Surely You Gotto be Kidding Me !

Another hot and sweltering day here. In fact, the weather was so oppressive that Chennai-ites felt as sweaty and uncomfortable as Greg Chappell at Saurav Ganguly's birthday party.

Have some bad news to start off with. Looks as if there could be a hike in the price of petrol and Diesel by almost 5-10 rupees per litre. I am not sure if my dad can afford giving me money for petrol anymore. To tell you the truth, he has been dropping hints like - ' That Budhia Singh kid, he must be a blessing to his parents......I wonder how he is able to run 40 miles on the go.......I dont think it is THAT difficult, if a child can do it". I am really worried as I can see where he is going with this !!!

The US has a lot of enemies as we all know. Iran being one of them. Earlier this week, the Iranian President sent George Bush a strongly worded 18-page lettercondeming the US. It was embarassing for Bush, when he innocently asked -" Dint we just bomb this country and capture its ruler? Where's this letter coming from all of a sudden? ". Condi Rice gently pointed out to him that THAT was Iraq, and THIS was Iran. Two different countries. Nervous laughter followed. From Bush.

Everyone in India is ecstatic about the state of the stock market. The Sensex is on a bull run and is racing fast towards the 13,000 mark. But Stock Analysts are wary and worried. They feel that reaching the13,000 barrier is easy, but to carry on from there would be very difficult.
If you dont trust them, take a look at Tendulkars' case. He's been stuck around the 13,000 mark for years now with hardly any upward movement :-))

Something to think about. An Immigration Bill that could provide millions of illegal immigrants a chance to become recognised American citizens has been revived. Yesterday, the Senate leaders reached a deal and said they'll try to pass the bill before Memorial Day. A lot of Americans are not happy with this development. Well, if its any consolation to them, the next time a 9/11 happens, it will technically be an 'American' who did it, rather than someone from a Middle Eastern country.

The US is facing a crisis with the price of oil going up everyday. To rub salt into American's wounds, it seems that in nearby oil-rich Venezuela, petrol costs less than water. That must be a strange situation for Venezuelans. It costs them more to clean their cars than keep them running!!!!

I am sure all of you have heard the disturbing news. Britney Spears is pregnant again with her second child. She revealed this on her appearance in the David Lettterman show last night. She even joked about it saying that it was ' Baby one more time' for her. I am thinking a much more appropriate song would be 'Oops, I did it again' !!!!!

The following two news articles contributed by Srivats :-)

Amma is apparently very cool with the election defeat. So cool that Coco-Cola has signed her for a 'Tanda Politics' ad campaign. Atleast they dont need to stuff pebble in her cheeks to make here look like a chink.

Rediff has gone on to call Karunanidhi the Comeback Kid.Thats what they have been calling Agassi for the last ten years !!!

Its the hot news right now - Everyones talking about the Old Man who has won again despite all the odds after many years.............Yep, Michael Schumacher is back!

But seriously speaking, now that DMK are back in power, Mr Karunanidhi has lots of promises to keep up. For instance, his seemingly impossible promise to give 2 acres land to all poor farmers in the state. I dont see how he can manage this unless he is thinking of distributing the vast hectares inside the IIT-Madras campus to the poor.

The BCCI has warned the players touring the West Indies about not giving interviews to the press without prior permission. Further, Sehwag and Bhajji have been specifically warned not to give any interviews at all - especially in English.

The movie version of the Da Vinci code is releasing soon worldwide. This probably means that there is going to be another wave of millions of mindless idiots crowding the Paris Museum to personally check whether Mona Lisa is really Jesus with his beard and moustache shaved off !!!
I just dont get it.
Its a book of fiction. Why people believe any stupid thing that Dan Brown says in the bloody novel is beyond me.

Here's something intersting that Kavya Vishwanathan, the Harvard sophomore, had said in an interview before she got caught for plagiarism and all that. It seems that for the last two months she wrote the book, she would sit in a corner of the college library and work on her book. Can you imagine that? I mean, how tempted must she have been........all these books by various authors around her.........hundreds of them!!! Must have driven her crazy....:-))

You must have heard about the ghastly incident in Germany where a guy has been jailed for life after he killed and ate his friend, an Engineer. To me his choice of cuisine makes a lot of sense. With threats of Bird Flu ringing all across Europe, I guess he simply reasoned it was better to play it safe and avoid any bird meat for a few days. If you want to call THAT Cannibalism.....................

The following two news articles contributed by Srivats :-)

In a disappointment to TV watchers across the nation, David Blaine failed to drown last night. News has just come in that David Blaine's family has sued ABC over not giving them royalty for producing the highly acclaimed emotional drama "Finding Blaine".

The finance mister was seen walking from his house to the parliment yesterday. People figured out that since petrol prices are going to be up 6-7Rs, the finance mister itself couldnt afford filling up his amby. Later in the day the finance ministry spokesperson confirmed "no such crap" and told the media people that FM was just practising for next weeks "Walk the Talk".

Today was another oppressive and sweaty day in North India. The temperature got so hot that John Abraham broke up with Bipasha Basu just to cool down a bit.

The Exit Polls conducted by CNN-IBN and The Hindu predicts a clear win for DMK in the TN Assembly Elections. This is in spite of Amma promising the youth that she would create more than 5 lakh jobs for them in the IT sector if she came to power. The youth in the state have sent a clear message to everyone. They would much rather prefer being jobless instead of missing out on watching the latest Thalaivar flick on SUN TV.

In a surprising development, Biranchi Das, the coach of child runner Bhudia Singh, has said he will go to the high court to protest the use of force by the state police which escorted Buddhia for a medical check-up. Damn!! Just when I thought innocent kids would no longer need to step into courts once the Michael Jackson trial got over.....

Did you know that the local court in Mumbai has allowed Praveen Mahajan, brother of the deceased Pramod Mahajan, to have home made food when in he is temporarily in jail? But I have a feeling that none of his relatives would want to enter the jail premises and deliver the food to him. I mean, we all know what he does to close family members, dont we?

Enough has been said and written in the media about the Old Guy in the US who went on an embarrassing hunting trip and ended up with a messy shooting incident that hasn't really been resolved satisfactorily till date. So, no more talk about Kamal Hassan or Vettayadu Vilayadu.

There has been a lot of hype lately about India’s star batsman Sachin Tendulkar, turning to Hindu religious rituals to help overcome his career crisis. He visited a temple in Mangalore yesterday to perform the rituals. TheTemple Priests have traced the trouble to “Sarpa Dosha” or evil snake effects, which has been drastically affecting his batting of late. In an unrelated story, 'Abdul Razzaq' translated in Urdu means Evil Snake.

As you all might have read, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are going to give birth to their child in Namibia, Africa. Jolie says that she loves the country as well as the continent and thats the reason why they are doing it here. Well, it seems her first choice was Egypt, not Namibia. But I wonder what kind of a reception she would have got in Egypt, with her reputation for being a Tomb Raider of sorts.

In a disappointing finale, David Blaine failed in his bid to break the world record of holding his breath for more then 9 minutes under water. Prior to this, he was submerged in a tank of water for 7 days. Doctors say that in attempting this stunt, he may have caused himself some irrepairable brain damage. I am not sure if it will make a difference to him. Think about it. If a guy willingly stays underwater for a week to break some silly record, its quite obvious that he has stopped using his brains to make decisions for a while now.

As you all know, the weather has been so hot in the last few weeks.In fact, it has gotten so hot in Chennai that T.Rajender has decided to shave off his beard for the first time since his 3rd grade.

The Exit Poll conducted by Hindu-CNN IBN predicts that the DMK is likely to make it a comfortable win in the TN Asssembly elections.Its quite clear what this implies. Amma has made a massive miscalculation. Women in TN these days prefer watching "Mangalyam" in a colour TV rather than wearing one.

Doctors studying the conditional of child running prodigy Bhudia Singh have advised him that too much running,or any physical exertion at his age could be disastrous for his health. Bascially, the same thing that Greg Chappel and the Selectors hve been telling Saurav Ganguly for the last few months.

We all know about the Indian who has been the news lately for shamelessly copying other peoples work, but boldy claiming that it was unintentional, unconsciously done and a result of inspiration and "internalisation" of the original source. But enough about Anu Malik.

Virender Sehwag could be in trouble with the BCCI over some comments he made about India playing excessive cricket in the last year. He said " Playing too much cricket has led to burnout and the players needed more rest to recover." I am quite surprised to hear that. I mean, considering that he has spent less than 5 minutes at the crease in every innings he has played in the last 12 months, he must be pretty well rested and in no danger of burn out whatsover. Maybe he could have some back problems - due to all the sitting around in the pavilion.

Heres something interesting. The last American to survive the sinking of the Titanic,a lady named Lilian Asplund, has passed away at the age of 99. But heres the striking part. When the ship sunk in 1912, she managed to survive by geting into a emergency boat along with both her parents and 4 brothers!!! No wonder there was no place for Leonardo Di Caprio during the climax scene.The Selfish Bitch !!!!

Sachin Tendulkar today has come out and given a statement to the press refuting claims that he is fit and ready for the WI tour. His statement was - " These reports are false. It is not true that I am fully fit and ready to face the rigours of international cricket yet." The problem is that he should issued this statement 5 months ago before the tour to Pakistan began. I dont think his situation was any different back then either.

Here's something funny and disturbing that a new survey conducted by National Geographic has thrown up:

• Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn't locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi. [!!!!!!!]

[ Even more disturbingly, some of them innocently asked - " Isn't that the place where there was some rain and stuff? I noticed it was in the news but i was too busy voting for American Idol". ]

• Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.

[ The remaining 4 didnt know what 'Middle East' meant]

• Two-thirds didn't know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.

[ But in their defense, they did say that they knew something bad had happened 'somewhere out there' for sure.........they just assumed it must have been in New Orleans, Louisiana]

• While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.

[ The shame of it is that some of them pointed to the state of California when asked to locate India......can you blame them?]

• While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.

[ It is interesting to note that they fared no better when asked to locate Israel from a World Map either]

• Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

[ Yeah, right........have a look at your local Wal-mart, you bozos......there are more Mexicans there than in a can of Mexican beans.]

Link to the news article
here