I've been a-tagged! Twice!

I've been tagged by both Imhunt and Wishful Thinker . It's unorthodox, but I'm combining the tags.

Random facts about Raindrop you'd never have known if she hadn't been tagged. (Because, as you're no doubt aware, she just hates talking about herself.)

1. I'm straight in the female sense. What that means is that while I'm not attracted to women, I'm not repulsed (would I sound like a magnet if I said repelled?) by them either. And I'm very non-homophobic. (And the answer to the question you didn't ask is yes, I might.)

2. I don't have an instinctive sense of left and right. I need to mouth the word 'right'and the hand that comes up automatically is my right hand. That's how I tell.

3. I think I have a severe case of ADD. I get bored REALLY easily. (My earliest memory is of yawning. I'm dead serious.) I'm terrible with details. I can't be bothered cluttering my mind with information I consider completely irrelevant, like the clothes somebody wore the other day. I'd rather store random geographical trivia in my head, although it's probably just as useless.

4. I also get obsessed very easily. My present obsession is with Kimveer Gill. Here's a mirror of his main page. Here are his pics and his last blog entry.

I've been playing the song Nymphetamine over and over again, because I found it on his Vampire Freaks blog. I love the song/video. Yes, I'm closet goth. I'm back to my CoF/Tristania/Nightwish/Lacuna Coil/Blind Guardian phase.

5. I love potatoes. (No, that's not my dark secret, although it comes pretty close!)

6. I'm a dog person. I think cat people are psycho killers. Like kitten-loving Kimveer.

7. I want to

a)role play (in any sense of the world)
b)build a dollhouse (with curtains, paintings, furniture in miniature)
c)skydive, at least ONCE
d)get married to a superkinkytallgeniushottieatheistnonpsychokillerfreak, have his kids and live happily ever after. (Yeah, I'm a born rebel.)

8. Babies love me. They may be stupid dopeheads, but at least they're stupid dopeheads with taste.

Update: I tag Drunken Master, Mahima and Dodo. And everyone on my blogroll who hasn't done this tag.

Big apes do it better

Warning: Explicit Content! My face is superimposed on a monkey's. It's possible that the monkey isn't wearing clothes, although you can't really tell from the pic. It might offend some of you.


You Tarzan, me insane.

I made that!:)

I'm quitting academics and becoming a chef.

Also, I bumped into not-so-hot-dude in the library yesterday. It was weird.

Me: Hey! (My chirpiest tone, after I realized he'd seen me. Seen me see him, that is.)
S: Hey zere, I haf been so busy.
Me: Yeah, me too. Insanely busy!
S: Ja, very very busy.
Me: I know, gotta run now, I'm that busy!

So J, the flatmate, announced that it was time for us to host a party. I nodded enthusiastically. She then said she would HAVE to invite S, and asked if I wanted to put it off for a while. I rolled my eyes as if to say, yeah, like that day meant ANYTHING to me. Oh, she could invite him ANYTIME she wanted to. I'm SO TOTALLY cool with it! The other J suppressed a snigger. Funnily enough, the other J thinks S is cute! I just find dark-haired desi dudes far more attractive. Probably one of those cultural things.

Argh. I have to CODE for tomorrow! And I don't freakin' KNOW how to code! I have no problem with Hello World type programs, but sadly, this isn't one of those. And my only 'coding' experience comes from when I was 14, and passed encrypted notes to my friends during Civics. (Oh, this is from my civics book. 'India has a large population because sex is the only form of recreation for people living in rural areas'. That was the only interesting sentence in that whole book!')

My encrypted notes often had only two words in them. I'd go from alphabets to numbers with a direct substitution thingy. Then I'd convert those numbers to base 26, so I could use alphabets to cleverly disguise numbers, which were really just alphabets in disguise. Yes, I'm devious.

And yes, no one understood my notes. I'd end up giving them my message after class, VERBALLY, and my offers to explain my coding system were met with icy glares.

Yes, I was a freak.

I was such a math wannabe as a teenager! Like all good Indian kids, I read that famous Ramanujam/1729 story and tried to force myself to break random license plate numbers down into sums of cubes and squares. It was a huge effort for me, so I gave up in about a day. I also tried to teach myself calculus from good old Britannica at the age of thirteen because I read a spy thriller about a guy who had learned calculus at twelve. Didn't have too much success there either.

Oh, and in other news, I've found religion. Yes, Nath, you were right. God told me that if I couldn't get the damn code finished in two hours, I'd just have to quit school, marry, and cook awesome meals for my husband. And strive to be the perfect wife. To me, that would be a lot easier than coding. I love God. He really DOES have a plan.

Flouting the Ordnung

My life just lost its Amish seal of approval last night. But give me a week or so and I'll be all Amish again.

I am definitely an exhibitionist (the events of last night are a testament to this), but I wonder how much of that is blog-induced. My blog was born from exhibitionism, and now it feeds it, making it stronger. The one recurring thought I had running through my head last night was, 'I just HAVE to blog this!'

Here's the gist of it anyway. I'm exercising tremendous restraint here, in not including the good bits! So enjoy my little story. Mom, if you're reading this, of COURSE I'm making all of this up!

Alcohol.

The words 'de donde eres' thrown at me. Me trying desperately to remember what that meant. An apology. 'Sorry, I thought you were latina'. My pathetic claim that I WAS latina, dammit. 'Porque yo hablo espanol! Si, si, hablo espanol! Pero no comprendo UNA PALABRA! I speak Spanish, damn you! I learned it for FOUR WHOLE WEEKS! But I just don't understand it, that's all!' And because sanity finally prevailed, I shut the hell up before I slipped into further denial about my knowledge of the language.

He wasn't hot, but I really didn't care. I knew his name but that's more than I needed to know. Dance floor. Flirting in a strange language, I was bored out of my mind. The ensuing madness. A few shocked stares. Still at it until I hear him say the word 'bed'. I beat a hasty retreat. Yup, the Amish kicked in right on time.

The only thing that embarrasses me is that I might have potentially made a few alcohol induced grammar mistakes while speaking not-so-hot-guy's language. I desperately hope I didn't!

P.S. If you're a science type, go to my other blog. It's brand new and it's cutting edge.

Update: Do people just sit around waiting for playground bullies to insult them, so they can go home crying to mommy? Mommy, he drew an insulting picture of me! Mommy, he was rude to me! Mommy, they don't want the ten commandments! But I WANT THEM on PUBLIC BUILDINGS, or else I'll FORGET them!! Mommy, Aerosmith put MY hero's picture on a CD cover! That's RUDE!

Kids, if I were your mommy, I'd give you all a hard spanking.

Babies are little adults on drugs.

A few people I know have their very own poopmachines. Also known as babies. And these people, also known as proud parents, act like sprouting teeth is some kind of huge intellectual achievement.

It's not.

And if you've never been around a baby, here's a surprising fact about them.

They're unbelievably stupid.

Yeah, please don't give me that politically correct shit about their little brains developing. Their brains have plenty of time to develop while they're hogging their mothers' precious resources in the womb. Look at dogs and horses and other animals. They walk MINUTES after they're born! And humans are supposed to be SMARTER than them! Don't tell me that this has never struck you as being a tad odd?

Their dirty secret is drugs. Yes, wrap your diaper around THAT one.

I bet I'll have my kid reading Joyce and doing the cryptic crossword at three months, simply by blocking access to drugs.

Don't believe babies are on drugs? This little incident might help you see what I'm talking about. It's a true story, and it might shock some of you.

A proud mama once handed me her baby because she wanted to have a life for five minutes. I was holding the baby, so I decided I might as well engage it in some interesting conversation.

Hello, little baby.

*blank wide-eyed look*

My name is Raindrop. You have teeth and a tongue, your mom thinks you're some kind of genius. Say my name if you're that smart.

*gurgle*

Raindrop. Repeat after me. Rain-drop.

fa-fa.

What the hell is fa-fa?

*stupid smile*

Come on now, say my name. Rain-drop!

fa-fa.

fa-fa sounds NOTHING like my name you little shit. What have you been smoking?

goo-gaa.

You've been smoking goo-gaa? (I'm not familiar with that one, but this baby definitely knows its drugs.)

Look, kid. It's an easy name to say if you aren't on crack.

*tugs at my hair*

Oh, is that your idea of being cute? Let me tell you kid, that shit doesn't work in the real world.

*gurgly, almost giggly smile*

(Sighing) You're not even a year old, and you're already a dopehead. You, kid, are going to give your poor parents a lot of grief.

*flaps its arms wildly, laughing like a little maniac*

And this continued for a while. The poor little shit couldn't even say my name. I realize it was at an impressionable age, and all the other babies were doing it too. I tried hard not to be judgemental and preachy, but I do believe we're responsible for the choices we make. This baby had strayed. Hopefully not irrevocably though. Kindergarten is the baby version of rehab.

Are you still not convinced that babies are dopeheads? I have MORE proof, just for unbelievers such as yourself.

"Other signs and symptoms of drug abuse are dilated pupils, restlessness, hyperactivity, euphoria, slurred speech, disabled co-ordination, incontinence, decreased attention span, an irregular sleep pattern and impaired judgment. "

Do babies have dilated pupils? Yes. Have you ever seen the glazed looks on those little zombie faces?
Are they restless and hyperactive? Hell, yes.
Are they euphoric? Yes, and they laugh like maniacs.
Is their speech slurred? Baby speech is the epitome of slurred speech. They can't fucking talk.
Disabled co-ordination? Obviously, would you ever trust a baby to drive your car? NO! And have you seen them drool? Disgusting.
Incontinence? The diaper industry wouldn't exist if this weren't true!
Decreased attention span? Babies have the shortest attention spans ever. Try catching a baby do ANYTHING for over 5 minutes. Other than crying and sleeping.
Irregular sleep pattern? You know the answer to that if you've ever been around a baby. It's a resounding YES!
Impaired judgement? Even the idiots who ask Playboy for advice on life would not consider asking babies for advice. How many baby judges have you seen? Zero.

I strongly suspect it's in baby food/formula. So feed your baby Big Mac and McFries, because you can be sure there's no nasty shit in there.

P.S. Please, dear friends from college, I don't think your baby is smart at all, even if it just said its first word. Because 'gwynng' is not a word. It may be a Welsh word, but Welsh words don't count. And DO NOT send me pictures of your babies stuffing their faces, food messily splattered all over them. I don't want to hear about their toilet training escapades either. If I were ever in charge of a country, these are some of the things I would make taboo.

Some people might find all of that cute, but those people are usually put away before they can do themselves/others any real harm.

Babies pretty much come from sludge and ooze, live in sludge and ooze, and then make their own sludge and ooze.

'Nuff said.

Update: I'm a judgemental bitch who gets really annoyed when people mispronounce the French word 'forte'. It's one syllable, plain and simple. Fort-ay is wrong! If you want to be pretentious and impress people with your French, then at least get it right! Or just stick to English like the hoi polloi. The incorrect use of French personal pronouns is another thing that gets to me.

It's not pedantry at play here, folks. Anyone who uses a foreign word when an English word would suffice, is trying, on some level, to impress. You can pull it off by getting the word right, but by getting it wrong, you're fair game. You WILL be ridiculed.

I was pleasantly surprised to find some of my old students in a class I'm teaching. Well, as a TA. I'm too sick of academics to ever want to become a professor.

I told them I might not be teaching their class starting next week because I have a schedule conflict. And I added that in the civilized world, we say SHEDYULE and not SKEJULE. They nodded gravely and said they remembered that, and the fact that I say aluminIum. And the fact that cricket is the only true sport, and baseball is just a cheap imitation. I was all choked up, proud that I had really taught these kids something.

And they, full of their usual does-flattery-get-me-extra-points shit, asked me if the person taking my place would be as awesome as I was.

Yeah, I definitely think they deserve those extra points.

I hear my flatmate talking on the phone, repeatedly shouting out the words, I LOVE DIET COKE! Must be code for something. Low fat cocaine? Nah, too obvious. She's a total little undergrad, she gets drunk every night of the week. Hooks up with total strangers at the bar. And half her friends are either single moms at 21, or getting sentenced to three days in prison for DUI. Oh, now she's talking about how she's going to die of an STD. Charming.

*sigh*

I miss those days.

Oh. Wait. I never HAD THOSE DAYS! Thank fucking heavens for THAT!

P.S. Yes, she's a wackjob, but I'm really quite fond of her. You know, kind of like Maria in the Sound of Music. Except there's a lot more drunkenness/sluttiness here. Ah, the joys of living with an undergrad..

Yeah, I'm still stuck on the hugging thing. I miss Bangalore boy hugs. Their hugs are big, strong and manly, like the Bangalore boy who drinks lots of beer and listens/headbangs to a lot of metal. Bangalore boys don't hug boys. They hug women. Their hugs are VERY different from the delicate Latin embrace/cheek kiss.

Oh, but I don't miss air kissing at all. Who the fuck invented that??

I've always wondered why women feel the need to name their first borns (all in their heads, of course) the MOMENT they start dating a guy, even if they have NO intention of ever doing more than just fooling around with him.

So here comes my confession for the day. It's highly embarrassing, but I'm a masochist AND an exhibitionist, so obviously I've just got to make this public. I'm a last-name-trier. I meet a guy, and then I imagine how my first name would sound with his last name. I do it the same way I imagine how a jacket that I have no intention of buying would look on me. It means nothing at all. Seriously.

The ex and I are presently engaged in an argument about my height. I think the most accurate measure of my height comes from taking my flatmate's height, knocking off an inch because she tends to exaggerate ever so slightly, and then adding half an inch to that to account for the fact that I'm slightly taller than her. His method, clearly flawed, makes me .75 inches shorter than my method. It involves the use of a tape measure. How boringly unimaginative. How typically male. Oh, and in his words, height is relative. 'You're shorter than the Empire State Building, but you're taller than grass.'

I'm taller than grass, HAH! Up yours, grass! Well, most species(/phylae/whatthefuckever) of grass anyway.

Gotta love the dude.

Update: I've been asked by the ex to 'fix my blog without much ado' or I would 'lose my most important visitor', because he was quoted out of context. I agree, the Empire State Building comment was out of context, so I'm adding a disclaimer.

Disclaimer: Ex has been quoted out of context just to make my story more interesting. I can't help it, I lead a boring life. Men are my only source of amusement.

Another update: Ex thinks I still haven't 'fucking fixed it!' He wanted me to add context, so I'm adding context. He made the Empire State comment in response to my statement, 'I'm not THAT short!' Oh, that reminds me. Ex is really cute. Also one of the smartest men I know. If you're a really hot woman, give me a shout, and I'll try to set you up with him.

If you're a hug slut, make Latin American friends. They might suddenly recoil after being told you're Indian, and then pretend that the embrace was really just a namaste gone horribly wrong. But that's only the first time.

Germaine, just PLEASE shut the fuck up.

To all you pseudo-gourmet chefs

GARLIC ROLLS

1 pkg. frozen dinner rolls, thawed
1/2 c. butter
Garlic to taste

Roll balls in garlic butter. Pour the rest of garlic butter over the rolls. Place in a bundt pan. Let rise double in size. Bake at 350 degrees until done.

This is NOT a freakin' recipe. If I wanted the easy way out, I'd just buy the damn garlic rolls, instead of buying dinner rolls and then coating them with garlic butter.

Because coating a dinner roll with garlic butter to make a GARLIC roll does NOT constitute cooking. It ranks right alongside stirring dehydrated vegetables and oil from a packet into an instant Thai meal, and then microwaving it for two minutes.

If you want to make, as in really make, garlic rolls, do it from freakin' scratch.

But PLEASE stop deluding yourself into believing that you have cooking skills.

Update: Why the FUCK do people say 'lengthy'?? What's wrong with the word 'long'? If you think lengthy is cooler than long, then you are REALLY fucked up.