Things about me you never asked to know

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1. When I am walking by myself, I count my steps. In the back of my head I probably know the exact number of steps I take on frequently walked routes.

2. While we are on walking, If I am walking on a tiled surface, each step is on a tile and I never step on a ‘border’. I realize this gets tough sometimes and probably looks weird. But on the bright side, I have a suspicion that many others do the same. If you do, please let me know.

3. I am afraid I might be obsessive compulsive. If i graze my right hand on something…say my desk, I will ensure that my left hand also touches the desk on the same spot. If I inadvertently scratch the left side of my face, I scratch the right side to ‘even it out’. This sounds even nuttier when I am reading it. Should I be worried about this?

4. I often have imaginary interviews with me (like this one???) and try to come up with answers to questions nobody has ever asked me. Or ever will.

5. I always have a plan to spend a huge amount of money, not too big, something realistic like say 5 – 10 lacs. I keep revisiting these plans and am always ready in case of a windfall. And I mean very precise plans, like what percentage of money to allocate to what, how much to spend on mindless stuff, etc

6. I had imaginary friends. And I will not tell you till what age. At one point, I had a whole Walter Mitty thing going on. Really elaborate imaginary life.

7. I am very emotional Really. I ‘have something in my eye’ when I see things like images from the freedom struggle (esp. Gandhi) or pretty much any act of rebellion which I sympathize with.  Tank Man, gets me emotional every time. I identify with him for some reason I cannot comprehend. And that part in R K Narayan’s Swami & Friends, where Swaminathan gets caned by his teacher, and in a fit of rage he snatches the cane and flings it away….. I have been there…multiple times.

Anyway that should be enough for now no?

The Haj

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Something was wrong.

There I was standing in a queue. A long queue. The day had been promising sunshine but would not yield more than a mere glimpse every now and then. The rain was test marketing with the occasional light drizzle. The wind though not at its cruel coldest was certainly not a warm winter breeze.  And in case I didn’t mention it before, there I was, standing at the end of a very long queue. Something was definitely wrong.

Oh! I stand in lines every single day. That was not what was wrong. I was smiling. Beaming even, one might say.  Happy standing in a line?…That will be the day. This day. My lovely wife found it amusing and even said I was grinning like a schoolboy. I wouldn’t know. I was just soaking in the … everything.

Tvisha seems disturbed with her dad

Of course, it was no surprise why I was happy. I was about to fulfil a childhood fantasy (No! not that one). I was in Liverpool, standing in line outside ‘The Beatles Story’.

The speakers were playing choicest numbers and you could hear people talking about their favourite songs, Beatle, and other relevance of The Beatles in their lives.

The band seemed to be on a break

The museum begins from their childhood, walking us through each phase. The audio thingy we had, played interviews, clips, and recreations at each exhibit. We sat in the ‘Cavern Club’, the place where they played first and rose to fame.

 

 

Too bad the Cavern Club didn’t actually serve anything.  Would have loved to hang out here all day. It was at the Cavern Club, that I had the most interesting experience in the museum. There was this old lady (Imagine the elder ‘Rose’ from Titanic) with another lady friend. She pointed to a faded newspaper clip about an event in the club with The Beatles. She said she was there and that was where

Of course there *had* to be a submarine

her husband proposed to her and all that. She seemed to have quite a few stories about her life in that era. I ensured that I went along pretending to intently look at the millions of photographs hanging on the walls, and listening to the audio commentary. But my audio device was turned off :) . I know its bad manners, but who cares!

 

Finally of course, there was the piano, with a pair of gold rimmed spectacles on top. Stopped and listened to the entire song.

If music is your religion, The Beatles are your prophets.

And this is your Haj

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wish list 2012-13

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This is one of my favourite yearly traditions. And one that has been going on or years now. It also lets me go down memory lane and see what I have wished for in the years past (I wanted a Motorola e398 ??? in 2005). Being a gadget geek, my lists have always been crowded with the ‘droolworthy’ ones, and it has always struck me funny at the pathetic ones which I lusted after (like the Motorola e398 or a Sandisk Sansa – both of which I actually bought).

I usually start off by showing the previous year’s list and how I fared before reeling of the lists for this year. But breaking from tradition (because here at vixdom we are all about boldly going where no post has gone before) I shall also include my *first* wishlist from 2003. So here it is.

Vikram’s List of 10 things he wishes he had RIGHT NOW! (July 2003)
1. Cell phone ( Top of the mind) – I ended up buying a Motorola c200
2. Palm PC – Smartphones weren’t invented then remember? we had PDAs.
3. Great earphones. – The dream of earphones which didn’t fall off unless I stood motionless eluded me for years.
4. Great apartment. – The first non-gadget I wanted..and boy has this aged well. I still love this house and its got better over the past 5 years.
5. Scanner – This was for my dream project of digitizing all the family pictures. Something I successfully did only a couple of years ago.
6. Brand new PC – Can this one ever go off the list? I consider smartphones and tablets to be personal computing devices FYI.
7. Home Theatre System (DVD, Bose Speakers, Large TC etc) – Have a ZVOX soundbar and a 42 inch LCD, but dil maange more
8. CD Writer – I can’t say this enough. Shiny discs are passe. Sorry Blu Ray owners but you were conned.
9. Emergency Light ( I realize that this is pathetic, but last time the power went, and I really wanted to read..besides, its my list) – Couple of summers ago we had backup power across the house.
10. Cool looking watch ( I have no idea why..i dont wear a watch anyways) – Mmm… probably wouldn’t wear one even If I got one now.

And now back to the show… Presenting last year’s wish list with updates.

Wish List 2010 – 2011

Wish List 2010 – 2011

Digital SLR Done. Got me a Pentax k-X. Awesome cam and zero regrets.
Nettop Kinda Done. I Bought a boxee box which fulfils the basic reason I needed one..as a media player
Phone Done. I got me a Dell Streak. There was a reason I was not being specific about the phone since things change so rapidly it did not make sense specifying a model or platform.
Wifi N setup Nope. And you can thank my stupid Wipro Laptop which somehow doesn’t work with N routers for that.
2nd AC Nope.
Home 1.2 Done! Sandhya got some cupboards made and converted my bar into a pooja place :)
A Laptop/Tablet Nope! But my streak is a table phone.. so can I get a partly done here?
Xbox 360 with Kinect? Nope! And I was sure while writing it then that I wouldn’t get this one.
Roomba Nope! would be interested to see if this makes it to this year’s list.
2 good vacations Partly done. But possibly a permanent feature in the list.

And now (cue drum roll) The wish list for 2012 – 13

 

Tablet / Ultrabook Right now I have an Asus Transformer Prime in mind while writing this. But I am excited at the prospect of the various exciting new form factors (like the Lenovo Yoga) and Windows 8. Let’s see how things unfold. But since Sandhya’s netbook is all but dead (it runs XP) and the primary PC is my wipro laptop, we really do need a nice shiny new ‘pc’
Home Server This is basically an extension of the ‘Wifi N’ setup from last year. I could describe what this means, but if you don’t know what this is already, there is no point. :P
2nd AC For the TV room. Don’t know why we didn’t do this last year. I hope I do this year.
Couch Our current sofa set would look too shabby in a dumpster… it is a vomit inducing mess with coins, crayons, food and at least one old remote somewhere in its innards.
Hand Blender It really would help me in fixing better drinks and be handy for my occasional culinary expeditions.
Exercise Cycle I know. I know. But it’s my money and my wish list.
Roomba This won’t be for me..but for mom I guess. I am fascinated by these robots.
Galaxy Nexus  Goes against my previous year’s decision to avoid naming models for phones. But then I can’t make fun of ‘old me’ next year for selecting loser gadgets.
Car Makeover Poor ol car has not received much love. We came close to buying a new one this year before deciding (wisely) that we are very happy with our Santro. But I would want to pimp it up a bit… bluetooth this, and GPS that and maybe even fix all those scratches.
TBD Can’t think of anything else right now. But instead of leaving it blank I will put a handkerchief on this spot and save it for whatever pops into my head.