Kumar's Musings

Chocolate, Pistachios, Cake

Original date: February 9, 2006; completion date: March 3, 2006.

My current favourite one is Riesen®. I'm wasting money, and more importantly my health and my teeth on them, to be sure. But they are really tasty. I'm sounding like an ad (no, I haven't gotten anything from them) but it's good stuff.

Now, I know that almonds are much better, but I do love them pistachios. There's this farmers' market on Sundays in Brentwood (on Gretna Green, open 9am to ~2pm) where you get the best ones. if you go there, buy them from the stall close to San Vicente Blvd - the same person who sells raisins and other dried fruits as they have the best ones. They only carry them when they're in season though which is on now. I can never remember when the season ends or starts. I prefer the unsalted ones to get the pure taste from nature. Hey, go ahead and get the salted if that's what you fancy. Salt is naturally occurring too, so you can't go too wrong (check with your doctor, please, before taking my recommendation and messing up your health). Hey, if you still want almonds go to the Saturday market in Santa Monica on Arizona and get them from the guy selling the pre-packaged ones on the south side of the street — his stall is very close to and just west of 3^rd Street Promenade.

Enough plugs for things. On to more interesting and more time-wasting activities while still on the topic of food. I'm just going to mix in some TV and now you know we're really getting somewhere.

As I've mentioned before (see My first thoughts...), I'm a big fan of "That 70s Show." Do high school kids really get so much kicks out of messing up their close friends? It certainly seems to be the definition of friendship on this show. And they still stick together, through thick and thin, and double-crosses, girlfriend stealing, "burns" (I really love that term, esp "Uh Burn" and "Buuuurrrrrn"), etc. That's real friendship, I guess. Or just the TV version of it. Probably more the latter.

Anyway, the cake part. This part of it is mostly contrived to fit a pattern. It's my miniiature tribute to Haruki Murakami. You need to figure out the rest. If you're a fan of his, it'll be not too hard. If not, you may not care anyway. I'm sure I'll write more about him before too long. But, please don't ask as you won't get an answer from me.

Back to the cake part. Anyway when the woman (Donna) says "I love you" to her boyfriend (Eric), he comes back with "(long pause) I love cake" and later with "I love you (long pause) man" and eventually with "I love you" at the end of the show. Why is this interesting? I guess it isn't except as an artifice for the show to play out what it needs.

Just avoid it

Original date: February 10, 2006

I decided yesterday and forgot about it. My friend reminded me about it today and now it has to be an active negation.

I decided that I would try to avoid the winter games completely this year. There are a lot of reasons to avoid it not the least of it being the way it gets covered on television. Anyway tonight was going to be a test of my will.

The fact of the matter is that I love the olympics. I stayed up well into the night for the Nagano & Sydney olympics looking things over on their web sites. I think the Athens olympics did such a bad job with their web content that I started lose my interest.

It's probably the same with television as well. The coverage has changed so much from raw information and events shown the way they happened to glossy productions and presentations. I feel like there is much less emphasis on experiencing the reality of it all and focussing on the telling of it - words, images to emphasize what other people want to emphasize, not what I feel as a direct result of viewing the raw event. How lazy do people think I am that I need to be told what to feel?

I have to admit I did break down at the start - I switched to the channel to the networking carrying what I was avoiding. They decided to help me out by starting out with a long intro of the city and country. It probably was a very interesting intro, if only I was paying full attention. And then they said they were going to spend the next 30 minutes on just 3 athletes before going to the opening ceremonies. That was enough for me.

The other channels helped me out too. You know about my obsession with "That 70s Show"(see My first thoughts...) already. I haven't said too much more about it since then. I started writing something more about that yesterday but couldn't get enough good stuff and let it go. Maybe it'll be revived at some future date. And on Fox, there was "Arrested Development." I've only seen a few episodes of this show and only this year. It's a funny show - not great, but still a nice relief. Thank you very much for pitching in to help me out. Even though he didn't show up today (as far as I noticed in my distracted way while working on this and other such activities), how can a name like "Bob LobLaw" not be funny?

I can just avoid it, at least today.

A quick look at their web site indicates it may only be on par with the Athens one. Oh! Well. At least they do have some good pictures so far and they do have the results. And I'll read the newspaper too, of course.

There are reasons, aren't there?

Original date: February 7, 2006

Do you wonder about rites, rituals, customs, etc? How do they get started and why do people continue doing them? There are reasons, I'm sure. The original reasons are almost always lost and they become things that people do. Habits.

Oftentimes, the value changes too. They still have utility, just not the original one. That doesn't matter so much.

Other things that aren't rituals that are still habits are very interesting in their own way. People classify them as good habits, bad habits. Some even call them unavoidable habits. Now that's an addiction, for sure, even if it isn't harmful to the person doing them or to others. I'm losing track of my main issue here. Let's get back to that.

A couple of things triggered this. My habitual behaviour under certain circumstances, be they riding the bus, reacting to certain things and even in certain ways in meetings and with certain people. Or even talking to myself and it comes out aloud once in a while. Doesn't that happen to you? Are you embarrassed when it does? Even if no one was around to notice? Now, what does it mean if you're not embarrassed even if people are around and noticed. Most of the time, people pretend that they didn't notice anything anyway.

The main thing that triggered this thought process was the coverage of a funeral of a famous person today. It was an important person. But why the ceremony? It certainly is a celebration of the life. Making their family feel (or only now realize) how important this person was is certainly one of the reasons. Setting an example for others is another. Hopefully, it their greatness that would inspire people and not the fact that there was such a big deal made about them. It doesn't even matter as long as they actually do good things that benefit others.

I started doing some web searches on funerals and found a large body of work related to this.Here's a good quote: "The funeral declares that a death has occurred. It commemorates the life that has been lived, and offers family and friends the opportunity to pay tribute to their loved one." (source: http://familyestate.com/main/funeral.html) Many of these talk about closure, acceptance, etc. Those most of us recognize. Most of these views are from sites that provide services for funerals.

I really liked this article entitled "why funerals?" from a group called American Society for Aging.

It is interesting that none of these articles (at least the few that I read) talks about setting an example and that's the most obvious one to me.

We need to have some semblance of a feeling of control over our lives. That's the reality we understand, need for our sanity. Ignoring them is always an option, I suppose. "what you don't know won't hurt you" is a common expression. Trust me, I don't know many cases when that's remotely true. What you don't know comes back to bite you most of the time.

Yes, there had better be reaons.

Not too bad a Sunday

Original date: February 6, 2006

Not too bad a day after all.

The running wasn't too great, but I completed it anyway. I guess leftover tiredness from Friday's 10K run. It wasn't a race, just decided to do it as I haven't run the Super Bowl 10K in Redondo Beach since 2003.

Watching the Super Bowl with friends was great. Plus the fact that the Steelers won made it nice. That doesn't matter too much when all's said and done. What's the connection, anyway? The fact that you lived in Pennsylvania, lo those many years ago. You've lived in the West coast considerably longer. It is still hard to give up your early experiences. Pennsylvania was your first home in the states.

Why the sudden switch to the second person? I'm not sure. Probably still a little less pretentious than using the third person, I suppose. I'm sure, I'll use the 3rd person too in one of these. Just try to look past that, alright?

The Steelers played pretty well but not great. Seattle played less well. I guess the Steelers were able to overcome more than Seattle is what makes it more interesting. In most of the statistics, they were worse off, but still came ahead. Which means that they did pretty well when it counted the most. They didn't let the opposition take advantage of the 2 interceptions and did take advantage of theirs. Take away the return for a touchdown and the interception so close to the goal line and the end might've been the other way around. Isn't that how sports go? Some lucky breaks for sure, but taking advantage of the breaks is where it seems to make the final impact. Now, that's a life lesson for us all.

So, what makes this day a "Not so bad" one? It was mostly because I was able to see some people who I haven't seen since last year. And, the children too. That makes it especially nice.

Not too bad a Sunday. Definitely.

Second chances...

Original date: January 31, 2006

You never know what triggers it. It could me a smell, or it could be something you saw in the corner of your eye, or even a person. Suddenly it all comes back. Let's not get too dramatic here - it's usually not in a flood. Once it happens, you usually tell yourself that you need to follow-up on that thought. Once in a while you get lucky and the memory sticks and you can act on it. You remember that you really used to love these and somehow a couple of years or more have gone by without you thinking about them. Most of the time, it slips right out of your mind again. And, some of those times you even remember that there was something to remember, and then, oh! well, it's gone and you move on.

I don't know about you, but I certainly go a couple of years or even longer ins some cases without listening to what was my favourite music.

This latest return was caused by a not-too-old issue of New Yorker I started reading last week. I have a large backlog (I mean really large - multiple years) of issues which I've just saved and am now getting back to a few of them. Anyway, this one was from Feb 28, 2005. Like I said, not too old. I have issues going back to 2002 that I haven't read.

This article was by Jonathan Lethem titled "The Beards." A very fine piece of writing, I must say. He refers to Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here". That reminded me that I still think that is my all-time favourite album. He also mentioned Talking Heads and I decided that I would go back to that music.

I had really gotten into Dave Matthews Band the last couple of years and a bit of Santana and even Abba and had forgotten my old favourites. Will they bring the same feelings once again? I wasn't sure. When I went back to them, I found that I still loved them as much I had earlier - it's been at least two or three years since I heard any of those three.

In that article (this portion of it, I only got to today), he refers to how he was mistaken somewhat about his views of some of his earlier tastes. I'm not sure what it means for me that my tastes hadn't changed. Maybe some other things have changed for me, but not this.

I also re-discovered Pink Martini's "Sympathique.". Please do give "Sympathique" a try and you won't be disappointed. That is, if you don't have very specific tastes. It's great for people who like interesting music from all genres as long as it's good. It certainly meets my definition of good music. If you feel like I made you waste your time, send me a nasty note (avoid swear words, if at all possible - another of my quirks!). I can take it, I think.

Quirks & beliefs - Part I (Of many, I'm sure)

Original date: January 29, 2006 (started on 2005/11/11)

You don't know it yet, but I like parenthetical comments - sort of like voices in my own head, but not quite (I hope! See, your first glimpse of it already.). The other thing you need to know is I really don't like air-quotes. Real quotes are acceptable - and in many cases necessary - unless one's a plagiarist (Please see my very first sentence of - and, here it comes - "My first thoughts...".). You may notice places already in this brief note where many people would place quotes in writing or use them when saying them. Just stop thinking about it.

I'll stop now.

Well, maybe just two more things. I'm not a big fan of exclamation points either, except where appropriate. Again, see my first sentence in "My first thoughts...." Finally, I tend to use the words hope and hopefully regularly and only in the meaning of having hope or full of hope, not in the sense of expecting the worst. At least, that's optimistic, don't you think?

My first thoughts...

Original date: November 11, 2005

I'm really hooked on "That 70s Show" -- really!

There are two things about it that make the show fun and interesting for me. I didn't get to the US until 1980. Yup, that's right, just missed the 70s. In addition, I don't know anything about high school life & friendships here either as I got here past all that. It certainly gives me whole new perspectives. Of course, I need to be realistic and realize that it probably is a somewhat skewed view. Still, I can only assume that some portions of it are true.

Please don't be put off by my initial post. While I do watch TV (probably too much), I do have other interests and, hopefully, you'll find some of them more interesting.

Let's see what the future holds. Time, your patience, and the limits of my creativity and writing skills will tell where we all end up.

Feedback

Formail above is a slight modification of the script courtesy of Matt's Script Archive


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