I work at a large conglomerate, a so-called MNC and my desktop offers
me least physical comfort. “Ergonomics? What’s that?”, was the response of
the person in charge of PCs and accessories at the office.
Unfortunately, the way things work over here is that the IT guy does
not get to hand out the furniture that accompanies the PCs. As a
result, for most of the people in the office the PCs have become a pain
issue in more than one sense. The other sense is of course Websense. Go to
websense.com to find out why I am bitching about it!

Anyway,
have not been up to much other than getting bank guarantees for
clients. You should read some of the clauses that are present in the
tomes that these bank guys hand out. One of these days, you chaps are going to make the mistake of actually reading one of the bank loan forms and then you will realize that other than your genitals, you have mortgaged about almost everything else to the bank in lieu for the pittance that they have given you. Actually, if you are taking a loan from xxxxx bank, you will have mortgaged your genitals also. See page 23 of their instructions to loan applicants document. I know what your response is going to be: what the heck is a instructions to loan applicants document? Followed by: how the heck can websense classify Radgovin’s blog as tasteless?

Anyway, coming back to ergonomics at the work place. One of my colleagues recently had a painful introduction to the reality of ergonomics [or lack thereof] at the workplace. He had been complaining of back pain for a long time and one day out of pure frustration he hit out at his chair. The reason for his frustration of course was not his back pain but an anatomical activity that the client was carrying out with him, which in polite circles may be described as “screwing”

Anyway, imagine his surprise when out of the portion of the chair that was supposed to be supporting the small of his back, came out a mouse! Not the one connected to the PCs, you dummies! A real, live mouse. I began to wonder: is this a corporate strategy to keep control over employee activity? Has the mouse been programmed only to give back pain to employees being “screwtinized” by the client? Or has it been programmed to bite off essential body parts of rambunctious workers? Of course, people with bank loans have nothing to worry about because their genitals are already in the safe deposit box. But what about us average God-fearing, mortgage hating, low-salary earning mortals? Something to ponder over, ain’t it?

In case you are working for such an MNC, I suggest you get your wooden chair replaced immediately. Better still, buy a plastic one yourself and haul it to office everyday – that way, you can be sure its not going to be “moused”. And considering the spiralling cost of plastic these days, take a loan for the chair and leave your essential body parts with the bank for safekeeping!

/Radgovin

There was once a freak uncouth

Who was caught necking in Vermouth

Said he, given a chick or bitch on a platter

I’m sure I’d choose the latter

Because they are all the more better down south

I have recently heard many taunts about me not blogging after my marriage from good folks all around the world. As a riposte, here’s a re-post!

Well, actually, there is no re-post. Its just a usual post for all the great people out there begging my megalomaniac self to start posting about esoteric farting rituals of the far-east or the status of the end of the world countdown. Now, I agree that the end of the world countdown situation has been exacerbated by the oriental gaseous release [OGR], but that does not mean that we should bring out our collective alarm bells and give out a big boom! [I am of course referring to the boom of the bells and not the OGR]

Anyway, it has been a long time since I last posted and I guess it will be some time before I find my writing touch. That being the case, I request you all to refrain from drawing too many conclusions after reading this post. This post reeks of fart anyway, so don’t draw too much of it!

BOOM!!!

There is a story about Yudhishthira, of Mahabharata fame. When asked what is the most beautiful thing on this planet, he says it is “Maya”, which is the magic that keeps the world running. Everyone knows that death is inevitable, yet the will and desperation to live is so intense that each person thinks that s/he is invincible. That bad things can happen only to other people and not to them and their near and dear ones. And then one fine day, the bubble bursts…

The frail nature of the human flesh was revealed to me just yesterday, in quite a grotesque way. On the way to my office, I came across a traffic jam. Initially the source of traffic jam was not apparent. However, as the vehicles on the road inched forward, the reason became evident. There were police men visible, not traffic police, but regular police. And they were directing the traffic. That can only mean one thing: an accident further up the road.

An accident it was and it was not a sight for the squeamish. The body of the deceased was covered with a white cloth. However, the reason for the death was evident from the mess that lay around the body. Suffice to say, that the person driving a motorcycle (for the last time) was not wearing a helmet. My estimate is that the bike slipped and …

This incident lead me to think about the frailty of the human body. A severe blow to certain sections of the head, or a pin-prick, strategically executed. And life is converted to after-life. In the everlasting battle of life and death, eventually death does triumph. Every day, life does its best to come out tops. Life gives small victories which lead the living to believe in invincibility. And yet, therein lies life’s biggest paradox: the longer you live, the greater your probability of dying with every passing day.

I am sure the person who never made it to office/home yesterday did not know that it was not meant to be for him to reach his destination. I am sure he never thought about it. Neither does anyone of us when we are performing everyday activities, such as crossing the road, boarding a train, switching on an electric appliance. All these activities have the potential to be life threatening. Yet the living remain oblivious of them.

And that is exactly what Maya is: the living wish to live indefinitely, though death is the constant force surrounding them.

/Radgovin

Edit: My wife’s grand mother expired the day after I wrote this post. Life sends out such subliminal messages to us doesn’t it?

The following is the result of boredom from waiting for the anti-virus scan to finish so that I can get back to my work. The most famous (and also the most resource intensive) anti-virus software consumes so much of my processing time, I cannot even copy-paste (which is what I do most of the time!)

Disclaimer: I have not tried any of the following myself. I am just suggesting the same for killing time and trying to raise a laugh. The reader agrees to indemnify me if upon executing some of the strategies mentioned here, the reader faces some action in the form of blockage of internet access, severe castration, etc.

For the bored executive (Huh?) at work: a compendium of some things to do today –

1. Find out the network admin’s email id and send him hate email from new accounts created daily at some obscure email service site. (Hint: use his/her email id when signing up)

2. Find out the email id of a co-worker you really hate and sign him/her up for all sorts of newsletters from all sorts service providers: askmen.com, national geographic, erotica daily [I am not sure if this exists, but it should! ] google news, etc.

3. While you are waiting for the anti-virus scan to finish, call up a friend outside the company and ask him/her to download some viruses and email them to all the employees of your unit from a new email id. Alternately, ask him/her to sign everyone up at some risque sites! (esp. the admin)

4. Call up a friend and ask him/her to annoy your boss with missed/blank calls, esp. at a time when you know you are going to be with your boss.

5. And for the coup de grace: after taking a backup of your hard-disk, run some virus on your system to clean your hard-disk and blame everyone, including the sweeper for the loss of your hard work!

Disclaimer (again!): I repeat, I am not to be held responsible for action against the reader for following the above tasks!

I chanced upon this article in the National Geographic which explains how human beings form memories, how they retain memories and why some people are blessed with eidetic memories while others have to scramble around in their respective neocortexes, looking for information which was allegedly stored there! What was this article going to be about?

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-11/memory/foer-text.html?fs=canyon

Anyway, the above article makes for good reading and here is my take on the human brain.

I have to yet come across as convoluted a thing as the human brain. It is a myriad jigsaw and the amount of material that is packed inside such a small volume (average of 1300cc) would raise envious eyebrows from any packaging industry. It is essentially a miracle of sorts, because housed inside this 1300cc “engine” are a hundred billion neurons, with each one of them being capable of forming  5 to 10 thousand synaptic connections with neurons around them. It is in this synaptic connections that information is retained. The hippocamus is responsible for making sure that the memories stick.

What intrigues and excites me is the formation of a memory from a visual, an auditory stimulus, or something as simple as the brushing of a feather across the skin. The complex procedure of conversion of something that we can “feel” into electrical signals which can be stored, is something even the most accomplished savants of neurology fret over. Computer memory is much simpler, in the sense that all information is stored as 1s and 0s. But how does one figure out how the human brain has simplified the storage of infinitely large amounts of information?

Human beings have accomplished many things, some of the more prominent ones being the conquering of the final frontier: space, the ability to reach places on this planet hitherto unthought of and the ability to communicate. What are all these if not the manifestation of the capabilities of the human brain? However, we are yet to discover the way in which our brain works. It is simply because of this reason that I am against all experiments related to cloning and the human genome. Figure out what you are made of before trying to duplicate yourself, is my advice to all scientists involved in this macabre initiative.

We all know what happens when we jump into a new project with full enthusiasm and half knowledge. The outcome is inevitably a disaster. Ergo, the duplication of human beings without a sincere study and understanding of the human brain is like making a duplicate computer, but messing up the processor in the process. We do not know how synaptic connections are formed; how can we then be sure that the duplication process may not destroy these connections? Or worse, what happens if new bridges are formed where they were none? What would be the implications of new synaptic bondages? Do we know the answers to these questions?

I am not claiming that I am the final authority on the brain. I am the most ignorant of fellows where the issue of the human body is concerned. The questions I have raised may already have been answered. But till such a time as this knowledge becomes public, it is hazardous to fiddle around with the human brain, or even the DNA for that matter. Agencies working for the “progress” of scientific knowledge in these areas zealously guard their research through IPR. I fail to understand how anyone can have a patent over a certain part of the genome or some part of the DNA. That is equivalent to each and every person claiming rights of ownership to some portion of air in the atmosphere as his/her own. In short, the idea is blatantly ridiculous! Instead of copyrighting, all the information about the human brain and even the human body should be made publicly available.

We have yet to decipher a lot about ourselves. Yet, there is an undying curiosity in human beings to look without rather than within. If we can understand the source of this curiosity, maybe all of us would be better human beings.

Amen to that!

/Radgovin

P. S. The very fact that my thoughts have strayed while writing this article stands testimony to the magical processes occurring in my brain. Who knows how many synaptic connections were formed, destroyed, strengthened or weakened during the fifteen minutes that I spent writing this article? Does somebody have an answer?

Yesterday, in a fit of masochism, I chose to have a live feed of my own blog in Internet Explorer. I don’t know what trigger went off in my mind which forced me to take such a drastic step. I usually don’t read what one personality of my multiple available personalities has written. Anyway, this is what I came across:

Random musings of a Questioning mind

You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content. When you subscribe to a feed, it is added to the Common Feed List. Updated information from the feed is automatically downloaded to your computer and can be viewed in Internet Explorer and other programs. Learn more about feeds.

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I am sure, that just like me, you too are wondering: What the heck is the cup size of Ms. Koirala’s bra? And I am sure you have realized that the previous statement was written by the original blogger. Anyway, since you are in wonderment mode, have a dekko at the first line of the paragraph describing the feed. If there is one word which can describe the multitude of questions, plethora of confusions and plentiful doubts in your mind, it will be this: “48 C”. No, of course I am kidding. The real word is “Huh?”

“Huh?” is exactly what I thought when I saw that my blog was coming under the frequently updated feed tag. So, in a bid to verify the veracity of the claim, I tried the same with some other blogs I know, which have not been updated since the Mesozoic ages. Here is what I came up with:

1. Aye Caramba

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2. Sundae with Shiva

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3. Serious musings of a Questioning mind

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I am sure that you have not caught on to two facts:
1. The third blog is much much better than the first two ones
2. I have increased the length of this post simply by using Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V and your Jurassic brains were unable to pick that up!

So, if you want to have an update of fresh, humorous “feed” from my blog, I suggest you go here:
http://radgovin.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

And enjoy reading my booger articles.

/Radgovin

P. S. I am guessing the size. For all you know, it might as well be 148 C!

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in this life has purpose.

There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.

- – -

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

That is the estimate used to determine how much of bandwidth in the internal LAN at IITB is used for downloading pornography, or as it is known: pr0n! There are other meanings to this word also, one of them being the following:

a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition [definition]

Different languages cause a lot of humour to be generated and this article is in place just to cite one of them.There is a Jewish blessing for married couples “Sheva Berachot” which means seven blessings. Now, this also sounds like a Marathi expletive and for the average Mumbaikar, Sheva Berachot is not going to evoke any feeling other than ire. Speaking of which, I encountered a funny incidence of two similar words having entirely different meanings:

ire – intense anger; wrath

irenic – tending to promote peace or reconciliation; peaceful or conciliatory

Ironical, ain’t it?

Those who use the T9 dictionary feature in Nokia mobile handsets are aware of its utility. It provides a very convenient means of “texting”. Try this for a funny coincidence – the keystrokes for select and reject [opposite meaning words] are the same! Be careful of what you type is all I can say for new T9 users!

More funny stuff later.

/Radgovin

Human beings are social animals. If ever there was an oxymoron, that is one. Of course, you will have to consider social in the reference of high society tea and coffee parties. And when you think of animals in that perspective, the only animals that come to mind are well trained and mannered pets, like cats, dogs and parrots, and their masters, water buffaloes and African hippopotamuses. Really! If you have ever had the occasion [I am sure you haven't] to attend a high class event [See, the very fact that you are reading this blog proves that you haven't] then you would know what goes on in such parties [if you are looking for information in this blog about such events, look elsewhere!] and the people who attend it. I am saying you have no information about these parties because they go on all the while. Consider the lifestyle of an average high society person:

Morning: Brush teeth. Put on deo. Attend high profile breakfast party.
Mid-morning – Early-afternnon: Use mouth freshener. Attend brunch meeting halfway across town.
Afternoon: Lunch party at a page 3 do.
Mid-afternoon – Early-evening: Catch a nap. Attend social outing. Gorge on pastries from exquisite lands.
Evening: Ah forget it, you get the drift by now!

Anyway, since there is no way these people can give vent to the obstreperous child residing within them, since there is no imprimatur for boisterous activities forthcoming from anyone, they take to the next best thing: devouring huge amounts of fatty substances, which leads to their skin taking on the look and feel of alabaster, hence the reference to water buffaloes and hippopotamuses.

Again, since the diameter of an average party goer is 23 feet (as measured at the waist) a lot of crowding takes place at the meeting points. A lot many herbivorous and carnivorous feeding activities can be witnessed at social events which are frequented by these social animals. And according to the law of conservation of mass, what goes in must come out, subject to whatever you have retained and what you chose to let go. Since the human DNA has been programmed when the human species was faced with death due to starvation, the human body is loathe to let go off all the fat that the mouth finds delectable to consume. It will willingly expunge any signs of bodily muscle at the first given opportunity. Yet, even when there exists a dire need to burn off the fat, such as when a person is trying to lose weight, the body will stubbornly hold onto it [personal experience] And in lieu of the fat, it will burn some sulphurous material, leading to the release of

FAR
FA
F
Don’t make me write the words, please!

So, as you can imagine, social dos are soon converted from a gathering of people of the high society to a massacrial gas chamber straight out of a concentration camp. I am not going to elucidate on this aspect. I have an invite to attend one of the camps … I mean, one do today evening, post twilight. Anyone interested in having a fits hand [first nose] experience can tag along!

/Radgovin