Miami Traffic Rules

This post is based on the driving experiences we had in Miami during our visit there as described in [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] and [7] (yes, impossible as it may be to believe, there is a part [7] and it is not published yet.)

Statutory Warning: These rules are simply basic guidelines and should not be taken as a complete reference.

If you are a pedestrian:

1. You can cross the road at any place you like. Don't worry about a ton of metal hurtling towards you at very high-speed - those metal boxes have drivers with eyes, dont they? So what if the driver in question almost expires with a heart-attack when s/he see you suddenly darting across the street when they are driving at 40 mph (such faint-hearted drivers are most probably tourists anyways).

2. Traffic lights are for wimps. If you are waiting for the light anyway, during the green signal for you, continue to stand on the starting side and talk on your cell phone or converse with your walking companions or stare at the sky or do other such urgent activities. The moment the light turns red for you is the cue for you to start crossing the road. Pedestrians are God, you know!

3. If you feel like it, dart from side to side on the middle of the road while making up your mind about which side you want to ultimately get to. It sure relieves the monotony of vehicle-filled roads for drivers.

If you are driving a vehicle:

1. Traffic lights changing from yellow to red is mostly just a suggestion for you to think about stopping. You can continue proceeding on red till cross traffic absolutely prevents you from doing so.

2. Blocking intersections is the done thing. After all, you did have a green light when you moved to the middle of the intersection and it is not your fault that the two vehicles ahead of you were unable to move up further.

3. If anyone ahead of you disobeys rule 2, honk at them and make angry faces.

4. It is perfectly okay to start new "lanes" of traffic. Isn't it kinda neat when there are four lines of vehicles on a road which has only two lanes? When used in conjunction with rule 2, you can choke an entire intersection with a row of vehicles. Cool, huh?

5. The right lane of any road though technically a part of the road is actually a convenient place for parking. Use it for parking (emergency flashers are not necessary) when you want to a) talk on your cell phone b) go shopping c) run any errand or d) simply sit in your vehicle and watch the traffic go by. This is especially funny when vehicles behind you actually wait patiently thinking that you are going to move on (naive tourists sure are a funny lot).

6. Signalling while changing lanes is an unnecessary use of vehicle energy. Come on, a big vehicle moving onto the next lane should be indication enough of the event!

7. On unprotected turns make your turn irrespective of right of way. The driver with the right of way will most probably not hit you if s/he applies the brakes hard enough as soon as you suddenly turn your vehicle into their oncoming path.

Given all these rules (which we were mostly unaware of till we put our feet or rather wheels there) you can imagine just how much "fun" D and me had while navigating the roads of Miami in the rental car. Oh well, we can now proudly say that we are now Miami-certifed drivers :-) (If you have been reading my blog for some time, you probably know that I am also a New York certified driver - ah, its comforting to know that I can always fall back on the alternate job of a cab-driver :-P.)

At this point, I am sure any person who has visited India is dying to point out: "Get off your high-horse missy, this is exactly how traffic usually is in India". You are absolutely right - but I have not driven much in India so have never had first hand experience before. So there!

Complaints about the chaotic traffic apart, all of us did enjoy the city itself immensely. The beautiful beaches by themselves will give Miami a five-star rating in any vacation guide. Next vacation in Florida will be exclusively spent on the beach :-D.

p.s. Dave Barry has an extremely funny piece about visiting Miami here.

p.s.1. I think Floridans are really nice people basically and hence if any Floridan is reading this, please to change any orders for beating me up to orders for stuffed toys/music/flowers *angelic smile*.

Life is like that

Bad
Having a grumpy, irritated and particularly weird-looking picture of yourself on your driver's license.

Worse
Making a black and white photocopy of the above driver's license and realizing that the weirdness of the photo has now been enhanced ten-fold by it showing only two eye-whites and the tip of a shiny nose even a teensy bit clearly.

Worst
Faxing the above photocopy to a travel agent who has never seen you before. I am sure the agent's office-folk gathered around the fax machine trying to figure out if the picture is that of an alien or not.

Like Calvin says, "That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse."

Ten things which made me smile yesterday

1. Having a colleague look at a photo from my Florida trip, which is on my computer's desktop and exclaim "Oh, you look so young - just like a kid!"

2. Eating everything from the tofu in the miso soup to the salad and sticky rice with chopsticks at the Japanese restaurant - and not making the table look like a one-year-old had just finished lunch at the end of it.

3. Watching Neosporin ointment work wonders on a rather deep paper cut on my hand. I can almost see the cut closing before my eyes!

4. Having an Indian neighbor with whom I have just exchanged hellos with so far drop by my apartment and give me a box of sweets from her recent trip to India.

5. Seeing pictures of my cousin's new-born baby boy! I can still recall my cousin, my sis and me running around in pattu-pavadais and fully powdered faces during numerous relatives' weddings when we were kids like it was yesterday.

6. Getting stuck in a terrible traffic jam on the way back from work, remembering an unreturned phone call from a friend, returning it and absolutely not noticing the 15 long minutes it took to cross two blocks.

7. Receiving emails from two not-so-much-in-touch old school friends on the same day.

8. Looking at the the glow-in-the-dark stars on the bedroom ceiling glow after I turned out the lights - yeah, my mental age still hovers around three.

9. Slipping back inside the warm cocoon under my multiple comforters after dragging myself out of it to get a drink of water.

10. The fact that this list took up less than ten minutes to come up with and I have not even put down all the smile-worthy 'events'.

... and yesterday as a whole was not even anywhere near "good" as days go.

I guess what makes life even more sooooo worth living is all these little "ah-ha" moments :-)!

Winter mornings

...can look like this at 7.30a.


Like waking up on week-day mornings when it was sunny and warm was not tough enough.

Girls and boxes

This evening, I was busy putting away clothes from the laundry. I was folding a particular top when I suddenly wondered whether I had an accessorizing chain for it. So I immediately abandoned my laundry and went off to check (yeah, I come up with innovative ways of putting off tiresome chores).

While rummaging through my accessories collection, I came across a pendant-chain and suddenly remembered - this chain was a part of a gift-set given by my friend M after her return from her first trip to the USA when we were in undergrad.

That time, seven of us in the hostel used to be very good friends. So M had brought us all back similar gift-sets consisting of a chain and matching ear-studs in elegant paper boxes. She handed it out to us and gave the last box to R, apologizing at the same time "Sorry, they did not have any more matching sets, so yours only has a chain and no ear-studs - please don't take offense". The rest of us were silent for a moment and then all the gift-recepients (other than R) burst out at the same time "R, can I please, please exchange my gift-set with yours?"

You see, R's chain came in a small, cute metal box. And all of us wanted the cute box more than any of the other contents! M was taken aback - she had been under the impression that R was getting the raw deal! Obviously, we other girls did not think so.

I have noticed that most girls have a strange attraction towards boxes of any shape and size. The boxes in question just need to be made of somewhat durable material and be at least half-way decent looking. When I see such a box, I get busy mentally allocating a space for it in my apartment. Never mind that I already own dozens of such boxes. Just the thought of adding another "nice" box to my collection somehow makes me happy. I always rationalize that I can store something or the other in it and of course, I could always use it for gifting.

I still haven't explained to myself as to how a person can find a use for every single of her gazillion boxes (some boxes being so small that a pepper-corn would have difficulty fitting inside it) but there it is!

I know I am not alone. I remember my friend S had gone perfume shopping last year. I recommended one of my favorite fragrances, J'adore, to her. But I also added a warning, "Don't buy too much of it though, you will never be able to finish it." S sagely accepted my advice and went off shopping.

When she returned, she called me and sheepishly told me "Archu, I bought the biggest J'adore bottle they sell!" My jaw dropped and I started laughing, "What? Adi paavi, after all my advice! You are going to be smelling like J'adore for the rest of your life - hehehehehe....". S interrupted me, "I couldn't help it you know - they had this really, really, really cute box for free if I bought the biggest bottle and I simply had to have the box."

And suddenly, enlightment dawned - the perfume marketers had it right! Throw in an ultra-cute box with something and most women would never be able to resist and would simply go rushing to buy it. S never settled on any particular use for the cute box and now it has been stashed away somewhere out of sight but she is still happy when she talks about it. I know that feeling :-D!

This year, a friend C and I had decided to make handmade gifts for each other for fun. I chose an unfinished wooden-box from the arts store Michaels and also bought a bunch of decorating materials. I had a great time decorating the box. On the day of the meeting with C, I filled it with chocolate truffles.

So pleased I was with my "finished" box that I showed it off to my friend V at work - he looked at it and declared it to be very nice. Then he thoughtfully added, "But what will C do with the box once the chocolates are eaten?" I confidently said, "Oh, C will store something else in it or will simply keep it." V doubtfully agreed, "Ooooookaaaaaay - if you say so." Then I started having doubts myself about how well C would like the gift.

I needn't have worried. After all, C is a girl. She took one look at the box and went "Ooooooh, how cute! So nice, now I can store knick-knacks in it. Ohhh, the box is a wonderful idea - I think I am going to get boxes for my other girl friends and decorate them and give them as gifts" - LOL :-D!

I have never noticed this box-hoarding or box-loving tendencies in guys. Is this something which only afflicts girls?

Breaking glass

CRASH! The harsh sound of glass breaking into a million pieces stunned the chattering holiday shoppers into shocked silence for a moment. Even the annoying holiday music piped through the store seemed to have lost its edge for that split second.

In the midst of the broken pieces sparkling like tiny diamonds, stood a little girl, fear, guilt and horror written all over her face. Her mother stood beside her, a glow of disbelief and then anger, slowly suffusing her face. All the nearby shoppers stood staring at this tableau. The ones with kids no doubt silently shooting up thankful prayers that it wasn't theirs. The ones without kids glad at that particular moment to have had the good sense to not have any.

Then, the scene unfroze. The chattering of the shoppers started again, slowly but surely. The holiday music began to grate once more. One of the store assistants approached the mother- daughter pair. The sound of broken glass being swept away mingled with the general din. Everything was back to normal.

And I realized all over again how difficult it is to be a kid at times. Anyone could have broken the decorative glass piece. But only kids get the, "How can you be so careless?", "How many times have I told you not to touch anything?", "Do you realize how expensive this is?", "That’s it, no more TV for you for a week". When adults do it, mostly it is just, "That was an accident - it could have happened to anyone."

Wonder why rosy nostalgia about childhood often conveniently forgets these glitches!

Interview tips

I know this is too heavy a post for a Friday. But whimsical me writes about whimsical topics at whimsical times :-).

During my job search process, a couple of years ago, I came to know definitely that I was pretty bad at attending interviews. Extreme shyness and lack of confidence is not a good combination when speaking to strangers who don't know you at all and have to get to know you based on what you tell them.

Anyways, I managed to screw up quite frequently - acceptable when I knew I had tried my best but totally painful when I knew I was capable of much better and yet had messed it up.

That was a few years back. Now I sometimes get to be on the other side i.e. be the interviewer. And guess what, I realized that I am equally nervous about being an interviewer too! I guess the word "interview" is enough to start off cold feet, cold hands and butterflies in my stomach :-(.

Anyways, what I realized from being on the other side is this:

1. I couldn't care less if the resume is printed on ivory colored bond paper or has an amazing font or an awesome format. I am only interested in knowing whether the necessary qualifications are present or not. Even if they are well-hidden, I take the time to find it. So the key is having the right words and phrases in the resume and not having the best looking resume. BTW, this does not mean that typos and other shodiness is okay - it is not.

2. When I interview a person, I always start with an open mind. In fact, start positively with the hope that the person will be "the one". As I said, I am not fond of interviewing people and my ideal scenario would be one where I can find someone meeting the requirements with the minimum number of interviews.

3. I don't ask "trap" questions. Usually I ask questions which test how well the person will meet the requirements. The objective is to find reasons to hire the person rather than find reasons to show them the door.

4. Besides the above, I rely heavily upon what was said in the resume. When a resume says "expert in C++" and the person does not know what an abstract class is, I begin to doubt everything else the person has said in the resume too. Lying on the resume gets a person in may be but then gets them out even faster if it is found out.

5. It helps if an interviewee has a good personality. It leaves a good impression and plays a big role in the final decision when there is another candidate with similar qualifications.

6. Appearance - in my job line, formal clothes are not necessary. All I care about appearance is that the person is neatly groomed and dressed and not whether the blazers and black socks are in attendance. Of course, this factor is something that is highly dependant on the position.

7. Most of the times, when someone is rejected, it is not because their personality was bad or their qualifications were awful or they are useless. It is just that their profile does not suit what we are looking for and they probably won't be able to contribute their best to that particular role (I think knowing this for sure would have helped me when I used to take rejections rather personally - stupid, I know).

8. Even when an interviewee is only 60-70% qualified for a position, if s/he shows enthusiasm to learn, it makes a favorable impression. In fact, enthusiasm and passion are qualities which can make up to some extent for technical shortcomings.

I am by no means an interviewing expert (in fact the very opposite, I would say) and interviewing is not even a part of my basic job description (I am a software engineer, in case you are wondering). So I really couldn't say how much of the above applies to other interviewers or interviews. Or maybe all this is blindingly obvious. At any rate, hopefully it will help someone else.

Most importantly, I do think it will do me good to dig up and remember this the next time I have to sit on the interviewee hot seat :-D.

Update: Read the comments section to get some more tips.

Formulae

1. (Diwali sweets from family + Diwali sweets from friends + Indian sweets from India-returned colleague + Scrumptious snacks from TJ's + Delicious homemade food made by others) = Jeans which are getting harder by the day to get into.

Evidently, bi-weekly fitness classes and after-dinner walks can combat gluttony only to a certain extent :-(! Is there anyway to make people love eating less?

2. (A cup of strong coffee + A willing listener) = A very garrulous me.

Can people get talkative on coffee :-(?

3. (Need to find a "good" nature photograph + Going through my collection of digital pictures) = Stumbling upon some long-forgotten but very interesting pictures.

Really, some pictures were so funny, I *had* to forward them or send comments about them to the concerned people. Below is an excellent picture of some of the attendees at my birthday party from last year. I have a whole series of them by my brilliant photographer friend, all (unintentionally) covering people's feet from various angles :-D! However, S was pretty thrilled that her cute footwear had gotten way more attention than she had bargained for :-)!

4. (Obsession with hair + Determination to make it soft and smooth and silky (just like the models on TV))= Applying almond oil and honey to hair following a wikihow article which appeared on my google homepage.

I kid you not - I did that this morning. After that, I had nightmares about the honey never coming out of my hair ever and me being stuck with shocked spikes for the rest of my life. Surprise, surprise, the honey did wash right out and my hair actually feels softer (heheheheh, when you sit for an hour with sticky honey on your head, you are wont to believe almost *anything* afterwards).

5. (Screwed up body clock due to DST change + Nightly tossing and turning) = A very-sleepy-during-most-times me.

Zzzzzz.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend folks!

Rants and raves

Disclaimer: I have not become a misanthrope (yet :-P) - I still love my fellow humans :-D.

***************

* How many of you find cars sporting white headlights instead of yellow headlights painful at night? While I totally appreciate floodlights as a tool for illuminating games played at night, night-time concerts and the like, I totally object to it being fitted to the front of cars. When such cars follow me, all I can see is a blinding flash in my car's rearview and sideview mirrors. When they are on cars in the opposite direction, I can barely see the road in front of me. I would like to strangle the idiot who first came up with the idea.

* How do you politely tell people you have known for little more than a month "Thank you very much for choosing me as your confidante but I am really not interested in your personal life?" Some people are genuinely interested when being told such stories or can at least gracefully handle such situations. I fall into neither category and I am scared that someday I might go from painfully smiling and nodding to actually shouting "Shut up, shut up, shut UP" a la Chandler in Friends (see this clip to refresh your memory) :-(. I need to have some level of comfort and familiarity with a person before listening to (or telling) personal stories and feel very uncomfortable otherwise *sigh*!

Er..actually, I just have two rants for now - not that much of a misanthrope, huh!?! Cool :-D!

On a totally unrelated note, I recently rediscovered the joys of the famous Dil Se (or Uyire) song all over again. The beats, obviously, are great! However, I have never closely followed the lyrics before and recently did so. They are beautiful (btw, the Hindi lyrics are way better than the Tamil ones) .


Hehehe - and thus I created the opportunity to try out embedding a youtube clip on my blog :-D!

And in case you did not know about it, this song was used as a background for the opening credits in the movie Inside Man. Go ARR :-D
!

Brr

Till the time I was in India, I had always considered myself as very warm-blooded. As in, I never used to feel cold easily. My dad is like this and I guessed that I must have taken after him. Dad and me used to watch with smug faces while mum and sis piled on layer after layer of clothing in cold places. These opportunities for piling on clothes, however, were few and far in between. For most of my life before the US, we stayed in places where the weather was considered "cold" was when the temperature fell to around 22 degrees Celsius ( 72 degreees Farenheit). The only exceptions were when we lived Pune (which I don't remember due to being a baby then) and Calcutta (my visit to Darjeeling marks the first time my teeth chattered on their own due to the cold temparature).

Still, when it came to choosing colleges in the US for grad school, I tried to avoid will-snow-in-winter places as much as possible. Davis seemed like a good choice - after all California is supposed to ahve awesome weather, right? I landed here in the second week of September, 2001 - just the beginning of Fall season.

The very first night of stay in Davis, I needed a comforter to cover myself in order to keep warm. The next day, I wore a sweater to school. Yes, a sweater in September, when the sun was shining pretty merrily. I just couldn't stop feeling cold! As you can imagine, as the days went by, it only got worse. Where on earth had all my previous tolerance for cold disappeared to?

In the end of October 2001, another first in my life happened. I could not sleep due to the cold. For some reason, the heater in the apartment was not working for a few days and by sheer bad luck, those few days turned out to be unseasonally cold. To keep warm, when I went to bed, I wore two sweaters, two pants, socks, muffler, woollen cap, gloves and covered myself with a thick blanket and a comforter. I still shivered. That was when it hit me, I had been living under a major delusion all my life. My tolerance for cold temperatures had obviously never existed. I had no business saying I was very warm-blooded if couldnt stop shivering under multiple layers in snowless Davis.

At the end of my first quarter in Davis I went to Mt. Shasta with a bunch of friends. That was a very memorable trip - I touched snow for the first time in my life :-). I fell in love with the snow at first sight and had a slight twinge of regret that I had not chosen to study in a place which had more easy access to snow. That is, until I realized that snow made me feet feel damp *always*, made me feel cold *always* and made me feel like an astronaut with all the layers I wore *always*. I was one happy ducky when we bid adieu to the snow and returned to Davis.

Of my subsequent encounters with snow, the one in Yellowstone National Park was the worst. We camped in the snow (brilliant me was the great soul who had been the staunchest proponent of the camping idea) in sleeping bags and tents not equipped for cold weather. Needless to say, in a couple of hours, all of us had shifted from the tent to the mini-van and turned on the heater in an effort to not freeze and die.

With all these experiences under my belt, I try to stay away from really cold weather as much as I can. Northerners and Mid-westerners can call me wimpy but California is plenty cold enough for me, thank you!

Which is why, I am still wondering how on earth I booked tickets to visit my friend V in Chicago in the end of October. My brain which sometimes comes up with stunning pieces of logic had apparently reasoned that since it was fine weather when I booked tickets a month ago, it still should be fine when I actually travelled - smart!

Anyways, the net result is, I am heading out to Chicago this weekend. I am very excited about meeting V after ages. I will also get to meet his wife M finally :-). As an added bonus, M is apparently a great cook (yaaay :-D). On the flip side, even V, who has very good cold tolerance has warned me about the current cold spell in Chicago :-(!

I have dug out my thickest clothes and have packed multipe layers of everything. So, in the news, if you hear about a person closely resembling an Eskimo being spotted in the Chicago region, it is probably me. If you hear about someone who froze into an ice statue in Chicago, that is also probably me.

Adios for now! I shall give you cold weather survival tips when I get back to more human-habitable regions (i.e. bay area).

That picture shows the snow in the Bay Area mountains which I could see on my way to work at the beginning of this year. This extremely rare occurence of snow in this region was sufficiently far away from me - so I thoroughly enjoyed looking at it every morning while it lasted :-))!

Accent

On Friday, my friend V and me were talking about an upcoming opera performance. V and his friends were planning to go for it and he had invited me to join them.V was verbally going over the list of people who would be coming. I was simultaneously looking up something on my computer and was paying only half attention. The conversation between us went something like this:

V: And oh, I really hope J is able to make it.

Me (paying minimal attention): Um..

V: He's a great guy.

Me (automatically): Really?

V: He's very funny, you know! He has an awesome sense of humor!

Me (again, automatically): Um ..cool!

V: He's British right, so...

Me (perking my ears immediately): British?? Did you say BRITISH?

V: Yup!

Me (with shining eyes): Does he speak with a British accent?

V: Oh yeah, he does! In fact...

Me (interrupting excitedly): Oh, I really, really hope J turns up! I simply love listening to guys who speak with a British accent *drool*!

Why do I find men speaking with British accents so attractive? I have no clue! All I can think of is one of the Dilbert comic strips which has a female character going something like "That guy is fat, bald and ugly. But he speaks with a British accent - I find him so attractive"! I can so totally identify with that.

In fact, I remember actually having listened to a fat, bald and old* guy speaking with a British accent and thinking blissfully about how good he sounded! Mercifully, frequent reality checks consisting of looking at him brought me back to my senses. I think I am not alone in this - I know of other females having the same affliction when listening to British-accented guys!

Anyways, V then told me that he had no idea why I was so crazy about men who speak with a British accent. Apparently, it had no effect on him whatsoever. Then he added, "But yeah, women speaking with a British accent sound so incredibly sexy. You know Liz Hurley - she sounds so super sexy *drool*".

I have never consciously observed Liz Hurley speak, so I could not comment upon that. But I thought a bit and added "You know what, guys speaking with a British accent sound good. Women with British accents simply sound snooty"! V, of course, did not concur. After some more argument, we just agreed to disagree and moved on to other topics.

Then, on Saturday, while I was hiking with another friend D, out of the blue, this topic about accents popped into my head and I decided to take a opinion poll. I asked D what he thought about British accents. D said "Ohhh, I just love it when women speak with British accents. They sound so sexy!". Then he added, "But guys with British accents simply sound obnoxious"! LOL :-D! So I guess it is all a matter of perception!

So, how many of you find British accents attractive? And does it matter whether it is a male or a female using it?

Sign off comic - this wasn't the Dilbert comic-strip I had in mind but this one is close enough :-)!

* I have nothing against fat/bald/old/ugly men. Its just that, no matter how good they are otherwise, they usually do not fall into the eye-candy/drool-at-first-sight category.

Can't get it out of my head ...

... Keith Urban's You'll Think of Me.

I love that song - the lyrics, the singing, the music, everything! Especially the opening I woke this morning at 4.00am... before the refrain begins. If I had a chance, I would tape just that opening sequence alone and listen to it again and again. For the time being, I just have to wait for FM Star 101.3 to play it. And feel happy when it does come on!

Keith has got an amazing voice! And with that wonderful voice, he sings with great feeling. Sigh! Alright, I am a sucker for songs which sing of heart-break (another such song I love is Engey enathu kavithai from Kandukondein KanduKondein). In case you are wondering, no, listening to sad songs does not remind me of my heartbreaks. Nor do they make me sad. Just that somehow, I connect to some of those songs in some unexplainable way!

I had never heard of Keith Urban before. I heard this song and just had to find out who the singer was. Even now I have'nt gone out of my way to listen to any of his other songs. Right now, You'll think of me is enough to keep me mesmerized!

p.s. I found this site where you can listen to the song for free.

Small screen tasters

This morning I was watching one of those television ad programs for a product called "nicer-dicer". Now don't laugh! I do not have cable TV in my house and somehow I thought some Indian program was supposed to be on TV at that time - but apparently not. And I was too lazy to turn the TV off. Anyways, all that is besides the point.

So in that program, as is usual in paid advertising programs, there was the "dumb" person (a guy) who used ordinary knives to chop stuff and there was the "smart" nicer-dicer person (a lady) who used the nicer-dicer to help her in chopping. And the lady was educating the man on how to make cooking simpler. One of the sequences was "how to make salsa". So they chopped tomatoes, onions, cilantro and blah blah and hey presto, taaza-taaza, swadisht salsa was ready!

Then the guy that took out some tortilla chips, dipped it into the salsa, took a bite and went "Mmmmmm..." Now my question is, how is it that on every cooking show on television, whenever anyone tastes *any* dish, they always go "Mmmmmm". How is it that every dish made on TV always (supposedly) tastes wonderful, when in fact, some of the end results I have seen on some cooking shows looked downright repulsive. I am sure, on television, even if the taster is given hay topped with water, they would still appreciate it.

I would love to see at least one show where the taster spits out a bad-tasting dish with a nice "thoo". I would then know that they are finally being honest!

Save the trees !?!!

This morning I was paying the monthly bill for my SBC phone-DSL service on their website. Now, you might wonder why I need to pay for pathetic service like the kind I receive from SBC. But that is a whole different rant. Anyways, as soon as I logged onto their website, I was shown this big screen stating that I should switch to paperless bills. The page also said something about saving trees. My curiosity was piqued and I clicked the link. A cute screen with lots of cartoon trees popped up and asked me chose one of them. I chose a tree and a small note at the bottom displayed the tree's actual geographical coordinates and proudly proclaimed that it had been planted in October this year.

Wow! I was impressed. These people really meant what they said about saving trees. I thought I should sign up but did not as I could not find the link which confirmed that my switch would contribute to the tree-growth fund (which was what the cartoon trees were all about). The whole incident then slipped out of my mind.Till I returned home this evening.

I checked my postal mail-box as usual. A whole bunch of advertisement papers fell into my hands. After scanning through quickly to see if there were any envelopes caught in between, I tossed them all into the waste-basket without a second glance. Then it struck me. Wait a minute. I throw away bunches of useless paper away everyday and they seriously expect me to believe that my signing up to not receive the *two* papers that constitute my phone bill will save a forest?? I agree little drops of water make the ocean. But we are talking about a really miniscule drop in a really huge ocean.

If anyone is really serious about saving any kind of forest, the first thing to do would be to stop sending all these paper ads. Or at least send them only to people who are interested in receiving and reading them. The next thing would be to ban all credit card companies from mailing out offers. If I want a credit card, I will apply for one. A special ban must be put on the citicard group. I am not kidding - they sent me two credit card offers every week for a whole year. I have stopped receiving them recently only because they haven't located me yet at my new place. I have a lot more suggestions but the above-mentioned will be good for starters.

I doubt if any such ban will happen though. On one side all these self-righteous companies will urge to save two more pieces of paper and will plant trees. On the other side, a forest will vanish in less than the time it takes to say "tree" because some other company decided that everyone on earth has to be persuaded to own one of its credit cards. Is it just me or do others also feel that in a lot of cases, there is a lot of clean up done after the mess is made? Why not just stop making the mess in the first place? For example, why not just leave the tree as it is instead of turning it into paper first and then planting another tree in its place?

Fall Colors

I took these pictures of fall colors standing on my patio. People from the East Coast will probably ask what fall colors and then point at their computer screens and start laughing. But hey, this is California and I did not even have to step out of my house to see these lovely colors!

This tree is located right across my patio. I can see it from the drawing room.


These trees line one side of the road when I look out northwest from my house:


When I was small, I read in my geography text books that there are four seasons in a year: spring, summer, autumn and winter. However, in Chennai, all I got to see was summer and what may be loosely referred to as winter. Of course, flowers bloomed and leaves fell in Chennai too - but there was never a very obvious distinction between the seasons. So I always used to wonder when this mysterious spring and autumn happened - till I came to the US.

Finally I understand that the a year is divided into different seasons because there are distinctions between them and not simply because some geographer thought that it would be good fun to name every group of three months differently! And I also understand that sometimes my Geography text books taught me stuff which was not really relevant to the place I was living in!

Of course, California has a short spring/fall as compared to other places. Still, I like seeing the transition between seasons (as I like doing the clothes-shopping which I feel is necessary to welcome each season ;-)).

Smell for thought

Here is something to mull over. I recently read that in order for us to smell something, actual molecules of the thing we are smelling need to enter our nose. I did not know that! I mean, I knew that our nose interacted with the source of the smell in some way - but I did not imagine the connection would be quite so close as this. Interesting, huh?

Now, try to not remember this the next time you smell the spoilt milk or the stinky socks or the garbage or the ...

Now you know why!

I cribbed about moving in a previous post. Well, here are the pics from my move yesterday (btw, while I am at it, my friends were a GREAT help with the moving). The first one is the scene at my old house when I was almost done with all packing. The second one is the current state of my new house. Now I have to unpack, arrange everything and settle down. Its going to be a looooong week. Sigh! But yeah, at least I like my new place :-)!

Then:


And now:

Of languages and singers

One thing which annoys me a lot is this trend of getting non-Tamil-speaking singers to sing Tamil songs.Now don't get me wrong. I am all for national integration and the such. But I do draw the line at having to listen to miserable pronounciations when there are scores of singers who can do the singing with correct pronounciations. Yes, even if the non-tamil-speaking singer in question is so gifted that his/her voice sounds like honey. Every time he/she mis-pronounces a word, I can only hear the sound of fingernails scraping against a blackboard.

I have heard my parents complain about this from time to time. The first time I noticed it for myself was when I heard the "snehithiye" song from "Alaipayuthey". I thought that though the tune was nice, it sounded curiously clipped. It took a while before I realized that this sound-effect was caused due to Sadhana "lightly" pronouncing the words (to mask that she was not comfortable singing in Tamil?). Till date, I can't listen to the song without wondering how it would have sounded if someone else who was more familiar with Tamil had sung it. Apparently, not everyone shared my opinion. I am not sure if this is true or not, but I think that the popularity of this song heralded the era of getting non-Tamil-speakers to sing Tamil songs.

Most of the songs of "ayutha ezhuthu" were spoiled for me - I think the "sanda kozhi" song was the most terrible of the lot. I know there are a lot of Sadhana Sargam fans out there - in fact, I too think she sounds pretty decent in Hindi. But in Tamil, I really dont think that her voice is such great shakes that it enhances a song in any way. If ath, for me, bad-enunciation of words decreases the desirability of a song. And I am not even a tamil phonetics expert.

Oh there are other singers too. Everyone must have heard of the ruckus created over Udit Narayan's "kadhal pisasey" song in "Run". I remember Shreya Ghosal murdering some perfectly nice lyrics in the "Elangaathu" song in "Pithamagan". And they both are two of my most favorite singers when they sing in Hindi.

My contention here is not that non-Tamil-speakers should not sing Tamil songs. By all means, they should do so. After all, its a matter of pride when people whose mother tongue is not Tamil express the interest and desire to sing Tamil songs. But, is it unreasonable to request all such singers to make sure that they get their pronounciations right before standing in front of the microphone? I understand that for most people it is impossible to get every word right in an alien language (heaven knows how I have to specifically remember that Hindi differentiates between "th" and "tth" or how I struggle with the French "e") - still, should'nt at least the basic stuff be got right? Pronouncing "zha" as "la", "pani" as "panni" is really not acceptable. When you are singing in any language I do think its necessary to show respect to the sensibilities of the native speakers of the language.

Psychology Test!

Have you heard of this psychological test? One of the questions goes sth like "at which age would you like to remain for the rest of your life"? Apparently, if you say, "my current age" then you are very contented with your life as it is now. I wouldnt say my life as it is right now is terrible or ath like that. In fact, I think I am pretty much happy with the way things are right now. Even then, my answer (which, by the way, has been the same for a long time now) to the question will always be, "I would like to be 12 years old forever".

Because 12 years of age is when I started my 8th grade. And till today, I cant remember any other year in which I enjoyed *each and every* day SO much. And its not even like twinges of nostalgia have embellished that year with more charm than it actually had. I remember being aware that I was having a rip-roaring time even as I was experiencing it! A couple of my friends who were a part of the fun also confess that it was the single most memorable year of their life.

But why? I havent figured that one yet. Maybe it was coz we were young (true) and innocent (?!?) then. Maybe it was because we found fun and laughter in eth. Maybe because we enjoyed and cherished every single experience we had. I really cant say. All I do know is that no matter what the future holds for me, no matter what other memorable experiences I will get to go through, no other year can ever hold quite the same magic as the year when I turned 12! And thats why my answer to the psychology quiz question is always "12 years old".

On Blogging

There are some blogs that I try to visit regularly (yeah, including the ones on the right side). I am surprised how frequently and faithfully some of those people update their blogs. I only wish I could do the same - but knowing me, its probably not going to happen.

Since I was a kid, I have always prided myself on my writing capabilities. Many people, mostly family and friends, have told me that I do a fairly decent job at writing engaging stuff. I was always under the impression that writing was my "special" gift, given that yours truly has vocal chords that reach the zenith of their talents while singing in the bathroom, drawing skills which last won a prize in third grade, instrument playing capabilities limited to impatient drumming while waiting and so forth. And so, every time I was down, I reminded myself that I was not so unspecial.

That is, until I got introduced to the e-world of bloggers. I am amazed at the number of people who have the knack of writing well. Many blogs are very interesting, entertaining and make compelling reads. And to think that most of them are written by amateur writers. My never-been-strong confidence that I am a "good" writer is now thoroughly shaken. But actually, I dont mind mind too much. After all, reading is my first love and I am thrilled by the availability of new avenues for pursuing my favorite hobby. Of course, I also get the added bonus of appreciating and learning from a wide variety of writing styles!

Vive les blogs!