Thursday Think-Tank

I was bathing in haste to get ready for the thursday tennish meeting when it struck. It made me swerve, it made me stop scrapping myself. That is when I realized how much we take things for granted and never give a thought about why something is the way it is. I couldn't soap myself in peace after that. The rose bottomless pit looked at me with such audacity that I was transported into a world of trance. Why have I never even considered so much as the name of this beauty that serves me day after day after day without fail? This happens to be the best five minutes of heaven and pleasure that we derive almost as a birth right everyday, but do we ever give as much as an eye-wink at it? Thank it for the impeccable unconditional love with which it has served us?

The pink potty has been sitting there, steady and soft, gulping blob after blob of shit for more than an year now. But it has never made me think so much like it did on this rusty thursday. May be, it was the rose odonil I bought yesterday to keep others' stink away (self never stinks!). As the rose fragrance floated across the bathroom, I suddenly found myself lost in thoughts as this eternal question popped up in my mind - Why is 'kakoos' called 'kakoos'?

As deep as I can think and remember, I still cannot pin on any word in tamil that ends with the 'oos' sound or the 's' sound. 'Dharboos' is probably one word, but that's a short form of 'Dharboosani'. 'Pattas' and 'Tappas' again are words pronounced after removing the 'u' sound at the end. So why then is this word pronounced as 'kakoos' with such preciseness and ease? Who is the genius behind this masterpiece?

I had finished my bath (both 'body bath' and 'khara bath') when I decided to put this question on to my roomie. He was equally stumped. After some serious thinking, he suggested it is not a tamil word, but english. I googled up for it, but all I could find was a restuarant named Ralph and Kacoos in Lousiana. (Am sure tamilians in Lousiana frequent this restuarant :P).

Gtalking with a friend led to another idea that was actually just forming in my mind. Probably the name has a baby-orientation to it. Kakoos is, after all, to be taken care of like a child. Down south, Peeing is more commonly known as 'kakka pordhu'. So the name could actually be a thanglish word: Kakka + Ooze = Kakooze aka Kakoos. That's the best equation I and my gtalk friend could formulate in the short time we had to discuss this mind-bogglin' issue. Though it has a loose-motion connotation to it (the oozing part), the name probably thickened as time grew.

Has it got to do something with 'Jacuzzi'? May be! I have no pointers to proceed on this investigation. So, I am calling out to ye all, the fellow human beings, to discuss in the comments section of this blog about the possible origins of this name. After all it is about our own tender 'kakoos' that we invariably, definitely, forcefully, purposefully, enthusiastically spend time with, everyday of our life. Kakoos is definitely an intellectualy stimulating spot to sit on, I have struck upon so many solutions to my everyday problems sitting on this hot oven. Hopefully, I will get the enlightenment about the origin of the name tomorrow morning!

Blogs along similar lines

http://sravanpens.blogspot.com/2005/09/it.html
http://knutties.livejournal.com/31727.html

Tagged

OK, this blog tat am writin, courtesy Tsu, is a baton in the serial game (in blogs) that someone initiated. And to respect the vettiness of that initiator, am spendin a few nickels of my own vetti time. This is like that electronic rain r d nuclear fission reaction that you studied in ur 11th grade - never gona end unless ppl get bored. For every blog, therez a trigger of 8 blogs. o god! wat an ingenious idea to ... bla bla bla ..

Rules are:

       * Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

       * People who are tagged need to write posts in their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

       * At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to pass along the baton and list their names.

ok, here I go .. umm, leme start thnkn ..

1. I have exterme mood swings and crave for love like a baby. I love the outdoors, I am damn good if I have company and evil if I don't. I have a bloated ego, and respect only those who respect me. You may choose to call this attitude ;) n kno wat, it probably is. There is an exception to this and that will be my girlfriend, whoever happens to be it.

2. I have a secret crush and I do not know if I should move ahead or not - well, ahem, the crush is perennial, the gal whom it is targeted towards, usually gets committed/married soon after (if god chooses to be cruel, it wud have already been past), ofcourse to some other villian.

3. I love music, java and coffee - my standard tagline; three things that keep me jiving. I do not like Aishwarya Rai, back-biters and bitter guard. I do not boil maggi, I cook and fry it.

4. I learnt violin as a kid - for 6 years. And then lost touch, planning to start my classes again.

5. My school principal slapped me when I was in the 12th grade. That was for a proxy attendance my friend gave for me :D. Well, I did have the pleasure of naming him and getting him slapped too. And it just gets better - My first sem English ma'm called me a pervert. Trust me, I have no clue how she found out.

6. Believe it or not, I wanted to do a phD in thermodynamics.

7. Math.random() always returns a positive double value greater than or equal to 0.0 and less than 1.0, irrespecitve of whether God calls it or I call it.

8. I am a good boy, well, usually ..

Now, I pass on the baton to you guys, the chosen six, to carry forward the light that has been held high so far by the knights, who have given their selfless time and mind to ... bla bla bla ..

1. Bhuvana

2. Vinod

3. VP

4. Sudhir

5. Swarna

6. CVR

Well, that's all about I could muster without a coffee. People who want to get d batons on their self-interest may write and leme kno abt it, i shal add d links here :D. am off for a coffee break ..

revealed too much,
keep smilin,
sravan

The Greatest Bulb Of My Life

Chennai is scorching. Our eyes are so accustomed to the blinding brightness that the cornea has crossed the visible wavelength and is discovering new combinations of yellow, blue and green entwining particles in plain transparent air. Laptops, Mobiles, Chairs – whatever absorbs heat have all absorbed it to the maximum and are blazing. So, in order to save my laptop that is so used to the Bangalore weather and heaves to push through the weekend in Chennai, I thought I will buy a wireless router, so I can browse from the safety of my bedroom AC.

I came home on Saturday morning and decided I will buy a wireless router. And there it was glittering under my eyes – Wireless ADSL Huawei Smart AX MT841 modem. Wow! I did not know my modem already had the wireless router facility. So, all I had to do now was configure it and then escape to the cool of my bedroom. I tried googling and fiddling around with my modem for sometime, but the fear of screwing it up constantly wrangled my brain. I could hear my dad losing his cool if I spoil the internet and leave back 2 Bangalore tomorrow night. So, I decided to call professional help and tried reaching BSNL helpline.

12678 is the busiest number on planet earth. But, it is one of the most courteous and helpful helplines, if you reach through. I wasn’t able to till the evening, and then luck struck at 7 o’clock. The lady was very cool and I thought “wow, this is going to come through fine, after all, I can work at 20 degree Celsius tonight.

“Hello, yes sir, How may I help you?”

“Ma’m, I have this MT841 modem and I need to configure the wireless LAN in it. I have a laptop with a wireless adapter”

“Ok sir, Please open http://192.168.1.1 in Internet Explorer”

“Yes ma’m, I have the modem configuration page.”

“Click on the left Plus button and WLAN. Now you see there is a textbox that …..”

This went on for half hour, during which, my modem restarted twice, but as expected the WLAN light never blinked.

Okay, so this is not coming through as good as I thought. So, I decided to just get through the call and go to the local telephone exchange and ask for expert help. Suddenly came a question that kicked my balls.

“… Is the Antenna upright?”

I was startled.
“Antenna? I don’t have an antenna in the modem”

“Sir, Is there a slot in the left hand bottom of your modem?”

The damn thing was indeed there and it was hanging empty. I let out an obvious gasp, it was just beginning to dawn on me and I was reeling.
“Yea, Do I have to buy a ..”

She did not let me complete. Her tone suggested she was cherishing the moment.
“Do u have the wireless card inserted in it?”

I wanted to crawl under the table.
“Do u mean to say I have to buy a separate wireless card to enable WLAN? I thought it comes enabled by default in the modem”

My attempts to cover the ignominy didn’t pay off well and in front of my eyes scrolled all those mails from technical helpdesks, that claim how customers were so ignorant about what they wanted. So, tonight I am going to be the laughing stock over dinner.

“Yes sir, you can contact your local telephone exchange for buying the wireless card. There will be separate charges. We have just configured your modem and it should be ready to work as a wireless router if you insert that card”

My last attempt at saving some dignity was the worst and words came out without going through the mind -

“Ok, so if I do not want to buy the card, Can I go in for any wireless router in the market? It will still work right? I shall call you once I buy one soon”

“Yes sir, In that case, you might not need our assistance. You can configure the line in the router itself. But having already bought the modem, I would suggest you just buy the card. Buying a separate router again might not be a very good idea. Thanks”

The thought of having tried one whole day to configure a wireless facility without realizing I did not have the necessary hardware was worse than the heat. I hung up, ran to my bedroom to switch on the AC and searched for my pillow to hide underneath. It’s more important right now to cool myself than the laptop. This is going to haunt for sometime ..

The Cutlet

Fig: The cutlet that I just ate ;)

Btw, I also discovered gaseously that cutlet and frooti don go too well together. Burp! :P

iknocks'ed out

There are some things that are damn good when you try them out, and then, there are things that you don even wana talk abt. So after many many attempts, I am writing this e-mail in frustration and instead of mailing them about it, thought will blog it, for public's perview and comments. I have sent this link to inox, hope they are looking at it, if they really do have some people to check their emails and follow up.

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Hi guys out there,

Has the e-ticketing at inox for chennai ever worked? Ever since it opened in Chennai, I have tried for 64390373209221 number of times including about 47 vain attempts some 15 minutes back to book tickets here

I get only two standard error messages all the time that I know them by-heart now.

Oops...
We seem to be having a problem connecting to our online ticketing system.
This is most likely a temporary issue. Please try again after 5 minutes.

(or)

Tickets are not available for this show. Please choose some other ..

Well, it happens that the 'try again' in the first message is a link and clicking on it takes me to a BLANK PAGE. All I see is a white monitor screen.

I seriously doubt if my broadband bandwidth is taken for granted. Is this some joke or are you guys having serious problems with the site maintenance? Am sure you have paid a fortune to whichever 'ABC Technologies' that developed this site, and are still paying them for maintaining it. I would like to take the liberty to suggest you guys to get some work out of them for the money paid.

I would now have to come all the way to Chennai Citi Center to get a coupla tickets for spiderman this weekend in the scorching heat, but would still do it coz tz worth it, considerin the competition for tickets. Please make things easier for customers when you have an e-ticketing option as an alternative. Otherwise, there is always satyam or mayajaal but these seem to have their own problems 2, tho they work most of the times .......

keep smilin,
sravan

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You can now add your comments in the comment section if you have been iknocks'ed out before. I would be the happiest if I see someone here who has succeeded in their attempts.