If you want nutrition ...... ....read on..

There is a store on State Street in Madison, WI. Its called "Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream" Est. 1962, it boasts of "Genuine Super-Premium Wisconsin Goodness".

In the four years that I was in Wisconsin, I might have gone to that store a dozen times. Even though they give generous quantities of ice cream for a couple bucks (very typical in Wisconsin) and eating it used to make me feel terribly guilty for a week thence, I could never resist it. Ice cream was yumm!

Their ice cream was so heavenly that the only thing that beat it, was it's Nutritional Information. This is what it reads:

Disclosure : The following content is taken from one of their ice cream cups which I carefully washed and preserved after I devoured its contents and got a couple with me all the way from Wisconsin to California when I moved, and plan to take them with me wherever life takes me next. Full copyrights to "Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream". It is true to every word on that cup, including the formatting in bold.



Nutritional Information:

Don't even ask. This is the best ice cream made in Wisconsin, and it tastes so good because it has gobs of rich Wisconsin cream, tons of real ingredients for boat-loads of luscious flavors. That means it's not low-fat, low-calorie or low-anything, and that's why everyone loves it.

You want nutrition, eat carrots.


Ha ha ha!!!

Wholesome (maybe not so much ;) ) fun!!

I have been postponing writing this blog for a long time. It is about a release party we had half-a-year ago and how it all ended.

At the release party, the admin's idea was to play water balloon. So she got a bunch, and also a pump to match. The party was on an open space in the campus and was meant to be strictly (ahem!) outdoorsy.

Thus happened that everyone ate so much (what do you expect when you have samosas and spinach puffs!?) and fell to just talking, no one was motivated enough to play anything. Some went off to play Volleyball, some to play Frisbee. I played Frisbee, but the thought of those water balloons going waste was killing me. Sigh!

So even though the pump idea didn't work, I actually walked into the cafeteria ahead and filled some balloons with water from the faucet in the coffee shop's kitchen. (Needless to say, I made a mess, and since it was their closing time, I also cleaned it up). Then I came out and picked a colleague who was least likely to thrash me and hit him hard with the balloon. And the game caught on with soon everyone filling tens of balloons and eventually whatever they found, tubs, bottles, mugs etc. Not going into gory details like senior managers hitting their managers, (essentially the director of engineering;) ) I will only say that the outdoor fun ended with one of the senior managers being chased around the fountain and drenched head to toe with a whole tub of (dirty) water, from the fountain;)

Now in all this melee, my own manager escaped. He is a quick runner and we just couldn't catch him. We followed him around all the bushes but he kept getting away, after a while we saw him comfortably perched on the third floor of the building to the right of this pandemonium. We gave up on him, hopeless!

We walked back to our building through the cafeteria with another manager ahead of us. But what is this? He was dry? No, no no no no, not to be borne! So we talked and walked with him till we crossed the cafeteria and came out on the link to our building. Then hit him with one of the balloons we were saving up to go back and target my quick boss. Sorry! Can't see you like this;)

Then we went up, saw our boss locked cozy in his office, tried a lot to get him out, but no, he wouldn't. We proooooooooooomised that we didn't have any water, we had an important issue to talk about BLA. BLA. BLA. No use!

Then he said something. What did we hear? "I already had water poured on me!! Cold water!! Please, no more water!!" And how is that possible??

Turns out that one of my colleagues who had a meeting with him, went in for the meeting, and the dialogue ensued thus: (Disclaimer: I have stayed as true as possible to this narration)

Manager: Hi
Colleague: Hi
Manager: So how is everything?
Colleague: Do you want to save anything on your desk?
Manager: (Now perplexed) No?!?! Why?
Colleague:(Opens a cold bottle of water he got fresh from the refrigerator and pours it on top of manager's head)
Manager:Oh my God!!!!

All of us: Ha ha ha ha ha (after listening to this narration from him;) )

Actually now it reminds me, this happened almost a year back, not even half a year, maybe 10 months! Boy! That was hilarious. We were narrating this to another colleague who was in Germany at the time (watching Italy beat everyone in soccer) and he was so upset that he missed it. What soccer game can provide such entertainment?

None indeed!

The funniest class in JNTU (3/4?)

I was writing the other day about the back-bench days at JNTU, and I HAD to write about this one:) I don't remember if it was in my third year of engneering or not, so the question mark in the title;)

We had this new lecturer for one of the courses (actually I don't remember which) and he was replacing someone who had left or fallen ill or gotten pregnant or some such thing. On the first day of class he walks in with hid head held high and chest swollen;) A very rare sight for the eyes of the students. But they were not ones to behold this new sight, they wanted the familiar gait and so they started to wait for an opportunity to kill his confidence:D

This opportunity, we got to know, was not hard to come by, nor did we have to wait long for it. As soon as this guy walked in with his condescending air, he started telling us about how useless students these days were etc etc etc. And he wanted to get himself well acquainted with us, so he started with saying that all of us (yeah, the whole 50 in the class, I wonder why we had complete attendance that day, a very unusual sight) should introduce ourselves one-by-one giving our names and our aim (Yeah, most of us even the ones in the first bench didn't initially understand what he was saying, aim??). He re-explained what his intentions were and so we started the drill.

I won't go too much into what everyone said except for that whoever said "GRE" got abused for being non-patriotic, including me, and whoever said "GATE" were praised to the skies, so much so that after the first few GATEs the GREs also started turning to GATEs just to avoid the long interjecting lectures in between every consecutive 5 GREs;)

Then the turn came of our "Famous Six". Yeah we had our own. Rajiv, Trilok, Vijay Mohan, Vishwanatha Raju, Kiran and Sriram. I think VM and VR were missing, I don't quite remember and Sriram was sitting with me, so the rest of the gang, Trilok, Rajiv and Kiran were next in line.

When their turn came, all the three of them stood up together (Yeah you had to STAND UP and answer:D). This confused this poor guy (lets call him PG from now on, I feel so much pity on him) so much, that he faltered and said, no only one-at-a-time. To which our heroes answered "No sire, we all have the same aim". Then this PG got even more confused. Let me summarize the ensuing dialogue in play form.

Prelogue: Rajiv was (actually he always did) wearing a cap.

PG: (Very very confused at this point) Even if you have same aim, you should answer one-at-a-time.
Rajiv: No Sir, we are all together, we go together.
PG: (Still confused) Ok what is your aim.
All in chorus: TO FORM A ROCK BAND SIRE!!!!!!!
PG: (Totally aghast at such an aim) What!! Why a rock band?
All: Because we like rock music sir.
PG: So what will you do for a living (assuming their rock band will be an utter failure)
Rajiv: We have our parents no sire!
PG: (again aghast) What? You have no shame?
Rajiv: No sir!
PG: Then why are you studying engineering, wasting your parents money?????????!?!?!?!
Rajiv: They know that we want to form a rock band sir
PG: (Now totally shocked beyond imagination) You should remove your cap, then you will be of some use, you will become someone in life.
Rajiv: No sir, I won't remove my cap.
PG: (Doesn't know what to do now) Ok, you will all burn in hell;)

That last part was an exaggeration, but his expression was enough to convey that. In some other class, when we were all having our Hindu crossword and Juke Box session in the back bench during one of his classes, this was some other dialogue:

Prelogue: Rajiv had written a rock song which went "I cry for you, cry for you, cry for you" and I was commenting on it, when PG started speaking:

Rajiv: Sir we cannot hear sir!
PG: If you take off your cap you will hear ( ;) )
Rajiv: What is the connection between cap and hearing sir, I don't know.
PG: If you take off your cap you will know.
Rajiv: (In mutters to me) Pichaasupatriki velli choopinchukovali. (Should go and get checked into a mental hospital)
PG: You should go to the mental hospital (Uh, Oh he seemed to have heard).
Rajiv: I don't know how to go there sir.
PG: I will take you.
Rajiv: Ohh you already went there sir? How is it? ;)
PG: You will go to hell! You will defintely go to hell. (Ahh, he finally said it).

So that was it. We troubled this guy sooooo much, that after 3-4 classes, he stopped coming to the lectures altogether, giving some excuse or such. Which was good riddance to bad rubbish anyway, he was never a good lecturer, didn't know his subject matter, we could teach him any day, and he was also utterly full of himself.

I later discovered, he was my aunt's husbands brother :( They were asking me one day if I knew him. And that he started teaching at JNTU recently. I was like, uh, well, ah, yeah I think I know him and have seen him sometimes;)

What else can we say:D