The Onion Jam Chronicles - The Final Odyssey - Attempt 3

Need I say more. I am frickin Batman.
Lessons:
- I am never cutting Onions.
- Learn how to roast garlic before roasting garlic.
- A combination of onion jam and rum is not as good as you would think it.

The Onion Jam Chronicles - Attempt 2

Christmas eve. the day the jam was to change from recipe to actual physical form.

I had already bought the Balsamic vinegar and brown sugar a day earlier. I bought a full jar of sugar knowing that if the jam sucked I could always use it for mojitos.

The plan - 1) Get done with work 2) Get home 3) Make onion jam

D-day actually D-eve:
Pretty much done with work, I accepted the offer of a few colleagues to go and get some dinner and wine before leaving ( in the spirit of Christmas). After a few liters of wine and at 5 in the morning we decided to call it a night. Chaffing under the criticism I had received over the course of the night (regarding the making of the jam), the will and determination to make it now burned stronger than ever within me.

Reaching home, I switched on some grateful dead and began chopping onions. 1 onion down and sensing something odd, I turned around, and saw my father gesticulating with his hands. A little confused at first, I realized that he trying to communicate that the music was too loud. After Lowering the volume, a fairly enlightening conversation (concerning the cutting of onions at 5.30 in the morning) ensued. Since my debating skills were not at their peak at that time, I conceded defeat. After keeping the 1 cut onion in the fridge and a polite "Merry Christmas" and "Good Night" later, I slept.

Onion Jam Chronicles - Attempt 1

I have decided to cook. This sudden interest to improve my culinary skills occurred last week. Onion jam was chosen as the recipe to attempt as:
1. Not too many ingredients
2. The ingredients seemed like stuff I would find in my kitchen
3. I tasted it in a sandwich once and it blew my mind. Anything that improves a sandwich has my vote.

So after printing out the recipe I began looking for the ingredients. Found the onion and garlic. A quick call unfortunately shattered the conception I had that all vinegars are the same ( I needed balsamic vinegar). A quick trip to Vakola market shattered the conception I had that i could pick up the balsamic vinegar and brown sugar at the local grocer. I then decided to oil my bike.

However, I have not given up. Attempt 2 shall occur this week.

Adios

The Weakness

Hmm. So I have generally been pretty good with most sports. In fact I have never been truly miserable at any sport so far. However, after 2 weekends of testing I have now figured out my Kryptonite.

Drinking games - They reduce me ( without being too modest I can assure you I hold my drink very well.) into a blithering idiot. Its not even funny how badly I lose. Its not like the games are too hard - but I lose, and lose .... and then become a blithering idiot. I mean seriously how hard can it be right? Even the guy who likes men in red underwear did better at the games.

And so without further ado, I have decided to announce my retirement from the world of drinking games.

* for the record drinking games are safer when you are shotting anything but whiskey. Also during the course of the weekend I lost at cards ( oh so badly.. but revenge shall be mine!) and now have close to 67 shots to down in the future.

The Waffling Continues

So then. The biggest fear that I have after an attack of the sort that happened here in Bombay is the opportunity it awards the government to enforce almost any security law it wishes. Its a vicious cycle that has happened many times over in a whole bunch of places all over. The cycle goes like this:
- A horrific attack occurs on an innocent populate.
- The state is found lacking in pretty much every field ( security/ emergency services, etc).
- The citizenry goes wild.
- First the state fires people directly associated (people who bare the brunt of the public's anger). This suddenly looks like the state means business - HA!
- Then the state will come down with a whole bunch of draconian laws ( all in the interest of the safety of the people of course). Now these laws - at least to insane people like me - will seem pretty harsh and an extreme violation of a whole bunch of private rights. However, these laws will sail through parliament on a wave of righteous anger at all enemies of the state and the sentiments of a 50 million people (the other 50 million have no idea wtf is going on and will go along with pretty much anything) - who are seeped in a collective fear psychosis
- Now the laws keep getting worse and harsher - however the rate at which the attacks take place keeps rising. So does that mean the laws aren't working? Nope - the laws aren't strict enough (after all you have to give up something if you wanna live safe - right?)
-Soon except for the media which co-operates with the media everything else is shut - of course, this s something we are already almost at.
- Aaaah crap children, its 1984 again baby!!!

oh yeah its sorta apt that its John Miltons B'day today ( thats why the pic). He was pretty hardcore against censorship in his time. Of course his reasons for maintaining the freedom of expression was more theosophical ( the whole divine thing) and so are pretty debatable.

On a separate note I finally got my hands on the book of short stories by Marquez. Woo Hoo!!

28 years since the guy got shot and we still ain't giving peace a chance.

The 1st of December

December's here. What a lousy way to enter into what is pretty much the best month of the year.

Fire Smoke Fire Rage,
If only I could change the age,
but go where? - into sage smelling cage?
Bullshit! Evermore - Fire Smoke Fire Rage. - HA!

The Sale of Tibet

Ha! It was bound to happen. Its just a matter of time before everyone declares Tibet to be officially part of China. We never had and currently don't have the balls to even whisper something against the Chinese, the Americans sold them of during Nixon's time and now so have the Brits. Aah screw it. I guess as far as the Brits are concerned they want the Chinese to up their contribution to the IMF (upping Chinese support in the current financial crisis) - I guess the sale of a people's freedom does not compare to that.

Hey the concept of blood money has been around a lot longer than Tibet has right?

Did Britain Just Sell Tibet? - NYT op-ed

Bookie Waffling

Got done with 'An Area of Darkness' yesterday. Its a quick read written in a brutally honest fashion like Naipaul normally does. However the book, read today, seems pretty dated to me – and I'm not talking about physical changes that have taken place since the book was written. Basically, the generalizations done on the 'Indian' character seems to be fairly dated (hopefully) and I feel the way people around here think has changed considerably ( at least in Bombay). But, Naipaul does have the advantage of an outsiders view and so there's a bright chance that things are exactly the way he writes them (and that bhaaya is scary).

An extremely interesting bit of the book for me was about his stay in Kashmir (restricted to the Valley and Amarnath – unfortunately he never did Ladakh, which must have been pretty closed at the time + it was just before the Chinese Incursion). I was there around 3 months ago and bloody hell, the way he has described the people over there (of the valley ) is bang on. Its like they've been stuck in a time loop or something.

Its the same over there now – most folks still think that the Kashmir problem does not involve them. You could live a month over there and except for the bunch of CRPF guys with guns you would not know about the issue. They still try to cheat the living crap out of you – all while moaning about their sorry fate. They still treat the Dal like a massive sewer – we were the guys who got laughed at for refusing to chuck our cigarette stubs into the lake.

Yup, so an interesting read. For now I'm trying to get my hands on a book of short stories by Marquez. Lets see what happens with that.

Adios

Ego Diminishing

I'd been talking to a couple of friends about whether or not one could make a completely rational, non-biased decision without - in part at least suppressing his id.

This was a concept of dits which I helped write a year back. I pretty much wrote it with the thought of it being put into film - which I still hope gets done. C'mon ditter!!

On a side note I got ditter's blog added to the links as well since its active again.


Its the first of 2 parts.

PART 1

Getting out of bed, the music filled his head. Clean chords kept in reign with their sweet voices

The morning air had the light bounce of spring in it. This, he thought was the way a day was meant to be. The dull apartment felt fresh and new. His minds eye ignored the grime that had settled around him through twenty-seven years of sheep living.
He walked to the salon. As he walked inside, he noticed the hairdressers eyes. She was beautiful.
He now looked decent.

Back home, he felt the clean blue of the water as he showered and then shaved. Aah, the music.
Locking the door, he knew this day was a new beginning. His overused t-shirt and old jeans now looked out of place. The music soared.

The store attendant raised an eyebrow. Screw him!
He bought a standard blazer with matching pants.The shoes he bought had the dull gleam of rich leather. He left his old skins in the changing room. Let the bastard deal with them, he thought. Damn! the guitarist was good.

Walking into the beautiful victorian building he noticed that the doorman touched his cap to him, the bloody clothes made a difference after all.

He took the elevator to top floor,
with confidence inborn he opened the old iron door.

The music peaked.
As the Sun shone bright above,
the kundalini rose.
The edge is a beginning,
He knew.

He Jumped.



and the baby was born.

The Links

Hmmm. So apparently a short introduction to the links I put up is in need.


Silliman's Blog - I'd rather not introduce Ron Silliman. A fun thing about this blog is the comments by some really big names, over some pretty trivial issues, in a way that would make a facebook group proud.

Zaev Dutt - Aaaah. Where do I begin. The blog contains a whole bunch of firsts. A lot of truths in here. However the blogger loses a lot of his credibility by making snide/ underhanded statements about Batman while promoting Mr. Red Underwears.

Paul Krugman - Brilliant. Its weird that I actually like this guys writing so much considering I an a strong proponent of laissez-faire capitalism. The guy (at least right now) is pretty hardcore Keynesian in thinking but has some rock solid reasoning to back him up........ and yeah he won a Nobel a coupla months ago.

*Different Stars* - Mostly a fashion related blog. However you definitely find some pretty interesting poetry in here. Something I read in here:
"The honest truth,
Not to be told
But is known and
Yet seems to be unknown"

So yup gonna keep adding to the links and they'll show up depending on the latest updated.

Adios

DuAa Rhymin'

Stop whinin' bout life,
all the pain and all the strife.

The po'me's o' pain,
and times so grave
help me out darlin,
they toiynin' the sane insane

And now you got me all monain' and whinin'
And ruinin this ol' po'me with all this rhymin'.

Hey Hey,
In the words of ol' pappy,
make merry to be happy.


HA - hey man too much Dorothy Parker but without the suicidal

The List

Aaah. Something I've wanted to do for a long time. So basically I'm creating a list of books that I am bloody glad to have read so far. The list will only contain stuff that I truly like and can pretty much go back to and start reading from the middle again and all that jazz. For instance I can always pick up Atlas Shrugged and begin reading from any point - the same way i can pick up the Godfather at the point where Michael walks out of the loo with the gun in his hand and proceeds to gun down McCluskey and Sollozzo - whoo yeah!!

Also there is no order in the list. I'm gonna keep adding as I see fit.

Dorothy Parker should have had a blog.

The essence of life is wholeness,
the integration of body mind and spirit - in equilibrium.
Kaleidoscopes are, likewise good medicine to the spirit
as they reflect the constant emergence of order out of disorder and provide a sense of participation in the process. Sense because even though it is you who is responsible for performing the action at the end of it all one can do is hope that the outcome is something desired.

Or you just shake it once more.

Yup, so the whole no - smoking in "public places" ( which includes bars etc - but not roads) thingy goes into effect tomorrow. in July i could not finish a post on the same topic out of sheer disgust over the fact that nobody seems to get the bigger picture. Today it's cigarettes tomorrow who knows.

its like bloody 1984: the govt. sets up a law it cannot enforce. nobody gives a damn about the law and things go on like normal. cool right? are you bloody kidding me?? so basically what has happened is you have suddenly put a whole bunch of the population in the wrong and the government can and will enforce the law only when it is convenient to them.

aah screw it! i'm gonna go get a smoke and a drink tonight and will tell my godchildren years later about the good old times.

It was good. and thats that.

Things that disturb you
Things that you love
- write them down
People that bother you
People that you love
- take a picture
Insert them into your kaleidoscope chamber,
keep your intellect aside. And watch.

Right then, from October 2nd, our great, all wise and omnipotent government has decided that thou shalt not smoke in a private or a public place.
Now nobody is going to object to this because then, that vile person would then be associated with the dastardly act of smohohohoking.
Problems I have with the law:
-what gives the government the right to dictate terms on what is allowed and not private property

-The definition of public property as defined by the law is skewed.

HA!

what if you could eat the music you made, you'd eradicate the hungry musician.
metal-heads would create steaks - medium rare
the death metal dude would make it raw.
poppy ( not the plant) people would have some sugar and fluff
I think thats enough.

Damn, I'm hooked on to this online puzzle. bloody addictive. bloody frying.
here's the link. No fun if you cheat.

http://members.shaw.ca/energythief/

हिन्दी

प्रिय आगंतुक,
आशा है कि आप ठीक है .
मैं विरोध नहीं कर सके Google अनुवाद का उपयोग करते हुए हिन्दी में .
मैं समझ भी नहीं कर सकते हैं पाखाना मैं ने लिखा है .
अब मैं हिंदी में बहुत अच्छा है .
रॉक मैं हिन्दी में .
उन सभी हा हा जो मुझे संदेह है .
मैं प्रेम Google अनुवाद.


*For the losers who do not understand hindi use google translate. kickass.

A little more of a little more Waffling

MONEY

I can't stand people who say that money is the root of all evil blah blah ....
What I believe is that people who want money for the sake of it being money are the fuckups.

People do not understand money. Money = Value
It is when this simple equation fails that things go nuts.

Money on its own is useless, its a piece of paper or metal which on its own has no value. It is what money represents in terms of true value that give it its value. When I look at money I have made I most definetely don't think of it as evil, I think of it as value that I have provided in return for value that is mine.

The worst sort of people are those that do not understand this. So on one side you have the type who collects money for the sake of it , without it having any value. So basically this would be the type who makes money without providing value for it. This is no differrent from being a common thief. Hell, at least a common thief would know or admit he is a thief, in a wierd sort of way it is his way of life. But these folks do not consider themselves that. Society does not consider them that either ( and if society considers someone to be something then it must be true, yes? HA!).

Now this is easy to understand when you think of the state and the way it functions. The state takes value from you and gives you nothing in return.

On the other side you have those who say that money is evil. This is the sort who would say that a person should not earn any, should live for the sake of your neighbor etc.. this is truly the worst. What this person is basically saying is go through life without any sense of value for anything. What this person is saying is: do not value yourself, it does not matter if you sell yourself to the highest bidder or the lowest.

Balls. I know my value and would sell only at that. If I don't get my price, screw it I won't sell. I am MINE.

adios.

A little more waffling

"My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue."
– Ayn Rand

I believe the whole thought of being ashamed of success is something that is pre-conditioned into people from the time they are created.

I believe in fairness. What leads a person who has less then I do to believe that he is entitled to what is mine. If I do wish to help a person out, it is because I wish to and not because society demands that I do. I would help a person who I believe is needy and would actually profit from my help. The interpretation of who is needy is completely my decision, and I am not saying that I can't be wrong, but at least the mistake is my own.

The word needy again obviously does not refer only to wealth (meaning money).

I also believe that the world works on a system of give and take ( now everybody's yelling about selfless love etc.). Think of a mother and child. The mother loves the child because the child is hers and hers alone, the child in turn loves the mother because it associates the mother with warmth and is nurtured by her.

Another ooh he's a fucking selfish asshole with no morals whatsoever point – what happens when the balance breaks. ie- you have one side giving more than the other.

Shit happens. So you end up having the weepy ( hindi movie styled) mother who keeps complaining that her kid doesn't give a shit, the kid says his moms an asshole blah blah blah (alright i took it to the next level). What I really want to say is that the balance HAS to be maintained.

Alright the easy way to get everyone to agree with me is taxes. We pay taxes and we do not get anything in return. What the fuck is an income tax? Are you actually charging me to live the way i want to? Believe me I don't mind paying taxes as long as i get an equivalent form of return.

Aaahh screw it.

adios

holy crap, i don't know how to delete posts

th dr blgr

I still like getting sorta drunk,
i'm still at work but am already drunk.
the times are passing by,
and people change.
people change, people change
I, dont think i've ever changed.

maybe for good, maybe for bad
have thought the same, forever and,
still think i'm right, and not in the grey
think i follow the right way.
people change, people change
I, dont think i've ever changed.

tomorrow again i put on my mask(s)
and look at people like auditioning a cast
but for one i'd rather not, (mask)
rather not, rather not,
the perfect fit, for a perfect(?) skit

people change, people change
I, dont think i've ever changed.
dunno if i should,
or if i ever would.

and to end with the cliched excuse (the worst kind)
"i'm drunk" adios.

trip on hoffmon

so al hoffman, messing around ergot
obviously didn,t know the shit that was about to be got ( HA)
lets be hip and make some pharmaceutical,
absorb some through my tips and ride my bicycle. (Hoo -HA)

He rode, rode and rode, rode
the bicycle aint movin down the #$*d
the neighbor's a witch and the furniture's got guns,
what in bloody heaven have i gone and done.

LSD-25, medicine for the soul,
at this point in time we all need some more
screw the bloody hippies, who hijacked it then,
and use it to find out what we are supposed to be now.



R.I.P
Albert Hoffman (January 11, 1906 – April 29, 2008)

*for some reason while writing this stuff, dylan's "hurricane" kept playing through my head.
after i got done i see that the damn words fit directly into that song. talk about Plagiarism.

I like rhyming. good fun.

Nirvana "ahem" NIIIRRRVVAAANNAAAA!!!! YEAH!

Right, so i'm back to listening to good old nirvana. wierd part is this time i started listening to them the same way i did in the 10th std ie- started of with unplugged and then got to the rest.

The reason you can always go back to a band like nirvana is cause its good, simple, kick-ass, head banging music, oohhh yeeaahh distortion and not over produced - like all the junk nowadays, music.

Crap, the shit i've listened to recently! I mean you have a couple of good things happening on the scene like wolfmother and some stuff from the arctic monkeys but otherwise its a load of Mtv, over produced dog puke.

I hate bad music.
But i like jamming
and so, in one of those twists in life,
I am going to be playing crap,


adios

November 16, 1938

So, basically 60 years back on this day, good ol' Al Hoffman succeeds in synthesizing Lysergic acid diethylamide, the 25th lysergic acid derivative initially as a probable analeptic, a circulatory and respiratory stimulant.

However 60 rainbow filled years later, after a lot of ( and we are talking about a lot) of testing, by esteemed philosophers like Dr jerry garcia and Mr. Kesey, we are now sure that LSD most certainly does not help as a probable analeptic, a circulatory and respiratory stimulant.

So Hoffman just sort of knew on the 16th what the stuff was sort of about. He GOT to know about the stuff on the 19th.

wait for the 19th.

A thought

From the depths of consciousnesses,
feel,
hits the nerve
back into the cavity known as the brain,
ECHOE, CHOE, O, o, o, o,o,
and voila!
Its free.

Old stuff

What was it he saw
that others couldn't see,
What was it he heard
that others didn't hear,
The shadows for him, were darker than most-
The man who kept a secret.

Was his life more a dream
Than others were
Or was it just him -
being paranoid ,
It burned inside him, and ate his gut-
The man who kept a secret.

He went about life like
the norm was on,
Ignoring the stares
and the whispers about.
"I understand more, and so forgive more"
-The man who kept a secret.

The whispers were shouted
and the stares now blatant,
The laughing and jeering
echoing through his head,
In terror he realized, he was wrong all along.

- It was they who kept the secret

HOLI !

Alright, I finally got the videos of the Tibetan protest marches which China has banned. I don't even want to get started about the issues I have concerning Tibet.
The rest of the world (mainly the US and India) behave like a bunch of fucking rats whenever China does what they want. In the case of Tibet we just watched when China walked into Tibet in 1959 and we're still bloody watching.

The vids

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Censored_Tibet_March_2008_protest_videos_-_FLV_format

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh..."

from On the Road,
Jack Kerouac

Something I picked up on Digg. Depressingly applicable to today

Top 10 Most Depressing Quotes from Orwell's 1984

Kafkass

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin."

Damn! I finally got done with "The Metamorphosis". The book is originally in German and apparently a lot of the impact is lost after translation. Oh right the book starts with the line written on top so ........

I started the book really long back without knowing what it was about at all, and I think thats the best way to read it. The change in relationships between characters upon the outward change in a person is something that is pretty common in the real world.

adios

"Ah yes, things are clear,
a new perspective, a changed outlook
into the bin with the old rules,
and bright is the light of consciousness."

Waffling

Alright, at the beginning of this post itself I'd like to say that this post is completely inconclusive and is more than anything just an urge to ramble on (that was a great song) and waffle, than anything else.


Do we actually need a Government?
We've come to a point where a lot of us feel that the whole idea of a traditional government,consisting of State mechanisms and the Police, is outdated and not needed anymore. There are a whole bunch of arguments to support this - from the current state of corruption that reaches all the way from the highest echelons of power to the lowest. A lot of times it is the State itself which is responsible for a problem to which It provides a solution.

Historically governments emerged as stable systems of rent extraction from the populace. The issue solved by the established government was the problem of how to extract recources involuntarily from a populace. The "protective" features of the state were basically established to protect its population (resources) from exploitation by other states.

Basically The State was not formed by benevolent social forces but by a bunch of guys who had the power to do what ever they wanted (sound familiar?).

Why we need (bad as it may be) a Government

One thing that has led to the predominance of a centralized state is the need for military defence against an external aggressor.
Lets face it, do you really think that humanity has reached the level of maturity needed to live together?

Also every time a bunch of minority, so-called intellectuals has come together, humanity has come up with completely impractical and bloody dumbass ideas like"socialism" (HAHAHAHAH) and "communism" (HAHAHAHAHA).

Yup, so as usual I'm left sitting on the fence with this one. If I were forced to choose, I think I'd choose the first but the consequences of being wrong would be (not to sound all dramatic) CATASTROPHIC.

adios

P.S.- I want to paint my bike but the damn Piano lessons were too expensive.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase from the Roman poet Juvenal, variously translated as "Who will guard the guards?", "Who watches the watchmen?", "Who shall watch the watchers themselves?", or similar.

- wikipedia


This is bloody ridiculous. I go through the papers everyday (not that the papers are any great source of info.) and one theme that keeps repeating itself is the ridiculous abuse of power by those "in charge". Yesterday I read an article where the cops beat up a whole bunch of two-wheeler motorists for parking at Mahim Causeway.

Apparently the cops had received "information" that there was racing taking place. Fair enough, go check it out but dude when you see that nothing illegal is happening you are expected to leave.
Instead they ask the bikers (and I use this term referring to regular people who ride bikes, not big, bearded men probably with hidden guns) to leave and then pretty much lathi charge them. The best part is they are actually hitting the dudes who are trying to get away.

It's as if the cops consider it a complete waste of time if they follow a lead and dont get to crack a few skulls.

Moral of this episode - I am going to upgrade my bike. Damn its going to be like streethawk (remember the show) except on a bullet , oh man missile launchers and on the side a scabbard for my katana .. make that 2 scabbards for 2 katanas ( my bike will ride on voice commands).

WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS!