dodgy bands, muffin tops and meaty subs

as other weekends go, this one was much better than the last few. i didn't spend all of it lying around in bed or on the couch downstairs. i only spent most of it lying around in bed or on the couch downstairs. saturday we had some absolutely glorious weather, the sun shone bright and it was warm outside (that means 5C). sank and i went out to a local dive-bar called Broadway Joe's.. where we knew the guy at the gate, so not only did we pay no cover, we also drank free mostly!

Broadway Joe's is pretty famous actually, showing up on Stuff magazine's list of 20 Best Dive Bars in the country.. the description is pretty grim, the place even grimmer. of the three bands that played.. one was really bad, one was ok, and one had potential. the positive rankings were awarded thanks to the number of beers we had downed, and also cos they saved the night by playing Pearl Jam's 'Last Kiss' thereby saving themselves from eternal damnation. but if you are an up and coming band, then it's a great place to come and get some live gigs in, and hopefully score with one of the endless muffin-topped bimbettes that Buffalo seems to produce by the droves.

one really great thing about Buffalo is that bars stay open till 4 a.m. so even the rest of Main Street is alive until then, including the food places. what better way to end a drunken night than cramming yourself with greasy meat laden with molten cheese on fresh bread?! Jim's Steakout is a Buffalo tradition.. and their steak hoagy is to die for, and also to die from!! hehe!!

woke up on sunday morning, feeling all trashed out.. looked out and saw it raining like it was going out of fashion, so put on the Pearl Jam and promptly went back to bed. good times.

the 'F' word

WARNING: The following post is liable to be offensive.
Don't fucking read it if you're gonna be offended.

Perhaps one of the most interesting words in the English language today, is the word fuck. Of all the English words beginning with f, fuck is the single one referred to as the 'f-word'. It's the one magical word, just by it's sound it can describe pain, pleasure, hate and love.

Fuck, as most of the other words in English, has arrived from Germany. Fuck is from German's 'fliechen' which mean to strike. In English, fuck falls into many grammatical categories:
As a transitive verb for instance, "John fucked Shirley"
As an intransitive verb; "Shirley fucks"
It's meaning is not always sexual, it can be used as the following too.
As an adjective such as; "John's doing all the fucking work"
As part of an adverb; "Shirley talks too fucking much"
As an adverb enhancing an adjective; "Shirley is fucking beautiful "
As a noun; "I don't give a fuck"
As part of a word: "abso-fucking-lutely" or "in-fucking-credible".
And as almost every word in a sentence: "Fuck the fucking fuckers!"

As you must realize, there aren't many words with the versatility such as the word fuck, as in these situations:
- fraud: "I got fucked at the used car lot"
- trouble: "I guess I'm really fucked now"
- dismay: "Oh, fuck it!"
- aggresion: "Don't fuck with me, buddy!"
- difficulty: "I don't understand this fucking question"
- inquiry: "Who the fuck was that?"
- dissatisfaction: "I don't like what the fuck is going on here"
- incompetence: "He's a fuck-off!"
- dismissal: "Why don't you go outside and play hide n' go fuck yourself?"

I'm sure you can think of many more examples.

With all these multi-purpose applications, how can anyone be offended when you use the word? Use this unique, flexible word more often in your daily speech. It will identify the quality of your character immediately. Say it loudly and proudly:

FUCK YOU!

Taken from Monty Python

kinky tennis

a few years ago, some very enterprising fellows had the brilliant idea that since guys like football, and guys like hot women in lingerie.. put the two together, and you get hot women in lingerie playing football!! genius! this magical event is now a pay-per-view show called the Lingerie Bowl at halftime during the Super Bowl.. and available soon after as a DVD-rip on your local P2P software, free i might add.

so now here's the next super-brilliant barnstorming idea! since guys like hot women in lingerie, and guys like hot tennis-playing women.. put the two together, and you have hot women in lingerie playing tennis!! genius, again! we could make it a doubles match, to get four girls on the court, grunting and sweating.. and have it at each Grand Slam, and call the whole show the Bikini Slam!! now isn't that just one of the best ideas ever? just gotta copyright the idea, and see if i can sell it to some promoter or model agency somewhere, you guys know any?!

what's up down under?

the Australian Open is on; i had kinda stopped following women's tennis the last few years.. pretty much since Steffi Graf hung up her racket, and Martina Hingis' ankles gave way. after that, the bunch of power hitters (the Williams posse, Davenport) all took over and there was nothing to watch really. the girls weren't pretty, the tennis wasn't pretty.. i'd much rather watch reruns of Die Hard on tv!

but now there are changes in the top order, the Belgian duo don't have it all their way, no one can be written off.. and it's good to see Hingis making a spirited comeback, and even better to see that Maria Sharapova is actually a complete tennis player, and not just an item number like the other glam chick Anna Kournikova. speaking of Sharapova, what is she wearing on court?? that smock makes her look pregnant! then again, when i look more carefully, maybe i shouldn't complain too much.. heheh!

EDIT: she lost last night.. damn.. no more pretty girls left in the draw!!

   

'The Voicemail Menu' next?

In my teens, I was really wary of reading Stephen King's books, because his fantastic talent for creating psychological horror freaked me out much more than any monsters or ghouls! 'Cujo', 'It', 'The Shining', 'Needful Things'.. whew! But I stopped reading this bloke way back in the late '90s when all his stories started getting stereotypical, and his writing held nothing new for me. It seems Stephen King has finally exhausted Castle Rock, Maine of all its demons.. with no more ghosts and spirits to be found, he has started exorcising the world of modern-day evils.. his new book 'Cell' releases today, about diabolic cell phones!

Now, I'm tempted to write a few horror novels* too..

• '140 WPM': A beautiful woman is stranded in a gothic cathedral on a remote island and chased down lonely, dark corridors by a strange creature making clacking noises. The thing gets closer and closer, keeps getting bigger, bullets bounce off it until at last she realizes it is a supernatural typewriter churning out thousands of pages of formula horror novels in which people get chased down lonely, dark corridors by strange creatures. And it can't be stopped!


• 'Vente Latte': A spunky recently divorced single mom is stranded in a deserted Starbucks on an abandoned super-secret military base on a remote island during a power failure. The espresso maker comes to life as a hideous beast controlling an army of extra-shot double-half-skim peanut-caramel lattes. The recipes alone evoke horror! The heroine must defeat the living lattes without burning her hand on the coffee, which is very hot.


• 'Individually Wrapped': An evil multinational corporation prepares to market individually wrapped portions of toothpaste. A mysterious Indian shaman appears and recites an ancient Native American chant about not misusing the Earth. Suddenly everything that's individually wrapped comes to life seeking vengeance! Beautiful housewives die horribly when attacked by slices of American cheese. Handsome hunk college students die horribly when attacked by printer ink cartridges that were not recycled. In the finale, the sinister CEO is trapped in a gigantic abandoned warehouse at a deserted corporate research facility deep in the woods during a hailstorm. All the wasteful environmentally damaging products the company was testing - prescription food, disposable one-use-only shoes, remote-control bras - come to life and attack him.


• 'Double-A': We're surrounded by devices that work on batteries. We use the batteries until they fail and them toss them into the trash. What if the batteries are angry about being thrown away? What if a supernatural demonic being from another dimension gave the batteries the power of revenge? Remember, they're full of deadly acid.

*from Greg Easterbrook, at NFL.com

laws/laughs

got these off Bored.com, you can tell i was pretty bored! these are all true New York state laws..

• A fine of $25 can be levied for flirting. This old law specifically prohibits men from turning around on any city street and looking "at a woman in that way."
• A license must be purchased before hanging clothes on a clothesline.
• Citizens may not greet each other by "putting one's thumb to the nose and wiggling the fingers".
• Donkeys are not allowed to sleep in bathtubs in Brooklyn, N.Y.
• It is against the law to throw a ball at someone's head for fun.
• It is illegal to jump off the Empire State building.
• New Yorkers cannot dissolve a marriage for irreconcilable differences, unless they both agree to it.
• You may only water your lawn if the hose is held in your hand.

and here's my favorite..

• The New York City Transit Authority has ruled that women can ride the city subways topless, since women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business.

meandering

sometimes i glimpse the end, it shows itself in short flashes
but i keep my head down, false expectations lead to crashes

   

the paths there are myriad, the chances of getting lost high
the correct road there one, and the minutes ticking away nigh

ode to a memory

so we'll meet again, when the sun shines right
when it will rain, and the stars sparkle bright
snows dull the pain, in the dead of the night
my lips you'll stain, in my brain you'll light

on the other side, where it's always greener
a fancy-filled ride, a thought that's clearer
alcohol never lied, trips made so much dearer
hits that never died, highs that were nearer

so here's a toast to all of you lighting up

she bites!

whoa.. had a very weird dream last night..
i had a run-in with a sexy vampire..
she was hot, horny, and very very scary..
and her blood-lust was quite unnerving!!

 

anyone explain what that dream was all about?!

knock knock?

i love the word 'knock'.. it's such a flexible word, and can be used in so many situations. who knew that knocking boots didn't actually refer to footwear, but action two feet higher up?! of course, you're in for the knock then if you knock a girl up, cos sure as hell her daddy's gonna come knockin' on a few doors! just cos she has a great pair of knockers doesn't mean you should knock more than a kiss! hey, it's a hard-knock life.

but if her daddy catches you then he's gonna knock you silly, knock you out, knock you cold or knock you dead. or maybe you could knock him for a loop and disappear.. that'd knock him. you knock things you don't like, but don't knock 'em before you try 'em. if you don't like the job then knock some money off the top, or knock over the cash till, but if you get busted then you're knocked. the cops are gonna knock seven bells outta you if you don't confess, and in jail you sure as hell are gonna get your ass knocked. you have to take the knocks for your actions.

when i'm hungry i knock together a few things in a pan, and sit with a beer or two to knock back. but if i knock more than four then i get really knocked. i like me a good dark beer, not the cheap-ass knockoffs. it'd be great to get a job where i can knock off some time in the afternoons for a siesta, they wouldn't knock me for it unless i was knocking on deadlines of course! and when i'd knock off on friday night, i'd knock the boys together and we'd go knock some knees and shake some boo-tay.

all this knocking, if i add a section on knock-knock jokes we could knock off a book here! maybe i should knock it off,and just go knock back and relax. and always remember the trailerpark etiquette: don't come knockin' if the trailer's rockin'..

perfect lover or perfect wife?

i got tagged on this one by Sanny & Paurna.. the rules go:

1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.
2. Need to mention the sex of the target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game and tell them they’ve been tagged.

i have an issue with this point 'perfect lover'.. do they mean perfect lover, or perfect wife? cos hell yeah there's a difference! hehe, anyways, here goes.. my perfect gal's gotta:

1. have a sense of humor. sometimes slapstick, sometimes witty, sometimes sharp.. but she's gotta be able to laugh.
2. appreciate music. be willing to explore different genres, pick up an instrument or even sing. it'd be great if she came along to concerts too!
3. love good food. both eating it, and making it. i'd like it if we cooked together. she should also enjoy a drink or two, or three!
4. be comfortable with her body. i think that is more important than fashion fads and drastic diets. just be herself.
5. watch sports with the boys. and if she's understanding what's going on then it's a huge bonus point! asking questions is cool too.
6. enjoy nature and travelling. i'm a free spirit, born to wander, imbibe new cultures and different places, and it'd be good if we went together.
7. be creative and open-minded, willing to try new things. this attitude has to carry over in all aspects of her life.
8. be honest. there are no two ways about that.

the first eight commenters.. consider yourselves tagged!

cars cars cars!!

it's with good reason that Detroit is called the Motor City.. the 2006 North American International Auto Show was on this weekend, and it was a chance for guys to be kids all over again, and drool over cars!

From top to bottom, left to right:
- Ford GT & Lamborghini Sport
- Scion tC & BMW Concept Z4
- Ferrari F430 & Shelby Cobra 500GT
- Porsche Carrera S & Dodge Challenger
- Subaru Impreza WRC & McLaren Mercedes SLR

NB: for the record, the Merc shown above costs $465,000/=.. anyone wanna buy me one?!

off to Motor City

The Outlaw will be out of town this weekend..
the gang is headed to Detroit for a short vacation.



have a great weekend, and be good while i'm gone! heh!

village studs

continued from yesterday's post about the stars of the village.. for one to be a stud (or studette).. a few things were compulsory:

• have a high GPA (CGPA in kgp lingo) - the stud must be the kind of person who doesn't feel the pressing need to attend class or labs, yet will have assignments done and submitted just before the deadline, and will only be seen in the proximity of books the day before the exam, where he/she will score outrageous marks.


• play some sport at collegiate level - the more sports the better actually, but the stud would have to be playing for the college team in some sport. during practise will usually look uninterested but at the time of need will step up and do the business.


• excel in social and cultural activities - the stud would have to be a star in at least a few of the following: dramatics, music, debate, elocution, choreography, creative writing, art, illumination activities.


• be an integral part of SpringFest - this was the annual college festival, officially 4 days of revelry and music, but with over 4 months of long nights and hard slog in behind the scenes work. at the very least, the stud would be a member of the Steering Committee.


• be respected among his/her peers - the studs would have their opinions sought on all sorts of wide-ranging issues, from how long the ragging period should be this year, to what should the hall budget be for the annual farewell. also, all prospective college election candidates would seek them out for their blessings, and proudly bear the label 'stud-approved'!


• have an 'in' with the authorities - blessed with smooth tongues and slippery dispositions, the studs would time and again be called upon to keep the profs at bay, and disciplinary committees would be convinced by their golden words that indeed no social evils pervaded the corridors of the residence halls.


• be good-looking and/or very charming - a good sense of humor is almost secondary for the stud, as he can win over people with his charm and/or looks. his entry into a eating place or a hall would be followed by a general hubbub and pointing of fingers.


• have a girlfriend (boyfriend for the studettes) - usually the studs went out with the studettes, or the 'item numbers'. it wasn't difficult to tell them apart. the studettes would be seen gallivanting down Scholars' Avenue (the main thoroughfare) drunk with their boyfriends, singing the entire The Doors repertoire, while the 'item numbers' would be hanging on to their studs for dear life, staring into their eyes dreamily.


• finally, the stud would have some sort of flaw - this was very important in perpetrating the legend. our hero would have to be afflicted by something that would taint his perfect image, but not enough to make him 'one of us mortals'. this could be anything from chain smoking, getting over a bad relationship, binge drinking and associated hell-raising, fits of depression.. you get the point.

the stud was never a shy retiring person, usually basking in the limelight and very visible. and like with all rules, there are exceptions to these, and they prove the rule. they know themselves.

village people

so last time around i showed you a glimpse into life at the village.. this time i'll tell you about the village people themselves. for those who missed it, the village in question being IIT Kgp.. and the people being the inmates. inmates you might think is a strong term, but life there at its worst is so inhospitable that the stress and the related dramas make life in the POW camps seem a not so distant reality.

certain monikers coined by the press about these inmates have been blown out of proportion, and led to fill the innocent with awe, the innocuous with admiration, and the insipid with disgust: "cream of the country" and "braintrust of the nation" among them. it is true that this just might be the hardest group of colleges to get into, with over a hundred thousand applying for some five thousand seats or so, but any honest IITian will tell you that they are not much different from any other engineering student.

i'm sure there are lots of folks out there who work much much harder than we do, and probably are more intelligent too. so yeah, i guess what makes us different is how we handle situations that are thrown our way.. which basically means we try a little harder to goof off work and still look good about it!

this is no way takes away from the achievements of those who went to IIT and were focused on their studies, and are now in positions of responsibility all over the world. i applaud them. but they are only a small percentage of the lot. the majority of the bunch go in there knowing that it'll smooth their path into a lucrative future, and getting in was the hardest part, and things should only get easier henceforth. sometimes this attitude hurts IITians when they go out into the world, because suddenly no one thinks they're the bees knees and a honest day's work has often become a forgotten concept. either that, or i had really been hanging out with the very wrong crowd in undergrad!

anyways, beyond all that, we had our fair share of characters too.. theories of group behavioral dynamics confirm that even in a group of similar individuals, some will excel and some will fail, some will take responsibility and some will be led, some will study hard and some will drink hard.. and the best part is that even the smallest population units will show this spectrum of characteristics.

from these pools of uniformity often there shone some stars.. people labelled as 'studs'.. all-rounders of the highest calibre, who studied, worked and partied with equal aplomb. i saw my fair share of studs in my time, and they served to inspire the masses with their deeds of daring. and as with all heroes, if they had a slightly-flawed character, it only served to enhance the legend..

more on the studs tomorrow.

be what you want to be

people spend all their lives competing.. competing in class, on the field, at work.. everywhere. i feel all these battles are secondary, cos there's only one real fight in life, and that's with yourself.. and there's one real challenge in life, to be the best that you can be. so go out there, win your personal battles, and see everything else take care of itself!

you know..

.. that maybe you have blogger's block when all you can think of posting are little tidbits from Blogthings.

.. that maybe your life's a little monotonous when at the end of the weekend you have nothing to write about.

.. that maybe you need a change of scenery when all you got to look forward to is finishing the @#$& thesis.

about me

Your Band Name is:

The King of Ninjas

Band Name Generator

What Kind Of Drunk Are You?

You're An Alcoholic

Drunk Type Generator

What Kind Of Kisser Are You?

You're A Freaky Kisser When you kiss, you want to experience something new A new technique, a new partner, a new piercing... And your own personal kissing style is very unpredictable There's no saying where your tongue or hands will go

Kisser Type Generator

The Underwear Oracle

What Your Underwear Says About You When you're bad, you're very bad. And when you're good, you're still trouble! You are childlike, and prone to run around in your underwear

The Underwear Oracle

a false spring

the weather is mild, it hasn't snowed in over two weeks. though the sun doesn't break through the cloudy haze, the outlook isn't so grim. it's almost as if the winter is over even before it started. unfortunately this will not last, it will snow heavily again in a few days. the worst of the winter is still ahead. and we must go through that before spring truly arrives. before the sun bursts through the blanket of clouds, the trees regain their leaves and grass is bright green again.

the thesis is going okay, it seems i'll be done soon. though all chapters have not been completed yet, the outlook isn't so grim. it's almost as if the work ended before the hardest slog started. unfortunately this will not last, it will get really bad again in a few days. the worst of the editing is still ahead. and i must go through that before the completion truly arrives. before i can well and truly be done, my life regain focus and i can be awesome self again.

2005 recap

i do one of these every year, so here's one for last year.. the highs and lows of 2005.. i tried to keep them down to three-a-month!

January -
- met my parents after almost two years
- met up with lots of friends in india
- my cousin's wedding was a lot of fun

February -
- bought a gamepad controller for the laptop
- locked myself out in the freezing cold, stoned in my pyjamas
- barbecued and played football in the snow

March -
- postponed my thesis submission date
- went to columbus with A-Rod for a Pink Floyd tribute concert
- made 'glug' (mulled wine) with Jason

April -
- went to listen to Salman Rushdie speak
- tried various eclectic recipes with Nats
- wrote some really intense posts, very deep

May -
- successfully finished my last semester with courses
- had a great great graduation ceremony!
- very reluctantly stopped partaking of the 'herb'

June -
- Discovered Cartoon Network's other avatar, Adult Swim
- Celebrated one year of blogging!
- Had a couple of breakthroughs in my research

July -
- Thursdays At The Square concert series
- Went for OzzFest, watched Black Sabbath & Iron Maiden
- Went for Shakespeare In The Park - Romeo & Juliet

August -
- Went for a Buffalo Bills football game
- Had a lazy summer sweltering in Buffalo
- Frustration of postponing the thesis defense by one more semester

September -
- Met the gf, and it's been great since then
- Watched Disturbed & Ill Nino in concert
- More thesis frustration piles on

October -
- My 'other' girl (the laptop) died on me.. she hasn't been the same since
- Crossed 50,000 hits on this blog
- Spent a great long weekend away with the gf.

November -
- Went to NY & NJ with the gf for Thanksgiving
- Hit post no. 500 on this blog
- This blog also changed addresses to its current location

December -
- Had a couple of job interviews - negatives from both though
- The 'other' gf crashed again, very frustratingly
- The gf came over on a surprise visit for the holidays

so yup, it'd been a very full year.. Happy New Year everyone!!

village memories

trudging to the lab this morning through the inches of snow, i find myself remembering the days of yore. actually, the days of undergrad. i studied in an eastern corner of India, a place called Kgp, that would be glorified beyond belief were i to call it a village. the campus was it. everything outside the campus was the way the British found it when they landed in the mid-1800s. they too left it the way they found it.

of course, i exaggerate.. but only slightly. most students did their to-ing and fro-ing on bicycles, as these represented the optimum cost-benefit anaysis. within cycling range were two very important landmarks, which seemed to have made progress towards development. not strangely, both these establishments sold alcohol.

establishment no. 1 was Waldorf restaurant. despite the lofty name, let it not deceive you into images of grandeur. Waldie's was a chinese-operated joint, in a pretty grimy building, with dim yellow lighting and tired fans that turned slowly. they lost their liquor license soon after our freshman year (i solemnly swear i had nothing to do with that), but the food remained excellent. a lynchpin in that menu was this dish called "half-fried chicken". i know the name is dubious, but it was basically half of a poultry animal of the chicken vintage cut into bite-sized pieces and fried. much much better than KFC, and even now tears come to my eyes and my tongue flops around in my mouth as i type the name.

there were ways of getting over the Prohibition there though. the head-waiter (i use the term loosely) there knew of my affinity for rum, and thus whenever i ordered Pepsi, my 'cola' would come already half-poured in the glass. later on we realised that if we tipped him heavily, we could just bring our own alcohol to the place.

the second establishment was the Park Hotel. again, i urge you to not go by name, as this was no Michelin-star wielding kind of operation at all. but it was new, and had an air-conditioning, which actually only served to recycle the cigarette smoke-laden air back into the place. the food was passable, but a few beers down the hatch made it downright enjoyable. the company was well-pleasing though, for all the riff-raff of the campus would show up.. Park on friday night was like a status symbol. it was well-pleasing because there is nothing more enjoyable than knowing your table was always booked, and when you would get there, the table would be cleared away and stocked with cold beers and red-hot tandoori chicken. yum yum.

the real fun would actually begin after dinner and drinks. funny thing with alcohol is, the more you drink the thirstier you get! so the drunken walk back wheeling the cycles uphill back to campus involved a detour to the humble home of a fine upstanding citizen who went by the name of Venky. as befitting the purveyor of untaxed (and therefore cheaper) alcoholic products, he had a big dog and a little garage. since Venky was a fine upstanding citizen, he slept early. so we had to climb the gate and knock on his door to wake the fellow. but the aforementioned dog was moody, so when he rushed you as you clambered over the gate, one couldn't be sure whether he was welcoming you or trying to decide which part of you was the meatiest.

usually a biscuit or a "good boy, down boy" would do the trick. i think dogs sense a oneness of soul with me, and let me live. then would follow a communal digging out of pockets and pooling together of banknotes and coins from deep dark recesses where the sun don't shine and the rain don't pour. hey, it's money, and it buys alcohol. let no more be said.

like the three wise men of the Bible, bearing the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.. errm, alcohol and other 'herbs' actually.. we would return to C-313, the haven for the weary and the den of iniquity, as someone so rightly pointed out once. at which point the revelries would begin, but that is another story, for another day!

happy happy and all that!

been away the last few days.. the gf came by on a surprise visit, and an old friend landed up as well.. so it was all fun and games, food and drink again. i haven't been able to come round to your blogs to wish you a happy new year as the 'other' gf is still not back from her repair work, but i shall pop around as soon as i can!

anyways, here's wishing you all a very Happy New Year, and a big thank you to all of you for your new year wishes, as well as the birthday wishes ;-) [yes, The Outlaw Torn is celebrating a birthday today!!]