Robin Hood and the Miracle of Nottingham Castle, Part Deux

One basic realization I had about PJs was that the build-up is as important as the punchline. You gotta build up the anticipation, build up the sense of impending doom, as is with most listeners, or should I say, victims! That is why this joke is unique, it's the sequel to the original Robin Hood joke. In case you haven't read it, you can find it here. I would advise you to read the previous one because otherwise there's no point reading this sequel..

So Robin missed the first time. He wasn't happy about it. After all, he was supposed to be one of the best archers in the country, couldn't he hit a guy on a wall?! So he thought, 'I'm not letting this guy go, where are my arrows??'. He was out, so once again the Bengali merry man comes up and offers a female, unmarried arrow to Robin. A quick roll of the eyes later, realizing he had no choice, he aimed at the guy. The previous miss came flashing back to his mind. He was angry. He wanted the sentry dead. He fires. Unfortunately, there was a sudden gust of wind, which blew the arrow way off course. It headed away from where the sentry was standing, towards the outer walls of the castle. There it went, but as fate would have it, there was a guard who had just got up and was on his first round. It hit the guard square on the head but since he was wearing a good helmet, it bounced off, apparently without causing much damage. BUT, from the shock of the arrow hitting the guy's helmet, the guard instantly dies. The arrow, a light supple arrow, which didn't pierce the helmet, killed the guy. The question... HOW?!?!




[ Answer coming up ]




The arrow was female. Tiri.
The arrow was unmarried. Mistiri.
BUT the arrow had no AIM (read M). Istiri.
So if an Istiri comes at you from that far out and hits you on the head, it's not good news man, you have little chance of living.

!!

More weirdness later.

Champions' League

Another season of the UEFA Champions' League gets under way tonight. It's not as fun as it used to be when they showed it on ESPN and Star Sports with the good Sky Sports commentators though. TEN Sports sucks, they bring random people as 'experts' who clearly know less about the technical aspects of the game than you and I. I mean, people with vague claims to fame, like 'John Doe, lives next door to the groundsman of Old Trafford' ... COME ON!! Get some proper people to analyze the game, geez...

Anyway at least they're not gonna show just the English clubs' games this time, much to Agent Zero's surprise who had been fearing that they would show 'something like Liverpool vs Debrencen in stead of something like Real Madrid vs AC Milan'. This is the beauty of the tournament, European superpowers clashing at any stage of the tournament truly meant for Champions.

Funny thing, my mind suddenly drew a comparison with the over-hyped 'Champions Trophy' of cricket coming up in October. WHY is it called the Champions Trophy?! Who are the Champions?! With all due respect, West Indies might have won the World Cup a couple of decades back but they are NO champions. Neither are England, New Zealand, Pakistan and 4 other teams out of the 8. There's no logic behind calling the thing a "Champions Trophy", it makes no sense. Then again, much of what happens in the cricketing world makes no sense. Over-hyped teams, over-paid players, I could go on and on about how cricket is ruining Indian sport especially football and hockey but let's reserve that rant for another post shall we? This one was about THE REAL sport, ie football..

Enjoy the season maties, and to a particular matie, don't get too carried away with Fantasy Football...

Comptine d'Un Autre Été

This is an impromptu post.

I've been listening to this track for a while now. It's 2 minutes and 19 seconds long. There is many an occassion when I've just put my Windows Media Player on repeat and listened to this track for 20-30 minutes continuously, like now.

It's part of the Amelie soundtrack, by Yann Tiersen. Amelie is the best Romantic movie I've ever seen, definitely in my top 5 list of favourite movies. You should watch it if you haven't already.

The strangely wonderful thing I discovered right now may seem normal to some, weird to others but I find it unbelievably soothing, relaxing, addictive and maybe that's why I've been at it for the last half an hour. It's nearly 1am in the morning and I have an early class the next day.

The thing is, I found a Flash Piano on a site and liked it. This was a while back. Sometimes boredom made me try out songs, tunes and stuff there and I even used it to tune my sitar loads of times. The thing is, I figured out which notes the guy was playing in this song. Knowing those, I tried to add my input to the song. That doesn't mean editing. The song's playing on WMP, I'm playing the flash piano. There is a slight time lag but that doesn't really make much of a difference since I'm not playing the real thing. I've been adding my rhythms and to hear the result is simply awesome. I didn't want to stop, but *sigh* I have to go to sleep now. Maybe I'll listen to the song a couple more times on my mp3 player in bed :)

PS. There's no way to measure how much you like something, a song say but the 'Play Count' column in WMP is a good indicator. Needless to say, this, being my all-time favourite Western music piece, is on the top. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th entries have been played 29, 28 and 26 times since July/August last year. This is the 191st time I'm listening to this track.

Robin Hood and the Miracle of Nottingham Castle

PJs are the order of the day. Well at least they were a while back, dunno about now. In college, I was the joke guy - I used to entertain people during our laboratory classes by narrating one poor joke after another, mostly ones I came across. I use the word 'was' because many people aren't really entertained by it anymore. That sort of helped me to get started making my own. If I may say so myself, I have been successful in creating some unbelievably nauseating and gut-wrenching such 'jokes' and simply love to see the reaction on the faces of the people who realize they just wasted two or three minutes of their life on THAT. Anyway this is perhaps the first real elaborate one I came up with. I think it has a better effect when told in person, but most of my friends already know this and the others I don't think I'll have an opportunity to narrate to in person. So, here goes...

[ NB : Please don't question the logic, as there isn't much of it. Also, you need some basic Bengali vocabulary, just basic. ]

Situation:

Robin Hood and his merry men are at war with the Sheriff of Nottingham. The war has lasted 2 days. On the dawn of the 3rd day Robin wakes up early and finds the castle in ruins. Another 12 hours of sustained attack will do it for them.

Suddenly he spots a sentry on a turret of the castle and thinks, well I'll take care of this SOB. He prepares his bow, finds that he's out of arrows! One of his merry men, who incidentally was Bengali, steps up and gives him an arrow. Robin thanks him but the Bengali guy stops him and tells him the speciality of the arrow he offered. He says "Robin, this is indeed a very special arrow. It is sacred, we Bengalis consider it a female unmarried arrow and hence it is holy, it's bound to do the trick." Robin goes "WTF?!" But thinks, this guy's from India, they have all these weird traditions and stuff so he doesn't make much of a deal.

He aims and shoots, and lo! he misses! The arrow misses the sentry by a whisker and falls inside the castle. An hour later, the castle is miraculously repaired, all their hard work undone. They lose the war.

How did this happen?

[Scroll down a bit]





Solution:

The arrow - tir (Bengali arrow)
But it wasn't a tir.. it was female, hence a tiri...
It was unmarried too, hence a miss-tiri.
So if you send a mistiri flying into a castle you can guess what will happen...

10 things which may not seem so but are oddly satisfying.

This is not a tag, I've been meaning to write this ever since I managed to do #4 on this list a week back. No order or anything, the list is numbered randomly.

#1. Getting the last seat on the bus to college.
A really good feeling although I know that I'll get screwed later, since the last seat is always at the rear and getting off the bus when it's full isn't that easy, especially when you are carrying a football in a plastic packet.

#2. Seeing the 'Free Space' of your hard disk increase after burning stuff into a DVD and subsequently deleting that stuff from your HDD.
Well this doesn't seem that odd but when your DVD writer conks out 5-6 times in as many months, trust me, it is a sight to behold. My HDD's capacity is 120GB but there was a point of time a month or two back when I had just 3GB or so free. So you can imagine.
I get a similar feeling when I hear the rusling sound when I empty my recycle bin (in case I forgot the Shift button when I was deleting stuff).

#3. Doing a perfect Neck Stall.
I like showing off by doing tricks with a football but I do look like an ass sometimes because I haven't perfected them. For those who don't know what a Neck stall is, it is simply kicking the ball into the air and catching it on your neck. Awesome feeling when it works perfectly...

I'm not the guy in the picture by the way.

#4. Shelling a boiled egg and obtaining two pieces of the shell.
Normally when you shell a boiled egg you look for a crack and then pick at it, ultimately getting about 100 small fragments of shell. Getting just 2 pieces is hard, try it.

#5. Seeing the football field almost completely dry during the rainy season.
When you hate playing football in the mud as much as I do, you'll understand.

#6. Waking up early in the morning, checking the time and realizing that you can afford to sleep 2-3 hours more.
This is anything but odd and everyone has felt this. I had to include this because I love sleeping and sleep an average of 8-9 hours per day.

#7. Start of the new English Premiership season.
The months of June, July and August can be rough every alternate year as there are no good football matches on TV. Take this year for example. We had a week or two of the Confederations Cup and then, NOTHING. Regular football on weekends (watching at least) has become a necessity in my life. I can't wait for 15th August...

#8. Pouring out just the right amount of Chili Sauce / Tomato Ketchup.
This one is nice. It's basically realizing you had poured out just the right amount of sauce (so that you don't waste anything but also don't have to pour again) as you're having your last piece of French Toast or Chicken Cutlet or anything for that matter.

#9. Receiving an attemped 'missed call'
No one really does this anymore but a few years back people used to bug each other, during a boring class for example, by continously giving 'missed calls' to their friends. I was on the receiving end (pun intended) a number of times and simply loved it when I managed to answer the call, costing the caller a buck and making sure he didn't bug me again, temporarily at least.

#10. Walking on a clean pavement and seeing a person throw rubbish into a proper bin instead of on the pavement.
This may sound silly but when you hate littering as much as I do, it's not. I like to see my city clean. Although the 'non-litterer' is actually doing what he should be doing, it feels good to see people who don't subconsciously make the city dirtier and then complain about it.

Wow I actually finished this in one sitting. Anyway more weirdness later...

Quit Playing Games With My Heart

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Put your iTunes/Ipod on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG TITLE DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing the meme as well as the person you got the meme from.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest


WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Runaway Train


WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
The Pink Panther Theme


HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Kashmir


WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Pather Pachali Theme


WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Fable (Dream Version)


WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Celtic Fiddle


WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
I'm Like A Bird


WHAT IS 2+2?
Kambakht Ishq


WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Terminator 2 - Main Title


WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
I Just Called To Say I love You


WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Over the Rainbow


WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Deewana Hua Badal


WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Lambada Techno Mix


WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Big Cat


WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
TV Themes - The Fresh Prince of Bel Air


WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Coca Cola Weed Song


WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Old McDonald Had A Farm


WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Largo al Factorum - The Barber of Seville


WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
A Face in the Photograph


WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Nahin Saamne Tu


HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Rebel Rouser


WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Animal Song


WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Les Deux Pianos


WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Silver Bells


WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
La Valse D'Amelie (Piano Version)


WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Pyar Hua Chupke Se


DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Josie


IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Mission Impossible Techno Mix


WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Vilayat Khan - Raga Yaman Kalyan Live 1


WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Quit Playing Games With My Heart


Thanks for the tag Yash. I know it's really unfortunate I still have Backstreet Boys on my computer.

A New Level

Wow it's been over 6 months since I last posted.. Talk about laziness and procrastination! I think this is a new level for me since I feel lethargic to the point of cancelling the football meet today.

I'll post more frequently as some of my friends have asked me to, with some of my home-made nauseating PJs.

JoIncidence with a C

Chandler Bing is my GOD.. well, one of them anyway. The others are Garfield, Douglas Adams... hmmm I could write a completely different post on this ( and I probably will ) so I won't go into further details. The Poker episode of Friends is definitely one of the funnier ones and one exchange between Phoebe and Chandler springs to mind...

Phoebe : "Hey, have you guys noticed, Poker is Joker with a P .. coincidence??"

Chandler : "Hey that's Joincidence with a C !!"

I don't think any 'emoticon' is fitting to describe my reaction to that so I'll just leave it at that.. Speaking of coincidences, one of the freakiest ones that has ever happened to me happened a couple of months back when I went to my first class at this coaching center for a competitive exam I'm gonna give in November this year. It is in New Alipore, just behind the Taratala Petrol Pump, which is about a 10 minute bus ride from where I stay in Parnasree. Parnasree is a nice place, it's not really small like a single locality but more like a collection of many. It has its own bus stand and three or four Auto-Rickshaw routes.

It was a Sunday and we were supposed to have an "Evaluation Test" or something, before beginning any classes. It was supposed to start at 10am but I was there by 9.35. Don't get me wrong, it was because that was my first class. I am NOT a punctual person. My studying in JU and being a native of Kolkata should be enough to back up this statement. No one really cares about punctuality except a few weird Professors here and there who are never late. Anyway I am diverting from the main story. There I was, 25 minutes early, the only guy who had showed up till then. I waited inside for 10 minutes, looking here and there, and here again.. there really wasn't much to look at except a few of those confidence boosting sort of posters your Moral Science / Value Education teacher probably showed you in school.

A guy shows up at 9.45. I had never seen him before (this is important ). Thankfully he is sort of smart and after a few seconds he extends his hand and says "Hi, I'm D" ( I have no idea whether it's ethical to take a person's name without his / her permission so let's just call him 'D'). I introduced myself and this is basically what I remember of our conversation..

D : "Hi, I am D".
G : "I'm Gairik"
D : "Your first class?"
G : "Yes, yours?"
D : "No I had joined in October but I missed some classes so they suggested I join the new batch".
G : "Ok."
D : "Where do you study?"
....
I am summarizing the next part. I basically learned that he's a third year student ( same as me ) of Haldia Inst of Technology, studying Electronics and Instrumentation. I tell him what I do and we talk about our colleges and syllabus and stuff like that for a couple of minutes. We see a girl enter ( I'm gonna refer to her as M ). I have never seen her before (this is important). This is where it gets interesting. After a few awkward glances shared between the three of us she starts a conversation which went like this...

M : "Excuse me, is this your first class?"
G : "Yes, yours?"
M : "Yes, mine too"
G : "Ok."
( I'm not much of a talker as you may have guessed)
In a desperate bid to reduce the awkwardness I ask her..
G : "I'm Gairik."
M : "Sorry?"
G : "My name, Gairik."
M : "Ohh ok, I'm M."
G : "Sorry?"
M : ( repeats her name slowly )
G : "Oh ok, so where are you from?"
M : "College or where am I from?"
G : ( In the form of a barely audible mumble accompanied by a shrug ) "College"
( Obviously you don't ask a stranger where he/she lives in a situation like this but she didn't quite understand what I had said which was evident from her reply )
M : "I live in Behala, Parnasree.. have you heard of it?"
!!
G : "Uhh yeah, I live there too.. Which part of Parnasree do you live in?"
D ( interrupting ) : "Hey I live there too."
!!!!
( Well, I ask myself, is it possible to know every person in such a big place? Of course not. Ok so that wasn't weird at all. )
M : "Near Bhuban Centre bus stop, you?"
G : "Me too."
!!!!!!
D : "Hey me too."
!!!!!!!!
( Ok now it was getting embarrassingly weird )
G : "Where??"
M : "Arey in that gali, ours is the first house."
D : "I live in A Apartments".
G : "I live in the house next to the one next to A Apartments"

The guy can probably see my house from his window and I can see his. I can see the girl's house from my balcony too. So it turned out both of them are sort of my neighbours who I haven't seen in my life. They haven't seen me or each other too. The guy moved here a couple of years back and lives in his college hostel so I may have a teeny tiny excuse not to know him, but M said she's been here for over 8 years!

"Man is a social animal". If I had a buck for every time I wrote that in an essay I would.. well I would have enough money to buy a Chicken Special roll from Bedwin perhaps but my point is clear. We just found ourselves the most unsocial man in the history of mankind - yours truly! It was weird. Anyway we had a few laughs over it and ultimately I made myself a couple of friends!

I've been meaning to write this incident for a long while now, but lyad overcame me and it's only because I am sick and stuck at home with nothing to do that I finally got around to writing it.

Feel free to comment.

More weirdness later.

PS. : I managed to do quite well in that test, thanks for asking!