Teething troubles

I am back in India for a month long, well deserved vacation. Its nice to be home again after one whole year!

My mandatory yearly visit to the dentist revealed "impacted wisdom teeth". I've got one extracted and am writhing in a constant flood of pain ameliorated only through a battery of pain killers! Owww!!

"Extraction of the third molar" my dentist called it. I call it "forcefully pulling a part of my skull through my mouth under local anesthesia which was rather suspect". Call it what you want, it hurts like h*ll as soon as the anesthesia wears out. Double owww!!

I came home to India, a week back from Houghton (in the Upper Peninsula of MI) with the hope of sinking my teeth into the type of delectable Indian food that I live without for a large part of the year. However, a visit to the dentist dashed all such hopes of gooey gluttony! However, I face the truth with sutures in my mouth that exist in place of insalubrious third molar, that if I don't get my wisdom tooth (third molar) removed, I would face Hades itself!

The rather overly enthusiastic dentist also proposed the removal of three more third molars and I disposed of his macabre proposal with a swift but effective "not today" quip! However, I do realize that I will need to get rid of the other three third molars over a period of time. I dread the next extraction which is due sometime in the next 1-2 years or so!

Ye old music of 90s'

As of today, it is 171st day of 2009 and the music occupying my play-list is dominated by the likes of Tiesto, ATB, Paul Oakenfold, David Guetta, Rammstein, Nickelback, Pussycat dolls, Black Eyed Peas -- I am grooving to the music of the times, essentially. All with certain a common characteristic: appealing basslines.

I can't help but think of how I've evolved to the current strata that I exist on. My attention turned the 90s'. The time when *we* used to groove to music as if it were an occupation.The time during which Bryan Adams, ATC, La Bouche, Depeche Mode, Aqua, The Vengaboyz, Real McCoy, Mr President (of Coco Jambo fame), Whigfield and even Madonna and the usual slew of boybands (Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, 'NSync, 5ive), and how could I forget the Ubiquitous Spice girls, were hip and hot!

How in the world did I make the transition from the 90s' to the 2000s'??? I can't quite seem to figure out the math or whatever it is that would like these two quite disparate genres: on one side we have the 90s', the uber-hippy era, the era of experimentation like never before (as far as the music scene was concerned), the era that saw boybands rule the world! On the other side we have the 2000s': Heavy basslines, flashing lights, lyrics with heavy overtones of expletives, ditties that are over 5-6 minutes long (ala Tiesto, V-Sag, Paul Oakenfold...).

There was a Rock/Metal period between these two eras, sometime in the late 90s' early 2000s' that had me listening to Metallica-esque bands. I don't think I should go much further with this little dissertation of mine as I wouldn't be doing the music of the 90's and that exists now any justice by putting it in a blog that is intended to capture your attention in a world where the general attention span is about



Get it?!

And another thing...

I am quite excited that Eoin Colfer will be continuing with the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series with a sixth book titled "And another thing...". It will be interesting to see how Eoin Colfer continues on with the somewhat legendary H2G2 series originally created by the eminent Douglas Adams. I am looking forward to the books release in October this year.

I have been an avid follower of Colfer's "Artemis Fowl" series and going by the edge of the seat writing style utilized, "And another thing..." promises to be a good book.

Study A Broad!!!

I am sure that avid readers of my blog, who by the way throng all around my house with pitchforks and torches as I haven't had the chance to put in a decent blog for a while, would agree that 'broad' is a rather derogatory term to have on a family friendly blog like mine. However, I will justify my non-PC** choice of title.

I've been reading newsprint for quite a while now and a large number of them have the occasional advertisement that valiantly tries to incite people into "Studying abroad". I notice that a large number of these advertisements usually feature the picture of a shapely young woman (Broad [derogatory] for woman). Why is this so?

Are they trying to beguile the naive reader into moving abroad with hopes of actually actually bumping into the afore-mentioned charming Chiquita (Chiquita [derogatory] slang for chick [derogatory] slang for attractive girl)?


Is that why you moved abroad Jeremy***??





**non-PC: Non-Politically Correct
*** Jeremy: Smashed guy by the name of Jeremy who if reads this blog when high might actually freak out.

Ad...verse!

I've been watching the Champions League semi final between Arsenal and Manchester Utd for the last 45 minutes or so. The point that irks me is not Manchester Utd poised to travel to Rome but the fact that there have been 6 advertisement breaks in the 10-15 minute half time break! Is is just me or are 6 advertisements in 15 minutes a bit much?

Penguins and apples

Thanks to the surfeit of bad reviews that exist for Windows Vista, I bought myself a Macbook 13.3 with OS X on it to replace my ailing Inspiron B130 that served me faithfully for over two years with two operating systems on it: the ever so dependable and probably Microsoft's best OS -- Win XP and Fedora Linux.

Pseudopodia

From my rare glance at the Indian Premier League and the cricketing world, I couldn't help notice that the bevy of cheerleaders, the very same ones who gyrate to music every time the ball reaches the boundary (as it does ever so often in cricket...) have a very in your face attitude and quite literally too!

These cheerleaders up on their respective podia when prompted by some sort of a prompter every single time a notable cricketing event occurs in the match and pirouette around. I have no problem with them gyrating but I am sure the people who are there to actually watch the match would for these young women are a mere couple of feet away and also elevated (as a result of the podium). They must be getting in the line of sight of the people who've paid good money to watch cricket

... or are they?!?

Blogger for hire??

We are the strange, pretty certainly! There are people who claim to make around $3000 a year, at least!! Who would have thought that blogging would be as lucrative as being a funded graduate student! At least, I never thought son. I however am a traditionalist who still believes that blogging and grad school aren't real jobs although I belong to the latter category.

Don't get me wrong. I read as many blogs as the number of books I read (more about this later) and I enjoy what both parties have to offer (the said parties being blogs and books). However, some blogs seem to be more gripping than their paperback counterparts as blogs are more personal and are written by people who are affected by circumstances which inspire them to spill their beans in blogs! So can blogs be termed non-fiction? Some of them can. Mine is definitely a good contemporary non-fiction read!

Here is an article I found today. According to Wall Street Journal, there are 450,000 people who are employed by the blogging "industry". The operative word here is actually the double quotes on either side of industry!