The Random DotcomMonkey Dust & Bullshit

I watched Avatar last night. Yes – visually stunning, cheesy story, bad acting, etc. etc. But it was important.

Why? Because it had a message. Not especially alarming or new or unique, but something which people need to keep hearing or else they’d forget about it. And a film of this magnitude was the perfect platform to deliver it. I’m sure millions of undiscerning young people saw it and came away with a better appreciation for the world around them.

Unlike the people I watched it with, who got bored after about 20 minutes and started passing jokes and making comments and complaining and asking “Who cares about these villagers anyways?”. The same people incidentally who complain on a daily basis about traffic, pollution, noise, overpopulation, and like “nature”.

And there I was, the Anthropologist (oh what an awful thing to be in this world), sitting and screaming in my head “Don’t you get it? This is what’s happening right now all around us!”

But really, they didn’t give a fuck. And there are loads of people who don’t give a fuck. And I suppose on some level, if everybody gave a fuck, then there would be nothing for those who don’t give a fuck to not give a fuck about. And that just doesn’t work.

I enter the Vodafone shop and am attended to by 5 different people who all ask me what I want and then walk off to do random things like drink chai, fiddle with their respective crotches, and talk to the watchman. They of course take no further interest in me, content with having in put in the effort to at least ask.

Finally, a rep named Vinu calls me over to his table.

Vinu: Hello sir, how can I help you today?

Me: I want to close my Vodafone connection.

Vinu: Sorry to hear that sir. If there’s a problem maybe I can help you with it?

Me: No, I just want to disconnect.

Vinu: Sorry to hear that sir. If there’s a problem maybe I can help you with it?

Me: ??? NO! I’m tired of talking to you people, I just want to close my Vodafone account.

Vinu: Sorry to hear that sir. If there’s a problem maybe I can help you with it?

* Silence *

Me: Vinu, are you a human being or cleverly disguised artificial intelligence?

Vinu: Human, sir.

* Sigh *

Me: …OK. Well, no one problem, lots of complaints. I am harassed by Vodafone employees – 4 or 5 calls in the same day asking the same question over and over again. I keep getting asked about when and how I’m going to pay, weeks before the due date. After registering for the DND list, the amount of junk calls and spam SMSes I receive has INCREASED. I haven’t received my last two bills, yet Vodafone keeps insisting that I have, and that I’ve signed for them myself.

* Gasp for breath *

Me: And the worst part is that I keep getting calls and messages for the two people who had this number prior to me, and MOST of the calls that come for them are from YOU. Shouldn’t the phone company of all people not be dialing wrong numbers?

Vinu: So no complaints then?

* I now want to kill him and am trying to figure out how *

Me: Look Vinu, just get to it. I want out. I’m tired of how incompetent you all are.

Vinu: SIR! PLEASE! Don’t talk like that!

* Satisfaction at finally getting a reaction from him *

Vinu: We are NOT incompetent. I have 4 kids, Dinesh over there is expecting twins, Rafik has two daughters and Anthony has so many kids that we’ve lost count. None of us are incompetent.

* Absolute loss of any satisfaction over the earlier reaction after realising what’s ACTUALLY happened *

Me: I think you mean impotent, not incompetent.

Vinu: Yes, that’s right, and not JUST impotent, very impotent – I am the head sales representative. I am the most impotent one here.

* Have now given up figuring out how to kill Vinu. Easier to just kill myself instead *

Vinu: Anyways sir, at Vodafone we have the best network and -

* I interrupt *

Me: Well, HUTCH had the best network. All you did was take it over and then screw it up.

Vinu: Sir, but Hutch only had the pug. We have ZooZoos!

Me: Listen! F**K the ZooZoos. I hate  them.

Vinu: SIR! How can you say that?!? How can you NOT love the ZooZoos?!? They were the sensation of IPL 2009!

Me: They were crap. They got boring after 5 ads, and they look like retarded, mutated versions of Snoopy. Fake IPL Player was the sensation of IPL 2009; he was ace.

Vinu: What?!? Fake IPL Player? Even after that fiasco with the shadowy video and pretentious speech?

Me: Yes.

Vinu: Wow.

* Looking defeated, he hands the disconnection form over to me, I fill it out, hand it back to him *

Vinu: So where will you go now?

* Turn a certain Beach Boys’ tune on for this last bit *

Me: Well… I think I’ll go down to Docomo.

Vinu: But it’s not as fast, and the service is slow?

Me: Well that’s where I wanna go, down to Docomo.

(BTW, apart from the nature of the complaint, this was all entirely fictitious. There is no Vinu, and “Me”  is a pseudonym. It’s a Sunday, and since I couldn’t march over to Vodafone and disconnect today, I had to vent my frustration somehow!)

Dhoni Darko: One man’s struggle against the world (of cricket)

(OK, so I could have spent a bit more time in Photoshop on the proportions)

Some information from a friend in the UK.

A friend’s 13 year-old daughter is having serious troubles with Facebook.

A guy had been stalking her on there, harassing her and using very sexual language. She told her parents, who immediately deleted her account.

The guy then opened an account in her name, using pictures he had saved of her. He had also noted down who her friends were, and started to invite all of them to become her (his) Facebook friends.

He also Photoshopped saved images of her to make an obscene video, which YouTube took down immediately.

Her parents are obviously horrified by the whole situation, and have requested Facebook to do something. However Facebook are just dragging their heels, and haven’t even removed the account that he created in her name.

Lacking alternatives, the parents have gone to the police (who haven’t been very helpful), but at least they’ve managed to make the stalker aware that they are dealing with him.

Unfortunately the guy has gotten worse, and has now sent 3 emails supposedly from Glasgow, Essex and the Met Police telling the girl that the Police don’t believe her and she is in trouble. Last night he followed this up with a death threat.

The e-mail headers all indicate use of the same computer.

Facebook’s past is littered with incidents that show they are anything but community-oriented. They have a rich history of controversy dating back to their origins where “genius” Mark Zuckerberg is alleged to have stolen code from and sabotaged a similar project that he was hired to work on (he was also accused of stealing the name and idea for “Facebook”). In more recent years, Facebook have been in trouble for secretly collecting users’ data, and issues surrounding ownership of intellectual property.

That they refuse to get off their arses to do something about a dangerous pædophile operating on their network somehow doesn’t seem all that surprising. After all, they do seem like they are too busy exploiting users to serve their own needs than catering to the people that have made them what they are.

How Now World.

In 3 years, Fred Savage will be 30.

Where and when exactly did time pass? And why wasn’t I notified?

From somewhere:

Jo do galti kare – Naadaan,

Jo teen galti kare – Shaitaan,

Jo galti karke sudharna chahe – Afghanistan,

Jo galtiyon pe galti kare aur kabhi na sudhre – Pakistan,

Jo har galti maaf kare – Hindustan,

Jo galti kabhi na kare – Japaan,

Jo khud galti kare par phir bhi doosron ki galti dhoonde – Americaan.

Every single issue of every magazine has a red cover with neon women riding unicorn sailboats with yellow stockings and a bandana. My life is a story of absurd singular nouns and abstract situations in which a man has a head with a cloud and a curtain. There is in the sunshine a world on a stage that sets the tone for the heartbeat of everything that is human and revolves around the language we speak and the clothes that we wear and the people that we see. We are only. The Euphoria dies down. Fling it through the window in a back room of a warehouse. The tone, the melody is rising, and the fish are swimming in tides that are uncontrollable. There’s a sandwich on the table that needs eating, but a cat is looking at the ceiling and it seems like the sky, and the flies are buzzing in a harmony that kills you, and kills me. Interludes are the food of thoughtful platypi that eat frogs on sunny days. The river is flowing and the banks are fresh and green, but the blood in the caves still leaks out onto the earth and seeps into the leaves. You can toy around with lives and people, but there are forces toying around with you that cannot be toyed about with. You’ve got fifteen minutes to live, and 20 minutes to explain yourself. Is irony an item on the menu? I feel like listening to music, and I am, but there’s something missing.

The fear of palindromes.