The Outburst

Terrorism: As creative as it gets

2009-10-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

Came across this news today!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6258137/New-al-Qaeda-body-bombs-that-can-beat-airport-security-are-alarming-terror-experts.html

I wonder what's next?

Al Qaeda terrorists engaged in reproductive processes with women, their reproductive fluids laced with genetically combined explosive chemicals so that the women in question give birth to IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device) blowing up maternity hospitals in that process?

This is crazy!

Know Thyself on YouTube

2009-09-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

Let us start with a question.

What would YouTube be called if it were in existence in Shakespearean era? - ThyTube

With such a quality of jokes, I should soon start preaching virtues of being non violent on this blog. If I don't I will surely be lynched. Stroke of bad luck you may call it, even the blog is called "the Outburst" thus being the ultimate justification of my murder if it ever happened. Looking at the positive side of the bad quality jokes at my disposal, I can patent them and then CIA can buy the rights for these jokes from me to be used as Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. I can also part time as a consultant to them.

I came across this song today and I was amazed to the extent that it described my current state of my mind. It did not help, it just stated facts but did not answer the question to life, the universe and everything. Please do not post comments saying that the answer is 42, my Nostradamusian mind is seeing that coming already. My mind is already shouting at such comments, "Turn away, Go back to The Book, you stupid answer........"

This is my umpteenth attempt at this post. I did not want to sound psychotic, but then each draft sounded more pathetic than the previous one. Suddenly I started seeing parallels between my state of mind and the artist's which I initially failed to see, given that Trent Reznor was recouping in a rehab from substance abuse problem when he composed this song. Before somebody complains to my parents about me being a substance abuse victim, I need to clarify that the parallels were on a uh...... ahem.....err....... on a spiritual level. (Dude I need to improve my English, lack of vocabulary can be shocking to the listener at times!!)

Here's the song.

This was the first song I listened to today. Reason for playing this is very straightforward. I wanted to drown the noise of the Navaratri bhajans that were being played on loudspeakers outside my house. Industrial rock is the only genre strong enough to face bhajans worshipping the divine power of the female form which is primarily the reason for celebrating Navaratri. The only thing that falls out of the contours of my intellectual capacity is, why do people need to celebrate the power of the female form on a loudspeaker. Can't everyone do it within the confines of their homes and keep it quiet? (No giggling at this point please)

Digressing a bit, although I wrote an obituary in my last post, I decided that even though I did not give birth to this blog, I will not let it die without giving it a chance of survival. I will nurture it as my own, torture it with my jokes and make it a strong blog. ZZ, I am not going to do the same with your puppy. It is just too much work.

Wish everyone could find a song that mirrored their own state of mind.

Fellow Vogons, does anyone have a song like that?

The End

2009-09-19T04:46:00.000-07:00

The sad:
Heartening to see the blog come alive in its death.
Hell, what could have been more disastrous - a purposeless birth, a silent life, and painfully prolonged death.

I set you free Outburst.

This is the end,
Beautiful friend,
This is the end,
My only friend, the end.

-Jim Morrison

The happy:
This is also the end of a constipated silence. This sets the conversations rolling. This where the party begins.

Ashen-Lady.
Ashen-Lady.
Give up your vows.
Give up your vows.
Save our city.
Save our city.
Ah, right now.

Well, I woke up this morning
And I got myself a beer.
Well, I woke up this morning
And I got myself a beer.

The future's uncertain
And the end is always near!

Let it roll, baby, roll.

-Jim Morrison

Requiescat In Pace (R.I.P), the Outburst :(

2009-09-13T08:40:00.000-07:00

If tears could build a stairway,

And memories were a lane,

We would walk right up to heaven,

And bring you back again.

Since you’ll never be forgotten,

We pledge to you today,

A hallowed place within our hearts,

Is where you’ll always stay.

Thank you, thank you for all the applause at my creativity in writing the above two stanzas. Shameless as I am, let me admit that I “R.I.P.ped” it off an existing person’s obituary. Oops, sorry, not existing because then there would be no obituary, I meant a real person, may his soul rest in peace. For convenience, let’s call him “the Deceased”. (I have been reading a lot of legal documents lately!). Please be careful with the spelling though, you may confuse it with “the Diseased” and it won’t make logical sense to logicark in this dimension or the second dimension or the third dimension or the fourth (Now panting……….) or nth. And irrespective of whichever darkest corner of the world you are hiding in order to escape the wrath of his undeniable, cogent logic, he will hunt you down, and make you face your worst fear. Which is “a” statement, always Rajnikanthesque or Mithunesque or Vijaykantheseque in nature. And it goes like this, “Do you mean diseased or deceased, because deceased is not the same as diseased and you ought to know what you are using, because it distorts the meaning you want to convey, unless of course it is your very objective to distort the meaning in which case my question of whether it is deceased or diseased becomes pointless because then it doesn’t matter if it were diseased or deceased as you wouldn’t want people to know what it is”.

Then what you are supposed to do is let out a shriek of pain and immediately start wondering why you were ever born in this world? Also you have to realize that now after the statement, you are closer to death than before which is where the Rajnikanthesquenes ends because it doesn’t kill you in entirety. That of course is because he is a beloved friend and a fellow Vogon poet.

Shamelessness continued, I did not even put the full obituary. These are only two of the four stanzas that I copied. Putting it fully is plagiarism; putting half of it is not according to my twisted logic.

So dear friends, Vogon poets join me in expressing deep condolences for the demise of this blog. As Amitabh Bachchan pointed out in Deewar that there can actually be a time lag between demise and funeral/obituary (To quote,

“Mera baap to bees saal pahle hi mar gaya tha, aaj to sirf uski chita jal rahi hai”

), I know it is late but I hope not too late. I have been seeing some untitled articles by YY, in my Google Reader which has an RSS feed to “The Outburst”. I pleasantly assumed that they are last ditch efforts to save the blog akin to reviving a failing heart by defibrillation, only distinction being that the entries were not shocking enough unlike the therapy. But today I found out that she has already left the sinking ship. Maybe the entries were not supposed to be for The Outburst. She entered them there by mistake. I may be wrong, but if I am correct I am just hoping that YY is not a doctor. I asked myself,” Y is YY trying to reYive a dead blog?” (If you don’t like the joke, please don’t kill yourself. Just think of the countless SMSes you read daily, please forgive me and move on. There is no more of such stuff I promise.)

ZZ, I know I also could have saved the blog but not to shift blame on you, let me remark that spurts of creativity, wordplay come to you more often and faster than they do to me, that way you are more responsible than me. I always felt that you would nurture this blog as your own child. This reminds me that you once said that you wanted to raise a puppy, now I strongly recommend against it.

R.I.P the Outburst, you will be solely missed.

Obvious? Not (at all)

2008-02-26T11:59:00.000-08:00

Life is far from obvious. Actually obscurity is one of the few facets of life that scares me the most. Reason for this is that the obscurity of life is so obscure that it is too complicated to be just obscure. My attempt to deciphering the so-called obscure facets have ended in dismal failure.

I wish to go on. But the obscurity that has been shrouding every day and every thought of mine, is going to be there even tomorrow. And the day after that. And then the day after that. I wish to be fully prepared to face it, mentally as well as physically. That demands adequate sleep. So bed is where I am going to.

I am going to write as soon as I am clear enough to characterize the aforementioned obscurity of life. And my post will be appropriately titled as "Obscurity of Life".

Somebody rightly said about life. There is more to it than meets the eye!

Obvious Not

2008-02-25T12:40:00.000-08:00

Lets find a way out of the obvious. jobs, pleasures, relations, thoughts, emotions, blogs, posts, reactions, food, words, desires.
Life. Is it too obvious to live?

Imagining confusion

2008-02-17T01:05:00.000-08:00

There it is. Looks good. That doesn't look bad either. The lingering smell of it fills the room. Even before the fire lights it. That is still put, in its case. Shining and ready to be taken. The fragrance pervades, though not as strong.

The first ones. A rush of blood. A rush of blood, did I say that already. Of course I did. That enters the nasopharynx passing hrough the glottis into the trachea. Bronchioles next, and finally into a cluster of alveoli. A tad confusing to delve deeper. Wouldn't I have explained it otherwise?

The first ones. It just slides in. Difficult to begin with. Easy now.

This thought has an origin. The origin of this thought. The origin of any thought. It lies somewhere here though it lies in past. The rivulet flows down and the landscape twists and turns it to create a pattern in the flow. The landscape is the past. The rivulet is the thought. This constant fear of having missed something makes me sure about the fallibility of it.

Shall we dance. I have nimble feet, now. Nothing special. The wretched retch. And a little less conversation. A little more action.

Slumber. Fatigue. And a big sea of thought in between. Numbness. I hate it now.

My Blog's been (c)old

2008-02-13T10:23:00.000-08:00

I forgot to say this when I ended my blog last time.

"I'll be back"
"Hasta la vista, Baby"

Before my lines turn into an arduous fanfare of movie trivia, let me just get to the facts for why I chose to ignore blogging for some time.

With 12 profile views within the first five minutes of my profile creation on Blogger I estimated that it is going to result in 105120 profile views per year, a staggering number indeed. Today the count stands at 33 after 42 days give or take a few hours bringing down the number to less than 365 profile views per year. Guess I was too judgmental when it came to Orkut. Hence I decided to give back its coveted title of "Social Networking Website of the Decade" and as a testimony to my allegiance, I spent most of the time orkutting. Needless to say, I coined the title myself.
No mosquito encounters to share. The only ones I had were in the closed confines of my dingy bedroom, rife with the pungent odor of my sweat soaked gym gear (socks included) slowly but surely permeating through my perception of everything worldly.
I have been enduring rough weather in my life, lately.

With orkutting taking up most of my little available time, (the remaining is spent at office where I act as if I am the single most hardworking person in the entire galaxy) I needed some kind of shock to shake me from my stupor of being the laziest contributor on this blog. Some collaborators I know come close to me in being lazy, but only in some aspects, being lazy at blogging is clearly not their forte.

At last I was shaken from my dreamworld. Someone else has been contributing. Alas, my blog's gone (c)old.

Comeon, comeon, what should I write? Should it be something funny? Can it be just anything? I hope I don't get buried beneath the countless blogs my collaborators will have achieved while I just sulk at being lazy and do nothing.

Now I understand. This calls for action, a frenzy of binge writing. Wait no, not binge writing. Quality should not be compromised for quantity..................... Hell, God I feel so helpless.

Now why am I overreacting?

Before I transcend into a realm of senselessness and take everyone with me, a cool recap suggests that I haven't really written anything about my rough weather in life. Huh, finally I got a topic to talk about. Also it is my favorite since I am a self confessed whiner, for whom a glass of Complan in the morning and a heavy dose of grumbling through the day is the very basis for a healthy existence.

Coming back to the rough weather. It is a by product of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, insanely long working hours and mental numbness arising out of constant pressing of the following keys: Ctrl, C, V.
I wonder if the kind of work I do can lead to possibilities like, "nothing" or another financial disaster which perhaps has the potential to wipe out the entire financial system of the world, bringing everyone to ground zero and back to the barter system. Sounds dystopian but interesting nevertheless. Blame it on my diminishing mental capability or the deeply ingrained doubt on the variety of sources which give different and conflicting information about the same stuff, thus hiding a potential crisis within themselves.

To top it all there was very interesting conversation with my manager. He asked us to think of the greatest thing that could ever happen to us. Immediately my mind had a glimpse of myself as the richest person on earth. My manager said that there was something in store for us which was exponentially greater to what we had just thought. Now what could be better than being the richest person?

After a lot of suspense and gentle coaxing he came up with what he thought was greater than the greatest thing that could happen to us.

It was our CEO's impending visit. The greatest thing that could happen to us was a "potential" handshake with the most powerful man in our organization.

These are the kind of hard times I have been enduring. The answer was quickly followed by a meeting where we were told how to prepare ourselves for this meet. Reportedly the CEO is an extremely ambitious guy who gets disinterested very easily. Seems, our job was to impress him. I thought of doing an Elvis impersonation for him but I thought that would be attracting too much attention.

Finally the much awaited day arrived. It was conceived to be somewhat ill-fated by some of us. We had to showcase what we do on a daily basis, which is exactly what we want to hide from others lest they think of us as proles from a fourth world country given that the nature of the job is menial. To top it all we had to sugarcoat this to give an impression that we are the ones running the entire business. I tell you, an Elvis impersonation would have been easier.

Finally it turned out to be much ado about nothing. He did not turn up since he was too busy.

I have nothing much to write as I am getting late for sleep. I have to wake up and be in office in the morning. The storm is not yet over. There is another dignitary visiting us tomorrow.

I would like to end this post by saying that I have started to enjoy Dilbert even more, since now I have started relating to it. By the way I was an engineer some day. I just guess that we all have a little bit of a manager in us. The problem is when it starts growing bigger by the day!

Let me sing you a waltz

2008-02-03T23:42:00.000-08:00

Julie Delpy. You make my heart weep.

Let me sing you a waltz
Out of nowhere, out of my thoughts
Let me sing you a waltz
About this one night stand

You were for me that night
Everything I always dreamt of in life
But now you're gone
You are far gone
All the way to your island of rain

It was for you just a one night thing
But you were much more to me
Just so you know

I hear rumors about you
About all the bad things you do
But when we were together alone
You didn't seem like a player at all

I don't care what they say
I know what you meant for me that day
I just wanted another try
I just wanted another night
Even if it doesn't seem quite right
You meant for me much more
Than anyone I've met before

One single night with you little Jesse
Is worth a thousand with anybody

I have no bitterness, my sweet
I'll never forget this one night thing
Even tomorrow, another arms
My heart will stay yours until I die

Let me sing you a waltz
Out of nowhere, out of my blues
Let me sing you a waltz
About this lovely one night stand

my first mobile haiku

2008-01-12T02:10:00.001-08:00

SATISFACTION
have evrythn,
stil dsnt feel right.
guess the innrwear is too tight.

Cricket, India and Racism

2008-01-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

We all know what happened in the test match. I also knew about itwhen I went to office in the morning. Kept hearing about it in the news, and overhearing it in colleagues' conversations; but the issue was never really in my mind. It was one of those things that you know is going around; but isn't really that important.
But when I came back and opened my Google Reader, and talked with my roommate, I realised I was wrong. Or to be more precise, I realised I was in the very small minority who thought that this was not that big an issue. Apparently, this is a matter of national prestige. hmmm...

Well, the only piece of this whole event that I really gave some thought was Harbhajan being termed a racist because he reportedly called Symonds a monkey. I find it tough to understand that a person making (REPORTEDLY making, again) a comment in a heated moment, aimed at insulting one individual, is actually insulting his whole race. I put myself at Harbhajan's place and I do not find myself caring a bit about which race Symonds is from. Agreed, it was not me but someone else who used the M word (let's try to make this an oft-used phrase, what say?); and that I don't know or care whether Harbhajan said that word and if yes, whether he meant to insult just his opponent or his whole race. What I do care about is the over playing of this racism thing.

People avoid using the word "black" when they refer to African Americans (just re-read my sentence to get an example). I have never been able to understand how just calling a person with black skin a black is racism; without any added action or indication to insult. And even when you insult someone by referring to a group he belongs; quite a few times, it is more to undermine that particular person's ego than the whole group. ...Well,actually, my last sentence actually falls into the gray area; that scenario can indeed be racism.

What I mean is, racism, as I understand it, is a very inherent thing; inculcated in us while we grow up; in our surroundings. I can have racist biases towards, may be, a different religious community, or a different class that I have regular contact with (or socially engineered absence of that social contact) - a good example being the SC/ST bias; not some race that lives 3000 miles away from me and with whom I have had no social contact when I grew up, except possibly through textbooks and National Geographic. What I find tough to accept is that Harbhajan Singh - who grew up in a country where 95% of the population doesn't even know what/who an aborigine is, and I could be very much right in assuming that Harbhajan himself didn't know this before he became a regular international cricket player - would care what race Symonds belongs to. From where I see, it was a simple event of a player being indisciplined and insulting an opponent. I could be wrong, in this particular case; but I still stand with my statement for the majority of situations we see around us.

Moving on; and this really is an outburst; I again fail to understand - Is this whole match so big an issue that I must absolutely discuss it? Harbhajan was punished, Ponting appealed wrongly and Umpires made some mistake. Agreed, we lost a match,maybe, because of poor umpiring; but is this really that big a thing?
Sharad Powar intervening - I understand. He is the head of the council who is behind the team playing the game. Many people discussing about it around me - I understand. It is the pseudo-national game and this event is the most recent interesting event in that domain. But people telling me that this is a matter concerning the whole nation; that this is a matter of national importance - I can't understand. I mean, I didn't even hear anybody saying anything racist against India or an Indian team member. It was a matter of a team displaying non-sportsman like behaviour; a matter of umpires making some wrong decisions, and making a decision using a wrong approach; a matter which indeed deserves discussions by the water-cooler and in the restrooms; a matter that needs to be dealt by the BCCI and ICC. But a matter that is of national importance- heck NO. For that matter, I would have given this matter the stamp of national importance only when somebody had called Harbhajan "You fill-your-choicest-swearword Indian"; but even then, amongst the lowest priority ones. I mean, if we let every other TDAH say stuff and let us get perturbed by it then we have a big problem; actually, THAT would be a matter of national interest.

Huh, enough with the outburst!!!

By the way, do visit my personal blog for a small related post ( a little self-promotion never hurts, does it? :P)

Two in Mumbai

2008-01-03T04:47:00.000-08:00

I was first going to post a comment to YY's previous post; was halfway through when I was reminded of a discussion with ZZ and Ra's Al Ghul (I am gonna call him RAG from now on!) about the possibility of using this blog as a chain of thoughts. So, continuing YY's digression:

Well, actually it's two others of the group who live in Mumbai. I, being one of them, can assure you that I never crossed you on Andheri station unless you were there on 5th June last year at around 2:30 pm; and I definitely didn't cut into your Mcd's queue yesterday.
The other one who lives in Mumbai, has the acute misfortune of sharing living and working quarters, both, with me. We also have a sinister plan of adding the remaining contributor to this duo; which plan I am sure the Creator (and a few others) would allow to materialize in near future.

Introductory blog by the fourth Vogon poet

2008-01-02T11:24:00.000-08:00

Hi, I am the latest entrant to the now non-existent "tri"umvirate of deadly Vogon poets, ZZ, YY and logicark. Though nothing posted till now can prove the credentials of the contributors in causing severe neurological damage, which Vogon poetry is supposed to do, I can vouchsafe for the intellectual capacity of one of the contributors (guess who) which at times borders on the insane, and is very much deadlier than Vogon poetry. I have been subjected to it for a long time now, and it is beyond my cognitive ability to decipher the utterly disconnected pieces of logic in the guise of philosophy that comes from this guy without even a warning. Hints galore, two of the other contributors should have no trouble in figuring out, who I am talking about.

Coming to the purpose of this post, I don't know. This is my first blog and I think blogging is a cool thing, the reason being that I have had 12 profile views even before I updated my profile (yeah, better than Orkut). My stupid profile name could be one of the reasons behind it. I gave myself that name because I thought everything I write should be as close to being purposeless as possible, which I understand is the principle that drives the very existence of this blog. Reasons apart, I think this is a better avenue than orkut to get famous or infamous.

There are a very few things I can talk about in depth, movies being one of them. But since 2.19 am is not a very holy time to start reviewing a movie, the only thing I can think of is to start a thread to discuss the weirdest experiences anyone has had in the recent past.

The weirdest for me was when one of my flights got delayed by more than 5 hours. It was a "low-cost" airline and when the plane finally took off at 2.20 am and gained an altitude of 35000 feet, a swarm of mosquitoes threw a party to celebrate their first air travel by feasting on the blood of unsuspecting passengers like me who were just trying to sleep.

Naturally they were happy that they didn't have to buy a ticket.
35000 feet in the air for someone who measures less than 0.05 feet in length. (Thank you Wikipedia, for the statistics) is by no means a small achievement.

A small flap of wing for a mosquito, a giant flap of wing for mosquitokind!

Assuming the heaven is in the skies, all of us were literally one step closer to heaven (or hell as the case may be).

In my opinion, there should be strict delimitation of air spaces for mosquitoes to celebrate their stellar achievements like "35000 feet in air" without impinging upon the basic rights of humans. And needless to say, such regulation can be imposed only by a life form that is more advanced than humans or mosquitoes. Can't think of any such thing right now. Dolphins could be one option.

Weird experiences, anyone?

The Interconnectedness of All Things

2007-12-28T01:22:00.000-08:00

Logicark is a shrewd investigator. He likes (to) google as much as I do. Probably even more. He is a part of the underground movement that believes in questioning every fundamental concept that this world is (was) based on. He once questioned the movement.

YY is a neuronucleobioforenscientist. She likes dissecting things. Arguments and animals, both. She believes in (or used to) causality. Yes, digest that word before you read the next line. YY doesn't like being introduced. The veil of secrecy was the one thing she had asked for.

The triumvirate is deadly. The third one being me. I operate from a remote location. My chief weapons are pen, keyboard and silence. Usually my every move is well-not-thoughtout, which helps me beat even cleverer enemies. Clever enemies usually second guess your next moves.

This unholy nexus swears by the Sleuths' bible , Secret Methods of Problem Solving, Volume 4. (At this point, the pervert readers have started thinking of baby dolls) .The trio also helps people feel good about the unfairness of life; helps them beat their rivals and spares occassional crystal ball guesses about stock market, health and the life after death.
If this work seems a plagiarisation of Douglas N Adams'("DNA"(YY, you like this word?)) style, so be it. Whoever wants to read original stuff these days?

Prospective clients, please contact one of us through this blog. Attest your photograph-recent, black and white, stampsized.

42,
ZZ

Aagaaz

2007-12-18T10:17:00.000-08:00

As the Creator, pun fully intended, said, "mostly purposeless"; that's how it is. However, somehow shuruat to karni hai. Instead of taking six days, I plan to do it in six minutes
So let me start be doing a bit of self-praise. Till now we have three contributors. And must I say, two of them possess couple of the most beautiful minds that I have encountered. One I know personally and is a dear friend; the other I have come to know through reading and look forward to know her more.

Trying to write further, I realize that purposelessness is not that easy an art. Try thinking without any purpose..huh. Will try to give this random vector some direction; hope it doesn't turn out to be null.

Adios for now...

The purpose

2007-12-17T22:23:00.000-08:00

Mostly purposeless. Looking for collaborators.
What an idea! Wow!

By the way, the Time's personality of the year 2006 is : YOU.
Not me.