Last 2-3 weeks

A sudden downpour of visiting friends meant I spent much time meeting them, and doing what friends do when they catch up after a long time. It led to relative sleep deprivation, which would be made up for on the weekends. Plus, of course, there is all the anime to catch up on and zombies to kill, all packed in to miserably short weekends.

There was also a weekend where some office colleagues were trying to get one of the brethren started down love lane, which is simply another way of saying, they were trying to set him up with someone. The fact that the chosen night was to celebrate someone else's birthday, and the fact that the girl in question had certain sentiments towards the birthday boy (wrote him an excellent poem in Hindi), made matters, well, complicated. Anyway, surprisingly, that story turned out better than anyone expected. Only now, the new stroller down the lane has been packed off to Delhi by the office and he can't complain enough.

I tired of my French beard and now sport a handle-bar that has evoked many varied reactions, ranging from "stupid" to "scary" to "Mexican drug lord". The last one, though still quite off the mark, led me to coin a new word: Druggler. The meaning should be self evident, and for those for who it is not, it's just a combination of a drug & smuggler. Now I am contemplating whether I should let the lower ends grow in to an Oriental style long droopy moustache, coming down to my Adam's apple, which I will then tie pink and blue rubber-bands on. Ah, but the wait...

Another solar eclipse came and went, this one the first AND the longest of this century, or was it the millennium? Don't know how many of you were in the viewing path, and more specifically, how many were in the path of totality. There was quite a mixed crowd here in my office, where I heard things about how pregnant women shouldn't watch it even on TV, how one can't eat anything for the entire duration it is in the region (read, about 7 hours) and other nonsense I don't care to remember. For my part, I had arranged for an x-ray plate that I used to both watch it and to initiate some first-timers. Good deed for the year done and over with. Of course, my office people need to get some life anyway. I heard a rumour doing the rounds claiming I have a "soft corner" for married women. I promptly put the record straight, saying if I had a soft corner for some woman, her marital status was most certainly her problem, not mine.

Oh, to my own surprise, rather pleasant at that, I won some money playing poker on new year's night. And I had the good sense to quit while I was ahead. And now, I am even more interested in what the next month will bring, seeing as it is the time the astrologer spoke of!