Random impeccably

dressed women who get into the elevator on the second floor and grin at me, why do u keep doing that. I am assuming that ur a HR person who has come to interview people. But is it written in ur job requirement that you will grin and say hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii to every goddamn person on the planet with a look of happiness as if u have found ur long lost son after 20 years. I can understand u being nice to formally dressed students as they may be interviewing for ur company.But the way I dress, there is no way ur mistaking me for a possible interviewee

A new low!!!!!

I always find it difficult to say something nice when i accidently run into people whom i dont meet often. There has been numerous times in the past when I end up asking something stupidly obvious in the process. Today i was shopping at HEB when I accidently ran into a couple Mr.and Mrs.X I had not seen in 2 years. Both of them were family friends of one of my high school friend. Mrs.X was pregnant when I had last seen her. Now she had a child in her arms. I suddenly saw them as I was turning the aisle, we were face to face. I went on an elongated Heeeey.Both of them did the same. Then i thought I need to say something. So I pointed at the baby and went " Yours?".There was silence for a few seconds and both Mr. and Mrs.X comprehended the stupidity of my question.Of course it was there's. I knew at that point once again I had made a blunder and this time it was new low. After a few seconds Mrs.X went yes with a slight grin on her face. We then did the usual "howz ur work" blah blah blah. During the conversation i could read their mind thinking of rude responses to my stupid question. Hell no F** Face, thats not ours, we just picked him up from the baby aisle next to the chicken aisle. Luckily they did not say anything rude.I guess they realised that there was nothing they could say to prolong my humiliation. U dont get lower than that.i am sure right now my question is being passed on to numerous of his/her colleagues and friends.Even when they were leaving they waved at me from the car grinning. I can bet a 1000 bucks on what they were discussing when they saw me.

Some times I think that I shud come up with standard dialogues under such circumstances and I know people who do it too. but somehow i hate that.Feels so fake.But after tonite's incident i am reconsidering that.

My ability to obssess

I seem to have lost it and I desperately need it back.I was never the brightest in terms of actual intelligence in my high school class. However,one of the main reason I maintained above average grades was, during that time I had the ability to obssess about any task. The ability to think about a topic day in day out night after night till I solved it. I never needed coffee to keep me awake during those times. When I was in the zone, I could think about a topic while taking a
shower, playing cricket, watching TV,cooking. In the process I have burned myself making tea, mildly electrocuted, almost got run over by a bike and of course bump into infinite people and objects.I was slowly getting it back couple of months ago when I was working on one of my dissertation problems. But a series of non research issues with respect to the topic, broke all my interest in the paper. I was not able to think about it for an hour let alone a day. I thought I will take a break from the topic and come back at it after a month or two and now I am stuck in the same state. I am working hard, spending a lot of time in the lab but still not able to obssess about it enough to make it into a good paper. I remember my advisor telling me about how he used to think about some of the proofs all the time and about how he made a breakthrough once in the kitchen.I need to get into that mode and I need to do it fast!!!

On a totally unrelated note, the more I learn about Muhammad Yunus,Nobel Peace Prize winner 2006, the more I am impressed with him. His theory of Microcredit for the poor, which breaks every rule in banking is simply amazing. Add to that his modesty and simple demeanour. As Jon Stewart rightly said, it is the simplicity of the scheme which makes it truly brilliant.
Next time I visit the bookstore I need to remind myself to purchase Banker to the Poor.

mutha ****** snake on a plane

King cobra in plane

NT Bureau
Chennai, July 13:

A king cobra was found in a parcel on an aircraft from Ethiopia that landed here.

The workers without knowing it was a king cobra killed the reptile, and this led to tension for a while.

The men had loaded the parcels from the aircraft which arrived from Ethiopia and towed it to the section, when they sighted the snake escaping from inside a bundle.

The workers chased and killed the snake which was later known to be a king cobra. It was not known whether the snake had sneaked in from Ethiopia or already was in the cargo section.

http://www.newstodaynet.com/13jul/rf2.htm

Me talk pretty one day versus running with scissors

Lots of people have compared the style of Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris.In fact any review of the above two books will invoke the name of the other author.However, I dont think they are similar at all. In fact the only similarities between the two authors is that they are gay and they write memoirs of their childhood and teen life. Sedaris is more direct and more funny.Augusten Burroughs version is a much more darker version of David Sedaris.Running with scissors is like a car wreck on the road.Everybody slows down and peers out and then exclaims I wish I had not seen that.However,that never stops them for taking a peek when they see the next accident. While reading me talk pretty I burst out laughing at numerous places. However, I felt that me talk pretty was a bit of a drag in the middle portions. Even though running with scissors did not make me laugh, the story was a bit more gripping. I think running with scissors has a higher average while me talk pretty has a higher peak in terms of entertainment value. Part of the reason I feel is that me talk pretty was a collection of random incidents with no continuity in between. I feel Running with Scissors had more continuity between sections.The helplessness augusten feels because of a disfunctional childhood is more apparent in Running with Scissors. All in all I think both are very very good books. Sedaris is an author whom I would recommend to everyone.If u have the stomach for some extremely dark reading then try Running with Scissors.

Souvenir Pics

Last week i visited New york and like most other tourist decided to go to the observation desk on top of the Empire state building. On the 80th floor before one climbs the elevator to go to the observation desk, there was a photo shoot opportunity. These are available at all famous landmarks where they take a picture of you with a green background and then superpose your image in a beautiful view of the landmark. I was under the impression that they would make the picture realistic and thats what the guard also told me. The picture cost 20 bucks and most of us assumed that they would superpose our pic on a beautiful view from the top of the empire state which our point and shoot digital cameras would not capture. Also we could pay the money after we saw the final product and therefore all of us were excited by the arrangement.Finally when we entered the photo room to see the final product our jaws dropped.Right there on the wall
was a photo of me hovering in mid air near the top of the empire state building.Also I was half as tall as the building.Trust me, that was the funniest pic of myself , me and my friends had ever seen. And there many other tourist who were laughing looking at their pics.



Considering the fact that the pic cost 20 bucks is it too difficult to make the pic look slighty believable. I took a proof version of the pic and showed to my labmates. We felt that if this could be considered a souvenir pic then we should start an entire range of souvenir pics. So here it goes my first attempt. Me and couple of my labmates vacationing in Egypt.Click on the pics for a clearer version

I achieved one of my life's dreams today

Back in Undergrad we used to have a lot of tough mid terms and finals which I could not finish even if i had an extra 30 minutes. But when the prof used to say 30 minutes remaining, there was always one guy who used to slowly walk and submit the paper with a confident look on his face. The guy used to stand there for 5 minutes joke around with the prof and walk away with a bored look stating this was easier than high school math. That guy used to strike panic in the hearts of the other students who were struggling to finish 50 % of the paper. Note it was not the same guy in every exam.
I always wanted to be that guy but never did.Today I was that guy.Aha. When the prof said 15 minutes left I slowly ambled to the prof with a bored/confident look and then submitted the paper. Immediately atleast half a dozen econ grad students looked at me with a dazed look as the paper was really tough. What made the experience even more sweeter was the fact that I was royally fried in this paper and I decided to leave as I was 100 % confident that I would not answer a single question even If i had sat there for 10 hours.