. : : Valar Morghulis : : .

This Was Dinner

Traditional Chicken Roast they called it at Polka Dots, Aundh (Pune). Four tiny pieces of chicken sausage, two legs and side of chicken with random vegetables, fried potatoes and served with barbecue sauce and mayonnaise. Rs. 185

The Traveller

I travelled 96 kilometres today. I am awesome. It helped that half of it was on highways.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my chiropractor is waiting.

Bad Scene

Like George says, “Bad scene.” Bad scene indeed.

Unthreaded

I tried threaded comments and didn’t like it. The problem was that replies to comments on the top might not be noticed by a returning reader who has already seen the other comments. This reader would go right to the bottom of the page and not bother checking the entire comment list for replies to comments. Or at least that is my assumption. It seems to be working well on many blogs and I am indeed a fan of threading related topics but it just isn’t for my blog.

Bruno Fails

The R5 of Bruno is out and I declare the movie not worth watching.

In other news, I leave the city on Tuesday.

You should also know that a new Rammstein album is coming soon.

Only Half As Wise

After the RCT annoyance, I went to get the wisdom teeth on my left side extracted. The lower one was impacted which meant that you couldn’t just pull it out. You had to cut into the gums and maybe even a little of the jaw bone to expose it and then pull it out. Yes, it’s sort of scary and is considered minor surgery. It was decaying in its hidden position and also putting pressure on the other teeth so it really had to come out. The upper one was titled outward and kept scraping my cheek (causing traumatic lesions or something) and had to go too.

I’ve had two canines extracted about 9 years ago so I thought it wouldn’t be nervous about the procedure. After all, it was considered routine in most places. But when the day of the appointment arrived, I was starting to get uneasy. Cutting into the gums… the bone?! Now I’ve never even had a serious cut in my life. The biggest injury I’ve ever had was a hairline fracture on my toe which was a minor inconvenience at worst. So I was definitely very uneasy as I walked into the dentist’s office.

The dentist took out a huge syringe of anesthesia and poked me in the gums with it. This was definitely the most painful part of the entire procedure. Ouch! After that I couldn’t feel a damn thing as the dentist began his work. I resolved to not look at any of the instruments (I’ve had a lot of dental work done but I mainly didn’t want to look at a bonesaw*) and kept my eyes tightly closed. The anesthesia numbs the throat which makes it hurt to swallow and keeping your mouth open doesn’t help either. This was the only inconvenience in the procedure.

So I just sat and tried very hard not to think of what was going on inside my mouth. The dentist chatted casually with the nurse with drilling and cutting sounds coming from inside my mouth. I didn’t feel the impacted tooth come out but I did feel the dentist putting sutures to close the wound. I never ever thought the first stitches I would receive would be in my mouth!

Around half an hour would have passed and it looked like my stupid impacted wisdom tooth was finally out of my life. But this was not over yet. There was the upper tooth that had to come out. I felt some tugging and the scariest creaking noise in my jaw. Apparently the tooth wasn’t planning to go without a fight and so the dentist made some cuts in the gums to get rid of the offender. I didn’t feel it come out but when the dentist started putting a few stitches on the top too (which aren’t usually required for non-impacted teeth) I didn’t know whether to feel proud of the strong tooth or be annoyed at it for being a nuisance.

That was the end of the dental work and I could finally close my mouth. However I had to bite down on a piece of gauze (fancy term for a piece of cotton) for an hour to staunch the bleeding. For the first two days I was advised to eat only cold and creamy foods and all sorts of other precautions that I won’t elaborate on (they’re boring; available upon request). I paid the doctor the Rs. 3500 I owed him and got the hell out of there to buy tablets and head for home.

The anesthesia began wearing off (it had been over an hour since the injection started) and the entire area of the operation started throbbing. By the time I reached home the pain was incredible. I was reading something on the PC but stopped due to the pain and went to bed where I laid down and sat up and twisted and turned for about an hour or two until the painkiller (paracetamol, large dose) kicked in. That was possibly the most pain I’ve ever experienced in my life and it was relief when it faded away.

The painkiller lasts only for about 8 or 9 hours so if I oversleep or forget about the tablets the ache comes back. While it certainly isn’t as horrible as day 1, it can’t be ignored. This is day 3 and I’m depending on the painkiller to keep the pain away. I have to take it for 2 more days and 2 days after that I have to go get the stitches removed.

I’m glad that I never have to go through this procedure ever again (I have no more impacted teeth and my other wisdom teeth are fine) and if you have to, best get it done at the earliest. The older you are, the more risks are involved.

*Well I didn’t know if a saw would be used but I didn’t want to know!

RCT

I’m getting a root canal. Hurray! How awesome is that?

I’m Back

A strange turn of events has brought me back to the city and it looks like I’ll be here for a while.

At least I managed to skip the summer.

A Political Spectrum Quiz

I took a quiz George linked to and these are the results:

You are a left social moderate.

Go take the quiz here. Then come back and use the link below to read my comments on all the questions in the quiz. There were quite a few interesting questions so I’ve explained my choices.

Click here after taking the quiz

Foodsick

After almost three months of living in the campus here, I am thoroughly bored of the food from the food courts. It’s always the same old stuff with no significant changes to the base item. I’m so tired sick of the same old rice and chappati items that sandwiches from Cafe Coffee Day and subs from Subway are much more appealing, even though they are double of triple the cost of a standard meal. I used to get pizza from Dominos now and then but stopped because pizza in India is ridiculously overpriced for some reason.

One thing that never seems to get old are Subway’s salads and subs. I’ve developed a(n) (un)healthy fascination for the chicken teriyaki sub, mostly because the meat is dry, and I feel I could eat that for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For variety there is also chicken seekh (whatever that is) and the more expensive lamb meats. (Here’s a tip: Ask for your meat to be finely chopped or you’ll end up with large slices of meat hanging out of your mouth when you take a bite.)

My backup food, when I’m feeling too lazy to leave my room and travel to one of the food courts, is Wai Wai noodles (the chicken version, obviously; vegetable is inedible) supplemented by biscuits and other processed stuff along with some bread (if the damn Mallus at the supermarket feel like stocking it). There’s also a bottle of ‘Chyawanprash’ that I’m trying to force myself to eat (with little success) and a few packs of Fox’s candies and mints.

If the situation continues, I will have to travel to the city to find some food but that’s such a bother. The bike parking area is about a kilometer away from my room.