Hack me baby one more time!

This is one of those classic stories that you would love to bring up at a party or just to remember the good old days.

This happened way back when we were in class 11. For reasons to save myself from getting a hammering I won't be posting the name of the friend who had to deal with what happens next.

It was a fine morning and I guess it was a day off from school. This was the era when we had just found what a great thing Orkut is/was. While we all joined with the notion of keeping in contact with each other post us leaving school, it ended up as a sad and sick way just to try and add "friends".

Those crummy, spine tingling, shuddering days of guys just trying to add random girls in hope of getting some action still freak me out. Basically any girls' profile on the site was up for grabs.
As long as they were within our age group and was single, even not in certain cases, they would get a friend request and well you know the rest. Maagibaazi FTW!.

So most of us actually had like 300 friends for no reason and most of them were females in hope of getting a girl, so this friend of mine was/is no different and he too had a ton of female friends on his list.

He calls me up and his tone is a little shaky to start with,

"Adeem, you know what has happened?"
"Nah , kya hua, tell me...."
"Arrey dude, My orkut profile has been hacked"
I immediately start laughing my ass off, thinking that hacking a profile is only done to get credit card details and trying to completely wipe out your finances.

"Who the fuck wants to hack your profile?" I ask back, nevertheless me pal does come across to my place and logs into orkut.

While the page is loading he tells me 
"Dude, some one has hacked my profile and they have changed my profile picture, its disturbing and now all these friends are taking me off the friend list and .....shit look at the photo man .......looook."

I turn to the screen and I have this face of shock which is succeeded by a loud laugh, its a picture of a girl ( a teenager) is holding this ginormous cock. 

Pedo alert!

So his scraps are filled with "friends" (females) asking him to either delete the photo, change it and then warning him that he will be removed from their list. 
So while he is on the mend trying to find out who has hacked his profile,my dad walks in and asks me whats going on.

I am thinking to myself , "Please don't open your trap man, don't tell my dad about the picture"

My friend goes "Uncle, you have no idea, someone has hacked my profile and changed my picture to....."

Crap man, don't blurt it out.

Fortunately my friend had the presence of mind to avoid describing the picture and replaced it with "a dirty picture".
 While he could never recover his profile completely, the one lasting image (images) of this fiasco are those pesky profile viewers. Here are a couple of gems who "viewed" and added him on Orkut.
Cool Sexy Handsome Hunk
and amongst the plethora of sexually perverted people viewing his profile was the champion

"I AM HOMO, I LIKE TO EAT MOMO"

To this day, we have not been able to forget this one profile viewer and I believe the same profile tried to add my friend on Facebook as well.

Momo anyone?


  

Hey Hey Mignolet!

"Oh bloody hell, not again". 

Another season, another false dawn. Leading yet again 1-0 but failing to capitalize on the possession and the number of chances we created. Sounds so familiar to every other season or at least the seasons post 2009.

The season had just started but it seemed to end so abruptly with the referee's whistle blowing. Stoke were always in the game and as usual we always let a team back into the game. Dominating possession, creating and squandering so many chances and our best friend Mr. "Hitting the goal post" was back again. This was going to be another long weekend.

"Penalty", the commentator said, "Oh fuck it" my mind went. 88th minute, we should have won this game. What a crappy start to the league. Our beloved Agger had just handled the ball in the penalty box and we could not make excuses for the poor decision because it was the correct one. No one to blame except us, so many chances to wrap the game up but to no avail.

On the other side of the pitch was a man standing tall. One of our targets for the goalkeeping spot this season. Asmir Begovic had double handedly kept his team in the game by making some tremendous saves, while his opposite number had quite a shaky start to the game and all the knives were out as to how could this man replace our Pepe?
The same who was shipped out so easily to Napoli for a year, a loan deal too. Up stepped Walters from Stoke to take the penalty, a player who has tormented us before and was sure to do it again.

"Oh well at least a point is better than what we did last season in the first game", shuddering to remember that calamitous start at the Hawthorns which finished with a 3-0 drubbing. 

The striker steps up to take the shot, an info graphic shows the last 5 penalties Walters has converted and where he has placed each shot. Certainly the keeper would miss it, he does not look confident at all.

"Thump" the kick goes, my heart sinks and then a loud cheer is heard. I open my eyes fearing the Stoke crowd going wild when its our supporters cheering wildly. Mignolet had just saved a penalty. That may not sound much but he had done something which I can't remember one of our keepers having done in a long time. 

He won us the game, no thanks to our finishing. Begovic was the man of the match but the man in our hearts is the Big Belgian. With a couple of saves he had just won over a gazillion Liverpool hearts , no more talk about "is he good enough?". This should say it all.

SAVED!

  

Prison Pit

The comic book collection continues with weekly downloads of all them Marvel and DC reboots, Deadpool (the new series) is a sure shot winner with him being one of the funniest comic characters ever. Plus the writers make sure he breaks the fourth wall repeatedly to add some more humor into the series. In his latest issue he even remarks " There's no way Marvel would ever let such a lame villain come back from obscurity. Right?". Marvel did but that is beside the point. Deadpool is one character not to mess with, almost a Wolverine except he wisecracks and he is mentally unstable. That was not his own undoing. The Weapon X program fudged him up a lot trying to cure his cancer but the regenerative cells couldn't actually stop his cancer so it grows and then he cures himself and it goes on and on and on, horribly disfigured he may be but still one of the best characters to follow in a galaxy filled with Superheroes.

The Cover art for the 1st book

While Deadpool or a Cyclops would be there in your minds regarding comics, there was this little gem I came across on a list of top comic books in 2012-2013. Prison Pit from Johnny Ryan is sometimes the anti comic book that we all need. I remember growing up reading Chacha Chaudhury and them brilliant Tinkle digests but Prison Pit decides to destroy every notion that you have for a comic book. This book is strictly for adults as a lot of X rated violence and sex occurs in this black and white comic.

Very few lines are spoken in the series (4 books so far). Its just madness, carnage and violence laced with a bit of humor. The characters are all based on some alien planet and they are mega bad ass and by bad ass I mean disemboweling your adversary , beating them to a pulp, defecating on them and then eating the corpse up. Each issue is crazier than the next and you just wonder how the main character (whatever his name may be) survives for the next assault. One such arc is he is given a mega penis strapped to his groin. He then has to find a flying Pterodactyl with boobs and has to have sex with it while its vagina has teeth around its lips. That my friends is the crazy world of Prison Pit. I thought it would be too grotesque for me but I can't wait for the next issue to roll out.

Oh and the part of the Pterodactyl sex? That isn't even in the top 20 crazy, violent and graphics moments in the series.
And a bit more news, an animated youtube series is under production currently with Blake Anderson of Workaholics providing voice over. Win!

What to do with a Suarez?

Another transfer window, another long drawn saga which could have been taken care off a month back had someone just iterated that wants to leave England and move to another country. However Mr. Suarez cannot keep his mouth shut so instead of vilifying the media for their constant attacks on him, he goes up to one of the papers to tell them about his sad story of how Liverpool have held him captive like a POW and not letting him make his dream move (again) to a Club in the Champions League. No disrespect to Arsenal but going to a Madrid, Barca or even a PSG makes more sense than staying in England where the fans had hurled so much abuse at Suarez and his family that he was contemplating moving to another country.

FYI Suarez, London is still a part of England and people will still target you there. He seems to have forgotten the tough times he gave all Liverpool fans and the club with his "racism" and "biting" incident, oh well that is a lesson we all have already learned in football. No loyalty left, so what do you do with a Suarez in your club wanting to move to a Champions League team?

Here we go

1: Sell him to PSG or Monaco

2: Loan him to Agent Rafa and his Napoli team (UCL and a pretty decent outfit)

3: Loan him to a club which is in the Champs league but willsurely get knocked out inthe group stage and bring him back to Liverpool for the 2nd half of the season.

4: Sell him to Celtic, hey he is out of England and in a CLub in the Champs League

5: Let him rot in the reserves and let him play only reserve fixtures

6: Make him leader of the Chewbaccas

7 : Lock him in the Big Brother house with Patrice Evra

8: Tell Daniel Agger what a Judas he is to become and watch the Dane elbow Suarez into obscurity

9 : Send him to an I League club (Indian league, just for the fun of it and so that he understands how much better he has it currently)

10: Take him back to the enchanted forest where he came from and find the witch that made him look like an elf.

Of course he hasn't left the club yet but it does seem he is about to go. Thanks for nothing Luis and hope you find a club big enough for your ego.

Good Riddance

Adventure Time!

It's been quite a while since I have gotten this excited over a cartoon, especially one that is currently airing on Cartoon Network or "CN" as it is called now. The good old days of the brilliant toons are long gone. What we have now are those crummy little Japanese cartoons (which probably are good in their own language) dubbed in Hindi. It just does not contain the fun and mystery that most of the original Cartoon Cartoons had. The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack, I am Weasel, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, The Cramp Twins, oh the list is endless.

So I came across this cartoon "Adventure Time" by a freak accident. I was searching for a ton of new comics to read online, like the Uncanny X Force etc and came across a site which listed "Adventure time 10" as a must read comic. I downloaded the comic (from number 1) and then fell in love with it, downloaded the TV series and its freaking fantastic.

A ton of crazy characters from the Land of Ooo

This is probably the best cartoon I have come across since Foster's home for imaginary friends. The two main protagonists are Jake and Finn, a mr fantastic version of a dog and his friend Finn the human. They live in a world called "The Land of Oooo" which is set in a post apocalyptic era where the Mushroom bombs have already been set off.

The short episodes are both hilarious and dark to an extent dealing with death , magic , love and craziness. The character design is exceptional as well since each and every character is different having a completely different personality, I am only a few episodes into season one and have been hooked onto it. The every bubbly Princes Bubblegum, the Vampiress , The  notorious Ice King, there is too much god damn goodness in just one cartoon.

I thoroughly recommend everyone to watch at least a few episodes to get a feel of what a real cartoon should be like. It's like we are back in the golden era of cartoons from the 90's. This is one adventure that you surely should not miss. 

The chase for the elusive Magnum

Every once in a while there comes a trial which every mortal must pass. Taste what success feels like and then have it cruelly taken away even though you are just inches from the prize that you seek.

Thanking the Lord above, I have been blessed. Traveling to a lot of destinations means only one thing, stuffing yourself with what you don't get in India. Dubai, Bangkok, London etc, I have been able to taste some of their delicacies and some of their "street" food. "Street" food for me does not necessarily mean the roadside shanty outlets but often them ice cream karts.

On a trip to Phuket, I walked into a small 7 - 11 store and decided to try out an ice cream. A Magnum bar was placed right at the top of the pile in the freezer and not thinking twice I picked it up. At the check out counter the price listed was 25 Bahts, that is a lot of money for a chocbar. 

One bite into the bar and heaven was found on earth. The bar is made of the best damn chocolate coating I have ever tasted and the vanilla ice cream inside is to die for. When I visited Dubai a few months back, the only ice cream I stuffed myself was with em Magnums. They had even come out with an Almond coated variant and a dark chocolate one.

Unfortunately this ice cream is not available in India or so I thought. Outside my complex I found this rare ice cream kart of "Cream Bell". Normally a Walls kart is parked right outside the complex but seeing this kart a few days in a row I decided to try out a Cream Bell. I always take one of them Feast bars so I tried to find the substitute for the same in the Cream Bell chart.

My eyes could not believe it when I saw an ice cream bar named "Maxxum". I thought aloud, it can't be a Magnum, it can't. Priced at 40 bucks, it was a Magnum , well close to it actually but it was friggin awesome. I was chuffed to bits as I walked home after a day in office , ice cream bar in hand and a smile as wide as the grand canyon.

I told my parents about the Maxxum and made it a habit to eat as many Maxxums as I could. Unfortunately since that Maxxum I have not been able to get even close to a damn Cream Bell kart. The kart which used to come in front of my house has stopped coming, even though its the summer and its the perfect time for an ice cream. This may be irritating and frustrating but what really gets my goat is the strategically positioned karts which are littered all across the city.

When I travel back home, I cross no less than 3 karts which are all placed in such a place where the car cannot be parked and I can hop off for an ice cream. Its like I am being taunted and teased into thinking that the ice cream is there but its not for me. Its been 4 days in a row where I have found a damn Cream Bell kart only for the signal to turn green or the kart taking a left while I have to take a right.

Its one thing to not give a man what he wants but its another thing to ensure its right there and still far from one's grasp.

Well played fate, well played.
 

Knock knock knock

Supernatural. That one show has rekindled my belief in ghosts and well anything even remotely close to "supernatural" elements. Sam and Dean Winchester might have fought hard, brought back the dead, been poisoned from birth by the Devil's blood, been to hell and back and well saved the world from the Apocalypse while constantly beating and outwitting ghosts, vampires, shape shifters, werewolves and demons.

The show is excellence par none and its a marvel , well at least the marvel lasted till the 5th season. I have not been able to go back to the show post the 5th season as you cannot beat the apocalypse and then have one of the brother's back, alive and kicking while the other brother is leading a normal life but enough about one of the best shows ever, readers beware you are in for a scare. Goosebumps, I know.

We have this beautiful cottage hidden in a far off town of Raichak. Its a 2 hour drive from the city and the cottage is in the middle of nowhere, it has a few houses next to it and its in a well guarded complex but in all seriousness its so quiet and peaceful there and so sparsely populated you could count the number of people in a square kilometer on two hands.

Recently we (my parents and my cousin's) took off for Raichak to spent an extended weekend there. We are lucky to have two floors to just freak out there, running around and doing nothing but relaxing and idling away the hours. Luckily we had a brand spanking new LCD TV set there with a Tata Sky HD hooked into it and again fortunately they had the sports package subscriptions (YAY!).

The confederations cup was on and Italy were to play Brazil. Everyone in the house went off to bed , even the caretakers who resided in the adjoining house retired for the night except the football freak within me. Now this TV was set up right next to a few large windows which overlooked this amazing huge garden which was the size of a few tennis courts filled with a lot of foliage and wildlife. The same evening I had seen a couple of large bats flying around and perching themselves on a couple of trees in the garden, vampire , check.

So as the game kicks off, I peer outside through the window and I see nothing but pitch black. The TV room was illuminated quite well and a few lights were reflecting off the window pane. At around 2 in the morning, when its eerily quiet and lifeless everywhere I hear someone knocking on the glass pane of the window.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

In a rhythmic manner, the timing between the knocks were absolutely identical, like a metronome onto which a pianist would play. Scared shit out of my pants, I decide to act tough and trudge on watching the game. Then the next set of knocks come again from the window pain exactly 10 minutes from the first set of knocks ( I was watching the footie game so I had an idea of the time). The brave me first thought "Screw you guys am going to bed" , then for some stupid moronic reason I switched off all the lights in the hall and now only the tv is on with any kind of illumination in this huge house. Maybe the thing outside would not see me if I switched off the lights, idiot.

And then the icing on the cake, exactly 10 minutes later we hear the 6 knocks from hell again
 KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

6 knocks, 3 times, in a space of 20 minutes. 6 6 6, enough of this shit. Switched off the TV and somehow stumbled upstairs into my room. Jumped onto the bed and hid under the blanket , somehow slept and woke up the next morning telling my tale to the rest of the familia there.

While my parents weren't sure of what it was outside, my cousins were sure the place is haunted (since no one actually resides in that house). The caretakers said it could have been a woodpecker ,wait, woodpecker at 2 in the morning  having a pretty decent sense of timing and knows how to count?

Right.