Category: Rant

My own personal hell

I have recently been subjected to my own personal hell… an entire week where the only activity was to watch Bollywood movies.

What we saw:

  • Don [then said in low echoing voice] Don Don Don Don
    As complicated as the first Mission Impossible but it’s 3 hrs long so there is soooo much more time to pack in confusing details and twists. Actually the final twist was pretty cool and made the movie almost worth watching. Low expectations here helped.
  • Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (Don’t Say Goodbye)
    This movie was over 3 hours long. This is equivalent to over 6 half hour TV episodes and if you include commercials it is more like 8 episodes. This *one* movie had enough romantic melodrama as a *full season* of TV.
  • Umrao Jaan, or as I like to call it Ashwaria’s Wretched Miserable Miserable Life
    Sort of a sad, Memoirs of a Geisha. Actually, it’s very reminiscent in tone to The Passion except with a *more* wretched ending.
  • Chini Cam (Amitabh’s Cook Movie)
    Don’t get me started on Amitabh Bachchan, more later.
  • Jurm (Wife killing movie)
    I missed the first 2 hours of this, luckily for me there was like another 5 hours left. This movie hit every single Hindi movie stereotype imaginable… campy, bad acting, overacting, drawn out, long, cheesy dialog, ridiculous action, too much makeup, need to spontaneously break out into song…

The New Jersey Express

I just took the New Jersey Express from Penn Station in New York City to the Newark Airport (EWR), it was one of the most painful transit experiences I have ever had in the U.S.

pushers in Tokyo subway
There was a monumental herd of people all packed into the waiting area. Everyone was waiting for trains that were all running late. As soon as a train’s platform was posted, there was an immediate stampede to that platform. Invariably there would be some sort of bottleneck – a doorway or stairwell in which a large pack of people would get stuck behind in which a large herd forms. It was only 1 step away from requiring these “pushers” that they have in Japan to make sure everyone gets on.

I have 2 beefs with this situation:

  1. It is totally avoidable – there is no reason for this situation to be so utterly disorganized, give one of the managers a 3 week course in basic operations or find any person with half a brain and they will be able to clean up the flow of people to make sense.
  2. There is no reason for people to behave like animals. The train is there; it’s not going anywhere. There is no reason to push and shove, you won’t get there any faster.

When society does finally break down a la Lord of the Flies, it will start at a place like this.

2nd dumbest game show on TV

I just saw an episode of another dumb new gameshow, Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

No good can come from this show. Either you get the answer wrong and feel dumb because you couldn’t answer a question that someone (probably) 20+ years younger than you could; or you get it right and realize that feel like an idiot that you are excited about answering a question that a 9 year old could.

Also, there is literally 15 minutes of real content in an hour long show… this would be a great show to watch on a DVR/Tivo type device.

Dumbest game show ever!

The show Deal or No Deal has to be seriously the dumbest game show on TV.

The concept is dumb – It is completely random; it’s like roulette – yet contestants will *agonize* over decisions that are utterly arbitrary. It lasts a freaking hour long! The 20 random hot babes just really feels gratuitous, something to distract you from the absurdity of the game.

The people are dumb – The contestants jump around like jackasses – it’s *irritating*!! If that isn’t bad enough, they get the families to do the same! The host is a pretentious piece of doodie.

All this being said, the show is damn addictive. Once you start, it is really hard to stop watching, and considering how positively *dumb* it is, I am embarrassed.

Brrr…

frost on my car
Ok, yes it’s November, but dammit I live in California and I don’t have to deal with frost and snow. Or if I deal with it, it’s only at a time and place of my choosing, I don’t want it thrust upon me. Yes, it’s pathetic, but what can I say… I’ve grown soft here…

That being said, I am pretty freaking proud of myself for having a frost scraper in my trunk ready for the occasion!

Dumbest company of the *decade*!!

Just cleaning out some old papers, came across this note we got in our apartment this past summer:

We think we gave you expanded cable service by mistake

This is a note telling me that over ten years after the fact, Comcast has *FINALLY* come to the realization that they were giving me cable service that I did not order.

TEN years!

Ten YEARS!

Ten EFF-ING years!!!

In related news…

Rip his leg off and beat him with the bloody stump!

I just got back from today’s Stanford football game… maan we suck!! I began wondering, is it too much to ask to live in a place where I can feel hopeful rooting for the home team???

Reviewing my life from a football point of view, is really quite sad… I did my undergrad at Tufts University – Tufts football is not only a division 3 team but a bad division 3 team. Then I moved to San Francisco, several years too late to enjoy the Montana/Young dynasty but just in time to enjoy the 49ers sucking it up for the the next 10 years. And lest I forget the year I spent in Canada – three words about that… Canadian Football League – ’nuff said! Now I am at Stanford where the biggest cheers I heard from the crowd was for the lousy field goal we scored near half time (and towards the end of the game, the visitors cheers were beginning to drown out ours!).

Funny Names

So the other day, Mumtaz brings home a flyer or something with the name "Vanderdonk" on it. I remember thinking "that is a really funny name." It stuck in my head… after a couple of days, it would just pop up randomly… …and Bendix managed the growth of the new division to produce electronic fuel injectors by hiring… Vanderdonk…???

Well after a week or so, it started to morph, Vanderdonk became Vanderhouse… and that triggered a brain spasm… it reminded me of another funny name that I had heard of but *just* couldn’t place… Vanderhouse and Brigliano… no that wasn’t quite right… played with a few more variations in my head… then I came up with it! Vanderhout and Brigagliano!! That was it!!

What the hell is it???

I knew that this pair of goofy names meant something… there was a spark there *somewhere*… it was too poingnant in my head for it not to… but I just couldn’t place it… what the *hell* is vanderhout and brigagliano??

Are they characters from a movie? Nope, that didn’t seem right. Is it a brand of soap? Who the hell would name soap, vanderhout and brigagliano. Is it a species of flower…???

Day after day it grows on me… it pops into my head more and more often… this pair of funny names that obviously mean something. It is really starting to piss me off, I must find out what this means…