miya-hee....

One of my all time fav songs is 'live your life' by TI. The music is awesome, words.. somewhat meaningful, & the start... quite inspirational. (stop looking at what you don't have, be thankful for what you do..) . The music starts with a 'miya-hee, miya-ha, miya-hu'. I really like the 'miya-hee' repetition in the start/end of this song.

While watching an episode of NCIS (Murder 2.0), the cast members discussed a you tube video called 'Numa Numa' which had the 'miya-hee' words/music that I like so much . (b.t.w, the guy 'Mike Ross' from USA show 'Suits' is in this NCIS episode). The 'miya-yee' music from 'Numa Numa' got me thinking, is this an old song that TI used in his? If so, how does that song go? ('Numa Numa' is hilarious)

I wikipediaed the song (usage of the term 'wikipediaed' is deliberate, if one can google a term, one can wikipediaed something also). And lo-and-behold, a Romanian group called 'O-zone' had the whole 'miya-hee' in their song 'Dragostea din tei' which apparently TI sampled. (is sample another word for copy?)

O-zone's song, why old, is catchy and sounds like a typical euro dance mix from its time.

Come to think of it, the 'Mr saxobeat' artist is also Romanian

slumdog look-alike

Slumdog millionaire Oscar win seems to have catapulted Indian cinema to a wider audience...

I drew this conclusion from personal experience, i.e., numerous colleagues of mine have made comments such as 'hey, your movie won'.

To me, the comments are both interesting and disappointing. Interesting, since I didn't get the memo that I represent the Indian cinema to the world (even though this particular movie is made by an English Director); disappointed that I am not getting paid for it either :)

I haven't seen the movie yet, I recall talking to my friends about it early November, when it wasn't an Oscar movie and thus wasn't recognized by the mainstream media, but just haven't made the effort to actually go watch it.

Recently, I was at a get-together with few of my colleagues. One of the colleagues girl-friend made the comment, 'You know, you look exactly like one of the actor from SM'. And a few people agreed with her. As usual, my first comment was 'Really, Who?'

The movie's been out for some time now, and nobody, including my friend circle, has even brought up the possibility that I look like one of the actors from the movie. So that took me by surprise.

She showed me a pic on the computer of a person from the movie which didn't look anything like me. But she said 'it was a bad pic and doesn't justify her comment but she still believes whole heartedly that I look like one of the actors'.

I found her comment amusing, and I ran with it. I told all the people at the get together that they are fortunate an actor is with them tonight, asked the host how much am I getting paid to make an appearance, and that I am happy to sign a piece of paper for anybody to sell on ebay for a 50-50 split :)

I can't wait to find out who I look alike next time a movie based in India comes to Hollywood.
On the other hand.. I wonder what kind of actor would I've been with my personality? Drama/Comedy/Action/Silent?

Ice Hockey Live

I went to see the Ducks (Anaheim) play the Kings (Los Angeles) with Alpha & Pi.

I've never seen a hockey game, not even on TV, so it was my very first experience w/ hockey, and the best part was, watching it live.

It was Ducks home game, therefore, most were Ducks fan. But, since the opposition was LA (pretty close to Anaheim), I also saw quite a few Los Angeles fans wearing their respective Kings jersey.

Out seats were a bit in the back & Pi wasn't happy with the location. She already planned out where we shall sit next time.
Personally, as long as I could see the puck, which was semi-visual with the pace of the game and our seats, I was happy.

The first question I asked Alpha & Pi when we sat down, 'who are you guys rooting for?', their response was 'obviously Ducks, you?'. That got me thinking, I live in LA County, but work in OC. And these guys are all rooting for Ducks, so I went with.. bingo!! 'The Kings'. Both stared me with the wtf look :)

The Kings scored first... I jumped off my chair with delight... looked at my friends, and asked if anybody wanted to give me hi-five. No takers. When the Ducks scored, my friends hollered, gave each other hi-fives. Alpha wanted a hi-five, and I did. When the score was tied at one point, I got tense, and my friends laughed heartily looking at me :)

During the game, I saw many people move around to get better seats; and for a brief moment, we got a group of teenagers behind our us. One of them yelled "ducks suck", "ducks suck"; another yelled "quack", "quack". I looked at my buddies and started laughing. They weren't too amused at that time.

When the kings scored to go 2-up. I looked at my group with a smile, and hi-fived the Kings supporters around us. The game rocked!! My team won!! what else can I ask for.

Conclusion: Quack Quack

College student for couple of hours

I was staring at a piece of code yesterday at work, wondering how my techie forefathers worked with a convoluted platform called COM.

Got sick of it and IMed a buddy on gtalk, hoping that either:
A) The coding problem would either solve itself (fat chance)
B) Come back in a few minutes, with a different perspective.

While texting, my buddy 'alpha' told me that he's taking a macro econ class at a local community college (CC). My first reaction, "how cool is that"... and I started looking into econ classes at a CC nearby, hoping it's not too late for me to do the same. Then 'alpha' told me that if interested, why not join him, since today is the first day of the class. I was like, 'why not'. He told me to meet him about 15 minutes before class. By the way... this was all happening about 2 hours before class.

While a few random thoughts came to me while driving to class such as "what in the world would I gain from taking an econ class?" I told myself that let's just attend the first class to see how it is.

When I got to the CC about 40 minutes before class (I guess I was excited), I started looking for parking... and it went downhill from there...

There was a huge line and the traffic wasn't moving, people coming in and out from parking lots, people waiting in every row of parking hoping somebody got out.

While waiting... my under-grad parking nightmares came back, moving from parking lot to parking lot hoping somebody leaves, waiting in line because one guy is moving extreeeeeemely slow, the hours I spend looking for parking... oh the inhumanity!!!

The fact that my biggest pet-peeve is looking for parking didn't help the situation.

So, after spending 40 minutes looking for parking, and moving less than a mile, I told myself, I am not doing this for the rest of the quarter; Up yours CC!!! and I drove away.

So much for being spontaneous. Oh well.

Just to be daring, spend all my time driving and yapping with a buddy 'theta' (illegal to talk on phone and drive unless u have a headset)

P.S. Same day, a buddy 'epsilon' told me I would be a great stand up comedian... go fig.... guess that's a topic for some other day.

jeans... part 2

so continuing from my previous 'jean' blog... it appears that it hasn't been a temporary condition :(
I'm practically staring at other people's jeans design. crap... I'm becoming a jean-freak... wonder if there's a treatment center for that, or a patch. Damn you person who did this to me... you know who you are :)

I bought a few fitted jeans from India. Spykar's the brand... and they rock!! 'Numero Uno' sucked fitting wise... and I didn't get chance to try 'Flying Machine'. Gotta say, these Indian brand names sound very cool... specially 'Flying Machine'...

I've gotten comments that I look like a different person... and my response is usually... 'super', but I'm still fond of my 'old' jeans, so, after weeks and weeks of careful thinking/planning, hiring a few analysts... We came up with a game plan... I'll wear my 'old' jeans on weekdays & 'cool' jeans on weekend :) problem solved.

Few interesting things I noticed regarding shopping in India...
a) Whenever I entered a speciality store and looked at the merchandise (i.e. jeans), somebody will immediately ask me if I need help. When I said 'no', they stayed close.. waiting for me... I never quite figured out why?

b) All jeans length are standard size, so after you select a jean to purchase, you have to get it altered (i.e. tailored) to fit your size. Not sure what the rational is for not having length size like they do waist... eh.. go fig...

Can't believe I blog about jeans...

a vegetastic 2 months...

One day, I randomly decided to be a vegetarian for two months before my trip to india.

I wasn't trying to make a statement against the cruelty to animals like PETA or influenced by the few vegetarians around me. I just wanted to see what it's like being vegetarian for a temporary period of time.
Also, I wondered, can I actually live without eating meat?

The duration of 2 months was quite arbitrary. When I thought of this experiment, visiting India was 2 months away, and there was no way I was going to stay veg in India. The Kaathi Rolls are just too good. Those & the Chicken Momos were to die for.

It was difficult to visit my favorite eating places. Chillis, On-The-Border, Wahoos... I just couldn't find the right veg dish for me. The food was bland at best. But it did turn out to be a good conversation piece... a lot of my colleagues had a look of disbelief whenever I told them that I became a vegetarian. One asked, 'why would you do that to yourself?', another proudly stated 'I am a meatatarian, I have to have meat with every meal.'

I did end up finding a great vegan place close to my work. One very cool thing was that they tried to make a few of their dishes 'look/taste like meat', with the chewiness, and the texture, etc. Great food, will visit again.

It was definitely a vegetastic experience, and I am thinking of doing it again, someday...

alligatoring...

I was in India earlier this month on vacation... came back a few days ago. Apart from attending the wedding and being lambasted w/ a single statement which gradually became a unified theme, I spent a great deal of time 'alligatoring'.

Now, I am not sure if this is a popular word in India, certainly not here. The free dictionary, which was the first google result, states 'The formation of cracks on the surface of paint layers'. Definitely not something I did in India.

First heard it from my cousin, my sense is that it means 'lying down, doing nothing important'. For example, I spent a great time alligatoring, and watching cricket and checking out random music videos.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it's catchy; it definitely has a nice ring to it. I'll try using it on a regular basis. So if I use the word and you didn't know what it means, I'll chuck something at you :)