Women and Colorado are unpredictable

[Players involved: sun, moon, wind, mountains.
Predictions are fair and balanced:
10 to 1 to Sun
10 to 1 to Moon
10 to 1 to Wind
10 to 1 to Mountains]

If you thought it were important enough, I could swear to you that I had the courage to open the windows and stand in the courtyard for a good five minutes early last morning (early, here, ofcourse meaning 9 am) and only after that grueling test did I decide that my fleece-lined jacket (proud as I was of it) would be a phenomenal disgrace to the sun that had decided to come out of its hiding place of three-----no, four long-----days.

Being a scientist robs you of certain basic requirements---one of them being that www.weather.com fails miserably in comparison to a 5-minute test; yeah, we are taught early on to trust "fool"-proof experiments to mere words printed on the computer screen.

But if you want more conviction on the inappropriateness of weather.com for the case at hand, let me recall here what my "software" pal (http://atool.blogspot.com) himself once told me-- "If you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait for five minutes."

I could surmise quite accurately from the above statement that he also doesn't quite believe weather.com would give me a workable prediction of what 9 pm would be like at 9 am.

Anyway, so getting to the point in question, I left home that day, hugging on to a 0.000000000005 mm thick sweatshirt with machismo that rivaled that of the terminator (No, I don’t plan on running for governor--- if governors could decree the weather, however, I'd give it some serious thought). B’cos, once the sun started its game of peek-a-boo with me, I was pretty much frozen and out of sorts.

So, today, I decided to learn from my mistake. The smiling face of the sun didn’t fool me as I chucked my five-minute test and instead made sure I had on sweats and fleece and wool and thermals (read: everything but the carpet).

It was after I walked into my building and got a look at the thermostat that I began to think I was a little overdressed for 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The way I tackled that problem was by making sure I did not do the all-important centigrade-conversion. Yeah, after two years in the US, f-words still don’t mean much to me *grin*. It also helps when you can’t handle 9/5F x 32 mentally (yet another one of those exclusive scientists’ traits).

That brings me to the next item of the day---a professor once told me "Women and weather are unpredictable". I shrugged it off as the untested doctrine of an old bachelor. Then, another one told me, "The female of the species is deadlier than the male". I discarded that as the ranting of a male chauvinist of a bygone era.

Yeah, I think my professors specialized in the subject. At least now you wont blame me for my inability to divide and multiply.

Anyway, suddenly, surprisingly and pretty much recently, I realized that they were right all along---at least about the women. I got hit on the head with my discovery--- somewhat like the proverbial newtonian apple.

Well, let’s talk about this woman I met about three months ago and that I refuse to name. For a while, I was, to this woman, a cool, neat and friendly person to hang out with. I’d think that’d be an awful lot to pretend, so let’s believe that she did really think all that in the beginning.

And then, overnight (I attribute it to a really devastating nightmare), I was transformed into a complete antithesis. Thereon, EVERY thing I happened to do was either wrong or taboo--namely, eat, sleep, breathe, smoke, drink, drive (and not necessarily in that order).

Anyway, since this woman in question doesn't necessarily make my body shiver or my teeth chatter, I manage, quite easily, to give her no precedence.

It is the unpredictability of the other "w" that concerns me. And the thought of now having to walk out into zero degrees is indeed THE reason for this blog.

Oh, well, tomorrow will be another day ---you can trust Colorado on that.


(‘If you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait for five minutes’. I have decided my five-minute test is in need of serious change. Starting tomorrow, I am making it six. THAT should work!)

I plead not guilty

[Everything that has a beginning has an end]

I decided to follow the matrician concept of pretending that Matrix-III never happened; until this morning i was awoken with the rude shock that I had in "reality" spent two and a half hours and six bucks in the pretence of watching the concluding sequel to one of the greatest movies of all time.

After waking up from that rude shock, I was all set to trash matrix-III like a couple of my fellow-movie watchers have done, but then, being the forgiving soul that i am, i decided to cut the wachowski brothers some slack.

here is the plea bargain i want to offer on their behalf, since they wouldn't be available on or off screen to justify their horrendous movie themselves:

argument #1: the abstract:
after indulging in the "reality" and "virtuality" of the real and the virtual, they decided to let their viewers experience the feeling of waking up from that matrician dream......somewhat similar to what happened to me, so, believe me I understand it perfectly; if you wanna experience it, i am willing to get into a wire-entangled pod and try to pass on the same impulses to your brain, jus' so you can feel it for yourself; just make sure you come to me with a brain.

argument #2: the mundane:
keanu reeves has been threatening hollywood that he is going to quit movies because of his sick sister. the wachowskis tried to overcome the problem of an absent keanu reeves by "pretending" that he was "virtually" available on the sets for Matrix III but believe it or not, the Matrician concept pulled a fast one on them--- so they had to quit the idea and cook up a quick (read: meaningless) tale before their lead actor's dissappearing act.

argument #3: the obvious:
"I can only show you to the door. You have to walk through it" Morpheus.
gee, the movie meant a great deal, not their problem if you aint smart enough to figure it out, and they aren't going to show up to interpret it for you----they are too busy fighting the giant squids that escaped from machine city.


the defence rests.....




if you wanna put your money on argument 3 above, you need to get help: either go see a shrink pronto or refer:

• The A to Z of Matrix

The Matrix—Pluggin’ in....

[I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams, which he has devised to ensnare my judgment.
-Rene Descartes]

Anyone who has watched a "behind the scenes" coverage of the Matrix will know that the Wachowski brothers pretty much stay off the stage--- on either side of the backdrop. While I appreciate their insistence to leave the interpretation of their phenomenal film to viewers, I must say it has had some outrageous consequences---not the most insignificant of which is the fact that the movie sits in the "sci-fi" section of the video store, alongside AI and space oddyssey.

Spelling facets of mysticism, philosophy, action, surrealism, religion and society, to me, science fiction is just one aspect of the Matrix, albeit over-hyped, because of society's inability to grasp at its deeper connotations.

Despite the fact that The Revolutions left far to be desired, I await the release of the concluding sequel tomorrow, with anticipation akin to the delerium of pre-world-cup bangalore or the fervor that grips americans a week prior to superbowl and decide it's time to credit my fascination for the movie with a little blog.

Let us, for now, leave aside the mundane story of the cyber hacker who is made to believe that the entire world is an elaborate computer program and do the Wachowski brothers’ unparalleled innovation some justice.

The idea that what we take to be the real world could all be just a dream is not alien to the philosophical world. Rene Descartes of Renaissance fame set the stage for the movie ages ago by questioning if that feeling we experience is not just an electric impulse being sent to our brain by a computer we are wired to. By doubting all that could be doubted, he took 17th century renaissance to a new level.

He might not exactly have been flabbergasted at the matrician idea of every individual within the matrix seemingly living out a normal life on 20th century earth, while in reality spending it in a wire-entangled pod.

Let’s now turn from the profundity of pre-renaissance- philosophy to 21st century biology and the power of the human mind.
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious.

When you delve deep into the neural circuitry of the human brain and learn that it is the all-controller, that it is impulses from the brain that make you feel, touch, hear and smell, how much harder is it to believe that Neo can will his brain to fly across skyscrapers and dodge bullets or the little girl can cause a metal spoon to bend to her whim?


And if you look a little closer (literally), you realize that Neo doesn't just happen to hollow out a book of such depth (pun intended) as Simulacra and Simulations to stash his blackmarket software. The French sociologist contributes more to the movie than camouflage for contraband, thus giving the movie its “sociological” angle. Baudrillard’s advocation of a “simulacram” or “a copy without the original” quite neatly describes the Wachowskis’ computer-generated dream world, where the “imitation” eventually gains more vitality than the original, with man becoming a slave of the “system”.

Agent Smith might well say, “The Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy.”

To me the answer is simpler: the inexplicably “real” post-matrix feeling of walking through walls, bouncing off cars and flying home from the theatre.

[The most powerful instinct of man is to be in conflict with truth, and with the real-- Jean Baudrillard].
For fellow Matrix-die-hards:
Kat recommends

• Which Matrix persona are you?



• Matrix Search Engine

And while I'm in movie-mode, here are my must-watch movies of all time:

The Matrix
The Shawshank Redemption
A Few Good Men
Jurassic Park
Rainman
Bend it like Bekham
Memento
All the President's Men
The American President
My Fair Lady
The Life of David Gale
Double Jeopardy