Awesome Hancock Quote For The Day

(heard on a radio interview a couple of weeks ago; generously paraphrased, naturally):

You play to please yourself. Even if the audience takes fifteen or twenty years to understand your music, so be it.

This Is My Brain On Brownie

Is there anything more entertaining than my capacity for self-delusion? Pay attention to Exhibit A, namely my dinner from about 5 nights ago.

It consisted of yogurt (whole milk, honey-flavored), cut fruit (kiwi, strawberries, pineapple, melon) and two very large brownies (chocolate sauce on the side, nuts for topping) that had been sitting in the fridge for 2 nights. Brownies should never smell funky, but still.

I slept at around midnight ("Entourage" marathon) and woke up at 3AM (all physical, emotional and existential crises occur at 3AM; odd then that the Beatles picked 5AM as the time for their heroine's escape) with a severe ache in the stomach. And my first reaction? "God, if you make this ache go away, I swear I'll never touch yogurt and fruit again".

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's Hrithik Roshan

Somebody just changed his chuddies.

"The letter 'M' to me signifies macho, mischievous and definitely male. The 'MacroMan M Series' is a brand which is all of them and certainly gives a good boost to my male ego when I wear it," added Hrithik.

I don't know about Mr. Roshan's household, but over at my place, underwear strictly signifies weekend chores and looking for the cheapest and the biggest container of detergent at Costco.

And what is this "good boost to my male ego when I wear it" business? If Hrithik's "male ego" gets a "boost" only after he covers his, um, stuff, he must have a - wait for it - a small problem.
*******

"MacroMan M"? Seriously, "MacroMan M"? Can you come up with an even more obvious name for a line of underwear? (Not that I think "Lamba-Chauda" would stand a chance in India's metros....) Your responses in the commentspace, please.

GETMEOUTTAHERE!

Oh to be stuck with newbie geeks.

I was with a bunch of them in a project "war-room" and learned some shocking facts like:

"Halo", a game that's been around since at least 1997, was described as an "old classic game".

Not one of them had ever used a command prompt.

When an informal vote was taken to decide the music selection for the war-room, "dance music" won. DANCE MUSIC! When did geeks ever want to dance?

It is perfectly ok to post your "old geezer" comments now.

You Know You've Been Using Firefox For Too Long When

...you start looking for CTRL-T on the TV remote to "open a new tab" on the TV screen.

"Pagal Kuttas" Surrender, US Wins

My Zenness has nothing to do with my absence, Scout.

Meanwhile, America is free of the canine rabies virus.

When I was a kid, the prospect of getting the rabies virus injection scared me more than the thought of being chewed up by a mutt.

"Fourteen injections in the stomach", we were told by our parents. After this would come a graphic description of the syringe, followed by a stern reminder that one would most definitely grow fur, tail and claws after fourteen injections. Or that one would lift his leg at every lamp-post and chase every car and scooter in town.

I don't know about you but the latter idea doesn't sound too bad to me.

Twenty Years

There's a Zen story about an eager student who asked his teacher how long it would take for him to reach enlightenment if he meditated every day. The teacher answered, "ten years". A bit disappointed by this answer, the student asked how long it would take if he doubled his efforts. "Twenty years" the teacher replied.

I remembered this story when I got out of my bright-orange kayak. (Yes, I have a Zen parable for every occasion.)

An hour earlier I had sat down in the kayak. I was, as always, anxious to overpower the kayak and the nearly-still stream. I paddled really hard but found myself going round and around and generously splashing water on myself and my fellow kayakers. (It's a good thing most of us don't row to work. Imagine the water rage.) Blaming my utter lack of control on my obviously-defective paddle, I switched grips to find the most optimal position so I could conserve energy and glide elegantly. Instead, I did more circles and crashed into the thorny bushes every two minutes.

Twenty minutes later, I got tired of trying. Lack of fitness can be such a good thing. I put down my paddle, sat back and watched dragonflies dancing merrily on the sparkling surface of the water.

Birds chirped (one of them shrieked), the unruly grass growing on the bank swayed, kayakers paddled and without interference from the paddle, I floated downstream, absolutely straight, just like I had wanted to.