Agony Central

Child-Proofing a light switch in India

2011-03-29T00:01:00.002+05:00

No way he/she's getting through that, right? Right?!

Progress? The Wrights disagree...

2010-01-10T22:30:00.004+05:00

I am, of course, talking about the airline industry. For those of you who are surprised to learn that I know of Wilbur and Orville Wrights (WOW) - well, I was surprised too. The last few months I have had several wonderful opportunities to experience the joy that is airline economy class.
By the way, this is my most well-researched article yet. All facts are straight from Google (notice how specific I am). I have provided suggestions on how to fix several glaring problems in the airline industry and have excellent scientific bases for most, if not all, of them.

1. Seat Belts:
It's been 107 years since WOW managed to get themselves off the ground for a sustainable flight (at least one that did not involve voluntary or in-voluntary homicide at the end). We have had 19 other great achievements then (http://www.greatachievements.org/) but we still choose to strap ourselves in with a little black strap that costs barely more than your average fortune cookie. What the hell is up with that?!

Suggestion:
Electro-magnetic fields that forcibly hold us in place during take-off and landing.

PROS

Fries cellphones that are switched on nanoseconds after the flight lands.
Kid next to you can't irritate you.
Passenger next to you can't keep his or her elbow on your armrest. Take that bitch!

CONS:

Slightly elevated chance of frying a pacemaker.
Can cause prolonged magneto-retention effects on wheelchairs rendering them useless.

RISK ASSESSMENT: Marginal

2. Boarding passes:
Really? In the 21st century, we have electronic bills, electronic tickets, electronic personalities and to a certain extent electronic sex lives and yet we have to show them a piece of paper before they let us board the plane? Why? What is the point of this? I carry ID and have already cleared security. They can verify my name against their database to make sure I am catching the correct flight. What the hell is this piece of paper for? Not only is it using obsolete technology, it makes me have to clumsily carry it around, wonder if I am allowed to fold it, take care of it between connecting flights. WHY??

Suggestion:
Painfully inserted sub-cutaneous e-boarding chips placed under your left ring fingernail.

PROS:

No more paper boarding passes.
More trees = more places for people in India to paint with a white stripe (!)
Some people have a low tolerance for pain and will prefer to not fly. These are the same people that crib about ear-aches on the flight and ask if they can go to the toilet before the airplane takes off.

CONS:

Potential for loss of boarding pass if your arm is lopped off in a with the rapid transport cart.
Some bleeding may occur if the insertion is not done right.
Will always set off the metal detector. Body cavity searches become mandatory

RISK ASSESSMENT: Marginal

3. Layovers/Stopovers
Do you know the destination and origin of WOW's flight? Here's a hint: they didn't have to change terminals.
Which genius woke up one morning and said: "Hey! I just had a great idea. You know how people always want to go from A to B? Well, I think we should take them from A to C and then from C to B. Let's make them wait hours at C too!! It's sheer genius!". The board of directors looked at him and SHOULD have said: "WHY?!, WHY MOFO WHY?!" But mysteriously, they said, BINGO!

Suggestion:
Make airplanes so long that you don't have to fly anywhere. Just get in at one door, and walk out the other.

PROS:

No stopovers!
No changing gates, looking for connecting flight information or worrying if your luggage made it.
You get to carry ALL your luggage ALL the time!

CONS:

Slight increase in ticket price.
Could be hazardous to old people.

RISK ASSESSMENT: Marginal

4. One-Door Policy
One of the first things they tell you during the safety lecture is: "This plane is equipped with 4 doors, two in front, two in back and four on either wings. This plane is also equipped with mathematically-challenged stewards". Why then, in the name of the Incas, do we all have to stand in line to get out of the plane?! What, do the other doors not open in the case of a non-emergency? Did they really think, while designing the plane, that there should be doors that can not be opened in the absence of an emergency?! If so, how did they test that door without an emergency?! How do they know it WILL open during an emergency?!

Suggestion:
Convertible-type airplanes: you heard it here first folks!

PROS:

No waiting after you reach your destination. (How you reach your destination given that you will be in what is essentially an open-casket traveling at 600+ mph in the clouds is debatable)
You don't have to listen to that chump call everyone he knows to let them know his feet have touched the ground.
Limited frustration at people who sit in their seats till their row clears up and then jump and proceed to make others wait while they haul their baggage from the over head compartment.
Tickets cost less.

CONS:

Slightly increased chance of decrease in cabin pressure.
Difficult to consume alcohol on flight.

RISK ASSESSMENT: Marginal

5. Non-reclining seats
While most people are not fans of bending over, in general, the idea of leaning back is a pleasant one because it lulls the passenger into a false sense of security as he/she tries to ignore the fact that they are essentially traveling in a self-propelled phallus. It also means you don't have to stare at the back of the seat in front of you and discourages you from looking around at your fellow passengers. But every flight has two-three rows (only in economy class) where the seats don't recline.... and it really makes me wonder... WHY?! Does the guy behind me need to eat his meals off a plate that is perfectly parallel to the ground? Do they think that they will need to invest in airplane ceiling artwork to keep the 8-10 unfortunate souls stuck in that seat something to stare at? Could design engineers not find 5 inches to spare in a 300-foot aircraft? Does the reclining in any way prevent someone from reaching an exit?! Hint: if you can't squeeze in the gap behind a reclining seat, you probably have bigger problems than reaching the emergency exit, like going to the toilet (which I maintain is a far more serious, and common emergency.)

Suggestion:
A new eugenics program to decrease the dimensions of future races of humanity to more easily fit more people in an airplane.

PROS:

More reclining space.
Ticket prices stay the same far into the future.

CONS:

Program will need time to mature.
Airlines may counter by reducing seat size, necessitating further size reduction of humans till we end up in a vicious cycle that causes the entire human race to fit into a matchbox.

RISK ASSESSMENT: Marginal

6. Frequent Sucker Miles
This program really takes the cake. When I create a Frequent Sucker account, they ask me for details of my life that my mom doesn't know. They want my contact information, they want to know if they can text me their latest updates, want me to become friends on Facebook and 'Like' their dumbass logos but when it comes to actually getting credit for flights flown? It doesn't happen automatically. Oh wait, you didn't show your card and/or enter your 16-digit card number when you booked tickets? That's alright, just send us your original boarding passes, ticket stubs, restaurant receipts and life-jacket colors so that we can verify you are not lying. Of course, if you were trying to get out of a ticket you already booked, then they can just verify that information in a database, or bill you cancellation fees without needing you to produce any stubs or tickets. Wunderbar!

Suggestion:
Another painful sub-cutaneous chip implanted between your eyes - only this time, it's permanent.

PROS:

Never have to 'remember' to get miles.
Now you can fulfill your life-long ambition of getting a hand-held metal detector waved in your face each time you cross the metal detector.
Painful update process each time you fly deters idiots from flying.

CONS:

Could cause small delays during check-in especially if sterile surgery rooms are unavailable.
That's it! No other cons!

RISK ASSESSMENT: Marginal

You may have noticed a pattern so far. I'll clue you in. All the risk assessments are marginal! That's because I have selected these suggestions after a lot of careful research into cost-benefit analysis, shifting paradigms multiple times while maintaining my ethical integrity in the midst of driving polarizing innovation and rejuvenating synergy between marquee partners. Hell Yeah!

Deals2Buy is a good deals website

2009-12-06T23:05:00.003+05:00

It has some really good deals sometimes! It also has some great giveaways!

http://www.deals2buy.com

Blog Updated!

2008-11-29T05:45:00.001+05:00

If you are reading this message, then this news is redundant. Just like most of the Indian media.

Please.. keep more guns at home.

2008-11-29T05:34:00.003+05:00

In St. Louis recently, an 8-year old boy shot his father 4 times, and another man (who was staying as a paying guest) 6 times. He lies to interrogators for an hour making up stories like a little boy would, not realizing that they had techniques to nail his fingerprints on the gun or residue on his clothes.

His excuse? His dad beat him. A lot. Possibly every day, possibly multiple times a day. I'm not saying it was the fathers fault, but hey, you keep guns at home, teach your son to use them, and then beat the shit out of him everyday -- one day he's going to blow your brains out.

This kid is doomed to a life in juvenile detention for the next several years where he will no doubt improve his social standing and get into good habits like trimming his nails every week or combing his hair every morning. He will also be buggered.

Spankings are not an excuse to shoot someone, least of all two people. I don't endorse any form of sympathy for the kid or his dad. The dad screwed up by teaching his kid to shoot (and may be beating him more than he should,) and the kid screwed up.... well, by shooting two people for fuck's sake!

In other news, another man has been arrested for raping his two daughters for 30 (!!!!!) years. He's fathered about 9 kids with them, got them pregnant far more often than that, did not let them out of the house and generally abused them. Where was the vaunted social security and child support that these kids were supposed to get? 30 years man! Think about it, most of you who will read this are not even 25 yet!!

Not a good time for the world.

PS - Mumbai -- you deserve so much better than what happened Nov. 26th. Maybe one day, when I get the time (and the patience) I will put up an anti-religion page. Till then, take care.

I'm Employed.

2008-11-29T05:33:00.001+05:00

Yup.

Southisms

2008-09-18T08:31:00.003+06:00

After much debating with my friends, I have come to the conclusion that in the South of India (and I'm mainly referring to Tamilnadu) there is a completely different way of speaking English than anywhere else. I'm not referring to the occassional slipping in of English into everyday language. I'm talking serious change of meaning and pronounciation.

Pamilee/Famlee: You've all heard this at some point (if you've been in the South.) Any person comes visiting with his family to some office and the hosts lackey usually informs the boss that the man has come with "Pamilee/Famlee". It doesn't matter if he has come with just his wife or just his kid or his entire extended family, even one accompanying person is referred to as Pamilee/Famlee. Thanks to someone I don't want to explicitly give credit to for this gem.
Oife: In some parts of America and several parts of England, this word is pronounced Wife. The meaning is the same.
Ladees/Ladeej: Women in any group or gathering of any sort. Even if there's only one it's still Ladees/Ladeej.
Words beginning with P: Just hearing a RJ on the radio talk about the flanets and about Fluto is an exercise in laughter by itself. Also manifests in above-mentioned Pamilee.
Onway: Germany has the autobahn, America has the freeway, Britain has the highway, we have the onway. A road (not really) where legally traffic flows in one direction only, but actually flows in up to four different directions.
Andred: What comes after 99.
Gowlf: A sport played by using a crooked stick to know a ball in to a hole on a large green field. Alternate Spelling: Golf.
Prolem: A dilemma without the di. Sometimes spelled Problem in some cultures.
Dafanit: Definite as Daffy Duck would say it, I suppose.
Mrs: Refers to a wife. As in, "Mrs. is not there?." Not to be confused with the grammatically correct Missus as in, "Is the missus in?"

BTW, on a side note, have you noticed that whenever someone has a South Indian Lackey, the lackey is always bent at a painful angle (like they have piles), the arms are crossed and the shoulders are hunched together. Why this overly painful gesture?????? Aren't you doing enough cleaning the boss's kid's poop, washing the Pamilee dog and driving the Ladees around? Sometimes they go further and cover their mouth with the upper portion of the fingers of their right hand in a semi-curved position.

Just painful.

Modern Pandavas

2008-08-27T13:16:00.003+06:00

You-did-steal -> There has to be balance in life. The youngest of all the Pandavas was an epitome of dishonesty. He lied, cheated and stole his way through the war.

Beam -> The weakest of all the Pandavas; when he was a young lad, he fell on a stone and the stone broke his back.

Ad-jun -> He was the primary source of revenue for the Pandavas. He was the poster boy for the war, and even had a famous 20 minutes commercial where he was lectured to by the famous blue guy.

Not-kool -> Easily the least classy of all the Pandavas, Not-kool wore sunglasses that were way too big for him. His glasses were so big, they blinded Rat-a-tat-astra, the king, when he was watching the battle remotely via Sanjaya Channel

Such-waste -> He is barely mentioned in the concise versions of the epic. He is the unidentical twin of Not-kool. Only available in the extended collection. Like an extra toy in the G.I Joe collection that nobody wants and only possess because he came free with Maggi Noodles.

Rantt

2008-08-23T16:36:00.003+06:00

Advanced technology home products. I'm tired of hearing about everyday, ordinary products being marketed with some sort of space-flight-capable microprocessors in them. Detergent with "advanced-heat-seeking-dust-smiting-microgranules", shampoos with "advanced-hair-shine-boosting-technology", scissors with "advanced-foreknowledge-about-foreskin-systems", razor blades with "automatic-blade-growing-technology" (because that seems to be the only way they can "advance" razor blade technology: add more blades), the list is endless. When did ordinary prodcuts get so complicated? Why can't anyone just buy shampoo anywhere without requiring a socket to plug the bottle into? You know what's next right? Harpic with "advanced-turd-source-cleaning-shakti-along-with-dishwasher-liquid-dispensing-nozzle-technology." Wait till Aman Verma gets to your house to demonstrate THAT.
Well-known, famous, instantly recognizable actors posing as doctors/dentists. Who are they trying to fool here? What is the point of showing an _actor_, who is instantly recognizable as not being a doctor, in a white lab coat. I don't care when they have some fake doctor on screen telling me I should brush my teeth with Gopal Pal Podi (Tooth Powder), I'm likely to care less if I recognize the actor in the advertisements.
People who say "can't able to" are going to have to watch their backs from now on. I've trained with a hatchet over the summer and have sharpened my skills to the point (puns intended) where I can close my eyes and lop your ears off. Freaks.
Razor blade advertisements where the male model is already clean shaven before he even picks up the product. Look, we're not all that stupid. Some of us actually possess a brain and can able to use it. Therefore, we request you to kindly cease and desist lest you desire getting a large, cumbersome object shoved not-so-gently in to your lengthy intestinal tubing.
People who don't know how to operate lifts. If you want to go up, press UP dammit! Don't press the direction YOU want the lift to move so it can reach the floor on which your lazy ass has parked itself. And people who get in to a lift and try to direct it in the direction opposite to the one it's already going on are going to be launched headfirst into the shaft.
People who hit my car. Even if it's my fault, it's actually your fault since you didn't avoid me. That's what half of driving in India constitutes: compensation for the next guys mistake. You didn't compensate enough, you didn't anticipate. Your fault.

Rant

2008-08-21T21:34:00.008+06:00

Here we go:

Inserting "proverbial" in to sentences that otherwise would be meaningless and out-of-context (supposedly). Look, we all get the idea of a proverb. You don't need to educate us simple, cow-worshipping, human-sacrificing folk. Is it "tip of the proverbial iceberg" or "the proverbial tip of the iceberg" ? Does it matter? Do we care? Can we not understand the use of a metaphor as simple as searching for a needle in the haystack without the extra, added, complimentary, bonus (yes, I took that from Carlin, sue me.) tag declaring the haystack to be "proverbial". Why don't you take a proverbial kick to the nuts?
Cliches from children's books. Every author of a book for children writes with an undercurrent of guilt that each story he/she writes must have a "moral" or an "upstanding", honest person as its protagonist. Why? That's not how real life is. Not only is this angelic character completely unbelievable, it's completely illogical. Hunters who hunt and trap animals are described as kind-hearted when they decide to release the animal they've caught. Woodcutters are caring individuals who just happen to save a wounded bird: one they wounded by destroying their home in the first place. There's also always this sort of fatherly uncle figure that everyone just refers to as Uncle blah blah. We don't need some random uncle giving us moral lessons. Grow up, lose the match, get your report card, go home and face the music. That's what kids need to learn today.
People who say "anyways." STOP THAT. The word doesn't exist.
"By-the-by." I don't care if this exists or not. It should be outlawed if it does.
Karan Johar. Okay, this one was out of spite. I can't stand his overly gay attitude, hair style, his non-gender-specific face and his polished 'dahling' English. He dances too by the by. God.

To be continued... sometime.

Socio-Econo-Politico-Sporto-relevant post

2008-08-21T19:47:00.003+06:00

Current mood: Shocked!

Sorry, that was a parody (a lame one I know) of Wordpress. Two of my friends just moved there, so............. I had to.

However, I am genuinely shocked at a very recent event that happened that concerns all of us. Namely, the posting of four (4, quatro, vier, numero charo) comments on my previous post regarding Abinav Bhindra.

What is wrong with us? As the future generation of this country, we are expected to have an apathetic attitude towards sports, socially relevant issues and politics (not necessarily in that order.) I consider myself to be a patriotic Indian of the first Order. I make it a point to not care when something important happens, I don't follow the news, I don't cheer for India (unless it's for cricket of course) and I definitely don't follow _politics_. Sheesh! What is this country coming to?

And now I hear that people actually want to COME BACK to India, after education abroad! Hello!!! What the hell happened to those good ol' days when we would emigrate en masse to different countries, drive taxis and cabs there that we could have driven here, participate in community welfare programs there that we could have done here, express a concern for the environment that we could express here.

I am appalled at the lack of apathy being shown by todays youth. Stop caring. Really, it's not expected of you. What's next? A political party formed by students from IIT?! Hahahahah! That was a good one!! Oh.... wait.

Wait, I have another one; let me try again. What's next? Are we going to start winning medals in anything other than cricket (have we, incidentally???!) and "shootings" (which was obviously a fluke!!!) ?????/ Oh...... wait.

Damn, I'm running out of things to say; Ok, one last attempt. What's next? Are we going to defy the world and sign a nuclear deal with the United States, while secretly being able to develop bombs that will wipe out "insurgents, rebels, terrorism-by-proxy and plain ol' crazies) ? Oh..... wait.

Shit.

PS - The views expressed above are not my own. They are of Hindustani Pathloon; a guy who guest writes for my blog. I have nothing to do with him.

Beware the "Silent Killer"

2008-08-11T21:21:00.005+06:00

So Bindra won the gold. Good for us.

Does it not bother anyone that his father, refers to him as a silent killer?! Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that his father watched him place water balloons on a poor maids head (another sign of the oppression of lower castes) and shot at them repeatedly knowing "little" (and that is supposed to excuse this,) that, and I quote, "a slight mistake could have proved fatal."

This just scares the shit out of me. If I knew there was a five year old with deadly aim and a wanton disregard for safety, (not to mention his maid) who lived next door, I'd be calling the police dammit! I'd be calling them even faster if I knew his Pops was proud of him!!!!!

Good show Bindra!

It's Bad For Ya

2008-06-29T08:15:00.002+06:00

R.I.P George Carlin. You will be missed.

Ok, onto my newest post (in a while, I know.) Well, I've been quite busy for the last six months. People who don't know me very well probably think I'm lying. People who do know me very well and with whom I've been in regular touch with know that I'm lying. Anyway, for the intents and purposes of this blog, I've been busy.

In the meantime, a lot of interesting things happened to me. Too bad you won't ever come to know what they are. Here is a short list of things you don't know.

It's a federal offense to attack a customs official on American soil or any type of ground for that matter.
It's a similarly illegal crime to bash your friendly, neighbourhood postman's head in with a sledgehammer.

Here is a short list of things I have done in the last six months.

Been to NYC? Check.
Seen shitty movies? Check.
Seen good movies? Check.
As George Carlin would NOT say: beleaguered by a "negative cash flow position?" Double Check.

Here is a short list of things YOU did in the last six months.

Waited for me to update.
More waiting.
It's a boring life. Admit it.

But I'll be a bit more regular now that the summer has started and my lazy ass won't need to be anywhere but in front of a computer. Till then, wait some more.

Oh and by the way, check out GMail Labs "Muzzle." It's a god send. Someone at Google actually listened to me! Balls to you and your dumbass status messages!

Counselling on the internet

2007-12-14T10:59:00.000+05:00

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?

Busy? Unavailable? I don't care!

2007-11-04T01:15:00.001+05:00

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

A Long Time

2007-10-28T22:56:00.000+05:00

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.

Writer's Block

2007-08-22T19:51:00.000+05:00

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.

Cleavage? No Thanks.

2007-07-01T13:37:00.000+05:00

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.

Yahoo Boo Hoo

2007-06-13T02:33:00.000+05:00

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

2007-06-13T02:29:00.000+05:00

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

Lee-thal. Dead-ly

2007-05-30T13:18:00.001+05:00

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

2007-05-30T13:05:00.001+05:00

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!

2007-05-30T12:20:00.000+05:00

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.

Central Intelligence Agency

2007-01-05T18:57:00.000+05:00

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.

Chennai Open? Or Chennai Dead?

2007-01-02T20:18:00.000+05:00

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.

Casino Royale

2006-12-24T20:45:00.000+05:00

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!

I'm applying.. to go crazy

2006-11-30T13:39:00.000+05:00

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

2006-11-30T13:25:00.000+05:00

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!

Not so novel

2006-10-03T21:19:00.000+05:00

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.

Dark Side of The Moon

2006-08-20T00:29:00.000+05:00

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..

India Shining... Dimly.

2006-08-13T18:28:00.000+05:00

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...

2006-08-13T16:44:00.000+05:00

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.

Pretentiously Pedantic, Positively Ignorant

2006-08-09T23:45:00.000+05:00

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

2006-08-09T23:36:00.000+05:00

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
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Don't Ban Colas

2006-08-09T23:26:00.000+05:00

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

2006-08-09T23:08:00.000+05:00

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.

Dude! Where's my 'PLEASE'??

2006-07-08T13:04:00.000+05:00

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

2006-07-08T12:49:00.000+05:00

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.

Futbol Mundial - UPDATE (08/07/06)

2006-07-03T13:16:00.000+05:00

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.

Superman Rottens!

2006-07-01T21:59:00.000+05:00

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
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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....

DumbADs!

2006-06-30T22:58:00.000+05:00

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

2006-06-30T22:37:00.000+05:00

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........

News or Views??

2006-06-29T19:15:00.000+05:00

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.

Krrish - Qqquite Goood

2006-06-28T17:11:00.000+05:00

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...

2006-06-28T16:56:00.000+05:00

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.

Cricket Fever?? naah.. its the flu.

2006-06-20T20:31:00.000+05:00

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...

Phir Rip Off!

2006-06-18T08:49:00.000+05:00

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....

Women Power!

2006-06-16T18:06:00.000+05:00

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...

GRE preparations

2006-06-15T13:34:00.000+05:00

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......

Deccan Chronicles

2006-06-13T10:32:00.000+05:00

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.

one night @ the airport

2006-06-12T12:17:00.000+05:00

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?

2006-06-12T09:23:00.000+05:00

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!!!????