Amreeka Post

Ok! I have to do a देहाती in अमरीका post. I mean its a tradition. I know its practically 2010 and both you and your  'co-brother' have been here. Anyway will try to keep this short.


Biggest achievement so far: Managing to avoid listening to 'New York Nagaram'  even once. Proud of me for that.


Best 'wow' moment: I have had two, the first was the day I landed, and was on the way to the hotel. Utterly unimpressed with JFK airport (and coming from the Hyderabad airport, can you blame me?), and when we hit the expressway, I suddenly caught the Manhattan skyline...that was like wow.... but.


It was day 3, and here I was looking for my subway station so that I could reach 'home'.  I was searching for '42nd Street' station, and was walking while reading my printed out walking directions (courtesy google). At one place, I stopped to take a moment, and looked up.


And there it was.... Times Square. In all its glory
And that was... Wow!!!


First 'am home' moment: Again, there have been a couple. The first was on day 3, when I reached New York Penn station, without looking at or asking for directions.Now my commute to Madison Avenue everyday has become a routine. I walk 'on autopilot' through the streets and from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the 42nd Street station.  


But the winner is surely when I gave precise directions to an American lady. 


Best Musical Moment: Since we are  giving a nomination and a winner format apparently. The nominee includes, listening to "O Saaya!" (from Slumdog) and "Chaiyya Chaiyya" while riding the metro....i mean the subway...or whatever. But the winner was...


Listening to "Tera hone laga hoon" from Ajab Prem on the iPod, on a cold winter evening walk, when it started snowing lightly and there were loads of dry maple leaves on the empty street. 


Biggest Peeve: American patience. Seriously. And these are New Yorkers, who are supposed to be impatient and rude and all. The other day, we were in a long queue waiting for the bus. And  the lady at the front of the queue is reading something. The bus arrives. The lady continues reading. The bus driver does not honk. The people behind her do not say "Aage jao, diktha nahi he kya?". One lady ahead of me did say "Ah. the bus has come. Its a shame she hasn't seen it yet.". We waited for about 5 minutes, till the female decided to look up, notice the bus and the queue moved. 


And don't get me started with the kids. The kids.... especially in supermarkets. Screaming, shootin spitballs at each other, grabbing food and eating it, riding the carts like the were gokarts, and did I mention the screaming? 


Oh crap! This has turned out to be a rather long post.. will shut up now. Stay tuned for more Amreeka Posts. 

Not again

How difficult is it to remember a birthday? Very. 

Yet again I forgot a very important birthday...one I knew was coming up...and then one day...Wham!! Its passed by.

October 6th was the ...damn! October 9th was the..6th birthday for this blog.

That's right, this is probably one of the oldest surviving blog. I know i mentioned this last year too but it does surprise me everytime I realize how long this little hobby has lasted.


And you know how this started? Well... Long long ago (and am talking about Windows 3.1 on a 386DX with 2MB RAM and a 120 MB Hard Drive) I started my journal. It was on Lotus Organizer. And the main reason I started it was because the software looked like a diary and I thought 'How cool would it be if I had a diary in a software which looks like a diary' (now don't give me that look)


And so it started.  I would type in what was going on in my life in the 'pages'. And if I remember right, the 'posts' were conversational and I was narrating incidents to... well...the future me.


Eventually the 'diary' evolved. I had sections where I would jot down ideas. Write about people I knew.. a chapter about each person. And I would constantly update these sections every once in a while.... of course the golden rule being, never delete what you have said. So each update would be...and update..an appendage at the end of the page with the date. And it made such great reading to see how my opinion on people changed as I knew them better, or as was more often seen, they remained steadfast.


I had sections for stories I wrote, ideas I had and so on.


When I travelled, I used to jot down things in a paper and laboriously reconstruct my 'exact thoughts' when I got back to my PC at home. I also had 'online backups' eventually (on Yahoo! briefcase)


Then Windows 95 happened. And I think the software didn't work too well with it.  Also in a freak accident I remember many posts getting deleted. More than 50% of them.



I realized that I just could not continue this way. So one afternoon when I was in VisualSoft I decided to migrate to an online platform.... the cloud.  (Wasn't I quite the visionary?)



 The first post 'Four Fingered Philosophers' was a copy paste from the diary. And now that I root through the old posts i realize that the first 'original' post wasn't until July in the following year. 


Anyways...enough of the history lesson. Basically what I just realized while typing this post is why I started this whole thing. It wasn't because you would read it. You are just incidental (sorry!!). Each post is purely for 'Future Me'.


So future vix, I think you could just smile and think a 'thanks' to the present and past me.

Tweet Me This

You can now see my Tweets right here on vixdom.... move your head ever so slightly to the right..and there you go!

Bluh

I am aware of the golden rule of Rahman music - 'Thou shalt listen at least 7 times before passing judgment'

But just listened to Blue this morning in the car.... and all I can say is as per the Rahman Theorem don't expect much from the movie.


Of course the fact that it has Zayed Khan should have been warning enough.

No big deal

Changed ISPs. And my new ISP gave me a domain name as part of the deal. So what does it mean?

Well, starting today you can type in 'www.vixdom.com' in your browser, to visit.

 Ya...I know. Hence the title.

List Ahoy!

Just thought I owed myself and the world a 'non baby' post since I obviously have metamorphosed into a 'proud parent' who incessantly talks about their kid.

Followers of this blog probably know about the 'other blog', where I keep an annual wishlist of 'Things I wish I could buy right now'. I have always liked looking at last year's list and also coming up with one for the next year. Some things in old lists make you go 'What the hell was I thinking?' , while some elicit a 'How pathetic was I'. But I guess the worst are the ones that keep recurring year after year…after year. And make you want to drown yourself in the toilet bowl for simply failing to buy something that you want and can afford. Case in point, a scanner. This year's list has an 'MFD' and an LCD TV…and take a look at the first list….from 2003.

VixList also hosts wishlists from many of you. So go through your old wish list if you can get to it. And feel free to send across your wishlist for this year. Trust me, it's worth it.

Vixlist can be found at:

http://vixlist.blogspot.com/

Introducing Tvisha