Trivial Pursuit!!

My fabled sitemeter, that is ticking away to glory and growing at the same rate as the population of Fiji, has this feature that tells me of the referring URL that has pointed to my blog.

Simply put, it tells me if the reader has arrived at my blog directly, as a result of my not-so-subtle shameless self-promotion, or if there are other sources that have brought them here. Many thanks here to all those people that I've conned into linking my blog on theirs. Too late!!

There are other really interesting search keywords that have brought people to my blog, and some of the search queries are pretty befuddling. For more proof -

• inject gluteal
• gluteal injection & nurses
• scared of injections
  
• mandira bedi fan club

(what the?????)

• teri behan ki

(search query put in by someone with a lot of imagination so far as cuss words are concerned)

• painful butt injection
• Mysore mallika (myway search)

(dude, search for a porn movie correctly, you don't even know its fricking name. What a retard!)

• Bee Sting BDSM

(Now isn't that a candidate for the thing that most of us are least looking forward to!)

• excuse for being off work after wasp sting

(nice, I like the way you think!)

• hot pic of mandira bedi in cricket commentary
• enjoy injection woman gluteal

(downright gross)

• things that make you say whoa
• Himmesh+Reshammiya News May 31
• MLK jr. "I had dream"
• "Hari Hari". Oh D-uh!
• fishing, chinki

(too weird to comment on. I wonder what the search query was actually supposed to look for?)

• are mallu nurses in bangalore neat

(prospective match-making aspirant's query. Sure, they're neat, I hope. At least for your sake)

• Free Kamasutra sites

(Now how the hell did my blog come up on such a search query?? Am I dropping way too many more terms and names than is required?)

• pain while sitting, swollen gluteus
• "inspiring questions"+creativity

(sorry, lacking in both)

• south park(revenge sucker)

Now, I have a hunch that whenever people type the queries listed above, they will be directed to my blog with greater frequency. It is but a vicious circle, that!

Thank God for the sitemeter, for having tracked what sort of other weirdos inhabit this planet.

I will keep updating this list....watch this space!

Gawd TV!

The month of June 2006 has brought about a whole lot of changes in my life. Thankfully for you, this post is not about that.

A new place to stay, in a very nice locality, albeit with a pathetic approach road, is what has happened, to put it in a nutshell. One of the many wonderful things about this new place is that one of my flatmates, Kutty, has brought over his TV, thereby ending two years of painful agony that yours truly had to endure (sometimes by choice, sometimes by compulsion) for not being in the hallowed presence of what some really jealous people call the Idiot Box.

Anyway, now that my 'condition' has been remedied, so to speak, I have gotten back to what I do best, next only to spending my time at the office pretending to work, while actually typing out shit like this, in the fervent hope that some moron like you will read it and find it funny. If your ego is fragile, please don't read the previous sentence, it might not do you any good.

Oops.

Anyway, just kidding about that. The very fact that you're able to understand complex sentence construction to an extent where every single thing I says isn't even mildly comprenhesible says a lot about how well your English teacher has taught you in school and also about your levels of perseverance at reading absolute horsedung online, not to mention your exemplary comprehension levels.

Back to my joyful reunion with the TV, albeit not mine. Same difference, though.

With work, commuting and long and mostly happy telephone conversations and somewhat intense playing at the Woodrose club, the lovely television is seldom awarded with my presence for more than an hour before somnolence gently creeps over me.

The other night when I was watching TV, VH1 specifically (they had a Greenday Storytellers' special, which I'd highly recommend you watch if you can), and there was a commercial break in the interim during which I was able to randomly channel surf. I found out that there are no Shakeela movies being telecast on TV, the rumours are untrue.

In addition, I chanced upon this channel I have been seeing all too very often without ever bothering to acknowledge its presence on my television - God TV. This time they were showing an ad with a few guys standing in flowing robes standing in St.Peter's square as some music, some techno stuff or some disco stuff was being played in the background.

In this part of the post onwards, I am going to abuse the TV channel, though I must state that I am venting my ire only on those people who came up with the channel, and not against faithful believers or God. Believe me when I tell you, I am afraid of God's retribution, and hence I shall not bother to ruffle his/her feathers.

What sort of idiots would want to come up with a channel like God TV, eh? Imagine the content manager of the channel, or whatever he is called, having to scan through each and every single line of the Bible for inputs on what to do for new material. This is probably the only channel where they propagate the funda that its cool to have re-runs.

We have re-runs and we're damn proud of it! We believe that repeated content will enhance the viewer's faith and propagate our message further!

As a friend of mine pointed out, the very presence of God TV is for the cable operator to proudly claim that he is supplying us with more channels than we can possibly watch, nevermind the fact that its absolutely unviewable even by people who have gone without watching the lovely television for two whole years! The TV channel is a filler that people use before being able to go from one channel to another.

Another possible reason for its existence (one of the very few present) could be for pseudo-pious kids to be pretending they're watching it at night, while all they are really doing is to wait for their folks to get out of the room so they can slip in the porn CD and watch it to their libido's content. Instant gratification!! Well, almost.

For those that tend to disagree with my viewpoint, try watching Benny Hinn or some other TV evangelist talk, and you will know exactly what I am referring to. Religion is a very personal thing and every person should have the right to follow it as per his/her wishes. Coaxing people via a stupid television channel to try and stretch the definition of piety beyond tolerable means is blasphemy by itself.

Do I see you turning off your comp in disgust to go watch God TV?

Rarest Opportunity!!!!

Once upon a time the written word was founded by man. He scratched on the walls of caves where he used to reside in, and when he ran out of space, took to scratching out details of anything even remotely relevant on the walls of the prehistoric urinals - an instinct that has lasted with man till date.

(Notice how I see man, to denote us males of the species and not women, since graffiti has probably never been their thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, though!!!)

John Gutenberg then invented the printing press, and printed Bibles, and the Holy Bible went on to be an all-time best-seller. Some people speculate that it was not so much because of how popular the book was, but because it had the distinction of being the first one to have been printed, and the extreme hype propelled its stellar sales. If only I could turn back time, maybe I'd have Vatsyayana's Kamasutra printed out first, just to see if the rumour was true!!

The power of the written word has been used as an effective communication tool, and has led to the success of a lot of enterprises. The P&T departments of various nations, newspapers and media magazines, and of course, Abdul Karim Telgi, among many others all owe their good fortunes to the written word.

One fine day, Sabeer Bhatia and John Smith decided that they wanted to impress women (or maybe men, I know not and I don't care either!) and hence thought of a novel concept - that of sending and receiving messages over a network, in a very nicely packaged manner. As a dedication to their repressed homosexual urges towards each other, they decided to name it 'hotmail', very ominously sounding like, you know, 'hotmale'.

Emails, as these messages were subsequently referred to as, have now caught on in a big way, and have changed and redefined the lives of people as we know it today. Instant communication, free, easy, fast and convenient. Getting porn from eightly different websites after signing up at only one has never been easier. One would think that viagra sales and average weiner sizes (atleast in places with reasonable internet access) would also have been boosted due to the incessant spam mails that one receives about libido increase and cheap cialis and viagra. This is apparently the next report that the studs at some major consulting firm are working on as a holiday project, after preparing reports based on detailed studies regarding the emergence of India and China as the dominating superpowers on the world stage in a few decades from now.

As with a whole lot of other innovations, the email evolutionary curve has now started going downhill, with incessant usage by people not qualified to get within ten metres of a keyboard. A brilliant forward that I received from a buddy of mine goes to illustrate just that.

------------------------------------------------

Hi,
People are interested in rare things, now this is common. People are interested in rare events, which is common too. What’s not common and rare is attending a session by *****. This is because Firstly chance to attend *****’s session is rare. That to session on ******* is still rare. Hence, I am sure your interest is double by now because of this rare event presented by a rare person in the unique presence of ******* like you. Yes!! You are invited to make this event a rare one. Make this event successful in such a way that very rarely we get know such success.

Three Cheers for Success

------------------------------------------------

Certain words have been blanked out to protect the identity of the people in question, so that you don't go ahead and strangulate them.

Please come and visit this post as often as possible, and make this blog post successful in such a way that very rarely I will get to know such a hit rate.

Balls of Steel

Have you seen this ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Ad, which shows a guy sitting at home, rejecting a call from the office, to enjoy the wonderful rain pouring outside? The punchline goes something to the effect of 'retire from work, not from your life'.

The ad portrays the situation from the viewpoint of a 30-something year old person who has probably been stressed out enough by his line of work to contemplate wanting to just let go and start something afresh or do something without being restricted by a whole lot of bounds, including that of having to supervise, or be supervised and monitored.

There are a whole lot of people who've been disgruntled enough with the Indian IT industry to want to take that leap, and perform a trailblazer act of sorts and charter their own course of life. Some of them take up further studies either in the form of an MS in the states, or undertake their MBA from a leading institute within the country.

The end result of either undertaking results in the subject in question leading himself/herself back to square one, by probably working in some allied field, that runs the risk of leaving them as disgruntled as they were when they decided to quit, though with a substantially ballooned up compensation.

(To digress a little, why is our salary referred to as compensation? Something to seriously contemplate.)

There are very few people that one would've heard of, who is actually at peace with the sort of work they do, and would enjoy working in the same place for the rest of their lives. This is an assumption, call it a blatant extrapolation if you will, that I have made, based on the general rants that I have heard from a limited section of people who aren't happy with what they're doing.

The general discontent is more the norm than the exception. The only thing that probably keeps a whole lot of people going is the security, primarily financial, that probably provides a safety net and compensates for everything else that the job isn't.

In my opinion, (and you'd concur when I'd say humble), it really takes guts for someone to break away from the system, and attempt to do something that lays more emphasis on the satisfaction of a job well done (guaranteed, if only for the efforts put in, because it is a labour of love) as opposed to the safety net that a mundane job would provide.

I was wondering, sometimes, if I would have the courage to want to do something like this. I eventually figured out that I will definitely do it, but once I have attained financial stability. Playing it safe seems like the only option.

However, there are some people out there who have decided to take the plunge on their own, and a colleague of mine has done just that.

My admiration for his efforts is not a reciprocal thing reeking of sycophancy,for him having filled out and uploaded my resume on the monster job site, for me to look for greener pastures, but is a sincere attempt at trying to highlight his courage.

Having worked for two years in the It industry, our man, Sachin (thatzhisneihm), has decided to call it quits. He would have completed two years in the tech industry at the end of June, but he chose to leave the organization where he was at a month earlier, simply because he wanted to watch the FIFA World Cup.

After a well-deserved month of drowning himself in the magic of the beautiful game, he plans to start a venture of his own, a website of sorts, the details of which are still under wraps.

Being the football crazy guy that he is, he has come up with a WC toolbar that you can download and use here.

Amusingly enough, when asked for the reason for quitting his job, he had the chutzpah to say that it was for taking time off to watch the World Cup, something which is probably still flabbergasted the poor person unfortunate enough to take his exit interview (some procedural requirement in organizations as a last-ditch attempt at wanting you to stay on even after you've made up your mind to escape).

There are other instances as well, of people walking away into the sunset, far away from the mundane throes of a not-so-satisfying job, to move onto something they really enjoy doing. Sidin Vadukut is once such example, though our Footie man here is a babe in the woods in comparison with the blogging stud, who has more extensive credentials to back him up, combined with (probably), substantial capital that he'd have amassed at his consulting job. Takes a whole lot of balls, nevertheless to rely solely on his book, and his other ventures for a living.

More updates on our friend, in the posts to follow. Good luck, Sachin.

In conversation

Real short post. Worth blogging about, though.

The scene is our office cafeteria, where a few friends and I are sitting around and generally shooting the crap, as a particular Holden Caulfield would frequently say.

friend: Dude, we need to start something on our own. Lets get outta here.

(It is noteworthy to mention here that friend is a dude)

me: watch Lock,Stock.

(friend gives major dirty look)

m: I am serious man, its got some brilliant marketing idea.

(dear Reader, if you don't know what I am talking about, please watch the movie)

f: No dude, lets start something tech, in the IT field.

m: Easier said than done! You need hajjar capital.

f: No problem man, there are lots of places where you can get capital from.

m: Who'll give you the cash, your father-in-law?

f: yeah!!

m: Who is your f-i-l?

f: Azim Premji!!

m: He ain't got no daughters, only sons!!!

f: Same difference.

Now, end of post.

D-uh Vinci Code

After four posts of travel blogging, which would be appreciated by a limited audience only, yours truly is back with something arbit.

The recent furore created over the movie version of The Da Vinci Code has confounded many a normal person. The almighty censor board, that has been so successful in stemming the blooming libidos of many an adolescent by passing indiscriminate ratings that prevented most of us from viewing titillating material in movie theatres, resulting in private VCD store owners making huge profits, had requested the distributors of the movie for a special screening, following which the movie received an A certification.

The Times of India, which we all know is the 'best' newspaper in the country, came up with this fraud article portraying teenage angst at not being able to watch the movie. I've tried searching far and wide on the net for the article, so that I could give you the link, but I don't want you to end up cursing me more than is necessary.

The heart of the matter is that the teenagers wanted their names to come in the paper, and wanted to sound as though they were the literary types that are also so hep and cool. The TOI, as usual, did not have enough semi-nude pics of some vaguely known celebrities to put up, and hence hosted the article.

The theatre guys will admit whoever invariably shows up. This is true. My friend and I had seen True Lies in the theatre in class 7, despite it being A rated. Much to our chagrin, the movie was dubbed in Hindi, but because we went to check out a movie so much earlier than most (or so we'd like to think), we made even that sound cool in our narratives. The Jamie Lee Curtis dancing-in-her-lingerie scene was something we watched while simultaneously looking around to see if anyone else was watching us watching her. Phew!

Punjab, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Nagaland (who thought it had movie theatres!!) and as of yesterday, Andhra Pradesh have now banned the screening of the movie, stating that it would harm the religious sentiments of certain sections.

WHAT THE FUCK were these people doing when the book was selling like hot-cakes all over the place, and the pirated book vendors on the roadside made so much money out of it that they stocked only that book?

Blatant hypocrisy rules the roost once again in our country, which is plagued by the grim spectre of reservation looming large in an attempt to possibly destroy the hopes and aspirations of a lot of bright students.

The complaints somehow were not around when the book was revered by pulp-fiction enthusiasts all and sundry. I must confess that I liked quite a whole lot of the book when I read it myself, quite some time ago, and my virtiolic rhetoric is centered around anything but that.

News reports go on to state that Christians have requested for a ban. Quite understandable, given the fact that it shakes the very foundation of their savior's celibacy, and celibacy is something held in high regard. Jewish Rabbis are allowed to marry and have a family, while serving their duties towards God, while Christian priests were perpetual chastity belts, or so it is rumoured.

There are additional reports that go on to state that now "certain Muslims" also want the movie banned.

That was possibly the biggest "D-uh!" moment of the month for me.

Don't you see it? Can't you figure out why they too want some movie based on a book revolving around Christianity banned? Its as plainly evident as the Emperor's New Clothes were.

A whole lot of people are extremely enthusiastic about the movie version, despite having read the book. Sure, catch the movie for Tom Hanks, Ian McKellan and Audrey Tautou. I will too. But if you want to watch the movie to know what will happen in the end, after having raved on about how fascinating the book is, you should maybe watch Forrest Gump instead. It is a movie about people like you, save for the fact that you'll never get that lucky. In addition, I would be extremely surprised if you've even come this far in the post, but I thank you for your perseverance.

It pays to have a short-term memory for a lot of things, though learning valuable lessons about how a movie can screw up a good book should never be forgotten. The exceptions are miniscule.

I leave you with two interesting pieces of trivia that I saw on the IMDB webpage for this movie -

To protect both the fabric of the building and the works of art it contains, the production's use of the Louvre Museum in Paris was carefully controlled. For instance, no equipment was allowed inside the Louvre during the opening hours, so filming took place at night. Since the crew were not permitted to shine light on the Mona Lisa, a replica was used to film instead. No blood or mysterious writings were permitted on the wooden floor of the museum so these scenes were shot at Pinewood Studios outside London.

Dan Brown appears in a cameo when Robert Langdon is talking with the police in the cocktail of his book.

Now, I'm off to see the movie!