Picture Perfect

I seem to do nothing but Friday Fives and tags on this blog. I swear, it's not that I can't find things to write about, it's because I am lazy. Anyway, no one reads this blog, so it's not like anyone gives a damn.

I found this tag here, and it looked interesting.

How to and what to :
1. You are given a set of questions.
2. Google the image which best suits the answer and post a picture from first page of image search with minimal explanation.
3. After you finish tag 6 other blogger friends and let them know.

Now that we are clear on that, let's start.

1. Your age on your next birthday


He looks an awful lot like Pintsize. Now that birthdays are all about growing another year older, I am going to swear like Pintsize at anyone who dares to wish me "Happy Birthday". I meant Yelling Bird, not Pintsize.


2. A place you’d like to travel to


Corfu, Greece.

3. Your favourite place


Shillong, Meghalaya.

4. Your favourite food/drink


My favourite food changes all the time, but my favourite drink doesn't.

5. Your favourite pet


6. Your favourite colour combination


7. Your favourite piece of clothing


It's not clothing, technically speaking, but you can see pictures of cute shirts any day, whereas Chloe is rarer, don't you agree? No? OK, then, here are some shirts.

I could kill for the one on the right.

8. Your all time favourite song


God, I LOVE this song. I just melt when Justin Hayward starts singing. Which is probably not the most appropriate thing to say on the Internet, but it's not like people are reading this.

9. Your favourite TV show


10. Full name of your significant other

Not applicable.
:(

11. The town in which you live


I spend more time here than I do at home.

12. Your screen name/nickname


That is one of the most disturbing images I have ever seen.

13. Your first job

You are required to travel at least 8 months in the future for this to be true.

14. Your Dream Job


15. Bad Habit you have


16. Your worst fear


I am nyctophobic. Very much so.

17. The one thing you would like to do before you die

The Metropolitan Opera House, New York.

18. The first thing you’ll buy if you get $1,000,000


19. Your favourite credo in life

I am not tagging anyone. You can take it up if you want to.

Auscultate, O Heart

I found this tag at Sayesha's, and since it looked like fun and I have not blogged in the last three months, this is your lucky day.

These are the rules:
1. Put your music player on Shuffle mode.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. Write the song name no matter what it is.
4. After you've answered all of the questions, tag 5 other people and let them know they've been tagged.

Before I begin, let me tell you that I have weird taste in music (and clothes, too, come to think of it). Queries along the lines of "you actually listen to that crap?" will receive a lesson on the indecencies of the enquirer's ancestors. Consider this a statutory warning. Wow, I used "statutory warning" in a sentence. My, what, language skills, are, like, getting, y'know, better. I mean, like, wow.

1. If someone says "Is this okay?", you say:
Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
Hey, that would have been appropriate if my usual response wasn't "What crapped on it?"

2. What would best describe your personality?
She's got you high and you don't even know yet
The sun's in the sky, it's warming up your bare legs
I would love to meet whoever is singing this about me. He (note the masculine pronoun) better be handsome. And rich. And not given to airing his bare legs in public.

3. What do you like in a guy/girl?
He's everything you want
He's everything you need
He's everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
That is the chorus. I had to use that because I couldn't make any sense out of
Somewhere there's speaking
It's already coming in.
The girl, well, she means nothing to me, and I don't know why.

4. How do you feel today?
I'm not like them
But I can pretend
The sun is gone
But I have a light
The day is done
But I'm having fun
I think I'm dumb
Or maybe just happy
I feel a little nauseous, to be honest, so happy I am not. I guess I was dumb to eat all that shellfish for dinner.

5. What is your life's purpose?
Young teacher, the subject
Of schoolgirl fantasy
She wants him so badly
Knows what she wants to be
*pointedly stares in the opposite direction*
For those who know me, this is highly inaccurate. I repeat, inaccurate. As in, not true. I cannot emphasise that enough.
For those who are in on my deepest, darkest secrets, isn't this ridiculous?

6. What do your friends think of you?
Si ella te hace falta
Como el agua
Si es tu mayor necesidad
That is the Spanish version of Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman. Jeez, my friends secretly wonder if I am gay? I have said this before, and I am saying it again, the answer is NO. N-O. No. Nicht. Nahi. Non. Nein. A very emphatic no.

7. What do you think of your parents?
Come to decide that the things that I tried
Were in my life just to get high on
Reminds me of this.

8. What do you think about very often?
To really love a woman, to understand her
You gotta know it deep inside.
Holy shit. This is NOT funny.

9. What is 2+2?
Such a feelin's comin' over me
There is wonder in most everything I see
Nah. Let's see the next one.
The wise man said
Just walk this way
To the dawn of the light.
And forget about stupid Math problems.

10. What do you think of your best friend?
Talk to me softly, there is
Something in your eyes
Don't bend your head in sorrow
And please don't cry
Yeah, I won't let her cry tonight. Because she has a bad cold and went to bed early.

11. What do you think of the person you like?
Uske siwa, kuchh yaad nahi [I think of nothing but him]
Uske siwa, koi baat nahi [I talk of nothing else but him]
This would be true if I did have a crush on someone at the moment. I don't.
For those in on my deepest, darkest, secrets, *giggle*

12. What is your life story?
Love of mine
Someday you will die
But I'll be close behind
And follow you into the dark
He is going to die before we meet? And I have nothing to fear because I am going to die too? I knew the world was coming to an end.

13. What do you want to be when you grow up?
We passed upon the stairs
Spoke of was and when
I am going to sell the world. The one that is going to end soon. Take that, suckers!

14. What do you think of when you see the person you like?
Kyun aaj kal neend kam khwab zyada hai [I wonder why I dream more and sleep less now]
Lagta khuda ka koi nek irada hai [I think the Big Guy has something in store for me]
*giggle*
On a more cynical note, I think the song is more about indigestion.

15. What do your parents think of you?
Take a bow
The night is over
This masquerade is
Getting older
Now my parents want me to leave home. How can they even think such a thing? I have no money, no job, no other place to live. When I sell the world, they go too.

16. What will you dance to at your wedding?
It's good news week
Someone's dropped a bomb somewhere
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the sky
It's been wonderful, love, and we are going to live happily ever after, just the two of us. Because everyone else is dead.

17. What will they play at your funeral?
She's got a smile that it seems to me
It reminds me of childhood memories
If only they would stare long enough to break down and cry. It would be better if they all stopped laughing until after I get cremated.

18. What is your hobby/interest?
Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I've heard of
Once in a lullaby
Yes, I am dreaming of a land where there are no exams.

19. What is your biggest secret?
Soy un hombre muy honrado,
Que me gusta lo mejor
Las mujeres no me faltan,
Ni el dinero, ni el amor
Uh-oh. Now everybody knows that I am really Antonio Banderas. That is not good.

20. What do you think of your friends?
Dancing bears, painted wings
Things I almost remember
In a strange way, this is probably about long lost friends from kindergarten.

21. What should you post this as?
Listen with your heart
You will understand
That will teach you to laugh at my misfortunes. This is the solemn cry of my heart, et cetera.
Hence the title.

22. What do you think about this tag?
When the night is still
And the sea is calm
Lonely shadow
You'll fall upon me.
Lay by my side
Fear not tonight
Lonely shadow
You'll find a new light.
WTF? I am guessing that the lyricist was high on crack.

I have skipped all the instrumental ones. Otherwise my biggest secret would have been the Four Seasons. Which is not really something to be ashamed of. It shows I have good taste. HA!

And now, I tag, well, no one. The nausea is getting worse, and I think I'll go find out how my intestines look like floating in the toilet.

UPDATE: Not that anyone reads the blog, but I felt compelled to put this in. The nausea I kept talking about? Was bad. Very bad. And the vomiting that followed was even worse. I nearly died of shellfish poisoning. I am out of the hospital, where they did every conceivable test on me to rule out saxitoxin poisoning, which I had never heard of before. And the bill. Oh, lord, the bill! Anyway, I am fine now, and (almost) completely recovered. So yay.

Purple Dreamer

A few million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the earth. After a while, birds and some pterodactyls flew about in the sky. Then somehow the dinosaurs and the pterodactyls died out, but the avians survived on fish. The fish became creatures who fed on milk, but couldn't fly. The birds wanted milk, and couldn't get any, so they took to swearing at the cows. Some of the abused took to the trees, in an attempt to intimidate the birds, but they (the birds, that is, and not the yay-I-can-climb-a-tree types) merely took to the skies and pooped on them. The tree-dwellers immediately (give or take a million years) evolved into the Wright brothers, and thumbed their noses at the foul-mouthed fowls. This just goes onto show you that in the vast and important scheme of things, time is irrelevant. Angel-Doc, remember tagging me? Although this post has nothing to do with it, let me emphasise that any resemblance to the meme is purely coincidental. As would have been obvious by now, it's all about how I'm slowly going off my rocker.

I baptise:
1. Tys on Ice
2. Spunky Monkey
3. Ziah
4. The Monk
5. Bullshee
6. Tangled :)
These worthy souls shall carry on the torch of enlightenment. Please don't set fire to the furniture, and keep an extinguisher handy.

People I'd like to execute:
1. My way or the highway:
Commands like 'You should do Gynaecology for your PG', or 'You should not wear high heels.'
The last I checked, this was a free country. I'll walk on stilts if I choose to. If my back hurts later, dammit, it's my back.

2. Insufferable know-it-alls:
I have an aversion to individuals who try to teach me hitherto unknown medical facts. I will not die if I eat curd and fish together. And hanging my cell phone round my neck will not give me a heart attack. There is a very good chance that I might die from a temporal glioma, but not a heart attack. Really. And the sex education perverts who get their kicks from expounding upon 'the union of the male and the female is achieved by the...'? Finish that sentence, and you'll be missing vital parts of your anatomy.

3. You're only a girl:
I understand that men have different qualities, and that women are far superior, so what hell do you mean when you say 'women' with as much venom as you can muster? If you are so contemptuous of what you perceive as feminine weakness, let's see you bleed for a week every month. And thanks to modern technology, now you can become pregnant too. Good luck with getting rid of the placenta.

4. Religious fanatics:
There are all kinds of people out there, and twice that many Gods. Those getting totally obsessed about God or religion have my contempt. I know this girl who is so orthodox she's never been inside any place of worship other than her own, because her Big Guy won't like it.
And the heathen. Don't get me started on that.

5. Bimbos:
Anyone whose head is more for ornament than for its circuitry. I'm not very tolerant of stupidity, even when the packaging is pretty.

6. Hypocrites:
I believe the followers of some faiths do not visit doctors when they are ill. There was one such person in my (please not the point) medical entrance coaching class. She had an acute asthmatic attack one night, and the warden of her hostel called an ambulance. She refused to get into the ambulance saying Satan gave her asthma and that it would go away if she prayed. Why on earth did she want to become a doctor? She didn't get through the entrance, if you were wondering.

7. Arrogant snobs:
'I can't sleep without an AC' types. I can arrange for it to be converted to DC, Your Lowness.

People I'd award the AP Nobel to:
1. Surgeons:
I have a rather complex relationship with surgery. I don't like the subject much, but I surgeons rarely fail to amaze me. All that confidence. 'Bleeder! Cautery.' Just how do they manage to stay on their feet for hours? How do they know one structure from another? How can they do it with such precision? How can they be unaffected by the things they see? How much control does that take? No wonder they think they are Gods. I do, too.

2. Param Vir Chakra:
Ordinary people with the courage to face the daily grind. Or if you prefer corny flakes, the unsung soldiers in the battle of life. I find it easier to deal with big emergencies than the little ups and downs. Q. E. D.

3. Well rounded brainiacs:
No, no. no. That's not what I mean.
I'm talking about people like my friend Scar. He is brilliant, well-read, athletic, and to top it all, he is a nice guy. And I've never found him with his nose buried in a textbook. The latest gossip, or the newest medical breakthrough, I hear it from him. I hope he gets the real Nobel someday. He sure deserves it.

4. Artists :
Whether it's a paintbrush or a scalpel, an artist is an artist.
Was it Mark Twain who said, "If it falls your lot to sweep streets, sweep them like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music." Somehow I can't imagine Mark Twain saying that.

5. B, 65:
I knew him only as B, 65 years. He was a patient in one of the Medicine wards. He had aplastic anaemia, and needed frequent blood transfusions, and that meant regular blood tests. He was the first person I ever drew blood from, and he liked us students. One of the first things we did in the morning was to go talk to him. He used to tell us to work hard, care for our patients, and would never crib about us pricking him for blood everyday. He never complained about his illness, no 'why me'. He always had a smile for me, even on a bad day. He never yelled at us, unlike many of the patients. He had the bed at the end of the ward for the 3 months I was posted in Medicine, and we used to go back and visit him even after our posting ended. One day, he wasn't there, and I heard he'd been shifted to the ICU. He died 2 days later.

6. Smilers:
People with a wonderful sense of humour. I can't find a better example for this than my mom. I was 11, and with the idiots on the Municipal Council blocking the major drains in our area, our house flooded with water during the rains. It was cold, we were knee deep in water, most of our things were on the road on ruin, and the stench was awful. We decided to go away for a couple of days, and were packing everything that could be salvaged. Suddenly, Amma laughed and showed me my foam slippers floating around in the water. It was funny seeing it getting stuck on bits of furniture. I've never met many women her age who is amused by the little absurdities in life. Most of them are very grim and prim.

Having successfully established myself as the epitome of frivolity, here's my Postal Joke. It's an old one, and one of my favourites.
Q: For every 90 sins you commit, you get caught 45 times. Wonder why?
.
.
.
.
.
A: Because sin 90⁰ = cot 45⁰.

P.S: As of today, I have an official fans association at college. What else can I ask for?

18 and Above

No explicit content, peepals, it's the 18 things you've all been dying to know about me. Oh, someone already died? Thou hast not died in vain, O William of Avon, thy sacrifice has been rewarded. You can read this if you can access the net from your grave. You can all thank Sreejith for this literary masterpiece.

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it.
Healed scar, 0.5 * 0.1 cm, on the dorsum of the right hand, 1 cm below and lateral to the 2nd metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint. I had my viva exam in Forensic Medicine yesterday, so please forgive me for not speaking English. Translated, it's a small scar on the back of my right hand, below my index finger. Don't be misled by the size, I bled like a stuck pig. As is true of all of women's problems, this too was due to an MCP. Looks can be deceiving. That's him on the right.

2. What does your phone look like?
You don't know what an iPhone looks like? Tsk-tsk.* I was just dying to say that. My phone is a combination of dirty silver and a particularly ugly shade of blue, thanks to some idiot at Sony Ericsson who thought he was a designer.

3. What is on the walls of your bedroom?
Blood, and other less colourful things that splatter when people die under torture. Makes for a very unique design. I could tell you why they were tortured, but then I'd have to kill you.

4. What is your current desktop picture?
This one, from my favourite comic strip, Pearls Before Swine, by Stephan Pastis. Zeeba Zeeba Eata!

5. Do you believe in gay marriage?
Weddings are serious affairs, sometimes a little too serious, so I think a little more liveliness would do no harm. And if the bride(groom) and (bride)groom add to the gaiety, I have no objections.

6. What do you want more than anything right now?
I want mosquitoes to practice birth control.

7 . What time were you born?
My mom went to work as usual, thinking about her maternity leave which began the next day, and how her little Arjun would be born after a month. She was wrong on all counts. I came along a few hours later, and turned out to be this 2.4 kg Amazon any football team would be proud of! Everyone was expecting a boy, because of how I used to kick. Amma's sari would be lifted into the air and slowly come to rest against her tummy, waiting for me to start again. And I was a month early, the doctor said I was as developed as a baby at full term, so I didn't have to be incubated.

8. Are your parents still together?
My dad is watching TV, and my mom is in the kitchen. So technically, they're not. No mean feat, considering the Bush-heart-Osama moments, (flashback to the time Sun Tzu visited them to get tips on waging wars), but it's been 32 years. Are you listening, Nobel Peace Prize guys? I need one!

9. Last person who made you cry?
It wasn't a person, it was a weighing machine. *sob*

10. What is your favorite perfume / cologne?
I never go out and buy perfume because all my relatives in the Gelf insist on gifting perfumes, and I don't get a choice in the matter. My favourite so far was Red Door.

11. What kind of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex?
I can't stand guys with straightened long hair and tinted contacts, a fad that is hugely popular here. Somebody shoot me!

12. What are you listening to?
Moody Blues- Nights in White Satin.

13. Do you get scared of the dark?
I go to sleep clutching a torch and another one under my pillow so that if there's a power failure in the middle of the night and my night lamp goes off, I can scare Count Dracula away. He attacks only in total darkness. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and shine my torch around the room, to ensure that he isn't hiding behind the bookshelf. No exaggeration, this.

14. Do you like painkillers?
They go well with my migraine.

15. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
I think I would be. Anyone who could make me want to ask him out would be capable of making me tongue-tied.

16. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?
Grapes. I'm crazy about grapes. I can eat grapes morning, noon and night, and even while I sleep.

17. Who was the last person you made you mad?
An ad for spectacle lenses with brand mark. Brand nahi to style nahi. What the bloody effing nonsense? I'd like to throw my Lacoste shoes at them.

18. Who was the last person who made you smile?
My cousin, when he rang up and asked for Dr. AP. :)

Anyone who has cats can take up this tag.

PS: Bill from Avon, stop turning over in your grave.
PPS: The guy who gave me the scar is actually a girl. He's pregnant now.