Do It With Mirrors

Today I went along with a friend to (window)shop around for an exercise-machine at the Proline shop on CMH Road. There was a full-wall mirror installed in the display/trial area. I noticed that in this mirror I seemed to be fatter than I thought I was.

I pointed this out to the salesman, who initially pooh-poohed my suggestion. (I am comfortably obese, you see... and who does not think they are slimmer than they actually are?) Then I showed him his reflection in the glass-window in the front (it was night) and asked him to compare it with the mirror. He was also startled by what he saw!

On further investigation, the mirror seemed to be slightly concave and made you slightly more convex; it most definitely had an aberration - a mistake of convenience?

What a brilliant sales-strategy!

1. You enter the shop, thinking that you are getting fat and that need to buy-equipment
2. Make the mirror show you a fatter version of you.
3. Seeing is believing, so...
4. You really need that exercise-machine now, don't you?!!

And On the Seventh He Rested

I have temporarily defected from the world of gainful employment, after my resignation in July. I am taking an indefinite break from the material world (time and money). As the Tata Safari ad went, it was time to reclaim my life; it was time to rediscover some of my passions, which were slowly slipping away. My world is definitely money-less now, and also, sadly, not as time-less as I thought it would be.

Well, I do kinda miss office and I feel like writing a report. :) Here's the status report on the 50th day-versary of my quarantine.

THE LOWDOWN
================

Life has still been busy. Have been doing things that I would never have done otherwise because they are 'unimportant'.

* Was confined to bed for 6 days - bad case of fever (not swine flu)

* Cleaned up the clutter and piles of junk that had accumulated - both in my house in Bangalore and at home in Trivandrum

* Successfully came up with a blog-idea a day for nearly the whole of July

* Went around with my cousins, who had come down from the UK and the US.

* Went to watch the Badminton World Championship in Hyderabad.
Lin Dan, the Roger Federer of shuttle, won!

* Took a break from computers in general for around 10 days

* Started writing some programs (open-source) that I had meaning to do for quite some time

EVENTS
========
* Fever
* Cleanup
* Speech at family function
* Shuttle tournament - saw the World no.1,2,3,4 in action on the same day
* Coincidence - bus broke down, auto-rickshaw broke down - both on the same trip
* Coincidence - caught my ex-boss bunking office, met an uncle - both accidentally

TYPICAL DAY
===========
8-11 - Get up/breakfast, read newspaper, crossword
11-4 - Go out somewhere (there are random trips on the bus. With a pass, you don't need to tell even the conductor where you are headed. I also go to Reliance Timeout, where you can comfortably sit and browse through books. Or maybe a movie.)
5-7 - Go to read in the neighbourhood park
7-10 - Dinner, laze around
11-3 - On the computer, generally programming also browsing

LESSONS
=======
* There's still no escaping the tyranny of time.
* You can do only one thing at a time.
* It's kind of tough to be responsible for your own time; it's so easy to slip.
* Anything can start to be boring.
* My mood-fix: watching four movies in a row
* It's actually not that important to read the newspaper everyday. You know what, some articles are really repeats!!!

PoA
===
Even now, there's no time! There's still so much stuff on the back-burner to get back to! For instance there's a movie I borrowed nearly 2 years ago: The Two Jakes, unopened books (too many to list :) ), piles of documents and emails to sort... I also need to get up to speed on technology.

Plan to get everything online soon.