Last time I tried, I was an ISTJ. This time a Facebook test returns that I am an ISFJ
There does not seem to be much doubt that I am Introverted, Sensing and Judging. The question is really whether I am a Thinking type or a Feeling type.
Maybe I am a Feeling Thinker :-) The other way round makes it sound as if I am a molester …
Prolonged periods of cell-phone silence leads to depression
Prolonged depression in turn leads to cell phone being switched off
Where does it start ? Where does it end ? Whatever the answer maybe, a sure-shot test to figure out my condition is to check if my cell phone is switched off :)
Felt like baking today [ Had no dinner, of course. I have fat reserves to hibernate for rest of the year :) ]
When I started off with the ingredients, realization dawned that I was a bit short.
I had only a quarter cup butter as compared to half cup needed. A quick glance at the essence expiry date told me that the bottle and my daughter were almost comparable in age :-(( I am still struggling to shake off the mental picture of an essence bottle in uniform sitting next to my daughter in school ….
I was also out of stock of my standard savior, cashew nuts. A lesser cook might have balked at this hurdle, but the Master Chef ?? Never !!
And hence was born the “masala” cake. A Hodge-podge of butter, sugar, eggs, condensed milk, regular milk, pineapple pieces, cardamom [essence substitute], maida and baking powder.
The end product looks like more of a sponge cake. Which suits me fine, because I had been on the lookout for a sponge cake recipe !!
How does it taste ? Well, that is really for the guinea pigs in office to tell tomorrow. I sampled a piece and according to me it is my best effort ever !! :-)
But then I have not had dinner, I may be biased because I have used the greatest sauce ever known to mankind ---- hunger.
So that I can continue to build up my reserves for the long hard famine ahead ;)
He who burps the last, burps the loudest …
62 years and going strong !! So what where are we headed, what does future hold in store for us ?
Could not help but laugh when I saw the following quote on a blog
“Barbaad gulistaan karne ko ek hi ulluu kaafi thaa
Har shaak pe ulluu baithaa hai, anjaam-e-gulistaan kyaa hogaa?”
If the earlier post was not proof enough, see this ad too.
I love these ads. Tremendous tagline and a very haunting, philosophical sort of theme ..
Eat when your stomach tells you, work when your heart tells you, sleep when your eyes tell you – I am sure I have read something to this effect sometime back.
What if stomach, heart and eyes tell you nothing ?????????????? Systemic hartal has hit me now !! :-) Just in a dazed state, completely switched off ..
I have initiated daily video conference calls with my family since my last trip home. Nothing beats being there in person , of course, but this comes pretty close. What I really need is a Telepresence link with home :-)
Finally wifey has got posted in Calicut Medical College itself, has been a major relief !! The first order posted her in Trichur, thankfully the officials were sympathetic to our plight and put her back in Calicut. I had external influence of course -- prayer support from two of my friends :-)) I am sure that is what made the difference finally..
Hmmm. I would have thought that with less than a year to go before we unite again, I would have felt happier. But the mind does not seem to accept it as “just one more year to go”. It is stuck in “STILL one more year to go” mode. I suppose if I have survived three, I can survive one more.
Alive and kicking still, Don’t ask what is it that I am kicking :-)
And nope, no plans to kick the bucket anytime soon. Sorry to disappoint you all, my random thoughts still have a long way to go ;)
Miles to go before I sleep ……… [ Not really, the bed is right behind me. But what the heck, it felt like a nice line to end the blog]
It is simple really, all I need to do is buy Tata Safari Dicor !! See the ad below :-)
One of my favorite ads !! Right along-side the “Everyday I want to smile” ad from Hutch.
And to add a random touch to my blog, here is a nice quip, from who else but Paulo Coelho : “We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path”
So what , you may ask ? Everyone knows that there exists multiple paths that might relieve me of my worries. That is true, it is just that my chosen path happens to be a rocky one. So bear with me when I grumble and complain on my blog. ;)
Now you know why I need the 4x4 drive of Safari Dicor. To blast along the rocky path of life, of course:-)
Bring on the Dicor, let me reclaim my life ………..
Last Sunday was the so called ‘Friendship day’. The sheer variety of these “days” never ceases to amaze me. Father’s day, mother’s day, valentine’s day, friendship day ….
And tomorrow happens to be the day every single Indian male dreads : Raksha bandhan !! Thankfully this one has been never a big celebration in South India ;-)
A weekend experiment in payasam (kheer) landed in predictable disaster and violent temper surges. :-((
It started off quite well, the semiya payasam was smelling good and consistency seemed decent. I had a cup after making it and it tasted quite good.
But once I left if outside for couple of hours, the semiya somehow seemed to absorb lot of the liquid. The end result was a near solid lumpy mass.I tried to rescue the situation by adding more milk and boiling it further. That worked like a charm for a while. Only problem was that it returned to its original solid state once I refrigerated it. &*#&@
It just refused to return to a liquid form even after I heated it. The re-heating attempt happened late at night when I was already pretty hungry. So naturally I was on a short fuse and violently dumped the solid payasam down my garbage bin.
Yet another experiment bites the dust. I guess next time I should remember not to let the milk thicken so much …..
2009 seems to be the year of comebacks. First Lance Armstrong riding the Tour de France and now Michael Schumacher stepping back inside an F1 cock pit to replace an injured Felippe Massa.
If you are an F1 fan you have to love this. Schumacher Vs a resurgent Lewis Hamilton should be fun to watch. Would he still have the same ruthless streak that made him such a successful driver ? I guess we will have to wait and see
Only sad part is that it had to happen at the expense of a horrendous injury to Massa. I always have a soft spot for Massa. How can you not , after seeing the finale to the 2008 season ? The sight of him choking back his tears while waving to his fans is one that will stay with me forever ……
I hope he recovers completely. But for purely selfish reasons, I also hope that Schumacher gets to drive at least 4-5 races for Ferrari !!
As I mentioned earlier, today was the day of flower show competition in our office.
Here is our three member team’s creation, what do you think ?
Update on 3rd August : We won the second prize !!
There are a lot of things that I prefer not to write about, just treating those as more water under the bridge. I have to do so , if I hope to retain my sanity. Times of extreme trial, when your faith and belief gets questioned severely.
I shall survive again, no doubt :-)
Not a good time to be hitting me with motivational quotes, I can tell you that much !! I get brutally violent these days when I see quotes like “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. Ain’t no such thing in life
I have started becoming more active on Facebook and Twitter these days as compared to Orkut. Twitter, mainly because I can read the updates from folks like Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, Ruebens Barrichello etc by just signing up as their follower !! I like the simple no-nonsense interface too, reminds you so much of Google.
Somehow, I have been signed up for a flower show competition being held in office tomorrow by Chatter Box. Senior being one of the other helpless team members. Two key learnings so far
It would be evident to the casual observer that I am clue-less about the concept. Let us see how it goes tomorrow :-)
Looks like my sleep problem is getting worse. I am doing things that I can’t even recollect now
How else can you explain the following screenshot from my Indiaplaza account ?
Wonder how long I must have been online to shop for 16 Million odd items.
Somebody help !!!! I am morphing into a WAG …
I need a therapist !!!!
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers – M. Scott Peck
I can hear my friends groaning. Here he goes again on one of his tangents on life, dealing with dark moods and so on.
Not true this time, my friends.
I stepped out my reading rut with a recent trip to Sapna book house. This time I took time to read a few pages and made sure I am not getting conned again. Here is a quick summary of the reading action over the past week or so.
The Simple truth by David Baldacci : Not his best but still a decent read
Amen:Autobiography of a Nun by Sister Jesme : I bet the original in malayalam would be far more readable. The language is ordinary and some emotion is lacking from the story. Not bad, but if you are aware of the inner workings of Church, the story will not surprise you. Distrubing ? Yes. Shocking ? No.
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown : Just passable according to me. Far too many holes in the story line including the hindi movie like escape from a falling helicopter without parachute :)
Q&A by Vikas Swarup : Of course, the book of Slumdog Millionaire fame. I have not seen the movie, but found the book to be surprisingly good
When a tree shook delhi by Manoj Mitta and HS Phoolka : An actual account of the anti-Sikh riots that followed 1984 assassination of Indira Gandhi. Events that led Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make the following comment 11 years later “I apologize not only to the Sikh community but to the whole Indian nation because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood enshrined in our Constitution”. Well said, Sir !! After reading the book, my head too hangs in shame that such incidents happened in my country.
Wish you well by David Baldacci : It is a departure from his usual nail biting thrillers. This book is far more laid back, but Baldacci does paint a very nice picture. The story is a simple one, but touches you. For a change his characters seem deep and well formed. I enjoyed this one
I am out of books for now, maybe I should plan a raid to Crosswords shortly.
Speed of reading has been very rapid, I am averaging about a book per two days !!
Sleepless nights have made an untimely and unwelcome return. Mind is all jumbled up, almost beginning to see arrays of floating bodies before my eyes :-(( Frustrating ……
North Indians maybe quick to correct it as Kerala Paratha, but I insist. It is called Porotta in Kerala, I don’t care what the authentic name is !! :-)
Master Chef returned to kitchen today after a longish break. The immense relief from chest congestion after starting oral steroids greatly contributed to this early return. It is a 5 day course of steroids and has really helped.
Predictably, the return featured lots of ready to eat items. Porotta was purchased from MK retail, it comes in a 50% cooked state. You have to just heat it with a touch of Ghee. It comes out really soft and with multiple layers, just like the ones that I get back home in Calicut.
I have heard that attempting to make porotta from first principles often results in a rubbery slipper like mass, so did not even think of making it from scratch !! :-)
Chicken tikka masala was the chosen curry, again made using the ready made Chicken tikka gravy paste [I think it was from a brand called Parampara]. You have to mix the paste well with water and curd. Sautee chicken pieces in ghee till they turn golden brown, add to the previous mixture and cook for 8-10 minutes till the gravy thickens
Tasted really good. I guess it had to , considering how minimal my inputs were to the entire process :-) I have enough curry and porotta to last for couple more days, whether my new found good health will last for that duration is a different question altogether.
All this has made no impact on the eccentricity of my sleep timings, 2 AM now and I am still up :-(
Why the title ??
I have endured an especially frustrating day and I am still fuming. Remember the Dilbert experience that I was talking about in an earlier blog ??
Well the experience just got more bitter. The same article that I wrote up under great personal strife on Friday was mindlessly chopped and changed by one of our enlightened communications leaders. Let me call the person “Poet”, the reason would be apparent to a careful observer employed in the same company as me :-)
What value was added to the article ? None
What creativity was introduced to the article ? None
What was the purpose of the editing ? Not known, other than some ego kick that the person must have received
Were there any grammatical , factual or spelling errors in the original ? No chance
Was the person doing editing better informed than me in the topic ? Ha ha haaaaaa
Would Leonardo Davinci feel happy if an editor came and painted over Mona Lisa's smile because it looked a touch sad ? The beauty of the previous statement being that Davinci is being equated to yours truly ;-). You wanna edit that out “Poet”? But hey you can’t , this is my blog !!
So here is my mark of protest against all the parasitic, uncreative, ego-satisfying editors of the world. Edit this and show me !!
My turn will come “Poet”, my turn will come.
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