The excellent title track from Anjani Thomas’s album, Blue Alert, from 2006 almost redeems an otherwise uninspiring/uninspired album. Almost. The album was co-written and produced by the much vaunted Leonard Cohen, (who’s music always makes me feel like dragging the toaster into the bathtub) and it’s amazing how insipid the other tracks on the album are, specially when compared with this one.

If you want to hear how this track would sound with a young Billie Holiday singing it, check out Madeleine Peyroux’s version from her album Half the Perfect World. (Ignore the horses in the video)

For me, it’s a toss up between the two. Thomas’ version is better produced and her voice is much smokier/sultrier. Peyroux sounds like a young Billie Holiday (which is a win in my book) and does an arguably more soulful/stirring rendition of the track.

Listen to both versions and decide for yourself.

Photo courtesy Joseph Rodrigues

So last Sunday, I took part in a competitive sporting event for the first time ever. The first Viva Goa 202 km Brevet. An endurance cycling event from Panjim in Goa to Karwar in Karnataka and back.

(A Brevet is an endurance cycling event with control points where you have to check in and get a Brevet card punched, something I found out less than a month ago. Also, as many cyclists on the bikeszone forums sternly informed me, a Brevet isn’t a race per se, everyone who finishes in the allotted time limit of 13.5 hours gets equal recognition) However, if there are X number of competitive people going from point A to point B and you are one of them, you are going to want to be the first person to reach point B, that’s what I thought anyway.

I managed get across the finish line first, with a time of 8 hours and fifty minutes. This was for 214.06 Km according to my cyclocomp, as Mr. Prashant Tidke and I reached the second control point in Karwar before the organisers got there and opened it. We thus cycled ahead into Karwar and wasted time searching for the control point within the town. We finally called the organisers and cycled back to the control point, wasting more than half an hour and cycling more than 12 Km extra, something that would come back to bite me in the ass on the return leg but more on that later.

If you’re a cyclist and are trying to do some mental math to figure out my average speed so you can sneer at it, let me save you the effort. My average speed was 24.23 Km/h over 214.06 Km, including stops.

The night before the Brevet was when I first met the other cyclists who were here from Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore. Over a fantastic dinner of fish, prawns and rice at Viva Goa in Panjim, they recounted stories of longer Brevets they had done in the past, 300 Km, 400 Km, 600 Km and a couple of them, Divya Tate from Bangalore and Prashant Tidke from Pune had competed in the PBP, a 1200 Km Brevet from Paris to Brest and back. I had never heard of PBP before and was suitably impressed and to be honest, a little intimidated as well. The longest distance I had cycled previously was from Moira in North Goa to Castle Rock in Karnataka and back, a distance of about 165 Km in about 8 hours on the previous weekend, to see if I could even do these kinds of distances.

I had hoped that I would be one of the first few people across the line since I cycle more regularly than most normal people who have day jobs but as I heard their stories I shrank a little and decided that I may as well enjoy a great dinner. I tucked in to the food, wished I had drunk a few more beers earlier in the evening and went to Terence Moniz’s house where he had graciously let me crash for the night so I wouldn’t have to cycle down from Moira for the 6 AM start. I should mention that Terence Moniz and the volunteers in Panjim who organised the event and manned the control points really bowled me over with their warm heartedness and the other cyclists seemed to feel the same way.

The next morning, at the start, I felt a lot better when I saw that most of the out of towners were on mountain bikes or hybrids. I knew that I was between 20 and 30 percent faster on my road bike than I was on my MTB so thoughts of finishing near the top of the pack once again crept into my head. Since the paperwork wasn’t finished in time the start was postponed till 6:15 am even though our Brevet cards had been stamped with a 6:00 am time.

The start time was finally shifted to 6:10 AM and the start actually happened while I was pedalling around behind the start line, trying to see if my rear derailleur was indexed correctly since I had removed the rear wheel at night to check a loose washer. Everyone took off and cursing under my breath and feeling like a right ass, I stood on the pedals and caught up with them. I didn’t really have a game plan except to stay with the first few riders so that I wouldn’t get left too far behind and have too much distance to catch up, later in the race. Everyone seemed to be taking it easy so I surged to the head of the pack with just one rider ahead of me. This was Mr. Prashant Tidke from Pune, someone who had been so quiet the previous evening that I hadn’t even noticed him but now he seemed to be going at a good clip. Since his speed was in the low 30’s on the flat bits I felt comfortable with the pace and kept him within sight. At some point though, another rider in a full body suit on a gorgeous red and black Cervélo passed me and caught up with Prashant but I suppressed my urge to catch up with them as I was deathly afraid that I would go too fast and burn out early.

On the first climb however I caught up with the Cervélo rider and passed him and this was the last I would see of Rafiudeen Shaikh from Mumbai on the outward leg of the brevet. Infuriatingly though I didn’t seem to be able to quite keep up with Mr Tidke. He was cycling at such low cadence that from a distance it looked like he was taking a gentle ride in the park. On many climbs I would be in the bottom gear, standing on the pedals and giving it all I had while wishing for a third, smaller chainring or a compact cassette while Mr. Tidke would be a few metres ahead of me, in his fourth highest ratio, pedalling along steadily, seated on his saddle, getting away from me. It was enough to make me want to scream.

At this point I was still not sure if there was anyone ahead of the two of us so I wanted to keep up with him at the very least. I barely managed though and at the first checkpoint in Barcem, 62 Km from Panjim, I reached just as he was about to leave. I downed two Cokes and bought him one as well, which was when I got my first good look at Mr. Prashant Tidke. I realised he was much, much older than what I had thought while chasing him and now I felt like a complete douche for calling him by his first name all morning. When he later informed me that he was fifty years old I just wanted to hide my face for being such a rude asshole.

The weather was still excellent, South Goa was even more beautiful than North Goa and I was enjoying the Brevet so far. I filled my bottle and left the second control point still feeling strong, a few minutes after Mr. Tidke and at some point in the second leg I passed him but try as I might, I couldn’t shake him. He was always right on my tail which I soon realised when I entered Karnataka and thought I had overshot the Control Point. Fighting every urge I had to keep going, I stopped to pull the directions out of my saddle bag and before I could start again he passed me. We cycled along together wondering where the control point was and went another 6 km, asking for directions to some hotel all the way. I still had the feeling that the control point was ahead even though my cyclocomp said I had done 107 Km at this point and the Brevet was supposed to be 101 Km each way. I had an urge to just push on and try to put some distance between Mr. Tidke and I but better sense prevailed and we turned back and went into the town.

 After walking into a few hotel lobbies with my bike on one shoulder we realised that the we had probably overshot the control point and we started back north bound along the NH17. Mr. Tidke got out his phone and we called the organisers, only to find out that the control point had only just opened as the organisers had just reached themselves. We kicked ourselves for cycling so far ahead and wasting so much time and when we finally got to the second control point, Rafiudeen Sheikh was already there. I downed a Coke and ate a banana and was in the mood for some breakfast but Rafi and Mr. Tidke seemed keen to leave. As I watched them pedal off towards Panjim, something told me that I should probably skip breakfast and get on the road myself or I would never be able to catch up. 

After refilling my bottle with ice, I got back in the saddle and hit the road, not more than two minutes behind them. By now, the sun was up and it was getting pretty warm and humid. I put the hammer down and passed Rafi and Mr Tidke without too much trouble before we crossed the border back into Goa. Soon after this however I hit the hilly section and my left hamstring started cramping up quite badly. Mr Tidke caught up with me on a climb and I told him about it. He told me to drink as much water as I could so I quickly finished what I had in my bottle as I sped up again. Within an hour however, I was parched and had to stop for another refill and a Coke by the road side. Like clockwork, Mr. Tidke, who was less than a minute behind me, pedalled steadily past me as I struggled with those stupid plastic shrink wrap things they put on bottled water. Exasperated, I handed over the bottle to the shop owner who opened it for me while his two young daughters openly goggled at the deep scars on my right leg from an accident a decade ago where I almost lost it. 

I got back on the road and felt better for a bit as the cramps seemed to have subsided. I passed Mr. Tidke on another climb a few hills later and now I knew that I was in the lead. I reached the control point and the volunteers sweetly refilled my bottle with ice and poured a sachet of Elctral into it while I rubbed my calves and kept a look out for Mr. Tidke but there was no sign of him as I left the control point. I was just hoping that I would be able to finish the run at this point. I was afraid I had perhaps pushed too hard in the first leg. 

I kept switching positions on the climbs from sitting far back in the saddle to standing on the pedals and leaning far forward, with my knees brushing the handlebar on each stroke to try and get some relief from the cramps but every now and then they would get so bad that I would have to coast for a bit and then try to pedal again. My speeds up the inclines dropped into the single figures and at this point, had I not been in the lead with the chance of finishing first I would definitely have pulled over and rested.

The last 30 odd kilometres to Panjim were pure torture with the last few hills between Margaon and Vasco taking everything I had. I knew that Mr. Tidke was probably just a few minutes behind me but I was parched and the sun was really beating down on me so I finally stopped at a fuel station for another Coke and a bottle of water to refill my CamelBak. At this point, I was so tired I knocked a huge rack of chocolates over in the store and mumbled incoherent apologies to the cashier as she gave me my change. I got some chocolate bars out of my saddle bag and tucked them into the waistband of my biking shorts and got back on the road. A washer in my rear wheel hub had worked itself loose now and my wheel had a bit of a wobble to it. Probably shaken loose on a terrible stretch of road on my way to Castle Rock the previous weekend, I thought.

A few minutes later, when I was on a flat stretch, I pulled a chocolate bar out of my shorts, ripped it open with my teeth while riding and ate it while maintaining cadence. This was something I had never tried before and my first thought was, “This is probably how the pros do it” and in spite of how pooped I was, I burst out laughing at myself.

At this point I didn’t know if Mr. Tidke had passed me while I was at the In & Out at the fuel station but I knew he was either ahead of me or probably right on my tail so I pressed on with everything I had. Once the road flattened out after Vasco, I started feeling better again and even sped up, maintaining a 30-33 km/h average speed. After what felt like an eternity, I finally hit Panjim, feeling elated that at least I had finished strong. I pedalled up to Panjim Church Square and looked at my watch; almost 3 PM, my cyclocomp read 214.06 Km. The organisers waved at me from across the road and I asked the first person within earshot if Mr. Tidke had arrived. When he shook his head, my heart soared. I got off the bike and lay down on the sidewalk.

It had been a good day.

Fucking classic.

Yeah, yeah yeah. It’s a holiday invented by greeting card and jewelry companies and you shouldn’t have to show your affection for the one you love on just one day and you refuse to accept the rampant commercialisation of Valentine’s day that is shoved down our throats by corporate advertising shills.. etc.. etc..

 I’ve heard it all before and I’m not buying it.

So, if you’re with someone you love, go do something nice during the day and have bed shakin’ baby makin’ sex at night (or vice versa, ladies’ choice) and if you’re single, punch a hole in a tin of Milkmaid for dinner and hug your pillow as you cry yourself asleep.(Did I just reveal my plans?) 

Either way, don’t be a hater. That’s soo clichéd and you don’t want to be one of those miserable bastards. 

 Happy VD people! 

I could put this on a loop and watch it all day.

via Animals Being Dicks which along with ANIMALS TALKING IN ALL CAPS accounts for most of my internet LOLs these days…

and remember, high cadence, low gear. 

Woke up this morning singing Kung Fu by Ash. This version of the video is an edit of the outtakes that appeared during the credits of the 1995 film Rumble in the Bronx. Maybe it’s just how old I am now but just watching this makes me wince in pain.

Steal the MP3 here. 

It’s 2012! Happy new year kids and fuck you Mayans.

Why not? Estonian DJ Mord Fustang’s remix of Ce Ce Peniston’s hit, ‘Finally’ from nineteen hundred and ninety two takes me back to those fuck-all prepubescent years. #issues #ihasem

Steal the Mord Fustang Remix here.

Ce Ce Peniston’s original can be found here and is still excellent. 

There’s an entire EP of Raise Your Weapon Remixes out now but the original track from Deadmau5′s 4×4=12 album from last year is still the stand out version with its Cinematic Orchestra-like intro.

Download the MP3 here.   

Around the the last week of September, when the rains in Goa ended, I finally quit procrastinating, got on my bike and lugged my camera around North Goa to photograph the many interesting lions that people had on the gate posts of their houses.

They had piqued my interest forever it seemed and I finally did what I had been planning to do for months, cycle around Moira, Nachinola, Aldona, Assagaon, Carona, Olaulim, Pomburpa and Britona and photograph as many of them as I could find. It turned out to be a hugely rewarding day and I came home tired, sunburnt, with a sore ass, back and neck but I ended up with many photographs I am actually pleased with. 

Click on the picture to go Flickr and see the complete set of photographs.

I’ve been cycling at least 50 K a day and on many days as much as 120 K or so during a couple of trips to Sawantwadi in Maharashtra and many trips to the Maharashtra border check-post.

The rains though put a major damper on my habit and after a few weeks of cycling in a downpour everyday and coming home like a drenched rat I tired of it and the cycling got sporadic. A week back though the monsoon disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived in Goa. I woke up one morning with the sun shining brightly at me through the window and not a cloud in the sky so I decided to do my early morning cycling trip to the lighthouse at Fort Aguada. This is a 48 K or so trek I was doing every morning for the first few months in Goa but the monsoons threw a spanner into the works of my well maintained habit.

It was the morning after I had booked tickets to Mumbai and then to Delhi so I decided I ought to get back in the saddle regularly and make the best of the few weeks left. So here’s a description of my daily ride from this morning. This may only be interesting to other cyclists at best and will surely be thoroughly boring for pretty much everyone else but I’m writing it as much to put down the memory to savour later for myself as for anyone else to read. So here goes…

It’s just before eight in the morning and I’ve just finished my coffee and checked my email. A message from Mumbai lets me know that my trip is going to be timed perfectly to make a meeting there. Buoyed by the news I put on my riding gear which consists of a pair of Reeboks, socks, my bright red cargoes with a small hole in them where my butt rubs against the bicycle seat and a vest. I get out the foot pump and add a few extra PSI to the cycle’s tyres and put on a pair of crappy FireFox riding gloves that started to fall apart within a week of buying them. Glasses on, earbuds in, the Nokia in my pocket is set to play the Kid Creme Mix version of Shakedown’s At Night on a loop.

My iPod died recently in the rain and the Nokia has been doing double duty as a music player. I use the quick release and lift the bike seat from the setting I use to potter around these villages to its full height.

I stretch a bit and then lift the bike over the gate and check my watch as I put my ass on the saddle. A minute after Eight. I grab the bars and start pedalling, wave to my neighbour and her son as they leave the house. Turn left and go down the steep slope towards Pirazona Chapel. Brake hard at the bottom of the slope and turn left. I can feel the almost bald back tyre squirming for grip, I really should change it but I can’t find a cycle shop that has a new one with the same tread pattern as my front tyre and I’m anal about these things. Thumb the Shimano EZ51 indexed shifter to switch down a gear as I start the climb towards Moira proper. After a couple more small hills I’m racing down the hill next to Moira Church, rounding the blind corner and hoping I won’t need to brake and lose momentum to go up the next hill.

The five odd extra PSI I pumped into the rear tyre seem to be helping as I stand on the pedals and go up the next incline that will take me to the Moira Panchayat building before I turn right and start the downhill run to Mapusa. I go over the little bridge that signals the end of Moira village and pedal out into the open fields. The weather is beautiful. I move my hands inwards on the handlebar, grip the brifters and hunch over, pedalling hard.

My heart rate is not even up yet, I think as I whistle along to At Night. Look at my watch and barely seven odd minutes later I’m crossing the National Highway 17 and headed into Mapusa. There’s already a cop directing traffic at the crossing and he smiles at me as I change down a few gears and get the timing perfectly. He waves in my direction and I catch up and pass the stopped traffic before it can react to his signal. This means I’m not going to be held up by traffic on the bridge opposite St. Jerome’s Church. I switch down a gear and pedal up the incline and over the bridge just as the song in my earphones loops for the first time.

Turn left, lean in, cut the corner nicely and I’m in Mapusa. Luckily it’s early and the streets are empty as I race past the government hospital in top gear. Fly over a couple of speed breakers and hit the main crossing of Mapusa and then on past Mapusa Market. Some dude on a scooter passing the other way says ”hellohowareyou” to me but I pass him before I can react. Past the market and dodge a few buses outside the Mapusa bus depot. Lots of early morning crowd outside the bus stand. Tourists who have just arrived in Goa, workers going to work, school kids to school, lots of gawking, lots of pointing. Round the main circle in Mapusa and brake hard as a cop decides to let traffic in the other direction through just as I’m almost on top of him. Switch down gears quick as I can and stand on the pedals as I get on the road to Parra.

There’s hardly any traffic now as I get into top gear once again. Light breeze in my face as I grab the brifters and hunch over, remembering to tuck in my elbows as I pedal hard as I can. Heart rate is up now and I’m sucking air furiously. There’s a guy on an Enfield Bullet who swerves suddenly to the right just as I’m overtaking him. Give him a dirty look as I pass, hop a couple of speed breakers and I’m in Parra. Pass the car-wash place and overtake a couple more cars and bikes that are crawling over the speed breakers out of Parra. I go by fast enough to catch air on the second one, the music in my earbuds is pumping and I’m in the fucking zone.

Go through a couple more villages and I’m soon trapped behind one of those buses with JESUS written on the back of them. I take a chance and swing out. The road is empty so I pedal hard and overtake the bus as some biker behind me blows his horn.

A hand signal to indicate that I’m turning right, a quick look behind to check for traffic and I cut the corner at the turning towards Arpora without having to drop a gear. Couple more speed breakers and I’m passing the Arpora Church, one of the prettier ones. Past the football field at St. Joseph’s school on my right and I’m on a part of the road that has just turned to rubble during the monsoons. I want to swerve to avoid a huge pothole but there’s a bus behind me.

Quick decision, avoid the pothole and perhaps become road-kill under the bus or take my chances with the pothole. I hold on tight as the bike crashes into the pothole, the diameter of which I imagine compares favourably with a medium sized crater on the moon. The bus is switching down gears behind me with a painful, gnashing that sounds horrible as I pedal hard over the worst surface on the entire lap.

I try and put as much distance between the bus and me as I can before the next bus stop at Arpora Market. There’s a familiar woman at the bus stop as I turn left on to the Calangute-Anjuna Road. A couple of tourist Toyota Innovas are blocking the road ahead so I have to go around them on the loose sand next to the road, hooray for tourist season!

Look at my watch and its not even half an hour yet, I’m doing great time, egged on by the thought of beating my best time so far of an hour and fifty-three minutes I push on. The bike feels great with the rear dérailleur snicking gears into place effortlessly, no sign of the recent trouble I’ve had with the crap aftermarket Shimano groupset and the twice replaced Starlit freewheel.

I quickly reach the turn to Baga beach and hit some tourist traffic. Lots of dudes on rental scooters, the regular tourist crowd. There’s a gaggle of girls on scooters ahead, long, well cared for hair, fat white thighs and big asses, Delhi girls I imagine. A few minutes later I’m at St. Anthony’s Chapel trapped behind another bus. I want to make this a good time so I cut the bus off dangerously on the right as it passes the Chapel and I’m in Calangute.

A black dude on a scooter whom I see often nods and pumps his fist in the air at me and I do the same while thinking that I would give a kidney to have a body as ripped as his. There’s light traffic now, mostly tourists on scooters, rubbernecking and cruising, I carve them up as I try to maintain good cadence and get to the lighthouse at Fort Aguada in as much under an hour as I can. The sun is high enough in the sky now that I’m feeling warm. Luckily there’s still a cool morning breeze as I stand on the pedals and go up the shitty bit of road up to the Candolim football ground.

I cross the football ground and see a pretty white girl riding a scooter. She’s got her glasses hooked on the low-neck of her tank top and a pair of what I must say are gorgeous breasts. She gives me a (in my mind at least) “see something you like?” smile  and I grin back. She reacts to my shit-eating grin by wringing the throttle on her Honda and speeding off with a look of disgust on her face, her head bobbing back from the acceleration. So much for that then!

I pass Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Bungalow and scowl at the tourists in the middle of the road taking pictures of each other standing in front of the property, the point of which has always eluded me. I speed down the hill and then stand on the pedals again as I turn left at the brief uphill bit at the Sinquerim bus stop.

Now I’m on the final outward leg of the lap, Fort Aguada Road and I can smell the sea for a brief bit before my nose is filled with diesel fumes as the fishermen fuel up their tourist boats for a day of taking people somewhere. I hit the base of Aguada hill at good speed and switch down gears as I stand on the pedals and try to keep cadence. This is the most gruelling part of the entire ride, a steep, uphill climb to the lighthouse.

My lower back hurts a bit. Serves me right for not doing any yoga last night. The sun is pretty high in the sky now, there’s no breeze at all and I’m hot as hell and soaked with sweat, some of which gets in my eyes and stings like a motherfucker. I click the left shifter and switch down to the middle cog on the front derailleur, the first time I’ve done so today. The hill gets steeper and I realise I’m weaving as I stand on the pedals when I hear a scooter behind me. I straighten up and a couple of guys go by, giving me the thumbs up sign.

I turn right on the hill at the Aguada Jail turning and switch down a couple more gears as I head up the steepest bit right before St. Lawrence Church. My thighs and calves are on fire now and I resist the urge to drop into a lower gear as I push up the hill. I let out a primal scream just as I go over the crest. It’s much less steep from here on to the Fort so I tuck down again and try to gather as much speed as I can, ignoring the pain in my back. Pedalling fast and panting hard, I get to the Fort in just under fifty odd minutes from home. There’s already a fair amount of tourists here, milling about, eating snacks, buying unfortunate hats from the vendors. Two young stud-looking boys go past me on a scooter with matching brown Wayfarers and Fedoras and I laugh out loudly at them despite trying to catch my breath.

I hit the end of the road and turn left after the Fort, now I’m on the final muddy bit, the part I enjoy the most. I go around the corner where the new lighthouse is and see that there are no scooters which means no tourists, no god-fearing couples coming for a little nookie where Jesus can’t see them and no gay lovers looking for a little early morning sexy-time. Excellent.

I switch down a gear, glance at the sea and jump the bike effortlessly over the rocks that so scared me the first time I rode this trail. I recently sawed about six inches off the bars when I flipped the stem and at first it made the steering a bit skittish on this part of the trail but now it feels completely normal. The rear tyre skids on the loose mud and stones as I brake at a downhill corner in the trail that leads straight to the edge of the cliff and then the Arabian Sea. I shit myself a little as I let go of the rear brake and brake the front tyre a bit more as I make the turn, I really should get a new rear tyre. There’s a couple of huge rocks on either side of the trail that always take perfect timing to go through without hitting my pedals on them. Keep cadence, time it just right, left pedal, right pedal aaannd I’m through cleanly. Textbook.

The bushes on both sides of the trail are now at head height and they hit me in the face and all over my arms as I speed through them, trying to gain momentum for the final climb to a great look-out spot where I stop and turn around. Thumb the right shifter at just the right time and I pedal up the loose rocks and mud on to the clearing and do a controlled skid to a halt at the edge of the cliff for full effect.

Just under fifty-six or so minutes. I take off my sunglasses and wipe my sweat from them and look out at the sea. The sky is a clear blue and the sea looks pretty, dotted with cargo ships. A small fishing boat motors just off the coast and I snap a quick, pointless cellphone picture off before I turn around and stand on the pedals again.

The song At Night is at the chorus now just before the beat comes in again and I feel great, my endorphin high peaking as I head back down the trail towards the Fort. Round the corner at the new lighthouse and I’m back on tarmac again. A few tourists smile at me and I smile back as I go past the Fort and down the hill. My arms are itching like crazy now where the bushes scratched them but I dare not take my hands of the bars as I race down the steep hill. I hit a flat spot on the road and reduce the volume on my earbuds so I can hear if someone’s coming up the hill on the wrong side of the road, as the tourists often do.

Braking hard on a blind downhill corner I can feel the rear tyre start to chatter again and I let go a split second before it breaks traction. If I skid here I either go off the edge of the hill and tumble down into the sea or I get flattened by whatever vehicle is coming the other way, FUN!

I race to the bottom of the hill and smell diesel again as I pass the fishermen and the guys who operate the tourist boats. I head back towards Candolim and now there’s much more traffic on the road. I carve up slow moving buses and tourists on scooters as I head home.

At Parra, a beefy white guy on a big Kinetic scooter pulls alongside and asks me if I cycle alone or with a group. I say alone then realise I’m shouting because of the earphones. He pulls away and turns right towards Saligao as I tuck in and pass the street-side furniture shop. The bright red Vinyl bean bags look good in the morning sun.

I am just at the hour and a half mark now and making excellent time I realise so I tuck my elbows in, scoot my butt back on the seat and give it all I’ve got, thighs and calves throbbing nicely, endorphins coursing through my blood stream.

I go through Parra without having to deal with too much traffic and I’m soon on the final stretch of the road to Mapusa. Wave to a familiar cop directing traffic opposite the Mapusa taxi stand and then I lean in and go round the circle opposite the fucking hideous temple. A couple more turns past the petrol pumps and I’m back on Mapusa Market Road.

A lady in front of me on a Honda scooter suddenly turns right into Mapusa Market and I brake hard to avoid her, my rear tyre skids and swings out to the right as I yell “Indicators! Lady!”, she looks back in surprise. I realise that it might be the mother of a past girlfriend. I can’t be sure though as they all look the same to me, old Goan women I mean, not the mothers of exes.

Well, tough titties if it is her, I say to myself as I cross the bridge at St. Jerome’s Church and head to the crossing at the NH17. Cross the road, head out past the fields and I’m still twenty five minutes under the two hour mark and making excellent time, I may even beat my previous best of an hour fifty three minutes if I can push on uphill to Moira.

The sun’s up for real now and I imagine going home and drinking a litre of chilled orange Tang but then I chide myself as I had decided to not drink that shit anymore. Tuck in my elbows and crouch lower as I make the final push for a good time. Uphill to the Moira Panchayat in a higher gear than usual as I pump away furiously at the pedals. A local on the back of a motorcycle gawks at me as if he is wondering why this weirdo on a bicycle is in such a hurry.

I pass the crazy man that walks back and forth between Nachinola and Mapusa all day, eating a bit of bread that he got from Mahesh Store and talking quietly to himself, playing with his lips as he walks. Crest the hill and turn left at the Panchayat as I head towards Pirazona.

The last couple of hills are easy on the adrenaline high that I’m on now. As I turn right at the Pirazona Chapel and switch down to go up the last hill home I miss a gear, the pedals jump and I hear a sickening crunch, I swear and back off on the shifter and try again, the chain jumps on to a cog securely this time and I stand on the pedals for the last few metres home.

Skid to a halt outside the house and I check my watch as I jump off. Its about Nine Fifty  which means I’ve done an hour fifty or so and taken a few minutes off my previous best and I’m not even tired. I grin and think back to the days when I would struggle to do the same trip in two hours and five minutes and would get home completely bombed.

I’m going to fucking miss Goa.

So, British singer and DJ, Fink’s new album Perfect Darkness has been out for a month now and it is even more moody and melancholy than the last album. However, I still find myself coming back to this track from Biscuits for Breakfast called All Cried Out, over and over again. 

Hat tip to Saga for playing it for me last year, I loved it as soon as I heard it. That was indeed, a decadent and fun day.

Steal the MP3 from the internets here. 

Avoid the mediocre bad guys.

Adèle is just going to have to do.. 

This is Right as Rain off her debut album 19 from 2008 that I’ve been listening to a lot lately. 

Though her sophomore effort, this year’s 21, isn’t nearly as inspired, this album is worth listening to for sure. It’s packed full of tracks that span the gamut from soaring ballads like Chasing Pavements to fun, light little ditties like My Same all of which highlight this woman’s considerable vocal talent. 

Steal the MP3 for this song here.

Be good. Avoid assholes and sundry mediocre bad guys that harsh your mellow.

Journalist P. Sainath giving a talk titled Globalizing Inequality in 2005. Hat tip to the kid bro for the link. 

I can’t explain why I go out cycling every morning.

For the first fifteen minutes or so my knees are always sore and my hamstrings cramped up from the previous day. For the next few kilometres, after I am warmed up, I feel good but then about 10 km. or so into the ride my back starts to hurt. The grips on the handlebars rip up my palms and they are now covered with thick, ugly calluses from being rubbed raw for hours everyday. A few fingers on my left hand are often completely numb or tingly. 

If it’s sunny it’s so hot that I’m dripping wet with sweat about half an hour into the ride. If it’s raining, I am soaked to my skin within minutes of leaving the house and bitterly cold and uncomfortable for the rest of the ride. Each day I return so tired that my vision is blurry. 

Motorists think I don’t exist. Whether it’s at a crossing where I’m trying to switch down gears fast enough to keep going and a truck decides to cut across me anyway or on a wide road, a bus overtakes me only to brake hard, just a few metres ahead of me or some scrawny Goan mother-fucker on a scooter, who threatens to kick me over because I didn’t let him pass quickly enough.

Today, an auto-rickshaw side-swiped me and my pedal got stuck in the auto. I was dragged along for a few metres. He didn’t brake, he didn’t slow down. I finally got thrown to the side of the road and my foot got caught between the spokes of the front wheel of my bike and the front fork. Considering the violence of the crash I got off pretty lightly: one badly mangled foot, one destroyed shoe, one really sore ass and one scraped up elbow. The rear dérailleur on the bike is shot. Also the the front wheel is bent but I did that, while yelling in agony, trying to free my trapped foot. I got no apology and little help.   

So, I ask myself, why do I do it? Why do I go out every fucking morning, whether it’s in the pissing rain or the blazing sun to push pedals for kilometre after kilometre, torturing myself and pushing a cycle to the point that it is constantly falling apart? Why do I want to be out on the road at the mercy of the elements and of feckless motorists sending text messages from their cellphones while driving SUV’s? 

Maybe it’s because once in a while, not everyday, often when I least expect it, when I’m close to passing out, soaked with sweat, my lungs and my legs on fire after cycling up a steep hill, I go over the top of the hill and start cycling down the other side, free-wheeling down the slope, fast as the wind, with just the right song playing on my iPod and blasting into my head… and for just a few minutes I experience the closest thing to ecstasy that I can ever imagine.

This morning I woke up whistling this tune from Jamiroquai’s album ‘A Funk Odyssey’ from 2001.

‘Picture Of My Life’ is the last track on an album packed full of some of Jamiroquai’s best work and it makes listening to the album from start to finish truly worthwhile; a beautiful, melancholy song to end an album full of energetic, upbeat music.

This is the acoustic version of the song which is perhaps even better than the one on the album.

Get the MP3 here and sing along to it or do yourself a favour and go listen to the entire album. You can thank me later.

So I found a gem of a little App in the Mac App Store that really simplifies my workflow and saves me time everyday. The App is called Cloud. I know, the most generic name possible that is made even worse by an icon that looks just like the icon for MobileMe, Apple’s short lived and much hated service. This will get worse when Apple starts their new iCloud service. But apart from that little problem this App is absolutely brilliant.

To illustrate the utility of Cloud let me give you an example of a situation most people face many times a day. You are chatting with someone on iChat, Skype or your IM service of choice and you want to show them a file on your computer whether it is a picture or a sound. Most people (myself included) don’t use the file transfer options on instant messengers because they tend not to work most of the time.

So you find the item in Finder and either drag it over to Mail or open a browser tab and log into your Web based mail account and upload the file. You then type in the mail address of the person you are trying to share the file with and if you don’t have it you have to ask them for it in chat.

Once the file is sent they have to log into their own mail and find the message you just sent them and view the attachment. All of this takes about five minutes or so and is a pain to do if you have to repeat it many times a day.

This is where Cloud comes in. You install it from the App store and it shows up as a cloud icon in your menu bar.

Now, say you are chatting with someone and you want to send them a file or just show them a picture or share a screen-shot of  your Mac.

You highlight the file in Finder and hit Ctrl+Option+R and Cloud automatically uploads the file to the web in a few seconds. This works for files in iTunes and iPhoto as well. You don’t have to right click and locate the file in Finder first. Just select it in the App, hit the shortcut and you’re done.

Once done Cloud gives you a Growl notification and plays a sound to say that the file is ready to be shared and it pastes a URL for the file right into your clipboard so all you do is hit Cmd+V to paste the link in your chat window and the person clicks on it and sees your file.

If you still aren’t convinced you should try using it for a few days and see how much easier it makes sharing files from your Mac with others.

Also, did I say it’s free? You can’t argue with zero dollars.

Some would say that they use DropBox for this but I think DropBox is nowhere as simple to use for  file sharing. Even though I use it constantly it is mostly as a means of having a web based backup of the most important files I am working on for when the shit hits the fan. <Dead computer>

It’s the most well thought out App I have used in a while. Your mileage may vary, caveat emptor etc.

Here is a link. Enjoy!

I couldn’t go for my daily bike ride this morning because the rains are finally here and it’s coming down like nobody’s business. Actually, the monsoon hit Goa yesterday but I was like “Meh! It’s just a little precipitation!” and went out anyway.

After about an hour or so of cycling in the drizzle and feeling like a drenched rat on a bicycle I realised why all the locals generally stay in during the rains if they can help it.

So this morning I am wisely staying indoors, drinking coffee, watching the rain and listening to a playlist of songs about rain. (Yes, I am that lame)

One of those songs is “It’s Coming Down” by CAKE from what is probably their best ever album, Fashion Nugget.

You can steal the MP3 from the internets here.

Be good, watch out for assholes.

So, I have just spent most of the last couple of days playing the single player portion of Valve Studio’s long awaited sequel to Portal, the imaginatively named Portal 2. If you aren’t into gaming you can just go ahead and skip this post because it is going to be #UBERGEEKY.

For those of you still reading, here is a quick review.

Quite simply, if you loved Portal you will love Portal 2. If the idea of a first person shooter without even a single gun in it confused you then Portal 2 is not going to interest you. Go back to your regular shoot-at-anything-that-moves type games. If however you loved Portal, do yourself a favour and get Portal 2 now!

You can do this in two ways. You can pay 50 USD for a digital download on Steam or you can do the smart thing (like I did) and have Flipkart.com ship a disc to you for INR 622 all inclusive.

By the way, I played the entire game on the little 11″ MacBook Air I got earlier this year and it handled the game like a little champ. So far the Air has handled everything that I have thrown at it including Portal 2 and Team Fortress 2 with no fuss and since it weighs just about a kilogram I don’t ever want to carry a heavier laptop again.

For lovers of the original game Portal 2 has a lot of new tricks up its sleeve while retaining the same puzzle solving basic game play as its predecessor. There is now a propulsion gel, a repulsion gel and much, much more fun stuff to master and enjoy. Portal 2 is every bit as witty, smart and challenging as its predecessor.

Also, Portal 2 has one of the funniest people alive as one of the characters in it. GladOS’s nemesis is an AI called Wheatley, voiced by Stephen Merchant, a comic genius who co-created The Office, Extras and a ton of other gems with Ricky Gervais. Stephen alone, playing essentially an evil AI version of himself is worth the asking price of the game. He is that good.

Which brings me to the entire point of this post. Portal 2 has a single player mode which I have just finished and a 2 player co-op mode which I have no one to play with. (I know, I know, I have no friends. I’m just a loser with an internet connection)

So, if you too have zero friends or even if you do and you just want someone to play co-op Portal 2 with (no that is not a euphemism, behave!) add me on Steam. My user name is Macfragga and I want to be your internet BFF. So hit me up yo!