Of Italian keyboards and Barbie Dolls

Just signing off one of the pretty lousy days of my life .. Mucked it up from the start.. . Got up an hour late.. got totally drenched on the way from the office parking space to the front door.. Spilled hot coffee on my pants ( and just as when I thought I could take all this in my big all forgiving stride.. comes the mother of all ) ...

I KONKED OF MY IBM T40's MOTHER BOARD !!

Whoaaaa !! For a sec, it feels like I can allow myself a small shirt-collar raise ceremony .. Crashing the thinkpad is not a joke.. But wait a sec. Let me try figure out what I did... Was I in my lets-see-how-much-dust-can-we-blow-from-the-processor mode? No.. Did I read a jumper manual? Nyet !! Or was the Idiots Guide to EChip Circuitry at my desk.. NO. I was just dabbling at something on VC... Then why the hell did it just decide to leave its *motherly duties and die? And it knew I had the all important delivery tomorrow..

Anyways.. the wise man hath spoke:

"There Shall never be a dearth of ‘Vella’s in any office corridor anywhere in the world"

I was swarmed too, and the only solace I could find in the wisecracks was that the average melanin content of their originators is different from what I generally find back home .. The comments range a wide perspective too.. from "see whether we can discharge the capacitor" to "why dont we plug in the HDD to the nearby Dell"

My Italian colleague has graciously agreed to spare me his T41p for the rest of the night.. He says.. "Enjoye"
But the head scratchers are plenty at this front too. Pausa might mean pause.. but. BlocS is a ScrollLock and Stamp means PrintScreen.. Canc is what you press for Delete.. "Kanch" is how its pronounced quirped Marco, the Pound symbol stands for # the ( stands for ) and the & stands for ^ and e stands for { And DONT EVEN BOTHER IF YOU HAVE a special character in ya password.. :))

Funny key locations too.. I thank the IBM ppl they have kept the basic keys the same.. The German ones are even more horrifying.. They are all jumbled up..

One of the things that bewilder me when I view the American society is their version of the zeons old concept of buy and sell. Back in India, or let me generalize it to the developing nations, there are quite a few basic realms of trade which transgress economical hierarchy and allow millions of people to form small independent worlds of socio-economic interdependence.. We have thousands of people supporting their families just by selling bread, or by knitting baskets, or opening a Road side Dhaba, or running the auto.. Every industry has many branches and segments, from grass root rural to small scale cottage to large industries. Here? Most of these industries that we see on the roads are only for Corporate houses. The poor man can just consume and pay.. or serve the company.. I see the malls (Walmart, Target, Harris Teeter) , Garments (Sears, Hechts, Dillards) , Electronics (Best Buy, Circuit City, Electronic City) , Food (Food Lion/ or some other name) , Restaurants (Hardees, Bojangles, Taco Bell, McDonalds) Cars, Rentals, House Accessories, And None of them are in the reach of the poor.. for town after town , village after village , city after city, you will get the same Brands, the same color the same taste.. I used to keep asking myself.. What does the poor do for a living? Or maybe there aren’t as many..

Clothes that would fit a city for 3 years.. Food worth feeding thousands… A thousand cars to choose from just for rent. It all does fit perfectly into the great magnanimous vision America and its culture prides in itself. “Its Always more than the eyes can see, More than what you can grasp in one go” . You have to crane your neck at its skyscraper, gasp at its power, get blinded by its glare, and fear its dark . Gigantic..Plentiful, Awe-Inspiring.

Life is easy. Maybe some Choices are too.

Got blinded by a collection of about a 100 Barbie dolls, just the other day while searching for a gift to my cute little cousin Punpun the other day. I always thought about how crazy and foolish small girls could get over a piece of plastic ... but just looking at each of those models each time my heart filled with joy and a smile passed my lips. I now realize what a child’s dreams can be made of, and how much love the mute idols..,, can bring to the toddlers . God bless its creator J Choosing was very tough.. but I had narrowed to Barbie in Naples.. and Barbie the Dream princess .. waitin for Ken..

I chose the latter.

And Italy striketh back..