First: Celestial Conversation
Previous: Return Of The... King? : Celestial Conversations - XV

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God: Hello
Me: Hello God!
God: Hi
Me: Where have You been?
God: Sri Lanka, Indonesia, South India...
Me: Wow! What have You been doing there?
God: Trying to help.
Me: Oh, that's great! I'm sure they need all the help they can get.
God: That they do. But it can get quite depressing being there.
Me: I'm sure it is.
God: The worst thing is getting blamed for what happened.
Me: What?
God: They keep calling it an Act of God. I mean do they really think I would want to make something like that happen, even if I could?
Me: I guess it is a little unfair. But they think that since it happened naturally, You must have sanctioned it.
God: Sanctioned it? Me? Why and how would I sanction something like that? There's a scientific explanation for why it happened. Do they expect Me to bend the rules of science? Even you humans with your disrespect for the law find it difficult to do that.
Me: But you're God!
God: Why do you keep saying that?!
Me: Well, they believe that if you didn't like things like this happening, you wouldn't allow a world to exist where they could happen.
God: Oh? So they think I like seeing over one hundred and sixty thousand people dead astroke, and another hundred thousand at risk from the diseases that will follow?
Me: I'm sure you don't. But what do people know? Anyway. At least you're doing all you can.
God: True. And I got some of my people to help too.
Me: Oh, that's great.
God: Yes. Florence has a lot of experience in this kind of stuff. In any case, she needed to spend some time away from the bottle. Hell's been a bad influence on her.
Me: Ah, yes. You did mention that.
God: I wish everything that was wrong with this world didn't get blamed on Me.
Me: Well, anything we don't do on our own, we think You did.
God: Why Me?
Me: Who else do we have to blame?
God: Good Point. But it isn't even as if I created the planet. Or the universe for that matter. They just happened.
Me: So You keep saying.
God: You don't believe me? See, if I had designed the planet, there wouldn't even be earthquakes.
Me: No? What would You do with the tectonic plates?
God: Oh, that's simple. There wouldn't be any. The whole planet would be a block of iron.
Me: Just iron? Metallurgy would never have taken off if you'd done that.
God: Ok, a mixture of iron, zinc, magnesium, copper, and all the other elements in the same proportions as exist today.
Me: But if the entire mass of the planet was metal, wouldn't there be too much gravity?
God: I'm not sure. Haven't worked that bit out. But even if it were, I'd make the centre hollow to balance that.
Me: And what about soil? There'd be no agriculture without good soil.
God: Well, over a core of solid metal, there'd be soil.
Me: The same kind of soil all over?
God: Why not?
Me: For one, different kinds of plants need different kinds of soil.
God: Okay, then, uniformly distributed across the planet would be all kinds of soil, in equal proportions to what currently exists on earth.
Me: Distributed uniformly? You mean all countries have all kinds of soil?
God: Yup. That way everyone can grow all kinds of stuff and so everyone will be self-sufficient.
Me: But then there would no Trade!
God: Oh. Okay, then the soil would be distributed just like it is now. Anything else?
Me: You said there would be no tectonic plates, and so I guess there'd be no hot core.
God: Right. And so no Volcanoes, no Earthquakes, no Tsunamis, no natural disasters.
Me: But then what about mountains and valleys and stuff?
God: Oh, I'd carve that stuff Myself.
Me: All by Yourself?
God: I'm pretty good at sculpture.
Me: Well even if You could do that...
God: What do you mean if?
Me: ... without a hot core, we'd have no diamonds, and no precious stones.
God: I could embed them in the crust by hand. But what did you mean if?
Me: Even if You got the stones in, what about coal, oil and other fossil fuels?
God: Burning fossil fuels is bad for the environment. The earth I designed, wouldn't have any of those.
Me: But what about power? The industrial revolution would never take off!
God: Oh there's a simple solution to that one. I'd provide power outlets at regular intervals across the planet.
Me: Power outlets?
God: 220V AC, at 50Hz.
Me: You mean 60 Hz.
God: Is this My world or yours?
Me: Oh, sorry. Yours of course. But with power outlets, how would cars run?
God: Batteries.
Me: Batteries?
God: Four AA type.
Me: What?
God: Works well for My remote control cars.
Me: Remote control?
God: Why, is there a problem?
Me: You can't run a real car on AA batteries!
God: AAA then?
Me: No!
God: Well then they'd have to figure out a way of using solar power.
Me: And air travel?
God: Six AA type batteries.
Me: Remote controlled again?
God: Or solar powered.
Me: (I think I know now why He doesn't mess with the world.)
God: Excuse Me?
Me: Umm, All the best with helping out for the Tsunami relief!
God: Thanks. And remember. We could always use more helping hands.

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Next: Godparents : Celestial Conversations - XVII

Yikes!

A whole month without blogging!

And I've got at least two posts that are nearing completion, and three more ideas that are currently just fledgling posts - started long ago, but ignored ever since.

This "Save As Draft" feature on Blogger is actually a deterrent to blogging. Feeds the tendency towards procrastination. Allows the blogger to loll his time away writing partial blogs never completing any, always coming up with new but incomplete ideas, leading to the slow death of the blog, the child that needs to be constantly fed slowly being deprived of nutrition, wasting away quietly, shrivelling up until it is almost a skeleton, drying up to the bones, crumbling to dust...

From ashes to ashes...

Well. Here's to the New Year and a resolution to never using the "Save As Draft" feature ever. Ever. (Except in case of emergency, of course)

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The above blog was written in 12 minutes. (Yes, it took that long. One more would have been unlucky)

I visited my colleague's house again on Friday. Her daughter (she's 23, not 20, by the way) was quite glad to see me, again. She kept talking to me in gibberish from the minute she saw me, and jumping around the room on her matchbox-sized feet. The word sweet doesn't do justice to her.

My joy was short-lived, though. She dumped me for Elmo soon after. I guess it's hard for a 26-year-old guy in a suit to compete with a red furry monster with a girl's voice. *sigh*

(Observation for the day: If you have a cup of hot - and I mean scalding hot - soup in your hand, and the cup contains a stirrer that you put in it to keep the instant soup mix from settling to the bottom of the cup, try to remember that the stirrer is not a thin straw, even though it functions pretty well as one. Because that's not why you put it there. And scalding hot liquid rushing through a thin plastic cylinder to the middle of your tongue... I think you get the idea.

Do you think it's okay to put burn ointment on your tongue?

Ppppppppffffffttt. Yuck. I think not.)

Apparently, Samsonite makes Tripods for cameras. I know, coz a close friend recently bought one cheap.

(Yes, that's the only reason I have the word 'Samsonite' in the title of this blog. So sue me. Picking a title for a blog is no easy task. And it's easier to talk about Samsonite, rather than Sam's Son. Ok? So there)

We had our first snow Monday. Was pretty cool. Not for drivers, but we've got a cool view from the office. So was it nice to watch the snow settle on the firs outside.

Went to a colleague's house for dinner too, that day. It's nice to eat desi homemade food when you don't have cook it. But having to watch Sun TV, on the other side of the planet from Chennai, isn't. And I'm not really interested in knowing that some chap who looks like the son of your local paan-ki-dukaan-waala (Indian road-side tobacconist) married Rajnikant's daughter last month. So I guess Rajnikant's daughter now looks like the daughter-in-law of your local paan-ki-dukaan-waala.

And as if Sun TV itself isn't enough, I had to watch this 14-year-old female called Lylah play coy when the 25-something hero of the movie danced around her. I also had to fend off the question "Don't you think she's good looking?" while I was being fed Puris (a deep-fried Indian bread item). Choking on Puris isn't a very nice experience, let me tell you. Of course, being treated to a second glass of Badam Milk (Almond flavoured milk) is. But did they really expect me to believe that this Lylah's married and has two kids?

Speaking of kids, my colleague's got two children too. The younger one is a girl. She's 20. Fell for me instantly. I guess it must be the glasses. She probably couldn't resist a man with metal on his nose. She was all over me, all evening.

Of course, I know it won't last. Women tend to change their opinion about me past the age of 36 months.

*Sigh*

Well, that's life.

But things are definitely getting interesting, with at least one large Indian company starting an internal matrimonial portal for its employees.

First: Celestial Conversation
Previous: House-hunting: Celestial Conversations - XIV

God: Hello?
Me: Hello! And where have you been?
God: Oh, up and around.
Me: Really.
God: Finally found a place to stay, by the way.
Me: Oh, great! So Heaven's back in business, eh?
God: Well, not exactly.
Me: Oh? What's wrong now?
God: See, I'm living in a studio.
Me: What? Heaven's a studio apartment?
God: It's not exactly heaven, right? It's what you people call a stop-gap arrangement. Some place to rest my head till I find more permanent accomodation.
Me: Oh. That way. So everyone's still in Hell?
God: Yes. It's becoming a bit of an embarrassment, really. It seems they can't really hold their drink very well.
Me: Abstinence doesn't help tolerance much, I guess.
God: No, it doesn't.
Me: Hmmm.
God: In fact, Luci's even lodged a complaint.
Me: Luci?
God: Yeah. You know. Luci.
Me: Oh. You mean The D-, I mean, him?
God: Yeah.
Me: Oh. Complaint against whom?
God: David
Me: David?
God: Yeah. Apparently, he challenged Goliath to a wrestling match.
Me: He did?
God: Without his sling.
Me: Oh.
God: Yeah. Luci says he isn't responsible for the health of my people.
Me: Is he okay?
God: He wishes he were dead.
Me: But he is dead.
God: Exactly.
Me: Ah.
God: Yeah. Quite embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as a 90-year-old nurse doing the pole-dance.
Me: 90-year-old nurse? Who?
God: Florence.
Me: Nightingale?
God: Yup.
Me: That can't have been pretty.
God: Interesting choice of words. Anyway. I have to go. Have an appointment with my landlord in a few minutes.
Me: Oh. See you later, then.
God: Yeah. Bye.
Me: Bye.

Next: God's Will? : Celestial Conversations - XVI

Until a couple of months ago, when my company implemented some really cool spam filters, I was getting upwards of 70 spam emails a day. I thought that was bad enough.

Now imagine getting 4 million emails everyday, most of which (of course) are spam.

I'm not kidding. That's how much spam Bill Gates gets. Poor guy. I wonder if he uses gmail... Maybe I should send him an invite.

After spending quite some time ranting about (or listening to rants about) how girls go for all the wrong guys, it's nice to see a girl agreeing with you. And not just agreeing with you. I mean knowing exactly what you mean, and taking the words right out of your mouth.

Fu-zu Jen wrote the following piece as a student for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal. It brings tears to my eyes...

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores... Click here to read more

*sniff*

Thanks Megha for the link!

I always wanted to write about this. It's a thought that came from the results of a survey held in UK around July last year. Unfortunately, I can't currently find the article where I read about this survey, so you'll just have to take my word (yes, My word) for it.

The results of the survey, were as follows

1. Women who had been in a larger number of relationships were more depressed than women who had been in fewer relationships. That is, women who had remained with their first love, were happiest. And women who had a larger number of men in their past, were more depressed about the failed relationships.
2. We men, on the other hand are... you know... Men. The fewer a man's past relationships, the less happy he was. Whereas men who had been in a larger number of relationships, were happier.
   

This means that, whereas a woman would prefer to fall in love with and spend the rest of her life with exactly one man in her whole life, a man is generally happier to play around.

The only conclusion I can derive from the results of this survey, is that - Maybe men and women are not really meant for each other.

Interesting thought, hmmm?

Disclaimer: The above-mentioned survey was conducted in a country that uses really innovative ways to reduce its teenage pregnancy rate.

I was checking out Dumbs' blog yesterday, and a friend pointed out that the "I'm Chandler" link is actually a test out there created by a guy called stomps that tells you which F.R.I.E.N.D.S. character you are most like, based on your answers to some questions there. So you take the test and then he asks you to put some HTML on your site/blog/homepage that tells the world what he thinks. So here it is.

I'm Chandler Bing from Friends!



Now I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again - I don't believe in the results of Personality tests. So, I've got my own opinion about which friends character I'm most like. And I came to this conclusion back in April this year.

I, am Ross Geller. Why?

Well, given my track record, it is highly probable that:

1. If I ever do get married my wife will realise that she is a Lesbian.
2. The woman who marries me will only do so if she is completely drunk.

Also, look at some of Ross's personality quirks:

1. Ross is a geek.
So am I.

2. He comforts Rachel when she breaks up with most of her boyfriends, and specially Paulo.
I am often in the position of being "A shoulder to cry on" for women who are having trouble with their boyfriends or ex-boyfriends.

3. Rachel tells Ross that she is off guys after she breaks up with Paulo.
Most single women tend to say that to me.

4. When Joey falls for Rachel, after initially being shocked Ross tells Joey that he should tell Rachel how he feels. And that if Rachel feels the same way then that's up to them, and Ross shouldn't have a say in it.
I have the same "Aa bail mujhe maar" (translates to inviting a bull to come and hit you without the training of a matador) attitude.

5. When Joey's girlfriend Charlie (who Ross likes) tells Ross she thinks she should break up with him since he's not intelligent or a paleontologist (which Ross is), Ross encourages her to stay with him, inspite of his own interests.
See (4)

6. Rachel gets a job in Paris and Ross tries to make sure that she can stay in New York. Even after everything is arranged, when he sees that she wants to go to Paris, he tells her she should go.
See (4) and (5)

So there.

When I was in my teens, my mom used to ask me "Why can't you be like other boys?"

Instead of playing Cricket in the parking lot of my apartment building, like the other boy kids - and some girl kids too - I'd be happy to sit at home with a book (preferably Isaac Asimov). If not with a book, you'd find me at my computer, attempting to write a computer game using QBasic. (And I finally did. Two. Naughts and Crosses, and a much simpler version of Space Invaders - Level 1)

And it wasn't just my mom. All the women in my life seemed to say the same thing. All four aunts. They expected me to have a girlfriend, "like all boys today have". Yeah, right. They expected me to workout, play sports, build muscles, and beat up other boys my age in the neighbourhood (No, they're not sadistic. This was considered a preferred alternative to being bullied by kids who played sports, built muscles, and beat up other people.)

The fact that I couldn't be bothered to remember the names of all eleven members of the Indian Cricket team and the twelfth man, and the waterboy and their families, or know what exact flavour and brand of bubble gum Sachin Tendulkar chewed, surprised a pretty large number of people.

Well, now I've grown up (or so I'd like to think). I play video games that involve blowing holes through 49 armed men at a time with a Kalashnikov Rifle. I prefer to keep my clothes in a pile beside my bed after I do the laundry instead of putting them away (Because I prefer to fold them before putting them away, and I'm too lazy to do that). I can spend 4 hours at an electronics store without buying anything (just like I can spend the same amount of time in a library without deciding which book I want to take home). And, I prefer waking up when the sun is directly above you, instead of when it rises.

And you know what women say now? They crinkle up their nose, give me a dirty look, and say "You men are all the same!"

I guess you can never win...