spine tingler

if boredom can make a turn for the worst, it can only lead to desolation. that is how i describe last weekend. india gets thumped out by australia in field hockey, 3-2 the score. india loses miserably to pakistan in cricket at holland. india's lone 400m sprinter finishes last in the semi finals. india's doubles tennis pair lose a bronze by a whisker to a lesser known croatian pair. hear this, indian weightlifters [non-participants in the olympics at athens] fail the drug test. if the bastards had won the gold and failed the drug test subsequently, i would be able to understand. [tendulkar] withdraws from the cricket tournament with a tennis elbow. all in all, it was quite disheartening for india and indians. however, we had an improbable winner – the weather in east anglia. it was sunny all day long – both on saturday and sunday. hence, i went into town and promptly got wedged amidst a group of chinese demonstrating – well, for the release of some jailbirds in china and for bringing [jiang zemin] to justice for his transgressions against [falun gong]. oh boy, that surely is going to happen.

finally heard from eric. he appears to be doing fine and says he has a few job offers. it is always nice to be in a position where you can choose. he said something about marriage, not sure if he was talking about his brother's or his own. he apparently went swimming with dolphins and various species of fish. good luck to him.

i have lots of secretarial work at the moment. all the design work i do now need to be detailed & recorded and there are about 50 odd charts i need to draw. hopefully, by the end of this week, i would have completed more than half of the charts i need to draw.

i am fervently looking forward to something spine-tingling next week. monica arrives next week, on bank holiday monday. i will indeed pick her up from heathrow. hold on, that is not the electrifying news. we have the second scan for the baby on the 1st of september when we will discover the sex of the baby. wooo yay !! as usual, i hope and pray that everything will be ok and normal with the baby and monica.

i suppose the baby is a girl, monica does too. i would like to observe what my readers predict. you can post incognito, so please do leave a comment. i will report as a percentage what the majority predicted and also the real outcome. photos of the 2nd scan middle of next week on [Rudhra].

saw [the village] last saturday. the ending could have been a little better, i presume. the story is original and for the most part the movie is engaging. my verdict 7/10.

hedges finally trimmed

tomorrow is hedge trimming day. of course, the prospect of that happening partly depends on the weather. i went to the milton [wagon & horses] with tony for a paneer balti and a pint of carling yester night. they had 4 options: medium, hot, extra hot and "call the fire brigade". since i don’t have much to do this weekend and perhaps won't be distressed much by tummy aches or food poisoning, I dared to say "fire brigade please". to my surprise, when the food was dished up, it tasted just a tad spicier than "medium".

i have been reading NHS's purple book and i found something peculiar. the book, intended for moms to be, even had schemes for how to go about "getting pregnant". a few pages later it was all clear. evidently, this free purple book is not meant just for women who are already pregnant, but also for those who are planning on pregnancy. monica's mother was enquiring her if she is taking any vitamins and when monica replied in the negative, she was astounded. even my sister, krithi, was surprised to hear monica does not take any vitamin supplements. on our [very first visit] the doctor made it exceptionally clear "no, no, no, NO vitamins – except for folic acid". hence, i wanted to make sure the NHS purple book does corroborate what this doctor advised. the book reassured me that he was indeed correct. british doctors [european doctors] want the baby to take nutrients from unprocessed sources – fruits, vegetables, meat, pulses, dairy milk, early morning sun light etc.. i think it is a grand idea.

after the hedge sprucing, i have to go into town to deposit a cheque for [inland revenue]. oh well, i was enlightened by them, that i owe the UK govt. £199.20 in taxes [£196 + £3 in interest]. once that is done, i am going to reserve tickets for [the village]. next weekend there is a fantastic movie titled [motorcycle diaries]. this is about the life of two young men who travel the length of latin america and self-discover the revolutionists in them. one of them grows up to become the famed [che guevara]. monica wants to see [garfield], so I must wait until she returns from her jaunt.

monica is having a pleasant time in [semarang]. although she is the eldest among the three daughters in the family, she acts the youngest. every one, predominantly the servants, is relentlessly attending her, carrying out her requests etc. i am more than confident, now that she is pregnant, her requests would have turned into commands. i can visualise her father driving her around from one restaurant to another, picking up fruits from one vendor in the north of the city moving on to a noodle shop in the far south. fortunately, he is just like monica. he loves his food, he can be continually engaged in a snacking mode.

my boss was all praise for me after looking at my design for camping on the strongest cell in 3G. i have stolen monica's expensive headphones. they are exceptionally comfy and my classical music compilation sounds fantastic with that. i must buy her another pair before she returns.

untolerable

last weekend was incredibly long. i had no idea what to do. this is the first time i had been alone in the UK – without monica – in 5 years! there have been numerous circumstances where monica had remained alone in the UK and I had been on business outings or on holidays but never the other way around.

monica is like a little puppy energetically circling you, many times infuriating - nevertheless a perpetually dedicated companion. we always have enough to do on weekends. last saturday i woke up early [well, early enough for a weekend], called her up at singapore, had brunch, watched field hockey [olympics] for 10 minutes and that was it. i was inordinately bored and looking for things to do. went to the city, bought another DVD player [we have three DVD players at home now – yes, all working], window shopped at an electronics [hi-fi] partnership and i was back home. there are no good movies at the cinema, so that is another bummer.

i don’t want to bore people to death by recounting how the remainder of the weekend went. weekdays are endurable, i spend 12 hours at work which is reasonably comforting. if i turn on the radio, all the stations for some sadistic reason start playing the "blues".

well, this coming weekend there are some nice movies. i intend to call [tony the pony] and ask him if he would like to join me.

scam

i got an email from no_reply@blogger.com soliciting me to click on a link so that i could modify my password. the email read as per your application, here is the link that would permit you to change your password - please click and record your old and new passwords.

is this a con or someone trying to pull my leg ? it does not matter. supposing this infact is, this blog note could be considered as advanced warning.

loud fartz

i have to tell you something hilarious about TTPcom. we have a live music band in the toilet. well, let me clarify – at least in the men’s toilet. you see, i never use the urinals but instead go directly into the toilet booth even if i have to just pee. so, i don't know who or how many constitute this band. while i am relaxing, doing the fireman dowsing out fires routine, the music commences. the music is disdainful, there are no scripts or rhythm and generally follows no pattern. i mean, people just come in and fart. even i, who can fart at will, am stupefied. you can hear bagpipes, petrifying explosions, a harley davidson type rattatatattta, melodious flutes and even snake hiiiiiiiiSSSsing. take note, if there are world records for loudest, longest farts, i am sure the holders of those dubious testimonies are employed at TTPcom. there is no perception of embarrassment or holding back. i just cannot prevent laughing sometimes.

in my glory days, i have recreated many musical instruments from my backside. but now, i bow in meekness and accept there are superiors to me. i presume the first thing I must do after entering the toilet is fart. i think it is like a visiting card to pompously declare, here I am, I have arrived.

anyway, the 3G standards are just amazing. the more you read, the more you appreciate you can never get to the end. for this reason, i am being selective – read what i have to know in the immediate future, agonise about the rest later. two momentous occasions this week:

• a little over half a century ago, on the 15th of august, India was emancipated. those perusing this blog, remember to sing happy birthday to India. two days later, on the 17th, it is Indonesia’s birthday.
• starting tomorrow until the end of august, i have my own liberation from monica as she is off to Singapore and Indonesia. i will drop her off at heathrow tomorrow. i can do anything i want, use up the entire bed – for two full weeks starting tomorrow.

monica weighs 48kgs now. woohooo !! this is the most she has weighed in her entire life. met [chris] last weekend along with monica and yovita. saw infernal affairs II, some chinese mafia movie from hong kong. my rating 4/10. verdict: don’t bother going unless they pay you to see.

fahrenheit 9/11

last weekend we saw around the world in 80 days and fahrenheit 9/11. the first one, by [jackie chan] is almost certainly his worst ever. essentially, the movie is all about one kung-fu fighting chinese dude and an utterly moonstruck brit trying to circumnavigate the world with a parisian woman, who looks like a high class slut, tagging along almost all the way.

my verdict [5/10] – don’t waste your money on this movie. it is intended to be an adaptation of [jules verne’s] classic but it was more of a massacre than anything. mike moore’s [fahrenheit 9/11] enters my all time top 10 list. he is a genius. i am sure he is a democrat and perhaps hates republicans with a vengeance. but that is immaterial now. this movie is about a monkey posing as a president and ruling the most powerful nation on earth. mike’s documentary is a flawless balance of all displayable human emotions. i will not spoil it for you, please go and see it. if you see this movie and you have any sense [and voting rights], you will not vote for bush - ever. my verdict [9.9/10]. my ex-nokia associate and goofball, joseph farage, used to squeal about conspiracy theories behind the iraq offensive and I used to inspect his statements with scepticism. no, not anymore. hmm .. disregard bush, he is of no use to anyone.

some glad tidings from chris baines. caron is pregnant and they are expecting their baby during the last week of january 2005. as a matter of fact, I have known about this for 3 months now but chris requested me not to divulge this information to anyone until NHS had completed the first set of scans on caron. the whole lot is perfect and as it should be expected, chris is quite excited.

about monica: monica has yearnings for real unusual food – unusual because there is no way I could find those items for her anywhere in the UK. at home, i have monica and yovita assembling a looooong list of “food” they must avariciously consume on their impending trip to singapore & indonesia. you might wonder why yovita ? i ask the same thing myself. so, i begin to think that it just might be possible i have two pregnant women at home. that complicates the equation as I not only have a lot of explaining to do, but also set about finding the real culprit.

a few days back i saw the baby kicking about monica’s tummy. moncia thinks the baby is very active during evenings. monica is getting bigger as well. now you can undeniably see a protrusion on her tummy. i think i will take digital photos every week to catalogue and see how big she can actually get – up until delivery. we play some classical music for the baby in the evenings. it relaxes us as well at the same time. my work is good. lots to read and understand.