CM's wife drives into polling booth!!

Today's WTF moment-
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Badals-wife-apologises-for-driving-into-polling-station/articleshow/4494829.cms

Sock and Awe 3 !!

After American President George W. Bush and the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, its our Home Minster Chidambaram's turn now.
http://ibnlive.in.com/photogallery/1316-0.html#view_start

The trend seems to have really caught on.... Wonder which brand of shoe it was. Will there be another Sock and Awe game released with Chidambaram in it?

Too tired about 3 tiers!!

One of the most touturous things to ever happen in Indian Railways recently is the introduction of extra side berths. ie, previously each coupee area had six berths and 2 side berths (total 8 people). Some smart alec devised a plan to increase the number of people travelling in each bogey thereby increasing the revenue. He decided to introduce a third berth on the side; obviously he was not one who travelled much by train I assume.

The idea was put into effect from Jnauary and the extra seats were installed in a lot of trains. But the way they reorganized the numbering of the seats in the train was done in the most slip-shoddy manner. Usually numbers are put in 3 places:

a) on the side walls of the coupee indicating the sleeping berths ie. upper, middle and lower

b) same way on walls of the side berths also indicating the sleeping berths ie, upper and lower

c) just above the lowered seats indicating the order in which the people can sit.

After the 3rd side berth had been fixed in the trains, all the above 3 seat numberings were done in 3 different ways. Example a person having seat number 44 had no.44 written in marker ink in 3 totally different places. Added to this, the seat allocation in the tickets also became a big mess as the manual system of ticket booking did not match with the electronic system (tickets booked through IRCTC websites). Many seat numbers were duplicated!!!

This created a lot of confusion and havoc among the travellers and during those couple of days and even the TTC was also missing!!! (fearing for his life maybe) which just had the travellers settling in different places wherever the fellow passengers allowed. I had reason to travel a couple of times in January and it was well after midnight when finally everyone sorted out their differences and went to sleep.

Another issue which came up due to this new system was that it brought about extreme discomfort for the passesngers getting the side berths. The person on the top had to lie almost sqashed near the roof of the coach and the side seats were very uncomfortable for people who were taller than 5'9ft. Only children could be expected to lie comfortably in the side upper berths.

All these problems resulted in the entire idea being valued as a too chaotic and futile and the Railway department decided to revert back to the old system. They just simply decided not to use the middle berths. Doing that will avoid the problem of confusion but still it wont solve the problem of the stifling side upper berth. Now every TTC who comes gives the passengers a different order to sit and to avoid any more confusion the people dont stand to fight with each other. They just shift places.

The problem persisted for a couple of more weeks and by now everyone has got used to being back to the old system. But now there is a convenience for any extra people travelling in the train like RAC. They can just snuggle in one of the extra middle berths. :-)

http://www.keralatips.org/2008/08/07/indian-railways-to-offer-more-torture-adds-extra-berth/

(Here is a person who is facing the same ongoing ruckus as myself every time he travels. I have taken the photograph of the berth from this blog.)

http://www.enidhi.net/2007/12/indian-railway-goes-crazy-adds-extra.html

(A very detailed article)

http://indianrailways.informe.com/forum/retro-fitting-of-side-middle-berths-in-sl-and-3-ac-coaches-dt181.html

(The official indian railways forum with passengers baying for the blood of railway personnel!!)

e-Pope

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/03/12/holocaust.bishop.pope.benedict/index.html
Good now that The Pope has woken up and discovered that there is something called Google apart from the Vatican and Catholic Church websites!! Let's all pray that he discovers Blogger atleast in the next decade!!

And btw some one please tell The Pope that condoms were invented much after the Bible was published and so he cannot possibly quote traditional catholic teaching against its usage!!!
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/03/17/cameroon.pope/

Liquor saves the day!! Now becomes 'Gandhi-Red'.

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Well, the government didnt do anything and Mallya showed us what he was capable of doing, and now that has solved the problem of who would end up owning Gandhiji's long lost articles!!!

Now Mallya owns a part of the Mahatma; or rather thats what he wanted to do. As he doesnt have a chance to do the former, he settled to buy/ grab what he could afford to at a given moment. He has declared he wants to donate it to the Indian Government and is right now looking very smug in between all the hype and hoopla.

Maybe he wants to stick Red Kingfisher tags onto the specs.

Maybe insert special soft red colour leather wrap for it in the specs-case.

Or maybe the government offered him a special advertising space for UB group in and around the museum where the items would be kept for display in the future.

Anyway, the good news is that Gandhijis memorabilia has been bought with liquor-money, the one thing he was always opposed to second only to his abbhorance for Violence, and the government is patting itself for the 'efforts' put in.

Oh!! How far Gandhijis 'Bharat' has moved away from his ideals and dreams!!

Phone-a-loo-loo

In school a couple of my classmates used to take a method called Loo-ing- A variation of copying. The textbooks/notebooks were kept in the school loos instead of keeping tiny chits hidden all over the pace or risking keeping the book under the desk. Once the question paper has been distributed the student would then ask for a loo-break. Take a peek at all the important points and rush back to jot down everything before it is forgotten all over again. Consequently, an upset stomach is not a rare scene in an exam hall :-D

It seems the Election Commissioner Navin Chawla was also a good hand at Loo-ing at school and maybe college also. But hes special as he managed to perfect the art to be applied into his profession also!!!
http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/feb/02chawlas-loo-breaks-led-to-congress-phone-calls-cec.htm
This article would bring a smile to anyones face :-) Maybe the Congress leadership can build a new educative loo in their head quarters to further the art and training important people to specialize in it!!

Bye-Bye-Bush

As the controversial pair of shoes continue to make it to headlines all over the world, here's another piece of news :-) a person who's happy about the incident for a totally different reason!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/22/turkey-george-bush-shoe

Sock and Awe

George Bush got aimed at with a shoe only 2 days back and theres a computer game of the same doing its rounds in the web :-) Now you dont have to be Muntadar al-Zaidi to aim a shoe at Bush and the best part is the game helps you to take a better aim at him than the Iraqi Journalist. You just cant miss :-)
Her's what yahoo has to say about the game not the incident!!http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/-quot-sock-and-awe-quot-pits-players-against-president/1274922
You can download the Excel version of Sock and Awe which i got as a fwd from the below link :
http://www.4shared.com/file/76664810/f99c5f45/Shoe_Game.html

A day and half

Today maybe half the planet has got a fwd chain mail abt the sun rising for 1.5 days. Just take a
moment to look at the possibility of something like that happening??? The earth definitely hasnt
stopped rotating on its axis and same goes for revolving around the sun.... then?? Who's smart idea was this email??? Maybe a pair smarty pants who just wanted to see how fast and how widespread their emails get forwarded :-P

Just a sec before forwarding it... Have you ever given a chain mail a second thought before
forwarding it??? Just try googling the topic just as i did and u will not get a single certified
site stating abt this. Just bloggers blogging abt the very stupidity of the idea.

Ever thought about the number of times you have received the chain mail about the burned child struggling in the hospital in some god forsaken land? which is probably the oldest sob story being forwarded around.http://www.hoax-slayer.com/help-burned-child.html
Or about a picture of Jesus or Lord Ganesh who will curse you. didnt know when lord ganapathy took up broadband at his abode so tht he could just check his email and curse up ppl who didnt fwd his snap :-P And heres one from a guy who had the guts to say JESUS http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2000-121417-1715-99&tabid=2
Or about how you can earn in dollars pounds and yens by simply forwarding a message which has started from AOL or MS http://www.trendmicro.com/Vinfo/hoaxes/hoaxDetails.asp?HName=Forward+Message+and+Get+Paid+Email+Hoax
&Page=6
my last thought was....are people sooo jobless?? and i found this http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBHoaxInfo.html#risk

never mind....... god help all the forwarders!! :-P

Every cloud has a silver lining.....

Well, that seems to be what the chinese have done now... keeping in mind the chances of having unfavourable weather on the day of the opening ceremony of the olympics. They just shot up a few pellets of silver iodide into the clouds so that they rain out a few days before the olympic celebrations were due to start and don't dampen up the celebrations.


This has become one of the most controversial topics of late.... has man scientifically advanced so much so as to change the weather?? should nature's natural course be tinkered with???
Man has contributed so much to nature namely, pollution, the hole in the ozone layer, made many animals extinct, natural resource depletion, land degradation etc etc etc the list just never ends....


The Indian government can surely take a few tips from the chinese and shoot up a few silver iodide pellets and make it rain whenever there is a shortage of rain. Atleast its for a better cause than not interuppting games :-)


Maybe in time we can change the old proverb to
"every cloud has a silver IODIDE lining" :-P