eLeCtRiKbLuEs

i realized recently that i have quite a large bald spot growing on the top of my head.

in all actuality, i hadn’t realized it at all. my father was the first one to notice, and he nearly had a heart attack. upon noticing, he quickly arrived at several wide-ranging conclusions to account for the recent loss of hair:

a. i must be doing drugs
b. i must be low on vitamins
c. i must be having a lot of sex
d. i must not be eating right
e. i must not be getting enough rest
f. i must quit my job immediately
g. etc. etc. etc.

now, the amazing thing about these conclusions is neither the fact that most of them have little or nothing to do with hair loss, nor the fact that none of them are true. what is amazing is the fact that he arrived at all these conclusions in less than a minute, and therefore set out to counter each of the conclusions by themselves. he began by nearly shoving large quantities of food down my throat, and quickly followed by ceasing to complain about my sleeping habits. had we been a less conservative family, i’m sure he would either have bought me condoms or preached about abstinence.

it doesn’t bother me that none of his conclusions were true in the least. it does, however, greatly bother me that his entire reaction sequence was pretty much an act of closing the gate after the horse had already bolted. let me tell you something about my father: you can count the number of hairs on his head by using the fingers of one hand. in fact, my two-year-old nephew, who can count upto ten only, loves to sit in my father’s lap and count his hairs, because the hair is one of the few things in this world that actually number less than ten. having passed on the baldness gene to me already, i find it quite disturbing that he’s now fighting to avoid what is definitely my future, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

therefore, if you love my writings and feel i would make a great husband, marry me now before i am left with less than ten hairs.

my boss had a better way of dealing with it. i went to him and told him that the number of projects he had assigned me were causing me a lot of stress, and that it was leading to my hair falling out. in his own infallible, selfless way, he did what any caring and compassionate boss would do to a stressed employee: he gave me more work.

my sisters have the knack of developing attention deficit disorder whenever i start talking about my problems with them – whether it loss of hair, piles, projectile vomiting or erectile dysfunction. as soon as the magic words “hair loss” had exited my mouth, one of them sped off to shout at her children, while the other accelerated in the other direction to see if her cooking was being burned.

i must admit that i am not worried. i read somewhere that women find bald spots to be sexy and a sign of sexual libido. i didn’t need to lose hairs to tell anyone that: anyone with a slightly moderate hearing ability would no doubt already know that.

although i must admit that these desired effects from women are yet to be observed. however, i will wait patiently. if necessary, i will lose more hairs, just so that women want to bang me. i know, it is a great sacrifice that i am making for humanity, but if leads to banging, i’m all for it.

once in a blue moon, approximately every 3.23 years, my winamp gets in to a good mood, and starts playing good music from amongst my music collection, ignoring all the crap that i download frequently. and before i’m slapped with a warrant, a cease-and-desist order and dragged off to jail to be raped anally by a large muscular man named bubba, i categorically admit that i download music only from this site, which my battalion of lawyers assures me is completely legal in nature. so suck it, cops.

i thought that i might as well conclude the list begun in the previous post, but first, a couple of housekeeping items:

1. in the places list on the left you will find a new site called “vent now!”. this is a new initiative i have begun for frustrated people the world over. basically, it’s a forum where you can vent about absolutely anything at all, or read other people’s vents. please, spread the word about the site. everyone needs to vent, otherwise the world will spontaneously combust from the interior.

2. thank god i didn’t get in to harry potter until about approximately 2 weeks ago. if i had to wait 2 years to find out if harry actually gets laid, i would have shot myself in the head. or preferably someone else. although i have trouble believing that all these hormonal teens go to boarding school and there isn’t more hanky panky going on. i’m sure j.k. rowling will release another book on hogwarts after the seventh book called “hogwarts: the untold story” which talks about ron’s pot smoking, harry’s addiction to masturbation and hermione’s incessant whoring, with snape as her pimp. that would be quite a fun read.

anyway, on with the list:

things i detest about bangladesh (continued):

[side note: it just occured to me that i could go on with this list indefinitely. but, in the interest of time and humor, i’ll try and keep it short this time around.]

7. the heat: i’ve already talked about this here. go read it if you haven’t already.

8. the low visibility of hot women: i fondly remember the last time i saw a hot woman somewhere outside their homes in this country. it was april 6, 1986. of course, i was about five years old, so i didn’t bother to ask her name or get her address or phone number. anyway, since then, it’s been downhill ever since. no hot women visible anywhere, at all. i mean, i’m certain they exist in the country, and only come out for fancy parties that i’m never invited to, primarily because i’m sure i’m too cool to go to said parties. even the prostitutes are really ugly. if i were ever to be approached by one of these whores, i would give them the address of the nearest plastic surgery outfit. i don’t know how the common man in this country ever gets laid, with so much ugliness around them. no wonder the paper bag business is doing so well.

9. corruption: you’d think that a country that was labelled the most corrupt country in the world many years in a row would actually do something about changing it. well, we have. we’ve become even more corrupt, if possible. a friend of mine was trying to start a business, and had to deal with about seventeen different licensing procedures to do so. on one occasion, one civil servant flat out refused to process his file until a suitable bribe had been paid. on another, it was only possible when a distant relative who turned out to be a high-level government official made a phone call to the concerned official, at which point his application was processed at approximately the speed of light. and cops, themselves, live for bribes. if a cop stops you, pull out your wallet, son, because you aren’t getting out of it (whatever your crime might have been: speeding, jaywalking, nudity, sex in public or murder) unless you pay for it. someone needs to form a high level force authorized to shoot people on site for doing dumb things. i would make an ideal member of that force. making me a member of that force would also help solve the overpopulation problem, because i would probably kill nearly 76% of the population in less than a week. stupid fuckers.

10. people’s taste in music: considering the fact that you can get pirated porn from every corner of the world in this country, i figured the same would be true for all kinds of music. boy, was i wrong. the following are a series of conversations i’ve had in music stores over the past two weeks:

store 1
me: do you have any albums from remy zero (my latest addiction)?
shopkeeper: [blank stare]

store 2
me: do you have any albums by tori amos?
shopkeeper: [blank stare]

store 3
me: do you have any good jazz albums?
shopkeeper: [blank stare]

in an attempt to prove my hypothesis was in fact real, i embarked on an experiment:

all stores
me: do you have the latest backstreet boys album?
shopkeeper: [excited] yes, sir, of course. here you go!

at which point i, of course, punched the shopkeeper in the balls for attempting to sell me a backstreet boys album. the nerve of these people!

seriously, people in this country either listen to pop (hindi or english) or alternative/metal, and nothing in between. when not listening to their chosen genre of music, they bash the listeners of the other genres on online forums, which seems to have become a national pastime. the other day, i heard to my great excitement that there was a new funk band in town. i went to a concert of theirs to find out if they were any good, and their definition of funk turned out to be pop music – mainly britney spears – played to reggae beats. meanwhile, they dressed like hippies. i don’t understand these people anymore.

well, i think i’ll end there. i could go on for hours on various issues (internet speeds, spitting, rickshaws etc.), but i don’t want to lose my audience. so instead, here’s

ten things i like about bangladesh, as hard as it may be to believe

1. the monsoon: monsoons rock. especially here. i mean, once the rains start, you know for a fact that there will be no let up for two months. and then it’ll be sunshine until the next monsoon. and the rain is amazing, at least if you’re indoors when it’s raining. if you’re outdoors though, it’s a bitch. my new favorite pastime is sitting on the verandah watching it rain and playing the guitar. yes, i know. i’m extremely deep and sexy and hot. do me now.

2. colorful language: no where else in the world is there such a large vocabulary of curse words. i don’t know who comes up with them, but they deserve some sort of award. the best place to hear curses, both new and old, is in a traffic jam in a rickshaw, and hearing their valuable social commentary on their adjoining vehicle drivers. for your convenience, i have compiled a short dictionary of bengali curses. i don’t know if our friends on the other side of the border use all of these, so please enlighten me.

kutta: dog
khanki: prostitute
magi: prostitute
shuor: pig
shala: wife’s brother. i’m not sure why this is a curse, but it is.
gadha: donkey
madarchod: one who engages in intercourse with their mother
bainchod: one who engages in intercourse with their sister
khanki magi: prostitute prostitute. for really whory people, i guess.
chaat: vagina
baal: pubic hair
chaater baal: vaginal hair. clearly undesirable. probably for people who make you tonguetied.
chudi: fucker
chudir bhai: fucker’s brother. yes, my brother fucks. he has a son, for god’s sake.
khankir pola: son of a prostitute
manger pola: son of a vagina. you have to be quite a bastard to be called this.
manger nati: grandson of a vagina. i don’t even know what you could possibly do to be called this.
kuttar bachcha: son of a bitch. your standard run-of-the-mill insult
shuorer bachcha: son of a pig. huh.
gadhar bachcha: son of a donkey. reserved for the dumb ones.

i give up. i can’t remember any more to list here. but don’t worry: you can easily make your own. just take any word that is vaguely sexual in nature, add the word for a relative of some kind (brother, father, sister, mother, uncle, second cousin twice removed – whatever mood you’re in) and, for added spice, you can add some random adjectives. my rickshaw-puller this evening, who, on average, spouted an invective once every 27 seconds, today came up with one i’ve never heard before: shundor magir nati. for the non-bengalis among you, that means the grandson of a beautiful prostitute. i’m not certain how or why this is a curse, but whatever floats his boat, i guess.

3. piracy: as i said before in this post, you can get absolutely any kind of porn from any where in the world in dhaka. and that’s not all – it’ll be dvd quality as well! therefore, if porn is your thing, this place can be nirvana. other than that, you can watch any hollywood movie abot 53 minutes after it’s released in theatres in the us. the picture quality might not that be good – you may be forgiven for thinking, for example, that a character is actually a tree or a part of the scenery – and with awful audio and very wrong subtitles – so when the character is saying “i love you” the subtitles actually say something more along the lines of “you fucking stupid bitch” – but you can actually claim you watched the movie. comprehension, however, is a different ballgame altogether.

4. it’s a small country, after all: chances are, if you meet someone new, that person is probably the classmate from twelve years ago of the best friend of your sister’s husband’s third cousin. therefore, it’s quite an adventure trying to figure out how you know people. in my office, for example, one of my colleagues is my sister’s friend from university from a village home close to ours, another is a person who was my cousin’s best friend and i played soccer with twelve years ago, another is a friend of an ex-girlfriend, another is a distant grandfather of mine, and another is a complete dick that i thank all my lucky stars that i’m not related to, even remotely.

5. cheap whores: granted, they are ugly as all heck, but, according to the world Sexual Records, they are the cheapest in the universe. apparently you can get one for ten taka, which comes to about 17 cents in US dollars, or about 10 pence in the UK. of course, it’s always a surprise if you engage in intercourse with them, as you don’t know what venereal disease you may end up with. i pray to all the gods in the universe that i’m never sexually frustrated enough to try and find out for myself.

6. the government’s funny as heck: now this is serious. every time the government tries to do something cool and modern, they invariably get stabbed in the back. in order to ease traffic, they installed traffic signals at every major intersection in the capital. when these actually work, they cause more traffic than before, when a dumbass traffic policeman directed traffic manually. then, to further fight traffic, the government built massive flyovers at busy intersections so that one could theoretically bypass the traffic jams. the inevitable result was that the traffic jams extended on to the flyovers. to fight corruption, the government raised salaries of civil servants. immediately, the cost of bribery went up accordingly. i don’t think any other world government exists that can shoot itself in the foot so regularly and with such precision.

7. you can get whatever it is you want: if you are willing and able to pay for it. you can buy absolutely everything, from dvd players (sometimes made by companies named panosanic, sany and sonyo) to drugs (from weed to something called yaba, which i’m pretty certain makes you think you’re fred flintstone if you take it) to activities (bowling to paintball, although the paintball place has run out of paintballs, and the bowling balls and pins have become quite shabby due to overzealous bowlers). but the fact remains, if you want it, you can get it. unfortunately, most times, “it” will not come with a warranty, so you’ll be stuck with a shiny new nakoia cell phone that doesn’t work.

8. dumb people: if the last two muggers were any indication, the average intelligence of the bangladeshi people is decreasing daily, and it’s really funny. a couple of weeks ago, i saw this one guy who was walking down the street like he was the shit, and at one point he fell into one of the many uncovered sewers. therefore, eventually, he did turn out to be the shit. on average, though, the chances that you will see at least 4 people do something really dumb on any given day are very high. if you’re lucky, you won’t be one of the four.

9. parties: as i said before, there are apparently some cool parties here in dhaka every weekend, with international djs coming in and lots of hot dancing women and flowing alcohol. unfortunately, i’m never invited to any of these parties, so i can’t provide you with details. ask someone who knows about this kind of thing.

10. gossip: everyone gossips in bangladesh. about everyone else. it’s a vicious cycle, i know, but there’s no way to get out of it. most times the gossip is quite juicy and fun to listen to. however, i have learnt that the best gossip i’ve ever heard is generally about me, propagated by my family. of course, they never tell me these things directly, so i end up hearing bits and pieces from various sources, most usually my sister-in-law, who they all confide in, and who subtly tries to find out if the rumors have any hint of truth in them. thankfully, my sister-in-law visits once a year, and i know for a fact that each of these visits will be laden with more juicy morsels about me. somethings i heard during this last visit about myself were:

a. i’m dating my best friend’s sister: isn’t that incest? i would never date a friend’s sister, because then the friend would take every opportunity to give me a guilt trip, claiming i was only his friend because of his sister. maybe if the girl was hot, and the guy was really a dick. hmm.
b. i’m addicted to heroin: i wear t-shirts half the time i see my family, and wear half-sleeve shirts about 40% of the remaining time. if i wear really a junkie, don’t they think my arms would closely resemble the surface of the moon? and if i were simply inhaling it, wouldn’t i be more stoned all the time? but no, no matter how sober i am, they are convinced i’m on drugs. i’ve offered to take drug tests at random intervals to prove them wrong, but they keep refusing. i guess once you believe something, it’s hard to let it go.
c. i murdered someone: now this is just preposterous. i admit, i have a raging temper, but if i were capable of murder, i wouldn’t stop at just one person. in fact, as i stated above, a majority of the people of bangladesh would be in grave mortal peril. so far, all the dumbasses seem to still be alive and wildly propagating their seed, so clearly i am not a murderer.
d. i have a very active sex life: now this is clearly the funniest thing i have ever heard in my life. if only my family were more liberal than they are, i would tell them exactly how sexually frustrated i am. apparently the proof behind this theory of theirs is that they have never found any porn in my room or on my computer. well, now. congratulations, sherlock. apparently it hasn’t crossed their mind that maybe i don’t watch porn. but no. a young man who doesn’t watch porn must be having hot passionate sex every day.

on reflection, i must admit that the person my family thinks i am is infinitely cooler than the person i really am. maybe in a parallel universe, i really am those things. someone please tell me how to get to this parallel universe. now.

thank god for mimosa. if she didn’t leave a comment on every single post on this site, i would give up writing, move to alaska and have hot passionate sex with penguins. therefore, i probably shouldn’t be thanking her, but perhaps the penguins should. she’s saved them infinite pain.

as for the other two people who’ve left comments on this site – CALove and psmithie – who the hell are you? no, please, rudeness aside, i really would like to know who you are and how you found my site. if you too have a blog, i’ll add the links to the bar on the right, which, you will notice, has grown in size as i added some of my favorite funny blogs to the list.

well, since my secret’s out (see the comments on the previous post) and all of you now know that i live in bangladesh, i guess it’s time for a rant on the country. this rant is not to be confused with the previous rant on the country, as this one is significantly longer and more graphic. if you are weak at heart or just simply stupid, i suggest you not read further. in fact, here are a list of things you could be doing instead:

1. masturbating
2. reading a good book
3. listening to music
4. eating
5. sleeping
6. laundry

still reading? good. you better. so here we go:

things i detest about bangladesh

1. cool people in cool cars: allow me to wax lyrical here. the latest trend in bangladesh is to take an ancient car, usually toyota corollas from the 80s, and add so many parts and upgrades that it looks nothing like a toyota corolla from the 80s, but instead resembles a toyota corolla from the 80s with a severe identity crisis, attempting to disguise itself as a cooler car. i blame movies like fast and the furious and games like need for speed underground for this recent addiction, but i’m not complaining – it does liven the roads up a bit.

along with the new spoilers, exhaust pipes, neon and other assorted spare parts, people like to install brand new state of the art sound systems in their car, with high powered woofers and tweeters and what-not. that, in itself, is not annoying. the annoying part is the music that people choose to play with their new sound systems: stuff like michael jackson and other random assorted hindi movie crap. now, clearly the people in this country have not yet learnt the very important lesson of how to mix music for maximum effect, leading to cars with either very high bass levels, or very high treble levels. therefore, the immediate effect of such a quandary is that the chance that you will be woken up at 2 in the morning by the bass line of “beat it” or the high-pitched noise of the latest hindi blockbuster movie are very high.

if only i had a baseball bat, so many problems would be solved.

2. traffic: well, to be honest, the traffic situation, while terrible, is caused solely by a group of drivers whose driving provides ample evidence that their intelligence is of substandard level. first of all, the concept of lanes is completely lost on all these people. i was in a traffic jam today, waiting for 25 minutes, because some genius in the right lane decided he wanted to turn left, and therefore decided to block the entire road in an effort to get from right to left. even my boss got frustrated. of course, he’s generally angry all the time, so that wasn’t a surprise.

as for the driving skills of these people: clearly, they all learnt driving from satan himself. if there is a gap barely enough for a motorcycle to fit, you can bet that three different cars will try to fit into it, leading to yelling matches between the drivers of the vehicles. and when the traffic starts moving again, you can bet that the three drivers will still be too engaged in their heated argument to notice. and then everyone will start honking. like crazy.

as for when the inevitable accident happens, the standard custom is to quickly get out of your car, leaving it in the middle of the road where you stopped, in order to yell at the person who crashed into you. if you’re lucky, some random passerby will get involved, and try and beat up the offending guy (i’m not kidding). and then the cops will come along, and you know it’s time to pull out the wallet, otherwise all the honking people behind you will never get to go where they need to.

but seriously, when it takes 25 minutes to travel a distance of 2 km, you know something’s wrong. thank god i don’t drive in this country much. otherwise i would kill nearly everyone in a fit of road rage.

3. pedestrians: while this should be a part of #2, i feel it is imperative that it is addressed seperately. the intelligence quotient of the average bangladeshi pedestrian is somewhere between that of a snail and that of the rock that the snail is trying to crawl under. clearly, it is a fashionable trend to cross the road without looking to see if traffic is coming. the other day, while driving along gulshan avenue, i felt it necessary to stop the car and have this conversation with someone crossing the road:

me: pardon me, sir, but is your name gulshan?
pedestrian: [confused] umm, no
me: then stop crossing the road like you own it, asshole!

the other annoying habit of pedestrians is noticeable when you are the only car on the road and someone wants to cross the street about a mile down the road. these people will stand there, staring at you like they’ve never seen a car before, and then, just when you are a few feet away, they will attempt to run across the road like a rabbit on steroids. of course, this can only have one of two possible consequences:

1. you slam on your brakes, hitting your nose on the steering wheel; or
2. you hit the person.

now, there is no way to escape this situation without pain. either you could hit your nose hard on the steering wheel, or you could get beaten up by a massive crowd that suddenly materializes out of nowhere on what you thought was a deserted street. and then the cops show up, and you have no choice but to pull out your wallet and bribe them so they don’t drag you off to jail and rape you. so you end up with a broken body and no money. great.

4. law and order: ah, i’m sure you thought that this would be #1, didn’t you, especially after this. but there isn’t much to say. the last time i got mugged, back in january, a policeman was standing about 10 feet behind me when it happened. and that is the primary problem in regards to the law and order situation. the policemen are out to make a quick buck, in any way possible. therefore, when not mugging people themselves, they get a percentage from the muggers themselves in exchange for looking the other way. however, if the intelligence of the last two muggers is any indication, mugging will soon become a lost art of bangladesh. sigh.

5. the roads: once again, this goes hand in hand with # 2 above. i don’t know what they use to make the roads here, but i’m absolutely certain that it is water-soluble. why else would the roads suddenly melt away and disintegrate as soon as the first rain drop of the monsoon hits them? this invariably leads to huge gaping holes big enough to swallow half the universe at one go.

6. kids: first a little clarification – by kids, i mean anyone younger than me, which, at last count, numbered in the millions. these kids, who definitely have watched more television in the last week than i have in my entire existence, seem to be taking over the country. it is nearly impossible to go anywhere without bumping into at least one of these specimens. what bothers me about these kids is not the individuals themselves, but their confusion over who they are. let me elaborate: these are kids who grew up under the influence of cable television, which brought the best of hollywood and bollywood into their lives. therefore, under the influence of these conflicting worlds, where people either wear skimpy clothing, or wear skimpy clothing and prance around, they’ve lost touch with their own culture and what it means to be bangladeshi. the other day, i saw this kid, not more than 15 years of age, in a black t-shirt with a heavy metal bands logo, what seemed to be approximately 52 piercings on his face, with a real live snake wrapped around his wrist. and with him was a girl in a tanktop and skimpy shorts. five years ago, both would have been stoned to death – the boy for being a gay wannabe, and the girl for being a slut. being the lover of nostalgia that i am, i chucked large rocks at them until they figured out which direction the rocks were coming from and proceeded to chase me. but i outran the little fuckers.

and then there are the ultra-extremist bangladeshis, with long hair and huge flowing beards that would make gandalf jealous, adorned in panjabis and, just to prove that they are still slightly modern, a pair of jeans. these specimens freak me out more than anybody else. i’m afraid to walk down a dark alley with them, because i fear that they will corner me and burst into some deep bengali poetry, possibly from tagore or from jatiyo kobi nazrul islam, that will leave me with nothing but an intense desire to kick them in the balls. the kids, not the poets.

but they should all be shot. or locked up at home and beaten with belts. until they learn to:

a. shave
b. cut their hair
c. not pierce their faces
d. wear clothing that covers more than 0.02% of their body
e. not carry wild reptiles wrapped around their wrists.
f. etc.

whew. i’m tired. all this ranting has made me exhausted. i’m going to go now and finish this list sometime later. in the meantime, i must admit mimosa has the right idea: don’t come to bangladesh, if you value your life. you’ll be mugged in a dark alley by a cop while a bengali hippy recites some ancient poetry, and then you will fall into a huge gaping hole in the road, which you will climb out of with great difficulty, only to be run over by a car blaring michael jackson’s “bad” at tremendously loud volumes, which swerves to avoid a dumbass pedestrian crossing the street without looking for oncoming traffic.

that is, of course, if you’re lucky.

this evening, i got mugged yet again.

[for my two readers: don’t worry, i’m still alive. no stabbing this time around.]

whereas the first time around, all i felt was utter shock and disbelief, this time around i felt a whole gamut of emotions, including humour, pride, disbelief and sympathy. before i elaborate, i must admit that the first time around, the entire operation was reminiscent of a swat team: they were in, they did their business, and they were out. this time around, i was confronted by possibly two of the dumbest idiots around, and that is why i felt so many emotions.

first of all, today was ugly shirt day. due to the monsoon and the maid who refuses to wash clothes if there is a single cloud in the sky, i was forced to wear the ugliest shirt i ever owned to work. in addition, i haven’t shaved in a week, and therefore look quite grotesque. ideally, no one would want to mug me, because i did not look my best. finally, it being the end of the month, i had limited funds – all i had in my wallet was 100 bucks (for those of you unfamiliar with our currency, that’s somewhere near $1.50).

ideally, then, no self-respecting mugger would think of mugging me. however, the ones i was faced with had a whole range of psychological problems themselves, and did not mind telling me about them in depth during the mugging. clearly, not only do i attract psychopathic women to me like a magnet, i also attract psychopathic people of all callings, whether it be legal or illegal.

having stopped my rickshaw, which basically involved swerving in front of it, since the rickshaw-puller was of an age approximately equal to that of gandalf, they stepped off their own rickshaw and surrounded me on both sides. now, you’re thinking, i’m sure, that this was done in a dark alley, with no lights and nobody around. wrong. they did it on a main street, in the middle of town, with a lot of traffic on both sides. of course, expecting someone to stop and assist would be asking too much of the fuckers that inhabit this country. however, the best part was that they mugged me right under a brilliant flood-light, which, presumably was put there to prevent muggings. no matter.

the bright light allowed me to recognize the two idiots as people who live in my neighbourhood. now, the one on my right was the intelligent one, whereas the one on the left was a complete dumbass. the smart one started shaking my hand, and inadvertently drew my hand towards his waist, apparently to show me that he had a gun. good for him. and then he began telling me of his troubles, beginning with an abusive dad who ran away, leaving his poor mother and him alone, meaning that he hasn’t been able to eat anything in about 724 days. while i bought none of this crap, the summation to his tale of woe was the fact that he wanted to eat some mishti, and by some remarkable coincidence, he decided that i would be the one to fund his culinary adventure. meanwhile, dumbass on my left kept mouthing random death threats, all of which i presume were meant to be scary, but none of which really were. the conversation ran something like this:

me: so how much do you need?
intelligent one (io): about 500 bucks.
dumbass (da): …i swear, we’ll shoot you in so many places, but nobody will come to your aid…
me: but i don’t have 500 bucks…
io: how much do you have?
me: about a 100
io: well, if we find 500 on you…
da: …we’ll cut you open from your throat to your stomach, and you’ll die of bleeding before you get to a hospital [keep in mind, this was right in front of a hospital] me: you won’t. see? [pull out my wallet, and show them the few notes in there] io: [taking the hundred buck note] okay, i believe you. what’s your mobile number?
da: …i swear, we’ll gut you alive etc. etc….
me: i don’t have a mobile [see later for clarification] io: are you sure? let me check. [searches my pockets, finds no mobile] da: etc. etc. etc.
io: fine, i believe you. now go.
da: and if you tell anyone, we’ll find you in your room and etc. etc. etc.

and so i left.

now, the reason i didn’t have my mobile on me today was because it’s been acting funky, and wasn’t charging properly. so i left it at home, and on this one day that i don’t have it on me, these fuckers decide to rob me.

now, i know for a fact that all they wanted was some money to buy drugs. the amount of money they got from me wouldn’t buy them even half a bottle of anything. and they didn’t get a cell phone off of me. so therefore, their net earnings = 100 bucks. of course, when i came home, i sent the cops to their houses to arrest them, so in reality, their net earnings = time in jail.

so, was it really worth it?

but seriously, law and order in this city is a mess, and someone needs to start teaching people civic responsibility.

my family has a set of proven methods of dealing with situations when i am sick. in these rare cases, they believe that:

a. i am faking it.
b. i am dying a slow, painful death from a high fever.
c. i have aids, or
d. i am faking dying a slow, painful death from a high fever when i really have aids.

if i wasn’t too busy facing the slow and painful aspects of the fever that has engulfed me over the past weekend, i’d laugh at their antics. some highlights:

**************

dad: what’s your temperature now?
me: 102.4.
dad: oh, that’s nothing. it’ll go away in a couple of hours.

[4 hours later]

dad: what’s your temperature now?
me: 99.8.
dad: AVAST! BATTLE STATIONS! ALL HANDS ON DECK! WASH HIS HEAD! FEED HIM TILL HE BURSTS! SCRATCH HIS EAR! CUT HIS TOENAILS! etc. etc. etc.

[commentary: clearly, a high temperature is of no concern under any circumstances. it’s only when my temperature must remotely resemble that of a human being that the troops are swept into action, and that all sorts of attention must be paid to me. especially annoying when all this happens at odd hours of the morning, when i’d rather be sleeping.]

**************

sister [on the phone]: hello?
me [coughing, sneezing, gagging and moaning at one go]: hello?
sister: you sound drunk. have you been drinking?

[commentary: i was under the impression that drinking and/or being drunk involved feeling a whole lot better than needing to cough, gag, sneeze and moan simultaneously. apparently i was wrong.]

**************

sister-in-law: how are you feeling?
me: not too good.
sister-in-law: i’ll send you some soup.

[the next day]

other sister: are you better now?
me: no, not really.
other sister: i’m sending you some soup.

[commentary: now, correct me if i’m wrong, but are there any empirical studies on the curative power of soup? i didn’t think so. however, my entire family thinks that a fever is the ideal time to mobilize the soup army. i’ve realized i should go into the soup business. i could make a bundle, just off my family alone.]

**************

dad: i heard you threw up this morning. must have been because you didn’t have any breakfast.
me: actually, the stuff i threw up WAS breakfast.
dad: well then, must have been because you didn’t have dinner last night.
me: but i did.
dad: okay. so it must have been because you didn’t have lunch yesterday.
etc. etc. etc.

clearly the solution for illness in my family, besides soup, is to stuff your face with as much as possible all the time. my family works on a very simple formula, i realized:

IF
cold.present()= true
fever.present()= false
THEN
input daily.food= X
WHERE
X= normal.food.consumed() * 25032
ELSE
cold.present()= false
fever.present()= true
THEN
input daily.food= X * 2423 + soup()
ELSE
cold.present()= true
fever.present()= true
THEN
input daily.food= X * 2423 * 2423 + soup() + soup()
ENDIF
IF
cold.present.duration>= 3 days
OR
fever.present.duration>= 3 days
THEN
patient.has.aids()= true
ENDIF

sigh.

my theory, i am pleased to say, now has concrete proof – at any time, only two people regularly read my blog.

since both people expressed concern at the accident, i felt i should do something to reassure them that i am still alive and well. the accident was minor – the casualties included two busted tires and a broken axle, but otherwise everyone survived. however, the major point of physical impact for me was my nose, which is now even more bent out of shape than it was previously. it’s one of the hazards of having a large nose – i guess that the largest parts of human bodies are hurt the most often. which explains quite well why my nose and my big toes are in constant pain.

speaking of large body parts getting hurt…

i have come to the conclusion that i will no longer be able to reproduce. the reason behind this is not the lack of a female partner to perform the act with – which, in itself, seems to be a large problem in my life currently – but rather that my valued progeny-producing organs have received much abuse over the past few weeks, due to riding in rickshaws.

if you have never ridden in a rickshaw, consider yourself lucky. a rickshaw is a device developed by the devil himself to deny unsuspecting fools like myself the pleasure of hearing the pitter-patter of little feet in the hallways. rickshaws, particularly those in this corner of the earth, are fundamentally evil for two reasons: first, the seats are harder than rocks to sit on, and second, the people who pilot these infernal devices are descendants of the devil himself. no matter how much i pray or beg these people to drive carefully, they still manage to hit every single pothole on the road, and even some of the road, with the end result being me bouncing up and down on the seat like a jack-in-the-box. now, as i have mentioned before, these seats are harder than rocks, and as a result of these bouncing action, i end up landing very hard on the seat, at great cost to my testicles. if you want to find out what this feels like, take a hammer and bring it down hard on your left pinky. then multiply the pain by about 52.35, and try and translocate it to your nether regions.

therefore, although i have already decided the names of my kids – reeham for a girl, which means “little light rain”, and rahib for a boy, which means “meditative” – i’m afraid that there aren’t going to be any reehams or rahibs any time in the future. damn you, balls.

1. make sure you watch a movie in a language you don’t understand, so you have no idea what the hell is going on.

2. to better the experience, make sure you have a friend with you who doesn’t understand the language of the movie either, but still has watched it at least 35 times, so he can give you a very rough play-by-play of the entire movie.

3. make sure you and your friend sit in the middle of the seating area, so that the entire crowd can benefit from his knowledge.

4. if your friend happens to speak softly, encourage him to speak very loudly. don’t worry about everyone else: chances are they don’t understand what’s going on up on the screen either.

5. to prevent confusion when something that you don’t understand happens, make sure your friend tells you what’s about to happen right before every key scene. this is crucial to ensure that everyone enjoys the movie.

6. feeling kind of tired? don’t worry – you can always take a nap in the middle of the movie. while the seats do not have headrests, the shoulders of your neighbors will suffice, and they don’t mind a bit.

7. if you do decide to take a nap, make sure that you snore as loud as possible. the people around you will not mind, unless of course you are louder than the person telling them what’s happening on the screen.

8. if you do decide to stay awake, please ensure that your cell phone is on throughout the movie, no matter how many times they tell you to turn it off before the movie starts.

9. also ensure that your cellphone is set to the most annoying ringer possible. if you can’t find a britney spears tune in monophonic, just using a long and high-pitched hindi movie tune. but, for the love of god, do not have a normal ringer on, by no means.

10. once someone calls, make sure you have your conversation with them as loud as possible, while sitting in your seat. the only circumstance in which this may be a problem is if you are the designated interpreter for the show. for good measure, tell whoever is calling that you are in a movie theatre, watching a movie, then proceed to describe it to them over the phone.

11. had a big lunch and feeling kind of gassy? don’t worry; even though the hall is enclosed, there must be good ventilation, so feel free to let loose. just make sure you mask the source of the stench by pretending it was your friend who relaxed his sphincters, and yell at him loudly.

12. a movie is the best time to use that extremely bright cell phone of yours to send a text message to nearly everybody you know on the planet. don’t worry – the people behind you aren’t blinded; their eyes are just watering because it’s such an emotional movie.

13. finally, got a girlfriend and feeling horny, yet you have no where to go? that’s okay, there’s always the cineplex! make sure your smooches are extremely loud and passionate, and if things get a little too carried away, and your limbs start flailing all over the place, it’s perfectly all right. no body will mind much at all.

argh. the things i do for money. as part of my new piracy scheme, i supply a local cd store with downloads of the latest albums, and so, due to consumer demand, i was forced to download the new backstreet boys album last night. meanwhile, my other pc still has not figured out that i do not listen to backstreet boys, and has nicely added the songs from the new album to my playlist. stupid computer. why can’t you think on the same wavelength as me?

meanwhile, i have also supplied the store with the coldplay cd and the new dream theater cd. and, surprise surprise, dream theater sold about 200 copies on its first day, whereas coldplay sold about 20 copies so far. so therefore there are people who listen to progressive metal out there. if these are the same people who made me download backstreet boys, i’m afraid they need to be shot. in the head. at close range.

one of the perils of living in this corner of the world, besides having to coexist with people who still listen to backstreet boys, is having to coexist with cockroaches. i am intensely afraid of cockroaches. i will admit it. and i know why i am afraid of them.

when i was really young, i apparently used to go swatting cockroaches of all sizes and shapes to death. unfortunately, however, my sisters came along and taught me to fear them. it was one specific day, actually, back in 1989 (isn’t it sad that i can remember things that happened sixteen years ago? i feel so old). anyway, on this particular day, our house (we lived in the philippines back then) decided to become infested with cockroaches. not the nice friendly types that walk slowly up to you and roll over, like they want to be tickled on their stomachs or something. instead, these were the kind that flew into your face and then ran down inside your shirt. my sisters were both afraid of cockroaches, yet till then i had to deal with only one of them at a time in the presence of cockroaches. combined, the force of their screaming at the cockroaches overpowered my more rational urge to kill the critters. so i joined them in screaming, which set the cockroaches off even further. they flew in all directions, but mostly in our collective screaming directions. having no further recourse, we fled into the bathroom, where we found cockroaches flying out of the toilet. seriously. we then fled down the stairs and into the garden, where we engaged in more screaming and jumping up and down, not because there were more cockroaches there (there weren’t), but because we were on a roll and didn’t want to stop. meanwhile, when the maids finally stopped rolling on the floor laughing their ass off at our wonderful antics, they finally took control of the situation, and killed as many of the bastards as they could. but the damage was done. to this day, i’m afraid of large cockroaches, especially the ones that fly.

sadly, this house is also infested with the bugs. fortunately, however, i have managed to arrive at a decent compromise with them. it’s beautiful in its simplicity: they don’t fly towards me, and i don’t kill them. to further top it off, we have a simple arrangement: every time i need to go into a room that they hold their gala feasts in (i.e. the kitchen or the bathroom), i turn a light on ten seconds in advance, and they all scurry away out of the room until i’m done with my business and turn off the lights, at which point they resume their festivities. it’s a simple arrangement, but it works amazingly well. the numbers of flying cockroaches around me have dwindled down to none, and i haven’t intentionally killed a cockroach at this house in years (i accidentally stepped on one a few days ago. wasn’t my fault. it ran straight into my walking path).

the cockroaches at the office, however, are a different matter altogether. the other day, i was in the bathroom, and i spied a cockroach sitting opposite me. we stared each other in the eyes for a long time, and, just when i thought we had reached an agreement to halt all hostilities, the little fucker flew straight at me. at the time i was deeply immersed in taking a crap, and jumping up in the middle of passing a log out of your system is not really a sanitary and hygienic affair. i taught the little fucker a lesson though: i flushed him down the toilet. and then completed my crap in another bathroom. however, on the bright side, i haven’t met a cockroach at the office since that day, so the cockroach underworld over there must have gotten the message.

the most disturbing thing about cockroaches is the ones that decide to fly while mating. it perturbs me greatly. when i’m copulating, i’m usually too engrossed in what i’m doing to want to take off and have a nice flight around the room. if i could fly, that is. but i can’t, so thankfully that’s another distraction out of the way. but what perturbs me about this behavior is that i don’t know how to react. i don’t know whether i should kill them right away, or wait till they are done having their fun to kill them. i’d hate it if anyone stepped on me while i was getting it on, or at least if they stepped on me before i was done. this is a great quandary, especially in the spring, when the cockroaches decide to get it on en masse. my kitchen turns into freaking jfk airport, what with the huge number of flights taking off and landing at any point in time.

all this talk about sex is making me extremely horny. so, therefore, i’m going to go fuck off. later.

piracy rocks. how else would someone in my remote corner of the world be able to listen to an album that came out yesterday? the internet is amazing, if you know what you are looking for.

case in point: last week, my boss ordered me to write a speech for him on giuseppe mazzini, a famous (?!) nineteenth century italian writer and politician who, if i saw him on the street today, i would punch in the balls. for source material, my boss gave me a fifty-four page paper (single-spaced) on the dude, and, to top it all off, he gave me a two hour deadline. i spent the first hour trying to get past the first paragraph, which was so mindnumbingly boring that i could actually feel my brain cells turn off one at a time as i nearly passed out. fortunately, good sense prevailed, and i googled the name, and then cut and pasted from the first website that came up. and then i just made up the following random bullshit:

“What lessons can we learn from the life of Mazzini? Perhaps the most important lesson that Mazzini can teach us is the importance of patriotism. Mazzini’s single-minded and selfless dedication to his country and people, along with his heroic efforts for uniting and liberating Italy, are truly values that are rare in today’s world, and should be the fundamental beliefs of every politician. Mazzini’s life also shows us the importance of dedication. Mazzini had a clear vision – the liberation and unity of Italy under a democratic government – and he continued to fight for this vision even after Italy was united under a monarchy. Finally, Mazzini’s life expresses the importance of unity in the world. In today’s world, it is increasingly important for all nations and peoples to unite to support each other. This is truly a wonderful ideal, and a great goal to strive for.”

needless to say, my boss was truly enamored of the speech, and almost loved me for it – an emotion that i was certain he was incapable of feeling. but the above is pure, unadulterated crap. it could not possibly be more crappy had it fallen out my rectum. i was going to throw in some crap about the eu constitution (this was before the french referendum) but i didn’t.

in addition, i have written several speeches for a highly placed government official in the past few months, all of which have received praise, or so i am told. the fun thing about all these speeches is that they all said precisely the same thing: all the speeches were drawn from this one powerpoint presentation, and i just changed the order of appearance of the contents of the slide every time. it seems, however, that the concerned official has never caught on to the fact that she is, essentially, saying exactly the same thing every single time, just in different combinations. however, as long as she is oblivious, her office keeps calling me to write her a speech every single time she has a meeting on my project. i worry though, about what will happen when i run out of combinations. i wish i had paid more attention in my statistics classes, so i could actually figure out how many combinations are possible with fifteen powerpoint slides.

but enough talking about work. i would like to proudly announce to the world, through the magical connecting powers of the internet, that i am now the most recent holder of the record for the world’s shortest relationship. actually, i’m surprised it actually lasted three days. although i have learnt a valuable lesson: apparently i bring out the neuroses in women i date. this one waited a whole three days to tell me that she could not date me because she had lost all faith in men after finding out her father was cheating on her mother. although i cannot verify the integrity of the story, i’m glad that chapter is over almost as fast as it began. i was extremely drunk when i asked her out (see post about mixing drinks) and all i remembered the next morning was that i had asked someone out, just not whom. imagine my surprise when i got a call from the person the next morning, although i quickly remembered that i had given the person i had asked out my business card, which has my cell phone number on it. but anyway, that’s history.

anyway, i’m not going to let this get me down. not in the least. i am still a macho, attractive, extremely sexy man, and i know my virility and sexual prowess is renowned the world over. if you are a fantastically beautiful woman with any resemblance to aishwariya rai/keira knightley/lindsey lohan, feel free to drop me a line/send me an email/show up at my doorstep magically, and i will show you the wonders of the kama sutra, or at least those that i remember from that temple in nepal. and i promise, i will not attempt any of the positions that involved sticks.

happily, in my moment of misery due to this unceremonious dumping, which lasted approximately 0.0692 seconds, i was adopted by one of the three stray cats that live in my house. now, every day when i come home from work, i find this cat sitting by the stairs, waiting to be petted. and every morning, when i wake up, i find this cat curled up on my bed. now this is a miraculous thing. first of all, due to the vampires that prowl this region, i am forced to sleep under a mosquito net, and due to the intense heat/humidity, i sleep with all the windows closed and the air conditioner on full blast. yet, somehow, this cat makes its way into my room every morning.

in an attempt to discover the path of entry of the cat and to block it to dissuade further entry, i rearranged all the furniture in my room, but could not find any holes in the wall. not one. so then i did what was only natural: i rearranged the furniture again. after about seventeen different rearrangements, i have still been unable to find the path of entry, although i must admit that i am now a great deal more muscular. seriously. my bed weighs a fucking ton. as does my bookshelf.

perhaps next time i should remove the books from the shelf before attempting to move it around. there’s a thought. hmmm.

mmm. i love keane. they are the best ending to a crappy day. or even a good day. while meditating today, my winamp suddenly started playing keane. it was amazing.

i received an email today, which i shall share with you. it went as follows:

“ewwwwwww. wut happend to ur blog man? it wuz so cool b4 but now itz like ur all razist or sumthin’? wuz up wit dat?”

my first instinct on receiving an email that is worded in this or a similar manner is to delete the email, get out my gun and go and shoot the author. it really isn’t difficult to write in a manner that makes sense, folks. however, convincing folks of this is exceedingly difficult. apparently, people who are well educated, well brought up and listen to yanni in their free time like to talk like they are a 12 year old coke dealer from the ghetto. although i must admit that the weirdest part of it is that many people may talk in perfectly good english, yet write like the above gem. i know many people who do this on a frequent basis, including the author of the composition. i will warn all of you right now: “that” is a pronoun”, while “dat” refers to a filename extension for a particular type of system file on your computer. if you ever get the two of those mixed up, the consequences will be dire.

from the rare parts of the email above that i understood, i realized that people had been taking offense at my piece on asians. therefore, some clarification is in order. i am not a racist or “razist” or anything of that sort. i love all peoples and all cultures. in fact, the longest paragraph was on my own country. the only thing i was poking fun at all was probably at myself, for watching the movie “mean girls” three times (lindsay lohan is really really hot). everything i wrote in that piece was based on fact and on my personal experience in those countries. if you are from one of those countries and can prove to me that what i wrote is wrong, i will gladly rescind it. for instance, if you can prove that there are no tourists in thailand who are there primarily to have sex with twelve-year old boys, i will remove it immediately. best of luck on that front, though.

on that note, i received another email, more eloquently worded this time around, asking what happened to the stories. the truth is, i’m not sure. i had a spurt of creativity when i wrote those stories, and it seems that that spurt has dried up temporarily. ideally, it will be back soon. until then, most of these pieces, except the now infamous asian piece, is mostly fiction anyway. this is my attempt at humor. so read the crap, and feel free to laugh. or don’t. i don’t care either way.
if you expected to read sad boring blog entries, i have one of those, so if that’s what you want, ask me, and i’ll send you the address. if, however, you want a blog that goes something like this:

“i woke up this morning at 8 am. i stared at my toes and decided that the nails needed cutting. i got up and went to the bathroom. i brushed my teeth and then proceeded to put my shirt on. i buttoned the first button and worked my way down.”

or

“i’m so lonely. i need someone so bad. someone who will make my heart soar. someone who will make my life worth living. someone to make sense of all the misery in my life. someone who can change the way i think. someone who gives great head. someone to love, to hold, to cherish, to molest.”

then fuck off, because you’re in the wrong place, buddy.

one last thing: fuck political correctness. someday, with the way being pc trends are going, it’ll be pc to not say anything to anyone at all, and instead just nod and/or shake your head. what’s the point in having language if you can’t use it?

so therefore, if you’ve had a bad day, and want to have a laugh, feel free to read what i have to say. but please, reserve your judgements till you actually get to know me well enough. i’m really not this bad face to face.

at least i’d like to think so.