Dry day–alright, but why not open restaurants?

I don’t quite understand this whole concept of dry days. I mean, why should responsible adults not enjoy hanging out at their favorite bar/pub and have some fun just because it is a day of national/political significance?

But even worse is the fact that the restaurants that have a bar are closed during these dry days – for three consecutive days during the BMC election this week.

That’s really stupid. I want my good food. And all the good food comes from bar/restaurants.

Will someone sit up and take notice and change the rules?

Android, finally

After almost two years of pondering and procrastinating, I bought myself a new phone, thereby replacing my 4-year-old lovely Sony Ericsson P1i. I bought myself a Sony Xperia Pro (Red) which looks and feels super-fabulous.

I’m slowly getting used to the physical keyboard and all the various apps that you can download. To celebrate it, I upgraded myself to 3G on Vodafone and now I can watch videos, Skype, and what not on the Go.

This also means that I might die sooner. I walk around in the night on Mumbai roads with my iPod blaring and reading on my phone. So…

Here are some pictures of the phone if you feel like looking at what I own.

Cousin’s wedding in Kerala

I don’t quite remember why I agreed to it, but I did. Oh yeah, my uncle was threatening (in a friendly manner, of course) that if I don’t make it, there would be drastic consequences. Anyway, I had agreed to attend my cousin’s wedding in Kozhikkode, and had dirt-cheap JetLite tickets purchased three months back.

The to flight was eventless. But then onward, everything was chaotic. Nobody knew how far the wedding hall was from the airport. I finally hired a cab and set out on my own and found the hall. There, I was greeted by all sorts of faces from my past – which I have been trying to hide from, I must admit.

The reception of my relatives, in general was really, good. All of them were happy (or pretended to be) and did not ask too much. A couple of questions about marriage popped up here and there, but I was able to tackle them with humor. After all, I had to keep my word to my parents – they didn’t want me coming out to my extended family.

The only memorable, rather scary, instance was when an uncle took me to the side and started asking me questions like “Are you the old Kris?” “Are you hiding behind a veil” “Are these questions causing you discomfort?” “When will you come back to us?” Then it dawned on me that he was on FaceBook and had seen most of my pictures with Joe.

I guess he knew that I was gay but was shocked and was not very well read about homosexuality.

Of course I met with my Mom and Dad, sister and BIL, and my BIL’s Mom and Dad. I also met all the uncles and aunts that I like and those I don’t like too much. So it was a mixed bag. Some of the cousins that I knew as very small had grown into adolescents and shit. That’s like scary.

Well, apart from that, I spiked up my wedding gift to my cousin (a relatively expensive Bvlgari grooming kit + condoms + lube), and hung out with Ray over beer and beef fry. That was nostalgic. We even rang up some of our old ‘fuckbuddies’.

Knee replacements all around

My mom has been wanting to get both her knees replaced for some time now. And now my boyfriend has been advised to undergo knee replacement too. This makes my life a little more complicated, primarily because Joe will only arrive by August 2012.

I need a new 2 BHK to have both my folks and my boyfriend stay together with me at the same time. I don’t know when to get it though. Maybe I should just stay in my studio apartment until Joe gets here.

Decisions, decisions!

“Porngate, my foot”

That’s an excerpt of what Pritish Nandy wrote about the two Karnataka cabinet ministers who were caught watching a pornographic clip on a mobile phone inside the assembly.

“@PritishNandy: Porngate, my foot. its Yawngate. ND Tewari did better. At least the women were real.”

All I have to say is this. India, watching pornography is okay. Ministers watching pornography is okay. Watching pornography at the workplace is probably wrong, but shouldn’t amount up to resignation if someone is caught. They are human beings too and can get distracted and hence they should be warned.

However, carrying mobile phones in the assembly – which is what the ministers did - is against the rules, and should be condemned. You voted for people who are just like you, who are vulnerable to the physiological demands of relaxation and entertainment, and of course sexual urges.

Here are two read-worthy articles on this issue that I came across this morning. The first one is an article written by my friend and journalist Vikram Doctor from Economic Times. The other one is a blog post that I was referred to on Twitter.

OK Go’s latest video - Needing/Getting

So, the boys from Chicago are at it again. This time playing over 1000 instruments while driving around in a car. Here’s the YouTube official video and the description.

The new music video from OK Go, made in partnership with Chevrolet. OK Go set up over 1000 instruments over two miles of desert outside Los Angeles. A Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the instruments, and the band recorded this version of Needing/Getting, singing as they played the instrument array with the car. The video took 4 months of preparation and 4 days of shooting and recording. There are no ringers or stand-ins; Damian took stunt driving lessons. Each piano had the lowest octaves tuned to the same note so that they'd play the right note no matter where they were struck. For more information and to download the studio version of the song for free, visit http://www.LetsDoThis.com/stunts andhttp://www.okgo.net. Many thanks to Chevy for believing in and supporting such an insane and ambitious project, and to Gretsch for providing the guitars and amps.

I’m not too thrilled by the song. But the video is a must watch.

Super Bowl XLVI – the ads

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time wondering what the deal was about the ads during the Super Bowl broadcast. One of my friends @eupraxsophic tweeted ‘it has the highest viewership and ad slots are expensive. Companies make their best ads to justify their spent money’

Well, when I came back in the evening, there was still a lot of activity about the Super Bowl on Twitter. One link caught my attention. It was Mashable’s video collage of all the ads during Super Bowl XLVI. Another is CNET’s Most liked 2012 Super Bowl ads (photos).

Lastly, I came to realize that I was part of a Twitter record. Twitter released the records for two Super Bowl moment which are #2 and #3 in the list of Twitter‘s most-tweets-per-second list. I was part of #2 – right after the NY Giants won. Here’s the full story!

Out of all the ad, I personally liked ‘The Dog Strikes Back: 2012 Volkswagen Game Day Commercial’ the best. Here’s the video.