Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Never been tagged

This was the name of the movie I had decided to make. You see, till about an hour back, I was just another ordinary guy living just another ordinary life. Till a friend read about my plight and took pity on me. Life is worth living now. Yes, thats right. I am a part of the hip crowd that tags each other. The tagging clique, if you may.

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4.

The main parameter in this maximization problem is the choice of family Q.

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.

Did it, and looked like a moron with one hand in the air.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?

Highlights of the NatWest Series final between India and England.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is?

9:35pm

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?

9:42pm.

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?

Pearl Jam blaring loudly, through my headphones, into my ears. Can't ear anything else as a matter of fact.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?

30 minutes back to answer the call of nature.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?

Some mathematical derivation in my notebook.

9. What are you wearing?

T-shirt, Track-pants, sneakers - living up the grad-student dream.

10. Did you dream last night?

Unfortunately no.

11. When did you last laugh?

On reading today's Dilbert, a few minutes back.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?

Asian Paints Distemper, whiteboard, calendar (no swimsuit calendars though :-( ), helluva lot of power sockets, ethernet points.

13. Seen anything weird lately?

A 40-year old dude laughing like a moron on _every_ dialogue of Ice Age 2, even the senti ones.

14. What do you think of this quiz?

Pain in the butt.

15. What is the last film you saw?

Ice Age 2.

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?

A mountain, with a cottage at the summit.

17. Tell me something about you that I dunno.

That I can kick your ass for such a quiz.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or
politics, what would you do?

I cannot say "world peace" as that is the territory of Miss Universe wannabes, so I will have to say college education for the entire population.

19. Do you like to dance?

Only when drunk!

20. George Bush.

The luckiest bastard who doesn't deserve even an iota of what he has got.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?

Munni

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?

Munna

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?

Why look for discomfort else where when you can find it right at home?

24. What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?

I am sorry but we are aleady overbooked, we will have to offload you. Back to the earth you go!

25. 5 people who must also do this in their blog.

The madness must stop here! On the other hand, I want to name Solzaire and Tweety if they are reading. A little sadism never hurts ;-)

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Nation applauds much wanted change in law

BOMBAY, INDIA (12 APR 2006): The entire nation stood on its feet today and welcomed the introduction of the much sought after reservation bill. The bill aims to guarantee the availability of girlfriends to the deprived sections of the male society. Although the exact details of the bill haven't been released yet, its salient features are as follows:

Who gets some?

The bill seeks to help out the needy and deprived males. As of now, it covers all engineering students, graduate students, medical students from North India, pizza delivery guys, waiters in Bombay's quarter bars, Haryanvis, Indian armed forces and airline pilots. The honourable minister for HR, Mr Arjun Singh elaborates - "We are trying to cover all demographics where the males hardly get to interact with females". This new category will be called the MIDGETs for Men in Deprivation of Girlfriends Etc. The "etc." covers one-night stands, "just good friends", "sahelis", live-in partners and the like. As of now, the MIDGETs cover almost 27% of the population!

This law is not without precedent. In 1991, its predecessor, the "Cool guys should definitely get girls" Act, it was ensured that all B.A/B.Sc/B.Com male students should be granted easy access to the female form. At that time, the logic provided for the Act was that these students, pursuing their worthless degrees, are no match for the professionally qualified B.Tech/B.E/B.Arch/MBBS students who land up with all the nice brides. The 1991 Act, recommended by the Sandal comission, wished to rectify that situation and was a nudge in the right direction. The Act was successful in making procreation feasible for 22.5% of the male population.

However, with every revolutionary idea, come the imbeciles who oppose it. To oppose the 1991 Act, two students from IIT and IIM turned publicly gay to show their defiance. Will such an uncouth opposition be on display this time too?

"No way! 15 years of conditioning have made us totally heterosexual", says Anand, a BA student of Hindu College, Delhi University, with his arms around his two girlfriends.

The logic behind the law

The MIDGETs have been suffering from a lack of female contact (platonic or otherwise) for decades now. A survey carried out in 2005 attributed an average of 13.5 girlriends to every engineering student in IIT. But the figure fell to an abysmal 0.13 after removing "chat-friends" and "orkut-buddies". Hence the need!

"Would you want a horny nuclear engineer in control of the atomic power plant? Huh? Would you?", opines the head of nuclear safety at BARC, Trombay.

Minister Arjun Singh echoes the concern - "Due to lack of female company, boys in IIT were turning to homosexuality, or worse, assembly programming! So it was high time for some affirmative action".

Implementation nightmares

With 49.5% of the male population becoming legally eligible overnight, the question arises as to where will we get the requisite numbers?

"We are talking with the governments of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh", answers Arjun Singh. Bangladesh, in particular, can come in handy with its large diaspora legally and illegally settled in India. Talks have started which will create almost a million jobs, exclusively for female foreigners, in the next 2 years. It should be noted that on account of the bad example set by Manisha Koirala, India will not be "that interested" in pursuing the matter with Nepal.

This will also allay any fears of the non-MIDGET community on the lines of "not being able to find a bloody girlfriend nowadays".

Implications for gays

So what about gays in the MIDGET community? Will a girlfriend be forced down their throats too?

"These are minor wrinkles that can be straightened out. Remember, the State of India doesn't recognize homosexual relationships as legal! And anyway, its high time we stopped discriminating on the basis of sexual preferences", clarifies Arjun Singh.

"Further, it shouldn't be a big problem. They can become 'just friends'. From what I have seen in the reruns of mediocre American sitcoms, chicks really dig gay guys", adds Singh, before quickly replacing the word 'chicks' by girls.

Well, as of today, the bill has been passed unanimously in both the houses of the parliament and is awaiting the signature of the President, who coincidentally is also single and may relate to the problems of the MIDGETs.

This reporter will take your leave now and be off to enrol in one of the neighbourhood engineering polytechnics.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Untagged man very unhappy

Couldn't resist an onion style post.

BOMBAY, INDIA (7 Apr 2006) - Area man Rahul Gupta, who goes by the blog-alias of asterix2k, has declared that he is on the verge of emotional bankruptcy. And the reason is that no one has ever tagged him. Not once. When contacted, he said "I come across inane blogs daily where people are tagging each other senseless. I want to be a part of that crowd. I want to belong! IS THAT TOO BLOODY MUCH TO ASK??"

The rest of the interview had to be postponed, as asterix2k became blasphemous. On resumption, asterix2k added that he is dying to let the world know about his last five crushes, the seventeen books he likes, the twenty three movies he can't get tired of watching, and the dozen things he can't live without.

"I think the entire world is ready to know what turns me on", he conjectured.

Tagging is a complex process wherein, a blogger details out his favourite lists of books, movies, MMS clips etc, and in turn, tags another blogger friend who repeats the loop. So is tagging limited to just ordinary fares like what we prefer to read and watch?

"No. It works at many levels, from top-ten favourite colors to top-ten favourite traits in women", answers Rahul.

He continues to say that answering a tag is a great way to make a post without actually having anything to say, but still attract two dozen comments or more, depending on how famous the blog is. "So , this is right down my alley, because my blog is really 'a blog about nothing'. A vacuous tag-post will fit right in!", he adds.

Preliminary studies show that the following are the ultimate goals (in descending order) of every blogger:
a) Get a real person of the opposite sex to visit the blog.
b) Get tagged.
c) Get a s*it-load of comments on every post.
d) Squat on a good blog-domain name, even if we aren't blogging yet, *just in case*
e) Make meaningful posts.

Legend goes that many online romances have bloomed as a result of tagging. Female blogger Sarah (real name hidden) says, "I thought Zack (real name hidden) was just another stupid male blogger. But then I came across his tag-post! When I read that he likes to sleep on the left side of the bed, likes his eggs scrambled and adores the movie Josie and the Pussycats, I knew it was a match made in heaven!". Their marriage lasted two months after two years of online courtship.

"Right now I would rather get tagged than laid.", gushes Rahul in a wave of emotion. "After that I can move on to tell the world the color of my shorts, my adventures with my pet spider, my gargling habits and the 10-page analysis of my favourite character in Seinfeld", he quips.

Tagging has often been derided by blog-critics as being typical of the "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" philosophy prevalent in the blogging world. Blogger friends comment on each other's posts, irrespective of the post's contents, so that the post/comment count stays healthy. So isn't tagging the same sort of evil?

"No way! First of all, let me clarify that I have myself made half the comments on my blog. And this was possible only because I was vigilant enough to check for comments every half hour, and answering any comments right away!", clarifies Rahul, now visibly agitated.

"Secondly, who'd you rather prefer scratching your back? A stranger, or a friend who's more familiar with the terrain?", he adds.

Well, evil or not, this correspondent wishes asterix2k the best of luck in getting tagged, but secretly hopes that he never gets a chance to read about the blogger's "ten places on my body where it itches the most" list.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Gunda: The obsession continues..

Check out this link. Don't forget to read the user reviews!
A partial screenshot is provided below. Check out the IMDB rating of 9.9/10 (well, even Gunda isn't perfect!)
















This weekend, I also fulfilled another childhood dream of mine - watching "Paap ko jala kar raakh kar doonga" at midnight with rowdy junta, with a litre of beer safely inside my tummy to make my experience truly out of the world. Have to admit that although a 60-year old Dharmendra makes a real crap lead-hero, this movie did have the guts to hold a candle to Gunda. Now don't get me wrong. Sure, Dharmendra doesn't have half the sophistication to rub shoulders with Mithun-da, but pair him with Anita Raj (30 years younger than him) and you got some serious competition!

Although the dialogues were a far cry from the literary genius on display in Gunda, the story and (lack of) logic is what made PKJKRKD real fun! Saudi Arabia has more religious tolerance than this celluloid masterpiece had coherence. Excerpts:

Kulbhushan Kharbanda is a very rich and honest engineer. He has a daughter, Farah, of marriageable age. Deepak (played by Govinda) is KK's PA.
KK (to his wife Tanuja): Ab Roopa ki shaadi karne ki umr ho gayi hai. Meri nazar Deepak par hai. Sharif hai, imaandar hai, steno ki naukari kar raha hai...apni Roopa ke liye theek rahega.
(An exec engineer marrying his daughter to a steno! What the funk!!)

All in all, a good paisa vasool.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

TV Today

First, after so much publicity, they announced his departure. I, for one, was devastated. For me, he was an integral part of the whole experience. But then, he came back. Well not exactly.

I am talking about Isaac Hayes, the South Park chef, the most ultimate sex machine to have graced the idiot box ever. Apparently there was a big fallout between the South Park creators and Hayes over an episode where SP ridiculed Scientology, which Hayes is a devotee of. What Hayes didn't realize is that SP is equally capable of poking caustic fun at _any_ issue under the sun. So they promptly debuted their 10th season with an episode titled "Return of the Chef". And Hayes won't be flattered on seeing that episode, to say the least.

Wonder, what song will Hayes sing now? And speaking of the 10th season, the second episode is one of the funniest I have ever seen. At par with the 8th season, which contains the best SP episodes.

Am also watching the 17th season of Simpsons right now. Wonder how they manage to keep the quality up after so many years!

Consider this: Marge Simpson prods Todd to overcome his fear of heights and climb up a church spire. Now Bart is helping him climb down:

Bart (to Todd): Lets just go down without holding hands. It looks gay.
Todd: What's "gay" ?
Bart: umm... gay is when you overcome your fears and do cool things.
Todd (shouting at the top of his voice): Hey DAD!!! I am GAY!!! Did you hear that? I am GAY!! Mrs Simpson made me GAY!!

I had a hard time controlling my laughter.