Chennai Wins and Fails - Part 1

I was going to write this when i was done with the wedding and was on my way back to the states.. but a few days into my trip.. i have experienced enough of Chennai to be able to make a prelimenary compilation..

WIN - Anushka in Singam

FAIL - How DEVI SRI PRASAD has recycled all his tunes yet again

WIN - Electrical outlets in the Continental Airlines economy class seats

FAIL - A ton of cut Green beans served with every meal. What do they think I am? a GOAT?

WIN - Saravana Stores employee explaining the difference between 2G and 3G to an old man.

FAIL - How someone spilled blue fabric paint on my floaters in that shop and i walked around leaving a trail of blue paint wherever i went

WIN(K) - New mattresses in all the beds in our house

FAIL - New pillows that are far too thick for me

WIN - Bhavna in the new Sridevi silks ad

FAIL - Bhavna in Asal

WIN - A kid screaming SPIDERMAN SPIDERMAN at my new cap

FAIL - A certain relative declaring after three days of being with me... OH THATS SPIDERMAN isnt it?

WIN - Carl Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' which i read on my way here.

FAIL - My father falling asleep during one of my long lectures on the subject of Comparative Planetology

WIN - WWE's Over the Limit to be telecast here on TEn sports.. it'll be the first time i'm seeing a PPV on tv in a very long time

FAIL - wwe.com redirecting to a site managed by sify india.

WIN - new sherwani from Manyavar

FAIL - How the shop owner told me i looked too young to be married

WIN - Pooji's personal trainer asking me how many years i've been body building

FAIL - A girl laughing because I was singing to myself as i ran on the treadmill :(

EPIC WIN - Arun Vijay bald in the new Maanja velu poster

EPIC FAIL - The normal Vijay in an abnormally crappy sardarji costume in SURA

More to come in a while :) Ho Ho Ho

The Grad School Chant

Up the caffeine,
all through the night.

Even the owls,
Shall cower in fright.

Every assignment,
I shall outfight.

Every course,
I shall 4 point.

Every author,
I shall outwrite.

Every mind,
I shall ignite.

All My glory,
shall fly like a kite.

And everyone will know,
This grad student’s might!

Docile Devil makes his debut

If you are a follower/regular reader of this blog, then you surely want to follow my new webcomic.

docile devil !

follow his exploits at

www.dociledevil.blogspot.com

The Genie and The Three Wishes

Remember all those "I'll grant you three wishes" stories we read as children? You know, the ones where a weary traveller, prince or merchant find a bottle, lamp or other sundry item and a genie/spirit pops out. How would the following people react to a situation like that ?

Scenario 1: Starring Grad Student (Male)

Grad Student (Male): Ok genie, first of all I want to be paid a gazillion dollars a year for watching football games / reading trash on the internet / driving around and getting sloshed. Second...I want a grad student (female) at home to clean the house, wash the dishes and cook the food.."

Genie: wont a nice little sexy french maid do?

Grad Student (Male): Nope..I need her to do my assignments as well.. so yeah.. I need a grad student (female) and nothing else

Genie: So whats your third wish?

Grad Student: ok.. now lets see, we covered money, entertainment, companionship...well.. i guess that'll be all

Scenario 2: Starring Grad Student (female)

Grad Student (female): Ok.. considering grad student(male) gave up his third wish... i get four wishes right?

Genie(already bored): Yeah.. whatever...lets just get this over with

Grad Student (female): First wish, all sports on tv should be banned and replaced with a 24 hour 'sex and the city' marathon. Second wish, I want an elevator inside my house that leads to the mall. Third wish.. I need an add on card to grad student(male)'s gazillion dollar account.

Genie: but couldn't you just wish for an unlimited supply of mall merchandise at home?

Grad student (female): But whats the fun in that ? The whole point of shopping is go out there and spend money that you shouldn't be spending anyway...

Genie: Strange... but what about the fourth wish?

Grad Student (female): All women on earth should be able to eat as much as they can and not put on any weight..

Genie: well, that can be arranged...but what about you doing all the housework for grad student(male)?...

Grad Student (female): Well.. I already hired a french maid for that....he only said he "wants" me to do his work... and He knows he doesnt always get what he wants.....now leave me alone... I need to go to the mall..

Scenario 3: Starring other assorted celebrities

Professor 1 and Professor 2 : We want our grad student's wishes to take effect only on Sundays provided they've worked enough during the week

Random film buff: I want Ashutosh Gowarikar to die twelve times after what he put us through in his recent movie

Akshay Kumar: I want all those that died after watching 'Blue' to come back to life

Himesh Reshammiya: I want to kill the guy that invented 'Caps'..

Barack Obama: I want all grad students who earn a gazillion dollars to pay a trillion dollars in tax

Mayawati: I want a statue of myself in every house and I want everyone to wear Pink 24 hours a day..

Manoj Night Shyamalan: I want everyone to stop whispering, "I see boring movies" at me on the road.

Random game show contestant: OWWW CAN ZEE SLAPP?!

Abinand: I want Raghav to experience excruciating pain every time he takes a dig at one of my movies.

Raghav: I want everyone except Abinand to read this blog.

Sachin Tendulkar: Sorry.. not interested.

Vijay: I want people to watch Vettaikaran for me and not Anushka...and I want everyone who bitches about me in blogs to spontaneously combust.

French Premier Sarkozi: I want everyone to stop talking about my wife and start talking about me

----

Rakhee Sawant: I want everyone in India to participate in season 2 of Rakhee Sawant's Swayamvar...

Genie: wait a minute... weren't you married at the end of the first season?

Rakhee Sawant: My second wish.. I want everyone in India to watch Season 1 of Rakhee Sawant's 'Talak' (Talak)..it premiers this monday.

----

Well what would you wish for?

(Thanks for reading, Comment Away!!)

Things I'd like to put on my Resume

Well, we've all been there. We've put in everything we can in our resumes to make sure companies take notice and hire us / invite us over for an interview....but there's one thing i'd definitely like to do.... put a set of goofy qualifications on my resume and watch as good company representatives stare back at me when i visit their career fair booths, all suited and booted. Here's a couple of them...no particular order.. though u can tell me which one u liked the most...!! :)

11. Can work well under pressure - Can sit without tapping nervously on steering wheel when pulled over by Cop

10. Can effectively multitask - Can have YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and several other tabs open and not miss a beat

9. Can handle large volumes of information - Can watch 63 episodes of Family Guy in one evening.

8. Has a penchant for time management - Wrote blog, ate bag of chips and watched 10 more episodes while preparing for this career fair....

7. Has strong interpersonal skills - Have 433 friends on Facebook, 1600 friends on Orkut and another 200 follwers on twitter. Many of them 'like' what i put up.

6. Has work experience - Was once offered $2 to buy neighbour-lady pickles from Meijer

5. Is a team player - Always has bunch of cronies to go to bars with

4. Has effective conflict resolution skills - Smashed martini glass onto barkeep's head to keep him from telling boucer that I scratched expletive on counter

3. Has good grades - what was the name of that website where you get free notes again?

2. Has effective communication skills - 'Expletive'

1. Needs job and will perform well in position offered - $20 taped to back of resume.

(Thanks for reading. Comment away!!)

Assorted Laughs from Blogs that never made it

For every single post that I write on this blog..there's about six that i reject .....well..i know that sounds really cool-n-all (yes I do accept fan mail at my id..hate-mail too...just in case)...:|

I decided to make this mid month post as a collection of things that could've been awesome blog posts but never made it past the first few paragraphs.

The Origin of the Orange[Chicken]: I once started a post that talked about different versions of the fictitious (...hopefully) origin story for my favorite dish. Here's my favorite from those ideas...

"The Rajnikanth" is on a mission to the sun. He is so pissed that the weather in Chennai is so hot that he wraps the sun up in his jacket and throws it high up in the air...err..wait.. the sun is already in the air.. but thats ok.. Rajnikanth is a being of cosmic proportions..and the sun for him is just waist high...

...back to our story. Rajni throw is so powerful, the wrapped sun falls into an alternate dimension populated entirely by chickens....this causes annihilation of that entire dimension...

Regretting his inadvertant mistake Rajni restores that dimension with his mystical powers (he's rajni... he can do anything) and to pacify the chicken dimension and preventing them from invading ours. he creates a dish called ORANGE CHICKEN as a tribute to the chickens that lost their lives because of being hit by rajni's sun control jacket...and to this day he made sure that grad students worship that dish !

Things to do on a bus while waiting for a train: Well...those of us who still don't have cars still do a lot of this..especially if you travel to college from spartan village. Some of the on that list included

-- Screaming.."THATS MY BABY!" and pointing to the train track.

-- Switching on sound recording on the cell phone and having a loud monologue...try starting with.."Grad Student War Journal... Entry number 2203, June 16th..Surrounded in bus by foul smelling homo sapiens... supressing urge to puke..."

-- Making farting sound with lips and looking accusingly at sleepy grad student next to you...sniffing the air loudly.

-- Locking eyes with a member of the same sex while talking into the phone...watch them cringe..

-- Count number of coaches loudly with goofy numbers (hint: pi, e, infinity, C, X, Thetha)

-- Sleep

Halloween Costumes I'd like to see: I started this one but couldnt really go too far... any ideas on... what would you guys'd like to see ?

Grad Student -- 2 dollar blooper sweatshirt thats two sizes bigger thrown over cheap walmart pants. complete with laptop bag that looks like it hasnt been cleaned in ages...with accessories like the 5 dollar footlong, library book and headphones with ipod. can include mask of stubbled unkempt face.

80's Indian Government Employee -- Bajaj style 'open in front' helmet with black, shell framed glasses. Brown striped shirt non-tucked in, thick black moustache. Black trousers over bata hawai slippers with blue clasps. Clutches copy of the Indian Express or that brown economic times with a black oversized umbrella in the other hand.

(Thanks for reading. Comment away!)

The Taxonomy of The Status Message

I know I haven't blogged in a while, but that's mainly because I've been doing a lot of other writing (short stories, movie scripts, sci fi novels..... and i already see you groaning and saying.."yeah right")...

A careful analysis of all the posts on my Face-book and Gtalk feed show me that there are really only four types of status messages.

Type 1: The Cribber: Mostly originating from all types of people who have to work at some point of time during their day. Sometimes from people who dont have any work at all too.
but most of the time originating from people who have to do something awesomely difficult.. like get up and switch on the fan.. or eat a bar of chocolate (Catch my drift?)...

Examples: Have soooo many deadlines.... Oh my god my pet rock is on a tree and i'm sitting down calling to it but its so much work that my throat aches. Oh shit oh damn it to hell i need to write an assignment and i'm not in a mood because i'm so damn lazy but its not good to be lazy and i need to work....etc etc.. blah blah.. blooh blooh.. yeah whatever..... crib crib..

Type 2: The Show Off: This is a classic and has existed ever since the early days of social networking.... and ever since Aol gave you that annoying custom status message option... Messages of this type range from the well intended, "I had such a great time in [add place here]" to the impossible... "I just did thirteen hours on the treadmill"....

A popular benign subtype of type 2...is the quotation...Most people have this irresistable urge to transform a common quote they heard into their status message. most have the good nature to credit the source...

Type 3: The Beyonder: Have you ever read one of those status messages that doesnt seem to make any sense at all ? Something about dreams and chaos and several other esoteric concepts written in a way that they're understandable only to those that write them?... Well.. there it is.. you have something thats beyond you... we choose to call this, the Beyonder..

Example: Springy Dreams bylane the corner of the window when abracadabra we chant.

(P.S. Dont even try explaining to me what this means...)

Type 4: The Social Butterfly: Well.. there's those messages where people want to thank, congratulate or placate other users. Something about "Oh this person draws like a cuckoo that just had enough caffeine to kill a bull elephant.." or something like that. These are mostly well intended... and give both the person and the recipient enough snob value to last a week.. Some trivia here.. i initially wanted to call this type something else (P.S. this blog still is PG-13).. but decided to stick with the current name...

Cross Breeds: Type 1 messages and Type 2 messages tend to dominate most wall posts.. though, as mentioned before, the line between the four types blurs considerably. For example, sometimes a type 1 message is used to create the effect of a type 2. For example.. consider the following message.

"OH I'm on the lab on a sunday morning when everyone else is either watching rosie o donnel or sleeping".. this message is essentially a type 1 intended to create the effect of a type 2. Cribbing as a means of showing off..!!

Most type 3 messages are also intended to have the effect of type 2....Oh my god look at me.. I can write this but u cant understand..!

Think about it.. take any message... any message at all on facebook, aol, gtalk, orkut.. heck anything at all.. and it shall be a combination of these four types...


(Thanks for reading. Comment Away !!)