Could I Quit My Day Job

watch night train online I wonder how many of you ask yourselves this question each day. How many of you want to be able to afford quitting your job and walk out the door knowing that this is the last time that you’ll be in that office. Being able to strut and walk with a little bounce in your step. Heaving a sigh that the ordeal is over. Looking an arrogant employer at his face and telling him off and / or flipping the bird. Doesn’t that sound great in your head? Don’t you already have a song picked out that will be playing in the background if you were doing that? I certainly do.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Can I really afford to quit my job, without finding a new one immediately or finding one first and then quiting? The second one is the wise way to go about things. But the temptation is there to throw caution to the wind and march straight in and say “I Quit” and set sail. I wish I could do that. I just can’t do it at the moment. I get my monthly salary on the last day of the month, by which time I would be down to my last Rs.100 of the previous month. That is just not done.

So I don’t have enough as backup in case I want to quit. Otherwise I would. Immediately! And what about you? Whoever reads this entry, please enter in the comment about your feelings.

Thank You Finland

Finland is a country in the Scandinavian part of Europe with a very small population of just a little over 5 million. According to the World Audit Democracy profile, Finland is the freest nation in the world in terms of civil liberties, freedom of the press, low corruption levels and political rights.[5] Finland is rated the sixth most peaceful country in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The mother nation of Finns has given us so much, that I want to thank Finland for :

  • Great hard rock / metal bands like Children Of Bodom, The Rasmus, Lordi, Nightwish & HIM
  • Footballers like Jarri Litmanen, Sami Hyypia, Mikael Forsell & Jussi Jääskeläinen
  • Mika Häkkinen, who won the F1 championship twice, Kimi Räikkönen, Marcus Grönholm & Tommi Mäkinen in Motor Sports
  • NHL players like Teemu Selanne, Sami Salo, Vesa Toskala, Jaari Kurri, Kari Lehtonen, Saku Koivu, Miikka Kiprusoff & Olli Jokinen
  • NOKIA phones
  • Linus Torvalds for Linux & Jarkko “WiZ” Oikarinen for IRC

Indian Autorickshaw Challenge

Alright, now I have heard about it all! I can go to my bed and die in my sleep and I wouldn’t care!

About the weirdest Rally’s that you can ever hope to see is the Indian Autorickshaw Challener, in which the contestants travel from Chennai to Mumbai in that bastion of public transport, the Autorickshaw! Unfortunately most of the contestants are not Indian, but hey who cares! You get teams like Pink Panic, Team Kannada (a Canadian mom of 72 & her two sons who adopted a small Kannada medium school in Karnataka), Tamil Devils (none of them Tamilians), Team Tuk Tuk Tuxedo & Team Voodoo Cadillac.

The World’s Worst Credit Card

Golb at Money, Matter, and More Musings has located the worst credit card in the world. It is designed to prey on subprime borrowers who, sadly, cannot get a better card…

Meet the Continental Finance MasterCard. After all the fees have been collected, it has a credit limit of $53. From MMMM:

  • Account setup fee: $99
  • Program participation fee: $89
  • Annual fee: $49
  • Account maintenance fee: $120 (charged @ $10/month)
  • Purchase APR: 19.92%
  • Authorized user fee: $30 (great! seems like $53 credit is a bit too much for a single person to handle)
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  • Credit limit increase fee: $25 (and you don’t even have to ask for it!)
  • Internet payment fee: $4 for each authorized internet payment.

Damn. This card is shockingly awful. And to make matters worse: Golb points out that if you use this card to repair your credit history you’re stuck with it because canceling the account will shorten your credit history and drop your score. What a headache!

Taken from a post @ Consumerist.com

Happy Onam

So all you Malayalees out there think you know the truth about Onam? This is what actually happened ;)

The Devas : Hey Vishnu, the people of Kerala are so upset right now?

Vishnu : Yo dudes! How come?

The Devas : They don’t have anything to celebrate. All the festivals are of the people from other states. They don’t have any festival to claim as their own. This brings out depression & suicide rates are so high. You gotta do something, amigo! The humans think that you are useless. It’s affecting your popularity.
Vishnu : Ok, Ok! Don’t get your knickers in a twist! Let me think of something  compadres. Hey, I think that king dude, what’s his name, is down there? Maveli. Let me pay him a visit. Servants, give me a disguise!

A few days later….

Maveli : Ha, see that little shit over there? That pygmy walking about like he knows it all. That is Vishnu in disguise. I bet he has come here for a favour. Every time he comes down to Earth, it’s either to kill someone, have sex with numerous females or ask a favour. He has already done the first two things this year. It’s gotta be a favour.
Vamana aka Vishnu aka pygmy : Greetings Maveli. Yo man, I need a favour. Can you, like, go to hell, so that the people of Kerala can mourn you? Then you can come back once a year, so they will be happy and celebrate it. They love you, homie. They can make it a festival and look forward to it and eat lots of food. What do ya say? Please dude, I don’t know what else to do. I’m begging you. Let’s do it.

Maveli : Ok, alright don’t cry. But you gotta make up some story. They won’t believe that you had to sink so low and come here to beg me a favour. The last stupid thing u did was dress in drag and get Shiva all so horny and then you guys did it and had that son. So think of some story to go along with it.

Vamana aka Vishnu aka pygmy : Yeah , yeah. Don’t worry. My slaves will write up a story to fool people. They won’t know what hit them. It will be a grand success. So you ready. Bend down!

Maveli : Whoa! Dude, I don’t know you that well!

Vamana aka Vishnu aka pygmy : No, no! Not that. Shiva can do that for me. I just need to push you down to hell. And don’t forget, come back every year around the same time.

Vamana pushes Maveli down with his foot and sends him to hell.

And that’s how we came to celebrate Onam!

Stupid Ants

I hate ants! They bite, they swarm in alarming numbers and they are a stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I have had some big problems with ants in the apartment. This place has an ant problem on an enormous scale. I haven’t had this kind of an issue at our former house in Thrikkakara. But this is so ridiculous. We have had problems with ants crawling all over the clothes hung on the line to dry on the balcony. Drop a small morsel of food, any tiny piece and watch in a few minutes as the tiny buggers attack in high numbers.

A couple of times I have woken up with bites on me. On certain nights, if I leave the windows open, a dumb moth or some other kind of insect will fly in and hit against the blades of the ceiling fan and fall injured or dead on my bed. The ants sensing ‘food’ will find their way towards the dead insect on my bed and will inevitably start biting me as well. Well fuck you, ants!

The worst part – and this has happened to me twice – is that these morons seem to be attracted to my asthma medicine, inside my inhaler! They have crawled into my pants pocket and got into my inhaler. The first time, I thought that it was because of a leaking Vicks cough tablet that I had in the same pocket. But the next time, it wasn’t so, as I didn’t have anything else in my pocket except for a dry handkerchief and the inhaler. So those two times I took my inhaler out, shook it and opened the cap and put the nozzle to my mouth, pressed the inhaler cylinder and inhaled – and got a mouthful of ants in my throat along with the medicine. Numerous, coughing & spitting & gagging followed until I clear my throat of the nasty little buggers and drank water & juice to clear it. No wonder I kill every ant that I find. Nasty, stupid ants!

August 15

So Independence Day, a holiday during the week to enjoy. Last night from 8pm till 11 was terrible; no electricity for over three hours. Nothing to do but to take a long nap and thank goodness for a wonderful breeze, which threatened rain but never came. It was huge relief when the lights came on just in time for me to watch reruns of Seinfeld & Friends and bits of a movie that I seen earlier and had reviewed in this blog – Blade : Trinity. That done, I went to chat with Tania for a while and then went to bed.

Today, I wanted to just get out and relax at the coffee shop, so I went out at around 11 and spent 90mins at CCD with a novel and a triple sec cold coffee. I then needed to get some cash outta the ATM machine so I went over to the ICICI office near Padma. I saw Anju there, surprise, she no longer works for the bank and is looking around for a job in HR since she has had it with sales. It was sure nice to chat with her for a while but dumbass that I am, I forgot to ask her for her phone number. Shit! Anyway, she informed me that she & her friend were having trouble taking money out from the ATM – seems that the entire ICICI network is down. They had been trying since morning to take money out with no luck, even if there was more than enough cash in their accounts. And their debit cards were not being processed at any shops at all. Major issue! Which meant that I couldn’t take any out myself. Oh well!

I went to have lunch and washed it with a couple of vodkas. Then I came back for a long snooze and I’ve been listening to songs from 5 pm and trying to get ICICI’s customer care. But the suckers have been flooded by calls, no doubt by frustrated customers who could not take money out of their accounts. I have no sympathies for them; I would for any other customer care center but not ICICI. Wanna know why? Cause when I was a customer care representative for Escotel, our worst customers were the corporate customers from ICICI. Cochin, Calicut, Kottayam, Thrissur, Trivandrum – you name it, all assholes who couldn’t wait to brandish their company’s name at us. But we were never impressed. So no sympathies assholes!

Song for the day – “Pretty Child” – INDUS CREED

She is 60

She is 60. She is still very young as a nation; in the true sense of the meaning of the word ‘Nation’. But as an ideology & a theme, she is ancient. But her subjects behave like spoiled brats. As a country, she has much more to learn, much to grow. To become who she is destined to be, she has miles to go. What we think are the greatest things about her, may actually be the worst about her. Is she a democracy? You call her the world’s biggest, but she isn’t that. Not really. Before you blindly dispute me, take a newspaper, any given day, read it thoroughly and then claim it!

I wasn’t born here! Does that make me less of an Indian? Sometimes I wonder if I qualify as being an Indian! The Reason? It’s that I cannot stand the FOUR biggest things in India (according to me) and that is Religion, Cricket, Politics & Bollywood (I would have to clump in Indian film music, regional or otherwise). I just can’t stand these 4 things. And sometimes, even as we progress in other fields, I can’t help but think that we are two centuries behind in certain matters. Differences in religion, political parties causing riots, idiots in powerful positions and backward thinking – to just name a few.

But the way I look at it is this; you think she is beautiful now? Just think of her when she gets rid of her excess baggage.

Now that is real beauty.

Jai Hind!

Warning In Advance

How nice of the BJP! The Indian Express has carried a small article in today’s edition stating that the BJP has declared a 12 hour harthal on September 14 “to protest against the formation of the Salem railway division by splitting up the Palghat division and the “step-motherly” attitude of the Center towards Kerala in general”.

So to protest against the Centeral government’s treatment of Kerala, they proclaim a harthal….in Kerala! To inconvenience us, the people of Kerala, on the 14th of September, so we have to stay indoors, not get public transport and have to suffer some more by being unable to operate our work & business and have to deal with loss of revenue!

Clever dudes these politicians, very clever!

Song for the day – “Can I Play With Madness?” – IRON MAIDEN

Bar

When a person is denied entry to a place, it is known as being ‘barred’ from that particular place. When your access to some services are cut off, you are ‘barred’ of that particular service. And when your access is restored or you are no longer denied access, you are ‘unbarred’.

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So what happens when a lawyer (advocate, barrister, shark) is banned from appearing in court to represent clients and from practicing law altogether? He is ‘disbarred’ (same as unbarred)!

Does that sound right?

Be Glad

Working in the late evening or night shifts I come home around 2 am or later. I kind of like this shift since I get to be lazy and spend lots of awake time at home or outside and I also don’t have to wake up at an early hour as I am not a morning person. I can stay awake till all hours of the night, even up to the crack of dawn, but I just hate to get up before 8 am. Ok 7 am is still a bit better but I prefer not to. So this way I get up around 9 am or even 11 am if I happen to stay up late after reaching home, be on the internet while slowly having a couple of cups of coffee or if I feel adventurous, I might go out on the town.

Coming home at that late time of night or early morning, whichever way you wanna put it, you get to see the city & suburbs in a different light. Cochin actually looks pretty in most places if you care to look at it in that angle. The various street lights, hoarding lights & lights at gates etc give the place a different kind of glow. I usually like the drive home and I usually don’t mind if it takes an hour, as I sit at a window seat and gaze outside at the various sights and let my mind wander.

However, one can also see the negative aspects of the city. In this day and age, with huge medical and scientific advances, with all this technology & wealth, huge building complexes, not to mention all that land, building, resources & money spent on unnecessary and useless temples, churches & mosques, there are still homeless people. I see a man pulling his sheets around him, lying at the entrance of a musical instruments store, a family huddling in the doorway of a shopping complex and an old lady sleeping in a bus stop shed! What about the poor animals who have no shelter? The dogs & cats with no homes? No questions asked.

That’s what I like so much about the Star Trek world, as much fiction it is. We should all aim for that world. No hunger, no diseases, no homeless, no stray animals (meaning that they are looked after), no in-fighting amongst humans for land, ideology or nation, no fucking gods or stupid religions making a mockery of us and no paper money needed.

Song for the day – “Imagine” – JOHN LENNON

Notes For 27th July

  • I am so lazy right now that I could go back to sleep
  • My hair & head are having troubles with dandruff
  • I need another cup of strong black coffee
  • I do not want to go to work for one month
  • I feel like having a beer
  • Saw a pic in another blog – Mike Comrie is going out with Hillary Duff???!!
  • Martin Gelinas signs on with the Nashville Predators
  • Edmonton Oilers have given an offer to Dustin Penner for a five-year $21.5 million offer, ($4.3 million dollars per year)
  • Found links to download about 50 albums mostly by heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden, Dream Theatre, Alice Cooper plus some death & black metal cds, for free
  • And in a bitter sweet news, Theiry Henri starts off well for Barcelona FC by scoring the only goal in a 1-0 against Dundee United in a friendly

Song for the day – “The Mourning Palace” – DIMMU BORGIR

Dark Skies

The night was cloudy & it rained a heck of a lot. Infact, it was raining so heavily with a gusty wind, that when I looked back from my computer screen, I saw the floor and part of my bed was so wet as the rain was being blown inside through the open window. There was quite a bit of water on the floor between the window and my bed, which was was dripping wet. I quickly closed the windows & fastened the lock on the windows to avoid being drowned. As I was closing the windows, I saw the weirdest shadow being made as a vehicle moved slowly on the street below. The street light and the wet road & walls and the vehicle combined to create an otherworldly shape in the form of a shadow that sent a little shiver down my spine. I imagined this ‘creature’ trying to get into the apartment through my window and only missed by a fraction of a second, as I close & lock the windows just in time.

I have a very active imagination and my mind normally goes off in different tangents that seem to be farther off from reality than most people’s. Also I read & watch a lot of sci-fi, horror & occult themed stuff, so I tend to look for those themes in everything that I see. I normally have this day-dream of a world 3000 years in the future with a bunch of spaceships and different aliens and planets being involved. Let me tell you; Hollywood can’t compare to the kind of things happening in my brain every day!

Song for the day – “Wings Of A Butterfly” – H.I.M

It’s All Greek To Me

I am not trying to offend the Greeks who actually live in Greece. Not at all! But it seems to me that Greeks who live in other countries are quite prominent and make a name for themselves. In all fields that you can think of, you have a famous person of Greek origin / ethnicity, full or partial. From the US, in the movies & tv you have the lovely Maria Menounos, Jennifer Anniston, Angie Harmon, Hank Azaria, John Stamos, Olympia Dukakis. You have the illusionist Criss Angel (real name Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos). In Politics you have Michael Dukakis. In the NHL you have Chris Chelios, the old man of hockey. In sports you have retired ‘soccer’ player Alexi Lalas & tennis superstar Pete Sampras. In music you have Tommy Lee & Athena Kottak (Lee’s sister) & Constantine Maroulis.

Greek-Canadians are varied as in former WWE star Trish Stratus, former NHL star Chris Kontos, actors Elias Koteas, Nia Vardalos, John Ioannou and the late John Colicos. You have tv personality George Stroumboulopoulos & Comedian Angelo Tsarouchas.

Australia’s Greek community boasts of tennis star Mark Philippoussis, footballer Stan Lazaridis, actors & brothers Costas & Louis Mandylor & singer Peter Andre.

From the UK we have actress Marina Sirtis (of Star Trek fame), singers George Michael (of the gay flashing infamy) & Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Islam .

Who is my fav of these people? Marina Sirtis & Elias Koteas.

Naive Me

I have to say this : people are not who you think they are. I find it hard to be too negative about trusting people and believing that they are sincere but lately it has become less hard. Several incidences have forced me to rethink my belief that most people are actually good and true. I used to firmly believe in what people who get friendly with me tell me. Maybe I am just naive or stupid but I usually did believe in the good. But not so much anymore. The people who I think are genuine have not turned out to be so. And that makes me a little sad that I can’t trust them.

So what happens when you can’t trust people? You nod along when they talk to you about something but you don’t agree to it in your mind. Or you play neutral and say that you would like to keep yourself away from whatever they are talking to you about. And I think that most people do know that I am kinda trusting. So, dare I say it, they try to take advantage of me using that knowledge. And I fall for it. Every goddamn fucking time. In most cases I think that it might not matter too much even if I fall for it. I can shrug it off after a couple of hours and not think much off it later. But some stick to me and I can’t forget them.

I remember some so vividly that they have shaped the rest of my life since that incident. Some regarding my friends and some regarding my relatives. I think I should just go about not trusting anyone at all for as long as I live! But then, what kind of life would that be?

Song for the day – “Never Give Up On Me” – JANN ARDEN

Bus Etiquette

I have had a hate relationship with my fellow travelers in the buses of our lovely state. There are certain areas where it is really bad – Pukkatupady and area, Calicut (most regions) for example – but it is quite prevalent. I’m sure that most of you would have encountered this during the daily trips that you take to or from work. Have you wished that you could do something about it. I, one man that I am, cannot do it on my own. So please stand up for your rights to travel peacefully.

The things I hate about traveling in a bus:

  • Loud obnoxious talkers & singers, especially Tamil labourers. Please, I need not necessarily want to know your favourite song, so please don’t sing it to me.
  • If I sit in on the very last seat row & there is plenty of space to stand in the middle of the bus, do not stand right in front of me with your ass in my face. I fear you have had a heavy lunch and hence will not hesitate to defend my self & my nose with my umbrella.
  • The assholes who think that they should stand right at the door, even if there is plenty of space inside the bus, in order to (a) get the maximum breeze or (b) to show off. Get a life, you moron.
  • Do not lift your hand and hold onto the bar behind your seat and hence push your armpit towards me. I will elbow you in the ribs or knee you in the groin the next time that happens. I have plenty of sweat of my own and do not need any of yours seeping onto me, through your armpit & your shirt.
  • For all you loud cellphone talkers – who the fuck wants to know about your job or the wild party you had last night? Certainly not your fellow bus travelers.

Song for the day – “We Care A Lot” – FAITH NO MORE

Home on a Sunday

Woke up this Sunday feeling like I am not sure what is going to happen and not at all up to doing anything at all other than probably listen to music and sleep the day away. The events of yesterday all seem like it happened a thousand years ago and at the same time it seems like it happened a minute back, know what I mean? Anyways I am not gonna let it affect me any more.

So what is happening today? I missed the televised belated showing of the WWE pay-per-view event ECW One Night Stand, which actually took place on June 3rd, because my stupid cable operators are having some payment issues with TEN Sports and can’t broadcast the channel. I’m listening to some acoustic based music as I am in that mood. I feel like getting drunk but cannot be bothered to get up, take a shower and head out to a bar. I feel like watching tv but there is nothing good on. I feel like going to sleep but I am not sleepy.

Song for the day – “Silver Road” – SARAH HARMER