A moo point, basically …

There’s an app in Facebook called ‘Cities I’ve Visited’ in which people can show off all places they have traveled to. For me, this app has raised a moral dilemma -

1. Mumbai (Bombay), India
2. London, England
3. New York City, NY, USA
4. Manchester, England

• Create your own travel map or travel blog
• Visit TripAdvisor.com

On my recent trip to the land of infinite opportunities and shady mortgages, I took a week off as mentioned earlier and roamed around Northern USA, which turned out to be not quite the best travel plan due to the infinite snow I encountered wherever I went. And it is the ‘wherever I went’ part which is the bone of contention … the stumbling block … the main hurdle … the faltering step … the cause of the dilemma.

On the face of it, I am now a well-traveled man, having been to Minneapolis, Fargo, Chicago, Urbana-Champaign, Ann Arbor, Detroit, New Jersey and New York City (phew). But the following table tells a different story -

One might scoff if I give naivety and inexperience in planning such trips as an excuse for such a sucky outcome, although in my defense the horrid weather conditions were partly to blame. Nevertheless, I would like to resolve my dilemma which is giving me such sleepless naps -

Am I allowed to flaunt the aforementioned places on the Fb travel map?

Nb: I always thought dilemma was spelled as ‘dilemna’ … but firefox spellcheck thinks otherwise

Heard on the daily show

Madeleine Albright: I endorse Hillary Clinton because she has experience.

Jon Stewart: Isn’t that like saying my wife will make a great comedian if I put her on this show?

(Entire interview here)

Heh. Another example of humour as the ultimate end to an argument. But then Mrs. Hillary is up against a person who says he has Foreign Affairs experience because he spent 5 yrs in Indonesia … the first five years of his life. Tough choice. People can’t go all out in criticizing each other- you risk been called either a racist or an anti-feminist. Plus you don’t want to hurt the Democratic party in the long run. Very interesting stuff. I’m sure the sole Republican presidential candidate Mr. McCain is enjoying this the most

How long is sixteen hours?

Any attempts at numerical conversions into minutes/ seconds are thanked, but not thanked.

Sixteen hours can be effectively summarized as -

Sleep + Enchanted with lots of Fast Forward + Bourne Ultimatum + Sleep + Football Highlights + Rush Hour 3 + a long wait for the Loo line with random flirting with airhostesses who go by generic names like Donna and Jackie (Can I have a muffin? Can you butter my muffin? Which beer would you recommend?) + Juno + License to Wed.

This, however doesn’t include the part where your In-Flight Entertainment suddenly decides to hang while you’re fast forwarding the soporific parts of Enchanted. With >14 more hours to go, 16 hours suddenly seems like -

A lecture of CH101 + Dravid embarking on one of his marathon innings + A Bengali art film + A Sonia Gandhi speech + A Rituporno Ghose movie with Dravid and Sonia Gandhi explaining the isomorphism of nitrobenzene …

Basically-  horror, boredom, horror over the prospect of further uninterrupted boredom; all eventually leading to total panic. The presence of an extra large squirming lady in the seat next to you effectively kills your last resort – a nice little book, or maybe a few nice little books. Full blown panic sets in.

Thankfully, the system decides to unhang itself, sanity is restored and sixteen hours seem to just (excuse the pun) fly by.

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First impressions of NY – Everything is so larger than life, be it Time Square, the skyscrapers, the highways, everything. And it all reminds me of Mumbai in a very weird way. If it wasn’t for the chilly winds, things would had been just perfect right now