Miscellaneous notes to self

Stuff to do, sometime in the near future:

Read Jon Ingram’s post on Euclid’s Elements, and then The Book itself. I haven’t read Euclid yet, but I did spend some time doing Geometry of the kind Jon describes when I was at school. I most emphatically did not understand a whole lot of what I was doing, then. An extremely enjoyable book that deals with Euclidean geometry, among other things, is The Challenge and Thrill of Pre-College Mathematics by V. Krishnamurthy, et al. I wish this book had come out when I was younger.

Complete the Z_m is a finite field if and only if m is prime proof. Drat.

Scour Krish Ashok’s work on Bollywood’s fine tradition of Unplayable Guitar Chords to find more gems like mango-people. Out of the 58 (till date) commenters on that post, nobody’s cottoned on to the connection between mango-people and the hapless targets of free power, free rice, free clothes, free TVs and other surefire vote-winning strategies of successive governments. Ha!

Watch Tahalka. It would be bad form on my part to not mention that it was Greatbong’s review that inspired me to try and watch the movie again. Before reading Greatbong, I remembered the movie for one thing and one thing alone – Dharmendra trying to rip off Clint Eastwood in Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo, but coming out with something that sounded like If you vaant to shit, shit – don’t taalk. I kid you not!

Get hold of House on DVD. Every single episode till date.

The traditional “last but not the least” item: Make my peace with the little Devil. His diarrhoea got worse, and I took him to the hospital. He had to be restrained while the nurse pricked his left arm for the IV, and I held him and tried to pacify him as the needle approached. Despite that, he managed to lash out and bend the needle the first time around. Ever since, my entrance into his room provokes from him a look that combines suspicion, hostility, disappointment and other like emotions. My many apologies to him have had little success, and his forehead sports a crease that goes away only when I leave his sight. An attempt to kiss his forehead results in an emphatic waaanh of dismissal. Damn, I didn’t know infants were as picky as this. Hopefully this shouldn’t take too long to do.

Yellow becomes green
Smooth foreheads crease with worry
New teeth, or old bugs.

Update, 04 Sep:
What was green is slowly turning yellow. What was runny is slowly turning clumpy. An old bug it is (was?). Did anybody say parenthood was easy?

Update 05 Sep:

Bloody hell. The little devil had to be taken to hospital and hooked up to an IV, screaming, kicking and bringing the place down. He should be back at home today evening. A paediatrician’s job is hell, I must say. Trying to administer medicine to a wailing 8-month old is a pain in the butt, and what’s worse? Hooking up a needle to his arm. Argh. The LD has amazing lung power, I could hear him scream two floors down. Bloody hell.

Four minutes to twelve.

The rain is falling in sheets, and makes a noise reminiscent of the ancient Hawkins pressure cooker at home heard from a distance. Funny, how one’s childhood home is always home. I’m surrounded by a mess of discarded clothes, half-read books and empty soft drink cans. The floor is unswept, has been for days. A corner of the bed is dedicated for cables of many kinds. Close by lie my prized pair of Faber-Castells, and several almost complete Hindu crosswords. My faithful companion of nearly a decade, Kernighan & Pike, stares at me, upside down, its yellow, brown and green fluttering gently in the breeze from the cluttering ceiling fan. Orhan Pamuk’s bespectacled visage smiles from another cover, in another corner. Unwashed denims mingle with freshly washed socks and a few crumpled checked shirts.

Some nights, it is not nice to be lonely.

My bedroom in its current state is a good approximation of what my room at the R-block in the Institute with Tree Lined Avenues looked like. Not pretty, at its best. Disorder is the word that comes to mind.

A week more, and I shall be complete again. My other half and our little devil will join me. I need to get rid of the disorder at home before that happens. It is with some regret that I contemplate the end of my temporary bachelorhood – no more late night hacking, no more living like a tramp, no more junk food. On the other hand, the little devil with the cherubic smile should be more than willing to make a mess of the house. He’d be able to get away with it – all he has to do is smile, and both his angry parents are rendered powerless as their anger melts away.

Nothing like a little disorder to liven things up.

Precipitation

Rubber kisses slush
Ochre embraces white
The spinning drum hums