Hard Pore Corn

The title of this post literally translated from French to English means, “the wit in the staircase”. Have you ever kicked yourself for being a tad bit slow in making a barb at someone? Have you ever felt that you could have put someone in his/her place with a witty remark that’d leave back a burning sensation in their posterior, but it was well past the time when you thought of something that’d really sting them hard? This is called the L’esprit d’escalier scenario where you would realize you could have made someone’s day miserable after you’ve crossed them a few stairs/flights back in the staircase.
Here’s a website where people have posted real-life incidents where they wish they’d either said something other than what they did, or even in some cases, something at all.
Found it amazing. This and a lot more links, courtesy, StumbleUpon. Do check out this amazing Firefox plug-in.

Where did it all begin? Most would attribute Charles Babbage, a squiggly old guy who looks like Whistler’s mom without the cape, with the nobel idea of inventing the box. Some would call Ada Lovelace (what ho, babe? ooooh behaaave!), the Mother of modern computing. Sometimes I wonder what the kids would look like if Cabbage and Lace-woman had gotten married. A few theories put the blame on the ancient Chinese to have unassumingly hinted at faster computations with their cool, beady wireframe-y calculators. Still time travelling further into the past, we see this Middle Eastern dude, with a very complicated name, coming up with the fundae of algorithms (my favorite subject throughout CS…although one almost flunked in it!) Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi (whew!) did a lot of mambojambo in a lot of fields before he found his true calling and wrote a book called Hisab o Jabr o Muqabele (sexy name dontcha think?)
Well…I hope that has caught your attention. My posts hardly gather much attention unless I garnish it with some unnecessary trivia like that. But not digressing from the crux of the matter, I want to sketch out the progress of the Biege Box through the past few decades. Right from the time IBM put it into the high profile university labs, till today, when we have employees spilling coffee onto their laptops while opening a “Fwd:” sent by a friend in an unsuccessful attempt to surf single handedly (Eeewww…gross)

Having nightmares because your driving leaves behind a body count worse than the Chernobyl Disaster? Do you drive like an 80-year old lady with a distended bladder and has had astigmatism since she was 3 and who’s gulped down a couple of Mickey Finns with 5 Tequila shots for lunch? Afraid you might be at a loss for words when the “Ossyfer” flashes his torch and asks you for your license and registration before coaxing in the Breath-alyzer?

Fear not. Just use one of these tailor-made excuses that I’ve been working on:

1. In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a pole.
2. A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.
3. My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle.
4. As I approached the intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no sign had ever appeared before, making me unable to avoid the accident.
5. The pedestrian had no idea which way to run, so I ran him over.
6. The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.
7. The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intent.
8. To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian.

And if you feel embarassed about using such lengthy sentences in daily conversation then read my lips.

DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!

A few months back I got a call at around 7 in the morning. Here I’ll let the post speak for itself.

Ring….ring….ring…

Me: Hello…. (very drowsy greeting)

Caller: Who this is? (Buddy, it’s me who should be asking this question)

Me: This is Anup….may I know who’s calling?

Caller: S*. I friend of R*. I want talk to you. (Huuuuh…It starts)

Me: Yes….oh R*….okay….what do you want to talk to me about? (Why the hell did you call me at this time?)

Caller: I get call from Tata Elxsi (my company)….I have test….interview….at 10….I want to talk about that…

Me: Certainly….TEL is looking for freshers this month….that is 2004 passouts….had you sent them your resume stating your average score….because they are pretty strict about the minimum percentage….they’ve asked for 70% aggregate, you know!

Caller: Yes….I send mail last week….today I got test….so want help from you….

Me: What was your aggregate for engineering?

Caller: 68%.

Me: And to which university was your college affiliated?

Caller: Chaudhary Charan Singh University, UP…..but I need your help.

Me: Uh….in what way could I help?

Caller: I want question paper!

Me: WHAT??? Come aga…. (I was surprised at the audacity of the demand)

Caller: I want paper (a bit louder and cutting me off) …. test paper…

Me: I’m sorry I can’t help you with that….the HR department has possession of all testing material….(and I wouldn’t give it to you even if I had it, bonehead)

Caller: But R* tell you can help….so I call you….you help R* also na! (What do I make out of this drivel)
Me: But I only discussed the paper sections with R. Just told him which areas the test concentrated on and what he should read befo….

Caller: (Jumping the gun and again cutting my sentence) I WANT THAT….the only question type….is there technical or business or practical knowledge….If they want basic technical funda or CAT like apti test?

Me: Alright….see the test is divided into two parts. Technical and General Aptitude. Each section has 30 questions. You have 30 minutes to answer each section. Sometimes there maybe more technical or aptitude questions…like in my case there were 45 in the technical section.

Caller: Business questions (It’s aptitude, moron)….level is hard…(I don’t know whether a question mark goes here, coz it sure didn’t sound that way)

Me: No, no. Not at all. In fact it’s pretty easy. Nothing outside your previous curriculum. Problems like trains travelling towards each other, work distribution, your kids’ ages, venn diagrams (What the fuck was I talking?)

Caller: What level? (If brevity is soul, dude, you’re Marvin Gaye)

Me: Pretty easy…..I did pretty well without much studying…..so you should do alright.

Caller: Ok….ok (finally…..I thought it’s over)

Me: Cool…..so best of luck with your test. And let me know if you need help at TEL. My extension number is ****.

Caller: WAIT. I need help on Parrot.

Me: What’s Parrot?

Caller: Parrot System Limited. It is near to your company only. I get call from there also. I got test there at 11:30….

Me: Oh, you mean Perot Systems. It’s a nice company. You should go for the test surely. But I can’t help you with that…..

Caller: No….Can I attend the Elxsi 8 batch?

Me: What’s the 8 batch?

Caller: 8 o’clock….second batch…..today 2 batches. I then go to Parrot easily……

Me: Sorry but you’ll have to contact the HR for this. If you want I can give you his number.

Caller: I have it. But I thought you can help with shift my batch to 8 wala batch.

Me: Actually, the HR department is totally different. I as a programmer have no say in their functioning. I’ll try anyways.

Caller: Ok. If you change the batch…..then call me on this number. I am going to mandir for prayer…..I never go to a test without prayer……(Yeah you can skip the studies and spend a day prior to the test in a Yagna maybe. And just why the fuck was this necessary for me to know)

Me: Okay…..fine. Bye then….I don’t think I will go to office that early anyways. So I will try to call up Ajay, my HR and ask him. Ok.

Caller: Yes. But give me info about 8 batch….I am waiting.

Me: Fine….bye. (You horrendous SOB)

Last I heard this dude had been selected by a company called Flextronics. But by Jupiter, Juno, Toutatis, and how many ever Roman/Greek/Hindu/Norse gods there are, if I get any more calls like this I think I’d probably smash my cellphone to the last IC.