Thought Crimes

Every day, as I wake up closer to 12 than to 8, I find myself in quandary. The subject and cause for many a sleepless night is the course of action to be followed regarding the friend suggestion sent to me regarding one of my many n-removed uncles residing in some corner of a foreign field. To accept or to ignore is the question. Hamlet, it is said, used to ask himself something similar. The uncle in question would probably go into raptures if he had the remotest idea that such a great amount of thought was being spent on him. This would, of course, be after he'd asked, "Lefty who?" but he would still be very flattered. I'm not very sure if we exchanged more than the usual "you've grown so tall" last time we met. It's easy for the older generations- all pipsqueaks will, by the laws of nature, grow into something slightly or substantially more than pipsqueaks depending on many a factor, most of which can be found in medical journals. The pipsqueak can however only risk responding with "and you've grown so wide" if the aged relative in question has shown a propensity to reward impertinence with confectionary or it's One Tight Slap.

Having put-off the monumental decision to the ever-obliging Later, I hungrily scroll down my facebook homepage for anything that can make me spend more than 30 seconds on it. The updates are the usual. New FB joinee nee dumb blonde at school has posted a video that I saw when I was about 8. The dumb blonde component has ensured 20 likes and an equivalent number of "Too good, must not miss" and the ever-hopefuls "when you coming to NCR? Let's meet up this time". A cousin, who I believe turned 2 recently (or it might be 5, but what's the difference), has a status message proclaiming his dislike for homework, his teacher, vowels and punctuation. His equally itsy-bitsy friends have responded with a generous smattering of dudes, awsms and !s. The attractive part of my friend list, yet to reach double digits, has not uploaded any pictures. The part of my friend list with access to attractive friend lists, which has reached double digits, has posted but most of them feature the non-attractive part more prominently than I'd like.

A ctrl-t and soccernet.com later, I find that Murphy's insistence on dogging my footsteps has meant that instead of taking in tasty tidbits on the likes of Benitez, Mourinho and something or the other on the Premiership, I am forced to glance through Cory Evans' reaction on scoring his first for Northern Island as they beat some other unimportant European country and drab details of other equally drab results. There is no need to check the fantasy league either. There go a happy 30 minutes. Scott at the Republik, however, is far from a disappointment. There is an entry showing the scousers to be hypocrites, the blue-noses to be pimps and the rest-that-should-matter-but-don't to be scum and I'm smiling again.

Just then, wonder of wonders happens. A ping. A look at the pinger tells me that it is one of those I-need-this-info-from-you pings but social norms dictate pointless chit-chat and forced banter. Had this been Sajji or someone, and I knew what they needed me to tell them, the chat would have been me saying "first turn to the right, second to the left" after his hi and then both of us would have recorded this as yet another instance of talent*. But it's not Sajji so the conversation proceeds along these lines:

Random guy: Hey

Me: Hey

Random guy: What's up?

Me: Not much. Was just wiki'ing some random articles. Did you know that in early hunting techniques, hunters would make noise around the tree in an attempt to flush out the game and make hunting easier?

Random guy: Ok, so?

Me: This gave rise to the phrase, beat around the bush. But you were saying…

Random guy: Oh cool. You wiki and all regularly, huh and keep yourself updated?

Me: Umm, yes.

And this is followed by a frantic visit to cricinfo to learn the latest of the perennial Paksitani scandal and then give 'informed' opinions on how the truth is Butt, obvious. Some more formalities are observed and we do, later rather than sooner, get to the point.

Random guy: … and so I must go. We should catch up again. Take care.

Me: Tata

The moronic lot has insisted on observing a blogger's menopause. I'm actually reduced to checking if there are any new comments and/or replies to the wisecracks I'd put in earlier comments. But then, I guess it is expecting too much to expect a post/comment every 2 hours, PTV or no PTV.

Despite knowing that one doesn't need to, I've clicked on inbox at least 5 times in the past 15 minutes yet there's no new mail to which immediate replies can be sent and the whole process repeated. The welcoming green dot and the more-true-than-you-can-imagine available written next to my profile notwithstanding, incoming pings have also dried up. The usual suspects have decided to stay invisible rather than be greeted by my daily what, hos?

Ah, what's this? Inbox(1)? Excited to the point of hyperventilating, I click on the inviting tab. And it's yet another alert from one of those many obscenely-paying companies to which I hope to someday apply to and have my application diligently perused by a Savile row-donning, Porsche-driving, jetsetting Wall Street corporate honcho before he chucks it aside to rave about the resume of the next guy who's a 9.xx B.Tech- CSE, AIR 100-something. The alert is opened, no sense made of it and it joins those of its kind and under the rapidly-burgeoning label.

I go back to facebook. The 1 friend suggestion continues to haunt me.

I really could do with more of these days.