Random Thoughts

So I woke up Saturday to a headline that hundreds of people were killed in Gaza because of Israeli bombing raids in Gaza. Apparently, F-16s are dropping shit from the sky at people on the ground. Nothing new here, those two (or maybe 3 now?) sides have been at it for a while now. Hamas sends rockets at border towns, Israel retaliates. Fair enough. But the response from the World's solely remaining super power is a but messed up if I may call it that. Here's what the outgoing Secretary of State had to say about the whole thing: "We strongly condemn the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and hold Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence there. The ceasefire must be restored immediately and fully respected." How's that again madam Secretary? Hamas bombs Israel. Check. Israel retaliates. Check. Qassam rockets? Check. Big freaking bombs from F-16s that kill lots of people? Check. Well, how the hell does it make sense t

It was a decently warm day today, around 15 degrees. I had been cooped up in the house for a couple of days now, so I decided to go out. I've been wanting to go to the new Lululemon store in DC (there are a few now apparently) to check out what they had... and I was feeling like I needed a hoodie and some pants to bum around the house in. So I went to their new store on P and 15th in NW DC. I ended up buying a couple of things (no hoodies unfortunately) and also ended up going to Whole Foods across the street. It also got me wondering about the clothes and fashion items out West that I was used to and to some degree, miss. It isn't that much of a stretch to say that the folks out West dress differently that the people out here. I used to go to work in t-shirts and shorts or jeans. To some degree, there are people dressed like that here too. But, I get the feeling that is in the minority. Every morning on the bus you see well dressed men and women heading to work here. I feel l

I've railed about Christmas before ( here and here ) and what I think is wrong with the way it is celebrated in this part of the world... so let me try and explain what I would really like to do for Christmas this time around. Its Boxing Day already in DC and I don't have to go to work because of the generosity of our company (they said... no work this (and only this) December 26 for US employees... and that is awesome). If I could, some day, I would like to be in Bethlehem on Christmas. I would like to see what the modern day people of Bethlehem celebrate the birth of the son of god, a prophet, someone perhaps hundreds of millions believe in to be their lord and saviour, I would like to see how they celebrate that most blessed of events in the city where he is purported to have been born. I hope that they do not have to worry about sweaters for great-aunt Susan or diamonds for your wife because every kiss begins with the letter 'k' or why they should buy a car with a

Now, this is a bit of a touchy subject for some. Before you ride roughshod , huff and puff yourself faint and tell me I am a terrible person for thinking this way, stop a minute. And then think. And remember this is my blog. I get to put down what I think here. My thoughts. So there. Feel free to express your opinion though. Just don't think any less of me... not that you don't already but whatever. So, my good buddy calls me today on skype. That's awesome in and of itself but, that's not what this post is about. We did the usual... what's the weather like, what did you do this weekend, and so on. My stories since I moved to DC have been very tame... no more stories about trips to the Emergency Room or giving rides to questionable people or hookers snorting powdery stuff in the car (that didn't happen to me... thank god... but it did happen to my friend). My stories are more along the lines of... I went to Giant or I went and watched a movie or something lik

There seems to be something of a dearth of blog posts on my part. As one of my (probably 2 or 3) readers pointed out to me, I haven't blogged in a while. He's over 100 posts for the year so far. Van Damme as a coworker would say. There is a lot to write about and I am not really quite sure where to begin so I'll try and start with something simple... cool things I got used to in 2008. One of the coolest things I got introduced to and use a lot is pandora . Its a music service that attempts to play music it thinks you might like based on stuff you've listened to before. Its awesome. Unfortunately, it does not seem to work outside of the US due to various copyright restrictions etc. I like Pandora. I usually have it running on my desktop at home or at work... and for the few weeks that I had the iPod touch, I used pandora a lot to listen to music through it. I only wish there was a pandora application for my blackberry. Some day. In a similar vein, the next thing that I h

Life has been a bit strange of late. I've gone from being incredibly happy to depressingly sad. I don't quite have the answers to why that is and I am not really sure I care to find out. I almost feel like its easier to give up than try and work towards some worthwhile conclusion to the problem. I love going on vacation. I hate coming back from there. Generally, when I get back from vacation, I go through a period of adjustment that starts with the lack of sleep (because I am usually not in the same time zone as my vacation destination was), self-pity and loathing at the state I left my place in, in my hurry to get out of here. It progresses to outright hatred of having to go back to work and dealing with the routine in general. I resolve to find better things to do in life, learn more, improve myself, lose weight etc etc. And eventually, I end up no further than where I was, where I've been for over 2 years. I can find any number of reasons and excuses to make this someone

This has been a good weekend so far. A good weekend may sound trivial... and it may just be, but none-the-less, it was awesome to be able to experience it. Makes living in DC somewhat bearable. So where does it start? It starts of course with a trip to get a zipcar. I accomplished that around 10am. I got to drive a Scion xB this time near the old office. I've avoided this vehicle until now. But today, I took it. Its a great vehicle to drive around town in . What do I like about it? Space. There's a lot of space in it. The way it looks. I am not sure I would want to own one of these vehicles, but it sure looks different than the ordinary cross-over/mini-van/SUV/sedan out there. The auxiliary input. This time around, the cable was even there, so I was able to listen to my iPod... I must say, very nice. Which reminds me, I will need to buy that cable soon :). The tiny arm-rest. The seating in this car is a bit odd, so having an arm rest on the right side was quite nice. What didn

I watched a King of the Hill episode on Sunday night called Lost in MySpace . It was hilarious. Who knew IMDB had full episodes... Anyway, it was a great rebuttal of blogging at work... Its funny because I have to blog at work... not a 'here's what I did today' kind of blog, more of a 'here's what I learned and the world is a better place because of it' kind of blog. Its not always that bad, but my manager makes it a point of whining about the lack of daily blogs in his monthly nastygram and that just makes me not want to blog even more. Sometimes TV can give you a much healthier and funnier perspective on life. South Park is good for that... And if you have to blog at work (have to, not do it because you want to), I feel for you.

I'm back.

I had left DC for Vancouver at the beginning of October; I worked in Vancouver for 2 weeks and then headed to India. I love working in Vancouver. The pace of life there is much more to my liking; it is hectic but not horrid. I do my 8 (or 10 or 12) hours and then I go out and do whatever I want. There are people I know there, friends whom I have known for a decade now. I also know the city fairly well and I've never once felt uncomfortable there. Anyway, I was in Vancouver, I had a great time outside of work. At work was a slightly different story. I've always felt that after the merger, the Vancouver office was the bastard child of confused parents. These parents mean well and try and provide for the child, but they haven't a clue as to what makes the said child tick, what sets them off and what keeps them happy. Why would I say that? Well, lets see. For starters, these guys are not setup for visitors such as me. Now you may wonder why that is important seeing as I wo

I am back home once again! I had a pretty decent flight (though I didn't sleep like I imagined I would), I had a full enough day, and am writing this surrounded by two mutts. My lack of organisation came to bite me in the back... I spent my last night in DC cleaning the fridge and chucking things that don't look like stuff I would want to eat. I ended up not sleeping at all. I won't be home for at least 5 weeks, so I had to clean out/eat whatever I could. God willing nothing gross will grow in the fridge in the meantime. Hopefully, my plants don't die either. My cabbie ran over a squirrel in rock creek park this morning on his way to the airport... no idea why the critter was on the street that early in the morning, but I think the bugger bit the dust. I finished check-in and security in like 10 minutes... which meant, I waited a whopping 1 and a half hours for my flight... and then I took off to Chicago. A funny thing happened in Chicago. I got off gate 31. My next fli

I had one of my normally decent, non-bothersome colleagues at work give me a dressing down for some things today that I didn't quite appreciate... and I figured I would make a point of it by writing. He took issue with the fact that I didn't know who Matt Damon was and how I didn't watch any of Matt Damon's 40 odd films and how that was a terrible thing for me. He took further issue with the fact that I didn't really know too much about Michael Jackson's thriller (apparently the most watched video on earth or some such poppycock). Right. I told him that where I grew up, Michael Jackson wasn't exactly the most popular thing. Apparently I was wrong. To support his claim he sent me two things. One was a youtube video. I refuse to embed it on my blog because it a pile of piping hot shite. But you can watch it here . The second was the website of the Indian Michael Jackson fan club. The terms 'Indian Michael Jackson fan club' somehow sound wrong in struc

I love my TV. You may have read about my trials and tribulations with getting HD over the air in the past. Well, I am reaping the benefits of it. I have been watching the Republican convention in HD of late and I came to a profound realisation. HD can be bad for you. How? Well, you see now, we can not only see things in stupendous clarity (and I know some day this will be nothing compared to UHDV or whatever comes later on), we can also see them in jarring colour and detail. As I watched the Republicans cheer on their leadership and the cameras pan around looking in vain for the odd chap who is deemed a minority, the camera frequently lands and focuses on absolutely ugly people. They were just as ugly before HDTV, but now, thanks to the wonderful technologies that we have invented, you can see hairy women, people in dire need of good dental care and even people in need of a hair cut or simply something to absorb the sweat and oil they have all over their faces. This is distressing. We

For some of you, this might be a bit off. I trust that you will follow your instincts and learn something new today. I heard Bhishma speak today. There he lay, on a bed of arrows, asking for deliverance and some water. He was supposed to fight for the Kauravas, but we all knew, his heart lay on the side of the Pandavas. Only, in the modern day world, Bhishma happens to have a very famous New England surname, almost American regalness. Sure, he does not have a lion rampant or one that is passant or salient for that matter on his standard, but Bhishma was there in all his glory, renouncing everything, waiting for Hastinapur to go back into the hands of the righteous before he dies. He even made the pledge to not die until Hastinapur changes hands back to the Pandavas. Somewhere along the way, the children of Hastinapur get confusing. They mould swiftly from the Elephant and the Ass to Hillary and the one that is Arjuna. Not Ranatunga mind you, but the real deal. Arjuna who is the third

The last few days, some interesting things have been taking place. No, not the big thing in China. Everyone knows about the big event in China. I am talking about what's going on a little North and West of there. In a place called Georgia. Not the American state, I mean the former Soviet Republic of course. The world's other super power, perhaps just a shell of its past self is busy blowing stuff up in someone else's country once more. So what happened? I don't know for sure, but here's what it looks like from here. It looks like the Georgians decided to re-take their territory, you know territory in name, like Kosovo is Serbian in name. In Kosovo's case, the Serbs are out of luck. A lot of the world has recognised Kosovo as the world's newest country, ignoring Serbia and Russia's opposition to it. Now, when it comes to the Georgian territories, Russia is not having any of that. They seem to be hell bent on showing the rest of the world that Russia isn&

For those who don't know what I am writing about, let me give you some background. There is a Canadian family that is fairly well known in Canada (due to their views and relations with unsavoury characters). They have a few children. Born in Canada. Canadian citizens. One of the kids is accused of some fairly terrible acts. He is in a foreign prison. Canada has not worked on getting him home. Or help defend him for that matter. Maybe it isn't that big a deal. But maybe the details will make you wonder why I care about this. So, the details. The family name is Khadr. The father, he was close to one Osama bin Laden. He took his family to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He fought on behalf of those nuts in Afghanistan. Perhaps he was responsible for the deaths of soldiers and maybe even civilians (Afghan or otherwise). His kids were questionably involved in some of these activities. The family has, on more than one occassion expressed views that are not quite in line with what Canadians

Sigh. I am back in DC with my vacation at an end. I can't believe that it is over already. Every day that I was in Vancouver, I had more fun than every month that I have been in DC. I know I was on vacation and so Vancouver has that tinge and all that, but really, I think there is more to it. No, I know there is more to it than just the fact that I am on vacation. Every time I return from Vancouver to DC, I have this sinking feeling. I hate this place. Not because it is particularly bad; no, it is more because I am away from Vancouver. I need to be home. Not sitting in DC thinking of home, looking over pictures, entertaining myself with the Firefox plugin PicLens, looking for pictures of Vancouver on flickr and google. Or maybe it is the music, that reminds me of Scotland... mind you the music was written by a Serbo-Croatian composer and sung by folks like The Chieftans. So why do I miss Vancouver so much? Most things that matter to me are in Vancouver. My friends are. I ran into