THE CRAPBOOK

During Diwali (thats some weeks back) ma wife and I went out to check out some Diwali offers at one of the shopping centres  in the city. This is what they call the ‘Diwali Dhamaka’.

I guess the picture says it all !!

Note : I know this post is a little late, I captured this image on ma phone weeks back and while browsing through it yesterday I thought this would be interesting enough to be the last post for this year !

Happy Newyear to all !!

Hey all

 Merry Christmas !

Happy Holidays !

I was just going through the Blog Stats section today and I am surprised to see how people land on my blog. It’s hilarious, yet questioning how the search engines direct people to the wrong site and providing them with less or no information on what they were searching for. I am not complaining though…..  (I did not get the first HIT)  Some of the items they searched were 

“security guard in trivandrum” and he got this post : Security Guards

“writing a complaint against employee” and he got directed to this post Tips In Writing a Complaint

“pureit water purifier” this is valid and he got this post. Review 1 

“complaint against auto meters in Bangalore”  and “bangalore autorickshaw complaint” Scary AutoRickshaws !

“Bangalore mirror website” he got this post  Another Post Featured in Bangalore Mirror.           

I guess its high time they start a website on their own..

“stupid American inventions” and he got this post American ‘Inventors’

“”how to take revenge”” Gosh !!!! Imagine what people are searching on google !!!! and he got this  I hate dogs from 3rd July 2007 

 I guess there are more people out there who had bad experiences with the auto rickshaws in Bangalore who reached my blog that anyone else.

 Click to enlarge !!!

You might have to read this before moving on…..

………. Yes its from the kitchen. I ran to the kitchen to find my wife screaming and there was a cockroach in sight. 

“What the ???” I thought and ran for my cellphone.

“Are you going to kill it with your cell phone” My wife asked.

“No I am going to kill that son of a ()*@(#*@() Mr Pest Control Agent” I replied.

“Help me here first” My wife shouted. 

I killed the cockroach, wrapped it in a paper for evidence and called the ‘Agent’. 

Agent “ Hello. This is Pest Control’

Me “Pest Control My foot !!!. I am calling from……………… I still got pests in here. You guaranteed that there will be no more pests”

Agent “You must be seeing a lot of cockroaches now. Am I right?”

Me “YES!” 

Agent “It must be running around. Am I right?”

Me “YES YES YES”

Agent  “There might be more number than what you initially had”

Me(losing it)  “YES!!!! WHATS YOUR POINT” 

Agent  “Sir. That’s completely normal.”

Me “What??????” 

Agent  “Let me explain to you Sir. This is an herbal treatment and in the initial 14 days there will be more trouble because it will be coming out of hiding. This will decrease gradually and there wont be no more problem” 

Me (cooling down) “Oh okay, but you never mentioned the ‘herbal treatment’ to me before”

Agent  “Sir I have mentioned it. Its there in the manual too”“

Manual???” I thought.

Me  “Oh okay Thank you” 

Click 

‘I will call you after 14 days you ()*@)@()*@)*@#” I thought.

Me (after regaining my cool and senses) : ‘But then how will the cockroaches know when its 14 days???? Anyways let’s wait for that day…………………..”

Update : read this post

After the incident of pest attack we thought of calling in the experts. The pests including cockroaches were almost invading my home. They were everywhere !!!

I called in a pest control agent to analyze the situation and to suggest plans to save us from the invasion. It took him hardly 10 minutes to walk around the house and paste a sticky substance (looked like ‘atta’ to me) all over. It’s neither visible nor smelly.

I hoped at least the cockroaches would find them. 

‘Wow that was quick’ I thought. 

“1600 Rs sir” said the agent. 

“WHAT?????”  (that’s me)

“Sir this is for one year contract. Our agents will come here every month” Mr Pest Agent.

“Oh okay”

‘I can’t believe I am paying him for sticking atta all over my house’ I thought. 

I paid him.

‘Hmmm’ (sigh)  (that’s me again) 

“Well at least we got rid of all the pests” (that’s me trying to relax)

‘I hope should be something like ‘landlord control’ ROFL’ (that’s me)   {Landlord treatment}

Two days later …………………………………….

 “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaam’ 

It’s from the kitchen….   

To be contd…..

There is a new (to me tho) TV show that I watched yesterday evening. I was tired from work and decided to watch something other than FRIENDS( I been sitting and watching FRIENDS DVD collection for one week now. NON STOP). I needed a break ! 

So tuning into Star World I got into some real fancy world. The show was titled Who wants to be a Super Hero?. And there was oversized, slim, thin, fit, people in fancy Superhero costumes. They looked more like ‘In circus’ to me. Well its not just the costumes and the funny dialogues that they kept ‘delivering’ that kept me glued to the channel, but also the ‘tasks’ they were asked to perform to prove themselves as a superhero….

One of the tasks included helping an old lady who was locked out of the house, the ‘Super Heroes’ has to find their way through the back door of the house and unlock the front door for the old lady. Seems pretty simple, not when you see two ferocious dogs in the backyard !!!

Well they put all the safety dress to go forward with the task. But then it was real scary ( I am scared of dogs or rather I hate them . Chandler Bing hate dogs too. ( I guess I am watching too much FRIENDS now).

But the way some of them finally managed to get to the door after being pulled down, bitten (they have protective coats of course but it was helping them so little to stand up and walk to the door).

Then the anchor (who only appears in a TV, like the Charlie in Charlies Angels, Yeah the difference would be that he is only on the phone/radio) gives them new costumes, eliminates one at each round and blah blah………..all that is part of a reality show.

The show is like a cartoon and to make ‘your’ or rather the contestants fantasies being a super hero come true. I call this show stupid. I guess people are running out of ideas to start reality shows

But if you really want Super Heroes like “Monkey Woman”, “Fat Momma”, “Major Victory” to save the world you should watch the show.

Official Web Site http://www.nashentertainment.com/television/superhero2/

Wikipedia Says this show was first aired in 2006, it has survived for two seasons now.

Schedule : Star World Tuesdays 2300

 Read this on American Inventor

My encounters with security guards. 

I don’t have anything against security guards, I respect them for their age and more importantly since most of them come for this job after a long time serving in the Indian army. Below are a few encounters I had with different security guards all around Kerala.  

At a Major Software company in Techno Park, Trivandrum

I wanted to see an old friend of mine at a major software company in Technopark [I am not mentioning the name of the company as this company has nothing to do with the entire incident]. I approached the reception when I heard lots of “ shoooo shooo” from different directions. Wondering from where its all coming from I turned back to see 4 security guards approaching me. I told them the reason I am there and I spelled out the name of my friend. The security at the chair asked me “Do you have her employee id”. Keeping in mind that the only employee id I know in this world is mine, I told him smiling “NO”.  “Then you cannot see her” was his prompt reply. The other security guards also echoed. 

“Can I talk to the reception” I asked politely.  

“No you cannot enter the facility” he replied.  I guess the whole idea of having a reception has been overruled with these words. If I can’t enter the facility why do they have a reception inside the facility? Or in other words, what is the reception for??  Well may be I am not good at explaining or understanding what receptions are for.  

Coming back to the story, I asked the security guard “I want to meet this person, how will I do that?”

 “I don’t know” he replied, this time firmly and a bit rude.

“Now can’t you just check the directory for that person’s extension number?” I enquired.

“No and you cannot see the person” he replied this time raising his voice.

This really pissed me off. I said

“Sir, I am working in a software company too and we do not treat people like this”.  

Believe me. He said “Well our company is different” .[ I think the CEO of this company should hear this] :)  

I said “Well I dint know you guys called your employees by their number. Give them some respect” and walked off.  

One of the securities however gave me the extension number and told me to make the call.  I met my friend later and got her phone number too. Oops but I forgot to get her employee number, maybe I should call her again to get that ! LOL.  

At my previous company  

It was one Friday morning, with plans to go home to Kottayam the same day, my brother(we both were in the same company) and I came to office with huge bags, with clothes that plead for a small ride in the washing machine. As the company has strict rules to deposit our bags at the security guards desk, we approached the chief security guard and showed him the bags.  He quickly opened the register book to issue the token. Then something struck him. He asked me.

“Where is your seat?” I said “Here” pointing to the adjacent glass door.

He turned to my brother “Yours?”

“Fourth floor” said my brother.

“You should surrender your bags only on the fourth floor security desk” said the security guard.

Taking into consideration the flooded elevators or the steep floors that he should take, carrying the bag to reach his office, he asked “Can I just keep the bag here?” and explained to him the difficulty in climbing the stairs with the bags.  

“Nope you cannot, only the employees in the ground floor are allowed to keep bags here”.  

“What is the big deal if we keep both the bags here? We both are off to the same place” I told him assertively.

“No you can’t” he repeated.  This pissed me off. No wonder my brother says I have something against all security guards, may be our relationship is like the ‘dog and the postman’ (okay I know what you guys are thinking now).  

I asked “Do you have a problem if both of these bags are mine?”

“Uhh no” he said wondering what I was up to.

“Okay then, these bags are mine” I declared. “Now you can keep it here right?” I asked sarcastically.  

You can guess what happened next. My brother climbed the stairs with one hand in his pocket and waved ‘bye’ to me.

At Cochin to meet my cousin  

This is one incident that I always think about and laugh. Once we went to visit our cousin at his office at Ernakulum. He called us up and explained the turns to take to reach the street where his office building was. We finally managed to reach the place, amidst traffic and chaos that the private busses created when they whizzed by.

We had to find the building by the name ‘Lucky Star’. Our cousin told us to enquire if we were lost.  Five minutes walk and we were.  We asked a bystander to help us out. He told us to walk further. We approached a huge building when we decided to get second opinion.  We approached the security guard at the building and asked “Do you have any idea where Lucky Star building is?”.  

“No” he said “I don’t think it’s in this street” he said confidently.  

We thanked him and started walking again. Something told me to turn back and look up. The board on top of the building which the security guard was ‘guarding’ read “Lucky Star”.  

My brother looked at me and said “No comments !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” .

Colleague 1 “Hey let’s go down for a pizza”

Colleague 2 “Nah I don’t like it anyways”

Colleague 1 “It’s free yaar. The company is paying for it”

Colleague 2 “WHAT? Heyyy wait for me….”

And here we are crowded at the pantry waiting for the pizzas. The admin assistant who is coordinating ‘the event’ said

“I am gonna take 10 minutes of your time. We have to wait 10 mins before we start”  

Amid the ‘Ooo’s , ‘oh’ and ‘noooo’s I tried my luck to get near the pizza’s.

Colleague 1 “I guess we are waiting for our VP and manager”

Colleague 2 “What???? I thought we were waiting for ketchup” and rushed to slice out a piece!

Two themes in two days. I don’t know why, I just can’t decide on one theme. I screwed it up last time. I am pretty comfortable with what I have now. What do you guys think? Please let me know I am confused !!!!