The final word on the financial crisis in the US

If you owe your bank 100 dollars, it is your problem. If you owe your bank 100 million, it is the bank’s problem. Enough said!

Confessions of a 30 year old

So I turned 30 last Sunday, on 21st September to be exact! My exact feelings at turning 30 were “Uh?”. I honestly couldn’t imagine how 30 years have just zipped by. Given the average Indian life-expectancy, I guess I am about half done Huge thanks to all my friends for the party(ies) and special thanks to B&R for getting my favorite Black Forest cake. Turns out old people enjoy cake too.

Everyone has been asking me the usual questions. Allow me to answer on a public forum.
1. How to you feel?
Answer: Pretty freaking awesome! I am happier, richer and certainly a lot healthier than I ever was. I never thought I would ever wear size 30 pants. If this is getting old, BRING ….. IT ….. ON !!

2. What are you most happy about?
Answer: I am healthy, I got great friends and wonderful family.

2. Any regrets?
Answer: Plenty. Just like everyone. Big one is that I am non-confrontational to the point of ridiculousness and really avoid sticky situations. Hence I have put up with a lot more shit than I should have, but one learns. Also, I am shy and do not share my feelings easily except with close friends and family. Although this has saved me from some pain it has cost me a lot happiness too. I also do dumb shit too often for my liking.

3. What next?
Answer: A little more “pedal to the metal”. Something I should have done in the 20s

4. Advice for people who aren’t there yet?
Answer: Don’t put anything off for later.  Do crazy stuff, make as many mistakes as you can afford, do dumb shit but just make sure you learn your lessons well. Also unless you really care about someone, do not care about what they think of you. Now I am totally preaching what I DO NOT personally practice but I am certainly trying.

Here’s to the next decade, year, month, day, whatever !!

A little bit of news

A few days ago, I lost hope (at least for a while). If you know me, you know that I am quite an optimistic, glass-is-half-full kind of person. But I am extremely despondent and hopeless after reading the news over the last few days.

The Chinese used voice-over during the Olympics opening ceremony so that the world would see a cute little girl and go awww! The real singer was a girl who wasn’t so cute. Edwards cheated on his cancer-stricken wife. The Spanish basketball team insulted their hosts by posing with slanted-eyes. This has been the front-page news I have been reading. Why are these news so freaking’ important? I do not care. The Chinese wanted to make a good impression, but weren’t honest. Not a big deal. Edwards is just another lying SOB, no big deal. The world is full of such men. The Spanish team probably didn’t realize the consequences of their photo shoot. Again, no big deal.

But I do want to know about the real big ticket items, I do want to hear and read about real news. I want to read about how our polar ice-caps are melting,  how the White house forged a letter in order to link Saddam and Al-Queda. Why is oil so highly priced all of a sudden? What is going to happen next with the housing crisis? But the media has no word on those. And why should they? They are a for profit organization. They are going to give the people what they want.

And sadly, all we want right now is news about when Britney Spears had her latest break-down. Which celebrity is sleeping with whom. We want to comment on John Edwards and lynch him. Because it is so easy to do. It is so easy to either fall prey to gossip or have an opinion on black-and-white issues. It is so easy to stay dumb.

What is hard – is to be curious about the major issues affecting us, thinking about them and demanding action about them. That is so hard, our brain hurts, so we choose to ignore and focus on random crap. We do not want to lose sleep thinking about the hard stuff. But by choosing to ignore such issues, we lose something very, very important. We lose perspective. We lose out on knowledge and most of all, we lose out on our right to demand and get change, change for the better. Without arming ourself with knowledge, all we can do is sit and complain about how things are going down the toilet. But you know what, we only have ourselves to blame.

My world this week!

Nothing special but one thing of note. One of the most proudest moments of my life was today, when I lost my swimming trunks in the pool. I am not kidding, let me explain. Over the last year, I have lost a bit of weight. So today, my shorts just slipped off , I need new trunks.

The 2nd highlight was shaking hands with Andre Agassi and watching him and Steffi Graf at a tennis clinic over here in Santa Monica. I am big fan of Andre (and Steffi) for doing a lot of positive things not just for tennis but for the community as well. I must confess to cheering for Pete during the heydays of their rivalry but my own tennis game is a lot like Andre’s, just about 1/1000th the quality. So I really wanted to watch him hit, it was a lot of fun! I also solved a lateral puzzle today but it was fairly easy, so I don’t feel too uppity about that. Work continues to be a roller coaster. Working for Yahoo! in these times is super exciting and not always in a good way. More on that later. I started cooking as well, good stuff! I think I lost about a pound but got stronger over this week. Now I can do 11 pull-ups, not bad eh?

Saw a bunch of movies this weekend. Caught up on Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. I would give it 3 stars. Regular, run-of-mill, idiotic humor. Also saw Mission Istanbul, a Bollywood action movie. Unlike most people, I actually sort-of enjoyed the movie, I give it two and a half stars. And finally the best movie of the week-end, Halla Bol. I usually NEVER miss Raj Kumar Santoshi movies when they come out, but I had missed Halla Bool. Am glad I saw it in the Indian store and had the sense to rent it. As usual, incredible. His movies always have a strong message without being preachy. Halla Bol is same. And Ajay Devgan and Pankaj Kapoor are awesome actors, especially in intense roles. It almost brought tears to my eyes. A movie everyone should watch, again and again.

So overall not a bad week. Really looking forward to Nissan Live Sets taping tommorow and more importantly, hanging out with T after what seems like forever.

Why I will never run a full marathon

Because I was half-dead after running a half-marathon, so go figure!

A little bit of interesting reading

I am someone who has swung from fat to fit and back to fat quite a few times. After a lot of research and reading, I found what most people figure out a lot easily Being fit means you are likely to live happier, richer and longer than overweight people.

However, I never knew of the monetary impact that the combined weight of the entire country has on its economic resources. I found this MSN article to be quite interesting. What if no one was fat? http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/Advice/WhatIfNoOneWereFat.aspx

 

A little bit hiatus

My sister is getting married on the 19th and it is turning out to be a Big, Fat, Indian celebration So since I actually have a life for the next week or two, blogging will be quite irregular (if any)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my readers!

PS: What do you think of the new styling? Better than the old green one. That one had tinier font than I liked.

A little bit of health

For the longest time, I have struggled with weight and I will be the first to admit it is all my fault. I have neither genetic problems nor super slow metabolism. The reason I was overweight was bad eating habits and lack of excercise.

What sucks even more is that I LOVE sports. I have pretty decent hand-eye co-ordination and balance. I tend to do OK at most sports but my fitness has always counted against me. I have been able to make occasional bursts of discipline where I got my weight down to the appropriate level. But I have always relapsed. I am hoping this time it will be different. Because this time I think I have done it right. But I am not there yet.

First and foremost, what I have done over the last year and a half or so is not focus on weight loss. I have tried to improve my health. Weight loss has been a much-welcomed side effect. While I still obsess about my weight, I have focussed on my health a lot more than weight. Health gain beats weight loss any day. Repeat after me….

Second – I have set physical goals and tried to meet them. Half-marathons, triathalons etc. I have also been playing sports more than normal. Volleyball, racquet ball, you name it. I am intensely competitive so I always get a good workout. And since I am in Santa Monica, I also get my butt kicked every time. So not only do I get a sweat going, it is a good excercise in humility.

Third – and as yet un-accomplished thing is that I want to eat well in moderation. The right way to go about it would be to measure my metabolism and then come up with a good diet plan. Until I do that, I hope to eat my regular diet in moderation with lots of fruits and vegetables. Being single and weak-willed this is by far the hardest thing I have to do. I hate ready made good-for-you stuff and I am too lazy to cook good-for-me stuff.

One thing I have realized in my weight struggles is that in an ideal world good health would be absolute. However in reality, it is a somewhat relative term. It is a function of the following things.
- Time you can devote for excercise.
- Where in the fitness scale you want to be. I enjoy physical activity so I want to be really fit. But for some one who is art oriented or enjoys intellectual activity, having super strong legs and shoulders is not really a priority.
- How much do you enjoy excercise.
- How happy you are. It is hard to go out for a run if you are feeling depressed.

A good way to think about excercise is to link it to your quality of life. If you are enjoying life just the way you are, you do not need to focus a lot on excercise. Ofcourse that still means staying medically healthy but a few extra pounds will not hurt you. But if you find your health affecting your quality of life, you need to do all you can to change it.

A little bit of zoology

Before getting to the point, let me ask a small question. Is it “zoo-aw-logy” or is it “zoo-logy”? And if the post is about zoos would it qualify under “zoology”?

My first post talked about how the book “Life of Pi” made a case for zoos (the good ones) and how animals can actually be happy in zoos. My initial reaction was “Good point, but that cannot be the whole story”. So I did a little research and came up with some interesting stuff.

Essentially not all animals are happy in zoos because not all animals are similar. Tigers and lions are territorial creatures who stick to their areas where they live and hunt. They are a good fit for zoos. Again I must add that when I say zoos I do not mean “Ranichi Baag”. I mean modern zoos that provide almost jungle-like environment, plenty of room etc. On the other hand, migratory animals like elephants and bison who are used to traveling hundreds of miles every week find zoos very constraining. Also elephants have a complex social structure that cannot be reproduced in a zoo. Monkeys and apes are supposedly happy anywhere as long as they are with friends and family (again the social structure comes into play). Bears are naturally inquisitive so they are happy only if the layout of their enclosure is changed every now and then. So the psychology and the habits of every animal determine whether they can be happy and prosper in the controlled environment of a zoo.

So basically the lesson learnt is that it is not that simple