Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

Saw this sign while stuck in Bangalore traffic and it made me laugh. I mean, how annoyed do you have to be about the miss pronunciation of the name to take actual billboards out to correct people.

We are SAP (es-ay-pea) #SayItRight

– Suramya

I have always thought that the food in most western countries was insufficiently spicy and in some places felt like they just boiled the food before serving it. This was a great problem for me during my years in the US till I discovered Mexican food and I have similar issues in other western countries as well.

I was surfing the web earlier today and found this news article that talks about how Denmark is recalling three flavors of instant ramen noodles because they were too spicy and it made me laugh. Even better was the response from the company (emphasis added by me):

We understand that the Danish food authority recalled the products, not because of a problem in their quality but because they were too spicy,” Samyang told the BBC News. “The products are being exported globally. But this is the first time they have been recalled for the above reason.”

The recall note states:

The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration says that the amount of the chili pepper extract in one pack of 3x Spicy & Hot Chicken, 2x Spicy & Hot Chicken, or Hot Chicken Stew “is so high that they pose a risk of the consumer developing acute poisoning.”

“If you have the products, you should discard them or return them to the store where they were purchased,” the agency implores

Considering the folks there think a dish spiced with just pepper is too spicy this is not too surprising but is funny. I wonder how the MTR Ready to Eat Meals would fare over there. My guess is that it would face similar issues unless the spice level was reduced drastically.

Source: Boingboing.net: Instant ramen recalled for being too spicy

– Suramya

Why would anyone eat plain rice with Ketchup??? There are so many awesome things that you can add to rice to eat it with. No one I know or for that matter no one from the entire Asia, Africa, South American and maybe the Europe will try to eat plain rice with Ketchup… Even in the US most people would eat rice with some sort of gravy or sauces etc.

Ketchup doesn’t exist, what are y’all adding to this?

This is most probably a joke but remembering what some of the folks in the Western countries consider to be good food, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were folks who would eat plain rice with Ketchup.

– Suramya

If you have had a roommate who takes ages in the bathroom because they are busy catching up on social media or a company who wants their employees to spend less time on breaks there are a few anti-user designs that people have been pushing over the past few years. Such as a slanted toilet designed to make it painful to sit on for more than 5 minutes and other such hacks.

I have a better way to ensure people are not spending too much time in there. All you have to do is ensure that the Wifi and Mobile data connectivity in there is poor and folks will automatically stop spending too much time in there. This idea came to me when I was stuck in such a restroom with very limited cellphone coverage and poor wifi signal.

Obviously this is a joke post not meant to be taken seriously so please don’t do this to your workers. 🙂 Yes, I am zonked out due to all the travel I have been doing. Why do you ask?

– Suramya

The more I read about these so called geniuses or TechBro’s as they are called, the more I feel that they are living in their own fantasy world with little to no contact with the actual real world. Take the following as an example:

Tech Bro discovers Hanging out

What he is describing in fancy words is a group of friends hanging out, something that I have been doing since the late 80’s and others have been doing for millennia. Other such geniuses have re-invented the bus, dorms, Roommates etc etc etc.

They are so out of touch and surrounded by yes-men that they think they are the world’s smartest and have the cure for all ills. Not realized that they are just regurgitating fixes for problems that have been solved for years or rebranding things people have been doing for ages.

– Suramya