A Screen is a screen is a...what the heck?

Just got back from an electronics store, and my jaw hurts. Yeah, after the drool-behave; impulse-resist; plastic itch-don’t scratch fest, I dragged myself home – a tad sad, but not any poorer. O Ganga mayya!! The TVs they manufacture now!! Makes my current TV look like a handheld, and me a peasant who doesn’t know his EDTV from HDTV, or DLP from XBR for that matter. Growing up, I remember there were only 2 kinds of TVs – Colour and Black & White. I knew them both, could tell them apart, and was at the helm of technology.

Flashback:
The first colour TVs in the neighbourhood obviously had to be owned by the most annoying kids with runny noses, and you had to make the call if cricket in colour was worth giving them the home ground advantage, and enduring the mucus marathon. It was either that or trying to slide open the mammoth wooden doors of the “TV box” without waking up grandpa…yeah, right! NoGo on the latter, even ninjas couldn’t get past the man who slept with his eyes, mouth and ears open. So, getting “Muked” was the only way to cricket in colour. I did try to drop some hints by taking a kerchief along, feigning a cold and WIPING…just so that the Mukemen could see, learn, and apply. Tough luck!

Anyway, coming back to the TV scene, it’s raining new models. I guess I completely missed one whole generation of TV technology. Maybe because I spend more time in front of the computer…until recently that is. We added Zee TV to our already inflated cable bill, and I’ve been doing some serious watching to make up for it. The best part? – Commercials! Ajmeri Baba promising to solve all your problems in 7 days or your money back, Himesh Nasalmmiya promoting his tour- word by word between blasts of “tera tera tera suroooooor” and “ek baar aaja aaja aaja aaja aaaaja!!”

Most interesting program so far – Indian version of Fear Factor+Ripleys – “Shabaash India.” Misnomer! Unless we want to be praised for uhh…read on. This program provides a platform for weird dudes trying…well, their normal stuff. Like this one dude who ate 5 freakinluscent tube lights in 9 minutes…spitting out blood and bits of his tongue, followed by a dude who painted with his face (actually a mask contraption) while doing handstands, and then this young guy who walked on a beam 2 inches wide to get from one building to the other (I think it was 8 storeys high, although IMO he needed to do at least 80…without a harness to beat the craziness of the tubelight fella.)

That’s the update. Will blog soon…maybe from my own island! After all, all my problems will be solved in just two more days. Yeah, I called Ajmeri Baba 5 days ago!

The life and times of Scammy

Have you ever met someone with an I.Q. of that of a dried banana peel, or a defunct fire hydrant? Meet Scammy.

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who’d put a stuck record to shame, and makes you realize that reading lips is not hard when your eardrums are resonating with the same friggin-quency for the last hour or so? Meet Scammy, again.

Has anyone at work pushed you to jab a pencil in your ear, pound a dozen whiteouts, and hang yourself from the false ceiling with your mouse cord? Oh for the love of Goddess Abhirami, meet Scammy!

I need to breathe now, take a timeout, consider anger management, and put a good defense attorney’s number on my speed dial…and maybe a bail bondsman too. Or else, I’d be writing from cell block D with a stink that reaches the warden’s house past the moat. You’re darned right! No shower -> no soap -> no soap slipping ->no reaching for it-> no ahem…no-no! M3 ain’t going down like that.

Sorry, I took off on a tangent. Now, coming back to the said manure sans nutrients – Scammy. Where do I start? He is an ‘engineer’ who ‘works’ in our division, and by a heavy stroke of misfortune (or His weird sense of humor), sits right next to me…actually separated by a thin partition wall that can be easily circumvented by a quick pushback move on his chair – the Scammobile. I am currently watching Ali and working on my powerpunch. And yeah, a day will dawn when you can hear the crickets and see the big hole in the partition wall. When that happens, I will go down in the division’s history books as the Savior. The state will put tax payer’s money to better use, thousands of gallons of whiteouts will serve their actual purpose, and the false ceilings will stay. The only flipside to all of this - Novell would lose its one and only admirer of the ctrl-alt-del screen! For real, this man stares at the login screen from 8:00 am till about 10:00 am EVERY SINGLE DAY!! Hmmm, maybe that’s a subliminal message board. Who knows?...or as one of my coworkers explains “Scammy must be trying to figure out how to hit all 3 buttons at the same time.” LOL!!!

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, someone taped his office phone. The phone rang during his subliminal message board reading hours. He picks up the receiver and says the usual “This is Scammy, blah de blah blah.”

But the phone still keeps ringing. :-) Isaac Scammy figures it out 20 minutes later.

Scammy: “Guys, who did this??”
We: “The what? Who???”
Scammy: “This is not funny! Why would someone do that?”
Me: (in thoughts only): “You have no idea how funny this is Scamboy. I’m sure you’ll enjoy this more than my other trick that’ll leave my knuckles smelling of your aftershave. Oh, it’s coming baby. I just need to put in a few speed dial numbers and your number will be up. Until then, enjoy your ctrl-alt-del”