The other day, I saw this guy back from college. He was a complete nerd back then, you know the type that was all serious and boring. He did all the homework, sat in the first bench, mugged for GRE and always got the first rank. Someone once asked him “Why don’t you skip homework one day?”. Dude thought it was a joke.
So, when I saw him, I thought it might be good to talk to him to see if anything has changed after so many years. I walked up to him and said Hi.

Dude: “Oh! It’s you.”
Me: “Yeah. How have you been? What’s happening?”
Dude: “I’m here to present a paper on nano-physical-biology at the World Tech Conference.”
Me: “Yeah, that must be nice. The thing I love the most is the free biscuits they give out at these conferences…”
Dude looks at me weirdly.
Dude: “Anyway, what have you been up to?”
Me: “The usual. Oh, I’m writing a blog these days!”
Dude: “How quaint!”
Me: “Thanks?”
Mental note to self: Look up meaning of ‘quaint’.
Dude: “So what have you published?”
Me: “Lots of stories actually. I write humor”
Dude: “Can I see some of your work?”

He was finally getting interested in my blog. I decided I’ll tell him a joke.

Me: “Sure. So this one time, a Zebra and a Chicken are trying to cross the road…”
Dude: “Which road?”
Me: “Eh? M.G. Road maybe. Doesn’t matter. Some road.”
Dude: “OK. Proceed.”
Me: “They’re trying to cross the road, but there is traffic. So the Zebra says ‘Let’s cross the road over there, because there is a Zebra Crossing there’ ..hehehe…”
Dude: “OK?”
Telling this guy a joke is like trying to teach a pig how to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig. I decide to press on with the joke anyway.
Me: “…hehe…and then the Chicken says ‘No, I want to cross here’. Then the Zebra says ‘I’ll eat you’…hehe…”
Dude: “um…hmm…”
Me: “…and then the Chicken flies across the road and says ‘Come on, run across. What are you, Chicken?’…hehohahaha…”
Dude: “OK.”
Maybe I should have explained to him before I started that I was telling a joke. There is silence as I try to figure out how to explain to him that the joke is over and he’s supposed to laugh now. This is really embarrassing. I’m laughing at my own jokes while this joker is staring at me.

Dude: “I don’t think Chicken can fly that far.”
Me: “Look, it was a small road, OK?”
Dude: “Why does the Zebra want to eat the Chicken? Zebras are vegetarian.”
This guy is totally irritating me.
Me: “Look. It’s my zebra. He was schizophrenic or something. He felt like eating Chicken.”
Dude: “I don’t understand your alleged joke. Your Chicken hypothesis is inconsistent.”

That’s it. This Dude was asking for it.

Me: “Yes, I know you’ve always had trouble with the chicks. Chicks don’t like micro-physical things, man. Maybe if you didn’t focus on your zebra so much, you might actually cross the road one day.”
Dude: “What?”
Me: “Have a good day!”
And I walked off…

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As some of you have already noticed, the blog has (transparently) moved to www.pointlesswanderings.com. That’s right, I had to part with 10 of my favorite American Dollars to buy a new domain because your company blocks blogspot.

Anyway, during this transition, there were a couple of hitches with the RSS feed that have since been fixed. You should have started receiving the full blog post in your email and feed readers today. The feed is here, and to subscribe via e-mail, type your address in the sidebar.

Thanks for reading (and faithfully pointing out mistakes in the posts). If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog, please forward it to your friends!

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Today I will teach you how to speak Jargoneesee. It is one of those skills I have been lucky enough to learn from the Masters. Being able to speak Jargoneesee will help you weasel out of any situation. Here are three of the most important strategies to use:

Overly Specific is better than Overly Vague
It is a common misconception that Jargoneese has to be vague so that the person in front of you (i.e., the “victim”) misunderstands. In fact, the opposite is true. You have to freak out the person by being overly specific.

Example:

Wife: “Does the red dress look better or the blue one?”
Wrong Answer: “Both look equally good. You can buy them BOTH. Can we PLEASE get out of this shop now?”
Right Answer: “The blue is irrevocably complimentary to the implicit contours of the retro-funk design applied on the border of the dress. I think the Irony of the Contrast is delicious. You should buy the blue one.”

Not only does the Right Answer™ save you money, but it also ends the shopping faster.

Horoscopes in the newspapers should also use this approach.
“Today is a good day for people named Amit. The Planets have recommended that you go and kick the guy named Prashant who lives on the 3rd floor.”
Think about how this will psych out guys named Amit who have a neighbour called Praksah!

Be Boring to the point of Death
Using this approach is very useful if you are not in the mood for confrontation. The idea is to bore the hell out of the victim, so that he forgets what the original point was.

Example:

Prof: “Yes, you, in the last Bench. What are you laughing at?”
Wrong Answer: “Sir I….err…hmm…Nothing sir…Your pant sir…It’s …I’m Sorry Sir…”
Right Answer: “I am not laughing AT you, Sir, I am laughing WITH you. The implication being I find your previously constructed sentence rather hilariously amusing to the point where the conscious control over my vocal chords was shaken momentarily, during which time, the aforementioned laugh escaped by civilized mannerisms’ watch, for which you must accept my deeply profound apologies.”

Mocking the Victim
Also known to the MBAs as spreading FUD – Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Using this stratergy will instill a sense of self-doubt and humiliation in the victim. Especially recommended during debates and arguments.

Example:

Intern: “…but this code you wrote is wrong. It is not compiling!”
Wrong Answer: “You may be right…Let me look at it.”
Right Answer: “Are you asserting that your bookishly academic college experience playing Age Of Empires has somehow revealed the greatest insights into the Real World Software Scenarios? I don’t know what’s more pathetic – Your grossly insecure negligence of the Business Processes of this company or your intellectual incapability to see the Big Picture.”

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It is 3rd year of Engineering. The back-benchers were having a conference during ‘Computer Networks’ class. The topic of discussion is that to increase your chances of getting accepted into a post-graduate degree, you need to have a lot of extra-curricular activities.

Me: “Extra Curricular? Hmm… You mean things outside the academic curriculum? Dude! All our activities are extra curricular. I think if you want to get into a post-grad school, you should pay attention to you curricular ‘activities’ first.”
Abhilash*: “No dude! We need something to write about in our admissions essays. The admissions committee likes stories.”
Puneeth: “Write about the time you hit the buffalo and fell off the bike? That’ll blow the admissions committee away. I mean…You hitting a car or a truck is understandable…but a buffalo?”
Abhilash: “No no… It has to be something like being in the debating team or organizing the college fest or something like that.”
Me: “The closest I’ve gotten to a proper debate is when we argued with the watchman to let us into College after 8:15!”
Abhilash: “Come on dudes, think! If there is no club we can join on campus, we should just create our own club. That’ll sound good on the essay. ‘Founder-president of the college debating team’ – Yeah, lets do that”
Puneeth: “I don’t want to start a debating club. Lets start a different type of club.”
Me: “What kind of club?”

Half an hour of debate later, F.O.S.L.A. was born – Frustrated One Sided Lovers Association. All the 4 of us would share the title of ‘The Founding Fathers”. Puneeth had torn out the middle pages of my universal book and drawn up the ‘Treaty of the Last Bench’ which all of us would ratify to create F.O.S.L.A.

F.O.S.L.A.

We, the people of the sovereign last bench, on this glorious 14th day of the month of May of the 2003rd year since the birth of Christ, declare our Democratic club – The Frustrated One Sided Lovers Association – OPEN!

It is also hereby declared that we, The Founding Fathers, shall continue to extend our deepest support and sympathies to all the member citizens who shall remain to be one-sided lovers and as a result be completely frustrated with their un-enviable and thoroughly miserable existence. Our glorious Association shall, as long as it exists, celebrate the frustration of being a one sided lover.

May all the frustru people Unite under this Glorious Banner. May the will of the Lord be with us.

Hereforewithunderneeth signed.

PS: Rakhi Sawant Rocks!

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Today’s post is a Cartoon! If you can’t see the image, please click here.

Cartoon illustrated by naveen. Copyright © 2007, Aditya Kulkarni. All rights reserved.

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Today’s post is a Cartoon! If you can’t see the image, please click here.

Cartoon illustrated by naveen. Copyright © 2007, Aditya Kulkarni. All rights reserved.

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“Welcome to American Airlines flight 2383, non-stop service from Delhi to Chicago. This is your captain speaking. Due to unfavorable winds, our flight time today will be 15 hours 30 minutes.”

“Unfavorable winds? What does the captain think he’s doing? Wind Surfing?” I say, trying to make a poor attempt at conversation with the dude sitting next to my precious window seat.
“Yes, yes! Wind surfing. Quite the adventure sport that is!” My neighbor says, obviously not interested in the joke.
“I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want my pilot to be an adventure sports-type of person, eh?” I say.
This dude just nods his head, and turns to his iPod.

15 and a half hours? That’s a bit long. Maybe I should have got something to read during the flight. Won’t I get bored?

2 hrs later:
I’m bored out of my skull. I thought a window seat will be pretty cool, I’ll be able to stare outside throughout the flight. But all the clouds look exactly the same. It gets tiring after a while. And this so-called in-flight entertainment system has only psycho hindi movies and b-grade english movies.

4 hrs in to the flight:
I see this on the in-flight information system:

“Why is the pilot taking us over the North Pole? I know he likes adventure sports, but this is ridiculous!” I say it aloud, and the dude sitting next to me hears my complaint.
Dude: “The earth is round!”
This dude seems to have some deep insights. First of all I’m bored like crazy, and now this guy is boring me with obvious statements
Me: “Really? Wow. That IS shocking!”
Despite my obvious sarcasm, he still continues…
Dude: “Isn’t it? Because the earth’s surface is curved, the shortest path from Delhi to Chicago goes via the North Pole!”
Oh! Bummer. Not only is he irritating, but he’s also right!
Me: “Oh yeah. I knew that. Yeah, I was only trying to …. I mean …. hmm …. So, did you see any cows in Delhi?”
The easiest way to distract foreigners is to ask them about cows. They all seem to be fascinated with cows on the streets. It’s like they’ve seen a Ninja! The dude goes into a lengthy monologue about how he nearly died 6 times on his trip to Delhi, but that still doesn’t put me to sleep.

8 hrs into the flight:
My left leg has gone off to sleep. Although I’m having a lot of trouble sleeping, my individual body parts seem to have no problem going to sleep on their own. It’s like they’re revolting against my brain’s tyranny!

10 hrs into the flight:
There’s a huge queue outside the toilets. It reminds me of the time when I went to my Grandma’s village in interior Maharashtra. Villagers used to queue up outside the only toilet in the morning. And on top of that, the air-hostesses decide to serve Dinner. Or breakfast, depending on which timezone your internal clock was still on. There’s hardly any place in the aisles, and the people coming out of the toilets have to interrupt the air-hostess, who has to almost sit on a passenger’s lap to let these people cross the food cart. I’m wondering why I didn’t take an aisle seat.

12 hrs into the flight:
I’m so bored that I’ve already seen “Kal Ho Na Ho” twice on the in-flight TV! Once in Hindi and the second time in German. I still didn’t get why Shahrukh Khan goes to the US in the first place.

14 hrs into the flight:
I ‘m starting to imagine that the Tray Table is talking to me.
Tray Table: “Wanna hear a joke I made up?”
Me: “Sure, why not?”
Tray Table: “How many tray tables do you need to change a light bulb?”
Me: “I don’t know”
Tray Table: “Just one, but we call the air-hostess to do it!”
Me: “Hehe. You’re a funny tray table!”
Tray Table: “What’s the difference between a tray table and a lifejacket?”
Me: “I don’t know”
Tray Table: “Yeah. Me neither”

I think I might be loosing it. If the plane doesn’t land soon, bad things might happen.

15.5 hrs later:
“Welcome to Chicago, ladies and gentlemen. We will be landing soon, so please return to your seats ….” and the air-hostess goes into the oft-repeated rhetoric.
Finally! 5 more minutes and I would have faked a heart attack to force the pilot to land.

The plane lands on the runway and makes it’s way to the gate, and stops. Nothing happens. 5,10,15 minutes pass, still nothing happens, everyone is still sitting in their places.

Finally, the captain comes on the speaker system: “I have been informed by the control tower that the ground staff has gone off for lunch. But don’t worry, they should be back in 10 minutes, and they’ll attach the landing gates. Thanks for your patience!”

Like Hobbes said, “Life is never bad enough that it can’t get worse!”

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