winter approaches

a cold clear morning dawns, bright and blue. the sun at this time of the year is very deceptive, and is only good for lighting purposes! any hopes of garnering some nourishing warmth from the yellow rays are but a distant illusion. there's always a nippy wind blowing, sometimes its more a huge snarling bite than a nip in fact!

once again a weekend ends, quite unsatisfactorily i might add, but monday's here, and we gotta do what we gotta do.. *blech*

Happy Halloween to all.. have fun trick o' treating!!

Happy Diwali to all my Indian friends out there celebrating this day!

Things I've Learned - Pt.1

Research requires great self-discipline

one of the most important things for successful research is the ability to discipline oneself. passion will only give you the drive, but control is required to reach the destination. ironic thing is, it requires great self-discipline to acquire self-discipline.

words of wanting

stability

space

desire

understanding

happiness

o English, where art thou?

is it just me or has anyone else noticed the absolutely disgraceful standards of written and spoken english in the mass media?! it's one thing to be laidback on your blog or on IM (i know i am, especially with capitalization and the like), but when writing/speaking for the whole wide world like in the newspapers or on radio & tv.. a higher standard is expected! it's not a wonder kids grow up speaking bad english (or french, or arab, or whichever language).. the mass media has a responsibility to the public to uphold good grammar and punctuation at the very least, and hopefully enrich our vocabulary and diction too! i think this is a growing problem in all languages of the world.

this laxity is everywhere, from the failure to notice the difference between bare/bear (eg. i can't bare the pain.. WTF???) to the usage of the 's for possession (eg. the mans survival depended on it.. bah!!).. i am dismayed to see that proofreaders are being paid to sit on their expansive rear ends and twiddle their opposable thumbs while hitherto intellectually-aware newscasters blindly read grammatically-challenged sentences from their teleprompters like herds of buffalo being led to a watering hole.

the people's eyebrow HNT

a long long time back.. when i was in my teens.. wrestling was all the rage, and WWF was the coolest thing ever! to some people it still is the coolest thing.. of course, such folk still live with their moms and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, but let's not go there!

without further ado i present The Rock, and the people's eyebrow!

for newbies, this is what its all about.. and here is where you can see all the entries for the day!!
(scroll down till you see Hiding Half-Nekkid This Week in the Back Row on the right!)

aaaaand the winner is..

yes, sushmita was the no. 50,000.. and as the recipient of the first prize of dinner and drinks, she has indicated that New York City is an apt venue for the aforementioned prize!

once again, a big 'thank you' to all the readers over the seventeen months or so who have followed the fortunes of The Outlaw Torn.. i hope to keep on writing, and i hope y'all hang around and enjoy the ride!

are you # 50,000?

if you look at the counter on the right of the page, it's steadily creeping toward the 50k mark.. i owe it all to you faithful readers who drop by every day, and even though i started this blog for my own writing pleasure, i often write for the same reasons i talk to so many people.. i'm a performer at heart, and love to interact with people, and evince response from them..

if you are the 50,000th hit on the page (or the closest), please take a screenshot and mail me up at yeahbaby@gmail.com, i'd like to express my gratitude personally. as for everyone else, thank you very much for your unflinching support, and here's looking forward to many more comments from you all!

a break from it all

i had a most refreshing weekend, even though the weather decided to play spoilsport. some excellent company, good food and great scenery made for a reinvigorating break.. enough hopefully to carry me through the last days of this thesis. here are a few pics from Letchworth State Park..

life lies ahead like a long road, and sometimes it just whizzes by

        
better times are there, sometimes hidden behind big obstacles
        
even though the way ahead is foggy, we wait for the mist to clear
        
for that inspiration, for that magic touch

away!

friday is here.. and i am off for a long weekend.. let it suffice to say that this is gonna be one special holiday ;-) y'all have a great time and i will catch you all on monday!

interview HNT

was dressing up for the job fair yesterday.. what better opportunity for an HNT pic eh?! the interviews went pretty well actually..

PS: for those curious folks.. the beads across my neck spell out S-O-R-A-Y, my nickname!

for newbies, this is what its all about.. and here is where you can see all the entries for the day!!
(scroll down till you see Hiding Half-Nekkid This Week in the Back Row on the right!)

schmoopy post day!

so as promised, it's schmoopy wednesday.. so write all the mush you want, in whatever form, prose, poetry, pics.. drop a line at yankeebob's to let us know you're up! i wish i could have come up with something schmoopier.. but there's way too much on my plate now for me to write some over-sentimental gloop! ;-)

another morning dawns so warm blue,

i wake up fuzzy lying here next to you,

the night past seems but a dream to me,

you were wonderful, and will always be;

i'm a better man now for having you here,

no matter what happens i love you dear,

my arms around you holding you so close,

seeing your cheeks flush like a dewy rose;

what more is there in life for me but you,

nothing else i wanna see, nothing to do,

i wanna show you all the joys life brings,

our love will carry us on angels' wings.

hehe, waiting to see what the rest of you put up!

riders on the storm

it's only tuesday and what a tumultuous week it's been.. there's a job fair on campus on wednesday, so gotta dust off the resume and the formal threads.. look spiffy and all that!

ok, wednesday is time for some fun.. YankeeBob came up with a great idea, let's all write a schmoopy post (click the link for more details).. make it as schmoopy / mushy / schmubby as you want, enough to make you gag if you can! don't forget then, wednesday is Schmoopy Post Day, so lay it on thick and let's all have a laugh! and after you post make sure you leave a comment on YB's blog saying you're playing!

Jim Morrison came to me in a dream yesterday.. and no he didn't show me the way to the next whiskey bar either, i don't remember what he wanted, but i hope he was singing "This is the end, My only friend, the end; Of our elaborate plans, the end.."

last night while watching Monday Night Football.. we saw the most hilarious ad ever! it was a full tv spot for a.. (wait for this..)

TXT CHAT ON SMS WITH HOT WOMEN.. SEND SMS NOW TO 1-900-XXX-XXXX

i mean, can you believe that?! how incredibly frustrated would someone have to be to resort to that, and how much more frustrated would he/she get when in the throes of passion, jabbing away at the little buttons on the cellphone trying to get yet another sordid message across, comes a beep, and 'Message Not Sent'.. heheh!!

have a great day everyone..

**EDIT**
update on my 'other' gf.. she will need a major transplant, so am gonna have to put together the cash and organs for that.. all her data is safe, and she will be like the gal of old again very very soon! :-) thank you once again everyone for your care and concern!

weekend salvaged..

so after the idling and sloth, i managed to salvage the weekend.. good food played a solid contribution there, with mexican pulled pork for saturday lunch, bengali maccher jhaal (spicy mustard fish curry) for saturday dinner, and some top notch chinese food fixed up by my friend Chiang on sunday lunch - vegetable rice noodles, stir fry veggies and fried chicken! .. she cooks really well!

saturday night sank and i decided to open up another bottle of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum.. and came up with a nice warm cocktail.. the Captain's Elixir, which served us pretty well! it must've hit really hard too.. cos we decided to wake up early sunday morning to go jogging.. and actually did too! got some work done, and ended sunday on a high with the Buffalo Bills trampling over the Jets to go joint top of their division.. this should be a great week!

lazy

for the second straight day i have gotten up early (relatively, it was still a.m.) and then after cleaning up my room and setting up all my reading material ready to study or write the thesis.. i just feel too lazy to go on and the day then tails off into a meandering mass of wasted hours.. anyone has any recommendations?

a story of 3 sandwiches

i have been improving my skills in making gourmet sandwiches.. here i present three of my faves: (from left) breakfast sausage special, cheeseburger deluxe and classic ham & cheese.. have a great weekend everyone!

(ingredients shall soon be up on the recipe website)

snippets

a quick run-through of all that's going on in my mind

no HNT today folks.. my laptop's not back yet, and there's no way i'm uploading half nekkid pics of myself using the comps at work!!

had a meeting with a prof early today.. very early.. at 8!! what the heck?! i was like partly dazed n' confused sitting in his office.. my tongue felt like a soggy blanket resting in my mouth.. but evidently i said enough to make him happy!

you know you live in a sports-mad city when the first two spots on tv news early in the morning are both on sports.. the Buffalo Bills QB debate, and the Buffalo Sabres hot start!

i love a couple of the new TV shows for the Fall season.. 'My Name Is Earl' is hilarious, poking fun at a very redneck-y segment of the population, but good nonetheless.. and then there's 'Everybody Hates Chris', which chronicles the trials and tribulations of comedian Chris Rock growing up in Brooklyn!

not heard too much new music lately, but Bush-frontman Gavin Rossdale (aka Gwen Stefani's hubby) has a new band called Institute.. which sounds exactly like Bush anyways!

we have already had the customary last burst of warm weather before fall last week.. so i guess that is pretty much it for the year.. here comes winter, and the snows.. and by all predictions it's gonna be a wicked one!

seven DOs and DON'Ts

no matter what it looks like, this is a happy post..

1. DO NOT meet me in the a.m. hours and be all cheery, chirpy and stuff like someone's been beating you with a happy stick, or like optimism is going out of fashion.
2. DO ask me how the laptop is, but only if you are wishing her well. I'm a geek, and you better know how much she means to me.
3. DO NOT talk to me if at some point in reference to the laptop you are going to smugly retort with mock horror "you didn't have backups?!". the whole effing reason i got a 60Gb hard disk is so that i don't have my shit all over the place. i think differently, bite me.
4. DO ask me how the girlfriend is doing, and how things are going with us, cos she makes me one very, very happy man.
5. DO NOT mention the words 'research' and 'thesis' within at least 5 minutes of each other unless you have a pressing need to reschedule to an earlier appointment with surgical staff of the orthopaedic persuasion.
6. DO NOT ask me how the thesis is going unless you are desperately seeking an immediate dental rearrangement.
7. DO NOT ask me how the job search is coming along unless you are ready to listen to a rant about how cross-disciplinary grad students get a raw deal from both sides.

thank you folks.. see y'all tomorrow :-)

(was) searching..

this is a post i started a few weeks back.. and just kept adding lines to.. but somehow never got round to finishing. y'know how they say that girls mature faster than guys? and that girls have a 5 year jump on guys in the maturity stakes? over the years i have really questioned that.

i've met girls just out of high school, and freshmen in college, who are so focussed on what they want to do in life, and already are the people they will remain for the rest of their lives. and then i've met girls in grad school who behave like giggly teenagers, and who are more suited to being lifetime subscription holders of a Justin Timberlake fan club. heck, i've even met girls who are working and are well-settled in good careers, but remain the kind if stranded without a cellphone or someone to tell them what to do, will run around in ever-widening circles like headless chicken until they'll drop dead of exhaustion or you just wanna help put them out of their misery.

so that means that it's certainly not just age that makes people mature, and sometimes its not even circumstances of life that make them stable.. so what is that x-factor then that makes people level-headed and grown-up?

i've been searching for a while now, searching for a more mature girl. guess what, i did find someone.

diagnosis

i would like to thank you all for your kind words and messages of support over the last few days.. the 'other' girlfriend has gone under expert care, and is receiving diagnostic attention, the technicians say it will be nearly five days while they run tests and can tell me what happened to her. meanwhile i will be online, but a bit intermittently.

we have had 18 months together, and it has been a love-hate relationship.. sometimes we were almost inseparable, and at times we were flippantly aloof.. but it has been a beautiful experience.. movies, music, pictures, browsing, IM.. the times we shared together.. but i noticed in the last one month, ever since the entry of 'the' girlfriend in my life, she started getting hot unneccesarily, and would have lots of moodswings.. much as i appreciate her, but i just might have to let her go if she keeps this up!

will let y'all know how things turned out with her, will resume normal blogging services tomorrow!

in coma

while i went to visit my girlfriend, my 'other' girl (the laptop) died on me again before i could back up my stuff.. right now she lies in coma while i try to figure out a way of getting my 60 Gb of priceless stuff off of her.. thanks for your best wishes everyone, will let you know how it turns out.

close shave

the difference between disaster and euphoria is a blue LED light!

my erstwhile companion, research savior and 'other' girlfriend went on the blink.. ash and i had opened the laptop up to clean out the dust and fluff, and she refused to come back on! frantic calls to Customer Service ("that will be $286 for a repair Sir" - fuck off!!).. digging through online manuals (the Troubleshooting page is hidden better than the Holy Grail!).. wondering if all my data and thesis were gone (i am SO fucked!).. then i finally got the diagnostic check working and she got turned on again (hehehe!!).. phew!

cold rainy day here in buffalo.. so here i am with my coffee and smokes, feet up on the table reading research papers - yes, i'm a geek, didn't you know?!

late night HNT

this is how i wind down some weeknights.. watching M*A*S*H from 11 to 1, on our vintage television, with a beer (or two.. hehe!). i don't know what it is about the show.. it's just a bunch of jaded and sozzled doctors in Korea '52, mending soldiers and playing pranks.. but i'm really hooked on it!

for newbies, this is what its all about.. and here is where you can see all the entries for the day!!(scroll down till you see Hiding Half-Nekkid This Week in the Back Row on the right!)

'twas the summer of '04

aparna tagged me with this post #23 thing.. so this is the 5th line from the 23rd post, sometime in summer last year, it was all such a haze..

".. then at night we barbecued at 55 along with a few of the boyz.. what a wild lot.. gprx is back from india.. with packs of Wills Classic.. ahh, Wills Classic.. *nostalgic moment*.. we grilled some chicken, and piled on the food.. got really really hammered!!

next morning woke up solid sozzled still.. (hey, that's alliteration!) and went out for a lunch buffet.. $5-all-you-can-eat indian food.. couldn't stuff myself though.. which is definitely the best indication that i'm getting too old for this rock n' roll lifestyle.. *sigh*.."

ahh, what a great summer that was, last year. and this summer was so laidback in comparison.. it's like age caught up with me in a hurry!! actually, it was the lack of 'research' funding that made the difference.. hehe!

anyone looking for a nostalgia trip, this is for you.. so tag yourselves! of course, i'd like Sush (you'll like this one!), Di (since you have nothing better to do!), DC (payback!), Nick (konichiwa, bitch!) and Illusionary (dig out a poem willya!).. enjoy! the instructions are:
1. Delve into your blog archive
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to)
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to)
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions
5. Tag five people to do the same

%^$!@#%!!!

this is so NOT how to start a day! somehow in the throes of deep sleep i switched off both alarms after they rung in the morning today! both alarms happen to be loud ringtones on the cellphone (Disturbed - 'Down With The Sickness', Linkin Park - 'One Step Closer'), staggered by 5 min to gimme some recovery time.. and somehow i slept through both! then woke at 8.28 like i'd been fired out of a shotgun.. not a good thing when i'm supposed to be in at work at 8!!

i'm sleeping really well these days.. a little too well it appears!

evoke

a dozen words to describe this, drifting free upon the seas
tugging a rhythm that's a vision alone on the shore
your littlest emotions like tremors, turn to feeling quakes
and the smallest moments bring us to days of lore

this unmistakable voice that i have come to know so well
rouses me from a slumber like never slept before
the devil's ransom paid and the angels triumphant again
color perceptions swirl black from white no more

in the streak i was reading too much and losing my head
at your tree i asked for a branch to prise the door
upon your lap my head and my worries in a pile outside
chanced fate, faith in love and a promise we bore

but ..

i wanted to wake up early, but went back to bed after breakfast
i wanted to do some experiments, but never made it to the lab
i wanted to stay awake in class, but i didn't really even try to
i wanted to do some thesis work, but the folders stayed closed
i wanted to go on a beer crawl, but we missed the happy hour
i wanted to cook gourmet stuff, but decided to have soup instead
i wanted to write a better post, but this is all i have for you now