Natural Highs

Think about them one at a time BEFORE going on to the next one...
IT DOES MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD, especially the thought at the end.

1. Falling in love.
2. Laughing so hard your face hurts.
3. A hot shower.<>
4. No lines at the supermarket
5. A special glance.
6. Getting mail < >
7. Taking a drive on a pretty road.
8.. Hearing your favorite song on the radio.
9. Lying in bed listening to the rain outside.
10. Hot towels fresh out of the dryer.
11. Chocolate milkshake. (or vanilla or strawberry!)
12. A bubble bath.
13. Giggling.
14. A good conversation.
15. The beach
16. Finding a 20 dollar bill in your coat from last winter.
17. Laughing at yourself.
19. Midnight phone calls that last for hours. <>
20. Running through sprinklers. <>
21. Laughing for absolutely no reason at all.
22. Having someone tell you that you're beautiful.
23. Laughing at an inside joke.
24. Friends.
25. Accidentally overhearing someone say something nice about you. <>
26. Waking up and realizing you still have a few hours left to sleep. <>
27. Your first kiss (either the very first or with a new partner). <>
28. Making new friends or spending time with old ones.
29. Playing with a new puppy. <>
30. Having someone play with your hair. <>
31. Sweet dreams.
32. Hot chocolate. <>
33. Road trips with friends. <>
34. Swinging on swings. <>
35. Making eye contact with a cute stranger. <>
36. Making chocolate chip cookies. <>
37. Having your friends send you homemade cookies. <>
38. Holding hands with someone you care about. <>
39. Running into an old friend and realizing that some things (good or bad) never change. <>
40. Watching the _expression on someone's face as they open a much desired present from you. < >
41. Watching the sunrise. <>
42. Getting out of bed every morning and being grateful for another beautiful day. <>
43. Knowing that somebody misses you. <>
44. Getting a hug from someone you care about deeply. <>
45. Knowing you've done the right thing, no matter what other people think. <>

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Photos of the don...

LOOK AT THE DON

I have not maintained a photo album in a long time. I only send out photos to ppl i know when the events take place.
However, i was recently pestered for a anthology of photos since i was a kid. A lot of my snaps are still not digital, so it may take some time change this status... heowever, here are some snaps from recently to a long time back... in reverse order of clickment....

if you think this is a vain exercise, I wish to again remind you that you are NOT on the homepage of any Mr Universe ... this is a plain simple ME - Raghu - Raghudon - Rags call moi by any name!
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1) At the risk of providing free humor and laughter to my readers.... heres my latest snap... my driver talked me into this pose cuz he thought i looked like a corporate don! kinda living to my name of "Raghudon" am i not mean looking? Please note that this is not really posed dress up... one day i was in the factory with my sleeves dirty, so i rolled up my shirt... also had a bout of sore eyes, so wore the gogs.... he pestered me to sit up on my table so he could shoot me... the result for all to see. :-) wil leave the comments to you to give!



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2)


















My niece pradnya and me when she was wee bit... shes so sweet!
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Some snap clicked in china when i had gone for some convention.
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The small don when he was i think 2 years old... I had the beginning of a paunch from way back then i think :-) though my folks never let me retain this rockstar look later on in life... the closest i came was when in college and i refused to cut my hair for 3 moths citing the exam "oath" whch in fact was a pretext to grow them... but the bloody things take uo too much maintenance time... so had to let them go.



will put up some more when i can..... and if wanted :-)

comments welcome as usual...................

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Worst analogies ever written in a high school essay

Worst analogies ever written in a high school essay (9th Deceber 2006)

Forgive me for not writing something original for some time. This was a nice piece sent to me and some of them looked atrociously funny! I hae put in my comments on some of these. I have a couple of ideas for the "latestest" blog entry but then by the time i am a bit free to pen them, those thoughts would have vaopurised like a camphor block subjected to a burning flame... lol (dont know whether I shoudl also include this in the below mentioned list :-) )

Also kind of reminds me of one college proncipal who used a statement like "He has to be kicked not with hands, but with feet" he was the most adorable principal there ever was who used to have a kids inquisitiveness and ask "mhanje " (meaning what?) for anything that he could not comprehend.
Rags

• He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
  Joseph Romm, Washington
• She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
  Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station
• The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
  Russell Beland, Springfield
• McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
  Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring
• From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.
  Roy Ashley, Washington
• Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
  Chuck Smith, Woodbridge
• Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
  Russell Beland, Springfield
• Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake
  Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills
• Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
  Unknown
• He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
  Jack Bross, Chevy Chase
• The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
  Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring
• Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man."
  Russell Beland, Springfield
• Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
  Jennifer Hart, Arlington
• The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
  Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.
• They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth
  Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.
• John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
  Russell Beland, Springfield
• The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
  Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria
• His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free
  Chuck Smith, Woodbridge
• The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
  Unknown

Based on an unoriginal article in the Washington Post.

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Riot Rot: Collective Effervesence

30th November 2006

Collective effervescence (CE) is the energy formed by a gathering of people as might be experienced at a sporting event, a carnival, or a riot. This energy can cause people to act differently than in their everyday life.
- Wikipedia

Today again we got to see the "great" CE in action through Bombay and other places.

Imagine the scenario:
1) There some statue in some remote corner of UP in kanpur that ppl dont even know any hell about
2) someone deforms this statue
3) the people who consider the statued person (thankfull no more) their leader and god are engraged and beliee they have to avenge this insult.

the result
50+ buses burnt
4 people killed
hundreds of vehicles with their glasses broken
thousands injured
loss of productivity running to hundreds of crores of rupees due to disruption
trauma for everone whose loved ones have left home and havent given back a message that they are alright.........

is the "act" avenged?? I surely think not///
Ok at the risk of being called a "racist" i am hereby getting some facts and opinions out:

1. This was the "Dalits".. firstly I dont know why they have to be called so, there is no difference between them and me... does dalit mean downtrodden THOUGHT? i think not... then why do they so proudly call themselves so? Done they have shame to extol their dalitness rather than integrating into society?
2. Statues should be banned ... be they anyones...
   
3. Tomorrow, will they kill all the pigeons and crows because they defacate on their great leader?
4. The loss of public property like busses, buildings, cars, lightposts is so LIGHTLY condoned!
5. even if a kid who does not understand much knocks off a vase and breaks it, the parent will admonish it so that it does ot repeat this mistake.. has the government done aything? where are the riot control police? where are the water cannons? where are the rubber pellets? once twice and three times when they are subject to this treartment, they wil not repeat this
6. Spray the mob with some colour like red which is indelible for at least 4 days so that everyone will identify that this bastard was rioting somewhere.. this social stigma itself will stop rioters... i wish i can patent a product or idea like this
   

There has been so much of a loss... i have lost almost half the day as a result of being tortured like this. I took a round and round route and avoided the mob, but my workers bus was stranded and I spent an agonising 2 hours till they came to the factory. They had only gory tales of broken windows, beaten men and abusive and violent women... and they were shaking!

my canteen was forced shut by a 100 goons ( i still refuse to call them dalits) and i was forced to feed my workers from my personal pantry :-(

So we have to only wait for the grand finale on the 6th of december when hordes of them (sounds like pack of hyenas) descend on Bombay and shit around Shivaji Park turning it to resemble a public toilet. They will come in all trains without tickets, come drunk and molest women and children, create havoc and fear.... all in all i shudder to await the next 6 days... and another event is the aniversary of the babri masjid demolition....

why do we have this CE? Why does it turn a peon, a clerk, a labourer into a monstor? What is the sum effect of all this violence and damage? is there anything to gain except fear and repulsion for them in our minds? is there any logic left in their lives? can they look at their children in the eye and say "what i have done is right"..... difficult qustions with no answers!

God Bless our country.... try your best to convert it into paradise... and we have the capabilitiy to turn paradise into india!
I shall still FIGHT.... fight for my right to freedom and to keep that I have earned? i dont have to give it to a second hander......

John Galt ... where art thou? come show us the guidance and thy atlantis............

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Dilbertisms

30th November 2006
The month end is here.... so are a lot of mundane tasks like monthly reports, filings, tax returns, excise maters, etc etcjust fished out some of the alltime great dilbert strips.... i just love the sense of humor in irony that scott adamns is able to get into this situation! hes awsome!the characters are there in some shades in every office around the worldEnjoy this sharing....



 

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Dilbertisms

30th November 2006

The month end is here.... so are a lot of mundane tasks like monthly reports, filings, tax returns, excise maters, etc etc
just fished out some of the alltime great dilbert strips.... i just love the sense of humor in irony that scott adamns is able to get into this situation! hes awsome!
the characters are there in some shades in every office around the world

Enjoy this sharing....





 

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Feels like Heaven

21st November 2006

For a change I am plagarising someone elses work. This is posted by my friend saleha at http://www.immaculatemissconception.blogspot.com/ lot of things also struck a chord with me hence i reproduce it down here with my own comments in blue

Why does it feel like heaven when-

• You sip on homemade chicken corn soup with lotsa pepper on it? If I wrote a book, i would call it Chicken Corn Soup for the Weary Soul being a veggie cannot vouch for it
  
• Ma strokes your hair, even if when someone else touches our manes, we leap to attack? I even went through a phase, when I learnt how maranoid my mom was that my waist length hair would get lice in India, I would purposelt scratch my head and tell her I felt itchy, and she would spend hours, poor soul, looking for the lice that didn'e exist. I think she realised the trick, cuz soon after that, I was handed a Hot Pink Lice comb and told to do my own lice-hunting. :(
• You snuggle up to someone of the opposite sex in a completely platonic way, simply because you feel so comfortable with them? I have done this..several times, and it feels like heaven, though there arent too many men who I deem comfortable enough to snuggle with. yep perfectly true... ...
  
• You add curry leaves (Karvapplai, kari patta,Murraya koenigii) to hot oil tempering. I get extremely aroused by the whole process of cooking. I am saying this now, so you dont think it unusual the number of times i will make gastronomical references. the smell is nice... as also adding hing/ asefotida
  
• You look at your inbox and there is a mail from a good friend, out of the blue? It is sad the equally heart-breaking, gut-wrenchingly painful feeling of opening your inbox, and not hearing from the person you sent a long, honest mail to. . In our age this is absolutely true. I always think email is the best form of communication after a personal meeting. Phone can get warm on the ears!
  
• To drink hot lemon tea on a december night, on your balcony? 'specially in cities like Delhi,Pune,Bangalore,Mumbai..... Raghu: yummy!
  
• To snuggle...with a book, on a rainy morning, and drift in and out of slumber?Raghu: sadly this was done in my childhood... cant do this too much now! but has happened at night more often to me after a hard days work and all i want is to sleep but also cannot put down the book as i have spent so much time reading!
  
• To hug someone you love dearly? For no reason, just because you are glad they are there? Raghu: Munnabhai's lessons of "Jhaadu ki jhappi" are the most amazing ever... It works with everyone... even when i hug my dog i feel so nice.... maybe the theory is the proximity to another heart which is creating the electrical impulses to resonate!
  
• To see the smile of wonder and appreciation on someone's face when you cook for them the first time, each time? Raghu: yeah even this... being a good cook had seen lots of it before... however these days there is no time or enthu to spare this heavenly thought!
  
• To eat something as simple as daal chaawal, simply because Ma made it, and you havent seen her for 1 whole year? Raghu: hmm dal chaawal is the greatest thing everywhere. I remember this one trip to china and i was so
  
• To see the smile on your proud father's face when he tells his friends what you do for a living? Raghu: perfect.... i live that a lot too :-) and makes me feel awsome ....
  
• To see the joy on someone's face when you give them something, even if it cost you an arm and a leg? Raghu: thats the mastercard ad? hmmmm
  
• To get a manicure? or a pedicure? or a facial? or an oil massage? Hell, I feel good even after i have just been waxed!! Raghu: oil massages are the most awsome stress relief busters... if there is a massuerette who is skilled enough... the pain ans stress goes off like candle in front of fire!
  
• To look at a lush green patch from your window, on a rainy afternoon, and imagine nice romantic/sad romantic songs being picturised? Ok, I dunno if anyone else feels good doing this, but I do.. Raghu: I dont :-)
  
• To drive leisurely on a highway with rain pouring gently, with no civilisation around you, the beat of your favourite song blending in? Raghu: driving on the long streches with music and alone or with company is always a pleasant experience.... however, these days "no civilization" is no place!
  
• To be flirted with that cute guy/girl you have been stealing glances at all evening? Raghu: yep yep yep
  
• To try on that pair of jeans that fits like a dream? Raghu: hahah its a dream!
  
• To find out that this guy/girl you have a secret crush on, likes the same lesser known songs as you? Raghu: yeah happens often i guess! so its taken as a sign?
  
• To be kissed by someone for the first time? I swear, its a beautiful feeling, each time. Sigh!! Raghu: the first time everytime... and sigh! :-)
  
• You have a hot bath on a cold morning? Raghu: yeah!
  
• You get a good haircut? Raghu: not really... for a guy if its anything other than a good haircut... the barbers gonna get it!
  
• You get your first pay check? Raghu: this is heady stuff! and to get a gift for the people u love with it and the look of pride on their face... priceless!
  
• You stand up for someone or something you believe in? Raghu: in hindsight... a feeling of satisaction
  
• You dance with someone for a song that belongs to the two of you? Raghu: yes !
  
• When you hold a baby, watch it gurgle with glee, take its first tentative, awkward steps, say your name for the first time? basically all the baby firsts.. Raghu: yep
  
• Someone tells you that you did the job well? Raghu: all the time!
  
• you experience something for the first time? Like snow, a roller coaster ride,bungee jumping, a new city, a monument.. Raghu: any first!
  

I wonder, there are so many things that make us happy, yet we find reasons to be sad..

Thanks for writing this saleha... sorry for the plagarism! A lot of these touched a chord with me too... hence to came off .... btw she writes awsomely well!

Signing off
Your lovable don
Raghudon!

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