free, Fry, fro, from

Potatoes - duly boiled and cut into quarters
Garlic - chopped
Onions - chopped as well
Herbs - bottled
Salt, Pepper - are
Oil - is

The Garlic fried (a bit too much even), the Onions fried, the Salt and Pepper tasted, the Herbs also fried now that I come to think of it. Through all of this the oil behaved as it should, frying things - all things but my potatoes! :(

Why?!

shooting (Star)bucks

I just had to do that with the title, otherwise that extremely bad joke would stay in my head for the rest of the day, and the next two - because it's the WEEKEND (yay) and I have no work (w00t), and very minimal life (fail).

The reason I came to post is because all the friendly faces on gChat are at meetings or have left to do other things, and I have to sigh a bit about this. I dream of Starbucks.

In between every two documents I go through, there is this waft of my favourite Mocha Blanc that does what wafty things do. This, in turn, makes me look startled and then attempt a ring-girl type head turn before I become employee-like again. However, every time I cannot spot where this elusive source is, a nanobit of me dies inside - I know it's a sign of coffee karma (I tried alliterating, but it looks terrible) taunting me for having chosen to go pasta last evening, instead of standing in queue at the Starbucks and getting my weekly dose of coffee. The reason, also, that it is such a big deal is because there is no Starbucks near home or work and it means having to go out of my way and climb in and out of metro stations to get my fix.

Speaking of Type-C karma, the pasta turned out to be awesomely mediocre - in the sense that it was definitely NOT good, but it wasn't bad. So this meant that instead of throwing it, I sat chomping 1.5 kgs (yes, my body converts anything I intake in kg-format ONLY) into my system. Grrrr. Viagio poulet curry AVOID; their pasta à la napolitaine and their pizzas are friggin' cheap and very decent. (Notice regular hyperlinking-ness and great objectivity display in NOT dissing mediocre poulet curry place).

I'm not being Pierre by sticking to their French names, just making it easier if you visit and need to place orders (read: considerate) (also read:French keyboard; actually if there were more accents you could have read it better, but it's ok read anyway).

17:21 now, which means I will shut olfactory functions, quickly finish with work and run to grab a cup of the yumminess that has my name on it.

i need a new way to "meh"

I just made a visit to GB's blog and I felt all gleeee - what with another mention in the pocket and all. Butttttttttt, I also just realized that I have no particular style of writing. At all. I'm as random as can be.

Maybe that's the good thing about having such a space at our disposal. However, GB has a style - and one that makes me want to go back for more. See. I want to have a style that makes me want to come back with more a lot more, and not have to wait for another contact with concrete to have to. (Please note: My FIRSTEST hyperlink - only on the blog of course; it's my second otherwise)

Anyway, *slump*, I am going to sit down and think about. Do I want a style? Do I want to be free of such responsiblity? Should I stop writing rhetorical posts that you both may not want to read?

Maybe.

fraise en yaourt

So, I've just been vegetating ever since I got back from work last evening - other than the short sprint to get myself a baguette to celebrate the weekend morning being here.

Watching movies somehow always give me the munchies. And I watched three last night. So my dinner menu was a little random: Salad, Pasta in mixed sauce (pesto being the queen ingredient), 3 spoons of nutella (as a dessert substitute), cornflakes and milk and actual dessert.

Now this post is about the dessert - and that's because I made it (a rare occurrence, see). This is a homemade version of those fruity yogurts you get in the supermarkets. Except, this isn't processed and I actually wanted to eat it - fruity yogurts really aren't my thing.

According to an online dictionary, the definition of recipe is "a set of directions with a list of ingredients for preparing something, especially food". So I guess what I'm going to be putting down here, I can call a recipe to one of the simplest desserts, ever.

Ingredients:

Sugar

Yogurt (nature)

Strawberries

Recipe:

Finish eating milk and cornflakes and empty a tub of yogurt into the cup.

Add 2 tablespoons of sugar, and whip it.

Slice the strawberries and add it to cup.

Add a teaspoonful of sugar - twice in-between the strawberry-adding.

And its a dessert! It looks AND tastes like one!!

P.S: Refrigerate overnight. Though I understand if you're on a movie marathon, and you'd rather not do the overnight bit.

waiter, make mine blue

There's this man who is always always by the door of his garage, almost all the time. I know this because I walk past him on my way to the university, on my way back, on my way to buy my bread, on my way to the bank - basically on the way to anything East-wards of my house. I say East only because I know you wouldn't know any better, and neither do I, so what the hell.

Now, back to the man. He was just 'man by garage door' (I really like the word garage and I have no clue why), till yesterday. It must have been a profound something playing on the ipod, but seeing him then suddenly made me wonder if, as a kid, he ever imagined that this is what he would be doing for a large part of time. Then from there, of course as always in my head, it came around to me and then the world at large.

I never ever imagined I'd be walking down the cobbled streets of a city in France, loving the smell of freshly baked baguette, and seeing man by door every time I went by to get my daily fix. As kids did any of us realize that we'd have our hearts broken, several times; or that we'd break other unrelated hearts in time; that there'd be times when we'd choose to sit rather than dance; or that we'd fall off cycles when older, considering how pro we were at hands-free-ing our way down the street. Sigh.

Along related lines, why do we ask kids what they want to be? They have no clue that becoming a pilot would actually involve choosing to do chemistry and physics in the years to come. I honestly don't even get why people ask non-kids what they want to do next, unless it involves someone they just met and need a conversational lubricant.

What's weird is when people hit 30-35, these questions somehow cease to be. How is a 32-year-old working-type person more off the hook than an employed 23-year-old? At this point, somehow the question of whether it should be seen as a compliment or an insult comes about, no? Blaggards! Best is not to see I guess, but the logical progressionality theorem allows for the thought process to pass.

I say avoid the damn question altogether. I'm personally not a fan of it, since my laziness mostly allows me only to think of the here and now. But I also say, if you're prone to asking, then ask it of everyone. As glibly. You can always want to do things differently or do different things. Not just in retrospect, but even looking forward.

I know I've caught myself thinking it now and I have a feeling no matter how old I get there'll be lots of "when I'm older, I'm going to..." moments. It's nice to look forward to things that you're leaving for your future self to deal with.

In other words, Positive Procrastination! w00t.

Update from an older me in 2016: I guess I understand why people talk to children about their aspirations. It turns out to be quite fun as kids tend to have a most uninhibited range of ambitions. Talking to them also gets them to express and build on their imagination. It also helps the parent or teacher in the conversation equip the children with tools that could help them better understand those ambitions. 

breakfast makes sense in the morning..

So here you are in this city
With a shattered heart, it seems
Though when you arrived you thought you'd have
The holiday of your dreams
You'd cry yourself to sleep if you could
But you've been awake all night
Well here's something that you need to do
At the first hint of morning light

Walk right across the deserted city
To the Boulevard Amsterdam
And wait there
For what the citizens here
Refer to as the Breakfast Tram

So do music and lyrics..

no Jill came tumbling after..

Fact: France does not make the act of falling on the road any charming-er. I know this because I fell, twice, just to make sure I wasn't just going to be shooting my mouth off saying such things. Said exercise was performed with extreme professional knack too -- so that only the really bony parts of my being whacked the gravel.

Lesson learnt: Always, always lift rear end slightly off hard bicycle seat before getting on and off footpath and other such perversions on an otherwise level road (especially after above-mentioned fact-checking activities).

Pedestrian casualties: One number plastic garbage bag.

Limbs: As such intact. Knees unbendable. Rear end to be confined only to extremely soft sofa sets/beds for the next week.

Still. Like.

A for aeroplanes; b for..

Bicycle rides with music to go, thats what I have scheduled for the evening!

The number of pedestrian casualties and my limb count is what I have in store for you post that. And just to make sure its worth your while, I haven't been on a bicycle in some 14 years. That's right: Just - for - you!

I like pleasure spiked with pain and

Music is my aeroplane

It's my ae-ro-plane..

new dawn, new day

This also means making new resolutions -- start reading again (tick), start looking up the news (mmhmm i will i will), start using the cycle that the landlady got fixed just for you. This means I have things to do. w00t.

Midway through the week-long winter break and still bumming around. How fantastic can that be when you're in a different country. One of the reasons I am not going to kill myself about it is because I have no one to travel with. I dont need someone for conversations, my ipod will take care of most needs. But I do need someone around in case of a "excusez-moi, but what do you say for rape in French" situation.

I've still got to wait for my housing permit before I need to worry about translation for those words into spanish, portuguese or italian. Once that comes through I'm going to go crazy hyper about travelling.

Despite the lack of such things that I was so so looking forward to, the spirit's still groovy. What with reading and jazz on side, my new cycle and new blog on the other, life's still pretty darn good. The news will just have to wait I suppose.

Hey hey. Just realized, I can sit and blab on about my various theories here. MY blog. bwahahahhaa. So here's why I don't kill myself about not following the news:

I never have and I'm doing just fine so far. I think the only time I mildly did was one week before my entrance test for the journalism school, which in case you were curious I DID graduate from. So there.

Also, I think I'm more interested in the 'me and what's going on right around me' than anything else. Do I have enough cereals and milk? Where can we get the cheapest pair of bathroom slippers? Why is the man next to me not dead though he's been making high level saliva noises while eating? How do I kill him?

That apart, I'm not anti-news reading nor do I revel in the fact that I don't. The Time website, NYT and the like are all pretty tempting. I really want to. But I just end up not. It's sad, yes. When I was working with this business paper, I actually did get pretty interested in following some business stories and market news. But thats that I guess. Anyway, notice how I persevere and keep it on the to-do list. I pat me on the back for that!

Also, I *heart* reading columnists (read Jeremy Clarkson and Stanley Bing). You don't have to be ok with half the things they say, but thats the beauty.

I *heart* political incorrectness.

C'est tout. Time for thyme.

need to funk

Winter breaks and sore throats -- hows that for irony..and dont think shake head disapprovingly at my wussiness, this is hard core! I could easily give any post-pubescent boy a super huge complex with this.

However, there is good that has come out of this. I think I am *hearting* my landlady a little bit more. She's into alternative medical consulting and so I'm eating sweet sweet homeopathic medicines. But this is what completely got me -- boiled water with FRESH thyme from the GARDEN! sigggggghhhhh. On impulse I told her I'm just staying on for the rest of the year, just so I could help her gardening in summer or spring, or whenever it is people do the stuff.

Just as I typed that out, I hung my head a little in shame. I'm reading up on gardening by the time the winter blows over. Yes I will.

It also just struck me -- I'm now a blogger! w00t. Two blogs old, but what the hell.

Ok I'm now going to exit this stuff and go see how I can work on funking up this page. I'm technologically-challenged, but I'm in some weird proactive mode now - so I'm going for it. Later ladies.

second post in a day

Here is something I'd written out in great hopes of starting to freelance. Then there was drama and my friend, who was the editor of the newspaper resigned, and I promptly walked out behind him -- without really even haven't walked in! So this was written to be published, and published it shall be.

La beginning

Waking up early (9 am IS early for a Sunday morning) after a heavy night is not what I recommend.

Gay clubs have awesome music! This is not the first lesson I learnt in France, but it is something to be kept in mind. When asked for suggestions on where to go for a night of good, uninhibited dancing here, I will very 'in the knowishly' say so.

Lesson #1, however, is that it's ok to look five times your size as long as each layer of clothing is working to keep your blood from freezing over.

Lesson #2 is that if someone tells you that below zero degrees cold is cold, don't believe them. Every drop in temperature makes a difference. Your fingers get icy faster, making it that much harder to use the key to turn the freezing lock of the freezing door. And don't even get me started on the windchill. I'm sorry I'm on this weatherman trip right now, but check out what one of the sites had to say when I googled for Lille weather today: Light freezing drizzling likely. What? No really! I'm from South India; Chennai to be precise – so I am fully allowed to crib about this even if I'm not reacting to it half as badly as some of the people around me are!

Gah. I'm stopping with that. Yes it's cold. But its tremendously pretty. The whole town with its cobbled roads and brick houses with wooden floors. Now, I'm a sucker for this sort of a thing. The first day I walked into my accommodation here, I felt a warm happiness spread within me. However, this was temporarily doused when I realized I would be sharing one (thats right, ONE) toilet and one shower with five six other people. Warmth returned when, on my first peep into it, I saw books lining a whole wall of the water closet (smirk at subtle word substitution success).

Another very important lesson (someone suggested i call it lesson #2 and a half), and I am NOT being paid to promote websites here, but you can learn just about anything off youtube! Laundry, for instance. People may be condescending, but it isn't the hardest thing to screw up the landlady's washing machine. I choose safe over sorry.

This weekend has passed – with its share of dancing, wining and housemate bonding. The week in coming will be my first in a long series of intensive course crunching. Also, and very importantly, the winter sales have begun. Post-classes I hope to be porrikifying the streets of this fine French town, and praying that the 'likely freezing drizzle' remains just a possibility and nothing more.

another one bites the dust

Gah..

The thing that kills is wondering how many people have already done what I'm doing..not blogging..but the smaller things, like the title of this post for instance..another one bites the dust? have to run for some dinner now..otherwise I would have hit a google search on that one and decided against it..without a doubt..

Anyway, M's blog was what got me started after all these years of whether or not-ing. Not in a 'if she can do it, then I can do it better' way. More in a 'she's making me solidly smile by talking like we do but only with funky hyperlinking on the side, and I want to make me smile too' way.

So here goes..