A Night @ Geoffrey's

Date: Friday, 2^nd December
Venue: Geoffrey's Pub, Royal Orchid, Bangalore
Time: 9 PM till sometime after midnight
Occassion: Birthday Party of our VP

The much beloved VP of our company (not mentioning the names here) was in town and to celebrate his birthday (that falls on 3^rd) we headed to Geoffrey's Pub. There was a mammoth bottle of Belvedere Vodka to welcome us at the center of the bar

Not getting a seat immediately, we started with the drinks while still waiting and after some time settled in one corner.

Theme of the evening was "Punjabi" and all the gifts were according to that. Even the non-punjabi folks picked a punjabi surname to sign the card ;-)

The evening progressed with innumerable rounds of tequila shots, rum & coke, john daniels (yes, it is jack, but how does it matter when you have known him as long as I have) and what not ...

Towards the end, we were all in a very inebriated state. Here is what it was like

And these glasses tell the story very well

As the clock struck midnight, the birthday bumps followed along with heart felt birthday wishes. I have to censor out the exact wishes ;-)

The real shocker was the bill (or cheque, as some call it) ... We were all floored to see that we had devoured 58 tequila shots, among many many other drinks and ran up a tab of over Rs 37,000 ... Phew! For the host, that translated to just about $ 800, but it still was a lot.

Nevertheless, it was a nigt to remember

Who's next? Mr Prime Minister?

On World AIDS Day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the National Convention on HIV/AIDS for Youth Leaders of Political Parties and said "... Shed inhibitions, start talking openly about safe sex ..."

What are you doing Mister Prime Minister? Talk about "SEX"?? Don't you know that we live in a country of hypocrites where talking about Sex is not allowed. You are next in line ... They will soon have hundreds of cases against you for talking openly about a taboo topic. Have you forgotten the name of Khushboo, who a few days ago had expressed her opinion on the same topic and almost ended up behind bars? No, this is not done sir!

Well, sarcasm apart, it is good to see that Mr Manmohan Singh spoke openly about the much avoided topic in our counrty (ironically, the same country that gave Kamasutra to the whole world!). I really wish Khushboo was also as lucky and had not faced the plight she had to.

Patchy Road

Today (22.11.05) the skies were overcast in Bangalore - quite gloomy, in fact. I was on my way to work, braving the Airport Road traffic. As usual, the number of vehicles on the road were far more than it can take and the traffic was moving at snail's pace. The signal at Wind Tunnel road turned red and within no time traffic piled up beyond Kempfort. At this time there was a slight drizzle, but it was enough to wet the road. And wet the road, it did. The signal turned green and the vehicles in front of me moved away to reveal a nice light and dark gray pattern on the road. The road was dry and hence lighter in color where the vehicles were standing and wet and darker between them. I wish I could have taken a picture of that and posted here, but the cars behind me started honking and I had to move on. For some time, I kept admiring this patchy road while driving and it took away the stress away from driving for some time, before I was back to maneuvering my way in the traffic. Some times very simple things like these lift your mood in a gloomy day, like it is today

Luxury at what cost!

Recently, India bought Embraer Luxury Jets (5 jets cost a whopping Rs 727 crore) for the use of VVIPs. Read the article here.

Who bears the cost of these luxuries which these politicians enjoy? You and me! And all the other tax-payers. We keep giving one-third of our hard earned money back to the government year on year. And what does the government do with that money? No, it
is not used to make good roads for us... No, it is not used to create employment for the needy... it is used to fill the fat (and hollow, perhaps) pockets of these politicians... it goes to make them fly in luxury.

All we can do is to pray and hope that the roads would become drivable... petrol prices would not go up any further. That's it! We can do nothing more than that. With the way these things are going, pretty soon we would have to stop driving our own vehicles, while these @#$@#%& politicians will zoom away in these luxury jets...

Do Your Math ...

http://sboof.blogspot.com/2005/09/do-your-math.html