Frozen Twilight

I have been getting some exercise lately, and while it hasn't yet made a difference to my bulging waistline, it keeps me happy. I'm doing something worthwhile, I tell myself, while massaging my sore muscles.

I'm not too concerned about my blog being read and commented on, but I do like commenting on some of the blogs I frequent. I get the feeling some see it as a chore, or even a visiting card, often not saying anything more than "lol! so true!" and I find that rather appalling. But I have an important message today. It appears that blogger has more than 1 comment form template available. One particular template doesn't play well with the combination of my firefox+adblock plus + filters at work. I can read the comments, but there's no room for me to chip in with my bedazzling insight. Most of the blogs on my reader seem to be switching to that form, and so guys, if you see this - know that I'm reading and liking your stuff, just not getting to express it. I can use my linux box of course, but I've stripped down the browser there for performance and use it to stay on the company intranet. And what is now getting to be a regular feature in my life, I don't have the mental bandwidth to figure out a solution for my windows box.

Winter is upon us, the air's colder and the wind cuts like a knife. We haven't seen too much snow yet, but all that can change in 1 afternoon. I have reasonably new tires and all the kinks in my car sorted out, so I'm not very concerned about losing control. Still, after a minor bump on the kerb turned into an ordeal that lasted several months and cost me hundreds of dollars, I'm going to be a bit wary about driving on a snowy/icy road. Hope all goes well.

Ted the mechanic

This room won't stop spinning.

Last night, my team had its first outing and I chose to finish all the beer. As is the case with any dysfunctional group trying to socialize, there was plenty of awkward silence, needless bragging and polite laughter. I chose to drink and let the boss yack, after feeding him with some potent questions (and I did want to hear his opinion, wonder how much of a kiss-ass I came off as). Later, dinner with friends meant vodka, wine and more vodka. I wasn't hungover this morning (thanks for the fruity cocktails R!), but was sleepy as hell. I can make do without caffeine on a daily basis, and I use coffee for days such as these, but I need to limit myself. I had a large cup of near black java and I've been jittery for the last 3 hours.

As a result I've been awfully cheerful, and insanely productive. I can probably slack off for an hour or two, so hello world!

I'm gearing up for a trip to Bangalore, and am sorely unprepared. I have tickets, but that's about it. My roommie moves out the day I leave, so I'm hoping he'll clean his part of the house and won't rob my place. Need to find volunteers to water the near-dead plants in my absence, clean the kitchen, wipe off all the bile from the WCs, vacuum, laundry... AAAAAAAH. It doesn't help that I'm working weekends and late nights, so I have no energy left when I get back home. That and God of War 3. Still, the flight's a week away and I need to get my act together.

Last Christmas, I lost control of my shiny-red on ice, and bumped the curb. The steering was all whacked and the bumper popped out a bit. I took it to an auto-shop who told me I needed to replace a rim and everything else was dandy. We had no luck with that, and I was told that wheels were rotated so I had another bent rim which no one had found so far. So a few more hundreds down the hole, I now had two new rims. There was still some vibration, but it was far lesser so I figured it was due to snow and shitty mountain roads. New tires, new wheel bearings, we tried everything. When I heard a weird clicking noise on left turns, I had enough and asked the mechanic to bugger off. I'm not 100% certain my dealer is honest (well, which one is, anyway?), but I had to go there. He found a bent ball joint in the wheel assembly, and the alignment was badly off. As a result I'd come close to shredding two tires, which are barely 3 months old. I had this claim backed up a third, independent mechanic, so there.

During the 5 months of trial and error, I kept asking the first mechanic if the wheel assembly and suspension was okay, I even expressed surprise that I didn't need alignment. Now, nearly $1500 down, I wondered if he is incompetent or just plain dishonest. All I wanted was $300 for the new tires. If he had bothered to align the wheels, he would have found the bent joint, and I wouldn't have shredded the tires. I bent the ball joint, I'll pay for it myself. I gave him a chance to explain his position, and he pretty much asked me to fuck off. Guess I got that cleared up. I've complained to the BBB, and am contemplating Small claims court, but some people say I don't have very good legal ground, since by driving a car that I knew had problems, I'm also responsible for the state my tires are in. Oh legal-ese, how I love thee.

What was I saying about honesty again?

Drive My Car

I bitch plenty about idiots on the road but it gets tiring after a while. Plus, after nearly getting t-boned at a 4 way stop due mostly my oversight, I decided I'd be nice for a change.

Driving in India is a low speed nightmare. While typical speeds are under 30 miles an hour, the roads are a clusterfuck of cars, buses, rickshaws, and motorcycles. Given that we're such a crowded country, competing for limited resources creeps into every aspect of our daily lives - including road space. Lanes are non-existent, lights are mere suggestions. We're impatient. Very impatient. I was too, when I drove there and I'm not sure what the hurry was.

While Denver is known to have shitty traffic and irate drivers ranking among the worst in the country, I find my daily commute to be a joy ride compared to my life from 5 years ago. There are several rules on American roads that are aggressively enforced and for plenty good reason too. The speeds are a lot higher, and the smallest mistake can be life threatening. And while ignoring blind spots, yacking on the cellphone and picking the wrong lane are annoying habits many people exhibit, their attention to detail tends to be rather surprising.

I always marvel at how well we manage to merge traffic from two highways, cars alternating turns. That maneuver wouldn't work in India for even half a second. I was driving from one intersection to the other when I realized I was 2 lanes off to the right and had to turn left next. I put my blinker on, and the car to the left of me stopped a few feet further into the intersection to let me pass.

Shiny-red (aka Lucy aka my bad-ass car) has enough torque to beat most cars off the line at an intersection, but I've never had to play the rev-engine-overtake-to-switch-lanes game. Unless I want to be a dick, and that's known to happen frequently.

And then there are days when I set the cruise to 5 under the limit, and watch the world roll by to my left. No honking, no angry gestures, only the occasional tailing. If you think driving 2 feet behind me will scare me into going faster, you have no idea what the drive from Banashankari II stage to Resthouse road via Vidyapeetha thru' Sajjan Rao circle is like.

And that's the difference. When I pull into the lot, wind the volume down and get out I'm ready for whatever's up next - an hour of gaming at home, 8 hours of work, or 4 hours of binge drinking - it's all good. Thinking back to Bangalore, I can distinctly remember sighs of relief that I reached my destination in one piece.

People wince when I say I travel 45 mins. one way to work, but I laugh - that's how long it takes my parents to get to the grocery store. Perspective, Denver, perspective.

Heavy Fuel

Greetings Yanks.

It's me, the brown guy with the funny accent. I have studied your people, and I'm fascinated. You love your pop-culture, light beer, your smoke-free zones, parenthood, barbeque, family dinners, inter-city sports extravaganzas, reruns of those sports extravaganzas, religious holidays - sometimes all in the same day.

I do like barbeque sauce. And driving on your beautiful roads. Driving fast, that is.

Most Americans are early morning people. Or so I thought when I first got here. All "early" appointments are at dawn break, at times when any self respecting Indian is still dreaming of black Friday bargains. Turns out you guys aren't actually early morning people. You need to get home early to fight with the family so bad, you get to work early and stay juiced up on coffee all day long. We Indians like getting to work later than you chaps do (9 AM usually) but we're fuckin' ready to deliver when the minute hand ticks past '59.

Your morning routines are a travesty heaped on someone already in a foul mood thanks to no good office timings. You drive slow, real slow - 10 below the limit on a 25 mile single lane street because you're still ingesting your first cup of black magic. Let me level with you - I'm a bad planner. I do not factor traffic, indeed driving time, into my morning commute so I'm always in a fuckin' hurry.

Though I don't know why I bother, because when I do get to work, everyone else is crowded around the blasted coffee machine sharing dry witticisms. You're in an office. Work, don't chat. Warm up before you get here. Before you leave the house. The road to work is not the place for quiet contemplation/relaxation. Find a hidden mountain road for that indulgence on your own time.

Look guys, I love this country and its people. But lets make life a little easier for all of us. Sleep an hour extra everyday. Or two. It will change your life. You'll be better relaxed, tolerate your spouse and kids that much more, and get to work ready to throw punches.

If not that, please get off the road when you see an angry brown kid speeding in the school zone.

Many thanks,
T

PS : I deleted this post by accident in a spree of late night editing. I've managed to recover it, but Narco and Lil your comments are lost in the intertubes. Sorry!

Get along, Get Acquainted

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need...

I'm cheerful most of the times, but I do like the occasional brooding. It's easy being the laughing, blithering idiot rather than a man with questions and no answers. I'd been in a bad mood over the last few days. The weather, which I rarely get to notice owing to my 9-5, was cold and gloomy too. Finally the clouds lifted, and I took the "shiny red" out for a spin. I set off "east" with no particular destination in mind.

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere

I set the cruise 5 below the speed limit and let the curves of the road unfold in front of me. I turned left at a random intersection and was in the "countryside". I had a Jeep in front of me and a Mustang behind. I was in America.

A lot of Indians would fault me for loving my stay here so much. I'm like my fellow MS-graduates-coding-and-trying-to-fit-in who seem to be almost everywhere. Apart from all the financial sense moving here made, I now realize that I truly felt I'd be able to make this my home.

"There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning . . . And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave"

I grew up in the 90s reading about America in the 70s. America was not a place - it was a lifestyle. It was about muscle cars and Jack Daniels. It was about Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin. It was about a narrow road flanked by fields on either side. Where god fearing farmers wearing baseball caps drove big trucks with bales of hay in the back. It was about grain silos and barns in the middle of nowhere.

I ended up in a mess of poltically correct, wannabe Eastern hippies (hello Boulder, CO) but thankfully, it takes 20 mins of driving to find the America I've always imagined. I passed a few intersections, saw tame horses blinking in the fading daylight. I drove on and reached a huge lake in middle of nowhere. The wind felt good, lake was spotless - all I had to do was ignore the porta-potty.

On the way back, saw the blue family version of my shiny red. We were driving in the opposite directions and were both wearing shades. Our gazes met and there was a slow smile of familarity.

I like fitting in.

White America

As much as I hate hip-hop, I like Eminem's White America. It reminds me of this friend of mine who was playing it while driving ridiculously fast and recklessly on a crowded street. For those that don't know - crowded Indian streets have all kinds of vehicles, pedestrians, stray dogs and occasional cows.

It also reminds me of a scene I saw last week while driving on the interstate. It was crowded as fuck since it was 5 PM, but was surprisingly bright given the season. Saw a cherry red Cadillac pulled over (no fancy rims!), with 4 black guys in it. The cop (white) was standing half a foot away from the window, with 1 hand on his gun. All terribly funny, considering most of Colorado is vanilla-ville and the only color you'll see is a bad sun tan. Gotta love racial profiling.

Once an "exotic dancer" was trying to make conversation with me in a "gentlemen's club". Not that she found me attractive or anything, but my stupid buddies were tossing 5 dollar bills like they were going out of fashion. The "conversation" happened in Spanish until I got her to understand that I wasn't Latino. She then proceeded to tell me that she was glad I was Indian and not "arab" since she hates Muslims. Oh, joy. Thank god people can exercise their freedom of expression hanging upside down from a shiny pole while flinging their undergarments at strangers with dollar bills.

Mr. Man

I've just been reviewed on Ask and ye shall receive. I loved the review, it's nasty and well written - true to their style. I suppose I shouldn't be laughing after getting such an ass reaming, but it's so good I can't help but like it. I want to post snippets of the review - I can't access the site through work (they have a nasty URL too), will probably do it later.

Anyway. I was driving home last night and with 1 hand I managed to retrieve and put my shades on, dish my phone out, dial a number and some digits while on the call. I was gloating about all this, since the phone has no keys and needs to be watched to access the keypad.

There's a punchline I read on Dilbert once "Everything in a man's world feels great until he tell a woman about it- it's all downhill from there". My female colleague reminded me of Aaron Ralston. His right arm was trapped under a rock while mountain climbing. After being trapped there for long enough he said "fuck it", chopped/hacked his right arm off with a blunt knife, hiked down, drove a stick shift back to civilization.

You, sir, are the alpha male of the century. You are so full of testicular awesomeness Chuck Norris facts should be called Aaron Ralston facts. I wouldn't challenge you to a fist fight if you were tied down to a chair and blindfolded. Salut.

Space Truckin'

Dear SUV owner,

I'm not going to give you shit about gas consumption. Meh, the world can burn, and we can help.

What I do want to talk about today, is your faith in your 2 ton death machine. I'm sure it's tremendous fun driving a 4 wheel drive in snow so deep you could bury the Olsen twins standing up. A few thoughts for your consideration. While your 4X4 will handle better than front/rear wheel drives in snow, there are limitations imposed by this entity called Physics. Sucks, I know, but blame the very planet we're trying to burn.

1) While your metal pachyderms will help you get to 60mph on ice a lot faster than sedans, braking is another matter. The science is in stopping a 2 ton object sliding on ice. Doesn't matter how many cylinders are driving your 10 foot wheels, the same rules apply to all you jackasses. Drive too fast, you will take longer to stop - and will fishtail like shit, given your redneck driving skills (or lack thereof). Anti lock brakes you say? Won't do shit if they're off the ground and on a sheet of ice. Inertia is a bitch, and you will stop only when you've slid enough or come into contact with another mass (more about that later).
2) Speaking of 10 foot wheels, the high clearance and dominating view of the road must be very fulfilling, or as the rest of us say - compensating. But your high clearance means a high center of gravity. So when you pull fancy 90 degree turns with one hand (the other stuffing a big mac down your triple chinned throat), you are at an incredible risk of executing a belly flip. Amusing for the rest of us (you know - the ones with a triple digit IQ), but not too much fun for the 7 kids in the back. So again - it's physics - slow the fuck down.
3) Given the bulk of your badly made trucks, and your complete lack of driving skills, your tires are usually worn to a block of rubber in a few seasons. Couple that with point #1 that I made, you might as well carry coffins in the back seeing as there is so much room for more.
4) I drive 80 miles a day, and nearly all the idiots I see on the shoulder nursing a fender bender are SUVs. Sure, mustangs suck ass when driving in slush, but they don't let you go over 30 on some roads - and that's a good thing, you retards. That's why the only mustangs you see in snow related crashes are the ones that get ploughed into by maniacs driving trucks.

I'm a little reluctant to write the next bit. If physics doesn't work on you guys, concepts of courtesy are certainly far out of your reach. I'll try anyway.
When you see that shiny red car minding its own business in the right lane, doing 40, leave it the fuck alone. Use the left lane if you really want to fulfill that death wish. For what it's worth, at least one owner of a shiny red car promises to use his mad skills, superior handling, and bullet acceleration to make life living hell for you sloths in the spring/summer/fall. My 3 to your 1.

So, in conclusion, try not to kill your fellow motorists this season, and maybe, just maybe, I won't laugh as I go past the crumpled remains of your stupid truck.

Sincerely,
Owner, Shiny Red Car.

Highway Star

I'm a pretty aggressive driver. I drive at least 10 over the limit, always get to the left lane as soon I take the ramp, tail people who drive slower than the speed limit in the left lane, honk/flash limits when people cut me off. I also drive on the right-ish lanes when I feel like driving slow, let people into my lane if they give me suficient intent (what, can't use your indicators for 3s before you change lanes?), yield to peds etc. Not a complete a-hole, ya'know. Also, I don't switch to the right lane when I'm being tailed when I'm already doing 10 over. I'm going fast enough, if you need to overtake me - find a way. If I need to overtake someone going faster than the limit, I will weave like a madman.

Few people make an impression on me when I drive and fewer read this blog. Still. Talking about random people is fun. (Speed limit is 65 mph).

@ Stereotypical girl on cell phone driving 3 tonne SUV
You scare me. I will stay out of your way.

@ White Mustang GT
You tailed me and in a rare moment of courtesy I yielded, but still stayed ahead of you driving in the right lane. 2 mins later I got back ahead of you. Ha. It's not all about the horsepower :D

@ Blue dodge charger
You were in the left lane, were being tailed by that Silver Acura TSX. You wanted to get in front of me. I gave you some 3 cars worth of space and you still kept your indicator on, perhaps the speeds were too high. I flashed the headlights and you took the hint and got into the lane. Fun.

@ Silver Acura TSX
I tailed and then overtook you from the right. Payback's fun.

@ Blue 300C
You tailed me. I slowed down, just to piss you off. You tried overtaking me from the right, I sped up and didn't let you pass. We danced like that thrice. Hilarious. Same time next week?

@ White Ford Focus
You tailed me. I let you pass and then tailed you at 85 mph for 5 miles. You let me pass but shook your fist at me. I smiled back. I just love days like those.

@ White Accord.
You cut me off. I honked. You gave me a thumbs up sign. What? I overtook and cut you off for good measure.

@ Black Dodge Ram
You tailed me at 85 mph. For 10 miles. I braked, I slowed down. You tailed me more. I couldn't see over your grill in my rear view. I got out the way. Scary. I flipped you off, just in case.

@ Green Toyota Prius.
You tailed me at 80mph. I didn't even know a Prius could go that fast. I got out of your way. I had to. Respect.