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Do that until 6:30. You get to keep 10 rupees and lick an empty Limca bottle |
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Swathi said what behind your back? Uh-uh, girlfriend, you got to stand up |
Category Archives: Humor
My spring break, in pictures
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Another proud member of the reality-based community |
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‘Just one little drink’ was the last thing he remembered before waking up naked on a Goan beach |
Everyone’s a little bit outsourcist
New documents show Al Qaeda pays Afghanistan recruits in Pakistani rupees, and they break down the salaries (via Daily Show):
Military officials… read a document known as the “al Qaeda employment contract…” It was seized after 9/11 in the home of an al Qaeda operative in Kandahar, Afghanistan…Monthly salaries are spelled out, 6,500 Pakistani rupees… if you’re married, 1,000 rupees… for bachelors. An extra 700 rupees per wife if you have more than one…
Married members get seven days of vacation every three weeks. Bachelors get five vacation days every month… they also get 15 days sick leave a year. [Link]
A draft of al-Qaeda “bylaws” stipulates extra pay of 700 rupees a month for each additional wife as well as 20,000 rupees for married members to buy furniture and free health care. [Link]
The Pakistani rupee currently trades at 60 to the dollar, so it’s apparently cheaper to hire a terrorist than a second-tier software developer. Given the relative skill sets, I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. And bachelors get screwed on pay — I wonder why they’re incentivizing men to get married even though they’re likely to die.
Jon Stewart jokes that the vacations are fantastic, but the pension’s non-existent. Personally I’ll never say any software ‘bombed’ again.
55Friday: The “Mayor of Simpleton” Edition
Today I’m feeling like a political desi, indeed. Though I wake up to NPR every morning, for some reason, the trademark background noises which accompany stories sounded more authentic and charming than usual this morning. Listening to Tom DeLay hammer on about port security ignited my thoughts like few issues have recently. C-Span was even more scintillating as I slowly and repeatedly slammed my head in to my steering wheel thanks to the accident on the onramp to 495 which destroyed 66 this morning. Thank goodness for good radio during hellacious traffic. So now you know where I’m at, in terms of mindset this chilly Friday.
When it comes to today’s theme for flash fiction, IÂ’m tempted to have you guys write a “teaser” for a ToI story, since you mutineers are sooo fond of that paper of record and I already know your 55s would be suitably hilarious. 😉
Then again, I also have the urge to play “Being George Bush”; you could string together 55 words from the PresidentÂ’s inner monologue as he goes about his journey to Indiaaaa . Oh, if only there were a way to know what heÂ’s thinking as he curries favor while eating curry in the exotic land of spices and silksÂ…I can just smell the originality now. 😉
I really don’t mind what you nanofiction as long as you just do, and I think I speak for all of my 55-lovin’ comrades when I type that. As always, leave your gem of a story (or a link to it) in the comments below. And yes, later on I will continue this post with a round-up of last week’s finest. For now though, your beloved blank canvas has been handed to you. Resistance is futile– get to typin’. Continue reading
ToI raTiO
Scientists have proven that the Times of India Web site has the lowest news-to-crap ratio in the world. Here’s the study abstract:
Saturday55: The “Late vs. Never” edition
I passed out after work yesterday, with this very window still open and a pending 55Friday languishing. My bad. I would normally feel a lot worse about this, but such an unintended delay means one thing: I can publicly wish someone whom I adore a very Happy Birthday. If you don’t already read Venial Sin, you are depriving yourself of some of the best blog on the internets. He’s an erstwhile resident of my Chocolate City who currently makes London an even hotter place to be and his blog is genius. (No pressure!) Happy Birthday, gorgeous. 🙂
Since I’ve slobbered all over him virtually, let’s start my run-down of the best examples of flash fiction from last week with Sin himself. He had no need to self-deprecate before introducing the following:
“No!” the lawyer yelled into the phone. “I don’t care if it WAS Valentine’s Day, “life partner” was not meant to apply to a cellmate. This isnÂ’t the path to true love, no matter how slim your options may seem.”
Pause.
Beat.
Sigh.
“Fine, I’ll bring you candy on the 14th for…”Big Mick” is it?” [link]
Next up, one of Nina’s 55s made me smirk happily:
The painting was titled “Agape,” and depicted the God of Trite having intercourse with the God of Sexual Starvation, nude. The Valentines Fundamentalists rioted, but the Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews and Atheists finally united in common cause, cancelling out this most cancerous religion. The work sold for $2 billion, and everyone lived happily ever after. [link]
Fellow spelling-stickler Sirc penned a scathing 55:
Good mourning babe :), she texts. Still swimming or Barely stayin afloat in a sea of cheapnfree champagne reveries, He writes back, What’s so Good about Mourning? She writes back that, Every day is the First day of your life 😉 Why are Bad Spellers so drawn to unfounded optimism like lice to immigrant public school kids? [link]
Anyone who drops the k-bomb is going to get mad love from me ;), DDiA:
EvEr SiNcE wE stalked each other on Xanga You gave me anon. eprops; filled my Dreams with kaleidoscopic manga, I’ve wanted to buy you dil-shaped balloons. Now you will call me yo babydaddy, yayy! And me you snookums. Hug, kiss, And stop traffic with aww-inspiring PDA. Common bayyybee shake that kundi I’ll be your munda, you my mundi.[link]
This week? Write whatever you please. I toyed with different themes, ranging from “Jeopardy” (where I was going to have you all end your 55s in the form of a question) to “Crime and Punishment” (where you 55 regarding suitable punishments for Salman Khan). In the end, I chose none of the above. As always, leave your masterpiece or a link to it in the comments below. We’ll love it, promise. Continue reading
Tonsil Hockey
About a half-dozen tipsters, starting with Seema, wanted us to point out this little tidbit in a New York Times Op-Ed published this morning:
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Give me some tongue baby |
SINCE it’s Valentine’s Day, let’s dwell for a moment on the profoundly bizarre activity of kissing. Is there a more expressive gesture in the human repertoire?…All across Africa, the Pacific and the Americas, we find cultures that didn’t know about mouth kissing until their first contact with European explorers. And the attraction was not always immediately apparent. Most considered the act of exchanging saliva revolting. Among the Lapps of northern Finland, both sexes would bathe together in a state of complete nudity, but kissing was regarded as beyond the pale…
If kissing is not universal, then someone must have invented it. Vaughn Bryant, an anthropologist at Texas A&M, has traced the first recorded kiss back to India, somewhere around 1500 B.C., when early Vedic scriptures start to mention people “sniffing” with their mouths, and later texts describe lovers “setting mouth to mouth.” From there, he hypothesizes, the kiss spread westward when Alexander the Great conquered the Punjab in 326 B.C. [Link]
Well who would have thought? In addition to writing the Kama Sutra we can now take partial credit for kissing! The Hindu right-wing activists are going to go into shock when they see this (or at least they will try and keep it out of California textbooks). 
For the rest of this week I plan to honor my forefathers by exchanging as much saliva as possible. Who is with me?
Temple Lady says…
In King Kong, a powerful ape crosses the sea to rescue a beautiful woman held by his enemy on an island. He enters the capital city, leaping to great heights and leaving destruction in his wake. Where have I heard this before?
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Could it be… Ravana? |
In the 1933 movie, King Kong varied noticeably in height. At different times, he might be as small as twenty feet, or, in the city, as tall as fifty. [Link]He could grow as big or as small as he wished… Hanuman grew tall and mighty and with one giant leap began to fly through the clouds to the walled city on the island. [Link]
And check out this issue of The Incredible Hulk. A buff, loincloth-clad beast with the initial ‘H’ leaps back to the mainland to return to his leader. Well, isn’t that special?
I’m accepting royalties on behalf of sage Valmiki. You can send checks to my home address.
Don’t drop the soap
SM readers that have been with us since the beginning know that I am always inspired to blog about some unique topic after I have gone to get a haircut. In fact, one
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The Sepia Redemption |
Jail officials in Los Angeles County separated black and Hispanic inmates, began transferring troublemakers and brought in clergy to try to restore peace after a week of racially charged brawls that they feared would continue to erupt through the weekend.
“It’s got momentum,” sheriff’s Chief Marc Klugman, who oversees the nation’s largest jail system, said yesterday. “They’re battle-hardened. They’re angry.”
Thousands of Hispanics and blacks clashed Feb. 4, and a black inmate was beaten to death, at the biggest jail at the Pitchess Detention Center, a 6,500-inmate complex outside the city limits. Brawls then broke out during the week at the two smaller jails at Pitchess. About 90 inmates have been injured. [Link]
My barber, who has spent time in the joint, broke it down for me: Latinos and Blacks try to kill each other. Whites usually join the Latinos because they don’t fit with the Blacks. Asian brothers get shanked unless they keep their heads down and stay among themselves. If the Koreans ever do business outside of K-town then they are dead on arrival. Even worse, if you are Latino or Black and don’t want to join in the violence, your own people will shank you for not standing up for your brothers. Now, I know what you are all thinking right now. So I asked for you:
“Ummm. What about the Indian brothers? Where do they fit in this system?”
“You guys? Yo, sorry bro but you guys get your ass passed around. You know what I mean”? Continue reading
Secret Angry Asian Men
From time to time, Ennis and Vinod remind me of the awesomeness of the Secret Asian Man comic strip. They’re drawn by Boston artist Tak Toyoshima, and although only a few are specifically about desis, there are tons of parallels.
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Jet Li and Aaliyah in ‘Romeo Must Die’ |
If Secret Asian Man hooked up with Angry Asian Man, we’d have Secret Angry Asian Men. And where you find Secret Angry Asian Men, mutiny hangs thick in the air. (Whereas around Fat Happy Asian Men, you find muttony hanging. Very different.)