Groundbreaking Dutch study links overeating with obesity !!!

How many Dutch scientists do you know, or have even heard of? I can name only one - Christian Huygens, but then he was more a speculator than a scientist. When the Europeans and the Americans were busy discovering electricity, gravitation, photons, X-rays, black holes, vaccination, solar systems and automobiles, the Dutch largely remained quiet, occasionally breaking their technological silence with an odd invention like the device to slice beetroot or the paperweight. But just after the late 1980s, when the scientific community reached a more or less stable state and new inventions became increasingly hard to come by, it appeared as though we were finally exhausted from running hard in the African jungles, and had stopped for a breather only to find ourselves surrounded by cannibals armed with spears and poison darts. And just when we were staring at each other with open mouths in deathly silence, sweating, panting and without a clue as to how to escape from the awkward situation, the Dutch arrived accompanied by a loud din, crashing in sideways in a flurry of flying test tubes and slide rules, burying everyone neck deep in a pile of reseach papers. The next thing you'd expect them to do would be stand up and look around quickly, dust their coats and announce that they were alright.

The volume and quality of research output from The Netherlands has, in recent days rattled the whole scientific machinery, with such breathtaking revelations about the myriad workings of the universe as:

Friday the 13th is not unlucky.

Customers return the products that they can't use.

Children of lesbian couples are like other children.

When people play loud music, they are aware of it.

Drugs are good.

If you eat chocolate, you will live to be 140.

Drugs are good.

Even though twins look the same, they are different people.

When people don't want to quote the exact source of a stupid and obscure scientific finding, why do they always start with "Researchers in the Netherlands have found that..."? Who are these Researchers in Netherlands, and what else have they found out? Has anyone ever bothered to investigate? Do such people really exist, or are they just a stereotype? Short bespectacled men in white labcoats and miner's helmets, holding clipboards, hunched over a mouse cage, taking notes, pretending to be interested.


 


Look at that picture. Why do those people need labcoats, gloves, shower caps, safety glasses and gas masks to read what's written on a clipboard? Even if it was a sinister noxious-gas emitting clipboard, why is only one person wearing that gas-mask? Doesn't the older man care about his safety? Maybe he is a seasoned old veteran who has seen it all. Even if poisonous gases are emitted, does the scientist on the left really think that the flimsy piece of cloth can save him from the resulting slow and gruesome death? Why are they wearing shower caps? Because they don't want the hazardous clipboard to catch dandruff? Even if you concede that it is a fair thought, why is the man on the LEFT wearing it? He doesn't even have any hair!

Do these chimpanzees really think they can outwit the micro-organisms by wearing silly hats? Who are these people and what exactly are they doing in the picture? Are they even real scientists?

What are those clowns discussing, anyway? The effect of Korean hip-hop music on the embryo of a platypus? The correlation of a graph that links teenage pregnancy with political turmoil in Chechnya?Why do all laboratory accessories come only in white? Won't purple labcoats work just as well?

Recently a team of researchers in Netherlands found that Fluoride in drinking water increases the risk of hip fractures in women. A few months later, another study showed that the fluoridation/hip fracture link was not gender specific between high and low fluoride areas. Barely a few months later, another team from The Netherlands found that Fluoride has nothing absolutely to do with anything at all. A team of researchers studying the polar ice caps reported decreasing ice volumes. Another team of researchers studying the polar ice caps reported increasing ice volumes. Another study established that it is both increasing and decreasing. I am not kidding. The third, ground breaking study quoted "A change in one direction must be matched by a change in the opposite direction, in order to preserve physical harmony in the universe. The predicted result is that sea levels will both rise and fall, depending, of course, upon the perspective of the observer." Those are NOT my words. A scientific study found that fish oil is very beneficial for health. A Dutch study found that fish oil is not beneficial for health.

They really are kicking up some serious scientific dust in Netherlands, aren't they? (Doesn’t nether land mean hell or something?) They advise you to eat Brussels sprouts because it prevents cancer, and then they advise you against eating it because it causes DNA damage. They invent lithium batteries and Bluetooth headsets for cell phones and then warn you against the harmful effects of cell phone radiation. It always seems that research in The Netherlands is sponsored by two rival groups of corporate giants who want to prove each other's products unworthy. In fact scientific funding is so abundant in Netherlands, and the volume of research is so staggering that around 60% of the Dutch are scientists. The other 17 are drug peddlers and prostitutes.

What kind of questions do such findings answer? Who is asking those questions? What manner of scientific or intellectual thirst does it quench? Honestly, I cannot imagine the level of sheer desperation, or boredom that would drive a man towards a line of research such as that. What could it be? The belief that every other significant thing has already been discovered, and all that remains in the world to be done is establish beyond doubt that children who grow up with noisy neighbours tend to be socially inactive in their late 40s?

Please stop taking scientific research seriously. Don't believe anyone. Not especially those tarot-card readers and fortune tellers cleverly disguised as scientists in white labcoats. They are the scum of the scientific world, the disgusting creatures that live behind hinges and in dark corners. Never buy science from a person who seems to know what he is talking about. In science is sometimes wiser to trust a person who is clueless.

Seriously, if scientists hadn't fooled around with such useless research and focussed on the really important things, we might have already cured cancer, or eradicated hunger and poverty. The downside of it is that we might also have invented bigger, more powerful bombs...So maybe its good that the most resourceful minds in the world (not necessarily Dutch) are kept occupied with inventing ceramic cheese graters and talking coat-hangers. Maybe we can put off annihilation by a few more years.

Crude Oil crisis - What the US should do.

Here are a few pointers for the policy-makers in the US govt on how to deal with the oil crisis.  As I see it, the US Govt has the following options to bring down the crude-oil prices back to sustainable levels.

1) Mount a covert operation to hide away all your motor vehicles for a month. Don't allow any cars or trucks on the roads. Plant false media reports that Toyota and Honda have independently invented teleportation, and the days of the automobile are past. Plant media reports that the Japanese car manufacturing giants have patented two designs of the teleportation machine and are undercutting each other's prices. Convince the world that internal combustion engines have been declared illegal and anyone found in possession with intent to use is being shot on sight. Make sure that TV reports show empty roads and airstrips for an entire month. Since the economy of the Arab nations and a large part of the former Soviet Union and Venezuela depends on Oil exports, and with no scope for export revenue, they will soon begin to panic. In a desperate attempt to save the motorcar (and hence their economy) they will be forced to approach your Government. They will be on their knees, begging you to take away all their oil reserves in return for few sandwiches. Take ownership of their oil fields, without seeming to be too keen. When its done, bring back your cars and airplanes, and resume your normal life.

2) All this fuss is over crude oil, which is essentially fossil fuel. Buried old carcasses of animals. So, logically the only reason Middle Eastern Asia is rich in oil reserves is because at one point of time, that region was the most populated in the world. It is too late to do anything about it now, but there is still hope. You can secure energy independence for your future generations. Start by encouraging immigration. Increase your population. Promote promiscuous inbreeding. Lift job curbs on migrant workers, promote immigration. Take in refugees. Adopt the biggest refugee camps in Africa, and bring them home. Encourage obesity in schools. Lift the ban on lard. Ban exercise instead. So, finally when the world plunges into a dark ice age, 3 billion overweight people will be buried under 5 miles of snow. Maybe a million years later, you might have a slight edge over the Middle Eastern countries. It may not be much of a chance, but under given circumstances, its the best you've got. Some economists I have spoken to seem to be of opinion that for world dominance, giving yourself 1 million years may be a tad pessimistic, which brings me to my next point.

3) Invade Saudi Arabia.

And Russia. And while you are at it, annex Iran, The United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kuwait. Bomb the living daylights out of Canada and Mexico, and kill all refugees. Kill every man, woman and child in Venezuela, Norway and China. Simultaneously, using your air strike capabilities, capture Peru, Brazil and Siberia. Alaska is already yours but bomb it anyway, just to be sure. Bomb the hell out of Bering Sea, South China Sea, Gulf of Alaska, and carpet-bomb most of the Pacific Ocean, just to mark your territory. Seeing the trail of death and destruction, Algeria and Nigeria will throw up their arms in the air and surrender without a fight. You will then have undisputed control over 59 million barrels per day of supply and over 1189 billion barrels of oil reserves, besides a lot of cheap real estate.

4) Next, confiscate all automobiles in China, UK, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Russia and India. With no cars left in the 7 largest oil importers and with no human beings left to drive them anyway, the demand for crude oil would fall to near zero levels. Finish off the steel and fertilizer plants to do a thorough job. When oil suddenly becomes so cheap, nothing will stand in the way of your economic growth. More thermal power plants will flourish, cars will become bigger and faster, more space stations will be launched, more factories will be opened, clean energy projects will become prohibitively expensive and hence will be justifiably abandoned. Forests and polar ice caps will vanish and so will the sun - behind a screen of thick black smoke, which will give the earth perfect camouflage in outer space, so wandering alien space-settlements will accidentally crash into it, and the alien spectators will think its a black hole and will dutifully follow suit, doing what is expected of them, careful not to annoy the laws of physics; thus destroying whatever is left on earth. But what is buried under an ocean of rubble is a hundred billion tonnes of decaying human carcass, which would one day form the reason for another fine political engagement, thus setting it up nicely for a sequel.


On a lighter note, my grand-uncle recently told me that he drove from Kottayam, Kerala to Madras - a distance of 700km on a tankful of diesel in his Ambassador. It cost him Rs.45 in 1971. For Rs.45 these days, you cannot even crank an engine one revolution. I wish I could tell kids 30 years later that I travelled 700 km for Rs.45, but I don't want to. I love my planet too much to let petrol remain cheap.

If there is indeed a solution to the oil crisis, it's got to be one of these. Anything else is just a compromise. You have nuclear reactors and multi billion dollar auto industry backed researches into ceramic superconductors and ultra efficient electric-hybrid-DNA cars that run on love and sunshine. Those Sheikhs have nothing, just a few pipes stuck into the ground. What chance do they have? If with all the might of your atomic energy and nuclear science you couldn't put a few camel jockeys out of business, well you're pretty much screwed.

And that's all I have to say on that.

Some more things about the universe that don't make any sense to me...

1) Why do they say "the ball is in your court"? The players are not playing on different courts, are they? Shouldn't they say "the ball is in your SIDE of the court"?

2) What do they mean when they say "3 different times"? Isn't "3 times" enough to convey the message? "I lost my pen 3 different times that day", as opposed to what, 3 same times?

3) Just because you make vernacular motion pictures in a certain town in India doesn't mean you have to name it after the biggest movie industry town in the world. The name of a movie town doesn't HAVE to rhyme with Hollywood. Bollywood! Its OKAY to just call it Hindi film industry. Same goes for Tollywood and Kollywood. The Bombay stock exchange is not called BASDAQ.

4) "Walking distance" is NOT a measure of distance. How the hell long is walking distance anyway? I could walk to the north pole if I had the time.


5) If you pay Rs.100 for this -







would you pay Rs.50 for this...?





Then can butchers just point at leghorn hens in the bushes and collect 50 bucks for each?

Oxygen!!   I need Oxygen!!!!

If you want Boeing to manufacture airliners with ceramic plumbing fixtures, stay off cereal.

Hunger Strikes. I could never really get a handle on the whole concept. It seems there is nothing these days that you cannot protest against by staying hungry. Two powerful nations make a deal to exchange atomic technology in a multi-billion dollar deal that can secure the energy-independence of a large part of the third world; Eastern European refugees are mercilessly slaughtered by soldiers armed with AK-47 assault rifles; Arch gravity dams are built by geotechnical engineers aided by the Government and secretly backed by major power corporations. You read about all this in the news and conclude that the world is upto no good, and decide to do something about it.

What do you do? Do you mobilize the power hungry masses of a deprived communist nation and start a revolution to overthrow the dictatorship? Do you mastermind a secret plot to assassinate the president of the United States of America? Do you thrust anti-aircraft guns and pepper spray into the hands of crane operators and paper mill workers and lead an invasion of the solar system? No. Instead you decide to skip lunch. And assure the media that you are not on a weight-loss diet.

I fail to understand how people can think that they can bring about a change by not eating. How do you combat persuasive political will and corporate greed? Quite literally by skipping lunch! It's a bit like hoping to ward off the Spanish armada, armed with a watermelon.

What do you think is going on behind those thick boardroom walls?

Politician 1: "Gentlemen, we have managed to secure the Government's approval for construction of the nuclear power plant. The project will be sanctioned in a couple of weeks. The reaction chambers are being assembled in Volgograd and the enriched Uranium ore is being loaded into an Ukrainian vessel in Shanghai even as we speak. Phase II of the project will go live in exactly 90 days from now, and within 6 months, our newly installed power plant would produce 11500 MW of power."

Politician 2: "That's great news! We are well on our way to becoming a nuclear superpower. Nothing can stop us now!"

Politician 2's sidekick (in a small voice): "Umm...there could be one small problem..."

(at this point deathly silence suddenly descends upon the room. There is a collective holding of breaths in the room, and the tension mounts)

Politician 2's sidekick nervously continues, "Well, uhh...umm... some environmentalist from Nagpur has not eaten since morning..."

(Everyone in the room gasps in horror, looks of disbelief all around.)

Corporate Mogul: " Oh No! Not THAT! Politician 1! How could you let this happen?! Our plan was supposed to be airtight! How could you let this happen?! What are we going to do now?! Our entire nuclear strategy is compromised now!"

Politician 1: "Honestly gentlemen, we didn't see this one coming. Since we, the Government and the corporate giants care deeply for the gastronomical well being of our social activists, this new and unforeseeable development leaves us with no alternative but to pull out of the deal. Delegates of the press, representatives of our corporate sponsors and representatives of the UN and the G5 nations, we apologize for the inconvenience. Bhel-puri is served in the stalls in the lobby, thank you for your time."

Seriously protesters, do you imagine boardroom conversations to be like that? Look at the situation objectively. In my rational opinion, no one would be hassled if you stop eating, unless they want to sell you popcorn. On the other hand, all considered, few things are more convincing and persuasive than the unfastened end of the barrel of a 5.56mm M4 carbine staring at your temple like a Nazi pit-bull. Hunger of course, is a mute statue compared with the persuasive eloquence of the immediate possibility of 30 rounds of a semiautomatic burst jostling for space with your larynx.

No one has ever died while fasting. It's a fact. Place that large heavy machine gun order before they find out.

The Men Are Back with a lot less

No Anti roll bars
No Limited Slip Differential
No twin-Garett Turbochargers
No Pirelli P-Zero semi slicks
No sodium-cooled titanium valves
No Dihedro-synchrohelic actuation gullwing doors
No Traction Control
No Active Suspension
No Seven-speed Sequential paddle shift gearbox
No Brembo high-performance discs
No carbon-fibre monocoque
No Electronic Launch Control
No rear spoilers, no Venturi ducts
No variable geometry engine intake
No Afterburners

Who Killed the Dodo?!

In the unimaginably dark and distant past, ancient fish crawled out of the oceans on their fins, gasping for breath, often getting stuck in slosh and being washed back into the oceans by the tides. The searing heat of the still young sun penetrating through a toxic, light atmosphere would desiccate their eyes and soak up their lives. Countless fish lay dead on the sea shore with that open-mouthed dead look that somehow only fish can manage. Yet they persevered, they never gave up...with their flimsy fins and fragile semi-formed vertebrae, they dragged their bodies across the sea shore. It took hundreds of thousands of years of painstaking effort, groveling on their sides, lugging themselves forward with their weak, undeveloped fins. Filling their embryonic semi-formed lungs with short gasps of noxious air and choking helplessly, sucking fluids from ancient pinecones using their toothless mouths, their desperate bodies lunging and writhing in the cancerous heat of an alien environment, rubbing against the sand to shed scales. These were our ancient fore-fathers, creatures we owe our existence to. But for the courage and determination shown by these daring primordial beings, life would have been much different. And you'd think they'd be remembered more often...

Anyway, fish eventually became reptiles, some of which became lizards and later, birds.

After this relatively humble beginning, Life gained momentum. Newer and bolder skeletal structures emerged, some terrifying and some downright comical. There was a brief time when large lizards were fashionable, but for some reason, it didn’t stick. When the ground became clear of these huge reptiles, the apes slowly began to wonder whether it would be a good idea to venture down. Gradually as they gained courage, they sent the first ape down, to experiment. Unfortunately as it was closing time, it failed to notice its tail and tripped and landed on its head with much force, causing considerable damage. It later went on to breed and populate Australia. However the other apes descended without incident and in what is widely regarded as a bad move, quickly got rid of their tails and became Man, and would later chase down and trap the other apes who didn't descend from the trees and teach them how to juggle eleven burning chainsaws while balancing three Campari bottles on the nose and walking on a tightrope over a deep ravine with hungry crocodiles, while giving a discourse about the history of Palestine in Japanese. They would also go on to be the first species to try and kill other members of the same species for no good reason.

Somewhere along the line, Tigers made a brief cameo appearance too. With their feline charms and swashbuckling stripes they streaked through history like a comet, radiating raw sexual energy, making old girls happy and young girls even happier. They were the original Casanovas. They bred profusely and unashamedly, their desire for Food, Sex and The Good Life overcoming all objections of modesty and virtue. Their numbers were growing at an alarming rate, when some idiot had to discover cordite and ruin it for them. They had a good thing going though, before it was an abrupt Game-Over. They are still remembered in bed these days. (In bedtime stories, obviously!)

Given how surprisingly fair and unbiased a process evolution is, some occurrences are simply astonishing.

The extinction of the Dodo, for one. They were massive birds with incredibly strong pectoral muscles. They descended from the great flighted dinosaurs. They could kill their prey by thrashing it with their wings alone. For hundreds of thousands of years, they inhabited the wild islands off the African coast, and were the unchallenged masters of the ecosystem. They were at the apex of the food chain. They were on a roll, they were at the top of their game.

The Gouldian Finch on the other hand is one of world's most delicate and fragile birds. It requires of all things, fire for its food. It feeds mainly on the seeds of one plant - speargrass. It is only after forest fires - started by accident or by man - have cleared the undergrowth that the birds can reach the seeds on the ground. With a handicap like that, you'd think the first Gouldian Finch would have been lucky to see off a few seasons, but No. That bird has survived 60 million years.

The emperor penguin lives and breeds in temperatures less than -45C. The Ivory Gull breeds further north than any other bird, and it perfectly adapted to the conditions which defeat most other life forms. The Bar-headed goose lives on the Tibetian plateau, on the coldest desert on the roof of the world. The Oilbird lives in the pitch blackness of Venezuelan caves. The Rufous Hummingbird survives and breeds at altitudes of 9000ft and at temperatures well below freezing by making a nest of the highest insulate qualities, a network of lichen and spiders web.

Or you'd think the case of the Bermuda Petrel would be a sure bet. It lives in burrows on the side of cliffs just above the sea-line. Minuscule amounts of Chlorofluorocarbons spewed into the atmosphere, a tiny hole in the ozone layer, a wee bit of global warming followed by a small increase in sea levels, and there you are. The Bermuda Petrel, gone. History. Bummer. Sitting Duck. No-brainer. Checkmated by the giant evolution machinery!

And of all these, guess who had to go? The mighty Dodo! And why, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, after having survived the long and cold ice age? Because a bunch of hungry Dutchmen arrived in Africa.

The Dinosaurs.
Earth trembled when they walked. They impacted biological history like nothing before or after them, they roamed around with such an other-worldly eminence that in the 200-odd million years that they lasted, they reigned with unchallenged supremacy. Their dominance over other life forms was total, their might unparallelled. They were evolution's greatest triumph, a showcase of extreme biological adaptation. It took a shower of heavenly bodies to put them to rest and end their era. Their total dominance of the food chain would be unmatched in degree and extent till 65 million years after they were annihilated. Their influence was so great, so profound that many species spun off their biologcal pedigree - Birds, crocodiles, lizards, Komobo dragons, even turtles inhabit the earth to this day. Why did they have to go?

The Cockroach
It is the unassuming insect that defeated the mighty Dinosaur in the evolution race, and is all poised to outlast Man, too. Its epidermis is stronger than an elephant's, it is resistant to bacterial infection, its hard, strong exoskeleton can withstand G-forces at which human beings would pass out, they have an incredibly co-ordinated group emergency behaviour, they are cold blooded and are resistant to cell division under nuclear radiation, they don't mutate, they can feed on practically anything. They have been around for 240 million years, they have survived meteor showers, the ice age, the bronze age, and the Liberace age. They are currently doing a very good job of survival in the tele-shopping age. So they can no doubt survive nuclear attacks. The next time you see a cockroach running around, remember that in the long evolutionary race, it will outrun you. After the brief moment of reflection, give it a mighty whack on the head.

Take the case of the Penguin. Here is another evolutionary anomaly. Here is evidence that someone somewhere has seriously messed up. When this kind of mistake shows up, it means someone screwed up seriously at a very early stage, and the anomaly is the symptom merely, of a more deep rooted cause.

 

How can you explain that appearance? What excuse does evolution have to produce something like that and still be in business? Whatever its ancestor was, just what was it thinking as it began evolving? What strategic roadmap and goals did it lay before itself as it started rolling or stretching or listening to rap music or doing whatever it is that one does to initiate evolution? To what end has a concatenation of geographic, climactic and chemical changes resulted in such a hideous life form? Since everything in the known universe is known to have been caused by something and in turn cause something else, what painstakingly calculated scheme does nature intend for this...thing to play a pivotal role in? What exactly is that Penguin-shaped hole in the expanse of the grand evolutionary blueprint that this creature is supposed to plug? What appalling life form is this bird supposed to give rise to? What can be more unsightly than this? How can Mother Nature create such a being and still keep a straight face?


And finally, here is a drastically simplified evolution chart.



 


If those primitive invertebrates knew that their revolutionary, world changing act of leaving the oceans and settling down on land would eventually, after countless millions of years result in that thing on the right, I wonder whether they would have bothered at all.

(I had to plug in the tiger bit...it was a contractual obligation)

Do Sumo wrestlers use chopsticks?

In Japan, unlike in the southern part of India, the focus while eating is clearly not on quantity or volume. Take the chopstick, for example. What purpose does the chopstick serve? Why would anyone in their right mind use a stick to eat rice with? What were these people thinking? They estimated the effort it took to wash their hands after a meal and said "that seems like a lot of work. I would rather invent something which would involve no washing afterwards. It doesnt matter if it takes me an hour working at full speed, to eat a handful of rice. It doesnt matter if on many occasions I lose the patience to eat halfway through a meal. It doesnt matter if I am eating a bowlful of rice one grain at a time, doesn't matter that I am working the chopsticks at such a tremendous speed that they have their own magnetic field. (that probably explains why the Japanese take off their shoes and watches before eating)."

Do they discard the chopsticks after eating or do they wash them and reuse them? I read somewhere that they usually wash and reuse the chopsticks, but that defeats the purpose for which they were invented, doesn't it?

Maybe they like playing with their food before eating it. But what joy can be derived from watching three grains of rice writhe in pain and agony as you chew on them and crush them between your enormous moss-covered molars? That theory obviously doesn't hold water.

Anyway, at the same time, Japan had its share of smart people, too. There was a smart but elite group of tree-hugging environmentalists who boycotted the whole chopstick movement. They were highly intelligent people who knew that one would exert more energy eating the food than one would gain by digesting it. In Japan, you would lose more weight if you ate food than if you didn't. So, they wisely followed the eating techniques prevalent at that time in the southern part of India. They never used chopsticks. Even to this day, you will never find a Sumo wrestler eating with a chopstick.

I would have given anything to see the look on the chopstick-inventor's face when someone came up with the idea of a spoon. It’s easy to imagine a defeated, yet proud Japanese face. It is easy to imagine any Japanese face for that matter.

Chopsticks are made by chopping down trees. So shouldn't they technically be called choptrees?

Never mention Nefertiti to a Necrophile

I have a caffeine buzz. I feel dizzy and disorientated. I’m sitting ramrod straight in a straight chair, but i feel like a warped polyhedron. I feel dizzy, my head is spinning, my palms are sweating and my fingers are trembling. There is static electricity in my gut, like charged butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I don't know if it’s the caffeine. It could be the caffeine, but I'm not sure. I hope its the caffeine. Something is pulling me, trying to align me towards the magnetic lines of flux. I am sitting up, but I feel gravity is acting on my body in the wrong direction. I feel the blood rushing to my head, like im hung upside down. I've been nodding my head for sometime now. I don't know why. I should stop. I make a mental note of it. I nod my head. I don't stop. I hope it’s the caffeine. I am looking at the computer screen, and I'm blank. My hands are working independent of the rest of my body, working on commands that my mind doesn’t remember giving, furiously typing away, dancing across the keyboard like supercharged spiders on redbull. My mind is far away, thinking something else. My eyes read what my hands are typing. It is strange...I don’t know who is typing what i'm reading. My hands are performing, and my eyes are the audience. It is all new to me. I am being told a story by a being which has possessed my fingers alone. Every word I type is a revelation. It is all heartbreakingly obvious. Damn, why didn’t I think of that before? Someone is trying to communicate to me. There is an alien chick in distress somewhere, in some parallel universe in an unknown dimension and she needs my help! I have to rescue her from the evil goblin who has captured and imprisoned her in the tallest tower of a castle. He has violently murdered the two brave adventurers who set out before me to rescue the princess and ripped open their guts. I follow the trail of intestines and lungs leading up to the topmost tower. I sight the goblin. I see him playing with a gleaming ruby-studded sword, which I realize is the instrument that I am supposed to slay him with. Seeing him use it to pick his nose is discouraging. I realize I have to sneak up behind him, snatch the sword from his disgusting hands and plunge it deep into his throat and then extract it and stab him again and again and again and again and finally bury the sword to the hilt in his left eye. Somehow I suspect that it would disappoint him. I wonder what I'll do with the other hand while I'm thrusting the blade inside his body and tearing it open. I would put it in my pocket, I guess. I could stroke the goblin's head, but they wouldn’t make awfully nice pets but then again not everyone gets to stroke a goblin's head, because they would bite your hands right off, so the best time to do it would be when there is a huge sword buried between its eyebrows. Since I don’t have anything else to do today, I think I'll kill an evil goblin. But no, wait... I realize I'm actually in the mood for a murder scene. I like gore. That's just what I want right now. So, in an unexpected show of grit and valour, I sit back on the bean bag with a coke and wait see the bit where the princess gets raped by the goblin and then gets eaten up.

I am fading away. Thank god it's wearing off. I don't know how I got here, but I'm going away now. The next time I feel sleepy, I will not be tempted. I will stick to my principles. I will NOT drink coffee. I will do the right thing. I will not chicken out. I will not give in. I will be brave and do the dignified thing, uncomfortable though it may be. I will sleep.

I make a mental note...

Absurd Inventions - part 1 of many

Before toilet paper was invented, people were using corncobs and squirrels for the purpose. But the face tissue was already in use even BEFORE the toilet paper was patented, so why didn't they just use the face tissue instead? Hygiene could not have been an issue. If its clean enough to wipe your face with, its clean enough for pretty much everything else. And besides, its definitely an improvement over a dead squirrel's tail.

The guy who patented the rolled, pre-moistened toilet tissue called it "Medicated paper", and he insisted that his name be printed on every ply. Medicated, hmm...

btw, Here is a list of things that people used before TP was invented.

Newsprint
Hayballs
wool
Corncobs
Mussel shell
Sand
Coconut shells
Lace (guess who used lace - the French!)
This one walks away with the cake...Sponge soaked in brine, attached to the end of a long stick (The ancient Romans)
Wool and rosewater
Hemp (!!!!)
Snow and moss (the Eskies)

Hmmmm....

Business. Enhance. Strategy. Improve. Long-Term. Delivery. Integrated. Management. Approach. Assessment. Process. Competency. Convergence. Efficiency. Value Chain. Dynamic. Solution. Value Proposition.

I have no idea what these words mean. But I can throw in a few adjuncts and string them together to describe what I do for a living. Guess what I do for a living. Yours will be as good as mine.

Delivery of long-term business strategy, coupled with an Integrated management approach towards process competency and Delivery convergence, together with a strategic approach towards knowledge management and improvement of inherent value chain inefficiencies.

In more civilized times, a man was either a farmer, a cobbler, a carpenter, a soldier or a baker. More often than not, you could tell what he did for a living just by looking at him. But these days, people no longer mend shoes or grow paddy or dispense justice. No. Instead, they model process flows, they map converging strategic competencies and work out integrated dynamic solutions that enhance the business value. So if you don't keep up with the changing times, you'd never be able to guess a person's profession by looking at him.

I once met a guy on a train. He was carrying a laptop, so I asked him if he was an IT consultant. He seemed genuinely hurt by that. After I told him how sorry I was, he told me that he was in fact a Change management agent dealing with post-production implementation discrepancies. I was then in the business of selling trucks, and if someone asked me what I did, I'd first ask them if they are in the business of selling trucks. If they said yes, I would say "I sell trucks, too". And if they said no, i would patiently explain to them saying "I sell trucks."

Gone are those days. I now deal with Business Process Management, and I model process flows and harvest business policies, enabling organisations to deal more efficiently with long term strategy by enhancing the value proposition of service offerings. Yeah. That's what you'd think if you looked at me.