Whitewater Rafting and Crazy Mohan

Continuing with the trend of writing nonsense posts about nothing (a la Seinfeld) here's another one for your reading pleasure. Nothing new really to report on the home front. We finally bit the bullet and booked the West Virginia whitewater rafting trip. We are rafting on the Lower New River which is supposed to be more adventurous than the Upper New River. And while we are at it, we are also doing a zip line canopy tour. And because we spent too much time thinking if we should do the trip, all the cabins were sold out by the time we booked and we are going to be camping. Joy! Despite my love for adventure trips, I have never been enthusiastic about camping. I mean, I need a nice soft bed to lie on at night with no possibility of bugs and also set the temperature to what I want, precise to the degree. Is that too much to ask for? And thus, I have been avoiding camping successfully for the three years that I have been in the United States. I guess all good things must come to an end and S put his foot down at staying in a motel one hour away and driving in for all the activities. If I survive to tell the tale, you can be assured that I will put up a post with pics like I did for our Vegas trip.

Plans are underway to buy a PS3 Slim. But I am wondering if I should hold out till the Move comes out. Any thoughts here? Also I am pretty sure we will be buying an XBox after the Kinect releases, so Microsoft fanboys don't need to send me any brickbats. :-) Considering all I have played till now are Mario variants, some game suggestions would be nice. I am really interested in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - does anyone know if I can just pick it up and start playing, having never played any game in the Call of Duty franchise? Sometimes I have a feeling that even if I own every possible gaming console available, I would still end of playing Super Mario Galaxy! :-)

Talking about recent purchases, I have placed an order for "Marriage Made in Saloon" DVD at Kalakendra. I am a crazy fan of Crazy Mohan (notice my clever word pun here!) and I own all his available DVDs. But unfortunately, I have never even once seen his drama live on stage. All my family members, who are not fans, leave alone fanatics of Crazy Mohan, have gone his plays multiple times. In fact, H who openly claims that she likes S. Ve Shekar better and my cousins have had Crazy Mohan and Maadhu Balaji come upto them and talk while they were waiting for the car after the show! When I spent 3.5 years of my life in the desert that is Pilani, Crazy and his troupe put up a show there in the 6 months that I was doing a "project" in Bangalore. When I went to India last November, I was determined to watch one of his plays. But in perfect timing, they had just one show the day I arrived and another the day after I leave with nothing in between. You have no idea how incredibly jealous I am of this guy. He casually mentions that he is Crazy Mohan's relative. He then goes on to say that he asked Maadhu Balaji to introduce him to "Saloon Muthu". I would have been deliriously happy to have someone introduce me to Crazy Mohan and Maadhu Balaji just so that I can take a picture with them and show it off to everyone I know. Life is very unfair sometimes! But "Saloon Muthu" is one of my favorite characters too. The way he says "Rrramsamiiiii" is just plain awesome. But my favorite character in the one who plays "Munnusamy" in this play. He has a distinct voice and modulates it really well. "Mythili purushanama ni? Ipo ellam purinjurthu, Janaki oda amma saar oda mootha samsaram." Just thinking about it makes me laugh.

Since this post is pretty disjointed anyway, let me talk about the movie we saw yesterday "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo". I have been heaping a lot of praise about this book, so much that even S picked it up and managed to finish it. So when I saw that the movie was playing in Sundance Theater, we both wanted to watch that. It was everything that you would expect from a book made into a movie. It was well made and mostly faithful to the book. The movie matched the dark tones of the book. But why did they have to pick awful looking people to star in it? Blomkvist was supposed to be a handsome man in his forties (with a boyish charm if I remember right) Nyquist (who plays Blomkvist) looked alright (in parts) but definitely not boyishly handsome. And Salander was alright, but she somehow didn't look lean or young enough. And while she did a good job in most parts, I never saw her do the "lopsided smile" described in the book. Worst of the lot was Erica Berger - the classy, distinguished Erica was reducing to being a 50 year old bimbo wannabe with unfortunate blond hair. Why why why? But all said and done, it was a good movie and I am glad we watched it.

Vegas, Baby!

Here is the promised Vegas post just one week late.

So I am back from Vegas with the accompanying buzz. To say the trip was amazing is an understatement. For one thing, this is the first trip that we are taking after getting married, where we both travelled together. Usually, we get to the destination alone and meet up there. And of course Vegas is a fabulous destination, which ensured that the trip itself was fabulous. But lastly, we stayed at Bellagio. Best decision ever! While booking the hotel rooms, I was leaning towards some cheaper options, but S had insisted that we stay at a really nice place and for once I am glad that I had listened to him.

We were overwhelmed right from the time we walked into the hotel. I think Bellagio has some sort of deal with a glass company, because the whole place seemed to be done in glass. It is a big deal to me, because I always love works of art with glass. While in Hyderabad, I took a glass painting class and the painting I did still hangs at home. During my last vacation in Door County, I made it a point to go to an art gallery that dealt primarily with glass. I promptly fell in love with the whole place and bought this for the end table at my apartment.

So you can imagine my delight when I looked up from the registration desk and saw the ceiling.

After collecting the room keys, we walked down towards the room and saw a freaking glass flower garden.

Despite the fact that we had just landed after a 7 hour journey and lugging 2 bags, we stopped right then and spent some time looking at them in awe.

We went up to the room and were in for another surprise. We hadn’t asked for a room with a view at the registration since the hotel was really full. But we still got a room that overlooked the dancing fountains.

I know that this looks like a commercial for Bellagio and I swear I have not been paid to say all this, but this is the best place to stay in Vegas. The only negative thing that I can think of is that, all the restaurants inside were super expensive. We dined there about 2.5 times during the stay and two of them were breakfasts. The half meal was ingested on the night we landed when we were too hungry to venture out. We found this place and had a savory crepe that tasted just like masala dosa. It was just what we needed after a long journey.

We found cheaper dining options in the other hotels like the Ventian. Being vegetarians, I had figured we would have trouble finding good places to eat, but surprisingly every place we went to had vegetarian options or were happy to substitute.

We spent most of our time in Vegas gambling. And predictably we lost all the money we had budgeted for gambling and then some. We gambled the cash we had kept aside for cabs and lost those too. Initially I had planned to play the slot machines and only that. But then S had downloaded this blackjack game on my iPhone and I had spent the whole of April and May playing that and started thinking of myself as a blackjack pro. So we won some, lost some, won some and lost everything. Like S. Ve. Sekar says in Kaatle Mazhai, "Uttada pidikaren nu pidichidayum uttiye ba". Finally when we had just a couple of dollar bills left, I put them in some slot machines and won $15. Losing all that money gave me a really nasty feeling at the bottom of stomach and I was bad company to S for awhile.

After losing all our money, we discovered that there are other things to do in Vegas and went to a night club and danced our worries away. We also took the NY Roller Coaster ride at the NY NY Hotel and I think it's one of the best roller coasters I've ever been on.

We also went to the Stratosphere Hotel and waited in line for more than an hour to go on the ride called Insanity. We were so irritated that we didn't even think to take a picture of the ride.

Oh yes and how could we forget the show, considering that leaving Vegas without catching a show amounts to sacrilege. We did some research about a lot of shows. I wanted to watch The Lion King, but S vetoed it right away. We considered the Blue Man Group, but people told us it was very low brow and more of a family thing than a couples’ show. We zeroed in on Cirque du Soleil just because it was a very Vegas thing to do and got tickets for Zumanity at the NY Hotel. It started out alright and we were ready for some classy and sensual fun. But it turned to be very burlesque and not at all what we imagined. If all we wanted to see were topless women, we would have gone to some of the other infamous shows. The banter was very unfunny and middle school. I thanked my stars that we had just Balcony seats so that we wouldn’t have been pulled into the inane audience participation skits. To be fair, we enjoyed some parts of it. But S and I are not the type of people who enjoy watching people twist themselves into impossible postures. I remember last year when we accompanied our friends and their son to a Ringling Bros Circus show and I was bored out of my mind and couldn’t wait to leave. So the next time I think we will skip all this and catch a comedy show instead.

When Monday dawned, we were in no mood to come back home. In fact S called the airlines and tried to get us onto a later flight, but of no avail. We came back home tired and partied out and I can't wait to go back there again.

PS - All photos are courtesy of S. If you like what you see in this post, do visit his flickr page

Filler post

I have nice post written about my Vegas trip - complete with pictures and all. So till I get that one ready, here is a filler post for my faithful reader(s).

* Friday afternoons are the longest of all afternoons!

* The reason that this afternoon seems really long is because I was up half the night reading "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" It's one the best books I've ever read. Stieg Larrson knows how to tell a tale. I encourage all my readers to pick up the first book in the series "The Girl with the Dragan Tattoo" Even S is reading it, which is saying something! :-)

* I had a very private confession typed out here, but then I realized I don't want y'all to judge me. :-) Maybe another post another time

* I am trying to plan out my trip to West Virginia. The flight tickets are so insanely expensive. Ironic that I never had the urge to go WV while in Raleigh, 'coz that was so close. Now it's too far to drive, too expensive to fly.

* When I was young and in school, I was really into public speaking. I used to sign up for every debate and such. Something happened since then and that girl seems to be missing. I had to give a demo to some customers today and when I learned of that in the meeting room, I froze for a minute. In the end, I think I did well, but it was not something I enjoyed. In a similar vein, I used to be an introvert right from the time I was kid, but I seem to have gotten worse now. To the point that I have stopped going to team lunches and parties because I am so incredibly bored. Don't get me wrong here, the people at work are really nice, but I feel I have very little in common with them, since I am much younger and at a different stage in life. I have been in Madison for more than a year and I don't have a single friend. I would like to remedy this, but I am at a loss about how to go about this process. I have started going out with the people at work for lunches and parties - so that's a start. Any suggestions would be welcome

Don't have the enthusiasm for writing more today. But check back again folks, the Vegas post will be up soon

The next time I write a sappy post like the one just below, just slap me hard ok. S and I have been arguing and fighting the whole weekend after I wrote that one. So never again am I chronicling any lovey dovey stuff on the blog! Never!

No Point to it Post

My initial idea for a post was along the lines of "Love is driving 7 miles to lunch at Chipotle with the husband, while there is a Chipotle a couple of blocks from my work" But after writing a couple such lines, it made me gag. I mean we had been going out for 5 years before we got married and this makes it our 6th year of togetherness. And even in the first year, we never did coupley things because we knew each other since we were kids. It's really hard to flutter your eyebrows and nod shyly at the guy with whom you played in the mud as a child. So why flaunt the love now I say.

However Project Move In Together has been going along well, thank you for asking. There is something to be said about having another living soul in the house to share conversation and food with. Though the cooking has increased significantly, I am not complaining (yet) since I am getting some help (sort of) in that department. S really does a great job cleaning up after I finish cooking. He gets into action the minute we finish dinner (and some days I am too lazy to even drop the dinner plates into the sink. And also if anyone in my family is reading this, no I do not mix yechai plates with the other utensils. We wash them in the special faucet outside the kitchen.) He is a mean cleaning machine, armed with his Windex and trusty sponge. In a whirlwind, he transfers all dirty dishes into the dishwasher and cleans the kitchen surface area before coming to bed. But he almost always forgets to turn the dishwasher on and I am subjected to a nasty surprise in the moning while hunting for a bowl for my cereal. But still the man tries and I and confident that I can train him to my system of cleaning pretty soon.

I know that I have been writing a lot about not living with my husband and now living with my husband. I think that's because that thought seemed to consume my entire being. And everyone who talked to us would end the conversation with "You guys should start living together soon." That comment used to drive me insane. Like we weren't trying! If all they wanted to do was sympathize, I would have welcomed something like "I know you guys are trying to get together in the same city, I hope it happens soon for you." The result of so many frustrations and yearning was that, we sort of built a pedestal of living together. We would prefix a lot of things with "When we start living together" - to buy a PS3, eating better, going somewhere etc. To the point where we felt we couldn't be happy living apart and that life would be heaven once we start living together. Again, living together has been awesome. But it has been a different kind of awesome, more of a being there for small moments awesome. We haven't done most of the things we planned to do when we move in together. But it has been nice to just lay on the couch and talk before going to bed. Going to the grocery store together. To be home when S gets home from work. I could go on and on.

I know this post is winding and pointless. But seeing as this blog is becoming my diary, I just want to record my feelings for posterity

This and That

Greetings, gentle readers of the blog. I would like to bring it to your attention that this blog has been complaint-free (well relatively atleast) for quite some time now. Since this blog has been painstaking built on a solid foundation of whine, cribs and unadulterated vitriol, I want to assure you that I am not straying away from my ideals. It's just that, in an effort to make this blog seems as well read, I have been self promoting my blog to everyone I know and thus I am out of people to complain about. I have often wondered why I didn't start this blog anonymously. I think I loved seeing my name on the screen too much and I am now paying the price. And there was this certain person, whose blog I idolized and since he didn't blog anonymously, I guess I inherently assumed that the "cool kids" signed their name to their blogs. Sadly the said idol has given up on his blog now, and I am now left with this.

Now that I have managed to fill an entire paragraph complaining about my inability to complain, lets move on. In other non-complaining news, my husband S has now moved lock, stock and barrel to Madison, WI (for the next 2 months, keeping fingers crossed that it gets extended beyond that) and you all can stop calling me the sad ol lady of Wisconsin. You know, I can actually go to movie on a week night now. Or go to a fancy dinner on week night. Or even go bowling on a week night. Or play Monopoly on a week night. The possibilities are endless. And I am hoping this move will end the huge DVR fights that plague us on weekends - the I-will-not-watch-The-Office-Again, You-should-have-seen-Modern-Family-on-Hulu-if-you-care-so-much etc. But on the other hand, he must start watching Desperate Housewives with me and I must learn to endure 24. Talking about 24, does anyone else think that Jack Bauer has been heavily influenzed by our own Gaptain Vijayakanth? When I am feeling a little more inspired, I swear I am going to dig out youtube videos where they both do the same thing. And I wish I knew what sort of batteries Bauer's cell phone runs on. I never see him charging it and yet people page stuff after stuff onto that phone. I do nothing with my iPhone except talk, check my email and play the occasional solitaire, but come 8pm, it's begging to be recharged.

Yet another blathering post brought to you by yours truly. Read, enjoy and comment!

Snippets

* Let's talk sitcoms first. I know I have raved about many sitcoms before, but I don't think I have mentioned "Rules of Engagement" before. The show was kinda B+ or borderline C the first couple of seasons, but the writing has really picked up. I started watching the show because of David Spade and Patrick Warburton, but now that Adhir Kalyan has joined the cast, I am loving the whole ensemble. I wish this would get picked up for a full season. And talking about shows that do get picked up for a full season, what's the deal with Community? I watch the show because, well Joel Mchale is so hot. And the show is ok, but I can't stand Danny Pudi. There are people who can pull off deadpan and Danny Pudi is not one of them. Wish they would lose him or atleast tone him down a bit.

* Talking about people I don't like, here's one more - Sarah Jessica Parker. Hate her hate her hate her. But I watched Sex And The City through all the seasons and watched the first movie and I know I will be dragging S to the next one. What can I say, I am a girl :)

* This weekend was spent alone in Madison, hopefully for the last time. Next week, S and I will be driving back and it will be a mini road trip. So yay! I have always loved road trips - motel stays, gas station restrooms not withstanding. I really love diner food and cheap pizza that you get by the slice. I know, I am rather weird this way.