Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Spun

Ever since Kareena got that Size-Zero figure, losing weight has become the new fitness mantra. While looking for some exercises that I can do without shelling out a lot of dough for joining a gym, I came across the following article.


Calorie-burning activities and the number of calories per hour they consume:

  • Beating around the bush ... ... ... 75

  • Jumping to conclusions ... ... ... 100

  • Climbing the walls ... ... ... 150

  • Swallowing your pride ... ... ... 50

  • Passing the buck ... ... ... 25

  • Throwing your weight around (depending on your weight) ... 50 - 300

  • Dragging your heels ... ... ... 100

  • Pushing your luck ... ... ... 250

  • Making mountains out of molehills ... ... ... 500

  • Hitting the nail on the head ... ... ... 50

  • Wading through paperwork ... ... ... 300

  • Bending over backwards ... ... ... 75

Monday, July 27, 2009

Cyberia

I have started looking for ways to promote the blog without pleading to all my friends to visit it.

I found quite a few blog directories that index various blogs far out in the unchartered waters of cyberspace.
Here is a list of a few that I visited:

It was quite late that I realized that I needed to be the owner of domain or the blog should be self-hosted for it to be submitted to these search engines.

Another glorious mistake!

To err is human, to forgive divine - Anonymous

Friday, July 24, 2009

Iron(y) Man

For some unfathomable reasons, Google rejected my application for an ad-sense account for this blog. I want my blog to display relevant advertisements and thus help me earn some extra allowance. However, the people at Google think otherwise. What is the problem if an average ordinary guy wants to earn money by penning down his thoughts? ...that too without using any profanities or talking about pre-marital affairs. I'm sure Chetan Bhagat never had any problems for finding sponsors for his website. There's irony hidden in it somewhere but you'd rather find it for yourself.

Shifting our focus to international matters, Hillary Rodham Clinton praised India for acting maturely after the Mumbai Terror attacks. It was commendable that we did not take up arms and launch a full-fledged attack on Pakistan just because a few terrorists attacked our commercial centre. We should have praised US of A for also acting maturely and not launching military attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq just because a few terrorists crashed their planes on two tall buildings. Something tickled my irony bone (next to my funny bone) here, too!

In other news, Mrs. Rita Bahuguna Joshi came back home...or whatever was left of it. Mayawati's supporters (apparently) had burned her house down in an attempt to renovate it with gasoline. Mayawati claims Mrs. Joshi bad-mouthed the Dalits so she deserves to be punished under a SC/ST Law that bans any discrimination against the so-called backward classes. Mrs. Joshi has been booked under several non-bailable offenses besides the "inciting violence" infraction. She awaits trial, while those who literally brought down her house go scot-free. Mayawati said that she will make sure Mrs. Joshi is punished severely. No action has been (or, can be) taken against Maya Memsaab. Some idiots with a misplaced sense of patriotism will consider it greatly ironic. They will burn with anger at the mockery that is being made of the Indian judicial system. They will fire self-righteous remarks about ideologies and other such expletives. But...they will do NOTHING.

Why do you think Mayawati is the CM of UP? Why did the Liberhan Commission require Rs 8 Crores to tell us what the media was screaming for 16 years? Why do you think politicians are corrupt? What makes them think they can get away with murder? (I'm serious, quite a lot of them have). The answer to all of the above questions is THE COMMON MAN'S STUPIDITY.

Nobody dares to rise up against evil. Yeah, Gandhiji proposed non-violence but he never said that one should always grin and bear oppression. In fact, He did say, "It is a greater sin to be oppressed than to oppress." I'll translate it for you. He said that one should stand up for what is right. The scum of the Earth mock us because we let them. After all, since the advent of RTI (Right To Information), a lot of corrupt officials had to face the music (Jailhouse Rock, I believe).

The most obvious question in your mind, "What gives this jerk the right to tell us to do something? Why doesn't he get up and do something himself." Well, if you ever go to Mullana ask the final year students (that means my immediate junior batch) about Anurag Saxena. They may not have all good things to say but they will agree on one thing...the guy tried to bring about a change. And that's far better than complaining.

If you ever come up with a plan that will reform our country, count me in. I may not lead from the front but I guarantee you will have a loyal ally. Just come out of this ennui and think of something that will change this world...for the better. If you have problems thinking big, think simple...how to improve your locality (that does not mean shifting to a posh area). If you are ready to rebel, you'll always find me by your side. I hope you don't see irony here because none is intended.

Be the change you want to see in the world. - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Complicated

Have you noticed something. All my posts have very strange names: Love Bites, Gotta be somebody, Take a Bow, Disturbia, Turn the Page...notice a pattern? Some sort of a hidden symbol? What is it?

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Welcome to my life

Are you a software engineer?


Are you tired of sitting and working in a cubicle?

Do you find that the management guys have nothing better to do except use complex jargon and create silly acronyms?

Are you stuck in an organization whose every decision seems stupid and sometimes downright absurd?
Do you cringe at thought of understanding the dialect of managers?

And well, your boss is a loon?

Well, you are not alone.

Dilbert is exactly like you. You can find him on www.dilbert.com

A masterpiece of cartoonist Scott Adams, Dilbert provides you with insight that is necessary for a nerd/geek to survive and grow in the highly competitive world of software.

Why am I praising it? Because I love the cartoon strip and want to share it with you.

Of course, if you are bored with software projects and now want to move on to management, help is on the way. Read "The Dilbert Principle" by by management guru Scott Adams. Its the only management book you'll ever need. There's even an Indian flavour in one of Dilbert's co-workers called Asok.

So, enjoy the humour in our miserable cubicle-ized lives!

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Love Bites

Love. One word with a thousand definitions. A word that is present in every culture, every civilization and every heart. So, it should be easy to define it. But unfortunately that is not so. The fact is, love is the most complicated implication of Life. Booorrrriiiinnnnggg! Why the heck am I rambling about something everybody knows?

Maybe because I'm fascinated by it. Not by being in love but by the concept itself. An emotion that forces people to make as many irrational decisions as possible before they come back to their senses and realize the folly of their ways. Anybody who has ever been in love knows what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the unnecessary sleepless nights, the endless chats, the countless SMSes and never-ending conversations. Boy, don't they feel good.

And then... I've seen people grow out of their love. It's as if the love went its own way and left two wandering souls behind. Unfortunately, nobody realizes what happens. People are emotional fools. They are so dominated by their emotions that they don't realize when their thoughts change with their moods. I would love to name the person who left me in the lurch (see: Love Story and Love Story II) but of course, I won't. Its simply becuse I learnt so much from my own stupidity. I would love to thank her someday for lifting the veil of illusion in front of my eyes. It helped me a lot in understanding human psychology in a better light. After all, I'd been there, done that...I knew what it felt to have loved...and lost.

People are idiots. The Great Scott Adams has a great insight on the fact. According to him, every person on this planet is a moron everyday for atleast 5 minutes. And there are no exceptions. I have studied a lot of characters and know for a fact that the theory is true. If someone says that he did nothing stupid in the last hours, he probably did nothing at all. Which itself is quite stupid, wasting time just to prove a theory wrong. In case you are wondering who Scott Adams is, he is the creator of Dilbert. In case you are wondering who Dilbert is, you probably are not associated with life in cubicles.

Coming back to the topic, I think I should elaborate the connection between love and stupidity. Love is all about two way communication. Unless there is response from the other side, the relation is bound to fail. For the average layman, If the girl isn't interested in you, there is no force on the planet that can make her fall in love with you. Its that simple. In college, I never had a girl-friend. Okay, there was a silly love story but that was too pathetic to mention. Its not as if I was shunned by girls. I just did not have the time or money. I used to get sideways glances, slight facial gestures of recognition...those tiny signals that girls give out. You just have to pay attention to the details...like when a girl says "I'm fine" means that she is boiling with rage inside. It all in the details. Anyways, I could easily pick up the signals. No problem. Here is where stupidity comes in. A girl used to give me such signals, I could read it in her eyes. The thing was, I was too glad to have someone swooning over me. So glad that I ignored them. There would be plenty of time later. Later turned out to be eternity. She moved on. Thanks to my own stupidity, I missed out on Ms. Right. Lets just say she is no longer interested in me. I don't know whether she has found someone else.

The sad part is the guilt. I never got a chance to say that I loved her as well. Well, I did say it. But it was so late that no self respecting lady would have accepted. So, she did the obvious. Gave me the "Just Friends" routine. I think that she wanted to give me another chance but I did not deserve it.

So, I'm stuck with what could have been. I'll not say whether this girl was the same as the one in my previous love story entries. Better to create confusion in the minds of the readers (if any).

In any case, I came to realize something. Love stories are more beautiful if they have a sad ending. I don't know why, maybe its because humans are a sadist race (just look at the violence in everyone's favourite Tom and Jerry) or maybe because we love pain and cruelty. Yes, I said the same thing in two different ways. After all, take the best love stories our generation grew up on:
Romeo & Juliet
Laila & Majnu
Heer & Ranjha
etc etc etc

I guess we enjoy the pain. I just don't understand why.

The most romantic fantasies are the ones that remain unfulfilled. - Anurag

(If you happen to read this post, please do leave a comment. I would love to know what you think, even if its quite opposite of what I believe)