Disconcerting

The thing about Google Reader is that it shows all new posts in a folder sorted by the time of posting (as opposed to Bloglines which sorts it by blog first).

When the blogs in the folder are the blogs of your friends, and have no other unifying theme, this can get disconcerting. Especially when a post by a joyous, bubbly  girl about how much fun it is to do laundry or to work with her employer or to work on her PhD thesis, is followed by a post by a depressed cocaine-addict friend about how grey and soul destroying the corporate world is.

Eleventhie

What happened to Rohit Barker today? He finished off Cruise Control with I Love You Always Forever, Can’t Stop This Thing We Started, some other random song, and With Arms Wide Open. Class Eleven stuff. The stuff I used to listen to in class eleven, I mean, I don’t know what Rohit Barker used to listen to in Class 11.

Also, Radio Indigo’s spot of ‘The biggest hits from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s and today’ makes me realise that we’re more than  halfway through this decade. It’s been more than half a decade since I left school. I feel very old and a little sad about time flying.

Infectious

After reading Jeeves in the Offing, even Kodhi has started wishing that life was more like a PG Wodehouse novel. Yes, difficulties might crop up in Chapter 5, but all money-reated problems are sorted out and everyone gets each other by the end of the book.

It’s a common complaint that life just doesn’t match up.

Indebtedness

Wrath of Eris! My credit card bill for the month is 14 kilorupees. Even after throwing out the one time expenses like renewing my domain name and the tickets to Chennai, that’s still recurring expenses of 10 kilorupees. Oh death.

A debt trap looks imminent. What with the bonus not coming till June, the salary revision not coming until April, and the shift to Chennai not happening until January. Everything rides on cashing at Ahmedabad now.

Synaesthesia

Listening to The Lonely Shepherd while reading the Crow #0 has a remarkable effect.

Dissatisfaction

By night, I roam Mohammad Ali Road with Amit and Rishi, thulping Ramzan kebabs. Crumbly seekhs. Curries made with really specialised animal parts. After which we go and have Cafe Viennoise at Marine Plaza with Sruthjith and a pretty sub-editor from DNA.

And by day, I wake up, go to work, and spend the whole day preparing specification sheets for an IT system.

The contrast leads to much misery.

Geriatric

I’m getting old.

Three years ago, I would have gone to Rendezvous and leched at hoity-toity TDC females from DU. This weekend, I went to Pune for a quiz at Fergusson College, where I was surrounded by sassy undergrads. Sassy quizzer undergrads. And all I could think was ‘Why is she being so enthusiastic when I haven’t even had breakfast?’

It’s a terrible thing, old age.

Then again, maybe it’s a terrible thing, lack of breakfast.

Gender

I got around to opening the cupboard next to my bed and found that it was full of books.

Most of these were Teach-Yourself-French-in-Two-Months, or cookbooks, but there was one book I found particularly delightful. It was titled How to be Outrageously Successful With Women.

It’s a 1975 book, written to help the bluff, cigar-chomping, horribly dressed American men of that era understand how to deal with liberated women. Axshully, these days you could title the book How to be Outrageously Successful with People instead, and by and large it would still work.

Travel

Twenty Gujjus are using the restroom facilities at Changi airport. One of them emerges from a lavatory cubicle.

‘System…’ he says, in an wed tone of voice, as if he’s just had a reigious experience.

‘Problem chhe?’ asks another Gujju solicituously.

‘Na, na,’ says the first. ‘Mast chhe.’

Portfolio

Putting fight for one particular woomaan is like investing in junk bonds. If they don’t default, the yield is tremendous. But the default rate is bloody high, and once default happens, your entire investment vapourises.

To make matters worse, your capital is locked in and the ticket size is a humongous proportion of your entire wealth.

By contrast, doing the weekend thing with your gang is like investing into mutual funds. There are occasional losses, but almost assured returns in the long term.

Knowing only your family and colleagues is like fixed deposits. You just manage to beat inflation.