Fw: Being Scott Adams

A completely random thought and a sudden urge to draw a cartoon prompted today's blog. I have not taken permission from Scott Adams for using his characters but I am not making any money out of this, he should be fine...I think..
Click below for a larger image

Hot or Sweet?

Last night, I suggested to P that we go to Rendezvous at Leicester Square to eat frozen yogurt. I knew she wouldn't be up for it as she hates crowded places. So, came the expected response "You like to hang out in all these crowded places, know?". I said "What do you like? To go hang out in the middle of a desert?" and P said "Yeah". I promptly quipped "I think we have a difference of opinion here. I say dessert and you say desert"

Q or C

I only recently noticed the British spelling of "Barbecue". It's well known that in the USA, Barbeque is shortened to BBQ. I wonder if its shortened to BBC here?

Irony of a soldier

Some headlines simply annoy me for the wrong choice of words. There was one recently when the UK cops published their crime statistics and proudly announced Crime Stable - an annoying pairing of 2 words. How did they manage to stabilize crime? Hired more constables?
I see yet another familiar headline today "Dead UK Afghanistan marine is named by MoD" with nonsensical choice of words. Wasn't he named when he was born? Isin't ironical that he was named at birth by MoD (Mum or Dad)?

Presidents and Precedents

I think its fair to say that political correctness is a sign of good politics. Long long ago, Brits used to name their ships "HMS something" as HM could conveniently mean either Her Majesty or His Majesty. It may have been that they didn't want to waste point and ink, rather than being politically correct but the paint is they had thought of eventualities.
If I had to correct a system, I would first start with my house. So, how come the 57 year old Indian Republic has been so myopic? We had a President (Radhakrishnan) for whom we celebrate Teacher's day. We had a Gyani President (Zail Singh) for whom we crack sardarji jokes. Until recently, we had a genius scientist who had a great hairdo. It surprises me that all these greats never thought of one fundamental question "What if a woman occupies this house as President? Should this house then be renamed as Rashtrapatni Bhavan?"... something for Pratibha Patil to figure out.

QQ at his best

This incident happened at QuirkQuotient's house a while back, and I think its one of his all time best remarks.

Mrs. QQ had warmed up a few packets of frozen mini somasas for the 6 of us, and within a few minutes all samosas were duly consumed by us. The conversation following that

Mrs.QQ "Man. I must have eaten ten samosas"
QQ "So, are you saying thats odd?"
Mrs. QQ "You tell me. Is 10 an odd number?"
QQ "Well, it depends. If you made 60 samosas, then its even. If you made only 20 samosas and you ate 10, then its odd"

iPJ

Q. What do you call a guy sending SMS vai his iPhone?

A. A stereo-type

deTour on Tour de

Take a look at the official logo of Tour de France. The first thought that came to my mind is that somebody must have been in Burger King when they came up with this idea. The logo looks like an assembly of french fries and onion rings. Wonder who came up with this logo? It couldn't be a Brit - very evident from the quality of the official 2012 Olympics logo. Perhaps this is a practical joke by an American? If the same guy were to design the Olympics logo, it would have taken only 5 onion rings to creativity.
In any case, the logo is pretty creative. I don't intend to be anal but I do have some objections. The O in Tour is one of the wheels. The R is either the cyclist or an old man pushing a wheel chair. We will go with the former. But, look at the U. Is that the seat? Isin't a bit too pointy for the rider? On second thoughts, if Mr.R is French, chances are he will enjoy the U seat. Whatever makes U happy or R ....

Wet Humour

All those following Wimbledon know that there have been so many interrupted games due to constant downpours, unusual for this time of the year. Nadal's match was played over 5 days. Anyways, just heard this funny thing on TV
Whoever wins this year's Wimbledon will be known as the raining champion!!!!!

UK Politics Round-up

• Britain eradicates 10 years of TB!
• Arnie meets Tony Blair minutes before he stepped down as Prime Minister to discuss climate change issues! Was he called in to play Terminator? Honestly, climate change in UK is more of a norm than an issue. Its rainy one minute, bright & sunny the next.
  
• Prince Charles just declared as the "green prince". Shrek 3 was just released. Co-incidence?
  

The Paris Hilton Experience

The media is obsessed with Paris Hilton. Everybody wants a piece of her. Why should I not join the party?

If I was papa Hilton, I would be so proud of my little girl. I would build a "Paris Hilton suite" in every Hilton hotel that I own. There will be a mini virtual reality-cross-roller coaster ride to get to the suite. Its should not be an easy ride to get into the Paris Hilton after all! It would send the wrong message. You will first be given a blonde wig which should make you feel half your IQ straightaway. Then you will be given special glasses and where you will see yourself walking towards an expensive car of your choice. Whoosh! The elevator is smoky all of a sudden and you feel dizzy. The urge to drive that car increases manifold and you feel like you own all the Hilton hotels in the world. Whooohoooo. Do you feel the wind? What is that racing towards you? A giant tree from Lord of the Rings-Twin Towers? Bam! A cop pulls you over. You get off the elevator and there is the court room waiting for you. You are hand-cuffed with 21 carat gold cuffs. You are condemned to 1 day in the Paris Hilton suite. Please pick up your special robe made of the finest Egyptian cotton. And lo behold! The suite is exactly like the cell in which my dear girl spent the most wonderful days of her life. Isint it worth your every penny? The matron is gonna take special care of you!

A comedian once said "Paris Hilton has proved that you dont have to be poor to be white trash". Well said!

Durham, we have a brablem

This must be one of the funniest stories I have read in ages! A flushed bra and a pair of knickers have been blamed for a sewer and road collapse in Durham.
I can come up with atleast half a dozen gross theories as to why someone might have gone to the commode and come out commando, but ...

is this what you call BRA-in drain???

C(l)ock and Bush Story

Last night on telly, Sky News reported that Bush's watch was stolen when he was shaking hands with Albanians. I thought such a great opportunity for proponents of the Kyoto agreement, supporters of legalizing same-sex marriages, "pro-death" champions, etc for everything that could have never happened under Bush's watch!!
Turns out lot of hopes were raised unnecessarily.

Pardon my French

Watching Nadal's ruthless destruction of Federer in the just concluded French Open final, I couldn't resist the following

• How did Nadal manage to win the French Open again? He simply "Rogered" that
• Clay + Nadal = Roger's ass is grass
• Federer suffers from post-nadal depression

One other observation, I can't understand why the men's doubles is best of three sets? When you put two men on one side of the court, do they count as 1 woman? I suppose the T is silent in a two-men's final.

Is it Real?

Is it Real that Beckham is in line for knighthood? If he does get the hood, I suppose it would be more appropriate to address him as Señor David!

The Sunflower State

All ye Dorothys and Wizards of Oz, if you have any pride in calling Kansas as The Sunflower State, start fortifying your borders now. Kansas, if viewed as a giant sunflower field, can be dramatically classified as a threat to the freedom and democracy of California.
The Governor of California is proudly parading his Hummer that runs on 100% vegetable oil! Did you notice that bumper sticker and how happy Arnie looks? He looks like an extremely proud ringmaster pointing at a ferocious lion on a vegan diet! What an insult to the Hummer! Hummers should not be on the road in the first place. A Hummer running on oil meant to fry freedom fries? The amount of vegetable oil required to fuel Arnie's car for 1 day is probably the annual supply of vegetable oil for our kitchen.
Singer Sheryl Crow recently toured the US on a biofuel powered bus to promote climate-change awareness. She wants to create a world of loolessness and calls for a limit of 1 square of toilet paper per sitting. Clearly, she has never eaten dhal makhani!
So, where do these Hollywood educated eco-friendly champions think we are going to find the land to grow the amount of biofuels to keep all the engines in the West oiled? Will the Middle East start growing sunflowers in their deserts?
If only these people understand the land realities. Someone in the UN seems to, but who listens to the UN anyway. You need somebody with a more serious name than Ban Ki Moon at the top for that day to come.
If this whole idea of "feeding your car with cooking oil" catches on India, I can see the likes of Suffola and Parachute giving a run for Shell's money... atleast in Kerala. An average aunty can make fresh samosas in the car and the kids would have such a memorable picnic! Aditya Chopra wouldn't have had to shoot DDLJ in the UK just for a pretty poster. Maddy wouldnt have had to run his TVS-50 on kerosine-adulterated-petrol from the Taramani (village behind IIT-M campus) guy!

Techie Talk

I was on a support call a few minutes ago to assist a customer with installation of our software. We typically ask customers to provide us with a server with Dual Processor, 1GB RAM and 20GB free disk space.
Customer "This one is a very well spec-ed server. Its got 16CPUs, 64bit Processor and 800GB of free space"
Me "Thats when you know you are dealing with an oil company!!"

Wind Mill

Just back from a short pleasure trip to Netherlands. One among the many unique things we saw was the number of windmills. I felt quite at home amongst those windmills since I am one of them in a vague sense. This blog is testimony to the fact that I can churn out a lot of 'hot air', i.e., I am a "wind" mill. Anyways, in particular, we went to this village, Zaanse Schans, which is quite famous for its windmills. We went into one of them, which is still in use to produce oil. The "miller" was an unpleasant fella. He had such an air around him that had he stuck a tiny fan around him, he could have produced some useful energy as well. There were couple of other very tiny windmills around his house, one of them probably connected to his commode or re-charge one of his AA batteries for his digital camera. Don't abuse an idea, people! Please!

The last thing I am going to say before I shut up for today is the general behavior of Japanese tourists. We are at a "clog" factory when the guy annouced that the next demostration was to start in a few seconds. Instantly, you see a mini marathon of window shopping Japanese tourists run to the demo area. Same story at the airport. I tell you, the opposite of stand-at-ease is Japanese!

'Litre'l Thinking

Thanks to the liquid bomb scare at Heathrow airport a few months back, my cabin baggage which has clocked up many frequent flier miles can no longer dream of seeing an overhead compartment ever again. So, I was shopping today for a rollercase that met the 36x24x36..sorry 56x45x25 (cm)..requirement. I was appalled to know that I had to either carry a portable microscope to read the dimensions printed on the luggage tag or carry a tape measure, and I had neither. However, the volume of the rollercase was printed on the tag with such large font that I could have read it from the cruising altitude of a 747, typically 32000 feet I think. My grandma with cataract could have also very clearly read 56 Litres, 43 Litres, etc printed on these roller-cases, again from the same cruising altitude. When I go shirt shopping, I am ever so careful to buy only the ones less than 100ml. Gee! I cant believe they forgot to provide a nozzle. How am I going to pour my clothes into the rollercase?
Don't these manufacturers know that liquids are not allowed on board any more? If they did, the outer shell would be in clear plastic to zip past airport security.

All Abode

P and I were waiting for a bus this past cold & windy Friday night. P was reading the following ad at the bus stop

Perhaps the idea of sitting in an air-conditioned car triggered P's thought process and she said "There should be no open bus stops. They all should be fully closed, and maybe even with heating. London is cold most of the year anyway. Maybe they haven't done it that way because it's too costly to make it fully closed given that there is a bus stop every 50 meters. Or maybe because homeless people will start living in them"
to which I commented, "Then, this ad will read My other home is a bus stop"

Empty flights create more news

BMed Business Proposal: There has been a late uprising in Tashkent protesting the food poisoning of Lal Bahadur Shastri. Hence, its not safe to fly to Tashkent any more and we need to play a game called "Blocking the gate" at Heathrow. We will lose millions of £s but it will be balanced out against the millions of £s that our competition will not earn. The plan is called Plan-C. We re-call the pilot who was suspended for excess alcohol in his blood stream, give him an empty flight and we fly to Cardiff instead of Tashkent. Technically, its an international flight! In summary,
Cost of A320: £20 million
Cost of Plan-C: £2 million
Blocking the gate: Priceless

I have exaggerated, ofcourse. For the real details, click here.

Spaced Out

I have had atleast 2 protests for the lack of activity on this blog. I am very touched! No, I was not eaten by anybody on the Tube. I am just a spaced out blogger for the past 2 weeks!
Talking of space, P wanted to go the Science Museum last weekend and during the usual "Bye. Have a good weekend" talk with her colleague, she mentioned that and said "They have a simulation of Virgin Galactic there. Virgin Galactic will make space travel a reality. Initially, it will be just for the wealthy as each flight will cost in excess of £200k (or $200k)" to which her colleague instantly quipped "Oh well! I will just wait for easyJet to launch their service"!! Instant and witty!
Good luck to all those people who are waiting for Air Deccan to launch such a service! If you just take into the account the typical delay between Chennai and Bangalore, and extrapolate that for space travel based on distance, you might as well buy the ticket and write it in your will to be passed on to your grand kids

Cannibal Lecture

The latest ad from Transport for London reads in big font PLEASE CONSIDER OTHERS WHEN EATING. At first glance, this seems to me like an encouragement for Cannibalism. The last thing I want is some stranger in the tube contemplating between his burger and me. Somebody's skeletons in the closet seems to me will be somebody else's skeleton in the tube. At second glance, it seems like a subtle ad for Hannibal Rising or a clever ploy for population control. Beware of the London Tube - its a man-eat-man world out here! You may never have time for a third glance.

Martin Scores Easy

There was always an Oscar in Martin Scorsese. However, for 6 times now, he had left the red carpet like a mutated Star Wars character bar bar jinx. Isin't ironic that he has finally arrived with The Departed?

Phony Weddings

I read an article "Whacky Weddings" yesterday in easyJet's inflight magazine. It talked about an increasing trend to say I do in unusual places. People have tied the knot in a tractor, bungy jumping, skydiving, scuba diving amongst other things. That made me assign a new low to South Indian weddings on the boring index.
There was one couple who met via SMS and decided to get married in a real phone booth. The article did knot elaborate on their wedding but they probably exchanged ring tones to formalize the wedding. The priest finally would have said "If any of you assembled here think that these two should not be united in holy matrimony, ring the phone booth now or forever hold your mute button. You may now send the **kiss** emoticon to the bride". I hope this couple stop publicizing the phone connection with the wedding. Else, their kids will be EricsSON, SONy or some such variant. They will be told Biblical stories such as Samsung and Delilah. They will be buried in a phone shaped casket and finally turn into bhooths. Maniacs!
No thank you! South Indian weddings are better.

Ate Zero

When I read news without substance, I empathize with people who read my blog ... just for a fleeting moment, though. This particular article, is a classic exmaple. The title is Cuba's Castro able to eat again, which leads to a more profound question When can Castro's Cuba eat again? There is an old joke among the Peurto Ricans "Why doesn't Cuba have a swimming team? Because, if a Cuban can swim, he will be Florida" which is simply a lighter version of my profound remark.
Back to the article, it lacks substance because it states the obvious - "The problem is that at first he was not eating food, but now he is eating food and that has helped him significantly". It's like Alan Greenspan saying "Oh finally I know why I was not able to get cash out of ATMs. I was using my credit card". Really, Castro? That was your problem? You forgot that eating is good for you? I offer alternate explanations to his self imposed satyagraha
a) His mouth piece (read Chavez) is in Venezuela
b) He is 80 (Ate Zero). Senile people take their age literally...so, I have heard
c) He untucked his tummy and realized he was hungry, but too ashamed to admit it

Enough said...I need to get over my obsession with the three C's (Cuba, Chavez and Communism)

Offshore development

A PJ that I couldn't resist

Sharma "Apparently, some software company in the US was not able to get visas for their developers. So, they exploited a loophole and hired a ship, parked it off the coast, loaded the ship with developers and got the work done"

GoGo "Oatha. they must all be C programmers"

Eats (Samosas) Shoots and Leaves

Any of you read the book, "Eats Shoots and Leaves", about the importance of punctuation?

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
So punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

Something funnier than this happened over the last weekend. My friend received a call from his wife and was asked to do grocery shopping on the way back home. Being a technophile, he asked her to SMS the shopping list to his blackberry. The SMS read something like ... rava idli mix coriander 3 bunches samosas....

He asked us "What does she mean by 3 bunches of samosas? Do samosas grow on trees?" to which another friend replied "Call her and tell her samosas are not in season"!!!

A mobile what?

I was talking to a customer this morning who happens to be a gadget freak. Apparently, his dad bought a car which has a slot for a sim card and you can buy a phone plan along with the car. No bluetooth, car kit, etc. Now, thats a new meaning for a mobile phone!

Life is good again

The Ctrl key had dropped off from my HP laptop a couple of months ago. It uncovered a plumbing weaker than the Victorian pipes being replaced by Thames water. But, I decided to carry on and not let one little irritating nipple (on the key board, of course) distract my work. In due course, I realized that the left Ctrl key is as essential as the thumb finger. Finally, I decided to call HP customer service and I got the replacement part. Life is normal again. I guess I am just a control freak!

Humour...

I recently met a guy who had been working in the same office building for 23 years. Then, he was telling me about his colleague, "K.... has been working here a little longer than me, 28 years actually which is more than what you get for murder"

A little birdie told me...

I have heard chirping sounds in the middle of the night quite a few times over the last few days. I am not a bird expert but I don't think owls sound that pleasant although it doesn't sound all that pleasant when you are trying to sleep. These birds must be migratory birds with jet lag!

Bush's speech

I agree that the terms 'Bush's speech' , 'England cricket-team','Serious GoGo' are all oxymorons but Bush will deliver the State of the Union speech anyway.
I believe Bush is going to say "Our union is no different that other unions such as T&G that strike regularly. We will continue to strike targets in Afghanistan and Iraq..."

X It

My theory for Fidel Castro not making a public appearance in months is that he is glued to his X-box. I am told he is terminally ill

© Guru

Posed here without permission from the © owner, Guru

Q. No one knows at what time they release water at the Tungabadra Dam...Why??

A. 'cos its TBD :)

Patel Bhai's PC

I wouldn't blame you if you thought I meant Patel Bhai's Personal Computer. Our local desi grocery store has this humongous number crunching machine at the check-out desk which spits out a bill that typically looks like

Indian Grocery £1.79
Indian Grocery £1.59
Indian Grocery £1.09
TOTAL £4.47

Next time, you are in London, be sure to visit The Calculator Museum of London on Drummond Street and watch Patel Bhai's Personal Calculator in action!

Bush's Iraq 'Dev' plan

Bush pulled a Kapil Dev by saying boost is the secret of my energy

It's an H.C. Order

Venezuela was, is and will be in a Hugo Chavez order for some time to come. He was sworn in for a third time today. The chief justice asked Hugo "Do you swear by the holy Bible that you will truthfully ....?". Hugo replied "You are damn right, you b*$%^. I have been swearing since 1999. Ching@ su .... Ching@....Ching@....Ching@ %%*#". Ok, I just made that up. I swear, English language is so confusing. Pope Benedict ver. XVI was installed a couple of years ago, so was my spyware ver2.0 software. Have I made my displeasure clear for seeing 'install' and 'swear' in unexpected contexts?

I was reading up on this guy, Hugo.

• His first stab at politics was a failed coup attempt in 1992, which makes him good at sudoku (pseudo coup, really).
  
• Hugo is a corrupt dude. Remember the Harry Belafonte song "Matilda. Matilda. She take me money and run Venezuela". I can probably write a song "Hugo C. Hugo C. Takes the money and runs Venezuela" sung to the same tune as Matilda.
  
• But he has balls of steel - not because he had 2 wifes, 1 rakhel and 4 daughters. He dares to call President Bush 'the devil' which probably makes Alberto Gonzales 'the devil's advocate'.
  
• He calls Fidel Castro his guru. It will probably spare him from the Taleban as they don't wage jihads against Fidels but not from the rest of the world.
  

We all know Socialism's ultimate destination is Communism, Hugo. And, he is making it perfectly clear Venezuela is comming.

NYC Stinking

Apparently, many parts of NYC and New Jersey is having a strange 'gas-like' smell in the air. Has anyone looked for clues on the top of Empire State Building. Maybe King Kong is just having a bad digestive day. Or, did Michael Strahan forget to use Right Gaurd again? Oh Mikey, Mikey

Jasus in the name of Jesus

The Archbishop of Warsaw, Stainslaw Wieglus, finally admitted that he has been suffering from sickle :) cell syndrome for the last 20 years. I am only saddened that there are no child-abuse accusations on this guy. Otherwise, "Warsaw Powers: The spy who shagged me", would have been a perfect movie title.

p.s: Jasus to be pronounced Jasoos
p.p.s: Did anyone get the sickle funda?

General Nonsense

Q. Whats the reason for the delay in processing my visa?
A. Because the Home Office is jealous I have one too!

Q. Why would Congress(I) never win an election in the US?
A. Because their party symbol says "Talk to the Hand" !

Q. Whats the name of President Bush's pet parrot?
A. Nouri Maliki

M&M

Could Kate Moss ever get hooked to Mic Jagger? Probably not. The saying goes - A rolling stone gathers no moss (kindly adjust spelling here). But if she did, that would be the end of her anorexia as Moss grows fat on a Rolling Stone.
If this was Scott Adams' blog, he would classify this blog as 'General Nonsense' :)

Happy New Year

How do you raise a toast to James Bond?
2 007