Wikihopping!

What a let down! I was just going to announce that I’d found a new name for my latest hobby, and before I went public with it, I just googled it to be on the safe side. Unfortunately, Urban Dictionary already has an entry for Wikihopping.

I was all set to have my new word enter the OED in a few years time. But I guess I’ll have to settle for the satisfaction of knowing that I coined the word myself before I even knew it existed.

Well, more on the hobby. Its quite simple really.Just open up Wikipedia, type in whatever comes into your head in the search bar and then click on random links in the page that opens. All the while, learning something new! For those who face the Wikiblock- Not knowing what random word/phrase to type into the search box, (Yahoo! Wikiblock isn’t a word yet!! I still have a chance! ) you can start with “Today’s Featured Article” and then keep clicking.

It is a great way to spend time and you also end up learning a whole lot about history, economics, people, society, you name it! Well, some of my recent Wikihopping has led me to gain some insight into India’s recent history, food & drinks from around the world, cocktail recipes, Latin phrases just to name a few. Of late, I’ve taken a fancy to researching liquor. I’m fascinated by the origins, composition and the folklore behind every kind of liquor from different parts of the world. I’ll be sharing some pearls of wisdom gained from my Wikihopping ventures on my food blog. Keep watching!

Cheers! (no pun intended)

Workout

Tried out the sugarcane juice counter that opened at the office cafeteria today. After work went and picked up my new glasses. Picked up a few trousers I had given for alteration from the tailor. Called up a friend and asked him to get to the beach. Wanted to play frisbee to get the blood flowing. Turned out he wasn’t very keen, so I ended up tossing it to myself while he just watched.

While all this tossing-catching was going on, I managed to lose my cycle keys. My friend & I ended up taking turns carrying the cycle on our shoulders. Left the cycle with a friendly shopkeeper and fetched the spare key from home. Now back at home getting ready for dinner which has long gone cold.

Got a more strenuous workout than I had intended.

Cheers!

Drenched!

This is yesterday’s account. After a weary day at work where I managed to clear some of the backlog, my friend suggested dining out with a couple of college friends. After a hour long journey through rush hour traffic, we reached Nungambakkam, where they were waiting in a church. After considering and eliminating a few options, we decided on Casa Piccola. Had a nice dinner. Then went to drop off one of the friends at her hostel, when the downpour started. Ran to the bus stop – about 1 km away. Took the bus to Thiruvanmayur, share auto to RTO, dropped off another friend, and a mad lightning-lit dash back home on my cycle during which I got thoroughly wet partly because of the rain and partly because of a share auto driver who was gracious enough to drive through ankle deep water at 45kmph when I was in the vicinity. Now I know what they mean by splash & dash.

Got back home, took a candlelit shower – the power was out till 12.30. Fell asleep.

Cheers!

PS: More on Casa Piccola on my Food Blog soon.

Frisbee on the beach

Since I’ve not been updating this blog very frequently, I’ve decided to keep a sort of daily journal here. Lets see how long this lasts.

Today was a pretty routine day. Woke up at 6 AM. Dosa sambar for breakfast. Then the monotonous 45 min journey to work. Ergo kept me amused during the journey. Work was terribly monotonous. Came back home around 6.45pm. Went off to the beach, tossed a Frisbee with a friend for about an hour. Bought a couple of burgers on the way back – Barbeque & Indian – from Burgerman. Fiddled around with Photoshop for a while. Will be turning in soon.

Cheers!

You Rock!

This phrase is here to stay. We hear it everywhere. It was first the lingo used by youngsters, but now the media has taken it up owing to the similarity in sounds of Rock & Barack. Hence, we’ve been hearing “You Rock, Barack!” for quite some time now.

Back to the point. Have you ever wondered what it means? I did, recently, hence this post. I wouldn’t say I haven’t used this term before, but still, I was stumped at the sheer grammatical absurdity of the phrase

Rock can either mean:
1. A lump of stony substance which can cause sufficient amount of pain if thrown with sufficient accuracy at any part of the human anatomy. (Geologists can wax eloquent on this subject).
2. Move gently – as in “Rock-a-bye baby.. on the tree top”
3. A genre of music
(I’m sure the OED can list a few others where they describe “Rock” to be an adverb, adjective, conjunction, pronoun, Interjection & what not, but I’m too lazy to look it up. So I’m sticking with the definitions which come to mind readily)

Now trying to add a pronoun – ‘You’ before the word ‘Rock’ can be interesting.

Assuming Definition No 1, “You Rock!” can be taken as:
a. An insult – insinuating that the addressee is a stony lump who is good for nothing
b. A compliment – as in “You’re the rock that tides me through all my troubles” as mouthed by some one not very familiar with the nuances of English grammar.
c. Nothing sensible

Assuming Definition No 2, “You,Rock” can mean,
a. “You over there, I’m not able to sleep, so keep rocking my cradle so I can get some shut-eye” as said by a baby afflicted by a bout of insomnia, addressed to mum, dad or baby-sitter
Addendum to a: Usually babies go “waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”. So it would be unwise to follow this line of reasoning.
b. A way of exhortation to a new-joinee to change the current situation as in “You, Rock the boat!”.
Addendum to b: Usually, the reverse is used, which would by our way of reasoning turn out to be “You, Don’t Rock!”
c. Nothing Sensible

Assuming Definition 3, “You, Rock” can mean
a. “You over there, I’m sick of these bollywood jingles. Let me hear some good old Elvis”.
b. Nothing sensible.

Apart from all this, ‘Rock’ can also be assumed to be a name, in which case, “You, Rock” can be an impromptu christening of some one who is rather inconveniently named ‘Raghavendramudaliar’ by a tongue-twisted friend.

Seeing that the option ‘Nothing sensible’ features among most of our attempts at logical analysis, I’m bound to go with it. Personally I feel the phrase was coined by Medusa. I also feel that apart from those cursed by Medusa’s glance, One other person deserves this form of address.

Thus, the phrase starting with “You, Rock!” has evolved to “You Rock!” nowadays, considering that no-one really bothers with punctuation while talking or screaming. Or one can blame it on ‘SMS English’.

PS: A little birdie tells me it has something to do with the addressee having accomplished something great.
PPS: I fail to see the connection. I’d rather stick with my own theories.

\m/ Cheers! \m/

Straight Drive

This post will introduce you to a rather peculiar ailment that afflicts young Indian boys (Possibly, it affects boys in all cricket playing nations. But as I can’t verify it, I’m taking India as my baseline) – usually school children. It was brought to my notice by a friend (she was a girl & hence found it abnormal). If not for her, I’d never have given another thought to it as I was affected by the very same ailment. I shall call it the IDS – Imaginary Drive Syndrome.

I shall explain this ailment, in non-medical terms to the best of my capability. This is almost singularly confined to boys & any girls afflicted by it are rare and few. Usually, it starts around the age of two or three, when a boy is usually presented his first cricket bat (made of plastic, yellow in colour, black plastic cover on the handle, packaged with a red plastic ball). Boys will definitely remember their first one. At this stage, the IDS is its infancy and is called the WSWTBS (Wild Swipe with the Bat Syndrome). This is mainly because the kid doesn’t have sufficient cricketing ‘gyaan’ and has insufficient motor capabilities to play a textbook cricketing drive ( head down, eyes on the ball, follow through etc).  WSWTBS generally involves moving the plastic bat in sweeping motions in the general vicinity of the red ball & any strike counts as a bonus.

As the boy grows up, he will most often than not, find himself enrolled in a cricket coaching centre (whether he likes it or not). Such is the craze for cricket in India. This usually happens ages 8 upwards. Now the boy is initiated into the world of cricketing strokes and he gets a feel of the straight drive, cover drive and the on-drive. Other shots are yet to be noticed as a symptom of IDS, so we will limit ourselves to these three strokes.

For the uninitiated, a crash course on cricketing strokes can be found on trusty Wikipedia. This link might help if you were wondering what the hell a straight drive was.

Back to IDS. Usually, the coaching is done with the help of a bat. But obviously, it is cumbersome to carry your bat around everywhere, say while the boy is accompanying mommy on a trip to the market, or even taking a bath. Which is when IDS begins to rear its head. The average Indian kid soon figures out that he doesn’t need a cricket bat to practice the stroke as long as he goes through the motions correctly (“If I can play the stroke without a bat, imagine what I could do if I had one!” – Simple logic).

We will now digress from IDS to describe the symptom. For the purpose of illustration, we will imagine a right-handed boy (assuming he is also a right-handed batsman) walking in the forward direction (For a left-hander, the same applies in the opposite). A moment of boredom will unconsciously make him:

1. Turn left about 45 degrees.
2. Bend his head so that he is looking at his feet
3. Move his right hand, back of his hand downwards & out in a swinging motion starting from his left hip till his arm reaches the end of the arc.
4. Maintain the pose for about 2-3 seconds, as Sachin Tendulkar does while posing for a photograph after a stroke.

This may seem rather too complicated for a non-cricketer, but a person who is familiar with the game will understand at once that the boy has just played a cricketing stroke without his bat.
This is IDS! It afflicts almost all boys of school going age & sometimes even in college. If you look around you, you will find some kid or the other going through this Imaginary Drive. The drive selected (Straight, On or Cover) depends on the boy’s mood at the moment.

I’ll bet that Rahul Dravid perfected his strokes with this very technique (correction…syndrome).It is yet to be determined what causes this sudden burst of cricketing spirit or what the boy gains from it. But personally, I feel that the boy feels a sense of accomplishment. Of scoring an Imaginary four runs off an Imaginary delivery (usually from Brett Lee or some such exalted player). Note: Its very difficult to hit a sixer of a straight drive.

Well, this instance of IDS is pardonable, as it causes no offense (except to the Imaginary bowler) and its actually good exercise for the shoulders and the neck. But there is another more severe case.

This can be explained only after a slight detour to explain the game of 1-2-3 cricket. This is a game invented by schoolchildren to play cricket indoors when its raining outside. Its actually a great adding game. 2 players play, one the bowler & the other the batsman. Both intone in a sing-song chant “Onnee… Twoooo……..Thri”, and at the instant the “Thri” ends, both are supposed to show a number to the other with their fingers. If both show the same number, the batsman is out. Else, the batsman adds the number shown by him to his score. Simple, yet provides hours of fun. (We used to play tournaments in school).

Now, after a few days of this “1..2..3 Cricket”, some one came up with the cracking idea that, if you can defend the ball in real cricket (don’t score a run, just prevent the ball from hitting the stumps), you must be able to do it in “1..2..3 Cricket” too. Beats me, as there are no stumps to defend. But it gave you a break from adding up score too fast and was a stress reliever during high-tension games. A defensive stroke in “1..2..3 Cricket” was indicated by keeping all fingers closed into a fist. Essentially a Zero run. Now this is where IDS at its best strikes. Boys usually play this defensive stroke in the way an actual forward defensive stroke is played in cricket! Even when sitting down, you can see a distinct lowering of the boy’s head & arm going through the forward defensive stroke (fingers balled into a fist), the back of the had dutifully facing downwards, copybook style.

This is perhaps the most funniest instances of IDS. Playing a stroke without a ball is bad enough, but playing a full blown defensive stroke in a game where there is no ball is absolutely ridiculous (I confess, I’ve played this stroke too). But hey, that’s IDS for you. If you’re a boy, reading this will definitely make you shake your head knowingly and say .. “Aaah, that’s true… I’ve done that!”.

If you’re a girl, you’ll probably go.. “Huh? Are boys mad or what?” and sometimes even “Hey..yeah! I’ve seen guys do that.I’ve always wondered why”. I hope I’ve answered that question.

For those of you who haven’t noticed this yet, you might just want to look around. In a library, in a market, in a provision store,in a playground.. anywhere, you will inevitably see a boy play an Imaginary Stroke. Period!

PS: For those who don’t know cricket, this might not make a lot of sense to you. I’ve tried to explain the strokes, but its difficult if you’ve never seen a cricket bat. My apologies. However, any Indian is sure to understand the physics behind IDS even without my dissection of the stroke.

So, keep your eyes peeled and all for all those aspiring boys out there, keep your head down & eyes on the ball!

Cheers!

Early Birds

Remember the adage we’ve been brought up on? I’ll refresh your memory.”The early bird gets the worm”. I have a bone to pick with who ever thought of this corny phrase. In the first place,how can he/she implicitly assume that the worm will be always ready to receive the “early bird”? Aren’t worms allowed a weekend lie-in? Maybe the poor worm spent Saturday night with a few beers & friends watching the Champions league. What if it isn’t able to wake up early?

In short, What if the Worm is late?

I’ll build this post on this very premise. I believe the person who coined this phrase inadvertently created a charter of rights for birds which allow them to get the worm if they are early. But he has cruelly left out the poor worm whose rights are being trodden upon. I will argue the case from the Worm’s side.

1. A worm, as mentioned before, has a right to lie-in, especially on a Sunday morning.
2. Considering that “worm” is usually a nickname assigned to low-lives among humans, It is befitting that worms be at least allowed to sleep late. [Sleeping late considered to be another disgusting habit among humans. {If the worms are disgusting,might as well have them do all the disgusting stuff (Whose side am I on anyway?)}]
3. What incentive does the Worm actually have to appear early? He’s going to end up as breakfast for the bird anyway.
4. Why hasn’t a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Worms (SPCW) been set up yet?
5. How can birds actually eat worms? Haven’t they tried Chicken 65 yet (Incidentally a bird).

Well, now thats it for the worms. Now coming back to us humans, why on earth would one try to correlate himself/herself with a bird trying to catch a worm if he’s supposed to be doing a task for an incentive? Isn’t there a better metaphor for an incentive? Of all things, A worm!

Its like saying, “Hey, come to work early tomorrow, I’ll have a pile of manure ready for you”. I think its high time quotes should change.

I propose a new one.

“The early bird gets bopped on the head by its wife for raising a row at 4 AM”

How’s that for practicality?

By the way, birds still searching for worms should visit my Food blog Live to Eat to know that there are tastier things than worms. And by the way, the next rooster to crow out at dawn, ends up on my breakfast table (That ought to get them to empathize with the poor worms)

Cheers!

Introduction

Well, With increasing popularity for my foodie blog Live To Eat, I’ve decided to diversify & try my hand at humour. Mostly my observations on this existence we call life, an insight into the more mundane. Keep Checking.
Cheers!