A pre-emptive epitaph to our internal monologue…

Here lies our friend, the internal monologue,

                    distracted,
                    confused,
                    be-fogged.

While we’ve,
     Popped-up, updated, tweeted, pushed, notified and befriended.
     Emailed, listed, shared, liked, linked and digg’d.

     Shotgun networked and disseminated @me, @us, @you,

we left you somewhat,
                    numbed and muted,
                    subdued,
                    disused.

And now I feel you might be comatose, and in your place, something altogether new,

Something,
          streamed, compressed, RT’d, repeated and/or txt’d,
          cookied, targeted, marketed, saved and catalogued and collected.

          External, public, and instant.

          Electronically oned and zeroed,
          to the connected, the many and the few,

          Googled.

          Reduced, but not concentrated,
                                                                      and often, not altogether thought through.

And now as I concentrate to drag you from your hebetude,
          I note the difficulty of resistance to those distractions,
          pulling at my lazy focus, 
          but you’ve stirred long enough to produce this,

                              So…, now I’m finished, I figure I’ll,
                                                                                                    upload.

 

The Peanut Butter Cup Cocktail Experiment…

Yum.
I’m not sure where the idea for this concoction came from and someone is bound to tell me it has been put together before but I do not care.

Awesome.

This makes about 5 martini glasses of pure peanut butter, chocolate, creamy goodness.

 

Ingredients:

• 4 Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (Kirby’s candies in the Old Bank Arcade has them).
• 1 small tub of Kapiti Vanilla Bean Ice-cream (they’re about 400ml or so).
• 1 cup of milk. 
• 4-5 shots of Baileys.
• (optional shot of Kahlua)

Throw all in a blender and mulch it until smooth. 

Pour down your gullet before anyone else gets their stinking hands on it and holes you up in the kitchen all night making them.

or pour into martini glasses, use a micro plane to put a little chocolate on top and share the stuff if you must.

I’m toying with the idea of also adding a banana or something for a little extra flavour next time…but if you’ve got any better ideas…chime in.

 

sah performs magic, Part the third

 

Last one in this theme….I promise…

A few months ago I truly performed dark magic however and the maid actually said

“Sah performs magic”. 

I never really thought the whole number eight wire mentality existed in Kiwis more than other places in the world, but I guess I’m wrong.

My sink was blocked. 

Again. 

The plumbing under the sink is not a solid pipe so much as plastic tubing that has the thickness of a standard drinking straw and is corrugated like the piping used for old washing machines.  It melts with hot water (the kind you use for washing up) and is connected to the plug hole by something resembling those long petrol funnels…except it also has some sort of secret compartment (not removable) between the plug hole and the pipe where….surprise, surprise, food particles become stuck.  The maid’s solution prior to this has been to break up the food particles with a knitting needle.

Sometimes via the pipe…which, unsurprisingly, leaves holes.

A ‘plumber’ has replaced said pipe twice so far after I have turned it to molten rubbish and have noticed strange holes appearing in the pipe.  Each time I try to explain to him that a better solution would be PROPER FUCKING PLUMBING (but much more politely), but his toothless grin as he heads off to the market for a replacement piece of cling wrap tubing has me wondering whether he’s really the smart one with the repeat work and billing.

Today however, knitting needles and scooping food particles from the sink aren’t working.  The water is dark and going nowhere.  I am yet to find a plunger in any store (I’m certain it’s a side job for ‘plumbers’ unblocking mildly clogged sinks).

My maid swears under her breath.  It’s a polite version of swearing (like shit, but without the ‘i’, said very quietly and quickly), but she’s clearly miffed.  This about knocks me off my feet and I ask her what is wrong.  The frustration is explained to me with various hand signals and her very good English.  I think she expected me to call someone, or walk off and leave her to it as she started to roll up her sleeves again.

Instead I flip over a plastic container, place it over the plug hole, create a seal and start to squeeze slowly.

My maid is looking at me as if I am completely mad.

A couple more pumps of the container and I pause dramatically and give the container a good hard yank.

My maid is looking at the upheld container as if it is the instrument and cause of my obvious madness.  I keep an eye out for her knitting needle just in case she decides I’ve completely lost it.

Then she notices the water pouring out of the sink and away into the….well, to be honest, it’s probably straight out under the footpath outside.  She is delighted.  Her hand’s come up to her face in one of those classic advertising ‘wow’ looks and she pronounces my proficiency in conjuration.

I shouldn’t feel so proud, but I do.

 

Cat Person (sometimes)…

Today, Saint Michael,
     favoured Archangel,

I channel not your avatar as,
     Patron Saint of chivalry, and
     Teacher of forbearance and mercy,

But a Dark Age, Old Testament version,
     a relished Battle of the Fall persona,
     of maruading Seraphim,
     flaming swords,
     Outstretched wings,
     and denizens of deep places, cast home,
     in sweeps of righteous anger.

My mind's eye has me flying, not running,
     over these golden shores,
My sleek raiment my armour,
My music, a stirring war cry,
as the Devil's hellhounds themselves,
     are scattered by the swift swathe of my...
                                        fiery
                                          righteous
                                                  woody
                                                       stick.
...fucking stray dogs.

- Pete

 

…and now for a little more of something completely different…

Lal Bagh park.

Lovely place. A little more than 3km around with a couple of pretty (but dirty) lakes and less of the usual dog infestation I’m used to avoiding on my weekend long runs. The air is pretty good for somewhere smack bang in the middle of the city, and I’ve taken some nice photos of the general area.

Here’s one I rather like.

Now, I’ve been running around this park for about 6 months now and I’m pretty familiar with the various statues, flower gardens, paths, squirrels, entire groups of grown men walking around flapping their arms and the general familiarity of the place. I generally do about 15+ km each of the two days I’m there and I’m going mind-numbingly insane. The scenery just generally passes me by. One day I decided to walk the park with my partner, and…

something so out-of-place, so strange, snapped me out of myself…

…an odd thing…

…a thing that, if it weren’t for a certain realisation about where you are and how they might occur, might seem like an awesome practical joke at home. Except it’s not and that makes it even better.

Lal Bagh has a couple of areas where there’s a Disney/Snow White theme. Think the cutesy little dwarves, and Thumper and Bambi…

It’s completely twee, but appropriate in certain spots of the garden.

So, someone completely forgot that theme one day and decided the following was a good idea…

 

…and now for something completely different…

I see some pretty weird stuff here. 

Random products, signs with interesting intepretations of english and things which generally, and daily, make me laugh out loud.  Some of them are just the six-year-old in me coming out…

i.e.  A truck named ‘Ass’…

Others require some explanation…

 

Lost MetaData

I am reminded, as I recharge,
     safely in my oasis,
	my unreality hideaway,
	my sanity... 

...that,
	the postcard tourist porn picture windows we create,

are a blink.

And,
for all their pixels, tags, co-ordinates and precision,

miss the imperfect,
	the frustration,
	the joy,
	the wrong,
	the life
	the movement,
	the incomplete,
			details,
				that made,

the frame,
	the instant,
		the memory,
			the journey,
			the jump before the fall or flight...worth it.

- Pete

 

sah performs magic. Part the second

Continuing the theme…

I’m also something of an amateur magician it would seem.  Our maid takes great pains to ensure that we know that the money we leave her for cleaning items etc isn’t wasted and ensures we get receipts of everything and shows us the various items as well.  This is appreciated. 

One afternoon I return home on my own and a worried looking maid appears before me entreating me to enter the kitchen.

“Sah, I bought this mop.”

Yip.  Cool.  The other one was looking a little on the ragged side…and kinda black.  Don’t make me insert a photo of what the current one looks like.

“Sah, I have wasted money it will not fit the stick, it is too small”

"Huh? You can buy string mops without the handle/stick thing?….Geez, you’re already being more economical than I would be.”

She hands me the stick and mop as proof and starts mentioning how she tried to wrap it to make it stay in by jamming paper in the hole and if we had some string we could tie it up and connect it to the stick.

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this before, but the attention to detail and quality can be lacking here from my perspective.  If a problem isn’t ignored for someone else to fix, the obvious solution is often completely missed.  I’m not sure what it is here, but you quickly become Superman with what appear to be logical leaps to others.  With apologies to any local readers, friends or otherwise, my point of view here is from a different culture (also not perfect I’ll admit), so I’m biased, I’ll admit, but I also think I have a point.  A few examples…

I had started a presentation this morning and had left the door open waiting for other participants to arrive.  5-6 people entered the room and tried to close the sliding door.  All failed after a couple of good hard pulls at it and sat down.  Ten minutes later my boss (NZ’er) walks in, pulls at the door and finds it stuck.  He glares at it momentarily as his employees start to tell him it’s broken and apologise profusely.  He lifts the door back onto the rail at the bottom and slides it shut.

One more example to illustrate my point…

 

sah performs magic…part the first…

Having a maid is weird.

It sounds good. Who wouldn’t want their cooking, cleaning and ironing done for them? It sounds especially enticing after a long day at work when all you want to do is collapse onto the bed, lie naked on it with a beer and let the air conditioning waft over your cooked nether-regions and let someone else do stuff for you.

Now, on the assumption that you haven’t all just forcibly removed your eyes from that imagery and can still read, it sounds nice.

But you can’t do that. Because the maid is there.

I shan’t labour this point too much however as it’s a minor issue when I know the very act of having a maid to those that don’t is the height of a certain type of class snobbery.  Suffice it to say that it brings with it’s own challenges and interesting stories so please take the following with a pinch of good humoured salt.

The problem is, she wants to talk. Or she’s just…there. She really does try very hard to be as unobtrusive as possible, but ultimately you know there’s someone wandering around your space and you can’t just…be.

I am naturally inclined towards a certain introversion.  Being around people discharges my batteries. It’s an effort like being in very small groups, writing, surfing and other semi-solitary activities aren’t to me. You’re my kryponite (in large groups and in RL) you energy sucking vampires. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy people and groups.  I do.  It’s just that it drains me rather than charges me up.

Any introvert reading this understands completely. The extroverts are currently perplexed beyond belief.  With thanks from my friend NightWyrm Understanding Introverts

It is for this reason that having the hovering help bothers me somewhat.  By the end of the day I have already had to deal with a good number of the lovely people in the cubicle farm and my fair share of problems that I have to try and treat with some air of basic politeness.

Remind me how you deal with ‘some air of basic politeness’ the following…

1.) Printer has been out of action for 3 hours.  20 users have printed ‘stuff’ to it.  The printer clearly states on the front ‘printer jam’.  No-one has attended to it.  I sit in the room and watch five people ignore it.

2.) A ‘Subject Matter Expert’ has left a note on your desk ‘the training room has an issue’.  Descriptive.  Subject Matter what?  I’m betting you’ve forgotten where the ‘on’ button is.  Said training room of purpose built machines which has been operating for two weeks in a shambolic state, barely held together by parts that you have personally scrounged from PCs around the building is…empty. 

Some automaton has removed every PC, monitor, keyboard, mouse, power adaptor, extension cable and mouse pad from the room.  It is 2am (such are the hours we work)…there’s no-one to kill.  I still don’t know where those PCs are.  I’m told the look on my face was priceless.

After this sort of thing, my batteries require charging. I need my solitary (or small groups) activity time, and/or a cold beer.

Back to the maid stories however…I accidentally became an instrument of God…

 

“Change your language and you change your thoughts”

   – Karl Albrecht

(Bit of a repost since something munched the second half of the original post)

There are some interesting ways which English is used here in India.  Setting aside the various pronounciation differences it’s almost like a slightly different subset of English with ‘older’ words that have fallen out of general use still part of the everyday vernacular here.

Often, it makes a hell of a lot of sense, it just takes a few seconds to process before you get it.  I often have to remind myself, that while the Europe/UK and USA to a large extent have a large sway over the initial introduction, development and continuing evolution of English, the sheer number of people who speak it here (and will in Asia) currently, and in coming years, is likely to have a much more profound and exponentially developmental influence on English. 

So while I describe these with tongue firmly placed in cheek, it’s also with the realisation that it’s likely I’m going to have to eat my words as our own language absorbs and adapts from the sheer weight of those that will speak it in greater number…as it always has.

Some salient examples…

“not keeping well.” – This is used in place of,
“I’m ill” or,
“x is sick”. 
This is regardless of the level of sickness (you could be near death and still ‘not be keeping well’).

When you then enquire as to what might be wrong with a person, you will get…

"x has the fever.” Again, this is a catch-all phrases for everything (similar to how anything with sniffles and/or a cough is a ‘cold’ for others I guess).  I suspect it comes from symptoms of malaria but appears to actually be used for everything.  Any illness may be described as ‘the fever’….even if your temperature is in no way elevated. 

In some cases it’s a gross overstatement, such as, 
“I have an headache”…to which the reply will inevitably be,
‘”ohh, the fever” (note, that wasn’t a question). 
“Errr, no, my head is a little sore”. 

In other cases it’s an underestimation. 
“Oh hell, that’s not good, I think I’ve got food poisoning”. 
“Oh, you have the fever” … … …
”Err no, I’m about to be deathly sick as a result of some parasite I’ve just ingested”…fever doesn’t quite cover my impending pain my friend.

“Please do the needful.” A phrase I particularly like (and enjoy using with people here).  Basically translated it’s “in the previous paragraphs I’ve likely told you a series of things to do….in case you missed it, I’m asking you to do something I need…hopefully soon…politely hop to it, chap or chapette”. 

I could so use it as a euphemism for a million other things though.

“You’re very feeble.” I was told I was this on a phone conference once.  I managed to bite my tongue long enough to realise I was not speaking loud enough into the receiver…thus, feeble.  Obvious really…took me five minutes to recover from laughing though.

“Expired.”  Done, like a parking meter or a pottle of yoghurt. Dead.  If all other sickness is a euphemism, this is pretty blunt methinks. 

“Today night, today morning.”  Confusing as hell the first time you hear it, but makes a sort of logical sense to me now (I still don’t use it though, it just auto-translates).  Tonight and this morning.  Try explaining 12:00am to your driver though.

“Today night?”.
“Well, no, today morning actually, but not lunch…yah?”
“echk?”
“Umm, 11:50 today night ok?”….”We’ll be ten minutes late”.

“Covers.”  Anything from envelopes, to plastic bags and wrapping paper.  All referred to generically as ‘covers’.  Makes it hard in a stationery store. “Can I help you?”  “Ummm….envelopes?”, *blank look*…”ofuckit, Covers?” “These?”, “Nope”, “these?”, “Nope”.  We discovered later it was possible to preface it with, letter cover or gift cover…but plastic bags are always just ‘covers’.  Yes….there are ‘rubbish covers’ too.  Not sure what for though, there’s always a pile of uncovered rubbish on my corner.

“Absconding.” Running the hell away.  Often you will find absconders have just killed someone, are hiding from a job they’re not doing so well at or generally just disappearing from a not so well worked out marriage.  There’s a lot of absconding.  I imagine it’s not hard to get lost amongst a billion people.

“Paining” Another apt one and kind of descriptive in itself.  Think “I’ve been paining for the money”…a kind of anxious, begging, need.  I imagine it would probably be reliably described as one of the first stages of withdrawal.

There’s a million of them, I swear…I may just keep this list going.

And if you really want to get technical on the various aspects of it, this article even goes into the nuts and bolts….one I saw in there that I’ve never heard but think should be used a lot was .

Timepass – ‘Doing something for leisure but with no intention or target/satisfaction’…nice…if only I could find me job doing exactly that….that still paid ok.