A Click In Time...

.....would not result in this post.

Time: Roughly a year ago.
Occasion: Abhi visits USA.

Characters:

Tourist: Abhi
Guide: Me
Stooges: Sharma (Amit) & Pals.

The plan was to give Abbs the touristy outlook of NYC. And have Pals and Sharma repeatedly say whatever I am doing sucks! After hours of walking around we reach Times Square in the early hours of the evening. And at first Abhi gets all hyper and like a true blood tourist clicks anything which blinks. But after a while we are all bored. Which is when our eyes fall on this fantabulously beautiful girl. The dreamy kinda female. The one you could wrap up and keep with you forever. So the evil minds with nothing to do, Abhi and me decide we need to photograph Gods work of art.



Attempt No. 1



All I got was Abhi. The girl (yes, the beautiful blonde damsel in blue - hidden the bottom left corner) turned around at the right time!!

Me: "Damn! I need to get a better shot man"
Abhi: "No no, dont make it so obvious. Lets act like tourists. Here, gimme the camera and let me click the NASDAQ sign."



Touristy Snap No. 1



I dont need to descibe this snap, do I?




Attempt No. 2



This was the best snap. Till her brother decides to get in the way. Oh well, Abhi says it was her boyfriend. I like to believe it was her brother. I didnt see him stick his tongue down her throat. So its her brother! FullStop.


Since Abhi wanted to make this look as original as possible in case the NYPD decide to nab us and flip through his digital camera, we had to take....




Touristy Snap No. 2



Its Pals, making a demons face. Sharma, making a normal face. Me, thinking I have it all figured out on how to get her snap. And the NYPD car, which almost got Abbs running for cover. And, the NASDAQ sign.


And then came the last and final....




Attempt No. 3



This one was a smart move. I waited. Waited long. And then finally came the moment when the Goddess of Beauty posed for a snap for someone else. Seizing this opportunity, I took one myself (and almost got caught).

Only, the snap came out to be shaky/hazy. And she didnt end up looking the Goddess she was. Sigh!


Anyone wanna pose for my 2007 calendar?

How The Net Won Me Over (Again)

I had once pledged of staying away from the net. And was very successful at it. And as time went by, the late nights were gone. No more sitting in a leather chair staring at pixels all over the screen. It was to bed by 9 PM, up by 0430 hrs. Hit the gym, work, head back home, catch up on some reading, cooking and lights off.

Brilliant! The halo around my head was back.

Till disaster struck.

I decided to take my outdoor-si-ness and fat burning measures to a different level and decided to wash my car, inside out in the summer heat. That too without a cap. For a good 3 hours. After which for a whole week I ended up with a high body temperature (ok, I am hot, but this was different) and a splitting headache which wouldnt stop. So much that I had to take a few days off work and stay home. No TV, no internet. I was driven crazy by the end of this week.

Then today as I was home, someone knocks on my door. Its the cable guy.

He: "Are you Mr. Trinidad?"
Me: "Nope. But I think he lived here before me."
He: "Oh, so he left and didnt disconnect his cable. You have been enjoying free cable and internet for 4 months?"
Me: "Huh... you mean all this time, I had cable, no wait, FREE cable, and I didnt use it?"
He: "Well, I am here to disconnect it. But before I do, I wanna ask you if you want the connection since its already there...."

So now I am back on the WWW. There are some signs which I shouldn't ignore. Falling ill, cable guy showing up without me asking him.... God wants me to have access to the web! And He wants you guys to suffer reading my blog.

Nasty, Evil, Vindictive Apoorva

This chap I know. Irritating to the core. And the worst part, he wont know he is being irritating. To sum it up, he has got the perfect 'country bumpkin' brain and tries to show he is some 'big city' guy. In the end he looks like a Maserati running on a Kinetic Honda engine. He'll go on and on over lunch about how some nuclear explosion can create enegry to propel you to the moon in a nanosecond to how the earthquake in Japan caused no damage due to the unique structural design of their apartments. The catch here is, you just saw an episode last nite on Discovery, higlighting the same incidents. The worst part, you saw the episode with him! And dont ever think of making a logical argument with him. The conclusions he draws are on such a tangent that you forget the very purpose of the conversation. I mean, stuff like, "If Google can claim a 10% stake in AOL, Microsoft can buy out Google" makes you wonder how you can make this man listen to reason! But to everything, there is always a saving grace (if I may but call it that). His Girlfriend. She'll dominate him like Hitler. basically, shut up his ever blabbering mouth. "Pick me at 7", "Drop me at 8", "Lift my handbag", "No, you cant go for this movie without me", "No clubbing, take me to TGIF!" "You should open the car door for a lady". The list could go on. And the poor soul (I cant believe I called him that!!) complies. He will drive one hour to pick her up and drop her someplace which she can walk in 10 minutes. Slavery. Thats how I define it! I am ready to bet my lifetimes savings that if she asks him to wear a bow-tie on his private parts and walk around in public, he'll do it. He redefines the term, "Love is Blind". But have a one on one with him, and he is frustratingly irritating. So much that if its my last and only wish, I'll make him realize how irritating he can be and then kill him! No, torture him to death. Anyways, the story takes an important twist, coz his girlfriend is ready to marry him. I controlled my laughter at the thought of the guy on all fours, tongue out, on a leash, walking in the mall, controlled by his girlfriend. But one day he walked up to me and asked, "Should I marry her?"
I thought for a moment about the all fours-tongue out-leash-mall sight. I felt bad and thought I should make him see some reason. Then I saw his face. That irritating face. I thought about the earthquake resistant houses in Japan. About the nuclear explosion sending one to the moon. And I said, "Of course man, she is the best thing that could happen to you. You'll make a great pair. Dont let go of this opportunity."

So they are getting married.



When I was a kid (talk about being 7 years old), we had a weird kinda 'war' going on in Nandanvan. Ok, we had many weird things going on there, but this was the extreme. We had groups. Three groups to be precise. Call them Group X, Group Y and Group 'Umm'. Group Umm, coz there was only one person in this group, who we nicknamed Umm. These 3 groups lived together in harmony. Harmony when we were face to face. But deep down we indulged in Guerilla warcraft. You hide, and you swing mud bombs at each other. After a while it got a little cumbersome to make mud bombs and toss them on the go. So, each group met in secrecy, and made mud bombs which they hid at different locations. When you spot someone from the opposite group, you run to the closest mud bomb location and hide, waiting for him/her to turn up. And then - bombard! The funny part was, I belonged to Group X, and knew where they hid all their artillery. I also belonged to Group Y, and knew where they hid their mud bombs. After a while I also knew where Group 'Umm' hid his mud balls (no pun here). One fine day, I gathered every groups mud bombs, put them in a plastic bag and hid them in my balcony. Then I stood in my balcony and watched the confusion unfurl. And smiled.



"A hot Music Channel VJ (I wont disclose the name but she danced with Shahrukh Khan on top of a train) is coming to Shoppers Stop and You have won a chance to go shopping with her. For an hour, you shop. You shop till you drop. And she pays. Get this voucher, dress up in formals and stand outside XXX Mall when she arrives at 5 PM."
Thats what the letter read. Thats what the letter Abhi, Bakshi and myself drafted, read! Yes, Abhi and Bakshi are evil too, but that could be a topic of discussion for another post. For now, a good friend of ours, got this voucher, all printed with with a bar code and all, on glossy paper (Thanks Abhi and his ex-workplaces laser printer). The poor guy, skipped his tuitions and dressed up in a tie and stood outside XXX Mall with his entire family. Us, strategically placed, clicked photos.
And he stands there for a good hour, and returns home. Says he will contact mid-day and tell them about the scam. And we tell him..... "I think this was MTV Bakraa." So for the next 8 weeks, he does not miss a day of MTV Bakraa.
Proud to be a part of a group which plotted this.
Wanna make matters worse? I dont think he knows we were behind this. Yet.



When we play EA Sports Formula 1 online, the glitch in the multiplayer game is when a new users logs in, the screen freezes up for a few seconds. So if you are driving and a new user logs in, your screen just freezes but in the back end, your car is still moving. So after a few seconds you find yourself pretty much off track. Now Abhi, Tak and myself play (used to) this online few times. And when Tak used to be on his qualifying lap, I used to log out of the game and log back in. What did this do? It freezes up Taks screen and after a while he finds his car like a cow on grass. Abhi meantime will sit next to me and laugh, call me "Hulkaat" but not stop me! Yeah, he is evil too. But like I said before, that could be an entire post. Tak meantime will message us saying, "Damn, I think my PC is too slow!"



Once, while in school, during summer break, I created an ID of a girl with a really hot name and mailed on my university yahoogroups asking for "new admission, lodging required". I must have got some 100 personal replies (99% guys) saying they were ready to help in 'whatever' way possible. Some, even went into great detail (of stuff which only their mirror would know). As a matter of fact one of my roomies kept going, "She seems to be hot! She seems to be hot!" untill I told her it was me. Yeah, I got beaten up. But everytime some guy who had replied to her in a seductive manner walked around campus acting like a saint, it made me roll over!


The same person in Case I above has a unique knack of selectively replacing 'E's with 'A's. What do I mean by that?
Method = Mathod
Menagerie = Managarie
Viginity = Virganity (you will crack up when you hear him say this!)
So one fine day I hear his voicemail, which goes like - "Hi. This is X. I cannot take your call but if you leave your name and number I will get back to you". I convince him that this is too long a message. The message should be short, to save money. you know, the people who might call him from international locations?
So soon, we have a new voicemail.
"Hi this is X. Please leave a massage."


During my masters, I insisted on having insaurance. Some of my friends felt they were fine without it. So one day I mention to one of them. "Dude, you should have insaurance. You never know what might happen tomorrow"
Come tomorrow, 'dude' is in an ambulance on way to the hospital, undergoing various tests working up a bill of a few thousand. In the end, the conclusion was, he is passing stone, so nothing to worry about. Except the bills!

Sometimes, I am unaware of my powers.


Madame Desi was one day eating my brains over a non-issue. And then I said to her, "Shhhh... or they'll transfer you to Texas!" After a week, she was asked to leave. I swear on the Lord I had no hand in this. But I think its just the evil me!


Evil? Check.

Nasty? Check.

Vindictive? Check.

Special thanks to this one girl in Syracuse (name witheld) who made me realize these traits. When asked, "What do you think of Apoorva?", to quote her, "Oh, he is so Naystea and Vindictive!"