The Latest Ravimails...
(If you haven't already, I'd urge you to read the FAQ on ravimails).
#36
"In its third year!"
(\/)aximum respect to you all affiliates and associates, and with this impeding formality, I'm officially decreasing the space left in your yahoo (or hotmail) mailbox by releasing ravimail # 36! I'd like to waste precious airtime, err... e-time to thank all ravimail family, friends, group members, affiliates, associates, substituents, constituents, nucleophiles, leaving groups, subsidiaries, spin-offs, and stock-buyback deals for "being there" these past 3 years.
Those of you not on the list just got schooled by *absentee proxy!* Bill Gates is not on my list.
----=>BREAKING NEWS!: Too many explosively funny things have transpired since the last ravimail, so I will make every desperate effort to encapsulate them into one tiny saga...(Back to our regularly scheduled programming)..
I'd also like to express ineffable gratitude to Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson for taking Bill Gates to school (coughs, errr...referring him to school--the Supreme Court)! Ya know, I'm taking so long to write this thing that history's changing faster than I can keep up with!
...on to the newz sha-we?
**CHANNEL SPAZ NEWZ BITZ!** (in its 3rd year!)
#1) WOW! Ravimail's in its 3rd year for better and for worse! By any calculation, I have written 1.000 ravimails/month for the past 36 months, this one being the 36th! Of course, I was required to write this one by the Code of Hi-I'm-Ravi (Hammurabi), which requires that a ravimail be written on any day of at least casual importance, such as the occasional "commercial millennium" as Peter once called it.
#2) In a most laudatory feat, Joseph Heller (author of "Catch-22") took James Joyce (author of "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man") to school via post-mortem proxy by writing "Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man," which has hit storeshelves this month! I saw it at Costco! Props to Heller for disciplining the evil lepruchaun Joyce!
#3) My dad and I were cruising down the street in our Civic (we don't have an Impala) today when we stopped by Albertson's. We halted at the "Luvly Pies" section at my dad's state of utter uproar. Apparently, the good people at Luvly-Pies, Inc.--the company you keep, had over the years reduced the size of their pies from 4.25 ounces to 2.75 ounces, a reduction of 35% in content, while maintaining a price of 25 cents/pie. This meant that they had all along been attempting to gouge the public, reducing the size of their pies every year by 0.25 ounces. After much haggling and debating, my dad and I combined our thesis and antithesis and got synthesis:
We stood there and declared that Luvly-Pies, Inc. had set up an elaborate win-win situation. Because Americans are always watching their diet and can't stand fatty foods, the size was reduced--benefitting the good ol' American. Because the pie now costs more per ounce, Luvly Pies also benefits. Now this is a classic American win-win situation. Only in America.
Wow! That was a long news item!
#4) **Introducing...1 new newz section(s)! "The good people at Amazon.com"
#5) I missed the bus! Well, I'll just write a ravimail about that.
((((The Good People at Amazon.com--The Company You Keep))))
In the past, I have regarded Amazon.com most highly--in the strictest esteem and utmost regard. I have always given them my unconditionally highest recommendation and afforded them maximal props whenever appropriate, and even when only minimal props could handily be justified. I have trusted them and congratulated their accuracy in product review and testing and so on and so forth....(add bullshit as deemed necessary to suit your own taste):
However!
I stumbled upon Dr. Dre's "2001" album, and I found that Amazon.com went overboard celebrating its "laudatory theatrics" by calling Dre's work an "elegantly seamless work from West Coast hip-hop's premier auteur" and labelling it as "deliberately cinematic." Now if all you have to do is just sit there and spew out random garbage to accumulate props, I should get Emmys for the stuff I rant out in ravimails!
--Pry-vit Mes-ij-is Med Publick-- *[|P (\/) (\/) P|]*--I shaaaaaaaaal attempt to PMMP more of you now (no pun, I hope).
Patrick--I owe you hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Would you like them *thrown* at you? Adam--The Meet-Adam-Program is now in its 2nd year!
Russell--I might even taken Chem 171 my senior year!
Kitty--I owe you some money, don't I? Email me your address.
Carmina--I'll call you up sometime. Are you going to graduation?
Marlon--Hey, when do you want to have that quizbowl reunion? Hurry up, Hutch is getting patient!
Hutch--Why are you getting impatient?
George--Send me an email sometimes, or call me up.
Theo--How's the job?
Deborah--Hola!
Peter--Still chillin' in Seoul?
Vincent--Do you think you're going to get a T.V.? Also, see I told you my ravimail was in the outbox.
Mark--Hey Mark, want to play CoC sometime? The game's not that bad.
Matt--Nice job on the ravimails. I'll probably be at graduation cheering you guys on.
Mike--Any plans for transferring?
Jonah--How's everything going? You don't go online that much anymore.
Andreas--Ela re. Say hi to Jimmy and Josh for me.
Marlon, Andreas, Mike, Jolene--The former associates of Downey High School quizbowl are remotely thinking of possibly having a "reunion" of sorts, during which we would partake of food at Mimi's Cafe and maybe re-tour Downey's campus and reminisce outside B-1. If you're interested just send me an email: [email protected].
Jason--See you Sunday!
**YOU SAID IT!*** (the quotes section--I finally get time to actually have a quotes section!)
Russell: "Dude the yahoo message received sound makes my brain have constipated diarrhea sapphire bullets of pure agony"
Andrew: "Which is the good movie?"
Russell: "It's SO red!"
Kitty: "Coolio!" (For those of you blessed with ASCII-rich (? Can it be rich, if it's just ASCII?) text, "coolio" is in italics).
Russell: "I guaranTEE"
Adam: "You got taken to Yale"
Russell: "I shaaaaaaal see if Sheila's in her room."
Reznik: "I will SO pull strings."
Graduates of DHS: Congratulations! I hope you had fun at Grad Nite. Well, you're probably just waking up right now.
Vincent: "That is SO slow."
Ravi: "I agree."
*And that's it! If I don't send this thing out right now, you'll never get it!
My phone number has changed to I-don't-know-what! Don't call (310)267-7309 or you'll probably get housekeeping!
Ravi Menghani.
Ravi M. Menghani
"The original ravimail bug."
6/23/00
#35
"Readers in the Hands of An Angry Ravi"
(heavy disclaim...the following may be true..and is grounded on at least 10% fact)
(\/)aximum respect to you all ladies and gentlemen, and with this outlandish, cliched, and impersonal greeting, I bring to you ravimail #35. Prince Escalus of R&J once said, "All are punishéd," in his insanely obvious yet highly-praised commentary (after everyone had died). Of course, Escalus (and thus Shakespeare) was referring to what happens when I send out ravimails to everyone. On a parallel platform, though a few hundred trans-Atlantic years, later, the tyrannical Jonathan Edwards spoke of ravimail readers as "Readers in the hands of an angry Ravi" during the Great Awakening. That was the first time I woke up before 11 a.m. on a day off from school.
As you all know, this ravimail ends in a "5." That means it's time to celebrate (swills Snapple and Mother's Cookies--the latest craze!) I quickly realized this as I was finishing up ravimail #34 three months ago. In keeping with general ravimail tradition (I must write at least one ravimail every four vacation days, except during summer), I was absolutely obligated to write this heathen mail. Read on...
A MOMENT IN TIME...
During the Elizabethan era, when my ancestors, Ravi Shankar VII through XI were the renowned writers of ravimail, Shakespeare and his contemporaries would often complain that the Shankar (for brevity, I'll omit numerals) who was head writer at that the time was always late--in fact, he was consistently late by a half hour. This observation can quickly be explained by the fact that India is off GMT by 30 minutes because of Lord Cornwallis's jumbling in his creation of Greenwich Standard Time, after his failure at Yorktown.
....and on to the newz!
=--*CHANNEL SPAZ NEWZ BITZ!*--=
: BREAKING NEWS :
#1--Today was once again a historic day in the Menghani household (most days are historic, in fact every day is another day in history for the Menghani's). I woke up at 9:30 a.m. today--without being assisted by any alarms, stereos, earthquakes, floods, fires, or Y2K! (as mentioned in #33, Y2K was foresought to bring such calamities by the Calif. Governor's Office). This is the third time I have woken up before 11 a.m. on a non-school day! The first time was mentioned above, and the second time inspired the last ravimail.
#2--The Nasdaq continues to plunge...and Peter and I may be losing millions of dollars each day! To donate to an impromptu-based Peter-Ravi salvation fund, please email your credit card numbers to [email protected]. All donations are fully tax-deductible, and a donation of $100,000 or more will earn you a ravimail in your honor.
#3--I have it on good word that the phrase "take to school" has become infinitely popular over the past few weeks. To "take [one] to school" generally indicates triumph over someone, and can be compared to the famous street lingo "got you moded" in time yore. A typical example of such usage is "I took Telco, CTS, and the liquor store owner to school." Classical giant Russell Feller and I have affirmed that Bach and Handel mutually "schooled" each other during their eras.
#4--The Willie Chen story is spreading! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if you thought that I trumpeted and fanfared my AP Chemistry teacher Mr. Cramm for the longest time and throughout the longest number of emails (he was in the first and he is in this one), and could propagandize no further, you may be in for a surprise: Industry-legend and Quizbowl heavyweight Willie Chen of UC Irvine has been the subject of an obscene number of my conversations with ravimail readers. Willie just doesn't go away. I had the distinct privilege of speaking with the Honorable Chen himself in our arrangements of the UCLA/UCI College bowl club competition upcoming for high schools (I hope you Downey people can make it--also, this is cheap advertisement).
WHERE DOES WILLIE GET ALL THIS POWER?
Through the diligent practice of ardent worship of every word that Willie may pronounce, we (the good people of the UCLA college bowl club--the company you keep) have learned that just as Samson derived his strength from not cutting his hair, Willie yields his strength and august majesty from uttering the word "defer" in times of emergency. This time-honored and sagely practice has the principle of putting the responsibility upon others, and removes all faults from oneself, reaching a state of nirvana and perfection.
In fact, Willie has "deferred" so many times, that he inspired Vincent and I to give it a try. We all sat in a circle a few days before our math midterm working on the sample test. Whenever a hard problem came up, we all sat there, deferring to one another. Sure enough, Vincent and I were among the top scorers in the class. So remember, defer to Willie!
#4.5--Darnit, that was a lengthy news item. Defer to #5!
#5--Don't fly United Airlines! Adam and I have been embroiled in a siege with United for the past few days--more on that later in "***SPECIAL***".
#6--Carmina took Honors English this past quarter! Honors English is limited to the top 0.5% of all English students at UCLA! (see Carmina, I mentioned you)
***SPECIAL***
United we stand, and United falls--How we almost got "schooled" by United and why I'm mad:
Editor's Note:
...As you all know, in most successful ravimails, I somehow wage a mini-war, do battle, or in some other way combat some sort of villain or evil force, generally a commercial corporation. In effect, I have created "RPR's" (Role-Playing Ravimails). Nearly a week ago, I realized that in the past 3 months (the time since ravimail #34), I hadn't really had any significant battles or triumphant victories. Therefore, I had to manufacture a battle in order to make this ravimail #35 a smashing success. Because it was during finals week, and I only had a week until spring break, I was desperate, and resorted to fighting United Airlines.
Dramatis Personae
Ravi
Adam
United Airlines Representative
United Airlines Assistant Manager (probably the same manager from Telco and CTS)
In the wake of UCLA's triumphant 1st place rank at the Testing Recall About Strange Happenings College Bowl tournament at Irvine (run by none other than Willie Chen, the all-hail), it was the responsibility of Adam and I to ensure that the team had tickets to fly to the Nationals Tournament in Cleveland. Thus, Adam purchased 6 tickets from United Air via their website for $220 each ($1320 total).
However, because the Princeton Review probably lost most of their customers to the Kaplan Review because of an alleged lawsuit against Joe Bloggs, we found out that they were only going to give us a portion of the money we had expected from them.
Faced with this new tragedy, Adam and I downtroddenly called United on 3-way, in the following scene:
[dials number]
United Automated Customer Service: "Thank you for calling United. If you have a rotary phone, please hold on for the end of this message." (Adam and I figured that since we wanted to speak to a customer service representative posthaste, this was the wisest alternative). After a brief silence in which Adam and I mounted our courage,
UA Automated Service: "We're sorry, you must have a touchtone telephone. Thank you, and goodbye."
[redials number, and presses "0" to speak to representative]
UA Representative: Thank you for calling United, how may I help you?
Ravi: Just yesterday, my friend Adam bought 6 tickets for $220 each on your website, but now we realize that we do not have the funding. Can we cancel and get our money back?
UA Rep: Since it was a restricted, website sale, we cannot give you any refund. Also, it has been 26 hours and 33 minutes since you purchased the tickets. The deadline for refund is 24 hours after purchase time.
Ravi: We are a not-for-profit organization who runs on revenue we earn from hosting tournaments and whatever funding we get from the university. Also, why should 2 hours make a difference? What about Indian Standard Time? There is no tardy sweep--this isn't Downey High!
[At this, the Assistant Manager, who is listening on speakerphone, consuls the Representative to falsify a story]
UA Asst. Manager (in an aside to the Rep.): Tell Ravi that he forgot to pay his 2 cents LA County Tax in a previous ravimail, and that we can't give him a refund.
UA Rep: I understand your situation. I handle thousands of non-profit organizations. In fact, my husband is a trainer for a gold-medal olympic swimmer, and I know how hard it is to put together the money. But, we just can't give you a refund.
Ravi: Defer to Adam [remembers Willie's all fountain of power]
UA Rep: Maybe we can give you vouchers for the $1320, but we'd have to charge a penalty of $450, or $75 a ticket, even if stretched our policy to the extreme.
UA Asst. Manager (counseling the representative): Tell Ravi not to defer or we will take him to school. Actually, we'll fly him to school in the luggage department. Also, if he tries anything fancy, ignore him. I've read all of his ravimails. His "lawsuit" threats are bogus!
Adam: Ravi is right. After all, why should 2 hours make a difference? $1320 is the cost of attending 15 local tournaments. We cannot afford to lose this money.
UA Asst. Manager: I'm sorry sir, we cannot help you. Thank you for calling United, and have a nice...
Adam: Defer to Ravi
Ravi: Defer to Adam
Adam: Defer to Ravi
Ravi: Defer to Adam
Adam: Defer to Ravi
[Willie's deferral powers work like magic on United]
UA Rep: Actually, I think we can give you the $1320 minus a one-time $75 penalty for the entire deal.
Ravi: Defer to Adam
Adam: Defer to Ravi
Ravi: Defer to Adam
Adam: Defer to Ravi
Ravi: Defer to Adam
Adam: Defer to Ravi
Ravi: Defer to Adam
Adam: Defer to Ravi
UA Asst. Manager (to Rep in an angry aside): Stop their deferrals; they're making me go mad! Give them a full refund, now! [overheard by Ravi and Adam on the phone]
Ravi: Thank you very much. Have a nice day!
[Hears Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in the background]
END!
**Sorry for the long email...skipping Quotes...but they will be back in the next ravimail!
PMMP:
All-Hi!
New ravimail readers--Welcome!
Until then!
Ravi Menghani.
(310)267-7309
"The original Ravimail bug"