Monday, May 25, 2009

IPL2

IPL continues its success story! IPL second edition ended up with a bang as well. Congratulations Deccan Chargers. You deserved to win. Good work Kumble and the Royal challengers of Bangalore as well.

Continuing from where I left it last time, here goes the bullet points of this year.

* First and foremost, SA was a super second destination for the event. Wonderful crowd. Stupid also but great also. Thanks for being there and supporting our teams and making this event a grand success

* Thank you Prieti and Shilpa is supporting a losing cause. If not for you guys, your teams had nothing to cheer about.

* Thank you AB for your amazing century, but sorry that all the credit goes to our own Manish Pandey for matching your shot to shot, fielding to fielding

* Thank you Manish Pande once again for your performance and taking your team to where you took them. Too bad you had 6 balls strike in the first 6 overs of the finals. Lets just say your team played against you. But everyone has to learn from you as to how to take a given opportunity with open arms

* Thank you KKR for your not so nice performance. But you did perform where RCB needed. So kudos to you.

* Thank you Robin Uttappa for fucking up every time you went out to bat. Next time make sure you get a contract from KKR. You will fit in there perfectly.

* Great performances guys - Hayden, RP, Dilshan, Kumble and the rest of you who did perform well

* Sachin, Saurav, Dravid, Lakshman and the rest of the fuckers who performed pathetically, just look at those kids who are performing man... dont you get a little inspiration from that?

* The vodafone adds were killer this time! Way to go zoo zoo!

* Mandira, Sameer, Arunlal, Akaash Chopra and the gang - you suck!

* Gavaskar, Shastri, Bhogle, Rameez and the gang - you suck too!

* Super over was an amazing intersting change. Super!

* Thank you IPL for making cricket a little more open and making players answerable - no more just mumbaikars like Agarkar and Ranesh Powar who have sucked at the game. The new finds should make it to the team soon - Super played boys - The Ojhas, Nayar, Jadeja, Pandey, Jakathi, Kholi, Raina, Rohit and all

Overall another awesome four weeks. Keep it going. In a couple of years there are going to be two more teams. The speculation is that they are giong to be the Lucknow loafers and the Ahamadabad assholes!

Monday, April 06, 2009

The Fone is the Phucked

It has happened again. Every now and then something happens in my life that makes me realise that this is not for me. Every now and then. It has happened again!

The fone is the phucked!

This is not new to me. It does not even hurt anymore. The wound has become numb. It is the same story every few months. Each time, the “The end” may be different but the story is still the same.

The “The end” this time - My Nokia just died on me and it refused to wake up. Its dead!
Oh ya.. post sales service at E Zone at Sigma mall sucks. Dont go there! (I hear they over price too)

I am glad in a way that its been over 40 hours and I dont have a vibrator in my pocket silently titillating me at the oddest hours and the insanest times of the day. Its like a blessing in disguise if you look at it from one side - The Right side. I have constantly hated cellular phones and lately developed an aversion towards other cell phone using individuals. They should teach cell phone etiquette in school.
In the first place, I have constantly sucked at handling the device, fuck the etiquette. Only I know how much efforts have gone into keeping cell phones in one piece with me hitting walls as I walk.

My first 4 cell phones have been expensive(by my standards) handsets. Spent a good <two digit number> grand for each of them, each state of the art at that particular instant of time(Time is such an illusion I tell you… in just a couple of days your phone is outdated. Bitch!).

But now I have come up with a whole new approach of handling the responsibility of a cell phone and wish to call it - The ULTIMATE guide to manage cell phones for dummies. I have, over time and experience collected enough data to substantiate my claim.

On an average, the life time of a cell phone is 10 months.. at the most. The reasons that the life of a cell phone would seize would be:

1. It just dies on you(Like this time).
2. Falls into water.
3. Falls into the sea.
4. Falls into your beer.
5. Beer falls on it.
6. It falls of your pocket.
7. It gets stolen from your pocket.
8. It gets stolen from your car.
9. It gets stolen from your friend’s house. It is the maid but you have no proof.
10. A bike runs over it.
11. A bus runs over it.
12. You get mugged
13. The screen fails. You give it for repair. The guy doesn’t give it back for 6 months and running…(That basturd!)
14. You throw it against the wall (Because you are super drunk)
15. You throw it against the wall (Because you are super pissed)
So on and so forth.

Reasons, however much trivial (numbers 1,3,5,9, 13 apply to me, some of them more than once), may be numerous, but the result is the same. It is always “The end”

Another important factor to consider are the features on these babies. Most, oh so ludacris!

My most modern phone had a 2 mpix cam and blue tooth, stupid games and an mp3 player. I have sufficient data to support that the average usage of all the features in a phone(except calling and texting) is 1/3669th of the average usage of the phone for texting and calling. So, in eventuality the usage of calls and texting is considerably huge and hence it can be, ignoring the errors in calculations involved, summarized that the main use of the invention called cellular phone is to make calls and texting. (And seriously, these days there is all kinds of shit in the market – i-pods, PSPs, Crazy cameras, personal planners, dildos etc that one can rather use a cell phone for its primary purpose)

In conclusion, I am going to hence forth go for the cheapest handset available in the market and use it only for calling and texting (as little as possible). Cheap handsets come with an added advantage that they can be made to fall around without having to have a needle down the heart every time it does. Its a clear choice of a cheap handsets for shorter durations over state of the art shit.

The ULTIMATE guide to manage cell phones for dummies rule 1 and only:

Buy cheap handsets!

Twitter update: Upgraded from a Nokia 1200 to a Nokia 1202

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Happy Woman's day

The last couple of days has been pleasantly peaceful - the weather that is. After successive long hot sunny sweaty days, it has been exceptionally cloudy and drizzling, exceptional for the month of the year it is. I am guessing its cooler now that women’s day is done and gone. I guess everything is cool if the women folk of the world are cool. :)

Happy Women's day girls. I hope you have had a blast!

Talking of women, and women having a day and all to celebrate and all that jazz, I would like to take this opportunity to narrate an incident that happened in my life recently. I happened to take a bus a couple of days ago to get to work. Having heard stories about busses in Bangalore and the crowd involved, I was fully prepared, with knee and elbow braces and all. But surprisingly, the bus I got into (which would take me from Baneerghatta road to St.Patriks church on brigade road, was very empty and for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel claustrophobic in the Bangalore traffic.

So as I sat in one of the many empty seats and bought my ticket, a lady hopped into the bus. I have very limited knowledge about the "how to travel in a BMTC bus effectively without being pick picketed or molested" but then what followed next was something I could not concur with.

To explain the scene, let me give you details about the setting. Like I said, the bus was almost empty, in the sense that there were around 10 people in it, most of them had taken all the window seats available on the left side (non sunny side). Man 1 was sitting in one of the front left window seats (marked "ladies"). Man 2 was sitting with his friend on the right side. I was sitting behind all this on one of the back aisle seats from where I could get a clear view of the scene that followed. Woman enters the bus. She looks here and there and approaches Man 1.

Woman: Could you get off the seat?

Man 1: (taking off his earphones) sorry?

Woman: Get off that seat. I want to sit there.

Man 1: There are so many vacant seats. Sit in any of them.

Woman: No this seat is marked ladies. Could you please get off the seat?

Man 1: Come on, so many seats are empty. Sit somewhere else please.

Woman: Get off!

Man 1 ignores her and puts his ear phones back on.

Woman: (At conductor with a "what the fuck" look) Excuse me

Conductor: Sit somewhere else madam. The whole bus is empty.

Woman: (Ignoring the conductor, gets back to her man, trying to jab him on his shoulder to attract his attention from his ear phones)

Man 2: interrupts: Excuse me madam, why are you doing this? There are so many seats. It doesn’t make sense to wake him up. Sit somewhere else

Woman: What do you mean? You guys don’t respect women at all

Man 2: Respect? Excuse me! What respect are you talking about? It requires common sense to find yourself a seat in an almost empty bus.

Woman: Common sense? I want to sit there. That is a ladies seat.

Man 2: (pointing at another empty seat, on the right side) That is a woman's seat too. Sit there.

Woman: NO! I want to sit here only. And who are you to talk to me like this? I am not even talking to you. Mind your business

Man 2: Do what you want! (sigh! s and swears to himself. I distinctly heard him say Bitch. But he wasn’t talking to her anyway ;) right?)

Man 1 (cant take it anymore and gets into action)

Man 1: Why do you want to sit in this seat only?

Woman: There is shade there. I want to sit there only. And it’s a ladies seat. So get up.

Man 1: If you want shade, you should take an auto. You can’t come to a public bus and behave like a child.

Woman: What child? Driver stop the bus! Take me to the police.

(By now, everyone in the bus including me has stopped giving attention to the bitch. The driver moved on and the conductor went behind in the pretext of selling his tickets. The woman's ears have turned red. She is about to blow up. I could not wait for the action to begin. Unfortunately that’s my stop. I get off the bus and walk off, trying to kick start my day)

Now, clearly anyone with a sound mind on that bus would believe that the woman was a bitch! Swear it. I respect women a lot to abuse them, but this one was a total bitch.

But why am I abusing a woman on a blog which is titled "Happy woman's day"? I somehow feel that this whole women's rights and women are equal to men is over played. Way too over played. And I personally believe the women of today have taken full advantage of these two levels, women's rights and the school of thought of women being equal to men. That is, when the situation is better for them to be the weaker sex, they are but when it comes to certain other things, they want to be treated equal. This makes survival of the men folk much more complex that it already was. If handling a normal woman wasn’t tough enough!

Think about it. If you are going in a car and the car has a flat, YOU have fix it cos touching the tyre would dirty her hand. Or if the attic has to be cleaned, its you who have to climb up and get all the shit on your face. But when it comes to things like say, going to a pub, or for that matter cooking in the kitchen, the modern young women take a different stance. Women are no less than men these days. These days women work and earn as much as men and hence need equal rights and equal priviledges. Its not that I am against women going to a pub. Its just that if woman goes to a pub only to prove to the men that even she can be like him, that’s where she becomes a looser.

If its equal privileges you require, why in the name of the devil do you have to pick up the phone and call the man in your life (father, husband, boyfriend, brother, best friend, rakhi brother, random guy from orkut etc) when your radiator blows up? Equal privileges is all you want right? Get it fixed. Fix it yourself. Hitch a ride. Do something instead of the call?

It’s not just about the car where double standards are maintained. Over all, this world is living on the double standards of the modern women. This is what education does I feel! Ruineth you!

I think its very simple. Women, with just the gift of giving birth to another human should make them much higher than men. Why don’t you look at it that way? Why do you want to come down to our level? We are all bastards in one way or the other right? Why do you want to be EQUAL to us?

It’s time we accept that we are different species and take it from there.

Happy womens day either ways!

Cheers

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Cyber love

as i wander in cyberspace, not knowing what to do or where to go, lost in the many fantasies it has to offer, i look for you, here, there, and not finding you in sight here makes me feel void, this world without you is empty...

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

What the Beep*

The other day, 18th of Feb it was I think, I woke up later than I usually do and didn’t feel like going to work. Although this is a common feeling I face every morning, that day it was a little different. I just wanted to be at HOME. Pamper myself. Relax. Dream. Sleep. Just lie down for hours and feel 0% productive and be happy about it. That is a great thing to do on week days. Aahhh! I wish there were more weekends!

Anyway, this Feb. 18th, I could not just relax and do all that shit. I had to go to work, late was o k, but bunking till EOD was not a choice I had. So I decided I might as well go get the insurance for my bike done. That way, I could go to work late and still get some other work done in the process. Get the insurance for my bike, which was due a month and a half ago. Better late than never my teacher used to say.

I had heard of this MONSTER called the "Silk board fly over" junction. I have crossed this bad boy a few times before, all on weekends, mostly at odd times of the day(read night) and it has always almost been a cake walk. Mostly. But this Feb. 18th was the first time I saw him in complete rage. I touched Ring road at the famous Udapi garden junction. I had got the green light at that signal and I landed on ring road. After that, it took close to 50 mins for me to reach silk board flyover. All those 50 mins, my bike was revving and in first gear, moving bumper to bumper, leg to leg, very very slow, and not really steady.

Mental note: Bangalore has become awfully sunny these days! Don’t wear black T shirts

Just as I turned left onto Hosur road, a cop stopped me. “Routine check” I was told. I can’t believe it that right behind me was one of the biggest traffic jams my tender brain ever navigated and this dude here wants to routine check my bike. I am a man of simple wants, but the least I expect from society is some common sense. The whole concept of Policing is put to fire these days. I asked him as to why he was more concerned about my papers instead of minding the traffic. He dismissed my query by spitting the pan in his mouth and said "license". I promptly produced my license and the lapsed insurance, telling him in the process, that my insurance had lapsed and I was on the way to get it renewed. The beep* would not care. He wanted me to pay the fine because at that instant, my bike was running without a valid insurance.

India is like Matrix – The movie! Some rules can be bent, some can be broken. That’s why I love India. 20 bucks and a little theatrics in the lokal language is all it took for me to get out of this freak. It works cheap if the cheap constables are in charge. But I still don’t get the idea of an insurance bring mandatory. It’s my beep*in bike. I have the money to get it fixed when it gets beep*ed. So I dont beep*in need insurance. Why should I get it then? Well, some questions are never supposed to be asked. You are supposed to oblige. Life!

The insurance office was another mad house. It was 1130 on a Wednesday - the peak if we were to plot the hours of the week onto a bell curve. And when I go there, there is a herd of people wanting to get insurances done and all waiting. No queue et all.. just waiting here and there. I go and ask this really dark big lady in a bright red sari and loud gold ornaments sitting like a pig, who looked like the boss around there. She says that this guy who is supposed to click photos of our vehicles is out to get his camera fixed. I mean, what kind of a firm will work if at the peak time of the week, you have your man fixing his tools? Seriously, what the beep*!!

Relax!! Breath innnnn…. Breath outtttt…..

The good news is that I have to wait till the next Feb 18th [:)] to get my insurance renewed. I can’t wait for the next Feb. 18th, even though I am sure I will delay getting the damn thing done!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Pinky is good too

The main page in this cheap news paper I get had a rhyming headline which said "Sallu cries as MYSON dies". These days, they try to cipher the headlines so much, especially the cheap papers, that one is left with little choice but to go thru the main news to decipher it. This particular column was about a dog called "myson", a male 14 year old dog owned by Salman Khan. He incidentally has another female dog, who he calls "myjaan". The news paper went on to tell how much in love Sallu bhai is with his dogs and how he talks to them on the phone when he is away on shoots. But what interested me were the names of the dogs.

"Myjaan" and "Myson", myjaan in particular made me say the name in my mind over and over again and have loud laugh over the sensation . But that’s the best part about naming pets. You can name them whatever you want. Sidey or not, Funny or not, Stupid or not, Crazy or not... They will still respond to the name given.

There are some funny pet names that I have come across in my short life. The most common names for dogs are names like "Ramu", "Raju" etc which usually are names of dogs or elephants in Hindi movies. I haven’t seen a real dog called Ramu. I would never call a real dog “Ramu”. Please!! (Making a weird face with a long “nasal tinge” filled please, like how Polumi – Roadies 6.0 claim would say it) That would be so crazy. To call a dog by a name you would normally associate with a person. Another common trait that people catch up for naming their pets is using their color for a name. "Blacky", "Goldie", "Belli", “Dark Knight”, “Shadow”, “Reddy” [ ;) ] are names that I have usually come across.

Then there are these really funny pets I have seen with names which SHOULD not be given to pets, especially dogs. There is a basic disconnect between the name and the animal. I had one neighbor who had a Pomeranian called "Killer" or “Tiger”. I mean what kind of a killer would be a Pomeranian? It probably kills the mosquitoes in the radius with its high frequency noise but Killer is NOT a name for that bitch. I have also found it funny that about a few years ago, every girl I knew who had a dog named it "Sonu" after Sonu Nigam. Am sure they all love the singer, all lust him may be.. but naming their dog after him... Crap! Girls I always fail to understand!

I guess the name of the dog makes it what it really is. I had a dog too which was called Whisky. It was a golden retriever which was much darker than most golden retrievers I have seen. Whisky was an appropriate name for Whisky. He was a basturd though... was a rowdy in his own rights and had taken control of the whole house hold while he was around. "Basturd" is another name I like. "Come here basturd", "Fetch Basturd!" are such an appropriate way to talk to your dog. I also have a friend who has a pet cat called "Cup of Tea" which I find very very cute. "Ray" was another lab I knew who was pitch black and awesome looking.

When I do have dogs, two male labs are what I have in my dreams(if i can fight my paranoia about dogs that is)... I want to call them Macho and Benjo (After characters with the same name of MTV, who incidentally got their names from Madher Chod and Behen Chod). Nutz and Boltz too are names I am willing to consider but only if I have on male and one female dog. You cannot possibly which has a Nut on the male toilet door and a bolt on the female toilet door. Whatever be their names insha allah!, I’d rather not have a dog than to have one who is called "Myjaan"

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Shankranthi 2009

Its festival time again and yet again I found myself banging on the doors of Halli Mane.

I have always loved festivals. I am not a very religious person and all but I have always loved festivals. Too many aspects to festivals them interesting but I am most intrigued by the feast most festivals have to offer. Since I am still in the phase of my life enjoying my bachelorhood, I usually find myself enjoying my fest at Halli Mane.

Halli Mane is a concept restaurant which serves mostly Karnataka rural food. Situated on one of the cross roads on one of Mallehshwaram's busiest roads, this restaurant has to its credit providing healthy and hygienic food to the people of Bangalore. Halli Mane organizes feasts on chosen Hindu festivals at regular intervals. This Shankranthi was one such occasion. I had my festival feast(suggi) here. And what a feast it was!

Me and Me-non reached the destination, ready for the lunch at about 1. Since both of us were working on that day, we were both in office clothes and very out of place. Every time I have gone there for my festival meal I have had an awesome experience. This time was no different. Well different a little in terms of the menu, but awesome none the less. Its like at home, like you have just finished the pooja, asking god for all the useless things in the world and you sit for a meal. There are flowers everywhere, the whole place is decorated, and the smell of the food is so very inviting. Everyone is dressed for the occasion and there are people handing over the prasadam and juice and the ladies are dressed in saris and adorn flowers and they all look so pretty. The "service" part of the experience is tip-top. Clean men with clean clothes with clean vessels with very nice looking food come and serve a feast so good, one must experience to understand.

This time, I had to pull some strings and get a back door entry cos there were close to a 1000 people waiting in line and I HAD to get back to work. We got thro the back door into the kitchen, which spans two floors just like the rest of the restaurant. We walked thro the huge cookers and huge vessels with boiling oil or steam something, on to a metal stair case and thro a door into the first floor of the main restaurant. The entry in itself was rather filmy and the food that followed, followed suit. A delicious "close to 5" course meal was laid out in front of us on a big plantain leaf. I would not like to get into the details of the menu but I promise ill pass on all the information of Halli mane to anyone who drops in a personal request. Like I said, I can pull some strings there ;)

Like in every fairy tale there is a villan, an ugly old witch or mean wolf, this habbada oota too had its villans in my fairly tale lunch.

I cant seem to get a hang of how parents can take the shit the kids do. Seriously. Kids are the future of our country... they have to be brought up well. I seriously could not understand how the fat mother of the fat kid sitting next to me could enjoy her meal without being affected this moneky of a son. He bloody would not shut his mouth. I mean, talk talk talk all the time. Not just talk, stand up, spill water, cry, make the guy serve him the kheer 4 times and make a painting out of it on the leaf, touch my leaf, touch me, kick me, stamp my shoes and all the crazy shit spoilt brats do. Seriously parents, please do something about the kids parents... you don’t want them to end up like me one day. Believe me!

Oh ya! Happy Shankranthi 2009!

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Happy New Year

8th day of the year is not too late to post a post about new years. But it aint all that early either. Either ways no apologies :)

Happy New Year 2009 came and went by without causing too much change in my life. Except that hence forth, I have to give my writing a second glance when I am hand writing dates. One gets so used to writing [something]/[something]/08 on every place I have to make a date entry that hence forth, at least for the first couple of months I have to be observant as to what my hand writes subconsciously ( on that note, now I wonder if I have written the correct year in the date I have dropped for the Credit card :|)

Talking of sub conscience, I believe I have been blessed with a sub conscience which, in comparison with a lot of people I know, is better than their living selves. Why do I say this? I have no clue... So coming back from the tangent, the "Happy New Year" of 2009 had me driving to a coffee estate close to Chikkamangalore and party.

A gang of 5 (2 Indians, two NRIs and I) left my work place (I don’t work with any of the other 4 but we happened to leave from my work place because it’s my car ;) ... so much for modesty) at around lunch time. The drive was excellent, with a couple of stops for

1. Fuel for the car
2. Fuel for us
3. Fuel for the night!

We landed in the coffee estate (the name I am trying to recall, but dont seem to do so) by around 9 and got into our cozy rooms. We were given a house on the first floor of a house built in the middle of this estate. Very comfortable rooms with clean bathrooms, which for me is high priority - clean bath rooms; so that I can fuck it up by the time I check out. Once we had changed and stuff (oh my god, my friends are such girls I tell you... they take ages to fuckin take off their trousers and get into tracks... I can never accept a MAN taking ages to get ready... that too to go get drunk... that too in the night... and that too when there are just 5 of us who have known each other for a decade almost and who just spent 8 hours in a car together) we got to eat amazing food. The idea was to eat little so that we could drink a lot and then grab the dinner, but then the food was so good that we all ate our stomachs full. I faintly remember one of us saying "chuck the party, lets hit the sack" but I also remember, that thought was comfortably trashed and the who’s ever thought it was got completely smashed (wow that rhymes also).

We gathered around a badly burning bon fire at around 11. Everything was set. There was the left over food from our dinner (which was hardly anything, everything was in our stomachs) and there was lots and lots of chips and of course we had booze from the duty free shop of Frankfurt (I guess) and music (off the collection of DJ [someone] who happens to be a friend of one of us) being played in the background and cool (in fact cold) wind blowing and all that jazz.

I vaguely remember hugging all my friends at midnight and I also vaguely remember one of us making conversations with god. Rest is history. Happy New Year 2009!!