Remember Remember the Month of November

November, a month to remember and a month which did a bit of emotional atyachar. The 1st day of the month was when I graduated. The gowns, the hoods and finally a comfortable suit made it a bright day even though it started raining later on. Bar hopping on that night with a special guest from out of town turned out better than expected. I finally needed something to soak up the booze and while I was busy hogging, some people just couldn't keep their Guinness down and the pavements were painted black. I'm a huge fan of beer, even carry a beer belly to support my claim. I had tried Guinness long back and its one of the worst beers I've ever had and it served lover boy right for downing it and actually pretending to like it.

It was time for some 'V for Vendetta' on the 5th. Coincidentally, it was Diwali back home on the same day. The fireworks were truly fabulous and it was nice to see the kids on the street trying to scare people with their rockets. Reminded me of the time when I used to light rockets in my hand and also when I had once managed to T-off a canoodling couple in the corner of a park with a rocket.

After a truly memorable and fun filled week, it had already turned 7th. This meant that I had to say goodbye yet again, only this time I knew that it would be a million times harder than the last time. No surprises at the airport this time, and definitely no filmy scenes. Just the one time I wished it was true and to come home to see a totally unexpected surprise. Naaaah. Life is too cruel and these things just wont happen. I came back home to see a letter on my lappy which proved to be just too much for me to handle. It was lunch time and thank you Big Mac, you beefed up the rest of my day :-)

I've probably met the most interesting and insanely inspiring people this November. While I started blogging for a blogzine, I also had too much time on my hand. Came up with so many new dishes using almost the same recipe and all of them turned out to be del.ic.ous. Might well start a new blog dedicated to my culinary skills.  

It was 'happy birthday' time once again and I wasn't happy about it, not because it wasn't mine but it was the birthday that I missed the most. I personally had felt very bad for not making it a special day last time and did a lot of things this time just to see a smile on that face. Yet again, no filmy scenes and no surprises for me but there were quite a few from my side.

Off late, I've started to attend a lot of interviews. In one of the interviews, I found myself chatting with lookalikes of Charles Darwin and Justin Timberlake. I've actually started enjoying it as there are too many dishes on the table to eat. I still remember the time  when I wasn't considered even for a cleaner's job and few months later I found myself juggling with 3 jobs (actually 4) and had to decline one of them. Ha ha , screw you fellas. Still things aren't as glamorous as they appear to be but I surely hadn't expected anything like this when I was writing Pilot .

As if the weather was not already bad, just to make it even worse, the sky has started emitting dandruff flakes. Snow in November is very rare and the DST actually seems like the clock has been turned ahead by one month. It is expected to go down to -20°C in some parts of the country this week BBC weather report. Just the time when one can literally experience the phrase "freezing your ass off". Facebook was bombarded with "I love snow" statuses a couple of days back and I'm sure all of them would like to take their statuses back after having to walk around in 10 inch snow.

Nevertheless, this month has been a hot cookie to handle inspite of this cold weather. My moustache has also started to become thick as mentioned in November and Movember and guess I'm shooing away all the female species. Not that I enticed any in the first place, but even the dogs seem to run away after seeing me. 

Have a great November. See you in December.

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November and Movember

The winter has started to set in and the use of heaters look imminent. Even though everyone is just getting warmed up to the cold winter, tap water has become the biggest nemesis. As a result of washing my hands or dishes in this water, my hands literally stay stone cold throughout the day. 


Gone are those days when I could use my pick up line "Hi, How are you? Beware of my irresistibly warm hands". Then again, I was never good at this and always managed to dodge all the projectiles thrown at me in return for those kind of lines. I'm more like a Ross from Friends when it comes to pick up lines or starting conversations but would rather induce a Chandler like humor rather than Dinosaurs.

Its that time of the year when the day light saving really starts to sink in to your senses.  You start to wonder if the daylight is actually being saved or spent mercilessly. November is also the time when there are more leaves on the sidewalk than on the trees. The trees look like they are suffering from a receding hairline problem or male pattern baldness. January is probably the worst here when it gets dark by noon on gloomy days. Guess I have to blame my birthday for it. Boo hoo.

I love the winter for its foggy nights and fresh snowfall which gives me a reason to down a couple of extra drinks. But its quite depressing when 17:00 feels like 21:00 and the melting snow tests your figure skating skills. Not to mention the North winds blowing at 70mph which mercilessly torture your face. I vaguely mentioned this in 365 days of life on an island - part 1 .

I still remember last winter when I had lost sensation in my toes and the temperature went down to as low as -13°C in Glasgow. Felt like the winter was never going to end. In spite of such inhuman conditions, I've seen the girls here walking around in the skimpiest of the clothes. Not that I'm complaining but it just makes you wonder whether they are really from Venus. 


Gone are those days when men used to walk bare chested to strut their manliness in front of women clad in figure hugging dresses. The roles seem to have just reversed nowadays. The sight of guys parading in their skinny jeans and brushing the hair off from their faces is as disgusting as rubbing your face in faeces. Whatever happened to hairy men with unshaven faces and protruding paunches. Guess, I'm doing my bit to save the old generation. 

Its time for me to make some coffee, oh wait....think making it Irish will not only enhance the taste of coffee but also does justice to the weather. Well, the chill outside gives you more than a reason to keep yourself warm inside.    


P.S  - Thinking of growing a moustache to show my support for Movember in both November and December.

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The God, The Religion and The Ugly

The much awaited sequel to Godz-illa is finally here. For starters, I was cursed for writing such a long post and I can probably expect them to kick off again after this one. So where do I start from?Hmmm. Let me go back in time and begin with the chronological order of events. As requested, I'm going to start with 'The Big Bang Theory'. Before I move on, if you haven't watched this" Sheldon at his best ", then you are surely missing out on one of the most awfully obnoxious yet insanely funny on screen characters ever created.

Just had a chat with Stephen Hawking and that dude too is not sure how it all began. Even though I have read so many theories about how life began on earth and other theories on evolution, its probably safe to say that the truth may have been a combination of all those theories and all might have been right in their own way. The only reason we haven't been able to zero in on that one particular theory is because of the ego clashes between the brain damaged, bald (some very hairy) and erectile dis-functioned geniuses. While Newton had gone Apples over his theory, and Archimedes had turned into a streaker and Einstein was trying to relate his theory of relativity and stamp his authority on E=MC², none of them would have compromised on their theories. Lets face it, we are still trying to figure out what the hell is this light. Some say its a particle, some say its a wave and some say its the God trying to work like a torch. As far as the plants are concerned, they are just happy having  it for breakfast everyday.

If God has actually created all the living organisms on the earth, then why isn't anyone questioning the fact as to who created God? Assuming that it is true, has anyone wondered how Gods actually live in heaven. Frankly speaking, none of the stories in any of the religions talk about interaction with Gods of other religion. So I'm assuming that they live in separate countries like we do with a specific country alloted to a specific religion. I'm also assuming the fact that the Gods are not issued Passports or Visas to other countries as that would have them giving guest appearances in fables of other religions, which till now has been unheard of. The funny thing is we haven't heard any true stories of religion in the recent times. It stopped with Ramayan and Mahabharata for some and with the resurrection for others while some still believe that blowing up a country will give them a business class ticket to their god. If people put at least 10% of these efforts in impressing their partners and family instead of the intangible God, then their lives would become a living heaven naturally. Simple yet still people manage to complicate it and make their lives a living hell not only for themselves but also to the people around them.

Coming back to the topic, are all the people under a certain religion mapped to a single God? All my C/C++ coding friends out there could help me here figuring out the kinds of data structures that can be used :). Either ways, we have devised our own ways of converting to these religions. Growing of beard or wearing of an infamous cross belt combined with a change in place of worship will help you earn that coveted membership for one particular brand, oops sorry God. If thats the case then what happens to the stories and the belief that you had in your previous God? Do they get nullified as a result of shifting to another brand, oops sorry again God? All these can actually be related to the kind of brand loyalty that we see nowadays. Apple users curse Microsoft and vice versa and fanatics on both sides have found their Gods in Jobs and Gates respectively.

If you look at the concept of religion logically, it was just created to keep the mankind in check and to create a sense of division in the society. When man could not find reasoning for anything that happened on earth, he gave the credit to God. At one point, eclipses were thought of God's way of saying that he was throwing a temper tantrum as a result of not having regular bowel movements. At the end of the day, one has to accept the fact that it is we humans who are better evolved and we are intelligent enough to make our own future. We definitely don't need any soothsayers or god-men to guide us. It's actually disgusting to see people believing anyone who says he/she is a messenger of God. Have a look at this video "Baba's chicanery "which clearly shows how the god-man SaiBaba tricked millions of people. The truth is, he is gay and found extreme pleasure in cross dressing even from his childhood. Do your research and you'll find videos of that too. If not for the technology, a deception like this would not have come out and people would be still blind under the smoke of devotion. I can only imagine how people in the olden days could have been easily tricked in a similar way by glorified magicians and illusionists and people would have believed anything in the name of God. Incidents like these act as a catalyst in promoting a particular God and provide a lot of word of mouth advertising and viral marketing to any religion.

At the end of the day, we have to accept the fact that no God is going to prevent you from having a black out as a result of binge drinking or help you in cheating on your partner or save you from dying in an accident. We have the ability to make sensible decisions and our actions dictate our future. Use your brains in taking decisions instead of staring into a crystal ball or rolling a die. This way, at least you'll grow a pair in blaming yourself for any failures and not find comfort near a fluffy bunny by saying its the God's will. 

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Oh my tweety

"A little birdie told me". This line has been used over ages by gossip mongers and also as a conversation starter by many women in order dig into some intricate details about their friends. I have always wondered the origin of that phrase and couldn't get my head around birds actually spying into our private lives, filtering out the swill and flapping its wings around only the spiciest topics. It might be a grave coincidence that the phrase suits the current state of affairs better than ever. The little birdie of Twitter has suddenly become an integral part of our lives. People tell this birdie everything from taking a dump to planning a surprise proposal for their girlfriends/boyfriends. So for the first time in history, a bird has taken control over mankind and what looks more like a humming bird looks more powerful than a falcon or a vulture.

I personally couldn't understand the fun in changing status messages and posting updates of 140 characters. But like many things in life, Twitter has become an acquired taste and I have started to experience the power of tweeting. With more and more companies devoting a lot of resources into looking after the social media end of their business, effective use of twitter can not only serve as a channel in resolving customer related issues but can also boost their PR activities. I recently experienced a similar situation when my Virgin Media broadband went for a toss and the call centres were not responding and a simple tweet directed towards them attracted all the necessary attention prefixed with apologies. Twitter has also provided the celebs their own personal space amidst the soul sucking paparazzi. I have started following a few of them and have realized how dumb so many are in real life. If not for their celebrity status many of them would have probably had to resort to the 'girlfriend experience' rather than a girlfriend. 

I was very impressed with videos featuring @BarackObama in which he talks about thinking twice before posting anything. Very soon we might see safe social media classes replacing safe sex classes in schools. I also stumbled upon a software from Webroot which prevents users from logging into their social networking accounts when they are drunk. How cool is that? For more information on it, check this out http://tinyurl.com/2bcf9jh . I would like to sincerely warn everyone about the power of social media and in this case, twitter. Once tweeted, can only be retweeted and not untweeted. So, tweeting that you had a crazy rave party and woke up with an unknown guy might make you popular and increase the number of followers but the same can bite you in your crack when your clients end up cancelling a contract as a result of it. As this post was entirely dedicated to the overzealous birdie, I have decided to add a tweet button to all of my posts. 

I can also be followed @VikasGowda20.

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