Statue of Puberty

Yea really, give it a thought man. There are times when the morbid swell hyperactive soul inside you jumps the gun and hits the ceiling. Dunno how much your head hurts man, but spare my ceiling the bump (also the floor when you decide to head back down)

Just yesterday, I met a dude who had power play poking into his new found love for pigeon food. And he was jumping up (barely touching ground … I wonder how he did that). And yes he embellished pigeon food. I didn’t even know pigeon food existed in retail man. I always thought pigeons ate peas, rice grains and junk (if you’re Bird). And now I know a dude who does the same (and apparently go bonkers over it). Chillax man … curb your enthusiasm.

In this land (of opportunity, XXL everything – from humans to inanimate objects, Hurricanes, Earthquakes etc.) it’s been this complete set of alter state expose for moi. To see the height of laziness that prevails here (or call it extreme enthusiasm over trivial matters), I’ll site some technological advances over many of the not so enthu countries world over.

• It’s common to find a toilet paper dispenser that operates on infra red. You put your hand around the dispenser and … Tadaa … we have paper rolling out man … Geniusss … But for that million dollar question … WHYYYY???. Will I break my tendons pulling that damn toilet paper mann? But hey, they thought of this first.
• Ahh and then there’s a small piece of machinery which, ok dig this …. OPENS Soda Cans. How difficult is that man? Some people think it’s rocket science though.
• There was a patent issued last year for a Light Bulb Changing device (yes … light bulb)
• It’s also common to find speed gun detecting machines in vehicles (although illegal in most states). These devices detect a policemen’s speed gun way before you reach its scope, and hence you have enough time to slow down to the speed limit. Now, the policemen here are not Pandus. They’ve come up with a damn device which detects these devices in the cars man. I don’t understand when and where this will end. The speed buggies will now invent a device which cloaks their device and then the police would find a way to find the cloaking device and thereafter the damn speed gun detector. Stop it man, you’re killing me here!!!
• Toilet Snorkel – This one rocks. Now what would you do if there’s a fire in your apartment and there’s smoke all around you and you’re waiting for the firemen to rescue you and are gasping for air with all the smoky fumes around you? Oh yea … go to your toilet and start breathing sewage air. There’s a small tube which is installed in your commode (comes out by the side of the toilet seat and is hooked on to the end of the sewage area which is typically used for sewage vent. And yes the idea is that, you’d rather breathe this filth than the toxic fumes. This one takes the pick man. You’re alive and your breath smells like shit. Also, if you don’t make it (let’s hope this never happens to anyone), seriously, what a way to go man.
• Toilet Landing Lights – For guys, have you ever had trouble aiming in the dark? Well look no further, say hello to the blue LED landing lights (with water reflectors) which lit up not just your spraying area, but also the spray itself when you have a go in the dark. (wowi … how thoughtful!!!)

You never know man, they might just make waterproof teabags very soon … grow up guys … and yea curb it!

Ahh well all this talk of toilet and technology makes me take a leak now. Now where’s that solar torch? Oh I forget … we have landing lights here.

PS: Bird, you want me to trash this bird food enthusiast? Tell me, I’m larger than him and I eat meat.

You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters. – Plato

Says a lot doesn’t it?

Day in and day out, we ply at the helm of judging events and entities around us. We are judgmental to the classic point of hurting our fellow herdsmen, going on to break otherwise perfect relationships. And when the cloud clears over time, we realize that the effort and action was pointless.

We all have our flaws, our innumerable, (perhaps) countless chunks of imperfection. One of them is our astute ability to be-right ourselves. We often showcase our incandescent ability to think and act for ourselves (which is good, but comes) at the expense of the rest of the living world (or maybe some, who mean the world to us).

“I am right” It’s like we’ve been programmed to work towards this statement.

The ability to not think beyond our own perception and understanding is one of the primary reasons for relationships to fall and fail. And it’s not just the battle of opposite sexes (which we’re all subject to, or will do during our lifetime), but also the not-so-talked-about but nevertheless common associations we have with our friends, family and close acquaintances.

If ever there was a classic example to showcase on relationship breakers, we humans would stand in as the best of plausible exponents.

There’s a thin line between having an opinion and enforcing your belief. We seldom realize when and how we cross that line.

“Have a good one sir”, said Taylor, the pretty security lady at the airport. The good lady directed me to the second of the baggage claim areas for Northwest, which for some crazy reason was next to neverland, behind three other airlines baggage retrieval areas. Call this bad positioning or call this a sadist attempt at being creative in life or simply call it c’giri. The claim area arrangement was like this,

Gate 1 – Northwest Airlines – Flight 467
Gate 2 – Delta Air – Flight blaah1
Gate 2b – Delta Air – Flight blaah1
Gate 3 – British Air – Flight blaah2
Gate 4 – Blaah Airways – Flight blaah3
Gate 5 – Northwest Airlines – Flight 467

What the f$#$ man!!! After 18 hours of fly-time and 6000+miles added to my frequent flyer program, this!!

Oh but we did have some good enjoyable traps with Jack Daniels and Dewar’s White Label pouring thru the flight. It’s funny though how the drinks flow in the aircraft (OR rather how you’re treated when you casually ask for one more peg AND more so when you ask the same steward(ess)). If you’re in normal economy you will be given the cold stare followed by the nod which presumably says Yes (without the Sire). The economy class for a frequent flyer is much better though. This fact, the huge drunkard dude sitting next to me realized in the first 2 hours of flight (… I didn’t get the stares of course … I was a FF … well, except maybe from the odd desi chicks who it seems were looking at a six-footer Indian male in a plane for the first time … I checked my fly … all fine … no kiddin … they were just very freakin amused … no funny stuff hanging out anywhere … I’m generally good in planes and closed claustrophobic areas … hmm, I can market meself to with these thoughts).

Of course, I couldn’t help but stare at a beau meself. She looked like a cross between Jodie Foster and Cameroon Diaz with Jodie’s eyes and Camy’s jaw-line. Fortunately the rest of her attributes were tribute to her ma n (biological) pa, one would think. But anyways, most of us thought she was better looking than the two actresses combined. Now all the ladies in the house would want to know how we collectively came to this conclusion, righto? Well, we have our ways … it generally ranges from subtle movements in facial expressions to very callous but joyful forms of male expressiveness.

Some guys would go … “whoaaaaaaaaa meaaaaaan … whaadaa chik man”

While some others would pull a meekly “hey man … check her out”, Apoo n Me prefer to be dicreet in matters like this and generally don’t raise eyebrows and related body parts. Iyer, starts putting his best Sanjeev Kumar face and prepares to burn fuel (after he’s finished checking the guys out first). Bird would call for another peg. Alap, in the mean time will be coming back to us with the pretty’s number, mother’s maiden name, msn id etc. Fortunately/Unfortunately for her, on this flight it was only me and a few other dudes who would fall in apoo n bird categories. So the only shots that came about were multiple shots of liquor calls and the subtle stares of course.

Ko … so that was some good hours spent on the airplane going thru MUM-AMS-DET

And then came Detroit Airport, where sweetie pie Taylor helped my blind ass get my baggage. Hugs and blessings to you Taylor.

Before I even reached the baggage area though, I had to go through the immigration checks which happens to everybody who’s not a US citizen. Apparently, the rest of the world and by that I mean Asians alone and within that the brownies only are conveniently assumed to be terrorists, unless of course you prove otherwise. And so began my scrutiny. They took both index finger prints (left and right of course … how many more do you think I have) and also took a retinal imprint.

Now folks at the counter, I’m not gonna change my hands the next I come to this land. Yea yea, I know the retinal scans stand more for future arrangements, of times when you enter doors on the basis of ur retinal prints … blah blaahhghoo …

yea dudes … but common knowledge says this about me (in case you haven’t heard … it’s even come out in newspapers some say). I’m pitch black blind and I may choose to go for a brand new pair of eyes next week man … what do you do when I come again to this land and you find out that my finger print crosses against some Scottish drunkard. Would I be penalized? Or asked to go back home or stand in the corner on one leg? Or be asked to replace my old eye and enter? Or show proof that I didn’t kill the Scottish?

Yes I’m going too far with this I know (and I was kiddin bout me eyes too … god forbid that should never happen to me man). Also, for this to come from a techno freak is even bad. But I just wanted to pull one on the officer who interviewed me. This was the funniest conversation I had with a presumed non-techie.

Ok now, I’m primarily a functional lead analyst with my company in Mumbai and my purpose of visit stands purely for meetings n discussions over an enterprise wide application. We have to transition a process running here in the US, down to India . In simpler words … “I’m getting a process down to India ”

And I wanted to make it as simple as possible, but as luck would have it, it ended up being a fun filled tech babble yap … wait … not from me … but from Mr. IthinkIKnowItAll (or IthinkICanSpellDanger) Officer.

I’ll post the exact conversation (in classic conversation mode in the next post … this one’s getting a bit too long anyways)

But after the conversation or interview or scrutiny or whatever the crap that was, I came out (despite the fact that I got my i94 signed) a loser (think I lost weight too) and Mr. IthinkIKnowItAll Officer came out impressed with his assumed astute knowledge of technology. Also, he was so damn impressed by the work I do back home … mann he went nuts. He showed me out of the immigration area like I was some VIP … all the way out. I figured he was gay or just simply impressed by his own misinformation on himself.

What was good enough to cheer me up after this entire fiasco though was that I was not a terrorist. Only for a brief moment though, after which I reached the confused baggage claim area and all the blah happened there. The rest of the journey went well till I reached gate A21 (after 25 minutes of walking across the airport) for my final flight to Charlotte . Luck had good things in store for me there too … a part of it was being stuck in the aircraft (yes inside the grounded aircraft) for 5 hours and the plane was not even being hijacked or something … no fun man.

I may choose to write about this 5 hour fiasco too in another post as it seems I’ve run out of ink and wo.d. ma. st.. .lo.i.g h..cef…h

All in all, it was an eventful journey, with sweet Taylor , Unnamed hot Blondie, Fat Drunkard, Mr. IWillThinkOfNewSadNamesForYouEverytimeIRemeberThisIncident Officer, my Retina and my Angoota Chaap on electronic machines and of course yes The Smooth Scotch.

More gifts for the person who gets the dots in “wo.d. ma. st.. .lo.i.g h..cef…h” filled.