Six Degrees

In the twentieth century, when statisticians became bored they started experiments and came up with a theory called "Six Degrees of Separation" which concluded that every individual is potentially separated from everyone else by a mere six links. This theory has caused a lot of people researching, conducting global experiments, starting games linked to it and we even have a film made (after it was made as a play first) on it.

Now that I have given you a backdrop of what the Six Degrees of Separation is, I can move on to what my take on this is. If this theory really does hold its matter over water and can be weighed in gold (or well apparently everyone's going platinum these days so that....its your choice really) imagine how exciting unexpected people it bring us closer to.

This theory can be so useful on facebook, where lets be honest, we do spend 40% of the time e-stalking someone, be it your ex or an old crush or that hot looking girl (boy if you are a girl.....and well are into boys) or that horrible person you hated in school/college/university/your old workplace/round the corner from your house/round the corner from the round the corner of your house/round the corner from your old workplace/round the corner from your ex's house.....you get the idea right....someone you just plain hated. Ok probably I got carried away a bit there and the example that fits here is only the one which is you stalking the hot looking girl/boy whose profile you saw while randomly searching through facebook (boy you must have a lot of time if you are into this shit) and well now you are only six links away from getting to know her/him. All you have to do it ask everyone on your friend list if they know that person and then they can ask everyone on their list and it would only take 5 more links from them and you can be introduced to that person. How simple is that!!! I personally give my full backing to this theory as it turns a reasonably small world to even a smaller one but its gives us friends who we never knew existed and well does bring down the cases of stalking as when you would get to know that person you would kick yourself for being to stupid as to waste your time on "someone" like that....but no need to stress as your very own shrink is only six links away from you (in case you already don't have one).

So in case you haven't keep passing this link to everyone you know.....who knows I might come across someone in those six links who would pay me for this....unique...sort of......work.

Plane Plane.....????

Before we start, I would like to apologise for the title of this but as I could not come up with anything (original) I thought if the last one was airport airport....this one could be passed off as plane plane! So now that we have gone past all the (useless) formalities, we can go back to the topic or the the lack of it.
Walking into the flight the one thing that kept coming to my mind was one of my friends comment on his experience of flying Air India and how the air hostess (some like to be preferred being referred as stewardess) were a bit on the older side of their career and a few were probably as old as mum (his words not mine). And well as soon as I walked towards the flight and look up, I am greeted by an air hostess who well probably was a couple years younger than mum. Now this makes it hard for you if you really want to get something at short intervals, would you not start feeling guilty after the second time? Plus, to generalise the air hostess are supposed to be hot in flights....why do you think Branson got in the aviation industry....it definitely wasn't his love for flying! Anyways a late night flight is supposed to be a very pretty sleepy affair and this was no different. The flight wasn't as bad as I expected...there were no insects or rodents on the plane...apart from the guy sitting in the seat in front of me but I can't decide if he fit the insect or the rodent part. I have a feeling a feeling one or the others species is going to get insulted by me placing him either way. The in flight entertainment was nothing exciting I had a choice of watching a Bobby Deol movie or a Shammi Kapoor movie and I opted to read a book. I was offered "supper" which was well the less said the better. So after about 4.5 hours we get into Singapore and there ends my Air India experience. I get off the flight for the 13 hour transit which is boring for most part except when the good people at Qantas went ahead and put me off the system list for the flight to Melbourne. The guy sitting at the transfer desk asked me about three times if I was sure I had booked my tickets to melbourne.....hell no I just thought I would take a flight to Singapore and take my chances....are you nuts Mr. Transfers guy. After a few phone call the dude turns around and tells me that today is my lucky day and I have got a seat on the plane. Now I may not know that much about luck but me getting a seat on the plane which I booked a ticket for...is not luck. No, winning a $10 Million lottery is lucky, heck give me that and keep the blooming seat to yourself, I can charter a plane out of there if I won the lottery!!! Anyways after I was shown my somewhat warped luck I proceeded to get some food and sleep. I had another night of flying with another airline not really known for its comfort.
To end this I would just like to say that while travelling is one of the most exciting experiences it does get boring especially if you are like me and have the shortest attention span known to mankind. Till the next time.....Happy Flying folks!!! :)

Airport Airport.......

Once again its time when I take the long journey with even longer transits. No, lets not say "Hurray!" as this really does not turn out to be such a fun thing when you are travelling alone. The first thing to get messed up is the sleep....yeah I can't sleep on aeroplanes...I've tried and once I have actually achieved 15 minutes to snooze only to be harshly woken up to the screams of a baby some 3 seats away....and as pissed off as I was I can assure you no babies were hurt in this incident. No the only casualality was my sleep or the lack of.
Anyways coming back to the point, I am currently on my way back home for home....yeah confusions reigns supreme when insanity comes naturally to you. I am on my way back to melbourne from a long long holiday at home (in Bangalore with the family) and am soooo not looking forward to the whole day transit at the Singapore airport and that is the one airport I actually really enjoy flying into. I will update on how things go there once I get there but for now lets concentrate on the good ol (well in this case the very new) Bangalore International Airport. It is situated in probably the farthest corner of the city imaginable and I am one of the few lucky ones for whom it takes an hour to get to there when the traffic is not crazy and if you are wondering when it isn't well usually late at night....which is when it gets a bit more crazy with the adrenaline junkies trying to show off how well they can pull off a wheelie on a motorbike (I have heard of insane cases where wheelies have been tried on cars so I just had to specify) and the insane drag races. So I get to the airport with the traffic being insane rather than the people and I am just assuming that here, I will not really vouch for that. The security guard at the entrance greets me with a pretty nasty stare which I believe is for making him do some work, but then again I am working on assumptions here also. Did I mention that this time I flying with good old and here I mean OLLLLDDDDDD Air India?? Yeah go me (whoever missed the point those three words are laden and are about to crumble under the weight of the intense sarcasm placed on them!!)!!!! As you can see how much fun I am expecting from this journey I was startled when I was greeted by a smile and a Namaste as soon as I got to the line meant for the cattle class (I can get away with saying that unlike that politician who was ostracised) and as soon as I get to the check in desk and do away with the pleasantaries I am asked what the highest denomination of the currency is in Australia. I proceed to answer the question as if my whole being is in question (yes its melodrama time!!) and then I am asked some random questions about who packed the bag and if there are any questionable items in the bag and was shown a list. After being satisfied with my answers Mr. Check-In guy finally starts to get to work and proceeds to process my boarding card which after 5 minutes was evident he didn't have a clue as to how to go about doing it and called for help. The supervisor strolls to the desk and asks me another set of random questions.....tells Mr. Check-In guy something in his airline language and voila I have a boarding pass!! I am however reminded to remind the people at the Changi airport (Singapore) to put my luggage on the right plane (how very assuring!!) when I collect my boarding pass for the onward journey to Melbourne. The guy at the immigration counter this time was actually being very friendly and had a smile on his face too something which I have found is pretty rare. I then proceed to the security check and since some time this has become the best part of the whole process while flying out of India largely due to the CISF boys. They are usually from the north and come up with some of the whackiest comments and this time it was this poor guy in front of me who out of being a little smart went to pick up the trays arranged on the other side to be sternly reprimanded by the person in charge with "Yahan pe itna tray rakha hai...dekhna chod diye hain kya?" (there's so many trays here, can't you notice it) in a tone which was hilarious for the others and am sure pretty embarassing for the poor guy.
Anyways after all the process I finally sat down with another hour and some to kill and ventured into a bookstore where I happened to find a book I wanted to buy for some time, I picked it up went to the counter and while the check-out clerk was scanning the bar code and entering my details in his system asked him if there was any discount and he looked up to ask "what for?" which is where I tried to put in my two cents of humour and said "you know something like thank god you are leaving us discount". Have to say that people these days have no sense of humour as the reply that came straight after was "Sorry Sir we never had any discounts like that...ever". My dreams of being a stand up comic took another few steps backwards....the rate at which that is happening I should do the moon walk with it...might turn out better.
Anyways this is almost it for part 1 of the journey...I will update as to how the flight was later......

Happy 2010 To You!

A very Happy New Year to everyone and hopefully more than half of you would by now have broken one or all of your resolutions by now........come on you had a whole 15 days to achieve this honour. So now that the whole resolution thing is done and dusted with lets move on.
A lot has been going around in this past fortnight with people going loopy over what should this decade, that has just been completed, be called to the weather going whacky from one side of the globe to the other. We've had a violent start for some regions to natural calamity in others. We have witnessed economical revival whilst inflation shooting through the roof. Yes..all this in the first two weeks of the year 2010 and so far its very difficult to conclude what the rest of this year has in store for us. All we can do is make sure we make most of it and make sure we are happy the whole year round. Wish you all a very Happy New Year again and may it be a joyous one for one and for all.

T'is the season to be jolly

Ho Ho Ho!! Its that time of the year again when Santa comes to town after being judgemental for the whole year. I really wonder how he judges if you have been naughty or nice.....does he have a nice swanky software which has a list of everyone on it and the little elves work the whole year putting ticks and crosses against the names. I wonder if Santa just looks at a report at the end of November or well probably a bit earlier to ensure who all gets the goodies. Then lies the question of where all the gifts are sourced from, are they made in North Pole or as is common nowadays everything is being imported from China and if it the later does that mean the poor elves who spent all their lifetime working in the gift factories have lost their jobs? Has recession affected our red robed beared fella also and the gifts this year would not be as awesome as the years past? Is someone in the accounts department going to play the grinch and add everyone on the naughty list? Well all we hope is that North Pole still remains unaffected from what is happening all around and that Santa remains as jolly and kind as he always used to be. Yes t'is the season to be merry and rejoice and so I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

P.S: All those who think Santa doesn't exist just don't want to share those cookies and milk with him.....you greedy cynics!! :D

News from the week or two or three

There has never been such an eventful moment in the world as what is happening now.........and now that I have you wondering, I would like to add that you are the most gullible lot I have seen....or in this situation not seen. But in terms of not so memorable moments there have been a few things happening around, like in Central Japan's Ishikawa Perfecture there was downpour of dead tadpoles......yes you read that correct.....TADPOLES! I wonder if the frog community recently recieved a copy of "Its raining men" and decided that it was time they conquered mankind with a dose of their own, just forgetting one thing - that they needed to be alive not dead! But then, this was in Japan and these could have been Kamikaze Tadpoles who wanted success more than life.
In other news, the President of Zambia got peed on by a monkey, which would say a lot about his popularity there, making the statment taking a piss on to a next level altogether.
In about two months we will have the world's new shortest man who stands tall at a full 2 feet, and if you google him you can see how the little sport actual does pose to charm your hats off....just make sure u don't drop it on him.
A man started taking his clothes off mid flight on his way from Charlotter to LA, which meant the flight had to divert to Albuquerque........talk about taking an expensive way to undress!!
And lastly, Air New Zealand has outdone British Airways (BA recently pleaded with its staff to work for free for a month as they could not sustain the costs) by asking the flight crew to ditch their clothes and used body paint instead but just to get people watch the inflight safety video (yeah I was this close to booking tickets on Air NZ too till I read the later part). Having watched a small clip of the video I would seriously ask Air New Zealand to make the crew wear normal clothes.
That was the news this week.....until next time, keep laughing!!

Researching Researches

Has anyone ever wondered why the government spends on researches as obvious as "smoking can cause death" or "cars that won't start when you're drunk will reduce drink driving". Yes...you have read that right, these researches were given grants. There was actually money spent and people who apparently spent a good deal of time in universities not only completing their degrees but doing their PHDs working on this. Now I may not be a PHD but then I could really give them my two cents on these researches. I should probably start applying for grants for these kinds of researches too, I wonder what topic I should choose though. I have a few ideas, something like, "walking too much might be healthy but it will cause an ache in your foot" or "if we watch too much TV we might be just wasting time". If those ones could get a grant, I am pretty sure I should get one for my researches. There have actually been studies conducted for the following:
- Faraway Objects Are Tougher to See (No shit sherlock!)
- Swallowing More Than One Magnet is Dangerous (because magnets are so delicious..right!)
- Smoking Cigarettes Costs You Money (you don't say!!)
- Time Flies When You're Busy (Fly away by Lenny Kravitz anyone?)
- Combining Drugs and Alcohol is Bad For You (does this mean taking it individually is alright?)
- Gun-Toting Drivers are More Prone to Road Rage (who would have guessed that happening!!)
- Memory and Concentration Fade With Age (what were talking about again??????????)

So the next time someone close to you says something stupid, don't discount it as being stupid as you never know, there could be money made from it!