Fighting with Uncle Sam

It took two PhD students a cumulative of 10 hours to Not complete a federal tax return and two state tax returns over the weekend. Phaedrus and I have to file joint state tax returns for 2 states as we are residents of 2 different states, and North Carolina tax instructions are umm, not very clear. So much so, that even TurboTax did some totally whacky calculations and confused us for another 3 hours. How did that get THAT fraction?...we tried every permutation and combination, till we figured that it had got it wrong as well.

After having taken turns nudging each other awake from falling asleep over the forms, we finally called it quits at 4.00 in the morning, broken and defeated by Uncle Sam. Phaedrus, exhausted, cursing my home-state, had a sound, dreamless sleep; I saw line instructions and arithmetic all night. I woke up and zombied over to the computer and tax forms blindly staring at them for another hour first thing in the morning, before Phaedrus came to check if I had died or something sitting in my chair.

Hilarity

After a colleague announced to others in a meeting today that I have a "hilarious" blog, I am forced to fulfill the adjective describing this blog. Here goes.

Playing to the Gallery

Surely you do not think me to be a bad piano
A bad piano throws up when one bangs down on it
I only sputter.

You say, I am off-tune?
Is that your fault or mine or his?

On the other hand, I think you shouldn't sit where you are, up there.
Forcing me to be louder to reach your discerning ears.
I am an instrument, you know,
Not a vocal chord.

On the other hand, vocal chords strain more than I am straining.
What would you do then, compare them to a bad piano?
Like me?

Sob.

Invisibility

You may have heard the news of the cloak.

The cloak - more recently made famous by a privately wealthy school where Harry and the Romulans studied electromagnetics in 400 AD. The school is known for its legendary cigar smoking statue….. captured with its Hogwartian backdrop only in brochures and tourist-clicked photographs. On clear windless days, it is more likely for the statue to be found cloaked by a dimpled brownish orange bouncing sphere, with no wings, and thin black lines drawn across it. The beauty of this sphere, without the color and the dimples, is that it is the focal point of the diagrams explaining how the cloak works…using the black lines to great bending effect.

Surprisingly, the inventor does not have a mane of wild wavy hair and a tongue sticking out. He does not have a cigar, in spite of the tongue not sticking out. He does not have a scraggly white beard and bushy eyebrows, to draw inattention to the fact that his tongue is not sticking out. Why?

But his other-world non-Romulan pate radiates a disconcerting aura of

The Baking Soda that Baked a Bitter Bread

Today, two loaves of bitterly bitter banana bread later, I discovered that baking powder and baking soda are two entirely different, non-interchangeable ingredients. The recipe called for 3.5 tsp of baking powder, and I put in 3 tbsp of baking soda. Wrong ingredient, wrong quantity.

The bread texture is great, it just tastes like it was soaked in neem juice.

So for all ye beginner bakers, here is a rule:
Short cooking times (pancakes and cookies) need baking soda , which is purely sodium bicarbonate.
Long cooking times and high heat, Breads and cakes, need powder, which is a mixture of sodium bicarbonate and cream of tartar. Sodium bicarbonate dissociates pretty fast...and then the cream of tartar takes over.

short and sweet need soda
breads and cakes need powder.


The larger question is what do I do with all this lovely looking, ugly tasting bread?

Crime and Punishment

The crime of rhyme:
there are only so many.
The curse of its verse:
the jails of deja vous.

Burnt Green Postcards

Burnt green postcards

I am sending postcards that are going
all over the world,
asking: what shall become of our dream?
When the army of hollow half-cuboidal horsemen
prepare to war with regimented rectangular footsoldiers;
and all that will be left are tree stumps
of burnt sienna
and dried brick-red blood;
when leaf green and sky blue
will all turn to charcoal black?

Maybe then, you cool dude
with your cool swagger and
cool cheap plastic sunglasses
will freeze and think
why you’ve always put
that 100% compostable and fully renewable cup
in the trash.

And you, miss fake thinker,
in perfect pose for a portrait photo
will move and uncomfortably sigh:
neither did I.

And I,
A de-clawed tiger
A de-olfactorized dog
A blinded vulture,
will smash into these empty spaces
bathed in paraboloids of jaundiced yellow,
and wait and wait
for a timid teal, tapir or tadpole
to come splashing down these
meandering ways again.

On Earth

On some child soldiers in Liberia, as told by Janet Sumo
Pure evil staring in your face
No reason or cause
Except that they like it

On Self Righteousness
I am both right
and great for being right

On the life of Draupadi, with her 5 husbands
Closed loop relay race

On all living things non-human
They are going to heaven.

On Global Warming
Burn to heat

On Time
Gone.

On endangered species
Going going...

On extinct species
..Gone.

On Historians
Gone...going going.

On Earth
I am.

On Thoughts
Gone awry.

Who moved my mail?

Sweating it out in the gym this morning after a 2 week hiatus, I found that I had landed in front of the TV screen with the local channel WRAL. Amidst news of an annual book sale at Wake County (300,000 books up for grabs) and the world's largest annual spaghetti dinner (organized by the Greek orthodox church interestingly enough, not the Italians) in Fayetteville NC and other earth shaking news, I was especially taken aback by news of a mailman in Raleigh NC who didn't deliver the mail, but instead buried it all in his backyard for years and years.

Now, the first thing one would think of is that here is one person who really hated his job, and had a lot of secrets he wanted to keep underground, pun intended. But wait, Mailman Steve buried only junk mail. So he was a human spam filter, how convenient! Except that the folks did not have any control over his filter settings, which is not very convenient ( I missed the Macy's One day sale, yet Again, Dammit!). His explanation was that his health problems were getting in the way of delivery and so he decided to filter out the junk mail hoping nobody would notice. I suppose the lawyer did a good job, because no consumer wrote back to support the litigation other than a single one who in fact supported Steve's actions. It also helped that he has been a model citizen otherwise. End result: He is got off with probation and community service. And if you look at the latest quarterly reports for USPS, you will see how it could have helped his health. For 48.3 million pieces of domestic mail delivered, 23.2 million pieces came from what is termed as standard mail, which I presume is junk mail (it is not first class or priority or express or periodicals or packages). But here is the other catch: the absence of junk mail would kill the postal system financially. Apparently, the US postal system has been surviving (inspite of continuing losses on the balance sheet) thanks to revenue from junk mail, what with the use of phone and email for me to get in touch with my friends and family. So what is one to do?

Steve's case is still better than other postal carriers in the past who just buried or stored ALL kinds of mail. Both Vickey Warner from Middlebury, Indiana and Jill Hull from Howell Michigan stated that they were ovewhlemed, delivered as much as they could and just could not deliver the remaining on time. Thousands of pieces of mail remained undelivered.

If you are already not agonizing over whether the last letter from your grandmom is just delayed or buried, consider Robert of Tennessee and Robert of Alabama both of who just stole the mail. How is that different from the previous instances? Umm, they opened it too. Took out cash, gift cards and prescription drugs and other goodies and gave them as Christmas gifts to their families.

Think of all the other possibilities: SS numbers, CC numbers, telephone numbers and what have you in your mail. Who is to say that some very corrupt mail carriers are not responsible for identity theft?

But don't let a small bunch of not-really-epitomes-of-virtue give a bad name to the larger set of stellar, conscientous workers called the postmen (and postwomen). I am ready to vouch for mine.

And who is to say that tomorrow your inbox may not get hacked?

Coming out of Aestivation

The title only refers to the blog, not me.

This summer and fall has been super busy, not necessarily productive, but very event-filled, hectic, stressful, fast-paced and what not. When too many things are going on, writing is like molasses in an open upside down jar: nothing comes out. Too many stimuli coming in the way of a creative outlet.

At the risk of sounding as though I am writing now because I have less to do (quite the contrary), I am making a renewed attempt to write more regularly without making it a function of my "busy"ness. While I have now started frowning at the idea of multitasking (though I used to claim particular expertise in the area till yesterday), the concept of time-division multiplexing seems to be more attractive. Multitasking really isn't what it sounds like. Your brain is not working on two things at the same time. It is actually rapidly shifting focus back and forth on those multiple tasks, giving neither its due. So, instead of 3 minutes of email, 2 minutes of staring at your report to get your train of thought started, distracted for another 2 minutes with another email service, 1 minute of lunch, 5 minutes of wondering what was your train of thought with the report, another 2 minutes of lunch; 2 more minutes of wondering why you hadn't received a reply to your last email yet; and feeling that you are able to work on writing your report, checking email and eating lunch at the same time, you have achieved nothing. The report is still on the first paragraph, lunch is sort of halfway swallowed, and while no new emails came in for all that checking you did, you did email an RSVP to Friday night's party.
Well, I'm thinking of going back to the good ol' middle school timetable, and see if I can finish my report in 30 minutes, check my email for the next 5 and go out, sit on the park bench and eat my lunch for another 10. Let's see if I can use this strategy tomorrow. In the meantime, snoozing and writing especially don't seem to to adapt themselves well to the multitasking concept. I opt for my first time slot from the TDM scheme to accomplish slee...pi..nggggggggggggzzzzzzz

A "Mean"ingful Conversation

A Meaningful conversation:
A: Yesterday I saw a squirrel that had got squashed on the road.
B: Oh, that is really sad. I wish squirrels had more sense. They are such cute creatures. It breaks my heart.
A: Ya, but that's the law of nature. There is always life and death.

A more MEANingful conversation:
A: Yesterday I saw a squirrel that had got squashed on the road. Its teeth were all jutting out in a hideous permanent grin.
B: Ya, it would be the thing you non-vegetarians would do. Examine even a squashed squirrel on the road that closely.
A: Oh ya, and you vegetarians , you grass eating people. You guys are not any better.
B: You carnivores, so did that squirrel on the road look edible enough for you?
A: Well, I am not sure about that, but there was plenty of grass on the sidewalk that you cows would most readily chew on (makes faces resembling a cow chewing cud )

A Meaningful conversation:
Y: So I heard from S that you are thinking of selling your car to her.
Z: Ya, it is a good car. I just bought a newer car so I need to sell that one.
Y: I am sure you must have kept it in very good running condition. I wouldn't expect anything less from you.
Y: Yes, I am passionate about my cars, and I think it would be a great car for her too.

A more MEANingful conversation:
Y: So I heard from S that you are thinking of selling your car to her.
Z: I just bought a newer car so I need to sell that one.
Y: Is this what you do to your friends? Sell them your old crappy junk?
Z: Of course not, it would then become Their old crappy junk. I keep the new stuff.
Y: I wouldn't touch any mechanical thing that belonged to you with a 10 foot pole. Heck, you can't even walk out the room without walking straight into a closed door first.
Z: Well, I am not selling it to you. And I am tired of you teasing me.
Y: What are you going to do about it?
Z: NOTHING!


Oooooh. Nothing like MEANingful conversations to spice up your day.

PS: These conversations are inspired by perfectly true events.