Good Reading

http://www.thumpertalk.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-501866.html

This article by Jay Leno makes for great reading!

/R

Delayed posting

Deprivance is a measure adopted by the blogger to increase the popularity of his posts.

- Old Chinese Proverb

Alright, you guessed it right. There is no such Old Oriental Proverbial Saying [OOPS] [which incidentally will not make a great name for advanced surgical instruments]

Surgeon (to nurse): Gloves?

Nurse: Check

After a while, Surgeon: Scalpel?

Nurse: Here.

Surgeon: Spatula? (Huh?)

Nurse: Take it.

Surgeon: OOPS?

Thud! (Sound of patient falling from surgeon's table due to cardiac arrest)

Anyway, since there is no such existentialistic proverb to justify my absence from blogging, I need to get back to posting absolutely random musings of my mind at a sporadically regular pace. And this is precisely what I am doing right now, after a hiatus of around twelve hundred years. Really! The last time I checked, I was in Guangzhou province, distributing freebies to the poor people who were busy constructing the Great Wall. And now, I am here typing some random alphabets, seemingly to generate a sentence, which has the purported intention of conveying to the reader that he does not realize I am trying to increase the length of the paragraph by incorporating meaningless, unending sentences.

Since my time in the Orient, I have realized that it would have been better for me to have been an occidental representative interested in the growth of the wall than being a freebie distributor. Distributing freebies never did any good to anyone, especially if the freebie being distributed was a manual on DIY: Building Iron Maidens from wood and stones! This lead to a lot of unrest between the workers, especially the more enterprising ones who tried out the product of the manual on their supervisor, with impaling, OOPS, I mean, inhuman effects.

What the workers also managed to do was teach me English and send me through time into the future to write this blog, though I have no idea of where they got a manual on DIY: Time transport brainless individuals who know nothing better than to hand out freebies such as a manual on DIY: Building Iron Maidens from wood and stones! Was it really the workers? Or was the previous statement copy pasted from one of my science fiction stories accidentally? Oh my God! I just hope that my readers don't realize my secret to random humorous articles: that of copy pasting sentences from various stories, all penned by my various personalities. An example of which can be found here.

More later. For now, let the deprivance continue! :)

OOPS?

New Contributor

Dear Reader,

Just when you thought you could not handle any more of the profane, progressively regressive, proliferating,  promiscuous, promulgating and prosthetic articles that regularly find their way on to this blog; Just when you had given up all hope of the world improving because terrorists all over the world were catching on to my innovative ideas (Idea 1, Idea 2, Idea 3) and are creating mayhem all over the world; just when you thought that maybe the sniper you sent to do away with me was successful in executing his contract - Just when you are on the border of insanity - I have come up with a brilliant master plan! (because I am a contract manager by profession!)

From today onwards, I am inviting on this blog, a new contributor. Dear reader, welcome to the worst of your nigthmares - welcome to the world of two bloggers [who may I add are fiance and fiancee] who are committed to provide unbiased, unethical and unnerving booger articles unendingly. (also defined as ad nauseam) I ask all of you to please welcome, with baited breath, the new contributor: Ms. Fiancee [or MsF for short!] :)

/Radgovin

Here's her first post: (with the bold statements in brackets being my comments!)

What else can be more genuine than this scenario: a guy who's "destined" to marry a girl asks her, "Will you marry me?"

Yeah, right. As if he had a choice! But then on second thoughts or a more positive note (positive??? That can be nominated as the oxymoron of the millennium, marriage and positive…are you kidding me??) Never mind, on a more positive note, the proposal (huh?) can be taken as a compliment that slipped out in spite of cautious optimism.

Incase you have understood the above scenario, please revert back to the writer and try and push in some sense. I think that statement was verbal diarrhoea that happened after the mental clogs, which were blocked since eons, were removed from the amateur writers' mind. This can be taken as a situation exactly opposite to that of the writer's block. (which the original writer of this blog somehow never seems to face!) In fact I think this can very well be nominated for readers' block, where the poor captive (or should I say captured?) reader tries to block himself from the trauma trying to read and decipher the writers' blabber. (Unfortunately, the readers of this particular blog are too familiar with this particular aspect)

The reason you are reading through these lines (Hurray!!! I have my very first reader), is that I have after serious musings agreed to put up my posts on Random musings of a Questioning mind. (much to the chagrin of the original writer!) Hey, I can hear you cry out loud….It must be out of joy of course!!! Where else are you going to find two boogers consistently improvising on writing absolute non-sense with an entertaining style?

Now, in true Oscar style I would like to take this opportunity to convey my thanks to Radgovin who has been generous enough to let me upload figments of my random neural firings on his page. (I know that he's doing this as a desperate attempt to increase the readers on the page…why he even subscribes to his own blogs!!!) (okay, two things: firstly, I make the comments in the brackets. and second, I resent being called a publicity stuntman on my own blog! I have no more than some three hundred subscriptions to my own blog from different google reader accounts!)

Ahem…that's all for the first one. Promise to get back with better blogs….till then Wish you a very Happy Diwali and a Prosperous New Year!!!!

/MsF

Deepavali Greetings

It is the festival of lights - and it also happens to be the festival of noise. More on that later, maybe an article on the Serious musings...

For now, here's wishing all my blog readers, and the world in general,

A very Happy Diwali and a Prosperous New Year!

P. S. In case the prosperity gets too much for you to handle, please redirect funds to the owner of this blog. Those funds will aid him in putting up a web-site of his own! :)

News Updates

In a fit of egocentricity, I have subscribed to my own blogs in Google Reader. If you are not aware of what google reader is, you can find out here: Google Reader

And on this page, you will find the articles that I feel people all over the world should be reading: Here!!!

Anyway, since I have subscribed to the "feed" I was feeling pretty irritated not to have got my daily dose of humour in these times of dire world wide depression. You might be wondering what depression, but believe me, we are living in real bad times. Here's a sampling of news that I have from BBC News, courtesy of BBC. (These are real headlines, I am not makn

1. Egypt ruling party opens Congress [What the heck is an Egyptian party doing by "opening" up the Congress? What does opening mean, anyway?]

2. N Korea nuclear shut down to start [N Korea already has nuclear power plants in operation which have reached shut down stage. And we are still stuck at the procurement of technology and nuclear fuel stage!]

3. Japan quake risk "underestimated" [I am worried here. How badly was the risk underestimated? What will be the implications of an earthquake measuring 200 gazillion on the Richter scale?]

4. Mexico head pledges disaster head [Obviously, the article speaks about some big shot pledging financial aid. However, seems quite funny to imagine a head and only a head going around distributing dollars to all and sundry!]

5. Rice subpoenaed in spying trial [What next? Brinjals subpoenaed for potato-tomato sex scandal? Cucumbers subpoenaed for their involvement in personal assistance for sexual gratification?]

Anyway, since I was getting irritated at not receiving any booger updates, I got around to reading BBC feeds. And while reading through such morbid tales from macabre lands, I had a vision and this led me to the realization: I will not receive updates till I write a blog article myself! Also, I realized, as I mentioned earlier, that we are living in depressing times.

More later.

/Radgovin

P. S. Tomorrow happens to be my engagement. That is adding fuel to the fire. [reference: we didn't start the fire]

Engagement Day

It is official, I can pen it down on my blog now. I am getting engaged soon. And my thoughts can be classified into two categories

1. Wow!
2. Shit!

[Note here that alphabetically, the second thought should precede the first thought. However, I am an optimist and I prefer to have the happy thoughts (as if!) before the dreaded ones!]

Wow!

1. I am going to have to be responsible for more than one person now. Earlier, I was responsible for only one person. Here's a little quiz for people with little IQ: Who was the person that I wasearlier responsible for?

2. I am going to have to make public appearances with my fiance at various family, social and official gatherings. It is required by decree number two hundred and thirty six of the Laws for the Torture of the to be Married Man

3. I will have access to a joint account, and that is a good thing, because I earn peanuts

4. Since I am about to be engaged, I can flirt all I want without fear of any retribution because my fiancee knows that I am an outrageous flirt [she reads this blog and she has been privy to my conversations with meghan! ;)] And if the other girl minds my doing this, well that is her problem! :)

5. No question of parental pressure for looking out for the right girl and visiting 'N' places to "see" the girl as I am getting engaged to the girl of my choice!

Shit!

1. I am going to have to be responsible for more than one person now.

2. I am going to have to make public appearances with my fiance at various family, social and official gatherings.

3. I will have access to a joint account, and that is a bad thing, because my fiancee will get to see all the things I spend money on [note to self: must cancel all subscriptions to debonair, playboy, hustler, etc.! :(]

4. Since I am about to be engaged, I can flirt all I want without fear of any retribution because my fiancee knows that I am an outrageous flirt. Unfortunately, flirting is about all I can do from now on! :( [note to fiance: flirting was all that I did till date. Really! Ask MD, Shiva about it!]

5. No question of parental pressure for looking out for the right girl and visiting 'N' places to "see" the girl as I am getting engaged to the girl of my choice! So, for good or for bad, through thick and thin [should be through fat and thin, because I weigh in excess of 290 pounds, whereas she is in the early hundreds; so we kind of complement each other.] and through happy times and sad, I am going to have to live with my choice. Not that I have any complaints on this aspect, but what the heck, I needed a fifth point! :)

/Radgovin

Things to do for Today

The following is the result of boredom from waiting for the anti-virus scan to finish so that I can get back to my work. The most famous (and also the most resource intensive) anti-virus software consumes so much of my processing time, I cannot even copy-paste (which is what I do most of the time!)

Disclaimer: I have not tried any of the following myself. I am just suggesting the same for killing time and trying to raise a laugh. The reader agrees to indemnify me if upon executing some of the strategies mentioned here, the reader faces some action in the form of blockage of internet access, severe castration, etc.

For the bored executive (Huh?) at work: a compendium of some things to do today -

1. Find out the network admin's email id and send him hate email from new accounts created daily at some obscure email service site. (Hint: use his/her email id when signing up)

2. Find out the email id of a co-worker you really hate and sign him/her up for all sorts of newsletters from all sorts service providers: askmen.com, national geographic, erotica daily [I am not sure if this exists, but it should! :)] google news, etc.

3. While you are waiting for the anti-virus scan to finish, call up a friend outside the company and ask him/her to download some viruses and email them to all the employees of your unit from a new email id. Alternately, ask him/her to sign everyone up at some risque sites! (esp. the admin)

4. Call up a friend and ask him/her to annoy your boss with missed/blank calls, esp. at a time when you know you are going to be with your boss.

5. And for the coup de grace: after taking a backup of your hard-disk, run some virus on your system to clean your hard-disk and blame everyone, including the sweeper for the loss of your hard work!

Disclaimer (again!): I repeat, I am not to be held responsible for action against the reader for following the above tasks! :)

Liverpool vs. Arsenal review

In any given season, there are three away games that an Arsenal fan looks forward to with both anticipation and dread. A trip to the other three of the so-called top four of the erstwhile EPL is inevitable as it is exciting. There is always a sense of expectation, the feeling that Arsenal should win. And there is the dreading of facing the taunts in the case of a poor performance by the team. That, however, was not the case yesterday.

In yesterday's game against Liverpool, Arsenal played like the league leaders that they are. It was out of sheer luck and the superhuman efforts of a single man on the pitch for Liverpool, the ubiquitous Gerrard that got them a point. A point which they did just enough to earn.

Right from the start, Liverpool were under pressure, and in a way, quite lucky to earn the free-kick that lead to their first and only goal of the match. Fabregas fouled Alonso on the edge of the box. From the ensuing free kick, Gerrard scored a goal, which can be described in a single word: SCREAMER! Although the ball was only a few inches away from Almunia, you couldn't have blamed him. The ball was inside the net before you could say Stevie G. Liverpool rode on the euphoria post the goal for a while, but after that, it was all Arsenal till the second half.

L'pool started the second half brightly, with the introduction of Crouch prompting the L'pool midfield and defence to launch long balls for the tall striker to utilize. He did have three decent chances, but it was not his day, unlike in March this year when he scored three from three against the same opposition at the same ground. Traditionally, L'pool have been Arsenal's bete noir, having the most number of wins and scoring the most number of goals against Arsenal in the League till date. However, that was not to be the story of yesterday.

The Arsenal youth came into their own late in the second half, with the tiredness markedly apparent on the L'pool defence. Mascherano was booked for a two footed lunge and the only thing that prevented his getting a sending off was that his right leg was in the air, when he clashed into Sagna. It took Arsenal more than half an hour into the second half to really start making inroads into the L'pool defence. However, even then, L'pool were stubborn and used strength in numbers to block of wave after wave of Arsenal attacks.

In the end, it took a slight bit of luck and immense patience and talent from two bright young players of Arsenal to break down Liverpool. Hleb took up the ball on the left flank and made a forward run. Adebayour was offside, Hleb didn't pass. Then Nicklas was offside, Hleb still didn't pass. He knew who was making a run down his right into the centre of the box and at the last possible moment, Hleb flicked the ball into the path of Cesc Fabregas, who took a touch before toe poking it past a hapless Reina, who could only watch the ball trickle into the back of the net after hitting his hand.

When it comes to breaking down dogged defences, it takes patience, courage and a never-say-die attitude to score a goal. And that is precisely what Arsenal did yesterday. This is where the team differs from last years team, which used to get frustrated (and to a major extent because of the captain's antics and frustrations on the pitch) The present team has the willingness to slug it out till the end. Let's hope they sustain that spirit throughout! Amen to that!

For the Technorati Spiders

<a href="http://technorati.com/claim/ebzfmsxsx" rel="me">Technorati Profile</a>

The Human Brain

This article has got nothing to do with a more serious [actually, the word "more" here is unwarranted. This article is not at all serious. Ergo, the other article can only be serious!] article over at my other blog, Serious musings ... That article can be accessed here: The Human Brain

Irrespective of whatever has been said and written about the human brain, one thing is for sure: India is never going to win the football world cup. That said, it is also true that the male and female brains think radically different. [A point which has been highlighted in a previous article: here] Without dwelling too much on the previous article, let me just come to the point at hand: female brains are always dwelling on the higher truth and male brains are always dwelling on: xxx [hint: replace the first two x's by s & e respectively!] I had to use this way of writing to escape the watchful eyes of the SEX NO. In case you are wondering what the heck I'm speaking about, read this article: here.

Anyway, the point that I want to make is that the human brain is such a convoluted thing, that pretty soon there are going to be people who will want to call me a stereotyper [which is totally wrong, because I am an environmental engineer and not a software engineer who types codes all day long. In addition to this, I prefer the term blog typer] and use all sorts of expletives in different languages. I am sure that guys are sitting back and having a laugh on reading the truth: which is of course the little tidbit about India's prospects at the football world cup. No, you dummies! I am of course talking about our proclivity towards xxx [this time, the xxx serves a dual purpose. I am sure the guys have this one figured out! :)]

Since this article is already four paragraphs long [it's only three actually, but I am counting the present para also. Take my word for it, don't scroll up and check] and nothing has been said about the human brain till now, I am sure that most of you are not concerned by it. That is principally because most of you are [by now] accustomed to my wandering around here and there. And even more, some of you are just browsing around for the links to xxx [realization dawns for females at this point] that I surreptitiously include in my posts, much to the chagrin of those looking for the links specifically. There, I have managed to type another lengthy para without really speaking about anything.

The point that I am trying to make is that it is difficult to predict what a person is going to say, just by looking at his/her blog. And for males, here is a tip: if you really want to figure out what the female really wants to say, you are looking around a foot lower than you ought to. Females never suffer from this predicament, principally because of two things:

1. They are always staring at your face to figure out how desperate you are feeling at that point of time, so that they can figure out their own state of readiness for fight/flight

2. If they are not maintaining eye-contact, they are considered to be shy and demure, whereas in reality, they may be "checking out" if you are a stud or a dud [whatever that means!]

I am sure that by this point in time, you have forgotten what the article was originally about. Which just goes to show that my encephalonic prowess is such that I am able to subvert the readers' thoughts and replace them with my own. While this does not have a specific utility, I am sure that I can come up with one and convince the reader about the same. Maybe I should think of taking over the world.

Readers, start spreading the word. Ask your friends and relatives to read the blog of their new leader. I command you to do so!

Please! :)

/Radgovin

Registration at FeedBurner

Since I have registered my blog at FeedBurner.com, I realize that there is a need for me to update my blog more regularly. Hence, this article.

Update

/Radgovin

Frequent Updating

Yesterday, in a fit of masochism, I chose to have a live feed of my own blog in Internet Explorer. I don't know what trigger went off in my mind which forced me to take such a drastic step. I usually don't read what one personality of my multiple available personalities has written. Anyway, this is what I came across:

Random musings of a Questioning mind

You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content. When you subscribe to a feed, it is added to the Common Feed List. Updated information from the feed is automatically downloaded to your computer and can be viewed in Internet Explorer and other programs. Learn more about feeds.

Subscribe to this feed

I am sure, that just like me, you too are wondering: What the heck is the cup size of Ms. Koirala's bra? And I am sure you have realized that the previous statement was written by the original blogger. Anyway, since you are in wonderment mode, have a dekko at the first line of the paragraph describing the feed. If there is one word which can describe the multitude of questions, plethora of confusions and plentiful doubts in your mind, it will be this: "48 C". No, of course I am kidding. The real word is "Huh?"

"Huh?" is exactly what I thought when I saw that my blog was coming under the frequently updated feed tag. So, in a bid to verify the veracity of the claim, I tried the same with some other blogs I know, which have not been updated since the Mesozoic ages. Here is what I came up with:

1. Aye Caramba

You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content. When you subscribe to a feed, it is added to the Common Feed List. Updated information from the feed is automatically downloaded to your computer and can be viewed in Internet Explorer and other programs. Learn more about feeds.

Subscribe to this feed


2. Sundae with Shiva

You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content. When you subscribe to a feed, it is added to the Common Feed List. Updated information from the feed is automatically downloaded to your computer and can be viewed in Internet Explorer and other programs. Learn more about feeds.

Subscribe to this feed

3. Serious musings of a Questioning mind

You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content. When you subscribe to a feed, it is added to the Common Feed List. Updated information from the feed is automatically downloaded to your computer and can be viewed in Internet Explorer and other programs. Learn more about feeds.

Subscribe to this feed

I am sure that you have not caught on to two facts:
1. The third blog is much much better than the first two ones
2. I have increased the length of this post simply by using Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V and your Jurassic brains were unable to pick that up! :)

So, if you want to have an update of fresh, humorous "feed" from my blog, I suggest you go here:
http://radgovin.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

And enjoy reading my booger articles.

/Radgovin

P. S. I am guessing the size. For all you know, it might as well be 148 C!

Support Firefox!

Use the following to advertise Firefox, the better browser!

<a href="http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&amp;id=0&amp;t=217"><img border="0" alt="Firefox 2" title="Firefox 2" src="http://sfx-images.mozilla.org/affiliates/Buttons/firefox2/468x60FF2b_Orange.png"/></a>

/Radgovin

P. S. I am doing this as a public service message! :)

LAN - GAUGE

That is the estimate used to determine how much of bandwidth in the internal LAN at IITB is used for downloading pornography, or as it is known: pr0n! There are other meanings to this word also, one of them being the following:

a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition [definition]

Different languages cause a lot of humour to be generated and this article is in place just to cite one of them.There is a Jewish blessing for married couples "Sheva Berachot" which means seven blessings. Now, this also sounds like a Marathi expletive and for the average Mumbaikar, Sheva Berachot is not going to evoke any feeling other than ire. Speaking of which, I encountered a funny incidence of two similar words having entirely different meanings:

ire - intense anger; wrath

irenic - tending to promote peace or reconciliation; peaceful or conciliatory

Ironical, ain't it?

Those who use the T9 dictionary feature in Nokia mobile handsets are aware of its utility. It provides a very convenient means of "texting". Try this for a funny coincidence - the keystrokes for select and reject [opposite meaning words] are the same! Be careful of what you type is all I can say for new T9 users!

More funny stuff later.

/Radgovin

Crowded Places and the average Human

Human beings are social animals. If ever there was an oxymoron, that is one. Of course, you will have to consider social in the reference of high society tea and coffee parties. And when you think of animals in that perspective, the only animals that come to mind are well trained and mannered pets, like cats, dogs and parrots, and their masters, water buffaloes and African hippopotamuses. Really! If you have ever had the occasion [I am sure you haven't] to attend a high class event [See, the very fact that you are reading this blog proves that you haven't] then you would know what goes on in such parties [if you are looking for information in this blog about such events, look elsewhere!] and the people who attend it. I am saying you have no information about these parties because they go on all the while. Consider the lifestyle of an average high society person:

Morning: Brush teeth. Put on deo. Attend high profile breakfast party.
Mid-morning - Early-afternnon: Use mouth freshener. Attend brunch meeting halfway across town.
Afternoon: Lunch party at a page 3 do.
Mid-afternoon - Early-evening: Catch a nap. Attend social outing. Gorge on pastries from exquisite lands.
Evening: Ah forget it, you get the drift by now!

Anyway, since there is no way these people can give vent to the obstreperous child residing within them, since there is no imprimatur for boisterous activities forthcoming from anyone, they take to the next best thing: devouring huge amounts of fatty substances, which leads to their skin taking on the look and feel of alabaster, hence the reference to water buffaloes and hippopotamuses.

Again, since the diameter of an average party goer is 23 feet (as measured at the waist) a lot of crowding takes place at the meeting points. A lot many herbivorous and carnivorous feeding activities can be witnessed at social events which are frequented by these social animals. And according to the law of conservation of mass, what goes in must come out, subject to whatever you have retained and what you chose to let go. Since the human DNA has been programmed when the human species was faced with death due to starvation, the human body is loathe to let go off all the fat that the mouth finds delectable to consume. It will willingly expunge any signs of bodily muscle at the first given opportunity. Yet, even when there exists a dire need to burn off the fat, such as when a person is trying to lose weight, the body will stubbornly hold onto it [personal experience] And in lieu of the fat, it will burn some sulphurous material, leading to the release of

FAR
FA
F
Don't make me write the words, please!

So, as you can imagine, social dos are soon converted from a gathering of people of the high society to a massacrial gas chamber straight out of a concentration camp. I am not going to elucidate on this aspect. I have an invite to attend one of the camps ... I mean, one do today evening, post twilight. Anyone interested in having a fits hand [first nose] experience can tag along!

/Radgovin

Access Policy

I can see that Shiva has been reading my posts.

Unfortunately, I cannot access the comments page to interact with him. I can only receive the comments he is writing after going through my posts. I can post by sending email to my blog, but I cannot access the comments paghe due to Internet Policy of my workplace.

Thanks for the comments, Shiva. Keep 'em coming! :)

/Radgovin

P. S. I was kidding about IPR! :)

Thought for the day

There is no such thing as a good phase in life.

There are little worse bad phases! :)

/Radgovin

Understanding VAT

Every day, I learn something new at the place where I work. This is an attempt to educate the world about what I am doing! :) [Assuming that the world is interested! ;)]

VAT - Value Added Tax
This is a relatively new concept introduced by the Government of India for reducing the burden of taxes on manufacturer. Any manufacturer adds value to a commodity, making it marketable/sellable. The manufacturer, therefore, has to pay tax for this value addition [foolish, isn't it? You are punished for improving something] Hence, the name Value Added Tax. However, it is not as simple as that. Value Addition can also mean an increase in price. This can be illustrated by the following case study:

Chandu is a trader who buys biscuit packets from Brittania. He in turn, sells them to a local distributor, Pandu. Pandu then sells the biscuit packets to the local shops, which sell them to the customer. One local shop is Rasiklaal General Stores, where you are the customer [or consumer, pun unintended! :)]

Consider the previous system of sales tax, where sales tax was levied at a flat rate for the first sale, and thereafter, no tax was collected. In this case, if Brittania sells the packet at Rs. 11.00 (inclusive of tax @ 10% i.e. cost of Rs. 10 and tax @ 10% on sales price) M/s. Chandu, Pandu and Rasiklal are free to add their own profits to the cost price of the bisucit packet and they need not worry about being taxed. And you, the customer, ends up bearing the brunt of the Rs. 20/- biscuit packet!

Now, under the current system of VAT, Brittania will sell the biscuit at the normal price. If Chandu adds his profit of Re. 1 to the biscuit, he has to pay VAT on the increment i.e. on the Re. 1 price increase. This implies that higher the price increase, the greater the tax he has to pay. Similarly, the same is true for Pandu and Rasiklal. This ensures that there taxation at multiple points as opposed to a single point. Although, the revenue for the Government may reduce, it ensures a larger tax "net" wherein there are money inputs from many places.

I may not have been able to explain the finer details of VAT explicitly here. I am providing links for readers interested in further reading.

Similarly, there exists a concept of CENVAT, wherein each person in a chain can claim against taxes the amount he/she has paid as tax for his/her purchase. This is valid only in the case of Excise duties, certain import duties [known as Countervailing Duties and Special Additional Duty] and Service Tax,

Some reading material:

1. http://dateyvs.com/salestax_vat.htm
2. http://finance.indiamart.com/taxation/central_vat.html
3. http://finmin.nic.in/law/CENVATcreditrules2004.pdf

VAT - prevention of cascading effect of tax

Transaction without VAT Transaction With VAT Details A B A B Purchases - 110 - 100 Value Added 100 40 100 40 Sub – Total 100 150 100 140 Add Tax 10% 10 15 10 14 Total 110 165 110 154

The Morning after

Post every match that India wins closely, and I am of course referring to the country's unofficial national sport, cricket, the people of the world's largest democracy go into a state of delirium; a dreamlike state  where God is in his heaven and everything is fine on earth. Its unbelievable, the effect a single win has on the minds of the simple folk that populate this country. No matter that the win has come after consecutive losses, some of which were downright humiliating. All is forgiven, let bygones be bygones.

I wonder when we will start displaying consistency, both as a nation and as a cricketing team. Or any team representing India in any sport.

/Radgovin

List of Contract Management Abbr.

AD	Additional Duty
BCD	Basic Custom Duty
BE	Bill of Entry
BG	Bank Guarantee
BL	Bill of Lading
CENVAT	Central Value Added
	Tax
CLF	Clearing and Forwarding
CM	Contract Manager
CPM	Corporate Performance
	Management
CST	Central Sales Tax
CVD	Countervailing Duty
DIPP	Department of Industrial
	Policy and Promotion
EC	Essentiality Certificate
	(for importing items for
	project, to avail
	concessional customs duty)
ED	Excise Duty
F&A	Finance & Accounts
FX	Foreign Exchange
LC	Letter of Credit
LD	Liquidated Damages
LR	Lorry Receipt
MCE	Marine Cum Erection
	(pertaining to Insurance)
MoM	Minutes of Meeting
PAC	Project Authority Certificate
PCM	Project Construction Manager
	/ Project Commissioning Manager
PEM	Project Engineering Manager
PERT	Programme Evaluation and
	Review Technique
PIE	Project Import Endorsement
PM	Project Manager
PPD	Project Procurement Department
PPM	Project Procurement Manager
RCM	Resident Construction Manager
SAD	Special Additional Duty
VAT	Value Added Tax
WPI	Wholesale Price Index

List of Contract Management Abbr.

Here is a list of Contract Management Abbr. that are more for my own reference rather than anyone else's! :)



/Radgovin

Gymnasium Ad nauseam

I wonder how many of my readers have had a chance to take a bath in a bathroom that is frequented by other people. Not simultaneously, of course. I am referring to the bathrooms at your swanky gyms and spas, where people have taken baths before you and will take baths after you, leaving you wondering: How the heck did he get the shampoo up there? No, really. At the gymnasium where I copulate... oops I meant at the gymnasium which I populate... Seems like there is something wrong with my keyboard. It types c some times when I want to type p. Its probably a good thing that there are no such words as plitoris or punt or pervical pyst having meanings entirely different from their c countercarts!

Anyway, coming back to the topic at shower. I find that there are people who manage to get shampoo, soap and other bodily fluids onto the shower head! How disgusting is that? I mean, sure, I can understand getting some soap onto the tap, because you might want to turn it on after you've soaped yourself. But how the heck do you explain the soap on the top of the shower head? What was the person before you trying to do? Was he some weird, kamasutric tantric who was figuring out a new way of pleasure? Cryptic tales of the bathroom 'bater would be a great headline for local newspapers reporting this phenomenon.

And of course, there are those hirsute males you see going into the bathroom just before you do and you know you should puke before entering, because that is what you are bound to do anyway once you enter the bathroom. These guys have at least one hundred zillion hair follicles, and that is just in their ears. And most of the hair growing from these follicles is expendable. They can discharge several tonnes of hair and still weigh the same, probably because their public [or is it pubic?] hair has an amazing growth rate. I shudder to think what would happen should such people decide to work as fashion models. The amount of money spent on razors to shave them would be mind boggling! :)

Worse still, if they start making food for you - yuck! Don't get me started on that. Much as this blog is given to risque, disgusting and revolting discussions, there are some things that even a blog of this stature should cease and desist from. Hair in the food? Or hair as food? Blechhh!

Even the Japanese people will "sweat" on that one!

/Radgovin

Sholay in L&T

Sholay in L&T - Sourced off an Internal Discussion Forum

Jay : Mausi, ladka L&T mein kaam karta hai.. Mausi : Hai ram..!!! Aur kahin try kar raha hai kya?? Jay : Kahan mausi 5 saal L&T me rahne ke baad koi Company leti kahan hai... Mausi : Hai Raam to kya 5 saal se L&T mein hi hai.. Jay :   Haan socha tha 5 saal me salary hike hogi hi. Aajkal to salary bhi jyada NAHI mil rahi hai use.. Mausi : To kya salary BHI KAM milti HAI..? Jay : Ab appraisal bhi to asaani se kahaan hota hai mausi.. Mausi : Hai hai ...!! To kya appraisal bhi nahi hota uska..? Jay : Senior se ladhai karne ke baad appraisal mein achhi rating to nahin milti hai... mausi.. Mausi : To kya ladhta bhi hai..? Jay : Ab der raat tak ghar jaane ko na mile to ho jaati hai kabhi kabhi anban.. Mausi : To kya der raat tak ghar bhi nahin jataa..??? Jay : Ab design wale ki kismat mein to yehi likha hai mausi.. Mausi : Kya kaha ladka design mein hai..!!! Kaunse college se padhai ki hai..? Jay : Uska pataa lagte hi hum aapko khabar kar de denge!! To main rishta pakka samjhuna mausi??? Mausi : Beta, kan khol kar sun le...Sagi mausi hoon basanti ki koi sauteli maa nahi. Bhale hi hamaari Basanti Call Center wale chandu se shaadi kar le par L&T ke employee se katai nahin karegi [Author Unknow - for obvious reasons on an internal discussion forum] Posted on this blog by Radgovin

My First Corporate Seminar

During the one month of orientation at the place where I currently work [which cannot be revealed for domestic security reasons, both the country's and mine! :)] I was trained to become a professional, able to deliver the killer blow in a corporate environment, not very much unlike Jason Bourne [of the Bourne series fame] with the subtle difference being that Bourne kills people with a flick of a knife vis a vis my maiming of people's resolve with mind-numbing and stupor-evolving yawns. I was taught that etiquette is the art of yawning with your mouth closed. However, I came to realize that there was much more to be achieved by unleashing a slew of loud-mouthed, stinking and resolve deflating yawns. They helped me achieve my basic purpose in life: that of ending meetings, seminars, boring conversations with seniors, pronto!

Today, I had my first opportunity to attend a full blown corporate seminar, complete with people from all departments participating, in a sincere effort to have a culmination of ideas, to lead the company to progress and to source free food from some good restaurants at the company's expense. No, really! I mean, most of the people sitting at the Seminar [including yours truly] were constantly looking at their watches in anticipation of the arrival of the lunch hour. And they were giving subtle hints to the speaker about this.

Speaker: ... So, as I was saying, the onus is on the consortium [pauses, seeing a raised hand] Yes?
Questioner: So you are saying that tackling the onerous clause is our responsibility?
Speaker: Well, you see that we need to consider the financial and legal implications...
Questioner: [interrupting] And we can discuss the same over lunch, is that what you want to say?

Anyway, since lunch was the prerogative of a sizeable amount of the audience present [sizeable = total number of people present in auditorium - speaker] the lunch break was called for. What happened during the stampede that ensued the announcement is a matter for the newspapers to report. Suffice to say that there was an exodus of unforeseen magnitude, leaving the speaker with no choice but to complete his last few statements in soliloquy.

Post lunch session, I took up a reconnaissance post near the head of the table. The information that I can purvey from my survey is simple: yawning was the order of the day. Not that this is a bad things for humans to do. I have read somewhere that humans yawn to replenish the exhausted supply of oxygen in the brain. That, of course is total hogwash, although many scientific journals do subscribe to that piece of information. The reasons human beings yawn is because they are feeling sleepy and [especially if they are males] they are thinking about the thrills of having sex on the discussion table.

Anyway, after half an hour into the post lunch session, it was pretty obvious that the Seminar on Contract management had turned into the Indian Idol for Yawning competition. I remember trifle little of what took place. I can't pinpoint the reason for it. But I keep having these vague images of the boardroom table in my mind. I wonder why? :)

/Radgovin

Movie Review: Bhool Bhulaiyaa

Stereotyping is the malaise that is affecting the performing arts and people who stereotype are the worst critics in the world [For the benefit of those who haven't realized, I have created a stereotype myself in the previous statement] When there exists a set belief in the milieu about a director / actor, it becomes difficult for the said person to break from the mould. And that is exactly what I experienced when watching Priyadarshan's latest offering: Bhool Bhulaiyaa.

Right at the outset, let me tell you that I am an admirer of Priydarshan: especially because of the way in which he can visualize scenes in a movie from the viewer's point of view. He has the uncanny ability to get into the spectator's mind and leave him/her feeling, "Now, why do I get the feeling that I know what's happening here?" It is to his credit that people can associate with the characters of his films. However, the fact that he has shot more comedy/booger films than any other contemporary director implies to the general public that all his movies should have the following:

1. people falling over each other,
2. trying to get out of quagmires/conundrums,
3. chasing each other in circles and
4. in general creating as much pandemonium as possible.

With Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Priyadarshan has tried to break out of the humour genre. However, as the saying goes, old habits die hard, and he ends up having some humour in what is purportedly a serious/suspense movie. Its supposed to be based on the Malayalam hit movie Manichitrathazu and since I have not seen that one, I am loathe to comment on the similarity/disparity. However, I will say the following about the movie:

Bhool Bhulaiyaa starts off in a manner totally incongruent to the usual comedy routine of most of Priyadarshan's films. We are introduced to some remote village in India, which is home to the abode of some rich dynasty. The heir apparent to the throne, Siddhartha Chaturvedi [Shiney Ahuja] is your typical ABCD, happy to return to his birth place along with his better half, Avani. [Vidya Balan] In this archetypal village, we are introduced to his relatives, which of course has to include Paresh Rawal. [Siddhartha's uncle] Also, we are informed that due to certain inappropriate activities on the part of the previous proprietrix of the mansion, the monarchial abode suffers from paranormal malaise.

After some initial suspense, we are introduced to the central character of the film: Dr. Shrivastava [obviously, Mr. Akshay Kumar] Here is where the movie starts becoming interesting and to some extent, predictable. Akshay Kumar has done well in playing his part of a Psychotherapist. Unfortunately for both Priyadarshan and Akshay, he had to be cast as a character who likes to make fun of someone and always has some wisecracks and goof ups up his sleeve [or down his trousers, for that matter] We are treated, for a while, to the classic Priyadarshan slapstick. Yet, just when we are enjoying ourselves, laughing at Akshay's antics, we are exposed to the stark reality of affairs in the Chaturvedi household. A Bengali spirit haunting the premises is hardly cause for any one to laugh and there are some scenes where Priyadarshan manages to have you on the edge of the seat.

Overall, the movie is good to watch. One should go to watch the movie remembering that it is not a comedy flick a la Dhol/Dhamaal, etc. It does not fall into the conventional humour genre. It is funny in certain parts, spooky in others and in general, a good overall entertainer. I'd rate it around 3.5 on a scale of 5.
/Radgovin

Book Review: The Bourne Identity

For a long time, I have been wanting to write a book review. And as it always happens, I always have this urge to write about a Ludlum book. Simply because of the details he puts into the book, the way he builds up his characters and the immaculate way of delivering the climax: all the while ensuring that the reader is on the edge of her/his seat. The last time around, I believe have written a book review of The Bancroft Strategy. You can access that here: [The Bancroft Strategy]

Details of the book:
Title: The Bourne Identity
Author: Robert Ludlum

ISBN 5557076387 Review: There have been many books till date which start with an amnesiac trying to remember who he/she is and where the heck has he/she come from. Some famous examples being Code to Zero [Ken Follett] and more recently, The Ambler Warning [Robert Ludlum]. However, I believe that none is as thrilling and intriguing as the Identity. It starts at a slow pace, with the subject coming to his senses in some remote place after he has been shot and left for the dead in the Mediterranean sea. From here, he begins his journey towards his identity, a journey that is going to be fraught with disasters and deathly escapades throughout the way. Jason realizes that he has a knack for handling weapons. He knows some form of self defense, although he does not recognize the cries associated with his bodily movements. He escapes the Mediterranean "prison" with the help of a drunk doctor. His first journey takes him to Marseilles, where he learns about his other capabilities: ability to break open doors, his acting prowess [he is a roscian and can fit into varied roles easily] and his ability to speak to people without revealing too much information. Little does he realize that these very qualities are to stand him in good stead in his further journeys. From Marseilles to Zurich and then onwards to Paris, the travel log of Monsieur Bourne is quite hectic. And there are frequent clashes with authority and all sorts of people who want to kill him. And always, there is the omnipresent threat from some person known only as Carlos to Bourne. Robert Ludlum has a penchant for coming up with incredible plots and his USP is that he manages to maintain the grip of the plot to the very end. There have been many authors who have started out with a good story but have petered out in the end. For eg., David Baldacci in The Simple Truth or William Diehl in The Hunt. Not so with Mr. Ludlum. He has a proclivity towards tense situations and face-offs; and an incredible, if somewhat macabre style of writing about killings and the methods used to accomplish them. There is not much gore [a la Andy McNab], not too much sex [a la Harold Robbins] or overwhelming details [a la Seymour]. There is just the right amount of conspiracy, the perfect quantity of the basic human requirement [not food, of course! :)] and most importantly, lots and lots of action and suspense. Few authors come to mind when I think of novels in this genre, with the most obvious one being Frederick Forsyth and to some extent Michael Crichton. This book is highly recommended for reading. Not for the weak hearted though. In case you need to spend a couple of sleepless nights, I suggest you read this book. At 535 pages [paperback edition] its not too huge, and the pace is damning! 4 and a half stars out of 5!

/Radgovin

Finally some work

There can be only a few things that are more frustrating than the inability to while your time by surfing blogs and checking and sending emails because the program called WebSense is being employed by your employer to prevent you from wasting your time.

Categories of sites blocked (which I have come across till now) are:

Adult Content (of course, that has top priority. It wouldn't do for you to be caught pleasing yourself when the client sits across you. Or for that matter, it will have a bad influence on the 6 million, three hundred and five thousand people sitting beside you in an area of two hundred square feet!)

Entertainment

General Email

Peer to Peer File Sharing

Sports

Streaming Media

Temp (whatever the heck that means!)

Anyway, since there is not much I can access on the Internet, it leaves me with no choice but to create a blog article of my own. Luckily for me, as of now, blogger.com has not been blocked. And even if it is, I can always emails articles! Neener, neener, neener! :)

/R

Finally some work

There can be only a few things that are more frustrating than the inability to while your time by surfing blogs and checking and sending emails because the program called WebSense is being employed by your employer to prevent you from wasting your time.

Categories of sites blocked (which I have come across till now) are:
Adult Content (of course, that has top priority. It wouldn't do for you to be caught pleasing yourself when the client sits across you. Or for that matter, it will have a bad
Entertainment
General Email
Peer to Peer File Sharing
Sports
Streaming Media
Temp (whatever the heck that means!)

/R

Honeymoon Period

Since I am new to the organization, I am currently enjoying the honeymoon period of my incubation. [Shouldn't the incubation come after the honeymoon? :) ]

Anyway, since there is not a lot of work to be done, I expect that there is going to be a spurt of activity on my blog in the near future. The reason for this being the fact that there is not much work to be done over here at my office [as of now]

And in case any of you has not already realized this, I'd just like to state that I'm writing this particular blog article because there happens to be no work that I am capable of doing.

I realize that I might be boring some people in the audience. But I also realize that if they themselves had work to do, they wouldn't be here reading this blog! :D

So much for the Indian Industry's growth due to hard working individuals. Seems more like hardly working individuals! :)

A Pleasant Surprise!

Today, I required some information from the Labour Department of Haryana, which has in July released a revision for the Minimium Wages, vide the minimum wages act of 1948. Of course, as expected, this notification was nowhere to be found on the Internet and not even on the web-site of the Haryana Govt.

So, I got the phone no. of the Additional Commissioner of Labour, Govt. of Haryana and rang him up. Of course, he too did not have the soft copy. But wonder of wonders, he offered to fax it to me. And just when I thought things couldn't get aby better, he ACTUALLY faxed it to me!

Will wonders ever cease in this country?

Radgovin

End of an era

No, I am not referring to the end of our beloved President A P J A Kalam’s term in his office. Enough has been said about that by journalists, tv news channel experts, ministers, children of ministers, street children and even our beloved babus from the governments. Note that the “beloved” part was put in there for sarcasm. No, I am not referring to the insignificant blip, that is the change of the president, in India’s heart beat monitor. I am of course referring to the life-altering, nation faltering and world caltering [I had to invent this word to make the sentence rhyme. Caltering is short for callous altering] event of my becoming a Post Graduate! Big deal, you say? Okay, let me show how I can end up making the world a better place. However, and regular readers will agree, since I am bound to digress at various points during my discourse, I would like to have this disclaimer right upfront:
Disclaimer: The following statements are made by a qualified Environmental Engineer. And if you disagree, you are not allowed to grimace and call the environmental engineer any names. Because even if you do, he is going to be oblivious of the same. And if you are thinking of posting nasty comments in the comments section, well, I’ll advise you to do the following: Take a deep breath, exhale out slowly, focus your mind on the happiest moments of your life, perform shirsasana and then prepare your mind for the eternal fact of life: Since I am the owner of this blog, I get to moderate comments and you don’t! Neener neener neener!
That apart, another thing that has struck me these days, other than the sweltering heat is the lack of political far sightedness in the present generation of politicians. Note here, that the present generation of politicians were all born in the thirties. They are an absolutely resolute breed of people who refuse to pass on and the reason for this is that politics in India follows a lag of around 180 degrees. This should explain all the roll backs and the retrograde laws and policies being formed and approved these days. I am sure, some time in the future, when the present generation [I am referring to the kids of today, myself included since I was born in 1940] has grown into mature adults, pornography and prostitution will be legalized in India. However, since the present generation in the future is going to be really “above” all these things, the same steps that would be seen as revolutionary today, are going to be seen as retrograde and retarded in the future. The future is bright, the future is black.
Another thing that worries me is the news snippet I read somewhere about our current president “séancing” [if there is such a word] with some moghuls. Now, séancing is a perfectly alright thing to do if you are in college and your brain is full of mish-mash, ways to get girls into your bed, ways to get guys out of your bed so that you can get the girl into your bed and in some nook / craany of the mind you may actually find some engineering formulae! However, it really worries me to learn that the Prime lady of the country is involved in such activities, when she could and should be using her expensive time in nation building activities such as getting rid of the remote control that controls our prime minister! Really, there exists such a wonderful thing that has control over humans. I learnt it from all the comedians who come on “The Great Indian Laughter Challenge” and if you cannot believe comics, well who can you believe then? We should just hope that the leader of the greatest country in the world is not controlled by such a remote control, because that will lead to total anarchy in the world and the end of humanity as we know it. I am of course talking about the leader of Cuba, the sugar bowl of the world. We could really do without all the sugar that gets passed around these days. We have sugar, desugarized sugar, brown sugar, sugar that has no calories but can turn your brain into jelly if consumed in as large quantities as a few milli grams, green sugar [eco-friendly] and pappu sugar. Pappu sugar is of course what the chocolate people put into chocolates to make people go loony on eating them. Anyway, enough for today. I need to rest my thinking chords. The moghul emperors are coming over for tea and séance!

/R

Raindrops keep splattering on my ceiling

As I sit down to write this post, my mind goes out to the countless little nameless and faceless creatures who are out there in the rain, with no shelter over their tiny heads. And the thought crosses my mind, I have a shelter and you don’t, neener neener neener! Serves your right for all those insect bites I suffered from as a kid. Sure, you wet and drizzled insects have got nothing to do with the insect bites I got around twenty zillion years ago [zillion here means one] but the bites must have been from your ancestors, I am pretty sure. So, as the Government of India is making me pay for the sins of my forefathers [I am referring to the reservation issue; I belong to the General category, which according to me is the worst oxymoron ever], you are paying for the sins of your forefathers. Nature does know how to settle a score! Ha!

I know what people out there are going to say: Radgovin, you sick, perverted creature. Why the hell do you keep surfing free porn sites and post links about them deep inside your post? Well, the answer to that is simple: it ensures increased readership of my blog! While that in itself is not such a good thing, I am prospering from it because the pr0n sites pay me good money to include their links! Again, nature’s principle of survival of the fattest is being proven right here. He who has lot of fat, will take maximum space on bus is an age old Oriental proverb. I don’t know how the Oriental Proverb makers were aware of buses in ancient times. I am sure they must have copied the idea from somewhere!

Coming back to the rains, I am sure by the time this post goes online, all essential services to the city of Mumbai will be “thappa”. No, I am not referring to what Nepali folk in India are called. I am using the Marathi word for discontinued. The actual meaning of the word “thappa” is “suffering from irritable bowel syndrome because of extreme gastro enteritis”. However, that meaning doesn’t really and truly apply over here. Nevertheless, the Marathi newspapers and news channels like to use that word and so will I. The rains have caused severe mayhem in Mumbai. There have been cases of politicians actually planning to do something about it. Considering the inactive and sedate life that they are used to, “thinking” of making an improvement is a show of immense adroitness and athleticism on the part of the Mumbai politicians. I am looking forward to hearing their plans.

Lest you think I am a politheist [political atheist - whatever that means! Not to be confused with polytheist!]
let me clarify that I am not one. I am a very conscious citizen who is aware of his duties and his rights. Note that my putting duties before rights in this sentence has got nothing to do with my order of preference. If at all it has got anything to do with preference, it is because of my preference of arranging things in alphabetical order! And even as I am writing this, I am being bitten by politics [poly - many, tics - blood sucking insects] These are the newborn mosquitoes, small worthless creatures who have no experience in biting humans and sucking the hell out of them. They are dead the moment they start sucking someone’s blood. The inexperience shows: they are killed immediately. Give me your experience mosquito anyday, the one who sucks blood off you for over an hour, so when you finally get to kill it, you can derive sadistic pleasure out of that killing!

Me, I am against such violence. I usually believe in teaching those miscreants a lesson they will never forget. So here’s my modus operandi.

1. Don’t kill the mosquito

2. Maim it

3. Watch it flutter around in vain, trying to fly

4. Derive sadistic pleasure out of the poor insects’ agony

5. Remove its proboscis [Note: this step requires good skills and dexterity. Not advisable if you failed your biology dissection class. You will probably end up killing the mosquito. If you are unsure about your dissection abilities, please aovid this entire procedure!]

6. Let the mosquito fly away!

There! That was simple, wasn’t it? You derived your pleasure and you also ensured that the mosquito will not be troubling anyone else with its stings, thereby doing your bit for the society. Definitely a lot less sinfuller than killing it in the first place, isn’t it?

/R

[This is my signature, in case you are wondering what it is!]

When everything else fails

For quite some time now, I have been deferring my posting to this blog and my other blog [here] However, I have come to realize that all the pent up words inside my brain will eventually reach their boiling point and the effervescence of those heady doses of vocabulary will lead to verbal diarrhoea / nausea! While that may not be such a bad thing, I realize that puking words such as somnabulistic expansionistialism of capitosocialism on a blog which is as widely read as mine is not such a good idea. Therefore, I decided to update my blog.

I have not been my usual chirpy self lately and M/s Henry and company at Arsenal Football Club are not helping my cause. I mean, if you want a trasnfer to another club that desperately, go get it man! Why are you moving around in the shadows, forcing people to hope against hope that you will remain a Gunner like you promised last year? If you want to renege on your promise, sever the ties in one single slash of the trasnfer sword. Don’t use the slow and painful poison on your own club, which made you a star. The club doesn’t deserve this from its own prodigal son. The problem with prodigal sons is that they soon tire of the doting parents because familiarity breeds contempt. Maybe Henry shouldn’t have been given the special treatment that he got from the club. True, he gave his heart and soul on the pitch in Arsenal colours, but when the time to say Au revoir arose, he chose to do it in such a disgraceful manner. He could have chosen the path that Bergkamp took. He could have gone to another club as quietly as Campbell did. But no, the price of being a star is that you have to have the media present with you 24×7.

And even after all the news that Henry is indeed moving to Spain, there is still that glimmer of hope somewhere in my mind that he may just stay back at The Emirates. I haven’t given up hope of that. Even if he stays, I will always hate him for what he has done over the last month.

Au revoir, Thierry. And if you do want out, please get out as soon as possible. Please don’t jeopardize the club’s and the team’s morale any more.

Football Shutball! Hai Rabba!!!

That is exactly what I am saying these days. Considering the fact that I have my final submissions looming ahead of me, I find it a tad difficult to keep up with happenings in the transfer market and the world of EPL. Sure, Man Utd. have gone ahead and copied Wenger’s style of signing young lads from Europe. And Chelsea have suddenly tightened their purse strings. I think that has something to do with the impending court cases they are bound to face if the allegations about player transfers are found to be true. Haven’t had time to read into that. Maybe will do that once my submissions are over. Wenger is on a vacation and he needs to be because he doesn’t have my counsel for making prudent purchases! :) :D

More when I return from the tedium of report writing!

Air Pollution issues

I am a nervous man. So would you be if you were aware of the inside dope on air pollution control from one of the most accurate sources of news this country has ever seen. Oh yes, I am talking about none other than the Navi Mumbai Chronicler, that investigative and upfront newspaper which has to its credits exposés such as "Excessive cow methane production linked to reduction in mango crop", "Anti-quota MP found to be high on alcohol" and "Sehwag can be the best batsman in the world: Chappell".

As I said, I am a nervous man. Because the world authority on air pollution control, Free Air from Resins and Toxins [F. A. R. T.] has recently declared their intention to have a ban on personal emissions. Here's what the NMC reports:
FART Spokesperson: We have come to realize that the world's population is slated at 6 billion and that within twenty years this is expected to reach twenty gazillion. Do not ask us what our sources are for such extreme figures, just be content to know that the amount of greenhouse gases that people are releasing are about twenty thousand times those coming from the animal husbandary sector. We have taken a very serious note of this. We plan to approach the UN and ask them to impose restrictions on human emissions. And since we came up with this idea, we expect to receive twenty percent of fines levied on any erring humans"

For all the non-technical people out there, what this boils down to is this: you are not going to be able to have any kids. No, seriously. I can explain. What the FART means by personal emissions is basically farts. The gaseous ones and not the organization. And since they are going to levy heavy fines on misdemeanours in the gaseous regime, what it means for you, the common man, is that of you fart in excess of three times a day, you could be in for a fine of $100 per fart in excess of your daily quota. This is why I am nervous. As a country, we are, well, for the want of a better word, a fartastic country. Really, according to latest reports from FART we stand second in the world with the dubious distinction of the first place going to China. Another place where we are beaten by them!

Anyway, as usual, instead of explaining why you cannot have kids because of FART, I have digressed and started talking about China. Its funny how these Chinese interfere with our country so much. Just a few days ago, I heard that they wanted Arunachal Pradesh to be a part of China as opposed to being a state of India as it currently is. Pretty soon, we are going to face a situation wherein we are bargaining for our states and capitals with the Chinese. That apart, since the average person is prone to gaseous discharges at least ten times a day, that means a daily penalty of at least $ 700 per person. That is why, we must now think on the lines of gas conservation or alternately, gas utilization. What this means is that we should look at gas as an alternate energy source. I am thinking on the lines of cars running on gas. For the Americans: please note that gas here does not mean petrol.

Our country is therefore on the verge of financial ruin and can all this can be blamed on the ubiquitous Raajma. I am therefore earnestly requesting each and every Indian to heed this warning and consume less and less of those dangerous proteinous beans. Never mind if the farmers are lead to economic ruin and are forced to commit suicides. If they are not forced to suicide, this will lead to people holding their farts in and explosions all over the country, which will lead to even more deaths than if the farmers were allowed to jump / hang / whatever peacefully.

Amen to that!

Book Review - The Bancroft Strategy

Name of book: The Bancroft Strategy

Author: Robert Ludlum

Category: Fiction

Keeping in line with the Ludlum international thrillers, the latest product of Robert Ludlum [published posthumously and completed by a ghost writer, I believe] is about people with money and misguided ideals. Correction, make that people with lots and lots of money and a will to use it for the ‘betterment’ of the world.

When Todd Belknap - a field agent for Consular Operations with a reputation as something of a cowboy - is cut loose from the agency after an operation goes wrong, his best friend and fellow agent is abducted in Lebanon by a vicious militia group. When the government refuses to help, Belknap decides to take matters into his own hands. Meanwhile, hedge fund analyst Andrea Newton gets an unexpected call - she has been left six million dollars by a cousin she’s never met. But there’s one condition: she must agree to sit on the board of the Newton foundation, a charitable organization run by the family patriarch, Paul Newton. Having never even met the family - her mother was married only briefly and cut all contact many years ago - Andrea is intrigued. But the foundation, supposedly dedicated to doing good deeds, appears less and less benign the more deeply involved she gets… What exactly is their involvement with the ‘Genesis’ - a mysterious group working to destabilize the geopolitical balance at the risk of millions of lives? As events escalate, Todd and Andrea must form an uneasy alliance if they are to uncover the truth behind ‘Genesis’ - before it’s too late.

As usual, we can expect brilliant reading fare from the master and he doesn’t disappoint!

The Oil Wells

Today, at the mess where I eat, we had something which the cooks lovingly call “Dry Dinner”. This is not to be confused with Dry Day, when [much to the chagrin of many alcohol lovers] the state of Maharashtra declares a ban on alcohol sales. In my opinion, the dinner derives it’s name from the fact that “dry” is exactly how your throat feels after having consumed about three hundred litres of oil. Really! The dry dinner menu consists of the following:

• Fried rice
• Tomato Soup
• Fried Bread Crumbs
• French Fries
• Potato Chips
• Toast
• Rose milkshake
• Tomato / Egg Omelets
• Salad

If you notice, the only item which doesn’t have any fat calories is the salad. Unfortunately, it doesn’t taste remotely as good as the rest of the stuff. I think the dry dinner is sponsored by the new gymnasium that has sprung up near the mess where I eat. If this dry dinner stuff becomes a regular feature, we are going to have oil - dependency issues. Pretty soon, you’ll hear about muggings in IIT for “oil - money”. Basically, this would mean that someone would get robbed so that the robber can get his oil - high!

On a slightly sober note, the cholesterol that one will derive from this lone meal will be enough to sustain several lion seals throughout the long winter months. However since the average IITian has the IQ of a lion seal [or less] when it comes to selecting food that is good for health, this dry dinner thing has become a kind of a rage. This has caused some concern to the parents of the students studying here, as they now have to book two train / aeroplane tickets to get their darling child back home for the vacation! Also, due to the recent increase in incidences of heart attack in the student community, questions are being raised about the oil use in the hostel kitchens. A study is yet to be done to correlate the heart attacks to the oil consumption [There are people who believe that sudden excesses of emotion can also trigger heart attacks: such as avoiding failing in some subjects, happiness because the girl said yes, dejection because the girl said yes] Overall, there is a gloom spread over IIT because of this oily mess. [pun unintended]

Only the Middle - East is rejoicing!

The World's Exploding

The World's Exploding [with people]

For as long as we have been on this beautiful planet Earth,
Mothers to children, have been giving birth.
And till such a time as we find a substitute for copulation,
We are never going to be able to lower the world's population!

- Govindraj

The good ole' days!

On days such as today, when I chanced across some school kids eagerly on their way towards the sports day pitch, I get reminded of my own school days in Indian Education Society's English Medium School of Ernestville. Oh! The magic in the air, the adrenaline pumping in the blood and the eager look on the onlooking parents' faces! I am, of course, lying. Neither was my school located in Ernestville, nor did my parents look on eagerly as I prepared for races. The reason for this is that, and pay close attention here, I am revealing a secret, I did not participate in any!

Not that I was a slob or a lazy bones. I weighed only about a quintal and I usually finished my work about two weeks after the deadline had passed. Of course, you are bound to ask the question: Radgovin, how did a brilliant mind like yours sustain itself through the mundanity and banality that passes for school these days. To this, I will reply: I am not in school these days! When I was in school, way back in the 1800s, school was a fun and a hip place. Except for the lectures, sports and the laboratories, school was a really cool place. We learnt a lot many things that would mould us to become the human beings we are now (which, considering all the facts, is not a good thing)

An important lesson we learnt as kids in school was that you should never throw a chewing gum at the professor when he is writing on the black board. This can have serious repercussions such as you failing in the Professor's subject as well as dropping out of school. You should get rid of the chewing gum in the socially and politically correct fashion. You should stick it to the hair of the kid sitting in front of you. And that too only if some seat / table is unavailable. Another thing we learnt is that canteen food is not a good substitute for good wholesome home food. Especially if you want to smack someone with good wholesome food in the face, the soft "rotis" prepared at home are a better weapon than what they serve at the canteen. Some of my friends are still serving time for when they attacked the canteen owner with some of his preparations.

So you see, as compared to the kids of today, we were quite a lucky lot. And I say this because I never had a chewing gum stuck to my hair for all the years (seven zillion quantimillion, and that is just the time spent in the first lecture of the morning!) that I spent in school.

Those were the really good ole' days!

The Biggest of Games... The Biggest of Names

... Arsenal to score on the low cross. Might decide to do something similar here. Eboue...

Henry!!! With a minute to go! The great man, produces a great moment for Arsenal, at the expense of Manchester United! What a turnaround at The Emirates!

What a finish at the Emirates! Absolutely unbelievable. Well, he doesn't score many headers and I often wonder why, when you see the quality of this one. Lovely build-up, they knock the ball around... And this is an unbelievably good cross. And Rio Ferdinand is just off him... Just watch and admire the quality of the header

The Biggest of Games... The Biggest of Names... It's Henry to flatten Fergusson. There's hardly time for the restart...

The above is the transcript of the commentary for the Arsenal - Manchester United game played this Sunday. Henry scored the winner in the 94th minute, silencing his critics who claimed that he never scores in crunch situations! There was no time left for Manchester United to retaliate. In a way, Man Utd. dug their own grave, defending deep after taking the lead. They had in Edwin Van Der Sar (whom I used to respect till this Sunday's game, when he resorted to time wasting tactics) one of the best keepers in the Premiership at this moment. They had C. Ronaldo, the ^&&*(&(&(^ diver. And all they could do was sit and admire the quality of passing that Arsenal at their very best can produce. It was mesmerizing... I pity the Utd. defenders!

This game had everything.

Aggression: from the defenders and the young mid-field.

Determination: Evident from the way Fabregas and Rosicky battled for the ball and then made the cross that made the equalizer.

Grit: the never say die attitude. The way the team battled from being a goal down to win.

Non-chalance: although the team did start of nervously, after Man Utd scored the goal, it was all Arsenal. Man Utd defence was stretched beyond limit. It was only a matter of time before it cracked. Arsenal did not for once consider that Man Utd's was supposedly the best defence in the Premiership. They passed around the ball as if playing with some kids in the park.

It was a totally deserved victory. The team that created the greater number of chances won the game in the end. The team that had more hunger to win, the correct attitude to perform.

Unlike the divers and the time wasters who call themselves the devils!

P. S. The scoreline should have been 3-1 in favour of Arsenal. They were denied a clear penalty. However, in the end, Mr. Neville got a rightful kick in the teeth and that is all that we Gunners care about!

Musings about nothing

Once in a while, you realize, other than the fact that you are almost 25 years of age and still a virgin... oops, I mean a Virgo that there is a blog which you used to maintain regularly in your youth, which was in your heydays of not too long ago (three hundred gazillion years!) All this can lead you to become depressed. I realize that I am speaking in the third person about a person who himself is a third person (in terms of the size and weight and the volume he occupies, which is roughly the size of a small Lakshadweep island) I digress. Let me come to the point at hand, which is, nothing!

I don't have anything to write about. The old gray cells have gone for a toss. I think it is the result of having too much of the good stuff. Take for example this statement I am going to make, which I believe will shed some light on my current situation: I can't remember for the life of me, where I read that drinking alcohol causes loss of memory. I guess that pretty much sums up my life as of now. The girls, the booze and the partying is all getting to me! (Who are you kidding? The last time you attended a party which had girls was way back in school!)

As a last resort, to get away from the self imposed torpor, the mind turns itself to the blog. The all encompassing blabber it out space where the mind can roam around freely, without a care for the world. Not that it cares about the world in the first place (it will be entirely happy if it can have the unusually vivid and eidetic visuals of well, might as well come out with it, naked women in its dreams!) This does not however mean that I am a desperate virgin... What is wrong with this damned keyboard! Every time I try to type Virgo, it ends up coming out as virgin on the screen. I think this is some kind of a conspiracy to land me in a hot soup. I am not going to take this lying down quietly. I will complain to the manufacturers! I will cause mayhem till they put me behind bars! They can take all the money they want, they can have all my worldly belongings!

Just leave those naked women for me! :-)