Funny

Google Maps directions from California to Stockhom. Google suggests a "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean". 3,462 miles. Estimated time: 29 days 0 hours

Tom Mabe likes playing pranks on telemarketers while recording the call. This is a recording of a hilarious telemarketing call.

Tom: Hello?
Mike: Yes, can I speak with Tom Mabe?
Tom: Who’s calling?
Mike: This is Mike (beep). You’ve been selected to receive a complete digital satellite system for free. With this, you’re going to…
Tom: Um, let me ask you something. Did you know Tom Mabe? Are you a friend of his?
Mike: No, I’m not. I’m just calling to…
Tom: Hold that thought… hold on one second, alright? (off phone) Hey guys, get really good pictures of the body. Yeah, dust everything down for prints. (on phone) Are you there?
Mike: Yeah.
Tom: Let me bring you up to speed. You have actually called a murder scene and Mr Mabe is no longer with us. I’m Officer Clarke. I’m conducting a homicide investigation. I want to ask you a series of questions. Firstly, what was the nature of business you had with Tom Mabe?
Mike: I, uh, had no business with him. I’m… I’m sorry to have bothered you…
Tom: No, no, no hey hold on look, I want to ask you to stay on the phone. This call has already been traced and we may need to you to come here for further questioning. This …
Mike: You see, you don’t understand. I’m just calling …
Tom: No, no, look, you don’t understand. Unless you want to be charged with obstruction of justice it’s imperative to keep your ass on the phone, Mike.
Mike: Or, how about you just talk to my supervisor then?
Tom: No no no no we’ll get to your supervisor in a second. Now, give me your whereabouts.
Mike: I’m at work.
Tom: You’re at work?
Mike: Yes.
Tom: You being a smartass?
Mike: No, sir.
Tom: Let me put it to you this way, Mike. Say I want to mail your ass a letter. What would I have to write on the outside of that envelope to ensure that the mailman will deliver it right to your ass? Geographically speaking, Mike, where is work?
Mike: 40 West (beep), Middleton, Colorado.
Tom: Hold on, that’s 40 …
Mike: Yes sir.
Tom: Michael, hold on one sec, alright?
Mike: Yes sir.
Tom: (off phone) Get the Middleton homicide department on the phone. Yeah, give them this information. Tell them there been a talk in connection with a fatal shooting and aggravated robbery. (on phone) Mike, how did you know Mr. Mabe again?
Mike: Wait, you’re calling the Middleton police department? I’m hundreds of miles away! I don’t even know the guy… I’m in Colorado!
Tom: No, no, it’s not that scary… that’s just a formality. Tell me, have you been to any place other than work, then?
Mike: No!
Tom: OK, and tell me again what, where were you last night for twenty hours after eight and ten?
Mike: I’m not feeling really comfortable with any of this.
Tom: Have you even ever spoken to Mr. Mabe, Mike?
Mike: No I haven’t. I don’t even know the guy. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!
Tom: OK, very good, calm down, calm down, look, I’ve got one more question for you, Mike. As you well know, I’m sure, Mr. Mabe was a flaming homosexual. There’s no easy way of asking this, I don’t want to embarrass you or nothin’, but, were you his gay lover?
Mike: What!? No… what kind of a question is that?
Tom: (you just have to hear what he says!)

From Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. These are the quotes I found most… how shall I put it… eye-opening. Paradigm-shifting.

“..the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury found it advisable-”
“Found WHAT?” said the Duck.
“Found IT,” the Mouse replied rather crossly. “Of course you know what ‘it’ means.”
“I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing,” said the Duck: “it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?”

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where-” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“-so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

“To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. Do you grant that?”
“I suppose so,” said Alice.
“Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags it’s tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.”

“I can’t believe THAT!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” said the Queen in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!”

“I can’t remember things before they happen.”
“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else – if you ran fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, HERE, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep you in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is”, said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”

“Fan her head!” the Red Queen anxiously interrupted. “She’ll be feverish after so much thinking.”

“Five nights are warmer than one night, then?” Alice ventured to ask.
“Five times as warm, of course.”
“But they should also be five times as cold, by the same rule – “
“Just so!” cried the Red Queen. “Five times as warm, AND five times as cold – just as I’m five times as rich as you are, AND five times as clever!”

Video of Guy Kawasaki’s talk on The Art of the Start at TiECon 2006.

It’s informative, even if you don’t want to start a venture, but I didn’t know Guy was such a funny speaker! He begins with:

Early in my career, I sat through many keynote speeches — at Comdex, at Mac Road Expo. I saw many many hi-tech CEOs speak, and I have to tell you, one thing I noticed is they pretty much sucked as speakers. And the second thing that I figured out sitting in these audiences of sucky keynotes is that if there’s anything that’s worse than a CEO who sucks as a speaker, it’s a CEO who sucks as a speaker and you have no idea how much longer he or she will suck! And so, I have adopted the top 10 format for all of my speeches. This way, if you think I suck, at least you can track progress through my speech.

Towards then end, when he’s run well over time…

What are you going to do? Not invite me again?

He gets dragged off the stage.

via Vulturo

Funny ads in London.

To My Mugger:

Last night you stole my phone on Holloway Road, you also stole my heart.

I was the tall brunette in dungarees and psychedelic t-shirt, you were the hooded man on the bike. I was captivated by your white teeth and hypnotic eyes.

My home number is stored on my contacts under “me”. (Please don’t call me at “me work”, or my boyfriend, “Josh”.)

I await your call or reply x

Teri Hatcher anyone?

Hi thought I’d give this a shot. You never know! I’m desperately seeking the most gorgeous of all Desperate Housewives (sorry Eva, Marcia and Felicity) – Teri Hatcher. I don’t know Teri Hatcher nor am I a Norman Bates psycho (maybe on Sundays…is today Sunday?) but hey come on, Teri’s great. Or Ms Hatcher as I should call her right?

So if anyone out there knows her or has a connection with her (a REAL connection not those psychic ones. I have one with Tom Jones – doesn’t work that way) by all means – help me out! I’ll be a good date! I’m cute, funny, and intelligent (I’m actually hideous, blonde brained (sorry all blondes – no offense) and ….yeah intelligent. I’m a nerd!). But not ego centric, Hey wait – if I talk about myself – is that ego centric? Hmm…

So remember ladies and gents – think me, think Teri Hatcher….great now THAT sounds Norman Bates stalker like…. Yikes!

Did I sleep on your sofa?

After a very big night out on Saturday, i found myself waking up on someone’s sofa on Sunday morning. I didn’t hang around to find out who was so kind to take me in.

If it was you, please let me know.

Would like to know how I got there?

How to be a successful Evil Overlord. Hilarious. Some excerpts:

• My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
• When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him. No, on second thought, I’ll shoot him and then say “No.”
• One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
• I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero’s rugged countenance and she’d betray her own father.
• If the beautiful princess that I capture says “I’ll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!”, I will say “Oh well” and kill her.

Hilarious articles from Ramesh Mahadevan, including the exploits of Ajay Palvayanteeswaran.

Hilarious post on Pallu baby. Nice read, Karthik. Stay on course. Here’s his follow-up (which I can’t find on his blog any more).

Confluence 2005 is happening and there are students from so many B-schools who have come down to IIM-A. Some of my friends from BITS, now studying in other B-schools, have come down as well.

Yesterday I happened to get a call from one such friend of mine who’s studying in ISB (with whom I wasnt in touch at all). After a couple of hi-bye statements, the first thing she asked me was “How’s Pallu baby? And why arent you blogging at all? Your blog is very widely read in ISB. Everyone knows your blog in ISB. That Pallu baby post was circulated around like crazy.”

I felt a pang of guilt when I thought about all those who check my URL every day only to find the same 2-month old post on it. So I thought I should let you guys in on the post-Pallu-baby-disaster developments.

(For those of you who have no clue what I am talking about, read about the Pallu-baby episode in the following post, Fool’s Proof)

Now, I didnt really talk about how we survived the whole thing in that post. Well, luckily for us, we had a couple of other messages between us which passed around the assignment and had nothing scandalous written on them. So, we could take print outs of those messages and submit it to the prof.

I was basking in all the appreciation I was receiving for my Pallu-baby post just after writing it when the phone rang.

“Hey Atul, wassup?”

“I just read your post. Damn funny man.”

“Ha ha. Seriously dude. What an episode!”

“But did you realize one thing ?”

“What?”

“The print outs you submitted to the profs were messages from you to the others.”

“Okay. So?”

“You have your blog’s URL in your signature.”

“SHIT !!!”

After getting over my initial shock, I congratulated myself on the second blunder in two days. Then I contemplated on whether I should delete that post. After a brief struggle between ego and sense, ego prevailed (sense never stood a chance anyway) and the post prevailed.

Besides I justified it with the theory that profs wouldnt really have the patience to go over the stuff students write in their blogs. (Actually, the prof did make some comment about how we guys go home and talk about women and happened to look at me when she said that. The whole class roared with laughter, leaving me struggling to find a place to bury my head into).

A few weeks back, when the mid-terms were going on, I met BV on the road. He greeted me in an interesting fashion.

“Hey, what the fuck did you tell Pallu baby?”

“Huh ?”

“Did you tell her anything about the blog?”

“Are you crazy? Why would I do that?”

“She was the invigilator today. She almost accosted me and said ‘Hey Mister. What did you write in your blog?'”

“What !” I exclaimed. “What did you say?”

“What the fuck, I told her I dont blog. Then she said, ‘Oh yeah, go ask Karthik Laxman'”

“Wait a minute. It doesnt make sense at all. If she knew I was the one who wrote it, why didnt she come to me directly? Hell, I have my snap on the blog.”

“Beats me, man.”

“Thats because she likes you, BV. She really does. I have been observing all those coy looks she gives you whenever she bumps into you.”

“Shut up, dude. I am gonna whip your ass if anything happens to our ID grades because of this.”

We laughed and parted ways.

Finally she came to know.

A part of me however felt betrayed. After all that I have done for her, is this how she thanks me ? Does she have any idea how famous she is the world over? My estimates are that at least 2000 people know about her. Okay, so what if she’s known as Pallu baby and not by her real name?

One of the major motivations of my blog-readers from ISB in coming to IIM-A for Confluence was to meet Pallu baby. 🙂 I wonder how many more people have been motivated to participate in Confluence because of her. I am thinking of creating a counter especially for these people. I’ll probably call the counter “The Pallu baby interaction cell”.

I have my own theories on why she’d not be too happy with the developments. And I would probably attach 70 % of the blame to you guys – my esteemed blog readers. Following were some of the comments you guys put up to the post.

“Oka, you are a naughty boy. No hard feelings, but we have a job to do as TAs.
Moreover, its fun to make you guys cringe!
Well, until the next assignment…
-Pallu baby aka Pallavi Desai (Name changed intentionally)”

And this,

“was i looking pretty in the class today?? I kept looking in your direction but you were only paying attention to the girl sitting next to you. What is her name again?? I am quite jealous
-Pallu baby.”

And soon there were so many wanna be Pallu baby commentors on my blog.

“Wats all this non sense going on in your blog. Who are all these people pretending to be me. As for you, stop staring at me in the class, especially with that cheap smirk on your face. Come to mu office tomorrow and we shal talk this over in detail. Its completely unacceptable.
– I am the Real Pallu Baby.”

“Hey..’the original’ is a definate fake. I am the real one and i really admire your writing style.Thanks for writing about me
– Pallu Baby”

And this one probably takes the cake.

“you keep talking bout pallu baby,all the while ignoring me (the other TA in ID). Wait till i grade your end term exams. Or else you could always ask me out.
love struck ,
– Prajakta (name changed to protect identity)”

She must have digested all these in silence. And then one day things would have come to a point where she simply couldnt take it anymore. Something very inconsequential would have happened and all her pent up feelings would have burst out. And the person who would be responsible for this inconsequential incident could be someone totally irrelevant as well. Something similar to the squirrel with the nut in Ice Age. (By the way, I dont know if thats a squirrel for sure. I just picked the closest animal).

Earlier in the day she confronted BV about the issue, one of my section-mates happened to bump into her on the road. As they were walking towards each other, they smiled at each other in recognition. And then when he was close enough to be heard by her, he said,

“Hi Pallavi”.