The prodigal son returns

A good friend asked me why I stopped writing my blog.. I didn't have a sufficient excuse, and "I got too busy" just doesn't cut it.
Hence, I'm back.
Beware :-)

gel filtration

Why is gel filtration so slow?
I've been staring at this stupid column for the past 2 hours now, watching stuff drip out at one end.. excrutiatingly slowly.
Drop by drop.
its killing me.
and also makes me feel like peeing ever 20 odd minutes.

oh for a HPLC :-)

VEGAS..... BABY!

So here goes the rest... lemme start with a couple of shermans prize anecdotes..
"I need to goto the gym everyday.. its my duty to keep my body in good shape. Its like wot spiderman said - With great power comes great responsibility"!!!

The second act of sherman came when he discovered Sephora.. For the uninitiated, Sephora is a cosmetics chain, and Sherman, previously unaware of a garden of eden such as this, took a leap into a new line of mens cosmetics, and came out a new, metrosexual and rejuvinated man. He also, during the couse of our vacation, discovered conditioner. With his exfoliated skin, and silky smooth hair, watch out ladies, Sherman is on the prowl :-)

The third act of sherman began on the first day of our trip, and ended somewhere near the end of it. For those of you who know sherman, its no suprise that he likes to sleep. It was a suprise, however, jus how MUCH he wanted to sleep.
At the grand canyon, I decided that since we've come all the way, it would be pretty cool to walk along the rim as the sun rises over it. I suggested we leave the room by about 5am. Sherman laughs it off saying that I would never be awake by 5 am!
4.45am - I wake up, take a quick shower, change, and get ready for the hike.
5.00am - Try to wake up Sherman and Rashad
5.05am - Rashad gets up and startes getting ready.
5.15am - Rashad is ready
- Try to wake up Sherman

"get up"
"mfft"
"sherman, get up or we're gonna leave without you"
"mfft"
"The bloody sun is going to rise.. get up!!!"
"mfft"
I now proceed to jump from one bed to another trying desperately to get him out of bed. To give him credit, he did wake up eventually.

Back at Las Vegas later that morning, we get back to our hotel, and much to my horror and disgust, BOTH sherman and rashad decide that 11am is an excellent time to take a nap.
Sigh. Whats the world coming to :-)

Rashads acts of Brilliance.
Part 1 - Cranky at mealtimes. Rashad needs to eat every 4-5 hours witohut fail else all bedlam breaks loose. I, being the dense little boy that I am, was totally unaware of any form of crankiness untill it literraly, almost hit me in the face.

Part 2 - The face that launched a 1000 ships. Rashad discovers make-up. Again at Sephora. The emerged a new woman, with a TINY bit too much make-up on her face. We of course, told her she looked wonderful, but truth be told, she looked a bit like dame edna.



Now lets get to Hamlet..
Flavours.
Thats the name of the restaurant. And for 12 dollars, they had the most supremely awesome buffet. I started with a plate of seafood, a plate of grilled meat, a plate of fajitas, a plate of sushi, and a plate of chinese food. This was topped off by 3 scoops of ice-cream with chocolate sauce, and a rather large slice of chocolate cake.
Obviously, I felt sick and very nearly threw up over the other two. Needless to say, I learnt my lesson and ate significantly less the next few days.

All in all, the vacation was a huge success. We gambled at a little casino called "Casino Royale", made a decent amount of money, and then lost it all. Met some interesting people at our poker table, many of whom, lost a LOT more than we did, and one woman who won about $1000! The Korean dealer lady was the one who christened Rashad and Sherman with these delightful names!
We saw the cirque du soleil and the incredible David Copperfield (and for those of you who get the opportunity to watch either of these, make sure you do!), we obviously went to a Las Vegas Srtip show called "Bareback'.. Suprisingly, most of the other people in the audience were above the age of 50! Maybe they need a lil impetus to get their sex-life goin!
And finally, we walked around in the scortching hot 50 degree celcius heat!
And here ends our vacation. along with our savings :-)

What happens in Vegas...

Stays in Vegas.

Or so the saying goes.. But thats kinda lame and I think it would be much more fun to reveal the interesting things we got upto over our 5 days there. So, dear diary, listen up :-)

Day 1: 5.30 am, the sun rises. Shockingly, I'm awake about half hour before him. Get ready in a big hurry. All the essentials, but no bath for lack of time. Run downstairs. Hail a cab. Tell the cab to goto the subway station, so I can take the tube to the airport. Check the tickets. Realise I've forgotten them and have no idea which airline I'm on. Cab turns around. Run upstairs. Get ticket. Run downstairs. Back in cab.
And there begins the delightful tail. It goes on with my flight getting delayed, my connection getting delayed, and me having to wait 4 hours alone at Pittsburgh airport for the people I'm going with (Sherman and Rashad - names have been changed to protect the innocent) to show up.
The time is now 6pm.
I left the house at 5am.
I'm still only in Pittsburgh.
I've spent the past 13 hours not talking to anyone. And if you know me, thats wayyyy past the threshold limit! But no worries. I take it out on them by not shutting up for the next five days (and for those of you who know me, jus imagine wot THATS like!)
Anyhow... Flight leaves Pittsburgh. Reach Vegas at midnight (Pacific time) and walk around for the next two hours, till 5 am NY time. I've been awake for 24 hours straight, and I'm kinda proud of it :-)

Guilty as charged

Whoa.. A whole week has passed since I wrote my last entry.. Its not like nothing has happened, and although I've been busy, you're never TOO busy to write a blog. Whenever something interesting happens, I think "huh.. I should write about this in my blog", and when I get home, I usually forget about it, and several brilliant anecdotes are lost in this manner.
"So why haven't you written about the stuff that goes on at home?" you ask.. well, to be perfectly truthful, nothing interesting really happens while I'm at home!

So anyway.. getting to my point (I have one, I promise).. I was day-dreaming earlier today.. dabbling on the egde of human reason, when it suddenly occured to me..

Paranoia rhymes with diarrhea. Not completely, but kinda.

Now this struck me as odd. The two words are spelled TOTALLY differently. A person can be paranoid, so why can't they be diarroid? Which led me to wonder.. What do you call a person who has diarrhea? Which is when I came up with the "oh-so-classic" phrase
"his reverse is in fast forward".. If ever I had to put money on anything I have said going down in the history books, this is probably gonna be it!

Which is when it struck me. I AM a little paranoid with diarrea. I realise I'm bearing my soul in a most unbecoming way to a group of, for lack of a better word, strangers, but what the hey, we all have deep dark secrets :-)
I'm actually not paranoid about diarrea, rather, just slightly obsessed with it. Well.. Not obsessed with IT (thats gross), rather, obsessed with "the concept of it".. Once, about two years ago (man.. time flies!), I was stuck in the back of a car with a friend for a couple of hours in a traffic jam, and I came up with an elaborate plot on "involuntary defecation" (a fancy way to say diarrhea), and how there's an underground industry set up by our college to recycle it and sell it to us in our canteen as food. She was not impressed by the story, nor were the 15 other people I told.
Maybe there is something wrong with me.
Maybe there's something wrong with everyone else.
Maybe there's no right and wrong.
Maybe we're all just a group of people living according to a set of guidlines which society has created and proclaimed to be the norm, and by adhering to these, we're missing out on the true value of life.
Maybe I AM weird. But I'm proud to be weird, and I celebrate it :-)

weather issues

whats the deal with the weather in new york? within the span of a month, it went from being pretty cold to ridiculously hot.
I miss bangalore, where "too hot" wasn't that hot, and "too cold" was just an excuse to don your favourite sweater.

in the beginning...

...the lord said let there be light.
over the next four days he made the land, the sea, the sky and other cool stuff.
on the 6th day, he created man in his image.
and on the seventh day, he rested.
but not before pointing his almighty finger at me and proclaiming
"Let there be stupid"

Of all the times I have made an ass of myself, and trust me, there have been a LOT of times, last night was possibly the worst... worst ever.

let me paint a little picture. Its the grad school "summer soiree".. everybody is dressed up, drinking wine, chatting, laughing and enjoying themselves in a sensible fashion.
and then there was me.

I had reached the event by about 9 along with a friend, early, by new york standards... I, being me, started drinking at 9, and by the time most of the school (now.. this is the ENTIRE graduate student population) showed up, it was around 10 or 10.30, by which time I had loosened my collar, and was decidedy "tipsy".

And then the 80s music began. Bad move Mr. DJ.

People who know me KNOW I cannot resist the sounds of the 80s, so my friend (who's equally drunk as me) start swing dancing. and jiving. and 'boogie-ing". and anything else which involves shaking your ass.
And this went on for the next 4 hours. So for FOUR WHOLE BLOODY HOURS we were the only ones dancing, with the whole school watching us.
When I woke up this morning, I felt the desperate need to transfer schools. I still haven't seen a soul all day, and I will hopefully never have to.