The North & South Of The Evergreen State

Managed to rent a Dodge (The RAM of God), Caliber over the weekend. Rental cars are cool! They are always clean as crazy, all shiny and nice all the time 🙂

I decided to be behind the wheels the entire weekend. Drove close to 25 hours. The destination was, well NOWHERE.

On Saturday, I headed south and hit the paddy fields and some unexplored regions here. I was so glad that I did not have a destination on mind. The fun of driving aimlessly is freedom. Nowhere to go, yet so much fun. The lovely village green, the sometimes dry and husky paddy fields, railway tracks and canals snaking thru the fields were special indeed. The weekend was not sunny, but I don’t care really, thankfully I am a winter person.

On Sunday, headed north and the sights here were even better or I must say spectacular. Mountains are always fun. It was cold up there (needless to say),lot of fog meant that I missed the lakes around the mountain for trails were closed! I cannot wait to get back from NYC and drive up to the Big Sky Country, I am sure I will need 4GB card to capture the Big Sky Country

The pictures should give you the idea of what I was drunk with over the weekend.

Friday And Flirty

My flirty favorite number for this Friday. Badan Pe Sitare from the movie Prince (1969) – Shammi Kapoor (bad hair day for our man) & Vijayanti Mala (drool).

This is an Urdu (a mix of Persian and Hindi) song. The fact that Urdu is a mixed language lends to its richness and beauty. Very ordinary music (infact is loud and jarring) and video. Just that the lyrics ROCK!

The lyrics with the translation (WARNING : MAY SOUND DEMENTED)

Badan Pe Sitaare Lapate Huye
Clad with shiny glitters on your body [refering to shiny saree Vijayanthi Mala (drool again) is weraing]
O jaane tamanna kidhar ja rahi ho
oh sweetheart, where are you going)
Zara paas aayo, to chain aa jaaye
Come close to me and I will be relieved

Hameiin Jab na honge to aye dil rubaan
If I am not there my darling

Kise dekh kar haaye sharmaayo gi
Who will you shy away from

Na dekhogi phir tum kabhi aaina
Never again will you look into the mirror

Hamare bina roz ghabraayo gi
You will feel uneasy without me

Badan Pe Sitaare Lapate Huye…
Hai ban ne sawar ne ka jab hi maza
To adorn oneself in beauty is a glory when

Koyi dekhne wala aashiq to ho
There is an admirer to take pleasure from it

Nahi to yeh jalwe hain bhujte diye
Otherwise all this glamour is useless

Koyi mitne wala ek aashiq to ho
there should be an admirer to die for you

Badan Pe Sitaare Lapate huye…

Mohabbat ki yeh intaha ho gayi
The love is now at a test


Ke Masti mein tumko khuda keh gaya
That playfully I called you Khuda

Zamana yeh insaaf karta raha
The world tried to do justice

Bura keh gaya yah bbhala keh gaya
whether I did good or bad

Badan pe sitaare lapate huye
clad in the shiny sari

O jaane tamanna kidhar jaa rahi ho
Oh sweetheart where are you going

Zara paas aayo, to chain aa jaye

Arcane Muse – God

CAP – The yoga teacher is a sharp shooter and he destroys ego

MOF – That’s odd. I would expect him to be otherwise. Is destroying ego a good thing after all?

CAP – Ah dude! You know how people sometimes can be a pain in the wrong place

MOF – I agree they can be that, but everyone is seeking an answer, but trying to put someone down when they ask questions seems odd. I mean they come to him seeking guidance and answers. Destroying someone’s ego can be disastrous, they go the teacher for an answer, and you do not want to be spurned

CAP – I agree, but folks there attend zillion different yoga classes and try and compare philosophy and try to act smart to the point of being plain irritating!

MOF – Hmmm…

CAP – MO, why does one have to believe in God or a Supreme Spirit?

MOF – Instinct 🙂

CAP – WHAT! Instincts have to deal with the physical aspect of human nature!

MOF – Should instincts be limited to responses to sensory perception? Why do have to operate within a boundary when we want to understand/deal with the infinite? Why do we have to limit instincts only to the physical aspects of humans?

CAP – Okay, fair enough. Let us call that spiritual instinct! But substantiate it

MOF – You are hungry you eat, you are thirsty you drink; you are aroused you have sex; it all seems coded that way. When we see and experience the world and nature around us, there is an inner voice that tells us or compels us to believe in a superior entity.

CAP – Dude! Is it not the society and religion that drives us to believe in an idea like that?

MOF – I would agree, by and large yes. BUT, would the response to hunger, thirst, arousal et al be different if an individual were to be raised in a place that is devoid of religion and bereft of the social patterns that we are now aware of?

CAP – Hard one, but logically speaking, no.

MOF – So, I am compelled to believe in the idea of instinct driving us to believe in God (or a superior entity)

CAP – Kewl, I see your point. Now, why does one have to seek God, why does one crave or seek that enlightenment thingy?

MOF – Stimulus and response.

CAP – Err…what you mean

MOF – You are hungry, you eat and you are satisfied. You believe in the existence of Supreme Spirit, you want to be one with that entity, for that alone can satiate the spiritual instinct/hunger

CAP – It is often argued that fear was the reason for God to be created. For look, all religions talk about life after death. Death surely scares the living daylight out of humans. After death, everyone wants to claim heaven

MOF – Honestly, I can only speak for myself here. I love the dichotomy of heaven and hell. And I define heaven to be a state where the human spirit is in union with the Divine/Supreme Spirit and hell to be a state where the human spirit is separated or not in union with the Divine/Supreme spirit

CAP – And what bout the geography of heaven and hell, do you not believe in it? And curiously I do not see Judgment being given any cognizance

MOF – Never have experienced death to talk bout the geography of heaven and hell ;-), and that what I have seen not, I can talk not. I believe that Judgment is real and we are judged by our conscience for all that we do. Divine justice, yes I believe in it, that’s the second level quality assurance ratified by that ‘Higher’ being.

CAP – So, what about grace?

MOF – Dude, we need to get the MPLS provisioning thingy done today OK! But I do not choose to end this abruptly. Consider the entire cosmos, in the cosmos the Milky Way is tiny little spec, the Solar System in the Milky Way is an almost a nondescript entity, in the Solar System the Earth happens to be but a nondescript spec and in this spec we humans try to understand the BIG PICTURE with our intelligence, but intelligence as a faculty can only help us go a certain distance, beyond that it has to be a spiritual exercise and experience to capture the spiritual and bring it into the realm of the intellect!

Now, to bow to the instincts of making money .Let’s get the MPLS story off our plate soon!

Sleepless In The Pacific Northwest

Seattle? Nay far from it. Owe my sleeplessness to a riot. The master mind behind the riot is writing this post. The riot was a laugh riot. Dude! I am so glad you are here and I am sure we are now gonna paint the city RED!

The waitress at Dennys was amused beyond words watching us guys talking and laughing our brains out. We downed some coffee (ahem… bout 12 cups between the two of us) in a span of 1 hour (ok that’s like 1 cup every 10 mins). Coming back to the amused waitress, she said “you guys take care and have fun. I ain’t gonna charge you” so Awhat on earth does that have to do with this post, oh! , now I have been sleepless and the caffeinated mind to hand coordination is at its best. This will be one heck of a disconnect post (a delayed warning I know :P)

Finally KG is here and bhoy I am ‘Oh so glad’. Trips to NYC and Seattle on the cards. Driving around NYC in Ford Mustang 2007 convertible (simply irresistible).

After considering the various considerations that have been considered, the consideration to consider the consideration indeed seems considerably considerable. With the consideration having been considered, I hereby consider to consider the following consideration

To walk down the aisle with Mocha Frappuccino (double blend, no whipped cream) if “it” were a “she”. But good God up there, we all know is crazy so He willed it otherwise, He turned “she” into an “it”. Trust me, it is ever so easy to pass the blame on to Him, He never questions (psssst….sometimes He chooses not to answer too :P)
Zzzzzzz….zzzzzzz……zzzzzzzz

Please don’t tell me you suffered the ordeal and are actually reading past zzzzz….

Jaxtr – International Calls At Local Rates!

A pretty interesting concept taking baby steps is here again. We are so used to baby steps being free stuff and bhoy! it sure is something that is gonna make a splash and set a trend. I am an avid Skype fan, but this babe is rocking my world.

So getting down to business, what does Jaxtr allow you to do that Skype does not? Well it allows you to make free phone calls all over the world and at local call rates. Oh yes INTERNATIONAL CALLS AT LOCAL CALL RATES! So, here is how it works. You go to www.jaxtr.com signup for a free account and then register your mobile phone (and/or) landline with Jaxtr. So what does registration mean? Registration essentially means that once you add the phone number and click on the “Call Me To Activate” button, you get a call from Jaxtr, and you will be prompted to enter the code that gets displayed on the web-page.

So am I good to go, can I now call my moms first cousin’s second cousin’s sister-in-laws husband who lives in Timbuktu?  Sure, if he has registered his phone on Jaxtr. And the cool thing is that it is billed as a local call.

Works like dream from the US. I have made some international calls, but I reckon one may not be able to make calls from all the countries; however it does not stop them from receiving Jaxtr calls. The call quality is pretty decent, I must say a better than Skype to Skype calls.

Pros:
1. You do not have to give out your actual phone number to someone, Jaxtr masks a phone numbers to people who are not on your approved list.
2. Very useful if you are frequent traveler and do not want phone calls to burn a big hole into your pocket
3. Decent call quality

Cons:
1. Sometimes, it sucks big time. It only reaches the Jaxtr voice mail of the called party, for no apparent reason
2. And now, I do not need another voice mail box. Get that integrated with my phone service or forward it to my service provider automatically.

Overall, for something that is taking baby steps, will give it a 5.5/10. The rating would easily go to 8 if the 1st point mentioned under cons is “fixed”

So leaving you all with the new Mantra