The Blah Blahs and the Yada Yadas

I got tagged by Amooma.

Online Tag is a curious ball game. It’s a mix of the childhood games Tag and Follow The Leader. You get tagged, you gotta do what the tagger has done… which usually means answering some questions and filling some lists found on the tagger’s blog. A one sided interview of sorts. At least that’s how I understand it.

Most of the tags I see seem to be serious, honest, and straightforward; but I don’t think that’s a rule… just a guideline… so I think I’ll do ok.

So.. phew… huff huff… <deep breath>… blublrugrrrragh.. Ok, I’m ready. Bring em on…

Eight Things I Am Passionate about.

1. Movies - I’ve been an ardent movie fan for as long as I can remember… probably longer. Hollywood has left a deep imprint on my thick skull and I tend to correlate a lot of things in daily life to movies I’ve seen. I see people’s resemblance to some obscure movie personality even when there is none. I don’t let facts get in the way of rationalizing my movie mania.
2. Music - I’m a die hard music fan, not in the sense that I am immortal or anything, but in the sense that the music fan in me will always be alive and kicking. And I adore most genres, be it rock, metal, rap, concertos, punk, or techno, even though anyone who forces me to listen to ghazals better be wearing body armor.
3. Books - I used to be a voracious reader. Even today, I try to fake being a voracious reader as far as possible.
4. Writing - Of course I’m not talking about writing job reports and presentations. And if you want to be technically correct here, it’s ‘typing’, not ‘writing’. I haven’t actually ‘written’ a complete paragraph on paper in roughly 230 years, give or take a few.
5. Sleeping - Oh, I don’t get to do this much. But I am passionate about it. Unfortunately, Movies takes top priority and steals time reserved for ’sleeping’… Every night, it’s a battle - Sleeping v/s Movies… and it’s violent. I swear.. one day, Sleeping is going to murder Movies in its… in its sleep(?)…. Oh… Oh yeah. That’s not gonna happen
6. Cooking - I like to cook. I do. It’s something I enjoy almost as much as forcing people to eat what I cook. “Open your mouth RIGHT NOW, dammit, and eat that damned cabbage, or you’re going to pay for this… And stop that wailing.“. The real trouble is cleaning up after, which usually takes an army of 4 trained maids and a fireman.
7. Restaurant visits - I’ve tried out more restaurants in Bangalore than Michael Jackson has tried faces. I’m a foodie, and I look the part.
8. The internet - I spend more time surfing the net than Santa Claus spends on toy shopping. And at the end of the day, I am about as clueless as to what or why I was surfing as ever.

Eight Things I Want To Do Before I Die

1. Learn music - Plans are already under way. I learned a bit on the keyboard a while back, and used the comp to get music for a few of my songs done. And I recently took up the guitar. I put it back down shortly, but there’s hope.
2. Write a book - Right now, I am neither courageous nor drunk enough to quit my day job and run amok in the uncertain pursuit of a premise that perhaps I may get a book published. But someday… I will be. Two bottles of tequila ought to do it, I think.
3. Travel the world - I know! I surprised myself when I typed that in. I’m not typically the traveling guy. I thought that if I had it my way, mostly I’d only need to leave my room to refill essential supplies. But I guess I DO like the outside world. Maybe a world tour is in order.
4. Try authentic cuisine from around the world- Ok, ok. NOW I get why I put in point number 3. Sheesh. I have a one track mind.
5. Practice my drawing skills - I had started this blog for that very purpose. But it kinda died down… Stupid laze.
6. Get my music released - I’ve got a few songs under my belt… I just don’t know how to get the background music done. I tried getting a band together with a couple of cool friends, but they weighed the pros and cons, and finally decided to get married instead. Someday, I’ll unleash my songs on an unsuspecting world… Someday. Somehow.
7. Win the battle of the bulk - I have to stop resembling a balloon that looks like it would go ‘pop‘ when pricked with a needle. I don’t know how, and I don’t see myself throwing away chocolate cake and caramel custard pudding or lifting weights in order to reach this objective, but I should develop some sort of resentment to reaching ‘critical mass’… Survival of the fattest is a myth.
8. Learn ballet - Just kidding. I can’t think of any more stuff right now.

Eight Things I Say Often

1. ‘na?’ - at the end of sentences, as in “This is true, na?”, “You can just follow that bus, na?”, which kinda means “isn’t it?”, “can’t you”, etc… It’s a bad habit I kinda picked up from a chat friend, Priyanka, and everytime I say this, I want to spiritually jump out of my body so that I can kick my own ass.
2. ‘dammit’ - Not quite the heavyweight when it comes to stressbusting words, I admit. But dammit, it works fine for me.
3. ‘well,…’ - Well, it’s not like I like it, but… well, you know… it’s kinda hard to get over the habit…
4. ‘kinda’ - Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming. I kinda DO misuse this one.
5. ‘come on’ - Come on, everybody overuses this, don’t they?
6. ‘i guess’ - Handy little phrase. It allows you to give blanket statements in a non-committal manner, I guess.
7. ‘you know’ - Again quite handy. It implies that the listener already knows the answer and hence you kinda don’t really have to explain things fully, you know.
8. ‘aloha’ - I use this one ALL the time. It stands both for ‘hello’ AND for ‘goodbye’ - the perfect word for those who don’t know if they’re coming or going…

Eight Books/Blogs/Journals I Have Read Recently.

Hmm… So many to choose from.. I’ll just pick some at random.

1. Silverine - The most popular Mallu blogger in the blogosphere, I think. Reading her blog keeps the sanity level in check for most Keralites living out of their state.
2. Offended Blogger - Chelle B, one of the funniest and most captivating bloggers I’ve read. And her stamina is amazing. She writes an explosive article every day on the average…
3. Amooma - A refreshing and honest outlook on random things…
4. Dennis Miller - Ranting Again - I know. It’s an old book and the politics mentioned are soooo obsolete. But then again, I don’t really follow current events that much. So how does it matter to me? His writing has a very unique appeal.
5. Calvin and Hobbes - Revenge of the Babysat - Of course I can’t be sure, but I think last night marked my 3267th reading of the book.. Calvin and Hobbes is a classic for all time…
6. Wet Spark - Mathew’s blog is a pitt-stop. I go there time to time to recharge my batteries
7. Cracked - It has a series of writeups for all kinds of people. And I am all kinds of people. So hooyah!
8. IMDB - The Internet Movie Database. The ultimate movie site. Given that I’ve been a devout devotee of Hollywood and its spawns, it’s only a matter of time before I start praying to IMDB and offer routine sacrifices.

There are lots of other blogs/ books that I regularly read, but these are the ones I read between yesterday and today.

Eight Songs I Would Listen To Over and Over

1. ‘Savin Me‘, by Nickelback - Oh, yes. I got into the Nickelback fever only a month back, and I’ve been listening to this track over and over and over and over and over and.. you get the picture. I tried singing this in office once. They shut office rather prematurely that day. Chad Kruger’s vocal range is not within my grasp… except for maybe -
2. ‘If Everyone Cared‘, by Nickelback - Possibly as a personal favor to me, Chad sang this song in a vocal range that won’t really make my throat bleed. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.
3. ‘Living On A Prayer‘, by Bon Jovi - Bon Jovi wasn’t as considerate, with the pitch on some parts of the song reaching levels that give me nightmares. Still… great song.. how can I resist trying? Irrespective of how the people around find it hard to cope with.
4. ‘Enna Vilai Azhake?‘, from the movie Kadhalaar Dhinam - Lovely song… Can drift away in it…
5. ‘Pirates of the Caribbean Theme‘, by Hans Zimmer - Zimmer’s music is the awesomest fantasticmost piece of work I’ve ever heard, and I don’t even care that I just made up those words. And his influence in the music for Pirates of the Caribbean is the best so far. Try to get a clear version of the music and play in a high end system, and you will know what I mean.
6. ‘Broken Arrow Theme‘, by Hans Zimmer - Ok, ok, so this is a tie, actually. Broken Arrow Theme v/s Pirates of the Caribbean Theme… The jury’s still out. But that doesn’t affect the fact that Hans Zimmer is the best.
7. ‘Yesterday Once More‘, by The Carpenters - This 60s song is a childhood favorite of mine. Maybe my most favourite song of all time.
8. ‘You’ll Be In My Heart“, by Phil Collins - So you see, I don’t like Phil just because he’s bald. I love many of his songs, and this one is sorta my favourite. Sweet.lyrics, great vocals… from a great movie.

There are other songs that qualify to be here. The list is just too long to write here… or anywhere…

Eight Things In Others That Attract Me

1. Sense of humor - I am TERRIFIED of people who don’t have a sense of humor. And with good cause, too. I’m sure that my fate involves being bludgeoned to death by someone with no sense of humor.
2. Ambition - I’m not talking about ‘I’ll-take-over-the-world-and-make-people-bow-to-solid-gold-figures-in-my-likeness‘ kind of ambition… Smaller ambitions will do just fine. I just don’t want people to think living in the basement with a mug of popcorn and a bag of DVDs would be the right… Hmm… basement? popcorn? movies? sounds interesting…
3. Selflessness - I would have thought that this trait is more or less extinct at this time. Who would really put other people’s interests ahead of their own? But pleasantly, I’ve found a few people in life who met the criteria… Namitha from college, my brother, some of his friends… nice.
4. Intelligence - Intelligence counts. But then again we live in a world that put George Bush in charge of a country. In any case, intelligence SHOULD count. I dream of a world where people with pitchforks, knives and shovels bury Paris Hilton.
5. Honesty - Thankfully, this trait seems to be in good supply. Sure, there are bad apples here and there, but bad apples can still keep doctors away if you throw them REALLY hard. It might actually do a better job too. Maybe you can just take the seeds from the bad apples and plant trees or something… It also depends on how bad the apples already are. So if only parts of the apples are spoiled, you can always just take a knife and…. wait a minute. What am I writing about bad apples in my blog for?. Give me a minute while I read back a bit…. Oh… Ooooh. Uh-oh. I guess I strayed from the point a bit. I tend to do that at times. Let’s move on.
6. Art - I dunno. I’m a sucker for art. I met many of my friends after I’ve fallen flat out for their drawings, writings, and music. I especially go goo-goo ga-ga over musicians. I’m drawn to them like a m. to a f. Can’t help it. Not really a nice trait; especially if the musicians hire people to beat you on the head with sticks.
7. Kiddishness - I love kids. Especially the really old kids like my dad. Some people keep that child within them alive. I like that.
8. Rationality - Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE irrational people. It’s just that even they should have short streaks of objective reasoning.

Now… who do I tag? Hmm… Let me see… There are lots of people I want to tag, like Silverine, The Offended Blogger, Scott Adams, Dave Barry, etc.. but they don’t look like they entertain tags. I’ll just pick out a few people at random…

1. Macadamia the Nut - Who has barely dried her tears from crying over how many tags she is burdened with.
2. Arvind - The quintessential Don Juan, who left a mark-o…
3. Shomo - A brand new blogger.. for good measure