The guy who bought a BOSE home theater system...Almost!!!

How are ill omens good for you?

Haaaachoooooooooooooooooooooo!!! Sniff. Oops! I’m sorry let us begin.

Did I just spell out Avada Kedavra? Well yes of course. I have spelt out the ‘S’ word. Oh my god! Now I must close the MS-Word application. Sit still for 30 mins. Drink some water and then reopen this document. This is called ‘Ashubhaarambh’. As my profile reads I can hardly understand any of this, and I’m not here to provide any explanation or chastise anyone practicing these traditions to counter the ill effects of these omens.  Some of which I personally have done. Why? Habitual, situational or rather if someone is staring down neck so you might as well do it before the drishti burns a big hole at the back of your head.

Somehow I find a lot of fun involved in these tiny little traditions. Some are fictional and some true.

1.       I really love to have my husband take a handful of salt and rotate it all around my head. Makes me smile at that goofy expression my husband puts in as a special effect. Those precious seconds make me feel as if I’m a trophy under going a gleaming process. What a terrible way to compare, I know. Sometimes I make him do it for fun ;)

2.       You have a train to catch at 5:00 PM.  It takes about 3600… well seconds to reach the railway station. It is 4’oclock already, you are just about halfway packed and… ‘Haaaaachoooo’. I leave it to your imagination. Trust me it is amazing fun to lose those precious few seconds here and run helter skelter at the railway station bulldozing about  30-40 people on the way and losing count of ‘excuse me!’. Epic fun I say!

3.       Now then, there is this guy who’s been trying since ages to settle a score with our only natural satellite a.k.a  Moon. It so happens that our Moon bhai ratted out on this fella and had him severed mid way as he was gobbling down a perma-living nectar. Poor fella, hadn’t heard of cloning yet. So that is our Rahu. And periodically he tries to gobble up Moon scientifically termed as Lunar Eclipse, which is apt considering how loony we all get during this time. No talking, no eating, stay indoors, do nothing except breathe.  Some fools go out there and take a photograph. Let her get a pimple on her nose tomorrow, I’d love to say “I told ya”.

4.       Then one day I come home to find my kid bawling out her lungs. My maid chides me the moment I step in. “I told you, never dress your girl in red. Now see what has happened.”  Well one can blame me if my daughter achieves a killer cute quotient in red J . After all it isn’t everyday that dear Red gets look so beautiful. It happened that Red did decide to grace me that instant. As I picked my child, she pulled my hand towards her mouth and bit my finger. Well, now red was on my finger. Thank you red, you told me my child was teething.  Just so you know it ain’t just red, my kid’s cute quotient is all time high in any color including au naturelle J

5.       “Where are you going?” Silence. “Get me some water. How many times have I told you not to ask where people are going specially if they are leaving on an important job”. Ok. After a few days, “Are you going out?”. Pause. “Yes”. “Can I come along”. “NO”. “Why? Where are you going?”. Silence. Stare.”Get me some water and how many times do I have to tell you not to ask people…”. After a few more days. “Going out?”. No answer. “Hey can you hear me?”. “Are you going out?”. No answer… LOL, that really felt good.

6.       Meow… mew mew mew. “Screeeeeeeeeeeech!!! Take that away Vasudha. You know I have an to meet the new boss today. Oh God!! Now I’ll have to bathe again.” 25 minutes later, door opens, Mew mew…. “Screeeeeech!!! Why can’t you shut her somewhere”. “Im trying , I’m trying…”. I was left holding the struggling kitten in my arms and searching for a place to hide her.Ah! the shoe box was perfect. So that day we went to the hospital to get scratch treatment done for my cousin and I was left googling to find a way to declaw kittens. Needless to say the new boss was one nasty wart. Oh well I told you so.

7.       And one fine day, well it was not so fine. We had this big meeting lined up with client and we were to pitch in with the plan to bag the support functions for a project that we had implemented for them.  We had the meeting scheduled at 11:00 AM. I sent out all the invites and was pretty happy with the Attendees responses, till horror of horrors started at me from the calendar. In accordance with the panchangam it was rahukalam (Rahu’s lunch time) from 11:00 to 1:30 PM.  Dear god, I was shuddering in fear. With bated breath we entered the conference room, only to find that our client was delayed as his flight was still circling above the hyderabadi skies for the fear of disrupting Rahukalam. Whew!! An hour later our client landed safely and the meeting was postponed to 3:30 PM. Yes I checked, no doshas. Yep, we got the deal alright but not without a hundred epithets being hurled at us for having screwed up the implementation part. Just then I noticed, the meeting had extended and Yamagandam(Yama’s potty time) had begun. I began shuddering again.

Dear reader, please do add in your contributions and versions of how much fun these ill omen countering tactics or traditions are and show all those, e-pundits with a satirical take on these, how they are missing out on all the fun.

A cellphone for mommie

Well, one would have thought that the market researchers and mobile phone manufacturers would have developed such a cellphone by now. Most of the low-end cell phones today offer a lot of the baby proof features, however I think they have failed to test certain highly important scenarios. For all the mobile phone manufacturers out there, I present these in my latest post.

Test Scenarios:

1. Throw the cellphone in a bucket(upto 60L capacity) and pull it out after 20 seconds.
2. Put the cellphone in the microwave for 20 seconds. Check the device responses at following settings for 20 seconds: 900,780,560  and Grill.
3. Throw the cellphone in a bowl of hot rasam/soup or some porridge.
4. Put the cellphone is the refridgerator and remove after 30 minutes.
5. Slam the cellphone on the floor. Pick up the pieces, re-assemble and test from step 1.
6.The litmus test however is to put the cellphone in a washing machine full of clothes and on a full cycle. 1
    hour 45 minutes later if the device is still working in pre-wash condition, you have the winner.
7.No touch screen,please I couldn't bear the massacre.

Now let us move over to the software. Why? Oh!dear, I'm sure you would have noticed that a 10 month old can successfully unlock your cellphone and send messages to all the contacts whose names start with an 'A'. In my case it is 'Adaddy'. If not, well then I have the smarter kid.

Now since I am a software engineer and I understand the importance of clear requirements, here goes:

Assumption: You are using a basic model cellphone that does not have a touch screen, wifi, bluetooth or any other data exchange feature like push mail etc supported by the network provider.

1. A key/setting to disable send message.
2.A key/setting to disable delete message.
3.A key/setting to disable make call.
4.A key/setting to disable accept call.
5.A key/setting to disable reject call.
6. Allow manual override of such setting with a key/pattern.

Mommies/Daddies reading this post are most welcome to add their requirements information and test scenarios. Please do not suggest behavioral correction techniques, they won't work.