When I Die

Kingfishers, Spam, Gods, And The Kid

Foreword:

In case you haven't noticed, I've been cleaning up this journal a bit. Getting rid of the entries I thought were pure drivel, spell-checking, and so on. No particular reason.


1. Kingfishers And Aphrodites (and experience)

Ah, winter's here.

The days are shorter now; the nights are long.
I'm a Kingfisher, swimming along.
The wind is high now; the tide is strong
But I'll sail on, singing my song.
I'll sail on, I'll sail on...
         ---'The Kingfisher's Song', By 'The Chimp', From The As Yet Unreleased Album, "Bones And Bananas".

Why a 'Kingfisher'? I'll tell you why. My house overlooks a huge military radio transmission field, with steel-trussed pillars connecting wires. Now, the ground is mostly grass and wild shrubbery, but on one side (closer to my house) a few squarish plots are filled with water all through the year. And where there's water, there are fish. Where there are fish, there are birds. And though Kingfishers aren't usually Mumbai-citizens, one or two come by every noe and then to the Ponds (we call them Ponds) and flock around with the storks and the flamingos. I'm not sure if they're Kingfishers, but all these years we've assumed they are. So they are.

And I think I saw one in the morning. It could've been a trick of the eye, but on that huge tree hanging above the shortest pocket of water, amid three storks, I caught a reddish-blue thing. It's damn hard to say what it was--could've been someone's underwear. People swim in there frequently. But it could've been a Kingfisher. I could've had a closer look, but my darn binoculars are all smudgy and need a cleaning job. And since I'm a prime candidate for Slobby Prat Of The Year, you know I didn't clean it.

No blasts from the past today. I'm not looking back and whining anymore--at least for now.

Something funny happened. I opened up my Yahoo mailbox yesterday (I hope you agree with me that yesterday is not what we'd call the past compared to the other entries in this journal), and there's this spam mail about how there's a renowned doctor saying that he's conducted research for a long long time on sexual chemistry and he's finally discovered a formula which when sprayed on, makes men irresistible to women. 'CAPTIVATION!!!' is the name of that supposed aphrodite. And below it, another dude says that buy now for a discount of fourty-three percent and you'll get a book (co-written by a dude and a dudette) on how to have any woman you want and drive her crazy completely free and blah blah and blooh blooh.

Now spam porn's nothing new. Nor is spam advertising. But something about this email struck me as fundamentally stupid. I don't know if my sense of humor is perverted, but I'm sitting here and wondering, if that perfume's supposed to drive women crazy after you--ready to just tear away their clothes and get jiggywiddit, what's the point of that book?

I mean, the women are already mad after you, so what's the point in learning techniques to seduce them? They've already been seduced, haven't they? Not just seduced, they've gone sexually nutty, thanks to that wonder spray (sic). And what's the point in the book describing how to drive her crazy in bed? She's already crazy while she's not in bed--a friggin' tigress ready to gobble you down, for Christ's sake. What's the bloody point of the book?

So does it mean that... ahem, your product is... ahem, like, I don't know, maybe, just a little, something like... DEFECTIVE?

I sent an email to the sender, just for kicks, saying pretty much what I did above (along with a few sparkling profanities, of course) and they sent a reply. Here's the reply, word for word:

If you are an unsatisfied customer, please note that there is a three percent chance of the product not working. Other factors why the product could fail are: A: it's past its expiration date, B: you did not follow the application instructions, C: other variable factors.
         In any case, we will be happy to replace the product for free or refund your money if it's still in the sixty day testing period. Send us the product in the original packing along with a photocopy of the bill and we'll send you a replacement.

Man, I laughed my ass off. I wonder if their query department read my email. Or maybe they did and they were so bloody freaked out that they didn't know what to say. I do that to people sometimes. I drive them crazy. No perfume needed (hehehehehe).

And oh, in case you're wondering if I believe all that IRRESISTIBLE crap, I know the difference between bullshit (the perfume) and reality (honesty, humor, love); thank you very much.

And having what little experience about women (we're talking about attraction here, not friendship. I got a lotta girls that are fuh-rends. Bu-hut Ah Got No Gu-hurl-Fuh-rends. :) ) in particular and little experience in sex (correction: ZERO experience in sex) in general, knowing the difference between bullshit and reality is enough, don't you think?

I think porn sites asking you for money is a good thing for us poor blokes. It keeps us away from that bullshit. And given a choice, I'd rather go premium on Writing.com than join some stupid candid-camera-cum-cum website.

And that's just about the only time you'll ever read about sex in my journal. That topic's too bloody boring, anyway.


2. Black Gods And White Gods (and a little chimpy poop)

My leg's healing, though shitting still hurts. And sitting on the chair for a long time does too. You know what's really funny? I wanted a longer vacation than the one day we get for Christmas. And I got it! Thanks to my leg, which deems me temporarily unfit for locomotion (hehe), I got stay home all this time!

I'm playing a game called Black And White. In it, I'm a GOD! Bwahahaaaaaa, baby! Supreme power! Supreme. KAPOW!

The game's about how you lead a tribe of men from obscurity to greatness--and in the meantime, become a strong GOD. Because the more your worshippers love you (or HATE you--yes, you can be good or evil) the more your power grows.

Problem is, you're not the only God. Other Gods live along with you and they want your tribe. So it's a frantic race for conversion and domination.

Every God has a creature--a pet, if you like. You can have chimps, tigers, cows... and you train them into your image. The creatures are a hallmark--their AI's bloody brilliant. You teach them things by showing them how to do it-or maybe catch them doing it out of their own curiosity (yup, the creatrues are actually curious to leanr new things), and then either stroking them (signal: you like it when they do that. So they'll do it more) or hit them (signal: you'd have to be a real loony-goony if you have to be told what hitting someone signifies ).

For example, when I my creature (a chimp of course. Did you for even ONE MOMENT doubt I'd choose someone else?) idly ate a villager (he actually popped the man right into his mouth), I should've beaten him up. But I didn't. Because I wanted to be an evil God. So I stroked him all over. From that day, my creature ate people, pooped on them, destroyed granaries and woodsheds, and had a general blast.

The way to win against other Gods is to pit your creature and their creature in a kind of MORTAL KOMBAT showdown. Just like that game, you fight with supermoves and stuff like miracles (lightning, bats, wolves, whirlpools, fire bolts), rocks, etc.

If you win, the creature is yours and the God's in deep freeze. Waiting for revenge.

Shit, talked too much about the game. But it's a friggin' great game. So play it if you can--it'll be a grand diversion from the old blast 'em up.


3. Ash And The Kid (and Sonya)

Ash came by today late morning. Did I tell you that she smiles a bit like Amy? I did, didn't I? We talked. And I showed her my prize gash. Hehe, ever since I got that red line on my leg, everyone wants to know how I'm feeling. What I'm wondering about is what'd happen if I told them how I really am feeling.

We played some chess, me on the bed, propped by a pillow, she on a chair and the old ivory chess set (dates back to my mom's gandaddy's daddy) between us. Somewhere between the time my rook and her horse went off the board, mom left for work. We ended up forgetting chess altogether, joking about assorted weasals (read: stupid jerks. Including, but not limited to: professors, TV stars, Movie stars, a few college jerks and so on). Even got a nice, childish, but ultimately funny story going about professor Nanaya going on his honeymoon and being menaced by a Kung Fu fighting cow.

Ash's nice. Not snobby. And clever (and perfectly comfortable with it, I may add), for a change. Notice how I don't say intelligent? That's because intelligence isn't something you can improve. You're born with it--if you're an average joe, you're an average joe. But everyone can be clever and witty. Everyone should be, in fact. And I suspect that everyone already IS. They're just afraid to show it. They're just afraid of coming out of their masks. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I like people with average and les-than average IQs more than Einsteins. Why? Because they're honest and unselfpretentious. And if there's one thing that gets me liking someone--no matter how bad he is--it's honesty. And I suspect that no one who's honest is bad. Simply because he has no need to be. Having the guts to own up kind of kills out the badness in you.

Then Sonya called and came over. So did her cousin brother, all of seven years old and real swell brat. Kinda reminds me of myself. Well, almost every kid reminds me of myself, because I was pretty much like every other kid. Always curious, always pissed off at grownups and always wanting to grow up real soon.

So Sonya met Ash for the first time and after that the girls were lost in their world and us boys goofed off playing some computer games. Ha, loved to hear that boy say 'Shit!' in his cute little voice. When he said it, the girls seemed to stop, Sonya looked first at him, then at me, and I burst out laughing. She tried not to, but she ended up giggling away too. One thing about that girl: when she giggles, she just doesn't know when to stop; goes on and on.

Sonya. She's still undecided about going to US. But mostly she will. It's amazing how you only realize just how bloody much you'll miss someone when they tell you they're gonna go.

Ash said she wanted to leave, but we pestered her into staying. The kid won her over, I think. He's one swell guy, as I said.

We ordered some fast food (yuck. Tasted like dried, solidified cod-liver oil) and clowned around eating it.

Ash left then, saying, she'd love to come over again, and almost kissing the kid. Good thing she didn't. I know what used to happen when I was seven and people kissed me. I used to blush furiously, a little out of joy, a little out of plain old masculine disgust at all things mushy and... ahem, girly. Sissy, if you like.

Then we all sort of did our thing. I read a book, Sonya too, and lil bro watched TV. At some point I drifted off--a rare occurance; I rarely sleep in the day--and when I woke up mom was home and Sonya and bro had left.

If my leg had been better, we'd have gone out somewhere. On the beach, maybe. Or we'd have watched a movie--maybe we'd have called up a few people; Rishi and Dipu and Mike (oh man, that guy. Where the hell has he been?)--and asked them to come over.

I'm going to stop yapping now. I'm going to post this entry and play a few keys on my keyboard. And then I'll listen to some soft music and go to sleep. KennyG maybe. Or Enya. Sade. Ishq. Clannad. Mmm, mmm. Nice way to end a day, I guess.

Afterword:

And the obligatory Chimpy P.S:
Evanescence. Just heard their new song, My Immortal. This band's going places, guys. It's not a rock band, per se, more of an experimental group making great--if derivative--music. I'm gonna buy their album soon. Maybe I'll talk about it sometime. And as usual, I don't care if no one likes this band's music. I like it. And that's enough. I can't imagine anyone not liking this kind of music, though.