How a boy named Jon ruined my life

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, a wonderful family was blessed with a beautiful baby boy. The parents named this seemingly lovely boy Jon. However, unbeknownst to them, Jon was, in fact, evil incarnate. On the outside, his cherubic appearance with his messy hair and HarryPotteresque glasses made people warm up to him really quickly. His typical British sense of humor, often dry and quirky, made him a darling of the masses. He quickly developed a following and dubbed all his followers as members of the "Jon cult". But, no one knew of the evil that resided in him. His true colors were not to be releaved until a little later in life, when he moved to a beautiful city called Zurich.

Halfway across the universe, in a city called New York, lived a lovely girl called Jigz. She was described by her friends as entertaining, full of life, and fun.However, she was also hiding a deep, dark secret. A terrible secret that almost no one knew about. She was a recovering addict. Jigz was addicted to the game "Bejeweled" on her cellphone. It was a serious, debilitating condition that had a profound impact on all aspects of her life. While riding buses and subways in New York, she wouldn't even look up from her phone to acknowledge other fellow human beings. Numerous times, she found herself missing her bus stop or her subway stop because she was so focused on her game. In a little over two years, she had played over two thousand five hundred games on her phone.

One day, when she found herself reaching for her phone at two am on a Tuesday night, she knew that she had a problem. Not one to dwell on a problem without finding a solution for it, Jigz immediately started talking to people about it and sought help. The first thing she did was to hide Bejeweled from the Menu display on her phone. "If you can't see it, it can't tempt you," is what she would say. After a lot of soul searching, she realized that the only way she could get completely cured of her addiction was by moving to a new country, even a new continent. She needed to get away from all that was familiar, and move to the new. After a long wait, Jigz finally moved to Zurich. And that's where she met Jon.

Jon, who finally saw the perfect prey, a woman with addiction issues, immediately pretended to be nice, warm, and friendly. Pretty soon, Jon and Jigz became good friends. Trusting him, Jigz confessed to him about her past addiction issues. Jon, playing the sympathy card, pretended to care, and promised to help her, should she ever relapse. What he didn't mention to her was that he would be the catalyst in causing such a relapse. Such was her trust for him that Jigz even showed him exactly where she hid the game "Bejeweled" on her phone. Jon leaped at this opportunity. One day, when a group of people were out for dinner, Jon took Jigz's phone, and started played Bejeweled on it. In front of Jigz. Not only was she horrified at such a blatant display of breach of trust, her dormant addiction was now awake and kicking again. Jon, being the true evil that he is, then saved the game on her main Menu. Everytime she would reach for her phone, the game would now be in front of her eyes. Daring her. Taunting her. Enticing her.

Jigz tried to resist as long as she could, but she is human, after all. She finally succumbed. Now, before even brushing her teeth in the morning, Jigz has to play a game. Before going to bed, she has to play a game. While waiting for a tram, while ordering food, even while doing yoga! She now looks like a deranged lunatic who is unfit for society. All because of a boy called Jon. But will good ultimately triumph over evil? Can Jigz get over her addiction once again? Is she strong enough to stop Jon from destroying another life? Or will Jon take over the entire world and ruin everyone's lives? Come back here to find out what happens next!

Tell me what you want to hear

I am OBSESSED with this song right now - I can't stop playing it over and over and over again:



Today I went to Julie and Carla's for yet another gluttonic event. If gluttonic is not an adjective, well, it should be one. As I have done in the past, this time I didn't eat anything all day before going over to their place, and as usual, it was SO worth it. About 10-12 women feasted on veggie enchiladas, picco de gallo, avocado-mango salad, some pork thing, beans and nice, cinnamon rolls, and copious amounts of other drinks. At one point, I had to be in the horizontal position for a good fifteen minutes, in order to facilitate breathing, which was restricted because of all the eating.

Once I was able to move into a vertical position again, I rejoined the conversation, which, to my delight, revolved around food. After being completely satiated, we proceeded to play Monopoly, where certain people, who shall not be named, did end up creating monopolies and taking away all the money from the little guys. But not me! I decided to fight against the establishment, and even tried to start a revolution! But I guess everyone else wanted to build houses and hotels and spaceships, so my partner Carla and I had no choice but to join the capitalistic society and build some houses of our own. But after a while, I cried out and said, "Enough! Is this the kind of world that we want to bring our children into, where all people want is MORE? Let's all go back to a simpler time, when we helped each other out, and cared for each other. Let's end this insanity, once an for all, and let people pass by our houses and hotels without having to pay rent." Okay fine, I may have made a couple of bad real estate calls, which may have led to Carla and me getting kicked out of the game. But I'm sure had I survived another round, I would have given the exact speech that I just quoted.

I got over my loss against capitalism by eating cinnamon rolls and having Irish coffee. How I managed to even walk out of their place and get back home, I don't know, but I'm glad I did, because I am currently in a food coma. In fact, I think even typing anything more is difficult, if not impossible, so I'm just going to put an end to this and go to bed. Hope you had a good, food filled weekend!

Ramblings of a hungry mind

I accidentally ended up eating two dinners, and as a result, I had to stay in the horizontal position for a good hour. But as soon as I got vertical, hunger for dessert beaconed, and I ended up having a big piece of leftover Swiss roll for dessert. Result: I am now back in the horizontal position.

Today's post was supposed to be about our visit to Montreux, but I realized that I hadn't shared an STIDT in a while, so I figured it was time for one. Today, while sitting by my desk at work, in a span of 3 seconds, I dropped my ID, and when I bent to pick it up, my glasses fell off my face, and when I bent down to pick them, up my handbag fell on top of me. Yes, all this happened sequentially and yet almost simultaneously. But, as usual, none of this was my fault. The culprit, in this case, was the stupendously delicious chocolate muffin that I had earlier in the afternoon. Gooey and chocolaty on the inside, soft and welcoming on the outside, it was a forkful of perfection. This decadent, sinful delight has changed me forever. I am a born-again optimist. I am now convinced that nothing can be as bad as it seems, as long as you have a muffin in your life.

I would have taken a picture, but before I could even take in my first deep breath, muffin was demolished. Nothing was left. I was literally scraping the bottom of the paper to get every tiny little piece that I could. But it was worth it. I'm pretty sure that last bit of muffin was what gave me the epiphany that changed my life forever. Now if I could only get my hands on another one of those tomorrow, I will be able to achieve Nirvana. Moksha. Whatever you want to call it. I'm just one chocolate stuffed chocolate muffin away from it. Here's hoping that the powers that be that control the muffin supply are paying attention to this!

Oktoberfest Shenanigans

Ladies and Gentlemen, the wait is now over! After an over extended hiatus, I'm back in the world of blogging, and with a backlog of stories that I need to share. We'll begin this return with details about the Oktoberfest trip to Munich:

Oktoberfest, an annual three week festival, takes place in the Bavarian region of Germany. During these three weeks, it traditionally attracts around six million people from all over the world. I'd tell you the historical significance of this festival, but that would require me to check Wikipedia, and since boredom levels are insurmountable, that's not going to happen. It's mainly known for the copious amounts of beer that is available and is consumed.



Now, most of you know that I don't drink beer, so every time I told someone that I was going to Oktoberfest, they gave me the same perplexed look that we all had when we found out that Justin Timberlake could act. The look said, "Really? You? How?". Having never attended Oktoberfest, or any beer related event really, I convinced myself that I could always just get a glass of wine at a beer tent in Munich. Go ahead, you can laugh. Everyone else already did. Anyway, with a carefully formulated plan that was based solely on naiveté, my friend C and I left for Munich by train. We were to meet up with my BFF Dev, who was already in Munich, and then meet up with J and S, a couple of other friends, who were taking a later train to get there. I spent most of the time sleeping and thinking about what I wanted to eat for dinner. I mean, if I'm not thinking about food at least once a minute, then who am I, really? We finally made it to Munich at around five in the evening, dropped off C's bag at his hotel, and made our way to Dev and my hotel.

Having not seen Dev in over six months, my excitement levels, which each approaching moment, were out of control. In fact, in my excitement, I got us lost on the way there. A genuine mistake, one that anyone would have made, I'm sure. We finally found the hotel, and Dev and I shrieked loud enough to cause the building to shake. There was plenty of incoherent mumbling and a lot of blubbering. C, being a guy, didn't know how to react to this, so he resorted to admiring the dull, white paint on the walls. We caught up on six months of gossip as fast as we could, and then met up with the rest of the boys - J, and S - who, by now, were in Munich.

We all proceeded to have dinner, a whole FIVE HOURS after my initial plan, mind you, but the food was delicious, so I had no complaints. We then made our way to a Beer bar, where, based on my naive plan, I ordered wine. The woman looked at me funny and got me orange juice instead. That's when I realized that my "wine at a beer place" plan was deeply flawed. Now the question was - do I leave aside all my prejudice and give beer a shot, or do I continue to hate it and then just end up having nothing but water at Oktoberfest? Keep reading to find out what happened...

Shenanigans take a new turn...

Since the men - C, J, and S, had no semblance of a plan on how to approach Oktoberfest, such that we could get in without having made reservations at any of the tents, Dev and I decided to take control of the situation and informed everyone that we would meet at the actual Oktoberfest venue at 8:30 the next morning. The boys assured us that they would be there and that we needn't worry. They also assured us that they had directions to the place, and with their GPS, Google Maps on phones, and BatSignals, there was no possible way that they would get lost. Being women, we should have known better, but we decided to trust the guys anyway. After shaking hands on the verbal agreement that we had just created, we parted ways at around 1am - the guys went to their hotel, while Dev and I went to ours.

The next morning, we - and by we I mean the women - were at the designated meeting point at 8:30 in the morning, complete in wardrobe, hair, and makeup. Even though the day was cold, rainy, and dreary, we were ready to partay at a moment's notice. We waited around for fifteen minutes for the guys, and then called them for an ETA. And whatdoyouknow- they were LOST. In MUNICH. They couldn't find Oktoberfest. IN MUNICH. It bears repeating and can't be written in lower caps. We just told them to follow the crowd. I mean, thousands of people walking in on direction is hard to miss, right? RIGHT? WRONG! Apparently, trusting a freaking GPS is better than following a million people. So, with the help of this wonderfully trustworthy GPS, the boys found themselves in Cambodia. Well, not really, but they might as well have been! Upon calling them 134th time and being told that they were "only ten minutes away," we knew that we'd see them one day, when we were grey and old. So we did what any normal women would do under these circumstances - we went and got a pretzel. The pretzel was as big as a house, but hunger levels were high, so it was demolished in no time.

An hour, I repeat, an HOUR later, the boys found us. I was ready to unleash my hour long pent up rage, but looking at their cold, wet, and sad little faces, I couldn't muster up the energy for anything more than resigned shaking of the head. That's right, they walked around for an hour in the rain, without an umbrella. Because apparently, not only do real men walk around following GPS systems that don't work, they also don't believe in the power of an umbrella.

Anyway, after giving them numerous disappointing looks, we made our way into the Paulaner tent, which was one of the bigger tents at the festival. The mood inside was - haha - very festive, with people breaking into song and dance spontaneously, and music playing everywhere:



And, guys and gals, this is where history was created.

What history, you ask? Well, this location, this tent, is where, for the first time, I had beer. Yes, you read it here first, I had beer. And it wasn't bad! Not that I'm going to line up for the next beer event, but the fact that I managed to have some beer and live to write about it is historic in it's own way. Here's a Kodak moment that captured said history:



After hanging out in the tent for nearly six hours, the five of us decided to venture out in the daylight and change locations. And this is where technology played havoc again. C, who had the power of Google Maps that led the boys the wrong way, had run out of credit on his prepaid cellphone, so as soon as we got out of the tent, he promptly got lost. Because that's what men do these days. They get lost when left unchaperoned for more than a minute.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think finding a white guy in a crowd of hundred thousand in Germany is exactly a piece of cake. Dev and I took control of the search and rescue operation and organized search parties among the four of us who were still standing. After a couple of hours, we decided to head back to the hotel, hoping that he'd be there. One of us had the idea to try and refill his cellphone on our own, so we finally organized an international search party by calling someone in Zurich to go to a local store and have credit added to his phone number.

Eventually, we found him, and upon asking him what he had been upto, we found out that after walking around for twenty minutes, he got hungry and went to McDonalds for some burger and fries. While we were working on a route for the search party. He was eating fries and having a McFlurry. At one point, due to my vertical challenges, I was standing on top of an overturned beer barrel to find C, while he was having a McFlurry. This is why women need to rule the world - at least we aren't distracted by food! Okay fine, I can be, but when in crisis mode, even copious amounts of pastries and chocolate wouldn't make me budge from the task at hand! Anyway, all's well that ends well, and the only way this could have ended well was with food, which it did. We went to another German restaurant, where I had the most amazing Pumpkin soup I've had! Satiated, the failed search and rescue operation of the morning was almost a distant memory. With emphasis on the world ALMOST.

On our last morning there, C, Dev, and I went on the Third Reich Tour in Munich, where we learned about the rise of Hitler, before he moved to Berlin. Here's a look at the Beer Hall where Hitler gave his first major speech:



The tour was extremely informative and educational. We walked in the footsteps of people who reshaped world history and tried to get a glimpse into life in Munich in 1933. In conclusion, the Munich trip had it all - humor, drama, suspense, and history. It was a wonderful trip with some truly awesome people - even though many of them were incapable of following instructions and hid in McDonalds during search and rescue operations :)

I am alive!

I promise! Unlike some people, I did NOT get lost at Oktoberfest. I've just been insanely busy with work and with my BFF who's visiting me from New York. The Oktfest crew also went to Montreux this weekend, and to say that I felt like I was in paradise would be an understatement:



I am going to spend a massive amount of time this weekend updating the blog with details about the Munich trip, which will include:

- Triggering a philosophical debate on why men can't ask for directions even when they are obviously lost

- A short story about what men do when they are lost in a crowd, while others are conducting a massive manhunt for them

- Answer to a burning question: Does what happened at Oktoberfest ever really stay at Oktoberfest?

- An explanation on why wine tastings will be the death of me

- Discussion point: Is there ever such a thing as "too much wine?"

Stay tuned for more! Until then, I leave you with a visual teaser of what's to come: