Rhinocrisy

For those of you who are extremely unobservant and are navigating the Internet by closing your eyes and clicking wildly: we have moved.^*

A small update on my life: I’ve had typhoid fever for the past month. Actually it’s been going around my house; all of us have gotten it except my roommate Mary, who apparently has a sturdier constitution. However, this weekend I cured myself by application of an enema made with extract of burdock and galangal root. I am hale and fit and ready to take on the world again.

After a long absence, this is perhaps a poor way to reintroduce ourselves. I can only encourage you to, like Tantalus, keep reaching for those grapes. Some succulent fruit is on the way.

I suppose it’s about time to say formally that we’re on hiatus. Although there is much to say, unfortunately at the moment there is even more to do. Fear not, we will return shortly.

While I was wasting time reading our logs (looking at which google searches land people up here - my favorite is probably “mary ann and ginger wrestling”), it occurred to me that our site is not very jazzy, and oughta include something reflecting our history of more appeal than the bland archives. So, taking a long, long shot (given your poor history of actually commenting), I ask you: what’s your favorite post on this site? For whatever reason - humor, information, cynicism, etc. I think I’ve previously made my favorite clear.

Echoing the tentative celebratory note sounded by Hedgehog, new poll on the right.

Regular commentor Hibiscus recently started a bloogh of her/his own, and it is impressive.

The above “Shazam!” is deceptive, actually. I fully intend to mosey back into blooging at a reasonable pace. I apologize for my laxity. The only reason I haven’t been bulging is –

Hey! Look! Over there! What’s that?

[ Points to rear of audience. Runs away. ]

Err. I’m back. Anyway, in this brief hiatus, I accomplished the following:
I started doing capoeira seriously again. I’ve been taking it easy the past few months, but that’s really quite dumb. There’s so much to learn, and I am now in my twenty-eighth year, so I had best get cracking. Also, there’s really no point in wasting time, since that time is, err, wasted.

I also turned twenty-seven, as you may have guessed. I didn’t really celebrate; I never do. My birthday methodology consists of (a) not telling anyone, (b) hoping they’ll somehow figure it out anyway, and (c) waiting around increasingly despondently for someone to call me up and surprise me with a “Happy Birthday, Saurabh!”, thus providing me with enough validation to exist for another year. Thanks to all of you who did wish me; my lack of appreciation was only apparent and not actual.

I took this opportunity to get totally hammered. Four shots of gin, Hendrick’s, straight up, did it for me, since I weigh less than insouciance and had eaten precisely nothing that day. I did reasonably well, despite that - I think my gaze was only slightly unfocused when I said good night to the attractive female server on leaving the bar.

Ah - I started a diet to cure my insouciance weightlessness. It more or less involves me eating a shitload more. I’m skeptical of this working. (See above note about capoeira, for example - I can burn through calories like Sherman in Georgia.)

I went to New Jersey for my cousin’s wedding. It was a Christian ceremony, which I’ve never attended before. In fact, I think I’ve only been to Hindu weddings to date.^* Somewhat instructive. It was an Episcopalian (Anglican) church, which means it’s exactly like a Catholic church, complete with no Bibles in the pews and the rite of the Eucharist, plus silly-looking gowns for the priest deacon. Ah - the major difference being that the deacon was a woman. Her sermon was interestingly constructed, in that it was coherent and engaging almost exactly in the inverse of when she was talking about God.^†

The highlight of that particular excursion was, of course, the reception, where I was officially designated as “guy who must light up the dance floor”, everyone else apparently being either (a) white or (b) Indian uncles/aunties, and therefore unable to dance. This turned out to be not quite true - my sister-in-law loves to dance and can hold her own, and many people were at least committed, if not able. But I’m proud to say I definitely knocked that one out of the park, at least for songs that had desi beats to them, when I could trot out a pretty substantial battery of bhangra moves. I was more or less useless on the seventies disco-esque stuff and the like. How do you dance to that, anyway?

Well, there it stands. What have y’all been up to?

^† Plus Eddie Izzard has made it impossible to take any mention of the Holy Ghost seriously, per his bit:

GOD: What's the Holy Ghost doing these days?

JESUS: Oh, he's useless, Dad. Goes around with a sheet over his head.

HOLY GHOST: [ spookily ] Holy Ghost! Holy Ghooost!

GOD: Holy Ghost, this is not an episode of Scooby Doo.

Apparently, someone decided to list us as a “Blog of Note” on the blogger.com front page. Undoubtedly this brief window of fame^* will result in a meteoric rise, culminating in my being deluged by attractive women and buried alive in a mountain of money and precious jewels. Please send shovels.

In accordance with this elevation in status, we will immediately begin to implement the points of our ten-point program, which are as follows:

• A federal Civilian Caprice Corps will be created to encourage the growth of spontaneity, eccentricity and public exhibitionism; corps members will patrol the streets undercover and reward exemplary spontaneous behavior with a shower of chocolate coins.
• To Adam Peacock: I forgive you and your gang of cronies for teasing me in the third grade. You can keep your thumbs.
• Our first major economics reform will be the imposition of the tyranny of the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO). This will apply at all levels: hot dog buns and hot dogs must both be packaged in compatible multiples; all laptops, cell phones, electric razors and other portable electronic devices will employ common plug interfaces; cameras, etc., will agree on a single freaking memory card format. To avoid confusion due to the newfound prominence of the ISO, the International Socialist Organisation will be disbanded. Sorry, college Marxists.
• Federal dollars currently spent on nuclear stockpile maintenance will be diverted to a National Boondoggle Fund, which will require the construction of a city-wide jungley-gym, kite the size of a ten-story office building, giant mechanical rhinoceros or other frivolous item in every major metropolis in America. This will be a waste of money, but at least it won’t be wasted on the means to destroy the planet.
• To discourage currency speculation, the dollar will be de-floated and fixed against a standard again. This action will be tied to our conservation program by backing the dollar with infant pandas, ensuring that even in the event of a panda-rush and rapid devaluation, no one will be too upset.
• “Local news” programs that report on the travails of neighborhood pets and how the corner drug store is “fleecing America” will be replaced with international news, so Americans know what countries they are bombing and can identify them on a map.
• All politicians will be shot, or at the very least severely reprimanded.
• Foreign aid will be directed towards actual progressive development goals, as opposed to bolstering our favorite gangsters or promoting trade partnerships with American businesses.
• People will actually be made to learn something about how to build democratic institutions in this so-called democracy, starting with civics classes in elementary schools.
• “Mild” and “Medium” salsas will no longer be sold. If you can’t take the heat, eat some rice cakes instead.

Some of these goals may seem controversial^† However, we are confident that with enough good faith and the judicious application of suitable hallucinogenic compounds, you will come to agree with all of our positions. We’ve already printed up the t-shirts.

^† We have considered the possible catastrophic effects of panda extinction in a number of detailed scenarios. However, a small intrepid team could be sent back in time to Qin Dynasty-era China to save the species from total annihilation. We’ve already started our calculations for time warp.