Talons on Board

That Life and Art thingie, again

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Von Bork pushed over a telegram.

"Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs. Altamont."

"Sparking plugs, eh?"

"You see he poses as a motor expert and I keep a full garage. In our code everything likely to come up is named after some spare part. If he talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an oil pump a cruiser, and so on. Sparking plugs are naval signals."

- His Last Bow, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Now reading this, I can think of only 2 options:

Somebody in ISI read “His Last Bow” and came up with brilliant idea for ciphers.
Somebody in ISI read “His Last Bow” and came up with brilliant idea to mislead everybody else.

Which one do you prefer?

Sorry Astronomers

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:35:00 +0000

You don’t need a brain faster than a supercomputer to know that this just means Sabu got angry over something.

Mystery solved. Next one please…

Great minds… and all that

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:17:00 +0000

“We took this on Pune station before leaving”, thus starts the story. Each photo carries with it a 5 minute long, crawling commentary. Not running commentary, mind you.

…

In short, the tourists bore you by showing you their photos and souvenirs. The album looks like just one single photo repeated over and over again. With different description.

“Check this out. We had trekked near Joshimath.”

The photo showed some ten people. Any newspaper could have carried that photo with caption, “Drug runners caught in police action”. Or possibly, as a group photo of some local village politicians with Party’s district president.

This description from the aptly named, “मी आणि माझा शत्रुपक्ष” (Me and My Enemies) (collection: Hasavnuk) makes me think Pu La Deshpande would have empathised with Stephen Fry in here:

Well, except at the end.

Superheroes never die…

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:15:00 +0000

… they are just reborn-ed.

On the other hand, it is hard to make a commercially successful film about a Superhero who died four years before the film, isn’t it? ;)

P.S. Does that mean Stephen Colbert has to give back the Captain’s Shield now?

Umm… Actually, I didn’t

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:45:00 +0000

But then, if I knew that, why exactly would it be a “news”?

P.S. Previously on unfortunate news placement, politically incorrect news.

Do you like to move it?

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:48:00 +0000

Normally, I can make do without a television (or cable connection) for that matter, since most of the shows I watch are available online (and I don’t mind watching them a day late).

Then again, sometimes that means something interesting does slip through the cracks. Presenting:

Whether you “like to move it, move it” and want to bask in the kingly glory King Julien, or want to train under the Skipper with the merry gang of Kowalski, Rico and Private, this is for you:

P.S. That’s post #200. Right up there.

Dear Lady on the bus

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:53:00 +0000

If I had a million dollars for every second you were silent (during our 20 minute shared travel), I would be living on the street right now.
Making a school boy stand to "let an old lady (i.e. yourself) sit” is a command, not manners. I think next time he sees you coming, he will stand up, but I don’t think that “young gentleman” is going to do it out of courtesy.
Seriously, keep it down. We can’t hear us think.

P.S. I guess I should start signing off my e-mail and letters like that. What says you?

A Gem of Knowledge

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:07:00 +0000

Those who live by the Sword…

… should be aware of Frost Warning for that area in effect for today.

Ghajini would be great in politics

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:46:00 +0000

Following one more shoe-throwing (and missing) incident, this time aimed at our PM, Congress spokesman said,

It (such incidents) reflects the kind of bad governance and law and order situation in the state.

He also wanted BJP to apologize to Congress for these incidents.

So, I am guessing Congress already apologized to itself for incidents in Delhi (P. Chidambaram) and Kurukshetra (Navin Jindal)?

Puzzle me this

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:24:00 +0000

I am not sure what’s more sad here:

That my tastes don’t match completely with myself… or that I am my best soul mate?

Engineer Here

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:20:00 +0000

So, I was just looking at the TI site, as I am prone to do when bored, and I came across this:

which I found to be an admirable suggestion, given that I am an engineer.

So what I didn’t develop laptops, MP3 players, cell phone or something like that. You can always thank me for this.

P.S. No, I am not anywhere in that last video. But…

I don’t have any words for this

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:09:00 +0000

All India Congress Committee general secretary B Hariprasad said that Congress party believes in tradition and heritage of India, and said:

The culture of a person, society or nation is measured on how they treat children, women and aged people.

He went on to say,

First he should dump Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the oldest man who is in hurry to become Prime Minister L K Advani in the Arabian sea.

I never knew that dumping our elders in sea was the Indian culture.

Ye Dilli Hai Mere Yaar

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:18:00 +0000

Dilli (or Delhi for the English readers out there) for me, till now, is just a stop on my way to somewhere: An afternoon spent at the bus station on the way to Manali, a night and half-day spent on Hazrat Nizamuddin platform on the way back, when we missed our original train(It’s a long story: our bus was slow, and then the cops caught us for speeding. And that was just 2 events). And then an evening and night at the Indira Gandhi International airport when my flight to Paris was delayed by 6-7 hours. (Do you see a pattern here? Not sure, just checking…)

Not to mention the annual reports of airport closing due to fog, and the heat in summer.

So basically, Delhi 6 was a revelation for the ignorant me. Apart from many other things, I learnt that Dilli is a mehfil and a mastaanon ki basti (I should agree, if only from a foodie point of view. That aloo paratha and lassi was…).

But then I had another big surprise waiting for me today. Half-asleep, I plugged in my iPod in the bus, and the song started,

Iske baayein taraf bhi dil hai
Iske daayein taraf bhi dil hai

Never knew Dilli was a Time Lord. Now where’s that Doctor guy?

Presenting… The Miracle Detergent

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:59:00 +0000

You all have seen the millions of detergents present in the market, and the billions of advertisements for more of them. You have seen all about “strong” detergents, “delicate” detergents, “smart” detergents. But here’s a detergent which has something no other detergent in the market has:

Intelligence.

Observe:

The washing machine mounted in that van in front-loading. (Incidentally, is having a van with washing machine the next step in shrinking caravans?)
The salesman/advertiser/model/weird guy calling random kids on playground to stop playing in the middle of match (what is that person called?) just drops the detergent just about anywhere.

Friends and homemakers… presenting the intelligent detergent which knows where it is supposed to go. Pour it anywhere, and it will end up on your clothes.

Clean clothes, clean floor. No spills. (OK, we probably need to work a bit more on that catchphrase.)

Billu Censored

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:10:00 +0000

We all know the fun times Censor Board brings us. The <PING> and <PEEEP> at strategic places have sometimes provided more entertainment than the actual dialog would provide. Kinda like how the fig leaf works, I guess. (I mean, we all know what naughty bits are covered there.)

e.g. Yesterday, I was watching Billu Barber. Now, we are all aware of the controversy created by the name, and how they solved it. And then I came across the song:

Billu se bada hajjaam naahi re
Saari duniya mein aisa kono naam naahi re (as heard on screen)

All this time, I was under the impression that they were applying layers and tonnes of maska to Billu in that song. Turns out, they were just going for some public roasting.

Like I told my friend, the song should have come with a P.S.: Knowledgeable persons should feel free to fill in the blanks.

And then I came acorss this:

Kisi raja maharaja ka raju raju kehke bulaoge ka?
Yeh Billua ko Hajjaam naahi
Barber keh kar bulaao
Barber aur voh bhi ijjat se
Billu Barber, samjhe ke naahi!

Priceless!

Is this what they call Nerd-vana?

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:26:00 +0000

I don’t know anything about Star Trek except that there’s a weirdly shaped spaceship (but then, is there any other kind?) in it called Enterprise.

Furthermore, Lost for me is what Australian cricket team did in India (yeah, that’s not getting old soon).

But, I am pretty sure any of these guys ever starred in Lost, thousands, if not millions, of nerd-heads will be bursting out of sheer pleasure.

scifi.com did it.

Cue the M:I music

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:16:00 +0000

A real life conversation in my cubicle:

Collegue 1: I didn’t open the pdf. If it was “classified”, my hard disk would be scrubbed. I didn’t want to lose my data.

C2: Why would you lose your data if the file was marked secret?

C1: If I open a classified file on my computer, I have to go get my hard disk scrubbed.

C3: Oh, I thought if you open the file, it automatically formats your hard disk. Like in Mission: Impossible.

Me: Yeah, you open the file and it goes “Your hdd will be formatted in 5… 4… 3…”. That will be cool. And so scary. Not to mention, irritating.

Itna sannata kyoon hai bhai?

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:17:00 +0000

The big story in today’s CNN.com:

Exactly how deaf are those birds?

Whoops Award

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:01:00 +0000

It's award time again on Talons. And just when we thought the first month of 2009 would go by without a nominee presenting himself/herself, the Whoops Award for January 2009 goes to...

Barkha Dutt and NDTV team.

I think everybody on blogosphere knows the story by now. A blogger called Chaitanya Kunte wrote an article criticizing the conduct of media, specifically Barkha Dutt during the 26th November attacks. NDTV sent a legal notice to Kunte following this "utter and total rubbish" and forced him to take down the post and post an apology.

But why does this qualify for Whoops Award, you ask? NDTV team had to scramble to get down an older news story (brought to you by the magic called Google Cache) on NDTV.com which quotes the "utter and total rubbish".

Now tell me if they don't deserve the win...

P.S. Previous Whoops Award winners - Nov'08: Ricky Ponting, Oct'08: Adam Gilchrist and Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Who needs Comedy Central…

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:00:00 +0000

…when you have online news headlines? (And I am not even talking about unintended(?) double-entendres. Double… get it? Yeah, that was a bad one.)

So, I am getting my daily morning dose of news, when I come across:

Metro breaks through the tunnel

I click on the link, getting all my “breaking the barriers”, “light at the side of tunnel” etc. jokes, and what do I find out? It’s some news about how Metro Corporation completed some tunnel. RIP my jokes, they never saw the light of the day. (Who said “Thank God”? Stand up now)

And while we are on the subject of headlines: I know the screen space is a commodity not to be wasted, and often you have to put two headlines next to each other. But when you do this:

Now that’s just…

Un-balanced movies

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:58:00 +0000

Observed while browsing for new movies:

That’s some scary ~~cemetery~~ symmetry in there.

Say Hello To The Unending Fuel Source

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:50:00 +0000

3 step process to fuel your car indefinitely:

Turn your car or other vehicle to run on biodiesel made from body-fat.
Use the vehicle to get everywhere. (Little/no exercise = more body fat)
Liposuck and repeat.

P.S. The doctor may just have killed two birds with 14 lbs.: solution for obesity and fuel crisis.

P.P.S. Did he take it literally when his fellow plastic surgeons were talking about “that patient who paid for my trip to Florida”?

L.P.S. I promise that is the last of post-script joke (a.k.a. PSJ a.k.a. PJ) about this topic from me.

News You Just Can’t Make Up

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:58:00 +0000

From Indian Express:

After a 12-hour long power cut, … on Wednesday morning all the lifts and water pump motors in their buildings started running in the reverse mode.

In short, you are running late for office, and find out that there is no water for shower (the pumps are sucking water out of overhead tank into the ground tanks). Somehow managing that, you rush into the elevator on the way to the underground garage. You get off on the terrace.

Given the date of the news, I posit somebody had a wild night.

P.S. While we are on the topic of “making” something (up), what is the meaning of: film producer starring Zaffar and Nikki?

Recipe for a perfect evening

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:20:00 +0000

…if you are a war buff:

Peppermint mocha with

Followed by:

And then, watch in to taste.

P.S. Why doesn’t he “spell” his name like that now?

Putting 2 Plus 2 Together

adler.fleiger@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 18:27:00 +0000

Where ze 2^un:

et 2^deux:

Et voilà... Christmas time!!!