Ever had your heart broken? Ever felt like it was not only, broken but it had been shot, sliced & ripped apart from your chest? Yeah you have? Well join the fucking club!

I’ve been heart broken a few times, had a long term relationship slowly deteriorate and die about as painfully as possible. I still have the scars and bruises (metaphorically speaking). I have had a situation where someone liked me and I liked her back but because of multiple issues we both left it unspoken and I kinda found out about her side a month after she left the country. Good call.

I’ve also recently harboured strong feelings for a colleague for over a year and kept it well hidden (or so I thought) only for her to call my bluff two nights before she was to leave the company and head back to her family. The morning she was leaving, she called me from the airport she cried and actually said that she shared the same feelings but then she went cold once she reached back home and we fought and haven’t spoken since. I was devastated for a while and couldn’t think of anything else for months.

I also fear that I will end up alone and not know the comfort of a loving relationship with a woman and will likely never get married or have a partner.

Inspite of this I still think that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. It makes you stronger, it’s part of what being a human is and what life is about and even though it hurts, I guess if I do finally get married it will make me be that much more sincere & genuine with my woman and never ever think of taking her for granted.

For quite a few years now, I barely use pen & paper unless it is for attending a training of some kind. As a rule, I always carry a pen with me at all time when I go out. For work, I carry two pens, one black & one blue, and a diary. You will find an assortment of pens and atleast 3 notepads and 2 diaries in various stages of being used inside the drawers of my desk at work. Every Jan 1st I get a brand new diary for that calendar year for taking down notes and stuff. I scribble ideas, points for later reference, important information and sometimes even hastily read out numbers and phone numbers too.

As a rule, pens are the most unsafest things in our office and I suppose in the last offices that I have worked at as well. I must have lost atleast 50 to 70 each year that I have been in this office – 2007 till date. For a while I only bought he cheapest brands of ball pens in order to keep the cost to a minimum but someone still ends up stealing them. Or borrowing them and not returning/forgetting to return them. Most of the time even I forget who borrowed my pen and thus end up at the end of the day pen-less.

But I use pens & paper quite less and less as each year passes by. Atleast I and my team take a lot of printouts at work and hence use up a few bundles of A4 paper every month. But the art of writing in a book or paper is dwindling for me as I prefer using the computer. From the age of 15 till 23 I used to maintain a journal and write a few sentences each day (the original form of this blog). I find that my hand starts to tire or cramp up after writing for a bit. And I usually end up losing the paper/book and then have to start all over again. This is not so when using the lappy and hence the preference.

Buy a home
Buying your own home must rank high on most guys’ minds. Certainly on a lot of women as well. And I’m no different. I would prefer an apartment for myself a big three bedroom apartment, 10th story or above, a big balcony, kitchen, with one bedroom converted into a den/home office for me, one guest bedroom and the master bedroom. A section of the living room for guests who come in and a separate alcove for watching my giant LCD tv.

Get married
A man needs a maid. I can’t put it anymore clearer than that.My home wouldn’t be complete without a loving woman to come to every evening. I want to find my life partner and get married to her as soon as possible. I don’t like big weddings so I’d prefer a small function.

Attend a big international rock festival
Music is my life, my life is music. I want to see my favourite bands perform live on stage in a series of concerts as part of a huge rock music festival that lasts for a week. KEEP ON ROCKING IN THE FREE WORLD!!

Be the first human to welcome an alien race to eath
I’m taking my cue from ‘Zephram Cochran’s’ first contact with the Vulcans when they landed on earth and met humans for the first time. Star Trek forever!

I want to have the perfect happy moment right before I die
The content of a man who knows that he has no regrets and nothing more to achieve. The perfect moment where everything collides and nothing else matters. That one minute in time where you attain bliss & perfection & total harmony with the rest of the universe. I want that just before I pass away.

I don’t know if you’d call it a a pick-up line per se, it’s more like a flirtatious & harmless little line that always seems to do the trick for me as far as breaking the ice and making a girl laugh and open up to me. The last few times I have used it has had tremendous effect and I know that this seems to be a memorable line for them women who I have used it. So what’s my favourite line:

“Do  you know that you’re so angry when you’re beautiful?”

I’ve tried this over the phone, face to face in person with women and it’s guaranteed to get me a laugh and quite a few smiles. I usually do this during a little flirting session or even when we are casual chatting. Even did it once during a mild argument and the effect was fabulous. The woman who was arguing with me, a friend & colleague, stopped as if she was hit by lightning as soon as she heard me say the words, I could see her trying in vain to hold back her laughter but I could see the twinkle in her eyes. I then winked at her and smiled and watched in pleasure as she laughed out loud and pinched my cheek and said that I was impossible!

• I finally have my whole team back in the office. One fellow was on deputation in our TN office for a month and he reached back here on Saturday. Another was in Bangalore for a few days and a third is just back from a 10 day leave, during which she was also laid up in a hospital due to viral fever. Feels so good to have all 6 together at the same time.
• With them coming back in I also feel that things will be a lot more easier on me and at the same time we will have lots to do as well. I’m fine with that as long as I have people free to do stuff.
• Nice long day at the office today without any issues to sort out. 3 hour meeting. Got some stuff done.
• Left the office late today and got a ride till Edapally kavala. I had to wait a while for a bus to come along, so I also stopped to get a very cold Sharjah shake. It gave me brain freeze.
• There were exactly 9 very drunks mofos in the bus. It was about 9 pm when I boarded it and I was so annoyed at the racket that they were making. So were the other passengers from the dirty looks they gave those 9 idiots.
• While having a quick dinner of appam & potato curry, I watched another awesome episode of Criminal Minds, fast becoming one of my favourite shows of all time. The only thing I have against this show is that they don’t spend much time on character building.
• I’m also helping a friend of a friend buy a laptop with the exact specifications that he wants and for the cheapest possible rates currently available in the city. It’s also fun doing shopping and bargaining for a laptop even if it isn’t for you.

I really had to get out and spend some time by myself and clear my head. Things have come to a head at the office and I’m always thinking about the major issue that I currently have in my work & office and the hostility that is brewing and making it difficult to work. Worrying about all this stuff does take a toll on you and I needed to not think about it for a few hours and enjoy myself. Although I woke up early and was feeling lazy and comfortable sitting in my room in the cold, I decided that I would go out.

By 12 pm I was showered, shampooed and ready to  go out. It had been raining for most of the morning but it stopped around the time I went down in the elevator, so I didn’t bother to take an umbrella. As soon as had I stepped out on the road it started to rain again. I hailed an auto and went to Shenoy’s junction. In the same building as Planet M, there’s a small book store that sells second hand books and I browsed through their selection on three rows. Ahead of me was the dusky looking babe with a nice figure so I had something to ogle at while I pretended to look at book titles.  The tight pants sure does help!

Selecting two books for myself, The Last Juror by John Grisham & The Guest Of Honor by Irving Wallace, I paid for them and then went over to Cafe Coffee Day where I had a choco frappe and relaxed. I spent about 90 minutes there sipping the frappe and reading the Grisham novel. It’s really good by the way and I’ll post a review on it soon. I was thoroughly enjoying the book and it was 2 pm by the time I paid for the coffee and left to go to Oberois bar. I ordered a beer and a plate of Chopsuey. I really like the American Chopsuey as it has most of my favourite stuff in it – a bulls-eye egg, oodles of noodles, small pieces of beef, chicken and shrimp mixed in along with veggies like carrots, green peppers, cauliflowers & tomatoes. I continued to eat my food, drink my beer while I read the novel.

Soon the first beer was all gone and I ordered another one. There wasn’t much of a crowd in the bar as it was late afternoon and pretty soon it was quite. A small group of 4 men came in around the time the waiter got me the second beer and then asked the bar owner if he could turn down or switch off the air conditioner as the oldest man in their group wasn’t keeping well! Why would you bring the poor bastard into a bar you moron? And then inconvenience the other patrons of the bar by asking to switch the ac off? Idiots. Fortunately the bar owner gave them a separate table at the other end where the ac’s effects would be very marginal.

By 4:30 I left the bar and took an auto home and was soon lying on my bed watching some tv series. The plan worked, I feel a lot more relaxed and I’m not too worried about stuff for the moment. More relaxation on Sunday to follow.

When I was 14 I was punished for a crime (in the eyes of the school principal) that I did not commit. On the last day of school (grade 9), a bunch of us wanted to go out to the town post the final exams and watch a movie together. Usually on the last school day we don’t wear our uniforms and come dressed in jeans and t-shirts or any other casual wear. However that year the principal declared that the students must wear their uniforms on the last day. Now we didn’t want to go to the theatre in our uniforms, so we had an idea. All the guys who were to go for the movie would pack our jeans and a shirt in our school bags and once the school was over we would go to the back and change into the casual clothes and then go for the movie.

This seemed like a good plan and we went to write our final exams the last day. Now grade 9 students had only 1 exam paper that day and the rest of the day was free for us. We spent the afternoon chatting and spending time with our teachers. Now there was construction being done on the second floor of our school and some of my friends & I went to check out that area. We were soon told by the principal’s clerk that none of us were to be there and to come down immediately. We all did —but some of my friends had an idea to smoke. So a little later they went back up. I wasn’t with them but I had left my school bag with them. I was in the school grounds with some other classmates a little while later when I saw that those friends of mine were running towards the back gate of the school and they looked like they were running for their lives. As they passed me by, one of them yelled out to be ‘bag, bag’! I couldn’t make out the rest.

I went back into the school building and looked around for my bag. I found it in front of the principal’s office lying in a heap along with some other bags. Not knowing what the issue was, I took my bag and went back to the students I was talking with. A little later a clerk called me to the principal’s office and I was confronted by the bitch. She was quite angry and explosive and yelled at me. She demanded that I give her my bag. I said that it was mine but she thought that I was handing out the bags of those friends of mine who had ran away – they had ran because the principal had caught them smoking and standing in the section of the building where she had earlier forbidden us to be in! I didn’t know that but stood by my claim that this was my bag and I was just taking back what was mine.

She slapped me across the face. Hard, it stung like a bastard for most of the day. I went back to my teachers who knew that I was innocent. A couple of them even went to the principal and explained to her that I didn’t do anything wrong and went only to get my bag. The fucking woman (and I use that term lightly) refused to listen and confiscated my bag and said that I wouldn’t get it back. Even after I named all the items in it & described them to her she still refused to give it back to me. I was furious and it was only my favourite teachers who could console me. I went back home and explained the situation to my folks who spoke to the principal a few days later at her house. By then she understood that I was innocent but her fucking pride prevented her from saying so. She laughed with my parents and said that ‘oh I know he is a good boy”! Bitch.

The next year, grade 10 and the final year of high school for us I got my bag back from her. At the time she said “Oh I admire your patience and your control. You never came to ask it back from me”. Yeah you old hag; also admire the fact that I so controlled my temper and didn’t knock you back flat on your arse. To my surprise, she also wanted to make me a school leader (one of 4 that takes charge of school activities and stuff) and I did get selected. I would rather have gladly arranged her funeral.

Anyway, of you are still alive you bitch, for this and for all the other shit that you have done to the students, I hope you die slowly and painfully and I also hope that you rot in hell.

Last night I had one of the biggest shocks of my life. I was sitting at my desk using the laptop at about 10:45 pm and felt something on my left leg. I was wearing a brand new lungi (dhoti) and since it was rather stiff (brand new lungis are always stiff until the first couple of washes) and laying rather heavy against my leg, I thought that’s what it was. Then I moved the cloth away slight and saw something move onto the table. It was a huge spider!

Not just any ordinary spider, a huge mutherfucka of a monster and boy was it ugly & mean looking. Disgusted I pushed my chair away and yelled out. It moved towards the wall and the door. I couldn’t let the bastard escape. I looked around for something to beat it with and found a Rolling Stone magazine from 2009 and picked it up and charged at the spider—–only to leap back as the sonofabitch had leaped at me. I folder the magazine and beat the stupid spider 3 times and killed it, squashed against the floor. Dead, the bastard was dead!

I cleared the carcass of the dead spider & then washed my hands & feet with soap but going to sleep was a big problem. I kept thinking about the spider and whether it had some friends nearby and would I be visited by them soon. I tried watching some tv series to take my mind of the creature but it was of no use. I kept imagining a similar sized spider climbing my bed and crawling under the sheets to get to me. So I tried reading and fell asleep with the lights on.

I knew that I wouldn’t get much rest until the room was thoroughly cleaned and swept, so I had a cleaning lady move the bed aside and clear the entire place and move a cartoon of clothes (perfect hiding place for monsters) off to storage. The spider most probably came from outside the building, through an open window but I wasn’t taking any chances. The room looks much cleaner now anyway and so does the rest of the apartment.

BTW the perfectionist blogger in me was so upset that I couldn’t get a photo of the spider to show it to you on this post. But believe me – it was like it crawled its away from a Discovery channel special on arachnids!

I found this very personal meme at Over Cups Of Coffee and found it interesting. Although she didn’t tag me, I liked it so much that I just had to try it out.

1. How did you get one of your scars? I fell from the stairs in the apartment building I lived in. I was 5 years old and hit my head on something sharp. There’s 5 stitches as a memento from that time and scar.
2. How did you celebrate your last birthday? I got pasted on the face with birthday cake at the office. That was followed by a nice dinner that I treated my team to at a Barbecue joint.
   
3. How are you feeling at this moment? Tired, lonely and sleepy.
4. How did your night go last night? As last night marked the end of an intense 6 day week with lots of overtime and stress, I came home had a light dinner, watched a little football and fell fast asleep by 11pm.
5. How did you do in high school? I did ok. Highschool here in India at that time (early 90s) was mostly 13-15 as after the 10th grade you go to college for a Pre-degree course, now mostly done in schools only a the 11th & 12h grade. 9th and 10th grades were above average but my 8th grade I was a real rebel and had little interest in school.
6. How did you get the shirt you’re wearing? Not wearing one right now.
7. How often do you see your best friend(s)? Not often enough. It’s more like once a month.
   
8. How much money did you spend last month? 9k went for the second installment of my new lappy. I ended up spending about Rs.14k more on various stuff.
9. How old do you want to be when you get married? 28-30. I’m 34 now Yeah, very lonely and waiting for my dream woman.
   
10. How old will you be at your next birthday? 35 but I will always be 18 in my mind.
    

1. Your mothers name? A. Rema Devi Gopal
   
2. What did you do last weekend? Went out for coffee and read a book while I was there in the coffeeshop and spent a long time there. Then it was vodka & lunch at my favourite bar. Came home and slept most of Sunday away.
   
3. What is the most important part of your life? Hmmm, work, my friends & family, music
4. What would you rather be doing? I’d like to have a go at the wine industry
   
5. What did you last cry over? My best friend at the office and second in command leaving the company. We were both crying.
6. What always makes you feel better when you’re upset? Listening to music, watching my fav shows, a good meal or drinks, the little things my team members do to make me happy.
   
7. What’s the most important thing you look for in a significant other? Honesty, genuine love & affection and the ability to withstand my wild sexual urges . No, really I mean it!
   
8. What are you worried about? Lack of money, the fact that I’m no where close to being happy, the fact that time’s kinda running out on me finding a bride.
   
9. What did you have for breakfast? Oh, big breakfast today. Dosa, podi, boiled bananas, banana chips, fried bananas in jaggery & coffee.
   

1. Have you ever liked someone who had a girlfriend/boyfriend? Yeah a couple of times. A married woman or two
   
2. Have you ever had your heartbroken? Whoa. Ok pick a number between 1 and 10.
   
3. Have you ever been out of the country? I was born and raise in Kuwait until I was 11 and once been to the UK.
   
4. Have you ever done something outrageously dumb? Too many to post here
   
5. Have you ever been back stabbed by a friend? Yes. They are no longer my friends.
   
6. Have you ever had sex on the beach? No. But I would like to.
7. Have you ever dated someone younger than you? I’m a guy and yeah mostly the women I’ve dated were younger than me. Two were older, one by 13 years.
   
8. Have you ever read an entire book in one day? More than once…

1. Who was the last person you saw? A neighbour who entered the elevator along with me.
   
2. Who was the last person you texted? My sister. Yeah I have such an exciting social life
   
3. Who was the last person you hung out with? A buddy from my days in NIIT last Sunday
4. Who was the last person to call you? My sister again. I’m so outgoing
   
5. Who did you last hug? My buddy on Sunday. It was more like a brief shoulder hit.
   
6. Who is the last person who texted you? A member of my team
   
7. Who was the last person you said “I love you” to? It’s been a while. But in a platonic sense, I think it must be my team members.
   

1. Where does your best friend(s) live? One in Thrissur (works in Cochin) and the other near the Cochin University
   
2. Where did you last go? Fridgehouse to look at tvs.
   
3. Where did you last hang out? Friday after work at Coffee Beanz for an hour.
   
4. Where do you go to school?
5. Where is your favorite place to be? My bed,  guess
   
6. Where did you sleep last night? In my bed. Where did you think?

1. Do you think anyone likes you? Not sure, seems like she does and I do too but we haven’t spoken about it
2. Do you ever wish you were someone else? All the time. Like the words to Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night by Bon Jovi goes “I wish that I could be in some other time & place, with someone else’s soul and someone else’s face”
   
3. Do you know the muffin man? No but he works at the coffeeshop
   
4. Does the future scare you? All the time
   
5. Do your parents know about your blog? Yes but they haven’t read it yet
   

1. Why are you best friends with your best friend? Because they just are. They care about me and I about them
   
2. Why did you get into Blogging? I like to write and I like having a website/blog to share stuff
   
3. Why did your parents give you the name you have? A nurse at the hospital I was born in suggested it to my mom. She was wise. The nurse that is!
   
4. Why are you doing this survey? It’s Sunday evening and I have nothing else to do
   

1. If you could have one super power what would it be? The power to create things with just my  mind
   
2. If you could go back in time and change one thing, would you? There’s way too many things. For just some of them read a previous post
   
3. If you were stranded on a deserted island and could bring 1 thing, what would you bring? A gun. If I was stranded and had no way off the island I’d rather kill myself.
   

1. Would you ever get back together with any of your ex’s if they asked you? No
2. Would you ever shave your head to save someone you love? In a heartbeat

1. Are you happy with your life right now? No and where do I begin?

I would like to tag Meleah, Selma, Anick, Jessica & Lady Banana. Anyone else wanting to take this tag on, go ahead!

A few months ago my parents declared that they wanted to get a new television. The old BPL tv that we had was getting very outdated. They wanted an LSD tv. The damn things cost a lot and it was outta my dad’s budget as well as mine. I ruled it out. Then the BPL tv blitzed out and after trying to get it repaired a couple of times, we knew that it was dead. The immediately easy solution was an even older tv, but one which was still working, than an uncle of mine gave me.

This old Sony became the tv on which we watched all our programs in the apartment. It’s 22 inches, bulky and you can’t tune S band channels on it. So that means losing out on some of the better channels that my cable company provides us. I get some good channels but it isn’t enough. I started watching tv lesser and lesser anyways. My parents now really wanted the LCD tv or atleast a brand new big tv. I was like “for watching your stupid Idea Star Singer shitty song contest with that idiot host and dumb judges and really worthless religious minded tv serials with acting abilities of donkeys?”

So buying a new tv was kept on hold for a long time. Now they seem to want one. Yesterday my sister and mother went to a huge store that has a lot of tv sets on display – LCD and other wise. The prices are about as big as the damn tv themselves. I can’t afford a big (read 29 inches and above) LCD tv at the moment. I just can’t. A 22 in tv seems to be within range and I could stretch the bank balance and get it in a few days. I went to check out a few tvs in a store near here and the 22 inch ones look good but if you are buying a new tv than I guess 29 inches is a minimum. So I’m not sure. I’ll go out tomorrow and check out some more stores and then select one model. Don’t know if I can afford a big LCD tv but we’ll see.

I haven’t a trained a batch in over a year.  June 2009 was the last time that I had conducted a Preprocess training for a batch of new inductees to the call center where I work. That time and this time now the reason why I am stepping in away from my normal profile of managing the training department and handling a batch is that my other trainers are occupied elsewhere and a new batch has come in. As  have only two Preprocess trainers and both are tied up, I had to step in.

I love training and especially when the batches begin to respond to me. I have a batch of 19 new joinees that got inducted to the company yesterday and I started training for them today. 7 girls and 12 boys, out which most were born in 1988-89; just two exceptions who are a bit more older. I looked at the excel sheet that contains their details and I see DOB as 1989 and I wonder; 1989? I had my first real big crush at the age of 13 back in 1989? Sheesh, that makes me feel ancient.

Anyways, I did enjoy the training for the most part. None of them seem particularly disinterested, ill-disciplined, problematic or antagonistic to me. I had their attention for the most part and had them rolling in their seats with laughter at my witty jokes. Ok, my jokes are pretty dumb and some of them are now old (I try to keep the jokes limited to the kind of work in particular and the things that I remember happening to me & my colleagues when I was a call center rep). But they were into it. I organized a couple of activities, the second of which had me give out kitkats to the winning group. I promised them more goodies during the course of the 5 day training program. I look forward to the next four days.

Ventriloquism is an art, rather than a skill, that I would dearly love to master. After playing an instrument like the guitars, drums or piano, this is the next biggest thing I’ve always wanted to learn how to do. This is a fascination that started as I was a little boy and watched my first tv special which featured a ventriloquist and if I’m not mistaken it was on a Paul Daniel’s special.

Since then the ventriloquists of this world, or rather only the good ventriloquists, have held me enthralled by their talents. I can’t remember his name, but this black dude with a black dummy had me in splits with his act – they have a baseball dialogue which was so confusing & hilarious that I still like to this day.

Over the years I’ve always wanted to learn this art form but I’ve never heard of a ventriloquist training center in either Kuwait or in India. I later watched a few specials but until I got to know about Jeff Dunham & very recently Terry Fator, no names stuck in my mind. I’ve also seen a couple of ventriloquists in India, doing their act in Hindi – their acts leave a lot to be desired! As in lacking in humour, Just like Hindi comedy. Very bad!

Got this simple but fun meme from Technodoll

A- My AIR CONDITIONER is set on: zilch, don’t have one here
B- My BEDROOM theme is: organized chaos
C- The CAR in the driveway is: not mine!
D- My DESK looks: small but it’s a whole lot neater than earlier
E- The EXACT time I wake up daily is: 7 am
F- The FIRST thing I wash in the shower is: my head
G- My GARAGE is filled with: sorry, no garage
H- My HOUSE is: just a small apartment actually
I- If you peeked INSIDE my bedroom you’d see: where the magic does not happen!
J- My favorite JUICE is: pineapple
K- The best part of my KITCHEN is: the fridge
L- The LAST person who visited my home was: I think it was my aunt
M- The last piece of MAIL for me was: my telephone bill
N- My NEIGHBORS think I’m: I honestly don’t know what they think of me!
O- If you OPENED my fridge you’d see: lemons
P- My last house PARTY was: ages ago!
Q- A QUICK meal I like to fix is: sandwiches with tomatoes, onions and eggs
R- My favorite ROOM of the house is: my bedroom
S- The SHAMPOO brand I use is: head & shoulders
T- My largest TELEVISION is: a broken BPL
U- UNDER my bed you will find: bunched up cable from my ISP (broadband)
V- The last time I VACUUMED was: ages ago; don’t have a vacuum cleaner
W- Looking out my WINDOW I see: a cloudy sky
X- I wish I had X-TRA: shirts
Y- My YARD is: non-existent
Z- ZZZZZZZ My bedtime is: usually around 1am

If you like this meme, please do the same in your blog and do let me know so I can read it.

I woke up at 6 am all bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to face the world. After all I’ve been doing this for the past 34 years and I have quite a lot of experience in doing so.  I got many wishes sent to me via SMS, emails, Orkut, Facebook & Twitter throughout the day. I got ready and went to the office. I had also arranged to get some sweets to give to the staff at work.

     

Wishes and work done, my team had ordered a cake and were ready for me to cut it and then paste the cream on my face. As is customary, some of my colleagues pasted my face with cream and bits of cherry. You can see the end result in the left hand pic above.

     

Then I gathered my team and got into a bus – I took them out for an early dinner. There’s a place called the Bar-be-que Inn near the North railway station bus stop, just after Focus laptops. The quality of food served there is tops and the cost wasn’t that much. So Roopa, Rekha, Rajeesh, Wasim, Anusha & I took a bus from HMT junction and headed towards North.

     

We had arranged for my former second in command and good friend Ajeeba to join us for dinner. She now works in Wrench Solutions as AM Training and we miss her a lot. So it was good to have her join us for some good food. We met her at the bus stop and then walked over to the hotel.

     

There the team gave me my gifts – a Boss wallet and a 3D effect wall hanging thingy of two parrots (or some kinda bird). The hanging thingy is very nice but the wallet is superb. I love it.

     

So thanks guys, I truly enjoyed the day, the food and the company. I laughed a lot and I was touched by your efforts to make it a very special day for me and I loved the gifts. It was a great day for me and I hope u guys had a great time too.

Happy Birthday to me! Holy shit, I turned 34 years old today. Can’t believe that another year has gone by for me and that I’m growing older. I’m gonna try not to dwell too  much on the negatives of my life and stay focused on enjoying the day (good luck on that buddy).

I’m gonna go to work but I’ll be leaving early and take my team out for an early dinner.

So much was expected out of today from me but it ended up not being upto what I had hoped at all. First of all I hadn’t been out in a while and enjoyed a long afternoon in the city. So I thought I needed to get out of the apartment today this weekend. I wasn’t able to  go out yesterday as I was broke and waiting for my salary to hit my account. Also I hadn’t yet received the reimbursement amount that I was to get out of my travel & food cost of the Bangalore trip from the company. So yeah I was broke. I so wish that I was able to go out yesterday.

There was a Tweetup happening in Coffee Cube, a cafe in Convent Junction, Ernakulam. Binny asked me to join up as I really wanted to get a chance to copy the entire 4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica from him. He said that he would bring his external hard drive, so I should get my laptop and I could copy the files from him. So I agreed and even though the meet up was to start at 10 am (really? on a frigging Sunday morning?), I thought that I would join him at the cafe a little after 11am. So I did, an ATM visit and auto ride later.

This is my first visit to Coffee Cube and indeed I have rarely been to the whole Convent Junction area in the last few years. I usually head over to Padma / Shenoys or to Marine Drive for my needs. So, I got there and the place is packed; in this smallish room for a cafe, there are about 25 people all squashed in. Binny was seated towards the middle and waived me over and I grabbed a chair. There were about 20 people seated in two rows facing each other on one end and a few in the middle sitting around a table. Binny handed me his external hard disk while I removed my laptop from it’s bag and set it up on a table. I copied the entire BSG series and a couple of movies as well. I sat there while the files copied and watched the people chatting. I’m not very comfortable in large groups where I only know 1 person and so I didn’t even stop to have a coffee. The files that I wanted being copied, I copied over a few episodes of Stargate SG1 for him and then left.

I wanted to go to Lens & Frames and get a new pair of spectacles as mine is broken at the stem (I’m managing to keep it in place but it keeps coming off); however they were closed. I could have sworn that they open on Sundays. Oh well, I should get some coffee anyways yeah? So I went over to Barista Cafe in Bay Pride Mall – but they were closed today! I think they are going out of business; if anyone reading this from Cochin knows, please let me know. Barely having any breakfast I opted to go to the Food Court in the Mall and ordered a fresh mango juice and a chicken croissant. Both were good; the mango juice was fresh as they advertised and the croissant was hot & soft.

Spending some time there with laptop and watching the people sit, eat, drink and chat, I realize one thing – kids are noisy and they make a lot of fuss. They also run around and it’s distracting while you are trying to enjoy your juice. I spent some time milling about until 1pm and then went to Velocity to get some lunch and vodka – but wait, oh shit! I forgot that today was the 1st of August and hence bars are closed. Today is a dry day and I forgot. Great! Let’s just have some lunch and since Chiyang is near by I thought I’ll go there. I haven’t been to that hotel in ages and as I ate my noodles and chilly pork I remembered why! The noodles and pork was covered in thick oil and I felt a little sick after eating it. I couldn’t finish my plate but was still hungry so ordered some ice cream that would also clear my mouth and throat of that oily feeling. A wasted day where nothing went right except for the series and movies. So why not head back home and relax while watching it on my lappy?

Back in 2004 I has a little accident which, lucky for me, gave me only temporary pain and no broken bones or blood spilled. I have to stress this, I was a lucky schmuck that afternoon as a little change in my step and I would probably have lost a leg or worse.

Ok, this was around April of that year and I was invited to go attend the wedding of my friend Sreekumar’s brother. I was working as a call center associated in Idea at the time and doing a 3m to 12am shift that day, so the place was to leave my house at around 11am, go to the wedding hall in Palarivattom, attend the wedding and spend time with Sreekumar and other friends and then leave for the office at 2pm. That was the plan!

I got down at Palarivattom and then took an auto to the wedding hall, which was the town hall in Palarivattom. The driver stopped the auto just next to the front gate of the venue and I paid him and then tried to get out of the auto. I put my left foot out of the auto and the wham! I felt something hit my ankle and the worst pain I had ever had in my life struck me. What happened was that another auto had passed by in the gap between the auto I was in and the walls of the venue and the protruding middle part of that auto’s hubcap hit my left ankle as it passed by!  That explains the pain.

I was in agony and trying not to scream out too loud. People came rushing to see what it was that had happened to me. My friends came and saw that it was me who was hit and they grabbed the other auto driver, who had stopped his auto and come to check on me, by the collar and was threatening him. But it wasn’t his fault – his brakes had failed and he had swerved his auto into the gap in order to avoid hitting some women on the other side. Unintentionally I got hit at the ankle. Well, can’t blame him! There was no blood and nothing looked broken so I tried walking but it was painful.

I sat down, spoke to my friends and they suggested that I go to the hospital. As there was no wound I decided to wait until the wedding ceremony was over and then skipping lunch, I excused myself and went to the bus stop. I could walk without limping but my ankle did hurt & tinge a bit. I headed over to Ravipuram and went to a hospital over there, City Hospital I think. I walked up to the nurse at the front desk and stated that although I had no wound and that nothing felt broken, I just wanted a doctor to take a look at it and probably get an x-ray. The nurses got into action and said that they would check if the doctor was free and that I should take a seat. In a few minutes they ushered me into a doctor’s room and said that the doctor would be in to see me in a minute or two.

I sat there and waited, rubbing my ankle and feeling the area where I got hit. I was apprehensive and feeling some pain and then saw that the doctor was coming in and…….I felt no more pain at all! It was a lady doctor, a Dr. Fathima and boy was she was sight a sight for sore ankle…er eyes! She was hot and beautiful and my attention was diverted. When she asked me where it was that I felt pain, I almost pointed to my heart and said “here, but you can take care of it with just 3 simple words”.

I am incorrigible, I know. Anyway, the x-ray showed no broken bones so she gave me pain killers for two days and sent me on my way. I went with a smile on my face and a song in my heart and almost jumped and skipped on my way back; it was a miracle! I was cured!

Read the papers along with my morning coffee
Despite the fact that I can get online news for free, there’s some comforting about sipping a coffee and holding the paper in your hands. I scan the front page and immediately head for the sports section at the very back. I also go through the comics – Phantom, Hi & Lois, The Lockhorns, Beatle Baily and my bald headed young friend Henry! Then it’s the world news section, some national, state and then city news. Finally it’s a check to see if there’s a good movie showing on HBO at night.

Day dream
I always find time to day dream. In the toilet, lying in my bed, on the way to work, on the way back home, sometimes at home as well. Flying in space ships, exploring the universe, fighting the bad aliens, rescuing the sexy alien chicks who wanna bed me, blowing up asteroids, making first contact with a new species and boldly going where no man has gone before. That’s right, in my dreams I am Captain Kirk!

Listen to music
I gotta play my tunes! Music is extremely important to me and I gotta get my rocks off to get by the stress of the day. Hard rock, metal, alternative, country, flamenco – anything from my vast collection. I play some songs in the morning before I take a shower and head for work and I play some songs during the late evenings until it’s bed time. I need my music, I am a music junkie. When I am at home, browsing on the net or just reading, I have music playing all the time. And I have to sing along and play air guitar at the same time!