29 Random Questions...

I was trawling through the web and checking out other blogs as usual when I stumbled on these random questions on Justin's blog and thought I'd answer them.

1. When showering, do you start the water and then get in, or get in then start the water?

I start the water first. That way I can test the temperature of the water and thus know to what degree i need to psyche myself up to get under it.

2. Do you read the labels on your shampoo bottle?

Yes. I'm particular about my brand of shampoo. How else do You think I maintain my long, luxurious mane?

3. Do you moan in the shower like the people on the Herbal Essences commercial?

No. I live with family. That's just plain creepy.

4. Have you ever showered with someone of the opposite sex?

Yes. Briefly. All I was thinking of was 'what do I wipe myself off with when we're done here'?

5. Have you ever been forced to shower with one of your siblings?

No, and me and my bro are happier for that fact.

6. Have you ever brushed your teeth in the shower?

Yes. Just for the heck of it. And oh, also in the toilet once.

7. Have you ever dropped your soap on your foot?

Yes. It hurts like a mother****

8. How old do you look?

Between 21 and 27. The next question is more important though.

9. How old do you act?

Pretty much on the wrong side of 16.

10. What’s the last song you sang?

That would be 'Bad to the Bone' - ZZ Top

11. Have you recently become a member of anything?

I joined a Gym recently 'cause I was pathetically scrawny and decided I'd had enough.

12. What are your plans for the weekend?

Go out clubbing with a bunch of friends and get wasted.

13. Do you kiss with your eyes open or closed?

Most times closed but sometimes open to make sure it is who I think it is. Just as a precaution.

14. What’s the sexiest thing about Condoleeza Rice?

I don't...

15. Does anything on your body itch right now?

My neck. Dunno why.

16. Who’s the sexiest famous woman alive?

Hmm, I'd say that would have to be Salma Hayek. Brother, she makes me weak...

17. Who’s the sexiest famous man alive?

George Clooney, undoubtedly. Beat me by a hair's breadth but I'm sport enough to admit it.

18. Does every family have a crazy uncle?

Every family NEEDS a crazy uncle. Who else tells you it's fine if you don't have a college degree and are unemployed?

19. Have you ever smuggled something into America?

Never been there. Though when I do I'd smuggle in a few Cuban cigars.

20. Does playing the guitar make a girl/guy more attractive?

I guess the Rock Star image does appeal to some members of the opposite sex. I play the piano so I guess I'm automatically slotted in the Elton John category.

21. Do you live in a city with a good sports team?

The Mumbai Indians are pretty decent I'm guessing. I'm not much of a cricket fan though. Please Indian cricket fans, don't burn my house for having said that.

22. Have you ever finished off the popcorn and ate the junk from the bottom of the bag?

I dont like popcorn. What's so likeable about popped corn?!

23. Have you ever had sex in a tent?

I haven't been in a tent. Yet.

24. What about in a boat?

Not in a boat either.. Or for that matter any goddamn mode of transportation.. Christ, stop it with these questions already...

25. Have you ever dated a Goth?

No. It comes right on top of my list though. Right behind sex in a tent and sex in a boat.

26. Would you rather receive amazing oral sex or have amazing sex?

This question is too deep for me to comprehend. Let me meditate on this.

27. Can you fix your own car?

No. My car fixes itself. Sheesh.

28. Would you want to kill George W Bush yourself if you were guaranteed to get away with it?

Yes. I'd just give him a Segway Scooter. Or a Pretzel. He can do a pretty good job without my help. The guys his own worst enemy.

29. Should guys wear pink?

If they can carry it off then kudos to them.


If you guys decide to answer these questions on your own post then send me the link and I'd like to read it. I have all the time in the world.

Here's the link to Justin's post just in case you'll would like to read his answers.

http://www.lifeofjustin.com/2008/04/28/justin-answers-29-random-questions.html

Disclaimer.. A First for any Blog

The reasons for me starting this blog were to give vent to my narcissistic tendencies. It was never meant for educational or informative purposes and all thoughts expressed here should be taken with a pinch of salt and maybe even a bottle of ketchup for the flavor. I refer to everything that happens in my life and pick out what's interesting to put it up for the heck of it. All the blog does is to give an insight into the workings of my mind and the creative expression of it herein. There's a reason why this blog is in the entertainment category. Coz it's entertainment people!

Decoding the Spark

I have observed time and again that women talk about a spark they need to feel when referring to the first few interactions with a guy. Now I feel the term 'spark' is very vague and ambiguous and that women themselves find hard to define clearly. All they can say about it is that it's a certain 'something'. That's no real help to a guy if he's interested in a girl and she tells him that she doesn't feel a spark. So I decided to investigate this mysterious phenomenon and see for myself if I could come up with any satisfactory answers.

From personal experience and from talking to a few women about this I know that they first and foremost respond to physical cues. The guys manner and body language play an initial role in influencing her subconscious. So the first thing we look at are the visual cues that we give out. What would be construed as positive and negative visual cues then? The very first thing would be the expression on your face. If you have the habit of keeping a serious expression on your face then break it. Start smiling a lot more. The guy who smiles a lot looks like the type who is friendly and approachable and a lot more comfortable with himself and the people around him. Also there must be a reason why he's looking so smug. Maybe he gets laid a lot hmm?

Next would be body language cues. The way a guy dresses says a lot about him. Be clean and wear clothes that are comfortable and stylish at the same time. 'Dress to impress' should be your credo. You can't dress like the average guy and hope to attract better than average women. Make sure you have the body language that says that you are the dominant male around here. Don't be afraid to make big gestures with your hands and be animated. Take up space with your body and don't slouch while sitting. Also make sure that you're not leaning into her but rather lay back and let her lean in. Maintain eye contact but don't stare which means blink frequently so you don't end up staring. Don' t cross your arms in front of you or have a guarded position. Keep your thumbs in your pockets if you have to with the rest of your palm out. That's the best place for them initially.

Be clean shaven or if you have facial hair make sure it's trimmed well and maintained. Also shave off those Chris Jericho sideburns. They're really not cool. Keep you're scalp hair looking clean and trim any excessive body hair.Now that you look visually appealing you've already considerably increased your chances with the opposite sex.


Now for the verbal part of it. A study suggests that 93% of interactions is body language and tone of voice and only 7% is the content of what you actually say. But it's vital nonetheless. There's a 3 second rule that I consider very important. In pickup the 3 second rule signifies the maximum time you need to take before making your cold approach. But I also think that the rule is applicable when it comes to conversing with someone you've just met. I bet there were times when you felt that you've run out of things to say and then the pause just grows and grows and the silence makes things get pretty awkward. So keep in mind that no pause should last for more than 3 seconds in at least the first 15 minutes of conversation with a girl. Either you're talking or she is.

At the end of the day when all is said and done remember that women are very intuitive and they will pick up on signs of weakness. Be a man and do not apologize for your desires as a man. Lead the girl and pretend it's a dance. Be fun, interesting, novel and enjoyable and the girl will have much to offer you. *wink* There's a lot more that goes into male - female interactions but is outside the scope of this post. Much goes into creating that initial spark in a woman as you may have observed from the length of this post and I think these few things that I've outlined will greatly increase you're appeal to the opposite sex. Hey it's worked for me. Somewhat.

As for the women, they would probably agree with me on these things though I wouldn't know how many would appreciate me breaking things down in this manner. And if you'll think that I don't fight fair then you're absolutely correct.

I'l be back!

I haven't posted anything in quite a while as I have been busy with exams and have been a little ill for the last 2 days as well. There's a lot of material in my head that I want to write about and hopefully I should put something up in the next 24 hours. Interesting stuff coming up so keep checking back on the blog.

Drinking Daze

Now drinking is a social phenomenon and generally practiced in any society irrespective of prohibition being enforced by the concerned country or not. As such I have observed from personal experience no ill-effects arising out of a night of solid drinking. Of course there is the hangover which feels like your head has been run over by a small truck to be dealt with the next morning, not to mention the clothes that stink vaguely of beer, vodka, cigarettes, puke and urine in no particular order of preference. Also if you're friends have been generous enough you might find their choice of alcohol and bodily fluids intermingled with your own. But for all this, it isn't convincing enough to discourage most of us, including me to not binge drink on occasion. I say occasion because I am fairly old at 22 to binge on a regular basis considering the amount of run over brain cells suffered as a result of the small truck passing through since I have been old enough to illegally drink. Takes it's toll on one it does.

But those few times I do drink to reminisce about trucks the next morning, hilarity ensues as seen through the eyes of my dear friends. There was this one time where I walked the neighborhood streets with my pants down at my ankles as I had forgotten to pull them up after taking a pee on the road as well as a dog. Or two. Or the time when I abruptly sat down after being hit on the balls by a considerably inebriated friend and upon being asked by someone as to what the matter was replying by saying "it's paining". Asked to elaborate I told them I was "hit on the FUCKING balls by a FUCKING idiot".

Also warranting a mention is the drastic exponential increase in charm my personality undergoes with every pint or/and large peg that goes into my alcohol stream. That comes with the realization that I am invincible and that no one or nothing can affect me. It only lasts as long as I'm drunk though. Pity. Life would be vastly entertaining and enjoyable if we could perpetually maintain that state. Other latent talents that are brought out into the open would include dancing to just about any song and miraculously singing along too. Mithun would probably find me embarrassing.

Relationship Mishaps

Why is it sometimes hard for some to let go of people? And so easy for others? A childhood spent without having any close relationships has led me to be one of the latter kind. Should my upbringing be the cause of my inadequacy at sustaining a relationship? Few have survived my not infrequent tantrums and unprovoked aggression.

I was a shy kid not too fond of mixing around with others. i liked books and was exceptionally fond of mathematics. I discovered not too long ago the joys of socializing. I especially started enjoying the company of women. Any guy who says otherwise is lying. I mean even gay men enjoy women's company.

The problem most people seem to have with me is my brutal honesty and natural disposition for being blunt with words. People misinterpret it and think that i have a bad attitude and I'm more or less a prick. I thought those were good qualities; being honest and blunt and not a bad ass and prick. Having heard that from my so-called best friends time and again I am starting to believe that there just might be some truth in those statements. And for all those who think I'm pretentious and self-obsessed take a good hard look in a reflective surface. May be you will find a way to better understand others. Or you all just suck.

9 Steps To Passing The Exams.

Two exams down already and I'm hopeful of passing both of them. The best part is I studied barely a few hours for each paper. Over the years I've refined my system of study to what it is today. Now putting this method up may cause some of you to try it out but it does come with a disclaimer. It's worked for me but may not necessarily work for you so proceed with caution.

Briefly then here's how it's done step by step.

1) Assimilate pertinent information:

It's important to know what subject you're studying for and the matter related to it. Once you do, all you need is to sift through the mountain of course material and find what would be required for the examination. Now the best way to do that is to have the question papers and solutions for the last couple of years. Sit down and start marking a star next to each question that repeats itself over the years. It follows that the more the stars the greater the importance of that question and the more the attention you need to pay towards it. This way of locating questions from the question papers greatly reduces the amount of material you need to go through. Instead of studying a few hundred answers your are reducing it to a mere 15-20.

2) Making associations:

The next step is the questions and their answers. I like to pick out certain key words from the text and underlining them so that I can immediately recognize the pattern of the answer by the key word itself. There will be a couple of key words per answer and you need to associate them with the question and each other.

3) Take frequent breaks:

If you find your mind wandering from the task at hand do not try and get it back on track. Instead take a short walk around and do other things till you feel you can get back to the books. A study conducted by neuroscientists found that learning works in a peculiar way. The information that you just take in replays itself in you're mind outside of conscious awareness just like a tape on rewind. This helps in the storage of information and makes the connections in your brain stronger so that the information can be quickly retrievable when you need it. So a small break is actually a good thing.

4) Reward yourself:

If you complete a particularly tough answer reward yourself with something. You could probably sit on the computer and surf the net if you wish. Anything that you're not supposed to be doing would work. A reward basically helps as a motivator to further study and complete the rest of the answers so that you can reward yourself again. Very effective.

5) Eat regular meals:

This one's pretty much common sense. Skipping a meal doesn't help. No matter how stressed you feel it won't do to skip meals. Your brain is a muscle that requires energy to run. Especially during these times of heightened activity it makes a lot of effort and is an energy hog. You need to have a lot of simple carbohydrates that are assimilated quickly into the body. Or just buy yourself a pack of commercially available glucose and make a drink to sip on.

6) Sleep Well:

Not sleeping well can make a great difference in how your brain performs. Most of what you study is reinforced while you sleep. Which means that no matter how much material you still need to get through, try getting in a 4 hour sleep at least in the night. Alternatively you can take 20 minute power naps. But no more than 20 minutes because then you will go into the next phase of the sleep cycle and to wake up from that stage will make you feel groggier than before.It would also help if you drank a cup of coffee just before you took that nap. Caffeine takes about 20 minutes to kick in so once you're done with that nap you'll wake up feeling as fresh as a daisy.

7) Revise to reinforce:

The revisions are absolutely vital to retaining information long enough to get through the paper. Without them you're as lost as a shipwrecked sailor. But also keep in mind that memory follows the law of decreasing gains. The more the revisions does not necessarily mean the greater the retention.

8) Stay positive:

It's easy to get stuck in a pattern of negative mind speak. Telling yourself that you can't do something or it's overwhelming is a defeatist attitude. Giving up before you try just doesn't make sense to me. Cut yourself short every time you find yourself thinking negatively and replace them with more positive thoughts.

9) Exercise:

Oxygen is very important for the optimum functioning of the brain.
That is where exercise comes into the picture. Exercise has been shown to increase blood flow to the brain. More blood, more oxygen, increased performance.

Most of these tips are designed more as a prelude for making you're mind more receptive to accepting information rather than focusing on the information itself. Also I have used this way of studying to get through my B.A exams. How it would work for someone else I cannot imagine. Hope this post can be of help to some people though.

Exam Shiver!

It's exam time again. Whoopeedoo. Time for me to once again use my knowledge of the system to manipulate the heck out of it. I have found through my own experience that the Indian Education system discourages learning through hands-on experience and understanding of the subject matter and promotes rote learning. A student has no choice but to memorize voluminous quantities of information. Some people may be okay with doing so. I am not one amongst those people.

Being someone who never appreciated this form of education I decided to quit complaining and took up the task of beating the system with It's own rules. That is how I conceptualized a method to be able to open my books just 24 hours before an exam and manage to get about enough to pass that paper. Now this is definitely not recommended for those of you who want to get more than just passing marks but the methods and rules can be applied to make better use of your time and energy to efficiently study and utilize the free time created to pursue other much more stimulating physical or intellectual endeavors.

I will be posting the method as I use it in a day or two. For now I should be getting back to my books. Got a big paper tomorrow.

Radical Honesty and Dating Multiple Women.

Radical Honesty is a self improvement program developed by Brad Blanton, PhD. It's goal being to make people give up their addiction to lying. All of us have the habit of telling little white lies throughout the day. We usually tell these lies to avoid confrontation and rationalize them by telling ourselves that we did not wish to hurt someone's feelings. The most common excuse for being dishonest is our societal need for being 'polite'.


That is where Radical Honesty steps in. The way Radical Honesty functions is to make us consciously aware of the times when we are about to lie and the motivations that compel us to do so, and then correct ourselves by being honest. It is a way to objectively focus on what we are thinking and leave out our subjective judgment and analysis of the situation.


I have found that I have been practicing this inadvertently in my relationships. Being a fan of Women and not feeling the need to restrict myself to just one, many a tricky question has been blown out of the water by just being honest. "Are you dating other women?" is met with the simple answer, "Yes, I am. In fact right after we get done I'm on my way to see X". No bullshit. no "uhm..don't you trust me?", no "I love you" or other underhanded half truths and evasive answers most men would employ when dealing with such a question. Sure you'd lose a few Women in your lifetime with such brutal honesty, but hey, always remember, It's their loss.


Of course, if I'm in a committed relationship dating outside of it is out of the question. Luckily I'm not. In an interview with Esquire, Blanton stated one of his 'seduction techniques' was "Wanna fuck?" , "That works?" was the authors question to which Blanton replies, "Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's the creation of possibility."

This is the link to the entire article as printed in Esquire magazine.
http://www.esquire.com/features/honesty0707