Telephonic Craper

Yesterday at work over a phone call after thirty minutes of fumbling

SR: Anwesha, why have you mentioned XXX in your document? Clearly, it should have been YYYY
Me: Er...because we thought that maybe we wanted to do XXX and not YYYY
SR: It does not make sense to me. Please discuss this with your team before calling us to a meeting. You are wasting our valuable time.
Me: Er...TM actually knows what this is supposed to be, but she is on vacation
SR: Then we'll probably have to wait for her to come back. What you are saying makes no sense

A day later. TM has been recalled from vacation

TM: Before leaving for vacation, I explained very clearly to Anwesha what was required
Me: (unmuting the phone) And I explained to SR whatever I understood
TM: okay, let's go over it again. Now SR, we want XXX and not YYYY because we want to do XXX and not YYYY. Does that make sense?
SR: (long silent pause) Yes.
Me: (having forgotten to mute the phone) WHAAAAAT? that's exactly what I told him yesterday!

Silence

I mute my phone

Silence

I glance over my shoulder. J is giggling. Obviously his phone is muted

Silence

I am oh so embarrased

SR: TM, your team members were NOT able to explain what they wanted. Now that you have explained it, I understand perfectly
TM: Oh SR! We have been working together for so long and somehow you always understand what I need. Giggle giggle smile smile
SR: Yes TM. I am glad that you are back!
Me: (phone muted) &^&%@#$!#@@#!@#@$">%^&^&%@#$!#@@#!@#@$

Spiltsville

Today, I spilled cough syrup over my dress in the morning. Most of the bottle was empty by the time I realized.

Later, I spilled super glue over my hand. The glue dried over and I had white scalds on my fingers for the better part of the day.

In the afternoon, I accidentally struck my favourite coffee mug against the sink and chipped off a portion of it.

In the evening, the pencil heel of my sandals came off while I was walking.

What's wrong with today?

Lettuce See

Is there anyway that I can differentiate lettuce from cabbage just by looking at it? May I avoid the ordeal of cooking a lettuce like a cabbage only to discover that the blasted object does not mellow like cabbage and is therefore not a cabbage? Yesterday, I spent 30 minutes trying to make a cabbage curry out of this lettuce. Lettuce stubbornly refused to get cooked. I am pretty sure that I picked this thing up from the section labeled "Cabbage" in the grocery store. Proves that even the folks who stock cabbages and lettuces everyday, cannot differentiate, leave alone lesser human beings like myself.

A Shade Lighter

My bad habit of leaning over the bath tub to apply nail polish on my toes got the better of me yesterday. The bottle of nail polish slipped from my hands and fell over creating a visual imagery of modern art on the snow white bathtub. I was aghast, but I did not despair, for I was armed with the greatest weapon known to womankind – the nail polish remover. Slowly and steadily I cleaned all traces of nail polish with the reliable bottle of acetone. Anybody who has benefitted thus and in many more ways from the nail polish remover will surely agree with me that its inventor deserves an award. Not just any award. Since, we are in the realm of inventions that have conferred the greatest benefit on womankind; I will stop short of nothing but the Nobel Prizes. According to me, the inventor of the nail polish deserves the following Nobel Prizes:

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Whoever thought that acetone could remove polish, clean dusty tape recorders and what not, must be applauded for this great discovery. This is nothing short of miraculous. A dire warning to those people who are still looking for ways to remove turmeric stains from cotton clothes, chocolate stains from the carpet and petrol stains from jeans. Perform or you shall perish!

Nobel Prize in Physics

What a simple application of Newton’s third law. For every action of scrubbing the nails, the polish wears off. How straightforward and sublime. At the same time, acetone is precious – it vanishes into thin air if not given due respect. Cover the bottle and it remains, discover it only to see it vamoose. Perhaps it is time that we went beyond the laws of gravity and relativity and graduated to exploring the laws of respectability.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Imagine the uncle who cleaned his ancient tape recorder, the sour girl friend that changed her nail polish to brighten her mood and you have the elixir to happiness. Forget about the brain cell researches that will never finish, the path to happiness is the joy of applying nail polish remover.

Nobel Prize in Literature

Poets with happy mistresses and novelists with clean bathtubs will be inspired to compose their best when tranquility reigns supreme. And if there is anybody who should get the credit for this, it should be the muse, the great one who invented the nail polish remover.

Nobel Prize in Economics

This should be easy. If I hadn’t been able to remove the stains from my bathtub, I would have to resurface it. And resurfacing hurts my pocket and the environment (don’t ask me how). The nail polish remover will eradicate poverty among the teeming masses of people who will apply nail polish when they do not have food to eat and keep themselves distracted. Water scarcity will no longer affect us. A coat of water proof nail polish over a bucket of water will ensure that the water will never evaporate. The world’s welfare will lie in the hands of the humble nail polish remover

Nobel Prize in Peace

Judging by the high standards of the people who have been winning this prize in recent times, this is going to be a difficult decision for the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Consider this, your wife does not like the colour of her nails, she buys a shade of nail polish. She applies it and does not like this color either. If there was no nail polish what would she do? Hell hath no fury as a woman enraged. The war in Ramayana was fought because Ravana enticed Sita with an exotic shade of nail polish but could not supply her with acetone in Ashokvan when she got tired of the shade. In the light of these startling revelations, we should award the Peace Prize not because nail polish remover has actually prevented any wars, but because it has the potential to prevent wars that may occur in the future.

Amen.

Can anybody help me create a map please?

What I want is a map showing directions from location A to location B. I want the street names close to location A to be clearly visible, but the map should not be zoomed to such an extent that the highways/main roads close to A and B are out of view. I do not want any additional text in the map. The image should be self explanatory.

I am rather poor at drawing maps and pathetic with tools like MS Paint. I do not have Adobe Photo Shop and I cannot use 3D Max. So, is Google Maps the answer?


Apparently not. I tried to draw directions from the bus stop on the main road at location A to location B. I placed a pin icon over location B too. But the map is incomprehensible to a generation that has grown up with clumsy straight line maps drawn by amateurs like me. The main obstacle to understanding the map is the presence of too many unnecessary roads. Nobody wants to know whether these exist. They are a clutter. I only want to see the main roads and the streets leading to B. If this map is printed on paper, it will be visual gibberish to all but myself. Is there any other software that can help me?

More gloom

Please read the previous post.

Another call, this time at a well-appointed time, when both parties are in their senses.

Video enabled voice chat - marvel of technology. Delight and boon for the parents, bane for me.

Ma: So, I got the zardosi saree. Look (saree draped over the mater's shoulder). Isn't it a beautiful color?
AC: It looks ugly blue.
Ma: No, its Cadbury blue with golden and silver embroidery. Just like you wanted!
AC: Cadbury blue? Chocolate or Dairy Milk paper cover?
Ma: Yes, Dairy Milk paper color.
AC: You very well know, that with that particular shade of blue and embroidered silver thread, I will look like a piece of chocolate wrapped in yards of punctured paper revealing the inner silver foil.
Ma: Do you know how expensive it is?
AC: Can you please return it?
Ma: I cannot. I have got it hemmed at the ends.
AC: !!!!!!!!!! when you called me up at 6 AM the other day, you had already bought the saree and hemmed it? And still you wanted my opinion????
Ma: Do you have an opinion?
AC: Yes, I will wear only a burnt orange colored saree.
Ma: What is that color? Never heard of it. You will wear Cadbury.
AC: I give up!

Impending Gloom

Phone call from the mother at 6AM in the morning:

AC: Yawn..Heluuuu
Ma: Are you still sleeping???
AC: No, I got up an hour ago, went for a morning jog and did some yoga. Now I am taking a break. So tell me.
Ma: Okay, good. Do you like zardosi work?
AC: Whaat?
Ma: Would you like to wear a saree that has zardosi work?
AC: Yes, whatever that is.
Ma: Do you even know what zardosi is?
AC: Ofcourse, its those things where they use dollops of gold and silver coloured threads to embroider the saree, making it look like a circus tent.
Ma: And still you want to wear it???
AC: Yes, I'm going to be in the center of a circus - might as well get noticed.
Ma: Has your taste changed in the last one month? You always liked drab and dull colours!
AC: You were the one to call me up at 6AM in the morning to ask.
Ma: I only wanted to make sure.
AC: YES YES YES. I WANT ZARDOSI.
Ma: You have changed so much.


Click on the other side. Line goes dead.