Meet the Prakasams Part 1

What we originally meant to do last weekend was fly down to Ft. Lauderdale so that Ramya could run the Miami marathon, figuring that it would be a good time for me to meet the parents while we were there. Unfortunately, with Ramya's combination of Achilles Tendonitis and Runner's knee, her doctor advised her to not be foolish and skip it. Luckily, she was able to defer her enrollment until next year. But since we had already purchased the tickets, we decided to make a little trip out of it.

Friday began like almost every day of the trip- by which I mean we had to get up at four a.m. In this case it was to make our seven a.m. flight out of Regan. The metro wasn't even running yet, but that Red Top cab was right on time, and cheery as ever! After a quick stop in Atlanta we hit sunny Florida. This began the second trend of the trip: being improperly dressed at every stage. I was still bundled up from the 20-degree DC weather, and when we got off the plane in Ft. Lauderdale, it was like bam! Summer. For what it's worth, the Ft. Lauderdale airport, though cheery and pastel colored, smells like a dirty diaper. It was also filled to the brim with senior citizens (making it like a Bob Evans with higher prices and more waiting). Draw your own conclusions.

I met Ramya's dad Mandi at the airport, and on the way home we stopped at Publix- a southern grocery chain that Ramya has the audacity to like better than Meijer. I mean, it was pretty nice, but can you buy breakfast bread, Milk, DVDs and a dining room table at Publix? I rest my case.

Ramya's sister Vidya (who I met for the first time last weekend- which is a story of it's own (for someone else to tell)) was waiting for us at home, but I didn't get to meet her Mom Amudha until lunch at Sweet Tomatoes. So here's the whole family- and remember that Ramya almost comes up to my shoulder:Needless to say, I felt like a giant in the Prakasam household. I mean, if I had been in that picture my head would have been outside the frame. One of the first things I did when I got to their house was change the batteries in all their smoke detectors. I'm serious- they have like 8 upstairs and two downstairs, each one of them beeping every 30 seconds because the battery was low. I asked how long that had been going on, and their estimate was "At least 6 months." They say that they had all just gotten used to it, but afterward they were like "It's so quiet in here!" At one point Amudha asked me if I played basketball in high school. I thought "Wow! She knows that people from Indiana are crazy about the hoops! (except me)" No no, she just thought I was really tall. Ha ha. Ha ha.

So how did the meeting go? Very well! We all got along great. Later that day Ramya, Vidya and I headed out on our own, and Ramya said her dad told her "He seems really bright!" I said "They're impressed already? Well, wait until I actually say something smart." Ramya replied "I've been waiting for that for a long time." I will now counter with an anecdote from the previous weekend: We were talking about rednecks, and Ramya mentioned what her dad calls rednecks (which I couldn't repeat if my life depended on it). She said "It's funny because it literally means 'red neck.' It's actually referring to the color of their neck." I said "That's what it means in English too, honey." She says "Oh... Right."

So Vidya took us to Seminole Hard Rock, the indian casino where you can throw away money while looking at Steven Tyler's jumpsuit and Rob Zombie's guitar. I've had my fill of casinos in the last months, so I just wasted one dollar in the slot machines. Mostly we walked around looking at the various pools, shops and art galleries- of course, since I was so hot I had changed into shorts, and now it was uncomfortably cold. What up, Florida?

On the way home we stopped at the new Ikea for two reasons: Vidya has never been in one, and I really wanted a fro-yo. This Ikea was like every other one built in the last five years: when you walk in the door, you can go right to the escalator or left to the bathrooms and checkout/snack stand. Personally, I like to go grab a $1 yogurt cone, then head up to see some affordable fashion-forward Swedish goods. I do this literally every time I enter an Ikea. Except this time, there were those tensa-barrier things blocking the hallway to the snack stand with a sign that said "Do not enter." I didn't see any hazzards (construction, barf) so the Ikea lady watching me and I had this exchange:

Me: "Can I just run over there and get an ice cream cone?"
Ikea Lady [highly annoyed and antagonistic]: "No you can not!!"
Me: "Um...Why?"
IL: "Because you can't! You can go out that door, down to the other door, then to the cafeteria."
Me: "You're telling me that instead of walking the ten yards from here to the cafeteria, I have to go out this door, walk outside to the other end of this building, go in that door, and walk 90% of the way back instead of just walking from here to it?"
IL: "That's right. We're considering building a wall there because people keep doing that."
Me: "...okay."

At this point I dropped it and just headed upstairs, but I wish I would have pushed it a little further. I mean, you really have to see the layout to know how truly asinine her point of view was. Not only is that hallway used to get from the entrance to the cafeteria and bathrooms in every Ikea I've ever been in, but that is the only possible reason for the hallway to be there. It's not like a behind-the-scenes employee access route. That's what it's for. It would be absurd to "build a wall" there like the lady suggested- then to get from the entrance to the bathrooms you would actually have to walk around outside, or go through the entire store (not to mention that it would leave you with a hallway to nowhere). Not only that, but Ikea is a big open warehouse-like place. There isn't really anywhere to build a wall! I know I can get worked up about little things, but seriously- that's ridiculous. I should just have been like "Oookay..." and ducked under the barrier and went. What was she going to do?

So back home, I got my first taste of Indian food. I've been very cautious, because the one time I remember eating Indian food it was something that burned my esophagus and made my eyes water, and I've never tried it again since. But Amudha made something that sounds like "doe sai" for dinner, and they were kind of like crepes filled with various saucy vegetables. And you know what? They were delicious! I'm beggining to think that first thing I tried was a bit of an outlyer.

Well, I've reached bedtime Friday night in my story and in real life right now, so I think I'm going to add a "Part 1" to the title and pick up with day 2 tomorrow.

Worst Songs of the 90's?

So some NBC affiliate did a list of the worst songs of the 1990's. I clicked through to see which ones they had chosen. Billy Ray Cyrus - Achy Breaky Heart? True. Master P - Make 'Em Say Uhhh! Yes, that song was garbage. Then they name some like Guns 'N Roses - November Rain, which I always liked and Ugly Kid Joe - Cats in the Cradle which was a darn fine cover. I saw Wilson Phillips - Hold On and thought "Hmm- I don't really agree with some of their choices." But nothing, nothing could prepare for the ultimate insult of the following inclusion:



Mr. Big - To Be With You.

Are they serious? Worst songs of the 90's? That song was, and is, freaking fantastic. Not only is it one of the best key changes in pop music, but the video also totally stands the test of time.* If you don't like that song, you are un-American. NBC 4, you have terrible taste. There I said it.

* 50% of that sentence was facetious.

Wii Would Like to Play!

Somewhere in the neighborhood of three years ago, I remember seeing the preliminary plans for Nintendo's next generation video game console (at that time it was called the "Revolution"). They announced that instead of trying to keep up with the Sonys and the Microsofts they were going in a totally different direction: they were developing a box that had less processing power, but would have a totally different controller. One that would have only one or two buttons, and would rely largely on motion sensing to play games. I thought "That's it- this is the final nail in the coffin for Nintendo."

Then, I played the Wii. And holy cow, is it fun. Ramya got me one for my birthday, and we've spent entire days playing tennis (I just made pro, by the way) and bowling. I took it home for Christmas, and the whole family can get into it. This thing is great! See, the point is that the Wii was never really intended to compete with the Xbox and Playstation 3. Although alot of games are on all platforms (like Guitar Hero- but I'll get to that later) the Wii sort of stands alone as a more accessible, easy to use yet ridiculously fun game machine. I remember when Nintendo announced that they wanted to make a game system that anyone could just pick up and play. I thought "No way! I want my deep engrossing games!" Then I go to a friend's house for some Call of Duty or something, and it takes 25 minutes just to set up everyone's characters and pick out all the weapons. Then, God help me as I'm bombarded with enemy fire while being totally confused at the myriad controls and array of buttons. The message here is that I'm getting old.

I totally see the desire for the cutting edge, awesome graphics, multi-media games systems. But you know what? The Wii is hella-fun. I love it. What amazes me now is the deep-seated hatred that Sony and Microsoft fanboys have against the Wii. You've heard them, right? Wii people never go around bashing the Xbox, but people insult the Wii at any chance they get. I'll give you some examples in a minute.

This last weekend I bought Guitar Hero 3 for my Wii. Ramya loved it, and I had enjoyed the few times I tried it. So, now that's where all my free time goes. Anyhow, I wanted to know if they ever planned on releasing the Playstation-only 1980's music edition for Wii, so I went to GuitarHero.com. There's a forum thread about this very topic, but check out what some anti-Wii people replied:

"Listen everyone here's the reason. The Wii is a piece of ****. Good concept but it turned out like ****. u get what paid for anyway like every1 says GH 1, 2 and 80s came out b4 they even thought of it even being released for the Wii cuz it sux. end of story ftw."

"I have to agree with the none wii users. U get what u pay 4. A cheap piece of crap good 4 a few laughs and mild entertainment suitable for my 9 yr old cousin. The PS3 and 360 provide better quality games and of greater entertainment that fit the teenage/young adult such as myself. The Wii is better left to my 9 yr. old cousin who in herself would not play it."

(I like the above comment because his argument is "The Wii is crap because it's not for my demographic." Guess what buddy: Not everyone is a teenager/young adult!)

"Let me know when you can watch a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD on your Wii. Wait you can't even watch a DVD on the Wii. Let me know how the Wii looks in 1080p with the new HDTVs. Wait it will only do 480p you say? What is it that makes that system next gen in any way? Of that's right... the gimicky controls. I'll buy one of those for my mom, she could never figure out what buttons to push to play anything, heck she can't even program the clock on her VCR... What's a VCR you say? Nevermind... Any idiot can play the Wii, I mean any idiot can wave their arm around... PERFECT gift for grandma and grampa, will look good on their old non HDTV, sitting right next to their VCR with the blinking clocking, flashing 12:00 over and over...
Me and my friends? We'll play our games in true 1080p on our HDTV, thru our Dolby Surround sound system. My friends are a little smarter than grandma and grandpa, they can figure out what buttons to push, no need to wave their arms all around and shake the controller in an effort to get something to work on screen..."

Wow. My first thought was "Gee, let's attack a system and people who like it on a totally unrelated thread." Classy. But then again, the internet is full of losers. Which brings me to my second thought: these rants sounded kind of familiar... Extremely defensive? Check. Semi-coherent rambling? Check. Rampant grammar and spelling errors? Double check. You know what? This sounds a lot like anti-hybrid car posts from SUV drivers!

I know it's not a perfect comparison, but the tone is very similar. The only example I can think of is from an old XMFan thread I accidentally took part in. It started with a picture of a wrecked Prius, and quickly degraded into a bunch of SUV morons dancing around because they could play the dubious "safety" card to justify their 8 miles per gallon. I think my favorite retort from the SUV crowd was "It's my planet too. I'll destroy if I want to."

Anyway, you could make the point that SUVers are afraid of hybrids because they signal the end to their way of life. And maybe Playstation and Xbox people just fear the Wii because it's new and different- "rocking the establishment" in a way. In any case, I thought it was interesting.

Football Season is Over

That was an awful game- I never expected the Colts to lose. And while I have to give credit to San Diego's defense, that was mostly a crappy effort by the Colts all around. All the bizarre tipped passes that went right into the Charger's hands didn't help matters, either. That one-handed catch by the Charger's lineman was pretty sweet, though.

The thing that stunned me this morning while watching Sportscenter was Mark Schlereth's (who I usually agree with) comments. He kept saying things like "It was a big win for the Chargers, considering everything was against them" and he continued to talk about how the referees were picking on them. He showed a few plays in particular- one was what he called a "phantom interference" penalty, called on the Chargers. This was one of those technicality penalties, where they did it, but it wasn't that bad, you know? Plus, during the game the showed two replay angles- one where you couldn't see the penalty, and a second one where you could (which made the announcers say "Oh, there it is"). But this morning, they only showed the angle where you couldn't see it over and over while calling it a bogus call. Why do that? Why pick a penalty that was a good call, then try to make it look bad and only show the inconclusive evidence? It felt like a political ad.

The other one was when San Diego returned an interception 80-some yards for a touchdown, then it was called back due to a holding penalty on the Chargers. All the replays showed it. He did it, it was wrong, end of story, right? But Schlereth said it was a bad call, not because the refs called it incorrectly, but because it was a big play. I believe the quote was "C'mon, you just can't call that on a big play like this!" He added "I got away with way worse than that when I played." So let me get this straight: the penalty shouldn't have been called because it enabled San Diego to make a devastating play? Isn't that the best reason to call a penalty? I don't get it. All in all, I thought the officiating was pretty fair.

The fun part of the game for me was that it was the first Colts game I've watched with Ramya (some others had been on in the background). She doesn't watch football, but she's really been a trooper about it! She made a few comments like "This is hard!" and "My pulse is going up." After the Colts lost she was like "Man, I'm all bummed out, and I don't even care about this game!" I told her that's the life of a football fan- the lows are worth it because of the highs.

Since we're talking about Ramya and football, it's also worth mentioning that she did come to the Motor City Bowl over Christmas, and she cheered her heart out for the Boilermakers. And one point I said something footbally to her, like "See that gain? The keep pulling in the linebackers then throwing to the tight end in the slot." She responded with "Look at the cheerleaders: the first cheer girl and cheer man are in love and nobody knows." She added "Watch: he always drops her then catches her and they hold on to each other a little too long and smile." I'll be danged, she was right.

So back to the NFL, who do I root for now? The short answer is "Whoever is playing the Patriots." I've had it with them.

Totally unrelated:

Today I checked my sitemeter (which tells me about visitors to this site) and someone in Pune, Maharashtra, India found my blog by searching for "Cool ans sex." What the heck is that, and why did it lead them to this page?

Someone also got to this page by searching for "what is brown sauce." Now that someone has found their way here by searching for actual information and found it, I feel this puts me in league with Wikipedia.

The Asterisk Era

I dislike the Jacksonville Jaguars, for no particular reason. I also dislike the New England Patriots, but that's because of the totally unsportsmanlike way they crushed and ran the score up and crappy teams this year. I won't even get into the fact that Tom Brady broke Peyton Manning's touchdown record by throwing on fourth down when they were up by 30 points in the fourth quarter. Anyway, in anticipation of the Jags-Pats playoff game this weekend, check out the power rankings from the Jaguars official website:Great huh? And if you don't get it, just google "patriots cheat" or something to get caught up. I realize this is only going to irritate the Pats more (Remember Anthony Smith?) but I like where they're going with it. I also like that they rated themselves fifth, because the first step is being honest with yourself.

So in my dreams, this is how the weekend plays out: First, the Colts beat San Diego, gaining momentum for next week. Actually, that's second, on Sunday. First, on Saturday, the Jaguars beat the Patriots in Foxboro, but it's a pyrrhic victory in which they lose 5 or 6 starters (just for one game- no permanent damage). Then the Colts beat the Chargers. It's a pipe dream, I know. But give me the Jags in Indy over the Pats in New England any day!

In other news,
1. I spend way too much time playing Guitar Hero. This could be a post in itself.
2. The Oregon Trail application on Facebook is lame. Not only does it fail to capture the fun of the original, the entire thing is geared around sending annoying invites to friends more than actually playing the game. Of course, maybe the original always just seemed more fun because it was elementary school, and you got to go down to the computer lab for an hour instead of listen to a regular old lesson.

Have a great weekend everyone!

My Day in Court

Today I had my court date stemming from my speeding incident a couple months ago. My summons told me to show up at 8:45 a.m. today at the St. Mary's County Courthouse in Leonardtown, so you better believe I was there ready to go at 8:15. Here's the thing- courtroom #1 (my hearing location) had a sign that says it opens at 9:00. I sat down on the bench next to a polite-looking women and offered up a sympathetic "Speeding ticket?" Sure enough, that's what brought her there as well.

We agreed that they really seem to have stepped up the ticketing around here. I lamented that I had been driving for 13 years without incident, then I was pulled over twice in a four-day span. She said "Well, I've been driving for a lot longer than 13 years without getting pulled over, and I got pulled over five times in two months." Turns out that she had received a speeding ticket (equal in dubiousness to mine- by which I mean legit, but unnecessary) and forgot to go to her court date. Then, she was pulled over for running a red light (that she insists was definitely yellow- I give her the benefit of the doubt). Since she had failed to appear in court, there was a warrant for her arrest, and the officer loaded her into the police car and took her to jail, where her husband had to come bail her out. Now, this was almost funny because while the waiting room ran the gamut from white-collar workers (dressed in suits and other nice clothes) to standard degenerates (wearing Fubu jackets, saggy jeans and sideways hats with the tags still on (and come on people- you're in court)) she was one of the "me" types.

And that's not the most amazing thing- she works up in Prince George's county, and lives down here in St. Mary's. Her other three incidents all happened after one of her taillights burned out, and she was pulled over leaving work. The officer in PG county gave her an official warning and she continued home. She was then pulled over in Calvert county and given another warning. Just after crossing the bridge into St. Mary's, she was pulled over again. When the officer asked "Do you know why I pulled you over?" she answered "I have a taillight out." He said "So you are knowingly driving with a taillight out?" She replied "Yes, but it just happened and I've been pulled over twice for it already tonight." He said "I see. License and registration please" and proceeded to write her her third warning of the evening. It may not sound like much, but each one of those required her to fill out a form acknowledging the warning and return it to the county court where the citation was issued. So, returning all those was an afternoon down the drain.

Anyway, back to me. It turns out that all of us there in the waiting room were scheduled for 8:45, and if you think about it, that's brilliant. They just tell everyone to be there 15 minutes before they even open, so the county officials have no waiting. By the door there was the day's official docket, and it looks like we were all there for the same charge, and all for the same officer. And that makes sense too- everyone says that the officer probably won't show up, but it looks like he had 30-some cases in a row, so he'll probably be there.

So, shortly after nine they opened the doors and told us to line up. We then walked up to the clerk, who asked me "Do you want to contest the charge, do community service or pay the fine?" Turns out it would be 8 hours of community service, or an $80 "donation" (on top of the $80 fee) to make the ticket go away. I decided, screw it, I'm just going to pay. The quick math says that my freedom is worth $10 an hour, and I just wanted to be done with it. So I went and payed it without knowing if my cop ever showed up. However, there were several officers in the waiting room as I went by, and since they were all short, fit white men with buzz haircuts, I couldn't tell if one of them was my cop if my life depended on it.

And that's that- I am $160 lighter and it's like my ticket never happened. Since I'm not going back to work until Monday I spent the rest of the day working out at the drill hall (where we were evacuated when the fire alarms went off- hopefully it'll be there Saturday) and playing Wii. I started the Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess and spent the better part of the day on it- and you can know that, but when you save your game and it tells you "Time played: 5:36" it really drives the point home. And then I start thinking "Gee, there's a lot of chores that I really should do." Whatever. I'm on vacation.

The moral of the story is don't forget your court date.