Finally, A Definite Answer

Why I am still single is a question many people have asked me over last few years, including my close friends (when they are not saying, "now that's why you don't have a girlfriend")

Today, while proctoring an exam for the class, I saw a girl who also seem to be fed up with the question, and gave a fitting reply to everybody using her t-shirt. So, by her permission (OK, I called TA privilege), I give the answer to the question why I am still single:

The odds are good,
But the goods are odd

P.S. Apparently this answer can be given by any person in any engineering college, in any country...*



*conditions apply

Something To Make You Think...

Biology labs are really interesting... and I am not talking about putting some hot seniors in a room, with covered windows, and switching off the lights. Well, we were testing the rate of photosynthesis, you know (you dirty minds, what did you think)...

Anyways, something our TA said brings me to the second in line in my attempt to post on some serious, hard-hitting questions which are puzzling the greatest minds in the universe (to wit, mine)...

Why do we say, "first things first"? I mean, it goes without saying that first things will be, err... first by definitions. Or else, we would have called them second things or third things or so on.

And while we are on the subject, why do we say "it goes without saying"? Haven't we "said" it already, thus making it self-contradictory?

I tell you, this English language is...



OK, if you think I am being weird, try getting exactly 1:00:00 on the 1/100th second stopwatch... Now try getting it twice in a row, and tell me how you feel.

How A Champion Exits

16 years of career, 250 races, 91 wins, 7 World Championships... Making him statistically The Most Successful driver in the history (and The Most Successful if you ask me).

Starting the last race of his career from 10th position, he shoots to 5th position before needing a pit-stop due to left-rear puncture. Coming back on the track in last (19th) position, again maneuvers around the circuit in his characteristic style, gaining 4th position. Though he did not win the race, nor the championship and did not make it to the podium, the Red Baron did show us what true champions are made up of...

I had dearly wished for a rainy race this time. That would have been a fitting adieu to Regenkönig before he hangs his steering... He is leaving too large a cockpit for anybody else to fill.

Here's to the Red Baron, the Regenkönig, the champion strategist and the most (controversially) successful driver of F1 history!!!

And here's wishing our own little champ follows his example...

Update...

Haven't commented on any blogs for last 2 days, finished replying to comments on my blogs after 2 days today. Have a tag pending (on pain of getting frozen). But then, let's just say that last 2 days have not been the best days in my life, and leave it at that. Something like what happened to this fellow, though not the same reason or occasion:


I swear on my iPod and vaio (taking a leaf out of Silverine's book) I will finish the tag and comment on all blogs over the weekend (which hopefully starts Friday).

Till then, some of the things I learnt at my bio lab today

• Killing 100 honeybees, and cutting them in 3 parts (head, thorax and abdomen) on a table of 4 (you do that math per person) is somehow soothing, and makes for a lot of fun when nobody is stung.


• Either I am very good with scalpel or I am a genocidal maniac. I did more than my share of cutting.


• Crushing 100 bee thoraxes in a mortar is gross. And while we are at it, my friends who are ayurveda doctors are going to kill me when they hear what I used their patented mortar and pestle for...


• That said, last but not the least, I can have a bottle of potassium cyanide sitting on my table, and avoid the urge to use it to create some scene á la some Agatha Christie novel.

News?

Main Entry: news
Pronunciation: 'nüz, 'nyüz
Function: noun plural but singular in construction
Usage: often attributive
1 a : a report of recent events b : previously unknown information (I've got news for you) c : something having a specified influence or effect (the rain was good news for lawns and gardens -- Garrison Keillor) (the virus was bad news)
2 a : material reported in a newspaper or news periodical or on a newscast b : matter that is newsworthy


So, when I read that "APJ Abdul Kalam, the country's top missile guru who rose to become President, was caned for being a naughty boy in school" as a news on ToI "News" page, my first thought was he visited some school, and was caught spraying ink on a teacher's back. Those were the days when we... oh, back to the point...

My second thought was that, this was definitely 1b and 2a, maybe a bit of 1c (it was a funny news for me), but definitely not 1a and 2b in Merriam Webster's definition of the word "news", as given above.

Now that we are on ToI, let's move to "Movies" page. There, you will find a piece called, "Upen is Akshay Kumar" Don't ask who is Upen, as that is beside the point here. The first line of the article reads, "No, Akshay Kumar is not going around impersonating a younger Upen Patel." Doesn't that sound a bit (completely) opposite to what the headline would suggest?

And then, let's go over to Rediff... which reports the PM, "We'll test Pakistan after giving terror evidence: PM" Nothing wrong at all in that, but am I the only one here who has visions of Pakistan (in guise of Gen. Musharraf) standing as a nervous, sweating schoolboy in front of our PM (who is wearing the typical school teacher dress, cane in hand) asking him to recite, err... evidence (or something like that) or he will give him a fatal beating?

Friday the 13th

Today:
The day is Friday
The date is 13th
The month is October...

All of which combined together once to give rise to the legend of Friday the 13th, not to mention the numerous books, theories, conspiracy theories and other things (like computer virus by the same name) it started...

And our instructor had to pick up today to give us back our papers for midterm...


P.S. While we are at it, the wiki article on Friday the 13th mentions that "Novelist Daniel Handler, also known as Lemony Snicket, Released the 13th book of the Series of Unfortunate Events on Friday the 13th of October 2006." Is that past tense by mistake or did I miss a day somewhere?

Daily Beans???

Trawling through YouTube has its own rewards... Like this video here(Sorry, as you can see, embedding is disabled by the owner)

Now I wonder what is missing there? Hmm, maybe Colbert commenting on the interview would make it a bit more interesting (as if it needs that).

Also, if you are a brave soul (and don't mind smut) , check out the video called "Mr. Bean Roll call" there, which actually has nothing to do with the series, but is a part of stand-up comedy show by Rowan Atkinson. I guess this is the school where "Fatal Beating" took place...

And now that I have induced you to view that smut, I am sure I am going to get "A warm welcome" to Hell, and I maybe missing "The Amazing..." if Christians are to be believed (which may not be the case if The Devil is right, which he is known not to be). But I guess I can check with Bill how he feels now that the manager of his theatre was correct (he is bound to be in hell given the number of schoolboys and girls he has tormented for last 400 years)

The Rs. 4,54,20,000 Question #1

Or The 45.42 mya Question #1 (and that would make it Ages-Old, right about the time when there are records of primates splitting up into two divisions on some question)...

I have decided to make my blog "legit", i.e. to have serious content on the blog, which sparks some serious discussion and makes the readers* think. So, first in series of serious questions which will be pondered here:

In a survey conducted by me recently (just finished the number-crunching), it was found that 62.5% of the female bloggers and 33% of the male bloggers in my Google Reader list don't display their ages in the profiles. This leads us to the age old question, which has been forced to the forefront again:

Why do women hide their age?

Now, let the discussion begin...



P.S. How many of you did I get by all that taking it "legit" gambit? OK, I will tell you the real story behind this... I woke from my siesta with a firm purpose of doing some completely non-sensical things. And that's where the idea was born.
That said, I would like some discussion...


*Note the fact that the number of users is cleverly left out.

Newsblast # 3

Remember Dr. J-dot Asthana, the Dean who was pitted against Munnabhai in his first outing? The person who used laughter therapy?

Now remember the (I think nameless) Principle of the college where Maj. Ram Prasad Sharma studied? The person who always mixed up his rank, and never understood his "mission" was secret?

Now read this line from (otherwise unexpectedly decent) feature on Boman Irani on Rediff, "Boman plays a similar role in Main Hoon Na, that of the principal of a college. Or at least we think it is similar, until the actor reveals his spin on the character."

And please somebody explain to me apart from the fact that the actor playing those characters is same, what is "similarity" in those two characters?

Weird Day for My Blog

Today was a crazy day for my blog. Bored at work, I decided to make some invisible changes to my blog(s). Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on the PC account having no administrative privileges and no pop ups allowed. Worst of all, there was no Firefox installed, so I had to work on IE.

So, there I was, jumping between 3-4 IE windows at a time (since no pop up links anywhere work), trying to cope with IE's habit of jumping to wrong window at wrong time and putting all the text you enter directly to address bar. Believe me, it is not good for your BP to enter some complicated thing in (you think) a text box, and on hitting enter, come face to face with 404 page or some weird sites with weirdest URLs.

All in all, the effect was à la the headless chicken getting in the way of the bull in china shop...

Luckily, being a software engineer, I had taken a backup of my template(s), and so, I am glad to see that everything is back in line now, with the changes which I finally succeeded in making having caused no major problems.

Living on the cutting edge of technology causes some nasty cuts ;)

More On Dating

One more post in our constant effort to educate the masses on fine techniques in dating and relationships... Here's a sound advise from Stephen Colbert, and this time it is not just for guys. (The first two minutes are not about the subject we are looking for, so fast forward to 1:30 if you want)

Newsblast... Once Again

Merriam-Webster mentions:

exile
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): ex·iled; ex·il·ing
>: to banish or expel from one's own country or home
synonym see BANISH


Compact Oxford Online Dictionary says:

exile
• noun 1 the state of being barred from one’s native country. 2 a person who lives in exile.
• verb expel and bar (someone) from their native country.
— ORIGIN Latin exilium ‘banishment’.


So, am I the only one who is afraid Ravana may pull a Sauron after reading this headline? Or maybe a Voldemort?