometimes. I don’t allow my friends to put any non-vegetarian (which I consider unclean) item in my utensils even if they offer to clean it themselves later. They have to use paper plates. I even fool around when they bring some food item, because I suspect if they will take my plates for their food and the food will be non-vegetarian.

Open tag.. Anybody can take it (I’m lazy to propose names). Just remember that you have to comment in my blog after you wrote about your weirdness. 😉

Bookworm

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Thanks to Srijith for this tag, although he threw this tag open. I just couldn’t resist this tag as books are a part of my life. In fact, I an the proud owner of a small library of some 200+ books (I don’t allow anyone to take the books outside my house, however)

Before I start, let me give some introduction. I read most type of books, but the ones that really interest me are (You guessed it) fantasies. Apart from novels and stories, I have a good collection of… er… semi-technical/technical books too. Can’t resist those either!! Some of my proud collections are copies of Readers Digest from 1996 till date. (Although RD is becoming more and more boring these days with more ads than articles)

The only thing I’ve never been a connoisseur of is poetry. I simply can’t comprehend poetry, however I try. My fellow bloggers might now have understood the reason why I never comment on their poems. I don’t consider myself good enough to comment. I don’t even read some. (Sorry! :-))

That’s it for the prologue, I’ll start with my tag, and try to make it short. 😉

One book that changed your life
I didn’t have to think twice to answer this. I have read several books, most of them entertaining, some of them teaching, and even make me reconsider my outlook.
But there were two books that changed my life.
The first is The Bhagavad Gita which my mom gave me as a birthday gift (when I was a teenager and had millions of questions and was skeptical about our beliefs.)
The second one is Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Why? Read it, then you will understand why spirituality should be an important part of life.

One book that you have read more than once.
I have read all the books I liked more than once. Some of them were just to relive that world. So I rename the title as “The book I’ve read the most”. That would be Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I’ve read that about 9 times. (What?!! =)))
Other top contenders, apart from the Harry Potter series would be The Three Investigators series which were my childhood favorites, Love Story by Erich Segal(Ooh. I love that story!)
Why do I read Harry Potter so much? Because I like to live in that world. So I try to squeeze myself as a character in the storyline, without modifying it much. So I read it again and again and again to refine my story.

One book you would want on a desert island
Sorry for my ignorance, but does anyone find an island in a desert? Or is it “deserted” island?
Assuming the second, I want a blank book, whose page I can tear and insert into a bottle with a SOS message. 😛

I don’t wish to rip, tear, shred, bend, fold, deface, disfigure, smear, smudge, throw, drop, or in any other manner damage, mistreat, or show lack of respect towards my books.

To be serious, I would like to have a thick book, like Srijith. Probably all the Upanishads, as I will have all the time in the world to analyse them. They are really a treasury of knowledge.

Apart from those, I would also like to lay my hands on Roger Penrose’s Shadows of the Mind.

One book that made you laugh
The books that make me ROTFL are the Asterix series which I am crazy enough to buy for 300 rupees per book.
One book I’ve found “seriously funny” is Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. Read my review on this book, which I wrote when my blog was still in its diapers.
There are a lot of other books that tickle your nerves or makes you smile… Swami and friends by R.K.Narayan, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams are some. I would like to go off topic a little to mention Sreenivasan, the ace Malayalam screenwriter, director and actor, whose screeplays deal with the social difficulties of normal people from a comical point of view.

One book that made you cry
I had to think a lot to recall a book that made me cry. The answer is Anne Frank’s Diary, for it’s portrayal of Nazi racism and inhuman activities from the eyes of a girl who was yet to enjoy life. Probably this is the only book that made me cry..I don’t remember.

One book you wish had been written
The memoirs of a crazy man by Deepak 😛 My autobiography.

One book you wish had never been written
I don’t think I wish that. Even if I absolutely hate some novels.

One book you are currently reading
If you really want to know, I am reading Ten lectures on Wavelets by Ingrid Daubechies.
For entertainment, I’m reading The Worm Ouroboros by E.R.Eddison.

One book you have been meaning to read
The 7th book in the Harry Potter series (Looking forward to reading it)
The prodigal daughter by Jeffry Archer
The Chronicles of Narnia series

I now tag, lemme think….