Sunday, December 24, 2006

Casino Royale

Its been a while since I reviewed a movie. For those who have been waiting for me to do so, wait no more. For those who haven't, it's your turn to wait. It seems to me that I start every post by analysing a diverse group of people each of whom correspond to a segment of the populace that cares to drop into my site. Hmmm.. But I digress; on with it!

First off, the movie is unlike any 007 flick you've ever seen. James here is more intense and more interested in his final prize than any other Bond you've ever seen. In fact, he seems to bed a grand total of just 2 women in this - a shame by Bond standards. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, the movie seems to hold your interest in spite of the fact that there are less naked women and less gun fighting than the average action flick.
The new Bond girl is not great looking, in fact none of the women in CR look that good, but its the new Bond with his cold, blue eyes and witty sarcastic comments that make you want to watch the movie. Even though I wouldn't know a straight Ace from a triple Queens, the poker game is a bit interesting, although they could have explained it a bit more.
List of Ugly People in the Movie:

1. Bond girl Eva Green looks downright miserable from certain angles. But then, she looks worse from others.
2. Villian is super ugly. They oiled his hair with what was left over from Iraq's oil wells.
3. All Extras.

OK, thats it. I can't nitpick over this movie anymore.

Casino Royale:
() - 1 Ass for Eva Green.

Here are the reviews for the movies I have seen but I'm too scared to review for fear it'll cause me to blow a hole in my veins thus pumping out litres of blood that could otherwise be used to save millions of children in Somalia, not that I would ever give them my blood without being assured that it's going to the children and not to some blood thirsty (literally) bureaucrat who'll just keep the blood and pass on the empty container to children who will then proceed to curse me for not donating them enough blood, all the while I'm languishing in a hospital because I gave too much blood without caring for the consequences. There!

Vivaah:
()()()()() - Royal Ass fest. Sucks way too much to be called a movie.

Rendu:
()()()()() - Terrible. Anti -hero is blind avenger. Madhavan with contact lenses. Rubbish.

Jillinu Oru Kaadhal:
()()() - Not as bad as it could have been, but then I don't see too many Tamil flicks.

Vettaiyady Villaiyadu:
()()()()() - HOPELESS. An overweight Kamal Hassan combats unreasonably foul - mouthed psychotic college students while falling in love with a Jyotika in a blink and miss role.

Thats all for now. Lets hope I get to see more crappy movies so I can come here and complain about them. Gee! What a life!

Thursday, November 30, 2006

I'm applying.. to go crazy

Oh. My. God. The amount of work that needs to be done to apply abroad is simply overwhelming. If you haven't realized by now that I am an incredibly lazy person with nothing better to do than rant about how I have too much to do, you're an idiot.

Seriously though, each university has a separate application form. They require you to fill in as much information as possible in as little space as possible. Why? Because they receive over 3,000 applications every year. Why the hell do you even ask for so much information??????? It defies all logic. You want to simplfy the process of processing applications, so you ask if I'm ethnic Asian or a Pacific Islander. You ask me if I have 5 schools of graduation or 1. You ask me the dates on which I completed my Pre - KG to 12th (not kidding) and the certificates (??) I received at the end of each of those years. Why, pray tell.

I'm sick of filling out form after form after form. And just when you think you're done, they ask you for unreasonable things like your Statement of Purpose with a green header stating your name and department. Several universities share one common application website. Does that make things easier? Hell NO! It just means I have to write the same information, in the same format to different universities! The website has custom fields for each university, so in some places I'm asked - Have you ever been convicted of anything but a traffic violation?, and in others I'm asked - How will you contribute to the student community at ____. Its mind-boggling, the amount of information I've filled in and the number of times I had to click on NEXT.

Just when you think the internet is going to revolutionize the way we work, someone comes along and takes a dump on it. Fifty years from now, we are going to be filling out government forms online. In triplicate. At several different sites. If private universities can screw up the net this much, think what the government can do! AMEN.

Another dolt from IIM

I was in BITS, Pilani recently for a convention on entrepreneurship. My friends and I had a bio - medical monitoring device. We were quite proud of it, naturally. A lot of successfuly entrepreneurs and professors of business from other universities came and saw the device and liked it. All but one.

This a$$hole was from IIM, Ahmedabad. Really considered himself a hoot. Kept cracking jokes and stuff. The thing I like most about him, was the way he totally ignored us. He listened to what we had to say for all of fifteen seconds, pooh-poohed the whole idea and said that he would never need a medical staff to be notified if he had a heart attack (!). He made a big joke about how morticians should be notified instead. Really, he was quite humourous.

I didn't get it. This guy openly stated that he knew nothing about entrepreneurship and how he was a lowly professor in IIM. Yet, he was put in charge of the advisory panel and was part of the judging panel. One of the "unique", "different" and yet "feasible" devices that he liked - a hand held translator, that can translate words as and when you type them in. Brilliant I say, absolutely original, nothing wrong with it. Except that all it had was a microcontroller inside and their "prototype" had 3 whole words programmed into it. Thats right, you gotta sit down and program the over 40,000 words in the English language into it, and then enter all their translations. Quite inventive.

Why do people think everyone from IIM is good? Good staff? I don't think so. Is it because the students are really really good having cleared CAT? I know lots of students who cannot participate in a one - to - one discussion leave alone a group discussion. They clear CAT, the people with good communication skills can't - because they don't know how to interpret a screwed up pie chart. Why is it, that I have to know how to interpret a data chart, when the very reason I am joining up for an MBA is to learn statistical methods of data interpretation? Why should I join up when I already know how to interpret it? Instead of basing an exam on what you can teach the students (data interpretation), base it on something you can't (communication skills).

At one point, I was going to apply for an MBA. I changed my mind. It's too hard to clear CAT. Some would say that I lack determination and perseverance, some would say that I lack the competence, but I don't really care. I can't pass CAT. Does that mean I cannot manage a group of un-gifted workers paid to perform jobs they don't care about, with salaries they always complain about? Hell no!

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Not so novel

They're old. They're boring. They're repetitive. I'm not talking about the political parties of India, although they fit the description very well. I'm talking about the new age "novels" that are written today. The spy thrillers, espionage filled action adventures that are churned out by the minute by writers like Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy. Let's face it. Their early books were good. But after a point, they just started writing about the same thing over and over again. I mean, seriously, how many times can you read about the rugged, quiet hero, who has a great body but is still a sensitive man inside with feelings, an anti-hero type person who can do no wrong that cannot be justified by his own twisted view of the world.

I'm sick of reading about this super-spy who has a dark, shady and romantic past as well as a bright, sunny and romantic future. Tom Clancy will never stop writing bullshit book after bullshit book about world wide conspiracies involving overly high tech equipment at the disposal of an ultra super secret task force under the direct control of the president. They'd obviously be led by a man who can call in "favours" from anyone under the sun, some grizzled war veteran who is covertly sympathetic towards our unique anti-hero. Bah!

I read Dan Brown's A & D, as well as the DaVinci Code. I liked both. Screw the critics who said that the "prose" was too boring, and the text was not descriptive. Who cares? The book entertained and thats all we needed from it. In fact, thats all we expected from it. If we wanted to read excellent prose, we'd all read Shakespeare. On the contrary, Digital Fortress was a piece of crap, which just goes to show that no author can ever churn out hit after hit.

Nuts to Ludlum and his barrage of books starting with 'The'. He seems to have no dearth of stories, since he releases one book every year it seems. Each and every one of them is exactly the same. In fact, I recollect seeing a Tom Clancy plot generator someplace. I searched for it, and here it is: http://xoaonline.com/tomclancy.html . This probably works for Ludlum too. 'Nuff said.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Dark Side of The Moon

For those who realized that the title is a Floyd song, screw you. For those who don't, screw you anyway. This is an excellent post. In this, I'm going to be posting all the 'poems' I wrote, while sitting at the KPN Bus Stand, waiting for an eleven 'o' clock bus, that turned up only at eleven forty five. This is the product of an idle mind, a devil's workshop. Hence the title. QED. By the way, these are more couplets than actual poems. I don't have the patience to write an entire poem.

1. Comets streak the gloomy sky,
brand my heart, I know not why.
Touch a chord within me,
I think I like astronomy.

2. Doubt not the hope of man,
doubt not his desire.
Stain not his character,
nor his attire.

3. Forever lost in thought shall I be,
forever lost in doubt.
Forever trying to rid of thee,
trying to throw you out.

4. She ripped a hole in his heart,
the size of her fist.
She did a lot more,
this is just the gist.

Confounded? Well, I did start every couplet with the intention of writing a serious, proper one. Unfortunately, the dark side took over each time with the above. However, the mark of a man is in his conquering his own spirit. So, I managed to actually write a few serious poems (atleast to me). Here they are.

5. You chant, war is what we hate,
war is what we loathe,
war is as useful as a run aground boat.
Know then that you are a fool.
Peace we desire,
War is but a tool.

6. He limped down the street,
down the road he hobbled.
He tripped and fell,
upon the stones cobbled.

They helped him up, they did,
They asked of him, his story sordid.
Never a larger audience did listen to him.
He sat them down and told them,
the story of his limp.

Vietnam, he called it.
Vietcong, he named them.
A hero he was,
ere a bullet made him maim.

7. In the land of the dead, he roams.
Alone for eternity, his fate he mourns.

Purge his spirit he must, to enter the pearly gates.
Cleanse your soul they say, or a fiery hell awaits.

All this was before loss of power in my hostel for about two hours. Sitting in the dark, I actually managed to write an entire poem. I think this really combines both the types above.

8. So alighted her delicate form,
from the wavering boat.
I felt pangs of passion,
with my lips, hers I smote.

They touched but a second,
she pulled away,
a moments lust,
thrown away.

"I am not the one you pine for.
She died a while ago.
I am not the one you long for,
She drowned in her sorrow."

Her words are heard,
not understood.
He steps out beside her,
a hollow sound upon the wood.

Against her will,
she had been forced to marry.
He owned a mill, they said
and also a quarry.

I will never forget her face that day,
It is etched into my memory, as if today.

My life seemed empty,
my soul seemed hollow,
My eyes stared vacantly.
as if to follow.

Her every move,
in the space of our lives,
in a means to disprove,
her little lies.

"They would condemn us!", she said,
"Burn us at the stake.
Accuse us of heresy,
and throw us into the lake."

And so I agreed to forget,
her love for fear of them.
Thats why I sit here yet,
writing this lesbian love poem.

Thats it. This is what I have managed to compose in the last two days. I assure you I have given up my wayward ways. No more poetry for me. I initially took it up because my best friend kidn of challenged me to. Blame this burden on him..

Sunday, August 13, 2006

India Shining... Dimly.

Man! Is this country ever going to improve? I know there are billions of people who will come running out waving their patriotic, tricolored pyjamas saying 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for the country'. That, is a load of hogwash. Thats like asking me to stay in the country and work, but not expect any sort of progress. Bullshit.

Another group of people are those that say "If you want India to improve, do it yourself". These are the same people that stand up and cry when they don't get their monthly pension, or their telephone gets disconnected by mistake. Go climb a pole and fix it you hypocrite!

I had occasion to travel to Ooty recently. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I ended up spending 12 hours on a slow, tortuous trip to Coimbatore, and then suffering through another 5 hour trip to Ooty by bus. Its utter nonsense. It can't take that long to go from Chennai to Ooty, can it? The bus driver was slow, his helper was drunk. The bus was stopped every 15 minutes, for some moron who couldn't control his bladder, to pee. I spent more time traveling to and from Ooty than actually in Ooty.

The first group of patriots probably expect me to shut up and take the suffering right? While the second wants me to throw the driver out and take the wheel. The problem with India is that people don't want to do their job. No one is happy with the line of work they are in. The driver probably hates driving, or loathes buses. Or both. He's stuck driving however. Of course, the pay is not going to be very good either since the guy who owns the bloody transport corporation wants to buy himself a perfumed, stain-proof lungi. Seriously, who the hell wants a perfumed lungi? I've never heard of a more useless invention. Oooh! Look at me! My crotch is fragrant!Idiots.

When I initially booked my tickets, I booked it at an agency called National Travels. I was told to board the bus from Jehan Bharat Travels. The bus that came bore the name City Travels. I was frustrated at this point itself, but what made it worse, was the part where I was allotted the last seat, and there was no push back. I pay Three Hundred and Eighty fricking bucks and I fricking expect a reclining seat. The monster lady in front of me however, got a full reclining seat. Needless to say, I barely had space to breathe.

Where was I to complain? The drunk helper? The slow driver? National Travels? Jehan Bharat? City? Thats when it hit me. The old lady's seat - in the face.

I can't wait to leave India. I can't wait to get to a place where the public is respected. I can't wait to leave all the smelly, overcrowded cities here. I know that in my lifetime, I can do nothing to fix this problem. Following the advice of the first group, I don't expect anything from this country. Following the advice of the second group, I'm fixing the problem - by leaving.

Patriots beware! I carry a shotgun.

Ban Stupidity First...

Its really aggravating to see cola drinkers like me punished while idiots go scot free. Is India blind? Or just stupid? Or are they led by a bespectacled Sardar? Hmmm... something to think about.

The other day I was reading this 'news' paper called Deccan Chronicle. In it were the rather fervent protests of the morons who think that banning a cola can cure India of AIDS. The front page of the paper carried a photograph of the 'protestor'. It was an uneducated, ignorant buffon who stood triumnphantly holding a bottle of Cola. How do I know he was uneducated and ignorant? The bottle of cola was being forced down the throat of a camel! Hell, even I have more brains than that and I can't divide 150 by 3 without using a calculator! This amounts to animal rights abuse. The camel doesn't want to drink it! Stop forcing it to, you jackass!

I seriously hope he didn't mean to say that even Camels don't want to drink the swill we call cola. Since when did camels become the new standard for testing edible foods? Camels don't drink coffee, they don't drink tea. They don't eat pizzas and pastries. You know what they eat? Grass! Loads and loads of grass! Obviously, they don't want to drink cola! So, not only is this guy practising animal abuse, he's stupid too! Throw him in jail first!

The next time, stupidity hit me like a sledgehammer to the nose, was when I picked up this sham of a newspaper again. A few days later, in the supplement, the editors decided to print some information about how possessive boyfriends butcher their girlfriends. The column was substantiated with an 'expert' opinion. I use the term expert here loosely, since they don't amount to anything more than unemployed dorks. The 'expert' here actually tries to help girls spot when their boyfriend becomes possessive. Here's an excerpt of his advice, typed out for free by yours truly for the sole purpose of geting this quack in jail and buggered for life. 'If you're boyfriend starts acting out of character, somethings wrong'. No shit Sherlock! You don't say! You mean that calling up at 12 midnight is NOT normal? Oh my god, I am a grown woman with a boyfriend and the apparent power to read, and yet cannot figure out that my boyfriends gone off his rocker just because he called me at night to find out where I am or tries to know all my friends. Thank you, Dr. Whats-his-name, I salute your endless supply of needless nonsense.

Please. These are the guys that take India down from the gutter into the rocky layer below the city. These are the intelligential sub-strata of society. They should have an IQ test for anyone over the age of 5 and those who failed, automatically get guillotined.

I say we ban stupidity first. Might give me time to stock up on cola. Idiots.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Pretentiously Pedantic, Positively Ignorant

I had recent occassion to read through some of the words used in the GRE (read, I wrote my GRE). It was pathetic. It left me devoid of any emotion and I felt pedantic to the point of nearly becoming pretentious and bombastic. I decided that a philistine outlook was called for and changed my temperament in order to behoove my social standing. The stratum that I am placed in is rather bellicose and required me to constantly eulogize it, when I was actually elegying it. It was incumbent on me to learn the rather tortuous word list and then spew the same out in the exam.

If you can read the above paragraph and understand it, congratulations, you're a dumbass. You just spent ten minutes on a paragraph that means nothing. Its really sad, that the language they expect of you in GRE is rather reminiscent of the lingo used in Management. The best part of management, is that you can say everything, without every saying anything. Using bombastic words to actually pretend you're doing some work is the kind of work I see myself doing ten years from now and I will use bombastic words to pretend I am using bombastic words, till you are stuck in a vicious circle trying to find out just what I have done, all the while being watched by me with a smirk on my face and my inevitably-illegal-by-then cola in my hand.

The unwarranted expansion in my vocabulary, although temporary is still infuriating to many around me who cannot comprehend the verbal barrage that I spew, simpletons that they are. This however, means that I am surrounded by a dwindling numbe of friends, as those simple few who donot wish to partake in the joy that is complicated English, desert me in favour of colloqial and hence simpler English.

Bottom Line of this Post: I wrote GRE. I'm losing friends.

Pirates Of The Carribean: Dead Man's Chest

POC: COTBP was an awesome movie. I am not going to bother expanding the title. If you haven't seen it, stop breathing now. Or rent it and see it right away.

The sequel isn't as great as the original. But then, sequels rarely are. Johnny Depp reprises his role as Jack Sparrow to perfection. It's really great to see him in action again. Unfortunately, with Depp, they had to bring back Orlando Bloom. This guy is easily the worst actor ever. He's also not the hunk of Hollywood. His role is really good, but he sucks. I hate him. It has something to do with the fact that he got Keira Kneightley in POC: COTBP.

The movie is not as funny as the first one but it's definitely twice as confusing. Something about Davy Jones, barnacles and a lot of gore. According to me, this has all the ingredients to make it an assless movie. It has a great male lead - Johnny Depp, female lead - KK is a goddess, plus a confusing story, comedy and did I mention KK? What stops it from getting a 0 ass rating however, is the pervasive presence of Orlando Bloom.

POC: DMC
()

Don't Ban Colas

The title says it all. The government has no right to ban what they think is harmful for us. We are not a nation of thumb-sucking babies. Atleast, most of us are past the thumb-sucking and have been promoted to bed-wetting.

Jokes aside, this is not the kind of decision a democratic government can make so easily. Lets face the facts. Cigarette smoking is more injurious to health than drinking a cola. How many people you know are 'addicted' to cola? I know just one. Me. You prob know just one. Me. But you see a lot more people addicted to tobacco, something that is more potent and dangerous than a bottle of cola.

Don't show me bottles of cola and tell me they are full of pesticide and can be used to clean the toilet and can dissolve teeth. Those are extremely concentrated acids and no one soaks his teeth overnight in cola so they taste better in the morning. Caffeine is dangerous too, in large enough quantities. Yet, we are alright with taking a cup of coffee in the morning before we brush our teeth. Everyday.

I can just imagine the news. "Drinks Cola, Dies. " This would be followed by a special report, then an extra report and finally an extra special report. All spewing the same nonsense. It's bullshit. Cola is harmful in large quantities. So is caffeine and a hundred other things. Including oxygen. Did you know that if you breathe pure oxygen for too long, you can die?

I hate people showing me news items where a person has collapsed because he drank four 1 litre bottles of cola. That's pure hogwash. Give the same guy 4 litres of coffee and he'd probably die! Its the quantity that matters too doofus! Stopping endorsements of colas by stars is not going to make people forget about it. Its the same way that Bacardi advertises Apple Juice and Kingfisher advertises Mineral Water. Please. We know you trying to sell us alcohol.

Which reminds me. Why hasn't alcohol been banned yet? To hell with all cola banning nations and governments. I say, replace all IV drips with cola. The patient'd die peacefully atleast.

The Priest looked like Aragon

It's official. I've lost it. Not the possession of my mental faculties you dolt, my old poonal. For the non-brahmin readers of this rather modest blog, a poonal is the thread that brahmins consider sacred. Avani Avattam is the day we replace the old poonal with a new one. As usual, it was a day of bizarre occurrences for me.

First off, the priest really reminded me of Aragon. He had the same facial structure and teeth. On a tangential note, did anyone else notice that a majority of the cast in the LOTR trilogy had very poor dental hygiene? Was it just me, or did Aragon and Eowyn have really messed up teeth? Next, the guy sitting next to me also was really familiar. It was really aggravating. I finally figured out where I've seen him before. I once designed a character in a game who looked just like him. What a loser! Imagine being born with a face someone has designed in a computer game!

During the actual ritual, this game guy suddenly produced a twig out of thin air and placed it in front of me. It had a centipede on it. Either a centipede or a millipede. It was blood red in colour and was struggling to get off the twig. It eventually did, and proceeded to weave a course towards me. I was transfixed by this evil creature heading my way. I picked up a twig and caught the 'pede on it and placed it down so that it's feet were off the ground. Harmless thing to do, I thought. My uncle next to me however, kept staring at it. So a neighbour gave him a scrap of paper ostensibly to cover the twig with but my uncle freaked out and grabbed the 'pede with the scrap of paper and folded it and threw it behind him. Seriously more interesting than the slokas.

There comes a time in every brahmin's life when he wears both poonals together. For just an instant. Therein lies the fundamental inconsistency of brahmin scriptures. Or my clumsiness. I managed to get both the new and old poonals intertwined in a matter of seconds. My uncle and I were struggling for about fifteen minutes trying to unravel the darn thing, only managaing to make it worse, when a kindly soul lent us a blade and we chopped off more than half of the old one. I walked out of the temple with half the old one dangling from my shoulder. When I went home, it took all of two minutes for my aunt to untangle the mess and I was a free bird!

The same thing happened last year too. It was like God telling me not to wear a new poonal. Or telling me to wear both. Or telling me to be more religious. Anyway, I don't understand why God can't make his intentions clearer if he is omnipotent. But thats another story, for another day.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Dude! Where's my 'PLEASE'??

There is a serious problem plaguing humanity today. People just aren't courteous enough to me. Seriousness aside, what happened to all the well-mannered noblemen of 'yore'? One no longer gets to hear 'Please', 'Excuse Me', or any other social niceties that really don't mean anything but can actually make a person feel better.

For me, its almost natural. I bump into someone and turn around immediately to apologize. If the other guy doesn't bother doing it, I hex him with my magic wand and continue on my way. Some day, some where, a door will slam in his face and I will laugh in it. Just saying 'Thank You' to an auto driver will go a long way in making you feel better too, although it doesn't increase the chance that he will lower the fare (experience speaks here). But, do your bit. Don't expect the other person to show the same level of courteousness to you too. If he doesn't, curse him and keep going. Thats what I do, and I like to think that I had something to contribute to make someone's bad day worse by not being nice.

Seriously, the next time you make a request, say the word 'please'. Say 'with sugar on top and ice below' and say a lot more hollow, hackneyed phrases that only make you look better. Who knows? You might be blessed by some unknown, random guy on the street for saying sorry because he bumped into you first!

Bottom Line? I don't know with what intention I started this blog, but I know I'm ending it with the intention of saving you further torture. Just say 'Please' and I'll go away.

Just kidding, I'll never go away. You can try it on others though. If it works, tell me and I'll try to make you go away.

Equality for All

Can society ever become equal? Can all men (and I mean women too damn you!) be treated as equal? Sometimes, I'm just going to act intelligent and expect all of you to nod along with me. Kindly oblige.

What if all men were equal? The age old split between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' would be non-existent. Would that necessarily be good? If all men are equal then why would any man try to rise above the other? Competition as we know it, would be dead. If not dead, it would be forbidden since one man defeating another in a competition is akin to him declaring his superiority over the other.

Forget competitions, what about social equality? If all men were equal, would we ever get anything done? Some jobs are always perceived as being socially inferior to others. A grocer is not treated with the same respect as say, a teacher. There would never be a need for a man to serve another man. The service industry would collapse and all of us would be sitting on our asses doing nothing because the collapse of society would be inevitable. Farmers would decide the farming was too low for them and try to rise above that. Since all men are equal, they are therefore afforded equal opportunities and that means that a majority of the farmers would become businessmen or traders or a professional. No more farmers. If you doubt this, you should consider the fact that almost every farmer dreams of making his son an 'educated' person who can get out of agriculture and go to the city and become a 'big man'. There is no incentive to study since an educated person and an uneducated person are given equal opportunities by virtue of being equal.

The world survives on competition. It thrives on it. Without competition, there is no incentive for a person to become better. Inequality increases diversity, it increases competition. There is a continuing struggle for improvement in society and this would lead to the betterment of society.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Futbol Mundial - UPDATE (08/07/06)

I know the name is plagiarized from a sports show but I don't care at this point. Below are my much valued (by myself) comments on the current state of affairs on the World Cup. At this point, a lot of you are probably scoffing at what might be an amateur's opinion on football. I assure you that my comments are highly accurate and reflect the true nature of the world cup. Expect deep comparisons of various teams, and their highly vaunted players. Expect detailed analysis of the various matches that are shown on TV. I will even offer a pre-match and post-match session if there are enough takers. All this can be decided after you read my general opinion given below.

Before I tell you what I think of the football, let me tell you how I got interested in the game. It was all thanks to my roommate and his incessant passion for the the world's most popular game. I was forced to hear him drone on and on about the game so much that I actually started learning from him the various nuances of the game and became a skilled analyst. People would prefer calling me an analist but everyone is entitled to an opinion of their own. Everyone except the world not including me. If you didn't understand the chances that you would understand my detailed review of the football matches are as remote as me understanding quantum mechanics involved in a rat's digestive system.

Hold your breath as you read these lines as you may not get a chance to take a breath between the action packed paragraphs. However, doctors recommend not doing any physical work before taking a deep breath as that affects your capacity to hold the breath in and not use it for any muscular activities except breathing. The point being, that when you hold your breath, you must expend as little energy as possible to avoid losing breath. Understood? Good.

BRAZIL LOST THE Q-FINALS. THE CUP SUCKS. STOP WATCHING IT.

Thank you for your patience. All positive comments will be acknowledged and negative ones will be acknowledged by entering your email address into a spam mailing list.

UPDATE (08/07/06) - Thanks to Retarded Rascal (RR), I've corrected a minor defect in my post. It was so minor that fifty other people did not notice it, or if they did, decided it was a typographic error and forgot about it. Unfortunately, RR seems to be the kind of person who reads other people's blogs just to point out errors in them. It seems a sad way to live life. So, once just for RR, contribute one ass-kicking. All contributions are acknowledged by howls of pain.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Superman Rottens!

You guys better get used to this. Me posting reviews on movies I've seen are an intrinsic part of this blog so don't try to avoid it.

Superman sucks big time. The only good thing in the movie is Superman himself. Brandon Routh is a good Superman and does his job. Unfortunately, the movie as such is a laundry list of disappointments. Kevin Spacey is a BAD choice for Lex Luthor. Luthor is supposed to be a tall, dignified character and Spacey brings his own brand of humour that doesn't gel with the character.

Here's the list so you don't have to watch the movie and can save the money to treat me later for saving it for you.

1. Kevin Spacey is hopeless as Luthor.
2. Script stinks. Nuff said.
3. Same special effects over and over. Ok, we've seen the world shake. Get on with it already.

The movie is as rotten as the tomatoes grown by an ageing, paraplegic horticulturist in his backyard. Luthor's plan takes shape only in the second half. Special effects are boring. Apart from the bullet in the eye there's nothing else that makes you go WHOA! Oh wait, there is. Luthor's ultra corny jokes make you catch your abdomen in pain and puke popcorn all over the person in front of you. They're the standard staring-at-the-dumbass-henchmen jokes.

In fact, the producers realized that the movie was lacking in so many departments, they decided to add 'star power' to the movie. So we have Kumar, of Harold and Kumar non-fame, to play a useless henchman. It's really lame when he has no real role to play, and instead just stands there getting Spacey's patented stare. Spacey, by the way, is completely bald and for some reason, wears a wig when he is about to commit a crime. How he knows where Super's hideout is and how to use the computer is never explained!!

Watch Krrish instead. Atleast it has all the bollywood masala that can keep you engaged for a while. Oh no, wait, there's Priyanka Chopra in it.....

My new rating system for movies and anything I deem needs to be rated will be asses. Under this rating system. Superman recieves 5 asses out of a possible 5 for being so inexplicable horrendous.

Superman
() () () () ()

Since, this system has come just after Krrish, I am placing it's rating here too.

Krrish
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It goes without saying that the less asses a film receives, the better it is. A hit film is therefore assless and a monumental disaster would be an assfest. Watch out for more reviews....

Friday, June 30, 2006

DumbADs!

Ok, I've had it up to here with Sachin and his stupid ads. Someone obviously needs to send him a link to my blog so he can read about how stupid his 'More Smiles Per Hour' campaign actually is. He's come in this new ad for Boost, in which he actually plays tennis - badly. Now I'm a tennis fan and a Sachin hater. To watch the two of them together is like having a migraine in your armpit! You can't stand it, but you can't avoid it either. Its stupid, let him stick to playing cricket, also badly (screw all the sachin fans out there). Why tennis? Why not croquet or the old ex-cricket favourite golf? Are they trying to tell us that tennis requires more energy than cricket by making a cricket god play tennis?

Another stupid ad is by Maggi. It has this whole family of Turbaned idiots who start singing Tamil songs because they start eating Maggi Sambar noodles. What sort of flavour is that for noodles anyway???? YUCK! Anyway, the point is that the not-so-cute sardar kid starts singing tamil songs and the entire family pitches in. I want to know, why do they think that Tamil songs are only sung in that wavering south indian accent? If they're trying to sell the noodles to North Indians, then they're showing the wrong sort of people to trust (sardars, for the dim witted morons who landed from the moon onto a browser that directed them here). If they're targeting us Southies, then we know better than to taste Sambar noodles right? RIGHT??!!!!! And they end the ad, with a catchy south indian 'Why not?'. Idiots.

Harpic ads make me want to go out there and grab Aman Verma and force him to clean my toilet. Why would anyone, most of all a celebrity, go to another person's house to clean their toilets?? It makes even less sense, since they decided to do communty service by having a bunch of ugly housewives gather at one house and then harp (pun not intended) on about how their toilets smell like shit. What do you expect it to smell like, you morons? You poop there don't you??! Anyway, the celebrity then enters the toilet (EUUUU!) and cleans it with Harpic. He manages to convice the hags that their toilet is now clean because the smell of shit has now been replaced with the smell of rotting mangoes. Great! While you're at it, why don't you just wipe up after I get off the toilet, or flush it for me. What say?

More ads I detest:

1. All Sachin ads.
2. All ads for energy drinks.
3. All ads for Raymond.
4. All ads for banks.
5. All ads.

KAOS - making your life miserable, one blog at a time.

Heart of A Champion

I was watching the Hingis - Sugiyama match on TV today. Thats tennis for the idiots who navigated to this page by mistake. At one point, the score was 7-5, 3-0 to Sugiyama. After half an hour, Hingis had won the second set 6-3. Thats the heart of a champion. She managed to win 6 games on the trot against a very competitive player.

Scared? Hah! I was kidding. While this story is true and I enjoyed the match, I'm gonna make the day miserable for you by bitching about something!

AAN - Men at Work, was the title of this ambitious movie. It was well over two and a half hours long and had everyone including Santa Claus - oh no wait, that was LOC: Kargil. Now here is the intro scene for Akshay Kumar hereby simply referred to as AK because I'm too lazy to type out his full name each time and I want to test the depth of your memory. Anyone who says AK is for Anna Kournikova gets a punch to the jaw. So anyway, AK enters the den of some smugglers. The action starts.

He whips out a pair of pistols and shoots at everything hitting precisely nothing. He runs out of ammo. Ok, realistic so far. Now comes the weird part, the bad guy calls in re-inforcements. They appear in the form of a leather clad biker gang. At this point, there is a complete change in the scene. There is no transition whatever, and the scene is AK on his feet surrounded by the evil biker gang wearing helmets since Indian laws prohibit driving two-wheelers without the necessary cranial protection. But wait, what happened to the bikes?! The biker gang is _standing_ around AK. They probably decided the bikes were useless inside a 10 x 4 room anyway right? So now, the bikes are gone and ten biker dudes surround AK.

AK looks around, stomps the ground and his empty pistols fly up into his hands. I can't believe John Woo saw the future in his dreams and copied it in MI - II, but thats the exact same scene there. AK holds the guns by the barrel. The biker guys are suddenly holding machine guns. AK starts hitting all the biker guys in the head using the butts of the guns, while the biker gang is helplessly firing their machine gun innacurately into the air at the great distance of 2 feet from AK. He smashes a few helmets and suddenly the entire gang is down.

Bad guy escapes on a bike. AK finds a horse in an abandoned steel mill, and climbs on! He and the bad guy have a beast vs. machine showdown and the bad guy goes down into the dirt. AK graciously steps off the horse and confronts the bad guy mano - e - mano.

Its raining. Yes, its actually suddenly raining in this movie that tries so hard to be real you can believe it as soon as you believe that panda bears play Su-do-ku when they aren't busy chewing on leaves and destroying vegetation. So, its raining. A few slow-mo punches exchaged complete with droplets being rendered.

Next scene, the bad guy is standing stock still. AK jumps 10 feet in the air for a drop kick. Bad guy stares, bad guy is hit and bad guy takes a tumble. NEXT FRAME, bad guy is standing stock still. AK jumps 9.5 feet in the air for a roundhouse. Bad guy stares, bad guy is hit and bad guy takes a tumble. NEXT FRAME, bad is standing stock still..... you know what I mean.

Thats it, thats the beginning part of AAN. Its probably the worst action sequence made anywhere and equals all Rajnikanth fight scenes. It is one step above Mithun Chakroborty's after all, MC is a lanky Bengali with no penchant for action.

Why the director decided to copy John Woo and mix it with Matrix action to produce Maggi noodles, I'll never know. And I hope I never do. I have better ways to waste 3 hours of my life.

1. Rearrange my nasal hair.
2. Play with my nail filings.
3. Watch cricket.

Actually, scratch that last one, I wouldn't watch cricket if I was held at gunpoint. Maybe if I was surrounded by leather clad biker guys........

Thursday, June 29, 2006

News or Views??

Thats a line I picked up from my dad while we were watching the news the other day. Its crazy how much the news is not the fact behind an event but rather a colloborative speculation that has the credibilty of someone talking in his sleep.
I was channel surfing the other day, and I saw the 'TOP STORIES' on Aaj Tak. It was Rakhi Sawant's kissing controversy. At the same time, the 'BREAKING NEWS' on India TV was that the hosts of the Laughter Challenge had been sued. Then the worst, there was this channel called Totally that actually had the result of a cricket match! Aaaargh! I hate cricket, and to give it air-time during the headlines slot is murder! What the hell happened to regional, national and international news that didn't involve celebrities? Are we to believe that only celebrities create news? One channel shows Preity Zinta and her court case while another shows Salman's case. Throw them all out the window and show some real news.

The worst thing about these so called 'News' channels is that there's nothing goddamned new about them anyway. The same story is recycled over and over and over again, and then again! The same old graphics, tele - correspondents, live correspondents, and studio anchors over and over till your brain is ingrained with their dressing sense. How many times have we seen a studio anchor speak on the telephone to some correspondent in and not have them hear him/her? Theres always this blank dumbass look that the correspondent has when he hasn't heard the studio anchor. The look doesn't go away either, as he/she drags on an on about who did . Who cares? Get the real news from the people that really matter!

Who are the people that really matter, you ask? If I knew that, then hell, I would be owner of my own show, now wouldn't I? But I do know, that I don't give half a Siamese twin's ass if Salman goes to jail or his hair returns due to a miracle cure (Yes people, that was actually on the news).

Totally really takes the cake. There was a news item today involving a lot of screen graphics, media 'footage' and demographics (surveys of the populace's opinion) on, wait for it, the SIMILARITY between Shah Rukh Khan and Ronaldinho!!!!!!!!! How can you compare a Bollywood superstar to a football superstar???? Here are the similarities in a nutshell, so you don't have to watch the inevitable retelecast of the same shit.

1. Both are human.

Thats it! There isn't anything else. But noooooo! The dumbass reporter (and I use this term loosely here) actually came forward to say that while SRK was the king of Bollywood, Ronaldinho was the king of Football. You don't say??!!! I would never have known that if you hadn't told me. Now I can get on with my miserable, pointless existence knowing full well the similarities between an actor and a sportstar. 'Totally' BULLSHIT!

Stop throwing useless statistics and fancy computer graphics in an overcrowded screen. Take a cue from DD. Remember the old news show, where they had ONE studio anchor and one inset picture of a lady miming out the news for the benefit of the deaf? Am I supposed to think that somehow the number of deaf people watching TV has drastically decreased in the last ten years? Man, I wish I were deaf so I didn't have to listen to their senseless drivel. Wait a minute, I wish THEY were dumb so they couldn't spout their venom on screen.

Newsbytes are the latest things now. Little bits of irrelevant information that have no bearing on the outcome of anything important, are continously scrolled at the bottom of the screen so as to be highly efficient and useful to the legions of couch potatoes who don't have anything else to watch. Screw them all, I say. Stick to the newspaper. Atleast you can do the crossword in it.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Krrish - Qqquite Goood

If you understand the title of this post, you're halfway to quarterway to 1/16th on you're way to greatness. I'm kidding. Only I'm great.

That said, let me tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed Krrish. If you were wondering how I was going to bitch about Krrish, having said that I liked it, let me also tell you that I. HATE. PRIYANKA. CHOPRA. Yes people, she deserves to fed to the lions after smearing pickle all over her. She is a miserable, stinking excuse for an actress. I'll butcher anyone who says that the 'role' didn't give her any 'scope to perform'. What the hell does that mean anyway? If there is no 'scope to perform' as you say, then why take the role? Doesn't that imply that she has taken the role either for money or for money and I'm inclined to agree with both.

Back to the point, Priyanka is baaaaad in this movie. And in all movies. In fact, she is just plain bad. But again, I meander. She has this oh-so-not-pretty-face that goes Oooh and Aaaah all the time with no actual facial emotions to show for it. She can't dance, atleast not in front of Hrithik who seems like he's dancing on air. Speaking of which, why do all his stops involve flopping his arms about or jiggling her knees? He can do better than that surely. His performance is quite credible in the movie, he acquits himself well. But, the point here is that such a movie (i.e a superhero movie) is being made for the first time in India. And it works, Krrish comes off as a very likable hero with some cool moves at his disposal. But I don't understand why he has to leap everywhere like he's running. The scene showing him 'running' down from a tall building in Singapore is simply silly. The rest of it well, is pretty good. Again, I say this for an Indian movie.

Right off the bat, you cannot compare this to say, Superman. That's like comparing me to God. Wait a minute, I AM God. Anyway, the special effects are actually quite good, although the jumping scenes look fake. Take the Superman trailer for example, the last scene shows a bullet shot right into Supe's eye and the bullet just crumples up. Wooooh baby! Those are the scenes that a superhero movie should have!

Krrish is worth a watch if you can stomach Priyanka Chopra. Better still, if you can't, do what I did and ignore her for the entire movie. She and her aggravating friend 'Honey', their bullshit 'Boss' who happens to be Archana Puran Singh in yet another mediocre accented role. Man, I hate their bullshit. Throw it all out, and you have a simple superhero movie. Plus there's Rekha!

Stupidity is Omnipresent...

I was just minding my own business today, just staying at home doing what I do best - nothing, when I decided to switch on the TV (something I do pretty rarely mind you), and seeing as there was nothing else to watch, decided to watch the news (something i never do). Suddenly, it happened. As always, stupidity seemed to galvanise me, so much so, that I decided to actually sit down and write about it.

What happened that was so stupid that I overcame my writer's block??? A case; breing filed against several comedians and hosts of the popular show, The Great Indian Laughter Challenge 2. The reason??? Apparently, some of the jokes were derogatory to women, so they decided to come up in arms against it and sue the asses off Shekhar Suman, Sidhu and Sunil Shetty.

What the hell is wrong with people??? Can't they take a joke anymore? What if all the Sardars tomorrow decided to sue half the country for spreading Sardar jokes? What if eunuchs suddenly decided that they've had enough of actors protraying them as joke feed on TV and movies and sued all the producers and actors? What if the world sued me because I poke fun at it all the time? Come on, grow a spinal column here. The jokes were hilarious and really quite varied. There is even a complaint that some of the jokes were directed at Adnan Sami and his rather large posterior.

So tomorrow, Jay Leno can expect to get sued for making fun of Bush, Gore and the rest of America's politicians??? Is this what we are trying to show?? Get your heads out of your asses and listen up! People need to learn to be able to laugh at themselves. You can't go about suing everyone who makes a few jokes about you. It's pathetic. Some of the best jokes I've heard are rascist, sexist and anti-religion. I don't care what the joke is about as long as its funny.

Bah! The best thing on television has to stop because a few women decided to step into the limelight. I say, we recite feminist jokes just to spite their sorry fame-seeking asses. I dare them to sue Jay Leno, George Carlin and other comedians for their jokes. They'd get chased out so fast, they wouldn't have time to shit. Goddamn freaks!

And pray tell, why would they sue the hosts? Are they expected to nod their head sagely, and tell the comedian "Sir, you're jokes are fricking funny, but they're rascist and Indians are a bigoted people with no propensity to laugh at themselves. Therefore, please restrict your jokes to the absolutely hilarious field of inanimate objects." Laloo Prasad will make a fortune if this suit against the show and its participants is successful. Imagine, a country ruled by Laloo Prasad Yadav and his legion of Sardars. Idiots.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Cricket Fever?? naah.. its the flu.

one of my favorite bitchin subjects is Cricket.. i absolutely loathe the game.. im one of the few indians who can stand up and say honestly.. i hate cricket.. ive been forced to watch the bloody sport since everyone around me seems to love the game..

i won't trivialize the game by claiming its a bunch of idiots running around a leather ball, trying to hit it and catch it... cos any sport can be made fun of in the same way.. but what really pisses me off is the way indians love the game so blindly... they've made it so trivially common that you can't take a dump without hearing about the game..

cricket is one of the longest international games.. the 'short' version takes a little over 6 hours of gameplay and stupid talk shows about the 'game' go on for an hour before and after... that leaves precious little time for anyother sport on TV. if one channel doesnt have the rights to a cricket match they play highlights of another match.. or they have a show where they talk about age-old matches.. or its a goddamn krish shrikanth show. i hate this guy... he rambles on and on jus like a south indian should.. and on and on like a cricketer should... and on and on like retiree should.. and on and on like a retired south indian cricketer should.. i mean why do they give him so much airtime.. he has nothin useful to contribute to the bloody game anymore which is why he isn't a big commentator on TV. and he knows next to nothing about the game since every caller who calls up on his dumbass show actually disagrees with him... it jus serves to irk him more so he babbles for a few minutes more jus to get on everyones nerves..

anyway, back to the dumbass game.. tendulkar is mr. phenomenon and he can sell a bottle of piss to a paraplegic or so they would have you believe.. but when you see a person who has a completely different body shape riding the bike that HE is promoting.. and you know it can't be him... and then he comes on with his horribly oily girly voice to say 'more smiles per hour' ... makes me want to puke.. and then he goes on in his next match and gets out for 10. bloody hell.. then he's back in your face selling you boost..

its not just him though.. everyone who makes it onto the national team gets an automatic inclusion into advertisements! its incredible how everyone can buy this shit that they show on TVs as ads.. its crazy..

its frustrating that a 'sports' page in the national newspapers contain only cricket.. and a fraction of tennis, some snooker.. and horse racing.. what the hell happened to the sports in the rest of the world??? everyday, theres a page on cricket and half a page for all other sports combined.. its ridiculous... throw everybody in cricket out.. we need more washermen anyway...

and i wish everyone would stop mugging facts about cricket... we won this then and lost this then. they won this then and he took so many wickets. its crap all over the place.. everybody knows everything... its too..... common and pedestrian.. boring game with boring bowlers.. and boring everything.. throw them all out.. they dont even have cheerleaders!!!

don't even get me started on test matches! the bloody things drag on for ages.... and ages.. almost as long as krish shrikanth talks... who by the way has started his own website where he.. surprise suprise! comments 24x7 on matches.. its a running typing commentary!!! crap! as it is he doesn't do much else than run his mouth on why they threw so and so out of the ____ game during ____... who cares?! and then he comes in this dumbass ad where he says i still read my morning newspaper as i used to read a marshall delivery... i come to understand he was a bullshit batsman.. that probably means he didn't 'read' the goddamn deliveries very well or he read em really well but was too incompetent to play the bloody shot..

man... i keep heading off on a tangent.. it seems that everytime i hear krish shrikanth my blood begins to simmer... back to test matches... i'm sure many of you have sat up 5 days watchin white clothed people bowling to more white clothed people with white cream on their faces... have you ever noticed that the stadiums are almost completely empty????!!!! no one has the time and patience to sit through a 5 day game anymore..

thats probably why these guys are popularizing Twenty20... some new nonsense version, thats even shorter than an ODI.. bullshit... the way to make cricket more accessible is to reduce the number of overs to 0.. that'll make people sit up and watch it... make it as short as my attention span to krish shrikanth and it'll be a hit...

you know.. come to think of it.. i think i hate krish shrikanth more than cricket... naaah.. its like saying shit is better than puke...

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Phir Rip Off!

I went to see Phir Hera Pheri (PHP) yesterday.. while the movie was quite entertaining... i was shocked to find that the movie was a blatant rip off of the Guy Ritchie classic "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". The entire plot was unoriginal.. they copied everything... right from the point the 3 guys lose money to a big don to the point on the bridge with the cell phone in his mouth and the guns in his hand... if you're going to rip off an english movie.. atleast give them goddamn credit. this is happening way too often in hindi cinema nowadays..

The biggest film industry on this earth (we churn out close to 700 films a year (bollywood)) and we still have to copy other people original ideas and not give them credit. other examples??? zinda - frame by frame of Oldboy , a pretty good Korean flick, Fight Club - same name movie starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, Koi mil gaya - ET meets Forrest Gump.. Sarkar - Godfather...what utter nonsense.. to make matters worse.. Neeraj Vora (director of PHP) actually even rips off a comic scene from Charlip Chaplins timeless classic. The circus...

Whe the hell cant we come up with original ideas??? The last original idea we had was prob the Karan Johar sob-fest K3G.. bullshit story and shitty acting come to life with cliched comic scenes and tuneless songs.. typical Yash Raj shitflick.. the only good movies seem to be coming from B - Grade directors like Madhur Bhandarkar.. the hell is wrong with us?? i think we only rely on star power and quantity to run a film... the so called 'script' is given a cursory glance and then the gorgeous girls are brought to heave their breasts around and flash skin to draw in the uneducated illiterate masses... bullshit.. there are no such things as original scripts in bollywood anymore apparently..

the next trend in bollywood you ask?? since they've already exhumed the corpses of foreign scripts, robbed them of their dignity and stripped them of any semblance of sense, they next turn to themselves! yes! we have an original idea. the idea is this: ripoff, under the guise of a 'remake', old classics... so we have modern shitty versions of Don, Sholay and what not coming out!! great thinking guys, we thought you'd never be original.. i think its a fantastic idea to make money...... jus cheat the public out of a good story.. while you're at it.. why don't you get us to tell you a story?? and compose the songs??? we'll just pay for the ticket... better yet.. why go to all this trouble, start a fund called the 'Ripoff of ____ Film" and we'll contribute money.. why waste effort on songs, dance and 'acting' ??? better watch the originals....

Friday, June 16, 2006

Women Power!

Another issue's been seriously bugging my ass... women empowerment! i don't get the idea behind it.... while many of you might say that i lack the mental facilities to understand the idea... i don't think so... that debate can rage on for eternity...

anyway, the point here is IF women need empowerment, why campaign and make our lives miserable??? IF you're already empowered, then you don't need to campaign do you?? the very fact that you are campaigning to gain recognition for the fact that you are not empowered is a sign of your weakness.. If you want to be empowered, you consider yourself weak and that is an inherent flaw in your bullshit theory about women needing more rights...

as phoebe says in Friends : "we can drink, we can vote and we can drive what more do these broads want ??!!" Stop crying about feministic values and patriachical societies. It is because it is. while i agree society is changing as a whole to be more conducive to women, gettin on top of rooftops and shouting it out only makes people want to shut you up.. preferably permenantly.

Women get hurt so easily.. that being chivalrous has actually come to be demeaning to women. If a guy leans over to get the door for a girl, she looks at him as if to say.. i could have done that.. yes, you could have... its called being courteous. if you don't like our chivalry, then you can take a slap in the face next time you screw up... you won't be afforded any niceties... either take the chivalry we give or take the shit we dole out to other guys... if a guy screws up, his friend may abuse him or give him a tough time about it.... he means it in a friendly way... but if a girl screws up... we gotta understand "your perspective"...

I say... let the world be.. your empowered if you empower yourself. next time a guy cuts across in front of you at a line, tell him to back off.. don't go and complain to someone and make everyones life miserable by raising a ruckus bout how your rights aren't respected. There's a separate queue at most places to "help" the "empowered" women.. if you're empowered, then you can stand in the same line as us.. and take the pushing and shoving... but nooo, there you want to be treated like daisies..

contrary to what you might expect, im not an MCP..... i get riled up if a women is treated unfairly... but i hate it when they bitch about it...

Thursday, June 15, 2006

GRE preparations

Most of the people in my batch are attempting GRE this year... and its that fun time where you see people pull out cards from their pockets or lug massive text books around to learn words.

Thats the thing I don't get about GRE. If it's supposed to test your English, why the hell should they test your vocabulary to such an extent? I for one, dont know the meaning of but I can frickin converse in English like its nobodys business.. Just because you know a few bombastic words doesn't mean you're coherent or making sense!! Anyone see that friends episode where Joey uses a thesaurus on every word in a letter and ends up signing as Baby Kangaroo????? Thats whats gonna happen to you if you bank on the dumbass word lists to get you through.

How to find a GRE candidate? Its easy.. anytime someone says acquiesce instead of agree or says pussilanimous instead of coward you know he's been mugging word lists on the shit-pot.. If a person comes up to you and says "I don't CARE that you don't acquiesce to my exceedingly blasphemous comments about your posterior! You're pussillanimous!" and he pronounces care as though he had a football come out of his mouth when he said it.. rhyming wit tear (as in torn apart), or come to you and say "lets go for a beer and shoot deer" pronouncing both like beeeeeeeer/ deeeeeeer .. you know they couldn't talk english to save their lives. it seems as though pronounciation has become second rung to vocab! how the hell can i understand what you say if you donot say it correctly?????

I always try to pronounce words the correct way.. if i make a mistake.. noone notices cos they dont know it themselves!!

test:

1. How do you pronounce : reparable, comparable? wat are their antonyms? and how do you pronounce them????

if u said both were pronounce similarly... you're wrong. Reparable is pronounced as (rpr--bl) ... really fast word. comparable is pronounced slowly with the stress on the "par" or the second syllable. The antonyms???? irreparable and incomparable. they are actually pronounced similarly....

90 pc of you flunked this... im sure... learn to talk before you learn to puke......

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Deccan Chronicles

Everything that starts or ends with Deccan sucks apparently. i'm gonna focus on Air Deccan today.. my 'preferred' mode of travel!!!

the whole deal behind AD is cost-saving procedures.. I had a first hand look at some of the methods they use.

1. No tickets.
Thats right, you dont get the oil paper vouchers that look so cool you want to preserve them. For AD its just a printed piece of paper that says "TICKET".

Saving Per Passenger(SPP) : 3 Rupees.

2. No seat numbers.
Remember the good old days when everyone would just clamber on to the nearest bullock cart, and those with the seats furthest from the bulls ass had the best seats? this is kinda like that.. only there isnt a cart. Without seat numbers on the boarding pass, its a mad rush for seats when boarding begins... just the way i like it......

SPP: 0.4 mm cube of printer ink. (its volume you idiot.)

3. No models.
Imagine a beautiful young girl/guy (take your pick) serving you drinks and food. Now add 50 years to their age and you have AD airhostesses!!! Their in-flight guide says, "we dont hire models".... the hell you don't!!! you just removed the number 1 reason to fly!!!

SPP: 5 Rs.

4. No food.
"Here at AD, we strive to drop you at your destination late and starving" should have been written inside their guide which by the way weighs a ton thanks to Mr. Gopinath's Editorial. They serve you no food which is really quite acceptable, but water???? how can you ask us to pay for a glass of water???? even the railways offer free water and they carry more passengers and the goddamn tickets are cheaper..

SPP: 1 Re. (water) 20 Rs. (food)

5. Extra sound device.
The Airports Authority of India has stipulated apparently that fuel be provided at a subsidy to those aircraft that make flying such a miserably noisy experience that the passengers never want to return at all!!! During takeoff and landing the plane makes such an ear-splitting racket.. that you want to tear out your ears and hand them to the ageing air-hostesses and have them place them in the cargo bay..

SPP: 65 paise subsidy on fuel.

6. No ear buds.
Remember that old ad in which a baby cries and the grandma/great grandma and the entire bloody family tree asks "enna aache??" "kya hua??" "what happened??" its like that, without the family tree!!!! the planes aren't stocked with earbuds for those children who cant stand the noise or the change in air pressure that can really hurt the ears if you're not used to it. The way i see it, they think that if the kids make more noise, they can get a larger subsidy according to point 5.

SPP: 10 - 15 paise

7. Non-reclining seats
These are special seats that neither stay in place nor go back. They move a rather mystifyingly small arc backwards. Just right so you can't read nor sleep. Its perfect.

8. Airport Buses.
Anyone who has traveled by flight will know that often when a plane arrives, a bus is waiting to take the passengers into the actual terminal. AD buses actually operate like Public Transport Buses. The hydraulic doors are supposed to be closed by the driver when a reasonable number of people have gotten on board. Not so here. The door stayed open all the way to the terminal, with atleast 10 people (baggage included) extra on board.

SPP: life of lubricating oil extended by atleast 1/16 of a minute.
2 buses used instead of 3.

If we add up all these rather unnecessary extravangances, we can understand exactly why Air Deccan is able to operate at such a low tariff. Combine this with frequent delays, stop-overs, and badly timed flights.. and voila!!! you cut prices further.. its brilliant.

Gopinath says "60 pc of my passengers are first-timers". Thats probably true since I dont see why anyone would want to come back after their first time with AD.

Monday, June 12, 2006

one night @ the airport

I needed to pick up my dad from Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport. I'm standing at the arrivals area, and was waiting for quite some time... i noticed that there were 3 types of people who were coming out of the airport.

1. Sikhs (affectionately called Turbanators / Surds / Sardars)
2. Obese people
3. My dad

I swear to Christ, I counted more turbans than luggage.. those that weren't sardars, were being picked up by sardars. I saw enough sardars to cover the surface of the moon twice over.... and the blatant disregard for the rules of the airport!!!!!!!!! theres a sign placed near the fenced area for arrivals that says you need a bloody ticket to enter and these turbaned menaces kept walking in and out of the airport like it was nobody's business...

It seems to me that all the thin people in india leave to go abroad, become HUGE and come back... it was incredible the number of obese people i saw. Forget blades and knives and batteries, these peoples' bellies pose a serious security hazard. Once these people get into the aisle in the plane, you never gonna get past them. you HAVE to sit down and let them pass. Imagine a plane with ten of these massive people.. you'd never be able to stand up, you'd never be able to go to the toilet, and the plane would bank depending on where they stood... what does this remind you of??? a goddamn terrorist attack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It seemed to me that every person who stepped out of the airport, fit one of the descriptions above...

Procedure to exit airport:

1. Step outside arrival gate.
2. If sardar -> scratch beard , guffaw.
3. if obese -> get trolley outta the way of the belly.
4. If sardar -> search for entire family.
5. if obese -> search for familiar faces or placard-holding driver.
6. else -> pull out cell phone and stand in the middle of the exit, talking loudly so that the other person needn't use his phone.
7. Look blankly around
8. Walk back into airport.
9. Repeat from step 1 till pick up arrives.

My dad steps out of the airport, wearing a business suit, looks for me and spots me, gives a quick wave and then efficiently pushes his trolley out of the exit. thats it.

With the number of over-burdened trolleys these people carry, its a miracle that to pick up a 7 member sardar family (or one obese person) you need another 7 member party (or one obese person)... why can't these guys be picked up by a single person, saving them car charges?????????? and the only pack of foreigners i saw, had their taxi delayed and were yelling into the cell phone "you fool, hurry up!!!"

By the time, i dodged the numerous pieces of baggage (that were literally raining down), the even more numerous sardars and the obese people and made my way out of the airport..... i was so tired i wouldn't have had a problem if the pope came out of the airport sporting a turban.....

Chicken or the Egg?

Since this is my first post, i'm gonna start with something i've already written. This is my magnum opus, the Marcus Aurelius of Julius Caesar and the Primus Blogus of my blogs. So.. here goes..

which came first? the egg? or the chicken?

i believe i have the correct answer to that.. u have
to follow my logic to see why..

evolution. it is a slow gradual process of several
million years. it is clearly apparent that the single
celled amoeba did not jus wake up one day and find out
it had more than one cell. similarly, a monkey did not
fall from a tree and land as a neandarthal. therefore,
evolution is a process that is so slow, that its
effects are only seen from one generation to the
other.

Let us assume that an animal X is the ancestor of the
chicken.. now, we know that X cannot directly morph
into a chicken (discarding unnatural mutation theories
here) , hence X gradually turned into a chicken..
meaning that every subsequent generation of X had more
chicken - like characteristics.. lets go forward to
the last generation where we clinically say that the
next generation is goin to be the chicken. it is
clearly apparent that the last generation of X will
lay an EGG that will foster within itself a complete
chicken.. the egg cannot mutate as such and any
evolutionary changes occur before the egg is hatched
and are reflected in the egg.

therefore, the last evolutionary change that
signalled the transformation of X into a chicken,
happens during the hatching of the egg with the
result that the egg containing the characteristics of
a complete chicken is hatched.

as u can see, the egg comes before the chicken. man..
is there a nobel for biology or something!!!????