Gimme back that Filet-O-Fish



Gimme back that filet-o-fish
Gimme that fish
Gimme back that filet-o-fish
Gimme that fish
What if it was you
hanging up on this wall?
If you were in that sandwich
you wouldn’t be laughing at all!

My current ad obsession!

Tim Minchin - If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife)

Hindi People from Goodness Gracious Me (A parody of Common People by Pulp)



Lyrics:

She came from Kent, her name was Lucy Parker
Her skin was white but she preferred it darker
That's why I, caught her eye
We met at York, she was a first year student
She wore a sari 'cause she thought it prudent, I thought fine
and then in 30 seconds time she said

I want to live like Hindi people
I want to do what ever Hindi people do
I want to sleep with Hindi people
I want to sleep with Hindi people like you
Well what else could I do, I smiled and said 'Do you want a vindaloo?'

I said I'd find a groovy gig and take her
I like The Verve but she said Kula Shaker their music's tops
Just like Cornershop's

She said I wanna live like Hindi people
I wanna eat whatever Hindi people eat
I want to dress like the bindi people
I want to wear mehndi on my feet
but she didn't understand
You just paint it on your haaand!

Comb your hair and be polite
Do your homework every night
Don't smoke fags and don't play pool
Do extremely well at school
Take a medical degree, graduate at thirty-three
Move back in with mom and dad, even though they drive you raving mad...you sure

You wanna live like Hindi people
You wanna see whatever Hindi people see
You wanna live with Hindi people
You wanna watch your films on Zee TV

But you'll never comprehend 'cause for you it's just a trend
Dressing up like the Hindi people
In your favourite georgette salwaar
Dancing round with the Hindi people
Telling me that you want to learn sitar
but you'll never score with me 'cause I was born in Coventry
Coventry oh yeah!

It was a weekend of snowstorms, ice and musicals.

It began as a quiet Friday evening that consisted solely of staying home, watching maybe the first 4 minutes of the movie Ghost Rider with Ms. Non Sequitur and then turning in early in anticipation of the coming snowstorm from hell.

Saturday began with a quick ride to KitKat's house in the wilderness to pick her up. I left my house at 9:15am with no sight of snow and returned by 9:45am to white streets! The storm had begun.

The snow continued all the way to 6pm, turning into little particles of ice at around 4pm. Driving was going to be impossible but we had to get to State Street to watch Rent at the Overture Center. After a lot of debate (Hob: "No way we're driving! I don't wanna die!", Ms. Non Sequitur: "Hob, you are such a wuss!", KitKat: "Hob you are the biggest wuss I have seen.", J: "There is no way I am walking!"), we all decided to call a cab.

The cab was late, but the driver was a someone who wasn't even the least bit fazed by the condition of the streets. I rode shotgun and man was it a scary ride. The cab skid, skid again and skid some more. But luckily we reached Paul's Club with no incidents. A quick Miller Lite for everyone (Cousin Q, JR, The Bowman and Akon joined us at Paul's,) and off we went to the show.

Rent was ok. The music was catchy most of the time but the lyrics seemed forced to fit the music. (Vice versa sometimes.) But then again that's a feature of all musicals. Overall, I felt that it lacked something. Specifically, a small carnivorous dinosaur, like a velociraptor or deinonychus, that would eat cast members sometimes. Now that show I would pay top dollar to see.

(If that last paragraph seems bizarre, I would like to add that I actually thought of the dinosaurs during the show. Also a hip-hop musical with rapping instead of songs would be wicked!)

This is a slightly premature what-happened-on-the-weekend post.

Friday. Dinner at Maza with Little A (Maza is the new Afghan place that's opened on State Street.) Chapali kababs. Searching for Angelic. Deciding that the Great Dane is a better option. (Mmmmmmm Honey Blonde beer!) Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind.

Saturday. Breakfast at Mickey's Dairy Bar. Cricket World Cup at Union South. Ice-cream with Ms. Non-Sequitur at Union South. (Mmmmmmm Orange custard chocolate chip!) Cook-out at Uncle J's place organized by Cousin Q. Holy crap a food festival! Barbecued short farmer's market ribs. Barbecued Mexican-marinated pork. Beer and lot's of it. Tossing the frisbee. All kinds of dips and finger food including Cousin Q's looks-bland-but-has-a-kick chili dip. Made from habanero powder! More beer. Tossing the ball for the dog. Watching a looong croquet game. Barbecued chicken and veggies (including pineapple!). Brats! Sitting my the fire and identifying movies from their soundtrack. (Who knew that Baby Got Back is in the Charlie's Angels soundtrack!)

Sunday. So far, I've just got this post. I better come up with something quick!

I saw Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar in concert last night with Ms. Non Sequitur, Kitkat, her hubby Bongoli M and by boss A. The whole experience was awesome. But there was a distinct difference in the two performances.

They were both technically flawless. But everyone, including people like me who haven't really studied Indian Classical, agreed that Ravi Shankar's performance was on a different level from Anoushka's. And I think I know the reason- it's because unlike Anoushka, Ravi was letting himself be moved by the music. Somehow, that added something special to his performance.

I guess Anoushka will get in time too.

Weekend.
Friday. Hoofers Sailing Club social at Hawk's. Maduro's with crazy P and his crazier friends. Home at 4 after mac and cheese pizza at Ian's.
Saturday. Early phone call from London T. Sleep deprivation. Shopping at the mall. New garage for car. Storm. Canceled plans to go Cocoliquot. Crappy pizza from Rocky Rococo's. Music and helping Ms. Non Sequitur pack for her trip to Puerto Rico.
Sunday. Gym. Calming Ms. Non Sequitur during a last minute pre-trip panic. Dinner at Dotty Dumpling's and drinks at Paul's Club with Little A.

Current music to trip on: No Quarter and When The Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin. Why are all the best bands English?

Accidental trippy music. I was listening to Spaceboy from the Smashing Pumpkins album Siamese Dream. I was also opening random links on Digg and opened What We Still Don't Know - a documentary about origins - in a background tab with the intent to checking it out later. (I didn't know when I was opening it that it was a video which would start playing automatically.) I was also coding. The result was some extremely mellow alt rock layered with some trippy words discussing life, God and science. Maybe I should post a mashup on YouTube...

And we don't know
Just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below

-1979, Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness, The Smashing Pumpkins

It's 1:38 pm on a Sunday afternoon and I'm at work. There's no one else here yet. I have just finished my extra-hot habanero burrito from Qdoba. So why am I not ranting?

It's because I spent last night dancing like a junglee at the High Noon Saloon to the great sound of The Kissers! An Irish rock band and Guinness in my blood, what more do you need on St. Patrick's Day? Others to partake in the festivities were Ms. Non Sequitur, Sunny D, Laid back C, their friend StayC, and later in the night Smiley R and her husband J. I'm so sore from all the head-banging today, my neck ache has a neck ache!

Drunk Post Warning: This post was written while inebriated.

Just got back home from a session of crazy dancing at Madison's with Q and her crazy friends. We danced to the likes of JT, Fergie and all kinds of crazy chick music like Avril and Kelly Clarkson. It was totally awesome!

Before that it was Gomeroke at the High Noon Saloon!. I was the closing act of the night with my rendition of Hotel California by the Eagles. I forgot the song midway but didn't care and sang out loud anyway! I rocked the house! (Humility clearly isn't my forte.) I'm totally doing this again... Before me, apparently Q sang and was, according to her uncle J, number 3 for the night. (According to uncle J, I wasn't quite in the Top 5 'cause I forgot the lyrics, but I "did good".)

And my apologies to Ms. Non Sequitur for choosing such a long song and killing her chance. I promise I'll let her go before me next time.

The adoring public demanded it so here it is... a brand new post!

What is Hob listening to?
Interstate Love Song by The Stone Temple Pilots. If I sing at Gomeroke (Live band karaoke) this Friday (contingent on whether I get to go for it - horrible horrible work) then it's a toss up between this and You Can Leave Your Hat On by Joe Cocker. (Actually looks like they may not know either of those songs.... hmmmm... well there's always The Beatles... maybe something like Come Together or Helter Skelter?)

What is Hob touching?
His shiny freshly shaved head. Here's the deal on shaving your head:
a. Shaving the front is easy with a Gillette Mach 3, shaving the back using an extra mirror is slightly disorienting at first but you get used to it.
b. Day 1: Your scalp is like sandpaper and catches on everything!
Day 2: Your scalp is now has a slightly rough feel to it. Your sexiest looking day.
Day 3: Now there's this absolutely delightful fuzz that feels so good to run your hand through (for both the hand-runner and hand-runnee)
Day 4: Uh oh! Beginning to look like hair again! Time to shave... tomorrow!

What is Hob smelling?
a. Nivea Aftershave straight from India. This seems to be unavailable in the US and I didn't pick up any more during my visit... I wonder if Nivea makes cologne?
b. Clean fresh spring air. Holy crap Batman! I had forgotten what spring was like over here.

Who is Hob leching?
Ana Beatriz Barros as usual. And all the hot women in Madison who seem to be enjoying warmer weather by bringing on the spring fashions. I like. (That "I like" to be said like Borat.)

What is Hob tasting?
Success! And Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips! And beer, glorious beer! (St. Patrick's Day this Saturday!)

My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids,
but my heart keeps watchin’ through the skin of my eyelids.

- Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles), Funeral, The Arcade Fire

It's so nice to finally listen to a band that not only got excellent sound but also beautiful lyrics. So yeah buy, beg, borrow or steal this record.

The Postal Service - We Will Become Silhouettes


No video? Get the DivX Web Player for Windows or Mac.

Another strange song with a strange video.

The New Pornographers - Use It


No video? Get the DivX Web Player for Windows or Mac.

Just experimenting with the DivX Web Player. This is way better quality then YouTube. Double click for fullscreen. And once the video has finished caching you can right click and save it no fuss. Nice song too! I've written about it before. That video is hosted at Stage6 which has seems to have videos by a lot of other indie artists.

Apologies to my Linux-based blog readers. On the other hand the .divx file pointed to seems to be an avi wrapping DivX MPEG4 video so perhaps the MPlayer Mozilla Plugin could be configured to handle the video/divx MIME type.

Wow! That was a long long time without an update. I've been busy but that's no excuse as I've been busy before but always updated this blog!

Anyway, I've been reading. I discovered a branch of the library pretty darn close to where I work. To celebrate I read Runaways Vol. 1 and 2 and Ex Machina Vol. 1, 2 and 3 by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Tony Harris respectively. Mr. Vaughn writes a great story and his books are always based on a brilliant premise. I've raved about Y: The Last Man before which is about the last surviving man on an earth where the entire male species dies suddenly and violently. Runaways traces the fates of the children of a group of supervillians who after having discovered what their parents do for a living run away. Ex Machina is about a superhero who prevents the plane from crashing into the second tower on 9/11, and goes on to run for mayor of New York to better serve his city.

I've been listening. I discovered Franz Ferdinand. Their eponymous first album is fantastic but their second effort, You Could Have It So Much Better, isn't as good. Also listened to a bit of Katie Melua who's ok. I guess she needs to grow up a bit.

I drove up to Detroit and Kalamazoo. I had my first sailing lesson and bruised my shin!

Ganpati Bappa Morya!!!

Following Vikster's lead here's some YouTube crazy for you:

Spiderman: I had just about started going to school when this was on DD. I remember singing the theme song with gobbledygook made-up English during kindergarten in front of the whole class! This was when I had just about barely started to understand the alphabet, a full year before I could read a single word!

He-Man: Everyone remembers He-Man. Probably the most memorable intro ever. And I'm sure everyone's parents remember the toys which they had to buy. This version on YouTube is botched in the end though.

Giant Robot: Although the official English translation of the name is Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot everyone from India who got DD2 in the '80s remembers this as Giant Robot. The high point of this show used to be all the crazy monsters (and the crazy homemade names we would come up with for them.) Memorable ones were the Eye Monster, the Ball Monster (which was a rolling ball with spikes it could stand on), "Sandwich" (which was a monster which could split into two pieces and sandwich Giant Robot), and of course the Other Giant Robot which was more powerful than our hero but couldn't stand up for some reason. I'm sure everyone remembers doing the steps - swing arms left ("kachink"), swing arms right ("kachink"), swing arms in front ("kachink"), load finger missiles ("chink, chink, chink" etc.), fire!

Switching gears from the '80s to the '90s (or rather from Before Cable to After Cable which I'm sure is the best way to categorize Indian television), here's some Prabhu Deva dancing to some kickass Rahman.

Chikku Bukku: I remember the first time I saw this video I was simply dumbstruck. It just seemed impossible to dance that way and yet the dude was doing it! I don't think I've seen better dancing anywhere else actually. And of course the most frustrating aspect of this video was how little airtime it actually got.

Urvasi Urvasi: After Chikku Bukku, Prabhu Deva was famous (the lone picked-on Tamilian in school made sure of that actually!), and when Kadhalan was released (as Humse Hai Mukabala in Hindi) everyone knew who he was. I prefer the dancing in this video to any other in Kadhalan.

And to finish you off on a happy note, some psychedelic trip-hop from the 2000s

Nice Weather for Ducks: I discovered Lemon Jelly completely by accident. I was watching Eurodance videos at viva.tv (I miss Eurodance!) when I stumbled upon this gem of a video. Watching it once is all it takes to get hooked. (And don't blame me if you find yourself singing the chorus in public.) (All you engineer geeks will also notice that it stretches the video codec to its limits and then breaks it completely!) This is some of the happiest music ever!

...
One and one-half wandering Jews
Return to their natural courses
To resume old acquaintances
Step out occasionally
And speculate who had been damaged the most
Easy time will determine if these consolations
Will be their reward
The arc of a love affair
Waiting to be restored
You take two bodies and you twirl them into one
Their hearts and their bones
And they won't come undone
...

-
Hearts and bones
Paul Simon
1983

Sometimes, I think that the only thing I seem to persistently follow through with in life is this blog. It's the only thing I have been doing for more than a couple of years with no extended breaks. It's true that quite often the content has suffered (too much nerdy stuff or comics) and in recent months it has turned into a place where I end up recommending things to readers but all in all, I'm just happy that I'm still doing this.

Now talking about recommending things to readers. A couple of hours ago I watched half of the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. The other half is to be televised tomorrow. Grey's Anatomy is one of the three shows that I seem to be regularly following. And it's not because of all the emo stuff on it (though that's done well too), it's because of the medical stuff on it. Makes me want to wish I had got better scores in biology and become a doctor myself. Though knowing my fragile memory I wouldn't have done too well in it anyway. Yeah that's me. Smart enough to be a doctor but with a memory only good enough to be an engineer. Because a doctor wouldn't inspire too much confidence in his patients if he kept needing to look stuff up in his programming manual on the Internet!

The other two shows I watch are Farscape and Scrubs, but I've said too much about them already.

Now changing the topic to books, I am struggling through the third book in the Ringworld series - Ringworld Throne. Perhaps it's because there is too much going on at work and other fronts. Perhaps, it's like the reviewers on Amazon said, it's just not as good. Hopefully I'll finish it. I also have with me a signed copy of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, but I haven't ready more than a few pages of it. I guess since I own it, I feel I can probably read it whenever I want.

I can't remember which comics were on my list this week, which is not a good sign, as it means they weren't interesting. Haven't heard anything interesting for a while. Except for Baba Lagin. Don't ask.

(Yes, my grammar seems to be deteriorating. I can't seem to put the commas in the right places. I need my copy of Wren and Martin again.)

Spring is slowly sneaking back into Madison. The days are longer now, than what I remember them to be. Trees are still leafless and nude but many are sporting the beginnings of leaf buds. It's still cold. My hands still freeze and mornings are still an unwelcome affair, struggling to stay under cozy blankets as time marches by. I have to be patient. Summer will come soon.

Creativity is dead. If it's alive I can't find it anywhere. Not in anything I write, nor in what I read. It decided to leave movies and music a while back, I know, but I am left wondering, if there's anyone left, who can really spends time with it. Everything that's been written or said recently has roots in something more seminal from the past.

The end of the world is nigh. The signs are all there. Strangely enough they've been there for decades now, but Armageddon refuses to come. I think it's scared of us. I don't know why. We're a generation of pushovers and nervous wrecks. Maybe that's why.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? I know.

Yield.

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slow-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation that's dying in the corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
But don't cry, baby, don't cry, don't cry.
-The boy in the bubble, Paul Simon, (remembered from off the top off my head, there might be mistakes).

And we wonder when quoting stopped being plagiarism and turned into literature. Standing on the shoulders of giants.