The Secret Identity of Zoozoos

Once the dust from the money making binge sporting event called IPL2 settles down, people are going to be left talking about one thing: How the KKR royally screwed up. Wait-a-minute, that is the current topic of discussion, although the insane laughs provoked by them, could very well be from the neighborhood Laughter Club. I must resist the temptation to joust with this rather harmless group of knights and get back to my conspiracy theory for the day.

Which involves the Zoozoos. Like 'em or Hate 'em, you cannot ignore 'em. People are going to be talking of them long after the IPL is done with. I thought I would get ahead of the pack by disclosing their (secret) identities. They are *Hold your breath* Mallu*. Allow me to disclose my findings, shocking as they may be:

1) Physical Appearance: Any beer/toddy guzzling, meat eating Mallu worth his salt will have, diplomatically speaking, a chubby figure. Take a close look at the Zoozoos: The beer belly, the cherubic face, the short stature and the smooth, fair complexion(Ok, maybe not that last one) all display startling similarities to our physical appearance.
2) Cuisine: The 'International Roaming' ad portrays a male Zoozoo following, what is hopefully, a female Zoozoo begging for "Poottum Kadalayum" and "Kappayum meenum". These are probably the only two things that would make us Mallu guys chase the lady of our dreams around the world(most other times we just find another lady-of-our-dreams closer to home). You wouldn't believe the number of romantic Malayalam movies with plot lines cooked around these venerable dishes.
3) Behavior: Did you see the 'Group SMS' Zoozoo Ad? If so, you would have noticed how quickly(and effectively) the Zoozoos gang up on people, a trait inspired by us. Any Industrialist in Kerala, which I hear is a mythological creature similar to the hobbits, would let you know how quickly we can gang up, float a left leaning party and lock down any signs of Industrial Progress.
4) Romantic Conquests: Our romantic conquest are such tragic defeats that volumes have been written on it. I haven't helped the cause by revealing key plot elements of Mallu romantic flicks. Which brings us to the 'Dating tips' ad and how it might have been inspired from real life. It is quite possible that one of our very own Casanova would have gifted a Jack-In-the-box to his loved one. You have to understand that ever since the recession hit us, things have been bad: a spring and a stuffed boxing glove are all that we can afford nowadays.
5) Nada/Zilch: This last point has been put up to convey the impression that this is a well thought out post, which is a rather silly thing to expect on this blog. If you have any further thoughts on my theory, do voice it out in the comments!

Mandatory Disclosure: This post has been written by a true blue Mallu, the kind that does not hesitate to take a dig at my own community. Although most of this post is exaggerated satire, I am expecting (quite) a few will not get the joke and be offended by it. I have a few words for them: "Mathaikku ithu verum pulla".

The Twitterist Manifesto

When I decided to reboot my blog, I had derived a formula for the frequency of posts. If you are the kind of uber-geek who has to see formulas to believe in their existence, here you go:

Please do not ask me what the letters stand for*. All I am aware of is that the formula tells me that the optimal number of posts per week is 1. If I stick to that frequency, it tells me that I stand a good chance at being nominated for a blogging award, getting a gazillion subscribers and probably landing a 6 digit book deal. These, like the hot neighbor next door, are the things that everyone secretly lusts for and publicly loathe. To be honest, I did not start blogging for any of these perks, which may be why I initially kept up the magic frequency of 1 posts per week.

Lately though, I haven't been able to keep up with that frequency. This has been mainly because I jumped onto twitter and the rest, as they say, was (the recent past) history. There has been a lot of information regarding twitter in the media and in the online space, a whole lot of which tells you what you should do to gain new followers. As you may be aware, A lot of folks consider gaining new followers to be the holy grail of twitter. I, for one, have lost count of my 722 followers. However, there are a lot of folks on twitter who are block-worthy. While hopping through twitter profiles(Yes, I really ought to get a life), these are the folks whom I hit the block button, even if they aren't following me! For your convenience, I thought I will classify and explain the various categories of such tweeple (twitter+ peeple = tweeple). Behold, the Twitterist Manifesto:

1) Twiarrhea - This is a twitter syndrome that is very similar to a much loved medical condition. Its symptoms are: Tweets are short, Tweets are furious,Tweets are most often crap. People with this condition most often think that twitter is about chopping up a blog post into chunks of 140 characters.
2) Sir Follows a lot - This lot follows people by the truck loads. It is their sincere desire to replicate the twitter public timeline in their stream. It can be safely assumed that your insightful tweets(ahem) will get steamrolled by the aforementioned truck load of followers.
3) H4CK3R5/SMSWRTR - This category of people believe that its rather fun to keep their followers guessing what language their last tweet was in. They carefully type out their tweets in English and then attack the vowels with a chainsaw. It is rumored that a couple of their tweets have even stumped Robert Langdon and his cipher cracking friends.
4) Abraham Link-en - People with this twitter syndrome do nothing rather than post links all day long on twitter. This can be pretty informative, until it starts to look suspiciously like an RSS feed from Google News. They frequently urge you to retweet their useful links although it makes no sense to you.
5) Nekkid Chick - Following the webpage listed on their profile inevitably takes you to a sleazy webpage. More often than not, it will have an offer to meet hot and sexy girls somewhere close to your house. Strangely these girls follow me around when I travel across the country, an unwarranted side effect of my magnetism, I suppose.
6) All follow and no tweet- This category of people can easily be identified by the stats: 10,000 following; 1000 followers; O Updates. Apparently, these people are followed because of the 'You kiss my ass, I kiss yours' phenomenon. You can also classify them as 'All fart and no shit'.
7) Celebrity\Female Stalker: This lot of people wants to know what the ladies on twitter are upto. Especially if the ladies in question are celebrities. Their tweets consists solely of @ mentions directed at their target segment. Lets not question their motives though, some of them left orkut and signed up on twitter only 'to make the fraandsheep'.
8) Concern for your follower count: This is the most genuine group to grace this list. They are so concerned for your follower count that they would repeatedly bombard you with tips and tricks to increase it. Their concern for your heavy wallet also shows when you are redirected to a shady looking site asking for your credit card number.
9) Rediff transplant: This group of people have quit flaming the red-iff message boards and have moved onto greener pastures, namely twitter. Their 'holier-than-thou' attitude, their lack of respect for a contrary viewpoint and their complete disregard for the Queen's language go a long way in identifying them.
10) Mallika Sherwani(or something like that) : No comments. Avoid like the bubonic plague.

Phew. There you have it: The 10 most irritating behavior on twitter (in my opinion). The lack of these traits wont make you follow worthy, rather it will just prevent people from scrambling for the block button.
Do you feel that I have left out any other irritating twitter traits? Do let me know in the comments section!

*- Do you still refuse to believe that I derived the equation? Persistence wins. Read about it here. Perhaps you could try explaining it to me, in English. Sigh.