The neat Lj meet last night left me in very high spirits. The office work over, called up home after a long time, and had a nice long chat with mom and dad, and then another long call…came back home to find Rishi had prepared dinner, three packets of Maggi noodles with eggs and onions ( minus his favourite – tomatoes)….finished The Phantom Menace novel over dinner and listened to some more Phish – a brilliant band, IMHO. As is usual, went to sleep at around 12, to the strains of Carole King’s “Brother Brother”.

3:00 am: Rude awakening: the power had gone off and it was raining pretty heavily outside. It was a dark and stormy night (:-P ) and there were squadrons of mosquitoes doing the Danse Macabre around my ears. ( all the mosquito repellents we have run on electricity. Aaah! The preils of technology! ) Tried to summon zen techniques of falling asleep, but could endure it no longer. Rishi was up too. So was Abhi. And it turned out there wasn’t a single candle in the bloomin’ house! Cursed each other for a while, then cursed the mosquitoes, finally settled on cursing the landlord.
4:30 am, the rain had stopped, and it was semi-dark outside. Decided to go out for a walk with Rishi, came back after sometime – it was too hazy ,and both of were mumbling sleepily. Better mosquitoes than an ignominous fall in the mud!

5:00 am: what the heck!!! I smother myself in my blanket ( and Hyderabad is supposed to be hot, man! ) and concentrate on ignoring the buzzing and humming. It works!!! Somewhere down the line, the power comes back again, and I throw the blanket off.
8:30 am: Wake up. Look at the watch. Late for the office!!!!! Aww, man, this sucks…..

9:40 AM: am in the office now. Sleepy. A li’l hungry. More coffee required.

Whoof!
I got to meet AR Rahman.
Gate-crashed the rehearsal at the stadium, and stayed put until one AM. had dinner with the orchestra.

Definitely a day I am not gonna forget.

I sound very relaxed.
I am not.
Why do I have the feeling this is not the last time I am gonna meet Him?
Optimism, huh, beatzo?
Shut up, you nut. Lemme be.
Well, stop grinning, you moron. You’re in an office, you know.
Oh yeah? Who cares?
You’re a working guy now. Working…and responsible.
Ummm, ok. Will get back to work.
Yeah, ok.
(silence)
Hey, beatzo!
YEah?
STOP GRINNING, BASTARD!
LEMME BE!

There is the K-Circle team quiz this Sunday, and I am supposed to conduct it with Arun. No questions as yet! I know this is going to turn out like all other quizzes, one-night marathons of hectic “research”….but no, I refuse to recycle ancient Quiznet queries.

I am running out of topics. All my quizzes tend to become Entertainment quizzes – only movies and music related. Not this time, I hope….

Hey, a neat thing happened just now. I got breakfast and a note delivered to my desk, courtesy two friends I helped out last night (after nearly ditching them) Coffee and Toast and Cakes – great start to the day! Thanks!!!!

I love explosions in movies.
Anything goes.
Men with cool-looking automatic weapons tearing apart buildings and cars. Cars hitting cars, cars hitting trees, cars hitting anything…and the flashier the model, the better!Planes, trains, tanks, ships…and everything else that come packaged in a war movie.
Cities getting blown away in alien sci-fi flicks. Space ships…aaaah! Scientists say space is soundless, so technically there wouldn’t be any loud explosions in space. But hey, who do I listen to – a multimillionaire like George Lucas who made his multi-millions peddling Loud Space Explosions or a bunch of crummy people in lab coats? And hello! Why call The Big Bang The Big Bang if there wasn’t no Bang?

I revel in big-screen Explosions. I get MAJORLY enthused. The taste of popcorn is rendered a thousand times sweeter. I am…uhhh…blown away.

And it’s much, much better when the background music is loud techno.

The weekend:
Friday Night:
Got a glass of freezing lime soda dropped over my pants. Nearly overturned the table too. Dead silence in the restaurant, the only giggling souls being myself and the perpetrator(Take a bow, Mons!). Warning to fellow-soda-drippers: never take an auto-ride in the night without drying your pants first.

Saturday:
Normal. Panipuri for lunch. Popcorn in the afternoon. “Satta” was good. Met Vasu on the way out of the theater, both of us helped out a damsel-not-exactly-in-distress….bis needed to shift from the hostel. Met a psycho auto-driver, who convinced us he could transport the complete package at one go. Yeah, right! A suitcase, a Trunk, two mattresses, three airbags, assorted plastic bags and soft-toys poking out of plastic bags, and three people , all in the back, and Vasu and the auto-driver in front.

Sunday:
Was supposed to go and meet this long-lost friend of mine, who was in town for a night. Didn’t. Went off to the Book Fair. Decided to go to the Sunday Market first. Whoopee!!! got “Stars Wars: The Phantom Menace” Hardcover by Terry Brooks for a paltry 50 bucks. The BF was a big let-down. Searched out some old “Shade The Changing Man” comics, and a Conan compendium. News for both myself and psasi, seems Robert Jordan, before he wrote his Wheel of Time books, used to write Conan stories that were pretty well-received by fans.
Finally bought the Heavy Metal magazine from Odyssey, feel good about it. Listened to Trilok Gurtu and read Joseph Campbell until midnight.