Guinness record for the longest typing mistake!

Say whatever you want about Dr. Swamy (and I have said a lot myself), but one has to admit he has a sense of humour! :)

Sense!

Engineer, Manager and the hot air balloon

Thanks to Facebook users, here is one that I found worth posting... after you know how long! :)

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?”

The man below says, “Yes, you’re in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.”

“You must be an engineer,” says the balloonist.

“I am,” replies the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but it’s of no use to anyone.”

The man below says, “You must be in management.”

“I am,” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” says the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault.”

Home alone!

...So my mom calls up my sister to tell her that she has traveled safely to Bangalore from my sister' s home. My sister's six-year-old son picks up the call and was audibly upset that his grandparents have left. He says "Paatti, why don't you come back? I am alone here!". My mom got a bit worried and asked, "Why are you alone? Where are the rest?". He says, "Me, Hari-anna, Amma, Appa and Chinthamani paatti are all alone here!"

Matter and space

"Matter occupies space, The more you matter, the more space you occupy" :)

The "K" message!

TV!

An excellent portrait of how TV has changed itself and all else in 20 years!

Retronym of "Follow"

Shared on social network by a friend that I was "following"!

Now I am thankful to the friend and Jesus to have provided a reminder of what "follow" used to mean by default! :)

Childhood notions

As the reality that I am a father sinks in, I find myself frequently in conversation about children, childhood and their notions. The fact that there is an army of children under four in my extended family only makes this even more frequent.

My niece is a non-stop talker! As she gets home from playschool she keeps rattling things apparently related her own experience at school that day. What she speaks about is anyone's guess. But one thing can be said for sure. What she speaks about is always unrelated to what she does while talking. Almost as if she has two brains that work independently. One for speaking and another of everything else!

She sometimes says "You always speaking, no eating that why I keeping standing!" and sometimes she says "woh nai chahye" (Hindi for "I don't want that). When I ask her what she talking about, she says "That is my friend at schools. She speaks in Tamil"

Come to think of it, my own childhood memory tells me that I was no different. There was a time I believed that there are only three languages in the whole world. Tamil, Hindi and English. And there are only three religions in the world. Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Hindus speak Tamil, Muslims speak Hindi and Christians speak English. Real simple!

I have also believed that men are of two categories, the ones with mustache and the ones without. The ones with mustache smoke and the ones without it don't smoke. So, if anyone asked why my dad never had a mustache, I would have likely answered "Because he doesn't smoke! The day he started to have mustache, he would automatically start smoking!"

What I carried for work yesterday!

As I started for work yesterday, I carried the weirdest set of items to the office, none of it relevant to work.

• Pair of running shoes, running shorts and a bright yellow running T-shirt (which friends from my earlier company can't forget and will miss forever!)
• Quarter kg of lady's finger (Okra) and a piece of Brinjal.
• A frock that would fit a three-year old, a T-shirt and a pair of trousers that would fit a five-year old
• A pair of formal pants, T-shirts, towel, tooth brush, soap box and under garments! 

We had a sports event at work in which I participated after which I was going to my brother's place to stay over the weekend. Conspicuous in its absence was the laptop! I forgot it at work the previous day! :)

Meeting Deadlines

It has been such a long time since I filled up this space. Goes to show that not a lot of fun is going around in my life. But this is one strip that made my day today!

Sathish Acharya's Kopykatman on Osama's death

Sathish Acharya's cartoons continue to impress me. I think going through his cartoons is one sure shot way of exercising and reducing my bloating tummy! Here is his take on Osama's death and "burial at sea". Click on the image to make it readable

Lighter side of life: Bath

Today's conversation
My wife: "Why don't you go take bath?".
Me: "Let me have a hot cup of filter coffee and warm breakfast and go fully fresh to take bath!" :)

Sathish Acharya's cartoons!

Sathish Acharya's cartoons are part of my daily diet nowadays! Here are a couple of his recent best!

"Amul Baby"




After World Cup victory

Mixed bag of Picture jokes

A friend and ex-colleague of mine has a Facebook album full of a mixed bag if picture jokes. Quite a few of them are exceptional. Here are a few I liked!

Anand Arumugam

Anand Arumugam: "I connected Blogger to my http://flavors.me page - http://flavors.me/anandarumug"

Work is...?

Mosque @ Ground Zero

Last post was about Laught IT Out... and this one is about Satish Acharya's World of an Indian Cartoonist. Take a look!

Feeding Baby Turtles

Laugh IT Out has some really good sense of humour. Here is one sample from their blog!

Homely vs. Ugly

I am a member of my company's Toastmasters club which is a platform for developing speaking, and leadership skills. If you think you can talk and command others well, you can always take to providing finding faults in the name of "constructive feedback" to those who are practicing it.

Anyway, in one of the meetings, a speaker used the phrase "a homely girl" intending to mean "a girl-next-door". The speech evaluator took the stage after the speech and said "The word homely is a commonly misused word among Indians. Homely actually means ugly." Then he almost landed himself in a soup while trying to explain the roots of the word. He said "The word is used to say that the girl is better of staying at home than coming out in public". While the male section of the crowed started laughing heartily, the female section started blinked with an uneasy smile on their face clearly trying to swallow their words of retribution. But one of them was in a mood to spit it all out. "Why is it only for girls?" she exclaimed and now the guys shut up and the girls were smiling glad that one of them went after the guys! The speech evaluator threw his hands up and could only make funny faces in defense not knowing what to say to get out of the Amazon's attack. Then in a flash of a second, one guy from the crowed answered.

"Oh be glad that girls have a euphemism. Guys are just plain ugly"

And now the laugh was louder and evenly participated. The speech evaluator was relieved but still had a foolish smile on his face!

World of an Indian Cartoonist

I have been following the blog "World of an Indian Cartoonist", the blog of a self-taught cartoonist whose has seen good reception recently. His recent cartoon on the world record setting tennis match between two unknowns in the Wimbledon is specifically very funny. Posting it here with due credits!

Seinfeld

Oh the work is loading today. Its not just loading it is so damn boring simultaneously. On top of it there is this annoying TV serial in which one visibly cruel lady wants to do all the bad things in the world to a lot of people around her who can't deliver a dialog well. (May be they deserve it!)

I badly wanted to laugh and started browsing for quotes by comedians. I tried Jim Carrey, but then I remember Seinfeld. How could I forget him. And boy did I laugh! Here are a few of his!

• I was the best man at the wedding. If I'm the best man, why is she marrying him?
• Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge.
• Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you've got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem.Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.
• Why do they call it a "building"? It looks like they're finished. Why isn't it a "built"?
• Men don't care what's on TV. They only care what else is on TV.
• You can measure distance by time. "How far away is it?" "Oh about 20 minutes." But it doesn't work the other way. "When do you get off work?" "Around 3 miles."

But this is the best one! I was just laughing with tears fill I can't bear the cramps in my stomach!

"I will never understand why they cook on TV. I can't smell it. Can't eat it. Can't taste it. The end of the show they hold it up to the camera, "Well, here it is. You can't have any. Thanks for watching. Goodbye."

Curious about carnatic music

Ladies in my in-laws' family are experts-of-sorts in carnatic music. Actually they are experienced academicians too, but so are gents in that family. So that doesn't count! :) To the contrary, I am almost a zero. I say "almost" because, my sister had trained as carnatic singer for a few months and I learnt one song from her! So that counts!

Anyway, their presence has brought me in proximity to a lot of carnatic music as they watch all the music concerts in TV and start discussing its nuances and technical details. That has made me notice a few things that I would otherwise never notice and ask questions that I otherwise wouldn't have asked. I surprise myself with my power to observe and surprise them with my power to question. It gives me a "second to none" feeling. Here is a sample of a few such questions.

• "Why don't percussion artists ever sit in the middle and lead the concert?"
• "How do they select those people sitting behind everyone with the tambura? Do they actually know carnatic music or do they pick anyone from the studio at the last moment?"
• "Do the string instrument players bleed through their fingers?"
• "I have never seen a "naked" mruthangam.Why is the mruthangam always wrapped in a cloth?
• "When the Veena artists wear the metal thing on their fingers, do they miss to vibrate the string because they don't get to feel it with their fingers?"
• "Why do the artists always appear in traditional sarees and dhotis for the concerts? Why don't they even wear a salwar or a kurtha?"

Off late, I find that my wife tries to stop me from asking questions to my mother-in-law. I think she is getting jealous of me getting closer to her expertise in carnatic music. Something reminds me of the famous Sidhuism. "Wickets are like wives, you never know which way they will turn"

Rudali

I have been watching the ad since few years.. Every time I watch this as like the first time :)

Bliss!

Courtesy: Reader's Digest