Holy wars!

From Megadeth's classic album 'Rust in Peace':

Brother will kill brother, spilling blood across the land...

Ambani vs Ambani. The battle begins. I'm sure this has to be a record of some kind. Like "highest suing amount for siblings" or something of that nature. 10,000 cr! Sheesh! Wish I had some way of getting that much money. But no, I wouldn't sue by own brother.

Brace yourselves, an overwhelming flood of coverage about this is coming the next few weeks or months in the media, now that the news about blasts is stale.

Submission for Caferati - Shaden's bridge

What is the distance between dreaming and awakening? If time means different things in different dimensions, then does it take a second or a thousand years on the bridge? Does one action take a lifetime and are lifetimes lived within the batting of an eyelid? These are pages from Shaden’s journal, one that could never see the light of day.

“…long time ago…”
Those voices. I hear them, but I don’t really want to know what they are. The sameness of my existence has ripped the last shred of curiosity from my being. Every morning, I clear plates and clean tables at a restaurant with a dirty rag over my right shoulder. They call me a a ‘boy’. The term persists even though I am older than my own father.

“…my boy i...”
I have such a hard time remembering too – how far can a man like that get? I don’t remember much about my childhood or parents; the only memories I have come from a time when the world was underwater. Everything gets hazy and I have to re-surface before I run out of breath. I remember learning to walk, recognizing faces, and even sitting at one of the very same tables I cleaned up recurrently everyday. The haze seems to lift momentarily as my mind roams towards that memory, but there is an invisible bridge preventing it from taking shape. Then the air thickens and it all begins again: the table, the cloth, the swipe.

“…I know you are not…”
The voices are louder today, even my resigned mind senses that. My heart is thudding in my chest and I gasp. All at once or after a wait of a lifetime, I cross the bridge between realities: the incoherence metamorphoses into phrases, then sentences. Suddenly there is no restaurant, no table and no rag over my shoulder. As universes overlap, the fog lifts, bringing everything to light. My dulled mind understands my helplessness all along, why I lived the same day over and over again. I finally recall my last ‘real’ memory before that blinding light, that last moment when the ‘boy’ looked at me and smiled, those two seconds when I slipped off of ma’s lap and hit my head, entering into a coma that became my new life. But father had had enough, and I was unplugged now, gasping my last gasps.

He said, “My boy, I know you can hear me from heaven. I know you moved on from this shell the day you entered the hospital. Ma insisted that we keep it breathing, but you ceased being the Shaden I knew a long time ago. Now that she’s gone, I’m going to do what I should have done a long time back. I feel no guilt for I know you are not alive in there. God bless your soul.”

The last words I ever heard were, “Pull the plug.”

Also see: Twisted Shaden

Fingering the fruit

I don't know about this article, but I just couldn't proceed after reading the subtitle: Fingering the world’s most popular tropical fruit. Is that even legal?

Fly you fools

There are some hilarious sites out there, but I really love this one from "flyyoufools.com". ROTFL. Check out the other strips, they rule as well.


Fly You Fools - An Indian Webcomic about Life.

Russell's brand of humor

I saw this guy on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' the other night and thought he was funny enough. Not ha-ha hilarious, but funny nonetheless. But I guess the British sense of humor won't be well received in the States, especially if he is going all anti-American at a U.S. awards show.

To each his own, I guess.

More beef

I foresee some sort of politicalization of this.

Scary experiments

I don't know diddly squat about physics, but this article gave me the heeby-jeebies.
What if the probability of a black hole is greater than zero? Is it worth it? Jeepers! (What's with the weird words, Rohan?)

The Bunty Gopal (entertainment consultant) chronicles

Day # 12053
Arrived at Bambo. Small town. I’m here to create entertainment. Of course, it wasn’t always like this. It all happened after the incident. Happy birthday it ain’t.

Day # 12091
No one goes out to watch movies anymore. The ethyl mercaptan that randomly emanates from the ground here must have something to with it. To put it plainly, stuff here stinks. Real bad. This was not always the case. Village used to make the town habitable. Village, the air purifier. His hobbies included smelling good and listening to grammatical sentences.

Day # 12126
I’ve realized that people here don't give a crap about stuff in general. The one thing that mattered to them before the incident was Village. But Lopya the snail put paid to that. Lopya is slow. But there was always serious doubt about his knowledge of the English language. Village was at risk.

Day # 12294 – The incident
Serious tense confusion caused serious chaos. This was the incident: Lopya told Village, "I am was small. And I'm sitting under the tree. When I am sit what happen?" Village collapsed at the sheer grammar of the sentence. It was a sentence that killed Village and changed a town.

Everywhere people chose to move to the city. Houses were deserted, yards were deserted, so were the toilets and the official hanging area of the town where the barbaric townspeople would have their weekly hanging. This town misses entertainment.

Day # 12370
Bouncy hangings have been scheduled once a week. My idea. The bouncing should enthuse the people. Here’s the plan: a male volunteer is forcibly selected. Then an angry mob which sometimes includes the family gathers around the gaily coloured platform and sings, "And as you do, so shall you reap, eeyah eeyah oh.". The noise of the trapdoor beneath the man's feet entails a roar of jubilation, all-round cheering and much bouncing. The townspeople loosen the noose and carry out the dead volunteer. I plan to name this sport after me.

Day # 12399
Despite my attempts at entertainment, Bambo is fast becoming a ghost town. Without any ghosts. Just the ghost of the air purifier. Lopya still stays on. Keeps asking me to get Town. Don’t know what he means.

Day # 12421
Enough is enough. But then, how can enough be anything other than enough? Anyway, brainwave. The weekly hangings will be more fun if people don’t die. But how?

Day # 12435
Got it. Put the noose around the ankles.

Day # 12436
After much convincing, Bambollians have decided to give my idea a shot. Tomorrow is the big test.

Day # 12457
It worked. Also, I installed Town, Village’s city cousin. The people are back, entertained and jumping. My work here is done. Time to move on.

Bunty Gopal (a.k.a Bun G.)

(Entered in the LiveJournal Caferati Flash Fiction Contest)

'Critics'

From NY Times:

"More than anything Federer could express in words, his performance tonight refuted critics who earlier this year wondered aloud if his reign was coming to an end."

Sure, critics are those people lurking in the shadows saying all those bad, bad things na? Distanced from us by seven degrees of separation. Must we never claim that we were wrong?

Irritation aside, the first Slam of the year does feel good though. Thank you Andy Murray, for getting rid of Rafa. Muahahahaha!

Strange strangers

This is a real conversation that I had this morning with a completely random person on my organization's internal messenger. I don't mean to be a prude or anything, but I would have probably continued the had the sms-ese not put me off.

Random woman [11:12 AM]:
hii
wassup
‎‎Me [11:12 AM]:
Hi
Who's this?
‎‎Random woman [11:12 AM]:
i wa serachng for sum1 else
i am sorry
‎‎Me [11:13 AM]:
Ok
‎‎Random woman [11:13 AM]:
anyways do u mind becyuumng frends
so where r u 4m
whcih office
ru there
‎‎Me [11:14 AM]:
Sorry, I'm busy.
‎‎Random woman [11:14 AM]:
okk
whne u egt freee
ping me later
byee

And yes, that's how I type. *blush*

Help the kid dot org

I think this is a really neat idea. I cannot vouch for its authenticity, but the wife is convinced. You should consider a contribution if you think it's the worth the cause.

Talk about the internet actually saving a life.