Introducing Friends

I would like to introduce a few individuals who Swati, my wife and I have come to know as friends after living for almost a year and half in California.

Navdeep, Kamal and Angad Dhanjals: 

  [left to right: Swati, Stavya, Kamal, Angad, Navdeep © Atit Shah]

Swati, when in India had a colleague, Amit Relan. Amit and Parminder Relan were our first couple friends in Mumbai. Navdeep is Parminder Relan’s first cousin.
 
Before Swati and I moved to the US, I had made two prior trips to the US. Parminder did ask me to ring Navdeep up. I didn’t really have any use for him back then, so I never bothered. But when we moved to the US, we were expecting Stavya, my son, and we needed advice. Navdeep and Kamal had just had Angad and the memory was fresh on all the soon to be parent topics.
What Navdeep did, we did.

Navdeep picked a doctor from Los Olivos Women’s Medical Group, we picked a doctor from Los Olivos.
Navdeep picked Doctor Borirson, we wanted her too but she was out. We picked Doctor Conwell.
Navdeep picked Good Samaritan Hospital, we did too
Navedeep took Birthing classes, we did too.
Navdeep bought a Graco travel system, we did too.  

Damn, we made so many mistakes.
 

Navdeep upgraded his car seat to a Safety First Reversible car seat, we are planning too. 
 

At this, I would only say, some people just don’t learn from their mistakes.

Raman, Nidhi and Avi Bindlish:

[left to right: Nidhi, Stavya, Avi, Raman © Atit Shah]

We know each other through a common friend, Minaxi and Rajat. They had Avi sometime after we had Stavya.
Our relationship is opposite to that of Navdeep and Kamal.

Raman, Nidhi would ask us those soon to be parent questions and would do the opposite.
We told them Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Gatos, they went to Palo Alto Medical Center in Cupertino.
We told them Graco travel system, they got a Safety First. 
We told them about Birthing classes, they chose an afternoon snooze.

Deepak, Sakshi and Advait Agrawal:  

  [left to right: Advait, Sakshi, Deepak © Atit Shah]

We have a park adjoining to our apartments. This is where we took Stavya to enjoy a few swings.

We saw this couple who had a boy of almost the same age as Stavya, lord as our holy witness knows how hard we tried to avoid them and discouraged all attempt of communication and befriending.

We failed and after a few dinner meetings made a 3 day road trip to Lake Tahoe.

After that trip, neither one of us has brought up an idea for another road trip. 

Aparna and Anupam Tiwari:

    [left to right: Aparna, Swati, Stavya, Anupam © Atit Shah]

  
They are our up-stair neighbors and the reason why our house is so stuffy and every corner smells of Indian Spices. 

 
They apparently have strong olfactory senses. Aparna and Anupam moved in after us and befriend us by knocking one day and complementing for good smelling Indian food that was being made. Indian tendencies made us invite them over for a dinner one day.
 

After that every time they smell something good they just knock and ask what is being cooked and how it tastes?
 

When someone asks “how it tastes”, you just can’t say yum, perfect, thank you for asking and close the door on them. You have to invite them in and give them a taste.
 

One day we decided to trick them. We sealed our house, cooked in the dark and hoped they would think we are out. But then there was this knock again. We knew it was them. They were pretty persistent on the knocking. We finally gave up and opened the door.
 

This time she didn’t ask her usual question on what is being cooked and how it tastes, instead she offered us a large bowl and said, I think you have burnt your dinner; you should not cook in the dark. Here have some biryani.

Minaxi and Rajat Aggarwal:

   [left to right: Rajat, Stavya, Minaxi © Atit Shah]

 
Minaxi is Swati’s friend from school and is married to Rajat.  

They were out of touch for almost 10 good happy years until united by Facebook and US.  

When you are in a foreign country, you know so few people that you tend to forget the reason for wanting to be out of touch with a few.

 
She has always been the center of my insults and mockery but for some reason when the time comes to pen down a few words in her honor, I am all lost for words. It’s probably because I feel I owe her for all the creative thinking she putting in, in celebrating Stavya’s first birthday. 

 
There are a few more worth mentioning but as you see I am out of insults. In time they will be here.

Update: As witches, you shall burn

I want to thank all those who read my entry – As witches, you shall burn.

For those who haven’t read it yet, I would strongly encourage (please), urge (please, please) and demand (please, please to infinity) you read it now.

While I thought of this brilliant inaugural to a paranormal saga on a similar hot winters night, I can’t seem recollect how I had dreamt the remainder of this gripping mystery.

I am now left with hoards of pending exploration to transform this into to a believable mythical or into a believable science fiction art work. And yes it will have to be a hundred percent original. While I embark on this arduous task I request you to continue reading my entries and hope that I fall upon the perfect mystery of unmasking the assailant of the 3 (so far) burning young naked girls.

RIP Ladies.

Bruce Wayne is yet to fall into a pit and be pulled out as BATMAN.

As witches, you shall burn

Pleasantville struck a record high on the Fahrenheit scale. Making matters worse, the cooling system of the city’s electrical grid chocked covering the complete city in a blanket of darkness.

Close to midnight, as people lay in the blackout tossing and turning from the heat, there comes a high pitched shrill of a young girl.

As people gush out of their houses to look at the source of the scream and hope for some respite from the heat, they see at the far end of the street a brilliant light. This was odd in the middle of a blackout.

Now walking with a sluggish pace they come to stand a few feet away from the light. In the bright light shone a naked body of a young girl, gagged and hanging upside down from a tree. A white board with the words “As witches, you shall burn”, scribbled in black.

Just as people finish reading and ponder on how the burning. A sudden thunder followed by a lightning striking the earth. It strikes the dry foliage under the young lady catching fire. The young naked body of the girl now burns violently startling its audience.

It was not the identity of young girl or the reason for such an end of life that troubled the people, it was the fact that there was a lightening on the hottest day in the middle of summer, the fact that someone could predict the exact location of where the lightning would strike and the fact that someone was able to predict not one but three different places several miles apart that lightning would strike to burn three different young naked girls. All with a single message: “As witches, you shall burn”

The cure for AIDS

Just a thought that I tossed around with a few friends on Facebook.

From Father to Son

Having become a father, for 8 months now, I have this unnerving urge to impart my almost fictional wisdom to my son.

This entry is an amalgam of stereotypes the Media has created of all the people around the world, of hilarious quotes and a visual of a father sitting down his son and imparting what he believes to be their cultural and/or family maxim.

Arab: Have you ever seen a poor Arab? An Arab is almost a synonym to oil, wealth and harem. This is what I imagine an old Arab man preaching his son

“Yes, money can't buy happiness. But it's more comfortable to cry in a BMW than on a bicycle.” – Author unknown

American: If you ever overhear a conversation between any two Indian, a generation older than you, you would hear them gossip about people getting divorced and preferring burgers and pizzas to a nutritious home cooked meal of spices with an occasional vegetable. They would annotate this as “adopting the American Culture”. It must be true now that there is also a book on it the “Fast Food Nation”. A father would share the following two wisdoms with his son or his step son:

“Don't forget Mother's Day. Or as they call it in Beverly Hills, Dad's Third Wife Day.” – Jay Leno

And

“I found there was only one way to look thin: hang out with fat people.” – Rodney Dangerfield

India: Once known for its spirituality and its plethora of ready to discover religious wisdom has traded itself to be the epicenter of software outsourcing. I can only imagine this from today’s father:

“Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.” – Ronald Reagan
 
Mafia: Once referred to as Italians,

“Don't ask God for a bike, God doesn’t work that way. Go steal a bike and then ask for forgiveness.” - Emo Philips altered by Atit Shah
 
Russian: I don’t know much of Russia and its view of Homosexuality but this is the only really funny quote I could find

“Homosexuality in Russia is a crime and the punishment is seven years in prison, locked up with the other men. There is a three year waiting list.” – Yakov Smirnoff
Communism is not very funny.

Japanese: acclaimed for their high IQ, take great pride in having finally solved the chicken and egg problem. They proudly expound logic to their offspring:

“The chicken came first - God would look silly sitting on an egg.” – Author Unknown
And instill the sense of “wining” as opposed to being the “first”

“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.“ – Author Unknown
 
Irish: For centuries they have been known for their uncouth habit of drinking and fighting:

“Drinking beer doesn’t make you fat, it makes you lean … Against bars, tables, chairs and poles.” – Author Unknown
 
Chinese: “God made everything that has life. And the rest is made in China.” – Author Unknown
Need I say more?

I once had to give up buying a trouser I really liked from GAP in Japan because it had the “Made in India” tag. I wonder how the Chinese feel. Do they ever buy souvenirs?

Jokes apart,

Thai: For a country where flesh trading is the only profitable industry and where a man is forced to become a woman to only crawl pass through the poverty line, a father with a heavy heart can only say:

“Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.” – Bill Maher

And an African who can never seems to see an end to his hardship:

"If you are going through hell, keep going." – Sir Winston Churchill

I would just leave my son with these words of encouragement:

“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” – Walter Bagehot

For Stavya.

The Smiling Block Murderer

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]
 
Special Agent Ednit Joules, a grade A psychologist who specializes in paranormal deviations and in deriving patterns was summoned to work this case. He is believed to be a member of a covert and an unknown, unspoken of intelligence agency.

It was almost after three weeks of quiet that agent Ednit started working the case. After studying the case Ednit came up with the following list of commonalities that existed in the eight seemingly unrelated killings:

1. The weapon of choice was the same hunter’s knife, big and sharp enough to decapitate a grizzly bear in a single sweep
2. All stabbings took place in the street
3. All stabbings were on Wednesday, the third day of the week
4. All stabbings had no witness and no forensic evidence.
5. All personal belongs were taken away probably as trophies The only things left behind at each of the crime scenes was a body and a piece of paper 

Ednit stared hard at the wall and tried to drive the connection between the victim and the blocks on the paper. He detested the LAPD referring to it as smiling blocks. 

It was not a coincidence that all victims were stabbed on a Wednesday and that there were eight victims and eight columns in the block. He looked hard and noticed that the second victim, Toan and the seventh victim Rose each had 4 letters in their first name and they fit well in the second and seventh columns. He proceeded to fill the blocks with the first name of the victim in the sequence of the killing. They all fit well in. 

Ednit now looked across each of the seven rows. If each of the seven rows corresponded to a day of the week, then Wednesday would be the third row.

Harrison! Now that seems like a name. There was no other row, full or partial, that conveyed a name or anything that seemed of interest. Endit thought of pursuing Harrison as a lead.

Is Harrison the first name or the last name? There would be several thousand Harrison in Los Angeles alone.

Spending a whole day in a state of conundrum, Ednit repeatedly flipped through all the crime scene photographs, autopsy reports and other assembled documentation.

As he filled through the crime scene pictures he noticed another thing common. All victims were found lying in a close proximity to a sprayed wall. It was time for field trip. He thought to visit each crime scene and look at the graffiti and even ask around on who the street artistic was?

Each of the sprays were signed “RoryH”. A quick search through the criminal records pulled out three Rory Harrison. Two of these were convicted felons. One was serving time at the time of the eight killings and the other was convicted for man slaughter. He had apparently stabbed his neighbor in self-defense and had pleaded not guilty. The third Rory was arrested and fined on three occasions for destroying public property by spray painting walls. Record had it that he was fined for spray painting the sights where Phoebe, Bryan and Rose were found.

There was probable cause to pull him in for questioning but there was no hard forensic evidence to connect him with the murders. He walks a free man.

Would you like the story to end in a perfect crime or would you like it to have the traditional good triumphs over evils? If you want to Rory Harrison arrested and prosecuted for his heinous crimes come back tomorrow.

On the wall

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]
 
Two quite weeks have gone by and no more bodies have been found or reported with the smiling block of paper.

LAPD put on the wall of the investigation room this chart: 

 

Along with the crime scene photo they had the piece of paper from each site on the wall. 

 The LAPD is now left staring at the collage on the wall with an open mouth and no clue to the killer or the motive behind the killings.  

This is your window to put on your thinking cap to figure out how to nab the killer. See you in one week when the killer to these gruesome mindless killing is revealed.

The Arrest

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series] 

For more than a month Ednit and LAPD in civils shadowed Rory Harrison. They were watching and waiting for him to the one mistake that would allow them to bring him in. Rory was very cautions and didn’t deviate from him mundane routing.

LAPD made unauthorized and undetectable break-in to houses belonging to him, his family and his friends hoping to find the smallest evidence that would tie him to the murders. All these breaks were to no avail and Ednit feared Rory had committed the perfect crime.

One day after almost two months of shadow games, LAPD found Rory making an unusual visit to a storage space in the farthest corner of the city. He was wearing a nervous look as he went in and went out. After almost three hours of driving across town in one direction he spent not more than three minutes in the unit. This could have been the mistake LAPD was patiently waiting for Rory to make.

With strong powers Ednit was able to obtain a warrant to search the storage unit. LAPD broke into the storage unit to find pictures, elaborate documentation recording each day of the eight victim’s lives and routing, a laptop and the murder weapon – the hunting knife that was wiped clean but had the traces of blood under the UV. Stashed away in one corner were all the victims’ belongings that he took with him after the murder. He had all their ids pinned to the wall. 

The mistakes Rory made were that, he had the storage registered under his real name and he made the trip to the storage unit too soon.

An Arab Male, Age, 32

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]

Wednesday March 21st 7.30pm 

Social Networking reconnected two long lost school mates and then war refugees, Haneefa Shaikh and Ismail Arif. They had fled their country during the Gulf war in 1990-91. After over two decades they stumbled up on each other on Facebook and reconnected. They planned their first meeting to be over coffee. They planned to reacquaint themselves at the Coffee Pot on North Rampart Boulevard. This was a coffee shop owned by another Arab refugee that Ismail Arif was friends with.

    Crime Scene Photo: Courtesy Google Street View

Ismail, a software engineer, was running late for his meeting with Hannefa that was scheduled at 6.00pm. His alibi was that his manager had asked him to turn his presentation at 6.30pm and he left work only after 6.50pm.

For reason, LAPD found later, Coffee Pot was closed that day and Haneefa had waited outside the coffee shop for Ismail.

It took Ismail only 20mins to zip through the traffic and reach the meeting point. The two had not exchanged mobile numbers number yet and he could inform Haneefa that he was going to be an hour late.

When Ismail arrived at 7.10pm he was perplexed why the place was unusually dark and closed at this time of the hour. As he looked around for Haneefa, he tripped over something twice as he walked around the door. The second time he flashed his cell phone to see what it was and discovered a person lying there with blood gushing out. He called 911. 

When 911 flooded the area, Ismail was able to clearly see the face of the person and he identified him to be Haneefa Shaikh.

Ismail thought Haneefa was murdered by his fellow countrymen as a punishment for fleeing the country instead of defending it. LAPD and Forensics search the body. No id, no wallet, no keys. Only the paper.  

 

LAPD wondered if there will ever be an end to this stabbing.

An African American, Female, Age 35

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]

Wednesday March 14th 6.00pm

Lassie, the famous fictional collie dog, brought us to our seventh victim.

A few irate drivers called animal control reporting a pit bull running amok on Huntington Drive North. The pit bull jumped in front of passing car bringing them to a screeching halt. At each car, he would bark intensely, climb up to the driver’s side window or on the hood of the car and startled the drivers. The dog would continue barking up until the driver built the courage to run through him. Several drives were disrupted until this couple walked by.

A dog adoring couple passing by, unsettled by the dogs behavior decide to attempt to calm him. It’s a pit bull and very few would take their chances. They managed to approach him without harm, pet it a little and within 10mins they were able to sit him down and calm him.

The dog took in their kind gesture and caught the woman by her shirt, tugging her long in the direction a parking lot along a park. The couple followed till they reached a car after which the pit bull let go and ran ahead a few yards and starred at the ground a few feet ahead. 

When the couple reached the dog, they found a lady lying in the street. The woman walked over to the lady on the ground and tried to check on her. She found a blood spill. The man called 911.

   Crime Scene Photo: Courtesy Google Street View

Victim number seven. No id no purse and only the Smiling blocks. 

 
The joke in the department corridor was that LPAD had finally found their first witness to the “smiling block murders”. They called him Lassie.

Forensic traced her fingerprint through DMV and identified her to be Rose Johnson, African American, unmarried, aged 35. Time of death around 5.00pm

A Japanese, Male, Age 40

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]

Friday 9th March 10.00am

LAPD was in a pursuit of a red Ford Mustang. A masked Caucasian male behind the wheel was on the run after an armed robbery at a 7 Eleven. The cashier was unhurt but the register was emptied. When making the run to the escape vehicle the masked assailant knocked off an old man on his way in. The old man lays in emergency while the police give chase. 

He gave a long and a hard chase. The chase ended when he lost control while driving through a narrow alley on 772 North Fuller Avenue. 

  Crime Scene Photo: Courtesy Google Street View

Having apprehended him, the LAPD scooped a few pieces of the Mustang that flew on impact to the wall. As they proceed, one officer noticed a man lying close to the wall. The officer thought he had been hit by the car and could have been the probable cause for the masked assailant to lose control.

Forensics identified him to be a Japanese male age 40. He was heavy tattooed with a couple face pierce and dressed in leather. There was significant dust on him, probably stirred by the car, and there was a strong smell of decay and rotting. 

Forensics placed his death 48 hours ago and the only evidence left on the body was the paper.

A guy dressed in leather biker jacket and pants must have a motorcycle. The police scanned the area looking for a motorcycle that was probably abandoned for the last 48 hours. The first motorcycle they found was parked not very far away. As circumstance may have it, it was parked in front of “House of Freak”, a piercing parlor.

The artist on the day could identify the biker boy as a regular customer but could not provide any more details. He did tell the police that he always got his pierce done by Andre. 

Andre named our sixth victim as Etsuko. No last name known at the time.

An African American, Male, Age 25

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]

Thursday 23rd February 8.30am

The call came in on Thursday at 8.30am. The manager of “All Roofing and Building Material Corporation” on his way the company warehouse on West 58 Street was parking his car and spotted a man with an afro lying face down in the street, in a dark puddle of blood. 

The body was of a male, African American. Cause of death was a single stab wound in the lower left abdomen. The body had no id but it wasn’t difficult for the LAPD to identify the victim. The victim was Bryan Johnson, a drug dealer convicted on multiple counts of possession, armed robbery and stalking.

  Crime Scene Photo: Courtesy Google Street View

The LAPD were too familiar with the scene to believe it to be a drug deal gone wrong or a rival gang attack.

Forensic reported that he was stabbed not less than 10 hours ago. Like all other victims, there was no id, and no money. In this case there were no drugs either. 

There was just this piece of paper clenched tightly in his right hand.

What was this paper? 

One officer comment, if you move the top left corner dark square to the second last row and second last column and shift it by one column, it looks like a smiling face. 

 
May be this is the stabbers way of mocking the police department. 

This was the fourth stab victim in the fourth consecutive weeks having the same panache. It was time to call in the specialists.

A Mexican, Male, Age 27

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]

Wednesday 29th February 5.00pm

Three of the neighborhood school kids in uniform having completed their detention for destructing school property were walking to the home bound bus stop at 5.00pm. As they walked to the bus stop, they saw a man sitting on side walk hugging the speed limit post sign on North Avenue 54. The man looked more and more familiar as they were approaching him and the bus stop. As it turns out, the man was wearing the school’s janitor uniform but his low hanging head made it difficult to recognize him.

The closer they reached and the harder they looked they recognized him to be Aciano Cortez, the school janitor. The three tried to look around to and figure why the good humored janitor was in such a dejected stoop. A stream of blood following from him and into the nearby drain caught their eyes.

The three kids panicked and ran back to the school just in time to catch up with the departing school principal to explain their finding.

   Crime Scene Photo: Courtesy Google Street View

LAPD on the scene and frustrated to find the paper with Smiling Blocks.

Forensics put his death an hour or two ago.

An Indian, Female, Age 21

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]

Wednesday 15th February 4.00pm

Mrs Shepherd, a mother to a four month infant, was out this evening strolling her girl in the neighborhood on Venice Boulevard. As she playfully pushed the stroller along the pedestrian walk she hit a block beyond which the stroller would not move. She stretched her neck to see the block and saw a person. 

She bit her tongue thinking she ran her stroller into a vagrant. But as she pulled her cart back and swung around to apologize. She noticed the stroller tires making track marks in blood. Confusion followed by a scream. 

 Crime Scene Photo: Courtesy Google Street View

It was ironical to find a dead under a wall that’s sprayed “Rest in Paradise”

LAPD rolled over the facedown victim. The victim was an Indian girl around 21. She wore the Pizza Hut lapel pin. LAPD quizzed the manager of the nearby franchise and he identified her to be Shruti Talwar, a student and a part time employee working the 9 to 2 shift. She had completed her shift and should have been on her way to her afternoon class. 

The body itself wore no id. The bag, the manager expected her to have was nowhere in sight. The one thing left behind was again this piece of paper.

Was the perpetrator collecting the victims belongs as trophies?

A Korean, Male, Age 30

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]

Wednesday 8th February 7.30pm 

Dave Jonas, on his way home stopped by his regular cleaners, on Melrose Avenue, to drop off his work uniform. He was at the cleaners for almost 30mins by himself waiting for the Vietnamese owner Toan Ngo [not being stereotypical here]. Dave thought to leave and walked out of the store. Just as he stepped out something flicked in his eyes and he unconsciously walked around the curb to the left. As soon as he turned, he discovered Toan lying on his side, staring at something across the street with what looked wide still eyes. His left arm was stretched while his right tried to hold in the now tricking river of blood.

 Crime Scene Photo: Courtesy Google Street View 

 

LAPD sirens in on the scene and questions Dave while waiting for the forensic unit to arrive.

LAPD is in the process to positively identify the body and break this unpleasant news to his family.

Forensic finds nothing on the body except the fact that he was stabbed only an hour ago. This was near about the time Dave walked into the store making him the prime suspect. 

In the other outstretched hand they find this piece of almost familiar looking paper.

A White, Female, Age 40

[You need to go back to reading from the Prologue: Smiling Block Murders if this is your first in this series]

Thursday 2nd February 12.00am

An eleven year old girl called 911 at 11.00pm reporting that her mother hadn’t got back home from work. She had last spoken with her mother at 7.00pm when she was swiping out from work. It usually only took her twenty minutes to get home but today she was unusually late, even if she had decided to take a detour for groceries or others.

By profession she was a hair design specialist at the “Spunk Hair Design” on West Pico Boulevard.  

[What happened to time where we referred to them as barbers?]

911 broadcasted the emergency and had a black and white unit drive around West Pico Boulevard to explore possibilities. The entire neighborhood was dark and inhabited. After driving in a few circles they fell upon a fluttering piece of cloth lying on the pedestrian walk on the Pico Boulevard, just a street away from Spunks. Being on the opposite side of the street, they made a U and drove closer flashing their spotlights. It turned out to be a body, a body of a woman. The stillness convinced them of no life.

Crime Scene Photo: Courtesy Google Street View 

The forensic unit was paged in.

Shots were taken and the body was rolled on its back. The street around the body was bare. There were no bags, no lady purses. There was no id on the body either. The only information available was that she was a white female in her forties, had a stab wound in the lower left abdomen and she was probably stabbed between 8pm to 9pm. 

The one thing found on the body was this piece of paper

A unit, with the picture of the victim, drove up to the little girl’s house that called 911 and reported her missing mother. She identified the victim as her mother Phoebe. Phoebe Warren.

The LAPD’s preliminary conclusion put this to be a robbery turned homicide.

They waited for the forensic to find more evidence and determine the next steps.

Prologue: Smiling Block Murders

In the last eight consecutive weeks, the Los Angeles Police Department received reports of stabbed bodies thrown into the streets, in different neighborhoods across the city. All murder victims were adults in the 21-50 age groups belonging to a diverse ethnicity. The randomness of these murders made the LAPD suspect them to be the works of a psychopath. The LAPD could not conjure any pattern in the killings and found nothing common between the victims. The bodies were wiped clean and the one evidence the perpetrator left behind at each of the kill site was this piece of paper. 

 

I invite you to read my first concise and hopefully an enthralling thriller as I publish it over the next 10 or 11 days.

Come back each day as the bodies are called in by residents each week and the LAPD scratches their heads to solve the “The Smiling Block Murders”

Reference to all people, places and incidents, except for the Google street views, are purely the works of my thought factory. Any resemblance to reality outside this factory will be an “Oh Shit” coincidence.

Watch my son Stavya grow

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Open Sesame

In the recent past there was news that Apple has been granted the patent for the “slide to unlock” feature that was released on the first generation iPhone and mirrored by several other.

Not getting into the legal mechanics, but for all reasons of probability and possibility other smart phone manufactures will soon have to find alternatives.

Derived from my sense of usability, these are my ideas on trendy ways of unlocking:

1. A combination lock

2. A vault lock

3. A word finder

Now let your imagination run through these.

Mint

The rich don’t care where they spend.
The poor don’t have much to spend.
And the middle is tormented with what they spend.

I just had a stroke of genius looking at an unrelated resource productivity and velocity chart. The idea that flashed was for creating an analytical solution for the middle class family that is ever so often tormented by their spending and diminishing saving.

At a few low points in life, I always wished I could muster the energy, time and resource to track my spending. Languor always gets the better of me and I find an excuse to put it off until the next time the feel tornadoes again.

So, what if there existed a solution that you could authorize to connect to all your financial institutes, grab all your statements and paint you a picture of your life – in a comprehensible manner.

This nifty solution will process all your credit, checking and saving transactions and echo:

1. All your income and its source
2. All your expenses – fixed and variable.
3. Classify all your expense – first in broad categories that you could deep dive into later
4. Daily, monthly, yearly views
5. Projections
6. Risks and possible bankruptcy
7. Bill reminders

Won’t this solution be truly amazing and convenient?

I always authenticate my thought for ingenuity, after a few minutes of Googling, I found Mint.

I feel dejected and now have to change tracks. I have to transform this entry from what could have been my thought to an advertisement for this cloud/mobile app.

I didn’t want to trash can my thought because I think it could have been an epic of an idea.

I haven’t logged on to it yet, but as soon as I am convinced of the security, I will. You should too.