Zinda Revisited!!

Well it was the time when I have had enough of chocophobia because of the severe dental problems I had during my stay in UK. Chewing has become a labour while chocolates and sweets a taboo. I had already made up my mind to finish off this problem one and for all.

My dentist took a couple of X-rays and told me that I would be spending nearly 12 k on my dental treatment, 7 ceramic teeth and 2 teeth extraction: one of which was just barely visibly at the top of the gums. So a date for the extraction of one of the tooth was fixed and the date was 22nd August, 2006.

When I went to his clinic, he rinsed my teeth with a pressure jet. Since I Am already experienced in this tooth extraction I thought there would be nothing new to me. But there was. The same procedure was the same. He took a syringe and inserted it in gums to give me a local anesthesia; worse for me it didn’t go well, so he went for another shot of anesthesia.

In just 2 minutes, I lost the sensation in the left portion of my mouth. I was able to just feel the tooth with my tongue but the sensation in the lips was all gone and I was having difficulty speaking. He asked me not to chew my lips if you are not able to feel them and I think he did advise right since one would tend to do that if not advised against. Since I was to have a bridge of 4 teeth to go over the extracted tooth, he first drilled the two adjacent teeth by 2 mm roughly. I couldn’t feel anything and he was using a pressure jet of water along with the cutter so that took away a lot of sensation as well.

I just inspected my teeth after the drilling operation in the mirror and now there would be a space, distinct and visible to an outsider, no matter how hard I grind my teeth together. Well then came the most interesting/weird part. He asked me to lie down, put on the light and told me that if it pains just lift your hands and I’ll stop. He started struggling with my teeth but was not able to either get a good trip on the teeth or penetrate the gums because the teeth wasn’t solid at all; it was like the grid of pebbles by the riverside. I had the mirror in my mind and had an urge to see what’s going on.

Although getting a good angle for the mirror in my left hand was difficult, I tried and eventually got one. He was still struggling with my teeth. Then suddenly, he was successful. Either a nerve or a tissue had been ruptures and blood started coloring my gums, adjacent teeth and tongue and since my head was a bit slant, the blood mixed with saliva started collecting at the site of the teeth, rising in volume slowly to eventually touch the gums, where it would shine in the light distinctly. He paused and said, “Don’t try to look at this, sometimes it gets more painful if you look at yourself being operated upon”. He later told me this is told to them in one of their psychology classes.

Then he was back at his job and I was on mine. I remember that in the childhood when I went for my first injection the doctor’s assistant asked me to look the other side. I did because he asked me to but I didn’t like that he said that. But when he was about to give me one, I turned my head and focused on the spot where he was giving the injection. It was over in a couple of seconds. But this wasn’t.
Finally he pushed out (and not pulled out) the fragments of teeth by creating enough depth in the gums to reach the fragment’s base and then push it out from there. While he was pulling out the teeth, I wasn’t thinking about the blood, rather thinking what it would feel like if I didn’t have the anesthesia but since the sensation of pain was all gone, I was thinking that had I been in his place I would be rougher with the operation. The teeth had troubled me a lot and I’d trouble the fella a lot in this farewell operation.

But the whole blood thing and pushing the tooth out and the doctor struggling with most of his physical strength registered in my mind reminded me of Zinda where Sanjay Dutt pulls out a teeth of a fellow with a hammer. Some call it psychotic some weird, what’s your take??

Update: I am about to undergo another tooth extraction on 30th August, 2006. It will be lot scarier and greater a war since its the last tooth on the upper jaw on RHS. One hour appointment has been reserved for this. And unlike the last time where the tooth was a little into the gums, this is very firmly embedded in the gums and one wall of it outside it not there. So another big tussle. Thinking what new will it be this time. Will blood start dripping drop by drop and if it happens to land outside on my face, will it start trickling down forming a weird pattern!!

Fallacy!!

Find the fallacy in this argument.
Hypothesis:
“The only rule of the world is that every rule has exceptions”

1. Now the RULE says every rule has exceptions. The fact that this RULE holds true is an exception to itself so this RULE holds good.


2. But then this RULE has an exception, the RULE itself. So how can this rule be true if it has an exception?

So is this a hypothesis or a rule or just an exception??

Not Done Mr PM!!

Well this article explains what I wish to say very briefly. Briefly, because I wish to rant today. Congress coming into power was a choice by elimination for what BJP had conspired in Godhra.
But looks as if Congress too is on the same path.

Ok enough rant to vent frustration. Now business!

Well Manmohan Singh, quotably the hero of Gurcharan Das’s book India Unbound (Amazon link), the father of reforms has been booed down by his own siblings or let’s say masters!!
The article rightly points out instances wherein PM went weak

1. Lalu held a separate inquiry into Godhra and PM couldn’t do anything about it.


2. Opposition brushing aside Chidambaram’s Minimum wage prescription and now,


3. The decision of divestment in non-Navratna companies (which naturally takes away the excuse of this decision going against CMP). And then the revoke

But there are some more instances which the report missed and which were covered in KT’s interview. Some of the examples that we all must be remembering from media follow-ups were


4. Arjun Singh embarrassing PM by announcing that 27% reservation would be implemented in IITs, IIMs and AIIMS. PMO came out with an explanation that this was done without PM’s knowledge and even without top Congress leaders’ knowledge.


5. In AIIMS case too PM gave in to the PMK’s absurd handling of AIIMS. A bureaucrat was allowed to make absurd decisions of removing the people for bureaucratic conveniences. AIIMS autonomy is definitely undermined in throwing out a man as eminent as Venugopal unceremoniously.

The point here is not to discuss the merit-demerit of any of issues and prove that UPA made wrong decision in each case but to say that the leader they chose didn’t choose to lead but simply follow threats from other people and submit to whatever little wails they rose. I think Karan rightly put it in today’s discussion when he said that Vajpayee too dealt with RSS and VHP but he managed his way out.

True, it’s a different ball game with coalition politics, listening to everyone but then here it seems the govt. has been listening only and not making its own opinion clear. While PM has been boasting at foreign visits at how the reforms are not going to stop, he declares that he is not wedded to reforms. Although there is a slight subjectivity but to me it is lack of consistency which someone of the ranks of PM should display. And he won’t be held as Adam for doing what Eve has demonstrated during her career. I am talking about Margaret Thatcher who fought her own party against lots of investment related decisions and is being justifiably celebrated for this.

True, he has been tough on issues like petrol price hike to stop bleed oil companies. But the way he has been handled by his own colleagues and that too on public platform through media has often embarrassed him without much redress action. So in the end, not done Mr PM!!

NET CRAZY

You know you surf Internet for 8-9 hrs per day on your laptop at home when:

1. You are talking to people with your hand on the table and fingers virtual-typing the words you are speaking and you feel bad that you can’t catch up with your speed


2. When sitting in office you graze your thumb slightly over the space on the platform near the keyboard hoping that the pointer on screen would move.


3. You move the pointer on the right side of the screen hoping that in some time dock-bar of Google Desktop will move out giving you the latest news and newest articles on your most favourite RSS enabled websites.


4. While typing e-mail, you suddenly think of a phrase that could accurately describe the point. However, you curse silently when you realise you don’t have Internet there in the company to verify the same (and do further follow-ups such as etymology and other similar words) on Google or Wikipedia.


5. On a fateful day when there is no internet and friends come inquiring if you are ok since net is not available, you ask

“Hey you got your cell phone right now?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Which service provider do you have?”
“&^%&^%* one, it is cheap and…”
“And does this offer include a GPRS connection as well!”


6. You iron your clothes for going to office the next day; you keep checking your laptop for Internet connection but of no avail. So to your mind back to “normality” you keep ironing the clothes with a pint of neat Vodka beside you.


7. When a volunteer turns up at your door asking for donation to aid young women of UK and claims that their organisation has done a lot of pioneering work in this area, you are tempted to ask, “ Do you have a website where I can see your claims and verify it and get back to you??”


8. When you overhear a colleague talking on phone ".....its like the kiss of apocalypse ". You wonder what does he mean by that and open Outlook go to Draft, open a saved mail and add this topic to your list reminding yourself to mail the list at EOD and search all the terms in the list @ Google and/or wikipedia. If you couldn't get the phrase anywhere you ask this fellow the meaning of that. OR alternatively you have been given new mouse-mats and on the back of it are claims of ultra-precise-tracking. You wonder if that's related to the UK/European patent no. mentioned below, you add these nos. to your list as well.


9. The meanings of FORWARDS stops holding any meaning/significance for you since all FORWARDS related to current affairs or otherwise have already been read by you. So when someone sends you a forward about "being careful of DELL laptops since one exploded and he is about to tell you the context, you say, "Yeah!, I know ..during a Japanese conference"


10. When you type e-mail in a typical blog fashion quoting people's comments/views in italics and giving hyperlinks to whichever folder you mention.


11. When you realize that you are really a crazy maniac and a freak for internet and you think of quitting this habit. You tell your friends at a party that you want to quit and they say, “Well yes you should. However, you should first go and write a blog about that. Ha ha.. hee hee.. hoo hoo.(group laughter sounds)”


12. As you are typing this article at Office for posting a blog at home, you are wondering if there is anything more to write about and wondering what will you do as you’ve finished typing “……wondering what will you do as you’ve finished typing.”

Google Masti..

Well if you thought this blog is about typing a certain search string in Google and then have a gag over the results, you may or may not be correct. Well continuing my binge of internet surfing and reading abstract and any article let me to this link. This is what it has to say, something that will excite you to read the whole 55 Funs and my blog as well.

Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped has released the full PDF of his wonderful book, 55 Ways to Have Fun With Google at 55fun.com.
You probably use Google everyday, but do you know… the Google Snake Game? Googledromes? Memecodes? Googlesport? The Google Calculator? Googlepark and Google Weddings? Google hacking, fighting and rhyming? In this book, you’ll find Google-related games, cartoons, oddities, tips, stories and everything else that’s fun. Reading it, you won’t be the same searcher as before!

• Well to put it some of them may be the ones you must have surely tried for sure like EgoGooglism (searching for your name with qualifiers or supporting verbs added to it and then laughing and smirking over the results).

• There are others at which you may not be successful at all even during your entire lifetime- what could such a thing be, well try Googlewhacking.

• Then there is the Google Image Quiz all the software engineers who keenly read forwards must have taken it. Check it out here. Then there is Google Irritation Quiz

• Still not sure what are Google Labs, Google X, Google Local, Google Scholar, Froogle?? Check the free PDF out, it has all the answers and not in a boring discursive style but rapid-fire kind of answers.

• The masti @ Google may seem something utterly poor sense of humour but try more and it may seem so funny. Try celebrating non-weddings between two people. Try certain other games that are fun @ parties like Google Rebus or Google Image Storyteller. I just tried the phrase, “the best way to kill Alice is to keep someone alive” and broke into a hysterical laughter. Hope could capture it put it up on youtube for all you folks. (Update: the result is always the same i.e. same pictures so check the result for yourself)

• Well design your own house using Sketch-Up and mail it to him and your creation might appear here.

• Then there are a couple of tips that a random net freak individual may already know. There are advanced searches in Google to make the search smarter. If you haven’t discovered it find it here, here and here.

• Finally if you are really freaky enough, read the document and do care to peep in Fun no. 29, (Alien attacks Google), Fun no. 30 (top ten signs you are addicted to Google), Fun no. 31(Dig Through Earth), Fun no. 42( an amazing incident that gives you a first hand a/c of the power of internet and finally the role of Google in such a wild area-Read Josh’s experiences)

• Finally you get to know certain jargons (knowing which is like coming out of ignorance… I never thought that such words existed at all) such as Googlewhack, Google Bombing/Googlewash, Googlepolls, Googlefights, Google Juice, 302 Google Jacking and Google economy. Some of the terms are real fun to learn about while others are scholastic to learn about.

• Oops !! How can an amazing topic like this not end with kid games, well try some kiddish games with Google images, Google translation (the fun part here is something that you get in “Chinese whisper”game)

Finally I do really believe that after reading this I am a changed Googler, how about you???