By Popular Demand

Illusionaire & Supastar, here is your back rub.
Well, you asked for it, guys!

Civil War

Something crazy is going on here. Human bloggers are at war and have drawn out their keyboards. Tempers flare, words fly all over our blogspot, we wince, we duck and we try to have the last word. I'm trying to do the same here, folks - have the last word that is - though without making a mess of Sundancer's comments page. Thoughtful, ain't I ? **wink**.

While a 'Civil War' is going on at the Marvel Universe as superheroes split on the Superheroes Registration Act, fellow bloggers and DC/Marvel comic book lovers here are split on the mutant status of our web-slinger superhero Spider-Man. I say Spidey's not a mutant and I've already presented my case here. Okay, there, I had my last word. I'm happy now. You guys can continue waging the war there.

Oh, and when you all tire of that, you can always head to the digital comic book section of the official Marvel website and join me there. I'm getting my digital dose of X-Men. Currently reading: X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong **GRIN**

Welcome to Blissville

Something just happened that calls for a celebration. So what happened, you ask. Nothing big; just something small but still big enough to get me grinning like a fool. Before I go out and do the victory dance, I think I'll just jot down my Top 10 list of things that transports me to Blissville.

BLISSBOARD TOP 10
01. Chilled beer on a hot day. Ahh... heaven

02. A long shower, especially when you’re in a crappy mood

03. Accomplishing 'Mission almost Impossible'

Mission: Download a song/album/video you always wanted to get your hands on
Problem: Crappy net connection
Status: Download Complete
Conclusion: There is a God

04. The way your salary slip feels in your hands, esp. when you’re standing just outside the gates of Brokesville

05. A gift box containing Marvel comic books on your doorstep. Sender: Unknown

06. An extremely good hair day

07. An unexpected phone call from an old friend who’s a real mood enhancer

08. A wacky joke, the kind that magically transfers the liquid contents of your mouth to the mug of the person facing you. Bonus points if you don’t really like that person but have to pretend you do

09. A wild booze and dance session at your friendly neighbourhood night club

10. Making out with a hottie and/or [preferably and] a gooood sack session.

Though not necessarily in that order.

Hey people, show some love. C'mon, share what pushes your bliss-button in the comments section, okay!

SOS ~ Part II

Ever been in a situation where you really need to express but all you can manage is a dumb look on your face? I need to churn out words, I need them to make sense, and most importantly I need to make them interesting while I’m at it.

What am I ranting about? Well, I choose not to bore you with that particular bit of uninteresting information. But this uninteresting and uninspiring thingy, which has lately become a part of my life, has had some serious side effects already on that website I’m [supposed to be] working on with my two other partners in crime!

As far as progress on that front is concerned, so far I’ve only managed to convince my partners to scrape out an entire [and incidentally the only] section we’d worked on [or rather poor KS had busted his ass off on]. As you can see, when I’m in a stupid state of mind, I can be very dangerous. After that incident, or accident if you please, things have kinda come to a standstill.

Well, it’s not absolute standstill either. Flappy intrigued me with a draft of the new site logo he’d designed, which incidentally steers clear of bongs and bottles this time, something like a week back. Then, he whetted my appetite with a glimpse of what our website’s home page might look like. After that – nothing!

The guy’s decided this is the perfect time to go green and become a vegan. Now it’s weed for breakfast, some more weed for lunch and even more weed for dinner [PETA, you’ve just found your new poster boy]. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that all that greenery helps him calm down and get creative.

As far as KS is concerned, I’m sure he’s lying dead drunk somewhere even as I write this. Or sweating his ass off in that infernal Sila heat and shopping for ‘adult’ toys.

As for yours truly, I’m bitching about my partners, hoping to cover up what-I-am-supposed-to-do-but-have-not-yet-done, scratching my head, pulling my hair out and staring at the blank document on my PC screen like a lovelorn puppy for some inspiration. And in response, my head-disk only says “Error 404: Not Found”.

At this rate, I guess our site will be hopefully up by another decade or so. I’ll update you as soon as the site is running, so keep watching this space. Who knows, ten years from now, when people look at you like you’re some curious relic when you enter a discotheque/ pub, you may just feel browsing a doped out website is way more fun than staying home and doing nothing!

Okay, I was just kidding.

Or may be I wasn’t …

The Mockingbird Croaks

Was it today morning I wrote here I won’t be seen here for a while? Well, let me eat my words. Needed a break from work, checked my inbox and found this list of anagrams:

· Dormitory - Dirty Room
· Desperation - A Rope Ends It
· The Morse Code - Here Come Dots
· Slot Machines - Cash Lost in 'em
· Animosity - Is No Amity
· Mother-in-law - Woman Hitler
· Snooze Alarms - Alas! No More Z's
· Alec Guinness - Genuine Class
· Semolina - Is No Meal
· A Decimal Point - I'm a Dot in Place
· The Earthquakes - That Queer Shake
· Eleven plus two - Twelve plus one
· Contradiction - Accord not in it
· The Public Art Galleries - Large Picture Halls, I Bet
· Astronomer - Moon Starer

This one's amazing:

[From Hamlet by Shakespeare] To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

becomes:

In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.

And the grand finale: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." - Neil A. Armstrong

becomes:

A thin man ran; makes a large stride; left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!

The Mockingbird Chokes

This post is probably one of the few songs this mockingbird is going to sing in the next few months' time. That’s because this mockingbird has bitten off more than she can chew by taking up two content development projects simultaneously, both of which are marked ‘high priority’!

So I might disappear for days on end or I might just drop in, rant, grumble and make absolutely no sense – I was never known for exhibiting grace under pressure anyway. Oh, how I’ll miss my leisurely blogging days here. Am I already going through withdrawals? *wink*

But like ol' Arnie once said: I'll be back!

Types of Men in Rest Rooms

This one had my sides in splits. Go on, read it and tell me which one are you?

Excitable Type: Pants are twisted, cannot find hole, rips pants in anger.

Sociable Type: Joins pals for a pee whether he wants one or not.

Timid Type: Cannot pee if anyone is watching, pretends he had peed and sneaks back later.

Noisy Type: Whistles loudly. Peeps over partition to have a look at the other fellow’s tool.

Indifferent Type: All urinals being occupied, uses sink.

Clever Type: Pees without holding tool, shows off by adjusting tie at the same time.

Vain Type: Undoes 5 buttons to take out tool when 2 would have done.

Absent Minded Type: Opens jacket, takes out his tie and pees in his pants.

Worried Type: Not quite sure what he has been up to lately, makes a furtive but close inspection of his tool while peeing.

Disgruntled Type: Stands for a while, grunts, farts, tries to pee, fails, farts and walks away.

Sneaky Type: Drops silent fart while peeing, sniffs and looks at the bloke next to him.

Sloppy Type: Pees down into his shoe, walks out with his zip open and adjusts his balls 10 minutes later.

Learned Type: Reads a book or newspaper while peeing.

Childish Type: Looks at the bottom of the urinal to watch bubbles while peeing.

Strong Type: Bangs tool in the side of the urinal to knock the drops off.

Drunken Type: Pulls out his tool, sees two, puts one back and pees in his trousers.

Embarrassed Type: Covers his tool with both hands as he stands there and pees through his fingers.

An Insomniac’s Rant

There are things that keep me awake at night – work and good books/movies. And sometimes it’s just plain raging anger that makes me somewhat insomniac. What angers me? The list is quite long but it would suffice to say here that invasion of my privacy features pretty high up on that list.

Last night, someone did just that; someone barged into my personal space without my knowledge. What pains me more is the person in question is an old dear friend who should have known better than to try and pull off such stunt.

I respect the relationships I share with all my friends; I respect their privacy, their secrets. And I expect the same in return. Last night, a friend violated that trust. I’m angry. And I need to vent out, get this anger out of my system, get my bearings together, calm down and concentrate on my work.

But it’s easier said than done. My concentration power has taken a hike; I’ve been reading the same page for the last two hours. As far as venting out is concerned, shouting at or fighting with this friend is not an option simply because I know such outbursts will not make the situation any better. I thought I’d rant and bitch on this blog. But try as I might I can’t really bitch about this friend; it just doesn’t feel right. Well, because I guess a friend is a friend is a friend after all.

So what do I do? Maybe I’ll just sulk around for a while.

Ponderings for Idle Moments

Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to have an "s" in it?

Since light travels faster than sound, isn't that why some people appear bright until you hear them speak?

How come abbreviated is such a long word?

If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?

Since Americans throw rice at weddings, do Asians throw hamburgers?

Why are they called apartments, when they're all stuck together?

Why do banks charge you a "non-sufficient funds fee" on money they already know you don't have?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, do the other trees make fun of it?

When two airplanes almost collide why do they call it a near miss?? It sounds like a near hit to me!!

Do fish get cramps after eating?

I got it at Arcamax

SOS

I don’t exactly remember how I got myself into this. On second thoughts, I think I do. It was a phone call, and a few text messages, that changed my life.

Here was I on a sabbatical, living a hermit-like life, leading a lifestyle that would do Garfield proud, even envious, and suddenly now I’m in a Yahoo conference room with a couple of crazy people – the ones known as Flappy and KS[!] – who threaten to change all that. They say ‘we’ are going to build and host this cool website. And somehow I also happen to be in the team, or that’s what they tell me!

First they tell me, I’ll be handling the editor’s job. Then they tell me I gotta do the reporter’s job too. I wouldn’t be too surprised now if they told me I have to make them coffee, sweep the floor and take out trash too.

Well, after I took a vacation from the real world where the phrase ‘Monday mornings’ doesn’t just mean the morning of the second day of the week, I was sure that my days would start not earlier than 1 PM, that I’d redefine laziness and take ‘bumming around’ to newer heights. That, incidentally my friends, was a sweet but short-lived dream. And I was woken up from this dream, that too rather unceremoniously, by the beep of an incoming text message on my phone three days back.

Get online, it read.

After the preliminary Hi-s and What’s up-s, the three of us are in a conference room for our first threesome [*wink*]. Oh yeah, we are at it for long hours. Yesterday, the chat session lasted for seven hours straight. Among the three of us, KS is more serious and dedicated, about chatting that is, and is usually the first to get online. And he doesn’t even take pee breaks – or rather he is not allowed to. Sample this conversation:

KS: Brb. Nature calls
Flappy: No such calls. Stay put and hold it

As you can see, Flappy is quite the dictator.

But these long sessions are more chaos than brainstorming. In fact, we are about to give brainstorming a whole new definition soon. Our brainstorming sessions are less exchange of ideas and more violent raging of storms inside our brains that threaten to wipe out every single trace of grey cells left within.

One minute, we are deciding on a name for a particular section of a particular page and the next, the guys are on about whipped cream, handcuffs and furs. Another censored sample:

Flappy: Should we have a section on tips and tricks? For example, on better sexual performance…
KS: Shut up. You are in no position to contribute to that section
Flappy: How about ‘How to roll a joint blindfolded’?
KS: Yea, maybe that…
Flappy: C’mon boy, you can do it. You’re at the height of it.
KS: Height of what?
Flappy: Horniness
KS: Yea, well, I wrote Kamasutra-II
Flappy: Ha ha… [my name here] is working on III at the moment
KS: What III? Is that our editorial?
Flappy: LOL. Kamasutra-III!
KS: That! Man, I can write that along with diagrams
Me: I think we should rename our site ‘Horny’s Nest’
Flappy: LOL
KS: LOL

After three days of yahoo conferencing, brainstorming and many useless jokes later, I’m convinced I was flung into this madness by a higher power who wants to make me pay for my bad karma. Is it a coincidence then that the website address includes the word ‘karma’ in it!