A significant amount of the flak that Mr. George Bush copped during (at least the latter half of) his tenure was pointed at rising oil prices. But just like any good boy would do, he seems to have ensured that as he leaves the playground today, oil prices are all back in almost the exact same places that he found them in on entry. Irony.
This is one such story that makes me sit back and thoughtfully scratch the stubble on my chin. Apparently there are far too few sperm donors in Britain. What is going wrong here? I really cannot believe that this is possible. I base my conclusion on a sophisticated and water-tight argument that goes as follows:
1 There are men in England.
2. Men are always willing to jerk off.
3. Jerking off produces sperm.
Are they trying to suggest that it’s almost impossible to find an English bloke who’s willing to lubricate the old axle for free? How about this? Rent a room and put up a sign that says “Free Porn”. I’m sure that will be enough!
I think one of the problems might be the way the whole donation process is currently being carried out. I’m sure they’d be a lot more willing donors if the sperm was to be deposited directly into the, ummm, vaginal orifice of the intended beneficiary. I know I’d sign up for sure! If the woman is clever enough, perhaps she could even get the guy to pay her at the end of the session!
For the record though, I hereby officially proclaim that I am willing to donate sperm if need be, preferably without the quite unnecessary intermediate inconvenience of the cup. If there are any ladies out there desperately seeking sperm—and you know you’re going to be getting the best genes with me—please feel free to get in touch. If you wish, you may also give me a hand with the job (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun)!
I’m not sick—I’m just doing my bit to help improve the world!
I think the biggest problem I have with people getting drunk is their infernal need to announce it to everyone around! It seems like whenever someone has had a little bit too much to drink, their most important priority in life is suddenly to grab someone by the ass and go, “Look at me. I’m drunk!” But they won’t stop there. Nah huh. They need to spread that information on to everyone in the world who is within communicable range.
Now, some years ago, “communicable range” used to be confined to people within hollering distance of the subject. That was good. Today, thanks to cell phones and the internet, this has now been broadened to include just about everyone on the planet. I have actually received text messages on my phone (or messages via Instant Messaging), from people I haven’t spoken to in months, telling me that they’re plastered. Really, it’s happened.
I think that is one reason we have so many words for it to begin with – drunk, intoxicated, inebriated, hammered, wasted, smashed, sozzled, tipsy, buzzed, plastered, tanked, loaded, blitzed, trashed, wrecked, bombed or even, if you wish, shit-faced. The list could go on and on. The only reason people keep inventing new words for this is so that they can tell someone they’re drunk. In about three hundred different ways.
Drunk dialing, though, does have its plus points. I can’t count the number of relationships that have been born out of one of the people getting drunk, calling up the other and saying, “You know what? I lurrrve you.” I like it for that.
Stuff like that was so much harder in the old days. If you’ve ever tried calling the love-of-your-life’s house at one in the morning after having gotten smashed only to have her Mom answer the phone, you’d know what I mean. (On the other hand, all these cell phones have completely wiped out the entire “Blank Calling” industry. That used to be big when I was a kid, I remember. Fun times.)
The irony of the whole situation, though, is this – they keep yelling out that they’re drunk, but if you actually ask them, they’ll deny it.
Girl (on two sniffs of Vodka): Oh boy, I’m so drunk. You have no idea how drunk I am. Drunk. Drunk. Drunk!
Me (two minutes hence): Are you drunk?
Girl: Of course not! Don’t be stupid!
True conversation.
And forgive the ramblingness of this post. Apologies to all.
“Any download speed will invariably enter a monotonically decreasing function the moment the ‘Downloads’ window falls under the gaze of a human eye or any other similar observational means. This monotonic decrease will continue for as long as the observation exists. The behavior of the speed once the means of observation have been removed is undefined. (However, should the window be observed once again at some point in the future it is often noted that the speed is considerably higher than what it was when the observation was ceased. This would obviously lead one to conclude that this characteristic decrease is only present when the window is under observation and not otherwise.)”
There’s a medical camp at work this week — blood pressure, blood sugar, heart problems, general check up etc. I, of course, haven’t gone. That’s because I’m scared of doctors. For one thing, I don’t want to hear the bad news — “You’re not going to live to be forty.” I already know that, I don’t need someone else to tell that me. Even if it’s for free.
More importantly though, I’m scared of doctors. The biggest problem is that their word is so final. It’s almost like living in a dictatorship. Once you enter that room, anything that doctor says is the law. He tells you to “take off all your clothes and make yourself comfortable” and you have to do it. You can’t say no — he’s a doctor! If she tells you to “hold steady while I insert this long, pointy thing up your rectum”, the best you can hope for is that it’s well lubricated. That’s about it.
I think that’s how hypnotism came about. That’s nothing but a bunch of doctors who realized that their patients will do anything they tell them. And they thought to themselves, “Hey! This is a good way to have some fun, make some money and also appear like magicians at the same time.” Let’s call an audience, charge them to watch and for subjects we can just pick people from there itself.
To me that’s a hypnotist — an opportunistic doctor who graduated bottom of his class in medical school and decided that he can’t really cure anything but that it’s a lot of fun to get people to act like a monkey.
I was pondering on and wondering about homosexuality the other day, and I realized that there are quite a few advantages to being gay. Firstly, allow me to state that I believe most people are “bi-sexual”. By this I mean, if 0 is completely straight and 1 is completely homosexual, then most people would lie somewhere in between. A large majority of people are close to 0, but they’re not exactly 0. Most things in this fuzzy world are gray (as opposed to black or white) and so I would assume that it should be no different for one’s sexual orientation. I would define true “bi-sexuality” as somewhere between 0.4 and 0.6, but that’s open to interpretation.
Getting back to the advantages. To begin with, homosexuals operate in a perfectly balanced demand-supply market. There are as many gay men as there are, well, gay men. D = S. If you think demand and supply don’t really matter much you were obviously never an engineering student. As a straight guy in India, I’m swimming against the demand-supply tide. There are more single straight men around than single straight women. Of course, quality will always come out on top and if you’re either rich or have a lot of money (the only two things chicks look for), you’ll get plenty of constant poontang anyway. But it’s a lot harder because you’re in the majority and so you’re devalued that much. Strike one for gays!
Then, as Jerry Seinfeld once sagaciously pointed out, if you’re gay and you’re dating someone with roughly the same build, you automatically double your entire wardrobe. For a guy, this may only mean four pairs of shoes instead of two, but for a girl the numbers are staggering. A gazillion times two pairs of jeans and a squintillion (that’s where you have to squint just to see all the zeroes) times two pairs of shoes. I can’t even do the math. But it’s definitely another plus point in favor of homosexuality.
But the final, and most important, advantage I see to being gay is what I call the “what’s your point?” retort. Let me explain how it works. Normally, when you do something stupid someone else will be quick to poke fun at you saying, “That’s so GAY!” Now, if you are in reality gay, then you can come back with a “What’s your point?” Let me give you an example.
Big Stud: Hey, look at you, calling for the menu at the bar. That’s just so goddamned gay!
Cool Gay: And what was your point again?
Admittedly, this last advantage is only applicable to male homosexuals but I have a feeling it’s slightly made up for by the fact that lesbian have an entire porn industry for their pleasure while gays have practically nothing on the internet that would interest them.
Okay, so on the flip side, being gay means that you can’t visit Iran without losing your head or Israel without shaking the place up (link from here) and in the small eventuality of the Bible actually being true you’re likely to get rogered in hell for all eternity when you die. But to me it seems like it’s totally worth the deal.
What advantages can you think of?
Most of us hate going to the mechanic because we know we’re going to get screwed and there’s nothing we can do about it. That’s because most of us don’t know squat about our cars or motorcycles and when we take them to the mechanic we’re as much of a sitting duck as anything. He’ll throw fancy terms at you -- “fan belt”, “radiator hose”, “bevel gears”, “Gossamer sheets”, “monkey piss”, etc. To be very frank, these sound like nothing that could possibly be in my car -- but what the hell do I know? I’m not the mechanic now, am I?
So I reluctantly agree that “Yes, my wanker shaft does need to be replaced” and “Yes, it is indeed a wise option to be ‘on the safer side’ and put in a new set of lubricated balls”. All the while I’m trying to add up in my mind what this is going to cost me and I wind up with my mental calculator displaying the words “You’re fucked!” Then I ask the mechanic, “How much is this going to cost me?” and get a reply that’s about twice my mentally calculated estimate. (Double fucked!)
But I’m a poor (even poorer by the end of the day), ignorant idiot who has no clue what’s causing that irritating noise somewhere in the trunk and if the mechanic says he’s got to put in new headlights to get rid of it, then I really have no choice but to agree with him. And if fitting a new rear-view mirror can help avoid the grinding sound that comes whenever I shift from third to fourth, then yea - I want that done too!
The point I’m trying to get at is actually this -- how is a mechanic any different from a doctor? I personally hate going to a doctor because I don’t know much more about (the internal functionings of) my body than I know about my vehicle. And if my mechanic can screw me over with a smile on his face, then so can my doctor! When I go to him with a certain problem or just for a general physical (the equivalent of servicing your car), he throws weird medical student terminology at me. Prescribes enough medication to keep the entire population of Colombia high for a month and sends me on my way with a huge hole in my pocket. Just like my mechanic does.
In fact I suspect they probably even use the same words (what would poor, ignorant me know!).
“Your wanker shaft needs changing and you’ll have to lubricate your balls! That should get rid of that headache!”
“Right on, Doc!”
Most people never understand why I hate seeing a doctor. Now I’ve stopped going altogether. (Sometimes I’ll break an ankle or something and the pain will so bad that I have to attach a pair of crocodile clips to my nipples just to take the focus of it, but even then I’ll staunchly refuse to pay the doctor a visit!) Hopefully, after this post people will understand why I’m so scared of going to the doctor. (And also, why I sometimes have two weird protrusions sticking out from under my T-shirt.)
There’s a lot to be learned inside a washroom. For example, I have a theory that goes as follows:
The smaller the separating partitions between the urinals in the washroom, the posher the place is.
I’ve always been a big fan of fooling people for their own good. Deciding exactly what is “good” for someone is a tricky issue at best. I might think eating snails for breakfast everyday is good for you. You might disagree. And I’m pretty sure the World Committee for the Welfare of Snails would mind too, but it’d probably take them a couple of years to decide.
Ultimately, most people like making their decisions themselves. Most of the time I think this is a good idea. There are times, though, when I feel more can be achieved by fooling people. For example, like this. Here’s another idea.
You know how they have battery indicators on electronic devices? My cell phone, for example, has a line of bars on the side of the screen. When it’s completely charged there are six bars, and as it discharges, the bars keep disappearing. Zero bars left means that the battery’s done. IPods and other devices have similar indicators.
Now I’ve noticed that I tend to ignore charging the phone if there are at least three bars left. If there are two bars present, I tend to look for a socket somewhere. If there’s one bar remaining, I’d probably shove the damned cord up a passer-by’s ass and hope for a miracle. In other words, I only think about charging the phone when the battery’s on its last legs.
My point is that the indicator should not reduce linearly. The first four bars to vanish on my phone should represent less than four-sixths of the battery life. About 50% seems like a good figure. By assigning roughly half the battery life to the last two bars, the chances of my phone going dead when I don’t expect it are considerably reduced.
A similar job could be done on the fuel indicators in cars. I suppose I could just force myself to fill my motor-cycle tank before the needle actually hits “E”, but I know I’m not going to. I sometimes need people to con me for my own good.
I’m fairly certain this is already being done, at least with charging devices. The only reason it’s kept a secret is so that it actually works!
“Ladies and gentlemen, and all you other people reading this too, I hereby solemnly declare my intention to run for President in the 2008 American presidential elections. Thank you.”
Yes, that’s it. I’ve “thrown my hat in the ring” and “jumped in the fray” or whatever other overused media cliché takes your fancy. It seems to be the “in thing” right now, and why should I be left behind?
Okay, let’s face it -- I’m Indian. That seems to bear heavily against my chances. Common logic would suggest that a retarded beaver has more chance of getting elected to the White House than an (Eeww!) Indian. (Some people might even say one beaver’s already proven that. Twice.) But let’s not forget that these are times of extreme out-sourcing. Isn’t the Presidency just a job after all? And aren’t all American jobs being sent to India? If I can answer your calls about why that paper plate you put in your microwave seems to have yellowish flames emanating from it, then I’m guessing I can decide on your national budget too. (It’s almost the same thing. Really.)
My next “problem” would be that I’m unheard of to the average Joe on the American streets. I believe this is a good thing. It seems to me that most voters vote “against” rather than vote “for”.
“Well, Joshua’s gay. But’s Harry’s a gay pedophile who’s likes to strangle little boys once he’s done with them. I know whom I’m voting for!”
“Hmmm... John’s is an incompetent idiot but his opponent’s a woman. Go John!”
If the voters haven’t heard of a particular candidate, they don’t have an “against” against him. This is totally in my favor. Right now the Americans seems so cheesed off about both the Republicans and the Democrats that I believe a “weird, brown guy with a slightly tacky accent” might just stand a chance.
Of course, as the old theory goes, the taller guy with the better hair normally wins. I’m reasonably tall and I’ll get a haircut. Put all that together and this ought to be a cinch.
Policy making might prove tricky at first -- assuming I do get elected -- especially since I am not aware of the nitty-gritty of American politics and don’t really understand the basic needs of the American populace. However, I think I’ll be able to manage pretty well with a coin to flip and a couple of dice to roll. I’m sure I won’t do any worse than the current administration, at least. As far as foreign policy is concerned, that’s pretty simple. Don’t go to war in/against any country where the general population likes to use car-bombs. (Also, become good friends with Jon Stewart and Jay Leno. But that’s not as important.)
Nominations for my “running mate” are now welcome, as are cool campaign slogans.
(Alternatively titled -- "Why I Wish I Was Named Zystemimes Zestyis")
I guess it would be fun to be the “Most Famous Person in the World” with a particular name. I’ve always been a fame-seeking kind of chap. Given a choice between wealth or fame, I know I’d pick fame. I’m assuming, of course, I’m in a hypothetical world where I couldn’t use my money to buy fame or my fame to make money. In other words, if I could have one, and only one, of the two, I’d pick fame.
Some [last] names are common. For example, who would you say is the Most Famous Smith in the World? I don’t know. I know the Most Famous Clinton in the World is a lying, intern-bedding, former president whom most of us hate and yet most of us love. (The only person who could have beaten him to it was probably aborted sometime early 1998 or is a grade-schooler living in anonymity somewhere.) Either way, we all know who the Most Famous Lewinsky in the World is.
The winners for Jordan (Michael over Peter André’s wife), Hemmingway, Gates, etc are easy to pick. Who wins Johnson? Or Williams?
It’s easy to see that your chances are pretty negligible unless:
1. You’ve got a name that isn’t very common, and
2. There isn’t already a VERY famous person with the same name.
Considering that let’s where I stand. Arnold’s not too common, but unfortunately for me someone’s already nabbed it. I’d have to assassinate a President using only a water-pistol and with my eyes closed and follow that up by making love to his wife while letting his children watch, to have any hope of winning that category. I don’t see myself attacking people with water-pistols just to achieve my silly ambition, though I might be willing to sleep around after that. Bottom line, I’ll have to satisfy myself with second place in the “Arnold” list.
There is, however, some good news. I don’t know any VERY famous people whose last names are D’Souza. (I’ve checked and Google doesn’t seem to either.) There are a few enterprising individuals with this name scattered here and there, but it’s safe to say there’s no Clinton. So that’s my current plan -- to become the Most Famous D’Souza in the World. Now, all I need to think about is how. I’m guessing drinking 23 cans of beer in 2 hours should about do it, but I’ll give it some more thought.
This is my new ambition in life (until the next one comes along, at least).
I’d like to write a book someday. It seems like one of those cool things to do and more significantly it satisfies the following two important criteria:
1. It will earn me some money, and
2. [I think] I can do it.
There are plenty of little problems along the way though. For example, I haven’t a darned clue what I’m going to write the book about or even, for that matter, which genre of literature it should belong to. My Experiences With Women seemed like a good idea for a while, but like I’ve said before somewhere, I’m not a big fan of fantasy fiction. A Dull and Boring Teenage Life, on the other hand, is very writable, but I’m not sure I could even convince my own wife to spend her money on buying something like that. (And let’s not forget that we’re talking about a lady who’d buy a pair of shoes just because they’ll “look nice next to that other pair in her wardrobe”.)
Humor sounds doable. I could possibly write something funny. Well, funny to me at least. And therein lies my next problem. Most of the things that crack me up rarely have much effect on too many other people. I guess if it’s EXTREMELY funny, I might be able to con myself into buying 853,000 copies of the book. But that would make me the first penniless person to be famous since -- ummm, K-Fed. And I don’t want to go there.
I need a sure-shot plan for getting rich by writing, and that too one that doesn’t call for too much talent. If you think that’s impossible, I have one name for you -- Sidney Sheldon. Anyway, here’s my plan. I’m going to write a suspense novel. It’ll have a long, winding plot. There’ll be plenty of sex, lies, scandal, murder, smashing-in-of-skulls-using-crowbars, and maybe even some violent crime. There’ll be hot, rich bombshells, and dirty scallywags and the occasional hooker thrown in. Someone might die somewhere along the way (though I’m not promising you anything just yet), and some new characters may be born. Everything that you can think of will be there in the book.
Now here’s the REALLY brilliant part of the plan. I end the book right in the MIDDLE of the suspense. Then a year later, a release another book -- one that promises to put an end the suspense created by the first one. Everyone who’s bought the first book will just HAVE to buy this one. And those who want to buy this one will have to buy the first. (Double profits! Yippee!) Once again there’ll be everything in it! Everything, that is, except the ending. That I shall save for the third book of the series, where I’ll shall reveal that I’m actually saving it for the fourth book. I’m not sure I can fool an entire population of stupid, book-buying idiots any more than that, so there won’t actually be a fifth book. People might start to get a little cheesed off with me after this, but by then I’m hoping to be rich enough to buy the planet Mars, where I’ll be safe from the suspense-charged masses crying for my blood.
Now I crawl into a little thinking-hole to conjure up a good name for the hooker.
If I were a car manufacturer, I’d just make every speedometer display a speed that’s about 15-20% more than the actual speed of the vehicle.
Speed, as I see it, is more about the number than anything else. I can’t prove this in any way, but I’m fairly certain that someone who loves high-speed driving would be happier if he were driving at 120 but thought it was 150 than if he were actually driving at 150 but thought it was only 120. Like so many other things, it’s all in the mind.
Of course, this is only true if the error in the reading isn’t large enough to be noticed. For example, you couldn’t show a 30 as a 90 and expect to fool too many people other than maybe George Bush or Britney Spears. And even they’d start to suspect something after a while. But call an 80 a 90 and it would take an Ayrton Senna to tell the difference.
So basically I could now advertise my vehicle as having a top speed of 200 instead of a plain, boring Gramma-driving speed of say 170 and I’m sure that would get more people to buy my car. More importantly, this is probably the most efficient method to keep people within the speed limit since Edward II decreed that all carriage-drawing horses must have only three legs. If the street sign shows a limit of 80, you know you’re going to be doing 85 at least. But now that that 85 is merely a 75, no police radar gun’s going to stop you. (Assuming the guns measure the right speed.)
It also becomes far easier to impress chicks sitting in the passenger or rear seats. For them -- more than anybody -- speed’s DEFINITELY just a number.
“Hey! Check this out, babe! We’re doing 190!”
“Whoa! If I blow you right now, would you PLEASE slow down?”
If I were girl, I think I’d pretend to be impressed no matter what speed the guy’s driving at. Call me chicken if you may, but I’m not sure I want to die just yet, and I believe “Slow down, I’m impressed” is a slightly better option than “130? Pfft! My mentally challenged cousin drives faster than that!”
I think car manufacturers already DO ensure that your car shows you a higher speed than you’re really at, but just in case they haven’t already thought of it, I’m going to suggest it the next time I meet someone from the automobile industry.
I think creating unnecessary jobs may not be the worst thing in the world. It keeps more people occupied, and that means there are less people who are looking to cause trouble. This all works on the “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop” principle – one that you have to admit does have its merit. As long as I’m occupied with something, I can stay out of trouble fairly easily. But if I’m REALLY bored, I probably wouldn’t mind chopping the danglers off a passer-by just “for the hack of it”.
So toward this cause, I hereby propose the following new jobs at any office (preferably one that operates like mine):
1. Blank-page photocopier:-
Anytime you want like 5 blank sheets of paper and all you have is ONE blank sheet of paper (God forbid), you can always call on trusty Ol’ Jim – The Blank-page Photocopier guy. Of course, you can have cool code commands like “Run me a 505x69 on this A4”, just to make his job a little more interesting.
2. American English – British English Translator:-
For someone who was brought up on a healthy diet of pure, unadulterated Queen’s English, these danged Yankee coots with their funny accents and their corrupted ‘English’ can be quite a nuisance. In steps your ever-ready American-British Translator, Mike, to insert the necessary ‘u’s’, change the ‘er’s’ into ‘re’s’ and call a ‘cookie’ what it REALLY is – a BISCUIT!
3. Human Temperature Regulators:-
These are the chaps who are brought into the office and positioned in regions where the temperature is too low. As we’re all aware, the temperature regulation at most offices is in shambles and people are regularly complaining about the place being either “hot enough to poach an egg” or “colder than a polar bear’s tits”. Now you can regulate the temperature in your cubicle yourself, by placing the necessary amount of these Human Temperature Regulators around you so that the body warmth they generate provides the exact amount of heating you require. (If the place is already too hot, just bring in one person and ask him/her to fan you. Also stop working, switch off your computer and reason with your boss that it was generating more heat than it was worth.)
4. Scapegoats:-
I really think people should be hired just to perform this, and only this, task. How nice it would be to muck something up and then just go, “Oh, it was all Matt the Scapegoat’s fault!” Then the boss just fires Matt from that module, moves him to another one, and brings in a fresh, new Scapegoat into the first module to take the blame for the next FUBAR. The Scapegoat’s “done his thing” and everyone’s happy.
I’m off to think of new ways to save the world now.
I broke my ankle yesterday. It hurts a lot and it isn’t much fun not being able to ride a motor-cycle or walk around without hobbling like a senile, octogenarian. But for all its curses, I’d have to say it’s probably the surest way to an easy lay.
To start off with, all the hobbling and limping (with some grimacing and teeth-clenching thrown in) attracts the attention – and more importantly, the sympathy – of all sorts of chicks. So normally, females who’s just pass me by with a smile or maybe a nod-hallo, are now stopping to inquire how my “poor little cutie sweetie-weetie ankle” is doing. I must admit this feels nicer than it sounds.
Of course, conversation then slips to inquiring how this so unfortunate a tragedy happened to come about. That’s when I mention I hurt it playing basketball (okay, so it was “human basketball” to be scrupulously precise, but no one’s heard of that anyway). That’s the magic word really – “Basketball”. After that, there are so many chicks queuing up with the express intention of humping you that one actually needs a coupon-system if one is to avoid complete and utter chaos.
If my ankle never heals, it would be too soon.
(Oh, I’m not sure if this is relevant, but the doctor tells me the pain-killers I’m on may cause delusional hallucinations. Oh, wait! Damn!)
