Friday Fun: Fact/Fiction (also, Fpoor Fpuns)

What you didn't know that you always wanted to know about me. Or some funny line like that.
(Warning: This may or may not be true)
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A die-hard King Kong fan, I signed up immediately when asked if I wanted to train at a secret ninja school*. I left within a week though out of disillusion - I hadn't realised they were experts in guerrila warfare.



* If you're interested, I could tell you where it is, but then I'd have....you know the rest.

Quote of the Day: "I'm 26 years old. What the hell else am I going to do with myself?"

- Andy Roddick; when asked after his quarterfinal match at the Australian Open as to what kept him motivated in trying to win a Major five years after he won his only one (in which period he has been repeatedly rebuffed by a certain genius from the land of Lindt), as he's considered to be too old to seriously compete against players who're too young to even legally drink alcohol.

I've never been a fan of Roddick's power game, which was why The Rise of Federer was particularly delightful, but I've always enjoyed his (many) post-match one-liners* and admired his impressive dignity and good naturedness in dealing with the fact that just one man could deny him so much.

I don't have yearly wish-lists, but if I did, I'd want Federer to win the French and Roddick to win at least one more Major (preferably this year).


Banner of the Day - "Shh. Quiet. Genius at work" (during the Federer qf).

Statistic of the Day - Federer reaches his 19th consecutive semi-final at a Major. That's almost five years that he's made it to that round of each of the four Majors. The next-best in all tennis history? Ivan Lendl....with 10 in a row.

He is that good.


* Remember his interview after the Wimbledon final ("I threw the bathroom sink at him, but he got the bathtub and threw it right back")? Brilliant.

Friday Fun: Fpoor Fpuns

Q: Why was the little Indian boy expecting his phoren-return cousins to be sprouting real wings?
A: Because everyone kept referring to them as Par-desis.


Thank you, thank you. Please contact my agent for all bookings.

Greyness has cut large swathes through his hair. He smiles a lot and maintains a constant banter, but his eyes look out the world beneath a furrowed brow with weary resignation and some fear. He tries to sell me something else - anything else - besides the one little item that I'm buying only to get some change to pay off the cybercafe next door, rattling off a list of all that he stocks in an ever-quickening desperation as he sees yet another chance to make some much-needed money slip away.

I wait him out patiently, smiling a bit to ease the pain of rejection, even as I remember all those times past when a young me waited (im)patiently, shouting out a list of much-needed items (blue sequins! gold ribbons! gluestick! glazed paper!) for some school project, while he bustled about, promising to serve you in one minute, just one minute before blatantly moving on to another young brat, keeping the lot of us entranced like a magician, giving us just enough of what we wanted to keep us waiting, but never giving us so much attention that a newcomer might be put off and leave.

His spiel comes to a reluctant close, and as he fiddles in an empty-sounding drawer, I look around and try to remember where each of those then-so-important items were stored. And I realise then that this shop, whose dusty interiors I then took as a sign of forgotten treasures, now just inspires a desire to give it a good cleaning and make it less dingy. I know then that he's not the only one who's become older. Jaded. Weary.

I leave him then, sitting with the ghosts of clamouring throngs, back into a world that's advanced into graphic presentations and virtual presences and global diaries. Back onto pavements that have been upgraded, past new shops that tempt you into moving into a new age of comfort and functionality. Into a world where he and his shop have quickly morphed into dinosaurs, and as quickly, are going extinct.

...I should have bought some sequins.

Contentment

Wada-pav - Check.
Brun pav - Check
Chikoos - Check.
Guavas with chilli and salt - Check.
Home-made idlis - Check.
Home-made filter coffee - Check.
Dahi sev batata puri - Check.
Puranpoli with amti - Check.
Parsi-style omelettes - Check.
...eaten with Maggi Hot-and-Sweet Tomato Chilli Sauce (It's Different) - Check.
Greasy biryani - Check.
Tandoori paneer pizza - Check.
Ever-filling Gujarati thali - Check.
Indian-Chinese hakka noodles - Check.
Shrikhand with hot puris - Check.
Walnut chocolate fudge - Check.
Sitaphal ice-cream - Check.
Fresh jalebis - Check.
Rasmalai - Check.
Kheer - Check.

Lost weight despite all the gorging - Check.

....ah well, we can't have it all.

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Hello poppets. Normal service is being resumed - once I get through the 500-odd posts that are waiting with ill-concealed irritation to be acknowledged.

Manual of Life - Alternative Definitions

Set-up
n.,
Being shifted from a centre-row seat (which you didn't want) to a window seat (which you did) five minutes before you board

....only to discover that the four rows next to your new seat have six kids (between the ages of seven months to two years) straddling them, all of whom fall asleep only in the last half-hour of a nine-hour flight after having cackled, wailed, screeched, bounced, and romped about the entire time, while being almost entirely disregarded by the people who birthed them.


Related:
* Iron-willed self-restraint
* Himalayan headache
* Mandatory parenthood suitability tests
* Oi, smug lazy jerk, why don't you at least try to amuse/distract/soothe your kid who's cranky and bewildered because of being cooped up in a stuffy, high-pressured tube?