Category: Uncategorized

– Some comedian for sure

As I had mentioned in my post two days back, I have been suffering from Writer`s Block. So much so, I sent my boss in office this mail.

Dear Sir,

Thankfully yours,
Jamshed V Rajan

First things first, not necessarily in that order….I have been very busy lately. Ibibo has been keeping me busy. Real busy. I think it is a South African conspiracy to ensure India doesn`t sign the Nuclear Deal. Don`t ask me why South Africa doesn`t want India to sign the Nuclear Deal……for you never asked why Left doesn`t want it. Is it because they aren`t Right? (I hope you got the joke!)

While on the subject of politics, let me ask you a question: “How would a dyslexic person see the United Front?”

Answer: As Untied Front, of course.

If you have noticed, this blog post is about nothing in particular. Perhaps, I am a loser and that`s why am losing out to the Writer`s Block. I checked with my mother and she says it is in our blood…she said my grand pa once came third in a chess match.

As this blog post winds to a halt…I am getting a little scared. I don`t want my Writer`s Block to end because that would mean I have to write more blog posts.

To those of you who have mailed me that I take a long time between my articles, here is some bit of wisdom for you. How long is long? What is ‘long` depends on whether you are a blogger or a blog reader. Let me give you an example that you can relate to…have you ever sat on the potty and felt that you were long in the bathroom? I am sure your answer is a big “NO”! Now, stand outside, clutching your stomach and see how long it is before the door opens….

Dear bloggers, lock up your blog readers….Jammy boy has killed Writer`s Block and is lurking around town.

Other Funny Reads

Today is my 33rd happy birthday
Father vs mother
Getting locked inside somebody`s washroom
Being a celebrity is difficult…
The art of swearing unnoticed

In fiction books read as a kid everybody had a ‘study` – a room full of books and a single rocking chair. From PG Wodehouse`s Bertie Wooster to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle`s Sherlock Holmes…they all had studies of their own.

That`s why when Rekha announced that we had a spare room in our 3-bedroom house …I jumped up and said, “I want that converted into a study.”

In the next 10 minutes, we made a list of thing the spare room should have to qualify as a study:

Becoming one is impossible. Well, at least that`s what I thought till I came to know that a post titled How to: Behave like a Celebrity Blogger (dated 07, August 2007 and written by Adi Crazy) was inspired by me.

Apparently, Adi Crazy had been leaving comments on Ouchmytoe.com but wasn`t getting responses… because I was being kept busy at ibibo.com by my boss (My boss Arunava Sinha has translated Chowringhee by Sankar into English – can I call him a celebrity?).

Elders weren`t wrong when they said “Hell has no wrath like a woman scorned” for soon enough Adi Crazy wrote a scathing article on how certain bloggers (read Jammy) behave like celebrities but are worth nothing.

Pranay Srinivasan (an old friend of mine – not old in terms years!) sent this forward. Since it made interesting reading, thought I should share it with the other Ouchmytoe readers.

Believe me…I didn`t make this one up.

The Mail Forward as Received

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Cause: Erratic posts on this blog for the last two months
BeCause: An awesome ibibo Sawaal, which went live last night after months of hard work

Yours sincerely would be very happy if you can take a look at the new ibibo Sawaal and leave your feedback, here.

World`s funniest billboards – those that exist and those that don`t

On August 31st, Ouchmytoe carried an article on why only women are used on billboards. During my research for the article, I came across a blog which listed out “Billboards we will never see” – perhaps, the best funny billboards collection on the internet. Some of the funny billboards being presented have adult content…but who cares. We are all billboard-loving-adults here…aren`t we? Click Here

When fathers buy clothes for babies

When my daughter was born on March 29, 2007 I rushed to the nearest Mother Care (In Chennai) and bought two dresses for her costing Rs 1000/-. It has only been five months and she can`t wear them now. Now, I know…that while buying clothes for babies…buy them of your size. That way, when your baby out grows them…you can still wear them. Why are we talking crap…here take a look at what happens when fathers end up buying clothes for their babies. Click Here

Twenty five interesting things you learn about computers in the movies

We have all seen computers being shown in movies. Some of us have seen computers in the movies and got misled. Take me for example…when one of the 1995 movies said “soon computers would be doing everything and man wouldn`t have to even move his finger”…I wanted my parents to buy me one. I was having trouble washing my clothes. Believe me…movies give a totally different picture. If you thought you could gain access to any information on your bosses` laptop by just typing “ACCESS ALL OF THE SECRET FILES” on any keyboard…you are mistaken. I tried on my boss` laptop and it asked me if I wanted to change the font color of the text or not. For similar such mistakes movie directors do, Click Here.

The difference: Photos taken without Flash and with Flash

This is a real killer…I never know that flash could make such a difference to a photo. Try this out. Clicking on the given link is a must if you love photography or you love anything funny. Click Here

Google Adwords can be funny

Most companies use Google Adwords to advertise on Google, and thus end up creating a single template advertisement and using the same for a host of keywords. Needless to say, what works for one wouldn`t work for the other. I myself have come across funny advertisements that Google ends up carrying. To view 20+ funny Google advertisements, Click Here

Two funny Google advertisements (samples):

# Mother in law vs daughter in law
# Accepting gifts from relatives
# My world is suddenly crowded
# Rekha is getting ready for my family
# Superstition in my family

I wish I could give you my Gmail account`s username & password, ask you to login and check my SPAM folder.

Some say that Sergey Brin wanted this folder in Gmail to be named “MAPS” but when he called up Larry Page and asked him to take it down, lest it is forgotten…Larry the Lazy wrote it on his chest with a marker. The next day, he had to excuse himself from the meeting, and visit the men`s loo to find out the folder name as suggested by his partner. Thus was born, “SPAM”.

For the reader who would like to know the truth…SPAM (whatever that mean?!) was first born in 1978, when an e-mail spam was sent to 600 addresses. The next large scale SPAM happened in 1994, when a single mail was sent to 6000 newsgroups, reaching millions of people. Today, 90 billion SPAM mails are sent across to people like you and me, per day. While we are on the subject…can you guess who gets the maximum number of SPAM each year? Yes, you got it right…it is Bill Gates!

Next to Bill Gates, I get the maximum amount of SPAM. For example, yesterday Sherri Powell mailed me saying she could help me renew my self esteem. And Greta Sallie offered to improve my confidence in bed.

Agreed, I need a bit of self esteem but why do I need confidence in bed? It is not as if I am going to discuss a business deal in bed?

Have given below some interesting subject lines of the mails I found in my SPAM folder. You can find my comments in italics –

Gonzalo Marin`s mail: Buy Rolex watches at cheapest prices
(I wouldn`t really need it now. The Rolex I bought from your cousin Geraldine Marin is still working fine)

Edwina Ricks` mail: Expand, lengthen & Enlarge
(I agree Ouchmytoe is in the exaggeration business. We can expand our imagination and lengthen the articles that appear here…but what do we enlarge?)

Sandra Witt`s mail: Be large, be in charge
(Can`t help it now Sandra…I am not growing beyond 165 cms)

Owen Brunett`s mail: 80% of the women are unsatisfied
(Tell me about it. My wife is especially pissed off with my lack of baby handling skills)

Susanne Richardson`s mail: You can have 40% of my 100 million dollars
(I wish I could….but my wife would ask “hope you aren`t selling your body?”)

GMail Team`s mail: Gmail Account Alert (Verify your account details)
(Duffer…if I am already inside my Gmail, why do I need to verify the account details?)

Jeremy West`s mail: You can relax with Viagra
(What if I have a Viagra and my partner gets a sudden headache? Where do I go and bang my head?)

I know this post isn`t great…but then, this week wasn`t great either and you DIDN`T complain!

Other funny blog posts you should read

# When I became a cockroach
# Kid Story: How Onion got its clothes
# Tips for South Indians to survive in North India
# Entering a new house can be funny
# When I was no longer ‘cute` for the women

On August 9, Seshu Karthick, a MS from University of Texas at Dallas, sent me a mail which unfortunately landed in my SPAM folder. Today while cleaning up the folder I found his mail.

Seshu says that Ouchmytoe.com`s articles inspired him to build a web application which would cater to people`s creative needs (or bring out the creativity in them).

I can`t re-produce his mail ‘as is’ because I haven`t sought his go-ahead yet…but I can’t help displaying (most will call it ‘show off`) one paragraph of the mail, where he says Ouchmytoe articles were his inspiration.

One fine day while reading your blog posts, I started to think… How about a web-app for encouraging people to write wit-filled creative articles (similar to the posts at Ouch-My-toe). They are sure refreshing, and bring out our creative abilities to think. Several of your blog posts were key to forming of the base idea for my web2.0 application. I wanted to thank you for all that…

Seshu…my apologies for responding so late. Also, I went thro` www.SayWit.com and I have to tell you that I was impressed. Ouchmytoe wishes its blood relation the very best!

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On August 10, S4n705h (don`t look at me like that …I didn`t make that up) and Chriz tagged me. Was really tied up and couldn`t continue the tag. My apologies. But if anybody wants to fake me – like they did for Steve Jobs – go ahead and continue the tag. I wouldn`t mind.

S4n705h & Chriz: Thanks guys!

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On August 13, this site introduced the Ouchmytoe widget for your blog/website. According to latest analytics being given by Musestorm.com, 126 blogs are carrying the widget…but I think the data is wrong. Ouchmytoe isn`t that big a blog yet. I would be surprised if five blogs are carrying the widget.

The three blogs on which I spotted the widget (via Musestorm, of course) are:

http://chronicwriter.blogspot.com
http://panchioftheeast.blogspot.com
http://shoutat.blogspot.com