fat, snotty, pale & lazy

a few weeks ago i was bronzed and trim and healthy.

but sitting in front of a computer all day changes all of that--fast. my tan is gone. almost no exercise and too many carbs are causing an alarming gut expansion. and i've been suffering with allergies that are making me sneezey and sluggish. turns out bangalore is the allergy capital of india.

i need to find some way to reverse all of this. wooing the indian ladies is difficult enough as an outsider without adding the gut and the snot. though maybe being pale is an advantage.

solutions? low carb eating isn't feasible. the gym is too far away. plus my ankle still isn't really exercise ready.

i figured constant bouts of food poisoning and other gut related maladies would keep me trim, but so far i've had it easy. in fact, except for one ultra-spicy food related incident, my bowels have been better behaved here than at home. go figure.

ugh. i think i've said too much.

the indian movie experience

i survived my first indian movie theater experience, barely.

plenty of people talked over the movie. cell phones rang. the dramatic tension was largely undone by a poorly placed intermission. the aspect ratio seemed wrong.

fortunately i had a buffer between me and the masses. if the theater were full it would have been a complete disaster.

at least i only paid about $2.40.

happy independence day

i'm pretty sure i'm not supposed to be working today as it is independence day in the US, but here i am anyway. frankly, i'm not sure the whole independence thing is working out, so it's difficult to get excited about the holiday. after 230 years of it we end up with our worst government ever.

still, i will celebrate. i'm taking the afternoon off to see "war of the worlds" with scientologist superstar tom cruise. i hope i don't end up rooting for the aliens.

police inaction

apparently our intended destination was shut down by the cops, and the evening degenerated into a few guys drinking in my apartment. B and V left at about 1am. i walked out on my balcony at 1:15 and saw them in the streets talking to a group of about 5 cops. probably nothing. i checked again half an hour later and they were still there. this generated a little concern. i walked out to see what was going on, not that i really had much of a strategy for getting them out of the clutches of the police. fortunately i didn't have to. B speaks some kannada (the local language) which delighted the bored police and they were just chatting. finally the conversation broke up, but at this point B and V were worried about finding an auto-rickshaw that wouldn't charge them 4 times the going rate. so they came back to my place and fell asleep on my couches. B was a little concerned that the bored cops would follow us home in search of some booze and something more entertaining than hanging around in the streets with the stray dogs, but they didn't. but this got me thinking... maybe i should befriend the notoriously corrupt cops. once i have them on my side i could get away with anything. not that i have a lot of underworld ambitions here. not yet at least.