People turn to the Bible and the Gita for solace, I turn to CnH. So, the quote(s) for today are as follows:

"The world isn't fair, Calvin"
"I know Dad, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favour?"

Person up there, your believer asketh. Where is the justice?

Facebook II

This community bags gold, silver, bronze and pewter :P

Name: Almost Blind
Type: Just for Fun - Inside Jokes
Description: This is a group for those of us with prescriptions -7.0 and higher.

- Our parents have considered declaring us "legally blind" to gain tax benefits.

- Most people consider us blind.

- We were informed that laser eye surgery wasn't gonna fix us cuz we are just too blind.

- Almost everyone we've met has asked to try on our glasses.

- People were amazed to find out that we did not have such miniature eyes after all when we took off our glasses.

- Getting extra extra (extra) thin lenses is a must and would still make our glasses look like bottle-bottom glasses. (Added by Div: It must be mentioned that our already lean bank statements are further strained with the extra $150 we spend to get these special lenses, in a desperate attempt to make the eyes look a little less squid-like).

- (Div): People still exclaim "Wa! So thick!" on seeing our extra extra (extra) thin $150 glasses. The less(er) diplomatic ones (esp. of the male category) exclaim they noticed we were wearing glasses only upon seeing the lens thickness in profile. The dainty cracking sound that normlly follows this statement is actually our heart and spirit cracking in half.

- Everyone you meet asks you what your prescription is.

- You are an expert in all the different options that your glasses/ lens can come in (ie: reflection, UV protection, glass, plastic, extra thin, non scratch, astig-adjusted, comp-friendly, dust-resistant, sports-friendly...)

- You know/have tried almost every brand of contacts: focus night and days, focus dailies, J&J oasis, Softlens ....

- You were considered a nerd just cuz of your glasses. (Div: A super-nerd, actually. And elf-like, given half your face was securely hidden behind a minus eight point five. If wishes were horses, contact lenses would come riding your way way before 15)

- Most brands of contact lens don't go as high as your prescription so you have to end up getting lenses a little lower than your actual prescription.

- (Div): If you live in South East Asia, the wait is a little longer coz not only do they need to special order your high power, they need to get the lens model whose circumference fits larger-than-life Indian iris

And finally (because it hurts the most)

- You will never look as hot as a good person like you deserves to look when wakeboarding/ surfing/ swimming. All thanks to MGR-style power-adjusted goggles.

*Pr0f@n!ty Central to follow - the good people have been warned*

Facebook has the funniest communities.

So some smart alec came up with a group: I'm from ICSE, therefore I'm better than you
To which another smart alec started a group called: Screw you, I was from CBSE

Here are a bunch of others:
- I once owned a Bata shoe!
- I wish my homework was asexual so it would do itself
- It's never gonna happen... Move on!
- F.I.N.A.L.S. (Fuck I Never Actually Learned Shit)
- Christian Climbers - In God we trust, all others knots will be checked (cue for all climb instructors to turn in the metaphorical graves)
- 101 reasons why it's better to date a Srilankan
- I'm Guilty of drunk text messaging(who isn't?)
- Bitch, don't doubt me..I always knew Snape was Good
- Bangalore is FULL!! GO HOME!!

Yasaswini might want to join this community:
I'm Tired Of People Fucking Up My Name

This is really cute, though I don't know why it hasn't been disbanded:
WE (SRILANKA) ARE WINNING THE CRICKET WORLD CUP 2007

For obvious reasons, this one wins the gold as far as my blog goes: Mallu babes..hot like your Amma's meen curry!

You guys got anymore?

Marathon

Ok, so watching the Bourne Marathon turned out to be a bit like marrying Vikram Seth - totally pointless, but you did it anyway so you could talk about it. Like a check on the things-I-did-while-young list.

Even the Starbucks we smuggled in after the second movie couldn't keep me tuned in, so I'm pretty grateful to Bradshaw for writing this review: reading it was like remembering bits and parts of a previous life or a vague dream. Needless to say, it is really funny.

Sandwiched!

Continuing on the August 15 frenzy, Divya has a recommendation to make:

The O'Briens at Central Mall in Clarke Quay is a place definitely worth checking out. Here are my top 3 reasons

Reason #3. The ambience is very unlike the usual O'Brien's-sandwich-shop-ey feel. This outlet has a couple of couches, some lovely colour co-ordination and is nestled in a very nice corner of Central. It offers a lot of privacy to talk but if you are alone, it is a great place to people-gaze too.

Reason #2. The food is pretty awesome

Reason #1. In an island which considers good customer service as bad a phrase as child slavery, this outlet has the_best people to serve you. Starting from the owner, who sent someone out to buy paneer so that we could have an "Indian" grilled sandwich for Independence Day, to the lady who served our sandwiches with a range of Indian chutneys so we could really feel like home. And also, the sandwiches were awesome. Whoever said cooking with love shows..

So Kav, CL and I were feeling like Indian food (ok, Kav and me - CL just got pulled in). Kav - who seems like a regular at this place - wished the owner a Happy August 15, and the guy probably heard us swooning about how much we wanted Indian food. So he sent for some paneer and sauce and before we knew it, the best Independence Day meal we'd had, ever. And I've had numerous I-day lunches at the Naval Base, so trust me this is saying a lot.

So. The next time any of you are in Clarke Quay/ Central, check out the O'Briens there. Good customer service deserves appreciation. And spread the word :)

PS: This blog just did it's first restaurant review. I'm ready for my red passport :O

Freedom

In the timeline of country-ages, turning 60 is like turning 13. It's a young country. A smart one. Argumentative. Vibrant. In love. Nasty. Diverse. Rural. The World's back office. The World's front office. Arty. Happening. Old. Noisy. Serene. Communist. Christian. Coastal. Famous. Proud. New. Amazing.

Happy Independence Day, folks!

Singapore's OK!

Ok, I spoke too soon in the previous post.

Last night I got a call from this person who had recovered a Nokia candybar from a shopping mall cubicle. To cut a long story short, Kav's getting her phone back, and Singapore's closing in on it's squeaky clean image once again :P

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

I was trolling the web the other day when I wrote the remainder of this post. It concerns an old love, lost and recently re-discovered.

I think (along with many others, I'm sure) that the best thing to have happened to tennis in a long time is the Federer-Nadal rivalry.

It goes without saying that they are both excellent players. But beyond that, they both seem like good men - very different, but inherently fair people. And it is always inspiring to follow a game with such aggressive, winner-takes-all competition on court but no sledging or bloodbath afterward.

In many ways they represent very opposite personalities - Federer is understated elegance. He has a conservative approach to the game. Very Swiss, he speaks fluent French and seems to have his PR set on golden embossed letters on court and with the press. In fact if he wasn't a tennis player I think he'd probably be Miss Universe.

Rafa on the other hand is this rough kid with all substance and no_time for style. He gets nervous speaking to the press (did anybody watch his pre-match interview at the Wimbledon '07 final?) He is clearly obsessive compulsive (pre-serve ritual: dry hands on towel, clear baseline, adjust capris and one more step that I forget ), looks angry all the time and plays like his dinner depends on it. But there is a charm to someone like that who is not manicured in anyway - he essentially represents one who plays the game for the love of it, to hell with everything else.

In a way it is a bit like the Sampras-Agassi rivarly in the 90s, except both men here seem veyr mature, whereas Agassi was an unstable rocket for the most part.

I hope this rivalry continues. The Wimbledon '07 final was the best match the game had seen in a while. In debating we had this “intellectual progress” argument every time the government wanted to promote space research. I think the same applies here. Competition of this sort helps the game evolve not only technically, but also in terms of sportsmanship. And I cannot see two better ambassadors especially for the second aspect.

Realization: Rafael Nadal is all of 3 years younger than me. Damn.

Thoughtlet #1: If they sell the "Vamos Rafa" shoes, I want to buy them.

Thoughtlet #2: Speaking of whom, I think more coaches should do what his did - made the guy play left handed even though he is actually right handed. Training your weak arm as the prime playing arm is a pretty awesome strategy. I also think it would give you a good sense of balance.

About phone-counts, honesty and pickpockets

It's wonderfully safe and immensely honest, but Singapore sucks for anyone who has a habit of misplacing mobile phones - because they *will* disappear in before you can say oh-wait.

On the other hand, India with it's image of petty crooks lurking the corners to grab your purse/ wallet/ life has a soul that is not always easily documented by the IHT.

Three of my friends have a combined lost-phone-count of 12. We lose cellphones faster than we change hairstyles (actually I don't, I've just lost one, and that's not the point, but I needed to say that).The common instances are normally left-behind-in-cabs, lost-at-the-cinema and public rest-rooms. The cab instance is almost always a lost cause.

But apparently it doesn't always work that way every where else:

A (Singaporean) colleague travelling in India left her phone in a cab in Bombay, and cabbie drove back to hotel-in-the-middle-of-nowhere to return the handset. Now you would never see that in any paper, would ya?

I left my camera in a car during a hitched ride in Switzerland, and the lady came all the way back to where I she had dropped me, found the conference block I would be in, and left it at the reception with a randomly cute description of how it belonged to a girl, "tall, thin, Indian, maybe? With a map in her hand". And here's the even more wondrous thing: receptionist actually found me without needing to switch the camera on. And you need to appreciate this, because there were a *lot* of Indians at this conference.

I cannot remember if I was still holding a map, though. Hmm.

But this one's classic: One of my other friends had his pocket picked in the Vatican. Now in the randomness of the Vatican he didnt even realize until the pickpocket came over, threw his passport back and said "don't need this!", before disappearing into the crowd again. Our friend was obviously left dumbstruck and I'm sure feeling a little stupid. He lost a 100 euros and possibly some important stuff, but at least he wasn't stuck in Rome with no identity!

There's obviously little point to this post, except the 3 anecdotes I really wanted to share. So there. Shared!

Write First, $$ Later

After the unmitigated-cardboard-chewing-piece of work that was the Deathly Hallows, I have come to fully appreciate that an author does lose focus with too much media attention.

I was originally supposed to write a pseudo -HP 7 review, with all the arguments to support the premise above, but Wendelin has done it as well as anybody could have. And so has Maya. So I'm just going to talk about one thought that's been in my head since the HP books jumped the shark a while back.

Which is this - I think all authors should finish writing their series before releasing the first volume. Naturally, it cannot be made into a rule - that would just be way too stifling - but it is something they should think about. Finish the series, keep the plot tight, the characters real, and then release it bit by bit.

(Incidentally, JRR Tolkein is supposed to have done this with LoTR. In fact every LoTR fan I know tells me that the books in fact gain momentum as they move along.)

Too many authors fail to realize the value of the universes they create. They realize monetary value all right - which is probably why as the series goes by, plots become increasingly "tailored" to fan demands. JKR is a poster-girl to this problem. By her own admission, she started reading fan fiction only after Book 5. And how it shows. Her entire plot took a nosedive in Book 6. In fact, the last two books make it almost believable to think that everytime she felt too lazy to think up of a plot, she just trolled Sugarquill and went oh yes, this one's good. And it's got 200 comments? Excellent.

HP books gained recognition because of their unbelievable imagination. I remember the first book I read - Divya had won a book voucher for an essay writing competition and we went to Paico and randomly picked up the Prisoner of Azkaban. After she was done, I took over, read it, loved it.

But it was *much* later, in year 2 in university, that I totally fell in love with the series, with GoF. I remember picking the book up at Wini's. When I got back to Cochin I was in the guest room for 2 whole days. I understand from the family that there were random booms of laughter coming from the room, and that my sis thought I'd finally lost it. I still remember every.thing.about.the.book. The jokes, the plot, the quidditch world cup, the second task. And I thought - along with millions around the globe - this is imagination. This is writing - plain and simple.

I guess the early years of HP make my belief about write first, $$ later stronger. She could have produced 3 more books just like GoF. She could have brought out so many characters so well. She could have developed Voldemort, Luna, Tonks and Lupin. The battle should have been the final meeting point of good and evil and could have been portrayed with so much grace and fire. She could have shown the characters growing, their beliefs changing, lessons being learnt. She had so_much potential to make so_many more of her better-minded readers happy.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. She was soClose to sealing her place as the best series-writer of all time.

Of all the things that sadden me, wasted potential stands at #1.

PS: For those who have forgotten, this is a real example of how Rowling used to write.