Movies..one after the other

After being married for several years, you would think you know your spouse and what his tastes are. I thought our tastes were largely similar, atleast when it came to movies and food! I don't know whether it got to be similar after so many years of living together and watching the same movies?

But of late, his tastes seemed awry when he picked up movies from Netflix. I remember thinking after a couple of rotten movies, and I am very wary of watching (in my opinion) horrible movies, how he could have selected these movies. I questioned him on whether he looked at the movie description before he picked it and so on. He reminded me that I was the last person to go into our account and modify what was in our queue. I was quite amazed that I actually picked an Adam Sandler movie. Could I have been so careless as to not notice that? I could not remember. These are the times when you wish that you had better memory. I blamed it on stress. It was not an isolated incident. More movies came along that had a bad after taste. We wondered whether we ran out of movies in our queue and the movies that were delivered were Netflix own picks? But the mystery continued, our hypotheses continued and neither of us found the time to solve it.

The last time I dropped of a movie after we had watched it, things finally made sense. The very next day we saw another movie in our mailbox. Boy! Netflix is fast I thought. Why did I ever consider switching to Block Buster? But the timing was suspicious all the same as I had dropped off the movie late in the afternoon. I picked up the envelope and looked at the address, it was addressed to someone else, it was the same street number and same zip code, but a different street! The mystery was solved finally. I can now stop questioning my own actions, my failing memory (!) and my husband's taste. Atleast when it comes to picking movies.

Hammer and Tongs

Saw this more than 10 times. AWESOME power hitting. Yuvraj Singh rocks. Hope yall N Joy

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20827350/

Senator sues God. The news item states it is an attempt to show how frivolous the lawsuit culture is.

So, God is summoned to the witness stand, and you just feel a cool breeze. The judge is leaning towards declaring contempt of court for filaure to appear, and a huge voice thunders from above

"GOD IS OMNIPRESENT. YOU MAY PROCEED"

Well....okay. Please take an oath in the name of God

ON WHAT?

The Bible

If it is on one of the books written on me, shouldn't you bring all the titles: Geeta, Koran and anything remotely religious?

You have to swear on God

I am God.....what use would an oath on myself do?

You would die if you lie

I don't live and I don't die. I am God

Well... are you refusing to take the oath ??

At this point thunder strikes the courtroom, and God is held to task.

Did you make thunder?

Yes that was me spattering in exasperation.

And so it goes ..

Illusion of Understanding

Though the recent renewed acquaintances from shelfari did embarass me a little, it was furthered when I tried to list the books that I have read so far. I wasnt too worried about the fictional bunch which, in my opinion, had very little value addition to my knowledge, other than the entertainment it provided. I was looking at all the technical or scientific books that I have read so far. From a mere bookcase point of view, it was quite impressive. But, I stopped for a moment to reflect on what I learned out of all those books. Yes, I did read those books. But, did I really understand everything that was conveyed? Very questionable...

I have always wondered about how people perceive about what they know. Someone once told me that, you have to have the power of unlearning things in order to learn something new. Though learning, implicitly assumes that you dont know about the thing that you are trying to learn from, reality is, we just try to fill in the perceived gaps that we have in our knowledge base. Most of us, inherently think that our gaps are very small..including me...:)... May be, that is the way human mind behaves... In my opinion, the smaller the perceived gap you think there is, the larger the gap becomes as you learn on top of it.

If such is the case with learning, what about understanding? I think, learning and understanding are two different things. Until someone really understands what they learn, nothing comes out of it. In other words, learning, in my opinion, is closely equivalent to storage of information. It does have it's benefits in certain topics. But, if you think about it, ideas evolve out of you only on things that you really understood. So, if I have never had any new ideas evolve out of me, it probably means that I didnt understand what I read. The only exception to this rule, is the generation of flawed ideas...:) May be, I should get back to school and try out those subjects to really check how far fetched my theories are with respect to reality. Now, should I take that risk... Knowing my capability, I think that wont be necessary..:)

If you are late, you are late..

I was in a hurry. It was a little longer than I anticipated at the post office and everyone was leaving for home! I hurried as much as the relentless traffic would allow, but was still 7 minutes late to my dental appointment and stressing over it. As I made a mad dash from the parking lot to the building as though the short sprint would earn me a few seconds in the stop watch of the imaginary record keeper. As I ran I felt like I was 11, but sadly reality struck. My brain's calculation of distances and the speed of my feet were out of sync. I missed my step and gravity brought me to hug the pavement. I felt the pain as I got off the ground in hurry. As I have done in the past (and I know I am not alone), I did not look at the ground at the imaginary obstacle that tripped me. But unconsciously I looked to see if the people in the building or in the parking lot took notice. Nope, nobody around. Satisfied about that and ignoring the fact that the fall cost me some 2 minutes, I went in.

Every move was excruciating. The kind of pain that makes you want to cry, but you don't because you are an adult and you realize these are insignificant and not tear-worthy. Fortunately, the dental work was painless. I was done with a good report and happy to be leaving. As I was signing the check, the receptionist spoke some sentence that ended in "fall". Did she see me take the fall? I am clumsy, but I don't like others knowing that.

I said "Excuse me", and she said "I said have a great fall". When you are in such pain, the context does not come to you quickly. Now I got it. I smiled in my head and thought, "I just did", I said "You too!". The irony of it all!

Did you know

Did you know that
(a) The gas-station 76 was named after the fact the Brits got kicked out of the US in 1776?
(b) Route 66 used to be from Chicago to LA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_66)

Oh Gee..! Mr. Gee

He was a man who was as contended with himself as a spectator of beauty peagent . Very few things stirred him. He was one of those not known for his humility. Even while counting sheep to go to sleep, he had a smile knowing that the sheep he conjured was one of the most perfect, beautiful specimen of this world. Yes, that was our man.

He got an invitation to join an online book club from a friend. Not a voracious reader himself, he still decided to join it. Hmmm…Now, he was one who liked stimulating his brain every now and then and was happy when he had to choose a name for the user id. Something that defined him just right, neither too flashy nor too humble. He was called a Geek by many and decided on the name “GeeKey”. Why, one may ask. Why not, Geeky? As I said, our man always has a smug look on his face, knowing that he is always a tad bit different than others and prides himself over it. Once joining the book club, he saw that there was a “Send Invite” button , helping him to invite his online friends. Little did he know that the software had automatically selected all the members of his contact list, a list which included a bunch of friends, professors, professionals, people he had rarely spoken a word or two to ,people he had never met, people he hated, people he would rather not keep in touch with, past colleagues and so on. And out goes this mail inviting every one to join his book club. Nothing embarrasses our man easily, but this one scored it. To mend things, out goes another mail to everyone apologizing for the previous mail. But, the contact list also had some persistent lot who wanted to know who Mr.Geekey was. Oh!! Gee !! What happened to Mr.Geekey , you may ask. He is busy answering to all the mails from friends, professors, professionals, people he had rarely spoken a word or two to, people he had never met, people he hated, people he would rather not keep in touch with, past colleagues and so on. And not so self-satisfied any more, are we Mr.Gee?

Our online id's

All right, dunno if this has been blogged before, nevertheless no harm in trying again. Several of us contribute to this blog. We all have our unique id's. Some prefer to keep their names (Mano, Meera and Saumya). Others blog under different names (mindframes, survivor, brainwaves and of course Mad Max). Is there a reason to why we choose to use a pen name as against our real names?

I'm a big fan of Mel Gibson and one of his earliest movies (that i saw) was Mad Max. Somehow liked the character and thought it sounded "chic". Gibson is Max and the movie really does drive you nuts. Cars, chases, fights blah blah. Neways, Mad Max it is for me.

On the Road

Several years ago, we were on a family trip cruising towards the Grand Canyon. Our car seemed to start losing control. My brother, the driver, managed to get it to a graceful stop on the shoulder. We realized we had a flat. The tire was like shredded cheese and we had a long distance to travel before the next city. I can't remember now whether we had a cell phone. The road seemed to stretch forever on both sides, walking was out of question, it was a mile or so before we could get to a public phone. We started flagging other drivers to see if they would stop. Finally a truck driver stopped to give us a hand with changing the tire - we did not even have the right tools - bad contingency planning! If not for that good hearted guy, we would have spent hours on the road trying to get help.

Ever since that incident, I pay attention to other cars that look like they may be stranded on the highway. But that is all I do, I pay attention, I feel sorry for them, but I never have stopped to offer help. I don't feel particularly proud of it. In fact, this irrational fear of strangers embarrasses me. Yesterday, there was a woman jay walking on the road, who seemed to be lost in her own world, she could have very well lost her way and seemed to be in obvious need of help. I felt sad and was hoping she'd walk away from the road rather than towards it, but I did not do much more. My capability to look away and ignore a situation amazes me and somehow, I wish that atleast sometimes I didn't have the "Namakku yen vambu" attitude. I would be really proud of myself the day I actually stop and help someone.

Memoirs

For all the cricket lovers, here is a treat of some of the best. The editing is really nice and the background track sits well with it. And watch for the grand finale. That is COMMITMENT!