Friday, December 14, 2007

Counselling on the internet

Of late, I have been getting a lot of good psychiatric help from websites. Whether it's an astute observation about my life like so:



Or advice on how to get married, with correct emphasis on exactly when:



Or just plain ol' "facts" and phrases I didn't know existed:



Where's NetNanny when you need her?

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Busy? Unavailable? I don't care!

There is a new phenomenon in town. A new plague if you will. There is no doubt that with the evolution of the internet, our lives are slowly changing to become more and more connected to the internet, and thereby the rest of the world.
But why, oh WHY, do I have to be informed of every little insignificant "status" change in your inconsequential life. Do you people even think before you edit that little line of text near that Google dot, or that field that, funnily enough, is called Name in Orkut? Do you ever stop to wonder whether other people are really bothered by the change in your life? The simple answer is: NO. The long and detailed answer is: NO.
I don't care that you had an appendectomy and can't make it to your precious Gtalk to turn it off. I don't care that you suddenly had an epiphany on life and you can compress eighty to hundred years of existence into one meaningless, sham of a philosophical line. I don't care whether you have exams, whether you're in the process of getting a phallus-shaped object rammed up where the "sun don't shine," I don't care that you are getting a tattoo and that it is of course, of some cricket players name, or if you are pregnant and your unborn child can't respond for a few months. STOP IT!
Orkut has become almost unsearchable because of morons who decide to change their status messgaes to silly little phrases like "Having fun, LOL," or "ESCRITO QUE ES IMBECILE." The madness must stop!
Quit flooding my Gtalk window with your insane messages. If you're busy, just say so dammit! If you don't want to be disturbed, don't log in. If you need to check your mail, then disable GTalk and disable GChat from your browser. I don't need to know that you are too busy to be disturbed. It's not like I have a million things to say to you anyway.
Shouldn't this count as invasion of privacy. I feel overwhelmed by the amount of trivial nonsense that I have to read just because some doofus IMed me and flashed his status message in my face. There's this whole class of alien refuse that even IM people asking them if they read their new status message. There are only two possible answers, neither of which they can accept:
1. YES, I read it and I think you should be in jail for expecting people to react to your passive message.
2. NO, I did not, and do not intend to in the future, unless I am forced to at gunpoint.

I hope you folks get the message (pun intended). If you don't, well, then
STATUS : Couldn't care less

Sunday, October 28, 2007

A Long Time

Check both of these out: they're hilarious. I've started using StumbleUpon to get me a few minutes of entertainment during the few breaks from work I take.



and then this.

Also, you might want to check out Ali G on youtube.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Writer's Block

Ok. So i don't know what to write about.
Bear with me for a few moments and I will eventually come up with something enlightening for you to ponder the rest of your adult life considering that's how long it will take you to figure out what I have said in the few sentences that I decide to spew in a despearate yet clear-cut means of washing away the boredom that is eating away at my well known and well respected sense of humour; the very faculty that I put to maximum use when I want to while away a few hours of my life and several days of yours, given that we agreed at the beginning of this sentence that you would take more time than the average chipmunk to understand the verbal barrage that I am about to dispense in your general direction as part of my above mentioned desire to kill some time and some gray cells in that pathetic excuse for a brain that you carry around in your vaccuumed cranial cavity in a mind numbingly stupid excercise to appear moderately intelligent and/or sentient just to appease the increasing number of pseudo-intellectuals in todays society.
I could have gone on and on but I thought better of it. As I am typing this entry out of sheer boredom, it is with the deepest disdain that I see George Bush on TV making some speech about Vietnam and the war and basically kissing up to the war-vets populace of America. The worst part of it is that other people in this lounge are discussing this like it's the latest fashion innerwear sported by Gisele.
I am already spotting the typical signs of a person "getting involved" in a discussion. THe characteristic sitting on the edge of their seat, with their chins supported by their elbows staring at their co-discusser like they give a fragrant rats ass about what they're saying. This is what I call 'sounding the well. Sounding the well is the technique by which two or more idiots are involved in simultaneously trying to determine the stupidity of another person just by pretending to listen to them. People are so petty.
If I seem to be particularly cynical today, well, I have a reason. And I'll be damned if I sit and explain everything out to you. Suffice to say that I have been wronged yet again, by that supreme entity people refer to as God. Just on a sidetrack, the weather woman on CNN is really beginning to irritate me. Not only is she prancing about the screen as these fuzzy 'satellite' images flash behind her. In a tribute to her obvious mediocrity, her name is Oke. All she has done so far, is make faces and squeeze her fists together while telling us the the Hurricane Dean is decimating Mexico.
This reminds me of something that I read during the landmark Sanjay Dutt case a few weeks ago. The judge in the case had classified ALL the accused in the case into three distinct categories. The first being peripheral, the second being minor and the third being serious offences. Having thus clearly demarcated three groups, ostensibly to classify the accused more easily, he then proceeded to state that Sanjay Dutt fell somewhere between a peripheral and a minor offender. Now, this is when I decideded to take a bludgeon to his brain. People are idiots. It's as if nothing they say makes sense for more than 5 minutes after the words have escaped the intense gravitational pull of the black hole that is their face.
To further drive home this point, I am going to take the example of Michael Vick. he's just admitted to staging dogfights in his neighbourhood. He's ADMITTED that he's guilty. Yet CNN has an hour long programme involving Legal Analysts and a Radio Host(?!). For What?! The man has already admitted his guilt. Leave him be and get on with it. Don't you have some more deformed kids and mutilated people to show, since that is what qualifies as 'hard-hitting' news?
I can't take this anymore. I quit.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Cleavage? No Thanks.

I'm probably the only guy in the world who looked at a womans cleavage and decided that he was better off sticking his head underwater for several perilous moments, while a surgeon performs a routine rectal examination, than look. The cleavage in question belonged to Khusboo. (I am going to take liberties with spelling her name.)

The whole incident took place when I was watching a show called Jackpot, a "quiz" show that Khusbu "anchors" where the "answers" are "results" from a "buplic survey". Each time you encounter the double quotes, take a breath, slow down and enunciate the word enclosed; then proceed. Anyway, Khoosboo was wearing a sari the color of which I don't remember and don't intend to since the very recollection of that image might burn a permanent hole in my brain. As Khoosbu turned to face the "board", there was a blinding flash of light, an Aurora Borealis if you will, that blinded me. Yes, the cleavage I saw was from her back!

This is something that occurs only "down south" - boy I hate that term. It always seems that the actresses who start off model slim and sexy, suddenly gain weight as they gain popularity. It's as if they EAT their fans. Look at the list of people here - Rambha, Mumtaz, Ramya Krishnan, Khusboo, Nayantara, Jyotika, the list is endless. Some of these "actresses" have started to wise up and tone down, but most of them are happy to be round. I purposely left out Namitha from this list becuase she does not come under "fat". Oh no, she is waaaay too big to be called just "fat". Namitha is like the Parliament to the Qutab Minar, she's like the rose to a reed, a brick to a stick, and so many more such irrelevant comparisons. What I'm struggling to say, I think, is that her vastness is so vast (for lack of a better word), that it encompasses all that is green and blue and red and magenta and fluorescent and cream and purple and orange and oh so many more colors. It's incredible watching her move her ponderous excuse for a body from one jilted pose to another in that pathetic motion she calls dance.

Look at the actresses in Bollywood. Most of them are smokin' hot! And they take pains to stay that way. They make sure that even if they are a little plump, atleast they maintain a shape that can be likened to a desirable female form.

This post is completely worthless in the face of current hotties like Shriya and the now-oh-so-slim Nayantara. I sincerely thank Messrs Rajnikanth and Shankar for bringing such joy into our lives. Joy mixed with the purity of love and uninhibited lust. Peace.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Yahoo Boo Hoo

Yahoo! has got to go. I mean it. It must leave this dimension and pursue economic glory in a parallel universe. One where Google does not exist. This is my advice to Yahoo's 'executives'.

Why you ask?

Reason 1:
Yahoo Mail Beta sucks. It uses more bandwidth than ever and provides a Microsoft Outlook Express look and feel that frankly reminds me of my Windows 3.11 days. It has its own share of login issues, mail selection problems and more.

Reason 2:
Yahoo Photos is closing down. Gee whiz! That's a new one! Yahoo decides to close shop on one of their premier features. This is what they have to say about it.

Yahoo-
For some time now we’ve supported two great photo sharing services, Yahoo! Photos and Flickr. But even good things come to an end, and we’ve decided to focus all our efforts on Flickr – the award winning photo sharing site that Time Magazine has even called “completely addictive.”
The Bullshit Translator-
We're losing to Google's Picasa!!! Boo Hoo!! We don't know what to do!! So we're hoping systematically shutting down our services and leaving you in the lurch is the best alternative to spending time and money improving our services.
Yahoo-
You may have used Yahoo! Photos in a few of other Yahoo! products, including favorites like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, 360°, Mobile Web, etc. Unfortunately Yahoo! Photos features in these services will be phased out of these products in the coming months.
The Bullshit Translator-
If we go down, we're taking everybody with us.
Reason 3:
Yahoo 360 can suck ostrich eggs. I have never used it and I never will. I don't need to see my e-mail and weather report together.

Reason 4:
Yahoo's spam filter is so efficient that it expertly directs all spam to my Inbox. I regularly receive e-mails about prostate gland enlargement, breast augmentation and wait-for-it car rentals! The only thing I have done in Yahoo for the last 6 months is enter, select all my e-mail and mark as spam.

Reason 5:
They're still focusing on Upgrading their services when all they need to do is Improve them. Those who don't understand the difference can take a hike unless they're female and pretty in which case, I will be more than happy to give you a free ride home.

Reason 6:
I hate their anti-phishing filter. That stupid picture there that does not let me save my yahoo user name and password on my computer so it can be easily filled in. Stupid, stupid thing. In fact, it's so stupid, it's probably stuphid.

Reason 7:
Google kicks ass! All over the place. Whether its Gmail, Picasa or Orkut. All google services totally kick Yahoo's butt on Yahoo Mail Beta (LAME), Flickr (WHAT?!) or Gazzag (Jeezus!).

The only place Yahoo rocks is with their messenger. Y! Messenger kicks booty. They might as well shut down all Yahoo services and create a chat room only website.

Priceless

1 gong ringer - 100 rupees
2 pooja bell ringers - 200 rupees
6 bell ringers - 600 rupees
70 devotees - 7000 rupees.

Finding out the godman in front of you works as a tailor on Mondays and Fridays - Priceless

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Lee-thal. Dead-ly

How's this for a movie story.

1. Quiet boy.
2. Noisy girl.
3. Cliched Politician villain.
4. Subdued boy actually has deep feelings of love for number 2 and vengeance for number 3.
5. Girl falls in love with boy.
6. Boy shoots at politician. Fails to penetrate bulletproof glass. Does a super rotating kick.
7. Intermission.
8. Flashback mode
9. Boy part of soccer team that is denied entry to district level games.
10. Boy and team strung up along a goal post like stuck pigs.
11. Coach valiantly defends them against a soccer ball kicked by the chuckling villian penalty style.
12. Coach dies.
13. Boy cries.
14. Boy kidnaps ministers son, loses him and gets his best friend killed.
15. Turns out Boy had tape of minister spewing anti-social comments all along.
16. Releases to press. Everyone happy except villain.

This is the story of Lee Engira Leelatharan. How do I explain how much I regretted watching this? It was like getting a screw turned into your brain, slowly. Every scene the screw went tighter,until at the end all that was left was one big chunk of your brain on the floor.

Lee:
() () () () () - I would give it a few more asses, but then 5's the limit. Hopeless.

Simplifly? No no, SimpliDIE

I flew Air Deccan again this time. It seems like they haven't read my blog from last time's trip. Maybe I should mail Captain Gopinath and tell him his airway sucks big time. I meant the airline, not his nasal pathways.
I got my bag x-rayed before checking in and it was clear. I checked in, and I asked for a seat in the front of the plane. "Free seating" was the reply I got. I started shaking in my boots. My brain had already translated the airport euphemism Free Seating into its real world equivalent of "Every man for himself" That meant a mad rush for seats when boarding began! Seriously, how much does it cost to make a seating plan? How lazy are these bums?!
Not as lazy as the man in charge of the X-Ray machine apparently. When I went for security check-in I was stopped because I had a set of screwdrivers in my bag. I couldn't take that on as hand baggage. Then why wasn't I stopped at the damn entrance?! I would have checked the bag in damn you!
It gets worse. The rush for seats was like the rush at Pothy's during a 50 percent sale. Or Saravana Stores during a 10 percent sale. After struggling to get into the plane, I was able to find a seat that i found "mildly" comfortable. There wasn't a push back! When I asked the flight attendant why there was no push back, she said "because there is no push back". Almost immediately, a warm glow of enlightenment dawned upon me, so bright that the passengers around me had to shield their eyes with their air-sickness bags.

It did not help much, that the pilot was American or something and had an accent only a mutated frog could understand. He was making small talk about possible turbulence and I was making small talk about his corpulence. We might have become good friends someday. Who knows?

The following is the entire conversation between the passenger next to me, and the air hostess when they came to serve "food". I use the term food very loosely here since most of the stuff they served seemed suspicious.

Man: "What do you serve?"
Flight Attendant: "Sir, Juice and Sandwich"
Man: "Do you have orange juice?"
FA: "Yes sir"

(She hands him a Guava Juice at this point)

FA: "Here you go Sir"
Man: "There is no orange juice"
FA: "Yes sir, guava juice"
Man: "...."
Me: "There doesn't seem to be any orange juice."
Man: "Orange juice"
FA: "Yes sir, orange juice"

(She hands him an Orange Juice finally)

FA: "Here's your guava sir."
Man: "...."

I rest my case.

Tired Old Cliches!

I'm back! With more evil venom to spew! This time I'm going to focus on all these silly old cliches that the newspapers seem to propogate. Not surprising, most of them seem to come from Bollywood, always a ready source of venom for me.

1. Chocolate boy looks.
What the hell does this mean? Girls are supposed to like chocolate? So the guy looks good? Or is it that his face is brown and mud-coloured and so he has supposedly chocolate origins? Or is it that his breath smells of cocoa?
Examples - Sonu Nigam - Jesus christ, with that tunnel network of a nose, people regard him as having Chocolate boy looks. Yech!

2. Girl-Next-Door.
Ok, this is pure bull right off the bat. No one who has lived next to me has ever looked like that. Second, the supposedly traditional look that they try to pull off is usually displaced in the next C-Grade flick they act in. The look is very temporary. I wish my girl-next-door looked like that.

3. Emotional Musical Romantic
This is actually a genre of movie! Devdas is classified under this category. Oh Lord! What will they think of next? Here are some more ideas - Cranially Damaging, Mental Trauma and Sob Fest.

4. Crying Heroes
This has GOT to stop! I'm getting sicker every minute I see some macho hero bend his biceps in one scene and then flex his tear muscles in the next. Oh I get it, they're trying to portray that men have an 'emotional/sensitive' side to them too? BULLSHIT. They don't. Men are much simpler than that. Men are BUTCH! Time to learn that.

5. The Comic - this is a tamil special
Every Tamil flick now has a designated comedian. This is as tired a cliche as you can get. The comedian of course, has all his kaamedi situations, complete with badly pronounced English words, getting beaten silly and of course getting yelled at. Then at the end of the movie, the supposedly carefree comic turns out to have a deeper side to him and he starts spewing philosophy faster than my tears at this point. Suddenly, HE'S the one doling out advice to the hero, explaining the vagaries of nature and the miseries of life with simple, yet deep metaphors. Please.

6. The Dying Scene.
Too long. Always. Cut short.

7. Songs
Too many. Unnecessary and usually not worth your time. Whether its Himiessshhh Ressaammiyaauiqz - no, that is not a typo, that's how he spells it now, or Kay Kay, all songs are stereotyped and rate a big 0 on my wanted list. The worst part is that we refuse to give up our ways of the song and dance, fickle heroines dashing around in splendid revelry/teensy tops all in the same scene. I say we need this like we need a Turbanator for PM, oh wait...

8. Spelling Bees
We'd all lose at this one wouldn't we? How many of you actually have just enough letters in your name to ensure people don't confuse your name with gurgling of a flowing river? Not many, turns out. I hate this addition of extra letters and removal of vowels. My new naming system is gonna be naming people SMS-style - namely (pun not intended) by dropping all the vowels. So Vijaykanth becomes Vjyknth, Dhanush becomes Dhnsh. This is the new revolution - i mean rvltion. This rant is more directed at Himesh Reshammiya's ACTING debut! Yes people, after gracing us with his voice, he's back to torment us further with his stubble and cap in place in the name of acting. The name of his movie? - AAP KA SURROOR, THE MOVIEE, THE REAL LUV STORY. I'm not kidding. Check it out.

At this point, I can't go on any further. My eyebrows have knotted together to form a Unibrow like a sailor's knot, my eyes are bloodshot and I am fuming. I need to cool off. I'm going to watch TV - Kabhie Khushie Kabhi Gham.. jeez.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Central Intelligence Agency

This is what I will refer to our government from now on. I hope my sarcasm is evident. If not, then you're probably a government servant. Off topic, did you ever notice how private companies hire customer care "executives" while government employees are "servants"? Anyway, the latest issue that has me wondering why we even give power to make laws to those who cannot travel without perfumed dhoties (in case of south Indians) or dull safari suits (in case of north Indians) - Ban on smoking scenes in movies. Great job! Well done! First you banned advertising alcoholic drinks, then cigarettes and then eliminated cola from the minds of impressionable youth. Kudos!

Sheesh! Why can't these people think before they make a law? I really don't understand it! Here's why I think they out to be mutilated gradually before being buried in stinking dhoties (southies) and Hawaiian costumes (northies)

Banning ads for alcohol
OK. This is really stupid. So now, instead of seeing an advertisement about alcohol and getting advised by my parents to not drink, I have to watch an ad about Bacardi's music? Or about Johnny Walker mineral water. I can imagine the conversation at home right now: "Son, you see this company that is advertising mineral water? They actually manufacture booze. So don't drink!". Or maybe this: "Hey, that music producing company actually sells rum! Don't touch that stuff!"
Maybe I'm stupid and dense and don't realize that they are actually legitimately selling music and mineral water. So I walk into a music store and buy the shitty music and like it. What happens when I eventually realize that they make booze as well?! "Gosh! Their music rocks! Wonder what their booze tastes like?!" Bah! It makes no sense. Everyone under the sun knows they're keeping the name of the company right under the noses of people so they always remember to drink! The same applies to cigarettes too!

Lets analyse the latest smart move. Banning smoke scenes from movies. I had the misfortune of watching Don recently. The new one. There's this scene in which SRK smokes. But its been banned right? So what do the producers do? (Gotta hand it to them for this). The first scene shows SRK from behind with the cigarette in his mouth. Next scene is him with the cigarette away from his lips but taking a drag rather stylishly. Next is him exhaling the smoke. So basically, all the actions actually performed while a person smokes. Without showing the actual drag! I'm sure that helped jackass! No one realized that he was smoking right? You safeguarded the impressionable youth from seeing a dangerous scene that could have sent the current moronic "GEN Y" (What IS that anyway?) on a smoking spree.

Please. There are more effective ways to control smoking among youth. How, you ask? That ain't my job. I only criticize what others do. I don't mean to say that I can do a better job. Just that I can criticize! Maybe we can 'ban' politicians in general. Elect me prime minister, I sure as hell can do a better job than the Turbanator we have there now. But that's another story for another day.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Chennai Open? Or Chennai Dead?

So I went to see the Chennai Open yesterday. Didn't really focus on the tennis 'action'. No, it was the cheerleaders which really interested me. They were all wearing this bright orange costume, like they'd just been hired by Big Bazaar or something, carrying purple pom-poms that make me want to puke-puke. No fault of the girls you say? Bah, the dance was utterly lifeless. They did the same routine after every two games! Seeing as I was too cheap to buy good tickets, I could only hear the words "CHENNAI" at the end of each routine. There were six girls for a seven lettered city name. So one girl had to repeat a letter. It was piss boring, I tell you.

Coupled with the hot tennis action I mean. The first one was fine - a doubles match with Nadal in it. Ok, not great, but a good beginning. Then came the nightmare. Prakash Amritraj, and some doofus called Ivo. Come on! Prakash looked like he'd been potty-trained on the courts. His play 'style' is textbook, like he'd been shown every step of the way how to play. Like the spoiled brat he seems to be. Ivo, a Croatian loser, sucked just as much, but he had a sonic boom for a serve. Destroyed Amritraj like he was a twig in a poop hail storm.

We need better cheerleaders. The tennis will improve automatically.