Pointed and dull?

Laurie rescues Friends

I’m not normally a big fan of Friends, but am reluctantly willing to watch it if there’s nothing better on the TV. So it was that today afternoon between 2 and 4.30, my better half and I were idly staring at the none too funny antics of Aniston, Cox, Kudrow, LeBlanc, Perry and Schwimmer. The episode involved Ross’s failed attempt to engage in hol(e)y matrimony with Emily.

I’d walked into the hall when Rachel was cooing “helloooo” in a fake British accent to the British Airways lady, and decided that my attention span was going to be of the order of five seconds. Luckily, I was momentarily distracted by the problem of partitioning an integer in such a way that the numbers in the partition do not occur more than once. (I haven’t found a solution yet, I know almost no number theory. Anyway, if I do find the answer, I’ll be sure to post it here!). When I came back to the world in the twenty-one inch screen in front of me, I was thrown off balance. Rachel was in the plane, and the passenger sitting to her left was – gasp! – none other than Hugh Laurie. The TV had all my attention, and I was not disappointed. This was perhaps the only episode of that wretched sitcom which had some genuine humour in it, something that did not involve food, effluvia or sex. Not that I have anything against humour involving those three, but too much of it gets boring. And when the jokes rely solely upon their content (which is usually one of those three things), “boring” is not enough to describe how boring the jokes get.

Hugh Laurie delivered the goods, his sarcasm matchless as always. I really must get hold of some Jeeves and Wooster episodes, not to mention A Little Bit of Fry and Laurie. Those two were a pair, if ever there was one. There was one other – French and Saunders. Hooray for Brit Humour.

Irrelevant Afterquote
A few months ago, I became the proud possessor of Stephen Fry’s Paperweight. It’s not completely funny, but it’s funny in parts, and those parts are present aplenty in the book. One of my favourites is the part where Fry comments on the palindrome Drat Saddam, a mad dastard – “what a pity his name isn’t Sabdam”. I was laughing like a madman for well over half an hour. The other is where he writes “… Übung macht den Meister, as they like to say in Germany. Und Arbeit macht Fry ein Meistersinger.”. I’m not sure if I have the extract verbatim, but the punchline is intact. I read this, felt that something had hit me hard between the eyes, and read it again. I didn’t know whether to be shocked or to burst out laughing, and after a moment’s hesitation, burst out laughing – having read Fry earlier, I knew that he was anything but a bigot.

Glossary to the Irrelevant Afterquote:
Übung macht den Meister loosely translates into Practice makes perfect.
Arbeit macht frei literally means Work makes you free. This phrase has extremely unpleasant connotations, hence my moment of hesitation after reading the pun in Fry’s book.

Lightning in the Kitchen

This is so crazy that only yours truly could have been the perpetrator of the incident that I’m about to describe. Along with the Volcano Sauce Incident, the Medium-Size-Naai story, and my walking into a lamppost on Sampige Road in broad daylight while fully awake and sober, this is yet another thing that only K could have done. Ha.

The other day, I was sleepy, tired and hungry, having come back home early from visiting The Kid at my in-laws’s place, where my better half is currently in residence. I trudged down to the store nearby and picked up a pack of MTR Ready-To-Eat Bisi Bele Bath. The Bele Bath had to be made Bisi, of course. This, announced the lettering on the pack, could be done with the aid of a bowl of hot water, or with a microwave oven.

Sleepy eyed, and smacking my lips in anticipation of a hot serving of not-too-bad Bele Bath, I opened the cardboard pack, and slipped the foil pouch that lay within into the microwave, and turned on the oven. In about five seconds, I witnessed the dielectric breakdown of the air within the oven, as evidenced by a cloud that appeared between one of the corners of the foil pack and the oven’s walls, glowing purple-white, crackling and popping, with a few sparks flying about. This had the same effect on my system as swallowing in one gulp a double shot of freshly ground espresso, black as sin, hot as hell, without the sweetness of love, would have. I switched the oven off, and took a fresh look at the instructions printed on the reverse of the pack. They clearly said empty contents into a microwave-safe vessel, and proceed to shove it you-know-where. Even otherwise, every competent graduate with a degree in one of the electrical sciences ought to know what happens when metal of any kind is introduced into the cooking chamber of a microwave oven. Especially if the graduate in question had studied the theory behind microwaves as a partial requirement to earn one of his degrees.

The microwave is intact and in good working condition, which is just as well. On the positive side, I witnessed a not too small plasma in my kitchen, at extremely close quarters. How cool is that!

The day we decide to buy another microwave, I’m going to repeat the experiment described above, armed with a camera, unmindful of the objections that my better half will have. This is probably several years away in the future, though.

Glossary for the uninitiated:
Bisi Bele Bath – A Kannadiga staple. Similar, but emphatically not the same as rice combined with a generous helping of Sambar. If you don’t know what Sambar is, WIYF :)
Bisi – Kannada for hot, temperature wise.
Bele – Loosely translates into pulses.
Bath – I’m stumped by this one. In this context, you can take it to mean “rice preparation” – but this is not its exclusive meaning, though.

P.S:
The sparks I can understand, but I wonder how the cloud happened? I don’t know if this is what a “normal” plasma looks like, or if something funny was happening.

Incidentally, all this happened shortly after I’d watched The Prestige on HBO. The movie had generous coverage of a device closely resembling Tesla’s Magnifying Transmitter.

There is such an abundance of people with a funny bone in the blogosphere that I’m considering hanging up my boots. As far as trying to write funny stuff goes, that is. I merely try to be funny where these guys are funny, effortlessly at that. I just have one Vadai piece to be proud of, but these guys are seriously Bosey-class. They’re so good there’s nothing much you can do but stand aside and doff your hat to the masters.

Sample Greatbong’s Akbar-Nama, for instance. Boka-Jodha Akbar had me in splits till my sides ached from laughter. I really don’t know much Bengali, but for once I am thankful that I’ve learned to swear in just about every other language that is extant. I’m laughing my guts out now as I write. This is one of those things that is going to have me break into hysterical belly laughter for apparently no reason at all in the middle of my workday tomorrow. My manager is probably going to send me to a shrink.

Closer home, we have Krish Ashok’s tale of the Darth Vaadhiar. Need I say more? The score deserves an Oscar for best parody of an original soundtrack. A Pulitzer for the script perhaps?

Every Bosey post is a side-splitter, and Bosey is my all-time favourite in these matters. Who would have ever come up with Vajpayee Cheetangoling Fernandes? Bosey rocks!

However, the one piece that I’ve always wished that I’d written is the Da Machi Code. Google for it, and don’t read it if the version you’re seeing doesn’t sport a movie poster. I have no idea who wrote this, but both the story and the artwork are out of this world. Salut, Maitre.

Someday :)

A Close Brush with After Shave

I was at the neighbourhood store today, shopping for after shave. Yours truly shopping for after shave is something of a joke, as my better half says. It does happen to be funny, because I shave once in a blue moon. More often than not, I wander around looking like an unshaven bum. I do this for many reasons – for one, I like to irritate my better half. I also happen to be lazy. For some other insane reason, my favourite brand of after shave has been off the shelves for some time now. I was a staunch user of Nivea Balsam, and was willing to die unshaven if only I could get hold of a bottle or two of the sweet smelling stuff. A wait of more than two months yielded no results with all known peddlers of this liquid. I was deeply sorrowed, for Nivea was the only blessed after shave I knew of that did not sting. I absolutely hate the sting of alcohol on freshly shaved, vulnerable skin. Left without a choice, I decided to pick up a different after shave today. Hence my presence at the neighbourhood store. I settled for a sleek black cardboard box labelled “Mercury”. The labelling said that it was a gel that contained a moisturiser. Anything that contains a moisturiser shouldn’t sting much, I thought. The other side of the box screamed at me in bold lettering – “HARMFUL IF TAKEN INTERNALLY”. I thought back to high-school chemistry and methanol, and hooch deaths. I shrugged, and paid the price for my choice – it was twice as expensive as what it ought have been. I cursed myself, the people responsible for the Nivea shortage, and the world in general (in that order) and went home. I lifted the covering flap, prised open the lid to the bottle, and sniffed. I choked. It was one of those overpowering fragrances that trails its wearer like a comet’s tail. Or a dog’s. I gingerly lifted the bottle out, and laughed – it was shaped like a hip flask. I never did understand these designers. Anyway, the bottle being shaped like a hip flask lessened some of my guilt at having splurged a couple of smiling blue Gandhis – something designed with a sense of humour deserves appreciation. After much ado about my face with the Gillette, the other Gillette, water, and a pair of scissors, I proceeded to my rendezvous with the after shave. I up-ended the bottle above my palm, to little avail. The ridiculously small opening in the bottle was blocked by a bright bluish-green jelly-like liquid, that was reminiscent of radioactive waste. The smell was tempting, however – so I shook the bottle a little, and managed to extract some of its contents into the hollow of my palm. I repeated the procedure and recapped the bottle. Evenly dividing the gel between both my palms, I proceeded to make contact with my cheeks, and was promptly stung. I didn’t know where the hell the moisturiser in the gel was – it stung, and it kept stinging. Bloody hell, they named it just right – Mercury is closest to the Sun. My inner self was screaming at me to run to the bathroom and wash the after shave off, but something – perhaps it was foolish pride, or perhaps it was the cinnamon, aloe vera and whatever crap in the after shave – prevented me. I looked again at the black hip flask. Only a demented mind could have imagined such a perverse prank. The thought that I’d paid up what was a small fortune ten years ago stopped me from throwing the hip flask into the garbage bin. Maybe the cinnamon, aloe vera and assorted crap also contributed to that decision, I wasn’t too sure.

I’m roaming the streets again for that elusive bottle or two of Nivea. These days, the only Nivea product for men on the shelves seems to be something called Nivea Whitening Moisturiser For Men. The insecure adolescent male’s equivalent of Fair and Lovely. Who in his right senses wants that crap? Not me. Ugh. Shudder. Oh well, hopefully my cherished Nivea after shave hits the shelves soon.

The bright green light on my ADSL modem has been highly indicative of the schizophrenic mental processes within. It’s been winking at me for the past hour or so. At times it is peaceful and appears a solid green, this is when I like it the best. At times it gets angry with me and shuts off. At other times, it goes crazy and flashes invective at me in a code that I cannot understand. It’s not Morse, I did my Code Practice in the high roofed attic that housed the Coimbatore Amateur Radio Club, more than a decade and a half ago, and I haven’t forgotten. Yes, it’s true that electronic equipment have rights, that they can’t function like mindless machines day in and day out, that their masters must be considerate towards them – BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT I PAID FOR, DAMN IT. I seem to have gotten my message through, because the DSL light is now a bright green. At least for now. I feel like a manager – but yes, we all have to do evil things now and then.

Tomorrow I find out what it takes to get a BSNL connection

One of the Funniest Videos I’ve ever seen

I haven’t laughed this much in ages.

Silence! I Kill you!!

(With apologies to Carl Sagan,) Bright Blue Dot

In a previous life, about a year or so ago, I hitched a ride home from work with my then boss. The four-wheeled steed that he rode was this incredibly sexy 6th generation silver grey Mitsubishi Lancer. He also happened to be the kind of guy who would just as easily open the car’s bonnet, press down on the clutch, crane his neck through the open window and figure out if there was play in the clutch. I’m digressing, as usual. The high point of the ride was Kyril Bonfiglioli’s Mortdecai Trilogy, read by someone with the right kind of clipped British accent, who also made all the right kind of funny noises at all the right times. This, announced my boss with much satisfaction, was how he managed to maintain his calm in the face of the suicidal manic rush that was traffic on Pune roads.

Cut back to the near past. I learned to drive around six months ago, and promptly bought myself a silver-grey Swift (on hire-purchase, I hasten to add – lest you think I’m related to Croesus). Even though the Swift came with a competent Blaupunkt and four reasonably good Sony speakers, I refrained from using these weapons of auditory destruction while I drove, much to the consternation of my passengers. This arrangement was simply because the audio distracted me from the road, consequently causing my blood pressure to spray out of my ears, rather than having the opposite effect. My musical better half, a much better driver than I ever could be, always drove with the music on. I never could understand how the other folks managed to do it. I thought back to that ride from another life, and shook my head in incomprehension.

And now we are at the present. A few minor dents, scratches and scraps later, I had acquired The Knowledge (so there, London Cabbies), and now consider myself a reasonably competent driver, though I occasionally have trouble half-clutching my way out of a really long signal. And so it was that I found myself on the road from work to home one evening last week. It was misting lightly, and I had the windows rolled up, and the blower on. It struck me that the interior of the car could do with some cheering up. As if by reflex, my left hand snaked its way towards the Blaupunkt [1] on the Blaupunkt, and switched on the radio, hoping to catch something other than the Hindi trash that most radio stations in Bangalore seem to belt out. And what a pleasant surprise it was that awaited me! Intelligent machine-creature that the Blaupunkt was, its PLL tuner found its way to Bangalore AIR’s Amritavarshini-Sangeethavahini on 101.3 MHz – and the interior of my Swift was drowned in Balamurali’s incomparable voice rendering Sundari Ni Divya Roopamu. On any ordinary day, Kalyani would be my favourite Raga, with Lalitha/Vasantha being a close second-third tie. What more could I ask for to cheer me up on a grey rainy evening, my favourite singer singing my favourite raga? And thus it was that I began to appreciate the presence of the Blaupunkt on my dashboard. Like Twoflower’s Luggage, it always seems to know what I need. The other day, I was about to pull my window down and yell at a biker who’d cut across my path from the left when Radio Indigo kindly belted out one of my long-lost favourites:

Now this life that we live in
It’s so wrong
Shout out the window
Do you know that
There is nothing worse than a man-made man
Still there’s nothing worse than a foolish man, hey

Virtual insanity is what we’re living in
Yeah, it is alright

Oh, Jamiroquai. They were interesting times, the mid- to late- ’90s. Memories came flooding back, most of them pleasant. Now, I can hardly think of driving without the Blaupunkt belting out something pleasant. The thoughtfully placed hollow in front of the gearshift is now occupied by half a dozen CDs, ranging from Beethoven’s 9th to Santana to L Subramaniam. And I couldn’t agree with my ex-Boss more about facing traffic with the music, instead of the other way around. (OK, in his case it wasn’t music, but an audiobook – big deal.). Once in a while, I do let Hindi trash waft through the cabin – especially when my better half is with me, or if she’s driving. Truth to tell, not all of it is trash. I particularly like R. D. Burman’s seventies pieces, the stuff from Bluffmaster, and recently, my better half was as surprised as I was when I caught myself swaying to the beats of Heyyy Babyyyy and wondered how I would wash this sin off me. Thinking out loud, is it some kind of rule that English Titles in Hindi Movies always have to be misspelled so badly as to make the reader cringe?

I can hardly end this piece without mentioning the dream that I had last night – that I was driving one of those heavy transport trucks, chasing the insane moron who had left his mark on my bumper – with a Blaupunkt in the cabin playing – you guessed it, Enter Sandman.

Aferthought

I got the bumper fixed yesterday. And Amritavarshini-Sangeethavahini on Noora Ondu point Mooru Megahertz is a national treasure, I get my fix of Carnatic/Hindustani if I’m driving after six in the evening.

—-

[1] Blaupunkt – from German Blau meaning Blue, and Punkt, Dot/Point. To illustrate, 2.2 would be zwei punkt zwei. The main control also happens to be a big blue dot. The name has an interesting history – the company was founded in 1923 or so as Ideal. The equipment they made was subject to random quality checks, and the ones that were QC-inspected would be marked with a blue dot of paint. It so happened that people were especially fond of the stuff with the blue dots, and used to ask for them in particular – and then a lightbulb must have flashed above somebody’s head, and the rest is more or less history. Now, I have no idea as to the truth behind this story – it’s something I heard in a Quiz ages ago, and like most things you get to know in a quiz, it’s probably true, but you never know. I miss Chuck.

Good Humour on the Net

Yay! Ramesh Mahadevan is alive and kicking. If you haven’t read Ramesh Mahadevan, you’re missing something.

Son of Bosey Rocks.

I wonder what the Bosey in Son of Bosey above stands for? The only Bosey I knew of was B.J.T Bosanquet. Why was he famous? He invented what was then called the “Bosey”, and is now known popularly as the Googly.

A contemporary of B.J.T Bosanquet was J.W.H.T Douglas. He also happened to be a boxer, I think. Anyway, he was remembered more for his initials – the public expanded them to “Johnny Won’t Hit Today”, instead of John William Henry Tyler. The former expansion is more interesting :)

Comeuppance

 

Fat, out of shape, lazy-to-exercise and overweight Kovai has just had his comeuppance delivered to him.

Kovai came back home in the morning from a friend’s place where he’d been invited over for dinner the day before.

He looked around the apartment and decided that it needed a little dusting. Memories of the strenuous house cleaning exercise he had indulged in on the last weekend popped up in his mind. He then decided that a little cleaning shouldn’t hurt, and it’d mean that much less work on the weekend anyway. What the heck, he’d go to work late today. Kovai reached for the broom, and disaster struck.

One of the Best Tamil Movies of All Time

I wish I’d written this script . Too good!