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Freelancing Copywriter

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Mexican Lexicon

This post might be devoid of any intellectual content, but beware that it might force you to salivate, growl, get hungry, or get disgruntled at te state of affairs in general. A useless account of the events leading to the food follows. The reading-speed challenged, or those who are short on time, should scroll.

The other day, I along with a group of friends went to see a movie. We went out of the way to some multiplex on the other side of town, since they were giving free tickets. Free as in beer. Yeah. One free on the purchase of one. Buy one get two. Ek pe ek free. Now since that was tempting, we went. Reached there in the nick of time, only to be kept waiting due to 'technical' reasons. Now being budding engineers, all of us, concurred that there might be 'valid' technical reasons for holding up the show. As time progressed, the consensus disintegrated, only to be replaced with the choicest profanities, all well discussed and concurred upon. Soon enough, all profanities were found useless against 'technical reasons' as the show got cancelled.

Shit happens.

Anyway, after taking our money back (ahhh) we discussed what to do next. Since having dinner at the hostel mess was out of the question, I suggested a restauant nearby which I had earlier been to, and found to be quite brilliant. I was however booed dows, and everyone cited 'technical reasons'. Only a couple of 'good' friends stuck with me, and after showing everyone the bird, we headed out across uncharted territories in the suburbs of Bombay. After a gruelling, winding and overpriced, and obviously 'technically incorrect' auto ride, we had arrived at this place.

Now the mexican food here was supposed to be awesome. So what if it were only vegetarian, and so what if it was devoid of fajitas and eggs and chicken and tex-mex. And the lebanese. The chicks there sure are hot as hell, but no chickens were to be found on the menu. That was the only downside. So after some deliberations over the 'technicalities' of world cuisine and pics of the suspicious two flags on every table decor, we went ahead with the order.

A bean burrito arrived some 10 minutes later. Now this won't be fine-dining for someone from the US of A, but for us, it was heavenly. Succulent beans, wrapped up with cheese and salads in a perfectly rolled tortilla. Soft to the touch, and crispy to the mouth, myriad sauces inside cooking up a divine concoction. Devoured within seconds, this set the table rolling and our tummies growling.

A lebanese falafel sandwich followed the burrito. Hummus and qhaboos and various other things with names good enough for middle-eastern war machines were delightful. Cracked wheat had its day of glory within that unassuming roll wrapped up with choicest lebanese bread. Reminded me of what it would feel to be in Lebanon, 'technicalities' of the language notwithstanding.

Enchiladas de tortilas with sweet corn. Torillas filled with infinite amounts of cheese and sauces, stuffed with sweet american corn, tossed about in tomato gravy and topped with a layer of cheese an inch thick. Something that justified why gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. Fortifying the belief that hedonism is something that takes one away from God. For the duration of consuming the aforementioned, we revered the sense of taste, prayed to the dishes to impart infinite depth to themselves, bowed to the cheese for being the all-giver...

Like all good things, this also came to an end.
But Nirvana, as it were, had been attained. Three times over.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Nerd Geek Dork Superman

Its 5:15 AM.

For those of you who might think that I am an early riser, I state categorically that I haven't slept till now. This is what I do usually. Sleep at weird times, get to classes somehow, only to be warned about low attendances, and keep up all night doing nothing at all.

This night, I feel is somewhat different. I have a mock interview tomorrow. Its not something where I, or for that matter the interviewer gets mocked. I'd better phrase it as a practice interview. The reason being IIM calls. I am happy.

I love interviews. I love it more when I screw one up and still emerge victorious, if I can use the word. Why, only the last month, when I screwed up one royally, I got hired. Yes, it was a job interview, I messed it all up, and the guys hired me. General Motors, for your information. I am doubly happy.

Anyway, some guy said change is the only constant. I think it is boolean. And not so much of a constant after all. Some wise guy in charge of programming my life had a weird idea. He said - "Let me screw this guy over" and put

boolean const change=0;

in my file. That was quite shitty. However, someone turned this 0 to 1. I am more happy.

But again, errors creep up in code. Always. And since Murphy was correct, there isn't someone qualified enough to correct them. This boolean thingy doesn't work too well in me. I thought I had the ability to change after all. So when I saw all my friends trying to exercise, jog, gym it out, play squash and what not, I, feeling blissfully aware of that new value of the constant thingy, decided to run to burn up the cals.

# run Giddu
segmentation fault

#

I am like, what the fuck is that. Fuzzy boolean variables! Like boolean change=0.341276 or some shit like that... I saw no change in this part of my code. The mind wanted to run, the body showed it the finger. Two segments. One fault.

Well, fuck Murphy. If there's something Murphy's law doesn't apply to, it is Murphy's law itself. One thing does come to mind though. Probably this variable wasn't global. It is, you know, defined differently for different parts of the code. I don't know. I don't know my programming language too well.