Caution: Before you start with this please have a good explanation ready for your boss!

• Record Tripping: A fun site where you can solve puzzle the innovative way. Scratching the LP with your mouse’s scroll wheel.
• Sound of Hamburg: Compose your own music. It is surprising sweet even though…
• Echogenesis: Sit back and enjoy five different natural environments with sound effects.
• Verbatim Championship: Create a monster using Verbatim recording  instruments and use it to fight other monsters.
• De Montagetafel: Create your own documentary using your montage skills.
• Optus Whale Song: Compose a song for a whale and make an orchestra perform it.
• Flurrious: Create your own snowflake and watch it dance in an artistic snowfall.
• Blues Maker: Like the name suggests, make your own Blues song…
• Bubole: Make weird monsters and make it fight with other monsters created by other players.
• Ball Pool: Click and shake your browser to create colorful balls and watch. Relaxing in middle of the day.
• Bank of Imagination: Note down your “What if…” thoughts and save. You can also see what kind of flights of fancy the world around you has. You have to register before being a part.
• Flame: Make some cool psychedelic drawings of your own.
• Labuat: Interesting brush strokes in line with the music. Lyrics are good as well.
• Why Late: An audio visual poetic experience. Must See!
• Drum Machine: A mesmerizing combination of animation and sound.
• Paul Neave: A fountain of  engaging Flash application and games
• Forgotten Bookmarks: Very interesting!

The “Best” by my estimate and experience:

• Incredibox: Conduct a capella or a beatbox band and the end result will surprise you. The only downside is that you cannot store it as an mp3 file.
• Beans: Crushing little screaming beans can be fun as well…
• Salsa: A very cool video!

If you had any other one as your favorites comment!

If the frustration was too much today, here’s an option:

Either Smack the Penguin (beware of blood) or be the Brutal Bob. If you play either of them, be a sport and comment your score. My personal best are STP: 1,286 mts. and BB: 1358 mts. Beat Me!

Despite their poverty, two of Albrecht Durer the Elder’s children had a dream. They both wanted to pursue their talent for art, but they knew that their father could never afford to send either of them to Nuremberg to study at the Academy. Their names were Albrecht and Albert.

Finally the two boys made a pact. They would toss a coin. The loser would go down into the nearby mines and, with his earnings, support his brother while he attended the academy. Then, when the brother who won the toss completed his studies, in four years, he would support the other brother at the academy, either with sales of his art work or, if necessary, by laboring in the mines.

They tossed a coin and Albrecht Durer won and went to Nuremberg. Albert went down into the dangerous mines and, for the next four years, financed his brother, whose work at the academy was an immediate sensation. Albrecht’s etchings, woodcuts, and oils were even finer than those of most of his professors, and by the time he graduated, he was earning considerable fees for his commissioned works.

When Albrecht returned to his village, the Durer family held a celebratory dinner to mark his homecoming. After dinner, Albrecht raised a toast to his brother for the years of sacrifice that had enabled him to fulfill his ambition. His closing words were, “And now, Albert, blessed brother of mine, now it is your turn. Now you go to Nuremberg to pursue your dream, and I will take care of you.”

All heads turned to where Albert sat. He shook his lowered head and, holding up his hands, said softly:

“No, brother, it is too late for me. Look what four years in the mines have done to my hands. The bones in every finger have been broken at least once, and I now suffer from arthritis so that I cannot even hold a glass to return your toast, much less wield a brush. No, brother, for me it is too late.”

Some years later, to pay homage to Albert for all that he had sacrificed, Albrecht Durer drew his brother’s abused hands with palms together and thin fingers stretched skyward.

He called his powerful drawing simply “Hands,” but the world opened its hearts to his great masterpiece and renamed it “The Praying Hands.”

More than 450 years have passed. Today, Albrecht Durer’s portraits, sketches, watercolors, charcoals, woodcuts, and engravings hang in every great museum in the world, but chances are that you, like most people, are familiar with one of them above all others: “Hands”.

Now that you have seen the great creation let it remind you that no one ever makes it alone.

Week 1 – Email No. 1
Effective this week, the company is adopting Fridays as Casual Day. Employees are free to dress in the casual attire of their choice.

Week 3 – Email No. 2

Spandex and leather micro-miniskirts are not appropriate attire for Casual Day. Neither are string ties, rodeo belt buckles or moccasins.

Week 6 – Email No. 3
Casual Day refers to dress only, not attitude. When planning Friday’s wardrobe, remember image is a key to our success.

Week 8 – Email No. 4
A seminar on how to dress for Casual Day will be held at 4 p.m. Friday in the cafeteria. A fashion show will follow. Attendance is mandatory.

Week 9 – Email No. 5
As an outgrowth of Friday’s seminar, a 14-member Casual Day Task Force has been appointed to prepare guidelines for proper casual-day dress.

Week 14 – Email No. 6
The Casual Day Task Force has now completed a 30-page manual entitled “Relaxing Dress Without Relaxing Company Standards.” A copy has been distributed to every employee. Please review the chapter “You Are What You Wear” and consult the “home casual” versus “business casual” checklist before leaving for work each Friday. If you have doubts about the appropriateness of an item of clothing, contact your CDTF representative before 7 a.m. on Friday.

Week 18 – Email No. 7
Our Employee Assistant Plan (EAP) has now been expanded to provide support for psychological counseling for employees who may be having difficulty adjusting to Casual Day.

Week 20 – Email No. 8
Due to budget cuts in the HR Department we are no longer able to effectively support or manage Casual Day. Casual Day will be discontinued, effective immediately.

Policy Termination

1. Well I finally got an answering machine. Now how does this thing work? Hmmm. Press record button, I did that, and the light should be on. I wonder why it’s not working right. Hmmmm, I wonder what this button does…
2. You know what I hate about answering machine messages? They go on and on, wasting your time. I mean, all they really need to say is, “We aren’t in, leave a message.” That’s why I’ve decided to keep mine simple and short. I pledge to you, my caller that you will never have to suffer through another long answering machine message when you call me…
3. Owner is a hard-to-reach person: Yes, I finally got an answering machine. (To Handel’s Messiah:) Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! All-e-lu-ia! Please leave a message at the tone.
4. Drawling granny voice: Way back inna winner of fifty-two, we didn’ have fanshy gadjets like no ansherin’ machine. You jusht had to call and call until shummbody got home. Now, shum people, dey shay dey don’ like ‘em, but I shay it’ll shave you a lotta trouble if you jusht leave a meshage. Thanksh a lot.
5. You have reached 934-2435. We picked this machine up at a garage sale in “as-is” condition. You can try to leave a message on it, but we are not sure it will be recorded. If we don’t return your call, it means the machine did not work.
6. Prepare for alpha test of Beep Software revision 1.05. Counting down to test: 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
7. C’mon… you can do it… just a little one. That’s the way… just a little beep, just a little one. C’mon… good boy… here we go… like this — beeeeep, just a little one, beeeeeeeeeep, c’mon… There you go!
8. Hi. This is John: If you are the phone company, I already sent the money. If you are my parents, please send money. If you are my financial aid institution, you didn’t lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money. If you are a female, don’t worry, I have plenty of money.
9. Hi, this is Stephanie’s answering machine.

   If you’re the phone company asking for money, stop bugging her, she’ll send it sooner or later. If you’re a TV company advertising TVs, she already has a TV with every channel known to man, and several known to monkeys.

   If you called for any other reasons, please hang up the phone, start screaming, and run to the nearest shoe store. When you get there, ask them for a cheeseburger. (This probably won’t help you, but we’ll always have something to laugh about when we’re bored.)

10. Hi. Now you say something. Hi, I’m not home right now but my answering machine is, so you can talk to it instead. Wait for the beep.
11. Hello, you are talking to a machine. I am capable of receiving messages. My owners do not need siding, windows, or a hot tub, and their carpets are clean. They give to charity through their office and do not need their picture taken. If you’re still with me, leave your name and number and they will get back to you.
12. I can’t come to the phone now, so if, well, actually, I CAN come to the phone now, I mean, like, I’m at the phone NOW, recording this message, but I’m doing this NOW, while you’re listening to it LATER, except for you I guess its NOW, like, when you’re listening to it… I mean, like, wait, gosh. This is so confusing.
13. This is Frank. You can leave me a message, but I must warn you I get annoyed with messages that are hard to read. So please use your shift key appropriately, avoid overdoing punctuation, and spell-check your message or I might ignore it.
14. (Game show-announcer voice Hello, and welcome to Phone Tag! (Cheers in background.) If you’d like to join the game, please leave your name and number at the beep, and we’ll try to reach you when you’re not around. And thanks once again for playing Phone Tag!
15. I’m sorry; I’ve been trying to break the record for “the most calls missed” if it’s an emergency, please hold on till the record is broken. And I will call you back.

Enjoy!

You are thinking as to why I am raising this point. No reason.

Isn’t it true that almost every person you meet has some or the other relative working in a IT company or is in IT field. It prompts you to ask a question, “Are Indians so good at Information Technology?”

There can be and there is a simple answer. However I must as Holmes said to Watson, arrive at it by circumlocution.

Circumlocution begins:

Is it in fact true that Indians are radically gifted at solving software puzzles using logic, that the Russians are the best at Chess (you are thinking of  V. Anand right?) or that several of the great musicians and scientists of the world happen/happened to be Jewish? Is it genes or what?

Take the case of Sigmund Freud. There would be very few people who would know that he began his scientific career as a zoologist looking for the testicles of eels. He dissected 800 eels in this painstaking and probably painful (for the eels) process. It not clear whether he located the reptilian genetilia or not.

This frustration must have affected Freud adversely because he then turned his attention to dreams and to the theory of sublimation of sexual energy. In his subsequent works, Civilization and its Discontents, for one, he builds on the assumption that the animal energy of reproduction has been ’sublimated’ into the pursuits we call civilization, even those of thought and endeavor that distinguishes humans from animals. Freud himself obviously sublimated his frustration into this theory.

Circumlocution about to end: 5…4…3…

A little reflection makes it self evident that, just as the British and other Europeans have sublimated their basic sexual energy into football, and Americans have diverted theirs into sex itself and remote controlled violence, Indians ahve sublimated theirs into doing other people’s sums.

There are other communities in the world who have turned their basic sexual energy into bullying other people or into blowing innocent people up. One of the seven allleged terrorists on trial at the Old Bailey, accused of planning more bombs in Britain, was alleged to have targeted night clubs because they were the haunts of “Sluts and Slags”. Not much liberation for Palestine there, but a good lession for the wicked and the sexually permissive Satan!

BTW, circumlocution ended way back!

That’s not to belittle instict and natural genius. The early twentieth century mathematician Srinivas Ramanujan manifestly operated through a combination of sweat and instinctive insight. He could see the logic in the chain, the theorem in the sequence. Did that come from being celibate and lonely for several years? We do not know for certain.

Lightbulb: Is this also the reason why most playmates are blondes?

Disclaimer: Parts of this write-up are plagiarized from someone very, very intelligent. He remains in the shadows and requests you not to experiment anything discussed here at home. If you are a student, go back to studies, because I cannot guarantee rank just because you stopped doing your nightly thing!

Any statements made are only theories and I do not have any verifiable statistic data apart from a very old and yellowed newspaper clipping to show as proof.

Around the corner, I have a friend
In this great city, that has no end.
Yet the days go by, and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone,
And I never see my old friend’s face,
For life is a swift and terrible race.

He knows I like him just as well,
As in the past days when I rang his bell
And he rang mine. We were younger then,
And now we are busy tired men;
Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.

“Tomorrow”, I say, “I’ll call on Jim
Just to show that I am thinking of him,”
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
The distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner, yet miles away…
Here’s a telegram, Sir, “Jim died today”

And thats what we get and deserve at the end,
Around the corner, a vanished friend…

- by Charles Hanson Towne

Reach out to your friend today. Tomorrow might be too late.

• Did I send that report… umm… yes, I did
• Was that to the right person? God only knows
• What happened to that report?
• New Joinee?
• ‘Away on Holiday’ notification…
• The list is endless

Maybe the appended picture gives perspective…

Ofcourse the wifey thought that I’d not have a job left when I get back. Yeah she is the motivating type.

Source: Nilay Goyal & www.phdcomics.com

I had written about the spam mail doing rounds in my earlier post: No Freebies here… However I still keep on receiving an average of 1 mail a week about some unseen reward from Ericsson or Bill Gates wanting to share his fortune *ungh*.

Please do not circulate these mails. They are SPAM.

When Jangid went to the Punjab National Bank (PNB) ATM near New Cloth Market to withdraw cash and pay his workers for Diwali early on Thursday morning, he was shocked to find that he had suddenly turned into a crorepati. His balance had jumped from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 59.30 crore and he had no idea
about the source of the extra cash.

"Initially, I thought it was a mistake and went to another ATM, but the balance did not change. I was so baffled, I did not have the courage to withdraw Rs 20,000 to pay my workers," said Jangid, who belongs to Devan village near Jaipur and has settled down in Ahmedabad since last 13 years. He contacted his businessman friend Anuj Shekani, who took him to chartered accountant Purushotam Khandelwal for advice. As it was early in the morning and banks would open at 10.30 am, Khandelwal advised them to approach Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) executive committee member Durgesh Buch, who is also a chartered accountant.

Buch promptly informed PNB authorities. A K Roy Choudhary, deputy general manager of the bank said as soon as the officials came to know about the matter, they approached the headquarters in Delhi, where it was confirmed that a technical error in the ATM server had caused the huge amount being transferred to Jangid’s account.

He said that since the ATM and bank account servers are different, the money was not credited in the account despite the ATM showing the colossal transfer. "However, the bank acknowledges uprightness shown by the customer as he refrained from operating the account. The bank would like to felicitate him in a public function", he added.

Samir Patel, vice president of GCCI said the chamber is also planning to honour Jangid for setting an example for others to follow.

Source: Times of India

Since it’s a given that only God can be immortal and Cheese does a pretty good job of it considering that Milk’s lifetime is around 12 hours and Cheese can last comfortably for around 15-20 lifetimes of Milk. In human age terms this would translate to 1000 years, if that’s not immortality than I am not sure what it…

So, basically I think that Cheese is Milk’s attempt at immortality!

Yays and Nays are welcome in Comments…

“Tomorrow the Prime Minister will inaugurate the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit. Lots of businessmen from all over the world will be present. They will listen attentively to him because they will be looking for ways to make money here by investing here. After all, India is the still the second fastest growing economy in the world after China.

But before investing they will want to be sure that India is safe and stable. The Prime Minister will surely convey this to them. And in a constitutional and electoral sense, India is indeed very stable. Elections are held, and governments come and go in an orderly fashion.

Global firms, however, tend to take a very long-term view of their investments and go beyond parliamentary majorities. So they also look for potential fault-lines that can become source of losses much later. India has several of these. Some are international and some are purely of our own making. About the former, India can do little than to bank on the US to help. But over the latter the Government has very substantial control.

Potential fault-lines

Broadly, these internal fault-lines fall in three categories – socio-economic, socio-political and those that lie on the tangent between the two. These last are the hardest to resolve as the Naxal problem shows. Paradoxically, foreigners are likely to trust the Government most on the third category as they, too, would see it largely as a law-and-order problem.

How the first two fault-lines are addressed by any Government depends in the final analysis on the political dividend it sees in the manner of addressing them. Thus, since there was a clear political gain to be had from putting more money into the pockets of farmers, UPA-I transferred close to Rs 500,000 crore and won the 2009 election.

This was partly done, as my colleague Harish Damodaran pointed out on Friday, by changing the terms of trade in favour of agriculture by raising the minimum support prices repeatedly between 2004 and 2008. In 2004, the MSP for wheat was Rs 640; now it is Rs 1,100. The same order of increase can be seen for paddy as well.

Thus, solutions to socio-economic problems reduce themselves eventually to money. The latest example of this is the Government decision to use disinvestment funds for the social sector. This was as announced on Thursday.

Social division

But it is the second category, the socio-political one, which is likely to worry foreigners most because it has very deep roots, which, moreover, are watered from time to time by the major and not so major upheavals. At the heart of this problem lies a religion-based social division which most Indians turn a blind eye to at the collective level, but which they nurture very assiduously at the individual level.

Or, as economists would say, this is a classic example where the maximization of individual utilities does not maximize social utility. One, therefore, hopes that when he speaks tomorrow, the Prime Minister will reassure foreign businessmen on this score.

What he needs to do (but won’t) is to tell the gathering that the Congress has adopted the Narendra Modi model of development because success anywhere is worth emulating. The Modi model consists, at its core, of ensuring that the Government works for the people and not against them.

The success of Gujarat today is the result of just this one thing. The Modi government does its best not to get in the way and ensures that the bureaucracy and service-delivery employees of the Gujarat government pay attention to all the small things that make a
difference to peoples’ lives.

Modi model

Thus, to give just one example, Mr Modi was told that cattle become more vulnerable to disease during the summer. So he has made sure that his veterinary department is not sitting in comfortable offices in the summer but is out in the countryside ensuring that the cattle are properly inoculated. There are hundreds of examples of this sort of thing that need replicating, instead of bleating that funds are needed and complaining that the delivery mechanism is inadequate or inefficient.

The Modi Model shows two other things. One is that success lies in ensuring that those who are being paid to do something do it and do it properly. How is it that Mr Modi is able to get the employees of his State government to work more efficiently and effectively than the other Chief Ministers are?

The third element in Mr Modi’s success is the reduction in the demands for speed money by the bureaucracy. Government employees (being what they are) probably do take bribes in Gujarat as well. But, from all accounts, the incidence is far less. Why?

An open acknowledgement from a Congress prime minister of a BJP chief minister’s success — and that too Narendra Modi — ought to happen. The Prime Minister is wise enough to understand that a WEF forum is not an election rally in Moradabad or Malda. The objective should be to send out the message to foreigners that, whatever be the differences in approach between the Congress and the BJP to social issues, when it comes to growth, the social fault-lines do not matter.

Prashant – TV Anchor

Two persons have been injured in a freak climbing accident. Jack and his companion Jill had gone up a hill to fetch a pail of water when Jack fell down and broke his crown. Jill came tumbling after. Live from the hill, our reporter, Amrita Shah, takes up the story.

Amrita Shah

Thank you Prashant. Well, as you say, two persons – Jack and Jill – had gone up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Suddenly, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Prashant.

Prashant

Thank you Amrita. What do we know about the hill?

Amrita

Not too much. Jack was going up the hill to fetch a pail of water when he fell down and broke his crown. Jill came tumbling after.

[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: “hill breaks crown of pail-boy Jack”]

Prashant

What news of Jack and Jill?

Amrita

Prashant, it seems that Jack had gone up the hill to fetch a pail of water. We know nothing about the pail, or how heavy it was but it seems that Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. I have here with me, an eyewitness to the accident, Mr Shahid Trivedi. Mr Shahid, tell us what you saw.

Shahid Trivedi

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: “Boy and girl tumble down hill. Water spilled”]

Amrita

Jack and Jill. What do we know about them? Are they brother and sister? Are they married? Just what were they doing on the hill together?

Shahid Trivedi

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.

Amrita

And what happened next?

Shahid Trivedi

Jack fell down and broke his crown

Amrita

Go on.

Shahid Trivedi

And Jill came tumbling after.

Amrita

Prashant, there you have it. Two people innocently going about their business to fetch a pail of water when one of them falls down, breaks his crown, and the other comes tumbling after. Back to you in the studio Prashant.

[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: “Water errand ends in tragedy”]

Prashant

I have with me in the studio now, Professor Chandrashekar Belagare from the Indian Institute of Applied Hill Sciences. Professor: a hill; Jack; Jill; a pail of water. A tragedy waiting to happen?

Professor

Well that depends on the hill, the two persons, the object they were carrying and the conditions underfoot. Let us look at the evidence so far.

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

Clearly, one would suspect that if Jack’s fall was severe enough to break his crown then the surface of the hill must have been slippery or unstable. But I think we’re overlooking something quite fundamental here. Who was carrying the pail? Jack fell down and broke his crown and – this is the key – Jill came tumbling after. If Jack and Jill had been carrying the pail together, would they not have fallen at the same time? The fact that Jill came tumbling after suggests that Jack lost his footing first and perhaps knocked Jill over as he slipped.

A 26-Year-Old has filed a case for not getting the desired effect from a cosmetic product. Details are as mentioned below:

New Delhi: In what could prove to be a major marketing and legal embarrassment for Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), a 26-year-old man has filed a case against the FMCG company, which owns the Axe brand of men grooming products, for ‘cheating’ and causing him ‘mental suffering’. The plaintiff has cited his failure to attract any girl at all even though he’s been using Axe products for over seven years now. Axe advertisements suggest that the products help men in instantly attracting women.

Vaibhav Bedi, the petitioner, also surrendered all his used, unused and half-used deodorant sprays, perfume sticks and roll-ons, anti-perspirants, aftershaves, body washes,
shampoos and hair gels to the court, and demanded a laboratory test of the products and narcotics test of the brand managers of Axe.

Vaibhav was pushed to take this step when his “bai” (maid) beat him with a broom when he tried to impress her by appearing naked in front of her after applying all the Axe products. No girl ever asked Vaibhav to call her “Where is the Axe effect ? I’ve been waiting for it for over seven years. Right from my college to now in my office, no girl ever agreed to even go out for a tea or coffee with me, even though I’m sure they could smell my perfumes, deodorants and aftershaves. I always applied them in abundance to make sure the girls get turned on as they show in the television.

Finally I thought I’d try to impress my lonely “bai” who had an ugly fight with her husband and was living alone for over a year. Axe effect, my foot!” Vaibhav expressed his unhappiness.

Vaibhav claims that he had been using all the Axe products as per the company’s instructions even since he first bought them. He argued that if he couldn’t experience the Axe effect despite using the products as directed, either the company was making false claims or selling fake products. “I had always stored them in cool and dry place, and kept them away from direct light or heat. I’d always use a ruler before applying the spray and make sure that the distance between the nozzle and my armpit was at least 15 centimeters.

I’d do everything they told. I even beat up my 5-year-old nephew for coming near my closet, as they had instructed it to keep away from children’s reach. And yet, all I get is a broom beating from my ugly “bai”. This is how Vaibhav expressed his frustration.

Vaibhav claims that he had to do go a lot of mental suffering and public humiliation due to the lack of Axe effect and wants HUL to compensate him for this agony. An advocate in Karkardooma court, who happened to mistake Vaibhav for some deodorant vendor when he entered the court premises with all the bottles, has now offered to take up his case in the court. HUL has been served a legal notice in this regard.

HUL has officially declined to comment on the case citing the subject to be sub judice, but our sources inform that the company was worried over the possible outcomes of the case. The company might argue that Vaibhav was hopelessly unattractive and unintelligent and didn’t possess the bare minimum requirements for the Axe effect to take place.

Officially HUL has not issued any statement, but legal experts believe that HUL could have tough time convincing the court. “HUL might be tempted to take that line of argument, but it is very risky. There is no data to substantiate the supposition that unattractive and unintelligent men don’t attract women. In fact some of the best looking women have been known to marry and date absolutely ghoulish guys. I’d suggest that the company settles this issue out of court”, noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani said.

Though this case sounds weird and is listed with other weird cases that I found on the web, the case here is more valid. While whether HUL settles out of court or not remains to be seen, this is definitely going to go into the new case studies being written for the new age brand managers who primarily sell ‘Sex’ nowadays.

Following is a list of 20 weird cases registered world wide.

• In 2004, Timothy Dumouchel, from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin sued a television company for making his wife fat and transforming his children into “lazy channel surfers”. He said: “I believe the reason I smoke and drink every day and my wife is overweight is because we watched the TV everyday for the last four years”. The case kept at least two of America’s then 1,058,662 lawyers occupied for a while, but did not go to the Supreme Court.
• In 2005, a Brazilian woman sued her partner for failing to give her orgasms. The 31-year old woman from Jundiai asserted in her case that her 38-year old partner routinely ended sexual intercourse after he reached an orgasm. After a promising start the action ended in something of an anticlimax for the claimant when her case was rejected.
• In 2004, a German lawyer, Dr Juergen Graefe, acted for an elderly pensioner from St Augustin, near Bonn, who was sent a tax demand for €287 million, even though the woman’s income was only €17,000. Dr Graefe fixed the problem with one standard letter to the authorities, but as German law entitles him to calculate his fee based on the amount of the reduction he obtained, his fee came to €440,234 (£308,000). It will be met by the state. There is no evidence that he pushed his luck by writing a thank-you letter.
• In 1972, at Wakefield Crown Court in Yorkshire, Reginald Sedgwick was prosecuted for stealing Cleckheaton railway station. The defendant, a demolition contractor, was alleged to have destroyed the disused stone building and cleared the site of 24 tons of track with dishonest intentions. He admitted the deed, explained that it was done for an untraced third party, and his lawyer demolished the prosecution’s case, securing an acquittal.
• In 2005, the Massachusetts Appeals Court was asked to rule on when a sexual technique was dangerous. Early one morning, a man and woman in a long-term relationship were engaged in consensual intercourse. During the passionate event, and, without the man’s consent, the woman suddenly manoeuvred herself in a way that caused him to suffer a penile fracture. Emergency surgery was required. The court ruled that while “reckless” sexual conduct may be actionable, “merely negligent” conduct was not. It dismissed the man’s case.
• In 2005, Marina Bai, a Russian astrologer, sued NASA for £165 million for “disrupting the balance of the universe”. She claimed that the space agency’s Deep Impact space probe, which was due to hit a comet later that year to harvest material from the explosion, was a “terrorist act”. A Moscow court accepted Russian jurisdiction to hear the claim but it was eventually rejected.
• In 2007, a court in India was asked to decide whether a vibrating condom is a contraceptive or a sex toy. The condoms contain a battery-operated device, and, for the avoidance of doubt, are marketed as “Crezendo”. Opponents argue it’s a sex toy and thus unlawful in India, whereas the manufacturer says it’s a contraceptive and promotional of public health.
• In 2006, a young man from Jiaxing, near Shanghai, found himself in legal trouble after failing to take advice before putting his soul up for sale on an online auction site. The posting was eventually removed by the auctioneer and the seller was told that the advert would be reinstated only if he could produce written permission to sell his soul from “a higher authority”.
• In 2004, Frank D’Alessandro, a court official in New York, sued the city for serious injuries that he sustained when a toilet he was sitting on exploded leaving him in a pile of porcelain. He claimed $5 million compensation. Reflecting on the demanding physical therapy in which he must now engage every morning before work, D’Alessandro declared: “It’s a pain in the ass to do all this stuff.”
• A Las Vegas law prohibiting strippers from fondling customers during lap dances was ruled by the Nevada Supreme Court in 2006 to be valid. The issue was whether the local law was unconstitutionally vague and therefore unenforceable. The law states that “no attendant or server shall fondle or caress any patron” with intent to arouse him. Lawyers discussed at length whether grinding (of dancers’ bottoms into men’s laps) amounted to a fondle or caress, and whether the brushing of breast into patrons’ faces was prohibited conduct. The local law was declared valid because the court thought enforcers would be able to know a fondle or caress if they saw one.
• In 1964, the Exchequer Court of Canada was asked to decide whether the expenses of running a “call girl” business in Vancouver were deductible from gross income for the purposes of income tax. The madam and seven call girls were all convicted and imprisoned. And then taxed. Claims for tax deductions in respect of the ordinary parts of the business, such as phone bills, were allowed. Other types of expenses were disallowed because the business couldn’t prove them with receipts, including $2000 for liquor for local officials and $1000 paid to “certain men possessed of physical strength and some guile, which they exercised when set to extricate a girl from difficulties”.
• In a notorious case heard by Baron Huddleston in November 1884, Captain Thomas Dudley and Edwin Stephens were prosecuted for the murder of a cabin boy, Richard Parker. When the yacht they were sailing from Southampton to Sydney capsized, they found themselves on a dinghy 1,600 miles from shore. After 20 days adrift, they killed Parker, eating his liver and drinking his blood to survive. They were rescued four days later by a German vessel and were convicted of murder at Exeter Assizes, although their death sentences were later commuted to six months imprisonment without hard labour. Their defence of “necessity” was rejected.
• Cathy McGowan, 26, was overjoyed when a DJ on Radio Buxton told her that she had correctly answered a quiz question and had won the competition prize: a Renault Clio. Ecstasy collapsed into despair, however, when she arrived at the radio station and was presented with a 4-inch model of the car. In 2001, she sued and a judge at Derby County Court ruled that the now defunct station in Derbyshire had entered into a legally binding contract with Miss McGowan and ordered its owners to pay £8,000 for the real vehicle.
• In 2005, Pavel M., a Romanian prisoner serving 20 years for murder, sued God, founding his claim in contract. He argued that his baptism was an agreement between him and God under which, in exchange for value such as prayer, God would keep him out of trouble..
• In May, 2004 in Connecticut, Heather Specyalski was charged with the homicide of Neil Esposito. He was thrown from a car that prosecutors said was being driven by Specyalski when it spun out of control and crashed. The defendant argued that she couldn’t have been driving because she was in the passenger seat performing oral sex on Esposito, whom she alleged was at the wheel. Esposito was found with his trousers down but prosecutors argue this could have been because he was “mooning” or urinating out of the car window while in the passenger seat. The jury acquitted Specyalski of manslaughter, sparing her a possible 25-year prison sentence.
• Sentencing a young woman at the Magistrates’ Court in Port Adelaide, Australia, in 2003, a magistrate said:

“You’re a druggie and you’ll die in the gutter. That’s your choice… I don’t believe in that social worker crap. You abuse your mother and cause her pain. You can choose to be who you are. You can go to work. Seven million of us do it whilst fourteen million like you sit at home watching Days of Our Lives smoking your crack pipes and using needles and I’m sick of you sucking us dry”.

He then concluded:

“It’s your choice to be a junkie and die in the gutter. No one gives a shit, but you’re going to kill that woman who is your mother, damn you to death.”

He gave the woman a prison sentence, unaware that that was unlawful in the type of case in question. Her appeal was successful.

• In 1874, Francis Evans Cornish, while acting as a magistrate in Winnipeg, Canada, had to try himself on a charge of being drunk in public. He convicted himself and fined himself five dollars with costs. But then he stated for the record: “Francis Evans Cornish, taking into consideration past good behaviour, your fine is remitted”.
• In 1980, Lord Justice Ormrod, Lord Justice Dunn and Mr Justice Arnold ruled in the UK’s Court of Appeal that a wife from Basingstoke who rationed sex with her husband to once a week was behaving reasonably. Lord Hailsham later revealed that the ruling had provoked some newspapers to try to interview the wives of all the judges in the case.
• A father from Zhengzhou, in China, was refused legal permission to name his son “@” after the keyboard character. Permission was declined on the legal basis that all names must be capable of being translated into Mandarin.
• In September, 2004, Judge A K M Patabendige, in Walasmulla, Sri Lanka, jailed a man for a year for yawning in court. N V P Ajith, a defendant in a criminal case, stretched out and yawned in a way that so infuriated the judge, the punishment for contempt was immediate.

Hope you have enjoyed reading this. This discussion will be continued…

For example recently while watching a western genre movie the following thought came to me.

If I were a good ‘bad-guy’ — you know, big-time, big-city gunslinger rides into town, and the local sheriff pins a badge on him and says, “We need a man with your experience, training, and proven track record, ” or something like that. I mean, would I be a big fish in a small pond, or what? Would I have ladies stealing glances at me and dropping their handkerchiefs on the sidewalk, or what?

Just as soon as this thought had crossed my mind and I could further extrapolate the follow-up steamy sequences, I was back to reality. I was hungry. I mean how do you fight blocks like these?

OR

When recently at an airport as I paid for a tea and a Sandwich with apparently bland chicken and mystery cheese I thought, I could have eaten the shrink wrapping and the Styrofoam and not noticed the difference. As soon as this thought had crossed my mind I saw an ass of a person dressed in Pink Jeans and yellow t-shirt with brown leather jacket, the kind that you can buy for 150 bucks at a sidewalk in Mumbai. I practically wanted to go up and ask, “Is that a disguise, or did you get dressed in the dark?”

The only good thing that I remember at this time was that I got to play eye-hockey with a beautiful damsel. We did it for sometime before I winked and she apparently couldn’t trust her emotions so she turned away.

Another thought that crossed my mind was when the flight attendant announced that the carrier was serving PAID fast food for the convenience of the passengers. Cow Shit. The difference between Bullshit and Cowshit is that the former is used to denote a gross and aggressive distortion of the truth, while the latter is a milder, more passive crock of crap. How can you write an article or weave a story in either of these three instances?

OR

When I came pretty close to kissing a girl… We were on a hike walking next to each other when she turned, and we found ourselves face-to-face, about a foot apart. It was one of those awkward moments, and we stood for exactly three seconds, then I put my hand out and brushed her hair, then her cheek. I moved in for the big smooch, confident we were about to lock lips, but she stepped back and uttered the magic word that all modern Indian men have been Pavloved to respond to. “No.” I immediately jumped back six feet, and I clasped my hands behind my back.

Actually, that’s not exactly what happened. She did say “no,” but I hesitated, a look of abject disappointment on my face, and she said, “Not now,” which is good, then “maybe later,” which was better, then “I like you,” which was best. I said, “Take your time,” which I sincerely meant, as long as she didn’t take more than seventy-two hours, which is sort of my limit. Actually, I’ve waited longer. Ofcourse I could not write anything for the next 72 hours. Or for the next 144 hours. After that time this story and the girl both lost their appeal. Sour grapes right?

OR

When recently sitting on a beach, I was watching seagulls. These things are weird, I mean totally crazy birds. I watched this guy circling, looking for breakfast, then he spotted it, and began this insane kamikaze dive into the water, shrieking like his balls were on fire, then he hit the water, disappeared, then shot up and out like he had a rocket up his ass. In his talons was a silver fish who’d been just paddling along down there, chomping minnows or something, and whoosh, he’s airborne, about to slide down the gullet of this crazy bird. I mean, the silver fish maybe has a wife, kids, and whatever, and he goes out for a little breakfast and before he can bat an eye, he is breakfast. Survival of the fittest and all that. Awesome. Totally.

Early bird gets the worm, early worm gets eaten!

OR

When I was sort of involved with a girl and we clearly liked each other, despite some run-ins and misunderstandings, some differences of opinion, dissimilar temperaments, differences of age and background, and probably blood type, and tastes in music, and God knew what else. Actually, if I thought about it, we had not one thing in common except the profession, and we couldn’t even agree on that. And yet, I was in love. Well, okay, lust. But significant lust. I was deeply committed to this lust. We looked at each other again, and again we smiled. This was silly. I mean, really dopey. I felt like an idiot. She was so exquisitely beautiful… I liked her voice, her smile, her coppery hair in the sunlight, her movements, her hands… and she smelled soapy again, from the shower. I love that smell. I associate soap with sex. That’s a long story and I don’t want to shell out personal secrets here. This then brings up the question of why I am being selective in my writing which again I dislike. Unnnnh! Talk about pressure…

Next thing I try is looking at things upside down. It worked for a notable writer. Maybe it will for me too!