Friday, March 31, 2006

Why Stop At Fools? What About An All Smart-Ass Day?

April Fool's Day is here. In my 18 years of wasted existence, this day hasn't been anything more than an excuse to spike someone's coffee, or other stuff like that. But this year, just for the heck of it, I thought I'd browse around the net and check how this Day came on to be celebrated.

I did that, but it was tremendously boring stuff. So I stopped and I won't talk about it. You don't want to know. It ruins the whole spirit of the thing. But, as I was surfing around, I did pick up really cool and interesting titbits of information.

For example, did you know Mexicans celebrate All Fools' Day on December 28? For what reason I don't know, but it couldn't be a very smart reason that puts them off by 8 months.

In other international news, the French call April 1st Poisson d'Avril, or "April Fish". The French don't seem much brighter than the Mexicans do they? French children sometimes tape a picture of a fish on the back of their schoolmates, crying "Poisson d'Avril" when the prank is discovered. I personally think there's a lot to be said for just shouting "April Fool!!" really loudly. Its practical, to the point and everyone can pronounce it too.

Anyway, on my quest for April Fool's Day knowledge around the Net, I did see one useful page. The one useful page is about the Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes Of All Time. Its absolutely hilarious. The things people come up with. Everyone should see this awesome list I think. Check it out and tell me what you think...

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Do you, flop singer-turned-druggy, take this drunk, loser backup-dancer....?

Do people seriously give a damn about who marries who in Hollywood? Looking through the papers, inevitably every other day there is news about some actress (or she-actor or whatever they wanna call themselves) who has recently been sighted at an island off the coast of Peru with her new boyfriend, also usually an actor, making wild love or walking hand in hand or eating pie or something.

Hollywood is an incredibly huge industry. It not only provides insane amounts of money for the
creature comforts of actors and actresses and directors and of course their pet dogs and kittens, but also keeps alive several thousands of people whose livelihood is based entirely on what the above people do. Or not do. Paris Hilton has potloads of money for being born in the right hotel, and has eaten so little since, that the clothes just fall off her. Tom Cruise's parents never punished him for jumping on the living-room sofa. And look what happened. Angeline Jolie is shuttling around the world picking up children like its Michael Jackson's business. Tara Reid last year went and...never mind.

There are SO MANY people who basically feed off celebrities. Ok, most of this is based on what I've seen on TV, but even thats more than enough to explain that Hollywood is basically, off its rocker. Paparazzi have nothing to do, but buy shiny motorcycles and flashy cameras to chase the celebs. So, if you are genuinely interested, you can catch "exclusive" snaps of Britney Spears (NO MAKEUP!! SHE'S A HAG!!) taking a walk in her garden, or see Ben Affleck (SHIRTLESS SHIRTLESS!!) take out the trash. There are snaps and captures of everyone, literally everyone, who's anyone on the Hollywood brigade. And this is just the paparazzi who only click the pictures.

You have the most ridiculous gossip columnists! People, even now, actually bother to speculate on Jennifer "Blink & She's Divorced" Lopez's recent marriage and whether it will last! I remember J.Lo giving an interview to Reader's Digest and it was absolutely hilarious. I can't quote it word for word, but she said things like - I'm a family girl. I believe in true love. I don't like to rush into things. I wasn't brought up that way - when she was already through her 3rd marriage in like 4 years.

Were they wearing Versace, Agent Provocateur or just a baseball cap again? How many poeple got drunk? Is the honeymoon in the Bahamas, the Mediterranean or will the backseat of the limo do?

People want to see exclusive snaps and insider reports of celeb weddings too. The couple earns hundreds of thousands of dollars selling their wedding snaps to the highest bidding magazine. Then, two months into the marriage, they complain about their lack of bloody privacy. God knows which actress recently gave birth. But she sold exclusive snaps of her new-born to some bullshit magazine which thinks its done a great deal on them. I believe she was even negotiating the price of the snaps while she was pregnant. You can almost picture them rubbing their belly and smacking their lips, first time they learn they're pregnant.

Anyway, the point is not what these mentally blacked-out people do. The thing is, people actually seem to want to know these quicksilver affairs. They want to see shows where "Relationship Analysts" (what an awesome way to make a living!?!) come on to analyze recent pics and press interviews of couples and predict whether they're in love or not. Isnt that kinda easy? You know pretty well, its only a matter of time before they get divorced. Marriages seem more like contracts of living together for so many months, planning to build a home in some suburban ditch, thinking up names of children on Oprah, and then separating once no one is clicking pictures anymore.

I now join you in holy matrimony...blah blah blah...till Death, or Angelina Jolie, do us apart. Amen.


Thursday, March 23, 2006

In Need Of An Idol

I seriously wonder what good Indian Idol is. I thought it was about having a complete stage-performing superstar. But in the course of its 2 seasons, it has completely degenerated into...well, crap. So atleast its biodegradable. Anyway, it doesnt make sense to me the parameters on which the idol-wannabes are judged. They can sing some of them, but not one of them is capable of doing anything more.

They come for their performances all decked up in all kinds of fancy dress, acting like they're going to set the stage on fire, like they've been doing this all their lives. Then, they start singing. And thats about all they do. They stand their stock-still and clutching the mic with both hands tightly, just sing. I haven't seen a single one who could do anything else besides really really good Statue of Liberty imitations.

The first season produced Abhijeet Sawant, chosen for what they termed his 'golden smile'...and he could sing a bit too. Except that now he looks like he's spent a year in the jungle with nothing but his shaving kit and a 100kg pack of Colgate Extra-White. And he hasnt really sung anything I've heard either.

This time on, the only idol-material contestant was Amey Date. He could sing pretty well, as well as prance around on stage at the same time. He didn't get votes unfortunately. So he had to go, in what was probably the most exaggerated exit of any person on any show on any tv channel!

That leaves three guys, just like last season. Except that I think this bunch is just as incapable of anything as the three guys in the 1st batch. Everyone seems to have one singular method/formula to capture votes -- look like a sweet next-door guy, smile at everything thats said, and blush like crazy. They keep chirping about how they've learnt so much and how grateful they are to the judges, to the audience, to the this, to the that...yawn! Each one says the same thing.

I dont care which one of them becomes Indian Idol. He's only going to be like a puppet in Sony TV hands until the one year contract runs out. A little bit of publicity about the small-town kid who is now dressed in suits and uses imported makeup. After that, you're going to see him running from city to city bawling in Dandiya nights or doing devotional gigs on Aastha Channel.

Wat say??

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

The Great Indian Soap Opera - Cricket

Cricket in India, the way it is conducted, administered, watched and even played, is stranger than any other sport in any other country. If you just look at the amount of coverage it is given in the newspapers, the hours and hours of critical analysis every single day's play is given on ALL the sports and news channels on television, you would suppose that India was probably the greatest cricketing nation in the world. That's what the strange part really is.

We have probably the most unpredictable team in the world...in any sport! There is not a single cricket team right now that has on paper a stronger batting line-up. One after another we have the classiest and most awesome batsmen coming up to bat. But still, we manage to disgrace ourselves in absolutely unimaginable ways. After winning the 2nd test so nicely, today suddenly after lunch, wickets are falling right, left and center like it's nobody's business.

Sachin "The Little Master" Tendulkar gets out to the most ridiculous of shots. I fully support the Mumbai crowd's decision in booing him off the field. And then you have all the past players raising a hue and cry over this "shameful" behaviour on the crowd's part. I mean, what were they supposed to do - cheer him for having come out and faced 20 balls to make 1 bloody run??? Thank you Sachin sir, our greatest batsman, for letting us have a glimpse of you??

Then of course the crowd wouldn't stop having fun just because the Indian team wanted to play good hosts to the England team and give them all the wickets they wanted. There were long-lasting jeers hurled at the English players. Fielders in the outfield, such as Andrew Flintoff, were abused and their "parentage questioned" as the papers here put it. I frankly think it's about time someone made these guys feel a bit uncomfortable.

The crowd has complete right to intimidate these guys. If the Indian team won't do it themselves, then...well someone has to keep up the sledging tradition. But again, you have commentators and columnists crying about how the crowds are misbehaving and ruining the "spirit" of the game. Now that's just stupid.

Our team earns such an insane amount of money! There are endorsements from Reebok and Adidas right upto Chyawanprash and Boost (the secret of god knows what energy and where they use it). I think the Indian crowds deserve better performances from them. If they are happily accepting awards and sponsorship deals when they are in form, why shouldn't our cricketers also have to take the disappointment of the people they play for?

Do these guys just forget, in all the fun they apparently have in huddles and 'pro-active training' and sleep-overs and whatever else not, that they're actually playing for a country full of people who have usually have no more joy in their average day than seeing Dhoni hit a six or Sachin reach another half-century?

Cricket is the only sport in which you have players having amazingly long bad patches and still carrying on in the team. This does not happen with football or athletics or hockey. All this does not happen even with any other cricket team. The Australians do not have any problems with sending Glenn McGrath or Brett Lee or even Matthew Hayden home, if he does not score the way they ask him to.

How long is all this going to carry on? Why can't we ever have really really good performances runs, instead of just winning sometimes by accident?

On Hi5, Isnt It Your Pic You're Supposed To Display??

One thing I dont get about so many of the people who use hi5. Hi5, for the uninitiated, is a website that allows a user to upload snaps of himself, fill in a detailed profile and maintain a list of friends or contacts. You can stay in touch with them this way, by keeping a journal on your daily doings etc or sending messages across the hi5 server.

I joined hi5 with the typical enthusiasm of any teenager looking to break free (from the comfort of my bedroom) and meet exciting wonderful people from around the world (who also spend most of their time in front of the computer, so that's one thing we share). But it doesnt take much time for this enthusiasm to transmutate into irritation and finally annoyance that so many people are just acting plain stupid with their profiles and most of all with their display pictures.

You get an entire gallery in which you can collate all the pictures of yourself right from yourself shaking hands with the Pope to feeding your kitten - pictures that you dont mind being viewed by possibly every geek in the world atleast. It's paradise for all the narcissistic people that have come up since Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen dropped pearly tears on their Miss This and Miss That crowns bak in 1994. But then there is hi5. Why why why does someone have to put up some celebrity's pic as THEIR display pic????? I mean, whats wrong with your own bloody pic???

'Your display pic' means PIC OF YOU!! Isnt the whole point of a site like this to meet new people and make new friends?? So, how do these kind of people expect to make friends if they're so afraid of even being SEEN as themselves.

How do these twisted minds work---

"hi everybody! i want to make gr8 new friends here from all over the world, since im a very different and unique person who cn adjust wid ne1 blah blah blah blah blah blah....oh and btw, i wud like to show u my VERY OWN snap of this awesomely hot actress, so dat u know jst hw gr8 a guy i am!! isnt dat realli realli cool and smart of me?? im so sorry dat i cant let u see me as i am...im reali reali ugly...ban ban a caliban....dats one f the reasons i dnt hav frens rite now...so here, look at this pic of john abraham half-naked above my name and maybe we can be best friends!!!!!!!!!"

I dont want to demean anyone who is crazily in love with John Abraham's chest hair or something (actually I do, but I shoudn't say that out straight) but arent there any limits? I'm not saying that you should all be pretty and photogenic. Everyone cannot be miss universe - as it is there's only one every year and some people dont like to pose in a bikini so no problem - but I go on hi5 to 'meet' ppl and make friends (and I have succeeded to some extent too), and I can stay in touch with all my distant friends too. I think they have the right to know exactly how human I look.

Basically, I'd jst like to ask all the people currently hiding behind Aishwarya Rai's eyes, David Beckham's hairdos or Carmen Electra's neva-mind-wats, to go ahead and buy themselves some common sense. Click a few snaps or atleast upload an actual picture of yourself that you havent burnt down in shame yet.

Very Important Note: I am not trying to endorse this website or anything stupid like that at all. Just making a point about the amazing Neanderthal-ness of so many of the users.

The Best Chain Mail Ever!!

See, mostly all of us get these stupid chain mails that try and make you feel guilty about Nigerian blind kids or poor American girls with leucemia of the fingers or whatever...and how by forwarding the mail we can send 2 and a 1/2 cents to the parents who are eagerly counting them up to make half a million dollars.

Some time back though, I got this absolutely awesomely hilariously uproariously...i could go on, but I'll stop...funny chain mail. I don't know who has composed it, but it basically takes all these other trashy guilt-ridden chain-mails, spanks them and sends them crying home to their mommies.


Here it is, I haven't changed it one bit and I hope all of you will also forward it to all your friends.


"FINALLY A CHAIN LETTER WORTH FORWARDING! >> >>>>>

Hello, my name is Basmati Kasaar. I am suffering from rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, extreme virginity, fear of being kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not forwardingout 50 billion fucking chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, then that poor f****** 6 year old girl in Arkansas with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her off to the traveling freak show.

Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send this email to $1000? How stupid are you? Ooooh, looky here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by every Playboy Bunny in the magazine! What a bunch o f f****** bullshit. So basically, this message is a big F*** YOU to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards.

Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my apartment and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by Ceaser in 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity. F*** them!If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly f****** amusing. I've seen all the 'send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a Nickel from some omniscient being forwards about 90 times. I don't fucking care. Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out forwards. Chances are it's your own unpopularity.

THE FOUR BASIC TYPES OF CHAIN LETTERS:


Chain Letter Type 1:

(scroll down)

Make a wish!!!

Keep Scrolling

No, really, go on and make one!!!

Oh please, they'll never go out with you!!! Wish something else!!!

Not that, you pervert!!

STOP!!!!

Wasn't that fun? :)

Hope you made a great wish :)

Now, to make you feel guilty, here's what I'll do. First of all, if you don't send this to 5096 people in the next 5 seconds, you will be raped by a mad goat and thrown off a high building into a pile of manure. It's true! Because, THIS letter isn't like those fake ones, THIS one is TRUE!! Really!!! Here's how it goes:

Send this to 1 person: One person will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.

Send this to 2-5 people: 2-5 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.

Send this to 5-10 people: 5-10 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter, and may form a plot on your life.

Send this to 10-20 people: 10-20 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter and will napalm your house.

Thanks!!!! Good Luck!!!

Chain Letter Type 2:

Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no parents, and no goats. This little boy's life could be saved, because for every time you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little Starving Legless Armless Goatless Boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund. Oh, and remember, we have absolutely no way of counting the emails sent and this is all a complete load of bullshit. So go on, reach out. Send this to 5 people in the next 47 seconds. Oh, and a reminder - if you accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people, you will die instantly.Thanks again!!

Chain Letter Type 3:

Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897.This is absolutely incredible because there was no email then and probably not as many sad pricks with nothing better to do.So this is how it works...Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible will happen to you like:

Bizarre Horror Story #1>>>>Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a crack in the sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty, she died. This Could Happen To You!!!

Bizarre Horror Story #2>>>>Dexter Bip, a 13 year old boy, got a chain letter in his mail and ignored it. Later that day, he was hit by a car and so was his boyfriend (hey, some people swing that way). They both died and went to hell and were cursed to eat adorable kittens every day for eternity. This Could Happen To You Too!!!

Remember, you could end up just like Pinsley and Bip. Just send this letter to all of your loser friends, and everything will be okay.

Chain Letter Type 4:As if you care, here is a poem that I wrote.Send it to all your friends.

FRIENDS:A friend is someone who is always at your side. A friend is someone who likes you even though you're as ugly as a hat full of assholes. A friend is someone who cleans up for you after you've soiled yourself. A friend is someone who stays with you all night while you cry about your sad, sad life. A friend is someone who pretends they like you when they really think you should be raped by mad goats, then thrown to vicious dogs. A friend is someone who scrubs your toilet, vacuums and then gets the check and leaves and doesn't speak much English...no, sorry that's the cleaning lady. A friend is NOT someone who sends you chain letters because he wants his wish of being rich to come true. Now pass this on! If you don't, you'll never have sex ever again!

The point being? If you get some chain letter that's threatening toleave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's really funny, send it on. Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth, who's been tied to a dead elephant for 27 years, whose only savior is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this mail, otherwise you'll end up like Miranda. Right?