How do you say "Showtime Lakers" in Hindi?

The only time I've really gotten into basketball the past few years is during playoff seasons...the rest of the time, I generally check up on box scores a few times a month, tops, and otherwise ignore my once beloved NBA. But there's something about graduating college and moving to a foreign land that has left me searching for outlets of Americanism. Thus, I think it's fate that the Lakers -- a team I was once so obsessed with that I baked Kobe Bryant a birthday cake -- have made a few key off-season moves and are suddenly the most badazz team in the League. 

Most badazz...and classiest!

I was raving about the Dwight Howard pick-up this morning to my roommates, before stopping mid-sentence: "You guys don't watch basketball, do you?" Guess it's ironic that my sudden rejuvenation of basketball fan-dom intersects the exact moment I decide to move to a country where the weird kids watch basketball and the cool kids play cricket. Whatev. 

The plan at this point is to turn one of my roommates into a Celtics fan, then slowly degrade his ego at the season goes on. Will keep you all updated on this pet project.

Back off, Carina Chocano!

About a week ago, Carina Chocano -- a "self-employed" sort of "freelance writer," if her LinkedIn is to be believed -- wrote a tad-too-touchy piece in the New York Times about Pinterest, Tumblr, and general user-generated content aggregation websites. Only she calls these websites "longing machines," and concludes with an ever-so-melancholy note that the sites define "the life we think we were meant to have but don’t, the people we think we should be but aren’t."

By extension of Chocano's theory, my time spent curating on "The Fancy" is a fruitless pathological pursuit to fool myself into thinking I'm a man of "taste" and "style."

Pshawww...act like you have this kind of taste, Carina.

Personally, I think Carina's essay is about as valid as any journalist cum philosopher can churn out when applying analytical skills learned in their college comparative literature classes to modern technology. RE: It's all wish-wash. Because you're right, Ms. Carina: "People don’t post stuff because they wish they owned it, but because they think they are it, and they long to be understood..." Sounds kind of like the supposedly intellectually untouchable Jonathan Franzen telling the Kenyon College Class of 2011 that the "telos of techne is to replace a natural world that’s indifferent to our wishes ... with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self." Thanks for the advice, J. Franz! I'll be sure to avoid modern technology from now on!

Sure, people use online profiles -- even Pinterest portfolios consisting entirely of images -- to define how they want to be viewed by the world. But I think anyone who has ever viewed a Facebook profile filled with "deep" quotations and ostentatiously heart-felt status updates can see that these profiles act as more then just, y'know, profiles -- their an outlet for self-expression, self-realization and social understanding. So Ms. Chocano, I'm here to tell you: your behind the times, but not in your use of technology. Your antiquated in your realization that technology is deeply entwined with people's emotions and understanding of themselves. Heck, David Foster Wallace hit on the soul-churning isolating effect of technology in his 2005 Kenyon Commencement address. (On another note: those Kenyon College grads must really be a happy bunch...)

Basically, I find these overly-intellectual technology pieces at once embarrassing (for the writer) and confusing. What exactly does Carina want me to do, once I acknowledge that my "Fancy" portfolio is a web of self-deceit? Stop looking at "Vans California Era Washed Paisley" and "Cheesecake-stuffed strawberries?" Cuz if that's what you think I'll do, Ms. Chocano, then you don't know B.Doyle...

Damn those are sexy...

"The Dark Knight Rises" is Visual Dank Chronic

Some friends and I saw "The Dark Knight Rises" last night. That sh** is tightttttttttttt. Even with its grim, post-9/11 vision of NYC/Gotham, the movie still made me miss the good ol' US of A.

All we have over here is "Punjabi Batman"

After the negative experience at "The Amazing Spiderman," we opted for the regular screen over iMax -- even though Manohla Dargis' New York Times review insisted that iMax is "the way to see the film." Well, an Indian "regular" screen is pretty darn big as it turns out, so sucks to your suggestion, Ms. Dargis.

The movie also gave me my own visions of big screen glory -- a dream that is conveniently easy to manifest here in Mumbai, where a number of my associates and roommates are already "acting" (re: appearing in the background) of major Bollywood films and commercials. The pay is also not too shabby, considering your usually just asked to dance around or stare at the protagonist in awe...half-a-days work can net you a few thousand dollars rupees.

Now that's some free enterprise that even Bane could support!