Varun tagged me and the rule of the tag is:

If u were to see 5 countries (your home country excluded) and then never get to see anything else, which countries would these be?

For me, it would have to be:

1. France – Italy – Germany – Luxembourg – Greece (EU is almost one country, right?)
2. South Korea
3. Russia
4. Canada
5. Israel

I tag all my regular readers. No compulsion, as always.

I feel a little bad that some of you come here everyday expecting a new post and find nothing! Anyhow, this sadness is short-lived cos I have devised a cunning plan which would allow me to blog more often. So just bear with me for few more weeks!

In the meanwhile, here are some new developments:

• The new blog toy, cocomment, is really cool. Its definitely one of the “in” things right now. It allows you to keep track of all the comments you make on others’ blogs and also allow you to share your comments on your blog with help of a blog box, which can be seen on the sidebar of my blog too. You can customize it so suit your template but I haven’t done that because of paucity of time. Its still in beta but then so is Flickr and even Gmail so it’s okay.
• I met Sher-e-Jalandhar last weekend and for some reason he thinks that I am very serious which I don’t think I am. I’m only a little serious but don’t mind being called “brooding types”. He seemed like a fun and easygoing guy. (Sorry SeJ, I don’t do compliments very well. I am far better at criticizing.)
• I also met an old friend from school after 14 years (the one I mentioned in this post). It was fun to meet her after such a long gap. Also, NamesDatabase has now linked to that post and I am getting a lot more hits than usual. But what makes me really happy is when someone they refer checks out some of my other posts too.
• Our company is taking us for an outing this weekend and since the location is top secret and we are all supposed to have loads of fun there, if I don’t blog for next few weeks, it would be safe to assume that I died bcos of all the fun.
• Update: I always wanted to apply for The Amazing Race. But now that they are actually allowing Asian people to apply for an Asian version, I realized I couldn’t apply. Firstly, I don’t have a teammate and secondly, I can’t take a leave of 30-40 days if I get selected. Actually, I don’t have a passport either but it is expected any day now. So looks like I’ll just have to be content with watching TAR.

Since yesterday was supposedly the most appropriate day to express ones’ love, that’s what I did. I confessed my undying love for myself.

One of the earliest posts on this blog was about short stories that I read quite some time ago. One of those stories that I really liked was The Man Who Married Himself. I was quite fascinated with it. I think that it’s quite possible that I might do such a thing. Okay, may be not, but you get the point.

Our office has this tradition on Valentine’s Day where anyone can buy a rose; write the name of the person he/she wishes to send it to and put it in a box. At the end of the day, the guy and gal who get the most number of roses are crowned the “King” and “Queen” of hearts.

I ended up with 3 roses, just one less than the guy who was crowned “King”. If only I had sent a rose to myself. I let myself down.

Also, apparently, I remind girls of their younger brothers. Last year, my batch mates told me this in unison and yesterday my new teammate told me the same. I don’t think I told you all but four newbies have joined my team and I’m not the youngest in my team anymore. But even they find me to be the most immature so things aren’t all that bad.

A chance visit to MG Road on Friday evening turned eventful when I saw a tall girl standing near a corn stall. She looked familiar. I thought about it for few seconds and then I realized that it was Deepika Padukone, the upcoming model and actress and daughter of famous Badminton champion, Prakash Padukone. She was with another girl and on old lady. But I wasn’t sure if it really was her. I then walked till Cauvery Emporium and was waiting for my friends to catch up. But Deepika caught up before they could and she stood right next to me near the entrance of Cauvery when the old lady shouted “Deepika” and she looked back so I was sure of who it was. She looked beautiful, I must say.

• I finally saw “Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind” on HBO last Saturday. It was really good. This was the first time Jim Carrey looked like a normal man to me rather than looking like someone whose teeth are too keen on breaking free from his mouth. For some reason, the movie reminded me of “Vanilla Sky”.

• Things are getting pretty ugly on Indian Idol 2. Sonu Nigam is upset that the contestants are giving too much time to publicity events and makeovers rather than singing and he’s right to a large extent. But he has that unique quality that makes him look like a jerk no matter how right he might be. He makes even Anu Malik good.

• You may or may not have seen Indian Idol 2 so let me catch you up on the 9 remaining contestants.

1. Panna Gill: Everyone on the show thinks he looks good which is a lie. He can barely sing but survives bcos apparently teenage girls think he looks good too.
2. Monali Thakur: She looks good, has big eyes. Sings well too. She should have lasted till the final five but is sadly out now.
3. NC Karunya: Great singer. Looks like a case of Abhishek Bachchan-cloning gone awry. Would probably make it to the final three.
4. Ravi Tripathi: The biggest f**ktard ever on the show. Terrible singer. All contestants hate him, as do the judges. Makes a fool of himself every time he is saved (no thanks to the retarded people who vote for him).
5. Sandeep Acharya: Udit Narayan’s rajasthani cousin. Looks okay. Sings fine. But we don’t need another Udit Narayan, do we?
6. Amey Date: Most deserving but slightly dumb. People don’t seem to like him much so he may lose which would be sad.
7. Meenal Jain: Simple yet efficient. Judges love her, people don’t. Why? Because people suck. She is good but not too good. Final four probably if the Indian public somehow remembers that they vote for the best not the worst.
8. Anuj Sharma: He’s just got in when Jolly Das had to quit bcos of chicken pox. Heh. What luck. Looks lost. Don’t know much about him yet except that he has a girlfriend.
9. Antara Mitra: The village belle. She thanks people in Bengali every week and why does she think people should vote for her? Because she is from a small village and if she wins, it would send a message to all girls in small villages. And what exactly would that message be? That as long as you are from a remote village, we will make you win no matter how bad you sing.

• You might have heard about model and actress Kuljeet Randhawa’s suicide. Read about it here. Now, everybody may not have known her but being the big TV buff that I am, I did. In fact, I really liked her. The news of her suicide was all over the news channels yesterday. The spooky thing is that she was a friend of Nafisa Joseph, who committed suicide one and a half year ago. They even acted together in CATS, a bad Hindi version of Charlie’s Angels. Sad!