Where I am alive to write about it...(Part 1)

Well, here we are again boys and girls. Been sometime since we last met. A bit has happened in the interim, and as the title says, I am alive to write about it.

It was a blustery Friday evening when a passenger and I set out to New York City in a Nissan Centra. We reached I-80 relatively incident free and were going on our merry way, when I drifted off.

Yes, gentle audience, on I-80 West at a speed of seventy miles an hour, in the fast lane I decided to drift off. I drift back into semi-consciousness and notice that I am on the grass divider. That's no big deal. All I'm supposed to do is to drift gently back onto the road.

What I instead decide to do is panic, (Why? Coz it seemed to be such a good idea at the time) and slam on the brakes.

Not a good idea.

Not a good idea at all.

Well I then promptly lose control of the car and it spins and does a complete three sixty a couple of times before coming to a stop with the front bumper against the railing in the service lane on the opposite side of the freeway, which is I-80 East. Notice that the car managed to miss the traffic that was coming down the two lanes at seventy miles an hour.

So there we are.

In the service lane. Perpendicular to the road. A couple of old men stop their cars and tell me to get mine out of the way, because I could still get hit. So I backed onto the road (Notice I was not thinking clearly.) and drove to an exit where I cleaned the car at a car wash and continued to JFK.

Got lost a couple of times on the way. Took a few wrong exits and ended up in some really bad neighborhoods in Newark, but we finally reached JFK. I did have to drive through Manhattan to get to the airport and that was great fun.

Well the car was pretty badly fucked. The air conditioning was destroyed and the steering column had this disconcerting tendency to vibrate when I went above sixty. And occasionally the gears would not shift properly from neutral to drive.

So we finally picked up the person from JFK and...

Well the weekend in Manhattan will be described later.

So will the drive back, when the car caught fire and I was falling asleep…
That’s it for now folks. More later.

Where I am awake in the emptiness of my old apartment

Here I am again, the rest of my worldly possesions have been loaded up into a cart and await the push to Nittany. I await the carpet cleaners, after which it shall be farewell Parkway Plaza.

Well just farewell C building. I'm pretty sure I have a friend in B building.

She may disagree though.

I have been up for ages now, cleaning this blasted apartment. The oven was the worst of the lot.
But I'm done now.

I still havent disconnected the modem or the router. I'll do that when the cleaners arrive. My last few moments of broadband. Well at least until Thursday.

I'm tending to drift a bit as I type. I need to sleep.

Inders online right now and he's turned antiblog.

Anusha's online and sending sad smileys and sighing.

Achu's online and he's silent.

Inder just bought a new car. He seems a tad excited about it.

Where I am asleep in the mess of my old apartment

A slight recap.

I did not focus on my first long drive alone, in my previous post, so I shall do so now.
Yes, my first long drive at the tender age of twenty five.

I took West College Avenue out of town and drove to parts of State College I hardly knew existed. I couldn’t see much; the night was a tad too dark, the road a tad too narrow, the driver a tad too nervous. But I enjoyed it. A few bad moments, when the windshield fogged over from the outside, and I kept desperately wiping it from the inside. And when I ran through a red light, because...Um no excuses. I just didn’t see the light turn.

The drive lasted an hour. A very enjoyable hour. I think I will be driving a lot more.

A brief interlude.

A word from our sponsors Messrs Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr:

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me her
Lead me to you door

The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here
Let me know the way

Many times I’ve been alone
And many times I’ve cried
Any way you’ll never know
The many ways I’ve tried

But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long long time ago
Don’t leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door

But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long long time ago
Don’t leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I rather like that song.

Well we moved. Partially. I think I will have to junk most of the furniture. I find that I will actually miss Parkway Plaza, and I wonder why?

Time and distance. Time and distance, is the answer, I suppose. Time is not on my side, and distance has decided to be a bastard too.

What I need is a TARDIS. I'd rather fight Daleks, Icemen and the Master, than continue to do this.

Since this post has pretty much gone the way of the previous one, I will ramble on a bit.

I am twenty-five. I might have mentioned that fact before, but do try to remember it this time, gentle reader. I am twenty-five and I wonder whether the best years of my life are behind me, and all that lies ahead is the long slippery slide into adulthood? A future barren of fun and excitement? Where boredom rules and mundanity prances in the prairies of normalcy.

That scares me.

A lot.

I did once say that the perfect age was my current age, whatever it is at that time. I certainly hope so. But I begin to doubt it.

Incidentally Doom3 released. To the instruments of death and mayhem people.

The cat provides backup.

Where I wax seriouser...

Well, I'm depressed. Really, really depressed.

Bear with me as I proceed to do the famous "Rajneesh wallowing in self pity" act.

I suppose I should start at the very beginning. To my ardent fans this is the event that caused me to get so memorably drunk. This is the event that caused me to rant. I don't think I have been able to get out of this blue funk since then.

At least I haven't been able to get out of it for long. And each time the non-blue funk intervals seem to get shorter and shorter (Chilli funk isn't funky so let it go. Please.).

I'm moving into my new apartment this weekend with a couple of new kids and this seems to have added to the depression. Apparently, when you expect one roommate and you instead get two brand new roommates who aren't your good friend, you tend to be a bit disappointed.

Um...I apologize for the rather muddled grammar and unclear thought in that previous paragraph, but you get my drift.

We rented a car. I drove it around a bit. A little more than a bit. I have found that I actually enjoy driving. This is inspite of the fact that I pretty much suck as a driver. So I filled the tank with gas, and drove out of town around midnight. Ended up in the middle of nowhere. Nearly gave a poor dude a heart attack when I ran a red light.

I literally tried to drive away my depression, but it did not work. It left for a while when I rode into town again, but it is now back and worse than ever.

I saw her today at the reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she was gonna meet her connection
At her feet was a footloose man
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you might find
You get what you need
...

I tip my hat to Mick and the boys. Rock on, dudes.

I will contradict myself.

I haven't been in a blue funk all summer.

I have had different, completely independent blue funks with intervals of non-blue funkness.

Yes, that is better.

Redemption. The world has to redeem itself in my eyes. It can go about this in two ways. Either go through the crap that I have had flung at me, which would mean that this planet earth would have to blow up in a giant fireball. Or make up for the crap with five hundred billion dollars(US) in my bank account(PNCBANK, routing number and checking account number available on request).

This is probably not the right time for me to post anything. I am pretty sure that I am not thinking clearly and that my judgment is impaired. But I do not seem to give a fuck.

I will ramble on.

A new word courtesy of Pearls Before Swine : A Rajneeshcentric universe. Ah if it were so, but tis unfortunate that it is not. A tiny unimportant speck is the Rajneesh. The aliens on Grabloyx, do not give a damn about him(Him = me). They are all busy watching "The Bold and the Bractowwoxmok".

A shout out to Chilli's blog. A word I hate: Funda. A phrase I like: "Life, she goes on".

An apology.

This blog will continue to be intensely personal and irritatingly cryptic. I do wonder who would want to waste any time reading the maudlin thoughts of a perpetually spaced out grad student.

I should give you, my gentle reader a trenchant, forthright opinion on the matters of the day, art, philosophy and life. So here goes.
Matters of the day: Kerry should win.
Art: If it looks like crap, dont buy it.
Philosophy:
Life: She goes on.

I can't resist this. What the fuck was the deal with the well and the candle? Please someone do explain that to me.

I used to be cynical and hard. I do remember that. Please, can I go back to that?

The clock has struck four and my eyes begin to shut. I bid thee a fond adieu, gentle reader.

I wait for Starcraft 2.

The cat is actually an alien explorer from Grabloyx.

That's all folks.

Have a great night.

Where I wax serious...

Redemption.

I am going to be cryptic.

Redemption.

Not my story, so I am going to be cryptic.

Where I am mobile and connected...

Well I finally caved in. Bought myself a cell phone. Well that happened on the 26th and it finally was delivered the day before yesterday.
I wasted an entire day waiting for the UPS dude to turn up. I could have been doing something productive.

Like...

Um...

You know...

You get my drift. Something productive.

Anyway. The phone turned up. I put the battery in the wrong way so naturally it did not work. I panicked (Yes, gentle reader I really am a Computer Science Grad Student.). So I called up the customer service at Amazon, AT&T and Motorola. It was during my second call to Amazon that I realized what I had done. The phone worked fine right after the battery went in the right way.

Incidentally Amazon has already dispatched a replacement phone.

So, I have a cell phone. It's very pretty. It doubles up as a camera. It has an address book and a calculator.

I then realize that there really is no one I want to talk to. So I called up my land line from the cell phone. And then my cell phone from the land line. And well, that was about it.

Oh yes, I did synchronize it with MSN and Yahoo messengers.

Well, I finally crumbled. I have joined the mindless masses and I have a cell phone. I'll have to switch it off in theaters and airplanes. I'll have to plug it in every night and remember to take it with me in the morning.

Ah, the joys of modern technology.

Last Word: Do not work out in the gym in a bad mood. You will hurt yourself.

Really Last Word: That was just to let you know, o gentle reader that I do work out.

Absolutely Last Word: Chilli, I apologize. I just could not come up with the kind of blog we discussed.

Final Last Word: It is life's little ironies that make death such a popular alternative.

That's it...

Really...

Go...

Um...
Call me at 880 7733.

The cat is at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Where my foot is again in my mouth

Um...

I seem to have this amazing knack for pissing people off. I wonder why?

I am a thoughtful, considerate person.

Yes I am.

Really.

Honestly.

Um...Maybe not.

I should make a public apology, so consider this post an apology.

Feel free gentle reader, to be angry with me for being so cryptic.

I look at what I have typed out so far, and I wonder why I seem to dislike paragraphs. I think it is because my posts are a series of disconnected observations with no single unifying theme. The world is a funny place. The world is a sad place. So, at the risk of sounding pompous, this is a funny (I hope) blog, this is a sad(sad as in melancholy, not sad as in badly written) blog.

Chilli described his journey to IIMB from Basaveshwarnagar, (for those not in the know, home for eight years before I left ) so I shall describe my oddessy as I go to the IST building on campus. I leave my apartment and take a left to go to the elevator. I then push the button to get the elevator to my floor. I then get into the elevator and push the button to get to the first floor (It’s the ground floor actually). I then take a right, and another quick right and then a diagonal-ish left to leave the building. I then walk past A building and get into the bus. This involves a right somewhere along the way. I then sleep until we hit IST. And then…

I shall take pity on you, gentle reader, and end this orgy of mind-numbing boredom.

Later…

The cat is in Guatemala.

Where i go "Haha Hahaha ha....hah"

Ahem, ahem. Important news.

Our intrepid hero (that's me) aced the driving test. I now have a license. Head for the hills all ye jay-walking pedestrians, because I will run over you with extreme alacrity and unseemly enthusiasm. That's only if I have a red car. The blood stains show up otherwise.

Another important point. Since I feel the need to be obscure and annoying, I will not tell you, gentle reader, what the point is. Suffice to say that I have decided to rectify matters. I will be referring to tutorials and making notes and if I feel like it, inspirational PowerPoint slides.

PowerPoint slides with crappy fonts and animations that go whoosh.

Did I mention that I got my drivers license? With a perfect score.

I did mention it?

Well my blog, my rules, my post.

On the subject of my rules, new blog rules.
a) While reading my blog, you my gentle reader will have to touch your nose with your left hand three times.
b) While reading my blog, you my gentle reader will have to accept that I am funny even if I am not.
c) While reading my blog, you my gentle reader will have to accept that being normal is usually being boring.
d) While reading my blog, you my gentle reader will have to accept that F1 sucks.

Rules a through c are negotiable. Rule d is not.

Actually on second thoughts, neither are rules a through c.

I ramble on and on. I like that. Others might not. But as previously noted, my blog my rules.

I should be getting back to work.

So...

To conclude...

Ahem.

Koff koff.

Haha Hahaha ha....hah!

Where I hate parallel parking

I flunked my driver's test today. As the title may have indicated it had to do with parallel parking. I thought I had done it perfectly, but the tester violently disagreed.

So disappointment...

I never have a problem with parallel parking. I nail it each time. But apparently not during the test.

We try again Thursday. So root for me gentle readers.

I'd really like to get drunk right about now. I won't, but I'd like to. Is that good or bad? Wanting to get drunk I mean? Better than needing to get drunk I suppose.

Note to the concerned reader: I might come off sounding like a raging alcoholic but I assure you that I am not one. And to those who disgree, I will throw my beer bottle at you.
Empty beer bottle.

Ah, well that is about it I guess, for the post. Too tired and too full to type anymore.

Where "why, robot"

This will be a mild rant. I may however descend into obscenities and foul language. Proceed with care.

"I, Robot", the book is excellent. A wonderful collection of short stories. A collection of stories with substance, with style, where the robots deal with the conflicts of the three laws and where Susan Calvin is the strong, intelligent woman who became one of Asimov's favorite characters.

"I, Robot", the movie sucks ass. Big time.

End of rant.

Not a very impressive rant I agree, but thats all I have the energy for.

Remember, gentle reader, I told you that I would be all alone in the apartment, and that I would enjoy that. Well, I am all alone in the apartment now, and I find that I do not enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Strange is it not?

An apology.

For the misleading title in my previous post. I did mean to compare glasses and contacts. Got a tad diverted and never got around to comparing the two. And I dont feel like doing it now. So my thoughts on that particular topic will remain an eternal mystery.