Cockroaches

People don't like cockroaches.

I hate cockroaches. But I don't like people much either. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I refuse to let it go.

Anyway, for those of you who have done / keep company of, people who love marijuana, take a couple of seconds, say "cockroach" out loud and see what that means. Don't feel shy to drop a comment when you do!

Them cockroaches

Cockroaches have an undeniable air of mystery around them. They come and leave unnoticed, are about only in the dead of the night, and have that glossy coat no matter how crappy their living conditions are, and they can survive nuclear holocausts.

These happen to be qualities that I require, with my future currently pointing to I don’t know what. So I took it upon myself to emulate cockroaches and their habits, but what I found was startling.

Cockroaches are fuckers

In order to emulate the habits of a person, said some guy once, you must closely observe their behavior and gather information.

Clearly, some guy did not mess around. I have also heard rave reviews about things that some guy said from some people, so I decided to follow his advice.

I set about doing this in a systematic and meticulous (that’s S&M, Ha!) manner. I followed cockroaches wherever they went, taking careful notes wearing thick glasses and tight pants. If you think that wasn’t hard then take a second to think about how stupid you are. All I remember about cockroaches from school was that:

1. Cockroaches are known to be notoriously antisocial

2. Biology students are obsessed with their thigh muscles

3. Something about the plague

Having gotten these facts cleared by consistent public humiliation (the cockroach public, mind you, I would've dealt out some ass-kicking with regular people), I actually managed to fit in a little bit. What struck me the most, is that they're very touchy about the fact that they scare women.

I admit, it was a low moment for me, but I managed to gain their trust. And finally I made a cockroach friend. His name is Satyendra.

Apart from having an extremely convenient name, Satyendra the cockroach is a very chilled out insect. He slicks his antennae back over his head, keeps his wings jacked up like spoilers while riding his old bullet 500, cigarette in hand, and sports a look that tells the world to go fuck themselves.

Satyendra was a little hesitant in making my acquaintance because he had seen me smile at him shyly across a crowded room a few times. I got the feeling, suddenly, that it creeped him out.

"It creeps me out." he came and told me.

"I love you", I replied.

Over coffee and breadcrumbs one day, after Satyendra thanked me for the roses and chocolates, I started asking him about the origin of cockroaches and why most of them are such fuckers.

He nodded knowingly.

"Because we are" he said, after a pause.

"That’s hardly an origin, Satya" I replied.

"Don't call me Satya. And no, I was answering the second half of your question." said Satya.

"Also don't call me Satya when you're quoting me somewhere”, he added.

"Sheesh, I won’t."

(But I did! Ha! Luckily, cockroaches cannot read)

"So tell me about this origin of cockroaches, and don't give me any crap about evolving from bacteria or something, which is just rubbish."

Satya sighed, "Fine, but I'm warning you, this will be hard to digest"

"As long as it’s edible, I'm game", I said

"Alright, fine. But I must urge you to keep what I tell you absolutely secret." said Satya, his voice reducing to a whisper.

"My lips are sealed, Satya"

"How about we stick to Satyendra?"

"Right. Sorry."

Origin of cockroaches

There was once a Spartan, named Trycariocus, who was well respected because he stared in the face of death and didn't run away screaming like a girl. He screamed like a man. This was a loud modulating sound that I suppose you'd associate with Tarzan swinging from a tree, but it was, however, the first war cry. 

Somehow over the years the war cry changed from screaming while running away, to screaming while running toward. Still, he deserves publicity.

Trycariocus had received much honor for his doings over the years, like that time where he broke a guy in half, and the other time this cat got stuck in a tree, so he broke a guy in half. And that time when it was raining, and he broke a guy in half.

The honor really started getting to him after sometime. He needed some honor every half an hour. He couldn't go on the bus without getting some honor, he even sold his shield to some Persians for some honor, then killed them and took it back. Thankfully, he realized later that he was addicted, and these days he was just dishing out honor.

Trycariocus was 6 feet tall, 5 feet long and 8 feet deep. He was also a man who thought of the future, and the past. Well, and sometimes the present.

He thought a lot, being the key point.

One hot muscular day in Sparta, he was sitting and scribbling in his diary about the future and the evolution of the Spartans. It surprised me to hear he knew about evolution, when everyone else at the time thought that trees had given birth to their grandparents. In fact, his last name was Darwin. Okay I'm lying. But his middle name was Charles, and I think that’s coincidence enough.

The Spartans are awesome, He wrote, even some guy thinks so, and that’s saying a lot.

I feel that unless some drastic change takes place the Spartans shall not be able to survive much longer in this world. There’s this plague thing that’s all the rage and it kills people too. Albeit, much slower than we do. I had some fellow Spartans try to beat the plague out of a man, but it did not work. Simply beating the fuck out of the plague does not make it go away.

While our majestic muscles instill fear in the hearts of our adversaries, I can't help but feel that the shininess of our shields has something to do with it. In the future, I feel this valuable asset must not be neglected.

Also, as a Spartan, we're lucky with ladies. Oh yeah. you know, you know. This, I feel shall stay with us through the years.

It was then that Trycariocus was interrupted rudely by Rajendra, his son. Rajendra is a recurring name in history, and I shouldn't have to mention this, because I'm not making this up. History has limited creativity when it comes to names.

"Dad!" said Rajendra, hanging his shield on the shield stand. (An invention that disappeared through the ages)

"Hello, β"

"Just because we're Greek, you don't have to call me β"

"Fine, beta" said Trycariocus, making a face. "What do you want?"

"I just need some honor dad, I have a date." said Rajendra carelessly flexing his calves.

"You don't need honor for a date, Rajendra, you have muscles for that"

"This is Sparta, dad. Everyone has muscles, the only one getting all the chicks is that honorable fat guy" said Rajendra, shrugging.

"What did you say?" asked Trycariocus, getting up, outrage clearly lined in his voice.

"I said this is Sparta, dad. Every-" began Rajendra.

"What did I tell you about saying that?" said Trycariocus, all his veins popping with fury.

"Oh, dad Its-"

"IT HAS TO BE IN CAPSLOCK!" roared Trycariocus.

"THIS-IS-SPARTAAAA!!!, dad. Every-" yelled Rajendra.

"-That’s enough son. Don't you EVER forget the CAPSLOCK." said Trycariocus, calming down and returning to his desk.

Rajendra rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever, listen..er.. about that honor?"

"Look, β, I can't keeping giving you honor all the time. I just gave you some goddamn honor yesterday. What, do you think I'm made of honor?"

"No, but that sounds like a great title for a movie."

"What’s a movie?" asked Trycs (Trycariocus, his name is too long)

"You know what", said Rajendra, "this is a completely useless conversation."

"You're a completely useless conversation." said Trycs, and immediately realized that he'd already given away far too much honor.

"Like why would someone bother to remember this stupid conversation that we had, possibly even type it out?" asked Rajendra, ever the dumb prophet.

"Well it provides light comic relief, in a sense, so I might force someone to remember it, let’s see. Now get lost, I have to get back to my diary." said Trycs, very seriously.

Rajendra sniggered and made a remark about the insanity that was exhibited by everyone who wrote in a diary. He was subsequently hit over the head with a mallet. He never made much sense after that, he was always going on about the process of making things and wanted to make things by outlining the phases involved in the least technical way possible, and went around imposing this on the Greek schools of learning. But more on that later.

"Yeah so, Trycariocus' prophecy came true" said Satyendra, his voice still a whisper.

"Oh I forgot you were narrating this. Sorry. How did his prophecy come true?"

"Cockroaches are descendants of Spartans. We descended from the Spartans MAN! We have glossy shield/wings, and have killer thighs. Plus we're clever little things" said Satya, puffing out his thorax.

"Yeah, but Trycariocus said you wouldn't scare women. You scare the fuck out of women." I said, pointing out a flaw in his story.

"HEY! OKAY, that’s just… fuck you man. I'm leaving" said Satya, storming off.

Satya doesn't return my calls anymore.

See, I told you they were touchy about the women thing.

The myth, the PR and the cake

I ate the cake. But I’ll tell you about the myth and the PR.

The myth

Cockroaches are apparently able to survive nuclear holocausts, like I said before. As cool as this sounds, after I had been so disillusioned about the life and habits of cockroaches, I decided to investigate.

I decided to phase this task separately. Since I don't own a nuclear bomb (well I'm not spoilt, you know) I decided to list out close alternatives. I shortlisted two possibilities

1. Gas Stoves

2. Microwaves

Over various experiments conducted by myself, it was evident that

1. Cockroaches get fucking burnt by gas stoves

2. Cockroaches blow up in microwave ovens

3. Cockroaches get squished by shoes

This is disturbing, as I would generally make the assumption that

Nuclear Bombs > Microwave Ovens > Gas Stoves > My Shoe

This leads me to come to the conclusion that cockroaches cannot survive nuclear holocausts. I urge you to try your own experiments. But why does everyone think they can, well that's because of

The PR

PR = Public Relations, Pink Rabbits, Prince Richard, Puerto Rico. Stuff like that. But the one I'm talking about here is Public Relations.

Public Relations broadly refers to just go to Wikipedia and look it up.

Now that you've done that, for reasons that are beyond me, someone has been doing some great PR work for cockroaches. I have reason to suspect that this is, in fact, some guy! But I hope it isn't him. Because some guy is awesome, and cockroaches are weak, man. They're weak. 

You might have already deduced that by now, but it brings me very neatly to my next subject of discussion.

Unfortunately though, I have more to say than I realized at the starting of this post, and my keyboard can take only so much at once. The rest will be published in 'The return of cockroaches’.

So I shall leave you now, for a while. Plus there is a second part to this post, so there's all this suspense in the air.

What is artyness?

It took me so long to put out this post, but you see, I was drawing a blank:

_______

That's beautiful stuff right there. Now onto our awesome discussion.

What is artyness?

Artyness, like other words that come before ness (smart, sexy, dumb), is something to be had or developed. Not pursued. Why not pursued? Well, would you pursue a photograph? Would you argue with me? Of course not. No on all counts.

So the question puzzling you is quite obvious. Why would I spell it like that? Because the y in artyness gives it the suave-ness of overusing french words and then hating the french. I like,

So this post is for souls who spend their lives pursuing artyness.

We've all seen the arty creatures. People who describe wine like someone put a 10-course meal in a blender to prepare it. People who don't read a book that everyone has read, just because everyone has read it.
And of course, men who wear scarves,

Consider the following - Take two historians, and for simplicity and to avoid coming up with names, let's call them A and B. Who come from decadence, surviving blood relatives of noble house of historians, which was huge in the dark medieval ages.

Suppose you made them describe the same building, which mind you, is older than the dark ages.

A: Yeah, it has walls. Some windows with glasses on it. Pretty neat.

B: It's fantastic. The way the concrete suppresses the eagerness of the liberal use of glass in the windows. However, the corners, they come together delicately, yet firmly, but gracefully, like lovers bonded tightly.

A would of course be out of work, going insane about the fact that he only saw a damn building, while B would become famous, receive many accolades and later run away with A's wife to make sweet love to her down by the fire.

So we reach, what they usually call a fork in the road. To be normal leaves you go insane with somebody running away with your wife, but pretentious talking gets you accolades, lots of action and my warm hatred.

I struggled with this for years, as I traveled through the mountains. Finally found the answer one night when I took shelter at a monastery.

A simple monk who had timeless wisdom etched on his forehead took me in. Just as I looked at him I realized that he knows what it means to be truly happy. Only that could make him oblivious of the fact that he had terrible body odour.

"Mr. Monk", I said, "I have a problem"
"Please, there is no need for formality. Call me pudding.", said the monk with a twinkle in his eye

"Umm...ok, pudding. So my problem is: To be or not to be, a pretentious man"
"Calm down, my son. Drink some of this sacred water.", said pudding

He wisely continued, "the answer to your question has been with my folks for thousands of years now. It's what we call the middle path"
"What do you mean by middle path", I puzzled.

"The middle path is to be as arty you need to be to make people take you seriously. But remembering how pretentious you are the entire time. It is, but the difference between you and an arty person", pudding said, wisely.

I started feeling a bit woozy. "What was in that sacred water anyway?"
He smiled. "You shall see, my son. You will soon start, as they say, tripping balls"

I murmured something and woke up a few days later. With Pudding the monk's words firmly in my mind.

Let's just real quickly skim through the required historical background, before I getting to the middle path.

Making things arty

Now, if you're anything like me, and I hope for your sake that you are, you'll need to make things arty from time to time. Daunting as this may seem at first, I shall break it down for you in little easy-to-follow steps.
Sidebar: Having a blog is a real bonus.

Start out with something normal -

• Boy meets girl romantic comedy. Let's take 'Something about Mary'
• Now turn that on its head. So you get a boy meets boy serious homosexual romance. Let's say 'There's something about Larry'
• Turn that into something that even fewer people will watch. 'There's something about sharing Larry'
• Change the language and force people to use subtitles. 'लैरी को दुसरो के साथ बाटने का कथन'

There. This is now as arty as arty can get.

Pissing off arty people

This is something I do and enjoy on a daily basis. All it typically takes is to tell arty people (specially arty writers) a name of some mainstream novel. I always use Harry Potter (which I actually do like). The reaction you'll get can be of the following two ways - 

1. He/ she will run away screaming (Preferred)
2. He/ she will tell you that if you must read fiction, you should read fantastic works of Leo Tolstoy. You should be very careful at this point. If somebody is trying to make you read Tolstoy, proceed with heavy caution. I read one of his works, and it took me months to recover.

The arty-est thing in the world

Is poetry. See, no build up here. And if you want to be at the epitome of artyness, I've got you covered. You can take tips on how to increase the level of your douchebaggery here

Before we begin, I'd like to disclose that I've always pronounced poem as poe-yum. I just could not make myself to correct that. Personally I blame my primary school. When you make kids read shitloads of poeyums, crazy shit like this can happen.

Now, I wasn't just talking about poetry. I was talking about minimalist poetry. The kind that has resulted in over interpretation of old poems and poets.

Haiku

Japanese poetry that's governed by number of syllables in a metric phrase.

It was discovered by two Japanese guys who figured it out and said "Hey cool". But in Japanese accent it sounded like "Hai Ku". Which eventually just became Haiku.

Personally I'm all for Haiku, It just somehow appeals to the pretentious creature in me,

Now, you might be wondering why I wrote a section about haiku when I've nothing bad to say about it. It's because I'm awesome and I do what I want.

Now watch this seamless transition to the next section.

THE MIDDLE PATH

I'm not here to dismiss artyness in all its entirety, because it's related to want to fake eccentricity, which has been synonymous with genius since before the dark ages,

So the next time you feel like telling people the reason why a chain of safety pins is hanging from your ears is because you need to get into the psyche of a paper-puncher to open pathways of light in your life, remember what you're saying and how little sense it makes.

As Pudding said, it's only the awareness of the fact that separates you from an arty person.

As usual, if you've read so far, leave a comment.

I need something to print out and hold tightly.

Poetry 101

Most of you would have often found yourself with a badgering impulse to write poetry, but you couldn’t write it just because you have no talent. Or you already manage to write poetry, and are keenly looking out for ways to maximize your douchebaggery.

Well have no fear, people, for this is where I come in.

Having years of experience in being large, reading (read: criticizing) poetry, and using way too many commas, I can help you get in a position where you feel comfortable rhyming all kinds of words.

There are many ways to go about doing this.

1. Eating up words: This works best for minimalistic poetry, which is often regarded as the best kind. The idea behind such poetry is that less words keep most things unexplained. Having most things unexplained leaves extra room for people to fancy you smarter than you actually are, and if you go sport long sideburns or have a vivid last name like Longfellow (yes. I know!), then people will fill the gaps you’ve left in your poem with insights that you probably don’t have.

Eg:

Original

Looks like someone found my secret stash,

I can tell because it's muddled,

I hope that man doesn’t reveal those secrets,

Some of those are a bit weird, and a little strange.

Now omit a whole bunch of words. You may do this by blindfolding a gullible friend and have him point at areas in your poem.

Final

Looks, found,

It’s muddled,

Man doesn’t reveal,

Some are weird and little.

2. Play with opposites: I’m safely assuming that you know what opposites are... I don’t just mean words, I mean themes. Whatever may be your broad theme in a poetic sentence, reverse that shit!

Eg: 

I am everything, I am nothing

I be lovin’, I be hatin’

I like staring, I hate staring.

This is all great when you have no broad sense of theme, you're basically whirling around in the dark in a room full of pillows, like a useless metaphor in a paragraph, used to take space. And time.

But then, if you, in fact, have no theme, then be warned. Pulling words out of nowhere and, say it with me, reversing that shit! Will sometimes lead to unforeseen results.

Eg:

I'm not a pedophile, I am a pedophile.

3. Fun with punctuation: Everyone uses some punctuation. At least everyone I know use punctuation. But there is more to punctuation than meets the eye, and more punctuation that meets the eye. The abandoned ones are ominously more badass. I'm talking about:

The badass colon:

It incidentally, is not an adult movie. Okay, it might be, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this little fellow ':'

We can use colon for many things. (Fuck you perverts!)

The most common use in poetry is for a 'because', or to show a result of something. Why?

Because that means less words, that's why!

Eg:

We laughed: He fell down the stairs.

We're unkind, we're not unkind

Notice the edge in the first line. That's because colons are awesome. (Again, fuck you perverts. Enough with the giggling!)

The badass semicolon:

Ha! Can't make any more jokes? I guess you can, but they lack that dominant colon-related vigor.

Now technically, rules for using semicolons are tediously confusing and annoyingly way too many for aspiring poets to understand. But I say use them whenever or wherever the hell you want. You're not writing for a major publication anyway. If you are though, could you put in a good word? I've always been nice to you.

Eg:

I'm not a pedophile; I wonder if these children know that,

I am uncertain about tea: Hate tea; love iced-tea

Interpretation of Poetry

This happens to be the most rascalised field of English literature. That being said, if it's not immediately clear what the remains of a poem are about, then it is, by rule about whatever you feel like.

(Fun fact: Poems are also called 'lays'. Joke on chips.)

Tips:

Most things are about life.

While you're at it, they're mostly 'bitter remarks' or 'dark commentaries' on something.

If not life it might be about politics.

Otherwise it's about God.

All the famous ones are intrinsically traumatic.

Stroke your chin, nod up and down then say 'ah, that does reflect on his psyche'.

Wear checks.

If it's a Charles Bukowski poem, then back off. That guy's awesome.

Don't comment on the fact that it doesn't rhyme. Never!

Poetry bears meaning largely to the poet. It’s one thing to just read it, totally another thing to feel it and try to understand the thought behind the poem. What many of you find pretentious may just be someone pouring their heart out. You may need to be in a particular emotional state to truly connect with a piece of poetry and then absorb whatever it is that it puts forth.

Or you can go fuck yourself.

I shall tail off this blog with some poetry that I wrote.

Puke

Recently, I’ve been puking a lot

I weigh myself; before and after puking

Just to see how much dignity I’ve lost

Puking: I love it sometimes, I hate it most of the times

I wish I got wasted as often as my potential does

The Who wrote the song Magic Bus.

I expect you to tell me how to maximize its potential.

That Record Player

“Payal, Jaipur.”

That was it. The record player, running across Harsh's unique, one-of-a-kind fingerprint, only said – “Payal, Jaipur”.

It didn't matter which finger, it didn't matter whether he played it forwards or backwards, every time his fingers touched the needle on the player, it played the same thing.

“Payal, Jaipur.”

The first time Harsh found about this strange occurrence was when he turned twenty-one. Apparently that was the age when his father considered him old enough and responsible enough to handle his cautiously preserved, passionately maintained, delicate record player. His father asked him to put on – what he considered – a classic, which is not to say that Harsh didn’t like listening to the old ones, he was in fact more inclined towards older music. As he was about to place the record in its place, his finger accidentally touched the player’s needle

“Be careful”, said his father

“Payal, Jaipur”, said the record player

Harsh’s father wasn’t mindful of what the record player said, he thought Harsh was playing some sort of a prank on him. (His son was old enough after all). Harsh on the other hand had chaotic thoughts.

“What the fuck just happened”, he said to himself, while silently listening to the song his father asked him to play.

Harsh went back to his room and did what anyone else would do – Google.

He googled the phrase “Payal, Jaipur” – he expected the large number of results he was going to get. But he had to start somewhere.

He started e-mailing any Payal having a Jaipur connection to find if he knew her in any way or if she knew him or heard of him.

Once every day, he placed his finger on the record player’s needle to hear the same thing. Just to make sure it wasn’t a dream and it was really happening. He didn’t tell anybody about it because of how strange it all was. He was determined to figure it out though, all by himself.

He had no luck. All his e-mails and Facebook messages were shot down by every Payal of Jaipur he ever sent a message. Harsh was disappointed, disheartened even, that he is never going to find out the mystery of what the record player had to say about his fingerprints.

“Payal, Jaipur”, Harsh was hearing this coming out of the record player for the last two years while continuously sending e-mails and messages to every Payal he could find.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but have you ever heard my name anywhere, seen it written someplace or anything. I’m from Delhi. I’d really appreciate a reply.” – This is what his every message read. Strange thing to send to a girl, let alone hundreds of them, having the same name, who were complete strangers to him.

But he couldn’t stop no matter how embarrassing things got sometimes. He just had to know!

Today was different, after two years of searching, he finally had a clue. He got a reply from a Payal, residing in Jaipur.

“Yes. Harsh from Delhi. I have heard your name”, said her e-mail. Harsh was surprised, a little happy and very scared.

When he contacted her further, she confessed that she can’t pinpoint the time and place where she heard his name, but she feels like she did. More importantly to Harsh, she was acting like she was crazy. Well, Harsh’s type of crazy!

He had to meet her. Jaipur isn’t far away, he convinced himself and so he traveled to Jaipur.

Payal was the most amazing looking woman he’d ever seen.

“You’re beautiful!”, were his first two words to Payal. Harsh isn’t the kind who uses the word ‘beautiful’ loosely and he definitely was scared enough to not try and hit on her (not consciously at least), but he just couldn’t help himself. Payal really was beautiful.

They began talking. Harsh and Payal had so much in common. Shared interests, shared beliefs, yet enough differences to be eminently fascinating to each other. Harsh was convinced. He had to show her the record player and what it played through his fingerprints. The moment for which he’d been waiting for the past two years of his life was finally there.

Harsh produced the record player out of his bag. He essayed the instances and efforts he put in to understand and solve the mystery behind the record player. They both held their breath. Payal kept staring at the record player like it was some sort of alien artifact.

The magnitude of possibilities involved was too much to consider, and the way they already felt about each other made it impossible to imagine the possibility of any but one outcome.

Harsh played his fingerprints – “Payal, Jaipur”, played out of the record player.

He held Payal’s hand and carefully placed her finger on the needle – “Harsh, Delhi”, played out of the record player.

It immediately dawned on them. Somehow, their perfect match was right there at their fingertips (absolutely unintentional pun) and nobody but that record player knew about it the entire time.

To be continued… 

Alter Egos

It's been a long fucking day for this supervillain. I hobble into my flat on my one good leg, after spending seemingly hours trying to get my keys into the door with my one good arm. And the Continuum Transmogrifier is gone, shattered into a million pieces. Like I said, it's been a disappointing day. 

I hobble into the living room to see my flatmate in front of the TV, holding a beer to his face. His hair is blackened, is face covered in a thin layer of ash, and he turns to me, his eyes bloodshot. 

"What the hell ? You look like a Mummy" He said. 

"The fuck happened to you? You look like somebody who did a major fuck up." I replied. 

We both started laughing, and he got up. 

"You need a beer, like yesterday dude" 

"Doc said I had concussion. no beers for me.. but an ice pack would be the shit" 

I slouch on the couch, and he comes back from the kitchen with an ice pack. I take it and put it to my shoulder. 

"So what happened ?" he said 

"Car.. came right at me" I say, the concussion preventing me from making up an outright lie. 

"Aw man.. did you get any details?" 

"Went by too fast. But that's my sob story, what the hell happened to you" 

"Ah well... a fryer exploded at work. Someone tried to fry a chicken." 

"Man, some people are too goddamn stupid to live" 

"Ah, that kind of thing happens. You get used to it" 

I glance at the TV, it's some reality dating show. 

"Can we change the channel, I hate this reality show bullshit " 

He picked up the remote and switched channels, and it was the news. Inside I groan, but I have a cover I have to keep up. 

"Woah, keep it on the news", I say "I heard that Slowhand was fucking shit up on main street". 

I hear him groan. I hate putting him through this, because he hates this superhero crap as much as I do. But there may come a time when I need a character witness. 

The newscast played, with the anchor intoning ".... A brutal fight raged across main street as Skydog attempted to flee from a robbery..." 

I watch myself on the television. My costume seems so much less graceful in front of the cameras. I'll admit, my flying gear really isn't that elegant. Not compared to Slowhand. I watch him glide in and blind side me with a sucker punch. I whoop enthusiastically, whilst I hear groans from my companion. 

"Look at all the damage these guys are causing" 

I find it hard to disagree. Especially when I watch myself throw Slowhand headlong into an oil tanker. It bursts into flame. How could he survive that explosion? But of course, I turn my back on him, and just like always, he re-emerges. Covered in smoke and flames, still determined to fight. 

He throws a goddamn truck at me when I have my back turned. I go down like a fucking ragdoll. Little do the newscasters know, but the continuum transmogrifier shatters in my pocket, instantly transporting me somewhere else. My only lucky break of the day. 

"... Skydog mysteriously escaped, and Slowhand flew off, as always a mystery to the public he works so hard to protect." 

I look at my flat mate, and then myself. 

"Well, at least there are two guys who've had shittier days than us. Am I right?" I say. 

"Yeah" he pauses, frowning for a second "At least we're not them"

Hierarchy in male friendships: A treatise

Hello cretins. Google analytics tells me you guys didn't miss me, and that's just fine because I didn't miss you either. Either way, I present to you, a treatise about male friendships.

So what is friendship? It's a relationship of mutual affection between two people, an interpersonal bond. Male friendships are instrumental in nature, we share activities (not feelings!) and we don't always feel like staying in touch and don't always manage to stay in touch but things don't change drastically. Things remain pretty much the same.

Male friendships are of many types and depths. From that random guy who challenged you to a game of FIFA and with whom you proceeded to play four hours of video games to the guy you call your best-friend, we meet so many people and form different types of bonds.

Here's how I'd like to break them down for you - 

The 'Look and Nod'
This is somebody you know, but don't really know. On most days you see this guy, though you might know his name and he doesn't know yours, or vice-versa. The extent of the bond is a quick look and nod. These are the guys who bump into you during your daily schedule.
You don't know these people, but technically you see them more frequently than you see close friends or family, which does bequeath them with some life relevance, no matter how random.

The 'Hey, how've you been, bro?'
However feigned the interest in the question may be, the fact that either party demonstrates the keenness to even ask that question is in itself a stepping stone above the 'look and nod'. Oh, and the use of the term 'bro' also helps the cause.
At first, this kind of relationship is kept for the sole purpose of not coming off like an asshole to the other, not genuine interest.
It should be noted though that this kind of friendship - a pretty surface level one - doesn't limit what sort of content is available for discussion. For example, there was a guy in the mess who always came up with deep comments like, "Life's going to start now, bro" in reference to how life changes after college and I listened to him, while we hardly knew each other.

The 'Let's do this together'
I'd argue that 'Let's do this together' is the implicit kickstart to an actual friendship. Once this line is dropped, it's been established that the potential for friendship exists on both parties and hanging out may actually happen. 
This in a sense is a transitional phase in any friendship. One either falls back to the 'How've you been, bro' or takes it to the next one.

'He's my guy'
After the 'Let's do this together', there lies an opportunity for parties to take it to the next level and strengthen the newly formed friendship. 
You actually have fun talking about career, women, football and other random shit and tell each other you should do it again.
Congratulations, you've made a new friend.

Close circle
This sacred circle consists of an ensemble of friends you can kind of count on to support you, just as much you can to have them make fun of you and most probably invade your personal space unapologetically.
Life can be pretty shitty and lonely without this genre of friends.

Bonus: The best friend
He's the one who stands out in your close circle.
I've noticed something very mysterious and odd happening to guys and their best friends at a certain point - which is, they're no longer actual best friends. They might still employ this title and use it to describe each other (which is definitely justified and understandable), but their actual time spent together wouldn't evoke best friend quality.
It shares a resemblance to how a lot of people feel around certain relatives and exes. The weight of history, memories and arguments has the propensity to make the relationship less enjoyable and a bit uncomfortable.
In sum, the highest level of friendship is the best friend who isn't actually your best friend.

That's all I've got for you this time.
Leave a comment, even if you don't want to say anything. They just make me happy.

Nolan Mashup

"Do you wanna know how I got these scars?"
Now anyone who has interacted with the Joker would know the words to follow would be in no way pleasant.

"I want to see my wife and kids, please."

"My PT teacher was a disciplinarian. And a visionary. He would inspire me. He would ask me to dream, to let go, to be free, to run after what I want. I dreamt of becoming an actor. And then you know what he did? Hmm? He said that I wasn't good enough. I wasn't a good enough an actor. But I never stopped acting, I never stopped dreaming. I could never distinguish between what's real and what's not; always getting high on the laughing gas available at the chemistry lab. And as strange as it may sound, you remind me of my PT teacher. And by now, you must've realised that I absolutely hated my PT teacher.", he said as he slit across the victim's mouth, before brutally stabbing him to death. Then he laughed. A laugh so hard, so resonating that it would consequently wake him up.

[Back on home turf]

But there was something unnatural about Gotham. Gotham seemed vaguely appeased with his presence. He was amused with this, as it seemed to entirely contradict the sole purpose of his existence.

Joker couldn't really recollect when he'd fallen asleep. Or when he restitched his torn underwear for that matter.

"What next, sir?"

Joker looked towards the man accompanying him. As much as he pressurized his memory into giving away who this man was, he couldn't succeed, though mysteriously enough, he was convinced of the stranger's affability to him. The man wouldn't stop rubbing his palms together. Joker didn't ask the man of his identity as he realised he isn't really getting a hold on things happening around him.

"What next, sir?", the man asked again, never halting the rhythmic flow of the furious rubbing of his palms. Joker was even more perplexed, for it seemed like he had been a man with a plan.

"Tell him sir. What's the apprehension all about?"
"Yes sir, tell him. It's simple."
"We kill the Batman."
Joker, unaccustomed as he was to the concept of a protagonist, could do nothing but nod in affirmation, which was understandably uncharacteristically subdued.

The man guided Joker out of the station towards the most probable hiding destination of the outcast. No matter how loathed, how despised the Batman had been, he still was a formidable opponent. And a hero of Joker's caliber was a necessity to terminate his tyranny.

As they crossed the roads, Joker, still perturbed by the stranger's neurotic rubbing of palms, met scores of civilians, who unanimously cheered for his victory.

"He's over there, at the end of the tunnel. He's there."
Gordon seemed to have been patiently waiting for their arrival. While the stranger was accompanying him to his destiny, Joker spotted the Batman, who seemed petrified by the sight of him.

"This is it. Now is the moment. He isn't even up for a fight. Finish him sir. Now is your moment. Kill him sir.", the stranger whispered rubbing his palms.

A gun.
The last device he would've used to outdo his arch nemesis but at that precise moment he was too confused to do otherwise. He shot the Batman, point blank, as Gotham erupted in joyous unison.

Joker might've been the only person in Gotham who wasn't celebrating. And he was increasingly growing sick of this new, friendly Gotham.

He wanted an explanation. A closure. To what? He did not know.

"Wait, I need to see my totem. I must have it here somewhere."

Cobb let out a crisp laugh, rubbing his palms all the while. He kept smiling suggestively. A very inanimate smile, that would've horrified the living daylights out of anyone but Joker. Cobb himself couldn't comprehend the mystery of the deadly slit across his mouth.

"I am your totem, sir."

Emoticons & Emojis

First things first, emoticon and emoji are two different things. If you didn't know that, grab something to eat and hit the internet. By the time you'd finish eating, you'll know that I am right. Not if you were to eat a traditionally prepared dosa though, you'd understand the difference in the middle of eating that dosa and will have to finish the rest of it aimlessly. That shit is made with the sole purpose of wasting your time.

Emoticons are older than you think. Take a guess, wild guess about the first time somebody proposed the use of emoticons.
People have relentlessly tried since time immemorial to convey stuff through punctuations and symbols. I can understand that for cave men and their early successors but when in 1881, somebody in some US magazine proposed the use of emoticons and tried to pass it by calling it "typographical art", my mind was blown away. (Believe me, I was there. As a fly on the wall)
This is what the proposed emoticon art looked like - 

That didn't catch on. No computers! Imagine how ridiculous one would've felt while drawing typographical arts on their letters in the 19th century.

Pigeons, mercury, and an elevator.
The sideways emoticon - the smiley, got its start in 1982 during a discussion on the online bulletin board in Carnegie Mellon University.
The discussion started with people wondering about the prospects and consequences of a free-falling elevator, such as whether a pigeon would still fly in it or whether mercury will rise or fall. Somebody tried to make a joke about it and suddenly there was a rumor that the elevators are contaminated by mercury.
That's when people started proposing all kinds of ways to avoid further confusion. One Scott Fahlman posted - 

"I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: 
:-) 
Read it sideways. Actually, it's probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given the current trends. For this, use:
:-( 
Thank You."

You can read the deep, funny and intellectual full conversation here. 

Nowadays, we use pictures. Emoji, it's a Japanese word (E + Moji (Face)). There are so many of them, I can't even comprehend 80% of the one's I know about and I have no idea how many emoji actually exist. 
Their wide use started in 2010 when they were adopted into Unicode (Hint: Google "Unicode") and in 5 years they've clawed their way into the way we write and text.
They say a picture says a thousand words, but if I don't know what the fuck those words are, an emoji is rendered useless. 
But, to my disbelief, there's even a version of Moby Dick written entirely in emoji

The ones that I know and commonly use are - 

I know some of you will judge me for my apparent lack of skills in using emoji but I semi-believe in the words of the famous philosopher Hank Moody about using abbreviations and emoji in texting, which are - 

"It just seems to me that it's a bunch of people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other people at a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the king's English."

Emoticons and emoji are more than simples punctuations and images. One wrong emoji and you're fucked, a right one will bring a grin to your face or a smile on another.

Do I need to keep reminding you to post comments?