Thursday, January 03, 2008

Whatever works...

it has been a fascinating turn of the year... some good science.. some not so good experiences... and some truly weird ones.. there are some things to understand and appreciate:

1. i will forever look up the spelling of weird. this e-before-i thing just befuddles me.

2. board games... are simulations of what happens in board rooms... someone recently stated that 'its not a negotiation unless the other person is crying'. i am not very happy living in a place where this is the stated philosophy. in ways more than one, i still live in the happy old 80's calcutta/college street environment: there is a point where being competitive is simply not cool. rather paradoxically, i never spent any worthwhile time in college street in the 80's: so the time and place that i mentally live in, perhaps never existed, outside of my immediate imagination.
continuing on this theme... i despise people who cannot live without playing a game of one-upmanship with everyone around them. i pity people who cannot live without conflict, and need a clearly defined enemy to motivate their existence. i respect vegans. i abhor people who consume without producing anything, whose only happiness is from climbing the ladder of material possession. they are unfortunate. even more unfortunate are those people whose bellies are full and who are adequately clothed, but who have never stopped to look at the skies, who have never sung a line, or read a page of a book which wouldn't help them immediately. these are the most unfortunate of all.. where their souls used to be, there are merely bottomless pits of avarice.

3. Young Sethu has invented an improved version of the Vodka Chettinad. Ingredients: a shot of vodka, twice that volume of ginger ale, a dash of lemon. Mix and stir, slice a hot chili longitudinally, so that the seeds come bursting out... add to drink. Stir. Finally, add a slice of freshly cut ginger. This drink is officially known as the Vodka Chettinad 'Shivaji' .. in honour of the great Maratha warrier and the recent Rajnikant starrer film.

4. Tom Clancy really can't write good character development.

4 comments:

Pradeep said...

I wanted to write a detailed comment, but I have a deadline on Monday, so this is going to be short.

About point 2, it's YOU who was taking it too seriously and playing the one-upmanship. Every one else, imo, was just enjoying a casual game. Games when played in social setting are not about competition, but being grumpy and unsportsmanlike (is that a word?) is totally uncool. There is some thing called playful competition.

Every thing else you wrote makes no sense (may be some day I will make a detailed comment), and you have no idea what you are talking about. I don't understand where that's coming from.

Rachna said...

I agree with the weird thing- I always tend to not be sure too!

And I also agree with the comment above- somehow, I also felt that the only person taking the game too seriously and competitively was you. Unfortunate, yes- maybe you did not really mean it, but that is the impression you gave the rest of us!

The time and place that you live is DOES exist outside your imagination- but you have yet to find it!

Anonymous said...

When I play a board game, I play it to have fun with friends. I am competitive, as everyone should be, when playing a game. I think that's why it's called a game. I don't think Settlers is more competitive than Uno, I believe it's the other way around. As someone else commented, there is something called playful competition.

In real life, I know someone who is very competitive when it comes to research and recognition. It's not anyone who commented before me. I think you know who that is.

-Kitty Khat

Unknown said...

hmmmm