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Life if full of a million things that we remember and cherish, enough to not even fill "One Gargantuan Monkey Fist". This is a collection of those special,unique and funny events my life, thoughts on technology, F1 and the ying-yang of relationships.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Many blogs become one


Under some professional advice, I have decided to combine all my blogs into one. I hope this attracts more traffic.

And yes, I have decided to go with the gargantuan monkey fist as the title, it makes more sense to me ;-)

The Hug


"Drinking is very bad...." Say a lot of people. In my humble opinion I beg to differ. Drinking is a lot of fun (as long as you know what your limit is and do not drive) for everyone who drinks and those sober idiots, who are pissed when you are laughing your arse off.

Drinking with friends is healthy for the friendship. You curse each other out, discuss that one girl both of you were hitting on and of course tell the other person what he did wrong. Its one situation where you can get away with almost anything. The sober people always give you the reason of doubt, its like walking away from a murder, all your attorney had to do was to say ..."Your honor, my client, who is an outstanding example of good conduct committed the serious act of murder, because he was DRUNK".

The number of drinking stories in my book are many, anyone who has been around me knows about the "snake dancer", "the hug", "the stolen remote", "The difference between a player and a true player", "the concentric circles of life" and more recently " I don't know you like that".

I start this section of my blog with "the hug".

Its Spring 2002, my first semester at FSU and a happening one at that. Me and my roomies were known to throw "The Best Indian Parties" in town, hands down. It took us a few more parties to realize that we were wasting money, but that's another story by itself.

That semester I lived with three other people. Three guys and one girl. It was a chilly evening and it was my roomie's birthday. Every Indian student we knew, not just the one's we hung out with, but every single one of them we knew was there. There was loads of food for the meat eaters and veggies, there was pizza for the Indian's who didn't like Indian food, there was beer for the men, alcohol for the men who didn't like beer, there were wine coolers for the women.

One of my roomies in this real life story is the hero of this blog. The dude's room was turned into the dance floor for obvious reasons. He did not have furniture, except that table his computer and music system stood on, his room had a door to the lawn, so the drunk and the smokers could spill out of the house. Every arrangement had been made, the play list on the dude's computer had been checked and cleared by all of us for the best selection of party and dance music. It was on.

The party started early around 9ish. People started spilling in and yeah no one brought a thing, coz they all knew we would be loaded. But that did not matter. In a couple of hours the alcohol was getting emptied, new trash bags were being put in, pizza was almost over and every one was dancing and the ones who couldn't were watching.

Our dude was getting his game on. Chatting up with the women, drinking his alcohol, nothing added to it (no I don't know why) and having a great time. We had a little roomies meeting in my bedroom and concluded that we had once again thrown the best party and everyone had been taken care of. We always had good neighbor's, the ones who were high all the freaking time and did not mind our crazy parties, so there was no problem on that front. All we had to do was to make sure that our guests did not puke and that they did not drive drunk.

To understand more of this story, we have to go back 4 months, it was a time when I was still back home. But our dude had a party for his birthday, one of the similar ones we were throwing, but not on such a grand scale. His biggest birthday gift was a margarita glass, a big margarita glass, a really big one. If his head was a size smaller than normal, he could have drowned in that glass it was that big.

Back to the present, it was getting late, not coz it was late, but coz everyone was a lil tipsy, people had been drinking free liquor since 10 and you know how that goes... "Finders drinkers, losers sobers". The music was still on and there were a few tipsy guys watching the news, yeah at 1 in the morning, told ya drunk people do crazy shit. I made my rounds to make sure everyone was ok and returned to the dance floor to get a lil sober, so I could hit my secret stash of beer in the fridge.

I am stopped on the way, by our dude of course and his "little" glass with some old monk (yeah its Indian alcohol, try it if you get a chance). He goes..."Dude... I think I am a little drunk... ha ha ha... You mind if I sleep in your bed today ?... Alone... ha ha ha". I thought for a second and said "sure man, not a problem... Go right ahead" and I returned to getting sober.

An hour later the music was dying down, I was tired and pissed (the pizza was gone and so was all the food). I decided that I was gonna grab a glass of water (to avoid dehydration) and get to bed. I walked into my room and the dude was not on my bed. For a second there, I felt happy, maybe he left with someone, maybe he didn't sleep on my bed.... and then I looked at the bathroom door that was closed. Through the cracks I could still see light from inside. My hopes were destroyed, my bed was violated and of course I grabbed a sheet and a pillow and decided to lie down on the carpet.

It should have been about 10 minutes, I felt weird sleeping on the carpet, I turned over and for some reason I looked at the bathroom door, probably to check if my roomie was out. The light was still on. I checked the bed to see if his drunk ass had forgotten to turn off the light, but he was still not in the bed. Now I got a little worried, this guy had always been a little strange, a little drunk, a little excited, a little crazy and the kinds who laughs at a joke when everyone else had finished laughing. I was worried that he was in there, taking his extra time in my restroom to the next level. I jumped up, knocked on the door and called out "Dude you in there ? ". As you would expect no answer. My world was coming to an end. He had slept in my bed, used my restroom and now what ?

Ask any man, he has one big fear, something he would never ever ever want to do, even by accident.... to bump into a man who is not clothed. I was here in at 2 something in the night, going to experience the thing that every man dreaded or so I thought. I knocked once more, no response, I slowly twisted the handel, the door was open. I pushed the door open and there was the most "amazing" site I had ever seen in my life. No stoopid, he was not naked.

Our dude had passed out HUGGING the potty. It was funny, it was crazy, it was weird and it was so confusing that I forgot to take a photo. But there he was, the 25 year old, drunk roomie of mine, hugging the potty like it were his girl friend and he had passed out. I stood there with a smirk on my face, I knew I had to get him out of there, so I tried waking him up. No response.

I tried lifting him and he was too heavy, or maybe the alcohol had made him heavy, It was too confusing at that point. I ran out and brought my other roomies in, they looked at the dude and started cracking up. Finally with someone's help, we moved the dude back to my bed and we all went to sleep.

I have had loads of other things happening, but THE HUG will forever remain the funniest thing that ever happened ...Drinking.

The second quarter


If this is the first time you are reading this blog, please go down and start from the first quarter, you never want to read the final score before knowing what happened in the other quarters... do you ?

So once the players have been scoped out and things settle into a rythm, the second quarter begins. This is one of the very important stages of the game. You can walk away with a lead, be tied or loose the game right here and its no different in a relationship. This is the "I think I know you, unless you have tricks up your sleeve" period.

This is also called the period of "the hand". Here is where the both of you establish the hand, needless to say, if you are lazy here, consider yourself ass whooped. In certain relationships, its close. One day you have the hand, the other day she does. Its a real close game and both of you know the importance of the hand. The first person to relax or screw up looses the hand and gives away more points than he can recover in the next few plays. So in a close relationship, you need to stay up, stay focussed and use every single opportunity.

Trust me when I say women love to control you and being our lazy selves we let them have it, until one day you wake up to find your bedroom smelling good and having clean undies for a change. Its amazing my friends, things that you never did in the past year, she did over the weekend. But beware, this is no indication of the future. This is just a trick play, that all women have. She if just setting the environment and she likes it to stay that way. What she just did is legal, but something you were not expecting, so now you cave in for a second and before you know it, she shot that three pointer and also dunked over you.

There are two ways to counter this trick play.

1) Never give her the chance to pull one on you.
This, though sounds simple is real hard. Its impossible to improve on perfection. So all aspects of your life that she knows about, should be perfect or should look like its perfect. No bitching about people, no waiting for your clean clothes to run out, no complaining about the color of your bedroom, nothing. Act like everything is perfect, else you have opened up one of your weaknesses, something that she can act on to fix. Even if you feel like openening up, open up to something that is impossible for her to fix, your car, your hair, things that she cannot mess around with, without your knowlege.

2)Pull a trick play of your own.

In the course of getting to know her, you would have noticed something wrong, something that she is not satisfied with. Now, if you want the hand, you have to swoop in, clean up and get the hand.

The second technique can be used as a pre-emptive strategy and if used correctly can also work after she has just pulled one of her own. If you are using this after her play to get the hand, timing is important. If you wait for too long, you have lost it. You move in as soon as she pulled the play and counter her move with something big of your own. Once you do this, never tell her that this was a counter move. Tell her that you have always wanted to do it, but you were just waiting for the right time. Never ever ever tell her that you did this to thank her or anything even remotely close to that.

So after a few flip flops, someone ultimately gains the hand, someone controls the relationship, someone drives the car and then time runs out and you go back to your locker room. While you are there rethinking your strategy, she is too. While she is planning her second half, you should be doing the same. Listen to your coach, its never easy to have the hand and maintain in without being fouled out. If you are the better scorer, she is going to do all that she can to foul you out of the game. The trick is to understand that she is trying to foul you out and still be in the game.

The third quarter is important, so relax, think about your strenghts and more importantly about her strengths and we will meet back here in a few....

The first quarter


I, like most men drive, rather than be driven. It is not about being in complete control, but given a choice, I like to be in a position to change course if deemed necessary.

Men in general are lazier than women. This is a fact that has been proved for generations. In any relationship, things start out the same way, being fake. Fake could be a strong word, but you try to be something that you usually are not, even if its subtle it counts.

Along the same lines, Men ask for opinions, suggestions and input from the lady. "Where would you like to go for dinner ?", "What movie would you like to go to ?", "Popcorn or Nachos ?". At this point, the women are also playing the game. They answer the question with "Anything is fine with me", "I don't eat out much" and yada yada yada.

Welcome to the first quarter of your relationship, this is as simple a basketball game. New teams facing each other, the opponents have not met before, have no clue about strengths and weaknesses on the other side and are just observing the other person. This is the exploration phase, you ask questions, see what the other person likes, hustle and make mental notes about the opponent. Just like the offensive coach always told you, scope for the weakest person in the defense and match him against the best or at least a good player from your side. That's how every point is earned both in the game and in life. You match your strengths against her weaknesses and you always always hide your weaknesses. If you have not noticed, ever so often you see yourself face to face with someone, the quicker and smarter person walks off with a point or two.

Trying to establish the upper hand in this quarter is not just bad etiquette, its also close to impossible. You don't want to come on as too strong, that never helps. If the refrees get a whiff of that, they are going to be watching you in the paint and every little thing you do will be counted against you and chances are that you wont be in the game till the final whistle.

So give yourself some room, relax and just try to observe your opponent in this quarter.