(A few moments later)

Thomas: You, sir, are a buffoon.
Hartford: You, sir, are an ape.

(More insults)

Thomas: You are a cunt!
Hartford: You are a dick!

Richard: No, that would be me.

(The names in this conversation have been changed to protect the identities of the idiots involved. Sigh.)

(Image found here. Copyright Unknown)

“Did you know that our staple food is also our currency?” Andy said as he took a big bite of his Big Mac.

I knew, by now, not to say anything for, or against the matter–he’d propound one of his bizarre theories no matter what I thought. Resigning myself mentally for what was to to come, I silently sighed and took a bite out of my Big Mac myself.

“In the Early Times, the currencies of the world were valued on the amount of gold possessed by each country,” he began his ‘impromptu’ lecture.

“Country?”

“Geographical divisions, each with an independent political system,” he explained.

“Sssh! Not so loud!” I hissed. “You can’t use the i-word that freely, dude! You know that!” I whisper-yelled at him, my eyes darting around the canteen to see if anyone had heard his stupid gaffe. Thankfully, most heads were buried in their own, personal Macs – the edible kinds. Assured that we were safe, I closed my eyes in a silent prayer of thanks. Andy, meanwhile, continued his chomping like nothing was wrong.

I swear I feel like strangling him sometimes–but then, I’d be alone for lunch.

“The gold standard was quite effective until one of the countries–”
“Count-tries?”
“Plural of country, an in–”
“Sssh! I get it!” I hissed again, interrupting him before he could carelessly spit the i-word like an offending piece of lettuce stuck between his yellow teeth.

“–one of the countries raked up a debt that was twice its annual income,” he continued, oblivious to my nervous twitches. I was following him more closely–not because I was interested but because I was worried that he might say something stupid.

Then again, what he was saying was beginning to make sense, but I’d rather die than admit it to him. He already had a head that was two sizes too big for his shoulders.

“This country, they just kept adding to their debt until the day came when there was no more debt to be accrued–simply because there was no more money! They couldn’t sell their gold either because they had borrowed all the money there was, leaving not just themselves but the whole world in debt!”

“That doesn’t sound logical at all. If one of them was in debt, someone was owed, right? They could simply foreclose on them, right?”

“True, but the debt also accrued interest over time and this went above and beyond the capital holdings. In a world of money, it doesn’t take too many digits for things to go wrong,” he picked up a fried potato stick and stared at it. “Did you know, these were called French fries?”

“French?” I asked, demonstrating my ignorance again. “French, as in, of or belonging to France, a country from the Early Days,” he lectured tonelessly. Mt ears perked up at the mention of the word ‘country’. Fortunately, the side-discussion-slash-footnote had ended there. The main discussion, however, continued.

“What they realized was, the value of their money was based on the value they attributed to their gold. Gold, back then, was a very precious commodity,” he said slurping his Liquid Happiness.

I found it somewhat ironic that he was expounding the preciousness of gold while drinking through a straw, out of a cup–both of which were made of the very same metal. He must have caught the irony in my look because he hurriedly added, “Of course, this was Early Days – way before the Martian deposits were found.”

“Gold was valued differently by different countries – some flaunted kilos of it on their person and others stored huge blocks in underground safes.”

“So? What difference does that make?”

“A world of difference, apparently. Since gold was valued so differently, the costs were also quite different.”

“You’re not making any sense, you know that, right? Also, what does this discussion have to do with this?” I said pointing at my Big Mac – the object that started the discussion in the first place.

“To answer your questions: a. Let me explain and b. I’m coming to that,” he said coolly, eliciting another silent sigh from yours truly. I nodded and the ‘lecture’ continued.

“Look at this glass,” he said, lifting up his glass of Liquid Happiness. “How much do you think it costs?”
“I dunno. They probably buy it wholesale–a whole bunch of them for a Beem, I’d say.”
“True. Yet, if this glass were to be the glass that your partner had her Liquid Happiness in, during your first courtship period, how much would you pay for it?”
“Ah, in that case, it’d probably be worth a lot more!” I nodded in agreement.
“Similarly, the cost of gold was always offset with the value attributed to the gold. Countries where gold wasn’t available but had a higher value – sentimental or otherwise – usually sold gold at a marginally higher price, the marginal difference being that of the offset, of course.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Yet, that is how it was in the Early Days.”
“I can see why the whole thing fell apart. It was fundamentally flawed from the very beginning!”
“Exactly! Somewhere, during the end of the Early Days, a young tyke of a newspaper reporter wrote about how the same food item was priced differently in different countries.”
“There were more than two countries?”
“More than two hundred, if my memory serves me correctly.”
“Whoosh!”
“Anyway, it was only supposed to be a humorous piece describing the disparity in the valuation of currencies–the disparity occurring because they used gold as a standard baseline.”

He slurped the last remnants of his Liquid Happiness and threw the cup and straw into the Recyclable Disposal Unit. I did the same with mine.

“One of the countries seized on the opportunity to stage a revolt against the gold standard baseline. They dissociated themselves with the rest of the world, privately abolished the gold standard and adopted the food item mentioned in the news-piece as their currency standard. It was initially meant as a joke but the idea took off and soon it became a norm. They even nationalized the chain that was responsible for producing the food item. Come to think of it, they did that–the nationalizing, I mean–with a lot of things during that time.”
“Lemme guess, the food item in question was the Big Mac?”
“Hence the name Beem; its just a shortened version of the name – Big Mac.”
“Funny story.”
“Yup. What started as a joke became the foundation for the unification of the world. Countries all over the world were anyway frustrated with the gold standard. They saw the Beem as a release from the financial clutches of the debt-ridden ‘super-powers’ and almost immediately followed suit. The Beem spread like a wyld-fire.”

I could see he was on fire himself. Figuratively speaking, of course. Then again, I was too engrossed in his story, by now, to care.

“Not long after that, one of the space missions revealed that huge deposits of gold-per were found underneath Mt. Olympus on Mars. Some believed that it was a last-ditch effort by the gold-standard consortium to bring back the old standard. They even came up with a smart punchline to sell the idea: ‘Old is Gold’ or something like that.”
“I like that.”
“Yeah, it was good but not as good as the retaliation by the Federation of Beem-standard Countries. They simply reversed the phrase.”
“Gold is Old?”
“Yup.”
“Heh. Smart AND funny. I like it better!”
“Exactly what the rest of the world thought. Moreover, the discovery of the gold-deposits eventually worked against the gold-standard.”
“What? How?”
“More gold meant less demand, hence–’
“–less value. I see it. Simple demand and supply theory.”
“Economics 101,” he said and lifted his gold tray to discard it to the Reusables counter, thus making an emphatic point – if there ever was one.

#

I wrote this after I read a piece about how the price of a Big Mac was different in different countries. I wondered whether the Big Mac would make a good currency standard and started writing. Feels incomplete, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because most of it is hogwash anyway and I didn’t really want to put my entire ignorance on display – at least some of it should remain hidden, right? ;)

In other news, I am doing the NaNoWriMo again this year but the discipline from last year is missing – my current word count is a measly 2678 words. I hope to do a word-sprint (word-marathon-run?) this Sunday and cover about 9 times that number. I’ll hopefully be up to 25000+ words next week.

Wish me luck. :)

Baba was born into a family which was quite poor. They were so poor that the only birthdays they celebrated were when they were born. Obviously, none of them remembered any of it. In fact, they were deemed socially poor BECAUSE they were economically poor and that bothered Baba a lot.

However, that did not deter Baba from wanting to get educated. He studied wherever he could – under the street lights, in the midst of a noisy crowd. All he needed was a little bit of time & a little bit of space. Such was his thirst for knowledge. And it paid ample dividends.

Baba became one of the most well-read, well-educated & well-respected people in the country.

He went on to write a very important book. The book was so important that it was read by everyone, everywhere in the country and referred to at all times. They referred to it when the country was at war, they referred to it when the country was at peace. They referred to it when the country needed guidance, they referred to it when the country didn’t need it at all!

They first referred to it when the rulers of the country changed & have been referring to it ever since…

One very important part of the book that Baba wrote involved a series of statements that went like this:

• To become socially rich, one must become economically rich.
• To become economically rich, one must be backed by the socially rich.
• The only way to break this vicious circle is by ‘booking’.

The ‘booking’ concept was quite radical. You book certain seats in the socially rich section for the socially poor & help them become economically rich and thus, socially rich. Once enough among the socially poor become socially rich (ergo economically rich) you stop these ‘bookings’ & let things go back to their previous state of affairs.

Baba was quite happy with this state of affairs & believed that the entire ‘reductio ad absurdum’ would now mean that nobody would be socially poor!

But where there’s a flight, there are hijackers waiting to usurp control.

This radical concept of ‘bookings’ was clearly a flight of fancy & hence it was duly hijacked & redirected on a direct collision course towards the twin towers of Equality & Justice. And that’s how both of them crashed to the ground.

Thus, as a direct result of the bookings, the socially poor got economically richer, the economically rich got socially richer & the socially rich weren’t the least bit bothered – since it was no skin off their nose, anyway.

One eventful result of this radical bit of thinking was that it earned Baba a lot of followers – some even crossed the line to become his ‘disciples’! His teachings weren’t exclusive but they took the plunge anyway. His disciples ensured that Baba was accorded the respect he always deserved wherever he went – not that anybody wasn’t willing to give it – but they went ahead and stamped their authority anyway; for want of better things to do in life.

Had Baba known, he would certainly be offended about it. But he was long dead by the time this happened. Dead people take no offense, you see, so all was well with the world.

The disciples sang his praises, erected shrines for him, celebrated his birthday year-after-year – they did everything he had always wanted to do, but couldn’t do for various reasons. There wasn’t a handbook to follow per se, but in retrospect, they thought they had managed it quite efficiently & they happily went about patting their backs.

And so it came to be that the boy named Baba, who had NEVER seen a birthday cake in his life, saw his birthday being celebrated with huge processions from point A to point B, with ‘walls’ of loudspeakers blaring the latest popular hits – all done with the sole purpose of ‘ keeping his memory alive’.

- The End -

PS: A few people wondered whether memory & loud-speakers were really connected. Extensive research was conducted into the correlation between memory & loud-speakers, but nobody was able to come up with a satisfactory explanation. Also, it made the disciples unhappy & the subject was dropped anon, without any further explanation.

—
Disclaimer: The fictional nature of this post is directly proportional to the readers’ inclination towards irrational fundamentalism. Cheers.

The people of Small Nook
(Weird looking people, those!)
They wrote in the Big Book
Sonnets & essays, poetry & prose.

One among them,
Was V. Tiny Tot.
He didn’t write much,
Just scribbled a lot.

In all the land of Book,
To write was to score!
You were a schnook
If you didn’t write anymore!

So they gathered around in a council
Decided to set the record straight,
Threatened V. Tiny Tot with a big, fat bill,
And dire consequences to his fate!

Pretty satisfied with that,
They all went back!
And they hoped it would get
V. Tiny Tot properly on track!

What they didn’t realize was this:
V. Tiny Tot’s aberration wasn’t ad-hoc,
That he didn’t write was no fault of his!
After all, he lived in Writers’ Block!
—

Another poem. For obvious reasons – heh heh!

:D

(This confusion of pronouns is really getting to me now.)

“What makes you think there’s only one of us??”
“What? Look, there’s only one…”

And then it struck me.

“You mean – ”
The sly smile again.
“But – ”
The sly smile widened a little.
“Look – ”
The sly smile was now a grin.
“Oh, wipe that silly grin off your face!!”
The grin disappeared. Literally.
“I didn’t mean that!! Get it back. GET IT BACK!!”

The grin came back. Literally.

“But how?”
“Let’s just say we’ve evolved a little longer than you have.”
That was news. If there are super-evolved sentient beings who can change appearances – and do it on a whim – then, it meant…

“No. We don’t.”
“Wha- How? Did you -”
“No, we can’t read minds, yet.”

I heaved a sigh of relief. And then the processing yielded the obvious question.

“Yet? You mean…”
“Well, we can read faces. As much as you can. Basic mentalics, you know…”
“Oh.”

There was a silence. I wouldn’t call it uncomfortable, because one of me was still smiling. And it wasn’t me. I (the real me) did not know how to break it.

‘What the heck,’ I said to myself (the inner self, not the outer DNA-replicating-impostor, please) ‘let me try, anyway.”

I cleared my throat.

“So let me get this right. You are super-evolved sentient beings who can replicate whatever basic building blocks of life, simply by coming into contact with them. And yet, you accost me in this dark alley like a thug and scare the wits out of me. May I ask this simple question: What do you want from us?”

“Us?”

“I meant humanity. I think I speak for all humanity. You wouldn’t be able to understand us if we spoke all at once anyway.”

“Well, nothing.”

Nothing? NOTHING?? All this scaring, and displaying of power, and DNA-based replication capability for nothing?

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“But you must want something! World Peace! Galactic War! Inter-planetary Trade! Something!”

“Well, we carry our world with us, and we’re at peace. So that takes World Peace out. The next Galactic war isn’t due until a while – strike that, too. And inter-planetary trade – we don’t need it. We derive our energy from the Parent-star. You guys don’t seem to be using yours, anyway.”

“Yeah, we’re still trying to figure that one out.”
“It’s quite simple, really. You see-”
“I SAID, WE’RE TRYING!!”
“Okay!”

Silence.

How do you sustain conversation with (a) super-evolved sentient being/s with instant-replication capability and a desire for nothing? Simple answer: You can’t. Elaborate answer: You try, but you still can’t.

“Okay, if you want nothing, I might as well leave. No point in me hanging around, right? Toodle-doo, pip-pip!” And I started to move.

“Wait!”
“What?”
“Don’t you want anything?”
“Me? I want world peace – can you give me that?”
The other me opened my mouth to answer.
“No wait. Wrong choice of question. Discard that.”
The open mouth quickly closed shut.
“You can give me anything?”
“Well, almost anything.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Free?”
“Well…”
“Ah, I knew it!! There had to be a price!! Everything has a price! There’s no such thing as a free lunch!”
“Actually…”
“Name your price! I won’t disclose what I want until you name your price! NAME IT!!”
“We’ve already taken. We’re here to give.”
“Huh? What? How? When?”
“You needn’t worry about that. You’ll never even notice what we’ve taken. Clearly, you didn’t notice it when was there…”

I was puzzled by that intriguing statement, but I was also exhilarated by the choices made available by that statement. I had the power to make a decision that was usually the honor of the privileged few.

“Wait a second, why do I get to make the choice? Shouldn’t you be talking to someone else? Someone in power? Like the President, maybe? Or Hugh Hefner?”

“No.”

“Just ‘No’? No further explanations?”

“No.”

So that meant I also had to be responsible with my choices. Damn!

“Okay, can you give me some time?”
“Is that what you want?”
“NO! NO! I meant, I want to think before I make my choice!”
“Oh, okay!”

Phew. Close call.

I quickly formed a list of what I needed the most. A sweet girlfriend, a secure job, a fat pay-cheque, a cozy home, and a great retiring pension. Kinda selfish, ain’t it? It suddenly hit me that whatever I would ask for, would leave a long-lasting impression on – not just me, but – the entire of mankind. Like, the huge-leap-and-not-small-step kind of an impression. I would have to be R-E-A-L careful…

World Peace, then? Nope. Too abstract.
Scientific Progress? Can’t hand it on a platter…
Smarter Politicians? Erm…
Upgraded Sensibilities? Eradication of Poverty? Peaceful International Relations? Humanitarian Beliefs? Utopia? Asking for one of them meant forgoing the others.

A whirlwind of thoughts buzzed through my head. I couldn’t settle on anything. Each option seemed equally favorable, and all options seemed equally necessary.

It didn’t help that I was standing in front of my favorite Pizza place. I could easily have asked for an order of my favorite pizza with my favorite toppings – and gotten it.

And, then it struck me – clear as day. It had to be THE choice.

I simply looked at me. Basic mentalics did the rest.

I (the-impostor-me) looked puzzled at first and then I (the-impostor-me) smiled.

“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I guess…”

“Well, that is indeed unique. But if that is your choice, so be it,” the impostor-me said and smiled. I smiled in return. And, with that, the impostor-me vanished. Disintegrated. Disappeared, in a puff of smoke.

I could see the sign on the door of my favorite Pizza place. The sign that had helped me save the world.

The sign that simply said:

“Thank you! Visit again!”

*******
Ta-Da!! I FINISHED IT!!

I know it’s not good at all. I have been out of touch, I guess…

Thanks for being patient. :)

*****

It was me.

No, no. I mean I was standing here and then I was standing there. And I hadn’t even moved. Which meant there were two of me. Here was me and then another me.

Puzzled, confounded, confused, and all the synonyms lent themselves to immediate reference. But none found their way to provide the adequate and corresponding exercise to the tongue. And that was indeed novel for me.

And then I spoke.

Actually the other me spoke.

“Please don’t freak out. This is the best we can do. You are the only subject we have encountered so far. We can only replicate your DNA.”

DNA? Replicate? I did the puzzled-and-its-synonyms act all over again.

“Yes, your DNA.You see, we don’t have a shape of our own. We utilize the basic building block of any sentient being and construct a parallel model based on that building block – which in your case we analyzed and found it to be De-Oxy Ribo-nucleic Acid or DNA. In fact, we are forced to admit, we are a little surprised and confused.”

I (the real me) realized that keeping my mouth shut was actually working.

So I continued to do that.

“Actually, we did not anticipate to create an identical model. We just assumed that there would be mutations automatically. But, it seems that your building blocks are coded quite specifically. Hence we can retain our mental abilities, but we must conform to whatever physical aspects YOUR building blocks dictate.”

Things were getting clearer. I knew I had to take a stand and I had to do it fast.

“Alright, genetics class over. Could you please go back to being humanoids or whatever it was that you were? I am not exactly comfortable with the status-quo, you know?”

I could see puzzlement on my face – I mean – my clone’s face.

(Yeah, what else do I call that thing??)

“But, I thought you wanted to see what we looked like!”

“Hey, humanoid – or whatever it is that you are – we know one thing for sure. You don’t look like me. You CAN’T look like me. Period. I am me, and I am unique.”

“Interesting. You have an ego!”

“Yeah, I also have a fist. And I also have this sudden itch to punch myself squarely in the face and see myself while I do that. And something tells me you will be an unwilling participant…”

“We detect violence and anger.”

“Yeah. And you’ll detect lots of blood too, if you don’t stop the nonsense. Especially the usage of the first person plural! I mean, I know you are from another planet and all, but I don’t see more than one of you. So, use I, not we!!”

I saw a sly smile on my face.

(To Be Concluded)

*****
Yeah, time to finish it off. Am pretty much sure of what the end should be, but I’m waiting to see if I can think of something better.

And I did want to post this earlier, but chose not to do so. (Sorry Navneet…)

Mumbai 26/11 shook me. Quite badly, I must add…

Peace y’all…

PS: The Pune microsite of Radio Mirchi has launched. I write a li’l more regularly (thanks to a corporate dictat) on that blog of mine. But it’s also a lot more pretentious, truth be told.

Beware! You have been warned! :)

Check it out: http://www.radiomirchi.com

I must have hardly taken a few steps, when I heard the same wheezy, “Excuse me?”

“Yes?” I noticed that my voice came out an octave higher, what was commonly called a squeak.

“We detect fear. Are you a-fear?”

“Afraid. The word is afraid,” my TA instincts took over, “And the answer is yes. I don’t talk to disembodied voices everyday, you know!!”

“No, no! You have gotten us all wrong. We are not dis-whatever-ied. We are humanoid voices!”

“Humanoid?”

This seemed somewhat familiar – thanks to all the sci-fi novels I’d devoured. And familiar territory always helps calm jangled nerves. I silently thanked all the Asimovs and Clarkes for being there.

“Yes. We possess shape-shifting capabilities. We look and sound very human. You will never recognise the difference.”

“Well, in that case, how about giving me a demonstration?”

“Demonstration? How is that?”

“No, you don’t have to appeal for a wicket. Just come out of the shadows and say a simple ‘Hi’ or whatever it is that you Humanoids say by way of civilized greeting.”

“Greeting?”

“Yeah, greeting! You know the random things you say when you meet someone for the first time??”

“Oh those! But we did greet you the first time, in the exact Earth custom of the humans, didn’t we?”

“You did??”

“Yes we did! We said ‘Excuse me!’ like all the other Earthlings!”

Earthlings? EARTHLINGS?? That meant…

“Listen! What do you mean by Earthlings? What planet are you from? And why don’t you show yourself, whoever or whatever you are??”

The entire exercise was getting a little frustrating. Also, the realization had dawned upon me, that the direction the entire exercise was taking, any attempts at channel-surfing the telly and that cup of hot coffee would have to wait another day. And that exactly, was what was frustrating about the entire exercise.

“Well, we can’t tell you where we are from. But we can show ourselves, provided you promise NOT to – how do you say it – free-caught?”

“FREAK OUT, you mean.” TA instincts again. “Yeah, I promise.”

Before we continue to the exciting part that follows, I must mention that this silly habit of mine, of going ahead and promising has landed me in trouble many a time. And I am not referring only to the more aesthetic samples of the female species. I mean the whole concept of saying the stupid phrase, in general.

Just as I did in the paragraph earlier to the explanation.

I wasn’t really ready for what I saw.

In my defense, I’d say, no one could have anticipated what I saw, let alone prepared for it.. And though I had been amply fore-warned, the scream that left my throat could easily have earned me one of the top 3 spots on the list of THE Ten Scariest Blood-Curdling Screams of All Time.
*****
To Be Concluded.
—–
No. Honest. I have had enough of not finishing stories. So I am gonna CONCLUDE this one with the next post. :)

Missed ya, all! :P

No, really. I did.

It happened like this.

I was on my way home after a long day’s work. And I was really looking forward to some R & R, mindless channel surfing on the telly coupled with a hot cup of coffee and jelly-filled cream biscuits…

Along the way I was cogitating – thinking, that is – about the problem I had left half-solved on my lab desk.

The solution to it was just around the proverbial corner. Except, the proverbial corner was not in proverbial sight, far as the proverbial eye could see.

Too many proverbial what-have-yous spoiling the proverbial whats-it-called.

Engrossed in my thoughts thus, I was traversing my daily route, almost robotically, when I heard a wheezy, “Excuse me?”

I stopped to see who it was that the voice addressed.

Oddly, there was no one around. That meant only one thing – I was the one being addressed. And if I was the only person in that place, then the voice that was addressing me must be devoid of a body to go with it.

Certain paranormal and supernatural entities immediately lent themselves to reason. However, the brain decided to do a little more of the Sherlock exercise before jumping to finalities.

The part of the city I had reached in my perambulations was what one would call partially deserted. Partially, because it was architecturally bestowed, but the architectural efforts had never seem a human complement.

As I stood there pondering about my next move, I heard the same wheezy voice, and the same words, “Excuse me?”

Thoroughly confused, I said the first words that came to my mind, “Yes? How may I help you?”

That is what a Teaching Assistant’s job does to you.

“Erm, thank you for your kind assistance. You see, we are slightly lost…”

A weird thought crossed my mind. Talking to voices was exactly like teaching in a classroom full of sleeping students. They are there, but not THERE.

“Oh, ok! Go straight down the road, take the second left and the first right at the traffic signal, you’ll reach the Train station. Hard to miss.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you, but that’s where we just came from.”

“Ooops sorry, kinda jumped the gun!” I said grinning away to no one in particular.

No one in particular.

No one in…

No one.

That’s when the thought actually hit me in its entirety.

“Hey, wait a minute! Who am I talking to?”

Silence.

“Hello? Are you there?”

Silence.

I could have sworn a voice just spoke to me and said that they were slightly lost.

THEY??!!

Beads of sweat were beginning to form on my forehead, as the gravity of the situation came crashing down on me.

Very slowly, I started to back out, throwing occasional glances all around, trying to ascertain if the voice-without-a-body was just that, or if it had other surprises in store, hidden away somewhere.

I must have hardly taken a few steps, when I heard the same wheezy, “Excuse me?”

To be continued…

*****

I know you hate those three words by now. But I LOVE them…

*Evil Grin*

Those of you who have seen it, know what I am talking about. Those who haven’t, follow this link and read this.

Technorati Tags: Xoogler, Google, Dilbert

powered by performancing firefox

Sounds exaggerated, eh? Well, not if you visit Yahoo! Answers

Sample some of the questions asked by ‘Yahooligans’:

• Is this just like a big message board and not a search engine?

• what divides the earth into northern and southern hemispheres? what continet is brazil located on?

• What is the meaning of life?

• Do girls really play video games?

• of pepsi and coca-cola which is better?

If you think I am kidding, I urge you to go check it out.

I do agree that Yahoo! Answers is in a nascent stage and it needs to evolve (whatever that means) and that people using the service need to mature, etc. etc. Personallly, I think that’s a load of tosh.

I am particularly pissed off at the people who answer such stupid questions. Their only excuse is they get points for answering them and more points get you into better levels?

Points? Levels? WTF?